The idea of graphic novel as polemic is an unusual one. Most comics have nothing much to communicate beyond a certain level of visceral hit from striking graphics. Which is fine, as far as it goes. But the medium is capable of literally anything. And writer Warren Ellis is one of the minority of authors working in the comics mainstream with a real commitment to expanding its boundaries.

Fascinated by the possible futures that science presents, Ellis has a particular interest in the space programme. That obsession combines with his rabblerousing tendencies in the Vertigo graphic novel Orbiter, a collaboration with artist Colleen Doran published in 2003. The date is important: Orbiter was written just before the space shuttle Columbia was lost, and seven crew with it. Orbiter was always intended to have a propagandist element: that tragic coincidence gives it an added significance, making the graphic novel a clarion call for the resumption of manned space flight.

The story is simple at heart. A space shuttle believed lost returns after ten years. But of its original crew, only one person remains. And at first sight he seems to be crazy. On top of which, there’s the business of the shuttle’s transformation. What set out as a creation of metal and circuitry has returned with a layer of flesh covering it, and dust from the surface of Mars. And the more the scientists examining the shuttle come across, the less relation its journey has with the laws of physics as they’re accepted.

It’s time to think weird, then. To explore alternative ways of thinking that will help explain what’s happened to the shuttle and its crew. There’s a danger at this point of Ellis losing his readers in semi-digested technobabble, but I managed to keep up with it well enough for it to seem sort of feasible. What wasn’t so convincing was the psychologist managing to connect with the pilot — we’re told that she’s clever, but I wasn’t dazzled by their interaction. The ending was a bit abrupt for my tastes, too, though I can see exactly why Ellis brought things to a halt at that point.

That’s a minor quibble though — overall Orbiter is a successful story. Colleen Doran’s contributions are an important part of that impact — she’s as much a NASA geek as Ellis, making this a script she was destined to draw. Apparently it’s helped her career, too: many editors were blinded by her gender and she was often given supposedly female-friendly material to draw. No more: this hard edged science fiction tale opened the eyes of many in the industry.

Seven years since it was published, Orbiter seems just as timely. Obama’s suspension of America’s space programme gives Ellis and Doran’s creation a new relevance. And I’d like to see more work in comic form that has a didactic purpose: the medium is underutilised at this point, and it would be good to see a graphic novel as powerful in its effect as the 1960s television play Cathy Come Home, which led to the formation of the homeless charity Shelter.

Warren Ellis is sometimes criticised for his appropriation of science in comics stories. But that makes a pleasant change in an industry where one of the main genres — superhero stories — is known primarily for cannibalising previous superhero stories, as a result making many continuing titles near-impenetrable to outsiders. Given the choice between more variations on the theme of Shiny Thong Man and stories which draw on politics, science, or other influences, I know which I’m more interested in. And if Ellis’s continued success riles the more conservative contingent of the comics reading audience, then so much the better.