The thing about any hero’s journey is that it only ever gets harder. Max Weaver has learned this firsthand across the first four issues of Precious Metal, as creators Darcy Van Poelgeest and Ian Bertram have put the future Sarge through the wringer to facilitate some new ideas and understandings. In issue #5, just as Max’s mission meets reaches the final stretch, we learn the true scope of what it means to be a hero.
Leading up to Precious Metal #5, Max had been trying to rescue an augmented boy from the Church, and along the way he encountered folks like the Doctor and Selina Chen who complicated his journey to both understand and possibly even redeem himself. But after the last two issues, where Max experienced some profound personal transformation (he sees the arc of his life and his role more clearly if not entirely clear), he is met not with some reward but a new obstacle.
Namely, now that he’s rescued the boy, does he give him back to the Doctor to save America, or exchange him for his daughter (Alina) and redeem himself in the eyes of the one person who truly matters to our traveling paladin. It’s an impossible choice if there ever was one, and the way it unfolds is meant to torture and agonize Max (and also prove to him that even his most robust convictions may not be enough). It’s another way that Van Poelgeest has deconstructed Max to truly elevate him, using his emotional pain and poking at his perceptions (of himself and the world) to make us consider all sorts of big ideas and questions. Chief among them are not only the thematic tentpoles of memory and family, but also what truly makes a hero, can people be truly redeemed, what is destiny and can we change our path, and even if the world is worth truly saving.
You might have some idea about what decision Max makes, but like all great heroic tales, it’s about the journey — this long, harrowing trip into the very hearts of ourselves to better comprehend our mettle and just what kind of person we really are when the world and your life are at stake and you can only truly save one. Max’s pain is very real, especially in this issue, and I think we see him more clearly than ever as he’s once more laid extra bare. He’s got some of the answers and a better grasp of the “game,” but he’s very much still a pawn in this thing he cannot fully scape. We feel for him because of his heart and decency, and we hope to disconnect ourselves in the same vein because his pursuit of knowledge and truth leads him places we pray we could always avoid. But like Max, there’s only one path forward, and you’ll walk that road through broken bones and that gnawing sense of doubt and unease.
Main cover by Ian Bertram. Courtesy of Image Comics.
If one thing’s clear in this “leg” of Max’s journey, it’s that things are dire to the Nth degree. And the art of this issue (with Bertram once again joined by colorist Matt Hollingsworth) captures that with a continued level of brutality and elegance. Across Precious Metal, I’ve lent heaps of praise about the art team’s ability to capture these grandiose environments with impossible scale/size, and bizarre biopunk creations that boggle the mind. But in Precious Metal #5, it really felt like a proper horror show.
As a rule, both Precious Metal (and even Little Bird to an extent) had a really great kind of horror attached. The way that violence is regarded with such vivid detail and unflinching intent, for instance, has always been a central component of this book’s outreach. And even Max’s design (with what’s basically “techno-organic octopus limb”) certainly pushes the boundaries of what we perceive to be human/inhuman.
But in issue #5, all that felt turned up by a few dozen factors, and what we got was melting blood monsters, biopunk technology consuming human bodies, and just this general sense that the world had seemed to crack open even further and revealed something especially terrifying and unnerving. Which makes sense: Max’s journey is at a breaking point of sorts, and as he’s on the precipice of true and lasting change/transformation. As such, you’d expect him to see the true scope of a world that’s capable of great beauty and grandeur as well as horrific displays of how the human form can easily be consumed by violence, fate, and our baser machinations.
At the same time, I think this more notable “uptick” in horror is a little more nuanced and committed to some larger end goals than simply shocking readers. As I’d mentioned already, Max is at a point where he’s forced to see himself, his role in the world, the plans of men who run the Church, and even the true face of a world who demands your decency but will rip you apart for it regardless. And as he steps deeper into this terrifying new perspective, where he’d have every right to run and hide, Max instead seems more committed.
Variant cover by Matías Bergara. Courtesy of Image Comics.
He’s capable of just as much overt “violence” in this issue, and his ability to get into the thick of an especially visceral chapter just proves that he’s embracing the chaos and uncertainty for all the reasons that matter (like doing the right thing when it’s impossibly hard). In this way, the book’s romanticism and scale marked Max’s life in a kind of closet, where he lived mostly unexamined. By embracing that introspection, then, even as it leads to horrifying scenarios, he is now closer to something resembling truth and integrity. Those aren’t exactly the happiest sentiments based on the state of things, but they’re real and raw, and it’s where true people are forged. It’s part of Max’s journey that’s actually worth celebrating: the blinders are off, he sees everything, and now is the time to make a stand for true goodness (even if you die amid the bloody madness).
And if you ask me, that’s about as good of a journey as any hero could ever ask for. We’ll have to wait till November’s Precious Metal #6 to see what happens. (The solicitations promise events that’ll alter the very core of the “Little Bird-verse.”) But as it stands, Precious Metal #5 was enough of a true transformation for Max and even those around him — a moment to strip the final copper wires from the old world and show us something more terrifying and exhilarating than ever before.
There are no more places to hide, excuses to dole out, and questions left to answer. (OK, there’s still heaps more questions, but you get it, yeah?) Now comes the time when we see what our hero’s truly made of (not just blood and mods), and I for one can’t wait to see if this epic can once again smash our loftiest expectations.
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