A daydream rendered as full-blown heroic pin-up. A towering, green-hooded warrior with slabs of muscle and a heavy horned helm stands planted wide, a massive double-headed axe raised in one fist, while a cluster of adoring women kneel and reach up around him - one chained at the throat, another gripping his arm, their speech balloons gushing oh, Ukko... my hero... you were always the one for me... and me. A final line of dialogue - later, there is still much work to be done - plays the whole scene for deadpan comedy. The joke, of course, is the gap between the imagery and the character: this hulking, axe-wielding, harem-surrounded hero is Ukko's fantasy of himself, a wish-fulfilment vision entirely at odds with the small, big-eared bard who actually narrates Sláine's adventures. Ukko is Pat Mills' invention for the Sláine strip - comic relief whose tall tales run alongside the main saga, constantly inflating his own courage and conquests - and this image is essentially one of those tall tales made literal and visible, painted with the same heroic-muscular register Bisley used for Sláine himself, which is precisely what makes it funny. The lush, dark-red and green palette and confident, painterly rendering give the fantasy figure real weight and glamour; it's only the dialogue undercutting it that reveals the whole thing as a joke at its dreamer's expense.
Ukko has a fantasy
