Twilight Zone #2 // Review
First Officer Arlo Chapel is on an enviable mission into outer space. It’s a big adventure. The type any kid would dream of. Only thing is: it’s dull. He’s a glorified night watchmen looking over an entire crew that is in cryogenic sleep for the long journey. First Officer Chapel isn’t. satisfied with his job. Too boding. First Officer Chapel’s fortunes are about to change in a big way in Twilight Zone #2. Writer/artist Tom Scioli delivers a perfectly satisfactory one-shot in the spirit of the original 1960s Rod Serling version of the TV series for IDW Publishing.
As the crew of the ship awakens, they're not feeling much more enthusiastic than Chapel. We're just moving out and searching for minerals. Mining on other planets. Nothing more. The ship’s doctor might feel a little bit more enthusiastic. After all, she is very aware of the fact that they're looking for any signs of life in the universe. As luck would have it, they are approaching a planet with an atmosphere, not entirely unlike earth. And when they find plant life that is more substantial than spores and fungus they might really be onto something more than just minerals.
Social works only a bit with the visual element of the comic book, medium. In the spirit of the original 1960s TV series, most of the script is caught up in more abstract and intellectual emotional drama. And so it's a lot of dialogue. It's a lot of Talking Heads. This would be kind of weak. We're at that for the fact that it is such a solid representation of the type of storytelling that would go on in an episode of the original Twilight Zone.
Scioli doesn't do a whole lot with the layout to make it feel fresh or original. This is not to say that it's not appealing. Everything seems very cozy on the page and a lot of of the visuals are just there to serve as a way to present the dialogue. And the dialogue is there as a way to present deeply philosophical and metaphysical story. It's not entirely Talking Heads, though. There are a few moments of action that occasionally lash out without making much of an impact.
To his credit Scioli isn't completely adapting every aspect of an old twilight zone. In the time-honored tradition of previous Twilight Zone comics, Rod Serling doesn’t actually physically show-up in the comic book> And the pacing is more attuned to a contemporary comic book than a script to an old TV drama from the 1960s. Those old episodes were long and had the kind of pacing you would expect out of early 1960s television. There might be one major stinger at the end that would call everything that happened into question. Scioli does this a few times over the course of a largely satisfying issue. It's fun to see a contemporary comic book mutation of the style inform of the old TV series. There have been many adaptations of this franchise over the decades. Scioli’s approach seems to be one of the more interesting. It will be interesting to see where this series moves from here. It looks like they're going for something pretty drastically different with the next issue.
