Symbols and Archetypes, how they never really change
What is the nice about the Thrillkiller universe is the look of the book. Dan Brereton really does a great job on the art of this book to capture Howard Chaykin's street level pulp crime universe set in an alternate 1961-62 time frame.
This book explores the "Bat" mythos as Batgirl being the linchpin character instead of Bruce Wayne as Batman. Many of the embodied characteristics of each familiar character stay true in this universe, such as the heroes stay heroes while the villains are still evil in the heart. A nice demonstration of this is the split of Two-Face and Harvey Dent, there is a criminal named Two-Face who looks like the villain we all know and love, while Harvey Dent himself is not scared and is still an honorable man. I really enjoyed that "Robin" is always the side-kick and in both the mini and the sequel Thrillkiller 62', all the Robins seemed summed up and rolled into "the jacket", making the symbol more important then the man (boy/girl). In the picture above we see a gun wielding, enraged young man, much like Jason Todd was before he died, the man above is not Todd but Dick Grayson. Later other Robin's are given homages, such as the Robin in Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, all nice touches. I cannot stress how well this team worked together, Chaykin provided a great paced crime story, but Brereton really gave life to the story visually. The loving embrace of a crying Dick Grayson is one of the finest pages I have ever seen in comics.
The main series is highly recommended, the sequel is nice, not not as good as the original, if you can find this trade I do recommend it, individually, get the mini first. The Sequel is accessible, but not as good.
If you are interested in the individual issue reviews, I have included them below:
" Wow, this looks really cool..........Had'nt even heard of it.. "
Its a pretty old story now, 98 I think it when the trade was originally printed, went out of print a few years after that if I remember correctly. I found the trade recently at a Con and was dying to read it in its entirety, I've seen the toys, screen shots and what not and enjoy Chaykin's writing, it was a no brainier for me to get this.
Hi, here's The Twilight Thunder with another 5 star review!Ok, so let's get down to biz here.Batman Thrillkiller `62 is just one of those rare pieces of perfect work that Dan Brereton gives to the comic audience, even though he's not a mainstream artist and his style is far from "Average" Or "Simplistic", Batman Thrillkiller relies heavily on the art style... Chaykin delivers a solid Elseworld with great chracters and interesting and sometimes funny one-liners (remember that we're reading a noir...
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