The Complete Suiciders: The Big Shake

Suiciders #2

by Lee Bermejo

ALL FALL DOWN

L.A. was once the City of Angels, but that was before the Great Quake came and shattered everything about her that was civilized. In the aftermath, two new cities grew up from the rubble—one of gleaming towers and untold luxury for the haves, and one of barbed wire and grinding misery for the have-nots.

Ringed by high walls and merciless guards, New Angeles is now an island of wealth in a sea of poverty. Outside its borders, a new generation of Angelenos fights for scraps in the rubble while trying desperately to find a way through the fences. Inside, the privileged few have refined their brutality and fused it with old Hollywood’s greatest celebrity culture.

Broadcast in ultra-high definition, biomechanically enhanced gladiators known as Suiciders battle to the death in high-tech arenas. Their duels are a visceral reminder to the world of the power wielded by New Angeles’ corporate masters.

For rich and poor alike, the Suiciders are legends. But like the city they inhabit, their glory is built on a graveyard—and as those bodies rot, the foundations they carry threaten to crack and splinter back into chaos.

[separate]
Acclaimed creator Lee Bermejo weaves a stunning new vision of dystopia in THE COMPLETE THE BIG SHAKE, collecting the Vertigo miniseries SUICIDERS (written and illustrated by Bermejo) and KINGS OF HELL.A. (written by Bermejo and illustrated by Alessandro Vitti and Gerardo Zaffino).

Genres: Comics

200 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 2016

About the author

Lee Bermejo is a professional illustrator and comic book artist. He has done work for Marvel and DC Comics, Men's Health, Max Mara, Top Cow productions, Wizard Entertainment, and a crappy film called Ultraviolet (hey,whaddayagonnado). Talking about himself in the third person makes him feel more important than he really is. Anyway, enough about the blogger, let's talk art!

Reviews

[47Time · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story follows the last few days in the lives of several characters who are forced to resort to violence in a world where diplomacy is no longer an option. Some of them willingly pay with their lives to protect the ones they love. The forces of order resort to the same level of violence. No matter how strong the street gangs believe themselves to be, order will win out in the end.

After a huge earthquake, LA is left completely destroyed. Street gangs and random violence are the order of the day, even when the long rebuilding process is begun years after the tragedy. A war breaks out between the street gang calling itself Kings of HelL.A and the heavily armored soldiers owned by Mulholland Corp.

Leonard McCarthy is a former Suicider who is also affected by the street gangs. He takes great pleasure in taking vengeance on their leader. Ellroy, a man from his past, the one that got him kicked off the league and also a cannibal, threatens his son. Leonard gives up the fight when Ellroy bites him to death. Ellroy is shot dead by police right in front of Lonard's son.

Trix is part of the street gang named Kings of HelL.A. She gets pregnant with her boyfriend. While at first directly involved in the war, they try to get away from it to start their family. The toll they have to pay means that only Trix escapes.

[Ilan Preskovsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unsurprisingly, the art by Lee Bermejo is simply exceptional and if you can find this for cheap, it may well be worth it for that. The art by Alessandro Vitti in the prequel series that opens this collection is very good too. Unfortunately, the writing in both stories just isn't up to snuff. Especially in the first.

It's competent enough as Bermejo clearly knows how to tell a story through the comic book medium, but this is very rote, overly cynical post-apocalyptic stuff with uninvolving and largely unlikable characters, along with fairly banal have/ have-not social commentary. We've seen this post-Big-Quake LA setting a thousand times. and we've seen the whole gladiatorial, to-the-death entertainment as an opium for the masses schtick arguably even more than that.

I will always recommend a book with Lee Bemejo art at least on some level, but there are far, far better choices than this one. If you're looking for a comic both written and drawn by him, might I suggest Batman: Noel, his superhero take on a Christmas Carol (a story that simply refuses to get at all old), instead.

[Donyae Coles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this story and it tied back to the first Suiciders book!

Troy is the Coyote! It's Trix and their baby that he's talking about when he takes that couple through the tunnels and the journey in this book mirrors the journey in the first book. This was all done really well.

[Dani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked the first story but didn't care for the others.

[Robby Goodwin]

I see why this book is called suiciders. Because it's what you do after reading it! Beautiful art, incoherent story!