American Reaper: Book Two
Inevitably, in 2062, movies are going to reflect the inventions of the era and there’s going to be a lot of ‘body-hoppers’ such as Conrad Zinn
SPOILER ALERT!
Some of the story and the plot is unveiled in this look at Book Two of Reaper. Probably not as much as the average trailer of a movie, but just in case you like to read a story completely ‘cold’, we hope to run a Kickstarter and for the Reaper books to appear next year. Not long to wait!
In this volume we visit the clinic where the illegal identity transplants are carried out. I found myself being chilled by the Doctor’s calm advice to the geriatric who has now been given a new youthful body and a new lease of life.
Doctor: I recommend you wear dark glasses for the first two weeks. Your old eyes had cataracts so it will take time for you to adjust. Expect diarrhoea. It’s a common fight or flight reaction.
Identity Thief: Yeah. I’ll be shitting myself every time I pass a Reaper.
(The text balloons on the right hand pages need adjusting - that will be done before we publish!)
There then follows the first legal identity transplant. And fascinating dialogue about the moral and emotional challenges for all concerned. The ID thieves have overcome the scanners, so now the Reapers have to deal with this problem. Inevitably, their solution is science-based. Just as today thieves can steal a phone, change the user’s identity to their own and quickly clean-out their bank accounts in a matter of minutes. Science will create new protocols to solve the problem which will, in turn, be defeated by the ID thieves.
There seems no end to it and what we are seeing in American Reaper is the ultimate end-game of Science. We can sense Matherson’s exasperation at always being one step behind the ID thieves. It’s so valuable that we had a ‘long form’ format to pursue these issues, thanks to the original screenplay and the 2000AD Megazine. In a weekly comic, it would have been impossible. Readers would have complained that there was not enough action. I really enjoy these sustained dialogue scenes, which are the hallmark of many graphic novels today.
But an excellent action scene follows when Matherson is pursued by a bullet that homes in on his GPS. It’s got his name on it! The technology is probably already possible, but if not it must be just around the corner. You only have to look at what is happening in the Middle East today to know that, once again, science has created new nightmares that are rapidly catching up with the horrors of fiction.
In the background of the action scenes, we see an advert for an exciting movie called Hotel Riviera, featuring America’s first transgender spy, secret agent Conrad Zinn, illustrated by Fay Dalton. It was inspired by my visit to Hotel Riviera in Havana, Cuba, where I definitely felt a sinister presence in the building which had not changed since the American embargo following the Cuban revolution. I write about it in the movie review with the advert. Inevitably, in 2062, movies are going to reflect the inventions of the era and there’s going to be a lot of ‘body-hoppers’ such as Conrad Zinn. That must be a challenge for forthcoming James Bond movies, where we look for new and ever wilder gadgets, yet still retaining the personal feeling of classic Bond.
It was already a challenge in the 1970s, when I created secret agent Mach One for 2000AD. It’s a fairly well-known belief that, after death, the soul sometimes hangs around for a while and gives some indication to loved ones that all is well in the otherworld before it ‘moves on’. Mindful of this, I had Mach One with a device that stimulated the brain of a dead man, enabling him to speak for an hour or two after death, so the corpse could give him some vital information. Thinking back, it’s an interesting idea I should maybe use on some future occasion. But at the time, the 2000AD sub-editor, Roy Preston, deleted it. I was told it was because he was a Christian and it offended or challenged his beliefs about the afterlife. Similarly, he was also offended by a scene in my Judge Dredd The Cursed Earth. The Alien Tweak is being tortured by scientists and the caption was ‘Alien Messiah’ which he wanted changed because Jesus is the only Saviour. Apparently. On that occasion, however, he was overruled.
It should go without saying that the staff I hired on 2000AD showed no signs of such strong and intrusive Christian beliefs, otherwise I would never have considered them for the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic. But Preston came after my time.
There’s a powerful ending to this volume, brilliantly and emotionally rendered by Clint, but it would definitely spoil your future enjoyment of the story if you knew it was coming. But I think I can show some of the lead-up sequence without giving too much away.
Join me next week for the lowdown on the concluding volume: American Reaper Book Three!
REAPER: THE KICKSTARTER
We’re continuing to get good feedback on our Reaper Kickstarter plans.
I was really encouraged by comments such as these:
What format would work best for you? Three volumes or one? A deluxe edition with foiled dust jacket, placeholder ribbon and printed endpapers, exclusive to Kickstarter? Plus a standard hardcover? Softcover? Let us know!
If you’d like to support our first Kickstarter campaign for Sha Book 1: The Shadow One, with art by Olivier Ledroit, you can sign up for notifications here.
