What an ugly catastrophe – a review of the comic book “Survivors. quantum anomalies”

Survivors. Quantum Anomalies is half spin-off, half sequel to Leo’s cosmic trilogy of Aldebaran, Betelgeuse , and Antares . This time the reader comes to follow not the wonderful, beautiful and sexy Kim Keller, but completely new heroes. Though it doesn’t change much.

 

The survivors show young heroes who decided to drop everything and go to the Bieszczady Mountains. come back. Drop everything and move from Earth to Antares, a remote planet with human-friendly conditions. However, their journey is abruptly cut short when an accident occurs. One of the planets they pass, where frequent quantum anomalies occur, causes the ship to crash. A handful of inexperienced kids suddenly have to grow up when it turns out that there are dozens of similar survivors on the planet, only … from other places in the galaxy. Not all aliens have friendly intentions. If that was not enough, anomalies also appear on the surface of the globe and it is enough to fall into them by accident to be transported many years ahead in time.

You have to know when to leave the stage

And on paper it all sounds great. Unfortunately, Survivors is a complete failure for Leo. A comic book that shows that the artist is unable to go beyond certain rigid frames set in previous titles. Xenobiology continues to do well and… nothing more. In the latest installment of the Aldebaran series , the initial idea is completely slaughtered. The interactions of dozens of representatives of different civilizations that have not had contact with each other before should result in a rich world, full of diverse cultures and creative technological products. However, Leo’s aliens are just as visually boring (humanoids as in the oldest seasons of Star Trek[this is not an allusion to a series on a limited budget, which is not the case with the comic book]) and ethnographically. Alien civilizations actually behave in a human way, which deprives them of any uniqueness.

The technique looks similar – all products of friendly races are directly transferred from our present world. What’s wrong with Leo creating amazing vehicles? Instead, on the pages of the comic you can see ordinary trucks and something that broke me the most – a cruise ferry. In fact, in one frame there is a sentence describing the bed, which is supposed to be adapted to any size and type of alien, while the graphic shows the world’s most ordinary frame with a mattress. It is worth noting that humanity on the anomaly planet is the youngest race, while all alien civilizations used the same mechanisms and designs as on Earth.

Nasty is the ending, which is a cheeky deus ex machina . The heroes have to deal with anomalies throughout almost the entire comic, and these are ultimately not explained in any way. Until I remembered Unbelievable, broadcast centuries ago on TVN, where no mystery was solved.

About Kim, about what

The characters are irritating too. I’ve whined in previous reviews about everyone’s (and Leo’s) obsession with Kim Keller . The protagonist of Aldebaran was not drawn in a charismatic way, and yet everyone complimented her and exalted her beyond her means. Suffice it to say that she was chosen as the only representative to communicate with an alien sentient race (when it was still something special). In SurvivorsKim doesn’t show up. At least not literally, but that doesn’t mean it’s better. Because Keller’s spiritual heir is her grim copy, Manon. Again, almost every man has to feel his desire for her and express it out loud. The main roles are played by teenagers, but Leo is completely unable to convey it in the linguistic layer. There’s an almost perfect rendering of the “How do you do, fellow kids” meme here, a boomer emulation of youth language. It hurts, the more that Leo means well – as he himself emphasized in an interview, he is interested in strong and proactive women. Keller and Manon certainly are. However, this approach does not change much when sexism pours out through the script and dialogue.

say “cheese”

Leo still hasn’t learned how to draw a face. What is supposed to be a smile in theory turns out to be a terrifying grin that can recur in nightmares. Horror, horror.

Saved, but at what cost

The last installment of the Aldebaran series meets with my strictest assessment. In previous parts, I was willing to give credit, but in the case of Survivors , the brand changed. This comic is the antithesis of creativity, with lame ideas and a pointless plot devoid of point.