Spaceman #2

"Chapter Two:  Missing Control" (2 of 9)
written by Brian Azzarello
art by Eduardo Risso

Orson may get badgered by the local kids for having the mental abilities of a child, but he certainly shows some swift thinking and a facility for deceit in his negotiations with Tara's kidnapper.  He feigns interest in his plan, lies about the strength of his "numb," and incapacitates him long enough to make an escape even if already being chased by another band of pirates drawn by the explosion.  If Spaceman #1 was about Orson's bravery—his willingness to rescue survivors of a boat fire at sea in hostile waters and his volunteering to brave the storm to save the Mars greenhouse—, then Spaceman #2 is about his keenness under pressure--his deception of the kidnapper and his quick-witted removal of his oxygen tank prior to the greenhouse explosion.

Although it still appears to be a fantasy world, i.e., Orson's imagining about the Mars mission he was engineered for, his exploits as a NASA astronaut are not as easily dismissed here as they were in #1.  Like the kidnapping plot, the trouble with the Mars greenhouse continues from the earlier issue.  Orson is not imagining independent adventures; he's imagining an entirely different plot, one that uses head trauma to connect with his current situation.  Either Orson is integrating or something more elaborate is going on here.

We also get, for the first time, a glimpse at Orson's past as a living genetic experiment caught in the throes of a culture war that simultaneously made him an outcast and a celebrity.  Their existence revealed at the edge of economic collapse and looming military threat from the Middle and Far East, Orson and his fellows get shuffled off into orphanages and forgotten with a tidy little news story.  It's precisely his tumultuous childhood that allows him to relate to the young kidnapped Tara, stolen as bounty for a pedophilic sheik after winning her celebrity adoption through a reality competition show.  It's not a relationship that demands investment yet, and the thematic strength of future issues will depend on whether or not Azzarello can credibly further their friendship.

[January 2012]