Garth Ennis/Darick Robertson
DC/Wildstorm
Garth Ennis, how do i love thee? let me count the ways ...
ok, i can't count that high. but i love you, man.
coming off the heels off my faves Preacher and the Punisher, Ennis needed to get back into the superhero game (his previous DC work Hitman is on my hit list as well), but on his own terms. and this is it.
Present-day earth has been overrun by capes. by capes, we mean metahumans. by metahumans, we mean superheroes. by superheroes, we mean dudes and dudettes with extraordinary powers. and no, this is not a good thing.
just ask Wee Hughie.
a slacker and conspiracy theorist who's life is just turning the corner, the best moment he's ever had is shattered in a few seconds. a fight between a superhero and a supervillain turns ugly and Hughie's girlfriend has to be scraped from a wall. in just one page, Darick Robertson (veteran of edgy and occasionally mind-fucking fare such as Transmetropolitan) already answers the "why". this is Ennis' version of Civil War; take that, Mark Millar!
flash ... ah-hah ... he'll save everyone of us ... if he doesn't kill us first
capes have dominated the landscape, and governments reluctantly have had to clean up behind them, for the "greater good". it was inevitable that super-powered individuals would eventually let that power into their head and it shows. consider for example, the Seven, which are obviously modeled after DC's Justice League (aren't they all?). this distortion of the hero/anti-hero echoes the Authority going up against the G7 countries and their own homegrown capes (another of my favorite books, written by Millar himself).
that's where the similarities to the JLA end; the Seven are several 180 degrees from those boy scouts. their newest member, Starlight (the Green Lantern analogue), has to perform oral sex to three members for her initiation. Queen Maeve (Wonder Woman) cusses and smokes (and who knows what else). A-Train (Flash) was responsible for the death of Hughie's girl. and of course, you have the Aquaman analogue, The Deep, complaining about billing and income.
money ... money changes everything
somehow they have principles; here Homelander (Superman, who else) gives A-Train an ass kicking for an inappropriate joke. if he's that badass, i can only imagine what Black Noir (the Batman) does in his spare time.
and if you can't read who the Martian Manhunter equivalent was from the meeting pic above, he's called Jack from Jupiter (that cracked me up).
and those are the grown-ups. the young 'uns, like the ones in Teenage Kix (Teen Titans presumably), lead testosterone-filled lives in moral absentia while high on depravity. and these are the "good guys".
to see the whole story ... buy the book, dammit!
and so ... enter Billy (the) Butcher.
mandated to keep the capes in line, and having no compunction in crossing it if necessary, Billy reassembles his old team and pulls in favors from the CIA to use resources. Billy seems to be the personification of "badass", even in this world where the capes can be interchanged with villains, and despite the occasional "father figure" posing.
i mean he even sics his bulldog, Terror, on a hapless shih tzu.
but he's disciplined, and he has a plan.
although we should ask, what's in it for him? a story for another day (there's only four issues so far, dammit!).
so his second order of business (after gathering his team), is to give Teenage Kix a scare.
his army includes a Frenchman called The Frenchman, who as these two panels clearly demonstrate, is unlike any of his compatriots who rolled over for the Germans (ok, that stale joke was the cause of the severe beating these gentlemen are getting from him).
there's also a nameless girl - well, she's referred to as 'the female of the Species' and obviously is not a boy but is part of the Boys. she's mute, she prefers not to be touched, and deals brutality to rival Mafia gangs.
the hilarious scene echoes an earlier Punisher story, written by ... who else?
there's also a black dude named Mother's Milk, whom little is known about at this stage, except he's a single parent, he'd rather do community service, but according to Billy, is the engine that makes the whole thing go.
speaking of Billy again, just in case you're ready to give him a Nobel prize for trying to bring the capes in line, here's a scene for you - they might term it "being in bed with the CIA".
if you want to see the whole thing ... buy the book, dammit!
so what about Wee Hughie Campbell's role in all of these proceedings? Billy wants someone on his team who has a personal stake (albeit subtly forced by Billy) in roping in the out-of-control heroes. Hughie grudgingly agrees, even getting some kicks in functioning as the evidence-collector (basically paparazzi work). but when Billy slyly injects him with a DNA-altering serum that would allegedly enable him to go toe to toe with the super-powered loose cannons, Hughie has his doubts. it remains to be seen how this will all play out.
all i can say is, i am sure i'll be as spellbound and excited to follow this series like i did Preacher.
by the way, just for anyone who's planning to purchase a firearm, Butcher has this to say:
so either you're a wanker. or not.
i'm betting if you don't like this comic, you are a wanker. wanker.
-----
issues read #1-4
No comments:
Post a Comment