The Gist:
After the climactic victory in the movie, an alien craft crash lands in the Atlantic. Captain Joshua Adams and Dr Jessica Morgan must lead a US military sub to the ocean floor to find out what, if any, threat the craft poses.
The Review:
Independence Day was a movie that left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand it was a rollicking good sci-fi film, on the other, it features a British military commander pretty much admitting that he had spent the film waiting for America to save the day. The stakes for the first story arc of this comic look set to be a smidge lower. Set just after the destruction of the alien mothership and fightback against the aliens, an alien craft is tracked entering the waters of the Atlantic and it’s unclear whether it crash landed, or if this was a deliberate landing. Captain Adams and Dr Morgan board the submarine of Captain Meredith with orders to investigate.
There’s been a move by comics over the couple of decades to make the characters a bit more 3D; villains get a Freudian excuse and heroic character’s flaws are explored. Issue#1 slots into this shift to a basic degree. Captain Meredith isn’t entirely cooperative but it’s pretty understandable. Her entire battle group has been reduced to the sub, plus two battleships and she makes it clear that she won’t endanger her crew beyond a certain point. Adams and Morgan, so far, don’t feel quite as fleshed out. Dr Morgan contributes one bit of exposition that Captain Adams could have handled and otherwise only appears to be there for Adams to accidently walk in on her while she’s changing. If she’s going to be a love interest at some point, it would be nice if she established her relevance in some other way first. Captain Adams gets a bit more fleshed out but, so far, his fear of water has amounted to nothing; he has to keep bringing it up so we don’t forget about it. Given that issue mostly takes place beneath the ocean, that’s a bit of a shortcoming.
Plot-wise, on the other hand, issue#1 gets off to a promising start. The question of whether the alien craft deliberately entered the ocean, and if so, why, drives the issue well and kept my interest quite nicely.
The Verdict:
While not perfect, Independence Day issue#1 gets off to a good start with an interesting and well-paced plot and characterization that, while not perfect, has plenty of room for development.
Publisher: Titan Comics
Published: March 23rd
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