Broken Frontier

Bringing law and order to a dark town requires a cop quick on the draw. Mark Grimm is such a man but can he keep the darkness from stealing his soul?

There appears to have been a recent resurgence is comic books that borrow from the great noir tradition. On the surface, The Last Sin of Mark Grimm is another one of those titles. The truth goes far deeper and the roots of Mark Grimm are surprisingly a lot older...

Mark Grimm is a tough but honest cop in a yet-unnamed, crime riddled city. Fast on the draw and deadly accurate, like the gunslingers of the Old West, Grimm has sent more than his fair share of criminals to meet their maker. Although part of his job, the deaths and the city’s evil weighs heavily on his soul and the one bright spot in his life is his wife, Audrey. On the track of the crime boss only known as "Pluto," the tables are turned and Pluto’s men kidnap Audrey. Grimm would walk through hell for his wife and that is exactly what he will have to do.

As I mentioned above, this title is a pitch-perfect noir tale. There is a hard drinking, fast drawing hero who does not shy away from necessary violence and the pace moves as fast as a bullet. The dialogue is spare, stripped to an effective minimum that would make Dashiell Hammett proud. Where The Last Sin of Mark Grimm rises above the crowd, however, is in writer McManus’s clever and inventive addition of Greco-Roman mythology. The core of this issue is clearly pulled from the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and there are other familiar figures as well. Amazingly, translating these myths into a noir setting works well. Even better, if the reader is not familiar with the mythology the story still stands on its own.

In all of this, there are two small weaknesses. First of all, at least in this issue, Audrey appears as a symbol, an ideal, and something we only know through our grim protagonist. It is difficult to feel for her plight while she remains such a cipher. With three issues yet to go, however, I hope to see McManus flesh Audrey out a bit more or at least further explore her relationship with Grimm.

The second weakness is actually in the setting. Although the city Grimm works in has no name, it also has no real character. There is no sense of life here – there are no people on the streets, no idea of how or why crime is eating away at the city or why it is worth Grimm’s life and possibly soul to keep serving it.

For all of this dark and twisted tale though, artist Chris Moreno proves to be a chameleon of the highest order. Known for his work on the action title Dracula vs. King Arthur, the comedic Monkey vs. Lemur, and the upcoming Sidekicks, here Moreno drops all hint of fun and color. There are no shades of gray and the pages are drenched in appropriately blackest night. It’s a good thing, believe me. Moreno beautifully shows the roughness and the hard edges of this hero and his world.

With only a few minor problems, The Last Sin of Mark Grimm stands out as a welcome and inventive entry in neo-noir revival comic books. Myths, gunslingers, and hard-boiled detectives merge with a flourish in this title and I for one hope that this series will not be the last readers see of Grimm’s world or McManus’s writing.