A detail sometimes leads the reading choices and for War Mother published on June 22 by Bliss comics it was the superb cover of David Mack. What is behind this title – the mother of war – and this dress with ominous words – protective, hunter, mother, warrior?
The future will go wrong
This volume is a compilation of five episodes about the same character with one episode of 4001 A.D.: War mother published by Valiant Entertainment in August 2016 and the mini-series War Mother published in August and November 2017. The set is written by Fred Van Lente (Conan, Archer and Armstrong). The first episode is the work of Argentine artist Tomás Giorello (Conan, X-O Manowar) who will have a big role in the next releases of Bliss with Ninja-K – in January 2019 – and the crossover – Harbinger Wars in May 2019. The miniseries is drawn by Filipino artist Stephen Segovia (Wolverine). Bliss ends this volume by integrating all the covers and drawings before colorization.
This character came from the pages of Rai, another series of Valiant, but thanks to the first episode of introduction, it is very easy to understand what is his role and the situation of the Earth in 4001. The world of the future has gone very badly with wars and natural disasters ravaging the Earth. Independent city-states are forming and trying to resist. One of them, Le Bosquet, is threatened with extinction but the War Mother, protector of her people, will try to ensure survival.
We are quickly immersed in dystopian science fiction with cities invaded by nature, jungle and threatening mutants behind the protective walls of the city. In the city, survivors live among the ruins. The language evolved because humans lost the technical vocabulary and they invented other words – the skywatch for the lookout or the astronomer.
A hunter at the service of her people
Le Bosquet is a city that is 95% self-sufficient thanks to the old machines before the disaster. The rest is provided by the hunt of the War Mother who goes out of the city to recover the pieces of the city fallen from the sky. She uses a rifle equipped with an electronic aiming aid – HALO – that speaks and obeys only the War Mother. The dialogue with her weapon is often interesting and allows to know the feelings of this warrior isolated in the jungle.
She is only allowed to bring back non-organic materials, but in a piece of debris from the sky, she finds a child. Does it have to sacrifice its morals to survive? This spring is all the stronger because it is alluded to his infertility – "nothing can survive in me" – and it is his role that offers him an adoptive family. War mother was genetically created to defend her people but everything she touches dies. The chef of Le Bosquet chose couples for their genetic potential.
Drawings at the level
Tomás Giorello directs a very beautiful episode by the sets and beautiful graphic ideas – the door that speaks, the warm hands of War Mother – even if he is not at the top compared to X-O Manowar. Stephen Segovia replaced him for the following episodes but we do not really see the difference in style. In particular, there is a range close to colors. Other cartoonists will also represent some pages of these episodes which is a specialty of Valiant.
An ecological story
Van Lente explores the origin of the symbiosis of the city with nature by showing that by the destruction of this link, the city dies. War mother has to go find another place. The responsibility rests with a woman and her husband is ashamed of it even though "daddy will always be there" for his children. This feminist part of the story is very interesting, especially since the War Mother will make a mistake in the choice of the new city. This city symbolizes a decaying aristocracy – seventeenth-century robot servants, ancient paintings on the wall and a chastened language. This organization, La Montana, refuses change while War Mother's adopted son from heaven advocates species selection. Very worrying, he wants his mother to himself. War Mother will have to fight this conservatism to allow a rebirth.
Just Focus flies to the future with this comprehensive jungle narrative. Behind a very gripping and well-directed action narrative by Giorello and Segovia lies a deeper, ecological and feminist narrative. With this volume, War Mother surpasses Mad Max.
