Sláine, ranked part 13: All fun, all the time

I can't quite believe how FUN these next three stories are, and yet we're still not even near the top 10!

Rank 17/60 Red Branch
by Pat Mills and Simon Davis

Where to read it: The Brutania Chronicles 3
Original run: 2000AD 40^th Anniversary Special (in the Year 2017; story 46 in sequence I guess, although you could arguably slot it in before the final Brutania chronicle)

The plot: A flashback to Sláine’s days as a young Sessair warrior-in-training, not much explored since the REALLY early days when we saw boy Sláine learning his tricks in Warrior’s Dawn. Specifically, he engages in a contest to try to qualify for the elite ‘Red Branch’ unit.

Essential pre-reads: None.

Analysis: Written for a Sci-Fi special that had the theme ‘red’, this is one of the best stand-alone Sláine stories going. It tells a simple story about a beloved character, isn’t steeped in continuity and you don’t need to have read it to enjoy later stories. Also it's heaps of fun. I mean, thematically it’s more heavy-handed Mills-bashing of the public school old-boy network, but so over the top I can ignore this, and just appreciate a goof.

You’ve got this idiot who is so in love with the idea that he ‘deserves’ to be better than Sláine that he cuts off his hand, his foot and so on, and it’s never not hilarious.

Its this kind of delight in self-mutilation that is missing from the Saw movies.
Art by Simon Davis

The end.

Repercussions: None

Writing: 9/10
Art: 8.5/10 – Simon Davis is very much leaning in to the slightness and silliness of the whole thing. It’s not that he doesn’t bring his usual outstanding painting techniques to the whole thing, it’s just you kind of can’t do the realistic portrait style painting he does, while also showing ridiculous bodily injury without something breaking – but it all brings smiles.

Brainball count: 1

Rank 16/60 The Gong Beater
by Pat Mills and Clint Langley

Yup, the story in which Sláine beats a gong! (Although at the same time, Pat Mills' own Defoe character was using 'gong' as 17th century slang for dung, and I did wonder what Sláine was in for at first)
art by Clint Langley

Where to read it: Sláine the Wanderer
Original run: Progs 1635-1638 (in the Year 2009; story 40 in sequence)

The plot: On the way to nowhere in particular, Sláine bumps into a mysterious tower and is more or less conned into becoming a ‘gong beater’, who rings a giant gong in order to summon workers who can help restore the tower to its former glory. Except it’s a Cyth tower...

Essential pre-reads: None in particular, but it might help to have read e.g. Time Killer just to have some knowledge of who the Cyth are.

Analysis: More classic-era-style fun, as Sláine, freed of any Invasions to repel, once again wanders around stumbling into random trouble, mostly of Ukko’s doing. There’s some pseudo-feminism in the form of a ‘strong female character’ not taking shot from man or monsters, there’s zombie Cythrons, and mostly what there is is SPECTACULAR design work from Langley on creating a gothic tower, taking notes from Kevin O’Neill and maybe Phillipe Druillet. And also even more SPECTACULAR art from Langley, who draws Sláine banging that mental gong first to wake the Cyth, then to vibrate them into gooey death.

Best use of sound effects since Mark Harrison and Arthur Ranson
Art by Clint Langley

Repercussions: None, really, except Ukko more or less end sup back in position as Sláine’s companion. I rather thought he had after the events of Carnival, myself, but apparently not.

Writing: 8/10 and it’s worth saying ,the biggest portion of this goes to the work done in dreaming up concepts that are just killer to look at. BIG part of a comics’ writer’s job!
Art: 9.5/10, and if it feels churlish to rate this art not quite at top marks, that’s only because the bar on Sláine is so very high. But for me, this is Langley at his very best.

Brainball count: 1 human, 1 cyth, 3 high cyth

Rank 15/60 Time Killer
by Pat Mills, Glenn Fabry (with a bit of help from Bryan Talbot) and David Pugh

Look, it's a bit odd to see Sláine with a gun. But he looks so happy! And the gun has
the mouth of a snarling monster, alright? What more do you WANT, people?
Art by Glenn Fabry

Where to read it: Time Killer
Original run: Progs 411-434 (minus a couple of Progs; in the Year 1985; story 10 in sequence)

The plot: on their way north, Nest and her friend Cador persuade Sláine and Ukko to stop at the fortress of the Ever-Living Ones, to help them in battle against other-dimensional monsters. It’s a long battle that involves Sláine mucking about in time.

Essential pre-reads: none. You really don’t need to know what has come before, although I suppose you might wonder why Slough Feg is presented as a big deal, and maybe want to know who some of the characters are – so maybe worth having read Bride of Crom and Dragonheist.

Analysis: this is where the controversy set in for Sláine. While the character of Myrddin clearly has a vast place in Welsh and English mythology (it’s pronounced Merlin, you see. And no, 8-year-old me did not know this either), this whole epic-length story is very much a detour from the main narrative to this point, and indeed it changes up the basic tone of what ‘Sláine’ as a series is about.

He's half good... and half-evil!
Art by David Pugh

Except that if you think about it, it doesn’t do that. So far, the whole saga has been about Sláine stumbling from one adventure to another, getting caught up in all sorts of weird and wonderful settings. Why not go from a flying longship to a dragon farm to a citadel besieged by time-displaced monsters and other-dimensional beings?

The difference is a) the trappings of this new setting are very much Dungeons & Dragons, not Conan the Celt, and b) the secret mythology in this story has the temerity to claim to explain some age-old conflict of Earth and all humans on it, which is the sort of thing that can rub people up the wrong way if you feel the author is making some sort of point…

On the grounds that this stuff was among my first exposure to Sláine, I had no problem at all with the new trappings, and I suspect on the grounds that I was still pretty young, I took the ‘secret history of Earth’ part in my stride, as something that I thought was a cool idea and didn’t think much more of.

Mostly, though, Time Killer is all about throwing idea after idea at the reader, at breakneck pace, with that added frisson of ‘an adventure in which YOU are the hero’. Picture this:

You’re riding a dragon to a hidden citadel then jumping in to fight prehistoric bone monsters who can liquefy your skin then you’re being told the secrets of the universe and sent through time to fight Vikings and being rescued by friendly sponge monsters before the sexy demon ladies eat you and then battle a New Wave popstar-gladiator who turns into a million melting babies while watched on by the most terrifying blob monster on three legs who is actually the father of your new wizard friend who needs you to go and kill a nine-dimensional god but first you’d better rescue your lady friend who’s about to be tortured so her pain can be harvested for science experiments.

You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll hurl! (and all in the space of two panels)
Art by David Pugh

Phew! The mid-80s was a joyful time of excess, but even the most bizarre and depraved video nasties couldn't muster THAT much action.

Purely on the level of action spectacle, coupled with big ideas, centred around a character who is willing not to overthink things, Time Killer is a TRIUMPH! And I won't hear otherwise. I guess I just wasn’t old enough to be annoyed about the use of leyser guns/swords vs giant axes, which seems to be a common gripe. That said, the art is a bit ropey at times, and for all that I love the wild abandon with which Mills is flinging out new characters, new settings and new ideas, it's not quite as coherent and satisfying as, well, 14 other Sláine stories I could name...

Writing: 10/10 I don’t care what people say, I love the presentation of loony lizard-people ideas, and the scientification of magic as a balance between good and evil things. It just makes sense, within the story, and the silliness it inspires is a delicious counterpoint to the violence.

Best uber-villain EVER!
Art by David Pugh (an unsung hero if ever there was one)

Art: 7-8/10  Early days here for both Glenn Fabry and David Pugh. Both deliver some 10/10 spectacular brilliance – in particular, designs for new villains Elfric and the Guledig (both by Pugh) - but also including Fabry’s leather-clad makeovers for Sláine and Nest. But there are places where you can see both struggling under the weight of just trying to be amazing all the time. Fabry loves to push around his characters’ facial expressions – when it works, it’s glorious, but there are times when he couldn’t quite get it to work. 

Sláine by way of Jack Nicholson
Art by Glenn Fabry

Poor David Pugh on the other hand is so much cartoonier in his face drawing style that his characters can have the feel of being weirdly off-model. No matter how amazing his background designs and indeed his clothes-drawing style.

Sláine by way of... Steven Seagal??
Art by David Pugh

Repercussions: There’s a version of Time Killer that was more or less inconsequential, with all the secret history of Cythrons and gods and whatnot being of no interest to Sláine, who is happy to get back to his Celtic roots. But that’s not what happens. Major villains Elfric and the Guledig continue to appear, and Mills is VERY keen to drive home that any non-Celtic / Gaia-type deity that affects Sláine’s world has its roots in EVIL ALIENS. These are the true sponsors of all invaders, from sea demons to Romans to Christian missionaries. And we will be reminded of this again and again. This may have roots in Celtic mythology somewhere??

Brainball count: I make it 31, including Elfric once – but there are several panels where our man is hacking away on top of various bodies, so it could be higher…

Next time: We've reached the point where Sláine art reaches its pinnacle, and the stories around them aren't half-bad either.