Comic Book Reviews - Wanted, The Boys, A Contract with God

At first glance, you'd think that Will Eisner's A Contract With God did not belong with the other comics I'm going to review. You'll see why it fits in quite nicely, I'll get to that later.

Ka-pow!! I first have to go right into reviewing Wanted, which I just finished reading a few minutes ago. It completely knocked me on my ass, it was that good. Everything about it just completely blew me away. I hate to sound like some sort of adolescent reviewing this, but that's how it made me feel - like I was a pre-teen that just discovered something really illicit and awesome, that's what reading Wanted was like for me. I just started reading a few of the reviews on Amazon, and some of them hit the right points for me. Which are - if you like comics that resolve themselves with some sort of morality at the end, you'd best skip Wanted. As others have pointed out, this is a story about the bad guys, and the bad guys basically win here. The concept is fantastic here, that a society of super-villains are running the world and nobody knows it, and that there used to be superheroes but they're all gone, and that this lowly peon turns out to actually be the son of one of the greatest of all the super criminals, and capable of amazing feats. I know, it sounds like Fight Club, The Matrix and Star Wars all rolled into one, and I think that's probably fair. It also explains why I enjoyed it so much - not surprisingly, I love Star Wars, Fight Club and The Matrix. Imagine how much cooler Star Wars would have been if Vader got to Luke before Obi Wan did and convinced him to become a sith lord, and Luke was totally into it and the bad guys really and completely won out in the end? That's this story, except no light sabers. It's such an old and compelling idea - what you know as your life is not all that there is, there's this whole amazing world out there, and you are not just an ordinary person living an ordinary life, you are special, you are somebody, in this amazing world. A compelling idea, masterfully done here - with the added twist of a completely nihilistic world view, where the path to success is lined with wanton violence. This comic is violent and somewhat disturbing, and not for the faint of heart. It has my absolute recommendation. I'm very curious but also dreading seeing the movie adaptation, since I liked the comic so much and since I know that they changed the plot significantly for the movie.

I also enjoyed reading The Boys , a series which is so cynical about superheroes that it's hard to take it at all seriously, which I assume is the point. I read both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 recently, and found them to be outrageously funny, vulgar, violent and crude, with more explicit sex, sexual references and sexual imagery than I would think was possible in a comic book (you may have gotten this point already, but I'll drive it home even more - this one is really not for kids). Anyway, it's a scathing take down of the superhero archetype, as the "heroes" here are portrayed as being egocentric, sadistic, corrupt, venal, lascivious monsters that you'd never want to be around - ever. The superheroes are all pretty much controlled by a large multinational corporation. The actual "heroes" of the story are a group of CIA-backed operatives whose job it is to keep the superheroes in line, and impose "rough justice" on them as necessary. I guess the author is going for the "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" idea. Anyway, I think I enjoyed Vol. 1 more than Vol. 2 - I wasn't as keen on the story where the Batman/Iron Man analogue "Tek-Knight" can't stop having sex with everything (and I mean everything). At some point the writer (Garth Ennis) just sort of lost me because the superhero characters are so devoid of merit, there's very little reason to take any of this seriously. On the other hand, the "Boys" are reasonably sympathetic, particularly "Wee Hughie" (the character who looks just like Simon Pegg ), but even the Butcher character - it takes a skillful writer to make you like such a loathsome character, but realize that he's not nearly as loathsome as he initially appears. Anyway, if you're looking for a totally crude, clever, satirical sendup of the superhero genre, this is a highly entertaining read.

The last item I'm reviewing today is A Contract With God which I read a few days ago. I'll say up front that it is regarded as the first Graphic Novel, by the legendary writer Will Eisner - and I really didn't love it. It feels sort of blasphemous to say that, like saying you enjoy plays but don't like Shakespeare, or you enjoy novels but don't really like Don Quixote. There are four stories in this collection - A Contract With God, The street Singer, The Super and Cookalein. Of these four, by far my favorite is the titular story. It's maudlin and over-the-top, but I really was moved by it maybe because it concerns a a father losing a daughter, and I have two little girls. Additionally, I enjoyed the way that Eisner used the visual medium to make his text work together with the imagery (on a rainy day, he has water dripping down from the letters - it's very clever and effective). So, I really liked this story. Unfortunately, I didn't like the other stories in this collection as much. Maybe it was something about the artwork, or something about the characters (they're all pretty selfish, unlikable, dishonest people), or the subject matter. I found the rest of the stories over-the-top, and although I appreciated Eisner's very funny and cynical take on human nature, I thought the stories were almost predictably amoral (if such a thing is possible). Now, to be fair, I've been reading primarily superhero stuff, so maybe I'd be more into it at some other time. I'll give it a try again down the road.

Reading A Contract With God right before I read The Boys and Wanted, I found (surprisingly) the worldview is not that different. All three provide a pretty nihilistic, cynical worldview. Actually, notwithstanding the fact that it is the most vulgar and explicit of the three, The Boys is actually the most "moral" out of all of them, because The Boys exist to keep superheroes in line and make sure that, in a very weird way, that justice is done in the world.