Welcome to another edition of The Goggler Pull List! This week we take a ride around the world on Snowpiercer and meet a new superhero in Robert Kirkman’s Fire Power. We’re also giving away a copy of the first volume of Snowpiercer, Vol 1: The Escape. All you gotta do is read to the end of the post, fill in your details, and answer a question.
Fire Power (Robert Kirkman, Chris Samnee)
Here’s the thing about Robert Kirkman. The comics he writes aren’t necessarily high concept. There’s never a crazy hook to draw you in and keep you invested. Think about it. The Walking Dead is a pretty straightforward and incredibly open-ended zombie story that’s rooted in character drama. Invincible, on paper, is a serialised superhero comic, with plenty of clever twists and unexpected heel turns that are rooted in… you know it… character drama. All of his best writing lies rooted in tried and tested concepts which he subverts in order to create something new, and even though not unique, most definitely free-wheeling and fun.
Fire Power is no different. Owen Johnson is an orphan in search for the truth about his birth parents. It turns out that they were secret martial artists and the only way Owen can find the information he needs is to seek out a variety of senseis, all of whom only agree to answer his questions if he can best them in combat. When the book begins, we find an already skilled Owen climbing the mountains of the Himalayas and looking for the mythical Temple of the Flying Fist. The last stop in his quest.
The series starts with a prequel graphic novel that sets up Owen’s backstory at the temple before moving on to a monthly series that takes place years later once he’s started a family and settled into a normal life. That’s when his past comes back to haunt him.
Now I know what you’re thinking. All of this sounds a little derivative. Like Iron Fist, meets Batman, meets every Liam Neeson action movie ever made. And it is. But you can stop rolling your eyes, and rest assured that Kirkman brings to it his own unique style. It’s funny. It’s knowing in its references. It upends your expectations.
Chris Samnee’s action sequences are incredible. There is real momentum to the martial arts here. It is so fluid that you can almost feel these characters move across the page.
I am admittedly a sucker for these sorts of martial arts yarns. I grew up on Kung Fu, and Bruce Lee movies, and Jackie Chan capers. And Fire Power really fills a hole.
Fire Power is one of those books that I look forward to every month. I dig it out of my ever growing pull list just so I can read it first. Not because of some serialised cliffhanger, but simply because it’s a good story, with great characters, and I’m always curious to find out what happens next.
Snowpiercer (Jacques Lob, Jean-Marc Rochette)
Long before Snowpiercer was a TV series, it was a Bong Joon Ho movie. Long before it was a Bong Joon Ho movie, it was a French comic that no one bothered to translate into English. Le Transperceneige, as it was called, was first published in 1982, and told the timeless tale of a massive train harbouring the last humans on earth, who were sorted by class from richest to poorest, and trapped in their respective stations with absolutely no room for progression. It may have taken the better part of 30 years for the graphic novel to be translated into English, but that didn’t make it any less relevant to today’s readers. It’s sad, but true.
All of Snowpiercer is now available in English. This includes the four main graphic novels, The Escape, The Explorers, The Crossing, and Terminus, as well as a brand new prequel series that seems to have been released in conjunction with the TNT TV show.
The great thing about the Snowpiercer franchise (intentional or otherwise) is that you get a very different experience with each of its incarnations. The movie is distinct from the TV show, which in turn, is distinct from the comic. And while the core concept remains the same, each one tells its own unique story, with new characters, and very different narrative twists and turns. Which is great if you’re a fan, because every experience is a distinctive one.
The first volume of the graphic novel, written by Jacques Lob and drawn by Jean-Marc Rochette, is very much a self contained story, and you would be fine reading that and nothing else. That said, the world and mythology, the look and feel, that Lob and Rochette set up in that volume are so fascinating and wide-reaching that you will most definitely want more.
Snowpiercer is also one of those rare examples of a series that has continued to grow from strength to strength by adding new concerns and conversations to its mythology. This is not a story with happy endings. It is, however, an important parable about the class struggle that continues to pervade and plague every aspect of our existence.
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