Tweet
Aleister & Adolf
Released by: Dark Horse Comics
Released on: November 2nd, 2016.
Written by: Douglas Rushkoff
Illustrated by: Michael Avon Oeming
Purchase From Amazon
Our story begins in New York City in 1995, where a couple named Corina and Hugh are puzzled by how a logo on a website they're working on is able to move by itself. They figure they'll deal with it in the morning, Hugh's got a gig, his band The Schwastiskas are playing but she tells him it can wait, their clients aren't going to be happy about this moving image. Hugh then has a conversation with an old man with a hook for a hand named Mr. Stubbs, he mentions that the logos are corrupted and the old guy eventually digs through the archives for the old films - and it's here that Hugh discovers a folder of photographs that look to document occult experiments that their client, Viceroy, may have undertaken decades before. Stubbs sends Hugh uptown to talk to a guy named Roberts, he can explain all of this. Corina isn't happy Hugh is off on this goose chase, but he does it anyway. Roberts is dying of cancer and doesn't have a lot of time left.
Roberts tells Hugh his story. In 1938 he was twenty-three years old - the same age as Hugh. He'd enlisted to get away from a 'strange' homelife. Here he worked as a photographer where he met General Patton. The General and his top brass talk about Hitler's annexing of Austria, how on the same day he did that he also acquired a spear that was rumored to have been the one that pierced the side of Jesus Christ himself when he was crucified. Whoever holds this spear is supposedly invincible. They talk about how Rudolf Hess started an S.S. Occult Bureau. Roberts is told that the British believe in the occult too much to be able to use it against the Germans. That's where he comes in. His past, his parents, there's a tie here. Regardless, he's instructed to travel to England to meet Aleister Crowley and enlist his aid in defeating Hitler.
Roberts travels across the Atlantic and takes in one of Crowley's performances, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law he's told. As The Beast argues with older women in his congregation, an air raid siren goes off and they flee. This leaves Roberts alone with Crowley, and they talk of Hitler who Crowley describes as the most demonic man he's ever met. Crowley sees right through Roberts, he knows he's being recruited but doesn't seem to mind so much as he invites the young man to his home to photograph him. Roberts arrives and witnesses a ceremony, a ritual never before photographed. Roberts takes mescaline and drinks absinthe and sees Crowley transform into a literal beast right before his eye. When it's over, he and Crowley's assistant, Daphne, clearly have a connection of some sort. Afterwards, he witnesses Ian Fleming and Maxwell Knight converse with Crowley about using the stars to learn of Hitler's troop movements. Hess' astrologer is a protégé of Crowley and therefore susceptible to the man's influence. It works, for a while at least.
As Robert's loses track of time and becomes obsessed with Daphne, Crowley uses her to bring him into one of his rituals not as a photographer, but as a participant. From there, things become increasingly complicated - Hess is kidnapped by Fleming and handed over to Crowley. Hess tells him that all of Crowley's lodges in Germany were torn down and his witches dismembered. The two men engage in a days long battle of wills, one magician against the other, battling for power over symbols. Hess is locked away in an asylum and Crowley gets to work creating a counter sigil strong enough to defeat the powerful Swastika. Stubbs, also in the service as this time, is sent to England to check in on Roberts as he hasn't' reported back in weeks.
“V Is For Victory!â€
The bombing of London intensifies but Roberts, Daphne and an aging Crowley hang on. Roberts, however, starts to obsess over the spear and when America enters the war, he gets his chance to go for it. He travels to France with Patton while the German atrocity exhibit grows larger and more horrifying by the day. The spear is found and hours later, Hitler is dead - but there are unresolved issues with Crowley and Daphne to deal with before this is all over with, and how it all ties into Viceroy and Hugh's quest to find out the origins of their corporate logo.
Douglas Rushkoff's story does a fascinating job of weaving a very strange part of World War II history with the modern age by tying in the power of Crowley and Hitler's sigils with those seen and used, sometimes ironically, even today. By basing much of this on some fairly well documented events he's able to tie on his suppositions to fill in many of the blanks and it makes for a great read. At times quite horrifying, other times charged with erotic surrealism and psychedelic imagery, Aleister & Adolf should appeal to anyone with an interest in history, magick or both - or really, anyone who just enjoys a good, well-written story full of fascinating and bizarre characters. The devil really is in the details here, as he ties in the roles of the various players to their acts that then go on to shape the outcome of the war and what happened to society after that. Rushkoff doesn't try to hide his feeling on corporate branding (even tying it into the Holocaust) or how businesses have usurped what Crowley and Hitler were exploiting themselves - fascinating stuff.
Michael Avon Oeming's black and white artwork is great. His style isn't necessarily the most realistic but it doesn't need to be, his thick line work does a great job of relaying the horror, the surprise, the confusion and the very human drama experienced by everyone in the book. The scenes of ritual are worthy of serious ogling as well, as he really works in so many odd little bits and pieces into the background details that they're almost hypnotic.
All in all a great read, here's hoping these two collaborate together in the future - their styles gel nicely and there's certainly plenty of material out there like this that they could mine and likely achieve similarly stunning results.