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‘The Lost Fleet: Corsair #1’ – Advance Comic Book Review

I’ve been a Jack Campbell fan for quite a while. (His real name is John Hemry, and he was formerly a JAG officer in the US Navy.)  After discovering his Lost Fleet military space-faring novels, I read through them as fast as I could get them. My husband got hooked, as well, as Campbell is one of the few military sci-fi writers who depict space battles with reasonable accuracy – meaning space is a big place, and it takes a long time for messages and images to arrive as well as using the three dimensions of space in battle strategy.  What I like best about Campbell is that he is living proof that a solid writer can get better – a lot better. You can see the improvement in The Lost Stars series.

Now, he has ventured into comics, and I’m happy that he didn’t just retell one of his previous stories, but delves into what happened to Captain Michael Geary, the grandnephew of the Alliance legend Captain John ‘Black Jack’ Geary, after a critical battle between the Alliance and the Syndics. Though presumed dead after a slugfest between the Syndics and the Alliance, we discover that he survived and was captured by the enemy. Unbeknownst to him at the time, the Alliance forces won the battle, and he is being kept alive due to his strategic value to the Syndics; however, he may have found an unlikely ally in Executive Destina Aragon. A tough and highly committed officer, she and her men realize the end is near for the Syndicate and wish to commandeer a mobile forces unit to return to their home. The only trouble is that a few hundred “Snakes,” also known as Syndicate Internal Security Service, stand in their way. Whether or not they achieve their objective remains to be seen.

A solid, action-packed story, it gives us just enough background for the uninitiated not to be totally lost. The battle sequences are clear and unmuddled. (It’s a pet peeve of mine when a battle sequence is so cluttered that I can’t tell what’s going on.) The only downside is that we really don’t get to know much about Michael Geary in this issue other than that he spends too much time feeling sorry for himself having lived under the shadow of his great uncle rather than acting like a captain and figuring out 1) how he managed to survive in the first place and 2) how to escape.  His relationship to his great uncle would have been better served as a reveal in later chapters. It is quite clear, however, that Destina Aragon knows how to use her mind and gender to her advantage.

I really enjoyed the story, but I also have the benefit of already knowing the world and the major characters. The comic is well done on its own, but I highly recommend reading the novels to enrich the experience. Kuddos, however, to Jack Campbell on writing such a solid comic. (Going from novels to comics can’t be an easy transition.)  Andre Siregar (Artist), Bambang Irawan (Inks), Sebastain Cheng (Colors), and Jim Campbell (Letters) all did a terrific job in bringing his world to life.

Madeleine Holly-Rosing, Fanbase Press Contributor

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