Publisher's Weekly Review
In a future where misguided egalitarianism has reduced a once-vibrant civilization to a handful of doctrinaire serfs living in the rubble of what once was, Equality 7-2521 rejects the mindless collectivism of his people to embrace individuality. His curiosity about the mysteries of the past is anathema to those selected to rule; Equality's rejection of his assigned menial role is if anything an even greater affront to his master. Forced by the lesser men around him to flee, Equality and his lover, Liberty 5-3000, find refuge in a conveniently preserved chalet, free to rediscover eternal truths suppressed by their totalitarian forefathers. Adapted from Rand's 1938 novella, Staton's art is oddly crude for such a veteran artist, but oddly well suited for Rand's clumsy, hectoring story. The product of a time when authoritarian regimes seemed destined to prevail, written by a refugee from the Russian revolution, Anthem might have been a valuable reminder of what happens when ideology trumps humanitarian concerns, but sadly, Rand was not up to the task; Santino and Staton do what they can with this dismal tribute to egotism, but the result is still a hard slog. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
In a letter to Walt Disney, the controversial, radically individualist Rand (The Fountainhead; Atlas Shrugged) wrote that if a film were made of her dystopian parable Anthem (1938, revised 1946), she would prefer it to be done "in stylized drawings, rather than with living actors." She gets her wish, sort of, in this graphic adaptation. In a future society so collectivist that its language has no first-person singular pronoun and so primitive that it only recently began using candles, street sweeper Equality 7-2521 begins sneaking away at night to pursue his forbidden scientific ambitions and discovers not only an ancient technological secret but also the value of independence. With the girl Liberty 5-3000, he also discovers love. VERDICT Santino relates the story in the present tense, robbing some of its mythic feel. Staton's unvarying three-panel page layouts fail to emphasize the story's more dramatic moments, and his cartoony style (with monochrome art rendered in uninked, sometimes sketchy pencils) fails to match Rand's fierce and poetic language. This short Anthem is hardly forbidding as a literary work-readers should stick with the original.-S.R. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.