Last Flight Out #1

Last Flight Out #1

Dark Horse Comics 2021

Created & Written by Marc Guggenheim

Created & Illustrated by Eduardo Ferigato

Coloured by Marcelo Costa

Lettered by Diego Sanches

The only way to survive is to abandon Earth! With Earth rendered uninhabitable, humanity has chosen to evacuate to the stars. But with just twenty-four hours left until the last ark, designed to evacuate Earth's residents, leaves forever, its designer's estranged daughter goes missing.

I liked this a heck of a lot more than I thought I would and that’s huge because I already had high expectations for this because Marc is writing the story. As the story is being told you find yourself being drawn into the story and you begin to see that Dr. Caewood, must use the Doctor denotation, is a very driven individual. The kind that once he starts working on a problem or project that’s solely where his focus is. We know people like that in the real world who aren’t snobbish or conceited but have that tunnel vision and have that uncontrollable need to be working on what is in front of them. I see this in Ben and in the first few pages you get that sense of who he is and I think that’s pretty amazing.

I am loving the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interactions as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a magnificent job in bringing the characters to life. I’m really am super impressed with how well we get to know and understand Ben and how what we see is just a tiny scratch on the surface of who he is. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages introducing the characters, the story and the world they live in you can feel it has this almost cinematic quality to it.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story emerge, grow and strengthen we see this amazing talent from Marc in how he’s able to craft this story. The layers open up these avenues, some of which are or will be explored others just for the moment and regardless they add this great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.

I am a huge fan of the interior artwork here. The linework is extraordinary and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to create this level & quality to the detail work we see throughout the issue is bloody brilliant. The faces and facial expressions really do this magnificent job in furthering the characterisation. That we see such a prolific use of backgrounds makes me such a happy camper as they really do expand and enhance each and every moment. They also work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work really shows a beautiful understanding of how colour works. Seeing the sun rise on Tevat Noah III is the shot of all shots and perfectly demonstrates how I feel about the work being done here.

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The story is almost familiar enough to the reader though honestly without knowing cause only the effect is something is definitely unique. There’s a raw, fresh and honest feeling about what we are seeing here that shows why I personally will read everything Marc does. You get the feelings off the characters, particularly Ben and Adhira, that makes you feel like these are friends of yours and you can see, feel and experience their pain which is utterly amazing to me. With some of today’s strongest most intelligent writing along with some damn fine characterisation and some absolutely bloody stunning interiors this is one story you do not want to sleep on.