Dark Matter #4 (of 4)
Publisher: Dark Horse
Writers: Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie
Artist: Garry Brown
Colorist: Ryan Hill
At the end of the last issue, the gang on the surface believed that they were abandoned by the ship, and had a choice to make. Either help the miners defend their planet, or do as they were initially directed and kill them. One by one, the team decides to help the miners; well, except for one of them. He takes the ship and heads out into space, but is greeted by a giant cruiser owned by the Ferrous Company. They’ve come to take what’s theirs, and are about to unleash some serious firepower on the planet. Who will live, who will die? Who is the one that wiped everyone’s memories, and why? All this will be answered, and in the same fashion as any cool sci-fi thriller!
I’m not quite sure that issue #4 lived up to expectations. On one hand, it had a couple cool action scenes, and even threw in a little romance. On the other hand, though, it was slow and then ended abruptly. Now, the last couple of pages did leave the door open for more Dark Matter in the future, but who knows if that will materialize. If it doesn’t, this last issue definitely fell a little flat. Not that the material was bad, it was just like trying to squeeze more than one issue’s worth of stuff into a single issue, and a finale at that. It would have been helpful to have more back story on the characters, as well. We barely got to know them before they were thrust into a situation and the bullets were flying.
The pencils of Garry Brown and the colors of Ryan Hill were solid throughout the series. It was a very interesting style choice with the artwork, but certainly one that helped the book pull off its 70s-80s sci-fi look. The book was definitely inspired by movies like Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The colors were mostly muted, but also vibrant when the action scenes got wild! The series was decent overall, but if they are even pondering more issues in the future, then why have a final issue that was seemingly rushed. Just to reiterate, the writing was good, and the artwork was solid. It just seemed as though they ran out of time with this one. Rating 3/5
Billy Dunleavy
billy@comicattack.net
