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
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| 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.
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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…
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| 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.
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