Luke Owen looks at Doomsday #1…
The Earth may have dodged a bullet on 12/21/2012, but there are worse things in store for our little blue planet. Seven adventurers aboard the International Space Station watch in horror as most of the world is decimated by a monster solar flare. And their only choice is to return to the surface, and face whatever awaits them there!
Coming off from The High Ways, John Byrne returns us to space (kind of) with his new series Doomsday which documents the end of the world as its destroyed by a solar flare. It’s a good opening issue for an interesting story, but there something isn’t quite right.
When writing The High Ways, Bryne said that he was inspired by the likes of Dan Dare and other 50s sci-fi serials and the artwork he used reflected this style, which complimented the story well. In Doomsday #1 however, the artwork just doesn’t seem like the right fit. This needed a Drew Moss working on it as his art style would have worked well for the story. Doomsday feels like it’s taking deep look into the end of the world and the art of survival but the artwork doesn’t reflect that.
On top of that, Bryne has sandwiched a lot of dialogue in this one issue and sadly not all of it is interesting. He throws us right into the mix with characters arguing as if they have long standing histories, but we’re never clued into them. Benning acts like a total jerk for no other reason than he appears to be a total jerk and he has a long argument with Yuri that never seems resolved or mentioned again. The argument could be made that these storylines will be resolved/expanded in future issues, but in this first instance it just feels rushed and unbalanced. It also makes it hard for us to care about the characters when they’re talking about arguments and decisions we were never part of – how do we know whose side we should take? For all we know, Benning is in the right to act like a jerk.
However, all is not lost. The most interesting parts of the issue were the methods of survival being used by the people of Earth. These scenes are fascinating and I can’t wait to find out the outcome of them. In a way, I hope they all don’t come together conveniently but are just sub-stories used separately throughout the main plot of the story. On top of that, when the space crew do arrive back on Earth, it feels very Twilight Zone, which for me is really intriguing.
Doomsday #1 is not a complete failure and for a first issue, it’s done its job fine. I am interested to where the story goes, but I’m not falling off my chair with excitement.
Originally published May 15, 2013. Updated November 6, 2019.
