By Lisa Fary
The premise of Aces: Curse of the Red Baron is the stuff of swashbuckling adventure serials. During World War I, two soldiers spar over which of them shot down the infamous Red Baron. Among the wreckage, the two find a map, assume it leads to a treasure island, and abandon their posts in search of it. From there it’s double crossing, close calls, and brawls until the end.
Aces: Curse of the Red Baron feels more cinematic than comic book-y, and that’s its greatest weakness. Bi-plane battles over the open ocean feel cramped when they’re stuck on a static page. That static page just doesn’t capture the drama and excitement of that sort of scene. That’s the general feeling I got from Aces – it didn’t capture the drama and excitement that this adventure story should have naturally and comes off more as film storyboard than its own entity.
I couldn’t help but mentally cast Aces: Curse of the Red Baron as I was reading. RAF pilot Heath Bennett would be played by the guy who played Owen Harper on Torchwood. The American soldier, Frank Grayson, would be played by Brendan Frasier (but, we’d have to go back in time and snatch a younger Frasier from the set of Encino Man or George of the Jungle or something – he’s too old to play a private now, plus, I’m sure Frasier would like to erase those roles). For Wolf 1, I can see Torchwood’s Gwen Cooper (gee, you think I miss Torchwood a little bit?).
Can we all agree that I dig sci-fi? I really do. I did not, however, dig the sci-fi twist ending of Aces (and not because the island reminded me of Lost, which I hate). It seemed to come out of nowhere, without any indication that this was even possible in the Aces-verse. A ghost, which was mentioned numerous times, I could have believed. But in the context of this particular story, the sci-fi aspect just doesn’t hold water.
John, on the other hand, really liked Aces. I’ll have to find out why and post an addendum.
Aces: Curse of the Red Baron is written by Shannon Eric Denton and G. Willow Wilson and illustrated by Curtis Square-Briggs. It is published by AIT/ Planet Lar.
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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.
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Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
