Coda: False Dawns

“Coda” was a maxiseries by writer Simon Spurrier and artist Matias Bergara that didn’t set the world on fire when it came out, but was generally enjoyed by everyone who read it.  Yours truly included.  It also ended its run in a way that wrapped up the story well and didn’t leave any loose ends or obvious sequel hooks.  So if Spurrier and Bergara are returning to the world they created, you have to imagine they have a really good reason for doing that.

I guess if there’s one big flaw to “False Dawns” it’s that there is no good reason for it to exist.  The creators just really liked this world and wanted to tell another story about the characters in it.  So you shouldn’t feel an obligation to pick this up if you thought the original series didn’t need to be expanded on.  No, you should feel obligated to pick this up because it’s still really good.

Returning from the original series are bard-turned-farmer Hum, his Urken (read:  Orcish) wife Serka, and their terminally angry unicorn Nag.  They’ve been getting by in recent times, even as Serka’s rage spells call her off to the wastes to deal with them.  It’s during one of these spells that she comes across a group of wanderers with a shiny new weapon and a cause that she finds irresistible:  Dealing with some filthy, no-good, eeeeeeevil bandits.  Hum doesn’t have anything as dramatic to steal his attention – until he finds that some filthy, no-good, eeeeeeevil cultists have stolen his unicorn.

Thus begins what looks like a two-pronged tale of the dangers of putting your faith in those who promise to save you with nothing more than stories, and of believing in moral absolutes within a complex world.  If you think that Spurrier is actually writing about The World As We Know It, then you get a gold star.  Fortunately, there’s enough distance between our world and “Coda’s” that it doesn’t feel overbearing or pedantic.  Better still is that Spurrier writes things with a welcome (and occasionally quite dark) sense of humor and knowledge of when to deviate from your expectations regarding where the story is going to go.

Nowhere is that better observed than by the end of the second issue when Hum and Serka finally meet up again.  The original series had them spending a significant time apart and then dealing with their drama when they were together, so this is a nice change.  We get to see them work together and understand what it is that they see in each other as they try to figure out how to deal with the mess(es) they’ve found themselves in.  It all leads to a clever realization about why saving, or at least improving, the world is necessary with hope springing eternal at the end.

Bergara and Spurrier have collaborated multiple times since the end of “Coda,” first on “The Dreaming,” then on “Hellblazer,” and then on their least good series, the silent epic “Step by Bloody Step.”  That original series was a visual wonder and the same remains true here with the writer describing some pretty crazy things and scenarios, and the artist drawing them in a fashion that’s rife with imaginative details.  Whether it’s Nag’s glorious makeover, the made menagerie that winds up at Hum and Serka’s farm, or the failed rising moon castle of the Lunar Magus, this volume is never not dazzling to look at.

So yeah, you don’t need to read this if you were happy with how “Coda” wound up.  However, Spurrier and Bergara have delivered a follow-up that does its predecessor proud in both its art and its storytelling.  I don’t think “False Dawns” moved the needle all that much in terms of sales when it was serialized, but it’s good enough to make you want to see the creators return to this world again when they have another story to tell.