Review by Frank Plowright

Killtopia was originally issued as five thicker than normal comics, hence this being The Complete Collection.

Killtopia is an area of Neo-Tokyo menaced by mechs, and protected by cyborgs known as wreckers, except a nano-virus is spreading across the planet as a disease and racking up a massive death toll. The route into this world is Shinji Kamiya, who’s been scrubbing a living salvaging mech parts from robots killed by others in order to acquire the medicine his infected sister needs. He’s the first to see Crash, a robot who’s achieved sentience and can actually talk, and it’s just as well Shinji makes friends, because unknown to him he’s just become a big target.

Dave Cook’s cyberpunk thriller is densely plotted from the beginning, and the set-up and explanation of the world he envisages occupies much of the first forty pages, illustrated with some imagination and detail by Craig Paton over the first two chapters. If Cook’s world building is complex, it pales beside the effort Paton puts into illustrating a decaying society. His influences include Moebius and Frank Quitely, and Paton has all the tools to become a major talent, although using the same basis for all people is a wrinkle needing ironed out.

More of the story is actually drawn by Clark Bint who takes over for the final three chapters. His layouts are also creative, visually far wilder in fact, and his pages are also detailed, but he lacks the storytelling discipline and anatomical skill. He’s also not helped by the distracting colouring provided by NL Ashworth, which draws attention away from the art rather than to it.

Crash’s importance to Shinji is that he can cure the nano-virus, and so Shinji’s sister, which makes it worth Shinji’s while maintaining contact even when celebrity hunters such as Stiletto are involved. Yet Cook presents fully rounded personalities, in Stiletto’s case showing her as undefeatable before looking back at how she became that way. Cook introduces other complications as being associated with Crash becomes ever more dangerous, and creative additions to the cast all have a purpose, the most intrusive being the upcoming annual contest between wreckers. Cook heads down some surprising roads before pulling everything together, and in the short term it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Given Killtopia is by relatively novice creators it’s one hell of an achievement, and ambition and enthusiasm overcomes the few flaws.