About Ken Lowery
Location: Dallas
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Bio: Ken Lowery is a freelance writer from Dallas, Texas, and right now he's starting to think his desire to work in print media is akin to investing in Betamax technology. You can find all of his archived movie reviews at ken-lowery.com, and his general commentary on movies, comics, and other stuff at his blog.
Posts: 124
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This is a comic about Helen Keller as a super-agile fighter hired by the Secret Service to protect the President. There is nothing else worth saying.
Helen Keller. During her time deaf and dumb, she formed a new personality she called “Phantom.” This “Phantom” existed in “No-World,” and was a personality of increasing hostility. When Anne Summers comes into her life and teaches her to communicate with the world, Helen eschews “Phantom” for her own self and rejoins the real world. Later, her friend Alexander Graham Bell devises special glasses that, for a time, re-path vision and hearing through Helen’s brain, with a side of “soul sight” for kicks; basically, the young woman can tell who’s pure of heart and who’s about to do something wicked. Bonus side effects: Herculean strength and agility, and a re-emergence of the “Phantom” personality. The Secret Service figures this makes her a perfect bodyguard for President McKinley in dangerous, anarchy-fevered times; who would suspect the little blind girl could do what she can do?
That’s the premise for Helen Killer. Now, you tell me: straight-faced drama thing, or jokey retro pastiche, a la Tales from the Bully Pulpit?
I can’t rightly tell, and that may not be such a bad thing. Writer Andrew Kreisberg’s afterword lays out some of the groundwork for this frankly pretty bizarre idea, and keep in mind when I say “pretty bizarre” I’m speaking from the context of an industry that at one point released three unrelated comics about vampire pirates on the same day. You’ll be surprised how much of it is based on historical fact. (Phantom, No-World, friendship with Bell: all true. Not so much with the spirit goggles.) He seems to be playing it pretty straight, taking a few stray concepts, uniting them with some martial arts and highlighting the concentration of interesting personalities and weird events taking place in Keller’s life.
Fair enough. On those grounds, Helen Killer is an entertaining comic, solid enough in its writing and art to make this mishmash of concepts and influences stay afloat. Its gift may be in how seamlessly it transitions from “rage within” origin story (familiar to a certain strain of superhero comics) to interesting character development to slam-bang action and back again.
No easy feat, that. Helen Killer is built on what seems like strong internal consistency, a logical framework that you know exists even if you can’t quite sort out the details. The whole of it makes sense, even if a description of its component parts (see above) reads like a fire sale at the WTF factory. Strong internal consistency gives the surreal and the odd an air of legitimacy, and makes the suspension of disbelief all the easier. Weak internal consistency just cries out for an editor.
And I will be picking up the second issue. Did I mention Helen Keller kicked some guys in the face?
Writer: Andrew Kreisberg
Artist: Matthew JLD Rice
Publisher: Arcana Comics
