More on the sowing of Chaos and its dark reflections on Man in Warhammer 40K: Marneus Calgar #3 by Kieron Gillen, Jacen Burrows, Java Tartaglia, and Clayton Cowles.
Justin Partridge: Battle! Glorious and wise, and more hidden histories revealed in Marneus Calgar #3. Welcome back to Letters from the Front Line. I’m Justin “Super Junior” Partridge. With me as always is Forrest “Rainmaker” Hollingsworth and Charlie “Anxious Millennial Cowboy” Davis on the dials upstairs.
And we bring you yet another account of the Second Great Crusade. REJOICE. For you are alive. And they are dead. The Emperor Protects.
Forrest Hollingsworth: Justin, I’m going to be honest with you and say that if this series keeps up, I think it will be one of the best licensed properties to come out of Marvel not just now, but ever. Glory to Gillen! Glory to Burrows and Tartaglia! Glory to Cowles, let’s march on.
“The Blood Harvest is Now”
JP: So after the monumental reveal of the previous issue, writer Kieron Gillen, a still game as hell art team, and their stalwart protagonist simply move to the next engagement. Namely attacking the main crux of the Chaos forces. Located atop a massive threshing, building sized agri-harvester. It is…astoundingly violent and the focal point of probably one of the my favorite page turns in recent memory.
BUT AGAIN, i just cannot and will not get over the SPEED of Gillen on this thing. He is just moving, moving, moving throughout each issue and it’s a real wonder to behold (as well as a boon to the readability of the series). It brings to mind his sort of “hip, young gunslinger” schtick from his early Marvel days, BUT this time he mucking about in a sandbox and franchise that he loves a lot and you can really tell he’s having a ball with it.
What about you Forrest, my Battle Brother, how did this opening grab you?
FH: I like the brash response of violence and visual vulgarity that this encounter is to the quieter contemplation that we ended the previous issue with. It’s as if, both narratively and visually, the other fist is falling. Marines like Calgar trade in contemplation and ideological poetry, but they are also almost literally given all the artificial organs, machines of war. Watching Marneus effortlessly tear through bullets, men, and metal with relative ease highlights just how plainly imposing and terrifyingly practical he is – in a way he worships blood just as much as his foes.
Additionally, the data sheets have gotten a little more solid and relevant with each issue, and we get our first proper reference to the Primarchs — the God Emperor’s manufactured sons and akin to demigods themselves — here! They are, as a fan of the Horus Heresy / 30k era, amongst my most favorite characters within the setting and I think pursuing some of their stories could be a very good direction for an expanded comics universe. If references no matter how big or small to them keep popping up, I’ll be sure to get a primer (Primarcher?) out but suffice to say their immense impact is still very much felt thousands of years later.
JP: OH ABSOLUTELY. And as a sort of introductory acolyte into this whole franchise, it was wonderful to see more explicit, and crystal clear lore texture from the data page. It informs the scale of the whole issue beautifully and gives readers, new and old, a very neatly packed context into and throughout the action (which is just still…DELIVERING here in #3).
We are provided a neat layering of the new (or Second Forged) Space Marines, more clues as to how they operate as an arm of the Imperium, and hefty context as to WHY the second forging and the return of Guilliman (the killed-and-resurrected Space Marine Primarch) were such a flashpoint moment for Calgar and his forces. All weaved throughout a truly engaging story in the past and present around Calgar and Heximar (who is just getting more charming by the issue).
You said above that this might be one of the better licensed efforts from Marvel here recently and it’s this kind of attention to detail and “history” of 40k that makes it excel so much (and so hard. Like Calgar LANDS ON A GUY THANKS TO HIS JUMP-PACK and FLATTENS HIM in seconds. Its so fuckin’ metal).
But we must move on…
“I Wish I Knew More About My First Kill”
JP: So as Calgar and his forces spar with Chaos in the present, we again are brought back to “before”. Directly after the first Calgar’s death and Tacitan’s subsequent fight to survive with the remains of his training class. All now brutally, deeply in service to Khorne the Blood God.
Your milage is going to still vary with these flashbacks, and I know this sort of device is done to death in comics. But that said, I VERY much enjoyed this round of backstory, which is shocking because I wasn’t sure I would after last issue’s reveal. How about you, Forrest? Are you still enjoying our time in the “Before”?
FH: I wasn’t certain the flashback sequences needed to continue after the previous issue’s cliffhanger, but I find that Gillen has done a good job of making them worthwhile even with the biggest stuff out of the way. The remark that Calgar wishes he remembered his first kill isn’t just callous cruelty (though it is that, too) it’s a remark that Calgar wishes he recalled the thing that solidified he could, in fact, become the thing he has become. Marinedom is so built upon and reverent to ritual and mantra that this, too, is as important a part to Calgar’s making as reading the Codex Astartes, the ‘how-to’ manual for Marines, is.
JP: Oh, totally. You can tell, especially NOW, that this isn’t just naked backstory for the sake of fleshing it all out. It’s very much intentional, and honed fully by the narration which I don’t normally love completely in comics (I’m kinda over the Brubakerian constant talking over the action on panel).
You also mention the thing about him not knowing his first kill’s name and OH MAN, is that just 40k in a nutshell, isn’t it? These once small individuals sudden thrust into a churning maw of gods and warfare that cares not for your name or story. I truly love that kinda stuff about 40k. The crushing scale of it and how even the smallest souls are still grist for the mill of total war and cosmic indifference.
I will ALSO SAY, I think this is a wonderful example of Gillen’s own understanding of the property and how it can rise above the sum of its own parts. Like you said, the comment both is and isn’t callous cruelty. Moreover you get the sense that Calgar GENUINELY regrets not knowing more about the first blood he took in service of the Imperium (and larger still, survival). It speaks to the dark poeticism that is present within the dogma of the Imperium and her service-weapons. How these little moments can speak to a larger sense of honor and grim romanticism of the Marines. The Uriel Ventris Chronicles novels too use this move really well. How they allow the people and their codes of honor within the armor to bloom forth ever so slightly through their reverence toward the Codex and their Primarch and Emperor.
“I Thought Him a Thousand Feet Tall”
JP: This reverence is then taken further by Tacitan’s first look at his savor; a Primari Space Marine.
Again, here, you can REALLY tell Gillen knows that this is a capital M Moment and, as a fan and “arbiter” for lack of a better term for this franchise, he absolutely plays it to the hilt. Which is then beautifully rendered by Burrows and Tartaglia, as you can see above.
This is another moment that puts this comic way in line with the Black Library prose. In the ones of those I have read so far, there is a real premium placed on the vibe and heaviness of a room that contains a Space Marine. Obviously this gets a bit more oomph as comics are visual medium, but even the way the narration shifts into the reverence, lithely bracketing the thudding action, backed up now by all the information about the Primari from the data pages. AH! It’s just an absolute belter of a scene. What say you, Forrest?
FH: A couple of important things in quick succession! First up, Marneus’ first in-person interaction with a Space Marine, and man what an interaction it turns out to be. As he waxes poetic on the Marines and their literal and figurative importance – “a thousand feet tall” – we find that Marneus thinks so highly of them because they literally saved his life from the blood splattered jaws of Chaos. Where some well meaning citizens of the Imperium have seen the Marine legions raze their planets and communities to root out heresy or xenos, Marenus sees them almost exclusively as heroes – as God’s response to the cruelty and feebleness of man. He sees service to them and to his fellow Man, no matter the cost, as the one and only bastion against evil.
Deservedly so, as the moment is given a lot of import by both Gillen and the artistic team (I’m especially glad they narrowed in on this moment because the art elsewhere is…lacking), the Marine’s electrified sword cutting a holy swath through the darkness of the Chaos altar like some kind of slaughtering saint.
JP: ABSOLUTELY!
And there is such DRIVE to the panels after that first splash page. It’s all heavily blocked and could, with sustained scrutiny look a bit wooden like some of the earlier establishing scenes. But like you said, just WHATTA first look at a Space Marine, right?
AND YOU ALSO NAILED IT, it’s ALL about perspective for Calgar, right? Before he felt so disconnected from service, from the “right” way to act in the eyes of the Emperor and in the face of Chaos (who had just taken everything he had ever known). But with one call into space, he is now shown that he’s part of something bigger. Playing even just a small part in the grand, lurid opera that is The Emperor Vs. Chaos. It’s just SO good and adds a wonderful tactility to the “faith” Calgar has in his Emperor’s forces and the duty of Mankind in the face of cosmic evil.
FH: Following that thread of service being above all, we see Calgar’s plan to defeat the Chaos forces occupying his home laid bare. Where they value tangible things, like the altar to Khorne, and signifiers of power above all, Marines value their servitude and their ideological righteousness. Marneus laying a tactical trap for Chaos inside his adoptive home, a place of assumed great material value, only to entirely destroy it to rout his foes is nothing more than a necessary sacrifice. March on.
JP: THIS IS ALSO SO GOOD.
And displays a keen wiliness to Calgar that I wasn’t expecting. It’s funny that the reveal really shocked me at first, having come off of last issue which was so blunt in the twist and matter-of-fact in the delivery of it. I thought, “Oh, wow, that’s really ruthless of Calgar NOW”,but then as I started to sit with it. It makes ALL the sense in the world! The Estates are just buildings. The REAL conquering the universe in the name of “right” was inside us all along. Calgar now knows, all too well, that this conflict is played on a greater awareness of your surroundings. A keener understanding of how the Ruinous Powers operate and how he can best combat them. Now all he has to do is literally burn away his past in order to triumph in the now.
Christ, I love comics. And I love Warhammer 40k even more
Vox Squawks
- The Stokoe cover for this one fucks, if Marvel is going to chicken out and not have him attached to Alien projects, there’s plenty more work in the 40k ‘verse for him.
- A bit of cheekiness to Crixus calling himself the “Headhunter” and then immediately losing his that I appreciate.
- While the Imperium may rebuke the bulk of it as Heresy, there’s a lot of magic and Psychics in 40k, and the suggestion that Tacitan was hyper naturally suited — even before assuming the role of Calgar — to being a Marine is not without merit.
- Speaking of the Heresy, Justin is about halfway done with Horus Rising and is wondering why the Warp-blasted hells he hasn’t ONLY been reading these since high school. He’s also trucking along on the first Uriel Ventris Omnibus and quite scared shitless of the Tyranids. Editor Charlie seems the most pleased from this latest turn.
- Some VERY fun Heximar stuff this issue. Including the furthering of his vocal “clack” and a very cheeky reference to his <Data Attachment> resume he provided Calgar in the opening which is still unread. Gillen has been making him a fun sidekick, but letterer Clayton Cowles is absolutely selling the hell out of those gags. Recognition was well past due here.
- Curious to see if any OTHER Chapters of Space Marines pop up by the end of this series. We have seen the Ultramarines fully now in the final page teaser, but it would be super cool to see like a random Angel Guard or, I dunno, one of the Hawk Lords or Imperial Fists get a cameo. We now KNOW how large the Chapters are, we should get to see ‘em now!
Forrest is an experimental AI that writes and podcasts about comic books and wrestling coming to your area soon.
Justin Partridge has loved comics all his life. He hasn't quite gotten them to love him back just yet. But that hasn't stopped him from trying as he has been writing about them now for a little over a decade. With bylines at Newsarama, Shelfdust, PanelXPanel, and more, Justin has been doing the work and putting in the time! Comics have yet to return his calls. Usually he can be found on Twitter screaming about Doctor Who.
