It was an Enigma

I was looking a comic for my brother in my library, but I never found it. The strange thing is that I found an old comic book that I bought in London 11 years ago as I was turning 16 years old. it was such a strange coincidence, I just bought because of the company releasing it but it turned out to be so interesting, in so many ways. Vertigo Comics is DC’s mature readers line of comics, and on my 16th year I felt ready to move on to more mature stuff. Unfortunately at the time I rarely had the chance to go downtown to discover the comic bookstores of Athens, so these comics were unreachable. So here i was in London, with my English course, without my parents, in an huge bookstore, in the comics section, looking around when I saw this…

As I said the only reason i bought it was the vertigo sign, but soon I realized it was destiny. I knew nothing about Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo’s comic. I knew nothing about the creators (that then I realized have been reading in many DC and Marvel series like Batman and X-force. I knew nothing about this 8 issue mini-series. I just bought it.

The story is about Michael Smith, a compulsive, late 20’s, phon repairman living in Pacific City, California, having sex with his girlfriend only on Tuesdays. When Michael was young loved a short lived comic book series called Enigma, created by Titus Bird, an openly gay writer. 25 years after the end of the series different characters of the book start to appear in the city. The mysterious hero Enigma “a man in a mask and a cloak” was a major part of Michael’s tragic life, whose father wa skilled in an earthquake and whose mother abandoned at the age of nine. Now it’s the time for Michael to meet his childhood hero in flesh, in many ways…

The story moves back and forward in time, with fragmented flashbacks that reveal piece by piece the story of Michael and of the impersonator of Enigma. As Michael tries to discover the connections between him and the different comic characters that appear.

In his introduction to Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo’s ENIGMA, Grant Morrison says, “ENIGMA is about superheroes and the ordinary people who make superheroes and the reasons why they do it”. It’s also about sex, love, death, religious fanaticism and lizards, and it takes the superpower fantasy to the ultimate extreme. That said, it does have a bit of men-in-tights beating up on other men-in-tights.

The story was great, also I was so excited when Michael and the hottie Enigma end up in bed, while Michael thinks loudly “I cannot believe I used to do it only on Tuesday”. I have to admit i was aroused by the whole story and the few naked scenes of the comic, were part of my sexual fantasies, especially thsi tender image of Michael lost in the arms of the long haired Enigma. You may find it pathetic but i was 16, and still discovering myself, and suddenly i was holding a great gay magazine. Enigma was one of the first openly gay superheroes and a surreal comic book treating homosexuality in such loving, caring way. The whole homosexuality thing is more a case of discovering emotions.

The whole super hero cliche is followed but at the same time turned around, twisted and blown away. As a reader you enter in a really familiar environment only to meet up with so many surprises. The design also follows this direction of typial super hero costumes and design, but also express the twist of the story. Vertigo was new at the time and really fresh and was really something different. 20 years later the edge is lost, but imagine in 1993 the shock a series like that could cause. Be aware parents super heroes are not so heteronormative any more.

The story is so alive in my head, although I didn’t re-read it before writing this post. I think you can still find a copy in Amazon, and I think i saw it a couple of years ago in Athens. Still Enigma remains for me one of a kind, despite its complicated story and the fact that I must have missed things at that time. Maybe i have to read it again…

some of the original covers