Broken Frontier

As a monstrous crime wave sweeps the city, Alexader Cabot remembers his days as the superhero Venger. Will he be able to save the city again?

For comic readers, the superhero story is our thing. Sure, superhero movies like Spider-Man and Superman are practically trawling in movie-goers’ money but at the end of the day, superheroes belong to comic books. It is natural, therefore, for comic readers to want to create superhero comics. Because so many permutations on the superhero concept have been tried in such a confined tradition it is very easy to spot a story that doesn’t quite succeed.

One such comic which does not succeed is Venger: Dead Man Rising. There’s plenty in here; action, murder, rising tension and mysterious women in black. However it has all been done before and better. I recently reread The Dark Knight Returns and was struck by how much that one volume has influenced the tone of future superhero stories. It seems as if the creators of Venger were subconsciously channelling a Miller-esque vibe. This is not to say that every superhero story has to be completely new but it should always be fresh.

Matt Spatola’s script is good enough but he needs to direct his story much tighter than this. I found the story wandering off – never knowing where it was going or what was happening. Spatola gives us a situation on the first page and soon after introduces his first character. From then on it heads not downhill but nowhere in particular. There is no focus to this issue and so there is no motive for me to care about the characters. I’m not going to care about the main character just because he is the main character – Spatola needs to make me care.

Ossman’s artwork is, again, good enough. It is nicely moody in parts and he brings an interesting effect to the flashback sequence that helpfully allows it to stand apart from the rest of the story. The issue that I read was in black and white but I am lead to believe that there will be a colour version available (there is a colourist credited). I can’t say how that will change the artwork but I can say that Ossman’s black and white work doesn’t need any trimming. In a way, the black and white could even be more appropriate for the book’s crime-fiction leanings.

Venger: Dead Man Rising is an okay story but does not do enough to draw the reader in or persuade him to want to read on.

-Matthew Clark