Broken Frontier

The murderer Sakkara discovers her fate, but it is not the one she or others expected!

I knew very little about the character Purgatori when the title was being published by Chaos! Comics but I had seen the covers and I had seen images of many of the other female characters published by the company. Chaos! had a reputation for ‘Bad Girl Art’ so when I heard that Devil’s Due Publishing had resurrected the title, I was a little surprised. I was somewhat familiar with many of the titles published by Devil’s Due and Purgatori seemed a very odd fit. The company though is attempting to move in a different direction with the title and one that bears a look below the surface.

Picking up where the previous issue left off, the slave Sakkara awakens in prison after her capture and finds all her hopes pinned on Nefertiti, the woman she committed the crime of murder for. Sakkara’s hopes are soon dashed, as are her illusions about Nefertiti’s feelings for her, and she waits for death with a guilty conscience. To her surprise and horror, though, her punishment is to go beyond human means.

First off, Purgatori is a sexy character, always has been and probably always will be. The story and the art in this issue definitely play to that side of her. What makes this series a cut above, however; what lifts it from just a tale of sex and violence is the dark side of the emotions Rodi portrays here. As a slave, Sakkara has known nothing of love, compassion, or tenderness and she latches onto the first person that shows her any hint of those emotions. Nefertiti uses this and manipulates Sakkara’s emotions for her own benefit. Rodi chooses to show the darker side of those caring emotions – Passion is twisted into an obsessive lust and sex is used for manipulation instead of an expression of love. Sex has been used throughout history as a means for personal gain and Rodi taps into that theme here. Sakkara’s heartbreak is evident as she realizes that what she thought was true love was mere manipulation.

Rodi has done his homework on ancient Egypt, from the depiction of the rigid caste society to Ahkenaten’s ‘heretic’ religious beliefs. The attempt at blending Judeo-Christian belief systems with Ahkenaten’s new religion works surprisingly well.

Before I read this issue I happened to make a trip to the local art museum and stumbled on the ancient Egyptian art wing. After that trip I could appreciate the care Cliff Richards’ has taken in making the costuming for many of the characters historically accurate. He has also, though, added a darkness that is not merely a matter of shading, it is a part of the characters, reflections of their actions.

Vampirism as an allegory for sex and predators is not new but the difference here is the Egyptian setting and the way Rodi weaves in power, politics, and the notion of true love as a pure gift. All told, the creative team on this series is attempting to tell a very adult story about love – both the light and the dark.