Infinity 8: Volume Eight: Until the End (2019)

I8 8 Infinity 8 has quite the conclusion. The issue opens with a flashback, an origin story—of sorts—for both the time-hopping captain and his faithful sidekick, Lieutenant Reffo. Reffo’s been the guy creeping on all of the female agents and, occasionally, recapping the mission. We find out in the flashback he’s been trained for just this position and isn’t actually a socially inept jackass; he’s got a computer-enhanced brain, so he’s just really smart and therefore doesn’t have time for social pleasantries.

After the surprising flashback, which answers some questions about the eighty-eight Tonn Shar captains piloting the eighty-eight Infinity ships—questions writer Lewis Trondheim has never explicitly told the reader to ask, but in hindsight, certainly wasn’t discouraging the reader from thinking about. Unlike the introduction of the time-traveling robots (Hal is back this issue, teaming up with Reffo, delightfully), which came without significant foreshadowing, the Tonn Shar backstory has had some narrative shading. But nothing explicit enough for the opening reveal not to come as a surprise. Infinity 8’s resolution involves lots of red herring, but since time reset itself and so on, is it really red herring if it doesn’t spoil and stink?

I read Infinity 8 in the original French volume release cycle, not the split-into-three-issues format. However, given the number of callbacks in the finale, I’m reasonably sure you’re supposed to read Infinity 8 in a sitting or two–all of it. Trondheim brings back multiple characters from throughout the series as Reffo and Hal assemble an Infinity 8 all-star team to save the day. While Trondheim spends more time with some characters than others, he remembers to tie up loose ends for even the most tertiary. And I could not remember what he was tying up for some of them. Especially since the team-up allows the previous agents to chitchat, leading to further references.

Sometimes the former protagonists get action sequences to themselves, where they’re technically interchangeable, but they’ve got enough personality to drive themselves. Other times, Trondheim will give a return character some panels, or even a full page, just to vamp because he clearly likes writing the character. Thanks to Trondheim’s strong storytelling instincts and artist Killoffer’s imaginative renderings, either approach leads to sublime results, especially since Trondheim doesn’t shy away from mixing multiple sci-fi subgenres and Killoffer’s able to bring them all together stylistically.

Killoffer initially seems a little too rough. He uses computer-generated fractals for some space exteriors, particularly the space graveyard. It’s jarring—I’m still not sure about the galactic swirl being CGI—only to quickly become a captivating device. There’s so much intentionality in the objects when the action returns to the space graveyard it’s hard not to get lost in Killoffer’s rendered details.

The actual art seems a little rough at the start too. Killoffer’s got thick, almost reckless lines. They initially appear out of control, though—just like everything else with the art—the control soon becomes apparent. Until the End’s not my favorite art on Infinity, but it’s definitely in the top four. Once Reffo and Hal start their buddy picture, Killoffer’s comic timing hops the book up in line.

Killoffer’s also got the most packed story to contend with. While some of the previous volumes are almost entirely all action, End is all-action with different protagonists, in different (and new) settings, plus exposition. Reffo and Hal are simultaneously on the run, chasing someone else and learning how the series is going to end, though at different paces. While Reffo’s got the computer brain and so on, Hal knows more about what’s been going on in the book, so there’s a catch-up process. Finally, after seven volumes of Reffo being a pest, Trondheim turns him into a worthy protagonist. While still making him a pest.

It helps to have Hal around, even though Hal’s role in the volume isn’t quite what last time promised. He and Reffo have their buddy picture only until Reffo can manage on his own, then he (and Trondheim) almost immediately turn End into the team-up with the previous volumes’ agents. I get the need for narrative brevity, of course—End could be three times as long; there’s so much going on, and all of it’s entertaining—but there are only so many pages.

Trondheim employs a couple more narrative efficiencies in the epilogue, with the epilogue itself being something of an efficiency—only a couple characters really get a resolution to their character arcs. Trondheim’s script is mercilessly efficient.

Though he does allow the series, which has traversed time and space, to end on a one-liner. There’s some grandiosity to it, but it’s background. The joke’s the thing. And it works because, of course, it does. Though I wonder if you were marathoning Infinity 8 how it’d work. Maybe next time I read 8, it’ll be in a long sitting.

Until then, I’m obviously going to be missing this series. Trondheim and his various co-creators outdo themselves, time and again. Infinity 8 has been a damn good, damn fun read.

Infinity 8: Volume Seven: All for Nothing (2018)

I8 v7 All for Nothing is an almost entirely different kind of Infinity 8. Creator Boulet is writing and illustrating (Lewis Trondheim shares the story credit), which gives the volume its own distinct feel. There are some obvious differences—it’s not about a fetching female agent (something the Lieutenant complains about on the bridge), but rather a tough guy alien sergeant. The assignment isn’t investigating; it’s capturing and interrogating. We also get the backstory on the space graveyard. It’s not what anyone thought.

The volume begins with some children playing on an unspectacular planet in an insignificant solar system. The aliens look vaguely amphibious, but there’s no sign they’re good in water. I mean, they do swim—which figures in beautifully later—but they’re not merpeople. A little boy gets upset at how his footie match turned out, and an alien (different species) stranger gives him a necklace, telling him it’s important. Then the stranger disappears because the boy can ask any questions; the planet has recently made first contact, and things are on the precipice of changing as the species enters the galaxy.

There are a couple more points in the boy’s life where the same alien reappears to give him back the necklace. The boy, Douglas, keeps losing it. The last time is when Douglas is saying goodbye to his female friend, who’s excited to explore the galaxy, while Douglas assumed they’d stay and get married.

Then the action cuts to the Infinity 8 standard—ship stopping for space graveyard, agent brought to the bridge, briefed on the time-warping, sent out to investigate. Only, as mentioned, there are some differences, including the Lieutenant not taking the time to brief the sergeant (who appears to be Douglas grown up and toughened by a life in the stars). When the sergeant organizes his crew to disembark, they discover their target—the unknown alien Douglas met before—is already waiting for them in the shuttle bay. He heard they wanted to interrogate him. Why not make it easy?

Except it then turns out the alien—let’s call him Hal—isn’t there so much for the interrogation but to show Douglas how the necklace will be so important. Both to Douglas and to Infinity 8. After a lot of time-based action beats (Hal’s got a time grenade, for instance), Douglas and Hal end up out in the space graveyard, with Hal giving Douglas the whole story.

Complicating matters is Douglas’s commanding officer, who’s become convinced Douglas is somehow in league with Hal from before. Douglas tries—and fails—to explain the peculiar situation with the necklace.

There’s a lot of action, with the rest of Douglas’s crew coming after him as he and Hal journey to the center of the graveyard to meet up with the mysterious ship from the previous volume. Once they’re on board, Hal fills Douglas in on more of the series backstory, including the motivations, but also revealing there’s a temporal disturbance. It’s unrelated to the graveyard, but being so close to the graveyard, it might be causing time-space ripples.

Including ones Douglas soon comes to care about.

Can the unlikely duo team up to save life, the universe, and everything? Obviously, it’s the penultimate volume, so there’s a cliffhanger, but they make a cute team.

Hal’s got a really bland, really pleasant face, and he’s initially a lot of fun. Unfortunately, Douglas doesn’t react well to a childhood tchotchke getting him in trouble in the future, so he tries to stop Hal. Hal can’t be stopped, but he does hold the attempt against Douglas. Until the second half of the volume, basically when Hal figures out he needs Douglas to save the day—another flip of the norm, as he’s saving his day, not the Infinity 8’s—it’s the bickering stage in the buddy flick. However, Boulet finds the heart sooner than later, making Hal more of the protagonist. The resolution (and cliffhanger) feels almost like an epilogue; Douglas returns to the regular story, already in progress.

Boulet’s art is fun, light, and spry. Lots of great movement, lots of excellent design work. He barely spends any time aboard the Infinity 8, and most of the scenes take place in previously unexplored areas. The script’s really smart too. Much of the comic’s an exposition dump, which Boulet integrates into Hal’s personality; he’s naturally expository.

Douglas is initially annoying for a handful of reasons—changing as he ages, but still annoying—only to become one of the series’s most genuinely sympathetic characters.

It’s an outstanding Infinity 8. It’s different enough it’s a stand-alone, at least in terms of Boulet’s ambitions and accomplishments, while still being integral to the overall story. Boulet mixes Douglas’s species’ relatively recent star-faring in with the ancient graveyard and Hal’s atemporal experience of existence. All for Nothing is exquisite work, much heavier than usual, but also much lighter and joyous when it wants to be.

I can’t wait to see how 8 wraps up.

Infinity 8: Volume Six: Ultimate Knowledge (2018)

Infinity8 Much of Ultimate Knowledge is the best-written Infinity 8 has been so far, and Infinity 8 has been exceptionally well-written so far. But this volume pairs an odder couple than usual, so there’s constant banter. The partner is also a know-it-all, verbose historian, and he’s always got something to say about whatever they’re experiencing (or running from).

The volume opens introducing the historian—Bert—and the agent, Leila Sharad. Also, more than any of the other volumes, Bert is the lead here; Leila’s the comic relief and occasional blunt object. Leila confronts him about a possibly stolen antiquity (she’s in customs) and ends up causing an incident involving the dead flesh-eating aliens from the first Infinity 8 volume. It’s a slightly familiar scene because the series used it as a non sequitur reference to the first volume back in the second volume–a long-cooking Easter egg.

Except when Leila gets the assignment from the captain—go to the center of the solar system-sized space graveyard and wait for the ship they found out about last time—she’s going into the mission with a lot more information. And a clear purpose. So she demands Bert come along. Their first meeting was tense, with quite a few deaths, and she wants to make it up to him.

Of course, she’s a hard-ass, and she doesn’t want to show any empathy, so he can’t figure out why she’s making him go along.

The other big change is the creeper lieutenant, who hits on Leila as usual (the only one he left alone was the nun) but goes on to explain he knows it’s all getting reset, so it doesn’t matter how he behaves anyway. So, he’s worse; though presumably, time will reset, and no one will know it.

Except for the captain.

Bert and Leila fly to the center of the graveyard, waiting for the spaceship’s arrival, and go sightseeing. After some good banter and comedy of errors, they discover a metal orb, which seemingly brings the dead being’s consciousness to (holographic) life. Immediately following this discovery, plant roots reach up and grab the sarcophagus they were looking at, and our heroes give chase.

The roots are part of a plant-based life-form, who’s had plenty of time to talk to the dead beings, but no actual experience with other life forms. Ultimate Knowledge then detours into hard sci-fi with Bert trying to piece together how this life-form works (and thinks) while Leila’s distracted by the beautiful scenery and her own good jokes.

The finale has some action—both explosions and chase scenes—as they get back to rendezvous with the spaceship from last time, but they also learn more about the nature of the graveyard on their own. Turns out having Bert along—someone who thinks to use his tricorder instead of just zapping everything to oblivion—leads to, well, maybe not ultimate knowledge, but definitely more knowledge.

And then, just in case Knowledge hasn’t been heady enough for the reader, there’s a last page spin everything about the graveyard (and the series) around again. Since it’s on the last page, the characters don’t have time for their minds to be blown; there are hard cliffhangers and soft cliffhangers, but this one’s a conundrum cliffhanger. Bert spends the third act explaining to Leila (and the reader) how to think about the things they encounter, and it sums up something special.

Excellent writing from Emmanuel Guibert and Lewis Trondheim; Trondheim gets second-billing in the script credit for the first time (I’m pretty sure). Bert’s a fabulous lecturer, and Leila’s the perfect bratty foil for him. I hope they return, especially since their character arc is left unresolved.

Franck Biancarelli’s art is often gorgeous; the plant life-form, Bert’s gentle expressions, Leila’s harsh ones; Biancarelli brings a slightly different energy to everything, which gives Leila and Bert’s personalities additional layers. Knowledge is dense, exposition, and detail-filled, but their experiences of the unknown—including one another–are where the creators focus.

Again, it’s fantastic.

And that final reveal ratchets expectations for the next volume unlike anything the book’s done before.

Infinity 8: Volume Five: Apocalypse Day (2018)

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Apocalypse Day’s agent, Ann Ninurta, is the most reliably badass agent since the first volume. There are other comparisons between Ninurta and the first volume’s lead, like being blonde, midriff-revealing, and obsessed with babies. The first volume’s lead wanted to have a baby, Ninurta’s got a baby. Well, a toddler. Ninurta’s taking her to daycare when the Protocol 8 order comes in, and she’s off to the bridge, where even the captain is sick of doing the setup spiel and leaves it to the icky dude lieutenant.

Who, as per usual, does inappropriately come on to Ninurta (who’s already scored one hot boy’s phone number, a smuggler, and his crew riding the Infinity 8), but she shuts him down without a thought. The comic winks through Ninurta getting the assignment; while she’s never heard it before, the captain, the lieutenant, and the reader are on their fifth go-around.

Ninurta’s also the first agent to have a good grasp on Protocol 8, which will be important later on. While the time reset has always been a factor of Infinity 8, it’s a lot more integral to Ninurta’s character arc. Not really a character development arc because it’s the fifth volume, so she doesn’t get to finish things up, but arc. She’s got a killer arc.

Ninurta’s initial investigation of the space graveyard is no different than anyone else’s. Less exciting, in fact, they apparently gave all the good missions to the first four people. Ninurta’s just flying around, looking to see if she can stumble into anything before time’s up.

Complicating things is an inventor on the Infinity 8 who’s just perfected a resurrection beam. Unfortunately, it makes the resurrected mindless zombies—down to bite transmissions; Infinity 8 is excellent for introducing other genres’ tropes into its sci-fi setting.

Oh, and then something else goes wrong, and the beam gets amplified all over the ship, creating at least a few zombies, but more importantly, it travels across the solar system-sized space graveyard of dead things. So Ninurta doesn’t just have the zombie outbreak on the ship to worry about (her kid and ex-husband are still there, and she doesn’t trust the ex in a zombie outbreak), but also everything in space trying to kill her too.

She’ll go back and forth from the ship and graveyard various times, eventually teaming up with her love interest and his band of misfits for some comedy relief and zombie fodder. Ninurta’s also got to make sure her kid’s okay, which isn’t easy on a ship overrun with zombies.

The story’s always very sci-fi, but writers Lewis Trondheim and Davy Mourier heavily leverage the zombie story tropes. This person’s got it and is hiding it, and so on. The emotional weight of Ninurta’s story is heavier than any of the lead agents to date, though Patty Stardust was in a lot of danger last time.

Patty returns this issue, making it her third appearance in Infinity 8 (so more than fifty percent). Ninurta and her sidekicks need a speedy starship, and damned if Patty isn’t part of the entourage, along with her dipshit guru boss, who doesn’t have a chance to be as much of a dipshit because Patty didn’t get the mission this volume.

How the individual agents affect the outcomes of their missions will be an interesting thing to reflect on. While their mission is exploration and reacting to what they find, everyone’s got a lot of baggage complicating matters. Well, maybe not the agent in the first series, whose interest in having a baby was comedic, not character development.

There are some other callbacks, whether it’s a one-panel cameo from a familiar robot or an alien species readers ought to remember who like to eat dead things. It’s a very full second half. There’s some breathing space in the first, but things go from bad to worse at the halfway point, and it’s pandemonium afterward.

Surprisingly, Trondheim and Mourier have a significant reveal in the last act, so Infinity 8 isn’t going to wait until the final volume to spill. Another significant reveal from the previous volume (or was it the volume before) also comes back in a big way, so maybe they’ll pace out the reveals. Can’t wait.

The only thing wrong with Apocalypse is just okay artist Lorenzo de Felici. From his aliens, he’d do a great Muppet comic. From his people, he’d do something where everyone has too big eyes. It’d be fine if he made up with it on the rest, but the visual pacing’s hurried and unsure. With the right artist, this volume would be the easy best. With de Felici, it’s a contender.

But.

Anyway. Can’t wait to see where Trondheim steers Infinity next.

Infinity 8: Volume Four: Symbolic Guerilla (2018)

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Symbolic Guerilla is my favorite Infinity 8 so far. I’ve read this one before, but not while going through the series, so I couldn’t really compare. Now, I can. It’s for two obvious reasons: protagonist Patty Stardust is the best agent so far, and Martin Trystram’s art is fascinating.

Unlike the previous stories, there are significant flashback sequences, contrasting Trystram’s Infinity 8 setting and his general sci-fi vibes. But also with very delicate line work. Trystram’s imaginative and enthusiastic but very precise with the lines. His style clashes with the content to encourage the reader to spend more time on the panels, which means experiencing the excellent art more.

And then there’s Patty. She’s living as a Black woman in the far-flung future after the destruction of planet Earth. However, everyone still wants to touch her hair, including the Muppet-like alien influencer she’s babysitting at the beginning of the volume. What also makes Patty unique is it’s not her first appearance in the book; she showed up in the Hitler book. She’s a stage manager for some hippy-dippy performance artist cultists, and they went to join up with Hitler because no one in the future remembers what Hitler did, but then he kills Patty for being Black, revealing the reality of the situation. So Patty’s singular in the series.

Though there is another agent cameo at the end of this volume, so more she’s been singular to this point. And she’s got a whole, real arc because she’s got a supporting cast and a relevant backstory. She’s undercover trying to bust the cult’s business connect; in addition to the state manager gig, she’s dating the cult leader’s son, Peter. It’s not romantic for Patty, just a way to dodge leader Ron’s sexual advances.

When the ship captain and the first officer (who again is flirting, meaning he did sit out the fundamentalist lady) call on her to investigate the space graveyard, she’s busy with the Muppet-y influencer who wants to vlog all about the cult’s next art event. The boyfriend’s tripping and needy, so it’s a terrible time for her to have to go off ship.

Especially when it turns out the cult leader has chipped his entourage so he can track them at all times. Patty’s worried about getting busted for being an undercover agent—going to the space graveyard is the first time she’s broken cover in five years—but it turns out to be much, much worse because Ron realizes they’re stopped and in a bitching space graveyard. It’s the perfect location for their next show.

Writers Lewis Trondheim and Kris do a great job with Patty, the first agent with this kind of stakes and agency. Of the three previous, two have been keeping secrets and unreliable, and one was just living an action-adventure. Since the cult’s all very sixties retro, it’s a suspense comedy sci-fi action story. It’s wild. And the writing’s not just good on Patty; Ron goes from being a petty annoyance to profoundly dangerous.

Patty’s also got the flashbacks thing going on. She’s haunted by her past as an agent, the aforementioned trip away from the ship, and that character development gets wrapped into this time-bending mission to explore a space graveyard. While Trondheim and Kris don’t offer any more tidbits about Earth’s destruction, they get into the bigger ground situation. Building off the last arc’s history lesson, Patty makes an otherwise unknowable historical discovery while exploring; the script weaves it into her character arc. It’s so cool.

Symbolic Guerilla ends the first half of Infinity 8 on its highest point. I imagine there will be better stories, but I’m not sure I’ll ever dig anyone’s art as much as Trystram’s. Looking at it is just so much fun.

But it also occurs to me, having now read the first half in sequence, Trondheim and Kris haven’t revealed anything about where Infinity 8 is going, not in terms of plot details or narrative. There are going to be four more volumes, four more agents, and four more timelines, but the possibilities are….

Infinity 8: Volume Three: The Gospel According to Emma (2017)

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In theory, Infinity 8 is going to get exponentially more complicated as it progresses. With the conclusion of this volume, The Gospel According to Emma, the reader and the Infinity 8’s captain know almost nothing more about the solar system-sized space mausoleum the ship’s investigating. It’s not the captain’s fault, of course; like always, he and his sidekick call an agent up to the bridge to go over the mission, explaining how time will reset in eight hours. It’s not the captain’s fault the agent they picked—Emma O’Mara—is a zealot hell-bent on dooming everyone onboard the vessel for her religion.

Emma’s not just an agent either; she’s a Marshal and a celebrity. She’s not even supposed to be working—or so the ship’s officers think—she’s just another passenger headed across the galaxy. But she’s actually conspired with her religious sect to sabotage the vessel in order to discover a secret about her religion. There are various sects, all believing something different about their prophet’s final message—because it’s missing. Well, if the prophet had the message on him when he died, the prophet’s somewhere in that space graveyard.

Everything dead is somehow somewhere in that space graveyard. There’s some talk from the first officer about an intention at the center of the mausoleum, but Emma’s not really listening because she’s got almost a dozen coconspirators to check in with. In addition to everyone knowing Emma’s a badass Marshal, they also know she’s a pious one; three Infinities in, and Emma’s the only one the first officer doesn’t perv on.

I mean, he doesn’t have much time before she zaps him, but still, turns out there’s a limit to his inappropriateness.

Emma’s coconspirators are bankrolling the endeavor, as her sect apparently doesn’t have the available cash to do so. They each want something different from the space graveyard, which a psychic divined. So divination’s real in Infinity 8 or at least possible. Since we don’t know if time travel exists yet, there could also be an easy explanation for the fortune-telling.

Writers Lewis Trondheim and Fabien Vehlmann craft an action-packed suspense thriller, with Emma moving from ally to ally, enemy to enemy, making significant discoveries about the nature of her religion, reality itself, and herself. The volume’s got the most character development in an Infinity 8 so far; Emma’s religious journey, not to mention the trials of her subterfuge and insurrection, make for one heck of an arc. Plus, there are numerous villains in this arc. There are coincidental villains—like the robot trying to determine whether or not an interrupted message means to kill Emma or not—and there are deliberate ones.

And then there are the wanted criminals who Emma comes across in her daily life. Assembling her own “Dirty Nine” gang of tomb raiders seems like it’s going to bite her from the start (she starts getting suspicious almost immediately), but it takes a while for the actual villains to reveal themselves. Their motives even longer.

As usual, it’s eventually up to Emma to save the galaxy; she just happens to be in a pickle because she’s already betrayed her space cop badge to be a fundamentalist terrorist. Not to mention the story’s time limit’s built-in.

Lots of tension, absolutely no time to relax. Unlike the previous volumes, thanks to Emma’s zealotry, she doesn’t ever get to have a personable moment. Instead, she becomes personable through her volume-long character development. It’s excellent work from Trondheim and Vehlmann on the script.

Olivier Balez does the art this volume; it’s very different, warmer, cartoonier, with great enthusiasm for the various alien species. Balez maintains that enthusiasm, whether the aliens are being funny, evil, or getting lasered in two. Balez gets a lot of tones to move between, from macabre space archeology, robotic battles, standoffs, heists, double-crosses, triple-crosses, and religious melancholy. Gospel runs the gambit. About the only thing wrong with the art is it ends too soon; Balez could’ve gotten at least another page out of Emma’s finale.

So, while there are promises for future Infinity 8 volumes—we find out another piece in how Earth came to be destroyed this volume, the most information yet—Trondheim still hasn’t revealed enough to tip any scales.

Emma’s not even halfway through Infinity; Trondheim and his collaborators have more time ahead than behind; anything could happen, so long as it involves space graveyards and capable agents. The possibilities are almost… infinite.

Can’t wait.

Infinity 8: Volume Two: Back to the Führer (2017)

Back to the Führer is an intense read. It starts genially, introducing this iteration’s agent, Stella Moonkicker, who has just been reprimanded by her partner, robot Bobbie. Bobbie’s a buzzkill, a narc, and committed to preserving all human life, particularly Stella’s.

She doesn’t appreciate it.

Unlike the agent last time, Stella’s got daily assignments while aboard the Infinity 8. The volume starts with her headed to the library to provide security for some kind of convention. It’s going to be a very dull day. But then it turns out the convention is the Future Nazis.

Later in the volume, there’s a throwaway line about robots destroying planet Earth (we have it coming), and presumably, a bunch of history gets lost. Including some specifics of what the Nazis actually did. The Future Nazis think it’s a wellness and interior design movement.

This volume’s got a lot of humor starting it off. The harmless dimwit Future Nazis, Stella wanting to be an Instagram influencer and taking selfies all the time, the robot. It’s disarming.

Intentionally.

Writer Lewis Trondheim is messing with the reader, putting them off-guard, so the second act packs a bigger, more frequent wallop.

In addition to the Future Nazis, there’s a Hasidic Jewish space muppet who knows what the Nazis did and is confronting the conventioneers. The character’s a Jewish caricature, just a space muppet too. He’s a combination punching bag and comic relief. But he’s also not wrong.

If the volume has a moral, it’s don’t bring back Adolf Hitler’s head, fill it full of future knowledge and wisdom, and not expect him to create a mechanical army.

See, even though Stella’s busy with the Future Nazis, it’s still Infinity 8 and the bridge has to call her and send her out to check on the space graveyard. The problem is the Future Nazis also scan the debris for collectibles, and they find the motherlode. A V-2 rocket with Hitler’s frozen head in it.

Some initially comedic plot perturbations later and Hitler’s back and slaughtering the spaceship’s passengers. Thanks to his future knowledge, he’s discovered the alien race who is controlling the media and whatnot. On his way to take them out, other groups try joining up with him because they think it’s a wellness and interior design movement, not genocidal fascism.

And it appears Stella is going along for the ride. For most of the second act, she’s hook-line-and-sinker, even as the Future Nazis start realizing their new leader is shitty. Stella will end up with the volume’s deftest character arc; Trondheim demands a lot of the reader’s attention. It’s worth it, of course. It’s a masterful arc, with Trondheim able to bake the action into it from the start and then get it out of the oven at just the right moment.

Thanks to his robotic upgrades, Robot Hitler also knows about the Infinity 8’s ability to time-shift, and it figures into his plans for conquest.

Trondheim certainly starts the volume suggesting it’s going to be light-hearted, which then makes the Hitler bit increasingly inappropriate, only for Trondheim to almost directly question how and why anyone would think it’d be light-hearted. He can get away with some sarcasm, thanks to Bobbie the robot, who gets a snark upgrade at one point. It’s such good action comics too. There’s no time for Stella or the volume to slow down.

Artist Olivier Vatine designed the overall series look, which means this volume’s Infinity 8 looks “correct.” It’s excellent art, whether the future detail, the aliens, Stella’s very important expressions, and then the action. Vatine’s action pacing is divine.

The volume’s a hell of a ride—I mean, it’s about Hitler coming back and being able to take over the future because no one learned anything from the last time (oh, wait)—and it certainly opens Infinity 8 up. The next six volumes can (and will be) anything and everything.

It’s such a great comic.

Infinity 8: Volume One: Love and Mummies (2016-17)

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Infinity 8 is very high concept. It’s a series of eight stories, originally published in European volumes, published in the United States as eight, three-part limited series. It’s a combination of hard and soft sci-fi: a passenger ship has encountered a space graveyard and needs to investigate. They send a single agent. Agents are intergalactic super-cops, but good guys.

That agent will investigate, relaying findings back to the ship, whose captain can reset time in eight eight-hour-loops (so it should be Infinity 888). The next time out, the agent or crew will have that extra experience.

All that high concept comes through in roughly three pages. Writers Lewis Trondheim and Zep don’t spend much time on the concept. It’s a very interesting way to do a first chapter: intentionally delay establishing the ground situation. But then again, maybe the possible timelines only matter once you have comparable ones.

The agent this issue is named Yoko Keren. She’s just a passenger on the ship, enlisted to help out because she’s never off-duty exactly; she’s been trying to find a suitable mate from the 880,000 (88, get it?) other passengers. She scans all of them, checking their medical records.

She also breaks up bar fights as necessary. Otherwise, we don’t really get to know the character. She has one intense experience after another; Love and Mummies is mostly an action comic. Sci-fi action, lots of imaginative design, lots of humor, but it’s all action. Point A to B to C to D and back to A via C but not B. Once it’s done being an action story, it becomes a romantic comedy, which retroactively contextualizes the whole thing as a romantic comedy and makes it even more successful. Trondheim and Zep are dealing with alien species, an undefined future, and the mysterious space graveyard, and they weave a lovely, amusing romantic comedy through it. It’s like they finish weaving the story, and then you see what it’s been.

It’s an utterly charming approach, which is particularly effective since the story itself gets gross.

First, Yoko’s got to deal with an annoyingly horny second officer, who doesn’t just proposition her (without even knowing she’s on a mate hunt); he also pesters her via comlink while she’s out exploring. Then she’s got to navigate around the space graveyard, where most things are covered in maggots.

Unfortunately, the Infinity 8 is carrying many Kornaliens, a species who loves to eat dead things. The longer dead, the better. They crave it uncontrollably and riot until they can get off the ship and find corpses to munch on.

Initially, the Kornalien subplot is separate from Yoko’s exploration plot. She discovers artifacts from a wide range of sources, including the now destroyed planet Earth, but when she happens into a Buddha’s temple, her story collides with the Kornalien subplot. There she meets Sagoss, who’s just eaten a monk who died for love, and now Sagoss has those same emotions towards Yoko.

Unfortunately, his fellow Kornaliens have just decided the best way to get corpses to eat is to make them out of the Infinity 8’s passengers. They start attacking the ship, turning Yoko’s exploration mission into a combat one, against incredible odds.

Making things more difficult are the Kornaliens who maybe aren’t attacking the passenger ship, but have still eaten something to give them unhelpful emotions.

Plus, Sagoss is an electrician and Yoko needs an action sidekick.

There’s lots of suspense—including an exquisite chase sequence—there’s a lot of humor, there’s a lot of great art. Dominique Bertail does the art (with Olivier Vatine doing the design for the whole series). Bertail’s got a lovely sense of pacing in space; Yoko’s either on jet thrusters or a cosmic sled and the art conveys her velocity alongside the enormity of the space graveyard. It’s wonderfully well-paced.

The end’s a little too cute, a little too rushed, but it’s not actually Yoko’s story, after all; she’s just one chapter of Infinity 8.

Infinity 8: Volume Four: Symbolic Guerilla (2018)

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It’s been a while since I read any Infinity 8, but it’s the perfect series to return to after a break since each arc is a different take on the same thing. Literally.

Each arc has a different (far future) space agent who has a limited time to investigate why an intergalactic graveyard the size of Earth’s solar system is blocking the way of a giant ship.

This arc, Symbolic Guerrilla, introduces agent Patty Stardust, who’s undercover with a cult of performance artists but gets called to check out the graveyard. Meanwhile, the cult–led by sixties hippie in the future, Ron–finds out the ship is stopped and starts planning on how he’s going to exploit the situation for his–ahem, the group’s–benefit.

Patty’s Black, with a big afro–how French guy Lewis Trondheim and probably European guy Kris acknowledge people shouldn’t intrude on her wanting to touch her hair but White Americans can’t figure it out… anyway. Patty’s a fantastic lead. She’s been undercover with Ron and the Symbolic Guerrillas for five years, this mission could jeopardize it–good thing the ship’s captain is going to loop time–and she’s engaged to Ron’s stepson.

That engagement–Patty’s the stage manager, who has to do work and (presumably) stay sober, while her dude is mindbogglingly high all the time–is one of the most interesting things in the arc. Trondheim and Kris don’t dwell on the space graveyard too much. Patty sees some things, but they don’t figure into the main plot like what Ron comes across and decides to exploit. In multiple ways. With multiple terrible results.

But Patty and her love life? It adds a lot of texture to the character, who’s otherwise basically moving from action beat to action beat.

Great art from Martin Trystram. He concentrates on the psychedelic flashback aspect of the visual narrative, but doesn’t skip on the sci-fi setting. Or the ship. There are cameos from previous Infinity 8 cast members, which makes you wonder how it would all read in a sitting.

Speaking of reading… I was sort of assuming the original French publications were bigger size than the American comic format, but no. The American printings might even be a little bigger. There’s just so much little detail you want to see. Trystram packs each panel. It’s awesome.

Infinity 8 is, I guess, halfway through with Symbolic Guerrilla but thanks to the writers’ ingenuity and the consistently different, consistently fantastic art, it feels like it’s just getting started.

Also because there’s so little emphasis placed on the ship’s crisis. It’s a red herring (almost) so Trondheim and company can explore this future.

Infinity 8: Volume Four: Symbolic Guerilla

I8v4 It’s been a while since I read any Infinity 8, but it’s the perfect series to return to after a break since each arc is a different take on the same thing. Literally.

Each arc has a different (far future) space agent who has a limited time to investigate why an intergalactic graveyard the size of Earth’s solar system is blocking the way of a giant ship.

But Patty and her love life? It adds a lot of texture to the character, who’s otherwise basically moving from action beat to action beat.

Also because there’s so little emphasis placed on the ship’s crisis. It’s a red herring (almost) so Trondheim and company can explore this future.