A selection of bog standard Sláine stories, which is to say, pretty good comics, if not quite special.
Ranks 50/60: The Smuggler
by Pat Mills and Clint Langley
 |
| Art by Clint Langley |
Where to read it: Sláine the Wanderer
Original run: Progs 1662-1665 (the Year 2009; this is Story 41 in sequence)
The plot: On the edge of a town, Ukko and Sláine are persuaded to join a heist-quest to steal valuable amber from a wicked entrepreneur. Not just any old amber – amber that can trap people, monsters, long-extinct dinosaurs…
Essential pre-reads: None.
Analysis: More fun Langley art, inspired by Mills
ideas, but only really an average heist/villain-encounter story. With added
boobs. No shortage of boobs in Langley’s Sláine run generally, but somehow this
is the only time it has really felt close to gratuitous. I think it’s baked
into the whole concept of trapping humans in amber to possess them as objects,
really.
 |
| Using the power of objectification to explore the idea of objectification? Art by Clint Langley |
The idea of the amber and encased monsters is fun enough
(Mills reminding readers that he stole this idea first, way back in the Cursed
Earth days, before Jurassic Park made it famous?). But he doesn’t do much with
it, just uses it as a macguffin. This is pretty pure adventure/heist comics, of the kind that is perhaps more like Conan than much else in Sláine's life. It's fun! But not much more than that.
There’s one particular Sláine-ish thing to recommend the story, though, and that’s Mills’ playing around with the idea of Celtic banter in groups of three. Throughout, various pairs of characters either trade insults or ideas of just jokes in groups of three things, and it’s delightful.
 |
| Kind of hard to showcase a whole run of 'three' things without just scanning in a LOT of panels of this not-very-long comic. So here's jsut a taste... Art by Clint Langley. |
 |
| This comic believes that fight scenes are fun! It is correct. Art by Clint Langley. |
Repercussions: None
Writing: 7/10 – would be more on the strength of the
banter, but is less on the ordinariness of the plot
Art: 7/10 – Langley knows what he’s doing and does it well, but there’s
nothing to elevate this particular story
Brainball count: 4 humans and 7 amberoids
Rank 49/60: Kai
by Pat Mills and Paul Staples
 |
| Art by Jason Brashill |
Where to read it: Lord of the Beasts
Original Run: Progs 1104-1107 (the Year 1998; this is story 32 in sequence)
The plot: Sláine goes to meet his young teenage son Kai, who is on an exeat* from his posh English boarding school. By coincidence, the place they meet is overrun by Fomorian sea demons, who hope to trap Sláine and offer him up to a worm God. They fail…
Essential pre-reads: Worth a read of Sláine the King to get the context for Sláine as a parent, to meet Kai as a young kid, and to get some background for the Formorians.
 |
| Sláine vs Sea Demon is, perhaps, the most classic set-up of a Sláine story? Art by Paul Staples |
Analysis: This is one of the so-called ‘Lost Years’ tales, telling of things Sláine got up to while he was High King. Mills seems to be against just making stuff up, but without any obvious myths to draw from here he picks up a logical baton of ‘well, Sláine’s son was off at College so they probably met up a few times, let’s see what that was like.’ (And let’s ignore the logic-crushing detail that Kai was maybe 6 or 7 when he went off to College, so if Sláine was High King for 7 years and then executed, Kai would be at most 14 when Sláine died… he looks a lot older than 9 in this strip, which is implied to take place just a couple of years after the King storyline…)
Look, this isn’t the point. The point is to be diverting, and to gift readers with a comic tale of Sláine and his son messing about violently with Formorians. There are two absolutely glorious pages in the story. The first where we see the demons trying to squeeze inside human skins to pass as humans (which they somehow manage).
 |
| I love it when 2000AD captures a real Whizzer&Chips feel. Art by Paul Staples |
The second is where Sláine wields an enormous anchor to take out his foes. It’s a superlative piece of design.
 | |
| This image IS, I think, based on some Celtic myth about a champion weilding an achor to smite his foes. And it looks proper wicked! Art by Paul Staples. |
As an actual story, it’s all pretty slight, and less than usual in terms of a history lesson about ‘how the Celts lived’, but no less fun for that.
Repercussions: Balor of the Evil Eye, leader of the Formorians (and actual/mythical enemy of Ireland!), has had a run-in with Sláine before, but arguably this is where they develop a more direct and personal enmity with each other. Frankly, despite Balor and co having been mentioned a fair few times in earlier stories, the Formorians have never had much panel-time, and this story is a good corrective for that, helping set the scene for the later ‘Books of Invasions’ Cycle.
Writing: 7/10
Art: 7/10 Taken on its own, this might feel harsh – but the reality is
that Sláine has been gifted with so many astoundingly good artists, when
one comes along who is merely ‘great’ that person suffers. Worth re-stating that
there are some truly wonderful compositions in this here story.
Brainball count: Many Formorians, but not really in an on-panel-countable way, also grievous wounding to both Balor and a worm God, but neither of them die.
*This is what they call it at Harrow when the boys are allowed out (briefly) to see their families; no doubt every public school has their own specific Latin word for the same thing 😊
Rank 48/60: The Arrow of God
by Pat Mills and Steve Parkhouse
Where to read it: Lord of the Beasts
Original run: 2000 AD Yearbook 1989* (in the Year 1988, obviously; this is Story 18 in sequence)
The plot: Sláine is somehow aware that a mythical monster is going to appear in a certain place and time – during a Celtic festival, natch - who can only be killed if a hero fires a certain arrow at him at exactly the right moment. Sláine wonders if he himself just might be that hero.
Essential pre-reads: None.
Analysis: Considered as a short story designed to be a standalone read in an Annual, this is for me a success. It imagines that the archetypal Sláine story is our hero and Ukko dabbling in Celtic mythology, getting in a fight, while Sláine is both ‘the hero’ and also not the hero. And for me that IS archetypal Slaine. In terms of Celtic lore, we get to see some bow fighting with a particularly cool trick, an unusual weapon for Sláine. We also get to meet both a God (well, sort of) and a monster (definitely). The monster in particular is a cracking bit of design from Steve Parkhouse, borrowing visual cues from earlier McMahon and Belardinelli work on Sloughs Feg and Throt.
 |
| Love a good rotting demon monster. Art by Steve Parkhouse |
Parkhouse is an immaculate cartoonist and storyteller, which is great, but he’s not quite a master fantasy artist. It’s interesting to see his work on Sláine but you can see why he didn’t get asked to do more. Overall, there’s nothing here that adds to the wider lore of Sláine, it’s simply a fun but throwaway tale, including a memorable bit with a bow and arrow.
 |
| Sláine always has to go one better than other famous archers... Art by Steve Parkhouse |
Repercussions: None.
Writing: 7/10
Art: 7/10 (Again, you have to bear in mind just HOW GOOD the art is on, like, 75% of Sláine comics)
Brainball count: 1 demon, but with help from a God
*This is actually a pretty good Annual overall: three high-end original stories, + a reprint of the loopy second half of Flesh book I, and an OK Daily Star Dredd serial
Rank 47/60: The Exorcist
by Pat Mills and Clint Langley
 |
| Wraparound prog cover scan skillz thanks to Funt Solo Art thanks to Clint Langley |
Where to read it: Sláine the Wanderer
Original Run: Progs 1709-1712 (in the year 2010; Story 42 in sequence)
The plot: Ukko has a new job idea – using crystals to identify possessed people (usually young women), and using Sláine to destroy the demons that emerge. But the latest young woman to come knocking may be more than even this pair can handle.
(Spoiler – she isn’t)
Essential pre-reads: None.
Analysis: More fun as Mills grapples with life as a woman
in pretend-Medieval Ireland! Got a woman who seems potentially sexually
interested in both Sláine AND Ukko? Must be possessed by a demon! What’s that
you say? This woman has a hearty sexual appetite? Time to get out the judging
stick. Sure, it’s the damn wicked Church Guledig that’s telling her this
is bad, it’s not actually a bad thing. I do applaud the effort towards sex
positivity but I also don’t quite buy it – Sláine still comes across a little judgey.
Meanwhile, though, there’s more glorious Langley showing off, in the form of a sort of glowing green crystal thing that exposes hidden demons,
 |
| Ukko really is the champion of all perverts Art by Clint Langley |
...plus of course the vision of multiple demons spewing forth from the poor possessed child. Especially the final reveal of Guledig, and absolute nightmare of body horror. Langley’s version here is by far the best since David Pugh’s ghastly, gooey original.
 |
| Having a demon crawling out of a person's body is ALWAYS cool. Art by Clint Langley |
Basically it’s a bit of fun, this short tale, with nothing major to sell it or make it offputting although as I say, the exploration of sexual mores somehow is less insightful then e.g. the discussion of murder and theft in Dragonheist.
Repercussions: The re-emergence of the Guledig here sets off the events to come in ‘Book of Scars’.
Writing: 7/10
Art: 7/10, partly for the Exorcism/X-ray effect, but mostly for the
design of that one character who looks like Torquemada reborn. This is good Langley, but not, to my mind, the best he gets.
Brainball count: 4 cyth demons, and 4 humans
by Pat Mills and Clint Langley
 |
| Funt Solo's scan; Clint Langley's art. |
Where to read it: The Books of Invasions Vol 2
Original run: Progs 1371-1376 (in the Year 2004; Story 38.3 in sequence)
The plot: Following on from the events of ‘Golamh’, Sláine decides he doesn’t mind sharing Ireland with the Atlanteans, as long as they can shed themselves of their sea demon ‘hosts’. He makes a deal with Scota, the Egyptian princess who is the girlfriend of the lead Golamh, Gael, to rescue them all. While they plot, the Sea demons + Atlanteans battle the Irish. Sláine and Scota manage to turn things around by finding ancient Atlantean firearms.
Essential pre-reads: Moloch and Golamh. And maybe the Horned God, too, just to get more background on the politics.
Analysis: The book is called Scota, and indeed the character gets a lot of time and attention, but it’s the second time in this ‘Books of Invasions’ cycle where a woman ends up dead and it’s hard not to read it in part as a plot device to help motivate a male character…
This is kind of unfair, since the man in question is Gael, and the secret of the whole ‘Books of Invasions’ thing is that it’s really the story of how Gael came to be king of Ireland, and hence give his very name to words like ‘Gaelic’. So it’s not as if Mills could have chosen to sacrifice Gale’s life in order to promote Scota or anything, he’s hampered by the original legends he’s borrowing from.
 |
| Direct quotes (well, translationsd of direct quotes I guess) from historical sources are a big feature of Sláine all the way through. Sometimes they add flavour, sometimes they feel a bit more text-booky than I imagine Mills was going for. Art by Clint Langley. |
The thing with this particular story, it's very noticeable and irritating to
these 21st century eyes that another lead female character ends up dead. Let’s not forget also that Scota –
again, I’m sure period-correct and certainly fun-fantasy-comics correct - is
topless and scantily clad 90% of the time. And yes, Sláine in general is a female-gaze friendly comic too, but the visuals of a naked writhing male torso are just not equivalents to boobs-out lady poses.
Moving past the complaints – well, maybe pausing to remember once again that this super macho comic is at least TRYING to be pro-Gaia feminist propaganda – this story is more fun battle-action Sláine. And Scota gets more than a few kick-ass sequences - she really is a compelling lead character.
 |
| Boobs out: check. Giant flaming sword out: CHECK! Art by Clint Langley |
We also get a bit more ‘secret history’ stuff, where Sláine learns Scota’s backstory, which includes an account of Ancient Egyptian Pharoah Akhenaten. In classic Millsian fashion, where most history books tend to paint Akhenaten as a moderniser and force for good, Mills reckons maybe he was a proto-Monotheistic nightmare of a man who cared nothing for the will of the people. You do you, Pat!
But mainly this book is notable for the fighting. You’ve got Sláine and Scota wielding these kind of flame-thrower/shotgun spears, and you’ve got Gael warring with his golamh host Odacon, and Scota just being fierce everywhere. The depiction of a spiky-tentacled sea-demon ‘parasite’ and its human ‘host’ is a true feast of body horror, and really tests anyone who might suggest that Langley is just taking photos of things and fiddling with them. You just can’t get photo reference for most of this stuff!!
 |
| Battles scenes and rousing speeches. Art by Clint Langley |
Repercussions: Weirdly few. I mean, plotwise Scota sacrfices herself, leaving her husband Gael free from the evil Sea Demons and able to take charge of this tribe again. And, in turn, he will go on to found Scotland and the whole concept of 'Gaelic peoples'. So, historically speaking MASSIVE repurcussions. But as far as the saga of Sláine goes, all that really happens amounts to a small victory for the goodies, while the baddies decide to ignore the small coastal town they've been bothering and instead focus their invasion efforts on the captial city, Tara...
Writing: 6/10 -I’m marking it down for the homophobia
mostly, but the 2nd dead female in a row doesn’t help.
Art: 8/10 Langley has found his feet in his new style by now, but if I’m
honest I’ll never fall in love with it the way I have on some other Sláine
artists.
Brainball count: 11
Next time: Well, we've hit the point where the stories as ranked would be among the best of any normal comics series, not least thanks to the art. But Sláine is no normal comics series.
No comments:
Post a Comment