Prophet #27

Written by Brandon Graham with Giannis Milonogiannis and Simon Roy
Art by Giannis Milogiannis

Since being relaunched a few months ago, Brandon Graham has given us a number of short stories featuring characters that are related to the old Rob Liefeld property John Prophet.  Most of those stories have been about clones, and their tales have taken us all over a distant future populated with bizarre creatures and inexplicable social structures.  Each issue as been fantastic - a blend of strange science fiction, strong narration, and wonderful art by a variety of artists.  A couple issues back, the original Prophet appeared, and now with this issue, we are following him on his journey.

When the book opens, Prophet is travelling on a space worm, waiting for it to take him to his destination - a pod-world populated by giant tree-like creatures called the Kinniaa.  He is looking for his former companion in war, Hiyonhoiagn.  It takes a while to find him, but when he does, the tree has kept some of his former possessions, including an arm that used to belong to Diehard, the Youngblood android.  Next, Prophet and Hiyonhoiagn go looking for a spaceship to help them find the rest of Diehard, but they are attacked by space-sharks.

There is a dream-like quality that permeates every page of this series, as Graham takes his time making clear just what this series is about, and just what is going on.  I find that I'm not too concerned with the overarching plot of this series; I'm perfectly happy to watch Prophet or one of his clones be put through the strange and wonderful worlds that Graham keeps creating.  I do get the sense that all of the various characters we've me so far are going to collide with one another somewhere down the road, but for now, I'm just enjoying the journey.

Milonogiannis's art is definitely growing on me, and that's good, as it's beginning to look like he's the regular artist on this series.  It must be difficult to come on to a book that has already featured artists like Simon Roy, Farel Dalrymple, and Graham himself, but Milogiannis has a style that meshes well with these other artists, and which seems capable of clearly depicting some very wild things.  I believe that the first trade of the new Prophet is coming out next month, and I cannot stress enough how much I think anyone who enjoys intelligent, odd-ball comics or science fiction should check this out, as should anyone who wants to read something original with beautiful art.