The Last American is an impressive post-apocalyptic title, published entirely by cARTEm Cómics, which collects the work of John Wagner, Alan Grant and Mick McMahon, originally published by Epic Comics in 1990.

The Last American It is a work written by John Wagner together with Alan Grantdesigned by a magnificent Mick McMahon. It was originally published in four places by Epic comicsa division of Marvel Comics property of its creators who disappeared shortly after. It was subsequently drawn up in an exhaustive manner, in the Anglo-Saxon world, first by Com.xBritish publishing house founded in 2000; and, more recently, from Rebellionhome to great works such as 2000 AD.

THE mutually assured destruction –Mutual assured destruction– (CRAZYa nice acronym whose meaning would be crazy) is a Doctrine of US military strategy and national security policy. which postulates that the large-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker against a defender equipped with nuclear weapons and second-strike capabilities would result in the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender.

This doctrine is based on theory of rational deterrencewhich states that the threat of using powerful weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy from using those same weapons. The strategy is based on equilibrium, where intervening parties have no incentive to initiate conflict or disarm. A classic of blocking policy between AND AND. UU. and the USSR during the Cold War.

When the comic was made and published, people still thought of the end times in terms of a nuclear holocaust. The Cold War was cooling, but most had no way of knowing this, they only feared what would happen when it heated up. In 1983a false alarm in the Soviet early warning system World War III had almost begunplots reflected in the fiction of the time as can be seen in the brilliant film war games.

Finally, inside 1991after Afghanistan War perfectly reflected in Masud’s bodyguard, the The USSR ended up collapsingushering in a brief era of US global dominance, but the nuclear weapons were still there. Other countries have them, others continue to develop them, and deterrence policies are commonplace today, with conflicts occurring all over the world.

“This was the failure: charismatic, powerful men. But men, after all.”

The plot

Awakened from suspended animation or cryogenic sleep by two robots, the July 4, 2019, Ulysses Pellegrinohe is the last American formally inaugurated by the President of the United States of America as “Commander Apocalypse“.

Pellegrino is a US Army Captainwho missed the war, the last war, the war of wars, where the balance of power tipped and the fear of nuclear retaliation failed to dissuade him, so weapons of mass destruction played their part. Him cryogenically frozen American soldier he awakens to restore order and restore the American way of life.

Captain Ulysses, with the help of three robots, has the mission to search for survivors amidst the remains of a post-apocalyptic America, and at one point wonders whether the terror that has always kept the balance of nuclear weapons provided any last comfort to those who were attacked first. John Wagner and Alan Grant are no strangers to this dystopian futures and other post-apocalyptic propositions as demonstrated in the Judge Dredd works.

The authors behind the story

The series was written by magnificent screenwriters John Wagner and Alan Grant, who recently passed away. The last American is a work on deathat a close level, such as the death of loved ones or the death of oneself; and mass death: the death of millions of people, the death of nations, of ideas and even the death of hope. Everything collapses, nothing remains.

The Last American is a very critical and pessimistic questions about nuclear war and deterrence theory. Be very special. It’s a anti-war, anti-American, anti-religious, absolutely dark and nihilistic concept: Clearly incorporated into British comics.

The captain’s name has not been trivial since then UlyssesUlysses in Spanish, is clearly a tribute to the Homer’s character in the Odysseywho must return to Ithaca, his homeland, after the Trojan War, first as captain of the ship, but then in great solitude. And the surname, Pilgrimpilgrim in Spanish, refers to the first Englishmen to move to America to found the thirteen colonies that would later lead to the birth of the USA.

The election of the captain’s membership to the American Armythe Army, is not accidental, since this service, the largest of the eight that make up the country’s armed forces, was the first to be founded -June 14, 1775- as the Continental Army fight in the American Revolutionary War under the command of George Washington. Furthermore, its main responsibility is ground operations.

The Last American is darker than Judge Dredd, a more satirical story and, although it could be considered a prequel that tells how Judge Dredd’s world of megacities and deserts of the Cursed Earth was formed in the post-war period, but with a much darker tone , where the player can hear the song in the background The sun has faded by Johann Johannsson permanently.

When the president offers Ulysses to volunteer for the job of “Commander Apocalypse”, he believes he is doing him a favor. It gives him the opportunity to survive, to “take revenge” if the enemy wins; allowing the captain to continue serving the country, but what he actually does, is to condemn Pilgrim to total ruin.

The Last American was published in a time of creative death in the early 1990s. THE collaboration between Grant and Wagnerso fruitful during the 1980s, it was coming to an end, instead of the usual write-together method, this series was half-written, with the first two issues written by Wagner and the last two by Grant.

With this data the reader will be able to see the change in tone, even if there is no discontinuity and it is a complete work. In this way, arriving halfway through the work you can witness a dance scene with zombie hallucinations; while after the equator, the numbers three and four of the metal points continuously show the protagonist’s mental exhaustion.

This work, although it shows the dystopian future of the United States, is very far from others on the topic, such as Yet another man. The Ultimate Ninja from Marvel Comics, written by Larry Hama; or the most current Country to discover by Image Comics, written by Snyder Yes Soulpublished directly in Spain in volumes axis.

The drawing

This work is a hopeless and nightmarish walk through the ruins of the United States with the unmistakable style From Mick McMahon and labeled by Philip Felicewhich perfectly combines what Ulysses really has in front of him and his disturbing visions. McMahon is an artist prone to cartoonish exaggeration.

In The Last American, McMahon adopt it particular style with an exaggerated Pilgrim, where the face seems frankly cubist, his ears are huge fluttering sails on the sides of the square head. The outside reflects the inside of the character, in which everything is equally deformed, damaged in the deepest part of his being.

The coherence of McMahon’s work is spectacular and the reader who has been able to see the evolution from his first works on Judge Dredd will be able to affirm this without any doubt. Backgrounds and details become essential; every skull seen in the story is a smiling image, rather than an approximation of a real-life skull. The trees are not just pieces of wood, but sinister needles that pierce the night sky. The colors are muted so that the red, blue, and white of the American flag stand out on the page.

A great comic, critical, typical of its time with echoes of timelessness

In The Last American, Captain Pilgrim starts out as a shell of a man and collapses even more as the story progresses.. Military discipline is just a facade that barely keeps him afloat. There is no way to escape total loss, it is simply not enough to want to be safe from danger.

The soldier is completely alone, and the reader slowly realizes how incredibly terrifying that would be. The promises of the survivors, the voices in the wind, keep him going. But it isn’t long before all hope is lost and Pilgrim finally collapses. This forces the reader to wonder how far he would go, how long he would last completely alone.

There is no life in solitude. The Last American is broken because the “Last” part of the title is more important than the “American” part. A person cannot live alone, not for long, not if they want to remain whole. This is the real horror of The Last American: the sense of total annihilation, the idea that nothing we do will mean anything in the end; because, in the end, it is other people who give meaning to what we do.

In many ways, The Last American It is a work of its time; Nowadays, not many people would recognize Dr. Kildare or Ronald Reagan, but this does not limit it. It’s of its time but, In turn, it is beyond its time. The emotions that made it work in the past are still valid today and will likely continue to be so for a long time.

The recurring image of a cartoon turtle which advises children to take cover, duck and take cover as the missiles begin to fly, is an obvious parody of animated short film From 1952 Duck and coverwhich offered its young viewers fairly useless advice on safety in the event of a nuclear attack.

This cartoon, as well as other pop culture references by the robot Charliethey are apparently all that’s left of America: the song New York, New York and the TV show Doctor Killdare. All the great works of literature and poetry have disappeared, dust in the wind. Only the stars and stripes -the US anthem- emanated from the character, as he moves with his tank.

“OH! You see, at the crack of dawn…”

The edition

The Last Americanby the authors Alan Grant, John Wagner Yes Mike McMahonwas published by cARTem comics in Spanish, translated by Elena Hernandez Benito. The publication continues to maintain the strict quality controls imposed by the publisher, offering this complete volume in format axiswith measurements of 21 x 29.7 centimetrescontaining the four original paper clips, the length of 136 pagesalong with a gallery of bonus covers and sketches.

Despite its bleak subject matter and even bleaker attitude, it is a work of beauty illuminated by passion and crafted by masters of the art who seem free from their former commercial shackles. It is a tome that must be read carefully, until death, and perhaps even after.

A brutal vision of the future

A post-apocalyptic comic created by the legendary John Wagner, Alan Grant and the visionary cartoonist Mick McMahon. This story, originally published in the 1990s, gives us a disturbing and devastating look at a world ravaged by nuclear war. Do you have the courage to discover the future we would never want to experience?

“I have sworn allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Look where it got me.”

It has been more than 20 years since humanity destroyed itself in a global nuclear conflict. Captain Ulysses Pilgrim, an American soldier, awakens from his suspended animation to face an empty world. Accompanied by three military robots, his mission is clear: find the last survivors of what once was America. But hope is as scarce as the very air you breathe.

“One of the best comics ever published” Garth Ennis.