Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Eric Heisserer
Artists: Ace Continuado (pencils), Adelso Corna (inks), Felipe Masafera (cover)
Colourist: Wes Dzioba
Release date: May 13, 2015
Price: $3.99

Sadly, Shaper is the unfortunate proof having a Hollywood screenwriter is not a guarantee of producing good, top-notch comic. And you would think a screenwriter with Nightmare on Elm Street credit would deliver the goods.

So, to the story, ho hum, Evil space emperor Cal Victus, who can see the future up to 10 breaths away, believes the shape-shifting Shapers (try saying that in a hurry or not, it is a bit of a lame name anyway) will destroy Victus’ reign of oh, I don’t know, it is very much fill in the blanks here, in this paint by numbers plot. But where was I? Oh, yes, so Victus sets about exterminating the Shapers. With me so far? Actually, you are and you are likely as not ahead of me on the next plot derived chestnut as well.

Enter Spry, a “holocard gamer” who discovers he is a Shaper after his family is, wait for the plot twist here: kidnapped. Ta da! Rip roaring stuff. Right?

Shaper is overly complicated and boarding on the tedious; Dark Horse Comics’s new science fiction series is best read as a soporific. This Star Wars clone fails on so many levels.

And that’s a shame because Felipe Masafera’s cover is pretty, and the interior art by Ace Continuado and Adelso Corna is well-crafted, particularly the space scenes, and nicely colored by Wes Dzioba.

One could forgive the comic for resurrecting every science fiction cliché, if only it had been a fun thing instead of monotonous. In a scene right out of the first Star Wars movie Victus destroys a target, while a female character looks on in horror. You can also substitute Spry as a poor man’s Luke Skywalker and chief enforcer Tor Ajax for Darth Vader.

It is clear Heisserer has an imagination and writing ability. It is a shame it doesn’t get used in Shaper.

Reviewer: Joe Lovece
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker