SOMA CITY #1 – Review

SOMA CITY #1, from Red Sea Comics, September 2021, follows Denton Dials, a Contact Tracer working for the police, to help find the sources of diseases infecting the citizens of a grimy and corrupt city.

The Details

• Written By: Chris Moses
• Art By: Christian Wolf
• Colors By: Ilaria Fella
• Letters By: Reed Hinckley-Barnes
• Cover Art By: Christian Wolf, Ilaria Fella
• Cover Price: $5.00
• Release Date: September 2021

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Was It Good?

SOMA CITY #1 is an indie submission from Red Sea Comics and our first exposure to the creative team behind this new title. The premise takes a little work to wrap your brain around but once you get where the story is going, it’s a hard-hitting first issue with only a few weak spots to speak of.

The absolute highlight of this first issue is the nearly breathtaking art by Wolf and Fella. The lines are super crisp, the hatching (especially during the chase scenes) is exquisite, and the coloring is practically perfect. The style feels like a throwback to early Frank Miller during the Bronze Age of comics, and that’s no small accomplishment. If nothing else, this comic looks fantastic.

The story is reminiscent of the grittiest and grimiest of detective noir stories (possibly drawing more inspiration from Frank Miller’s Sin City). The city is stony and callous to the point of becoming its own character. The plot about a Contact Tracer (a type of bounty hunter) perfectly positions the reader to see every seedy corner of the city during the main character’s hunt for his bounty. And, the cast of supporting characters is expertly portrayed with their own foibles, faults, and sins to make the setting feel authentic and lived in.

The few flaws this issue has could be considered small or big depending on your point of view. Hinckly-Barnes’s lettering is generally good, but the color choice for the narration captions was a poor one. You never want dark font on a dark or drab background as legibility is always more important than style.

The dialog is very good, but this appears to be an alien world with an assortment of species, so it seemed out of place for characters to switch between English and French. Readers will understand if aliens are not really speaking English but are translating for legibility. But translating an alien language and then swapping between two human languages pulls you out of the moment.

If there is one medium-sized flaw in the story, it’s the lack of setup. Readers are thrown right into the excitement while using titles and phrases without context. You’re told Dials is a Contact Tracer without any explanation of what that is, why the role exists, or what problem that role is meant to address. There are several examples in this issue where the rules of this alien world and what’s going on aren’t clear, and readers are forced to fill in the blanks as you read. Nobody wants to be spoon-fed, but the story needed more setup than what was presented here.

Minor flaws aside, this is a spectacular-looking first issue with an imaginative setup from a small publisher.

Keep scrolling for a closer look at the covers, or Click Here to jump right to the story description with some spoilers.

What’s It About?

[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]

We begin with Denton Dials tracing down a suspect on the mean streets of Soma City. Dials is not a cop. He’s Contact Tracer. It’s not explained what a Contact Tracer is, exactly, but you could infer it’s a police-sanctioned bounty hunter tasked with bringing in people who can inform on or are the source of the spread of contact diseases such as STDs.

When Dials brings a suspect in, he’s chastised by his police liaison, Detective Ko, and the head of police, Commissioner Greer, for making an arrest when he’s not authorized to arrest people. During the station visit, Greer assigns Dials to provide escort for a very wealthy citizen, Mr. Beau. Beau is a former teen idol turned businessman who lines the pockets of politicians and police heads to give him access to whatever vice he wants.

Beau visits a brothel, and Dials is forced to sit and wait for Beau to complete his “business deal”. When Dials’s suspicions are aroused, he goes to find Beau only to discover the prostitutes are all infected with a new virus and Beau has been paying them to keep it quiet. We conclude the issue with a confirmation of the dangers of wealth, privilege, and corruption.

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