After suffering through the still lingering fate of Stray Bullets and the unfortunate early demise of Young Liars, David Lapham’s WildStorm opus Sparta: USA has reached it’s conclusion, and I’m delighted to say that it lives up to all of my expectations.
In many ways, Sparta: USA represents everything I typically love about the six-issue structure, particularly for a story with the bizarre trappings that this one does. The first few issues are completely out-of-sorts; there’s some relevance and coherency to it, but the only thing that’s really keeping you interested is how whacked out it is. Then, around the midway point there are some things that slowly piece together. Finally, the last issue or two, everything becomes clear. And yes, for those of you that have been reading this book utterly confused, you’ll get your answers here.
Lapham succeeds in making sense of his insane tale, and as I suspected last issue, it is indeed a unique mash-up of history and literary fable. While the overall premise and “reveal” is original in and of itself, some of the characters that we’ve grown accustomed to over the last six issues devolve a bit into a cliche. There’s the friend-turned foe-turned friend-turned backstabber, the jealous wife, the couple with a baby on the way that represents the “new hope” of a civilization; it’s an unfortunate way to wrap up these oddball characters into a nice and neat little package. In the end though, the strength of the story as a whole outweighs these problems.
Lapham does leave things open for more stories in this universe in both the way he ends the series and the premise behind it in general. In fact, the stories could be almost infinite. I’m unsure how this series did sales wise, but I for one would love to see more. It’s hard for me to imagine this book doing particularly well issue-to-issue, especially after the first couple were so disconnected in their themes. For those that may have dropped off early on, I urge you to get the back-issues or (and I say this last part begrudgingly) wait for the trade. Sparta: USA is one of the most competent mindf*cks you’ll be exposed to this year.
If you don’t believe me, turn to page 12 of issue #6. What you’ll see is a Yeti punching a bloody hole through the chest of a Nazi. Thank you, David Lapham and Johnny Timmons. Thank you for one of the best images I’ve ever seen.
