Recommended Reading for 2/19: Nixon's Pals

In my trades and back issue reading, I've been on a Joe Casey kick lately, and I realized that I had never written about anything Joe Casey before, and I knew that immediately needed to be remedied, as Casey writes some of the most interesting comics on the racks, with his work often about the intersection between current culture, technology, corporations, and super-heroes. His work is sometimes deconstruction (Automatic Kafka and The Intimates), sometimes straight superhero with a twist (Adventures of Superman and Cable), sometimes a mix of the two (Wildcats and Uncanny X-Men), and sometimes something completely unique and interesting (Godland). The book I picked today is a perfect example of Casey's ability to bend and mix genres together in ways that few other writers can: Nixon's Pals, the story of the parole officer for Los Angeles's super-powered criminal set.

Things aren't going great for Nixon Cooper at the beginning of the graphic novel. He's fighting with his wife about the odd hours his job makes him keep, and he's about to do an after hours home visit on one of his parolees who has missed a couple of check ins. And when Nixon goes in to check on The Bricklayer, you quickly learn something about him: while he might work with super-powered criminals, Nixon doesn't have any super-powers of his own, as The Bricklayer basically beast the crap out of him, breaks his arm, and when the house comes down on them, it leaves Nixon far worse for wear.

Nixon's status as an everyman is part of what makes him such an interesting protagonist in this world of supercreeps. He's a good guy who really wants to do right by his parolees, especially when set against his coworker Carlisle who happily admits to enjoying smacking around his parolees. But the couple of days that the story takes place over are those kind of days that push an everyman beyond the point of no return, Falling Down style. He finds out his wife is cheating on him with a supercriminal; all his parolees seems to be sliding back towards their criminal past; and he's having these frighteningly realistic alien abduction nightmares. It's a bad day.

If Nixon wasn't a sympathetic protagonist, you might take some glee in watching his life collapse, but he is one, and so you're rooting for him. But he's also a realistic protagonist, and that means he isn't always the nicest guy. As much as his wife tries to explain to him what was going on with her to get her to the point where she'd cheat, he won't listen; as a matter of fact he's cold and bordering on cruel when dealing with her. It's not an easy situation to be in, but he's not helping it. And eventually he reaches the point where he feels like the system just isn't working, so violence becomes his answer. This is a super-powered character comic, so you expect a degree of action, but this isn't a guy who's fighting the good fight because that's what he does, this is a guy out for revenge much of the time, but while still trying to do right by the people who are his parolees. It's a slippery slope he spends much of the book sliding down.

And in the end, he doesn't solve his problems legally, but he confronts supervillains with supervillains, and he gets a new and different life. It's a noir ending, where not even the hero walks out unscathed in the best noir traditions. I write often about Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillip's comic book noirs, and my favorite is still Sleeper from Wildstorm (Joe Caeey also worked on a lot of great Wildstorm titles in that imprint's salad days), and if you're a fan of that book and its grey morality and crazy supervillains, this is right up your alley.

Surrounding Nixon are a group of parolees who are fascinatingly conceived supervillains. Sputter Kane is a man who can't miss with a firearm, and really wants to go straight. Maxfield Reactor is a guy walking around in a super-powered iron lung that gives his super strength and vents rocket fuel from his *ahem* derriere. And Alcehma is a former call girl turned stripper who has faces in her breasts and nipples where her eyes should be. In case you didn't get it before, this is NOT an all ages comic. There is also mad scientist Hugo Blivion, whose parole ended and he's out and about who has a real problem with Nixon, and is behind one of the book's most disturbing sequences.

That sequence is the continually more graphic and brutal alien abduction visions that Nixon experiences. Blivion is demonstrating his dream invasion tech on Nixon for the mob to see, and is doing it by trying to slowly drive Nixon insane with visions of alien experimentation on him. They're truly creepy and disgusting as they should be.

Chris Burnham, best known to me before this for his run on Batman Incorporated, is the artist in the book, and he really does great work here. He keeps Nixon looking like a normal guy even when surrounded by some truly obscene and bizarre figures. I don't know if the book was done full script or Marvel style, and how many of these villains sprang from his mind and how many were specifically designed by Casey, but if you factor in the tons of background villains in the restaurant where Nixon has his final confrontation with Black Eyed Pete, the never convicted super crook whose been sleeping with his wife, you know this is a guy with a wild imagination for grotesques in the best way.

But if you've stuck with this piece this long, here's a bonus recommendation, sine Nixon's Pals isn't the only Casey/Burnham collaboration. And as much about character as that book is, Officer Downe, a one-shot from Image from a couple years ago, is in many ways the opposite. So much of Nixon's Pals is understanding and liking Nixon, while Officer Downe is just a madhouse of chaos and violence.

Officer Downe is an immortalish LAPD officer who goes out and fights crime by killing it. He's brutal, packs a lot of firepower, and doesn't fear death. Everytime he dies, the collective telekinetic power of the world's most powerful psychic puts him back together and resurrects him, and he goes out and fights another day. It's one of the most brutal and bloody comics I've ever seen, and is told with a slapstick sensibility to it. In an interview at the back of the issue, Casey says he and Burnham worked off each other in a free form process, so this insanity is both of their brainchilds. There's not a lot more to say about this book other than if you enjoy a comic that's Judge Dredd meets Deadpool meets Axe Cop, then this is one to try. And a film is in post production starring Kim Coates (Sons of Anarchy) as Officer Downe.

Oh, fun fact, Joe Casey is part of the Man of Action collective, best known probably for Ben 10 and Generator Rex, and both of these books were published under the MoA banner, so for those of you who think that MoA is just for kids... yeah, not so much.

Nixon's Pals and Officer Downe are available at better comic and book stores in a nice premium hardcover format that expands on their original releases.

Recommended Reading for 6/29: Sleeper

This week, the first collection of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's excellent supernatural noir Fatale was released. But I'm not here to talk about Fatale today. Brubaker and Phillips have gotten a lot of attention the past few years for their work on Criminal and Incognito, creator owned books they did under Marvel's ICON line. But I'm not here to talk about those either. No, this post is about Sleeper, a series the two did together for Wildstorm in the early 2000s. It's their first major work together, and is still my favorite of their collaborations.

Sleeper is the story of Holden Carver, a spy who works for International Operations, IO for short, the Wildstorm Universe's answer to SHIELD or Checkmate. Carver is sent undercover, to infiltrate the terrorist organization created by the superhuman called Tao. Then Carver's handler, John Lynch, the only person who knows the treason Carver was accused of to get into Tao's graces was part of a plan, is shot and left in a coma, leaving Carver out in the cold. The series is a labyrinth of twists, turns, and uncertain loyalties. What exactly does Tao know about Holden's past? Can Holden trust anyone? Is Holden still a good guy, or has he "gone native"? Is Holden even sure where his loyalties lie anymore?

In my post about great Star Wars characters, I talked about Quinlan Vos, a character with a similar undercover mission and arc. If you know that character, take his situation and turn it up to 11. The world of Sleeper is one of the darkest I've ever read in a comic that starts out ostensibly tied to a superhero universe. This book is, at its heart, a spy thriller, and it hits every note of that genre perfectly. Cross and double cross, secret missions, the femme fatale, the old flame, all the tropes you'd expect are here, but none of them feel stale. Brubaker has infused them with his own ideas, and Phillips has brought them to life in his usual gritty style.

The capes and tights brigades that Jim Lee created, and even the more flawed ones created by Warren Ellis during his tenure, don't even really factor in, and if they do, they bend to fit the dark world of Sleeper, not the other way around. Tao was created by Alan Moore during his run on WildCATS, and both Lynch, the former mentor to Gen 13, and Grifter, current DC headliner and member of WildCATS, appear prevalently in the series, but for all the reader needs to know, they could be new characters. I had no experience with the Wildstorm Universe going into this series, and I didn't miss anything.

Sleeper is really the whole package, plot, art, setting, and character. I don't want to talk about plot too much, since that will spoil the numerous surprises, and I'll get to art, but what I really want to focus on in this recommendation is character, because that is what I feel really drives this story, and to talk about Sleeper's characters, open has to start with its lead, Holden Carver.

Holden is one of those wonderfully three dimensional characters that Brubaker has made his career around: conflicted, broken, and in a place where they have no way out. Throughout the course of Sleeper, we see Holden go from hero to villain to maybe hero again if he was ever really a villain. Just like the series, Holden exists in shades of grey, never as white or black. He has to make choices throughout the series, choices about taking lives or committing other evil acts, and he has to live with the result of every one of them. His relationships with everyone, his superiors, his love interests, his friends, informs these choices and his character. Much of the series is told from Holden's point of view, and that gives the reader to the agonies he goes through. Interestingly, Holden has a power of his own; he has limited feeling in his body, and feels absolutely no pain, and any pain he receives is passed on to the next person he touches. He has no control over this power, and it causes him as many problems as it is a benefit. His inability to really feel is a metaphor for the distance he has to maintain between himself and all others around him.

The elaborate plot of the series is orchestrated as a kind of chess game between two players: Tao and John Lynch. Tao is a sort of genetic experiment, his name an acronym for Tactically Augmented Organism, created to be an ideal being by scientists for IO; he is unmatched in intellect and . He wants nothing more than to tear down the world, and especially hurt the person he holds responsible for his creation: spymaster John Lynch. At every turn, Tao and Lynch manipulate Holden to benefit their plans. They each want him to be their pawn in the game, and each make promises. Whether they can keep them, well, only they know for sure.

Lynch, Tao, and Holden

Tao's organization, the Syndicate, was created from whole cloth by Brubaker as far as I know, and each of the criminals is interesting in their powers and personalities. Genocide Jones is Holden's friend and partner at the beginning, a stereotypical strongman with a tragic history. Peter Grimm is Tao's right hand man, who thinks Holden is up to something, and whose touch makes a person replay their worst fears over and over until they go mad and die. Triple-X Ray has x-ray vision and is another of Holden's crew. Pit Bull is a feral killer with an urge to please his masters.

Most interesting of Tao's organization, though, is Miss Misery. Miss Misery only is healthy when she is performing immoral acts, and the more evil a deed, the more strength and vitality it gives her. If she starts feeling positive emotions, she starts to get sick; if she falls in love, say, she gets violently ill. This need to act completely against not just the social norm, but her own happiness makes her a character in constant emotional pain, if not physical. Miss Misery works with Holden, and their relationship, both working for Tao and as lovers, is one of the important plotlines throughout Sleeper.

Miss Misery and Holden

While the side of the angels, and I use the term loosely, doesn't get as much time in Sleeper, their are a few "good guys" too.  As mentioned above, Grifter joins the cast of the book, but as a superspy/commando, and doesn't bring any of his superhero baggage with him. At the midpoint of Sleeper, Holden's ex-fiancee, Veronica St. James appears, leading the manhunt for Holden. Veronica's return to Holden's life adds a new wrinkle to his relationship with Miss Misery, and the twisted love triangle between the three pushes the series towards its blood soaked finale.

The thing that separates Sleeper from a lot of the rest of the Brubaker/Phillips work is how funny it is at times. The world the book inhabits is bleak, and the characters who inhabit it know it. They look at it with a certain gallows humor. Triple-X Ray and Pit Bull, along with a couple other minor villains, are comic relief. One of my favorite little recurring bits is, "The Origin Game," where a villain tells their origins in the third person, as if recounting something they were told. Some of these, like that of Genocide Jones, are jaw droppingly sad, but there are others that are hilarious. It's a great way to do a big information dump and not have it feel like massive, out of character exposition.

In the end, Sleeper is the story of one man trying to navigate a dark world where he has no control. It's a world that we're seeing more of in pop culture now, in TV shows like The Shield, Dexter, and Breaking Bad, a world where the lines between hero and villain have grown so faded that it might as well not be there. The agents of IO are in most cases no better than the crooks of the Syndicate, just as venal and cruel, or at least as manipulative. The series isn't for the weak of heart (or stomach), or for those who like their heroes in white hats and their villains in black. But if you want to take a walk on the darker side of things, I can't think of a better book.

All of Sleeper is collected in two trades, Sleeper: Season One, and Sleeper: Season Two. There is also a trade of Point Blank, the prequel mini-series that is the story of Grifter hunting for Holden; fun but not essential. According to Bleeding Cool, there will be an Omnibus collection of all three series, plus a couple of smaller tie-ins, coming thing fall, so if you like giant hardcovers, that might by the way for you to go.

As a personal note to my loyal readers, I'm moving this weekend, so there is the distinct possibility that I won't have time for my usual Monday reviews. But have no fear! I will be back next Friday with more recommended reading, and back on track the following Monday.