Happy #1 Review

We have all had that feeling. The feeling that you know you will love something even before you have read it. That is the feeling I had about this four issue mini series before I had even received the first issue in the post. To tell you the truth I am not Grant Morrison's biggest fan. I would even go as far as saying that I try to avoid his work altogether due to it being a bit too weird and Morrison-ish. However, this title is weird in a good way. I can honestly say I have never read anything like it.

The main character of this book is Nick Sax; a corrupt ex cop who is now a hit-man. The first half of this book see's him attempting to complete a hit on three brothers. He succeeds in doing so, but he also has to kill a fourth brother who was not anticipated to be there. This brother attempted to get out of being killed by giving Nick a password to a bank account containing the family fortune. Nick refused the password because he is just that kind of guy. Unfortunately for Nick he took a bullet in the side during the fight with the brothers which sees him ending up in hospital. This leads to somebody only know to us as Mister Blue to send a hit-man torture squad out to the hospital to retrieve the password for this fortune. Unbeknown to Mister Blue, and as mentioned earlier, Nick does not know it.

So far this all sounds pretty standard. Nothing too strange going on here. Very unlike Morrison. However, while in his hospital bed, Nick starts seeing a small blue cartoon horse who introduces himself as "Happy the horse". Happy claims to be a girl called Hailey's imaginary friend. We also learn that Hailey is in trouble and that Happy has come for Nick's help in order to save her. Yep, things just got weird.

I absolutely love the premise for this series. I really do not know what Grant Morrison was on when coming up with this idea, but it really works. Nick's character is great. He is a bit cliché as he has gone from being the best detective in the force to being the disgrace of the department. In fact, he reminds me of Bruce Willis' character in the Die Hard's but obviously with less good naturedness. However, I think the cliché helps as we instantly feel like we know the character due to the amount of times we have read something similar. The fact that he is written well and has some pretty good dialogue also helps form a character that we will want to come back for more for.

As a comic book fan I am not used to reading about blue horses named Happy. It isn't really my genre ( is it anybodies? ) However, I liked every panel he was in ( I am also assuming it is a "he" ), mainly due to Nick wondering if he is real or if he has just lost his mind. I am looking forward to their interactions in the next three issues, which shows that Morrison has done a really great job at selling this. It could have been horrible, but it's not. Plus the c-word was used quite a lot. What's not to like?


Rating: 8.5/10