Review – Mars Attacks Volume 1: Attack from Space

Mars Attacks Volume 1: Attack From Space is the first in a new line of comic books (or graphic novels?) that aims to revive the Mars Attacks franchise.

It’s gorgeously illustrated and very well made. The “story” (as far as it goes) is a bit all over the place however and was missing, I felt, most of the mischievous that made the 1996 movie.

The invasion begins! The first stories of an all-new Mars Attacks universe are here, bringing outrageous action and dark humor to the comics page. Eisner-winning writer John Layman (Chew) is joined by Eisner-winning artist John McCrea (Hitman) to sound the alarm. Beware! The Martians are coming!

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#1 – Mars Attacks Returns!

For some reason, there seems to be a big push to revive the Mars Attacks franchise. Mantic’s upcoming Mars Attacks board game Kickstarter was – admittedly – the thing that made me notice.

That clearly is not the whole story, however.

Some 17 years after the Mars Attacks movie by Tim Burton, there’s a whole range of new Mars Attacks cards, comics, and … well … soon a Mars Attacks board game.

Purists will point out that the movie itself is based on older comics and collectible cards. I never had any of those. The 1996 movie is the only thing I ever heard about Mars Attacks (thus far). So I took a look at the 1st of the new comics, published in February, to see what it’s all about.

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#2 – Mars Attacks: A Very Well-Made Comic Book…

The comic book – or perhaps more “graphic novel” as the cool kids say – comes in 124 full-colour pages, plenty to read, at a RRP of  £14.99 (though it’s nearly 1/3 off at Amazon).

There are several double-page art-spread throughout the book, as well as a few alternative “retro-style” covers that – I presume – want to evoke the original Mars Attacks stuff.

The retro-stuff aside, it looks and reads like most modern, high-quality comic books. There is very little text (even for a comic, lol) and mostly large panels.

Oh, and it’s very bloody and gory, but I guess that goes without saying.

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#3 – … That Is Missing A Bit The Humour

What I was missing most, was the mischievous humour, especially from the Martians, I remember from the Tim Burton movie (such as the Martians’ fake-tears to Jack Nicholson’s speech).

The “story”, in a nutshell, revolves around on a group of Martians crash-landing in United States hillbilly land in the early 1960s, ending up as freak-show attractions in a local fun fair, before all goes down in flames and violence. 50 years later, Mars Attacks in a sort of overblown revenge, led by the only Martian survivor of the 1960s crash.

Take silly Martian aesthetics and ray-guns out, and it is almost a plot for a serious sci-fi story.

The silliest parts of the book actually come from a short interlude on giant insects, which ends up taking a few rather strange turns of the kind I was expecting to have with the “Martian elements” of the comic, who ended up being the most “serious” part of the book.

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#4 – Thoughts?

I am probably picking too much on the humour-part. Humour (and especially “dark humour”) will always be a highly subjective issue. Obviously it is not a “serious” story by and stretch, but (the insect part aside) I didn’t laugh or smile a whole lot reading this comic either.

If you want to get a taste of Mars Attacks (before the Mantic Games’ Mars Attacks Kickstarter kicks-off, much less ships), I’d probably recommend trying to catch a re-run of the 90′s Tim Burton movie (badly aged CGI and all) over buying this comic book.

Z.