Love is the most complex feeling in the spectrum of emotions. This may be a strange thing to read at the beginning of a review for Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma, but this comic is a love story from start to finish. Ram V, Anand RK, Jackson “Butch” Guice, Mike Spicer, and Aditya Bidikar set out from the first sign of life to explore the complexities of love. Love is far more than just the love between a person and a partner, which is the primary focus of the opening of the story. Love can also become something twisted under the cruelty of humanity, which the second half of the book delves into. Throughout the entire issue, Anand, Spicer, and Bidikar are creating art that is emotive of the themes and experimental with its displays of Resurrection Man’s unique abilities. It is the best Black Label book that DC has green lit since the imprint’s start because it uses a minor character to explore the biggest question of all: what is love?
Mitch Shelley has gone by many names, but the one that has stuck is Resurrection Man. When Mitch meets his end, it is only a beginning. He returns with a new set of superpowers based upon how he died, only to be set back upon the lonely path he was walking before. That is how we have always known the character. The drifter in a hat and a duster. But what if he stopped? What if he took the scariest leap of all and fell in love instead of running headfirst into whatever superhero battle he found himself at the crossroads of? That is where we find our once-hero in Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma, not at the start of that adventure, but at the end. Mitch is about to die of natural causes, with the love of his life at his bedside, and his family in the other room.
Before we go any further into slightly spoiler territory, I must disclose that Mitch Shelley is to me what Batman is for so many other people. He is a character that I have always found comfort in. I have collected every appearance of him and read them over like they were gospel. I have attempted to separate that part of myself as much as one person can to write about this book, but I love Mitch. Seeing a character of near obscurity be given a treatment like this, where they explore such depths of themes, reminds me that there is worth in every story. It’s a reminder that everything you love has a value because of what you put into it, and that is worth something. It is worth fighting for.
Before Mitch dies, he knows he must leave his family because he knows this isn’t his end, but he remarks to his wife:
“I’ve loved and been loved. That’s worth saving, isn’t it?”
This is one of the two most important lines of the series so far, with what I believe to be its thesis on love. The other comes a few pages later, after we learn that, because Mitch was killed by time, his new power set is the control of time itself. When we see what time looks like, Anand and Spicer weave a tapestry of cogwork interwoven like muscles and liquid in one of the most beautiful displays that has no end or beginning. It is a scene that only they would be able to pull off in this way.
The threat we meet in this scene is the great unmasking of everything: the devourer of all. A being that will wipe out all of existence. At first, I was a bit hesitant when I first read what it was, although its design is Jack Kirby-level incredible. But Ram V delivers the most emotionally devastating, heart-wrenching explanation of this type of destruction right after. It is wiping out existence itself. It is making everything that was, wasn’t. Mitch and Alize (his wife) never met, he never was a father, and he never held his grandchild. This is where the second line comes from, in a panel and line that will stay with me forever. A panel drawn so well, written and lettered to such perfection that it moved me to tears with eight words.
“You never said hello. You never said goodbye.”
I had to stop reading for a moment after reading that because I wanted to let it sink in. If you’ve never had your heart broken, I suggest you stop reading and go out into the world. Live more, love more, and feel more. In those moments of vulnerability when your entire world feels like it’s falling down around you, you learn so much about yourself. On the other hand, if you’ve never been in love, do the same thing. But never avoid it because you fear what may happen if you fall in love. The sheer emotional pain I felt from just thinking about having the entire relationship ripped away from me, good or bad, was so heavy. I had not stopped to think about love from this angle. I would fight a thousand Cronenberg demons just to retain everything that made me who I am. Love makes you who you are, good or bad. In this case, for Mitch, this time it was good. That is worth fighting for.
But it’s time for us to flip the coin. Have you ever read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness? It’s a novella that has influenced many different works of art, one notable example being Apocalypse Now. The novella explores themes of colonism, imperialism, and a lot more. The reason it comes up is because in Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma, Kagawa Tai’l, the villain, introduced in the second half of the book, has a fascination with it. If you weren’t familiar with the text, it may seem like a throwaway reference, but it’s anything but.
Kagawa Tai’l is in charge of the Japanese 18th Army workcamp that took Mitch after Singapore fell during World War 2. One of the major themes of the book is the absurdity and the madness that come with imperialism. Despite the airs of civilized natures humans put on, at the end of the day, we are all just animals in nature, and we see that on display with Kagawa. Kagawa takes that narrative of love through the twisted looking glass of imperialism, control, and power. He even goes so far as to say that
“Our cleanliness is only a figment… a construct meant to distinguish between self and other.”
This is how the absurdity got to him when he wanted to celebrate the war’s ending with Hitler’s death. He wants to have a feast of “filthy rotten meat”. Cannibalism has been used through time as a motif exploring the other, power, control, and the exploration of the darker sides of human nature. It’s also something used a lot to explore themes of love in a rather dark manner. In these ways, it’s exploring the other side of love, which isn’t the love that we know as pure but a love that is lustful for control of others. One that puts you above, through power and consumption until there is nothing else left of those around you. Kagawa as a foil to an unkillable man is so fascinating because how do you kill something that cannot die? You consume it.
I told you love is the most complex feeling on the spectrum of emotions. Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma explores it through love, loss, imperialism, cannibalism, superheroes, time, and everything in between. It is a book that everyone should read. But if you take anything away from reading this, don’t fear feeling love even if it ends. Fear never having felt anything at all.