Author: David Schulner
Publisher: Image Comics
Rating: WORTHY!
Art work: Juan José Ryp
Colors: Felix Serrano.
Being a big fan of Orphan Black on TV, I was curious to see what this graphic novel series would do with the idea of multiple clones. It's a very different story, and much more gory and violent, be warned, but I found volume one to be a worthy read.
Luke is happily married to Amelia who is heavily pregnant. Nothing unusual here until Luke shows up at work one morning to discover that he has a twin, who is bleeding to death all over his nice clean floor. It turns out this isn't a twin, per se, but a clone nick-named Foss, and Foss advises Luke he had better get to his wife fast.
But it's too late - his wife has been abducted, and Luke is picked up by Foss and some female non-clones (Jennifer and Sanah) who spirit him away to a secret underground - literally - base, where he learns the truth - there are scores of clones developed in an army program many years before. Now, with a senate vote due to ban embryonic stem cell use, the government is planning on eliminating the evidence of their past indiscretions, and some of the clones are hunting down and slaughtering the rest of them.
Luke's wife is of particular interest because none of the clones is capable of reproduction - so we're told. The only exception to this would be the original. Is this Luke?
Luke has a picture of a very brief meeting with his father. The odd thing was that whereas one page shows a photograph of Luke wearing a plain white T-shirt with a super hero logo on the front, all of the other pages showing this photo depict Luke in the same T-shirt but with blue sleeves. I guess someone screwed up!
The rest of the story depicts Luke trying to find and rescue his wife (not that Amelia or any of the females depicted in this story look like they need any male help to effect an escape).
Cloning - yes, clones do look all alike, but no, they're not exactly alike. As the saying goes, even identical twins have different fingerprints, and the reason for the differences in clones, especially in this case, is that it's not just nature, it's also nurture. More than that, your genome isn't just about genes, it's also about epigenetic material which can influence how genes are expressed, so even amongst true clones, there will be differences.
The other problem I had with this, and having read volumes two and three at this point I can tell you it's not addressed there either, is what was the point of this experiment? If it was to get super soldiers, how come none of the clones were in the armed forces or even cops for that matter?! It's not explained what the point of this experiment was, or why it was suddenly decided to terminate it with extreme prejudice as they say. Yes, they had the second generation "coming on-line" as it were, but it's never explained why the arrival of the second necessitated the destruction of the first. Since none of the clones knew about each other, and the program had been kept secret for three decades or so, it made no sense that they should suddenly be afraid that it would all come out in the news.
I liked this story and now intend to go on and read subsequent volumes. the artwork is bloody but realistic, and competently done. I saw one reviewer dismiss this because all the females were masculine looking. I guess he likes his women ultra feminine because I saw no problem here except that had Jennifer been drawn with the same red hair as Amelia she would have looked like her twin. The story itself, though a bit too bloody and violent for my taste for a story like this, was nonetheless well written, skillfully illustrated, and realistically colored. I liked it and I recommend it as a worthy read.
