Wired’s first issue was released back in 2012, but it was never taken further since its creator James Lundy instead spent the intervening time developing Edinburgh Comic Con into the swiftly-expanding beast it has now become. Having percolated for years, the first chapter of an expanding tale of sci-fi shenanigans is now unveiled.

After a suspect inexplicably vanishes after a brawl in a nightclub toilet (seen in the promo short film below), DCI Briggs and DS Smith are pulled into a case that becomes more bizarre with each passing day. “My life’s a bloody B-movie,” Briggs complains on the very first page, and considering that before the book’s end there are the likes of assassins, sinister Men in Black, shady research labs, time travel and parallel universes, he’s not wrong.

Each new revelation expands the understanding of just how widespread is the sci-fi underworld brimming below the surface of everyday life, with numerous film and TV references peppered throughout the story in the art and dialogue fully acknowledging just how unlikely each character is expected to find each subsequent discovery.

Briggs and Smith talk in the quick-fire shorthand of men who have known and worked with each other for years, and when developments in the case begin to hit a little too close to home, their determination to see things though and find some answers becomes ever more resolute.

Although the comic was originally planned to be released as single issues, the story actually works better collected as a single volume, as the potential wait between issues being followed up with a lurch into disparate plot threads would likely have been a little confusing to follow. With everything available read at once, figuring out how each strand relates to the others is made simpler. The end leaves you with far more questions than it provides answers for, and while subsequent instalments of the series will doubtless tie things together more clearly, for now we’re left with the feeling of the story being left hanging in an incomplete state.

A hard-boiled detective noir mixed with sci-fi and a bit of conspiracy theory thrown in for good measure, the first volume of Wired takes a while to properly get your head around, but once you do it leaves you eager to see where it’s heading and how it will get there.

WIRED: VOLUME 1 / AUTHOR: JAMES LUNDY / ARTIST: CLAUDIO SEPULVEDA, IBENK IRAWAN / PUBLISHER: EMANCIPATION STUDIOS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW