Broken Frontier

Lucifer specializes in stealing objects of magic but in dealing with the arcane, if you get burned it’s going to be bad…

Boom! Studios has built a reputation on producing titles that are a little out of step with the mainstream – quirky, clever, and often feeling like they would make an excellent TV series or movie. Hexed is a little different, though. It is a little quirkier than the rest and made all the better for it.

Luci Jennifer Inacio Das Neves – Lucifer for short – is a thief and a good one; but then again, she would have to be good since the objects she steals are arcane or magical in nature and the people she steals them from often have nasty magical traps to protect them. Despite her less-than-legal job, Lucifer has a code of ethics she adheres to – only stealing for good people who wish to do what is right with the magical objects. Despite her youth, though, Lucifer has a past – a past that is less than on the side of the angels – and that past is about to catch up to her in a big, bad way.

There are a lot of comic books and novels out there that revolve around magic and dark fantasy and, while the trappings of this title would not seem out of the ordinary, the success of Hexed lies in its nearly flawless execution by writer Michael Alan Nelson. The opening of the book, with its first person narration does come off as a little hokey and pretentious at first but once you get past that and into the meat of the story it all melts away. Nelson’s protagonist is a young woman and for all her professionalism on the job she still comes across as young – with a childlike sense of whimsy and humor that is instantly charming. In short, Lucifer feels real as does the majority of her world. It is that instant liking of Lucifer and her employer, Val that then makes the reader feel for the girl’s plight when he past comes to blow apart her tidy little life. That is the other area where the story excels – it makes sure to emphasize the ordinariness of the rest of the world while Lucifer deals with objects that most people could not even begin to imagine exist. As a final coup de grace, Nelson also creates some wild, weird, and in many ways twisted magic that is just ingenious, clever, original, and delightful in its weirdness. This isn’t the nice, neat, tidy, LSD trip of Doctor Strange; this is dark, strange, magic.

The art by Emma Rio is also perfect as Rio has that rare quality of drawing figures that fit within human proportions. Under Rio’s pencil Lucifer looks like a real, slender young woman – the kind of person you could pass on the street and never take any notice of. Likewise, the character of Val looks believably like a trendy woman in late middle-age – again, like someone you could meet in an office somewhere and never think anything about it. When Rio cuts loose on the magical moments, however, she crafts scenes of truly dark fantasy and perfectly realizes the tone and aims of the comic. If anything, her adeptness with the mundane world helps to emphasize the more fantastic one when it overlaps.

While the title has a slightly rocky opening, it quickly opens up into mystery, horror, adventure and fantasy and balances all with such a light touch it reads effortlessly. Readers are completely drawn in by these characters and their world and that is due entirely to the talents of writer and artist. So go ahead and get Hexed – you won’t want to leave once it casts its spell.