If you thought eternal night was terrifying, think again. The legendary Blacktop Bill prowls the dark with impunity. Find out more in Nocterra: Blacktop Bill from Image Comics!

NOCTERRA: BLACKTOP BILL

Writer: Scott Snyder and Tony S. Daniel
Artist: Denys Cowan and Kent Williams
Colorist: Chris Sotomayor
Letterer: Andworld Design
Editor: Will Dennis
Publisher: Image Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: January 5, 2022

Previously in Nocterra: Val Riggs, a ferryman, made a desperate journey through the relentless dark of the Big PM to take some fares to a secure outpost and to try to find a cure for her brother to prevent him from turning into a shade. Following them is the horrific legend known as Blacktop Bill. He has been contracted to kill the fares, and he follows them to the outpost so he can finish the job. Now we get to learn his story.

A SERIAL KILLER GETS UNEXPECTED SCOPE

Nocterra: Blacktop Bill opens with a radio conversation that was started in issue #4 of the main series. A couple of people are talking about Blacktop Bill, who lived in Florida before the Big PM. He lived a picture-perfect life with a picture-perfect family. He was so helpful, and everyone loved him. But they say he had a secret.

He had a shed in his backyard, and in the shed, there was a secret door, a locked door. The rumor is that he was a hitman, a professional killer. Killing in cold blood was just part of the job. Except that wasn’t his only secret.

The book cuts to Bill now. He gets a message over the radio that some of their people made it out of Prism 3, and the top priority is to save as many as they can. Bill sees a couple survivors fleeing Shades and he shoots them down, then replies over the radio that he didn’t see anyone.

This segues back to the story of his past. He wasn’t just a hitman. His killing led to another kind of killing, passion kills that were based on an odd philosophy that he developed and adhered to seriously, so seriously that he considered these other kills to be “special.” When there were survivors of an event, the people who believed they were fortunate, that someone was watching out for them, he took it upon himself to finish them off. Working in grand style, making it look like just a random accident, he took pride in killing them. The universe had meant for them to die, and it was his sacred duty to finish the job. I find this supremely weird and creepy.

He took his name from asphalt – the viscous form of petroleum which is made from ancient dead things. Prior to the Big PM, he felt humanity had reached some sort of peak selfishness with an inability to see how they fit into the world anymore. But after the Big PM, he found a world that fit him much better. He is not intimidated by the Shades, and word is that his current form allows him to walk unseen among Shades.

But the question remains as to whether his pursuit of Val and her fares is business…or passion.

THE DARKNESS IN THE DARKNESS

The art of Nocterra: Blacktop Bill does some truly interesting things with the main character. We see him at the start as a normal guy. Within a few pages, we learn he is a hitman, and from there, we mainly see him in the dark. Before the Big PM, he did much of his killing at night. The darkness fits the dark story. What is really haunting, though, is we see glimpses of him in the past with his face entirely in shadow, only his smile gleaming. These are the moments he looks like the Blacktop Bill he has become, a sort of human shadow, features indistinguishable against his darkness.

Another thing that keeps it interesting is that even though this is the back story of a serial killer, the violence is depicted briefly, often in single panels. This works because it plays off Blacktop Bill’s very mundane persona. Bill goes through life, and everything feels incredibly familiar, right up to the point where he blows up a group of survivors. Another scene that builds on his legend is after the Big PM when he is attacked by Shades. He fights back, tooth and claw, to the point where it is the Shade who looks appalled and tries to get away.

BOTTOM LINE: IN THE DARK, OF THE DARK

Nocterra: Blacktop Bill is the awful origin story you didn’t know you needed. It’s horrifying, it’s brutal, and it fits him perfectly. We may not understand his obsession, but we do get how it drives him.

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