A tale of sin, survival and space robots. Creator Livio Ramondelli, letterer Tom B. Long and editor David Mariotte tell the story of four robots eternally bound by a “Kill Lock” for each of their very different, heinous crimes. Now, they struggle to survive together, as if one of them dies, they all do. Ari Bard and Robert Secundus break down IDW’s “The Kill Lock.”
Ari Bard: So, you’re probably wondering how we found ourselves in this situation. After all, The Kill Lock is a long way from our usual sphere of Marvel discussion, but this series really struck me because of its discussion of sin, particularly as a burden and a binding agent. I decided to dive a bit deeper and rope in resident expert on sin, Rob. Thanks for coming aboard!
Robert Secundus: When Ari asked me, “Do you want to talk about sin?” I was like: always. And then I read the first issue of Kill Lock, a story about far future robot criminals trying to avoid a weird technologically imposed death sentence, but also a story about four broken people trying to stay alive, deal with their crimes, and, in some way, make their lives right — and I absolutely fell in love with the series. If you haven’t read it, I urge you to buy it immediately, right now, and read it, as it’s one of my favorite series of the past year. If you want to keep reading, there will be spoilers throughout, but I think the most important spoilers won’t pop up until the final section.
The Axial’s Graceful Design
AB: There’s no better way to dive right in than to look at the Kill Lock’s creator, The Axial. She’s a very interesting figure, playing God with her own kind to satisfy her curiosity and then handing over her designs to the ruling class and retreating to isolation. She appears so preoccupied with the idea of corrective action but never really addresses the weight of her own actions.
RS: We only meet the Axial over halfway into the series, and then we only see her briefly in three conversations and one psychological profile. But she asks the question that I think Livio Ramondelli asked when he conceived this series: In a broken, fallen world filled with flawed people, how can you respond to crime in a way that doesn’t just lead to further violence? How can you help someone who has done some harm to their community and lead them to some kind of reintegration with community? In this technological civilization, enter the Kill Lock. The Kill Lock forces criminals to become a community, as it makes communal action a matter of survival by tying their fates. The brand of the Kill Lock is simply this: If one person locked to others dies, then all tied by that lock die. Ari, in the abstract, removed from the particular characters and their particular situation, what do you think of the Lock itself?
AB: I mean, even beyond all of the questions that you just asked is, can community be forced? Putting lives on the line for any sort of experiment like this is absolutely abhorrent, but it meaningfully binds the four criminals together. I think community is almost always constructive and not destructive, so using that as a tool is admirable. Doing so this forcefully, however, much less so. Rob, do you have any opinions surrounding the Lock?
RS: Like you, I have extremely mixed feelings. On the one hand, I agree that the ends of the Kill Lock are admirable, and that “community” is inherently constructive — but I’m not sure it’s actually successful in the construction of a community, of something valuable and virtuous. As a thought experiment, it’s extremely interesting, but as an actual experiment on actual people, it becomes something monstrous, and I think you’re right that the problem comes down to force. Now, for the record, I’m really not well read on matters of retributive and restorative justice. But I think the Axial intends the Kill Lock to function as an example of the latter, and, thanks to that force, and thanks to the class wielding that force, it ends up as an example of the former. I think the Axial was, when she designed the Lock, like a lot of wealthy, powerful and smart people in our society today; I think she was a progressive, utopian-thinking innovative genius who, thanks to her privilege, and thanks to her willful ignorance of how utterly oppressive her surrounding society was, used that genius to do something monstrous. You know, the white, wealthy progressives of the 1920s and ’30s, both progressive scientists and wealthy elites, thought they were helping The Poors when they began to advocate for and institute programs of mass eugenics.
AB: Exactly. I’m not extremely well read on the subject either, but that’s definitely what it seems to me. There’s also a bit of the Manhattan Project thrown in there, as once she made the Kill Lock, it was no longer hers to control. She just handed it to the ruling class and got the hell out of there. The blase attitude with which they approach such an impactful societal tool makes her even more appalling when we first meet her. She’s like Philip Zimbardo or other scientists who even go as far as to admit that maybe their work wasn’t always ethical but refuse to answer for the consequences of their actions.
RS: I think we’ll return to the Axial and her creation later in the article, but for now, let’s talk about the specific people who are doomed by her invention in this series.
4 Sons; 4 Sinners
RS: We primarily follow four characters in Kill Lock, known only by their class designations/ robotic designs: the Laborer is a blue-collar worker with the soul of a poet, a person who longs for something more and is driven to drink by that longing; the Artisan is a psychopathic engineer who can see all the systems around him and manipulates those systems to his own benefit; the Wraith is a paladin, a crusader, a wandering ronin, a soldier who still tries to hold to his devout faith even though he was punished for questioning that faith; and finally, the Kid, an innocent robot who was slightly flawed while being created, and thus was discarded before he could even receive a designation. His first memory was of his creators realizing they had made a mistake; his second, that he was being condemned to death for it. These four characters are fascinating individuals, but I think they call to mind a series of archetypes as well. Ari, could you walk us through four of those archetypes? Who are the Four Sons, and how do you see them related to these characters?
AB: After realizing the magnitude with which this series is built around sin, the Four Sons mentioned in the Torah and often discussed around Passover almost immediately came to mind. Each of the Four Sons requires a different way of teaching and explaining Passover and the Exodus from Egypt. Each of the Four Sons has a different connection to their history and the Jewish faith, and therefore would likely have different approaches regarding overcoming their own burdens or sin. Walking through each of the four robotic designs here, I think a lot is revealed by matching them up to these Four Son archetypes. The Laborer is the simple son who asks questions as simple as can be. Over the course of his series, through the Laborer, we see a character who desires to learn and who realizes that they’ve spent their whole existence just chugging along in their job without wondering why and always struggling internally with their sin. The Artisan is the wicked son, whose question at the Passover seder contains a tone of cleverness and snark. There is never an underestimation of the wicked son’s intelligence, but rather an acknowledgement that his flaws lie in his selfishness and close-mindedness, yet he is still included in the seder, so his sin can be overcome. The Wraith is the wise son, who is capable of bearing sin, as he is not called the “good son” but demonstrates himself as a devout student of G-d as the Wraith claims to be. Finally the Kid is the child who does not know how to ask, who is really only portrayed as incredibly capable of being influenced. I think these four archetypes match up with our four characters in interesting ways, and I’m interested to hear your thoughts, Rob.
RS: I think they absolutely do. I think those are fascinating categories, Simple, Wicked, Wise and Innocent/Ignorant. It’s notable that there’s no “Good Son” archetype; that even, as you say, the Wise son might “bear sin.” I have a few questions for you, the first is, could you reflect a little for our readers on the Seder generally and its relationship with sin?
AB: Definitely! The Seder is a ceremonial meal that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover, which is where we retell the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. Interestingly enough, I don’t think the Passover or the Seder has much of a relationship with sin. Where the characters and the Four Sons relate, rather, is on the level of burden. I would say Passover is often heavy with the burden of sacrifice. It and the Seder are about educating and honoring the sacrifices our ancestors made when they left Egypt. Some may argue the holiday comes with a sense of duty or obligation, but I think it’s often presented as a burden in the sense that Passover is a holiday that often comes with a lot of weight because of all of the sacrifice that accompanies it. Burden is something that I believe links sin and sacrifice in a number of ways, and that’s where I chose to connect the characters in The Kill Lock with the Four Sons.
RS: Burden, weight and sacrifice are interesting things to distinguish from sin (or to complicate sin). So I guess my follow-up is: If we choose to look at the characters of The Kill Lock through the lens of burdens, what weight do they carry, and what are they being tasked with sacrificing? Is that sacrifice comparable to the sacrifice of the passover?
AB: I think these burdens are best explored when looking at the robots’ relationships with each other and how the burden of the Kill Lock forces them to live with their sins while every Passover reminds the Jewish people of the burden of the sacrifice their ancestors made. It is often said that the simple son admires the wise son in the Haggadah and desires to learn, but does not yet know enough to ask the complex questions. Similarly, I think the Laborer sees the Wraith and his heavenly purpose and admires that in a way. They both have very tough exteriors, but I think the Laborer sees how the Wraith has been able to use his and only sees wasted potential rotted away from the inside out when looking at himself. He hasn’t had a purpose for so long, and in many ways, that’s all the Wraith has. An interesting revelation, however, is the pairing of the wicked son and the son who does not know how to ask. It is said that the latter is easily swayed by the former’s cleverness and contempt for the Torah, and if you look at the Kid’s relationship to the other robots, he primarily follows and shadows the Artisan, thus getting himself into trouble, and is often warned and saved by the Wraith, who seeks to protect him from the morally wicked. The Wraith and Artisan both try to educate the Laborer and the Kid, but the Wraith does so from a place of purpose while the Artisan does so from a place of cynicism.
RS: So our burdens can be our relationships, and our sacrifices can be what we’re called to do for those relationships? While I’ll avoid explicit spoilers for the final issue, I think the climax is important to this discussion; I think the sacrifices they’re asked to make may be read in an interesting light, through the lens of the Seder.
AB: Exactly, and not only the sacrifices that they’re asked to make, but also the ones they’re forced to make. Additionally, this is just one of the frameworks that could be used when approaching the Kill Lock. I believe you have another useful framework that can be applied that deals more specifically with the idea of sin, right Rob?
RS: Right, so, clearly, a Jewish framework is really relevant to the series; I also think it’s useful to apply a Chrisitan framework. Each of the four sons seems to me like an archetypal kind of sinner in Christianity. I’m going to need to preface this by noting that in Protestantism, Catholicism, Orthodoxy and the various Neo-Christian religions, exactly what sin is and what a sinner is differ pretty massively, so we won’t be able to look at one kind of Christian sin here. But different characters will point us toward different traditions.
AB: Interesting. I’m definitely interested in exploring sin here in greater detail. Where should we start?
RS: I think it’d be best to begin with The Kid. The Kid doesn’t seem like an evil person at all — he’s done no wrong. And yet he’s condemned to earn the wages of sin, death, just as are his comrades. Why? Not for anything he’s done, but for what he is — a flawed creation. At his very beginning he was flawed. The Kid illustrates the postlapsarian innocent, the person who may not have sinned themselves but is still “guilty” somehow for Original Sin. We all, even children, inherit guilt for Original Sin just by fact of existing, and thus we deserve suffering and death, is how the story goes. It is a very disturbing doctrine, but it’s one that’s pretty common, at least among most sects of Protestantism and in Roman Catholicism (it’s a bit more complicated in Eastern Christianity). And the story really, I think, challenges the doctrine directly: It very explicitly asks us whether we think such a damnation is really just, and it clearly thinks the answer is no.
AB: Definitely. I think this is perhaps the most explicit way the Kill Lock addresses sin. In many ways, the paths for redemption for the other three robots are propelled forward by the motivation to help the Kid overcome his Original Sin. It’s interesting that there’s not talk of anyone else being eternally damned for this, as though Original Sin chooses whom to mark, but that they believe it is unjust and will perhaps pursue a selfless cause because of it, causing even the most selfish of characters to fight for another. Speaking of the Artisan, where does his sin lie?
RS: The Artisan seems to the reader to very much deserve his damnation. He’s cruel, sociopathic in his violence. He delights in suffering. He is willing to manipulate anyone necessary to achieve his ends. While aspects of the ending may complicate our understanding of his character, I think throughout the majority of the narrative he clearly resembles the Reprobate. In Calvinist tradition, every human being is either a member of the Elect or the Reprobate. Christ either chooses to save you, from before time, and offer His overwhelming grace, a grace that, thanks to His omnipotence, you cannot refuse — or He chooses not to offer you this grace, allowing you to walk into the inferno. Now, the trick here is that you can’t really know which one you are, but there are certain signs of election or reprobation, signs of the presence of grace or the lack of it, and one of the big ones is a total lack of conscience. Just as with the Kid, I think The Kill Lock takes this archetype and, by the end, challenges it. You may, for the majority of the series, think the Artisan really is just broken and rotten and evil in his core; by the end, I was wondering if that was really the case, or if he had chosen to be this way, if he had the kind of agency that Calvinism, in my understanding, denies.
AB: It’s interesting how divergent this is from the Wicked Son in Judaism. I think there’s often the question that asks why the Wicked Son is even allowed at the Seder, and the answer often relates to the idea that all of G-d’s children can be redeemed. In a lot of ways, this is directly contradictory. It says that no one is truly born rotten or evil but rather can choose to become that way and likewise can choose to redeem themselves. It’s interesting how these systems are related and yet diverge. What type of sin is applied to the Laborer?
RS: The Laborer expresses a conception of sin that I think is common among Eastern Christian traditions, but which we very much see today in many Christian-inflected corners of secular culture: The Laborer is the Sinner as the Sickly. He’s not evil. He’s a good, virtuous person. He desperately wants to do good. But he has an illness, in this case the same illness that in our society most commonly leads to expressions of this conception of sin: alcoholism. It’s not so much that our human nature is necessarily broken, or that he is a member of the Reprobate. Rather, due to the fallen nature of the world, due to his cruel and horrible environment, he has caught a disposition to sin, a weakness which, given the absence of certain environmental dangers, certain temptations, will not impede his virtue. When the Laborer has no access to a bar, he’s clearly a courageous, loyal, loving person. When there’s a bar, though, the illness kicks in. It’s not even an illness like a plague: It’s like an allergy. And once again, the series, in its depictions of the Laborer’s drunken spirals, asks us: Is it really not his fault when he does these things? Is it really an illness, something from beyond him, that made him this way? While I think in the previous two cases, the series pretty explicitly rejects the conception of sin, I should note, I don’t think those are rhetorical questions here, because I really do think his individual agency is somewhat balanced by the cruelty of his society. I think it’s an open question, when his drunkenness leads to death, whether he is more responsible, or whether the oppressive society that led him to drink is more responsible.
AB: This is a really interesting type of sin to explore, especially when looking at the idea of sin as it relates to consequences of negligence, which is largely what exists in the Laborer. He never appears to have sinful intent, and there is hardly any sense of malice present. Instead, it’s more of a symptom or unintended consequence born of temptation. I think his suffering and journey leave the most to think about in a lot of ways. Another curious thing is that he finds that this corrosive liquid that he’s been ingesting for a lot of his life, and that’s slowly killing him, also has some benefits.
RS: There’s this really interesting (kind of unorthodox) tradition in Christianity that I think fits here too, the idea of the “Holy Sinner.” Charles Péguy wrote that “The sinner is at the heart of Christianity. No one is as competent as the sinner in matters of Christianity. No one, except a saint.” The idea basically goes that the sinner, the person who intentionally and explicitly rejects God’s grace, is much closer to salvation, and closer to virtue, than the lukewarm, than the average person, who doesn’t think about grace at all. The sin isn’t a virtue, but it’s closer to virtue than the mere absence of virtue. Graham Greene’s four Catholic Novels (The Heart of the Matter, Brighton Rock, The End of the Affair, and The Power and the Glory) all explore this notion of the holy sinner to some degree (and if folks are interested, I’d recommend any of them except Heart of the Matter, which is, uh, problematic in its depiction of colonialism and suicide).
AB: Wow. that’s fascinating. It’s definitely strange to think of sin or flaws in general as having an upside, but it’s a great way of demonstrating how strength can rise from oppression. On the other side, we have a character whose strength allows him to oppress and destroy the lives of others, but who explicitly declares his faith from the first time we meet him. What kind of sin does the Wraith represent?
RS: The Wraith at the start seems to be extremely virtuous. He is framed as a kind of wandering warrior-monk adhering to a virtuous code. He only fights when provoked, and he sees loss of life as tragic. He clearly has a deep desire to save the innocent Kid. By the second issue, we start to develop an idea of what his kind of sin is when he becomes enraged by the mark of the Wrathiest: He’s a zealot. He’s a crusader who, we discover, committed atrocities in the name of his religion, which is itself clearly a manufactured belief system used by the state to impose control. But this, a final time, is challenged by the series in two ways. Firstly, we see that that same atrocious, horrible religion is the same thing that motivates him to try to save lives, and particularly save the life of the Kid. Secondly, we see that he was condemned to death for the crime of heresy, when he refused to partake completely in an atrocity. He is both zealot and heretic, both believer and excommunicant, someone punished and despised by his society or by the reader at times for adhering to or for questioning his faith. In many branches of Christianity, one is saved sola fide, by faith alone, not by one’s works. An unblinking faith in religion leads to salvation. Is the Wraith the Sinner-Zealot? The Sinner-Heretic? Both? Neither? The Wraith makes us question exactly what is good and what is evil about faith, and he does so while we read incredibly silly and hilarious puns like Wrathiest, which is why I love this series so much.
AB: Ramondelli does a great job of bringing humor into the most serious characters and moments. Additionally, I think something made clear throughout all of these characters is that sin and virtue are not as binary as they are sometimes portrayed to be. We see all four robots sentenced to the Kill Lock show moments of virtue and sin. It’s almost as though living beings and their morality are a complex subject. What’s interesting about these two molds, and a lot of what I think informs the book, is how they fit together. The Four Sinners appears to be a way to classify and explain past behavior in different types of people. The Four Sons attempts to examine how to educate different types of people on how to perceive and honor sacrifice. This may be a bit of a stretch, but the Kill Lock, in many ways, is a forced sacrifice given as punishment. Could it be that these two molds could be brought together in the idea that the Four Sinners relates to their state of moral being and past behavior while the Four Sons relates to their state of learning and how they move forward?
RS: Absolutely. I think it’s two distinct anthropologies, one, as you say, emphasizing being, one emphasizing learning. I do think they can’t be completely reconciled, however; a Christian framework (at least, the Protestant framework, and that’s mostly what we’re dealing with here) often assumes a person simply is a sinner or saved. Those Protestant frameworks that really do allow a person to move from one category to the other also don’t really rely on knowledge or learning; they rely on simple recognition and acceptance of a creed. One is born again when one accepts Jesus Christ as a personal lord and savior. Learning is often even framed as a temptation; know too much and you might be setting yourself up for a prideful fall. In Catholic and Orthodox churches, this isn’t so much the case, as greater emphasis is placed on the individual’s will and on the need for either study or meditation.
Anyway, in each of my “here’s what the sinner is” paragraphs, I noted how the series pushes against or complicates the archetype it brings up. I wonder if, broadly speaking, we can say that what the series is doing is challenging the one framework with the other, if it isn’t showing that the Four Sinners approach here is lacking what the Four Sons offers, or, more broadly speaking, the (Protestant) Christian approach to sin is lacking what this Jewish approach offers. Granted, I have no idea if the author knows anything about the Four Sons, or about Jewish and Christian theology and philosophy — but I’m pretty dang certain the author has picked up from Christian-influenced American and European societies a cultural emphasis on Sin-as-Being, a conception of sin as what people are (even if he might not use those terms), and further that he believes this fails to account for learning or becoming, what people can be. I’m also, I realize, getting a little pretentious here and reaching beyond my education/understanding, so moral philosophers reading this, please forgive me.
AB: This is probably the best place to state that I have almost no formal education in religious studies beyond 12 or so years of Hebrew school, and that most of my understanding and analysis come from my own experience with the text. With that out of the way, I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusions, Rob. It’s impossible to say how many frameworks Ramondelli is consciously working with here, but that’s also not to underplay any of their relevance. Like you said, they may not be able to be perfectly reconciled, but they do fit together when we think about the idea of rehabilitation, and in this specific instance, rehabilitation through punitive measures. How do you think the Kill Lock affects each of these robots’ abilities to move forward?
Locked Virtue
RS: I think each individual has some kind of isolating problem, due to either their own actions or their circumstances, and the thing the Kill Lock does above all else is eradicate that isolation. They didn’t have a community, but now they have one. In different ways, all but the Kid acted selfishly, but now it is in their selfish interest to learn how to act selflessly.
AB: Definitely, and the root causes of their isolations are all different. The Kid is isolated because of a physical defect. Others perceive his difference as a flaw and punish him because of it. The Laborer is isolated because of his habit. Others do not want to be around the Laborer because of the consequences that arise when the Laborer falls victim to his ailment. The Artisan isolates himself due to his beliefs toward society and others. His ego is often the most isolating component and causes the Artisan to position himself above his peers. What’s interesting is when we view isolation with respect to the Wraith. We typically see religion as something communal and shared, but the Wraith’s religion is isolating and destructive. Wraiths typically cause destruction on worlds they claim to be filled with heathens, and they do so in a very mercenarial, lone-wolf manner. It’s the narrowmindedness of the faith being presented that isolates the Wraith and makes the religious order appear more like a military. As you said, however, the Kill Lock eradicated that isolation and is now forcing them to work together for the sake of the Kid and their lives. Do you think it changes who they are, or simply forces them to change their behavior?
RS: That’s a very complicated question, and, again, to get pretentious above my paygrade for a second, I think it cuts to a core problem in the series: Is someone’s essence distinct from their actions? What makes you who you are? This is a society which clearly believes one’s identity is defined by one’s form and one’s end; you are created to fulfill a certain function. Your name is a role. If you stray from that role in any way — or, in the case of the Kid, you are created in such a way that you cannot fill a role — you are condemned to death. By that very fact, that people in this universe can act in such a way that they break from their roles, I think the series suggests that what you do rather than what you are designed to do reveals who you are. But the Kill Lock complicates that, because it leads to act in ways that, clearly, they never would without it, suggesting that no, what you do is removed from who you are. So what do I think? I really don’t know.
AB: That’s a very well-put answer though. The robots in this universe are made with a predetermined purpose in mind, and while I think the Kill Lock does place a burden on the four characters in this story, it also frees them of the burden of that predetermined path. It creates a completely new set of restrictions, that being community, and removes the restrictions that dictate each robot’s state of being. As a result, perhaps the Kill Lock does have some virtuous aspect to it, does it not?
RS: The Kill Lock, in Chrisitan terms, is a kind of grace. As I mentioned before, in some forms of Christianity, grace is intimately connected to identity. If God has elected to grant you his overwhelming, all-powerful grace, then you are of the Elect, you are saved, and no matter how much you struggle against it, you are virtuous. If God elects to not grant you grace, then you are of the Reprobate, and no matter how much you struggle to obtain virtue, you will fail, and you will fall into hellfire. If the Kill Lock functions like this kind of grace, then it forces these characters to behave in a certain way and thus, even against their will, dictates who they are. I think, though, by the end of the series we have seen that the Kill Lock is not all powerful, as we’ll discuss in the final section, and so this model doesn’t work entirely. In Catholicism, there’s a notion of co-operating grace. The basic idea: Without grace, we are incapable of achieving virtue, due to our fallen nature and fallen world. But instead of overpowering our nature, God grants sufficient grace to counteract our nature and world, such that we can make a free choice. If we apply this model to the Kill Lock, we could say it allows the characters to act as they wish — it removes them from society, from the context where they can’t act freely. In this case, it’s not that the Kill Lock changes who they are or forces them to change their behavior — rather, it allows them to fully and freely act as they’d wish for the first time in their lives. It reveals who they are and allows their actions to align with their identities — or at least it does if the Kill Lock succeeds in what it sets out to do.
AB: You’re exactly right, and that’s really the crux of the Kill Lock is that there are such tradeoffs. After all, the Kill Lock is a threat and a risk to life itself. It is literally binding together the lives of these four robots, but while doing so, it grants them the freedom of choice with respect to how they live their lives. That being said, one has to really examine how much freedom they have because their punishment is also so public. They are branded with the mark of the Kill Lock for everyone to see and look down upon. We see throughout the series that this mark puts them in danger and invites criticism from complete strangers. As a result, are their lives not still constrained? Do they have any freedom at all? They are still social prisoners and are thus restricted as far as where they can safely go and what they can safely do. The robots of this universe do not give them a second chance at grace. Perhaps then it is not motivating at all, but rather strictly punitive.
A Fallen Design
RS: That’s the thing — in the end, this isn’t the grace of an omnipotent deity. This is a thing created by a flawed individual working to uphold the oppressive structures and hierarchies of an extremely fallen society. There is no way the Kill Lock can function as an example of restorative justice because, although it forces the sentenced individuals into a community, there is no place for them within the community.
(Ed. note: we start to get into more spoilers in this section, so if the discussion above interests you, and you haven’t read the series, it might be a good idea to pause here).
AB: That’s absolutely right, and for the Artisan, that’s the root of all his problems. He is angry at society for the community and uniformity he’s been subjected to. In the end, the Kill Lock will allow the Artisan to restore justice, but not in a healthy or virtuous manner. There’s no follow-up to the ending here. The mechanism working to uphold the oppressive structures in place will now be used against the robots at the top, and I fear only destruction will remain as the dust settles. There was no grace given, nor judgment withheld, so I do not expect any returned.
RS: I have extremely, extremely conflicted feelings about the ending. Because I worry you’re right, but I think there’s still the chance that the utterly diabolical Artisan is going to function more like the Satan of Job, that he might be able to challenge the vicious society in such a way that something more just might rise. But it’s equally possible that the old order will be restored with just a different group on top, and it’s equally possible that, as you say, there will be nothing left when all is done.
AB: Definitely, and I think the crux of that for me lies in the ambiguity surrounding the Artisan’s “takeover.” He comments that he has overpowered the other consciousnesses, so to speak, but I think it’s left pretty unclear as to whether the other three still have a voice in the Artisan’s head. If they are completely drowned out and disabled, unable to do anything but be aware in the same body, I think the Artisan, left unchecked, will cause an equally unchecked level of havoc. If, on the other hand, the Artisan is able to hear and listen to the other three, perhaps this community, forced or not, can still cause some meaningful change.
RS: I hope so; the Artisan has some form of conscience in his head for the first time in his life!
Ari, as we wrap up, do you have any final thoughts on the series? I think it’s a tremendous, beautiful, brilliantly realized sci-fi romp that, for all of its fun worldbuilding, action and adventure, really does highlight key questions we have about sin, virtue, good, evil, one’s environment, one’s essence, one’s free will. I think it’s a severely underrated title, and one I recommend to everyone.
AB: You’re absolutely right, Rob, and I also want to point out that the series is written, drawn and colored all by Ramondelli, more commonly known for illustrating a number of Transformers comics and one of the best artists out there. It is a gorgeous-looking title, and any writer interested in cosmic sci-fi storytelling should look to Ramondelli. The trade comes out Nov. 18, and it’s one you don’t want to miss.
Ari Bard is a huge comic fan studying Mechanical Engineering so he can finally figure out how the Batmobile works.
Robert Secundus is an amateur-angelologist-for-hire.
