LAB RATS #2
"Alex in Wonder Land"
Mildly Recommended (5/10)
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DC Comics
Writer/Artist/Letters: John Byrne
Colors: Noelle Giddings & Digital Chameleon
Editor: Mike Carlin
Price: $2.50 US/$4.25 CAN |
Byrne has a solid adventure series rolling here, more of a sci-fi property than super-heroes, really. Setting it in the DC Universe doesn't even seem necessary, to be honest. The problem is that there's something at the core of the concept and the title characters that's gone unexplained, and it needs to be explored in order for the ideas at play here to fully click.
Dr. Quinlan allows his "lab rats" a day off from their training, giving them free passes to opening day at a new amusement park: Wonder Land. It promises an entertainment experience like no other, and it delivers, with real fairy-tale characters enacting their stories. All is not as it seems, though, and the teens' innate curiosity and training comes into play... perhaps as Quinlan intended all along.
Byrne manages to convey the vastness of Wonder Land and its associated "staff" areas with seeming ease, but more importantly, he nails the youth of the title characters. They don't seem like children or like adults; the transition of adolescence is easy to see. Byrne has always had a flair for sci-fi technology in his past work, and that holds true here as well.
Even in as part of the mainstream comics scene, in which suspension of disbelief is a key element to storytelling success, Lab Rats seems to bite off more than it can chew, though. This whole notion of Wonder Land is pretty out there, even for the DC Universe. I remained in the story, though, but my ability to suspend my disbelief was pushed to the limit. Byrne went a bit over the top with this inaugural adventure.
Still, this is an adventure book, so it's not a major transgression. What's really keeping this book from gelling, though, is that Byrne really doesn't explain why these kids -- who are well aware that they're being used, abused and even killed -- go along with the program. The Lab Rats seem to seek comfort from the very authority figures who put them in harm's way. Mind you, I'm sure Byrne will explore that notion, and I look forward to a possibly nuanced and interesting explanation, one that could yield plenty of characterization potential.
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