The Jetsons #1

Written by: Jimmy Palmiotti
Art by: Pier Britto
Colours by: Alex Sinclair
Published by: DC Comics

The Jetsons continues the stellar work DC Comics have been doing in reviving old Hanna-Barbera cartoons and bringing them to modern day audiences. After a short preview earlier this year, Palmiotti and company are now back to bring us this new mini-series. And this debut issue delivers.

Right from the first page, you can tell that this may not be your typical Jetsons, but it still has enough of the same feel to be familiar. I really enjoyed the fact that Palmiotti starts the issue off with a send-up to the old cartoon using its theme song to introduce the Jetsons family to the readers. From there, we get to learn a bit about where each individual family member is: George is, as usual, stuck at work, Judy is preparing for a night out, Jane is off to the space station, on somewhat secretive business, and Elroy gets to play the young one and jets off to the Earth’s surface.

The first issue concentrates mostly on Elroy, with the help of his friend Lake, as they go to Earth’s surface in a submergible to try and retrieve something from the now underwater cities. Through some exposition, that we receive courtesy of Jane aboard the space station, we learn that Earth’s temperature peaked causing all the ice to melt and start flooding cities. Add to that, the Hanlon meteor struck the Earth in the Pacific adding to the water levels. This is what led humanity to seek shelter in the upper atmosphere and the stars.

Jane in this issue plays the an almost Jor-El type role in trying to warn the scientific council that these tragedies, which almost decimated the Earth’s population, would pale in comparison to what comes next. This little tidbit that Palmiotti added to the story helps create a sense of tension that will be hopefully explored in future issues.

The rest of the issue is spent exploring the new dynamic that George has to deal with with his mother deciding to become a robot (Rosie from the old cartoon) to help her prolong her life. As with some of the Hanna-Barbera titles produced by DC in the past year, this decision by Rosie leads to an interesting existential discussion with her son who is trying to figure out whether or not he can accept her decision.

You can see from this first issue that Palmiotti, though writing a more adult themed Jetsons, still demonstrates a love of the original characters. Every one of them has traits from the old cartoon, but now are made more real, with real world problems. It’s a take on an old franchise that I can get behind.