FBF - To The Death #1

Title: Another World, Another War

Story: Simon Furman

Art: Geoff Senior

Letterer: Jim Campbell

Design by: Amazing15

Printed by: Mixiam

Plot

On Corcaran Prime, a world 4.7 million light years from Earth, Aleksy Dryagin leads his Pacifier squad in slaughtering the planet's residents, then calls in for the world to be harvested for it's raw materials, afterwards the harvest is shipped back to Earth, and the Pacifiers enter cryo-sleep, before heading home too...

Meanwhile, on Earth, Dryagin's wife, Lena, is working on the family's genetically modified produce farm on the Western Super-Continent, where she finds that her solar zeppelins aren't reaching beyond the pollution layer in the sky to get natural sunlight, so the crops are starting to die off...

Later, the Firedrake, the Pacifier's ship arrives in the Terra-Prima system, where they are prematurely released from their cryo-sleep. They don't detect any problems that would have released them early, but decide to take this opportunity to get refreshed and ready for home a little early, so they head to the showers, get food and generally spruce themselves up.

On Earth's Eastern Super-Continent, at the top of the Hub Tri-Corp cloudscraper, the Triumvirate of Veni, Vidi and Vici watch over the footage of Dryagin's team on their recent mission, and determine that he is too popular due to this being his second successful tour of duty, and they are concerned with his growing fanbase on Earth. The trio decide in unison to "terminate" his contract, before sending out a message...

Back at the Dryagin Ranch, Lena is told by her son that Aleksy is calling from the Firedrake and wants to talk to them.

Lena comes in and talks with her husband over a holographic communicator and tells him about her issues with the lack of resources to keep their farm running, to which he says he's sorted it with the money he has earned for them with the missions, the two start to talk about getting back together properly when another of his team come in saying he's needed on the ship. Aleksy ends the call, much to his wife's annoyance.

Aleksy heads to the bridge, where he sees a bunch of Erath vessels approaching them, refusing to answer their hails, and they start attacking the Firedrake. The Firedrake, being a military vessel, and it's enemies, being commercial ships and the such, is able to easily shoot them down, crippling their engines. The team are concerned about what this means, but decide to continue on to Earth regardless.

Later at the Mercy Spaceport on the Eastern Super-Continent, the crowds have gathered, and everyone is excited for the return of the Firedrake and Aleksy Dryagin, but unknown to most, a sniper is waiting, aiming at the port..

Meanwhile, a pair of aircraft fly over the Dryagin Ranch and deploy some explosives inside it, destroying the whole facility....

Characters

Pacifier

Aleksy Dryagin/Komodo

Diamond Bill

Bette Larssen

Hash Flynn Eye Injured on Corcoran
Huey

Umber

Leone

Kraken

"Moustache Guy"

Other Pacifiers (Mentioned)

Triumvirate

Veni

Vidi

Vici

Other Human

Lena Dryagin

Leo Dryagin

Aleksy's Fans

Mercy Spaceport Security Guards

The Sniper

Other

Lupex (Leo's Striped Pet Dog)

Corcoran Prime's Population Slaughtered by Dryagin's Team

Notes

• This is Simon Furman's new comic series, Furman's famous for his Transformers and Death's Head work, so I figured it would be a fun read :D
• This issue did come out a couple weeks ago, but I've been a bit busy recently with trips and other things, so I'm a bit behind on this one, sorry!
• Though this is issue 1, there is a special issue 0 prequel issue that is available to subscribers and at conventions. I'll try to get one at TFN in August, so don't worry (this may mean some things I question in this review have been explained there, but I don't know yet)
• This story is set in the year 2674 AD, and from what we see it seems that Earth has lost it's own natural resources (aside from solar polar) and has a massive pollution problem (we see there are normal clouds above the dark ones).
• The Pacifiers are a military force that invades other planets so they can use their natural resources to power the Earth. It also appears that they are televised for entertainment back on Earth, most likely to keep people from feeling too bad about their situation in some way.
• One of the Pacifiers is unnamed in this issue, the muscular moustached man, unless I missed his name somewhere anyway.
• Lena mentions that they teach gaming in schools by this point in history, most likely this is to help with hand-eye-coordination to try and teach kids to become soldiers in the future or something...honestly I'm shocked it apparently took over 600 years to do this!
• It's likely that Lena, Leo and Lupex were killed when the Dryagin Ranch is destroyed, but I won't add them to the list as dead unless it is confirmed