(Check back later today for a second review - sorry for the delay in writing up Monday's tangent, but I was 2/3rds done at 2 a.m. and was starting to type more typos than text so I figured it was best to call it a night. Take care!)

A World in Flux

(From Flux. Click on image to see it full-sized.)

Sometimes it seems like you can't turn around without running across another post-Armageddon story. There is a certain allure to this sub-genre, as it allows the cartoonist to indulge in one of the greatest pleasures of any writer: universe creation. With a post-Armageddon story, however, the cartoonist often has the benefit of building from previously-existing material.

For instance, just about everyone knows about the United States, and even the history behind it. So by taking that framework and smashing everything within it, you've given a common ground from which fans everywhere can relate from, and yet go about building a new world in your own image. Sort of the best of both worlds, as it were.

On the surface, Flux seems to follow this venue. However, it quickly turns things on its ear by having the end of the world be through the disruption of space and time and mixing elements of all timelines together. (Indeed, the way it's described, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see dinosaurs roaming the landscape. Or other, older things. Though no doubt some species (such as the giant insect) probably died quickly due to environmental changes.) However, only pieces came through, and the world population was a fraction of what it had been. Naturally, that brought about immense chaos and turmoil.

(To be honest, Unicorn Jelly did something similar. However, we never witnessed the actual mixture of societies. Mostly we saw the end-product, a merging of several dominant cultures, thousands of years after the initial event. Flux holds promise to showing more of how people and places coped with being ripped out of time and space.)

That ending was 48 years ago. Mia wasn't alive back then. But her parents, one ripped from 23rd century Venezuela and the other from 20th century America, managed to find something in common despite the differences in their timelines and cultures (and despite prejudices against such pairings), and eventually a world dictatorship was established to enforce law and order. Unfortunately, with such dictatorships comes abuses of power... and with the summary execution of her parents, Mia struck out against the dictator, killing him and all of his guard.

In doing so, she stranded the object of the dictator's interests, a genie. And not a wish-bearing genie either. No, this was a killing machine, and for all of its power, Kylie is at the mercy of any magician who comes along. But rather than kill Mia for that outrage, Kylie makes a deal with Mia. Mia would deal with any lesser wizards that came along, while helping Kylie try and find a sorceror capable of sending Kylie home.

Time passes... and Mia and Kylie become good friends. Indeed, they become family; Mia loves Kylie even though she knows the genie killed her parents (and witnessed it). I'm not sure if they're lovers or anything, but sex doesn't have to enter into a picture for you to love someone. That's just window-dressing. It's unimportant in the long run.

Unfortunately, we don't witness this developing story. The comic goes from 17 year old Mia, having just watched her parents slain and she herself killing those responsible (except for Kylie, who is beyond her in power and skill), to a period almost three years in the future, and then back a year. It's at this point that we get a sense of the camaraderie between Kylie and Mia, of playfulness. And also the fact that as a fighter, Mia may be better than Kylie. (Not that that matters; I think Kylie can kill with but a thought or a glance. I'm not exactly sure how that came about.)

This is a shame, really. I for one am curious as to how their relationship grew and developed. When did fear and anger turn to admiration? When did disdain turn to respect? What bond grew between this girl and this genie? And will we get to witness it through other flashbacks and the like?

The setting of Flux alone suggests that we might shift back to see this earlier story at some point. "Appropriately, the story itself follows a less than chronological timeline, to further stress the disjointed quality of the world." However, we've seen remarkably little of this world. We've seen Mia's home, and the debris that becomes of it years later. We've seen the dimensional palace that is the sorceror August's domain, and where the past three chapters of the story have taken place. But outside of that? Nothing.

Of course, a good story takes time to tell. Hopefully once we're done with August (and it seems likely this current story-arc is going to wrap up in a couple of months), we'll move on to other locales, and see what the rest of the world has been up to.

Robert A. Howard

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