THE DEATH-RAY by Daniel Clowes (Drawn & Quarterly), 48 pages, $19.95 cloth. Rating: NNNN
The comic and movie kick-ass and the films Super and Defendor have turned the real-life-superhero genre into a cliché. But Daniel Clowes breathes new life into it in The Death-Ray, a dark and philosophical look at what it means to have the godlike power to take lives.
Scrawny high-schooler Andy, who lives with his grandfather (both his parents have died), is bullied and friendless, save for his rebellious buddy Louie, who’s got problems of his own. But a puff on a cigarette (a typically dark Clowesian joke) kickstarts a radical change in Andy’s body, and soon he’s able to beat up anyone who gets in his way – after a couple of drags, of course. The discovery of the titular death-ray gun only ups the stakes.
Originally published in Eightball magazine, this is graphic storytelling at its best. Clowes plays brilliantly with chronology, tone and style. Some illustrations have a hyper-realist edge to them, others are shaded like an old-school noir, while still others are playfully childlike. And the author constructs the narrative in inventive ways, throwing in interviews, snatches of love letters and episodes involving seemingly unimportant secondary characters.
Talk of a film adaptation abounds, but it’d be hard to top the book for its complexity. Clowes, who co-wrote the superb adaptation of his book Ghost World, has found the perfect medium to express his thoughts on loneliness, power and despair.
