Spaceman #8

"Floating Wait Less" (8 of 9)
written by Brian Azzarello
art by Eduardo Risso

Besides their genetically engineered origin, Orson and Carter share almost nothing in common.  Orson, though generally shunned because he's a Spaceman, yearns for community and recognizes the value of selflessness, or sometimes quite simply the value of people.  Carter is as self-serving as they come, quite literally amoral, willing to trade humans for a hefty bounty.  It's no wonder that Carter somewhat misunderstands Orson's arrangement with Lilly.  He sees it as the next best thing to sex, which of course he acquires for himself in all varieties.  For Orson, it's the next best thing to love.

In what is probably the most nightmarish perversion of a Kickstarter-style fund collection, Lilly's hired gun Lars has outsourced Tara's ransom to her fans.  Unfortunately for Tara, hostage situations make for compelling television, and her producers (and her "parents") are more interested in high ratings than her safety.

There are so many people in play in the kidnapping drama that it continues to be difficult to follow the plot.  Lilly, apparently within observation of Lars, intentionally overlooked Tara at the bridge in the previous issue.  The show producers continue to screw over everyone to get the most entertaining ending to the drama, including negotiating with current kidnapper Lars about the filmed "rescue" of Tara and initially unbeknownst to the police.  Her original kidnapper, the sheik, may or may not be employing Detective Wade's partner Cass to acquire Tara.  Alternately, his picture on her phone might mean she's tracked him down and is in no way in cahoots with any of the kidnappers.  Meanwhile, Carter—who is definitely hired by the sheik—doesn't kill Orson, despite stumbling on Tara's tracker with the corpses of the reality television crew and thus presumably not needing him anymore.  In return, Orson keeps Carter from killing himself on a booby trap, because, he says, he too might need Carter.  Whatever their differences, the two Spacemen seem particularly capable of working together.

The details of Azzarello's futuristic world continue to remain vague.  A few allusions in earlier issues to political turmoil and economic collapse may explain the abandonment of the Spaceman program, but the radical rise of the ocean, which explains the half-buried skyscrapers and underwater street signs must stem from some other perhaps environmental crisis.  Although one issue remains of Spaceman, I don't much anticipate these questions to be answered, nor do I find it particularly necessary.  Azzarello has postulated a world in which current dangers and close-to-home crises are each taken to their most logical extreme.  It makes the continuity of cultural distraction and the preoccupation with distant celebrity lives all the more resonant for the unfamiliarity of the city.

[September 2012]