Hadrian’s Wall

Simon Moore spends his days as a detective in the Seattle of 2085 dwelling on the failure of his marriage and taking pills to combat the pain of getting shot four times by his ex-wife’s new husband.  So when an old friend tells Simon that said husband, Edward, is now dead and that his company will pay him a hundred thousand credits to effectively rubber-stamp said death as “accidental” he agrees to head out to the spaceship Hadrian’s Wall to investigate.  While his ex-wife Annabelle would rather see Simon gone as soon as possible, it’s soon revealed that her husband’s death wasn’t accidental.  Having one of the crew be a killer is bad.  What’s worse is the fact that Edward’s death is also tied to a rogue separatist faction from the Theta colony and that knowledge just might get everyone killed.

A whodunit aboard a spaceship?  “Sign me up!” was my initial thought upon first reading about this miniseries from co-writers Kyle Higgins and Alec Siegel.  Though the series starts off solidly enough with its introduction of Simon and the rest of the cast of suspects it never really kicks into high gear.  That’s mainly because the whodunit angle is eventually pushed to the backburner by the halfway point and the series puts interstellar intrigue and Simon’s personal growth in the forefront.  This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, except Higgins and Siegel don’t really do enough worldbuilding or offer enough compelling details about Simon to alleviate the overwhelming familiarity of these elements.

The art from Rod Reis, with Eduardo Ferigato pitching in at points in the back half, is quite nice and I can see why he was snatched up to work for Marvel.  Reis gives the series an otherworldly look to it which mixes well with its space setting and he delivers solid work with the varied cast as well.  It’s not enough to elevate “Hadrian’s Wall” to “must-read” status, but I’d say the overall product is worth a look.  Either at a deep discount or from a half-off bin.