Warren Ellis's "Injection: Vol 1" is more pretentious than fascinating, and it drags any intellect it has down with it

I'm not gonna lie: there are some spectacular images in writer Warren Ellis and artists Declan Shalvey & Jordie Bellaire's Injection comic book series.  Giant trees who talk in deep, barky voices, reminiscent of the giant wooden characters from Lord of the Rings trilogy; men covered in plants, with leaves growing out of their eyes and mouths, suffering from some sort of a virus that's overtaken their flesh and blood bodies; and then there's that final, iconic image at the end of the first Trade Paperback, when we meet a giant, Paul Bunyan-like blacksmith who calls himself Wayland the smith, a man so giant and thick that he could've been a Viking had he been born in a different time - and probably a successful Viking at that.

Early in the first TP we meet the five characters, members of the so-called "Cultural Cross Contamination Unit", whom we are told will be responsible for the doom of the 21st century: Maria Killbride, the read headed scientist who discovers the portal to another world; Dr. Robin Morel, a proud Englishman who appreciates the open country fresh air; an African American assassin-cross-agent of sorts, Simeon Winters, whose motivations and actions are unclear; Brigid Roth, a wisecracking woman who appears to be the youngest of the bunch; and a pampered, rather dapper dressed man from New York City, of dark skin complexion, who remains unnamed so far.

Majority of the storyline takes place in a non-linear manner, as the present, past and future timelines intersect and cross to the point of mild confusion.  The dialogue, for the most part, is cryptic and loaded with scientific terminology, leaving the reader in a somewhat state of confusion.  As I turned its pages, the questions that went through my mind were, "Why would these five people, self-proclaimed geniuses, ever want to embed such an alien entity into our world to begin with?  As scientists, shouldn't they know better?  And why in the world are they so paper-thin as human beings?  Not one of them is a person worth following, nor remembering, after the last page was turned."  Naturally, I wasn't able to come up with any answers to the above questions, but hey, at least I gave it a shot.

Look, the objective of any early issue in an ongoing series is - or at the very least it should be) - to hook the reader, addict them to the material, so they can not, no matter how hard they try, keep from reading further.  Injection unfortunately, has no such effect.  In fact, it seriously bored me, leaving an impression of several beautiful postcards, which are very nice to look at, but which do absolutely nothing for the psyche in the long term.  Ellis' work doesn't feel inspired, nor engrossing, and in today's American comic book world of various genres and epic stories, this one feels as forgettable and as contrived as Revival (another serial that focuses on apocalyptic sense of doom, where death is the main theme).  I doubt that I'll be following up with the next issue, not because I don't want to, mind you, but because the quality of Injection is so (below?) mediocre that it simply rejects readers, instead of drawing them in.
C-