Adr1ft #1

By Matt Hawkins, Luca Casalanguida, Andrew Elder, Adam Orth

“The human body can survive three weeks without food, three days without water but only three minutes without air… and i’m down to 2% in my suit.”

A lone astronaut floats through space trying to figure out where it all went wrong… what’s that up ahead?

Writer Matt Hawkins along with creator Adam Orth give us a first look into one of Earth’s latest space missions and what might have gone wrong. Earth is trying to colonize other planets by reaching out for new plant life/oxygen to use on other worlds. Things seemed promising for a while, but what’s a story without a few struggles along the way?

Hawkins gives us a look into the life of character Sebastien Oliver with this issue. Oliver is a senior astronaut and looks to this adventure as his last. We’re given his life and rise to fame as this issue shows just how much impact this person has had on the world. But the life of an astronaut might not be the same when they’re back on earth’s soil… sometimes they just want to get back to the stars.

The artwork in this issue is done by artist Luca Casalanguida and colorist Andrew Elder. The scenes switch from space back to earth numerous times throughout the issue, but it’s the space scenes that really shine – especially in the opening of the issue. We see an astronaut afloat (or… adrift… get it?) as she recites the quote seen above, she’s surrounded by debris (what happened here?!) and satellites. We see earth in the distance, but the real peril is finding some oxygen before that 2% runs out!

The space scenes are met with the black background of… space, while the astronaut sticks out as she searches the wreckage for survivors/oxygen. Seeing a certain face is what causes the flashback, which gives a bit of background to the mission in the process. Some views of Earth’s colonization efforts pop from the page as Casalanguida creates a drill on the surface of Venus as she search for water there while Elder covers the night sky in a different type of sunset – one featuring the thin line of the vanishing sun underneath the vast emptiness of space.

It’s like an entire movie in 23 pages. You’ve got your charismatic character, lots of hope, loss of some of that hope, the return of that hope, and then no hope again… hope you can follow all that.

Adr1ft #1 gives us insight into a space mission gone wrong as we’re left to wonder throughout the issue… what happened?