Invasion of The Comic Snatchers: The Saviors #1 Review

Jack Finney’s 1955 novel The Body Snatchers has, in my lifetime, been adapted about every ten years, whether we need a new version or not.

Putting aside the original novel and the 1956 movie Invasion of The Body Snatchers, we had the Donal Sutherland shrieking version in 1978, the one with Gabrielle Anwar in the early 90s, and then the Nicole Kidman version (which was inspired casting. After all, if Nicole Kidman was taken over by an unfeeling alien spore, who could tell?) in 2007.

And on one level, why not? The idea that the people that you love aren’t who you think they are, combined with the concept that your own individuality is not only an ephemeral thing, but something that, if wiped away, other people might not even notice it was gone, is powerful. But it’s a powerful concept with diminishing returns; the novel, first and second movies are rightly considered genre classics, while the 90s version is pretty much just a decent sci-fi flick, and the latest being kinda useless, since by then it was an old story told better, and besides: Kidman shows off her whole magilla in Eyes Wide Shut.

All of which brings us to The Saviors #1, a new comic by Starman writer James Robinson and cartoonist J. Bone, which gives us what so far seems to be yet another version of Invasion of The Body Snatchers, wrapped in the unlimited special effects budget that only a comic can bring, but saddled with some real storytelling difficulties and forced characterizations that simultaneously amp the excitement visually while bogging the whole thing down in writerly bits of business and force-fed pacing.

This one’s got some problems, guys.

Meet Tomas Ramirez, a resident of Passburg, jockier of gas, and inveterate stoner. We learn this because Tomas spends about five story pages relating it to a lizard. I am not joking. Tomas spends a few pages drinking some beer and smoking some dope before seeing the sheriff and panicking. Not because of his possession in enough volume to tag on an intent to distribute charge, but because he sees the sheriff;s face turn into one of a lizard (presumably not the one he conversed with early in the story). Tomas visits his buddy Frank, who runs an auto junkyard, tells Franks what he saw, and Frank advises that Tomas maybe cut back on the THC intake for a while. The sheriff then arrives and tries to take Tomas into custody when a stranger who Tomas had directed to the auto yard runs the sheriff down, tells Tomas he’s dangerous, and then the sheriff ices Frank. Tomas bolts, the sheriff gives chase, and turns into… something else.

Okay, let’s start with the beginning, which is that five page sequence of Tomas telling a lizard about himself and his town. This is thinly-veiled exposition, giving the protagonist a chance to yammer on and tell us things rather than showing us anything. It’s about a step removed from boring voice-over, and it is not and exciting or interesting way to start a story. Sure, it gives us some information that we need, but let me repeat: it is a dude with very little life to speak of describing that life to a fucking gecko. Imagine seeing a guy do the same thing at a party and imagine how long you’d bother to watch him do it.

Then there is the sequence of Tomas telling Frank about his split-second glimpse of the Lizard Sheriff where Frank reminds Tomas that the Sheriff’s been around for decades. Now, I get that this kind of discussion leading to disbelief is par for the course for Body Snatcher type films, but it doesn’t feel earned here. Tomas caught a quick glimpse of a lizard dude, and the first thing he does is run to a buddy and start screeching about Lizard Men? I don’t buy it; imagine you saw something weird for a quick second while you were under the influence of an unregulated substance. What would your first reaction be? That maybe you bought some laced shit? Or that we were on the cusp of an alien invasion. A similar scene from Invasion of The Body Snatchers was effective because it had a character buckling under long-term paranoia over a character seemingly changing, and it worked because she was freaked over the fact that the character looked and acted exactly the same. Here? I don’t believe Tomas’s first move wouldn’t actually be to call his connection and curse him out for dusting his bag.

And frankly, it is the paranoia that is missing so far here. Body Snatchers had a slow burn, as characters slowly came to terms with the slow creep of invasion and replaced loved ones. In The Saviors, we go from glimpsed lizard person to an alien motorcycle chase in about four pages. There’s no anticipation here; Tomas sees aliens, and we are assured as readers that there are, in fact, aliens. The biggest area of suspense comes from why Tomas and the guy he sent to Frank’s auto yard can see the lizard people when other people can’t… but even there (and this is only speculation), the references to Tomas’s constant weed smoking are reminding me of Stephen King’s short story, The Ten O’Clock People, where people who smoked just so many cigarettes per day could see that some people had been taken over by monsters. So I’m anticipating discovering some kind of plot where the Lizard People started infiltrating the world in the 30s, taking over positions of authority (we have a sheriff here, will we see a Vice President like in Ten O’Clock People?) and pushing to prohibit marijuana so they can’t be detected. And again: that’s pure speculation, but the groundwork is laid… and I don’t think I have any interest in a story that is inspired and driven by two body snatcher stories by classic authors.

But a positive for the book is J. Bone’s art. The work here is in black and white – appropriate for a story inspired at least in part by a classic 50s sci-fi story – and has a distinctly cartoony bend to it. He works in simple, medium lines, with faces that are not realistic, but which are expressive and easy to read. His layout is in a pretty simple grid pattern that is easy to follow (Note: I read this on a tablet via Comixology’s Android app, which made double-paged layouts particularly simple to follow. And I read it digitally because I am on an airplane and about 1,500 miles from my local comic store, where they know me by name and remind me that if they have to see my over Christmas, they will know that there is no Jesus), but where he shines is in the action storytelling. While I think the progression from glimpse of alien to chase is too abrupt, J. Bone lays the chase out in panels alternating between Tomas’s point of view and the alien’s, moving the camera around and using four wide panel layouts to keep the pace up. It makes for an exciting sequence, and overall, I enjoyed the art a ot.

But not the book. I can understand wanting to do a riff on Invasion of The Body Snatchers – after all, that story isn’t a classic because it sucks. But the execution here has real problems. The protagonist is introduced with really obvious exposition, and has only a couple of actual human interactions before the shit all hits the fan. So we’re left with a dude who is introduced in a boring way, with no concrete enough external relationships to help us understand why we should give a shit about the guy. And there is none of the rising paranoia that made the original The Invasion of The Body Snatchers such a gripping story. Instead, we have a stoner who sees aliens, who then attack him.

There is a chance that Robinson could pull something more intricate and interesting out of his hat – the stranger warning Tomas could turn in a different direction than I think, and the whole story could peel away from the hybrid Body Snatchers / Ten O’Clock People direction that it seems set on following. But as a first issue, there just isn’t enough here to recommend giving it a try. It’s got some problems, and considering Invasion of The Body Snatchers, in one version or another, is on cable every 20 minutes, there’s no particular reason to spend three bucks on this one.