We Only Find Them When They’re Dead vol. 1: The Seeker

Al Ewing has been writing great, and underappreciated, comics at Marvel for a while now.  Though the likes of “New Avengers:  A.I.M.,” “Ultimates,” and “Loki:  Agent of Asgard” were all quite entertaining, none of them set the sales charts on fire.  Then along came his work on “The Immortal Hulk,” which vaulted Ewing onto the A-list at the company.  While this would lead to higher-profile writing gigs at the company, like co-writing the “Empyre” event, it also meant that he finally had the name recognition to branch out into creator-owned work, along with artist Simone Di Meo.  “We Only Find Them When They’re Dead” is the result of that, and while it’s a good start to the series, this is also something that reads more like a “Volume Zero” than a proper first volume.

The “Them” being referred to in the title of this series is nothing less than Gods.  Space Gods, in fact!  They show up in our universe already dead and humanity immediately sets about carving up their corpses for meat, skin, and other chemicals that can be used elsewhere.  “Autopsying” a God is rough business and there’s plenty of room for conflict between the ships that do the dirty work of collecting and the enforcers who try to make sure it’s carried out in an orderly fashion.  Georges Malik, captain of the Autopsy ship Vihaan II knows these things well.  He’s been doing this kind of work for the majority of his life.

Along with quartermaster Alice, coroner (she operates the knife) Ella, and engineer/current boyfriend Jason, Georges has carved out a stable niche in this line of work.  This is even as they’re constantly harassed by an Enforcer named Paula who has it in for the captain for reasons relating to his parents.  That said, Georges doesn’t really dream of a better life for him and his crew.  He dreams of the Gods themselves and wonders why they’re always dead when they find them.  The story begins when he’s finally convinced his crew to come along and find out.

Ewing gets points right off the bat for some solid worldbuilding with this series.  In the first issue alone he manages to establish the basics of the Autopsying business, the means by which it’s conducted, and the struggles the people performing it face.  We also get to know the crew of the Vihaan II a bit, though Georges gets the most focus as we’re introduced to him as a kid, awestruck by his first sight of a dead God.  It’s enough to get the reader to understand why he’d want to know more about them, even as the threat Paula embodies hangs over them.

What follows is a solid adventure as the Vihaan II and its crew make their break into the unknown to find out where the Gods come from.  The catch is that they wind up being chased by Paula in the process.  If you’re wondering why this Enforcer would take such a risk in the name of vengeance, that’s part of the plan and the source of the main conflict in this volume.  On one hand I think that the reasons why she’s doing this do make sense and turn her into a tragic figure by the story’s end.  On the other, waiting to sling to give us these reasons leaves her coming off as a foaming mad vengeance-seeker for the majority of the volume.

When I say that the above-mentioned conflict is central in this volume, you may be wondering where the Gods come into play here.  While they do play a not insignificant role in this story, they’re certainly part of the background when it comes to the business between Georges and Paula.  I get the idea of starting off with a personal, human story to get the readers involved in the characters and I think that the first volume of this series delivers that.  It’s just that we were promised about dead Space Gods and the story isn’t clearly about them.

Yet, anyway.  The volume ends with the promise that I’ll be eating those words in vol. 2.  Still, the overall vibe I got from the storytelling in this volume is that “The Seeker” is “The Story I Had To Tell You Before I Can Tell You The Next One.”  “Volume Zero,” in other words.

With that in mind, this first volume looks (mostly) great.  There’s no denying that Di Meo delivers some slick futuristic ships and a credible world to go along with it.  He’s also quite good with the characters, even as he (and Ewing with his writing, admittedly) really leans in to making Paula appear as demonic as possible.  There’s also the matter of the look of the Gods themselves, and the artist has some fitting designs that capture their otherworldly nature, while he also captures their scale quite well.

Where Di Meo falters is in the overall coloring of the volume.  He’s credited as the volume’s illustrator, with assists by Mariasara Miotti, and I’ve got no problems with their borderline-psychedelic palette.  No, my issue is that the book looks too goddamn dark!  I realize that the story is set against the blackness of space, but the darkness feels like it’s bleeding into the look of the book itself.  The end result is that you’re going to have to work that much harder to make out Di Meo’s art, and that really shouldn’t be the case.

It would be nice if this issue was sorted out for vol. 2, but there’s always the possibility that this could be an intentional choice on the part of Di Meo and Miotti.  Still, hope springs eternal that this will be addressed next time.  I’ll certainly be back for vol. 2, though.  Even though the story being told here felt more like a prequel to the main event, it was still engaging as it worked to set up the series’ world and characters.  It’s the kind of quality storytelling that I’ve come to expect from Ewing, and it’s great to see that nothing is lost as he transitions away from working exclusively in the superhero genre.