Pilot Season: Theory of Everything #1
Created by Dan Casey, Nick Nantell
Written by Dan Casey
Art by Thomas Nachlik
Colors by John Rauch
Letters by Troy Peteri
Cover by Eric Jones
Top Cow Productions
Release Date: November 30th, 2011
Cover Price: $3.99

I was supremely disappointed in Theory of Everything #1. It was a book that had so much potential, but like some of Top Cow’s other Pilot Season comics, quickly became very predictable and almost boring.

Writer Dan Casey tries to tell his story in an almost backwards fashion using flashbacks and referencing things that the reader doesn’t know about to try and convey some sort of mystery in the book, but it’s never really executed effectively. There’s groundwork here for a very interesting comic series, but this issue was too full of the standard run of the mill storytelling “tricks.”

We have a hero that’s plucked off the street by a mysterious organization that no one knows exists, and it turns out, he’s the only one in the world that can fight the forces that they’re going up against. Which is SUPER hard to believe considering the organization has been around for years and they just discovered this guy a couple of days ago. Anyway, from there, it just gets even more predictable. It’s basically a new take on an old television show, but for spoilers sake, I won’t tell you which one, because then that pretty much gives the book away.

Artist Thomas Nachlick does a fine job here, but he’s just not my cup of tea and I think he’s wrong for this type of comic book. It’s a military/sci-fi book, and he’d be great on something more geared in the real world, something where he didn’t have to design and draw lots of tech. All his machines and gadgets look the same and they come across looking, quite frankly, not that believable. Again, he’s a very competent artist, in my opinion, he’s just not right for this book. I’d love to see him on something more in the straight-forward superhero or military genre.

Unfortunately, I would have to give this book a pass. Or, maybe wait until a few issues are out to see if it gets any better. Like I mentioned before, there’s the groundwork for a lot of fun stories in this universe, but this issue was disappointing because it didn’t live up to its potential. Hopefully future issues will take time to explore better options.