THIS is the review I was missing, it was driving me to distraction.
This was a short, punchy graphic novel which had some debut roughness but was still super enjoyable for reasons that probably apply more to me. The story is set on a (very) hostile planet, which happens to be the source for a plant which can be distilled into a cure for cancer. A floral MacGuffin, if you will, to create tension and a reason for the characters to want to make it back.
The issue is that the ship suffered a catastrophic failure upon entry (that whole sentence lets me know how much SciFi I consume haha) and there’s only one lifeboatshuttle left, x kilometers away. But there are more people alive than just one–as a matter of fact, there are two. And the blood between them (spilt and metaphorical) is real.
One of the oddest things that I enjoyed tremendously about this book is how the two female leads get realistically battered about in their quest to make it to the shuttle. A while back I read this interesting piece about how we often tell female identifying children to “be careful” at a higher rate than we tell male identifying children, and as a result they end up being fearful of putting themselves literally out there. Ever since then I’ve taken this weird not-at-all-sadistic habit of never telling anyone, ever, to “be careful” and instead loudly encouraging physical risk taking (within reason. I’m not a monster, I swear, I’m not forcing my nieces to walk a tightrope over shark infested waters or anything).
Interlude aside, North and Parrish get hurt when they fall. They have to manage their pain and conserve their energy to achieve their goal. When they get hurt and have lost their first aid kits, they don’t magically regenerate.
I’ll agree that the plot was slightly confusing. Not in that I don’t know what happened–it’s not that confusing–but in that I would have gladly read some additional pages with some context or scene setting. Took me a while to piece together some issues (why only one life shuttle?) and it’s not like I missed the answer–Glover expects you to use some brainpower to noodle out the answers. In that sense it’s clear that this was meant to be a screenplay. A cat and mouse type situation with female astronauts? North could be Gina Torres? A girl can dream…