If you like comics and video games, then the release of Collapse: Isolation is perfectly timed with your desire to play Fallout 4. I’m not a Fallout fan (cue the booing), but I enjoyed this comic book. The issue begins with an explanation of what happened to the world. Basically war jacked everything up. Bomb’s changed people and made them mutants or worse. People began to change and of course others began to fear them. Even though they didn’t exactly ask to have a bomb dropped on them and for that bomb to transform them rather than kill them. I would take the former over the latter. Eventually the comic gets to the present in which we find a small society living underground in what you could call a vault of sorts. This all pulls out to be a history lesson for a thirteen-year-old girl who has spent her entire life underground and desperately wants to see the surface. Let’s all of us that made it through puberty let out a big sigh on how dumb that is. It’s believable sure, but you just want to smack this character upside their head.

After that we basically learn about the society and meet a small cast of characters that we’ll interact with. There’s two young adults that are in love, but one of them is going to check on and work on the dam that supplies them power. It’s a risky trip that they make twice a year to keep the lights on, but this time feels different. Hell this time it has to be different because we’re reading the story and no one wants things to go off without a hitch because that would be boring.

The story stops just as they leave the safety of society so we don’t know what will happen next. This first issue builds the world up and establishes our main characters. There’s some secrets that aren’t being told and or course the teenage girl will play some role because she kind of has to.

The writing is good. For staying in one location it was interesting and did a lot to hold your attention, but then also show how this society is realistically surviving. It’s believable in that regard. It also does a great job of building your interesting in the next issue. I think leaving off with them just about to leave makes you want to come back. There’s enough teased and hinted at here to make this issue still enjoyable so don’t feel I’ve spoiled anything by telling you the last page. There’s more going on here. But that last page, really does leave you wondering and wanting more.

The art is decent. There’s some rough spots like Mel, the thirteen-year-old. She doesn’t really look like a teenager, just younger than the rest of the characters. I was shocked when she said her age because I thought she was approaching her early twenties at least. Other than that, there’s a lot of detail to the world. The setting is detailed and realistic looking. The characters are diverse and come in all shapes and sizes. The art is in all black and white with grey scale which is a good fit for the setting. The art manages to make the setting interesting and not just a sterile place for conversations to take place.

I’m sold on checking out more. I’m fairly certain that something big will happen in the next issue and I want to find out what that is. Will someone die, will Mel tag along unbeknownst to the rest of the society and what will the consequences of this trip be? In the end, that’s why I want more. I want to see it all go terribly wrong and find some way to keep going on.

Score: 3/5

Collapse: Isolation #1 Writers: R.P. Foster & Russ Pirozek Artist: Pablo Lordi Inker: Jake Isenberg Publisher: Rising Sun Comics Price: $4.00 Format: Ongoing; Digital Website