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Friday 6 March 2015

Deep State Volume 1 Review (Justin Jordan, Ariela Kristantina)


Agent John Harrow works for a covert government organisation that makes sure secrets stay secret. And what better hiding place than in plain sight? Like the conspiracy theory of the moon landings: we did land on the moon in 1969 – but it wasn’t our first time there. Back in 1964 man landed on the moon for the first time only to discover something hostile living in what we once thought was an uninhabited rock. Today that… thing… has finally made it to Earth and it’s up to Harrow, along with his newest recruit Branch, to neutralise it and hush everything up again. 

I think Justin Jordan saw Men in Black and The X Files and said “me too!” because almost nothing about this series feels original in the slightest. For example, male and female government agents chasing aliens and conspiracies – sound familiar? Granted, unlike Fox Mulder, they know that aliens exist because they’re trying to stop that information from getting out to protect the world – which is what Men in Black is! 

Story-wise, it’s nothing most horror fans haven’t already seen before: evil thingy possesses people turning them into mindless puppets. Seeing the horror in the vintage Russian spacesuit reminded me of at least a dozen BPRD issues where the same thing has been done - better – by Mike Mignola and Scott Allie. 

I suppose there is some mild variation in Harrow’s mysterious past and generally Ariela Kristantina’s art is quite nice to look at, but it’s basically a very shallow storyline that’s been done a thousand times already. It’s disappointing, not least because this is coming from the writer of the excellent Luther Strode series at Image, but because the story starts so promisingly before descending into tedious generic schlock. 

Though I’m amazed at how consistently bad Boom’s catalogue is, I have to say kudos to Jordan/Kristantina – Deep State is going to be a TV series! Which studio picked it up? 20th Century Fox – the same one that produced The X Files!

Deep State Volume 1

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