Broken Frontier

Aspen shows off her watery powers in gorgeous splash pages.

Aspen Matthews races to the United Nations summit to save the Vice President from a team of Secret Service agents infected with a deadly parasite. If watching a beautiful young woman with big blue eyes, big luscious lips, and big, big breasts fight evil is what you want, then this issue will satisfy your craving. Otherwise, the attractive art will be the only distraction from the flat characterization and uncreative plot.

Alex Konat has consistently turned in issue after issue of gorgeous splash pages showing off Aspen’s water-controlling powers. Whether she is wielding watery tendrils like whips or bursting from the depths in her clear blue water-form, Aspen looks breathtaking. Unfortunately, her character is hard to relate to and is outshined by her supporting cast.

Aspen originally found out she was half Blue and half human, only to recently find out she is actually half Blue and half Black (these are races of sea-people, mind you), and not human at all. As much as Scott Lobdell tries to emphasize her fish-out-of-water situation, he fails to make her relatable. She is non-human, looks like a super model, lives in a state-of-the-art sea lab, and is an expert marine biologist. She overcomes conflict with little adversity and her peers do nothing but look impressed. She is the pretty upper-class girl from high school with all A’s and a nice car, which is not much to get excited about.

Her supporting cast is full of flavor, including the new mounted police woman Jaye, who snaps orders at civilians and seems to be the only one not impressed with Aspen’s shtick. The art looks incredible throughout, but the plot does not live up to its potential. However, bringing interesting characters like Jaye to the forefront could bring in a wave of interesting stories.