Broken Frontier

One of the most carefully guarded banks in the country is targeted for the perfect heist, but will the plan go off without a hitch?

Free Fall is another exciting new project from Narwain Publishing. You won’t find a single heroic man or woman here, nor will you find the nastiest of villains lurking about either. Instead you’ll find desperate men and women willing to risk their lives to perpetrate a daring armed robbery. These are the hard cold facts steeped within the plot and this issue also comes complete with a genuine ‘hook’ to ensure this heist goes off without a hitch. So please read on.

The story opens with a group of four individuals discussing the pros and cons of pulling off a bank heist. The bank they have chosen is carefully guarded and it will be bustling with activity on account of it being the holidays. Worse yet, they plan to pull the heist off during the daylight hours, so there will be witnesses, cameras and armed guards to contend with as well. The group needs a diversion to lift 10 million dollars from their vaults and that’s where the ‘hook’ comes into play.

This hook turns out to be a sad sack down-on-his-luck loser named Sean. He can’t find a job and this causes major friction with his wife Emily. Sean spends much of his time moping around and his inability to find steady work has his wife contemplating stripping in a local club. Sean is totally against this and he quarrels constantly with Emily over considering an offer to strip to make some money. Worse yet, she drops a bomb on him and announces she’s pregnant with his child. This news sends Sean into total despair, pushing him over the brink.

It’s bad enough that he is out of work, but having Emily pregnant only supercedes his situation that much more. He doesn’t have any answers and his total disparity forces him into making a rash decision, and it’s a doozy of an idea. He decides to chuck it all and jump off a bridge and as luck would have it his plan is squashed. Max and Jason intercede and talk him out of jumping. They take him to local bar where both men reveal they are members of a group about to pull off a heist and they want to make a deal with him. It’s a deal that Sean can’t refuse and if he accepts he’s about to become the ‘hook’ the group is looking for.

That’s pretty much the gist of Free Fall without totally giving away the true motivations behind the ‘hook’ of the story. I think it’s a clever plot device and the writer responsible for it is Gianluca Piredda. I am not at all familiar with his work, but I truly enjoyed the story he crafted. It was engaging throughout, and all the characters were seen smoldering with incendiary actions. As I read through it, I thought it brought to mind films like The Italian Job and Ocean’s Eleven, so that made the book that much more enjoyable.

Free Fall also had some decent contributions by Eric J and Jimmy Palmiotti. Both of these artists worked well together to bring this story to life. Eric’s storytelling ability was up to par throughout and it’s always nice to have a top quality inker like Jimmy Palmiotti to bring spruce up your work. The other added bonus here was a solid semi-realistic cover from Jay Anacleto. In fact, at the back of the issue there’s a preview to his cover of issue number two and it looks even better than the first one!

So far I think this issue is the strongest of all the new projects I have seen coming from Narwain. The story is unique enough for me and the proposed ‘hook’ involved in the plot is the best part about it. Give this issue a try and find out why this is the strongest title produced so far from Narwain. You won’t go wrong here.