Lazarus vol. 7: Fracture II
The most compelling moral quandary this series has presented to us is making the architects of its dystopia, the Carlyle Family, the ostensible “good guys” in the story. We’ve seen how other families, Vassalovka and especially Hock, have resorted to underhanded means to keep their people in line. Carlyle is doing the same with a lighter touch and fighting against them while the heads of the family, formerly Malcolm and now Johanna, have been thrilling to observe in action due to their abilities to see all the angles and get things done. Outside of the series’ ostensible protagonist, Forever, I don’t think that creators Greg Rucka and Michael Lark have been intending for us to “root” for anyone from the Carlyle Family and vol. 7 is all about driving that point home.
Before that, however, we go back in time for a bit. Back to the first run of “Lazarus” as its final two issues are collected here and we finally get to catch up with Jonah Carlyle. Last seen being dumped into the North Sea, he’s fished out here by a fishing family from the Bittner Family. They nurse him back to health and even cover for his existence from the local authorities. Why? It’s because they’re all-around good people and that decency winds up rubbing off on Jonah as well.
There’s a lot of time covered in these two issues and it feels like some parts of the story are being rushed through in order to get where the creators want things to be. Jonah’s relationship with the family’s daughter Pernielle, is a good example of that. Yet it’s also a compelling portrait of what life is like for one of the smaller Families in this conflict as well as just how broken the system is for the people that live within it. The tension in these stories also picks up exponentially towards their end as we see that Jonah’s, shall we say, family connections are the only things that will allow him and (what’s left of) his new family to survive this.
Then we get back to the present day and the meeting between Forever and her successor, Eight or “Eve,” that was teased at the end of the previous volume gets to play out here. It’s a rare moment of warmth for the Carlyle Family’s Lazarus as she gets to know the girl who would be her successor. Or not, if what she has planned goes off without a hitch.
That’s because the Conclave War is still ongoing, but not for much longer if Johanna has her way. She and her military advisors have ambitious plans to end it by ending the D’Souza and Morray Families. Plans that are going to need Forever’s hands-on expertise if they’re going to have a chance at succeeding. As opposed to Malcolm’s as he skulls around the edges of the meetings being held here.
His presence in these early parts of this leg of the story don’t really have a sinister vibe to them. As he formally handed off leadership of the Family to Johanna a while back, it’s easy to see the man as being more sad and pathetic now that he’s no longer the center of all the action and planning going on here. It’s stuff we’ve seen before and doesn’t come off as cause for concern.
Then, after Forever’s business is done, Hock is ready to sit down and talk about the cessation of hostilities. He’s got a few conditions in order to do so, though. While Hock is willing to talk to Johanna as the head of Family Carlyle, he also wants to speak to Malcolm, his wife Abigail, and Forever as well. Which is something that Malcolm saw coming as well.
It’s here that my opinion of Malcolm started to turn. Rather than the monster who was necessary to stand against threats worse than him and the sad man preparing to live out his life in obscurity that he was becoming, he becomes someone worse and more annoying. A man with secrets. Someone who’s good at seeing potential outcomes in any situation and even better at loading the dice so that they turn out the way that he wants. It’s his unwillingness to share his skills with Johanna that starts to erode any sympathy I had for him ahead of the sit-down with Hock.
As for that sit-down, it doesn’t quite develop into a tightly-wound pressure cooker that threatens to explode as history and secrets are revealed. It does succeed in casting Malcolm in a completely different light here as we find out just how far he’s willing to go in order to load his dice. There’s even a modicum of sympathy to be had for Hock, who has been presented as a selfish little monster who keeps his people indoctrinated through drugs up to this point. Sympathy for the bad guys, contempt for the questionably good? What the hell is going on here?
It all goes back to that course-correction that I mentioned earlier. There are no “good” families in the world of “Lazarus.” They’re groups who have consolidated all of the power in the world, and have enacted a strict class-based system where the lowest of which is simply called Waste. You’re not meant to root for Family Carlyle or its former head Malcolm because he’s the one who orchestrated and perpetuated this system to begin with. If anything, your sympathies should be with individuals like Johanna and Forever who are trying to change the system and/or secure their own freedom from it.
Which is where any misgivings I have about this volume come from. I’m all for seeing Johanna revolutionize Family Carlyle into becoming a global power that respects the rights of everyone within it equally. I’m all for seeing Forever and Eve try to extricate themselves from a system that has sought to enforce their unquestioning obedience to a Family through chemical and mechanical means rather than genuine emotional ones. My concern is that one of these is going to come at the expense of the other. This isn’t something that’s discussed specifically in this volume, so it’s my hope that Johanna has a plan for it. Otherwise, she’s going to find that changing the world is going to be a lot harder to do when the Zmey is at your doorstep and no one is there to fight him off.
Given the amount of planning and worldbuilding the creators have invested in the series so far, I don’t believe that Rucka and Lark haven’t considered this possibility. What’s happening here is part of their plan and, Johanna, like her father, has been planning for this as well. As for how it’s going to make her world a better place… that’s something I can’t see from here. Rather than be frustrated by it, the quality of this volume has me invested in seeing what the creators have planned for the story going forward. I imagine that Forever and Eve are excited about where the great unknown of their future is going to take them, and I feel the same for “Lazarus” as well.
Though, it’d be nice if it wound up getting here a little sooner than vol. 7 did.