I went into this review at a slight disadvantage. I’ve never seen the original Independence Day. I’m more of a Men In Black kind of kid. On the bright side I feel like my ignorance helped me stay objective while reading this book. I can judge it based on its own merits instead of the fan hype. Independence Day #1 is the first of a five issue mini-series meant to bridge the gap between the first movie and the upcoming sequel Independence Day: Resurgence. After mankind’s victory over the alien threat, Joshua Williams (a character from the first movie) leads an expedition to the Atlantic Ocean to investigate an alien space craft. There’s a decent amount of background info to sift through before getting to the book. Big mistake. As a comic book reader I want the pages of the actual story being told, to draw me into the characters not extra character profiles.
The action in this issue unfolds in a fairly predictable way. Most of the action takes place within the submarine as the investigation team is introduced. The confinement in this book resulted in a lack of action. I don’t mind confinement when the characters are written strongly, but they all seemed to come and go without much purpose and their dialogue is filled with cheesy one liners. It felt like you could take any random set of characters and put them in the same scenario. What makes this story predictable is that we know going in that there’s another alien threat even though the characters don’t yet. The problem is that the buildup is poorly executed. The threat is introduced in the final pages which made me feel like the book was ending when it had finally started.
The artwork in this book is decent at best. Not a lot of detail was given to the character designs and it shows in their stone faced expressions. These are characters that are supposed to be in danger and on an exciting adventure. Nothing in their design really gives that vibe. The coloring serves its purpose but being that most of the story took place in one location there wasn’t a lot of variety there either.
To me this first issue is the perfect example of a bad movie tie-in. It has a generic plot and stereotype characters all under the banner of the Independence Day franchise. If you’re not a fan of the movie, then this book has little else offer. It feels like just a money grab by the movie studio. Plus, Will Smith does not appear. I understand he declined the next movie, but they couldn’t get the rights to put him in a comic book? I’m still looking forward to actually watching the first movie and the sequel but I don’t care much what takes place in between.
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Indepdence Day #1 Writer: Victor Gischler Artist: Steve Scott Publisher: Titan Comics Price: $3.99 Release Date: 3/23/16 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital