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Oblivion Song #1
Publisher: Image Comics
Story: Robert Kirkman
Pencils: Lorenzo De Felici
Inks: Lorenzo De Felici
Colors: Annalisa Leoni
Letters: Rus Wooton
Cover: Lorenzo De Felici

Robert Kirkman is a name renowned among comic book aficionados and pop culture junkies as the creator of Image’s Invincible and The Walking Dead series. In Oblivion Song, Kirkman once again tackles a story of tortured survivors: one of loss, fidelity, and incendiary moral obscurity. What is owed to the lost? Whether forsaken by the indiscriminate tides of fate or stolen by the malevolent whims of some unseen omniscience, are they ever really gone so long as we hold them in our hearts? Do those left behind remain static, shackled by memory and guilt, or do they drudge forward, a frangible web of sullen specters apportioning burdens of futility and regret? What solace can be found in certainty?

In premise Oblivion Song is unapologetically familiar, but somehow Kirkman still packs in a wealth of eerily veiled intrigue. Some 10 years past a cataclysmic event, the Transference, thrust a host of inter-dimensional monstrosities on the city of Philadelphia. Simultaneously, hundreds of thousands of the city’s occupants disappeared without a trace, swept into what appears to be an alternate dimension dubbed Oblivion. Initially believed lost, the victims of a rapturous culling, a number of those transported were eventually recovered by protagonist Nathan Cole and his federally backed research team. Now, with his crew bootstrapping through stymied attempts to substantiate the relevance of their work, Cole’s current slate of expeditions are painted as desperate ploys by dismissive Washington bureaucrats. He is a man on borrowed time, increasingly isolated and driven by torturous compunction.

Kirkman’s meticulous world building really stands out here, with layered characters embroiled in nuanced, grounded relationships. Lorenzo De Felici’s disquieting alien landscape retains just enough familiarity to punctuate its strangeness. His characters are richly conceived, lending earnest tangibility to Kirkman’s constructs. The duo have masterfully crafted a universe that engages the curiosity, drawing your fingers to the corner of each page in anticipation. It’s been a while since I’ve been so disappointed to reach the final panel, struck by the realization that I don’t get to learn any more about these people and their world. I have to wait. That’s a wonderfully unsettling attachment coming out of a launch issue, indicative of a creative team operating at peak synergy. Just as with Nathan Cole, himself drawn by Oblivion’s haunting otherworldly rhythm, I find myself longing for Oblivion Song’s melodic synthesis of high energy action and intimate turmoil. Consider me a fan.

Check out our visit to the private press junket for Oblivion Song

Christian Davenport