The catalyst for the space race in this AfterShock Comics series is the appearance of an alien vessel in our solar system, the first confirmed contact with extraterrestrials in human history. But while the characters are rushing to launch an unprecedented mission farther into space than humans have ever traveled, the first story arc of The Last Space Race is more about personal demons than about connecting with an alien race (who never actually appear in the story).
The Last Space
Race, Volume 1
Written by Peter Calloway
’04, drawn by Alex Shibao
AfterShock Comics
The first issue opens on wealthy industrialist Sasha Balodis adrift in space, with only a few hours of oxygen left after a mission that has obviously gone very wrong. Writer Peter Calloway ’04 then flashes back several years, and the story often shifts back and forth in time, fleshing out the backgrounds of the characters participating in the mission to intercept the mysterious ship they call the Morningstar. Sasha is a Latvian refugee who moved to the United States as a child and became a successful tech mogul. A sort of cross between Richard Branson and Elon Musk, Sasha is attempting to start his own private space-travel company.
The shift of space-travel efforts from the public to the private sector is the reason U.S. Air Force Gen. Denise McMillan recruits Sasha to build the ship that will meet the Morningstar. The crew is a mix of military and government operatives and private citizens, including Sasha’s genius-level rival Roger Freeman, who’s also been developing a private means of space travel. It’s somewhat like having two Tony Starks in the cast, but Calloway explores both characters’ troubled pasts, making them more than just blowhard rich guys.
Calloway does the same for other characters, so that people who seem like secondary figures at first end up getting their own dramatic arcs, sometimes condensed into just a few panels. The tendency to jump around—between time periods, which are not always clearly defined, and characters—can make The Last Space Race slightly confusing to read at first, and Alex Shibao’s art doesn’t always effectively distinguish between different characters, or between the same characters at different ages. But it’s all clearly part of Calloway’s long-term plan, and the series’ world-building is impressive, hinting at numerous possibilities for future issues.
Even more interesting is the ripple effect of the Morningstar’s presence on Earth. Rather than uniting humanity, the confirmation of life beyond Earth only deepens divisions, leading to increased war and persecution (there’s some pointed imagery related to the current treatment of immigrants in the United States). You could call The Last Space Race a pessimistic take on human nature, although Calloway and Shibao make sure to temper cynicism with beauty and wonder.
There are many unanswered questions at the close of Volume 1, with ominous flash-forwards hinting at a pre-apocalyptic future, and the more immediate mystery of who might be sabotaging the outer-space mission from the inside. That opening scene of Sasha in his spacesuit, facing impending death, indicates that the entire enterprise might be doomed to fail. But what the series captures most strongly is the human capacity for hope, the drive to explore and discover, even in the face of overwhelming uncertainty and danger.
Bell is a writer and film/TV critic based in Las Vegas.