"Transmetropolitan" is really worthy of two stars, but I only gave it one because I see it as my civic duty to bring the overall rating down some. Honestly, this is something you want to read if you find it at a friend's house and he's watching TV and you have nothing better to do. It's not purchase-worthy.

Warren Ellis has some cool ideas, but he doesn't seem to have any idea of what to do with them, beyond scattering them across a vapid skeleton of a story. And I mean, that's the trick, isn't it? Lots of us can come up with a few cool science-fictiony ideas, especially with the help of mind-altering substances, but the writer's job is to weave them into something greater than the sum of its parts.

And "Transmetropolitan," sadly, is less than its parts. Ellis's aforementioned cool ideas (an artificial intelligence that's addicted to drugs? interesting!) end up inert. His protagonist, Spider Jerusalem, is a caricature, and not in a good way--trust me, you've seen his type before. As other reviewers have mentioned, the book's antiauthoritarian themes just seem trite, instead of resonant. The transitions and conversations come off as forced, perhaps as if the book were heavily edited before it went to press, but more as if Ellis didn't take the time to make them believable--he just wanted to give Spider a chance to wave his gun around and act bad. And that's the real flaw: He doesn't take the time, and the story is so simplistic that you just can't buy it. (He also wants you to believe that Spider is an incredibly famous, award-winning writer, but when Spider finally produces some prose, it's...well-punctuated. And angry. But not Orwell or Churchill or even Keith Olbermann.)

It's hard to overstate the religiously transcendant goodness of Transmetropolitan; these books are greatness beyond human ken, and could probably be set up in shrines as small but powerful local deities if you had such a mind. I'm getting ahead of myself here though, reviewing the entire series, so I'll stick to the volume at hand.

Transmet Volume One deals with the extremely reluctant return of one Spider Jerusalem, Outlaw Journalist, to what passes for civilization in a far, but somehow familiar, dystopian future. Out of money and delinquent on a book contract, he reluctantly departs his mountain stronghold (equipped with, among other security blankets, an Ebola Bomb) for the decadent, vibrant, decaying, glittering cesspool of civilization known only as The City.

If there is a man for every age, then Jerusalem is the man for this one; hateful, sinful, cynical, and dedicated only to his own casual urges and the pursuit of Truth, he wades into the bloody stinking mess that his once and future home has become and quickly finds a disaster in the making, as the City turns a blind eye toward the seemingly inevitable massacre of a truly bizarre, but ultimately harmless, subculture in one of its many teeming ghettos. Nothing seems to stand in the way, except, perhaps, a lunatic with tar filled lungs, a bad attitude, and a typewriter.

Can an old fashioned newsman save the future, with only words and a hefty dose of gratuitous violence? You're about to find out.

The writing in this comes across as that of a disaffected 16 year old. Ellis creates strawmen and then has Spider knock them all down... If you're above the age of emancipation (mentally at least) this book will not interest you whatsoever. I found a few human moments in book two but otherwise the Transmetropolitan series is a yawner. As for the art, it is okay but nowhere near the level of some other truly superlative books, and nothing to get excited about.

I bought the first two books in this series because of all the rave reviews on this site. I can truly say that this is the first time I ever stopped reading a graphic novel because of disinterest. The main character, Spider, is modeled like a Hunter Thompson character, but one whose emotions and thought processes never matured past the age of 16. The author, Ellis, places Spider in situations which are obviously custom designed to enable Ellis to rail against some facet of society with which he is frustrated. Spider then commences beating up someone, verbally attacking them, or writing a damning column which, quite transparently, is Ellis' way of getting back at people or ideas he doesn't like.

I was reminded of a gradeschool kid who doodles a picture of the teacher in class, giving her horns and a tail, in an effort of frustrated, juvenile revenge. There really wasn't anything of substance in the stories outside of these custom-made rant opportunities. Avoid this one if you're over the age of 20.

While the graphics in this story are amazing and the reason I picked up the trade in the first place it's story is weak. The story is that of a journalist named Spider that fights the system through busting ass to the heart of the story. In the end he makes up a story to make the cops look bad while dropping tons of F bombs saving a hybrid race from attack.