by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips Publisher: Image Comics (January 24th, 2017)
Softcover, 128 pages
Normally
I don’t review mainstream comics as they usually get enough press on their own.
Preferring instead to focus on independent or at least forgotten mainstream
comics from decades ago. Basically those stories which probably need more
exposure. However, I have always been impressed by the collaborations between
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips- Fatale,
Criminal, The Fade Out, & Incognito-
so I decided to give this story a chance. And I was not disappointed. It is an
urban revenge fantasy, and also a deconstruction of the genre.
The
action revolves around a depressed twenty-something who drunkenly attempts
suicide by jumping off his apartment building. Miraculously, he survives only
to be haunted by a demon that claims the hero owes payment for his life. One
person a month must be killed at the main character’s hands or else the
protagonist himself will die. He resists until the very last day, growing sicker
and sicker, until he caves.
One
of the interesting aspects of the story (and I have not read the other volumes,
so I have no idea how it plays out) is that the demon might all be a figment of
a mental disorder. After all, the protagonist had just hit his head before the
creature shows up. Is he crazy? The best indication is that he begins to feel
better once he’s thought of a target, not after he’s killed the man. This
aspect works best, in my opinion, as the demon insists that Jon kills “bad
people”. What qualifies a person for this criteria is up in the air, but my
first question in this story is why would a demon really care what sort of
person was offered up to it?
The
first volume at least is not incredibly violent, focusing more on the
protagonist’s slide into casual killing and how he begins to track his victims.
I enjoyed the note that, unlike most films and comics, one does not normally
witness crime. Thus running about, riding on the subway ala Death Wish, hoping
to stumble upon an evil doer wouldn’t work for him. He must learn to find the
enemy and then destroy him.
As
always, Sean Phillip’s art compliments Ed Brubaker’s grim script perfectly. The
world is a dark and snowy abyss of bleakness and human despair, mirroring the
hero’s soul. Even before he attempts suicide, the character suffers from a
sense of meaningless in his life. This new direction, which he resists at
first, becomes his all. His raison d'etre. But unlike Charles Bronson, The
Punisher, Remo Williams, Mack Bolan “The
Executioner”, we get a much deeper character examination. He is with us,
explaining his life, all the way- warts and all.
This
is all shadowed against the odd romantic triangle between the hero, his
roomate, and his best friend- a girl whom the hero thought he wanted and is the
reason for his attempt to kill himself. But once it becomes possible for him to
actually get the girl, that is almost immediately overshadowed by his new life.
The dreams of the fantasy girl is tossed aside by dreams of revenge.
For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.
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