Broken Frontier

An old foe has returned with a way to discredit Invincible. Things get out of hand and soon every hero in the Image Universe is fighting for the survival of Earth.

Grant Morrison. It’s all his fault. It wasn’t just "R.I.P." or Final Crisis. It was also All Star Superman and as mixed as the reviews were for the first two, they were that much better for the Superman book. He invented a new style of storytelling for comics. Maybe he had read criticism that comics as a whole were becoming too decompressed, that there was a segment of the population that wanted to not wait for the trade but wanted their money’s worth in an issue. The channel surfing of his big books of 2008 may not have worked, but the big gaps between issues of All Star were never mentioned when folks talked about it.

This revolution is quickly taking hold or at least it is over at Image, where recently Savage Dragon saw an issue that spanned an entire year. Larsen pulled it off spectacularly. He created an entry point for all readers by providing a lucid and coherent story.

Kirkman makes an attempt at this new style of stutter storytelling with this issue. It saw massive hype in the months leading up to it as it sported a cover with all the Image heroes rallying behind Invincible. Coupled with the news of the Image United book, it seemed like Kirkman was going to hit us with some kind of extended opus. And maybe he is. However, the entirety of the "Invincible War" happens in this issue and like the lesser of Morrison’s attempts at this writing off panel, it requires a second reading to become a sensible story. Oh, it makes sense the first read, but so much happens off panel that it is easy to miss the whole story.

Personally, I like rereading comics so this is only a slight problem to me, but what about the Shadowhawk fan that picks this up and finds it hard to read. Now there is a missed opportunity at new readership. That guy is probably going to think the book is confusing and not try 61 or try to catch up in trade on one of the best superhero titles being written.

The ideas are great but they are just two much for this issue. Maybe it should have been a 52 page Graphic Novel, square bound or Hardcover. That would have provided a neat package to further attract new readers. Ah well, no use crying over spilt milk.

Ottley and Rathburn do a great job with what is handed them. They make what is in the panels clear and concise. The action is as solid as ever and getting to see Ottley’s take on Youngblood, Savage Dragon and others is a hoot.

This book is a hoot, it just could have been more. It all feels a little chaotic because of the choppy nature of the writing. The one thing it does do really well is invoke a sense of excitement for the event book as it will be neat to see what the scribe can do when he allows the story the space it needs as opposed to cramming it all into one double sized book. A valiant effort, but the style seems to be failing more at this point than it succeeds.