Review:
Like automatic parallel parking, Backtrack is a brilliant concept that, when it works well, is truly amazing.
Blending elements of Reality TV shows like Survivor and Amazing Race with the sheer adrenaline of a Fast and Furious film, Brian Joines gives us a taut, fast-paced and engrossing 10-part tale.
Volume one collects the first half of the series, in which we meet Alyson Levy, a skilled getaway-car driver. She's drowning her sorrows after a job went sideways and led to her brother's death.
Enter Casper Quillex, schemer, bookie and entertainment maestro from the far future. He recruits people to his high-octane, dangerous races, the prize being an opportunity to go back and correct a past regret.
But as the race bounces through time - dodging Cretaceous-era dinosaurs, plague-ridden 6th century Constantinople, 16th century China in the moments before the destructive Shaanxi earthquake, East Berlin on the wrong side of the wall - the troupe of racers slowly dwindles as the dangers claim more victims.
Joines both entertains and educates with these epochal jumps. And the growing personal animosity between competitors adds to the growing tension. The biggest weakness in the writing of this first half of the series is the large number of competitors, which blur until enough of them are killed off that we can begin to better distinguish among the rest. They all also have an annoying tendency to lapse into long, background-detail monologues. Joines does much better telling such back-story details through his series of "Kind of .. Sort of" flashbacks at the start of each issue.
Artist Jake Elphick spends as much time on the vehicles as on the people, to the point that characters are as distinguishable by their ride as by their appearance. They are great representations of realistic racing machines. His images are so dynamic, and arranged so beautifully from panel to panel and page to page, that when the occasional facial expression is forced or crude, it is easily forgiven.
Description:
A former criminal driver is given the chance at redemption by entering a car race but there's just one catch: each leg covers a different period in history.
If you had a chance to fix a mistake from your past, would you take it? Alyson Levy would.
Guilt weighs heavy on former criminal "wheelman," Alyson, who led an illicit life that left hers shattered. Enter Casper Quellex, an eccentric businessman who offers her the break of a lifetime: a massive cross-country car race that grants the winner an opportunity to correct a single mistake in their life. But here’s the catch -- each leg covers a different period in history. As if keeping the cars on the often-questionable (sometimes nonexistent) roads and staying ahead of competition wasn’t enough, the drivers will now have to contend with medieval warriors, dinosaurs, and natural disasters…it's all a possibility. Only the one who survives it all will be proven the winner, and like that, Alyson and the rest of the drivers find themselves in a gut-wrenching race through time and quickly learn that they must band together to form any chance for survival. But for an opportunity to turn back time, Alyson will drive from the Big Bang to the death knell of the universe.
Collects: #1-5
Authors: Brian Joines
Artists: Jake Elphick
Published By: Oni Press
Published When: Nov. 17 2020
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN: 978-1620107867
Pages: 144 pages
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