Review- John Carpenter's Tales Of Science Fiction: Vortex #1-8

John Carpenter's Tales Of Science Fiction: Vortex #1-8 (Storm King, cover dates October, 2017- May, 2018)

Writers: John Carpenter, Sandy King, and Mike Sizemore

Artist: David Kennedy (also Colorist for #1)

Colorist: Pete Kennedy (#2-8)

Asteroid Garm. The Veil Nebula. 1,470 light years from Earth. This is the setting of the second John Carpenter Science Fiction anthology series. Vortex is a hybrid of his adaptation of The Thing with an Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers backdrop. We have managed to build a portal to this far flung solar system and have a team that are on a mining expedition. A follow up crew is sent to check out why they haven't heard back from the team. By this point everyone should know that A) something is wrong and B) we are not alone.

I'm not going into a blow by blow, nor will I spoil the series. What I will say is that there is something in issue 7 that leads me to believe that the invasive species is not contained. Also, the ending of the series is filled with as many questions and answers. It's not the greatest ending in this manner (that honor belongs to The Thing), but it works and is satisfying.

My takeaway from this series is that maybe we shouldn't venture too far out into space. When Europeans came to the Americas they brought rats with them. Invasive species have become the norm with the global economy, with Asian carp invading the Great Lakes, etc. Vortex shows us that we are, at best, the invasive species in outer space. Or maybe if we went to the farther reaches we would find something and give it a ride back. Maybe we've already done that and that's why we have an increase in obesity and cancer. This is of course not the case, but the mind boggles when spinning possible scenarios.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 3.75 out of 5.

The OCD zone- I find it interesting that there are no advertisements in Storm King Comics. The last few pages of the book are roughed out sneak preview pages for the next issue and/or character sketches and a house ad for other Storm King books. This is commercial free comics, although no one could fault them if they did have ads. It's worth noting that there are not ads in these comic books since everyone other company has them.