Broken Frontier

As Jonas continues to fight the monsters in his home town, the reader is shown flashbacks furthering the tale of a past Ironstar in this post-apocalyptic western.

Thus far in this series, the reader has been introduced to Jonas as he returned to his old hometown. There have been flashbacks highlighting the incident that forced Jonas away and told, rather vividly, why he never had intended to return. But in his travels as an Ironstar, he finally has returned home, only to find it overrun by Seraks (a snake with spider legs and abilities). He manages to kill a few before being captured and tangled in one of their webs. To make matters worse, his former wife, now a captive of the Seraks, prepares his stomach for Serak eggs. This issue details his struggle to get free of the Seraks; and while in his poisoned state, he tells a tale of an old Ironstar who ran into trouble and a web of betrayal while hopping trains.

Brian Colin has an interesting idea here. We have a post apocalyptic western world full of monsters and a self loathing protagonist who is finally forced to face the past he has been running from. However, he doesn’t seem to know what to do with it all. His story struggles at times to maintain a steady flow, and he has really given no exposition at all. The only way to know that this is a post-apocalyptic story for sure is by reading the recap at the beginning of this issue. Not only that, but in a story about Ironstars, one would think that what an Ironstar is and does should be explained early on, but a reader may still be confused 3 issues into the series. He introduces new characters to the story without any build up or introduction, often times just as a deus ex machina to move from one plot point to the next. At the issue’s end, the reader still does not know how the flashback tale relates to the current predicament of Jonas. Also, from an editing standpoint, the character Randolph’s name is spelled differently 3 times in succession.

Likewise with his story, Colin’s art style is very imaginative. Yet once again he fails to properly use it. He maintains solid pencils and heavy inks throughout, which work perfectly with the coloring he does. The heavy ink lines help easily delimitate the objects in panel and keep the reader from being confused by the almost watercolor-style coloring. The problem here is that the art style begs to be opened up and used expressionistically, yet Colin never does. He could easily use the colors to exaggerate moods and set tones for the reader, but he never strays from simply coloring in his artwork. Initially, it seemed as if he was saving his expressionistic coloring for his flashbacks, as they are all colored in yellow hues, but even that loses its affect by this issue. His storytelling also doesn’t stray far from a standard look; and his most inventive (and best looking) panel design in the action sequence can even serve to confuse the reader as to the order of action and dialogue. This isn’t to say that the artwork diminishes the story, but when the story is as muddled as it is, and the artwork should be a major selling point to the book, Colin has failed to capitalize.

All in all, this is an imaginative story idea told with an interesting art style that never quite lives up to what it can be.  

- Sam Moyerman