A comiXologist Recommends
Written by
Kieron Gillen @kierongillen
While attempting to describe this book on the ComiXologist podcast this week, I landed on the phrase “ultra-guts.” It’s a pretty succinct summary of the aesthetic you’ll find in Mercury Heat. There is a lot of violence, and it’s very graphic. Particularly in these last few issues, which feature a very special crossover with the notoriously savage Avatar title Crossed.
To be honest, I have my limits and I’m not exactly a fan of the Crossed style of violence. Fortunately, neither is Luiza, the protagonist in Mercury Heat. One of the neat features of this sci-fi world is that you can essentially program your brain, so in issue 8 Luiza sets a filter that will censor out, “Any rape. Any results of rape. Any violated corpses. Any corpses in the process of being violated. Any genitalia whatsoever.” (Pro tip, listen to Lucas. He’s a guy who knows his Crossed characters. Where are they going to get a horse, Luiza? You had to ask…) The resulting censors, achieved through strategic placement of happy rainbow bunny stickers, serve as a simultaneous visual joke and meta critique of line-crossing brutality in comics.
Issue 9 takes the meta critique a step further, as we learn that the Crossed are part of an elaborate set-up by a couple of dudes gleefully entertained by luring people to this outpost and watching them fight, to ultimately die by, the Crossed. There is an unfortunate trend in media, whereby “strong female characters” are essentially tortured and disempowered as a method of stripping away their strength for the edification of the audience. The woman’s strength is objectified rather than existing as a component of her own agency. It’s essentially a rape metaphor. That’s not what’s happening with Luiza. They don’t know it yet, but she is onto these dudes. She suspects the Crossed aren’t real. Her awareness works to preserve her agency, and I can’t help but think that these dudes are in for a lot more ultra-guts than they bargained for once she finds them.
Tia Vasiliou is a Digital Editor and occasional podcast guest at ComiXology. You can also find her podcasting at I Read Comic Books from Destroy The Cyborg.