Customer Reviews

The Death-Ray

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Meet Andy, a quiet, lonely boy growing up in the 70s who has one friend and is being raised by his grandfather who is likely developing Alzheimer's. One day by chance Andy smokes a cigarette and discovers that nicotine activates "super powers" where he gains super strength. Couple that with his father's legacy leaving Andy a handheld "death ray" once he realises his super powers, and Andy goes from being an awkward teen to having the power of life and death in the palm of his hand.

Andy is your typical Clowes-ian character - awkward loner, angry at the world, cynical yet disarmingly open about their bizarre world views, and prone to strange acts in public. Quirky in a word, and Andy is very much in the vein of other Clowes characters from Ghost World, Ice Haven, Mr Wonderful, Wilson, and so on.

The book follows the story of Andy and his strange friend Louie as they try to find real world applications to Andy's Death Ray, at first picking out school bullies, then moving onto targets in the wider world. It can be read as a straight story with Andy actually having real super powers and the death ray really is a death ray but Clowes seems to be inviting interpretation in these incidents. Andy "blacks out" when he gets super powers, realising afterwards that he's pummelled someone's face into a bloody mess and the death ray works by "popping" someone out of existence in an instant - are the two connected? Is Andy in fact just an out and out psycho "popping" people out of existence with his hands?

Or maybe it's a far more depressed version of "Kick Ass", especially as Andy makes a costume to wear, and Clowes is showing how lonely and empty being a superhero is and how superpowers don't make you happy.

Either way it's a pretty interesting, if gloomy, read with Clowes' great art and imaginative layouts. A must for fans of Clowes, though this appeared in his comic book series "Eightball" a few years ago so if you're a subscriber to that you've already got this, but fans of indie comics will find plenty to enjoy here as well.

I grew up rabidly devouring comic books as a kid. (As a child of the 90's I could still get Star Wars and Sonic the Hedgehog comics at the local grocery stores and gas stations.) But as I grew older, fewer and fewer comics grabbed my interest and I lost touch with the comics community. In college I really became interested in postmodernism and "snobby literature." I hadn't picked up a comic book in years when a friend handed me his copy of David Petersen's Mouse Guard. Needless to say, it awakened the passion for comics that I hadn't felt in years.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that every so often a comic book comes along that is so freaking cool that it reminds me of what it felt like to sit on my living room floor and revel in the sheer awesomeness of outlandish costumes and word balloons. The Death-Ray is one of these books. The oversize edition lets you really pour over the artwork, the story quality has the right amount of depth, and the premise has a pitch perfect blend of whimsy without seeming overly silly. Check it out if you need your faith in the graphic medium restored.

Andy's a do-nothing kind of teen, orphaned and living with his grandfather in Chicago in the 1970s, and he's not very interested in much of anything at all. He pals around with his best friend, Louie, and he pretends that he's got a great relationship with his "girlfriend" (whom he rarely sees in person but sends letters to frequently). But when he smokes his first cigarette, he discovers he's been engineered by his scientist father to develop some killer superpowers when exposed to nicotine.

The powers are killer indeed: He develops the titular Death Ray, which allows him to eliminate anyone without a trace, because of his bodily interaction with cigarettes. He can get away clean with wiping out anyone, which he knows is an awesome power--and responsibility. But what he does with that power is something else entirely.

Like much of Clowes' work, The Death Ray speaks to (and about) the sluggishness and disaffectedness of Generation X. It harks back to a simpler time, and even the artwork is evocative of 1970s comics greats (although it is certainly all distinctively Clowes).

The Death Ray was originally published in Eightball #23 in 2004 and it's been reprinted by Drawn & Quarterly in this handsome hardcover edition. The entire story is relatively short, but it's certainly packed with gravitas. The plot is straightforward, but things get complex and complicated as Andy gets older. Dealing with that angst and seeming powerlessness is Clowes' utmost strength, demonstrated in so many of his brilliant works, and well executed here as well.

Reviewed by John Hogan

Clowes takes on various peculiarities of the superhero mythos in this surface-simplistic but extremely dense tale of a normal kid who discovers he has superhuman abilities and the ensuing consequences that arise from such a tried and true scenario. This book is best consumed in one sitting, reading through it twice. Due to the narrative non-linearity, shifting POV, past and future references scattered throughout the panels, the first read will likely leave readers somewhat confused until they scan through the book again. As always, Clowes' pop-art style illustration is fantastic eye candy totally worth the price of admission on its own.

Today I just finished reading another title by Clowes called David Boring. I thoroughly enjoyed that book possibly more than this one. This is a story for those who really want to pay attention to all the details. The protagonist discovers he received super strength anytime he has nicotine in his system. He also receives a death ray that allows him to wipe anyone from existence. While this is a great piece of work I felt that at points it was really jarring in the way the story was told. This also, weirdly, is one of the charms this book has to offer. The overall story is good and, like the review on the book says, is like Holden from Catcher in the Rye. I gave it four stars instead of 5 due to the disjointed nature of the story. I know that I said that's part of the charm but sometimes it was a bit too much for my taste. Regardless, give this book a shot.

though the graphic novel is not to long, it has classic taste applied to a new age blend, i enjoyed it very much, wasn't cheesy at all.

The Death Ray is a `classic Clowes tale;' a coming of age of story of sorts, where the main character stumbles upon his unlikely superpower. It is a dark, but funny look at growing up and a "what would you do if..." situation. The characters struggle with loneliness, selfishness, and acceptance. The artwork has a classic comic book style, that nicely contrasts the cynical and blunt moments in the story.

I happen to have the comic-book original (as printed in Eight Ball), and there isn't any new content that I noticed - no new artwork or original plans for the book. This version has a wonderful hardcover binding, and the artwork is crisper and brighter than my copy of Eight Ball, so I'm glad I bought it. It's a joy to read and looks fantastic.

I've been a longtime fan of Clowes, since before Ghost World, and this is by far one of my favorite stories. I have the original copy of Eightball this story comes from but I love having it in hardcover. It's beautifully reproduced on heavy stock with new end paper illustrations and a new cover. Well worth the price. I hope they make a movie out of it!

"The Death Ray" is the kind of story you'd expect from Daniel Clowes. If you have already read "David Boring," and "Ghost World," and liked them, you will get more or less more of the same in this book, but the characters reflect isolation, more like "Mister Wonderful" and "Wilson." All in all, worth your time.

I wondered if this had anything different from the earlier release and found it doesn't. Clowes has become a sort of money machine saving up for retirement, printing stuff the masses will now lap up just by his printing it without putting any effort into trying to give real fans something creative and exciting. Clowes is a has been. He made his point with his early punk days of Like a velvet Glove, Lloyd Lewellyn and Ghost World and now has lost his edge - or just doesn't care. It's sad. Pathetic really. He should hang up the pens if he isn't going to respect his fans.