Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Collen Doran
Let's start with a little history. As a kid in elementary school, I was obsessed with space travel. I read books, drew the Apollo rocket in my notebooks, thought about life on the Skylab, and watched Apollo 13 a few hundred times just to see Mission Control and all those switches on the control panels of the command module. Turns out, Warren Ellis was like me. The result of his love for space travel: Orbiter.
Ellis penned the book following the explosion of the Columbia space shuttle in 2003, and the forward of the book details the history of his love for space travel and his urges to not let the space program die. A passionate start to a beautiful love note, to say the least, the book starts off coldly, displaying the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as nothing more than a refugee camp of sorts, tents and tarps amongst the scraps of metal in tints of sepia tone. It sets the scene quickly, showing a future without NASA exploration, all because of the disappearance of the space shuttle Venture ten years before. However, the story shifts quickly as a shuttle crashes in the shanty town, killing many of it's settlers. This set us up for an interesting mystery about the whereabouts of the Venture, and what exactly is wrong with the shuttle captain, John Cost.
Aside from the seemingly deranged captain are Terry Marx, an engineer, Anna Bracken, a psychiatrist, and Michelle Robeson, an astronaut who never made it to space. Each of these characters are called in by the military and NASA to investigate what happened to the Venture. What they quickly discover is that the ship is not the same as when it left earths atmosphere ten years previous. In it's absence, it arrived at Mars, which Terry believes is impossible due to the construction of the shuttle itself. Anna interrogates the absentminded Captain Cost, who is locked in a room deep beneath Kennedy Space Center in what was originally designed as a quarantine suite for returning astronauts. Between the two of them, and the odd discovery of Martian dirt in the 'skin' of the shuttle, the mystery of the Ventures flight is unfolded slowly and elegantly over the course of about a hundred pages of pure comic bliss.
Aside from a slightly slow setup, Ellis and his common knack for careful and precise dialogue brings the story to a slow boil early on, allowing the discoveries of his cast to accelerate the story at the exact right times. Usually Terry Marx is the one who breathes this energy into the tale, and he seems to be the character who most represents Warren's own excitement about space travel in general. Dr. Bracken is his interest in hearing tales from space itself, about the launch, the presence outside the atmosphere of our tiny little planet. I was able to get into the discoveries about how the shuttle made its fantastic flight as well as John Costs' adventurous tales during his therapy. There is an immense warmth to the narrative, even during Dr. Marx's hard sci-fi approved analysis of the alien technology implemented in the Venture. There is a great deal of care placed on making these moments understandable for the layman as well, as phrases like bias drive aren't exactly common in everyday speech. From a writing standpoint, Orbiter goes alongside Freakangels as being my favorite work from Warren Ellis. It's filled with strong characters and believable performances from the childlike geniuses who populate the cast.
On the other end is the artwork of Collen Doran. The first thing I ever saw of the book was her cover for it, on the Vertigo website. Honestly, the cover sold me before I even read the synopsis. However, the work within that beautiful cover was a mixed bag at times, with phenomenal splash pages and detailed panels on what was generally a wonderful layout with sparse moments of just flat out 'okay' pages. The opening pages do little to prove Doran's talents, but as soon as you see the first splash, you become aware that you are in for a treat. Character designs were not brilliant by any means, but they are suitable for the character types. John Cost is an astronaut, and he has the buzzed haircut, stiff jaw, and fit body that is expected of his character. Terry Marx is a physicist, and looks just as an immature space and science nut would in our minds: unkempt, t-shirt with silly slogan, and messy hair early twenty something. Or at least, that's how he looks to me. He's supposed to be in his thirties, but he just appears to be in his twenties. It probably has to do with his attitude and reactions. Not that this detracts from the series by any means. Despite generalizing the characters that Ellis wrote, the writing ultimately sells them, making them come to life for the reader in a sweet, poignant way.
If you can find a copy of this book in your local shop, I'd highly recommend it. The copy reviewed here was the hardback version, which I can honestly say is worth the extra few dollars. It's wrapped in a dust jacket, and has a blue foil stamp in the front cover done in the style of the patches on astronaut's space suits, a very nice touch.
It's a book about glory. About going back to space, because it's waiting for us, and it's where we're meant to be.
--Warren Ellis
4.5/5
I've never read Orbiter, despite being thoroughly in love with the majority of Ellis's other space stuff. I'll have to get a copy of it someday.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about the art though. Ellis has worked with some absolutely fantastic artists over the years, and I get the feeling that he's given quite a few his first big break, but every once in a while you get a few panels or even a whole page that just looks really shoddy. Or, in more extreme cases like Ignition City, an entire miniseries.
Well written review. You seem to be covering just about everything in these, at least from the standpoint of helping someone make an informed decision about a purchase.