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 by John Wagner and Arthur Ranson
Review by Adam Crabtree
What to expect: Much violence as an ex soldier takes on an army of hitmen.
Let’s get one thing out of the way before we commence; I would not want to get in a fight with John Wagner. I’ve never seen the man, never heard him speak, never seen a photo. He could very well be a four foot nothing with a Tom Selleck ‘tache and inch thick lenses, but y’know what? I still wouldn’t wanna get into it with him.
Because the guy’d know what to do, I’m sure of it...
The father of our beloved Judge Dredd has kind of a triumvirate thing going on. You know what I mean; “From the creator of Dredd, A History of Violence and (subject of this humble review) Button Man”.
The much lauded series made no allowances for the Galaxy’s Greatest; as well as not exactly being a genre strip (the original, mischievous “30 seconds in the future” caption is sadly missing), it was created for publication in seven page instalments for subversive UK comics mag Toxic, and Wagner and artist Arthur Ranson stresses in their introductions that there was never a great consideration for the serialisation process in the first place; it exists in a “read it all at once” format, which was how the auteurs ideally envisioned it.
Well, I did that, and I sit here with the impression of having just watched a very cool movie at my local. A Brit-flick as well, I might add, as this has its feet firmly planted in Albion’s blood-soaked soil. The plot concerns one Harry Exton, ex-soldier and complete hard-arse, enjoying a calm if sparsely furnished retirement in the countryside. This all changes when an old army buddy puts him touch with the “Voices”, a mysterious consortium of the Great and Good who organise nationwide contests of violence for men of Harry’s calibre.
Before long, Harry is the equivalent of a philanthropist’s favourite Derby horse, turning the British Isles into his battleground. His unseen patron makes money by gambling on the outcome of Harry’s fights with other “Button Men”, a tidy cut of which is passed onto him. But as Harry begins to suspect his fate may no longer be in his own hands (the ethical concerns don’t figure so much), he gets it in his head to leave the game behind.
Do I need to tell you that it’s not that easy?
Wagner’s scripting is typically brutal and economic, without the benefit of the madcap humour displayed in so much of his work on Dredd, and the effect is of a very sober and meditative work. Proceedings never descend to excesses of moral soliloquising though; factors that save it from this fate are the lack of “moral” folks herein (a familiar but reliable brand of “honourable bastardism” is the closest we get), the speed and briefness of the piece (more on this in a mo), and the kinetic force of the proceedings.
The violence is obviously an integral part of Button Man; it doesn’t so much have “action scenes” as it has “standing still scenes”, that’s the way the proportions are arranged. Arthur Ranson’s remarkably free hand in the set-up has produced some classic pieces of comic violence, which exist in a glorious mode of reality; when an unarmed man goes up against a dude with a rifle, he doesn’t go all Frank Miller and wrestle it out of his opponent’s hands, he looks for something to arm himself with, and any edged object will suffice!
It’s worth noting that although our Master Exton does absorb rather more punishment than is strictly plausible towards the end, he is by and large treated as a real human creature, far from invulnerable. Whereas the Judge Dredds of the fictional world will walk into hairy situations and just know what to do (i.e. shoot everybody), Exton works on all the information he can scrounge. If he’s given a location in advance, he’ll scope it out first. He examines the evidence. If you go up against him, he’s liable to engineer a situation where you have to come to him.
There’s always something going on beneath the surface with this seemingly cold and clinical soul, and at present I’m not even sure Wagner could write an unfeeling hard-case if he tried - he’s just got too much depth. There’s so much said about Dredd as a cipher, a symbol, but when Wagner writes him he has a living, beating heart. For all the hubbub made of Exton as a “murdering psychopath” as well, here we see a man who, while bracingly pragmatic about the abhorrent business he’s in, is conscious of the fact that regular people just don’t live like this. He has a genuine friend and ally in his buddy Carl, he has a certain karmic desire for balance as proven by his actions in the last act, and when he’s deep in it you won’t be able to help rooting for him.
Just as well, as it’s through his eyes that the story unfolds, and I guess my main regret is that it doesn’t last longer. Eleven instalments for £13.99 is really having a laugh, particularly considering there are two other “books” in publication that would have rounded it off nicely. Still, there are bonuses in the form of the aforementioned intros, where John Wagner’s cowboy-like combination of tenderness and toughness and Arthur Ranson’s harangued but noble position (he “cannot recall the name” of a Button Man critic, the smooth devil) make for character portraits as compelling as those in the story. The requisite collection of covers and pin-ups is also present and correct, no mean thing when Ranson is the man with the pen.
As far as any criticisms of the actual story goes, one is inevitably reduced to nitpicking; Ranson’s art, though universally acknowledged as stunning (will you just check out that country house’s reflection in the lake on the first page?), is remarkably dark during key moments, and you’ll find yourself doubling back a few times to see what exactly went down a few frames previous, and is there anyone who didn’t guess the twist of the framing device almost immediately?
Nothing impossible to reconcile with, I assure you.
So, what of the future? Well, presumably, more extortionate but beautiful collections are in the offing, which I will be eagerly awaiting. A new series is promised and most intriguingly, a movie adaptation. I anticipate a stateside shift of location and love interest for Harry, but I remain hopeful that they’ll recognise there’s a perfectly transferable working screenplay right here…
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