Caliban

While it’s nice to see someone like Garth Ennis, who has been around a while in this industry, explore other genres the results of his most recent projects have been decidedly mixed.  “Rover Red Charlie” had some good parts, but the “talking animals” part of it was awkwardly executed.  Now we have this riff on “Alien” as the crew of a cargo ship light-years from Earth has to figure out what to do when their ship fuses with an alien vessel in hyperspace.  Exploration of the strange craft reveals that its extraterrestrial crew and cargo are long dead.  Only… there’s something else on this ship and it plans on using every tool at its disposal to get to Earth.  As you’d expect from the writer, the story unfolds in a confident manner as we watch the cast react to this frightening situation and deal with it as best they can.  Predictably, in ways that end up badly for them.

Much like his contemporary, Warren Ellis, Ennis produces comics that are eminently readable even when you can tell that the writer is either phoning it in or not fully invested in the material.  “Caliban” isn’t quite the same as he’s trying something new, but chooses to crib relentlessly from “Alien” in the process.  While the creature here is more human than human, it’s still an unstoppable killing machine that plows through the majority of the cast like the redshirts that they are.  The fact that it’s able to monologue about it at the end is not an improvement on the formula.

There are things that I did like in the story:  Seeing the characters try to talk things out.  The lack of real infighting among them.  Finding out about the aliens that piloted the original craft.  Watching the relationship that develops between San and Nomi.  Yet for all these bits, Ennis doesn’t really offer any innovations or twists on the kind of story being told here.  It plays out in a straightforward manner from beginning to end and you’ll be hard pressed to be surprised by any of it.  Sometimes when a writer works outside their comfort zone they’ll fall back on tropes and conventions of the genre they’ve appropriated to bridge the gap between the material and their established style.  This looks to be what has happened in Ennis’ first straight-up sci-fi story.

He’s working with a clearly talented artist who is miscast for this material.  Facundo Percio has a clean, bright style that’s appealing to behold on the page and one that doesn’t convey horror well at all.  Though he does some good work with the various alien lifeforms and ship design, Percio’s style felt much more at home in the Darth Vader two-parter from the final volume of Brian Wood’s “Star Wars” series.  Even though this is a horror story, I wasn’t creeped out at all by what was on the page.

“Caliban” isn’t bad, just deeply unoriginal.  While Ennis may have a good handle on the storytelling, you’re not going to see anything you haven’t already seen before and done better elsewhere.  This is the kind of story you can wait to read until you can get it at a deep discount or find in a half-off bin at a convention.  Even if you’re as big a fan of the writer as I am.