Infinite Vacation #1 – Review

By: Nick Spencer (script/story), Christian Ward (art/story), Kendall Bruns (photography), Jeff Powell (letters), Tim Daniel (design) & Jade Dodge (edits)

The Story: What if you could always buy your way out of your current reality by swapping with another you from an alternate universe?

What’s Good: What a cool concept!  From the solicits for this issue, I had in my mind some kind of Total Recall story where you could have your memories imprinted with any sort of artificial experience and it would feel as if you actually had done/accomplished the event.  I should have known that Nick Spencer was a little too imaginative and hip to just retread an old Governator movie.  I don’t think it’s too big of a spoiler to reveal the central theme for you here because it’s kinda central to the whole story.

If you’re at all familiar with the concept of parallel or alternate universes, one of the theories is that everything that can happen, has happened.  There is an alternate universe where you are the President of the USA, where you hooked up with Ms. Universe or where you have Russian oil baron wealth.  Of course, there is also a reality where you are raped in prison, homeless or dead (many realities where you are dead, actually).  Spencer and Ward’s concept is: what if you had an iPhone app that communicated with these other yous and allowed you to swap realities for a fee?  It is kind of a hybrid between eBay and the old types of commodity trading that Enron used to do.  Did you forget your wife’s birthday?  For $5000 you can swap realities with another you where you didn’t forget.  That kinda thing…

This tosses out all sorts of really cool possibilities.  Such as how does one feel self-esteem when a better life is merely a question of money?  When do you have “enough” happiness and stop trying to trade up?  What is the price tag on your own happiness?  Would you sell it to another you?  What are you willing to do to avoid death?  How can the other “yous” be you if they’re wiling to sell some happiness to you for a fee?  Shouldn’t they want to keep it if they’re really “you”?  This series promises to explore those types of questions, especially when our protagonist, Mark, meets someone who isn’t fully down with reality swapping.  If you’re into high-concept sci-fi this is a must read.