Comics

Review: ‘Happy’ #3

Published

11 years ago

December 20, 2012

Grant Morrison’s twisted seasonal pipe dream continues with the third issue of Happy, where he is once again joined by artist Darick Robertson as disgraced Detective Nick Sax teams up with a very small, very vocal flying blue horse. This installment fleshes out Sax’s backstory and gives us a glance into what happened to make him such a foul-mouth, chain smoking, miserable bastard.

WRITTEN BY: Grant Morrison
ART BY: Darick Robertson
PUBLISHER: Image Comics
Price: $2.99
RELEASE: December 19, 2012

The premise of “Happy” is so delightfully bizarre that the backstory we’re given to explain Nick’s doom and gloom attitude is disappointingly generic by comparison. Considering that the book’s titular character is either a drug and/or physical trauma induced hallucination, as Sax would like to believe, or a magical creature that only the surly contract killer can see, one would think that Morrison would pull out all the stops to make Nick’s story as wild as all that. He doesn’t and while what we’re given isn’t necessarily bad, it’s admittedly somewhat pedestrian in its ambitions.

A great deal of the book is spent on the battle of wills between Nick’s perpetual pessimism and Happy’s grating cheerfulness. Being the grizzled, cop-turned-killer that he is, Nick simply doesn’t have it in him to believe in the magic of tiny blue pegasi. Happy, on the oher hand, is unrelenting in his efforts to bring Nick around.

Happy’s young charge, Hailey, is still in grave danger and since Sax is the only adult who can see him, Nick really is his only hope. The argument stretches on a tad too long and Nick’s explosive Negative Nancy outbursts fall flat after a while. Since this is a mini-series and the clock is ticking on Nick’s disbelief, he inevitably comes around and the reveal as to why he can see Happy when others can’t is the most interesting moment in the book.

Darick Robertson’s art continues to be as dark and as grim as it needs to be and the grit is nicely offset by Happy’s vibrant blue coloring. The handful of scenes where we get to see the kiddie slaughtering Santa have their own sickly palette, supplied by colorist Tony Avina. Robertson’s penchant for lovingly drawn details and Avina’s expert coloring bring Morrison’s vision to life, even when the story itself becomes a little lackluster. The last few pages see our surly protagonist find his motivation and it’s likely that, now that the preliminaries are out of the way, the Dynamic Duo of Sax and Happy can finally get down to business.

3.5/5 Skulls

Reviewed by MelissaGrey

Related Topics:Grant Morrison Happy Happy #3 Image Comics

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Comics

‘Witchblade’ is Getting Resurrected This Summer in New Comic Series from Top Cow and Image Comics

Published

1 week ago

April 18, 2024

Meagan Navarro

Witchblade, the popular comic series that initially ran from 1995 to 2015 and launched a TV series, is getting resurrected in a new comic series from Top Cow and Image Comics. It’s set to unleash heavy metal, black magic and blood this summer.

Look for the new Witchblade series to launch on July 17, 2024.

In Witchblade #1, “New York City Police Detective Sara Pezzini’s life was forever fractured by her father’s murder. Cold, cunning, and hellbent on revenge, Sara now stalks a vicious criminal cabal beneath the city, where an ancient power collides and transforms her into something wild, magnificent, and beyond her darkest imaginings. How will Sara use this ancient power, or will she be consumed by it?”

The series is penned by NYT Best-Selling writer Marguerite Bennett (Animosity, Batwoman, DC Bombshells) and visualized by artist Giuseppe Cafaro (Suicide Squad, Power Rangers, Red Sonja). The creative duo is working with original co-creator Marc Silvestri, who is the CEO of Top Cow Productions Inc. and one of the founders of Image Comics. They are set to reintroduce the series to Witchblade’s enduring fans with “a reimagined origin with contemporary takes on familiar characters and new story arcs that will hook new readers and rekindle the energy and excitement that fueled the 90’s Image Revolution that shaped generations of top creators.”

Bennett said in a statement, “The ability to tell a ferocious story full of monsters, sexuality, vision, and history was irresistible.” She adds, “Our saga is sleek, vicious, ferocious, and has a lot to say about power in the 21st century and will be the first time that we are stopping the roller coaster to let more people on. I’ve loved Witchblade since I was a child, and there is truly no other heroine like Sara with such an iconic legacy and such a rich, brutal relationship to her own body.”

“The Witchblade universe is being modernized to reflect how Marguerite beautifully explores the extreme sides of Sara through memories, her personal thoughts, like desire and hunger, in her solitude and when she is possessed by the Witchblade. So, I had to visually intersect a noir True Detective-like world with a supernatural, horror world that is a fantastic mix between Berserk and Zodiac,” Cafaro stated.

Marc Silvestri notes, “This is brand new mythology around Sara, and I can’t wait for you to fall in love with her and all the twists and turns. Discover Witchblade reimagined this summer, and join us as we bring all the fun of the 90s to the modern age and see how exciting comics can be. I can’t wait for you to read this new series.”

Witchblade#1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, July 17th, for $4.99 for 48 pages. And it’ll come with multiple cover variants.