Broken Frontier

Forgotten 22 was written in the heat of the summer in an old mansion that was so dilapidated that it had been carved up into various apartments that I shared it with a crack house and an abusive, alcoholic couple.  The walls were thin enough that what my neighbors did was no secret.  So I needed something else to focus on.

Sitting over my word processor, sweating in the Tennessee swelter, it seemed only natural that my mind turned to Hell.  I was raised Catholic, but had always had my doubts.  Overall, the Christian faith seemed like an inherently unfair, even rigged, system.  At the heart of the dogma's contradictions was one of its big stars, Lucifer.  Lucifer, or Satan, or He of the Many Names (I went with Red), was portrayed as the source of all evil, the bane of mankind, the scourge of our Lord and Savior. 

But if God is all knowing and infallible, he knew that Red was going to go bad the moment he laid hand to create him.  It doesn't take a big leap of logic, then, to connect God as the source of all evil.  He is, after all, the source of everything.  So Red is just God's whipping boy, a figure he created for humans to demonize while God horded all the love and glory.  

Ah, but I hear the ecclesiastical scholars of my faith say, but it was Red's pride, not God's will, that cast him from Heaven. Well, maybe so, but that doesn't quite add up, either.  If we look to Revelations or any other of the Christian apocalypses, the end is already spelled out, foretold, written on a bloody scroll.  And in that prophecy Red is always the purveyor of the End Times, tempting man to his fall while his Earthly son, the Anti-Christ, raises up armies in a useless and fruitless attempt to bring down the Big Man.  But if Red was so proud, would he really be willing to be God's puppet, to play his part in the great and final Act of Man?

I say to you, no.  Red would do his damnedest to keep that show from hitting the road, his best to stymie God's plans, if nothing else just out of sheer spite and, yes, pride.  And that's where Forgotten 22 started – in the idea that the Devil might be man's best friend when it came to preventing the end of the world.  It is, of course, ultimately fruitless.  He may succeed in frustrating God's plans for awhile, heck maybe even a millennium or two, but it's the Big Man's sandbox and he's going to get his way.  But I can just image the smirk on Red's face, the cold and satisfied gleam in his eye, every time he kicks that can a little down the road.  From that perspective, it's pretty easy to have sympathy for the Devil.  

But Red isn't a man you just hop on a barstool next to and get to know.  He's been around for awhile and doesn't much care for tourists.  Perhaps that's why he likes our protagonist, Dakota, so much, in the fact that he's no slacker, but a man with the steel to enforce his will with a gun, knife, or whatever's handy in removing living obstacles from his path.   

And that's what  Forgotten 22 is all about.

Forgotten 22 is written by Matthew McLean with artwork by Stefano Cardoselli. The Diamond Order number is MAR111247. 

Follow Matthew McLean on Twitter (McLeanSix) or visit his website at madbastard.hypersites.com. Read an Inside Look on Forgotten 22 with McLean here.