The Red Star
Written by Christian Gossett and Bradley James Kayl, Art by A.D. Coulter, Snakebite, Jon Moberly and Simon Chan

I'm not quite sure I can heap enough praise upon this title. I saw an advertisement for it in Previews, and the art looked interesting, but I had no idea what it would be about. It looked sort of Soviet; could it be a People's hero called The Red Star? Fighting for justice with his super hammer and sickle? Okay, I was way wrong.

The Red Star is a country, vaguely based on an otherworldly U.S.S.R, but it's the United Republics of the Red Star. The story begins with a female comrade traveling to her husbands grave. He died in a battle with a neighboring country. She takes one rose for every year he's been gone and places them on his grave on the anniversary of his death. This time, she has nine. She muses that "perhaps, one day I will no longer be able to bear the weight of them." Something in the combination of those words, and the solemnity of the art, which is the cover of issue the second issue, brought me to tears.

Maya Antares, the widow, is part of the army herself, and participated in the battle which took her husband. In the fantastical world of The Red Star, battles are waged not just with artillery and troops, but with magic as well. (You knew there had to more to it, right?) Women in the military are trained as sorceresses who "kast" (cast) "protocols" (spells) that are part of military strategies. Troops are carried in huge, mile long "Skyfurnaces", filled with infantry which are dropped into battle as needed inside smaller pods. Within these giant ships, there is an isolation chamber for the sorceress, where she is sort of suspended, alone, and can focus all her concentration on kasting protocols.

These first few issues focus on the battle of AlIstaan and the events that lead to Marcus Antares's death and the shocking defeat of the Red Star army. The people of AlIstaan were greatly outnumbered and out gunned and the Red Star victory was assured. The giant Skyfurnaces had basically scorched the earth and just left ash and bones. For the Nistaani, this was a holy war, and dying during it was a great honor. What their deaths actually achieved was the summoning of AlIstaans near mythical protector Kar Dathra, a sorcerer so powerful that he can hurl a mile long ship from the sky and raise the bodies of his soldiers to fight again. With a simple wave of his hand, Kar Dathra crushed the Red Star troops, but left some, "to live, to tell this story of our defeat, to bear witness to his power before our people."

If the story sounds epic, then I have done my job in describing it. The writing is lush and Maya's voice is singular and distinctive. So far, other characters have only made brief appearances, but hopefully Maya's friend Alexandra Gongharova will be a regular. She's an infantry captain and was the last person to speak to Marcus on the battlefield. She's sharp and feisty and a nice contrast to Maya's seriousness and melancholy. Also, there appears to be a larger supernatural battle going on, paralleling the human conflict, involving the souls of the lost warriors.

And the art is simply gorgeous. It's a combination of computer 3-D modeling and penciling, rendered in a truly cinematic way that is full of motion and emotion. A friend complained that it was "murky", but I feel that desert battlefields filled with flame and smoke should be dark and grim. I will say that sometimes the black text is difficult to read over a dark background, but usually the contrast is fine, or the text is done in white lettering. I really liked the way that the entire book is done all in browns and reds, except for when Maya is isolated and kasting. Then her body is infused with an aquamarine light that truly stands out as magical in this "murky" world. Now that I think about it, the use of the computer graphics to render light is truly something innovative in this book. Some of the panels have a real glow and the light has a softness that just cannot be achieved by more traditional means.

I will warn anyone whose interest I may have piqued, these issues are difficult to find. I would like to thank Pete Kilmer and Stewart Tame for finding me issues I missed, and being all around nice guys. I can only assume that Image will increase the press runs as the sell-outs continue. The first four issues will be collected into a graphic novel early in 2001 so keep an eye out and enjoy. Books like this are rare and the reason I keep reading the funny books.

-- Amy Lawrence

The Red Star, published by Image Comics, is currently available at comic retailers.

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