Today the '90s comic I read was
Monster by Naoki Urasawa Chapters 1-16 (1994-1995)
This is not the first time I'm reading Monster, but it is the first time I am reading it via the Viz Perfect Edition volumes. I've also seen the anime before. Chapters 1-16 are contained within Volume One of the Perfect Edition. That is over 400 pages, read in a single sitting.
The pages fly by because Monster has hook after hook. Urasawa is a skilled thrillologist.
The story begins in Germany, 1986. Dr. Kenzo Tenma is a "star" neurosurgeon at Eisler Memorial Hospital. His life and career are on an upward trajectory. Tenma's dating the Hospital Director's daughter, Eva, and ghostwriting her father's medical manuscripts. The plan is for Tenma to marry Eva and eventually become Head of the Surgery Department (and one day Director). It seems things are going well.
But one day, the wife of a Turkish laborer who died at Eisler Memorial the same day Tenma successfully saved the life of a renowned Opera singer appears in front of Tenma with a demand.
Tenma was originally supposed to operate on the laborer, but when the Opera singer was brought in later, the hospital switched Tenma's schedule to operate on the singer first. The reason being, as Tenma learns, is because the singer's life was deemed "more important" than the laborer's. The laborer was forced to wait and was then operated on by a surgeon with skills lesser than Tenma's. The laborer died and the singer lived.
Tenma starts to see the shady side of the hospital and its politics. He can't get the laborer's wife and her anguish out of his mind. He is growing disillusioned with his current life path, but tries to rationalize it.
Before long, a young boy with a gunshot wound to the head is brought in and needs immediate help (his twin sister is brought to the hospital as well, and his apparent parents have been brutally murdered). Tenma is prepared to operate on him, but then a familiar situation occurs: Tenma is rescheduled to operate instead on the Mayor. Once again, the life of the patients are weighed by the hospital based on their stock in society rather than by the order they were brought in.
This time, however, Tenma refuses. He operates on the boy against the Hospital Director's will. As a result, the Mayor dies and the boy lives. Tenma feels bad that the Mayor died, but he was already preparing to operate on the boy when the Mayor was brought in. There is only one of him, after all (and it is a shame some of the other people in the hospital are not quite as competent as Tenma). As a result, Tenma becomes persona non grata at the hospital. He is not fired because he is too useful in operations, but Eva breaks up with him and the Hospital Director plainly tells him he will no longer have any hope of advancement. Another doctor becomes Chief Neurosurgeon.
"If you want to seek work at another hospital, be my guest. But I have no intention of recommending you.
In other words, your career is over, Dr. Tenma. The path you had in mind is now closed to you."
Tenma takes it hard initially. One day while overseeing the boy, he has an outburst that will have major repercussions later on.
But eventually he accepts his new position at the hospital. He becomes content with his new lifestyle: to help patients without any regard to politics or career advancement.
Tenma's ethical dilemma seems to have passed, right? Though now a pariah to the higher-ups at the hospital, Tenma focuses on saving lives and becomes beloved by the patients. He is fulfilled. He has found his "true calling".
The twins, brother and sister, have been showered with gifts and candies while at the hospital, as the hospital has used their recovery from the terrible event that befell them for publicity. One day, the boy wakes up from his coma. Against Tenma's wishes, the Hospital Director orders for a photo op session with the boy. And soon, the Hospital Director, the Head Neurosurgeon, and another doctor that was against Tenma are found poisoned, dead. Though clearly Tenma seems an obvious suspect to the police, there is no proof to tie him to the murders.
The story eventually skips from 1986 to 1995 and Dr. Tenma is now Head Surgeon at Eisler Memorial. The obstacles that stood in his way in the '80s no longer exist. It's the '90s now, after all, and things are going great for Tenma. He is now beloved by patients and staff alike.
The end.
Not really haha. There is a "little" problem. The hospital murders from the '80s are still unsolved, as are the murders of the twin's "parents", and new '90s murders are piling up in Germany. A key witness, a lockpick by the name of Junkers, who knows of the "Monster" doing these killings, could help solve a string of these murders...except that he is badly injured and in a coma, so is brought to Dr. Tenma in hopes that he can be saved.
And because Tenma is the best around, Junkers is saved. He makes it out of his coma and there is hope that...
Oh, wait, nevermind. Junkers is then killed by a shadowy figure, the "Monster", that has been hunting him. And Tenma comes across the scene as the ruthless Monster executes Junkers without remorse.
And yet, Tenma is spared by the figure.
The "Monster" responsible for all these killings turns out to be Johan, the boy Tenma saved back in 1986. "No good deed" and all that...
It turns out Johan could hear Tenma's outburst when he said he wanted the Hospital Director and his cronies dead way back when, and decided to oblige out of his great respect for Tenma.
From here, the story goes on many tense, winding roads with some very memorable side characters, as Tenma goes after Johan like a crazy man.
Tenma's guilt over saving a Monster that kills more and more weighs on him greatly, and the police either do not believe his story or are corrupt and in Johan's pocket. Tenma decides that since he brought Johan back into this world, he should be the one to take him out. The problem of course is, Tenma is no killer. He devoted his life to saving lives (but then, taking out Johan would save a lot of lives as well...). How can he possibly go up against someone like Johan who has been killing all his life?
Johan's twin sister also features prominently once the story shifts to the '90s.
She is also in the "hunting and killing Johan" business it seems haha. Unlike Tenma, she is a bit more adequate in action scenes.
The first sixteen chapter are off to a great start, and the story just ramps up from here. Still as exciting as the first time I read it.
Really the only complaint I have about the Perfect Edition is that the paper is a bit too thin. It is funny because it does not feel thin, but I just don't like how easily you can see sometimes through the other side of the page. The '90s Johan face reveal scene for example, you can clearly see the page printed on the back seep through which kind of ruins the moment haha.