In the past, the tale of King Midas actually happens and the Earth is destroyed, frozen in time encapsulated in gold. In the future, a group of rebels attempt to learn the planet's secrets, hoping to weaponise the alchemical transformation to bring the rule of an evil empire to an end. In a nutshell, that is the premise of The Midas Flesh. Sounds like a pretty cool What If? storyline, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, the idea is probably the best part of volume one. The concept of Midas has been taken to an extreme, turning the whole planet gold in a matter of moments after the 'miracle' occurs. I can suspend my disbelief to buy that in a fantasy world, but The Midas Flesh tries to set itself within a science fiction universe, with characters that try to 'explain' what's going on scientifically. It's a minor irritation, but if you're going to do that you can't get away with "it was a miracle" as an explanation. It also doesn't help explain how a planet can be turned to solid gold without any repercussions. The plot has a great potential for exploring the actual knock-on effects of Midas' curse: is it just anything touching the surface that becomes gold? What happens to plate tectonics in that scenario? Or is the whole planet solid gold? What would that do to the mass of Earth and the gravitational interactions of the solar system? Why isn't the air transmuted as well, when solids and liquids are both effected equally?

Don't get me wrong, some parts have been thought through in some fun ways. I like that Midas hasn't been decomposed, because any bacteria that touch him turn to gold. He should still be encased in a very thin layer of gilding, because our skins are crawling with the little buggers, but that's getting seriously nit-picky (though, given the time period, some tiny golden nits would have been a fun addition). I also like that the 'curse' is still going on, with anything that touches the planets surface instantly transmuted; I even like that it is a 'miracle' and not a hand-wavey piece of technology (I'll admit, that's a little hypocritical, but oh well). Plus, the actual drawings of the golden moment in time are wonderful. The Earth isn't just a bunch of people standing around, we get to see entire areas caught during blizzards or thunderstorms, with figures and buildings coated in a coral-like structure of 'frozen' raindrops. They're a neat visual touch and genuinely interesting to spend time just dissecting.

That cannot be said of the drawing style in general, which (for me, and I own that this is highly subjective) is a little cartoonish for the source material. It feels like an Archie comic, but the world it is set against is much darker than that and would benefit from a more 'realistic' art style. Characters and dialogue suffer similarly, feeling like they belong in a different novel instead of this one. The cast of two 'humans' and a velociraptor (lacking proper feather coverage, but it is an alien velociraptor so maybe that's okay) is a quirky choice that leads to some fun situations, and I like that our ship's captain isn't clearly male or female (body form suggests female, but personal pronouns are consistently male). Again, much like the general story idea, the concept is brilliant but the execution doesn't quite live up to it.

In general then, The Midas Flesh feels like it has a lot of potential. I love the concept, the character's are interesting enough and I'm intrigued to see where the plot line goes. It is begging for better world-building and a more nuanced story, rather than the simple 'evil empire' trope, but if volume two focuses on both those elements then it could still turn into a very entertaining series. I'll definitely pick up volume two in the future, but will likely wait for it to be on sale first.