The 24 issues of Matt Kindt′s Dept.H series is everything we look for at borg–science fiction, action, adventure, retro, mystery, noir. And it all arrived in one comic book series from Dark Horse. Writer/artist Matt Kindt has said his series Dept.H was inspired by 1970s G.I. Joes, Fisher Price Adventure People toys, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Jacques Cousteau, and readers felt all of that come through. From the patch on the underwater crew outfits that evoked the classic 1960s/1970s G.I. Joe Adventure Team to the SP-350 diving saucer from the famed Calypso in the craft that takes the characters to the depths of the ocean floor in the opening pages, to the setting and Department H Headquarters based on the ocean floor that screams H.G. Wells, Dept.H is one of the decade’s top comic book series. And it’s now coming your way in two paperback omnibus editions beginning next week.
Best known for his run on his Mind MGMT series, Eisner Award nominee Kindt wrote and illustrated the story, with coloring supplied by Sharlene Kindt, his wife. In part the series is an Agatha Christie-inspired closed room case. We meet Mia Hardy, who has been asked to find the mole in the undersea lab, a mole who is believed to have sabotaged the base and murdered her father. Mia has worked with the suspects before, providing the opportunity for the writer to hold back information and share with us bits and pieces when necessary. Who killed Mia’s father? Was it Q, the head of Dept. H security? Her father’s business partner Roger? The frenetic head of research Jerome? Demolition expert Bob? Her childhood friend turned enemy Lily? Her own brother Raj? Or Aaron, the research assistant? Or was it someone topside?
Readers feel the pressure of undersea operations as Mia is plunged into her own peril, as the facility again is sabotaged before she can work her way though all the suspects. How long can Kindt take us for this suffocating adventure before letting us come up for air? The page design even features a graduated flood gauge at the pages’ edges that slowly “fills up” with water issue after issue.
The trailers didn’t lie. With only a month to go, The Meg might be the most fun movie you’ll see this summer. The Meg has everything: a stellar international cast with plenty of chemistry, big action scenes, great sets, and even some drama. For Jason Statham fans, look for another must-see Statham movie with his tough-as-nails deep-sea diver Jonas Taylor getting in and out of some big crises. For fans of underwater adventure movies like The Abyss, Leviathan, and Sphere, a better movie has arrived. A combined production from China and the U.S., it also pushes past last year’s much bigger budget action film The Great Wall–the combination of the two cultures from these films is setting up the future of action films. If you liked the Pacific Rim franchise, recent Godzilla movies or Battleship, you’ll probably find The Meg a better all around production. For an only PG-13 rating, it’s loaded with blood, chum, and other viscera (the newfound terror gobbles up plenty of characters both major and minor), but it balances that out with some good worldbuilding, likeable characters, and plenty of humor along the way.
The trailers also didn’t give anything important away. Beginning with a John Hammond-esque deep-sea research base, we meet a perfect set-up of international personalities, led by Chinese superstar Bingbing Li (Resident Evil, Transformers series) as a scientist working with her father (1911 and Eat Drink Man Woman’s Winston Chao) on breaking through a new-found barrier to the deep sea. The movie is really two films–the first a slowly-building drama detailing the background and players in the research facility, and the second a 1980s/1990s Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, or Steven Seagal action-rescue movie (think Cliffhanger, Under Siege, Striking Distance, Executive Decision), sensibly swapping out the much younger Statham (who played Stallone’s #1 guy in The Expendables series), the modern incarnation of this brand of action star. For the action, we learn Statham’s Taylor quit diving for a rescue operation five years past that didn’t go as planned. He returns thanks to an old friend working at the facility (played by Fear the Walking Dead’s Cliff Curtis) when Taylor’s ex-wife, played by Australian actor Jessica McNamee, is piloting an exploratory vessel, along with scientists played by Japanese-American actor Masi Oka (Heroes, Hawaii Five-O) and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, BFG), which runs aground with the help of a mysterious creature. Rounding out the cast is The Office’s Rainn Wilson as the show’s Hammond, an Elon Musk-inspired exec who funded the facility, Rush Hour’s Page Kennedy as another scientist, and the new lead of the CW’s Batwoman, Ruby Rose, whose character designed the facility. Rose proves in The Meg she’s got the right stuff to dawn that red cape.
Based on Steve Alten’s 1997 science-fiction/horror book Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, this fish tale is somewhat Michael Crichton-lite. It’s surprisingly better than all the Jurassic sequels, as well as Crichton’s lesser action film adaptations like Congo and Sphere. But the marketing may have set expectations off-kilter in one regard: The shark–the megalodon–of the title may have you thinking Jaws or Sharknado. It’s neither. Think Godzilla and King Kong and you’ll be much closer. The chemistry among the cast is what makes The Meg really stand out. Statham and Bingbing Li (only six years apart in real life) make a great pair I’d love to see again. Statham and Curtis seem like they really have been pals for years. Young actor Sophia Cai may be the next best child actor, holding her own with both Statham, Li, Kennedy, and the rest of the crew. The camaraderie of everyone involved and top-level production values (thanks to King Kong and The Lord of the Rings’ Oscar-winning production designer Grant Major) beg for a sequel or series.
One of the high points from a scientific standpoint this year was the discovery in August of the USS Indianapolis on the floor of the Pacific Ocean by undersea adventurer and billionaire Paul Allen, more than 70 years after it was sunk during World War II, and thirty-two years after undersea explorer Robert Ballard first discovered the location of the wreckage of the most well-known maritime disaster, the sinking of the RMS Titanic. In 1995, 2001, and 2005, director James Cameron, well-known already for Aliens, the first two Terminator movies, and True Lies, would take knowledge he learned filming The Abyss to pursue a lifelong dream of undersea explorer in Ballard’s and Jacques Cousteau’s footsteps. Ultimately Cameron would make thirty dives on the site of the wrecked RMS Titanic, more than anyone, first for footage that would be used for his film Titanic (which would win 11 Academy Awards), and later purely for scientific knowledge and exploration. Cameron documented his expeditions in his book Exploring the Deep: The Titanic Expeditions, now available in a paperback edition from Insight Editions.
One of the low points of the year was the death of beloved actor Bill Paxton. What many people may not know is the role Paxton (known for dozens of films including Edge of Tomorrow, True Lies, Aliens, and Tombstone) played in the exploration of the real Titanic after starring in Cameron’s film Titanic. He accompanied Cameron on four deep-sea dives, documenting his experiences and serving as narrator on one of Cameron’s documentaries, the 2003 film Ghosts of the Abyss. In his foreword to Exploring the Deep: The Titanic Expeditions, Paxton notes his reservations of traveling to the ocean floor. “At the time, because I had young children at home, I felt it was more risk than I should be taking,” he said. He spoke highly of Cameron, “He is someone who values his friendships and has a deep appreciation of just how brief our time on earth is–and he’s determined to make the most of it.” The feeling was mutual. Of Paxton, Cameron wrote, “Bill has become the pitch-perfect explorer. He acquired the clipped tone of a test pilot when he played Fred Haise in Apollo 13, and of course he played treasure hunter Brock Lovett in the Titanic movie, but if he’s playing a part now, it’s merged so perfectly with reality that there is no difference. He’s now a real explorer, and this is a real mission, two and a half miles down.” Indeed, half the fun of Exploring the Deep is following Paxton via his words and photographs in his adventure, adding his own insights and bits of humor along the way.
James Cameron and Bill Paxton exploring the remains of the Titanic two and a half miles down on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean in Exploring the Deep: The Titanic Expeditions.
But it’s the knowledge learned by Cameron one hundred years after the Titanic sank that makes the book compelling and thrilling and even chilling at times. Cameron, along with the other leading experts in Titanic history–Dan Lynch, Ken Marschall, and Parks Stephenson–lay out each expedition step by step, including development of the technological tools created by Cameron to be able to film the ship and eventually more easily maneuver the rooms inside the ship’s remains, something no one else had yet done. The book includes a detailed log written by Cameron for the fifth dive in September 2001, including recollections of his historical research as he observed actual locations on the ship tied to known events and passengers, some famous, some members of the crew. He uses photographs of the Titanic’s sister ship, the RMS Olympic, to highlight identical artifacts inside the ship. Many artifacts surprisingly are still intact, like mirrors, windows, glassware, and dishes–and equipment in the Marconi Wireless Telegraph rooms, which were instrumental in saving the 706 survivors. Where possible he includes rare photographs taken the day of or just before the Titanic went to sea on its maiden and only voyage, and otherwise he incorporates for reference Ken Marschall’s detailed paintings, Parks Stephenson’s computer-generated simulations, and his own recreations used in his film Titanic–all with an eye toward conveying to readers what Titanic looked like in 1912.
In so many ways, Dark Horse Comics’ Dept.H is everything we look for at borg.com. Science fiction, action, adventure, retro, mystery, noir. And it’s all in one comic book series. Writer/artist Matt Kindt has said his series Dept.H was inspired by 1970s G.I. Joes, Fisher Price Adventure People toys, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Jacques Cousteau, and you can feel all of that come through in its first nine issues this year. From the patch on the underwater crew outfits that evokes the classic 1960s/1970s G.I. Joe Adventure Team patch to the SP-350 diving saucer from the famed Calypso in the craft that takes the series lead to the depths of the ocean floor in the opening pages, to the setting and Department H Headquarters based on the ocean floor that screams H.G. Wells, Dept.H is at the top of this year’s comic book series.
Best known for his run on his Mind MGMT series, Eisner Award nominee Kindt wrote and illustrated the story, with coloring supplied by wife Sharlene. The series is an Agatha Christie-inspired closed room case. We meet Mia Hardy, who has been asked to find the mole in the undersea lab, a mole who is believed to have sabotaged the base and murdered her father. Mia has worked with the suspects before, providing the opportunity for the writer to hold back information and share with us bits and pieces when necessary. Who killed Mia’s father? Was it Q, the head of Dept. H security? Her father’s business partner Roger? The frenetic head of research Jerome? Demolition expert Bob? Her childhood friend turned enemy Lily? Her own brother Raj? Or Aaron, the research assistant? Or was it somehow, someone topside?
Readers feel the pressure of undersea operations as Mia is plunged into her own peril, as the facility again is sabotaged before she can work her way though all the suspects. How long can Kindt take us for this suffocating adventure before letting us come up for air? The page design even features a graduated flood gauge at the pages’ right edges that slowly “fills up” with water issue after issue.
Writer/artist Matt Kindt has said his new Dark Horse comic book series Dept.H was inspired by 1970s G.I. Joes, Fisher Price Adventure People toys, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Jacques Cousteau, and you can feel all of that come through in Issue #1 of the series, available in comic book stores this month. Even the patch on the underwater crew outfits is black and red, and with design lines you’d see the Department H patch twisted back into the classic G.I. Joe Adventure Team patch. It’s stamped on all the players in this underwater murder mystery story and queues the adventure that awaits readers. And we easily see the SP-350 diving saucer from the famed Calypso in the craft that takes the series lead to the depths of the ocean floor in the opening pages.
Multiple Eisner Award nominee Kindt, best known for his run on his Mind MGMT series, writes and illustrates the story, with color work supplied by wife Sharlene. The series opener begins with a slow build to lay the groundwork for the mystery and introduction of Mia, who has been asked to find the mole in the undersea lab, a mole who is believed to have murdered her father. It’s an Agatha Christie-inspired closed room case, as all suspects are still living in the deep-sea lab. Yet Kindt’s careful writing leads you to believe he may have already given us more than enough clues to solve the murder in his panel images and subtext.
With its excellent pulp noir novel-style cover, low lighting and narration, call it the first undersea noir comic book series. It also evokes movies like the Abyss, Leviathan, and Sphere.
