Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #695745 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Synopsis
Brace yourself for another gritty tale from Sin City, an urban jungle populated by human predators and low-life criminals, courtesy of award-winning writer/artist Frank Miller. It's a town where everyone's on the wrong side of the law, even the cops, and good deeds and honest men are in short supply. Enter Wallace, mysterious man of integrity and strength. Out for an evening drive, Wallace prevents a beautiful woman from committing suicide...

Customer Reviews

Frank Miller's "Sin City" has a new hero in town
Bigger does not prove to be better in Book 7 of Frank Miller's "Sin City" series. "Hell and Back" is a 296-page graphic noir that introduces a new hero in Wallace, an ex-Navy seal who takes it personally when he saves Esther from committing suicide only to have her taken by men unknown for reasons unknown. He does not know why she jumped or even where she lives, but that does not matter. He was kissing Esther when the lights went out and a guy like Wallace tends to take something like that personally. As he says on the title page of this one: "I'm going to kill somebody. Put your clothes on." When we find out who he is saying that to you have to wonder if our hero might not be in over his head on this one.

So, once again we have a hard-boiled guy looking to save a sexy dame, but despite the basic similarity "Hell and Back" comes across a bit differently from Miller's previous graphic novels in the series. It is not just that Wallace has that mop of hair hanging in this face, but that for the most part Miller has cleared the stage of a lot of the familiar characters. The only previous "Sin City" book you need to have read is the previous one, "Booze, Broads, & Bullets," so that when Delia shows up with her blue eyes and blue bodice you know this is not a good sign. Miller is sparse with introducing color into the black & white world of "Sin City," but Delia's blue is far and away the most effective use of color. But the orange of leopard skinned Mariah makes me think maybe the color pink does not occupy the other end of the spectrum here.

"Sin City" actually breaks into full color at one point, when Wallace gets injected with a hallucinogenic drug and starts freaking out. Comic book fans will spot the likes of Lone Wolf & Cub, Captain America, Hagar the Horrible, and the Cat in the Hat as Wallace totally trips out and tries to find the truth in the illusions. Actually, he does a pretty good job of it. Artistically Miller also plays with white a lot more in this one than he did in most of the previous books, although apparently just to be different rather than to any specific effect. Then again, Miller is over a thousand pages into his comic book noir and how many different ways can the guy draw play and white pages?

I know that with Book 7 we now have a complete set of "Sin City" graphic novels. You can tell because when you put the seven books side-by-side on the shelf the bindings form a picture of Nancy. But I would hate to think this is the last "Sin City" from Miller because it does not provide a big finish. Since Miller provided the definitive big finish with "The Dark Knight Returns" we have reason to hope for something similar with his own creation, but this is not it. Wallace is almost too competent of a hero compared to Marv and Dwight, especially with the support group he has in place, but Esther being the least interesting damsel in distress to date helps take this one down a notch as well. Consequently, "Hell and Back" is good but not great, and with Miller that always ends up being something of a disappointment.

The word was that this was going to be part of the "Sin City" movie, with Johnny Depp as Wallace (he was also supposed to be Robert Rodriguez's first choice for Jackie Boy), but who wants to see a "Sin City" movie with an intermission or cut in two parts like "Kill Bill"? I do not know if any or all of these rumors are true, but trying to think of Wallace as being Johnny Depp while I read "Hell and Back" did not quite work, more in terms of the body type pulling off all of Wallace's stunts than the longhaired look, because obviously Depp can pull that off.

Gripping, enthralling, not to mention cool!
I love this book so much. I didn't get into the Sin City graphic novels until after the film - which I enjoyed but whoa! The books are so much better. And of the first seven Sin City graphic novels - this one is by far the best. Not least because it has a happy ending! Wallace and Esther rock and the ending moved me to tears when Wallace asks Esther why she did what she did at the beginning of the story (I'm trying not to spoil it for those who haven't read it.) All the Sin City novels are great - (the weakest in my opinion being Family Values, which was still good) - but if you want to get lost in a great story - then look no further than this one. You won't be disappointed. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

One of the lesser in a great series!
Frank Miller ... well what can you say. Frank Miller is one of the prime GRAPHIC artist alive these days. The Sin city series has been one of the coolest comic series around. Still this story about loss, love & revenge involving kidnapping, wierd stroylines and as always extremely good looking women did not take me in as tight a grip like as previous volumes of the series did. Still Frank Miller doesn't produce bad stories. As a comic novel it still transcends above a lot of the other stuff out there these days!