"No, it's not linear." But that's OK!

Elephantmen Vol. 5: Devilish Functions
Image Comics
Richard Starkings, writer
Axel Medellin and Shaky Kane, artists
***mature content warning***

In the pilot episode of "Star Trek: Deep Space 9," Cmdr. Benjamin Sisko encounters a new species that does not experience time as humans do. They exist in all moments at once, making words like "tomorrow," "yesterday" and "later" have no meaning for them. At first, it is very hard for Sisko to communicate with these beings, let alone understand them, or they him, because of the differences in the perception of time. As understanding begins, Sisko tells the aliens that human existence is linear, people move from one moment to the next, always forward. The aliens counter his explanation by pointing out how he revisits his mistakes in his own mind, reliving the past over and over, jumping from point in time to point in time, almost at random.

Elephantmen follows a similar storytelling model. Starkings does not give his readers a narrative that moves from one day to the next in chronological order. The flashback is a familiar storytelling device which can interrupt the linear flow of a story to provide useful past information in the middle of a narrative, but Starkings takes his storytelling even further away from what typically happens.

All of the core events in this latest huge trade collection of Elephantmen happen more or less after the core events of the previous trades. Bodies of some characters killed more than a dozen issues ago are discovered, and investigations into the deaths are begun. Someone new is stalking and slaying Elephantmen for their ivory. And yet a third set of murders is happening where the victims are not just killed, but butchered and marked with a message of "No Mercy." Along with the drama of these various killings, there are also developments in the personal relationships between the various main characters. Mixed in with all of this, there are a couple diversionary stories that deal with a new hallucinogenic drug on the streets of Los Angeles. Amid all of this, sometimes large scenes, sometimes entire chapters, might be dropped in that have little or nothing to do with the current ongoing storyline at first glance. Sometimes these events might have happened hundreds or more years ago, or might never have happened at all, instead proving to be mere flights of fancy. But Starkings and crew craft this narrative in such a way that all that bouncing around works and makes sense.

Many stories that bounce around as much as this one often does have a tendency to lose readers with the various transitions. The whole starts to lose cohesion and becomes nonsense after a while. But I'm not having that issue with this book at all. In fact, it is one of the things I enjoy about the book.

Early on in my enjoyment of Elephantmen, I read or heard an interview with Starkings where he said something about it not mattering in what order someone reads these books. I found that statement baffling at the time. How can it not matter? Surely the books are best read in the proper order. I've read enough now to know that really isn't so. Part of what makes that possible is the obvious care Starkings has used mapping out the big picture events in this universe he has created, which then allows him to bounce around inserting facts here and there to enhance the current storyline. It also helps that any and all references to past events are exhaustingly footnoted throughout.