Age of Bronze #26

by Eric Shanower, Image Comics

Age of Bronze, which retells the story of the Trojan War from start to finish, is shaping up to be one of the two or three best comics of the decade, but it’s also a recurring warning of one of the weaknesses of the comic book “pamphlet” form. In this issue, the penultimate installment of the “Betrayal” story arc, the Achaean envoys to Troy seek a peaceful settlement, get rebuffed, and slip away from Troy with an angry mob at their heels, after a Trojan woman secretly seduces one of the envoys.

This slight story is beautifully told, illustrated in Shanower’s richly-textured clean line, with some variety in style used to indicate flashbacks or, in one surprisingly artful case, a sex scene. The backgrounds are lush, the characters expressive, and the story itself, detailing the conflicting motives of representatives of both sides of the struggle, fascinating. It also may be wholly incomprehensible to any first-time reader who chooses to start with the issue.

Like many comics nowadays, Age of Bronze has none of the trappings that differentiate one issue from another: there’s no splash page at the beginning, no title of the story, no wrap up with a caption reading “end” or “to be continued.” When the issues are collected into the inevitable trade, the story will flow seamlessly, and no one will be able to tell where one issue ended and the next began (a technique pioneered by Dave Sim in Cerebus). Nevertheless, Shanower has gone to some pains to give this issue a satisfying story arc, starting it with the Achaeans parading away from Priam’s council and ending it with their parallel but rather less dignified departure from Troy. In between, Menelaus’ story of his love for Helen is told in counterpoint to Laodike’s somewhat less ethereal love for Akamas. Presumably the collected Betrayal will have its own structure for this episode to fit into, but it’s good to read a comic that makes an effort to work as a unit.

What I question, though, is how effective this effort is. Age of Bronze #26 has its own structure, sure, but is that structure visible to anyone who has not read the previous twenty-five issues? Will a new reader even know who any of these characters are?

Eric Shanower has intimated that he may stop publishing the issues of Age of Bronze altogether, and focus on graphic novels. There are many things I’d miss if this happens–Shanower’s covers are consistently beautiful, his letters page is much more prone to content than the industry average, and, best of all, every issue is prefaced by an apposite quotation culled from what must be Shanower’s encyclopedic library of ancient texts. Quotation, I’ll miss you most of all. It will also be sad to go for two or three years (at least) between publication dates, as I can only assume Shanower’s careful pace isn’t going to speed up miraculously. But, really, I can’t see why anyone but me and a handful of comic fans would want to read this story in serialization. In fact, I don’t think anyone else does.