Broken Frontier

He is immortal. He is not alone. He cannot die, unless you take his head. In the end there can be only one. He is Connor MacLeod, the Highlander.

Set not long after the events of the first Highlander movie, the new series from Dynamite Entertainment follows the adventures of Connor MacLeod. Having defeated his rival, The Kurgan, the immortal Connor has resumed his identity as "Russell Nash," antiques dealer. His quiet life with police scientist Brenda Wyatt is interrupted by a phone call from fellow immortals who have discovered a group of Russians with mysterious ties to The Kurgan…

I’m only passingly familiar with The Highlander mythology, recalling that the original 1986 movie was an enjoyable action-adventure/fantasy film and that from the second on, retcons tended to wreak havoc with continuity. With this new series, Jerwa and Oeming take a "Bryan Singer/Superman Returns" style approach to the franchise. Building on the general framework of the earlier material, this book seems to be developing as a more coherent ongoing chronology for The Highlander. The current issue adopts the first movie as canon and the retcon generally followed by fans (that the climax of the first motion picture was not the end of "The Game"), while future issues will selectively introduce characters from later installments, such as Duncan. Given Jerwa’s apparent reverence for chronology and respect for diehard fans of a franchise, Highlander fans should feel safe that the property will be treated well.

All of that aside, Highlander #0 isn’t about the complicated rules of the ongoing Game between immortals. Jerwa and Oeming offer new readers the most basic overview of the world (immortal warriors walk among us, each striving to be the survivor) and focus on building a new challenge for Connor. Picking up threads from the original motion picture and tying them to real world events of 1986, the duo tease with a fast-paced prologue that leaves the reader curious how everything will fit together. With a property to which history and time are so important, setting the tale 20 years in the past works well. By tying real world events to The Game of immortals, Jerwa and Oeming lend a sense of history and weight to the events of the issue. Being a short preview issue, there’s not a lot of "meat" to the story, but the title has a great deal of potential. Jerwa and Oeming have set up an interesting plot and seem to have the intention and ability to make this an engaging comic.

It might take a little more time for Lee Moder to grow on me, as I was expecting something in a little more of a realistic style for Highlander. Some of the panels seem a little too "cartoonish" – whether it be from an exaggerated face or a sparse background. Nonetheless, those were the same concerns I initially had with former Jerwa collaborator, Tim Seeley, on G.I. Joe, and their run remains one of my favorites. To his credit, Moder has a good eye for setting the panel, providing a variety of angles and views that lend a strong sense of motion to the book. I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do with a full-fledged swordfight.

Highlander #0 provides a good hook for the upcoming series and a solid creative team, all at a very reasonable price.