Keigen Rea — Welcome to Rereads, where I’ll be rereading a comic and discussing my feelings about it, with an eye toward if those feelings have changed or stayed the same. Generally speaking, I’ll be choosing comics that I’ve disliked or didn’t understand well on the first read, unpacking why, and hopefully coming away with a different opinion. At worst, I’m hoping to better understand my feelings about the book, ideally discovering a new love for the story.

Rereads - Phonogram: Rue Britannia

The first Rereads is Phonogram: Rue Britannia (the version found in The Complete Phonogram), by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson, and Clayton Cowles, published by Image Comics.

Why Rue Britannia?

A few reasons, really. Primarily, it’s a book by a team that I adore, separately and together. In theory, it should be a work that I love, and I’d love it to become that! For whatever reason, I just don’t get it. Hopefully, after reading all of the Gillen, McKelvie, Wilson, Cowles comics, along with other Gillen comics not involving all of the others, (but frequently involving one or more of them) I will have more context to make the connections I need in order to make Rue Britannia a meaningful story for me. The goal is to actually have an opinion on the comic, positive or negative, rather than not really knowing whether I like it or not.

I’m also craving McKelvie art, and I just read WicDiv again, so I feel like it’s time to go back to the beginning with his work. 

Pre-Reread Thoughts

I’ve read Rue Britannia twice, the first time in 2014, after Young Avenger’s conclusion, and the second in late 2017 or early 2018, during a break between arcs of The Wicked + The Divine.

I said above that I didn’t get the book, so for the reread I want to pay attention and at least note what I think the disconnect was, but ideally I will make the connection this time. I think I missed the point of Kohl’s shithead misogyny as being annoying instead of being the point. I also think that the disconnect had to do with the fact that I have no idea who most of the bands in Phonogram are, and most of the specific references make no sense to me at all. This puts some distance between me and the narrative, but I can still connect with it, I just have to apply the ideas to something I know, like Star Wars, or I guess comics now. I’m optimistic about this reread, because I’m already kind of defending it to (from?) myself! 

Rue Britannia

Hmmmm.

Alright.

Okay.

This is a dense comic. It’s a bit too long, I think. Very wordy, in other words, very Kieron Gillen.

I completely understand why I didn’t get it, especially the first time I read it. For a comic about music, I had to read a whole bunch of comics for it to make sense, but I think the ideas apply to any medium (obviously they apply to music), if you just mutate it a little bit. A fair number of Star Wars fans could use a read.

How did I not realize this was all about nostalgia? How?! Maybe it’s because I was 19 and thought this was a comic about music? Maybe the next time I just wanted more WicDiv? I don’t know, but my dumb brain missed the literal whole point of the book. Which was kind of an accidental tiny gift from past me to present me, so thanks dumb past me! What a champ.

Really, though, I just don’t think I had enough experience with the toxicity of nostalgia to connect with the way the book talks about it. I’d really only read a few New 52 comics, Hawkeye, Young Avengers, and Captain Marvel up to this point, and didn’t have much to compare to those works. To me, the New 52 was just a jumping on point, not a bunch of retromancers feeding off the corpses of gods they’d resurrected. Of course, now I don’t really need comics to understand the anger, because the new Star Wars trilogy exists to explain it. Redoing ideas is bad. All it does is keep a shambling corpse of a thing moving enough for people to throw money at, and to make creators feel like they’re a part of something that makes them feel young again.

While writing this, I started, maybe wanted is a better word, to see similarities to Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt, because that would be easy. Saying, “Peter Cannon is Rue Britannia but superheroes in 2019,” is a simple way to work through my feelings on the book, but it’s also not right. There are too many differences to just stamp it like that.

While they’re both about nostalgia, Kohl’s story and Peter’s are almost inversions of each other. Peter sees a different version of himself and realizes he needs to change, to be better. Kohl is threatened with being changed and works against the thing doing the changing, resulting in changing himself, and recognizing that he has changed. Even the thoughts on nostalgia are vastly different. Kohl rails against the idea that a crowd and a crowd of people are the same thing. He hates the idea that his identity is being simplified to fit into popularized idea. It’s past-as-general-audience-3⭐️-nothing.

Beyond that, though, the comparison of nostalgia and history is something to savor. This story doesn’t hold the past up and demand that I honor it, but it also doesn’t shit on it unnecessarily. The whole story is about valuing your past, that’s what Kohl’s conflict is, but it’s also able to point at the bad and say not to do that. We are who we are because of the events in our life, but that doesn’t mean we get to sugarcoat it.

The Kohl of it all is really interesting to me too. He’s a shithead by any measure, and really doesn’t improve much throughout Rue Britannia. For me, he’s nearly unbearably annoying in the opening issue, to the degree that my previous reads have been overwhelmed by it. What I forgot both of those times was that everything bad that happens to him is a result of his awfulness, and that came off as more satisfying to me this time. I kind of hate Kohl, and he almost always acts out of selfishness, but one day he’ll use his remaining power to teleport his best friend to New York, and that’s pretty cool. It should be highlighted that Rue Britannia is probably the story where I like Kohl the least, and later volumes and the B-Sides flesh him out more and make him more tolerable. Even with that, I realize now that Phonogram isn’t about characters who are likable so much as relatable, and Kohl is relatable, in that bad-good way.

Jamie McKelvie’s art is something to behold. Taking his most current art, McKelvie has clearly greatly improved in every way imaginable; from character design, to line work, acting, and storytelling, but what’s notable is that he was already so incredibly good. His art in Rue Britannia reminds me of early Samnee art, in a very good way, and in the way that they both were skilled enough to be considered great when they were still so early in their careers. He’s one of my favorites now, but he already was doing great work then, and the amount of the book that remains in black and white is a testament to how good it still looks. Bow to Jamie. Then be excited about The Killing Horizon because it’s gonna be tight.

Overall

Rue Britannia isn’t my favorite Gillen comic, or Gillen/McKelvie/Wilson/Cowles comic, but it’s something I have a new appreciation for and will be happy to read again in the future. In that way, this reread was a success, where I have a new comic that I enjoy.

Thanks for reading! Next time, I’ll be reading Mister Miracle by Tom King, Mitch Gerads, and Clayton Cowles.

Phonogram: Rue Britannia

Phonogram: Rue. Britannia
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Jamie McKelvie
Colorist: Matt Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Publisher: Image Comics
Britannia is ten years dead. Phonomancer David Kohl hadn't spared his old patron a thought for almost as long-- at which point his mind starts to unravel. Can he discover what's happened to the Mod-Goddess of Britpop while there's still something of himself left? A dark modern-fantasy in a world where music is magic, where a song can save your life, or end it.
Buy It Digitally: Phonogram - Rue Britannia

This piece is dedicated to Seb Patrick, whose writing on Phonogram helped me understand the series from the perspective of someone who loves it, and who loves Britpop. Terribly and surprisingly, Seb passed away recently. Here is a GoFundMe to assist his wife and daughter. If you can help, please do so, and please look at his writing. I did not personally know him, but his writing makes me wish I did.

Keigen Rea has suddenly become very busy with work and school, and would like if you tipped your servers and delivery people well. Find him @prince_organa on Twitter when he has time to be there.