Sláine, ranked part 19: Housekeeping

 ...Because nothing says 'Pagan Goddess-worship' like trying to tie-up loose ends.

A Langley Star Scan

Let's turn to the age-old question of 'Where to start with Sláine'?

Sláine Publisher Rebellion has THIS list of five collections to get you going.
1. Warrior's Dawn
2. Sláine the King
3. The Horned God
4. Demon Killer
5. Dragon Tamer

-hard to argue with the first three, especially when you factor in that the 'the King' collection actually opens with Tomb of Terror, so you get some mad D&D style goodness in there. But unless you're a big Fabry nut or really into Roman iconography, I wouldn't then jump to Demon Killer and Dragon Tamer. Frankly, I think a complete newbie (who is unlikely to be reading this blog, and certainly not this final posting first!!), you might have more fun jumping around a bit. How about...

1. The Horned God - because that's the collection you're most likely to find / have recommended to you anyway.
2. Sláine the Wanderer - because it gives a super fun flavour of the general 'Sláine and Ukko having random adventures' bit, but feels more modern than Horned God.
3. The King - because you get the bit of roleplaying-era Sláine, the atypical but fascinating Spoils of Annwyn, and the weirdly riveting political intrigue of The King.
4. Treasures of Britain - because it's the best of the 'let's retell British mythology the Sláine way'
5. Psychopomp - because you won't have a clue what's going on but you'll get some fun bits of Sláine's backstory, and the general sense that the series is a) mad and b) neverending.

Yeah, I haven't said anything about the Sláine RPGs or indeed that one Sláine novel.
I haven't played/read any of them...
Art by Jason Brashill

Anyway, never mind the practical stuff, what do people who've read ALL of Sláine actually think are the best ever Sláine stories? Although the scores in my ranking have shaken out one way, the resulting Top 10 is not in fact the same as my own personal favourite Sláine list.*

Admittedly I have not searched very hard, but I can't find much in the way of 'what's the best Sláine' chat on the internet. On the 2000AD forums, the closest people come to is discussion of 'should Sláine have ended with the Horned God'...

...Answer: NO, but it was close! With a few people saying it could’ve/should’ve ended after the Books of Invasions. (I have revised my own opinion after casting my own vote, I should say!)

Otherwise there's plenty of debate about who the best Sláine artist was...

...Answer: A tie! Between Glenn Fabry and Mike McMahon

with Simon Bisley in 3^rd, then Massimo Belardinelli in 4^th…
And after that it’s a free-for-all.

From reading around those and other threads, my suspicion is that a consensus list of most-loved Sláine stories, in chronological order, is:

The Time Monster
Sky Chariots
Sláine the King
The Horned God
The Swan Children
The Books of Invasions (although there were some serious complaints about the Moloch/Niamh rape scene)
-and there's quite a lot of love for the first Brutania Chronicles

The most divisive tale, many decades later, is STILL Time Killer/Tomb of Terror, with many who adore it and many who think it’s where the series went wrong!
I think many long-term readers have softened on the ‘Quantum Salmon Leap’ era (thanks Funt Solo for that gem!) – people I think on the whole are fond of Demon Killer (am guessing mostly for the art) and also ‘the Robin Hood one’ (aka Name of the Sword/Lord of Misrule).

There's one other place on the internet where a sort-of ranking for Sláine has occurred, the mighty Slings & Arrows website. Comics critic Jamie McNeil (No idea who he is, but he writes comic criticism with more authority than me!) has reviewed and rated all the GN collections:

Here’s his ranking of those collections. He's not a Glenn Fabry guy, I'm guessing.

4.5 stars:
The Horned God
Treasures of Britain
Books of Invasions 2

4 stars:
Warriors Dawn
Books of Invasions 1

3.5 stars:
Brutania 4

3 stars:
The King
Demon Killer
Lord of Misrule
Lord of Beasts
The Wanderer
Brutania 1 + 3
DragonTamer

2.5 stars:
Brutania 2
Book of Scars
The Grail War
Time Killer

For more long-form Sláine reads, do also check out:

The 1919 Review, which offers a four-part examination of Sláine, the whole lot of it, and with some far more thought-out insights than I managed.
Part 1 is all about how good the run up to the end of the Horned God is, except for Time Killer which he HATES. And then, he waxes lyrical about how the first part of the 'time-travel' era is, perhaps EVEN BETTER than the early days stuff. Hot take alert!

Sláine as Smash Hits pin-up star!
Art by Nick Percival

Part 2 is a detailed examination of the themes and historicity / mythoricity of Demon Killer. Fascinating!

Part 3 is behind a Wordpress paywall. If you wish, you'll find some righteous but FURIOUS anger at certain details of Books of Invasions, which I have to say I did not get at all from reading the story - and you'll also get his Top 5 stories, which I won't spoil.

Part 4 (also paywalled) is a pleasingly solid paean to DragonTamer, which I heartily endorse.

For a shorter, free-r read, check out this short but heartfelt defence of Sláine as a feminist comic

THE END

Art probably by Robin Smith?

*I'm hiding this down the bottom, just for fun, because I've attempted to splurge this out without thinking about it too much - my Top 10 favourite aka 'the Sláine stories I most look forward toreading again (and again) are: 1. Tomb of Terror 2. Bride of Crom 3. Horned God II 4. Secret of the Grail. 5. Sky Chariots 6. The Gong Beater 7. Odacon 8. Spoils of Annwyn 9. DragonTamer 10. Dragon Heist 

Sláine, ranked part 18: Sometimes the obvious choice is also the right choice

So here we have it. I mean, I've split this last set of rankings into three, but it's not much of an argument to say it's all one and the same thing...

Rank 3/60: The Horned God Book I*
by Pat Mills and Simon Bisley

Sláine was never supposed to have the body of an 80s action movie star...
but it kinda suits him, no?
Art by Simon Bisley

Where to read it: The Horned God. Or the Horned God. This book has been collected a lot of times. Including an audio version!
Original run: Progs 626-635 (in the Year 1989; this is story 19.1 in sequence)

The plot: Sláine must ready his people to fight against attack by the wicked sea-based Formorians from the north, and Slough Feg and his skull-swords from the South. After much discussion with his Druid and the earth Goddess, he decides to unite the tribes of Tír na nÓg, bringing together four great and magical weapons – beginning with Rudriage and the spear that can cut through anything. I can’t stress enough how much of the plot of this specific book is scene-setting and discussion, before there’s a bit with a monster.

Essential pre-reads: There’s a fairly comprehensive ‘previously on’ to open up this tale, so you could easily not have read any prior chapters. But if anything is ‘essential’, it’s Bride of Crom and Slaine the King.

Analysis: Somehow, impossibly, this story marks a step up from Sláine the King, both in terms of how much philosophizing and context-setting and theology fills up the story, AND in how much more grown-up and weirder and wonderfuller the art is, especially compared to other UK/US comics of the time. Even more surprising, the two things kind of go together perfectly. A lesser artist – perhaps even Glenn Fabry – might have ended up drowning under the weight of Mills’s preaching. But any less pretentious words might’ve got lost under the chaos of Bisley. Not saying that Fabry is less good at drawing (he's miles better), or less good at storytelling (he's a comics great) - but for me his commitment to realism takes away from the rather impossible lunacy of the actual story being told, at times. Anyway, Fabry is great, Bisley is great, but Bisley's greatness vibes with this whole thing somehow even more betterer.

I don't know how he does it, but Bisley manages to be both not as good
as e.g. Belardinelli at drawing landscapes, or as Fabry is at drawing faces...
and yet overall it just communicates Sláine to perfection.

Maybe the secret to it all is the scenes with aged Ukko writing the saga. It’s a total indulgence of writing and art, filled to the brim with meta-humour about being a writer. But by gosh it’s funny, compelling stuff, and manages to make a virtue of exposition. You look forward to these scenes of a grumpy dwarf sat at a writing desk. Mills has, in later life, turned out to be someone who loves writing about his own writing process, his muses and so on. I guess he first turned that tap on here, and the fun gushed out. Bisley, too, has the exact same impish sense of humour that the whole point is to both make Sláine and his world look hyper-cool, but also to poke fun at it.

Not many people have a character to represent their own ego on the page. Mills, we salute you.
Art by Simon Bisley

I guess it helps especially that the meat of the story here is Sláine chatting first to Cathbad the druid, and then to Danu the goddess, about Celtic theology. As ever, there’s a baked-in problem that the discussion is mostly about how right is it that women should be in charge of everything, within the pages of the manliest man comic that was ever written and drawn by men, about men, mostly for men. (It sucks to high Heaven that co-creator Angie Kincaid only got to do two Sláine stories, but it rather fits thematically...)

Did you forget too, Pat?
Art by Simon Bisley (rushed edition)

Look, as Sláine stories, go, at least this one has significant presence from no fewer than four interesting female characters: Nest the scolding academic, Niamh the hyper-competent warrior queen, Medb the wicked, and Danu the trickster, but it still doesn’t pass any variation of a Bechdel test. The point is, Sláine is very much the focus, as is the question not of ‘should men or women be in charge’ but rather ‘is it OK for Sláine to want to be High King?’ (answer yes, basically, but he should feel ashamed about it), and ‘Who is the Horned God and what is his function?’ (Answer: Danu’s consort and main presence on Earth, who should be chaotic but not as death-obsessed as Slough Feg, please.)

Ultimately, the philosophizing and debating comes down to:

Priests – not to be trusted, even if they have the ‘correct’ beliefs.
Kings/Heroes – not to be followed, because they SUCK.
Bad guys such as Medb and Slough Feg – worth more respect than e.g. Christians, at least they’re not hypocrites.
Women – believe that they are better than men, but also never trust them (and implicitly assume that ‘you’, dear reader, are a man).

 Oh, and then there's a fun bit where Sláine and Niamh fight a monster at the end. Because this IS a comic about an olden days warrior getting into fights, after all.

We don't ask why Niamh shows up with long curly blonde hair in this story.
Art by Simon Bisley

Repercussions: Sláine encounters Niamh again; Medb and Slough Feg are set up as the main villains of this story, and perhaps of more lasting consequence Sláine really goes to town on his main druid, Cathbad – basically learning/deciding that he (Sláine) has the better access to and understanding of the Earth Goddess’s true purpose for her people, especially including Sláine. Over the course his saga Sláine has several encounters with Danu, in her three guises, but the one here might just be the most clear and direct.

Also, and maybe I missed this in Sláine the King, but it is mentioned in passing here that the old king – the one betrayed by Medb – is Sláine’s brother? Is that like a metaphorical ‘Celtic brother-king’? It kind of reads more like a literal parent-bonded brother thing, which 100% flies against the origin of Sláine as a commoner? Anyway, this is a thread that’s not pulled on again so I’m inclined to ignore it…

Writing: 10/10: it’s funny, it’s interesting, it’s deep, it’s pretentious, it’s straightforward. Mills in his prime, maybe?
Art: 7-10/10 – can’t stress enough how loose Bisley is with his characters, and how clear it is that he really REALLY wanted to paint some bits of the story, and could barely be bothered with other bits. And yes, there are times when his character work and storytelling skills are pretty naïve. That said, the poetry of the art is incomparably delightful. And there is a plethora of just totally radical and amazing panels, pages and bits of comedy marginalia. There’s a reason a generation of artists went mental when they saw this book in particular, even though a lot of them were, technically, better drawers than young Biz.

-which is as good a place as any to bring up a pet theory I’ve been developing over this Sláine re-read – comics are easier and indeed more fun to read when the artist is NOT perfect on every page and panel. When they rush some bits, or are slapdash. When you can kind of skim through it all and not worry you're being disrespectful, and when the existence of errors feels like you’re with real people, rather than watching still moments in time…

Brainball count: in a flashback, 1 (although the caption suggests a full 470 Sea demons die at Sláine’s hand). In the story proper, 1 monster (that Sláine doesn’t so much kill as trick into eating itself).

*An asterisk (but not an Asterix) to note that, as much as Mills hates the Romans and thinks we Brits pay them far too much respect, he was not above using their numerals to make his epic comics look cool :))

Rank 2/60: The Horned God Book II
by Pat Mills and Simon Bisley

Not the first or last 2000AD cover with a visible penis, but certainly the most obvious.
Art by Simon Bisley

Where to read it: The Horned God

Original run: Progs 650-656; 662-664 (In the year 1989, spilling into 1990; story 18.2 in sequence)

The plot: Sláine continues his quest to unite the tribes, specifically here by obtaining the Spear of Lug, and the Stone of Destiny, and learning which of the four tribal Kings will be declared High King (the answer won’t surprise you).

Essential pre-reads: this follows on directly from the Horned God part 1. Would be a very weird place to start with book 2 😊

Analysis: This is the bit of Horned God with the most plot and action, but it’s still very light on fighting. I mean, there’s a bit where Sláine fights a ‘ghost dragon’, but the biggest action sequence belongs to a sort of underwater Neanderthal-type creature called the Avanc, who unleashes some serious bloodletting.

Look, I can see why you'd question my choice to separate out the three ‘books’ of the Horned God, since they read as a unit so neatly, and no doubt were written that way. But the art, in my mind, does undergo quite a bit of change in each sequence. Where Book 1 was filled with lush and ludicrous pin-up poses, Books 2 is more ‘classical’ comics, with story unfolding. Partly no doubt because there’s less talking and more stuff happening, but maybe also because Bisley was developing his comics chops? For me it’s less spectacular than Book 1, but far more consistent (well apart from Niamh’s hair).

Anyway, what about the story? Well, there’s more effortless worldbuilding from Mills, who shows us around two other tribes of Tir-Nan-Og, and introduces us to more Celtic customs. King Gann of Finias is dour and self-deprecating to the point of being a bit of a loser – but is also portrayed as someone Sláine actually likes. Mills has fun showing his tribe of people who will ‘happily’ put up with a bad lot. He’s also the holder of the spear of lug, an extraordinary Bisley-creation that is connected to some seriously sci-fi looking pipes that help it drain blood. Of all the ‘treasures’, this is the one that comes up again most often down the line – and it’s notable that every artist to depict it always goes back to the basic Bisley look.

Those fiery reds! It's like living lava on the page.
Art by Simon Bisley

Meanwhile Sengann of Murias is comics’ greatest madman, and gets, for me, the best-drawn Bisley action of the book. His tribe has to cope with the curse of the Stone of Destiny – and it’s a neat touch to have this ‘treasure’ very openly portrayed as something that brings more harm than good.

Ah, pronoun comedy. The classics can still deliver!
Art by Simon Bisley

Of course I suspect the sequence most people remember from the book is the really fun bit where Sláine ‘distracts’ Medb, while Nest and Ukko (mostly Ukko) dive underwater to steal the stone.

You mean you don't remember this panel? I do.
Art by Simon Bisley

It’s a lovely bit of heist comics, where the key is not so much the heist itself (although Ukko/Bisley doing a Fungus the Bogeyman impression is very welcome) – it’s the preamble. Now, Mills is very much having his cake and eating it. He makes a serious point about ‘the Horned God’ NOT being the kind of person who has Batman-like planning skills, and answers to all problems, and even allows himself to wallow in the misery of losing. And thematically, this feels appropriate to the picture Mills wants to paint of what kind of a ‘hero’ Sláine is.

But it’s all a feint! In fact, Sláine (or maybe more likely Niamh) DO have a Batmanesque cunning plan, which they execute and we readers enjoy watching. Which is it, Mr Mills? I suppose the answer is ‘both’, although it’s still a cheat. (and again, I suspect Mills would say even more strongly that cheating itself is the way of the Horned God par excellence…).

For a few panels, you are reading a charming kids adventure comic after all.
Art by Simon Bisley

And on top of all this, there’s one of the best ‘aged Ukko writing the saga under duress’ gags in the whole sequence, where he prays to the God of authors.

Anyway, it all adds up to making this book the one I have the most fun with, and would most happily dip into multiple times, if for some reason I ever decide not to just re-read the whole ‘Horned God’ epic in one go. But, as you'll very soon see, I do think Book III ties everything together so neatly, and with such vigour, that I have to rank it just one slot higher...

Repercussions: Sláine gets all four treasures, and is duly named High King. The stage is set for ‘final’ battle with Slough Feg and the Formorians. Also, Medb is revealed to all as a villain. Also also, this book is the turning point for Niamh being willing to a) forgive Sláine his past sins and b) let herself love him again.

Writing: 10/10
Art: 9/10 I've said before how Bisley on fire is the best there ever was, but sometimes he's just not feeling very warm?

Brainball count: 2 humans and 1 dragon. Honestly in this epic so far you'd think Sláine wasn't even interested in killing people.

Rank 1/60: The Horned God Book III
by Pat Mills and Simon Bisley

That horse, though!
Art by Simon Bisley

Where to read it: The Horned God
Original run: Progs 688-698

The plot: It’s the Big Battle! Actually 2 battles – first vs the Fomorians, then vs the Skull Swords. Actually 3 battles! Because Medb comes for revenge, too.

Essential pre-reads: Horned God volumes 1 and 2 wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Analysis: So, I’ve scored this as the one and only Sláine story where absolutely everything is firing on all cylinders. To be fair to Pat Mills, he’s on top form for the whole Horned God Saga, and may well have written it all in one go, rather than in chunks. But for sure Bisley was working in chunks of some kind, and it’s here in the third part where he combines the extraordinary beauty of pin-up style pieces from Book 1, with the consistency of art from Book 2. So, you know, this is BEST.

This is just a small example of Bisley's expert combo of cartooning, storytelling, 
monster design, vibrant gore winking at the camera, super-kewl posing... it's all here.

It's a very basic choice on my part. As Ukko himself comments  - at length – in this very story, most readers like the bits with the hacking and slashing, and if you come to the Horned God wanting violence on warp spasms and dragons and beheadings and gae bolgas and blood flying everywhere  -it’s all here in Book 3.

Also busty ladies riding on dragons - can't forget those!
Art by Simon Bisley

But, you know, there is still plenty of the theological discussion I loved so much in Books 1 and 2. There’s also some real ‘what is the big picture of Sláine’ stuff here, where Ukko looks forward to the future both of the Sláine saga and of Ireland’s / the Celts mythical history generally.

So much so that this feels very much like a natural end point for the whole of Sláine, and it’s common wisdom that if you just read everything from The Time Monster to the end of the Horned God, you’re getting amazing comics that all tell one amazing story, no messing. I don’t hold with that view – not least because Mills out and out tells us right here that there IS more story to tell. (Although to be fair, at times he does rather imply that this is going to be the final story.)

Look at that skull! A memento mori for Sláine himself.
Art by Simon Bisley

I think there’s also something about this ending-that-isn’t-an-ending that points to one of the wider themes of Sláine as a saga. Which is, that we don’t have to accept our lot in life. We live in a notionally Christian country – and even if it’s mostly secular these days, there’s still a sense that a kind of masculine version of ‘order’ prevails - and Mills is preaching a conversion/reversion back to a more feminised way of life. I won’t get into the concerns I have about what Mills thinks 'masculine' and 'feminine' mean*, and will instead acknowledge that it’s part of the consistent story that Sláine basically always ‘wins battles’ on a personal level, but often ‘loses wars’ in a broader sense. Danu may not care, but the tribes of the Earth Goddess sure don’t end well, either in the Horned God or in any of the sagas to come, no matter how many of the enemy Sláine dispatches.

To be fair, Sláine DOES achieve a compelling and lasting victory
over Crom, the last vestige of Conan-comparison.
Art by Simon Bisley

And the more the Sláine story goes on, whether it’s fighting ‘time-lost’ battles against invaders, or indeed the Books of Invasions which explicitly ends with Sláine’s Celts disappearing form the ‘real world’, there’s this idea that Sláine is always fighting for a champion who is destined to ‘lose’, even though we often get the satisfaction of seeing him ‘win’.

As Mills often says, not least in this Horned God finale, such contradictory messaging is the way of the Horned God, and of Danu herself.

Repercussions: Let’s see, you’ve got 1 arch enemy properly deaded (Slough Feg), another arch enemy sent away to lick her wounds (Medb, who will return). One love-of-life to be wed (if only for a trial period). One radical change of scenery – Tir-Nan-Og is flooded, creating I guess the English Channel and the Irish Sea (and maybe the North Sea as well?), so Sláine and the other high kings move to found new cities in Ireland. Don’t think I’d quite appreciated until this re-read that the first batch of Sláine stories take place in a bit of land that no longer exists, while the next phase of the cycle is in Ireland proper. Kind of impressive how quickly people managed to builds up e.g. Tara in that time (unless the 5 tribes just up and conquered whoever was living in bits of Ireland before) – although this is the trouble with combining myth, history and fantasy story telling!

Writing: 10/10
Art: 10/10

Brainball count: I count 18 on-panel, + 1 arch-enemy. By implication it’s LOTS more, though, including ‘about 100’ in the first big battle alone.

*worth noting that, in this story in particular, penises play a prominent part.

Well, that's the ranking done, just some tidying up to do...

Sláine, ranked part 17: young and old

So we've reached the top 5, and at least one ranking here that's going to break people's hearts...

Rank 5/60: Sky Chariots
by Pat Mills and Mike McMahon

Once again, the villain takes centre stage...
Art by Cam Kennedy

Where to read it: Warrior’s Dawn (or, if you have all the money and don't mind reading only parts of the story, the McMahon Apex edition)

Original run: Progs 352-360 (In the Year 1984, this is story 7 in sequence)

The plot: Sláine agrees to become a bodyguard to a Drune Lord, who is on the run from Slough Feg, on the promise that he’ll get a lift north, the direction he’s headed anyway. The form of transport they’re using? A magical flying boat…

Flying ships are cool. Even moreso when powered by blood.
Art by Mick McMahon

Essential pre-reads: none. I mean, there’s some basic introduction of Drune Lords and the use of weird-stones before, but it’s all covered again here.

Analysis: Honestly, this story fits into the overall narrative pretty seamlessly, but apparently it’s one of the first long Sláine stories Pat Mills wrote, originally meant to run right after Beast in the Broch. It’s also the first story Mike McMahon drew, and by golly did he draw the heck out of it. And yes, I readily acknowledge that THIS is, for many, the ultimate best that Sláine ever got. It's an excellent comic!

The most gorgeous mammoth drawing you'll ever see.
Art by Mick McMahon

I don’t know the truth of it, but I can well imagine that once Mills got the basic idea for this story in his head he was just super excited to splurge it out onto the page. It’s brimming with ideas, which stem beautifully from a combination of the setting he’s come up with, and the characters he’s populated it with. Sláine is the hero – but he’s not an overtly moralistic one. Indeed, the story allows Mills to make points about how modern morality is not some universal constant; even murder (perhaps especially murder) is often defined by circumstance and situation. More to the point, the idea of ‘selling out’ is presented as something worth debating, but really it’s a question of ‘Well, what do I get out of it’, and in Sláine’s case, it’s enough that he gets a bit of money, some food, and a lift in the direction he wants to travel.

Also there is violence
Art by Mick McMahon

But I haven’t even mentioned the sheer cool of using stones to make ships fly, or hordes of Vikings pitted against rotting zombies, or the all-time awesome design of Slough Throt, the baddie who isn’t all bad. What I’m saying is, there’s a really very clever story structure meshed with monstrously good action scenes and mind-blowing ideas splashed with thematically appropriate philosophy.

If you want to quibble, you could suggest that it’s all over a bit too quickly. Certainly when read through in one go, you lose a bit of the sense of how much time is passing, and how Sláine is wrestling with who’s side he should be on, or the looming sense of dread that follows Slough Throt. It might be that I'm judging too harshly based on the fact that I first read this story VERY piecemeal, in back progs that covered just a few episodes, which made the whole thing feel insanely grand in a way that a is undermined by reading it all in one go. Frankly, the opposite experience of reading late-preiod Sláine, which is generally much better in the collections.

Repercussions: For such an epic story, really very few. Sláine and Ukko get away, and continue on with their journey. The ending, does, however, provide quite a neat sense of the end of one stage of the saga as it gives way to the next. As well as providing a rather explicit suggestion that this time period is also in transition, as the old order of Drune Lords and druids is about to be overtaken by… something else.

Love a good 'death by worms' panel.
Art by Mick McMahon

Writing: 9.5/10 – perhaps a little churlish to complain, but Mills throws so many ideas and set pieces into this story that the overall coherence of the thing gets a little lost. No big deal.

Art: 10/10 – but do note, it’s vital to find a printing that can reproduce the work properly in stark black ink to appreciate the full and furious effect. Frankly, I don't know if there IS a definitive printing of this whole story? The 2nd edition of 'Warriors Dawn' is better than the first, that's for sure.

Brainball count: At least 8 in an early brawl, but it’s tough to count the exact number; at least another 8 in the main battle; and 1 wild boar.

So, marginally better than this absolute masterpiece, in my reckoning, we run almost all the way to the end of Sláine's 45-year saga, with...

Rank 4/60: The Brutania Chronicles 1: A Simple Killing
by Pat Mills and Simon Davis

You just don't get grass-green an enough comics.
Art by Simon Davis

Where to read it: The Brutania Chronicles 1
Original run: Progs 1874-1886 (in the Year 2014, story 45.1 in sequence)

The plot: Sláine’s wanderings have taken him to Albion – the island of Great Britain. Specifically, he’s in southern Scotland and soon on the Isle of Man aka Monadh Island. He’s about to vent anger on a local chief who has stolen treasures meant for the Earth Goddess – only to agree instead to help rescue that chief’s daughter - Sinead - from the evil Sloughs of Monadh island.

Essential pre-reads: I think you’d need to read Sláine the King to get a sense of the context of how the evil Formorians have control over the people of Albion, and Bride of Crom to get some background on the idea of the Sloughs, skull swords and so on.

Analysis: Considered as a fresh new start by Pat Mills, and a breath of fresh air by readers, I think? It combines the ideas of Sláine more or less wandering around and stumbling into adventures, alongside the two big narratives of the whole saga. That’s a) The gradual take-over of Britain and Ireland by the evil Cyth / sloughs / Skull Swords and such – with quite a bit more detail than usual on how that whole dynamic works, and b) Mills doling out ancient British myths in his inimitable style.

In his intro to the collection – and indeed in Kiss My Axe – Mills explains that the Brutania Chronicles cycle is based around a rather forgotten piece of British ‘history’ in which Trojans – yes, the ones from that famous besieged city – ended up coming to England, founding ‘New Troy’ in London, and generally taking over. No one – not even Mills, I think? – reckons this actually happened, but it was a significant part of early ‘histories’ of Britain and as such deserves a fresh airing, much as King Arthur, say, has had enough time in the Sun.

That said, I remain none the wiser about who these Trojans actually are, or why they’ve ended up in Britain, but it’s cool seeing ancient Mediterranean warriors fighting Celts in the woods. As far as I can tell, they’re like upper-class lackeys to the Sloughs, who themselves are a corrupt variation on ancient Druids, who pursue Mills’s version of evil Christianity, which is in fact a religion based around obeisance to other-dimensional beings called Cythrons. Don't think about it too much!

What A Simple Killing brings to the table is the idea that there’s a central British Isles hangout for various top Sloughs, who are busy engaging in weird experiments to ‘improve’ humanity, although really what they’re doing is creating monsters. And that finally brings us to Sláine himself! I think one of the reasons I like this story so much is that it’s the first since Time Killer in which Sláine is more or less thrown into a crazy world of nightmares, where the madness and ideas flow thick and fast! Better even that that story, its just CRAZY how good Simon Davis is on his first attempt at Sláine (admittedly he has a leg up on e.g. Fabry and Bisley as he was already a seasoned comics pro with decades of 2000AD work behind him). 

Also Mills is getting excited to summon up new Sláine-ish wordplay, and it's so fun.
Art by Simon Davis

His Sloughs, skull-swords and ‘normal’ humans follow on immaculately from the templates set by Kincaid, McMahon and everyone else. But then he gets to deliver mermaids, Giants, ogres and of course Trojans as well. It's a total visual feast! And that’s not even mentioning the beautiful scenery around them, harking back to the Belardinelli days, where we get to enjoy Sláine sat atop some giant beast or other walking through greenery. And that’s not even to mention the new recurring characters we get here – especially Gort and Sinead. This story really is a goldmine of creative juices.

The bit where Sláine meets a giant!

The bit where Sinead starts turning into a mermaid!

Getting back to the ‘where we are at in the saga’ thing: Sláine’s people have left Tir na Nog and gone to live in ethereal bliss in another world – while all humans left behind (most of them) are slowly but surely falling under the evil of Cyth/Slough/Christian/Fomorian dominion. You get a real sense of Sláine’s sadness as the passing of his own culture, but also his determination to keep that culture alive, most especially the part about free thinking.

This is also a middle-aged Sláine, who has a bit more weariness about him. He’s up for a fight, sure, but maybe not always actively looking for one? And he has more of a reputation to trade on than ever before. Not just a respected King of a specific tribe, now a man known far and wide and in general a man to be feared. Best of all, he’s a man who’s not afraid to show his emotions, and boy do Mills and Davis put him through it on that front. There’s some amazing anguish on display here.

Now, a lot of that anguish related to Sláine’s concerns about his mother and father. It turns out, via ‘Kiss my Axe’, that this is in fact about Mills himself going through a similar experience. I have to say, before I knew that it felt a bit odd in Sláine. Something about the idea of being so concerned about who your father is, or whether or not you are a bastard, never quite seemed like something he was that bothered about before. Ultimately, the story is about Sláine not knowing which of three possible people is his ‘real’ father. And REALLY not liking it when people talk about that...

Now I really want to see late-period Nic Cage playing Sláine in a movie.
Art by Simon Davis

Given that this is in fact a stand-in for Mills’s own struggle, I can get behind the serious emotions on show.

I feel the need to try to sum this all up, but I can’t really. This is an immense story, in scope and ideas and just plain fun. It ends on a cliffhanger, of course, but is totally satisfying in itself.

Repercussions: Hard to judge, this. Obviously it sets things up for the whole ‘Brutania Chronicles’ saga, which is chiefly that we meet Slough Gododin, a new major villain, and his sidekicks Sloughs Foy, Thruc and ...the other one?, fun side-villains all. We also meet Sinead, who will be a major figure throughout, and Sláine’s buddy Gort who is a minor character in this story but will go on to be a MUCH bigger deal in the next two chapters. As part of Sláine’s overall story, for me the biggest revelation is the idea that the Sloughs, who are human by birth, are able to literally convert themselves into Cythrons.

Writing: 9/10 I'm falling shy of top marks because although Mills is really going to town on the dialogue in novel ways, arguably he's run through SO MANY ideas on Sláine to this point, there's not quite as much delight in the new as on older stories?
Art: 10/10 – not sure any artist has had quite the impact Davis had on his very first go with Sláine, except maybe Bisley. Everyone else needed a few goes to find their stride, but not this fella!

Brainball count: 5 humans, 2 monsters, 4 giants

Next time: So, what's the top of Sláine's pops? There's really only one answer...

Sláine, ranked part 16: jaw-droppingly good

Like, these comics were for 10 year olds. Lucky, lucky 10-year olds!

Rank 7/60: The Bride of Crom
by Pat Mills and Massio Belardinelli and Mike McMahon

Anyone still wondering why 2000AD is so often described as 'punk', this cover 
says it all. I mean, this is exactly what teens in Camden were wearing in 1983 
(in my head, at any rate...)
Art by Massimo Belardinelli

Where to read it: Warrior’s Dawn
Original run: Progs 336-343 (In the Year 1983. And yes, I'm mashing together what Barney lists as three separate stories, but to my mind they are prologue and epilogue to the main event, so whatever. Story 4, this is)

The plot: Ukko and Sláine are recruited by a wealthy man to rescue his daughter, Medb, who is due to be sacrificed to the worm god Crom. The pair indeed find Medb, but in the process are captured and themselves offered up for sacrifice in a Wicker Man…

Essential pre-reads: none.

Analysis: OK, so I’m sort of cheating here, but I think it’s right to mash these three stories into one because it would be weird to read Beltain Giant or the Creeping Death in isolation. Beltain Giant does have time to do a bit of its own thing - give an example of Sláine prostituting his warpspasm abilities, in a metaphor for the (working) lives of itinerant young men that definitely sailed over my head until, like, just as I was typing these words. 

Sláine endures indignities. Also this is as good a place as any to celebrate Steve Potters' delightfully not-round speech balloons, that really add an old-world flavour to the early Sláine tales. I miss them.
Art by Mike McMahon

It also gives a neat flavour of Celtic celebrations and festival gathering that feels at once ancient and very modern – but the bulk of the story is simply setting up Bride of Crom. Creeping Death, on the other hand, is rather slight as anything other than a direct continuation of the action of Bride of Crom. It’s sort of about the idea of catching plague, but because it’s a zombie-bite induced plague it kind of doesn’t count. But still a good excuse for Mills to make the point that the world has always had undesirables who are left on the edge of society.

The main event, though, is the 6-part Bride of Crom, an absolute tour-de-force from Massimo Belardinelli. He gets to design a cast of punk/fearsome/sexy-as-hell witches, deliver a villain design of a human who has literally shed his own skin (and also likes to Walk Like an Egyptian), and then show a band of villains trapped inside a gigantic Wicker Man. Oh, and for good measure Sláine warps out and takes on a zombie hoard. HOOOO-ah!

Sundered heads... piles of rotting carcasses... these are pleasing pictures to me.
Art by Massimo Belardinelli

AND we get to meet Sláine’s father (a bit out of the blue for such an early episode, perhaps?), as well as hearing the sad story of how his mother died (based directly on an old Irish legend).

Plus of course there’s the basic plot, in which our hero goes to rescue a damsel in distress, only for her to turn out to be in no kind of distress, and in fact she becomes one of the series’ longer-running villains. (This, too, is partly inspired by legend)

But outside of all this, I can’t help but note my main lingering memory, on my first read, is that this is one of those stories where I could’ve sworn I saw more gorey details than I actually did. There’s this bit where the Badb (the punk-ass witches) are torturing Sláine by giving him a ‘blood eagle’. It’s described in plain language, and not even slightly shown (except for a few cut marks on Sláine’s back, later on). But I have a memory of seeing the remains of an old victim who’d had this procedure done, and of seeing the blade cutting into Sláine’s back so that the ‘eagle’ was literally on the point of ‘flying’ before the Badb are interrupted. Such is the power of imagination, when enhanced by the drugs of Mills and Belardinelli.

Lots to look at here, but I was ever drawn to those mysterious words
"Fly the Blood Eagle"...
Art by Massimo Belardinelli

Yes, it's surely true that if I read this story for the first time now, as an adult, I might see the trappings of an early 1980s 'boy's adventure comic' and not find it all quite so enthralling. But objectively, the story is fun, the ideas are outlandish, and the artistic execution is stellar.

Repercussions: Sets up Slough Feg and Medb as major characters; fleshes out Sláine’s backstory in ways that inform his character and will occasionally crop up, especially much later in the saga.

Writing: 9.5/10
Art: 9-10 /10 There are panels and sequences here that are all-time great. But I have to admit there are also panels of people just standing around chatting that are only OK. I can’t not mention some proper Lucio Fulci-esque horror as some drune minions hallucinate spiders coming out of their mouths, and warped-warriors faces stretching out! Belardinelli sure was tuned in to the grungier end of the early 80s…

 

I've seen 'The Beyond' too. It's dead good!
Art by Massimo Belardinelli

Brainball count:
Beltain Giant: 1 human
Bride of Crom: 9 humans that we see; the text claims a total of 20 in one fight; 7 zombies on-panel, although a ‘slaystack’ beneath Sláine suggests he killed a lot more!
The Creeping Death: none! Sláine was having a sick day.

Rank 6/60: Sláine The King
by Pat Mills and Glenn Fabry

This is just an outrageously weird cover for a kid's Sci-Fi adventure comic.
Art by Glenn Fabry

Where to read it: The King
Original run: Progs 500-508; 516-519 (In the Year 1987; this is story 16 in sequence)

The plot: Sláine returns to his home town, only to find a heap of troubles there: Formorian sea-demons have enough control to demand outrageous tribute payments; the weak king is under the thrall of a witch; the only person who seems willing to stand up for the tribe is Niamh, Sláine’s old girlfriend, and she has decided to leave.

Essential pre-reads: none. Honestly, it’s amazing how well this functions as if it could be the first story you read.

Analysis: the painted art in the Horned God saga gets all the credit, but there’s a strong case to be made that THIS story is the one where 2000AD really started leaning into the idea of courting a grown-up audience. Sure, there’s still fighting and comedy going on, but this is a political drama / soap opera before it’s an adventure story. And the way it’s illustrated, my gosh!

Sláine gets bored when he's not fighting...
Art by Glenn Fabry

As such, I remember being both a bit lost and a bit bored by it as a child. I appreciate it now rather a lot more, but the joy is there in the facial expressions and dialogue exchanges more than in the fighting. There’s a good bit with a disgusting monster at the end, though. 

Possibly the best-drawn rotting monster in the entire Sláine canon
-and that's saying something!
Art by Glenn Fabry

It’s fascinating how much the story, from the title on down, just lays down the assumption that OF COURSE Sláine will become king of this tribe. Sure, he’s a disgraced ex-warrior who got banished, but he’s the best man for the job. One rather has to admire Pat Mills’s restraint that at no point here does he talk about weak, entitled elites vs ignored but worthy working class heroes. (Which he HAD brought up way back in an earlier story about young Sláine first joining the Red Branch). He just shows that the current King is a) weak in the face of the Formorians and b) under the spell of a wicked witch. Indeed the whole tribe seems rather deflated, except Niamh, and yet she’s not the one to inspire rebellion, only a returning (male) vagabond can do that, it appears…

Anyway, putting petty macho-political gripes aside, this story is amazing. And frankly it’s a lot down to the art. Fabry works wonders to establish character and setting and mood, taking us through a variety of locations that puts Game of Thrones to shame. Mills, meanwhile, gets to share some more history, whether it’s the horrors of the nose tax, or the bizarre coronation-equivalent ceremony that ends this cycle of stories. If the point of Sláine is to show us what life for ancient Irish Celts was like – in feeling, if not in stark/bland accuracy - mission well and truly accomplished. If it’s to tell an adventure story about humans fighting a combination of sea demons and interdimensional hell gods, it’s more set up than delivery but no less fun for that. If the point is to relay the violent wanderings of a barbarian, you might be a little disappointed…

Repercussions: Well, this is the pivot point for Sláine, really. It’s where he transitions from a lone wanderer to a man trying to inspire his whole tribe (and later country). It’s where he totally embraces various traditions and shows how much of a devotee he is to his religion. Not that he’d said or done anything against this in earlier stories, but it didn’t really come up. We also get a pivotal sequence where Sláine meets Niamh, and we all get to meet his son Kai for the first time (and not the last).

Apologies for the blurry photo, although you can pretend you're reading these panels through a veil of tears, such is the emotion this sequence conveys!
Art by Glenn Fabry

Writing: 9/10 There’s no denying that it makes a difference to have a story which is mostly politics and soap opera and intrigue, with only a little bit of high fantasy and fighting. It’s a great read, to be sure, but as experiments go you can tell Mills thought he’d see how it went and then decided to go in for a bit more hacking and slashing next time. There’s also the minor problem that the story is basically unfinished – probably not by design, it ends up being more of a long prologue to the Horned God. The idea that this one story builds up to Sláine being anointed king just doesn’t feel very Millsian.

Art: 10/10 Fabry’s finest hour, not least because it’s all him, all the time, with no compromises to his vision. Or at least, any such compromises are invisible! (except, perhaps, for an alternative version of page 1 of this saga, apparently written and drawn before Time Killer, and printed in the 1986 Sci-Fi Special as ‘The Devil’s Banquet’ if you’re curious)

Brainball count: 1 monster, 2 humans. We didn’t think it enough…

Rank 5.5/60* Sláine the High King
by Pat Mills and Glenn Fabry

You don't want Sláine standing behind you in the group photo, not with the giant
wild boar head he wears as a codpiece.
Art by Sean Phillips

Where to read it: Demon Killer
Original run: 2000AD Yearbook 1992 (in the Year 1991; this is story 20 in sequence)

The plot: A snapshot from the seven-year reign of Sláine, in which we learn that he is bored of not being allowed to fight any more – but also learn that the goddess is not done with him and will send him off for lots more fighting times soon.

Essential pre-reads: none, but this is totally a bridging story between The Horned God and the whole ‘warrior in time’ set of stories that came next.

Analysis: Presented one year after the Horned God, this epilogue tale was, I imagine, widely assumed to be the end of Sláine’s saga – although Mills says very much not so, he always intended to send Sláine travelling through time, following on from the Battle of Clontarf sequence. The long gap, presumably, had more to do with Glenn Fabry’s necessary lead time on art…

Ukko at his most Ukko-est!
Art by Glenn Fabry

Anyway, this story sees Mills using some classic misdirection – we assume we’re seeing Sláine’s ritual execution at the end of his 7-year reign, but it’s actually another king (a repeat of the trick played in the epilogue to the Horned God!), and poor, bored Sláine is jealous. Things liven up when this other king comes back, briefly, guts hanging out in full zombie-fashion. A fun prelude, but also, really, a farewell to the days of Slaine stories being set in, and about, Sláine’s own time. For a story in which nothing much happens, it’s amazing how fun it is to read. But let’s be honest that’s because Fabry is doing MAYBE his best-ever Sláine work here.

Repercussions: nothing and everything. We get no more info on what happened in Sláine’s reign, or to his fellow tribesfolk – but this is where Mills explains that Sláine is going to be a mission-based hero from now on.

Writing: 9/10
Art: 10.5/10 More Fabry perfection, frankly his ability to paint in greyscale might be even more impressive than the full-colour work to come. The ‘Vanilla Ice with Judge Dredd shoulder-pads’ cameo is pretty weird, though.

Early 1990s 2000AD was really down on popstars.
Art by Glenn Fabry

Brainball count: None. Sláine does get a vision of the future where he attacks several Roman soldiers, but he doesn’t kill any on-panel.

*Yes, yes, I must've messed up my counting somewhere; also this isn't better than 'the King', I just thought it made more sense to read about it afterwards.

Sláine, ranked part 15: immersive experiences

Into the Top 10 now, and here are three tales that for me, stand out as examples of comics stories that totally draw you into the world they present. Which is an especially important trick to pull off if you are the opening story for an all-new character in a frankly very unusual setting...

Rank 10/60: The Time Monster
by Pat Mills and Angie Kincaid

I think for years I thought the giant head in the background belonged to some kind
of woolly mammoth but of course it's a skull-sword helmet.
Art by Angie Kincaid (aka Angie Mills)

Where to read it: Warrior’s Dawn
Original run: Prog 330 (in the Year 1983; this is story... 1. Like it says on the cover strapline.)

The plot: Ukko and Sláine fight a monster, and get into and out of trouble. This will happen again, and often.

Essential pre-reads: none. I mean, you don't have to read this story before you read any other Sláine, but it's one heck of an intro!

Analysis: So much ink has been spilled on this first episode, almost all of it from the pen of Pat Mills. He has a LOT of opinions about the way he, his new character and especially his co-creator / artist / then-wife were treated. (In case you’re wondering, he feels they were treated badly.) Leaving all of that aside, this is just an amazing first episode. We get such a strong feeling for who Sláine and Ukko are, for the world they live in, for the general atmosphere of the story – muddy, crude, dangerous – and above all, for what kind of story this is going to be. 

The sort of story where the hero defeats a monster by making it swallow a toad.
Which is to say, NOT LIKE OTHER STORIES.
Art by Angie Kincaid

Namely, one in which the hero is a dick as often as not, but also noble, but also after a good time more than anything, also willing to smile as much as frown, and there’s a taste of the Celtic fashion for taunting enemies with words before striking them with blows. This doesn’t leave much room for a ‘plot’, but then that’s not really the point. Basically, this series is all about hanging around with a barbarian while his dwarf companion tells tall tales about him. But the bit about the time monster and the toad is super fun. It may or may not come from some Irish/Celtic legend.

Repercussions: Well, this is the intro that sets up basically EVERYTHING. You get Ukko, our narrator; Sláine, our hero, and a good glimpse of the skullswords - hired goons for drunes, who are the main villains for much of the saga. You get a bit of fantasy, in the form of a ‘time monster’ (basically a T. Rex with a wormhole in its mouth. Cool.), so you know this isn’t the ‘real’ world. And you get an extraordinary sense of time and place, with a mix of rural settings, dirty cities, and of course giant boats full of dung. No, you don’t need to read this story to understand who Sláine is, or what his world is about. But it sure doesn’t hurt.

Writing: 9.5/10 – as with any first episode, there’s so much explaining to do it leaves little room for elegance. But it sure does set the scene, introduce the characters, and have time for fun. An astonishing piece of work, certainly, but it also leaves room for improvement and greater sophistication, as its natural with any long-running saga.
Art: 9/10. It’s hard to overstate how well the art in this episode works, most especially in terms of setting up the character, setting and overall tone of the series. I’m with Pat Mills on this – it’s an outrage that Kincaid’s work wasn’t appreciated more at the time (by the powers that be), and that she didn’t get to share art chores over the next set of stories at the very least. But, if I may be so bold, it’s pretty clear that Kincaid would’ve got better if she’s had more stories to work on. Sadly, after this episode and the AMAZING cover, that’s it for poor Angie Kincaid as illustrator.

Brainball count: 1 monster, 2 bar louts (or possibly 3? It’s unclear if the man force-fed the monster’s heart survives or not…).

Rank 9/60: Books of Invasions Volume 5: Odacon
by Pat Mills and Clint Langley

Water... mirrors... duality... symbolism. Yes please!
Art by Clint Langley

Where to read it: The Books of Invasions Vol 3
Original run: Progs 1436-442

The plot: It’s the end of the invasions! The ‘goodies’ (better described as ‘fellow worshippers of the Goddess) have made it safely to a new home, but at great cost - they've more or less allowed the invading forces to 'win' by setting up the idea that Ireland is going to fall in line with 'civilizing' influences from overseas. Not sea deomns as such, but at the very least their human lackeys/collaborators. Back in the ‘real world’, Sláine and a small band of surviving allies are weeding out any last sea demons – including arch-enemy Odacon, and also a more sinister kind of demon that can infect humans, and that has spread from village to village like a plague.

Essential pre-reads: Well, it's worth having read Tara to understand the opening of the story, and then Golamh and Scota to get to know the characters - might as well read the whole Books of Invasions really :).

Analysis: The most weird, most beautiful, and most satisfying of the Invasions cycle, for me. I guess you could argue that it doesn't have the sheer wealth of new ideas as the earlier books, but a) it DOES have one fantastic idea, and b) it has the advantage of feeling lived in, weary and above all more emotionally compelling precisely because its the final part of a long epic.

That new idea: likening the Sea-demon presence in Ireland to an infection, that can take hold of an entire village. On the surface they appear human, but the corruption hides inside and can be drawn out. Sinister, nasty, and exciting to see this all play out!

The emotion: comes from seeing Sláine ride out with his band of war-weary warriors, most of whom we have met at least once before (Mills so rarely likes re-using side characters, it's a treat to get a bit more meat out of them for a change).

Plus of course you've got a genuinely thrilling epic final chase of Sláine vs Odacon, and the moment where Sláine delivers his final victory is up there with Johnny Alpha killing Max Bubba for 'good guys' doing horrible things - and us readers cheering them on.

All of this set in the most gorgeous snowy backdrop, with Langley showing quite how far he has come with his digital painting skills, especially when it comes to rendering nature and landscapes, which are the secret sauce that make Sláine comics wonderful to read. It also nicely matches the wistful air of the whole thing. The battle portion of the invasion of Ireland may be over, but Sláine has kind of lost that. Instead, he's settling into a new role of the last true believer (in Danu) wandering the Earth trying to protect 'secular' humans form the creeping influence of that wicked, wicked, inter-dimensional-style Christianity.

Repercussions: Well, this is another 'should have been the farewell to the Sláine saga' type story. Gael has become the progenitor of 'gaelic peoples', and the myth-making of Sláine transitions into the actual history of Ireland - ish. Sláine has defeated his most recent arch-enemy, Odacon, and has driven the last sea-demons from the Land of the Young. He's free to just wander off and do his thing...

Writing: 9/10 I like this story a lot, but if I'm honest it is lacking in the mad idea + catchphrase joy that Mills can bring to get top marks...
Art: 9/10 – this, for me, is unquestionably Langley’s finest hour. He’s more or less nailed his facial expressions, using them sparingly, and his lavish widescreen scene-setting bits in the snow are breathtakingly beautiful. Also, he gets to draw Odacon a lot and that’s playing to his strengths. Oh, and that bit at the end where Sláine pisses on Odacon as he begs for ‘water’? That was all Langley’s idea, too apparently.

Brainball count: 10 + 1 arch enemy (that’s in terms of on-panel kills as carried out by Sláine; there are really a lot of villagers burned to death en masse as well though.)

Rank 8/60: Dragon Heist
by Pat Mills and Massimo Belardinelli

Apologies to purists, by this was my first exposure to this story, and I
prefer the pink hues on show here!
Art by Ian Gibson

Where to read it: Time Killer
Original Run: Progs 361-367

The plot: Sláine and Ukko take on a job working on a dragon farm – but only so they can steal one of the dragons to get them home more quickly.

Essential pre-reads: none.

Analysis: Perhaps more by accident than design, Dragonheist forms the end of ‘classic era’ Sláine. It is, plotwise, a pretty simple ‘wandering barbarian gets into a scrape’ type story, which is the sort of thing you’d think Sláine would always be if you haven’t read it. But this story is a lot more besides. As ever, Mills is interested in doing what he can to get across an idea of what life was like in these half-real, half-fantastical Celtic times. The power dynamic of men and women, parents and children; what was considered morally good or not (stealing is definitely wrong; letting someone take murderous revenge is OK). And then there are the dragons! For beasts that never existed, Mills gets a lot of mileage out of suggesting some sort of science behind them. Anyone who has read this story will never forget the idea of the dragon’s heat vision, and the way it associates human fear and pain with gold. So weird! So awesome! So ignored by any other dragon fiction I have come across!

Belardinelli delightfully ignores the caption that says the dragon sees 'bone', 
instead deciding to show... some sort of muscle-organ-twisted flesh mess? LOVE IT SO MUCH

In the middle of this there’s the heist plot, which revolves, as they always do, around rival humans finding ways to hate and cheat each other. In this story, that’s Nest, a new major character, and her wicked (or is he just Celtic?) uncle. Watching Sláine watch their interplay is a hoot.

Almost because this tells a simple narrative while also lacing it with bizarre science and history lessons, this story ends up top-drawer stuff. Mills asks an awful lot of poor Massimo Belardinelli, who is unbeatably amazing with the dragon stuff, as always gorgeous with his backgrounds, but typically not so great with the normal human interaction stuff – and there’s a lot of that here.

Comedy hi-jinks, violent murder edition.
Art by Massimo Belardinelli

Repercussions: Quite a few on this one. As the title of the story suggests, Sláine and Ukko end up with a dragon of their own- The Knucker. Who doesn’t actually appear terribly often, but does stick around for the next several stories in the saga. There’s also Nest, who’ll stick around rather longer than the dragon and get rather more panel-time, too. Finally, the ending of the story makes it clear that Sláine is now actively trying to get back to his tribe as quickly as possible – little expecting the interdimensional side-quest he’s about to fall into…

The panel description probably said 'the two dragons tussle in mid-air'. 
Not many artists could deliver THIS result! My man Massimo B.

Writing: 10/10 - this is where I can't find any fault with Mills, I just drink it all up like a mad fanboy.

Art: 8-10/10 Belardinelli goes out with a bang, delivering some astonishing dragon designs – and dragon-on-dragon combat, plus of course that superb sequence of the dragonvision showing the inner heat of a person’s body. (And it's not even his best work on Sláine...) But, yes, still quite a lot of panles of humans standing around talking, like amateur actors who get caught up worrying about what to do with their arms.

Brainball count: 1 dragon, 3 humans.

Next time, well, we've pretty much hit 10/10 comics on every level haven't we. Perhaps you disagree?