Pages 66-78
Exile is the most soulful comic I have read in Heavy Metal—which favors the crude in most things—over the last dozen issues. Mislav crafts a story of cosmic transformation born of wrath and quenched in something else.
The story is told from the point of view of an unnamed man who is brought before three wrathful deities in a natal bubble and then cast out into exile. The imagery in the first phase is starkly mythic and could have been understood by men standing before rock paintings on any continent 40,000 years ago.
From page 68 thru 73 a quirky distant future feel is evoked—like the Jetsons on LSD—as the exile discovers his nature and his impact on the world to which he has been banished.
From here the graphic landscape alters again with the exile’s growing perception, finally returning in the closing two pages, to the austere feel of the opening scenes.
Exile is an excellent choice for an inspirational read, with Mislav Tomasinjak taking the reader on a transformative journey through a mythic cycle that can be interpreted according to various spiritual prisms.
