This was supposed to be a video review, but with my video recording software not playing friendly with my godawful camera, I’m turning it into a written 1-2 combo for a fun sub-genre: Space Superheroes.
As it so happens, I read Wistful Ascending by JCM Berne (Book One of The Hybrid Helix series) in the summer and right after I read Zalen: What Kills Must Die by Chuck Dixon, the cosmic superhero created by indie comic book publisher Eric July as part of his Rippaverse. Both had a very similar idea but wildly different takes on it.
Wistful Ascending is about a roughneck, blue collar, half-human tow captain named Rohan, who is a retired soldier for the il’Drach empire. Formerly known as The Griffin, he was a one-man weapon of mass destruction until he attained his freedom. Now he lives on a massive space station called Wistful, which is alive, and flies into space to tow ships into port on the Wistful. Spaceships and space stations in this universe are sentient and have personalities, so you can count them in the character list. Griffin himself is on the cover of every book of the series and looks much like an Indian-Candian. He is formidable, but not indestructible, a distinction Berne is clear to make that he can absorb a lot of punishment but isn’t invincible–especially when other superpower Hybrids enter the scene.
Zalen Darq, similarly, is a highly powerful flying-through-space superhero but the similarities start ending there. Zalen is the last survivor of an unknown alien race now thought extinct. He looks alien in the face and yet is humanoid enough to not be too strange looking. He and a small crew of side characters (mostly so he has someone to have dialogue with) traverse the cosmos and putting an end to threats, helping those in need by virtue of a simple credo:
“What kills, dies.”
The differences between both are as intriguing as they are different. Wistful Ascending is what I liked to call “Pragmatic Sci-Fi”, which is science-fiction that feels much like modern culture if it were dropped into a much more technological advanced universe. In this universe, it feels a lot like our own–just with more alien species. Rohan works a 9-5, flying out into space to two ships, then clocks out and knocks back a few beers, eat some good food with friends, even try to sweet-talk a local single mom into a date. He feels very grounded for a guy who can fly through space as fast as a ship.
Conversely, Zalen comes in feeling like a story that Jack Kirby forgot to put on paper. This is evident in the art by Joe Bennett. Chuck Dixon and Joe Bennett have been the best writer-artist team working at the Rippaverse. They collaborated on the superhero cop procedural Alphacore, and the very well-received vigilante crimefighter The Horseman. Here they work together to make Zalen feel like a star-hopping adventure similar to old school Silver Surfer comics. Joe Bennett captures a lot of the bulky starship, blocky machinery, and epic scale of deep space that Jack Kirby’s work in space adventure comics often had. Big splash pages, colorful splashes of energy, explosions, and plenty of creative alien designs.
Plotwise, Wistful Ascending has more narrative room to work with. Rohan’s domesticated life is turned upside down by A, B, and C plots coming at him left and right. JCM Berne has a gift for keeping things light-hearted, though not so light-hearted that it crosses into MCU Impossible-to-take-seriously territory. Much of the plot centers around the arrival of a refugee ship from a far-flung corner of space bearing (pun intended) the Ursans, a race of russian-accented space bears seeking asylum. Soon after, imperial scientists with an agenda, Kaiju, corporate assassins, stealth spaceships, and Rohan’s own past start coalescing all at once and often his ability to smash through planets isn’t as helpful at more delicate tasks.
Rohan himself is likable, his actions understandable. He’s quick-thinking, slow to anger, but unstoppable when he is. All he wants is to leave his past buried and catch a date, both made exceedingly more impossible the farther the story goes on. He is backed up by a cast of similarly competent side-characters for a lot of quippy banter.
I mean that. My first impression of the book when I finished reading was that there was a lot of chit-chat. Chit-chat, chit-chat, chit-chat. Rohan and his cohorts are a chatty bunch, their banter being the kind of snappy, quippy back-and-forth conversations you often find between co-workers who share a snarky sense of humor. It makes for fun reading, at first, though I will say by the end of the book I was much more invested in the drama and action than anything and having to pause all that so Rohan could trade barbs with someone for a few pages started wearing out its welcome. Not enough to ruin the reading, but it certainly was noticeable.
Berne brings a fun touch to his world of Hybrid Helix. Space bears, sentient spaceships, lots of adventure and danger without ever tipping over into galaxy-spanning threats. The big dangers are more to Rohan or some of his extended cast. You get a sense of close comrades between them all, making the cast of Wistful Ascending a bit more dynamic and interesting than Zalen’s. But again, there was more book to flesh them out than the Zalen comic could offer.
Zalen, meanwhile, tells a very simple sort of star-hopping story laced with some flashbacks so you become grounded in who he is, where he came from, and what he’s doing. Whereas Wistful Ascending had a lot of plot happening, Zalen becomes a feast for the eyes. Joe Bennett’s work is outstanding as always, helped by Fabio Jansen on inks. Color becomes a true spectacle thanks to coloring work done by Marcos Martins, making every location and alien beast feel different and strange. Several huge splash pages showcase this work masterfully.
Zalen stops galactic raiders, fights giant alien ship-killers, and tears through planetary mechanoid invaders. In-between we’re treated to him navigating the stars with his small crew. Most endearing of which was the owners of his ship called the Jammas, who all look like green naked minions and of course, like Gru, Zalen can tell them apart and knows all their names by heart. There’s Tala, his ‘Voice in the Ear’ and their ship mechanic, a gruff bearded aline named Bong. There are shades of Dune in that their ship is piloted by a gargantuan telepathic space whale named S’olos. They answer distress calls, get pulled out of warp speed by aliens, and return to Zalen’s homeworld to try and uncover the mystery of why he was born or created, for what purpose.
As comics go, its a fantastic first introduction that lays the groundwork for the character and his setting. Zalen upholds a heroic candor, but not entirely altruistic as he is not above killing those who would kill others. Rohan shares a similar mindset, though he gets a paycheck for what he does. Zalen is much more introspective as a character, sometimes solitary, which is understandable when more about his past is revealed.
Rohan also mirrors this solitary figure aspect as he is separated from the empire that he once championed. He’s not above using his past to threaten others in order to make them back down, but it makes living a normal life often feel impossible. I mention the single mother he’s trying to date because one of the sub-plots for the book is him trying to move into the early stages of a romance with her, something his past and hers often makes difficult if not impossible. You end up feeling for him and wanting to see him punch all his problems away–which he sometimes does. At his heart, Rohan is much more like us than Zalen is.
Rohan seeks to belong in his current place, whereas Zalen struggles to live with the fact that he has no place anymore. Both bear their past with stoicism as many strong men do. Because all they can do is move forward and endure. These are good male characters: one who is more grounded and the other who is more aspirational.
Wistful Ascending brings forth a lot plots at once, wrapping up the majority of them by the book’s end, but leaving just enough plot threads open to sequel stories. Threads that Berne pulled on because the series is now seven books long with an eighth and ninth in the works. So fans of the world and characters will have a lot of sink their teeth into. Likewise, Zalen ends on a note of future space-faring adventures to follow, but as of this time a second graphic novel has not been announced.
Wistful Ascending and the rest of the Hybrid Helix books can be found on Amazon.
Zalen is available for purchase from the Rippzaverse.com website
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