World Famous Comics: The Adventures Of Luther Arkwright
The Adventures Of Luther Arkwright
By: Bryan Talbot Publisher: Dark Horse Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Dark Horse Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 216 Publication Date: May 21, 2008
Product Description: Across a multitude of parallel universes, dark forces operate in the shadows, manipulating mankind's histories throughout countless timelines. The agents of these Disruptors all work with a single purpose - the recovery and activation of Foxfire, a long-hidden doomsday device whose unspeakable power is capable of consuming the galaxy in all its incarnations. Standing in the way of the Disruptors is Luther Arkwright, a human anomaly who exists only in a single universe, a man of vast psychic powers and capable of travelling between the parallel realities to counter the Disruptor's malign influence. But the Disruptors are aware of Arkwright and his abilities, and while Arkwright searches the myriad Earths for the location of Foxfire, the agents of darkness race to destroy him... and to ensure their unthinkable ends.
Bleh. Read something else. When I read a graphic novel, I absolutely can predict some cliches and stereotypes. It's the treatment of the theme and characterization and graphics that make all the difference. Seeing a white-haired guy and an impossible flying apparatus on the cover prepared me for a super-hero steam-punk mixture, of course, but I did not expect it to be so boring. The author seems to reserve all the intelligence to himself, investing none in his characters and giving no or trite development skeletons to them.
There's more to it of course.
A super-hero rising to the challenge by becoming extra-super. Intrigues that are kingergarden intense. Bodacious females throwing themselves at the hero. A near-deity concerning itself with mindless and irrelevant destruction and petty revenge. A supercomputer almost omnipotent in its all-knowingness. A dissonant cocktail of religious views mumbled in a stream of conciousness. A linear story (sans the flashbacks) wrapped in parallel realities that are not so parallel. A paradoxical keystone that drives it all...
Oh the glass is full of something, for sure. Swallowing it might be a problem.
The mythic story of the shaman/savior Luther Arkwright This is simply the single most intelligent, intricate graphic novel that I have ever read. You almost go into sensory overload if you try to take it all in. It contains the most stark mixing of sacred and profane elements- and yet it works. To put it mildly, it works.
Every time you pick this book up you find something new in the complex story line or intricate artwork. Only a writer/artist could produce a work like this, for only a person who thinks in images could master the gnostic/symbolist world view that it mirrors. Here you have alternate universe after alternate universe- yet all connected by underlieing currents and patterns. As above, so below.
Oh yes, it also has a healthy amount of English working class bloody mindedness- something that we in America are becoming increasingly familiar with as the God-less corporate "upperclass" tries to turn this society into a rigid caste-based oligarchy....
The pinnacle We are told at Warren Ellis's website that Talbot knows nothing of comics history and yet made one of the best. It's true. There are certain stylistic faux-pas's both in the story and illustrations. Nonetheless, Talbot has single-handedly created the only comic I've ever read that was as exiting as Star Wars I. Everything is in place: Absolute Good (God) versus unthinkable Evil (Arkwright); references to traditions known from childhood done in a lyrical and hypnotic way; a bare bones plot with even barer characterization; and a refrain from a Rob Zombie song, before the particular refrain was made. (How's that for future anterior?)
If you enjoy comics, you're cheating yourself if you don't give this one a look over.
Intricate, entangling and irresistable The other reviewers are right - you should read the sequel "Heat of the Empire" before this one, not because it's easier to understand than AoLA (which is true, by the way), but because the earlier series has so much more to offer. Even if you plunge into the series in the middle (which is how I discovered) and haven't a clue as to what's going on, who's who (and why?), you'll still find a mammoth epic you can't put down.
Luther Arkwright is essentially a super-being, bred to psionic perfection in an alternative universe, or a parallel. We soon learn that existence is filled with so-called parallels (a misnomer since parallel lines maintain the same direction while the alternative universes here maintain some interesting differences; the fun is trying to identify how any of the parallels resembles our own earth, only to have Talbot yank the carpet from under our feet and show us the distinctions). Two of the parallels take the focus of the story - 00, being the home of a technologically and psionically advanced civilization which tries to maintain order throughout the parallels, and 072, a parallel in which the major imperial powers of Europe remain in power through the 20th century. Using an almost sentient computer called Wotan, 00 learns of another force that shares their power to cross the multiversal divides, but does not share their benign aims. Called disruptors, the enemy searches for an ancient weapon, one that will destroy all of existence. Only Luther, whose powers and origins remain a mystery to everybody, can stop the destruction. On 072, where England remains under the rule of the fascist and theocratic puritan dictatorship led by a descendent of Oliver Cromwell, Luther meets his greatest challenge. Cromwell, we soon learn, is the disruptor agent for that parallel; Luther must maneauver to secure victory for the anti-puritan royalists without giving too much power to the royal's imperialist backers. The challenge manifests itself when Luther discovers both the limits of his powers and the signs that others like him inhabit the parallel.
The dense plot guarantees that you'll be re-reading AoLA repeatedly, that you'll be piecing it together, and that you'll soon find its BW artwork superior to the color of the sequel.
An oft overlooked classic of the comics medium This novel is massive: not in terms of length, but in terms of breadth. Talbot weaves a complex tale that requires some work by the reader to fully appreciate. Mysticism, alternate realities, and geo-politicial struggles all play into this story of a man realizing the responsibilities the universe expects of him. I must add that this is not a good selection for someone who has not read a few graphic novels in the past. My suggestion is to first read the sequel to this book, HEART OF EMPIRE: THE LEGACY OF LUTHER ARKWRIGHT, and then read this. The two may share some narrative elements and characters, but structurally this work is denser and requires more attentive reading.
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