Broken Frontier

Tommy Monaghan is back in a welcome flashback story that brings the Hitman and the JLA together to face a menace from both their pasts…

Bloodlines. It was an early 90s crossover series that’s never going to attain the status of fan favorite. Not on this Earth anyway. Over a series of Annuals it gave the DCU a host of new characters who, having been bitten by a race of invading alien parasites, had gained super-powers rather than dying. A few of them spun off into their own short-lived books or miniseries (Gunfire, Loose Cannon, Anima, Argus, Blood Pack) but none had any lasting success. None, that is, except for Tommy Monaghan, the hard-drinking anti-hero who debuted in The Demon Annual #2 and went on to star for sixty-plus issues (including spin-offs and one-shots) of his own Hitman book.

Hitman’s story came to a definite conclusion, in a hail of bullets, a few years back. Tommy and I have some history though. Back in those pre-Internet days, when the only contact we fans had with the industry was through letter columns, I was rewarded for my persistent (and probably quite irritating – I was something of an angry young fanboy in those days!) letterhacking by receiving the first three issues of Hitman in photocopied black and white previews to advance comment on.

I instantly knew there was going to be something very special about Garth Ennis’s work on this book. Ironically, for a title with such a cynical subject matter (the adventures of a bunch of boozy assassins-for-hire), the real themes of the book were friendship and the relationships of Tommy and his supporting cast. Ostensibly a DCU book, Ennis was unable to go to the same extremes as in some of his other work and this meant the humor had to be tighter, cleverer and less reliant on the total gross-out crudity. Although there was some of that too! For me it’s far and away his best work. And yes, that does mean I rate Hitman over Preacher…

So, just like Suicide Squad last week, I found myself revisiting an old favorite and hoping against hope that I wasn’t going to be disappointed. And, once again, I’m pleased to say I wasn’t. Opening in the present day, a reporter questions Clark Kent about Tommy Monaghan’s links to Superman. It gives Clark the opportunity to tell, in flashback, a previously unknown part of Monaghan’s past when the potential return of the Bloodlines parasites led to the JLA taking the Hitman to their Watchtower on the moon to plan a defence against the aliens. Little do the heroes know but the Parasites are about to get their "retaliation" in first….

The most appealing aspect of this first part (of two) is the dialogue. As snappy and witty as ever, it’s particularly amusing in the context of Ennis playing with honest-to-goodness DC icons like the JLA. Outside of some great one-liners Ennis also pushes the boundaries of taste as far as he can in a DCU book (and in some cases probably overstepping said boundaries!). Supporting player Natt’s new girlfriend who, after a teleportation accident, has ended up with an elephant’s head provides one of the best gags later in the issue. As this is a family-oriented review I shall refrain from elaborating on some of the other subjects for humor, but there are some genuinely laugh out loud moments herein…

Plenty of old faces turn up. This couldn’t be an issue of Hitman (so to speak) without an appearance by Sixpack after all, and the proceedings are given a fitting sense of familiarity by the able storytelling of long-time Hitman collaborator John McCrea on the art chores. Perhaps my only concern, from an accessibility standpoint, is that so many past issues are referenced in footnotes that newer readers may well feel they’ve blundered into a huge in-joke that they’re excluded from. However, longer-term readers will love the sense of nostalgia this brings and the chance to relive classic moments from the past. Who can forget Tommy vomiting all over the Batman in Hitman #1 for example?

An unmissable treat that will hopefully prove to DC that more Hitman trades are needed. So pull a stool up to the bar, grab a beer and raise your glass to Tommy, Natt, Sean, Ringo, Hacken, Baytor and Sixpack. A welcome reminder that the 1990s really weren’t as bad as we sometimes think they were!