Historical fiction is always neat to play around with – the enduring legend of Captain America can attest to that, because who wouldn’t like to see the adventures of a star-spangled man who can punch Hitler in the face? The inexorable march of time is a playground for fiction writers, because changing the smallest, most seemingly insignificant event in the past can have startling repercussions on how the present would have turned out, so it’s often interesting to examine those possibilities. Then, something like Manifest Destiny #1 comes along and doesn’t bother with the little changes. Instead, it makes Lewis & Clark fight monsters.
It’s not exactly a goofball thing like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, though. Writer Chris Dingess and artist Matthew Roberts are crafting a story that feels very much set in the era of 1804-1806, when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were sent by President Jefferson on an expedition to explore and map the newly-acquired Louisiana territory that covered the entire center of what is now the United States. They were also supposed to find a water route straight through to the Pacific Ocean for commerce purposes (not to be confused with commerce porpoises, which are a whole separate thing), but in Dingess’ story, Jefferson has also charged them with “destroying monsters.” Also, their Corps of Discovery also includes some unsavory characters – mercenaries and convicts considered to be expendable manpower in the fight against the creatures of the wild.
Journeying up the Missouri River towards La Charette (60 miles away from St. Louis), they come across a fantastical archway not unlike the famous St. Louis arch, except that it’s made of wood and plant-life. Clark, his soldiers, his slave and his unsavories set up a perimeter around it so Lewis can study it and, while gathering samples, Clark’s slave York cuts off a flower that looks eerily like a bloodied skull. Meanwhile, ne’er-do-well Jensen, who was recently whipped for stealing rum by Clark, is conspiring with fellow ex-con Wally about getting the hell out of dodge, as he’s realized that they’re only on this mission because nobody will miss them if they die. Unfortunately for them, Sergeant Parker overhears their scurrilous desertion talk, and is about to punish them for cowardice – that is, until a giant minotaur-centaur beast tramples him and makes a bee-line to crush Lewis in the face with a hatchet. Feces hath been made actual. Or, in the vernacular, shit got real.
Dingess seems to understand that the best way to make historical fiction work is to focus on making the history as real as possible, in order to balance out the strange places he’s planning to go with the fiction part. There’s no romanticizing of the Corps of Discovery here so far, as evidenced by Clark barking orders at his slave, whipping insubordinates and all. Plus, the title of Manifest Destiny alone invokes the arrogant Euopean-American notion that the land rightfully belonged to whatever white people could set foot on it first, and I’m sure in future issues, we’ll see the “Indian Peace Medals” that Lewis & Clark were supposed to give out to any indigenous peoples they came across, to symbolize American sovereignty over their turf. While Lewis seems to be the nicer and more thoughtful of the two so far, it may come to pass that we begin rooting for the monsters to prevent the spread of Native American genocide.
Roberts’ artwork is very impressive as well, with very distinct faces and a truly adept eye for wildlife – be it a real heron or an imaginary beast of legend, the detail is incredible enough to feel palpable. The coloring from Owen Gieni is also striking, especially when he brings out the blood-reds for that creepy flora and the flashbacks to the tragedies that have befallen many of the men of the expedition to rob them of family ties which might have spared them this long, arduous journey.
Manifest Destiny #1 promises to be some really solid storytelling, focusing on a time when the world was still a mystery to those who thought themselves above it, and a world which too often valued the pioneer spirit above basic human decency.
