Restarted East of West while at the vet Saturday and finished it on Sunday.



Set in the dystopian 2064 United States, the series explores an alternate timeline where in the past, the Civil War never ended and an extended war continued until a comet hits present-day Kansas in 1908. The six warring parties met at Armistice-the site of the comet's impact-and made a truce. This resulted in the signing of the treaty forming "the Seven Nations of America": the Armistice, The Union, The Confederacy, the Kingdom of New Orleans, the Endless Nation, the Republic of Texas, and the People's Republic of America.

On the day of the treaty signing, Elijah Longstreet, a Confederate Army soldier under Stonewall Jackson, and Red Cloud, the chief of chiefs to the Native American tribes of the Endless Nation, simultaneously prophesied what would later become part of The Message. Both immediately collapsed and died after delivering their respective prophecies.
In 1958, Chairman Mao Zedong of the PRA wrote the addendum to his Little Red Book; this addendum was the third piece of the prophecy meant to complete The Message, which foretold the Apocalypse.
It's everything I love about comics: tell a bat-shit story that has an ending. The art is amazing and the story goes to some places. Sure there's a time or two where you see it going right but then it zigs left predictably enough and you're left with "oh of course that happened". But it doesn't do that enough to be annoying.

Don't read the synopsis on the wikipedia. There's a lot more to it than what's above and it ends with "Here begins the story of East of West #1." except it actually tells you close to the whole story, some of which is not revealed until the last couple of books. Heck, one of those things I'm pretty sure wasn't in the book I read because it didn't make a lick of sense in the book and the explanation there leaves me with more questions than I had before.

Anyway. It's over and done and collected and great.

Only question that I had at the end - because pretty much every story was wrapped pretty well - is Spoiler: what happens to the four horsemen next? it's already said that they reincarnate after death so they're going to start up again in another decade or so? And all four are going to...what, exactly? They didn't leave on good terms. Oh well. point of setting up a sequel is to not answer everything.