Breaklands Vol 1 Review
Writer: Justin Jordan
Artist: Tyasseta
Colorist: Sarah Stern
Letterer: Rachel Deering
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Price: $19.99
Release Date: September 2, 2025
Kasa Fein's mother left a while ago. While she awaits her return, Kasa tries to protect her brother. But Adam is bored with their isolated existence. Neither sibling knows much about the world beyond their home in the cliffs. But before she left, their mother warned them that it was dangerous.
While Kasa hunts for food and does most of the household chores, Adam plays. Despite her urging, Kasa cannot restrain her younger brother from levitating her and flying among the hoodoos. Is the world as menacing as their mother believed? And what will happen when strangers discover the brother and sister? Let’s leap into Breaklands Vol 1 and see!
Story
One morning, Kasa criticizes her brother for levitating her without her permission. Adam flies off in a huff. While she hunts for their supper, Kasa hears him cry out. She races to her brother. But what aid she can render comes too late. And in this world where everyone but Kasa has a gift, she cannot protect him.
In Breaklands Vol 1, a stranger observes Kasa’s fight with Nitro Eddie and his Rumblers. Gargarin suspects the salvage gang found someone of immense value. Once, the world was much different. Then the Shapers tore it down and rebuilt it into its present form. Gargarin suspects that Adam is a Shaper. And he fears who Eddie and his gang will sell Adam to.
Justin Jordan enlivens this high-stakes story with snappy dialogue and dry humor. Once Adam leaves the hoodoos surrounding his home, others sense his abilities. As Gargarin and Kasa pursue Eddie and the Rumblers, others set off to intercept the boy with the power to reshape their world. As the fast-paced plot alternates between Kasa, Eddie, and those who want to control the powerful Shaper, Kasa discovers why, in a world where everyone has a gift, she may be the most special person of all.
Art
Tyasseta opens Breaklands Vol 1 in the future by introducing a ruler of this strange world. Incredibly muscled, Rask dons red and maroon armor over his white skin. While giant sculpted faces protrude from metal and stone buildings, he leaps hundreds of feet to greet his followers waiting in the street.
Along with those clad in maroon robes, Shattersword awaits Rask dressed in white and blue. Her long sword, composed of gleaming pink shards, acts like a whip when she wields it. Toy, with her pink mohawk and red skirt, can summon fire. Kneeling on the desert sand, blue hair falls upon Ruth's dark, muscular shoulders. The warrior, who often works as a security guard, can recover from any injury. But with faces adorning his chest and knees, Rask dominates everyone's attention. The ruler strips away a follower’s flesh with his hands, rips the limbs and ribs away, and raises the skull, spine, and pelvic girdle like a staff.
Then, Breaklands Vol 1 steps back in time to see how Adam and Kasa live before their period of isolation ends. Sarah Stern adorns the desert scenery and characters with a loaded palette of bright colors as Kasa sets off with her bow, arrows, sword, and throwing knives. Eddie's crew kicks up plumes of beige dust as their wheeled and nonwheeled vehicles cast maroon shadows over the coral and yellow hardpan. When their leader cocks his hand like a gun, a yellow and orange cloud bursts among the red hoodoos.
Rachel Deering fills white dialogue balloons and colored narrative boxes with black uppercase words. Rask speaks white letters into black balloons. After the opening scene, the letters increase in size. A rumble fills the air as the salvage gang approaches. Sniff, just one of many characters with transformed features, utters a bold “Snif” as his elephant trunk detects a Shaper. Thanks to Mad Cave Studios and Superfan Promotions for providing a review copy.
Final Thoughts
In a drastically changed future, people wield incredible abilities. While some people resemble animals, some of the animals they hunt have grown to enormous proportions. In this dog-eat-dog world, everyone is more than they seem. And while a boy's abilities could reshape the world, his sister could prove even more valuable in Breaklands Vol 1.
Rating 9/10
To look inside see my preview of Breaklands Vol 1.
