East of West vol. 1: The Promise

Hickman’s record with me has been rock-solid, and his creator-owned titles have been a cut above his superhero work so picking this up was, once again, “a no-brainer.”  This is in spite of the fact that “East of West” represents a bit of a departure for the writer as he’s addressing a very specific American genre with this series:  the Western.  It’s a genre that doesn’t get much attention in comics, save from Garth Ennis, but Hickman has come up with an interesting sci-fi/alternate history take on the genre that also showcases his growth in writing and characterization.

The world of “East of West” springs from a Civil War that had a wildly different outcome than the one we’re familiar with.  After the remaining Native American tribes coalesced into one Endless Nation, the Union found itself fighting a war on two fronts which dragged on for two decades and fractured the nation even more.  By the time a peace treaty was signed, we were not one nation but seven.  Of course, that’s all incidental to the actual plot of this series.  That’s all rooted in a religious tract known as The Message which foretells the end of the world with the arrival of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Problem is, when we’re introduced to them at the beginning of the story, there’s only three of them.  They have now been forsaken by Death who is now wandering the land with his shapeshifting companions Crow and Wolf looking for revenge after his wife and child were taken from him.  His is an agenda which may confound the apocalypse, but in doing so also opens the doors for those who thrive on opportunity and mischief.

There’s more emphasis in worldbuilding here in “East of West” than in Hickman’s previous works.  The good news is that he’s come up with a very interesting world to explore.  One that feels culturally frozen from the Civil War era which preserves the “Wild West” trappings into a science fiction future.  While we get a fair amount of insight into the Union, the House of Mao, and the Black Towers, there’s still several factions that have yet to be explored.  The Kingdom of New Orleans?  The Republic of Texas?  What are these places like and what kind of people inhabit them?  I’ll admit that I have a great deal of trust in the writer and that he’ll get around to detailing all of these things at a later date.  It’s that trust which has me seeing the unexplored parts of this world as fascinating potential more than anything else.

It’s not all worldbuilding as Death’s quest involves lots of action and even more of his namesake as well.  For all of its futuristic and religious trappings, this is a simple tale of love and revenge at its core.  Between those two concepts, one of them works decidedly better at this point than the other.  We get some great scenes early on when Death intimidates his intent and purpose into the barkeeper and gets the President of the Union to say his name.  The carnage involving the House of Mao further displays the character as one who is not to be denied, no matter the stakes in his quest.  Many of these encounters also show that Death is a protagonist so smooth that he’s  above getting his suit dirty unless a war is involved.

Though a good portion of this volume is dedicated to showcasing Death’s utter inevitability, it’s made clear that he’s not infallible or above being manipulated.  He can intimidate with the best of them, but he’s not the smartest man in the room.  That honor belongs to one Andrew Archibald Chamberlain who can turn a phrase with the best of them and is cunning enough to engage in conversation with all four horsemen and live to tell the tale.  Though there’s a certain floridness to his dialogue that some may not have time for, the cleverness of character he displays through his words endears him to me.  Even if it feels like he’s going to come off as the real villain of this piece.

In fact, while a good deal of Hickman’s dialogue in his projects can probably be described as “functional” more than anything else, the rhythms of the Wild West seem to suit him here.  Maybe its his years of working with characters who have established personalities in the Marvel Universe, but there’s more zing to his words here than in his earlier miniseries at Image.  Having the three reborn horsemen as kids is clever, but there’s an exchange between them and one survivor that’s priceless in the way it gives us some of the worst last words ever.  In fact, just about all of the horsemen’s words are worth paying attention to and Death’s wife, Hu, gets some great moments as she expresses her dissatisfaction at what her family has done to her.  Yes, there are a few clunkers, such as when people start talking about the transformative power of love, yet the writing here is stronger overall than you’d expect.

That also leads us to the one part of this volume which doesn’t quite work as well as it should.  You see, while the idea of a woman taming Death through love is great in concept it doesn’t quite catch fire on the page.  We’re told about the circumstances that led to their relationship, the child they had, and how they were violently torn apart and that gives us ample reason to root for them.  However, Death and Hu don’t exactly have a lot of chemistry together.  I can understand the resentment she has towards him and why it was necessary at this point in the story, but it also undermines the love we’re told that they shared and how it confounded the apocalypse.  Everything about their relationship works on a conceptual level, but in execution I just wind up taking it as read and being more interested in seeing more of Death taking out all of the bastards in his way.

Working with Hickman on the book is artist Nick Dragotta, who illustrated a fair amount of issues of “FF” in the latter part of the writer’s run.  Though the artist’s work at Marvel was always marked by a strong Jack Kirby influence, he shows a fantastic design sense for this future world.  Dragotta’s work is grounded in the concepts of the past, yet there’s an effortless sleekness to their designs that never lets us forget that we’re in the future.  The man can also draw action scenes both intimate, Death’s opening barroom intimidation, and epic, the assault on the House of Mao later in the volume.  As for the characters themselves, they work well with the dialogue to sell the emotional content of the story (better in some parts) and — particularly in the case of the three horsemen — are imaginatively rendered as well.  This is easily the strongest work I’ve seen from Dragotta and seeing what else he has to offer for this series is almost certain to be a real pleasure.

There are a lot of good ideas at the heart of this first volume and the execution serves up some memorable characters and real potential for them to be played out satisfyingly over this title’s run.  “East of West” may be grounded in some very traditional setups and that looks to have invigorated Hickman and Dragotta into finding new and interesting ways to render them.  The love story that serves as part of its backbone may be underdeveloped, yet there’s enough action and scheming to make up for it.  I didn’t think that enjoying this first volume as much as I did was going to be a foregone conclusion, but now it seems as inevitable as everything else in The Message from this series.