"Hell & Back" is the latest incarnation of Frank Miller's "Sin City" phase. There are some familiar characters, but this is primarily an original work. It has many of Miller's trademarks, like the martial arts loner who fights against a large organized criminal system that includes corrupt law enforcement and ex-military as part of their ranks. Another of Miller's themes used here is the presence of strong female fighters.

With this nine part series Miller gives us an entirely new character, to observe. He is different from the previous main characters in the Sin City incarnations. This hero is more of a traditional one, who really only does good deeds. Most of the Sin City 'heroes' have been bad people forced to perform good deeds for a little while. At first we are not given much about this guy, including his name. We learn more and more about him as the story goes on. By the end of the first issue all we really know is that he is an artist, he is broke, and that he won the Congressional Medal of Honor.

When the story starts, we see the main hero trying to submit artwork to a sleazy publisher. It is a nude with a sheet, but the publisher wants the nude without the sheet. He had produced one just in case, but after the buyer makes some sleazy comments, he tears up his own art. Later he wishes he didn't since he needed rent money, but wishes more that he had a real art job instead.

Note: I have read at least one clever interpretation that this is actually about Miller himself. The main character is Miller. The heroine in distress are his fans. His two opponents are Marvel & DC fighting over his work. More symbolism can be found. I don't know, its plausible, but a little reaching for me.

As for the comic book's drawings themselves, Miller only gets better with every comic he draws. There is a real sense of motion in all of his fight scenes. The black and white art here is Miller's best yet. The backgrounds and shadows are more realistic making his simpler pictures even more powerful. He is similar to the early pioneers of sound movies realizing how effective silence could be. Taking a chance, not all of the book is black & white, however. In a similar style to "That Yellow Bastard", Miller has two character's whose close are always in a single color. There is one female assassin who is always shown in blue, and another female assassin always shown in red. They are only shown together briefly, so this is not to tell them apart, or to identify them in a crowd. Nor is it to remind us who they are like the little girl with the red dress in "Schindler's List". To a lesser artist, the several uses of color could make the black & white of the rest of the art seem even blander

Aside from the brief uses of color in some issues, the entire issue #7 is done in full color. It is written entirely from the point of view of the lead character who has been given a mind altering drug. Here, the fantasy world is color, and the 'real' world is black and white. Lynn Varley, who did the coloring for "The Dark Knight Returns" does all the artwork here, as well as the covers for each issue. In this episode each panel takes us to a different universe, and almost all are depraved. We only get little visual glimpses of what is really happening, but we know exactly what is going on. This could easily be played for laughs, but Miller cleverly keeps the tension up by having the character talking with his delusions, trying to figure out what is reality. He has been drugged and his car pushed down a small cliff so that the police will find him with a crashed car and a dead child in the trunk. The villains want to set him up to look like your traditional drug addicted crazed veteran. Crooked cops were sent to make sure he is killed at the scene. Our hero is rescued by one of his fellow soldiers, and then they pursue the people who drugged him. Some of his delusions are old characters from Miller's past. We see Ronin, a Greek Legionnaire, and Captain America, just to name a few. I'm not sure if these are people Miller really admires, or just likes to draw.

Miller takes many chances in the way that he tells his story. Each chapter is of a variable length. He was able to resist the usual demand that every issue be the same length. Issue eight has what seems like an unnecessary side story, until we realize at the very end that it is a subchapter of what we've seen so far. Miller's general use of the comic book medium works well here. The hero is usually alone, so it is only his thoughts (and actions) that carry the story along.

Amazingly, Miller is still able to give us lots of original characters, scenarios, and locations to write about, while still giving us many old faces as well. Another common theme are the crooked cops. Here two of them are named Manson & Bundy. What happens to the group of cops when they first try to scare off our hero was very reminiscent of what Jim Gordon does in "Batman: Year One".

Even though this is a new story, we see a few minor characters from other stories show up. We get Manute again, but this hero is the first since Marv who can take him in a fight. The two female assassins were used in short stories in the Sin City collection "Booze, Broads & Bullets". We also get at least two great new characters. One is officer Liebowitz, and another is an ex-military man working for the criminal empire referred to as 'The Colonel'.

The ending of this series is absolutely wonderful. There are at least three multiple surprises that work on a cinematic level, and are worth the read alone!



Recommended: Yes