Hell and Back (comics)

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Hell and Back

Hell and Back 01.jpg

Cover of the first issue
Publication information
Publisher Maverick (Dark Horse Comics)
Schedule Monthly
Format Limited series
Genre
Publication date July 1999 - April 2000
No. of issues 9
Creative team
Created by Frank Miller
Written by Frank Miller
Artist(s) Frank Miller
Letterer(s) Frank Miller
Editor(s) Diana Schutz
Collected editions
Hell and Back ISBN   1-59307-299-6

Hell and Back is a nine-issue comic book limited series, first published by Dark Horse Comics in July 1999April 2000, and the seventh and final volume in Frank Miller's Sin City series.

Comic book publication of comics art

A comic book or comicbook, also called comic magazine or simply comic, is a publication that consists of comic art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by brief descriptive prose and written narrative, usually, dialog contained in word balloons emblematic of the comics art form. Although comics has some origins in 18th century Japan, comic books were first popularized in the United States and the United Kingdom during the 1930s. The first modern comic book, Famous Funnies, was released in the U.S. in 1933 and was a reprinting of earlier newspaper humor comic strips, which had established many of the story-telling devices used in comics. The term comic book derives from American comic books once being a compilation of comic strips of a humorous tone; however, this practice was replaced by featuring stories of all genres, usually not humorous in tone.

In the field of comic books, a limited series is a comics series with a predetermined number of issues. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is finite and determined before production, and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues. The term is often used interchangeably with miniseries (mini-series) and maxiseries (maxi-series), usually depending on the length and number of issues. In Dark Horse Comics' definition of a limited series, "This term primarily applies to a connected series of individual comic books. A limited series refers to a comic book series with a clear beginning, middle and end." Dark Horse Comics and DC Comics refer to limited series of two to eleven issues as miniseries and series of twelve issues or more as maxiseries, but other publishers alternate terms.

Dark Horse Comics American comic book and manga publisher

Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book and manga publisher. It was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon.

Contents

Plot

It tells the story of Wallace, an artist/war hero/short order cook who saves a suicidal woman named Esther. She likes his art and they go out for a drink. They are ambushed by two men, who drug Wallace and kidnap Esther. The Colonel and Liebowitz are a suspected part of this conspiracy. Wallace spends the night in the drunk tank, after being dragged out of the gutter by two of Basin City's (notoriously corrupt) police officers, Manson and Bundy, and upon his release seeks out Esther. He is crossed again by police officers after he tells Commissioner Liebowitz he plans to find Esther. He then dispatches them, leaving them bound and naked. After locating Esther's home, he finds her apartment occupied by Delia, who claims to be Esther's roommate.

Wallace is the protagonist of Hell and Back, the longest of the Sin City yarns written by Frank Miller.

Wallace and Delia are attacked by The Colonel's new manservant, Manute, but they escape. A sniper attacks from a nearby window, whom Wallace takes out by shooting him through the scope of his rifle. Delia tries unsuccessfully to seduce him as they are pursued by two more assassins in a Mercedes, which Wallace also disposes of.

Wallace and Delia meet up with an old war buddy referred to only as Captain. He borrows a Chevrolet Nomad known as The Heap from him and Wallace and Delia turn in for the night at the Last Hope Motel.

Chevrolet Nomad station wagon model

The Chevrolet Nomad was a station wagon model made off and on from 1955 to 1972, and as a Chevy Van trim package in the late 1970s and early 1980s, produced by Chevrolet. The Nomad is best remembered in its two-door Tri-Five form, and was considered a halo model during its three-year production. It was named for nomads.

Wallace handcuffs her to the bed for what she believes is foreplay, when he reveals that he knows she cannot be Esther's roommate, because Esther's clothes would have the smell of Delia's cigarettes on them. Just then, Wallace is drugged by a sniper for the second time. He wakes at the Santa Yolanda Tar Pits, where Delia, Gordo, and a drug wizard named Maxine are preparing to abandon his car in the pits. Maxine gives him a huge dose of a hallucinogenic drug.

A large portion of the comic, wherein he finds himself hallucinating, is then done in full color. After a surreal sequence involving a crashing fighter jet, trash-talking cherubs, and dinosaurs, the car hits a tree. He discovers a young girl dead in the trunk. The police show up, as does Captain, who kills the police. Captain explains he'd have gotten there sooner if it wasn't for snipers establishing a perimeter. They torture one remaining sniper and find out where Delia, Gordo, and Maxine were heading and pursue them. During this sequence the Captain morphs into various pop culture icons, including King Leonidas from Frank Miller's 300, Lone Wolf and Cub, an ED-209 droid from the RoboCop movies, Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, Captain America, Dirty Harry, John Rambo, Martha Washington from Give Me Liberty , Hägar the Horrible and even Hellboy. This portion is entirely in color.

Popular culture is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of the practices, beliefs and objects that are dominant or ubiquitous in a society at a given point in time. Popular culture also encompasses the activities and feelings produced as a result of interaction with these dominant objects. Heavily influenced in modern times by mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of people in a given society. Therefore, popular culture has a way of influencing an individual's attitudes towards certain topics. However, there are various ways to define pop culture. Because of this, popular culture is something that can be defined in a variety of conflicting ways by different people across different contexts. It is generally viewed in contrast to other forms of culture such as folk culture, working-class culture, or high culture, and also through different theoretical perspectives such as psychoanalysis, structuralism, postmodernism, and more. The most common pop-culture categories are: entertainment, sports, news, politics, fashion/clothes, technology, and slang.

<i>300</i> (comics) 1998 comic book limited series

300 is a historically inspired 1998 comic book limited series written and illustrated by Frank Miller with painted colors by Lynn Varley.

<i>Lone Wolf and Cub</i> manga

Lone Wolf and Cub is a manga created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima. First published in 1970, the story was adapted into six films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, a television series starring Kinnosuke Yorozuya, and is widely recognized as an important and influential work.

They shoot past Delia, Maxine and Gordo at a gas station. As they begin driving again, Wallace and Captain ambush them, with Captain disabling the Hummer with a rocket launcher. As they move in, Gordo mortally wounds Captain as Wallace shoots Gordo in the face. At gunpoint, Wallace makes Maxine concoct an antidote to reverse his hallucinogenic frame of mind. As she does, he shoots her in the head and shoots Delia through the gut when he suffers a panic attack. After blacking out for a few seconds, Wallace finds himself back in a black and white "normal" world, Maxine dead and Delia wounded. Paralyzed from the waist down, she begs for mercy. Wallace does so by shooting her in the back of the head. He then carries Captain's body back to the Heap and drives away.

He meets up with another war buddy named Jerry, the Captain's lover. They burn Captain's body in a funeral pyre, where afterwards they work trying to flush the rest of the drugs out of Wallace's system. Mariah, another female mercenary working for The Colonel, is assigned to Delia's task in her stead. The Colonel is now killing anyone linking Wallace to him, starting with the doctor who kidnapped Esther. He even has Mariah break Liebowitz's teenage son's arm after luring him away from his high school. He then threatens Liebowitz's family even further, putting the commissioner in a moral quandary.

Physician professional who practices medicine

A physician, medical practitioner, medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a professional who practises medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining, or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of disease, injury, and other physical and mental impairments. Physicians may focus their practice on certain disease categories, types of patients, and methods of treatment—known as specialities—or they may assume responsibility for the provision of continuing and comprehensive medical care to individuals, families, and communities—known as general practice. Medical practice properly requires both a detailed knowledge of the academic disciplines, such as anatomy and physiology, underlying diseases and their treatment—the science of medicine—and also a decent competence in its applied practice—the art or craft of medicine.

Family Group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence

In the context of human society, a family is a group of people related either by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence or some combination of these. Members of the immediate family may include spouses, parents, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. Members of the extended family may include grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, and siblings-in-law. Sometimes these are also considered members of the immediate family, depending on an individual's specific relationship with them.

Wallace confronts Liebowitz in his apartment and tries to get him to join his side. Wallace discovers that the real scheme The Colonel is operating is a slave trafficking and organ harvesting ring of which Liebowitz was in fact (intentionally or otherwise) unaware of. Wallace explains how he launched a one-man assault on the factory, first infiltrating the complex, cutting a swathe of stealthy death through the roster of guards and discovering the myriad atrocities going on there. He was then confronted by Mariah and The Colonel as well as many, many armed guards. Wallace managed to escape the factory with his own life but without saving anyone, much to his own chagrin.

At this point, the phone rings in Liebowitz's apartment: "They know you're here", Liebowitz tells Wallace. It's The Colonel, telling Wallace where Esther is: she is at the Roark family farm, long since abandoned at this point. The deal is simple: Wallace's silence for Esther's safe return. When Wallace finds her, an enemy helicopter arrives and opens fire, Wallace shielding Esther with his body. However, Wallace is one step ahead: Jerry, who was up on a hill with heavy ordnance, blasts the chopper out of the sky with a rocket launcher; Wallace, who was wearing a Kevlar vest, survived the chopper's machinegun fire miraculously. Wallace takes Esther to the hospital and he and Jerry prepare to make a second assault on The Colonel's base of operations, when a flood of people are brought in on stretchers.

By this time, the police have launched a massive raid on The Colonel's factory, where The Colonel is captured. The Colonel threatens Liebowitz, who in return shoots him in the head for hurting his son and tells his underlings to "make a missing person outta the fucker". Wallenquist (the criminal lord behind the whole operation) lets it all be square, against the strong wishes of Mariah, (who somehow escaped the factory raid,) seeing neither power nor profit in revenge; He seeks revenge on neither Wallace nor Liebowitz.

Weeks later, Wallace and Esther leave town. He asks her why she wanted to jump and she responds "I was lonely". They drive away towards a better life away from Sin City.

Collected editions

The series has been collected into a trade paperback (ISBN   1593072996).


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