Roberto Recchioni

Sergio Bonnelli's comics are works that have left very big marks in my youth. What they manage to do very well is to merge whole bunch of things from various other stories and produce a book that will keep you spellbound 'til the very end. If you do not believe just look at Nathan Never (including spin offs), Mr. No, Martyn Mystery and Dylan Dog to just name the few.

Orphans series (volume 1 here collects first three issues) is a mix of Starship Troopers, Ender's Game and Orphanage series by Robert Buettner.

After unknown alien enemy incinerates the Earth and causes death of 20% population, Earth governments decide to strike back. In search of good candidates they start with picking up survivors of the attack that are young and without any relations - in other words orphans.

What follows is story told through two viewpoints: one, linked to events of recruitment of orphans and their training that is merciless and aims to weed off the weak, and other one that is set years in the future where aliens are identified and newly formed Earth forces start the counter attack.

Characters of orphans and their instructors are given beautifully. Do note, as few reviewers mentioned already, that story describing training days is more about characters, their inner fightings and the way kids generally see the world around them (world is definitely different when one is young). Story about the invasion is more action oriented and (at least in this volume) there is not much character development. In any case I am sure that follow up volumes will continue the more detailed story of our heroes.

Please note that this is book where people die, there is not much of a happy endings, except what merriment our heroes can extract from their every day activities. They are maltreated by their instructors with a single purpose - to make them a formidable force able to cope with unknown danger from space.

Art is truly great, I would especially like to point out the coloring. It is is exquisite. This is a book in a format that might be confusing to readers that did not come across it before- every page is split across two panels, there is not that much dynamic on the pages (like panel in panel etc). It is very much reminiscent of the golden age comic strip.

Great read and great adventure. Cannot wait for volume two.
Highly recommended.… (meer)

The third volume of the Orphans series brings readers an explosive climax to the revelations uncovered in Volume 2 (Lies). In a break with the chapters that preceded it, the first chapter of Truth begins not with a glimpse into the day of the explosion that killed a sixth of Earth’s population, but instead with a view into current conditions back home on Earth, where things are decidedly grim. Martial law is meeting with strong resistance, leading to inevitable and bloody confrontations with deadly results. This additional viewpoint casts an even grimmer shadow over the scenes depicting the Orphans’ military training, pitting them against, as the character Jonas says, an enemy who “didn’t look any different from you and me.”
The core group of five young soldiers, groomed into hardened combatants since the day the explosions took their families and homes, was already beginning to suffer division in the earlier books. In this volume, the assumptions under which they and the rest of the world have been laboring since the catastrophe begin to be shaken and torn apart, turning members of the group against each other as much as against those who have betrayed them all. The battles and fights in Truth are just depicted with just as much, if not more, explicit violence and gore as the earlier two volumes, including an epic massacre by one Orphan against a veritable horde of mutant adversaries.
By this third volume, readers will have become quite invested in the lives of the main characters, and this book maintains the breathless pace and dual timelines (switching between the characters’ childhoods and their current life) that work to immerse readers so deeply into the plots and machinations of the story. The art style is realistic, if dark, ranging from lush landscapes to war-torn devastation and the stark emptiness of space. There is some nudity in this volume, though not extremely explicit, as well as reference to sexual encounters between the characters.
As the third installment of a series, it will already have a group of waiting fans. Young adults and adults who enjoy militaristic science fiction and space battles will seek it out, aided by the compellingly emotional cover art.… (meer)

The second volume of this gritty series follows the continuing adventures of the close-knit group of children-turned-combatants in the ongoing war against the mysterious alien forces that devastated the Earth. Lies follows the same expositional style of Volume 1 (The Beginning), flashing backward and forward in the timeline to reveal the paths that Ringo, Jonas, Rey, and the rest of the squad have taken to become the soldiers they are in the present. Each of the three chapters in the volume begins with a glimpse into the precipitating attack that orphaned the protagonists as children; the illustrations are unforgivingly brutal, accompanied by almost poetic recollections of the horrors each experienced.
Volume 1 reached its climax with a pitched battle on a distant planet, humans against the still enigmatic beings that seemed to appear and disappear at will. Volume 2, by contrast, begins to allow the mystery behind the entire war to slowly unravel, revealing the secrets that have been kept by those figures in command and that have the potential to destroy what order has been restored in the wake of Earth’s desolation. Some characters presumed to be dead are anything but; some missions are shown to be based on lies and hidden schemes. As the core group of five Orphans begins to stumble upon the truth of what actually transpired on that fatal day, each of them are forced to make hard choices about what to do next.
As stated, the violence in the book is extremely graphic, involving weapons as well as physical fighting. Early in the first chapter, there is reference to an attempted sexual assault, though not explicit. The depiction of gore and death, though, is quite in keeping with the theme and tone of the story, and it is in keeping with the style of the first book in the series. Apart from the extraterrestrials, the space travel, and the rest of the futuristic technology, the harsh depictions of the battles and killings feels realistic, if chilling. After all, in a world in which children are impressed into military service and given orders to kill or be killed almost from day one, readers can easily expect high body counts, portrayed in full-color detail.
This book will definitely appeal to fans of HALO, Starship Troopers, and other space-battle tales. Young adults may identify heavily with one or another the Orphans, particularly, as despite their flaws and obvious trauma, they remain sympathetic in the end.… (meer)