Zeb Larson reviews The Violent #3…
Mason spirals further out of control, pulling those around him down with him. The bodies continue to pile up.
Man, Ed Brisson is really not shy about dialing up the elements of Sophoclean tragedy in The Violent. Every step Mason takes to try and hold his family together only ends up increasing the odds that it will be taken away, not to mention destroying the lives of the people he comes in contact with along the way. He even recognizes that he’s broken and has made mistakes, but he keeps making them hoping that one will finally allow him to pull his chestnuts out of the fire. If that ever looked like a plausible outcome, it’s become virtually impossible by this point.
Following the events of last issue, the police are now clued in to Joel’s murder. Despite the fact that he’s been reduced to a chewed-up lump of meat, they waste no time deducing that somebody else got to him first, and they already know he’s connected to Becky. Speaking of Becky, Mason finally manages to track her down. While he’s relieved to find her, he now has to tell her what happened to Kaitlyn. As if that were not enough, Dylan is having a serious crisis of conscience about what happened to Joel, and hopes that by talking to the police they won’t get caught.
Aristotle wrote (how often do you get to write that in a comic book review?) that what defines tragic heroes are not the misfortunes that they suffer. Rather, the choices that they make that bring about their own downfall are what make them tragic. If we accept that, Mason is a tragic hero to a T. He’s acting out of an emotion that most people could understand, namely the determination to hold his family together under any circumstances. In doing so, he’s becoming increasingly self-destructive to everybody around him. Furthermore, every step he takes is increasing the likelihood he’ll lose his family. If the odds weren’t good in the first issue that he’ll keep his family, they’re pretty awful now.
On top of the good man making bad choices theme at work here, tragic heroes also have to believe that they can always be in control. People who think they’re ahead of the game and can manage dangerous situations are themselves some of the most dangerous people on the planet, because they’ll try and control events that frankly nobody can control. Mason’s plan with the dog didn’t stop the cops from figuring out something else killed him, and there’s at least some circumstantial evidence tying Joel to Becky. Without giving anything away, his commitment to that plan just makes things worse again.
Mason is an addict (albeit one not currently using), which is so much of the subtext of this series. Just because he’s clean doesn’t mean he’s not acting out and self-destructing like a junkie, though. Where does the line fall between disease and personal responsibility? That’s a difficult one to tease out, but Brisson seems to be saying that for all of Mason’s difficulties, everything that has gone wrong that we’ve seen has been a matter of choice for him. It started with an easily understood mistake, and they’re growing each and every time. Maybe because he believes that he’s brokem (a classic case of an addict feeding off of their own sense of shame, and then behaving shamefully ), what he does next won’t matter.
On another note, I’d like to see more of Becky in the next few issues. She has an exchange with her mother that hints that her own issues might not just be choice. Her mother has never seemed like an easy person, and it’s certainly plausible that she wouldn’t have won any “Mother of the Year” awards. That said, where does the line between disease and choice fall for her? How culpable is she?
I’m really digging this series. It’s violent in a way that is fundamentally uncomfortable, targeting families. Joel might have had some nasty stuff happen to him, but it was quick and comparably merciful to watching Mason’s life be torn away from him bit by bit.
Rating: 9/10
Zeb Larson
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Originally published March 2, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
