Monday Memories #30 - Hitman #32

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

That Time I Interviewed Garth Ennis

Ten years or so ago a writing friend of mine set up The Alien Online, a website featuring monthly columns on a variety of subjects and he asked me to write one on comics. Sadly the site didn't last more than a year or two before biting the dust despite the best intentions of the owner but it was fun while it lasted. The trouble with writing a monthly column, though, was the lack of immediacy - with this blog if I read something interesting, I can post about it in minutes. Back then, it had to be written up and sent over to the editor before seeing the light of day by which time other, larger sites had long since published it and moved on.

However, it did give me the opportunity to interview Garth Ennis. I say interview - I wrote out my questions and sent them to him (using paper and pen - this was the old days!) and he was kind enough to write back with his answers. Moving some old papers around the other day, I came across his reply which got me to thinking: with The Alien Online long-since dead and, in all honesty, not having had a huge readership back in the day (because this blog gets zillions of hits per hour), not many people would have seen this.

So here, for your delectation, warts and all, is a Garth Ennis interview from 2001:

Retroactive - The 90's Part 3

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

And here we are, finally at the end of the 90's.

Retroactive - The 90's Part 2

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

And here we are, finally in the 90's.

Collector's Item?

According to the DCU Source blog, I have a piece of "extremely rare pin-up art" in my collection.

They're featuring some art from the newly issued Hitman, Vol. 4: Ace of Killers trade paperback and mention something from their "previous Who’s Who series". Technically the piece was from their Secret Files & Origins series but I'll forgive them that when they get off their arses and publish the new Who's Who that they promised back in December 2009.

So what piece of "extremely rare pin-up art" do I have? This one:

Nice piece of art? Undoubtedly.

Extremely rare? Doubtful.

Monday Covers #3

A run through some of my favourite covers, posted each Monday for the next few weeks.

Hitman #14

Zombie Night at the Gotham Aquarium has long been a stand out storyline in the consistently excellent Hitman series; two issues of sheer genius, pitting Tommy Monaghan and his friends against the undead inhabitants of an entire aquarium. The cover above just makes me chuckle every time I see it.

How Many People Did Tommy Monaghan Kill? Part 1

Sometimes, I really do think I have too much time on my hands.

Over the weekend just gone I was working through a batch of comics, cataloging them for the lovely people over at Collectorz.com.  I'm currently working through a long box that stores most of my Garth Ennis written titles and have started going through the fantastic Hitman series.

I know, I know, I should be working on the Annotated Final Crisis, finishing off those last couple of issues that I still have to breakdown but, well . . . honestly, this is just a bit more enjoyable.

In issue #1, Tommy meets Wendy, a girl he's attracted to and starts dating.  Trouble is, he doesn't tell her that he's a hitman and that he kills people - okay, technically he does but she thinks he's joking and he doesn't correct her.  When she eventually finds out, they have a blazing row:

I have to admit, I read that and thought . . . how many has he killed?

Armed with a day off work and a penchant for prevarication, rather than do half a dozen things that I should do (like the Final Crisis stuff) I decided to count through the first 20 issues of Hitman that I've cataloged so far and tot up the numbers of deaths caused by Tommy, Natt the Hatt, Sean Noonan, Ringo Chen and Hacken.

So what's the score so far:


There's a bit of estimation in there - there's plenty of scenes where Tommy and Natt are both blowing the crap out of the bad guys, but it's close enough for government work, I think.

Of course, I'm opening up a Pandora's box here - after Hitman, I really should go through The Demon and include any killings there, not mention anywhere else Tommy turns up.  Thinking about it, though, all that means is I get to read more comics again . . .

Happy Days In May

Power Girl ongoing starts in May!

Does it get any better?  Why yes, yes it does!

Hitman: A Rage in Arkham TP - new printing! I've got the entire series but maybe now DC will collect the rest of the run as well!

Surely nothing else that's coming in May would make me happy?

Showcase Presents: Green Lantern Vol 4! The reprints are getting to the stage where I've got most if not all the original issues but they're such nice collections.

My local comic shop's going to be happy with my May order!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #5

It was something of a patchy week, this week. Of course, that made it easier for me to pick out this week's Cocktail, the second and concluding part of JLA/Hitman by Garth Ennis and John McCrea.

To be honest out of the other issues it was only really The Search For Ray Palmer: Crime Society #1 and Countdown #30 that came close; I know Countdown's had a fair bit of criticism but I'm a sucker for this whole Multiverse thing and to have Crime Society exploring the new Earth-3 while Countdown wandered around Earth-15 gave me a buzz. Green Lantern Corps #16 gets a well deserved honorable mention as well for hotting up the Sinestro War, but it was JLA/Hitman that won out.

I'm still a fan of the original Hitman series and have the complete run and it was great to see Tommy Monaghan doing what he does best - blowing away the bad guys with a wink and a smile. Ennis's dislike, almost contempt, of superheroes is well documented - just read The Boys for evidence. It's perhaps no real surprise, then, that the plot of the story involves the heroes losing their superpowers, reducing them to the status of normal men and women.

With Superman, Batman and potentially Wonder Woman then possessed by the sub-species of the Bloodlines aliens, it falls to Monaghan to rescue the JLA armed only with a pair of nine millimetres.

The interplay between Monaghan and Batman - whose dislike of guns is almost pathological - is fantastic and manages to make a scene where Monaghan shoots half a dozen astronauts hysterically funny. The guns come in handy later when he runs into the alien-possessed Superman, shooting the hero in the chest, marking out the S-shield, letting him come to his senses. But, a moment later, it's the guns that get him in trouble.

With the situation under control and the JLA returned to their normal selves, Batman is intent upon seeing Monaghan stand trial. Confronted with a situation, Monaghan is more likely to shoot it; the JLA - Batman in particular - cannot excuse that and insists that there must have been another way. As Monaghan says in his defense, he "ain't no superhero everythin' always works out for, or a genius comes up with ideas no one else can!" He's a killer and hi solution to the problem involved killing.

A story such as this runs the risk of getting bogged down in the sort of argument mentioned above: can violence ever be justified, even if it leads to a resolution? To the ends justify the means?

Thankfully, Ennis raises the question enough so that we can think about it but doesn't spend any time telling us the answer; it appears he'd rather we figure that out ourselves. What he does do, however, is pepper the script with such wonderful snippets of humour (such as the two I've pictured) that you can forgive him not answering his own questions.

Monaghan was always something of an anti-hero on the face of it - unlike other heroes, he killed people. For money. But he was likable and funny and real enough that you didn't really mind and, as he said, he only killed the bad guys.

It was really good to read about him once more, and I half wish that of all Superboy-Prime's punches, one of them had re-written the end of Hitman #60.

The DCU is a poorer place without Tommy Monaghan.