Marvel Books has begun a beautiful and respectful adaptation of
Stephen King’s The Stand. It is being carefully
sectioned into five-issue arcs that, as you read them, draw you
deeper and deeper into a dark world where an apocalyptic battle
between the good and the very, very bad is about to take place. If
reading Marvel’s adaptation of King’s The Dark
Tower is like going to hear a hot jazz combo on 10 straight
nights riffing differently and brilliantly on the same set, then
reading this adaptation of The Stand is like going to hear
your favorite rock band perform on a night when they’re on it
in every conceivable way. They’re not doing a slavish
note-by-note imitation --- you could have stayed at home and
listened to them on your iPod if that was what you wanted to hear
--- but they’re playing the songs with an energy and love
that one associates with hearing them the first time through.

The collection of the first of these arcs --- THE STAND: CAPTAIN
TRIPS --- will send the blood rattling through your veins, as the
boys in Spoon would say. The team of folks doing it --- Roberto
Aguirre-Sacasa (Sensational Spider-Man, Marvel
Knights, “Big Love”) on scripting, Mike Perkins
(Captain America) on art, and Laura Martin (Ultimates
2, Astonishing X-Men) on inks --- has been pitch and
letter perfect from the beginning to the end of each issue. Reading
CAPTAIN TRIPS is like a Classic Illustrated adaptation of a novel
lovingly done by EC Comics (and there are those of you who know
what a compliment that is).

And indeed, it is a classic. When The Stand was first
published in edited form in 1978, home computers were the stuff of
science fiction. Cell phones were a decade away. The Internet was
in its infancy, its accessibility limited to a few. Cable
television was new. The beta vs. VHS VCR wars were in full swing.
And people knew AIDS only as a weight loss supplement rather than
as a disease that was beginning to attract uneasy attention from a
handful of doctors in a very limited number of urban centers. So
when I call The Stand a classic, I mean that it is as
timeless and timely today --- right now --- as if it was published
yesterday, notwithstanding the 30-odd years that have passed since
the original novel first saw the light of day.

The story begins when a very nasty designer viral strain, dubbed
“Captain Trips” (a sideways tribute to Jerry Garcia),
escapes from a secret government facility and spreads. When Charlie
Campion and his family escape from the facility --- or think they
escape --- they are doing nothing more than postponing the
inevitable and spreading death in their wake. From the moment that
their automobile with its extremely ill passengers makes a final
stop at Bill Hapscomb’s gas station in Texas, the fate of the
nation is sealed. Since the virus is a secret, no one knows what
they’re dealing with. Each person who gets it --- and just
about everyone gets it --- thinks they have “the flu,”
at least at first.

The few who don’t include Frannie Goldsmith, a young
pregnant woman who is facing the birth of her unborn child on her
own; Larry Underwood, a fledgling rock star unable to deal with the
terms of his own success; Nick Andros, a young man with a hearing
and speech impairment who lists compassion as among his few
remaining assets; Stuart Redman, one of the first to be exposed at
Hapscomb’s gas station and who may hold the key to immunity;
and Lloyd Henreid, a homicidal killer who awaits what would seem to
be an inevitable justice. They are all, to varying degrees, haunted
in their dreams by an enigmatic character named Randall Flagg,
known by those he meets in the back alleys and the shuttered rooms
of America as the Walkin’ Man or the Boogeyman. Flagg
welcomes Captain Trips as a harbinger of his ascent to glory, even
as he haunts the dreams of the survivors.

CAPTAIN TRIPS adapts wonderfully to the sequential art media,
primarily because the team in charge of this wild night’s
ride approaches the work the way a groom should approach his bride:
with love, respect and, most importantly, unbridled passion. There
is plenty of opportunity for shock and awe here, and Perkins and
Martin are not above presenting some of the more gruesome scenes in
all of their graphic glory. Yet they are more than capable of
wringing terror from the most ordinary scenes. Have you ever had
your hair stand on end as you witness…a handshake? You will
here. Aguirre-Sacasa brings his considerable cinematic narrative
talents to the proceedings, infusing even the most benign passages
with an atmosphere that hints and whispers that all is not well,
even as he moves the narrative along at a perfect pace. And Perkins
and Martin are in perfect synch with him, pulling back when
appropriate, and getting up close and personal when necessary. One
note here: I haven’t always been the biggest fan of
Perkins’s work, but I am of this one, where his lines mesh
flawlessly with the storyline and Martin’s dark, somber
coloring.

THE STAND: CAPTAIN TRIPS is an indispensable take on a
much-loved work, a gutsy effort whose reach and grasp are as one. I
cannot wait for more. This volume (as well as future ones,
presumably) includes reproductions of the alternate covers of each
issue, notes from creators, and other contributions to give the
reader an over-the-shoulder look at how the sequential art
adaptation in their hands came into being. Such lagniappe
notwithstanding, however, the meat of the book is the story itself,
and what a rich, irresistible feast it is.