REVIEW: BUTTON MAN 1: THE KILLING GAME
Review by Dan Coyle

Writer: John Wagner
Artist: Arthur Ranson
Publisher: Rebellion

Plot: Harry Exton is the best there is at what he does, and what he does is kill. A mercenary and former solider, Exton returns to England after work around the world dries up. Encountering an old friend, Harry learns about the game, and the “Voices”- England’s rich and powerful, pitting mercenaries like Exton and his friend against each other in death matches played for high stakes and big money. Harry’s quite the player, and the money’s good. But what happens when he wants to quit? Collecting the serial that ran in 2000 A.D. # 780-791.

Critique: Recently while flipping through the book 500 Comic Book Villains I noticed that Harry Exton, the lead character of John Wagner’s Button Man, has appeared in several serials in 2000 A.D., the first of which was collected and brought here to the states in December 2003 by Rebellion. That amused me at first, because, well, while Harry Exton may be a ruthless son of a bitch, but in his first adventure, written by Judge Dredd co-creator John Wagner, with artwork by Arthur Ranson, the question of whether Exton is a villain in the traditional sense is very much up in the air by the end.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. The Killing Game begins as a bloody, broken Exton stumbles into the office of a psychiatrist and begins to spin his tale in flashback. An out of work mercenary, Exton is contacted by an old war buddy about a proposition, a live version of The Most Dangerous Game, as Harry and others battle it out, with “the voices”- the unseen sponsors of the men, betting on the outcome. It’s kill or be killed. And if this were a Hollywood flick, he’d have a cute girlfriend who doesn’t know about his “extracurricular activities”, or a sick daughter whose operation he needs to pay for. If this were a movie directed by Michael Bay or a novel written by Greg Rucka, Harry would be torn up about what he does, his opponents would be far worse than he was, they’d play dirty while he would be a man of honor. The reader realizes early on that Harry Exton isn’t that kind of man. Except for the affection he shows for his former comrade, he’s a stone sociopath. And that realization feels cold, like a knife in the gut.

You’d think a story with a protagonist that Wagner himself declares in his introduction to be “a hero with no redeeming qualities” wouldn’t be worth reading about- there’s been plenty of projects I’ve read that have failed because the creators were too interested in giving their heroes feet of clay with nothing to stand on. But Wagner realizes that that’s only half the challenge- by the end of The Killing Game I couldn’t say I liked Harry Exton, but in some ways I felt I understood him. He does have some redeeming qualities- he’s forthright and honest, even if he’s being honest about horrible actions, and he’s not a sadist, because, well, that would require him to take joy in something, which one gets the sense Harry has forgotten, if there’s anything to remember. His only desire is to have complete control over his life, which the “voices” are taking away.

All of this is done over some spectacular action. While the story was originally serialized, it’s impossible to tell where the “breaks” are, the book grabs a hold of you early on and just will not let go until you’ve rocketed through its 84 pages. Arthur Ranson is not very well known over here, his best-known works are the underrated X-Factor miniseries from 2001 and a two issue stint on Soldier X. The reason this collection is so expensive, a 28-dollar hardcover, is that it was shot directly from his pencils and reprinted in an oversized format. Ranson is a very accomplished artist, while at times the artwork can be a bit too dark, over all it’s finely detailed, and good at depicting the violence as not exciting or horrific, but very matter of fact, as in the mindset Harry lives in. Ranson’s pallid colour palette adds to the starkness of the proceedings.

It goes without saying that Button Man is truly hardcore, though it has one particular flaw, the plot is rather predictable, and Wagner tips his hand towards the final twist too early in the story. But once Harry’s story is told, once Harry faces the voice at the other end of the line, the one that’s been telling him to kill, that’s when Button Man pushes past being simply a rollicking action yarn and into something far more deeper and darker. Wagner is best known for the rollicking, often times funny, oftentimes funny escapades of Judge Dredd, but the best Dredd stories have always had an undercurrent of uneasiness about them, for after all, at the end of the day despite his good intentions Dredd is a cog in a fascist machine. Button Man cuts deeper because it reflects the world around us- it was written in 1992, before the advent of reality shows, but it feels like out there in the real world, as Wagner says, “the game could be going on today. Not because of men like Harry Extion, not really, but because of men like the voices. It’s the haves playing games with the have-nots, using them as chess pieces, in a society notorious for its sense of class; and they’re playing it for their entertainment. Harry is no saint, but nor is he a sadist- he takes no real pleasure in what he does. The voices do.

And that’s what sticks after one finishes The Killing Game, that and the morbidly funny final image- the sense that for otherwise normal, “decent” people, horrible acts such as murder and private wars are nothing more than entertainment, that a seemingly regular person can endorse atrocities without batting an eye if sufficient distance is kept and there’s something in it for them. And finally, Wagner slowly but surely turns that mirror onto the audience itself, as if to say, that was cool, wasn’t it? Didn’t you enjoy it? The Killing Game doesn’t offer easy answers or an out, it ends like Exton himself, ambiguously. Wagner doesn’t dare one to look away at the players of the game- he leaves it up to our own “voice” to decide.

RECOMMENDED.

Dan Coyle is a contributor to PopImage


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