Music

Slayer's new comic book is about an ex-Neo Nazi massacring racists

by Richard Howard

January 10, 2017

Our first look at Slayer's incredibly violent new comic book.

Last year, Slayer announced they would be creating a three-part comic book series, and unsurprisingly, fans lost their minds. Think about it: given Slayer’s image as a band, lyrics and album cover/merch imagery, they’ve basically been a real-live graphic novel for decades. No one thought for a second that this would be a PG-rated undertaking, but Slayer has ensured a brutally raw final product by enlisting notoriously dark comic artist Guiu Vilanova and Metalocalypse writer Jon Schnepp.

At long last, Slayer: Repentless, Vol. 1 is set to hit stands at the end of this month, and the band has released a few pages from the issue.

The story revolves around Wyatt, an eye-patch wearing former Neo-Nazi. Wyatt and his brother Adrian were prominent figures in a white supremacist group until, after losing an eye in a race-driven brawl, he rethinks his beliefs and flees to a town called Repentless (yep, same name as Slayer’s last album). It’s there that he falls in love with a black woman – resulting in his brother and former cohorts to label him a ‘race traitor’ and come after him. After they kidnap his girlfriend Angel, Wyatt goes on a killing spree that lands him in jail. And then shit really gets violent.

In true Slayer fashion, the band has revisited a topic that caused the greatest of their many controversies. When Reign In Blood was released in 1986, the track “Angel of Death,” which focussed on Nazi physician Josef Mengele, caused a furor the likes of which hadn’t been seen, even in metal circles. While the song’s writer, late guitarist Jeff Hanneman, preferred to leave the tune as a neutral documentary, saying the fact that Mengele was evil “should be obvious,” the approach of Relentless may be a bit more pointed according to writer Schnepp.

“It’s a straight-up human story of terror, like brother against brother, people feeding off hatred, the stupidity and horror of humanity…the news items that are tearing up our country right now share the same spotlight as to what I’m writing about. It’s definitely a lot of sensitive subjects that need to be explored and addressed.”

Schnepp and the band have hinted the members of Slayer will be incorporated into the plot, but aren’t telling how. If you’ve seen their last two videos, however, you’ll know that the band playing in the middle of a prison riot isn’t out of the question – the music videos for “Repentless” and “You Against You” both feature Wyatt and depictions of comic’s storyline. For our queasier readers – the following video is really graphic. You’ve been warned.