Impact Winter: Rook // Review
Baruch stands before a court in the former city of Croatia only a year after the impact. The charges against him are quite serious. He’s asked how long he’s known of the plot against the queen. The question takes him back to the coast of southwest Britannia back in 410 C.E. He was a Roman soldier. There was a woman. It’s a long story that begins to play out in the first few pages of Impact Winter: Rook. Writer Travis Beacham weaves a delicate little one-shot story with artist Andrea Milana and colorist Valentina Taddeo.
It was autumn. There was some sort of sacrificial rite that was in progress. A woman was tied to a tree amidst figures wearing ceremonial masks and robes. Baruch didn’t speak the language, so he had no idea what was going on. There was no doubt in his mind that they meant to kill the woman. He needed to do something. Theoretically, the sight of a Roman soldier should have been enough to make them back away. It wasn’t. Much blood was shed. None of it was hers. There was a warning from one of the fallen, but he couldn’t speak Baruch’s language well enough. The Roman would have to find out on his own. He would discover that her name is Fin. And he would learn much more of her in the adventure that followed.
Throughout much of the issue, it seems as though Beacham could slide off into a direction of intolerable cliche in one way or another. Is the woman a victim of some strange force that he must heroically protect her from? Is she actually some kind of evil that has been sent to tempt and ultimately destroy him? Thankfully, Beacham manages to find a path with some greater complexity to it. On a fundamental level, the story has a great amount of weight to it. There’s some level of drama flowing through the two main characters that almost feels universal. Their mutual situations seem to speak to something fairly basic about human needs and cooperation.
Milana and Taddeo keep the drama slow and somber. As competently written as it is, the inevitable romance between Baruch and Fin would probably have come across a little weak and cliched were it not for some very deft framing by Milana and some very tender mood that is granted to page and panel by Taddeo. Though it IS mostly drama, there are some really sharp moments of action, and they shoot across the page like lightning. It provides a powerful, predatory contrast to the love and romance that dominate the issue.
Beacham really could've turned this into something bigger if there had been the opportunity to do so. The long, protracted journey being taken by Baruch and Fin could have been its own series. Both romantic leads are interesting enough, and the journey they’re taking is distinct enough that there’s little question that it could have its own appeal. By issue’s end, it feels like it’s over way too soon.
