Broken Frontier

This week I’m going to take a look at the last three pages of District X #2, reproduced here. Once again these pages are drawn by David Yardin and colored by Andy Troy, with lettering by Richard Starkings and Rob Steen. Mike Marts was the editor.

The first two issues of District X have set up the background of Mutant Town and the mixed bunch of mutants who live there. We also set up the plot revolving around the battle between two rival gangs to control the trade in the illicit drug known as Toad Juice. The two lead characters are the mutant Bishop and the human cop Ismael Ortega. With the final three pages of this issue I’m going to introduce the soap-opera elements of the story that will run through the series and set the scene for the tragedy that will tear the Ortega family apart.

Once again I’m going to compress as much information as possible into 3 pages but I want to make it look leisurely and unforced. All the exposition should slip in naturally. The ‘narration’ this time comes through the journal Ismael is keeping. We see Ismael out of uniform relaxing at home. He wears glasses when he is writing, a homely transformation from the uniformed cop. We are introduced to his family in a series of snapshots. A note left by his wife Armena introduces an impression of a warm loving family, reinforced by the drawing left for him by his son Esteban.

I knew when I wrote this scene that the first arc of District X would end with his daughter being shot with his own weapon. So there is a deliberate irony in that line “My Dad is a police man. He keeps us safe.”  We see Ismael locking his weapon away – more retrospective irony knowing that he will forget to lock it away on that fateful day. One by one he checks on his children. As every parent knows, there is nothing more vulnerable than a sleeping child and it’s a ritual for most fathers to check on the children last thing at night. There is a sense of foreboding in that line: “It’s fixed in my mind that the one time I forget, something terrible will happen to them.”

When we see Ismael and Armena together for the first time it’s obvious that they are in love and very fond of one another but Ismael is unable to share the burden of his day. He writes “It’s a vital part of the therapy, putting down my thoughts, the thoughts I can’t share with anyone. Not even my own wife.” We know immediately that there is something seriously wrong with their relationship and the mention of therapy suggests the possibility that Ismael has psychological problems.

Halfway through the second page we see the core of their problem. A viscous liquid oozes from Armena’s pores and gradually forms a cocoon around her as she sleeps. Armena is a mutant. This is an automatic defence mechanism that she has no control over, but it serves as a physical manifestation of the barrier between mutant and human. Ismael cannot hold his wife in his arms while she sleeps.

In that final image we see for the first time that they sleep in separate beds and Ismael’s loneliness and isolation are palpable.

In three pages we’ve learned an awful lot about this family, and there are other little pieces of information dropped in there that help to round out the characters. Armena is reading “The little Friend” by Donna Tartt. No trashy airport novels for this woman. She is into quality literature. We learn that his daughter’s name is Chamayra from the letters on her door. There are various references to their Cuban background, including a portrait of the revolutionary Jose Marti above Ismael’s bed. There is also a crucifix on the wall. Later we will learn that Armena is Catholic while Ismael is a humanist, suggesting another conflict between them.

The whole scene is played very low key. The point of view drifts from room to room, object to object with no real drama. This is apparently just a scene of everyday domesticity, in complete contrast to the events of the day in Mutant Town. But that gun is lying there like a deadly snake waiting to strike and that last page moves abruptly from intimate close-up to a detached overhead shot that coldly examines the distance between these two people.

Here is my commentary on the last page:

This panel should be really poignant. In the foreground Armena sleeps on, oblivious to Ismael’s suffering. Ismael is in his own bed in the background, a lonely figure who has let the journal drop and buried his face in his hands. He looks small and isolated. The room is in shadow except for the light from the bedside lamp, which casts a yellow light onto Ismael. The harshness of the light on him in contrast to the semi-darkness and soft shadows on Armena, serves to emphasize his isolation.

This is far from a cliff-hanger ending but it still leaves the characters on the edge of a metaphorical precipice and it is an ending I am very happy with; one that, thanks to David Yardin’s perfect interpretation, achieves exactly the emotional resonance I was aiming for.