Kilroy Is Here

Why is it that all eternal wanderers in the comics and fantasy world are doomed to wear the same ragged trench coat and sport the same haunted eyes and face-shading hair? Pruett's Kilroy is just such a wanderer, a nocturnal figure of vengeance who is drawn to suffering and misery like a vampire to a fresh wound, and feeds off taking revenge on the evildoers he finds there. This collection is written by Pruett but features a variety of different artists, including Tim Bradstreet, Michael Avon Oeming and Phil Hester. The stories jump from one historical atrocity to the next, be it the Cambodian killing fields, Tiananmen Square or Sarajevo, imparting a modicum of historical knowledge along with Kilroy's tedious speech making about man's inhumanity toward man. Looking like nothing so much as a cut-rate Sandman, Kilroy deals out death in satisfyingly hideous ways to the killers of the innocent. But as the collection grinds on, the monotony of the black-and-white artwork starts to wear, as does the book's lack of cohesion. (Aug.)