The Ballad of Halo Jones by Alan Moore. Illustrated by Ian Gibson. Rebellion £13.99
Reviewed by Mike Chinn
Halo Jones made her first
appearance in 2000AD’s “Prog 376” way
back in 1984 and continued over a two year period in three “books”. Her final
adventures ended in 1986 after writer Alan Moore and Fleetway – the comic’s
publishers – had a major disagreement over ownership rights. As things stand,
those adventures won’t be continuing anytime soon (originally nine books had
been planned). So we’ll have to enjoy what there is of the girl’s adventures.
Our first sight of Halo is as
an eighteen year old, living in the Hoop – an enclosed, floating torus off the
coast of Manhattan where America’s long-term unemployed are dumped. She’s
sharing an apartment with Rodice (something of a stereotypical teenaged girl),
Brinna, and a robot dog (a Ripper, model Iliac Six Hundred) named Toby. There’s
also Ludy, a talented musician with the band Ice Ten: nervous and lacking in
self-belief. The action takes place over a single day. Rodice finds out that
they’ve run out of food – which means they’re going to have to risk a shopping
expedition. Ludy has to practise so Halo goes out with Rodice – along with a reluctant
Toby – armed with sputstiks and zenades as defence against other Hoop
inhabitants. It’s a disaster from the start, with circumstances conspiring to
ruin Rodice’s carefully-planned timetable. Rodice also manages to blow herself
up with a zenade (which at least gives Halo the chance to make up time by
taking a short cut outside; although the blissfully tripping Rodice comes round
before they get back inside), and squirt a nausea-inducing sputstik into her
own face. When they finally get back to their apartment, Brinna is dead – cut
to shreds in what looks like a robbery gone wrong. Whilst Halo is struggling to
absorb that, Ludy comes in: she’s become a member of a youth cult – the
Different Drummers – whose implanted brains have a constant rhythm pounding out
real life. Something snaps in Halo and she decides to sign on the E.S.S. Clara Pansy. She and Rodice agree to meet on Charlemagne: last one
to arrive buys the drinks.
Book two
documents Halo’s life as a hostess on board the Clara Pandy. There’s a framing device revealing that Halo is the
study (and obsession) of an academician of the far future, which also cleverly
serves as a re-introduction to the character after half a year’s absence from
the comic. Now she shares a cabin with Toy – another hostess, who’s seven-foot
tall and afraid of nothing – and a character so self-effacing and lacking in
self-esteem that she almost literally fades into the background. Halo is
besotted with the ship’s cyberneticist (it’s unreciprocated, of course), still
has Toby (though that turns out to be a very mixed blessing) and has long conversations
with the ship’s steersman: a dolphin named Kititirik Tikrikitit (Kit for short)
– she learned to speak cetacean back in the Hoop when she was a member of the
Ritit Rikti fan club. She also helps a Rat King that is on board – helping to
find a replacement rat when one of the five tail-knotted rodents falls
terminally ill and the creature’s linked mind starts to come apart. That simple
act of kindness has implications that will echo down the years to come. And on
the last night before they reach Charlemagne, at a Chop Party (named for mega-rich
Lux Roth Chop who owns the Clary Pandy),
even though Halo is spurned by the cyberneticist for a media celebrity, she
shares a dance with a an unassuming guy she bumped into earlier: none other
than Lux Roth Chop himself (though she discovers that a little belatedly).
Quitting the ship, Halo finally contacts Rodice from a run-down bar – only to
find her old friend is still back in the Hoop, with no real intention of
leaving it.
The
third and final book finds Halo marooned on Pwuc: not only down on her luck but
about as far down as she can get. Even the Hoop compares favourably. When a
military recruitment ship touches down, and Halo finds that her old cabin-mate
Toy is already signed on, she – maybe not so eagerly – joins up. After all,
they were just a peacekeeping force; there practically no chance she’d get sent
to the Tarantula warzone. But part of the peacekeeping mission is on a backward
planet called Lobis Loyo, fighting a guerrilla war against terrorists. Somehow
she survives – though the experiences leave her emotionally scarred and embittered.
From there she’s shipped to Moab: a vast planet within the warzone that has a gravitational
pull so powerful it not only leaves anyone unprotected as a puddle, it actually
slows time. Halo and her squad plod out onto the surface, exchange shots with
the enemy, and return to their gravity-shielded base to finds days have elapsed
inside. In a final irony, whilst they are out on one sortie, the Earth’s economy
collapses and the cetaceans negotiate a cease-fire – weeks before Halo returns.
Peace settles, and Halo even finds a love in the huge shape of General Luiz Cannibal
– but then she finds out exactly what role the King Rat she saved back on the Clary Pandy has had in the war against
Tarantula. Disillusioned again, she takes a spacecraft and once more, goes out.
Even
though it’s some thirty years old, The
Ballad of Halo Jones is refreshingly undated – possibly timeless. Alan Moore
crams in satire, sly references, puns (is the name Clary Pandy a play on Para Handy: the “hero” of Neil Munro’s Vital Spark short stories for instance?),
and crazy slang (“come on” becomes “come off” – the fictional origins of which
we can speculate on some other time…). It’s likely he had Vietnam in mind when
scripting the guerrilla fighting on Lobis Loyo, but it’s no less relevant
today: a despised occupying force fighting against locals they loathe with
equal vigour. Many of the “terrorists” turn out to be children (sound familiar?).
The section on Moab – with its time-distortion – reminded me strongly of Joe
Haldeman’s The Forever War. And
although the Hoop is a dystopia of a type quite popular within 2000AD’s pages, the mind-set of its
rejected inhabitants still resonates.
Ian
Gibson’s artwork clearly improves over the three books – becoming more subtle;
his line work finer – but there is still a great vitality: busy without being
overcrowded. His females are shapely without being sexual caricatures. And he
can even portray a dolphin’s amusement at its own joke. I don’t know if Moore
chose his illustrator or if Fleetway simply assigned Gibson, but it’s a pairing
that works effortlessly.
In
addition to the reprinted strips, the book comes with a Foreword by writer and
journalist Lauren Beukes, a gallery of Halo
Jones covers (with pin-up of Halo, Rodice and Brinna), and an example of an
original Alan Moore script – so everyone can appreciate just how detailed they
are. It’s
a pity Moore never had the chance to finish the saga – apparently there were
plans to take her into old age – but as the man once said: never say never.
