Broken Frontier

Team Orphan is separated and surrounded by Assan’s soldiers. Each member will have to come to terms with their past if they are to survive this day.

Children of the Grave has been an exciting and bone-chilling miniseries. Writer Tom Waltz has crafted a cracking war-action story that is tempered by a spooky ghost-subplot. Every main character in this comic is haunted by ghosts. The three members of Team Orphan, a covert military unit, are haunted by their past actions or inactions while Colonel Assan, a brutal separatist in a fictional Arab nation is haunted by his victims. While one has to admire Waltz’s attempt to juggle (at least) two genres and delicate ethical quagmires, this final issue struggles to maintain a constant pace and tone.

L.T, Lil’ Pete and Shiv, the three literal and figurative ‘Orphans’, begin this issue under attack, at each other’s throats and surrounded by ghosts. Each team member encounters their own personal ghosts while fighting off the faceless enemies of Assan’s army. These ghosts need to grant absolution, whether through forgiveness…or revenge.

My main problem’s with Waltz’s work so far has been his stereotypical characters on both sides of the conflict. I now also have a problem with the ethical message with which he concludes his miniseries. While he admirably does not dismiss the moral anguish of his book’s enemy he too easily absolves his heroes from their own killings. His conclusions on the ethics of war are rather neatly packaged in preachy info-dumps that somewhat disrupt the otherwise smooth flow of the book.

The artwork by Casey Maloney is again excellent and I can not wait to see what this man will produce next. His detailed and intense artwork is perfectly suited to the technical military action but he also has a good handle on the gruesome horror aspects of the story. While his coloured covers are quite good it is the crisp black and white work of the interior pages that exhibits his real skills. He doesn’t hold back in terms of blood and gore when appropriate but he doesn’t overload the page either.

Children of the Grave has been a successful miniseries and one that has shown the possibilities and limitations of a war comic, a genre not seen much anymore on the comic stands. I look forward to this creative team’s next lot of work!