Lower Decks

Now, if I wanted to, I could just review the recently released ‘Wasteland’ #25. For those looking to sample without worrying too much about the developments of the past twenty-four issues, it would certainly be an ideal way to start. But then I couldn’t introduce the series as the best comic book you probably have never heard of. Published by Oni Press, ‘Wasteland’ would be the new ‘Walking Dead’ if it weren’t better, more complicated, more original, but as an independent, mythology-rich and large-casted wonder that has managed to stick around for more than two years worth of issues, four current trade paperback collections (and granted a deluxe hardcover edition recently, as all the cool kids are getting) without the benefit of breast-bearing ladies on every cover or any prior precedent as an entity, comparing it to Robert Kirkman’s zombie survival saga is the best way to catch you up to speed about the scope of what we’re dealing with.

Considering that it appears to be quite a difficult order for most comic book shops to carry a wide selection of companies (oh, and hey, the economy is so great!), I was incredibly lucky to be living in the proximity of one that carried ‘Wasteland’ when it debuted in 2006. It was a famous case of my catching the second issue rather than the first (ironically, years later, I would find the first issue in a shop that had decided to stop carrying the series some time ago, to the point where at least one clerk there thought ‘Wasteland’ had been cancelled, even as I was buying the only trade collection of it that I would find there), but I was hooked right away. Set one-hundred years after an event known as The Big Wet, it’s the seemingly typical story of a post-apocalyptic society that remains foreboding for survivors. The most recognizable character, Michael, is described as a ruin runner, who routinely travels the long distances across America most people only hear of as rumor, and he’s at the center of #25, a flashback ten years earlier that features the first colored pages of the series.

Around him initially are survivors of a different kind, of the harsh conditions that persist and make refugees to a city believed to be a refuge, but instead turns out to be a nightmare of religious tyranny and political maneuvering that even those in favor find difficult to navigate. Michael is more than just a scrappy fighter; along with Abbi, who came with him to the city, and the iron fist ruler of the city, are a bit more than human, blessed with considerable healing abilities. That would be the tip of things still to be revealed, as with the Big Wet, and how exactly our world became theirs (there is a scrap of an identity card from ours that survives and keeps showing up that hints at a greater connection than would seem evident). But if that were the only thing appealing about ‘Wasteland,’ then it would be difficult to recommend it with a straight face to the unassuming.

In many ways, it’s a lot more like ‘Walking Dead’ than it is different, because writer Antony Johnston navigates an expansive cast quite remarkably. If you can get a handle on the black & white art of Christopher Mitten, which is really quite exquisite but difficult to work into because of the lack of color, you’ll find yourself quite familiar with all the characters who truly matter. The real trick is, when they have to, they all do, and that’s the fun of following them, and ‘Wasteland.’

There’s a long-term quest, much like Ron Moore’s ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ which Michael and Abbi are once again on the path of, finding a city that might hold the key between the past and present that’s always being teased, which holds an interesting twist, because on numerous occasions, Michael has stated he’s been there and failed to find it, but there’s the suggestion that he may be wrong after all, that the hope this city represents, that the previous one failed so miserably to hold, will be the great fulfillment of an endlessly fascinating series.

Johnston has worked to create a unique world in his vision of the future, which represents the first truly independent America there has ever been, totally on its own, with new cultures, familiar yet different, which to explore is half the fun of the book. I have never really followed a story like this as a first-run fan before (some reviewers have described it as the other side of the Mad Max dystopia), but I find it hard to resist. Having been cut off for much of it run from reading new issues as they were released, I’ve been missing out on one of my favorite aspects of ‘Wasteland,’ being the accompanying text essays that follow each graphic section (something that Marvel’s Dark Tower comics have been doing, and which are being included for the first time in collected form for the deluxe edition I mentioned earlier), which further explore Michael’s world. Now having finally come back to the new issue releases and finding the series to be thriving as always, I think it’s time that ‘Wasteland’ gets an audience the size it deserves. Hey, there’s no real risk here, right? An independent release sticking around for this long has to be doing something right.