We've reached the half-way point here. For any other series, this might be where the stories tip from bad to good, but for my tastes, it's more like tipping from good to great. That said, all three of these tales suffer from the weight of their ideas, which cloud the storytelling enjoyment of the best of Sláine. But, you know, ideas are good things! Would that more comics displayed them more proudly!
Rank 31/60: Name of the Sword
by Pat Mills and Greg Staples
Where to read it: Lord of Misrule
Original run: Progs 950-956 (in the Year 1995; story 24.1 in sequence)
The plot: Sláine steps through the swirling timestone into Norman England, where he is searching for a sword that answers to the unspeakable name of God. A Cyth god, that is, who, in this universe, is posing as the Christian God. What do you mean, that’s the same as in the real world?? :)
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| Always nice when a story clearly defines what its hero is after. Art by Greg Staples |
By amazing coincidence, the sword is in fact in a nunnery, where one of the nuns is a reincarnation of Sláine’s sometime ex-girlfriend/wife Niamh, who struggles with her current self’s faith versus her older self’s Celtic passions and love for Sláine. Sláine, meanwhile, is some sort of version of Robin Hood – the version that’s more like the ‘Green Man’ from pub signs and less like Kevin Costner (or Russell Crowe, if you prefer. Can’t see why you would).
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| Past Lives do have a way of always being about 'important' people, don't they... Art by Greg Staples |
Essential pre-reads: none, certainly not from within the saga of Sláine, although it kinda helps if you a) have some vague knowledge of the story of Robin Hood, Maid Marian and all that
b) some vague knowledge of
Norman England and the place of the Church within it -
and c) a high tolerance
for not minding being told that anything you’re likely to have read about those
things is wrong, according to P. Mills!
Analysis: On one level, this is the story of Sláine
fighting demons, who are disguised as Christians, while hoping to rescue Niamh.
On another level, this is the Pat Mills history hour, in which he tells you
that Robin Hood was a legend based on some sort of Celtic wood-sprite. I think?
In any event, this book is only the first 1/3 of that story, told in lush but
impossible brown and hard-to-print paints by Greg Staples.
It's here Mills really sets things up to have the Church be the bad guys. His work to this point, in Sláine and Nemesis the Warlock in particular, has never really hidden that it's Catholic church-y stuff that holds great evil, but I think this story might be the first one where he embraces that super explicitly. It might also be the first time where I got a bit turned off by Mills the comics writer, feeling that he was maybe putting a bit too much of his personal political agenda into his fantasy writing. Not helped, for sure, by me being 17 and about as strong a Christian as I have ever been* and taking it personally!
Anyway, grown up me actually welcomes Mills putting his personal agendas into his comics, and in this particular story it's actually way more subtle than what would come later in his output. And at least, the villains in this story are characters, they're not just ciphers for the concept of the Church as a whole.
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| With Mills, of course, 'subtle' starts on the level of 'Look at me! I'm here!' before moving up to 'just blatant' and ending up with 'IN YOUR FACE IN ALL CAPS'. Anyway, in this instance, Mills is spicing up the story with some historical research and using it make a wicked man look insanely wicked. And why not. Art by Greg Staples. |
Bonus points to the vibe of the story for being really quite weird. But otherwise not much to report, as this is basically set up for the truly weird goings-on in the rest of this particular saga, handed over to another artist, using a very different style.
Repercussions: sets up the events to come in Lord of Misrule, and I suppose slightly changes the dynamic of the 'adventures in time' sequence, in that Sláine is no longer merely a visitor, he (and Niams) sort of takes on the persona of a goddess-worshipping hero from the time period. Although not really. This is a change from e.g. Time Killer, where Sláine swapped places with Murdach, who was one such hero. But also this idea doesn't entirely stick, later on it's more about Sláine being a visitor to each new time and place.
Writing: 7/10
Art: 8/10 I want to score it higher, not least because Staples delivers
surely the most handsome version of Sláine here – but frankly the
reproduction of the art – which marred the original Prog printing, too –
obscures rather too much detail. I rather fear this story is not quite loved enough for anyone to give if the full Horned God rescan treatment, so we may never know :(
Brainball count: 5 or 6, give or take some murky art
*I'm still Christian now but practising less hard, you might say. I was never evangelical, just attending church more regularly.
Right, lest you think I'm insane for splitting up what is basically one epic into two parts, here's the next bit, which is to my mind fractionally better...
Rank 30/60: The Lord of Misrule (parts 1 and 2)
by Pat Mills and Clint Langley
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| It's Clint Langley, minus the computer! (or maybe he did use computers for the colouring?) |
Where to read it: Lord of Misrule
Original run: Progs 958-963 and 995-999 (In the Years 1995 and 1996, story 24.2 in sequence)
The plot: Sláine, aka the Green Man aka Robin
Goodfellow aka the new Horned God continues his quest to find the Sword that now holds the rather speakable name of God. Meanwhile, and perhaps more
interestingly, Maid Marian, a Nun who is the reincarnation of Niamh, continues
to tussle between her ‘true’ Celtic nature and her ‘evil’ Christian self.
Essential pre-reads: Name of the Sword – this is a
direct continuation. Otherwise, nothing.
Analysis: Despite being a direct continuation, it happens to feel quite different because it has a new artist using a
VERY different style. I’ll say it IS refreshing to see Sláine in a more
traditional hand-drawn and coloured comics look, but it isn’t half jarring
after Staples’s paints from part 1.
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| God-bashing and head-smashing at the same time! Also, cool mask. Art by Clint Langley |
Sláine, with occasional help from Ukko, has to solve a bunch of riddles in this story. Which is surely a Celtic motif that I enjoy. Sadly perhaps in part because the comics format means you can’t have too many words, and perhaps because writing intricate riddles – and their solutions – is just really hard, it ends up coming off rather too much like Batman and Robin solving the Riddler’s riddles in the old TV show. Which is to say, they make rapid and accurate leaps of logic that are bafflingly stupid as often as they make any sense.
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| You can't fault this logic... Art by Clint Langley |
But really this is a minor quibble, as the really fun parts of the story are about trees coming to life and fighting, and about Niamh/Marian’s inner conflicts.
Repercussions: None really, although the Niamh
reincarnation / eternal true-love for Sláine motif is one that will go on to
feature heavily in ‘The Grail War’ later.
Writing: 7.5/10 The research and alt-history on show here is all top notch, and there are some cracking mad ideas on show. But there’s also a lot of not-at-all convincing ‘riddle solving’ that grates. Feels like stuff from a comic for 11 year olds, of a kind that would have fit totally in the early Sláine years, but by the time of Sláine as grown-up Euro comics with loads of tits in, it doesn’t. Even when Mills makes fun of it. And there are some classic struggles of Mills as feminist vs Mills as ‘women are a single unit to be treated as all one kind of thing’.
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| Points for providing a mix of history and gruesome imagery. Mills really is on the side of women, isn't he... Art by Clint Langley |
Art: 8/10 A real outlier, this story, in terms of art. Clint Langley was told to draw in a more traditional pen and ink style, but in colour, in a way that basically Sláine never had bene before outside of a couple of annuals from the days when colouring wasn’t so sophisticated. As a style, it’s very jarring compared to ‘Name of the Sword’, and indeed everything going back to the Horned God. But by the end of the book it’s often working really well, especially Sláine’s own ‘horned god’ look, and definitely the weird tree demons. That said, despite moments of brilliance this is also early work from Langley, who’s still honing his craft.
Brainball count: 3 humans (with more implied), 3
demons, and 2 or 3 tree-demons although it’s hard to tell.
Rank 29/60: The Brutania Chronicles 2: The Primordial
by Pat Mills and Simon Davis
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| Wonderful composition Art by Simon Davis |
Where to read it: The Brutania Chronicles 2
Original run: Progs 1924-1936 (in the Year 2015; story 45.2 in sequence)
The plot: Sláine is at the mercy of the wicked
Sloughs of Monadh island. Will he escape? Will he rescue Sinead? And even if he
does, will he be able to stand up to the might of ‘the Primordial’ – a human
sculpted by the Sloughs to be the perfect champion?
Essential pre-reads: A Simple Killing – this is a direct follow-on to the events of Brutania Chronicles 1. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea to read Time Killer as well, as this one goes more in-depth on the Cyth, properly introduced in that tale. (And yes, you could argue it's a cheat to split up the four Brutania chunks, as they really do tell one big story, unlike, say, the Books of Invasions. But, you know, they do have their own themes, and the quality of the storytelling varies quite a bit).
Analysis: After the triumph of A Simple Killing (more on that MUCH later), we get a
stumbling block. Where that story was a flurry of new ideas practically every
episode, with a forward-moving plot, this story has a pretty minimal plot
(Sláine escapes, helps Sinead recover, then fights his way back in to meet up
with a big bad villain), and a LOT of talking through themes and ideas. Mills
and Davis are, I think, experimenting here – seeing if they can marry exciting
action visuals with debate and discussion and reminiscence and general talking.
They don’t, for me, quite pull it off. It more often feels like two things
happening at the same time, rather than one seamless narrative with interesting
ideas flying around.
Meanwhile, Davis isn’t given anything nearly as exciting to
conjure up with his paints as he was in A Simple Killing. Don’t get me wrong,
it’s still magnificent art, and there are some standout sequences – Sláine
slaughtering Trojans in the woods, like the second coming of Predator, and
indeed his flashback scenes to Belardinelli-era boy Sláine, where he captures
Belardinelli’s eyes better than any other homage I’ve seen.
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| The right helmet really does make endless henchman more fun to look at. Art by Simon Davis |
But it’s not enough to distract from the words. Not sure really what Mills could have done to fix this – he’s telling a long story, and rightly wants to give space for the emotional heft of it to breathe. There’s a long sequence where Sláine is helping Sinead recover from opium addiction. It has to take time to be even remotely believable, or at least, impactful. But it's not necessarily thrilling. Then there’s all the stuff about Sláine remembering his much-hated ‘father’ Roth*. Again, without the time taken up, you wouldn’t really see how much it’s affecting Sláine emotionally.
Possibly Mills could have given a bit less time to the
villainous Sloughs ranting and cackling at each other, and definitely, he could
have leaned less on the catchphrases. This is the book that birthed ‘Obey! As a
dead body obeys!’ which is indeed a wicked catchphrase. But its uttered
multiple times here, often on the same page in the same episode. Sure, it would
make sense in a film, but it kinda makes the comic drag, you know?
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| Here's another Catchphrase! Art by Simon Davis |
The big plot moment comes near the end, where we learn who 'the Primordial' is, and his backstory. Which is another typical bit of Mills using his platform to rail against the British class system, and in particular the Public School system. As a product of this myself, I both recognise what he’s saying and find it lacks a great deal of nuance. If there’s a thing he gets wrong, I think it’s that Mills is confused about the idea of teachers looking to help ‘the right sort of boy’. I think he thinks that means ‘a Boy who will do everything he’s told, and who seeks to get praised by his elders’. But in focussing on this, he's overlooking the more basic reality that it’s much more about racism/snobbery. I think it's less about holding some people UP, and more about holding BACK the 'wrong sort’ (people who dare to be poor, or brown-skinned, or Jewish. Sad but true.). Again, in my own experience, free thinkers and challenging non-conformists are in fact held in high regard, and said to be people who will go far as long as they’re perceived to be from the ‘right’ background. Ayn Rand bullshit, in other words. Anyway, that’s a digression.
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| Lots of conversations in the story. Art by Simon Davis |
Repercussions: Well, there are major character revelations for Sláine’s buddy Gort, and Sinead goes through a personal journey, but otherwise this one treads water a bit, plot and character wise.
Writing: 6.5/10 – there are interesting ideas here,
but the catchphrases are repeated too often, and the storytelling concept of
doling out exposition and flashbacks while various fights occur is mostly very
unsatisfying.
Art: 9/10 – Davis is given less to do in this story than in Simple
Killing, so less scope for showing off, although what is does is still
excellent.
Brainball count: 20, although more if you count a
pile of dead bodies who had been killed by Sláine earlier, and MANY more if you
imagine that the mound of bodies he’s on top of later on have all been
dispatched at Sláine’s hands.
*You really have to read Kiss my Axe to appreciate the 'who is my father' stuff from Brutania Chronicles. It makes sense in-story, but carries far more weight when you read what Mills is actually thinking about behind the scenes.
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