Written by Robert Kikrman

Art by Lorenzo de Felici

Colours by Matheus Lopes

Letters by Rus Wooton

Darak is an Agorrian fighter pilot. Solila is a Zertonian fighter pilot. They’re at war. They’re stranded and that is the least of their troubles.

Kirkman is very good at people, even if those people happen to be wearing mech suits for most of the issue. Darak in particular is an instinctively likable lead, a man whose informal response to imminent death has a touch of the Harrison Fords to it. It’s not that he isn’t terrified. He is. A lot. It’s just that he isn’t stopping. Solila too is fun, relentlessly competent, bloody furious. Their conspiracy of pragmatic survival drives most of the book as they work out they can combine their ships in order to make one functioning one. Maybe. Hopefully.

It’s a fun title, and de Felici’s art is great for this. There’s a touch of the European science fiction album to it as well as a lightness of touch and sense of scale that’s really refreshing. My favourite panel here is the pair of them, beside one of the wrecks, facing off. They’re bantering because they’re terrified of both winning and losing. De Felici’s art snaps with tension, Lopes’ colours are cold as space with Darak’s flightsuit popping against them. Wooton’s lettering gives you two completely different voices; Darak’s quiet, funny defiance and his aide Handroid’s programmed objection. It’s funny and sharp, sad and desperate. I loved it and the book is full of moments like this.

Also there’s a Transformer in here.

The book is the stealth opening of the new Transformers comic universe and Jetfire is the first one we meet here. He’s crashed on the same planetoid and has never looked better on the page. A massive, hulking plane that becomes a massive, strangely softly spoken scientist who finds out some very bad news. How he ties into the rest of the story, we don’t know yet. But he and his friends and GI Joe are apparently on the way.

The thing is, they don’t have to be. Darak and Solila are so fun and likable you’re happy spending more time with them, You hope they’re going to be okay. You worry about them. Because as the last page shows, like their brief guest, there really is more to them than eats the eye.

Verdict: Fun, weird, confident comics. Check it out 9/10

Alasdair Stuart