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LAB RATS #1
"Game Space"
Recommended (7/10)
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DC Comics
Writer/Artist: John Byrne
Colors: Noelle Giddings & Digital Chameleon
Editor: Mike Carlin
Price: $2.50 US/$4.25 CAN |
My expectations for this book were pretty low, given that I haven't enjoyed a lot of John Byrne's recent work. However, while I do see some of the retro tendencies of his latest work in Lab Rats, what this book most resembles is arguably his strongest work, the more science-fiction oriented Next Men, rather than X-Men: The Hidden Years or Generations 2. The basic concepts remind me of "computers are dangerous" fiction from the 80s and 90s like Tron or the short-lived V.R. 5, but since this is comics rather than movies or film, Byrne has the
advantage of visual effects limited only by his imagination, and the result is a
more impressive version of dangerous virtual reality.
Much of the publicity for
this title has surrounded the death of a character in the first issue, and that
concerned me, as I was afraid Byrne was going to focus more on spectacle than
story. However, the death of one of the characters shows up very early, and it
is used strictly to set the stakes for the characters. The result is a bit of
heightened tension, as Byrne serves notice early on that death is a part of the
daily routine for these teens. Although the death might have meant a bit more
had he fleshed out the character before finishing her off, it didn't feel overly
gratuitous, and the implied threat that no character is safe gives the title a
sense of danger that it is going to need.
The story here surrounds a group of teens, apparently made of up trouble-makers and maybe even criminals, who are serving as lab rats for a virtual reality training system. It had been sold to some of the project workers as a game, but it turns out it's a project with military applications. This all has a sort of welcome similarity to Next Men, which also featured teens from a military
project and a virtual reality training system, and that non-spandex approach was
a nice touch to immediately set Lab Rats apart.
Surprisingly, some of my
problems this issue come not from the writing, as I had expected, but from the
artwork. Byrne is almost always stronger when someone else is inking his
pencils, and I found his work here a little sketchy and rough at times. In
addition, some of his panel layouts, though creative, weren't instinctively easy
to follow, and I found myself going back over the same pages more than once to
read the flow correctly. However, that isn't to say the artwork isn't enjoyable.
Quite the contrary, the imaginative designs inside the virtual reality are lush
and vivid, and the size and scale of The Campus is clear as well. There's a
reason why Byrne's artwork is so well-respected, and though this may not be his
best work, it's still very strong stuff, comparable to the high standards in the
industry today.
The lead characters haven't really grabbed me as much as the basic concept has so far. In fact, most of them seem to be designed around a one-dimensional description, such as the rebel, the guy who says "dude," the quiet introspective one and the action junkie. However, I'm willing to give Byrne a little time to develop the characters beyond their somewhat boring skeleton personalities. At this point, it would be very easy for the book to slip into conspiracy and teenager cliches, but so far, Lab Rats is surprisingly promising.
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