Broken Frontier

Ben has a problem. Not only does he suffer from congenital heart defect but when he finally did get a donor's heart, it came from a super-villain!

Scar Tissue is a great little comic which wears its influences on its sleeve. It has a pretty good handle on the industry approved ‘superheroes deconstructed’ story that essentially tells a superhero genre story from a totally different perspective. What makes this issue work is that while the story is grounded in serious and well-written drama, the plot could have been lifted from a classic Silver Age storyline. This comic is another in the growing canon of new works who declare that the superhero story is anything but dead as it explores the stories left behind by those who focus on the power holders and not those affected by them.

The story’s focus is on Ben and his brothers. Ben had a very serious heart problem and needed a donor. Fortunately, a vigilante superhero had recently murdered a super-villain in a destructive street battle. This particular villain happens to be a perfect match for Ben. The heart which now beats inside his chest is the heart of a mass murderer, a heart which holds horrible power and wants to go home…

J. Andrew Clark has written quite a competent comic here. He sets up the storyline of the overprotective brother with immediate ease, establishing the dynamic of the family structure in the first couple of pages. He also tells a pretty good superhero story, except from the other side of the genre equation. One could almost imagine this in an old Superman story: a bad guy’s heart gets transplanted into a man’s body – he quickly develops powers beyond his means but now has a second chance at life – what is Supes to do?? This comic elicits, however, a mixed tone as it is not clear whether or not this is supposed to be serious or tongue-in-cheek. There are moments when the story is quite serious but the superhero subplot seems played for laughs, which I’m not sure completely works.

The artwork is, again, competent enough. Some of the scenes work really well while others just…work. The first page of the comic is an instant attention-grabber, with nurses, doctors and bright lights hovering over the reader. These are followed by a tense and atmospheric waiting-room scene which also shows the skills of the Wachters. While there is nothing much in the rest of the comic that matches this opening passage, none of the art is bad in any way – it is certainly quite good, it is just somewhat unexciting. I feel that there could really be a lot more…something in these pages. Something I hope to see in future issues.

Scar Tissue has not, I understand, been solicited through Diamond. Rather, this book can be ordered in either black and white or colour through Comixpress (www.comixpress.com). I had not heard much about this site before but it seems like a good idea with books being printed to demand in order to reduce creator costs.

Scar Tissue is well worth a look for those who are interested in the expanding genre once simply known as the superhero genre but now much, much more.

-Matthew Clark