Bodies #6

Happy New Year, everyone! Frankly, I’m delighted and amazed to find that we’re all still here. It’s been a nice break from reviewing, the kind that makes you glad to get back to it. It’s unfortunate, of course, that this review is so late in coming, but with Bodies, you could have a couple extra weeks to meditate on an issue and still not wrap you head entirely around it. After the mindblower that was #5, this issue keeps you reeling as our protagonists sink deeper into the tangle of their plots.

The real difficulty of this series is the continuing obscurity of what the Longharvest actually is. It’s been mentioned and referenced repeatedly, even identified in #4 as the parade of weirdos Maplewood encountered in her era. You surmise the Longharvest is a bad thing, or at least, it’s nothing good, but that’s a conclusion based on instinct rather than hard facts.

You can blame “John Bull” (as the inexplicably revived corpse calls himself at one point) for that. As the one most closely associated with the Longharvest, his graphic death naturally led to the assumption that he was merely the beginning to something far more wide-ranging. Confessing to his own murder upsets that theory, but doesn’t completely topple it over. Shahara sees him as a test—of what is unclear. If it’s about staying cool under racial invective, even the threat of suicide attack, Shahara’s already proven herself. So what is it Bull’s looking for?

Spencer, true to form, offers only hints, the most significant being that Shahara seemingly passes her test after a resounding speech on diversity: “You show up through the centuries trying to spread your poison. Trying to wreck this beautiful patchwork country of immigrants and mongrels… And you know what? You haven’t succeeded once.” John Bull appears satisfied by her response, maybe by the resolve in its tone or the ideals it embodies. Maybe it’s a test of whether our investigator will go all the way to get to the bottom of things.

That would explain why the Longharvest case seems to be increasingly tied to each of our quartet’s personal mysteries. For Shahara, it’s her relationship to Barber, who suspiciously leaves her interrogation of John Bull just before it gets into high gear. For Edmond, it’s his connection to the Order of Mithras, the investigation of which Bull calls “a mission.” With Maplewood, John Bull’s intent on forcing her to confront her past, which lies at the root of her current world. Through flashback, a faint image of the big picture comes into focus: Belwood (now confirmed to be Maplewood’s past identity), in the name of KYAL and the Longharvest, unleashes an unforeseen disaster resulting in the psychologically devastated England and the possible death of her own daughter, Maggie May, a.k.a. Bounce. That brings us to the cusp of what the Longharvest is, but doesn’t quite take us over.

As always, Charles’ storyline is the odd one out, a reflection of how different he is himself from the other detectives. To Charles, Bull is the most overtly antagonistic, revealing himself as the German prisoner’s lawyer mentioned last issue and having Charles go through a kind of penance for his past crimes. In putting out Charles’ eyes, perhaps Bull forces him to finally see the mystery before him—both that of the Longharvest body and of the German prisoner/traitor. As Bull plunges his fingers into Charles’ sockets, he says, “it’s time to make temurah,” referring to the Kabbalist practice of rearranging words and sentences in the Bible to arrive at an deeper meaning of the text. Perhaps temurah in this case can be used to sift through all the series’ symbols and motifs to finally give us the story’s big message, which it undoubtedly has.

This time around, Winslade impresses with a graphic page of Charles’ eyes being removed in a surreal series of images: Charles screaming face merging into Bull’s outstretched hands, the eyeballs dripping and staring from the palms and flames spouting from the tri-pronged symbol on his wrist; within Charles’ gaping mouth is another vision of Charles’ screaming face. It’s all quite unsettling, but it does the job of lingering with you even after the issue’s done. The other artists do their usual good work, but nothing quite as memorable as Winslade.

Some Musings:

– Green honey? Never heard of it, never seen it. Anyone care to tell me what it’s like?