Saviour #1

[Dec 1989]. Cover price £1.
28 pages. B&W contents.
Trident Comics.

Edited by Martin Skidmore.

Cover by Daniel Vallely.

Contents:

 2 UNTITLED credits; illustration by Daniel Vallely.

 3 Saviour Suffer Little Children w: Mark Millar; a: Daniel Vallely, additional design by Sue Morris.

27 This Was the Original Cover... illustration by Daniel Vallely.

A dramatic and muted cover, extremely stylish in design - quite befitting the opening installment of Trident's twist on the superhero genre courtesy of Mark Millar. The credits page, with a panel from the fourth page of the strip blown up (and slightly modified), isn't the most encouraging first glimpse at the title, and the complete lack of any personal touches is worrisome. The lack of publisher information is also notable, as if the title had been assembled in a rush, the usual elements of a comic being an afterthought.

The Saviour, title character and protagonist (or antagonist, if you want to be accurate) of the series appears first as an interviewee on a talk show. Some of the references (Mizz, the Fat Boys, Dallas) are dated, but the tone and presentation of the type of discussion should be familiar to anyone who has braved the evening schedules of BBC1 or ITV - topics which are as flimsy as possibly, stretched out with cringe-worthy 'humour' - and which Millar captures perfectly.

The interview is interspersed with footage of Saviour's heroics, and adverts which... Actually, I would be up for purchasing a wallet made from the dissected skin of a dead television personality, would some forward-thinking company be up for marketing such a product. It is, of course, a spin on the fake adverts in RoboCop, or the television segments in The Dark Knight Returns, but with enough originality in the telling.

There are clear hints, so early in the story, that Saviour isn't the man he has professed to be. A young man serves as a counterpoint to the shallow excess of the main character (modelled after Jonathan Ross, at the time headlining The Last Resort), and it is this figure who presents the most sympathetic character in the narrative.

Two thousand years ago I tried to warn them of the direction their lives were taking.

The dark, tortuous path that led only to despair and chaos.
They tortured me then, and hung me upon a cross to die in the blistering sun.

And I still love them. I still came back.

To save them from themselves.

He's really got them fooled this time. They fight over his every dropping.

A sub-plot surrounding child-killings - in order to slaughter The Beast - feels like a lift from a bad Omen knock-off, and the murder of a priest is too briefly presented, though is handled in a manner which side-steps any accusations of gratuitous sensationalism. A remarkably assured and well-paced debut, with several lines of dialogue which shine, ably brought to life with Daniel Vallely's artwork, which is incredibly detailed in places.

With echoes of Steve Yeowell's art in places, Vallely brings a wonderful energy to the story. Momentary respite from the panel-to-panel storytelling (presumably Sue Morris' contribution) comes with a page of newspaper headlines. Visual exuberance is also present in surprising ways, with a final-panel shot of Saviour flying through the air enhanced with a photograph of dark clouds.