A very long time ago - nearly 7 years - we looked at the comic based on The Mask cartoon. Wow, I way underestimated how long it'd take to get here. But before the cartoon, before Jim Carrey and "Cuban Pete" and smooooooooookin' hot Cameron Diaz, there was John Arucdi and Doug Mahnke's Dark Horse mini-series.
The first adventure - originally published in a book called Mayhem, and later reprinted as a 0 issue - is the only one that actually features Stanley Ipkiss. Ipkiss buys the mask for his girlfriend Kathy, then finds out about its powers after putting it on for a prank. Ipkiss does take revenge on people he thinks wronged him, but is more lethal here, and revisits old grudges, even killing an elementary school teacher he felt humiliated him as a child. After fighting, and killing, a lot of cops, Stanley decides to leave town. When he takes off the mask to pack, Kathy, having pieced it together, kills him.
So most of the mini-series is Kathy bringing the mask to Lt. Kellaway, the cop who was trying to bring in "Big-Head," but not explaining why the mask is dangerous. Frustrated after being stymied in his attempt to keep a suspected killer locked up (thanks to a crooked assistant District Attorney), Kellaway tries on the mask, and away we go.
Unlike the movie, using the mask doesn't help anyone grow as a person here. Stanley becomes kind of a gun-nut, wearing camo and poring over his list of enemies. When Kathy gets tired of his attitude and says so, he comes close to striking her before catching himself at the last second. Kellaway starts terrorizing suspects and witnesses, each time digging the hole deeper for himself. When he enters a hostage situation in a restaurant, intending to use the mask to stop it and become a big hero, he ends up fired because all the mob guys died, most of them violently. For example, two shoot each other, through him. Basically, the mask becomes addictive at the same time it brings out a person's worst qualities.
In a change from later stories, Arcudi has the mask actually speak to people when they aren't wearing it. Sometimes we can see the speech balloons, sometimes we can't. Mahnke also draws it making faces sometimes while it's just sitting on a shelf. Near the end of this mini-series, it and Kellaway are clearly having a disagreement about their actions while he's wearing it.
For all that "Big Head" is a cartoon character and so the damage never sticks, Mahnke does get pretty gory with it. Kellaway shoots himself through the hand as a test, then we get a panel of him peering at us through the hole as it drips blood. When he disguises himself as other people, the disguise comes off like a layer of skin, leaving bloody trails as it pulls away from his face. It's more of a horror story than a superhero story. The monster that gets shot in the head and barely acts perturbed. Except when he gets very angry and suddenly he's swinging a battle axe that came from nowhere at you.
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