Review: Briggs Land #2

The second issue of a new series always seems to flag a little bit. The first issue is a sales pitch to show off the premise. Whatever conflict drives the series is right up in front, meaning that it also tends to be action-packed. By contrast, the second issue has to start building up the world and laying the foundation on future characters. In a way, that’s what happens here: having survived the attack on her life, Grace makes a deal with her children to try and hold together the family. It’s not an action-packed issue, so it lacks a bit of the oomph the first issue enjoyed. However, we get some really interesting hints about Grace, the feds who are chasing her, and some of the ordinary people living in Briggs Land.

Grace and Isaac survived the bombing from the last issue, however narrowly. Realizing that she doesn’t know who her enemies are, Grace tries to make a deal with her children to try and spare her household from any further bloodshed. She also starts hunting the men who came after her. We also learn a little bit more about the feds and why they’re watching the Briggs family so closely; they have their own agenda separate from the agency.

The revelations about the agents are interesting, not so much for the personal agenda but for why it is they feel the need to go after this family by themselves. One slips a hint that the government has been ignoring the family deliberately, even after Jim tried to assassinate the president of the United States. Why? Even by the standards of bureaucratic inertia in Washington, that seems egregious, so what else is at play? There's more at work in Washington than what we've been told so far.

At first glance, the negotiations between Grace, Caleb, and Noah come off as a little too easy. Grace presents what she wants, and they just accede to them with a little bit of haggling. They all seem to give in so easily, and it’s strangest for Grace, who is surrounded by potential traitors but seems to just brush them off. But is it more complicated than it first appears? I think so. The FBI agents have a long discussion about some of Grace’s own criminal history, and whether she might be more than just Jim’s housewife; while we never learn anything directly, they allude to her potentially being very dangerous.

Is Grace setting a trap of sorts, hoping to lure out a potential traitor by letting them get close and encouraging them to make a move? I’d like to think so. When she’s out investigating one of her attackers, she shows more concern for the wife than she does in actually trying to find the man. She lets herself be vulnerable perhaps to let somebody think that for themselves and grow overconfident. That isn’t to say she isn’t genuinely concerned by the plight of the woman she meets, only that she wants to use the woman in a much more subtle way than just holding her hostage to try and lure out the man.

One area I would like to see more attention is the village, which the characters discuss but never really explain. That kind of attention is welcome in a way because having the characters neatly explain what the village is and who lives there would probably make for awkward writing. That being said, we only get hints at the kind of people who live there, namely the meth addict who attacked Grace and his wife. Is the village made up of the same kinds of misfits who make up the whole family: wide-eyed utopians, misfits, and criminals? I kind of hope so.

So, while this issue doesn’t have the same “jump off the page” quality that the first had, it does present an interesting direction for Grace’s character to evolve. If it pans out, that ought to make for good reading.

[su_box title="Score: 4/5" style="glass" box_color="#8955ab" radius="6"]

Briggs Land #2 Writer: Brian Wood Artist: Mack Chater Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Price: $3.99 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital

[/su_box]

Dark Horse Releases Trade Paperback of Fantastic First Issues

Dark Horse is making it easy for you to find your next favorite series! Dark Horse is excited to announce the Dark Horse Number Ones trade paperback, which will allow readers to familiarize themselves with some of our most talented creators in a value-priced collection. Dark Horse Number Ones opens the door to new storytelling worlds with eight first issues from a diverse selection of genres:

• Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s The Umbrella Academy is the story of a group of superpowered children, born on the same day and subsequently adopted and raised by a scientist as secretive as he is wealthy.
• Mike Mignola’s Hellboy in Hell finds Hellboy dead and in Hell, where a throne awaits him—along with familiar faces.
• Joëlle Jones and Jamie S. Rich’s Lady Killer showcases a 1960s homemaker who is also a ruthless assassin for hire!
• Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston’s Black Hammer finds a group of superheroes banished and trapped in a small town as they struggle to return home.
• Matt Kindt and Sharlene Kindt’s Dept. H follows a special investigator assigned to uncover possible sabotage taking place at a deep-sea research station.
• Brian Wood and Mack Chater’s Briggs Land introduces the Briggs family, the leaders of an antigovernment secessionist movement in the United States, as the matriarch, Grace Briggs, attempts to take control from her incarcerated husband.
• Kurtis Wiebe and Mindy Lee’s Bounty features galactic bandits turned bounty hunters as they fight their way across the galaxy.
• Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook’s Harrow County features a young girl who learns about her origins and discovers her supernatural powers.

At over 200 pages, the Dark Horse Number Ones trade goes on sale March 29, 2017, for an unheard-of price of just $5.99! Comics fans, prepare to find your next obsession!

Review: Briggs Land #1

Briggs Land is a familiar kind of Brian Wood story, one that he’s told a few different ways in the past. It’s about regionalism in the United States, and divisions, and the highly contested definition of what it means to be an American. That doesn’t mean this story is any less interesting, however, and it reads as an interesting companion piece to Rebels and DMZ. Indeed, this is almost a take on DMZ from the side of the would-be secessionists, while showing just how fractious their side can be. There’s crime, betrayal, and the prospect of an out-and-out war. Briggs Land has been a nominally independent territory since 1980, after the head of the Briggs family declared independence from the United States. However, the head of that clan, Jim, has been imprisoned for several decades after a failed assassination attempt on the president, and has been running the family business from prison. Jim put the family in bed with some of the worst aspects survivalist groups: white power fanatics, drug runners, and terrorists. His wife Grace is an unknown quantity, and she’s making a move to shut out Jim and seize control of the family for herself. This touches off a little war in the community, one that splits her family down the middle.

DMZ kept its secessionists as unknowns for much of the series, with similarly nebulous goals. Were they ignorant rednecks? Nativists and white supremacists? People seeking freedom from an oppressive government? There was never an easy answer to that question, probably because that easy answer does not exist. That’s all played out here, but with all of the divisions fully on display in the Briggs family. Hardcore neo-nazis, extreme outdoor types, and outlaws are coexisting alongside each other, but only just barely, and the shake-up in the family’s politics threatens to throw all of it into chaos. At the end of the day, when the thing that aligns your group is a desire to separate from something else, you don’t really have much to hold what you create together. Jefferson Davis found this out the hard way during the Civil War, and I suspect Grace Briggs is in store for a touch of that as well.

The war that Grace has touched off has a problem she hasn’t yet foreseen, and that is the unraveling of the community Jim managed to build. There’s a scene between Grace and her eldest son Caleb which really shows just how fraught this particular system is. Plenty of them are going to refuse to accept any direction from a woman, and Grace doesn’t seem to share many of their agendas either: Caleb’s white supremacy and Noah’s banditry don’t seem to be her at all. But if she risks splitting everything up, then the whole enterprise will fall apart, and if the violence gets out of hand, the feds will come rolling in. Is she going to have to compromise some of her ideals, or worse yet, her family? Is this going to make her a new Jim?

The decision to set this in upstate New York is also an interesting choice on Wood’s part, and not just because it puts the story in the part of the country he returns to over and over again. Rather, it defies the conventional wisdom we all hold about secessionists and survivalists. Ruby Ridge was Idaho and Waco was in Texas, both of which are referenced in this book. Implicitly, we’re either talking about the South or the mountain states, both of which have that “ignorant hillbilly” connotation. In truth, upstate NY probably has more in common with those parts of the country than NYC, as does a great many other parts of the country. At the end of the day, it gives the story a universal kind of character.

Lastly, Grace’s character deserves some comment. There will be plenty of tension over her taking over her husband’s role and being a woman, which poses some interesting ideas about sexism and how she can assert a right to rule. However, even her characterization has a wonderfully naturalistic quality to it. She’s strong, but not impossibly so: when her grandchildren are threatened, she breaks down and experiences doubt. She seems capable of ruthlessness, but she’s not bloodthirsty either, especially if it involves her children. She wants something better for Briggs Land than to be some haven for the worst of the worst, but she’s not the pure mother archetype either.

Overall, this is my comic of the week. I’m already partial to Wood’s meditations on the United States and how it’s a much more contested country than we usually like to imagine. Combining those with an intra-clan feud should make for good reading.

[su_box title="Score: 5/5" style="glass" box_color="#8955ab" radius="6"]

Briggs Land #1 Writer: Brian Wood Artist: Mack Chater Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Price: $3.99 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital

[/su_box]