Broken Frontier

Solomon’s Thieves is Jordan Mechner’s first comics work as a writer, and is also the first entry in a trilogy. Mechner may not be a household name just yet, but surely it’s just a matter of time, especially after his screenplay for the Prince of Persia film. The good Prince is the character that Mechner has been most closely associated with during his career as writer and video game designer, but it’s far from his only work, having also created the classic and ground breaking game The Last Express back in the late ‘90s and a documentary entitled Chavez Ravine.

This OGN from First Second treads somewhat similar territory to the dashing Prince, but to label Mechner a one trick pony would be an unfair judgement. Thieves follows Knight Templar Martin in France in the early 1300s. The intro to the book gives a tidy history of the Order, which is also focused on in the current Robin Hood film, and rightly so, as the Knights Templar were a historic group that can, and will continue to, inspire many great stories, and some not so great ones (anything by Dan Brown). As the intro explains, “the sight of their white cloaks and red crosses inspired the faithful and struck terror into their enemies. Young men rushed to join the Order, taking vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to fight for God.” It’s on those ”young men” that Thieves wisely centres, and in turn creates a daring adventure tale with a very real centre. It begins with Martin and two of his fellow Templars enjoying a night on the town, but their indulgent behaviour allows them to slip under the radar of larger events at work; events which don’t bode well for the Templars not only in France, but across the world. Accused of conducting secret rituals and denouncing Christ, Templars are rounded up, imprisoned, and tortured. Martin must do all he can to escape and unravel the conspiracy at work. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to do it alone, even if the new brothers he meets on his mission don’t exactly hold to the ideals he lives by.

With the discovery that there’s a mass of Templar treasure out there that the greedy and desperate king wants (as the Crusades a few years before weren’t cheap), Martin and his new cohorts decide to steal, or move, depending on who you ask, the treasure for safe keeping. That’s where this 132 page book ends, and it’s a great beginning for the next book in the series. 

Solomon’s Thieves conjures the best derring do of the Indiana Jones films with the opportunistic moral quandary from Three Kings and of rebels fighting tyranny like The Three Musketeers. It’s also obvious that Mechner has a passion for history and the Templars, which he admits in the afterword, and it helps to give the book a grounded approach, without delving into fantasy.

The artistic stylings from married duo LeUyen Pham and Alex Puvilland are a joy. Rough, yet well crafted, each page sells the 14th century French setting beautifully. Hilary Sycamore’s colours must be praised too, as they bring much depth and dynamism to the moments of action and drama. When Martin is thrown into a bare cell and later interrogated, all around him is suitably black, and when he escapes barefoot into snowy freedom, the absence of defined panel borders envelops him in white. Scenes like this, and the climactic swashbuckling sword fight with one of the villains of the tale in a burning barn do much to invoke the dangerous days of the period.

I’m looking forward to reading the next two chapters in this tale. So far, Martin and his associates are off to a rollicking start.