Extremity #1 Review

"Extremity" #1 from Image Comics -

      The Roto are beaten, but unbroken. Thea is the daughter of the Abba (leader), the mighty Jerome. Before the vile Paznina people attacked, she was her clan's greatest artist. Her hand could translate onto paper whatever her mind could imagine. Now, after the merciless Paznina raid, her hand is gone, and her imagination only brings her images of the horror of that fateful and day...And images of her coming day of vengeance. Under the watchful eye and fearful leadership of Jerome, the Roto have hatched a brutal plan to take revenge upon the Paznina, and it all hinges upon Thea's courage and thirst for blood. They killed her mother. They took her hand. They took her ability to create art, to express the inner beauty of her soul. They raped her people. If Thea gets her way, Paznina blood will flow - rivers of it.

      Daniel Warren Johnson pulls triple duty (creator, writer, artist) on this post-apocalyptic sci-fi- gore-fest, "Extremity" #1. In "Extremity," Johnson is doing what all great artists do, exploring his deepest fears through his art, and examining some tough and very interesting questions. The title, "Extremity" not only alludes to the part of the body that Thea has lost, but it also foreshadows to the lengths that she will go to in order to recover her personal power, to reclaim that which was taken from her, to restore a perceived balance that the Paznina destroyed when they killed her mother and took her hand. Like Johnson, the protagonist, Thea, is an amazing artist. Johnson explores his fears of losing that part of his identity through Thea's loss of her hand, and he creates a world in which his fear can grow into an anger, a thirst for vengeance that forms a huge part of Thea's character. And in Johnson's world, someone is responsible for Thea's/Johnson's loss - there is someone who has to pay. What happens when someone loses that which is a defining part of their identity? They become someone, or something else. We associate artists with beauty, liberality - in our society, if we are honest, we associate creativity with sensitivity, softness, what we perceive to be the feminine side of our human nature. When Thea's hand is taken, a part of her dies, and she takes on a new identity, one with very few of those artistic, feminine attributes. It seems that Johnson is posing the question, "Is our identity intrinsic, or is it shaped by environmental causes?" - nature vs. nurture. How can Thea restore balance through vengeance? After all is said and done, she will never have her hand, nor her mother, ever again. Can the void inside Thea be filled with retribution? I cannot wait to see how Johnson handles these questions. Besides this, Johnson's art is amazing - his pencils have shades of the intricacy of Moebius' and Darrow's. Every panel is maximized, busy, full and totally dynamic. Every character is distinct, every face is expressive, every bit of battle is superbly, gorily and explosively rendered. In short, Johnson' got skills. REAL skills. Extremity" is a winner. I dig it.

RATING: 9.5 out of 10. Love it.

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