This post contains Fringe Comic Spoilers.

Here are some more scans for the first issue of the Fringe comic, which contains two prequel stories – “Like Minds” and “The Prisoner”. We posted a preview courtesy of MTV earlier, and now our buddies at Fringe TV have (rather controversially) scanned the entire lot and posted them. I just hope that folks still go out and buy the comics, the writers deserve that much. But we’re not here to get into politics and whats done is done, so if you have any intention of buying the comic (available for $2.99) then please do so by heading down to your local comic store, or better yet buy the comic online. Heck, buy it anyway AND check the scans!

(By the way, we’re not going to post the entire comic, we want Wildstorm/DC/BR to publish more of these things and they wont do that if it doesn’t sell)

With that out of the way, I’ve gotta say, the first two stories certainly whet the appetite and give an indication of what is to come both in the show and in the remaining comic series. In my opinion the first story is far superior however, and without getting too techno-geeky, introduces us to some-kind of shared-mind state, whereby a young William Bell (owner of Massive Dynamics – the Dharma Initiative of the Fringeverse?) is having flashes (heh, LOST, heh) of a young Walter Bishop’s memories, after a failed experiment.

But that’s not the thing that grabs me, what grabs me is what this could all signify within the mythos of the TV show itself: Are Walter Bishop and William Bell technically the same person?!? By that, I mean, has William Bell literally ‘borrowed’ from Walter’s genius by tapping into this shared mind state, and is Walter aware of this? Just who is really responsible for the technological break-throughs that Massive Dynamics have penned? It’s a fascinating concept, I mean, just “IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES”.

There’s more juice in the story, but I’ll let the rest of you tear it to pieces and see what you make of it. Now onto the second story – “The Prisoner”.If this wasn’t a JJ. Abrams production I’d say this was a lame attempt to whore an icon of popular culture. As it goes, JJ’s old show (I say ‘old’ because let’s face it ‘Darlton’ are responsible for that bucket of goodness now) is full of appreciative nods to pop culture, nods that actually help to enhance the story for us rabid fans. So, it’s not too difficult to see the possible parallels drawn from the “The (original) Prisoner” and this comic version.

This story seems to entail some-kind of body-swapping (yeah, I’m sure there’s a technical term for it but let’s pace ourselves), perhaps similar to the shared mind state seen in “Like Minds”, but this aspect of Fringe Science seems to consist of long-term ‘body-swapping’, and not consciousness ‘sharing’.

A common theme for both of these stories is that both experiments ‘failed’. Interesting that they should still produce ground-breaking advancements in science. No such thing as bad science, huh.

Anyway, enough jibber-jabber from me, have a looksie at both stories below:

FRINGE COMIC ISSUE #1 “LIKE MINDS”

FRINGE COMIC ISSUE #1 “THE PRISONER”

Just a quick point on the first story, it seems to me that they obviously made Walter Bishop’s character look NOTHING like John Noble (the actor who will portray him in the show) so that they could have a ready made excuse for making William Bell look nothing like whichever actor lands the role for that character, because obviously he hadn’t been cast at the time this comic was produced. Clever.

I’ve got more thoughts on the two stories in this comic, and I know some other bloggers that do too, but feel free to leave any thoughts that you have in the comments. Perhaps there’s something in there that no-one outside of Bad Robot has considered yet?

Thanks again to MTV and Dennis @ Fringe Television for the scans.

Tagged as: Fringe Comic, scans, Spoilers, Walter Bishop, William Bell