Spectators

Pride of Baghdad creators Vaughan and Henrichon reunite to usher readers into front-row seats to an audacious, explicit, and chaotic apocalypse. Killed in a mass shooting at a movie theater, Val discovers that she and her fellow ghosts have one form of entertainment in the afterlife: watching the living, particularly in coitus. “Another evening, another ten million new episodes,” she quips decades later as she follows the New Yorkers of the future with the passion of a soap opera fan, taking in high-tech sex and deadly underground gladiator matches. This idyll of lust and violence is interrupted when nuclear war breaks out, inspiring Val and a ghostly Black cowboy named Sam to embark on a final mission: find an orgy to watch as the world ends. From these narrative elements, Vaughan spins a saga on the nature of voyeurism and obsession, drawing parallels between the ghosts’ absorption of mortal lives and audiences watching movies, pornography, and TV news. If these concepts never quite coalesce into a clear statement, Henrichon renders them prettily, filling pages with richly detailed, sexually frank images of a futuristic, haunted New York City. The ghosts appear in color, the living world in black-and-white, adding to the sense that the characters are drifting through three-dimensional movies. It’s an eye-popping show. (Sept.)