Small Press Sunday: Biowars Series Review Part One

Here at Comic Booked we are always trying to show our support of small press publishers. Our favorite way to do that is with our Small Press Sunday feature. This week we are spotlighting a web-series called Biowars.

Created by Gabriel Shaoolian and written by Mark Powers, this series creates an intricate universe that resides inside each of us. The story is only improved by the amazing art from a team made up of Lucius Cross, Joana Lafuente, and Goncalo Lopes. I will give a brief review of each issue to give you a taste of what they are about and then give you a link to read them for yourself. This week I will cover issues 1 through 3 and then I will cover 4-7 next week.

Reviews

Biowars #1 – “Infection” begins this series with an introduction to many of the characters, Healer, Blastor, Nero, Humron, and Sensurian. Each has a job within the body, messengers, healers, combat and defense systems, whatever is necessary. It is also cool that each has their own attitudes and idiosyncrasies that immediately attract us to some characters and repel us from others. Each character, as Sensurian states, knows their role in the biocosmos, their word for the body organism. There is an infection in the biocosmos and the Biowarriors, a team of defenders, is called to assess and attack the infection. I love the way that the infection is a horde of animal-like organisms that is waging war on the body. The descriptions of the powers of each being use the scientific ideas behind body cells and the way they multiply and fortify themselves, but in the series those are powers that each character has and uses. It is not until the end of this issue that we meet the owner of the body, Alex Hawking, running for his life from some strange man who seems to have some sort of superpowers. This is a cool first issue and really sets up the questions that need to be answered in proceeding issues.

Biowars #2 – “Revelations” – As Alex goes with the reporter, Janice Lee, to tell his story, we are taken back to the battle. We see the Biowarriors destroying parasite after parasite at the same time as the Macrophages, the other side of the bodies defensive coin, are absorbing the parasites and turning them into energy. In the end, the parasites retreat, with one of them named Raze stating that this was just a test of the strength of the abilities of the defensive teams. In this issue we also meet the T-Cells, the bodies equivalent of intelligence agents. Meanwhile Raze, which has been identified as a strain of streptococci, is already building an army by changing the bacteria of the Alex’s body into warriors of destruction. In the beyond, we get filled in on how Alex got to where he is now. His father, Marcus Hawking, was a scientist who worked with Ernst Kelso, who everyone knows as the “Steve Jobs of science”. Marcus had called Alex there to tell him something important, but before he does, his father is infected with something. Mysterious figures discuss something called the Z-Kron Microbe. However, when Alex catches up with his father later, Marcus is deathly ill. He tells Alex that all the answers are on this USB drive and that he needs to get it to a senator. He dies and Alex runs away as the strange men from the earlier party chase him and we are caught up with where we met him in issue #1. The last scene shows the TV announcing a warning about Alex being wanted for questioning in the death of his father and that he may be dangerous. A big issue for answers and questions.

Biowars #3  – “Virus Invasion” – We now know that the villains are called The Combine. Kelso works for them and with them, but is not in charge. The Biowarriors are doing what they can to stem the tide of infection while Alex and Janice head toward an old friend for help. With Janice’s phone tapped, it seems that the Combine is one step ahead of Alex. Now they are on the run and not sure what to do next while the Biowarriors face a foe even greater than they have ever had to deal with as Raze releases the true form of his evil parasitic warriors, the virus.

Stay tuned next week for a full review of the next four issues in this exciting series. I really appreciate the folks at Biowars, especially Jason Pearl who reached out to me about this series. I hope that you, the readers, have enjoyed them and will jump over to their website and check out all the great stuff. I even heard that they have a mobile game in development, so as soon as I have some more information on that I will let you all know.

Check out other episodes of Small Press Sunday.