Broken Frontier

In a war torn 41st millennium, Earth is the center of a million-world empire where order is kept and wars are waged by the elite Adeptus Astartes or Space Marines.

A lot of popular video games have made the jump to comics in the past. For the most part, I would not consider these attempts at media expansion a great success. However, Warhammer not only has a vast and avid following, but the universe of this intellectual property is highly diverse, interesting and above all, action-packed.

Damnation Crusade kicks off by following the recruitment of a man named Raclaw, who is to be a new Space Marine from his embattled and dreary home world. His survival among a treacherous gladiator arena draws the attention of the Black Templars regiment of the Adeptus Astartes. Becoming a Space Marine requires strength, courage and the ultimate sacrifice of leaving everything one knows and loves behind forever. But for the glory of mankind, is any sacrifice too large?

Though I’ve not read much (if anything) by them, Abnett and Edginton have been around for a long time. Their story is paced very quickly, and for a Warhammer neophyte like me, that may lead to a little confusion. Luckily, only a few pages are spent away from the Raclaw character, and the other pages are later explained in a brief dossier/epilogue. After reading about the path of a Space Marine, I had a newfound appreciation for the story I’d just read. It made me go from, "Yeah, that was decent," to, "Oh, hey, this is pretty cool!" Still, there isn’t a lot of character exploration in this issue, which is fine because I have a feeling Raclaw is going to be put to the test, to see if he has what it takes to become something more than a mere mortal.

Lui Antonio has made a name for himself as an artist mostly in the Philippines. He has a clean and dynamic hand with an eye for bringing excitement to the page. Just as important to setting the visual tone for Warhammer are Ringuet’s colors. Most pages have no more than four panels (there are six splash pages!), which begs readers to take a closer look. Fortunately the art team delivers rich detail throughout.

There might be no need to persuade fans of the video game to take a look at this book. However, any casual comic reader who enjoys science fiction and/or action endeavors will most likely find something that appeals to them in Warhammer 40,000.