Graphic Content: Love Everlasting Volume 2 written by Tom King and illustrated by Elsa Charettier

 

People might be familiar with the book Love Everlasting, Vol. 1, written by Tom King and illustrated by Elsa Charretier (I also hope that it’s because you read the review I did for volume 1). It focuses on Joan Peterson, a woman who finds herself living out the plotlines of several romantic stories, being everything from a maid pining for her employer to a secretary who desires her best friend’s fiancée. In all these scenarios, once she supposedly finds love, she is whisked away Quantum-Leap-style to a new romance plot, and if she doesn’t fall in line and live out the story she’s in, a mysterious cowboy shows up to kill her and she respawns into a different romance plot. I was unsure how Volume 2 of Love Everlasting could add anything new to the story. It doesn’t add any details to Joan’s predicament, but it does show a wrinkle to the rules of her existence.

The scenario of Joan needing to find love to escape must still play out for her in Volume 2, even if finding that love takes a while. (Here’s where I should probably put a SPOILER ALERT for those who want to read the story and be totally surprised). In 1963, party girl Joan finds herself in a relationship with square-jawed, strait-laced Don, but Joan actually goes through an entire life with Don, from getting married and having kids to becoming a grandmother and spending her old age alone. Though Charretier’s artwork still pays homage to silver age romance comics, King’s story here is quite a change from the last volume where Joan is constantly trying to find her footing in a new universe. In this, she is trying to figure out if this world she finds herself in is real, especially now that she has created beings she should love unconditionally.

One could almost see this stop on Joan’s journey as a glimmer of hope, even if it’s a false one. Even as she starts to look at the flaws of this world, she still can’t help but want to stay because of the life she’s created here not necessarily with Don but with her children and grandchildren. Volume one apparently sets up the premise of this universe while volume 2 offers a story of what happens to Joan when her escape hatch no longer works, seemingly arguing that it’s crueler to allow Joan to have hope, even if it’s a false hope, that she can remain indefinitely in wherever she lands.