Product Description: This is the story of how we could have gone to space. Maybe how we should have gone to space. This is the story of the Ministry of Space: The black budget that financed the move into space. The deaths of the test pilots taken from the surviving Spitfire flyers of the Battle of Britain. And in 2000, the end of the Golden Age, as America and Russia begin moving into space. The secret revealed, and the destruction of a man who sacrificed himself for the Ministry of Space. Plus, a sketchbook section by Chris Weston and an all-new appendix by Warren Ellis revealing the facts behind the fiction!
Graphic SF Reader Ministry Of Space is the story of how one man has the ruthless drive and ambition to get the British to have a massive jump on space and space industry, and gain huge economic advantages. He also does see it as important to humans in general.
There is not much he would not do, or think of doing, to get this done. War, murder, espionage, betrayal, manipulation, blackmail, or whatever.
What he has sacrificed and done is revealed throughout the course of the book, horrifying those who find out, as he finally crumbles under the strain.
Form But No Substance I've been a fan of comic books, science fiction and a better than passing student of history. My profession is engineering. In order for this story to work, it had to suspend my belief. What I mean is I have to forget what I know, ignore the flaws and just enjoy the story.
I can't do this with the "Ministry of Space". The story just isn't entertaining enough.
The artwork is beautiful. So beautiful that is why I bought the book in the first place. However there is an ugly theme running through this story. The premise is that Great Britain appropriates German rocket technology and shuts out it's principle ally, the United States. Already as an American I'm pissed off. The main character, Sir John has few endearing qualities other than his obsessive loyalty to the Empire. He is neither likeable or liked.
After starting off on this sour note, I started caring about the flaws. Supersonic and space flight are risky enough endeavors without the go for broke attitude of Britannia's pilots. The implication is that America has been too cautious. Sure that's why Pancho Barnes had those pictures on the wall of her "Happy Bottom Riding Inn" during the early days of supersonic flight. Some of those pilots just went for it and now they're dead.
Then there is the colonial aspect of this book. Japan ruined forever the myth of European superiority. In this universe, Great Britain starts claiming everything in sight. All the US can do is "protest".
So much for Anglo-American cooperation.
This book turned me off in the beginning, Sir John kept being annoying and the source of the programs original funding really killed it for me. Treacherous beginnning, arrogant story and ugly ending.
Beautiful artwork though.......
Great artwork, but (typical with Ellis) a script that deflates in the end Warren Ellis is the type of writer who has no trouble coming up with interesting and entertaining ideas, but unfortunately, these often see print as overly compressed, poorly fleshed-out narratives that derive from his tendency towards overproduction. [Glance at any comic book store shelves at any month of the year and you're sure to see at least several titles authored by Ellis from several different publishers in several different genres.]
Ministry of Space is a good example of Ellis's strengths and weaknesses. The concept, a sort of post-modern adaptation of the classic British comic "Dan Dare", is certainly engaging and will evoke nostalgia in anyone who, as a child or teenager, admired the graceful swept-wing rocket ships that filled the pages of Atomic Age storybooks.
Unfortunately, the `shock' revelations that occupy the last few pages of MoS will fail to surprise most readers, whom I suspect will recognize where things are ultimately heading well in advance. Indeed, these final disclosures come across as so clumsy and ham-handed that they signal to me that Ellis opted for as facile a conclusion as he could conjure with a minimum of effort. Their net effect is to undermine what had, up till that moment, been an engrossing and well-realized tale of the near future.
The real pleasure in MoS comes from artist Chris Weston, an outstanding draftsman whose artwork supplies the high degree of realism the storyline mandates. He is the rare artist who is as adept at rendering human figures and facial features, as he is at rendering large metal spaceships and the bucolic British countryside. Weston's art is the reason that fans of space adventure and comic art should pick up MoS.
What if? This is the future that you wish had happened. When the seeds of the modern world germinated into something quite different, something glorious, but tainted. Warren Ellis and Chris Weston take a simple 'What If?' premis, What if the Peenamunde Rocket Scientists had been taken by the British at the end of the 2nd World War. From that they create a spectacular ( seemingly naive )confection of British technological derring do, a beautiful homage to Frank Hampsons Dan Dare and a ripping yarn that waits until it's very last pages to pull the rug from under us. A small perfect jewel of a comic.
Fun story with an interesting ending An interesting story with a somewhat thought provoking end. The art work was quite good too though perhaps not as good as Frank Quitely. Too bad this is the end of the story.
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