The fine folks at Ablaze, publishers of mostly European comics of the type that isn’t classy enough for Fantagraphics or old-fashioned enough for Cinebook¹, have recently begun to serialize Torpedo 1972, by writer Enrique Sánchez Abulí and artist Eduardo Risso², in English. This is the sequel to the original Torpedo series (sometimes called Torpedo 1936), also written by Abuli with artist Jordi Bernet³, an historical crime story, much beloved in its native Spain. I thought this new volume was as good an excuse as any to go back to the original series, published in English by IDW across five volumes⁴.

Being unfamiliar with Torpedo 1936, beyond the general concept and the obvious flashiness of Bernet’s art, I assumed I knew what I was getting into. Our protagonist would be the typical tough guy, capable of violence yet only resorting to it when needed; he would be a hard man, a capable man, a ladies man; the typical noir hero as elaborated upon by Chandler. Sure, he’ll kill people for money, but hired hitmen are not strangers to noir, or even noir comics⁵, he’ll only kill people who deserve it. Either by moral choice, like Ennis and McCrea’s Hitman, or by simple narrative power – the story will make sure only bad men would find themselves in front of his gun. I couldn’t be more wrong.

At first glance, this is exactly the kind of story we’re getting here. Bernet draws 1930s New York like a true romantic – every woman is a ‘dame’ with a starlet’s look, every man is a tough guy with a mug to stop a truck in its track. The protagonist, Luca Torelli, AKA Torpedo, has the right kind of suit, a cool scar (the kind that’s seemingly there only to accentuate his manliness), knows how to light a cigar and how to handle a gun. He is also, and I’m not writing this lightly, probably the worst human being seen in comics. A killer, yes, obviously, but not the kind of killer that asks whether the target of the day ‘deserves’ it. A product of his time, obviously, racist, misogynist, homophobe… fiction has a way to massage these qualities as well⁶. Also – a rapist.

The first time it happens, a short story with no title in the first volume, I was rather shocked. Hired by a poor crying woman, Torpedo agrees to take the job before forcefully kissing her, while she resists, saying, “that’s just my retainer baby… I’ll collect the rest later.” Indeed, once the job is done, Torpedo rips her clothes and proceeds to sexually assault her before slapping her away. This is just not done in these types of stories, certainly not by the protagonists – women are meant to throw themselves at his feet⁷. Not in Torpedo; not a single volume passes without several accounts of rape, culminating in the long story⁸ that stretches across a third of Volume 3. This particularly nasty piece ends with Torpedo leading his crew in a vicious gang-rape of a woman who betrayed him⁹.

It’s a horrible scene. Doubly horrible because this is the protagonist we’ll follow for more stories to come; triple horrible because (like much of the violence in Torpedo) it’s played for grisly laughs; quadruple horrible because how ‘cool’ Berent’s art is throughout – Bernet draws Torpedo with the romance of Darwyn Cooke¹⁰, but Abuli writes it with grinning contempt of a Mark Millar type¹¹.

As the volumes pile on and depths to which Torelli reaches sink ever lower, it became clear to me that this is both the series’ strength and weakness. Weakness, because Abuli deals with some heavy subjects here and he simply cannot treat them seriously, everything in his world is equal¹². Strength, because in Torpedo all these manufactured notions about the ‘cool killer’ ever-present in pretty much any medium for at least a century now, go to die¹³. I don’t know if that’s what Abuli intended, but what you have on the page is the portrait of the professional criminal as true pond scum. Torelli is good at killing, and many stories show his success is more down to the stupidity of his targets and his sheer ruthlessness, and that’s about it. Nobody would read Torpedo and want to be Luca Torelli

He’s an idiot, constantly mixing words and metaphors, easily fooled (more than once his hapless sidekick Rascal gets one over him) and, as mentioned, finds it hard to get a woman without resorting to violence. The amount of stories that end with Torpedo ‘losing,’ either failing the job or missing out on the payment, is breathtaking. This isn’t a morality play, like the EC comics of old, Torelli isn’t punished by fate or the universe – if that’s the intention his punishment is certainly nowhere near what a scum like him deserves. This is just a depiction of a world that is rotten to the core, Torpedo is just another worm crawling through the big rotten apple. Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he fails, yet the world keeps turning either way. In a way, it feels close to the world as depicted by The Sopranos¹⁴ – these are people operating in a world well-versed in the simulacra of the gangster, the thing that is never real and never was, yet is more familiar and accepted to the public, while representing something much less romantic¹⁵. 

This sort of anti-romanticism continues into Torpedo 1972 – taking place four decades later. Torelli is older but in no way wiser. He continues to be the exact sort of person he was as a young man¹⁶ – including the sexual assault. This series even opens with a shot from The Godfather, not only grounding the story in concrete time (as if the title is not enough), but also contrasting the charismatic, dapper, Don Corleone, with lecherous viewers of 1970’s New York. I like Bernet more than I like Eduardo Risso, overall, but Risso is probably a much better fit for what the story is trying to do¹⁷. You can sense the dripping ugliness of the world in Risso’s depiction of the city and the people that inhabit it, while Bernet’s art is, by default, aimed at depicting beauty¹⁸. 

I can’t say Torpedo 1972 is ‘necessary.’ The original Torpedo wasn’t some grand narrative, but, rather, a bunch of shorts that could be read in any particular order¹⁹. Nothing in the series calls for an ending, for a closure. Torpedo is a man who shouldn’t die because he never really grew up. A singular entity representing the rottenness of the world. Death, either as punishment or release, doesn’t really apply to him in any way. But if we must return to the scene of the crime at least we get to see Risso drawing it in his own way, recognizable enough as a sequel without fully sublimating itself to Bernet. 

Torpedo, either 1936 or 1972, is not exactly a series I can ‘recommend,’ certainly without a heaping dose of warnings²⁰. Even so, there is value to it, a story that, intentionally or not, is utterly stripped of delusions about its main character; who is willing to fully commit, without a hint of regret, to the horror that is humankind at its lowest – “That the play is the tragedy, “Man,” / And its hero, the Conqueror Worm²¹.”

1.  Whenever I write about European comics in the English-speaking world, please insert a long sigh about the premature death of EuroComics in print – we ardly knew ye!
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2.  It’s so nice to see someone finally took a plier to the Risso / Azzarello partnership. 
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3. Original series artist was meant to be Alex Toth, who didn’t last long on the series for reasons which shall be elaborated upon shortly. ↩︎
4.  Remember when IDW did translations of classic Euro comics? not so long ago, yet it feels like an eternity.
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5.  John Wagner and Arthur Ranson’s Button Man or Matz and Luc Jacamon’s The Killer spring to mind.
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6.  The very use of “product of his time” is already part of the process. ↩︎
7.  Even if they show token resistance at first
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8.  Most stories are around 10 pages with titles, but some can run shorter or longer and appear with no titles.
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9.  There should definitely be a content warning on these books, I didn’t see anything on either cover or back cover, even if you’re the type of person who isn’t particularly bothered by fictionalized depictions of violence there is no harm in letting the audience know.  
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10.  Bernet is as obvious inspiration for Cooke as they come; almost as much as Alex Toth – which probably means Torpedo was a sacred text for the man.
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11.  The clear difference, in favor of Abuli, is that Millar’s writing often sweats with an effort to shock the reader, while Abuli writes everything with the same even approach – it’s shocking because Abuli doesn’t treat it as if it’s meant to. The rape is simply another part of Torpedo’s world, just much as is the killing for payment or walking across the street. The man treats all facets of life with a level of contempt.
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12.  Equal to a dog poo on the sidewalk.
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13.  Probably shot in the back in some dark alley.
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14.  Though lacking much of the sophistication and depth of character that made The Sopranos what it is.
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15.  Not that Torpedo is close to being realistic – simply that its notions of a ‘gangster’ lack the sort of romanticism that became imbued with the character type throughout years of entertaining fiction. 
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16.  Flashbacks to his boyhood throughout the original series show he didn’t really grow up even from the one-digit age.
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17.  Even though they insist on doing it in color, a bad choice in my opinion. While the colors aren’t ‘bad’ in Torpedo 1976, they don’t really add to the texture of Risson’s artwork.
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18.  Risso in Torpedo 1972 actually feels closer in style to modern Frank Miller; though not quite as stylistic twisted – the art departs from the design-heavy school towards something closer to caricature. 
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19.  Don’t try to make sense of Torpedo’s life the way Don Rosa tried to do with Cark Bark’s work – apparently he killed a triple-digit number of people in 1936 while also being involved with dozens of clashing criminal syndicates while also spending some time in the slammer – that way lies madness.
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20.  Even ignoring the content issue Abuli’s scripts seem content to remain the same, there’s hardly any growth in the quality of writing between volumes – and the repetitive structure means reading Volume four feels the same as reading Volume one. It’s all more of the same.
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21.  Edgar Allan Poe.
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