Spoilers for Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma #1 past this point.
The first issue of DC Comics‘s Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma is now on stands, and alongside the reintroduction of the cult classic title character, we’re also getting a twisted new villain: Gashadokuro, a cannibal who cannot die, and lives to consume the flesh of our hero, Mitch Shelley.
“He is very much the antagonist in these first few issues, but maybe he falls past that role as the story goes on,” writer Ram V told Comic Book Club on the baddie. “He is diametrically opposite in all those functional ways. He’s also diametrically opposite in a philosophical sense, in that the reason he consumes is because he’s trying to not be himself. He’s trying to blur the boundary between his self and someone else.”
In the first issue of the Black Label series, Gashadokuro is introduced as the head of a death camp holding Shelley — and others — prisoner. He ends up eating Shelley as part of a ritual to infuse himself with the power of his enemies… Not realizing Shelley has the power to die, and come back with a new superpower himself. While the act of cooking and eating the title character does indeed resurrect the Resurrection Man, it also leads to a massive fire that costs Gashadokuro most of his body… But also makes him functionally immortal.
While Gashadokuro will continue to plague Mitch Shelley throughout time, Ram V isn’t interested in making him a generic cannibal villain. Instead, he wants you to see him as an opposing philosophical viewpoint to Shelley, who is wrestling with his own immortality in the series.
“There’s this part in issue one where he talks about his father’s opinion of him as a child because he was a sickly boy, and his father didn’t want to be seen as someone who would give birth to a sickly child,” Ram V continued. “And so I think that taints his view of his relationships, his yearning for power and humanity. Whereas from Mitch’s perspective, as you correctly point out, his inherent reason for existence is so selfless.
“So on one end, you have this person utterly convinced of their need for eternal life and consumption. On the other end, you have this person utterly and convinced about their role as a hero. And I think those are fascinating characters to put next to each other, especially given how things end, fascinating characters to watch as they travel across all of the history of the DCU and end up at a point in time where maybe there isn’t that much of a difference.”
Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma #1 is in stores now from DC Comics.
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