‘Slaine: Timekiller’ – Pat Mills (Rebellion)

Comic books, graphic novels, whatever you want to call them I think they’re just great! For me, a good graphic novel is the very best kind of cross between books and film. You get to have a good read and see what’s going on at the same time ;o) I had a great time with the first Slaine collection for just this very reason and was looking forward to getting into the next instalment. Things didn’t quite work out the way they were meant to though…

Unlike the ‘Rogue Trooper’ collection, I looked at last week, there’s a definite story-arc going on with Slaine who is continuing his journey home (with his untrustworthy dwarf Ukko) to rejoin his clan and take the fight to the Drunes who threaten his people. Slaine indulges in a spot of dragon rustling, to speed up his journey, and adds the trainee priest Nest to his party but there are people with greater needs than his tribe and Slaine is about to take a trip through time and space to do his bit towards saving creation itself…

If you’ve read the ‘Warriors Dawn’ collection then there’s more of the same for you to enjoy in ‘Timekiller’. Slaine is as brash and obnoxious as ever and will not duck out of a fight. Expect loads of derring-do (Conan style) from a larger than life character! So far so good, until things start to get all metaphysical… I’m cool with the time-travelling aspect of the tale as it basically involved Slaine doing all the stuff that I like to see him doing (cutting people’s heads off and warping out!) but it was things got ‘extra-dimensional’ that I started to switch off a bit. All the talk of ‘Macrobes’, ‘Microbes’ and ‘dimensional balance’ drew my attention away from what the story was all about (for me) and left me wondering just what was going on. The introduction of Atlanteans was cool but I wasn’t convinced by Slaine being able to just pick up a ‘leyser gun’ and use it after several stories set in a world where sci-fi technology just doesn’t exist. Apparently he’d been trained in secret by the warriors of his clan. Oh, that’s alright then… (For goodness sake)
It ends on a pretty good cliff-hanger though so I will definitely be picking up the next book!

Artwork is a pretty subjective thing and it may be that you like the art in ‘Timekiller’ for the same reasons that I didn’t get on with it. I had real trouble switching from Bellardini’s evocative artwork to that of David Pugh’s more functional (for me) stuff that told the story well enough but didn’t make me feel anything for it…

‘Timekiller’ is a real mix of good and bad but I found that Slaine’s character was just about enough to carry things through and make me want to pick up the third book in the collected series. Its early days for me and Slaine so let’s see where things go from here…

Seven out of Ten