Martha Washington Dies….
Is not really a comic book. Hell I doubt it even counts as a short story in comic book terms. I’ve read 3 panel gag strips that have more content than this issue, and that’s being kind to this comic. I’m having trouble expressing why I’m so disappointed but I’ll try.
Firstly there’s the fact that I thought by getting this one-shot I would have my collection complete (granted, its a collection of the books from different publishers - two from Dark Horse and one a Penguin books edition of all things…) but I just discovered that there were other one-shots and short stories that I don’t have, so after forking out 3.90€ on this comic, the completist in me is going to want to buy the (supposedly) forthcoming ‘Life and Times of Martha Washington’ book thats due…
Secondly, and more importantly, theres the content. This is a 17 page comic with 7 pages of additional material. Now thats OK when the like of Warren Ellis or Matt Fraction do it with their ‘Fell’ or ‘Casanova’ books which are full of story (and also a dollar-fifty less), but in this comic there are no less than 4 full-page spreads (as in just the one panel in the page) and 8 pages given over to two-page spreads (again, one image in two pages). This means that 12 of the pages of this comic (out of the 17) are given over to 8 images. That is just not acceptable. The comic can now be read in less than ten minutes. Which isn’t worth your money. But even the poor use of the panels would be forgivable if there was you know, a story.
There isn’t a story. The last time we saw Martha she’s heading into space. When we next meet her - well, she’s a hundred years old, has a granddaughter and is a sort of a prophet. Oh, and the world has to hell against an unseen enemy. She makes some various statements (some of which are the content of my next paragraph), dies and then is taken into the sky by forces unknown. And thats it. From a comic where there was a fairly-well realised world (if a somewhat exaggerated one) and the development of Martha was a big element, this is a comic whose story ends with a whimper rather than a bang. Nothing is ever said about what happened to Martha in space, how she got back and what political crisis caused the world to be somewhat like the world of Mad Max.
Well, actually there is some sort of an explanation. It Muslims. Seriously. You see, the thing about Frank Miller in the last few years is that, well… He seems to have gone crazy. I’ve mentioned this before that Miller is a writer who’s best days seem well behind him and is slowly but surely becoming a parody of himself. Strangely enough, I see that my complaint that Miller overuses splash pages also was in that other post so there does seem to be a pattern emerging. But as to my ‘Muslim theory’ - here’s my evidence.
”The lonely toll of a Church bell. A sound we once found familiar. Back when there were Churches. Back before the Barbarians won their awful victory…
Maybe I’m being paranoid. But this is how the issue ends
And now the Barbarians sing their chants and set off their bombs and pray for the Armageddon we’ll never let them have
Those emphasis’ were in the comic itself BTW, nothing to do with me. Now, maybe I am just reading into what Miller has said in public a bit too much, or maybe in these days I’m confusing ‘general armageddon group that’s a staple of genre fiction’ with reality a bit too much … But nah, I don’t really think so.
If you have heard of Martha Washington and are curious about a comic character that was once quite interesting, look at some of the earlier books. As an introduction or a send-off to this piece of comic history this issue isn’t even worth mentioning… Except perhaps as another example of how low Frank Miller has sunk. Back to ‘Sin City’, ‘300′ or anything predating 2000 for me it is….
Nice work. I’m sure you’ll be eagerly awaiting his latest BATMAN VS AL QUAIDA comic. Its sad but true Miller has turned his back on reality (you don’t have to be braniac to figure it wasn’t muslims did 911) and quality if you’ve looked at his latest scribbled out sin cities. I almost asked to look at a bagged copy just to find out what has happened to our once anti establishment heroine. But what with Miller being a lunatic and your review i figured it was more pro zionist propaganda. He’s just taking the money and making with the propaganda.