Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Fire, A Spy Graphic Novel (the Definitive Collection) by Brian Michael Bendis ::
by William the Bloody
Benjamin Furst is being followed. Not that he noticed for a while. And when he finally does notice and the girl approaches him, what she has to say changes his life. Basically, he was being watched as a potential agent for the CIA. The Agency wants to use Ben as sort of an experiment. Instead of recruiting agents from the military as per usual, but pulling someone anonymous out of the population with no emotional ties to a family or circle of friends. Ben accepts their offer and in 2 weeks he is packed up and shipped to a hidden training facility. Kept like a prisoner in this facility for 2 years and 3 months, he learned many things from books and was also taught how to fight and how to shoot. After training, he is placed in an inconspicuous little life and sent on missions around the world. Soon thereafter, though, things start to turn sour...
Fire is an interesting spy story. It has the necessary elements: intense training, international travel, the beautiful co-worker/sexual tension, murder, intrigue. It's all there, told through the eyes of the lead, Benjamin Furst. I think that this is why the story really comes through in most places, because of this first-person expression. The art is very dark and film-noir-ish.
The Good: Fans of Bendis these days will love the chance to look back on his earliest wide-recognition work, not only as a story teller, but also as an artist. People who have read any of Bendis' recent first-person POV stories like Ultimate Spider-Man and Alias, will know that this is how he really knows how to thrive and make a story work; by having us live it. You can really get a good feel for Benjamin, not only by what he tells us but by what he doesn't. Most notably the brief, one-page "I don't want to tell you about Brazil". scene. The art is very different by today's standard, though probably not so much for the time. It reminded me instantly of Mike Drigenberg who drew on Sandman, and I thought at first that he had. He really uses layout to tell a lot of the story, utilizing cascading panels and such. He made good use of the black and white medium, allowing for sharp contrasts to do their work. The whole style of the book as a whole really sets a certain mood, which is what many comic writers miss when creating; the chance to make a finished piece. This being the Definitive Collection edition, many things that looked awkward in the original publication were tidied up, and woo am I glad they did. I haven't seen the first print, but Bendis does some panel comparisons in the back to show the re-touch. The lettering was bad and had to all be redone. It was even mildly rescripted. Good job there, Bri.
The Bad: As far as the spy story goes it's eeehhh. It ain't that great. It feels like it's propelling to a huge payoff and yet never really does. It could just be me though. I only really enjoyed it because Benjamin was so real, not because of all the "spy stuff" going on, really. I think I would have found it much harder to sit through had it been the original version without the retouch. There are a few pages where Bendis is cramming in some major exposition and tries to do some sort of fancy ink/background effects and the character speaking is in white silhouette profile. Sorry, but the background images are too unclear. It all comes off looking like a way too dark photocopy of various things and are all splotchy.
All in all, it reads like a movie, which seemed to have been Bendis' intent. The characters were there and they can mostly make up for what the story was lacking. The whole book had a distinctive mood that I'm sure many could only wish to accomplish.
Overall: B-/C+ (I'm waffling here)
