Just how do you defeat a nightmarish, relentless, indestructible, inter-dimensional super-predator, unleashed by an insane, reality-warping mutant; especially when it’s already killed you once before?!
It’s the age-old question…😉
When I was a child in the mid 80s, I was fortunate enough to acquire a copy of The Daredevils #1, containing the 8 page instalment ‘A Rag, A Bone, A Hank of Hair’, which makes up chapter 3 of this Crooked World compendium. I never got to read the rest of the story arc until now. This brief vignette saw Captain Britain brought back from the dead, to enable him another opportunity to defeat the terrifying and seemingly unbeatable foe who sent him to his grave.
It made a big impression on me, and introduced me to the work of two of my favourite contributors to the field of comics, Alan Moore and Alan Davis, who themselves were in the relatively early stages of their careers at the time. I remember thinking that it’s study of mortality and philosophy felt quite grown up compared to other Marvel titles I had read previously….
“In the end, the darkness swallows everything. Space vanishes, time is no longer a memory. All is lost in the numb and silent depths of forever.
Captain Britain is dead.
And what then? When the flesh is discarded is anything left? Is there a light that pierces that terrible final shadow? Some say yes, some say no. Some pretend not to care but they do. We all do. All of us fragile and temporary things.
Are there cities in the wilderness beyond the fields of life? Are there soaring immortal spires that shine with a pure and heartbreaking beauty? Alone on our tiny ball of mud we stand shouting questions at a deaf sky. Where will we be when the lights go out? Where do we go when we die?
And there is no answer and so we busy ourselves with the task of ignoring our mortality. We make glorious war. We make angry gods. We make sad and bitter love. But between our frantic labours there are chinks of silence. Moments when we hear the small and frightened voice that whispers in the long night.
Where? Where do we go when we die? Will there be vast palaces alive with light and laughter? Will there be people there waiting beyond that last grey curtain. And if there are, what manner of creature will they be? And if there are, what, oh what, will they think of us?”
Wonderful thought provoking words!
Other aspects of this fabulous anthology that set it apart from the Marvel US comics of that era, and give it a quintessentially British feel are the employment of eccentricity along the lines of The Avengers (John Steed & Emma Peel, as opposed to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes), as well as Alan Moore’s allegorical portrayal of the rise of right wing politics at the time. A theme which he developed further in V for Vendetta. I also noticed that he touches upon the theme of the past, present and future existing in the same moment. Something that he so memorably explores later on in Watchmen.
My review may be slightly rose tinted, but I thoroughly recommend this early masterpiece by two future comic book legends, and am so glad that I finally got to experience the whole saga as an adult, having witnessed a small snapshot as a boy.