By J. Keith Haney
Jones, Kelley; Lewis, Dana; Smith, Toren. The Hammer: One Big Lie. Dark Horse Comics (November 18, 1998). 120 pp. USD $6.67. ISBN-10: 1569713405; ISBN-13: 978-1569713402.
Greetings, fellow lovers of comics of old! Welcome to the inaugural column of the Retronomicon, a look back at forgotten classics and misplaced issues of the 20th Century’s most underappreciated literary form. When possible, I will be covering Lovecraft-derived works, but the broader focus will be on horror comics in general. My first couple of columns will be dealing with heroes…in the loosest sense of the word.
Lovecraft-fueled superheroics are surprisingly rare. Even the horror-based superbeings of the 1970s were more based on literary monsters of the 19th century and their cinematic heirs (as dictated by the Comic Code of the time). But then, the cosmic, uncaring universe that Lovecraft and his circle created has little-to-nothing in common with the classic superhero. So, what would such a superhero look like if put in a credible Lovecraftian context? Wait, I’ve got it – Superman with tentacles. Kidding..seriously, The Hammer, written and drawn by Batman and horror artist Kelley Jones, has given the only believable answer I have ever seen.
The action starts in 1977. Portents worthy of a Shakespearean drama are popping up around the globe. In New Mexico, Navajo shamans are being told by their spirits they’re leaving. Haitian houngans are being told the same message by their loa, with the added warning that something nightmarish is coming that will kill them all. Scientists in New Jersey are seeing a weird spike in background radiation from the Big Bang. Finally, in an old house in Pawtuxet Valley, Rhode Island, a couple of stupid college kids open a gate that really needed to stay shut. This all points to one thing: the Great Old Ones are finally coming back and no one in the spirit world wants to get in their way.
Flash forward 20 years: Professor Wilcox of Miskatonic University summons two of his students out to his house on the Massachusetts-Vermont border. He tells them a tale of an archeological dig he did in the former Yugoslavia, looking for the tomb of a legendary general of the Ostrogoth Empire named ‘Alaric Malleus’ (the last name meaning ‘hammer’ in Latin). The general was reputed to have a misshapen head, an elongated mass on the back of his skull that is reflected by the helmet that his corpse is buried with. But the archeologists find out the hard way that the extra mass is no deformity. It is a symbiotic alien entity that came to earth to fight the Old Ones, patiently waiting for the day it would be unearthed. But it needs a host and Professor Wilcox has volunteered, upon learning he has terminal cancer. One unorthodox surgery later, Professor Wilcox is no more and Malleus once more walks the earth (with some heavy, Conanesque modifications on the professor’s formerly frail physique). His first order of business: “I desire a cheeseburger.”
This turns out to be a running gag with this series. It is based on the fact that Malleus’ alien physiology needs junk food to survive. Good thing he’s in America. Cheeseburgers, sugary cereals, onion rings, candy bars…if it’s bad for the human system in large quantities, chances are Malleus calls it ‘basic nutrition’. He is particularly fond of Milky Ways. Not that it’s all about appetite; Malleus can see portents in Kentucky Fried Chicken bones and surprise toys in cereal boxes being found up top. The carcinogens in hot dogs help him focus his psychic abilities. Considering all the shamanic magic he throws around, who is to say whether the fate of the world may depend on him having regular trips to Denny’s? My housemate actually has similar nutritional requirements for reasons never figured out. If she weren’t hydrophobic (Malleus’ home world is all water), I’d swear she was from the same planet.
The threats Malleus meets up with range from the typical (an insane Tennessee miner who is feeding sacrifices to Tsathoggua; a disaffected teenage girl who feeds people she doesn’t like to something she calls ‘Uncle Alex’) to the outrageous (a fungus colony that has spent centuries growing under a town; a small homunculus with a big head and a taste for larceny) to the modernized (a self-help expert who is actually a resurrected witch fueling the return of the Old Ones; a trio of Crusaders-turned-body-hopping occultists who, at one point, were Nazis). But they tend to be just as vulnerable as any of the victims they claim. With Malleus’ tactics, the lucky ones are often the dead ones.
The artwork is the first thing anyone ever notices about a comic book and Kelley’s is no exception. The style can be called ‘a bit cartoonish but expressionistic’, Hammer Films-meets-Scooby Doo. Shadows hang heavily over the scenes, sometimes partially, sometimes only a silhouette. This is especially true when a character is expressing fear and/or doubt. Misshapen proportions are often the rule, as befits a Lovecraftian epic. The muscles-and-vacuum-cleaner-bag head of Malleus are a good example of this. But the nasties are an even better example, whether it is illustrating old Mythos standbys or Kelley’s own unique creations of distended organs, alien bodies, and sinister eyes. Another similarity to Hammer Films is the use of attractive women as both victims and villains. It’s as if Kelley reviewed every Hammer Dracula film and used the starlets he saw as the basis of his drawings.
But the thing that stays with you is what Malleus is willing to do to get the job done. So what if he causes strokes in his helpers? So what if he condemns hundreds to what is certain suicide? So what if he lied to get where he is now? Weighed against the fate of the entire human race, it all means less than nothing. Total war is the rule. The result is a trail of broken bodies and lives in the wake of his “victories”. But Malleus has human history as his guide. He rightly points out that his tactics bear little difference from the complete annihilation of seven tribes by the Lakota tribe or Mother Teresa accepting blood money by the truckload to do the work that elevated her to sainthood. In a universe where the traditional notion of God is wrong or irrelevant, it would produce EXACTLY this kind of altruism.
In private correspondance with Kelley (I actually got a couple of my letters printed in the letter column), Kelley wrote me something that has always stuck with me: “Man is arrogant to think he is the most important thing in the world, but wise to realize he can be the most responsible.” When everything is said and done, I am fairly certain that is the reason The Hammer stayed in my mind after all these years. The implication of that statement has its own share of uncomfortable truths and horrors.
Bio: J. Keith Haney was born in Misawa, Japan, but has lived most of his life in the state of Tennessee. His favourite all-time film is the original Clash of the Titans, mainly for the Ray Harryhausen monsters. Due to that film, he got a college-level book on World Mythology when he was nine, of which he memorized the Greek section by age 12. His first encounter with Lovecraft (though he didn’t know it at the time) was the original Ghostbusters, which he saw in its original theatrical release. In addition to all things Lovecraft, he is an old-school gamer, history buff and fierce advocate for the steampunk genre. He enjoyed his first professional sale and publication in 2010 with his steampunk short story, “Grand Guginol”, which can be found at Short Story Me! His favourite all-time Lovecraft story is “The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath”, which he considers an important, forgotten forerunner to Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings saga.