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Orbital #2
Ruptures
Final explosif de la 1ère enquête des agents d'Orbital.
- "Et si ce binôme se soldait par un échec ?"
- "Ces deux agents vont réussir, j'en suis persuadée."
Et pourtant... Sur Senestam, petite lune perdue appartenant aux Jävlodes, des renégats terriens s'affrontent autour d'une mine de Trélium, un minerai puissamment explosif. Caleb, agent de l'Office Diplomatique Intermondal, a fort à faire entre les groupes rivaux, les attaques des Stilvulls (des bestioles abominablement destructrices), et sa rencontre avec le charmant docteur Kim Vandersel.
Sur la planète Upssal, Mézoké, le binôme de Caleb, doit faire face à la Colère Ronde des Jävlodes: une violente prise à parti, étonnante pour un peuple connu pour sa tranquillité.
Mais en orbite autour de Senestam, la pilote Nina et l'étonnant Angus, un vaisseau métamorphe, veillent et réservent quelques surprises aux uns et aux autres...
- "Et si ce binôme se soldait par un échec ?"
- "Ces deux agents vont réussir, j'en suis persuadée."
Et pourtant... Sur Senestam, petite lune perdue appartenant aux Jävlodes, des renégats terriens s'affrontent autour d'une mine de Trélium, un minerai puissamment explosif. Caleb, agent de l'Office Diplomatique Intermondal, a fort à faire entre les groupes rivaux, les attaques des Stilvulls (des bestioles abominablement destructrices), et sa rencontre avec le charmant docteur Kim Vandersel.
Sur la planète Upssal, Mézoké, le binôme de Caleb, doit faire face à la Colère Ronde des Jävlodes: une violente prise à parti, étonnante pour un peuple connu pour sa tranquillité.
Mais en orbite autour de Senestam, la pilote Nina et l'étonnant Angus, un vaisseau métamorphe, veillent et réservent quelques surprises aux uns et aux autres...
56 pages, Hardcover
First published June 20, 2007
3 people are currently reading
77 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
August 4, 2022
The story starts moving in this second volume. There is quite a lot of action and intrigue, and it goes in a direction that I didn't expect, which is a pleasant surprise. Also, the story spends more time with the protagonists than in the first volume, so I felt more engaged in what happens to them.
June 23, 2020
So here I am on a re-read run to bring myself up to speed for instalment 8 - now normally I would not do this sort of thing since it seems to be such a major trope of science fiction and fantasy so use 4 books when 1 (or possible 2) would do.
However this series is so additive and fun - I want to turn the page just to see what weird and wonderful sights greet me. I think the last time I was this excited to see what happened next was when I was reading about the art of my favourite science fiction artist. I know it is an old cliche but really - where do they get their ideas from!
This series (okay I am only two books in to the series) is still impressing me. The storyline is still cleverly woven in - although so far is what I was expecting - sorry folks with no spoilers you will have to read it yourself to see what I mean. However its the artwork that still impresses me.
Quite often with stories set in such fantastical worlds the temptation is to go over the top with colour or spectacle or both. However here you have a muted pallet and an incredibly details world but rather than screaming out for attention it just builds up the depth of the story.
I guess when it comes to graphic novels you have to accept that the art is a part of the story as the actual words spoken or actions taken. In this case you have some heavy weight players which just stand there making their presence felt but don't get in the way of the action or the story.
The result for me at least - and I am not expert- it a truly amazing world that you want to explore but at the same time feel totally safe in. So much so that you can then let it blend in to the back ground and focus on what is really going on.
This is a slim book I think I took longer unpacking it than reading it - if ever there is a compendium coming out (and sadly I cannot see that happening any time soon since there are editions still being released) then I would definitely be adding it to the collection.
The question is considering how far this story went - what is in store for the next editions.
However this series is so additive and fun - I want to turn the page just to see what weird and wonderful sights greet me. I think the last time I was this excited to see what happened next was when I was reading about the art of my favourite science fiction artist. I know it is an old cliche but really - where do they get their ideas from!
This series (okay I am only two books in to the series) is still impressing me. The storyline is still cleverly woven in - although so far is what I was expecting - sorry folks with no spoilers you will have to read it yourself to see what I mean. However its the artwork that still impresses me.
Quite often with stories set in such fantastical worlds the temptation is to go over the top with colour or spectacle or both. However here you have a muted pallet and an incredibly details world but rather than screaming out for attention it just builds up the depth of the story.
I guess when it comes to graphic novels you have to accept that the art is a part of the story as the actual words spoken or actions taken. In this case you have some heavy weight players which just stand there making their presence felt but don't get in the way of the action or the story.
The result for me at least - and I am not expert- it a truly amazing world that you want to explore but at the same time feel totally safe in. So much so that you can then let it blend in to the back ground and focus on what is really going on.
This is a slim book I think I took longer unpacking it than reading it - if ever there is a compendium coming out (and sadly I cannot see that happening any time soon since there are editions still being released) then I would definitely be adding it to the collection.
The question is considering how far this story went - what is in store for the next editions.
August 1, 2022
Good story
Value-driven redemption arc incorporating moral relativism in all its complexities.
Clear depiction of the difficulty in establishing and maintaining international cooperation.
Maybe a little heebie jeebie for readers with arachnophobia.
As in the first issue, top-notch art.
Value-driven redemption arc incorporating moral relativism in all its complexities.
Clear depiction of the difficulty in establishing and maintaining international cooperation.
Maybe a little heebie jeebie for readers with arachnophobia.
As in the first issue, top-notch art.
August 10, 2021
It's got some great art - as we all should have come to expect from European publishers - but the story, though there's potential there as well, is so far not grabbing me all that well. It tries to build depth and intrigue, but it's all a little confusing to me and as such is turned into a hindrance. We'll see, though.
October 26, 2021
Runberg puso toda su energía en la creación de un universo futurista dominado por los conflictos entre diferentes razas. Luego Pellé lo ilustró, imprimió dinamismo en las escenas de acción y creo interesantes caracterizaciones de las razas y la tecnología espacial que hacen que el conjunto de la obra sea buena pero no redonda. A los personajes protagonistas les falta alma, un punto de humanidad, oscuridad, ingenuidad, lo que sea que los haga un poco más creíbles y abra una vía por donde acercarnos a ellos. Sin eso, parecen otro artefacto al servicio de la trama.
También hay que decir que Norma no continuó con la serie en castellano más allá de este primer arco, por lo que es posible que en los seis números adicionales publicados en Francés se ahonde en el arco de los personajes. A saber.
También hay que decir que Norma no continuó con la serie en castellano más allá de este primer arco, por lo que es posible que en los seis números adicionales publicados en Francés se ahonde en el arco de los personajes. A saber.
May 3, 2024
Serinin ilk kitabındaki karmaşa ve durağanlık ikinci ciltte kayboluyor. İlk kitaptaki kadar olmasa da hala uzaylı birlikleri, müttefikler-ittifaklar konusunda kafa karışıklıkları var. Kim kimin adamıydı bazen karışıyor. Ama ilk kitaba nazaran çok daha akıcı aksiyonlar, konu işlenişleri var. Karakterler üzerine daha çok yoğunlaşıyoruz ve neden-sonuç ilişkisi kurabiliyoruz.
Dolu dizgin giden bir aksiyonun içerisinde ahlaki çelişkiler, çıkar ilişkileri üzerine güzel anlatılar içeriyor hikaye. Hikaye detayına çok giremiyorum çünkü fazlaca spoiler içerebilecek bir iş. Film ya da dizi uyarlamasının olmaması hala çok şaşırtıcı geliyor bana. Sanat yönü gerçekten inanılmaz kuvvetli.
Üzücü olan kısım ise Presstij yayınlarının seriye devam etmemiş ve etmeyecek olması.
İngilizce baskısını kovalama vakti.
Dolu dizgin giden bir aksiyonun içerisinde ahlaki çelişkiler, çıkar ilişkileri üzerine güzel anlatılar içeriyor hikaye. Hikaye detayına çok giremiyorum çünkü fazlaca spoiler içerebilecek bir iş. Film ya da dizi uyarlamasının olmaması hala çok şaşırtıcı geliyor bana. Sanat yönü gerçekten inanılmaz kuvvetli.
Üzücü olan kısım ise Presstij yayınlarının seriye devam etmemiş ve etmeyecek olması.
İngilizce baskısını kovalama vakti.
September 6, 2016
This is the second album in the French science fiction series Orbital by writer Sylvain Runberg and artist Serge Pellé. The series is set in the 23rd century, when humans have been allowed to join the confederation, an intergalactic multi-species organisation, and focuses on two new members of the directorate, a peacekeeping force: Caleb (a human who watched his pro-confederation parents murdered because of politics back before Earth joined) and Mezoke (a Sandjarr, i.e. a species with which humans have fought a war). This second album picks up where the first one,
Scars
, left off, and offers a conclusion to the first story arc, which deals Caleb and Mezoke's mission to stop war from breaking out on the planet Senestam. The conflict between the human mining colony on Senestam and the alien Jävlods is very clearly escalating, and the two (somewhat unorthodox) directorate agents find themselves in the middle of trouble, to say the least.
The album is a good read, with nice and highly suitable art by Pellé. I enjoyed this first story arc and will definitely be checking out the next one (in album 3 and 4) down the line.
The album is a good read, with nice and highly suitable art by Pellé. I enjoyed this first story arc and will definitely be checking out the next one (in album 3 and 4) down the line.
August 3, 2022
This second episode of the series, currently available on Kindle Unlimited in English, is effectively the conclusion of a double header. Our heroes’ first mission, commenced with their introduction in episode one, comes to a kinetic climax here.
As with volume one, the story telling and the art are good but a little confused, trying to covey too much in too little space.
And there is a lot to convey. I was impressed with the maturity of this space opera. The mission is a success, but rather than having a celebration as in other space operas and suchlike, the protagonists are left asking themselves how this devastating result can be called a success. That’s the point with interspecies (standing in for international) politics. It’s messy. It involves hard choices and resentment on all sides. To prevent an interspecies war, and civil wars on either side, a controversial human colony had to evicted with all the individual suffering that involved, but there’s little sympathy for the colonists as their own actions were the catalyst for a potentially much larger conflagration. Every side has good guys who are disappointed and bad guys who get away with what they were doing. This is very good worldbuilding, very mature sci-if, that only awkwardly fits within the buddy cop / superhero style of narration. The ambitions of the story are outgrowing the concept and the execution of it.
This reminds me of the Valerian and Laureline series, where success is messy and painful, and leaves the protagonists bewildered at the harshness of what they do.
I like this. I’ll definitely follow this series.
As with volume one, the story telling and the art are good but a little confused, trying to covey too much in too little space.
And there is a lot to convey. I was impressed with the maturity of this space opera. The mission is a success, but rather than having a celebration as in other space operas and suchlike, the protagonists are left asking themselves how this devastating result can be called a success. That’s the point with interspecies (standing in for international) politics. It’s messy. It involves hard choices and resentment on all sides. To prevent an interspecies war, and civil wars on either side, a controversial human colony had to evicted with all the individual suffering that involved, but there’s little sympathy for the colonists as their own actions were the catalyst for a potentially much larger conflagration. Every side has good guys who are disappointed and bad guys who get away with what they were doing. This is very good worldbuilding, very mature sci-if, that only awkwardly fits within the buddy cop / superhero style of narration. The ambitions of the story are outgrowing the concept and the execution of it.
This reminds me of the Valerian and Laureline series, where success is messy and painful, and leaves the protagonists bewildered at the harshness of what they do.
I like this. I’ll definitely follow this series.
April 8, 2021
I do like this series. Why? Because while the diplomats might tote guns and get involved in said gun play, their primary goal remains diplomacy and talking it out.
All right, so far through two books they're not at Jean-Luc Picard levels of talking it out, but some of that is out of of their control.
Such as when their traitors and vile schemers on all three sides (yep, not just two parties involved in the double crosses and attempts to kill our leads). To say more I think gets into spoiler territory.
Plus, I think I may have just found my favorite sentient space ship (somehow the Hooded Swan never worked for me).
All right, so far through two books they're not at Jean-Luc Picard levels of talking it out, but some of that is out of of their control.
Such as when their traitors and vile schemers on all three sides (yep, not just two parties involved in the double crosses and attempts to kill our leads). To say more I think gets into spoiler territory.
Plus, I think I may have just found my favorite sentient space ship (somehow the Hooded Swan never worked for me).
October 31, 2022
(4 of 5 for sci-fi spy/diplomatic game with a lot of action)
The second book of Orbital jumped straight into the action and finished the storyline that the first book started. It was fun and despite its diplomatic/spy game theme, it's more like an action movie. The last third felt a bit rushed, but it still worked fine and I really enjoyed it.
The second book of Orbital jumped straight into the action and finished the storyline that the first book started. It was fun and despite its diplomatic/spy game theme, it's more like an action movie. The last third felt a bit rushed, but it still worked fine and I really enjoyed it.
February 9, 2020
I like this series. It creates an interesting future with earth mostly embracing a multiplanetary confederation with some problems from a minority of radical xenophobes. The art is consistently good and I am looking forward to reading the next volume.
May 31, 2024
Really enjoying these, fine sci-fi bobbins. Pleasingly gritty.
January 16, 2024
Very intricate
This volume & the preceding one make up one story arc. The writing is very good as the narrative had many opportunities to devolve into predictable and trite, but rather kept things suspenseful and outright thrilling. The art started out marginal, to my taste, but as the storyline progressed, I came to see it as downright brilliant. The rain was a magnificent touch, adding suspense due to the reduced visibility as well as a goodly amount of misery to the settings. Quite glad I took the risk to begin this series.
This volume & the preceding one make up one story arc. The writing is very good as the narrative had many opportunities to devolve into predictable and trite, but rather kept things suspenseful and outright thrilling. The art started out marginal, to my taste, but as the storyline progressed, I came to see it as downright brilliant. The rain was a magnificent touch, adding suspense due to the reduced visibility as well as a goodly amount of misery to the settings. Quite glad I took the risk to begin this series.
January 16, 2021
The premise here is about a pair of agents for a galactic peacekeeping organization -- one human who lost his parents in a devastating attack by isolationists; the other a Sandjarr, whose race was nearly destroyed in an attack by humans. So there's a lot of free-floating angst.
Books #1 and #2 establish the setting, and send this pair on their first mission -- to resolve a conflict between human separatists on a mining world and the aliens who wish to evict them. There are also horrible monsters. And double-crosses. And death. Lots of it.
It's an action-packed conclusion to the first book, with surprising intrigue and back-stabbery. And violence. And explosions. Though it wraps up the story from the first book, it leaves enough interesting plot threads to be explored later.
And I guess I will.
Books #1 and #2 establish the setting, and send this pair on their first mission -- to resolve a conflict between human separatists on a mining world and the aliens who wish to evict them. There are also horrible monsters. And double-crosses. And death. Lots of it.
It's an action-packed conclusion to the first book, with surprising intrigue and back-stabbery. And violence. And explosions. Though it wraps up the story from the first book, it leaves enough interesting plot threads to be explored later.
And I guess I will.
September 21, 2024
While I enjoyed this volume more than the last, it still feels a little bit like reading technobabble. The translation is mostly fine, it’s the world terminology thats never really explained.
A key at the start explaining what terms mean and what each characters name is would have helped a lot.
I still have way more questions than answers. It ended very abruptly/rushed and became more of a summation than an ending. They like to switch to narration whenever they want to info dump rather than continue at a comic book pace.
Art is generally very good, I especially liked the layered over holograms. There are a few panels ordered in a strange layout making it difficult to easily tell the correct reading order.
Overall it was just okay. Interesting enough to read on but not gripping due to everything mentioned above.
A key at the start explaining what terms mean and what each characters name is would have helped a lot.
I still have way more questions than answers. It ended very abruptly/rushed and became more of a summation than an ending. They like to switch to narration whenever they want to info dump rather than continue at a comic book pace.
Art is generally very good, I especially liked the layered over holograms. There are a few panels ordered in a strange layout making it difficult to easily tell the correct reading order.
Overall it was just okay. Interesting enough to read on but not gripping due to everything mentioned above.
August 10, 2016
***This review is for Orbital #1 and #2***
Summary: In a futuristic setting where humans have had wars with alien races and finally entered a Star-Trek-like interplanetary alliance, a human diplomatic agent and his alien partner must work together to settle a dispute between the aliens who say they own a mining planet, and the humans who have colonized and mined it.
Verdict: Surprisingly good. I would recommend this especially to fans of the Star Trek TV series.
Yay!: What a fun comic! The illustrations are terrific and colorful, each alien species distinct. The plot is reminiscent of Star Trek: Some bad stuff is going down on a distant world, and it's up to our heroes to sort it out.
This comic is heavy on the action, with hoards of giant killer space bugs, explosions, battle simulations, etc.
Nay!: Because the volumes are so short and action-packed, character development and plot twists are at a minimum. The good guys are the good guys, end of story. Occasionally we get backstory on the human/alien conflicts, which is purely expository and slightly bogs down the works.
Fun detail: The human hero has yet to discover the gender of his alien partner. Apparently you can't tell by looking, and it's considered extremely rude in their culture to ask!
Summary: In a futuristic setting where humans have had wars with alien races and finally entered a Star-Trek-like interplanetary alliance, a human diplomatic agent and his alien partner must work together to settle a dispute between the aliens who say they own a mining planet, and the humans who have colonized and mined it.
Verdict: Surprisingly good. I would recommend this especially to fans of the Star Trek TV series.
Yay!: What a fun comic! The illustrations are terrific and colorful, each alien species distinct. The plot is reminiscent of Star Trek: Some bad stuff is going down on a distant world, and it's up to our heroes to sort it out.
This comic is heavy on the action, with hoards of giant killer space bugs, explosions, battle simulations, etc.
Nay!: Because the volumes are so short and action-packed, character development and plot twists are at a minimum. The good guys are the good guys, end of story. Occasionally we get backstory on the human/alien conflicts, which is purely expository and slightly bogs down the works.
Fun detail: The human hero has yet to discover the gender of his alien partner. Apparently you can't tell by looking, and it's considered extremely rude in their culture to ask!
July 29, 2013
Very good indeed! Quite interesting intrigues between different races and some fast paced action also. Art was quite superb and spent some time admiring individual panels. I think that #1 and #2 of this series should be read at back-to-back to get most out of the plot and the different characters. My mind cannot keep those alien names in memory for very long.
January 8, 2026
Read this 55 page French comic on Hoopla. It finishes the story from volume 1. The art is the highlight. I wonder what the alien partner looks like under the mask. I'm not really a fan of wordless panels. Bring back 4 colors and thought bubbles.
April 14, 2010
Stunning artwork, with large enough pages to pour over every detail. The story and the images are amazingly elegant without being too showy.
October 2, 2010
A solid follow-up.
January 22, 2012
Highly recommended. I've got to read more Euro comic books.
December 8, 2014
Solid follow up to Volume 1! I will continue with this series.
May 14, 2015
See previous review of their other book
December 8, 2016
таки запав я на комікси :-) хто б міг подумати!
January 25, 2017
More comic book than graphic novel, but a very fun and original read.
November 13, 2010
full board of stars. I want so much more.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews