The marketing copy calls it "A new adventure series with all the sci-fi drama of Breaking Bad set in Mos Eisley!" which seems a bit chipper for the dark energy wriggling and vibrating and then peeling off the page in the first issue of Tartarus, a new comic published by Image.

Classicists among you will be chuckling, since the comic takes its name from the abyss of deep suffering from Greek mythology where the Olympian gods vanquished the Titans. So the saying goes, a bronze anvil falling from heaven would take nine days before it reached the Earth, and another nine before it reached Tartarus.

But, lucky for you, instead of anvil-dropping you can just stroll over to your local store to check out the comic. The first mega double-fat issue of the comic was released last Wednesday, and I just had a chance to sit and look through. In it, Tartarus is a deep, vertical, underground prison. At the very bottom is the "Abyss", which a helpful (and cool) schematic map tells us is an "isolation unit reserved for the most dangerous inmates."

We start there, and a prisoner named Surka — does her name breathe terror into your heart? It sure seems to mean a lot to the people who work in the prison — is attempting an escape. More than that, I'll leave for you to read. But I will mention that her reason for escaping is legit.

The first issue is divided into two parts, penned by Johnnie Christmas and drawn by Jack T Cole — which was confusing for a minute, because Christmas is accomplished artist in his own right, with a number of series under his belt, including the recent telling of William Gibson's infamous Alien III script in comic form.

But Cole handles the art this time around, and with Christmas' graphic sensibility driving the script and action, Cole has a lot of opportunities to go big. The result is a tight, intricate, explosive and energetic book, that has some definite early Heavy Metal energy in the styling, but without all that distracting and annoying misogyny. In a closing note, Christmas is careful to call out letterer Jim Campbell, editor Stephanie Cooke, and designer Ben Didier, responsible for the aforementioned map.

Amongst the swirling energy is a story founded on some real character development, sure to play out in the next few issues. It's a book you have to take slow, sometimes the connecting tissues between panels is assumed, and you are dropped into a world more than lead into it. Just going with it is the right answer, and there are plenty of reveals and pleasures along the way if you do.

So, I don't know if my elevator pitch would be "Walter White means Kylo Ren", but if you like intricate, rich world building in your comics — a hint of something that feels like the narrative is only poking through the skin of what's possible, you're going to dig Tartarus as much as I did.