“The Steam Man” #1 Review: Steampunk Dr. Who

Non-conventional vessels are not new, and can add quirky elements to a storyline. In the Doctor Who episode “Let’s Kill Hitler,” the Teselecta, a time-traveling judge and jury is micro-sized within a robotic ship that on the outside looks human. Their purpose is to pull those out of the time stream just before they are about to die who are deemed to have committed heinous, criminal acts. The Teselecta take on a greater purpose when the Doctor uses their technology to fulfill the prophecy of his “death.” In the first issue of “The Steam Man” you see this giant, steampunk-looking machine in the form of a metal-man with a top hat acting as a hunter over an ice-riddled, alien-ridden landscape. This “Steam Man of the Prairie” leads to a promising narrative. Still, like all stories with aliens it can either be an intriguing tale or go sideways fast.

As with any good piece of fiction “The Steam Man” starts in the present of 1899, then backtracks to four years earlier when the alien craziness began. The faithful narrator is also the inventor and captain who saw the need for the world to have a protector, a weapon because it’s America where, even back then capitalism is king. But for the Steam Man crew if only the aliens were the real problem then this situation would be straight forward. You beat the bad guys back to their home planet. What should pull you in is just who is this dark rider they’re tracking and why is he being whispered about years after that initial rip in the sky?

One thing that can’t happen when you write science fiction is to retread common ground badly. In the late 1860’s Edward E. Ellis was one of the first writers to bring up the idea of the giant steam man. It was a series of dime store novels aimed at boys, where the lead was a boy genius who went on a several escapades with his invention. What Mark Alan Miller and Joe R. Lansdale do is turn what could have been an ordinary adventure into Splatterpunk juiciness.

The only certainty in this comic is that you don’t know who’ll survive. That tension is exacerbated with each panel and artist Piotr Kowalski et al take every advantage of the readers’ fear of the dark. After all that’s where all the bad things happen, our minds go to dark places, not happy sunny ones when we are afraid or angry. So you would expect the Dark Rider to be creepy. Still the way he is portrayed will make you want to read the next issue with all the lights on.

Essentially at the core of any literary genre is a well-written story, something that gives the reader a reason to anticipate the next issue. A good villain whose motivations are unknown and an inventor with a purpose other than money to track him down makes for delicious entertainment. For the audience of “The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down” issue 2 can’t come fast enough.