The Fuse
Written by Antony Johnston
Illustrated by Justin Greenwood
Colored by Shari Chankhamma
Lettered by Ed Brisson
Cover by Justin Greenwood
Image Comics
Release date: February 12, 2014
Cover Price: $3.50

I don’t know if I need to make a distinction between being a science fiction fan and a comic book fan, but I will say I am a fan of comic books with a sci-fi bend, which is why I was excited to dive into the new Image Comics series The Fuse, by writer Antony Johnston and artist Justin Greenwood. The series is not just an interesting sci-fi tale, but it is at heart a mystery story, or even more accurately a police procedural show in comic book form.

The Fuse #1 is set on an orbital space station where everyone seems to live in an area called Midway City. We are introduced to Dietrich, a German police officer newly immigrating to Midway City to join the homicide division. Dietrich barely gets off his flight to the station before getting tied into a possible murder of a “cabler,” basically a homeless person on the station.

Antony Johnston nicely sets up the personality of Dietrich and his new partner Klem. In a short amount of time you get to know some of their quirks and this first issue also sets out to explain the world these characters find themselves in. There is always the temptation for writers to use the first issue of a new series to take a massive exposition dump. Johnston almost goes a bit too far in the other direction, not providing enough explanation for how we got to this place in time. Fortunately, he did enough for me to get me interested in the next issue.

In terms of the art, Justin Greenwood does a solid job. His work reminds me of two of my favorite artists, Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba. Much like the writing, Greenwood does enough to set up the characters and setting, but there’s not a great many queues to show that this is a unique world. One of the hooks of the series is that this is a cop show in space, and I just wish there was more of an emphasis on establishing the world as truly different.

All in all, there’s enough here to get me to pick up the next issue of The Fuse. If you’re a fan of science fiction and mysteries, this is an issue you need to check out. I’m going to give it a 3 out of 5. See you, Space Cowboy.