This week Image Comics and Ghost Machine release The Rocketfellers #4. This series is part of the “Family Odyssey” line along with Hornsby and Halo. The Rocketfellers centers on a family who is forced to live in 2025 in hiding from an as-yet-unrevealed antagonist. We don’t know why the family is being pursued across space and time. Their only ally is Uncle Reggie, Roland’s brother, who helped place the family anonymously into 2025. Peter J. Tomasi and Francis Manapul have created a captivating family drama that feels like a mix of Marvel’s Fantastic Four, the classic television series, Lost in Space, and Disney’s Meet the Robinsons.

After a story detour in the last issue following Raina, the cyborg who is hunting the Rocketfellers through time, the focus returns to the Rocketfellers themselves. Through a series of vignettes, we see that some members of the family have settled into their new 2025 lives better than others. Roland seems content in his work. Rachel continues to pine for her former career as a heroic astronaut even as she fully accepts the decision that had to be made to save her family. Grandpa Rodney has become the superstar of the seniors in the neighborhood and is enjoying the attention. The children are still struggling to fit in. Richie is still getting in trouble in class and frustrated by the technological limitations of the past. And Rae is struggling with her latent prophetic visions that only show her the dark days to come. The issue also expands on a side plot centering on Rex, the family “dog,” and the Russian mafia. And if next issue’s solicitation is any indication, there is a confrontation brewing between the family dog and the brutal Russian brothers in the very near future.

The story doesn’t remain rooted to the Rocketfellers and 2025. Tomasi takes us to 1875 where we find another time traveler living in witness protection. In previous issues, we learned that Reggie Rocketfeller is part of a program that grants new lives and identities to important legal witnesses who may be endangered by their testimony. Since the first issue, the reader had been led to believe that the Rocketfellers were either unjustly persecuted in their own time or had discovered some terrible secret. The final scene of this issue calls all of our previous assumptions into question. Tomasi and Manapul only slyly tip their hand with one line of dialogue, requiring us to reassess the motivations of the Rocketfellers. Much of this is my own interpretation and maybe I’ve inferred too much from that one line, but it shows how invested I’ve become in this book.

The next issue seems to promise a resolution to the Russian mob sub-plot. Will Rex’s actions expose the Rocketfellers to their enemies? And I’m hoping for more follow-up on the greater mystery surrounding the Rocketfellers’ voyage to the past. Are these time-traveling refugees all they seem as presented in the first few issues? Who is really after them from the future and who does Uncle Reggie work for? As you can see, in just four issues, this series has built up a number of mysteries that I can’t wait to dig into further in the future.

Creative Team: Peter J. Tomasi (Story and Words), Francis Manapul (Story and Art), John Kalisz, Ian Herring and Francis Manapul (Colorist), Rob Leigh (Letterer)
Publisher: Ghost Machine/Image Comics
Click here to purchase.