This week, we review two vastly different books with one common denominator: the big blue ocean.
AHOY there matey! Come aboard our vessel and check out what seaworthy fare we have this week as we sail off into the blue expanse of ocean-related comic books.
Of course, when you talk about comics and the ocean, two names will usually pop into mind – Aquaman and Namor the Submariner. Unfortunately, while they have a strong following in their own right, these two characters do tend to be slightly overlooked especially when compared to their respective companies' heavy hitters.
Aquaman in particular has always been regarded as something of a joke – that is, until the recent DC New 52 reboot which saw Geoff Johns giving Arthur Curry a much needed profile boost and a great new solo title to boot.
Namor? Well, he has always been something of an enigma, being one of the earliest Marvel superheroes ever created, and also in part because of his anti-hero status that has seen him comfortable in both hero and villain roles in the Marvel universe.
The big two watery heroes aside, there have not really been many significant comic books about the ocean in general. Sure, there have been enigmatic indie graphic novels like Jeff Lemire's The Underwater Welder, and er ... Seaguy by Grant Morrison, but other than that, you'll have to be more than just a casual comics reader to think of any other significant ocean-related comic books.
That's why this week's featured graphic novels are so surprising (to me, at least), because both these titles don't just have strong connections to the sea, they are also brilliant books in their own right.
Spot the Easter eggs
Nemo: Heart of Ice
Creators: Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill
Publisher: Top Shelf/ Knockabout
No, Nemo: Heart of Ice is not about a frozen clown fish. The Nemo here refers to Captain Nemo, the captain of the mighty Nautilus, the submarine from Jules Verne's novel, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1870).
Only, it's not the Captain Nemo from Verne's story. It's not even the Captain Nemo from Moore and O'Neill's League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LXG) universe, but rather, his daughter, Janni Dakkar.
Since taking command of the submarine in League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910, Janni has been travelling around the world, plundering and pillaging with her pirate crew, while still bearing a grudge against her late father, who made it clear to her as child that he was disappointed that he had a daughter instead of a son. Determined to prove herself and surpass his achievements, she sets a course for Antarctica, where her father once led an exploratory overland expedition from which he emerged alone and insane.
Hot on her heels are three hunters – Frank Reade Jr, Jack Wright, and Tom Swift – who are out to retrieve some treasure that Janni's crew stole in the opening pages of the book (though, to be frank, these three protagonists seem to exist only to add a little more urgency to Janni's journey).
Although the story is fairly linear and simple to follow, to fully enjoy and comprehend Moore's story, it helps to be familiar with all the literary sources Moore draws from.
For this trip to Antarctica, for instance, Moore draws heavily from H.P. Lovecraft's At The Mountains Of Madness (1936), complete with its giant blind penguins, star-headed aliens and horrifying shoggoths, among other literary references. If you're familiar with the literary works Moore refers to here, you'll probably enjoy this book a lot more (and also have a lot of fun spotting all the Easter eggs he and O'Neill pepper around the panels).
O'Neill's art is top-notch as usual, and it doesn't matter whether he is drawing the Lovecraft-ian horrors of the Mountains Of Madness or the stark ice lands of the Antarctica – his art is so detailed that you could spend hours just poring over it.
After a couple of Nautilus-less League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century books (the last two have been set in 1969 and 2009), Nemo: Heart Of Ice is a welcome return to the ship, and it's nice to see Janni's development as captain of the Nautilus.
The story may be more straightforward than most LXG books, but by Jules Verne's beard, it's good to be back on the Nautilus.
Global scale
The Massive, Volume 1: Black Pacific
Creators: Brian Wood, Kristian Donaldson
Publisher: Dark Horse
Compared to Moore and O'Neill's literary epic, The Massive is a much easier book to read, though no less intellectually stimulating.
Set in a "post-war, post-Crash, post-disaster, post-everything world", the story revolves around the crew of The Kapital, the point ship of direct-action environmental group Ninth Wave led by activist Callum Israel.
Israel, a man who has dedicated his life to protecting the ocean, now finds himself adrift in the very seas he swore to safeguard, searching for The Kapital's sister ship, The Massive, while figuring out what it means to be an environmentalist in a world that has already been consumed by its environment.
This first volume, which collects issues #1 to #6 of the ongoing Dark Horse series, is a fascinating introduction to Brian Wood's post-environmental disaster world and the characters that inhabit it.
The world of The Massive is one that has been ravaged by an environmental apocalypse called The Crash, in which the planet was hit with a "seemingly endless series of natural disasters unimaginable in scope and intensity, to the point that the very social fabric of global society was undermined. In this world, global economies have collapsed, entire cities were destroyed, and food and water supplies have been severely compromised. Taiwan has been completely submerged by the ocean. Thanks to its towering skyscrapers, a similarly submerged Hong Kong has gone from a city with a port to actually becoming a port. America has been thrown into chaos thanks to a seemingly permanent power blackout. Clean drinking water has now become more precious than diamonds or gold, and money no longer carries any value."
Writer Wood has done this sort of examination of social structures in extreme situations before, albeit on a smaller but no less epic scale with the stellar DMZ. In that series, he imagined the chaos of an American city torn apart by civil war, and focused on the changes that residents of the island of Manhattan in New York went through after it is declared a demilitarised zone (DMZ). Through the eyes of a journalist, Wood explores the devastating implications of turning Manhattan into a DMZ, how its people cope, and the social, ethical, and political issues that plague the area.
With The Massive, however, Wood has a much, much wider canvas to paint on – where DMZ was content to stay within the confines of New York City throughout the series, The Massive casts its net over the entire planet. The central story may be mostly about how Callum and his dysfunctional crew of environmentalists survive and pursue The Massive, but as they traverse the oceans, we also see how different parts of the world cope with the aftermath of the Crash. Wood also handily throws in tantalising little titbits about what is going on around the rest of the world, which makes me wish we could see more of the post-Crash world besides whatever happens on the deck of The Kapital.
Because of its wider, global scale and the narrowness of its characters' point of view, The Massive still has a long way to go before it can come close to the emotional resonance and power that DMZ had. But if the latest issues of the series is anything to go by, then we can surely expect ... er ... massive things from the series in the future.
Nemo: Heart Of Ice and The Massive are available at Kinokuniya Bookstore, Suria KLCC. For enquiries, call 03-2164 8133, e-mail ebd3 kbm@kinokuniya.co.jp, visit kinokuniya.com/my.
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