Absalom: Terminal Diagnosis

Absalom #3

by Gordon Rennie, Tiernen Trevallion

TO HELL AND BACK?

Old, irreverent and doomed by supernatural forces, hard-nosed copper Detective Inspector Harry Absalom is tasked with upholding the Accord – the treaty between the British Royalty and the forces of Hell. 

As the cancer finally starts to take hold, Harry calls in every friend and favour he has left in a last-ditch attempt to save his kidnapped grandchildren from the depths of the Mills…

This is the third collection in Gordon Rennie and Tiernen Trevallion’s Absalom series.

Genres: Comics, Horror, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Graphic Novels Comics

96 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2019

About the author

Freelance writer for over 20 years – When he’s not being ungainfully employed as a BAFTA-nominated video games scriptwriter, he keeps himself busy writing comics, novels, screenplays and Doctor Who audio plays. Comics work includes Predator, Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Missionary Man, Necronauts, Caballistics Inc and Absalom, and Dept. of Monsterology for Renegade.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

And so the series comes to an end - and like all multi-part series it is oh so difficult to comment about with giving spoilers especially to earlier instalments, let us just say that the team Harry has been slowly putting together finally make their move - and as you can imagine the results are both fast and spectacular.

Books like this really for me epitomise the tag graphic novel - the story has a definitive path and you know that once you reach the end there is no going back. There is no tentative hook for a hoped for sequel, no seed for a spin off or franchise - this is the story and once told it is left to you the reader to decided where to go to next.

All I can say is I am ever grateful that publishers and even writers and artists are able to create such pieces of work where we seem to be living in a world where drawing a story out seems to be the preference.

[Jorge Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the whole Absalom story, great stuff with great art.

[Sarah Graven Weir · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s show time kids, this old codger is not going down without a fight! Buckle up and let’s give those rancid scumbags my best right hook. I’m dragging my grandchildren out of that cesspit of hell if it’s the last bloody thing I do!

Harry is sadly on his last legs, and what a turmoil of unpredictable events it was! I had no clue what to expect. I was kept guessing right through to the end, which I thought was bloody marvellous. Once Harry reached his final destination, my first thoughts were the story seemed to have quite an abrupt ending. I then reread the last page, taking it all in and on second thoughts, I was able to conclude that Harry did achieve what he intended to do all along. It just hit me so fast because I really didn’t want this series to end, I enjoyed Harry Absalom’s character that much. Harry was finally able to bid us all a fair well. Peace out.

[Zare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well this was quite an ending for our stubborn Harry and his team. Having fallen from grace of powers to be, Harry decides enough is enough and in quite a spectacular finger-showing he decides to bring everything down because for him there is nothing to lose and lot to gain.

And what a showdown.... I wont go into details here but there were so many twists and turns that I honestly was not sure how it would end.

Art as always is great. Entire menagerie from Hell is drawn so uniquely that I couldn't find same creature repeated twice. But again, this is quality I always expect from 2000AD comics :)

For all fans of fantasy, horror and paranormal highly recommended.

[Max Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume brings Harry Absalom's story to a close. The team is almost ready, just a couple more players to pick up, and after that, it's all storming the castle with the bad guys. I think it would work better if published as a single three hundred pages volume (like Caballistics Inc. did). That way the core of Absalom's story would be uninterrupted.

[Alessandro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spectacular ending to the Harry Absalom series. Like the other stories which appeared in 2000AD, even this one is not lacking any of the ultra-violence, of the sharpish speech, of the great screenplay and of the great art it is known for. Unmissable for any lover of good comics and the stories they can tell.

[Timo · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was great run with this one. Sad to see it end. But such a bitter sweet ending. Makes a wee boy weep.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cor blimey, don’t half end abruptly, dunnit? Ain’t ya ever heard of a ‘denooment’? Bloody hell, jellied eels, allo Mary Poppins and all that guff.

[Colin Sinclair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sharp and brutal. It really couldn't have ended any other way.

[James Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the series. Great art and story.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book completes the story of Absalom, a tough British cop charged with enforcing a treaty between the British government and the forces of Hell. While this series is itself a spinoff of the series Caballistics Inc, it stands very much on its own. However, this concluding volume is absolutely not the place to start, as it very much builds upon and concludes the story from the first two books. It's an action-packed finale that skillfully melds the hard-boiled British copper genre with visceral supernatural horror, with all manner of demonic creatures. Writer Gordon Rennie and artist Tiernen Travallion do a great job of fusing everything together into a seamless whole.

[ids · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bittersweet ending to a brilliant comic series. This has gotten me out of my reading slump - would highly recommend.

[Alex Sarll]

I loved this series at first, I really did. Spinning off from the modern 2000AD classic Caballistics, Inc, it never 100% gelled with it – but then that's so often true of stories supposedly set in a shared universe, whether you're talking Avengers and Agents of SHIELD, or Cheers and Frasier. This had a more basic metaphysical set-up, with Hell and Earth predominating, as the backdrop to a story which was essentially The Sweeney if they'd sold their soul, or John Constantine if against all common sense he'd become a copper. It was grotty and morally compromised and horrible, and enormous fun, with Inspector Harry Absalom stomping around the place kicking arse despite his age and his cancer, and taking great delight in pissing the higher-ups off while he did so. Yes, the politics could lean a bit clunkily Pat Mills in places, but never as badly as, well, modern Pat Mills. And this final volume should have been a glorious last hurrah, with Harry and his motley, untrustworthy band off to rescue his grandchildren from the forces of darkness. Instead, it spent ages bogged down in a psychodrama that involved way too much confrontation with feelings for a geezer of Harry's generation and temperament, then degenerated into what felt more like an interminable dungeon crawl, proper darkness replaced by mere slog. Culminating in this week's installment, which I'd assumed would at least be double-length, but was instead just an anticlimactic squib. Very poor.