Broken Frontier

Something is infecting the citizens of Chicago, causing them to physically change into unnatural monstrosities hell-bent on destruction.

Biological warfare has been used throughout history as an effective means of eliminating a perceived threat. It seems as though something not of this world has targeted the citizenry of the Windy City with some sort of biological agent that doesn’t necessarily kill its victims, but instead turns them into abominations. Whether this "infection" has been issued to Earth as a plague or something of a herald for a larger threat is yet to be discovered.

If you’ve been reading BOOM! Studios books over the past year or so, Michael Alan Nelson is no doubt a familiar name. Tied to such well reviewed books as X Isle, War of the Worlds: Second Wave and Enigma Cipher, Nelson knows how to carry suspense to its boiling point. In Dominion #1, the reader feels as though he or she has been thrust into the environment that the characters find themselves in. We get the briefest of hints as to what is going on (the biological warfare prologue) before all hell breaks loose. Nelson uses this tactic to its fullest and most effective extent, and keeps us guessing as to where the threat originated or if it can be repelled.

Though I wasn’t familiar with the work of Tim Hamilton, a quick Google search showed that he has quite an extensive, if not colorful history in the world of comics and illustration. As for his work on this book, Hamilton has an eye for using the space on a page to achieve highest visual effect. He doesn’t get overly detailed with backgrounds; the focal point is where the reader’s eye is unmistakably drawn toward. Gamboa and Quiligotti keep the coloring scheme sort of muted as well, making the overall visual of the book appear as stark as the consequences surrounding the characters.

This issue sets the title off to a nice pace, but if there is one drawback to Dominion thus far it is that those who have become infected with the biological agent have no unified appearance. For instance, one man mutates into a monster that absorbs the properties of the things he comes into contact with while a woman turns into something resembling the Human Torch. I suspect the explanation will be hashed out in upcoming issues and it is a minor quibble considering that there were a lot of other things going on in the story.

Another in the long line of interesting reads from BOOM! Studios, Dominion #1 is more than worth a look.