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: 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.

Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass (2019)

Harley Quinn Breaking Glass 2019 1

Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass is a Young Adult graphic novel reimagining of Harley Quinn, set in high school, with Harley making friends and enemies while living with a delightfully supportive group of drag queens, fighting gentrification and 1% incels. It’s also almost two hundred pages of Steve Pugh art. It’s the new Mariko Tamaki too, bring real YA graphic novel cred to the project, but it’s two hundred pages of Steve Pugh art. It doesn’t get cancelled halfway through. We don’t have to wait three years for a third issue, it’s just… lots of Steve Pugh art. All at once.

It’s glorious.

And Pugh’s even able to keep a straight face in the denouement, which introduces all the possibilities of the future. See, Breaking Glass is realistic (enough). Ivy is a Black girl in a “progressive” White school, trying to force them to drop the quotation marks. Their nemesis, John Kane, is the rich White kid who runs the film club. He’s basically Ferris Bueller if Ferris got a car instead of a computer. He only shows White men—Tamaki gets in some great digs about film noir but I feel seen with the Kubrick—anyway, the first act of the book is the high school stuff. It’s overly dramatic but not soapy; Tamaki and Pugh both have this focusing style and it plays well in the high school environment. The scenes focus on conversations, Pugh focuses on the speakers. Tamaki and Pugh are most in sync when Harley’s with other normal people—Ivy, the drag queens—not when she’s with the Joker.

I forgot the denouement. Okay, so after pushing for some kind of realism throughout, the denouement turns it into a CW teen show. But checking in on the possible familiar face of Breaking Glass’s Gotham City. So kind of like a teen drama version of “Gotham,” next year on HBO Max. Though, in all seriousness, the comic companies ought to launch a monthly subscription reading club and center them around a single release (but with old stuff too). I got Breaking Glass from the library, read it on a whim, but definitely would’ve paid five to seven bucks to read it on my iPad. Getting to zoom in on the Pugh art? Homer Simpson drool. There’s not a lot of action–or it’s rushed action—but the level of mastery Pugh’s working at in Breaking Glass is stunning.

And it’s a good read. Tamaki’s narration is just the right amount of too cute without ever being cloying. It’s occasionally a little wordy, which has a fun resolution in the third act.

Not a fan of Ivy and Harley’s friendship getting shortchanged as far as page count—once Ivy brings up race, the comic runs away. Knowingly and responsibly, but it runs away. Into the Joker, who’s problematic. It’s fine. But pretending the Joker is the best mainstream comics can do has gotten exhausting. Tamaki also cops out on really showing Harley’s infatuation because the comic’s not willing to go that subjective. The Joker’s objectively a shit-heel, even viewed through a fifteen year-old’s lens, which also becomes a bit of a plot point.

Thankfully it’s not a Joker comic, it’s Harley’s and it’s good. She doesn’t get too annoying until just before the end, which is more about Tamaki’s hammering of the foreshadowing finale events. Or racing to get them.

But Breaking Glass is a good comics read. Finite. Successful without too many qualifications. Hundreds of Pugh panels.

The Flintstones (2016) #12

The Flintstones 12

Russell puts The Flintstones to bed with a summary of the human race (from the Great Gazoo). Turns out prehistoric Bedrock is a lot more like the 21st century than one might think. There’s a lot of story threads–Fred needs to win an important bowling game, his bowling ball is preparing to rebel against human oppression, Pebbles thinks maybe mystery god Gerald is bunk and science is real–plus some nods back to previous issues. Wilma doesn’t get anything, Betty gets less. It’s sort of manipulative, Russell knows all the right buttons to push, including the nostalgia ones (including mocking nostalgia ones), and Pugh’s art is wonderful as always. The Flintstones has been an interesting, not entirely successful, but often inordinately ambitious series. It’s been a fine time; a yabba dabba doo time, as it were.

The Flintstones 12 (August 2017)

The Flintstones #12 Russell puts The Flintstones to bed with a summary of the human race (from the Great Gazoo). Turns out prehistoric Bedrock is a lot more like the 21st century than one might think. There’s a lot of story threads–Fred needs to win an important bowling game, his bowling ball is preparing to rebel against human oppression, Pebbles thinks maybe mystery god Gerald is bunk and science is real–plus some nods back to previous issues. Wilma doesn’t get anything, Betty gets less. It’s sort of manipulative, Russell knows all the right buttons to push, including the nostalgia ones (including mocking nostalgia ones), and Pugh’s art is wonderful as always. The Flintstones has been an interesting, not entirely successful, but often inordinately ambitious series. It’s been a fine time; a yabba dabba doo time, as it were.

CREDITS

Farewell to Bedrock; writer, Mark Russell; artist, Steve Pugh; colorist, Chris Chuckry; letterer, Dave Sharpe; editors, Brittany Holzherr and Marie Javins; publisher, DC Comics.

The Flintstones (2016) #11

The Flintstones 11

Not the best issue of The Flintstones. Not the worst. Not the best though. Russell’s pretty wide with his jokes–hipsters, unpaid interns, vegan restaurants, neighborhood associations–all the stuff he’s referencing feels dated and he’s just doing it for filler anyway. The issue turns out to be all about Gazoo. Everything else is fluff. So clearly something went wrong somewhere with this one. But Pugh’s art is great; even though the style with the Gazoo sci-fi stuff is the same, it’s still sort of different. Pugh’s style changes just a little and it’s a neat perspective thing. Otherwise… it’s a bit of a yawner overall. More than half Russell’s jokes flop and he’s got a bunch of them.

The Flintstones 11 (July 2017)

The Flintstones #11 Not the best issue of The Flintstones. Not the worst. Not the best though. Russell’s pretty wide with his jokes–hipsters, unpaid interns, vegan restaurants, neighborhood associations–all the stuff he’s referencing feels dated and he’s just doing it for filler anyway. The issue turns out to be all about Gazoo. Everything else is fluff. So clearly something went wrong somewhere with this one. But Pugh’s art is great; even though the style with the Gazoo sci-fi stuff is the same, it’s still sort of different. Pugh’s style changes just a little and it’s a neat perspective thing. Otherwise… it’s a bit of a yawner overall. More than half Russell’s jokes flop and he’s got a bunch of them.

CREDITS

The Neighborhood Association; writer, Mark Russell; artist, Steve Pugh; colorist, Chris Chuckry; letterer, Dave Sharpe; editors, Brittany Holzherr and Marie Javins; publisher, DC Comics.

The Flintstones (2016) #10

The Flintstones 10

Wilma gets a job, the mayor’s war-spending goes overboard, and Fred and Barney discover the cinema. It’s a meandering issue, but Russell touches on a lot. Pugh gets some great stuff to draw, there’s tragedy, there’s irony, there’s political commentary. It’s all kind of heavy too. Flintstones is always kind of heavy.

The Flintstones 10 (June 2017)

The Flintstones #10 Wilma gets a job, the mayor’s war-spending goes overboard, and Fred and Barney discover the cinema. It’s a meandering issue, but Russell touches on a lot. Pugh gets some great stuff to draw, there’s tragedy, there’s irony, there’s political commentary. It’s all kind of heavy too. Flintstones is always kind of heavy.

CREDITS

Buyer’s Remorse; writer, Mark Russell; artist, Steve Pugh; colorist, Chris Chuckry; letterer, Dave Sharpe; editors, Brittany Holzherr and Marie Javins; publisher, DC Comics.

The Flintstones (2016) #9

The Flintstones 9

It’s a great issue. The Flintstones’ housewares are in crisis because there’s a new bowling ball, there’s a new bowling ball because Fred got fired, Fred got fired because Mr. Slate found a new, pro-capitalism god. Russell finds the right balance between humor, social commentary, and Stone Age sitcom revisionism; Pugh’s art is, as always, pure delight.