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Godland #17-18
Posted 27 Jun 2007
Writer: Joe Casey
Artist: Tom Scioli
Publisher: Image Comics
4.50 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Adam McGovern
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The definitive cosmic hallucination is back in orbit after a few
overly expository issues. Gødland #17 and 18 return to
the kind of kaleidoscopic narrative that you take in in a jaw-dropped
rush the first time and then spend several hours absorbing. Writer Joe
Casey’s career accomplishment to date, this book is plotted not
in a line but on a spiral, with events careening toward each other and
pulling away like rogue planets and bursting galaxies.
“Tom Scioli’s Kirby-by-way-
of-Kubrick-by-way-of-
Timothy-Leary
art is more mindblowing than ever.”
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At the moment, cosmically-aware ex-astronaut Adam Archer is
grounded in a grinding depression over the disappearance of his sister
and rival Neela, who seems to be dead while she’s really on the
other side of the galaxy being groomed as some kind of cosmic
counterweight to the power he doesn’t want anyway. Three
Freudian dimension-deities (Ed, Eeg-oh and Supra) are planning to
detonate the Earth but are slowly being stopped in their tracks by
contamination from the human race’s complicating emotions.
Retired fiend The Tormentor is mounting a hybrid were-insect assault
on the clueless super-soldier-of-fortune, Crashman, who’s
converging on Adam while Adam’s sister Angie sees visions of
Neela and ’nother sister Stella tries to hold the universe and
her dysfunctional siblings together. And I didn’t even mention
the giant talking dog-sensei.
Tom Scioli’s Kirby-by-way-of-Kubrick-by-way-of-Timothy-Leary
art is more mindblowing than ever — still a ways to go on some
facial expressions and convincing body language, but the overall
effect is immersively epic and ingeniously designed, with an
imagination for unearthly detail and an instinct for emotional impact
that makes its immense spectacles intimately felt.
Fitting this, the newest issues give the best look yet into the
dynamics and personalities of the family at the center of the saga —
the Archers seem to be the all-American group of achievers, but the
same abilities and integrity that make them special have always seemed
to set them apart, putting them at odds with the very country whose
values they exemplify (just ask the Tillmans) — and in the latest
issues this has gotten literal, as the family’s skyscraper
headquarters is sealed off with them in it when the government comes
to fear Adam’s power and possible loyalties.
Will they think their way out of this one? Gødland is
mind-expanding enough to make it possible, and you should tune in now
for the many trips to come.
—CCdC—
Cover image used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
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