Usually when something has Immortal in the title you have to wonder what the story is really about. Because a story about immortality has been done, no pun intended, to death (okay pun intended). The strange thing about The Immortal is that the main character Z, isn’t really immortal. We open with him being regenerated from his thumb. It looks painful. Kind of like that scene in the Fifth Element, only you’re awake for the entire thing and standing. When Z comes around he’s greeted by his robot assistant. He doesn’t know how he died or why because he didn’t back up his data. Remember kids, back up your data. His assistant catches him up as much as possible before putting him back on the path of his bounty. Because Z is not only a bounty hunter, but the last human in the universe.
What’s interesting is not really Z. I mean he’s interesting, but we see him making the same mistakes. We know that because he’s basically spelling it out for us, but continues to make them. But that’s the interesting part. Can he correct the path or is he just going to keep making the same mistakes over and over? That’s not answered here since this is just the first issue of eight. I don’t know how much bigger the story gets, but I’m actually curious to find out.
The writing is way above most indie comics. It’s polished and the writer clearly understands how to control the pacing of the story. The dialogue is also believable and has a good mixture of seriousness and humor. Z narrates the issue, but because his memory has so many holes it’s interesting to get his thoughts and insight on what’s happening. It also leaves the reader just as confused as he is which puts us on a level playing field. Our mystery truly is his mystery and there’s only a few times that we’re given more info than Z. These moments don’t really give us an edge, but instead intensify the drama.
The art is in all black and white and grey scale, but mostly black and white. The line work is detailed and realistic, but plays to the contrast of the black and white very well. It’s not trying to be Sin City, but instead use the two colors with balance so that the pages are never overpowered. Due to the nature of the story we’re seeing a lot of the action after the fact. This is okay for now, but the few action scenes we see there’s not really a flow to the action. Otherwise the art does a sufficient job of setting up the atmosphere and telling the story visually.
With this being an eight issue series I would definitely check out the rest. This first issue was good enough to warrant some good will towards the rest and as long as the story or art didn’t drop off, I would finish it. That’s saying a lot since I’ve dropped a lot of mini-series this year after just one issue. The Immortal manages to create an interesting world and give us well-written character to lead us through it.
Score: 4/5
The Immortal #1 (of 8) Creator: Darryl Knickrehm Publisher: Waylines Media Price: $3.99 Format: Mini-Series; Digital Website