In BOUNTIFUL GARDEN #1, available from Mad Cave Studios on September 8th, 2021, a group of adolescent terraformers are prematurely woken from hypersleep when their ship is crippled over an unexplored planet.
The Details
- Written By: Ivy Noelle Weir
- Art By: Kelly Williams
- Colors By: Giorgio Spalletta
- Letters By: Justin Birch
- Cover Art By: Kelly Williams
- Cover Price: $3.99
- Release Date: September 8, 2021
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Was It Good?
This was an odd one.
This first issue is almost, beat-for-beat, the opening sequence to the film Alien (1979). You have an eclectic crew of workers, each with special training, awoken from hibernation before their due because of a mysterious event on their journey. When they research to find out what’s going on, the source of the mystery stems from a nearby planet. The planet doesn’t seem hospitable to life, but they do find a structure.
If you’re going to replicate the story beats of another property, you could do worse than picking a seminal classic in the realm of sci-fi/horror. And to be fair, it’s very common to build on previous works when the model has proven to work so well. The value comes in when you can take that model and spin it in a fresh way. In other words, “same” is okay as long as the story mixes in enough “different” to make it stand apart.
If we look at what’s different from Alien (1979), that’s where the story gets a little odd.
First, the crewmembers are children. The ages are never stated and you only get to know the crew’s names and job functions through some fairly clunky exposition dialog. It would have helped to have the ship’s computer do some kind of prologue crew review as it wakes each child up so you get a very quick sense of who they are. In a roundabout way, it makes sense to use children for a terraforming mission on a distant planet because it’s implied you still age normally while in hibernation. The thinking would be that the children would just reach a full adult body by the time they arrive at their intended destination. It’s a little odd that slowing down normal body functions wouldn’t slow down their aging, but I can go with it.
Next, the crew react very hastily to the “damage” taken by the ship before assessing what’s going on, how it happened, and what’s needed to fix it. You’d think that a crew trained in extended space travel would be trained to handle mishaps, even as children. Here, the crew is partially panicked and you almost get the sense that half of this crew is absolutely the wrong fit for a terraforming mission on a remote planet without some kind of adult leadership. Perhaps a level-headed AI running the ship would have made the scenario more believable.
The last major oddity is the physicality of the whole setup. The ship is damaged, but nobody seems curious about what damaged the ship, how the damage occurred without destroying the ship, or how the damage managed to drag the ship into orbit over a planet that doesn’t exist on their charts. We can go with the curiosity factor and accept that all will be revealed in future issues, but it’s an odd pill to swallow right out of the gate when you consider how the crew reacts to the unknown.
In all, it’s a mixed bag of interesting, time-tested story points and odd points that almost make sense in a less-ideal world.
The art is okay. Part of the reason it’s tough to tell exactly how old the children are is that the character designs are a bit generic. They’re not bad, but the only thing that really sets each crew member apart is their head.
Also, this is a space horror, and yet, we really never get a look at their ship from the outside or the aforementioned damage. That could have gone a long way towards showing the damage and how whatever caused it was able to drag a ship off course versus getting little drips and drabs through conversation.
In all, this is not a “recommended” read so much as it’s a “wait and see what happens in the next issue” read. I’m curious to see what happens next and if the creators can do something unique.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
The crew of the Jemison Terraforming Unit 11 are awoken from hypersleep 10 years 8 years too early. As each crew member gets their legs under them, panic sets in when they realize something is wrong. Through some quick analysis, they find the ship was damaged, they’re off course, and their ship is now in orbit over a planet that doesn’t exist on their charts.
After further review, the engines can be repaired but because they’re so far out from their destination, they don’t have enough supplies to complete the trip before starving to death. It’s never explained why they can’t go back to sleep after repairing the engines and heading back out on course, and it seems (another) odd point not to address.
Kurt, the military-type leader of the group, assembles a small team to head down the unknown planet in the hope of finding supplies that will sustain them for the additional years. Kurt has a tough time assembling a landing party as some of the crew are needed to assist with the repairs and others are too scared to go.
We conclude the issue with Kurt gathering a landing party via order, readers learning a few oddities about the planet’s plant life, and Kurt’s team finding one big oddity.
Final Thoughts
BOUNTIFUL GARDEN #1 is a strange twist on Alien (1979) with kids for the crew and horror that’s possible based on plants. While the pacing is good and story beats are familiar in a positive way, the new story points are odd and not well-explained… yet.