What's In The Fucking Box?

In its previous five issues, “Se7en” (Zenoscope) has proven an intriguing creative project – this, by filling the narrative blanks of the arguably classic 1995 film by emphasizing the crazed nature of serial killer Joe Doe’s “work” versus the police trying to catch him.

To be honest, none of this mini-series’ previous issues (Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth) have exactly blown me away. Yes, these “missing chapters” have been visually arresting, yet none have carried nearly as much dramatic weight on “Se7en’s” plot as “Envy,” wherein John Doe murders Detective Mills’ pregnant wife Tracy as the next-to-last rung of his righteous murder spree.

In a masterful (if sadistic) stroke, the only insight “Se7en” director (David Fincher) and screenwriter (Kevin Andrew Walker) permit into Tracy’s off-screen demise comes from Doe himself in the film’s climactic final minutes – thus, allowing us to paint that scene in our minds (whether we wish to or not).

In the Director’s Cut of “Aliens” (1986), James Cameron used this same theatre-of-the-mind device by showing the bustling space colony Hadley’s Hope (inhabited by “60, maybe 70 families”) before it was infected by the alien horde – and then jumping us a few months later as Ripley and her marines arrive to find the site ghoulishly empty. Soon enough, we learn what happened in-between. We never see the colonists’ overwhelmed by the alien swarm, but based on evidence of the fight, we can imagine how it ended – with images of women and children being snatched to serve as hosts for the Queen’s next offspring.

Nasty stuff, indeed.

Thus, I couldn’t wait to see “Se7en” (the comic) author David Mack’s theory on how Tracy Mills met John Doe, and “her pretty head” became one of the most gruesome (and least seen) bombshells in movie history. How Mack pulls it off is brief, a bit simple, and surprisingly bloodless, but I think, effective.

Next month, “Se7en” ends with its final chapter “Wrath,” which I’m curious to see how Mach manages considering we’ve already seen how the story ends.

And believe me, brother: it ain’t too sunny.