As said, doing a list of works always forgets obvious and not obvious entries into the collection at hand. The world of dark futures and dystopia these are worthy considerations.
GHOST IN THE SHELL
Words and Art: Masamune Shirow
Publisher: Viz, Dark Horse
Body droids, Cloning, Body Enhancement, Human racism, Terrorism, and post Human society are the focus of Ghost in the Shell, and the title refers to the concept of being the human inside the cybernetic body, controlling it, but also having the distance from active physicality. It is both sexual and dark, and fantastically thoughtful.
THE DARK KNIGHT
Words and Art: Frank Miller assists Lynn Varley
Publisher: DC
When the Dark Knight happened, comics were changed in many ways. It is uncertain if he meant to, but when Frank Miller created the future tale of an old and cranky Batman, was he also creating the path by which present stories would aim. That is, was it a tale independent of continuity, or was it a future that will happen, wrought, but not yet happening. Some say it occurred to DC to make it the future, due to the popularity of it, but others suggest it was never meant to, and never would be. I do not know. As a work that is distinctly individual, and different from anything that preceded it, it should be taken in as a story, and whatever else that follows, not necessarily married to it. The following sequels were less well received. Part of it comes from the ever loose style of Frank's depictions. But it all happens with the same writer and same artistic hand.
THE BUNKER
Words: Josh Fialkov
Art: Joe Infurnari
Publisher: ONI
Josh Fialkov is a mind that is filled with intricate pathways of story. In the beginning of the story a group of friends - Grady, Heidi, Natasha, Daniel, and Billy - are going to create a time capsule, deep in the woods. They find an isolated and hidden bunker. But, buried in that bunker, they find letters, written to each of them, from their future selves. It seems the world is about to face an Armageddon level event. Only, the problem is, the letters from the future suggest that these friends are going to cause the end, or near end, of humanity. How do they deal with the level of confusion, fear, and impact of an extinction event caused by their actions. Is the future wrought? If not, can they change the future? But, if it isn't wrought, how did the future selves send letters back?
NEW STATESMEN
Words: John Smith
Art: Jim Baike
Publisher: Fleetway/Quality
When New Statesmen came out I bought the first issue. And from that initial start point I feared, just another Watchmen, and for more per issue than Watchmen. However, that was an unfair judgment of the entire series. Whatever similarities, that of super heroes as tools of the state, or makers of the power beneath the cloak of state. It was worth reading this story in how it told its own story, and how that story questioned the use of heroism, the use of heroes to sell popularity. 2047 AD isn't as far from now as it was in the beginning, but the corruption of power, genetic mutations, use of violence and sex to show the deepest levels of human savagery, this work was a slap to the head, with no happy endings, no use of tropes of the medium to save the reader. Dark things were kept dark, heroes weren't heroes. This was a good work that got better the older I got.
Words: Brian Wood
Art: Wood and Riccardo Burchielli
Publisher: DC
This work didn't linger with me, despite the early excellence of the series. As such, I've forgot much of what I've read. But this series is a look at a near future catastrophic second American Civil War, who would fight, the cultural divisions, and, in the DMZ everyone is a potential victim, potential hero, and there are almost no ways to be loyal in the traditional sense of it. I confess, it surely might have improved by the end. I didn't read it that far.
MARSHAL LAW
Words: Pat Mills
Art: Kevin O'Neill
Publisher: Epic/Dark Horse
Just like New Statesmen, when I first read Marshal Law I thought it was similar to something else, in look, but also, and especially in tone to Dark Knight, only louder, and more broad in focus. I did love the series, but I also didn't take it for what it was. Now, I read it in the last two months, and I seriously enjoyed it, found it both intelligently delivered, and worth the time to reread. It is broad in scope, it does wicked parody and social satire, but, it asks some really important questions. What do we want in a hero, what is a hero, and do we hold some people to higher standards due to what they themselves aspire to be, and who is telling the truth?
WASTELAND
Words: Antony Johnston
Art: Chris Mitten
Publisher: ONI
Almost biblical, Wasteland tells a story of an enormous and catastrophic event, with a desertification of the land, and a reimagination of the borders of people, nations, ownership of anything, including land, and rights and concepts of civilized society. People who are simply trying to survive rarely care about rights. The people hunger for a better life, but the environment is completely unwelcoming to human existence. And, additionally, not only are humans suffering due to the loss of normal temperate environments, they fight over the last glass of water, or kill over the last can of Alpo dog food, found buried in the collapsed grocery store under the mud and dust. And in a series of stories, the people migrate to find, water and the oceans. This work is brutal, but rather perfect.
EDEN, It's An Endless World
Words and Art: Hiroki Endo
Publisher: Dark Horse
In the near future, humans are endangered. A pandemic of a virus called closure leads to the destruction of human life. Some 85% remain alive, but far more are crippled, DNA damaged, and horrifyingly changed. Human existence is failing.
Eden isn't just a dystopia, not just a story about humans fucking up. Throughout the work there are layers of myth, with religious symbolism, and it challenges the reader to ask, what is going on. Is this story a giant metaphor that readers can deduce? Or, with the Gnostic past it suggests and explores, is the confluence of religious views, myth, is the story not about the deeper story either, but a religious story that takes you on a voyage, not to tell its own story, not to give you an epiphany, but a walk about where you experience things to think about what the author is trying to make you think?
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