Eden

TV producer Arnold (Emerald City) teams up with artist Burchielli (the DMZ series) for a fast-paced and entertaining if not exceptional science fiction thriller. In the not-to-distant future, Sen. Anna Croft and her husband Ben are wrongly convicted of their son’s murder and sentenced to cryogenic freezing—but something goes awry: the Crofts emerge from stasis to find themselves in jungle-choked ruins at an unknown time in the future. They band together with other defrosted convicts to survive in this strange new world (“Isn’t this how Australia started?”), trying to rebuild society and fight off the prehistoric monsters that periodically attack. Burchielli’s sharp, brightly colored art ends up bland when it comes to characters, but he draws atmospheric jungle foliage and visceral, bloody fight scenes. The story takes a while to set up the premise, then rushes toward the none-too-surprising twist ending to fit the story into a single volume. Lost-style flashbacks to various prisoners’ pasts help flesh out their characters but ultimately don’t add much. It’s a sturdy enough debut for this creative team, but readers familiar with the mechanics of the genre are likely to find it all too familiar. (July)