From The Vault: MATT LOWDER Looks At Manifest Destiny

Guest review by Run The Comics 5K's Matt Lowder 

MANIFEST DESTINY (Image Comics, Volume 3, #13-18, 2016) Four out of a possible 5 stars.

    This frontier adventure blends history with mysticism, biological abominations, and visceral gore. Lewis & Clark are knee-deep in an dual-purposed expedition to chronicle, record, and make safe the Louisiana purchases and have been running into much more than trout and eagles. This arc jumps-the-shark, and contrary to what you'd suppose that means (me dropping the book), I'm getting Volume 4 next. Why? Originality.

     Manifest Destiny does a lot of things right, but is also a bit chatty. Firstly, the artwork is solid and stylized. The six issues seamlessly blend together into one arc and the voice of the characters makes the expedition feel real, though occasionally tedious. 

     Some panels are stiff: two men talk and talk, with basic perspective shots. What results is a lot of conversations about motive, discoveries, intentions, plans, and many blocks of narration in small cursive writing from Clark's journal. It's not as bad as Volume 2, however. Again, it works for the submersion of the sense of place. There's no break-neck pace here. Savor it, read slow and in good lighting. If you enjoy language or want existential dread sprinkled in to a slow burn (not every page), this is it. 

     I find that the color is right on the money for so many nature settings, but it's not always the punched-in pallet I'd like. Mileage may vary. Women characters objectively lack presence and are spoken to crassly, which is no fault of the writers, and more a fault of the time period. There's a level of machismo or rugged masculinity that's a bit thick at times. 

     This volume provides the reader with a mutiny attempt, backstory with Sacagawea, decapitations, and a third "natural arch" like the one in St Louis -- hundreds of feet high and made of excrement. It's a wild ride written in evocative language of the times with weirdness and death lurking in most issues.

     Now to the best part, and why this arc "jumped the shark" -- the blue bird bear creatures. Yes. Let's talk about them. In this arc, blending something like Animosity with Planet of the Apes, the crew interacts with a Bird-headed Ewok tribe of nasty little shits and takes one captive. A crew member's poisoned arm is healed with the creatures piss. 

     Yeah. Unique for sure. The creature is a FEZRON, speaks English, and calls the men stupid, and dismisses them with human phrases like "yeah, yeah, yeah." I had to admire the creativity even though I rolled my eyes. SPOILER HERE: I really didn't care for how this one ended, which was the obliterating murder of the entire FEZRON race in the night by our "heroes" despite just being helped by them. "The president gave them their orders." It made the whole cast really difficult to like in my opinion, but as we know, our true history of massacres during that century was worse. I can only hope the narrative is affected down the line by this as some in the crew grapple with this new guilt. 

     Despite some criticisms, this is definitely the best of the three volumes I've read so far, and gave me the most creative ideas to chew on. Issue #42 ended the seventh arc in March 2020, so I have plenty more to read. Currently, seven volumes are released. There's a break in regular publishing now.