2 out of 5

A dense dose of militaristic sci-fi, Dan Abnett’s and Steve White’s Hypersonic hits hard with “the full effect of HyperSonic:” a desire to (as it feels for a reader far astray of the military) dive deep into the jargon of its fighter pilots, and the technical aspects of their weaponry and machines. This is done to the extent of having a glossary run at the back of each issue, and though a lot of stuff can be taken from context… a lot of stuff can’t. It doesn’t negatively impact the book, as you can kind of gloss over a term like “porky-pigging” in the way it’s used without losing what’s necessary in the scene, but – unlike a book like Anathem, where the glossary supports eventual understanding as terms are reused again and agian, ‘HyperSonic’ may only use “porky-pigging” once, or sometimes the terms mentioned aren’t used at all. So you never get a chance to much ingest actual meaning via context.

That feels representative of the book as a whole. It’s an interesting story, but executed with a frame that seems ill shaped for that story. Some backmatter in the fourth issue outlines a long, multi-publisher path the tale took to getting this ’98 Dark Horse printing; there’s a pitch for an online portal that expands / expanded on the world of HyperSonic; between this potential expanding and contracting of the tale into its eventual state, and pitching it as some type of multi-media experience, it feels like a more effective version of the comic got quite lost.

2009; Laos. Wes is a fighter pilot for the U.S. Military – naturally skilled on top of his training, Wes flexes his use for his bosses to skirt around being a troublemaker: he expects to get away with a prank he’s pulling on some, as he views them, cowardly teammates, but the prank is interrupted by incoming insurgents. Wes saves the day, but assisted by “the angel:” a modern day Foo Fighter-like legend: a sleek, noiseless plane that will swoop in and do-what-needs-doing at the last moment. And this time, Wes swears he even made direct, person-to-person contact with the pilot of the angel, and won’t shut up about it, something that perturbs his superiors. Of course, Wes gets another opportunity to confirm his claims, learning about the fantastical truths behind these legends…

The first issue setup of the above works, dropping us on a cliffhanger with Wes needing to confront if he experienced what he actually did or not. But thereafter, the book extremely spins its wheels, or maybe the opposite – overly compressing events to the extent that they lack any real Wow factor without the time to take them in – or maybe both, where a lot of the presented information gets rolled out via walls of text, such that it feels like we’re never given a comic book version of context for absorbing what that information means. By the time we actually get to the arguable “point” of the story, a something-something that requires resolution, we’re literally pages from the end, and a character is named as important and I had to go back and reread issues I’d just read to figure out who the hell they were talking about. I think that’s partially purposeful – that there’s a 1% mystery to it; that there’s intentional facelessness amongst the cast – but the fact that I really can’t tell you, with additionally factoring in some percentage for my idiocy, means there’s at least some degree of storytelling breakdown.

Which, in the spirit of “a comic book version of context” – my words from before – is further hindered by Gary Erskine’s art. I mean, the plane sequences are pretty great, and overall, the crunchy look of the cast and brutal, clinical nature of the settings, all fits, tonally. But Erskine / Abnett / White decide to make Wes look absolutely like a generic G.I. Joer, and setting aside a couple of other crewmates who can easily be identified as not-a-white-guy, all the white guy cast look like generic G.I. Joers, with even more blurring happening thanks to Wes’ brother, Ben, being a key part of the story, and looking wholly indistinguishable from Wes. Are they twins? I don’t think so. Is the lookalike bit that’s happening amongst everybody actually purposeful? Again, I really don’t know. It’s just not highlighted enough in the story to feel purposeful, and it definitely doesn’t help the book’s readability. Also: was it just the 90s, or is there some army-specific fashion sense where everyone wears nightshirts as casual clothes? Every character wears the baggiest fucking clothing I’ve ever seen. And I was alive and kicking during those years – I owned ashamedly hugely baggy jeans. This is not that. These nightshirts could cover mountains.

Anyway. HyperSonic is a series you read and essentially enjoy, but also find yourself without a need to pick it back up if you put it down. It fails at engaging, almost through and through. There’s a lot bubbling right underneath the surface, definitely giving it merit, and maybe that online story/world extension could’ve changed my mind, but regardless, it very much misses the mark at being an effective comic book.