Sláine, ranked part 5: seriously, these are great comics.

We're not even close to the middle of the pack here in terms of ranking. But here are four comics that I can imagine a person falling in love with if they've never read any other Sláine. But, if that's you, know that there is even better out there! And lots of it! Please note, based on my mostly subjective mathematical rnaking system, there's no division between these four stories - so the sequence really comes down to personal preference. 

Starting with our first appearance of 'classic' era Sláine, and the first appearance of an artist who some might say is the best Sláine ever had. Well, that may be true by my metrics later down the line (you'll just have to wait and see), but not with this particular story it's not...

Rank 45/60: Warrior’s Dawn
by Pat Mills and Mike McMahon

Yes, technically this is NOT the cover to match this specific story. But it represents the era well enough!
Art by Mick McMahon

Where to read it: Warrior’s Dawn

Original run: Prog 336 (in the Year 1983; this is story 3 in chronological order, in a time when there were quite a few short stories and one-offs)

The plot: On the way to nowhere in particular, Ukko recounts details of Sláine’s youth.

Essential pre-reads: none. (Although I would say that it's not the best intro to Sláine - there's a reason Pat wrote this a few episodes into the saga, even if it contains an origin of sorts)

Analysis: So apparently Mills had originally written Sky Chariots to be the third story in the Sláine saga, but then decided that this was a step too far, too fast. So he rearranged the story sequence, and slotted in a few fill-ins to help build up to that epic. I’ve only recently learned this, and it certainly never troubled me before! Frankly there’s something rather delightful about the series of stories that just sees Sláine and Ukko travelling from place to place, mixing it up with various random people, and occasionally swapping stories rather than having ‘live’ adventures. It feels authentically of the time.

The main deal here is one such story, weirdly one related by Ukko. Who presumably heard it from Sláine, since he couldn’t’ve been an eye-witness to Sláine’s childhood! Which in turn means we can take the whole thing with a pinch of salt, rather than as canonical truth. Which again, feels authentic. No tale is taller than the one told by your friend who wants to make you seem more impressive!

Ukko even manges to insult himself in this retelling...
Art by Mick McMahon (channeling some Asterix, perhaps??)

 

It’s a classic British boys comic tale of a poor but mostly nice boy being goaded and bullied by a rich and thoroughly unpleasant boy, which naturally ends in the poor boy killing the rich boy. Happens in the Beano every week. It fits the series and the oeuvre of Pat Mills kinda perfectly, without breaking any boundaries.

It’s also the first Mike McMahon art readers got to see, even though it wasn’t the first bit of Sláine he actaully drew (the aformentioned Sky chariots was first, apparently). Mills laments that this meant McMhaon got too stylized, too quickly. I mean, it’s still GREAT art, with that trademark faux-woodcut scratchiness, and a Sláine who looks right out of a possible Stone Age Sex Pistols. But I can’t deny that when I first read it aged 8 or so (in reprint in The Best of 2000AD Monthly), I found it harder to get on with than the Kincaid and Belardinelli stuff that surrounded it.

So, good story, but not a special one, really very good art, but also not enough in it to really fire my imagination in the way of som much Sláine.

Repercussions: we learn that Sláine was essentially born a bad-ass. Sure, he had some training, but clearly he had natural aptitude for things like jumping real high, being able to throw heavy objects with his toes, and being able to warp the Earth through his body. All three of these abilities get referenced A LOT in future fight scenes. We also learn that Mike McMahon is so tethered to some form of realism that he can’t bring himself to illustrate a warpspasm as anything that takes literally the idea of ‘twisting around in his own skin’, which is a shame. His version still looks gnarly, though!

Also note the barbed 'gae bolga' spear in his hand.
This weapon will appear a lot in the series to come.
Art by Mike McMahon

Also this is the first appearnace of Cathbad, the Druid from Sláine's tribe who will appear in many future tales.

I would also say that, although the details of this story are never exactly overwritten, when Sláine later on comes back to his tribe, and the series becomes, in part, about politics, the idea that there are 'elite' / posh families in Slaine's world, and that he personally is NOT part of that world, is not even slightly mentioned again. If anything, it's rather implied that Sláine's world is rather more egalitarian than our own, which this story totally does not. 

(I should also confess that when Mills later tells a sort of repeat version of this story MUCH later, but plays it for laughs, I liked it rather more and gave it higher scores. Who asked for consistency?)

Writing: 7/10 (I haven't commented much on the writing scores so far - but basically, where Mills delivers a competent and fun story, I'm typically giving a 7. He can and does often give so much more, though - whether it's in the historical details of the story, or the clever plotting, or the character creations, or the dialogue or indeed all of those things)
Art: 7/10 (Once again, a reminder that we are grading on an insane curve here!!)

Brainball count: 1 monster, 2 humans

Rank 44/60: Queen of Witches
by Pat Mills and Dermot Power

It's Clint Langley's first crack at Sláine!

Where to read it: Demon Killer
Original run: Progs 889-896 (in the Year 1994; story 22.2 in sequence)

The plot: Flush with an early victory, Boudicca marches on to destroy as many Romans as she can – despite being forewarned that she will fail. Sláine joins in.

Essential pre-reads: Demon Killer. This is part two of that story. Otherwise, you're good!

Analysis: In a very real sense, there’s nothing thematically or stylistically different from ‘Demon Killer’ here. But, you know, it features a different artist. Also, it’s telling the second-half of a story, which inherently gives it a different tonal drive. It's more like a direct sequel than a direct continuation, you know? This half is about, perhaps, the futility of war, or the idea that even as they launch into an epic tantrum of murder, the Celts are just not in a position to defeat the might of Rome. 

So yeah, the Celts had secret plans and clever tricks, and it's SO COOL to see Roman legions getting pummelled (I mean, I grew up on Asterix). But even so, Might and Wealth and Ornganization and sheer power does evetnually win out...
Art by Dermot Power

 

Is there a political point being made there? Not sure. Pat Mills certainly makes much of the fact that he wanted to be VERY clear that Sláine joins in with the wholesale slaughter of civilians, including children, that is a matter of historical record as part of Boudicca’s revolt.

Mills is also clear (In Kiss My Axe, and the intro to the collected edition) that he regrets this choice, and wonders if there was a way to be honest about Celtic slaughter - but not have Sláine himself join in. Either way, we’re left with a rather odd story in which the Earth Goddess sends Sláine on a journey through time to avenge a great injustice, that ultimately fails. This is a theme that will recur, as Sláine travels through time to aid British Celts/Pagans in various conflicts with baddies that history reports they lost. Britain became and, to an extent, remains, a Christian country. Certianly it's not going Pagan or even Earth-worshipping any time soon.

Elsewhere, Queen of Witches repeats the trick from Demon Killer (and of course the Horned God) of cutting back to Ukko telling the story, with Nest as a foil to him, and these bits really are fun. Although sadly it’s also these bits where you can really see the difference between ultra-experienced Glenn Fabry, who knew how to make these scenes sing, and young gun Dermot Power, who has all the enthusiasm, most of the skill, but not quite the same Millsian spirit to make the comedy work quite so well.

Look! He drew ALL the bones. Amazing. Also the politics summed up in a nutshell.
Art by Dermot Power

 

There's not much more to report. Sláine helps fight some Romans, and loses. There's some fun history thrown in, and some esepcially neat bits of design, and I guess if you're into the Romans and wish they appeared in more punk-ish comics, then this is the story for you!

Repercussions: Basically none, except this first ‘time-traveller’ story is the one that uses its start and end to really explain what the Goddess is doing with Sláine, so kinda worth reading this one to set the scene for the next several adventures. As a recurring enemy, it’s fun to see Elfric again. Sláine kills him, twice over, but it’s fairly clear that he’s never really going to stay dead.

If this panel doesn't sum up the ethos of 2000AD, nothing does.
Art by Dermot Power

Writing: 7/10 The history is compellingly told; the thematic elements are a bit murkier. Still, Mills is trying!
Art: 7/10 Power gets better as he goes along, and delivers some stunning scenery – but it’s really noticeable how much effort Fabry was putting into picking his poses and panel layouts. Power isn’t bad – his storytelling is spot on – but in this saga his panel composition lacks pizzazz. He gets better!

Brainball count: I count 18 on panel, with hundreds more implied, plus Elfric, twice.

 

Rank 43/60: Lord of Beasts
by Pat Mills and Rafael Garrés 

Sláine as he doesn't appear in the story inside
Art by Rafael Garrés

 

Where to read it Lord of the Beasts
Original run: Prog 1100 (in the year 1998; story 31 in sequence; technically it's a one-off but it filled the whole Prog so it's more like a 6-parter in terms of page count)

The plot: This one time, during his reign as High King, Sláine was ‘stuck’ in his warp-spasm form for several months. How did that go down?

Essential pre-reads: None, but the story assumes you’re familiar with the idea of Sláine being a High King, probably best to have read ‘The Horned God’ at least, then.

Analysis: If early Sláine was, at times, a riff on Marvel Conan comics, this story is a riff on Wolverine. I mean, I kind of doubt Mills ever read deeply into Wolverine, so it’s more likely drawing on White Fang and other tales of characters learning to cope with their beastly inner nature. But to this comics nerd, it feels like a Wolverine story.

You can just about make out what's going on. But really, this slightly hard-to-parse art style
matched the theme of the story quite well.
Art by Rafeal Garrés

 

There’s a lot of stuff about how much ‘better’ it is and how much ‘happier’ Sláine feels to be stuck in animal mode, living outdoors and hunting food and such. As a metaphor for how Pat Mills might prefer his life, I can get behind it, certainly we can all agree that life is better when you don’t overthink things, which seems to be the hallmark of ‘civilized’ society. But at the end of it all, it’s Niamh who gets Sláine to return to normal – partly through honest love, but also because she’s canny enough to uncover the source of some sorcery. This might actually be one of the few genuinely feminist stories in the Sláine saga. It doesn’t pass the Bechdel test or anything, don’t get too excited.

Does it have much to say about Sláine? I guess it's kind of interesting to note that, even as he is often presetned as pretty selfish and motivated but not much more than the next drink/fight, Sláine is very much a human, and these are not the same as animals.

Repercussions: None, except that this story kicks off a cycle of recounting adventures from the time when Sláine was High King, rather than telling about what he got up to after he was ritually put to death.

Writing: 7/10
Art: 7/10 This might be more personal than any other ranking – I can appreciate Garres’s painting and its Goya vibes, but it never really grabs me. It’s definitely not BAD or anything, though. Worth noting this is a long story, with a full 24 pages of painted comics, presumably drawn pretty quickly?

Brainball count: Lots, and in rather uncountable depictions...

Rank 42/60: The Spoils of Annwyn
by Pat Mills, Mike Collins & Mark Farmer

Classic mid-80s pun there on the cover, x2
Art by Collins & Farmer

Where to read it: Sláine The King
Original run: Progs 493-499 (in the Year 1986; story 15 in sequence)

The plot: Nest takes Sláine to Glastonbury, where he must face various trials to determine if he is indeed worthy to return to his tribe and become their king.

Essential pre-reads: tricky, this. There’s not much here to tell you about who Sláine is and why he’s so keen to get back to his tribe, but those ideas are kind of embedded in the whole saga to this point. I guess if you want to minimise the effort, I’d recommend reading Dragonheist, which gives you a good overview of Sláine’s personality and goals – not to mention introducing Nest - and just maybe the game Ring of Danu – in which Sláine meets the triple-goddess for the first time.

Analysis: Pat Mills has been pretty vocal about his dislike of Greek Myths and their Sun King/Apollo-esque-type heroes. Or at least, his disinterest in them. This story, delightfully, is both a riff on the Labours of Hercules, and a subversion of them – in that Sláine is forced to undertake several tasks, but his success depends on very different things to Hercules. I believe that several of the ‘labours’ in this story are also explorations of Celtic / Ancient British myths, too.

From some background material, it seems this story was largely written to keep Sláine going while the world waited for Glenn Fabry to finish his next saga. So it’s entirely appropriate that the point of this story is to put Sláine through various paces to examine if he is worthy of becoming King of his tribe. I can’t tell how much of what happens is derived from legends or historical accounts, and how much is Pat Mills working in his pet themes of slicing through American hero-fiction cliches, but the upshot is that Sláine DOESN’T hack and maim his way through various baddies to prove his mettle.

In this moment, I'm struck by the thought that this page feels very Manga-esque.
Art by Mike Collins & Mark Farmer

On the other hand, it is interesting that Mills has decided that the time has come to turn Sláine, as both character and story engine, from being a wandering hero into someone who is going to become a king, and start exploring a mix of politics and battles. Totally makes sense from the point of view that Sláine is directly inspired by tales of ancient Irish/Celtic kings, but actually in-story it’s weird that he even has any expectations of being king.

You end up with a constant struggle of the working-class hero who hates elites and all they stand for, clashing with the idea that kings are a good thing, and that he, Sláine, is both destined to become and ultimately worthy of being a king. Destiny and worthiness are surely concepts that don’t mesh with the ‘working man’ angle? Or maybe it’s totally fine. I suppose Mills doesn’t hate monarchy as a concept, just hates that kingship is so rarely about finding the best person for the job, and I guess Sláine is a version of ‘wouldn’t it be nice if the best qualified person actually became king’.

Anyway, Spoils of Annywn is kind of the adventure-story version of that debate, where Sláine is made to look foolish by making assumptions about what kings are like, but is quick enough on the uptake to demonstrate that he gets why kings ought not, in fact, to behave like entitled bullies.

Repercussions: Basically a prologue for Sláine the King, the story that followed, but it’s also a neat transition from stories about Sláine and Nest having adventures in a mystical world, and into stories of Sláine dealing with ‘real’ things in his home town.

Writing: 8/10
Art: 6/10 there are some genuinely memorable sequences here, and it’s telling that later artists would go back to Mike Collins’s original designs for the three versions of Danu, especially his crone. But it’s not in the same league of anatomical glory as Fabry, or sheer weird exuberance of e.g. David Pugh and Massimo Belardinelli.

Brainball count: 1 unicorn. As mentioned, kind of the point of this story is Sláine learning not to fight, and also not to judge books by their covers.

Carrying on the proud tradition of beautiful landscape art.

So, next time, a set of tales where Mills and Co are really GOING for something - but maybe it doesn't quite come off.