Once Upon a Time at the End of the World vol. 1: Love in the Wasteland

Given that he’s currently going one-for-three in completing creator-owned series (and the one he did complete, “Sea of Stars” was a two-volume story co-written with Dennis Hallum) you’d think I’d be worried about starting another one from writer Jason Aaron.  Well, even if he’s not good at finishing them, I wasn’t disappointed by “Southern Bastards” and “The Goddamened” and he’s had more hits than misses when it comes to his superhero work.  With this first volume of “Once Upon a Time at the End of the World” he’s managed to do something I haven’t seen in a while:  Lower my estimation of an entire volume through one dumb storytelling decision.

As you might’ve guessed from its title, this series takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting.  As you might’ve also guessed from the volume’s subtitle, it’s about the relationship that slowly grows between its two teenage protagonists.  There’s Ezmerelda – Mezzy to everyone – a tough-as-nails survivor forged into such by the cruel and heartless regimen of the Wasteland Rangers.  In trying to put as much distance as she can between her former companions, she comes into contact with Maceo.  He’s an inventor and the sole inhabitant of the high-rise where he’s spent his entire life.

I’m not spoiling anything (that’ll come later) to say that while their two personalities initially come together like oil and water, they slowly grow to appreciate each other’s presence and skillsets the longer they stay together.  Helping this is the general sense of “extra” that Aaron brings to most of his works.  This is, after all, a harsh world where Mezzie has to make her socks out of rat guts, but it’s countered with things like Maceo’s “orchard,” which is a room with nothing but vending machines and their unopened snacks.  It’s that kind of outlandishness that helps keep their story interesting throughout most of this volume’s run.

It also has good art from Alexandre Tefenkgi, who previously illustrated “The Good Asian.”  While the man showed a great facility for grounded noir stylings in that series, we get to see that he’s capable of going a bit crazy here.  Armored shrimp with mouths, giant tentacle monsters, all the Rooms in the high-rise, the Apocalympics, are just some of the weird and wonderful sights that he illustrates quite well on the page.  Tefenkgi is also good with the general storytelling of the series, with the protagonists themselves coming off as they experience good times and bad over the course of this volume.

I should also mention that this volume has a few sections that are illustrated by Nick Dragotta as well.  They’re four-page bumpers at the end of the first, third, and fifth issues and they showcase an older, and much worse for the wear Maceo and the Wasteland.  It’s good stuff which shows that the artist and the writer’s sensibilities mixing very well.

If that was all this volume had to offer then I’d have no problem recommending it as Aaron’s extra sensibilities and Tefengki’s art put an appealing spin on the post-apocalyptic setting.  The problem is that there’s something which happens at the end of the volume that broke my sense of disbelief.  I didn’t just go, “What the hell?”  I followed it up immediately with, “This is goddamn stupid!”  I can’t talk about it without spoilers, so consider this a SPOILER WARNING!

For everyone who’s still here, the final issue involves Maceo challenging the Wasteland Rangers he’s been caught to a trial by survival called the Apocalympics.  It’s made up of a bunch of uber-macho activities that the boy has no hope of winning with the final one being a fight to the death.  Maceo, being the inventor that he is, MacGyvers… er, improvises a gadget using the tools at hand to try and win this battle non-violently.

So what did he make?  He made a multi-rocket launcher that does only one thing:  Carve an image of Mezzy’s face into the wasteland wall it hits.  Yeah, that’s it.  Everything Maceo has created up to this point has been within the realm of the suspension of disbelief this story has asked for.  His Mezzy-Face-Making-Gun shoots right through it in a way that just completely broke my immersion with the story.

But Aaron isn’t done yet.  This is because all of the Wasteland Rangers are so love-starved that they look upon this new image of Mezzy and completely lose their will to fight.  Except for one guy who fights through his tears and pays the price for it.  That’s right, this completely unrealistic and ridiculous development causes the antagonists to reconsider the meaning of their lives up to this point.  It’s unbelievable.  I can’t understand what Aaron was thinking with this and even Tefengki’s skills can’t sell this concept.  END SPOILERS!

It would be easier to judge this book if it had come from an unknown creative team.  That way I could just stop reading this series and hope that the team does a better job with their next one.  Coming from established creators like Aaron, Tefengki, and Dragotta, I can’t help but think that they might be able to learn from this mistake and turn things around in the next volume.  Unless they’re committed to the level of stupidity seen here and vol. 2 features a twist even more ridiculous than what we’re shown here.  If that’s the case, then the joke will have been on me because I want to believe that the series has made its biggest error here and that everything else will be sunshine and roses in the wasteland from here on out.