Hitman: Closing Time (1999-2007)

Hitman vol 07

Hitman: Closing Time opens the only way it can (or should) following the previous collection’s gut-wrenching conclusion, which saw Tommy’s surrogate father, Sean, die protecting him. It starts with a Lobo crossover. And writer Garth Ennis spends the entire issue shitting on Lobo. It’s a done-in-one crossover with art from Doug Mahnke. The art’s perfectly excessive, starting with Tommy and Sean (there’s an editor’s note explaining it takes place in the past) spitting in Lobo’s beer. Lobo’s in Gotham on an interstellar bounty hunt and stops by the bar, initially annoying everyone but then becoming a problem when he starts picking on Sixpack.

Thanks to his mind-reading superpower, Tommy knows how Lobo’s super-healing works and concocts a way to take him on. It becomes a foot chase of destruction through Hitman’s Gotham, complete with gangsters and Section 8 (Sixpack’s super-team). Lots of blood, lots of laughs (almost all of them at Lobo’s expense), and a lot of nice art from Mahnke.

Sure, the resolution gag is definitionally homophobic, but if you squint and look at it from a certain point of view, it’s fine… ish. It’s also just the resolution gag; the comic needs a way to wrap up, given Tommy can’t take on an indestructible space mutant forever. The rest of the jokes are just about Lobo being a stupid character. The crossover politics of DC Comics and Hitman must be a great story.

Then there’s a short story about Sixpack’s drunk-dream adventures with Superman, art by Nelson DeCastro (pencils) and Jimmy Palmiotti (inks). It’s from a Superman 80-Page Giant and is entirely for laughs, with Sixpack arguing about superhero morality with Superman, opting for killing the bad guys. Or trying to kill them, with Big Blue having to curb Sixpack’s enthusiasm. It’s very classy art for a comic where Lex Luthor gets gut-punched for a gag.

The story placement also sets up Sixpack as a significant player in Closing Time. The Lobo crossover kicks off because of Sixpack, has him bring in Section 8, then the Superman “crossover” is entirely his story. The following story–as Closing Time starts collecting Hitman proper—is also Sixpack-focused. Sure, Tommy and Natt are chasing a naked guy through the Cauldron, but the drama is about Section 8 giving up on Sixpack’s dream of a super-team. If only there were something he could do to prove himself.

Luckily, Natt and Tommy aren’t chasing just any naked guy. He’s a lab assistant at the Injun Peak Research Center. Thanks to demonic dealings, some scientist turned him into a tesseract (the infinitely vast container variety, not the Avengers MacGuffin). The first part of the story’s split between Tommy and Natt chasing the naked guy (who can pull pretty much anything he wants right out of his you-know-what), Sixpack and his colleagues arguing about their super-team efficacy, and the bean counter discovering worse and worse details in the scientist’s practices. The science talk has Ennis’s most inventive writing, while Tommy and Natt’s chase gives artists John McCrea and Garry Leach a nice absurd, slightly gross-out comedy action sequence.

The second half of the story has more gross-out comedy action, but also actual gore as interdimensional demons find a toe-hold in our universe. Ennis does horror, comedy, heart, and action with it, finding a rather nice resolution while also revealing it’s a story out of time. While not set in the past like the opening Lobo one, it’s detached from the overall Hitman narrative. Ennis is just doing a Sixpack story in Hitman, not fitting Sixpack into a Tommy story.

The three and a half issue starting bookend and then a two-issue closer will set Closing Time’s main arc (appropriately titled Closing Time) apart from the rest of the collection, which is appropriate. The Closing Time arc, an eight-issue epic closing off the series and its so far surviving cast, is a doozy.

Mainly having resolved all the mob stuff last collection—there’s still a bounty on Tommy and Natt’s heads, but the mob itself isn’t a villain, just its hopeful hitmen—Ennis goes back to the start to find strings to tie up the series. Though he takes his time revealing where all those strings come from. Instead, he sticks to the first one he introduces–the mom who lost her kid to the vampires a while back. She’s in trouble and, if you’re lucky enough to know him, there’s no one better to help you with trouble than Tommy Monaghan. It’s a nice way to open the story, with Ennis then putting in an echoing device. That echoing device is a quick, devastating rumination on the series’s overall tragedy; great stuff. But Closing Time is just a series of great stuffs.

Starting with giving Tommy’s on-again-off-again girlfriend Tiegel a character development subplot for the arc. She doesn’t get in on the action this time, with Ennis bringing back a rogue female CIA agent as Tommy’s love interest and he and Natt’s third. The rogue CIA agent, McAllister, is one of Ennis’s archetypes—the capable female espionage agent–with McAllister being both softer and harder than he’ll go with the template in the future. It’s particularly interesting because she’s a deus ex machina too early in the plot. Most of Closing Time is about her bonding with Tommy and Natt and the supporting cast. She gets to be a regular cast member faster than anyone else in the comic ever has (though I guess Ennis never really tried with anyone else).

The story’s villain will turn out to be an evil CIA guy trying to make government superheroes with alien technology from the Bloodlines. The experiments aren’t going well, though there’s actually a lot less with the flesh-eating human monsters than I was expecting. Ennis contains most of the gore to a subplot with the lead scientist. The villain, Truman, is another returning character. McAllister’s back from the Green Lantern crossover issue, Truman’s back from early on, then there’s the main hitman nemesis, the son of a vanquished baddie. Not to mention the mom in trouble. Or the Dirty Harry-esque cop who’s promised to protect Tommy against any enemy. Lots of return appearances, all tied together thanks to Tommy. No one can escape the Cauldron.

Ennis also does a bunch of flashbacks, setting up Tommy and Natt as teenagers in the Marines and Tommy growing up in the Cauldron, which means some old Sean and Pat appearances. Ennis writes Hitman to be binge-read, not just for the callbacks to earlier in the series. The Closing Time arc is paced for a single reading. It must’ve been very frustrating DC took forever to collect it.

The Closing Time story has a good three-act structure throughout the eight installments, with some big action set pieces throughout and a whole lot of heart. Everyone gets their appropriate farewell in the comic, with Ennis grabbing the heartstrings and yanking as hard as he can. There are some hints the story’s a rushed conclusion, the occasional plot detail Ennis has to push too hard on to make fit, the things he wasn’t done exploring. But they make it work. It’s a lovely finish for the comic.

So it not being the last story in the collection is initially a little odd, especially since the coda is a JLA crossover, originally intended for the JLA Classified anthology series, which got canceled before the Hitman one ran. So instead of a four-parter, it’s a two-parter, set six years after the main series, when everyone’s fate has cemented, and an intrepid reporter has some questions about Superman’s relationship with professional hitman Tommy Monaghan, a known killer, and man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition. The reporter—named Kirby, with Ennis showing his soft side—interviews Superman’s de facto press agent, one Clark Kent.

At some point in the past, the Bloodlines aliens came back, and the JLA needed someone who they’d give powers for scientific reasons. So they go get Tommy and bring him to the moon, where Kyle Rayner Green Lantern’s embarrassed to know him, and Batman takes delight in telling Superman about Tommy’s profession. Ennis balances the alien threat with Superman reconciling being emotionally invested in a “bad guy” and Tommy having a blast in a superhero crossover. Some excellent writing on the characters from Ennis, who might not have wanted to write DC superheroes, but it’s too bad they didn’t convince him to do more of it.

The conclusion works as a rumination for the whole series.

McCrea pencils and inks the JLA crossover, busting ass to give it a unique, distinct feel from the regular series. Especially after Closing Time, it’s kind of hard to imagine Hitman without Leach inking McCrea. But then the crossover isn’t a Hitman comic; it’s a Superman story about Hitman.

And it just makes you want to read the whole comic, all sixty issues plus crossovers, all seven trades, all 1,600 pages, all over again. Ennis, McCrea, and Leach do one hell of a job.

Hitman: For Tomorrow (1999-2000)

Back in the early days of comics collections—and I'm talking mid-to-late eighties, pre-Dark Knight Returns, pre-Watchmen—there were occasionally collections on themes. Hitman: For Tomorrow feels very much like a collection of Hitman comics based on the theme. It's writer Garth Ennis leaning in on taking Tommy and friends out of their comfort zones but into ones potentially more familiar to the reader. Then Ennis forces the potentially unsuited zone into Hitman. Like the two-part opener with Tommy having to fight vampires, or later on, there's a 2000 AD homage with a dinosaur, then one of Ennis's first war stories. Ennis is getting a lot more ambitious, asking a lot more from penciler John McCrea and inker Garry Leach. Not just the dinosaur one, but also a four-part John Woo homage. Tommy's romantic problems with Tiegel and general interpersonal relationship problems with everyone else run underneath it all, breaking through to find Ennis waiting for them, ready to incorporate them into the greater narrative.

For Tomorrow collects fourteen issues. There's a two-parter, a four-parter, a done-in-one, then a three-parter, and finally another four-parters. It's a lot of comics, with the general theme being Tommy's recovery from the last collection. This one starts with Tommy having sequestered himself in his apartment to think about his horrific family backstory while he gets drunker and drunker. Natt the Hat comes to pull him out of it, leading to the two having a solemn talk about things. And Ennis, McCrea, and Leach explore the idea of a pitch-black Hitman; Tommy's tragic, and he's doing stoicism to avoid having to feel. Better to keep Tiegel away than share it with her, better to ignore his friends, better to avoid surrogate father Sean entirely rather than confront him about a lifetime's worth of lies.

Luckily, Tommy and friends live in Gotham City, which is going through the No Man's Land crossover, only for Hitman, Ennis does vampires. Vampires have decided Tommy's neighborhood, the Cauldron, is perfect for a vampire paradise, especially since it's full of despicable hitmen who'll no doubt supply the vampires with fresh food. Little do the vampires realize what's in store for them.

Though the entire thing hinges on the vampires not being willing to destroy a Catholic Church because it's shelter and Tommy and pals being thrilled to tear it down. It's really effective, but it also feels very much against the Irish Catholic grain Ennis has been incorporating into the comic from the start. It's a good two-parter; the vampires are appropriately evil and determined but also not as wise as Tommy when they need to be. And it does an excellent job getting Tommy through his personal darkness.

In the background of that two-parter, Sean—bartender to the hitmen and Tommy's surrogate dad—is feeling the strain on their relationship and finding a friend in hitman Ringo Lam.

Since Ennis introduced Ringo way back in Hitman, there's always been discussion of him and Tommy having a shootout to see who's the better gunsel. I'm misusing gunsel intentionally for effect. It's always unclear who's the better killer, and when Tommy bumps into Ringo and his girlfriend, it seems like they're going to find out. Over a woman. Because the girlfriend is Wendy, who dumped Tommy for being a hitman back in issue #6. And she's figured out what Ringo does for a living now too.

Ennis sets up the story with Ringo as the protagonist, quickly leaning into a John Woo homage. I can't figure out if Ringo is more a Chow Yun-fat type or a Tony Leung. Ringo soon finds himself in trouble for a hit he made, and Tommy's around, so the bad guys are after both of them now. And Wendy's in danger. So it's a Hong Kong action movie, albeit one with a superpowered villain (I feel like Ennis would've written a mean Wolverine if they could've gotten him to do it straight); it's a buddy movie, full of heart, full of character development. When Tommy and Ringo are captured, Ringo tells Tommy (and the reader) his life story. Whether Tommy wants to hear it or not.

It ends up being a very nice examination of male friendships and their shortcomings. Ennis writes the hell out of it, all without breaking the genre rules. Though it helps there's a lot of heart in John Woo's Hong Kong action epics. And McCrea and Leach ably handle all the action, which isn't the Hitman normal, if there is such a thing. The series's visual motifs have not been a John Woo movie until this point, and then there are four issues where they have to immediately adapt; McCrea and Leach handle the transition ably. I'm curious how much direction Ennis gave them in the script.

After that four-parter, Ennis takes an issue to get Tommy in trouble with Tiegel and find some resolution with Sean. There's some action and humor, but it's all pretty serious character development stuff. Ennis is very thoughtful with the Sean and Tommy stuff and not with the Tiegel stuff. It all builds to a punchline for Tiegel, but not… really? Ennis, McCrea, and Leach put Tiegel through the objectification ringer—physically and mentally—and then give her a comedy gag punchline. It's memorable for the punchline and the Sean stuff, but it's almost like Ennis needed two issues to get it done. Or maybe just not to have ginned up the Tiegel drama to get her and Tommy on the outs again.

Though there's no time for love in the next arc, which has Tommy and Natt accidentally going on a time-traveling safari to the Jurassic period, messing it up, and letting a bunch of hungry dinosaurs invade Gotham in the present. One of the dinosaurs, a Tyrannosaurus rex, gets close third-person narration (which is where it just feels the most like 2000 AD). Also, a great white hunter dipshit is trying to kill Tommy before the dinosaurs; the hunter led the time travel safari and is mad Tommy screwed it up.

It's a big action story with dinosaurs. It's great. Awesome art. There's not much more to say about it. They go back in time, get to see dinosaurs, bring them back to the future, dinosaurs start eating people. But it's still No Man's Land Gotham, so it's up to Tommy and friends to stop them. It's a bunch of fun without ever being silly. And it's able to get away with never being silly because Ennis, McCrea, and Leach lean into it so much. Until the run in this trade, Ennis was a lot less assured at incorporating the absurdities of a superhero universe into Hitman. He made fun of it, no less. But For Tomorrow's got vampires, unalluring mutants, and dinosaurs. There's lots of absurdity, only they've figured out how to embrace it.

Then it's time for the tour de force finale, which opens with Sean telling the boys at the bar a war story. Only it's from when he was a kid during World War II. There's more background to Sean before Gotham City and bartending (Ennis also doesn't get into the nun he's been carrying on with for decades) throughout the arc, but nothing's ever quite as effective as the first one. Maybe because Sean's a kid and more vulnerable, but also maybe because it's the earliest real Ennis war story I've seen. Or at least, remember seeing. Also, maybe just in the context of the collection—For Tomorrow is often very fantastical, and the finale's very, very grounded.

Sure, the story's about a mob princess wanting Tommy's head on a spike for her wedding present and a legendary hitman—for a while, I was thinking Christopher Walken, but then less him—is going to get it for her. This hitman, Benito Gallo, will stop at nothing, including targeting Tommy's friends. And thanks to Tommy's continued pursuit of Tiegel, she's in the mix too.

Aside from icky stuff with the mob princess and Benito, who's her uncle, the story's all about Tommy, Sean, Tiegel, and the rest bar cast. They're all still sensitive from recent losses and faced with an endless onslaught of bad guys. It becomes a siege situation, which Ennis used in the vampires story; only the mobsters are impervious to sunlight. Plus, Tommy's got everyone he can call in a jam in the jam with him.

It's kind of amazing how much traction Ennis got over Tommy stumbling into a mob meeting where he had to shoot his way out, forever pissing off the mob and leading to this eventual story arc. It's not really intricate plotting, just Ennis knowing how to match the series's momentum with significant events.

Then there's an epilogue issue—which I thought was the last issue because I knew Hitman was always a bubble book and figured they canceled it on them early, so they did a quick wrap-up, but no, there are another ten issues. So the epilogue issue is sort of a repudiation of that DC One Million crossover issue, like Ennis did it again but with a straight face and found the heart underneath it all.

It's a great arc. Excellent character work, possibly a little too much objectification of Tiegel as she reluctantly becomes a badass with the rest of the hitmen, expressive, moody art. The ending—pre-epilogue—has this beautiful, perfectly awful moment for Tommy thanks to his "powers." It'll be hard for the actual series finale to top this one.

But I'm confident Ennis, McCrea, and Leach will do it because they've figured out how to make great Hitman comics, and they're not slowing down.

Hitman: Tommy’s Heroes (1998-99)

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By the fifth Hitman collection, DC has given up on the six or eight-issue collection and just gone whole hog. There are fourteen issues in the Tommy’s Heroes collection. Two full story arcs, a couple done-in-ones (including the DC One Million crossover), and then a haunting two-parter to close it off. Writer Garth Ennis runs Hitman hero Tommy Monaghan through various ringers, starting with the S.A.S. out to get him.

Back in Gulf War One, Tommy and best friend Natt the Hat accidentally killed a British officer. Friendly fire, it happens (apparently a lot with the U.S. military, per Ennis’s S.A.S. blokes’ conversation). Only it was the son of some blue blood, so the S.A.S. wants to show you really can’t kill wealthy Brits, even if you’re a Marine, so they send a fire team to Gotham to kill Tommy and Natt the Hat. Why have they waited so long (the comic’s from 1998)? Possibly because the team leader was too busy undercover in the IRA, possibly because… they just needed to wait for it to be a story.

Especially since it’s going to turn into a gang war, and it couldn’t have been a gang war if Tommy hadn’t recently pissed off the Italian mob.

So, this arc, Who Dares Wins, has Garry Leach inking John McCrea, and while the style is still Hitman, Leach brings a much more absurdist feel to the art. It’s like a gore comedy, always trying to top itself—DC really should’ve paid Ennis or made some intern go through these Hitman comics and change out the fake swear words for real ones, just to see how it reads. Because it’s super gory, super gross (the Italian mob boss has IBS and conducts his business from the men’s, which begs for a Batman versus IBS mobster story but alas no), but there’s no cursing. But they get away with a lot, especially with the Leach inks.

It’s a five-issue arc, with Tommy and Natt on the run from the S.A.S., on the run from the mob, then having to save a kidnapped friend. Not the girlfriend. Ennis doesn’t put her in danger, though the S.A.S. considers it. Lots of the arc is about the S.A.S. being these unstoppable, unconscionable killing machines, leading to inter-team turmoil. Tommy and Natt are kind of just guest-starring in their own story. Ennis is far more interested in the Brits.

I’m pretty sure he did the same setup years later with a Punisher MAX arc. It’d be interesting to compare the two.

The story’s okay. The stakes are kind of low—once Ennis establishes it’ll be an alarming escalation if the S.A.S. team starts killing civilians (versus mobsters or Tommy and Natt), you don’t really have to worry about their hostage. I mean, maybe Natt’s in danger, but… probably not. Ennis started Hitman killing off Tommy’s other best friend. It’d be a lot to off the replacement.

Mostly, it’s a wonderful exercise in glorious, energetic art. McCrea’s always kind of static with Hitman. Leach brings the fluidity.

There’s a perfect example with the one-in-one following the conclusion of Who Dares Wins. Tommy and girlfriend Tiegel are on the outs after a fight over Tommy’s demonic hitman nightmares, so he and Natt head to the bar to get blotto. It’s mostly comedy and character development as Tommy feels like a failure compared to the S.A.S. team from the last arc. They were real hard men; he’s just pretending. So talking heads, Irish jokes, and an absolutely fantastic new bartender.

McCrea inks the issue himself, and it’s got none of that liquidity or smoothness Leach brings. It’s not bad. It works just fine for a pensive issue. It gives Tommy time to think through his monologues and so on.

Leach is back for the next arc, Tommy’s Heroes. Well, for most of it. It’s five issues, and smack dab in the middle Andrew Chui fills in on the inks and… makes Hitman look very silly.

Heroes is about Tommy, Natt, and a couple other local Gotham hitmen heading to Central Africa to work as mercenaries. Officially they’re advisors training the locations to fight the heroin-smuggling rebels, but pretty soon, they discover the people they’re working for are the actual bad guys. Because, of course.

One of the other mercenaries conned into the job is a British friend of one of the S.A.S. guys from the other arc. It gives Tommy a character relationship away from Natt and Tiegel, which is a Hitman rarity these days. Of course, Natt doesn’t want Tommy telling his new friend about the S.A.S. trying to kill them, so there’s some tension.

The tension quickly gives way to the aforementioned working-for-the-bad-guys bit, which becomes really obvious when Tommy’s superior kills a baby. Actually, the superior orders one of the two evil supers to do it; you can see the seeds of The Boys all throughout the arc, though it’s also going to echo Superman-as-stooge in Dark Knight just because it’s the most similar reference point at the time.

There’s a lot of outrageous war comic action, mostly with great Leach inks and much less humor than usual. One of the additional hitmen is the big dopey one, who everyone uses as comic relief to relieve tension. Not everyone like Ennis, McCrea, or Leach. The characters. They all use the guy to blow off steam while slowly realizing his place in the team dynamic.

Tommy’s Heroes is a better story than the S.A.S. one, but it’s also a much more serious one. It may be the most serious Hitman story so far. Ennis tries a little hard to force Tommy’s character development but gets away with it through charm, goodwill, and brute force.

None of it, and none of Hitman, can prepare for the next issue in the collection, another done-in-one. Tommy and Superman, having a long talk on a Gotham rooftop. Leach does the inks. He and McCrea’s Superman is vaguely Kirby-esque, larger than life (and chonky), which just makes the story all the more effective.

Superman’s just had a very bad day and went to talk to Batman about it for emotional support. Batman was useless. Since it’s Superman and Superman’s always saving the world, Tommy figures the least he can do is talk it out with him. So the comic works through three levels of cynicism. There’s Tommy’s affected but earned cynicism, there’s Superman’s reluctant cynicism, then there’s Ennis’s cynicism about the whole superhero thing, as continually evidenced in the very comic book itself.

It ends up being Ennis doing inspiration over cynicism, and it’s absolutely phenomenal. It’s not the best Hitman, but it’s on a shortlist of best Superman.

Then it’s time for the DC One Million crossover, which has a bunch of future jackass rich kids teleporting Tommy to the future so they can use his powers. In the intervening 83,000 years between the present and the One Million timeline (seriously, there ought to be an oral history project on the terrible idea of this crossover from go), the world has aggrandized Tommy into a superhero. The kind who would be suitable for a silly crossover issue.

All that superhero inspirational positivity Ennis ginned up for the Superman issue? He cleanses himself of it in the One Million crossover. All the future superhero sycophants are dipshits (at best), and Tommy’s mortified by the lot of them.

Eventually, he’s going to reintroduce murder-death-kills to the neutered future, hurrying things along so he can get back to his barstool to drink away his sorrows. The best thing in the issue’s probably the punchline cameo, but absolutely no one is trying very hard here. Ennis’s exposition is just to rag on the concept, though McCrea (inking himself) does get to do more goofy humor than usual.

Then comes the devastating two-part finale of the collection.

So, again, just like the Tommy’s Heroes arc was the most serious Hitman to that point… the two-part Katie sets the new standard. Because it’s going to be almost incalculably dark.

The story starts with Tommy and Tiegel having another fight, taking another break. She’s mad about him being a hitman, which is their go-to disagreement. Ennis seems to have forgotten what he enjoyed about writing them together, and now they just argue and, during the arguments, mention the other times they’re happy with each other. We just never see those on the page.

The latest breakup is just to remind Tiegel’s still around, with the inciting incident being a person from Tommy’s past reappearing and taking him back to Ireland. There are a lot of truth bombs, and back story reveals throughout the two issues, but they have very little to do with Hitman proper. Outside it broadly being about Tommy’s character development. Everything he finds out here is a revelation to both reader and Tommy, so we’re privy to his reaction.

The series has already established Tommy was left at the local Catholic orphanage as a baby, and the Mother Superior at the orphanage has been having a long-time love affair with his good friend, the bar owner. Well, I think Ennis only hinted at the latter, but it’s a plot detail in the arc. Because when it’s about Tommy in Gotham, it’s Tommy as a newborn; so instead, it’s about the adults around him.

But it’s not a Gotham story, it’s an Ireland story, and Ennis has a lot of thoughts about how shitty Irish people can be. Mainly how shitty men can be. How infinitely awful, in fact.

It’s a hell of a story.

Excellent, emotive art from McCrea and Leach. It’d probably be nicer if they’d ended the collection with some kind of reprieve, but they don’t. It’s just an even more intense weight than the comic’s ever had before.

Hitman: Tommy’s Heroes might be the turning point where Ennis starts getting more ambitious with the character. Not the romance, unfortunately (I don’t think Tiegel has anything to do outside the arguing in almost four hundred pages), but there’s so much great stuff in these issues. It starts with Leach giving the comic this newfound fluidity, jazzing it up, as it were.

It ends with Ennis… doing whatever that ending does, coming after the Superman issue after the Tommy’s Heroes arc. Just rending the reader, rending Tommy.

On the one hand, I can’t wait to see where Ennis goes next. On the other, it’s a terrifying thought. He and McCrea take Hitman someplace much darker and thoughtful than mainstream DC’s built for. They’re pressing the medium to the limit; it cracks to reveal something cold, desolate, and vibrant.

It’s excellent comics.

Hitman: Ace of Killers (1997-98)

Having read Garth Ennis for so long, I can get a sense of his structure. He’s traditionally too rushed in three-issue arcs, much more comfortable with four or more. Hitman: Ace of Killers collects a six-issue arc and then two done-in-ones. The main story is a siege story, too, with the heroes getting pinned down at the end of the second issue. It’s pretty awesome plotting; like, it’s real impressive given all the character development he’s got going in a four-hour present action or whatever.

So, Nazi demon Mawzir (from the first Hitman arc—and trade) is back in Gotham looking for revenge. He’s pretty sure he’s got a foolproof plan to take out Tommy, which involves taking over one of the mob gangs and having the humans do most of the dirty work so as not to raise attention from the archangels who wouldn’t want a demon doing business on the mortal plane. Only it turns out Tommy’s still too smart for Mawzir. At least if his plan works out. The plan involves Jim Balent-era Catwoman (the politest way to describe Balent-era Catwoman is “cheesecake”) and another visit from Jason Blood and his Demon. Tommy got his start in Ennis and artist John McCrea’s Demon, which I kind of want to read after this arc, which has Ennis sending Etrigan on a delightful mission in Hell. Reminds of good old eighties DC Swamp Thing Hell, though no bugs.

But Mawzir hunting Tommy interferes with fetching, now ex-cop Tiegel getting drunk and putting the moves on Tommy. She gets so drunk she doesn’t remember he’s actually a gentleman when he wants to be—there’s a great bit comparing the demons and angels on his shoulders. When she tracks him down to confront him about what she thinks happened, she too gets stuck in the siege. So it’s Tommy, Tiegel, Natt, Catwoman, and Jason Blood trapped in a Catholic Church, which Mawzir and his human gang are shooting to shit. Mawzir can’t go into the church because holy ground and the archangels would know right away; he has to stay outside and deal with the cops.

Now, outside Tommy’s constant fat jokes about Natt and the Catwoman objectification, the wonkiest thing about the arc is how it fits in, well, Batman’s Gotham City. It’s hard to believe none of the Bat-family wouldn’t notice an hours-long firefight in the middle of the city, regardless of it happening in the Cauldron (Gotham’s Hell’s Kitchen analog). Maybe they were all on a space mission, but it’s definitely a place where having general DC Comics continuity works against the comic.

It’s also the arc where I was most expecting some kind of Preacher nod—Catwoman’s in the story because she got tricked in stealing a magical Old West rifle, capable of killing demons—but then remembered nineties DC wouldn’t force some terrible crossover between distinct artistic properties. Ah, the old days. I mean, outside Balent Catwoman, who Tommy and Natt salivate over in an unfortunate manner.

While the siege takes five issues to resolve, there are a couple big diversions—first, Etrigan’s Hell mission, then drunken “studperhero” Sixpack putting together his team of misfit meta-humans to help out Tommy and friends. Ennis gets away with a couple things with the misfits I can’t believe they let him do on the main DC label. Like, did they switch pages at the printer or something? So there’s a nice balance of humor and suspense and then a whole bunch of romance, as Tommy figures he and Tiegel need to talk out their proto-relationship problems even if they’re in imminent danger. Maybe more so.

Most of the relationship development happens in one of the done-in-ones, but there’s excellent groundwork throughout the main arc. Oodles of chemistry.

Ennis writes the heck out of demon Etrigan, both in Hell and out; I’m thinking I need to hit that Demon series at some point too. He’s got an enthusiasm to it, even though it’s very purple.

Oh, and the siege arc has a lot of Sam Peckinpah references; it’s kind of strange to see Ennis drop all sorts of (specific) pop culture references, but it was the nineties, after all.

The first done-in-one is Tommy and Tiegel’s first proper date, with Steve Pugh doing the art. Pugh brings a lot to it, especially for the constrained setting and story—there’s some banter with Tommy and Natt, then the date going sideways once Tiegel’s parents show up—but having Pugh handle the more human moments… makes it distinct. Not saying McCrea couldn’t have done them, but Pugh’s art is more gentle.

Or something.

It works, but it’s also just fine Pugh’s not back for the second done-in-one, which has Tommy and Natt hunting down a radioactive Santa Claus, hell-bent on killing as many people as he can. There’s a big “Simpsons” reference, and the whole story’s narration feels like a nod to How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It works out nicely. But it’s not as impressive as an action narrative as the main story or a character one as the date issue. It’s a Christmas special, whereas the other two stories have to make their own special.

McCrea’s back on pencils for the Christmas story, with Pugh inking. It looks good. Now, radioactive supervillain Santa attacking Gotham on Christmas Eve… just saying, Batman sort of should’ve noticed.

It’s the best Hitman collection so far. I wasn’t sold on the Tiegel and Tommy stuff but now I’m most definitely invested.

Hitman: Local Heroes (1996-97)

Hitman: Local Heroes

Local Heroes collects two story arcs; the first is the Local Heroes one, about metahuman hitman Tommy having to team up with Kyle Rayner Green Lantern to take on the C.I.A. The C.I.A. wants to start controlling the supes, and suddenly it's like The Boys in here. I hadn't realized writer Garth Ennis worked through ideas over such a long term; Ennis has got his themes—like drunk Irish men—but if I've ever recognized echoes throughout his career, I've forgotten. I've also never read this far into Hitman before, and maybe everyone knows about the Boys echo. Whatever. Just saying.

So the main story is four issues. The second story is two issues. All by Ennis and artist Joel McCrea. You get pretty much equal amounts Hitman in both; the difference is there are subplots in the feature story, and the back-up's pretty much all action. Which one is better? Well, the feature's Ennis constantly pwning Kyle Rayner (with D.C.'s consent and, therefore, tacit approval), and it's pretty funny. It even manages to get a little deeper in contrast, with Ennis delving into the moralities of the comic and its protagonist, turning it into a slight humor bit with Green Lantern and sort of leaving it running in the background. Every once in a while, there's a return to it—also because Tommy picks up a new love interest, a suspended Gotham City cop who just happens to be intelligent, head-strong, incorruptible, and adorable with family members. Her name's Detective Tiegel, but he calls her Debs because it's post-feminist when Tommy does it. After all, he clearly respects her.

Another Ennis theme—the lady sidekick.

So Tiegel is also questioning the morality of hanging out with a hitman, which helps keep that subplot going even when Green Lantern isn't pontificating about it.

The bad guys are Truman and Feekle (sound it out); Truman's the brain, Feekle's the muscle. They hire the cops (roping Tiegel into the narrative) to help them kill Tommy if Tommy doesn't play ball, but then after Tommy doesn't, and the cops bungle it, they bring in Green Lantern Kyle Rayner because Kyle Rayner is a dope. Things continue to go wrong, leading to varied team-ups between the good guys against the bad guys. Also, in the background, Tommy is a local hero for standing up to the cops and his continued mourning over his best friend (killed last collection).

Ennis really plays up the neighborhood setting of Hitman, creating a Hell's Kitchen analog in Gotham called "The Cauldron." It's overboard, but it's okay. Like, the comics are from the mid-nineties, years before Daredevil got popular enough to make it seem like a lift. Ennis's wordy Tommy narration almost entirely focuses on his mourning, which is fine. I mean, it's definitely wordy, but it's okay.

Similarly, Tommy and Tiegel are fine. They're cute enough together, but it feels too soon. The story opens with Tommy bemoaning his recent breakup (over being a hitman), and it's not like they have enough chemistry anything needs rushing. They're just a good team. But Tommy's a good partner for anyone. Even Green Lantern Kyle Rayner. Tommy's most crucial superpower is the chemistry Ennis gives him with other characters. Tommy's a smart-ass but not aggressive about it.

The second story has Tommy and his fellow mercenaries and hitmen going up against a bunch of zombies. Some mad scientist kills his partner—it's Gotham City, after all—and wants to prove to the world they figured out how to make zombies.

The narrative's real simple; Tommy gets the job, Tommy goes on the job, it's the job. Sure, there are constantly arriving sidekicks, some with potential drama, but if it plays out, it plays out on the job. It's a mostly action story, and it's full of great zombies. Like, McCrea and Ennis come up with a great twist for the zombies and the rules to zombies. It's inventive in a way they don't need to worry about when there are four issues to the story. Two-parter is set up, cliffhanger, cliffhanger resolve, third act, epilogue. There's no time for subplots or girls or conspiracies. It's lean.

And it's great.

Kind of better than the main story. Because the main story's just good, the second story's great.

Hitman's an outstanding comic.

Hitman: Ten Thousand Bullets (1996-97)

Hitman: Ten Thousand Bullets

So when I said I was going to keep going with Hitman after reading the first volume last June, I meant it. I did not go back and reread it (though I’ve perused since finishing this second collection) and was able to mostly follow the story so Hitman can withstand a sixteen-and-a-half-month break, which is impressive.

I also didn’t read the introduction by Kevin Smith. It’s a little bit too effusive about Hitman writer Garth Ennis. So it stings when you get through a quarter of the collection and agree with Smith’s effusiveness, jealous he got to be the one to tell Garth, and you didn’t. Like, there’s a moment where Hitman just clicks, and then it keeps going all the way through.

Ten Thousand Bullets is a collection of three stories; six comics, three stories. The first is a four-issue arc–Ten Thousand Bullets, then there’s an Ennis one-shot-aside single issue, then there’s an annual. Joel McCrea does the art on most of it, with Carlos Ezquerra and Steve Pugh doing the art on the annual. They take turns, with Ezquerra doing a riff on McCrea’s art, then Pugh doing a riff on it, then Ezquerra again. It’s a great-looking issue because there’s so much contrast between the artists, but you’re already used to the Hitman visual motif because they’re doing the “house” McCrea style, so you can see the choices better having just deep-dived with five issues of McCrea.

The main story has Hitman Tommy Monaghan trying to take down a vigilante who kills drug dealers, then sells their stuff himself. Kind of like an evil Robin Hood. The vigilante’s name is NightFist, and he’s a direct riff on Jim Valentino’s ShadowHawk. Like, if the one-shot and annual hadn’t been so affecting, I was going to open this post asking what Jim Valentino ever did to Garth Ennis because there’s a story there. And if there’s not… I mean, ShadowHawk was always a good punchline.

For help with the job, Tommy calls in his old friend, Natt, and welcomes him to the regular supporting cast, which includes the bar buddies and then Wendy, the girl Tommy met before in the series.

At the same time, the existing series bad guy is back and after Tommy, hiring a better hitman—one who knows how Tommy’s superpowers (mind-reading and x-ray vision) work.

There’s action, there’s comedy, there’s tragedy, there’s McCrea’s enthusiastic art. Some of the tension in the action comes from the visual pacing alone, with McCrea building between panels. They use the same tension in the comedy sequences, where Tommy and Natt’s constant bro banter isn’t exactly funny, but it hits really well. Especially after Tommy explains we’re about to hear the story of how he lost his girl and his best friend. Ennis actually understands how past tense works, which might be where I wanted to be the one to get to write his introductions, and it brings this sense of impending tragedy in just the right way. Because the comic’s still funny, it’s just bittersweet. And then Ennis sort of leans on the bittersweet nature of it all. Though in Hitman parlance, it’s more like he pushes his thumb into a bullet wound, intensifying Tommy’s experiences, tying into the narrator versus the actor.

It’s really well-written comics.

More than makes up for the story getting loose a couple times.

The one-shot and the annual aren’t ever loose. Ennis has got them tightly controlled, he and McCrea finding the perfect pacing for the Final Night tie-in one-shot. While the Super Friends fight to save planet Earth from—was it evil Green Lantern—Tommy and his friends hunker down in the bar.

Of course, we know now if Superman got on the news and told us to stay inside or we’d get vaporized, forty percent of us would go out on the streets. Maybe it happened back in the sixties in the comics and Darwin and all.

Anyway.

The guys in the bar sit around and tell stories of when they came closest to death and what saved them. Ennis does war stories, he does parables, he does kid stories. McCrea keeps it all steady between the vignettes, doing some minute style changes, but more like he’s expanding the visual palette than switching to a new one. It’s real good and echoes back to a flashback from the main story, which is another place Ennis takes a big swing with the series and the tone.

Of course, nothing prepares for the annual, which is a homage to the Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood “Dollars Trilogy.” Tommy ends up in a modern spaghetti Western, playing good guy off bad. There’s a great Klaus Kinski joke too. It’s a funny story—lots of jokes, probably the most per capita—and a nice friendship arc for Tommy and a guest star. Ennis homages deep, sometimes running a riff on a Leone narrative beat underneath scenes related to the Hitman content. It’s very nicely done.

Though you probably need to have some strong feelings about whether Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is actually the best to get as jazzed up as me, Ennis, or Tommy get jazzed up. But seeing Pugh go wild doesn’t need any context. There’s some excellent art from both him and Ezquerra on the annual.

So, once again, I can’t wait to keep going on Hitman.

Once again, I really, really intend to do it sooner than sixteen months from now.

Hitman: A Rage in Arkham (1993-96)

Hitman A Rage in Arkham

A Rage in Arkham is the first Hitman collection, but it’s not all the first Hitman stories. There’s his first appearance, during the Bloodlines crossover—which I can’t forget to address, in a Garth Ennis and John McCrea Demon annual, then a Contagion tie-in with Hitman and Batman, then the first three issues of the ongoing, an arc titled… A Rage in Arkham.

But there’s more Hitman before Rage in Arkham; I’m guessing the most informative would be the other Ennis and McCrea Demon comics. Who knew.

Because Rage in Arkham (referring to the collection from now on) makes some fast moves. Not just when considering it with Hitman (aka Tommy Monaghan) in mind as the protagonist. Because in the Demon summer crossover annual written by Garth Ennis, words I never expected to type… it’s still all about Tommy. It opens with him getting his powers after being hit with an Alien inner mouth, only not dying. It’s not an Aliens crossover with Dark Horse—did people mention at the time the villains, “a race of monstrous dragon-like aliens who killed humans for their spinal fluid” (thanks Wikipedia)–were unintentionally absurd and generally terrible. It’s like they were trying to come up with transforming action figures but gross or something. Is there a good behind-the-scenes story to Bloodlines?

So the Demon annual is just Demon and Tommy teaming up to take on the bad guy who attacked Tommy in the first place. Lots of good writing from Ennis, who loves doing the Etrigan stuff, and good art from McCrea. They sort of do it as a spoof of gangster comics. And the humor’s very obvious but also way too dry for American comics. I think I’m going to read that series too.

Anyway.

Then there’s the Contagion crossover story, which just introduces Tommy and Batman. It’s all about Ennis’s characterization of Batman, who comes across like a really dopey jock. It’s awesome. Because Tommy can read thoughts and has x-ray vision—he’s also just an incredible shot, which is why he’s a hitman already—we get to hear all of Bruce Wayne’s thoughts. Again, awesome.

And really nice art from McCrea, whose style for the comic seems to fit Tommy a lot better. Glen Murakami’s colors are a nice compliment.

And it’s immediately rough going from those nice Murakami colors to whatever’s going on with Carla Fenny’s colors in the first issue of the ongoing. Fenny’s doing a lot of the shading work, so McCrea’s art actually regresses a bit. It gets better immediately on the second issue and then is fine for the third; what happened? Issues two and three have a Heroic Age color separations credit supposedly.

Because when the colors are doing the light angles… they’re a lot more important.

The Demon annual opener is only ten fewer pages than the “feature” story, and with Ennis’s excellent pace, the arc is a bumpy—though sometimes entertainingly so—ride. The last part has a somewhat clunky wrap-up, which Ennis can save at the last minute, but only because he’s been doing so much background character development. The issues also might seem clunky because we’re jumping ahead in character development, whereas Ennis wrote that progression.

Tommy in story one isn’t Tommy in story two isn’t Tommy in story three. So the first issue of the ongoing is coming with a different set of baggage. It might explain the bumpy.

But, again, Ennis makes it work. He’s got a particular humor about Hitman and, once he gets comfortable narrating with the character—the first arc in the ongoing is basically a pilot for this character as narrator, a newly created DC antihero guy. There are many smart commercial decisions in Rage, though I’m not sure Batman as buffoon was going to ingratiate the book. At least not at the time. But even as a buffoon, Batman’s still Batman. It’s a very awkward characterization and always intriguing.

Tommy’s a good lead. The arc introduces some supporting cast, including a non-hitman sidekick, and the villains (literal demons trying to hire him for hellish purposes) are excellent.

It’s a lot of fun. Even when Ennis pushes too hard trying to qualify an assassin protagonist in a mainstream DC comic. I’m also curious how they decided the main bad guy would have a swastika tattoo in Hell but not on Earth. I’ll bet there are a lot of interesting notes from Hitman.

So. Really good comic. This time—the third time I’ve started it—I’m definitely going to finish it.