The Warning Vol. 1

The Warning #1-5

by Edward Laroche

The tones and ambiance of Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line meets the sci-fi adventures of BLACK SCIENCE and VS in this military action thriller where sadistic entities from beyond known space have invaded the planet. When the joint military action known as Operation: All-Weather fails, the world burns and chaos unfolds. Now the remaining members of Gladiator Two-Six must scramble to mount a counterattack against a seemingly unstoppable enemy. Collects THE WARNING #1-5

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

152 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 23, 2019

About the author

EDWARD LAROCHE, GRAPHIC NOVELIST / STORYBOARD ARTIST BASED IN THE US AND CZECH REPUBLIC WORKS PRIMARILY IN ANIMATION, FILM AND TV ADVERTISING WITH A DIVERSE ROSTER OF CLIENTS THAT INCLUDES 20TH CENTURY FOX, SONY, WARNER BROS, AND MARVEL STUDIOS.
ALSO VARIOUS COMMERCIAL BRANDS INCLUDING NASDAQ, SQUARESPACE, NIKE, UNDER ARMOR AND TRIPLE-A GAME STUDIOS: SQUARE ENIX, ELECTRONIC ARTS, RIOT GAMES, LUCAS ARTS.
LAROCHE HAS GUEST LECTURED AT ART CENTER COLLEGE OF DESIGN IN PASADENA AND THE PRAGUE SCHOOL OF CREATIVE COMMUNICATION.

Reviews

[Ms. Woc Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was recommended this because it's by a Black comic book author but this volume was boring! There wasn't enough character development for me to get attached to anyone in this cast of characters. But the plot was also someone unclear. There was nothing that left me yearning to read the next volume.

[Beth Tabler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I very much liked the idea - it is a classic in science fiction, military invasion of an alien species. However, I found it to clipped in the narrative to become interested in the story. I could not get involved with the characters or the antagonist to really know what was going on. I think as an installment of five issues it is too short, but I am wondering if a much larger grouping of issues will be more effective. What this story does very well though is conveying through art. The artwork is gorgeous and evokes what storyline there is. I'll check out further issues to see how this develops.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 1 out of 5]

Endless military speak. No characters to speak of. Lots of pages wasted on telling the reader of yet another jump in time. Lots of pages wasted on panels that use one third of the page. Ends abruptly, can't even be bothered to offer up some sort of cliffhanger.

I do not like this.

[Theediscerning · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hmmm… I think I liked this enough to give it four stars, although it was a bit touch and go. It's the standard mash-up of Earth Invasion story with the tale of the Supersoldiers we have so handily been producing, but told with the benefit of a very pithy nature, as so much of the dialogue is clipped, concise military transmission, and with the slight hindrance of it being really alinear and deliberately jumbled in the telling. There is so much that could have been included here – quite how the soldiers are combined with their speciality implements of war, what the dreams of one of them will result in, what the cover-up of the alien arrival was in aid of – that five issues you can read in half an hour really isn't nearly enough. And that is one thing knocking it down the rating scale slightly, for me – the best books are ones you need to read whenever, in however big an instalment. This has the feel of being something you need to wait out the end for before delving in, so while I admire it for what it does well, I don't get the feel of loving it, or owning any great connection to it, yet. Still, it's a lot smarter than many genre comics.

[Lenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was underwhelmed and confused by The Warning, a story about an alien invasion in the future. While rereading sections of the book about experiments on soldiers, objects landing from space in California, a few bewildering time jumps, and some sort of confusing animal metaphor thrown in, things did not clear up for me and I couldn’t enjoy it.

The Warning introduces a combat unit called “Gladiator Two Six,” and a four-soldier experimentation project called “Quiet Knife” – our central protagonist, a lieutenant super soldier, belongs to both of those groups. We follow the lieutenant for most of the book, but we learn nothing about him aside from his boring existentialism. I didn’t even know his name until I saw “Joshua” in the sketches at the back of the book. That could be acceptable if I felt connected to the character in some way, but I wasn’t given much reason to care about him or feel attached to his story.



To make things even more scattered, there’s no significant relationship building between the Quiet Knife soldiers or any other characters, nor any world building to help the reader feel grounded and connected to the world when it’s under threat. The three soldiers on the cover seem to have their own separate missions, but the woman (Jackknife) shows up in three or so panels for the whole book, even though the other three have their own action moments. (The only other women given any time is Dr Lin, who helped with Quiet Knife, and a captain of the ISS who says military words while using a keyboard – while it’s nice they exist they don’t add much to the story.)

The “super soldiers” are paired and integrated with a certain kind of weapon or technology, an interesting way to differentiate The Warning as a sci fi book. But we never learn how the science works personally for each character (how does it feel to be integrated like this? If the tech goes down does the person also? Is this like Robocop?) aside from a few panels about Joshua’s recurring dreams. Framing this as a human story rather than a military one may have helped me connect to and care about the characters and have a more meaningful experience with the story.

The confusion and lack of emotional grounding in this book is heightened by the overuse of military talk, which was necessary at some points, but eventually made it difficult to understand major parts of the book as well as connect to the characters as human beings. Speaking of dialogue, one of the soldiers (who looks just like John Paul Jones except with an eye patch, yes it is possible for one human to both watch The Bachelor and also read comic books) has got a very weird British accent that at some point sounded equal parts Southern American and Australian, and there’s also some dialogue that tried to be gangster but comes off feeling really fake and forced.



At the end of the day it just feels like yet another alien invasion story, especially since there is no backstory for the aliens and why they’ve come to Earth. Laroche’s invading aliens are also an attempt to break genre tropes and while their ‘abilities’ are kind of creepy, I was so disconnected at that point it was all just shrug emoji from there. I know this might sound morbid, but you can’t just have something threaten a world without convincing the reader that the world and its inhabitants need to be saved.

If I enjoyed anything about the book it was Laroche’s art style accompanied by Simpson’s bold colors. Together they create a palpable atmosphere in the art particularly with the space and flight scenes, even though it was jarring to see some realistic photo art midway through. The art got me through the book but it was not enough for me to ignore the gaping holes in the story.

(Sidenote: VERY strange that while Laroche did both writing and pencils, the colorist and letterer, Simpson and Reed, are not on the cover nor are they credited anywhere online. If Laroche had done everything, fine, but coloring and lettering are HUGE parts of a book and they deserve the credit.)



Finally, the book ends so abruptly (mid fight scene?!) I wondered if the final pages were accidentally cut. It’s not even close to a conclusion and while it didn’t leave me wanting more, it certainly felt like a huge letdown.

Patton Oswalt calls the book “Amazing” on the cover and I want to know exactly what is amazing about this book and how I’m missing it. Maybe The Warning is just not for me.

[Dani ❤️ Perspective of a Writer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Check out more reviews @ Perspective of a Writer...


The Premise

I love me an alien invasion story and I was looking forward to an adult version with some kickass soldiers. Unfortunately there was no story. Each mission is so short, the panels are random and don't even seem to be connected to each other let alone the mission that came before or after. I just struggled to discern anything. Honestly it felt like a preview of a movie that I would want to watch, alas it was the WHOLE story and not an excerpt.




The Buzz

I am so seriously disappointed in this. Not only is it too short for a compilation of 5 volumes, but what dialogue there was didn’t even really need to be read!! I think I got about 3 facts total... yeah that is seriously so bad. The thing is I could tell cool stuff was happening... I don't understand why this horrible clipped story format was used. With one character it would be a struggle and there was a large cast of characters in The Warning.




The Visuals

The art is TOTALLY 5 stars... it kills me that something with such good art has this poor of a story. Sure, it was risky, but that's nothing if it doesn't pay off. Honestly everything else was one star. I actually love what the visuals were telling me but the storytelling was so poor I can’t even care. 🙈😣😠😩



The Warning seriously disappoints. I am a MEGA Military fan and just couldn't get into the short, clipped preview story style. The art wows but it doesn't make up for the poor story choices.


⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⭐ Authenticity
⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⭐ Tension
⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⭐ Plot
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Art

Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review. It has not influenced my opinions.

______________________
You can find this manga review and many others on my book blog every Monday @ Perspective of a Writer. See my manga and graphic novel reviews at the bottom of the page.

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[Laurian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just the worst. There is a recommendation on the cover from Paton Oswald, and I thought, hum, how bad could it be? It was just as bad as I thought. The visuals were confusing, the story was contrived, and all the back and forth in the timeline made the whole thing feel forced and disjointed. I was not impressed.

[RG · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the most intriguing. Just felt like a presentation or trailer of a comic. Very pop corn film like.

[Ezma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Takes until the 4th issue until it feels like anything's actually happening. The pace in this is awful, probably should've just been a graphic novel as the issue-to-issue ratio of things actually happening is so low. There's so much military jargon in this, it feels like a Call of Duty game that we're not playing. There's some cool ideas at play, can't entirely hate a work where someone snipes an Earth object from the ISS, but it also just feels so weightless that that's like the only moment we'll remember in a week.

Also pretty sure this came from the black stories bundle we've been working through and this only has one major black character in it who I don't think even got a line and barely appears, which is a first for a book from that bundle.

[J MaK · Rating 1 out of 5]

TONS OF MILITARY LINGO ... exhausting. Ends abruptly 😐.

[Thomas Fried · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Woo meets Terrence Malick -- I loved this book!

[Lukas Holmes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has a lot of potential but, MY GOSH, the time jumps.
-15 minutes before event
-20 minutes after initial contact
-6 minutes before the third thing we said
-55 minutes into the future of that one character's past

Good lord! I cannot figure out where I am in this thing.