Fight Club 2 #1 Review: For Real Fans Only

“Fight Club” instantly became a cultural phenomenon when it was released in 1999. Everyone can basically quote that one line, “the first rule of ‘Fight Club’ is you don’t talk about Fight Club.’” What many people don’t know is that the movie is actually based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk. Nineteen years after the publication of his book, Palahniuk has written a sequel in comic book form with art by Cameron Stewart and it is as typical Palahniuk as you can get.

Sebastian and Marla Singer are having a really rough marriage. Sebastian is more concerned with taking pills than his and Marla really wants him out of her life. This also causes their son to act up to there to point where he makes his own explosives.

That’s pretty much the entire first issue except an assassination attempt on Sebastian at the end. If you’ve read any Palahniuk novel you know what to expect. What that is is Palahniuk expositing how terrible and violent everyone and everything is. On top of that, the characters are the worst people in the world where they are addicted to some type of drug. There is even a scene of the son making homemade saltpeter.

Many people may enjoy this type of writing, but in reality it’s more along the lines of the author trying his damnedest to make whatever’s going on shocking. What this does is it hurts the characters and the narrative. By focusing on how bad the characters are, the reader stops caring about what happens. If the characters die horrible, the reader won’t care. It’s just more shock value.

The art does a decent job of portraying how horrible the people and world are. They all look ugly, ruined by life, downtrodden and an inch away from killing somebody. One thing this comic does is it has pages with pills all over it. This may be a creative tactic to show the overabundance of drugs in this story, but there are parts where the pills cover text. Usually, the reader can figure out what it says, but there are times where the reader can’t make out what’s being said.

Fans of Chuck Palahniuk may gobble up “Fight Club 2,” but the average reader may be put off by the borderline snuff storytelling. The art does help out things a bit despite some issues. Stick to the movie.