Brat Pack
By Rick Veitch
Published by King Hell Press
Writer/artist Rick Veitch has done a lot of work around the periphery of superhero comics over the past couple of decades, perhaps most notably on DC's Swamp Thing (with and without writer Alan Moore) and most recently on Aquaman for the same publisher. He was embroiled in a controversy over his Swamp Thing story that featured Jesus Christ as a character, causing him to leave the title, and undoubtedly has experienced many frustrations at the hands of his publishers. Frustration can lead to rage, and Brat Pack is fueled by that emotion. Yeah, Veitch was clearly pissed when he originally created this work (which was first collected in the early 1990s).
Despite the overwhelming sense of hatred for superhero genre conventions (specifically the "kid sidekick"), Veitch's story can be reduced to fairly standard plot descriptions. Someone is killing superhero sidekicks; but who, and why?
Within this structure, Veitch posits some of the most grotesque relationships imaginable for his characters -- sexual abuse, sadism, drug abuse, basically any extreme act of horror an adult can visit upon a child is depicted with vicious glee by Veitch. After five vile "superheroes" lose their teen companions, a new batch of fresh meat is recruited and soon corrupted by their manipulative and domineering mentors. The older "heroes" are avatars for icons like Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Arrow, but Veitch cuts right to the subtext (real and perceived), making the Batman-like character a child-molesting dark vigilante, as some have always seen him.
The rest of the familiar characters are equally repugnant in their own ways, and their flaws, weaknesses and opportunism are really their only character traits. They are beloved by the people, but we never really see why. A stronger and more mature work might have delivered its message more effectively through a more even-handed (and less bombastic) approach, but the graphic novel is still disturbing and convincing, for as much as it sustains itself as a work of satire.
Brat Pack could be seen as an indictment of superhero tropes, but such a banal concept as Batman and Robin getting it on could never really generate the level of sustained fury that Brat Pack was clearly created in. The real metaphor at work here is that the elder vigilantes represent the superhero comics publishers (especially DC, since these are all avatars of their trademark icons) and the ass-raped, beaten and abused young sidekicks are -- wait for it -- freelancers like Veitch.
As the writer/artist himself said in a text piece in his 1996 Brat Pack/Maximortal Super Special #1:
"The roots of the KING HELL HEROICA go back to my early attempts at working for the big mainstream comic book companies...like many freelancers in the industry, I had a healthy dislike for DC Comics as an employer. Even then it was evident their publishing empire had been built on shameless exploitation of creative people, and many of the dictatorial attitudes and the general lack of respect for artists and writers were well known to have been institutionalized there since the super hero began with the Siegal [sic] and Schuster [sic] heist in 1937."
Specifically referring to Brat Pack, Veitch says in the same article:
"Out of that anger, BRATPACK was born...I wanted to metaphorically point out the exploitive nature of the real-world situation, where I saw adults, many of whom knew better, making fortunes selling these kinds of fantasies to kids who didn't have a clue."
That's a metaphor I can get behind. The superhero publishing companies have historically lied, swindled and abandoned freelancers quite regularly, and no doubt continue to do so today. The bottom line, after all, is not the creation of enduring works of art but of enhancing the bank accounts of the company and its officers. All else is secondary to those considerations, no matter how cheery and upbeat the corporate PR machine's hype may seem.
On the other hand, Veitch's righteous rage seems a little attenuated by time and his own circumstance. In the early '90s he had a legitimate claim to outrage over how superhero comics publishers treat their workers. A decade down the line, though, Veitch is the latest guy to fail at writing Aquaman. One wonders, quite honestly, where all the rage went when he accepted that assignment from DC Comics.
Brat Pack is a powerful and stinging indictment of superhero comics, its traditions, conventions and the very mechanism of its existence. But put in an historical context, it's also the portrait of the artist as an angry young man who later pretty much turned his back on everything he says here, hooked back up to the corporate comics teat, and wrote Aquaman as just another brick in the wall for the company that, in his own words, "had been built on shameless exploitation of creative people." Grade: 4/5