Lots of action, comedy, violence, war flashbacks and shit either getting spectacularly blown up or horribly imploded left right and centre as the ABC (Atomic Bacterial Chemical) Warriors continue their galaxy spanning crusade to increase the peace in this jaw droppingly gorgeous sci fi epic from Requiem Vampire Knight writer and UK comic 2000ad creator Pat Mills and artist Clint Langley (Slaine, Judge Dredd, Sinister Dexter).
If you've never read ABC Warriors before (like most of my friends who I showed the books to at the Leeds Thought Bubble comic con after I bought them) then the premise is this: Originally created to be mechanised soldiers, immune to Atomic, Bacterial and Chemical weapons and fight wars in place of the floppies (humans) to minimise organic casualties, the ABC Warriors are a group of sentient robots who roam the galaxy, Magnificent 7 style, spreading chaos by attacking oppressive order and “increasing the peace” by siding against evil where ever they find it. This usually involves the use of a lot of ridiculously over the top heavy weapons and results in Rambo 4 standard body counts and violence. They are:
Deadlock: Arcane magic using mental druid type and servant of chaos
Hammerstein: Courageous by the book good guy soldier of the team.
Joe Pineapples: Sniper of unparalleled skill.
Blackblood: re-programmed Volgan war robot who specialises in betrayals.
Mongrol: Massive great big animal robot bruiser.
Steel Horn: Mechanised knight war hero.
Mech Quake: Half Whit lunatic.
In this mammoth four graphic novel story the Warriors, en route to Mariners City on Mars to recruit a new member to the team, each take it in turn to recount tales about their separate involvements in the Volgan war and their encounters with a special ops Robot flame thrower unit called Zippo. Then they arrive at their destination and it all kicks off like a football riot where everyone's a robot with a massive gun.
I've read some beautifully illustrated comics before but the art in all four of these books is nothing short of awe inspiring. Clint Langleys combination of Fully painted art altered using computers is astonishingly effective. Some of the huge two page battle illustrations make it seem like you could be looking at a still from a high budget science fiction film. In fact if these comics were a film they'd have a budget of about 500 000 000 quid. You really can get lost looking at all the minute detail in the background and action. I need to get myself a thesaurus so I can look up some better words to describe just how good the visuals are.
Unsurprisingly, Pat Mills' brilliant ability to mix original and interesting fantasy story lines with off the wall, almost Monty Python style humour makes it as entertaining and satisfying to read as it is to look at as all the flash backs tie together with each other and eventually the explosive present. Great dialogue, plot, characters and character development as members of the team leave/return and new members join.
Mariners City is a typically dystopian setting for the Warriors to turn up and start shooting people in and the people in charge there are exactly the kind of power mad, human rights abusing fascists that they oppose in a lot of their other comics. Here the entire city looks like a perpetual building site to give it's inhabitants the illusion of progress and that things are constantly improving. Large parts of the city are designated “quiet zones” where talking is illegal to make it easier for the police to monitor people's thoughts transmitted through their digital brain implants.
Loved 'em all. If you're looking for a bit of violent, mechanised sci-fi with a twist of black humour then you can't go wrong with these. The ABC Warriors has been going in 2000ad since 1984 so there is a fair bit of history to it but each book has a quick re-cap on all the previous events and stories so newcomers to the series don't need to worry about not knowing what's going on.
OVERALL SCORE FOR THE 4 BOOKS 8/10
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Bad Company: Goodbye Krool World
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