“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Interactives #1

Anybody mentions “internet gas” and I’m out of here!

The Interactives #1

Markosia Enterprises (2011)

WRITER: Peter Rogers

ARTIST: Luciano Vecchio

COLORIST: Yel Zamor

LETTERER: Ian Sharman

Okay, I think I know what’s going on. Maybe. The parts I get is that some being calling himself Myth who takes on certain forms to blend in recruits an online influencer going by Scallywag to fight the incursion of fantasy creatures into the real world. His method is recruiting “players” into…cyberspace recreations of real world England, maybe? (Wales for this adventure.) They have powers based on imagination but he blanks their memories of the events after. This group fought dragons and might have saved the town if they listened to Scallywag instead of constantly bickering. When the baddies decide to push forward the “beta testing” is over and these “players” are what he has to work with.

There’s a few reasons I had trouble following this story. Only half of it is explained, the story skipping back in time twice before resuming the present doesn’t help, and it would require me to care. Even Scallywag calls this bunch out for bickering so much, and they all refer to themselves with their screennames because they think they’re in a game, leading to lame names like “King Of All I Survey” and “James_Lake”, Underscore for short. Basically, I don’t like these characters and I’m only half aware of what they’re doing and why.

The art is good. I like what I understand about the concept until it tries to play MMO with reality or whatever they’re doing. Overall though, while it looks interesting in theory I just can’t get really invested in this story, and thus I’m not really urged to check out any more of it unless curiosity wins or I get a full explanation of how these cyber battles work. It’s a good idea but not well executed, I’m afraid. And yes, the fact that my scheduling led to me reviewing a British comic on Independence Day isn’t being missed.