I am become Death

This is an almost 900-word review. But all you need to know are the first few paragraphs. If you wish to read the whole thing, be my guest! But know a lot goes on in the books and a lot went into the review.

These books are 3.5 to 4. They are some of the most horrible, gut-wrenching, disgusting books I have ever read. And I want to reread them. I want to shout to everyone READ THESE!! The horror of the “mistress” that is power, death, destruction, greed slinks across the page. If you do not come away feeling oogie about the ugliness of the human species, you probably didn’t read these books.

Some equally out in left field on its way to another ballpark, the illustrations bring it all to life and death. Dark, dirty, and even at times a false sense of innocence lurks on the page. They help the text make an emotional read that can only really be appreciated if you experience it yourself.

 I am including the ISBN for the available edition of Atomic Dreams: Prayer Cycle Edition even though it is not the version I read (which was on a web reading format called GLOSE) The ISBN is 9781480154131. It might not include Atomic Dreams: The Lost Journal of J. Robert Oppenheimer, which is the same story, but told from another angle. Both are equally important, and both should be read. But even though they are two different books, I’m only counting one as I can’t find an ISBN for an available edition of The Lost Journal.

Jazan Wild is the creator (along with Jonathan Elias, David Miller, and Rudy Vasquez) and this story fits Wild’s moniker. Their work is wild. And weird. And not just out in left field but out in another ballpark all together! If this is what they put out for graphic novels, I don’t want to know their music! The artwork of both is ugly. Not “ugly” in the sense unattractive, but ugly in the imagery it gives us. The colors are brown, dirty, muted, blood reds, and disgusting. They are not sugar coating the ugliness of atomic bombs. The ugliness of war. They are not sugar coating the ugliness of man. They do not let you get away with a happy feeling. You cannot feel clean after reading (or at least I didn’t). Yet, one of the saddest images might have been the most beautiful as it went the opposite with blues, softly presented, and has a seemingly innocence to it.

The story of both graphic novels center around a demon light. A thing that once you touch it, poisons your very self. Both start off with a Native Warrior who finds and touches it. The time frame is probably before white settlers or just at the start. Of course, we see how this thing is power hungry. Think Venom of Spiderman. Only once you get farther along, you realize it is uranium. And as Oppenheimer will say in The Lost Journal it becomes your mistress. And they are one nasty witch with a B!

I was taking the possessing of everyone literally because of how everyone reacts to it. And how it is portrayed on the page. Of course, I understand the symbolism of possession, but frankly, I think power need and greed can possess you just as easily as any real demon supposedly could. Because even though we see uranium during the second half, I feel this is just one of the forms it can “take.” It is not a “thing” but the thing that will corrupt.

In Prayer Cycle the characters are more focused on the aftermath of the atomic bombs dropping. Reality and fantasy mix making a cluster cluck! We see death and destruction the bombs caused. We see the Native chief that stopped his warrior centuries ago taking Oppenheimer through the aftereffects. And there are hints of Oppenheimer’s past and how the government and/or the military wishes to use this newfound power. There is also a future (not so in the future, but we have space travel to colonization New Earths) where an Oppenheimer descendant plays a role.

I was only about halfway through The Lost Journal when I started this review, but knew the review needed to happen when I was fresh with my thoughts. And while it starts off the same, it is the actual events of what happened to get to Prayer Cycle. I was interested in a comment a general said in Prayer Cycle about “making sure you mention his connection to the Reds” when at the end of Prayer Cycle, they are dragging a “mad” Oppenheimer away, that I did a Wikipedia search. Some of what I am feeling about The Lost Journal comes from reading that. And Lost Journal takes that information and tells it another way.

Here we see how the fact Oppenheimer had the communist connections, but that did not matter as the military felt that what they wanted outweighed any so-called possible threat to American security. Therefore, they fast tracked his clearance. But they kept an eye on him. When visiting his mistress, they are following him. The story continues with his thoughts and feelings and the events that unfold. It also includes much of what will come in the next edition. And it will add to the story of the man himself.