1 out of 5

Who knows what was going on here?  I read issue 1, and it fell completely flat.  Morrison’s reported take on a crime book was filled with obnoxious profanity, an unclear direction, completely unlikeable characters, and no real glimmer of an original beat, despite the existence of a “5 levels above hallucination” blue horse.  ‘Happy!’ is the tale of Nicky Sax, ex-policeman turned hitman, sufferer of eczema, contracted to kill three brothers but killing a fourth via collateral damage, whoops.  And now ‘Mr. Blue’ happens to think that Nicky knows some MacGuffin password to some MacGuffin fortune stashed away, so let’s kill Nicky Sax.  Oh, but maybe Sax is hallucinating a lil’ cartoon horse named Happy who’s pleading for him to find a kidnapped girl…

Whatever, there have been worse plots, and there’s nothing outright to be dismissed there, so on paper, sure.  But on comic book paper, it’s nothin’ doin’.  I got frustrated with Morrison during his Batman run, not getting how he could be writing this campy, muscle-bound view of a character he’d bad-assed-up in JLA, but after reading his excellent Supergods book I decided to revisit Bats in trade and got a much better picture of what he’d accomplished – and really dug it.  So I understand that sometimes you need to step back from issue-to-issue Morrison and drink up the whole thing.  He also isn’t above doing big and dumb when appropriate – which is how he approached the larger than life characters of JLA – but even that version of Grant is littered with a love for the reader and for the medium.  So I tried to soothe my initial take on Happy! (and the subsequent issues…) by waiting for the whole series to come out and re-reading it.

But the whole thing tanks.

There are some moments that hint that Grant is trying to shake us out of a profanity and violence strewn world, but I doubt I’d be searching for stuff like that in the text if it wasn’t Morrison.  And besides, taking a note from Supergods, which examines the highs and lows of each era of comics, this isn’t the right era for such a move.  Even though the big two are forever doing the reboot and crossover thing, it’s actually a good time for comic books.  Maybe not money-wise, print slowly dying and all, but content-wise there are so many great creators and publishers out and about right now, and the kids have grown into young adults who are making the books they want to read.  Even if this is part of the point of Happy!, it’s not committed to at all.  So we’ll go back to how Grant pitched it – that this is just his attempt at a crime book.

Well, on that note… still a fail.  The story lurches left and right unconvincingly, never making us care about Nicky, or these kidnapped girls, or why Nicky should care about these girls.  It doesn’t even sell the Happy horse aspect well.  It’s completely underwhelming.  And the profanity… whatevs, man.  I guess maybe teenagers drop f-bombs that much, but this read like Warren Ellis’ swear-strewn shitey “angsty” writing, which I guess is fitting that Darrick Robertson penciled the book.  I slot Robertson into the Steve Dillon category of totally consistent.  You can rely on Robertson to deliver what he does even when he’s rushed on a book.  And when he has time, like it seemed like he did on Happy!, you get those jam-packed background details in every panel.  But… eh… I’ve never really liked Robertson all that match.  He has to match the book, because his pencils almost always make everyone ugly and everything seem disgusting.  I’ve almost never sympathized with anyone in a Robertson book, because he’s normally paired with writers who are already slopping through the mud – Ellis, Ennis, and now Grant on Happy!.

I just got nothin’.  The book offers no redeeming moments, no Grant moments, no originality.  Sorry.  I’d be curious to hear from Morrison on it later on, and how it fits in with his bigger picture of comics, or what his hope was (if beyond just to give the genre a shot) with the title.