Broken Frontier

It begins innocently enough—a stolen hookah fenced to an unassuming Lebanese-American kid stranded in Cairo after a cancelled flight. But as in all fables, things are rarely as they seem. No ordinary hookah, the artifact is home to an ancient and distinguished jinn called Shams who bears a secret desired by a powerful gangster-magician. As they struggle for control of a very special box, several other individuals are drawn into the battle. A roguish hashish dealer must play the part of unlikely hero. An idealistic journalist is forced to battle evil with more than mere words. A hardened Israeli soldier finds herself very far from home. A disillusioned American girl is confronted by harsh realities. And a young boy faces a destiny and a choice—two concepts that it seems are not mutually exclusive.

Like many of Vertigo’s most celebrated works, Cairo combines the fantastic and mythical with the everyday struggles of human experience. On the surface, G. Willow Wilson’s graphic novel is an engrossing adventure-thriller that utilizes elements of Middle Eastern legend in a modern setting. Genies and demons, a flying carpet, a magical sword, inverted physical laws, and a secret river that leads beyond the mortal world all figure into the tale. Cairo juxtaposes the modern with the mystic, resulting in a story not simply about the current state of life in the Middle East or meant as homage to its mythic past but a marriage of the two.

Wilson lends each supernatural event an appropriate sense of wonder as well as the occasional touch of humorous irreverence. Unlike the all-powerful genies of popular culture, for example, Shams can only manipulate probability and must work with materials provided for him in the physical world. This clever touch produces several amusing displays of his power and provides the otherwise omnipotent jinn with defined limitations.

Wilson’s characterization provides an extra dimension to the story, as the issues and conflicts of the contemporary Middle East influence the proceedings. There is a cultural divide among the heroes, whose Egyptian, Israeli, Lebanese, and American backgrounds give each a specific view of the world. As their lives intertwine, many begin to question or reassess their beliefs and must grapple with the perspectives of another. Kate, who has grown up safe and provided for in Orange County, has a very different take on the world’s problems than Ali, whose political articles are often censored by his own government. Shaheed, our unassuming tourist, is far less innocuous than he initially let on and his life might have taken a very different and darker path without the other characters.

Not all of the issues are explored beyond the surface level however, which may be a source of frustration to some readers. The questions raised by Cairo are very ambitious and cannot hope to be answered in a single story, even with the extended page count of a full length graphic novel. With a quest to fulfill and supernatural threats to vanquish, there is not time to fully examine Shaheed’s troubled motivations or how characters from different cultures can make a budding relationship work or confront the problems of war, loss, and political/religious ideology. Such challenges are referenced in Cairo but not always fully developed.

The art, provided by M.K. Perker, ably presents the story with a realism that reflects the human element and grounds the fantasy. Each character is distinct and expressive, the supernatural beings gruesome or vaguely unsettling, and Cairo itself is as exotic, beautiful, and dangerous as one could imagine. Perker often fills the backgrounds with unusual characters or unexpected bits of business that add to the atmosphere. His depiction of magic in this otherwise realistic universe is also intriguing. When Shams assumes his natural jinn form, he takes on a surprising lack of detail and texture that make him seem not of this world. There is also a scene where Shaheed reaches a state of higher consciousness with a visual trick that would make Grant Morrison’s Animal Man proud.

While its adventure aspects are somewhat stronger than its political/thematic ones, overall Cairo is an impressive debut and recommended for fans of Vertigo’s mature fantasies.

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The Cairo graphic novel will be released in comic shops on November 7, 2007 from DC/Vertigo.