Styx Taxi

    (FWD, 2003)
™ and © FWD

A few souls, upon dying, get picked up by spiritual drivers for a stay of sentencing. They have a couple of hours to go wherever they want to settle their affairs before moving on. This isn’t always the great deal it seems to be, as one fare scares his wife who already heard of his death, and we learn that one of the drivers was originally a fare who abused his time to commit a damning act.

Styx Taxi is a neat concept that should probably be picked up someday by network TV. The FWD publication falls into that same, nameless genre of supernatural powers ferrying humanity through its troubles as Touched by an Angel, Early Edition and Quantum Leap, though it’s not nearly so airy, since the fares are already dead when they snag a ride. Some sequences aren’t very clear, such as when one of the characters, Charon, crashes his ride, killing or injuring his hapless vessel. (Apparently the drivers, themselves dead, must possess a living taxi driver to conduct business.)

There’s a lot of potential here, with an endless parade of dead folks to sort varying business, so it’s interesting and personally challenging of writer Steven Goldman to pit three drivers against each other in a “soul drive” competition than track a single soul’s journey.

— Brendan McGinley
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#1

July, 2003
Cover Price: $2.50
1 copy available for $1.99 		Steven GoldmanJeremy Arambulo