Staring into pure oblivion…It can really damage a person.
I remember once when I was a child being taken on a tour of a large network of caves, it was a wonderful and beautiful experience. The tour guide at once point gathered us all and turned off the lighting for a few moments, the darkness was palpable, you felt it, you could not see anything, hear anything or even sense anything. It was a little scary, well this is the world of The Infinite Dark Vol 1. The story followings the last 2000 humans in existence, the universe is collapsing in on itself, there are no planets, no stars, nothing.
Just primordial darkness that eats any matter down to the atoms, the narrative follows the various leaders of the space station and how they live in this new reality. Needless to say, strange things begin to happen, grisly murders, hallucinations, acts of sabotage and more. It’s not long before the characters realize that a horrifying presence may be influencing the tenents of the station to an unknown end.
The Infinite Dark is written by Ryan Cady with art provided by Andrea Mutti. Overall this is a very strong narrative, Cady does a great job tapping into that primal sense of dread humans have of being alone. Not just alone, but totally and utterly alone, most people grow out of a fear of the darkness and of things that go bump in the night, but the story of The Infinite Dark is just that. About a terrible darkness that is inescapable. The author clearly was inspired by such works as Scott’s Alien and
Prometheus and Carpenters The Thing, the homages are many, but they never get in the way or make the reader lose sight of the story itself.
The only thing I can say about The Infinite Dark that would be negative is in the artwork by Andrea Mutti and the lettering by Troy Peteri. The artwork is very good and fits the story well, however, sometimes the action can be hard to follow, when the frames are jumping between multiple characters. The positioning of the lettering contributed to this a bit, as the reader had to keep up with three types of dialogue per frame. However, the above complaints are very minor and only exist in 2-3 action scenes, the rest of the narrative is easy to follow.
Overall I greatly enjoyed The Infinite Dark and found it to be one of the best comics/graphic novels of 2019. Its narrative is thrilling and balances mystery and horror well. It was one of the few comics that after finishing chapter 1, I kept thinking about it until I could sit down and finish the book. The artwork also showcases the characters and horror of the story well, allowing the reader to fill in the blanks when needed.
4/5 Stars (Very Good)