Where’s the difference between inspiration and temptation?

Whispers tpb
Image Comics
Creators: Joshua Luna
Release date: June 2014

Welcome back! As promised, here is a trade I recently enjoyed from Image Comics. I picked this trade up a few years ago with no foreknowledge of the story at all. If memory serves, this was an impulse buy to fill out an order for the free shipping; something with a price tag that made it worth a chance at the time. The cover depicts a statue of an angelic figure with a cracked face and a demonic visage peeking out. Based on that alone, I made a few assumptions about the plot that were only sort of accurate.

I was very pleased to finally read this trade one recent afternoon. I very much enjoyed the plot, and several of the twists and turns of the story took me by surprise. As usual, I won’t spoil those plot twists here. I tend to shy away from too many plot details on this blog; if I happen to praise a book here you haven’t read before, I hope my words might inspire you to seek it out and try it yourself rather than me spoiling the possible enjoyment you might feel after reading a new title for yourself.

The story in Whispers — which collects a done-in-one limited series — centers on Sam Webber, a young man with a number of controlling fears and phobias. To his surprise, Sam suddenly manifests the ability to leave his body when he sleeps. During these journeys, Sam cannot be seen or physically affect the natural world, but he can influence the behavior of people he knows. The scene above depicts his second out-of-body experience when Sam “visits” his mother, a woman who was emotionally abusive to Sam as a child and who now leads a lonely, miserable life.

Experimenting with what he can and cannot do while undertaking these astral journeys, Sam must fight the temptation to influence his on-again-off-again girlfriend, Lily, who has just gone through a personal family tragedy. Sam also stumbles onto a dangerous situation with another former girlfriend, Vanessa, whom Sam further endangers despite his good intentions. Sam also begins experiencing visions of total strangers behaving in purely evil ways.

Will Sam be able to save Vanessa from the perilous situation she now finds herself in after Sam’s “intervention"? Will — or should — Sam try to influence Lily to either win her back or get some form of closure? And should Sam somehow act on the demonic visions he is seeing with growing frequency? Exploring each of these questions was an engaging read. If any of this sounds remotely interesting to you, you should give Whispers a try.