AfterShock Comics is venturing into the unknown once more with this week’s release of a riveting new sci-fi title, “Where Starships Go to Die,” and it’s a delirious descent into the deep blue sea to explore a vast graveyard of submerged derelict spacecraft.
Since arriving on the scene in 2016, AfterShock has been one of the fastest growing indie publishers in the world, mostly known for its acclaimed stable of nerve-jangling original horror titles like “Bunny Mask,” “Chicken Devil,” “Maniac of New York,” “I Breathed A Body,” and “My Date With Monsters.”
But lately the firm’s ambitious reach has extended into the science fiction realm with offerings such as “We Live,” “Spectro,” and “Astronaut Down” with enviable success. It’s latest entry is “Where Starships Go to Die (opens in new tab),” and it’s
Written by Mark Sable (“Miskatonic,” “War on Terror: Godkillers”) and illustrated by Italian artist Alberto Locatelli (“The Believers”), “Where Starships Go To Die #1,” arrives on June 8, 2022 and carries with it the unsettling cinematic tone of films like “Sphere,” “Interstellar,” “Alien,” “The Thing,” and “The Abyss.”
“I’ve been excited to tell a sci-fi horror story based on one of the most interesting places on Earth and a really disturbing theory about why we haven’t found extraterrestrial life,” Sable explained in an AfterShock press release. “I love that it’s character-driven, with a diverse cast that artist Alberto Locatelli brings to life.”
The plotline focuses on a remote spot in the South Pacific called Point Nemo, which is the farthest oceanic point on Earth from any landmass, and a notorious location that has served as a dumping ground for space stations, rockets, and satellites for decades.
In the year 2075 amid rampant climate change, the world’s first African astronaut teams up with an Indian shipping magnate who believes she’s a relative of Captain Nemo to embark on a perilous salvage mission to investigate the crash of humanity’s first interstellar starship, The Daedalus.
However, what they discover is evidence of a secret space program dating back to the Civil War and a hostile alien probe responsible for the spacecraft’s demise.
“I was also inspired by the real-life Point Nemo, and the idea of ‘berserker probes’ – theoretical, self-replicating spacecraft created by alien civilizations to find and wipe out any life they consider a threat,” Sable adds. “They’ve been offered as a very scary answer to the Fermi Paradox, the question of why we haven’t encountered intelligent life – because berserker probes have killed them all … and we’re next.”
AfterShock Comics’ “Where Starships Go To Die #1 (opens in new tab)” is out now in comic shops and online outlets after dropping on June 8, 2022.
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