Skip to Content

Where does a dream begin and end? ‘Translucid #2’

Where does a dream begin and end? ‘Translucid #2’

Translucid #2Translucid 2 Cover B


Written by: Claudio Sanchez and Chondra Echert
Illustrated by Daniel Bayliss
Colored by Adam Metcalfe
Published by Boom! Studios

More and more, Translucid is reminding me of Adventure Time. If that doesn’t get you to start reading this comic, I don’t know what will. The comic can abruptly shift between the familiar “real” world and the more fantastical world of the hero, and the writers appear very comfortable in moving from the more innocent moments of childhood to darkness. This issue twists our understanding of the story, leaving very little room to trust what the writers of this comic are showing us. Still, what we can see is some of the backstory for the young boy as well as Horse and Navigator.

This issue begins with the little boy, whose name is Cornelius, going to visit a science museum with his class. It highlights his fascination with holograms and the possibility that they could one day be generated as matter. We also see a bit of the world through Cornelius’ eyes, and what we see is entrancing and horrifying. We meet his older brother, a rising football star who hopes to escape their abusive father by getting a football scholarship for college. When Cornelius returns home, his father throws a pan of scalding water into his mother’s face. Cornelius holds a knife to his father’s throat, but his brother talks him down from killing him.

In the present day, Navigator is investing a murdered philanthropist hiding a dark secret. The crime points back to Horse, who committed the crime to taunt Navigator. In the past, Cornelius’ mother refuses to separate from her husband, making the older brother angrily leave. Cornelius stays behind with his mother. Flashing forward again to the present, Horse meets with the Navigator at a bridge when Horse detonates a bomb, sending the car of a politician hurtling into the river. It’s revealed then that this is their first meeting, and as the bridge collapses, Horse gives Navigator the choice of capturing him or saving the people crashing into the river. The comic ends with Cornelius as a boy, watching his mother pick his father up from the police station. The cabbie changes into Horse, ending the comic.

There’s a lot of layers of ambiguity going on in this comic, and I’m not clear at all which character he’s supposed to be. His fascination with holograms suggests he becomes the Navigator, but he’s constantly surrounded by Knight chess pieces that seem to catch his attention. Is Cornelius imagining all of this? The last panel of the comic certainly suggests so, or at least that his imagination is intruding on his future life. Cornelius is having disturbing dreams at night (not surprising, given what he lives with), so is it possible that he’s imagining all of this? Or are all of the things that Horse does intimately tied to the Navigator’s past?

As for the relationship between Horse and Navigator, it disturbingly mirrors the dynamic between Cornelius’ mother and father. Horse continues to do awful or at least morally questionable things, yet the Navigator returns to him time and time again. Isn’t this the case with most superheroes? The sheer number of times that Batman has actually saved the Joker’s life suggest that he’s afraid to see his adversary go and to lose what passes for the familiar. The same thing is going on here. Yet Horse seems determined to force Navigator to ask himself difficult questions. By killing the child-abusing philanthropist, he’s challenging Navigator’s view of justice.
The artwork continues to be gorgeous to look at. When we’re in the past, it’s crisp and clean, only becoming strangely colored when we see the world through Cornelius’ eyes. When we shift to the world of Navigator and Horse, the shading becomes strange. Metcalfe and Bayliss do an excellent job of creating fantastical artwork that borders on frightening. It’s a delicate balance to maintain, but they do so quite capably.

 

 

[wpchatai]