Zeb Larson reviews Roche Limit #4…
Alex and Sonya take a dangerous trip to the anomaly while all hell breaks loose on the colony.
Michael Moreci and Vic Malhotra effectively state their guiding philosophy for Roche Limit in this issue, and we get some answers as to just what the hell is going on. After a few issues of mystery and confusion, it’s nice to get some payoff and insight. I will be discussing spoilers ahead, so read on only if you’ve read the comic and want some discussion of what happened.
Langford is narrating his final moments as the book begins, offering us some insight into why his colony failed. In his mind, projecting his desires and ambition onto the outside world only allowed it to be sunk by greed. Alex and Sonya are at their wits’ end when they get a call from Warren, offering to trade Bekkah in exchange for Alex’s work as a drug slave. Alex turns the table on them with the bomb in his chest, threatening to blow them all up if Bekkah isn’t released. It’s pretty obvious that Bekkah isn’t herself anymore, and they decide to take her to the scientist to get some answers.
What he says explains a great many things. As far as he can tell, exposure to the anomaly eradicates one’s soul, and even living on Dispater gradually erodes it. What’s left behind is something else. As Recall is made from Dispater itself, it has the same effect. People’s souls appear in the mine, which explains the beautiful glowing orb we keep seeing. While Alex and his group try to help Bekkah recover her soul at the Anomaly, all hell breaks loose on the colony as the men without souls begin to tear the place apart.
I always love the back material for this series, because it provides some much-needed insight into the context and background for the book. Why is the colony populated with so many criminals (apart from the literal soul-sucking nature of the place?) The company that took over, Moiratech, mostly hired ex-cons. The three heads of Moiratech disappeared and haven’t been seen for months. Sounds like somebody we know? Little details make a story feel more believable, even if you’re dealing with a hole in space that eats souls. It certainly works here.
I’m still somewhat unclear as to how the one-eyed woman and her henchman will figure into all of this when it’s done, although given that they’re holding somebody’s soul in a bag, we can all make an educated guess as to who that might belong to. Apart from that, we have just enough information that the pieces are coming together. The exact nature of the Anomaly is still a mystery. And of course, there’s the fate of our erstwhile protagonists.
Moreci touched on the philosophical of Roche Limit points in our interview a month ago, and they really came together here. On the one hand, the book has a pretty bleak view of the possibility of human endeavor, especially in a collaborative sense. It’s fitting that a quest into space, which metaphorically is about greed, lust, pride or whatever other sin you can think of, consumes you and leaves nothing more than an unthinking, violent husk. What can we really build together? Langford certainly blasts that idea. But he doesn’t blast the possibility of a meaningful existence for human beings either. On the contrary, love is meaningful. Curiosity, exploration, learning, all of these are meaningful. The folly of man is the need to make the external world match up with our inner expectations. If we can escape that trap…
Well, we’ll see what the destiny of love is in the next issue. Is Roche Limit a grim series? In the sense that honesty is grim, definitely. But there’s a kernel of hope in this series. Just another two short weeks, and the first story arc will be finished.
Zeb Larson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JoHXAqSnD5g&list=PL18yMRIfoszH_jfuJoo8HCG1-lGjvfH2F
Originally published January 8, 2015. Updated April 13, 2018.
