Review: Westward
"Naw, mister. If there are monsters, Pop and me'll just shoot 'em."
"Oh? What if you're the monsters?"
Fifty astronomical units from the Sun, the United Space Group starship Westward is ready to make the jump to 'Escherspace'; a detour from normal four-dimensional spacetime which allows faster-than-light travel across the galaxy. On board are crew, colonists and journalist Lamont Townsend. This will be the first manned expedition to a new world outside Earth's solar system, to establish a settlement on a distant planet capable of supporting life.
So far, so generic... except that the year is 1999 and the pilot is a nine-foot tall Martian who was brought back from the red planet in the year 1985 by astronaut Francis Carter, now captain of the Westward. This is the final frontier, but not as we know it.
The USG is keen to begin colonising new worlds. Fifty years previously, in Berlin, a weapon of mass destruction wreacked terrible havoc; a testament to humankind's recklessness. As a safeguard against the extinction of the species, the plan is to spread out to multiple territories. But are these pioneers also exporting with them the all-too-human propensity for annihilation?
Westward by writer/artist Elliot Toman is a long, complex and very offbeat space opera. Our story begins with a brief introduction to some of the main characters as they prepare to travel to a strange new world. Then we are in first contact territory and the first of many mysteries begin...
There is both breadth and depth here as Toman takes us through a multi-layered story with players who are much more than they first appear to be, facing desperate dilemmas in the great unknown. He starts with a comfortable, model sci-fi premise which then slips into much stranger, unsettling territory.
The artwork combines stylishly cartoonesque characters with sleekly designed hardware. The eponymous ship is agreeably rendered; a large, triangular space ark with many well laid out interiors. In a departure from the standard, the crew of the Westward's means of reaching the surface of a planet is via a large, saucer-shaped elevator that anchors to the ground via a long cable.
As our bold heroes venture out into the void, many bizarre dangers lay in their path... and as events unfold, there are hints that even the truths with which they are familiar may turn out to be stranger than they ever could have imagined.
Zak Webber
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