Book Review Double Header: Planetoid & Planetoid: Praxis

Ken Garing's Planetoid

There are a lot of science fiction comics out there, but most just treat it as an excuse for big explosions and weird aliens. There's nothing wrong with either of those, but the best science fiction does a lot more than that- it tries to ask serious questions about society, technology, and humanity. And Planetoid is definitely among the best science fiction.

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Planetoid follows a ragtag bunch of castaways in a forgotten industrial wasteland- a little world almost entirely covered in scrap machinery and industrial pollutants. As their reluctant leader, Silas, struggles with his own selfish past and motives, his new people struggle to build a living community on a dead world. (And, to be fair, there are hostile aliens who consider the planet their territory and have evil robot/cyborg servitors.)

Planetoid #3 remains one of my single favorite individual comic book issues. There's only a single panel of violence, and it's something of an aside to the issue. The rest of the issue consists of the community building houses, planting gardens, and making their new home livable. The climax of the issue is just some children flying a kite.

Ken Garing includes plenty of explosions and cool action scenes, but he's also trying to ask questions that most comic book science fiction doesn't explore. It's a genuine attempt to explore what a community really is- and, if anything, its half dozen species of resident aliens just make it feel even more human.

Ken Garing's Planetoid: Praxis

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Praxis is, in many ways, a frustrating sequel- but it's frustrating in a good way. The community from the first volume, years after they successfully win their freedom from the alien overlords of their planet, find themselves under threat not from an invading force, but from a corporation that's decided to set up stakes. They're opening the world up to tourism, industry, and the rest of the universe- and the village is in the way.

While the corporation is certainly villainous- they try to charge the village for use of the sunlight- they're the less critical threat in the story. The corporation can be faced and fought. The real danger, the one that can't be fought so easily? It's consumer culture. The village suddenly has access to modern medicine, manufactured goods, and fashionable clothes. And, like countless indigenous societies throughout Earth's history, they prove to be devastating temptations to the villagers.

If you're a science fiction fan even in the slightest, I highly recommend checking out Planetoid and its sequel.