Book: Manhunter: The Special Edition
Pen: Archie Goodwin
Pencil: Walt Simonson
Sometimes, magic just happens. Because of, irrespective of, in spite of circumstances, magic happens. In comics it is very hard to come across such examples, even more so when the name Alan Moore is not connected with it. Manhunter: The Special Edition is magical.
Manhunter was a pretty obscure character that existed from the 1940s. He had many avatars and was always on the second rung, despite having a run by the one and only Jack Kirby. He still is. But in 1973, Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson joined together for a brief journey. A magical journey.
Paul Kirk, aka Manhunter from the ‘40s, suddenly shows up in Nepal. Nothing so unusual but for the fact that he had been dead for decades. Everything points to an imposter, but his fingerprints are the same and he looks exactly like how he looked 30 years before. Christine St Clair, an Interpol agent, is after him. She finds him and unravels a conspiracy that is way bigger than anything she had ever imagined. Involving the greatest minds of the world from the 1940s, a search for a peaceful world, the corruptibility of the human mind and the determination of one man to make a difference, the story unravels across countries with a breathless pace. It culminates in a shattering climax.
Manhunter came out in an eight-page format. It was an additional story in the main Detective Comics issue which featured Batman and other higher-rated heroes; an extra. This Manhunter ran for seven issues, out of which six were only eight pages long! Eight pages to make an impact each time. And twice for these eight pages they won awards for best story. Goes to show size doesn’t matter for magic! For the last issue, they decided to include Batman in the storyline and suddenly they were the main event.
The eight-page format meant you had to find a fine balance between story and visuals that would prevent either from overcrowding the other. Enough things should happen to give a structure to the story, but not so much that it seemed like cramming. The initial storyline – The Himalayan Incident – is startling in its economy, but extremely effective in introducing the character. Cathedral Perilous, my personal favourite, has a fabulous set up. A tourist family turns up at an old cathedral. They walk around taking photographs, while the youngest son is the one witnessing incredible things happening. Of course he is not even able to tell that to his parents. And when he ends up saving someone, he realizes the dream of every comic fan of playing a part in their favourite comic.
The story of Manhunter is not extraordinary. It does not introduce any ground-breaking theory or have a humdinger of a plot with unexpected twists aplenty. It also does not introduce any new style of drawing. But what it does is takes itself and its reader seriously, while accepting it is about a comic book character. In very few pages it manages to tell a complete story that is large in its scope, intimate in its characterization and flawless in its construction. You cannot wait to turn the page, but also do not want to rush yourself.
The Special Edition has an added story that is amazing in that it never feels like an add-on. For the 25th Anniversary edition the collaborators were asked to write another short story. While initially skeptical, they both arrived at how they would approach it. In between Archie Goodwin died. Walt Simonson made it the ultimate tribute to his friend by making it a silent comic, without any dialogue. What could have been a tacky and commercial venture instead became a poignant and poetic epilogue to a fully-realised epic. In short, it remained magic.
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