I'd never read more than a few episodes out of this entire collection, and I'd really been looking forward to it.
It's a strange one, but I enjoyed it greatly.
Starting with the best aspect, Langley's art on the bulk of the pages is a breath of fresh, lively air - I honestly think his Blood God 'revealed' is one of the greatest creature designs in the history of the comic, genuinely disturbing and dimensionally-twisted. His Sláine has such a different style from any of his predecessors (or indeed his own later work) that it takes a few episodes to get used to, and then it really shines with detail, energy and bare bottoms. Oh so many lovely bare bottoms.
Both the basic concept and the plot were quite surprising, and very interesting. Hearing about the story over the years, and from the few pages I'd read, I hadn't liked the idea of 'Sláine as Robin, Niamh as Marian' but the heavy-handed Millsian slant means that it actually works well. I enjoyed the usual Mills take on witches and trials, on the God of Lies and his True Name (and nature), and his version of the Merry Men as the Wild Hunt. I also think that this storyline makes more sense of the 'time-travelling warrior for the Goddess' concept than earlier or later examples that I have read, managing to reconcile or maybe just merge the Cythrons, Dark Gods, dimensional shenanigans and time-spirals with the more fantasy-based Goddess/Cauldron/reincarnation aspect.
Then there are the weaker aspects. Greg Staples' art (in my copy at least) is impenetrably murky - sometimes I had to shine my bedside lamp directly on to the page to pick out the figures. I can well believe that this is a reproduction issue, but even so, there are problems: in stark contrast to the art on the earlier B&W stories (Bellardinelli, McMahon, Fabry, Pugh, Collins) which revelled in the details of the settings, there is absolutely no sense of place here. There are virtually no backgrounds, and when there are they are just hint of snowy forest, generic craggy mountain.
I could just about buy this with Bisley, because The Horned God had the timeless placeless epic quality, but what is the point of transporting Sláine to the very-specific milieu of England 1140AD if it looks like Generic Fantasy World? Surely the fantastic elements of the forest folk should be contrasted with the realistic grime of Norman Britain? Marian's tiled-floor abbey is the only location that gives any sense of it being somewhere other. Seeing as Greg has turned in some excellent Sláine in his time, and indeed there are some fabulous pages here (the Ukko splash in particular) I can't help feeling that this is a problem of the painted art period full-stop, but it's one that reaches its zenith here.
Langley's art isn't entirely devoid of this problem either, with his backgrounds having a fantastic dimension that doesn't scream medieval England to me, but at least there's sufficient detail in clothes, set-dressing and architecture to be sure that this isn't some non-descript corner of Tir-na-nÓg.
Then there's the real problem: structure. There is far too much recapping, repetition of information and phrases (yes, I know it's a storytelling convention), random dead-ends and then an abrupt 'one year later' finish to make for a truly satisfying one-sitting read. For me, the succession of quickly-offed villains from the abbot to the Sheriff to the priest-guy stall the narrative repeatedly. I appreciate that stops and starts in original publication probably created this problem, but I'm judging it harshly purely on the collection. It's a very noble effort, but the overall result doesn't really do justice to the story.
But those moans are small-beer compared to a dense yet lively and very fun read, which continues the twin Sláine traditions of innovative and gob-smacking art and clever twists on familiar tales. With each of these reprint volumes, I find myself re-evaluating my should-really-have-ended-with-The-Horned-God position.
