Review by Karl Verhoven

If there was any doubt about Once Upon a Time at the End of the World being completely a romance, that’s emphatically wiped away by writer Jason Aaron in The Rise and Fall of Golgonooza‘s opening pages. We’ve leapt forward in time from Book One, discarding artist Alexandre Tefenkgi along the way (apart from a couple of pages) leaving Leila del Duca to provide a spread of Maceo and Mezzy consummating their relationship. It’s explicit, unsubtle and rather embarrassing, so not the page Aaron will look back on as the pinnacle of his writing career. Yet what follows is a really sweet exploration of a couple delighting in each other physically ending with the coda “together they explored the world. One touch at a time”. Nice, no?

The opening chapter is a delightful exploration, a coming to terms with what Maceo and Mezzy are, and what the world around them offers, ending in a smart visual metaphor hinting at what we’ve already seen will come. Del Duca’s art is a little looser than her predecessor, more expressionistic in conveying everything gone to hell, but that doesn’t last for long, as much of Book Two is about rediscovery and reconstruction.

Introducing Maceo as a technical engineering genius was no random piece of colour. When a venue is found he’s instrumental in making it a home, and we’re shown the gradual growth of a community as more wanderers find their way to Golgonooza. It’s idyllic in rewriting all the rules, but we know from flashes forward in Book One, and indeed the “Fall” in the subtitle that it’s temporary.

There’s a slowly creeping menace affecting the community, and Aaron let’s us speculate as to what it might be. Is it a gas with hallucinogenic properties activating deepest fears, or is there a guiding voice behind it? Well, those grim flash-forwards illustrated by Nick Dragotta appear again in the final chapter, and he takes over the complete art in Book Three. Perhaps the end of the world wasn’t what we saw at the start, but something the cast are heading toward.