Broken Frontier

Testament: Akedah. Douglas Rushkoff, Writer. Liam Sharp, Artist. DC Comics, 2006.

What if the stories of the Bible were happening today?  This is the question Douglas Rushkoff and Liam Sharp ask in the spectacular Testament series from DC/Vertigo.  Ancient stories from the earliest chapters of the Book of Genesis, detailing events from the lives of Abraham and Lot, are related in parallel setting to a frightening and fictionalized account of a very near future when the draft has been reinstated in the United States.  As Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac, so modern-day Alan Stern is asked to insert an RFID chip into his son Jake, as part of tracking young people eligible for the draft.

In his introduction to the first volume of the trade paperback, Rushkoff suggests that the Bible may be "better off as a comic book."  This is not only because the Bible is such a subversive collection of books, stories, and mythic events.  It is also because Biblical events are not sealed in the past.  The Bible is entirely relevant to the present, a "source code on reality hacking" that is the ultimate wake-up call to the unpleasant truths of the contemporary world, such as child sacrifice, mental slavery, and idolatry in the worship of money. 

Writing the Bible as a comic book allows Rushkoff and Sharp to place ancient stories alongside contemporary ones, playing with temporality and dimensionality by toying around with sequence, and also with panels.  They switch back and forth from ancient to contemporary times, building and strengthening the resemblance between ancient and contemporary characters.  In some places, they bring events to critical mass in both times simultaneously, placing them side by side, or within each other.

The Bible offers a theological interpretation of historical events.  This means that events are understood in terms of the actions of gods, and in terms of the relationships between humans and gods.  Testament has this same approach, portraying human conflicts as the result of battles between the gods.  Melchizedek, Moloch, Astarte, Lord Krishna, and Atum Ra each have designs on the realm of the humans, and Rushkoff and Sharp take great advantage of the comic medium to illustrate the power of the gods and their relationship with linear, human time.  The gods exist outside of sequential time, so in the comic book, they are "always depicted beyond the panels."

The panels of linear time look like a series of cubes from the point of view of the gods.  They are able to see what the reader can see, that "both story arcs are played out by the same set of characters who -- for the time being anyway -- are unaware of each other's existence."  But a handful of the young people of the present time are figuring it out, even though they don't listen to their college professor who, in a lecture, tells them about the theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.  The power of totems and taboos, the professor says, creates a narrative through which we collectively interpret the world around us.  Potent cultural icons, gods, might submerge in the collective unconscious for millennia, but they resurface, "as if they were there all along."

When the gods interfere in the action, their physical attributes, such as their arms or their breath, are transformed in the panels into elements such as water, or fire.  As Rushkoff says, "try to pull that one off in a book, a movie, or on TV."  Rushkoff and Sharp find a number of intriguing ways to illustrate the intrusions of the gods according to the attributes of those gods.  One of these is Melchizedek, a god of the Hebrews who fights for the one true God.  He is depicted as the classic bearded old man, and he is bright yellow, which easily translates into breath in the realm of the humans.  Traditionally imagined in the Talmud and the New Testament as a king and priest of righteousness and peace, Melchizedek intervenes to prevent injustices, and sends his messenger to call the righteous into battle with armies of evil.  In one very fascinating appearance, Melchizedek's messenger arrives to speak to Abraham, the panel formed as a playing card held out by the god.

Rushkoff writes, "I'm not bashing the Bible at all.  I'm actually attempting to restore its integrity as perhaps the most transcendent narrative ever developed.  If just a few people would truly read these stories, we wouldn't be led around like zombies anymore.  We couldn't.  It'd be like returning to normal after an intense psychological trip; it's just too late to go back." 

Reading the Bible, and interpreting its meaning, is never a politically neutral or objective act.  Rushkoff and Sharp understand the liberating intent of the Bible, and bring it to life in powerful and intriguing ways. 

Rushkoff claims that if we connect with the real power of the Bible, then "reality itself will be at our disposal."  We need to take the Bible out of the hands of the authorities, because we can use it to face down Mammon and flourish in freedom.  This comic might be just the way to do it.

Next week: more on Testament, as the Library of Babble examines the revolutionary potential of faith.