Collider #1

"The Paradigm Shift," Part One
written by Simon Oliver
art by Robbi Rodriguez

The premise behind Oliver and Rodriguez's new sci-fi offering from Vertigo is exceptional:  the laws of physics are coming unraveled.  Physics, in fact, is now a new cause for emergency.  Protagonist Adam Hardy is part of the FBP—an FBI off-shoot tasked with repairing and researching these phenomena—and, apparently, the son of a researcher "some years ago" (with videotape and big-box desktop computers) caught in a mysterious quantum tornado.  It's a premise that demands a lot of explanation, but Oliver's exposition is considerably less cumbersome than necessary exposition is wont to be.  The immediate drama, a seemingly routine gravity failure at a local high school, turns into a minor emergency of its own, an indication that even in the new non-Newtonian world the rules are about to change again.  By the end of the issue, they most certainly have.

Collider's characters thus far lack definition.  They embody, for the most part, familiar stereotypes:  the cocky Fed, the socially awkward brain, the easy-going daredevil.  However, the sparks are there for plenty of development.  Admirably, none of the characters are without their faults, some more so than others, but it promises a series with enough sensibility to avoid easy heroes and villains.  It also teases conflicting factions in the physics drama, seemingly financially motivated, which ensure the inevitable conspiracy subplots.  However, in a world in which the rules are changing, it's no surprise someone would be there to attempt to monetize it.

For the most part, Collider #1's artwork is fine but unexceptional, largely because so many of its panels feature characters doing little else but talking.  When Rodriguez is allowed to flex his muscles, particularly in Collider's trippy failing-physics scenes, he excels.  His visual imagination for physically fictional scenarios is a wonder, a style superbly complemented by Nathan Fox's pop-art cover, one of the finest of the year.  It's a world in which even the movement of light is unpredictable.  Hopefully, the story will be the same.  If this is the new direction of Vertigo, I'm enthusiastically on board.

[September 2013]