Far Sector #1 // Review
There’s a new Green Lantern in town. Also, there’s a new town. With new aliens, new characters, and new ideas. And that’s the best part of Far Sector #1, from DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint--it’s so new.
The first issue drops the reader into a murder investigation and doles out information quickly as the investigation progresses. The cop in question is brand new Green Lantern Sojourner “Jo” Mullein, whose Green Lantern abilities are not quite the same as most Lanterns in ways that are not yet clear (it seems she can’t fly, for one thing). She’s been requested by the Trilogy, a society of three different yet related alien races living in a Dyson sphere at the edge of Green Lantern jurisdiction. Lantern Mullein is only a few steps ahead of the reader in understanding the political nuances of the Trilogy, who have been living in an uneasy peace without emotions. They’d requested a Green Lantern because someone has discovered a way to turn feelings back on, and now they all suspect that this murder, the first in centuries, is the start of an outbreak of violence.
Fantasy author N.K. Jemison is an expert at building complicated alien worlds, and it’s clear from this first issue that she’s brought that expertise to her first comic. She’s also great at creating prickly yet fascinating characters, and this book doesn’t disappoint in that respect, either--Jo Mullein is an intriguing and mysterious character, and is the reader’s POV character in a new universe of fascinating and mysterious characters.
For as unconventional a DC Comics superhero story as Far Sector is, Jamal Campbell’s art is surprisingly in line with the DC house style, with its clean lines and expressive faces. This is a wise choice, as the world Jemison has built is so bizarre, so foreign, that the art style grounds the reader and makes the sheer amount of information in the book easier to digest. Campbell’s design of the three alien races--the Nah, the keh-Topli, and the @at--and their shared society is compelling. Letterer Deron Benett is clearly having the time of his life filling the world with alien signs in alien fonts.
Far Sector #1 is a compelling first issue and the debut of an excellent comic for Jemison. One wonders right now if it might have been better served being wholly separated from the DC Universe and the mythology of the Green Lantern Corps, but hopefully, future issues will make that clear.
