Monthly (Comic) Book Club - October - Trio of Spooky Tales15878
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Monthly (Comic) Book Club - October - Trio of Spooky Tales   Aliens: Genocide #1-4 The Crow #1-4 BPRD: Hollow Earth #1-3 Wk1 (10/4-10/10): Aliens: Genocide #1-4 Wk2 (10/11-10/17): The Crow #1-4 Wk3 (10/18-10/24): BRPD: Hollow Earth #1-3 Discussion topic ideas: * Thoughts on the story or artwork * Details in the story, artwork, or presentation * Adaptations in other media * References to outside events or other works of fiction * Making of/Behind the Scenes details * Editions you will be reading from * Items in your collection pertaining to this week’s selection |
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So this month I picked up a few books. The biggest buy was the Aliens Omnibus. Basically Marvel giving the omnibus treatment to the first chunk of the Dark Horse run of comics. I had passed it over at first since I already own the 30th anniversary hardcovers from Dark Horse. The Omnibus collects the colorized versions of those stories (and more).   I ended up going with the Mark Nelson variant cover after Greg Land was accused of plagiarism most of the new cover  For The Crow, I picked up the Special Edition paperback which includes an additional 30 pages. Not sure yet if they are incorporated into the story or presented separately. I guess we’ll find out next week. For BRPD, I got the Hollow Earth paperback, which includes the mini series along with several additional stories featuring the characters; notably a one-shot and some back-up stories. I just noticed the Hollow Earth storyline was written by Christopher Golden & Tom Sniegoski, the same team that wrote the much derided angelic Punisher storyline. Personally, I didn’t think that story was badly written, I just didn’t think the Punisher was the best character for it. With some tweaks I think it would’ve made an excellent story for something like Hellblazer |
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| This month's reading will end with the spookiest part for me - my younger brother is having a Halloween wedding. So I'll appreciate having the last week of the month off! | ||
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| So I was on my way to reading issue 1 of Genocide when another Alien story caught my eye in the Omnibus. Originally in Dark Horse Presents #56, The Alien is a short story set as Earth is recovering from a war with the Aliens. I assume told during the Earth War storyline and possibly immediately preceded by the Countdown storyline in Dark Horse Insider. Anyways, as Earth is recovering from the war, a space jockey ship arrives and begins terraforming Earth to make it habitable for itself. They learn (from Newt’s diary?) that the alien is telepathic. The Earth president and a delegation are invited aboard. When the alien shakes hands with one of the president’s cabinet he flies into a rage and attacks them. Turns out they were synthetics and they all begin attacking the alien. After dispatching them all, only the (real) president is left. The President removes a false tooth and swallows the few drops of liquid contained within and suddenly a chest burster erupts out of him and attacks the alien. Meanwhile, a heavily damaged but still functioning synthetic radios doen to earth that their offensive should be launched immediately. Nukes fire up from Earth, destroying the ship. What caught my eye was the Space Jockey, which has always been one of my favorite mysterious visuals from the original film. Seeing it wrecking some synthetics seemingly unprovoked just reminded me a lot of Prometheus, which would come out over 20 years later. then there’s the mysterious liquid that causes a chest burster to emerge from the president. It’s not exactly how the black liquid works in Prometheus but it’s not too far off either. Whether or not this story was considered in the creation of Prometheus or not, I think it’s a neat coincidence, if anything  |
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| Okay, so while Aliens: Genocide is mostly stand-alone, it does take place in the Dark Horse Alien continuity they had going at the time. It started with their Aliens mini-series which served as a follow-up to the film with Newt and Hicks fighting a new infestation. The infestation continues i to the next mini-series where Ripley makes an appearance at the very end. By the third mini-series all of Earth is infested and by the end the planet is nuked to destroy (most of) the Aliens and left mostly uninhabitable. The Alien, which I described above, actually explains how Earth was made habitable again with the Space Jockey cleaning up the radiation as he terraformed the planet. Aliens: Genocide #1 begins on the xenomorph home world. A queen has died and her hive is rebuilding and a new queen is born. Meanwhile, two other queens are warring over the planet. Earth is recovering to the point that there are sporting events and celebrities. At one major sporting event, a runner takes a drug that leads him to dominate his event but also kills him in the process. On a military base, a soldier is given the same drug and then proceeds to go on a rampage, killing scores of soldiers with his bare hands even as he sustains incredible injuries. In Los Angeles the celebrity owner of the pharmaceutical company that makes the drug is enraged by the incidents of extreme reaction to the drug, which is apparently made from xenomorphs with a key ingredient being the queen’s royal jelly, or at least a synthesized form of it which is leading to the extreme reactions. The owner is told that obtaining the genuine article should stop the extreme reactions. The owner meets with military officials who want more of the current, flawed formula which the pharma owner uses as leverage to convince them to mount a mission to the alien homeworls to capture a queen, ensuring that he has a viable commercial product as well. A month later, they are ready to head out. This first issue is light on xenomorphs but honestly, that’s par for the course on just about every alien story. A bit of a build up with the aliens themselves appearing in the later parts of the story. The setup feels similar to the Aliens film with a batch of marines off to fight aliens and some company man there looking out for the corporate bottom line. Not identical but I’m hoping it does more to differentiate itself as it goes forward. One thing I noticed in this story and in The Alien was the lack of Weyland-Yutani or “the company.” In the movies it seemed like they owned everything but so far no mention and I didn’t spot any “WY” logos stamped around. I am really enjoying the art as well. It has this very rough and un produced look to it, typical of indie books at the time. Not saying that kind of look is strictly better but it is different than the more slickly produced books of the big two and I appreciate it when I see it. |
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| Having not read any of the Aliens comics (maybe a crossover way in the past?), my familiarity is all from the movies. I do enjoy how the different movies are different styles, like Alien being more horror and Aliens being more action. That said, the book starts kind of confusingly. The queen is dead? From anything in particular? And then there is a queen anyway, or at least a new one (along with the new red one). Hopefully the backstory isn't too important. On first pass through the xenomorphs fighting each other, I was surprised they were just ripping each other apart. Shouldn't their blood be melting each other, and other things? Then I realized that I guess the xenomorphs wouldn't be affected by their own blood. But the ground isn't either? And what's there on the planet to eat? Are xenomorphs highly cannibalistic? Enough questions for now, as we turn to Earth. Apparently the planet was invaded in the past and now people have stuff like Xeno Zip for killing themselves in races. The military is also interested in it, as it turns people into crazed berserkers. But Daniel Grant's company needs xenomorph royal jelly to make it properly. So Grant is off to the military to convince them to support a mission to the xenomorph home world to get a queen. Quote: Originally Posted by dielinfinite I noticed this too. I feel like the idea is there spiritually though, as we have an obviously self-interested company looking to leverage xenomorphs to support their bottom line, and a military essentially doing the same. |
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| Issue 2 picks up after a hypersleep trip to the xenomorph planet. I appreciate the reference to (Lance) Henriksen, which certainly sets up an expectation that the guy is a synth. Somewhat neutralizing (hah) my earlier questions about xenomorph blood is a new suit that protects soldiers from the acid. They also have a cloned body so that they can grow a xenomorph on the ship, which seems like a bad idea to anyone besides the people doing it. I guess that's a horror standard, right? "that's obviously a bad choice, what are you doing?!?" The other soldiers seem to be on the Henriksen==synth vibe, too. They also have Xeno Zip, and we get some flavor by having Jastrow play the saxophone. Grant isn't interested in stealing a queen; he just wants some royal jelly so that the xenomorph they grew will become a queen. I guess that's better? It all still sounds like they should know better. It also quickly becomes irrelevant, as a saboteur kills the xenomorph. The soldiers, plus Grant and a scientist, head down to the planet surface and find out that they're trying to land in the middle of a war. The art is definitely different from the Marvel/DC house styles I'm used to. I don't know if I like it better, but I certainly don't mind getting different sometimes. I do like the design for the xenomorph. If movie memory serves, the xenomorphs take on some qualities from whatever they grew in. This one has very tiny limbs since it was grown in a torso. I wonder if they did that on purpose or if it was a happy accident from using a clone donor body. |
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Quote:Originally Posted by xkonk So I think a few things here. First I think the queen that died might’ve been the queen killed in one of the previous mini-series, Earth War, most likely. This then ties back to Grant’s presentation to the military where he says that the aliens exist in a delicately balanced ecosystem on their homeworld where they are less aggressive and have predators (I’d love to see what is fearsome enough to prey on these things). I think what was intended by the writers is that there are at least three “tribes” of xenomorphs on the homeworld. One queen was killed (presumably in the Earth War mini-series) creating a power vacuum with among the remaining queens and unbalancing the delicate ecosystem that made the xenomorphs on the planet less aggressive. Meaning the marines are dropping into a far worse situation than they’d prepared for. I think issue 2 continues in the pattern of the original movie with a bit of “getting to know the troops” after waking up from hypersleep. I agree that naming the one guy “Henrikson” almost guarantees that he is a synth, though unlike the first film, by the time of the second, synths seemed to be standard issue and everyone seemed to know Bishop was a synth. So if Henrikson is a synth it is a little strange that the fact is kept from his fellow marines. I’m getting major Aliens: Resurrection vibes from Grant’s little cloning project. Just like in that movie, it does add a bit of grotesque body horror, at a point when the alien action hasn’t quite tamped up yet. Then, just like in Aliens, we get a little suiting up footage and then a bumpy airdrop to the surface culminating in an impressive final splash page of alien carnage |
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| So in issue 3 we start seeing the story differentiate itself in some cool ways. The issue begins with the marines dropping down in the middle of the alien war. One of the pilots begins freaking out and I expected the marines to immediately fall apart like in the film. Instead, the marines come in with tools fit for the job and solid tactics that do the job, at least at first. They begin by dropping a shield that holds the aliens at bay and then the marines, decked out in their new armor, pretty effectively mop up the aliens remaining inside the shield. I think the new armor really helps visually distinguish the marines here from the ones in the film. Their appearance in the film felt like an extrapolation of modern combat gear. The armor here gives the marines a more power armor look reminiscent of science fiction soldiers from say Warhammer 40k or StarCraft.  The plan to approach the objective also seems fairly reasonable, though not without its dangers. They drop a portion of the shield and fire shield-extending harpoons. Unfortunately, the riled up aliens are overwhelming, destroying the harpoon before it could deploy its shield and leading to the deaths of several marines, including the one manning the harpoon gun and mortars. It was at this point that we got the refreshing sight of the company guy grow a conscience at the loss of life his pursuit brought with it. In previous films you had characters like Ash and Paul Riser’s Burke treat the crew as expendable in their pursuit of the alien. Here, Grant is immediately shaken by deaths of the marines and even suggests they abandon the mission. So very different from the profit-at-all-costs corporate characters the franchise is known for. One familiar character we do have is the one with an unhealthy obsession with the alien in the scientist. This was Bishop to a small extent in Aliens, who admires the “perfection” of the xenomorph. In Alien 3, the assembly cut at least, you see it in Golic, who becomes obsessed with the alien, even freeing it after it had been captured. Finally, you have David filling the role in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. While the scientist here is useful in figuring out why the aliens are warring on the planet, he also encouraged a delay in closing the shield and very likely not the reasonable reason the technician gave on his behalf. Back to the marines, their back up plan again seems somewhat reasonable. Nuke one of the hives allowing one of the alien tribes to defeat the other, making the marines’ advance easier. Grant even volunteers to join the marines’ ground forces as an act of redemption but his armor is sabotaged and the culprit left an alien egg with it as a surprise. I’m enjoying the story so far, though at four issues I think it might feel a tad short. Like a 90-minute movie when 2 or two and a half hours would allow for some more story without having to rush to the end. I’m curious to see who the saboteur ends up being. There aren’t a ton of characters to have as suspects. Henrikson’s possible android nature makes him a suspect. Maybe the scientist is obsessed with the aliens and would rather see Grant and the marines dead instead instead of seeing them succeed in imprisoning a queen. |
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Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite I was able to gather most of that history from your preview earlier in the thread, and the letters sections that the scans I'm reading include. But I do think if something's important, it should be in the 'text' itself. Ultimately, the "why" of the queen being dead and the war starting is irrelevant to the story though, so it isn't a big deal (I read through the four issues earlier in the week and am going back for my posts). Back when Marvel introduced those "previously in..." pages, I thought they were obnoxious for a steady reader. But they are actually helpful if you're jumping around or picking up a #1 for a miniseries that relates back to a different miniseries. For Grant's presentation specifically, I wasn't sure how seriously I should take it. Humans know something about xenomorphs at this point, obviously, but do they really know anything about the home planet or the culture? Does Grant himself really know anything, or is he just spinning some info to get the military onboard? The tone makes it tough, since he disrespects the lone female member of the meeting (the irony of her being the leader of the mission is solid) and the rest of the military folks laugh along. They didn't seem like super-competent people. |
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| Issue 3 is heavier on the action. The ship lands and releases an energy shield to keep the xenomorphs out, but the marines need to clear the ones that were inside the perimeter before the shield went up. That part goes fairly easily, but the ship is still surrounded by the huge war going on. Even once the soldiers get a break, there's still lots of incidental xenomorph fighting. The team goes to extend their perimeter and that's when things go sideways. Xenomorph blood disrupts the shield equipment and the marines are overrun. They put up the original wall again but five members of the team have died. Grant realizes the cost of his plan and feels terrible. The marines want to press on though, and the doctor realizes that the war is a fight between two different xenomorph groups. The team decides to sway the fight by nuking one of their hives, which will end the war and give them an opening. Grant goes to suit up and join the fight but finds the last armor sabotaged, and is attacked by a facehugger. I thought this was a good action issue and brings stakes to the story. But I don't know if I buy Grant's change of heart. Especially in the Aliens universe, I'm supposed to believe that the obviously conceited, profit-oriented company guy is put off by five deaths? The whole reason he's here is so he can keep making Xeno Zip, and he probably knows what the military is going to do with it. Seems weird. |
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| Issue 4 starts with Grant staying away from the facehugger long enough for Lee to come save the day. Grant assumes Begalli is the saboteur, but Lee says they need him to get around the hive. Lee nukes the mutant queen hive, starting the rout they planned on, and the team takes the opportunity to go after the other queen. Even still, they lose another marine or two to the queen's elite guards and then Begalli to the queen when he and Grant have a conversation right next to her pod. Grant and Lee kill the queen. We find out that Begalli wasn't the saboteur; it was Henriksen. Grant beats up Henriksen enough that he settles down, but a bunch of xenomorphs come back to the hive since the queen was killed. As they run for it, Henriksen makes a move again but Grant fends him off and jams a bunch of Xeno Zip in his mouth. Henriksen goes berserk, fending off a wave of xenomorphs on his own while Grant and Lee blow a hole in the hive wall. They make it back to the ship, where Lee mirrors my disbelief in Grant being a changed man, although he still insists he is. Overall, I liked the series. It definitely felt like an Aliens story, the art was solid, and it didn't draw anything out more than it needed to. My complaints would be a bit of a lack of characterization (although when most of the crew dies inside of four issues, I guess you don't need to get that invested) and Grant's arc. Much like Lee, I'm skeptical that Grant would change like that, and it also seems contrary to the Aliens worldview of greed and evil corporations. The most minor of complaints, it wasn't very spooky for Halloween month (although there was plenty of gore and some body horror). But it was good; I wouldn't read it all the time but I would read more Aliens minis if they're all like this. |
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| So while I guess Grant’s arc may not be consistent with the greater pattern we see in the Aliens films, I think it was genuine. Sure it might come rather quickly but his actions seem to point in that direction. He did suggest abandoning the mission even without his goal. Sure he could’ve just said that knowing Lee would want to finish the mission but if he knew she’d be dead set on completing the mission, why the act? He also volunteers to suit up and join the remaining marines in an extremely dangerous mission, even against Lee’s protest. That’s not something you see from the other self-interested businessmen in the films. I guess I just found the play against expectation refreshing as it is practically cliche in the franchise. The book also played against expectations by having Henrikson not be an android, though his motives are a little unclear. He does mention that with Grant’s death his company and his patents would be in disarray and up for grabs. Like, is he heavily invested in the competition or something? What I was expecting was that maybe the runner that died at the start of the series was like his brother or something so killing Grant would’ve been an act of revenge. It does push believability a little; out of all the people in the military the brother of a victim just happens to be on a mission with the creator of the drug but otherwise I think it would work. The runner was clearly a world-class athlete and Henrikson is no slouch himself. Maybe one used his physique to excel in the military and the other in professional sports. Seeing what Xeno-Zip did to his brother could also explain his hesitancy towards the drug as well. Overall, I enjoyed the story. It did feel more of a straight action story than the more tense tone carried by the film. I do think the atory might have benefitted from an additional issue just to give those last few plot points a little more space. This could allow for a bit more tension to build up as we enter the hive and give the fight with the elite guard more than a single page. Henrikson’s betrayal is revealed at the end of issue four but he escapes leaving Grant and an i jured Lee to fight their way out of the hive alone in the following issue. They can encounter Henrikson again as they’re escaping the hive and in the fight Grant drugs Henrikson with the Xeno Zip. Lee and Grant escape while Henrikson roids out. We can see in more grisly detail Henrikson’s last stand and linger a little longer on Lee and Grant thinking they won’t make it back to the ship as the alien horde gets closer before they are rescued. |
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Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite Yeah, there's certainly nothing on the page to suggest he's insincere. It is quite a shift from how we see him in issue 1, but all his actions are consistent once he sees the marines die. So it really is a meta thing for me; it feels out of place in the Aliens universe. It's like the couple of happier/optimistic episodes of Black Mirror. It goes against the grain. But for the mini on its own, I think the story is fine. Quote: Originally Posted by dielinfinite Yeah, I could see this being a little longer (8 issues? maybe 12?) if they expanded a few parts. Give us more time with the crew to build familiarity and sympathy (I don't think all the soldiers are even named), fill out some fight sequences, maybe explain or provide some story after the ending to show why Henriksen was the saboteur or follow up with Grant's change of heart. But with so many stories running longer than they need to instead of ending when they should, I'm ok with what they did. Maybe it's another miniseries for a different day. |
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| The Crow is another book that I only know in movie form. I've only seen the original, not any of the sequels. The Crow has a special place in my heart because of Brandon Lee's death and its setting in my hometown of Detroit. I'm pretty sure I would have first seen an edited version on TV and seen the full movie later on. It's been a while since I watched it last, but my memory is that the movie still holds up overall despite some of the effects not looking so great. But it's also a weird movie, so I could see some people not thinking of it so affectionately. | ||
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| I haven’t even seen the movie so I’m coming in fresh. I have seen a video comparing the movie to the book but I don’t remember any specifics. I’ll track it down and post it later. I also saw an interesting video covering the original intention for the film sequel, City of Angels, and how it got pared down to something a little less ambitious and more traditional | ||
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| So the trade I read through didn't have clear separations between issues, and had a lot of extra material mixed in to boot. MCS says that each issue of the original series was 32 pages but what I read has over 200 total. So, I've read through it all, but I can't really break out my impression per each issue separately. Also, I would have started reading earlier in the week if I knew how much I had! I think the art is appropriate for the book. The black and white is stark and the lack of color suits the atmosphere. Some more modern horror/gothic comics don't strike me as much because the color actually takes away, in my opinion. Having this in black and white feels right. The story here is similar to the movie but less stylized. The ending is also very different, but the comic's ending might be the better one. The movie adds more of a magical/spiritual angle, which makes the ending it has work, but the comic is more grounded (if you can say that about a guy who comes back from the dead for vengeance). Aside from the ending, you can see a lot of the comic in the movie. There are some changes, of course, but a lot of the page makes it to the screen. Like other serious stories about unhappy things, I don't know if I'd quite say I enjoyed this, but it was good. Definitely a solid match for Halloween reading. |
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Quote:Originally Posted by xkonk That’s what’s throwing me off right now. It’s even difficult to find descriptions of the issue breaks online. All the Summaries are broken up into “books” of which there are five plus a prologue and epilogue so I’ll probably just use those as my markers for now |
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| So the special edition starts off with an introduction by O’Barr where he discusses a little about the updated edition and how some pages were cut because he originally couldn’t make them work visually, or because they had created too many pages and it wouldn’t work for the printing process at the time, and how some pages had to be redone from photocopies because the originals were long ago given away. The foreword also includes a statement where O’Bar proclaims, paraphrasing Queen, that there were no computers used on the creation of the book, old or new material. While O’Barr can work as he pleases, the statement does reek of a bit of elitism with a “real artists don’t use computers” attitude to it. I find it strange that he uses the quote from Queen to make his point since Queen actually had nothing against the use of synthesizers. It was more that they didn’t quite like the quality of the early monophonic synthesizers but embraced them once the technology had improved. Anyways, onto the story. The Prologue begins with a burglar making his escape with a piece of expensive electronics. He is spooked by Eric and drops it. He demands payment for the VCR he dropped and stabs Eric who is unfazed. Eric asks him foe the location of several gang members and mentions that another gang member didn’t know but had pointed him to the gang member in front of him. The gang member doesn’t believe him until Eric produces a pair of clippers and tells him that he was given the information after removing three of the gang member’s fingers and asks the current gang member whether he should start with his fingers or toes. Frightened, the gang member gives up the information and Eric leaves. The rest of the book weaves between a few things. The present where Eric, seemingly invulnerable, is killing off gang members. from his list. This is interspersed with flashbacks of Eric’s life and surreal daydreams. Each segment is illustrated differently. The present is drenched in ink. Large swathes of black and cross hatching make every page feel incredibly heavy. The flashbacks are illustrated in more simple linework with a lot more white per page making them blindingly white by comparison. The daydreams are illustrated in a very soft, almost painted look to them |
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| Book two opens things up a little. While book one focused almost exclusively on Eric killing gangmembers, book two touches on a few side characters and adds a small detour to Eric’s quest for revenge. Eric kills a couple of gangsters. As one lay dying Eric gets him to reveal the pawn shop where the gang leader fences his stuff. At the pawn shop Eric digs through the gang leader’s goods and finds the engagement ring he had given his fiancée before they were murdered. The store owner attacks Eric but is killed. On his way out Eric is stopped by a police officer on his beat. Here we see Eric not just as a vehicle for revenge but also something of a guide for the good people he encounters, the police officer calls him a guardian angel. Eric almost immediately notices the officer is recently separated from the ring tanline on his finger and encourages him to attempt a reconciliation, as if he knows that despite the problems they had, the two of them still need each other. After the police officer agrees and Eric leaves, he tells the officer to mention him to Sgt Hook. When the officer calls it in, it seems Hook has heard of the Crow before and since he pulls a homicide file fe the C-D drawer, might know that he's connected to Eric Draven. Eric does some daydreaming/remembering of a Christmas he spent with his fiancee before moving on to the next person on his list. Outside the building he encounters a young girl who shares the name with his dead fiancee. She’s waiting for her mom who went in to see the same person Eric is after. Eric gives her his fiancé's ring and tells her he’a going to get her mother. Inside, Eric frightens the gangster and the mother into compliance. He sends her out, back to her daughter, while Eric speaks with Funboy. Funboy remembers him. Eric tells him to be at the gin mill at midnight with some friends. Eric once again remembers/tortures himself with the memory of his fiance |
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| Book 3 is fairly quick. Eric is meeting Funboy and his gang at the location he was told. Eric shoots some of the morphine he took from Funboy. It seems maybe despite being practically invulnerable, Eric might still feel pain. Eric enters the room and it soon becomes a bloodbath as Eric shoots all the gangsters dead, despite taking several what would’ve normally been mortal wounds himself. Afterwards, Eric tells Funboy to get T-Bird and gives him a location to meet. Funboy knows Eric will kill him and asks him to make it quick. Eric agrees but not for T-Bird. Eric continues to torture himself with memories of his fiancée, resorting even to cutting himself in response. |
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| Book four is mostly flashback as we see in grisly detail what happened the night Eric and Shelly died. They were on a road trip when their car breaks down. T-Bird and his crew drive past but then come back and begin to harass Eric and Shelly. When Eric protests T-Bird shoots him in the back of the head but it doesn’t kill him. T-Bird then shoots him one more time. He seems dead but Eric had enough life in him to watch his fiancée raped and murdered by the gang. Miraculously, Eric is briefly resuscitated at the hospital where Sgt Hook tries talking to him. Eric manages to blurt out some words about the Crow that came to him as he lay dying. Eric is taken into surgery but the doctors can’t do much and he dies. This scene reminded me a lot of the scene in RoboCop after Murphy is shot. He somehow makes it to the hospital with enough life to see and hear the doctors working on him only to ultimately fail. Eric remembers his night in the bathtub with Shelly before suiting up and preparing for the coming fight with T-Bird and burning down the home along with all the mementos he had left of Shelly |
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| Book 5 is the end. Eric says goodbye to the few people that new him. Sgt Hook, the police officer, and the little girl, Sherri. T-Bird isn’t listening to Funboy, who gives up and goes to shoot up in the kitchen. Eric finds him there and asks Funboy to kill himself by overdosing on morphine. Eric goes upstairs and kills the few goons T-Bird has left and spares the one who showed fear and remorse. Eric finds T-Bird who has gathered up a large group of gangsters. Soon Eric arrives and invites everyone gathered to shot him. They do but Eric still lives. Then begins another vicious bloodbath where Eric disposes of all of T-Bird’s goons. T-Bird gets away but as soon as Eric finishes off the goons he follows. On the road the crow blinds T-Bird long enough for Eric to cause him to crash. T-Bird is injured and Eric approaches him with a hammer. In the forest of Eric’s mind he wonders why he hasn’t moved on. The Crow explains that resolution isn’t about revenge but of forgiveness, not of those that hurt him but of himself for realizing that there was nothing he could’ve done. The horse caught in the barbed wire that Eric saw at the start bursts i to the forest, struggling and screaming. Eric is forced to shoot it and after doing so realizes that it is time to move on. So finishing the book you immediately feel it’s intensity. The story itself is pretty simple and Eric is invulnerable so he’s never in danger. The story barrels like a speeding train to its conclusion. Instead, the arc is emotional with Eric hurting himself both emotionally and then physically as his guilt festers. Clearly O’Barr was working through some very tough emotions when creating this book and at times it almost feels like a stream of consciousness thrown up on the page. The book can go from comic pages with Eric talking in verse, short sections having stylized titles, stand alone illustrations, grand title pages, reprinted lyrics, reprinted poetry along with some of O’Barr’s own. I don’t think schizophrenic would be an inappropriate term but it contributes to this kaleidoscope of imagery that helps create and emphasize this intense feeling of confusion punctuated with scenes of intense violence. I imagine some of that might be the result of the reprinting with the new pages breaking up existing sequences and I don’t know if some of the new illustrations and poetry pages were added in this edition or if they were always included. I am fortunate that I am not emotionally connected to the work from my own experience but I can certainly see why it is particularly attractive to those that have |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite I did appreciate that as well. Sometimes in modern books you'll see differently styled flashbacks or the like done by a different artist; for O'Barr to do it all is impressive. |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite The intro to my copy mentioned how O'Barr talks about various influences at conventions (Joy Division and so on), but doesn't mention his own reason for telling the story. Wikipedia says that his fiancee was killed by a drunk driver, which I could certainly understand leading to these kinds of feelings. |
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Quote:Originally Posted by xkonk In my copy he does talk a little bit about it. He doesn’t actually mention that it was his fiancée but he does say that at the time he wasn’t paying for car insurance. A fact that the local police were aware of and they knew his car on site. One day he needed a ride and given the whole insurance thing, felt he couldn’t afford another ticket so he called his fiancée for a ride. It was in the process of going to pick him up that she was killed, so he felt he was personally responsible for her death. His feeling of guilt then became Eric’s. |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| That's rough, even without having asked for a ride. I imagine the sense of rage would be there either way, and some people would feel guilt regardless. As an aside, I did like that the comic was clearly set in Detroit. The street references and signs in the art and things like that are places you would know if you've spent time in the city. Not that it says nice things about Detroit, but it feels like the story is actually there as opposed to a lot of comics or movies that are supposed to be set somewhere but could really be anywhere when you get into the details. |
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| I haven’t read any Hellboy books before and my familiarity with that universe comes mainly from the two Del Torro films. Issue #1 of Hollow Earth is bery much embedded in the Hellboy stories that came before and since I’m not familiar with them it is a little difficult to understand each character’s mental state. I recognized Elizabeth from the movies. Despite the opening being a flashback, it seems to take place after significant events in the main Hellboy books. She seems to be seeking help from a remote monastery. The fear and uncertainty in the character is recognizable from the films though I am unsure if here they stem from the dame cause or if it’s related to something from the Hellboy stories. In the present day Kate is introducing a new recruit at BRPD when her boss tells her that Abe is thinking about leaving the agency and that they want to try to keep him to maintain funding for the agency. Abe at this point seems to have some serious baggage from the Hellboy stories that isn’t recapped but Hellboy himself has already left the agency and Abe os disillusioned. Kate tries talking to him and we get to hear Johann’s backstory. He was a spirit medium who was conducting a seance when his body was destroyed leaving his disembodied astral form nothing to return to. Later, Liz appears to Abe in a vision begging him to come find her. Liz reveals that the agency has kept track of her after she left pointing the team to the monastery we saw her join earlier. Once there, Kate, Abe, Johann, and someone else (is that the Roger that factors in to Abe’s strained relationship with the agency?) arrive at the monastery only to find everyone dead, except Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s body is found but after Johann examines her they discover that her essence is gone from her body. Abe discovers a smashed demon-like statue and suspects it may have been involved. This first issue was a tad frustrating only because I am not familiar with the Hellboy universe and the characters are very much continuing from those past events and the book doesn’t do much to onboard new readers. My other main gripe about this issue is that it fees very…bureaucratic? It just feels a bit heavy on the office management side with the mandate from upper management and Kate trying to reduce employee turnaround. That said, I do enjoy the setting and the characters. It is very much set in the paranormal and occult but tries to cast a wider net with the subject matter than we often see. It’s not just Christian hell and demons but we have pyrokinetic and a fish-man (from the previous books) and a disembodied German mystic that basically inhabits an inflated field suit. The setting of the monastery in the mountains is also unusual. The artwork, though not by Mignola, very much retains the feel of his work. Lots of large patches of black along with the limited and desaturated palate helps create an oppressive, somewhat noir-ish atmosphere. |
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| Hellboy still hangs heavily over season 2 and it almost feels like the purpose of this mini-series is to have the characters move past Hellboy’s departure and learn to stand on their own. What I thought was a statue at the end of the previous issue was actually a little goblin-like corpse. Johann and then Roger dig into the corpse’ remaining consciousness to learn more about where they came from. As the Abe, Johann, and Roger descend into the pit, bringing Liz’ hollow body with them, Kate is left behind to direct; her being field director and all. As they descend we learn a little more about Abe’s relationship with Hellboy, specifically eatly on when Hellboy stopped BPRD’s tests on him. It is after this that Johann comments on Hellboy’s leadership and explains that with him gone, Abe has now taken up the role. It doesn’t seem to have been something he’s thought about but it seems like that’s the arc; Abe and the team moving beyond Hellboy with Abe ascending as the team leader to lead them on new adventures. Shortly afterward the team is attacked by a group of those little goblins but a more primitive type. They end up frightening them away by projecting a large frightening creature. As they continue to explore they come across some ancient machinery. Using what they learned from the corpse at the monastery they learn that the creatures were created as slaves to serve the creators of those ancient machines before turning on them. Of course, the Nazis had also sought that ancient race only to find disaster themselves. One thing I really like about the Hellboy world, from what little I’ve seen of it, is all these independent mythologies co-existing and then connecting that to recent history and the present day with the Nazis and the BPRD. The team comes across more machinery, these in nearly functioning condition, they spot one of the goblin things and are shortly afterward attacked by the warrior goblins The issue ends with Liz inside some kind of contraption with a priestly-looking goblin forging a sword and proclaiming “at last.” I imagine that the goblins were perhaps the ones repairing the ancient machinery but to what end? |
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