Sleeper, The Power of Pain & Pleasure!

Pain and pleasure are the ultimate control

"You never realize how beautiful pain is, until it's gone. Until you have to COMBINE pleasure and pain to get even the slightest tingle."

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Those who are hovering above us with their hands, causing us indescribable pain, they gain their pleasure ... seeking control. It's always been like that.

As the main theme of the story reflected on the main character .. he can't feel any pleasure unless a little pain comes along with it. It's utterly scary & monstrous for a very dark story. Provided by superpowers & chain of commands, and what's our real world, really ... its dark side of absolute monsters! A picture of hunting, a picture of surviving, a picture of a huge cage. It's a long ride.. ironic, harsh, cruel, funny and pretty damn good.

"My life has become Post-Ironic. That's when there's so goddamn much irony in everything that you do, that it collapses on top of itself. It stops being funny, even as a black comedy. Even twenty years later, assuming you survive, you won't look back and laugh. You'll look back and shiver... maybe even get sick"

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These kinds of quotes. what I love about Ed Brubaker, what kept me hungry for his stories. touching me with imaginary lives only by simple words. Nothing big, just confused people, struggling, making their choices by their desperation of hoping that it'll all work out fine in the end... just like me, just like all of us. But the thing is with Ed, not many people like his ways with endings.. but I really like it, most of the time. He makes it in a combination of shocking but in a satisfying way .. hopeless and sorrowful.

And maybe from this work Ed & Sean took their partnership seriously, to create after a few years their great Criminal series. Which's really not that different, except making it more about the real world and what lack of opportunities can do... and really relatable.

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Back to Sleeper .. I'm really surprised how good it is, but not surprised how much I like Ed's storytelling... at this point, my admiration is beyond any reach. The first couple of issues? They were mostly about the idea I presented in the beginning, or at least that's how I saw it, in the middle he shifted it to operations, jobs and other things, just like in Criminal. Drifting to past, future and characters come out of nowhere, just like life... along with the suspicion atmosphere, paranoia. It's a mix of different themes, Ed Brubaker plays with them fascinatingly!

In Sleeper, everyone got a past that made them who they are, sometimes it's a dumb one, sometimes it's a strange one and other times it's a goddamn scary & broken one. That's... I mean all of that made the whole story memorable, alive .. in every corner, in every station with every issue. Remarkable!

Sean's art is fine but surely his other works and what came after Sleeper is glowing with every one of them. But here, it was bound to deliver the story, it kind of did. It's very similar to Kill or be Killed (2017) but in it, Sean was better at handling the pages, they weren't complicated, or better to say they were easy to look at. Here with Sleeper, more than 10 years ago, a lot of the time his handling of the panels and pages in general blocks his work, and any detailed things might help in introducing the atmosphere a little better.

"But the moment that door shuts I run like hell. I run away ..."

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Control comes from the fact that people got things to lose if they didn't yield. It comes from the fact people are willing to do anything to secure a safe road for themselves through the long journey of life. And others can use that, so they can be in control... they live on it, they don't know themselves without it.

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"How strange that the last shred of sympathy I have for anyone in this world is for a woman who is physically incapable of feeling any herself."

There was always this idea about "breaking the rules" and that it's a fun thing, it's somehow will make you feel alive or something. Sleeper approached this to make it within a character. So let's meet together with ... Miss Misery!

With her, Ed can unleash the ultimate madness & violence. It's as if her existence is one hell of misery for us to see. the irony he introduced in her is amazing. Do you know that silly feeling? when you enjoy something that isn't yours, but you enjoy the hell out of it.. And once you get it for yourself, it's no longer interest you. This is close to this idea, rules! and what if we break them? is it actually in our nature to be savages? ..... Miss Misery was the most uncomfortable character (created by Ed) for me!

A huge book, a brilliant mix, and a pretty good story.

Admiration grows, never stops!