ANTARCTICA #2, from Image Comics on 8/16/23, finds Hannah Curtis and her colleagues on the run from deadly doppelgangers from an alternate dimension.
The Details
- Written by: Simon Birks
- Art by: Willi Roberts
- Colors by: Willi Roberts
- Letters by: Lyndon White
- Cover art by: Willi Roberts (cover A)
- Comic Rating: Teen+
- Cover price: $3.99
- Release date: August 16, 2023
Is It Good?
ANTARCTICA #2 cranks up the energy, action, and stakes in Simon Birks’s latest chapter of his sci-fi thriller about a woman searching for answers about her father’s disappearance in Antarctica. Birks elevates the pacing, urgency, and paranoia considerably over issue #1 to keep readers on their toes, but the too-quick explanation may be too hard to swallow for some readers.
When last we left Hannah Curtis, her rapid rise to a high-clearance engineering mechanic got her to the same Antarctic station where her father worked and disappeared. During an outside walkthrough to investigate an anomaly, Hannah encountered an exact copy of herself. Now, Hannah concludes the second station’s appearance plus her copy’s odd arrival means the incursion of an alternate dimension, leading to violence, lethal chases, and a startling revelation.
What’s great about this comic? Birks creates a high-octane action comic filled with gun fights, gritty fights, frantic chases, and high-strung dramatic tension wrapped around an intriguing sci-fi mystery. When the puzzle pieces begin to fall into place surrounding the nature of the doppelgangers, the dramatic tension increases with a growing sense of paranoia as every crewmember comes under suspicion as being an enemy doppelganger who may have replaced the original and kept it quiet for the purpose of spying. Further, Matteo’s paranoia frays his nerves, causing him to act in reckless ways, escalating the threat level of the situation even further.
In other words, Birks stacks tension upon tension upon tension with a driving pace.
What’s not so great about this comic? Urgent pacing is good as long as you don’t skip steps in the plot. Here, with almost no information, Hannah jumps right to the “alternate universe” conclusion. Although her conclusion appears to be correct, Hannah’s leap from nothing to having all the answers comes off as too convenient and an unearned discovery. There should have been some scientific plot device or semi-reliable person in the know to help Hannah make that leap.
How’s the art? Super solid. ANTARCTICA #2 may be a sci-fi action story, but it relies heavily on realistic character designs to attain a cinematic feel. Willi Roberts’s figure work hits the mark perfectly with grounded, realistic character anatomy and action choreography for a gritty visual experience.
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What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
Check out our ANTARCTICA #1 review to find out how Hannah Curtis quickly rose in the ranks to get stationed where her father used to work.
We begin with Hannah confronting her mirror image near the second station that shouldn’t be where it is. Hannah 2 insists Hannah come with her so they can talk, but Hannah refuses and dashes back to her station. Back at the station, Hannah suddenly jumps through several leaps in logic to inform Matteo that a version of herself from an alternate dimension is nearby.
Hannah convinces Matteo to head to the storage room to find weapons in case of an attack. There, they find Phillip hiding with a gun while he watches over a tied-up Dr. Hirsch. Through Phillip’s erratic ramblings, he seems to suggest he knows what’s happening. When Matteo moves to untie Dr. Hirsch, Phillip aims his gun at Matteo, and Hannah hits Phillip in the back of the head with a chair to knock him out.
We conclude the issue with armed invaders, an escaping snowcat, and the stunning realization.
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Final Thoughts
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ANTARCTICA #2 cranks up the urgency, action, energy, and danger when Hannah escapes her doppelganger’s armed assault teams. Birks crafts a gritty, fast-paced thriller, and Roberts’s grounded, realistic art has a cinematic feel, but the downside is the too-quick leaps in logic to explain what’s happening without information.
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