By Keigen Rea — Stillwater #5 made me think of some lines from one of my favorite episodes of television.

Uh hey, is that fire?

In said episode (of Avatar: The Last Airbender - Firebending Masters), two guys who can control fire climb up a mountain and play with some dragons, with one of the important notes being that there is a balance between fire as an agent of destruction and fire as an agent of change. Fire can annihilate lives and homes and belongings, but it is also life-giving in a sense, key to warmth as well as cooking. Fire boils water, making it safe(r) to drink. It creates a light in the dark, or warms a house when warmth is needed. Fire is at times both destruction and aid. In some instances, it is both at once.

In Stillwater #5, the titular town needs to change. The village’s cops are killing people for learning the town’s secret. The inhabitants are buried alive for breaking town rules. If a resident tries to escape, they are shot and dragged back. The sheriff and judge hold the majority of the power, and they use it to scare everyone else into submission.

And those are just the problems directly related to the misuse of power. Children in Stillwater are also inherently stuck as eternal youths, unable to age at a normal rate unless they physically leave the town. Perhaps most disturbingly, cows aren’t butchered in this town. No, instead they are KEPT ALIVE WHILE THEIR MEAT IS PULLED OFF OF THEM. Let that sink in, in Stillwater, THEY JUST CUT MEAT OFF OF THE COWS. !!!!!!

What I’m saying is there’s a lot of messed up shit in the town of Stillwater, and it only seems fair that those problems be addressed by the citizens, y’know, in a peaceful, orderly kind of way, like a group vote maybe?

When people without power ask for some, or ask for it to be used in a different way, the response is often hostile. In the town of Stillwater, this means the court bailiffs open fire on their fellow townsfolk. Some harsh words and the mere idea of change are met with violence intended to end the “ungrateful” attitude of the townspeople who are questioning a status quo. They are tired of feeling and being powerless. They are tired of being shot, and controlled, and kept in place. So, they try to change things with a vote, and that approach doesn’t work.

Instead, they blow up the courthouse (maybe…who causes the explosion is only really implied here, leaving open the possibility that it wasn’t actually the townsfolk at all).

If voting doesn’t work, is violence the answer? When the voice of the majority falls on deaf ears, is lashing out acceptable? Are you supposed to just sit and wait for those who hold power to maybe change their minds? What if, to your knowledge, they aren’t able to die? How does that change the calculus?

I don’t know, and I so I’ll just say it — maybe blowing up fascists is okay. In comics, anyway.

What I do know is that something like Immortal Marines sounds like a terrible idea.

Overall: The situation in Stillwater has for some time been a powder keg…and after Stillwater #5, it is now ashes that used to be a powder keg. This is yet another solid issue of one of my favorite series, a big comic for this week. 9/10

REVIEW: Stillwater #5

Stillwater #5
Writer: Chip Zdarsky
Artist: Ramón K. Perez
Colorist: Mike Spicer
Letterer: Rus Wooton
Publisher: Image Comics - Skybound
Price: $3.99
While the rest of the world moves on, a group of concerned citizens decides that their town can't keep its secret forever. Can they convince the Judge that it's time for a change in Stillwater?
Release Date: January 20, 2021
Buy It Digitally: Stillwater #5

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Keigen Rea inhales through his nose and exhales through his mouth. He sips some Thai iced tea. He thinks about Star Wars. He wrote this. Find him @prince_organa writing other things.