Elena’s mission to find her son and husband comes to its finale in “Broken World” #4. Read on for our review but be warned, there are some mild spoilers within.
Written by Frank J. Barbiere
Illustrated by Christopher Peterson and Marissa Louise
Final issue! Elena reaches the secret emergency rocket location that might help her reach her family, but she’s got cult members and security on her tail.
“Broken World” #1 had one of the best endings to set up a series that I’ve seen in quite some time. The issues following that haven’t been the strongest and because of this, the series hasn’t been met with the most positive reviews. While the series has left us with a lot of questions, there’s something suitable about the chaotic feel of the series since that first issue but doesn’t leave enough unknown to us about the rest of the world.
“Broken World” #4 picks up the leader of The Children ready to kill himself under pressure partially from Elena and partially his own guilt. Elena thanks in part to Fletcher, decides to do something else entirely and it sets the entire world on a different course of action. Elena, in a a direct way, ends up being a part of how the world gets itself back together.
The worst part about “Broken World” #4 is that there is nothing else after this. It feels like the finale of an arc and not the finale of a series and that’s where it really ends up failing. There are a ton of questions but the lack of details in how the world rebuilds is not a terrible loss since it doesn’t directly involve Elena. Her goal was to get back to her son and husband, not to save the rest of the world. That was the story that pulled you in but it opened up far too much. Once other characters got involved and a war between factions was established, there became little space for Elena’s story to get the kind of attention it deserved.
Elena as a lead character started off very strong but in this issue she feels a little pushed to the side. This is again where the shift to the world’s problems becomes harmful to the series. I think a decision had to be made about where the focus would be and you can see the struggle in that decision a little bit throughout. Elena trekking through the aftermath of the world not ending on her own would have made for a great survival story. “Broken World”s problems didn’t lie in the subject or even the events, it was all the pacing and the limited space to tell the story that did it in.
Christopher Peterson’s art is very good but his best work is done with the characters. The characters are where your eyes are obviously drawn to first and Peterson does great work with expressions and movement. Each characters feels alive and Elena, who goes through so much throughout the issue, is the most expressive. Peterson jumps from anger to sadness to longing to hopefulness seamlessly and he’s never truly exaggerated. That’s the thing about a story like this; you can’t go too big because it loses the authentic, realistic feeling intended by the writer. Peterson understands this and he’s able to channel real human emotion through Elena. There’s a lot of movement in each panel, which for this issue is important since much of it is talking. Peterson nails the body language for each character. Instead of boring, flat panels where you truly end up with talking heads, Peterson adds in little things like head tilts and angles on the character models.
Marissa Louise’s colors are intriguing because they aren’t exactly what you’d expect from a story like this. She uses a lot of bright colors and it doesn’t set a truly dour tone. What’s intriguing about this is that it doesn’t necessarily match with Elena’s journey but it does fit with the bigger ideas here. Because the story takes place immediately after these people were left behind, things remain unchanged. It’s a bit more deserted but the decay you see in big budget movies hasn’t happened yet. Louise’s colors stay with that. She doesn’t try to change the world that story takes place in. The clothing is still clean and the characters are bruised and bloodied. It feels very much like nothing changed but with Peterson’s art, you get that emptiness that comes with so many people being physically gone.
“Broken World” started off strong and while pieces of it worked, it just never quite came together. It wasn’t a total disaster but it does leave you feeling a bit too empty.
Final Verdict: 6.5 – Not a mess but it doesn’t end up living up to its premise.
