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"The Escapist" Issue 1
By Andy - 06.25.04
Back in 2001, Michael Chabon won the Pulitzer prize in literature for his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, a sprawling novel about the golden age of comics. In it, Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay create the comic book hero The Escapist. The novel is a grand display of what happened to America in the middle of the twentieth century. "The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist", however, is nothing more than an unnecessary spin-off.
Michael Chabon writes the introduction to this issue and the story "The Passing of the Key." It's obvious that Michael Chabon is passionate and very knowledgeable about comics. Despite that, though, his creating a falsely historic "The Escapist" comic is highly self-indulgent. He attempts to recreate the magic and wonder of the golden age comics, but the results are contrived.
The first story in this compilation explains the creation of the Escapist. Tom Mayflower's Uncle Max is Misteriso, a Houdini-esque performer who, you guessed it, is really good at escaping from any sort of lock or enclosure. During one night's performance, Maximillian is shot and wounded as he escapes from an underwater cage. He manages to make it offstage without alarming the audience. Once he's backstage, however, he asks his nephew Tom to put on a costume and continue with the next act. He succeeds in escaping and rushes backstage to find that his Uncle is about to die. Uncle Max tells Tom about how he became the Escapist as a young man, and that he always lived by the maxim that freedom is a debt which can only be repaid by purchasing the freedom of others. Tom also learns that the people who are most likely behind the assassination are an organization called The Iron Chain.
The formula of having a father figure pass down the responsibility of fighting crime is tried and true in comic books. However, Michael Chabon crams what could have been an excellent 4-issue story arch into a single issue. It would give enough time and space to expand upon the history of Uncle Max's foray into crimefighting as well as the development of his skills as an escape artist. This would also give the reader a chance to empathize with Tom during his uncle's death. Once Tom's uncle has died, there's a single panel where he sheds a tear saying that he was the only father he knew. Immediately after, he pledges an oath to rid the world of the Iron Chain and Nazi Germans, etc. This is perhaps the most rushed and unfeeling grieving I've ever read in a comic book.
 For being so clearly passionate about the history of comic books, this jumbled mess is a train-wreck rush job. What's more disappointing is that this could have been a good, perhaps even great comic. What saddens me is that much more effort was put into the three essays embelishing upon the "history" and supposed importance of "The Escapist" instead of actually writing an interesting or entertaining comic.
If you are a fan of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, you'll probably enjoy the comic as it deals with many of the same characters discussed in the novel. However, even for the biggest fan of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, "The Escapist" is nothing more than a spin-off with little appeal.
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