Zack Kaplan is back with a new sci-fi comic you’ll be talking about around the proverbial water cooler and it goes by the name Break Out. It’s a series he spoke about on the AIPT Comics podcast that features a mysterious threat stealing children into its floating giant cubes. Problem is, they didn’t count on a super-smart kid who lost his brother figuring out how to save everyone via the greatest heist ever.
Something you’ll notice right off the bat is the highly detailed and realistic pencils by Wilton Santos. Paired with colors by Jason Wordie, the book has a nice depth of field that’s straight out of a TV show. That helps add extra ominous oomph when the giant cubes show up in the narrative. This is a world that lives under a haunting thumb of an unknown threat and you get that from the very start visually.
This story is also well crafted to feel relevant and it’s obvious it spun out of the pandemic. Through captions, the protagonist says, “There is no real normal anymore.” The world lives in fear, children are missing, and it has shockingly become normalized. Kaplan shows this through the protagonist’s mother who wants him to accept his brother is gone for good. It’s easy to relate to giving how much became normalized during the height of the pandemic. That further makes this story quite ominous.
How epic is that cube?
Credit: Dark Horse
This is also a good heist story. Expect all the tropes, like the pulling together of the team, the plan unveiled, and the impossible odds facing these characters. The impossible odds and high stakes of breaking into one of the cubes are set up for the majority of the issue, but things pick up in the last quarter of the book.
If you’re looking for mystery and compelling sci-fi, there’s an interesting setup for the mysterious unknown beings in the cubes. There are no certain answers in the first issue, but there’s a tantalizing theory introduced. It’s not something you see often in sci-fi and could mean some interesting new revelations are on the way in future issues.
In general, the pace is a touch slow. There’s some important character setup here and there that pays off when the team comes together, but there seems to be a bit too much focus on the lead and not the assortment of folks making up his team. A good portion of them ends up being rather unknown or thin on character.
If you’re looking for a new science fiction that brings a bit of fear, fun heist vibes, and a heavy dose of mystery, pick up Break Out. It’s a mix of genuine ominous terror and hope.
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