Rating: 
Summary: it's frank miller... what do you expect?
Review: An artist/mysteryman named Wallace meets and falls in love with a mysterywoman named Esther. When she turns up missing, he goes into and through Hell to find her.I am a big fan of Frank Miller's work. I am a big fan of his Sin City work. That being said, this collection just seemed to be missing something for me, and I cannot figure out what it is. The art is stellar, the story is engrossing, and the characters are interesting. This is still better than 95% of the other graphic novels that I have read in my life, but there is just something missing that prevents me from giving it a perfect score. If you like Frank Miller's work, then pick it up. If you like love stories with a film-noir feel, then definitely get it. If you are looking for the very best of Frank Miller's noirish love stories, then get A Dame To Kill For, then after you get one come back for this and maybe you can tell me what this one is missing.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not the best Sin City story
Review: An artist/mysteryman named Wallace meets and falls in love with a mysterywoman named Esther. When she turns up missing, he goes into and through Hell to find her. I am a big fan of Frank Miller's work. I am a big fan of his Sin City work. That being said, this collection just seemed to be missing something for me, and I cannot figure out what it is. The art is stellar, the story is engrossing, and the characters are interesting. This is still better than 95% of the other graphic novels that I have read in my life, but there is just something missing that prevents me from giving it a perfect score. If you like Frank Miller's work, then pick it up. If you like love stories with a film-noir feel, then definitely get it. If you are looking for the very best of Frank Miller's noirish love stories, then get A Dame To Kill For, then after you get one come back for this and maybe you can tell me what this one is missing.
Rating:
Summary: it's frank miller... what do you expect?
Review: Compelling, gritty, sexy & nasty. Movie sequels often are inferior to their original creation.... I'm glad we're talking about comics here. Miller delivers a tautly written story of kidnapping and betrayal. Thank goodness "Blue-Eyes" makes an exit here. That character was simply annoying.
Rating:
Summary: Great art, somewhat gratuitous gore & nudity
Review: Don't be expecting any reveltations in plot here, but this is really
great entertainment, beautifully ink-drawn scenes and a storyline that
doesn't drag. It's all violence and hot chicks all the time here,
baby. In the "Hell and Back" book of the Sin City
series, our loveable and lonesome hero Wallace meets the girl of his
dreams just as she tries to committ suicide. She is, of course, the
girl of everyone's dreams: all boobs and bottom, and seems to have
everything she needs even in this run-down town. Unfortunately for
the new lovebirds, she is kidnapped later that night. After just a
few hours of knowing this woman, Wallace (who we learn is an ex-Navy
Seal) is obsessed with finding her, and will do absolutely anything it
takes to get her back. This includes killing dozens of people; anyone
who stands in his way. What he learns about why she was kidnapped is
unexpected and unnerving. In all, I would say the series is
probably more enjoyable taken in the small monthly doses of a serial
so that each scene can end with a cliffhanger. And really, the story
does move fast enough and with enough twists and turns to keep you
interested without becoming entangled or confusing. This entire story
is in black and white except for one episode, the wildly imaginative
hallucinations scene, which I felt was truly impressive in both its
asthtetic quality and attention to detail as well as the sheer genious
of it. Truly one of the best scenes in the history of graphic novels,
in my opinion. My only real complaint was that I didn't feel even a
smidgen of realism in the comic, and it wasn't really otherworldly
enough to be believable on the opposite level. I thought most of the
characters were flat and two-dimensional. Many elements of the plot
had the depth of a mid-eighties action flick, with everything from the
crooked cop to the boozy barfly chick to the long-suffering vet who's
tried to play it straight for years but finally gets pushed over the
edge by a super-evil-not-so-good-very-bad-guy/organization. However,
the heros are easy to like and the bad guys easy to hate. There's
even a few black widow type females thrown in to ensure enough
gratuitous nudity for even the most demanding of spandex superhero
connesieurs. It's fun, and you'll enjoy reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Great art, somewhat gratuitous gore & nudity
Review: Don't be expecting any reveltations in plot here, but this is really
great entertainment, beautifully ink-drawn scenes and a storyline that
doesn't drag. It's all violence and hot chicks all the time here,
baby. In the "Hell and Back" book of the Sin City
series, our loveable and lonesome hero Wallace meets the girl of his
dreams just as she tries to committ suicide. She is, of course, the
girl of everyone's dreams: all boobs and bottom, and seems to have
everything she needs even in this run-down town. Unfortunately for
the new lovebirds, she is kidnapped later that night. After just a
few hours of knowing this woman, Wallace (who we learn is an ex-Navy
Seal) is obsessed with finding her, and will do absolutely anything it
takes to get her back. This includes killing dozens of people; anyone
who stands in his way. What he learns about why she was kidnapped is
unexpected and unnerving. In all, I would say the series is
probably more enjoyable taken in the small monthly doses of a serial
so that each scene can end with a cliffhanger. And really, the story
does move fast enough and with enough twists and turns to keep you
interested without becoming entangled or confusing. This entire story
is in black and white except for one episode, the wildly imaginative
hallucinations scene, which I felt was truly impressive in both its
asthtetic quality and attention to detail as well as the sheer genious
of it. Truly one of the best scenes in the history of graphic novels,
in my opinion. My only real complaint was that I didn't feel even a
smidgen of realism in the comic, and it wasn't really otherworldly
enough to be believable on the opposite level. I thought most of the
characters were flat and two-dimensional. Many elements of the plot
had the depth of a mid-eighties action flick, with everything from the
crooked cop to the boozy barfly chick to the long-suffering vet who's
tried to play it straight for years but finally gets pushed over the
edge by a super-evil-not-so-good-very-bad-guy/organization. However,
the heros are easy to like and the bad guys easy to hate. There's
even a few black widow type females thrown in to ensure enough
gratuitous nudity for even the most demanding of spandex superhero
connesieurs. It's fun, and you'll enjoy reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for me
Review: I am not really familiar w/ Frank Miller's Sin City works, I had mostly read his Batman: DKR, Year One, Wolverine and Daredevil books, So, I decided to give the Sin City books a try. I really didn't enjoy the story and seems like your run-of-the-mill hot damsel in distress with the "hero" to the rescue. But the rescue soon turns to a Stevel Segal movie with a lot of violence, topped off with nudity and sex. It's not a bad story but it's not a great story, not for me anyways. Maybe, it's because I've been reading superhero comic books for nearly 15 years, so it wasn't to my liking.
Rating:
Summary: Lovely ladies...who may be deeper than we think...
Review: In Miller's most recent installment, Hell and Back: A Sin City Love Story, the plot centers around a mystery beauty by the name of Esther. Our hero, a former black op agent-turned-artist named Wallace, meets Esther while saving her from drowning. His first thoughts are telling: "She's a little heavier than she looks. Strong body...Strong body. She's in good shape." Once revived, she falls in love with his art, and he with her. It's a bond so deep enough that, when Esther is abducted, Wallace vows to find her and make her captors pay. It's not an uncommon plot for a Sin City tale. The original 1991 12-issue arc focused on a redemptive, disfigured thug named Marv looking to avenge the one woman to ever show him physical love: "The perfect woman. The goddess," named Goldie. Marv is aided by his tough-as-nails probation officer, Lucille, and his gun named Gladys. Similar to all the women in Sin City, Gladys is portrayed as powerful and sensual. It's a trend that continues into Hell and Back. Esther never begs for release, never cries. But she is also seldom clothed and often exposed. Likewise, her "roommate" Delia is a lethal nymphomaniac, only challenged as the embodiment of power and sexuality by the equally potent assassin, Mariah. Frank Miller goes to great lengths to always draw his women dripping with seduction. They pose either with skintight clothing, drenched in moisture, bare-nipples, or entirely nude. However, the happily married Miller is no misogynist nor a capitalist of the female form; I believe he's a progressive. As I said, the women of Sin City are strong and, paradoxically, gain even more strength from each seductive pose Miller draws. They are not victims of the male gaze; they ensorcel their viewers. Like the black widow or Basic Instinct's Catherine Tramell, they only allow men to look at them; they enhance their power by enthralling viewers. Miller's "good guys" certainly respect both women's beauty and power.
Rating:
Summary: Far from the best of Miller
Review: It is a good work, but it doesn't keep the level of the others Sin City tales. This time, the main character - Wallace - is an ex-soldier, extremely well trained (almost a Ninja) trying to save a girl from a secret organization. But Wallace is a good Samaritan, the kind of person we'd never expect to find in Sin City. Personally I prefer the anti-heroes normally found in Frank Miller's stories.
Action and violence are present as well as in other Sin City tales, what makes this story worthy to be read, but don't expect to find the best of Miller.
Rating:
Summary: To graphic novels what film noire is to the cinema
Review: Set in Frank Miller's dark world of "Sin City", his latest epic, Hell And Back, is to graphic novels what film noire is to the cinema. The dialogue is terse, the artwork is as powerful as it is gritty, the story is of an ex-soldier who aspires to be an artist becoming tangled up in the nightmare of a beautiful woman he saves from suicide only to discover that she is the target of an immense, powerful, and corruptive conspiracy populated by a pantheon of memorable (and sometimes surprising) villains. Forcefully illustrated in black and white, Hell And Back, is enhanced by a vividly colored segment totally appropriate to the story line involving a drug induced hallucination. Of special interest at the end of this outstanding, highly recommended graphic novel dedicated is a gallery of Frank Miller's work inspired by this particular story, and a second gallery showcasing the art of a number of artists inspired by, and in tribute to, Miller's "Sin City" world of death and desire, the horrific and the heroic.
Rating:
Summary: To graphic novels what film noire is to the cinema
Review: Set in Frank Miller's dark world of "Sin City", his latest epic, Hell And Back, is to graphic novels what film noire is to the cinema. The dialogue is terse, the artwork is as powerful as it is gritty, the story is of an ex-soldier who aspires to be an artist becoming tangled up in the nightmare of a beautiful woman he saves from suicide only to discover that she is the target of an immense, powerful, and corruptive conspiracy populated by a pantheon of memorable (and sometimes surprising) villains. Forcefully illustrated in black and white, Hell And Back, is enhanced by a vividly colored segment totally appropriate to the story line involving a drug induced hallucination. Of special interest at the end of this outstanding, highly recommended graphic novel dedicated is a gallery of Frank Miller's work inspired by this particular story, and a second gallery showcasing the art of a number of artists inspired by, and in tribute to, Miller's "Sin City" world of death and desire, the horrific and the heroic.
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