Saucer Country #9 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Ryan Kelly (art), Giulia Brusco (colors)

The Story: Here you’ll find the worst and best shot in the history of the world.

The Review: If any of you caught the final page to last issue, you’ll know exactly what I mean when I say: well, that was quite something, wasn’t it?  Having a masked assassin attempt a potshot at Arcadia from point-blank definitely takes the tension of the series to whole new level.  I think that shot is a message from Cornell that even while the players try to navigate the myriad conspiracies surrounding them, that doesn’t mean they can avoid physical danger for long.

With all the government intrigue, you always had a sense that what Arcadia and friends were doing posed some risks, but for some reason, you—or, rather, I never thought that’s where the harm could spring from.  Cornell has spent so much time keeping our vision focused outward, looking for threats from the stars, that the credible, real-world dangers fell into a mental blind spot.  I don’t feel too bad, though; it’s clear the Alvarado team landed in the same trap.

Harry in particular takes the incident very badly, perhaps cursing himself for his own negligence.  Practically foaming at the mouth, he rants, “…to do that and get away?!  That has never previously been fucking possible.  I believe in thatless than I believe in flying fucking saucers.”  This kind of vulgarity and rage, from a normally stolid, wholesome sort of man (I like thinking of Harry as an older Jimmy Stewart), comes from a much more complicated place than simple concern for his governor, attached as he is to her.

You see, while no one has every downplayed Arcadia’s race (she refers to herself as the “brown lady” at one point in the issue), most the characters have gotten rather complacent about how her background, exposed in the public sphere, will affect her.  Even now, they’re dancing around the issue.  Although she asks pointedly why her security detail didn’t spot the gunner and body-shield her, she eventually backs off.

Perhaps she suspects that race really has nothing to do with it.  Her focus is still directed elsewhere, to less earthly concerns.  To Michael, she confides that the assassination attempt and their abduction delivered the same kind of trauma, like they’re “both part of the same thing.  The same process of crushing people.”  It’s an interesting statement; it posits that the aliens do what they do just to reinforce their own superiority.  Taken in combination with Kidd’s history lesson in #6, and we begin to get a picture of beings who have messed with and oppressed us for ages.

As with all conspiracy theories revolving around the UFO, it all falls apart once you question the whys.  Even with all these intelligent characters investigating the same thing, none have given a coherent reason why the aliens would be doing any of this, which calls into question which among them comes closest to knowing the truth.  Why do the aliens interact with only certain individuals?  Why do they do so in such vastly different ways?  Why do the Bluebirds, with all their technological prowess, seem to escape the aliens’ intervention, and not someone like the painfully average Ms. Bates?

Kelly’s art has become a crucial part of this title.  What he’s done for the characters is priceless.  He has made these them fully alive and accessible; we’ve become familiar with their mannerisms and expressions.  We know what they’re thinking, even when they don’t voice it.  And I don’t think I give him nearly enough credit for the details he packs into each panel.  I could stare at the diner where Astelle meets Kidd for a long time, picking out all the little things—the fluorescent bars, the ketchup bottles on the shelf, the milkshake pitchers hanging from an overhanging rack.  Brusco has been rock-solid support all the way; he gives even the tiniest parts of a panel the most carefully chosen colors.

Conclusion: The interweaving conspiracies have become so complex that even without much happening, you have a lot to occupy you—and you have plenty happening in this issue.

Grade: A-

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – It’s worthy to note that the “assassin” shares Michael’s blue eyes—and a teal shirt.

– Notice the “men in black” who pick up the faux-men in black.  Notice in particular their pronounced foreheads and the shape of their sunglasses and the rhetorical way they refer to themselves as “‘us.’”