Comics Review: "The Twilight Zone" #1

- by Señor Editor, 3 January 2014

“You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead—your next stop, the Twilight Zone”. That’s right, there’s a brand new “Twilight Zone” series starting over at Dynamite Comics. Is the first issue of the series, written by J.M. Straczynski and with art by Guiu Vilanova, any good? Will fans of Rod Serling’s timeless classic be happy?

Me, I’m happy to see Twilight Zone back! And JMS might be the best choice for a scripter, seeing as he was one of the writers of the 1980s’ “The New Twilight Zone” show. You might not like his “I’m just gonna walk for a while” Superman or his other superhero works, but he’s a smart choice for a new Zone comic.

Click to enlarge.

The story is called “A Way Out” and it’s about a real corporate yuppie of a man, named Trevor Richmond. Trevor is a very arrogant, sneaky man and he’s been doing some heavy embezzling. He was seemingly a little too obvious with it, since any day now the corporations he work for will find out that he’s been stealing huge amounts of money from the firm. That’s why Richmond sought out a company that can make him disappear. Create an entirely new life for him, even changing his appearance (including his fingerprints) through mysterious means to the point where he will become a completely different man. The company will also leave him some money so he can live comfortably, but they will “take away everything else he has.” They give Trev a pill that he should swallow, should he decide to go along with it. Since people are slowly onto his game, he takes it...

That’s about all I can recap before the spoilers start, and that’s exactly how it should be. The best Twilight Zone stories are the ones with the most simple premise.

JMS’ writing in this story gets no complaints from me, and the art by Vilanova is easy on the eyes, realistic and perfectly serviceable here. I can’t overlook one other great thing that Dynamite has going for there books – the great covers by Francesco Francavilla. The comic looks and reads very well, the pace is tight and the suspense is there.

Trevor is going to lunch. Comics sure can be exciting, kids!

There’s one thing about a modern Twilight Zone comic that troubles me a little. When you read the last page of this comic, you will see a “TO BE CONTINUED.” Normally this wouldn’t surprise me at all, since “one-and-done” stories are pretty much non-existent in modern comics. Everything is a part of a 4 or 6-issue long story, "written for the trade" and whether you like it or not, that’s just the industry standard now. Even so, having to wait a month or even several months to know how a Twilight Zone story concludes seems awfully weird, and I don’t mean “weird” in a Twilight Zone way. For me, the self-contained nature of each story is something that’s an inseparable part of Twilight Zone. Twist ending stories don’t really work that great when you have a month to forget about all the suspense the 22 pages managed to build up. It’s a shame that Dynamite didn’t take a risk and choose a different format for this series than the standard, decompressed storytelling of today. It’s a little like imagining an EC suspense comic being stretched out over half a year, hey, but what can you do (other than wait for the trade and hope the story is not decompressed all to hell).

Suspense!

Still, I’m optimistic about this series and will check out the next issue, hoping the “TO BE CONTINUED” blurb doesn’t overstay its welcome. For now, it’s a good start and I hope the series will sell well and more new stories will be published. Give it a try. It’s a good first issue, a good property for Dynamite to pick up, and it just might tickle your fancy.


Have you read "Twilight Zone" #1? What did you think of it? Let us know below!

Tagged: comics, Reviews.

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