Babylon

In Tom King and Mitch Gerads’ “The Sheriff of Babylon” #6, things fall apart. On every page after the first, there’s a sick feeling as the wrongs pile up, ranging from the wry sourness of misplaced priorities to the spectacular injustice of the death of an unarmed civilian. King begins the comic on a peaceful and even jovial note, with Chris and Nassir sitting together like two guys on a summer porch, talking about America and their hopes for the future. This sets up a poignant contrast to the injustices that follow. Sofia’s conversation with a condescending, blustering American general is a brilliant sequence with a Kafkaesque feel to its depiction of bureaucracy. Sofia says almost nothing, yet her few pointed questions and her eyebrows are enough to puncture the general’s macho, pompous air, revealing his impotence. Exquisite details — like the faint condensation on the rim of a glass — add texture to the background. Gerads’ simple nine-panel grid offers a steady point of view on

“Sheriff of Babylon” #1 is an incredibly strong debut to this new eight-issue miniseries from Tom King and Mitch Gerads and plunges the reader into 2004 Baghdad less than a year after its fall. It’s hard to keep from feeling a little shaken by the experience; part of you will yearn to escape, but the rest of you will be desperate for more. This first issue follows three characters; Christopher, Sofia and Nassir. What starts as a simple enough story — Christopher training Iraqi citizens to become police officers — rapidly turns into something much darker and haunting, as deaths begin to pile up and we learn that what little peace exists in Baghdad is fragile at best. King’s story plunges into their minds, letting us see each of them as they’re pushed to varying degrees of need and desperation to try and achieve their own goals. And then, just when you think you understand how “Sheriff of Babylon” will unfold, King begins to draw the connections between the characters and you can all b