4 out of 5

Stuart Jennett’s purposefully pulpy pitch of Nazis and dinosaurs and time travel hits the genre notes of pseudo-science, cigar chompin’ sergeants, ‘Ve haff vays uf making ju talk” accents and blood-slingin’ ultra gore, but despite all that, there’s a core of fun and love to the approach that gives it a nice dose of restraint, making the characters and story surprisingly well-rounded.

My description covers the gist: it’s WW II and Einstein is helping us with time travel technology while the Germans run their own program… of course seeding ours with spies to keep in pace.  The war over time seems self-perpetuating, one team chasing another to make sure no damage is done.  In issue one, Sarge returns from one Nazi past-hunt (in one of the series many interesting foot notes, the German targets are a film crew casting dinos as the backdrop to the latest Nazi effort at glamorizing their position in the war) sans crew, only to find that someone on our side has revealed his true nature and absconded with a time core… back into the past.  So we gather some stragglers and jump back into the fray.  While the problems aren’t so unexpected – giant crocodiles and T-Rexes in the past, more double agents causing trouble in the ‘present’ – Jennett doesn’t take the easy way out of gunfire or off-panel antics – every character, though perhaps the general tropes of the bull-headed warrior or the scaredy cat scientist – gets to play a part in the proceedings, with the art and colors giving each page a very energetic flow and warm glow.

The paradoxes stack up and get a little confounding, so a reread will be warranted, but it also makes each issue important to grasping the flow of things which is nice.  It would’ve been the norm to just toss us in the past and then leave all the details for a concluding issue.  Instead, the plot points doled out as such gives the final showdown proper warmup space.  I have to hand it to Jennett regarding the framing and coloring: though the computer colors get boxy and pixelated when it seems he was blending in a hurry, its hard to make this painted style look like it has motion, but the frenetic panel borders and understanding of guiding the eye – as well as Stuart having a good sense of which ‘moment’ in an action to capture for mass effect – make this book a joy to read and the action really easy to understand, something that even the most seasoned artists often struggle with from time to time.  Besides the blending effect, the colors are also a unique hue; alternating colors to set a pace isn’t a new trick, but getting the right balance so that its not too jarring is tough.  There’s a particular red/blue scene between Einstein and the Sarge that really had the intended effect upon me of building intensity during a countdown.  It’s just a nice touch, and it’s been a while since I’ve had that fun sense of anticipation when turning the page.

Andrew James make an interesting decision with the lettering, choosing not to outline most of the word bubbles (or panels, on whomever that decision fell) unless they’re against a white background.  At first I found this odd looking, but then I started to appreciate how organic that made the speech ‘feel’ against the computer painting, letting the layers find their own borders instead of forcing the separation.  This wouldn’t work with a more traditional art style, but it was a good match for CC’s particular look.

I’ll admit I went into this book expecting good things (after reading the Titan Comics preview), but I was glad to have that confirmed over the whole run.  Titan is another high caliber indie publisher – joining Boom!, Archaia, and several others – and I hope they get the support they need to keep the quality of material and look this high.