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Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Writer(s): Samuel L. Jackson & Eric Calderon
Artist: Jeremy Rock
Cover: Dave Johnson

Minor Spoilers!

“Cold Space”: So after teaming with Eric Calderon to bring Takashi Okazaki’s Afro Samurai to American audiences, Samuel L. Jackson teams with him again to bring us their original story Cold Space from BOOM! Studios.

Mulberry is an arms dealer on the run from the authorities when we’re introduced to him, and they’ve already damaged his ship and are about to board.  However the space cops are duped, end up getting ambushed, and then wind up in an escape pod, but not before one of them has planted an explosive on board Mulberry’s ship.  Fortunately for him he’s able to jettison the bomb, but as it explodes outside it causes further damage to his ship, forcing him to crash on a foreign planet.  A while after the crash landing, his ship and unconscious body are found by scavengers.  Along with some items from the debris, Mulberry’s body is taken into town, which is a mix of the old west and advanced technology.  It’s here where we are also introduced to GK and Mario, who lead two separate gangs along with running what seems to be the primary businesses in the town.  They also seem to have an uneasy arrangement…

Cold Space is a sci-fi four-part mini-series, and while the first issue doesn’t give us too much background information on Mulberry (who resembles Jackson), we’ve seen his type of character before, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing when it’s done well.  Jackson and Calderon seem to have put together a pretty fun read, and I’m also impressed that the book wasn’t just a Samuel L. Jackson showcase, because his character is pretty much absent during the second act in the book, only showing up again on the last page.

On the visual side of things, Jeremy Rock does a good job throughout the entire book, and he doesn’t put too much emphasis on making Mulberry resemble Jackson.  He has a nice clean style, though at times it’s too clean; what I mean by that is the actual town and its inhabitants in the middle of a desert.  During a conversation between the two men who seem to be running things, you get the feeling that things haven’t been going well for the town financially for quite a while, and yet things still look polished and shiny.  Aside from that, I just hope to see what he can do with a little more action in the story in the future issues.

Admittedly, I kind of held off picking this up, but I felt that I’d rather give it a try and make an informed opinion, than assume that just because a celebrity had a hand in creating it that the book would just be a waste.  In the end…it wasn’t a bad decision at all.

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