The Shape of Things To Come: The Legend of Luther Strode #1 Review

If The Strange Talent of Luther Strode was the origin tale of an 80s slasher film-style killing machine wrapped up in a superhero story, then it would stand to reason that the sequel would have to be the actual horror movie. This is a somewhat tricky proposition, because despite the similarities between a superhero and a slasher flick villain – on a mission, with a distinctive outfit and / or mask, and apparently indestructible – a horror movie is not a superhero story.

In a slasher film, the killer is “other,” appearing from out of nowhere and picking off the people who are the primary protagonists and the focus of the story. Further, while many if not most of the victims might, for whatever reason, “need killing” (for having sex or smoking pot or drinking underage – hey Mom! You were right! I do need killing!), there needs to be one character for whom the audience is invested and pulling for to escape, if not defeat, the unstoppable force in the shadows. And it is one hell of a proposition to try to tell a story about a superhero in a story format where you have to not only stick him in the background, but find someone you like enough to hope that she (because it’s always a “she” who winds up facing down the killer in slasher films, isn’t it?) kills your hero.

If I were Luther Strode writer Justin Jordan, I would look at these challenges, smile, cut my losses and walk away. However, in the first issue of The Legend of Luther Strode, he instead embraces the story structure of a slasher film, taking the risk of pulling focus away from Luther and putting it on his “victims,” and gives us an antagonist for Luther who, at this point anyway, I wouldn’t mind seeing maybe win.

But again, the question is: does the slasher story format work in what is ostensibly a superhero comic?

The Legend of Luther Strode opens five years after the events of the first series, and focuses on Mikey Hill, a young man who has inherited control of some kind of criminal organization with a focus in prostitution. Mr. Hill is finding the early days of his reign at the top of his prostitution enterprise to be somewhat taxing (yes, I just used 21 words to avoid the indignity of being a middle-aged white man typing the phrase, “Pimpin’ ain’t easy“), because it is being plagued by a series of, shall we say, disruptive incidents. Incidents caused by a mysterious figure who no one can be certain actually even exists. Incidents that are disruptive to Mr. Hill’s business interests by way of decapitating employees with manhole covers, or perhaps ripping out their hearts and showing it to them. All while under a hail of bullets that not only don’t stop him (assuming he actually exists), but don’t even slow him down. So Mr. Hill has a two-fold problem: prove that this killing force actually exists, and find someone who can help him stop it.

If you look closely at that summary, all the elements of an 80s slasher flick are there: a legendary killer that almost no one believes actually exists and who seemingly can’t be stopped. The killer is taking out people who have done nothing to him personally, but who have violated one of the cardinal “rules” of slasher films as described in Scream: illicit sex. The killer wears a mask, has a distinctive look, kills in the most vile and imaginative ways possible, and in ways that sometimes approach instant poetic justice – the pimp who says there’s a girl who “blows his mind” on one panel who gets his head exploded by a fist in the next panel could have come straight from a Nightmare On Elm Street flick if that fist had had razor blades on its fingers. So at its most basic level, The Legend of Luther Strode is, in fact, a slasher film.

However, Jordan is clever in making the “protagonists” criminals, and criminals of the lowest form: peddling in human flesh. So while the engine powering the story is that of an 80s horror film, the chassis is that of a superhero story, albeit an extremely violent one. Still, this is going to be a tricky line for Jordan to walk in the long run, since we will apparently be following criminal scumbags trying to kill the hero. It will be difficult to become in any way invested in the fate of characters whose heads I already can’t wait to see explode like hot dogs in a microwave… but even that matches the horror films from the 80s; after all, no one ever went to a Friday The 13th movie hoping the arrogant jock who bullied his girlfriend into a blowjob would get away clean. But still, it’s more problematic for a classic superhero story.

So Jordan closes the loop by giving us a ready-made Last Girl Standing who is probably the only person we might pull for over Luther (who again, true to slasher film form, doesn’t utter a single word in this issue. He arrives, kills and disappears). I don’t want to give who it is away, although if you read the first series, you’ve probably guessed it anyway, but it is possibly the one person who we not only will not want to see Luther kill, but who we might want to see actually win… provided Jordan adequately explains her current motivations well enough for it to make sense for her to be working with these scumbags… and that he fleshes out the level of psychological damage to Luther to make it realistic that he might be willing to hurt her.

Tradd Moore’s art on the issue… well hell. His work on the original series was notable for its violence and gore, and he certainly continues that tradition in this issue – a dude’s head explodes in a wad of brains, skull fragments and vertabrae on the second page. His style is as it was on the first series: somewhat stylized, with somewhat exaggerated facial expressions, all in a very fine line. His panel layouts are clear and he uses panel size to control the pacing well; the most violent kills are on larger panels to slow the reader and accentuate the horror, while a large-scale attack sequence goes to small panels to speed you up and amp the excitement and violence. Most interestingly, except for a single panel where Luther has been captured on video, we never see his face clearly. We get a lot of shadows and oblique profiles and long shots, but never anything clear, and never any shots without the mask. It’s a choice that transforms Luther Strode into something other; he stops being a person and becomes, instead, The Shape. It visually demonstrates Luther’s apparent dehumanization as clearly as anything Jordan writes, and the cumulative effect makes the shy kid who always tried to do the right thing in the first series into a disturbing killer. Overall, it is extremely effective.

Jordan and Moore have taken a hell of a chance by even making this sequel. If you create a slasher film villain, even under the auspices of a superhero story, then you almost have to make other stories with that character into a slasher film. And done incorrectly, you can piss away any goodwill you created for the character in the first place. But Jordan has started laying the groundwork for a classic-style slasher story that twists things around enough that you feel okay that the hero from the first series has apparently become a remorseless killer, and has introduced a protagonist that we won’t mind seeing making an effort to stop the “hero”… and I cannot wait to see the specifics on what she and Luther do when they are face to face. It’s just a beginning, but it is a well-constructed and crafted one. It’s good to have Luther back…

…with one caveat: if you have not read The Strange Talent of Luther Strode, I do not recommend reading The Legend of Luther Strode. Without knowing who Luther is and what has brought him to this point, you will be missing crucial backstory, and a lot of emotional impact surrounding these characters will be lost on you. And not only that, you will have missed a series that will appear on my ten best of 2012… assuming I ever get around to writing one. It’s available in trade, so do yourself a favor: start there, then pick this one up.