Broken Frontier

J. Michael Straczynski is a good writer. The man just has good ideas bonking about inside of his noggin. He had me won over long before I learned his name, and we’re talking Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future days here. Bonus points if you know what I’m talking about without having to Google it. And then the man decided to write comics and God bless him for having the decorum to bring the "series with a definite ending" concept he used for Babylon 5 to comics.

So with both Rising Stars and Midnight Nation under his belt and finally complete stories, Straczynski’s moved from Top Cow to Marvel, making Book of Lost Souls his second creator-owned comic to be published under the Icon imprint. And while cut from the same cloth as Midnight Nation, it doesn’t take too long before you realize that Straczynski’s strayed into definite Neil Gaiman territory.

After throwing himself off a bridge, a Poet-esque Jonathan re-arrives in the world carrying a blank and mystical book. The forces of good and evil are interested in the task Jonathan’s been chosen to perform, since it will be up to him to tip the scales one way or another for those fence-sitters who haven’t chosen either good or evil in their lives. Jonathan’s only guide or assistance thus far is a cat named Mystery, who speaks, is very mysterious, and occasionally is quite fluffy and cute.

A few factors handicap this book’s debut. To begin with, this is a slow way to begin the story by JMS standards. Very little is revealed about what the story’s going to be like on an issue-to-issue basis. The dialogue also lacks the direct elegance that he’s exhibited in the past, which is perplexing. The thing that’s going to be the deciding factor for a lot of readers is almost missing from this first issue, and that’s the real hook. That moment of "okay, now that was freaking sweet" is just not quite there.

Not helping matters is the general art style of the book. Some may appreciate the saturated colors and thick lines, but the style doesn’t match the tone of the story. Colleen Doran’s artwork is too crude and Dan Brown’s color style is too schizophrenic for writing that is so soft and whimsical.

And then there are the similarities to previous works. Obvious Sandman vibe aside, Straczynski’s lifting from his own stuff a little too heavily so early on. Between Jonathan’s inescapable resemblance to Rising Stars’ Poet and the good/evil war for souls that seems right out of Midnight Nation, it’s tough to stay objective about the book.

That said, there’s plenty of potential in the story. Straczynski’s terminal stories are a welcome change from the they-don’t-know-when-to-end-it problem facing a lot of contemporary comics, and he has a certain deft touch for beginning stories in a way that does not at all hint at their final act. So it’s worth giving this one a shot to see if the hook delivers when it comes. But from an issue-to-issue perspective, this seems more like a #0 than a #1, and it would probably benefit from the entire creative team punching it up a notch.