Dawnrunner #1 [Advance Review]
As a lifelong anime fan, and general lover of cool shit, when I saw the previews for a mech-centric sci-fi series called Dawnrunner I was immediately interested. The fact that it’s being written by Ram V, who fully won me over for his superb work on The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, was just icing on the cake.
So, like any perfectly normal media junkie would do, I patiently waited for that weekly email from Dark Horse that contained an early look at this week’s releases, and proceeded to devour the 36-page debut.
I set a pretty high bar for this series, and I am thrilled to say that it cleared that bar, did a backflip at the top, and blew a kiss to everyone in the stands.
Dawnrunner takes place (unsurprisingly) in a future-state of Earth. After being unceremoniously invaded by exceedingly tough space monsters known as Tetza, mankind did what it does best: they adapted. Building giant mechs known as the Iron Kings (god it’s so cool~), mankind now dukes it out with the Tetza in arena death-matches, with highly skilled pilots of the Iron Kings serving as our main defense against the continuing onslaught.
Anita Marr is the best of the best. With the highest Tetza kill count, she’s afforded the opportunity to pilot a new model of Iron King, code named: Dawn Runner. However, her first foray in the Dawn Runner doesn’t go quite according to plan, and the mysteries of this experimental Iron King come to the forefront.
Ram does a great job of setting up the world in the opening pages without drowning the reader in exposition. It strikes a great balance between an overly simplistic explanation and a Hickman-esque flowchart studded with hieroglyphics (Hickman don’t be mad I love you).
Anita strikes me as an archetypal mech anime protagonist: cool as a cucumber with some pretty killer one-liners. Her stoic exterior makes me even more interested to learn more about what makes her tick, and the revelations that we’re sure to get in the issues to come.
While the action is saved for the end, we get a good taste for the velocity and weight that Ram intends to bring to future kaiju, er, Tetza battles…and it’s solid. I’m interested in seeing the capabilities of the Dawn Runner as well, and how those powers might manifest beyond standard fisticuffs and/or slicing and dicing.
Overall, Dawnrunner #1 is a phenomenal start to a highly promising series. With great aesthetics, cool characters and a solid narrative base, I’m looking forward to the next issue with great anticipation.
