Last year’s Future Quest was a surprisingly deep comic based around a simple idea – creating a shared universe for the many action-adventure cartoons created by Hanna-Barbera in the 1960s. Of course the shared universe was already there, with Space Ghost and The Herculoids having teamed up in the 1981 series Space Stars. Yet it was Future Quest that brought other series such as Jonny Quest and The Impossibles into the mix. It is fitting then that this first issue of Future Quest Presents should focus on Space Ghost and The Herculoids.

Jeff Parker’s story is easily accessible to those readers who might not have read the original Future Quest books. Much of the issue is devoted to reestablishing the setting through a school-taught history lesson regarding the collapse of the peace-keeping Space Force and the chaos that followed.

All of this is old-news to siblings Jan and Jace, who were taken in by the last surviving Space Force officer – Space Ghost! He has been training the teens to help him rebuild the Space Force but that mission also requires the retrieval of a rare element from the planet Amzot – home of The Herculoids! Soon the old friends are reunited and the adventure begins in earnest.

The artwork by Ariel Olivetti looks fantastic. This proves no surprise given his previous work on Future Quest as well as the recent Green Lantern/Space Ghost one-shot.  The only real weakness to the artwork is some occasionally forced expressions but Olivetti’s style proves a good fit for the strong, space-opera aesthetic of Parker’s story. Those who enjoyed the original Future Quest series will find Future Quest Presents #1 to be more of the same.