Lazarus #3 is my Pick of the Week! If you are not reading this comic, you probably should be. Lazarus is both a breath of fresh air in the comic book industry, it also reminds me of aspects of comics which have been sorely missing from most titles for way too long.
Lazarus #3 is my Pick of the Week!
What is the Story of Lazarus?
Lazarus takes place in the future. Instead of governments or corporations running the show, society is run by “families.” An easy analogy to make would be that they are like mob families. Instead of using tools of crime to increase or sustain power, though, the families in the Lazarus story use political maneuvers, espionage, and war.
Each family in the story has a Lazarus. The Lazarus is a genetically-enhanced member which is used as the greatest line of defense for the family. In the story we follow, Forever Carlyle is the Lazarus of the Carlyle family. She is a 19-year-old beauty who is trained to kill by any means necessary. Through her genetic enhancement, she is faster, stronger than her size would normally allow, and she can shrug off almost any type of injury.
Lazarus Society
Lazarus makes an interesting social statement in the breakdown of society. There are three basic types of people in the world. Family members stand at the top of the ladder. On a distant second rung, you find serfs, which are the people who do the work for the families. Serfs can be military grunts, specialists in genetics, or simple janitors. At the bottom of the ladder would be “waste.”
“Waste” are people who are not serfs, but still need to be fed. On a positive sociological side, we might say that the society in Lazarus is better than many futuristic societies we have read about in the past in that leaders at least have concern about the masses eating, drinking, and being secure. On the negative site, most “waste” do not have the opportunities to better themselves and the society in this story apparently works to keep the bottom at the bottom.
Complexity in Simplicity
Writer Greg Rucka has created a world very different from our own, but you will not be at a loss if you start reading this series at this point. Differences are not outright explained, but (thus far) woven into the story in a way to guide you into understand what is going on no matter which issue you have started with. We are at the third issue in the series at this point, and it is common for creators to forget about the importance of guiding us to understanding changes by the end of the first issue.
Total Package
Michael Lark runs the artwork in Lazarus. Simply put, I like his style and it is as enjoyable for me as the story itself. I have a few titles I am reading regularly where I am simply holding on because of the story or because of the art. I like being able to hold onto a title for both.
Story in Lazarus #3
Forever is sent by Malcolm Carlyle (her father and the head of the Carlyle Family) to go down to Mexico to parlay proposed terms of an agreement between the Carlyle Family and the Morray Family. She has interesting interactions with Joacquim Morray, the Lazarus of the Morray Family, which might surprise people who might expect the Lazarus of one family to automatically be at odds with another. At the same time, Jonah and Johanna Carlyle continue to plot the usurping of their father while also planning to make sure their sister Forever is not a hassle to their plans. The end of the story gives us a great cliffhanger which will have me wondering what will happen until September 18, when Lazarus #4 comes out.
Extra Depth
I remember years ago when creators used to regularly add a few pages onto their comics to give more information about their characters or the world in which their stories took place. The most popular form of this was through the answering of letters from readers. While some creators still do add a little here and there, I have been happy to see the creators of Lazarus add letters and more information about Forever’s world. This helps to make Lazarus a “total package” which should be much higher on the Diamond Top 100 list.
