"older than words,
older than memory...
a spectral Tribunal of Souls"
#1 - "The Witching of Adam Moon, Part I". The Cirque du Psyche pulls into Graywald, West Virginia, and into the life of battered teenager Adam Moon. ("You have come to us," the fortuneteller Madam Raven tells him, "or called us to you, if you prefer. Even if you don't realize it.") Though he refuses to choose one of the Four Trumps Raven offers him, his choice seems clear -- revenge -- and the Ringmaster manifests as the awesome Demon.
#2 - "The Witching of Adam Moon, Part II" - Adam Moon's life turns bizarre: suddenly, everyone who crosses or befriends him in the least way is destroyed or magically rewarded. In a final stroke, his abusive father suffers - all at once - every blow he's ever struck his son. Adam knows this is the Circus' doing, and confronts the Four-Who-Are-One, but they demand he accept the responsibility - they're only carrying out the retribution he desires. ("This is what you cried out for in the dark, night after night. It never occurred to you that someone might be listening, did it?") Will Adam complete the cycle of revenge by striking his dying father down, or look beyond vengeance and childhood bitterness into his own future?...
#3 - "The Nature of the Beast". Henri "The Deuce" Moncrete, a sadistic gang hitman who so loves his work that he even kills his victims' pets, is run to ground and destroyed by the Four, led by King of Beasts. --Delectable twist ending to this story - talk about letting the punishment fit the crime! Also the first time we've seen that the Four can assume forms besides their human avatars' shapes and their own.
...the feline forms taken by Demon, Celestial and Starbearer to join King of Beasts in Moncrete's hunt.
#4 - "Smoke & Mirrors, Part I". A terrific arc! Kismet, a troubled, alienated girl with psychic abilities, dreams repeatedly of the Elder, then finds confirmation of their existence in an old text of magic. When she sees the Four's masks on a circus poster, she attends the show, and to her surprise is warmly welcomed by Fortunado (usually people behave as if they couldn't even see her...). She suffers bizarre visions of her troubled past, including her attempted suicide, and has just found a chained door - which also bears the masks of the Four - matching the one in her dreams, when she's confronted by an angry Blackwell.
(NOTE: Kismet's research is very useful. Here we learn - courtesy of "the Auldwych Grimoire (c. 1550)" - that the Old Ones, or the Elder, are said to form "a spectral Tribunal of Souls, meting out either retribution or redemption to mortals"; that, although creatures of pure spirit, they can take tangible form through the use of earthly Avatars; and that they generally appear only among the dissolute, outcast or insane.)
#5 - "Smoke and Mirrors, Part II". Blackwell drives Kismet away from the door, but as she leaves he's cautioned by Fortunado, who can see that "this one, she walks between worlds". Her perception becomes more and more fragmented. Wandering back out into the circus, she sees her own past reflected in the haunted Maze of Mirrors, and we get a few more clues, including a vision of her parents visiting her grave... In horror and rage Kismet shatters the mirrors. The flying raven, Madam Raven's soul-fetch, guides her thru a portal in the air, where she sees something strange - four noblemen in period garb, faces painted with the masks of the Four-Who-Are-One...
(My favorite sequence in this story: Kismet's vision of the Four behind the locked door: towering, majestic figures (she hardly stands as tall as the toe of one's boot) under a vast starry sky, shackled to each other at the ankle with enormous cuffs and chains. Does it signify the avatars' vow to serve the Elder? or the Four's bondage to their human forms and the Circus?... What an image. Wow.)
#6 - "Smoke & Mirrors, Part III". Kismet watches from inside the portal/mirror as the story unfolds. In a land falling to ruin and plague, four decadent human princes plot to achieve supreme power by summoning up and enslaving the Elder. They enlist the aid of a gypsy witch, Lady Ravenna, to give them the incantation they will need to bind the gods, but she wisely - and in contempt of the princes - gives them no such thing. The Four-Who-Are-One, outraged by the humans' presumption, bring the kingdom down around its rulers' ears. Tied to a stake in the courtyard as the gods' earthquake shatters the landscape, the gypsy cries out the words of the true binding spell, in full knowledge that "bindings work both ways".
Kismet is freed from her mirror and races into the courtyard just in time to take a knife to the heart intended for Lady Ravenna. The witch and her clan survive, but at dire cost - they will travel the earth forever, restless, homeless souls in an eternal pact with the Elder. --
But Kismet's travels are over. Thanks to Starbearer - who knew all along where she belonged - Kismet finally understands where and how she really is, and finds a home at last.
(--Without giving too much away, I can't help mentioning that this basic plot - the dreamlike wanderings of a woman who may or may not be alive - is also found in a classic horror film with a very appropriate title: Carnival of Souls.)
#7 - "Bottle Full of Wishes". My favorite issue yet. A kindly-seeming but terrible gentleman calling himself the Incredible Dr. Magus follows the Circus to the small town of Boonesville.
His errand is almost unimaginable: he's a soul collector, and he's come to collect the Elder themselves.
Overpowering Madam Raven by killing her soul-bird, he steals the four Trumps and confronts the four avatars with them. He knows all about their situation, he explains persuasively: why shouldn't they give in? Wouldn't they like to be free of their "curse"? Fortunado tries to restrain the other three and to plead that there would be penalties for breaking the oath they swore, but as Magus tosses each one's card, one by one they lose control and manifest as their Elder forms. It's Celestial who finally faces the "ancient trickster" and "rogue charlatan" - a being who claims to be perhaps as old as the Elder themselves - on the astral plane, and gives him everything he thought he wanted...
Notes:
--What a great character idea Magus is! So who is he really? He denies being the Devil, but "devil" is only one name for the ancient concept of a deceitful soulthief and corruptor of innocence. His cold contempt for human trifles like hope definitely suggests something from the abyss. Brrr. By any name he's an evil, scary dude, and to watch Celestial calmly and elegantly put him in his place is deeply satisfactory.
And Blackwell refers to Madam Raven as Lady Raven, a nice reminder of last issue.
Also interesting is the point Fortunado makes in his discussion with Kismet; he and his cohorts are sworn to serve only their appointed term as avatars of the Elder, and will be free to go when that term is past; but Raven's term of service is literally forever - "to watch o'er the Elder till the end of time". When the Circus rolls on into the future with a new set of avatars, she will be holding the reins then as now. Ravenna and her gypsies may have been spared annihilation, but the Four-Who-Are-One drive a pretty hard bargain.=)
--Just two more points about this issue (I know I know, but it IS my favorite =):
--Comicraft deserves applause for Magus' wonderfully ornate word balloons. If you thought Blackwell's were neat, check these out.
-- And I love this exchange between Blackwell and Fortunado, which speaks of the patience of a long friendship: Blackwell grumbles that Fortunado shouldn't encourage Kismet to ask so many questions, and Fortunado, unimpressed by his bluster, replies "You're only happy when you're complaining."
#8 - "Forever". A West Side Story/Romeo and Juliet-type adventure. Starbearer and the Three intervene to save two young lovers trapped between gang warfare and racial prejudice. A wild battle sequence illustrates Starbearer's power to rouse irrational, murderous hate as well as love. Can Kara forgive her true love even after she learns that he's responsible for a death that broke her heart? "Can your heart forgive even the darkest sin? Can you look past the walls of your own hate?"
#9 - "Four Sides To Every Story". A rainy night becomes storytelling time as Blackwell, Fortunado, Tiberius and Stargrave tell Kismet the tale of how each one became an avatar of the Elder and joined the Cirque du Psyche. This one's so good I had to discuss it at length: read about their stories right here.
...or go on to the "Destroyer" arc and more.
little games the gods play...
So, we see that the Circus of Souls was formed by the mutual bindings (probably what Kismet psychically "saw" as chains in her vision) of Lady Ravenna's pact with the Four. She swore herself to their eternal service in exchange for her life and the lives of her gypsy tribe; but they, in turn, pledged themselves to an eternal bond with the Circus, where their avatars will apparently always have a home and which will always be the agency of their justice. But...
Why should beings of such vast power agree to such a thing? I mean, they didn't have to plant their human embodiments on the premises - Raven could presumably serve them without having them living in the tent next door forever-and-ever. Is it because their office is to intervene in the lives of ordinary people, and the vehicle of a traveling circus will always draw plenty of those into their orbit? Is it some cryptic godly whim we mortals could never understand? Is it just fun?...(And for that question, did the Four have human avatars before the Cirque du Psyche came to be, and what did they do? Maybe they've always been performers; circuses go back a long, long time, after all...)
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