By Cat Wyatt

The final issue of Barrier is here, and with it will likely be a bittersweet ending. Brian K. Vaughan isn’t exactly known for his happy endings, so this is something to keep in mind as we explore Barrier #5 today. The last time we saw Liddy and Oscar they were trapped on an alien planet, but rather than letting that fact defeat them they had stepped up and started fighting. Here’s hoping that fight ends up taking them somewhere good.

This issue starts off with a somewhat weird note, though that might not actually be saying much. The first page is focused entirely on a fly. As in the annoying buzzing type of fly. What’s interesting is the manner in which this noise is presented to us; the fly is shown, but not in full. The sound, ‘bzzzt’ is written there as well, from with the image of the fly is formed. The negative space around the word is simply that, white space.

The fly does not have a good ending, but that’s probably no surprise. It actually looks like Oscar stepped on him, though whether or not this was intentional is hard to tell. Likely it wasn’t intentional, as Oscar appears to be pretty busy standing guard and urging Liddy to hurry. Liddy meanwhile is very busy wrangling…well…some sort of insect-like alien? Who knows what it actually is or what it’s called. It’s hardly relevant at this particular point.

They’re guiding their prisoner to something, that much intent is clear, even with their lack of communication. It looks like they somehow found one of the large, clean looking rooms like they had been in before. It’s looking like a ‘take me to your leader’ scene is about to occur, only with a twist. The humans will be making the demands! Or so we hope.

The ‘take me to your leader’ scene does occur…sort of. Liddy does most of the speaking, though not because Oscar isn’t willing. More like Liddy is completely done with everything and is happy to have somebody to scream it out at. So when the big guys arrive, she gladly lets them have it, giving Oscar no time to say his piece.

It probably didn’t really matter who did the talking here, the aliens can’t understood them, and vice versa. However, there’s been a theme to this series, and that is having people learn how to communicate even when they don’t speak the same language. That theme is not dropped here. The aliens don’t speak in any way we’re used to, but they do have a way of sharing memories with each other.

The aliens don’t exactly understand consent, or at least if they do they had no way of asking for permission before they ripped memories from Liddy and Oscar for the room to see. Feel free to form an opinion on which is actually occurring here.

The method for sharing memories and thoughts is a little graphic, but perhaps that is only the case with species other than their own. For lack of a better description they stick tentacles up Liddy and Oscar’s nose, mouth, and ears. How much damage something like this caused we may never know.

The first memory we see is one of Liddy’s. It quickly becomes clear that this was one of the worst days of her life, and she likely would have preferred to never have had to share it or relive it again. She is outside on her horse, receiving a notice of eviction from a lawyer and a policeman. That sounds pretty awful, but unfortunately it’s not the worst that’ll happen to her today.

You see, that was the day her husband killed himself. Likely because of the notice Liddy just accepted. Losing a spouse in that manner would be unimaginatively horrible, but then to be the one to rush in and find his body? Words can’t describe how much pain she must have been in.

Oscar’s memory is no better, and some would probably argue it’s even worse. He came home from what one can probably assume was a hard day of work, only to find his worst nightmare come true. His wife and child are dead in the kitchen, brutally murdered by a psycho he turned down. It feels pretty horrible to sum up these events so concisely, but that is what happened. He got justice for his family, but it will never ever bring them back. This does explain Oscar’s attachment to the journal of his son’s drawings – those are drawings he’ll never get back, and his boy will never have a chance to draw new ones for him. How utterly heart breaking.

While these memories are being shared it almost looks like the aliens were trying to narrow down where these humans came from. Or at least an image of the globe is being shown and they’re communicating over it. Perhaps they’re merely debating if this is the planet these creatures/prisoners came from? Or hopefully they’re trying to narrow it down even further, in an attempt to bring them back to the exact location they were picked up from.

Liddy and Oscar wake up in another bright and strange room. They’re strapped to a table of sorts, for reasons they can only begin to guess at. It certainly doesn’t look good, so nobody would blame them for assuming the worst here.

Slowly, ever so slowly the light becomes brighter and brighter, until finally we can’t see our two protagonists any longer. Had it been left there it would be easy to assume that the aliens had euthanized, vaporized, or some other –ized them. But the story continues on.

Liddy and Oscar wake up back on earth. Of course, this is a Brian K. Vaughan story, so of course it isn’t quite as simple as that. While they are back on their home planet, neither are actually home. We may never know if they ever make it home, or make it at all. But that never was the point of the story was it?

This has been a fascinating, if emotionally trying, story. The creative uses of storytelling devices did a wonderful job of changing up expectations and supporting the main moral of the series. Obviously it would have been nice to have a more solid understanding of what happened to our characters, in the end, but life hardly ever gives us clean answers, so why should a story that talks about life? In the end that’s the reason this series has been so wonderful – they’re not afraid of telling the rough parts of the plot, and they certainly never pulled any punches.

Like the other issues in this series, the artwork did an exceptional job of complementing the plot. It was rough and jagged, just like real life. The characters were never made to look unrealistic – they always looked like you’d expect real people to, especially when dealing with the worst of their situation. The graphic scenes were well done, there was no question about what had happened but it never crossed into the realm of excessive gore. The background and space scenes were absolutely striking, like they had been in the first few issues. In many ways those images are the most different from the plot being told – they’re so beautiful they don’t seem real, while everything else is as realistic as possible (given that they’re drawing theorized aliens and all).

Score: 4/5

Barrier #5
Panel Syndicate/Image Comics