Comic Book / First Knife

"Y'know… I never liked using my knife."

First Knife is a 2020 independent Post-Apocalyptic Science Fantasy comic written by Simon Roy and Daniel M. Bensen and drawn by Artyom Trakhanov.

It is the thirty-third century. Humanity has returned to a primitive form of society following the collapse of civilization as we know it, while the godlike Devas work to heal the ecological damage and give direction to humanity. Of the countless tribes that live in the hot ruins of North America in this time, the Hudsoni — a burgeoning empire of warriors and slavers — reign supreme, controlling much of the Canadian Shield. But one day in the conquered city of Shikka-Go, a priestess of the Yanqui — a people repressed by the Hudsoni — accidentally discovers a demon of the old world; Hesukristos, an ancient Cyborg built for war. With the old world's sins resurfacing and the Devas warning of great destruction to come, Hudsoni war chief First Knife embarks on a quest to deal with the threat personally, while Hesukristos begins a revolt in the south that could change this world forever…

---

This comic provides examples of:

• After the End: Set over a thousand years after an ecological apocalypse called the Anthropocene Thermal Maximum. The new epoch is called the Noöscene.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Maybe, depending on whether or not you believe that the Devas were responsible for the cataclysm "for the greater good" like the Yanqui think they were. It's left uncertain if that's true or if they're completely benevolent, if unintentionally condescending and repressive. What is definitely true is that they're healing the planet and helping humans to rebuild.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • Luo. Despite her betrayal of First Knife, she didn't deserve to die like that.
  • Hesukristos in the end. He only becomes villainous at all because of his failing body and mind, and is killed by the woman he came to love.
• All There in the Manual: The backmatter for each chapter includes a great deal of additional worldbuilding and lore for the strange future the characters inhabit.
• Ambiguous Situation: Just what the "Anthropocene Thermal Maximum" was that brought down civilization as we know it, and whether the Devas were involved in it, are never really explained. The reader is only ever given tantalizing hints, some of which are contradictory.
• Ambiguously Brown: Following the apocalypse and several generations of racial mixing, the average North American now generally looks more or less Amerindian, aside from a few ethnic groups and tribes like the Anglo and Petwa that hew closer to European and African respectively.
• Badass Normal: First Knife's uncle killed a fully-functioning military cyborg single-handedly with an old combat knife despite just being a normal guy. Hesukristos is… not amused.
• Bittersweet Ending: Most of the party and Hesukristos are dead, Mari is alone, and First Knife will never get to go home. But the Yanqui are free, the Devas will engage with humans more fairly and equally now, and life goes on. Things could have gone better but they also could have ended much worse.
• Book Ends: At the start of the story, First Knife declares that the Hudsoni are not geese to be herded as part of a Badass Boast. At the end, he and Mari say the same thing about humanity as a whole as part of a speech to the Devas.
• Brain Uploading: First Knife's fate, having his mind and soul uploaded into the Devas' network to serve as humanity's emissary. The process destroys his physical body.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Luo loses more and more respect for First Knife as the quest progresses and he continues to play the long game instead of fighting right away, going from his loyal lancer to trying to kill him.
  • Hesukristos' final death spiral and posthumous collapse makes Mari realize that he was telling the truth the whole time; he was just a dying soldier, not the real Second Coming, and thus could never have lifted the world up the way she wished.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Hesukristos realizes that First Knife knows where NATO headquarters is because of his grandfather going there in the past, and so he can't kill the Hudsoni war party if he wants any hope of repairing himself.
• The Chosen People: The Hudsoni see themselves as the Chosen People of the Devas, as they rule over and use the great rivers and canals that the Devas constructed into America as part of their healing of the world. Since the Hudsoni are also a slaving empire, the Yanqui vilify the Devas by association with them and presume that they are demons who brought about the apocalypse.
• Clarke's Third Law: The line between magic and science in this series is… blurry. In particular, the Devas may or may not be giant terraforming AI, but they're so powerful and capable of such godlike feats that debating their divinity is pointless; even if they're machines, they're demigods or angels in every sense that matters.
• Condescending Compassion: The Devas seem more or less benevolent and only wish to heal the world and help humanity rebuild, but their tendency to view humans as "lesser" beings to be controlled into behaving properly hinders that. They are ultimately forced to admit that they must engage with humans as equals if they hope to truly help them.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: Subverted. The predominant religion of future North America is called Hesukristianity, but only to emphasize how far in the future it is and how much language has drifted. The story otherwise makes it clear that this is just future Christianity (specifically Catholicism). It's also amusingly lampshaded at one point when Hesukristos swears by the actual Jesus and nobody knows who that is despite worshipping Him.
• Culture Chop Suey: Thirty-third century post-apocalyptic North American culture is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a melting pot fusion of tons of different cultures from Celtic to Amerindian to Asian to Caribbean and everything in-between.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Averted. Hesukristos is a pretty normal dude despite being basically a walking tank that can eat people. He does undergo Sanity Slippage later on, but only because his body is failing and he doesn't have means to repair it.
• Cyborg: Hesukristos is a NATO military cyborg, one of a large number that existed prior to the Maximum.
• Dark Messiah: What Mari thinks Hesukristos is. He isn't so sure but eventually decides he may as well act the part.
• Deadpan Snarker: Hesukristos increasingly reacts to his bizarre situation with glib sarcasm.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Amongst other things, slavery is an accepted part of life.
• Deus est Machina: The Devas seem to be terraforming machines created in the old world, but are worshipped as minor gods/angels by the Hudsoni… and with their power they may as well be. One pointedly remarks that they are "far more then machines".
• Dramatic Irony: As much as the Hudsoni take pride in their apparent cultural and martial superiority over their Yanqui slaves, they not only speak the Anglo-Hispanic derived Yanqui language as a lingua franca, but even use among themselves.
• Easy Logistics: Oh, so tragically averted. As Hesukristos is all too happy to explain to his Yanqui followers, he cannot "lift up" the world by himself and without any advanced technology.
• Egocentrically Religious: It's rather telling that Mari's reaction to believing she's met the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (Hesukristos) is to immediately presume this means she herself must be The Chosen One destined to aid him as his wife.
• Eternal English: Averted. The people of thirty-third century North America are speaking new, completely different languages descended from English and Spanish. English is treated like Latin, being basically a dead language only really spoken or understood by priests and historians and such. Hesukristos initially has to rely on Mari — who learned English as a priestess — to communicate with others until his valet system can work out a translation.
• Extinct in the Future: A lot of animals and plants went extinct in the Maximum or were deliberately purged out by the Devas for being invasive species, such as cows and horses.
• Face–Heel Turn: As the quest goes on, Luo becomes increasingly disillusioned with First Knife, eventually turning on him and trying to kill him right alongside Hesukristos.
• Fantastic Racism: The Hudsoni mostly see the Yanqui as slaves and nothing more. First Knife questions this and is willing to consider the idea that the Devas care about them as well after seeing Mari be used as an avatar by one, but Luo just doubles down declaring that she would never bow to a Yanqui.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Justified by the nature of the setting; they're literally the mixed descendants of many real world cultures. The Hudsoni have many traits of Inuit, East Asian and Native Siberian cultures, the Yanqui mix Great Plains tribal cultures with that of ancient Mexican/Central American ones, the Anglo seem vaguely Celtic, and the Petwa are clearly Caribbean mixed with other tropical predominantly African societies. The Bekua are more unclear in their inspiration, though their religious beliefs and theological qualms with the Yanqui are evocative of Islam.
• A Father to His Men: First Knife to the Hudsoni under his command.
• Feudal Future: After the apocalypse humanity was knocked back to the Stone Age. By the time of the story, North America has clawed back to pretty much a feudal Iron Age.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: To say Hesukristos is a little out of the loop after being in stasis for generations through an apocalypse and the healing of Earth is an understatement.
• Future Imperfect:
  • Downplayed with the Hesukristian religion, which is Christianity after an apocalypse and several generations of lingual and cultural drift. Despite all that, the faith hasn't really changed much; there is some historical misunderstandings, conflations, name changes, syncretism, and new additions, but the core messages and beliefs (God sent his Son to Earth where He taught people to live virtuously and died for their sins but is prophesied to one day return) are the same.
  • The city of Shikka-Go is heavily implied to be the remains of Chicago, long destroyed and built over by the new inhabitants of the Americas. Other places shown include the southern Hudsoni capital of Sussem-Ri, implied to be built over Sault St. Marie, and Santa-Lu, also known as St. Louis.
• Framing Device: The backmatter and appendices at the end of each chapter are presented as in-universe academic notes written in the thirty-seventh century, implying that human civilization does eventually recover, though it's cold comfort for the characters in the story.
• Gaia's Lament: What the Anthropocene Thermal Maximum was apparently, with mentions of things like "climate refugees". The Devas have spent centuries undoing the damage and restoring Earth to it's pre-industrial Holocene state environmentally speaking.
• A God I Am Not: Hesukristos is more then a touch put off by the Yanqui thinking he's literally the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
• Great Offscreen War: The Prairier Invasion, the Hudsoni colonization of the Yanqui, an unnamed civil war on Ellesmere Island that drove the Hudsoni's ancestors south, and the pre-Anthropocene Thermal Maximum conflict that Hesukristos was involved in as a NATO cyborg.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: It's heavily implied that the Devas evolved from AI intended for terraforming projects and climate change control when the Anthropocene Thermal Maximum happened. Hesukristos' valet system notably recognizes one Deva as somewhat matching up to an automated probe meant for terraforming Mars.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: First Knife and his band are sympathetic and are simply trying to save Shikka-Go and potentially all the lands from destruction, but they are also the servants of an imperialistic slaving empire. Meanwhile, Mari and her fellow Yanqui rebels are fighting for the freedom of their people, but do so with brutal zealotry unbecoming of priests and Mari especially doesn't seem to care how many Hudsoni have to die to free Shikka-Go. Hesukristos, caught in the middle of it all, is a Nominal Hero who mostly just wants to survive and do the right thing as best he can.
• Heroic R Ro D: Having no means of properly repairing or recharging himself means Hesukristos' great strength and impressive weaponry is functionally Cast from Hit Points. The more he uses them and the more battles he engages in with Devas, the more his body breaks down.
• Hero of Another Story: First Knife's uncle, who journeyed to the ancient NATO base and came back with the fabled blade his nephew is named for, after using it to kill Lt. Gabriel Hernandez, the only other cyborg to survive the apocalypse.
• Hive Mind: The Devas maybe, depending on how one interprets their dialogue during their final talk with First Knife and Mari.
• Honor Before Reason: Luo's Fatal Flaw; she can't understand or accept any solution to the Hesukristos situation that doesn't involve honorable battle.
• Hope Spot: The party arrives at the ancient NATO fortress and from the outside it looks intact. Then they get inside and find it is a dilapidated ruin and that the only other cyborg to survive, Lt. Hernandez, is long-dead, having been killed by First Knife's uncle years ago. Hesukristos doesn't take it well.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: The Yanqui once controlled a sizable portion of the Midwest and Great Lakes through their fortress-monasteries before the Hudsoni enslaved many of them.
• Humans Are White: A strong, realistic aversion. Most inhabitants of future North America are more Native American in appearance than anything, as one would expect after generations of ethnic barriers being broken down and the general environment of the Americas, with the noted exception of the recognizably Afro-Caribbean Petwa and European-looking Anglo.
• Hypocrite: Hesukristos accuses the Devas of being this after observing that they use at least some old-world technology as part of their system to heal Earth's environment despite keeping such things out of humanity's hands.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Hesukristos has a biofuel reactor that feeds off organic material to power him up… and "organic material" includes humans, which he uses to great effect to kill and intimidate enemies. However, it's explicitly a very poor and inefficient fuel source that really isn't up to task and he's only relying on it because he doesn't have better options.
• Interfaith Smoothie: Hesukristianity is explicitly future Christianity, but over a thousand years of syncretism and cultural development after the apocalypse mean it's got qualities of a few other faiths as well, such as the Devas getting their name from Hinduism. There's also mention of the Bekua religion which is similarly Christian-descended but rejects the idea of Jesus/Hesukristos' divinity, similar to the Muslim stance that Jesus was only a prophet, not the Son of God.
• Invading Refugees: The Hudsoni are the descendants of nobles and refugees from Ellesmere Island after a civil war of succession forced them to flee, eventually settling in the Hudson Sea and becoming their own empire that began encroaching on other territories.
• Knight Templar: Mari wants to free her people from Hudsoni oppression… no matter how many dead bodies it takes.
• Last of His Kind: Hesukristos prays that he is not the last of the cyborgs. He is.
• Machine Worship: The Hudsoni worship the Devas as basically lesser gods or angels. The Yanqui, conversely, regard them as demons. For their part, the Devas seem ambivalent to both ideas, though accepting of the Hudsoni's worship since it makes imparting information and instruction to humans easier.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Thanks to Clarke's Third Law and the ambiguity of a number of aspects of the world, it's decidedly unclear how much of what happens is supernatural or scientific, if there's even a meaningful difference. For instance, First Knife's dagger, which may be enchanted in some manner to allow it to kill powerful beings or just a normal combat knife that was used to hit a weakpoint. It's hard to say which, as we only directly see one ambiguous usage of it.
• Medieval Stasis: Enforced by the Devas… kinda. They're fine with humans developing technologically on their own or with their hands-off guidance (having re-invented primitive firearms), but they don't want humans uncovering tech from prior to the apocalypse for safety reasons, hence their desire to destroy Hesukristos.
• Mercy Kill: What Mari and First Knife are ultimately forced to do to Hesukristos as his machine body fails and his mind falls apart.
• Morality Chain: Hesukristos quickly comes to love Mari and she gives him a cause greater to fight for then his own survival; fighting to free the Yanqui and lift the world back to it's former glory.
• Mouth of Sauron: The Devas will temporarily interface with a human to communicate with mortals more efficiently and convey messages. Their criteria for choosing "avatars" is uncertain; the Hudsoni presume only they may be chosen, but this is disproven when Mari is used as an avatar.
• Narrative Filigree: The core plot and sequence of events is pretty simplistic. Much of the meat of the story is the Worldbuilding of a post-apocalyptic future.
• New Weird: A very weird take on post-apocalyptic fiction with many hallmarks of the genre/movement.
• Nice Guy: First Knife. Despite serving an empire, he is an honorable, noble, and pious man who questions the treatment of the Yanqui after seeing Mari be used as an avatar and always looks after his soldiers.
• No Name Given: "Hesukristos" is actually what people call Jesus of Nazareth in the thirty-third century thanks to lingual drift, and is ascribed to the cyborg against his will; we never learn his real name. Likewise, "Mari" is just a divine title for the woman who is Hesukristos' wife (implied to be a corruption of "Mary" — as in, Mary Magdalene) and the priestess bestows the title on herself, never revealing her birth name.
• Proud Warrior Race: The Hudsoni pride themselves on being warriors of the highest caliber, causing Hesukristos to snidely describe them as Viking wannabes. It's also deconstructed with Luo, as her obsession with doing things the "Hudsoni warrior way" makes her unable to accept First Knife's pragmatic, underhanded approaches to dealing with Hesukristos.
• Ragnarök Proofing: Averted. What few buildings are even still standing are just dilapidated ruins. Which means that the entire trek to NATO headquarters is All for Nothing, as protagonists quickly find; all the tools and power supplies and such Hesukristos could have used to fix himself are long rotted away by the ravages of time. The big exception is First Knife's family dagger which is pristine aside from some customization by his grandfather, for reasons that to unexplained.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The Devas, while oft-condescending to humans, are also very reasonable and willing to listen to them. When First Knife proposes leading Hesukristos away from Shikka-Go and killing him themselves so the Devas won't have to burn the city and it's people with him, they agree but warn that they can only give so much time for the Hudsoni to accomplish this before they have to step in themselves. And when they do intervene after the time limit is up, they pointedly yell to any nearby humans to evacuate the area before engaging with Hesukristos.
• Reclaimed by Nature: Pretty much everything has been reclaimed by the wild.
• Religious Bruiser: First Knife is both a mighty war chief and a deeply devout man who follows the Devas will dutifully. Ironically, the equally pious but much more zealous Mari is a Non-Action Girl by comparison.
• The Remnant: The Anglo are a scattered tribe implied to be all that remains of America's old white European ethnicities.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Mari and Hesukristos' rebellion in Shikka-Go is bloody and violent, with the Hudsoni oppressors brutally slain.
• Riddle for the Ages: What was the Thermal Maximum? And is First Knife's family dagger really magic or just a normal knife that his family ascribes undue importance to?
• Ruins of the Modern Age: Mostly averted as it's been long enough that most everything from our time is either completely gone or overtaken by nature. NATO headquarters near Santa-Lu (what used to be St. Louis) is one of the few buildings still standing, and even it's on its last legs.
• Sanity Slippage: The longer he goes without repairs and proper recharging, the more Hesukristos' mind begins crumbling under the stress of what's going on. And in the end, he snaps completely and goes on a violent feral rampage, forcing Mari and First Knife to Mercy Kill him.
• Science Is Bad: Due to the ecological collapse and the Devas' control of the world, the Yanqui call the times prior to the apocalypse "the Profligate Age" for this reason. Hesukristos mockingly asks if they consider having modern medicine and computers a sin, but they obviously don't understand what he's talking about.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Not evil, but Hesukristos is basically this at the start, sitting in his ancient crashed carrier in stasis. He's only awakened when Mari's blood spilling into his biofuel processor causes him to boot up.
• Secretly Dying: Hesukristos is running out of power and in need of maintenance. Which dramatically accelerates every time he has to fight, and eventually results in his Sanity Slippage.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Hesukristos has exactly the kind of language habits one would expect from a soldier in a strange situation; which is to say he swears vigorously and constantly.
• Slave Race: How the Yanqui are treated by the Hudsoni. The plot is kicked off when Hesukristos' release provokes a mass revolt against the slavers.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Hesukristos, being a more or less modern person, has this attitude and the Yanqui obviously don't appreciate being subjugated by the Hudsoni. The Hudsoni themselves, however, see it as just part of life. In the end, the Devas come to agree with the Yanqui and as part of the new "treaty" with humanity, declare that the Hudsoni are never to enslave again and especially leave the Yanqui alone.
• Unspecified Apocalypse: Just what the Anthropocene Thermal Maximum was aside from a ecological disaster goes unsaid, and while there's plenty of worldbuilding as to what the Earth is like now, the story never really explains how it became like this. There is speculation and hints, but no hard answers, and the speculation sometimes contradicts (the Hudsoni say the Devas are healing the world, the Yanqui say they killed it to begin with).
• Unwanted False Faith: Hesukristos is mistaken by Mari and the Yanqui as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, here to slay the Devas and reclaim Earth for humanity. He is… not pleased with this at first. But as time goes on, he starts to roll with it and figures that if people are going to treat him as the messiah, he may as well act like it.
• You Can't Go Home Again: The Brain Uploading that makes First Knife humanity's emissary with the Devas destroys his body, ensuring he can never return home as a human.