Novel Graphics - John Arcudi & Peter Snejbjerg's 'A God Somewhere' ... The Authority With Consequences & More
I've just finished reading John Arcudi and Peter Snejbjerg's A God Somewhere and I'm still mulling it over ... In fact, I think I'll be mulling it over for a little while to come. It'd be easy to hang one of a dozen cliches on it. It is this generation's Watchmen, and it is The Authority with consequences, but beyond that it's something more. This book asks you to imagine what would happen if just one person ended up miraculously gifted with super powers. Then it asks: What if it was the wrong person? These are quite heady concepts on their own, but they have been touched on before. If A God Somewhere left it there then it would be easier to dismiss ... But it asks one further question of its readers which really gets you thinking: Is there actually a 'right' person? And there's the kicker.
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Like any great super powered origin, it starts with an unexplained explosion and a miraculous bestowing of powers. No one knows how or why, and that's not really the point - the fact is it happened, and Eric Forster is forever changed as a result. He gains super-strength, the ability to fly, a seeming invulnerability, and other powers we can't even begin to understand. At first he uses these powers to help - rescuing others from the rubble of his building, stopping bank robbers and thwarting crime - but slowly he withdraws from those around him and becomes more insular, like an island or a god unto himself. And so Lord Acton's words ring true once again, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
I think most people are familiar with this famous adage and think of it in circumstances such as these. Lord Acton said it so well, but over 100 years previous William Pitt the Elder said something similar which holds even much more significance for this particular tale ... "Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; and this I know, my lords, that where laws end, tyranny begins." Eric Forster is a corrupted man. The law no longer applies to him, at least in his mind, and as he comes to that realisation the real changes come. Nothing matters to him anymore - not politics or religion, friendship or brotherhood. It all pales before him, and that's when the tyranny starts. Eric wages a one-man war against the world, starting with those closest to him and radiating out in a spiral of unstoppable destruction. It's brutal, it's graphic, and it's shocking. I found some things hard to read, yet it's illustrated with a sensitivity that makes you realise just how desensitised you've become.
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I feel almost wrong saying this, but I didn't know John Arcudi and Peter Snejbjerg had this in them. Both have been good solid creators over the years, and each has produced some memorable work, but this ... This is something else. And when did Wildstorm become such a boutique publisher? I used to just think of them as big boobs, big battles and big guns. They still have those, by the way, but they're also cultivating a wonderful library of brave and innovative releases like A God Somewhere. It's an interesting juxtaposition and I like it. I really don't want to say too much more about the book because this is a review, not a synopsis. I don't want to spoil anything, I just want to tell you to buy it. Buy it, read it, and pass it on to your friends. Talk about it and consider what it says. It might not be everyone's cup of tea but, like any great work, it asks you to think, and that's what makes it really worthwhile. Bravo! I give it 9 out of 10 because a perfect score would seem to contradict the high concept of the book.
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