Rook: Exodus #1 takes us to the dying world of Exodus and the Warden, Rook, as he works to survive and escape it! Rook debuted in Ghost Machine #1 where we were given the summary that a farmer made a new life on the terraformed planet, Exodus. There Rook wears the helmet of a Warden that can control animals in his case the crows. He was running from a sabretooth tiger along with Swine, another Warden who controlled warthogs. They were salvaging a wreck but end up leaping a cliff into a river. Swine says that Dire Wolf wanted to build a community, but all Swine wants to do is build an escape rocket. A gatefold cover by interior artist, Jason Fabok, has Rook with his pistol surrounded by crows, a launching rocket, then on the other page, Swine’s helmet, between the covers is the helmet of the villain, Ursaw, and then Dire Wolf with her staff.
Creators, Geoff Johns and Fabok, return for the first issue. A page shows Planet F of the Kepler System renamed Exodus. It was colonized by the Better-World company on 2159 and the Earth Engine failed on 2170. The planet was evacuated the next year. A great splash page of the planet with scattered wreckage around it. It is now 2173 and we see a rocket ship at a landing pad surrounded by crows. More text explains that Exodus was abandoned with only the workes left stranded on the planet. The rocket engines blast sending the crows flying away. It starts to climb into the sky and starts to break atmo, but its tail shatters and explodes! The rocket crashes as we are told that the climate is changed back to its earlier form becoming hostile to life! This is seen in a closeup with by the binoculars of the former farmer. In a splash page, we see Rook surrounded by the crows.
Rook tries to contact Swine through his Warden helmet, but just gets feedback. An armored, all-terrain vehicle rolls up to the crash site. It has the profile of the Tumber from Batman Begins, with a plow in front. His ally has had his warthog, Pumba(!), finding a ship crash. Rook finds the ship’s pilot who is skewered by a sharp piece of the ship. He sees from the pilot’s uniform that he was a Weatherman that looked down on the Wardens. Rook takes out his first aid kit, but the bearded pilot shows him some files that he doesn’t want burned. The pilot hands Rook the files before he dies. Rook sends away the crows from the Weatherman’s body. He hears a growling and then turns to see a roaring bear the size of a Sequoia tree! I like the sci fi threat of the bear. Rook leaps out of the way and begins shooting at the Kaiju-sized bear. Rook is tossed back by the giant bear claw.
He takes out a knife and begins slashing at the head of th bear until it falls. Then, finally!, uses his Warden helmet to have the crows attack the bear in a swarm out of The Birds! They peck its incredibly tiny eye, about the size one of the crow’s heads, scale problem. The bear is driven off. Rook senses the need of the crows to eat and sees the body of the Weatherman. Gruesome, but next Rook explains that he buried the body. Rook drives away in his vehicle and at a dried up river, crows feed on the dead fish. He heads down a road to a run down fortess city, New Mason. He activates a switch that opens the city wall. Rook notes that the former population was eight hundred thousand. We get a two page spread of the abandoned city, very run down after three years, and there are the ever present crows.
Rook is the only citizen and in a splash page we see his vehicle driving on the city streets. He removes his Warden helmet, revealing his scarred face, with tousled, brown hair and shaved sides. At his tent, Rook could take any room, he cooks a fish and eats from a can of beans. He says that there is only one way to get away from the crows’ communication. Rook drives over to The Eagle hotel. The p.a. system crackles its greeting. He walks up the staircase, past rooms marked with red X’s, and then uses his maintenance key to open a room. Rook looks for a bottle of whisky and then crosses off room 333 with his spray paint. It must be painstaking to go through countless rooms! Rook drives over to The Long Way Home theater to watch a black and white movie, the title refers to a 1997 documentary, that ends with dialogue about never having left some place. He opens the folder and finds a family photo of the Weatheman.
Rook keeps the photo on his rocket that he is working on and we see his daily routine as he is starting to get overrwhelmed by the cawing of the crows. He crosses off more rooms getting whisky. Rook goes to the now empty lake with the fish picked apart by the crows. He waits for a rendevous with his friend, a trio of giant warthogs, like the boars in Princess Mononoke, thow him aside to fed on his fish! Swine arrives to help Rook up and orders the warthog, Pumba, from Rook’s vehicle. He finds it difficult to command them when the warthogs are hungry. Rook thinks the problem is the dying world, but Swine says there is some other kind of interference. He tells Swine that they have to leave the planet, but Rook is told that Swine can’t leave his warthogs. Swine asks if the other Warden like Dire Wolf had similar interference problems. Rook says no and Swine has bottles of whisky to celebrate like when they were in training.
He returns to his home in New Mason. Rook tries to work on his rocket, but sets off an explosion that slams him down. He flashes back to a farm in Bloomington, Illinois, 2148. A young Rook is working on a tractor and turns to see the crows in the field. A closeup of buttons, he uses them to sow eyes on a scarecrow. Still the crows perch on its shoulders and the boy tries to scare them away. Then, we watches a fleet of ships leaving the Earth and runs to tell his father. His father, who looks like an unscarred Rook, watches television reports of super fires on the West Coast, an earthquake in New Madrid, riots, and an outbreak in New Pyongyang. This is all a dystopian picture of the world like what was seen in the film, Tomorrowland. Then, there is a commercial by the Better-World corporation. A great sci fi set up in Rook: Exodus #1, it is good world building and stong pacing that emphasizes Rook’s character and situation!
Five Warden Helmets out of Five!
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