When I read futuristic island utopia about Adam.3, I pictured a Wakandan level of grandness. The thought of an impending apocalypse to a technologically advanced jungle Eden is an interesting grab. The scope of Adam.3 isn’t quite so grand, focusing on an isolated family of three, living in a beautiful jungle landscape with a set of twins on the way. Instead of a Doomsday, our main character, Adam, is limply dealing with the worst case of puberty fueled rage since... well maybe ever! The pubescent nightmare is the obvious, notable threat but somewhere, out in the ether, is a larger, grander danger. Through the first two chapters (issue #1 is actually 2 chapters) not much about this nature bloodening power has been established; in fact, the biggest take away from any of the stories various conflicts is the lack of a firm parenting hand from Adam, despite his overwhelming physical strength.
Oh, and there’s animals. Adam is able to talk to all types of creatures! And these creatures are where the artwork really shines. Scott Kolins clearly loves to draw animals and it shows with some impressive line work, splashed with a Mononoke flourish at one point. Our animal friends are not characters of substance, however, and most all of them speak like they were written from a particularly childish and sunny Disney film, but at least they look good and I’d be willing to bet they will be capable of some kickass things... eventually.
The beauty of both the landscapes and the animals really stand out against the ho-hum human character models. The humans (Adam, his wife Skye and his homicidally hormonal son Beo) are all professionally and cleanly drawn, but with only three human characters in the whole story so far I would expect them to really pop off the page.
Kolins wants to establish a doomsday for Adam’s utopia and I have no doubt he will. In this first issue, Adam.3 leans a bit too hard on vagueness to build up the plot, only managing to muddy the waters and delay the story from really finding it’s pace; not to mention keeping me from engaging more fully. Some of the local jargon used by Adam and the other characters also pulled me out of the story once or twice.
Though playing with some fun ideas, Issue #1 adds up to nothing more than a fair start. There is enough cleverness here to reasonably hope for better as we get deeper into the story.
Score: 3/5
Adam.3 #1 Writer/Artist: Scott Kolins Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Price: $3.99 Release Date: 08/12/15 Format: Mini-Series; Print/Digital