Today brings the end of Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli’s Vertigo Comics series DMZ, as its 72nd and final issue is set to give the main character of the story – the city it takes place in – one last look as peace reigns in the future.
This has been one of our favorite series over its run, with an incredible depth of storytelling and stellar art throughout. We’re sad to see it go, so today on Multiversity Comics Countdown, MC EIC Matt Meylikhov and I take a look at the top five moments of the series as well as sharing our favorite characters from the run. You can find that after the jump.
Also, if you haven’t read the series, we highly recommend you not reading this article. Spoilers galore.
Matt’s Favorite Character: Decade Later
At its most bare, DMZ always represented an alternate reality of New York to me, one that begged the question, “if one tiny thing changed and everything went wrong, what would happen?” This is, without a doubt, what in turn helped make DMZ such a visceral read throughout its run; by placing a dystopian environment in a very real space that can be experienced through private personal anecdotes (“Oh man, I’ve been there!”), Wood and Burchielli’s dismal landscape was a viable one that could seemingly very easily be brought to life.
Of course, outside of the adventures of Matty Roth and friends, there was always the question of how the various machinations of the DMZ were reflected upon by other inhabitants. This is where “The Hidden War” arc came in, telling side stories to a civil war of various other inhabitants. The first story, and arguably the best one, was that of Decade Later, a street/graffiti artist who spends the majority of the issue tagging trains for some unknown reason. Decade represents the youth of the city, a young man with a plan who can wait years before his name is truly made. He’s a character painting a big picture in smaller parts, and in a coy way represents the creators of book in his use of both art and words through his choice of visual medium.
Of course, that alone isn’t what makes Decade such a fantastic character in the series, and my favorite despite only starring in two issues. As it turns out, Decade’s final scene (pictured above) is probably one of the most spectacular in terms of character triumph. I’d even go so far as to say it is the most triumphant, as despite meeting with a fairly unfortunate end (being carted off to prison), Decade ultimately wins. As you reach the final two pages of the issue, you see that Decade’s plan all along was to take complete ownership of the essential New York subway system with a cleverly etched out “MINE” across the trains. It’s both a scene that brings some light to a pitch black DMZ and one that infuses the rebellious strength of youth straight into the pages. It shows the never ending spirit of the believers, the envious optimism of the outcasts, the creativity of the genius and so much more.
Decade Later, in his own way, becomes a role model from this one action. This issue, which takes place immediately after the heartbreaking “Friendly Fire” finale, is a reminder that there will always be those who look at the world in a different way, those that see a bigger picture that we can’t comprehend on our own. There are those who, no matter how bleak things will become, will still take to the city, look at the world, and absolutely own it. In this life, is there any other way to be?
David’s Favorite Character: Wilson
One of my favorite things about DMZ is the richness of the world Wood and Burchielli created. The level of depth to this broken world is absolutely incredible, and my list of favorite characters highlights that very well. Sure, I will always remember leads like Matty Roth and Zee Hernandez, but there are others like Decade Later and the Radio Free DMZ host who help give this world they’ve created a lot more resonance.
Continued belowMy favorite of them all, though, has to be Wilson, the kindly ruler of Chinatown. He’s a fascinating character in a lot of ways. I love that at first, he’s just a guy who befriends Matty because he’s a fish out of water and because he sort of pities him. Throughout the series, it becomes increasingly apparent that he’s a whole lot more (and not because he’s incredible at producing “grandsons”), but he never tries to be anything less than a friend to Matty (even when Matty makes their relationship a whole lot more professional than personal).
In the little one-shot issues Wood gives the character, we find out a whole about him and what makes him tick. While he really is a gangster who rules Chinatown, he doesn’t do so without honor. An unflinching honor to all of those around him, and by the time he’s killed by an air strike, alone in his restaurant save one bodyguard, we care about him about as much as anyone in the book.
By the time we get to his massive funeral in issue #69, his death resonates with us deeply, especially as one of his former employees informs Matty of the true depth of their relationship. “He spoke of you often,” she said. “He missed you.” It’s something that deeply affected Matty as well as us, the reader, and it spoke volumes of the weight Wilson pulled with all of us.
5. Matty Arrives to the DMZ
Why it makes the list: This is a major moment in the most obvious way for the series: it’s both what gets Matty to the DMZ and what introduces him (and the reader) to the stakes that he will be dealing with throughout the series. From the get go, Matty is supposed to be a back-up to Liberty News correspondent Viktor Ferguson, and this throws the entire deal up in the air and makes him have to strike out on his own and become his own man. Sure, it’s an obvious one, but our list couldn’t not feature this, right?
4. Matty Aligns Himself with Parco
Why it makes the list: Before Parco, Matty was in a lot of ways the one impartial voice of an outsider living in the DMZ. Whether you were the United States, the Free States, Trustwell, Liberty News or any number of other entities, you weren’t looking to secure the DMZ for the good of all, you were looking to do it for your own reasons. Matty was outside of that, until he did what he was right and stood tall next to Parco Delgado, the prospective new leader of the DMZ. When he did that, he thought he was standing up for an ideal and for what was right, but really, this was the beginning of the end for Matty Roth. For that reason, it makes our list.
3. Matty Makes His Biggest Mistake
Why it makes the list: While Matty joining Parco was a bad idea, the moment where he accidentally had his private security team murder fourteen civilians was the moment where his innocence was truly lost forever. Granted, this wasn’t his intent, but that’s what makes something like this work so well in DMZ. Brian Wood lays out a situation in which Matty is non-descript in the specificity of his orders, throws a monkey wrench in the middle, and then everything goes astray. Matty for so long embraced the gray truth of the DMZ, but the moment this happens, he’s forcibly shoved – by his own decision – into the black and white world of everything he abhors. It was a shocking moment, and one that pushed him onto the path that culminated in issue #71.
2. USA Leaves the DMZ a Present
Continued belowWhy it makes the list: DMZ is an obviously great series, but between Matt and I, it’d be hard to argue that the “Friendly Fire” arc wasn’t our favorite. In the five issues that find Matty investigating the “Day 204 Massacre” for an article for Liberty News, readers are taken through a hellish reality of what happens when United States Military unleashes their power on innocent civilians. The power in this arc, though, isn’t in what happens explicitly on the page as much as what it all means for the world Matty lives in, and by the end, with the DMZ a furious storm of violence due to near-acquittals for those involved being announced, we’re given the even more awful truth of just what anyone and everyone can do to heal.
When the United States leaves one of their own, a put upon soldier who was struggling to share the truth of a horribly unfortunate incident, in the DMZ as the pound of flesh to sate its citizens desire for retribution, we’re given a look at just how broken all involved are. DMZ is always at its best when it carefully balances the explicit with the implicit, and this scene visually and sub-textually verifies the cruelty and pain of war, and what it turns even the most kind of people into (especially with the flash of Day 204 survivor Dina’s face, looking on with a mix of anger and satisfaction as an expression).
1. The Bomb Drops
Why it makes the list: I’ve read so many comics and so many books and watched so many movies that really, I’m not that surprised or shocked by anything anymore. Very little does it, which is I think one of the big reasons that the nuclear bomb going off at the end of issue #49, Matty staring at it from a distance in the foreground, was so spectacular a moment.
My jaw literally dropped when I first saw it, and it was a moment that was completely nailed by Wood and especially artist Riccardo Burchielli. We didn’t know if it was Parco who did it, or if it was someone else just making it seem like Parco did, but one way or another we knew that this was a nuclear bomb blowing up on American soil, and that Matty Roth was in some way shape or form directly involved with it.
A lot of the dramatic tension from the story is tied to the idea that this magical place for many Americans – Manhattan – has been turned into a war zone. That in itself is a shocking – and increasingly believable – twist on the idea of a dystopian future. But the idea of a nuclear bomb being detonated as a result of that civil war? That’s almost too much to handle, and something that raises fear in even your most jaded of readers. That moment was maybe the most awed I’ve ever been by a comic, and it’s something that sticks with me now, years later.
