Demo #5 – Review

by Brian Wood (writer), Becky Cloonan (artist)

The Story: Lisbeth can travel through time.  She decides to travel backwards to visit her teenage self so that she can try and steer herself clear of living the empty and vapid life she’s found herself in the present.  While there, she also decides to take brutal revenge on her abusive father, but nothing is ever that simple.

What’s Good: I’m a sucker for time travel stories.  So, as I read this issue of Demo and realized that’s what this issue was, I was elated.  There’s just something about plots that concern damaged characters trying to change what made them who they are through the use of science fiction that gets me every time.  Wood’s tale of Lisbeth and the straight-forward approach with which he treats her gift are refreshing.  Most time travel stories are full of plot points and morals that teach you that you should never use time travel for personal gain and that, above all else, you can never, ever, change events in the past because of the cataclysmic effects such an action might have on the present.  In this issue of Demo however, the writer immediately throws such concerns to the wind.  Lisbeth is living a financially successful life due directly to her abusing her time traveling abilities.  When she travels backwards in time to visit her younger self, she physically touches the young Lisbeth (a common no-no in these types of stories) and is very candid about what she needs to do in the future.  Not only that, but she kills (or at least tries to) someone who I assume is meant to live longer, whether or not he deserved to.  It’s a nice change of pace to see a protagonist change things in such a personal, almost-selfish way and have everything still work out for the better in the end.  Moral lessons are great and all, but sometimes it’s nice to see that you really can get what you want when given the means, universal laws be damned.

Becky Cloonan’s artwork has always been perfect for the Demo series.  She’s an artistic chameleon who adapts to different types of stories as she sees fit while never losing her own stamp on her pencils.  Her design of the characters, especially of Lisbeth, feels perfectly appropriate.  Her visual representation of time travel, while a bit confusing initially, is wonderfully sparse and graceful.  The decision to contrast the falling Lisbeth with a blank slate, so to speak, also works nicely with the black and white artwork.