FUTURIUS is a web-based comic-book company that I’ve written about before. Their printed products include the 6-issue miniseries THE DARKLING, & the 15-issue anthology series TALES FROM THE PLEX, of which a story written by yours truly appears in issue #9. Here I’m going to review some of their newer books, the first two written and drawn by Dan Lundie, starting with THE TACHYON MAN

“You ain’t a proper super hero until ’til you’ve been flung through a building!”

A brand new superhero appears over the streets of England. The story starts right in the middle of some action, as Tachyon Man flies to the scene of a sinking boat and immediately fixes it with his “heal-blast” from his eyes. Later on, he fights a giant robot, and comes up with a novel way of defeating him. Meanwhile, a young woman named Marie, who is convinced that she somehow recognizes Tachyon Man and attempts to track him down. This is a very fun story, and a nice introduction to this new character. I’d be very interested in seeing more.

Next up is META-FORCE.
Described as X-Men meets Police Academy, it’s the story of a bunch of mostly teenagers who have been through various genetic engineering experiments that have altered their DNA and given them fantastic powers, and have been sent (or is that “exiled”) to a private island, dubbed “Metaland”, where they can be themselves. One particular group has been training to learn to use their powers as a special police force, called Meta Force (obviously). Another fun book, Lundie seems @ home writing youthful heroes and, despite the large cast and it being a single issue, he manages to cram quite a bit of info about each of the main characters.

VIRTUA-GIRL is an expansion of a short story that originally appeared Tales From The Plex #1 The story was about a successful software CEO who has created a new virtual reality video game, but shuts it down when she tries it out herself and realizes that it can be dangerously addictive. This story picks up 3 years later, and shows us what happened next. This story is not only entertaining, but very relevant, considering the rise in popularity of various computer games in our society. Many people do spends hours each day playing games. This issue has a cover drawn by Matthew Weldon, and features additional interior art by Sergio Calvet.

Each of these stories is also featured in a special pocket-sized digest called CONCEPT CORE

In addition to Tachyon Man, Meta-Force, and the 2nd half of Virtua-Girl, this comic also features the Futurius mascot FUT in a charming little 5-page story called Fut Vs. A Broken Heart, a 2-page story of Jesus and Lucifer having a chat on a park bench, and ends with a 6-page story where two young girls go trick-or-treating @ a real haunted house. A very fun book.

There’s a follow up issue of Concept Core available, which features all new stories with new characters, which I’ve ordered but have not received yet. So I can’t comment on that one, yet. But I highly recommend looking up these comics from Futurius on Indy Planet, if you want some good stories. Two Thumbs Up!