Captain Marvel Book 1: Higher, Further, Faster, More (#1-6)

"You, me and those freaks back there?  I wouldn't bet against us, Tic" - Captain Marvel

So I'm putting in force my New Years Blog Resolutions a couple of months early.  Those resolutions are:  More female creators. More female characters. More Marvel.  Most of what I know of the Marvelverse is a hotch-potch of what I have seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films and things covered in articles on sites like "Comics Should Be Good". I never planned to be a DC lifer over a Marvel Zombie, it's just that when I was reading comics in the 80's, all the writers I liked who wrote for UK comics went to DC and most of them founded what went on to become the Vertigo line.  Also the final kicker?  My local newsagent only stocked DC comics so I never picked Marvel up on a casual pocket-money basis, I was reading Suicide Squad and The Justice League over The X Men and The Avengers.  Anyway, I know a couple of things about Captain Marvel, first of all, there are more than one (and the first one was male and was a pre-emptive grab at the Captain Marvel name when the company publishing the "Shazam" Captain Marvel went under and was bought by DC).  I wrote about the Monica Rambeau Captain Marvel in my look at Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E.  This is not that Captain Marvel. This is the Carol Danvers one, who I only know for giving birth to her own rapist and the rest of the Avengers being totally OK with that.  Yuck.  Thankfully, she's being written by Kelley Sue DeConnick now so the taint of that misogynist shit has been thoroughly scraped off her. This first six issue arc does make reference to other stuff that has happened in the wider Marvelverse, but enough context is given that I could figure out what was going on without having to resort to wikipedia.  So thumbs up for that right from the start.  Let us begin.

It starts with Captain Marvel in the company of four diverse aliens.  They are on the Manaciano Outpost.  They realise they are being followed by the "Spartax Secret Police" but Captain Marvel is confident she can deal with them.  They confront a seller saying he's from Torfa, he responds "no one is from Torfa" while Captain Marvel accuses him of betraying it.  Then the Secret Police ask for their IDs.  The seller flees, yelling that they are with the Galactic Alliance and a fight breaks out as Captain Marvel and co. are attacked.  Tic, the green alien gets separated from them, while another grabs the piece of metal they were after in the middle of the melee.  Then suddenly Tic vanishes and events go back to six weeks ago.

Carol off to hang out with Iron Man.

Captain Marvel and Iron Patriot are out superheroing and find a capsule in the sky, it has Tic inside it.  The action then cuts to Captain Marvel now as Carol Danvers in her home inside the Statue of Liberty.  There is a young girl with her who I don't know, who Carol is babysitting.  When the kids mum returns they discuss the fact Carol has been feeling restless for some time now.

Iron Man appears and Carol becomes Captain Marvel.  He fills her in on the alien while they fly through the air. They stop and foil a street robbery, discussing the alien as they do so.  Iron Man says her world was destroyed by "The Builders" and that she was part of a group of evacuees they lost track of.  Iron Man thinks it's time to have a permanent Avengers prescence in space.  It needs to be someone who is an amazing pilot and in need of some solitude.  Iron Man suggest Rhodey and chortles to himself as he flies off leaving a fuming Captain Marvel knowing he's hooked her with the idea.

Breaking the news to Rhodey.

Later Carol and Rhodey are at a birthday party for an old woman.  They slip away for a heart-to-heart chat.  She admits that although she cares very deeply for him despite keeping their relationship a secret, she wants to go into space.  Rhodey is mometarily upset then says:

Rhodey: "You gotta go.  I will be many things to you Carol Danvers but... I'm not gonna be the one that holds you down."

As they embrace Carol asks if he'll feed her cat.  "NO", he says.  Carol later reflects on the fact that while in space, she hopes she'll find her place on Earth.  We then finish with a crayoned page showing Captain Marvel's origins in four panels.  Basically it goes; stumbled across alien artefact, got cool powers, fights crime as part of the Avengers. 

Works for me.

These one page origin stories are a great idea, ever since All Star Superman used one so effectively.  Means you get a superhero that's powered up and kicking arse from the start, not being bogged down in being normal first then figuring out what to do with their newfound powers and so on.  Of course once readers are used to a new character you can go back and revisit that origin, one thing I thought the DC New 52 did right was save every characters origin stories to be told after one year of each series rather than kicking off every title with one from the start.

The action jumps forwards to Two Weeks Ago, Captain Marvel is in her small spaceship and being confronted by some hostile aliens.  Also her cat Chewie is trying to sleep on the console and not helping matters.  She states that she is an Avenger on a medical transport misson to the planet Torfa.  The aliens are Haff mercenaries and get an update from their client to kill her.  She does some fancy flying, but when her ship gets hit, she activates an space helmet as part of her costume and goes out into space to fend off the aggressors.  Suddenly one of the mercenary ships explodes and they reluctantly withdraw.  Captain Marvel is confused as she didn't do that, but then The Guardians Of The Galaxy appear having arrived to lend a hand.

Is it a cat or a Flerken?  Poor Chewie.

They link up their ship to her ship via a tube and they walk down it, with Captain Marvel saying that all she is transporting is a "Nowlian girl in a coma".  So she has no idea why this provoked an attack. Chewie the cat appears and Rocket Raccoon freaks out and shoots at it, "you have a Flerken aboard your ship!" he yells.  While he and Captain Marvel argue about Chewie's species, Tic wakes up.

Now they are aboard the Guardian's ship, Captain Marvel manages to keep Rocket Raccoon from killing Chewie who returns to Captain Marvel's ship.  They then get to discussing Torfa.  Apparently it's a "poison planet".  The original inhabitants fled when they started getting sick, two hundred years later the Galactic Council relocated the refugees from the planets wiped out by The Builders on to Torfa and what do you know, they are getting sick too now.  The Galactic Council want to relocate the healthy ones, but they won't leave their sick behind.

Tic awakens.

Starlord says it's the one time he's agreed with his "dear old dad" Spartax (who sounds like some evil overlord), and that the Torfans needs to be evactuated.  Then a shakey Tic appears pointing a gun at him, and goes to shoot him, but Captain Marvel easily disarms her. Tic climbs into the airlock tube and shuts it down, and drives off in Captain Marvel's ship.  Captain Marvel flies out of the Guardians ship ready to give chase, saying "no one steals my Flerken cat!"

As I share my life with a grumpy old black and white cat called Biff, making a character a cat lover is basically a sure fire way of making me fall for them.  I do know if someone tried to catnap Biff he'd make them regret it very quickly!  Unfortunately the ship is faster that Captain Marvel.  Starlord offers her a ride, but then Captain Marvel's ship returns and fires on the Guardian's ship.  Captain Marvel tells them to hold their fire, "because she's a kid and she's confused."  Also her cat is aboard.

Captain Marvel gets close enough that her helmet is able to remotely override the controls. She returns to the interior to confront Tic.  She and the Guardian's question her.  She wanted to kill the son of the Spartax king who is trying to get them off their planet, so "he would feel our pain".  Starlord says she might have got a thankyou note from J'son instead.  Also what would he want with a poison planet?  Maybe he is trying to relocate them to save lives.  Then Captain Marvel scolds Tic for a "cowardly attack" on the son of her enemy and Tic bursts into tears.

Wonderfully expressive faces, I love the art in this book.

Starlord and Captain Marvel leave Tic petting Chewie and discuss the fact that the Torfans are buying into a conspiracy to get them off the planet for an ulterior reason.  Starlord says in the week and a half it'll take to get to Torfa maybe she can gain Tic's trust.  The action then jumps forwards a week and a half and to "Settled City, Torfa".  Captain Marvel disembarks and greets a large horned alien thus:

Captain Marvel: "Hi.  Captain Marvel of earth.  The Avengers and the Galactic Alliance."

The alien punches her in the face.  Tic calls him Gil and tells him she's with her.  Gil gives Tic a big hug then when Captain Marvel repeats she is with the Galactic Alliance, he punches her again.  So Captain Marvel wrestles him into a sleeper hold and asks to speak with the leadership.  An old female alien appears called Eleanides, Tic enthusiastically greets her saying she has a "champion".

Tic: "Go ahead Captain.  Tell them!  The Avenger is here.  Everything is going to be all right."

Eleanides is dubious.

Eleanides dismmisses the representatives of the Spartax Empire that were negociating with them and asks Captain Marvel to walk with her.  She asks Captain Marvel why she came.  Captain Marvel says to bring Tic back and to help out.  Eleanides points out she brings no medicine, no ships, no troops or weapons.  She is grateful for the return of Tic:

Eleanides: "But you are here still because in your arrogance you believe you have some unique understanding of the complex situation in which we find ourselves today.  You believe with a few well chosen words you will somehow make it clear to me that the longer we stay in this place the further we endanger the health of our people.  Is that so?"

Captain Marvel frowns and says nothing, realising the truth of what Eleanides says.  Eleanides says that abandoning their sick would sentence them all to death.  Is Captain Marvel OK with that?  Captain Marvel says she isn't and Eleanides says she might have use for her after all while showing her a huge room full of sick aliens.

The Council of Torfa.

Eleanides brings Captain Marvel before the council of all the various species that make up the Torfans's population.  Captain Marvel tries to speak but is shouted down.  Then a representative of the horned aliens speaks up for her saying the Avengers deserve respect for helping them escape The Builders.  But another one, wearing an enviroment suit says his species can't live anywhere else and the healthy should just leave them to die.

Captain Marvel suggests rigging their ships up so they can all leave together, but Gil shows her their shipyard it's practically empty with a few junked ships.  Gil tries to provoke Captain Marvel some more,  she says he can take a swing at her "but it's not going to make you feel any lesss doomed."

My favourite four panels from this book, so good.

Then another alien pops up accompanied by Tic, he's another one in a suit - a Sentimault - and his name is "B-Bop".  Another alien also appears, a female one with squid-like tentacles for hair, called "Ja Kyee Lrurt" or "Jackie" for short.  She's their chief engineer and defence minister.

Then the Haff mercenaries do a hit a run stealing parts from the shipyard.  Ever since the Alliance withdrew its patrols they've been preying on the Torfans, and they don't have working ships to chase them in.  But Captain Marvel tells Tic, Gil, B-Bop and Jackie they can go after them in her ship instead.

Meanwhile Eleanides is speaking with a projected hologram of J'son.  She is begging him not to force them to leave their sick behind as Torfa is in his space.  He roars:

J'son: "There is no higher authority.  I am not just your leader, woman.  I am your god!"

While Captain Marvel and her merry band steal back their ship parts and go looking for more, J'son says Eleanides has three days to oversee the relocation of the healthy or he will order an attack on the planet and wipe all of them out, "because it is my will!"

J'son being a right bastard.

Captain Marvel's group finally catch up to where this book started on the Manaciano Outpost, they stride out confindently with Captain Marvel thinking what can possible go wrong as one of Spartax's secret police watches them from the shadows.

The action then jumps to after Tic is captured by the Haff.  Captain Marvel hurls the piece of green metal away in frustration, then suddenly notices it is undamaged.  She blasts it with her full power and it gets not a scratch on it.  "I think I know what all this is about" she says.  In the meantime, Tic is in a large ship hanger with other prisoners, she uncovers a cart full of similar green metal pieces, and she and another Torfan realise it's not steel...

The plot device!

We then finally get the truth revealed when we cut to J'Son angry that his vibranium is still stuck in sub-space somewhere (vibranium is like adamantium only even stronger, I think Captain America's shield is made from it).  The vendor says it's not J'Son's vibranium until he pays for it.  J'Son says it's his as sure as "that pissant planet it came from is mine."  He then threatens to wipe the vendor out, the vendor points out J'Son doesn't have his vibranium enhanced fleet yet.  But he finally folds in the face of J'Son's anger and agrees to deliver the vibranium.  J'son then orders an attack on Torfa saying he changed his mind about giving them three days to evacuate.

Meanwhile Eleanides is breaking the news to the council that the healthy will have to leave, much to their distress.  Then Captain Marvel and the others arrive and break the news that they lost Tic, but that they don't think she is dead, just a prisoner.  They then tell her they know what has been happening.  "Vibranium sickness" is what is afflicting the population.  It's why the place was declared a poison planet before.

Eleanides is confused.  She says that there is no known source of vibranium left in the galaxy and they have no vibranium mines that she knows of.  But Captain Marvel shows her the piece they recovered and says if Spartax reinforced his ships with it, his fleet would be unstoppable. 

B-Bop, says to the other Sentimault there that it must be their people doing the mining as their exo-skeletons render them immune to the poison.  The other Sentimault confirms this is the case saying it was for the good of their own people to make a deal with Spartax even if it meant betraying the other Torfans.

Eleanides has no time for this shit.

Eleanides then calls off the evacuation and orders that people start being treated for vibranium sickness.  She and the others walk out to be confronted by J'son's envoy and soldiers saying the entire planet is under arrest.  Eleanides sends Captain Marvel away saying she has no duty to be there and to "tend to the business of the Avengers". 

So Captain Marvel boards her ship in frustration.  Then she realises Eleanides was giving her a coded message and she wants her help.  A planet is being subjegated by another, sounds like Avenger's business to her.  So Captain Marvel flies out and faces down the Spartax fleet with a badass boast.

"Now make yours".  So cool.

J'son asks if his fleet commander "fear the flying Earth girl?".  His commander says, "no more than the elephant fear the gnat."  Back on the ship where Tic is being held she and the others with her decide to do something about the situation.  Before we can find out what, we're back on Torfa where the Spartax troops are pushing a crowd of Torfans around.  Eleanides says:

Eleanides: "Emperors do not stay Emperors when word gets out they slaughter children."

But the Spartax commander on the ground says because they refused to leave the posion planet "no one will know or care."  Back in space, Captain Marvel says the one thing she can give the people of Torfa is time as she attacks the Spartax ships.

Eleanides says she told her to leave, Captain Marvel also says she asked her if she could live with the death of her people on her conscience.  "Can you work a bit of diplomatic magic?" she asks Eleanides.  Eleanides calls B-Bop who has discovered the vibranium mine.  She tells him to evacuate it and the area around it as fast as he possibly can.

She asks Jackie how many of their fighthers are air worthy.  Jackie says two now, so Eleanides orders her and Gil to get them in the air.  Before Jackie leaves her girlfriend tels her "you come back to me."  And they have a snog, "Always and forever" responds Jackie, hooray for space lesbians!

Of course they could be monogendered like the Asari, but I'm still claiming this one for the gays!

Eleanides then orders everyone there to sit down, then she sends some coordinates to Captain Marvel.  Captain Marvel says as soon as she leaves to go to them the Spartax forces will come down on them like a hammer.  But Eleanides says she has sent replacements.

Jackie: "One warrior goddess and one comically oversized goat at your service!"

Gil:  "Hey I resemble that remark!"

Jackie and Gil with some fancy flying, keep the Spartax forces occupied while Captain Marvel heads to the vibranium mines.  J'son's hologram appears giant sized to the large group on the surface of Torfa.  He says they all should have died when they Builders destroyed their worlds and he can take what he pleases from their planet.

J'son is thwarted, hah!

Captain Marvel then blows the vibranium mines up rendering them useless for at least 200 years.  J'son is enraged by this saying he'll destroy them all now.  Then Tic butts in.  She and the other prisoners overcame the Haff keeping them prisoner and now thanks to their networked ships, J'Son is broadcasting to the whole galaxy.  J'son admits defeat but says he won't forget this to Captain Marvel and the Spartax forces withdraw from Torfa.

The final page shows Captain Marvel sneaking away from the celebrations, but Jackie catches her.  Captain Marvel says she hates goodbyes, but Jackie thanks her and Captain Marvel departs with a photo of her, Eleanides, Jackie, Gil, Tic and B-Bop pinned up in the cockpit.

D'awww.  The end.

I really enjoyed this!  Maybe I have spent too long immersed in the grimdark of DC's New 52, Oldboy and Garth Ennis's Punisher, but having a breezy, fun, unabashedly heroic superhero doing proper superheroic things without horrible and tragic consequences felt suddenly refreshing to me.  DeConnick manages to set up Captain Marvel as having some doubts about her place in the universe but finding herself out in space by being challenged to step up and help save an entire world using her intelligence and raw power.  Her motley crew of alien friends are given more character in the space of six issues than I've read in entire runs of other comics (*coff* Demon Knights *coff*), I hope they reappear at some point along with Eleanides, because that lady is badass.  Putting Captain Marvel is space was a great idea because it frees her from much of the Earth-bound Marvel continuity and so makes an excellent jumping on point for newbs like me. The art by David Lopez is great as well, crisp, bright with bags of character it does exactly what it needs to, to complement the writing.  I also like Captain Marvel's superhero costume, it's modest and practical and there are no endless boob-butt poses many female characters get saddled with, she's drawn with a trim and realistically female figure. Really I was predisposed to like Carol Danvers just for being a cat lover, but her personality both fierce and kind when each are needed makes her very attractive and I shall definitely be getting the next trades in the series now along with other Marvel series I have had recommended to me in a similar vein like Hawkeye and Ms.Marvel.  So while this blog will probably still remain somewhat slanted towards DC because I think next year is going to bring the first set of trades from the DCYou that look pretty cool, there will be more for Marvel fans to enjoy as well.

The Punisher MAX Book 4: Up Is Down And Black Is White (#19-24)

TRIGGER WARNING:  Holy shit, I don't usually bother with
trigger warnings but I think I'll make an exception this time. Older female on male child abuse and incest.  Ick.

"You made it personal Cavella.  But all that buys you is a little more pain than most" - Frank Castle

This fourth book in Garth Ennis's acclaimed Marvel MAX "mature readers only" imprint run of The Punisher is probably the darkest in the whole run.  It doesn't reach the emotional heights of later volumes, but the sheer depravity of the main villain and the fucked up things he and the Punisher get up to in their conflict with each other probably makes it the most hardcore of the run (except perhaps for volume 6 but I don't have that one).  This volume sees four returning characters and provides the crossover point between the ongoing mafia plotline and the ongoing CIA/US military one.  Coming back are the vile mobster Nicky Cavella from volume one who survived Frank's all out assault on the New York Mafia. The ex-CIA agents Roth and O'Brien also from volume one who were involved in a CIA backed plot to use the Punisher as an assassin abroad. And finally the despicable CIA operative Rawlins from volume three who masterminded a US military backed hijacking of an aeroplane by a group of Islamic terrorists he had groomed while in deep cover in Saudi Arabia.  All collide in a tale of past and present horrors that sees The Punisher driven to the edge of sanity while also containing some surprising alliances. Events take place in this volume that will have reverberations right up to the final page of the final volume in the series. Let us continue.

Frank's family

It begins at the grave of Frank's murdered wife and children.  Nicky and his female bodyguard Tessie (sister of Inky from book one) are digging up the remains.  "I know how to get you, you son of a bitch.  I finally figured it out" says Nicky as they work.  The action then moves to ex-CIA agent O'Brien, currently incarcerated in a women's prison for reasons that are never elaborated upon.  Some inmates try to attack her but she takes them down easily.

Then we check in on current CIA agent Rawlins who is meeting with the Generals from book three and who still want to use him.  They admit to having "a bit of fallout" from the hijacking operation and Rawlins realises they want him to deal with the "loose end" of the Punisher's involvement.  The Punisher, meanwhile, is taking down a load of gang members involved in a dope deal who were trying to fill the void left by Frank taking out most of the East Coast Mafia in book one.

Talking of the mafia, Nicky Cavella meets with what's left of them and offers them a deal:

Nicky: "I'll teach you what you need to know an' the shit you gotta do to put this thing a' ours on top again.  The price is you make me boss".

They are resistant to this idea, especially if it puts them in the Punisher's line of fire but he tells them to go away and watch the six o'clock news that night then think of giving him a call.

Back with O'Brien, the inmates who attacked her earlier come back and in the struggle leave a bloodied shiv in her hand.  She looks out of her cell and sees a stabbed to death guard and realises she is being set up.

Nicky defiles the grave.

The news that night leads on a video of Franks family's remains dug up and being urinated on by Nicky.  Watching in a bar, someone says "that guy is going to go fuckin' berserk".  And the chapter ends with a coldly and calmly furious Frank also in the bar watching the footage unfold.

The next chapter focuses on Nicky Cavella's history.  It flashes back to his father being walked into the woods at gun point by an eight year old Nicky, who has also just killed his mother and twelve year old sister.  He shoots his father with glee and the action returns to the present day.  The remaining Mafia bosses are discussing his offer in another room.  One is resistant saying Nicky is a psycho, Tessie offers to kill him.  "Not yet" says Nicky.

Back in the past, there are mafia goons at the scene of the massacre and Nicky's auntie Mo turns up.  Nicky says it was her brother who did the killing, so Mo authorises the mafia people to go and kill him.  When she and Nicky are alone she congratulates him for carrying out her plan to the letter, and that they'll both get what's coming to them.  Now she is the boss of the family she allows Nicky to sit in on meetings to train him up.

The action then jumps forwards a few years and Mo and Nicky are having sex.  I'm not sure how old Nicky is here, but he looks like he is in his mid-teens at most, plus it's fucking incest!  However this is proving a little too much for Nicky and we get a panel showing tears in his eyes and a look of horror and distress on his face at what is happening to him.

Kudos to artist Leandro Fernandez for his rendition of this upsetting panel.

It's a fascinating choice this panel.  Nicky was irrevocably broken before this abuse happened, but it's typical of Ennis to find a way to humanise the monster if only for a short time because no matter what he does, you can't help being haunted by the image of a teary eyed boy being raped by a female relative.  Well played Ennis.  Then Mo takes him downstairs to kill a man who owes the family money as a birthday treat.

In the present, one of the mafia bosses comes out to use the toilet and tells Nicky he'll never agree to him becoming boss, so Tessie murders him while he is using the facilities.  Returning to the past, we see Mo and Nicky in bed together again, he's older now and just been "Made" (ie: become a full member of the mafia).  Now he doesn't need her anymore he suffocates her.

Then we get to see him in action as a mobster.  He is meeting with a Chinatown gang boss called Kai who is eating while they talk.  Kai says he has three strong sons and a bloodline that goes back thousands of years, to him the Italians are peasants and that they need to keep "the fuck out of my affairs".

"Two strong sons" says Nicky calmly.  Turns out he and Inky and Pittsy killed Kai's youngest boy and turned him into the food Kai is eating.  Then suddenly Nicky shoots Kai's other two sons.  But doing this gets him in trouble with the higher ups in the mafia who says there'll be a war now and Nicky needs to leave town for a while to allow things to blow over, much to his annoyance.

Negociation, Cavella style.

Back in the present, Tessie tells Nicky that the rest of the mafia bosses have accepted his deal and will make him boss.  Nicky tells her to tell them to leave for now and when he is alone, he looks out over the city and bids a hearty "fuck you" to everyone in his past so far.

Frank gets suited and tooled up ready for a night out.  O'Brien meanwhile has escaped from prison and arrives at fellow ex-agent Roth's flat.  He tells her after the events of book one (where he had his testicles cut off) he was pensioned out.  She found out where he lived because he put his address on the letter he sent asking her where his balls were.

Roth: "I...I went a bit funny for a while.  I was sending those letters to everyone.  I even took out ads in the papers."

O'Brien asks him to set her up with a new identity then sees the front page of the newspaper reporting on the defilement of Frank's family's remains.

A bad thing is about to happen.

At a nightclub, Frank bursts in on where a load of criminals are meeting and gets ready to start shooting.  Back with Roth and O'Brien she is disgusted by the constant repeated coverage of the video of Nicky pissing on the remains, "there are somethings that ought to be sacred" she says.  Roth searches the CIA database and tells her that her ex-husband is in town, who turns out to be Rawlins.  She immediately asks Roth if he can get her a gun.

In the nightclub the police are contemplating a scene of utter carnage.  They find one man, badly injured but still alive with a message from the Punisher, "he said you have to bury his family" the man gasps out.  Then one of the police gets a call that the Punisher has done it again.  In total Frank kills sixty-eight people that night, one left alive at each scene to deliver the same message.

The police give out a statement that the remains are being held as evidence and they won't give in to violent intimidation.  Nicky watches the news with satisfaction saying the Punisher wants things right with his family before he comes after them.  Then someone comes to see him, turns out to be Rawlins.

Rawlins: "Been a long time Nicky.  Almost as long as my goddamn dick.  You miss me?"

We see Frank carrying out one of the massacres.  As he does so he thinks about a dream he has, where after killing all the criminals he turns his gun on the watching innocents, "if my world ends, I tell them, so does yours".  Then he wakes up and tells himself it's just a dream... just a dream.

Frank's total destruction dream

Lost in his fantasy we see him sitting amongst a scene of total devastation.  Then he sees his family, "Frank. We're still dead" says his wife and he wakes with a start.

Frank: "Never known anger like this before.  Not raging.  Not even burning.  Just colder and colder by the minute.  Building inexorably.  Towards something that has to be."

Rawlins and Nicky are arguing.  Rawlins says Nicky hasn't got the men with the ability to finally kill off the Punisher for good.  But if Nicky acts as bait, Rawlins will take him out, "real simple".  They know each other from the past when Nicky moved the drugs Rawlins was bringing back from various warzones. He then slithers down Nicky's body and starts giving him a blow job.

Negociation, Rawlin's style.

O'Brien is watching through the binoculars with disgust.  She tells Roth that on her and Rawlin's honeymoon he kicked her out of a damaged helicopter over Kabul to save a cargo of heroin.

O'Brien: "Then the mujahs got me."

Roth: "What happened..?"

O'Brien: "What the fuck do you think happened?"

She returns to scoping out Nicky's crew, while Roth says quietly "I never knew."  She shrugs it off, but unlike an Alan Moore rape victim she isn't done with it yet, she just has more urgent things to do right now which is figure out what her ex-husband is up to. Then we cut to a meeting of the important figures running the city arguing about what to do about the Punisher.  After some impassioned debate they decide to bury his family's remains and hope that he and Nicky take each other out when the Punisher seeks his revenge.

Back with Nicky and Rawlins, Rawlins tells him that Tessie is in love with Nicky who is disbelieving.  Nicky then tells Rawlins to show him some respect in front of his men.  Rawlins responds by twisting Nicky's arm up behind his back and saying that if anything happens to him a "home movie" he shot of Nicky confessing his past (killing his family, being abused by his aunt etc) in his sleep while they were staying in a hotel together will do the rounds.

Frank walks into a killzone.

The announcement is made that Frank's family will be reburied.  With that sorted, Frank sets his sights on Nicky.  He knows he is walking into a death trap but the rage propels him onwards.  Rawlins tells Nicky to sit out in the open, because he made it personal and The Punisher is going to want to look him in the eye before killing him.  Rawlins will snipe him from an opposite building when he walks up to him.

Frank drives on thinking he can feel the crosshairs on him but the rage says go forwards, Rawlins has him in his sights but doesn't hear O'Brien coming up behind him.  Before Frank can kill Nicky the sniper bullet hits Nicky instead, O'Brien has Rawlins' gun and starts laying down covering fire yelling at Frank to "get the fuck out of there!"

Frank takes a blast to the chest and gets a wake-up call.

Tessie fires a shotgun into Frank's chest which his vest absorbs but which knocks him down flat unable to move.  After firing a few more rounds, O'Brien tosses an unconcious Rawlins into a dumpster and climbs down before wrestling him into the boot of Roth's car.  Frank is still lying on the ground trying to move and emboldened the mobsters start to come out to get him, O'Brien runs the first one down and Frank is able to heave himself into the car.  They make their getaway.

O'Brien introduces herself and Roth, saying anyone her ex-husband wants to kill "can't be all bad."  Frank feels like he's finally thinking clearly and recognises her from the clusterfuck in book one.  O'Brien assures him that she and Roth are ex-company now and if he doesn't believe them he can get out the car.

Nicky meanwhile isn't dead.  The bullet went through his vest and penetrated him but only just.  He and Tessie follow O'Brien and wait outside Roth's place to figure out what to do next.  Inside they have Rawlin's tied up because O'Brien thinks he might be useful still.  She wants to pump him for information or Frank gets a turn with him, Rawlins sneers he's been tortured by pros and they won't break him.  O'Brien leaves him with Frank.

Rawlins is such a shit.

In Nicky's car, Tessie says to Nicky they could "do it right here and now".  But he misunderstands and thinks she is talking about killing Frank.  Rawlins of course squeals after a session with the Punisher and tells them he's cleaning up a loose end from the Russian job.  Roth suggests they get him confessing on tape for potential blackmail purposes.  He goes out to buy more booze and O'Brien tends to the bullet wound in Frank's arm.

O'Brien: "I've been in prison for eighteen months, when we get through here you wanna jump in the sack?"

Frank: "Sure."

In Nicky's car, Tessie can't hold back any longer and tries to kiss him.  "Get your hands off me you fuckin' pig!" Yells Nicky at her.  We return to Frank and O'Brien lying in bed having a post-coital chat.  She says she decided to help him when she saw Rawlins was involved and because of what Nicky did to his family's remains.

A rare moment of calm.

She says The Punisher shouldn't have ended his career walking into a trap.  She admits her love for broken bad boys and they start to make love again (interestingly there is a heavy implication here that she's the CIA agent from the final arc of DC's Hitman series, a nice little easter egg for Ennis fans).

In Nicky's car he is on the phone to his boys but they are too scared to come and help him. In a rage he leaves Tessie to watch Roth's flat and goes to talk to them in person.  But she breaks into the flat and looms over the now sleeping Frank and O'Brien.  She stabs Frank in the shoulder and punches O'Brien hard in the face.  A brief, but bloody struggle ensues which ends when O'Brien gets her hands on a machine gun and empties the clip into Tessie.  "Well I'm awake" she says.

Attack of the Tessie.

Meanwhile things aren't going well for Nicky in his meeting with the rest of the mafia.  One of them chews him out for his plan getting five of his men killed and that they are fed up with people like Nicky using them.  He appeals to their sense of loyalty, but:

Mafia Goon: "Funny thing about that shit, Cavella.  Omerta an' loyalty an 'all resta it.  Works out real fuckin' well for guys like you, don't seem to do much for guys like us."

And they leave him fuming impotently.  Back at Roth's flat, O'Brien and Frank patch each other up.  Then they record Rawlins confessing the Generals plan from book three.  Rawlins now missing an eye courtesy of Frank.  Frank and O'Brien leave to make copies of the confession, O'Brien tells Roth to watch himself round Rawlins who might be tied up but is still "lethal".  As they wait for the lift, O'Brien ruminates on the fucked up nature of her and Frank's world.

O'Brien: "I look at my life and I can't remember a time when the world wasn't the wrong way round."

Frank: "Up is down and black is white.  One day you wake up and you see that's how the world is."

Outside they see Nicky arriving back and realise he doesn't know Tessie is dead.  Nicky sees them too and grabs a passer-by and holds a gun to his head saying he gets to walk away or he kills him.  But Frank advances on him saying he won't shoot, because he's a coward.

Frank: "Hurt the boy and you die bad.  You know that.  But there's a part of you that still thinks if you let him go, you've got a chance. And that part of you won't shut up."

It's all over for Nicky.

The fight goes out of Nicky and he slumps, letting the hostage go.  O'Brien runs back up to get Roth but finds him dead and Rawlins gone.  Frank tells her to get out of town and never come back.

We jump forwards to Frank having driven his car deep into the wilderness.  Nicky tied up in the boot.  Nicky begs and pleads for his life, but Frank is not moved.  He tells Nicky he's going to shoot him in the gut so his insides fill with shit, "you'll die of blood poisoning, maybe take a couple of nights to do it."  He then blasts Nicky in the stomach and walks away.

Frank: "Out in the woods, the air is clear.  Everything the right way round.  The world is true.  Time to go home."

I mean seriously, it's all over for Nicky.

And that completes Book Four.  Some pretty damn intense stuff in this storyline, the mafia plotline isn't over with the death of Nicky and the video confession from Rawlins will be playing a major part in events to come.  Nicky is a fascinating monster, interesting that he is gay, though not surprising when you think his experience of heterosexual sex mostly comes courtesy of his dreadful aunt.  I don't think Rawlins is bisexual, he reminds me a lot of Dojima/Kakinuma in Old Boy which I covered last month, he simply sees sex as a weapon to manipulate people with, a true sociopath.  By making it "personal" Nicky does manage to come the closest anyone has come yet to killing the Punisher, it was only pure luck that O'Brien was able to rescue Frank and snap him out of his cold rage. Leandro Fernadez's art keeps to the same gritty style of the previous artists with his faces especially well drawn and full of emotion.  Now unfortunately due to this run being out of print, volumes five and six are only avaliable for stupid money online.  So I'll be skipping them and diving right back into the Rawlins/O'Brien/Russia/Afghanistan plotline with book seven come February, join me then for my look at Book Seven: Man Of Stone. 

Alan Moore Obscurities: Fashion Beast (#1-10)

"All ours.  The beast is dead and it's all ours" - Jonni Tare

Fashion Beast is something of an oddity in the oeuvre of Mr. Moore.  It started life as a film script in the 1980's after Moore met ex-Sex Pistol's manager, ex-owner of a boutique called "SEX", ex-husband of Vivienne Westwood and general twat about town Malcolm McLaren and discussed making a film about the world of fashion with him.  The film of course did not get made and the script lay unused until in 2013 when the publishers Avatar decided to adapt it into a comic strip and was rejigged by Anthony Johnston to fit the medium a bit better, the art by Facundo Percio.  The story is a somewhat loose mixture of Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, set in a world that appears to be some kind of fascist state at war with another, probably  a modern English speaking country although older period details like carriages (drawn by men not horses though) give a more timeless feel.  It also contains two interesting takes on gender identity, a girl who looks like a boy dressed as a girl - Doll Seguin. And a boy who looks like a girl dressed as a boy - Jonni Tare.  The fact this story started out in a different medium and not adapated by him explains the fact it's not quite as meticulously structured as Alan Moore stories usually are, the issues don't build to any kind of climax they just end and pick up next chapter without a break.  I don't know how committed he was to the project, but the introduction he has written for the collected edition is very interesting and possibly the book is worth it just for that alone (I paid one penny for it on Amazon, it's not one of his more sought after or hard to find projects).  Anyway, onwards with the story.

The story begins with a long haired man, shrouded in darkness reading Tarot cards.  He is John Claude Celestine we later find out and he is up in his solitary room looking down on a stage with two women who'll be playing the part of the ugly sisters in this fairy story, they are Madame S and Madame D.  We then see the outside of the building, rising higher than any other in the city, with a huge neon "Celestine" sign on top of it.

Then we get a lengthy montage of people getting reading to go out, while fragmentary reports on TV's and radios establish the fact a war is on.  The people include the main protagonists, Doll and Jonni.  Doll walks out and has to deal with people thinking she is a man in drag which she brushes off with bitchy remarks.

Doll Seguin

She starts her evening job as the cloakroom attendent in a club called "The Catwalk" and she keeps up a stream of catty comments about people's coats as they hand them over (this is very reminiscent of Boy George and his job as a cloakroom attendent in London's first New Romantic club, which only let people in if they liked how they looked).  Jonni appears and tells Doll she "acts like some big model just 'cause you got this lousy hatcheck job."  Doll tries to ignore him but he keeps insulting her:

Jonni: "You're just like every failed stand up comedian who ever ended up serving in a delicatessan, you're insgnificant, you're insinsecere..."

The club fills up and Doll starts turning people away.  Jonni, having failed to provoke her, stomps off.  Doll remarks "loved the sweatshirt, hated her".  There is a singer on stage in the club and Doll leaves the cloakroom and goes and starts vogueing in the doorway lost in the music.  As she does so Jonni returns to the cloakroom and pulls off all the tickets on the coats and throws them in the air.  When Doll returns and finds the chaos, she is suddenly confronted by the club owner.

Jonni Tare

Doll is fired from the job, but as she walks home, overhears some people talking about Celestine auditioning new "mannequins" (models) so goes to the Celestine building to try her luck.  Standing in the queue, she gets to talking to another wannabe who tells her Celestine has a deformity and that's why he never comes out of his room.  She heard that his head is all lumpy, and has no bones in it and sits on his shoulders like a "squishy melon".

Doll's turn to audition comes and she strides down the catwalk with confidence.  Celestine indicates that she has been chosen and she is sent backstage to be dressed in something more "classic".  She is annoyed to find Jonni working there, and she yells at him "to keep your dyke hands off me!" as she still thinks he is a woman.  He winds her up, still thinking she is a man he says:

Jonni: "It's not like anybody here cares who you are, if you're a boy or a girl, or what.  Who gives a shit?  It's totally irrelevant".

Jonni being a dick to Doll.

Doll gets dressed up in the classic dress, which Jonni says is "overrated, ostentatious shit", it's also priceless.  Jonni leaves Doll to go find her some matching shoes and fury wells up inside her and she leaves the building via the fire escape, giving it the finger as she leaves.

She walks into a crowd and people compliment her and she starts to bask in the attention.  But then some severe looking women protesting about people prioritising fashion over war attack her and rip up the dress, leaving her tearful on the ground.  Jonni comes up to her and seeing her boob says "you're a girl".  When Doll snaps if that's relevant, Jonni scowls and says it's not.

Jonni then chews her out for getting the dress destroyed, and how it probably means the end of his career.  Doll points out he got her fired from her job in a similar way.  They argue some more and Doll realises Jonni is afraid of Celestine.  She says she'll return the dress, Jonni says she'll wind up dead.

Returning the ruined dress.

Doll returns to the Celestine building and walks into the large room overseen by Celestine's room.  She takes the shredded dress off and puts it on the mannequin in the middle of the room.  Celestine laments the state of the dress over the intercom, then asks her name.  When she tells him he says:

Celestine: "My mother gave me dolls.  She liked me to play with them.  I think you shall be my doll.  I think we shall play a game together".

He then hires her to be his principal model, and when he tells her the starting salary is fifty thousand US dollars she faints.  Later she is being dressed by a sulky Jonni and she revels in her new power over him.  He puts a coat on her and she demands to know why the outfit needs a coat.  "Because it's cold" he says.  Doll retorts that unless they are lucky they'll be suffering a frozen nuclear winter for the next ten years.  Meanwhile, Clestine continues to read the Tarot.

Time passes.  Doll gets another outift to model, and she thinks it looks perfect.  Jonni says it isn't and the jewel in the centre of the hat should be offset to the right.  Doll walks off and finds the Madames, when she describes the outfit as "it" they chide her saying it is "immaculate" not just some "it".  Doll then says she thinks it has a flaws and tilts the hat to the right to "offset the oblique line" just as Jonni said.  Outraged at her impudence, they take her up to Celestine's room.

"Meeting" Celestine.

He is in darkness and Doll cannot see him clearly, he pauses then says she is right about the hat.  Doll then goes to have her picture taken while Jonni works on designs of his own. The stockroom girl admires them and points out he draws Doll well, when Jonni realises this he screws the drawing up petulantly.

Later Jonni is dressing Doll in another outfit.  He finally articulates why he hates Celestine's designs so much.  He covers too much of the body in too many layers of fabric.  They don't allow for "sexual access" and the people who wear them?

Jonni: "Their whole sexuality ends up as perverted and claustrophobic as Celestine himself, everybody is afraid of their own bodies the way he is, everybody left gasping and fumbling in the dark."

After the photo session the Madames ask Doll if she has any suggestions for improvements to the new outfit.  She uses another of Jonni's ideas but doesn't give him credit for it.  In the dye room Jonni is in a foul mood.  The stockroom girl tentatively asks him out but he is too angry about Doll to notice, "I mean what is it?  What is it she's got?"  The stockroom girl says Celestine is infatuated with her and what she knows about clothes and tells Jonni about her suggestion for the hat with the jewel.

Jonni and Doll get physical.

This infuriates Jonni and when Doll rudely comes and asks him to attend to her, he throws a pot of red dye over her.  She pushes him backwards into the dye shelves and pots fall and mix on the ground where Jonni and Doll end up grappling.  The Madames appear and Madame S yells "Boy! Upstairs!" at Jonni.  "Boy?" says Doll, who still thought he was a woman up until then.

Jonni stands in the doorway of Celestines room and tells him he doesn't like Doll because "she doesn't give a shit about clothes.  Not the way I do".  Nor how Celestine did once either it seems.  He can't work with her attitude.  Celestine tells him he will have to.  Jonni tells him she stole his idea about the jeweled hat, but Celstine knows that too.

Jonni gets a well deserved punching.

Jonni tells Celestine he's been cooped up on his own in the dark for too long.  Making Doll his top model has made him a laughing stock he thinks.  And at least it was better when he was "gazing at his fucking mother" before he ended up alone.  This angers Celestine who knocks Jonni to the ground with a couple of punches.  Jonni asks why he doesn't just fire him because he knows he hates everything Celestine stands for.

Celestine: "I tolerate you because you despise my work and because yours is not the misery most in need of an ending".

Jonni leaves and Doll comes in complaining that as top model she should be able to get someone fired.  What's the point if she can't?  Celestine tells her to be silent and sit and he shall tell her the point.

He then goes on and gives a long speech about evolution.  He tells her about the various animals and insects that use patterns to decorate themselves.  "for in the image there is power!".  He tells her about cavemen wearing antlers and beads, and Nazi's in their stylish uniforms and mods and rockers battling on the beaches over their differing styles.

Celestine: "They knew it!  They knew the meaning of glamour; it's older, original mean.  Glamour means 'magic'.  Glamour is magic!"

He says clothes are "bigger than we are, are beyond the petty lusts and difficulties of the creatures that inhabit them".  He says he dreams of a world where clothes could exist without needing people to inhabit them.

Celestine: "To be a mannequin is to be the empty page on which that future is  scrawled, the doll through which its voodoo is worked that is the point of being a model."

Ah, fashion.

Doll is freaked out by all this, saying he's "nuts" and that she's not sure she can get that deep about fashion and maybe she should quit.  But Celestine then quietly admits "I..I am alone.  I need your company." When Doll says she thought he liked being alone Celestine says it's because his mother though it best he not "inflict his disfigurement upon others." His mother was the perfect woman who taught him all he knows about style.

Doll asks if his disfigurement really is that bad, it is he says.  He only has one mirror, a small hand mirror his mother gave him.  Only the Madames know what he looks like.  Doll looks in the mirror and realises it's a distorting one.  She says it makes everything look horrible.  Celestine says his ugliness has scarred the glass.  He tells Doll she is important to him, and she says can she see his face?  He reluctantly agrees and walks into the light.

Celestine.

And he's a perfectly normal, attractive man.  He asks Doll if he is very ugly?  And she says "yes" and quickly leaves as a tear trickles down his cheek.  Doll goes and confronts the Madames and says it's terrible, he's had the idea he's a freak beaten into him by his mother.  She was a monster.  Madame D says indeed she was a monster.

Madame D: "She shaped her son into the greatest artist of his kind that ever lived, and she did it entirely without weakness, without sentiment.  You see his genius comes only from his pain, without his suffering he would be nothing."

To tell him the truth now would destroy him, and Doll knows this which is why she didn't tell him either.  And Doll weeps silently for that which she has become complicit in.

The downside of fame.

More time passes.  Doll becomes a superstar model who gets mobbed by fans at events.  She returns to Celestine after one such incident, she complains that when she goes out she feels like she carries the Salon on her back.  Celestine says the place only requires one "hostage" and she doesn't have to remain "cloistered" there too.

He begins to dress her in his latest creation, an all black number.  When she comments on him being a hostage, he says "every cage has its way out... and when it's time to leave I'll know."  Doll asks him if his mother had a good body.  He said she had no body from the neck down.  No one found out what it was like, "she made sure of it."

He fits the pieces of the outfit to her keeping up a running, and somewhat seductive commentary about how the clothes compliment her body.  She becomes somewhat flustered and asks to leave for now, as she does so Celestine says she looks very beautiful.  She goes out on the balcony to look at the night sky.  Jonni appears and asks her how it feels to be a star?  He sneers that she has finally got what she wants.

Jonni: "You fit in perfectly here, with all this empty glamour, this whole morbid, claustrophobic denial of sex.  You fit like a glove."

And he walks off leaving her silent.  Doll returns to Celestine and tells and tells him she wants to get out of the Salon for a bit and check out the places she used to hang out at.  She asks if she can go tommorrow, "as short a time as that before you go?" he says.  She says she won't go if he doesn't want her too, but he responds that it's fine he has some tasks he's been putting off until he's alone to attend to.

Celestine's final design.

Doll is pulled through the streets and observes an odd scene where soldiers are forcing people to take all their clothes off and burning them on a massive bonfire.  She returns to her old flat and is startled by Jonni who lives in the same building she once did before moving into the Salon.  When he starts taking the piss out of her, she gets angry saying "I don't live and fucking die for your approval, okay?"

He apologises to her then says he wants to show her something.  He takes her to a street teaming with people, he sings the praises of the styles he sees there, people "wearing their clothing like flags" and "out here people's clothes mean something".  He says this is the real show, the real autumn collection.  He criticises Celestine's fashions again for being so anti-sex but this infuriates Doll who begins to walk away. 

Boy George predicted the War On Terror, it all fits now!

Jonni asks why she wants to miss the streetlife, "the energy that comes from real working people?"  Doll snaps that he is a middle-class suburban kid slumming it.  She actually grew up amongst these people.

Doll: "I heard 'em teaching their kids to say 'nigger'.  I saw 'em grabbing their dicks and grunting when any girl over thirteen walked past, had 'em shouting 'fucking queer' and 'fucking lesbian' everytime I changed my haircut.  I know all about the energy that comes from real working people and if you can transform it into anything worth a shit then you must be some kind of magician."

She leaves him and goes to the Catwalk Club, though it is only half full and only women and people with STD's now thanks to conscription.  She starts to dance in the doorway but isn't feeling it and returns to the Salon.  She goes up to Celestine's rooms and tells him she feels like the world out there is a faded echo of the Salon.  He speaks to her from inside the bathroom, saying he has enjoyed the time they have spent together.  She goes in and turns the light on and is horrified to find him in a bathful of bloody water, his wrists slashed and dying from the wounds.  He tells her why he did it.

Celestine: "I did it to be free of this dark life that is all I am permitted.  I have served at the altar of style for long enough and I am so very tired..."

Poor Celestine.

He says he couldn't have just left, it would have damaged the work which must continue and he is leaving the Salon to Jonni Tare, because he will destroy everything "he is the fire to my phoenix".  As he slips away Celestine says he would like to hear music for once which his mother never allowed.  Doll reluctantly sings to him and her voice rings out over the intercom.  The Madames come up to see what's going on and find them, Celestine is dead.

They demand to know what he said about the Salon and are enraged when they hear he's left it to Jonni.  Madame D says they must take steps to prevent this, if Doll agrees to get rid of him they have enough discarded Celestine designs to keep them going for years.  Doll says to them just to get him a job elsewhere.

Jonni is taken away.

At Celestine's funeral Doll wears the black outfit which was Celestine's final creation.  Then she sees Jonni being taken away by soldiers, the Madames have had him forcibly conscripted in the army.  A month later it is gnawing away at Doll and finally she calls the Army Headquarters and says that Jonni is a homosexual and thus unfit to serve under current military rules.

A couple of weeks later while trying on a new design under the gaze of the Madames, Doll sees someone up in Celestine's rooms.  It's Jonni, returned to claim his inheritance.  He tells them they shall be using his designs for the autumn collection, when the Madames protest he kicks them out.  He speaks with Doll about how the last two weeks in the army he was ridiculed for being gay, she says he's out now and he can fire her if he wants. 

Jonni returns.

She says Celestine's clothes are still being made, she half believes he isn't really dead the place is so haunted by him.  Jonni says when the public see his designs they'll know "the beast is dead."  He shows them to Doll who comments that they are "full of sex and dancing and stuff".  He shows her the final, crowning piece, a gorgeous unfancy wedding dress.  He wants her to wear it for the climax of the autumn show.

We then jump forward to said show, and his sparing, sexy designs are causing a sensation.  The Madames glower because people are scandalised and enjoying it at the same time.  Madame D sends Madame S to find Doll.  But when Madame S finds Doll getting ready to go out in Jonni's design she brands her a "traitor!" and comes at her with a pair of scissors, slashing Doll's stomach and staining the dress with blood.

The ultimate statement on um. something?

Doll escapes her and strides out onto the catwalk to the shock of everyone.  "That's pornography!" screams the show's commentator.  Jonni is shocked, then when Doll turns to him and smiles, he smiles back pleased at the outcome. It's possible that Jonni is meant to represent McLaren, but punk in its original art school phase, unlike disco or northern soul around at the same time was aggresively crude about sex, violent when it came to dancing, and very anti-sensual in it's use of sexual imagery which it used to disgust and horrify people.  From what little we see of Jonni's designs they seem to be light casual clubbing wear you'd see from the nineties onwards. Anyway, a riot ensues and the Madames are swept away by the crowd who are all running out to spread the word.  Jonni carries Doll up to Celestine's rooms, now Jonni's.

Doll: "You did it.  You turned street trash into sapphires and you blew the whole thing apart...The old ways are dead.  Celestines whole vision.  It means nothing now.  Now it's yours.  Your Salon.  Your vision.  All yours."

They kiss and get undressed ready to make love and Jonni picks up a mirror to check his hair and his eyes widen in horror at the distorted reflection he sees in it.  And so it ends.

Haha serves you right Jonni.

I am disappointed. I have to admit with fashion I am well, WELL out of my comfort zone, I found a look in 1992 and have stuck with it ever since. But on general terms, this whole story has a weirdly static feel to it, which I believe makes it obvious it's an adapted film script as it comes across as nothing more than a fancy storyboard.  A fairy tale set in the world of fashion should be constantly in motion, it demands the type of layouts seen in Promethea capturing the whirl and colour the story seems to demand.  Chaotic one moment and serene and quiet the next, the plodding pace of this story doesn't differentiate between the various moods depicted, especially towards the end where Jonni's new fashions should had been shown in much more detail to contrast with what had gone before. If the dull layouts and pacing should have been a deliberate choice to emphasize the stultifying nature of Celestine's designs, there still at least should have been a big contrast in content and layout when Jonni is talking about and then demonstrating his inspirations and designs.

For three panels Jonni and Doll are actually likeable.

I don't know how much of this lack of attention to the layouts can be blamed on Moore (who to be fair was writing for a different medium), the adapter, or the artist who was given the task of depicting a script that is very, very wordy and somewhat redundant in places, it could easily have lost a couple of issues rather than repeating its "sex is good, repression is bad" themes so heavy-handedly.  The art isn't awful, it's just bland and kills the otherworldly mood the story is trying to evoke.  There is, I admit some nice character work going on with Celestine himself, you do genuinely feel sorry for the guy and I like how the ills of a dystopian setting is subtlely alluded to with the implication that fashion is an escape for a society caught up in an endless war and this would have been especially revelant back in the 1980's when the script was first written, where playful, genderbending New Romantic fashions that were stylish and sexy for example had recently really perculated into the mainstream in a grim Thatcherite UK where Cold War panic was still strong.  But in the end it's hard to recommend this book to anyone other than the Alan Moore completist.  It's nice that the script finally saw the light of day, I just wish a better job had been done on it is all.