Oblivion Song #3
Publisher: Image Comics
Story: Robert Kirkman
Pencils: Lorenzo De Felici
Inks: Lorenzo De Felici
Colors: Annalisa Leoni
Letters: Rus Wooton
Cover: Lorenzo De Felici
Step by step: deeper, realer, richer. Robert Kirkman’s Oblivion Song retains every stitch of melancholic tenor exhibited in #1 through issues #2 and #3. Protagonist Nathan Cole, still tortured by the loss of his brother to the boundless expanse of Oblivion years prior, accelerates his incursions into the alien wasteland. His emphatic appeals to convince government bureaucrats that the population of survivors relegated to the other side is substantial, and still worthy of every feasible recovery effort, continue to fall on unsympathetic ears. He is resolute, insulated by the obsession, but that personal toll has proven extensive. The wear is beginning to show, even as his indignation endures.
Within Kirkman’s deftly woven narrative, Cole’s relationship with his girlfriend Heather really strikes me as a nuanced contemplation of survivor’s remorse and its impact on those closest to the afflicted. His inability to leave Oblivion behind, now admittedly due to some impenetrable guilt surrounding his missing brother Edward, is a persistent point of contention for the lovers. Their intimate exchanges are just as well realized by De Felici as the more abrupt, heated discourse of issue #1. There is a tenderness in each expression and exigency perceived in that bond that gives it an authentic resilience. Heather’s love informs Cole’s emotional center just as much as his guilt.
All around Cole the scars are borne on hearts and minds, cruelly etched into the very souls of those recovered from Oblivion. PTSD among survivors is pervasive and sporadic episodes only further strain already contentious relationships. Uncertainty breeds insecurity among Cole’s closest associates and outright phobic contempt toward him from others. In pursuing his research , he’s forced to coax recently rescued victims of the Transference into confronting horrors too fresh in their consciousness. Try as he might to attenuate his fevered compulsion to uncover data that will validate his operations, he can be willfully myopic to the anxiety inflicted by his examinations.
Undeterred by the lack of official support and the inconsistency of survivor accounts, Cole pushes forward with his search through the ruins of Oblivion. Encouraged by the slightest hint of validation, his interactions with the sentient inhabitants seem to be more intentionally interrogative on contact, despite the predictable outcomes. But Oblivion has it’s own society, it’s own culture. Normal conversation has become as foreign to those denizens as the idea of a “home” on Earth. In a hierarchy not yet expounded, Edward Cole may have a substantive role to play. Kirkman and De Felici have thoroughly succeeded in crafting a captivating, meticulously populated world. I seek the looming confrontation and earnestly yearn for catharsis, just as readily as Nathan Cole. Oblivion Song certainly continues to impress.
Christian Davenport
cable201@comicattack.net
