Once again, we return to the endless depths of the pile and pull from it something not completely unfamiliar. As you may remember from the several decades ago that leads us to 2019, I had written about a short series that involved the rebellion of the Canadian people against a religiously fanatical US government. In the time since then, that idea went from a far-flung absurdity to terribly prescient. But what if we looked instead at a time before that story? One in which the religiously fanatical go to war with everyone who doesn’t look like them in a major American city? Surely Precious Metal by Darcy Van Poelgeest, Ian Bertram, Matt Hollingsworth, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou can’t be all that evergreen, can it?

Set thirty-five years before the events of Little Bird, Precious Metal shows us the world before the collapse. In this past state, things still aren’t great. The world is engrossed with dueling cults and the division between those who are well-off and those who aren’t is a divide so deep it feels like they can never escape. It’s in this situation we meet Max, a modded man who finds people who have tried to run out on their indentured contracts and return them. He’s tasked with finding a boy—nothing out of the ordinary. But this boy is able to reach into his head and show him memories of a past Max can’t quite remember. From that first encounter, Max becomes the catalyst for the change that will lead us to Little Bird as the church that tries to kill every modded person butts against the god that heads the cult the modded have thrown themselves behind. 

Precious Metal does the thing any good prequel should do and that’s provide context and further information on the world. We meet a character from Little Bird and even then for only a few pages before our focus returns to Max. Considering the world Van Poelgeest, Bertram, Hollingsworth, and Otsmane-Elhaou have created, there’s pockets for expansion all over so we never need to return to the same idea or character over and over. That comes through much more here as the world before the one we see in Little Bird is so distinctly different—if it wasn’t for the art and general mood, it wouldn’t feel like the same story. But by giving us that incredible contrast, we can see how much more a world like this can expand beyond what either series is already presenting to us. 

Despite being announced early last year, Precious Metal is the kind of series that perfectly reflects the world after it was released. It’s a series that was able to look forward into the worst of timelines to see how the future could unfold in some of the most absurd ways. And while we don’t have the floating ships or body modifications of its world, we do have plenty of the xenophobia and governmental collapse attached to it. 

Get excited. Get changed. 

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, 510, 651, & 674) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.