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In
the Image Comics series LAZARUS, the world has become a feudal state: a
few wealthy families control all of the resources, while all other
people amount to, if they’re lucky, loyal vassals or serfs. But most are
destitute, unprotected, and desperate — what the privileged call
“Waste.” This is the world of the New York Times bestselling series by Greg Rucka (Whiteout, Gotham Central, Wonder Woman, Atticus Kodiak novels) and Michael Lark (Gotham Central, Daredevil, SCENE OF THE CRIME), which is now being collected into a deluxe hardcover edition, out in November.
The
“Lazarus” of the title is Forever Carlyle, the genetically enhanced
daughter of a powerful family who is charged, like all who share the
title Lazarus, with protecting that family by all means possible — and
the story begins on the day she is killed.
Forever
believes in her father’s love for her, but as a conflict with another
ruling Family to moves toward war, she begins to suspect she is little
more than a pawn in Family Carlyle’s plot to gain more power.
To
writer Rucka, the dystopia he created for LAZARUS isn’t a far-fetched
science fiction world; it’s plausible speculation on where our society
is heading.
Influenced
by the Occupy Movement, Rucka asked himself, “What would the world look
like if 99% became 99.99999%? What if the 1% became the .00001%? What
happens when that much wealth and power becomes that concentrated?”
Concentration
of power leads to the powerful using all means to protect what they
have — and that is where Forever comes in. Regarded variably as a tool,
pet, and science project, Forever must break through her lifelong
conditioning to find out what and who she really is in a world that sees
her as something less — and more — than human.
“If
you ask me what the series is about, yes, it’s about this dark vision
of the future, certainly,” said Rucka. “But it’s about Forever, her
journey, the questions of nature versus nurture, and of power, and of
corruption.”
Lark’s
art renders Forever’s world in deep shadow and is heightened with moody
colors by Santi Arcas, perfectly capturing the fractured, violent world
of LAZARUS as well as Forever’s vulnerability and naïveté, which her
deadly exterior belies.
“I’m
trying to demonstrate the contrast between the ‘haves’ and the
‘have-nots,’” said artist Lark. “Because one side has, literally
everything and the other has nothing, the contrast is strong. I realize
that while we in the United States haven’t seen this come to pass — yet —
there are other parts of the world where it is already a stark
reality.”
LAZARUS:
BOOK ONE collects issues #1-9 of LAZARUS, plus an introduction by
Warren Ellis, a four-page “Prelude”; never-before-seen work by artist
Lark, cover artist Owen Freeman, and graphic designer Eric Trautmann;
and exclusive world-building content.
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