Broken Frontier

Writer Chuck Satterlee’s Smoke and Mirror, like his Of Bitter Souls, first saw print under the banner of the ill-starred Speakeasy Comics. Only two issues of the series saw the light of day before the company folded, but hard work and good fortune saw Satterlee move to the British based Markosia Entertainment. As with Of Bitter Souls, Satterlee made the decision to not reprint the Speakeasy issues and instead to finish the opening six-issue story arc and release it directly to trade paperback. The result is Smoke and Mirror: Time and Time Again. Like the “smoke and mirror” tricks of good magicians, this story starts out in one place but ends up somewhere else entirely. In both cases the end results are pure magic.

Luke Gabriel is a slick, Chicago lawyer – the kind to whom the appellation “shark” is usually applied. His good-hearted boss and head of the law firm, asks Luke to take on a pro-bono case for an old friend – Silas Binder. Surprisingly, Luke comes to like Silas and, when Luke takes a severe beating because of the old man’s case, their friendship is sealed. Silas has a secret, though, one he decides to share with Luke. In the 1930’s and 40’s Silas was the mystic hero Mr. Smoke. Together with his partner, Miss Mirror, they cleaned up Chicago of supervillains and racketeers alike.

Now Silas is passing on the mantle to Luke – training him to be the new Smoke – and Luke has found that he is becoming a better man for it. The mentor-student routine is soon broken, though, by the advent of a new Miss Mirror. Zoe Abbott is the great niece of the original Miss Mirror and has inherited her ancestor’s powers. Seeing Smoke in action inspired her to don a mask as well. Zoe is wild, untrained, and unpredictable, leaving her future as a hero in question. 

As if the situation was not messy enough, Silas is still keeping one last, devastating secret. When the truth comes out Luke seizes an opportunity to try to fix everything. It is a dangerous gamble and the consequences of his actions have a greater effect than he could ever have imagined. Could things get any worse and more to the point, can Luke fix it?

Satterlee has tapped into a hidden market with this title, exploring the idea of heroic legacies as well as looking back through the lens of time at the types of adventures that made up comics in the Golden Age. Each issue in this trade includes a “Golden Age” flashback story that Silas usually uses to illustrate a point to Luke. Although Mr. Smoke and Miss Mirror are Satterlee’s own modern creations he does an excellent job at dreaming up old adventures for them that carry some of that zany Golden Age inventiveness while never losing sight of the modern object lesson. 

At heart, though, the characters here are good. Old school, heroic; good. These are not your grim and gritty anti-heroes, nor your morally conflicted, dark heroes but that is not to say that they are personality free or free from problems. When was the last time you saw a character getting tossed out of their home because they wanted to be a superhero? When was the last time you saw a hero honestly admit that he was scared to death facing down the barrel of a gun? When was the last time you saw an older generation sitting, staring at a TV as they watched the young people that meant everything to them go into battle. The fear on the faces of Silas and Zoe’s grandfather in that scene is real and heartbreaking as the reader realizes that these two can only sit, and watch, and pray.

This does bring me to a discussion of the art. Although there are only six issues in this trade (as well as some nice back matter) they were penciled by four different artists. Claude St. Aubin handled the first four issues and his work is excellent. There is an animated feel to his style that works well with the pure superhero action. He also changed his style nicely on the flashback sequences to produce images that looked like they could have come out of the 1940’s or 50’s. With each passing issue readers could see him becoming more and more comfortable with the characters. Unfortunately, the demise of Speakeasy put a monkey wrench into the production and St. Aubin was forced to leave. Satterlee then nabbed Shawn McGuan for a single story. McGuan’s smooth artwork, once penciled and inked, had an almost computer generated look. While different from St. Aubin, McGuan’s work still fit the superhero model that is at the heart of the title. 

McGuan could only handle a single issue, however, leaving Satterlee to again find another artist. Enter Daniel Bradford. Bradford’s work, while good, is vastly different in style than what had come before. Bradford chooses to work with thick lines, dark inks, and heavy shadows. His figures, as well, have a somewhat abstract design, putting the reader in mind of the work of Mike Mignola. Regrettably, this rapid art change does somewhat throw the book off kilter. The style also does not immediately seem suited to a superhero comic book either. Bradford, however, has been named to continue as artist as the series relaunches with a new #1 issue from Markosia. I will say that his work improves in the trade from the first page to the last and some of his sketches in the back matter show his figures looking more detailed and polished.

Smoke and Mirror: Time and Time Again is a loving look back at the Golden Age heroic ideal and yet, at the same time, it serves as a reminder that the past has a lot to teach us today. Lessons like: with age comes wisdom; and that experience is the best teacher of all. There are also hard lessons learned here as well: that some problems can not be fixed; that some things, once done or said, can never be taken back; and that it takes a special kind of courage to live with the consequences. If you’ve missed heroic heroes with a strong grounding in the problems that the double life can bring then this is a trade for you.