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The Friday Review: Nobody
Writers: Alex Amado, Sharon Cho Reading NOBODY is similar to shining a flashlight around in a cathedral. You get enough to make sense of the place, but there's other things that you can't quite see, other parts of the architecture that influence and support the bits that you can make out. It's not incomplete; it's just that you can only see a small part of it. This way of structuring the story is both a conscious choice and an elegant way of avoiding the clichés associated with the genre. NOBODY, you see, is a religion-tinged horror story mixed with liberal doses of film noir and techno-thriller. These three genres are so well established that the ground rules are common knowledge. Things are at work on Earth that we can't perceive, a secret war is being fought between heaven and hell, the usual sort of things. The bottom line is, we all know how this stuff works, so the creative team sensibly dispenses with any attempt to explain it and hits the ground running. NOBODY is the story of Jessica Drake, a young woman who grew up on the streets. She's the latest Nobody, an unnamed warrior fighting in a war against the forces of hell. She's equal parts detective, magician and commando and works alone, aside from the research and technical support provided by her sometime friend Marcus. The only other advantage she has is, by means we never find out, she is able to change her appearance. The story opens with Drake breaking up an attempt at a human sacrifice. It doesn't go well. She arrives too late and is forced to not only kill most of the people attempting the sacrifice, but also the victim. She does what she can, giving Heaven first refusal on his soul, and moves on. Inevitably, things start to go wrong from there. For a character called Nobody, Jessica Drake makes a fascinating central character. The creative team takes a severe gamble with her, making her an abrupt, obsessive figure and giving her a thoroughly nihilistic worldview. For Drake, the only thing that matters is the work, and everyone else just gets in the way, whether they're the opposing side or just innocent victims caught in the middle. This near-religious dedication to her job is explained, to some extent, by the job itself. No secret is made of the fact that there's a long line of Nobodys before Drake and, most interestingly, it's never once said that they're important. As far as Drake - and the reader, for that matter - knows, there are hundreds of thousands of Nobodies all operating in complete ignorance of the others. She's only as important as her last success, and as a result, she becomes focused upon that success. From a personal point of view, Jessica Drake really is nobody. In fact, it's interesting to note that, as the story progresses, and Drake becomes personally involved with her work for the first time in years, she becomes less effective. It appears that she has a choice, either to have a personality or to be an effective soldier. What she chooses to be, and the price she pays for that choice, lies at the heart of much of the story. With a central character like this, it would be easy for the story to lose coherency and interest. However, it does anything but this, due in no small part to the hints it provides of "the bigger picture". Following the opening raid, Jessica is debriefed by a man whose face is in shadow. He's the 1940's detective ideal, complete with hat and trenchcoat, and wouldn't look out of place in a John Le Carre novel. He could be another human, an angel, or God, but Drake doesn't ask, so we don't know. The only indisputable fact is that he's further up the chain of command than Drake, and as a result, tells us a great deal about that chain of command. Here, the war between Heaven and Hell is presented as something akin to the Cold War. Two vast nation states fight a silent war that the world never sees, over the central political difference of "Thou shalt not kill" versus "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." While this approach isn't unique (The TV series ANGEL seems to run along similar lines), NOBODY approaches it in a rather different manner. Through the seemingly uncaring Drake, the story explores not so much what this war is over, but what it means for those who fight it. Here, as stated above, it becomes clear that Drake has sacrificed not only her identity but even her compassion to become a better warrior. This becomes particularly apparent toward the story's conclusion, where Drake's efficiency drops in almost direct proportion to how emotionally attached she is to her work. Ultimately, there are no easy answers in NOBODY. The central story closes with Drake, blood on her hands and traumatised from what's happened, confronted with the consequences of both what she's done and what she failed to do. It ends as it begins, with a conclusion of sorts, but with larger events still rolling on in the background. The final image we see is Drake in the middle of a busy city street, silently trying to make sense of events, to work out where to go and who to fight. She's Nobody, and despite the crowd, nobody notices her. Amado and Cho's script is brought to life by Charlie Adlard's scratchy, tense, monochrome work. Adlard's work is distinguished both by his skill with characters and his ability to deal with "wide screen" action sequences with aplomb. Both are amply demonstrated here, with each one of Drake's identities recognisably unique and yet also recognisably her. Action sequences are handled with equal ease, the stand-outs being the chase across the San Francisco rooftops in part two, and the extended, brutal fight that forms the climax of part four. The trade paperback also includes "Siege", an illustrated text story produced especially for this edition. It shares the main story's tone but doesn't refer to it, contrasting Drake's own perceived self-assurance with a cult that prays on those with self-esteem problems. Here, instead of being forced to confront the emotional consequences of her work, she's forced to accept the price she's paid to do what she does. Jessica Drake is a name she picked because she liked it. Beneath it, there's no face and, by extension, no identity. When the villain of the piece confronts her with this, she retaliates so savagely that it's unclear whether she's doing her job, or trying to kill him for telling her the truth. In conclusion, NOBODY is a superior piece of modern horror, stripped to the bone but still filled with more ideas than most. Amado and Cho's script marries horror with modern-day espionage, all shown through the point of view of one of the most complex female protagonists in modern horror comics. Genuinely unsettling and a good deal smarter than its peers, NOBODY, despite the main character's best efforts, is truly unique. Alasdair Stuart is the manager of Travelling Man comics in York, and writes for the Manx Independent newspaper. Ninth Art endorses the principle of Ideological Freeware. The author permits distribution of this article by private individuals, on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice. Back. |