A giant, armor wearing, warrior, white rat. Who saw that one coming?
You know it’s bad in Joe the Barbarian #2 when Captain Jean Luc Picard is giving up the battle; when he’s passing off his phaser to some boy and then hobbling off to whatever final fate awaits him. We’re talking about the captain of the Enterprise here. He’s faced Klingons and Borg without ever breaking a sweat but his latest adversary is just too much for him. He’s already lost a leg. What more can we ask of the man? But then you realize as you’re reading the book, this isn’t Picard. It’s not even actor Patrick Stewart making a surprising cameo in this story. It’s a toy, a 3″ action figure, still just as defeated, handing his tiny little toy gun over to diabetic, and possibly hallucinating, Joe.
This second issue of Grant Morrison and Sean Murphy’s miniseries continues to explore a toy world that is at war. The Picard figure, missing its lower leg, is only one of the casualties of this war. In a stunning 2-page spread, Murphy shows us all sort of childhood toys and memories under assult by the forces of King Death, a villain who so far remains unseen. You can never really forget that we’re looking at childhood toys but Murphy makes the figures so lively and expressive that they become as real as Joe is. There’s no difference between Joe’s anguish at not understanding what’s going on and the torture of some plastic toys at the bad guy’s hands. The stuffed animals, huddled together in fear, are no less real because they have stuffing in them.
Morrison and Murphy play off this uncertainty of reality and fiction; Joe’s house is no less dangerous for him than the imaginary land of his toys. Even Joe’s pet white rat Jack becomes an armored warrior in Joe’s other world, captured during the battles with Lord Death. Whether it’s a quest to bring back “the throne of light” or to get his glucose tablet, Joe is in a lot of trouble.
While covering familiar ground for him, it feels like Morrison is approaching writing Joe The Barbarian completely differently than he usually does. Like his We3, the writing this issue is stripped down and uncluttered. He leaves the reader to fill in a lot of the subtext while he concentrates on telling a strong story with his artist. Sean Murphy actually fills in a lot of that subtext and symbolism in this book. Joe the Barbarian #2 is a much simpler story, without being simplistic.
Joe the Barbarian #2
“Chapter 2: Cloud Quay to Feather Forest Falls”
Written by: Grant Morrison
Drawn by: Sean Murphy
Colored by: Dave Stewart
Lettered by: Todd Klein