Writer Corinna Bechko and artist Danny Luckert introduce two literally star-crossed lovers in BOOM! Studios‘ The Space Between #1.
We reviewed the book on the Stack podcast. But in the interest of highlighting more about the title, here’s a summary of the conversation with our thoughts. And if you prefer the longer audio version, that’s below as well!
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The Space Between #1 Review:
Revla lives upstairs in a spacecraft. Les lives downstairs. Can these two opposites make it work? Spoilers, they do, and they change society in the process.
“I love the rom-com of it all,” host Pete LePage said. “You know, the classic tale of two people from different walks of life, and they meet in a magical moment… And then they were torn away from each other. Will they ever get back together? Gosh, I hope so. I’m really pulling for this ship… Even though we’ve seen this story told in many different ways, it’s still fun to root for.”
Justin Tyler also enjoyed the book but was a little confused about the ending. Specifically, because it felt like the story was completed — but instead, it’s an ongoing series.
“I was very confused about what happens next,” added Alex Zalben. “Potentially something very interesting, once you’ve gotten past this… Trope-y romance of: how can a lower class person and a higher class person ever get together, they’re really going to teach each other about each other’s worlds. It speeds-runs through that in the first issue. So what happens after that? I’m curious to find out.”
Zalben also noted that Luckert’s art feels reminiscent of the Luna Brothers. “It’s not exactly the same thing, but has a little bit of the sense of that,” he said.
Meanwhile, Tyler felt the art was a bit more like Tony Harris on Ex Machina in terms of the design of the characters and settings. Speculating about the ending which finds the couple happily together and having changed society, Tyler said, “The panel before [the end] has a couple [of] lines, ‘but love doesn’t really change the world, right?’ There’s bound to be a backlash. So I do think this is more of a wide canvas, universe-spanning story, and maybe we’re going to see this sort of generational impact of it. But I was just surprised we didn’t get a little bit more of a nod to that.”
The Space Between #1 Official Synopsis:
Aboard the interstellar ark known as the Dodona, the populations of workers live in strictly separated social castes during the journey that will take multiple generations to complete.
But everything changes when a pilot from the upper tier named Revla falls to the lower levels and meets Les, and they must risk everything for not just themselves, but all aboard the Dodona!
Each issue in the limited series features a new pair of protagonists and a new generation of humanity in a sci-fi epic of love, survival, and liberation from Hugo and Eisner Award-nominated and New York Times bestselling writer Corinna Bechko (The Expanse, Green Lantern: Earth One) and acclaimed comics artist Danny Luckert (Ghostlore, The Red Mother).
