Thriller
Back in the early 1980s, DC comics was experimenting with series sold only through the "direct market" (read my post on "Mars" for some of the history of this initiative). We had already seen things such as "Camelot 3000", "The Omega Men" and the Frank Miller series "Ronin". But in November of 1983 DC took a real risk and released issue one of "Thriller" - created and written by DC staffer Robert Loren Fleming (his first published comics work) with art by Trevor Von Eeden (hot off of Batman and Green Arow).
Roughly fifty years in the future, Satellite News cameraman Daniel Grove and his correspondent twin brother Ken investigate a hostage situation masterminded by the masked terrorist Scabbard (so named because he keeps a huge sword in a grotesque sheath stitched into the skin of his back). When they are caught, Dan is forced to record his own brothers beheading. Slipping into depression and blaming himself for Ken's death, Dan decides to end his own life by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge....but is stopped when the image of a ghostly rainbow-haired woman appears in the sky above him. She is Angie Thriller. Able to see the future, she needs Daniel to become a member of her group of agents - the "Seven Seconds" - and save the world from unusual and unnatural menaces.
Beaker Parish - a nine foot tall life form created in a test tube who is also a priest with physic abilities.
Crackerjack - a young Honduran pickpocket.
Data - the son of the President of the USA, interfaced with with his computer system built into a limo which he can never leave.
Proxy - an actor who after suffering a disfiguring accident while freebasing drugs, created synthetic spray on skin for covert assignments.
Salvo - Angie Thriller's brother and a superhumanly expert marksman
White Satin - able to disrupt a persons physiological and mental state with just a touch.
- before meeting Angie's husband Edward Thriller. It turns out that he had been conducting genetic experiments and when it went wrong, became amalgamated with his wife, so that only one of them can manifest at a time - he in flesh and she in spirit. Despite losing her solid body, Angie gained the ability to become part of inanimate objects and see potential futures. She can also merge with her brother Tony (Salvo) due to their similar genetic structure - often appearing as in a face in his palm or helping him perform seemingly superhuman stunts.
(“Only flesh wounds! Only out-patients! I won’t kill a fly - so don’t ask me")
Set outside DC continuity and with more sophisticated and mature storylines, it was an attempt at a series more akin to the Vertigo books that would come later than the colourful adventures of Superman and his pals. It was also way ahead of its time in both terms of storytelling and art.
The creators were trying to do something ambitious and innovative, and in the main they succeeded, creating a comic that could sit alongside the contemporary graphic storytelling of today. There were no easy answers, no spoon feeding of the plot. Significant events happened off panel or between issues. Readers had to figure things out for themselves or learn as the characters did. Von Eeden's art was a tour-de-force of unusual camera angles, twisting panel layouts, shifting perspectives and extreme close ups. This was mature storytelling before the "British Invasion" most famously embodied by the Alan Moore run on "Swamp Thing" or the arrival of "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Watchmen". It was chaotic and strange and cutting-edge and often very hard work. 1980s comics had never seen a series like Thriller and it's fair to say even if I didn't understand it all, I definitely loved it.
Sales were strong for those first couple of issues, but the problem was, Thriller's innovation and style was part of it's problem. Readers complained of being too confused. The creators passion for building something memorable on every page was perhaps stymied by their lack of experience. As writers elsewhere have noted, it became a paradox - at once both brilliant and exasperating.
Behind the scenes, tensions were building. By issue four, Fleming and Von Eeden were increasingly dissatisfied and stressed and there were changes in inker and editor. An unpleasant and some would say abusive incident at DC's offices left Von Eeden feeling infuriated and emotionally betrayed, but he soldiered on even though he was depressed and his enthusiasm was waning. The quality of his art was suffering too - with some strange artistic decisions, such as issues drawn at the same size as the printed comic book pages. Things were starting to fall apart.
With issue seven, after apparent artistic differences between himself and others who worked on the book, Fleming wrapped up his storyline (fairly satisfactorily) and it was announced that he was gone. Just as he was getting started, he walked away. This comic that was so much a product of it's creators was summarily handed over to Bill DuBay (ex Warren publishing) - a writer who had no connection to the series or it's characters. Nowadays when the writer who had the original vision wants to leave, the book is often cancelled (just look at "Sandman"), but back in the '80s this was still very much work for hire and all the rights belonged to DC.
Sadly with issue eight the quality took an nosedive. All the things that made the comic so interesting - the slow pace, the oblique storytelling, the unusual art - were pretty much absent. DuBay was seen by editor Alan Gold at the time as a steadier pair of hands who could bring the book back from the brink - he had made no secret of his dislike for Fleming's unique style. Everything that Fleming had done, DuBay seemed to do the opposite. His version of "Thriller" was going to be as different as possible from what had come before. Trevor Von Eeden hung on for this first transitional issue but his heart wasn't it it and all the flair and boldness that was evident in issue one was now wiped away with something far more traditional. Then he too was gone.
The comic limped on for a further four months with art by Alex Nino, but as with DuBay, although it was beautiful to look at, he wasn't really suited to the subject matter. Oh it wasn't out and out terrible and DuBay played with some interesting ideas, such as the then prevalent fear of worldwide nuclear destruction. But it wasn't the "Thriller" I had initially fallen in love with.
In more recent years Alan Gold has admitted in interviews that at the time he just didn't "get" what Fleming and Von Eeden were doing and how different and ground breaking it truly was. He wishes he had listened to them. Bizarrely, he also revealed that a certain Alan Moore had volunteered to take over as writer but Gold turned him down! It makes one wonder what Moore would have done with the property. It certainly would have been excellent but it still wouldn't have been the vision of it's creators.
Commercially "Thriller" was seen as a failure, with just a dozen poorly selling issues to its name. But artistically it's legacy is far greater. It is still fondly remembered by a host of today's creators and cited as an influence on them. Those early issues were undoubtedly way ahead of their time and a trailblazer for some of the creator-owned comics to come from the "big two" publishers. Sure we had the like's of Dave Sim's "Cerebus" and Matt Wagner's "Mage" and Baron and Rude's "Nexus" published at around the same time, but Marvel and DC were slow to realise the changing tide. If it had been released just ten years later during the height of Vertigo comics, I could be telling a very different story. and far more people would have heard of Angie Thriller and her Seven Seconds
"Thriller" is one of those series that I can't bear to part with. Every so often I will get those scant few issues out of the box and marvel at them. I'd love to see Fleming and Von Eeden mount a revival in today's more forgiving environment but sadly it's unlikely to happen.
If you can, pick up the back issues and try it out for yourself.
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