Once Upon a Time at the End of the World vol. 2: The Fall of Golgonooza
The first volume of this Jason Aaron-written series about young love in the post-apocalyptic era was fine for what it was, up to a point. If you were in sync with the writer’s sensibilities then seeing hardened former Wasteland Ranger Mezzy and eccentric inventor Maceo find themselves in this harsh world was good fun. Then we got a scene where Maceo invented a device using the materials available to him that would create an exact replica of Mezzy’s face in a cliff wall that was so emotional that it caused the Rangers he was competing against to give up and let the two go free.
It was easily the dumbest thing I had read in a long, long time and did a really good job of tanking any goodwill the first volume had built up before that point. Were I a less committed fan of Aaron’s writing, I probably would’ve stopped reading future volumes of this series if this was the kind of ridiculousness that he was going to have on hand. Yet, there’s always the possibility that the writer could claw the story back into enjoyable levels of dumb, if not actual fun.
The first half of this volume suggests that the former might actually be achievable as it picks up a few years after the end of vol. 1. Mezzy and Maceo are still wandering the Wasteland looking for the Oasis she heard about when she was a Ranger. It may sound like a hard life for them, but they make it work through the love they feel for each other, which includes lots and lots of sex.
It’s probably a good time to mention that while vol. 1 may have indicated that this series could function as a good YA read, that assumption is kicked right to the curb when Mezzy and Maceo start having sex – full-on naked banging that leaves nothing to the imagination – in the first few pages. So vol. 1 would only still function as a good YA read if any of its readers became adults while waiting for vol. 2. Anyway…
Our protagonists do find an oasis and they set about making it into a haven for anyone looking to escape the horrors of the wasteland. Which, in the way Aaron goes about writing it, results in a period of time and sequence of events that are so stupidly sincere and earnest that you’ll either have to give in and accept that this is paradise on Earth, or rip vol. 2 up before you’re halfway through. Free love, candy vaults, cuddles and compliments parties, four-story foam slides, year-round clothing-optional Christmas hot springs are just some of the features that Golgonooza has to offer.
I might’ve rolled my eyes at some of this stuff, but there’s no denying that Aaron and artist Leila Del Luca are committed to this version of paradise. It’s one founded on the acceptance of all of humanity’s weirdness and quirks that has no place for shame, ignorance and bigotry. If there’s a problem, you work things out using your words, and there’s plenty to go around by way of cultivating and sharing the gifts that the Earth is willing to provide. Which is where this volume starts to fall apart.
Taken as a whole, vol. 2 feels like an analysis of a doomed relationship. If you’re worried that this is a spoiler, then I’ll remind you that its subtitle is “The Fall of Golgonooza” – there was no way this wasn’t going to end on a downer note. It’s ultimately about how relationships die and wither on the vine without a lack of communication and trust, leading to an insurmountable distance between the couple in the end. If Aaron wrote this as a way of working through a failed relationship of his own, then I hope it worked for him. Though, if that’s the case, did he and his significant other start to drift apart after the Earth belched up some gas that turned them and their friends psychotic?
That’s the part of the story and its metaphor for relationships as a whole that loses me. It isn’t that Mezzy and Maceo drift apart because of their own failures. No, the very Earth is conspiring against them here. Which is certainly a thing to read, except that it leaves me at a loss in considering what it’s meant to represent. Complicating matters further is that the weird gas also appears to be connected to the Ranger who Mezzy tortured for information about the oasis. So it’s both a metaphor and integral to the main plot? That’d be clever if it was clear at all how that was meant to work.
The gas does give Del Luca plenty of room to go nuts with the slow decay of Golgonooza and the protagonists’ visions of each other under the gas. It’s all appropriately gloomy, nightmarish, or some combination of the two, with some well-done action scenes put in where appropriate. This all clashes appropriately with the fun-loving scenes in the volume’s first half and provides a great showcase for Del Luca’s range overall. Vol. 2 may have been graced with a narrative of uneven quality, but the artist is committed to it and she makes it all work as best she can.
It’s also worth noting that vol. 2 features work from original artist Alexandre Tefengki and Nick Dragotta, who did the flash-forward sequences in the previous volume. Tefengki’s work is minimal, confined to a splash page at the start of the volume and a few panels throughout that flash back to Mezzy and Maceo’s younger days. Dragotta does another flash-forward sequence at the end of the volume with Old Mezzy and Old Maceo which maintains the crazy energy from his previous work. The implication is that we’ll be catching up with these two in vol. 3, and I’d be perfectly happy if Dragotta illustrated the whole thing. Though I think that, after this volume, Del Luca would kill on that kind of story too.
At this point, “Once Upon a Time at the End of the World” remains an oddball curio for fans of Aaron’s work. While I’m hopeful that the concluding volume will be forthcoming soon, that’s probably because I can’t help looking away from a flaming car wreck. Is it because someone will emerge, battered and burned, but still alive? Or will flaming ninjas explode out of it desperate to secure the death of their target? Or will it continue to smolder unremarkably, doing nothing but slowing traffic for everyone who passes by? I feel that vol. 3 promises at least one of these things, and I’ll be there to find out which one it is. No one else, however, should feel obligated to do the same.