Broken Frontier

Turf #3 ratchets up the story’s suspense, with characters racing to start and put a stop to plans leading to a war between humans and vampires.

With backing from consigliere Vaseli, Stephan Dragonmir ousts his brother and family head Gregori in order to wipe out New York City’s gangs and feed off the human race. Plucky reporter Susie Randall escapes from the Dragonmir mansion, rescues Gregori from execution, and learns about Stephan’s plans. Squeed, the extraterrestrial whose lover and shipmate Prin died when their ship crash-landed, and Falco ask mob boss Kane for help fighting Stephan’s vampires.

Ross gives us another steady dose of action, but the script occasionally suffers from verbosity, slowing down the pacing and crowding Edwards’ gorgeous pencils. The script sometimes crosses the line between dramatic emphasis and tautology with lines like “he stayed with her as she aged. He stayed with her as her life ended,” and “I am weakened - I am dying. I cannot feed… I cannot help.” Similarly, some panels and scenes seem downright unnecessary. Ross uses four word-heavy captions to describe the Brooklyn Bridge’s uncharacteristically light traffic before cutting to the scene’s main action. We’re given a page-long backstory of O’Leary’s rough-and-tumble childhood that feels too generic - bad parents, hooliganism - to be important to the story. Having said that, Ross develops a number of relationships, spinning some characters into an interesting direction. Gregori’s origins are not only fascinating and necessary to impart but serve as an unexpected catalyst in developing his relationship with Susie. Squeed’s similar history to Falco’s gives me hope that the human-friendly alien will serve more than just a plot device that levels the playing field in the fight between the “veak” humans and all-powerful vampires.

Edwards’ gritty, scratchy style and use of shadow complement the book’s noirish tone, and, at times, capture the book’s pop cultural inspirations (issue titles thus far have all been plays on famous movie titles). O’Leary’s backstory is depicted in the cartoony Sunday-strip style of that era, making it the best scene of the issue, despite its redundancy.

Of course, I could be wrong. With three issues left, maybe Ross is just beginning to round out O’Leary. Either way, with Turf, readers are in for a ride - as long as Ross cuts down on the chatter and keeps his eyes on the road.