Today’s topic moves us to the strange and wonderful world of Comics as a recent find and my personal favorite comic at the moment is perplexingly under-popular on sites like Reddit, Tapas, and even Tumblr. Yes, the topic today is the one and many Infinite Immortal Bens by Luke Coates (whose name is really hard to find for some reason).

This odd serial comic centers on the titular Ben as he experiences infinity and becomes possibly omnipotent, exhibiting abilities such as entering dreams, hopping universes, communing with other versions of himself, moving forward and backward in time (as well as left and right), and even exiting reality entirely. This comic, naturally, explores exceptionally intriguing situations and scientific as well as philosophical concepts while turning many of them on their heads! The humor here is sometimes simply about absurdity and others hilarious in context. However, each will not fail to spark an interesting discussion of the abstract topics they tackle. What would you do with infinite time on your hands and innumerable places to explore and questions to answer? How would you feel if a Lovecraftian being started spouting Solipsism at you when you’ve already achieved thinking with other peoples’ minds?

Throughout the comic, you may find Ben to appear to vary in his age. This is, of course, intentionally done to show how hectic his timeline is and even beg the question of if the same Ben is being shown each time. His mood is always quite mellow. He’s literally seen it all and he’ll probably see it all again. Not much phases him, though much phases through him. I find this to be the most interesting aspect of the comic; I love the topic of infinity. Characters without the fear of death and the ability to do what none of us can are perfect vehicles through which to explore the most intriguing side of human nature; what we do when there’s literally no reason to fear. A prime example can be seen in a more prevalent character by the name of Dr. Manhattan from the graphic novel Watchmen.

This novel centers on a group of superheroes in an age when vigilante justice is illegal and heroes are considered criminals. Having literally become an omnipotent god, Manhattan is seen to slowly lose touch with humanity. Like Ben, he seems to gain this mellow demeanor in all situations. Human relationships become simple matters of “say this + do that = function complete.” His girlfriend is nothing more than another set of words exiting the mouth of a pile of similarly constructed matter. He forgets the necessity of human interaction and love so much so that he grows tactless and robotic. This is where the differences of course begin as Watchmen takes a dark and dramatic approach with Infinite Immortal Bens on the lighter and more humorous side of it. Ben instead tries to make himself into some wise old shaman that people climb mountains to seek for answers to their deepest quandries. He gives himself the nickname “Wise Old Ben” which absolutely no one ends up using as no one really cares.

I hope you find Ben to be as funny as I have. Given the utterly confused faces of half of the friends I’ve shown him to, I’m sure you will!

One more because it made be laugh: