Slaine the Horned God  :The Anniversary Edition : ComicScene Review

Slaine the Horned God  :The Anniversary Edition

By Pat Mills & Simon Bisley

Hard back slip case version reviewed

For the umpteenth collected edition of the most celebrated 2000AD strip ever, Tharg has pulled out all the stops.

Perhaps you are like this writer, almost contemptuous of the strip due to its over familiarity. Amongst others, this story has been reprinted by Fleetway in single volumes, then there was a complete edition with all 3 volumes, there was a reprint in Heavy Metal Magazine and most recently in the carefully named, 2000AD : The Ultimate collection.

If nothing else, and there is no denying it is spectacular and we’ll come to that, “The Horned God” is a great primer for Slaine.  A perfect jumping on point for new readers, Mills and Bisley constructed the strip so the newbie has a handy recap of Slaine’s story to this point. For those who have not followed so far, Slaine  is often described as 2000AD’s  answer to Conan the Barbarian. Indeed the strip is often described (possibly reductively) as the “thinking man’s Conan”. Set deep in celtic mythology in pre flood Tir Na Nog, Slaine blends historical fact with fantasy, the story of a disgraced celtic warrior “blessed” with a berserker rage known as a warp spasm and accompanied by a conniving dwarf called Ukko as he slowly headed back to his tribe following the death of the king that exiled him.

The plot of “The Horned God” is the culmination of a series of storylines in the strip to that point. Slaine had returned to his tribe the Sessair after years in exile and was proclaimed king. With this new authority, he wanted to unite the tribes of the Earth Goddess to overthrow the Lord Weird Slough Feg, his followers the Drune lords and their Formorian sea devil allies. To do this he has to unite the tribes under a High King and gather the remaining weapons of the Earth Goddess or drive the enemies from Tir Nan Og.

Much has been made of the art, and there’s no getting away from it, it’s what first springs to mind when you think of the strip, and it remains astonishing to this day. “The Horned God” started the fad for painted comic art, and for good an ill, with a few exceptions, Slaine became a showcase for that style.

It’s hard to believe that on his second comic strip, Bisley was learning to paint on the page as he was working. There has been some criticism of Bisley’s style changing drastically over the strip and yes it does change from the early episodes to the final battle episodes. Looming deadlines saw his work become looser, despite this, or perhaps because of it, reflecting the plot and script.

Watching this unfold in the Prog, it was truly seismic. Most of the attention is on Bisley’s art, but “The Horned God” is the point where Mills’s scripting was maturing rapidly and was bringing in more and more radical ideas and is amongst his best work, alongside Marshal Law. The perfect balance of humour and violence. Character development is paramount, Slaine comes across as driven but thoughtful, open to introspection, reflective, but also gullible – human, and affected by great tragedy. The supporting characters and sharp script driving the story forward. Building to a crescendo over the course of 3 books. It would have been a fitting capstone to the series.

Is it the best Slaine strip? Who knows? What is clear is that it left Mills and his future artistic cohorts a very high bar to leap for sequels, it’s the high watermark for the strip and arguably it’s millstone.

This is an edition to do that artwork and story justice, short of producing an Apex Edition (which Tharg’s droids have ruled out due to the art being scattered to the four winds and going for thousands of pounds). The reproduction is probably the most accurate representation of the original art from the strip printed thus far and 1/3 up on the original size of the Prog, they could do worse that use this format for other 2000AD classics. “Slaine: Horned God” deserves the hype.