Written by John Layman
Drawn by Afu Chan
Published by Image Comics/Skybound Entertainment

I’ve been waiting for this eries every since I first say John Layman post about it on his Facebook page months ago. It’s a mix of sci-fi, horror, and “weird shit,” which is right up my alley! Imagine Star Trek but with demons and ghosts and stuff like that. What if instead of a “Chief Engineer” the Enterprise employed a “Chief Excorcist?” Okay, get the gist?

Set far in the future, our lead character is Josh Riggs. He’s a human (and Black man) who is the First Officer of a space ship that finds itself being attacked by evil spirits (or something). He saves the crew but in the process commits munity against his Captain and is drummed out of the service and facing prison time. But then he’s approached by an Admiral who offers him reinstatment and all charges dropped if he takes command of a ship called The Charon and leads the crew on a top secret “retrieval mission” into deep space.

The rest of the issue focuses on Rigg’s first day taking command of The Charon including meeting his new First Officer and meeting the ancient God who powers the ships engine and which requires periodic human (or alien) sacrifices in order to survive. And then the ship takes off to boldly go where…oops, wrong book.

Layman doesn’t waste too much time trying to explain every little details, which ends up working perfectly in a book like this. From the various alien races who make up the crew, to the demonic possessions, it’s all present as normal everyday occurances that the characters are used to, and we (the audience) are simply expected to catch up. And Afu Chan’s artwork is delightful, and helps make the story easy to follow. I’m enjoyed this issue and am definitely exciting about seeing where it goes from here.

A+

Outer Darkness #1