Story by Michael Lent and Brian McCarthy
Art by Hyunsang Michael Cho
Set in 1864 at the titular mining camp, Brimstone kicks off when a ruthless mine-owner kills a native holy-man with his first blast of dynamite, a blast that the holy-man was attempting to prevent. The requisite creepy warning is given, and the dying native creaks out some sort of incantation with his dying breath. Skip ahead a month and the settlement is set upon by shades, flying demons that kill everyone in town. We are transported to the mining headquarters where, after receiving a final telegraph from the doomed outpost, the head of the mining company recruits a ragtag band of ne’er-do-wells to find out what’s happened to his mine.
This first issue is mostly character introductions, a point that can be forgiven since it’s the start of the series. The problem lies in that those introductions are rather boring, and the book stumbles in its attempt to make the merry band of misfits interesting. Everything about them – from design to dialogue – lumps them all into shallow stereotypes with not even the hint of depth to come. The initial encounter consists of two of the characters flinging random racial epithets at one another while everyone postures ineffectually.
It doesn’t help that the artwork is wholly sub-par. Running the scale from simply murky to downright amateurish, the book just looks bad. Every page is loaded with unnecessarily strange angles between panels that are indistinguishably muddy. The few action sequences in the book are hard to follow, and do not bode well for a book that’s setting itself up for even more.
When it comes to Weird West comics, it’s difficult not to draw comparisons to the genre’s current frontrunner, The Sixth Gun. Where The Sixth Gun succeeds with eloquent dialogue and expressive artwork, Brimstone falls far short of both marks.
