The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 385: BIONICLE #3, November 2001

I feel like I cheaped out a bit on yesterday's post, so I'll try to make it up today.

This issue is told from the point of view of Makuta, the main villain of the Bionicle series, and it's a point of view that offers some problems in the narrative. I imagine they're problems that will be addressed, but from my particular re-reading perspective, I have questions.

Without wanting to spoil too much, the story the Turaga tell, of Mata Nui and his "brother" Makuta and their battle, isn't actually how things went down in "the time before time." Now, from a purely practical framework, this is fine. No one knew, at the time, how long Bionicle would last, so why worry about internal consistency of narrative? What I find odd, though, is that the story veers from this spiritual battle of deities to science fiction narrative of giant robots and genetic (biomechanic?) experimentation. Not that I dislike the story, but I'm curious as to why the spiritual comes to take a back seat to the scientific. It's a similar consternation I had with Battlestar Galactica - the spiritual story, which was really the best part of the show, got lost in an attempt to rationalize events of the series, which just produced a bit of a mess by the series end. Hopefully the Bionicle story is slightly more coherent, regardless of its irrational to rational move.

One really cool thing about this issue is the disembodiment of Makuta. He's famous for popping up in all kinds of different bodies throughout the series, so it's neat that our first proper introduction to the character comes solely through caption boxes. I think what I like about this early version of the character is that it's virtually impossible to combat him in the physical realm - he's a force of nature, rather than an embodiment of force. This changes, eventually, but right now the thrust of the series is for the Toa to figure out how they can combat such an antagonist - their powers are elementally, and therefore physically, based. How does one deploy such things against a disembodied god?

We'll find out eventually, but we'll head back to Big City and the 7 Guys of Justice tomorrow. Onward!