By: Jeff Lemire (creator), Jose Villarrubia (colorist)
The Story: Somebody tell me this isn’t death and I’m just trippin’.
The Review: One of the most inadequately written scenes in Flashpoint: The World of Flashpoint #3 involves Traci 13, spear in her gut, internally commenting, “So this is what dying is like.” The line is effectively sterile, since she never tells us what part of death she’s experiencing. Not that you can really blame writer Rex Ogle for avoiding the description; as a state of being few of us come back from, death can be rather difficult to write, to say the least.
So rather than talk about it with words, Lemire shows us death through Gus, who in the throes of his draining life journeys through an eerie, very primal landscape, filled with the corpses of his fellow Hybrids. An animated, skeletal stag serves as a guide, and his few words are thought, not spoken, commanding Gus to see certain things, yet never enlightening him on what he sees. It all feels like an Aborigine dream vision, in keeping with the title’s naturalistic spiritualism.
A lot of the imagery involves macabre scenes featuring Hybrids in the most wretched, tragic aftermaths of death, perhaps emphasizing the futility of living as one. The scenes also suggest that Hybrids, despite being the offspring of humans and possessing human features, are still separate from humanity, as Gus sees a hanging grounds filled only with Hybrid remains, swaying from the treetops. These are clearly visions intended to pain Gus exclusively.
Maybe even more painful than bearing witness to the morbid fates that faces his kind, Gus is led by the skeleton-stag to see how the doom of Hybrids also spells doom for the people surrounding them. That the scene takes place in an Arctic tundra setting with igloos and Eskimos also makes a connection to Alaska, the destination Gus and Jepperd have been striving for. Though the grim scene may foreshadow what waits for them should they finally make it there, it may also be Gus’ own subconscious anxieties come to life in his unconscious state.
Even as all these discouraging sights seem to persuade Gus to will himself into the maw of death, he remains unaware of the people pleading with him to return to the world of the living. Seeing Jepperd so especially distraught and openly vulnerable over his impending loss should silence anyone who doubted his attachment and good intentions for the little, antlered guy.
Yet we can’t allow all this fraught drama to distract us from some practical questions, including the most crucial one: who did it? As unbalanced as Jepperd is when he makes the accusation, you can’t help suspecting Walter too. In this isolated area, the list of suspects is pretty short, and unlike “Haggarty’s men,” whom Walter has scapegoated so frequently that they now have the menace of a bogeyman, Walter’s strangeness is right there for us all to see.
Lemire’s art has always had an abstract, expressionist quality that brought out the unrealness of this afflicted world, that underscored the terror of the characters’ dystopian lives, much like Edward Munch’s The Scream. He really outdoes himself here in Gus’ death sequences, slapping stains of watery colors against inky outlines and bone-white backgrounds.
Conclusion: Emotional and compelling, though the issue introduces even more mysteries to the table, while clearing up none.
Grade: B+
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – Frankly, if I saw myself heading towards the giant, gaping mouth of a skull, I’d probably be hauling butt in the opposite direction. I’m just squeamish that way, I guess.
Grade
Conclusion