Reviews

We Only Find Them When They're Dead, Book One: The Seeker by Al Ewing

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dani_k's review

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

nostoat's review against another edition

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4.0

Yeah okay hot damn

michelleschroeder's review

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2.0

I wanted to like this so much more. The art was pretty but occasionally too dark or blurry to see what was really happening.
The world building and plot needed a lot more work.

honguan's review

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

cataquack's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I'm a huge fan of Al Ewing's Marvel work; I think he's maybe the best writer in their current talent pool, so I had really high hopes for this—maybe too high! It's a great concept: a far future where society relies of materials mined from the gigantic corpses of cosmic Gods, a small crew determined to find, for the first time, a living one. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and felt like it had a strong script, just not to the degree I've come to expect from Ewing. There's a cosmic and mythological quality to it, and you can sort of see the bones of a hypothetical marvel pitch centering around the Celestials that could have been the basis for this book, if you squint (the God corpses we see are all wearing some very Jack Kirby-flavored armor). But I do feel there's an over-reliance on repeated phrases, and there are some dramatic moments that feel the slightest bit contrived. Simone Di Meo's art is the real draw here, I feel. He's best known for his work on Boom!'s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and there's a definite Power Rangers-esque flavor to the color language he's using here—Each member of of our four-person crew has an associated color, which floods the panels where they're speaking. And the suits they all wear have a sort of sentai style (I'm fond of the antagonist's flight suit that has a jagged line along the bottom of the face shield evoking sharp teeth. But Di Meo also makes really creative use of panel layouts and weapons-grade use of splash pages to provide some really gorgeous and at times awe-inspiring visuals. This first volume ends on a great hook for the next story arc, and I'm still interested in seeing where this story goes, but I hope it's closer to the sublime work Ewing's been doing in Marvel's sandbox for over a decade.

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