Broken Frontier

College student Matt Gartner finds himself on a collision course with a sadistic terrorist after both gain shape-shifting powers from a DNA altering-formula.

Matt Gartner is your average college student. The son of a local professor, he finds himself set up tutoring the girl of his dreams. Matt’s entire world is turned upside down when he learns his father has been involved in secret experiments, inventing a DNA-altering serum that allows a person to assume another identity at will. When the first human subject uses these powers to murder Matt’s father and begin a quest for global domination, Matt and his lady-friend soon find themselves responsible for saving the free world.

Change Order is a comic that I find very challenging to review, insomuch as there’s nothing about it that gets me particularly fired up, one way or another. On the positive side, the story is a good, fun action-adventure, very much coming out the classic "everyman thrust into the bigger world" concept. Matt begins as an average college student, dealing with a crush and party-crashers, and by the end, is using morphing abilities to save the President and avenge his father. Remy sticks Matt in plenty of high-octane action sequences and uses the idea of morphing powers to keep the readers questioning if a person is really who they seem to be. Likewise, Miller and Rubinstein show up with big fight scenes, dramatic explosions and lots of shape shifting.

While Change Order gives readers an action-packed adventure, it also suffers from the usual problems stories of this well-tread genre frequently exhibit. Matt’s life expands from being very small and insular to heroic and grand but the journey doesn’t feel organic. As the story progresses, it seems like Matt is going through the steps "because that’s what you do" as opposed to any tangible character growth. This thin character development is most obvious with the love interest subplot, as she doesn’t seem to serve any real purpose other than to be "love interest." While the art team does show up for some big moments, they are not consistent over the course of Change Order’s 80 pages. A prime example is Matt’s reaction shot on page three, where his face just looks "wrong."

I would best equate reading Change Order to the idea of finding last summer’s big action blockbuster movie on TV. It’s a fine diversion, but I’m glad I didn’t have to pay the price of admission.

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Change Order is available online through DrunkDuck.com - http://www.drunkduck.com/CHANGE_ORDER/index.php?p=188111