In a strange and incomprehensible world, two parents and their motley collection of allies, risk everything they have to reach their daughter. Your Major Spoilers review of The Moon Is Following Us #1, awaits!

THE MOON IS FOLLOWING US #1

Writer: Daniel Warren Johnson
Artist: Riley Rossmo
Colorist: Mike Spicer
Letterer: Shawn Lee
Publisher: Image Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: September 18th, 2024

Previously in The Moon Is Following Us: Duncan and Samantha are desperately trying to reach their daughter, Penny. The land they are journeying through is strange and without discernable logic and an opposing force known as The Cascade stands in their way.

TO REACH PENNY

The Moon Is Following Us #1 begins with Duncan and Sam scoping out the stronghold they believe their daughter is in. They argue about the best way to get in, while their ally Brio, a bipedal talking frog, chooses to stay out of it. They eventually decide to try and sneak in but are quickly seen and have to fight their way through. They eventually meet up with a wizard named Tash. Together, they make their way through a city until they meet an arms dealer named Pigface. They sell the couple a cube for the price of some sort of substance that is pulled out of their bodies. After the transaction, the Cascade arrives, and the team has to fight their way out once again. Along the way, Sam is badly injured, and in order to escape, the cube has to be used, which turns into a military attack helicopter. They manage to escape, but Sam is fading fast, and the only way to save her is to leave the world, which they do.

IN MEDIA RES ISN’T ALWAYS THE BEST APPROACH

The Moon Is Following Us #1 is in many ways a “best of” for the last five years of Daniel Warren Johnson’s output. There’s swords and sorcery action mixed with surreal bits of sci-fi, a touch of body horror, and an underlining story dealing with family strife and bonds between parents and their children, and these are all conveyed effectively with pizazz and effectiveness. Where this issue starts to become less effective is the way that these things come together and the space they exist in. The world is abstract and dreamlike, and it’s implied that it operates on its own set of rules and logic, which is fine, except all the characters in this story have more experience in this world than we, as the readers, do, and there’s not much effort put into clearing things up. So, what you end up with is a comic that is clearly trying to tell a story, but instead has the look and feel of a sort of experimental post-modern piece, and a good balance between them isn’t to be found here.

CAPTURING THE INEXPLICABLE

Setting a story in a world that is essentially a giant dream, is a bold move and it takes a unique talent to capture that world without it getting out of hand and just silly. Thankfully, Riley Rossmo and Mike Spicer seem to be those kinds of creators. The key to their depiction of a dream working so well is that the things inside the world aren’t made up. They are recognizable elements like castles, frogs, guns, and pigs, but they are then combined in strange ways that don’t make a lot of sense, unless you remind yourself that it’s dream logic, then everything in this issue makes perfect sense visually and somehow a Huey helicopter with a barbarian, a wizard, and a space marine inside seems like the most natural thing ever.

BOTTOM LINE: FINDING BOTH THE UPS AND THE DOWNS

The Moon is Following Us #1 is a great example of how cool worlds, where dreams and imagination are key focal points, can be while also being a warning about the hazards that come with trying to tell a story inside those kinds of places. This issue puts a lot of the responsibility of discerning and making sense of the plot on the reader without also giving a groundwork to establish what the actual conflict of the story is. This ultimately makes it difficult to empathize with any of the characters or feel any of the tension that they do. Visually though, this is a joy to look at. Rarely do artists manage to really convey what a dream feels like, but they knock it out of the park here. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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