East of West #4

Four:  Last Days of Dead Men
written by Jonathan Hickman
art by Nick Dragotta
colors by Frank Martin

Romance, yes.  Love, often enough.  But sexual heat is difficult for comics to do well.  Xiaolian and Death's single-panel kiss, though, is surprisingly carnal, particularly given the clean, sleek style Dragotta has cultivated for the series.  If their passion were too abstracted before, too soullessly epic, Dragotta changes that in a moment.

East of West #4 may be the story of the liberation of Xiaolian and the conquest of New Shanghai—to be sure, it is a spectacular battle—but "Last Days of Dead Men" is more a portrait of Xiaolian herself than the rescue of a damsel.  She is fierce and unforgiving to her blood-thirsty sister and her tyrannical father, those responsible for her near death and capture as well as for their own part in the apocalypse, but despite her love for Death, she would save her people and mourn the execution of her betrayers even at her own hands.  The main figures in Hickman's apocalyptic tale are compelling to a man but not particularly human in any relatable way, in part no doubt because several of them aren't actually human.  But Xiaolian is the first to break this pattern, though she remains dangerous and mysterious.

Meanwhile, Hickman and Dragotta deliver one of the finest battle sequences I've yet seen in comics.  Armed only with his robotic horse's firepower, and accompanied only by his fellows Wolf and Crow, Death assaults New Shanghai with a single-minded resolve.  Why Premier Mao and his daughter Hu believed they might withstand an attack by Death himself is still unclear, but as Xiaolian points out to him, his humiliation is deserved for much that reason.  As hinted in previous issues, Wolf and Crow both live up to their names, transforming into armies of the respective animals, tearing the heavily armored but human troops apart.  Both Dragotta's stellar artwork and the panel organization and layout create a forcefully kinetic story, one with cinematic flourishes, pauses and crescendo worthy of Hickman's epic tone and style.

[July 2013]

The Dream Merchant #2

written by Nathan Edmondson
art by Konstantin Novosadov

The telling may be elegant and the ideas clever, but The Dream Merchant #2 is little more than exposition.  Having stolen a little distance from the alien Regulators pursuing Winslow, the Merchant of Dreams takes most of the issue to explain Winslow's dreams and begin his training.  On the other hand, the introduction of an FBI agent looking into events at the psychiatric hospital and the possible kidnapping of Winslow and Anne brings an unexpected and unexpectedly refreshing investigative angle to Edmondson's surreal dream tale. 

Some of The Dream Merchant's best storytelling is visual.  The disappearance of the Regulators with the coming dawn—a single-page, three-panel sequence on p. 10—is evocatively eerie.  The blossoming friendship between Winslow and fellow fugitive Anne is easily visible in their body language even as their social awkwardness makes it difficult for them to click in conversation.  Sleeping quietly on his shoulder in the truck speaks more for Anne than any of her gentle pleading for Winslow to embrace his unique situation.

Though its dream mythology is engaging and beautiful, its colonization metaphor is not.  A foreign race, who in Earth's earlier times traded peaceably with humans, now seeks to return only to take forcibly their resources and annihilate the species.  It's neither difficult to believe nor without numerous historical precedents in human history, but in the context of a dream saga, it comes across far heavier-handed than it should.