REVIEW: War of the Worlds: Thunder Child
Author: Matthew Hardy and Rob Jones – Artist: Kevin Castaniero
Publisher: Titan Comics – HC, 144 pages, FC, $24.99 – ISBN: 9781787749597
On sale now
A dramatic tale that runs parallel to the events of HG Wells’ classic novel, The War of the Worlds.
The War of the Worlds: Thunder Child follows the exploits of the crew of the eponymous ironclad torpedo ram, the HMS Thunder Child. Sitting alongside the events of Wells’ novel, the story takes place against a backdrop of strange occurrences and creeping terror, all leading up to the Thunder Child’s final heroic showdown with the invaders from Mars.
This is a terrifying and thrilling tale soaked in blood, recriminations, sacrifice and loss, the first act in a new take on the well-known science-fiction classic with a unique cast and its own story to tell. A story of the horrors and conflicts of the crew as they experience the first desperate days of the Martian invasion and face the possible collapse of the British Empire and civilisation itself – threatened both from the stars… and from within.
Check some of the art from the book:
Being a fan of franchises, movies, TV shows, games and comics, one of my favourite things is when a new story can be told that runs alongside or within a story you already know, and that’s what we have here with Titan Books’ War of the Worlds: Thunder Child.
Set during the start of the Martian extermination of mankind in HG Wells’ timeless novel and, indeed, also within Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds musical.
Fans of the novel and musical will recall that just as things in England were starting to look lost, a battleship, Thunder Child, rose up to face off against the Martian threat, blowing up a war machine and facing off against another. It bought people time to escape and, even more importantly, it gave mankind hope.
I’ll not tell you how it ends… though you should know by this stage, but in case you don’t, this is the story for you.
So, firstly, the good.
Kevin Castaniero’s art delivers here. It’s atmospheric and clean, and you can often feel the action and chaos unfolding… the book looks gorgeous.
And it’s a beautifully put-together book: the hardcover, the inks, the whole book really pops and makes you want to read the story.
But, I hate to say it, that’s pretty much where it ends.
Overall, the story moves quickly, and it’s an easy read in one go, but the big issue comes with the characters.
Back in 2019, the BBC put together their own adaptation of The War of the Worlds, and much like this book, it’s a beautiful production, but it suffers, as this book does, from hating its male characters.
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Men in this book exist for a handful of reasons – to be stupid, to be arrogant, to be evil, or to be blown to pieces. That’s it, while the ladies exist to tell the men what they’re doing wrong – and we must remember that this story, Wells’ story, takes place in late 1890s England and Wells wrote that story set in that world, but this story feels like a mondern story forcing its way into a period where these things just wouldn’t have happened… men are put down by women, told how incompitant they are and they obediently stand aside.
The women delight in dialogue akin to ‘oh, you think I can’t do this because I am a woman! Is that it?!’ It’s excruciating.
And it’s a pity because this is a story that fans wanted to hear, fans wanted to experience, and yes, in our head canon, now know what was happening on the Thunder Child as it lined up in front of those Martian war machines, but sadly, I think that that’s not going to happen with too many fans of the original story.
If you have an idea in your head of what the story of Thunder Child was on that fateful night, I can promise you, according to this, you don’t. And not in a good way.
Such a missed opportunity.
2 out of 5 Nerds for the artwork.
Watch the trailer:
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Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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