Outpost Zero

Outpost Zero‘s first arc is complete. It’s four issue of what Sean Kelley McKeever does best: tell an engaging story while developing characters who deal with very real issues in an authentic way. McKeever has been doing this since 1997’s The Waiting Place– his indie work about a bunch of kids moping through life in Wisconsin. Since then, he has worked on important Marvel and DC titles like The Avengers, Spider-Man, the Inhumans, Teen Titans and the DCU-wide event Countdown.

For Outpost Zero, McKeever is joined by relatively new artist Alexandre Tefenkgi. Tefenkgi has created some french titles as well as some work on Harley Quinn with industry powerhouses Amanda Palmer and Jimmy Palmiotti. He is perfect for this book as he excels at facial expression and character postures to seal the mood of a scene.

The Story

Outpost Zero is a story about a group of people stuck in a biosphere in an inhospitable place in the great unknown. The weather is cruel, cold and deadly. Much of the details surrounding the how and why of the creation of the dome are mysterious at this point, (and appear to be addressed in the next arc) but what is clear is that life inside the dome is difficult. It gets much worse when a storm hits that dumps six stories of ice on the dome. The inhabitants must learn to work together to address the situation. Making matters worse is a power struggle amongst the groups operating with the dome as well as an apparent suicide of one of the young kids.

Themes and Details

Steve: From the beginning, trust is a big issue throughout the first arc. It starts in the first issue when Alea asks Steven to take a big, literal, leap with her based on her mathematical calculations. She slightly miscalculates and injures her arm. We see trust crop up a few more times. Sam’s step-mom, the Chief, puts her trust in Sam when dealing with a major issue that could jeopardize people’s trust in her. She keeps tabs on him, but allows him to deal with the situation. Again, the Chief places her trust in Steven’s parents to handle the situation with the ice on the dome. Finally, Alea and Sam share a trust as they deal with the info regarding Steven’s apparent suicide. Interestingly, all the trust is a function of necessity and tenuous at best. This further deepens the desperation within the dome.

McKeever is a master of human emotion. He uses the funeral of Steven to show how characters deal with the stress that is ever-present inside the dome. Alea is crushed and saddened when thinking of Steven. Lyss finds comfort in her memories of Steven. She is somewhat happy living within the memory. Sam is burdened and quiet, while Mitchell cannot hide his emotions. They bubble to the surface and finally emerge as he explodes in accusations toward Sam whom he blames for the death of Steven. He also questions how Steven could have done such a cowardly thing. McKeever explores the gamut of emotions that folks display in the moment of grief and it feels natural.

The most dynamic character within the first arc is the Chief. She battles ideologically with Steven’s parents over the vision of the dome. The Chief is concerned with the long term prosperity within the dome. She is concerned with the immediate needs of the citizens. Steven’s parents are on the Discovery Team. They are dreamers who are searching for what is “out there” and how they can move forward. Over the course of the arc, the Chief goes from being cruel and immovable to one who actually seeks council from Steven’s mother Jann. The Chief uses Sam’s dead parents against him and the loss of Steven against Jann. Eventually, she breaks down and asks parenting advice from Jann. Finally, she agrees to follow Steven’s parents in their work to remove the ice from the dome.

McKeever also excels in the small details. The dome has an artificial blue sky. It seems like a small thing, but when considering the psychological factor involved with sun and the sky, it looms large. There are a few points, when discussion is had about wasting resources on the sky, that the decision is made to continue it. The lives are difficult and even worse in light of the ice dome. The sky is crucial to maintaining happy lives. We can all relate over a long cold winter with limited sun.

Finally, McKeever has placed some seeds that will lead to the second arc. Sam has a broken message talking about the Genship Ancestry Project. We know it’s important and that the info has been tampered with. Who is hiding it? What does it mean? We get an important piece of info from Steven, delivered through Sam, “Follow it down.” Clearly, the two are tied pieces are tied together and the focus of arc two. Finally, I expect to see Steven again. Not sure how McKeever will pull this off, but I’m fairly certain we have not seen the end of him.

Ray: What struck me the most about Outpost Zero is the way that despite its sci-fi nature, the McKeever book it has the most in common with is The Waiting Place. They’re both books about teenage ennui while stuck in a small town, dreaming of something bigger. The difference is that while the teens in the former book are waiting for an excuse to get out of their small town, the teens in Outpost Zero were born and will die in a small domed outpost on the far side of the universe. That adds a quiet desperation to everything that happens in this book, and goes a long way towards explaining the suicide and attempted suicide that open this arc.

Beyond that, what impresses me the most about Outpost Zero is how ordinary everything is – and I mean that in the best way possible. Amid the apocalyptic threats the characters face every day, including the possible collapse of their life-sustaining dome, the conflicts they experience are extremely relatable. One girl fails an important test and is immediately berated by her demanding father in front of her friends. Another has a conflict with his adoptive mother as they both keep secrets from each other. Whether in small-town Minnesota or in the far reaches of space, teenage experiences are pretty universal. This is McKeever’s first creator-owned sci-fi comic, but he’s falling back on his greatest strengths.

The Art

Steve: This is my first experience with the art of Alexandre Tefengki and I can say that I am impressed. His line work is clean and his faces are expressive. McKeever has built so much emotion in the story and Tefengki’s panels are emotive and tell the story without words. His posturing and posing adds to these emotions. As a good director will do, Tefengki frames the subjects appropriately. There is a claustrophobia that emanates from the panels with facial closups, tight rooms and darkness. The coloring within the rooms is dull and lifeless. The meeting rooms lit with artificial illumination, dimly lit. The only times that the panels are light and lively are when the kids are together, being kids. These pages give us a feeling of hope, and even Lyss finds happiness in the day thinking about Steven in issue 4. McKeever is writing a depressing mystery, but allows us to come up for air at just the right time.

Ray: One of the greatest parts of a creator-owned comic is discovering new talent. I’ve also never heard of Tefengki before, but his style is reminiscent of McKeever’s frequent collaborator Mike Norton. They both have an art style that is slightly cartoonist but still realistic. I think Tefengki is better-suited to this specific concept, though, because there’s a slight grit to his style. The contrast between the sunny, carefully designed “outdoor” segments and the bleak interior segments of the outpost are key to telling the story alongside McKeever’s strong dialogue.

Final Thoughts

Steve: It’s no secret that I have been a fan of Sean McKeever for a long time. He writes “real” characters that jump off the page. Outpost Zero continues that legacy. McKeever is writing an interesting mystery with characters I care about. His partner Alexandre Tefengki is breathing life into the world. The art and story are working together in true harmony here.

Ray: I’ve been following Sean McKeever since his Marvel and DC work, and I’ve always felt he was a writer before his time. His style – character-driven, emotion-packed stories about teenagers coming of age – never quite sold in the direct market despite their excellent quality. But books like Sentinel and Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane have found spiritual successors today that sell like gangbusters in the bookstore market. McKeever has a new potential masterpiece in Outpost Zero, which follows up on the themes from his earliest works with a sci-fi twist. I hope the big companies are taking note, because this book shows that lines like DC Ink could find a goldmine in McKeever’s work.

Grade: A (Both Steve and Ray)