Chariot #1
Writer: Bryan Edward Hill, Artist: Priscilla Petraites, Colorist: Marco Lesko, Publisher: AWA
I’ve been getting really into synthwave lately. Which is to say I’ve been listening to synthwave covers of 1990s video game music while I work. It’s just upbeat enough to keep me motivated while I’m shuffling the commas around, and there are no lyrics to distract me.
According to my good friend Walter IkiPedia, synthwave is “an electronic music microgenre that is based predominantly on the music associated with action, science-fiction and horror film soundtracks of the 1980s.” Think Blade Runner, Nicolas Refn’s Drive and the theme from Stranger Things. Then apply that sound to the music from Donkey Kong Country. Mm-mm, that’s good eatin’.
So my eyes pricked up when I saw AWA’s new series, Chariot, described as a “synthwave thriller.” I figured that meant lots of cool retro-futuristic action and bisexual lighting.
The basic plot: Jim is a gruff, handsome guy who works in a scrap yard but pulls jobs as a wheel man on the side for extra cash, which he needs right now because his son has kidney disease. But he also owes money to some bad folks, and they’ve come to collect.
Fortunately, he’s mostly saved from the beating of a lifetime by the car he’s been working on, which gains sentience and runs them all over, then reveals to Jim that it’s powered by the essence of the super hot spy chick we see drown in the prologue scene.
Cue the Knight Rider theme. Hey, that’s synthwave, too!
Like many a first issue, it ends on the inciting incident so you won’t get to explore the actual premise until the second issue. It’s a lightning-fast 20-page read built on empty calories, but it’s far from the most offensive thing AWA has put out in its year of publishing. (Remember when they launched with a comic about a pandemic right as a pandemic was taking hold in America?)
You may know writer Bryan Edward Hill best as the scribe behind the only bad Dawn of X title (the lobster-less Fallen Angels), but his resume is far more extensive than that, and this book plays to his range as a genre TV writer. Artist Priscilla Petraites (Rat Queens) excels at action sequences — the explosions, the chase scenes, the gunplay, all of it — and colorist Marco Lesko brings the — you guessed it — bisexual lighting.
So while Chariot #1 doesn’t feel like a $3.99 comic, it is a quick burst of fun, and sometimes that’s all you can ask for. Turn your brain off and enjoy.
Oh, and if you’re looking for my synthwave recs, listen here and here and here and here. Enjoy!
Dan Grote is the editor-in-chief of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts WMQ&A: The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Winston Wisdom.
