The Massive. Volume 1, Black Pacific

Locations
Call Number: Adult Graphic Novel / Massive
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 1st Floor 4-week checkout	Adult Graphic Novel / Massive	4-week checkout	On Shelf

"This volume reprints the comic-book series The massive #1-#6 from Dark Horse Comics, as well as material originally published in Dark Horse presents #8-#10"--T.p. verso.
"In a post-war, post-Crash, post-disaster, post-everything world, the environmental action trawler Kapital scours the earth's oceans for its missing sistership, The Massive, while struggling to redefine its core mission. Captain Callum Israel, a man who dedicated his life to the ocean, now must ask himself--as our planet dies--what it means to be an environmentalist after the world's already ended"--P. [4] of cover.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Library Journal Review
Summary / Annotation
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

So-so soft apocalypse graphic novel with a conservationist message. submitted by eknapp on March 28, 2014, 10:01am A yearlong series of tectonic and climate-related natural disasters, known as The Crash, has decimated the world's food and water supplies, wrecked government stability, radically altered coastlines and sea levels, and ruined the world economy. Millions, maybe billions, have perished. In contrast to most cataclysm stories, The Massive doesn't knock mankind back into the stone age; technology persists. It's more about exploring global destabilization than clawing for survival.

The Ninth Wave is a "direct action" conservationist mission consisting of one ship with a crew of maybe twelve, led by an avowed pacifist ex-mercenary. Ninth Wave's chartered purpose has something fuzzy to do with protecting the world's oceans, apparently by sailing around pontificating and scrambling for supplies.

As a conservationist cautionary tale it's not bad. The author touches on locales all over the globe, showing how industrialization and corporate greed hurt different places in different ways. To me it seems intelligently written and well researched.

As an ad for the wisdom and benefits of pacifism it's pretty lame. The heroes refuse to arm themselves against an endless onslaught of piracy, theft and general murderiness, citing weak, vague, impractical justifications like "We need to RESPECT the violent places, not bring more violence to them!" They survive through implausibly good luck and by finding hypocritically unconventional ways to kill the bad guys. It's a mixed message.

Oh, and the title? "The Massive" is the name of the long lost second ship in the Ninth Wave fleet. The unifying plot thread is that they're supposedly trying to find it. By sailing randomly around the globe. It's only mentioned occasionally, to justify the name of the series.

Captain: "Any sign of the Massive?"
Navigator: "No sir, for some reason we still haven't managed to blunder into it by sheer utter mad coincidence."
Captain: "Okay, let's go hide from some more pirates. Gosh it feels good to be unarmed in the face of imminent rapey death. What a wonderful statement I'm making."