Broken Frontier

This column is the first in a series entitled The Prerequisites, which will run once a month in place of the usual installment of Advocating Comics. In these columns, Steve will devote some time to highlighting two graphic novels that represent some of the best the medium has to offer. One graphic novel will be in the superhero genre, while the other will explore one of the many other diverse types of stories being told in comics today. It is Steve’s intent that these graphic novels aid you in your attempts at comics advocacy, either by broadening your own horizons by introducing you to something you have yet to read or by providing you with examples of works that would appeal to mass audiences of non-comic readers to turn them onto the potential of the medium.

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Grant Morrison is famous today because in the early ‘90s he changed the face of modern superhero comics. His seminal work on Doom Patrol has been hailed as original and innovative, as he took a superhero team always known as some of the strangest heroes in comics and plunged them even deeper into the world of the weird. But more innovative and original than that was his work on Animal Man, which perhaps is the best work Grant Morrison has created in his time as a comic writer.

Groundbreaking in its approach to storytelling, Morrison’s run on Animal Man can be boiled down to one simple theme: self-awareness. Main character Buddy Baker, in Morrison’s able hands, becomes a man who is in search of himself. His origins as a hero are hazy, his beliefs as a citizen of the world are ever-changing, and his role in his family is unstable. Throughout this storyline, Buddy must come to terms with what it means to be a hero, must cope with how to reconcile the animal with the man. It is this journey of self-discovery that drives the character more than any typical superhero-style action, and that alone sets the book apart from most of the other hero books of the time and indeed many of the ones still being published today.

But much more revolutionary was how Morrison used Buddy Baker’s trials and tribulations to explore what it means to be a storyteller in the medium of comics. At the time DC’s line-altering event Crisis was still fresh in the minds of readers, and it was an event that many had gone into with much trepidation. The DC universe had been given a clean break, which meant that thousands of stories, told in years past and beloved by many fans, no longer existed. Morrison too felt the loss of these stories, and he used the text of Animal Man as a form of metafiction, posing the question of what happened to stories when they no longer mattered anymore.

Morrison’s tenure on this book ran for twenty-six issues, all of which are in print today in three trade paperbacks. But the culmination of these themes comes in the third and final collection, Animal Man: Deus Ex Machina. Collecting issues 18 through 26 of Morrison’s run, these pages show us the final stages of Buddy Baker’s quest for some kind of understanding of himself. Perhaps the most astounding moment in the series comes when Buddy breaks the “fourth wall.” He realizes all of a sudden that there is something more to his world, something beyond the boundaries that he has perceived in his life. He turns to look over his shoulder out of the comics page at the reader of the comic and shouts, “I can see you!” This powerful image illustrated by Chas Truog is haunting even to this day.

Buddy Baker’s eventual realization that he is simply a character in a comic book redefined how many viewed the medium, and it certainly paved the way for many more stories in a similar vein, both from Morrison himself and from other creators. It set the standard for Morrison’s career in many ways, and people who claim to enjoy the man’s work cannot be considered true fans until they read this landmark story arc. While it might not be the best work to use to introduce someone new to comics, due to its heavy reliance on a reader’s understanding of DC’s continuity, it is the perfect work to give to someone who used to read comics and who gave up on them, thinking them kids’ stuff.

On the other hand, a book which is highly accessible to people who have never read comics before and to those who want to try something outside the hero genre is the Oni Press book Queen and Country. This comic follows the adventures of British spy Tara Chace and the agents (or Minders) who work with her in the Ministry of Intelligence. Far from being a typical Bond-style secret agent story, Queen and Country examines the political intrigue more often seen in real life and portrayed in a John le Carre novel. However, Tom Clancy and Ian Fleming fans need not despair, as they would find much to enjoy here as well.

Queen and Country: Operation Broken Ground collects the first four issues of the book and serves as a perfect place to start, putting new readers in on the ground floor of this gripping spy drama. The book begins with Tara’s assassination of gunrunning Russian general, and there is no shortage of action and adventure as Tara’s journey home unfolds. Illustrator Steve Rolston’s bold yet clean artistic style conveys the conflict wonderfully, and the detail he pours into every panel makes this world really seem to come alive.

Meanwhile back home, Tara’s superiors must deal with the political ramifications of Tara’s actions. Many of these scenes might sound boring in their most basic description, since at first glance all that seems to occur is a man behind a desk arguing with the man sitting opposite him. But Greg Rucka, who made his name writing mystery novels, infuses these scenes with terse dialogue that heightens the tension. Rucka’s skillful development of these characters further enhances our feelings of dread, so that by the end we really care about the outcome of the story.

Tara Chace herself serves as the best example of Rucka’s talent as a weaver of stories that center upon interesting and realistic people. Her emotional and psychological state after being in such tense situations affects the relationships she has with her co-workers, and it changes the way she sees herself as well. The events of Operation Broken Ground shape the development of her character in an incredibly realistic fashion, and Tara Chace has become one of the most interesting and well-rounded female characters that comics have to offer in the short time Queen and Country has been running.

Queen and Country would seem at first glance to appeal mostly to fans of TV shows such as JAG and Navy NCIS or films such as The Bourne Identity. However, the human drama of the series shares equal time with the action and intrigue, and thus this book could be recommended to almost anyone. The adventures of Tara Chace are ongoing, published monthly by Oni Press and collected into several other trade paperbacks which are readily available to anyone whose interest is piqued by this first book.