Mr. Vertigo

Once Upon a Time at the End of the World Book Two: The Rise and Fall of Golgonooza
Jason Aaron, writer; Leila del Duca, illustrator; Tamra Bonvillain, colorist; with Alexandre Tefengi & Nick Dragotta, illustrators; Lee Loughridge & Rico Renzi, colorists
Boom! Studios, 2024

The second installment follows Maceo and Mazzy as they travel through the wasteland, grow into adulthood, and fall in love.  They finally find the oasis Mazzy had learned about from the old Wasteland Ranger before she killed him. They name the city Golgonooza after a line from William Blake’s Jerusalem: a great heavenly city of art and imagination, inspiration and intellect, flesh and spirit. They begin to rebuild, joined by more and more kindred spirits (whom they invited via Golden Gadgets that they have invented and spread around the wasteland).

At first, it is a kind of paradise, like a tremendous hippy commune. Everyone cooperated to grow food and run the city, along with good old-fashioned free love (which included polyamory and group sex). Suddenly, a poisonous green mist seeped in from the wasteland. Contact with it drove the residents insane: they became violent, saying that their fellow citizens did not deserve joy (language that Mazzy remembers from the Wasteland Rangers that she has been running away from). Next thing we know, there are rats in town, and the couple starts to doubt each other.

Soon, the whole town is on edge, wearing masks, feeling disconnected from each other, and hunting for a mysterious monster that has been attacking them. In the end, Golgonooza was empty and abandoned, and Maceo and Mazzy turned on each other. But before they could fight it out, a massive earthquake left them on the opposite sides of a wide crevasse. This shows how they ended up opposing each other in the previous flash-forwards. The last panel says, “Concluded in Book Three.” It will be interesting to see how the team sticks the landing. The collection ends with several examples of “Script to Page,” plus character designs by Leila Del Duca and alternate covers by Cory Godbey.