Written by: Eric Powell and Tim Wiesch
Art by: Eric Powell
Publisher: Image Comics
Big Man Plans #3 was an issue that grew on me. While the first two issues brought us great story and great action respectively, this third issue is a seemingly slow burn of a story that suddenly brings the action in the most brilliant and bloody of ways. They dangled the skeleton of the story in front of my face in the first issue, they let me taste blood in the second, and by the beginning of the third issue I was so frenzied on the action that I hungered for more while scoffing at the slow start and story the issue spends most of its time on.
By the end of the issue, it became apparent that this is what writers Eric Powell and Tim Wiesch wanted all along.
Big Man Plans has been a really great series centered around the very definition of an anti-hero seeking vengeance. Powell and Wiesch have so far been expertly crafting the titular character Big Man into someone we have no problem defining. A man bullied and teased endlessly is now the seeker of justice. A man who has no problems killing those who once tortured him while simultaneously standing up for anyone else who has trouble standing up for themselves. He’s an interesting and sympathetic character which makes the inevitable rivers of blood all the more enjoyable.
This third issue, however, is where Powell and Wiesch seem to turn that in on the reader. After a rather brilliant opening in which we see just how far Big Man will go to protect others, the story turns oddly slow as we learn more about Big Man and his family as well as those that he essentially considered to be family. After the rather rambunctious first two issues it seemed somewhat dragging. Big Man means blood! Big Man means gore! Big Man doesn’t sit around and watch soap operas while he nurses his wounds! Bring me more fighting and killing! But it’s precisely that idea that makes the slower parts so good once the violence does start up again.
When the violence ramps up it comes back with a vengeance. It no longer seems fun or vengeful. It instead looks like the pained acts of a man who’s been so spat on by the world that he doesn’t mind turning back some of that cruelty on the people who first inflicted it themselves. Big Man begins to make things much more personal in one of the bloodiest and wildest finishes to a comic I’ve ever seen. And it’s beautiful. It’s brilliant. I cheered it on and eagerly licked my lips as the blood kept spilling.
And that’s when it hit me. The slower parts of this issue weren’t there to bore us. They were here to remind us of just how broken and sad this man actually is. Big Man was thrust into violence early on simply for existing. Big Man has spent his whole life being on the receiving end of violence until violence became the only way he could live himself. A few days of watching soaps might not be the average Big Man night but what’s not to say that, in a happier world, that that would have been the ideal Big Man night? That he may actually want to be flipping channels instead of knocking out teeth?
Powell and Wiesch manage to bring a rather staggering amount of softness and depth to Big Man in this issue that just furthers how good this series has been in creating both a riveting narrative and a stellar character within a 4 issue miniseries. It’s actually so good that I’m almost embarrassed for writers who fail to cement their characters as actual people after an entire run. Writers need to take note of how Powell and Wiesch turn a bloody revenge tale into something more than blood and broken bones.
Powell’s art is fantastic as ever and I’m just going to say that he goes all out in this issue. The last half of the comic has some of the most gruesome yet beautifully illustrated pages I’ve seen in awhile and I found myself being drawn into the gore not for the sake of gore but into the way that Powell seems to articulate the various levels of Big Man’s pain according to how bloody things get. It makes for a powerful storytelling element that you find yourself cheering on while simultaneously being sickened at the sight of it. Powell also does an outstanding job of using various color hues to represent different time frames and storytelling moments which make even these panels seem more like an extension of Big Man as opposed to just some art on a page.
Big Man Plans #3 surprised me by becoming my favorite issue of this miniseries thus far and it’s really become a rather brilliant piece of work that both Powell and Wiesch should be proud of. With one more issue to go, this series may easily become one of the best miniseries in recent memory to release and will probably make an outstanding trade to own when that inevitably releases. I’m going to be sad to see it end but I’m ready to see exactly what the Big Man planned on his road to redemption.
