Geoffrey vs. Black Science: How To Fall Forever

Last and certainly not least on my docket of Image Comics collections I ordered and read is Black Science,  written by Rick Remender with art by Matteo Scalera and colours by Dean White.

Black Science is the tale of an anarchist scientist named Grant McKay who creates a device to travel through alternate dimensions for a questionably ethical corporation. During testing of the device, it is sabotaged and McKay, along with his two children, his two lab assistants, his chief of security, and two corporate reps are tossed into an alternate Earth's dimension with no way home and a timer before the machine randomly jumps again.

Kiiiinda like the 90s TV series Sliders.

But Remender has taken a similar premise as Sliders, slammed it into Lost in Space, poured liberal amounts of Venture Brothers all over the resulting mass and cooked it in a 2000AD oven to perfection. Yeah, PERFECTION. This comic was AWESOME.

The first dimension is a bizarre world of fish people riding land eels fighting frogmen with electric tongues all on the backs of giant turtles. The they go to a world where Steampunk Germany is being overrun by an expansionist, supertech Navajo Empire in World War 1. Then a mixed alien semi-Utopia. Then a world where white-haired ape-men possessed by sentient gas clouds are the dominant thing. Mad ideas. Just crazy mad. I loved every page of it.

People die. Horrible people become sympathetic. A Navajo shaman gets hijacked to come along. Awesome stuff. Just a joy to read from start to finish.

Also a joy to look at! Scalera's art reminds me a lot of Brit comic artist Ian Gibson. It feels very different from most American art and brings me back to my childhood roots as a fan of 2000AD. It's lush, dangerous and incredibly imaginative. Part of why this reminds me of Venture Brothers is McKay's design. He looks like he could be The Monarch's or Rusty Venture's brother, with his sharp nose. Ward also looks like Brock Samson's uncle.

Dean White also really comes through with the colours. The opening scene with the fishmen is a rainbow kaleidoscope that just charges up with eyes. Wonderful stuff.

The other part of this that reminds me of Venture Brothers is just the set up. A desperately flawed mad scientist with two kids and a bodyguard. Rusty Venture or Grant McKay? Both! McKay is more rounded and socially active and more dangerous, but I could easily see the world of Black Science living side by side with that of the Venture Brothers. A world informed by crazy sci-fi and pulp tropes, the kind that are the background of a lot of superhero stuff, without the superhero stuff.

I can't wait for the next trade. Being familiar with Remender's long-game thinking due to following his Marvel Comics work, I am very excited to see how far this series goes. I will be aboard for every moment of it.

(PS I wonder if one day Remender will be considered the comic-world George R. R. Martin. No character is safe, man, and it is nice not knowing what to expect beyond the unexpected.)

(PPS HBO, make this show.)