Barbelith Underground > Comic Books > 7 Soldiers: Klarion, the Witch-Boy

I think Klarion 3 works perfectly in the remit of 7 Soldiers. Part of the function of these books aside from telling the one big story between them all is in renovating the characters and concepts for future use. Because of this, an integral part of each mini has to be used for properly establishing a feel for each character and what their books are there to say. This issue of Klarion is doing exactly that.

So far Klarion is about adolescence. It's about being responsible for yourself, questioning recieved wisdom and looking at the accepted in a new light. It's also about being aware of the extreme duplicitousness of adults while still knowing that that is what you are becoming. Melmoth and the Deviants are another riff on this adult/child dynamic that carries on from the Submissionaries/Klarion and Badde/Leviathan.

The Submissionaries (by virtue of their names) want the children to conform, and want to keep growth stunted. They present themselves as authority figures and keep the generations in check through Puritan preaching and ideals. Vilifying those who question the old ways while enforcing tradition. They are the stern, commanding patriarchs.

Badde is at war with the children. He fears them. They outnumber him and understand each other in ways he can't fathom. Youth is an organism, a plague that'll wash over and destroy him. He keeps it at bay by making attacks on it bit by bit, exploiting it for his own gain, using it to keep himself in a state of unquestioning childhood.

Melmoth appeals to the children. He uses them by providing an arena for their rebellion. He sheperds them into a controlled relationship where he can let them live out all their youthful, destructive tendencies while all the time keeping a very close eye on them and manipulating everything they do, playing them off against each other and letting them wear themselves out until they become controllable adults.

This division between adults and children is at the heart of Klarion and (like all the other 7S books) there are only four issues to solidify the concept enough for another creative team to then pick up. It's not just about links between 7S books and the greater significance of the arc, it's about reinforcing each books rythms and themes. By giving different riffs on the same conceit, Morrison is showing by example the ways in which the book should/could develop and what kind of stories can be extracted from the main thematic kernel.

In fact, if there's one thing I'm really surprised at just now, it's at how little filler there is in 7S. Almost anything I've read in them so far can be put down to either telling the overall story or reinforcing the individual concepts. It's the way in which these two aims work together so well that's got me hooked.