Summary

• Fight Club's Tyler Durden betrays his anti-consumerism beliefs by being involved in advertising and running a demolition company in the Tranmetropolitan.
• Transmetropolitan hints at a shared continuity with Fight Club, suggesting that Tyler Durden exists within the body of the Narrator's descendant in the 23rd century.
• Tyler Durden's involvement in advertising and running a demolition company shows that he is the ultimate traitor to his own cause of anti-capitalism in this distant future "sequel".

Tyler Durden’s message in the original Fight Club was one of anti-consumerism, anarchy and rebellion in the face of national complacency, especially after Project Mayhem was up and running. But, as strongly as Tyler preached his message, it seems he wasn’t that serious about it after all, as it’s revealed that he totally betrays his entire belief system in Fight Club’s distant future ‘sequel’.

The number one enemy of Tyler Durden, the Narrator, and every member of Fight Club and/or Project Mayhem was advertising and selling one’s proverbial soul for money and material possessions. Throughout the book and the film, Tyler preached against the modern consumerist culture and actively orchestrated its widespread destruction. Indeed, Tyler planned to destroy the buildings of major credit card companies in an effort to eliminate debt - which is successful in the movie, unsuccessful in the book (but the intent was still there).

It’s highly recommended that readers listen to Where Is My Mind? by the Pixies while reading the remainder of this article.

Tyler then doubles down on his extremism (or, more accurately, terrorism) in Fight Club 2, where he plots to not just take down a few buildings, but to bomb the entire world back to the Stone Age. But, that wasn’t the only revelation present in Fight Club 2, as the graphic novel also reveals that Tyler Durden isn’t the psychotic manifestation of repressed insecurity and rage in the mind of the Narrator, Tyler Durden is actually a psychic virus in Fight Club canon. Tyler Durden is a living entity that is ed down through generations within the Narrator’s family - one that will never truly be vanquished.

Transmetropolitan Reveals Tyler Durden’s Hypocritic Fight Club Future

Transmetropolitan #42 by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson

This issue of Transmetropolitan opens with renowned gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem working on his column detailing the lives of the City’s residents following the recent election of the United States’ new president, a slimy psychopath Spider famously dubbed ‘the Smiler’. While Jerusalem is writing, the comic pans through the city in a sequence of s, and on one of those s is none other than Tyler Durden.

Readers know this is Tyler based on a few visual clues. Firstly, the character is the spitting image of Tyler Durden as he was portrayed by Brad Pitt. Secondly, Tyler is standing right in front of an ment for pink soap, and written right in the middle of the bar of soap is a single word: Tyler. Thirdly, Tyler Durden is shown right behind a narration box describing how the Smiler’s istration has contracted a demolition company to tear down buildings across the City, a company readers later learn is named ‘Durden Demolition’.

Tyler Durden Exists Within The Body Of The Narrator’s Descendant

Fight Club & Transmetropolitan Could Be A Shared Continuity

Obviously, Transmetropolitan isn’t an official sequel to Fight Club, and the version of Tyler Durden in the comic was assuredly just a nod to the iconic film/book. However, with the added lore established in Fight Club 2, it suddenly becomes all-too possible that Transmetropolitan’s Tyler Durden isn’t just an empty cameo, but the real Tyler Durden existing within the body of the Narrator’s descendant. Transmetropolitan does take place in the 23rd century, after all, and there’s no reason it couldn’t be the future within the Fight Club universe. Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that, if it looks like Tyler Durden is in this story, then Tyler Durden is actually in this story. However, it seems as though this isn’t the same Tyler fans are familiar with.

Not only is Tyler Durden apparently involved in advertising (which is heavily implied in the ad for the soap), but he also has a demolition company, which is the purest example of him literally capitalizing off of his extreme anti-capitalism message in Fight Club, thereby proving to be the ultimate traitor to his own cause in this distant future ‘sequel’.