Station to Station Review: ‘Twilight Zone’ Meets ‘Cloverfield’

An apocalypse story with elements of pulp and noir, “Station to Station” isn’t for everyone. The quick pace makes for a great subway read, but the lack of real backstory and action make it more a tease for bigger things to come.

In a one-shot format however, there’s no guarantee of a future.

The end result is a short read that in spite of its potential, never captivates us to want more. Think of it as a poor man’s version of “The Massive,” minus the charismatic characters. That lack of personality is ultimately what destroys the comics chances at real success. Instead, it ends up as a mediocre comic with a solid but thin story.

Make no mistake, writer Corinna Bechko’s world is a cool one. It just needs more room to grow and develop. You can’t help but feel that she’s been influenced by the work of Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King as the story reeks of sorrow and strength. The sense of foreboding doom is prevalent throughout the comic. The surprise ending is well done. What she gets done in 29 pages is entertaining, but feels rushed. This book should have been a graphic novel instead. That’s the only way to do the idea justice. As it stands, it’s just a cool little story.

Artist  Gabriel Hardman’s work will remind you of something out of a classic Conan the Barbarian comic. Treasure Island’s prehistoric and sci-fi intruders are beautifully drawn, with attention to detail. At the same time, some of the scenes jump around and the reader is expected to fill in the blanks. one scene has a character reach for a gun and the other shows him shoot someone, but we never see him successfully acquire it. Another panel shows a character jump off a cliff and in the next panel he’s flying, on a prehistoric bird. While we know what happened there, it would be nice to see how it happened.

Sadly, much like the shallow at times story, these are the sacrifices one has to make When they are forced to squeeze a graphic novel amount of content into a one-shot.

From the sum of its parts alone, “Station to Station” should be a success, but its lack of depth hinder the remote possibility that the story and art have a huge amount of potential.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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