Broken Frontier

This first issue of the Loose Ends miniseries is one complete mess of a comic.  Both writer Jason Latour and artist Chris Brunner fail to capture any magic or create a single interesting character as they haphazardly jump from scene to scene. 

Crime stories succeed or fail based on their characters.  Everyone has read or watched enough crime fiction to know the general ingredients:  devious guys, sexy women, drugs, guns, cars, and violence.  Loose Ends #1 contains every single ingredient necessary to fashion a crime story, but what Latour forgets to add is a compelling and cohesive story.  It would be quite the chore to describe the characters or plot from this initial issue, as nothing truly memorable occurred.  To be sure, some characters talked, while others fought, and even others attempted to rape, but there was no logic or reasoning presented.  Finally, after pages of an incoherent story, we are left with little more than confusion and questions.

If you’re hoping for Chris Brunner’s art to redeem the book, prepared to be let down.  I can appreciate the rough and gritty style Brunner successfully used, and at times it works quiet well.  The choice of frames he uses, however, is where the art begins to fail.  Many sequences are unclear in what prompted the action to begin.  The attempted bathroom rape scene, for example, is beyond strange because at no time is anyone seen entering the room; the characters seem to have simply appeared and rape just started out of nowhere.  Imagine being dropped into scene after scene, with absolutely no understanding why certain characters were present or what they were doing, it becomes quite distracting as the pages flip by.

Luckily, however, Rico Renzi’s colors make the art interesting to look at.  Each setting comes complete with its own individual color palette, and certain hallucination sequences are much more entertaining due to the colors.

For all we know, Loose Ends could end up being a great crime story by Latour and Brunner.  Both creators know the requisite pieces a crime story needs to be successful, and even place them within the story.  All Loose Ends needs is more logic and understanding to complete the package.