Because I’ve heard a lot of people complaining that this was confusing…

At some point in the fairly recent history, a creature called “The Void” and the Squid somehow exploded into our reality from…somewhere else. The void only incarnated for a while, while the Squid was trapped.

Ex Nihilo has researched this rupture, seeming to worship or at least be heavily interested in this concept of “the Void” (you can see she’s got a book about it in the car), wanting to either gain control of this power or just allow it to incarnate into the world (depending, I suppose, on whether it’s a worship deal or a Doctor Doom-esque motivation), presumably to give her power.

Anyone who saw this Fairfax (or was it Fairfield?) event/robbery/explosion was ‘marked’ by having seen it, to their very cores and souls. They are conduits of portions of the Void energy, through which this creature might re-enter the universe…except that they were so damaged that they aren’t strong or stable enough to support his full glory. The void creature is looking for another way out, through the Dial.

The Dial somehow draws essences and powers and personalities from someplace else (see speculation below) filled with heroes.

The Squid is either from the Void’s realm or from the imaginal realm, or perhaps they’re both from there (again, see speculation) and is lookign for a way to get home. He, perhaps, feels that the Void will allow him to get there, or will lead to him finding a way to get there.

Ex Nihilo and the Squid go to the brother of someone who saw the event. His mental and physical ‘closeness’ to his brother (who presumably had a fairly important part to play in the whole event…I’m guessing he was a previous user of the Dial who banished the Void, but that’s speculation) mean he’s a perfect conduit — undamaged like the people who saw the event directly, but still strongly connected, he makes a more stable throughline.

Speculation: The Void, and the Squid, are from the same place from which the Dial is drawing personas. That place is some imaginal realm, or series of imaginal realms, in which exist or existed rather silly, fanciful, four color heroes such as we’ve seen thus far. The void, and the Squid, were two villains of that place. The human unconsciousness defines this, as it exists as a series of personified archetypes, literally the place from which imagination springs.

Other possibilities are that they come from an entirely different universe – the shape of which we see glimpsed in Ex Nihilo’s cuboid diagram during the squid/Nihilo’s first talk of the issue – and, indeed, that the Void himself IS the embodiment of that universe/dimension/realm, and that the Dials – acting as Dimension ‘portals’ through which other personas can incarnate briefly into ‘our’ world – were simply co opted as a tool by the Void to enter into our universe (or at least a portion of him, if he is indeed a universal embodiment). This theory becomes more likely if the Dial does indeed draw upon multiple universes/dimensions/imaginal dominions.

The “O” that helped create telephony (as a byproduct of his own researchers) is presumably someone who was trying to access this other realm. Indeed, the Manteau comments that ALL the Dials are imperfect; even as they function ‘normally’ they’re doing things they probably weren’t built to do. So presumably “O” was initiallyt rying to access this “Void”, or trying to access this universe of imagination and wonder, for either noble or sinister purposes (I’m suspecting noble).

And finally, the subtext and review…

Subtextually, this book is all about identity.

Nelson transforms based on his emotional state at the time — when he’s addicted to smoke he’s Boy Chimney, when he’s feeling rowdy and ready for action he’s the warlike Snail or the bombastic Clay Pigeon, when he’s sad he’s Captain Lachyrmose, itself. But perhaps worst of all, he allows those personalities – and the memories that come with them – to subsume his unique identity totally. He allows himself to get lost in them, and indeed prefers it that way. “Nelson is the worst identity of all”. He’s purposely getting controlled by his emotions, rather than controlling THEM, being used BY them instead of using THEM.

Manteau represents a more evolved version of what he can become, what he should become, in every way. Unconcerned with petty things like gender discrepancies, but also more fully in control of her dial, and certainly more in command of herself. She knows who she is, and uses the identities as SHE wants, remaining herself through them. She’s a more fully integrated individual, with a more developed sense of self. Nelson is on his way to becoming Manteau, or at least someone like Manteau. That’s the journey here (although I’m betting she has her own problems — perhaps horrible disfigurement that she’s hiding behind the mask. Or that she is, indeed, a future version of Nelson, and the gender conversation this issue was foreshadowing).

The Void, the villain, represents…well, that. The void. The absence of ANYTHING, pain and joy and identity included. Nelson will have to decide if that is preferable to the miserable life he’s currently leading. Because even as he’s chosen to let these other identities of the Dial take ownership of his body for a time, he’s still been choosing LIFE, choosing EMOTION and VIBRANCE. But if he chooses void — or gives into the Void — he’s choosing nothingness.

If the heroes represent both emotion and indeed IMAGINATION, POTENTIAL…then the Void is the opposite. The quiet bliss of oblivion.

Ex Nihilo, as her name implies, worships fatalism, the absence of meaning. For her a void, perfect absence, ultimate stillness, the harmony of nothingness…this is something to strive for, the ultimate goal. So the incarnation of “The Void” in full form and full glory is presumably what she wants.

The battle is about the forces of potential and possibility vs the easy peace of nonexistence, both externally and internally. Is the universe a place of wonder and awe, or is it without meaning and purpose?