East of West #26
(Image Comics, July 2016)
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Imagine an alternative reality whereby the continental United States is divided between the Union, the Confederacy, a Texan Republic, a black homeland called The Kingdom, a Native American high technocratic autocracy called The Endless Lands, and a Maoist Chinese state where California would otherwise be. This universe also features the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse reincarnated as young children. This is except for Death, depicted as a lean cowboy, accompanied by two powerful Native American sorcerers, and who has fathered the beast of the Apocalypse manifest as a young boy.
This is the outlandish backdrop to “East of West”. And yet despite this absurdity, the series is written, by Jonathan Hickman, with utter finesse. The characters and interpersonal relations are riveting, the action epic, the dialogue fine-tuned, and the execution sublime.