Just a Pilgrim

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just a Pilgrim is a 5 issue comic book limited series written by Garth Ennis, with art by Carlos Ezquerra, and published by Black Bull, the short-lived comics publishing division of Wizard Entertainment, in 2001. It was followed by a 4 issue sequel entitled Just a Pilgrim: Garden of Eden in 2002.

[edit] Setting

The setting of the series is one in which the Sun experienced coronal expansion (referred to as 'The Burn') growing to the point where the Earth was scorched and the oceans evaporated, and only a few pockets of humanity have survived. The series is narrated by Billy Shepard, a child who is with a refuge group attempting to cross the now empty Atlantic Basin, in hopes of finding sources of water on the other side.

[edit] Just a Pilgrim

The title character (never named, simply called Pilgrim) was a U.S. Marine prior to the burn. During one mission, he and his comrades were left adrift at sea in a lifeboat, and forced to resort to cannibalism to survive, with Pilgrim being the only survivor by the time help arrived. He was exonerated, but he had developed a taste for human flesh, and continued the practice after he escaped until he was caught. During his imprisonment, he was routinely visited by a priest, and eventually accepted God. When the burn happened, he was freed, though he was the only survivor in sight.

The series begins some years later, when Pilgrim encounters the group of refugees and offers to show them the way. He helps defend them from a group of pirates who attack them during their trek. The Pirates are led by a man with two eye-patches, two wooden arms, and two peg legs (this grotesque character is typical in Ennis' writings). Eventually, Pilgrim leads them in a climactic battle, which annihilates both the refugees and the pirates, and leaves Pilgrim the only survivor.

[edit] Just a Pilgrim: Garden of Eden

In the sequel, Garden of Eden, Pilgrim comes across an oasis of sorts in a deep oceanic trench, where there is still plant life, and what may be the last remnants of humanity. The people are mainly scientists who have been building a space shuttle that is near to completion which may be able to take them off planet to some more hospitable world. Pilgrim requests that they take the Bible with them when they leave. But the group is routinely menaced by zombies, which they, with Pilgrim's assistance, ward off. Eventually, the zombies gain an upper hand, and raid the sanctuary. The shuttle is launched at the last minute, with only two survivors among the scientists (a male and a female, representing Adam and Eve) on board. Defending her escape, Pilgrim changes his mind and tells female scientist to throw away the bible, and instead take the journal of Billy Shepard, the boy from the first series, whose life Pilgrim sacrificed when he led the refugees in the last stand battle. At the ending, the two scientists escape with the space shuttle equipped with materials to build a new planet. It is debatable if the Pilgrim survived or not since he stayed on Earth.