A relatively thin volume in the stack of graphic novels my friend Edward kindly lent me to explore for my graphic novel project, this has importance through being published by Eclipse Comics and through featuring painted art by Scott Hampton, supposedly the first such example in continuing comic book series. While it continued long enough to complete the story, that can't have been for much time, both because its page count isn't particularly high and because it should have been an awful lot higher. Either way, that art is the highlight for me, over the story by Bruce Jones.

That story is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth in the wake of "the Raining War when blood and fire ran from the skies". Our hero goes by Silverheels, for no apparent reason within the story beyond the fact that we've heard the name before in the actor Jay Silverheels, which automatically sets a set of expectations in our minds for the character. Sure enough, he's a Native American, though it isn't a term used in the book. He's a 'Pachee who lives in a compound because that's where all the 'Pachees live under the dominance of the Nazites, who all have notably Teutonic names.

However, Silverheels is also a dreamer, who can travel into the minds of others and he enjoys that aspect of his life more than its grim reality. His mother died bringing him into the world, leaving a grandfere to bring him up. Given that the tribe fears him for being different, it probably helped a great deal that his grandfere is a Timekeeper and Weaver of Tales, so presumably the shaman for the tribe. He taught him to live in the wild, hunting, dowsing and anything else. And all that turns out to be incredibly useful given where we go.

The Nazites, having presumably conquered the Earth looked to space as their next conquest, only to find that "the stars fought back" and presumably won. However, rather than explore the angle, Jones is content to skip ahead ruthlessly to maintain a focus on an extremely tight journey for his lead. Through his dreaming, he discovers that the Chairman of the Intergallactic (sic) Council is to visit tomorrow to choose someone to represent the planet Earth on the Lawkeeper's Force. Like a frustrating amount of this story, this isn't particularly explained, but it's obviously important and the Nazites plan to have Stepan Kraus be that representative.

And Silverheels opposes that choice with all his heart. Again, we have no idea why because Jones doesn't want to tell us, just as he can't be bothered to set up a viable way for him to replace him. Instead, he just has Silverheels escape the compound, killing the night guard, Aunwood, "a white man with a black mind who lusts after red women" and likely murdered Chiala, probably because he could. He clearly isn't much of a loss. And then, boom, he's a candidate. He simply muscles into the room where the Chairman of the Intergallactic Council looks at the candidates and impresses enough on first sight to be added to them. In a single page. See what I mean about page count. It isn't a bad direction for the story but this should have been an issue not a page.

Oh, and there's a young lady there too, a beautiful and thoroughly white woman called Miranda, also the daughter of the outrageously racist general who presumably leads the Nazites, at least here. We soon learn that she's Stepan Kraus's fiancée, though not by choice. They were matched by a computer and she can't stand him. Given his temper, she'd probably only last ten minutes as his wife anyway. She likes Silverheels and has apparently been waiting for him for years, while he had no idea she existed. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe she's a dreamer too.

And that's chapter one, which only takes up fifteen pages, so you can see how much was crammed into so few pages. There are four chapters all told, the second and third unfolding in merely eight pages each but the fourth much longer. They're all about the way that the Intergallactic Council is able to test these candidates to whittle eight down to two and eventually to one. It's packed with action and Hampton's art, while sometimes primitive, is always effective, whether he's looking at a romantic moment in bright colour or a jungle of terror at night. I liked it a lot.

I didn't dislike the story but I did dislike how it unfolded. There's a worthy story buried in here but it deserved much better treatment. It's too blatant, the analogy of worthy red men in compounds being dominated by an invading force of racist white men not unfair but ham-fisted anyway. Were the pioneers going west, young man, as bad as Nazis? I mean, they committed genocide too, so it may be a fair approach to take, but it always seems hyperbolic to compare anyone to Nazis.

And it's all annoyingly quick to unfold, which strips all the potential nuance out of it, and there are plenty of opportunities for that to shine. The test in the jungle, where the candidates are paired off and tasked with keeping their partner alive, Kraus and Silverheels naturally being teamed up, could have become 'Enemy Mine' if given enough room to breathe. It isn't, so it's not and that's a real shame. Characters like the general and indeed Miranda are far too cardboard, albeit in very different directions, and I wanted to know things like how the two of them could have coexisted a lifetime without killing each other.

I like that this exists and I like that it was published by Eclipse Comics, for a time the third largest American publisher of comic books, even though they were founded on the mindset that creators should own the rights to their own work and be paid royalties. Their Wikipedia page is fascinating, not only because they were created for all the right reasons and did really well for a considerable time, but also because, after their demise, audits exposed details to tarnish their legacy beyond repair. Apparently, they kept two sets of books and paid creators less than they should have done.

In other words, this is another graphic novel I'm thankful to have read but which ends up far more interesting for what it is and what it did than what's actually between its covers. Maybe someone should adapt it, either to a novel or a feature film. Either way, the story could be expanded to the degree it deserves and gain all the depth it ought to have had but sadly couldn't find with this page count. ~~ Hal C F Astell