Review: Will Dubbeld
I admittedly know very little about Howard Chaykin's American Flagg, or much about First Comics' 1985 starting lineup for that matter. Every Quarter Bin pickup from First always had an ad for Flagg though, and they always intrigued. They perpetually showed this square-jawed, uniformed do-gooder kicking in a door or giving some punk what for.
I presumed the character was some sort of Storm Saxon/Judge Dredd character whose name was American Flagg.
Turns out I was wrong.
Turns out his name is Reuben.
American Flagg no. 18 is the finale of a multi-part arc, and I was understandably a bit confused. In addition to not having a frame of reference for the story, I was utterly unfamiliar with the characters and surroundings and had to extrapolate quite a bit. I could have consulted the Internet, but I opted to approach the experience as if my younger self were reading this random issue of American Flagg.
My younger self had no internet and learned the hard way, from Complete Handbooks of the Marvel Universe and DC's Who's Whoseries. Remember that next time you're shit-posting on some hapless website, whippersnappers. We Old Guard had to learn things the hard way.
Tangents aside, AF no. 18 opens with a news report bemoaning the death of Commissar Bullock at the hands of a terrorist named The Black Beaver and his associate, an unlicensed prostitute. Methinks this funnybook may have been written with tongue firmly planted in cheek . . .
We follow the investigation Reuben Flagg pursues in order to get to the bottom of Bullock's murder as chicanery is afoot.
Reuben Flagg . . . cracks me up every time.
Mr. Flagg is a Plexus Ranger, by the way. Plexus being a portmanteau of Texas and . . . I dunno, plexiglass or something . . .
Using the full power of my Holmesian Deduction I think that the backdrop for American Flagg is some alternate timeline/slightly dystopian future where the Soviet Union won the Cold War or perhaps invaded the USA . . . Red Dawn style.
The original Red Dawn. Not the b.s. remake. Clearly.
In any case, there's a lot of Eastern Bloc influence mixed with Southwestern flavor here, and it's interesting to say the least.
Ranger Flagg discovers the Commissar was murdered by a double agent from the Pan African Air Force and pinned the crime on the hapless Black Beaver.
Flagg does this with the aid of his robot cowboy companion and a talking cat named Raul.
Hijinx and shenanigans at the Hangman's Tree ensue, and I finished this book a bit slack-jawed at what the hell I just read. Attempting to parse out the details of this comic was confounding but at the same time fairly rewarding. Having no baggage or preconceived notions allowed me to enjoy the book as a face value punch-up and that's about it. As stated previously, the book is fairly tongue in cheek and those familiar with Chaykin's writing will find his omnipresent (sometimes slightly cringey) commentary on race and gender within as well.
I will say that Chaykin's art is surprisingly strong in this issue. I'll have to investigate further but I've got the feeling that Howard Chaykin is one of those artists that peaked in the '80s-early '90s and has shown a bit of a decline in the years since. The art displayed the familiar thick, almost muddy, look that Chaykin's comics tend to have, but it was much clearer and more well-defined than contemporary pieces.
As an added bonus, this issue's cover is great, if not possessing a bit of the aforementioned Chaykin Cringe. A woman who appears to be some sort of saloon girl is gagged and tied to a tree whilst our titular hero squares off in a two-fisted dust-up with someone off-page. That someone looks like he may be an evil cowboy and apparently intends to brand our hapless saloon girl on the ass with a red-hot poker shaped like the Soviet hammer and sickle.
Good lord, that's nothing if not a hefty tip of the hat to the "Women in Peril" genre, men's pulp magazines of yore, and pre-Code fetish nasties.
Weasels ripped my flesh indeed . . .
I picked up a run of 20-some odd American Flagg issues at an antique mall for about 50 cents apiece, and they've sat unread due to my ever-growing backlog of comics. Having finally read one random issue hasn't encouraged me to run right out and pick up the rest of the series, but when the time presents itself, I'll certainly immerse myself in the remaining issues I've got.
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