7/7/14 - Black Science, Vol. 1: How To Fall Forever (Image)

As I was saying just the other day, son, I !@#$ing hate dimensional travel. 

I mean, it's hard enough dealing with !@#$ in our own world, let alone anyone else's. But when you go leaping from one plane of reality into another, even if you wind up on the same !@#$ing planet you're always running the risk of altered history, social errors that can get your !@#$ killed, or worse, and crazy !@#$ you'd never even think of. Like having my fine, gay !@#$ chased through Ancient Greece by god!@#$ nazi robots riding giant worms.

(And no, son, we are not talking about that. If that was any more classified I'd have to shoot God in the face.)

Plus, there's the god!@#$ landings. It's not always like that one !@#$ movie where Snake Plissken and Ultron are going through the giant Egyptian space donut, and can send a robot ahead to check it the !@#$ out. Nine times out of ten you're just through and gone, on a literal wing and a prayer, with no !@#$ing telemetry at all

So the moment you jump through the portal, and land on the other end? Well, it's like jumping from a !@#$ing moving train, son. Maybe you're lucky and you land in a conveniently located pile of hay, but it's more likely you're going to hit the dirt on top of a big !@#$ pile of rocks.

Then, once you've gotten the !@#$ up, and found out half your !@#$ party's turned into mush or been eaten by mouths in the ground, you look down the tracks and see your train going away.

And then you say "Well !@#$, how the !@#$ are we going to get back, now?"

"Wait, what do you mean we can't !@#$ing call a cab?"

So yes, son. I hate it, hate it, hate it. With the power of a thousand big !@#$ burning suns, and all that !@#$. But maybe that's why I like reading about it, if only because I can !@#$ing enjoy it by remote, and not have to worry about fending off a legion of giant, Athenian inchworms with nothing but a can of Greek fire, two empty pistols, and a god!@#$ rock.

Which brings me to the first volume of what has to be, hands-down, the best !@#$ing dimensional travel story I have read in quite some time: the first volume of Black Science -- How to Fall Forever. It's another excellent science fiction offering from Image comics, which, in case you haven't been !@#$ing paying attention, is getting far, far away from simply being an nest of infighting creators who didn't want to deal with Marvel's bull!@#$, anymore.

What's going on? Well, here's this scientist, and he's managed to do something extremely ill-considered and illegal. He's made dimensional travel actually !@#$ing work, somehow, and is intent on using that knowledge to go exploring, and bring back amazing new things to the world.

"Come on, man. There are starving kids in Africa!"

All well and good, but there's just one problem -- the first trip out wasn't supposed to have this many people on it. Something went really !@#$ing wrong, in the lab, and now there's people stuck on another world that clearly have no business being there. Most notably his !@#$hole boss, as well as his own kids who really shoudn't have come along.

Yet another problem? The controls on their device have been smashed all to !@#$. So not only are they lost, but they have no control over where they are !@#$ing going, and the time they spend on each world is totally random.

But there's an even bigger problem than that. Those controls didn't get !@#$ing smashed by accident. One of the people on this trip is a !@#$ traitor, willing to kill them all to stop this experiment.

And how can you fight for your lives in a strange and hostile alien environment when one of the group is trying to knife the rest you in the back...?

How indeed, sweet William. How indeed.

I'm not !@#$ing saying anything more about the plot, itself, because to do so would ruin a lot of the great surprises and shocks this has in store. It's enough to say that it reminds me of Sliders crossed with the original Lost in Space, with a little bit of early Doctor Who mixed in for good measure. That and a !@#$ton of fighting, heavy language, and a story that's slowly unwound from well-timed flashbacks makes this a well-paced treat.

But I will say why this series really amazed me.

1) Sheer imagination. Being able to go to different !@#$ing dimensions gives a lot of chances to show off your writing and art chops, and Remender, Scalera, and White do not disappoint. There's more ideas in a single world they encounter than there are in most big box-office films, and the artists bring them to life with a great deal of verve.

2) Great Pulp. This is some brilliant, two-fisted stuff, here. It reminds me of 70's-era Heavy Metal magazine, back before it drank a big bottle of SUCK that it still hasn't quite voided from its system. And yet, unlike that magazine's output, which always amazed yet disheartened, this series has hope and humanity in equal measure -- essential ingredients if you want to care about the people, and their fates.

3) Who's dying next. Having read a lot of science fiction, and watched it on the screen, one slowly develops a sense of fatalism about certain kinds of characters. You know who's going to live, who's going to die; who's going to sacrifice themselves bravely, and who's just going to get offed for a shock. I'm happy to report that Black Science bucks this trend with all the force of an iron bull set up to 11. You really do not see most of the important character death coming, and the results are quite spectacular, in terms of what it brings to bear on the plot.

In short, Image Comics has itself another winner, here. If you've been digging Remender's high-WTF work on Uncanny Avengers, and were floored by his Dimension Z saga in Captain America, Black Science will show you what he can do when he doesn't have Marvel telling him to play nice. And if you've liked Scalera's other work, the glory he and Dean White get up to will have you drooling in anticipation for the next issue.

And maybe a few other things, besides...

SPYGOD'S VERDICT: Three thumbs up for a great concept that's amazingly well-executed, and has left me wanting a !@#$ of a lot more. This is one you should make a monthly buy.

Black Science vol 1 - How To Fall Forever - get it at your local comic store!