Ah, pre-Vertigo, when some of the best Vertigo stuff was written, ironically long before the imprint was actually created. Skreemer comes from that era, and it's interesting to look at it now, not just as an indicator of the talents that Milligan and Dillon (and to a lesser extent Ewins) would unleash on the comics industry, but as a work that stands on its own as one of the darkest and most horrifying gangster epics I've ever read. Milligan and company craft in Skreemer a story that has no true protagonists, as every one of the characters is morally compromised, some more than others. The lead character, or at least the titular character, is a monster in every sense of the word, and even the most moral man in the book is eventually forced into a horrendous crime. Skreemer is disturbing, thought-provoking and riveting, and I'm glad to see it reprinted.
Skreemer combines several genres, but at its heart it's a gangster story, following in the mold of stories like The Godfather or Goodfellas. It follows the rise to power of a crimelord, from his beginnings as a street thug until his own fall at the hands of others. That all sounds relatively routine and simple, but Milligan's story has plenty of twists and turns. For one thing, there is a parallel story involving a family centered around Charles Finnegan, which is more a story of survival in a broken world that intersects at several points with the story of Vito the Skreemer. For another, the gangster epic combined with some science-fiction elements, including a post-apocalyptic world and a very interesting throughline about destiny and precognition makes for an eerie and haunting read.
There's plenty of violence and mayhem in Skreemer, as you'd expect from a gangster story. Knives, guns, fist fights and a clever little ploy involving exploding meat serve to demonstrate that whether it's in the 1930s, the modern era or the future, gangsters will always use violence as a tool. Mind you, what really disturbed me was not the violence, but the context. Milligan, Ewins and Dillon deliver some of the most disturbing scenes of torture, both physical and mental, that I've seen. They put their characters through hell, and it's hard not to cringe and imagine yourself in their position, because the descriptions and the visuals are so effective.
There's an inticracy to this story that I really appreciate, as it covers a lot of ground. We learn the story, from young age to death, of several major characters, as well as getting a feel for the socio-economic climate of the future world. Rather than simply telling the story of a crimelord, Milligan and the rest have opened it up a little, using it to explore human nature as a whole, and the idea of destiny.
To be honest, I'm not all that familiar with the rest of Ewins's work. His style reminds me somewhat of Keith Giffen in his prime, with a rough look and plenty of detail. I was surprised to learn that Steve Dillon was involved in this project, and his inks give Ewins' work an identity very similar to Dillon's work now, with the same flair for storytelling and facial expressions that he has had in all of his work.
