DISTANT FUTURE MONTH #10: Transmetropolitan, by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson (1997)

Type of Media: Comic Book

The 90s were a dark time for comic books. Not only because it’s when the speculation bubble for comic book collecting reached its peak and finally burst, but also because comic book characters and stories started to get more bloody, broody, and angsty. Marvel and DC wanted to make their comics more ‘mature’, but they thought all they needed was gore, cursing, and sex to make that happen. At first Transmetropolitan seems like one of those unfortunate creations, wearing its ‘suggested for mature readers’ label like a sophomoric badge of honor, but once you get a few issues in it reveals its true nature: a social and political satire that uses a cyberpunk future to jab at human development.

Transmetropolitan documents the exploits of Spider Jerusalem, famed gonzo journalist of the 23rd century. Spider, helped by his sidekicks Yelena Rossini and Channon Yarrow, writes a weekly column called I Hate It Here which explores life and corruption in The City, a massive megalopolis whose residents are mostly concerned with diving into the latest hedonistic pleasure the future can offer. His articles delve into marginalized communities, street-level trends, and police brutality, though a large chunk of the story is centered on Spider covering a presidential election between incumbent president The Beast and challenger Senator Gary Callahan, as well as the terrible aftermath.

Even while he’s doing good work, Spider isn’t really a fun character to be with. He’s a self-important misanthrope, does enough drugs to impress Hunter S. Thompson, and often resorts to violence to get to the Truth (yes, he capitalizes the ‘t’ in ‘truth’). He’s the epitome of 90’s self-righteousness, edgy to the point of ridiculousness and worshipping his own anger because if you’re not ANGRY then you must not be PAYING ATTENTION and WAKE UP SHEEPLE. He has a juvenile sense of humor epitomized by his weapon of choice, the Bowel Disruptor, a ray gun that gives its target diarrhea. 

Spider’s virtue is that he uses his column to shine a light on issues that don’t typically get mainstream media coverage because they make people uncomfortable. Even though the future has pollen-sized audio recorders, matter fabricators, and highly targeted gene splicing, it’s still a world with hate crimes, and child prostitution, and lying sociopathic politicians, and that makes Spider sick. The comic uses this dichotomy between high tech and low culture to make satirical statements, like early on in the book when it mentions a primitive alien species that exported its culture to Earth. The Earthlings mined every aspect of the alien’s culture for trends and exhausted it within two years, leaving the aliens poor and only able to make money by selling their DNA to people on Earth who wanted to splice it with their own. Whether that’s enough to help you tolerate Spider Jerusalem is going to determine if you can enjoy Transmetropolitan or not.

Now that doesn’t sound like a ringing recommendation, but I actually do urge you to pick up this comic. I try to avoid too many spoilers in these articles, so I’ll just say if you live in the United States the main story of Spider covering the presidency is relevant to what’s been going on politically in our country. Not a 100% parallel, but considering this comic ran fifteen years ago it’s a bit surprising how real things get. Maybe when you’re done with it you won’t agree with the main character’s social views or the way he conducts himself, but you might think the world could use a few more Spider Jerusalems.