It Came From Space!
From Encyclopedia Jumpleadia
It Came From Space! is the second issue of the comic. It was written and lettered by Ben Paddon, with art by JjAR. The issue follows on directly from the events of Training Day. This story will also be included in Jump Leads: Tales From The Flurry.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The issue opens with Meaney repeatedly pressing the Recall Switch in an attempt to return to the Hub. Lewellyn points out the futility of this act, and suggests Meaney use this as a chance to get some "actual experience in the field". Meaney agrees, and decides to get out of the Flurry at the next Universe. The pair emerge from the ship (Llewellyn reluctantly so, as he'd rather relax then explore) to find they are in the Cargo Bay of a starship. However they are stopped by three armed crewmembers - Tudyk, Anderson, and Lloyd.
Meaney and Llewellyn explain to the three that they are Leads, but Tudyk, the commander of the ship, is uninterested. He orders they be taken to Newman in security - in actuality a disused supply cupboard - where they are handcuffed and left to sit in the room with open tins of paint. Llewellyn begins to talk about the sort of Security Chief Newman is likely to be. Newman then enters, and he is revealed to be a short, skinny man with a Napoleon complex. Just as Newman begins his interrogation (and Meaney finds himself affected by the fumes from the paint tins) the ship is suddenly jolted, and Newman receives a call from Tudyk telling him to bring Meaney and Llewellyn back to the Cargo Bay.
Newman does so, meeting the others outside of the Cargo Bay. Inside, it is revealed that something has crashed through the hull of the ship straight down into the ship's Engineering level. Lloyd points out that the internal sensors are down, and Tudyk begins to wonder why Allen, the ship's Engineer, hasn't reported in. He holds Meaney and Llewellyn responsible for the apparent attack, and also responsible for the loss of lives as a result of it.
They head down to Engineering, where none of the engineering crew are present. Allen then calls Tudyk on his handheld communicator and says he's gone up to Command. He offers to "park up" the ship, but Tudyk tells him that they've "got a schedule to keep" and to keep them on course for Earth. Meanwhile, the object that breached through the Hull is rveealed to have settled in Engineering. It's a Pod - perfectly round, and unlikely to be of human construct. Tudyk suggests cracking it open. Meaney advises against this, but Tudyk takes this as further evidence that the Pod is Meaney and Llewllyn's doing. They do not get the chance to open the pod, though - it starts to crack open, and a creature emerges.
The ship's crew begin firing upon the creature, but it doesn't appear phased. They retreat to the ladder back up from Engineering, and it is only now that Meaney and Llewellyn's handcuffs are removed. Tudyk asks Newman to call for backup from the cargo fleet, however Newman reveals that no such backup exists - Their ship is the only one remaining in the fleet, as the others dropped out of the fleet due to "crazy stories" about "the nebula".
Tudyk climbs the ladder and begins to open the door at the top, which leads to an Armoury, but it has been locked down for security purposes. He eventually gets the door open and the others begin climbing the ladder, but the creature bursts through the door at the base of the ladder and grabs Newman's leg. There is a moment of confusion as to what the creature is doing before Newman's skin begins to shine. All that is left of Newman is his sunglasses. The others run, and the creature follows.
The remaining five take shelter in the Armoury, which has a secure door. Llewellyn and Meaney ask why Tudyk thinks they are on the ship. Tudyk is still skeptical of their story and explanation of what Leads are, but begins to explain: The ship is designed to take energy from a nearby nebula to use as a source of power on Earth, where the natural resources have been depleted. The Pan-Galactic Union, however, have outlawed this action - the nebula is "protected", and so the Earth government does not sanction the collection if nebula energy. This doesn't stop them from buying the energy from any ships that happen to harvest it, however. Meanwhile the PGU refuse to offer any aid to Earth, believing that the human race should have taken better care of their planet, and humans are not prepared to leave the planet because "There's too much history there" - a notion Llewellyn finds comical. Lloyd concludes that whatever is attacking them is unlikely to be from the Pan-Galactic Union, and that fighting it is not an option.
Meaney deduces that whatever the creature is, it has either crashed through the ship by accident and is purely a coincidence (an idea he dismisses as unlikely), or that it's from "another party" taking issue with the harvesting of nebula energy. He interfaces with the computer and determines that the Pod had been launched from the nebula itself. Llewellyn calls Meaney an idiot, but agrees with the deduction and announces that the best course of action at this stage would be to release the nebula energy back into the nebula. The crew object - Earth needs the energy they've collected - but Llewellyn notes the idiocy of their argument. The internal ship Comms are down, however, so they are unable to ask Allen to release the energy. Anderson reminds everyone that the only way in and out of the room is the door in front of them - there's no chance of sneaking out.
Llewellyn comes up with a plan - they open the door, someone throws a Smoke Grenade at the creature blinding it momentarily, and then one person sneaks past and tries to make their way to Command. Tudyk is not fond of the plan, but agrees it is the only one they have and agrees to do so himself.
Time passes, and no one has heard from Tudyk. Unhappy with the situation, Llewellyn decides to arm up and head to Command himself. Meaney goes with him. Once they are out of the Armory Llewellyn makes his true intentions known - he's going back to the Flurry and getting out of here. Meaney refuses to leave knowing that they'd be condemning the crew of the ship to certain death at the hands of the creature and heads to Command himself. Llewellyn reluctantly follows.
Upon arrival, they discover Tudyk sitting and chatting casually with the alien. After Meaney accuses them of working together, Newman enters carrying coffees. Tudyk then reveals that the entire incident is in fact an historical re-enactment of the First Contact between humankind and the creatures, known as Greknoks. The creature's name is revealed as Torn. After establishing that there is no actual danger, Llewellyn departs with Meaney in tow (but not before Meaney is able to ask for some literature on the event). They return to the Flurry and jump away, concluding that this sort of thing isn't likely to happen every time they make a stop.
[edit] Filler Material and Guest Art
- On February 12th 2008, a filler strip was posted showing an alternate version of Issue 1 Page 1. On it, Meaney and Llewellyn's roles are reversed, and the Transport ship is shown to be piloted by Captain Lucas.
- A previous piece of filler art by Andrew Taylor, featuring crudely-drawn MSPaint versions of Meaney and Llewellyn, was posted some time prior to this. It has since been removed.
- A piece of pin-up art featuring Lloyd went up in late-April.
- Four guest strips were put up in the time between It Came From Space! and Trojan Horse. Contributions were made by Krishna Sadasivam [1], Euan Mumford [2], Tom Truszkowski [3], and Joe Ketterer [4].
[edit] Continuity
- This issue may not follow on directly from Training Day, as Llewellyn is no longer enamored with the idea of pressing the Recall Switch repeatedly until they get back to the Hub. Instead, he wants to relax.
- Llewellyn states, "My society gave up on talking computers years ago, when they realised how bloody stupid they were." It is not clear whether he is talking about the Lead Service specifically, or simply Llewellyn's planet and/or Universe of origin.
[edit] Questions
- Why has Llewellyn's attitude changed so drastically between the end of Training Day and the start of this issue?
- He may have just been trying to placate Meaney when he suggested they keep hitting the Recall Switch.
[edit] Outside references
- Llewellyn suggests that Meaney might be better-suited to a career with popular fast food chain McDonalds.
- When postulating about the type of person who might be interrogating them later, Llewellyn references Popeye the Sailor Man.
- Llewellyn disparagingly calls Newman "the Spleen", which is the name of an under-powered superhero played by Paul Reubens in the 1999 motion picture Mystery Men.
- Later, Llewellyn calls attention to the voice of the ship's computer, which does not speak in complete sentences. Computers which speak each individual word as its own sentence are fairly common in science fiction, with one such computer present in Street Fighter: The Movie.
- It has been suggested that the creature bares a resemblance to the monster in Cloverfield, although neither Ben nor JjAR have seen the film. A similarity has also been pointed out to the Cirbozoid species from Starslip Crisis.
- The use of the word glod is a reference to the character (arguably characters) of the same name from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of novels, and is something of an in-joke in Ben Paddon's writing.
