GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: DREAMING OF EDEN by SKILLET

Joining the likes of Gerard Way (The Umbrella Academy) and Claudio Sanchez (The Amory Wars, Translucid), Skillet frontman Tom Cooper has become another artist to express his artistry through the comic book medium with his writing debut Eden. Dropping on September 10^th in partnership with Z2 Comics, Cooper has said that Eden “is about perseverance, unlikely heroes, and faith in what you believe. I hope that the fans love it!” With the creative juices flowing highly for Skillet, their latest album Victorious being released only four months ago, it’s no surprise to see where Cooper’s brain has taken him. Set in the near future? Check. A mystery that needs to be solved that could prevent a terrible fate to the universe? Check. We join our heroes - John and Korey (based upon John and his wife Korey) and band members Seth Morrison and Jen Ledger on an adventure that explores humanities deepest darkest fears.

Well, sort of.

First off, before we get into detail, Artist Chris Hunt does a great job in the artwork. The style heralds back to the golden age of Sci Fi movies, using a minimalistic style of colours to set the atmospheric tone and always ensuring that there’s a looming sense of danger and claustrophobia to the settings. Our protagonists do travel to Tennessee almost three quarters of the way in, however most of the action always takes place in an enclosed environment with the only look at the landscape being from the view of the characters. Everything else is close ranged from the fight scenes to the interactions and the commotion beyond characters that benefits the story in a great deal without being too reliant on having to explore the landscape.

The biggest problem is the writing and the portrayal of the characters and the depth of the antagonist, another lilac eyed but group leader Harry Trench. The extent of his being there is to trade for food and find shelter for the night, until the plans are revealed that they want Aionicite (a mineral that acts as a power source but also explained it’s the same mineral used to create an accidental gateway for the Rowdy’s to enter) which they seemingly find lying around on the farm on a security mast to create a portal to wherever the door in the dream takes them. The first mistake was when he agreed to hand over all weapons until he his confronted by one of his own later on with their own gun. Could the leader not have concealed another weapon as a back-up? He then proceeds to want to take John and Korey with them as they are chosen, then decides against it saying they’ll follow anyway. If that’s the case why go through all the effort to take out the security measurements, seemingly come across this mineral that’s used as a power source (unexplained how it got into the farms possession) and then just go anyway? The plan seems simple enough, with Trench being able to control Rowdy’s to terrorize the farm, and with the death count at four, our band of heroes go to Tennessee where it looks… normal? There’s no peril given to the reader about the travel of the protagonists and even when it seems like the end of the world, the future in digitized blue and purple yet everyone carrying on with their lives. After dealing with a gang of local thugs and coming across one of Trench’s henchmen, they find out what he’s up to – using the Aionicite through one of their cyborgs to power a portal to where the door in the lilac eye dreams takes them. Even then the plot derails from finding the underground lair, to John and Korey entering the portal only for nothing to remotely happen. No appealing to their human characteristics or to why they’re “Chosen”, but it’s all consequently shut off by Seth, who uses the beam from the Aionicite to cut down henchmen, and Trench gets taken down by a swift ax to the face. Upon leaving, they find Coltonville a mess, ransacked by the Rowdy’s, who have killed everyone but the children who have stayed in the cellar. When daylight hits and more Rowdy’s come back, the reader is told that the Rowdy is actually all things wrong with humanity and a simple telling off and not being scared is enough to guarantee safety.

John Cooper has stated in prior interviews that writing a comic has been something of a bucket list item, to which he presents us Eden. The graphic novel itself feels like more of a pet project than anything else, but every interesting idea that is presented to how the behavior of humanities elite have been at fault for using the Aionicite for ulterior motives to one dimensional heroes and villains creates a lackluster feel of it could have been more. Maybe if it was released as a 7 – 10 issue run to give time to flesh out the horrors of the world and the meaning of the Aionicite, then it could have been more. At the end of the day, the book leaves more questions than answers. If you’re a fan of Skillet then you may want to find a preview online and support one of your favorite artists.

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