mara1coverThe premise in Mara #1 is is simple enough: in a war-ravaged world, humans have sublimated aggression and fear of the external events into sports, specifically volleyball. The story begins by introducing us to Mara, volleyball player extraordinaire and the series’ protagonist. Beyond just meeting Mara, Wood shows how the world views her as she prepares for a volleyball match. She is beloved, powerful, and dominating at her sport. Mara’s role as a symbol for a nation attempting to re-assert it’s dominance and identity in a war-ravaged world is briefly explored in the first issue.

The parallel between how society treats the volleyball tournament and war hits the nail on the head overtly, and the political critique is worth exploring. What is the difference in the two types of aggression? Is the hostility in war any different from the hostility in sports? What about the corruption and greed associated with both? Mara asks these questions in paralleling the two and refers to the women’s volleyball tournament as a “tournament of master athletes where the victor will define us as a nation.” Mara isn’t demonizing or being didactic about the parallel, but rather positing it as the atmosphere that exists around the protagonist

Mara Prince has been “making the nation proud since age two.” From the moment we meet her, Mara is presented as too perfect of a person. She is smart, athletic, beautiful in every possible way, humble and confident. A character like Mara is not easy to sympathize with. She is symbolic of how a nation is, or should be, seen: assertive, diplomatic, graceful and strong. The beginning of issue #1 presents the tournament as both the beginning of rebuilding diplomatic ties all over the world, of providing the economy and big business a more level ground to stand on after the wars, and most importantly, of defining the nation’s position in the world. Mara is offered as the hero of the story who is capable of mobilizing these dreams into a reality.

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The real pull of Mara #1 comes at the end. The first issue is carefully constructed to illustrate all the weight and meaning of the tournament and Mara’s position as an athlete to the stability of the world. We know the state of peace is tentative and fragile, and Mara’s corruption at the end of the first issue signals both the deteroriation in the world’s view of her as a hero and the danger to the illusion of safety established in the country. It is the first dent in her perfect veneer and provides a way into her psyche as a dynamic character rather than just the cookie cutter perfect heroine.

We are given hints earlier about the potential danger associated with Mara in her initial entrance into the stadium. Her name is written in blood red letters, evoking an unsettling feeling of fear associated with Mara. She is not the only thing associated with an ominous terror here: the stadium, the tournament itself, and the worship of Mara all collapse into the same realm here. Something is off, and Doyle’s art is able to convey this while letting Wood’s story naturally build.

The setting, the characterization of Mara, the art and the narrative construction all work together to create a false sense of ease that we are just waiting to topple over. Mara #1 begs the ultimate question: in a world riddled with distrust and aggression, where war and sports are the defining aspects of society, how do we know who our heroes are? Mara #1 a solid issue. It is neither spectacular nor terrible, yet it delivers a character and a story with enough intrique for readers to grab onto for the next issue.

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