I don't know why I continue to punish myself by reading Garth Ennis material. I should just face the facts and admit that his, er... style is not for me and move on with my life. Thing is, I'm still curious just what it is the kids see in Ennis. Surely there can be no appeal found in his storytelling abilities, which are at best a lame Alan Moore pastiche. Is it just the violence? The coarse language? The anti-God, fuck-the-world, we're-all-gonna-die messages? Or maybe it's just the T&A? Horny teenagers tend to overrate anything with a healthy amount of boobs and booty on display.

With lowly expectations I delved into The Pro, a 2002 one-shot from Image Comics which asks the question that never once in the course of human history crossed anyone's mind - What if prostitutes had superpowers? A parody version of Uatu the Watcher, named the Voyeur (who sits in a cloaked ship in space and watches Earthlings doing naughty things with a box of tissues constantly at-hand - cue eye rolling), randomly decides to bestow superpowers upon a hooker who happens to catch his eye. Next thing you know, The Pro is forced into a parody version of the Justice League, named the League of Honor. Ohhh... I get it! Garth is so clever! Hee hee. The author is telling us just how dissatisfied he is with contemporary and evil mainstream comics! In the parody versions of the superheroes in the League of Honor, you'll read all kinds of unique, never-before-told jokes that are most certainly NOT worn out...

Like:

* Wonder Woman is secretly a lesbian!
* The black guy always dies first!
* Batman and Robin are actually lovers!
* Superman is a big, virginal dork!
* Nobody likes Flash!

Wow, Mr. Ennis! Tell me more!

As it turns out, all the villains the League encounters are lame, and neither they nor the heroes they battle are in-touch with any 'real-world' issues. I then discovered that The Pro, while attempting to bitch slap the comic book industry on one hand, is also secretly cavorting as a post-9/11 knee jerk reaction piece. Ennis wants us to know that it is pointless to have any hope for the world, and that if any 'heroes' are to succeed in this day and age, they need to be just as ruthless as a terrorist, because we need to take the fight to them... or something. The stance here is about as muddled and juvenile as the atheist gimmick in the Preacher series. The only thing missing was a few lines about how America brought 9/11 on itself. I'll switch on some cable news if I want to hear folks' dogmatic ranting about this sort of thing, thanks.

What of the more primal things then? You know, the aforementioned sex and violence? The real reason anyone actually reads this sort of stuff. Well, as expected, the blood and gore is amped up to eleven, the artists leaving very little to the imagination. You get to see terrorists with their arms ripped off or the lady villain get her face smashed in followed up by an open-mouthed golden shower finale courtesy of The Pro. Maybe I'm just getting soft and jaded in my old age, but none of this had any effect on me. The language is pretty much a f-word or s-word every few lines, which will be no surprise to readers of previous Ennis fare. And the sex... it's actually not as bad as I thought it would be, given the premise and all. Still, I didn't find it all that titillating to see panels of a hooker with a nasty crack rash giving faux-Superman a BJ. Again, maybe that's just me.

Though the sex-starved fourteen year old boys will dig The Pro, it's not the sort of funny book I'd care to ever look at again. Not as woeful as Preacher, but I've still yet to find anything redeemable or remarkable about the scribblings of the highly regarded Mr. Ennis. ( )

Funny, Ennis style fag drooping out of mouth pisstake. It was unlikely an American writer would come up with this. A prostitute, who is a single mother, with all those problems as well, gains super powers. She ends up on a super team that is very image and pr conscious. A reasonable amount of hilarity ensues. With miniskirts.

http://graphicsf.blogspot.com/2006/11... ( )