Transmetropolitan Vol. 5: Lonely City (New Edition)

Warren Ellis, Transmetropolitan: Lonely City (Vertigo, 2001) Lonely City starts out with much the same problem The New Scum had, in that Ellis has sacrificed a good deal of the series' humor in order to amp up the social commentary. That said, he makes up for it in spades in the latter half of the book, which gets us back into the plot, and the convulsive humor germane to the series. I'm back to my slavish adoration of Transmetropolitan with the second half of Lonely City, with Spider and his assistants actually doing something as opposed to Ellis hand-feeding us Spider-written columns. *** ½

Warren Ellis is the man! Transmetropolitan is the best. Collect the entire series. They are all great!

There are a couple of standalone type issues in volume 5. However, the main thrust of the plot is still the election. Spider uncovers police brutality and other nastiness in the election campaign, and is still looking for a way to use what he knows to bring down Gary Callaghan, The Smiler. The way he goes about some of this is very entertaining.

I highly recommend this new Transmetropolitan TPB. My favorite TPB so far has been the second (Lust for Life), because the first has that new-comic unevenness and the third and fourth had a little too much pointless vulgarity for my taste. But this fifth one really impressed me. Like the others, it's grim, bitter, and funny, and Spider says utterly disgusting and shocking things in that sardonic way that makes him fascinating. But the graphic novel also takes up the issue of the human condition again, makes you remember that the reason Spider is fascinating is that he's not -just- a rat bastard -- he actually cares about the state of the world, and is equally sensitized to both its beauty and its horror. Spider has learned, essentially, that the best way to pursue the truth and fight the Man is to be an evil ****. And that's why we like him.Special bonus: an introduction by Patrick Stewart, who's apparently a big fan. I would have never guessed.