Ice, Guns, and Beer

Hitman Volume 5: Tommy's Heroes: written by Garth Ennis; illustrated by John McCrea and Gary Leach (1998-99; collected 2012): Yay! DC Comics finally gets off its ass and finishes reprinting the brilliant Hitman series only...12 years after it finished. Volumes 6 and 7, both roughly phonebook-sized, will finish things off. First, though, there's Tommy's Heroes.

This trade reprints the so-so Hitman/SAS storyline that was previously published in a much shorter reprint volume several years ago (the last Hitman reprint volume, I believe). Super-powered (well, marginally super-powered -- X-Ray vision and limited telepathy) hitman Tommy Monaghan, to clean the stink of the SAS fiasco off himself, leaves Gotham with his best bud and fellow hitman to fight as a mercenary in a small African nation trying to stave off a revolutionary funded by drug money.

As the title of this story arc (and this volume) references acidhead WWII movie Kelly's Heroes, you can rest assured that things get weird and that the boys find a tank. And that things aren't quite what they seem.

Then it's back to Gotham for the award-winning standalone story "Of Thee I Sing," in which Tommy and Superman talk on a rooftop for most of 23 pages. Then a bizarre, company-mandated crossover with the DC One Million event. Then more harrowing stuff awaits as Tommy finds out more than he ever wanted to know about what really happened the night he was placed as a baby on the doorstep of a Catholic orphanage. Good times, good times.

Well, violent times anyway. I like John McCrea's gritty art anyway, but Gary Leach's inks polish it to a sinister, occasionally bleakly comic high sheen. All this and Superman remains noble because he's apparently the only superhero Garth Ennis actually likes. Highly recommended.

Hit and Miss

Hitman: Who Dares Wins, written by Garth Ennis, illustrated by John McCrea and Garry Leach (1998): For awhile, DC reprinted Hitman in these insanely short volumes. Now that they've started a new, comprehensive reprint program, this volume officially becomes obsolete. Oh, well.

Hitman always seemed like it should have been a Vertigo title during its run in the 1990's, but nonetheless it remained wedged uncomfortably in the DC Universe. Garth Ennis seemed to go out of his way to make this DC-ness more and more unlikely with each passing issue. Super-powered assassin Tommy Monaghan lives and works in Batman's Gotham City, though Batman never had to deal with a mob boss who's always sitting on the toilet.

This volume, collecting the short arc "Who Dares Wins" and a standalone story, reads like a promotional comic for the SAS. Seriously. Garth Ennis apparently has a severe boner on for Great Britain's Special Air Service, the most dangerous soldiers in the world (depending on what military magazine you read).

A four-man SAS Black Ops team gets sent to America to kill Monaghan and his best friend because they accidentally killed an SAS team during the first Gulf War. The SAS proceed to kill pretty much every mobster in Gotham en route to killing Tommy and Company. Not much hilarity ensues, a rarity for Hitman -- Ennis seems so taken with the alpha-tough-guyness of the SAS that humour entirely evaporates, leaving the reader stranded with the ostensible protagonist being repeatedly humiliated by the super-manliness of the SAS.

The tone ends up being jarringly off, as black humour collides with a somewhat masturbatory paean to the undefeatable mates of the SAS. John McCrea's art is solid as usual, and given an extra sheen by inker Garry Leach (legendary artist on the first few stories of Alan Moore's Marvelman), but Ennis seems almost entirely out to lunch for this one. Not recommended.