4 out of 5

The impression Drifter makes from the outset is notable: stunning packaging design that – countering my usual criticism of Image’s flash-over-content, feels fully tied to and representative of the comic within; paced, layered writing from Ivan Brandon, naturally building a mysterious tone; hauntingly humanistic – despite the sci-fi setting – art from Nic Klein.  A ship crashes; a survivor scrambles forth an immediately makes a big mistake; the survivor is shot; the survivor wakes up after what he’s told are a couple of days in a town literally called ‘Ghost Town.’  We overhear conversations from the middle; everyone has a haunted and empty look about the eyes.  Everyone, we sense, has a story.  And this is what Brandon and Klein, designer Tom Muller and letterer Clem Robins milk over the next five issues.  The pages reek of passion, but in case we have any doubt, ample extras in the back underline how much of a group effort the book is, and how long it had been toiling to emerge so fully formed and confident.  But: due to this, ‘Drifter’ is the quintessential slow-burn.  There are surprises within the first five issues, for sure, but Brandon rolls them out with a sense of inevitability, our lead (for now) Abram Pollux feeling drawn inexorably toward some fate, marking the book clearly as noir…  Which is a wonderful genre to mix with the Western town dropped in the middle of a sci-fi story.  The intermingling narratives also start to take over in issue 3, which draws us down a rather unexpected path for issue 5, resulting in a stand-off that would normally have happened several arcs in in other stories.  The intention of Drifter, then, is something of a mystery as well, and can leave one slightly underwhelmed despite how rich the world seems.  I haven’t read anything else by Brandon save, I believe, some type of Batman one-shot some time back I enjoyed, so I can’t say I’m certain that the series will grow and not get tangled in side stories that never quite seem the point…

But.  But I can say that, before we travel there, these first five issues are grabbing, and gorgeous, and make me look forward to more.