I believe it was editor / writer Jim Shooter who said of comics, "Every issue is someone's first issue."In other words, no matter how successful your comic book may be, keep in mind that not every reader has read all the back issues. If you drop your reader in the middle of events, confusion can result.
That's certainly my reaction to the first issue of Fathom: Kiani. Even after reading last month's issue #0, I found myself (you should pardon the phrase) lost at sea.
The story shows us an undersea city where the residents hate humans for some reason - they vow revenge. We then cut to an undersea base where an ambassador is due for a visit, but his marine convoy is attacked by our title character, who doesn't show much indication of being at all heroic.
She's certainly stunning as depicted in the excellent artwork by Oliver Nome. My only fault with the artwork is that the script doesn't give him more interesting things to draw - there are far too many "standing around and talking" scenes.
Writer Vince Hernandez is setting things up here, so some exposition is required - but as a relatively new reader, I'm left in the dark about who Kiani is and why she's attacking humans. (I do know she was apparently dead - but she got better.)
Fans of the series will no doubt be way ahead of me on this - but a paragraph on the title page would have gone a long way toward clearing things up for a newbie.
Words to the wise.
Grade: B+
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