Booze, Broads, and Bullets: Ronin
April 11th, 2010 Posted by david brothers
It’s 1983 and you’re fresh off a break-out run on Daredevil and an acclaimed Wolverine miniseries. Everyone wants you to revolutionize their books like you did Daredevil. What do you do? If you’re Frank Miller, the answer is to produce Ronin, a deeply weird samurai/sci-fi/cyberpunk love story, with DC Comics.
I’m convinced that, as a career milestone, Ronin may be more important than Daredevil. It was composed of ideas that were completely Miller’s, rather than derived from the minds of Stan Lee, Bill Everett, Chris Claremont, or Len Wein. While Miller clearly had a large amount of freedom on Daredevil, it remained a Marvel comic and had to conform to those standards. Miller has said he never had censorship trouble on Daredevil, barring a brief spat with the Comics Code Authority that resulted in an anti-drug issues being shelved for a couple years. Other than that, he described his time on the project as fairly painless, due in part to his relationship with his editor and Jim Shooter.
So, what does Miller do when he can cut loose without worrying about ruining someone else’s copyright? He does something very, very weird, and yet undeniably Frank Miller. While it is interesting to read, the most interesting aspect of the book is how it serves almost as a blueprint, or at least loose notes, for Miller’s later work.
There is a kernel of the woman worship that informs much of his Sin City work lurking in the subtext of Ronin. Casey McKenna, head of security for the megacorp that provides much of the drama for the book, is cast from the same mold as Gail, Martha Washington, and even Carrie Kelly. She becomes the object of the ronin’s quest, desire, and obsession partway through the book, after he spent the series being pointedly chaste. Casey fulfills a fantasy that the ronin has of heroism and love. This is a familiar fantasy and one that is echoed throughout Miller’s body of work, whether via Goldie from Sin City: The Hard Goodbye, Ava from Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, or even little Nancy Callahan from Sin City: That Yellow Bastard.
Miller’s also known for putting his heroes through their paces, above and beyond what normal heroes go through. His heroes go through their own personalized passion plays, and always with gritted teeth, stoic expressions, and muttered threats of revenge. While the ronin is mostly mute, he takes punishment like a champ, always rising above his pain to destroy those who hurt him. Sometimes this means coming back from a traditional beating, and sometimes, the ronin finds himself with several limbs missing.
Despite his intimate relationship with violence, the ronin has a very specific code of honor and seeks to do right by everyone he can. There are lines he won’t cross, and when he is tricked into using a racial slur to provoke a fight, his first move is to apologize. When that apology is rejected, he severs the man’s hands. When Casey is sent under the streets to be killed, he risks his life to go and rescue her.
Read the rest of this entry �
. What’s much, much more likely is that mainstream digital comics and comic shop comics will split into two separate, but complementary, revenue streams. I try to minimize the floppies I buy because I vastly prefer trades. I buy mp3s and ebooks at a wholly irresponsible pace due in large part to the fact that I don’t have to worry about storage. If I start buying comics on the iPad, I’m not going to click the little “Go to a comic shop!” button to start filling up my house. I’m going to click the “Buy digital comics” button to fill up my iPad with every issue Hypno Hustler ever appeared in.
. Skip the Siege and Brightest Day tie-ins, they’ll be there when you get back.
.
