Broken Frontier

It begins with a funeral and ends with a death; Dakuwaka’s latest in their 30-issue maxi-series Helios is high drama and black intrigue at its very, very best.

After the shocking assassination of a major leading character in the previous issue, In With the New concludes with a grand military style send-off for this significant key figure and follows with a big ol’ dust up between the new Neo Task Force team and a major new threat – and this in turn leads to a second tragic death of yet another member of the team. There’s a cavalcade of other events packed within this issue (which is literally double-sized and represents issues #7 and #8 of the 30-issue über-epic) including a defect, a burgeoning romance, a veritable slew of slow character build-ups, and the first hint of Senator Strickland’s true intentions for the NTF.

Helios is a masterful gem of a comic, combining elements of the political thriller with modern takes on the classic super-heroic ideal. The final product is something akin to a military sci-fi novel laced with measures of urban fantasy, and the entertainment value of said combination is undeniably greater than the sum of its parts. Whereas just another 24 rip-off would have been just that – an emulation and little else – the addition of the ubiquitous superhuman provides the core concept a level of plot exploration and character complication (not to mention a propensity for outrageous Hollywood action) that even DC’s similarly-themed title, Checkmate, for all its strengths, has so far failed to muster.

Writer Jason Rand (Small Gods – and Broken Frontier’s Small Press Writer of the Year in 2004!), along with series creator Mike Penny, have crafted a startlingly powerful and immensely enjoyable spliced-genre tale. The idea of a government-run, super-powered task force that polices its own kind is not necessarily new (the original X-Factor gets first dibs on that honor, though they were privately run), but Rand has absolutely outdone himself on executing the book with a style bordering on inspired. Every issue he brings to the table a sense of organic but smart craftsmanship: a steadily snowballing plot, a gradually growing cast, and a nearly incomparable rhythm of event. One issue can be heavy on the action, while the next three can comprise little more than scene after scene of relationship entanglements and political maneuvering, followed by – nope, not action – an issue devoted to downtime, followed by a tragedy, followed by another tragedy…in short, there’s no second-guessing the flow of events by standard storytelling guidelines, but the story still works and it works better than most that do follow the rules religiously.

Rand seems to be a gifted taleweaver, with a penchant for taking action in a logical progression from his concept’s starting point, conventions be damned. The characters move as they would, rather than how they should. The powers the characters wield are recognizable to even the most casual of superhero readers, but evinced with profoundly clever utilizations – a strength the series brandished from the outset and has yet to fall back from. The intrigue is never set-up to be revealed as horridly unconvincing and illogical plot twists, but rather the back-stabbing between players is respectably straight forward for the reader (though the truth is of course hidden from one another). When the plot does indeed deepen, the complications are dramatic enough to serve the needs of fantastical fiction, but not so much as to stretch the lengths of honest plausibility. The final result is a story rich in resonance, both with the characters and the simple certainty of their actions as well as with the world of inevitable (yet forever unforeseen), grandiose violence which they inhabit.

The art by Gabe Pena has been equally as unflagging in its quality. His work is evocative of Paco Medina (which to this day, regardless of its truncated lifespan, brings to my mind the much lamented 2001 Suicide Squad) though there’s similarly a classicism to his lines redolent of Ditko and Pat Oliffe – two styles which blend well for a classic-modern amalgamate like Helios. Now accompanied by inker Sven Dyson (Victoria’s Secret Service, Judo Girl) and colorist Mar Hernandez (of Hitpack fame), the visuals for the series have reached a pitch-perfect fusion of spectacle and edge-of-your-seat drama.

So not only is Helios a (thus far) faultlessly gelling comic combining two genres and combining them with precision, artistic dexterity, but In With the New #3 is the best single (though double-sized) installment yet. I went into reading this series with an inexplicably unfair expectation that it had to deliver a better product than pretty much anything else I was already spending money loyally on; and guess what – it didn’t just succeed, it exceeded my every pernickety particular and won me over in one night. It’s a fanatically fantastic read, and if I can’t find anything to harangue the creators about, lord, I can’t imagine anyone else will.

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For all the information you could possibly desire on Helios and other Dakuwaka titles, visit www.dakuwaka.com