Review: ‘Terrorwar’ #1 Is On Brand For Science Fiction Fun

Welcome to the table,

Movies like The 5th Element have always made me happy. This massive living cartoon science fiction romp through crowded megacities and the strange spaces we imagine humanity can go in some far-flung future. To me, I think it has to be like the Jetsons were to the people who were already aware the future held no such wonders when I was a child.

The entertainment industry would have had us believe that by this point in time, we should have robot legs and the cure for the common cold, and all we’ve really got to show for ourselves are pocket-sized supercomputers with a bunch of apps that allow people to spout racist nonsense while trying to sell us leggings in 400 different styles. However, rather than focusing on the current grim dark it feels like we live in, let’s dive into this science fiction offering from Image Comics.

Terrorwar is a science fiction horror offering from the creative mind of Saladin Ahmed with art from the talented Dave Acosta, inks by Jay Leisten, colors by Walter Pereyra, and letters by Shawn Lee. The story starts in what I assume is the last living city of mankind called Blue City “The Jewel in the Darkness.”

Our protagonist, Muhammad Cho, reminds me a lot of Korben Dallas from The 5th Element. The story starts with Muhammad waking in Blue City, a city that seems akin to all megacities from stories of a far-off future like Judge Dredd or Transmetropolitan. Towering buildings, cramped alleyways, neon lights, and trash-strewn stoops are inhabited by inhabitants who are making the best life they can in the shadow of a world that has seen much better and less overcrowded days.

Things take a very interesting and unexpected turn, though, when a giant cereal mascot appears and touches a fleeing citizen of Blue City, causing their body to melt into crumbling ash. Muhammad, one of the few in the city who is able to create “mind bullets,” uses some clever technology and dispatches the horrible mascot monstrosity and then continues along his trek to work where he and a team of other Terrorhunters go out and fight the strange entities who have been plaguing mankind and taking on the form of the things that they fear the most.

It feels very Ghostbusters Stay Puft Marshmallow Man meets Vampire Hunter D meets Cyberpunk in a way that weirdly totally works. This blending of late 80s/early 90s science fiction from across films, cartoons, and comics comes together nicely, and I honestly want to know what happens next in the story. The work suffers a little from inconsistencies in the art, but I can’t put my finger on exactly why.

Sometimes it seems the colors and the lines want to do different things, and neither direction wins, leaving some strange moments where eyes don’t match up or edges don’t fit together quite right. It’s not bad by any stretch, but it was enough that I caught myself trying to figure out if one of the members of Muhammad’s team had a cybernetic eye or if there was just something odd going on with the art.

All in all, Terrorwar is a love letter to everything that is fun about dystopian science fiction, and fans of the genre will get a kick out of the familiar landscapes and cramped streets that have become hallmarks of the genre.

Until next time, I am a meat popsicle.