Eric StephensonReseñas

X-Men without morals. That's the pitch I got for this series and it's a great summary. (Way better than the one on the back of this collection, IMO). Great art. Interesting and engaging characters (most of whom you want to punch, pretty much always).

Looking forward to the next story arc.

I am making my way through all the graphic novels I have. This was next in the pile. Interesting concept but I found the other characters very unlikeable. It didn't really keep me hooked to want to finish what happens next.

This book was a pleasant surprise. I had no idea what this book was about when I bought. I just heard it had some similarities to The Manhattan Projects. It does have science as the idea driving the plot but it's more of a character driven story. The story takes the idea of science is the new rock n' roll and makes scientist pop culture celebrities. After that it has a little bit of the Beatles, some Fantastic Four, Professor X, Lex Luthor and Star Trek. I enjoyed that this first book ends in a way that you don't have to read the next trade. You will want to but your not forced to just to end the story. I can recommend this book to people who love science stories but don't need to be blinded with science. The science is barely mentioned actually. No calculations, no theory but loads of character driven story telling. I'll be buying the next trades in this series for sure. The writing is dense which helps with world building. The art is good and keeps the story moving at a good pace. The things this book does well is something that other people will enjoy. I think this writer may be on the path to superstardom if they keep putting out work like this.

Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from Net Galley.

Nowhere Men, Volume 1 tells the story of a world that treats scientists like rock stars and celebrities. Not only do they get flashy photo opportunities and magazine cover stories, but their influence spreads so far throughout society that it causes huge leaps forward in scientific developments while also inspiring an anarchist “punk” subculture. In this world, cloning is commonplace and a robot went on a mission to space decades ago.

In the first volume, Stephenson weaves together two story lines. First, we meet the founders of World Corps, a foursome of scientists who enjoy rock star levels of fame and success until their partnership begins unraveling in the public eye. The timeline jumps back and forth from as early as the 1960s to the “present day”, which is where we meet a group of World Corps scientists dealing with a strange virus that is changing their bodies in unexpected ways (for better and worse). Interspersed with these scenes are news articles, magazine interviews, excerpts from books and advertisements that paint a fuller picture of the men behind World Corps, all done in pitch-perfect period style (with “yellowing” pages to boot).

So, on one hand this book turns scientists into the Beatles and watches how that changes the world, and on the other it deconstructs the Fantastic Four origin story and includes a much higher mortality rate. Tie this all together with an epistolary conceit, and you have an ambitious book that plays at the edges of comic book tropes without straying too far from the center. I really think it’s a fair comparison to say that Stephenson is playing with the form in much the same way that Alan Moore did with Watchmen. However, the scope of this story feels larger, if only because this first volume serves mostly as setup.

Stephenson definitely has a flair for characterization, at least when it comes to the founders of World Corps. I felt like I really had a clear sense of their personalities within the first few pages, and that sense only deepened with every interview and flashback. The group of scientists affected by the virus fared a little worse, if only because there are so many of them, and they spend most of the story in reactive mode, freaking out because they’re sick and don’t know why. I have a feeling Stephenson will correct this as the story goes on, however, simply because this first volume sets them up as potential heroes in opposition to the various misdeeds of World Corps (not that I think the story will be that clear-cut).

My only other criticism of this first volume is that it feels like Stephenson only provides the barest hint of an overall story arc; instead, the first volume mostly consists of back story and setup. However, there’s so much detail crammed in here that it seems clear that the first volume is only the first few chapters of a larger story, and not a discrete story arc in and of itself.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and I’ll definitely be picking up future volumes. The only downside is that it looks like Image is releasing new issues at a glacial pace, and #7 is nowhere on their calendar. Even still, highly recommended.

Really difficult to follow, constant scene and format changing left me having no idea what was going on and getting pretty bored with it. It is structured such that I couldn't get into a comfortable flow of reading, I kept getting jolted out of the story and it was quite a struggle to focus on.
There are much better things I can spend my time reading.

needed more ladies exalted like all the science bros AND 89732193 more volumes of explanations, but otherwise enjoyable.

"La ciència és el nou rock and roll". La història de 4 científics , fundadors d'una exitosa companyia, convertits en 'celebrities' , que porten els seus experiments a límits perillosos. Interessant punt de partida, però execució fallida. No m'ha funcionat el ritme.

There are a lot of ideas in this. This is one of those morality meets superpowers ideas that I always find interesting. Now, there are some murky bits here and there where I wonder what the heck is going on like that random sex scene, but this volume has me intrigued. Every single character is selfish, emotionally wounded, at times, whiny, and always battling their demons. You would not think anyone could like a book where none of the characters are “likable,” but I do. Also, the art style is dope to me because something about it is pleasing to my eyes. I liked the ending, and I will be reading volume 2.

4.5

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

This graphic novel was following me around. I even saw it in physical book stores, where I seldom see graphic novels that are also on Netgalley at the time. So, as I kept coming across it my interest grew and I decided to give it a try even though I didn't really know what it was about and I passed on it when I first saw it.

A bunch of special kids live together being special. That's basically what it is.

It was not for me. I was actually disappointed by the story. There wasn't a single likeable character between them and I couldn't feel any sympathy either. There was a lot of self pity though, how nobody liked them because they were different. I still don't know where the story is going, but frankly I don't really care. The best part for sure was the title. The art was good but didn't blow me away.

Black Holes For The Young is the first volume of They're Not Like Us.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

The art is striking and there are some good surprises, but be warned: this is only the beginning of the story and it seems that there is no way to get volume 2. (I know, I know: I can hunt down the single issues on eBay, but I'm not doing that.) Imagine watching a movie that grows on you and that gets you interested and then stops rather than ends. That's what it's like to read this. Or imagine reading Watchmen without the last two chapters.

Pros: Clean, crisp, evocative artwork. Interesting premise.
Cons: Too much teasing the reader: we get hints of this and that, but there's no payoff.

A promising start goes awry in this volume. The original group splinters into two groups. A third group shows up to take advantage of the situation and warns that a fourth, even more ominous group is coming.

There are telepaths everywhere! Did this suddenly turn into the X-Men?

The tight, interesting premise of the first volume dissolves as the storyline tries to open up and go epic. That makes it easier to write, but less interesting for me to read.

Teenagers with super powers acting poorly is nothing original, but a solid and intriguing start leaves me wanting the next volume of this series.

My first of impression of They’re Not Like Us Vol.1 was that the plot is similar to the Runaways (by Brian K. Vaughn),which features a group of teenagers with super powers. In this case the focus is on young adults who deal with the issue of controlling and utilizing super powers which ranges from telepathy to being psychic. It puts the twist on the mutant/super-human trope by making it into a youth in revolt story, as the characters in this book seek justice for all the years they were repressed and singled out for being different.

I appreciated that the characters came from different ethnic and social backgrounds. I thought it not only made the story diverse, but the fact they come from all types of situation adds to the realistic factor. Everyone comes from a troubled backgrounds and they find solidarity in the fact that they have these special powers that no ordinary person would understand. They form a family like bond because they understand they are unique and how they were misunderstood by their peers and family growing up.

It is a violent comic at times (rated mature) but I never felt like it went too over the top. It’s also very fact paced story. From the moment Syd joins the house of super-humans, we get a small montage of her controlling her powers, and then start to uncover the mystery surrounding the group’s leader, The Voice, and his true intentions.

Overall, I think Vol. 1 provides a strong start to the series. The well-written plot interwoven with Simon Gane’s artwork is fantastic. Game gives a lot of attention to facial characteristics of all the characters and provides immense detail to landscape. Thorough the realistic drawings you can connect with the characters on an emotional level.

Some really pretty art in this one. There are some characters I almost feel I might like, but maybe not enough to truly feel invested in after 6 issues. That said, interesting premise (though not one that hasn't been done before) approached in a way that feels not quite same ol', same ol' but enough that it kept me (at least) reading.

This comic ran a little stale for me, but I think it's because I've come out the other side of my emo-teenage years.



This story is quite X-Men in the initial conceit: a group of young kids with special snowflake powers. Then it goes all emo, because no one ever loved them because they were special snowflakes.

So of course now they have to be total assholes to everyone in the world and terrorize them like they were terrorized. And have an awesome music room with hipster records.



The art though is so pretty. I love it when artists get creative with the basics of comics (like above with the newspaper style text overlay).

Or here where the idea of Syd having all those voices in her head and then not being there is visualized but the subtle change in background.

From here...



To here...



So lovely.

All that being said, the plot itself is pretty see through. It's not surprising where we end up at the end, though I am still interested enough in the narrative to see where it goes from there.



Copy courtesy of Diamond Book Distributors/Image Comics, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of this comic series instantly hooked me. "Science is the new rock and roll." Come on, who wouldn't want to live in a world where physicists supplanted the Beatles in popularity? I really enjoyed the entire conceit put forward through the issues of these four wonder-scientists and the eventual combustion of their group, much like a few rock bands I could name. I felt like the central idea of their being rock-stars could have been delved into a little more, but maybe that shows up more later...

The only gripe I have is regarding the non-comic supplementary articles. They were formatted to look like they came out of books and magazines, but most just broke the action for me and irritated me to the point that I ended up skipping most of them, reading the plot, and coming back later to read those. It's mostly just background material on their breakup. I can see how it would be less annoying in the original serial format, but in this trade it just slowed things down.

Otherwise, I am really looking forward to continuing this series and really can't wait to see where they are going with the interesting mix of characters we are left with at the end of this first volume.

Copy courtesy of Diamond Book Distributors, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The story opens with a teen looking for a respite from the, very real, but disbelieved by everyone else, voices in her head. She sees suicide as the only way, the only peace she can find. But someone else offers her an out she takes it and then discovers that their morals don't line up quite with hers.

Interesting exploration of othering.

A group of people with abilities get together

Syd, a telepathic girl about to commit suicide, is saved by the Voice who leads her into a group of like-minded individuals who will and can do anything to preserve their way of life, including killing anyone that could get in their way.

It is about the interaction between the various members of the group and the consequences of their actions

The artwork reminds me of the French “bande dessinée” tradition and is well-executed. The writing is engaging although a little long-winded at the end.

Enjoyable enough – and there is evidently more to come.

(ARC was provided to read and review.)

Right at the start of the story, a young woman, Tabitha, is on the brink of committing suicide. She is standing on top of a tall building, but still hesitant to jump. Then mysteriously a rather sinister looking male appears and tries to talk her out of it, and at first I assumed, he's a police officer, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

The dark and brooding character turns out to be the Voice and he's the leader of a group of kids, teenagers and young adults, who all have special abilities. He tells Tabitha, "You are one of us." and wants her to be part of his group.
He's able to make her understand, that she isn't crazy, as she was let to believe her whole life so far. She is telepathic and that's why she hears all the different voices in her head. The group offers her for the first time in her life help to control and to use her ability.
There are group members who can see into the future, move so fast that all you can see is a blur, are very strong, etc. They all live together in two adjacent houses, where the interior offers actually quite a bit of luxury. There are paintings on every wall and they owe a most exquisite record collection.
Generally they keep themselves to themselves, there are no visitors and no connection to their past lives. In fact, they all get a new name, when they start living with the group. Tabitha will be Syd, a name chosen by the Voice and his psychic abilities are obivously strong enough to achieve that the group members are unable to remember their old name once they got the new one. And what's more, to make sure, there are really no connections left to the past, he "forces"/persuades his newbie members to kill their parents.
Something which didn't go down well for most of them in the long run and gives quite a few of them serious nightmares. Worse still, what looks on the outside like some heaven for young "superheroes", who have all suffered from abuse and misunderstanding during their childhood, as they were rather seen as crazy and disabled, than as gifted, well, it isn't the paradise it seems to be.
Their abilities are used to commit crimes and that's also how they amassed the wealth in which they live, by robbing and stealing from others. Their whole life is very controlled, restricted and isolated. To me it sounded very much like the life of a member of a cult.

From the moment Tabitha/Syd enters the group, things start to go wrong, underlying cracks of the group start to show, which will inevitably lead to severe consequences for all of them. But I must admit, towards the end I found some parts of the story weren't perfectly logical. Considering there is a group member, who can see into the future or others with telepathic abilities who can read minds, they should've seen certain things coming.

Generally, They're Not Like Us is a gripping and fascinating story, which raises quite a few moral questions. What makes us evil? When are evil actions rectified? (If at all.) Has the victim the right to take revenge or even kill the abuser? What if the abuser was a victim first, too?
At the same time, the whole group and its characters are interesting. I cared for quite a few of them, but my absolute favourite is the Voice. There is so much more to the character and I hope he will be in Volume 2 and in the one after that.
Simon Gane's artwork ties in perfectly with the story, he is able to breath life into the characters. Blurgirl's nightmare sequence is one of the highlights you don't want to miss.

The series has me really hooked so far and Volume 2 is on my wishlist now. In fact, I'm quite looking forward to it.

They’re Not Like Us reminds me of a number of things I’ve seen on TV especially Alphas and specific plot points in Agents of Shield. Even though my mind instantly went to those places it felt very different. These are individuals who have been through an incredible amount of hardship just for being themselves – merely existing with these gifts. I loved the exploration of fairly heavy topics like morality and revenge, how a painful past heavily influences ones future choices.

The Glorious Points

The characters from good to bad were very engaging. I was interested in each one of them including the ones who annoyed me. I ended up with some strong feelings about how they interacted and certain personalities. This led to the story being very immersive.
The artwork blended perfectly with the story to the point there were times I forgot I was reading and this wasn’t a tv show! It was a wonderful blend of novel and artwork.
I can’t say enough about how much I appreciated the styling of the characters. Syd was hands down my favorite of the bunch though this might have changed had I been given the opportunity to know the others more.
The Not as Glorious

I loved the characters but also didn’t feel I truly got enough of anyone other than The Voice and Syd. The main character is Syd so it was understandable that there was far more of her in it than the others. My craving though is to have separate issues from each characters perspective. It would be interesting to see things from the eyes of Masie or even The Voice who I got to know somewhat. I’d also be curious to know some of the others more as I felt like we got barely anything from them.
While I loved the artwork and the style of the characters there was one point that kind of annoyed me. Syd has more scenes that she’s crying at least a little than she has not crying. Yes things are stressful and I’m sure a lot of what she’s going through was heavily traumatic – but it felt like a bit much after a while.
Overall I really enjoyed the combination of artwork and excellent story – they melded perfectly for me. I’d recommend this for those that like story lines somewhat like Alphas, or like me still miss that show terribly.



This eGalley was provided free from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion and I was compensated in no other manner.

It's easy to try to compare the characters in They're Not Like Us to those in the X-Men universe (at first glance anyway). They all have special powers, such as the ability to create illusions and superhuman strength. The thing that sets them apart is that this group doesn't seem especially interested in being heroes; rather, they seem angry at "normal" people for treating them differently/badly. This is especially true for their parents, who had trouble accepting that their children were special and saw their gifts as curses; as a sort of initiation, the members are expected to murder their parents.

Then along comes Syd, a young telepath who doesn't understand the constant barrage of voices she hears day in and day out. She wants to make them stop at any cost, until The Voice (the leader of this group of misfits) finds her and brings her to his house. She's so tormented by her gifts that you almost assume that she will do whatever he says because he helps her control the voices. Syd is no push-over, however, and she quickly realizes that the people she meets are less like heroes and more like monsters. She refuses to blindly follow orders and questions their motives at every turn.

There are a lot of characters introduced in Volume 1 and we don't get to know all of them very well. The story pretty much centers around Syd trying to figure out if she wants to become part of the organization, as The Voice tries to convince her why she should. There is some background given about The Voice's childhood and one of the other members, Maisie (who can see into the future), insists that there is more to his story than Syd understands yet. I'm definitely interested in reading more of this comic to find out if there really is more to why they do what they do. I really liked Syd because she didn't just take what she was being told at face value; she continued to ask questions and stick to her morals.

The illustrations were just okay for me. I thought they were a bit rough and the colors were very subdued, although this last observation worked with the tone of the story. The story itself though was very interesting and I loved how it blurred the lines between good and evil. It makes you question what you might do in the same situation. By the end, it's apparent that there is some discord within the group and it remains unclear how everyone will proceed from there. This was a great introduction to what could be a very engaging series, and I am very much looking forward to finding out what happens next with these characters.

I got a copy of this graphic novel to review through NetGalley(dot)com. This was a really well done and interesting science fiction graphic novel.

Dade Ellis, Simon Grimshaw, Emerson Strange, and Thomas Walker formed the company World Corp and led a new age of scientific advancement. Years later things aren’t going as well for these four geniuses. Dade is in a coma and Emerson is the only one left still leading World Corp. Emerson has a large secret, he’s built a secret space station and things aren’t going well on there. The inhabitants have acquired a virus and Emerson is trying to decide what to do….since of course no one even knows this space station exists.

This was a very, very well done science fiction graphic novel. It honestly wasn’t really my cup of tea, but it was incredibly well done. The story jumps between the past, when these four scientists were at the top of their game, and the present day, when they are all old and a mess. In between these bits of story we see advertisements of the day, excerpts from interviews with the scientists, and excerpts from books about these scientists. All of it comes together to create a very real story, that sounds like real history even though it’s not.

The world is very detailed, but the graphic novel focuses less on the science and inventions and more on the scientists and how they fell apart as a group.

The story also goes back and forth between the past/current day scientists and the crew on the secret space station. The crew on the space station is suffering from some horrible ailments. They are struggling to escape the space station they have been quarantined on and trying to help each other survive.

Given all the above, the number of characters in this graphic novel is absolutely massive. The creators of this graphic novel have started an epic story here and a huge undertaking. Which is one of my problems with this novel...there are just sooo many characters and it is hard to keep track of them. They look different in past and present day, so you have to keep figuring out who is who. Then the crew on the spaceship is changing drastically as well, and there are a lot of crew.

I admire all the work that went into making all this seem like absolutely real history here. The work it took to write multiple page excerpts about fake books about these scientists is amazing and making all that form a cohesive story along with fake advertisements and interviews was amazingly done.

The illustration is done in a very realistic style and generally well done. There’s nothing really exceptional about it, but the illustration was easy enough to follow and the drawings are very detailed as well as being full color.

This book mainly sets up the story for future graphic novels. There is a lot going on here, and there is a lot of political intrigue and a very complex story. It’s very well done, but I honestly had some trouble keeping track of and engaging with the story and characters. It’s a fascinating read, but for me not necessarily an enjoyable one.

Overall an incredibly complex and detailed science fiction graphic novel. This novel is incredibly well put together and makes for a fascinating read. I love how there are a lot of elements (the graphic novel, interviews with characters, excerpts from books, advertisement, etc) that come together to weave the story. I had some trouble relating to the characters and there were way too many characters to keep track of. So, although I was impressed with the ingenuity and detail of how this story was put together, I didn’t really enjoy reading it all that much. I guess I would recommend to fans of hard-core science fiction and conspiracy theory. It really is well done.

As with any collection, some hits, some misses. Not a bad read, but not one I'm likely to pass along to everyone I meet, either.

A collection of short works by various authors, all exploring certain four-letter emotions/experiences. This really wasn't for me.