Broken Frontier

After reading this first issue of the 5-issue miniseries Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer I am not convinced that proclaiming this five-issue Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer limited series will be “Summer’s Hottest Event Series!”. It is good, I grant you that. The introduction of the Hunter/Killer team is amazingly adequate in setting up stage and that alone should tell you that this book is quality well-above mediocre. The story is set up by Mark Waid (also working magic with Dutch artist Minck Oosterveer with "The Unknown") and drawn delicately by Kenneth Rocafort, in a way I am amazed at. How can a sketchy style be so effective, I keep on wondering. Colorist Sunny Cho brings magic to the pencils, that I am sure off. This team-up makes the sum of parts surely more than just adding up each artist's own merits. Obviously!

The story seems to be starting with an advertisement for the new DNA-secured mobile in-ear telephone, called JETT. The add (with enough 'sex sells' cleavage to keep this reviewer interested!!) confuses a bit, since it is unclear how this is of importance to the story about these two superteams meeting, battling and exploring...But taking this as a subliminal, this might prove to be a great and daring move of the art team as well as the publisher.

The story tackling the inter-company crossover is efficient in touching the reader and setting up techno-surroundings with great ease. This subtle establishment of techno weaves through the pages in every page but most importantly in the Morningstar sequence, where it is told how science created ultra-sapiens. There is a nice sense of "gray" areas instead of the classic black and white propositions, which makes the reader connect to these characters due to this describing of -in essence- humanity. Establishing the H/K-team felt well-done in that exact same sequence. Pure mastery on behalf of established writer Mark Waid. Establishing Cyberforce was forced. Why should Ballistic introduce her team members to Wolf? Oh well...easily done in such action-packed pages, I guess. It was a tiny quirk in a solid read, rest assured.

The first battle between these teams melds with the mentioned introductions with aforementioned ease and sets up the stage for the rest of the story (queue the now highly anticipated #2) and here is me hoping that the proclamation will hold up. As Publisher Filip Sablik mentions in the afterword, they are striving to make this much more then a "mere" crossover and those promises have never been broken by Top Cow as of yet. And based on that I will forgive them for now the penciled 2-page foreword on the new mobile JETT.

So cheers...here is to the future!