The Last Driver #1 // Review
Clutch is showing his granddaughter around a few cars. Not really. But in a sense. After all, the traditional automobile has been more or less phased out. They're calling them “pods” now. And as much as he likes the automobile, Clutch is perfectly ready to let driving become a thing of the past entirely. He’s not going to be given the luxury of doing so, though in The Last Driver #1. Writer/artist Sean Murphy and colorist open a 5-part sci-fi series that deals with technology, fascism and life in a divided U.S.A. the overall premise shows some potential. However, much of what's going on here has been done before.
They bring him in for operating a four wheeled vehicle. However, it's a slot car. It's so clearly they're just trying to screw with him. And that's perfectly fine. He just doesn't want to have to be away from his ganddaughter. She has a heart condition. He doesn't want to be away from her for long. That isn't going to be easy. Because if the police don't get him, his former employer will. See: Clutch had been a smuggler. His old employer wants him to do another run. The bright yellow stingray that he's given to do the run in isn’t exactly subtle. He’s going to be on the run the moment he starts the engine...
On a really basic level, they premise is pretty silly. It's an application of certain anxieties that certain segments of the population are going to have as things progressed. Increased automation. Increased distance between the right and the left. The slow and gradual fade out of the internal combustion engine. It can be pretty terrifying for the right kind of person. And so the best place to explore the anxieties of what might come just might be a silly, little comic book.
Murphy does an elegant job of laying out the story. The landscape format of the art has a very cinematic field that serves the inevitable chase of this area quite well. There's a real love for the early 1970s Corvette stingray that serves as sort of a central focal point for the visual feel of what is likely to be much of the rest of the series. The early going feels very contemporary cyberpunk. But there is a love of the retro here that feels positively immersive.
It's kind of weird. But not weird enough to be appealing by virtue of its weirdness. The heavy fusion between dystopian science fiction and politics feels kind of strange given the fact that The Last Driver is as in love with the automobile as it is. The whole thing just feel very strange. The overall energy that Murphy is working with, feels strange enough that it could rather quickly move into some pretty bizarre directions that could actually be very appealing. It's kind of difficult to tell how that's going to play out, however, by the end of the first issue.
