Wasteland #59 (Oni)

via Previews World

writer: Antony Johnston

artist: Christopher Mitten

Technically, this is the last issue of the Wasteland saga.  And it is deliciously cyclical, as most of the best stories are.

I say "technically" because there's one issue left, an epilogue as it turns out.  All the better for Wasteland's few but hopelessly devoted fans, who will savor this story for years.

The very first issue featured a cover remarkably similar to this one.  The person behind the goggles and the mask was Michael, whom I've always identified as a Wolverine figure, and somewhat rightly so as it turns out.  The person behind the goggles and the mask this time is Abi.  Both are characters we've spent the whole series following, and both split off from what had begun to seem like the main narrative of Wasteland when they left the city of Newbegin behind, in search of fabled A-Ree-Yass-I.

(Which is finally identified, by the way.)

When we first met Abi, she didn't know she was exactly like Michael.  She knew she had peculiar abilities, but she'd forgotten, just as the world did, what had come before.  And now she has replaced him.

The story begins anew, at the end.  Hopefully the mistakes of the past won't be repeated?  That's what it's all been about, remembering the past, learning from it.

And it's been a grand journey.