DMZ Book 9: M.I.A (#50-54) PART ONE

"If there is a Big Picture to be found here, I'm not seeing it.  Just a lot of smaller ones." - Matty Roth

Catch up time, in a noughties version of the USA a Second Civil War fought between the south-western Free States Army and the sitting U.S.Government came to a halt when mistakes made by U.S. soldiers during the occupation and battle for Manhattan caused the U.S government to negociate a ceasefire between them to the west and the FSA hanging round in New Jersey at the Lincoln Tunnel.  This ceasefire caused the Island of Manhattan to become a Demilitarised Zone and the people left trapped inside after a botched evacuation tried to carry on as best they could.  Reporter Matty Roth came to the DMZ by accident, but soon brok important stories about abuses going on in there. Then elections were held and helped along by a star struck Matty, the charismatic Parco Delgado was elected governor of Manhattan.  Immediately he bought a nuke which one group had hidden away, and when Matty broadcast this to the world things turned bad fast.  Matty had jettisoned his journalistic ideals and was running a death squad.  Then Parco disappeared as the U.S.army invaded to look for the nuke.  Matty was beaten up by soldiers and his attempts to have them killed want badly wrong as fourteen civilians were murdered by his goons instead.  Left alone, with not one person willing to take his calls, he wandered out onto the streets only to see a mushroom cloud billowing up from where the U.S. had bombed the defunct nuclear powerstation the nuke was being hidden in.  This volume "M.I.A" contains the one-shot "Notes From The Underground" and the four-parter "M.I.A".  Now although I said it was my policy to only split volumes when they exceeded seven chapters, "Notes From The Underground's" unique construction means It's the longest I have spent on one issue, I wanted to include a visual sample from every short in it and wrap things up in a conclusion seperately from the "M.I.A" arc.

Matty ponders his notes.

This was DMZ's 50th issue and to celebrate several artists illustrated some short stories and single-pagers all written by Wood.  The conceit is Matty, just before the tragic events of the end of the previous volume is sorting through his notes which cover all four years of his time in the DMZ, ones he hasn't for various reasons written publicly about.  So, enjoy some of Matty's unused stories in NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND.

NGO: Art by Rebekah Isaacs. In a taxi an excited man in the front finds Matty in the back.  He's off the clock, he sometimes comes for a ride with the driver because "sometimes shit just gets so fucking boring round here he comes and hangs out with me".  He has one rule in his taxi, "no jounalism".

The excited man fills Matty in on what he is there for, his investors see unlimited potential in providing progressive communication access to the citizens of the DMZ.  He hopes they can "liberate the masses through information technology".   Matty say their cellphones still work, "the telecoms saw to that.. no cost. It's not like they can send us the bill."

The excited man says his way would shine a light on the people and show them the world that's been passing them by all these years, "we can usher them back into the arms of society... we can free them.  Educate them." He wants to set up shop in New York for a new comms network and will donate free access to select Americans. The taxidriver asks "So wait... you hired me to drive you real estate shopping?"

Touring the DMZ.

The man says yes, many buildings are abandoned and can be purchased cheap.  The driver points out the buildings are under the control of militia and warlords.  The man says he's been authorised to buy the real estate from the squatters.  Matty says he hopes he bought lots of cash.  The man says he has vouchers.  Matty and the driver burst into laughter, the driver offers the man a beer then screeches to a halt.

They get out, the first stop on the man's real estate tour.  Right now Matty reckons they have less than a minute before a nasty guy calling his soldiers to the roof starts dropping grenades on them, "your future telecommunications HQ is a restricted area".   The driver tells him to hurry up with his beer, he has thirty seconds.  Then they return to the car and drive the hell away. Matty tells the man "Tell your investors you can't liberate us, educate us, or buy us.  You sad dumb tourist.  You don't know how lucky you are". End of short story.

MATTY+ZEE: Art by Jim Lee.  A single pager showing Matty taking shots of Zee searching through some rubble.  The text talks of their history although is dated to before she left him a couple of volumes ago.  Matty admits he has a hard time living up to her standards, "I cannot imagine living in this city without her, I cannot imagine this city existing without her".  Her leaving him can probably be said to have influenced his bitter spiral into violence in the previous book.

Zee remains the heart of the DMZ.

LITTLE PLASTIC TOY:  Art by Fabio Moon. A wordless story, a young boy finds a small cluster bomb and not realising what it is takes it home and sleeps with it under his pillow.  Next day he has wrapped a small red scarf round it, but one of the other kids recognises what it is and calls for help.  He doesn't want to hand it over until Zee intervenes and she is able to take it and hand it over for safe disposal.

He put a scarf on it! *sob*

LOOTED: Art by Ryan Kelly. We join Matty as a serious looking older man has him put gloves and booties on, then asks him "ready?"  Matty thinks about this story, a man scouring the city for works of art, paying the city warlords and mercnaries to help him and buy their silence.  He shows Matty his rooms full of artwork.  He then tells Matty he is dying "and I don't now what's going to happen to my babies when I'm gone".

He tells Matty that "patience and drive" amassed this collection, he loved money but loved art more.  Matty points at a Van Gogh and the man says has recovered 60% of MOMA's collection.  Matty thinks how there is billions worth here in tha townhouse.  The man says he's kept meticulous records "I claim no ownership, just the privilege of caretaker."  He needs Matty's help now.

An unsung hero.

He wants Matty to use his communications with the outside world and find the proper people to talk about this. His system of barters, payments, trusts, bribes and blackmail will breakdown once he is gone.  He leaves to Matty containing a list of the catalogue, missing pieces and repairs he made.  There are codes for the security system and secondary location as well as a Swiss bank account with money to help with restoring the museums after the war.  He tells Matty he is the first person he trusted, now he must go to the people he trusts. Matty can only leave in awe of what this man had done "something for humanity that I can barely wrap my mind around... much less put a price on".  And he leaves the man contemplating the art. End.

SNOOZER, THE GHOSTS: Art by Lee Bermejo.  It's a single pager about the ethos of the Ghosts of Central park and their mission to save trees and wildlife.  Soames told Matty one day that when the dust settles after the war, people will mourn the decimation o the parks and open spaces, the tainted water supplies, the poisoning of the air and destruction of historical spaces, "And, I firmly believe" said Soames "the first question we'll ask is 'Why didn't we do something when we had the chance?  Our excuses will ring hollow'".

Enviromental activism in the DMZ.

HEART OF NEW JERSEY.  Art by Riccardo Burcielli. This story starts with Matty being driven right out into a New Jersey forest to meet the Supreme Commander of the Free States of America.  When his blindfold is taken off, he is greeted by an unassuming man called Commander Townes standing outside a parked caravan.  They go inside and start to have a chat.

He tells him after some chit-chat that the first year of the war was hardest for them, the rise of the Free States wasn't just the rise of some predestined idea.  The second year was better:

Townes: "That was when we started buying mayors.  A couple of governors.  A couple of FBI field agents, too.... Okay I lied about the agents.  Some halfwit under my command shot them.  We just used their badges.  Opened a lot oof doors for us, literally.  Amouries, National Guard bases, banks even".

Matty asks more about the banks and Townes says the first secret is that the FSA is suprer rich like "own-the-country rich".  They are so rich they outright bought Chicago. They never made a move on it because the "famously neutral Chicago... is like a sleeper cell".  He makes a call and it goes hot, opening up a new front in the war.  They have no need for Texas, the power is in the East.  They'd love Florida, but in the end won't need Miami when they have New York.

The leader of the FSA in humble surroundings.

Another secret is they have four divisions coming down through Canada to assault New York from the north, straight down the Hudson valley. "Why are you telling me this?" asks Matty. First because the Federal army won't be able take on four divisions at least until New York State. And he is telling Matty because he knows he's conflicted and will take his time in sorting out "what's news and what's intelligence".

He tells Matty what he's going to take away from this interview, about the Redneck army who buy cities and governors, assissinate heads of state, field multiple divisions of troops and have brought the most powerful army to its knees.   He's had foreign heads of state sit where Matty is right now, "and knew they were looking at someone they can do business with".

Matty is left with much to mull over.

He tells Matty to hand over the tape recorder when he leaves, "I'm not going to make it that easy for you".  Next day Matty returns to the DMZ thinking they talked for ages more, got wasted and fired off some M-60's. It left a lot of stuff swirling in his head, and as he takes the memory card he had hidden in his mouth he thinks "Information that, even if I tried to bust it open, I'd not be able to verify.  Or so says that old hermit in the woods".  End story.

KELLY CONNOLLY:  Art by Philip Bond.  A one-pager of Matty's on-off girlfriend, a fellow reporter who helped him break a big story. Matty's "notes" on her here date to just before she committed suicide in the DMZ.

The late Kelly Connolly.

WILSON'S KITCHEN: Art John Paul Leon. Another early story for Matty, invited to the legendary kitchen of Wilson, the Triad boss who runs Chinatown now.  As he looks around he sees how the kitchen is two buildings basements worth.  He shows the bean curd fermenters at work and the fresh greens grown by hydroponics.  Matty watches in fascination, "He takes some of the bean curd and mashes it into peanut oil, chili, garlic, rice wine cut with a little water".

Wilson and Matty become friends.

The wok is heated and the mixture dumped in it, the greens are added and in thirty seconds cooking time he has a plate full of bean curd, soft not soggy greens and sauce.  As he eats with Wilson, he is told the make all the bean curd, "easy to make, down here". He says he'll show Matty the greenhouses after they finish.  The cooks hustle out, "It reminded me, quite pointedly, that this was Wilson's kitchen, and this was Wilson's Chinatown.  And it's the rest of the world's loss".  End story.

WILSON:  Art by Eduardo Risso. A one-pager that tells us under Wilson, Chinatown has not only kept its original character but more-or-less its original boundaries.  After a failed assassination attempt he became untouchable, "equal parts kind and cruel, and whatever power he uses to keep the glue of his dominion intact, it's practically invisible to outsiders".

Wilson, Kingpin of Chinatown.

DECADE LATER: Art by Dave Gibbons.  A final one-pager, Matty's notes tell us about the titular grafitti artist who had moved on into the realm of "Street Artist" working on fine and conceptual art. But also "he and others like him act as custodians of the soul of New York City, embodiments of hope against the forces arrayed against them. Their work should not just be preserved but celebrated".  And that brings this issue, "Notes From The Underground" to an end.

A respected street artist.

A great selection of shorts, we've got single-pagers whose out of date notes make for somewhat tragic reading when you compare what happened to them or how Matty's relationships imploded with them. "NGO" is a light-hearted story poking a little fun at the naivete of clueless outsiders who assume the DMZ's real estate is up for sale with reasonable people and which also shows how native Matty has gone by this point.  There might not be any words in "LITTLE PLASTIC TOY" but it paints a heart-breaking story of being a kid in a warzone, not only does he take a bomb home, he ties a little scarf round it as well, that detail just kills me everytime.  Says so much about the resilience of children even in a place like the DMZ.

"LOOTED" answers the question of what happened to the cultural treasures of the city.  One man who could have lived comfortably elsewhere risked life, limb and spent enormous amounts of cash to preserve as much as he could, for no other reason than because he loved art. Matty is suitably awed by him as am I. He reminds me of a man in the game Fallout 3 (game about people surviving a nuclear bomb ravanged Washington) who wants to keep history alive for the people in his free museum in one of the most successful communities in the Capitol Wasteland.  He uses his money and mercenaries to search for relics in museums and the National Archives.  In one you find the Declaration of Independence for him.  I like to think him and the man in this story would be exist in any place where there was great culture and history to be preserved.

"HEART OF NEW JERSEY" finally fills us in (or does it) as to how the FSA made such great strides as it did against the biggest and best equipped army in the world.  There's an interesting dynamic going on between Townes and Matty, how much is bullshittery, will Chicago flip to the FSA at the drop of a hat?  Are there four divisions on their way through Canada as they speak?  The Free States will be coming back into focus soon enough, maybe we'll find out then.  Finally "WILSON'S KITCHEN" gives Matty his first taste, literally of one of the ways Wilson has been able to keep the culture and character of Chinatown alive in the era of the DMZ. WILSON elaborates some more on Matty's feelings about him before they fell out and DECADE LATER shows that while DL might be gone from the DMZ now, he's left a lasting legacy like he wanted. With a line up of superb artists including legends like Jim Lee and Dave Gibbons, this was an excellent celebration of the further flung stories of the DMZ in a landmark issue.  Join me in a few days for the rest of this volume: "M.I.A."

DMZ Book 8: Hearts And Minds (#42-49) PART ONE

"So that was how it started...but this is how it ended up" - Tony

A quick reminder as to what DMZ is about. In a fictional noughties USA the country has split in half between the mid-western Free States and the rest of the country.  A second civil war blew up between them and a demoralised U.S army whose troops were mainly deployed overseas soon found them pushed back to New York.  They held the city until the accidental massacre of a peace march attended  by some of the half a million people left trapped in Manhattan caused them to withdraw and negociate a ceasefire between them based east of New York and the Free States lurking in New Jersey.  People in the DMZ have been carrying on with their lives as best they can as chronicled by journalist Matty Roth. Recently there was an election and a charismatic man called Parco Delgado and his Delgado Nation was voted in as a provisional governer. He immediately ordered out the various factions and used Matty to go and buy a nuclear weapon from the Ghosts of Central Park so he can shore up his position in the eyes of the world.  A somewhat bitter Matty has alienated his former friends and has got Parco to agree to be him being his sole media mouthpiece.  Now this volume contains two parts, a three part story called "No Future" and a five-parter called "Hearts and Minds".  It's my policy to split books when they have eight or more parts to them, so this first post is devoted to the "No Future" which is about a legendary cult of mercenaries occupying the Empire State Building and is illstrated by Ryan Kelly.

Inside the Empire State Building a group of men are sitting in a circle having a group therapy session. Our main character is a man called Tony, he speaks of what happened to him and his family on the day of the evacuation, he told them to lock the doors and stay inside.  He feels "retarded" saying all this out loud but the group leader encourages him to talk some more.

Tomy spills his guts.

Tony was a cop assigned to crowd control as the evacuation began, "it got ugly fast".  People turned into animals, he called his family and because he was a cop they jumped the queue and came straight through the barricades and the crowds got angry with them, even his baby  The crowd then rioted and Tony lost track of them, until it was too late.  The group leader tells him he losthis  loved ones, but "we're your family now."

Tont starts thinking about what it was like being there. Group therapy was six times a week, "it was always the same.  We'd take turns telling our stories, reopening old wounds, probing them, provoking, over and over."  It was a bonding exercise only in hindsight does Tony see how manufactured it was. They all had PTSD but didn't need to spend three hours a day reliving it. But it was the glue that held them together, "the raw material that fueld this particular insurgency".

Out on their destructive mission.

The windows of their bunk rooms were painted black, sometimes the didn't see daylight for weeks.   They operated in shifts, fired up by mission briefings, men who were "damaged and desperate for a solution to the pain".  There was a big armory, they were an insurgency, but Tony realised they were actually a cult.  "A death cult, composed of dead men.  Less interested in getting well than getting even".

Tony: "Kept in something not unlike sensory deprivation for fourteen hours a day, and then set loose in this dark playground of fear and violence.  We felt like gods".

There mission was to seek out signs of civilisation, signs of military presence, anything growing like a mushroom and kill it to spread their pain around.

He's out on patrol when they get orders to take down a helicopter, under fire they chase after it and crash their car thanks to an ambush.   They fight their way through the "street trash", Tony links up with the spotter team.  He comes face to face with the helicopter, it's the Liberty News one from Book 1 that came under attack and caused Matty to end up in the DMZ.  They fire a rocket at it and the chopper explodes.

Capturing Viktor.

However there is a survivor, the veteran journo Viktor Ferguson.  Tony is about to kill him when he gets new orders, which we can infer was to sell him to the Free States as seen in Book 2.  Later Tony is back at base feeling used for the first time, "The rules.  The mandate.  The mission. Orders.  Twitch, react". He wonders what was so important about the jounalist, he was part of the system that destroyed their lives, "the system that lived on long after we died inside.  Right?"

He asked around about Viktor and when he realises he's been trafficked he regards it as "another sin I have to atone for". In therapy he goes through his orders that day then talks about his dead wife and child "for the thousandth time".  We see in a group hug afterwards.  Later he takes out his anger in the gymn using a punchbag.

Therapy used for evil.

The leader of the therapy group finds him and says Tony must really be feeling it, and he checked the sign-in sheets and Tony comes here more than anyone else. He asks if Tony wants to talk about his pain?  He tells Tony he has the fire and he has something to show him.  Tony remembers it was the first time the "Boss Man" spoke to him outside the group.

The Boss turns the TV on and it has footage of the evacuation, Tony asks him to turn it off, but the Boss keeps going and shows him a man in the crowd that day called Mike Costa.  He was there when Tony's family was killed and he's still here in the city.  The Boss gives Tony his address and tells him to consider it a gift.

Revenge.

Tony remembers how he has very little recollection of what happened next.   He suited up and got a weapon and off he went out into the DMZ alone.  He reaches Mike's flat and finds him cowering in a corner with his wife and four children.  Mike pleads with him, but Tony fires on them killing them all, he kept firing until the weapon clicked empty, then he switched to a pistol and emptied that as well, "like I said.  I shut off." Leaving the area he vomits against a wall.

Tony: "Did I feel better afterwards?  Yeah, sort of, I think.  The truth is I was mainly worried about coming back to base, terrified to see what was in store for me."

Sitting alone in a room he's handed an envelope with orders in them.  The Boss asks if Mike Costa is dead?  Tony affirms this.  The Boss says he knew it would be good for him.

He says the vengeance has prepared Tony for what he has to do next. Then he shows Tony his new room, with luxury furniture he says it's a "performance related bonus".  Tony ask if its because he murdered a man and his family?  The Boss says it's because he finally owned his pain, he "bucked the fuck up and took care of it".  It was extraordinary of him.  The others can barely keep it together in the group sessions, "you've graduated." Left alone he thinks he "didn't own shit".  Sadly he looks out of the window, then goes to floss his teeth and just stares at his reflection in the mirror.  He ends up slumped on the bathroom floor with his head in his hands.

A man in severe pain.

We see Matty and Zee together at the start of the chapter, fully dating this back to when Matty first arrived in the DMZ. Tony is still staring out of the windown, there is an attractive woman sleeping in the bed.  We join him at the group therapy session and all he can hear is "blah blah blah" and he snaps and punches one of the other men shouting "shut the fuck up already!"

As the group collapses in chaos, Tony throttles the man thinking he could kill him, he's been trained to. Calmly the Boss says to stop it, and Tony does so. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asks him.  Later Tony and the Boss are alone, the Boss stares out the window saying the city is really something.  Tony says it's seen better days.  The Boss asks if he thinks it can ever be the same again?

Tony thinks not.  The Boss agrees, the city will become another Mogadishu.  "The sun is setting on America.  We're just another failed state" he says.  Tony asks if he's turning Free States.  The Boss says there is no difference between all the factions.  He asks Tony what he wants.

Boss: "Food and shelter? You got it. Safety? Yep, as much as anyone can be safe in the DMZ.  Comradery? Got it.  Revenge?  You got that, right? What am I leaving out".

Tony: "Justice... peace?"

Boss says he'll be able to get justice by doing what he did to Mike Costa.   He says Tony has been on a journay from evacuation day to killing Mike Costa.

He thinks back to how the next few seconds played out, he ended up saying not what he meant to say but a different voice from different place. "What about my fucking family?" he snarls.  The Boss gives him an envelope with orders in it.  "Here's your peace Tony.  It was an honour to have known you.  See you on the other side".

His final mission.

He goes and straps himself with an explosive vest.  He ruminates how his years with the cult he did everything by his own volition.  He wires himself up, thinking how he was never talked down to, never preached an ideology, "and so we felt we were in control. Our decisions were ours".  All this was his own choice. He is given a car as the voice over his radio hurries him along.

Tony: "The seclusion, the lack of sleep, the emotional manipulation.  I'm not making excuses.  But in those moments, heading down town.  I'm not sure I realised what I was doing."

He arrived at one of the DMZ's shopping streets and suddenly it all clicks in his head. We see hm transported back to evacuation day, while back then he tries to fight through the crowd, Tony of the present looks down on his wife and child's corpse.  He apologises to them and thinks, "not sure it's ever really been about me."

He calls out a warning to everyone yelling he has a bomb. As people flee he thinks, "and so this is where it ends.  reliving my horrors, stuck in my emotional prison.  But this time for the last time.  I'm sorry Maribeth, I'm sorry girls.  I've been away from you too long".  And he touches the wires together and explodes, bringing this arc to an end.

Tony is finally free.

This is a very compelling story.  We've already had suicide bombings covered in Book 3, but this story goes into far more depth of the grooming and psychological manipulation it takes to persuade someone to take their life for the cause.  The cause in this case being a nihilist one, striking out at all sides, keepng a violent status quo and punish those trying to lead a normal life.  Tony is something of a sad case, prime material for suicide bomber, forced to relive his worst moment, over and over for years, the confessional part of group therapy abused to make people more suseptable to anything that can relieve the pain they feel. His sadness and guilt comes through very clearly here, that he couldn't save his home family, that murdering a man and his family who just happened to be one person in a massive crowd that day didn't heal him and indeed turned him into a death seeker even more strongly.  And yet at the end he realises that why he is ready to take his own life, he's not ready to tke innocent people with him. Part two of this volume in a few days time as we catch up with Matty's work as Parco Delgado's mouthpiece.