SECOND HELPINGS: Matt Lowder Revisits ROGUE PLANET

Guest Review by The 10,000 Comics Pryamid's MATT LOWDER . . . . .

Revisiting "ROGUE PLANET": a second reading
(2020, Oni Press #1-5 full run, Cullen Bunn, sci-fi, survival horror)

Revisiting this after so long away was a real treat. I had never heard of Cullen Bunn before I subbed to this book. In the very early days of the pandemic (Spring 2020) I did a swan dive back into contemporary comics. This was one of the first ten comics or so that I ever subbed to in a comic shop, alongside with some AWA and Aftershock titles. I didn't even have Comic Hub on my phone yet. Oh, young, innocent Matt. You rube! To this day, Issue #1 of Rogue Planet remains one of my favourite comic book covers. It stands out in my fast-growing collection.

The most interesting part of this book is the temporal element. Fear manifests into physical terrors inexplicably given life by an unknown entity on a planet where a group of space miners have landed to find a nice haul of minerals and investigate a beacon's call. 

While the dialogue is OK and the characters are frankly lacking, what really comes through is the theme, pacing, and plot. The story is strange and exciting in the best possible way. You understand it all just well enough, but the peripheral details are intentionally left mysterious, which adds to the element of weird fear the reader experiences. Earmarks of good horror fiction. Color and ink are excellent.

I read almost zero Oni Press Comics. A lot of their stuff is really not in my wheelhouse, and is pretty fringe. I am glad this independent publisher offers such variety, but so much of it isn't for me. The back of each of these issues features advertisements for comics called heartthrob, a quick and easy guide to sex and disability, Rick and Morty, a poorman's "Saga" knockoff called Dryad about a family drama with an elf, a gay book called Dreamy Daddy, and another called love letters to Jane's world which is a semi-biographical lesbian sitcom done in strips. Some of these appear erotic, irreverent, or just for a younger or underrepresented demographic. This is all perfectly fine-- just pointing out this Cullen Bunn story sticks out like a sore thumb given their typical fare, unlike Aftershock or Vault which have cultivated an audience and a brand which seems better suited for Rogue Planet to have made a bigger splash.

ROGUE PLANET has a special place in my collection. I'm glad I revisited it and read it all-in-one evening for the first time ever. It's clean, smooth, atmospheric, and the series as a whole I'm bumping up from a 4 star to a 4.5 star. 4.5 STARS OUT OF A POSSIBLE 5 STARS.