3 out of 5

Man, the Next books were weird.  There was a lot of promise here that probably would’ve fallen flat on its face, but its like the comic-book love of the Malibu universe cut with a bit more creator focus and less need to introduce spandex on every page.  I was waiting to write the review for Bioneers until I had what I thought was the complete run of three issues, since I see those advertised in the back of other Next books, but I’ve been unable to find any kind of purchasable listing for the books anywhere, so I’m not sure they every actually happened.

Anyhow, in the loosely linked Next world, Peter Laird’s book was about legit heroes with powers (natural genetic mutates…?), Mike Dooney’s book was about technology manipulated humans, and Farley’s Bioneers formed the last corner of that powered triangle with genetically manipulated humans.  There’s a nice little story at the book’s front about how Farley had lived with these characters for years, constantly re-working them and finally scoring the chance to give them a comic with Next.  (…for one issue.)  This both makes the book a lot more rich than the other two titles… but also makes the narrative funky, ’cause a lot of serious things seem to happen that we’re supposed to already know about.  But it is the most artistically satisfying, as Farley’s figures are more consistent than Dooney’s and he wasn’t going for a sloppy Kirby tribute like Pete – again, maybe because he’d fiddled with what these characters might look like for so long they spring to the page with fully grounded personalities, who knows.  Again, though, the flipside of this is that we’re ‘introduced’ to characters in a way that suggests we’re all good chums.  The colors are also some of the best of the 90s computer coloring I’ve seen, not so grossly flat on the page or obviously using new blends just ’cause.  It has a very natural look, which deserves kudos since it sounds like Farley was new to computer coloring at the time.

Story-wise, something something the public doesn’t know about these secretly government-funded animal/human hybrids and maybe the book would’ve been about coming to terms with that.  Farley’s one stumble with the art is in his paneling, which essentially sticks to a 2×3 grid but confuses the eye by letting the word balloons follow order where the panels might bleed over to different parts of the page.

All in all, this would’ve gotten me to read a second issue.  Still would.