After reading the first series and currently reading the second, I am curious about the plots of the other 2 stories and if they will be released as graphic novels?
I bought the first (expensive) collection and now heres series 4 in the prog. I have no idea whats happened in between. Would it not have been smarter to reprint the other stories first?
Or is this series due a GN reboot?
Slight Spoilers follow...
Series two starts with Harry sprung from hospital and taken to America where he plays the game for a rich senator.
Series three sees open season on Harry as he's tracked across America by 20 odd buttonman and their voices.
Both where great with some excellent action sequences and loads of memorable characters. I felt two had a slightly rushed conclusion with loads stuffed into the last page. Three was possibly my favourite as a wide array of baddies trying; to take down our man.
A nice deluxe book of the three Ranson books would be lovely. Four is picking up pace and I'm enjoying it but given that Harry has barely appeared the story could be seen as one from the same 'universe' but with a different star and feel.
Spoilers....
ISTR that in BMII, Harry relocates to the US, where he is fixed up with a new life, but is unwittingly brought back into the game. Eventually, he has to track down and kill his 'voice' to escape.
In BMIII, still living in the US, Harry is once again brought back out of retirement, as (i think) some sort of deranged hollywood producer takes the game into the 21st centuary with GPS tracking and the like. Harry survives (i think he maybe fakes his own death) and then sets about murdering every single person who knows about his connection to the game, so he can remain free forever.
That may be entirely inaccurate, details are very sketchy in my memory.
The first Button Man GN, 'The Killing Game' was republished as a paperback last year, so hopefully volumes 2, 3 and 4 will follow. I'd imagine its likely to be dependent on sales of volume 1, and whether the Button Man movie gets off the ground.
The first
Thank you. Is there a website for all this?
Yeah same here, I have actually picked up the progs along the way with series 2 and 3, but I've been too busy/lazy to dig them out.
I expected to have lovely hardbacks of 2-3 by the time any 4th series turned up. The first hardback is SUMPTIOUS.
Against my better judgement I've just decided to start reading 4 regardless.
Book 2 was published in German, Dutch and French back in 1993(?), although no sign of an English version.... :-(
I think in II he ends up not killing the voice, but settling outstanding debts and leaving him alive, but with the caveat that if the voice comes after him, Harry has incriminating video evidence of his involvment in the game and will ruin him.
Then at the start of III the voice dies of cancer, and the other voices decide to tie up the loose end since he can't hurt anyone except the dead. Harry's chased across america by 13 button men (well, twelve men and a woman), but can't escape because they've planted a gps tracker in one of his teeth (via an evil dentist who has an 'accident' soon after). Once he works that out, he pulls the tooth and goes back to where he'd been living to make a stand. He kills all but one of the button men, who he uses to fake his own death (by throwing the gps tracker into a lake and letting the survivor slice off a finger for identification). He lets the last guy go, but tracks him down and kills him once his own trail is cold. He also kills a hollywood producer (michael de silva?), who he has identified as a voice. Then, he vanishes, never to be seen again...
...until now.
...until now - in flashback!
Your recall seems good but I think Senator Jacklin died in a helecopter crash, not of cancer.
I'm probably wrong but it's not my fault. I'm old and the progs are in the attic. A couple of tasty GN's would solve all the queries.
Buttonman, you are entirely correct, and I apologise. I went back and checked prog 2001 - he did have cancer but it is a helicopter crash while returning from treatment at a clinic that does for him in the end.
I bow to your superior memory.
Thank you for the verification. Bit of a double whammy (double whammy!) there for the Senator. I wonder if that's an implied suggestion that the other voices killed him to restart the game?
Yo!
Books 2 & 3 (and 4 hopefully at some point) of Button Man will be released next year as GNs. It's one of my favourite stories so I've been dying to put together the other books for ages.
I think Book 2 was reprinted in the megazine a few years ago if you want to check it out sooner.
pye
It was indeed reprinted in the Meg - issues 4.05 to 4.08. IIRC, it was also relettered and touched-up, but without access to the comics I can't be sure.
Excellent news!
My wallet has just let out a strangled cry for mercy, mind...
Ah easier to get to my megs than my progs.
Good news on books 2 and 3 as well!
Cheers :)
The third was the freakin' nuts alright. I for one didn't suspect the tooth thing but I felt a bit of a tit for it. Not sure about this new one; it's just not right without Arthur Ranson
Thanks to the magic of King Trout I read Button Man 2 for the first time this evening. It was excellent, with some quality killings (he does like those alligators) and some real cold-eyed brutality from our man. It also made sense of various things that I hadn't quite cottoned to from book 3.
One thing that jumped out at me was the way it seemed to be written with an eye to reprinting in the US as a four issue mini-series. The framing of Harry's titular confession pops up at the start of every fourth episode, with all the others having a standard recap in the first panel which sometimes jars with a story caption, giving the impression that they were added in for the weekly.
Anyone know if this was part of the original plan or if Mr Wagner was just being canny and it never worked out?
QuoteOne thing that jumped out at me was the way it seemed to be written with an eye to reprinting in the US as a four issue mini-series.
ISTR that I read somewhere that Button Man (at least Book 1) was written so that each single page works as an individual episode, so it could be serialised newspaper strip style. I'm not sure why, but I do know that it was originally pitched to at least one other anthology (Expresso...?) before finding a home in 2000ad.
I think it was Toxic! (the original Marshal Law/Accident Man one, not the kids comic) actually but yeah, I think you're right. It's creator owned and got SOME kind of reprint in the US, don't remember what format though.
Yeah according to Thrillpower Overload it was Toxic. Great gain for 2000ad there!
The two best things to happen to the House of Tharg in the 90s.
1. The launch of Toxic! (GO WITH THE FLOW)
2. The folding of Toxic! (It went with the flow. Down the drain)
It uncovered new talent, gave the prog a rival to front up against and then, once it failed, it gave us Button Man which expanded the TYPE of story that Twoth does. No sci-fi or fantasy twist AT ALL. Genius.
I like to think Doc Tox is with the Starlord and that E superhero fella in a tower of the nerve centre rambling to each other about the good old days and wondering when Tharg will make his long-promised visit....