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Past Aways: Facedown in the Timestream
When five deep-time explorers find themselves stranded in the distant past of 2015, they're forced to adapt to a primitive world of iPhone 6s's and cars that can't even drive themselves. But when a rift in space-time starts spitting out dinosaurs, giant robots, and other strange phenomena, only the marooned "PastAways" can defend the twenty-first century from the terrors of the timestream!
Collecting: Past Aways 1-9 & material from Dark Horse Presents 6
Collecting: Past Aways 1-9 & material from Dark Horse Presents 6
256 pages, Paperback
First published July 27, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
March 20, 2020
A really fun story about 5 time travelers stranded in our time. Our world is continuously beset with time anomalies which our heroes must stop as they struggle to return to their own time. Matt Kindt provides a bang-up story with some of Scott Kolins's best art of his career.
Received an advance copy from Dark Horse and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
Received an advance copy from Dark Horse and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
August 9, 2016
I really like Matt Kindt but his last two books have not wowed me. This is good in the middle. It starts off right into the story and left me feeling slightly off-kilter until I could figure out just what was going on and who was who. Then the story picks up as the team has adventures trying to figure out a way to get back to their time, meanwhile character is developed making them interesting people. Past that, I kept feeling like it needed to wrap up and finish but it was just too long for the story it is presenting. It's an entertaining read and I kept with it but did find the drag making me wish it would hurry up and end. My favourite parts actually were in between issues when the documenter of the project, Herb, would write a textual entry in his journal describing a journey out to experience 21st-century life and how he compared it to what was norm for him, a million years in the future.
September 6, 2017
Past Aways bills itself as a time-travel comic, but it just barely is. Certainly, the protagonists are from a million years in the future and have been stranded, but other than some temporal rules, time travel isn't much a part of this comic. Instead, this is a pulpy science-fiction story of the sort that's become popular in comics in recent years: stuff from the future invades our Earth, and the Past Aways capture it.
If the plot doesn't sound that engrossing, that's because it's not. Really, it's just the canvas that the story of these five Past Aways is painted upon. And their story is a bit more interesting, because they each have their secrets. Somehow, despite this focus, the characters are still largely glossed over. There's an interesting conflict between two of them, but beyond that, everyone else is pretty flat until the very end.
So, overall, this is OK. There's fun pulpy goodness and there's interesting personal dynamic. However, there's nothing here that makes this comic particularly reread able.
If the plot doesn't sound that engrossing, that's because it's not. Really, it's just the canvas that the story of these five Past Aways is painted upon. And their story is a bit more interesting, because they each have their secrets. Somehow, despite this focus, the characters are still largely glossed over. There's an interesting conflict between two of them, but beyond that, everyone else is pretty flat until the very end.
So, overall, this is OK. There's fun pulpy goodness and there's interesting personal dynamic. However, there's nothing here that makes this comic particularly reread able.
September 14, 2022
Found this peeking out of a corner at the local library.
What an incredibly enjoyable find. With only a few books, still able to provide interesting characters, great twists and turns, and an insane amount of charm in a small package. The red info boxes and Herb's journaling make the story really stand out and the art is next level.
Highly recommend.
What an incredibly enjoyable find. With only a few books, still able to provide interesting characters, great twists and turns, and an insane amount of charm in a small package. The red info boxes and Herb's journaling make the story really stand out and the art is next level.
Highly recommend.
November 11, 2016
An interesting and rather serious take on time travel by Matt Kindt, notorious oddball of the comic world. An expedition is sent back in time one million years to the year 2015. I like the rules that Kindt sets up for his travelers. They cannot be killed because they haven't been born yet so they are trapped in the past and immortal. There are some fun twists and turns. There are robots, space ships, and accidental almost incest...you know, the basics. The ending doesn't quite land for me but I enjoyed it all the same.
September 24, 2016
I guess I like this. Good, though not great. Story a bit reminiscent of Rick Remender's Black Science. There were some hints of the same sort of subversive storytelling as Kindt employed in Mind Mgmt, but just hints. It wasn't as full-blown weird as that series could get at times. The artwork is very interesting and colorful. I really wish I liked it more than I did, but I got to the end and just said, "Meh," and moved on to the next book.
May 2, 2020
More of a 3.5 stars. Not Kindt's best work, started a little slow and felt like a bit of a slog, but eventually picked up and became interesting enough that I wanted to see where it would go. Wasn't the biggest fan of the art, but it conveyed the story clearly, so it did its job.
August 21, 2020
A team from the distant future lands in our time with no way to go home. Past Aways gives us the story of what it takes to get back, even if that means that not all of them make it.
Matt Kindt will always have my interest simply because of Mind MGMT. So when I saw that he wrote this book about stranded time travelers, I was like, yes please! And while this was good, I had higher hopes for it to be honest. It is a pretty straightforward time travelling story for the most part. A lot of what happens is definitely spoiler material, so suffice to say, there as some twists and turns that I did not see coming at all. Then again, there is a fair amount of "by the book" storytelling in the volume.
One thing I really like about Kindt's style is that he provides extra informational detail in his comics. In this case, he has one of the crew's diary entries as back matter for each issue. This gave insight not only to how the crew was acclimating, but with the revelations of this particular crew member, the journal entries take on a new light after the reveal. There are also random informational diagrams of tools, vehicles, and locations that the crew use and deal with. This type of extra data really rounds out the world and makes you become more engrossed by the overall lore.
Like I said, there is a lot that is not expected in this book, so I will not spoil it. But if you are a fan of time travelling stories with twists and turns, then this book is for you.
Matt Kindt will always have my interest simply because of Mind MGMT. So when I saw that he wrote this book about stranded time travelers, I was like, yes please! And while this was good, I had higher hopes for it to be honest. It is a pretty straightforward time travelling story for the most part. A lot of what happens is definitely spoiler material, so suffice to say, there as some twists and turns that I did not see coming at all. Then again, there is a fair amount of "by the book" storytelling in the volume.
One thing I really like about Kindt's style is that he provides extra informational detail in his comics. In this case, he has one of the crew's diary entries as back matter for each issue. This gave insight not only to how the crew was acclimating, but with the revelations of this particular crew member, the journal entries take on a new light after the reveal. There are also random informational diagrams of tools, vehicles, and locations that the crew use and deal with. This type of extra data really rounds out the world and makes you become more engrossed by the overall lore.
Like I said, there is a lot that is not expected in this book, so I will not spoil it. But if you are a fan of time travelling stories with twists and turns, then this book is for you.
March 30, 2019
Oh, Kindt syndrome again. Matt takes a theme, which lures me, and somehow made it unappealing for me. I have a hard time to accept his characters - usually visual stickers which must be explained a lot to get a grasp on what kind of persons they are. And this is very strong with Past Aways. In combination with rather a chaotic start, I have a hard time to get into the comics for a hundred pages. I also had a temptation to just quit. The art is mediocre, reminding me of some European styles, but without finesse, rushed. So the art didn't help to keep me up much. In 3/5 of the whole book finally, something interested happened. And the finale gets better, more thrilling and interesting. But it's too little too late.
It's best to finish this opinion with quotation directly from this comics book:
"I finished it in one go, not wanting to delay or prolong the experience. I simply wanted it done."
- Herbert June Travelogue (on coffee to go)
It's best to finish this opinion with quotation directly from this comics book:
"I finished it in one go, not wanting to delay or prolong the experience. I simply wanted it done."
- Herbert June Travelogue (on coffee to go)
August 3, 2022
Every new Matt Kindt story I explore is hard to predict how it's going to go. Each is so different and distinct from the other and makes for quite a reading experience.
Case in point - Past Aways involves time travelers from billions of years in the future who are now stuck in the distant past. And after spending some time apart, they're finally coming back together with the glimmer of a chance to go back to their home time.
One of the interesting premises of the comic is that they are all somehow invulnerable - because Time won't let them die while they're in the past as this may lead to some sort of paradox. The other is that their passage through time has created a rip in time and strange things keep falling out.
But this is a Kindt comic, so it's not just going to be them being heroes fighting aberrations from other time periods. There's a nuanced story and so many secrets on all sides tha things have to come to blows eventually. Great stuff.
Case in point - Past Aways involves time travelers from billions of years in the future who are now stuck in the distant past. And after spending some time apart, they're finally coming back together with the glimmer of a chance to go back to their home time.
One of the interesting premises of the comic is that they are all somehow invulnerable - because Time won't let them die while they're in the past as this may lead to some sort of paradox. The other is that their passage through time has created a rip in time and strange things keep falling out.
But this is a Kindt comic, so it's not just going to be them being heroes fighting aberrations from other time periods. There's a nuanced story and so many secrets on all sides tha things have to come to blows eventually. Great stuff.
January 2, 2021
A volume I snagged at a con at a discount price, not having ever heard of it before.
I actually read this twice over. Once, months ago, and never got around to rating it.
I saw it in my list, and gave it a second go, to see if it was still a 3 star effort like I remembered.
On a second go-around, I enjoyed the story that much more, and was less bothered by what I remembered irked me so much the first time (the odd choices made by the artist).
I was left with the sense of a short adventure, told with excitement and capped off neatly and cleanly. Moreover, the tale takes a series of decidedly unexpected loops and left me feeling particularly satisfied.
I actually read this twice over. Once, months ago, and never got around to rating it.
I saw it in my list, and gave it a second go, to see if it was still a 3 star effort like I remembered.
On a second go-around, I enjoyed the story that much more, and was less bothered by what I remembered irked me so much the first time (the odd choices made by the artist).
I was left with the sense of a short adventure, told with excitement and capped off neatly and cleanly. Moreover, the tale takes a series of decidedly unexpected loops and left me feeling particularly satisfied.
February 21, 2021
I love a good time travel story and love these particular creators. This just didn't come together for me though. None of the characters ever felt like they had any life breathed into them. The was some good pseudo-science but at times there were huge science info dumps that slowed everything down. The book never actually had a protagonist which never let readers get invested. The mysteries of who did what and what were almost forgotten until the end what it didn't actually matter. Kolins did well with the art, especially with the creatures. Sadly, was bored during much of the book. Overall, not close to the best Matt Kindt has done.
October 16, 2023
Matt's usual mind-messing at play here, as explorers of the past get stranded roughly in our present, only to find out that their solid team is so corrupted they might never get home.
Kolins and Crabtree do an amazing job with the art, matching the bizarre creatures due to the time fractures with the "ordinary" of our time.
Great fun, as per usual.
Kolins and Crabtree do an amazing job with the art, matching the bizarre creatures due to the time fractures with the "ordinary" of our time.
Great fun, as per usual.
July 25, 2025
None of the characters had any redeeming qualities, and we didn't get to know any of them well enough to care about them despite that. There were a few reveals where I'd start to get interested again, but there's just so much space taken up by "isn't the past so silly" stuff that it always falls flat again.
March 2, 2018
I like Matt Kindt.
I did not care for this.
I did not care for this.
August 17, 2018
A fun romp that reminded me a little of the recent Prophet and some Mobius influences.
September 1, 2024
Feels like Kindt’s version of a Brandon Graham book in a way. Wasn’t bad!
March 6, 2017
Matt Kindt is a great author with a knack for originality. This is original and kinda fun, but it lacks s care for these stereotyped characters: strong but slow witted, cocky good looking leader, etc. Had this gone on for five more issues, maybe there could have had character development. I just didn't like, which is a drag, because Kindt is one of my favorite comic book authors.
May 16, 2015
I love this new series. Matt Kindt's writing is wonderful as usual, and this quirky sci-fi story about deep-time explorers is beautifully and perfectly illustrated by Scott Kolins.
April 5, 2017
A fun ride that builds to well earned emotional climax. Bravo
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews