While not extremely original in concept, Satellite Falling was still mildly entertaining. The story is one that I’ve seen before and I’m sure you have too. Lily, a hardened no nonsense bounty hunter is struggling with her high-stakes job and emotional journey on the alien planet of Satellite. Using her trusty hologram device she poses as an intergalactic cabbie to get close to her targets. Satellite is full of civilian aliens of various races and spaceships swarming the sky. None of them are that unique in style which was disappointing. I compare certain elements of this new title to the science fiction series Saga. Although not as well-executed or original, Satellite Falling deals with some of the same issues. One of these issues is how sexuality is depicted and used as a metaphor for being alien. Lily is a lesbian and mourning the loss of her dead lover whom she still speaks to. She has a fling with her boss, a creature of the gender-bending variety. But where Saga used these themes with a strong premise to back it up, this book just doesn’t have that going for it.
As far as artwork the pages are more cluttered with extra details that aren’t relevant to the current scene. It just seemed boring and for a science fiction book I don’t think there’s anything here stylistically that other books aren’t doing better.
There’s not much in this first issue that you can look forward to in the next. The entire book relies on the main character. I’m more interested in the supporting alien characters that are briefly depicted. But our human protagonist Lily is the star of this series. The whole bad girl that wants to be good has been done to death recently and frankly it’s not interesting anymore. I feel like female characters don’t have to be short-tempered and trash-talkers to be interesting. It’s not edgy. It’s just lazy. That’s what this book relies on and I don’t expect much further characterization from this series so I’ll take for what it is. At the end of the day I still prefer sticking to Saga for my sci-fi needs. Satellite Falling falls too short to replace it.
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Satellite Falling #1 Writer: Steve Horton Artist: Stephen Thompson Publisher: IDW Publishing Price: $3.99 Release Date: 5/11/16 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital
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