Broken Frontier

Alien havoc comes to Earth when three of the galaxy’s most wanted arrive in search of the ultimate doomsday weapon. Only one man stands in their way—Jeremiah Harm.

Of all the places in the cosmos, where would you go if you were an evil alien mastermind with a real hard-on for bringing an end to the entire universe? Of course, The Bronx. That’s precisely where Dak Moira, an "artiste" of destruction, touches down with his paramour, the bloodthirsty assassin Ayoma Skiver, and Brune Maze, a being composed entirely of poisonous gas. They’ve come in search of the Basal Shard, a piece of primal matter said to be the raw essence of creation, which they’ll use for the biggest bang of all—the death of everything we know. Scared yet? Not to worry. On their trail is someone perhaps scarier than they are, who just happens to be the most infamous outlaw in the galaxy.

I suppose that enough bounty-hunter stories have been written to qualify it as a sub-genre. There’s much to like about it, particularly its inherent simplicity. Bad guy gets loose, good guy (or considerably less bad guy) goes looking for him. Mayhem, and sometimes hilarity, ensues. That’s exactly what the reader gets (and plenty of it) in this second issue of Jeremiah Harm. Though there are no innovations on the bounty hunter story to be found here, writers Keith Giffen (plot) and Alan Grant (script) offer some interesting twists. First, Harm himself, an outlaw recruited for the job of reigning in the villains, whose mix of dry wit and nonchalance is refreshing, despite other aspects—the long trench coat, the cigar—that are definitely clichés. Second, the three villains, their characterizations and group dynamics an obvious but effective homage to General Zod, his girlfriend, and the Kryptonian muscle they brought along in Superman II. Lastly, that Jeremiah isn’t hunting his prey across planet systems with strange names, but has come looking for them in a stranger place than any sci-fi writer can imagine grounds the story with a real world sensibility. The results of these interesting takes on the bounty hunter story make for a surprisingly entertaining read. The pacing is crisp and rhythmic, the scenes cut hard and shifting back and forth between Harm trying to convince a doctor and a nurse that alien hell has come to Earth, and the alien hell itself, Moira, Skiver, and Maze trading barbs and quips while plotting the end of the universe. Both scenes are intelligently rendered with doses of genuine humor and some extremely snappy dialogue.

Rael Lyra is an excellent artist, his "European" style something we won’t see in the pages of Spider-Man or Superman anytime soon, but perfect for pulp sci-fi like 2000 A.D., Metal Hurlant, and Jeremiah Harm. Describing his style as "pulp sci-fi" is difficult, however, as it’s hard to really put a label on it at all. His images combine fluid and edgy lines, producing pages that are as graceful as they are gritty, their amped-up detail adding a marvelous sense of depth and texture. Lyra’s distinctive images draw us in, but his deep sense of sequential storytelling is what keeps us turning pages after we’ve lingered over their beautiful strangeness.

Pulp sci-fi is making a strong comeback in comics, and Jeremiah Harm is leading the way.