Broken Frontier

Josiah Clark is a man who has cheated Death. But Death is on the vengeance trail in Silent Devil’s new supernatural Western series.

Death and the Man Who Would Not Die #1 follows the grimmest looking of Grim Reapers on his quest for the violent outlaw Josiah Clark. Clark has stolen a pocket watch from Death that appears to symbolically represent the sum of his life. With the watch in his possession he is now immortal; an affront that Death seeks to rectify. He’s not the only one seeking revenge on Clark however, as the killer’s path is littered with bodies. An unlikely alliance may just prove to be the only way for Death to finally get his man…

This four issue miniseries is a sequel to one from last year. Don’t let any lack of prior knowledge put you off though, as this is an eminently readable first issue whether you are familiar with the characters and situations or not (and I’m not!). All the information you need to enjoy the story is contained within this brooding and atmospheric opener.

Make no mistake, this is as dark a take on the genre as you will find, but it’s not gratuitous in its depiction of violence. Everything serves a purpose in building up the sense of ever-impending doom and despondency. Death himself is portrayed as a skeletal cowboy, riding relentlessly in pursuit of his prey. No lovable Terry Pratchett-style anthropomorphic embodiments of the final journey here!

James Patrick’s cynical narrator adds further to the feeling of hopelessness that surrounds the characters, and in Josiah Clark he has created an un-killable central character with not even the tiniest hint of a redeeming feature. Where else would you root for Death to come out the victor?

The enigmatically named Se7enhedd’s art could not be more perfectly suited to the morbid story matter. Every panel is soaked in grim despair. The landscape almost becomes a character in its own right, with the desolation and the harshness of DATMWWND’s environment being a major contributing factor to the book’s feel. JM Ringuet adds to the book’s haunting qualities with a quite stunning job on colors.

Fans of DC’s current take on Jonah Hex will find much to entertain them here. Death and the Man Who Would Not Die #1 is an uncompromising Western with a ghostly twist that has me itching to hunt down the previous volume.