This story serves as the conclusion to the ‘original’
quartet of Spencer Nero stories – that is, the last of the first four
full-length story ideas I had when I originally came up with the series. (The
one and two-pagers were all written much later.) I have a bit of an obsession
with the South Pole, particularly the Terra Nova expedition, and knew from the
off that I wanted to set a Spencer Nero story there. My first idea indeed
involved Robert Falcon Scott’s party, specifically the ghost of Captain
Lawrence Oates, and was going to be called ‘Spencer Nero and the Gallant
Gentleman’ after John Charles Dollman’s haunting painting of Oates ‘stepping
outside’. The problem, of course, was that I’d already done a story about Spencer
encountering the ghost of a dead explorer in ‘Spencer Nero and the White
Spider’, so that idea was reluctantly set aside. Likewise, fond as I am of H.P.
Lovecraft, I had absolutely no intention of regurgitating the similarly polar
‘At the Mountains of Madness’.
But I did want to pay tribute to Ray Harryhausen, the
special effects model-master who sadly passed away not long after the story
came out. If there’s an influence present in ‘...Goes South’, then Harryhausen
is it, particularly the similarly polar ‘Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger’.
Ekhidna, for instance, is a fair amalgam of several of Harryhausen’s beautiful
beasts (Medusa via the Kraken, principally – like a ‘Clash of the Titans’
greatest hits.) Plus – hydras, chimeras and great big pigs! What more do you
want in a comic? (A decent script? Well, you’re not getting one of those, so
just enjoy the beasts.) Let’s pick out a few comment-worthy moments to dwell on–
though these are largely just an excuse to showcase the wonderful art of James
Corcoran, making his hugely welcome return to the strip.
From the first panel, James shows us this is going to be
something special, art-wise – I love the way the boat’s shadow, plus a few
floating pieces of ice, create the image of the Janus Mask.
Here, Bonaventure Nero, Spencer’s uncle, makes his first
flashback appearance – it won’t be his last. He and his nephew both derive
their names from the actor Spencer Tracy – Bonaventure was Tracy’s middle name.
Having Spencer brought up by an uncle whose subsequent fate he feels guilty for
may be an unintentional nod to ‘Spider-Man’, although rather than breeding a
sense of responsibility in Spencer, the exact opposite happens – it’s his cue
to blame everything on someone else!
The Supra-Centurion’s been name-checked several times in the
strip to date, but now we find out a little more about the Janus Cult’s master –
it turns out he was a bloodthirsty lunatic who fantasised about slaying
creatures that didn’t exist. This probably surprises no-one.
And speaking of creatures - I do like to see a great big pig
in my comics. It is a motif of which I’m very fond. The idea of including
frightening hogs in my scripts is a nod of the head to my favourite author,
William Hope Hodgson, who seemed, as China Mieville put it, “to have had
serious misgivings about pigs”. (Read ‘The House on the Borderland’ to see
these misgivings in terrifying action.)
More fear with the exquisite Ekhidna – she’s a crowning
triumph of James’s art. Going back to the Harryhausen connection, in one of his
books, Harryhausen noted that his design for Medusa incorporated horrible
features atop a beautiful bone structure – I wanted a bit of that for Ekhidna
as well (it seems to have been made manifest in her cheekbones.) James has also
given her an extra pair of arms, which just adds to the Dynamation potential of
the character. Imagine seeing a stop-motion version of this creature crawling
around the Antarctic! The ‘real’ Ekhidna is a genuine monster out of Greek
mythology, who did indeed spawn a whole host of abominations – she certainly
kept the Greek mythic heroes busy, as her multiple offspring bedevilled
Hercules, Theseus, Bellerophon, Prometheus, Perseus, Jason and Odysseus. The
father of most of these beasts was the monstrous Typhon – for my version of Ekhidna, I’ve assumed she
can give birth to creatures without needing a mate at all, but the results are
less impressive than if they’re fathered by some unfortunate soul.
So, that was ‘Spencer Nero Goes South’ – probably my favourite
episode of the strip to date, even if the script does turn into a big mad scramble
to cram everything in at the end (let’s just call it an attempt to represent
the chaos of battle.) Luckily for me, James’s art really sells the frenetic
nature of the denouement, complimenting his cracking creature designs. Beautiful stuff.
