Mercy Sparx is a comic book series that relishes in violence irreverence and all things heavy
metal but when you look beyond the juvenile and rebellious indulgences the series plays with quite
a few mature themes sexuality and desires tragic irony and fate the abuse of power and religion but
of all the themes present none stand out quite as much as this the illusion of choice but what
do I mean when I mention the masterfully crafted narrative in the most memorable mal-mannered comic
book series Mercy Sparx miraculously many might make their own interpretation but I made my own
there's not enough people with originality so here I am to save the day Jayniac
a bit of fair warning this comic book series is not for kids it contains strong language graphic
violence sexual themes and honestly some things haven't quite aged well for the sake of this video
I won't be showing any of the more adult stuff and I will also refrain from any major spoilers in
case you adults want to read it anyway Mercy Sparx was born in the land of sheol a strange place
between heaven hell and purgatory against her will she was sent to our world charged with a mission
from God a devil girl secretly living amongst us Mercy now hunts rogue angels hiding on earth
doing heaven's dirty work that's the synopsis the comic book gives but trust me there's a lot
more going on for starters we have a protagonist who I'm sure by now you know is named Mercy Sparx
if I had to describe her personality I'd say she's a cross between the hedonistic and hyper-sexual
Faith Lahane what are friends for I mean I'm sorry it's just all the sweating nightly side-by-side
action you never put in for a little after hours uh and the antagonistic and foul-mouthed
Revy a real man takes rum but if you don't even have the balls to keep up with a woman
then I'm not gonna try and force you but what I think sets Mercy apart from the other bad girls
is that her battle-hardened attitude doesn't entirely come from a place of insecurity
in fact Mercy seems pretty confident in herself and her capabilities which is a great attribute
to have when you're the main character of an action series Mercy's tasked with fighting
defeating and capturing fallen angels that hide on earth and though she has a vast array of abilities
like super strength durability rapid healing a razor sharp tail and the ability to change into
a human form she can't fight them alone along the way she meets a human named Hank who helps her by
creating various types of gadgets my favorite being the metal mix-tapes the guy literally
weaponizes music how could I not love that each gadget has its own strengths and weaknesses when
dealing with different types of angelic beings speaking of angelic something you'll notice right
away when looking at Mercy are her tattoos at first glance they seem like a neat little
attribute to make her design stand out but then you look at what they are and you begin to wonder
why would a devil have angelic tattoos pearly gates angel wings stars and clouds
not very devilish that is until you consider the fact that Mercy is a total rebel
so if devils are evil and rebellion is also evil then a rebellious devil would be
good right yeah the comic plays with this idea of duality very often but what keeps the series from
becoming nothing more than stale and repetitive symbolism is Mercy's feelings about the situation
she's in despite being a competent fighter despite all of her witty remarks while in combat
Mercy doesn't actually enjoy fighting at the end of the day she just sees it as a job and much like
many of our real world blue collar jobs it doesn't bring her any satisfaction it doesn't edify her as
a person or deliver any closure to past traumas it's just something she has to do or does she
the ability to make our own decisions based on reason morals and ethics is one of the
quintessential parts of being human but what if those morals and reasonings were simply
given to you rather than you choosing them for yourself by blindly following expectations are
you truly making your own decisions and if said expectations lead you to doing something horrible
should you be held responsible the illusion of choice is a very prominent theme in Mercy
Sparx and this seems to go hand in hand with the series deeply Judeo-Christian religious setting
it should be noted that despite being rather sacrilegious the comic tends to comment on
religion rather than simply criticizing it it'd be so easy to just say if a higher power knows
our future then how much free will do we really have so instead the series asks us if our fate
is determined by things outside of our control our families our social class and where we grew up
and if it is then is our fate carved out from the get-go or are we able to change it through
the first part of the comics Mercy goes along with everything under the impression that she
has no choice because her orders are from heaven even though she's never been there she's been
conditioned to believe that heaven is serious business and all orders are completely outside
of her control but once she discovers she's being lied to you'd think that she'd forget about the
whole thing or try to find a way out but no Mercy actually continues being heaven's bounty hunter
at first I thought this was a gigantic oversight until a bit later in the comic where we're shown
that Mercy copes with her lack of freedom by pretending not to care instead of attempting
to escape or challenge the more difficult parts of her life she chooses to remain oblivious and
avoid responsibility so of course she's just going to go along with what she's told by
a higher power interesting that even though Mercy gives off the impression that she's a bad girl
that doesn't play by the rules she's very quick to follow orders rather than think for herself
again under the impression that this is what she's supposed to be doing and this is her choice
so what do you think I know this isn't my usual video format but I wanted to try
something different since it's a comic book series especially one that's still ongoing
it's hard to talk about this comic without spoiling anything that's very integral so hey
if you're a fan of horror movies heavy metal punk rock fashion and commentaries on religion
then look no further but remember it's not for kids not a lot of people know about this
comic book so I wanted to show it some love this Halloween and if you want to show this
channel some love be sure to check out the merchandise links in the description below
a big thank you to everyone who's been supporting it oh my goodness we got a lot of purchases this
week uh thank you guys please I really appreciate it while you're at it please subscribe to my
backup channel Jayniac 2r. links down below I made it just in case anything happens to this channel
I had a lot of fun rereading this comic for the video so if you want a deeper analysis
let me know in the comments section below until then I'll leave you with this