Manifest Destiny #6 Review

Sweet dreams………………

Beautiful. Absurdly beautiful. That’s my takeaway from the artwork in this book. Yes, it doesn’t quite reach the heights of last issue, but Roberts continues to prove he’s one of the best at what he does.

The infected animals are appropriately gruesome and terrifying. The humans look helpless in the face of what seems to be nature’s retribution.

And Dingess explores the main characters excellently using Roberts’ visuals. He appropriately brings down the dialogue to a minimum during the fight scenes and only goes deeper when things wind up.

For now.

SPOILERS FOLLOW…………….

The entire forest wildlife has been infected and is attacking the crew.

And all Lewis can think of is how absurd are this is. Panic brings out the true nature of men and Lewis, is above all, a dreamer while Clark remains the man of action.

The bear chasing them is both grotesque and enormous. York attempts to burn it, and gets slapped aside like a fly by the burning bear.

Elsewhere, Sacajawea's husband gets attacked by an infected human and breaks his wrist falling down. His misery doesn’t end as an infected skunk this time scatters the infectious fluid all over him.

As Clark and Lewis chase the bear to land a final blow, they get consumed by what seems to be the root cause of all this – a large plant. As they fall into an induced sleep, we get more information on the highly divergent state of mind of the two men. The philosopher and scientist, Lewis, dreams of indulging in his carnal desires while Clark, a veteran soldier, is plagued by the dead.

Before both can be digested, Sacajawea brutally cuts down the plant.

As they take count of what has transpired, they have to finish the final act. The newly infected are killed (through Lewis’ conflict is transparent as he cuts out ‘executed’ and renames the event as a ‘quarantine’), the dead are accounted for while the injured are taken back for healing.

Lewis is becoming more and more analytical as we hear him see the injured soldier only in terms of assets and loss. After the dead bird incident last month, Clark may be the scarred soldier, but Lewis may be becoming something much worse.

After a bath, we spy Sacajawea and her husband packing up. So, problems are bound to arise there given her husband’s earlier ‘incident’.

We are yet to learn much about her history, and that is fertile ground for Dingess in future stories. For now, she has been the main muscle of the story while Lewis and Clark have been exploration fodder, if you may term it that way.

SPOILERS END…………….

The first act of the journey has left Clark and Lewis facing their demons and raising serious questions about the mental stability of both men. While Sacajawea has remained mysterious as has the source of the infection, this arc has given much food for thought.

Who are the invaders? The humans? The animals? The plants?

Matthew Roberts has been brilliant during the entire arc and his artwork is something that, atleast for me, makes him the artist of the year so far.

So, I give it 8.5 out of 10.

+Amazing artwork
+Proper use of dialogues
+Great exploration of the two main characters

-Sacajawea remains highly under-developed
-A little rushed near the end