Broken Frontier

Lwanga Moses is an expatriate Ugandan of sorts, who has returned home to try to bring peace to the war torn country.

The Unknown Soldier has had several incarnations. At its base, the concept has remained that he is an agent that has a horribly disfigured face. He is a master of disguise and uses this to complete missions that would be impossible to complete by any other soldier. He fights his own war on his own terms.

Dr. Moses is trying to make his country not only a viable nation but a nation responsible to itself. For 15 years (at the time the comic takes place) the country has been savaged by a fierce war between a military president and a religious faction to the north. It is the kind of situation that, unfortunately, has gone unnoticed by most of the world. It is an unknown war, if you will. Neither faction necessarily has the people’s best interest at heart, so it is an issue that can easily be ignored.

Moses is a pacifist. So when he begins to have nightmares of a very violent nature, he cuts himself off from his support group. Namely, he becomes distant to his wife. Given where the rest of this origin type issue goes, that might not be a bad idea.

Dysart is tackling an incredibly complex war and political landscape here. He is careful to give the reader the basics and an interested reader can use that information to find out more about this fascinating subject. This reader has spent the better part of two days on Wikipedia and reading interviews with the author trying to understand the nature of the region. It is certainly not a subject that is going to be explained in a 32 page comic or a 900 word comic review. The injustices of the region are many and it seems that the writer wants to explore as many as possible. He even spent some time in Uganda researching the book, struggling to get a grasp on a situation which is utterly foreign to those of us from the West.

There are all kinds of hints about how this book will tie into the work of Kubert, Owley and Ennis in the pages of this comic. Dysart has stated that while this may be a new twist on the concept, it will indeed be in continuity with the older series. What is most unique about that is with this particular soldier -We know his name. We get to meet his family. In a sense, we get to see how his war begins, putting an incredibly human spin on the concept. This is an emotional book that works not just through its political relevance but on its own humanity. Moses will struggle with things that philosophers and religious leaders have been trying to get a grasp on for the totality of man’s history. It is in a sense, much as Garth Ennis is quoted as saying on the front cover, "a comic that ... matters."

At the same time, it is pulpy. It has that fantastical and escapist feel. It is action packed and a fierce ride. The reader’s questions pop up almost immediately and are not even close to answered by the end of the book. This, of course, means that it immediately begs to be continued. You want to know what happens after the final page. If the book can find its way into reader’s hands then they will most certainly stick with it. It is beyond intriguing like the last volume of Deadman, it is beyond original like American Virgin, and it is just as mysterious as Air. In fact, with the possible exception of House of Mystery, this may be Vertigo’s finest offering since Fables made the scene.

Alberto Ponticelli has been around in comics circles for a few years. He has worked on Sam and Twitch and Blade, but this is the first time that this reader has encountered his pencils. The artist has a kinetic line that while lacking the detailed rendering of today’s hottest artists, is not any less exacting. There is a lived in feel to his panels. The line, of course, makes the action sequences all the more energetic, but also feels real. For a country like Uganda with its African climate, the pencils give it that tribal rusticism that one expects without being detailed to the smallest grain. When you add Oscar Celestini’s strong coloring sense and dynamic, you have a striking book that is in turns beautiful and ugly, just like its subject matter.

Unknown Soldier is a complex but richly rewarding comic. It is not the kind of ubercool complexity of an "ultramodern" comic. It is complex in subject matter, politics, philosophy, and character. It acknowledges the books that came before it, but not in such an intrusive way as to make it inaccessible to a new reader. In fact, a new reader wouldn’t even notice that the references were there. It is the kind of revival that we need to see more of, it takes a truly interesting concept and turns it on its ear for a new generation. It does it smartly and effectively. This is one mystery that I can’t wait to see unravel.