Fathom Volume 1: A World Below - The Starter Edition

Fathom (collected editions) #1

by Michael Layne Turner, Bill O'Neil, Jonathan D. Smith

A brand new value-priced edition of the best-selling series created by comic book legend Michael Turner, Fathom follows Aspen Matthews a young woman who has always been drawn to the sea. As a Marine biologist, she discovers something strange and beautiful on the sea floor; something not of our world. Now, Aspen's life will never be the same, and the fate of two civilizations will rest in her hands.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics

200 pages, Paperback

First published May 14, 2019

About the author

Comic Book Artist. He studied pre-medicine at the University of Tennessee, and then moved to Aspen, Colorado, and later San Diego, where he taught martial arts, became an award winning water skier, and began drawing comic books. In 1994, he was hired by Top Cow Productions in Century City, California, where he was the co-creator of "Witchblade", a comic about a voluptuous female detective who fights evil with the aid of a mystical weapon that attaches itself to her arm and gives her superpowers. Turner later founded Aspen MLT, a Santa Monica publishing company that created online comic adaptations for the NBC television series "Heroes" and titles including "Fathom", a deep-sea story about a female superhero. He was also a regular cover artist for "Superman/Batman" and "The Flash". Turner's work was in demand for special editions and similar projects, and he drew covers for DC Comics' "Justice League" and Marvel's "Civil War". The milestone 500th issue of "Uncanny X-Men", released in July, 2008, featured one of Turner's special edition covers. He died of complications from chondrosarcoma, a form of bone cancer he had begun treatment for in 2000.

Reviews

[Mitticus · Rating 4 out of 5]

+Digital ARC gently provided by publishers via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review+

4 batle oceanic stars

A ten years old Aspen Matthews appears in a ship dissapeared for 10 years; always atracted by the sea, she become an Olympic swimmer and later a Marine Biologist. The story start when she is invited to join a submarine facility where a strange technology is studied under conjoin efforts of Japan and US.



This a sort of The Abysm / Siren, in a bit of pulpy way.



There are various forms of underwater fighting, with and without weapons.

-Mysterious gorgeous girl with mysterious past or amnesia? Check.
Tough Aspen is (big suprise) a speshul snowflake and in the firstmoment made me facepalm with the 'OH I'm not human - Lets kill ALL the humans then. And let's train as a weapon' , I find her not annoying after a moment.

-Incredible hot menfolk? Check.



-Two countries fighting for something thinking that the other is cheating to get advantages (well hello, Stargate) Check. And meanwhile passing the game to the bad guys.

-The menfolk have a pretty cool technology (alien level and I'm still not clear if they are indeed alien or not). Amphibian bubly ships and stuff. As I said, they remind me of James Cameron's Abyss (1989)



------------------------------------------
Romance? Nope. Just an annoying ex
Violence? Oh, yes.
Bad language? pretty covered with #*& style.
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-->Entertaining. I'll give it a try with the other volumens

This comics started at the end of 90s and there was talk -in between demands for copyright with the other publishers- to became a movie but still there are not results. The original author since then pass away.

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Un barco crucero aparece despues de estar perdido diez años, nadie sabe nada y un capitan adopta a una niña huerfana, la protagonista quien no tiene memoria de su vida anterior. Depues ella se convierte en biologa marina y es llamada a ayudar en la investigacion en una instalacion secreta en el fondo del mar donde ven lo que parece tecnologia alienigina del tipo biotecnologico. Mientras tanto hay aviones anfibios, mucho movimiento de hombre de negro, y dos facciones de lo que parecen hombres acuaticos que andan detras de esta chica a pesar de que estuvo como quince años sin que nadie se metiera con ella aunque la vigilaban de lejos.

Asi esta Aston Matthews se ve metida en conspiraciones, civilaciones raras, unos hombres yummy, y mucha aventura.

A pesar de que concluye el arco de la historia, hay varios volumenes que amplian la historia , y la verdad me los leeria.
Bueno este es un comic que a pesar de ser hecho a fines de los 1990s yo lo veo más bien ochentero, con mucha accion, tipos musculosos, heroes de la marina haciendo de payasos pero buenos para pelear (a lo TopGun), y civilizaciones perdidas en el fondo oceanico que no estan nada de satisfechos con la polucion y con el hecho de que los humanos se crean homo superior cuando son más homotrash que otra cosa. Y .... gobiernos que salivan ante el avance tecnologico armamentista y que se dejan cegar por ello.

Sólo me asalta una duda: ¿Que hacia el gobierno de Chile mientras tanta cosa rara pasaba en la Isla de Pascua? ¿Ah? ¿Ah? lol.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know this was the best selling comic of 1998, but the storytelling in this was just awful. Characters are introduced to never appear again, usually with mind numbing first person diatribes. Aspen goes from not knowing who she is to getting her full powers in 2 pages. The characters are all flat and lifeless with no individuality. The art, however, is peak Michael Turner. His character designs are fantastic. The Blue look like they are covered in coral armor. It looks very natural and organic. So if you buy it, get it for the pretty pictures and don't be surprised if you aren't happy with the story.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the story for this comic was pretty interesting, but it didn't really hold my interest all that well throughout the whole thing. I didn't like the fact that there were hardly any female characters (three, four if you count a surfer girl that was on one page.) and the ones that were in the story we drawn so overly sexualized that it was very distracting. The art style was alright, but it wasn't my favorite that I've ever seen in a comic book before. I would have rated this higher if there had been more women who were drawn with normal proportions. Although I did mostly like the plot it was pretty easy to figure out what was going on and I was able to predict most of the major plots points before they happened. All in all I enjoyed the book for the most part and I would recommend giving it a try. I realize that art styles are personal so you may like this better than I did.

[Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Michael Turner's Fathom first came out back in 1998, it was heralded with much fanfare. The artwork was amazing. But like most books of this time, the artwork far exceeded the story and it did not take very long for fandom to lose interest.

The story of Fathom begins with the arrival of the cruise ship Paradise in San Diego, ten years after it was reported lost at sea. A military quarantine is set up but surprisingly no one on board the ship ever knew they were missing. Even stranger is a young girl who was found by the crew of Paradise who has no memory. She only knows her name is Aspen.

Aspen is adopted by naval officer, Captain Matthews and he raises the child as her own. Aspen is attracted to open water and spends much of her time swimming and surfing. She grows up to be a Marine Biologist and is invited to study on board an underwater facility known as the DMD.

Here she is introduced to a strange man who despite his appearance, is not human and can breathe underwater. During this time the Navy develops an amphibious fighter plane and during its test run it is attacked by a craft that can operate above and under water as well. Pursuing this strange craft the Navy fires a torpedo, but the craft disappears and the torpedo is heading directly toward the DMD. In the explosion the facility is heavily damaged and flooded. Before she drowns Aspen comes to realize that she can breathe underwater like the strange man.

Aspen finds there are is a highly developed race living underwater and that war between the surface world and the underwater world is coming. With Aspen caught in between.

Michael Turner is one of the premier comic artists working today. That is why he is so often invited to work on cover art for various other books. The artwork in Fathom is stunning and well worth the cost of the comic alone. But the story itself needs help in developing as it so often happens with artist driven labels. The artwork way overshadows the story being told, instead of working together to make an all around great book. And that is too bad because Turner has a lot to say with this book. His take on the ocean and its resources, environmentalism and the military could have made for a truly good book.

But unfortunately Fathom falls to being only an average story with great art.

[Meegy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this graphic novel, it was really enjoyable to read, as well as all the images were pleasing to the eye! Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read and enjoy this book!

[Siina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fathom seemed interesting and the cover looked nice too, so I decided to try this. I should've known better, although I had a hunch - this was not for me. The story follows Aspen Matthews, who's a marine biologist and a former Olympic swimmer and it surely seems she's into sea and water. At the age of eleven she was found on a cruise ship without memory how she got there. Now she's "a well-formed adult" (ahem) and suddenly she becomes the only survivor of an attack to a underwater military base. These mermen attack and it could be she's one of them. Well, the beginning is very slow and it takes time to get the story anywhere and then there's not enough pages to do it well. The whole "the Japanese are behind this!!" made no sense and wasn't well constructed. The evil plot doesn't make sense either, what was the point of the light pillars even? We know nothing of Aspen really, except she has little to none on her what comes to clothes. Killian doesn't explain anything even remotely well and that's it.

The art could look nice if it didn't objectify women so much. Big boobs are everywhere and Aspen's luscious lips are something else too. The colors are beautiful and nice, but cannot save the comic. The rhythm is out of tune and the plot isn't balanced, which makes this quite boring. There is too much text walls, but they don't contain any real information and there's no flow. At least there's some kind of a plot though... The comic would've needed heavy editing, sadly so. Structure-wise Fathom is a mess, even if the idea sounds swell.

[April Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. The artwork is gorgeous, lush and detailed and beautiful. Some reviews I've read complained about the female bodies being to boobily; honestly, I didn't find them as out-of-proportion as you usually see in comics- almost every character was ridiculously fabulous, male and female alike. I actually found the men to be the more unrealistic ones, and just as scantily clad as the women, so yay equality, I guess. The story had potential- lots of mysterious things going on, top secret underwater government facility, some sort of mer-people (think able to morph into water rather than half fish) that have mysterious origins (I'm thinking Atlanteans, but could be aliens), a plot to get back at the humans for polluting the oceans, and more. The story teases out bits and pieces at a fairly steady rate, keeping a decent tension going- I would actually like to know what's going to happen next. Where this falls flat is with the characters. They're pretty much two dimensional, not a lot of development going on here. I didn't find myself caring much about them really. I'd recommend this mainly for the art- so pretty! The story is mildly interesting, the characters meh.

#FathomVolume1AWorldBelow #NetGalley

[Marta Ilieva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fathom Volume 1: A World Below starts off with an interesting hook: a cruise ship returning after being reported missing a decade ago. The story then follows a girl, Aspen, who was found on the missing ship all those years ago, and who is now a marine biologist and who finds herself to be in the middle of a brewing war between “sea” people and humans (i.e. only the government in this case). The story felt a bit flat and obvious, especially when it came to the villains, and I wish the ending wasn’t so predictable. I also didn’t realize that this was the first in many volumes. On one hand I want to read more about Aspen’s adventures, while on the other hand I could care less. However, here’s what I truly enjoyed: the art. Glorious colors and interesting portrayal of characters, albeit slightly sexualized. The only complaint I had was the tiny font, even after zooming in. It was hard to read.

Thank you NetGalley and Diamond Books Distributors for this eARC. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this first volume of Michael Turner's Fathom due to a fond memory of enjoying the art. This particular volume of Fathom does not disappoint with that! This is Michael Turner at his best. He also had a great inker in Joe Weems to really polish up his work, and a great coloring and lettering team as well. This chain of visual creators are really the hands that made this book so good. Not to mention that Turner really excelled at the beauty of the human anatomy, as stylized as it is.

The only real problem of this volume is that, like most books of its time, the story took a backseat to the visuals. There are characters that are introduced but then never show back up, and Aspen (the main character) somehow learns who -- and what -- she is, and harnesses her superpowers within a few pages. Issue 10 is where it felt like the story really came off track, and it never seemed to recover after that.

I read this book mostly for the nostalgia factor, and for seeing the Michael Turner art. I got exactly what I wanted...and the mythos that are setup are great concepts.

[Lanae · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was rough for me. I can usually get through a comic this size in a day or two. It’s taken me nearly a month to get through this one. The art work is gorgeous. The story though is lacking. Little to no character development. Still a bit confused about whether this is an alien story or more like mermaid’ish humans with advanced tech - as this is volume 1 I’d hope they explain what this all is later, but I feel like I needed more information right from the start. I gave it three stars but most of that was the art. The story for me would be a 1 while the art was 4. So this would be a low 3 overall.

[Georgette]

In 1998, this was probably one of the highlights of the graphic novel industry, and among my favourite comic styles. I followed what I could find of Michael Turner's Witchblade series but never got around to starting Fathom until this collection. I don't think I'll proceed; it was laborious trying to follow the story. While the art is what I remember from that era, I don't think it dated very well unless you're unto oversexualised portrayals of the human form, which was also popular and expected of the same era. Fans would probably find this pleasingly collectable. 2.5 stars for the art, 0.5 star for the nostalgia.

This eARC was courtesy of of NetGalley.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great underwater adventure. It feels much longer than it is, and I can't understand why, but even though it feels long, you want to keep going to see what happens next. My only real complaint is that I am tired of graphic novels with scantily clad women with big breasts. Not all “super” women need to look like this. DO BETTER artists.


#LitsyAtoZGN
#GondorgirlGNChallenge
#SFFTBRChallenge
#NancyDrewChallnge #Jewelry

[Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful illustrations and an intriguing origin story. I want to read more of this aquatic story.

I was fortunate to receive a free ARC of this book from Netgalley. The above thoughts, insights, or recommendations are my own meek musings.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars.
Review submitted to Diamond Book Distributors for possible publication.
Review will be posted here after publication OR not being selected.

[Shawn Ingle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I pretty much knew what to expect going into this; dynamic artwork with sub-par writing.

[Lyndi (mibookobsession) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a complimentary copy of this book through Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Aspen was adopted as a young girl by the captain of the ship Paradise after it capsized. She doesn't know where she came from, but she feels drawn to the ocean, becoming a marine biologist. She is invited to be a researcher in a deep marine facility off the coast of Hawaii. What she finds there will forever change how she views the world and even herself.
This is my first graphic novel and the storyline was intriguing to me. The artwork was phenomenal and really added to the story. I look forward to the rest of the series so i can continue Aspen's story.

[Nisha]

Note: I did not finish this graphic novel

I read about half of this volume before giving up. I like the concept of this story, I like Aspen, who is supposed to be the main protagonist. But we barely see much of her or get to know her at all.

The focus on the military and the navy really was a downer for me. I was way more interested in the ocean being and finding out Where and how Aspen fits into all of it. The narrative just took too long to get there.

I really wanted to like this. I really did. Especially because of how intriguing the concept is. The art also looks great! I just wished that the focus was a little different.

[Sasha Wichita · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeously drawn series, Fathom was one of my favorites as a teen girl. It was released in a time where there were few superhero movies, and it took everything I loved about The Little Mermaid and mashed it together with a sci-fi action movie. Today, it still holds up well, and the story and characters remain relevant.

It's great to see that Aspen Comcis is releasing this afforable, streamlined version of the original story arc. I love Michael Turner's work and, for a time, even collected special editions and extra supplements, but it's really nice to have a version like this where you can focus on the story. The artwork is stellar, packed with details that you don't see very often. It's clear from the pages that this project was one of passion, as the panels are carefully drawn - not rushed like the unfortunate reality of most comics on tight deadlines.

The story is a complete arc, and, having not read it for years, I hardly noticed any edits. The story feels like an action movie with a sci-fi mystery element. I love how this story arc is complete, yet it still leaves you with unanswered questions so you want to seek out the next volumes.

There is a little bit of violence, but a lot of it is tastefully shown (in shadow or in small portions of panels), so it wasn't a strong horror element. I appreciated this, because I read this comic for the beauty, and I'm not a big fan of blood and gore.

If you've never read Michael Turner or are a returning fan, I highly recommend checking out this beautifully-rendered series. It's hard to find comics drawn at this level - even today - and the fun, action-packed story makes it a fun ride.

Thank you so much to Aspen Comics and NetGalley for providing a copy for review.

[Jessica Woods · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fathom Volume 1: is a great starting point for all things Aspen. Before this volume, I had read a single issue of Fathom and did not really have a feel for what it was all about. This book emerges the reader into the world of Fathom. Aspen Matthews is a pacifist, surfer, marine biologist, and an ex Olympic swimmer with an affinity to water. Aspen is of two worlds, born below the oceans and raised on land. Finding her powers for water accidentally in a time of crisis, Aspen is drawn into a war between those from below who would take over the world and those who are trying to stop it. Taken and trained as a weapon, Aspen finds herself in pursuit of doing what is right. Action-packed with beautifully colored art, Fathom is a compelling story that draws the reader in. My voluntary, unbiased review is based upon a review copy from Netgalley.