In '95, Dark Horse started what the Grand Comics Database defines as a 17-issue The Mask ongoing series, but which looks like a bunch of barely connected mini-series. The first 5 issues, subtitled "The Mask Strikes Back," are the only ones done by the Arcudi/Mahnke creative team.
Set after "The Mask Returns", the mini-series starts with a teenager, inspired by Big-Head's anti-establishment shtick, nosing around the pier where Kathy fought Walter. Rick finds the mask, but he, and in turn, each of his three roomies, learn the same lesson Kellaway and Kathy did: You can't control the mask, or harness it to your will. Mahnke's not inking himself here, so the art looks busier and a bit overdone. He does get the opportunity to do some new stuff when different characters wear the mask. Hugo looks outwardly normal, but sees everything around him as like looking into a funhouse mirror through a lava lamp. Ben's attempt to become 'the speed metal messiah' falls to pieces, but when he's clocked over the head with a speaker, its knob is suddenly able to go to 11 and he can scream a lot louder. But otherwise, the mask is still much like one of those fables about genies that grant your wishes in the cruelest ways possible.
So let's talk about Walter, the big galoot up there. Walter's a constant issue across all 3 stories. He survives being shot by both Kellaway-Mask and Kathy-Mask, is electrocuted, burned with a flamethrower, hit with a car, falls out of a third story hospital window, and gets attacked by a lion with 14-carat gold teeth. None of it seems to do more than inconvenience him briefly.
Walter never speaks, and his behavior's marked by cruelty and indifference to everyone. While in prison early in The Mask Returns, we see one inmate telling others Walter's not so bad, and greeting the guy in a friendly manner. Walter backhands the guy out of the way hard enough to probably break his arm. When told he's getting early parole, that same guy congratulates him. Walter backhands him again even harder.
There's never any real motive discussed for anything Walter does. He doesn't seem to need money, as several mob bosses are eager to throw new clothes and money at him. The best guess is he's a sadist (and a masochist as we see him drive nails into his palm in the form of a smiley face this story), and he think the mask will help him go even further in those endeavors. Which makes it all the stranger he didn't seize the chance when Kathy pulled off the mask and threw it at his feet. Was their fight him wanting revenge for losing, and it was only after realizing "Big-Head" was just some lady, he grasped the potential of the mask?
He does get hold of the mask here, but it won't go on. They did the same bit in the cartoon, so I think the gag is Walter's skull is too big, even for Big Head. But part of me thinks its because, if the mask unleashes what's inside a person, with Walter, there's nothing to unleash. He already does whatever he wants, whenever he wants. The mask would be redundant.
4 comments:
Is Walter supposed to be a parody of Sin City's Marv?
I'm not sure. It looks like the second issue of the first mini-series (which is Walter's first appearance, trying to kill Kellaway-Mask) came out in the summer of '91. Miller's first Sin City story ran in the 5th Anniversary Dark Horse Presents in April of '91. It'd be a pretty short turnaround by Arcudi/Mahnke.
Hm, yes that is very tight timing for either to be inspired by the other. But they are so similar! I wonder if there's something that they are both referencing, or if it's just a coincidence?
Well, this mini-series came out in '95, so maybe by this point they decided to mimic Marv's look for Walter (although he looks a different once he gets into a nice suit)?
I always figured Walter was a play on Frankenstein, or maybe the Terminator. Big, silent, can absorb a lot of punishment, just sort of slowly plods along in a relentless fashion, but I don't know if Arcudi or Mahnke ever talked about inspirations.
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