The Goon vol. 14: Occasion of Revenge

This is the volume that made me miss the talking chainsaw.

It was a minor detail from the initial volume, collecting the self-published issues of “The Goon” before creator Eric Powell brought it to Dark Horse.  This was a thing that could be described as  crazy, weird, and at odds with everything else in the book.  Goon and Frankie also took the time to repudiate it in their introduction as well.  I hadn’t thought of it much until I read this latest volume and realized that it could’ve used a talking chainsaw.  Maybe if Powell had to account for such a thing in the series, his current narrative wouldn’t be going right off the rails.  Because after fourteen volumes “The Goon” has finally reached the point where the drama has finally overwhelmed the comedy, in a way that is much to its detriment.

We’ve been getting hints for a while now that the other members of the Zombie Priest’s former coven have been planning to take over the Goon’s town for the magical power which resides in it.  This is where they make their move.  Led by the man known only as the Arab, they stroll into town expecting an easy victory.  However, they didn’t count on the Goon and his crew.  Now, with both sides locked in a bloody, vindictive stalemate the title character turns to gangsters outside of town to supplement his forces.  It’s a battle that the Goon wants to win, because he’s finally found another woman to love after all these years.  Yet, is she all that she seems?  Then there are the plans the Zombie Priest has for the evil woman possessed by the spirit of her dead lover.  What’s so special about the ghost’s revenge that it may contain the key to unlocking the town’s power?

There’s no denying that Powell is a gifted storyteller as this volume provides further affirmation of his artistic skills.  The way he’s able to communicate pain and grief on the page, and then showing how those feelings transmute into rage — as when the Goon finds out that he’s been betrayed near the end of the volume — is both remarkable and gripping.  Powell also uses color in a way to further accent the characters’ feelings in a scene and further draw you in.  Even when you’re already involved by admiring his incredibly detailed pencil work.  Then you’ve got the sad stories of woe which he throws in to flesh out the backstories of certain characters.  Even if some of them are digressions from the main plot, they’re at least interesting in and of themselves.

Of course, the one thing this volume doesn’t need is more drama.  “The Goon” has been taking on a more serious tone for a while now, but it still never forgot to bring the funny.  Even when Powell was bringing out the epic “Return of Labrazio” storyline, there was still enough craziness to balance the serious stakes.  Here, though, the silliness takes a backseat with only Frankie’s circumstances providing any real levity.  Though there is much to appreciate about the execution of this volume, it’s still not enough to make me long for the title’s earlier, funnier days.

Then again, I’d probably be more receptive to this change in tone if the circumstances surrounding it were more pleasant.  While the Arab and his cohorts are shown to be very bad people, the real villains in this story are women.  Shifty, duplicitous, no-good, Evil women.  We learn about the backstory of one Sandy Wayne early on and find out that she is an awful human being.  So awful that seeing her possessed by the spirit of her dead ex-boyfriend and made to eat trash is an appropriate fate for her.  Then there’s the matter of what happens with Goon’s new girlfriend, which is predictable and redundant in the scope of the title’s narrative.

Reading this makes you feel like Powell went through a bad breakup prior to the writing of this storyline.  It’s as if he channeled all of his hurt feelings from that relationship into the female characters here to show how awful women can really be.  His approach here is essentially misogynistic as, aside from a cameo by Goon’s aunt Kizze, there are no other major female characters in this volume.  Thinking about it a bit more, I’m hard pressed to remember any female characters who have been portrayed in a positive light in this series aside from Kizze and that little girl who’s also a member of the Little Unholy Bastards.  I think a re-read of the series is in order to see if I’m wrong about this, which I hope that I am.

Ultimately, the rise of drama in this series probably would’ve been easier to take if it hadn’t been fostered by the mean-spirited tone taken to women in this volume.  It isn’t that Powell can’t have women be evil, rotten bastards in his comic, but there has to be something positive to balance the negativity out.  Otherwise he risks coming off as a bitter, misogynistic crank like Dave Sim.  Who, come to think of it, is also an incredibly talented storyteller as well.  Maybe the next volume will give us a woman worth rooting for in this title and finally give the title character some measure of happiness after he has suffered for so long.  I’m really not sure if that’s what we’re going to get, but it’s what I’d like to see.