Comics
Review: “Mars Attacks: First Born” #1
Review by: Your Friendly Neighborhood Brady
Martians just love attacking our planet, don’t they? They just keep on invading Earth over and over and over. “Mars Attacks: First Born” #1 shows us how survivors cope and how their children are forced to adapt. When the world is devastated, children are often not considered for a story focus. I think we’re finding out why. It’s not pretty and it’s not too great to read about, either.
WRITTEN BY: Chris Ryall
ART BY: Sam Kieth
PUBLISHER: IDW Publishing
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: 14 May 2014
This Martian invasion story starts off very different than most: a softer, gentler approach if you will. It feels almost like a diary being read aloud and drawn for us to see. Blind girl Clare, Uncle Woody, and a baby Martian are our cast of characters. They live in a bunker hiding from more Martian attacks. Uncle tinkers on some kind of giant machine while Clare unknowingly plays with a baby invader. Writer Chris Ryall has certainly given us an interesting premise to start off our story.
The artwork by veteran Sam Kieth is an interesting choice. Most of his panels feel like they’ve been drawn by the children in the story itself. It’s an unusual choice for a Mars Attacks story but this IS an unusual story. It’s a really odd mix of super-simplified art when you look at the people. Kieth’s art gets denser as the story goes into the darker corners of this world. The Martians seem to warrant more menacing detail than humans in this issue.
Ryall is no stranger to writing about aliens or destruction. His resume speaks for itself. For me, his work has been really hit-or-miss. I really enjoyed his work during the Infestation cross-over. His other book, The Colonized, didn’t do much for me. To me, it feels like he’s trying to craft a fairy-tale story where baby Martians and blind little girls get into mischief. Unfortunately, there wasn’t too much mischief to be had in this first chapter. It seems to teeter in the middle and doesn’t know what it is yet. I hope that this story gets more comical or dark next month.
An ongoing horror anthology series from BOOM! Studios, Hello Darkness is back this summer with Issue #23, and BOOM! has provided Bloody Disgusting with an exclusive sneak peek.
The temperature rises and so does the body count, as the horror anthology series returns for another round of summer slashing in Hello Darkness #23, releasing July 22, 2026.
In “Sunday Pt. II,” Ryan North and Giada Belviso send a Bride of Christ over the deep end into madness.
Then, Rich Douek and Stevan Subic lead you down a bloody path to the old west, where a brash young gunfighter seeks a showdown with “The Man Who Outdrew Death.”
Sink into the cool, briny depths of Kelly Williams’s “Old Wounds” when a grizzled light housekeeper hears the call of the sea one final time.
And finally, serve up a preview platter of erotic thriller “Gastronomique,” as a royal spy, Lady Charlotte, embarks on a cat-and-mouse hunt for the deadly cannibal Tarrare, from Marguerite Bennett and Helena Masellis.
Beat the heat with an all-new pool of fresh nightmares and dive right into horror’s deep end!
Peek inside the bloody pages of Hello Darkness #23 below!
Horror fans rejoice in cadaverous delight, because Hello Darkness is a brand new ongoing anthology series featuring what BOOM! Studios is known for–the best in modern Horror, Fantasy, and Mystery, not to mention the darkest stories yet from a murderer’s row of world class creators. Everything from primal fears to modern political horrors will be explored, in the classic style of Creepy and Eerie and the contemporary chills of Black Mirror.
You must be logged in to post a comment.