Southern Cross is a ship and it’s heading to Titan, a moon orbiting Saturn. Despite the fact that this story revolves around Alex Braith, searching for answers to her sister’s death and bringing her body back home, this issue carries about an alarming question: What’s happened to the main character?

Image Comics brings Southern Cross to its fall lineup, the first issue since December of last year, and it completely questions the whereabouts of a seemingly lost ship, with Alex onboard. Becky Cloonan crafts this mystery, as well as the eye-catching cover, from the beginning as the opening scene is set on Titan aboard a gigantic rig in icy waters. The operations team on this station captures an incoming signal and soon realizes that a small craft is headed toward a crash landing in the open waters.

One person is on this spacecraft and it is not Alex Braith. The crew, as well as the reader, begin to question their ability to trust this stranger as he tells the sequence of events leading him to Titan. This entire comic has several dramatic sequences that are matched with offsetting colors to help them stand out. Andy Belanger and Lee Loughridge collaborate on the illustration of these pages.

The cover is quite distinct, grabbing your attention right away – a single face with piercing blue eyes staring back at the reader.  Bright red lines trace all around this person who is surrounded by darkness, giving the impression of being trapped within a prism. Isolation is a theme within this story, as bright orange skies are drawn which ultimately highlight how these dark gray rigs scattered across the blue-gray sea are seemingly alone with nothing else in sight.

Along with these contrasting colors, the relationships among the crew seem to be just that – standoffish at best. This particular issue keeps the reader’s attention by providing a sense of isolation within the artwork, which makes the conversations that much more important. Where is Southern Cross? Who is this stranger? Is the disdain among the crew only based upon this stranger’s arrival?

Those questions are what drive this story forward, while even more questions arise with the resulting climax of this comic book, which will definitely lead the reader to issue #8. The hostility between the characters might not be easily determined, but there doesn’t seem to be any doubt that it will soon boil over.

Southern Cross #7 is now available in print and digital form.