East of West #2

Two:  Above All, Few Are Chosen
written by Jonathan Hickman
art by Nick Dragotta
colors by Frank Martin

In the wake of Death's assassination of the President, a new one must be sworn in at the White Tower, capital center of the Union and Hickman's futuristic, alternate-world White House.  Unfortunately for the politicians in the order of succession, the newly resurrected horsemen of the apocalypse—Famine, War, and Conquest—have come to personally select the most suitable replacement for the former President.  Looking for a believer in The Message, someone with more faith than politics, they decide on Secretary of the Interior, Antonia LeVay, a statuesque if  severe and skeletal woman with long, streaked hair.  Her first task is to meet with her predecessor's fellow apocalyptic conspirators, presumably those on Death's hit list provided by the Hunter, at Armistice, the wasteland at the heart of the continent and neutral territory for the surrounding nations' representatives.  Her meeting also provides the reader with a swift introduction to East of West's primary players in the apocalypse and political leaders of the Seven Nations of America:  (1) Ezra Orion, Premiere of Armistice and Keeper of The Message; (2) Hu, House of Mao, Security Minister of the People's Republic, the large territory west of the Rockies and presumably descendant of the final prophet of The Message, Mao Zedong; (3) Cheveyo of the Endless Nation, the plains nation of Native American tribes originally coalesced under Red Cloud; (4) Andrew Archibald Chamberlain, Chief of Staff at the Black Towers of the Confederacy, most of the American South east of Mississippi, identically coiffed if not related to prophet Elijah Longstreet; (5) John Freeman, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of New Orleans; and (6) Bel Solomon, Governor of the Republic of Texas.

Unlike the opening chapter, whose storytelling sequence is exquisite if chronologically and geographically dizzying, the structure of East of West #2 is surprisingly linear.  Hickman seems to have settled himself into a sustainable mode, one dense with characters but one that clarifies the main narrative thread.  East of West is fundamentally a vendetta western with apocalyptic stakes.  Despite its considerable ambition, the series already shows focus and nuance, qualities that promise to keep it from spiraling into an unsustainable narrative mess.

Though his siblings show little complexity—not unexpected for "characters" defined as personifications—Death is gratifyingly sophisticated.  Crow may simplify him—"You cannot ask fire not to burn, brother...and Death is an Inferno" (East of West #2, p. 12)—but he shows wit, intelligence, foresight, and occasionally restraint.  And, we discover in the final pages, the ability to love and to seek vengeance on account of it.  His conversation with Chamberlain, second on his hit list, further hints at Death's mysterious past.  If Death's appearance on earth before his siblings were already puzzling, his attachment to the world, which Chamberlain alludes to—"Just as you did" (East of West #2, p. 22)—certainly is.  Their tenuous alliance, if Death chooses to accept it, would itself test Death's patience and facility to deal.

Once again, Dragotta and Martin provide exceptional artwork.  Where East of West #1 executed eerie and beautiful spacescapes and carnage, #2 delivers sleek and elegant futuristic cityscapes.  Full-page illustrations of the White Tower and the Black Towers, as well as the half-page depiction of the desolate monument in the Armistice, built in the comet's crater, are other-worldly and yet provide a credibility to Hickman's re-imagined America.  Ironically, given the Golden Bridge's location in the so-called Burning Plain, it's the most naturally beautiful landscape offered in East of West.  Bison still graze in the lush grassland, and the night sky is a vivid shade of azure blue.  Compared to the dense, urban cities surrounding the Towers, it seems a no man's land, one suitable to Death and his companions and their western-styled vendetta.

[April 2013]