Broken Frontier

Christopher Long redefines the term "crime family" in this intensely dark and gripping new thriller from Image Comics’ Shadowline range.

Ms. Balitzer is a foster mother with a difference; she takes orphaned and unwanted children into her home and trains them as contract killers. In Ward of the State #1 we meet her current charges. We first see the romantically involved sixteen year olds Dravis Trucker and Carrie Evans while out on a job, immediately establishing the series’ gritty concept.

Back at the Balitzer homestead, a visit from Mr. Robinson, an official from the Department of Child Services, provides the narrative framework for introducing the rest of the foster family. This consists of nervous and geeky Clifton Hernandez and defiant and angry Harkin Lomu along with Monroe, Balitzer’s "mentally-challenged," biological son.

As Robinson probes the kids about the suitability of their foster environment, a number of flashback panels establish just how grim their circumstances are. As the issue progresses it becomes obvious that things are about to get even grimmer as Devon Harris, Balitzer’s final young protégé, meets a gruesome fate. Someone wants revenge on Ms. Balitzer’s operation and the children are their target…

Christopher Long’s uncompromising story is off to an unsettling start in this first issue. It raises all sorts of questions about minors and their culpability for their actions and it will be interesting indeed to see where Long goes with this. The reader is torn throughout this opening part between feeling deep sympathy for the kids and the life they’re forced into, and total revulsion towards them for their appalling crimes. It’s a complex moral issue and the writer strikes just the right balance between pity and horror at their plight and actions.

The art by Chee is aptly moody, filled with a sense of foreboding and he provides some great character touches in his depictions of the cast. The monstrous Balitzer is given a grotesque and commanding presence throughout and he never lets us forget the age of the principal characters, underlining the tragedy of the situation. The final few pages are particularly chilling in their execution. Joël Séguin embellishes the book’s atmospheric feel with a subdued coloring job that is perfectly suited to the tone of the proceedings.

Ward of the State is a deliberately disquieting read and certainly not for the squeamish. Long effectively poses some very difficult questions to his readership. I suspect the next two issues will be just as disturbing but on the strength of #1 I’m more than willing to see where this book is heading.