Broken Frontier

In the present, the Mighty Avengers get their gooses cooked by a bad guy they have never seen before. When this baddie mentions the Blue Marvel, the reader is sent back to the past to find out who this superhero is.

The Sentry was a character that was erased from the minds of the Marvel Universe. When he returned, he was the most powerful cape in sight. Unfortunately, he was plagued by a split personality and has been reduced to a babbling idiot who either sits in a corner to be ignored or is poorly used by the writers who dare touch Marvel’s very own version of Superman.

That idea which has had its ups and downs was all most readers took from the solicitations for this new book. A big new powerful player who was forgotten from the Silver Age. Yawns were heard country wide and shops rushed to well, not order the book.

Then something amazing happened. The book hit and it was not just a Sentry clone. In fact, it was really good. The masses had it wrong, they had judged the book by its cover and done so too soon. Instead of a powerful but useless character, Grevioux gives us a look at the meaning of power, the heart of a hero, and the civil rights movement in the United States. This reader finds it interesting that a book built around racism hit the shelves on the same week that this country elected an African American to the highest position in the land. Is it time to excise the demons from our fold, or is it time to get everything off our collective chest?

Grevioux hasn’t made a statement either way yet. What he has done is put John Kennedy in an awkward position. What is not explicitly stated in this comic, is that Kennedy’s election was just as controversial and as much of a watershed moment as Obama’s. Here was an Irish-American who was Catholic as president. It was an affront to the W.A.S.P. mind set of the time. When the president wonders if actual change had been implemented sooner would he be in the same place, where he had to tell a man not to be who he is. What is this task? He must tell Adam Brashear, a veteran, a football hero, and until a recent unmasking, a hero to all of America that he can no longer serve as the Blue Marvel because of the color of his skin.

Many people have found fault with this book, saying that racism plays a heavy hand in the book. This reader must object to that notion. This is not, at this point, some statement on the failures of the civil rights movement. This is a story about how one man could be seen as different because of who he is. All of a sudden, he is not good enough to save certain people and his community wants something from him that he is unwilling to give.

The dichotomy between this young African American and the president of the United States is an interesting angle from which to play the story. It shows that true servants of this country are often asked to do things they would rather not face. Think about that the next time you want to be overly critical of the commander in chief, whoever is in the position, faces tasks every day that would cripple lesser men. It is often a thankless task that makes them out to be the bad guys, no matter their intentions. There is more of this thought to this issue than racism or sensationalism. It is the story of two men who just want to do what they feel is best, but cannot as the people around them want other things.

Along the way, Broome illustrates the book with his usual brilliance. While this reader finds his Iron Man design to be a little strange looking, the design for Anti-Man and the Blue Marvel are perfect. They evoke the iconography of the meta mythology well. The artist handles a variety of locations, meeting rooms, and even time periods well while still giving the characters emotional resonance.

If this book continues to deal with the demons of good men in such a thought-provoking way then it will be a classic. It is already an acceptable analog to Ridley’s The American Way, let’s just hope that it maintains this level of quality throughout its six issue run.