First volume of the bastardnew series by Rick Remender where satire and social criticism prevail to show us that the world is finished morally. Panini Comics teaches us to rave about the worst man who could be granted powers.
Right time, wrong place
It doesn’t matter who you are, your social class, the amount paid for the Smartphone you carry in your pocket or the way you move. None of that matters, the luck component, be it good or bad, is there, present, intangible, but playing a fundamental role in our lives. Sometimes we find that it is for the best, leaving home a little later makes us avoid taking a plane whose flight ends in tragedy, other times it means being the first to arrive because of an early morning that seemed unnecessary but that makes you get a good commercial contract. .
We can apply this principle to the bastard Ernie Ray Clementine, a polydrug addict and alcoholic with bad manners and worse intentions, fond of fun caused by the lowest of society and anchored to a past time that we doubt would ever be better. A totally outdated product of the eighties of the 20th century who thinks that throwing an expletive can be the best way to praise a woman, not to mention her lack of hygiene and her sloppy personal image. Well, good old Ernie is going to go from certain death to becoming something more than human… and surely dying would have been much more convenient for him.
The classic fight between good and evil seasoned with extremism
We live in times in which politics and society’s way of thinking have led us to an exaggerated polarization, to easy offense, to the abuse of positions found in social networks, to think that everything that is not on my side is in front of me. We see enemies even in the soup and any excuse is good to defend my thought, whatever it may be, in a visceral way, vague in arguments, which in many cases are limited to “and you more…” or this is the lesser evil because the other embodies the devil. A return to the class struggle that at the time left trails of blood and that we should be smart enough to avoid. Even a person, whose only purpose in life is to prosper, even at the expense of anyone, will see that he has to be honorable at times.
The social criticism that breathes the bastard It is brutal, from the individualism that currently prevails in people, mostly concerned with what is theirs instead of a more global thought beyond conventional campaigns that give us the feeling of being better when the only thing we are looking for is our own satisfaction, to the bitter confrontation between the positions of the extreme right and the extreme left whose objective practically goes through the mutual destruction of the opposite (at least in appearances), is reflected in pages full of uncontrolled winks of a man who goes through everything and alone he seeks his immediate pleasure, while a clearly superior objective surrounds him that he would like to ignore, I think he would like the garbage bag that is Ernie, a whopping bastard who ends up even receiving that nickname from the Organization with whom he has no choice but to collaborate if he wants to get something clear out of all this.
Remender and the delusions
At this point, few of us doubt the creative capacity of Rick Remender. After twenty years as a comic book writer, we have seen him be able to have great stages in different Marvel collections such as Impossible Avengers or Captain America, but his passage through independent publishers has left quality jewels of Dark Science, Tokyo Ghost or Lethal Class. Here we have him completely unleashed, excessive, uncontrolled… enjoying a story full of moments that combine exacerbated and chaotic humor with the most unbridled and visceral action.
For this, he has surrounded himself with a different cartoonist for each of the episodes that walk in a very similar direction in terms of aesthetics, which helps not to break narratively from one page to another, very supported by the color of Moreno Dinisio that helps much to create that effect on the reader. In order of appearance we have Lewis Larosa, Andrew Robinson, Eric Powell, Roland Boschi and Wes Craig, the latter is also the artist of Remender’s Lethal Class. All of them do a commendable job of magnifying the scum that is Ernie Ray Clementine, for representing his ambition, his nonchalance, his quest to take advantage of the moment to live one more party.
The first volume of the bastard, leaves us speechless at such a coarse attitude, the contempt for education and the lack of values that the protagonist gives off. We cannot fall in love with him, we cannot venerate him for what he is or what he represents, but we are aware of the importance he has gained for the world and we need to continue knowing what is going to happen next. Let’s hope that Panini doesn’t have us waiting for a long time for the second installment of a series that promises not to redeem such social waste.