From Boom! Studios and creators Kurt Sutter, Caitlin Kittredge, Jesus Hervas and Steve Berman comes the six-issue mini series Lucas Stand – a comic about a dead man who enlists as a time travelling bounty hunter seeking out demonic forces. This is my review of the final issue and entire series as a whole.
Lucas Stand is a military vet who can’t reintegrate into society and has emotionally cut himself off from the people he loves. At his lowest, Lucas does something he can’t take back. Hell comes calling, offering him the opportunity to make things right. Demons escaping Hell are upsetting the balance of evil, and now Lucifer has recruited Lucas to send them back. It doesn’t matter in what era the demons escape-World War II, old-timey Hollywood, Vietnam, present day-he must learn to fit in both the past and the present. Given new purpose, Lucas starts to rebuild himself and his life, even as he struggles at the human cost that comes with it.
After six bizarre, action-packed and genre bending issues, Kurt Sutter’s Lucas Stand has come to a close. Sorta… Without spoiling too much, we definitely have a universe ripe for further exploration if it ever comes down to it – maybe as a TV series, or another story arc at Boom! Studios. Lucas Stand, a big blonde, muscular son of a bitch winds up killing an entire family after running them off the road in a drug induced haze. Upon realising he’s a shithead, he then kills himself and ends up in the service of a demon who has recruited him to hunt down other paranormal forces throughout time.
Every issue is like a stand-alone genre as we bounce from a World War 2 thriller, the wild west, Hollywood in the 40’s and even Vietnam (which was my personal favourite issue in the entire first volume). There’s almost too much story here compacted into these six issues, but they do all come to a compelling conclusion as Stand finally figures out whom he can actually trust. Angels, demons, spies – whatever – it feels like Stand has no option but to just blindly blast his way through enemies while the larger picture unfolds around him (and off the page) while Heaven and Hell keep moving their Chess pieces around (and Stand is just a pawn in their game most of the time).
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t frustrated at the flow of the series from time to time, but Sutter’s story and characters were damn intriguing enough to keep me interested through to the end. I’m actually more excited at the possibilities to come now that Stand has his shit figured out by the end. Most of this comic feels like a solid prequel setup for a longer and more epic series – maybe even in another medium…. Hey Sutter – can you shop this sucker around to FX and see if they’d bite? It would be damn television.
Lucas Stand as a series will likely draw comparisons to Hellblazer (Constantine), Doctor Who (time travel duh) and maybe even newer comics like Outcast. However, because of the unique world building, where humans are recruited in the afterlife to wage almost a cold war spy vs spy game between angels and demons, Sutter’s Lucas Stand is definitely something special and uniquely it’s own. We have time travel, nazis, demons, angels, cool weapons, a coke snorting anti-hero, badass art and action sequences to pull it altogether.
Rating: [star rating=”4″]