Abandon Strip - Part One

Gallows drummer Lee Barratt takes a weekly look into the world of comics, with this first instalment covering a Batman-related blast from the past and a new crossover between The X Files and 30 Days Of Night as co-written by Tool guitarist Adam Jones.

Posted Wednesday, 18 August 2010 by Lee Barratt in

Blog

Hello and welcome to the first of my columns where I chat about all things to do with ink and print. You should probably know right now that Batman is and will always be my favourite comic book character. But I don't take sides when it comes to Marvel vs DC, so don't bother asking...

(A disclaimer - I don't know everything about every single comic or graphic novel ever published so I'm just looking to give my humble opinion and hopefully recommend a few awesome titles you might not have had the chance to pick up yet.)

To start with, I thought I'd take you back to 1993 and the conception of DC Comics' 'Angel Of Death'. The four part mini-series Batman: Sword Of Azrael tells the origin of the avenging angel Azrael - aka Jean-Paul Valley - who, as most Bat-fanatics will know, goes on to take over the mantle of Batman from Bruce Wayne during the epic Knightfall storyline.

The story starts with the original Azrael, who is Valley's father, being mortally wounded in a fight with the twisted villain LeHah. In his dying moments, he asks his son to succeed where he has failed. What follows is the realisation by Valley that he has been subconsciously been trained to take on the reins of Azrael since birth and his killer instincts have been honed from an early age. In the meantime, Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth travel to Switzerland where Valley is being trained by the cold, calculated dwarf Nomoz to investigate the original Azrael's death.

Without giving too much away, the main bulk of the story comes from the new Azrael sowing the seeds for his detective future and struggling to juggle his brutal responsibilities with his moral values. Alfred recognises Valley's talents when Bruce Wayne is drugged by LeHah and his secret identity is revealed. Those talents are very similar to Batman himself but Azrael's lust for bloodshed and brutality is quite different altogether.

The sprawling art by current Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada is way ahead of its time and very,very good while writer Dennis O'Neil keeps the pace moving quite frantically throughout. There are some very enjoyable moments when Bruce Wayne's desert-dry sense of humour shines through while being interrogated by the evil LeHah and Alfred's prominent role linking the current Batman and the soon to be Batman is pivotal to the humane side of the story. Although not totally essential reading, it's definitely worth picking this up as a pre-cursor to the already mentioned Knightfall storyline and is a perfect introduction to the character Azrael.

Secondly, we have the highly anticipated crossover mini series The X-Files / 30 Days Of Night (Wildstorm/IDW), co-written by 30 Days Of Night creator Steve Niles and Adam Jones, whose day job is playing guitar for prog rock icons Tool.

Niles has definitely proven himself to be one of the modern masters of macabre writing and this story starts off as no exception. Sixteen truckers have been found decapitated in Wainwright, Alaska by a fellow driver named Patches, with their heads attached to a 40-foot pole. Fox 'Spooky' Mulder instantly suspects supernatural doing (as you would) but he has other federal agents at the scene of the crime making things difficult. Partner Dana Scully is as pensive as usual about what could be causing the mysterious deaths. You'd think after all these years, she would have learnt to trust Mulder's instincts...

The art by Tom Mandrake is pretty grim and his bleak pallet really captures the bitter and foreboding Alaskan setting. Although not over-the-top gory, this title is definitely aimed at mature readers. Feast your eyes on the last page for a hint of what is to come! I really enjoyed this first issue and I'm excited to get my hands on issue #2. The two writers seamlessly combine the two horror franchises very well with some great narrative between Mulder & Scully plus a good amount of splatter. This is sure to please fans of both!

Check back next week for my take on Mark Millar's (writer of Wanted and Kick-Ass, among others) newest work among other comic-related things.

Thanks to the mighty Forbidden Planet, the one-stop shop for everything comic-related

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