Before this review goes any forward, I have this LITTLE fixation with Mars. Well, ok, let’s be adults, I’m OBSESSED. I love Mars. I will shamefully indulge in any media that even has the tiniest mention of the red planet. Mars is casually mentioned in a movie? Yep, I will be immediately watching it with my excitement meter cranked up to nine.

           

  So, it should come as little shock to anyone in our vast Universe, that I immediately picked up the first issue as soon as my eyes focused on the title of Oni Press’s Redline.

           

  Redline is written by Neal Holman with art by Clayton McCormack.

           

  Redline focuses on a small group of marines that are stationed on the red planet. If you expected a cadre of mostly straight white male characters, whose vocabulary and personality was ripped from every stereotypical douche-bro before them, you guessed right.

           

  Vulgarity aside, Holman’s strength is strength is his dialogue that comes across as real and natural a futuristic setting of marines that you would expect. The jocular, nonchalant attitudes, that Holman’s characters wear like little shiny gold metals, feel both real and slightly nuanced.

           

  The story and Holman’s exposition are simple without being a hindrance. Redline gladly gets in line with all the other first issues of comics that are being presented as television pilots. A set up and quick introduction that hopes to flirt the readers to return for a second course.

           

  McCormack’s art is a mélange of both realism and stylized that throws embellished color tones that paint Holman’s narrative.

           

  While I was drawn to the snappy, vulgar dialogue that would give grandparents pause, and the art that gave Holman’s world color, I felt pushed away by the prominent straight white male characters that seemed to be too impressed by themselves and surrounded by prose that was too serious to pave the way for self-awareness that makes me hesitant to return to Holman’s Redline.