[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”16510″ img_size=”500×700″ alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Coming from Drak Horse Comics, Lifeformed: Cleo Makes Contact is an epic 5 chapter tale which spans nearly 200 pages and follows Cleo, a regular school-girl who has to learn to grow up quick when aliens invade the earth and plunge the survivors into post-apocalyptic chaos. Combine that with her…complicated relationship with her dad who she travels with and you have a heartfelt tale with some genuine emotion, tension, and some pretty good laughs sprinkled in for good measure.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot
Lifeformed: Cleo Makes Contact, written by Matt Mair Lowery, with artwork from Cassie Anderson follows the story of Cleo, a normal school-girl who lives with her dad when the world changes forever after an alien invasion force begins attacking the planet. Her world gets turned upside down when she sees her dad die right in front of her eyes. An alien slave who is trying to escape his master crashes in Cleo’s garden and takes on the form of her recently deceased dad leading to them traveling across post-apocalyptic America together and eventually bonding. This was a really interesting angle for Lifeformed to explore, because whilst the alien always looks like her dad and even at points shares some of her real dads feeling and emotions he isn’t really her father. Yet they still have to stick together to survive. The bond they eventually share is obviously helped by the fact that he looks and sounds human and by the unfortunate fact that after Cleo’s grandmother is presumed dead in the invasion, this alien imposter so to speak is the only family she has left. The abrupt death of her father was genuinely something that left me a little shell shocked at first but it gave way for her new relationship with her Alien dad and, as strange as it sounds, it was charming and genuinely heartfelt. The fact he wasn’t human was shown with funny little gags which helped to keep the tone fairly light but also more grounded emotional moments which highlighted his naivety towards human emotion. For such a simple concept it’s impressive how deep some of the themes in Lifeformed actually are.
Aside from the more personal storyline involving Cleo and her ‘dad’ the overarching story basically see’s them travel across America trying to survive. In that respect, Lifeformed felt like a mixture of some of my favorite games all thrown into one. A little bit of Telltale’s: The Walking Dead, even a little bit of The Last of Us with the whole father-daughter vibe, although this is nowhere near as gruesome and whilst the simple “try and Survive” concept left a lot of room to explore Cleo’s personal growth I would have liked a bit more. A true ‘end goal’ to their quest rather than just surviving but I will say Lifeformed’s ending does lead the way for a possible sequel to carry Cleo’s story on, a possibility I would definitely be up for.
Lifeformed: Cleo Makes Contact is a genuinely heartwarming story which takes the generic ‘post-apocalypse survival’ story and elevates it with an interesting and complicated relationship which lies at its heart.
Characters
We’ll start with the comics star, Cleo. I think why Lifeformed reminded me of Telltale’s: The Walking Dead so much is because Cleo reminded me of Clem. We see Cleo at struggling at school, having a typical relationship with her dad and basically just trying to grow up the best she can. Then we see her world completely change when she’s forced into growing up to survive. We see this in the story itself but also rather subtly in the chapter title pages when her toys in her bag eventually get swapped out for C4 and even a grenade. It was a really nice way of summarizing her growth in a few simple pictures. Seeing here initially struggle with taking on the aliens but growing into a fully fledged survivor felt fairly natural but was definitely helped along by various time jumps throughout the comic. Cleo is relatable and entertaining, in her own cheeky way but really shines due to you feeling sympathetic towards her throughout. Plus her relationship with both her real dad and her eventual alien father felt very real and genuine.
Speaking of, let’s talk about her…fathers I guess. We’ll start with her original human dad seen as he isn’t exactly in the comic too long. He was the fairly standard ‘dad whos out of touch with the times’ but he was still very likable and his relationship with his daughter was one I really bought into. His completely out-of-nowhere death genuinely shocked me and had some real emotional weight to it especially with the total lack of dialogue from both him and Cleo. I will say that whilst his death was pretty hard-hitting it was a little overshadowed by the hasty arrival of his alien replacement. As for her alien father, I really enjoyed him. Not only did Cleo have a ‘coming of age’ story but he too had a story of finally breaking free of his masters and not serving them any longer. Like I said previously there were some really intriguing emotional moments which highlighted how he didn’t quite understand humans and some pretty funny gags like his misunderstanding of ‘dad jokes’. His relationship with Cleo is what makes Lifeformed so good and so engaging.
A couple of surprising standouts were Cleo’s old babysitter Emily and the unnamed human captive who we see in various flashbacks. I really liked Emily’s and Cleo’s friendship and her heartfelt goodbye to Cleo was probably the most emotional moment of the whole comic. Plus it was cool to see her live on through the list of music she gives Cleo.
As for the Alien’s prisoner despite what little we saw of her I really enjoyed her interactions with Cleo’s Alien father and the way she eventually gave him the courage to revolt against his masters. Knowing she would be avenged made the antagonist’s death all that more satisfying. The antagonist himself really just filled the role of ‘generic evil scientist’ but his personal vendetta against Cleo’s alien dad did make me care a little more when they finally confronted. With a fairly simple overarching story, its LIfeformed’s characters that really help get you invested and for the most part they do a great job.
Artwork
The whole comic reminded me of older Saturday morning cartoons with its art style along with a really beautiful almost pastel wash over the whole thing which really made the bright pinks and greens of the alien’s ships pop against the rather generic colors of buildings and roads. I also loved how all the aliens, apart from Cleo’s father, were all one dull shade of grey truly taking way there humanity and any real emotion. The art-style demonstrated how the world was decaying and breaking down but also breathed a little bit of color every now and gain which I appreciated.
Overall, Lifeformed: Cleo Makes Contact is simply a heartwarming story which, for the most part, successfully juggles a whole host of interesting and likable characters as well as dealing with some pretty deep and at times dark themes but never pushing it too far. Despite the overarching story feeling slightly empty its character-driven moments have real humanity behind them which is helped along by a couple of good laughs which feel at home in its story.
Check out Lifeformed: Cleo Makes Contact right now over at Dark Horse Comics.
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