A little while ago, iFanboy previewed this series on their website, and I made a note in my brain that this sounded kind of cool and that I should check it out. Fast forward to now, when I’ve completely forgotten everything I read about the title, and the issue is finally in my hands. I walked away with mixed feelings about it. The concept as its explained throughout the issue is interesting. It’s sort of like Inception married Eerie Comics and popped out some sort of Lovecraftian, dream warrior spy book. I was expecting a bit more of D.B. Cooper being a badass agent for some sort of real life BPRD, but instead, we’re given a much different take than is expected, and I have to give props to Churilla for not being afraid to go beyond expectations.

My main beef with the issue is that it’s storytelling was a bit wonky. The book does some time jumping, coupled with reality shifts and it certainly challenges the reader to keep up with what’s going on. While I was able to suss out what was happening, it may turn some others off of the title. I think there could have been a way to present the materials more smoothly without confusing the reader.

The art is excellent in the book, which is to be expected. Churilla has a cartoony style, but there’s an edge and attitude to it in this book that makes it very distinct. Cooper is drawn appropriately to be a slick operator and images in the dream world are as weird as you would expect from that sort of reality. The action is solid, and the sequences are easy to follow even if their arrangement wasn’t in my preferred order.

Overall, this was a solid first issue, and I plan to continue to pick it up. It’s just too original to not support and the story and art are enough to keep my eye to see if this morphs into something truly special.