Severed #1

Part One, "Nothing Wasted"
written by Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft
art by Attila Futaki

Jack Garron is an old man by the mid-1950s, unrattled by the threat Elvis's provocative hips pose to America's youth.  He's a grandfather, married to a woman who thinks he lost his right arm in the War.  World War I presumably, since World War II would have been in the still recent past.  One day he receives a gift from "an old friend" delivered by the hand of his grandson Jimmy.  It is, whatever the note may be, enough for him to relive a horror from his childhood.

At the age of twelve, Jack discovers that he's adopted after receiving a letter from his biological father—formerly a wandering minstrel, now apparently established at the Majestic Theatre in Chicago—and decides to run away with his viola to join him.  Jack is, above all, vulnerable, and Snyder and Tuft make his vulnerability threateningly immediate.  He is ill-prepared for life away from home in a world rife with people willing to use and discard a young boy.  As a stowaway, he is robbed of his instrument and his resources and then thrown from the train by security, though he is rescued by a band of hobos riding between the cars.  Even they, after saving his life, seem potentially dangerous, though they show him some courtesy.

But, the real nightmare is Mr. Porter.  He seems ordinary enough, dressed in a plain suit and working for General Electric.  By offering an apprenticeship, he obtains Frederick from a boys' home in Illinois, circumstances that would not raise suspicion if he were never seen there again.  Mr. Porter is a predator of the weak, quite literally.  Though Frederick, no doubt, thinks it metaphorical, Porter insists that it is not:  "Behind these pearly whites, I got razor sharp teeth.  I'm serious, Freddy.  These babies are all show.  Underneath...my real ones are sharp as knives.  But sales is all about appearances and it's hard to sell anything if you look like a shark" (Severed #1, p. 12).  And, as it turns out, Jack's fellow hobo is right, "Out here, nothing gets wasted.  Everything gets eaten" (p. 24).