Mark Allen reviews Kill Or Be Killed #1…
The bestselling team of ED BRUBAKER and SEAN PHILLIPS (THE FADE OUT, CRIMINAL, FATALE) launch their new monthly series: KILL OR BE KILLED, the twisted story of a young man who is forced to kill bad people, and how he struggles to keep his secret as it slowly ruins his life and the lives of his friends and loved ones. Both a thriller and a deconstruction of vigilantism, KILL OR BE KILLED is unlike anything BRUBAKER & PHILLIPS have ever done.
Kill Or Be Killed begins the same way many other vigilante stories do: with a masked amateur do-gooder committing terrible acts of violence against bad men. Howevere, unlike those other stories, which are largely concerned with a sense that our hero is just that – a well-meaning but misguided little guy sticking up for all the other little guys of the world – Brubaker, Phillips and Elizabeth Breitweiser’s latest collaboration doesn’t sugar coat their protagonist’s monstrous behaviour. Crucially, it doesn’t celebrate it in the same way as something like the ha-ha-isn’t-gruesome-torture-and-rape-so-funny antics of Kick-Ass, but rather portrays the need to murder as an action undertaken by only the most desperate of people.
Not a barrel of laughs, then. But neither is Kill Or Be Killed a morose trudge through the everyday horrors humans are capable of inflicting upon one another; if the first issue is anything to go by, it’s both a deep study of a tragic character and a sorely needed examination of masculinity in crisis…with demonic pacts to boot.
This team don’t do things by the book, and they certainly don’t do things by halves. What starts out as a pure genre exercise quickly develops to incorporate discussion of mental health problems, suicide, surprisingly nuanced sexual politics and a satanic apparition appearing to give our hero Dylan an offer he literally cannot refuse. If you want the elevator pitch it’s Taxi Driver by way of The Omen for a generation raised on Call of Duty. And if that doesn’t terrify you I don’t know what will.
After this many projects together Brubaker, Phillips and Breitweiser work like a auteur: the dialogue, linework and colouring all move in concert with each other beautifully, revealing character and setting tone without an extraneous line, unnecessary panel or off-key shade in sight. A book with this team on the cover is about as close as you can get to a seal of quality in contemporary mainstream comics.
While this first issue promises a rich, engaging and expertly told treatise on modern masculinity and the simmering rage hidden under the surface of much of the population, Kill Or Be Killed looks set to be a deeply pessimistic book. This creative team aren’t known for pulling their punches, so if you’re ready to face the monsters they’ve hidden under your bed, dive under; if you need your fiction a little sunnier right now, it might be best to steer clear. Because it’s damn sure not going to lighten up any time soon, and too many of us cherish the dark to want it any other way.
Rating: 10/10
Mark Allen
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Originally published August 3, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
