Three #1

[arbre_rieur]

“I came home from these regular monthly drinks that we have in London and grabbed one of the nice hardback comics next to the bed–and in this case it was [Frank Miller's] 300. I picked it up, flipped through it, really not very much paying any attention to it. And one of the speeches about ‘The only free men the world has ever known,’ and literally had a moment of incandescent rage and shouted at the book, ‘You hunted slaves!’ And at that second the entire plot of Three downloaded, including the twist, the structure, everything.” -- Kieron Gillen

The comic opens up with some historical horror: How once a year, the Spartans declared open season on their Helot slaves and would just kill a bunch of them.





So, 364 BC: Three Helots are in the field...









Terpander, "first among lessers," decides to tell Arimnestos a story about his namesake, a previous Arimnestos. That Arimnestos fought the Persians at Plataea, about a hundred years earlier:







"He dies last." The issue ends as the slaughter begins.

Comments

[crabby_lioness]

I'll take Gillen over Miller any day, thank you.

[leoboiko]

The art doesn't work for me, especially the facial expressions. But a blatant Miller putdown by Gillen? Gods I'm so totally getting this one

[damar148]

Only seen the movie, but I thought Spartans being self-delusional Hard Men was the point. I mean it starts with a mountain of baby skulls.

[donnblake]

As with much of Miller's work, it's hard to define the point at which it may become self-parody.

[filthysize]

What do you mean by the point? You can bring your personal rejection of the machoism into it, but both the comic and the movie, it's definitely meant to come across as virtuous. Miller does not hide his admiration.

[damar148]

I presumed that while it told an tale of how macho men defeated evil, it was done so as how the Spartans would seen it, with the excessive fantasy elements intentional as being part of Spartan propaganda like the mutants working for Xerxes or the malformed Spartan who becomes a traitor.

I mean it still was a straight action flick with macho men being macho, but with a darker veneer underneath if you read between the lines.

Not to say Miller is that a subtle writer or maybe something the movie people put in, but I at least thought the Spartans weren't presented as virtous as they themselves believed to be.

[dr_archeville]

I've heard that the comic that movie was based on was itself based largely on nightmares Miller'd had as a kid after watching the 1962 film The 300 Spartans, a movie which was possibly done, in part, as a Cold War propaganda film. So, yeah, lots of distortions.

[crabby_lioness]

No, Miller's admiration shines through in every square eighth-inch in the same way that Mitt Romney's admiration for the super-rich shone through in his presidential campaign, and having a similar effect on the viewer.

To wit: ewww, yuck.

[thatnickguy]

I could be wrong, but I think this artist also worked on Northlanders. If not, they're certainly giving off Northlander vibes, which I consider a good thing.

On top of that, it's someone taking the piss out of Miller? Hell yes I'm in.

[doodleboy]

He did the second long arc, Cross and the Hammer. Ryan Kelly works with Brian Wood a lot, they did Local together too.

Really love the second page splash of the Spartans.

[northstarfan]

The first issue was excellent. Slow build of tension and crawling discomfort until Terpander finishes his story, then just a few panels where you can get a look at the expressions of every Helot in the room -- they know he's killed them all before Eurytos even gives the word. Nice gut-punch there. Issue #2 is out this week, by the by.

And yes, even though Gillen doesn't really intend the work to be a swipe at Miller or 300, I'm happy to at least see a rebuttal to that damned thing.

[espanolbot]

Hm, I'm pretty sure that there's a speech in the book 300 where Leonidas talks about how democracy is weak or something. So yeah, as questionable as they were in the movie, I'm pretty sure the book was worse.

Art in this is pretty though.

[psylynce]

Wow, this looks excellent! I have already subscribed to it on Comixology. I hope I can track down #1. Thanks for posting!

[wizardru]

Yeah, '300' has a LOT of historical inaccuracies which sort of undermine it. Like the fact that if you the Spartans turned their heads about 90 degrees, they'd see the huge Athenian fleet fighting the Persians alongside them. Or the large number of other city-states who sent men to fight at that battle. Or the huge battle taking place a few miles from there.

None of which bothers me nearly so much as Frank Miller's harping on his historical 'accuracy' to justify his story choices. '300', taken on its own merits, is an enjoyable enough fantasy...but that's what it is. Pretending it was an aspirational 'when men were truly men' kind of thing is just silly.