Into The Unbeing is a new comic series from writers Zac Thompson and Hayden Sherman which centers on a group of rogue climate scientists as they stumble upon … something … in the Australian outback. It's both creepy as hell, and rad as hell — reminding me in many ways of the visceral, existential dread I felt when I first saw films like The Fly and The Abyss as a kid. Except in this case, the story is transported right into the heart of the Anthropocene, and the subject of the body horror might actually just be the Earth itself.
Here's the official synopsis:
Lose yourself inside its innards.
A group of climate scientists working in a remote base camp on the Australian outback discover an impossible landform. Led by botanist Hildur Johansson, the team sets out to conduct a routine exploratory mission to map the terrain, record their observations, and try to understand this anomalous landscape.
Upon arrival the expedition discovers a massive, entirely novel, holobiont that threatens to upend everything they understand about the natural world. Propelled by hubris and the intoxicating charm of forbidden knowledge, the research team descends into a hostile alien environment allowed to thrive without human interference. The beautiful yet unforgiving landscape hosts strange flora, gorgeous fauna and dangerous predators lurking in the darkness. As the team pushes deeper, can they survive long enough to find what they're looking for?
The first volume of Into The Unbeing is broken down into four chapters, with each one focusing on a different member of the crew as their expedition takes them deeper and deeper into the heart of … whatever the hell it is they're exploring. Thompson handles this classic storytelling strategy well, mixing the forward-moving plot with focused flashbacks into the prior lives of each of the scientists, slowly unraveling the complex layers of their lives. Narratively, it functions a lot like LOST in that way—which is perhaps not as groundbreaking in 2025, but still affective, and it's a storytelling style that's particularly suited to comic books as a medium.
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And hot damn, does Into The Unbeing take advantage of its medium. Artist Hayden Sherman really uses the visuals to lean into the Weird horror elements, with plenty of eerily beautiful page layouts like this:
Sherman's illustrations really help to amplify the psychological horror of the story as hell. Into The Being has plenty of a lot of thematic similarities to Jeff Vandermeer's Area X / Southern Reach saga, but without as many twisty espionage head games and CIA mind tricks. While it not might melt your brain in quite the same way, Sherman makes sure you're still shaken by the overwhelming cavernous mysteries that the crew encounters — by placing right in their dizzying headspace:
The creepy creature designs are quite a sight to behold as well:
The first collected volume of Into The Unbeing is available now; the first issue of volume two just came out in mid-February, with the collection to follow in September 2025. I highly recommend it for anyone into climate horror, body horror, or just a solid, edge-of-your-seat exploration story.
Into The Unbeing, Volume One (Zac Thompson and Hayden Sherman / Dark Horse Comics)
