Kill or Be Killed, Issue #1 starts off with a masked killer rampaging his way out of an apartment with a shotgun, killing everybody he comes across, while narrating the evils of the world. Then it goes to the killer's young adulthood, seven years earlier, when he's on a bus with a girl, who's being harassed by a group of strangers. She's not his girlfriend. In fact, his best friend is dating his roommate, and she's not the best friend out there. He tries to kill himself and fails. A demon appears in his room, telling him he has to kill people, or he will die.
I was hooked from page 1 of this double issue. Brubaker, Phillips, and Breitweiser are one of my favorite combinations in comics, along with Bendis and Maleev, plus a few others. Sure, Brubaker gets most of the credit, but just as Prince and David Bowie were great, part of what made them great was the way they picked the people who they collaborated with. Phillips is a long-time partner of Brubaker, doing the artwork and the lettering. Breitweiser has been on the Brubaker-Phillips train since the second or third TPB of Fatale. I love the way she uses almost pastel-like blues, purples, and greens.
There's quite a bit to read in this issue, with a fair amount of dialogue but a considerable amount of narration. The narration is arguably the best part of this comic: "psychopaths run for President." I wonder if he's talking about just Donald Trump, or if the plural is more than just a stylistic choice. Anyway, although this comic came out a week ago, there's still time to get in on the ground floor of it. Buy it.
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