The Displaced #5: Sunrise

Every Oshawa survivor that vanishes makes it all the harder for the rest of the survivors to go on. The Displaced is a tragedy unfolding in slow motion as people don’t just vanish but are forgotten by the world. The tragedy’s final chapter unfolds in The Displaced #5, delivering a truly emotional conclusion.

Desperate not to fade away, Tavis steals a car in The Displaced #5’s opening pages and crashes it into the abandoned building where Paige, Emmett, and the other three survivors are living. He holds the group at gunpoint. In the chaos, three of the survivors hop into a car and speed away. A quick hit to the head knocks Tavis down, killing him thanks to his earlier injuries. With Tavis dead and the other three survivors gone, Emmett is left alone with one person who he may not be able to save.

The series ends exactly as it needed to in The Displaced #5. From the second issue on, the series’ conclusion was seemingly inevitable. And indeed, the issue’s final line, “I’m here to help you through this,” suggests a kind of perpetual inevitability rather than something to ever resolve.

The Displaced invites readers to consider the importance of life if no one knows you’re living it. Is it enough to simply exist, or is everyone defined by the relationships they form with other people? Whether this was Brisson’s intent or not is unclear (though he seldom writes stories that don’t operate on multiple levels). And indeed, the idea is somewhat muddied at times. For instance, in The Displaced #4, Gabby’s choice to voluntarily fade away in the hope that she’ll be reunited with her family opens up a new theme that largely hits a dead end. But The Displaced #5 brings the theme back into focus through Emmett.

This is the first issue that explores how Emmett feels given his unique position. Harold called Emmett poison because he couldn’t save the rest by being near them. But Brisson turns the situation around, ultimately looking at Emmett from the opposite direction and perhaps making him the truly tragic character.

The dark purple and blue of twilight and then night hang over almost the entirety of The Displaced #5. Certainly the color choices are consistent with the time of day the issue is set in. But with events involving Tavis, Paige, Emmett, and three other survivors coming to a head, it’s appropriate that some of these resolutions take place in darkness. The exception is a four page sequence late in the issue that takes place at dawn. At first this might seem counterintuitive given the scene in question. But it is exactly what the scene needs and it elevates it to the best scene in the book.

Casalanguida once again gets the most out of relatively conservative details. Tavis is the issue’s most detailed character, though that is largely owed to his injuries. Emmett and Paige carry the emotional weight of The Displaced #5. Like Gabby in the previous issue, only minor changes in lines and shadows are necessary to inform readers what the characters are going through. This is especially true in the case of Paige who runs through the widest array of emotions. Casalanguida achieves most of these emotional changes with little more than a change to her eyebrows and shading beneath her eyes.

One of the final characters to disappear does so over several panels in the middle of talking. The character slowly fades away, starting with just a slightly elongated body. With each panel it grows more and more extreme. As the character’s physical appearance changes, their dialogue bubbles also become more and more misshapen with scribbled borders and an elongated shape. The text itself starts to fade. Casalanguida and Otsmane-Elhaou’s work combine to create a sad and moving sequence that no other vanishing character achieves.