Highway 62

First up is Eric Shanower’s Age of Bronze: A Thousand Ships, which collects the first part of his epic retelling of the Trojan War. This published by Image Comics of all publishers. Before I dropped out of comics in 1994 or so, Image had become a joke to a lot of people, just recycling the same surface gloss badgirl grimngritty heroeswithguns stuff over and over. So, when I got back into comics, hearing that Image was publishing a book like this, I was intrigued. I mean, it’s a black and white historical epic, about as far away from the Image of the early 90s as I could imagine.

And when I say ‘epic’, I mean EPIC. The first volume of A Thousand Ships isn’t really about the Trojan War proper, but is far more concerned with the actions of a handful of primary characters whose actions end up bringing on the war. First among these is Paris, who begins as an unremarkable, if not hot-blooded country boy. Through turns of events (all brought on by himself and not just thrust upon him willy-nilly, I might add), he finds that everything he knew of his life before was a lie. Instead of weeping about it, Paris embraces his new life wholeheartedly, passionately (which is perhaps the one thing of his old life that remained.) In swearing allegiance to his true family, Paris finds himself in a position to initiate events that will pull the known world into war.

Paris is asked to travel to a nearby kingdom to recover his true father’s sister, Hesione, who had been kidnapped long ago. Instead of sticking to the plan (which may or may have not precipitated a regional war), Paris allowed himself to be ruled by his passions. He instead claims Helen, who is regarded as the fairest beauty in the known world, over whom much blood had already been spilled. Paris never set out to do this. Instead, he was swept away by his desire for Helen. Helen, too, was ruled by her desire and willingly joined Paris in returning to Troy.

Things get complicated from here. Before long, war becomes the only outcome.

In A Thousand Ships, Mr. Shanower has beautifully crafted a portrait of a world that is calm at its surface, but beneath that surface, it is ruled by wanton desire and emotion, by generations of history, of plunderings and wounds never forgotten. Instead of rows of marble figures and graceful colonnades that usually stand for Greek culture in our history books, we’re treated to an intricate dance of very real, very human characters. History comes alive in these pages. Rather than dry history, this is one of the most vivid, passionate and sensual comics I’ve read in a long time. This isn’t a comic for kids, folks. Sure, there’s plenty of adventure and intrigue here, but a lot of what’s going on here is decidedly adult and at times explicit (though if there were a movie shot directly from the comic, I doubt it’d get a tougher than PG-13 rating).

Age of Bronze is a great example of a comic being mature without necessarily being adult in showing, say sexual intercourse, or swearing or rivers of blood/dismemberments or that sort of thing. Putting the characters and their actions above raw spectacle makes this book something special, particularly in comics where things are (more often than not) event/spectacle-driven and the story often suffers for it.

The artwork is certainly more “realistic” than say someone like Alex Toth or Darwyn Cooke or any of the “cartoony” artists that you can care to name, but Mr. Shanower knows when to lay on the detail and when the story is best served with a glance or a close-up. He certainly had more than ample opportunities to add detail that would have pushed Age of Bronze into needing a FOR MATURE READERS ONLY tag, but instead restrained himself and showed only what was necessary to get the desired effect.

It’s a really amazing book, powerful stuff. Can’t wait for volume 2, entitled Sacrifice to come out this summer. Read more about the book at http://age-of-bronze.com/aob/index.shtml

As for the other of my trip readings, The Interman. In some ways, it’s very much opposite to Age of Bronze, though not so much so when you get closer in. On the surface, The Interman is a frothy boy’s adventure book about a genetically-engineered spy who’s caught up in the intrigue of his own creation, as well as the collapse of the Cold War.

The art is certainly rougher and more expressionistic than the carefully rendered work of Age of Bronze (and really, I’m only making the comparison as I’m reviewing the two works at the same time.) Instead of carefully-rendered details, we’re getting broad strokes and chunky linework that convey a strength which wouldn’t come across any other way.

The story is pretty top-notch as well. It’s light, but not so much so that it’ll blow away in a passing breeze. It’s part science-fiction, part superheroics, a couple of parts espionage and adds up to something pretty noteworthy these days. Instead of an angst-ridden protagonist, we’ve got an active, capable character who wants to do the right thing for the right reasons. I know, hopelessly old-fashioned and earnest, at least when put against a lot of the characters paraded before us today. But for me, a welcome relief.

But it’s not enough that we’ve got an interesting protagonist, but a whole host of engaging supporting characters, including not just one, but two sympathetic opponents for our hero to go up against. Ultimately, the worst of them ends up being tragic, once the big reveal at the end takes place. Dammit, that’s just not fair when the author ends up making you care that the antagonists lose even as you cheer that the protagonists make it out with their skins intact.

After reading The Interman, I was struck by how text-heavy a lot of his pages were, compared to the ultra-light and nearly text-free (other than clever circular dialogue) pages we’re served up today. And wow, look at that! More than four freaking panels per page! That’s amazing. Even better that he knows how to pace things pretty flawlessly. There’s 120 pages in The Interman, but I can think of a lot of other creative teams that would have spread it out to 150 or even 200 pages. You’re getting a lot of value here (and not just a lot of words, but a lot of value period.)

I wish there was as much heart in an average year-long run on Superman or Spiderman as there was in The Interman. Hell, even half as much would do. And half as much story, where events actually take place and characters are forced to make decisions that actually matter. The Interman delivers where a lot of monthly superhero books simply can not. Read more about it at http://www.theinterman.com/ .

Both of these books are well worth your time, and with luck will continue to be viable in today’s comics marketplace. I know that Eric Shanower is continuing to publish Age of Bronze at Image, even with the recent changes there. Word has it that there’s movie interest in The Interman, which will hopefully give further OGNs in the series some more visibility. The fact that The Interman made it out of the gate as a self-published, full color OGN is pretty remarkable in today’s market. That Age of Bronze has found a following is astounding.

Books like these need more readers, people. Get out there and give ‘em a look.