Writers: Steve Orlando & Phillip Kennedy Johnson / Penciller & Colour Artist: Al Morgan / Letterer & Logo Designer: Jim Campbell / Book Designer: Charles Pritchett / Editor: Mike Marts / Aftershock Comics
Buy Aftershock comics here and support The Comic Crush.
5th March 2021 (Released 2nd December 2020)
The Pitch: As a child, James Bellyi watched his father die in the ring as payback for slurs thrown at the other fighter. Today, he's a Mixed Martial Arts star at the top of his game, and one of the most popular fighters in the world...until he's outed as gay in his title shot press conference. Abandoned overnight by his training camp, his endorsements, his fans and his sport. To regain his title shot Bellyi is forced to turn to the last person he ever wants to see again: Xavier Mayne, a gay, once-great fighter in his own right... and the man James once watched kill his father.
As we move to a more open and accepting world, where hiding who you are becomes part of the collective past, it's always a shock to see organisations and even individuals holding people back because of their sexuality. And part of the shock is that really, it's no surprise at all. Kill A Man is a book that feels the resonance of a history of oppressive behaviour, not just in the world but in its characters’ lives too. There's a kind of fatalism to the book, especially in the early stages, an irony that MMA ( a controlled, brutal environment) is full of simmering machismo yet is hiding the sexuality of its combatants. It also spits in the face of the idea that gay men have to be effeminate. There's a sense here of what drives men - or anyone – to fight. It might be because they're good at it. Sometimes it's because they can't do anything else. And sometimes it's because they're made by others’ prejudices. Carved out of other men's hate. And hate can leave a legacy.
It's that kind of legacy that James Bellyi is living with. His father – killed by the fighter he goaded about his sexuality – has left him with an internalised hatred and the sense that he can't admit who he is. When he's outed and proven right, he seeks out the man who ended his father's life. There's an irony at play in the book, but none of it is cruel. Orlando and Kennedy-Johnson's characters are fully fleshed out, their humanity weighing on them as they deal with the after-effects of one man's anger, one man's cruelty. You come to realise that man that both Bellyi and Mayne are trying to kill is the one who died in the book's opening pages: James Bellyi's father. Now that his body is in the ground, they have to murder his hatred and his anger, lest it drowns them. Even after all this time, Mayne is still being held back by this anger – and his own.
ORLANDO AND KENNEDY-JOHNSON WRITE WITH TRUTHFUL REPORTAGE
Orlando and Kennedy-Johnson write with truthful reportage. The behind-the-scenes conversations of the MMA organisation have a factual edge to them, feeling like the real decision-making process that happens in the rooms we're not allowed into. Besides the opening, uncontrolled moment of violence, the fighting in the book is controlled as it is in the ring. The true aggression and violence are in people's words, their attitude toward anyone who is 'other'. But the story allows room for healing. It isn't nihilistic or depressing. You do feel a genuine, hard-earned sense of hope in the final panels. The art is a beast made partly from the deep blacks of Darius Khondji photographing Seven and the soaked neon of Larry Smith's lensing on Only God Forgives. Figures stand in darkness, bringing with them a light all their own. The hues move from monochrome to acid Morgan creates a style, alive and energetic. It throbs with energy and longing. The faces feel incomplete like everyone is missing crucial parts of their identity yet the emotion is conveyed, accurate and punchy. Campbell's letters offer a spot-on rat-tat-tat in the dialogue, a street sound that matches the aggressive repeat of fists on skin. All in all, Kill A Man is a book that knows who it is and what's the reader to know too, confronting their prejudices and assumptions about what a fighter should be and more importantly, what they're fighting for.
Buy Aftershock comics here and support The Comic Crush. Buy Kill A Man at Gosh Comics or order a copy online from Bookshop.org.