IMAGE comics
Writer: Brian K. Vaughn
Artist: Marcos Martin
REVIEWED by: MICKEY
This title by the creator of SAGA, among a multitude of other masterworks, might have slipped under the radar of many this month as so many great titles are out and vying for your attention. BARRIER has started at a break neck pace, shooting for the beginning and end of 5 issues in May & as of the 23rd, issue 4 has hit the stands.
There is so much going on here than meets the eye. There have been attempts recently to solidify a tangible lesson, politically speaking, wrapped with a tiny bow on top of the current administration’s faults/successes depending on your affiliations to the left or right. This is one title that gets to the heart of the matter, showing the reality of those struggles of people looking for a better life and the base level of vigilantism that happens on la Frontera.
Barrier is a fitting word for the tale being told, even in the way you must hold the comic to read it…it’s printed sideways. Half the time Spanish is being spoken & the other half is in English, albeit sometimes in code that you would need some versing on military abbreviations. The whole thing is designed to draw you from that comfort zone we all have, in order to tell a tale of an actual alien invasion. Tin foil hats and m.u.f.o.n. redditor style invasion. This bizarre twist turns everything against you in the coolest of ways. It’s not often that someone with a non-slant one way or another can come off as not preachy, or being able to keep it fun. Ultimately this is a comic from a master story teller and is such a divergent from anything else out there, it must be read to fully appreciate how many levels this comic stands a head above the rest!