FBP Federal Bureau of Physics Vol. 2: Wish You Were Here
Simon Oliver, writer; Robbi Rodriguez, artist; Rico Renzi, colorist
Vertigo Comics
Things take an odd (or even odder, anyway) twist in the second installment of this Vertigo series. The FBP team spends the entire title arc visiting an experimental facility in Nakeet, Alaska that is about to be shut down. The twist is that the place is home to a device that allows users to create their own quantum reality. We gradually come to realize that Agent Adam Hardy and his new partner Agent Rosa Reyes are hooked up together...so everything in this volume may or may not take place in the "real world."
Since the pair are sharing a reality, their adventures reflect their obsessions. Adam seeks the man who stole his missing father's research, but the rich, reclusive, Mister Blackwood may not want to be found. Rosa wants to find the reality where she and her family lived happily, instead of being torn apart. Although it's possible that the conclusion still isn't real, the quantum reality stories probably have to be seen as more of a view into the agents' psyches than anything else. Adam's vision of his quest is full of paranoia, and Rosa wants her happy childhood back so badly that she refuses to leave the quantum reality until the last moment.
But she does it to help Adam, so their partnership seems strong. There's some quantum reality intimacy she denies, and she brought back a quantum reality device they're keeping secret. The big surprise comes at the end, when they discover that Blackwood wants to meet Rosa, not Adam. So if the story arc is a reset loop in some ways, in others it sets up several intriguing possibilities.
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