Saturday, June 4, 2005
     
|
Still working on the car...
They said Hell would be hot... it was. But only for a few days.  (From Post Nuke. Click on image to see full-sized image.)
Post-Nuke follows a tradition of post-apocalyptic stories and movies concerning the nuclear winter said to come after World War III, and handles it in a honest and horrific manner. And while some of the science behind it may be iffy, it remains a truly frightening glimpse into an alternative future in which man has brought about his own demise... and a glance at the shattered soul who travels through this burnt, frozen wasteland. Ironically enough the comic starts out with a one-sided discussion about parallel universes, and a strange sense of deja vu as a nightmare becomes reality... but one that the hero is able to avert. The comic follows a survivor of the armageddon that took his world and splintered it into shards fighting for the dying remnants. We hear of a large-reaching plot, of a man who orchestrated the destruction of the world so he could unite the remnants, but the only players in this game have been a man and his old dog, both of whom are grizzled survivors, veterans of survival. Other humans are as often foe as friend, and no one can be trusted. Truly the dead are the fortunate. Some of the survivors have mutated, become twisted monsters that exist to feed only. It might be better to describe them as feral tumor-ridden human animals, but our nameless hero mentions more elegant mutations that were devoured by the stronger, more monstrous mutants. It's been a little more than 8 years since the nuclear holocaust. A few years before that, the Earth herself struck against mankind, dropping California into the sea, devastating the entire Pacific region as monstrous tsunami struck Japan, the Philippines, China, and Australia. It's a bleak picture painted here. Nor is our protagonist necessarily a noble hero. Just recently he came across a vehicle with a child, near death, hugged by her dead mother. He's all set to abandon her, to let the coldness of winter claim her, but his dog (named Aries, ironically enough) refuses to budge until finally he caves and works to save her life. And even now we don't know if he succeeded. He's brought her back from the brink... but she's not regained consciousness. I don't know where the comic is going. We've one man here, with a dog and now a girl, possibly 10 or so (I'm not sure, we didn't get much of a glimpse of her, but she's not fully grown). Of course, the chapter is not yet complete. We may very well encounter more humans... and our hero might finally settle down. I doubt he'll actually go the way of so many heroes and right the wrongs of the world, face down the evil bastard responsible for so much devastation. The story is too grounded in reality to move in that direction. Whatever happens... this dark and haunting story will likely keep me on the edge of my seat, wondering what we will be seeing next... and how our hero will survive. Robert A. Howard ------------------------- The Longest Journey
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
©A Tangential Worlds Production 2005
Artist/Writer: Robert A. Howard
Special thanks to Mai-Li for Web Design Tips
Tangents is hosted on Keenspace, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics.
