4 out of 5

While his extensive body of work with Marvel requires a bit more soap opera than I generally prefer, Dan Abnett’s sci-fi scripts are generally pretty excellent, the writer’s history with 2000 AD giving him a great grasp on big ideas told relatably; definite genre works that won’t exclude those who are put off by ‘hard’ sci-fi.  When he’s plopped into creator-owned works, Dan really shines, and when that material gets paired with the proper artist – I.N.J. Culbard in this case – the effect is knowing rightaway that you’re reading something noteworthy.

As a sister series to ‘Dark Ages,’ which was also done with Culbard, has a similar setup, and was released at the same time, ‘Wild’s End’ is proof of that artist / writer pairing being paramount, as Culbard’s over-simplified style is perfect for the anthropomorphic steampunk-dusted world of this series but caused Dark Ages’ pacing to stumble as the artist simply isn’t right (in my opinion) for more intensive settings or large scale action.  Culbard only stutters at one point in Wild’s End, when our characters stumble across a wider landscape – a corn field – and investigate some crop circles which are meant to give our baddies a sense of scope.  Because Culbard doesn’t do scope all that well, it’s a somewhat silly scene in an otherwise excellent tale.  But elsewhere, the simple color palette and our human nature to characterize certain animals with certain personality attributes gives the book a wonderfully classic cartoon look, grounded by the quaintness of the town – Crow’s End – it’s 1930’s time period, and the faceless, mechanical ‘space monsters’ that are our foes.  The design elements also extend well to the interior cover, a re-used image that fades through day/night cycles as the series goes on and subtly serves to give events not only a sense of passing time, but the foreboding that comes as night approaches.

Abnett writes a six issue mini alien invasion of Crow’s End, populated by walking and talking foxes, cats, rabbits, and the newly moved in dog, Clive.  When Clive – whose known to be retiring from a navy background – stops by a town meeting, things are interrupted by the local rapscallion Fawkes, whose claims that something came out of the landing spot of a shooting star and burned up his mate Bodie are brushed off as drunken ramblings.  But Clive suspects more, and curious to investigate – with locals Peter and Gilbert – stumbles across a sight that suggests that something certainly has come to town, and soon enough we’ve picked up some more travelers and we’re on the run from some devious and yet frighteningly faceless pursuants.  It’s fun but seriously handled stuff, and effected with expert tension throughout.  The end loses a bit of steam – one aspect where Dark Ages succeeded over Wild’s End -as that series properly built up and up to an all-out battle before doing its question mark conclusion, and Wild’s End really only introduces a couple of baddies and solves it with a relatively minor scuffle.  This is fitting with the lower-key nature of the tale, but then the comparable question mark conclusion has less impact.  However, kudos to Abnett for properly applying a Smoking Gun solution that doesn’t feel cheap, as it’s continuously woven into the story so as not to just appear out of nowhere.

Lastly, the world-building materials – a map, some documents – are aces.  They’re dedicated, take time to read and don’t directly add to the story, but absolutely enrich the atmosphere, which should be the point of extras of that nature.  Excepting the somewhat underwhelming conclusion – which is more acceptable knowing there might be a follow-up series – Wild’s End is an awesome slab of easy-to-swallow but smartly constructed sci-fi.