Salvation is an integral part of comic books.

Saving the girl, saving your friends, saving a world or a galaxy or a universe – at some point all of these things became all in a day’s work. It’d be psychotic if it wasn’t so darn entertaining.

Something about the human condition has made us fall in love with the idea of saviors. We look for them, try to be them, a religion about a Savior has seriously influenced the political and social landscape of the last two thousand years in the West and yet, with trillions of lifetimes, billions of words and thousands of years spent on the problem humanity is still incredibly bad at the whole saving people thing.

Humanity is rife with contradictions and among our greatest is the fact that our propensity for evil tends to be greatest when we are trying our hardest to help others. C. S. Lewis said, “Of all tyrannies, the tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

When I first sat down to write Open Circuit nearly eight years ago it was with a very simple idea in mind. I wanted to create a character so repulsed by the world around him that the only way he could see to make it better would be to burn it to the ground and regrow it in his own image. A totalitarian, yes, but one with our best interests at heart. Imagine my surprise when almost every word he spoke boiled out of a festering discontent deep within my own heart. I was unsettled, to say the least.

Yes, I’ve waited all this time, until the very end of these three books, to make a confession to you, the readers who have come all this way with me: The character I am most like in all of Project Sumter is probably Matthew Sykes.

We’re both kind of reclusive, grumpy and given to thinking too much. We feel underappreciated and we worry that we’ll soon be too old to do any good for anyone. We’re frequently told we’re smart but things don’t work out for us so often it feels more like a consolation than a real advantage. And sometimes, if given the opportunity, I would climb in that wheelchair and conquer Chicago just the same as Circuit would.

Except the first thing I would do is put a coffee shop in at that reflective coffee bean thingy in Millenium Park because seriously not having one there is some kind of gross oversight. Then we would get to work restoring the lakefront. But I digress.

The one cardinal difference between me and the character I had created was that I have a savior – His name is Jesus Christ – and this helps me deal with all the things that Circuit can’t. So, long before I put the first word to paper, I knew that Circuit had to face up to his shortcomings at some point. And when he faced them he would have to be saved from them because that’s what real heroes do. They save people, no matter who they are. From there it was just a matter of working out who would do it and how.

The answers to those whos and hows I have already shared with you. I hope you’ve enjoyed them.

From a story that grew out of discontent and general grouchiness, political weirdness and a desire to do something different came something that was very simple and basic but that was none the less very difficult to achieve and satisfying to complete. The Sumter trilogy was by no means a perfect story in concept or execution but I’ve written it pretty much as I set out to and that’s something, a starting point at the very least.

Next week… well, come back next week and I’ll lay out my plans for the summer. Until then.