into non-existence
Screenplay: Zach Thompson
Artist: Hayden Sherman
Author: Jim Campbell
Publisher: Dark Horse
Contents: Into the Unbeing Part 1 #1-4, Into the Unbeing Part 2 #1-4
Publication date: January 2025, Part 2 October 2025
Every few months we hear weather forecasts about major storms like “unseasonably hot/cold” or “once in a lifetime…”. Last year, Hurricane Helen passed through western North Carolina, causing record flooding, heavy rains and widespread power outages that lasted for weeks. When recovery efforts began after the storm, everyone was pretty much on the same page. “It was a once-in-a-generation storm, but we better be prepared for it to happen again soon…”
The devastation caused by climate change and environmental catastrophe that we endure every day is enough to fill one with anger. Sometimes they are passionate about change, and other times they have nothing to do but immerse themselves in the intensity of their emotions. But with each record-breaking hot summer and record-coldest winter, we begin to wonder whether the destructive forces of nature are simply a defense mechanism, a way for the Earth to fight back and pay us back for the damage we continue to inflict on it. As if the world was not only alive, but angry, and we were just an invasive species trying to destroy the whole house.
Into the Unbeing follows a group of environmental scientists in the near future of 2034 as they attempt to document the discovery of a mysterious landform. Far from a well-oiled machine, the group quickly realized what was so strange about this particular mission. This is not just a mountain or a cave, but rather something cosmically terrifying and might actually be alive. Zach Thompson’s latest film is a fusion of The Descent and Prometheus, using the former’s harrowing journey into the cave as a way to explore the characters’ particular anxieties, and combining it with the latter’s existential and theological questions about humanity in general. Like Prometheus, this is not a question of whether God exists or whether we have a purpose in the universe. It’s more straightforward than that. This is a story about not only how a divine being exists, but how that being may hate everything about you and everything you are allowed to do.
This series has so far consisted of two parts, each part consisting of four issues. Each issue is also told from a different perspective, usually one of the scientific researchers we follow along the journey. As we move further down this rabbit hole of terrain/sentient beings, each change of perspective rekindles the fears and larger-than-life questions at the heart of the series. The question is, “Are we responsible for what happens to the world?” What does this mean? Are we trying to understand the world around us, or are the world trying to understand us and play with us?
These characters are unprepared for what they’re going through, so each issue follows a similar formula of getting their bearings before something even stranger and scarier happens. In this way, the shift in perspective is how Thompson repeats the beats of this story over and over again through different time periods, reinforcing to the reader the inevitable consequences of our relationship with the Earth. Every new problem feels the same fear, just from a different perspective. Still, there’s a level of beauty in it all, a conflict between the grandeur of an ecosystem never seen before and the untouchable, ugly layers of human history.
Hayden Sherman’s art conveys these tensions in a layout that resembles human anatomy. The pages are laid out like the ribcage, brain, digestive system, etc. In this way, Into the Unbeing allows readers to literally see the humanity in the world around them as the characters within struggle to recognize themselves. The series is less a mystery and more a sci-fi fable about our relationship with the Earth. The world is mysterious and terrifying, but we are nothing compared to it. But the damage we inflict and our perception of our importance endangers us as much as the environment itself. Every little bit of wonder or awe we feel as we look across the page draws our focus back to the heart of something tragic and horrifying as it unfolds.
Remarkably, the art in this series isn’t fully formed to convey these ideas from the start. With each issue, Sherman improves the complexity of its character designs, expressions, and layouts. But the colors are great from the get-go, mixing warm reds and yellows with greens and blacks to give the world a morbid look, as if we’re in something that’s not only alive, but clearly dying. The characters are thus depicted as parasites, moving between bodies as an alien force as the larger entity becomes sicker, scarier, and a little gory.
After all, this is a series about perspective, both in how the story jumps around, but also in how the art frames the story. The Belly of the Beast is as much a storyteller as it is a scientist, and the scientists move through a system over which they have little control or choice. And while the question of who the real threat is arises, the story maintains enough ambiguity and distance that there are no easy answers.
Into the Unbeing is a great read with great art. Thompson’s screenplay gives us likable characters with emotionally resonant motivations, while Hayden Sherman’s screenplay makes the most of every physical horror and surreal element of the premise. Although the eight issues collectively paint a dark picture of our relationship with Earth, the series has a heightened sense of adventurous fun and sci-fi elements that make it a fascinating read.
Into the Unbeing Part 1 and Part 2 are available now
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