Hitting the Limiter: “Roche Limit #1”

Any good futuristic tale worth reading should transport you to a believable, yet otherworldly reality. One that feels lived in and inhabited by characters you want to spend more time with. Lucky for us, Roche Limit succeeds on all these levels.

From the onset, we’re dropped in on what’s left of the Earth, and it’s a mishmash of what we’ve come to expect of stories set in the future. That being advances in technology such as rocket ships overhead and enhancements in architecture, which tower over dilapidated buildings and beat up cars. Overall it’s dirty. Very dirty. Like I said, lived in.

This brings us to the Roche Limit Colony, which is designed with the best of intentions as the next step in humanity’s accomplishments as a species. A beacon of hope that signifies with its very presence that no matter how bad your outlook of the future may be, that mankind will persevere no matter what obstacles come our way. Hope and fear. These are the basest emotions at the core of this story.

Enter Sonya Torin who is fearful for her sister’s life after she has mysteriously disappeared. This kicks off the plot, which leads her to some of the seedier spots around town as she follows her sister’s trail. Her inquiries end up attracting attention from the wrong crowd and she finds herself bailed out by the resourceful, yet not entirely forthcoming Alex Ford who lies to Sonya about knowing her sister but offers to help anyway.

They’re not the only ones in search of a missing girl, as the touch-as-nails Gracie will stop at nothing to find the working girls that vanished on her, even if it means offing a client in the process. The future is not only dirty, it’s downright dangerous.

The unlikely pair of Torin, the cop on a mission, and Ford, the drug-peddling scoundrel, make for a good team whose relationship will likely form the lynchpin that carries the series and keeps us coming back for more. With all the high concept and philosophical themes that Roche Limit has to offer, none of it would matter if we didn’t have intriguing characters complete with witty personalities and snappy dialogue courtesy of writer Michael Moreci.

Moreci, who first came to my attention with the fantastic ReincarNATE, further proves here why he’s a writer to watch. It won’t be long before he continues to take on more and more high profile projects and Roche Limit just might be the series that takes him to the next level if it lives up to its potential.

I will say, between this, the previously mentioned ReincarNATE, and his more recent run on Hack/Slash, Morcei seems very partial to the pairing of a male and female protagonist who, in no other situation would team up, except they are both after the same goal and/or trying to solve a mystery. This setup seems to suit his writing style quite nicely, although I wouldn’t mind seeing him take on a book with a bigger ensemble at some point to switch it up. Either that or he needs to be put on the X-Files comics, stat. At least with Moreci, you know you’re getting a cool story with his characters spouting trademark witticisms and if it works, it works. With Roche Limit, we’re getting that, but on a grander scale.

Artist Vic Malhotra manages to keep up with Moreci’s script, deftly hopscotching from outer space set pieces to street level crowd scenes. The characters look anything but generic with thought put into their wardrobe and hairstyles. It very much feels cinematic in that the characters almost look like character actors who were cast with a very specific look in mind so when we’re seeing them for the first time, we have a pretty good sense as to what they’re all about. Obviously anatomy, facial expressions, acting, etc. all play major parts of an artist’s arsenal of tools, but character design is something that’s equally important and oftentimes overlooked, especially with comics set in the future and I think Malhotra has a good handle on the look of this series. Jordan Boyd’s colors also deserve mention as he does a great job at capturing the right tone of each scene.

One of the things that I appreciated the most about this debut issue was the use of the news article at the end to really give us context as to what we just read. It centers on billionaire philanthropist Langford Skaargred, the man responsible for the Roche Limit Colony. It reminded me of why I love comics, as unlike any other storytelling medium, you’re not pausing to read a newspaper article to get the full story, and this is a storytelling device unique to comics, something Alan Moore set out to accomplish with Watchmen. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to learn that this style choice was in fact inspired by Moore’s masterwork, as I’m pretty confident I spotted a Rorschach lookalike in one of those aforementioned crowd scenes. That, or it was just some random trench coat clad, fedora wearing citizen.

Roche Limit is brimming with ideas and is a prime example of why comics and sci-fi mix so well. It’s off to a good start but I’m more interested in where it’s going.