Rael: Into the Shadow of the Sun

By Colin Wilson (Acme Press/Eclipse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-87008-465-9

Colin Wilson has been a major force in world comics for decades. Born in New Zealand in 1949, he studied at Christchurch School of Art at the end of the 1960s and became a freelance illustrator. In 1977 he created his own influential fanzine Strips and in 1980 migrated to Britain, finding success and a modicum of fame at 2000AD drawing Tharg’s Future Shocks, Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper.

After two years he moved to France and created dystopic sci fi trilogy Dans l’Ombre du Soleil for publisher Glenat. The acclaimed series brought him to the attention of Jean-Michel Charlier and his idol Jean Giraud/Moebius. Soon he was illustrating one of the most popular characters in the world – La Jeunesse de Blueberry (Young Blueberry) – to universal acclaim.

Since then he’s expanded his horizons even further, working on the Star Wars franchise, WildStorm’s US revision of Battler Britton and crime thriller Point Blank (with Ed Brubaker), triumphantly returned to 2000AD, and remained a force in European comics. He’s even joined a select band of stars to have worked on Sergio Bonelli Editore’s iconic spaghetti western Tex Willer.

Back in 1988 British publisher Acme Press – in conjunction with Eclipse Books – re-translated (Wilson wrote the first album in English and had it translated into vernacular French by writer Frank Giroud) the opening book in his gripping sci fi trilogy as Rael: Into the Shadow of the Sun.

Despite its superb artwork and thrilling premise it sank without trace on the comics-boom saturated shelves of US and UK Direct Sales Stores.

Far too long overdue for a modern re-release, our story opens as a handful of hardy, human survivors scavenge on an Earth ravaged by genetic and ecological catastrophe. Their latest risky venture is a trap however and an unknowable time later leader Rael and his wary comrades awaken in an incredible new environment: clean, antiseptic, sterile and orbiting high above the broken world they were born intoâ€¦

The satellite habitat is one of three occupied when the world collapsed, but now even this technological paradise is under threat. There’s mutiny amidst the workers and even worseâ€¦

As explained by dictatorial leader Madame Steiner, The Genesis Project is the result of positive and pre-emptive action by responsible individuals answerable to no government. In only twenty years three perfect artificial worlds were constructed and subsequently saved the worthy when Earth succumbed to war and man-made disease.

Now the hardy newcomers are being given the one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join the project, but Steiner is not being completely candid. As the deeply suspicious Rael finds when he accidentally opens the wrong door, Chief Medical Officer Doctor William Canaris daily deals with a growing menace: a contagion inexorably ravaging the sky-dwellers which the prisoners from Earth seem immune toâ€¦

The survivors have been shanghaied for medical experimentation and, if any survive, slave labour to replace the mutineers. When they discover this and violently react the soldiery comes down hard and Rael seizes his chance to escapeâ€¦

Driven ever deeper into the bowels of the monumental construct by trigger-happy hunters, the lost and wounded fugitive eventually collapses, even as far above Canaris meticulously works his way through the prisoners, making a major medical breakthroughâ€¦

Far away, when consciousness returns Rael finds himself tended to by a strange hermit named Oliphant. The recluse evinces no interest in Steiner and her schemes or the rest of depleted humanity, but instead reveals the incredible secrets of â€œhisâ€ inner world.

Most unbelievable is the pristine natural ecosystem at its centre: a preserve of rocky peaks and verdant forests used by the upper echelons of Genesis Society as their own playground.

Moreover, although Oliphant refuses to acknowledge them either, the environment has its secret guardians: autonomous robotic Constructs which originally built the satellites and now work passively against Steiner’s rapacious practises. Befriending the outsider they reveal to Rael the shocking truth behind the planet’s collapseâ€¦

With outrage boiling through his being and all his friends slowly being expended, the rebel Earthman then charismatically convinces the robot sentinels to make a stand, leading a rebellion that might be the very last expression of human freedomâ€¦

Fast-paced, beautifully illustrated and still astoundingly timely in content, Into the Shadow of the Sun is a masterpiece of fantastic fiction which truly deserves a comprehensive new edition and another shot at the A-List of graphic entertainments.

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