Joe the Barbarian Deluxe Edition [Hardcover]

I have to give Grant Morrison credit -- few writers could turn a trip to the refrigerator into an epic fantasy adventure. But somehow he manages to do that in "Joe the Barbarian," deftly blurring the lines of fantasy and reality inside one young boy's head. It reads like a cross between "Alice in Wonderland" and "Lord of the Rings," but with more steampunk.

Joe is at home alone with his pet rat Jack. Joe also happens to be diabetic, and bullies stole his snacks earlier that day. When his blood sugar plummets, he struggles to get down the stairs despite his hallucinations and delusions. In his head, he is the legendary Dying Boy, prophesied to save a strange fantasy world from the evil King Death. Oh, and Jack is a giant talking warrior-rat who comes along to help him.

In the real world, Joe is seriously ill and stumbling through his home, trying to get some soda pop before he falls into a diabetic coma. His hallucinating brain sees everything around him -- a bathtub, a staircase, a vicious dog -- as being part of a vast fantasy world, where airpunk planes fly, dwarves are in steampunk submarines, and ruined cities lead into the final battle.

Will Joe and Jack survive -- both in the real world and in the fantasy one -- and what secrets will be revealed to them if they do?

"Joe the Barbarian" is a simple story, and the beauty of it is in the execution. Grant Morrison takes a simple everyday problem, and manages to expand it into an epic quest, in a world as colorful, wild and strange as a kid's imagination. He even throws in a surprising twist near the end, adding a new dimension to Joe's quest for survival.

Also, the artwork is gorgeous. The real world is dark, shadowy, and filled with torrential rain, while Joe's inner world is exploding with color, strange inventions (steampunk submarines!), and expansive bright skies that seem to go forever.

However, Morrison also gives you the feeling that this world is starting to crumble into chaos because of King Death, and we even get some glimpses of what he's turning it into. And while he inserts some fun comic relief (there's a "giant" dwarf, who is basically normal-sized) and breathtaking action scenes, we never forget that the stakes are very real, and that our hero could easily die.

Joe himself is a solid classic protagonist -- quiet, remote, artistic, and a little embittered by his dad's untimely death. But he also has a lot of courage, as evidenced by his standoff against his enemy. Jack is almost as well-rounded a character, even in the real world -- he's a sweet little rat who obviously loves his owner, worries about him, and even takes on a giant dog to defend him.

"Joe the Barbarian" is a gorgeous piece of work, and Grant Morrison obviously lavished it with care. Beautiful art and a likable young hero... and the most adorable rat you'll ever see.

I accidentally picked up and read issue number two a few months back, I was so intrigued by what I read that when the trade became available I had to own it. The story line is intricate enough that while I am reading to my kids that I am intrigued. I re-read some pages multiple times just to deduce that fine line between 'realities' that the main character has to deal with. The Story line is also easily understood by the kids (their version of it). The graphics are fabulous and provide endless 'eye candy'!

I have even bought extra copies to give out as Christmas gifts. Definitely 5 stars

The cliche is that a book with two independent levels has to work twice as hard, but that's not really true. Instead, like a collaboration -- which any writer can tell you only succeeds when each partner contributes at least 75% of the effort -- that's the bare minimum for even approximating success. To be any good, each level has to be substantially better than a standalone book would be.

JOE THE BARBARIAN is a story set on two levels -- teenager Joe Manson is a diabetic falling into a very comic-book-y state of hypoglycemic shock, while at the same time he's the Dying Boy, adventuring through a secondary-world version of his home [1] and accompanied by versions of his toys and his pet rat. That second level could easily become terribly twee -- much like The Stuff of Legend, another graphic novel in which toys come to life to battle for their owner -- and it's to writer Grant Morrison and artist Sean Murphy's credit that never happens. Joe's fantasy world is specific, well-defined, and maps reasonably well to his real home -- and the fantasy versions of his real stuff is changed enough that it doesn't read as Mopey in Toyland.

And I suppose it would be quibbling to complain that Joe isn't anything at all like a barbarian -- he's civilized, not good at fighting in the least, and looking to save this world rather than crush its jeweled thrones under his sandaled feet. One might grumble that either Morrison doesn't really know what a barbarian is, or that he doesn't care: that there's a deep vein of cynicism underlying JOE THE BARBARIAN, as he brings his show-don't-tell, damn-the-torpedoes superhero writing style to a supposedly more "personal" story that really is just another generic hero tale in very slightly different dress. One could make those complaints, certainly. One could say that JOE THE BARBARIAN is thin and facile compared with Morrison's better works, like the lacerating We3 and the bleakly oblique Seaguy. One could also note that Morrison has been thinking too much about Joseph Campbell, or at least making things much too obvious. One could say all of those things and more.

But most readers will be happy with JOE THE BARBARIAN: it's got another one of those in-over-his-head heroes, who has a very good reason to doubt the evidence of his senses, and who yet goes on to save everything despite all odds, in the way a good comics hero should. And what problems it might have are all to do with Morrison's script; Murphy's designs and pages and panels are crisp and energetic and lovely, in a slightly more battered and weathered version of the standard Big Two look. JOE THE BARBARIAN is, actually, quite good: but it's not nearly as good as some people will try to tell you it is.

[1] Which, as is also traditional in comics, is larger outside than inside. No, seriously -- you can see the outside on p.9, and it's missing an entire floor (or else has a chimney at both ends) of the house as Joe experiences it inside, walking up two flights of stairs to rise one level of windows.

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