What do you get when you take a little bit of Conan… well maybe a little bit of Red Sonja; mix it up with some elements of a futuristic Roman Empire, some genetic mad science, and some traditional revolutionary struggle. If you do that, you can get a lot of different things. In the case of writer Chuck Amadori and artist Alex Reis, you get the opening salvo of Tether. Tetheris a new presentation from Isle Squared Comics and tells the story of Alina who is a new edition to a gladiatorial game and apparently a prime specimen for some seriously nasty experiments. Very little is known as we are given to be witnesses to the games, sometime in the prison after and of course the dreaded experiment rooms. There is something going on in this bizarre world, but the view is quite foggy indeed. But foggy is right in line I would say to what Chuck Amadori wants us to be at. It is a particular trait of his to show us very slight glimpses into what is fully going on, but as he pulls aside a little be more each time as he works to build onto something far more expansive than what we can imagine.

I kind of like Amadori's writing style to a striptease. We see the outside, but he slowly and methodically reveals a slight layer at a time that eventually will unveil some really impressive specimen of amazingness. So far with this opening issue, we have seen that outside and perhaps, one or maybe two articles have been removed to reveal a little bit of something. But for right now, we can only be left imagining at this time what does truly lie underneath it all.

Of course with Reis' art, he drops a big article at the end showing us that there is much more to this strange land than what we have seen. He works his art similar to Amadori bringing in just glimpses. All other areas are appropriately drawn from the sinister looking emperor, super chiseled fighting women, mangy looking monster men, and the people all in between. This is an interesting little world created by these two that begs for more to be seen.

As far as first issues go, Tether starts the race in the right way. The dialogue is capably written and places the reader with a desire to search for more answers and see where things are going.  As we go deeper into this place, more articles will be removed and possibly, a pretty damned good story will be laid into the forefront.

Score: 4/5

Writer: Chuck Almadori Artist: Alex Reis Publisher: Isle 2 Price: $1.99 Website