Frank Miller's Sin City Volume 4: That Yellow Bastard 3rd Edition

Frank Miller's "Sin City" series has set a gold standard for the graphic novel in recent years. Not only does Miller's stark black-and-white artistry elevate the genre, it suits its hardboiled world to a T. And Miller has created some wonderful characters to inhabit his nest of vipers. Generally, the "Sin City" stories involve clashes between anti-heroes and villains . . . heroes are hard to come by, and the most likely candidates are either murderous hookers with hearts of gold, or berserkers like Marv who may be killers, but are killers with hearts of gold (deep, deep down, of course). Finally, in "That Yellow Bastard," Miller gives Sin City a hero in true sense of the word. Hartigan is the lone good cop in the nation's most corrupt police force in the nation's most corrupt town. He's on his last night before retirement, but he knows that an eleven year-old girl has been kidnapped and is doomed to die most horribly. And Hartigan can't let a little thing like the rest of his life stand in the way of her salvation. What could have been a single night of bloodshed turns into a decade of misery, torture, hope, vengeance and love for Hartigan, his beloved damsel in distress Nancy, and the Yellow Bastard. For the Yellow Bastard is more than a sadistic murdering rapist . . . he's the only son of Senator Roark, the leading light in the ruling family of Sin City. The rules are simple, even for a cop -- you cross Roark, you get destroyed. Roark doesn't just kill you . . . he exacts vengeance like Kaiser Soze. Miller's artistic nihilism has never been better, as the cold solitude of Hartigan's lost world comes through on every page. And the well-publicized use of yellow to depict the Yellow Bastard couldn't be a better choice. Through it all, Miller weaves in little glimpses of Dwight, Marv, and the other patrons of Sin City that make his graphic novels so clever and enjoyable. I didn't think Miller could top his monstrous creation, Marv, but he may have with Hartigan. I'm glad these two never had to clash . . . Sin City might not have survived.

That Yellow Bastard is the best of the Sin City series because it not only has Frank Miller's usual brutally-graphic violence (and man is it brutal) and hard-hitting action (this book contains the best car chase ever) but it also tells the tale of a man trying to do good in a city that dares to care. A man who tries to fight against the corruptive scumbags who run the city like a pack of hungry wolves. That man is Dec. John Hartigan, the ONLY straight cop in Basin City. Enter John Hartigan, a gruff, well-built, old-timer who suffers from angina and carries a big-ass revolver, relevant to Bruce Campbell's "boomstick". Hartigan is a man on a mission. His mission: to save Nancy Callahan, age 11, before he retires. She has been kidnapped by sicko rapist/killer, Junior who, unfortunately is a son of a very powerful senator, who is corrupt like most in Sin City. Hartigan goes in guns blazing, knocking-out his partner and suffering a sudden heart-attack along the way. He doesn't know that he's made the biggest mistake of his carrer. But that's why we like Hartigan because he manages to do good while risking his own life. He is the most noble character in the whole series. Hartigan puts Junior in a coma, but in the process is shot-up pretty bad and put in a coma too. He is then framed for raping Nancy (even though she was saved) and put in solitary confinement. Life is basically over for Hartigan, but while in prison he gets letters from Nancy, who has changed her name because she is still in danger. But when Hartigan stops getting letters, he goes mad. After eight long years, Hartigan is let out've prison and goes to look for Nancy, who is being stalked by a yellow-skinned creature that distinctly resembles Junior! Now, it's up to Hartigan to protect Nancy, who has become a stripper at a seedy tavern, from the Yellow Bastard! With constant plot twists, a couple of suspenseful show-downs at a spooky farm and dingy dock, and shocking violence and action, That Yellow Bastard is a compelling noir-ridden, moving, and twisted adventure about heroism, love, good and evil, betrayel, and revenge, with an ending that you'll never forget. This is Frank Miller's best work as both an artist and a writer, but isn't for the faint of heart!

What makes Frank Miller tick? What drives one of the most renowned writers in comic history to write the kind of character driven, gritty and hard edged stories he is famous for? Who knows, but from his early work on Daredevil to his groundbreaking Dark Knight Returns story, the man has proven he is a master writer. His Sin City stories for Dark Horse are no exception, and That Yellow Bastard is without a doubt the best Sin City yarn Miller has ever penned. John Hartigan is an old cop on the verge of retirement, and on his last day on the job, he responds to a kidnapping call. What results is a showdown with a deranged psychopath in order to save a young girl named Nancy, but regular Sin City readers know that in this city, things don't always work out for the best. By the time That Yellow Bastard reaches it's climax, you'll be left in awe at one of the absolute greatest comics ever created. Miller's art is about what you might expect: unpleasent, gritty, and well suited to the story. Not to mention, you'll never look at the color yellow the same way again. That Yellow Bastard is devestatingly surreal and brutal at the same time, and if you've never read any of Miller's Sin City works, now has never been a better time to dive in, and with the upcoming movie coming out, you might want to check this out first.

If Dirty Harry worked out of Sin City, he would be Hartigan. The strict moral code, the unorthodox way of handling things, the utmost respect for the law and the utmost disrespect for anyone who tries to break it; it's all there. But Dirty Harry never worked in Sin City, and Dirty Harry always had the law on his side.If Sin City ever produced an honest-to-god hero, it is Hartigan. He's not a thug like Marv, and he's not a criminal like Dwight. His faults aren't faults at all, but obstacles placed before him because of his greatest strengths. He suffers immeasurably for wanting to help someone. He suffers even more for wanting to help her again.If Dwight is the one that gets away, it's because he is no better than the world he inhabits. Hartigan is the one that pays, because the world can not endure a hero as pure as Hartigan. That Yellow Bastard is the proof that Frank Miller gives as to why the enduring heroes in Sin City such as Marv, Dwight, and Miho aren't heroes at all, but merely grim reflections of the city that they live in. They have made the necessary adaptations to exist in an ugly place like Sin City. They aren't necessarily bad people, but they do bad things. Sin City isn't necessarily a bad town, but bad things happen there. But Hartigan is a good person that does good things. Sin City is not a place for a man like Hartigan to exist on the same terms as a man like Dwight. It is not fair, but it is the truth.That Yellow Bastard is the greatest of the Sin City books because in it we see Sin City in all of its awful glory; a place where hope doesn't come in its simple, most beautiful form, but instead as a hideous mutation that is disarming and unpleasant.Frank Miller reinvented the quintessential comic book superheroes Batman and Daredevil, and he even created the enduring character Elektra in the Daredevil books. But Hartigan is his greatest invention, because Hartigan is everything that makes superheroes great, placed inside a man with no special powers, but just a relentless determination to do what he feels is right.