Broken Frontier

The old has passed away but one hero struggles to bring it back. Can the Fighting Yank find the allies he needs?

With many Golden Age heroes having entered the public domain, there has been a recent flurry of projects focusing on them. Dynamite Entertainment’s Project Superpowers has so far chosen to tell a rather familiar tale…

Bruce Carter was once the hero known as Fighting Yank. Now old and facing the predicted end of his life he has been called to correct the evil he once unwittingly did. Convinced he was saving the world; Carter trapped many of his fellow heroes in the Urn of Pandora. Now he must free them but will his old allies turn enemy once they learn what he has done? And who may have really been behind all this to begin with?

In a way, there is nothing wrong with Project Superpowers telling a familiar story. Familiar stories get told all the time but when a new twist is added or the characters are compelling or the dialogue is clever and witty then that merely serves to add to the shine of the familiar. Unfortunately, this title has none of those things. Writer Jim Krueger certainly does nothing "wrong" with the story but he merely gives fans a baseline story of old heroes struggling against a corrupt "new world", of an old hero turning betrayer and now seeking atonement, and super powered smack-downs. But by making this merely a baseline story there is nothing to compel the readers, nothing to make the tale feel vital or imperative. More to the point, Krueger tends to write these characters as if readers should already be familiar with them. There is little real characterization and little to make one care about their situation or their quest.

The artwork provided by Carlos Paul is, like the story itself, serviceable enough but never anything that truly catches your attention. Paul’s work shows an attention to detail and his design for the aged Bruce Carter certainly looks and feels like an honest representation of old age but there is something missing in his superhero fight scenes – an extra bit of dynamism that pushes the ordinary into the realm of extraordinary.

While this title has a great idea which could have been put to good use it has instead chosen the safest path. Unfortunately the safest path leans towards mediocrity – where a story is not truly bad, but not truly good either. That safe path of mediocrity also has one other side-effect… It tends to be boring.