By Zack Quaintance — Mystery is an element that comics of all genres tend to lean on to grab and hold reader interest. It makes sense. This is an easy medium to do that. The mix of words and pictures allows storytellers to orient the reader with visuals, while at the same time raising engaging questions with the words and actions of the script. 

Some comics, however, deploy mysteries at the risk of becoming so disorienting that they push the audience to disconnect all together out of simple frustration. The Visitor #1 is not one of these comics. From the moment one comes across its title and cover (illustrated by Amilcar Pinna), a question is raised: who is The Visitor and what do they want? They are obviously threatening, covering their face and pointing a pair of large pistols directly at the camera as they stand massive atop the New York City skyline, but we don’t really know much past that.

That combination of elements gives us the magical balance I described above, wherein we have a mix of the familiar to ground us as we wonder our questions. We know New York City. The vast majority of us have been there, while still more have experienced it second-hand in countless books, television shows, and movies. It is, perhaps, the single most-recognizable locale in the country, if not on the planet...and now The Visitor has come to threaten it. 

This is an intriguing concept to be sure, explored expertly by veteran/all-time great writer Paul Levitz, a long-time steward of The Legion of Super-Heroes and for a time all of DC Comics. Levitz understands that for writing to feel universal, mysteries and fantastical events have to be tapered with the familiar. This is evident from the first page, wherein our introductory panels and dialogue combine an attack on the city and resultant traffic snarls with which we are all familiar. 

“Viewers — stay out of Midtown Manhattan! We’ve gone from gridlock to total disaster. The city has officially gone to hell!” a traffic reporter warns from inside a helicopter observing an exploding building.

From this moment on, I was locked in and ready for Levitz and co. to unspool the contents of the mystery of The Visitor. Things, of course, get more complex than just building exploded but who did it? This is a comic rich with interesting characters and ideas. With hard-nosed detectives and intrepid reporters and U.N. delegates and international delegates and security personnel. It’s a rich tapestry of figures with a heft and importance that one feels when walking about New York City, and they are all now at risk from The Visitor. 

Levitz is joined here by artist MJ Kim and colorist Diego Rodriguez, who handle the expository scenes and character reactions to the threat ably, while absolutely crushing the more ominous scenes of the actual Visitor. We get our shadowy figure wrecking havoc in a server farm, or passing through the subway and intriguingly stopping to save a rat caught on the tracks as electricity crackles from their boots. Kim and Rodriguez expertly contrast the surface level city scenes with the understated machinations of The Visitor, also playing to that concept I described at the start — orienting the reader just enough to keep us dying to find out who The Visitor is and what they’re doing in/to New York City.

Overall: The Visitor #1 is a strong and intriguing debut comic that expertly blends mysterious questions with familiar ideas and settings. No comic in recent memory has so adeptly depicted the power and feel of New York City while at the same time making us fear for the people and places within it. 9.0/10

The Visitor #1
Writer: Paul Levitz
Artist: MJ Kim
Colorist: Diego Rodriguez
Letterer: Simon Bowland
Publisher: Valiant Entertainment
Price: $3.99

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.