Broken Frontier

The co-founder of Naughty Dog and Aspen Comics delivers a very pretty book. Does the story measure up to the fantastic visuals?

Well, to be perfectly honest… no.

Iron and the Maiden #0 tells the story of Michael Iron and his first outing after receiving the "Super Soldier" type serum ZE rOiD 4.0, which gives him the strength and stamina of five men. This outing shows Iron as a Mafia-Hitman Punisher type character with the power of Captain America—it’s just not terribly interesting.

This book, it would seem, has a lot going for it with the talent working behind it, however, the delivery falls completely flat. There’s a hit man, mafia bosses, cybernetics, tough guy talk... all well treaded paths, to be sure. This issue features a lot of "spaghetti-sticking-to-the-wall" storytelling and boasts perfectly suitable ideas for this (or any) type of book, only just thrown in without any real reason for them being there.

The characters all look great, if not a bit on the generic side. They could be put into any "Image-era" book and fit in fine: there’s the super-muscle bound protagonist, the beautiful girl sidekick, the eccentric looking doctor, the sage-like old Asian man and many more.

The art, as mentioned, is gorgeous. The last few pages show sketches from the series and from Character Designers Joe Madureira and Jeff Matsuda. I actually enjoyed Francis Manapul’s take on the characters better as he made them look a lot more fluid.

This is my first exposure to the Iron and the Maiden world and unfortunately, it does not do much to make me want to go any deeper into it.