Recommended: Hack/Slash

Ongoing Series. Collections available from Amazon(US) or Amazon(UK).

Publisher: Image (formerly Devil’s Due)

Writer: Tim Seeley

Artists: Emily Stone, Stefano Caselli, Dave Crosland, Skottie Young

 

Starting out as a collection of one-shots (standalone stories) before evolving into an ongoing series, Hack/Slash is the tale of Cassie Hack. Cassie’s teenage years were marred somewhat by the two killing sprees launched into by her overprotective mother, posthumously known as the Lunch Lady. The moniker comes from the fact that she murdered Cassie’s bullying classmates and then fed them to the remaining student body. And she was a lunch lady. Eventually Cassie was forced to kill her mother, because even her own boiling gravy-based suicide wasn’t enough to stop her murderous rampage. Joined by Vlad – a gasmask-wearing, deformed giant often mistaken for a monster himself – an older and more badass Cassie embarks on a crusade to rid the world of the slasher menace.

Anyone who has grown up since the Eighties will probably be familiar with the concept of slashers, as their kind were the stuff of nightmares – literally, in the case of a certain Mister Krueger – for many a child who engaged in ill-advised late-night TV or VHS run-ins with the likes of Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers. In the Nineties, Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven reinvigorated and dissected the slasher movie with Scream. Today, generally inferior remakes or replicas are still churned out every October to cash in on the chill-seeking Halloween crowd.

If you’ve somehow missed all this and are completely unfamiliar with the horror sub-genre, you’re likely to miss out on a lot of what makes Hack/Slash so much fun, but in the interest of inclusionism we’ll explain the basics. Slashers, or Revenants as they are also known in the comic, are basically mass murderers and serial killers, full of rage, usually psychotic and often possessing some supernatural element that keeps them killing long after they themselves should be dead. They are occasionally able to operate in a community for some time before their deeds come to light, but the favoured approach of the slasher is usually to shun subtlety in favour of gruesome bloodbaths.

Hack/Slash revels in all aspects of its genre playground – masked, hulking brutes who punish fornicators, a killer doll, a demon-worshipping rock band that sacrifices virgins in exchange for fame, a killer who stalks and strikes in the dreams of his victims, buxom girls running around in ill-fitting clothes – it’s all in there. Even the notion of sequels is tackled with invention and humour, with defeated enemies returning from beyond the grave several issues later or the masks of fallen slashers being taken up by kindred spirits.

But for all the gore, titillation and guilty pleasures packed into the pages, Seeley also manages to exploit the relationships between our heroes and the band of helpers they acquire through their adventures for some genuinely touching emotional beats. Despite their almost super-human stance against the terrors of the world, Cassie and Vlad, and their friends, are still human (probably). As such, they periodically require comfort, sympathy or the occasional break from all the eviscerating and disembowelling. By remembering to show us these chinks in the armour of his leads, Seeley makes them more than just two-dimensional monster-hunters. And he compels the reader to join these characters on each new step of their slasher-bashing mission.

Recommended: Locke & Key

Ongoing Series. Collections available from Amazon(US) and Amazon(UK).

Publisher: IDW

Writer: Joe Hill

Artist: Gabriel Rodriguez

 

 

Locke & Key is essentially the story of a widow and her three children retreating to the patriarch’s ancestral home to deal with the fallout from his brutal murder. And there’s a malevolent spirit with a grudge against the family disguised as one of the children’s friends. Oh, and the family home is littered with keys that possess fantastical powers, one of which may well bring about the end of the world as we know it.

This kind of premise can only have come from a certain type of mind, and when you consider that the mind in question is that of a second-generation horror novelist, you start to see why the resulting output is a bit twisted. Joe Hill, the writer of Locke & Key, is the son of Stephen King – yes, the King who authored Misery, It and The Stand. Not that he wanted you to know that. Hill spent years hiding his heritage from the public, as he strived to make his own name with novels like Heart–Shaped Box and Horns. But, arguably, where Hill has most stood out as a master storyteller in his own right is in the world of comics.

The first story arc, Welcome to Lovecraft, sees the devastated family relocate to their new home of Keyhouse, a suitably gothic estate that houses the dark secrets of the late Mr Locke and his forefathers. While the elder children, Tyler and Kinsey, concern themselves with rebuilding their shattered lives, the task falls to youngest sibling Bode to fully explore the immediate surroundings. It’s not long before he discovers a key and a door that, when combined, produce ghostly results. But the discovery he later makes in the well house is worse by far. To further add to the family’s woes, their father’s murderer has escaped from custody and is being drawn by a malevolent force towards Keyhouse, and another deadly confrontation.

As it progresses, Locke & Key demonstrates that it has a number of visually enticing tricks up its sleeve and artist, Gabriel Rodriguez, proves time and again that he is absolutely the right choice to bring them to the page. One of the keys has the power to literally unlock people’s heads, causing them to open up like a flip-top bin, and allowing you to peek inside at tangible representations of their memories and emotions. These can then be physically removed or added to, leaving the owner forever altered as a result. Who can resist the imagery of young Bode learning recipes by cramming entire cookbooks into his open skull?

The nucleus of the series – a potentially unlimited number of magic keys, all waiting to have the kids stumble onto their varying effects – is serial-storytelling gold. This could so easily have been a series that ran forever, simply by slowing the progress of the dark lady’s diabolical plans and shifting the emphasis to a key-of-the-issue formula – and it’s altogether possible the ill-fated television series may have adopted a similar strategy. Credit is due to Hill and Rodriguez for avoiding this potential pitfall and insisting on a limited lifespan for their comic. In doing so, they have kept each issue feeling fresh and immediate and created something that, rather than exhausting its central conceit, uses it to enhance more character-focused stories. This approach will inevitably leave readers wanting more tales of the keys long after this story of the Locke family has reached its climax.

Currently in the fifth story arc in a planned series of six, the comic book has yet to divert from its tightly structured course and quality remains at a vertigo-inducing high.

Recommended: Incognito

Complete. Available from Amazon(US) or Amazon(UK).

Publisher: Icon

Writer: Ed Brubaker

Artist: Sean Phillips

 

 

Brubaker and Phillips are experts at taking elements of the classic crime and noir genres and applying them to modern-day or futuristic comic books to create fascinating and compelling hybrids. In this case, we have the idea of the antihero struggling to shake off the shackles of his dark past… as a science-villain, no less.

As one half of the infamous Overkill Brothers, Zack is unburdened by moral concerns and possesses a devastating appetite for destruction. When his crime-lord boss, Black Death, is captured by the authorities and makes the decision to eliminate certain loose ends, both Zack and Xander Overkill find themselves gunned down in a warehouse ambush. Xander is killed. And, as far as Black Death and his organisation are concerned, so is Zack. In truth, though, he survives, secretly testifies against his former employer and is subsequently placed into Witness Protection.

Now employed as a file clerk in an unremarkable medium-sized city, his twin brother gone and his powers suppressed by medication, Zack despairs of his new life. But when he turns to recreational drugs to distract from his miserable new existence, Zack is stunned by an unexpected side effect – the return of his powers. Donning his mask once again, and driven by the desire to feel free, Overkill takes to the rooftops. And that’s when a woman’s screams and the opportunity to test his rediscovered abilities against hoodlums signal an inadvertent stumbling into masked vigilantism.

But how long can an active Overkill avoid detection by his old boss? And who else might be looking to take advantage of someone with superpowers and every reason to keep a low profile?

The true value of Brubaker’s tale is in his insistence on keeping his protagonist morally ambiguous, rather than trying to reform him entirely. Overkill’s actions are motivated throughout by self-preservation and a desire to escape his Witness Protection cage. Zack doesn’t fight crime because it’s the right thing to do. The only epiphany present here is the realisation that hurting those who deserve it is just as much fun as hurting innocents. But it remains the potential to inflict pain, the violence itself, that motivates him.

Just in case there was any doubting his villainy, an incident early-on involving a Santa costume and a drunk female co-worker in a supply closet makes it crystal clear that Zack is not a particularly nice guy. And yet afterwards, as he stands on the rooftop in that Santa outfit and pines for the freedom afforded by a disguise, you actually find yourself empathising with him. And that is Brubaker’s trick here – relying on the reader’s own empathy and humanity to fill in where the story’s lead character is lacking. The same trick is used to great effect in the TV show Dexter, where an emotionally balanced audience is encouraged to project onto a psychopath in order to manufacture a ‘hero’. In both cases, the desired result can only be achieved because of one thing – great writing. And a first-person narration (or captions) helps considerably.

Phillips’ artwork on this book is moody and unpolished, effectively evoking the noir tone that underpins Brubaker’s twisting narrative and reflecting the darker aspects of the protagonist.

From Page To Screen: RED

Available from Amazon(US) or Amazon(UK).

Original release date: October 2010 (US Box Office)

Director: Robert Schwentke

Starring: Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren

 

 

Movies wherein an ex-boxer, commando, assassin or whatever comes out of retirement for one last job can be clichéd, but still have the potential to be highly entertaining. As the number of retired folk goes up, however, the quality often comes crashing down. As a general rule, any movie that involves some kind of getting-the-old-gang-back-together plot should set off alarm bells – see Aces: Iron Eagle III and Space Cowboys for the worst offenders. Somehow, though, RED manages to pull off this most risky of premises with aplomb.

Screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber make a few of those small, unnecessary changes to the source material that adaptations typically make – Paul Moses becomes Frank Moses, and the ‘red’ that originally referred to his everything-definitely-not-okay status once he came under fire from a three-man kill team now apparently stands for ‘Retired, Extremely Dangerous’. What RED also does, though, is expand on the simple ideas in the Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner comic in smart and vital ways, both in order to fill a two-hour running time and to provide some valuable depth. Gone, for example, is the new Director of the CIA who sees evidence of Moses’ state-authorised crimes and decides that his current retirement isn’t nearly permanent enough. In his place is a much more silver screen-friendly conspiracy plot involving a dead journalist, corrupt bureaucrats and a years-old cover-up.

A barely-there sub-plot in the comic involving Moses’ friendship with his retirement handler, Sally Janssen, is developed in the movie into a fledgling romance with Sarah Ross from Pension Services. A clearly bored and lonely Moses tears up pension cheques as an excuse to call and speak to Sarah, and reads the same trashy romance novels as her, in an attempt to find out what she wants from a man. It is this connection that drives the narrative (as much as the conspiracy plot), but also completely changes the character of Moses into something much more human than we ever see in the comic. Whereas the Paul Moses of the comic is happy to be left alone, quietly keeping his secrets and living with his demons, the Frank Moses of the movie is someone who craves human contact and who wants, to some degree, to fit in. Bruce Willis’ Moses is someone who has seen the worst the world has to offer and is desperately searching for something better.

Karl Urban’s character, William Cooper, is a very welcome addition to the movie, as he provides a walking, talking counterpoint to Moses’ argument in the comic that the kids running things nowadays, ‘the frightened boys in suits’, are not real men. Here we have a highly capable, highly professional CIA operative who is every bit as determined and ruthless as Moses but, unlike Moses, has managed a degree of balance that enables him to also be a family man.

All the actors involved do a fine job. Willis is Willis. Parker is charming as the reluctant love interest. And the other retired spies and hitmen – Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and Brian Cox – are on good, fun form. It is Malkovich, though, who steals every scene he is in as the justifiably paranoid, experimented-on soldier of yesterday.

Red the comic is a brief, to-the-point tale of an ill-judged command and its violent, vengeful consequences. RED the movie is a darkly funny, action-packed romp that shows what can be done with comic adaptations when the people in charge stop trying to impress ‘comic fans’ and just concentrate on making a good movie.

WebShoot: The Hero Business

Ever wonder where superheroes get their costumes from? Or who pays for all the damage caused when they clash with supervillains? According to Bill Walko, the answer is a full service agency specialising in the world of superpowers. His webcomic is a fondly satirical jab at the idioms of comic book heroes through the eyes of the almost-regular people who look after them.

Check it out here.

WebShoot: In The Name Of The Gun

In terms of controversy, few things are more likely to bait the defenders of decency than a cigar-chomping, gun-wielding, sweary bad-ass Jesus Christ. So that’s who Eric Peterson and Ethan Nicolle chose as the hero of their webcomic, In The Name Of The Gun. Did we mention that he fights Nazis and monsters, and that along the way he befriends Ernest Hemingway, Albert Einstein and Gary Busey? Oh, and God looks a lot like Marlon Brando.

Check it out here.

From Page To Screen: Tales From The Crypt

Available from Amazon(US only).

Original air date: June 1989 – July 1996 (US)

Produced by: HBO

Starring: John Kassir as the voice of the Crypt Keeper

 

Tales From The Crypt was a seven-season horror anthology show based on a number of EC Comics titles popular in the Fifties. As well as the Tales From The Crypt comic, the show drew very direct inspiration from Haunt Of Fear, Vault Of Horror, Crime SuspenStories and Shock SuspenStories. The owner of EC Comics, William M. Gaines, was credited at the start of each episode as having originally published the stories.

The series would have struggled to be any truer to its source material. Most episodes were direct adaptations of the comics they imitated and, as a result, maintained the dark humour and structural sting in the tail. As in the comics, each story was bookended by the Crypt Keeper character (although he was changed from living person to corpse for the show). Even the iconic EC covers were paid homage in the Crypt Keeper segment preceding each tale.

Executive-produced by some pretty impressive names, Richard Donner (Superman, The Goonies) and Robert Zemeckis (Back To The Future) among them, Tales became a playground for some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, both in front of and behind the camera. Martin Sheen, Christopher Reeve and Demi Moore were just a few of the established actors to grace the small screen at a time when it was considered a poor relation to the movies. Tales From The Crypt was attracting plenty of big-name directors to go with this thespian talent but, equally, it was seen by many as a way to branch out from acting and give directing a try. Michael J. Fox, Tom Hanks and Arnold Schwarzenegger all directed episodes while they were best-known for their on-screen performances.

Over the course of its 93 episodes, Tales From The Crypt horrified and amused in equal measure. While not every episode was an instant classic, the misses usually had some redeeming feature that made them every bit as watchable as the hits. Where else, for example, could you see Lea Thompson (Marty McFly’s mother from Back To The Future) doing her best impression of a Noo Yawk street-walker who says things like “You touch me again, I’ll shoot your dick off,” and being the cause of the hammiest death ever by an actor playing a pimp?

The theme tune which played over the end credits of the show was composed by none other than Danny Elfman, whose other soundtrack work includes numerous Tim Burton movies, Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners (which itself was originally intended to be a Tales From The Crypt movie) and the main theme to The Simpsons.

The EC Comics horror and suspense titles ceased publication in1954 as a result of what many saw as persecution by the recently introduced Comics Code, which – in an effort to curb juvenile delinquency – prohibited the use of the words ‘horror’ and ‘terror’ in titles and banned the depiction of werewolves, zombies and just about everything else Gaines’ books were known for. The EC Comics archives are available from Amazon in various collections.

Recommended: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 & 2

Complete. Available from Amazon(US) or Amazon(UK).

Publisher: America’s Best Comics

Writer: Alan Moore

Artist: Kevin O’Neill

 

 

As a general rule, the copyright, patents and trademarks that protect intellectual property do not last forever. They eventually expire and, when they do, the works, ideas and information they safeguarded fall into the public domain, available for use by absolutely anybody. As a result, someone can draw a moustache on the Mona Lisa or reimagine one of Shakespeare’s plays in a high school setting, and be free to make money from these derivative works. On the other hand, Alan Moore is free to assemble characters from some of the greatest works of literature ever into his very own historical superteam.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is made up of Mina Murray (formerly Harker), Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Doctor Jekyll/Mr Hyde and the Invisible Man. These two volumes are set primarily in an alternative-history Victorian London, and Moore continues his adoption of literary characters to populate this half-imagined world; the Artful Dodger, Doctor Moreau, Sherlock Holmes and even Rupert Bear are just a few of the familiar names to make appearances. The glee that Moore and O’Neill must feel at being able to play in this world with these particular characters is obvious on every page. The beauty of these books is that prior knowledge of the literary staples is often rewarded, but in no way required in order to enjoy the League’s adventures.

Moore reinvents the icons as he sees fit – none more dramatically than Mina Murray, on whose shoulders the task falls to gather together and lead the potential heroes. Mina, last seen as Dracula’s muse in Bram Stoker’s classic tale, has undergone quite the transformation by the time she opens Volume One being recruited by MI5’s Campion Bond, grandfather of superspy James. Bond explains that his boss, the mysterious ‘M’, has ordered the formation of the League as an answer to a looming threat against the British Empire, and the first story is underway.

The following pages see Ms Murray on a globetrotting mission to recruit her fellow Leaguers from their own dark corners of the world. Once the team is assembled, the remainder of the book follows them in a twisting tale of intrigue, resulting in an action-packed finale that threatens to destroy the League and their London.

In Volume Two, the League is once again called upon to face a devastating enemy – this time the invading Martian tripods from HG Wells’ War of the Worlds. A dramatic betrayal by one member of the team, and the death of another, serve to up the stakes in a fantastic continuation (and conclusion, if you wish) to the adventures of the unlikely heroes. There are additional books available, which chronicle the further exploits of the League, but we would advise starting with these two volumes and being aware that other books vary significantly in both format and content.

As with so many comic properties, LOEG was at one point made into a less-than-stellar movie (although the casting of Sean Connery as Quatermain was inspired). If this is your only experience of the ‘Gentlemen’, we implore you to push all memory of it from your mind and give the comic the chance it deserves.

Recommended: Fables

Ongoing Series. Collections available from Amazon(US) or Amazon(UK).

Publisher: Vertigo

Writer: Bill Willingham

Artist: Mark Buckingham

 

 

To the ordinary, or mundane, world the Woodlands Luxury Apartments on Bullfinch Street, New York is a building not unlike any other residence in the city. But to the community it houses, Fabletown – as it is also known – is a haven. When the characters of fable and folklore were forced to flee their homelands in order to escape the armies of the mysterious ‘Adversary’, they became refugees and Fabletown became their new home.

The basic idea of the book is simple – these fictional characters are real and living among us – but on top of the straightforward premise Willingham piles layer upon layer of complexity. Ever notice how Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty all have their own Prince Charming? He’s the same guy. And following three divorces and numerous infidelities, he has fully embraced his shallow, womanising ways. Curious about how Pinocchio’s life as a real boy went? 300 years later and he’s still a little boy, with quite a grudge against the blue fairy who took his wish so literally.

The first trade paperback, Legends In Exile, incorporates the initial story arc, which sees Fabletown’s sheriff, Bigby (formerly Big Bad) Wolf, and deputy mayor, Snow White, team up to solve the bloody disappearance of Snow’s sister, Rose Red. The prime suspects? Rose’s troublesome ex-boyfriend, Jack (of beanstalk and giant-killing fame), and the bride-murdering aristocrat, Lord Bluebeard. Meanwhile, Snow’s ex-husband, Prince Charming, returns to Fabletown with a plan to make some much-needed cash by selling his royal title.

Compared to what follows, this first story arc is actually pretty reserved. Formatted as a whodunnit, with Bigby playing the detective, Willingham and Buckingham don’t overload the narrative with too much mythology too early on. Instead, they rely on cameos, conversations and background detail to reference the supernatural basis of the Fables’ existence; the human-looking Bigby’s shadow being wolf-shaped, for example, or a flying monkey as an administrator in the business office.

The second story arc takes us upstate, to The Farm, where the Fables who cannot pass for human reside. It seems the animals and other assorted nonhumans aren’t too happy at being hidden away while, as they see it, the Bullfinch Street Fables are enjoying much more freedom. It is in this second arc, with many more of the fantastical elements of the Fables society coming to the fore, that Willingham lets the mythos really start to develop. And develop it does, over the course of scores of issues and more than a dozen trade paperbacks, into something truly epic. For the record, the identity of the ‘Adversary’ is not revealed until the sixth trade paperback, The Homelands, and it is a revelation that does not disappoint.

As a pairing, Willingham and Buckingham seem to bring the best out in each other. Buckingham’s interpretations of the characters always strike the right balance between being recognisable to a Disney Classics-aware audience, while still being fresh and intriguing for those who want to see something new. With the artwork in safe hands, Willingham is free to tackle any subject or theme he desires, be it tragedy, romance or political commentary. All are expertly handled by a man who is essentially a good old-fashioned storyteller. And what could be more apt for a book about fables?

No amount of praise would be enough to do justice to this title. Having recently passed its landmark 100th issue, the series has never once felt like it was running out of steam. This is partly down to the sheer number of characters, all of whom feel like individuals, with their own stories to tell and adventures to have and, most importantly, all with the potential to suddenly become the most important person in the book.

How Stan Lee spent the Sixties…

Fantastic Four – Nov 1961

First appearance: The Fantastic Four #1

Created by: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

 

 

Hulk – May 1962

First appearance: The Incredible Hulk #1

Created by: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

 

 

Thor – Aug 1962

First appearance: Journey into Mystery #83

Created by: Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby

 

 

Spider-Man – Aug 1962

First appearance: Amazing Fantasy #15

Created by: Stan Lee & Steve Ditko

 

 

Iron Man – Mar 1963

Tales of Suspense #39

Created by: Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Don Heck & Jack Kirby

 

 

Nick Fury – May 1963

First appearance: Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandos #1

Created by: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

 

 

Doctor Strange – Jul 1963

First appearance: Strange Tales #110

Created by: Stan Lee & Steve Ditko

 

 

X-Men – Sep 1963

First appearance: The X-Men #1

Created by: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

 

 

Daredevil – Apr 1964

First appearance: Daredevil #1

Created by: Stan Lee & Bill Everett

 

 

Black Panther – Jul 1966

First appearance: Fantastic Four #52

Created by: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby