Horizon, Vol. 1: Reprisal

Horizon #1

by Brandon Thomas, Juan Gedeon (Contributor), Frank Martin Jr. (Contributor)

Zhia Malen thought she’d fought her very last war, until she learned her planet was targeted for occupation...by a desperate world called Earth.

The people of Earth will be told that her arrival on our planet means invasion. These are lies. This is retaliation.

Skybound’s newest original series will show you that survival isn’t just a human instinct...

Collects HORIZON #1-6.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book, Dystopia, Fiction

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 18, 2017

About the author

Brandon Thomas is the writer and co-creator of critically-acclaimed comics series EXCELLENCE (Skybound/Image), HORIZON (Skybound/Image) and THE MANY ADVENTURES OF MIRANDA MERCURY. Previous work includes the comics series NOBLE (Lion Forge), VOLTRON (Dynamite), and FANTASTIC FOUR TALES (Marvel).

NOBLE #1 was awarded the Fist Award for Best International Comic by the 2017 Lagos Comic-Con, in recognition of best usage of characters/stories based on persons of African descent. NOBLE was also nominated for 2019 Glyph Comics Awards in six categories: Story Of The Year; Best Cover (winner); Best Writer; Best Artist (winner); Best Male Character (winner); and Best Female Character.

Since 2003, Brandon has written comics for several publishers, including Marvel, Lion Forge, Arcade, Dynamite, and DC Entertainment, and has published over 300 original columns as part of the Ambidextrous series. His first creator-owned project THE MANY ADVENTURES OF MIRANDA MERCURY shipped from Archaia Entertainment to widespread critical success, leading to his biggest comics projects to date — the sci-fi conspiracy thriller HORIZON (co-created with artist Juan Gedeon), and the action fantasy series EXCELLENCE (co-created with artist Khary Randolph) — both published by Robert Kirkman’s Skybound Entertainment.

Brandon also hosts The Two Brandons podcast with Eisner-Nominated writer Brandon Easton (Transformers: War For Cybertron, Star Trek: Year Five, Vampire Hunter D: The Series).

He lives and writes in Southern California with his wife and son.

Reviews

[Shai · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a hard time deciding on what should I rate this first volume of the Horizon comic series. I like the story because it sort of reminds me of the The Matrix, but there are certain parts that confused me. Therefore, I rated this 3 stars instead of 4 because I was left with several unanswered questions.

Thanks to Image Comics for the providing a copy of this graphic novel.

[Skye Kilaen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Done with books 1 and 2, can't wait for book 3. Horizon uses a sci-fi plot I haven't seen before: a team of undercover agents from another planet is dispatched to prevent Earth from invading their home to escape environmental destruction. The first volume is full of timeline jumps to get you caught up on current events, so I had to read it twice to properly assemble everything in my brain, but I'm glad I did.

What I especially appreciated is that the team's actions against humans are only half the story. The other half is their emotional experience of being outnumbered and vulnerable on a hostile world, and how this warps the relationships between them and even their own morality. They knew they were risking everything for this mission to protect their people, but the reality on the ground is still staggering. There's plenty of action, and I love how Gedeon draws action, but the quiet moments of despair and confusion are just as compelling.

Diversity notes: (1) Three of the four team members are female. Both the primary human characters the alien team interacts with are Black, though so far they are firmly secondary characters. Really, really interesting secondary characters. Especially the guy with telekinetic powers. That dude freaks me the hell out. (2) Writer Brandon Thomas (who is also the creator of our household fave Miranda Mercury) is African-American. Co-creator and illustrator Juan Gedeon is Argentinian. Letterer Rus Wooton is disabled.

[CS · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bullet Review:

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhh. I've certainly read worse, but damn, if this wasn't a confusing setup volume. Also, not sure how the story can proceed from here. I really wish the characters had been better developed - took me until nearly the end to realize that "Sherrie" was "Agent Davix"!

Between 2 and 3 stars. Cannot make my mind up about which one it should be.

[Trike · Rating 1 out of 5]

There’s no there, there.

Aliens are afraid that humans will invade their planet because we’ve wrecked Earth, so they send a few spies to… stop it, I guess? Except they don’t take on world governments or infiltrate the UN, they beat up what seems to be a low-rent drug dealing enterprise. That isn’t what’s going on, but that’s what it *feels* like. It doesn’t help that the two bad guys are black guys while the aliens aren’t. Apparently they’re blue but they sure act white.

Nor do they sell the “wrecked Earth” idea. It looks like they invaded 2010, not a desperate planet on the verge of imminent collapse, which robs this of both its urgency and potential philosophical conundrum.

It just seems like an excuse for Space Assholes to shoot up the warehouse of Earth Assholes. And that’s really all 95% of this is: shootouts. Very little substantive discussion about right or wrong, nothing about manifest destiny, zip going on with sociological impacts or political maneuverings… just violence and torture, like a petty supervillain trying to control his turf. Disappointing.

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man.... two stars, and actually I'm feeling kind of generous. We just jumped in and let out snippets of information as we were going along and it just did not work out for me. I learned more in the three sentence 'about' the book than I did in the actual pages. Sounds like it should be interesting so maybe it will be eventually?

[Michael Norwitz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I quite liked the first issue: an sci-fi espionage tale of an alien coming to Earth to prevent an invason of her home planet. However, as the series continued, sociology and cultural satire and politics took a back seat to endless gunfights and explosions. After a promising opening sequence I found the book a chore to get through.

[Wade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the general story and premise of the book... but damn was it hard to follow in some parts. I’d find myself having to reread several pages, and still not fully understanding what they were trying to get across. It was very frustrating, because I genuinely wanted to know what the hell was happening.

[Relstuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting premise. Obviously a lot more going on than is revealed in these first issues. I'm a little torn about who I am supposed to be rooting for so far (probably not a bad thing). I'll check out the next volume. :)

[Pierre Eklöf · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a mess.

[Chris Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read the first six issues of Horizon (I've been collecting the individual issues), I have to say I'm still uncertain how I feel about the series as a whole. What begins as an exciting and cool intro issue, turns muddled and confusing as new characters join the fray and the story keeps the reader out of the loop. Then, suddenly, something clicks and it makes sense, kind of.

This is a story where the humans of Earth are the bad guys, and aliens like Zhia Malen are invading the Earth in order to prevent Earth's invasion of their planet. Why Earth wants/needs to invade this planet and why Malen and her comrades are so worried about this invasion (beyond the obvious) becomes clearer later on. There's a moment halfway through the fifth issue where things sort of clicked into place. But I can also see where this moment may not click for everybody, and even I have some doubts and questions that aren't answered by the end of the first volume.

Horizon is an action filled affair. Juan Gedeon adds motion to his images, blurring lines or adding cartoon-like backgrounds to give an illusion of motion. Some entire chapters are devoted to action scenes. Then the plot happens and the story stalls in confusion, even as it continues moving at a breakneck pace. It doesn't help that so much is kept in the dark, or that characters show up at random with little background, and that the protagonists are difficult to remember whose who, even though each one looks different. Had Brandon Thomas taken time to develop these characters and his plot in better detail, this could be a much better story. And yet there is something to be said about the discovery of what Thomas is trying to achieve. That doesn't excuse the lack of character development, but there is promise in the idea.

Gedeon's artwork similarly has me feeling ambivalent. It is unique and unlike anything I've seen in other comics. At times it is a graceful, fluid piece, and at times it is a blurry mess, with outlines of characters made too awkward and obvious. At times it seemed the artwork grew worse and then better from issue to issue. Gedeon shines best in his action sequences, as the bulk of the final issue showcases.

If I could, I would rate this a 3.5 out of 5. The series grows muddled in the middle and builds momentum at the last two issues, promising something good. It may be that this series does not provide the clear characterization it needs, but will hurtle on with the energy that has carried it this far. That's fine. I think I've settled into its groove enough to enjoy the ride the rest of the way.

[Alex Sarll]

The two oldest first contact stories in SF: they invade us, or we invade them. This has both, with humanity looking to escape an Earth that little bit more fucked than it is now, and a covert cell from the destination world determined otherwise: "This planet made their home a diseased bed, and we have come here to make certain you all lie in it." Superpowers and skin colour aside, the aliens are barely distinguishable from humans, nor their home from America; the art is suitably grotty and kinetic, but while it always conveyed a sense of stuff happening, sometimes I wasn't sure precisely what. What really makes this work is the sheer disgust with humanity: "Humanity lacks, Alderman. All but the ability to commit suicide while insisting there was no other choice."

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I get why other reviewers claim this GN to be difficult to follow. It is not your typical story you find in graphic novels, and is only the first major section of a larger storyline.

Horizon reads like a novel, with slow reveals and build-up. I can imagine that reading it in individual issues would be head-scratching... but the whole I find extremely compelling. Brandon Thomas has a way of evoking the setting and technology and characters that does, like many sci-fi novels, expect the reader to go along and allow things to unfold over time.

This can be a struggle in comic format, but I find it a deeper read. (Granted I'm reading all three volumes back to back, which enables me to capture the complete story without gaps.)

I do love Juan Gedeon's artwork... along with Spicer's colors, this book has a bit of a retro feel... a semi-abstract rendering of a post-cyberpunk aesthetic. I really dig it.

[Brenda Rezk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not much of a graphics novel fan, but someone introduced me to a couple of good ones, so I thought I would give this one a try when I found it in a book bundle. I found the plot somewhat confusing. I also had trouble differentiating a couple of the aliens at first, especially when they started calling each other by different names, e.g., switching from last to first names or to different codenames or ranks. I'm not sure who the humans characters are. I wasn't sure what some of the illustrations were supposed to be showing. It made more sense after I trudged through to the end, then skimmed back over the whole thing again.

The aliens are supposed to be the good guys. They want to stop humans from invading their planet and ruining it they way they have ruined Earth by allowing climate change to continue unabated. They seem rather human themselves in their motivations, emotions, etc. There was a lot of fighting and torture.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Art alone was well worth getting this book, the story somehow got chopped up, curious to know if it was done in editing or in the writers mind, I know that sometimes as an Author it is easy to forget that your readers do not know all of the background information that is swimming around in your mind, Or perhaps this has been an ongoing series that though the book said Volume One, I should have clairvoyantly known that I should have started with some other book to be caught up for this one. My feeling was that of an outsider overhearing some details of a story of which I had no real frame of reference. Yet I did sort of get it towards the end. I loved the art and for mostly that reason I would say, This is a good read. I do have to say that for the fighting part of the art, much could be gained in finding an old copy of, "How to draw comics the marvel way."

[47Time · Rating 2 out of 5]

The flow of the story is not very fluid. That and what seems to be a character referring to another character by a dozen different names is just too confusing. Of course, it might just be that I wasn't paying attention properly. Who cares any more?

In this story it is humanity that is seen as the invader. Zhia Malen was sent to Earth to punish the humans that have sent colonists to her world called Valius. She must first reunite her team, then prevent humanity from doing the same destruction to her world as they did to Earth. By the end it's clear that Zhia's superior physical resilience, her technology and her determination will be put to the test by the humans who have developed the means to imbue their soldiers with superhuman powers like telekinesis.

[J.D. DeHart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found Horizon, Volume 1 to have a very cinematic quality. It reminded me, in a nostalgic way, of Masters of the Universe and other stories from the 1980s. I am not sure if this was the intent of the author, but it was one of my takeaways.

The visual appeal of this book was worth the price of admission alone, and I found the story to be very enjoyable. Of course, being volume one, there is a continuation aspect that begs more. But the begging more is a positive feeling to come away with at the end of the book.

I would recommend this book to science fiction fans who want to explore their favorite genre in the medium of graphic novels.

[Paul Allard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sci-fi comic collection about an alien come to Earth to prevent an invasion.

This collection involves an alien crew come to Earth to recover one of their race and to prevent Earthlings leaving the planet. A firefight takes up a lot of the central part of the story.

The illustrations in the digital edition are not always clear so it is quite difficult to differentiate between some of the characters. The plot is OK but also hard to follow at times. Not brilliant but reasonably good. I'm not enthused enough to seek out Volume 2.

[Will · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is difficult to review. First off I really like the art and the story made sense once you get to the ending.

The problem for me was the build up, constant time skips, backtracking, unnecessary scenes. It left so many questions along the way and the whole story felt rushed. In a “we’ll explain later” type of deal.

I rarely felt engaged after reading the first issue. But I like I said it makes sense in the end. If I get my hands on the 2nd volume I’ll check it out. I just hope it’s pacing isn’t similar to this.

[Daniel McTaggart · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting sci-fi take on alien invasions. Because the "good guys" in this story are the aliens. The art is kinetic and frantic, which served to increase my adrenalin as I progressed through the book. However, I think that may have caused me to lose track of the story somewhere. I had to struggle a tiny bit to get back into the fray. Still, I enjoyed it. And for $9.99, I got a lot of bang for my buck.

[Aaron White · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of an alien strike team come to earth, hiding amongst us, with a task of ensuring that humanity never leaves earth again. Apparently humans had wreaked havoc on their home world and they are here for revenge. But one of them is caught, and the humans appear to have more abilities and technology than the aliens had planned for. Somewhat confusing plot and sequences, but does a very good job of showing humanity as the bad guys. The readers’ sympathies are fully with the aliens.

[Lenore · Rating 3 out of 5]

The time jumps are slightly confusing and the art doesn't clear it up much. I normally understand things very well (I got Memento and Inception the first watch, so if I'm confused, it means something's messy).

[Seth Merlo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting premise let down by terrible execution. Too many threads and characters are packed in with too little set up. About half of this book could have been pushed to subsequent volumes and the pages given to establishing the lead character.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another of the HB purchases. It was an interesting premise. Aliens in disguise on a dystopian near future Earth. I liked the non-linear storytelling and the art but it was just a bit too action focused for me to love.

[Sean · Rating 1 out of 5]

What was this? I have no idea what happened or why? Brandon Thomas tells a story that makes little to no sense about some aliens who come to Earth...I think. Seriously, no idea. The art was basic and at times off-putting. Overall, simple instructions on how not to make a good comic book.

[Jesús · Rating 4 out of 5]

(For the whole mini-series) Very entertaining variant of the "alien invasion" genre, with interesting plot twists. I miss a more "alien" alien society but I can see why they have designed it that way.

[Joseph · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's all right but I don't feel an urge to continue the series.

[Keena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Looking forward to vol 2!

[Jake Van Hoorn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strong start but artwork and interweaving stories get muddled to point of being confusing and impossible to follow

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really have no idea what this book was about. The art was pretty weak too.

[G Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

kinda lukewarm. cool concept. meh execution.