OK, so we've reached the point here where the ART steps up to 'basically amazing', but a) is still somehow below average for this series as a whole and b) not the best showcase for the artist in question. As for the stories, well, not badly written - Mills never is - but I did finish them and wonder rather what the point was?
Rank 52/60: The Books of Invasions part 4: Tara
by Pat Mills and Clint Langley
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| Thanks to Funt Solo for the scan of the wraparound -and obvs to Clint Langley, the artist. |
Where to read it: The Books of Invasions Vol 2
Original run: Progs 1420-1425 (In the Year 2005; In sequence, this is story 38.4)
The plot: The sea demon invasion of Tír na nÓg is in full swing, with more and more monsters joining the fight. Sláine and his allies make their way to Tara, capital city of Ireland, to help the Queen defend against the invaders. It’s kind of too late – so as a back-up plan, Sláine journeys into the realm of the Goddess Danu to see if he can make that place safe for his own people to move into.
Essential pre-reads: You might get away with not reading Moloch, but you’d definitely want to have read Golamh and Scota - the previous two 'Books of Invasions' before marching into this one.
Analysis: This book is approaching Lord of the Rings territory, and that’s a comparison that feels VERY odd in a Sláine comic, or indeed a Pat Mills joint. But, you’ve got a small band of heroes riding hard to help out a besieged city, then some battling, and then a high-fantasy side-quest where the central hero journeys into a strange realm where all is not as it seems, and the solutions to problems are won not with fists and axes but with emotions and clever thinking. So far so JRR.
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| There's also some battlefied mayhem, don't you worry! Art by Clint Langley |
On the other hand, the leader of the band of heroes in the besieged city is a) a woman (take that, JRR!) and b) has split her own tongue down the middle so she looks like a total snake-punk madperson. This is what we’ve come to expect and love from Mills!
And on a third hand, the side-quest is basically a sex story, where Sláine is led on by the Earth goddess. This is also more Mills than Tolkein – sadly it’s very much Mills on ‘look at me I’m a total feminist you guys’ mode, and he kind of isn’t. I mean, he’s for sure trying, but he really can’t get his head out of the old-fashioned notion (however you cut it) that women and men are fundamentally different and moved by different urges. Now, for me that's a debatable point, and it might be me that's wrong, not Mills. But here's the thing. Mills's view of male urges suggest that it's OK for men to assert their free will against them, try to fight them (although they rarely try very hard), but women, not so much. Even a woman's own free will is a naturally feminist urge, in the Mills way of looking at it, rather than just being, you know, free will as all people experience it. That line of argument I have a problem with.
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| Look, Pat, just because you draw comedic attention to saying something super sexist, doesn't absolve you of having said the thing. Art by Clint Langley |
On the more positive note, this whole thing is setting up the idea of a safe-haven for Sláine’s people to escape to, basically resigned to the idea that Tír na nÓg is at this point inevitably going to be overtaken by Formorians/Cythrons/Christians and is never going to feel like home again. More shades of the elves at the end of Lord of the Rings, there. But it’s an interesting fantasy trope, no reason not to have it here!
Basically, I love the ideas Mills is playing with, especially in the middle of a gigantic battle-focussed epic – but I’m a bit let down by the actual way he tells it. The overall plot is essentially: even with Sláine on our team we cannot defeat the wave upon wave of Formorian / Cythraul attack. So, instead, we'll find a way to 'cheat' - we'll let them take the land, but will transpose both people and way of life to another realm that they cannot access. Which is kind of clever? But emotionally it's a bit at odds with what the first few Books of Invasions set up, not to mention the events of Sláine the King + the Horned God, which focussed on physically repelling invaders and actively protecting the land!
I don't want to take away too much from Tara, this specific story. It not a bad story, it just powerfully rubbed me up wrong. My annoyance at the misogyny is rather balanced with the boldness of saying 'war stories don't have to end with the good guys winning'!
Repercussions: Well, this is not the end of the Books of Invasions cycle - one more to come - but it marks the end of the 'big battles' bit of the cycle, with the heroes losing in one sense, but finding a way to win in another sense. And I guess there's more insight into the nature of Danu, which is a long-running and super interesting part of the overall Sláine saga.
Writing: 6/10 – the overall plot is wonderful; the
actual details less so, especially the ‘battle of the sexes’ stuff.
Art: 7/10 (Clint Langley is THE most prolific of all Sláine artists, there'll be lots more to say about him in future. By this book he has hit a stride, but it lacks a) the shock of the new (because it's his 5th go around), and b) some of the spectacular pieces he pulled out both earlier and later).
Brainball count: 12 assorted demons and El women + 1 El man + 1 monster.
Rank 51/60: King of Hearts
by Pat Mills and Nick Percival
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| A rather serious-looking Sláine, in 'history lesson' mode Art by Dermot Power |
Original run: Progs 1033-1039 (In the Year 1997; in sequence, this is story 29)
The plot: The Earth Goddess sends Sláine to help William Wallace take on the evil English.
Essential pre-reads: None. Although it possibly helps if you HAVEN’T seen Braveheart…
Analysis: It’s impossible to read this as anything other than a naked cash-in on the popularity of Braveheart, a movie nowadays remembered as being even less historically accurate than Sláine -which is saying something! Sláine itself is set in a fantasy world and doesn’t pretend to be history, even the ‘time travel’ adventures to historical periods, and yet it still holds more truth than the Mel-Gibson-with-a Scottishish-accent picture.
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| OF COURSE Wallace was a fake Christian who was actually really honestly a Goddess-worshipping pagan. To believe anything else is to be a tool of the state... Art by Nick Percival. |
So, this is Mills in 'history teacher' mode, where he's having a crack at the story of William Wallace vs the evil English, telling some literal truths while searching for metaphorical ones. And as such Mills had a devil of a time giving Sláine himself something to do. Perhaps that's why the story ends up being pretty short? Or maybe because it was commissioned to be short, he ran out of room for the weird stuff?
Well, the thing he DOES get Sláine to do is perhaps the most satisfying idea in all of the ‘time travel’ stories – he gets Sláine to imbue Wallace and his Scottish rebels, and indeed their descendants, to feel full of Celtic pride and anti-English rage. It feels like exactly the sort of mission the Earth Goddess would give Sláine, even as she couldn’t find something ‘real’ for him to do - like joining a battle and offing countless Romans (and Britons) in the Boudicca story.
Mills does throw in some Cythrons, to make this be an actual Sláine story, not a literal historical retelling. And this brings some memorable body horror even before you get to the famous hanging, drawing and quartering...
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| Nasty! Art by Nick Percival |
And at least the mood is good, not least thanks to Nick Percival's very rainy/muddy paints. The story very much asks - why are the English messing about up in Scotland, a place that is geographically pretty distant from southern England? Don't they see an absolute difference between the lifestyles of the people here? I know little of the historical/anthropological differences at play, although I do know that Mills loves a Celts (ie goodies) vs Romanised peoples (ie baddies) story. And I know that he feels moved to rail against his own experience of British history teaching him the that the Romans/English were the good guys.*
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| Battle scenes as you like them. Honestly, if this is one of the worst Sláine stories, it's still miles better than any other Medieval-themed comic you can name. Art by Nick Percival |
Repercussions: None, although Sláine makes a point of
saying that the English deserve to feel his wrath more often, something which
will, kind of, happen again in the Brutania Chronicles cycle I guess? But in general, it's a curio this story, not really something that pushes Sláine himself in a meaningful way.
Writing: 7 out of 10. A rather good history lesson,
this one, with some neat digging into the idea of what it must feel like to be
invaded by an oppressive neighbour. But it’s not a rip-roaring adventure or a
trove of fun character moments.
Art: 6 out of 10 Of all the Sláine stories and Sláine artists marred by
poor technology, this one suffers the worst. Poor Nick Percival lashed on the
paint and really brings out a thick atmosphere of craggy, green, stoney
Scottish landscapes, and fills panels with soldiers charging into deadly
battle. But you just can’t see it all properly. Not his fault. But it kind of
is his fault – or at least, speaks to his relative inexperience that he
struggles to make his individual characters easy to distinguish.
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| Sláine (the series) doesn't get enough credit for the simply beautiful landscape and architecture painting on show. This panel alone would fuel child-me 's imagination for years. Art by Nick Percival |
Brainball count: 3 humans, 2 cat demons (or are they demon cats?), and 1 cyth warrior
*Personally, my 1990s British public school education was pretty clear that the Romans
were not great, and the Celts were oppressed, but that's the
generational divide for you. Maybe teaching has gone the other way again? I kind of doubt it. Perhaps I have Mills to thank for this!
What's next? Well, we've reached the point where there are no bad bits any more, just good solid Sláine comics.
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