Admiral Test

Die Hard: Year One

Before John McClane declared war on the Gruber family, he was just another guy with a badge.

Let's just get this one out of the way first -- Die Hard is the best movie ever.

It’s not just the best action movie ever, it’s the best fucking movie EVER. It’s the best action, comedy, drama, animated, foreign or any other category you can think of.

It’s the greatest movie ever made.

If you haven’t seen it, why are you reading this? You need to go buy the movie now and then punch yourself in the ribs for being so stupid.

 If you know nothing of Die Hard, let me offer you a summary and a look back. Die Hard was released in the summer of 1988. It stars Bruce Willis as  New York cop John McClane. On Christmas, John arrives in Los Angeles to spend the holidays and hopefully reconcile with his estranged wife.

We learn that his wife has built a successful career with a Japanese company and began using her maiden name, much to the dismay of John. There is also a slimy business man named “Ellis” (who quickly becomes one of the film’s best characters) who clearly has a boner for McClane’s wife.

But none of this really matters because terrorists quickly seize the building in hopes of unlocking a vault that contains over 600 million buckaroos in bonds.

McClane is able to escape being captured by the terrorists and slowly but surely picks them off one at a time.

There are many memorable characters and lines in this movie. Near the top is the terrorist leader Hans Gruber, John McClane’s limo driver Argyle and as I already mentioned before, Mr. Ellis.  I can go deeper into the plot but, again, it would just end with you punching yourself in the ribs for being such an idiot.

I should also note that the movie is based on a novel titled “Nothing Lasts Forever”, which is actually a sequel to another book titled “The Detective”. They made a movie for that book starring Frank Sinatra, but I don’t think the black guy from Walker Texas Ranger was in that one like he was Die Hard.

Although the character’s name was changed to John McClane for Die Hard, in a way it’s like Frank Sinatra and Bruce Willis are playing the same character. Weird. Wrap your mind around that.

Here’s a picture of Bruce Willis and Tony Bennett to help you deal with that.

They made a bunch of sequels and some were good and some…not so much.  Die Hard 2: Die Harder and Die Hard With a Vengence were pretty solid, But, I couldn’t really get down with Live Free or Die Hard.

Live Free really shredded my cheese because it was the only one rated PG-13. I dig they were trying to appeal to a wider audience, but one of John McClane’s trademarks is saying fuck and other creative combinations of fuck and other words non-stop.

It was like you saw the title of the first Die Hard and you’re like “Great! People are not only gonna die in this, they’re gonna die fucking hard!”.

The same with Die Hard 2: Die Harder. That one’s even better because you think people are going to die ever harder. It only makes sense. And with Die Hard With a Vengeance you’re thinking “Great, now there’s gunna be vengeance involved!” That could mean nothing but positives for people dying hard.

But with Live Free or Die Hard, you have a choice. You can live free or die hard. Now you have a choice? In the other movies you didn’t have a choice, you were going to die, just with different levels of severity. And that’s why the movie rated PG-13.

There were also several video games released by that’s another time, another place, another dimension.

Around May 2009, it was announced that the comic book studio BOOM! was working on a Die Hard prequel series. The line took place in 1976  when McClane was a rookie to the NYPD and was going to be called “Die Hard Year One”.

The first issue was released in September of that year and I jumped all over it. I bought every issue because of my love of dying hard, but I didn’t read them because I’m scared of damaging comics. I got this thing where I’m afraid that, in the year 2030, comics are going to become the most coveted items in the world. No one will be laughing when the key to saving the world is a pristine first issue copy of the “Welcome Back Kotter” comic series.

Anyways, they recently released the first four issues of Die Hard Year One in a hardcover graphic novel.

 I read this on the toilet the other day because over the years, it seems the when I read and look at comics with large amounts of action I have more successful bowel movements.

I managed to finish the book and my bathroom duties in a very synchronous fashion and, I must say, it was a pretty good read. I didn’t really know what to expect from the comic because no real back story is given to John McClane’s early days on the police force in the movies.

The left jacket of the jacket of the book sums it up as

“IT”S 1976 AND JOHN MCCLANE IS ON THE BEAT! The world has been blown away by the adventures of John McClane for over twenty years. Here you will see how it all began, with the newly minted streets of New York in 1976! Things heat up when crime comes to the nation’s bicentennial celebration… and who else but John McClane finds himself in the middle of it!”

Snap! It looks like John McClane is in quite a pickle in this adventure. I don’t want to ruin what happens too much since this still kind of a new item, but I’ll sum it up best I can.

John McClane is new on the force and the city is getting ready for a bicentennial celebration. As you’d expect, there’s corruption on the force and it involves the mayor, a crazy environmentalist (in excellent jogging gear), a witness to a police murder, and some other people I don’t remember.

The plot involves robbing all his guests on the mayor’s yacht during the celebration. I think they mayor might have some money on his yacht or something, but I may have missed something. Anyway, all of this leads to a showdown between John McClane and terrorist on a yacht. I really don’t know what more you could ask for.

So I’ll leave the plot at that and tell you to check it out. The story is a little slow to start and it lacks action until the end, but the characters are well written. The art is also really awesome, but it seems like the artist sometimes has trouble deciding on his look for McClane. Sometimes, he tries to make him look like Bruce Willis but other times he looks like just some dude.

The foul language is more like Live Free or Die Hard because there are no F-Words, but there is a lot of use of the words “buttwipe” and “asswipe”. Luckily, I’m a huge fan of buttwipe and asswipe, so this isn’t a big deal to me. Still  would have been nice to get a few John McClane F-bombs, though.

Overall, if you’re a fan of Die Hard and comics, you should check it out.

I should also mention that this comic’s biggest flaw is it’s severe lack of Ellis. On a scale of “1” to “Ellis” this is most definitely a 0. The comic series is still going, so maybe at some point in time Ellis will make an appearance. Perhaps he could get his own spin-off “Die Hard: The Ballad of Ellis” or “Die Hard: The Ellis Chronicles” detailing his rise and fall in the business world and his addiction to cocaine.

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