Reviewer: Jesse Baker
Story Title: Back on the Street
Written by: Warren Ellis
Penciled by: Darick Robertson
Inked by: NA
Colored by: NA
Lettered by: NA
Editor: NA
Publisher: Vertigo/DC Comics
In Transmetropolitan: Back on the Street, controversial comic writer Warren Ellis gives us his version of the future: a world where people can go to their doctors and have themselves surgically altered to become a human/alien hybrid, where household appliances come equipped with the personalities of dead mob bosses and where two headed cats walk down the street and are not given a second thought from passers-by. But Ellis’s future is also quite similar to the present, with corrupt police forces ruling cities through the threat of force and the simple concept of the truth holding the power to defeat those who seek to misuse their authority.
It’s in this future that we are introduced to Spider Jerusalem, a professional journalist who has dedicated his life to exposing the reading public to the truth. Back on the Street, the first trade paperback installment of the series introduces us to Spider’s world. The series, which originated back before Ellis hit the mainstream comic audience with Authority, is Ellis’s undisputed masterpiece. Spider, who is part Ellis himself and part Hunter Thompson, is a living tornado of fury that is not afraid to do whatever is necessary (including using violence and a variety nasty curse words). To make a comparison, compare Spider to an X-Rated version of Donald Duck who won’t stop until the Truth is told.
Synopsis
The series opens with us seeing where Spider’s holy crusade for the Truth has led him: a state of self-imposed exile in the mountains where he squandered all of his money on guns, ammunition and drugs. Five years ago Spider renounced his craft after getting fed up with his fans’ blind devotion towards him, his super-volatile personality and his celebrity status and not the message of the truth that he sought to spread through his writing. Depressed as a result of his reclusive life, Spider gets a nasty wake-up call from an unnamed publishing executive reminding Spider of a contract he signed before going into exile. At the height of his fame, Spider signed a lucrative multi-book publishing deal that he only partially fulfilled and now they want the books owed to them. Threatened by the publisher and the sudden realization of how meaningless his life had become, Spider decides to end his exile and return to the City to resume his life as a journalist, God help anyone who gets in his way.
After introducing the book’s theme and setting up its star, Ellis dives into the series’ first storyline. Spider gains employment at The Word, an archetypical big city newspaper where an old friend of his is now the editor. Seeking a topic for his first column back, Spider decides to investigate the strife developing between the City’s half-human/half-alien Transient community and the City’s corrupt and excessively violent police force. Spider’s investigation comes at a bad time, as the Transients have decided to declare the section of the City where they live, the Angels 8 district, independent from the rest of the City and from the authority of the police and uncaring local government. As Spider interviews the leader of the Transient community (the ultra-corrupt womanizer Fred Christ), the police instigate a riot in the Angels 8 district in order to resolve the stand-off and rid the City of the Transients once and for all. Realizing this, Spider rushes to the roof of a nearby strip club to cover the riot live, send out his column revealing the gory details of the riot as well as the truth behind it through the magic of the future’s news feed channels. This sends the public into a frenzy and leads to the police being immediately recalled from the district. It also reveals to the public that Spider Jerusalem is once again in town, something that horrifies Spider until he learns about all the money his editor made him by licensing out his column. But fear of becoming famous again is not the only problem Spider faces at the end of the book, as a van full of angry cops ambush him as a warning not to interfere in their business again.
Analysis
With the first three issues, Warren Ellis establishes Spider’s character and moral core as an individual with a deep set of moral values and code of ethics that drive his character and his quest for the Truth. Ellis shows this when Spider lashes out at the womanizing leader of the Transient community regarding his abuse of authority over the Transients and his habit of knocking up his female followers as well as in his column where he exposes the murderous nature of the riot going on. Ellis also shows Spider as a character of great resiliency — he’s more than willing to stand up to those who seek to silence him, as seen when he cries out after being beaten by the City’s Police. He’s not going to be intimidated into leaving town simply by being beaten to a bloody pulp.
The artwork in this trade paperback is done by series artist Darick Robertson. Robertson’s previous work includes a lengthy run on New Warriors after the departure of original artist Mark Bagley and a fill-in run drawing some of the worst stories to ever appear in the ongoing Wolverine series. Robertson does a great job as artist in this collection, creating a gritty and realistic portrait of the future with his art. Robertson’s art is devoid of the animation style that exists in his early work and has a more polished style that adds to the tone of Ellis’s writing.
