Undiscovered Country vol. 3: Possibility

Vol. 2 of this series was held back by how it was about America’s relation to technology and how – stop me if you’ve heard this before – it wound up being used for the wrong purposes and things started going wrong!  The good news here is that vol. 3 sees things get back on track a bit, in that it offers more of the craziness that made vol. 1 so appealing.  This is due to the fact that our protagonists have wound up in the “Possibility” zone which was meant to embody America’s creativity in relation to the arts.  Which is why they get attacked by gangsters on a boat who look like they came out of a 30’s gangster flick (complete with a black-and-white look) almost immediately.  That’s only the start of things as everything from superheroes, characters from tall tales, a sentient drum set, and even the Devil himself show up to pressure everyone into finding ways to create new stories for them to live out.  This is also the way our protagonists are going to find a way out of this zone as all they have to do is create a new American Masterpiece.

What exactly constitutes an “American Masterpiece?”  That’s the subject of much debate over the course of this volume, along with the nature of what our country’s “soft power” has wrought on the rest of the world.  Co-writers Scott Snyder and Charles Soule seem very interested in these questions, but they don’t have any clever answers for the reader by the end of this leg of the story.  They’re better at fleshing out the personalities and backstories of Valentina, the reporter, and Ace, the historian, and making them seem like real characters beyond their stated roles.  Giuseppe Camuncoli (layouts) and Leonardo Grassi (finishes) also deserve credit for drawing so much crazy stuff in this volume as well, even if their efforts don’t quite live up to the majesty of what they’re aiming for.  It all results in a volume that does keep me invested in the series, but more for its spectacle than what it has to say.