This ever-fascinating title is still double-shipping, with the revelations coming thick and fast. A lot of these revelations have major consequences, though, and are going to require some serious nitpicking. If you’ll join me…
Resurrection
Let’s kick things off with a look at the Erik Peterssen backstory going on this issue – the second helping of backstory we’ve gotten so far. Last issue we learned about his childhood, and the five scientists (one of which was his father) who fled Germany as the Second World War came to a close. The surviving children called themselves the Resurrected Five, of which Erik is the Fifth. Here it’s revealed that the scientists were all tried as Nazi war criminals and executed, despite (Erik keeps saying) their not being Nazis at all. Here he’s shown setting up N.F. Pharmaceuticals, and underscoring his commitment to the original five by naming his father’s death date as the date the company was founded.
“Resurrection” is the word we keep hearing over and over in Erik’s flashbacks, and here N.F. Pharmaceuticals is being treated very much as a direct continuation of his father’s legacy. Whatever their goal was (we don’t know who they were trying to resurrect as of yet, or whether they were just trying to accomplish it for the sake of accomplishing it), it’s of enduring importance for Erik Peterssen.
The First Jump
Things get a bit more complex on the resurrection front when we learn about Erik and Nora’s attempts to have a child – all of which end with the child dying as it’s being born. Erik starts experimenting on himself, and they finally succeed in having a child – at the cost of Nora’s life.
Here’s where things get a bit tricky, and the ambiguous phrasing in the captions makes me suspect that there’s a lot of story missing here. Erik clearly blames himself for Nora’s death, but it’s hard to ascertain what he could have done to himself on a genetic level that would directly – and adversely – influence the labour process. Of course, he could blaming himself in a more general sense. However, since Erik is clearly interested in Min and Edward’s attempts to have a child, the change he made in himself must have theoretically been something that he could pass on to his descendants. And if he made a genetic change in the family line that would adversely affect all his descendants, that would definitely be something to feel guilty about.
Erik certainly seems surprised to find that Edward shows no “genetic abnormalities”; so whatever Erik did to himself, it must have at least had the capacity to be detrimental, something you would be afraid of passing on. However, Erik as we now know him (although, to be fair, we don’t know him very well) seems to be in fairly good health. What could have been the trade-off that Erik made, that boosted fertility but may have damaged something else? And did this abnormality in fact skip a generation, manifesting in Elle (and resulting in Jairus), but not Edward?
I hypothesized that Elle had homocystinuria, at issue 12, and this continues to fit in nicely in that it’s inherited in an autosomal recessive pattern – meaning that it has to be inherited from both parents, who have the gene, but not the disorder. I have no idea what Erik could have done to make himself have this gene, or what having it would do to affect fertility, but it’s a gene that also occurs naturally, so it’s a bit coincidental but not altogether surprising that Min would have it.
Baby Girl Peterssen
We thought Elle having to die as part of Jairus was a pretty rough deal, and here, it turns out she died at the beginning of it all. In fact, Elle appears to have died many times – but we’ll get into that below.
Stealing Jairus
We found out last issue the employees of a place called Alice’s Tea Cup were holding a sample of the Jairus injection for her. Here, it’s made clear that they weren’t exactly a Jairus-Certified Holding Place, but rather that Elle had stolen this injection from the lab and had them keep it for her.
We’ve been getting plenty of hints, up until now, that Elle was involved with and aware of Jairus for a long time, but this is our first real indication that she had been regularly going to appointments – and, as we learn below, actually dying over the course of these.
If Elle’s actions at the subway station were prompted when she learned that Jairus was about to begin, this still looks very much like the rebellious, taking-her-life-into-her-own-hands gesture that we’ve been reading it as for a while now. Elle actually cries when she gets the news, underscoring that this must be something she’s not used to, something much more traumatic and upsetting than the previous experiments.
Over and Over Again
Here’s what I don’t understand: if, as we see here, Erik has killed Elle (and, apparently brought her back) multiple times, what makes the Jairus project as we’re understanding it now special (and so upsetting for Elle when it’s finalized)? There are a couple possibilities here. Assuming that there’s something genetically wrong with Elle, that made her die while being born and have to be resurrected, it would seem this resurrection was only valid, as it were, for a limited time. Elle would have had to be killed and then resurrected again periodically in order to go on living. This would kind of make sense, bearing in mind that the science behind Jairus involves research into Arctic woolly bear moth hibernation patterns – these are cyclical, so your run-of-the-mill Arctic moth would “die” several times over the course of its life.
Now, what if there were a limit on how many times this resurrection phenomenon could be achieved? Maybe it had an expiry date that more or less corresponded with Elle’s maturity (she’s in her early twenties now). Then there’s the fact that Dr. Geller’s woolly bear moth research can’t have been available ever since Elle’s birth; she’s a relatively young doctor. Maybe Erik and Co. were achieving the resurrection process in an incomplete way, which needed perfecting, with Dr. Geller’s help. Or maybe this coming resurrection will fix things in such a way that Elle will no longer need to be periodically resurrected. There could be a traumatic aspect to this final resurrection, but I haven’t got any ideas as to what it could be.
Wikipedia, however, does have a little tidbit to offer: since the feeding season in the Arctic is so short, woolly bear moths stay caterpillars for several years, freezing themselves every winter and then coming alive in warm weather to feed again. It’s several years before they finally pupate, and the real metamorphosis begins. Could Elle be undergoing an ultimate transformation along similar lines?
There are a lot of variables here, and for the moment I think it’s most important to note Elle’s attitude to the whole thing. In the panel up there she certainly looks resentful, but not that resentful – the way I expect you would feel about a highly inconvenient medical condition, which your family has a lot of involvement in. There doesn’t really seem to be outright evil or controlling about Erik’s role in all this, although of course the ethics and practices of Jairus as a whole have been dubious.
Good From This Madness
An interesting moment with Crenshaw here. He seems to really, really, believe in Elle – more intensely than might be appropriate, actually. What is the character of the unusual fortitude he perceives in her? I’m guessing dying and being resurrected over and over would be an exceptionally trying and scary process, requiring an exceptionally brave and willful subject, but Crenshaw seems to be remarking on something in addition to that, something which could bring about a truly positive outcome in the end, and something that he’s been trying to bring out in her. Something to think about.
Continued belowThe Other Times
What we find out here is surprising: Edward was unaware that Elle was being killed, even though it was his own father who was doing it. My guess is that, since Edward seems to have passed on the corrupt gene, but not manifested it himself, Erik wanted to protect Edward from the idea, keep him from feeling guilty about it in the way that Erik himself felt guilty. Also, having your daughter die on you repeatedly is probably not the most relaxing experience. Still, this makes Edward’s perspective on the whole of Jairus relatively close to our own: he’s come in late, and might not have an opinion formulated about it yet – except that he wants his daughter to live.
The kicker here is that Constance knew about all of this all along. She is shaping up to be an interesting piece of work.
Elle’s Chart
We get confirmation that Eddie stole, copied, and returned Elle’s chart for Dr. Geller’s use. The excuses he gives Min when she finds out about it are pretty flimsy – as if Jairus would ever introduce a new doctor into the conspiracy, even if Hammond fell through – and Min is none too happy to see what Eddie has done. It’s up in the air as to whether she believes him, though, and Eddie’s reaction here does seem to indicate that she really scared him.
Creative EMTs
Dr. Geller’s got a plan which would hijack Jairus at this late stage, and this somehow involves her and the other members of the Save Elle Club kidnapping Elle by posing at emergency medical technicians. But what kind of emergency are they going to stage, and how? At any rate, taking Elle into cold storage is still, in effect, following the planned course of the Jairus project. How are they going to deviate from this course and still keep Elle alive?
Closing a Door
Just as she began the Jairus project prematurely by injecting herself at the subway station, Elle is again taking matters into her own hands by, it seems, willing her own death prematurely. I have no idea how this could help things, but then, I don’t think Elle is thinking in exactly practical terms. She’s certainly giving Dr. Geller a real emergency to work with as she attempts to stage one, so maybe the two efforts will coincide in a fortuitous way. At any rate, she has again demonstrated her agency and willfulness. Maybe this is that special quality – and positive outcome – Crenshaw was talking about.
Recap
This may have been the most informative issue yet. We now know:
-that Erik Peterssen experimented on himself with the aim of increasing fertility;
-that this introduced a potentially harmful gene into the family line;
-that Elle, cooperating with her grandfather, has died several times over the course of her life;
-that the Jairus project differs substantially from the previous deaths;
-that Edward did not inherit any conditions from his father;
-that Edward knew nothing about Jairus until recently;
-that Constance knew about it before he did, and
-that Elle is, in some exceptional way, especially willful.
Whew! That’s a lot of information to parse out. Get back at me with your calculations in the comments, and I’ll confer with you guys again in two weeks.
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