Broken Frontier

Cain, the albino hitman, continues to expose conspiracies in the futuristic London government while looking for the truth about an old friend.

The pieces of the puzzle finally come together for Cain. He has spent the last two issues searching out what the truths are about his old friend from his days as a government spy. He’s not only an old friend, but the father of perhaps the love of his life. Cain has felt obligated to learn the truth. This has brought him in the middle of a government conspiracy dealing with the petroleum shortage and stretching all the way up to the people who control the Prime Minister. Along the way Cain found himself an ally in the form of a newspaper reporter. This issue sees it all come together as Cain finally pushes the wrong people too far.

Alex de Campi has done a wonderful job with this series of keeping everything grounded. When writing a futuristic story, sometimes the writer can infuse too much tech writing. And the idea of a sidekick reporter is somewhat cliché, yet de Campi found a funny and interesting way to introduce her to the reader. She kept a mystery alive, yet managed to put enough action in the book to keep anyone satisfied. Her dialogue and character motivation has been believable and moved very smoothly. There’s subtext and backstory here that give the reader enough knowledge to understand it, but doesn’t give it away poorly and actually make you want more stories with the characters.

When you read a book that is written about futuristic London, it’s hard not to compare it to Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s landmark V for Vendetta. And while the story here separates itself easily from Vendetta in all themes, the artwork does owe a bit to Lloyd’s work. That’s a good thing. Kordey has found a way to show a futuristic town, yet make it easily identifiable as a futuristic London. Likewise, his characters never stray too far into expressionism (except, of course, for the albino Cain). And beyond all that, Kordey’s storytelling here is superb. His panel design amplifies the flow of the story, and his action scenes are breathtaking. Kordey pulled no punches in this story and produced something better than any work he recently completed for Marvel.

When issue #1 came out I wasn’t sure how much I was going to like this series. Now that issue #3 is done I hope that I get some more.