One of the best mini-series in 1999, by my estimation, was the Human Target by Peter Milligan and Edvin Biukovic, an action movie on paper with psychological undertones that kept the reader guessing throughout, as well as gasping at the beauty of the artwork and the incredible gunfight choreography. Which meant that although I was very much anticipating this new Human Target story, I was also a little worried that the loss of Biukovic might be a big problem for the book, especially since I was going to have to drop $30 to find out. Happily, Pulido's artwork here is some of the best I've seen from him, reminiscent of one of my current favorites Darwyn Cooke, and ideally suited to Milligan's story, which is less of an action story and more of a mystery with a lot of twisted psychology to back it up.
A few years back, there was a television movie featuring The Human Target, as played by Rick Springfield. That casting alone probably doomed the character forever, but if there were ever to be an other-media adaptation of the character, Milligan would be the guy to write it. His take on the character is one that suits itself to shorter stories, individual cases, and they play out like a good movie. The introduction, the opening action, the slow build and introduction of various characters and the dazzling finale, where answers are revealed and the character confronts himself, all have a pacing that can best be described as cinematic. Although Milligan does manage to throw a few bones out to those who followed the last mini, tying up a question about who hired the assassin Emerald, without distracting new readers who haven't read that first mini-series.
In Milligan's hands, Christopher Chance is more than simply a gimmick, a bodyguard who disguises himself as the target to fool assassins. Milligan has decided to explore what living this kind of life would do to a man, how his personality might fracture and indeed his sense of reality might suffer as he undergoes frequent total changes of lifestyle and habits. What's most impressive to me is not just this extension of Chance's mode of operating, but how Milligan manages to get the reader into this confused, almost surreal viewpoint without losing the focus of the story or making it impossible to read. There is always a question as we read the book about whether or not the person we're reading is Chance or the target, or someone else entirely, but the first-person narration and the clarity of storytelling are such that it never gets confusing.
Though this is more of a mystery than the first mini-series, that doesn't mean that Milligan and Pulido have left out the action. The opening scene, starting with the establishment of the threat and running through to his seeming end, is as fine a prologue as you'll find in any James Bond film, and the final showdown in the burning house is exciting and unpredictable. There are plenty of indications throughout that the world Chance lives in is one of violence and danger.
With each new project he takes on, Javier Pulido's art grows in my estimation, and this project was no exception. His work here, colored by Dave Stewart, is simply gorgeous to look at. It reminds me a great deal of the style that is being used on Catwoman right now, a mixture of animated simplicity and exaggerated, almost cartoony figures with a stark realism and darkness that contrasts perfectly. And the sense of wide-ranging scenery, from fancy homes to the Hollywood Hills to scuzzy hideouts, comes through in the changes in color and in the shifts of architecture.
I'm very picky about hardcovers, especially when it's a completely unknown quantity, and even moreso when the book comes out the same week as another hardcover I intend to pick up and costs more money for less pages, as was the case with Daredevil: Yellow this week. However, the design on the book is gorgeous, and the contents are well worth the investment. I'm still not completely happy with DC's decision to release so many of their original graphic novels as hardcovers first, but this is one of those projects that I wasn't willing to wait one more minute for, and I'm satisfied with what my $30 bought me.
