Snow Fall #1
Writer Joe Harris
Artist Martin Morazzo
Colors Kelly Fitzpatrick
Image Comics
This isn’t the worst winter North Carolina has ever had, but Ultimate Comics has still lost a few days of business for snow and ice, and spring is still pretty far away. So it’s fitting that Alan’s assignment this week is a dystopian tale that gives up on the zombie cliche (may it rest in peace but goodness, may it finally stop) in favor of the horror of climate collapse.
In the future, after the climate crashes, a company called Hazeltyne collects survivors into the Cooperative States Of America. Ten years after the world became too dry for natural snowfall, a settlement in upstate New York is hit by ecoterrorist The White Wizard who has manipulated weather into a frozen blanket on the town. Meanwhile, a brilliant university student tracks down the Wizard’s secret identity in time to join his resistance as Hazeltyne enacts a horrible retaliation for the manufactured snowfall.
This isn’t the first time this creative team has talked to us about the environment – their Great Pacific series took a hard look at ocean pollution. But Harris and Morazzo aren’t just whining about the environment. They’re warning us that the state of our planet is closely tied to the political and economic lives of our nations, saying that the book’s apocalyptic climate crash was the result of overpowering corporations while editing the education of the human beings. They aren’t asking us to prevent the catastrophe. They’re telling us it has already started because of the way we have chosen to pay selective attention and cast specific votes. The North Carolina primary is fast approaching, and this book is a haunting reminder that we still have the option to vote for people who don’t believe in man-made climate change or who buy us with low gas prices while covering up our looming ecological debt.
Take of advantage of our little warm spell this week to pick this book up. And maybe take it with you to read in line at the polls.
-MATT CONNER for Ultimate Comics