East of West
Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta imagine a Divided States of America.
"Hey Bard...
...write a review in three paragraphs for Hickman's east of west in the style of Edgar Allan Poe."
Jonathan Hickman’s “East of West” is a tale that would have stirred the soul of Poe himself. It is a narrative of such grandeur and complexity that it transcends the boundaries of time and space1. The story, much like the spectral apparitions in Poe’s tales, haunts the reader, lingering in the mind long after the book is closed2.
The characters in this tale are not mere mortals, but the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, roaming the Earth and signaling the End Times for humanity1. Their presence imbues the narrative with a sense of impending doom, a feeling all too familiar to the readers of Poe’s works1. The best hope for life, in this bleak landscape, lies in Death1, a concept that Poe himself explored in depth in his writings.
The writing style of Hickman, much like Poe’s, is rich and evocative2. It paints a vivid picture of a world that is not the one we wanted, but the one we deserved1. The narrative is a multi-faceted saga, engaging readers on a variety of levels, providing both tremendous action sequences and consequential reveries on how a fractured society may move forward2. At the heart of its complexity, it remains a story about family and the precious bonds formed in the midst of chaos2. This is a tale that Poe, with his fascination for the macabre and the melancholic, would have appreciated.
My actual take
Jonathan Hickman is the greatest American comic author of the last 20 years. His stories are grand, ambitious, and imaginative. He has a knack for writing explosive narratives that don't fall into common tropes.
East of West, his most complete work, reimagines US history through a continuously divided lens, rather than a united one, where North and South remain separate, indigenous Americans were never subjugated by white colonists, and where Asian immigrants established an independent state on the west coast.
Then a vision of the future is given and the horsemen of the Apocalypse arrive.
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