Download Sin City Volume 5: Family Values (3rd Edition) epub

"Family Values" is the 5th book in the fantastic Sin City series of graphic novels written and illustrated by mad comic book genius Frank Miller. It's a brief and uncharacteristically straightforward jaunt starring Basin City's premiere anti-hero Dwight and the biggest/smallest bada$z ever to hit the pulp, deadly little Miho. Sin City began once Miller had established himself as a premier writer with amazing arcs for both DC and Marvel Comics that redefined classic heroes like Daredevil and Batman for a new generation. After his massive success, he was given the freedom to literally do anything he wanted. What he wanted was Sin City. The art for the series is done entirely in black ink. There is no gray or shading in any image; it is entirely, purely, strikingly black and white. The same can never be said of the stories, where even the heroes are often sadistic murderers. The only difference between the heroes and villains is whether they are slaughtering innocent people, or those who had it coming. The amazing art style alone sets this series far apart from any mainstream comic series out there, and the flagrant violence, nudity, and language assures that any child in possession of one of the stories had best hide it from their parents. This one is for grown-ups. "Family Values" is no exception.

A lot of Sin City's stories end up focusing on corrupted institutions such as the Catholic church or the police, but this one goes a bit traditional and focuses on a mob hit. Dwight investigates a drive-by shooting at a diner accompanied by his murderous guardian angel watching from shadows and rooftops. He turns down a randy female cop, says hello to two of Sin City's quirky regulars, and settles on charming the details of the incident out of a run-down, worn-out old barfly. Soon, his inquiries bring the perpetrators down on him and the fun begins. Now, one could argue that this entire story was just an excuse for Miller to draw his favorite ninja girl kicking a$z on roller blades. I would concur with that argument. But it is a righteous endeavor. Miho is always a welcome face, and Miho on roller blades is somehow even cooler. At one point a hood refers to her as a "Jap slut" and gets her special undivided attention, which crescendos with her using a swastika-shaped shuriken to slice halfway through his neck so she can speed at him and kick his head off with both skates. Nice. Whether or not it was necessary for her to fall out of her kimono in multiple panels I will leave up to you. My favorite bit has to be when Miho is dragging a mob guard down a flight of stairs with a kusarigama (handheld sickle) through his head as Dwight confides with his hostage that she's actually a very nice girl once you get to know her.

I think what really makes "Family Values" great aside from the usual Sin City coolness plus roller-blading ninja girl is the "moral of the story" as it were. As Dwight reaches his final target and lectures him on the reason he is to die, Miller offers a bit of personal commentary on the meaning of the book's title and the twisting of the term as it is applied by ivory tower politicians and businessmen as though they have some sort of claim on it while they are living their own deviant fantasies out. Indeed, there are all sorts of families out there and it is nobody's place to put a value on which loving relationships are right and which are wrong and which are to be valued over others. I want the guy who wrote this back instead of the guy who wrote The Spirit.

The only flaws in this book are it's brevity and the usual slightly misogynistic exploitative nature of the series. I personally let this slide because, like the James Bond films, I consider this to be nothing more then an adolescent kind of escapist fantasy free of PC constraints that is meant to be enjoyed for style over substance. I mean, what guy doesn't want his own sexy little assassin who curls up against you and sleeps until you give the word to kill? Patriarchal, yes, but kind of cool in a purely fictional sense too. Either way you look at it, "Family Values" is a fun little trek through Basin City that entertains from cover to cover and is a very light read making it good for those who may not have time to dive into some of the larger graphic novels out there. Miller's art is typically solid, his dialogue is clever, the story is fun, and the slice of philosophy is much appreciated.

4 1/2 stars rounded up for brutality's sake.

Frank Miller doesn't pull many punches when he writes. I use the word raw to describe his writing because honestly, there is no more appropriate word if you ask me. His characters exist and breathe unapologizingly in the world of Basin City and That Yellow Bastard is way at the top of the best Sin City books for a reason. You have a hero that doesn't have an ounce of quit in him and who's pushed beyond what's even amorally admisible. Hardigan is the type of hero everyone says they would be in a situation such as that but quite frankly, I don't think there exists someone who is as unbreakable as Hardigan. Moral dilemmas don't exist when it comes to saving a kid from a rapist but it all gets way complicated when push comes to shove comes to murder. The beauty of Sin City is that even though it's noir fiction, you can't help but believe these characters, feel their pain, feel their anger and silently nod as some questionable decisions regarding what's right in this world are taken by a hero that shows that being a hero sometimes means not giving a damn and taking your hatred for one Yellow Bastard to the brink of sanity.

Although I still have a preference for Marv and narrative of "The Hard Goodbye," the first of Frank Miller's "Sin City" graphic novels, I think that artistically he hits full stride in the fourth, "That Yellow Bastard." It is just mildly ironic that this becomes the first volume in the series to add any color to Miller's black and white world. But whereas "The Hard Goodbye" had an almost kitchen sink approach with Miller pretty much trying everything he could come up with for black & white (or white & black) illustrations, I find there is much more of a coherent artistic vision and a rhythm to way in which Miller goes from predominantly black to predominantly white pages, and back again.

"That Yellow Bastard" begins with tough cop John Hartigan, whose good heart is going bad on him, trying to stay alive long enough to do one last case before he dies. Somebody has been raping and murdering little girls for some time and now they have taken 11-year-old Nancy Callahan. Hartigan is able to save Nancy from Roark Junior, the son of Senator Roark, but takes four bullets in the process. Junior is in worse shape, having an ear and both of his "weapons" removed by Hartigan's bullets. If an old man dies and a little girl survives, then Hartigan considers that a fair deal. But this bloody encounter is but the first act in this particular comic noir.

The first episode sets the rules for Hartigan's world, where protecting women is hard-wired into the psyches of tough guys like him. Even when Hartigan finds out that Nancy grew up and filled out, that does not change his mission (just complicates it a bit). Granted, the age difference would make more sense if he was her grandfather, but then there is a consistency to what Hartigan means when he says that he loves Nancy, even if she is inclined to read it a different way. There is a leap in the narrative at one point that you might find a bit hard to accept (i.e., confession leads to immediate release), but you have to admit it is a lot easier to be a pariah out in the world than stuck in prison (and I think Junior would have wanted it that way).

Again, the art work here is Miller at what I consider to be his best, but attention must also be paid to the sense of pacing that he shows in several scenes (most notably when Hartigan pulls himself together for the final confrontation with Junior). There are easily a dozen great looks at Hartigan's grizzled face, and a 15-page sequence, spanning two chapters, of Nancy dancing at the club, consisting of not only full-page shots but also two-page spreads, as she mesmerizes her audience. With "That Yellow Bastard" readers who were introduced to the graphic novels by the film that incorporated three of the first four volumes will be heading into new territory with "Family Values." It will interesting to see when and how Miller tops artistically what he came up with for this one.