If you've already browsed this web site, you'll know that there have been plenty of comic book adaptations
of the story, as well as a good number of completely re-imagined versions or even outright sequels. So the
question that immediately arises has to be, does the world really need another' Well, if the quality is as
high as this, then the answer is yes!
The War of the Worlds is at heart a pretty simple story, so the temptation for anyone tackling an
adaptation has to be to tinker with the detail. I'm no tub-thumping purist; so don't begrudge someone
playing in H.G's sandpit, as long as they do it with due respect, and scriptwriter Rich Rainey is clearly
a man to be trusted in this regard. The basic plot is left largely untouched, though as has been done
before, the comic book narrative cuts away that portion of the story detailing the adventures of the
narrator's brother. We therefore lose one of the most exciting scenes in the book, when the Ironclad
Thunderchild cuts down one of the Martian war machines. In truth, I don't feel this damages the comic
book version - you have to accept that different mediums dictate different approaches - but I am
disappointed we lose the opportunity to see what artist Micah Farritor could have done with this scene,
for Farritor proves himself a fantastic choice for artist. I've not seen any of his other work to date,
but his War of the Worlds captures the Victorian setting perfectly, and his hero looks not a little like
a young H.G.Wells. Farritor is extremely deft at switching between moments of tranquillity and scenes of
violence, and his Martian attacks are particularly well executed, with the Heat Ray burning away flesh
and shearing through masonry with equally vivid ease. His Martian War machines are not quite to my taste,
favouring a more organic feel than mechanical, but they retain the necessary air of menace.
As adaptations go then, this War of the Worlds can hold its head up with pride, and will certainly sit
well on my bookshelf. However, this volume is not entirely concerned with The War of the Worlds, and it
would be remiss of me not to examine the other stories contained within. And my, what an interesting
bunch this is. As you would expect from an anthology, there is a considerable variety of artistic styles
on display, and a quick flip though the pages may well prove a little disconcerting, for not all of the
art appears at first glance to be as refined as Farritor's War of the Worlds. But that would be a very
unfair judgement to make, for editor Tom Pomplun deserves plenty of kudos for his clever choices, and
what you might first take to be less polished art proves on closer examination to be of a uniformly high
standard and in fact perfectly complimentary to each story.
Next up after The War of the Worlds is In the Year 2889, from the story by Jules Verne. There's more
than a little of the classic Hanna Barbara cartoon The Jetsons in Johnny Ryan's art, whose more traditional
strip style fits the story like a glove. Adapted by editor Tom Pomplun, the story is a day in the life
of Fritz Napoleon Smith, a newspaper magnate and industrialist, whose inventions and companies have
changed the world beyond recognition. The story isn't much more of an excuse for Verne to set forth a
flurry of ideas as to how the future might turn out, and while many are a bit wide of the mark, it's
intriguing how Verne predicted that news would in essence become a commodity and just how powerful those
who purvey it could become.
The next story offers another radical change of style, and again one absolutely suiting its subject
matter. Stanley Weinbaum's A Martian Odyssey is rightly considered one of the classic short stories
to be set on Mars, a beautifully observed tale of two completely alien cultures coming together in a
meeting of minds. Illustrator George Sellas turns in a superb graphical retelling of the story that
evokes a 1950's view of space travel, replete with silver finned rockets and square jawed heroes. I
loved the original story and I'm pleased to say that Ben Avery has done a great job of adapting it.
For the next story, we step back in time a few decades to 1929 and The Disintegration Machine by Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, here very ably adapted by Rod Lott. Doyle's Professor Challenger is one of the great literary
creations, a man of great talents but an enormous ego to match. In The disintegration machine he matches
wits with a villainous inventor who has invented the titular machine, a device capable of disassembling,
storing and restoring matter, but equally easily perverted into a terrible weapon of war. Once again the
art style makes an abrupt switch, but artist Roger Langridge is clearly having a ball with the pomposity
of Challenger and rises to the challenge, pun intended.
The shortest and penultimate story in the anthology is The Bureau d'Exchange de Maux and comes from 1915 and the pen of Edward Plunkett,
otherwise known by his non-de-plume of Lord Dunsany. This is a grim little tale, with effectively dark
and moody art to match by Brad Teare. As adapted by Antonella Caputo, the story tells of a shop where
evils can be swapped between patrons. Naturally people who make deals like this are apt to get a nasty
comeuppance.
One of the great dystopian nightmares caps off this marvellous anthology. The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster
is another stunning example of prescience from a science fiction writer. Most strikingly, he predicts
something akin to social networking, though of course he does not call it this. In his story, people know
thousands of other people whom they connect to electronically via a sort of Internet controlled by a great
central governing machine, but mirroring growing concerns today, no one really knows anyone. People spend
their days isolated from human contact, with all conversation conducted electronically. The social niceties
of companionship and physical discourse have become almost repugnant and something to be avoided. Tom Pomplun
turns in another deft adaptation and Ellen L. Lindner's art brings charmingly to life a retro science fiction
vision of the future as it was imagined 100 years ago.
This is the seventeenth volume in a long running series of graphic novels from Eureka Productions that have adapted any number of
authors and genres. I reviewed an earlier volume focusing on H.G. Wells several years ago and was a little
more circumspect in my praise, but you can't please all the people all the time, and the very positive experience
with this latest volume certainly persuades me that the series is continuing to evolve.
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