Broken Frontier

Until a few days ago, I had only heard of Claudio Sanchez’s heavy metal band Coheed and Cambria in passing. I’d never heard their music before and had no idea that The Amory Wars saga was an extension of a storyline first set down in their studio albums.

A few weeks ago, I completed a review of Eternal Descent #1, another title produced by a metal band attempting to fuse the urban fantasy concepts initially conceived in their music to a comic book format. I wasn’t too kind in that review. The writing was amateurish at best and the artwork only mediocre, in my opinion. It seemed like an exercise in cross-pollinated marketing, more than anything else.  

I was pleasantly surprised then, when I finished reading The Amory Wars - In Keeping the Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 #1. Claudio Sanchez, with the help of industry veteran Peter David turns in a tight script that manages to convey the series’ fascinating high sci-fi framework, while introducing the main players of the large ensemble cast with minimal confusion.

I suspect a large part of this is due to David’s influence on the script but kudos to Sanchez for bringing him on board, while still retaining his own unique vision. The trick to projects such as The Amory Wars is translating the core ideas of the source material from one artistic medium to another. What sounds cool and exciting on a soundtrack, doesn’t always transition well into a visual medium such as comics.
 
Despite a murky publication history involving a handful of different publishers with books published out of chronological sequence, Sanchez and David succeed in creating a nice jumping-on point for new readers just discovering The Amory Wars saga. The duo succinctly sketch out the complicated metaphysics of Heaven’s Fence and the Keywork, so that new readers don’t feel the need for an extended history lesson to understand the underpinnings of Sanchez’s concepts.

Sanchez and David provide much of the backstory to The Amory Wars using flashbacks to deftly move back and forth in time, introducing the major players clearly and with sufficient characterization to instantly distinguish each cast member from the others. Protagonist Claudio Kilgannon draws the audience in with a charming yet sad dialogue with a friendly canine, bringing new readers up to date, while attempting to create some kind of sense out of his complicated destiny.

Artist Chris Burnham’s European-inspired style visually reinforces the characterization and setting laid down in the script, moving easily between huge cosmic depictions of the Heaven’s Fence universe and the quieter expositional scenes narrated by Claudio. He packs each panel full of detail, allowing The Amory Wars’ unique world to flourish and come to life in the reader’s imagination. His street scenes feel crowded and at times claustrophobic, while his rendering of Heaven’s Fence and the Keywork seem vast and appropriately unknowable.

It’s this balanced, intelligent approach to visual storytelling that allows the fascinating structure framing Sanchez’s epic to engage his audience. The Amory Wars - In Keeping the Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 #1 is a solid introduction to Sanchez’s strange fantasy/sci-fi hybrid. It doesn’t depend on previous exposure to either Coheed and Cambria’s music or an understanding of the Keywork to fully appreciate the complexity and richness of the plot.

Rather, Sanchez and company offer a sleek, smart vehicle in which new fans can discover his singular creative vision on their own terms and without the ever-present weight of a clumsy marketing strategy. There are no guitar endorsement deals backing this project – just an honest, passionate attempt to fully realize a fictional mythology too huge for one artistic medium.