4 out of 5

Captain Flynt fits the lovable Han Solo rogue template of space warrior, and this first of his kidnapped-by-aliens tale follows a similarly 80s adventure format: wit, action, hijinx, last-minute escapes… and most importantly, fun.  This book is tons of fun.

A kickstarter project rightfully made good, Captain Flynt is given a sliver of background as a movie star in classic Hollywood; a night of drinking with the ashes of someone close to him as he ponders changes in his career is interrupted by a bright light and then he’s waking up on a ship, treated to dinner by a bearded lizard guy, and told he’ll be fighting in a war.  His refusal isn’t well received, but his intended punishment upon a type of prison ship is again interrupted, this time by some pirates.  Flynt’s species’ reputation apparently precedes him: humans are well-respected out here, and the pirates adapt him as their Captain right quick.  Issue one tracks this bands’ fantastic escape from Flynt’s initial captees, with wonderfully energetic, character-filled art from Ryan Howe and bright but balanced colors from superstar Ronda Pattison.

Things move fast, but writers Lyle Coleman and Josh Hoeppner give their setup a good sense of lived-in reality: even that sliver of background mentioned feels grounded, although we’re only with it for a scant two pages.  The varied alien races, of which we see a small handful, are given the same treatment: it doesn’t just seem like tossed in tropes for visuals’ sake, but rather the nature of the spacey world in which Flynt finds himself.

The sudden deeming of Flynt as cap’n is maybe a bit too sudden, though, as is his immediate camaraderie with his secondary kidnappers versus his animosity toward the first.  That being said, I accept that this was out of a need to keep things moving and leave us in a proper cliffhangery spot.  Still, a bit more padding around those concepts might’ve made the stakes / bonding that much more interesting.

Here’s hoping we get further issues to see how this talented creative follows up on their successful take on the space adventure romp.