SCI-FI COMIC NEXUS

In Oliver Francisco's second volume of the Parched Earth Chronicles anthology we have four stories; the conclusion of Missing - in which a detective investigates the disappearance of a man seeking immortality - and the conclusion of The Runner (art by Eric Guzman Pingol) in which an athlete receives a performance-enhancing drug from a mysterious benefactor. We also have two new stories: Man of Science (art by Mark Mijares) in which a boy genius creates an intelligent robot to scour the wasteland beyond for resources for his dying city, and Porter in which a man is infested by a strange parasite from the nightmare landscape of the post-apocalyptic wilderness. Once again we are plunged into Francisco's dark nightmare world in which horrors lurk in every shadow and the veil of reality is savagely torn asunder. The miracles of technology are like magical weapons wielded against the monsters here, but science can be a double-edged sword in the hands of the unwary. The equally a...

  "I can see things. It's like a moment has been broken." A sleazy bar in the District. Dancers with high-tech implants but very little clothing gyrate languidly. Detective Seb Vetro sits alone, drinking. A group of businessmen comes in, celebrating a birthday. Laughing, joking, drinking... One of them bumps him accidentally. Another claps him on the shoulder - - and Vetro has a vision. Sees the man leading a small child into the shadows... Calls the precinct. Sends them a picture. Confirms the stranger's identity and pinpoints him as the probable perpetrator of the the murder of a seven year old girl. Vetro has these moments often as an enforcement agent dealing with violent crimes. Hallucinations? The product of a broken mind? Too much stress, too much exposure to brutally slaughtered victims, a side effect of the handful of green pills he throws back every morning? Or something else? His visions are always horrifying, always bloody, always sickening ... and alway...

Yzoc is falling. In the battle above the planet Thadus662 his transport is hit by a Disconnected fighter. Losing control, it plummets towards the atmosphere and begins to burn up. Yzoc ejects, dropping from the sky like a stone. As he falls, memories flash through his mind in a rapid jumble. A year ago he received his 'Adornments' - synthetic limbs and sense organs. For five thousand years 'Pure' Yunorians have received these cybernetic upgrades as part of their creed, founded upon the Book of Ekroy. The fusion of flesh with artificial prosthetics is believed to bring a heightened state of consciousness, a harmonious union called Nekkto . Over the millennia these teachings have developed into a fully established religion with all the trimmings: clergy, dogma, ritual ... and heretics. The Disconnected have created their own system of cybernetic enhancements, challenging the authority of the Ekroyans. The Pure cannot allow this blasphemy to go unpunished... The Book of Ek...

"If you ask me, the limit doesn't exist." 2074: Twenty-three year old Hachimaki Hoshino works as a debris salvager, clearing Earth's orbit of dangerous space junk. Moving at eight kilometres per second relative to the Earth below, even a small object can cause tremendous damage to spacecraft in the event of a collision. With Yuri and Fi he helps to make space a safer place in which people can work. Space is big business. Environmental problems on Earth have led to a push for resources further out, including helium-3, an isotope that can be used as a source of energy, which is abundant on the Moon. Hachi dreams of joining the Jupiter mission, an ambitious project that aims to harness the resources of the gas giant planet, which will more than provide for the needs of humanity. However, places are limited and there are many applicants. His ultimate goal is to have his own spaceship which, for him, represents absolute freedom. There are a few obstacles for him to overcom...

Teenager Mai Lan lives in a house on the beach with her parents Bert and Phi Anh. It is not the safest place to live - the local wildlife can be dangerous - but life in the canyon, where most people live, also has its drawbacks. When the authorities come for her to take her back to civilization to fulfil her biological duties as a producer of babies, she flees. Alone, she doesn't stand a chance of escaping. Luckily she has friends in the form of the 'iums', large panda-like animals who turn out to be a lot more intelligent than people think... Welcome to Betel-Six, the sixth planet of the star Betelgeuse. The planet was colonised six years earlier and - as was the case with the Aldebaran colony - all contact with Earth was mysteriously severed, leaving the intrepid colonists to fend for themselves. Coincidence?  Or could there be some unseen connection between these two distant worlds? In  Betelgeuse , writer/artist Léo   continues the story that began in the first i...