The Massive, Vol. 4: Sahara

The Massive #4

by Brian Wood, Garry Brown (Illustrator)

Callum Israel and the crew of the Kapital face Arkady, Israel’s former colleague bent on revenge. When the Kapital is bombed, Callum and Mag head into post-Crash Europe to confront Arkady. But what they ultimately discover may lead them to their long-lost ship, The Massive. Meanwhile, Mary appears in the Sahara Desert, guarding a convoy of fresh water, holding a secret that might unravel Callum for good. Collects issues #19-#24.

"The Massive" begins its most powerful chapter yet as Brian Wood, Garry Brown, and Daniel Zezelj unravel the ongoing mystery of Mary and set the stage for the final act, when the cause of the Crash is revealed.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Graphic Novels Comics, Dystopia, Thriller

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 6, 2015

About the author

Brian Wood's history of published work includes over fifty volumes of genre-spanning original material.

From the 1500-page future war epic DMZ, the ecological disaster series The Massive, the American crime drama Briggs Land, and the groundbreaking lo-fi dystopia Channel Zero he has a 20-year track record of marrying thoughtful world-building and political commentary with compelling and diverse characters.

His YA novels - Demo, Local, The New York Four, and Mara - have made YALSA and New York Public Library best-of lists. His historical fiction - the viking series Northlanders, the American Revolution-centered Rebels, and the norse-samurai mashup Sword Daughter - are benchmarks in the comic book industry.

He's written some of the biggest franchises in pop culture, including Star Wars, Terminator, RoboCop, Conan The Barbarian, Robotech, and Planet Of The Apes. He’s written number-one-selling series for Marvel Comics. And he’s created and written multiple canonical stories for the Aliens universe, including the Zula Hendricks character.

Reviews

[Frédéric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Huh-Huh... Vol.4 confirmed what I suspected in Vol.3. This is all gonna end in mystical gobbledygook.
And I hate it when it ends in mystical gobbledygook.
The first part "Bloc" confirmed the discrepancies I had already noticed concerning Mary. Problem was, I wasn't sure if it was Garry Brown scratchy figures that made her look like 25 or if it was part of the script. I mean, Callum should be in his late 40's, maybe early 50's and looks like he is 35 and Mag looks more Carribean than Sri Lankan so I was right to wonder, right? Right. And since the same problem applies with Zezelj (whom I appreciate much more by the way, but still) it nagged me but I couldn't point it out.
With the second part "Sahara", we don't learn much more except that Mary(and I think the name is not by chance) is probably some entity, some incarnation, some...thing, supposed to represent Mother Earth or something like that.
Gobbledygook.
I already bought Vol.5 So I'll read it but I am not confident in what I'll discover there...

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

The volume where The Massive jumped the shark. In the first story, Callum and Arkady finally cross paths, but it's never shown why they hate each other. Maybe it happened in volume 1 and I just can't remember. It felt like a letdown after being built up over the last 3 volumes. The second story is totally focused on Mary. It's fantastic as a Mad Max: Fury Road type story on its own. But it alludes to a Mary having some mystical mumbo jumbo about her. I hate when writers takes a book that's been focused on reality and then add in a bunch of fantastical elements in way later. Follow the rules of the world you've built, Mr. Wood. If Mary turns out to be some representative for Mother Earth, it will have ruined this whole story.

[Cale · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume collects two shorter stories. The first, with Callum and Mag resolving their situation with Arkady isn't particularly memorable. It seems anticlimactic, and I've long forgotten the conflict with Arkady in the first place. It does have some ramifications that are good for getting everyone on the same wavelength, but it's not much of a story.
The second half, however, is very powerful. The story of Mary in the Sahara, guarding and guiding other women soldiers in a water convoy, predates Mad Max: Fury Road, but actually covers several of the same topics. It's tense, powerful, and some of Wood's best storytelling in the series. And the art is beautiful, especially as it starts to explain some of the mystery that is Mary. It feels almost like a completely different series, but is more than enough to recommend this book, even over the slower first story.

[MT · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aside from the predictably quick and easy wrap-up of a major arc and the graceless segue into another addressing a major character's background, this volume was stronger than others in that it was easier to follow, compelling to read, and held the promise of answers to some of the many questions we've been left with (namely who is Mary and what is her connection to the Crash?). Another strong point here is the humanity of the second arc: Wood sounds a strong alarm for waking up and changing our planet-killing ways while there's still (?) time. The consequences laid out felt very real in this volume. However, the supernatural/mystical mumbo jumbo doesn't sit well and the whole thing ultimately felt like yet another teaser--this time for an ending that will probably disappoint.

[ScottIsANerd (GrilledCheeseSamurai) · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the end of this volume it seems like things will be getting back on track. This trade seems like it was all about getting the house in order. It seems like Cal and his crew now have a more secure focus on what, exactly, their mission is. Mary...well...who can really say what she is all about. Her arc in this volume was pretty cool, and showed us that she is definitely a key in what is going on globally.

I'm stoked to see what that is exactly.

[Donovan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Massive, Mary, and the Crash. They're related."

YES. If that quote alone doesn't get you to read this, nothing will. This volume is a fast paced spy thriller and finally some hugely revealing background on the ever mysterious Mary.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

At this point being so deep into The Massive series, I feel like I'm committed and need to finish this. After the last volume I felt like this was getting to be a bit of "filler" driven to artificially extend the series and this volume doesn't really change my suspicions of that too much. However, they do start to address the mystery that is Mary and it's pretty much everything I didn't want it to be. Let's see how it goes.

Block The first three issue story arc kicks off with Bloc. In this story Cal and Mag are going to finally face off with Arkady. To be honest, I really loved this arc, this is what I really wanted this series to be and it felt like a return to the original design. A direct action environmentalist initiative populated by ex-private military personnel trying to make it in a world that is destroyed. Here we get to see more of the world's devastation in Europe and finally get some closure on the Arkady arc. I thought this whole sequence was pretty well written. The only "meh" part is when we start to find out more about the mystery that is Mary. In prior reviews I questioned whether there might be a supernatural answer for things and in this end of this arc it's pretty much confirmed. Here they start to question whether or not Mary has ever aged and the conclusion is basically, no. So, it seems Mary has been alive for way too long and it sets up a sequence where we should get answers in the next couple arcs at least.

Sahara: But first we're suddenly in the Sahara! We won't address anything that's going on with the Kapitel, but now we're in the Sahara with Mary. Having a Mary arc wasn't bad at all... but I was hoping the reason she left was a bit more, grandiose? Instead she's just working in Saudi Arabia and then gets hired on to guard a convoy delivering water to Morocco. Which is great and seeing how the Arab world is dealing with the Crash was super interesting, but I never felt like she was doing something more important that required leaving Cal and the others, especially with Cal dying of cancer. It is revealed that Mary is pregnant during this great journey and she gives birth to Cal's daughter. In the Bloc arc it is presented that Mary is super natural and what does it mean for a super natural being to give birth to a child? Maybe this is why she "needed to leave," but it's a phenomenally stupid reason. It made no sense given where she wound up giving birth and her "need" to leave was literally never addressed.

So, these two arcs were interesting... but it felt more like two parts good writing, one part okay writing, and two parts bad writing. This series is about to wrap up entirely and I'm in it till the end at this point. It's not like these things are all that time consuming to read, so I may as well stick with it. If this was a novel series though... I would have bailed a while ago.

[Norman Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume gets away from the ocean and onto land in Europe and Africa. The two story arcs flesh out the world and the characters of this post-crash world. Filled with tense action, this volume begins to reveal some of the secrets we've been anxiously waiting for. The artwork is fluid, but it's the coloring that really stands out, imparting emotional strength to the stories.

I just hope this series is a warning and not a prediction. I would not want to live in this world.

[Kaiju Reviews · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Bloc arc is easily my favorite of the series so far. Good art and atmosphere. Ties the characters' histories into the present. Has a few surprises and reveals character.

Sahara is one of the worst arcs I've read in anything. Bland. Dumb. It doesn't even try to make sense. Plus it one ups the already silly fantasy element of this series that didn't need to be there. If there weren't only six issues left, I'd stop reading this.

What a disappointing outing The Massive has turned out to be.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Questo 4o volume tiene l'incipit del 3o, 2 macro storie che iniziano e finiscono win questo volume.

Sicuramente una delle più belle storie fin qui trattate è quella di Mary nel Sahara, davvero di forte impatto.

Purtroppo se devo dare un voto al contesto, inizio ad avere la certezza che il tutto si chiuderà con un finale mistico tralasciando la parte reale con cui era partita la storia e di cui ancora rimane pregna.

[Karl · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Sahara”’was the stronger of the 2 stories. The art by Zezelj far outshone Brown’s in the first story and the compelling arc of Mary and the women soldiers made for a satisfying read. I’m going to let this Volume settle before reading the finale #5. I will say that thus far The Massive is not Wood’s strongest stuff.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spoiler, sort of. One thing i really liked about The Massive comic series, i read the first dozen, was not explaining how The Crash (the name given to the world altering event that sets the comic in motion). Like the Phantom Stranger it was just There, no origin. This collection begins to tell what happened and there is a mystical element to it but because Brian Wood is writing it, it works.

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

All the mystical stuff with Mary is horrible but man that Sahara water convoy story was so good. Callum is made a hostage again, nothing new there-also with no great logic or explanation, oddly just like Tom King's Batman-so schizophrenic. Great moments and follows every good idea with something that is confusing or maddening.

[Geoff Sebesta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Goddammit, Mary is magic? I don't want to make a big deal about genres but this is NOT the story I wanted to read.

I want a good post-apocalyptic political soap opera, not leftovers from Lost.

[Josie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the foray into the characters backstories.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally, the story actually moves forward.

[Jason Fryer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really cool to get some back story on the most mysterious character in the series. Also good to wrap up a few loose ends. As always the art was fantastic.

[Tina Olah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this volume, especially since it starts to reveal the mysteries behind one particular character and potentially the Crash itself. I can't wait to read the final volume!

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

just when I thought I couldn't keep going with this series - I got sucked into the Mary story. I still find the graphics distract from the story

[Alexander Pyles · Rating 3 out of 5]

This felt like a gear change to some degree. The idea that "Mary" was different felt a bit shoehorned in or maybe I was just missing the clues in previous issues.

[Isaac Hladky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tensions rising.

[Brent · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of these artists, especially Daniel Zezelj and the late John Paul Leon, whose covers here rock. Garry Brown is new to me, but his style suits this fine.
This is a kind of genre mash-up, and well crafted. There are two story arcs in this volume, and the first, a kind of spy story, is less successful than the second, a mechanized trek across the Sahara with a mystical protagonist in this post-apocalyptic series.
Mildly recommended.

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the Kapital is bombed in dock (remind you of anything? - foreword of the book is by a Greenpeace activist) Callum and Mag head across the ruins of Eastern Europe to track down an old Blackbell comrade who has been tracking them with an eye to subverting Ninth Wave to his own ends. Along the way, Callum is presented with some disturbing information about the missing Mary, which confirms what has been hinted all along -there is something definitely not normal about her. Meanwhile Mary is in the Sahara, taking part in a massive convoy of water from Saudi Arabia to Morocco, hoping to help the women hired to guard the trucks get there and back safely. Utterly fantastic. Nothing else like it out there, tapping into ecology, ethical philosophy, economics and geopolitics in an epic, grounded narrative, and I really wish there was.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

The review for this volume will serve as my review for this volume and the previous three. The Massive starts slow, but is not uninteresting, and the barest hint of the mystery of the titular The Massive was enough to carry me from Volume 1 to Volume 2. Just as I was prepared to potentially give up after Volume 2 there was enough of a mystery to once again pull me to Volume 3. By Volume 3, it felt like it was my duty to read Volume 4 mostly because I mistakenly thought it was the final volume and not because I was necessarily having a good time.

Volume 4 is not only not the final volume, but also doesn't really contain anything that makes me want to move on to Volume 5 except perhaps some weird sense of duty for having gotten this far. After spending much of Volume 4 being a radical jerk to a whaling enemy from his past (who does appear to be a colossal ass, but also rightly points out that they aren't really doing anything wrong by subsistence sailing using Viking techniques), Cal Israel is brought face to face with Arkady in a very fast and not at all interesting conclusion to that sub-story. From there, we find out that Mary is some sort of entity who may be the Earth herself and was possibly controlling the Earth's forces to cause the Crash and teach humanity not to be such jerks to the world. It doesn't appear to have worked as she intended.

Overall, I like the art in The Massive, though it is a bit inconsistent as they change artists here and there. It has some great, striking scenes occasionally, and only a few places where things didn't quite make sense in a jarring way.

Given where this volume went I don't know that I'm going to bother tracking down the final volume and I'm not sure I'd say reading this far was worth it. This is especially true if the mystery of The Massive ends up being as dissatisfying as I suspect. Of course, The Massive does have it's moment and it's many of these moment to moment things that were interesting in the first place (I particularly thought Moschka Station was interesting, the shark segment involving Mary, and the scenes around New York had an oomph to them, for example) but as a whole there's a ton of stuff going on in The Massive and not all of it was for me.

[Michael Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Massive, Sahara is the fourth in this series about an environmentalist group trying to take action against pollution, social injustice, and other Western concerns. The series is set in a dystopian future, after most of today's powers have collapsed due to natural and social disasters. Overall, the story is not great, but builds on the characters and is even good in the first half.

The graphics are very nice, with a detailed style that fits the action theme. The diversity of backgrounds, in particular European capitals, is impressive. The characters are well portrayed and quite distinctive. The desert scenes are memorable.

The story is much better constructed than in previous installments in the series. The flashbacks have been cut to a minimum, and the two major stories allow for more refinement and polish than the previous mini-stories featured in the first three parts of this series. The two lead stories here focus on revenge (the Central-East European capitals as background) and mercy (the desert), each built with enough care to make a difference. There is still some distance from the powerful story of Maus or the delicate detail of Daytripper, but we are finally witnesses of Story.

Perhaps as a consequence of the longer and more refined story, the characters start growing in front of our eyes. Israel becomes human and seeks revenge, and finds a way to encourage free will of a crew member while doing it. Mary is with child, which makes her a bit more human; unfortunately, she is still the cliched environmental (super-)hero.

[The_Mad_Swede · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the events in Longship , Mary has left Kapital and its sick captain is trying to confront his past, in the shape of an old associate from his mercenary days, Arkady. This is the basic set-up for the first three-issue arc, Bloc, drawn by Garry Brown, in this volume. It also allows further investigation into the shared history of Callum Israel and Mag Nagendra, as the latter confront the former about his illness and recent actions.

In the second three-issue arc, Sahara, drawn by Danijel Zezelj, focus is turned on Mary, who is now in Saudi Arabia, and set to travel through North Africa as a part of water caravan. It is an interesting storyline, and also provides further clues into the mystery that is Mary.

All in all, the world-building continues in this fourth and penultimate volume, while expanding our understanding both of the post-Crash world and the events that lead to this particular scenario. And Brian Wood continues to deliver upon his narrative premise.

[Seth · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far this has been the best volume. Cal settles some old scores and starts to put the pieces together on the The Massive and Mary's involvement with its disappearance. Mag and Cal come to an understanding about the tactical operations of the Kapital. Also, the reader finally gets a bit more background on the mysterious Mary and what kind of stuff happens when she disappears from the 9th Wave. I just love this series and can't wait for volume 5!

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of this volume focuses on Captain Callum Israel and first mate Mag Nagendra as they pursue answers in what's left of Eastern Europe. (And could a certain song hold the key to finding those answers?) In the second half, we learn more about the mysterious past of Mary. Good stuff. The next volume will, unfortunately, be the last as The Massive just ended with issue #30.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this series.
Individually, the trade paperbacks get 4 stars, as a whole it deserves 5.
Althoguh I am fairly certain that once it is done, it will all be collected into hardcover format, which you just know I will be buying as well, for now the trades will have to suffice.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Veering a little off course this volume, with Cal in Europe pursuing a vendetta off-ship and Mary gone walkabout with a water convoy in Africa. That and revelations about Mary take the tale a bit out of the gritty reality realm.