East of West, Vol. 1: The Promise Author: Jonathan Hickman | Language: English | ISBN:
B00GOHM5OM | Format: PDF
East of West, Vol. 1: The Promise Description
This is the world. It is not the one we wanted, but it is the one we deserved. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse roam the Earth, signaling the End Times for humanity, and our best hope for life, lies in DEATH. Collects EAST OF WEST #1 - #5.
- File Size: 71247 KB
- Print Length: 96 pages
- Publisher: Image Comics (November 8, 2013)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00GOHM5OM
- Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #201,892 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
What is it like in Jonathan Hickman's head? From what appears on his pages, we can only assume it to be a creative tempest. Here is a writer who thinks big thoughts with a capital BIG, who brings together ideas that can charitably be described as disparate. When everything clicks, the result is nothing short of brilliant. Consider, for example, his tragically stalled "S.H.I.E.L.D." series. In it he brought together Archimedes, Newton, Jabir ibn Hayyan, Nostradamus, and Zhang Heng and Tesla (to name just a few) from our "real" world and mixed them with Nathaniel Richard and Howard Stark (the fathers, respectively, of Mr. Fantastic and Iron Man) to synthesize one of Marvel's most interesting comics in years. Even when Hickman falls short, as in the "Manhattan Project" (in which the atomic bomb is the least interesting creation of world's great minds, here reimagined as drunks, space aliens, lunatics etc), one cannot but be impressed. Now with "East of West," Hickman has introduced yet another world, one totally new and staggering in its scope.
A fantastical fantasy masquerading as an alternative history, "East of West" takes place in a future (2064) dystopian North America divided in seven separate states (nominally Union, Confederate, Native American, Texan, Chinese, etc). Twenty-Sixty-Four could be 3064 or 20,064 for all it would matter. This is a world awash in high technology, mysticism and mutants. The cultural flavor varies but we spend most of our time in a futuristic old West (think Butch and Sundance riding robot horses) and eventually the Chinese empire (ruled by Emperor Mao V).
As the book opens, a nameless lone white figure rises from the earth. Then we see him in cowboy regalia on a killing spree.
This story needed to be thought out WAY more than what we get here. There are just too many instances where the impact of the story feels flat and superficial. In a story that infers a context of mythological and iconic proportions, we instead get a mishmash of hokey characters and often silly scenarios that not only read as amateurish but also that fundamentally lack the excitement or intensity you would assume should be there. Truthfully though, the concepts are fairly imaginative as it blends some old school China with some cowboy western and thrown into a undefined sci-fi future. I've seen this kind of thing before in old issues of Metal Hurlant, but here there is a complete lack of world building that is so needed to give such an odd world a sense of hierarchy and meaning to the characters involved. As such, it all comes together feeling underdeveloped and thin; never quite adequately explained when trying to carry sweeping dramatic pieces of plot. The end result is a rather hokey blend of elements that could have had a lot of potential.
I get the sense that Hickman probably writes this book without much self editing or assessment, at least in this volume. And what really pushes me totally out of the game with this series is that the supposedly dramatic dialogue which should be creating tension during key moments of character development are too often just big empty sentences that not only lack substance, they often make no sense within the internal logic of what's happening within the story.
So the premise here is that the four horseman of the apocalypse are people, which you would think should be pretty cool right? Unfortunately these are the lamest and least impressive four horseman I've ever seen.
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