Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Wednesday Comics: Manifest Destiny

"Manifest Destiny"
Manifest Destiny #1 (November 2013), Written by Chris Dingess; Art by Michael Roberts

Synopsis: In May of 1804, the Lewis & Clark expedition is on their way to La Charette on the Missouri River. Lewis is the journal-keeper and artist, cataloging nature. Clark is the man of action and disciplinarian. We find out that they are keeping too logs: one for Congress (presumably the one history records) and another, truer log detailing their progress in their real mission from Jefferson: to clear the West of monsters.

So far, there haven't been any monsters or anything unusual. Lewis worries that the mercenaries and freed convicts that fill out their ranks beyond the soldiers may become unruly with time. The importance of their mission has been kept from the men. The lack of unusual is about to change:


They investigate, thinking it must be some funerary structure or religious site. Jensen, a murder saved from the noose, is less interested in the arch and more interested in talking desertion with Wallace. Jensen has noticed that virtually everyone on this trip has no family. None of them will be missed.

The sergeant overhears them discussing desertion and plans to report them. It doesn't get a chance as something emerges from the woods and charges over him. As it runs past the men, Lewis shoots it dead.


Meanwhile, Jensen kills the injured sergeant so he can't reveal their plans.

4 comments:

The Angry Lurker said...

Good artwork!

Anonymous said...

Interesting indeed. Is this still ongoing?

Trey said...

It is. On issue 18 or so I think.

Martin R. Thomas said...

So glad you're reading this - when I first picked it up, I thought it seemed right up your alley. I blogged about it a little last year when I did a post about gaming in the Americas in the Colonial and Age of Western Expansion.

My local comic shop unfortunately missed an issue last year, so I dropped it from my monthly pull list and am instead reading it in trade right now.