The Rift
- by Don Handfield, Richard Rayner, and Leno Varvalho
- Comic Book Series
- Science Fiction
- YA and Up
- Definite Time Travel
- English
- The Rift, 4 pts. by Don Handfield, Richard Rayner, and Leno Varvalho (Red 5 Comics, January–April 2017).
The crash of a 1941 World War II plane in a 21st-century Kansas field sets off a chain of plots and subplots involving the pilot, a mother on the run, a precotious young boy, a government agency, and multiple jumps through a time rift.
—Michael Main
Smoke billows into a bright blue sky scarred by a rip in the heavens—what we’ll come to know as . . . The Rift
Tags
(17)
- Time Periods
- Circa AD 1940 to 1949: Cole’s time, 1941, and also Roswell
- Circa AD 1960 to 1969: Jacob time (not in the story)
- Circa AD 1970 to 1999: McKendrick and others (not in the story)
- Circa AD 2000 to 2099: the story’s time, circa 2017 (based on Pauline’s age)
- Timeline Models
- Single Naive Timeline: Mary Ann and the agency do good for 10-year-old Jacob, but it’s uncertain whether that was what always happened in a static timeline or whether they somehow changed Jacob’s childhood from a different timeline.
- Time Travel Methods
- Time Rifts: A seismic tremor caused by what you came through. A rime rift.
- Themes
- Get Rich Quick through Time Travel: Jacob buying stock in Xerox, Coke, and McDonald’s.
- Never Change the Past!: Or else goodbye Kansas.
- Object Meets Self with Bizaare Consequences: When you jumped forward in time, you brought matter from the past into the present. Matter that already exists here. Two copies of the exact same atom in the same time and place. It’s a paradox. Nature abhors that. You are a living paradox, Mr. Cole.
- Time Itself Has an Agenda: What if this whole thing is the universe giving us a chance to make things right for him—
- Time Travel Research Program: Section 47
- Real-World Tags
- Cataño Oil Refinery Fire: past rift disaster
- Chernobyl Meltdown: past rift disaster
- Harry S Truman: Writes a letter that hints at the origins of the Rift.
- Nuclear Tests at the Bikini Atoll: Bikini Atoll is mentioned in passing in a confidential letter by Truman.
- Roswell and Area 51: As told in an epilogue, Roswell has something to do with the origins of the Rift, but who knows what?
- Three Mile Island Meltdown: past rift disaster
Variants
(5)
- The Rift, 4 pts. by Don Handfield, Richard Rayner, and Leno Varvalho (Red 5 Comics, January–April 2017).
- “The Rift” by Don Handfield, Richard Rayner, and Leno Varvalho, The Rift #1,(Red 5 Comics, January 2017).
- “The Last Dance” by Don Handfield, Richard Rayner, and Leno Varvalho, The Rift #2,(Red 5 Comics, February 2017).
- “A New Old Friend” by Don Handfield, Richard Rayner, and Leno Varvalho, The Rift #3,(Red 5 Comics, March 2017).
- “Into the Black Lake” by Don Handfield, Richard Rayner, and Leno Varvalho, The Rift #4,(Red 5 Comics, April 2017).
Nicholas Ely (cover)
Nicholas Ely (cover)
Nicholas Ely (cover)
Nicholas Ely (cover)
Nicholas Ely (cover)
Derived Works
(1)
- “The Rift” by Don Handfield and Richard Rayner, directed by Mark Mylod (3 April 2020).