Howard Chaykin is no stranger to creating comics with a focus on sex, drugs, and violence. His latest comic The Divided States of Hysteria is his first attempt at developing a comic that has close ties to politics. The story focuses on Frank Villa a CIA field officer known for tracking and capturing various people who have committed crimes. His latest mission is to prevent a terrorist attack from occurring that is aimed at eliminating the President of the United States.
The Good:
Howard Chaykin does an excellent job of capturing how terrorism occurs. This is done through the interaction between Frank Villa and Erika X. Frank Villa is a central intelligence officer who was the first person in his family to graduate from high school and college. While in college he interned as a central intelligence officer and has been working there ever since. He has tracked down, arrested, and stopped several threats from occurring on U.S. soil. He has been assigned to stop Erika X an activist/ terrorist Muslim woman who wants to blow herself up. Erika is an ordinary looking woman who appears pregnant, which she is using to hide an explosive inside of her. Frank has intelligence on Erika and he tracks down the car she is supposed to be in which is driven by an accomplice with a blow-up doll. Although Frank has the right intelligence Erika has managed to sneak past him and his team and has made it to New York. Once in New York Erika is joined by several other women who have explosives where they choose to detonate the explosives in the name of Islam. The comic captures how an unlikely group can commit an act of terrorism to circumvent intelligence agencies. This is clear in the comic as Erika X has done so by using her “pregnancy” to hide explosives that were than denoted. No matter what intelligence Frank had there was no possible way for him to know that she would have used this tactic.
The Bad:
The comic is confusing primarily as there are four characters that have no direct connection with Frank or Erika X, the main focus of the first issue. Rather these four individuals are all involved in isolated events. Henry John, a black man, was arrested for killing 9 white people. Silver Christopher Michael, a transsexual prostitute, was arrested for killing a customer who became to rough with her. Paul Evan Berg a computer hacker and chemist was arrested for robbing and killing all the people he took from. Finally, Clesare John Nacamulli was arrested for being a corrupt New York City Cop. While these four individuals have fascinating stories, currently there is no link on how they are related to Frank or Erika X and the terrorist attack that she committed. This adds an element of confusion to who and why they are currently in the comic.
The Verdict:
Whenever Howard Chaykin puts pen to a comic you know you are going to get a thought-provoking story. The Divided States of Hysteria is no different as his comic forces a reader to think about the current world that we live in and how the threats of terrorism are evolving and what can and is being done to stop it. Furthermore, his comic pushes forth the idea that sometimes elements of terrorism can’t be stopped and when that occurs how do you deal with the consequences that occur from those events. Without a doubt if you love or hate Howard Chaykin The Divided States of Hysteria will make you question how terrorism affects us everyday.
