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Fight Club 2 #10
Released by: Dark Horse Comics
Released on: March 30th, 2016.
Written by: Chuck Pahalniuk
Illustrated by: Cameron Stewart
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The first rule is you don't talk about it, but having now finished the tenth and final issue of Chuck Pahalniuk and Cameron Stewart's Fight Club 2, well, once you get there you've just got to write about it. If you're not caught up at this point, wait for the trade. You'll be lost. This isn't light reading, you need to pay attention and you need to remove yourself from the world to properly take it all in. Ready? Set? Go.
Tyler's minions have stolen countless works of insanely valuable art. Sebastian's son is possessed by Tyler and they have to fight. Marla and Sebastian might have found just what they need to bring the spark back into their marriage while all around them, the world seems to be crumbling. Nukes are going off and our heroes may very well die in a weird old salt mine. BOOM. CRASH. FWOOSH. WOOSH. New York City falls, followed by KBOOM London and Paris, Moscow, Sydney, BOOM Hollywood, CHOOM Rome, Delhi, Rio De Janeiro as Christ looks out from atop the city, his stone arms eternally stretched out but clearly useless in this situation.
But in Portland, Oregon? Chuck Pahalniuk's stomping grounds? A bluebird whistles a happy tune. Our writer clenches his fist, raises it in the air and pronounces 'happily ever after' as his French bulldogs look on from the other room. The roundtable of women drinking wine at his table look at him, almost with disgust, one of them calling his work 'some warmed-over Atlas Shrugged redux.' They discuss the merits of his ending amongst themselves as the comic switches between their conversation and panels that may or may not be showing us what happens to Sebastian et al. Is it all 'deus ex machina territory' as one of his friends puts it?
Tyler pounds a podium and commands his minions to cut off the head. Pahalniuk tricks the trickster. Did Chuck ejaculate prematurely? Fini! Then the dogs start barking, because there are some people at the door. Fuck who you want to fuck. In the book, the ending was different. You can't teach God anything. And just when it looks like it's all going to end at Cannon Beach (a beautiful spot to spend a lovely afternoon on the Oregon coast)…. HIS NAME WAS ROBERT PAULSON. Coal can eventually become a diamond but Tyler? He forgot the big line.
How do you sum up something that leaves you with nothing to say? That story synopsis is vague and uses Pahalniuk's words as much as my own, no deception intended there at all, but really, when you get to the last page…. Holy shit. Pahalniuk leaves it up to you, to a certain degree, to decide whether or not the lunatics have taken over the asylum but really, we're going to keep this vague, spoiling the way that this increasingly insane ten issue storyline finishes would be a crime, the kind you need to be locked up for and I'm too pretty for jail. So without going into those details you need to uncover for yourself, let it suffice to say that for a story that never needed a sequel in the first place, this unnecessary follow up defies all expectations . In fact, it takes your expectations and says 'those expectations don't mean shit, check this out!' and then it kicks you in the groin and makes you see thank you, may I have another?'
It works and it works really, really well. It's subversive, almost surreal in spots, tying meta into conventional into confrontational all into one beautiful mind-fuck of a knot. Cameron Stewart gets in on the action too, particularly in the last few pages. His art has complemented the writing since the first issue and in every issue since that premiere he's been putting interesting, occasionally fairly twisted, little quirks into the storyline. That continues here, as you'd want it to, and it all just comes together.
Fight Club didn't need a sequel. We got one anyways. Bring on Fight Club3 - and keep David Mack on for the covers, because every front piece he's contributed to this run has been perfect (the variants have been great too, but Mack's work on this series is suitable for framing… and then smashing, you know,if it were hung in a gallery!).