O’Sullivan’s visit to the Looney mansion results in a high body count–he is not known as the Angel of Death for nothing–but neither Looney nor his son are there. The absent targets arrive shortly thereafter, which sets them on a path of vengeance (with the ultimate destination a relative’s farm in a town called Perdition, where hopefully the boy can be raised in safety). But Looney’s unstable son Connor went to the O’Sullivan home on his own initiative, succeeding only in murdering O’Sullivan’s wife and youngest son. His boss John Looney (a name so on the nose it is hard to believe that it is a historical fact, but it is) betrayed him and tried to get another crime boss to kill him (presumably there were plans for the son as well).
Michael O’Sullivan was the trusted enforcer for a Midwestern Irish mob family until his eldest son tagged along and witnessed a hit. It seems unlikely that anyone reading this is unaware of the basics of the story, but here goes. So I chose to re-read it and then go on to the other graphic novels. I read it in the original edition, but had completely missed the sequels. That event precipitated a Vertigo Crime reprint (an appropriate home for it), as well as two prose novels and two graphic novel sequels. It was well received, but may have disappeared from sight if not for the 2002 motion picture adaptation. So instead of being serialized first, it was published all at once as a graphic novel. The project was begun in 1994, but by the time of its 1998 completion its intended imprint–DC Comics’ Paradox Press–was about to be shut down. Road to Perdition had a slow birth and an unusual publishing history, as detailed in writer Max Allan Collins’ introduction to this edition. Max Allan Collins, writer Richard Piers Rayner, artist
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