The Space Race takes a very different turn in Primordial #1, by writer Jeff Lemire, artist Andrea Sorrentino, colorist Dave Stewart, and letterer Steve Wands. The Gideon Falls team reunites for a new tale, one that takes a look at a different Space Race than readers are familiar with.

The issue revolves around Doctor Donald Pembrook coming to work at NASA in 1961. The Jupiter rocket launch in 1959 ended badly, as did Sputnik 2. The US and Russia both abandoned their respective space programs. Nixon is president instead of Kennedy, and Pembrook has been brought on board to help identify anything from NASA that could be used for national defense. Everything changes when he’s given information about the Jupiter rocket launch and that the two monkeys, Able and Baker, survived longer than was revealed to the public. From there, the book gets pretty Cold War, as he loses his job and is approached by a KGB agent, who gives him a place to go where he can find the truth. Meanwhile, in space, the intrepid animal astronauts of the US and the USSR find themselves in a bizarre situation.

Lemire knocks it out of the park with this first issue. It’s all atmosphere and information, but it works very well. Pembrook and readers are taken down an interesting rabbit hole, one that revolves around official secrets and feuding governments. In the real world, the Space Race was a turning point in the Cold War, but in this world, something happened to stop everyone from keeping it going. It’s the central mystery of the comic, and Lemire lays it out, stringing the reader along expertly. As far as first issues go, this one is very good at hooking a reader immediately. Lemire is an expert at this sort of thing, though, so it’s not surprising.

There’s an almost Watchmen feel to the whole thing, but that’s mostly because of Nixon as president and the alternate history aspects of everything. The US and USSR seem to be on the brink of war, and the whole point of Pembrook’s job at NASA is to take it apart to find the tech to help with the ballistic missile program. Lemire does an amazing job of capturing Cold War-era paranoia but ramps it up to perfection. Even if it’s just background set-up without much pay-off, it builds an atmosphere for the readers.

Lemire and Sorrentino working together, are one of the best writer-artist tandems in comics. They understand a Sympatico that makes their stories together better than the ones they do with others, and Primordial is an excellent example of that. There are some impressive visuals throughout this issue, and Sorrentino’s penchant for bizarre but effective page layouts when working with Lemire is on full display. While he captures the more mundane moments of the book very well, the scenes that give readers a glimpse of what happened to Able, Baker, and Laika are the highlights of the issue. There’s a horror aspect to them that adds to the atmosphere of the book, and the last scene, in a white void with impeccably drawn monkeys, is the icing on the cake, a fantastic bit of visual storytelling that ends on a surprise that heralds what the future holds for Able and Baker.

Primordial #1 is a pitch-perfect first issue. Lemire and Sorrentino are among the best working tandems in comics, and this book is another example of that. Their work in this book is brilliant; joined by Stewart and Wands, they’ve created something special with this book.

Grade: A