Clone #3

Written by David Schulner
Art by Juan Jose Ryp

I've been enjoying this thriller series that deals with the aftermath of a human cloning program that resulted in there being a large number of clones, all of the same man, spread throughout the United States.  Our hero is Luke, one of the clones, whose wife is pregnant with his child, something that hasn't happened with any of the other clones.

Luke's wife has been abducted by a government agency, which Luke has infiltrated by pretending to kill another clone who had helped him escape.  While he's inside their facility, he is looking for his wife, with people outside waiting to help them escape.

While this is going on, a more interesting plot is developing involving the Republican Vice-President of the United States, who is expected to be the swing vote to pass a bill that will ban human stem cell experimentation.  That seems like a slam dunk for a Republican, doesn't it, but the VP's daughter is dying from Parkinson's, and killing stem cell research will pretty much also kill her.  The thing is, the VP knows about the clone program, and figures that the man who started it could fix his daughter as well.

I like how Schulner has added this element of political ethics into his story, which elevates it above being a standard adventure comic.

Ryp's art looks terrific in this issue, and he's toned down the strange kinetic energy effect he usually uses in his art, to the point where it didn't distract me like it has at other times I've seen his work.

Clone #1

Written by David Schulner
Art by Juan Jose Ryp

And the Image hits just keep coming.  Clone is a new series (a mini-series, I assume, but it's always hard to tell with Image) that touches on familiar story elements, but does it very effectively.

Luke Taylor's wife is about to have his baby.  He's still bitter about the fact that his own father abandoned him, which heightens the usual concerns new father's have about being ready for things.  One morning, as he is getting ready for work, he finds a man who looks just like him quietly bleeding out on his kitchen floor.  This guy warns him that someone is after his wife.

This someone, who looks just like Luke and the guy in the kitchen, shows up at the hospital where the wife is getting a check-up, and takes off with her.

We figure out a little while before Luke does that we are dealing with a cloning story (admittedly, the title kind of tipped that off), and that 'they' are after Luke for reasons we don't know.  There are some people ready to help him, and I'm sure we will get the back story in the next issue or so.

This is an effective opening, and the book falls into that 'movie good' category quite nicely.  Juan Jose Ryp's art is dynamic and detailed in equal measures (although I still hate the weird effect he draws around any spot where a character hits something), and it helps propel the story along.  The clone story has not reached the ubiquity of the zombie or vampire story yet, but with books like Garrison and Dancer touching on similar themes not that long ago, it does seem like there's something going on.

Still, newcomer David Schulner has crafted a nice introduction here, and I'm curious to see where he takes it.