Matt Hawkins’ Postal #3 is available to purchase from Image Comics, under its Top Cow imprint, as it was released on April 22nd. I have a strong feeling that Hawkins’ Postal series could get adapted into a TV drama in a few years because of the atmosphere. Image Comics’ The Walking Dead has been adapted into a successful TV drama on AMC. TWD will be receiving a spinoff, Fear The Walking Dead, soon enough.
Preacher, a series under DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint, is in pre-production and will broadcast next year on AMC. I strongly fell that Postal could be adapted as a live-action drama for AMC, A & E, HBO, Cinemax, or Showtime.
As for Postal, it takes place in the fictional Wyoming town known as Eden. I find the name ironic and literal because the peaceful town hides a dark truth, nearly all of Eden’s citizens are fugitives on the run from the law. This serves as a proverbial double-edged sword that cuts incredibly deep because Eden can be Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory.
Mark, the autistic protagonist, begins the issue with a narrative on Eden.
Eden is perhaps one of the most peaceful places on Earth, but for good reason because nearly everybody is a criminal. Mark, however, is an exception because he’s merely the son of criminals. You have the citizens constantly watching over each other. If one person gets in trouble, then the rest of the town gets in trouble.
The last thing anybody in Eden needs is the local police, FBI, US Marshals, ATF, NSA, and other enforcement agencies joining together for a raid. Eden can be a boring place to live in because it has no internet access, but that’s the price for a “life of peace.”
What did I think of Postal #3?
I felt that this issue was enjoyable to read and I find myself becoming a fan of Matt Hawkins and his Postal creative team. Mark’s narrative about Eden effectively gives the reader a general idea on life in this sleepy town.
But there is a price of living in a town with other criminals, it gives rise to tyranny.
S—t has hit the fan and everybody in Eden will be dragged into some imminent bloody war. Eden’s peace is disturbed by the mysterious murder of a young woman, revealed as Mark’s unknown and estranged sister. It throws the town in disarray because the investigation starts making people paranoid.
Mark suspects Maggie, the friendly waitress, of causing trouble in Eden after seeing her with an FBI agent the previous night at a motel. He has the wrong idea, obviously, which forces Maggie to confess her past or get blown to bit with Mark’s shotgun.
There is humor when Mark makes a mental note of the shotgun being unloaded.
I was curious about Maggie since the previous issue of Postal because I honestly thought she was merely a low-level criminal.
But man, I could have never been so wrong in my life.
Maggie surprised me when she revealed her interesting past as an upper mid-level drug leader in Los Angeles, where she dealt in high-grade heroin. This young woman feared nobody and was willing to put down the competition. She was willing to take on the Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, and more.
Her world crumbles after pissing off the wrong people, MS-13, by stealing from them. I found it awesome to see MS-13 in a gritty piece of fiction, but there is an inaccuracy. It’s important to know that MS-13 is not a Guatemalan gang, it is a LA-based gang originally composed of El Salvadoran immigrants.
With that inaccuracy aside, Maggie pissed them off and barely escaped with her life. Her fiance, however, became Swiss cheese. It sucks more for Maggie because she gets caught by the FBI and thrown in prison.
But she catches a break, which brings her to Eden. Maggie didn’t go to Eden by choice, she was forced to move there as a secret informant to the FBI. There is the implication that the FBI is no longer interested in Eden and Maggie has been reduced to a booty call by her handler.
I feel that this is one of the reasons that Eden is “Hell on Earth.”
You’re a fugitive on the run or a perpetrator evading arrest, which puts you at somebody’s mercy. In Maggie’s case, it’s at the mercy of the FBI. Most of Eden’s citizens were once and will again be at the mercy of Mark’s estranged father, the elusive founder of the town. The previous issue revealed that Eden’s citizens were fed up at the man’s tyranny and executed him by hanging.
That turned out not to be the case when they came back to see that the branch broke, which allowed the man to survive and escape. The woman’s murder is a direct message that the man will return to raze Eden to the ground.
Mark finds himself the unwitting messenger when he returns home to find a cryptic message from who he suspects is his father. He decides to visit him, but not before talking with his mother. They have a volatile argument and Mark’s mother tells him to leave Eden permanently if he heads to the abandoned school.
He defies his mother and goes there anyway only to be taken to another location, where he meets his father for the first time. Mark finds himself in the middle of an inevitable war between his parents, which will lead into one of the bloodiest family feuds and Eden is the battleground.
I found Postal gets more interesting with each new issue.
I give Postal #3 a grade of A+.
