East of West #9

Nine: A Kingdom of Riches
written by Jonathan Hickman
art by Nick Dragotta
colors by Frank Martin

In the virtual cacophony of political powerhouses and systems of government emerging from the fallout of the Civil War and the Armistice that followed the comet, who would have expected the Kingdom of New Orleans—geographically modest, populated by only 250,000 former slaves, and the last of the seven nations to be recognized—to rise as the richest of them all?  By the accident of fortune, which bestowed a well of crude oil under the Gulf at their doorstep, and the shrewd savvy of its leaders, who fought and paid for the right to drill it up, the Kingdom of New Orleans is an oil nation, rich and powerful and courted by all others.  And so rises Crown Prince John Freeman.

If, in the company of colorfully named and fancifully titled conspirators, John Freeman's seems dull and nearly anonymous, it is reaffirmed here.  He is, as it turns out, only the first of fifteen John Freemans, the still surviving sons of a king who cannot be bothered to keep track of them.  But the Crown Prince wears his near namelessness with defiance, a man who would embrace the obscurity of anonymity but is compelled by a name that marks him as interchangeable.  He is fine to behold, a calculating and considered man as practiced at honesty as deception, and a little disquieting in his beauty.  He may be young and as finely sculpted as a statue, but in the juxtaposition of their faces as they talk politics (East of West #9: 20), he is undeniably his father's son.

But the gem of "A Kingdom of Riches" is Death's bargain with the Oracle.  Another casualty of the earlier wars, though the circumstances remain obscure, the Oracle takes great pleasure in angering Death.  It's macabre exchange, illustrated by Dragotta in chilling chiaroscuro, a nest of tentacles in a rainstorm of needles.  Death's apology to the Oracle is polite and even perhaps honest given the outcome of events, but his disdain for it, his spite, is evident in his toothy snarls, as though it left a noxious taste in his mouth.  The deal, once struck, is painful to watch: the replacement of the eyes War took from her with Death's own.  And now, he is blind.  Blind Death seeking his son.

Hickman's strategy for storytelling in East of West is slow-burning, the gradual constricting of the story from the periphery, small matches casting light in small increments of an expansive and detailed world.  It's a series that requires some patience and committed immersion, but its chapters are so rich and savory, each nugget of dialogue and panel worth relishing.

[January 2014]