Paper Girls 2
by Brian Vaughan
art by Cliff Chiang
2016
In the first volume of Paper Girls, four girls on their paper routes the morning after Halloween joined together, initially for self-defense against older teen boys out looking for trouble, and then to try to figure out and stay away from a whole host of weird things happening in their neighborhood.
For reasons unknown, the 'Old Timers' came to that morning in the late 1980s and imposed an electronic and communications blackout, kidnapping almost everyone except our four young heroines. Some far future teen boys with a stolen time machine arrived at the same time to steal useful tech. It's not clear if the Old Timers are there to catch the teens, or if the teens are there to take advantage of the blackout.
But when Chinese American new girl Erin got injured, it was one of the mystery teens who got her medical care. Shortly afterward, their time machine exploded! Erin, Mac, and Tiffany were sent to 2016 where they ran into Erin's adult self. KJ went somewhere else.
Now in volume 2, adult Erin brings her younger self and two friends home. We learn she has the scar from the injury, but no memory of how she got it. It seems the Old Timers eventually put everything back and erase everyone's memories after doing ... whatever it is they're up to. Separately, another future teen who speaks an alien language arrives in 2016. This one is also Erin? It turns out she's a clone, grown from Erin's blood after she got medical care, and she's the niece of the teen boys from the first volume.
Young Erin and Old Erin go to the abandoned shopping mall to look for KJ. They find her field hockey stick with a message carved in it - a warning not to trust 'the other Erin', and directions for where to go next. But which one is 'other'? Mac and Tiffany go looking for their own older selves, and Mac learns she died of leukemia in the early 90s. Meanwhile, Clone Erin is also on her way to the mall, and manages to run into Mac and Tiffany on the way.
Clone Erin's trip somehow brought a pair of hundred foot tall tardigrades with her, and they immediately start wrecking downtown Cleveland, which attracts the attention of the Old Timers again. They arrive in a combination zeppelin-cathedral and unleash another squadron of knights riding pteradons.
From Clone Erin and the leader of the Old Timers, we learn that there is only one timeline, no branching or parallel worlds, and there are at least two factions with access to time travel, although their goals, and what rules they might follow, remain unknown. Both factions seem to want the paper girls, although we don't understand why yet. The leader of the Old Timers mentions that his mother was born in 2016, and worries that he and his airship are 'breaking curfew' in order to address the tardigrades, so there might be another faction we haven't met yet that will show up soon.
Eventually Clone Erin tries to kidnap the girls to her far future home, but they manage to send her back alone. With Old Erin's help, they dodge the Old Timers, and follow the directions from the hockey stick, arriving at a different future where their friend KJ is waiting for them.
Some time travel ideas are easier to understand than others. You have to be pretty far in the weeds, for example, to understand how the most shocking scene in the film Looper is supposed to work. The idea of a single timeline, and a group somehow outside it who repeatedly writes over parts of it to preserve their preferred version of human history benefits a bit from familiarity. Isaac Asimov introduced this version of time travel, along with a bureacratic agency that monitors changes in The End of Eternity. John Crowley and Charles Stross have both told their own versions, in Great Work of Time and Palimpsest, and anyone who's watched the Loki tv show has seen Marvel's version of time travel law enforcement. Visually, the Old Timers in Paper Girls look nothing like the 'man in a gray suit' bureaucrats that usually show up in these stories, but I think the idea about time travel is the same.
Volume 1 introduced the girls and the mysteries and set things in motion. Now in volume 2, we learn a lot more about Erin, and a fair bit about what's going on, and the action definitely ramps up. I'm excited to see what's next!
For reasons unknown, the 'Old Timers' came to that morning in the late 1980s and imposed an electronic and communications blackout, kidnapping almost everyone except our four young heroines. Some far future teen boys with a stolen time machine arrived at the same time to steal useful tech. It's not clear if the Old Timers are there to catch the teens, or if the teens are there to take advantage of the blackout.
But when Chinese American new girl Erin got injured, it was one of the mystery teens who got her medical care. Shortly afterward, their time machine exploded! Erin, Mac, and Tiffany were sent to 2016 where they ran into Erin's adult self. KJ went somewhere else.
Now in volume 2, adult Erin brings her younger self and two friends home. We learn she has the scar from the injury, but no memory of how she got it. It seems the Old Timers eventually put everything back and erase everyone's memories after doing ... whatever it is they're up to. Separately, another future teen who speaks an alien language arrives in 2016. This one is also Erin? It turns out she's a clone, grown from Erin's blood after she got medical care, and she's the niece of the teen boys from the first volume.
Young Erin and Old Erin go to the abandoned shopping mall to look for KJ. They find her field hockey stick with a message carved in it - a warning not to trust 'the other Erin', and directions for where to go next. But which one is 'other'? Mac and Tiffany go looking for their own older selves, and Mac learns she died of leukemia in the early 90s. Meanwhile, Clone Erin is also on her way to the mall, and manages to run into Mac and Tiffany on the way.
Clone Erin's trip somehow brought a pair of hundred foot tall tardigrades with her, and they immediately start wrecking downtown Cleveland, which attracts the attention of the Old Timers again. They arrive in a combination zeppelin-cathedral and unleash another squadron of knights riding pteradons.
From Clone Erin and the leader of the Old Timers, we learn that there is only one timeline, no branching or parallel worlds, and there are at least two factions with access to time travel, although their goals, and what rules they might follow, remain unknown. Both factions seem to want the paper girls, although we don't understand why yet. The leader of the Old Timers mentions that his mother was born in 2016, and worries that he and his airship are 'breaking curfew' in order to address the tardigrades, so there might be another faction we haven't met yet that will show up soon.
Eventually Clone Erin tries to kidnap the girls to her far future home, but they manage to send her back alone. With Old Erin's help, they dodge the Old Timers, and follow the directions from the hockey stick, arriving at a different future where their friend KJ is waiting for them.
Some time travel ideas are easier to understand than others. You have to be pretty far in the weeds, for example, to understand how the most shocking scene in the film Looper is supposed to work. The idea of a single timeline, and a group somehow outside it who repeatedly writes over parts of it to preserve their preferred version of human history benefits a bit from familiarity. Isaac Asimov introduced this version of time travel, along with a bureacratic agency that monitors changes in The End of Eternity. John Crowley and Charles Stross have both told their own versions, in Great Work of Time and Palimpsest, and anyone who's watched the Loki tv show has seen Marvel's version of time travel law enforcement. Visually, the Old Timers in Paper Girls look nothing like the 'man in a gray suit' bureaucrats that usually show up in these stories, but I think the idea about time travel is the same.
Volume 1 introduced the girls and the mysteries and set things in motion. Now in volume 2, we learn a lot more about Erin, and a fair bit about what's going on, and the action definitely ramps up. I'm excited to see what's next!
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