Brittania #1 Review: Great Settings Don’t Mean Great Stories

Brittania takes Valiant comics to an original setting for a detective story without any real detecting. It’s not very good. Can the series pull up after an initial stumble?

Brittania #1
Written by Peter Milligan
Art by Juan Jose Ryp and Jordie Bellaire
Published by Valiant Entertainment

Brittania continues Valiant’s new Prestige format with an original story about a detective in Nero’s Roman Empire. Unfortunately, the display of obvious creativity never settles into an interesting narrative.

For women of this era, the only path to power is to join the Vestal Virgins. The Chief Vestal tasks Centurion Antonius Axia to rescue a kidnapped initiate, a mission that exposes him to mind-breaking hallucinogens and horrific psychological trauma. Six years later, Nero sends Axia and his British slave, Bran, to Brittania to check out rumors of monsters.

This book has a lot of promise. The setting is original, a few centuries earlier than even X-O Manowar’s backstory. Artist Juan Jose Ryp spun intricate details into the ghouls of Ninjak’s trip to the Deadside. Jordie Bellaire is the most honored colorist working in comics today. Peter Milligan is an industry veteran with particular strength in fringe work like this.

So what’s wrong with this?

The book isn’t coming together yet. The plot so far is pretty boring, and the only detective work we see this detective doing is to bust into a man’s room and ask him about his partner’s disappearance. Which leads to a full confession in the fourth panel following. He’s no Sherlock, and Bran’s no Watson. The action relies heavily on hints of nudity and gore, which may be a nod to Rome’s hedonic reputation but feels more like a direct-to-video exploitation of a Ben Hur knockoff. The monsters and madness of the book reach for Sandman explorations of the human psyche, but they come across as muddy campfire stories. Don’t get me started on the scene where the Vestal Virgins let Axia have sex with the virgin he rescued because “special circumstances.”

On page 7, the Chief Vestal says, “I’d rather Nero not know we were so careless as to lose one of our own.” But by page 12, she’s telling Nero, “I begged him to go to Etruscan. Those cultists had snatched one of my girls.” I hope this is setting her up as a clever strategist pitting the men in the story against each other; I fear this is just inconsistent characterization for a woman who needs “Mysterious” as a personality definition. She may still turn out to have an interesting secret, but she doesn’t feel textured yet.

And near the end of the book, Axia asks the Chief, “What did she mean” by “beware,” indicating a girl. And she had only said, “I must speak to you before your journey.” On the same page. In adjacent panels. This page had to go through a writer, a letterer, and an editor, and no one thought to match up the word balloons?

Also, this Prestige format brought world-changing books like Divinity to Valiant’s publications, and comparisons to the intelligent, emotional challenges of that series do not favor Brittania.

The Bottom Line 

Brittania could still become the original, thoughtful work Valiant wants it to be. But this issue isn’t a good start.