Honestly, I suspect readers who know their Sláine would've expected to see this 'greatest hits' type story appear already - and you'd be right!
should be rank 49/60: The Book of Scars
by Pat Mills and Clint Langley, with an episode each from Mike McMahon, Glenn Fabry and Simon Bisley
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| A double-page beauty; scan courtesy of Funt Solo's fine work on this 2000AD forum thread. Art by Clint Langley |
Where to read it: Sláine: Book of Scars (which also gets you a nifty collection of Sláine covers)
Original run: Progs 1844-1849 (In the Year 2013, this is story 44 in sequence. And while you might remember this as basically a rehashing of old stories, there IS a new narrative here, it's not a series of flashbacks or a clip-show)
The plot: Sláine bumps into the Guledig (just seen in the Exorcist), who has a new
idea to defeat his great enemy – send him back to key points in his life, but
change a few details so Sláine can’t win again with the same old tricks.
Spoiler – Sláine more or less DOES win again each time by using the same
tricks. i.e. fighting and warping out and fighting some more.
Essential pre-reads: None. I mean, the book certainly assumes you have read the hits it plays: Bride of Crom, Sky Chariots, Time Killer, The Horned God, and Moloch - but you don't need to have read those to follow what's going on.
Analysis: Look, no one is under any illusions about
this story. It’s a Greatest Hits collection, for the 30th
anniversary of Sláine. It’s an excuse to get beloved artists from yesteryear to
strut their Sláine stuff (sadly minus Belardinelli, who had long died, and
David Pugh, who just didn’t want to). As a story, it’s designed to be of no
consequence. Although I suppose it serves to help Sláine feel even more good
about himself, that he can overcome the odds even when his enemies try new
tricks.
On the other hand, it’s a Greatest Hits collection! who doesn't love those! It revisits the best bits of the best stories, with all-new art. And that art is good! It is interesting to me, though, that since the art is not really in service of anything NEW, it doesn’t quite shine as bright as it might.
But it’s
still easy to enjoy and admire. For my tastes, Bisley is doing the best job of
just having fun and recapturing some of the manic energy of days gone by, while
Langley is dong the best job of creating fun new comics, on both his
Belardinelli tribute, and his of own revisit of the Moloch storyline. Honestly,
his Moloch here is better than it ever was, no doubt a testament to how much
time he’d had since then to hone his digital/painting style. McMahon is doing
his own thing, and it IS delightful, but doesn’t yield anything newly
memorable. Fabry is delivering work that is technically far superior to his own original Time Killer work –
but you can sort of sense that his heart isn’t in it the way it was during the
early hungry-new-artist days.
The themes and jokes may be the same, but the art DOES have a new feel to it.
Art by Simon Bisley
Should one read anything into the fact that Mills and co do
not at all stray into the ‘adventures through time’ era? My instinct is not – not
because those wouldn’t fit into a greatest hits, more because 6 issues was
enough, not least with the added budget for superstar artists…
Repercussions: None. It doesn’t even further any of Sláine’s long-running conflict with the Guledig, who simply disappears off into the darkness, until next time. (A next time that is sadly yet to come, but you never know...)
Writing: 6/10 It’s not JUST a retread of old
sequences, there’s more thought going into it than that. But also no clever
twists or classic dialogue to elevate the sequence, either. Again, in keeping
with the brief, Mills wheels out everyone’s fave bits of dialogue for a new
airing. And, if you were/are reading these comics just as one offs in the
weekly grind, that’s what you want. As part of a big Sláine read-through, it's a bit... bland?
Art: 8/10 – for all that it IS among Langley’s very best work - in places - it’s
not anyone else’s best.
Brainball count: A solid 10.
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| Chilling stuff! Art by Clint Langley |
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