East of West #5

Five:  The Message
written by Jonathan Hickman
art by Nick Dragotta
colors by Frank Martin

How do you write an abstraction as a character and still keep it an abstraction?  I have no idea, but Hickman seems to have cracked that nut.  For the first four issues of East of West, Death was largely himself, for lack of a better word.  Sure, he exhibited several behaviors that would seem to violate his essential nature, but little was known about his motivations and even less was seen.  His companions—Wolf and Crow, witches it would seem—the same, and his siblings even more so, if possible.

In "The Message" Death is, if anything, human.  He appears sitting alone, under guard, and more than anything, defeated.  Strange, considering his overwhelming victory against Mao and the forces of New Shanghai in the previous issue.  His quest is, it seems, his penance as well as his revenge, his relentless attempt to make things right.  He is also a lover and a husband, and a convincing one.

Xiaolian's seduction of the horseman is equally mythic and human.  Xiaolian—beautiful, but steely and Spartan in earlier issues—is here both fierce and hurt, unyielding in her censure of Death and vulnerable as a lover and a mother.  And she is captivating.  At war during the first raising of the Four Horsemen and confronted by Death on the battlefield, she spares an enemy combatant not to grant mercy but to defy Death, an action both in keeping with abstract death and one worthy of romantic notice and flirtation.

East of West has excelled early, but "The Message" coalesces the very best that it has going.  This is not to say that the explanations are comprehensive, because they're not at all, though East of West #5 has several notable revelations, but it shows exactly why these explanations are worth waiting and working for.  Five issues into the series and Hickman's vision for his story seems complete.  Details are many and meaningful.  Bel Solomon, for instance, Governor of the Republic of Texas and last seen in #2 by my recollection, arrives in this issue fully formed, a man of independent thought and motivation, considered and regretful.  We may have met him before, but we did not know him.  And, it turns out, I very much like him.  It seems we have just barely seen the tip of Hickman's iceberg, and by all accounts, this one's going to be worth the ride.

East of West is also, bar none, the single most beautiful series on the shelves right now.  Dragotta's realization of Hickman's vision is so compelling and evocative that it would likely be worth the cover price just for his contributions.  I continue to be impressed especially by his depiction of Death and Xiaolian's physical affection before he was first supposed to die, before he turned white.  The four-panel series on p. 13 could tell their story without the series' strange and, I believe, unknown narrator.  His full-page images of their son, the Chalice, on p.18 and the final of Death riding off into a particularly violent sunset demonstrate just how adept Dragotta is with both the series' futuristic and old-style western aesthetics, and their marriage in East of West is immaculate.

[August 2013]