Fall of Cthulhu Vol. 3: The Gray Man

The Grey Man is the third volume in the epic story arc that is Boom Studios' Fall of Cthulhu comic series. I discovered Fall of Cthulhu when I was just launching my Delta Green campaign and was hungry for any fiction dealing with the Cthulhu mythos in a modern context. Fall of Cthulhu is all that and more.

The Gray Man continues the story of the odd knife that caused so much havoc in the earlier parts of the series. Our new protagonist is Raymond Dirk, Arkham's sheriff, who is accustomed to strange goings-on. His life is radically changed once he crosses paths with a Brazilian thief named Luci Jenifer Inacio Das Neves (Lucifer for short). A student of Professor Walter McKinley, Lucifer returns to Arkham only to discover he committed suicide.

McKinley had Lucifer steal a cursed knife from an antique collector in Fortaleza in an attempt to keep it away from Cthulhu cultists. It turns out the knife belonged to a very special person: The Gray Man, patron saint of sacrifice. Lucifer and The Gray Man are in a race to get to the knife first.

Dirk is a likable lead character, a man who keeps his cool no matter how strange things get. Lucifer, on the other hand, looms larger than life: she is a master thief and adept sorcerer, capable of concealing herself from the Gray Man and entering the Dreamlands at will.

Speaking of the Dreamlands, The Harlot is back in this series. Although her dialogue is wry as always, the Dreamlands artwork is not up to the same creepy standards of Andrew Ritchie, who oozes weirdness with every frame he draws.

Throughout the storyline, a little girl in a yellow dress makes random appearances. Her origins are somewhat explained in the final volume of Fall of Cthulhu, but the nature of separate installments means that readers new to the series will invariably be confused. My guess is she's an incarnation of Hastur (and his avatar, the King in Yellow).

Gnruk also makes an appearance, but he is not nearly as horribly realized as his debut earlier in the series. A conflict between The Gray Man and Gnruk looks a bit like the two are waltzing together.

At the conclusion, Mickey Rennier, a Cthulhu cultist with a green Mohawk, provides a bit of a deus ex machine to wrap it all up. Rennier feels oddly out of place in a comic that seems so grounded; punk villains went out of style in the eighties.

Lucifer is clearly a favorite character; her abilities as a thief aren't really demonstrated in this comic – her claim to fame is basically grabbing a knife and jumping out a window while failing to avoid The Gray Man AND Gnruk – but it's clear she's being set up for greater things, specifically the comic series Hexed.

The conclusion has a great twist and ends on a surprisingly poignant and bittersweet note. Unlike some of the other volumes in the Fall of Cthulhu, this story largely stands on its own. Overall, this is an excellent entry in the Lovecraft tradition that manages to bring the horror of the Mythos down to a personal level.

Dark Entries

I'm a sucker for haunted house stories, if only because they're such a challenge for modern horror writers to pull off. I also love Blair Witch Project-style narratives, supposedly unfiltered media that catalogues horror without artifice and just presents terror in all its messy glory. So the plot behind Constantine's latest jaunt into the unknown, a reality show about a haunted house, piqued my interest.

Like so many Alan Moore characters, John Constantine is arrogant, wily, grungy, hails from the lower class, and the world pretty much hates him. Constantine and his ilk defined a whole generation of trench-coat wearing bastards that provided a much-needed dose of reality to the comic genre. So it's interesting to insert someone like Constantine in what is an undeniably modern format; that of the narcissistic, relentlessly self-promotional Generation Y-world of reality television.

Constantine shifts very quickly from paranormal investigator of a haunted house to reality show contestant, a shift that isn't entirely believable. We're led to believe it's because Constantine is attracted to a woman on the show who reminds him of someone he once knew. Which is all fine and good, but seems entirely out of character for a drifter who brings bad luck to everyone he meets.

And here's the first problem: it's never realistically explained why all the contestants stay there. The house is a virtual fortress, with no windows or doors. All of the contestants are suffering from grisly, realistic hallucinations. And not one of them cracks enough under the pressure to opt out of the game.

Constantine's arrival mucks up this somewhat delicate balance of greed and paranoia. His sole contribution is sleeping with the woman he was attracted to and asking them all to remember their pasts. In a comic all about Constantine, he barely lifts a finger.

About mid-way through, there's a surprised twist involving demons and hell. I figured it out several pages prior and was actually pleased with the direction the book was going in. In the style of the remake of 13 Ghosts, the book's true premise promised a really dark foray into the human condition as the various contestants realize the hopelessness of their situation and…

But alas, that's for a different book. Once the Big Surprise is revealed, Dark Entries begins a downward spiral into parody. Here's a hint: it includes demons wearing headsets, televisions from hell, and an infernal cannibal who still hears the voice of Sawney Bean.

In other words, instead of continuing the dark noir tone of the first half, or the Gen-Y ironic sensibilities of the second half, it chooses a third route: utter ludicrousness. The infernal forces come off as absurd. When the dismembered head of one of the contestants asks if he'll ever play the piano again, it's clear that Dark Entries has given up.

Rankin seems uncomfortable with the graphic novel format, vacillating between Constantine's noir-style narrative sensibilities, the relentless navel-gazing of modern media, and a bad eighties slasher flick. The result is an uneven installment of the Constantine universe.

Ball Peen Hammer

Ball Peen Hammer was never meant to be a comic. It's clear, from the claustrophobic setting of a basement and a clock tower to the long silences and close-up panels of characters' expressions, that this graphic novel is a parable. The post-apocalyptic world outside is a foil to reinforce the claustrophobia and paranoia of those two little rooms. This review contains spoilers.

Ball Peen Hammer is about three art forms: music, writing, and acting. Welton is a musician, Underjohn is a writer, Exley is an actress. All three are part of a commune of artists who have seen been scattered from the Undertunnels by the Syndicate, an oppressive regime of gas-mask wearing soldiers. Adam Rapp, a novelist and playwright himself, is merciless in his critique of these three pathetic creatures. Welton is a shiftless guitarist, never leaving the basement and playing the same song over and over about a woman he loved – but is too frightened to try to find her or save himself. Underjohn is immune to the plague but returns to Welton's basement to write about his experience, cataloguing the slow death of the bleak world around him. Exley insists on wearing her little black dress and up-do hairstyle even in the middle of a city besieged by acid rain and wild dogs.

Ball Peen Hammer is about love lost. Welton, who fell in love with Exley, is paralyzed by the experience, stuck in a perpetual state of yearning for a moment he can never reclaim. Underjohn was in love with a man who died from the plague, but never expressed his affection for him before he passed. Exley carries Welton's child and in her journey to find him regresses to acting – as a mother, as a teacher – to Horlick, a thirteen-year-old street kid who lives in the clock tower with his older brother, Dennis.

Ball Peen Hammer is about filling holes. There are emotional holes in all of the characters, but there are also physical holes: the Collector, who slides in and out of manhole covers to ring bells, repair lights, and tattoo numbers; Horlick, who reenacts American Pie with a melon; Welton, who can never get his toilet to flush; Underjohn, who fled the underground commune after it was filled with concrete by the Syndicate.

Ball Peen Hammer is about the loss of innocence. There are sacks in the basement. Underjohn discovers later that he's a Sacker, whose job is to use a ball peen hammer to fill those sacks. Welton, a Dragger, is haunted by the ghosts of those he helped drag into the basement. Exley inserts herself into a family that doesn't want her. And Horlick pretends he is much tougher than he lets on.

Ball Peen Hammer is not a glimpse into a larger world, part of a running series, the beginning of a comic book franchise, a happy story, a quick read, or meant to be understood literally. It is Rapp's No Exit, banished to comic form because nobody's going to want to see a play that revolves around killing kids with a hammer.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I didn’t expect much from the Wolverine movie. Billed as X-Men 4 by the movie theater (says so right on my ticket), it is anything but. This is Wolverine getting the full Weapon X treatment, a mystery that took forever in comic-land to finally reveal. And with a few exceptions, Wolverine gets it right.

Whereas the previous X-Men movies became increasingly complex, with jumbled storylines and too many characters, a single character sharpens Wolverine’s plot to a knife’s edge. Nigh immortal and capable of regenerating from the most grievous wounds, Wolverine and his brother Sabretooth slash their way through the century, engaging in every major war and some minor ones too. For a little while, that’s enough, until Sabretooth’s propensity for raping and pillaging gets out of hand. A firing squad doesn’t do the job (that whole immortal thing), which is when General Stryker offers a devil’s deal.

There’s nothing new here with the exception of the movie’s primary x-factor: Wolverine. Jackman transforms Wolverine from a passive loner to an outraged spirit of vengeance as everyone he loves dies. And behind it all, pulling the puppet strings, is Stryker, channeling Hannibal from the A-Team.

Throughout his adventures, Wolverine is surrounded by a cadre of other mutants with their own abilities. Unlike the other X-Men movies, each mutant serves a very specific purpose. Nothing feels forced. Except for maybe the Blob, but he’s amusing enough in early and later incarnations to provide some much needed levity that borders on the game Super Punchout.

The real revelation here is Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool. Reynolds did a great job as a sword wielding antihero in the last Blade movie and he’s largely the same wisecracking nut job here. Only he’s much cooler and plays a larger role (think Darth Maul without the makeup).

There are some odd points where the Wolverine movie isn’t sure where to go. Stryker, for all his duplicity, often seems content to pull the movie villain mistake of letting people just walk out of his grasp. Some twists are emphasized with a theatrical exclamation point as the character tells us in no uncertain terms exactly what their plans are. And a few feats of derring-do border on the ludicrous…

But then I remember this is a movie about a comic about a guy who has metal claws between his knuckles. If you can keep that perspective, Wolverine is a lot like the titular character’s signature move: it tears through crowded plotlines with deadly efficiency. And if you’re a fan of other members of the Weapon X program, stay to the end of the credits. You can thank me later.