It is nine years after the Battle of Kar Dathra's Gate, the climactic battle in the United Republics of the Red Star's invasion of Al'istaan. Maya Antares, a sorceress and military veteran, visits the grave of her husband Marcus, who died in the battle. In a tram car over the seemingly endless cemetery, she meets a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, and recounts the apparent victory of the URRS forces and their sudden reversal of fortune. Separated from the rest of the army, mortally wounded, Marcus encounters Troika, a monstrous armor-clad spirit, an apparent embodiment of the military nature of the people of the Red Star who wanders the battlefield and collects the souls of the fallen soldiers. Marcus, however, is a unique individual, and there are other forces that will not allow Troika to take his soul without a fight. As Marcus passes out, he sees this battle joined.

(Full disclosure: I love, love, love The Red Star, a science fiction/sorcery drama set in an analogue to the former Soviet Union, and as a result I've written about it frequently at my own site. Battle of Kar Dathra's Gate reprints part of an interview that originally appeared on This Is Not News. Assume that this review is discussing everything except pages 138-139, which it goes without saying are sheer genius.)

This is such an ambitious project in so many ways, and its creators have such passion for it, that I can't help but be swept up in it. This oversized trade paperback collects the first four issues of the comic series, the story of the Battle of Kar Dathra's Gate. To give you a sense of the scale here: this book is the climactic battle in the allegorical equivalent of the invasion of Afghanistan, and it's just the prologue to the larger story. As such, it leaves many questions unanswered and ends with a setup for the next major arc; at the same time, there is a complete story told within this book, and a fine story it is.

One of the book's strengths is its balance between huge spectacle and character-based drama; plot and characterization complement rather than compete with each other. The six years of research into Russian history that Gossett did to prepare for this project also shines through, in that the URRS feels like a real place; the depth of the backstory and setting is one reason I tend to think of The Red Star as the Babylon 5 of comics. Gossett and Kayl have a fairly economical storytelling style; they manage to tell us what this society is like and how its people think in a relatively short period of time. The fatal hubris of the URRS, for example, is made vividly clear - even as they embrace magic, they try to deny its mystical nature by calling spells protocols, and they dismiss the threat of opposing magic as mere religious superstition. At the same time, Maya's letter to her fallen husband gives us a glimpse of the personal losses that make up the horrors of war, and as she kisses the letter and places it in the bouquet, we see the romance and love that have not yet been totally conquered by cynicism and despair.

The visual element of the storytelling is equally strong, in both the quiet character moments and the spectacular action sequences. The Red Star utilizes a combination of traditional pencil art and computer-generated 3D models which are then composited and colored in Photoshop. Gossett uses large panels and two page spreads to open up the story and convey the scale of the ships and armies; when appropriate, he will let a single event spread over several panels, which almost creates a slow-motion effect. This is a case where words truly can not convey how beautiful these pages are - and this collected edition showcases the art in a special oversized format, which is a real treat.

The collected edition also features interviews with the creative team (which is where the aforementioned Not News article appears) and an extremely well-designed sketchbook section, which is really more of a behind-the-scenes production art showcase. We get a glimpse of the character design process, page layout and composition, and the blending of Gossett's pencil art with Coulter's 3D models. The book designers did a tremendous job here, packing the pages with sketches, drawings, storyboards, finished art, captions and other elements without overcrowding any of them. Finally, the book contains a number of "online story portals" - URLs that link to Flash animations that provide background information on the events and characters depicted in the story. It is a very impressive package for a very impressive work.

Reviewed by Dave Thomer
theLogBook.com assistant editor

• Year: 2001
• Author: Christian Gossett and Bradley Kayl
• Pencil Art: Christian Gossett
• 3D Art: A.D. Coulter
• Color and Composites: Snakebite
• 3D Models: Jon Moberly
• Trade Paperback Design: Creative Visions
• Genre: comics / fiction
• Length: 144 pages
• Publisher: Image Comics