Frontiersman
Writer: Patrick Kindlon
Artist: Marco Ferrari
Publisher: Image Comics
‘Frontiersman’ is a simple story that longtime readers of superhero comics will find recognisably straightforward, excitingly clear, and immediately engaging.
‘Frontiersman’ is also intricately constructed, technically complex, thematically deep, and emotionally resonant. While these two descriptions may seem completely contradictory, they’re equally and concurrently true.
As writer Patrick Kindlon put it to ComicBook.com on the book’s announcement: "I love superhero comics, but haven't been getting what I want from them for a while. Seems like that's where a lot of us are right now. So Marco [Ferrari; artist] and I answered the call. We think comics can be fun while maintaining their gravitas, and serious without being self-serious."
It takes only a few pages for ‘Frontiersman’ to quickly convert us with a warm familiarity, drawn from its classic story type, superhero genre and character tropes, and the universally relatable theme of environmental catastrophe. But this is a book with depth; an incredibly impressive amount of thought and effort has gone into the ideas and technical creativity that underpin the plot. You’ll find yourself slowly and carefully poring over each page, taking twice as much time with each issue of ‘Frontiersman’ as you would with many other comics.
The strong setup of the story of ‘Frontiersman’ and the introduction to the titular character are a perfect example of this complementary dichotomy. To get a real image in your head: if ‘Frontiersman’ were a movie, you could imagine their casting call seeking a “young Sam Elliott / old Nick Offerman” type to fulfill the starring role.
Amongst the peace of a forest, a gruff, burly, flannel-shirted man leaps out of the shadows to smash to pieces a giant robot sent to attack him. His excessive strength and obvious skill in combat don’t align with his present-day white hair and paunched belly. As the conflict plays out, our hero is simultaneously in mundane conversation, discussing his superhero past and retirement to the quiet life. A subsequent perceived threat turns out to be a young environmental activist named Deonte, eager for the Frontiersman’s help with protecting a giant forest of redwoods from imminent logging. Deonte’s request to occupy a slapdash 180 foot high treehouse goes down like a lead balloon, but upon hearing that the man-behind-the-plan is Professor Umar - a.k.a. Professor Unicell, the Frontiersman’s old superhero team member and friend - he can’t help but be slowly captured by the idea. Whether motivated by guilt, isolation, the former glories of bygone youth, or merely a gut feeling, the first issue of ‘Frontiersman’ concludes with him suited back up and ready to fight.
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Given the Frontiersman is a completely new character, it’s genuinely impressive just how much Patrick Kindlon and Marco Ferrari manage to setup in just one issue. Many creators manage far less with popular, established characters. We’re introduced to the Frontiersman by finding out who he was, and how this contrasts who he is in the present day. We quickly get to know the character’s core traits and behaviours, with the creators deftly avoiding being bogged down in the motions of a standard superhero origin story. The Frontiersman isn’t on a completely new adventure, and he’s definitely not undertaking his first outing as a superhero. This is set to be another typical adventure, one of many in his storied career. As readers, we’re drawn in immediately by the book because it conveys right from the get-go that this is a rich world that already exists, and we’re just yet to get to know it.
What helps significantly with this is that the type of story ‘Frontiersman’ tells is a classic. People love a ‘Coming out of retirement for one last job’ tale; they’re fun, funny, they have solid stakes, and they’re often just a bit too relatable. All but the youngest of us have faced our own Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon “I’m getting too old for this shit!” moments, and we can’t help but sympathise with the challenges and choices the Frontiersman is facing. The book also serves up hints of ‘Old Man Badass’ action movies, first popularised by Liam Neeson in ‘Taken’, and now beloved by dads’ worldwide. We’re presented with the hurdles one needs to face to get back in the saddle. The motivations one needs to find to fight a battle that could be left to others to fight. The courage needed to scuffle and brawl when you don’t have six-pack abs.
And this isn’t to say that stories about older superheroes don’t exist. ‘Old Man Logan’, ‘Old Lady Harley’, ‘Old Man Hawkeye’, and Marvel's ‘Wastelanders’ podcast series all spring to mind. How ‘Frontiersman’ differs from these popular examples is that it's set in a realistic and relatable world, not a dystopia. It’s also not a potential-but-unlikely future, or set in a distant universe, or an ‘Elseworlds’ or ‘What if…?’ scenario; it’s the real deal, at least within the confines of the realm it's created.
Additionally, with established Marvel and DC characters, we have knowledge and expectations about how they will act and react in particular circumstances. Their decades of published material means that - at least to an extent - part of any new story of theirs is already told. They’re going to do what we know they’re going to do, and if they don’t the story will feel incongruous. With ‘Frontiersman’, everything is new.
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He’s been around, he’s seen some shit. He’s almost definitely experienced tragedies and failures that led him to the circumstances we find him in as the story begins. He has a daughter, but no spouse or other family - did he have a partner, and did they die or leave him in heartbreaking circumstances? He was a superhero, and now he’s a nobody, choosing to hide himself away from the world - why did he give up on glory, achievement, purpose, and duty? What finally caused him to completely withdraw from society to live a life of near-complete isolation? Uncovering the answers to these and other similar questions is a rewarding journey. They also make him immediately emotionally relatable to the audience, especially to older comic book readers. As people, we’ve all experienced tragedy and trauma, and it’s hard not to sympathise or empathise with the Frontiersman based on our own personal history. It’s often the case that the longer we live, the more difficult experiences we’ve had to endure, and the greater the buildup of emotional regret we have to carry as we move forward. ‘Frontiersman’ conveys this concept perfectly through its affecting story and characters.
Not limiting its relatability to readers’ own individual, subjective encounters, ‘Frontiersman’ builds its narrative around environmental crime and environmental justice, global struggles that are experienced by every person on earth. The current destruction of the environment of our planet is the biggest and most deadly threat that human beings face today. We’re not on the brink of an alien invasion. There are no giant monsters destroying our cities. Even the worst real world threats we face tend to hurt us as individuals or groups of people, rather than at the level of the extinction of our entire species. What each person alive faces right now, every day, looming over our heads as an ever present fear, is the intangible threat of planetary obliteration in our almost immediate future. Environmental crime is the fourth largest criminal activity in the world, and it is increasing by five to seven percent every year. We feel an overwhelming weight of helplessness as individuals, as if we’re trapped on a prison bus conducted by a suicidal bus driver hurtling through a pitch dark night towards a precipitous cliff face.
From a narrative perspective, there literally isn’t a better threat that you could have characters face. The stakes can’t be higher, and you can’t find a more relatable danger than one faced by everyone on earth, every second of the day. ‘Frontiersman’ conveys the threats and challenges of environmental destruction, and emotional reactions it causes, in a very realistic and sometimes scary manner, while skillfully managing to avoid coming off as a preachy diatribe. It uses these threats to drive occurrences in the plot, while avoiding delays in the action to shoehorn in facts and philosophies.
Far more than just a great idea for a story that audiences will relate to, ‘Frontiersman’ utilises some highly original and clever creative techniques to really make the book something genuinely special.
Marco Ferrari delivers really consistently crisp and inventive art throughout the entire book. He takes just as much care with his detailed smaller panels as with massive two page splashes. The visual contrast he employs as Frontiersman moves between the real world and the world of superheroes and villains is particularly exceptional. The art fluctuates from a realistic colour palette that’s temperate, earthier, and muted, to one that’s comparatively brighter and more eclectic, combining colours that we come across far less in the real world, like purples, oranges, golds, pinks, teals, and blacks.
The character design of the Frontiersman goes a long way to establishing just who he is, especially his highly indicative costume. We immediately associate his coonskin cap and the fringe on his leather jacket with the frontiersman of the United States, particularly Davy Crockett, the nineteenth century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. There are dozens of depictions of Crockett throughout popular culture, including films, television, theatre, books, poems, comics, and music. The 1955 Walt Disney film ‘Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier’ still lingers in modern memories, due to the resulting ‘Crockett craze’ that was wildly popular amongst school children. The film’s theme song ‘The Ballad of Davy Crockett’ was a worldwide hit, with one version topping the U.S. Billboard chart, thanks to its jaunty hook “Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier.” For a short period in early 1956, the ghost-artist of a syndicated comic strip, ‘Davy Crockett, Frontiersman’, was none other than legendary comic book artist, Jack Kirby.
Having such an incredibly popular point of reference informs readers of so much about the Frontiersman before we’ve even gotten to know him. That the height of Davy Crockett’s popularity occurred so long ago underpins the Frontiersman’s age, his relative fragility, and his status as a relic of the past. Ferrari further sells us this idea by contrasting how the Frontiersman looks in costume when he’s old compared to when he’s young: frumpy, dishevelled, and sagging, compared to tight, lithe, and muscular.
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Arguably the book’s best feature is how well it utilises ‘Show, don't tell’ storytelling, allowing readers to experience the story and its layered depth through visuals, action, and plot-driving conversation, rather than clunky exposition, narration, or character thoughts. We’re shown the majesty and solitude of the forest environment and savage instances of its destruction, setting the stage for what he’s fighting for. A redwood forest being violently logged is juxtaposed two pages later with a baby deer frolicking through its own forest home.
We’re also shown numerous battles fought by the Frontiersman as a young hero, these past glories conveying his backstory and his character. When push inevitably comes to shove, we have that basis of knowledge for what he could do in the past, building the tension for whether he still can. These flashbacks are also hugely valuable as the Frontiersman spends the majority of the book in a tree, almost like a television bottle episode. The flashbacks work hard to make the world feel much larger than its primary location, and capture the imaginations of readers. The book impressively includes other subtle establishing details throughout, like a pamphlet title that sets up both plot and dialogue, or an initial throwaway mention of the superhero team Frontiersman belonged to, which sets up his past.
The supervillains Frontiersman faces - both past and present - are well considered characters, and they look fantastic. The book could probably have gotten away with making them fairly one dimensional and slapdash, so it’s a coup that so much effort has gone into each one. Core to the story is how time has passed and changed each of the villains, and changed how Frontiersman must now interact with them. He argues combatively with one ex-villain, before providing his help and understanding. He spends time getting close to another ex-villain and ex-hero, reminiscing about their former romance and how it fell apart.
Most notable is his fight with an ex-teammate, previously a Captain America-esque hero, who has since become one of the world’s most prominent villains. Throughout his ranted diatribe on the supposed downfall of modern society, he repeatedly calls Frontiersman by his actual first name (Ethan), in an effort to connect his ideology to their previous relationship. Their fight comparatively parallels who they are, and who they were, with what America is, and what it once was. When Frontiersman opines candidly “Why can’t the bad guys ever just admit they’re bad guys?” we’re revealed his longing to view the world more easily in black and white, rather than the shades of grey we often face.
But the book’s technical and creative qualities don’t stop there. ‘Frontiersman’ has a strong relationship with the truth, whether grounding itself in our actual world with references to Barack Obama, Fox News, Joe Rogan, and Twitter, or grounding itself in the world of comic books with his past battles against supervillains that are typical of the medium and superhero genre.
An ever present sense of humour, such as characters teasing each other and generally acting silly, is enjoyable and makes for authentic dialogue. An instance of feigned senility (“Is this where I register for classes? I’m lost.”) as he’s marched out of the room by an embarrassed Professor Umar is likely to induce a giggle. His daughter’s response to whether she has ever searched the internet to learn about his past adventures (“No! That damn Playgirl shoot you did in the 80’s comes up. I don’t need to see that twice!”) is near certain to cause a genuine laugh.
The book also depicts sex with a normality and realism not often seen in comic books. Most comics eschew depictions of sex altogether, with publishers believing they need to censor their works for a younger audience. Many comics that do depict sex feature implied intercourse, hyper-sexualised and unrealistic interactions, or even sexual encounters mixed with elements of fantasy. It feels rare to see what ‘Frontiersman’ presents: two people with a romantic and physical attraction to each other engaging in sex, including the lust, emotional honesty, eroticism, intimacy, physicality, and humour which occurs. As Patrick Kindlon comments in one of his post-issue essays:
“Sex in comics is touchy, no pun intended. We somehow manage to hold two competing ideas in our minds regarding adult content. People often assume it’s low quality, but at the same time praise European masters who spent decades working in erotica. We think of sweaty middle-aged weirdos printing puerile trash on cheap paper. But we also nod to the genius artists who can’t help but list towards saucy material. Sex is something that happens in real life, and one would assume in fictional worlds as well. Some argue there’s no reason to depict it, but I’d ask what ‘need’ means here. We may not need to see characters using the toilet, for example, I think sex has substantially more narrative value.”
These post-issue essays from the author are one of the best parts of ‘Frontiersman’, providing readers with a huge amount of insight into the book and the creative process behind producing it. Kindlon manages to cover topics ranging from the current state of the comic book industry, to their motivations and creative influences for ‘Frontiersman’. We really get a sense of why Kindlon and Ferrari care about the book they have created, and this sense of care is echoed by numerous praiseful fan letters discussing how and why they’ve connected so strongly to such a new title. With their indication to continue ‘Frontiersman’ into an ongoing, long-running title, it’s beyond exciting to think of how much great material we have forthcoming.
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