Wasteland, Book 1: Cities in Dust

WASTELAND, BOOK 1: CITIES IN DUST

Collects WASTELAND #s 1-6

The first six issues of WASTELAND effectively set up everything you need to know about Oni’s epic work of post-apocalyptic fiction from Antony Johnston.  Artist Christopher Mitten provides art for most of the first few dozen issues, and is essential in the vision of America as it exists after the Big Wet, a hundred years after a disaster shrouded in legend but powerful effects on society.

Basically, everything has changed.  Most of the cities are ghosts of themselves, and anyone living in or around them has been affected by the need to exist in a world that is no longer welcoming.  There are predators everywhere, and not the least are the opportunists looking to exploit their positions of power.

We begin our journey in the community of Providence, where we quickly learn the fragility of everyday life.  We meet Abi here for the first time, and she’s one of our main characters.  She’s the sheriff of this town, trying to maintain order.  Her adopted son Jakob is fiercely loyal to her, and so is Doc, who runs the local pawn shop.  On this fringe of this community is Golden Voice, the Sun-Singer, main representative of the Sunners, who represent the main religious reaction to the new world, where Mother Sun and Father Moon once more dominate understanding of how everything works.

Their lives are all affected by the appearance of Michael, a Ruin-Runner, mysterious in his knowledge, his associations, and his ability to navigate the land on his own, and hardly trusted.  His encounter with Sand-Eaters inadvertently draws more of these creatures to Providence, which effectively obliterates the town, forcing everyone to evacuate to the new piece of salvation, Newbegin.

What no one suspects is that Newbegin is an empire unto itself, run with an iron fist by Marcus, the Lord Founder, who has lead it for eighty years.  He holds sway over Dexus, the lead Watchman, as well as Primate Heddor, Skot, and others willing to follow him.  Except Heddor has learned that it isn’t so easy to blindly follow Marcus, and quickly pays the price for it, betrayed by Skot in exchange for new power.

Michael helps the survivors of Providence catch a ride with a caravan run by Sultan Ameer, at least until dark secrets are discovered about the nature of the caravan.  Wulves attack, Dwellers are encountered in a precity, but finally, they reach Newbegin, where Jakob holds some sway, at least enough to get them in, but they discover a big surprise.

Marcus has his own religion, and Sunners are not particularly favored as rivals.  The survivors of Providence are all Sunners.  Marcus has other surprises as well, as do Michael and Abi, who possess supernatural abilities they are careful to conceal.  They are probably the only ones capable of challenging Marcus.  The first six issues see all of this unfold, the introduction of these complicated matters at the heart of WASTELAND, which is like WALKING DEAD a hundred years later, a peak at the nature of humanity when pushed to the extreme, of what comes next, and how all these problems we grapple with today might look with just a little push, a little time to be absorbed, and how we might still have a chance to triumph over them.

CITIES IN DUST is an invaluable primer on the best comic book being published today.  So much of what WASTELAND is can be summed up as world-building, so much of the storytelling immersed in the middle of what the characters are themselves experiencing, so much of the thrust of what makes it great is slowly revealing the bigger picture, it’s impossible to read WASTELAND without becoming intrigued.  I think part of the reason that it does not yet have a significant following is that WASTELAND is a challenge, it isn’t simple, but rather so bold that it expects readers to catch up with what it already knew before the first issue was published, that Johnston has envisioned something with unprecedented scope for a comic book.  There’s a whole mythology that’s unveiled in the first six issues that mixes the familiar with the unexpected, something entirely new and a story that will constantly amaze you.

If that’s not something you’re interested in, then by all means, continue to pretend that WASTELAND doesn’t exist.  But if it is, please take this as an opportunity to see where the story began, so you’ll better understand where it’s going.