Warrior's Dawn (Slaine) (Sláine)

Slaine was one of my gateway characters into comics, (the other being Nemesis, also by Pat Mills), and this is where it all beganThere's a great foreword by Pat Mills, explaining and giving a lot of credit to the artists and their very different styles.The stories are great, there is an undeniable Conan influence, but with more humour than Robert E Howard's work.It has certainly got.me hungry to get more books about The Warped One

great comic.. reminded me of when I first read these in 2000 AD... outstanding.

These are great classic stories of Elaine. Would recommend

Top stories and artwork

Slain, is just, Aaawsome :) Had only read it in Swedish though, so, when i then saw This, thi thi First in a Collection of him, well, it just was time to Start collect All, in English ;)

I always favoured Slaine over Conan, probably because Slaine was a thoroughly British hero but also because the stories are better written and the art of Belardinelli, McMahon, Fabry and Bisley is far superior to the artwork of artists working on the American Conan.Warrior's Dawn is an absolute joy, the stories are compelling and of great interest they stirred in me moments of nostalgic bliss, and the illustrations by McMahon are genius.

At long last Slaine's first ever adventures are published! Sky Chariots, included here, has been published before by Titan but so far as I know this is the first ever collection of the stories that preceded it. Slaine and Ukko wander across Tir Nan Og from one blood drenched adventure to the next while Pat Mills explores the Land of the Young's tribal world - no teleporting into other dimensions to fight time travelling aliens just yet. Aside from the first episode the art chores are shared by the recently deceased Massimo Belardinelli, and Mike McMahon.Unfortunately, as with all Rebellion's collections they're printed at a smaller size than when they originally appeared in 2000AD, which means that some of Belardinelli's finer line work sometimes disappears. Mike MaMahons scribbly experimental style also suffers in comparison to Belardinelli's work. It's a shame then that when he eventually gets his act together and produces some excellent artwork for Sky Chariots a handful of pages are here reproduced so badly that they look like Rebellion must have dropped them in a muddy puddle - one in particular, a full page splash of two sky ships side by side with massed warriors hacking away at each other, has lost so much detail they might as well have left the page blank!Having said all that of course it's a miracle that these early adventures have been reproduced at all, so buy 'em while you can!!!

Although originating in Britain from the British publication 2000 AD, Sláine is thoroughly Irish in its inspirations, borrowing heavily and paying homage to the ancient Irish Myths of the Tuatha De Danann and Cúchulainn. To borrow another reviewers line - a must have for any self respecting Celt.