This will be new to me, sort of.

Despite having it playing in the background on streaming, or reruns from antenna TV, or both; I still bought Star Trek: the Original Series on DVD a couple months back. I should've sprung for the Blu-Rays, so I could get the orignal cuts, before digital effects were added. Granted, pick the right episode, and you'll see like 90% of the original Enterprise shots, but still. Similarly, next year's the 50th anniversary of the original Star Wars, and fans would love to be able to get a proper release of the non-Special Edition versions. (Or, you can see if this link still works!) I mention that, because I'm used to the special edition of this one; I'm not sure I've ever read it in the original format! From 1983, American Flagg! #1, "Hard Times, part one" Story and art by Howard Chaykin, letters by Ken Bruzenak, colors by Lynn Varley.

I've mentioned before, I've read this a million times, in the Hard Times graphic novel, collecting the first three issues of the series. The collection also features a bit more preamble, set as a news documentary playing while Reuben's flight was coming into Chicago. So, it was interesting to see this as an actual comic book, on surprisingly old-school paper; because back in the day, this was like a hand grenade shoved up a bull's ass on his way into the china shop. Longtime comics readers might remember a DC Comics house ad, hyping up their four spots on Amazing Heroes top ten books of 1984: DC had four spots, but upstart First Comics had #2 and #3, Mike Grell's Jon Sable, and American Flagg! Both were hits, from seasoned creators given more free rein than they would've got at Marvel or DC at the time (maybe ever) and both series had pretty solid runs until their creators got tired or bored and maybe didn't do all the work themselves anymore...but, we're getting ahead of ourselves.

American Flagg!--and Chaykin as well, I suppose--are largely known for being stylish, and smutty; possibly in equal measure. Which might not be entirely accurate, but this is a remarkably well lived-in vision of dystopia right out of the gate. Set in 2031, an idealistic, and fired, young actor named Reuben Flagg is shipped from Mars back to earth, for a term of duty in the Plexus Rangers. Flagg admits, his show Mark Thrust, Sexus Ranger was still on, but he had been cancelled; replaced by digital scanning technology called 'Tromplography,' one of multiple clever brand names Chaykin salts the book with. He's pressed into service right away, as it was time for the traditional Saturday night gang rampage; just like every week, after Bob Violence was over. (No points for seeing TV as the opiate of the masses, although he also sees actual drugs as said opiate, but even Chaykin couldn't predict streaming; all these programs were broadcast and apparently largely watched as they aired!)

Despite a, ahem, warm welcome from the local madame; Reuben soon finds out his boss Krieger is an asshole, and Chicago was packed full of armed gangs that wiled away the days by shooting at each other: the Plex not only supplied them with weapons, but taped their battles, for broadcast elsewhere. What the Plex actually is isn't clear at this point; it's like your local broadcaster also ran the cops, but it quickly becomes apparent that Reuben's job was going to be equal parts drudgery and ultraviolence; until next Saturday, when he happens to pass a TV with Bob Violence, and realizes the show was packed with subliminal, triggering messages. Krieger can't see them, and tells him to drop it; but talking cat Raul confides to Reuben, he sees them too. (Why Raul can talk isn't explained right away, except with Reuben just acknowledging it with "Talking cat. Right." I'm not positive it's ever explained, or that it needs to be.) Reuben, already fed up with how things were, throws down with a gang member he had previously bribed to "shoot high," knocking him out with a pair of electric 'buzz-knucks.'

When Krieger refuses to have Bob Violence pre-empted, his daughter Mandy helps Reuben, with a hasty-created signal jammer. (So far, it's unclear if Mandy likes Reuben, or just hates her dad; could be both!) Furious, Krieger gets strapped, figuring the gangs would go extra-nutso, without their favorite show...to be continued! I didn't really read American Flagg! in it's heyday, since it wasn't sold in newsstands--or grocery or convenience stores, where I would've been getting comics at the time! Also, maybe they wouldn't have sold it to a twelve-year old, although suggestive, this wasn't as far as Chaykin would go later. (Two words: Black Kiss.) But after Hard Times, the next issue of the series I read was randomly picking up AF! #33, which didn't feature Chaykin at all! Much later, I know I did get a few issues of the revival Howard Chaykin's American Flagg! but just recently I grabbed about half the first series from the dollar bins. Which might get us about to where Chaykin starts to leave the book, we'll see how they go!