Conspiracy theorists love to imagine absurd, complicated evils the powers-that-be are committing behind our backs. If you believe your craziest Facebook friends, the government executed the 9/11 attacks, controls all media outlets and collaborates with aliens in a secret fortress on the moon—where Neil Armstrong never set foot, FYI.
Such fictions work a lot better as fiction. For example, in Oni Press’ Letter 44, whose 24th issue launches this week, writer Charles Soule and artist Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque have created a crack-pipe wet dream for the conspiracy-minded. It’s also a genre-blending sci-fi political soap opera that’s smart as hell.
In issue #1, Stephen Blades takes office after the departure of Dubya-like President Francis T. Carroll. Like the second President Bush, Carroll started a lot of wars, sunk the economy and was considered a dimwit. But Carroll’s no dummy: as he explains in his letter to new President Blades, all of Carroll’s flubs and catastrophes were motivated by the discovery of a mysterious alien operation in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. In that not-distant-enough area, someone was mining and building. So all of Carroll’s Bush-like blunders were actually attempts to prepare for an alien attack.
Of all Carroll’s alien-related secrets, two were particularly stunning. One was Project Monolith, a covert military project that had designed weaponry far more advanced than anything in existence. These devices were being saved for the aliens—who the government didn’t want to tip off—while American troops were dying in Afghanistan and Iraq with less-impressive equipment. The other shock was the existence of the Clarke: a ship carrying a joint military-science team on a one-way mission to gather intel on the aliens. Half the series takes place on the Clarke, where the crew attempts to find anything useful to send back to Earth before their inevitable deaths.
Letter 44 Interior Art by Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque
Because of this dual storyline in space and the West Wing, Soule writes two wildly different comics in one: a sci-fi adventure and a political thriller. The sci-fi story involves a remarkable number of weird situations involving the Builders (as the aliens are eventually known) and the perils of being on a years-long, one-way space trip responsible for the future of humanity. On the Clarke, the scientific and military crew members develop a unique society with their own sexual mores, since they’re on their own and need to hang onto their space marbles. Naturally, the birth of a space baby thickens the plot.
Back on Earth, the stakes also escalate, with President Blades wondering if and when to tell the American public about the aliens while facing an even wider conspiracy. If a possible Space War weren’t enough, World War III is on the horizon, too. Soule smartly uses an extreme situation to explore real issues: When do you come clean about a secret? When do a previous President’s mistakes become your own? Those questions are relevant even if no one is up to funny business in the asteroid belt.
This mix of big events and varied genres makes Letter 44 a unique, attention-grabbing comic. In one scene, the First Lady sleeps with a former flame and current senator to prevent impeachment hearings. In the next, the crew of the Clarke struggles to communicate with non-humanoid aliens who just blew up an asteroid. Soule doesn’t play favorites among the characters or genres: they’re all taken seriously and they all have consequences. This series is full of constant plot development and thinky sci-fi that would make Transmetropolitan mastermind Warren Ellis proud.
Letter 44 Interior Art by Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque
Alburquerque’s art is quirky and cartoony, and there’s a subtle feeling of strangeness about the world he populates. The people have expressive, often jagged faces that completely sell the extreme circumstances, though they’re all a little ugly too, which I find refreshing. As in movies and TV, there’s no need for comic book characters to look like fashion models. In contrast, everything alien is startlingly beautiful. You can get a real sense of what Charles Hatfield calls the “technological sublime” in Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby. Alburquerque has a knack for drawing gorgeous, incomprehensible spacecraft and creatures that create a sense of awe. The Builders—with their distinctive grammar and unsettling, non-humanoid appearance—feel truly alien, which is hard to pull off in sci-fi. Soule is one of the busiest writers in comics, working with many artists, but he and Alburquerque are particularly in tune.
When Alburquerque takes a break, Letter 44 changes focus, flashing back to what members of the Clarke mission were doing before the events of the series and how they signed up. These issues—illustrated by Joelle Jones, Drew Moss and Ryan Kelly so far—not only help build the world, but provide extra depth to the space storyline. Without these stories, you’d never know which members of the Clarke are longtime friends or who faked their death to join the secret mission. Fill-in issues that matter are an accomplishment. Depending on how long the series runs, it would be nice to see the flashbacks extend to the political side of the title, too. First Lady Isobel Blades might be the most ruthless character in the series, and I’d love to see more of her past.
Letter 44 Interior Art by Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque
Letter 44 is especially relevant in the middle of an election season, when we’re all a little afraid the next President may be pure evil—or at least smell of rotten mayonnaise. There’s even some prophetic commentary on a current candidate within the comic. When first attempting contact with the Builders, the only available text to send is Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal, which a crew member was reading digitally. Even back in September 2014 when the issue was published, this was an inauspicious beginning to alien-human relations. As Dr. Pritchard observes, “Let’s hope they don’t kill us now on general principles.”
This comic has it all: terrorism, politically motivated sex, sex in space, alien-human hybrids, orbital weapon platforms, Biblical allusions and underground bunkers—plus plenty of riffs on real history. Spoiler alert: You’ll eventually learn the real reason Sarah Palin ended up a Vice Presidential candidate, and that too has something to do with the aliens.
I read the first arc as a collection, then switched to individual issues. While this is often a disappointing transition, Letter 44 works well month to month: each issue feels like a full meal. Like a strong TV series such as The Americans, Letter 44 doesn’t delay plot developments to string the audience along: it just keeps going.