Border Worlds!

I am a huge Don Simpson fan. Like most fans of my vintage, I fell in love with his potent storytelling in the pages of Megaton Man from Kitchen Sink. Megaton Man was a spoof of superheroes, one of many and arguably the finest and certainly the most visceral. But there was more in Simpson's quiver than superheroes and he proved that with his next project dubbed Border Worlds. 

Border Worlds debuted in issues of Megaton Man and gets a mention on two covers of the four issues in which the color series appeared. The chasm between the mockish humor of Megaton Man and the dark grimness of Border Worlds is startling, even when the pages were in color. Border Worlds was more serious of course but drew its essence from both the rugged science fiction movies of the time such as Alien and vintage film noir epics such as Casablanca. 

The first issue of Border Worlds is titled "Living in a Space Suit" and points to one of Simpson's greater themes or at least tropes for the series, to distinguish between the rugged protective exterior of a space suit and the fluid erotic lines of a woman's naked skin. That woman is Jenny Woodlore. Jenny came to the space station /city called Chrysalis when she needed to start her life over. Her brother had changed his name to Skylore (again pointing to a contrast in attitudes) and awaited her arrival to help him with his space trucking operation. Jenny finds the business in a shambles with some of her own money having been plowed into the operation. She takes control and using the single asset the team has, a space hotrod previously owned by a presumed dead outlaw named Rory Smash, she begins to try and eke out a living. 

There's a ton of intrigue and politics as this rough and tumble city balanced between two planets is a portal to even more distant reaches of space where folks hope to find a way forward. The switch to black and white (a common thing in the late 80's) is ideal for Border Worlds. It's a series which never should be presented in color, just like vintage film noir movies of decades past. There's no value in color. 

Some of the politics involves a man named Beecher, an old fellow who had designed Chrysalis fifty years previously. Jenny shares his bed and finds comfort in it, if not passion. Beecher is a genius who is bitter he's not done more. We then learn that the space platform is beginning to wobble and will sooner than later fall from its precarious orbit to be utterly destroyed. 

Meanwhile two fugitives from Earth arrive on the city and they carry an enormous secret. A brother and sister, they have information from a long-forgotten space probe that the government wants to turn into ghastly weapons. The run to protect that secret and enlist Jenny and her gang to help them find safe have. 

Meanwhile Beecher's pleas to the city's leaders fall on deaf ears, not unlike a certain Jor-El long ago on another outer space world. The hedonist Beecher is then put under pressure, as the powers assume he's trying to get powers and not save their asses. 

Jenny and her refugees are hiding inside the bowels of the city and find a culture there, a culture rife with secrets. Jenny is ever more at a loss to explain how she's come to be involved with all this stuff, but her instincts seem to say to press ahead. 

The regular series comes to an end in an unsatisfactory way, with our fugitives still on the loose and pursed. There are other characters with other secrets and motivations and a certain Rory Smash might just be as dead previously imagined. 

A one-shot tale titled Border Worlds: Marooned advances the tale and gets Jenny out of the interior of the space city, but no closer to finding anything remotely resembling satisfaction or peace. 

This collected edition from Dover Books collects all of these issues together in a handsome hardcover volume. We get another newer chapter by Simpson which moves the story forward and establishes a bit of equilibrium for the reader. This volume is labeled "Book One". We are treated to an introduction by Simpson and a typically thoughtful afterword by Stephen Bissette. Not changes are made to the series, save apparently cut out one rather graphic sex scene. Simpson was moving into more erotic work as Border Worlds was coming to an end and that's reflected in this single sequence. Will there be more Border Worlds? I don't know, but I rather doubt it. Simpson's art style has changed greatly over the years and frankly is not well suited to a noir story anymore. But we have this gem, a thoughtful bit of comic book making from a time when such things were ripening all over. 

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