Klaus: How Santa Claus Began (2015) Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing okay. There's only two days until Christmas and I decided to do this Christmas comic book review. So let's get right into it.

I'm not a fan of Grant Morrison. I find his work to be too complex, too disturbing and too weird for my tastes. But, I can't deny that he is an amazing writer and a really good storyteller. He's also very mischievious because he had me fooled by the first couple of chapters of this book, Klaus: How Santa Claus Began. When I started reading it, I thought, "oh this is way tamer than what I'm used to reading by Morrison". Yeah, no, it's not. It's as disturbing and weird as basically anything else I've read from him, with the exception of All-Star Superman.

I don't have to give a synopsis of this story, because it's basically the comic book version of Santa Claus's origin story. The twist is that it's set in a dark fantasy land full of demons, monsters and tyrants who are trying to destroy Christmas (Yuletime in this story). Which actually isn't that different from any other version of Santa's origin. Except that Burgermeister Meisterburger from Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970) and Aksel Ellingboe and Tammy Krum from Klaus (2019) are about a thousand times tamer than Morrison's villains in this book. 

I didn't like this book. I'm not a fan of the dark, twisted, and brutal stories as many of you may know if you've been a follower of my blogs for any length of time. And this is another unnecessary perversion of a beloved mythical character. In this case, Santa Claus. The violence and brutality is senseless and completely unnecessary. And like most of Grant Morrison's characters, I have no reason to like any of the characters in this story. Oh sure, Klaus is noble and wants to help his former hometown, but Santa Claus at his core is a gentle person who simply brings toys for all the good children using a flying sleigh, pulled by eight magical Reindeer, and is helped by Elves. He's not some Robin Hood-esque figure fighting for justice in an unjust world. And he's definitely not a superhero either.

I also don't hate this book either. It's not a bad book. Like I said, Grant Morrison is an amazing storyteller, but his style is not appealing to me in general. The artwork in this book, by Dan Mora, is spectacular. But this is not my type of story. It's dark, brutal and creepy and not my cup of tea. If you enjoy this sort of thing, and you haven't read this before, I recommend it. But, if you're like me and don't like the dark side of the world, then I would definitely avoid this book. I wouldn't've chosen this for myself. Brad lent it to me because he told me about it either when we hung out back in November or when we hung out on my birthday three weeks ago, and it sounded interesting, as I knew nothing about it and didn't realize it was by Grant Morrison. When I saw who it was by, I had a feeling of dread because, like I said, I'm not a fan of Morrison's work.

I do want to say that, even though I dislike this book, there are things I do like about it. For example, Klaus himself is a reasonably likeable character. Which is fairly unusual for a Grant Morrison character, be it original or not. He had no idea that his former home had so many problems when he returned to town. Most people would've walked away at that point, especially after the harassment he got for sneaking toys to the children of the town (kinda reminds you of the classic Rankin/Bass Christmas special Santa Claus is Comin' to Town doesn't it?). But, like Robin Hood, like Batman, like Green Arrow, Klaus decides to fight the bad guys, led by Lord Magnus, head on.

I also like the relationship between Klaus and Lady Dagmar. Well, former relationship, since she's with Lord Magnus now and has a son with him. It's your typical tragic love story, but in this kind of story, it would be weird if it wasn't tragic. Luckily it gets resolved and Lady Dagmar becomes Mrs. Claus, similar to Jessica in Santa Claus is Comin' to Town. 

I can't stop thinking about how Lord Magnus is similar to Professor Snape from Harry Potter in terms of appearance as well as elements of his backstory. For example, his marriage to Lady Dagmar is like if Snape had started going out with Lily Evans, instead of Lily falling in love with James Potter in the pre-backstory of the Harry Potter books. 

Krampus is not the most original big bad villain out there, and I really don't understand the fascination that people have with him, aside from the fact that he looks creepy. But, when you're doing a dark, scary, intense, Christmas story, who else are you going to use as the main villain? Magnus? Yeah, no, he's like every other petty medieval dictatorial lord we've ever seen in fiction. 

The series was collected in hardcover in 2016. Brad lent me the 2nd edition, which includes the subtitle, "How Santa Claus Began", whereas the original hardcover doesn't include the subtitle. There isn't much bonus content in this book, just the covers for the original issues. No interview with Grant Morrison or sketches or anything like that. It's Boom! Studios afterall.

The collection came out in trade paperback in 2019. I've never seen the trade paperback in person, so I don't know if it has any extra material included or not. 

I think that's going to be it for me for this week. Like I said in my Hawkeye review yesterday, I'm going to aim to have a Christmas/birthday/general geek haul post sometime in the next week or so. I'm aiming for Monday at the latest, but it could be Saturday afternoon or sometime on Sunday at the earliest, depending on when my friends show up for our annual gift/Christmas card exchange. So until then have a wonderful weekend, Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it, and I will talk to you all later. Take care