Review — Road to Perdition

When I was a kid, my dad would periodically tell me to get ready and hop in the car to go with him…somewhere. He was generally mum about the destination for a little while, jokingly referencing some boring errand or location. Inevitably, the subterfuge was lifted, and his actual plan stood revealed: we were heading to see a movie. Occasionally, I could even remember a recent release or two and guess which film we were seeing. There was a thrill in the guessing game and a sense of joyful satisfaction knowing we were driving somewhere exciting, together.

Never once, during those trips, did my dad act coy because we were heading into danger. Never once did he tell me to stay in the car to keep safe. And never once did he hand me a gun to protect myself.

But I guess that’s because, as far as I’m aware, my father never served the Chicago mob as a hitman.

Content Guide

Violence: Many men are killed or injured during gunfights, and a few innocent individuals are shot as well. Headshots and gut wounds occur frequently. Men are also stabbed, have their throats slit, or are pistol-whipped. Someone considers suicide.

Sexual Content: References are made to a brothel, an STD, and prostitutes. A couple kisses. One line of dialogue is suggestive. 

Drug/Alcohol Use: Though set during Prohibition, people still find ways to imbibe alcohol, whether at parties, at a bar, or during a poker game. A few folks smoke. Criminals sell beer illegally.

Spiritual Content: Michael is Catholic and confesses to several priests. His son prays, quotes a few verses, and worries about the afterlife. References are made to Protestantism, and a picture of Jesus is seen on the wall. A character is given last rites, and someone else becomes a priest. A killer is often referred to as the “Angel of Death.”

Language/Crude Humor: Several uses of God and Jesus’ names in vain, sometimes paired with other curses. Several instances of h*** and b******, a few uses of d*** and b****, and one use each of a**, s***, and an unfinished “son of a…”. A racial slur for Irishmen pops up several times.

Other Negative Content: A few characters lie. Someone robs banks, though nonviolently, and commits arson. Immigrants find themselves taken advantage of by criminals.

Positive Content: Michael genuinely loves his family and tries to do right by his son, teaching him to drive and reminding him to abstain from alcohol and remain faithful should he ever get married. A family promises to take care of a loved one. People are mourned at a cemetery. Characters bring an injured woman to a doctor for help. A mother comforts her son.

Review

Known as the “Angel of Death,” Michael O’Sullivan is a hitman whose bosses in the Irish mob syndicate decide one day is expendable. Shooting his way out of an assassination attempt, Michael returns home to find his wife and youngest son dead. But his oldest son Michael Jr., who had witnessed his father partake in an earlier hit, is alive, stricken with guilt over his brother and mother’s murders. Grappling with grief himself, Michael begins a cross-country expedition, with Michael Jr. in tow, to exact revenge on his former employers and see if he can find some sort of normal life for his boy.

Max Allan Collins — a writer notable (if not notorious) in comics circles for his post-Crisis of Infinite Earths revamping of Jason Todd — dumps the young Michael Jr. into a fairly hairy world in this graphic novel that inspired the Tom Hanks movie of the same name. Unlike the second Robin, our young protagonist is a character easy to find empathy for and unlikely to wind up on the receiving end of a crowbar. The boy’s not only dealing with his perceived role in his family’s deaths but also the truth about his father’s career. He’s a child, barely an adolescent, and though his father works to keep him safe from the following vengeance he takes upon his gangland cronies, you know there wouldn’t be any tension if Michael Jr. didn’t become involved in some capacity. How both Michaels navigate the path before them, having seen what they’ve seen and done what they’ve done, will shape their future together.

Bloodshed and Blood Bonds

Road to Perdition, though sculpted by Richard Piers Rayner in black and white, does not shy away from colorful violence. At its basest, this is a story of bloody revenge, with one of our central characters contributing heaviest to the body count (and you’ve got exactly one guess as to which Michael I mean). Simultaneously, it’s a story about a boy’s relationship with his father, about reconciling (if he can) the love he has for this man with the reality of the horrifyingly dark criminal underworld he walks through.

Tension palpably exists within the older Michael. He calls himself a soldier, following orders until those orders call for his termination. Violence is all he knows, all he’s ever known, and until now, he hasn’t been touched by it personally. Collins doesn’t paint him as fully detached, but there’s a quiet coldness in scenes where Michael guns down yet another mobster. He doesn’t speak; he points the trigger and pulls… and pulls… and pulls. It’s business until it’s personal, and even then, Michael keeps almost serenely quiet and unbothered. Perhaps a tad too unbothered at moments for my taste, but Collins injects the moral ramifications of the Angel of Death’s actions elsewhere.

An insistent loyalty and love still vividly burns within Michael for his family. He knows he needs to keep his son safe, and he knows the only way to do so is to bring Michael Jr. along until he can find somewhere safer. Collins derives great tension from that disconnect — Michael’s responsibilities as a father clashing with a lifetime of violence, even the need to continually perpetuate violence while also caring for his son. One of artist Richard Piers Rayner’s most haunting images is Michael carrying his son away from the aftermath of a gunfight, kissing the boy lightly on the cheek. It’s an effortless act of love and care, coming immediately after a brutal barter of bullets. The scene highlights the agonizing duality Collins infuses the narrative with, that of Michael’s paradoxes: how a man who kills can also be a man who loves… and how a man kills because he also loves.

Such a quandary brutally snakes its way through the graphic novel, challenging the reader’s perception of this “Angel of Death.” As satisfying as it might be to see Michael slide down a banister and pop a few criminals like a Depression-era Jason Bourne, it also causes consternation. His sins have caught up to him, his family has already paid a heavy price… how fair is it, especially for his only living son, to have Michael continue with his previously paid profession pro bono?

The Sins of the Father

Sacrificed in this quest for peace through death is Michael Jr.’s innocence. The boy tells himself he’s proud of his father, to the point where he insists on taking up a gun, not just to protect himself but to contribute to Michael’s mission. Maybe also to wash away the guilt he feels over his family’s deaths. Yet he’s still a child, telling his dad he’ll shoot the bad guys in the leg because that’s what the TV heroes do. In the graphic novel’s quieter moments, Michael Jr. is taught to drive a car; and though he expresses excitement at learning the skill, his training is tempered by its practicality. His dad needs a getaway driver. The boy is a willing companion and somewhat unknowing accomplice, and the unfairness of such a situation isn’t lost on his father, however unfortunate a reality it is.

For Michael Jr., the older O’Sullivan’s actions create a spiritual paradox. Early on, he tells his father that the church teaches “thou shalt not kill.” Michael agrees but notes his duty to his family and employers (pre-assassination attempt, naturally). The boy quotes Scripture elsewhere, and though Michael never refutes or argues against him, his own actions speak to a deep division with faith. On their journey, Michael periodically stops by Catholic churches to confess to priests. He tells them everything, leaving them dumbfounded. Then he picks up his gun and shoots more criminals, bloodying the hands he just washed.

Kill, confess, repeat. Avenge your family now, ask forgiveness later.

These are not lessons Collins necessarily endorses. They make for an intriguing moral backbone to a classic revenge story. Collins’ use of religion and how each Michael views their relation to it shapes who they are, and though it seems faith will never alter the outcome the story marches towards, the notion should at least interest the reader. It’s that grappling again, of understanding where Michael and his son’s heads and hearts are in all this. Michael Jr. isn’t painted as an innocent cherub whose starry-eyed ideas of church are batted aside by his tormented father; the boy has seen the ugliness of the world and chooses to believe regardless. His ability to stay true to certain beliefs provides a hope for the future his father has lost outside the tangible heft of his gun and the accuracy of his aim.

Collins cements the genuineness of Michael Jr.’s faith by the graphic novel’s end, which I won’t spoil. Forgiveness becomes a way of life, not just an exercise generated by guilt or fear. This is where the true attempt at reconciling his father’s halves happens. Narrating the graphic novel’s events as an adult, he writes, “I know my father–I know what rings true about him, and what doesn’t. He has been portrayed as a butcher, and he wasn’t that. And as a saint. Not that either.” A complicated picture of Michael comes through his son’s words, a nobility at odds with his deadliness. Like all fathers, Michael is flawed, and his legacy is one of hurts, helps, and hopes. Recognizing this, Michael is left with the question of which aspects of that legacy to adopt for himself and which pieces are best left set aside.

Follow the Black-and-White Road

Around this saga, Rayner crafts a world that is at once beautifully believable and stricken with shadows. In an early scene, he painstakingly illustrates Chicago skyscrapers dominating the landscape, towering majestically. Pages later, Michael weaves through one of these buildings, turning tight corners and moving up stairs as he guns his way through a host of hoodlums. A quaint family home is bespoiled by death, a riverboat casino is blown up, churches with stained glass windows feature bloodstained confessions. For all the beauty Rayner injects into the narrative, raw ugliness bubbles beneath. This extends to his people — real underworld figures such as Al Capone and Frank Nitti play important roles as the narrative unfolds. Rayner’s lifelike portrayals of these men are stunning from an artistic perspective while also reminding of the actual violence they endorsed and practiced in reality. No amount of distortion or exaggeration is used to transform them into caricatures; reality seeps through the ink.

The word “Perdition” in the title serves a twofold purpose. Perdition, Kansas, is the fictional town where Michael intends to bring his son to ensure his safety. Yet from a theological perspective, the term means a state of eternal damnation. It’s a state “the Angel of Death” sends many men to, wishes to keep his son from, and likely believes he’s heading himself. It’s a grim outlook, hopefully tempered by the future he still sees for his boy. Readers are encouraged to become ensnared not so much by Michael’s ultimate destination but more with his journey. Faith and fatherhood are presented complexly, undergirded by the starkly simple palette Rayner applies. Such notions may cause some discomfort for the reader, but it seems appropriate that the road here should be paved with difficult questions and uneasy answers.