Absolution, by Christos Gage and Roberto Viacava

Writer: Christos Gage; Art: Roberto Viacava

Rating 4.5 out of 5 stars

"When I say of the righteous that he will surely live, and he relied on his righteousness and committed injustice, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered, and for the injustices which he committed he shall die." - Ezekiel 33:13

I've been a fan of Christos Gage's work since I saw The Breed, the noir vampire detective film he wrote with his wife Ruth Fletcher Gage. The two also penned episodes for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. When Gage began working in the comic book field, I picked up some of his books.

My favorite was Stormwatch: Post Human Division, a title set in the Wildstorm universe that was really a police procedural with superhero trappings. Regrettably, the book only lasted a year, but during that brief time Gage wrote some interesting stories with colorful characters.

Last fall I met Gage at a NYC comic convention. He suggested that since I'd liked Stormwatch, I should take a look at Absolution, his new miniseries from Avatar. I picked up the zero issue, read it, and was instantly hooked.

Absolution is the story of John Dusk, a costumed crimefighter in a world where superhumans are relatively rare, and those who fight crime are members of organized law enforcement. While Dusk and his super-powered colleagues fight the occasional supervillain, the majority of the criminals he deals with are normal humans. Which is not as ideal as you would think. Because instead of tangling with some loony mad scientist who wants to blackmail the world with an orbiting laser gun, Dusk encounters the scum of humanity: serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, wife beaters, and violent street gangs. He witnesses the absolute worst that humanity has to offer.

And, unlike Batman or Spider-Man, who can just beat the crap out of criminals and leave them tied to the nearest lamppost, Dusk has to do things by the book. He has to arrest the perpetrators he encounters and bring them in to face trial in an imperfect criminal justice system almost exactly like our own in the real world.

The strain of seeing these horrors day after day, for eight long years, watching criminals get paroled or acquitted only to commit crimes anew, seeing innocents mutilated and murdered, has finally gotten to Dusk. When he sleeps, he has nightmares about crime scenes. When he has sex with his girlfriend, all he can see are the faces of female homicide victims.

In the afterword to the zero issue, Gage notes "I knew from writing for the TV show Law & Order: SVU that real life sex crimes officers are forced to transfer to a different department after a certain amount of time, because no sane human being can see what they do and keep it together for long." Such is the case with John Dusk. He is completely burnt out, and the healthiest thing in the world for him to do would be to simply quit. Unfortunately, he isn't able to. As one of only a handful of superhumans on the police force, he is desperately needed. After killing a suspect Dusk is flat-out told by his supervisor "If you were a cop, you'd be on administrative leave while this is investigated. But it's not like we can replace you."

Dusk sees no way out. He is haunted by the victims he couldn't save, and feels helpless to protect the innocent. So finally, in secret, he begins using his superpowers to kill criminals in cold blood. For the first time in months, he can finally sleep at night. He once again feels like he is making a difference. And even though Dusk knows what he is doing is against the laws he has sworn to uphold, he finds he cannot stop. In fact, he starts to gain satisfaction from the killings. In effect, Dusk becomes a serial killer whose victims are criminals.

Gage writes Absolution in what I found to be a deeply ambivalent tone. It really offers a challenge to the reader. On the one hand, we are unsettled that Dusk is taking the law into his hands and committing murder. On the other hand, his victims are scum, the worst of criminals, and we feel a definite satisfaction at seeing Dusk dispense his own brutal form of justice.

In other words, we don't know whether we should be disgusted by John Dusk's actions, or if we ought to be cheering him on. Gage leaves us wondering if we were in Dusk's position would we be doing the exact same thing.

Unfortunately, all actions have consequences, and Dusk's vigilante killings eventually have the indirect result of causing innocent people to suffer. He did not intend for this to happen, but if not for the choices he made, this would not have occurred.

Which brings me to the reason why, despite my sympathy for Dusk, and the revulsion I have for the monsters he kills, I find him very disturbing. Dusk may have the best intentions in the world, but he is only human. Can he truly say with one hundred percent certainty that each and every criminal he killed deserved to die? How soon before he gets sloppy and bystanders get caught in the crossfire? Or, worse yet, he makes the ultimate mistake, and kills someone who is actually innocent?

That is one of the main reasons why we have regulations governing the police, why there is a system of trial by jury, why suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty and have the right to legal representation. Because human beings make mistakes. Sometimes the police do arrest innocent people by accident. Even the most scrupulously honest police officer who does everything by the book is not immune to error. And power can make cops and prosecutors arrogant, overconfident, and even corrupt them. It's human nature.

Would we really want a draconian criminal justice system made up entirely of John Dusks? In the pages of Absolution, the majority of the public supports Dusk's actions. But if each and every police officer had the freedom to execute whoever they felt deserved to die, I doubt we would feel very safe. In fact, I expect we'd be living in fear of those who were supposed to be protecting us.

We have a deeply flawed legal system badly in need of fixing. But I would still rather live here in the United States than, say, Communist China or the old Soviet Union, where authority figures such as John Dusk were the rule rather than the exception.

Gage also implies that Dusk's motives are not as pure as the driven snow. Once his actions come to light, Dusk is approached by Happy Kitty, an anime-themed hitwoman who kills for the adrenaline rush. When asked what she wants, Happy Kitty simply states "Let's go play." An angry Dusk answers "When hell freezes over. I don't kill for fun." Happy Kitty merely laughs at this and bounces off, leaving Dusk to mutter to himself "Not like her. Never like her." You have to wonder who he's trying to convince.

The conclusion of Absolution is left open-ended by Gage. On one hand, that was disappointing, as I was hoping for a story with more closure. On the other hand, it does leave open the possibility of a sequel. John Dusk is a complex, disturbed character who bears further examination. I would like to see what happens as he continues in his self-appointed role of judge, jury, and executioner. Sooner or later he's going to cross paths with his former law enforcement colleagues. What will he do, fight, perhaps even harm, his old friends to prevent them from halting his crusade? And, if he does make a tragic mistake, and someone innocent dies, what then? There's plenty of territory for Gage to explore.

The art on Absolution is courtesy of Roberto Viacava. He did some fine work on this miniseries. This is undoubtedly a very odd comparison, but Viacava's style reminded me somewhat of Mike McKone crossed with Jim Calafiore crossed with Steve Dillon. Oh, and I thought the work of Juan Jose Ryp, who drew the wraparound covers, was a bit reminiscent of Geoff Darrow. (Absolution, like all the books published by Avatar, had a large number of variant covers, but my favorite ones were those by Ryp.) Anyway, if there is a sequel, I hope Viacava returns as the artist.

In the end, Gage accomplishes on Absolution what would probably be difficult for a mainstream superhero series from DC or Marvel. He makes the reader think, and poses questions that truly do relate to the real world, questions with no easy answers.