Fire and Ice #1 // Review
It’s the story of a world with a mouse that lived between two beasts. Living to one side of the mouse was a dragon. Living on the other side of the mouse was a tiger. The tiger hates the dragon. The dragon hates the tiger. Neither of them even seems to notice the mouse. One day, the two great beasts will fight. The mouse will die in the process...completely unnoticed. This is the myth that opens Fire and Ice #1. Writer Bill Willingham opens a powerfully simple and savage fantasy with artist Leonardo Manco. It’s a beautifully brutal opening to a gorgeous prequel to the 1983 Ralph Bakshi/Frank Frazetta animated film of the same name.
It’s a bit of a strange story to tell a small party of students on a walk through the jungle. Their lives are only starting. Why teach them that it’s all ultimately futile? There is certainly some wisdom in the moral of the story, but where’s the wisdom in telling it to a group of young men? And why does one of them suddenly have the pointed end of a weapon sticking out of his mouth? Certainly, THAT has something to do with the armored warriors of the icy north who have come to attack. They’re looking for a warrior to sacrifice for a witch’s magic.
Willingham was working at a movie theater when the film first came out forty years ago. He’d seen it about a dozen times in the theater. It’s something that’s stuck with him. There’s a deep resonance to the conflict between King Jarol of Firekeep and Nekron, wielder of ice magic. There’s a primal aggression that stalks the jungles of the first issue as Willingham’s story begins to reveal itself. What starts with a simple tale told to a few young men rapidly expands to something far darker and more bestial.
Manco’s art draws a great deal of inspiration from Frazetta. At its best, Manco’s work feels like something that might’ve been done by the legendary fantasy artist. The jungle atmosphere of the first issue has a vivid and immersive depth. It’s one thing to work with perspective–there’s a mechanical expertise that goes into that–but Manco’s art goes beyond that. There are more than a few panels that are so alive...they almost look like a reader could climb into them with the right momentum. There’s a powerful contrast between the armored warriors of the north and the aboriginal barbarians they’re killing. The vulnerability of human flesh seems overwhelming in Manco’s hands. This makes the heroism of the barbarians that much more impressive.
Willingham and Manco are working with something far more technically accomplished than what Bakshi managed with the original film. There’s great thematic substance to Willingham’s script that also seems a great deal denser than what rested at the heart of the 1983 film. If they meet success in the prequel, maybe Willingham and Manco can do something about an adaptation of the movie as well.
