It only took, um, a little less than
two years, but we have the conclusion of this one: from 1993,
Pinhead vs. Marshal Law #2, "Hell to Pay" Written by Pat Mills, art by Kevin O'Neill. Shiny, embossed, super-great cover that's not going to scan properly: find yourselves a copy, pronto! Such sights to show you...
Pinhead has the Marshal and his girl Super Nova on the mat here, because the Marshal is as much as a tease to him: Pinhead's master Leviathan subsisted on mankind's suffering, and let's be honest: the Marshal had dispensed more than a little of it. The Marshal's deputy/assistant/undiscovered serial killer Razorhead led a batch of
disposable cannon fodder super-heroes to rescue his boss; as both the Marshal and Super Nova (I think she may accidentally be called "Seraph" here, or maybe I misread it) rally against Pinhead: the Marshal admitting, he was basically a super-hero himself, while Super Nova believes the universe should be more than pain and sadism. Which reads as willful naivety here.
The Marshal manages to reach out to Pinhead's past life, as a World War One officer, where he had seen unimaginable suffering, in the name of gaining a mere six miles of ground. "The Best of British." Pinhead also alludes to the idea that the trauma of past deaths carried onto current physical ailments: acne was probably evidence of the bubonic plague in a past life, for example. As the super-heroes get brutally chewed up in the no-man's land of WWI, the Marshal basically sells those "
costumed bozos" to Pinhead, as imposters, phonies ruining whatever heroism was to be had there. Back in the real world, Super Nova calls Razorhead out as a serial killer, which the Marshal downplays as mere fantasies. Which might be naivety on his part. Super Nova breaks up with him, realizing he was not going to stop hating heroes, and the Marshal finds if not new love, willing partners going forward, unrepentant.
The series as a whole leaves you to ask yourself: Super Nova would wonder, is this suffering absolutely necessary? While the Marshal and Pinhead seem to agree, those assholes have it coming.
Nice- seems a bit talky, even for Marshal Law. Which reminds me- remember how I was having trouble finding even issue #1 a while back? Well, I somehow stumbled on the first half of the complete publication history in a dollar bin a few weeks ago- everything up to The Hateful Dead. It's pretty great so far, though I'm still hoping to find the rest (or at least the Mask crossovers).
ReplyDeleteI can thank Goo for hooking me up with the 1st issue of the original 80’s Marshall Law series. Honestly there’s so much to unpack in just that one issue, that it more than satisfies the reader’s needs. Definitely can’t say that about most modern first issues of new series these days.
ReplyDeleteThanks to your previous blogging of the first parts of this series, I sought after & read the whole thing, and it was pretty damn good. Definitely would not mix those particular two main characters together, but somehow it works, both as former fellow soldiers, but also as two characters that seem to enjoy inflicting pain and misery on people while seemingly no longer feeling either of those things anymore themselves. Wouldn’t have minded a sequel to this, with maybe Alan Moore or someone or his caliber writing one.
I doubt Pat would go for that- he's very protective of his characters and doesn't want anyone else writing them. He even re-writes his own stories decades on, he's so particular about it. Wouldn't want anyone but Kev O'Neill on it anyway, and that's not happening anymore.
ReplyDeleteSad but true on that account. RIP
ReplyDelete