Tshimumba notices Glass’s blue eyes, and tells him that he wants to take him to a ‘féticheuse’. We see him decide to take the shot, just as a woman and child enter from the left, but before we see what happened, a knock on the door interrupts his reminiscing. In a flashback, we see him on a sniper mission, worrying that there are too many people around his target. Glass sits, naked, in his hotel room and thinks about his past. A man on the street tries to sell them monkey meat. DuPaul takes them to their hotel and suggests they stay close until the next morning. #Vertigo cast driver#They meet Tshimumba, their driver and guide, whose presence Glass sees as confirmation that they are going into the bush. They land at the airport in Kinshasa, and blend in with a UN relief mission. Glass, in return, makes it clear that he knows about this guy, who once took over an orphanage in El Salvador, for unsavory reasons, and had to be brought back to the US. The third operative in the group, who doesn’t get named in this issue, mentions that he heard a story that Glass doesn’t respond well to mistakes in the field. She mentions that she heard a story about Glass having killed a Colombian drug lord with chopsticks, but he denies it. Her name is Toni Lin, and she comments on how she won’t fit in as easily in Zaire as Glass will, due to her being Asian. Glass, a Black man who always wears sunglasses, talks to the team’s sniper. He’s concerned that he doesn’t know anything about this mission, and can intuit that DuPaul is nervous. At this point, we start getting first person narration, not from DuPaul, but from Thomas Glass, a black ops operative in a plane flying into Zaire. The speaker then explains that a satellite photo of the clearing with all the heads revealed that they spelled out a name – Devilin. The US, being supporters of Mobutu, are concerned, but also thinking of switching their support to Kabila. The speaker talks about how Laurent-Désiré Kabila is challenging the rule of Mobuto Sese Seko in Zaire. After that, one hundred and eight more Hutu heads were found on stakes in a clearing. He explains that a local search party that was sent looking for the soldiers disappeared. The speaker then provides some context, explaining how the Hutu who fled Rwanda after losing the civil war were considered assets by the US. He takes time to explain how the heads had been ripped off the bodies, but placed on the poles with precision and care. The person speaking explains how the heads of the three poachers, identified as Hutu soldiers, were placed on bamboo stakes. In Virginia, one week later, Devilin DuPaul enters a briefing at CIA headquarters. One by one, the poachers are lifted into the trees, and we hear cracking noises and see their blood dripping down. They laugh over the bodies, even putting a lit cigarette in the mouth of one, but then they hear some noises above them. We see some mountain gorillas get shot by a trio of poachers. #Vertigo cast series#The series opens in the Virunga National Park, in Zaire in 1997 (this is just before the country changed its name to Democratic Republic of Congo).Right now, I have no idea why I felt any of these things, so I’m curious to get a look at it and see how it holds up, in the light of today’s understanding of the need for decolonization and authentic voices. I also remember that the rest of the series couldn’t capture whatever it was that worked so well at the start. I distinctly remember loving the first issue of this series, but I don’t remember why. I was also at a point where I was just beginning to understand the lasting effects of colonialism on much of the world, but am not sure I would have made the connection between characters like Congo Bill (a white man who mentally controlled a golden gorilla) and the racist tropes they perpetuated. I don’t know that I would have known who Scott Cunningham was, or I knew his name from letters pages in books that he edited. I was drawn to the Richard Corben cover and the dark interior art by Danijel Zezelj, who would go on to be a favourite artist of mine. When this series came out, I don’t think I knew anything about Congo Bill and the Congorilla, aside from having probably seen the character show up in things like Crisis. There was a time in my life when I’d pick up just about anything with the Vertigo name on it. Spoilers (from twenty-two to twenty-three years ago)
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