The Creators – Alex Cox – Writer, Tommaso Bianchi – Artist, James Develin – Colours, Taylor Esposito – Letters

The Players – King Kong, German Captain

The Story – A man wakes up on an island and recent events are jumbled within his mind. As he tries to sort things out, he realizes that this island is more than it seems.

The Take – Written by Alex Cox and drawn by Tommaso Bianchi, King Kong returns to the pages of a monthly comic with this first issue and it is good to see, though by the time it is done and over, one immediately wants to see more. The reason for such is that there is little here. Sure the pages are filled from front to back, but the script is light and there are only eighteen of those pages in total, the rest comprising covers and credits. So in all, it is a short story and it seems to be one that is written for the eventual trade, not that that is a bad thing – collected editions are good and look nice on a shelf, easy to pull down and read at any given time. Be all of that as it may, Cox writes a compelling tale, of a German captain who has washed ashore on a foreign island whose mind is working overtime to figure out just how he got here and what happened to him. Just as he is about to be eaten by a gigantic sea monster, some of his men, who have happened to survive, end up saving him and from there, he takes charge, the captain finally coming to his senses a bit or at least enough to remove them from danger. As it turns out, escaping danger on this island is easier said than done as they run from one monster right into another. While King Kong does not appear all that much in the book, he does show up when it matters most and it is rightfully at the end of the story so that it gets readers interested as to what is going to happen next which obviously, will be in the next issue. Cox ultimately does a great job with the book as he sets up a bit of a mystery and draws the reader right into the ongoing events. Bianchi provides some fantastic pencils with the visuals and makes the story come alive perfectly, enhancing that which Cox has given him to work with. Altogether, this may have felt like a short issue which is a slight negative but it is the only one and buying the next issue is a must.

Worth It? – Yes.