myqz's review against another edition
4.0
My favorite ongoing comic series. Tynion is growing as a creator, and quickly becoming one of the best and most consistent working comic authors. When I get my pull, these issues go to the bottom of the stack. I save the best for last.
sfletcher26's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting interlude but artistically and pacing wise all over the shop. I'm interested to see where this goes but it needs to pick up a bit.
breadsalot's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
jakekilroy's review against another edition
5.0
I initially loved this for its thinking man's thriller(ish) beat on conspiracy theory satire, but I've really come to adore its observation and dissection of America as a concept rather than a place. You think America as a product is bootstraps, barbecues, and national parks, but it's more so self-important mania, heaving violence, and obsessions in varying forms (that ultimately take form). We're all just driving ourselves mad, and the amount of unrelated events and histories tied together here is breathtakingly wild and incredibly fun. The whole thing just reads like its creators are having the time of their lives giving the Mothman a resounding truth.
conor_macritchie's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
600bars's review against another edition
4.0
I realized I need to do what I’ve done for series in the past, which is that I need to write a detailed summary because it’s so long in between times I can procure the next installment.
Lee meets his new coworker, Doc Hynes, who is a tinfoil hat wearing nerd. He can see the Men in Black, who are aliens who monitor those who are searching for aliens. After telling Lee what he knows he goes home and has an encounter with a Man in Black who transforms into the Red Woman momentarily.
Lee and Doc go visit an older man who lives in a trailer. He tells them about Jack Parsons who founded the JPL which would develop the technology to get to the moon. He was obsessed with Alestair Crowley. L Ron Hubbard was a hanger-on to both of them. The older man explains what Crowley’s ritual sex magic was all about, which was some shit about the book of revlation and the divine feminine and the whore of babylon. They would psych themselves out and recontextualize everything to imbue it with meaning. [To be honest this is something I’ve never understood about “ritual sex magic” type stuff. Because on one hand I understand how sex can be this sacred mystical thing and it is kinda crazy when you stop and think about it, but also when you think about it sex is extremely normal and as mundane a bodily function as eating or shitting. The man says that when Crowley et al do it they aren’t just fucking someone they are “communing with the divine feminine”. Tbh this is just a comic but that did clarify some things for me because sometimes I’m like I really do not understand why sex is a big enough deal for all this kerfuffle]. Anyway the man explains that Hitler’s crew was also really obsessed with this occult stuff and that British intelligence actually hired Crowley for information and insight into the occult. Hubbard and Parsons want to summon god or at least an Angel or ideally the Red Woman by building a gateway in the desert. They see the Scarlet Woman when they open the portal and then crazy shit happens like the Roswell crash, and also the Cold War begins. The man keeps ranting some book of revelation style babbling about how this is the end times and the Door of Babalon is open etc etc. Lee and Doc leave him and are like that sounded like a lot of horseshit. As they’re leaving they realize they have a stowaway– the man’s 9 year old son says please take me with you my dad is insane! And that boy was Hawk Harrison.
The next section abruptly switches to epistolary files interviewing Doc and others about sightings of the Mothman. Much like the bigfoot section in the previous installment. Some words are redacted or covered by pictures/other objects. There are also reports of sightings of a man called Indrid Cold who is a scary many with a scary smile. The Mothman manifestation caused a bridge collapse in Ohio. The transcript also reveals that Doc seems to think that Oswald is a cryptid american monster just like Mothman. He’s not “real” he’s manifested.
The next section is a flash forward (?) where Lee is getting high in a psychedelic fashion. He and a female companion talk about how the Tune In Turn On Drop Out lifestyle was a psyop and MKULTRA and how the hippie movement was to defang real social movements so everyone would be doped up and solely concerned with their own pleasure rather than with a transformation of society. They also discuss our pall Sirhan Sirhan. The lady friend keeps looking like the Scarlet Woman but maybe he’s just tripping. She talks about all the conspiracy shit of the times and all the assassinations like MLK JFK RFK Malcolm X etc. Saying that the US is not “real” it’s just a collective belief there’s no bedrock that had USA ingrained in it and that belief makes things real etc. Like money.
Next we go back to the more current (current as of the beginning of the volume) timeline where Nixon is entering office and getting the rundown on the Dept of Truth. THey make plans to ask Kubrick to fake the moon landing. Nixon is mad that in the future the Moon Landing will be credited to Kennedy, and I was like goddamn he’s totally right! I totally thought that Kennedy was president during the moon landing and never associated it with Nixon, even though timeline wise that makes no sense! The volume ends with an image of the Scarlet Woman on the moon.
So yes this volume was all backstory and didn’t move anything forward with the main storyline, but it was still fun to read. I was initially really disappointed that the art style had changed until I realized that it was a flashback and that each chapter had a different guest artist. I really like the main art style so I hope other volumes return to that. This volume did a great job of integrating such disparate conspiracy theories and putting them all together in a coherent way that makes sense for the story. There is only one volume after this that’s available and I really hope the series continues because so far there has been almost entirely exposition and no forward momentum. I’ve had fun and enjoyed it but hope it’s going somewhere!
Spoiler
This volume says it contains issues 6,7, 14, 15,16, 17. Where is 8-13? Is that going to be in vol 04? Why are they separate? I think the last one was 8-13.. Why is it not just in order???? This collection is mostly backstory of Lee Harvey Oswald’s missions in the Dept of Truth, and we also see Hawk as a young child. It begins with Lee getting “shot” by Jack Ruby, but really he is taken to a secret library. Oswald is very confused. A man tells him he has to read up. The first book is from the year 1000. A monk meets the red-hooded woman on his way to find an old woman’s witch cottage. She claims to be a descendant of the last roman emperor, Romulus Agustus, who died 500 years previously in 476. The local king is planning an exhumation of Charlemagne’s grave in celebration of the 1000 year anniversary of Christ’s coming. The old lady said that when Rome collapsed and the rise of Islam happened in the 600s, the church was like ok we need to consolidate power and influence ASAP. So they invented the story of Charlemagne. Basically she is asserting that Charlemagne never existed, that he was a fiction created to maintain power, like a legendary figure for everyone in europe to unite around. The exhumation is to see if the legend worked in a Dept of Truth way– if it was effective and people believed in Charlemagne, then his body should be physically manifested and be in the tomb and have always been in the tomb. Because if enough people believe it becomes true retroactively etc in the parameters of this universe. She goes on to explain that the years got switched to make the 1000 year celebration more tidy (it’s that conspiracy theory you see on TikTok that the roman empire moved the calendar 300 years ahead to make roman times more mythical or whatever). And the only ones who know the truth about Charlemagne being fake and the years being counted wrong are the Enlightened aka the Illuminati.Lee meets his new coworker, Doc Hynes, who is a tinfoil hat wearing nerd. He can see the Men in Black, who are aliens who monitor those who are searching for aliens. After telling Lee what he knows he goes home and has an encounter with a Man in Black who transforms into the Red Woman momentarily.
Lee and Doc go visit an older man who lives in a trailer. He tells them about Jack Parsons who founded the JPL which would develop the technology to get to the moon. He was obsessed with Alestair Crowley. L Ron Hubbard was a hanger-on to both of them. The older man explains what Crowley’s ritual sex magic was all about, which was some shit about the book of revlation and the divine feminine and the whore of babylon. They would psych themselves out and recontextualize everything to imbue it with meaning. [To be honest this is something I’ve never understood about “ritual sex magic” type stuff. Because on one hand I understand how sex can be this sacred mystical thing and it is kinda crazy when you stop and think about it, but also when you think about it sex is extremely normal and as mundane a bodily function as eating or shitting. The man says that when Crowley et al do it they aren’t just fucking someone they are “communing with the divine feminine”. Tbh this is just a comic but that did clarify some things for me because sometimes I’m like I really do not understand why sex is a big enough deal for all this kerfuffle]. Anyway the man explains that Hitler’s crew was also really obsessed with this occult stuff and that British intelligence actually hired Crowley for information and insight into the occult. Hubbard and Parsons want to summon god or at least an Angel or ideally the Red Woman by building a gateway in the desert. They see the Scarlet Woman when they open the portal and then crazy shit happens like the Roswell crash, and also the Cold War begins. The man keeps ranting some book of revelation style babbling about how this is the end times and the Door of Babalon is open etc etc. Lee and Doc leave him and are like that sounded like a lot of horseshit. As they’re leaving they realize they have a stowaway– the man’s 9 year old son says please take me with you my dad is insane! And that boy was Hawk Harrison.
The next section abruptly switches to epistolary files interviewing Doc and others about sightings of the Mothman. Much like the bigfoot section in the previous installment. Some words are redacted or covered by pictures/other objects. There are also reports of sightings of a man called Indrid Cold who is a scary many with a scary smile. The Mothman manifestation caused a bridge collapse in Ohio. The transcript also reveals that Doc seems to think that Oswald is a cryptid american monster just like Mothman. He’s not “real” he’s manifested.
The next section is a flash forward (?) where Lee is getting high in a psychedelic fashion. He and a female companion talk about how the Tune In Turn On Drop Out lifestyle was a psyop and MKULTRA and how the hippie movement was to defang real social movements so everyone would be doped up and solely concerned with their own pleasure rather than with a transformation of society. They also discuss our pall Sirhan Sirhan. The lady friend keeps looking like the Scarlet Woman but maybe he’s just tripping. She talks about all the conspiracy shit of the times and all the assassinations like MLK JFK RFK Malcolm X etc. Saying that the US is not “real” it’s just a collective belief there’s no bedrock that had USA ingrained in it and that belief makes things real etc. Like money.
Next we go back to the more current (current as of the beginning of the volume) timeline where Nixon is entering office and getting the rundown on the Dept of Truth. THey make plans to ask Kubrick to fake the moon landing. Nixon is mad that in the future the Moon Landing will be credited to Kennedy, and I was like goddamn he’s totally right! I totally thought that Kennedy was president during the moon landing and never associated it with Nixon, even though timeline wise that makes no sense! The volume ends with an image of the Scarlet Woman on the moon.
So yes this volume was all backstory and didn’t move anything forward with the main storyline, but it was still fun to read. I was initially really disappointed that the art style had changed until I realized that it was a flashback and that each chapter had a different guest artist. I really like the main art style so I hope other volumes return to that. This volume did a great job of integrating such disparate conspiracy theories and putting them all together in a coherent way that makes sense for the story. There is only one volume after this that’s available and I really hope the series continues because so far there has been almost entirely exposition and no forward momentum. I’ve had fun and enjoyed it but hope it’s going somewhere!
grimondgalgmod's review against another edition
5.0
Lee Harvey Oswald hunts the Mothman in this so I mean 5/5 stars.
joshgauthier's review against another edition
4.0
Following Lee Harvey Oswald's history with the Department over the course of 6 collected one-shot stories, Vol. 3 does not move the central story forward in any significant ways--but as it dives deep into the larger mythos and history of the story, there are some terrifying encounters, dramatic twists of plot, and key revelations with significant implications to come. With varying art styles and shifting narrative forms, Free Country continues driving a strong and fascinating adventure through truth and fiction across America.