I've often said that I have eclectic tastes, and I think that's been reflected in the diverse titles I have reviewed here. That is certainly true of this column's selections. First, I look at Boy In My Pocket, the latest publication featuring Dean Haspiel's everyman Billy Dogma and his gal Jane Legit. I'd definitely classify this as a "small press" title. On the other hand, the second book I look at, Uncanny X-Men #390, is about as mainstream as you can bloody well get! Fair warning: there are MASSIVE SPOILERS for the X-Men issue. Yes, it's been out a couple weeks already, but I thought it wise to warn you anyway.
This week's rating system will be five cows.
Boy In My Pocket, $2.95 US, published by Top Shelf Productions
Writer, Pencils & Inks: Dean Haspiel
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 cows
Dean Haspiel's Boy In My Pocket is billed as a part of "The Billy Dogma Experience," a series of stories and vignettes focusing on, appropriately enough, Billy Dogma and his girlfriend Jane Legit. Billy is an offbeat character, the vehicle through which Haspiel examines and critiques the society we live in. It's keen satire with a definite flair for off-the-wall humor.
The focus of Boy In My Pocket falls upon Jane Legit. The story starts off with the aftermath of yet another attempt by Billy to get a "real" job, i.e. a 9 to 5 affair with a steady paycheck. As in the past, Billy's individualism and creativity ran smack-dab into the conformity and bureaucracy of office work. This time, the result lands Billy in the hospital. Billy tells Jane he just can't contemplate how Jane can put herself through the 9 to 5 routine, day in and day out. Jane tells Billy to just be happy, and let her worry about life's practicalities. Heading off to work at About Face Magazine, Jane is soon sucked into the morass of the workday, juggling boredom, annoying co-workers, ridiculous deadlines, and uninspiring assignments. Throughout the day, she daydreams of Billy impetuously charging into her office to whisk her away to excitement and romance. We see that Jane's pragmatic nature and infinite patience are the yin to Billy's idealistic, dreaming yang. Billy approaches life as it should be, while Jane recognizes life as it truly is. The two compliment one another well. Billy provides Jane with excitement and unpredictability. Jane provides Billy with stability and a connection to reality.
At this point in my life, I can certainly relate to Jane and Billy. Like Jane, I understand the necessity of earning a living, of being responsible. But, like Billy, I also despair at the unending, monotonous grind of the eight hour work day, and I long to find a different path. Through Jane, we see that work by itself is not enough. A paycheck alone can't keep you going. You need more to your life. You need meaning. Jane's meaning is Billy. He is a part of what gets her through the day, of what makes her life worth living. I can only hope that I find as worthwhile a reason. If good literature is defined by how the reader is able to connect with it and relate to it, then Boy In My Pocket is indeed a superb work.
The story also showcases the strengths of sequential illustration. The way this story is structured and presented, I cannot see it having been done as a piece of prose fiction or as a moving image on a screen. The synthesis of pictures and dialogue captions in necessary to tell the tale. Comic books are often maligned and underestimated because a major part of their output is substandard, hackneyed fare. It is the work of creators such as Haspiel that helps demonstrate the true potential of the medium.
The second feature of the book is a bizarre adventure of Volcano Girl. A silent tale, it is well-rendered by Haspiel. While it wasn't really my thing (I would have preferred more of Billy and Jane) it does complement the main story well. The focus of the Volcano Girl tale is of two opposites in a relationship. Here, though, we see how such drastic differences sometimes mean that the relationship will not work out. I don't know if it was intentional on Haspiel's part, but the Volcano Girl segment is an interesting contrast to the relationship between Billy and Jane.
There's not much more that I can really say about Boy In My Pocket. It is one of those works that you really do need to read for yourself, in order to have a full appreciation for it. As a both humorous and contemplative look at work and relationships, it is well worth checking out.
Uncanny X-Men #390, $2.25 US, published by Marvel Comics
Writer: Scott Lobdell; Pencils: Salvador Larocca; Inks: Townsend, Stucker, Vines, Hanna, & Miki (whew!)
Rating: 3 out of 5 cows if Colossus stays dead, 1 out of 5 cows if he's resurrected
Yes, Colossus dies! I did warn you about those MASSIVE SPOILERS, didn't I?!?
Uncanny X-Men #390 at long last wraps up the subplot of the Legacy Virus that has been present in the X-Men books since the early 1990s. The Legacy Virus, like so many other X-Men storylines in the last decade, was a decent enough idea that faired pretty dismally in its actual execution. The virus was created by Stryfe, an insane anarchist mutant terrorist from the distant future. The virus targeted mutants, and caused its victims to die a painful death. Marvel probably meant the Legacy Virus to be an allegory for AIDS, but this didn't work for a number of reasons. First of all, the introduction of the virus never made much sense, and seemed rather contrived. Why, exactly, did Stryfe create and release the virus? We were never given a reason, aside from the fact that Stryfe was an insane anarchist who had an unhappy childhood and wanted everyone else to suffer. That's it. So, from day one, the Legacy Virus seemed more like a plot device than an actual, thought-out storyline with a definite direction.
A much more significant problem with the Legacy Virus was that even though it was supposed to be a virulent, airborne pathogen, not too many characters ever actually caught it, much less died from it. Early on, a few characters of medium importance, such as Illyana Rasputin and Mastermind, did die. But afterwards, a series of increasingly minor characters were stricken with it. A large number of unnamed mutants from the island of Genosha were wiped out by the Legacy Virus, but none of the X-Men themselves ever had so much as a runny nose! Moira MacTaggert, a human, inexplicably got it, but never seemed to suffer any symptoms. Long-time X-Men foe Pyro was infected, but unlike the early victims, he took forever to die, finally reaching the end only a couple of months ago. Maverick caught the virus, was sick for a while, and then had it go into remission just in time for his ongoing monthly series to start up! And amidst all this, there would be long stretches of issues where the Legacy Virus would be barely mentioned, aside from Moira or the Beast occasionally muttering "Gosh, still haven't found a cure, better get back to work." To most readers, the Legacy Virus became yet another subplot-that-wouldn't-die.
Apparently Scott Lobdell was brought onboard the X-Men titles to "clean house" and clear up all the dangling plotlines, providing a fresh start for Grant Morrison and Joe Casey in a few months. And so, in his first issue, Lobdell attempts to resolve the long-running Legacy Virus subplot. Unfortunately, it has been so long since that anything major actually happened with the storyline, that the conclusion doesn't have much of an impact. When the Beast announces he's discovered the cure, it is not so much dramatic as it is anticlimactic. A narrative caption on page one, as we see the Beast working in his lab, proclaims "he's about to save the world." That melodramatic declaration caused me to laugh ironically. After all, as I pointed out earlier, it's not like the Legacy Virus was actually doing much of anything, making it difficult to take the disease's supposed threat seriously.
In any case, the cure, once activated by injecting a mutant subject with it, will become airborne and spread around the globe. Unfortunately, the Beast quickly realizes that the first person to use the cure will also be killed by it. On the one hand, this is a dramatic, ironic twist. On the other hand, it makes absolutely no sense in scientific terms. Not that I claim any specialized scientific knowledge. And, yeah, most things in superhero comics fly in the face of plausible science! But it comes across as a horribly contrived attempt to wring one last ounce of pathos out of this plotline.
So, the X-Men are left with a dilemma. They feel they have no right to ask anyone to sacrifice their life to cure the Legacy Virus. But, if it isn't cured, countless lives will (ostensibly) be claimed by the virus. The strength of issue #390 is that, instead of the X-Men finding a last-minute solution to the problem, in the end it does require the sacrifice of one person to release the cure. And that person is Colossus. He injects himself with the cure, sacrificing his life to end the virus.
I have to admit, it's a pretty bold move to kill off a character who is one of the most identifiable X-Men, who has been around for twenty-five years. And Colossus' sacrifice does make sense within the context of what has happened to the character in the last decade worth of stories. Colossus has seen his brother return from the dead, go mad, die, come back from the dead again, and die again (I think). He's seen his parents murdered by his own government. He's watched helplessly as his sister Illyana became one of the first to die from the Legacy Virus. He's suffered brain damage, quit the X-Men, joined forces with Magneto's Acolytes, seen most of the Acolytes killed, and returned to the X-Men with a much grimmer outlook. In short, his entire world has fallen down around him. In a way, he still blames himself for Illyana's death, for not having found a way to save her. It's an irrational, but all too human, guilt. Having come to seriously doubt that he can in any way make a difference or change the world, it is understandable that Colossus would sacrifice his life in a way that he knows will, without a doubt, save countless lives. The last page depicts the X-Men gathered around their fallen comrade. The only text is an excerpt from Giant-Sized X-Men the first appearance of Colossus. It is a rather poignant ending.
(I should note that the majority of the above emotional turmoil and carnage was inflicted on Colossus by Scott Lobdell when he was writing Uncanny X-Men in the early 90s. So, it's darkly appropriate that Lobdell has now finally finished off Colossus.)
Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that my first remark upon reading #390 was "Okay, how soon until they bring him back?" Death in comic books is ridiculously transitory. Characters come back to life with alarming frequency. And so I am of course left expecting that, sooner or later, Colossus will be brought back through some contrived method.
That is the reason for my two ratings. If indeed Colossus is permanently dead, then this issue, despite it's various weak points, is still noteworthy for taking the bold, tragic step of killing a major character. But if Colossus returns, then this will have been nothing more than a cheap stunt, and the entire issue will just have been rendered nearly worthless for me. I hope Colossus stays dead. But I've seen far too many comic book resurrections to have much faith in that.