Luke Owen reviews The Twilight Zone #1 from Dynamite Entertainment…
Trevor Richmond is a Wall Street investor who embezzled millions and is about to tank the economy. Again. Desperate to avoid the consequences for his actions, he goes to Expedited Services, Inc., which offers to help him disappear and enjoy a life of leisure in a new life. But what exactly is this new life, how much is freedom worth, and what happens to the old life when someone else shows up to claim it?
“You unlock this door with the key of imagination…”, the iconic words spoken by Rod Serling to open the television classic The Twilight Zone, a show that haunted the nightmares of many growing up. Despite being most remembered for its theme music, The Twilight Zone has been part of the pop culture zeitgeist for over 50 years and now thanks to Dynamite Entertainment and J. Michael Straczynski, we can unlock the door once again and find out what’s beyond it.
Having worked on the hit-and-miss 80s reboot of the series, J. Michael Straczynski is the ideal writer to take The Twilight Zone format and move it into comic book form. Unlike a lot of Twilight Zone comics (which have simply copied and pasted images from memorable episodes like The After Hours), this new comic puts its own stamp on the franchise. Straczynski’s Twilight Zone isn’t just a re-print of what has come before it, it’s much sexier than the Twilight Zone we’re used to. It’s a lot cooler, suave and stylish. It has its own flavour, but is still fits in the Twilight Zone look and feel. Even the beautiful opening captures the nuances of Serling’s narration like alliteration and metaphors to give an overview of the show we’re about to be presented.
This is one of Straczynski’s greatest achievements as a writer. No matter what franchise he’s diving into (be it Ghostbusters, Masters of the Universe, Spider-Man etc.), he manages to capture the essence of what made it made it memorable without feeling like a carbon copy. In the case of The Twilight Zone, he’s formed a story that is certainly relevant to today’s news but giving it that classic Serling twist. The story focuses on Trevor Richmond who works as a Wall Street investment banker, but is the kind of banker the Daily Mail likes to paint: he’s brash, lacks compassion and is a true criminal. He’s stolen money, he’s ripped people off and – worse still – he’s going to get away with it. In typical Twilight Zone fashion, Richmond visits a company who can erase people from existence, give them a new face, a new identity and a whole new life. Richmond will disappear from the planet and will therefore get away with his heinous crimes.
Of course, this being the 5th dimension, Richmond is about to find that this sort of freedom is going to come at a price – and it’s not likely to be monetary. As is tradition, it’s always the bad people who get their comeuppance in The Twilight Zone (unless you’re poor Henry Beamis). The final page reveal is certainly an intriguing twist in the tale and it feels like a classic mid-episode stinger before leading into the ad break. Once again, Straczynski has captured what made The Twilight Zone brilliant without being too on the nose.
The artwork from Guiu Villanova is hardly anything special or unique, but it really works for Straczynski’s story. Trevor Richmond is going through some big changes and Villanova captures both the smug and arrogant style of his character to make him even more hateable. He also reflects the cool nature of Straczynski’s world and his style really compliments his writing.
While a lot of licensed comics can pander to the franchise fanboys, Straczynski’s Twilight Zone is a comic that can be read by anyone regardless of your knowledge of the show. Perhaps this is down to the brilliance of Serling’s creation and how it can be adapted for any medium, but Straczynski and his team have carved an excellent comic that is worthy the area between light and shadow. An area we call, The Twilight Zone.
Luke Owen is one of Flickering Myth’s co-editors and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published January 3, 2014. Updated November 7, 2019.
