Reviewer: Chris Delloiacono
Story Title: Abraham of Ur: Part 3
Written by: Douglas Rushkoff
Art and Cover by: Liam Sharp
Colored by: Jamie Grant
Lettered by: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Jonathan Vankin
Publisher: Vertigo > DC Comics
Last week I had the pleasure of reviewing the fourth issue of Vertigo’s new breakout series DMZ. In that review, I mentioned Testament as another recently launched Vertigo title with promise for the future. I wasn’t ready to christen Testament as a must read, like DMZ, and I’m glad I didn’t.
Douglas Rushkoff is touching on volatile religious themes in Testament. To be honest, I’m shocked there hasn’t been a massive outcry against DC Comics for putting Rushkoff’s work in print. I learned at a young age that feelings on religion and politics are often best left unsaid as they are the most likely to spark animosity. That’s not to say I want other people’s feelings on the issues suppressed. I’m actually of the opposite mind entirely. I long to hear fresh interpretations on religion, and that’s exactly what we get in Testament. I am surprised there hasn’t been major mainstream coverage and even anger over the contents and what some might consider the heretical views espoused within. That’s a relief actually. I’d hate to see Rushkoff’s views censored, but I’m not sold on his storytelling ability yet, and when it comes to writing comics that’s all that I care about.
That’s not to say that my interest hasn’t been roused.
Rushkoff’s Testament purports that the Bible is a collection of stories that did not occur just once, but continue to happen throughout history. These stories are being controlled by greater powers above and there really isn’t much we can do about it. The series has used flashbacks to Abraham’s story in the Bible and the near-sacrifice of his son as well as the subsequent events that happened with the Sodomites as a parallel piece to events occurring in the not-too-distant future.
In this future, the United States is tagging its youth with chips meant to locate soldiers on a battlefield. This is to keep the masses in check thusly making it easier to call people up for a reinstituted draft. We’ve been following Jake, the parallel to Abraham’s son, and his adventures with a crew of rebels. Jake’s dad, in his own act of rebellion, refused to tag his son (i.e. Abraham’s last minute reprieve from sacrificing his son), thus Jake was able to witness an attack on an army of protesters that used a pulse sent through those chips to subdue the protesters.
This month, we pick up with Jake being the only one still conscious after the attack. He reports what’s occurred to his friends on the outside and tries to escape whilst the government’s troops haul away the unconscious protesters for their own evil ends. Jake is nearly killed along the way but is rescued by a “divine” intervention. We learn of further linkages between the Biblical stories, with regard to the Sodomites, and Jake’s modern hardships along the way and the last page is an odd cliffhanger. It’s a solid issue, but one, as scripted, that leaves me a bit flat.
That’s not to say that the sequential work is flat too. Liam Sharp pulls off a difficult comic script. Rushkoff’s writing brings us from Biblical moments occurring in the time “Before Christ,” takes us to places of divinity with godly beings, and mostly we’re situated in a gritty world several years in the future. Sharp pulls off each moment with only a few substandard panels. Any major failings in Testament definitely are not Liam Sharp’s fault.
Rushkoff and DC have balls. I’ll give them that. Still, I find my interest in Testament wavering a bit. The first two issues set things up nicely, but issue #3 didn’t payoff very well. The characters are interesting, the parallels with Biblical times are pretty solid, but the future world is a bit “been there and done that.” There are still two months left in this first story arc, so I’m in for at least that long. I’ll probably even stick around through the second arc which runs until issue #7. That gives Rushkoff another four issues to knock my socks off and deliver on the potential. If he can’t do it by then, I’ll have to move on.
