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sedgewicke · 6 years

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*deep breath* DOES ANYONE WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE COMIC TITLED “MANIFEST DESTINY”, NOT THE ACTUAL CONCEPT OF MANIFEST DESTINY, BECAUSE IT IS A GOOD COMIC?

*cough* Oh god. Gimme a second. Okay. Okay. I’m good now. So. I’ve made the terrible mistake of trying to find fans of the comic Manifest Destiny on Tumblr. One guess how that turned out NOT WELL. Had a bad time. I figure, might as well put out an alert, raise a nautical flag above my hastily cobbled together raft out on the tumultuous barf sea that is Tumblr, hope some other poor soul will see me that we may huddle together in shared enjoyment of a thing. BUT. If you aren‘t aware. There‘s a comic about the Lewis and Clark expedition.

And that cover ain’t no lie* (*visually), like every other Western comic cover. That’s what the art looks like. It took me over 20 issues to realize that the coloring was digital, and that’s only because they said so in the letters section. Seriously, I need deets on how Gieni does that shit.

Of course, it stars our old friends from grade school history class, Meriwether *snicker* Lewis and William Clark...

Wait, no--

Meriwether Lewis

and William Clark

Can I get the establishing character moment, Gladys?

Danke. Lewis is the thinky science man and Clark is the shootsy tough guy... except when Lewis is wrestling a giant frog monster and Clark is tormented by visions of all the Native people he’s killed and... yeah. Character depth.

So don’t be fooled into thinking it’s just anther one of those “let’s take these public domain historical/literary characters and make them XXXTREME” deals that were popular a few years ago. Don’t get me wrong-- it is that, but the creators went out of there way to give it a very accurate feel...

Except for how the entire expedition was secretly a government-sponsored mission to unravel the mystery of why the North American continent is apparently filled with giant monsters and these freaky goddamn arches.

I’m now even more suspicious of the St. Louis Arch.

As far as the hictorical-characters-as-badasses factor goes, that’s primarily the domain of Sacagawea, who, in addition to still being a badass as she was in real life, is also now a badass warrior babe.

But don’t worry: there’s a reason why this teenage girl is now a world class ass-kicker (aside from growing up in an alternate universe where giant monsters are a thing)... I just can’t tell you what that is. She’s shown to have undertaken some mysterious training as a child, you know, the kind where it’s really questionable whether your teacher cares if you live or die. You know-- that kind. However, they’ve been real cagey about the wherefores of it all. What I’m saying is, although she seems like your stock stoic badass warrior chick, there’s a lot going on with her just under the surface.

And because I know you’re worried, the creators have gone out of their way to portray Native Americans as diverse human beings belonging to many different cultures, with individuals varying as much as any white character (no Magic Forest Elf Indians here). While I’m shamefully ignorant of a lot of Native cultures, the depictions... feel pretty authentic? In that they don’t feel like your usual Wilde Weste Injune stereotypes, which implies that research was done. Like, uuhhh, that bear in the lower left has a heart line, an image found in many Native cultures-- that’s a thing I know! Of course, Apocalypto went out of its way to be entirely in the Mayan language, but then... yeah. So maybe “this one thing is accurate” isn’t a good test of overall accuracy.

And despite being told primarily from the point of view of the mostly white expedition members, who are portrayed as... men of their time... it doesn’t romanticize history.

While at the same time not portraying Natives as weak, helpless victims of The Evil White Man-- who, in turn, are shown as having different opinions, with some characters being asshole racists even for the time, and others being quite progressive... for the time. Lewis is usually the one in the latter role, attempting diplomacy and gettin’ along, even if it comes off as... see above.

ANYWAY, moving on to other characters. YORK! Yet another awesome figure in history we know painfully little about and will probably never learn more about. Damn.

He got some good character development recently (as of this writing, we’re on issue 31), but I want more York being a cool dude. Like facing off with a plant-zombie bear.

Because, likely true to history, York is mostly stuck smiling and nodding at whatever the nearest white person says. But, oddly, this has taught him the art of situation-diffusing language (on top of generally being one of the more sensible and even-tempered members of the party)...

... though you can tell there are times where he’d really like to give someone a good whittling.

I do hope the issue of slavery comes up a bit more-- that’s another thing, they’re real good at addressing Issues without ham-fisting it. York and Sacagawea have a short conversation that I can’t find, where, if I recall, she questions his willingness to put up with this shit, and he kind of just brushes the subject off.

And I really wonder what they’re gonna do once the expedition is over, since historians are unsure whether or not Clark freed York afterwards. Because, oh yeah, all the “main characters” historically did survive, which is NUTS. You know who else survived?

SEAMAN. THE DOG. THE DOG SURVIVES. HE IS A GOOD BOY WHO DOES A GOOD JOB, 17/10, WOULD HIRE FOR FURTHER ADVENTURES.

But forever up on the chopping block is my favorite character, fictional (thus vulnerable) convict Jensen, who is a tiny weasel man who’s always talking shit (and gettin’ hit) and trying to sow discontent, because he saw through the bullshit they were all being fed about the true nature of the expedition ISSUE NUMBER MOTHER FUCKING ONE. And he survived that issue! And the next! And he’s still alive 30 issues later!

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ALL THAT, CHECK THIS SHIT OUT!

GODDAMN, this is a good looking comic. And yes, in case it wasn’t painfully obvious, it’s also a horror comic like nobody’s business.

I could go on and on and on, and I should probably put most of this behind a cut but FUCK THAT, this comic doesn’t get anywhere close to the attention it deserves, so you get to have it blasted into your eyesockets.

#manifest destiny #comics #chris dingess #matthew roberts #owen gieni #lewis and clark #history #horror #gore

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