A starship searching for a planet to become humanity’s new home instead crashes. Can a trio of emotional support animals pull together to find their owner, Doc, and the missing Captain? Find out in Man’s Best #1 from BOOM! Studios.

MAN’S BEST #1

Writer: Pornsak Pichetshote
Artist: Jesse Lonergan
Colorist: Jesse Lonergan
Letterer: Jeff Powell
Editor: Eric Harburn
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: March 20, 2024

Previously in Man’s Best: In the future, Earth has become crowded and overwhelmed by corporate corruption. The Starship Horizon searches space for a new planet, somewhere humanity can get a fresh start and perhaps do things better. But this is not a tale of those people; it is a tale of their emotional support pets.

NOT EXACTLY THE THREE MUSKETEERS

Man’s Best #1 opens with a bunch of machinery firing up and controls being flipped. The narrator feels funny, but trusts in Doc, who knows what she is doing. Then we realize that the narrator is a cat wearing a mech suit (Athos). With the cat are a golden retriever with a prosthetic leg (Porthos) and a French bulldog wearing a rocket on its back (Lovey). They meet a robot, which they call a Klanger, and work together to take it out. Or they try to. Lovey does not always listen well. The Klanger catches them all within a force field.

And then we see that this is a holographic simulation. These are Doc’s emotional support animals, or rather, those for the ship. The Captain wonders why she puts her animals through this. But then they talk about the planet they are heading for, which seems to have disappeared. This is the planet they had set their hopes on, a place where humanity can get a fresh start. Doc talks about how being around pets brings out the best in people. The Captain does not think that “best” can survive under pressure.

He walks away, and we see that Doc is attracted to him, but he does not notice her. She does not interact well with people. Athos senses her sadness and assumes it is because they did badly against Klanger, and he did not lead the other two well.

The pets make their rounds visiting people on the Starship. Making people happy is something they can do well. What the people don’t realize is the conversation the animals are having. Lovey thinks they would do better if he were the leader. Porthos sticks up for how Doc trained them, which was to have Athos lead. They used to live in cages. They have not seen real grass in a long time.

The ship reaches the empty space where the planet used to be. An alert goes off, and a planet appears suddenly in that space. The ship is so close to it that its gravity pulls them in. The Captain calls for the thrusters to be reversed. Everything blacks out.

Athos, Porthos, and Lovey wake up. The ship is dark. There are bodies. Doc and the Captain are gone. They run to the terraforming unit, which they typically guard, and find it gone. Where it used to be is now an opening to the outside. The ground is covered with metal and wreckage, but Porthos picks up Doc’s and the Captain’s scents. A metal tower makes a clanging noise and moves. Lovey realizes it is a Klanger and flies toward it. It strikes him. Athos, in his mech suit, leaps up to catch him or at least intersect his fall. In her force field, Porthos runs up to the Klanger which shoots at her.

This is not like any of the simulator drills they have had. They need a strategy. The dogs ask Athos what they should do. He directs Lovey to hit it in the eyes and tells Porthos to run at it. This blinds it and knocks it over. Porthos is excited. She figures this is why Doc had them fighting Klangers – so they would be able to rescue her. They look at the unfamiliar world around them and get ready to follow the scent trail.

ON UNFAMILIAR GROUND

I love the way the pets are depicted in Man’s Best #1. For the most part, they react and look the way dogs and a cat would. In the close-ups we see of their faces, there is additional expression added for the sake of clarity, but a lot of attention is paid to making the animals look genuine. I also appreciate the different attitudes they have. I have had golden retrievers in the past, and Porthos reminds me of them a lot with her cheerful good nature, her desire to stick to their structure, and her love of running. Lovey is gruff and opinionated, and that seems to fit him well. And even though they do not always agree, we can see that they do have a bond.

From space, the planet they crash into looks peaceful enough, but it is always hard to tell from that kind of distance. It has an atmosphere and a scattering of clouds. It is not until the animals head outside that we see how alien it is. When they fight the Klanger, they are in an area full of metal things, and at first, we assume it is wreckage. But there seems to be a lot of it. After the battle, the viewpoint pulls back further, and we see they have landed on a world that looks as though everything on it is constructed from metal. There are towers and even buildings, but even the ground that connects everything looks like it has been constructed.

BOTTOM LINE: A BRAVELY DETERMINED START

Man’s Best #1 is like Homeward Bound but in a sci-fi setting. The animals are charming and take their job seriously. It is a big world, and we can tell they don’t know what they are in for, yet we cannot help but cheer them on.

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Man's Best #1

80%

80%

Homeward Bound but in Space

A trio of emotional support animals must brave an alien planet to find their humans.

• Writing

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• Art

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• Coloring

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