The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning
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| The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning | |
 Cover of The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning |
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| Publisher | Fox Atomic Comics |
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| Format | Graphic Novel |
| Publication date | July 3, 2007 |
| Creative team as of 2007 | |
| Writer(s) | Jimmy Palmiotti Justin Gray |
| Artist(s) | John Higgins |
| Colorist(s) | Dennis Calero |
| Editor(s) | Heidi MacDonald |
The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning is a graphic novel prequel to both the 2006 remake of Wes Craven's horror movie classic The Hills Have Eyes and its Fox Atomic sequel, The Hills Have Eyes 2. It was released on July 3, 2007, distributed by Fox Atomic Comics.
The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning tells the story of the original families who refused to leave their small New Mexico town once the U.S. government began above-ground atomic testing. Spanning multiple generations, this dark tale reveals how these once good people slowly devolved into murderous mutants.
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[edit] Summary
The story is told from the view of an unknown mutant to an unknown listener, conveying how all the characters came together, and the series of events that followed and its effects on the characters.
Several decades ago, the people of the desert community of Yuma Flats, New Mexico lived normal lives, living in houses, having jobs etc. (which is considered later to be "poisoned life"), though, in the narrator's own words, "(when) the boot heel of god stomped on the desert, all the creatures big and small changed" and destroyed their peaceful lives. This was caused by represenatives of the US Army and the United States Department of Energy, driving the people from their homes under the pretense of law, and using the area as a Nuclear testing range for their prototype Atomic Bombs. The crisis did not end with the bomb itself, as a new problem soon arose; radiation, severely affecting the local environment and the people themselves, causing them to "change".
[edit] Synopsis
Many hundreds of years ago, during the Gold Rush, the surviving descendants of the Sawney Bean Clan come to Yuma Flats, at the time a fledgling mining camp, in search of gold, as did many others in those days. The people of Yuma Flats were described as being "good, honest people standin' on rock and dust, diggin' for a dream". When the gold supplies were exhausted, the settlers looked in the local hills for and dug for copper and anything else that could help them survive. This caused industrial-related environmental deterioration that led to some of the settlers moving on from Yuma Flats. The Sawney Beans stayed, however, as "(they) don't give up when trouble comes a knockin'".
The town prospered as the years went by, though in the early 1940's, trouble came to town. Three government officials; an Army officer named General Slaughter, A Jewish city lawyer named Mr. Goldberg, and a young soldier named Lieutenant Ryan. They told the townspeople they had to pack up their lives and move out within seven days, in exchange for ten cents on the dollar for their land. Without another place to go, and stickin to their method of "don't give up when trouble comes a knockin'", Dan, the patriach of the latest generation of Sawney Beans, refused their offer and resolved to fight for what was theirs. Dan was supported in this effort by his family, teaching his son right from wrong and Slaughter had no right to drive them away. Dan also assures his son not to worry about how the soldiers' will respond. In private, Dan is only slightly worried, and calms his wife, Karen, by assuring her that as Americans, they had rights, and as a result everything was going to be fine.
Meanwhile, at a local stripper bar & hotel, a gang of 4 soldiers are getting drunk and watching the dancing strippers from the bar, and grumbling about how a fight is inevitable and not understanding while anyone would want to live in the desert. Ryan, who is among the gang, suggests on having some "fun", and convinces the others to take guns and balaclavas and drive a jeep into town, proceeding to drag the Sawney Beans out of their home and onto the street, physically abusing them and trying to scare them with threats to sign the papers and leave, or Slaughter, reportedly "not as nice" as them and having papers from the U.S. President that says he can do anything he wants, would resort to much harsher methods to get them to agree, even murdering family members. When Ryan points his gun casually at Karen's son, Dan, who had suffered abuse from the soldiers during the confrontation, reaches his limit and rushes to attack Ryan, accidently causing Ryan to fire his shotgun in Dan's face, blowing his brains out and killing him instantly, much to Karen's shock. Ryan is similarly shocked, insisting it was an accident and Dan jumped him. The gunshot attracts the attention of the townspeople, causing the soldiers to panic, while Ryan's shock towards his actions turns to anger, over the townspeople's resistance. Ryan takes out his anger on Karen, demanding they signs the papers tomorrow, or else he promises to come back and kill her and her son.
The soldiers flee the scene, while Karen merely remains kneeling on the road beside Dan's body, entrusting her son to a neighbour while other neighbours gather up Dan's body and carry it away to bury. Karen then tells her neighbours "This Is War", not wanting to allow Ryan to get away with Dan's murder.
The next day, the army jeeps with Slaughter and his congregation are driving towards town. Ryan, the driver, assures General Slaughter that they won't meet any trouble, mentioning that he and his friends made sure they would last night, though doesn't elaborate on what he did (saying they just "scared them a bit"). When Ryan hopes Slaughter doesn't mind, he is shocked to find Slaughter is outraged, as he never gave orders for such actions, and the townspeople of Yuma Flats are good folk that merely find themselves in a bad place, insisting they don't forget that they are American citizens and should be treated as such. As Slaughter recites teaching of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, about the privileges of freedom, he is shot in the head, blowing it in two and killing Slaughter instantly, and the shock causes Ryan to crash and disable the jeep. As Ryan tells the others they are under attack from snipers, another soldier is shot, and so is Ryan, though the bullet, despite going through the side of his face, merely takes most of his right ear off, but doesn't kill him. Ryan and the other soldiers promptly run for the second jeep, though Mr. Goldberg is killed before he can start running. Ryan and the only other remaining soldier reach the jeep and successfully drive away.
For killing General Slaughter, the Army comes down hard on the townspeople, and mount an invasion, using Tanks to shell the town and sending armed soldiers to slaughter the townspeople, who were merely armed with pickaxes and hunting rifles. The battle is near-horrific, with the men sacrificing their lives to let the women and children run for the hills. Ryan, personally, becomes increasingly trigger-happy and takes great pleasure in the battle, cutting down the townspeople with his rifle. Ryan notices Karen and her son trying to escape and traps them, telling the other soldiers to "leave the civilians in his care" and to search the immediate area for the others. In reality, Ryan merely wants vengeance for Karen shooting him in the face (correctly guessing it was Karen who led the sniper attack that killed Slaughter). He forces them into the ruins of one of the buildings, and badly injures Karen's son, while at the same time he settles "unfinished business" with Karen.
The Major-in-charge, upon receiving updates from his subordinates, insists that they don't pursue the fleeing townspeople, saying "they made their point yesterday and we made ours, no need to turn this into a massacre", and they can't risk any more attention to Yuma Flats, or risk envoking the President's wrath. Upon hearing Karen's son crying and a gunshot, the Major and the other two subordinates head for the source, the building on the end of the street, with pistols and expecting resistance, though the Major is outraged to find Ryan has tortured and cut Karen's skin with a knife and is preparing to rape her, and has also killed Karen's son with a single bullet to the heart. The Major promptly bangs Ryan against the nearby wall, shirking off Ryan's pathetic excuses and and threatens to kill him for what he did. Addressing Karen, the Major, on behalf of the US Army, apologises to Karen over her son's death and assures her that Ryan will be court-martialed and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Karen doesn't respond, merely ripping off Ryan's dog-tags and, sparing one more glance, departs.
Now alone, the Major angrily releases Ryan, and reveals he won't uphold his promise, despite his actions, as Ryan's father was a good friend of his. The Major puts down Ryan's protests of letting Karen get away, and orders his subordinates to never speak of what transpired in Yuma Flats, erase all the evidence, search out any survivors and have them arrested and lock down Yuma Flats itself. The Army then departs.
Karen staggers away from the inferno that was Yuma Flats, her dead son in her arms, and resolves not to go of the fact that her husband and son were both murdered by the Army. After looking over the remains of the town one more time, Karen reaches the rest of the survivors, and it is their they adopt the modus operandi of Revolutionaries; that when people are unjustly attacked and their rights taken away, they go underground and plan revenge. The survivors go underground in the mines of the local hills, but their dire status became worse the nuclear tests began (attended by an eager Ryan).
(Un-finished)
[edit] See also
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