BTF The Heralds of Apocalypse #1: The Great Divorce

This phenomenal comic is the hybrid child of a philosophical argument (in the classical sense) and action-packed exposition. The result reads like what you’d get if you strained the work of Sun Tzu through a Michael Bay filter. Like a good sword, the balance is absolutely perfect: a killing edge and a handle to grip. I was not expecting the prelude to a summer superhero event to be the literature of the highest order, but that’s what it is. If the Fall of X event had opened with this (instead of whatever dreck Si Spurrier threw together), the buzz would have been exponentially louder than it is.

The central question of the text appears to be: is survival itself a breed of morality, or are we meant for something higher? Is it enough to be a rock that weathers every storm, or must we force ourselves to grow? This is an argument held during a battle (a fight that is, itself, an expression of tremendous love), and the battle promises to have the answer to that particular question and the quandary of what will spring forth after The Fall.

Here’s a hint: Apocalypse holds three seeds (both a symbol of new life and new life) and must be watered with mutant blood. So, let’s think about seeds for a minute. Some seeds (like those of the lodgepole pine, for example) can only flourish after a cataclysmic fire. Some seeds can only germinate from the cast-off corpse of their parents. Others sprout blissfully wherever they fall. Perhaps what’s broken cannot be repaired: maybe what’s broken can only be overgrown.

Sometimes it is possible to win only by losing.

Luca Pizzari, Stefano Landini, and Raphael Pimento work together reasonably well, aside from a few odd choices (Apocalypse is not, for example, a spindly character), and their line work was tied together brilliantly via the auspices of Cici De La Cruz. Travis Lanham did an excellent job arranging the words. As a whole, the art was a great success.