The Maximortal

The King Hell Heroica #1

by Rick Veitch

Seven years before The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay, Rick Veitch married the larcenous history of the comics business to the outrageous themes and characters of his infamous Brat Pack universe, creating one of the most startling and uncompromising visions of the super-hero archetype ever put to paper.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Fiction, Horror, Comic Book, Science Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Richard "Rick" Veitch is an American comics artist and writer who has worked in mainstream, underground, and alternative comics.

Reviews

[Drew Canole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edit: This book uses so many cool visual metaphors. It's clear Veitch put in way more thought into the visuals than your average comic. I feel like I'm so often just focused on story and pretty pictures that I forget the key is the interplay of both.

*

If you're sick of superhero send-ups like The Boys, then you may want to skip this one. That said, I'm also sick of that kind of stuff and I found a ton of value here. Published back in the early 90s this predates the Garth Ennis's and Warren Ellis's.

This is a wonderfully grotesque spoof of the origins of Superman. Veitch has not only a baby with super powers crash landing on Earth, but a spoof of the creators of Superman. Here Jerry Spiegal and Joe Schumacher create the comic book character True-Man. And just like their real-world counterparts they're screwed out of not only ownership but credit as well. The whole book feels like Veitch is critiquing not only superheroes but the business behind them.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not perfect, but definitely ambitious examination of the impact of the concept of "The Superman" and "Superman" on the unconscious of the world. Thus, all aspects of the Superman myth (here "True-Man") are touched on - his creators being screwed over, his impact on comics history in general, Hollywood legends about actors who take the role, Nietzsche's concept that predates the whole thing, the public's reaction, everything. Mixed in with this are lurid and grotesque details (I'm still left wondering what purpose the scatalogical material serves, although I have some ideas), cosmic comic book stuff (True-Man literally creates himself in a wonderfully bizarre conceit), even some Grant Morisson-esque fourth-wall breaking. It's a fun, bizarre, kooky package brimming with creativity (fans should also attempt to hunt down Veitch's THE ONE, another odd look at superheroes). Really, the only weak part is (interestingly) the one part that ties the book directly into Veitch's proposed King Hell Heroica "universe", specifically the previous title BRAT PACK (which is itself a wonderfully lurid, if occasionally misguided, examination of all the twisted possibilities inherent in the concept of "teen sidekicks", quite a few years before it became trite to be dark and ironic about such things). The BRAT PACK tie-in seems abrupt and forced, out of tempo with the rest of the book.

Hunt it down if you want some idea how the rich soil of modern superhero comics was fertilized by very creative people.

[Rex Hurst · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a somewhat confusing story of a super powered baby coming to Earth (sort of) and being adopted by Earth parents, before being scooped up by the US military. Sound familiar? Of course, it does. A redone origin of a character who might morph into the Superman analogue, True Man.

The clever irony here being that Superman is a mythological ideal, while True Man reveals a darker nature to humanity, the yin and yang in concordance, which prevents the better angels of our nature from taking flight. While in essence it is a retelling of the origins of Superman, it is a completely unique story and it raises one very important question. If a child has super strength, invulnerability, and heat vision, how do you discipline him? How do you prevent him from destroying everything in a fit of childish rage? The age of reason is seven, that's a long time to put up with a superbrat.

It retells, with slight alterations, classic events such as the creation of Superman by Siegel and Schuster, them being screwed out of their fair due by their publisher, Walt Disney's rise to power based on his cartoon, the congressional witch hunt into comics, William Gaines crashing on speed while speaking before said committee, and the creation of the comics code authority- pushed by superhero publishers- forcing out the popular horror and crime comics. This is all done in the context of the advent of True Man.

[Vicente Ribes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un cómic brutalmente divertido. La historia del maximortal, un superheroe que llega a la tierra en una especie de huevo y empieza a arrasar con todo destrozando gente. Un investigador consigue devolverlo al huevo y dejarlo en suspensión mientras intenta averiguar el origen de la criatura. Paralelamente dos dibujantes de comics inventan un tebeo sobre el superheroe y son explotados por la industria. Genial el fragmento relativo al comic code. Rick Veitch y su cafre forma de ver los comics de superheroes han sido todo un descubrimiento.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review is in response to the announcement of Rick Veitch returning to the King Hell Heroica after a 20-year absence. Which stands as an ambitious, five-volume series examining both the comic book industry and the superhero concept. He announced on Monday, that "Boy Maximortal" (Book 2) will be coming out soon.

To put it bluntly--comics were a medium born from pornographers, gamblers, smugglers and gangsters. Yet the cradled within their four-colored pages one of the most beautiful concepts of the 20th century (or is it?)

My review is essentially Maximortal/Brat Pack Special #1, The Maximortal (Book 1), M/BP Special #2, and the Bratpack (Book 4). As one can tell, their is a clearly defined architecture to the books--yet it's incomplete.

Rick Veitch is one of those yeoman creators (he was one of the artists on Alan Moore's Swamp Thing--and eventually took over the book, but was heavily censored (leading to Gaiman and a few others from quitting the book as well). He's a creative visionary, but the corporate masters tend to squash his choices.

As such--much of these series are taking dismal glances (i.e. Siegel and Shuster) of how the corporations have mismanaged their gods and their people.

Bratpack is basically looking at the absurdity, baffoonery and irresponsibility of the Teen Sidekick notion--with most superheroes (other than True Man (the Superman Achetype) being deviants (fascists, perverts, etc.)

The book posits that "Superman" is a concept that exists outside of time and space. A perfect ideal that if it didn't exits, would need to be created. He's channeled by two characters eerily similar to Siegel and Shuster. However, his story is not one of immediate loving devotion to humanity.

He kills his parents because he doesn't know his own strength--and is actually used as the atomic bomb in the Manhattan project.

The meta-narrative is shaping up outside space of time against his greatest enemies; Doctor Blashpemy (whose goal is to ridicule the superhero concept and "El Guano". Who is essentially a shit fetishist who corrupts however he interacts with.

[Mark Desrosiers · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK now I get it: this is a bizarro-world history of Superman as if he were conceived by his actual creator, Friedrich Nietzsche! (Watch for Fred's cameo as a mustachioed Cossack spit-roasting a mammoth at the beginning.) Blending fantastical weirdness with thinly disguised fact, it's both an indictment of the back-biting comic book industry and a mythical world-historical excursion on Apollonian/Dionysian lines, complete with cameo appearances from Albert Einstein, "Robert Uppenheimer", and Sherlock Holmes (who dies a cruel death here). Macrohistory plus micro-geekery.

The action-heavy style and level of horrific nastiness (maggots crawling out of faces, a pot boiling with poop, etc.) clearly work as an homage to EC comics. Which makes me wonder if the Maximortal is Veitch's vision of what would happen if The Vault of Horror were exhumed to expound with zombie wisdom upon comix tragedies and the role of superheroes in modern society.

Strange, eerily significant, mostly fun.

[Andrew Alper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is one of a handful of "Must Read" American comic books. If you grew up reading comics, if you fantasized about super powers as a child. If you like having long held preconceptions challenged, and being stolen down a very horrific rabbit hole amidst your own begrudging laughter, then this comic will surely please since it does all those things well. It also serves as a very readable study of postmodernity and nostalgia ... and guano.

Imagine if Joseph Campbell and George Lucas were kidnapped and locked in a mythical candy factory and had to eat their way out. It is kind of like that. Or, imagine if Alan Moore and Bob Burden wrote a much darker and terrifying version of The Watchmen but decided it would never get published.

It's really good. I should warn you that one of my other "must read" comics is The Flaming Carrot..

[Phayvanh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I realize this the more I read Rick Veitch , that his stories tend to veer towards the abstract and transendental. This is no exception. The art of course, his usual standard fare. The story however intermingles many different stories in US history. It helps to know how Superman was created, and the players in the development of the atom bomb. Veitch does include an afterword to this edition which will steer readers to those stories alluded to, if they are not already familiar wiht them.

You might not understand or "get" the end of it. But read it anyway. In some hundered years or so, maybe the creations you bring forth into this world will save you.

[D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just re-read this for the third (?) time. I love the way Veitch combines underground comic sensibilities, meditations on the nature of creativity, superheroes, and b-movie horror movie tropes into something uniquely his own. I don't have much to add that other reviewers haven't already talked about, but people looking for something completely different that the usual comics mainstream would do well to check out Veitch's work, and MAXIMORTAL is a great place to start.

[Neven · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely bizarre story blending the history of the Superman character with a psychedelic religion and a mad, often juvenile but always passionate philosophy. Quite well written, if extreme in every possible way.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

a shit-worshipping, time-bending rumination on the nature of creativity and superheroes and people stepping on each other to get ahead.

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a neat little retelling of the superman story as if (a) Superman were real, and (b) Superman created himself. It also references period characters such as Sherlock Holmes, although ambiguously. In Holmes’s case, for example, it’s hard to tell if the Superman was searching out Holmes, or if Holmes had deduced the correct notes to call the Superman to him.

There is a lot of that sort of coincidence here; it fits and is possibly even explained by the self-referential nature of the book, but that doesn’t change the fact that it does rely on coincidence.

Our history is reflected darkly in The Maximortal. Much of the story, from the negotiations with the DC Comics standin to the culmination of the Manhattan Project, relies on literal shit, all tracing back to the incontinence of a writer.

Which is probably taking the self-referential storyline much too far.

The only real problem with this book, even as a fun single read, is that nothing really happens. There’s some shit, and some gore, and some making fun of past comic book figures, but ultimately it’s all just a literal circle jerk by an incontinent writer who had things he needed to get out of his system. The only continuing story is that of comics magnate Sidney Wallace, and, to coin a bad pun, that’s left hanging. It never goes anywhere either.

For most authors that would result in an unreadable mess, but if you’ve read Veitch’s amazing Roarin’ Rick’s Rare Bit Fiends you’ll already know whether Veitch’s mess is going to be something you enjoy.

This is not a story that benefits from multiple readings, but at a single read catching the various references are fun, even into the now de rigueur afterward where the author explains why he wrote it and describes his sources. Among those sources, he recommends reading Alvin Schwartz’s An Unlikely Prophet, a recommendation I agree with.

In many ways, this book was written for me. Besides Alvin Schwartz’s somewhat obscure book, it relies on some of the less well known lore of the Manhattan Project, a topic I studied in depth in high school. It relies heavily on the early comic book industry, another topic I inadvertently became a minor expert on back in the heydey of the Usenet comic book community.

Perhaps Fermi was right. Perhaps the chain reaction would not spread beyond the unstable U235 to ignite the oxygen and hydrogen atoms of the atmosphere itself. Perhaps when they tested the thing it would not start a conflagration that consumed the entire globe.

[Rick Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rick Veitch's exploration of superhero tropes from the postmodernist lens continues from Brat Pack onto The Maximortal, which is one part an exploration of the Superman/Übermensch mythos and another part a scathing critique on creative rights in the comics industry. The Maximortal has a highly winding, nonlinear narrative where we follow the origin story of True-Man while also getting a story about the creators of the comic featuring True-Man. The two narratives form the layers around Veitch's exploration of superhero comics, both in terms of an exploration of the in-universe tropes while also having the meta-narrative where Veitch can air his greivances with the industry as a whole. While there are parts of The Maximortal where these two narrative threads can get incongruent, there is an ambitious scope to this comic that is worth admiring. There is a lot of richness in the way Veitch lays out the metaphors, even if they can be a fair bit hamfisted at times. As someone who does tire of the deconstructionist tone in contemporary superhero comics, I'd say something like The Maximortal does sufficiently enough to distinguish itself as something more unique than the rest of the playing field. This isn't simply a mocking diatribe as to what classic interpretations of superheros are childish - instead it does a great job exploring the complicated nature of both the superhero mythos and how consumerism perverts it.

[Don Jaucian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this because someone brought it up when "Brightburn" came out. It shares the basic premise: what if Superman turned out to be an evil superhero. "The Maximortal" though is more than that, it is many things at once: a thinly-veiled story of how Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster get screwed by a publisher/mogul similar to Walt Disney by owning the rights to their works and getting filthy rich off it; it is a pointed satire featuring Truman, Oppenheimer, and the Manhattan Project; and the cyclic and mythic nature of storytelling.

The art here is great: an upside-down version of pulp fiction/comics, gloriously detailed and disgusting when needed (there's a character called El Guano whose powers are derived from actual shit). I'm sure there are references here that went over my head being a novice comic book reader but Veitch's world is so richly detailed and lovingly told that I've often felt as if I were with the characters down in the muck and hoping that their miseries would soon come to pass.

[Mario · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review originally appeared on my blog, Shared Universe Reviews.

Rick Veitch is very underrated in my opinion. For nearly two decades he was at the forefront of comic book experimentation, creator rights and intelligent deconstruction of the superhero myth. Even his comics didn’t exist in a vacuum (nothing does), he played a pretty important part in the development and the deconstruction of superheroes. I won’t really say much more on the matter since I don’t feel I have the appropriate background and information on Rick Veitch’s career to give a comprehensive look at his achievements. I do know a few things for a fact, his comics are important works that challenge readers and the industry but they are, unfortunately, rather unpopular among the comic reading masses.

It’s not all bad though. The more I read comics by Veitch the more I get the feeling I need to read more of him. Sometimes that feeling is mixed with the thought that he is largely underrated and that motivates me to read more of this stuff. The first work of his that I read was The One and it was glorious. It was simultaneously a wonderful and terrible experience. There was such venom seemed into the pages of the comic. There was also a sense of glee to be found in the dark lines of the black and white collection, as if Veitch was having a grand time creating a comic that could be, at times, so vile. Partway through the comic though, I started to pay attention. Veitch was saying something and it shocked me as a comics reader to find out that there is much more than just the latest superhero issue to comics. I’ve had similar experiences in the past but this one was mixed with a sense of taboo. I shouldn’t have been reading and enjoying a comic that seemed to take the genre it was exploring as a joke.

Fans of Rick Veitch will notice that when I first read The One I didn’t really understand it. I didn’t understand the creator, either. It’s after reading Brat Pack that I understood Veitch loves superheroes. It’s also because of his long time admiration of these modern myths that he was so good at tearing them apart to see what lies beneath. He fearlessly and unapologetically ventures into uncharted territory and it’s that exploration that results in such comics as The One, Brat Pack and The Maximortal.

The Maximortal is about two things. The first is about The Maximortal himself, a Superman copycat that’s done with a significantly darker and satirical twist. The second part of the comic is about the creators of Superman and, you could say, the modern myth of the superhero as we know it today. The story of Maximortal, or True Man as he’s actually known in the story, is intermixed with the history of the first half of the Twentieth Century. We see how he played a part in World War II as well as the Manhattan project. We also see how he influenced the works of physicists of the time (specifically Oppenheimer and Einstein). Veitch also has True Man’s existence preceed his creation at the hands of this story’s Siegel and Shuster analogues.

The Siegel and Shuster part of the comic is that one that strike’s an emotional chord in any regular comic reader. Their abuse at the hands of their publisher is upsetting not only as a fan of their work or the genre or the medium in which they worked, but also to readers who support creator rights. In short, they were taken advantage of and it’s still a legal battle that’s relevant today. Having recently read The Comic Book History of Comics, I was able to pinpoint the parts of the story that are based in fact and it’s upsetting how poorly Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were treated. Veitch masterfully combines both story to increase the level of depth of both stories. I don’t think they would have worked as well had they been told independently of one another.

A significant part of the comic is based in fact, even outside of the Siegel and Shuster portion. Veitch meditates on the idea of superheroes and their origin. He also argues as to why he thinks the creation of Superman (True Man, whatever) was a product of its time and why it endured. He supplements those ideas in The Maximortal with an essay about humanity, the superman, the rise of fascism and other strong nationalist movements and the works of Nietzsche. Much like Veitch’s important contributions to comic books weren’t created in a vacuum, Superman wasn’t created out of thin air either.

One more thing of note, Veitch introduces another thought provoking element in his comic. He includes the notion that ideas are themselves alive, even to the point of having their own physical bodies. The idea of the superman became so prevalent to the mindset of the first half of the Twentieth Century that it resulted in the idea becoming real. Sure, Superman isn’t the same as Nietzsche’s Übermensch, but the idea of a superior human has become and intrinsic part of our modern culture.

It's not my favourite of Veitch's works but that doesn’t mean a whole lot. So far, I’ve enjoyed every comic by Veitch that I’ve read. Even if you don’t like his comic, they will always give you plenty of things to think about a long time after you put the book down. One of the things I wanted to review on my blog when I was toying with the idea was comics by Rick Veitch because there aren’t a whole lot of places that have offered interesting discussions of his body of work. I know that the above isn’t really worthy of much praise but it’s a step in the right direction. I’ll have to follow up this review with more reviews of his other comics. Well see, maybe along the way I’ll start better understand his contribution to comics and even if I don’t, it’s a good excuse to read some good comics.

[Robert Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked most of the book until the ending collapsed psychedelic into a cliche-did not know where to end it ouroboros the ending is the beginning sort of end. I also found that the afterword essay frankly, sucked. I skimmed it, it was primarily comic-book/philosophical roots of Superman spiel I'm already familiar with, maybe someone unfamiliar with that whole thing might be entertained or informed, but I doubt it. I would suggest it with the caveat that it has a glaring weakness in its hackneyed end. Although, I might catch up with the other volumes of this series but don't hold me to that.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. I'd heard that this was good, but I wasn't expecting it to be THIS good. Part fictionalized biography of Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster and part treatise on the relationship between fiction and reality, The Maximortal tackles some pretty out-there themes. It's intelligent, well drawn and offers a powerful (if not entirely uplifting) message about the corruption of ideas, the exploitability of men, and the impermanence of it all. But a truly great idea will never die, Veitch tells us, and this book is a wonderful testament to that.

[Mary Harker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rick Veitch nos ofrece una laberíntica historia nietzscheneana sobre la creación del Superhéroe, el nacionalismo y la industria del cómic, donde el nihilismo, el "eterno retorno" y, por supuesto, el "Superhombre" ocupan un papel protagonista. Atrapa, confunde y finalmente deja una escalofriante sensación de vacío existencial... Lo recomendaría una y mil veces.

[Ryan Crampton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixing history with a retelling of the Superman mythology. Veith's Maximortal was not at all what i was expecting and seems to focus more on the curse of superman which refers to a series of misfortunes that have plagued creatives involved in adaptations of Superman over the years. Having said that it's certainly one of the most original takes on Superman i've ever read.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 really

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

So mad at myself for just now discovering the works of Rick Veitch.

[Greg Shantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Veitch's art.

[Patrizio · Rating 4 out of 5]

****1/2

[Rorscharch71 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story 4
Art 4

Great essay at the end of the book

[Max Ostrovsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alan Moore's fingerprints are all over this.

[Sol · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointing mishmash of "superman but dark and edgy", heavily fictionalized events related to the early history of comic books in America, and scatology. The first element has been done better (or at least, coherently), by later authors, the second's righteous fury is an odd bedfellow with the comic's caricatural nature, and the third doesn't really add anything to the milieu other than some low-grade gross-out humour. It's not that I have anything against gross-out jokes, but I have high standards. There is, however, one really good scene during the senate hearing on juvenile delinquency, where the William Gaines stand-in completely flubs his testimony under the influence of his "diet pills".

The ending attempts to tie everything together, but it fails to rise up to the level of significance it's grasping for.

[Zac · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this a bit more than Brat Pack. The first scene is one of the oddest superhero origin stories I've ever seen, and it doesn't get any less weird from there. There's a mystical guy called El Guano who walks around playing with shit. It also bizarrely weaves in the story of Siegel and Shuster's exploitation by DC, and Oppenheimer, Einstein and the atomic bomb. Also Sherlock Holmes makes a memorable cameo as a beekeeping morphine addict. I like the art a bit better here as well, but it could be partly due to the colouring.

[Charles Gory · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy Rick Veitchs work. I felt this book was all over the place. Per haps a slower pace over say nine issues would have suited better. Mostly commentary on the comic industry. Not the raw parody brat pack was.

[Whatsupchuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is all sorts of crazy. I don't remember all that much from it, but what stuck in my mind was the story and concept of Superman subverted to twisted ends combined with a parallel history of the creators of Superman.
Not an 'easy read' from what I remember.

[Mike Kleine · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best stories I've ever read.