Review: Chrononauts #1 And #2

If there’s one thing I love, it’s time travel. The paradox of it all, the conundrum … it’s great. If you really think about it, it’s our last fictionalized frontier. There isn’t much mystery left in the world. We know too much about space; it’s just a huge void. If there are aliens out there, they’re either so far advanced they don’t give a crap about us, or are just like us and can’t get off their miserable rock, either.

What’s that leave us with? Interdimensional travel, i.e. time travel. Go back in time, mess with the present. Go forward in time, mess with the future. Can your present self exist with your past self? Who knows? Who cares? If it makes a story work, then why not? If Back to the Future taught us anything, it’s that time travel is awesome!

And that’s where Chrononauts comes in. Written/co-created by Mark Millar and drawn/co-created by Sean Gordon Murphy (last seen on Scott Snyder’s epic, The Wake), Chrononauts is one crazy ride.

Spoilers to follow:

The first issue opens with Dr. Corbin Quinn, rock star scientist, discovering a long since missing F-14 Tomcat (along with other semi-modern artifacts) buried deep within the ruins of a temple in Turkey. Those ruins? They were dated older than six thousand years old.

Cool, right? And that’s just the first 2 pages of the book!

Sensing he’s onto something big, Quinn brings on fellow rock star scientist, Dr. Danny Reilly, to help him complete the first unmanned probe to be sent back in time. To the battle of Gettysburg, to be exact. All to be shown live on TV.

Can you imagine that? Watching live the battle of Gettysburg unfold on TV?

Of course, the mission is a success, further propelling the pair into super rock star scientist status. The next phase? Manned missions. Within 18 months, while the world watches, Corbin Quinn boldly goes where no one has gone before — well, technically, there are already people in the past. But you get where I’m going here. Wearing a “chrono-suit” that’s powered by batteries meant to last 100 years, Quinn steps into the time portal, ready to travel back to 1492 (yea … Christopher Columbus’ 1492).

And he promptly gets lost, knocked off course.

After much consternation and bickering, Danny Reilly takes off after Quinn to where they believe he landed, Samarkand 1504. Stepping through the portal, Reilly finds himself smack dab in a savage-led calvary charge. Hit by an arrow, and about to be trounced by said savages wielding swords, Quinn is saved by a crew in a ’78-ish Trans Am.

Remember, this is 1504.

As it turns out, in the 45 minutes that Corbin was gone, he actually spent four years in the past, pilfering it, using the Chrono-suit to travel throughout different time periods, bringing tech from the future (our present) into the past and making himself ruler of Samarkand. Not to mention making his presence known throughout many other time periods. And, of course, charming the undergarments off of ladies in all these different time periods along the way. So many ladies, in fact, Quinn uses a white board to keep track of them all. Spoiler alert: Lucky Luciano’s girlfriend (who Corbin is seeing on the side) finds the “scoreboard.” And she is none too happy.

So where’s this story heading? Trouble, of course. With Quinn a no show back in the present, the military is going into the portal to find both wayward travelers. The natives in all the different time periods Quinn has helped himself to also don’t seem too keen on his antics any more.

Long term, though? I can’t see this story having a long life. Quinn and Reilly are too self-absorbed, and everyone knows you can only mess with the timeline so much before it completely breaks on you. However, with Universal Pictures picking up the option to make Chrononauts into a feature film (and it totally feels perfect as a summer movie), this ride won’t be ending any time soon.

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