LEAD CITY #1 – Review

LEAD CITY #1, from Red 5 Comics on March 30th, 2022, begins an unusual tale of the Old West when a pioneer traveling on the plains with his family happens across a town that holds an unusual contest every year.

The Details

• Written By: Eric Borden
• Art By: Kyle Brummond
• Colors By: Kyle Brummond
• Letters By: Kyle Brummond
• Cover Art By: Kyle Brummond
• Cover Price: $3.95
• Release Date: March 30, 2022

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Was It Good?

I’m not sure what to make of LEAD CITY #1, but I like it.

The premise centers on a pioneer family making their way West when disaster forces them to make an unplanned stop. Borden makes excellent use of growing unease in the script to make the reader feel like something more terrible than the setbacks the family has already encountered is looming. Tension builds and unease grows until you’re nearly convinced this is a horror story. However, the story is… something else, and once the mystery is partially revealed, the plot reads more like a fantasy story out of Amazing Stories or The Twilight Zone. It’s not magic fantasy, but a form of surreal fantasy you don’t see much these days. That realization alone is worth the cover price.

If you want to know specifics, keep reading through to the next section.

The Cooper family, in truth, isn’t anything particularly special. On the contrary, the Cooper family is as average and unremarkable as you can get. When lack of resources put the patriarch, Colman Cooper, in a tight corner, he rises to the occasion. Borden infuses Cooper with a wholesome steadfastness that instantly projects an air of decency and respectability. You can relate to a husband and father wanting to protect his family, and before the “contest” begins, you can’t help but immediately be on his side because Borden took the necessary step of building out tons of emotional motivation. You can “get” the character and that makes it easy to invest in what happens to him.

Brummond’s art is excellent here. The hatching work is used to form shadows and shading that gives the art an antiquated feel that you couldn’t achieve with flat blacks or color shading. The characters’ body movements are dynamic, the faces are expressive, and the designs for the contestants are instantly memorable.

Keep scrolling for a closer look at the covers, or Click Here to jump right to the story description with some spoilers.

What’s It About?

[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]

We begin with an opening sequence introducing readers to Colman Cooper, his wife, and his son. They’ve loaded up a wagon to leave their Eastern home toward a new home out West. As the journey progresses, they’re beset with setbacks and losses due to weather and illness.

When the family enters Nevada, the family is stopped by a blizzard and forced to wait for days until the storm passes. During the wait, Mrs. Cooper comes down with a deadly fever. Colman Cooper is forced to leave his family behind to seek out a doctor in two nearby towns built strangely close to each other. When Colman enters the first town, Lead City, he finds it almost entirely abandoned with bullet casings everywhere.

Suddenly, Colman sees a man loading a large cache of weapons onto a cart, and he plucks up the courage to ask for help. The man directs Colman to the second town of Duganville for aid and warns him not to return to Lead City unless he’s heavily armed. Colman finds Duganville has everything his family needs… for a hefty price.

We conclude the issue with hard choices, deadly opportunities, and a risky decision.

Keep scrolling for a closer look at preview images of the internal pages, or Click Here to jump right to the score.

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