Prophet #27

Story by Brandon Graham with Giannis Milonogiannis and Simon Roy

Art by Giannis Milonogiannis

Published by Image

Our issue starts with the exploits of the original John Prophet or the Old Man. Or one man death squad as I refer to him. So when you’re one of the baddest dudes in the galaxy how do you make your way through space? Well, first you ditch the space ship that you stole and hitch a ride on a giant interstellar worm. And then you dream of your past.
John Prophet’s past is a war with the empire.

I’m trying to figure out what his army is fighting. Is he fighting the big red guy or are they fighting the red organism? He has an army of Prophet style Iron Men, where the suit lives on even if you die because future tech is scary. (This was discussed last issue.) He is also aided by other warriors such as Yiala and Diehard. Yiala is a female lizard so of course he has sex with her. Who won’t the Prophets sleep with in the future? Do they even pretend to have a standard? What’s the word for being Pansexual between species? That cool line about him being a “Friend of the Scale” in issue 25? It should have been “Friend of the Scale with Benefits”.

So this issue explores how the original badass John Prophet finds an old friend and acquires a ship. His friend is a living tree who can provide you fruit when you’re locked in a battle scene. He values his old friend attached to a giant root. He tells his friend, attached to a giant tree root, what has happened to his old friends: Jiji the Collector, John Sametime, Sharpsmooth, Hurf, Red Sleep and John Giant. All dead apparently. But his ambulatory tree friend does have one gift: “Diehard’s Arm”. Plus he knows where to find an interstellar spaceship. Then they’re attacked by white space whales, which I think is a direct homage/theft of the Norman Spinrad Moby Dick influenced episode of Star Trek, except more literal. And they’re a buncha white whales.

Yet another fine issue of Prophet 27, which routinely makes violent and sexual epic science fiction feel like poetry. 4.8997 out of 5 stars. And what does this symbol, at the end of each issue, actually mean? Is it just a visual coda of sorts? There’s also a back up story but for once it’s just so but its not very good and doesn’t seem related to Our Saga. And yes describing Prophet books is very Pythonesque.