Roche Limit: Clandestiny #1 and 3, by Michael Moreci (story), Kyle Charles (art), Matt Battaglia (colors), Ryan Ferrier (letters) - I'm not sure there's eve been in anyone in fiction who stood in that pose that was at all trustworthy.What do you need to know? The expedition is sort of a loosely composed group of mercs, scientists, and soldiers. The only friendships are the limited ones they've built since they signed on. Their ship was shot down on approach to the colony, and it was an attempt to find who did it that lead Elbus, Colt, and Lee into the ruins of the city in issue 2 (Lee being the dude who subsequently got eaten). They did find the launcher, but it was automated, and there was a note claiming it was put there by the remnants of the 12th expedition, and implored whoever read the note to destroy their cargo. But as far as this group knew, they were only the 3rd expedition, not the 13th, never a good sign. Stockton, the psychologist, who went into the weird forest that shows you things you desire in issue 2, is found dead, when Danny, Elbus, and Sasha try venturing through that forest, supposedly headed for a compound which might have parts to fix their ship. Elbus got drawn in by the forest, and Danny brought Sasha to some place else, a place where the founder of the colony, believed long dead even before all the crap that went down in the first mini-series, persists as some computerized record of his engrams put inside a robot body. He says he needs Sasha's help to save the human race, presumably from whatever was on the other side of the Anomaly.
Oh, and something impersonated Stockton, possibly killed one member of the crew, shot another, and drove off with the cargo. The cargo the note implored them to destroy. And there's something huge and dangerous in the woods.
I'm not sure Moreci's doing enough to distinguish these characters from each other. Scratch that, I know he isn't, because I have to repeat their names to myself to keep some of them straight. Of course, he's killed probably three of them already, and I don't know where Kim is. She was hellbent on going back into the woods after she saw a life where she didn't take a job with Moiratech, and had a family with her girlfriend instead, but after that conversation at the start of issue 3, we didn't see her again. Danny has the sort of standard, "android frustrated by human's and their faults" personality, but he's got reason, considering he was convicted for killing a baby when, to hear him tell it, the child's mother did it and pinned it on the artificial being. I do actually like the idea of Elbus praying to all the major deities of the people who have died under his command. He doesn't hold with any of the faiths, but it's a way of showing respect for them that was a little different, at least.
Roche Limit is supposed to be three 5-issue mini-series, meaning 15 issues total. So we're a little over halfway through at this point, and some of the pieces are starting to fit, though I haven't a clue where Moreci intends for it to go from here. Moiratech's founder is the only member of an expedition to study the Anomaly up close that didn't die or go crazy, and his company later bought Langford Skaarsgard's company and the colony, and the company's 3 heads at the time where those creepy fuckers in the previous mini-series who all got killed by the blind swordsman mob boss. I'm not sure what happened to all the other people altered by exposure to the dangerous substances in the soil. Did they starve to death? Did the things coming through the Anomaly kill them, absorb them? Were they the fertilizer for this creepy forest? The forest has to be some other manifestation of the same weird properties that helped create that Recall drug. I can't figure what Moiratech would be sending to the colony, though. Seems more likely they'd be wanting to bring something bac
I think it was a mistake to show, at the beginning of the first issue, a flash ahead to how things are going to stand for this expedition at the end of this mini-series. Sasha's shown as alive, and planning to confront the threat, while telling Elbus to get off-world fast. So we know those two are going to last at least that long. I don't think the scene added anything, and it takes a little away since those two are in no danger until we catch up to that point. Unless Elbus was replaced like Stockton.
I'd swear that as the series is progressing, light and dark are getting more extreme. There seem to be a lot more instances in issue 3 of people's faces either deeply in shadow, or in the sharp glare of a bright light behind them. I don't know what that means, if I'm right. People can't maintain a steady path, they drift towards the extremes, equilibrium gets lost? Elbus was backlit almost to the point you couldn't see him when he admitted he prays to ask forgiveness of those who died, so he's walking towards the light and looking back. Is it "the light"? Sasha and Kim had a conversation about the forest from a cliff looking out over it, the Anomaly behind the forest. Kim's looking into it, and Sasha away, but then Kim is determined to go back there, to get something she never had, while Sasha is trying to deny she wants to go to get something she lost. I imagine that one is less about the lighting, and more about their position relative to the forest (plus the placement of the Anomaly above the forest, since it's the source of everything).
I still can't say this has turned into anything great, but I'm also still curious about the mystery behind the Anomaly, and how all these disparate pieces are going to tie together, assuming they do. What was the deal with a person's soul separating from their body if they went through the Anomaly, and the soul appearing on the colony's surface as a glowy pink rock?
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