A BADGER GRAPHIC NOVEL
By Mike Baron & Bill Reinhold (First Comics)
ISBN: 0-915419-30-0
During the huge creative outburst of the early 1980s a number of quality independent publishers sprang up with an impressive variety of high quality concepts and packages. One of the very best of these was Mike Baron’s captivating psycho-warrior The Badger. Thankfully for those I can convert, those tales are being gradually collected by IDW Publishing and as I lay my hands on copies I’ll review them, but this oversized, slim tome might not make the cut, drawn as it is in the larger, squarer format that finally went the way of Betamax video tape in the early 1990s.
Norbert Sykes is a Vietnam veteran and martial arts devotee. On his return to Madison, Wisconsin after his tour of duty he was locked in an asylum where he met an immortal Celtic wizard named Ham. Together they escaped and teamed up for some of the strangest adventures in comics. As well as believing himself a superhero, Norbert has many other discrete, distinct personalities ranging from a little girl to Pierre the homicidal maniac rattling around in his battered skull. He can also communicate with all animals.
Hexbreaker was a tentative experiment in the new format of extended story “graphic novelsâ€. Briefly, it relates how the Badger is invited to compete in a martial art tournament organised by the Black Lotor Liu Hu Society, who as Any Fule Kno are the secret masters of the World. Every century the 100 best fighters on Earth battle to the death and the winner/survivor receives one wish: anything at all, possible OR impossible.
As a westerner and certified lunatic, Norbert has to overcome s certain amount of graphically physical resistance just to get there and picks up the tragic and mysterious Dr. Mavis Davis along the way. Once there however, it seems a lot of old enemies have been waiting for him…
Baron’s love for Hong Kong cinema is evident in this glorious, manic riot of all-out action, but even so there’s a huge amount of comedy and character-play on show, and the denouement has lasting repercussions for the regular series.
This is a big box of comics delights: raw, frantic, captivating and beautifully illustrated for full-on fun and well worth tracking down for the red-blooded fightin’ man of your clan.
© 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.