The Freeze

by Dan Wickline, Phil Sevy (Artist), Troy Peteri (Letterer)

The entire human population is frozen by a mysterious global all except Ray; and only he has the power to unfreeze them. Now with the fate of the world in his hands, he must figure out what is going on, how to set things right again, and answer the question, does everyone deserve to be saved?

Collects THE FREEZE #1-4

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Sequential Art, Comic Book

128 pages, Paperback

First published May 8, 2019

About the author

Dan Wickline is a writer/photographer/bassist living in Los Angeles, CA. In comics he has written for the 30 Days of Night and Grimm Fairy Tales franchises as well as the on-going ShadowHawk and 1001 Arabian Nights: The Adventures of Sinbad. He's also written prose for characters such as The Phantom, The Green Hornet and his own creation Lucius Fogg. As a photographer, Dan has been featured in numerous gallery shows as well as a collection of his black & white work published under the title Private Skin. Dan had a brief moment in the Hollywood spotlight playing a corpse on the hit series Dexter, but now spends his spare time as the bassist for the newly formed metal band Murder Most Foul. Dan is happily married to his lovely wife Debbie, who has an amazing capacity to put up with the insanity that is his life.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, so here's the proof that I am not the only person who daydreamed about what it would be like to freeze the world or freeze time and then be able to touch someone else to unfreeze them. It's like Wickline reached into my brain and stole my idea!
But I'm not actually a very creative thinker, so that leads me to believe that this is probably a pretty common thought that a lot of us have had.
Yes?



Anyway, this is a story about a guy who takes a nap at his desk and when he wakes up, he's the only one who's moving around. For some (as of yet) unexplained reason, the entire world is basically frozen. Now, time is still moving along, but all of the living things are stuck in some sort of stasis.
Unless Ray (<--main character) decides to touch them.
So the question becomes this: Who do you unfreeze?



Ok, so there's this whole messiah thing happening to Ray with some of the people he's unfrozen, some awkward romance with an office co-worker, plus a murder mystery involving a serial killer who is targeting The Frozen for some reason. And that's on top of the mystery of why the fuck this happened to start with.
Ehhhh.
It doesn't completely work. Mostly because, while it's a super-cool thing to daydream about, it's sort of a weird plot for a comic.
Then again, I'm seriously interested in seeing where the hell the story goes.
This is my dream after all!
I mean, if this guy writes about a woman who tricks her car out so that she can shoot paintballs at asshole drivers next, I'm just going to assume he's got some kind of a machine that lets him peek into my brain.



Kudos for snatching this goofy fantasy out of my noggin and putting it down on paper!

[James DeSantis · Rating 1 out of 5]

What happens when everything in the world freezes except one guy and when he touches you they come back to reality? Sounds cool, right?

Too bad this story's execution is lacking big time. Character's acting so out of character from one issue to the other. The mystery is so obvious it hurt when the reveal happened. The art is kind of bad at points, with facial emotions looking funny when supposed to be funny. The pacing is dreadfully boring. Overall...did not like it at all. A 1 out of 5.

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

For some reason I never finished this series ... decided to read the last issue ... wish I hadn't bothered.

No real ending or explanation and no other issues in sight.

Also, read Dr. Stone for a similar moral quandary of choosing who to unfreeze, with an infinitely better story (though besides people being frozen that's about the only similarity ...)

Individual issue reviews: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4

Total review score: 2.25

[WillBrit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda boring

[47Time · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is potential in this story. It features a cataclysmic event, several unique characters with personal goals, some constructive, others deadly. It seems that no matter how much care you take with the people you surround yourself with, you're always going to get people with ulterior motives, religious fanatics, serial murderers. The part with the characters is original, but the story has no scientific basis. Worse, it's not completed yet.

Ray Adams witnesses a most uncommon event - after fixing a computer, everyone around him, likely in the whole world, becomes frozen in time. Interestingly, time still passes normally for inanimate objects which means that many people are killed in car and plane crashes, surgeries, and other activities that required human input to keep safe. Ray finds he can unfreeze people with his touch. He does so to a few coworkers, but they agree to use the ability sparingly. They must first make sense of this event.

The initial small group expands as Ray unfreezes more and more people based on what they need to survive. They create rules for this purpose, but issues soon occur when a member must be removed for attacking Ray - they can't freeze him back, so it's imprisonment, exile or death. They vote to exile that member, but the one who sends him away - a religious fanatic who is a member of a cult that idolizes Ray - secretly kills him.

Later on Ray's inner circle find the mutilated body of a frozen woman. She wouldn't survive being awakened. Several others are found in the same state. It's obvious there is a killer among them. Their investigation reveals that the victims were on the sex offender registry. Karen, one of the first to be awakened, and two others are the murderers. They wanted to cleanse society, but their chosen method doesn't sit well with Ray. The rest of his friends rush to save him.

A time later Ray has more things figured out about the Freeze - he believes that a doctor he recently awakened in the cause of the event.

[Monita Roy Mohan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an advanced copy of this volume from Image Comics and I'll admit it was a gripping read. It initially looks like a simple heist, but we soon realise the story is about the human condition. This was like '28 Days Later', but with more of a theological leaning.

I didn't care for the Biblical angle of the story, it seemed to be a reach but it could be a very American thing. The other problem was that Lisa was often written as the doting housewife - she's dragged along by her sister on an investigation, but all Lisa seems to care about is being with Ray and making a home. She felt like a flat character with no dimension.


The biggest problem with the story was the mutilation of the frozen. There were a lot of women in that truck, which made me think that the culprit had some perverted tendencies. I fully expected it to be a 'Criminal Minds' kind of reveal of some sicko. So, Karen killing sex offenders doesn't work for me. My guess is that there is another killer, since they found another missing woman at the end, because otherwise, it makes no sense why the number of female sex offenders would outweigh the men.


The art worked for the story, but it was inconsistent. In the panel that Lisa is introduced in, she looks like a large, curvy woman. Next thing you know she's drawn like a conventional slim character. What was up with that? Also, the person who is told this entire story looked like a comic book high-schooler. Then she's revealed to be an adult. That's confusing.

I would have preferred some greater distinction between the frozen and the unfrozen. It was hard to make out the difference at times.

Though some aspects of the story weren't to my personal taste, this was a really great read. I like the diversity of the characters, but the women need to be fleshed out more and there should be some body diversity in the main cast as well. I would love to pick up the next volume to find out more about the plot.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

A cool idea that doesn't go far enough and leaves way too much open ended. I want answers dammit. It's about a world wide event where everyone suddenly becomes frozen except for one man. And that man's touch can unfreeze people. You never find out the mystery of why this happened. There's this weird religious angle to things. Even though in the first issue there's crashed planes and cars everywhere, the next issue the few people left are driving around like nothing happened. There's power. The internet still works. The food in the grocery store is still good. They even get meat there. It's just not very well thought through and then it leaves you hanging.

[Sesana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't recommend this book, if only because it's unfinished. It stops after four issues, on a cliffhanger that will apparently never be resolved. It's too bad, because there's a decent idea here. The notion of trying to slowly build a society in a frozen world has a lot of meat to it. It's too bad that it either isn't really explored here, or the author just didn't get around to it. Getting to the end of the volume and realizing that all you're left with is unanswered questions and half developed ideas is frustrating.

[Peder Swendsrud · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story. Though, I did think that it might have moved a little bit quickly in how it jumped into the plot. I would have liked to spend more time on the planning and how they go about things. I think that is somewhat because of the comic book aspect, if this had just come out as a longer trade twice a year, it would have had more of that, but you need things to get going quickly. I am definitely interesting in reading more of the series.

[Lukas Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was really not that excited about this one, because honestly, it sounds like so many other stories going on right now. All very Twilight Zone 'you woke up and everything is changed but you' stuff. But it really works. It moves briskly with action and some pretty good mystery.

[Timbrr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another one that sucked me in with the concept. But the mystery of it will probably get me to keep reading more eventually

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite a good friend saying she didn’t think I’d like it, I’m enjoying the story and am looking forward to volume 2. It tickles my philosophical and speculative ethics bond.

[Jason McCracken · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Jesus stuff is more than a little annoying but I guess it is American so... *shrugs*

[Collin Reynolds · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nice art, very implausible premise and details.

[Tanya Procknow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a huge comic/graphics fan but it was interesting enough to get and keep my attention.

[Jen-Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 stars

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting opening act ???

Great concept with an open ended cliffhanger. Sadly, this seems to have died on the vine. Still worth a read.

[Jillypenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool idea. Executed weirdly.

[Danny Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting plot. I want to see what happens next.

[Calvin Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

This kind of cataclysmic world event, how do survivors react is always interesting in terms of what an author sees happening.

Very much enjoyed this one so far.

[Oleksandr Avdieiev · Rating 3 out of 5]

Історія цікава, але незакінчена, тому не починайте, щоб не розчаруватись