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THE COMPLETE BALLAD OF HALO JONES
Highly Recommended (9/10)
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Titan Books
Writer: Alan Moore
Artist: Ian Gibson
Letters: Steve Potter & Richard Starkings
Price: $19.99 US/12.99 UK |
I wasn't too sure about this
as I started out, feeling a bit lost in Moore's convincingly alien rendition of
the future, but after a somewhat belabored prologue, when Halo Jones manages to
leave her desperate and meager existence for an unknown life in the stars, I was
intrigued. By the time she was working aboard a starship as a hostess, I was
impressed, and by the time she was a soldier in a war on a distant planet I was
mesmerized. Moore and Gibson crafted a story of a relatively normal woman thrust
into extraordinary circumstances, and in doing so created a treatise on poverty,
service, war, love and morality that is a fantastic and beautiful read. I
ordered this blind, based largely on vague but positive word-of-mouth, and I was
not disappointed.
I'll be honest, though, it did take some time
before the story grabbed me. The opening few episodes, littered with future
slang and alien names and concepts, made me feel as if I was reading something
from another world. It was great for setting the tone, but terrible at making me
connect with Halo, who doesn't really come alive as an everywoman protagonist
until she is tossed into a situation as foreign to her as it is to us. Moore
does finally give a basic grounding of the setting and the character that lays
down the basics, but it comes nearly fifty pages into the story, and really
should have been set down early on, giving us the expectation that Halo's
ordinary life would turn into something extraordinary without giving too much
away.
Once Halo gets into space, that's when things
start happening. The most important establishing moments of her ground-side life
are in the acquisition of a robot dog, the murder of a friend and a promise made
by another friend that is eventually broken. But once in space, she meets up
with new friends including a rough-and-tumble amazon who will be her gateway
into the military, a sad and strange woman who exists on the fringes of
identity, a dolphin and eventually such strange things as a rat-king and a
murderous general. To make an absolutely terrible comparison, Halo is a lot like
Forrest Gump, strangely wandering into most of the interesting events during the
times she lives in and serving as a grounded, normal viewpoint character with
which the reader can interact with fantastic characters.
Halo is at times a downright tragic affair,
and indeed her entire life is something of a tragedy. Though she is surrounded
by wonder, she never really gets to enjoy it or see how miraculous it is. And
there are some heart-breaking revelations along the way that cost her friends
and also begin to shatter her trust and generally adventurous and positive
spirit. But despite that tragic air, there's also an air of mystery and wonder
as we watch her stumble through these various adventures, doing no better than
most of us would do. Moore has created a fascinating character in Halo Jones,
someone who is neither too passive nor too aggressive, but is simply terribly
real.
Accompanying Moore's always-vivid ideas and
characterization on this one is Ian Gibson, a name I'm only vaguely familiar
with, who turns in a terrific performance. His faces have a distinctive style,
an alien structure that has enough in common with humanity to make it easy to
relate to, but what most impressed me were his backgrounds. He really makes the
world come alive, whether it's the claustrophobic corridors of the Clara Pandy
or the jungle world of Moab, and his work on the gravity suits and strange
environment of Warzone One is impressive as well. Gibson increases the weary and
worn look of Halo as time goes on, and he also slowly changes her environment
from one of relative comfort and style to one of harsh reality.
Few creators do big, epic science-fiction in comics, and of those few who try it, even fewer really make it work. Moore and Gibson really made it work, and even now, 15 years after its original publication, The Ballad of Halo Jones still stands out
as a masterpiece.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review. |
