[originally published in Exploits #86, an Unwinnable publication]

The Black & Chrome edition of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is not entirely black and white. We see startling bursts of color that magnify the film’s thematic preoccupations. This begins with the story’s original sin: a bright peach plucked from the edge of the Green Place. The trees’ muted verdant leaves emphasize the fragility of this womb-like oasis within the Wasteland.

Each chromatic flash symbolizes a particular source of hope. From the defiled peach, Furiosa preserves a brown seed. This hidden pit becomes her only tether to the lost home, as she is baptized into the world of fire & blood. The black & chrome aesthetic dominates the rest of this chapter, indicating the static continuum of life & death in the Wasteland.

Every Mad Max saga offers us a mythology of the future. Madcap heroes and villains maximize humanity’s primal instincts within a kami-krazee crucible of survival, cooperation, and domination. The next choice of color christens an opposing source of hope for the Wasteland: Dementus. Furiosa’s nemesis also climbs too high. Emblazoned by a volley of sky blood, the biker warlord declares himself a harbinger of prosperity for all under his rule.

For the rest of the second chapter, The Red Dementus’ beard and cape stand out from the grayscale Wasteland and its wretched inhabitants. Intoxicated on pomp and circumstance, the would-be conqueror also dyes young Furiosa’s hair and dubs her his daughter, twining their fates as titans of change. But it’s all hot air; Dementus is no different than any other dog scrabbling over scraps. His ruby plumage, born of manic grandiosity, fades alongside his hope for the rest of the saga.

This conflict between Green and Red consummates in the finale, with the Brown seed at its nexus. Furiosa’s final punishment for Dementus, in proper mythological irony, grants his grand wish. The virile flesh, once boasted as a harbinger of change, truly becomes the soil of the future. Dementus keeps his promise to the Wasteland with the assistance of his one-time heir.

Green leaves sprout on a tree growing out of Dementus’ body. A brilliant orange peach is plucked from its branch. This demented offspring feeds the next generation, speaking truth to the reality we all embody: the ego can get as bloated as it wants, but the rotting self yearns to nourish a world we will never see.

No matter how Red your blood gets, it is destined to fertilize something new, something Green.