The Dead Hand, Volume 1: Cold War Relics Review (Kyle Higgins, Stephen Mooney)

The Cold War ended in 1991 – except in the small quiet town of Mountain View. A town which houses a terrifying secret: a rogue Artificial Intelligence with access to all of Russia’s nukes! The town’s inhabitants must keep the truth from the AI so it doesn’t retaliate – and then one day an outsider appears, threatening to destabilise everything and possibly end the world!?

… nope! Didn’t enjoy The Dead Hand very much. There are bits of the premise I thought were ok, like the AI with its proverbial finger on the nuclear trigger and the hiker bursting into the town was an interesting episode. Stephen Mooney’s art is pretty good too – not as good as Steve Epting’s but similar in style to his work on another (and better) Cold War spy thriller, Velvet. I also liked that the AI looked like a 10 year old boy reflecting how basic early ‘90s tech was (even though it’s unbelievably sophisticated for its time).

The characters are all too derivative though. There’s a Captain America and Sharon Carter pair, the AI is like HAL 9000, there’s a black Bond, and Harriet is the archetypical rebellious kid. There’s no real plot so the story, such as it is, ambles along without any drive and a villain is shoehorned in at the last minute, attempting to provide a dramatic conclusion that doesn’t really satisfy as it’s too rushed. The connection between the villain, the Bond character and the hiker was hopelessly contrived.

Mountain View itself was the biggest flaw. I’ll go with it being a military installation/”think tank city” (to use the phrase in Kyle Higgins’ script) because of the AI/nukes situation – but why is it designed to look like a stereotypical small American town? And how could something like that exist in the middle of the harsh environment of SIBERIA!?! And how was it that the hiker was able to so easily waltz into town like he did – given the massive security risk the AI poses, shouldn’t there be barrier after barrier to prevent strangers from just wandering in, accidentally or otherwise?? I can only suspend disbelief so much and the town went too far.

Ultimately though it just wasn’t that compelling a story and Higgins’ execution was underwhelming - The Dead Hand was dead dull!