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I'm really enjoying this series so far. It would be one of my favorites had Pasqual Ferry stayed on board. Freddie Williams is certainly a competent artist, and he's doing a pretty good job, though some things are a little confusing. For example - the final page of this issue. The Orion-avatar/big homeless guy with a scarf looks nothing like the same character in issue #2. At first I though it was Shilo, somehow and quite literally beside himself. But the scarf was a dead giveaway (and the presence of the Lightray-avatar was another obvious clue). The colorist also botched at least one panel (turning the Manhattan Guardian's hands from brown to beige), and I hope this stuff gets corrected for future collections.
According to the DC solicits, this issue was supposed to have the most shocking ending of the year. I'm guessing this is confirmation that something bad indeed happened to the New Gods in-continuity. How does this tie into the Sheeda (or even... Infinite Crisis?...)? Next issue should be a doozy.
Back to this one though - there was another confusing panel that perhaps someone can clear up for me: Who is the Metron-avatar/wheelchair guy pointing to when he says "And one good man CAN make a difference"? Is that supposed to be the Manhattan Guardian again? Who are the people with him?
On that same page, I like how the Manhattan Superhero Museum banner goes from blurry and bleak to clear and vital in appearance, as Shilo snaps out of his suicidal breakdown moment. He reaches clarity, finds his strength, and amidst bright colors gets the beating of his life. Ouch.
Shilo's experience with Dark Side and the Anti-Life Equation reminded me very much of Justin's encounter with the Guilt Monster/Sheeda Mood 7 Mind Destroyer from Shining Knight #2. It seems like the Sheeda are using Fourth World technology for sure... anti-life as eumemics; culling wonder, a holocaust of hope.
Ah! Ken Wilber and spiral dynamics again! Cool beans. Shilo, initially possessing a healthy Yellow vMeme mentality, was offered a vision by the New Gods of a higher state of being. The resulting confusion was exploited by Shilo's shrink/DeSaad until he slid all the way down the spiral, hitting bottom and becoming concerned only with basic survival needs (the diaper scene killed me). They should use 7S to teach spiral dynamics I tell you.
Anyway, Shilo's fall was indeed horrible, evoking Christ-like torture and humiliation (The Passion of the Miracle Man?). Christ-imagery again with the cross on the cover to #1; Isn't an inverted cross a "satanic" symbol? Something about matter dominating spirit (or is that the inverted pentagram?) By the end, Shilo is so badly mutilated and degraded that he is barely human. Castrated, he's no longer really a man, his race and age no longer identifiable, whatever skills, knowledge or talents he once had no longer matter. He is a damaged slab of meat. If our bodies are "suits" for higher forces, Shilo has been rendered unwearable to any but the lowest of energies (or so it seems, but the Christ-parallels insure a rebirth).
The social back-drop for Shilo's world is very interesting, depressing, and all too familiar. A celebrity-adoring culture focused on money, power, and glamour. Extrinsic values rooted in deep self-loathing, apathy, and confusion are exploited by those in power, by "The Man" - by Dark Side! Low energies everywhere. There is a tendancy (pathology?) in this setting and our culture to focus on the surface of things, on the glamour, and then rabidly tear away at it and expose all the ugly dirty things it hides (grim 'n gritty rape comics anyone?). No one is better than anyone else (green vMeme) and the state of our world is so shitty and depressing that we must all be shitty and depressed deep down, despite our glamours. The enamel of the Plastic People is a glamour. And what is enamel? - an ornamental & preservative coating - a hard-shell glamour to protect something fragile. The enamel/glamour is used to hold ideas, and it's all about the ideas.
Ideas are more powerful than flesh. But they need flesh. Genes and Memes are interdependent. Is flesh like enamel for ideas? Or are genes like soil for memes? Do we need SUPERFLESH if we are to carry out SUPER IDEAS?? The New Gods are Super-ideas. As Metron said in MM#1 - "We are absolute meaning and ultimate being! But we are lost. We need you." Do we need New Flesh, like the Buleteer, to properly contain & channel such power? Maybe not. Zatanna is a good case for that. With her, again we see ideas made flesh as Zatanna was revealed to be the living embodiment of her father's books. So maybe big ideas don't need superhuman bodies after all. Still though, it helps to be fit. |
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