Customer Reviews

Transmetropolitan Vol. 4: The New Scum

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

 

 

New Scum is all about Spider's involvement in the political campaign, how he fights for the little guys all around him who he sees and describes throughout the book. This particular book is more story driven than some and shows the presidential campaign up against Spider's journalism. Fun read.

This is an amazing series. It continuously gets better and better as you go along. At this point in the saga of Spider Jerusalem and his filthies I knew I was reading a work like no other, and that I was going to love it forever. This particular volume also includes a little bonus at the end, with the winter/Christmas shorts that were released in a separate compilation from Vertigo. If you're new to Transmetroplitan then start at the beginning. If you've got the backbone, then you'll read them all.

This is the most disappointing Transmetropolitan offering so far. Which doesn't mean that it's that bad, it's just not as good as the other novels in the series. Spider loses his edge. He goes around doing good deeds, and generally being pushed around by the people he hates the most. After the manic whirlwind of first three novels, it makes for disappointing reading.

The story focus in a peripheral manner on the election, but since Spider has been removed from the streets by fame, he's too far away to really get at the heart of it.

Lastly, the artwork seems to have taken a turn for the cartoony. It's a lot more '4 color' than previous efforts and just doesn't fit with the world of Spider Jerusalem as previously depicited.

The most interesting thread focuses on the relationship of Channon and Yelena. Which is, while interesting, not what I buy Transmetropolitan for.

Overall, if you liked the first three novels, this is still worth reading. If the first three novels were too offensive, you might find this one tolerable, but since so much of it is built on the first three, it's not that good a story in its own right.

Spider Jerusalem's got a problem: The Smiler survives.

After almost destroying his candidacy in Volume 3, Spider Jerusalem saw The Smiler perservere by riding a wave of sympathy from the brutal assassination of his political aide Vita Severn, a woman that the city adored, and Spider Jerusalem counted as a personal friend.

Seeing one of his admittedly many, hated enemies riding her corpse onward toward electoral victory drives him even further over the edge.

Spider Jerusalem finds himself chronicling the lives of the New Scum, as the Smiler calls them; the outcast, the downtrodden, ignored and thoroughly weird humans, and posthumans, that reside in The City. He's become their archivist, their voice, and against his will and better judgment, their hero. Now he has a bigger challenge: to become their champion. In this volume Spider deals with the strangeness of the people he's trying to save, the thoroughly deranged machinations of The Smiler, and the tiny moments of beauty and clarity that only he could find in the middle of the City as it slides toward self-annihilation in the Election.

Can Spider save The City from itself? Can anyone?

Find out in Transmetropolitan Volume Four.

I think I'm finally sick of the misanthrope as protagonist. Harlan Ellison, the cop from Filth and Cracker: The Complete Collection have worn me down and made me just sick of the whining and crabbiness. I can't even watch George Carlin half the time these days. So Spider Jerusalem pulling his "I Hate Everyone" rants is just another misanthrope speaking on behalf of the misanthropic author. He hates hippies. He hates politicians. He hates the well meaning types. And for the entire book, he's just hating. And it's an irritating hate.

This particular book is the culmination of the last book in which Spider Jerusalem meets, admires and watches Vita Severin get murdered. The book's satire becomes much more stark and hopeless as the old president is revealed to be a Nixonian manipulator while the new president (the Smiler) admits to being behind Vita's assassination and hides a Hitler lust for power just barely.

This is a nasty little book that doesn't really do anything but tell you that everything is nasty and hopeless. That's nice but I'm not 17 and not nearly as impressed with that message.

i really loved parts 1-3 but this one is boring. nothing is happening here, no plot to talk about just a couple of jokes. parts 1-3 are my favorite comics books... so it is a very big dissapointment.
also print sucks as usual, Vertigo uses the cheap recycled paper and the colors are dull, you can imagine how great it would look if printed in better quality.

Warren Ellis, Transmetropolitan: The New Scum (Vertigo, 2000)

After all the praise I've lavished on Transmetropolitan in my reviews of the first three volumes, I guess it was inevitable that everything would come crashing down. I have to admit, though, I'm making things sound a lot worse than they are; I guess the first three volumes had me expecting new miracles with every episode. Having given us the overarching story arc in book three, Ellis gets down to business in The New Scum, the fourth book in the series, and having gotten down to business, a lot of the humor gets leached out of this volume. That said, the first half of the book is an absolutely brilliant take on the play Frost/Nixon, recently turned into a movie nominated for a sick number of Academy Awards, so it's about as topical as they come these days. (Ellis is pretty subtle about it for a while there, but he kicks us in the head towards the end of that sequence.) Things then go back to normal, which for Transmetropolitan means they're absolutely over the edge. This is also the second volume in which Ellis includes an extra story at the end of the book, and both here and in Year of the Bastard, I've liked the extra stories the best of anything in the book; here, Spider expounds on why winter is the best season. (If only it didn't have all the snow.) Slips a bit, quality-wise, but the series is still very much worth reading if you haven't discovered it yet. *** ½

Spider Jerusalem really does not like one of the candidates for president, and when he finds out how dirty he is and what he is doing to cover things up, he likes him even less. That doesn't stop him from becoming president, either.

Also, one filthy assistant finally admits to the other that yes, she did indeed shag Spider one night.

Transmet has established itself as the greatest comic of all time by blending sci-fi, black humor, generally excellent storytelling, political commentary, and fabulous artwork. This is just another chapter in the fabulous sweeping saga that is Transmetropolitan. It really is a shame that not enough people are reading this stuff and dismiss it simply as another brain damaged comic book. Look just because the X-Men are god awful doesn't meen that comic's can't tell good stories. I really have been reading too much Warren Ellis (if that is possible.)

One word fits this collection of Warren Ellis' violence and drug filled merryment: AMAZING.

The story of Spider Jerusalem and his Hunter S. Thompson style gonzo journalism in a futuristic world that at its core is not too different from ours really takes off here as we see Spider take on the lowest scum of his career so far and do many drugs, use his bowel disrupter, and bash a lot of skulls in the progress.

Warren Ellis is one of the few writers in comics today (with Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, and Kevin Smith) who is trying to show the world what comics readers have been saying for years: That Comics are not just kids stuff. And if my review so far has not proven this to you yet, then this warning will. THIS IS NOT THE X-MEN! IT IS FOR SMART ADULTS WHO KNOW THAT IT IS ALL MAKE BELIEVE!

So, in closing, buy this and the rest of the Transmet library. If not, Spider might get mad and shoot a poor virtual puppy.