The Mask

Who remembers The Mask? He seems to have slipped a bit from the spotlight in the last decade or so. In fact, in 2016 it was the 25th anniversary of The Mask’s first miniseries (not counting appearances in the Mayhem anthology), and yet no commemoration was made, and all previous material is currently out-of-print!

I read the first two miniseries (The Mask, and The Mask Returns) when they were collected as trade paperbacks, in advance of the blockbuster Jim Carrey vehicle in 1994. Far from the family-friendly hi-jinks of the movie, these stories landed far closer to the ultra-violent content in the rest of Dark Horse Comics’ lineup (e.g. Aliens and Predator). Looking back, I can see why it caught my teenage attention so strongly. The violence is extreme, but is not offensively gratuitous; it services a satire with a pitch black sense of humour. The closest comparison I can make is to the original Paul Verhoeven Robocop movie, which was one of my favourites at the time (and, heck, still is!).

As written by John Arcudi, I consider those first two series as one continuous story, which sees the magical mask passing in ownership between several protagonists, and so the characteristics of The Mask himself vary between bloodthirsty sociopath, ruthless vigilante and outright gangster. It keeps the concept fresh, allowing for a number of different spins on the classic ‘power corrupts’ motif. And all the while, the unstoppable force of The Mask is on a collision course with the immoveable object that is Walter, a seemingly indestructible man-mountain of a contract killer.

Doug Mahnke’s artwork here was a massive influence on me growing up. Each panel is packed with detail, and yet the action is crisp and powerful. Dramatic scenes are lit with realistically textured shadows; which serves to make the oddball lunacy of The Mask equal parts hilarious and disturbing. Mahnke’s artwork certainly matured as it went; from the early Mayhem work being looser and less consistent, through to the assured realism of the blockbuster climax in The Mask Returns. I genuinely think you’d be hard-pressed to find a more perfect matching of artist to subject matter in the history of comics.

Arcudi and Mahnke returned to this continuity only two more times; for a watered-down sequel The Mask Strikes Back (heavily sanitised to suit the younger audience of the movie) and for a spin-off mini-series with Walter; which gleefully doubled-down on the black satire and ultra-violence. And although a number of further unconnected mini-series from other creators followed throughout the late ’90s; by the end of the decade the concept seemed to have run it’s course.

It’s maybe worth noting that, unlike Hellboy (also Dark Horse), The Mask was always a company-owned property; the broad concept was dreamt up by publisher Mike Richardson, and the visual was created by Chris Warner. Without a dedicated creative force to drive it, maybe that’s why the character eventually slipped by the way-side. Equally, there’s nothing stopping Dark Horse now dusting-off the concept, and rebooting into a longer-form series with a contemporary creative team. Breaking Bad demonstrated that there is an audience who is willing to invest longterm in morally corrupted anti-heroes and their descent into outright villainy. Wait’ll they get a load of the Big Head Killer!