Broken Frontier

It doesn’t sound like the recipe for a creepy comic, does it?

Take arguably one of the weakest spandex-clad superheroes—a second rate Dr. Strange whose fitness club AND hair club for men memberships are woefully out of date—and craft a disturbing tale around him.  The formula didn’t pay off for Marvel when, in 1995, they launched the ill-fated series Druid.  But, as far as I’m concerned, it should have worked, if only the readers had given it a chance.

This week I’m not only continuing my discussion of horror in comics; I’m also lamenting over yet another comic that coulda-woulda-shoulda made it.  As you know, I think most of the comics released in the 90s were utter dreck.  Those that showed true merit—such as the previously mentioned Blackwulf—were often short-lived.  Blackwulf only lasted for 10 issues.  The very cool series Clandestine lasted only 8.  Druid makes them both look like long-running titles.

Druid ended with issue 4.

And since the series has since been banished to quarter boxes, you can probably pick up the entire run for a buck. 

Warren Ellis and Leonardo Manco did their best to make Dr. Druid cool.  Here we have a character who served as a minor member of the Avengers and the Defenders.  He was sort of a minor league magician in a world under the watchful eye of the Sorcerer Supreme.  How can a guy complete with that?  Anthony Ludgate might have suffered in squalor as a has-been forever if he hadn’t opened his mind to the wisdom of the ancients to become the world’s last druid.  Suddenly, this two-bit hack seemed just as formidable as Dr. Strange, only he lacked a conscience and a desire to do good deeds … and he was kinda scary.

Let’s take a look at the second issue.

The splash page sets the mood quite nicely.  Messy, dripping flesh upon an altar.  Meat cleaver embedded into the wood nearby.  Ceremonial robes and leather aprons hanging in the background.  Candles burning all around.

“The meat sickness is upon them.”

The story jumps right into the horror—visions of cannibalism and ritual killings dancing like sugarplums through the reader’s mind.

Cut to Druid and his right-hand man Hemingway taking a cab ride through Manhattan.  (Like Doc Savage, Druid surrounds himself with a cadre of assistants, only his companions are a failed magician, a murderess, and an insane psychic.  This is the dark underbelly of the Marvel universe, and I loved it.)  Druid has just now started to realize his potential, but those around him—and any reader familiar with the character—still doesn’t know him from the weak-willed, pathetic wannabe he has almost always seemed to be.

But all that’s about to change.

Druid mouths off to the cabby, who in stereotypical fashion pulls the car over, hops out, and prepares to whip the snot out of his fare.  With a look, a grin, and a flash of yellow from his eyes, Druid sets the cabby on fire and watches him burn down to bone and ash.

“Oh God,” coughs Hemingway as he throws up his breakfast.  “He—he just, just—“

“He was loutish and ill-spoken,” says Druid.  “No excuse.  Not as if he could claim corrupted genes from criminal descendency, like the Australians.”

“But, but, what did you do to him?”

“The ancient magicians of the Celtica were druids.  They could ignite fires, warp wood, twist nature to their whim.  Their lost wisdom is mine.  There are deposits of phosphorus in the human body.  I set light to his.”

For years, Dr. Druid has been a sniveling, meek player in a world full of superpowers.  Now he’s setting people on fire—from the inside out, no less—with a glance.  Obviously, we’re no longer dealing with the same hero here, as this next bit of dialogue reveals:

“I have a job for you,” Druid says.  “I have decided to return to an old trade of mine—consultation upon and investigation of matters occult.  You, Hemingway, are to procure such work for me.”

“Um.  Forgive me, but that sounds a bit … spandex.”

“I NEVER WANT TO HEAR THAT WORD AGAIN!”

There are a couple of references to “spandex” in the book, especially in reference to how Druid is not a superhero book.  While a little humorous, I don’t think these references needed to be crammed down the reader’s throat.  Anyone so much as casually flipping through the dreary, nightmarish artwork and somber, poetic captions could easily tell this is a different kind of book.

Druid’s only goal in investigating the occult is to add to his already considerable knowledge.  Hemingway finds his master a client—Nekra Sinclair, a beautiful high priestess of the Cult of Kali.  Nekra has followed a group of men who have stolen corpses from her chapel, and she wants help in punishing them. 

“The corpses really were incidental to our main work within the cult,” says Nekra.  “The reanimation of corpses is a useful initiation rite, of course … and they can provide a certain kind of company.  But mostly it’s an insult.  To have corpses stolen from the breast of Kali, goddess of death.  Insult.  And now, to know that they will be desecrated in construction of some false god.  Second Assembly, a splinter movement from a Siberian cult called Dry Academy is responsible.  They are a cannibal priesthood who believe that knowledge can be transferred by foodstuffs …”

A rather disturbing thought … and the Barker-esque imagery only added to the surreal quality of the story.

“So they addictively devour the flesh of academics, magicians, artists, and of psychopaths and lunatics.  I don’t know what they worshipped in Siberia, but the assembly plainly want a better god.  Their avowed intention is to create a deity fitted for the close of the twentieth century.  That is blasphemous enough—but the bodies stolen from my chapel were of rapists, murderers, monsters who did what cannot easily be put into words.”

The themes hint of Barker (as I mentioned), Shelley, and Lovecraft, and I didn’t realize until re-reading the comic for this column how much it has influenced some of my own writing.

Druid, of course, agrees to confront the Second Assembly, because he “will not have this filth occurring.”

As the story closes, spindly arms claw their way from rancid meat piled atop a bloody altar.

“Homonculus flies, grown from angel seed and lizard dung, vomit over meat and stamp it lovingly.  Beneath the vestry’s flagstones, severed throats chant obscenities in Gregorian rhythm.  This is the Second Coming.”

But not for Druid.

The comic could have been something of a rebirth for Dr. Druid … as well as a highpoint in Marvel’s horror comics.  Sure, the book had a very Hellblazer-like feel to it, but it worked, and I would have liked to have seen more of Druid’s not-so-heroic adventures.  Alas, the tragic story of Druid came to a close just two issues later, and the final issue felt very rushed.  Still, it’s worth tracking down … if for no other reason than to see how good a horror comic could have been in the 90s, when wasted efforts and missed opportunities like Nightstalkers and Spirits of Vengeance abounded.

Horrific maybe, but for the wrong reasons.

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Cullen Bunn's fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. His comic series The Damned will be published by Oni Press in late 2006.  You can find out more about his work by visiting www.cullenbunn.com.