Rome West

For around half of its length “Rome West” presents a fascinating alternate history of North America courtesy of co-writers Justin Giampaoli and Brian Wood, and artist Andrea Mutti.  It starts with a just likely enough to be believable development when a Roman fleet is caught in a storm and its survivors wind up landing on the isle of Manhattan circa 323 A.D. There, they manage to broker peace and trade with the natives with full assimilation occurring over the next few centuries.  What makes this story compelling is that it’s easy to see how history has changed and benefited the Native Americans, who now make up the republic of Rome West. It climaxes in a satisfying encounter with Christopher Columbus as they let him know exactly who he’s dealing with and let him enrich their culture this time around.

A few chapters after that, once the story jumps to the 1800’s, it becomes harder to see how the landing of that Roman fleet has led to the changes the story shows to us.  The stories we get become less about the world and more about the people in them. That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if they weren’t standard-issue tales about a young woman trying to find her place in the world, a cop going undercover to stop some racially-motivated killings, and a spy story about getting maglev secrets from Russia.  Giampaoli and Wood try to tie it all together in a final story that directly acknowledges the event that kicked things off, but are only partially successful. It ultimately leaves you feeling that this series, which was originally published in installments on the digital comics platform Stela, would’ve been better if it had maintained a clearer focus in its second half.  At least “Rome West” winds up being a great showcase for Mutti’s talents as he showcases the technological and architectural advances of this civilization for over 1500 years in a convincing manner.