The Woods #1. Initiating Test Protocol

The Woods #1 review

High School is hard enough, but try having yours dropped on some random planet, er moon, sorry, full of flesh eating bat things and gawd only knows what else that’s licking its chops and patiently waiting to hunt you down like your some delicious toy. The Woods #1 is exactly that, except some of these high schoolers don’t feel like being bat guano without putting up a fight.

Boom! Studios has a tendency to release little gems here and there that tend to not grab the attention of the mass comic book audience, but hey, that’s ok. The Woods #1 by James Tynion IV isn’t set for mass appeal, although I think it want’s to be a “thinkers” book, it tends to put everything right in front of your face. Each character is cliche, but again, that’s ok. The recipe of the geeky jerk, the brave and ignorant jock, the rebel, the gentle giant, and the strong independent woman work and they work for a reason. Tynion’s tale of this rag tag band of hooligans is sure to be an exciting ride, so why not have a strong basis in which to tell the story.

While The Woods #1 character schemes may be a bit standard, the art is anything but that. Michael Dialynas does a great job transforming you onto another world. The skies are no longer blue, the planets don’t have the same shine, and the wildlife isn’t obviously of this planet.

The Woods #1 is a book I would love to see as a movie or ongoing series if, and that’s a strong IF James Tynion IV can use all the cliche characters correctly. He’s walking a very thin fine line to make this book something special, without making it feel like something I’ve seen before, many, many times over. That means, don’t make it some Hunger Games bullshit.