Broken Frontier

The villainous Underlord is the nemesis of the hero Star Fighter. In everyday life they are simply Vincent and Ethan...roommates who hate each other. This is gonna get ugly.

Ever had that roommate you thought for sure had to have come straight from the pits of eternal torture and flame? Vincent Darko and Ethan Baxter are each convinced that the other is that roommate. Sooner or later most superhero comic books devote a story to the roots of the archvillain’s hatred for the hero. Archenemies #1, though, is not the story of Star Fighter and Underlord’s enmity, but Vincent and Ethan’s.

All aspiring supervillain Underlord wants is to destroy his nemesis, prove his villain status to the evil organization known as The Masked Circle, and keep the apartment tidy. All up and coming hero Ethan wants is to be a hero, have fun, and meet women. The problem arises when each keeps thwarting the other at every turn. Anyone want to start a pool on how long it takes one to kill the other in or out of costume?

Drew Melbourne writes a deviously twisted tale here with more layers than a wedding cake. The situation between the roommates is the main focus of the book, but the superhero trappings add some interesting twists. While the reader’s sympathies are mostly drawn toward Vincent it is easy to see that, both Ethan and Vincent have good qualities and bad ones for sharing an apartment. Its also apparent that Vincent’s evil scheming has something other behind it than a desire for wealth or power. In fact, those usual supervillain chestnuts are far lower on his priorities than keeping the apartment clean.

Melbourne not only does his fair share of skewering ‘roommate comedies’ (there is a quick little wink and nod to a number of other fictional ‘odd couples’), but also superhero conventions. A scene involving Vincent interviewing ‘lackeys’ for his Underlord persona is hysterically funny. The cover to this issue is also a throwback to the old days where action and dialogue pertaining to the story graced the cover of the comic. In an improvement on the old ways, though, Melbourne’s story actually begins on the front cover!

I also have to applaud the creators on going beyond the comic book. There are pages of material at the back of the book – a one-page cartoon, a call for roommate horror stories – the best of which will be printed on a letters page, an index-like entry for one group of minor characters...The list goes on. When the pictures stop don’t close the cover to this one or else you’ll be missing out on stuff that is every bit as funny as what goes on in the main story.

Melbourne and company have also taken this comic interactive with web pages and even a myspace blog ‘written’ by one of the characters! They crack the fourth wall and allow their fictional world to bleed into readers’ everyday existence. For the first time in a long while I actually felt like I got a lot more for my money with this comic.

With all this title has going for it, artist Yvel Guichet puts it over the top. He has an impressive resume and his unique and highly stylized pencils work well for the series. The two main characters have definite archetypical attributes but there is a fun expressionism there, as well as just a touch of Manga influence for flavor.

This title manages to both satirize and comment on comic books, superheroes, social interaction, and urban living in the 21^st century. Archenemies will bend your brain a little and twist your funny bone a lot.