Review: The Gold Bullet
"When I switch to the other side I hate who I become. But what choice do I have?"
Lagos, Nigeria, 2037. Nineteen year old Harrison Ikenna moves into a new home with his family and starts college. Things go well at first; he gets on well with the other students and looks forward to the challenges of his new academic life. However, he is also haunted by a restless uncertainty, questioning his purpose in life...
Events take a turn for the bizarre when he meets his new biology teacher, a man who has the same name as him. Shaking off this odd coincidence, he heads home only to find his sister in tears. Some local youths attempted to molest her. Enraged, he tracks them down and a fight quickly ensues; a fight that Harrison wins - against three opponents with weapons - with apparently no effort whatsoever.
Unable to control his anger, he kills one of the boys and is subsequently arrested for murder. He is sentenced to life imprisonment.
The end of his young life... or is this just the beginning?
In The Gold Bullet by Nigerian writer/artist Harrison Prime we see a future that is dazzling on the surface (flying cars and classroom holograms as standard) but still plagued with crime, corruption and inequality. It seems we can't have The Jetsons without a seething Blade Runner underbelly...
Our hero faces violence in prison but, again, handles himself admirably. His combat proficiency attracts the attention of a shadowy government operative who offers Harrison a deal: his freedom in return for working as a high-tech assassin. Backed into a corner with no other way out, Harrison agrees.
Soon our boy is hard at work taking out anyone who threatens to expose government corruption. And, like Wolverine, he is very good at what he does, but what he does is "not very nice" ...
Just as he is starting to question his career path, a familiar face drops in. Familiar to readers of Prime's previous release Meta6, that is; none other than Spectre, the feisty kick-ass ex-assassin who now leads a trio of unlikely vigilantees against the cyborg minions of an evil cabal... She seems to have answers to the questions that have tormented him for most of his life.
But how can she know secrets about him that are hidden even from himself? There are layers of mystery here that could turn his life upside-down. Again...
This is a complex and intriguing story illustrated with bold, energetic artwork polished to a fine degree. But this is more than just a fun romp. More meta than Meta6, The Gold Bullet's main character is a direct interjection of the author/artist himself into his own work. The reader cannot ignore the realisation that this is an intensely personal project for its creator. If you know anything about contemporary Nigerian politics, the themes here hit very close to home. The personal is political, always, but rarely in fiction are the parallels quite so stark.
In an uncertain world, surrounded by injustice and violence, it seems like there is no escape from the nightmare. Existence itself is a struggle with no end in sight... Fortunately for our hero, new possibilities - and a new future - may be close at hand.
THE GOLD BULLET from Cosmic Land Studios
Zak Webber
Twitter - @sfcomicartist Instagram - @sfcomicartist
JOIN US ON FACEBOOK! - SCI-FI COMIC NEXUS
*****
***
*
Comments
Post a Comment