Can we just appreciate how the aliens in the story where not actually hostile and tried to fix their mistake? I feel like that’s a rare and interesting take for this comic.

I want to make some Dom jokes, but I fear they'll be lost in adaptation.

ALGORITHM ENGAGEMENT SQUAD.... ENGAGE!!!

Honestly, this looks a LOT better than what I expected from 90s 3d art. I think it shows that even if the artist responsible for it wasn't a professional 3d artist, he still knew what nice comic panels _should_ look like, so he did a lot to make it work with his limited skill and tools available. But yeah, the dialogue is just horrendous.

I'm morbidly curious how long The Dome took to render back in freakin' *1998.* Like, a quarter century later, and this would still be a pretty dang decent home made web comic on the art level!

As a 3d artist myself i do have to respect this on some level but man oh man has this not age well

If this was a movie, MST3K would be right there to riff it.

Bonus points for making it through the entire review without referencing Stephen King OR the Simpsons once. Kudos!

They also had an imprint called "Tangent" that took the names of DC heroes and reinvented everything else about them.

While the 3d art didn't age well it did give it a unique look to the book

So DC has actually had a lot of imprints over the years, many of them obscure. Some like Vertigo, Wildstorm, Elseworlds and Milestone, are still beloved to this day. You get some interesting ones like Young Animal or Hanna-Barbara Beyond which are incredibly under rated. Others like Helix or Paradox Press, have at least one or two famous titles. And then you get the big bombs like DC Focus or Minx, which completely collapse within a year and produce nothing with long term lasting power. The sad thing is DC doesn't really have many new imprints anymore, or rather they're not really doing very much with the ones they do have. Which is a shame.

17:41 "Katie drop a Beetlejuice here please and thank you!"

"Man, it's good that we had the Geologist along to explain about subatomic particles." It's Comic Book Science. Remember that *Hank* Pym was an entomologist that made breakthroughs in AI and *whatever* size/mass changing would *be* called.

The comic has some Frank Miller-esque dialogue intonations.

Seems like writing a bunch of scripts for AT4W reviews was a good idea you had, since this is the second review this week

While I’m here, might as well try some of that good ol’ fashioned cryptic poetry His heart is Steel, her soul is Rage, they’ve come together now and made quite a dangerous deal. She dreams of blood, he sees in red, cross them now and you might find yourself dead. Despite defeat and loss, they come to exact their cost, and burn any who stand in their way They will have their red day.

I kinda wish you were doing Time Breakers, I loved that series. It's only five or six issues long and quite interesting. Two teams of time travelers fight a war across time, one side to preserve existence by creating paradoxes (can't go into the physics here, but it's cool) and the other seeking to destroy existence, believing the material world to be a prison. The ending really makes it shine, I highly recommend checking it out as an example of the line.

I do remember everyone being a smooth, totally naked big headed doll back in 1999. Made 4th grade real weird for me.

At first the CGI animation didn’t look that bad; an aged innovation that now reads as retro artistic choice. Then the review continued and… yeah, I see what you mean.

This comic reminds me...I just recently happened across the first episode of Beast Wars on youtube and ended up rewatching it. I found myself cringing at some of the animation (and dialogue), but I recognized that, for the time, that style of art wasn't bad for being 3D and that 3D art helped pave the way for higher quality 3D shows later on. I'd argue for a similar respect for this comic's art. It's definitely a unique idea to take a rough sketch of a comic panel, then modeling it out in 3D and then finishing said 3D panel by drawing in more details. It's actually quite clever, for the time, especially considering the limited amount of time he had to actually work with the 3D software.

I was thinking the exact same thing as you during that climactic dialogue. The '50s sci-fi movie endings really punctuated it well. 😁

17:42 Bit more editing on the joke than what Linkara usually does. Kudos.

"-something *beyond* our knowledge. Or at least mine, as these are plants and I study rocks. Pokemon joke writes itself really."

Just to note, modern comics can use CG effectively for backgrounds. The manga Negima, for example, uses CG models for the backgrounds and they are exceptionally detailed as a result.

Even in the current year, 3D CGI comics are virtually unheard of (although 2D comics are almost all created with the aid of a computer). This was definitely an art style that never caught on.

For the stinger, we would also have accepted ""E's not the messiah, 'e's a very naughty boy!"

Technically speaking, the Quantum Bomb idea isn’t new. There was a thought experiment over using quantum waves to detonate nukes so they could strategically kill people without the chance of overshooting the target and causing collateral damage. It was conceived in 1993, five years before this comic’s release. Was never realised because of it being pure science bullshit but the idea definitely isn’t a new one. Side note, when subatomic particles are entangled, you can’t screw with them without causing a tremendous release of energy. On normal scales, this is almost nothing but given the horrendous force of that blast? Yeah, that “inherent energy” is what we call *radiation* so this guy’s talking out of his ass. At best, they just created a large criticality event and at worst, they just created Chernobyl at sea. And that bit about the Schrödinger Disentanglement? It refers to the Schrödinger Equation which is used to measure the waves in quantum mechanics. The fuck has that got to do with energy fields?

You mentioned Civvie11 in a video. Now you must review a slav-jank comic next.

17:42 ok, I was not expecting that 😂

“It’s like 1950’s sci-fi!” Not gonna lie, I love 50’s Sci-fi (aside from the sexism), so I really dig this.

even the story structure of finding an alien thing and following a group who try to explain it with long expositions feel like an old-school SF novel.

17:43 the closest thing we’ll ever get to a Civvie crossover with linkara, enjoy this while it lasts commenters

I have no doubt that the hangglider Earthangels were inspired by that fearless Batman villain, the amazing Kite Man!

This reminds me of an episode of the 87 ninja turtles show. A family of aliens took a vacation on earth couple of millions of years ago and the kid left a toy behind. That if left alone will wipe out life on earth. It was a parody of old sci Fi stories like this. I dunno the twist at the end with the aliens not being hostile just reminded me of it. Fun little episode and a really funny review.

7:16 Please, the shifting of the San Andreas is just another Tuesday for us Southern Californians. Looting and riots in the 90s? That was one of our four seasons at the time, along with aforementioned quakes, as well as fires and mudslides, those three are still part of our seasons too. These days droughts took the place of riots but there's been no shortage of protesting since the early 2010s, which the LAPD would like you to believe are riots, even Occupy LA was a riot to them.

Kirk: "What does God needs with a Starship?"

Wait, I want to hear more about the time travelers who try to create paradoxes and the Romeo and Juliet with a sentient asteroid.

Starfire, his cat, whenever linkara does a skit: "What is hooman up to? He's weird, but gives me food."

Well... rocks are made of subatomic particles... I'll see myself out.

17:10 the message "I've been trying to reach you regarding your insurance."

What? No use of the “What does God need with a starship?” clip from Star Trek V? *ZERO OUT OF TEN!*

This reminds me of Pathways into Darkness with the aliens at the end trying to fix their mistake. 🤔

I honestly thought this was going into HP Lovecraft story style, but this story is pretty cool.

When I heard the title I thought of two things. First being The Simpsons Movie. And 2nd is a show I remember seeing ads for on CBS called Under the dome.

I'm strangely reminded of a UK newspaper strip called Striker. It started as a drawn series that changed to 3D models like this series.

Honestly, with no prior knowledge of the comic, I must say it holds up much better than I expected watching the intro Sure it aged, *a lot*, and would have probably looked better just drawn or with a 2d/3d hybrid, but you can still tell it was assembled by an artist who, 3d or not, knew how to make a good picture, helped greatly by the photoshop treatement Obviously the parts that holds up the best is... what 3d is still used for nowadays in 2d animation/reference for illustrations : vehicles and architecture, so it's a fun experimentation with actual hints of what the medium is good for and what it struggles with

Can't wait for Linkara to review "Iron Man: Crash," "Shatter," and/or "Batman: Digital Justice."

I remember Archie Sonic did CGI covers and thinking how nice it would be to have a whole CGI comic using those models but that never came about.

Re: the cliches being tired even by then Tremors- almost a decade earlier- even had a running joke about the scientist character being frustrated that everyone EXPECTED her to know things outside her field of study!

Speaking of CGI comicbooks from the 90s, _Batman Digital Justice_ is sort of a cult classic in that subgenre

Some of the heads look like the talking heads from Fallout 1 and 2. Which were actually real-life clay models imposed over a green screen. Fun bit of trivia.

6:38 Wonder how many people even know what Windows CE (Compact Edition) was It has been dead since 2018 extended support is getting dropped this October (RIP). Microsoft is focusing on Windows IoT (Internet of Things) instead. Mega Man Battle Network was right.

Maybe it was meant to be set in the 50s, but was changed to the 90s at the last minute

EPA! EPA!

Surprise you missed this but the best part about the comic needing to justify every skill the woman has is that in the panel at 24:40 where it asks if she knows how to RUN and the GUY is the one who justifies his running skills.

9:48 A shirt who said "I survived the Quantum bomb and only bring this lousy shirt"

I thought at first this was Under the Dome, the bat-family book about The Question trying to get Twoface back on his meds while everything was going to hell

That episode of Community that introduces Keith David's character Elroy, had tons of jokes about 90's vr. I feel clips from that would be very fitting for this comic.

I was one in 1999 so I probably did look kinda like a smooth, big headed doll

I think using the computer generted stuff for the alien environment was not a bad idea. some moments do feel more unfamiliar because of it. the real fault in this decision was the characters. the humans and human places should have been drawn instead.

I do find it funny how you specifically point out the emphasis on Frank Miller and this. I'm not even a comic guy-pretty much just into the MLP IDW line-and yet I see that all the time. Maybe Frank just makes the emphasized words EXTRA bold.

5:12 I've been smooth and naked ever since... 😂

Kudos for stating that Helix existed in the late '90s, as their earliest publication was in September of 1996, the very first month thereof.

CG comic artwork? Honestly I could see that working in the late 90's maybe if some publisher was doing a comic adaptation of Reboot or Beast Wars or something like that, properties that already used early CGI. But from what I've seen here the quality seems to be on par with MS Igloo or Final Fantasy 8. Also remember that Gordon Ramsey is Civvie's intellectual property.

The Moorcock comics were my first introduction to his Eternal Champion and universe

"Steel isn't strong, boy, flesh is stronger!"

This reminds me of the movie adaptation comic of the first Toy Story, which was made with stills of the movie covered in speech bubbles and sound effects.

Maybe it's because I am a 3D artist and was given a course in 3D animation, but I honestly find old CGI art and animation really fascinating, even more than "timeless hand-drawn art and animation." Like, sure, it's dated but I just admire how they had to work with what they had given the limiations in order to deliver something that looked as good as they could, it's not like they were deliberatedly making things look dated on purpose, and really it just goes to show how much the technology as improved since but you can still go back and see how it began and how it evolved and what was considered "cutting edge" at the time. It also helps that a lot of the time the dated look also adds to the charm and mood CG pieces tend to convey when looking at them and it really gives them an unique feel that you won't find anywhere else, not even in 2D art. I'd even say that, honestly, the CG in this comic doesn't look too bad, I do like how it's stylized and the compositions is overall reall well-made, and, again, some of its "dated" aspects do add to the overall tone of the story, I've always found CG art liks this in printed media to have a really "surreal" feel to them, it reminds me of when Masamune Shirow used a lot of CGI in Ghost in the Shell 2.

For a while there, I was worried we wouldn't have an early Stargate SG-1 reference about Samantha Carter.

Because Thermite is known for its explosive qualities and not for just burning really intensely.

15:40: "Who do you think is Berg's Khan?" That would be Jenette Kahn.

Had no idea this was a DC line; and I wouldn't even had known I'd ever seen it if not for you happening to have that Multiverse cover. I got it doing one of my faioed attemots to reconnect with "modern" comics from a 50 cent box mistaken it for a parallel universes crossover with Elric. Such high hopes. On the upside its where I learned the name Burber.

Missed opportunity to make a Space 1999 reference with that opening.

ironically the cgi was the least dated part of the comic, but yeah i can kinda see why this comic didn't catch on having the aliens be responsible is a neat element tho

24:07 your as much the chosen one as the mystic red ranger.

I guess Helix Imprint could never do a work beyond The Dome

The Beetlejuice model cut in got me. Well played

24:10 I live, I dye, I live again!

If you want dated CG, try Batman: Digital Justice, which somehow looks better once you factor in that it was made in 1980s and was one of the first attempts at a computer generated comic along with Iron Man: Crash (which I sadly haven't read). It's actually a fairly decent story...for the first two acts. In the final act the story kind of falls apart and tosses stuff in just to have it there. James Gordon II and Bobby Chang are underrated as Batman and Robin.

10:16 I mean when you get down to it, subatomic particles are just smaller rocks

Honestly as a fan of pre-rendered CGI I don't dislike the way this looks.

sigh, Oh I remember this era, I have fond memories of these comics that attempt at jumping onto new tech and not getting it right. Also the whole "written like it's 1950s." That's A LOT of Eruo comics, they look fancy with the art, but they are written with "relgion is evil" and "women are sex pots" and all in the name of pulp action.

This reminds me of that awful-looking War Machine comic that was also done in CGI, and looks like something early Reboot would laugh at. Can't say this is much better.

I remember adds for that comic from back then. I thought they were advertising a video game of some kind at the time. I had no idea it was a comic.

So, basically, this comic is the book "Annihilation" but with better characterization?

“Black Lamb” was actually pretty good. Nice little Sci-Fi/horror/superhero story (Black Lamb himself was a vampire who hunted monster hunters) that raised some interesting ideas. “The Done” is bad. I can’t help but compare the thing to “Beast Wars” which had both better art and a MUCH better story. Yeah it’s a little unfair to compare a single issue to a 3 season TV series, but there was more creativity and characterization in a single episode than what we saw in this thing.

8:42 to quote rocked: don’t listen to kid rock

I like how the religious guy had a collared cloak

27:02 I jokingly call moments like this "Heterosexual agenda". When older movies and shows have romance by osmosis. Why is Die Hard about getting back together with his ex wife? Why does Osmosis Jones need a love interest?

Love it when someone I watch makes a joke from someone else I watch. Like a mini-crossover.

Linkara is just now realising Dave Gibbons is a chauvinist...

So, weird thing about swimming and the Navy. Nowadays, your point is true, but historically, a lot of sailors intentionally didn't learn how to swim. If you went overboard, with how much of an ordeal it was to turn a ship around in the age of sail, the captain would almost certainly not go back for you. So, between that and ships sinking, a lot of sailors thought learning to swim would just be delaying the inevitable and drawing out their suffering.

Sentient asteroids? Now I know where Rick and Morty got the idea!

"This comic kinda sucks." Oh c'mon, can't we get Under the Dome?

I'm starting to think the creators of South Park read this comic when creating Randy Marsh- a geologist getting called in for any science thing despite being only a geologist.

Did not expect that Civvie shoutout.

Next time we are going back to Actions Comics #1 to cover the Non-Superman Stories.

Judging by the fact it takes place in 1999, maybe it was meant to be an hommage to the classic sci-fi or even based on some novel of that are? Though it would probably be mentioned in the authors' column on the back cover that Linkara read...

As one of the people who told Linkara about the whole word emphasis being for the sake of drawing the eye to the important stuff, I wholely admit that it makes no g-d sense when you read it out loud.

Oh cool, I didn't know Xavier the Renegade Angel got a comic adaptation