Writer: Alex Paknadel / Penciller: John Lê / Colour Artist: Rosh / Letterer: Aditya Bidikar / Vault Comics
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Released 28th October 2020
The Pitch: Nobody knows why the skyscraper-sized mechs known as 'Giga' fought their bitter, centuries-long war. All they know is that when the fighting finally stopped, the dormant Giga became humanity's new habitat and new gods in one. When disgraced engineer Evan Calhoun finds an apparently murdered Giga, his society and the fascistic tech-centred religious order that controls it are rapidly thrown into chaos.
My excitement has been building for this for a while. I love Paknadel's writing. I love giant freakin' robots and seeing this writer working with John Lê to bring giant freakin' robots to life, stomping all over the place – Oh. Wait. The robots don't move? They're not fighting other robots? Or Kaiju? In a mechanised war for the fate of humanity? What the hell, Paknadel?! Once again, expectations are dashed. Once more, the thing I hoped for gives way to something... well, better if I'm honest. See, there's a resurgent trend amongst science-fiction writers that has been absent from media for a while. As much as we're all fatally addicted to the end of the world, there was a time when authors and artists strived for something at once more dystopian yet altogether hopeful: What happens after the end of the world? I've written about this before on here, so sorry if it's boring you, but hey – it's my website so you'll just have to listen.
GODS, AS WE KNOW, ARE TROUBLESOME THINGS TO BELIEVE IN
Why am I describing this as hopeful, dare I say hope-punk? Because any fiction that deals with life existing on earth after great conflict and beyond the future that we can reasonably imagine must be inherently optimistic because it says simply by its being: we exist still. But just because we're alive doesn't mean we really get to live. We're introduced to a quasi-fascistic religious society that has used giant mechas – known as Gigas - to wage a war centuries earlier, Tellingly, we're not told who the enemy was, so one assumes we fought against ourselves. Now the Gigas stand dormant across the land and allow humanity to live within their giant metal bodies. But humanity also treats them as Gods, and as we know Gods are troublesome things to believe in. I don't know if this is taking an anti-religious stance or not. Certainly, it bristles against the controls that religion places on people (a feeling the book and I share). I personally think religion is just fine, providing we're not acting solely in name of it. What Giga seems to promise is the end of religion, something I feel we're going through now. Of course, the trick is to find something to replace it with...
Paknadel is fast becoming one of my favourite modern sci-fi writers. His work has the high concept baselines that please fanboys (like me) and then resonates with the tones of big ideas. He's intelligent enough to tackle these ideas without making the reader feel stupid. Lê's art has a pleasing, open feel even as he draws the finely detailed rust and rot at the core of this new society. His faces and bodies express the fear and cruelty present in the culture of the characters. Rosh's colours play with this dichotomy – the bright and beautiful world with mechanised arms wrapped tightly around it – yet his colours are earthy, woody. A world where nature has embraced tech but might succumb to an iron fist again, be it from robot or priest. Bidikar – probably the busiest letterer working today – helps create voices that express great things and notions, yet are quiet in comparison to the eerie, waiting silence of the Gigas. The book has huge scope and doesn't want to give up all its secrets in this first, scene-setting issue. I can't wait to uncover more, beneath the skin of steel giants.
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