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asbat's review
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
A man discovering his sexuality? Also lots of mystery? Plus superheroes? A bit of a confusing read with lots of lizards.
nobodyisemo's review
2.0
The art was often ugly and messy, but not in a way that appealed to me. The concept was waaay excessively complicated. Love the queer vibes tho
dan_ackerman's review
5.0
An interesting read that makes me wish the ending told us more. I'm a sucker for happily ever afters and I'd love to know what happens next.
But maybe it's a good thing that it ends where it does, since the follow up to an impossible story would probably fall flat.
In Smith I see the kid I was, the kid with books instead of friends.
But maybe it's a good thing that it ends where it does, since the follow up to an impossible story would probably fall flat.
In Smith I see the kid I was, the kid with books instead of friends.
wesleymccraw's review
5.0
I had never heard of Enigma by Peter Milligan until yesterday. It was written in 1995, and it's easily the best queer superhero comic I've ever read.
jgkeely's review
5.0
'Shade' is still The Book for me, when it comes to comics. I've read Moore, Gaiman, Ellis, and Morrison, but none were ever struck as true. In terms of humor, depth of psychology, insight, and variance in ideas, only Moore's 'Swamp Thing' comes close, but it's still not as unusual.
Yet in the intervening years, I didn't return to Milligan. He is less visible than those other authors, and my stumbling across Shade when I did was a mere coincidence; Only recently have any collections been made available, and those only cover the weakest part.
But it is only natural to return to the source. I have sought elsewhere for his equal and missed him, so my road leads back to Milligan, and it would be hard to pick a more remarkable book than Enigma.
If Shade parallels Swamp Thing, then Enigma is a thematic companion to Watchmen, and flat-out superior, if we believe Morrison's sidelong jab at Moore. I wouldn't say their styles invite a one-for-one comparison, but I do agree that Milligan's is the most literary voice in comics.
Despite being shorter, Milligan's deconstruction it is less narrow in focus, less suggestive, more organic and revelatory, less drunk on its own political transgression. 'Enigma' plays with power, reality, and the farce of superheroes, but is drawn not with the cold, harsh lines of watchmen, but a confused and lifelike dream.
I have come to know good writers by this sign: that they make inescapable a vision you never could have accepted without them. Milligan has this kind of insight, and wit, and a wry self-consciousness--the sort that Morrison has always counterfeited in an attempt to reverse-engineer cleverness.
There is rarely a false note in Milligan. He speaks with post-modern realism, always playing with the audience, turning words back on themselves, revealing the world through the inadequacy of dualism. His works have verisimilitude in their details, in their absurdity, in their unwillingness to settle on a single view.
This book is often difficult, often unpleasant, I can't say I always enjoyed it, but can easily say that it was good: well-written with a strong voice, unpredictable, it forced me to think and to feel at once.
Fegredo's art is likewise difficult. He is a very skilled draughtsman--deceptively skilled. The art is messy, scattered, and free--sometimes the story gets lost in the experiment--but when he needed to, he could hit the high points, and do it well. Beauty, confusion, sex, pain, and death play across the page, each recognizable, each palpable.
It's remarkable that a mainstream publisher had the courage to publish such an unusual book, and speaks of a strong editorial staff, concerned not merely with their market, but with the evolution of the medium. I can only hope that publishers and companies of the future will recognize the importance not just of sales, but of the long-lasting effect of making available original, adventurous visions, like Enigma.
At first, I found the story somewhat all too similar to Shade--and while I enjoyed Shade, I needed Milligan to do something new, to challenge himself as he had continuously done in that series. But Shade also started slow, so I kept with it.
It unfolds its struts, built of surprising, human moments, each poignant beneath the a wild, surreal, magical canopy. Finally, Milligan manages to do the hardest thing in writing: to deliver the ending the work deserves. There is resolution, yet we realize that we already knew it: the mysteries had been germinating in our minds, and now that the end is here, we wish we could change the question that we had once begged him to answer.
But the new question is already lost on the wind, and it is in that moment between conclusion and the implication of something greater that we find ourselves utterly gripped. He takes us on a journey, we see the sights--discrete moments and memories--and then he drops us off where he picked us up. Yet, on disembarking, we cannot help but feel that in some indescribable, nagging way, the world he has kindly returned us to is not the one we left.
My Suggested Readings in Comics
Yet in the intervening years, I didn't return to Milligan. He is less visible than those other authors, and my stumbling across Shade when I did was a mere coincidence; Only recently have any collections been made available, and those only cover the weakest part.
But it is only natural to return to the source. I have sought elsewhere for his equal and missed him, so my road leads back to Milligan, and it would be hard to pick a more remarkable book than Enigma.
If Shade parallels Swamp Thing, then Enigma is a thematic companion to Watchmen, and flat-out superior, if we believe Morrison's sidelong jab at Moore. I wouldn't say their styles invite a one-for-one comparison, but I do agree that Milligan's is the most literary voice in comics.
Despite being shorter, Milligan's deconstruction it is less narrow in focus, less suggestive, more organic and revelatory, less drunk on its own political transgression. 'Enigma' plays with power, reality, and the farce of superheroes, but is drawn not with the cold, harsh lines of watchmen, but a confused and lifelike dream.
I have come to know good writers by this sign: that they make inescapable a vision you never could have accepted without them. Milligan has this kind of insight, and wit, and a wry self-consciousness--the sort that Morrison has always counterfeited in an attempt to reverse-engineer cleverness.
There is rarely a false note in Milligan. He speaks with post-modern realism, always playing with the audience, turning words back on themselves, revealing the world through the inadequacy of dualism. His works have verisimilitude in their details, in their absurdity, in their unwillingness to settle on a single view.
This book is often difficult, often unpleasant, I can't say I always enjoyed it, but can easily say that it was good: well-written with a strong voice, unpredictable, it forced me to think and to feel at once.
Fegredo's art is likewise difficult. He is a very skilled draughtsman--deceptively skilled. The art is messy, scattered, and free--sometimes the story gets lost in the experiment--but when he needed to, he could hit the high points, and do it well. Beauty, confusion, sex, pain, and death play across the page, each recognizable, each palpable.
It's remarkable that a mainstream publisher had the courage to publish such an unusual book, and speaks of a strong editorial staff, concerned not merely with their market, but with the evolution of the medium. I can only hope that publishers and companies of the future will recognize the importance not just of sales, but of the long-lasting effect of making available original, adventurous visions, like Enigma.
At first, I found the story somewhat all too similar to Shade--and while I enjoyed Shade, I needed Milligan to do something new, to challenge himself as he had continuously done in that series. But Shade also started slow, so I kept with it.
It unfolds its struts, built of surprising, human moments, each poignant beneath the a wild, surreal, magical canopy. Finally, Milligan manages to do the hardest thing in writing: to deliver the ending the work deserves. There is resolution, yet we realize that we already knew it: the mysteries had been germinating in our minds, and now that the end is here, we wish we could change the question that we had once begged him to answer.
But the new question is already lost on the wind, and it is in that moment between conclusion and the implication of something greater that we find ourselves utterly gripped. He takes us on a journey, we see the sights--discrete moments and memories--and then he drops us off where he picked us up. Yet, on disembarking, we cannot help but feel that in some indescribable, nagging way, the world he has kindly returned us to is not the one we left.
My Suggested Readings in Comics
neven's review
5.0
Why did no one recommend this to me when I said I was a fan of Alan Moore's 'Swamp Thing'.
dereksilva's review
3.0
I love the concept of Enigma. Milligan definitely had some great ideas, but Enigma got off to a slow start and failed to hook me. Or more accurately, it got off to a very fast start and there was so much weird stuff happening that I felt a bit lost. As a result, I read the first three issues (out of eight) and put off reading more for over a month.
Knowing that this was a limited series and only had eight issues made it easier to continue because I assumed Milligan would have to make some sense of the story and then wrap it up. I'm glad I resumed. The story improved right about in the middle and actually became enjoyable. Things settled down, the story became clearer and we got some interesting backstories from the characters. Some things were still unclear in the end but I suppose that only furthered the enigma (ha). I really enjoyed learning who the narrator was at the end; it was a nice touch.
This was a decent read overall and strikes me as the exact kind of series that achieves cult status.
Knowing that this was a limited series and only had eight issues made it easier to continue because I assumed Milligan would have to make some sense of the story and then wrap it up. I'm glad I resumed. The story improved right about in the middle and actually became enjoyable. Things settled down, the story became clearer and we got some interesting backstories from the characters. Some things were still unclear in the end but I suppose that only furthered the enigma (ha). I really enjoyed learning who the narrator was at the end; it was a nice touch.
This was a decent read overall and strikes me as the exact kind of series that achieves cult status.
whimsicalmeerkat's review
3.0
Beautiful art, an interesting story and a narrator who possibly inspired the Geico gecko ads.
rickklaw's review
5.0
Perhaps best known as the scribe of the surreal allegorical series Shade, the Changing Man, Peter Milligan's masterpiece remains Enigma. Mired in a tedious life of routine, Michael Smith inexplicably encounters his favorite childhood comic book hero, the formerly 2-D, four-color Enigma, now very much alive and in full color. Teaming with the hero's comic creator, Smith obsessively attempts to uncover the secret behind Enigma's improbable existence. After encountering an insanity-inducing psychopath, a brain-eating serial killer, and a suicide-inciting clown posse, Smith's discovers startling truths about himself and his hero. Expertly rendered by Fegredo, the postmodern Enigma stands as one of the pinnacles of the medium.