First in a four-part miniseries from Titan Comics, this is a no-nonsense sort of introduction to a heaven that’s more concerned with getting numbers right than with any kind of glamour or spectacle. All things considered, an enterprise like than needs a hell – er, a heaven – of an enforcer, right?
Written by Si Spurrier
Illustrated by P.J. HoldenDying young, a brilliant mathematician discovers a way to cheat the terrifying Divine Calculator. He schemes to be endlessly reincarnated in the life of the woman he loves, no matter how often the violent bailiffs of the Karmic Accountancy cut short each life. It falls to one such Karmic agent – the surly Bastard Zane – to put a stop to the time-twisting romance once and for all, before the mathematician can pull off his greatest trick and escape Existential Justice forever!
Bastard Zane’s got a pretty hard job, and the fact that it happens to be take place in heaven doesn’t make it much better. A goon of the old-fashioned type, he’s not without a certain appreciation for the romantic, and the fact that people get around heaven in golf carts rather than something a touch more pleasant does grind his gears. This said, there are plenty of things about heaven that are surprising even to the most curmudgeonly sort, and the biggest letdown of all is that whoever’s in charge is a mathematician. And boy, does he keep neat books.
At the moment, though, the wrench in the works is a decidedly mortal mathematician who wants to be reincarnated with all his memories intact. That way, he can be reunited with the love of his life, and they can pick up where they left off. That’s the ideal, of course, but things have to come even on the cosmic ledger, and there’s always a catch…
It’s a pretty engaging beginning to a series, not least because Bastard Zane – who has a bit of a rough origin story of his own – is such a fun character. The idea of being shoved heaven around by a guy who looks like he stepped out of Chinatown and then presented with a god wearing a green eyeshade is a pretty disconcerting one, but the earthiness and humour of Zane as a character — in terms of both dialogue and design — lend it all a good deal of charm. Zane’s also got a stake in the adventure of the mathematician, and even though there are good reasons for being on the mathematician’s side, it’s hard not to root for the cynical lug.
With all the rules that have to be laid out, and he measure of back story that has to come across, it’s surprising that Spurrier and Holden have managed to pack this much information into one issue. But some trouble has been taken to make the going easy, with a blacked-out panel intervening now and then and summarizing a conversation for us so that we don’t have to play it out in its entirety.
Holden’s visual storytelling overall is both concise and engaging, leaving plenty of room for fun little details. Heaven, aesthetically speaking, is a bit of a mess, with stacks of filing cabinets and papers flying everywhere, and you really get the sense that the personality of the Divine Calculator – remember, this is a guy who chose golf carts as a mode of transportation, when he could have chosen anything – is permeating the whole book in a vaguely oppressive way. Meanwhile, Holden’s subtle greys and uncertain lines keep the overall mood ethereal, and just to keep us on our toes, Jordie Bellaire pops in every now and then to beautifully differentiate a panel or two.
Overall, this is a lovely and complex beginning, and while I think some of us might be a bit tired of reading about heavenly bureaucracies (the humour of it, at least, is getting a touch stale), there’s enough gravity to our surly protagonist to keep us interested. This one should be worth seeing through.
Final Verdict: 8.0 – Buy
