Rating:🥄🥄🥄🥄

Review: Interesting, straight forward plot, great artwork.

Downloaded from Netgalley exchange for free review. Thanks!

Ben the bounty hunter is called in for a special bounty. Turns out aliens are actually on earth and there's an alien city below Alaska where this bounty has fled too. I liked the world building here even if too much was glossed over, like how an alien city exists underground. Nick Robles art was very good. The series has potential if the writing gets a little tighter and less disjointed.

Even though the plot is really straight forward, I quite enjoyed this bit of brain candy. It was easy to get into the tale and that’s partly because the characters, for the most part, are archetypes. Ben Madsen was easy to sympathize with. He’s bullied into taking this job to hunt down and retrieve a specific alien (Nyx). There’s a very large alien prison hidden under Alaska. It’s a strange world all of it’s own divided into different sectors. Each sector is run by a malevolent powerful alien and they don’t take kindly to a mercenary human running amok!

One of my favorite characters was the Reaper. She’s got her finger on the pulse of the alien prison and for her own reasons gives Ben some much needed assistance. I think more could have been done with her character but that might come in the next volume.

There’s all sorts of aliens in this story; they aren’t just uniform baddies that Ben takes out willy nilly. Don’t get me wrong; our hero does his fair share of removing aliens hell bent on killing him. Yet there are still individual aliens with their own motives in helping or hindering Ben.

Also, there’s some conspiracy going on with the Coalition, which maintains the prison. They had some sort of deal with a technologically advised alien species and now Ben is caught in the crosshairs of that deal. Ben’s computer guy (Brooks) works from the outside to dig up info but getting info into the prison and to Ben is quite difficult.

Ben has a solid relationship with Rita, an older woman suffering from cancer who acted as Ben’s granma or elderly aunt while he was growing up. Throughout the story we get flashbacks to Ben’s childhood and how Rita influenced it. I hope we see more of her in Volume 2.

The tale does leave us on a cliffhanger, so I hope Volume 2 comes out soon. I’d like to see more depth to all the characters and perhaps a bit more history on the prison to make it more believable. All told, 4/5 stars.

The Artwork: The artwork is gorgeous! I love the images of Reaper on her bike, of this wicked alien (Miasma?) and her tentacled sidekick, and those tiger-like beasties going after Ben. Nyx is also drawn very well, having an androgynous cast to him. The lettering was nicely done too, some sections having different colors which helped me keep straight who was talking. I also liked how little word bubbles with ‘alien words’ were used to show that a tech translator was working. At the end of the volume are the various covers for the individual issues which I spent some quality time admiring. 5/5 stars.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley.

<b>Actual rating: 3.5</b>

Comic book time! 

I’ll start with the artwork. It’s stunning. The lettering, colours, little word bubbles with alien words can compete with the best in the genre. Just check the images of the Reaper on her bike or this wicked alien and her tentacled sidekick. A joy to watch. 

Straightforward plot doesn’t surprise but remains enjoyable throughout. Likeable characters move through a strange world divided into sectors ruled by malevolent aliens. I especially liked the Reaper - a true badass female character with her own reasons and motivations.

The book finishes with a cliffhanger, but Volume 2 should be out soon, right?

An enjoyable brain candy with stunning artwork.

<i>I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley.</i>

This was a pretty compelling book with some gorgeous artwork and some interesting lettering. It tells the story of Ben, a private investigator who finds himself compelled to locate an alien bio-terrorist in an alien prison. The story was fairly unoriginal, but it was well executed and had a few twists and turns along the way. I thought the dialogue was particularly good - it felt natural and authentic which I appreciated. As I said, the artwork was brilliant and there were some panels that had incredible details in them that really encouraged the reader to pore over them for some time. I liked the protagonist - he's quite snarky and cocky, but he has a heart of gold and his motivations are honourable, which was nice to see. All in all, I thought this was an enjoyable read and I will certainly look out for vol. 2 to see where the story goes from here.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Ben Madsen (late of California) has been tasked with tracking down a "bioterrorist" who is definitely not from California (actually not even from this Earth). The bounty is quite high, but Ben needs it to get a community center for a sick family member. So he takes the job, even though he knows that he is likely being screwed. Which he is. But Ben is resourceful and manages to gain allies that lets him get in touch with his prey. But not everything is as it is presented, so beware, Ben beware!

Ben's guardian is very ill and he needs a lot of money to help her and save her community center. Enter an offer he cannot refuse from a secret government agency to catch a fugitive alien. Sounds great, right? It was, in a way.

My problem with this graphic novel is with the way the story is told. Although the idea is definitely interesting and it is a story filled with heart, the many jumps in time and attempts to throw in backstory made the plot lack in consistency. It just didn't flow well. Although some aspects of world building were really strong, it also lacked a lot in other places. Basically, I was very confused a lot of the time.

The art style was nice. It fitted the story very well and did a great job of distinguishing between the different settings.
 
Overall this was an okay read, but I don't think I will be picking up the next volume.

'Alien Bounty Hunter: Volume 1' from Vault Comics just didn't work for me. From it's weird premise, to it's typical acion heroes and aliens. Which is too bad. This is usually the kind of thing I really like.

Ben Madsen is a bounty hunter with an ailing aunt. He gets sent to Alaska on a job and discovers an entire alien city under the ice. His search for his warrant leads him to interact with the aliens there. Some are friends, some just want to fight. Ben is really good at fighting. He's also good at jumping from really high places and surviving. He'll need his skills to survive.

First off: an alien city underground that no one (outside of a few government officials) seems to know about? With advanced technology and a pretty vast area? I couldn't buy in to this premise. Ben is a pretty standard loner, action hero, but I never really got to care for him. He goes around beating things up, and there are a few flashbacks, but the empathy was totally lacking for me.

The art is decent enough. The story is just a jumble of half-formed ideas. I finished it, but it was a struggle for me.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Vault Comics, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

This was so good. I love the world building and characters. Illustrations are amazing. Some parts are bit confusing but i will definitely continue the series.

Oh but this was an abject mess. Funky aliens from Central Casting, and a secret governmental holding pen for them under Alaska, and a bounty hunter forced to go solo in digging a lethal alien out, after it flees a Weapon X programme. The problems are multiple – I know Alaska is large, but the underground world is just mahoosive. The characters (shape-shifters and all) are impossible to follow. The timeline is even worse, even breaking into flashbacks to a trauma in our hero's life when the authors get bored of having aliens just zapping each other. And there's a lot of alien zapping alien action, if you like that thing – mostly drawn in a very hard to follow way. Kudos to the colourist, but the rest certainly had a bad day at the office.

An adventurous graphic novel with a sci-fi bend to it. I'll recommend this one to my patrons and staff.

This review is a lot harder to write than I had anticipated. It's not that the book was bad or poorly written by any means, I actually enjoyed the story line for the most part.

Let's do it this way,

Here's what I liked:
-The artwork was absolutely gorgeous. The colors, the line work, everything.
-The world building was really well done.
-The characters were very unique.

What I didn't like:
-There was so much text going on sometimes, it was actually distracting.
-It didn't flow. And that was a huge turn off for me when it comes to graphic novels. That's probably the main reason that I didn't give this more stars.

I did enjoy reading this and would love to check it out when it's published.