Broken Frontier

A giant black hole (called "The Wall") has appeared above Uranus' moon, Oberon, and it's up to the Purgatory Squadron to figure out what's on the other side of it.

The Purgatory Squadron is made up of members of the military who were court martialed for various reasons but have been given a chance to redeem themselves. Some were court martialed for moral reasons (not wanting to kill innocent civilians), while others were brought up on charges for much more heinous acts. Herein lies one of the problems with Universal War One: we're expected to believe that the military would give some of these men and women a second chance. Frankly, it's implausible that some of these soldiers would escape a prison sentence, much less be given the opportunity to serve again.

One of the men's crimes also seems implausible. Imagine Albert Einstein (a more physically intimidating Einstein, at least) who suddenly snaps one day and beats a man into a coma. I found this hard to swallow. Denis Bajram (the writer and artist for the series) expects us to believe that a man with four Ph.D's, a highly decorated science officer in the military, could just snap one evening in a bar. It's an interesting thought, but ultimately this man's violent temper would have betrayed him much earlier in his career.

Thankfully, the rest of the book is fairly enjoyable as long a few implausibilities can be accepted. The idea of "The Wall" is interesting, and it makes sense that this band of misfits would be tasked with doing the dangerous work. The artwork in particular is one area where the book excels most. There are various scenes in Universal War One that remind me of both Alien and the new Battlestar Galactica series. Bajram put a lot of details into every panel: planetary rings, computer consoles, and even cargo ships have amazing nuances that makes each panel feel solid and unique. It wouldn't have hurt to expand the color palette a bit so that there weren't so many drab panels, though.

One other minor complaint is the lettering in the book. Some panels are loaded with dialogue, and instead of making the text balloons larger the font size was decreased. Occasionally I found myself squinting to read a balloon. This doesn't happen often, and in the end the plot makes up for any issues readers may have with the lettering.

The book does take a few pages to pick up the pace, but once it gets going there's no stopping. The last few pages are especially suspenseful and the ending will leave readers waiting impatiently for the next issue.

Bajram has managed to craft an engaging and thoughtful science fiction thriller, one that is neither pretentious nor stereotypical. It doesn't get bogged down in technobabble, which is something that happens much too often in modern science fiction; instead, Bajram chooses to focus on the characters, and it's these characters' interactions with each other that will make Universal War One a success or a failure. Bajram has taken a step in the right direction with the first issue.