The Shadowmen #2

Sep 1990. Cover price £1.00.
28 pages. B&W contents.
Trident Comics

Cover by Daniel Vallely.

Contents:

 2 Credits / Indicia

 3 The Shadowmen, part two, Killing Time w: Mark Millar; p: Andrew Hope (pages 1,4,5) & Ben Dilworth (pages 2,3, 6-24), i: Ben Dilworth.

27 The Ultimate Confrontation - Saviour in-house advertisement for trade paperback collection.

Once again the cover references well-known visuals, though this time the subjects are taken from music rather than television - footprints dance across the cover from ska records, the main image recalls photographs in Smash Hits, and the slanted blocks of colours recalls late-80s pop (though I'm almost certain that there's an explicitly referenced album, the title isn't coming to me at the moment). It raises the intriguing prospect that further issues would pay homage to further genres and media, though with only the two published issues to work from such observations are mere speculation.

Once more we are presented with a disconnected scene from the life of a character unconnected to what has come before, with two men discussing politics, before a Man in Black approaches one of them. Bannen is informed that, due to his attempt to write an expose about the vice-president's 'unusual' sex-life, his wife and children have suffered horrible deaths.

The homeless woman is confronted by police, who intend to arrest her, though she refuses to raise her hands. She talks to the officers, convincing them to inflict injuries on themselves and each other...

Karen checks the locks on her doors and windows, terrified that the men will return, hoping that the two days until her husband's return pass quickly and without incident. Fed up with the real world, she begins constructing a fantasy in which she in the envy of every woman in the world - a reality in which an old-fashioned brass band plays 'Here Comes the Bride,' and a chorus of applause fills the streets. A reality in which she is to be wed to Rudolph Valentine. A reality which the mysterious men cannot permit to continue.

While, on the surface, proceedings continue to tumble along, plot threads which might have enlivened the series are abruptly and carelessly brought to a close. By the end of the issue Agnes Metcalf (the homeless woman) is dead, while Karen is facing imminent death. Try as I might, the first two issues don't conform to any storytelling structure which allows insight into the surrounding world, the characters' lives, nor any organisation which the Men in Black might be aligned with. The abysmal storytelling heightens awareness of the shortcomings in Dilworth's art, making everything more confusing than necessary.

Without a solid thread to follow through so many unrelated sequences, nor a solid and unfolding sense of inevitability to draw us further into the lives of the characters, there is little to appreciate. Shortcuts in Millar's storytelling badly affect whatever empathy we have with Karen's plight, and we aren't provided enough reason for the continued violence and (seemingly) petty behaviour.

This is one of the most frustrating comics to attempt to summarise. It's impossible to discern a manner in which so much incident can be resolved withing this alleged six-part mini-series, and with only these two issues seeing print, no means of properly foreshadowing the resolution in a way which could feel natural.

Men in Black, using the same shadowy figures of modern folklore, did this better. Even riffing on It's a Good Life from The Twilight Zone, with a crazy homeless lady in the role Anthony Fremont played in the episode, and using striped backgrounds to the art which recalls early-eighties magazine layouts, feels forced and tired. The rise in random supernatural events is unexplored here, with every strange event being the result of willful acts rather than surprising characters.

At no point, for example, do we witness anything close to the visual splendour of the masked dancers.

Added to problems carrying over from the first issue, this is a rather undignified manner with which to abandon the narrative, though it is impossible to imagine this being collected and completed without significant overhaul of plot, art, and lettering.

#01

The Shadowmen

#03