Button Man: Get Harry Ex
British comics writer Wagner is most famous for the futuristic Dirty Harry knockoff Judge Dredd and the graphic novel A History of Violence (1997), about an ex–hit man burying his past. Created before History, the similar Button Man is about a hit man trying to escape his present predicament as a gladiator for the amusement of high-stakes bettors. This book collects the three chronological adventures of Harry Exton that Wagner and Ranson published in the comics weekly 2000 AD in 1992, 1994, and 2001. The three span Harry’s entire career in “the Game” and feature lots and lots of slaughter. Cleverly enough constructed by Wagner (whose cleverness deserts him when writing the clichéd dialogue, however), it would soon wear out its welcome—and, arguably, still does in the final round—were it not for Ranson’s fine-line, realist artwork. The constant perspective changes, which imbue the art with the quality of a film composed of nonsequential photographs, and uniformly restrained coloring make this visually enthralling. --Ray Olson