Broken Frontier

Valentine is the only one in a position to stop Waters. This time will one of the prophecies come true?

Well, writer John Rozum has spent five issues building to this climax and taking some interesting twisty turns along the way. Will the end be as surprising as the middle?

With almost the entire Foundation network destroyed, it falls on the burned-out Valentine to stop Waters’ plan, prevent Nostradamus’ prophecy from coming true, and avenge the deaths of his fellow agents. Unfortunately, Waters knows that Valentine is still alive and it does not take a genius to figure out who the agent will come gunning for. Can even Valentine, the master of disguise, see things through to the end?

I will admit that the first two issues of this series did not really impress me that much. A sudden and surprising twist in the middle, though, coupled with the plot going pedal to the metal caused me to sit up and take notice. As this issue opens, it has everything a thriller needs: a ticking clock, a threat to the government as well as innocent lives, a traitor who needs to be brought to justice, a hero working with thin resources and his own skills and raw chutzpah, and an overwhelming force arrayed against said hero. Really, who would dare to ask for more? And then it all falls apart. Despite everything it has going for it, the villain gets to monologuing and then the tension starts evaporating and the next thing I know I’ve reached the last page. Even worse, the villain’s reasons behind all of this are so thin they make a mockery of what has gone before.

The art by Chee is something of an acquired taste. His lines tend to be rough and thick, giving the action a primitive power and yet, at times the characters’ facial expressions are quite overblown to cartoony effect. It is enough to jerk the reader out of the seriousness of the story for a moment which certainly does the plot no favors.

In the end, The Foundation proved to be more than it seemed on the surface. Rozum produced some shocking punches and seemed on track for a total knock-out when the plot suddenly ran out of gas. Still, there was a lot of potential here and at least some of it was filled. I certainly would not mind seeing Rozum tackle a sequel or even another story entirely provided he learns to tighten up his climaxes a bit.