“Nine.”
It is not a boast and it is not a threat. It is a cold, simple fact. When asked how many people Parker has killed before reaching the man who can give him his $45,000, Parker answers, “nine.” Those nine include his one time partner Mal, the man who tried to have Parker killed and then ran to the mob with Parker’s money. Of those nine deaths at Parker’s hands, only Mal was personal. The others were just men and women who were unfortunate enough to get in Parker’s way.
Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of Richard Stark’s Parker: The Hunter is a throwback comic book in almost every way. From the opening page, showing the 1962 New York skyline, this comic book is born out of EC’s crime comics, recalling an older age of storytelling when men were men and all the women swooned over them. Stark’s highly romantic view of killers, syndicates and dames is a perfect match for Cooke’s own blend of heroic romanticism and hard boiled independence. Parker is a man with one simple purpose in this book; he wants his money and nothing will stop him. Stark’s hero is a so-called “real man.” While he may be a criminal, he’s still got his own code that he sticks to and lives by. Parker comes out of the same crime tradition that has spawned comic writers Frank Miller, Brian Azzarello and Ed Brubaker.
Unlike Miller’s psychologically damaged characters in Sin City or Brubaker’s touchy/feely anti-heroes of Criminal, Stark doesn’t try to get into his character’s head. Parker is a character from a simpler, older time but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t complications to him. There may be nothing there other than a cold anger that Stark has written about regarding his character but that cold anger is what propels Stark’s story forward, racing to an inevitable conclusion. Stark writes that his character exists “Because he’s anger. Not hot angry; cold angry. Because there are times when tools won’t serve, not hammers or cars or guns or telephones, when only the use of your own body will satisfy, the hard touch of your own hands.”
That line could almost apply to a lot of comic book from the last 25 years, combined with a sarcastic illustration and an over-the-top misunderstanding of what “hard boiled” and “tough” actually are. Stark and Cooke understand the directness of Parker and his world. Like Parker, the creators know what tools to use when and they understand the blunt object that Parker can and needs to be. He’s not a character who’s looking to get in touch with his feelings or to reconcile with the past. Parker is not looking for peace or for a happy ending; he’s just looking out for his own survival and heaven help anyone who gets in his way.
For adapting this story, Cooke has moved away from the highly polished look of DC: The New Frontier and his Spirit work and now seems to be channeling Jack Kirby for this book. I’ve never thought of Cooke as a Kirby acolyte but you can see how Cooke has taken the energy and excitement that Kirby was able to create on the superhero comic page and infused it into a book with no costumes and no heroes. Parker: The Hunter looks like the kind of book Kirby would have done if 1963 never happened and he never got sucked into spending three decades doing mostly superhero work. The energy and excitement that Cooke pulled out of every page and every panel is pure Kirby, almost right down to the Kirby Krackle that accompanies every powerful punch. Cooke’s artwork is rougher and rawer here than what we’ve seen from him in the past but it’s completely honest for the story that’s being told.
Parker: The Hunter is a story that’s not concerned with good versus evil; it’s not concerned with imparting lessons or morals. Like its main character, The Hunter is only concerned with existing. Parker: The Hunter is a simple and direct story about a direct man.
Parker: The Hunter is available on Amazon.com.
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Tags: Darwyn Cooke, Parker, Richard Stark