To those familiar with Brian De Palma's over-the-top Scarface remake, the idea of a graphic novel sequel starring Tony Montana must give one pause. After all, we saw the rat bastard riddled with bullets at the end of the flick. Where do we go from here?
Well, this is comics, of course, and nobody stays dead forever in comics (unless you're a family member whose passing is designed to motivate a series hero, of course). So, like Jason Voorhees, the seemingly late drug lord rises to once more wreak bloody havoc in 80's Miami. (His system, a crooked DEA agent explains, was "so amped on coke that it couldn't remember it was supposed to die.") Ya can't keep a good gangsta role model down.
Crafted by John Layman & Dave Crosland (Puffed) with an ear and an eye for smirking ultra-violence, Scarface: Scarred for Life (IDW) originally appeared as a five-issue mini-series and is debuting this summer as a GN trade paperback, with a mini-series prequel to the movie also scheduled for July release. As a comics company, IDW is known for its canny media tie-ins (Star Trek, C.S.I. and, this summer, a ton o' Transformers titles), though sequelizing a hit movie from 1983 would appear to be pushing things. Be that as it may, Layman & Crosland's take on America's favorite coked-out psychopath provides its due share of sick chuckles.
The story opens after the shoot-'em-up-finish to the Oliver Stone-scripted Pacino vehicle: after spending eight months in a drug-induced coma, Tony wakes to find he's being watched by two slimey DEA agents. Stuck in a wheelchair and connected to a colostomy bag, our anti-hero still yearns to get back on top, but it's a sign of just how fallen he's become that both a street-level dealer and a weaselly former employee named Boots Eddie contemptuously kick our man's ass. Royally roused, our Ton' rises up to brutally suffocate Boots with his colostomy bag, thereby establishing the pattern of outlandish gangland violence yet to come.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net , which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States, and to Boston.com. Nice work!