Writers: Michael Chabon, Jim Starlin, Kevin McCarthy and Howard Chaykin
Artists: Eric Wight, Jim Starlin, Kyle Baker, Howard Chaykin, Kevin McCarthy and
Steve Lieber
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
The Plot:
A collection of stories of a forgotten hero from the Golden Age of comics, as the costumed crime-fighter/escape-artist Escapist embarks on a series of adventures. In this volume we get a retelling of his origin, his daring struggles as he finds himself saddle with jury duty, and he also has to break into a maximum security prison to discover the fate of a undercover agent who has stopped sending messages. The Escapist also does battle with a government official on a communist witch-hunt, and we also get a truly bizarre adventure involving a heroine by the name of Luna Moth.
The Good:
I read Michael Chabon's "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" shortly after it came out, and while I have a rough recollection of the plot, I suspect it's not all that important to one's enjoyment of this comic beyond to simply remember that it was about a pair of comic creators in the golden age who created a hero named The Escapist. Now this issue does a truly convincing job of selling the idea that the Escapist was a real character who has simply slipped through the cracks of comic history, and I love how this book actually manages to recreate the feel of all the various eras that this forgotten character would traveled through. From the opening story which acts as a wonderful golden age recreation of the character's origin, to the fairly intense violence of the closing story which feels like a modern day realization of the same character, this issue looks to be having a grand old time playing around in the various eras. Now some of the stories work far better than others, as Michael Chabon's opening story is a smartly written tale of how the Escapist came into being, and I have to say I loved the two-page Escapegoat cartoon by Kevin McCarthy. The story where the Escapist finds himself on jury duty, responsible for convicting a man that he brought to justice in his heroic identity was also a rather clever situation to place the character in, and while Howard Chaykin's efforts are dependent on a resolution that I felt was a bit convenient, I will say it did a nice job capturing the feel of its era, with a couple cute acknowledgments of information we discovered after the fact.
There's wealth of talented artists working on this issue, and they each bring a decidedly different style to their respective stories, which helps to sell the idea that each one of the stories is representative of a different era in the character's history. From Eric Wright's Jack Kirby style on the opening story to Jim Starlin's truly gorgeous, but decidedly surreal display of art, this issue is a visual treat. I also loved the look of Kyle Baker's work, as it has a nice 1950s look about it, and Howard Chaykin delivers a wonderfully edgy style that nicely suits the harder hitting material. The cartoonish look of the Escapegoat story is also a lot of fun, and the closing story by Steve Lieber does a wonderful job of capturing the violence, while at the same time it also does a pretty fair job with the more amusing moments, like the Escapist's look of frustration when he's trying to get caught by a pair of inept security guards. The book is also framed by a couple lovely covers, though they both sell the character as an escape artist, while none of the stories inside play up this idea.
The Bad:
As I mentioned above I'm a big fan of the whole escape artist concept, as I went through a stage in my youth where I was utterly fascinated with the idea, and looking back on it I'm utterly convinced I had my guardian angel working over time working to keep me from killing myself during my various attempts at being the next Houdini. This is the reason why I can't resist the urge to pick up the various "Mister Miracle" series, as theirs is something utterly engrossing about the combination of seemingly impossible escapes, and the world of super-heroics. However, while this series would seem to have its finger right on the pulse of an idea that I find exceptionally cool, the simple fact of the matter in that in the entire 80 pages of story not once did we encounter a scene where the Escapist looked to be trapped in a situation where his mastery of escape artistry would be tested. In other words what we have is a series of stories where the escape artist hero isn't called upon to perform any real exciting escapes. I mean the book does a masterful job of recreating the various eras that the Escapist comic would've existed in, but in the end the writers seem to have forgotten the simple fact that given their hero is supposed to be an escape artist. The stories they offered up should've focus on this ability. I mean the only really escape that he makes in these pages is to slip out of a prison, but even then he doesn't really escape but rather he leads a band of criminals out the front door into the arms of the waiting police. I wanted the scene where the character is locked up in chains, placed inside a vault, and dropped into a vat of drying cement.
I Want To Be Like Harry Houdini:
This book is a bit tough on the wallet, and I for one hope it's not a monthly series, as it's a bit much asking readers to be spending this much each month. However, weighing in at roughly 80+ pages in length this volume is a fairly sizeable reading experience, and for the most part a highly enjoyable one. Now one has to openly wonder what Jim Starlin was doing with his Luna Moth story, as it's more a series of images that a real story, and all of the stories suffer from a decided lack of escape artist elements, which I found a bit disappointing considering it was one of the primary reasons why I decided to pick this book up. However, the opening story of how the Escapist came into existence is quite entertaining, as is the story of the Escapist's encounter with the ever feared jury duty, and the closing story of his journey into a maximum security prison was more amusing than one would expect from it's plot description. Now I hope the next issue includes more death defying escapes, but this opening issue does a pretty fair job of introducing readers to the character and the world he operates in, while at the same time doing a utterly convincing job that the Escapist is a real character who simply fell through the cracks of comic book history.
What did you think of this book?
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