Rail: Broken Things

(Image, 2001)
™ and © Image Comics, Inc.

This long (long, long) awaited, much anticipated one-shot by Dave Dorman unfortunately disappoints. Naturally, the art is stunning, but it reads like a not particularly well-translated graphic novel, down to the thin and weedy lettering, which threatens to be swallowed by the backgrounds.

The elements of a good story are all here; they just never seem to gel. The archetypal hero Edgar Wallace comes off as more than a little dull, and, while there are interesting characters like pulp gunfighter The Iguana and technocrat robber baron Mister Grin, the reader never gets inside them. The steam punk by way of Mad Max makeover of the Arthurian legend has real possibilities; ultimately, it’s a quest that meanders when it should cut to the chase. And for a comic book that promises huge, technologically advanced trains on the cover, we never get inside one.

— S.A. Bennett

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Notes

Writer

Artist

#1

November, 2001
Cover Price: $5.95
2 copies available from $1.75

Dave Dorman, Del Stone Jr.

Dave Dorman, Christopher Moeller, Scott Hampton