Resistance (The Comic) # 1

It's interesting to imagine just what a typical buyer of Resistance # 1 might be looking for in the comic. Almost certainly some significant portion of the audience will be made up of fans of the Resistance 2 video game (like me), but others will presumably have picked it up because they recognized the Wildstorm logo or are fans of war comics. And possibly there might even be some sales that go to fans of the creative team (Mike Costa and Ramon Perez). Looked at from another angle, this could very easily be one of the first comics ever purchased by some, if they're comic virgins but love the video game and thought that it would be cool to get some backstory in this way. In other words, people will likely be coming at Resistance # 1 from a lot of different directions.

From my perspective, it's a nearly-workable start to the mini-series. The main story introduces us to a small cast of army personnel, some of whom are familiar to me (though barely) from the game franchise. I was jarred by the transition between the opening sequence, involving a squadron of U.S. fighter planes (circa 1951) being surprised and thoroughly outgunned by a Chimera armada, and the scenes that followed in which the first fledgling members of the Sentinel group were shown going about their workaday lives, back at some Army base somewhere. Did the air battle take place later and the following scenes constitute a flashback, or were they set in different locales but around the same time? We learn that the Chimera have moved from Europe onto American soil (Alaska) by way of the Bering Strait, and so possibly that was what was shown at the start. There just simply aren't enough visual or verbal references given to make it clear just what's being portrayed.

What is apparent, though, is that the Sentinel squad is being prepped for an extraction job in Alaska. Robert Oppenheimer is among the missing up there, and that small detail leads to the final page's shocking revelation, which I won't spoil here. I'm disappointed in just how little background is provided in this first issue, though, since I would imagine that the average reader who'd never played Resistance: Fall of Man or Resistance 2 could quite easily be lost by this point. The squad members are told, "you've all been brought to this base because of your shared... experiences" but nothing further is provided. Have they all encountered the Chimera and lived to tell it (despite the fact that the alien invaders are just now expanding into America)? Or have they all had exposure of some sort to alien technology, and that's the common bond? We're simply not told, and I suppose that's considered a hook that will bring the reader back for more. Or at least someone hopes that it is!

The second story, which makes up the final six pages of the comic, takes place in a community outside London and puts the focus on a single family whose lives have been turned upside down by the arrival of the Chimera in England in the late 1940s. As with the main feature, this one's written fairly obliquely (again, by Mike Costa), leaving much to the imagination of the reader. We're shown that the aliens have established bases in continental Europe - a lovely shot by artist CP Smith is included revealing a Chimeran structure dwarfing the Eiffel Tower - but the exact state of London isn't clear. "The military's going to lock down the city any day now," the narrator's brother Johnny tells him, and yet he continues to head in there in order to... hang out with his riffraff friends? What's up with that?

Overall, I'd say that this kickoff issue is written and constructed like there's an unwritten compact between its creators and its fans that everyone is along for the six-issue ride. Under that conceit, we readers agree to sit back and wait for answers, as well as scanning (and re-scanning) pages, looking for the most subtle of clues. It's not a terrible approach to take for folks like me (I probably fit the demographic which they're targeting, after all) but I worry that others will pay their $3.99 U.S. for this first issue, reward it with a solid "meh" reaction and resolve not to bother with the rest of the series before moving on to more accessible fare. Personally, I would have given the general audience a little more to hang their hats on in that initial issue, but then again... I'm not a professional comic writer!