Broken Frontier

Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson team up again, this time to tell the World War II origin of Nick Fury, because all great heroes have to start somewhere.

Before he led the Howling Commandos and way before he was the Head of Global Security, Nick Fury was just another soldier working his way up through the ranks. Here we see him as a Sergeant in Africa and his troop has just gotten caught between a rock and a hard place. The Lieutenant proved himself unworthy to lead, and now it is up to Nick Fury to keep his men alive. It seems like everything that can go wrong will, because all the promises made to him by his fellow American soldiers keep getting broken and his troop can’t seem to stay alive.

For anyone who wants something similar in theme to Ennis and Robertson’s old Fury Max series, you may be a little disappointed because this series lacks the humor and satire of that one. Not only that, after one issue it looks like it will lack the darker themes of their other origin series, Punisher Born. However, there is one thing here that is a staple of all Garth Ennis penned books: violence. This book eschews all humor and otherworldly themes to paint the picture of what made Nick Fury the man he is today. Already in this book you see all the things that Fury will become famous for: his great leadership, his no-nonsense attitude, and his never say die way of life. Ennis paces the story wonderfully, mixing in flashbacks at all the right times to enhance the story. And his dialogue is, as always, dead on. Ennis never holds anything back in his stories, and this one is no different.

As mentioned above, Darick Robertson has worked with Garth Ennis on numerous past occasions. This is worth pointing out only because the work here is seamless again and every superlative used to describe the work in the past fit here. Robertson hits all of Ennis’ emotional high points. He somehow works in every facial expression (his "stern look" being the best) that Ennis asks. His pacing matches Ennis’ to a ‘T’, meshing in the flashbacks with the real time story perfectly. And, as in any Garth Ennis book, Robertson makes his money with the action scenes. Brutal and violent as any book he’s written, this is a war book through and through.

It’s pretty impressive that these guys could work together on books so different and yet so similar. It might be even more impressive that all of them are excellent reads.