posted 04-08-2001 06:12 AM               

And then we don't see any of them for three chapters. Those three chapters are far from digressions, however - in many ways, they're the emotional and thematic core of the book. It's very easy to get caught up in all the magic and madness of the Invisibles' fight against the conspiracy and forget the purpose of that fight -- to free the human spirit and allow it achieve its possibilities. The interlude chapters explore the exploitation of minorities and the poor by the corporate elite, the corrosive effects of fear and hate and ignorance, the struggles of everyday people to achieve their dreams, and the crushing weight of their failure to do so. The best story of the three may be the one with no supernatural elements at all, in which we see a man's life flash before his eyes through a series of disjointed flashbacks. The layout of this story is very effective, as scenes and fragments blend together before the story reaches its climax and they come full circle. It's the story of a man who wanted more from life than what he got, and probably deserved more . . . the injustice resonates, and as a bonus, it reinforces why we want the Invisibles to win. A world this unjust is a world that needs to be remade.

The other interludes do introduce or develop characters who will play a part in that struggle. Sir Miles, the aristocrat we glimpsed in Say You Want a Revolution, comes to the fore as a major villain; he is heartless, obsessed with control and domination, utterly convinced of his own superiority and the worthlessness of the average human being. Jim Crow is a voodoo sorcerer and an Invisible who moves nimbly through the spirit world and through the streets of Chicago; Crow's story is hard to describe other than in the vaguest terms; it's a full shot of the head-trip weirdness that makes The Invisibles what it is. It's a story of well-deserved comeuppance that gives a few hints of troubles to come.

With the interludes over, Morrison returns to the search for Jack. The three-part 'Sheman' story moves the overall plot forward and flashes back to Lord Fanny's childhood and development as a magician. Fanny was born a boy, but in his culture, shamanic powers and responsibility passes through maternal lines. So Fanny's mother and grandmother do the only thing they can do - raise Fanny as a girl, and hope that (s)he will be able to pass through the trials successfully. The circumstances that bring about the reminiscing are considerably less than pleasant, and end in a cliffhanger to be resolved in the next collection. It's a good story, one that plays with our understanding of time and identity, but it didn't have quite the same punch that 'Arcadia' did.

Some of that may have been due to the art. A number of artists work with Morrison on the stories in this book, including Jill Thompson, Chris Weston, John Ridgway, Steve Parkhouse, and Paul Johnson on pencils and Thompson, Dennis Cramer, Weston, Ridgway, Parkhouse, Kim DeMulder and Johnson on inks. Weston's art is the strongest of the bunch; it conjures up the strangeness of Jim Crow's world and the realities of urban Chicago in a visually attractive and engaging way but also moves the story along. The other artists are all competent, but none of them evoked the same sense of wonder in me. The ever-shifting roster of artists is also somewhat distracting, but since each has his or her own story arc, it doesn't interfere with the flow of the narrative.

Ultimately, my feelings about 'Sheman' are probably due to my comparing it to 'Arcadia' - both are multipart stories closing out books. But the comparison is probably unfair; 'Arcadia' was something of a wakeup call that said, "OK, weird but cool stuff on the way - open up your mind!" 'Sheman' is just another piece in the puzzle; an important one, and an entertaining one, but since we already know to expect the unexpected, it doesn't have the same bracing shock-to-the-system effect. That the story still works shows that there's more to The Invisibles than mere shock value; there is a plot that's engaging in its own right and characters to get behind. I'll be waiting eagerly for the next chapter in the story.