Mad Max: Fury Road
George Miller, story; Nico Lathouris & Mark Sexton: script; Tristan Jones & Riccardo Burchielli, art
Vertigo Comics, 2015
This is a relative rarity in the Vertigo catalog: a movie tie-in. These stories are all prequels to some of the key characters in the film, and the comic book versions came about at writer/atist Mark Sexton's suggestion after he had worked with Miller and others on the film team creating storyboards for two years during pre-production. The stories were all created by Miller during during the production of the film, and were told to the actors to give their characters depth and history. So they are "legitimately authentic tales," as Sexton says in his Introduction.
"Nux and Immortan Joe" tells how the child-like Nux found his way into the Citadel, and how the warlord called Immortan Joe took possession of the place, winning the day single-handed after a failed invasion. There are a number of artists who did not get cover credit, in this case Leandro Fernandez, Andrea Mutti, Mark Sexton, and colorist Michael Spicer. "Furiosa" is about the woman who was charged with supervision of the imprisoned women known as Breeders--and wound up leading them to freedom instead. "Max" is a two-part story that tells the origin story of Mad Max, including his epic odyssey to restore his signature car. Finally, "The War Rig" is a short, previously unpublished tale tracing the individual stories behind the component vehicles that made up the huge hybrid vehicle that is a central player in the movie. An interesting look at how the apocalypse affected common people in the early days, it is let down a bit by Peter Pound's art, a simpler style that is incompatible with the look of the rest of the stories.
It's hard to replicate the widescreen thrills of the movie in cartoon form, but this collection comes reasonably close. Definitely recommended to fans of the movie.
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