Review: Ayanmo Stigmata
Black Future Month continues with Ayanmo Stigmata from writer Tyrone L. Jackson and artist Marvin Marvida of SoveReign Comics, an independent publishing company established by Jackson in Colorado in 2009 with the aim of addressing the lack of diversity in mainstream comics.
June 1944 ... Lieutenant Clifford 'Red' Brown is a fighter pilot with the Tuskagee Airmen of the US Air Force during World War II. You may not have heard of them, but they were the first African-American military aviators in the US armed forces. This was at a point in history when racial segregation ('Jim Crow') laws were in place, and the military was no exception.
During an escort mission close to German airspace Red's squadron suddenly comes under fire from the Luftwaffer. They are holding their own against the Germans when strange lights appear in the sky... 'Foo Fighters' (the name given by Allied airmen to UFOs in the 1940s). One of the mysterious craft smashes a German plane in its haste to evade its pursuer; a curious intersection of two very different wars.
Red follows one of the craft which opens a spacetime portal in mid air. Red's plane gets pulled in and our hero finds himself transported very far from home...
Fast forward: Red has been taken in by Kyiti, a bounty hunter from the planet Namuirda. She is beautiful, if turquoise skin and pointed ears are your thing... but their relationship is very much under the status "complicated".... As the only Gaian (human) in this part of the galaxy, our hero is much sought after and targeted by various bounty hunters. It soon becomes a classic game of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" and Tuskagee (as they call him on this side of the Milky Way) is recruited as the leader of a band of misfit mercenaries.
Their first bounty is 'Cotton Tail', a super-powered revolutionary from an enslaved race of rabbit-like humanoids. Devoted to her cause, she will not give up easily.
Thus begins a complex story with a great deal of depth and scope for development. Our human protagonist has gone from fighting fascists to working for a different race of ruthless conquerors, raising all kinds of moral questions.
The artwork is likewise rich and detailed; Marvida's style is highly polished and his imagination offers up a wealth of fascinating alien races, spacecraft, robots and related elements. Tuskagee's crew is a diverse bunch, especially if you are a fan of furries; this little corner of the universe is populated with many anthropomorphic races (cat-like, lion-like, rabbit-like, etc.), and there are colourful new species popping up on almost every page.
This is a dazzling piece of work that deserves to be seen by a much wider audience. There is a lot of potential here that I would love to see played out. It feels like the beginning of something very exciting.
Zak Webber
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