In recent months environmental themes are being used in comics as a central feature. The latest comic to continue this theme is the Eclipse, which focuses on humanity living underground during the day and living above ground during the night. This is due to the sun’s rays have become strong enough to instantly burn a persons flesh upon initial contact. The only people who are able to go out during the day are those with special suits that use a combination of heavy materials and a cooling gas to reduce the effect the sun’s rays have upon their skin. The comic kicks off as one of these suits has gone missing, while a group of people begin to be murdered as they are left to die by the sun’s rays, as the mayor’s daughter is targeted next to be murdered in this way. Thus, the comic sets off a game of cat and mouse as the main character Baxter has to stop the mass murder before he gets to use the weapon of sunlight to kill his next target.
The Good :
The comic does an excellent job of introducing 2 fresh concepts into the comic world. The first being the setting, as humanity has experienced a climate disaster due to the increasing intensity of the sun. This has forced humanity to change from living on the surface during the day to living underground, as the sun will burn a person alive. This is unique as the comic alters humanities behavior to the weather as they become nocturnal rather than altering the weather. It introduces the element of humanity’s adaptability to a set of circumstances rather than changing them, which adds an element of realness to the comic as sometimes things can’t be changed. Furthermore, within this environmental setting the comic introduces the murder crime element, as a murder is using the sunlight to kill his victims, without getting killed him-self. This concept is interesting as it is not revealed how the killer is able to survive the sunlight long enough to position his victims so they will die. Secondly, the fact that the environment is used as the murder weapon is brilliant as everybody can fall victim to this murderer’s tactics as it affects everybody equally and raises the standard of humanity’s safety. In doing this the comic creates a unique level of tension and stress that is a drawing factor for the story.
The Bad :
The comic lacks a good, exciting characters. In particular, the comic only has introduced David Baxter who inspects the surface during the day using a specialized suit. Baxter’s character has not been explored, he seems boring and uninviting and the only good quality is that he knows how to do his job. As a result, he is called in to capture and stop the murders from happening due to him monitoring the surface everyday. This extreme does not add up to how Baxter goes from having a simple job to stopping a murder with no training or skills. It seems very sloppy and seems to miss the mark of making a reasonable, logical, connection on that point, as far as the first issue goes.
The Verdict:
Too often in new issues of comics we are exposed to the same events and scenarios that are constantly retold and reworked, but in this comic we get an entirely new concept. This concept fuses the idea of humanity adapting to a climate-change earth, while a murdering spree is occurring using that climate as the weapon. Thus this comic sparks interest as it fuses two unlikely genres into an interesting comic story. Now, this comic is worth picking it up as it explores a new concept that is definitely something different than what is currently out there in the comic world.
