REVIEW: Roche Limit #2

Roche Limit #2
Story: Michael Moreci
Art: Vic Molhatra and Kyle Charles
Letters: Ryan Ferrier
Colors: Jordan Boyd
Publisher: Image Comics
Release Date: October 29, 2014

Image is on a roll this year with an amazing array of creator-owned sci-fi titles seeing substantial success. Roche Limit is no exception and look for this book to make more waves among genre enthusiasts in the months to come.

In a nutshell the story focuses on the recently colonized Dispater, an earth-like planet in the Andromeda galaxy. Heralded as an attempt to expand humanity’s horizons, over the years since it’s inception Roche Limit has become something, well, other. It is relatively lawless, or more appropriately, governed by a law unto itself. Sex, drugs and whatever else you fancy are available with little to no legal ramifications. Why wouldn’t you go, right?

Well, all is not fun and games; as the story unfolds it becomes quite clear that Roche Limit is not at all the colony its founders intended it to be. That disconnect between the intent of a thing and the reality of the thing affords a degree of realism to the story that’s refreshing.”“The road to hell…”“, as Langford Skaargred implies in the first issue, is paved with good intentions.

Enter Alex Ford, average scientist-turned-playboy drug dealer-turned miscreant. Ford has somehow found a way to engineer the future’s drug of choice, Recall, a process that no one else seems able to mimic. The development has secured Alex’s place in the Roche Limit hierarchy, but also ensured his enslavement to the enigmatic and powerful Mr. Moscow, the shadowy ruler of the colony’s underworld.

Bekkah Torin, Alex’s estranged love interest has gone missing, and her cop sister Sonya has predictably come looking. On the run from his one time employer, Alex has agreed to help her, but lies about his relationship with Bekkah for reasons of his own.

The art in the book is deceptively intricate; when I started reading, it was like seeing Mike Judge storyboards or something. As things progressed, I began to see the genius in using a less aesthetically detailed approach; as with the dream deferred angle I alluded to earlier, the simple lines and soft colors seem to add to the sense of disappointing reality that the book portrays in its characters and settings.

Image looks like they’ve picked a winner with Roche Limit, however bleak the fictional future in this comic might appear.

By: Adam Cadmon

4/5 Stars

Author Profile

Adam Cadmon

Adam Cadmon is the pen name for a man who has been writing for a few years. Heâ€™s done his share of straight-laced writing, college press, blogging, some other not very glamorous technical writing to keep the bills paid. Itadakimasu.