“Abraham of Ur: Part 3: Virgin Daughters”
Writer: Douglas Rushkoff
Artist: Liam Sharp
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo
Messageboard posters find some clever ways to express confusion about their fellow members’ impenetrable comments. My favorite is when someone follows up an incoherent post with “I have no idea what you‘re talking about, so here’s a picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head." After reading the third issue of Vertigo’s Testament, I can sum up my evaluation of it by asserting, “I have no idea what Professor Rushkoff’s doing, so here’s what I think about Liam Sharp and Jamie Grant’s work.”
In all seriousness, it would be unfair to describe Testament #3 as impenetrable or even “head scratching.” I would describe aspects of Testament #3 as… unexpected, and somewhat disconcerting, but I’m sure the issue was intentionally written that way.
For those of you who haven’t been reading the title, this third issue is not the place to start. Testament is an important title that needs to be supported and read…, but not starting with the third issue. To summarize, Testament juxtaposes the Biblical story of Abraham with a modern day dystopian tale where young Americans have been implanted with monitoring “RFID tags.” Designed under the justification that they will enable law enforcement agencies to locate missing/abducted children and the military to trace soldiers on the battlefield, these tags are instead being used to enforce a military draft (according to the story, America is at war on six different fronts). This Orwellian application of the tags should be unsurprising to any reader familiar with dystopian literature. What else the tags have been designed for, however, reveal a more sinister governmental operation. The end of the second issue reveals the tags don’t just allow for monitoring, they also can be used to control. The end of this third issue hints that what’s really going on is not just enforced compliance of a military draft, but extreme behavioral modification.
Again, Testament interlaces this dystopian story with the Biblical story of Abraham, and the most disconcerting aspects of this issue are not the dystopian developments but the parallel emphasis on Biblical father-daughter incest. I am uncertain of how the incest relates to the modern day tale. I think what’s being emphasized is Jake as the father figure and Dinah as the daughter figure and Jake’s reluctance to act on his sexual desires toward Dinah because of his perception of her as “that 15 year old kid” he used to tutor (relax: she’s about to turn 18 during the events that take place in the issue’s “present”). I’m sure there’s another relevance though that I’m not recognizing.
Despite my confusion, I am certain that Rushkoff has crafted a serious and germane and important project with Testament. My confusion actually emboldens me to figure it all out, to try to decipher completely Rushkoff’s agenda rather than throw my hands up and abandon it. Some Testament readers may assert that it is Rushkoff’s responsibility to make sure he doesn’t “lose” his readers. That’s a valid point. I am reminded though of those times as an undergraduate English major being forced to read a poem over and over and over again until the appropriate neuron in my brain fired and I interpreted the poet’s intent (try this with Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and you’ll realize it’s not the simple poem about non-conformity that you think it is). That’s a far more rewarding experience than having a text’s meaning spoon-fed to you. And that’s my hope with Testament: interpreting all its myriad complexities will be a self-gratifying experience.
Aiding this experience is the work of Liam Sharp and Jamie Grant. Over the years Sharp has proven himself adept at presenting the horrific, the monstrous, and the fantastic in books like Hulk, Man-Thing and Spawn. In this issue he proves his proficiency at depicting the sensual, and an eroticism that is equally earthly and ethereal. With all of her voluptuous curves, Dinah’s most distinctive feature is her childlike angelic face, and Jamie Grant imbues her with a beautiful glow. The most stunning page of the whole issue though is the final page “cliffhanger” which brings Sharp back to his skill to portray the monstrous. I’ll leave my description to that generalization so as not to spoiler the vividness of the final page.
The page is impressive, intriguing and mystifying, and those are also appropriate terms to describe the first three issues of Testament as a unit.
What did you think of this book?
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