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By Frank Miller (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 1-84576-045-X
To coincide with the release of the film, Dark Horse released all seven of Frank Miller’s quintessential noir thrillers in a new, more compact format. Whilst reviewing the first of these I noticed something that had utterly escaped me in the past. Maybe I’m simply the last one to notice, but as the brutal Marv rampages through the wickedest city in the world, hunting for the murderers of the hooker he woke up beside, dodging cops, kicking butt and leaping from tall buildings, it seemed to me that over and above the starkly reductionist art style he was rendered in something else was going on.
In what was heralded as a breaking away from the genre morass of superhero fare Miller had produced in artistic staging a purely superheroic visual lexicon. The poses, the leaps and fights, and especially the way that coat billows in the breeze are all pure spandex iconography.
You probably all noticed that already. Which means that you already knew this dark adult, crime comic is a breakneck thrill-ride tour-de-force. And that they originally appeared in short bursts in the anthology comic Dark Horse Presents #51-62, plus a tale from the Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special.
Still worth picking up though. No?
© 1991, 1992, 1993, 2001, 2005, Frank Miller Inc. All Rights Reserved.