Reviews

Enigma: The Definitive Edition by Peter Milligan

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ostrava's review against another edition

5.0

Quite possibly one of the best comic books I've read. It seems at first like a low-brand recreation of Watchmen and it... transcends it? As opposed to simply being a deconstruction of the superhero genre, Enigma also touches on personal themes of sexuality and the self. While Watchmen empathizes on the structures of the world (the one of society, the one of narratives, in the search for meaning on the outside...), Enigma goes for the individual (the one of the self, and the meaning in ourselves) which works WONDERS as a contrast.

This shit is GENIUS. No rushed rant could ever do it justice! If I was you, I wouldn't think twice about reading this giga-masterpiece of a comic. GENIUS I tell you!

jeremyjfloyd's review

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adventurous challenging funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

quetzelish's review against another edition

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4.0

This was a weird book. The artwork is very good despite it being hard to tell what's going on at times. What I mean is that the art is very stylistic, with heavy shadows and rough lines. It isn't a clean style but it works well for the story. Speaking of, the story is certainly an odd one. The imagery is surreal and the plot, while making sense by the end, certainly is all over the place. All in all, a great book but a very strange read. Dark, twisted and oddly poignant, it makes for a story unlike any other.

chamblyman's review

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5.0

A beautiful new edition of this groundbreaking graphic novel originally published in 1993. Enigma explored identity, sexuality, and mental illness through a meta-textual superhero mystery decades before it became hip in comics like The Umbrella Academy and Saga, or TV shows like Legion. Milligan's barely on the rails narrative loop-de-loops and Fegredo's itchy-scratchy-electric artwork are a perfect marriage for this dark head-trip of a story. Imagine David Lynch re-imagining The Shadow!

zepysgirl's review against another edition

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3.0

Can’t quite decide what I think of this one.

btmarino84's review against another edition

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5.0

"If it wasn't for the fact that a monster called The Head was plunging a metal pipe up his nose preparatory to sucking his brains out, Michael Smith could almost laugh."

Peter Milligan shows that, even if is was a bit less famous, he deserves to have the same praise that other "British Invasion" guys like Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore do. Like Jamie Delano and Paul Jenkins, Milligan has not had quite the success or "mainstream" acceptance of those guys (though some of Milligan's work was as critically acclaimed, much of it was hard to find. It really is a shame that his Shade the Changing Man series is not as well collected and bought as things like Animal Man, Sandman, Hellblazer, and Transmetropolitan. It's all part of Karen Berger's glorious editorial work and just as big a part of Vertigo's importance as a publisher) but his work is as interesting and entertaining as most anything published by them and he continues to do great work today. This comic in particular is a beautiful, bizarre, hilarious and psychedelic mess that, though it shares certain characteristics with some of those other people, could only have come from his unique brain. The art is chaotic and dreamlike, with certain things seeming out of focus or slightly obscured, like a nightmare. The coloring goes along with this with a bleeding watercolor style to it.