"Know you are loved."
"Do you know the literal meaning of 'apocalypse'? It simply means uncovering...revelation."
— "John Bull"
Bodies is an eight-issue Vertigo Comics limited series penned by Si Spencer and published from July 2014 to February 2015. It follows four London detectives, each from a different time period (which are rendered by different artists) who discover the same naked and multilated corpse on a Whitechapel street.
The comic follows four protagonists:
- Edmond Hillinghead from 1890, who wants to solve the murder while hiding his own homosexuality;
- Charles Whiteman from 1941, a Polish Jewish refugee trying to survive The Blitz by running his own criminal enterprise;
- Shahara Hasan from 2014, who struggles with the racial and religious tensions of the modern day;
- Maplewood from 2050, an amnesiac in a post-apocalyptic future.
Naturally, their investigations are slowly revealed to be individual parts of a long-running conspiracy.
The series was released in collected form first in 2015, then again in 2023, ahead of a live-action adaptation later that year.
Tropes:
- Alien Sky: The sky of 2050s London is perpetually an ill yellow, indicating its postapocalyptic status.
- Ancestral Name: As Professor Henry Harker tells Shahara in 2014, it's tradition for firstborn sons in the Harker family to be named Henry. Another Henry Harker had previously appeared in Hillinghead's story.
- Arc Symbol: A mysterious sigil comprised of three vertical lines and one horizontal line (later explained as two H's back to back) recurs across the four time periods throughout the graphic novel. In addition to it appearing on the corpse:
- In 1890 it's associated with the Cult of Mithras.
- In 1941 it appears in Whiteman's memories.
- In 2014 it is adopted as a symbol by the white supremacist group clashing with Shahara.
- In 2050 it appears in the laboratories of the group responsible for the mass amnesia.
- Arc Words: "Know you are loved" and "So begins the long harvest" recur across the time periods, hinting at a greater connection between the discovered corpses.
- Art Shift: The comic jumps between four time periods, which are each rendered in a different style by a different artist.
- Eye Scream: Frank gouges Whiteman's eyes out, but then they're back in his head to demonstrate the former's supernatural power.
- Malaproper: The amnesiac Maplewood will confuse words in common turns of phrases, e.g. "element of supplies".
- Dirty Cop: Whiteman: a reputable cop by day, running a small underground syndicate by night.
- Shout-Out: Hillinghead is a contemporary of Arthur Conan Doyle and an avid reader of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.
- Signs of Disrepair: In the postapocalyptic 2050, Longharvest Lane is now referred to as Ongarvane. We see a sign for the street with only these letters remaining.
- Splash of Color: Victorian London is rendered in blacks, whites, and grays, save for the occasional striking red item.
- Yiddish as a Second Language: To remind readers that Whiteman is Jewish, he'll frequently sprinkle Yiddish in his dialogue and narration, e.g. exclaiming "Gavalt!"
