Far Sector

 
 
Far Sector

by NK Jemisin

art by Jamal Campbell

DC Comics

2021

 

 

Far Sector is a year-long space comic told in 12 monthly chapters. It's a Green Lantern story, but starring a new, different Green Lantern, and the titular 'Far Sector' is physically outside the continuity of any ongoing space comics. (It's sort of like the Xindi season of Enterprise in that way.) It was published by DC under their Young Animal imprint, under the editorial supervision of Gerard Way. And of course, author NK Jemisin is pretty famous in her own right.

 
Jo Mullein is a human, a Black woman, a former police officer, and a former soldier before that. She witnesses but fails to stop her cop partner from beating a Black suspect, plans to testify against him, then gets fired for violating 'social media policy' when a friend tags her in a BLM post. And the she gets recruited to become a Green Lantern and help keep the peace in the City Enduring, an artificial planetoid with a population of 20 billion, made up of three main groups.

 
One group is basically human-looking aliens who also have fish-like tails and fish-fin-like wings growing out of their backs, another are carnivorous plant people, and the @ AT are sentient AIs that physically manifest as holograms. The humanoids and plant people all have 'the Emotion Exploit' coded into their genes to prevent them from feeling emotions. The @ AT use memes as both food and currency, and because emotionless people don't produce many good memes, the @AT are collectively impoverished and food-insecure.

 
The Emotion Exploit is there because in the past, the three groups went to war and destroyed their original planets in the aftermath of being colonized by some other aliens who aren't really part of this story. That war was blamed on excessive anger, so a powerful religious minority forced the gene edit on everyone, where it remains today. Some people use an illegal drug called Switchoff to temporarily experience feelings.

 
Anyway, shortly after Jo arrives, the City has its first murder in 500 years, a crime that's blamed on Switchoff abuse. The suspect is also killed as part of what appears to be a cover-up. There's a pro-emotion protest that turns into a riot, police firing in civilians, and Jo trying to keep the peace and understand the causes of the crimes. She has a cute @AT assistant called @iCanHazCheezburger (or 'CanHaz' for short), and there's a handsome brooding City councilor who both wants to romance her and seems connected to all the unrest somehow.

 
Because it involves city politics, police violence, drugs, forced labor, and eventually an attempted coup, the crime part of the story has a real noir feeling. The alien worldbuilding is interesting, and I'm particularly fond of the @AT. Jo is easy to root for. She falls short of her own high standards, but she tries to be a good person, even when it's hard. We don't learn a whole lot about her personally beyond her desire to protect people and secure justice, but we do see her enjoying alien food and having relationships with two locals without feeling hung up or conflicted about it.

 
The comic keeps mentioning that Jo's Green Lantern ring is 'special,' but since I don't really read the other comics, it's not totally clear how so. Apparently it recharges differently and has less overall power, which I guess makes Jo and her techniques more grounded. She's willing to spend her power when she needs to though, and it manifests in creative and visually interesting ways. Artist Jamal Campbell does a good job at showing faces when people react to information and at composing really dynamic action panels. I think this is one of the better superhero comics I've read in awhile.