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Member Reviews
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Standard sci-fi horror comic, that takes risks with how derivative it gets before it proves it's not completely an Alien rip-off. It's certainly not sinfully bad, but it's certainly no great shakes.
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As much as I love Cullen Bunn’s work, it has to be said that this is not the most original story in the world, and a far cry from the likes of The Sixth Gun. The story itself is fine; serviceable would be a fair assessment. It’s unlikely to blow any minds, with a mysterious signal calling the crew of the salvage ship Cortes to the surface of Lonely Orphan where horrors await them (with fairly predictable results). That being said, it’s still pretty good fun.
What Rogue Planet really has going for it the fantastic artwork. Every tentacled horror which attacks the ill-fated crew of the Cortes looks like the front cover of a death metal album come to life (or rather, undeath), with eyeballs and gnashing teeth sprouting from every superfluous orifice as they writhe and undulate across the page. Unsurprisingly, the fates bestowed on the unlucky protagonists are delightfully grisly, with tentacles punching through faces and sprouting from neck stumps to reanimate corpses. There’s even a Cronenbergian critter made of elongated spinal column and bone claws. Things go through bits of people, things get knitted back together unpleasantly, and plenty of blood gets splashed across the panels.
The crew are somewhat interchangeable, for the most part, with only a few of them really having more fleshed out personalities. It’s also a little difficult to really tell them apart when they’re all in full spacesuits, which many of them are for a large percentage of this. Alex is probably the most entertaining character, with his mantra of things which he wants to stay alive for being a list of various women in different space ports. Glory, the ship’s medic, is the main character really, but this is only established later on. This shift in focus from the crew to an individual put me in mind of the likes of Alien or The Thing, which certainly aren’t unfavourable comparisons.
Everything is wrapped up rather neatly and a bit too suddenly, and there’s a sense that maybe some of the ideas here could have been expanded on. It does grate slightly that the explanation for what’s happening on the planet comes out of nowhere too. There are a few interesting ideas here though, particularly the concept of Zom-time, a state of suspended animation which the Cortes can put the crew into whilst controlling their motor functions.
There’s enough here for a reasonably diverting hour or so, but the story is unlikely to stay with you. Perhaps another issue of this to build atmosphere at the start, or to expand on the planet’s mysteries would make it feel a little less rushed and generic. Regardless, the artwork is excellent, and the book is probably worth buying for that alone.