Publisher: Titan Comics
Release Date: November 11, 2018
Price: $16.99
Creator(s): Peter Milligan (writer); Colin Lorimer (artist)
Format: 112 pgs., Full-Color, Trade Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-7858-5915-1
Age Rating: N/A
ICv2 Rating: 4 Stars out of 5
Peter Milligan is an outstanding writer of comics. The Prisoner is an iconic television show, created as a weird semi-sequel to a more straightforward spy show. Putting them together seems like a recipe for brilliance or disaster. In a way, it’s both, but is entertaining the whole way.
This series of collected comics is a sequel to the original series, with some disturbing hints for those who have watched it. Those hints made The Village even more horrific than originally portrayed in the show or in previous comic adaptations. Unfortunately, it mimicked the original series in terms of making the ending controversial and difficult to comprehend, although the graphic medium made the ending much shorter, which was probably a good thing.
I did have a problem with the story, which involved a trained, skilled agent apparently clueless about the basics spycraft and false information. That seemed odd at best.
The difficulty in both the original story and this graphic sequel is that it is made clear that drugs and other mind-altering effects are in place. That automatically makes the main character an unreliable narrator, because the reader is seeing everything through his eyes. For readers willing to put up with that, it’s interesting and well worth reading.
The artwork of Corimer, along with colorist Joana LaFuente, is very good, especially in some of the odd sequences, such as the use of the Rover bubbles.
The primary audience will be adults familiar with the original or remade TV versions of The Prisoner, or those who have read previous graphic versions.
--Nick Smith: Library Technician, Community Services, for the Pasadena Public Library in California.
