Dark Horse’s “Colonus” Is “Total Recall” On Steroids

The concept of the corporation trying to take a hard-working man’s property has been used for centuries but Ken Pisani’s Colonus takes that concept and hits it on the head with a shovel!

The plot that Pisani has constructed is Total Recall on steroids. The Earth is gone. The colony on Mars had to pollute the planet to raise the temperature and the colony on Venus figured out that they could survive in cloud cities 50 kilometers above the surface. Now the colony on Mars wants what the colony on Venus has. Man versus man at its finest.

As an introduction to the series the reader is hooked by fourth page in. The main character Braxton is tough as nails and is more than pumped to defend his planet, and guess what, the corporation is ready to devour another world and doesn’t care who’s in the way. The premise works so well that I’m drooling for the next chapter.


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If Frank Miller and Mike Mignola had a love child his name would be Arturo Lauria. His work very solid in the first chapter and his color palette choices are brilliant. Lauria’s action sequences are very smooth and deliberate. What worked really well was the advanced perspective, this lead to a very tense feeling while reading the book.

If you’re a fan of science fiction or Clint Eastwood, this is a must read.

Colonus
by Ken Pisani and Arturo Lauria
Debuting in Dark Horse Presents #10, May 2015

The future. Earth is a dead planet.

Its survivors have colonized Mars, while Earth’s outcasts–the criminals, miscreants, fringe-dwellers, and sociopaths–fled inward, to Venus.

Three generations later, the Mars colony has replicated the worst of the world they left behind: avarice, gluttony, and a thirst for power… while the denizens of Venus, strengthened by hardship forged in brutality and hellish conditions, thrive.

And now, Mars turns its attention to lovely Venus.

Matthew Sardo
Matthew Sardo
As the founder of Monkeys Fighting Robots, I'm currently training for my next job as an astronaut cowboy. Reformed hockey goon, comic book store owner, video store clerk, an extra in 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon,' 'Welcome Back Freshman,' and for one special day, I was a Ghostbuster.