Stranger Things: The Voyage

by Michael Moreci, Todor Hristov (Artist), Nate Piekos (Letterer)

In this new Stranger Things story arc, the Demogorgon is a long way from Hawkins, Indiana and a Russian scientist is desperately trying to get their quarry home aboard an ocean freighter.Captain Jacoby is too broke to reject a shady deal from a group of Russians looking to get from Alaska back to Kamchatka on his freighter ship, The Persephone. Things get turned upside down when a crew member gets butchered. The captain and his crew suspect something strange is at play and must root out a monster while a vicious storm rages all around them in the middle of the ocean.Comics and Screenwriter Michael Moreci (Barbaric, The Plot) and outstanding artist Todor Hristov (Stranger Kamchatka), and team return for a tight-quarters rampage in the world of Stranger Things.Collects Stranger The Voyage #1–#4.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Science Fiction

96 pages, Paperback

Published July 16, 2024

About the author

Michael Moreci is a bestselling comics author and novelist. His original works include the space adventure novels Black Star Renegades and We Are Mayhem, as well as the comic series Wasted Space, The Plot, Hexagon, Curse, Archangel 8, and more. The Plot appeared on numerous best of 2019 lists, and Wasted Space has been hailed as one of the best comics of the past decade. Moreci's comic trilogy Roche Limit was called one of the best sci-fi comics of all-time by Paste Magazine, and Black Star Renegades was an Audie Award finalist for best sci-fi of 2018.

Moreci has also written for Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and the DC universe--including the YA graphic novel The Lost Carnival: A Dick Grayson Story. He's also adapted Eoin Colfer's bestselling Artemis Fowl series into graphic novels.

He lives outside Chicago with his family.

Reviews

[Sophie_The_Jedi_Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ooh, now this was a good one!

The ST comics tend to be hit or miss, but they're usually focused on side characters who didn't get as much attention in the show. This one, however, is a follow-up to Stranger Things: Kamchatka, which gives backstory to the Russians and their newest creation. It's been a while since I've seen the show, especially the later seasons, so I had a bit of a hard time figuring out when this took place, but it was still great!

The tension in here was so isolated and top-tier, as well as the dialogue and characters. And the references!

From the start, this comic has clear Dracula influences. The doomed ship from Dracula that carries his coffins, on which all the crew members are killed, is named the Demeter. The ship in this comic is named the Persephone! And one of the crew members is named Harker!

There are more references to be found - Alien, The Terminator, and The Thing! It was really fun to go over everyone's names and figure out who they're based upon.

I was pretty disappointed, however, by the apbruptness of the ending. I got attached to these characters and wished things didn't end so suddenly. But it was still great.

4/5 stars!

[Ben A · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stranger Things: The Voyage collects the four-issue series that ties into the Netflix show. I've read and enjoyed several of these collections. This one, not so much. I really do like Michael Moreci's writing and I did enjoy some of the jokes and references he slipped in, but all in all, it was really disappointing to me. I also was not a big fan of the art and my inability to distinguish several characters from one another. I think this will probably be the last Stranger Things tie-in for me.

Special Thanks to Dark Horse Comics and Edelweiss Plus for the digital ARC. This was given to me for an honest review.

[Maciej · Rating 3 out of 5]

W świecie Stranger Things wszystko może się zdarzyć – nawet spotkanie z Demogorgonem na środku oceanu. Michael Moreci w swojej nowej odsłonie uniwersum Netfliksa przenosi czytelnika na pokład frachtowca Persephone, gdzie groza nie przychodzi z Upside Down, lecz czai się gdzieś pomiędzy rufą a ładownią. Niestety, choć koncept brzmi obiecująco – klaustrofobiczna przestrzeń, sztorm i tajemniczy ładunek – wykonanie pozostawia mieszane uczucia.

Komiks The Voyage to kontynuacja poprzedniego tomu Stranger Things: Kamchatka, który – jak wielu czytelników podkreśla – nie zapisał się zbyt mocno w pamięci. To sprawia, że osoby sięgające po ten tytuł bez znajomości prequela mogą poczuć się lekko zagubione. Nowi bohaterowie, choć ciekawie zarysowani, bywają do siebie łudząco podobni, co w połączeniu z mroczną, choć nastrojową kreską Todora Hristova, powoduje chwilami fabularne zamieszanie.

Jednak warto docenić to, co się udało – napięcie budowane jest konsekwentnie, a izolacja na wzburzonym morzu działa jak horrorowa lupa. Scenarzysta umiejętnie bawi się intertekstualnością – odniesienia do Drakuli, The Thing, Obcego czy Terminatora są tu smakowitymi kąskami dla fanów popkultury. Nawiązania te jednak bywają miejscami bardziej ozdobą niż integralną częścią narracji.

Największym mankamentem pozostaje zakończenie – gwałtowne, nie do końca satysfakcjonujące i pozostawiające więcej pytań niż odpowiedzi. Wydaje się, że potencjał zamkniętego thrillera w stylu „obcy na pokładzie” nie został w pełni wykorzystany. Fani serialu mogą również poczuć się zawiedzeni brakiem silniejszego powiązania z głównym wątkiem Stranger Things – mimo obecności Demogorgona, historia sprawia wrażenie nieco oderwanej od całości.

Podsumowując, Stranger Things: The Voyage to tytuł dla tych, którzy szukają atmosferycznego, choć miejscami chaotycznego komiksu w duchu retro-horroru. Miłośnicy klasycznych motywów grozy i nawiązań kulturowych odnajdą tu coś dla siebie, ale ci, którzy oczekują głębszego rozwinięcia świata Hawkins, mogą poczuć niedosyt.

Przyjemność 3/5
Styl: 3,5/5
Historia: 3,6/5

Ocena: 3,35/5
goodreads - 3/5
thestorygraph - 3,5/5
lubimyczytac - 7/10

[Joseph Hamm · Rating 3 out of 5]

This tie-in is a sequel to Kamchatka, which I barely remember and is my least favorite of the Stranger Things tie-ins thus far. This shares a bulk of the same criticisms I have with that story - there is really no connection to the overall world of Stranger Things and I am confused as to why this story was made or even what’s happening. All that being said, this was definitely a step up from Kamchatka. I really enjoyed the isolation aspect of the story, it definitely helped the plot feel very tense. The dialogue and characters were also really good too, even if I struggled to differentiate them sometimes.

If you’ve read Kamchatka, go ahead and check this out. If not, you’re not really missing out on anything.

[Joey Nardinelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fine, maybe even good-ish. So many nods from film references and quotes to characters with names from Dracula and Aliens. I also was really trying to figure out if some of the men in Captain Jacoby’d Antarctic photograph weren’t the same as those in The Thing — one of them is FOR SURE Weeks. Had some moments of confusion where I couldn’t tell some of the men and some of the women apart (similar hair and similar outerwear can do that). Thought the ending was a bit abrupt with the final twist being so in line with Hoopers Season 3/4 arc from the show. In noted back when I read Moreci’s Graysons arc that he seemed really influenced by Strange Things, so it’s somewhat charming to see how those early notes manifested pretty 1:1 here.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This direct follow-up to Kamchatka follows the evil Russian scientists who decide that putting a demogorgon on a tanker ship is a good idea, and it turns out to very much not be.

Claustrophobic and terrifying, this is one of those 'no one is gonna win' type stories and it's just a case of seeing who gets to the end without being brutally murdered. I hesitate to say that it's 'fun', but it's definitely compelling, and I found myself looking forward to each issue every month, which is always a good sign given how much I read.

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This graphic novel is pretty different from most of the rest of the Stranger Things graphic novels, instead of being about the characters from the tv show it’s about some original characters set in the ST universe. I discovered after I read this that it’s a follow up to another graphic novel that introduced some of the new characters featured in this one, so I’ll go read that one at some point, but I wasn’t completely lost reading this on it’s own. (Though I definitely was a little confused.)

Maybe I just have Dracula on the mind but to me this has clear parallels to the Demeter ship from Dracula; something onboard is picking the crew off one by one, unbeknownst to the crew their strange cargo is the thing doing the killing, the first mate is insistant to the captain about the killer being a monster and ends up overboard, heck, there’s even a guy named Harker, a name he shares with one of the main characters from Dracula! (Who was never on the Demeter but still.)

I really liked the art in this book, it was very moody and dramatic, I especially liked some of the shots that had lightning. Though some panels were dark and it was difficult to tell what was happening, and I had a hard time keeping the first mate and Russian leader straight, but I think that was mainly because I didn’t really get an introduction to either of them since I didn’t read the first book. Skimming through it a second time I noticed that the first mate had short hair as compared to the Russian leader’s long hair (don’t know how I missed that the first time) and could keep them apart just fine.

Hopefully the first book explains that Demogorgon control thing that the Russian leader uses, because I don’t think the Russians would have the ability to control it like that immediately post S3.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does not work as well as Kamchatka for me. While I appreciate that it is a Stranger Things story only loosely tied to the whole franchise, it has a hard time holding up outside of that world. I enjoy the collections that can exist outside of the franchise, but this one fell a little flat. The characters didn’t have enough time on the page to make me care for them, they were just doomed by the narrative from the start. I did appreciate all the little nods and references to other 80s horror media, very clever.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a sequel of sorts to Kamchatka, as we find the Russians on a ship bound to Russia from Alaska with a demogorgon in the cargo. This was a horror tale that reminded me somewhat of Alien or John Carpenter's The Thing as it's claustrophobic horror with a monster lurking in the dark. It once again wasn't something very integral to the overall Stranger Things TV show, but was a good read on its own.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

The rare Stranger Things comic from Dark Horse with an actual story instead of fluff. Russians have hitched a ride on a cargo ship to go back to Russia. They've also snuck a demigorgon aboard which of course gets loose and starts killing people. These Stranger Things comics are pretty good when they actually expand the universe.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story, felt like Alien meets Stranger Things, but the art was so bad I couldn’t tell which character was which and kept getting confused. It took away from the flow of the story having to double and triple check who was who and saying what.

[Justine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was fine as a sequel to Kamchatka but there was minimal character development and less tie in to Stranger Things, similar criticisms to Kamchatka. However, in this one, there wasn't even a good family story to redeem it.

[Zanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

someone remind me why we keep making comics about this russian lady again??

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

It felt a lot like the orginal Alien movie except for being on a ship in the ocean. Shifting power dynamics.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great artwork. Kind of a predictable ending.

[Lizzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5 stars

[Sam Nicholson · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10