The Blood Brothers Mother #1 Review: Horrors of the Old West Revisited

The Blood Brothers Mother #1 is working in the tradition of many great Westerns as it presents a nihilistic vision of violent men defining the territory before them to match their own grim visage; the issue's solicit even calls to works like The Searchers and Blood Meridian. It sets a very high bar for expectations and the series' debut summons career-best work from artist Eduardo Risso in delivering the aesthetic in a fashion only imaginable on the comics page. However, it remains to be seen if the series can match the thematic weight of such works in addition to their terrible violence.

The first issue functions primarily as prologue and asserts as much on the first few pages in which the eldest Blood brother narrates that before his story can unfold readers must first see his father's. And so readers are introduced to Carter Cain, a cold-blooded outlaw who readily carries a grudge and kills without hesitation. His release from prison introduces readers to his history, his gang, and his penchant for violence. 

Risso's blend of pencils and watercolors paints Cain's often terrifying reintroduction to society in the iconic imagery and colors of the American Southwest. Oranges and reds at sunset provide an undeniable beauty that reflects the blood-stained, wretched acts of Cain's cohort. In this vision of the Old West, Hobbes' state-of-nature is at play in an unending war of all against all in which Cain is an apex predator. Risso delivers the natural world surrounding all of this in spectacular glimpses of the natural world juxtaposed with terrible imagery of the state-of-nature.

Readers ought to be aware that in a sequence set to evoke McCarty's most terrible descriptions, Risso graphically portrays sexual assault in a series of pages bound to repel some readers altogether. I sometimes find it difficult to judge sequences like this in a serialized format where the complete narrative context is absent. Westerns, like those sited in the debut's solicit, have considered the darkest of human themes with all of the weight and gravitas they merit. They've also been used to generate exploitive dreck. For now I withhold judgment as the series unfolds, but urge readers wary of sexual violence to pass on this issue.

As a fond reader of both Cormac McCarthy and 100 Bullets, though, I find myself primarily intrigued. As Cain emerges from Mexico, readers find his son Daniel in a peaceful, almost idyllic, life in a border town that predictably comes crashing down about him. The framing of Daniel's life with two, too-cute younger (likely half-)brothers, an earnest preacher for a step-father, and ill-defined, but Madonna-like mother provides a biblical framing for events to come and a scenario already wrought with tension as soon as Cain enters the frame.

Events play out with the sort of work that made Risso an iconic artist of crime comics with unbelievably tense scenes stacked with inset panels that develop the sequence in unnerving fashion. Action sequences are filled with surprises and never deny the realities of violence. It's still stunning how beautifully Risso portrays the ugliest of circumstances.

The Blood Brothers Mother #1 is an undeniable success in delivering a nihilistic vision of the Western portraying bleak men against a harsh environment. Whether it can meet the ambition of crafting a compelling statement about humanity's nature is yet to be seen, but as a genre-vehicle it will more than satisfy readers who crave the next Bone Tomahawk or Hell or High Water, ready to see bad men and innocent boys alike damn themselves.

Published by DSTLRY

On May 1, 2024

Written by Brian Azzarello

Art by Eduardo Risso

Colors by Eduardo Risso

Letters by Jared K. Fletcher

Cover by Eduardo Risso