The Complete Suiciders: The Big Shake
Lee Bermejo: writer; Lee Bermejo, Alessandro Vitti, Gerardo Zaffino: artists; Matt Hollingsworth, Jordan Boyd: colorists
Vertigo Comics, 2016
This collection includes both Suiciders miniseries, beginning with "Suiciders: KINGS OF HELL.A." It opens with the earthquake that created the dystopian city depicted in the story, labelled simply as "The Big One." In the aftermath, Los Angeles has split in two. A walled area for the rich, called "New Angeles;" and outside the walls, a hardscrabble existence in the ruins of the old city for the have-nots, called "Lost Angeles." Fifteen years later, a group of young earthquake survivors have banded together to resist the dominant Mulholland Corp., as well as the cops and other gangs. The series takes its title from a violent sport that began after the catastrophe.
Suiciders are martial artists that fight on TV: to the death, so the title is for real. One of the champions was Leonard, who has been running a pawn shop. He becomes a target of the Kings, and their fates become intertwined. There's also a critic who Leonard messed with. And he also happens to be a cannibal. Somehow it all comes together at the climax. Two of the Kings manage to escape the L.A. containment zone, which was not a sure thing--despite a double-cross that should have guaranteed it--and the series concludes with the grown son of the escapees continuing the skate board expertise of his mother.
Both minseries were written by artist Lee Bermejo. He illustrated only a few epilogue and prologue pages in the first one, with Alessandro Vitti providing most of the art, and Jordan Boyd most of the colors. It's very striking visually, full of kinetic action and creative panel placement.
The second series is simply titled "Suiciders," and was written and illustrated by Bermejo, with colors by Matt Hollingsworth. It tells the story of one of the greatest Suiciders, a man named The Saint. It alternates between the present and his past as a new arrival in the city. It was not clear to me that they were the same person at first, but the color scheme delineated the two settings effectively. There is a point of continuity with the other series, in the form of a coyote who helps people get from the slums to the city: he physically resembles Troy, the double-crosser who sold out the gang in the previous series so he and his pregnant wife could escape.
The contrasting time frames show how the Suicider bouts evolved. The early contests in Lost Angeles are like a classic gladiator combat: two men facing each other in an arena, with basic weapons and minimal armor. In New Angeles they evolve into a televised spectacle, with elaborate body armor and weapons, plus lights and a machine which complicates the match by subjecting the contestants to random flame throwers and other hazards.
A subplot follows a paparazzi who finds himself in possession of photographs of a murder, as well as an old passport which would prove that The Saint is an immigrant, not the true blue native of his public image. Meanwhile The Saint has grown weary of the life, and an attempted murder by his manager motivates him to make his escape so he can reunite with the family he left behind to pursue his Suicider career.
Effective as the Vitti/Boyd team was on the first series, Bermejo/Hollingsworth take the art to the next level. But while the dystopian setting is well imagined, it is also a bit pedestrian. And practically everything gets resolved by physical violence, which is a comic book trope that much earlier Vertigo had managed to avoid. Nonetheless the two miniseries are a good read, and both come to a satisfying conclusion.
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