Category: Science Fiction

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Batman Beyond!


By Hilary J. Bader, Rich Burchett, Joe Staton, Terry Beatty & various (DC comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-604-0 (TPB)

The Batman Animated TV series masterminded by Eric Radomski, Bruce Timm, Paul Dini and others in the 1990s revolutionised The Dark Knight and led – with a tie-in monthly printed series – to some of the absolute best comic book tales in his 85-year publishing history. With the hero’s small screen credentials firmly re-established, follow-up series began (and are still coming), eventually feeding back into the overarching multiversal DCU continuity.

Following those award-winning animated sagas, in 1999 came a new incarnation set one generation into the future, following Bruce Wayne in the twilight of his life reluctantly mentoring a new teen hero picking up his eerily-scalloped mantle. In Britain the series was inspirationally re-titled Batman of the Future but for most of the impressed cognoscenti and awestruck kids worldwide it was Batman Beyond!

Again the show was augmented by a cool kids’ comic book. This inexplicably out-of-print collection re-presents the first 6-issue miniseries in a hip and trendy, immensely entertaining package suitable for fans and aficionados of all ages. Although not necessary to a reader’s enjoyment, passing familiarity with the TV episodes will enhance the overall experience. All stories were written by Hilary J. Bader and we open with a 2-part adaptation of the pilot, illustrated by Rick Burchett & Terry Beatty.

‘Not On My Watch!’ serves up glimpses of the last days of Batman’s crusade against crime before age, infirmity and injury slowed him down to the point of compromising his principles and endangering the citizens he’d sworn to protect…

Years later, Gotham City in the mid-21st century (notionally accepted as 2039 AD – 100 years after the Dark Knight’s debut in Detective Comics #27) is a dystopian urban jungle where angry, rebellious schoolkid Terry McGinnis strikes a blow against pernicious pimped-up street punks The Jokerz and is chased out of town all the way to the gates of a ramshackle mansion. Meanwhile, his research scientist dad has discovered a little too much about how the company he works for operates.

Wayne-Powers used to be a decent place to work before old man Wayne became a recluse. Now Derek Powers runs the show and is ruthless enough to do anything to increase profits… Outside town, Terry is saved from a potentially fatal Jokerz encounter by a burly old man who then collapses. Helping aged Bruce Wayne inside the mansion, Terry discovers the long neglected Batcave before being chased away by the surly saviour. McGinnis but doesn’t really care… until he gets home to find his father has been murdered…

In a storm of emotion, he returns to Wayne Manor as concluding chapter ‘I Am Batman’ sees McGinnis attempting to force Wayne to act before giving up in frustration and stealing the hero’s greatest weapon: a cybernetic Bat-suit that enhances strength, speed, durability and perception. Alone, untrained and unaided, a new Batman sets to enact justice and exact revenge…

In the ensuing clash with Powers the unscrupulous entrepreneur is mutated into a radioactive monster – dubbed Blight – before Wayne and Terry negotiate a tenuous truce and grudging understanding. For now, Terry will continue to clean up Gotham City as an apprentice- and strictly probationary-hero…

With #3, Bader, Burchett & Beatty began crafting original stories of future Gotham, commencing with ‘Never Mix, Never Worry’ wherein Blight returns to steal a selection of man-made radioactive elements which can only be used to cause harm… or can they?

Joe Staton took over pencilling with #4 as a schoolboy nerd frees a devil from limbo and old man Wayne introduces the cocksure Terry to parapsychologist Jason Blood and his eldritch alter ego Etrigan the Demon in spooky shocker ‘Magic Is Everywhere’. That sentiment is repeated and reinforced when a school-trip to a museum unleashes ancient lovers to feed on the students’ life energy in delightfully comical tragedy ‘Mummy, Oh! and Juliet’…

This captivating compendium concludes in another compellingly edgy thriller as Terry stumbles into a return bout with a shapeshifting super-thief in ‘Permanent Inque Stains’, only to find there are worse crimes and far more evil villains haunting his city…

In 2000 Titan Books released a British edition re-titled Batman of the Future (to comply with the renamed UK TV series) and this version is a little easier to locate by those eager to enjoy the stories rather than own an artefact. Fun, thrilling and surprisingly moving, these tales are magnificent examples of comics that appeal to young and old alike and are well overdue for re-issue. They also prove the foundation concepts of Batman can travel far and riff wildly, but always deliver maximum wonderment.
© 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection volumes 9: Spider-Man or Spider-Clone? 1975-1977


By Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Archie Goodwin, Ross Andru, Gil Kane, Sal Buscema, Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia, Dave Hunt, John Romita & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4874-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

Amazing Spider-Man was a comic book that matured with – or perhaps just slightly ahead of – its fan-base. This epic compendium of chronological webspinning wonderment sees the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero facing even greater and evermore complex challenges as he slowly recovers from the trauma of losing his true love and greatest enemy in the same horrific debacle. Here you will see all that slow recovery comes unstuck.

Once co-creator Stan Lee replaced himself with young Gerry Conway, the scripts acquired a far more contemporary tone (but feeling quite outdated from here in the 21st century): purportedly more in tune with the times whilst the emphatic use of soap opera subplots kept older readers glued to the series even when bombastic battle sequences didn’t. Moreover, as a sign of those times, a hint of cynical surrealism also began creeping in…

For newcomers – or those just visiting thanks to Spider-Man movies: super smart-yet-ultra-alienated orphan Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider during a school outing. Discovering strange superhuman abilities which he augmented with his own natural chemistry, physics and engineering genius, the kid did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do with such newfound prowess: he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money. Making a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor media celebrity – and a criminally vainglorious one. To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him one night he didn’t lift a finger to stop him, only to find when he returned home that his guardian uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.

Crazed and vengeful, Peter hunted the assailant who’d made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known. He discovered to his horror it was the self-same felon he had neglected to stop. His irresponsibility resulted in the death of the man who raised him, and the traumatised boy swore to forevermore use his powers to help others. Since that night, the wallcrawler tirelessly battled miscreants, monsters and madmen with a fickle, ungrateful public usually baying for his blood even as he perpetually saves them.

The high school nerd grew up and went to college. Because of his guilt-fuelled double-life he struggles there too but found abiding love with cop’s daughter Gwen Stacy… until she was murdered by the Green Goblin. Now Parker must pick up the pieces of his life…

This compelling compilation reprints Amazing Spider-Man #143-164 and Annual #10: collectively covering cover-dates April 1975 to January 1977, and confirming an era of astounding introspective drama and captivating creativity wedded to growing science fictional thinking. Stan Lee’s hand-picked successor Gerry Conway moved on after reaching a creative plateau, giving way to fresh authorial guide Len Wein.  Thematically, tales moved away from sordid street crime as outlandish villains and monsters took centre stage, but the most sensational advance was an insidious scheme which would reshape the nature of the web-spinner’s adventures to this day.

For all that, the wallcrawler was still indisputably mainstream comics’ voice of youth, defining being a teen for young readers of the 1970s, tackling incredible hardships, fantastic foes and the most pedestrian and debilitating of frustrations. Now its later and still-grieving Parker is trying to move on as we open with Amazing Spider-Man #143 (by Conway, Ross Andru, Frank Giacoia & Dave Hunt) in ‘…And the Wind Cries: Cyclone!’ Peter is in Paris to deliver a ransom and save kidnapped publisher J. Jonah Jameson but resorts to his arachnid alter ego to deal with a hyper-fast French supervillain. The run-of-the-mill tale’s real kicker comes from an overly-fond farewell expressed by “casual chum” Mary Jane Watson: a kiss that finally shifts traumatised Peter’s thoughts from his recently murdered beloved.

The creative team capitalised on the situation after Spider-Man saves Jonah and clobbers the kidnappers before Pete returns to New York and his usual daily travails as #144 launches a shocking new worry. ‘The Delusion Conspiracy’ (ASM #145) builds the tension and focuses on a baffled girl’s confusion and terror at everyone’s reactions when she comes home and the entire world screams ‘Gwen Stacy is Alive… and, Well…?!’

With Gwen somehow resurrected and Peter on the edge of a mental breakdown, Aunt May is hospitalised just in time for another old foe to strike again in ‘Scorpion… Where is Thy Sting?’, but the real kick in the tale is irrefutable scientific and medical reports proving the increasingly bewildered Miss Stacy is not an impostor but the genuine article…

In Spider-Man #147 Peter finds some answers as further tests prove Gwen is actually a true human clone (remember, this was new, cutting-edge stuff in 1975) but all too soon he’s distracted by another bad-guy with a grudge and hungry to prove ‘The Tarantula is a Very Deadly Beast’ (inked by Mike Esposito & Dave Hunt). It’s all part of a convoluted, utterly byzantine revenge scheme conceived by a malign enemy. When the hero is ambushed by a mesmerised Gwen at the behest of the archfiend, ‘Jackal, Jackal, Who’s Got the Jackal?’ at last discloses shocking truths about one of Peter’s most trusted friends prior to the Delusion Conspiracy explosively concluding in #149’s ‘Even if I Live, I Die!’ (Andru & Esposito art).

Learning he and Gwen had been covertly cloned by their biology teacher Miles Warren, the Amazing Arachnid must defeat his alchemical double in a grim, no-holds-barred identity-duel, with neither sure who’s the real McCoy. The battle eventually results in the copy’s death. Maybe. Perhaps. Probably…

The moment of unshakeable doubt over who actually fell informs anniversary issue Amazing Spider-Man #150, with Archie Goodwin, Gil Kane, Esposito & Giacoia taking the hero down memory lane and up against a brigade of old antagonists to decide whether ‘Spider-Man… or Spider-Clone?’ survived that furious final fight, before debuting regular scripter Len Wein joins Andru & John Romita Sr. to launch a new era of adventure…

After disposing of his duplicate’s corpse in an incineration plant, Spider-Man finds time to let Peter reconnect with his long-neglected friends. However, a jolly party is soon disrupted as blackouts triggered by a super-menace lead the wallcrawler into the sewers for a ‘Skirmish Beneath the Streets!’ It results in his almost drowning and nearly being ‘Shattered by the Shocker!’ (Esposito & Giacoia inks) in a conclusive and decisive return engagement before a moving change-of-pace tale sees a blackmailed former football star giving his all to save a child in ‘The Longest Hundred Yards!’ (Andru & Esposito).

However, it’s left to Spider-Man to make the true computer-crook culprits pay, after which #154 reveals ‘The Sandman Always Strikes Twice!’ (with art by Sal Buscema & Esposito) – albeit with little lasting effect – until devious murder-mystery ‘Whodunnit!’ (Buscema & Esposito) cunningly links three seemingly unconnected cases in a masterful “Big Reveal”…

A long-running romance-thread culminates in the oft-delayed wedding of Pete’s old flame Betty Brant to reporter Ned Leeds, but the nuptials are sadly interrupted by a new costumed crook in ‘On a Clear Day, You Can See… the Mirage!’ (Wein, Andru & Esposito), even as a sinister hobo who was haunting the last few yarns strode fully into the spotlight…

In the past, a protracted struggle for control of New York between Dr Octopus and cyborg gangster Hammerhead escalated into a full-on gang war and small-scale nuclear near-disaster, with Spidey and his aunt caught in the middle. The devilish duel concluded with an atomic explosion and the seeming end of two major antagonists. However, #157 exposed ‘The Ghost Who Haunted Octopus!’ as the long-limbed loon turns again to May Parker for salvation.

With Peter in attendance, the many-handed menace seeks to escape a brutal ghostly stalker tormenting him, but their unified actions actually liberate a pitiless killer from inter-dimensional limbo in ‘Hammerhead is Out!’, leading to a savage three-way showdown with Spidey ‘Arm-in-Arm-in-Arm-in-Arm-in-Arm-in-Arm with Doctor Octopus!’ to save the horrified Widow Parker.

Courtesy of plotter Wein, scripter Bill Mantlo and Kane, Esposito & Giacoia, a new insectoid archfoe debuted in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #10, where ‘Step Into My Parlor…’ depicts obsessed Spider-hater J. Jonah Jameson hiring outcast, exceedingly fringe-science biologist Harlan Stilwell  to create yet another tailor-made nemesis to destroy the webslinger.

Meanwhile, the detested hero is ending a vicious hostage situation manufactured by psychotic Rick Deacon, but when the killer escapes and breaks into a certain lab he’s transformed into a winged wonder hungry for payback on the webspinner in ‘…Said the Spider to the Fly!’

In the monthly mag Wein, Andru & Esposito fired the opening shot of an extended epic as a criminal inventor – and one of the wallcrawler’s oldest enemies – recovers Spidey’s long-ditched, satisfactorily drowned “Spider-Mobile”, tricking it out to hunt down its original owner in #160’s ‘My Killer the Car!’…

Having narrowly escaped doom and debacle in equal measure Spidey met a new friend and clashed with an old one, although rising star Frank Castle was reduced to a bit-player in Amazing Spider-Man #161-162 (October & November 1976), as the All-Newly-Reformed X-Men were sales-boosted via a guest-clash in ‘…And the Nightcrawler Came Prowling, Prowling’, wherein the Amazing Arachnid jumps to a completely wrong conclusion after a sniper shoots a reveller at Coney Island. By the time moody mutant Nightcrawler explains himself – in tried-&-true Marvel manner by fighting the webspinner to a standstill – old skull-shirt has turned up to take them both on before mutual foe Jigsaw is exposed as the real assassin in concluding episode ‘Let the Punisher Fit the Crime!’

The mystery villain behind much of Spider-Man’s recent woes is at last exposed in ‘All the Kingpin’s Men!’ as a string of audacious tech-robberies lead the hero to another confrontation with the deadly crime lord. This time, however, the Machiavellian mobster is playing for personal stakes. His son has been on the verge of death for months and his remedy is to electronically transfer the Spider-Man’s life force into the ailing patient. Discarded after the process, Peter Parker’s impending ‘Deadline!’ is extended by old friend Curt Connors until they can explosively set things right…

To Be Continued…

As always the narrative delights are supplemented by added extras which this go-round include contemporary house ads, Romita & Joe Sinnott’s cover/back cover, frontispiece, contents page and double-page cast pin-up from 1975 tabloid edition Marvel Special Edition #1: The Spectacular Spider-Man, and the Andru- & Esposito-rendered entry for The Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar 1976 (June) and Ronn Sutton’s cover for George Olshevsky’s 1982 The Marvel Comics Index: The Amazing Spider-Man and the 1985 Frontispiece by John Allison. Also on view are Andru’s prankish private joke pencils for the big reveal in ASM #144, editorial ‘Of Jackals and Juxtaposition’ from The Spider’s Web column in #153, and original art pages by Punisher design sketch by Romita and original art pages by Kane, Romita Andru & Esposito.

Blending cultural veracity with superb art, and making a dramatic virtue of the awkwardness, confusion and imputed powerlessness most of the readership experienced daily resulted in an irresistibly intoxicating read, especially when delivered in addictive soap-styled instalments, but none of that would be relevant if Spider-Man’s stories weren’t so utterly entertaining. This action-packed collection relives many momentous and crucial periods in the wallcrawler’s astounding life and is one all Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatics must see…
© 2023 MARVEL.

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Showcase Presents Batman volume 1


By John Broome, Gardner Fox, Ed Herron, Bill Finger, Carmine Infantino, Bob Kane, Sheldon Moldoff, Joe Giella, Sid Greene & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1086-1 (TPB)

Although cover-dated May 1939, Detective Comics #27 was on sale from March 30th. Happy Anniversary, Dark Knight! Because we like being us, let’s look at a perennial comics incarnation too long overdue for re-evaluation and re-inclusion in the greater Batty-verse…

I’m assuming everybody here loves comics and that we’ve all had the same trying experience of attempting to justify that passion to somebody not genned up or tuned in. Excluding your partner (who is actually right – the living room floor is not the place to leave your D*&$£! funnybooks), many people STILL have an entrenched and erroneous view of narrative strip art, resulting in a frustrating and futile time as you seek to dissuade them from that opinion.

If so, this collection might be the book you want next time that confrontation occurs. Collected here in stark and stunning monochrome are tales which reshaped the Dynamic Duo and set them up for global Stardom – and subsequent fearful castigation from fans – as the template for the Batman TV show of the 1960s. It must be noted, however, that the canny producers and researchers of that landmark derived their creative impetus from stories and especially movie serials of the era preceding the “New Look Batman”, as well as the prevailing tone of those socially changeable times…

So what’s going on here?

By the end of 1963, editor Julius Schwartz had revived much of DC’s science fiction and fantasy line – and the entire industry – with his deft reinterpretation and modernization of the Superhero. He was then asked to work his magic with the creatively stalled, nigh-moribund Caped Crusader franchise of titles. Bringing his usual team of top-notch creators with him, Schwartz stripped down the core-concept, downplaying aliens, outlandish villains and daft transformation tales, to bring a cool modern take to the pursuit and capture of criminals, and even overseeing a streamlining rationalisation of the art style itself.

The most apparent change readers was a yellow circle around the Bat-symbol on his chest, but far more importantly, the stories also changed. A subtle aura of genuine menace re-entered the comfortable, absurdly abstract world of Gotham City….

This initial Showcase Presents Batman compendium collects all the Bat-Sagas (STILL the only place to find them reprinted in full and in chronological order) as seen in Detective Comics #327-342 and Batman #164-174: 38 stunning stories that reshaped a legend and spanning cover-dates May 1964 to September 1965. The revolution began with the lead yarn in Detective #327, written by John Broome and illustrated by Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella at the very peak of their creative powers and collaborative partnership, before the Big Change was fully formalised with two tales from Batman #164.

‘The Mystery of the Menacing Mask! was a cunning “Howdunnit?” long on action and peril, as hints of a criminal “underground railroad” led the Dynamic Duo to a common thug seemingly able to control the heroes with his thoughts. The venerable title was clearly refocusing on its descriptive, evocative title for the foreseeable future, and to ram the point home, a new back-up feature was introduced – “Stretchable Sleuth” The Elongated Man. This comic book was to be a suspenseful brain-teaser from now on…

In the eponymous Batman title, action and adventure became paramount. ‘Two-Way Gem Caper!’ pitted Batman & Robin against slick criminal Dabblo, but the thief wasn’t the true star of this tale. Almost as an aside, a new Batcave and refashioned Wayne Manor were introduced, plus a sleek, compact new Batmobile – more sports-car than super-tank. This story was written by Ed “France” Herron and drawn by “Bob Kane”. Veteran inker Giella was tasked with finishing the contents of both Bat-books in a bid to generate uniformity in all stories. The inker would ultimately perform the same role when the Batman syndicated newspaper strip was revived, beginning on May 29th 1966…

A new semi-regular feature debuted in that issue. “The Mystery Analysts of Gotham City” was a private club of detectives, criminologists and crime-writers who met to discuss their cases. Somehow the meetings always resulted in an adventure such as ‘Batman’s Great Face-Saving Feat!’ (Herron & Kane), wherein eager applicant Hugh Rankin applied his Private Eye talents to discovering the Gotham Gangbuster’s true identity in an effort to win a seat at the sleuths’ table. Suffice it to say, he had to reapply…

‘Gotham Gang Line-Up!’ completed the transformation of Batman. Written by original co-creator Bill Finger and pencilled by Kane, this rather mediocre crime-caper from Detective #328 is most remarkable for the plot-twist wherein long-serving butler Alfred sacrificed his life to save the heroes, prompting Dick Grayson’s Aunt Harriet to move into Wayne Manor.

From this point, the process fell into a pattern of top-of-the-line tales punctuated by utterly exceptional occasional epics of drama, mystery and action. These would continue until the infamous TV show’s success became so great it actually began to inform – or taint – the style of story in the comics. And while I’m into editorial asides: whenever the credits read “Bob Kane” the artist usually doing the drawing was unsung hero Sheldon Moldoff.

Written by Broome and pencilled by Infantino, Detective #329’s ‘Castle with Wall-To-Wall Danger!’ was a captivating international thriller seeing the heroes braving deadly death-traps in Swinging England whilst pursuing a dastardly thief, before eerie science fiction saga ‘Man Who Quit the Human Race!’ (Gardner Fox, Kane & Giella) led in Batman #165 finding fantastic fantasy still had a place in the Gotham Guardian’s new world. A potential new love-interest debuted in back-up tale ‘The Dilemma of the Detective’s Daughter!’, courtesy of Herron & Kane, as student policewoman Patricia Powell left cop-college for the mean streets of the city.

Over in Detective #330, Broome & Kane detailed a new kind of crime in ‘The Fallen Idol of Gotham City!’, wherein a mysterious phenomenon turned ordinary citizens into blood-hungry mobs on command. In Batman #166, ‘Two-Way Deathtrap!’ sees a pair of petty thugs set up the perfect ambush after finding a pipeline into the Batcave whilst, ‘A Rendezvous with Robbery!’ pictured a return engagement for Pat Powell during a frantic crime caper with both tales by Herron & Kane. A rare full-length story in Detective #331 guest-starred Elongated Man as the ‘Museum of Mixed-Up Men’ (Broome & Infantino) united costumed sleuths against a super-scientific felon, after which a Rogues Gallery super-villain finally appeared in #332’s ‘The Joker’s Last Laugh’ (Broome & Kane), set on switching places with the Caped Crimebusters in his own manic manner…

In Batman #167 Finger & Kane declared ‘Zero Hour for Earth!’ as international espionage pulled the Titanic Team from Gotham into a global manhunt for secret society Hydra prior to Detective #333 pitting the heroes against a faux goddess and real telepaths in the ‘Hunters of the Elephants’ Graveyard!’, courtesy of Fox & Infantino. Then ‘The Fight That Jolted Gotham City!’ opened Batman #168 with a blockbusting battle between the Masked Manhunter and temporarily deranged circus strongman Mr. Muscles after which the Mystery Analysts resurfaced to close the book, explaining ‘How to Solve the Perfect Crime… in Reverse!’ (both tales by Herron & Moldoff).

The opening shot in an extended war against an incredible new foe dubbed The Outsider came with Detective #334 and the introduction of Grasshopper – ‘The Man Who Stole from Batman!’ (Fox & Moldoff), whilst Fox & Infantino’s ‘Trail of the Talking Mask!’ in #335 gave the Caped Crimebusters opportunity to reinforce their sci-fi credentials in a classy high-tech thriller guest starring PI Hugh Rankin.

Wily, bird-themed badman The Penguin popped up in Batman#169 (Herron & Moldoff), making the heroes his unwilling ‘Partners in Plunder!’, after which inker Sid Greene made his debut delineating ‘A Bad Day for Batman!’, wherein he overcomes many vicissitudes of cruel coincidence to nab a determined thief. Detective #336 (Fox, Moldoff & Giella) featured ‘Batman’s Bewitched Nightmare’ as a broom-riding crone attacks the Dynamic Duo at the Outsider’s behest. In later months the witch was revealed to be sultry sorceress Zatanna, but most comics cognoscenti agree this was not the original plan, but rather cannily back-written during the frantic months of “Batmania” that followed the debut of the TV show (for a fuller explanation see JLA: Zatanna’s Search).

An intriguing new foe made his modest mark in Batman #170 with highly professional thief Roy Reynolds running rings around the Gotham Gangbusters – at least initially – as the ‘Genius of the Getaway Gimmicks!’ (Fox & Moldoff) with Finger providing a captivating, human-scaled drama in ‘The Puzzle of the Perilous Prizes!’ enabling Giella to show off his pencilling as well as inking skills. ‘The Deep-Freeze Menace!’ (Detective #337, Fox & Infantino) focuses on captivating fantasy, pitting Batman against a super-powered caveman encased in ice for 50,000 years, before the caped crimebuster gains his own uncanny advantage in #338 as a chemical accident renders ‘Batman’s Power-Packed Punch!’ too dangerous to be near…

After an absence of decades, ‘Remarkable Ruse of The Riddler!’ reintroduced the Prince of Puzzlers in Batman # 171: a clever book-length mystery from Fox & Moldoff which did much to catapult the previously forgotten villain to the first rank of Bat-Baddies, after which DC’s inexplicable (but deeply cool) long-running love-affair with gorillas resulted in a cracking doom-fable as ‘Batman Battles the Living Beast-Bomb!’ (Fox & Infantino in Detective #339) highlighting the hero’s physical prowess in a duel of wits and muscles against a sinister super-intelligent simian. Broome came back to script the eerie conundrum drawn by Moldoff which opened Batman #172. ‘Attack of the Invisible Knights!’ proved to be wicked science not ancient magic, whilst Batman’s own technological advances played a major role part in backup ‘Robin’s Unassisted Triple Play!’ (Fox, Moldoff & Greene), giving the Boy Wonder plenty of scope to show his own skills against a gang of murderous bandits.

Detective #340 saw the war against Batman escalate when ‘The Outsider Strikes Again!’ (Fox & Moldoff), offering further clues to the hidden foe’s incredible abilities by animating everyday objects – and the Batmobile – to attack the Caped Champions, before Broome & Infantino detailed a cinema-inspired catastrophic campaign in #341’s ‘The Joker’s Comedy Capers!’ Criminal mastermind/blackmailer Mr. Incognito then offered ‘Secret Identities For Sale’ in Batman #173’s lead tale and Broome, Moldoff and inker Sid Greene depicted ‘Walk Batman – To Your Doom!’: a sinister psychological murder-plot years ahead of its time.

Broome & Moldoff’s ‘The Midnight Raid of the Robin Gang!’ (Detective #342) hinted at the burgeoning generational unrest of the 1960s as the faithful Boy Wonder seemingly sabotaged his mentor before signing up with costumed juvenile delinquents, before this collection of Caped Crusader Chronicles concludes with Fox & Moldoff’s Batman #174: a brace of blockbusters comprising a brutal story of street-fighting as the Gotham Guardian is ambushed and becomes ‘The Human Punching Bag!’ before the Mystery Analysts find themselves the intended victims of a “Ten Little Indians” murder-scheme in ‘The Off-Again, On-Again Lightbulbs!’ (inked by Greene).

No matter how much we might squeal and foam about it, to a large portion of the world Batman will always be the “Zap! Biff! Pow!”, affably lovable, caped buffoon of that 1960s television show. It really was that popular. Whether you tend towards the anodyne light-heartedness of then, commercially acceptable psychopathy of the current day or actually just like the comic book character in all eras, if you sit down, shut up and actually read these wonderful adventures for all (reasonable) ages, you will find the old adage “Quality will out” still holds true. And if you’re actually a fan who hasn’t read this classic stuff, you have an absolute treat in store…
© 1964, 1965, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman volume 1


By Gail Simone & Ethan Van Scriver, Amanda Deibert & Cat Staggs, James Bischoff & David A. Williams, Ivan Cohen & Marcus To, Sean Williams & Marguerite Sauvage, Ollie Masters & Amy Mebberson, Gilbert Hernandez & John Rauch, Rob Williams & Tom Lyle, Neil Kleid & Dean Haspiel , Corinna Bechko & Gabriel Hardman & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5344-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

Beyond all dispute or doubt, Wonder Woman is the very acme of female role models. Since her premier in 1941 she has dominated every aspect of global consciousness to become not only a paradigm of comics’ very fabric but also a brilliant and vivid visual touchstone and mythic symbol to women everywhere. In whatever era you observe, the Amazing Amazon epitomises the perfect balance between thought and competence and, over those decades, has become one of that rarefied pantheon of literary creations to achieve meta-reality.

For decades, the official story was that the Princess of Paradise Island was conceived by psychologist and polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston as a calculated attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model who would sell more funnybooks to girls. Thanks to forward-thinking Editor M.C. Gaines, an introductory guest shot for the Amazon in All Star Comics #8 (cover-dated December 1941 and on sale from the third week of October), served to launch her one month later into her own series – and the cover-spot – of new anthology title Sensation Comics. We now know Wonder Woman was in fact a team if not communal effort, with Moulton Marston acting at the behest of his remarkable wife Elizabeth and their life partner Olive Byrne.

An instant hit, Wonder Woman won an eponymous supplemental title (cover-dated summer 1942) some months later. That set up enabled the Star-Spangled Sensation to weather the vicissitudes of the notoriously transient comic book marketplace and survive beyond the Golden Age of costumed heroes beside Superman, Batman and a few lucky hangers-on who inhabited the backs of their titles. She soldiered on well into the Silver Age revival under the official auspices of Kanigher, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, but by 1968 superhero comics were in decline again and publishers sought new ways to keep audiences interested as tastes – and American society – changed.

Barring a couple of early fill-ins by Frank Godwin, the vast majority of outlandish, eccentric, thematically barbed adventures they collectively penned were limned by classical illustrator Harry G. Peter. When Marston died on cancer in 1947, his assistant Joye Hummell carried on writing stories until DC replaced her with a man – in fact a “real Man’s Man” – Robert Kanigher…

Once upon a time on a hidden island of immortal super-women, American aviator Steve Trevor of US Army Intelligence crashed to Earth. Near death, he was nursed back to health by young, impressionable Princess Diana. Fearful of her besotted child’s growing obsession with the creature from a long-forgotten and madly violent world, Diana’s mother Queen Hippolyte revealed the hidden history of the Amazons: how they were seduced and betrayed by men but rescued from bondage by the goddess Aphrodite on condition they isolated themselves forever from the mortal world, devoting their eternal lives to becoming ideal, perfect creatures.

However with the planet in crisis, goddesses Athena and Aphrodite instructed Hippolyte to send an Amazon back with the American to fight for global liberty. Although forbidden to compete, closeted, cosseted teen Diana clandestinely overcame all other candidates to become their emissary: Wonder Woman.

On arriving in the Land of the Free she purchased the identity and credentials of lovelorn Army nurse Diana Prince, which elegantly allowed the unregistered immigrant to stay close to Steve whilst enabling the heartsick care-worker to join her own fiancé in South America.

The new Diana soon gained a position with Army Intelligence as secretary to General Darnell, further ensuring she would always be able to watch over her beloved. The Princess little suspected that, although the painfully shallow Steve only had eyes for the dazzling Amazon superwoman, the General had fallen for the mousy but supremely competent Lieutenant Prince…

Back then, the entire industry depended on newsstand sales and if you weren’t popular, you died. Editor Jack Miller & Mike Sekowsky stepped up with a radical proposal (a makeover in the manner of UK TV icon Emma Peel) and made comic book history with the only female superhero to still have her own title in that marketplace. Eventually the merely mortal troubleshooter gave way to a reinvigorated Amazing Amazon who battled declining sales until DC’s groundbreaking Crisis on Infinite Earths, after which she was radically rebooted.

There were minor tweaks in her continuity to accommodate different creators’ tenures, until 2011 when DC rebooted their entire comics line again and Wonder Woman once more underwent a drastic, fan-infuriating but sales-boosting root-&-branch re-imagining. Perhaps to mitigate the fallout, DC created a number of fall-back options such as this intriguing package: the first of three to date…

Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman began as an online “digital first” series before being collected (months later) as a new standard print comic reprinting three post/chapters per issue. Crafted by a fluctuating roster of artists and writers, the contents highlighted every previous era and incarnation of the character – and even a few wildly innovative alternative visions – offering a variety of thrilling, engaging and sincerely fun-filled moments to remember.

The comic book iteration was successful enough to warrant its own series of trade paperback compilations which – in the fullness of time and nature of circularity – gained their own digital avatars as eBooks too.

This first full-colour compilation collects Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman #1-5 (October 2014 – February 2015), displaying a wealth of talent and cornucopia of different insights, starting with Gail Simone & Ethan Van Scriver’s ‘Gothamazon’, detailing how a mythologically militaristic Wonder Woman uncompromisingly, permanently cleans up Batman’s benighted home when the Gotham Guardians are taken out of play…

Amanda Deibert & Cat Staggs’ ‘Defender of Truth’ pits the Amazon against man-hating sorceress Circe to deliver a lesson that never gets old before ‘Brace Yourself’ from James Bischoff & David A. Williams reveals how little Princess Diana spent her formative years testing her growing abilities – and the Queen’s patience and love…

In ‘Taketh Away’ Ivan Cohen & Marcus To tackle an interesting issue by addressing the religious implications of a pagan-worshipping hero in Judaeo-Christian America whilst delivering an action-packed mystery and super duel with old enemies Cheetah and Doctor Psycho, before Sean Williams & Marguerite Sauvage explore her media profile as crime buster, role model and singer/lead guitarist with global rock sensation ‘Bullets and Bracelets’.

‘Morning Coffee’ by Ollie Masters & Amy Mebberson offers a quirky, manga-inspired duel of wits and ideologies with infallible thief Catwoman after which Gilbert Hernandez & colourist John Rauch go incontrovertibly retro for a blockbusting Silver-Age celebration of maidenly might as Wonder Woman, Mary (Shazam!) Marvel and Supergirl smash robots, aliens, supervillains and each other in cathartically cataclysmic clash ‘No Chains Can Hold Her!’

An alternate Earth mash-up by Rob Williams & Tom Lyle sees the classic Justice League and Thanagarian shapeshifter Byth face the ‘Attack of the 500-Foot Wonder Woman’ whilst ‘Ghosts and Gods’ (Neil Kleid & Dean Haspiel) finds the Golden Age Amazon and trusty aide Etta Candy united with restless spirit Deadman to foil the schemes of immortal eco-terrorist Ra’s Al Ghul.

The comic cavalcade concludes on a far more sombre and sinister note as ‘Dig for Fire’ by Corinna Bechko & Gabriel Hardman discloses how Diana invades Hellworld Apokolips to rescue two Amazon sisters only to discover amidst the horror and degradation that true evil is not the sole preserve of depraved New God Darkseid…

Augmented by spectacular covers-&-variants from Van Scriver & Brian Miller, Phil Jimenez & Romula Farjardo Jr., Ivan Reis, Joe Prado & Carrie Strachan, Adam Hughes & Lawrence Reynolds, this fascinating snapshot of the sheer breadth and variety of visions Wonder Woman has inspired in her decades of existence is one to delight fans old and new alike.
© 2014, 2015 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Yoko Tsuno volume 17: The Exiles of Kifa


By Roger Leloup, coloured by Studio Leonardo & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-065-4 (Album PB)

In 1970, indomitable intellectual adventurer and “electronics engineer” Yoko Tsuno began her career in Le Journal de Spirou. She is still delighting readers and making new fans to this day in astonishing, action-packed, astoundingly accessible adventures which are amongst the most intoxicating, absorbing and broad-ranging comics thrillers ever created. The globe-girdling mysteries and space-&-time-spanning epics were devised by multitalented Belgian maestro Roger Leloup who – from 1953 – truly started his own solo career after working as a studio assistant and technical artist on Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin.

Compellingly told, superbly imaginative and – no matter how implausible the premise of any individual yarn may seem – always firmly grounded in hyper-realistic settings underpinned by authentic, unshakably believable technology and scientific principles, Leloup’s illustrated escapades were at the vanguard of a wave of strips revolutionising European comics.

That long-overdue sea-change heralded the rise of competent, clever, brave and formidably capable female protagonists taking their rightful places as heroic ideals and not romantic lures; elevating Continental comics in the process. Such endeavours are as engaging and empowering now as they ever were, none more so than the exploits of Miss Tsuno.

Her first outings (the STILL unavailable Hold-up en hi-fi, La belle et la bête and Cap 351) were mere introductory vignettes in a more cartoonish style before authenticism took hold in 1971 and the unflappable troubleshooter met valiant but lesser male comrades Pol Paris and Vic Van Steen and properly hit her stride in premier full-length saga Le trio de l’étrange (beginning in Le Journal de Spirou’s May 13th edition). From that point Yoko’s cases would include explosive exploits in exotic corners of our world, sinister deep-space sagas and even time-travelling jaunts. There are 30 European albums to date but only 19 translated into English thus far (ironically, none of them digitally).

First serialised in LJdS #2736-2760, Les Exilés de Kifa was crafted in 1990: a tense race against time and hidden agendas far across the universe where our terrestrial trouble-shooters toil beside the disaster-prone lethally pragmatic alien colonists of planet Vinea. Their most trusted ally is Khany: a competent, commanding single mother combing parenting her toddler Poky with saving worlds, leading her people, averting continual cosmic catastrophe and – with Yoko – trying to restore some kind of moral compass to those ancient survivors ruthlessly rebuilding their fallen civilisation and permanently undermining and gaslighting the upstarts who slept out the apocalypse on another planet…

In their initial adventure together, Yoko, Vic and Pol had discovered an enclave of dormant aliens hibernating for eons in the depths of the Earth. After saving the sleepers from robotic/AI subjugation, the humans occasionally helped the refugees (who had fled their planet two million years previously) to rebuild their lost sciences. Ultimately, they accompanied the Vineans when they returned to their own star system and presumed long-dead homeworld. In the years Vineans slept, their primary civilisation collapsed, and the world they have begun to reclaim is much changed, with isolated pockets of the former inhabitants evolved beyond recognition…

They are constantly hostile to their returned descendants. As the re-migrants gradually restore the decadent, much-debased civilisation and culture, the human trio become regular guests and helpers against sabotage and skulduggery…

On a previous visit (The Archangels of Vinea) Yoko had established a unique psychic link with robotic intelligence Queen Hegora: one granting her certain technophilic abilities. On this excursion, the humans – including Tsuno’s adopted daughter Morning Dew (The Dragon of Hong Kong) are exploring another region of the recovering orb: the non-rotating planet’s frozen northern hemisphere where they briefly encounter a derelict space probe before it is (mostly) destroyed under mysterious circumstances…

As Khany investigates a space laser planetary defence station, Yoko receives a vision from Hegora revealing the crashing probe carried a passenger who needs the humans’ help. Guided into high orbit and the upper limits of Khany’s spacecraft, they retrieve a sentient toy robot instants before station commander Balky blasts the probe remnants.

Khany reveals how its kind were constant companions to children until the parents abruptly deemed them too smart and dangerous, subsequently banishing them to distant asteroid Kifa. Needing to know more, Yoko returns to the subsea Archangel City over her human allies’ strident warnings, where the presumed-defunct Queen secretly repairs the adorable toy creature – “Myna” – who reveals Kifa holds many more like her, and has been diverted from its orbit to crash into Vinea. The evil mastermind behind the impending cataclysm is Gobol: the ancient genius who caused so many of primordial Vinea’s woes by granting independence and sentience to robots and computing systems…

As the conference ends, Hegora also gives Yoko her own hyper-advanced deep space ship…

As Myna begs for help, her new friends learn Kifa is Balky’s next target for obliteration and her rapid response sees humans and Vineans blast off for Kifa, with betrayal, incredible scientific secrets, terror, tragedy and malign immortal intelligence Gobol awaiting them…

Once more, however, overwhelming digital malevolence proves inadequate in the face of Yoko Tsuno’s passionate humanity, bold imagination and quick thinking, but her ultimate success comes at great cost and cannot be called a triumph…

Rocket-paced, deviously twisted and terrifying plausible, this race against time and battle with bigotry is superbly mesmerising, proving once more how smarts and combat savvy are pointless without compassion. As always, the most potent asset of these edgy outer space dramas is the astonishingly authentic settings, as ever benefitting from Leloup’s diligent research and meticulous attention to detail.

The Exiles of Kifa is a magnificently wide-screen thriller, tense and compelling, and surely appealing to any fan of blockbuster action fantasy or breathtaking derring-do.
Original edition © Dupuis, 1991 by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation 2022 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Ms. Marvel Epic Collection volume 1: This Woman, This Warrior 1977-1978


By Gerry Conway, Chris Claremont, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Jim Mooney, John Byrne, Keith Pollard, Carmine Infantino, George Tuska & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1639-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

Until relatively recently American comics and especially Marvel had very little in the way of positive female role models and almost no viable solo stars. Although a woman starred in the very first comic of the Marvel Age, The Invisible Girl took decades to become a potent and independent character in her own right – or even just be called “woman”. The company’s very first starring heroine was Black Fury: a leather-clad, whip-wielding crimebuster imported from a newspaper strip created by Tarpe Mills in April 1941. The sultry sentinel was repackaged as a resized reprint for Timely’s funnybooks and renamed Miss Fury to enjoy a 4-year run (1942-1946) – although her tabloid incarnation fought on until 1952. Fury was actually predated by Silver Scorpion, who debuted in Daring Mystery Comics #7 (April 1941), but she was relegated to a minor position in the book’s line-up and endured a very short shelf-life.

Miss America premiered in anthological Marvel Mystery Comics (#49, November 1943), created by Otto Binder & artist Al Gabriele. After a few appearances, she won her own title in early 1944. Miss America Comics lasted, but the costumed cutie didn’t as – with the second issue (November1944) – the format changed, to become a combination of teen comedy, fashion feature and domestic tips magazine. Feisty take-charge superheroics were steadily squeezed out and the title is most famous now for introducing virginal evergreen teen ideal Patsy Walker. A few other woman warriors appeared immediately after the War, many as spin-offs and sidekicks of established male stars such as female Sub-Mariner Namora (debuting in Marvel Mystery Comics #82, May 1947 before graduating to her own 3-issue series in 1948).

She was soon joined by the Human Torch’s secretary Mary Mitchell who, as Sun Girl, helmed her own 3-issue 1948 series before becoming a wandering sidekick and guest star in Sub-Mariner and Captain America Comics. Draped in a ballgown and wearing high heels, masked detective Blonde Phantom was created by Stan Lee & Syd Shores for All Select Comics #11 (Fall 1946) whilst sort-of goddess Venus debuted in her own title in August 1948, becoming the gender’s biggest Timely-Atlas-Marvel success until the advent of the “Jungle Girl” fad in the mid-1950s. This was mostly by dint of the superb stories and art by the great Bill Everett and by ruthlessly changing genres from crime to romance to horror every five minutes…

Jann of the Jungle (by Don Rico & Jay Scott Pike) was just part of an anthology line-up in Jungle Tales #1 (September 1954), but she took over the title with the 8th issue (November 1955). Jann of the Jungle continued until June 1957 (#17), spawning a host of in-company imitators like Leopard Girl, Lorna the Jungle Queen and so on…

During the costumed hero boom of the 1960s, Marvel experimented with a title shot for Inhuman émigré Madame Medusa in Marvel Super-Heroes (#15, July 1968) and a solo series for the Black Widow in Amazing Adventures #1-8 (August 1970 to September 1971). Both were sexy, reformed villainesses, not wholesome girl-next-door heroes – and neither lasted solo for long.

When the costumed crazies craze began to subside in the 1970s, Stan Lee & Roy Thomas looked into creating a girl-friendly boutique of heroines written by women. Opening shots in this mini-liberation war were Claws of the Cat by Linda Fite, Marie Severin & Wally Wood and Night Nurse by Jean Thomas & Win Mortimer (both #1’s cover-dated November 1972).

Contemporary jungle queen Shanna the She-Devil #1 – by Carole Seuling & George Tuska – was out in December 1972; but despite impressive creative teams none of these fascinating experiments lasted beyond a fifth issue.

Red Sonja, She-Devil with a Sword, caught every one’s attention in Conan the Barbarian #23 (February 1973) and eventually won her own series, whilst The Cat mutated into Tigra, the Were-Woman in Giant-Size Creatures #1 (July 1974), but the general editorial position was “books starring chicks don’t sell”…

The company kept on plugging though, and eventually found the right mix at the right time with Ms. Marvel who launched in her own title cover-dated January 1977. She was followed by the equally copyright-protecting Spider-Woman (in Marvel Spotlight #32: February 1977), who secured her own title 15 months later) and Savage She-Hulk (#1, February 1980). She was supplemented by the music-biz sponsored Dazzler who premiered in Uncanny X-Men #130 the same month, before inevitably graduating to her own book.

Ms. Marvel was actually Carol Danvers, a US Air Force security officer first seen in Marvel Super-Heroes #13 (March 1968): the second episode of the unfolding tale of Kree warrior Mar-Vell, dispatched to Earth as a spy after the Fantastic Four repulsed the alien Kree twice in two months. In that series the immensely competent Carol seemed stalled, perpetually investigating Mar-Vell’s assumed and tenuous cover-identity of Walter Lawson for months. This was until Danvers was caught up in a devastating battle between the now-defecting alien and his nemesis Colonel Yon-Rogg in Captain Marvel #18 (November 1969).

Caught in a climactic explosion of alien technology, she pretty much vanished from sight until Gerry Conway, John Buscema & Joe Sinnott revived her in Ms. Marvel #1 (January 1977) where ‘This Woman, This Warrior!’ opened a new chapter for the company and the industry.

This sturdy economical tome collects Ms. Marvel #1-14 plus guest appearances in Marvel Team-Up #61-62 and The Defenders #57, cumulatively spanning cover-dates January 1977 – March 1978, diving straight into the ongoing mystery. The irrepressible but partially amnesiac Danvers has relocated to New York to become editor of “Woman”: a new magazine for modern misses published by Daily Bugle owner J. Jonah Jameson.

Never having fully recovered from her near-death experience, Danvers left the military and drifted into writing, slowly growing in confidence until the irascible publisher makes her an offer she can’t refuse. At the same time as Carol is getting her feet under a desk, a mysterious new masked hero begins appearing and as rapidly vanishing, such as when she pitches up to battle the sinister Scorpion as he perpetrates a brutal bank raid. The villain narrowly escapes to rendezvous with Professor Kerwin Korwin of AIM (high-tech secret society Advanced Idea Mechanics). The skeevy savant has promised to increase the Scorpion’s powers and allow him to take long-delayed revenge on Jameson – whom the demented thug blames for his freakish condition…

Danvers has been having premonitions and blackouts since her involvement in the final clash between Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg and has no idea she is transforming into Ms. Marvel. Her latest vision-flash occurs too late to save Jameson from abduction, but her “Seventh Sense” does allow her to track the villain before her unwitting new boss is injured, whilst her incredible physical powers and knowledge of Kree combat techniques enable her to easily trounce the maniac.

The second issue announced an ‘Enigma of Fear!’ in a return engagement for the Scorpion as Korwin and AIM make Ms. Marvel their new science project. As he turns himself into armoured assassin Destructor, Carol’s therapist Mike Barnett achieves an analytical breakthrough with his patient and discovers she is a masked metahuman before she does…

Although again felling the Scorpion, Ms. Marvel is ambushed by the Destructor, but awakes in #3 (written by Chris Claremont) to turn the tables in ‘The Lady’s Not for Killing!’

Travelling to Cape Canaveral to interview old friend Salia Petrie for a women-astronauts feature, Danvers is soon battling an old Silver Surfer foe on the edge of space, where all her occluded memories explosively return just in time for a final confrontation with Destructor. In the midst of the devastating bout she nearly dies after painfully realising ‘Death is the Doomsday Man!’ (with Jim Mooney taking over pencils for Sinnott to embellish).

The Vision guest-stars in #5 as Ms. Marvel crosses a ‘Bridge of No Return’. When Dr. Barnett reveals he knows her secret, Carol is forced to fight the Android Avenger after AIM tricks the artificial hero into protecting a massive, mobile “dirty” bomb. ‘…And Grotesk Shall Slay Thee!’ then pits her against a subterranean menace determined to eradicate the human race, culminating in a waking ‘Nightmare!’ when she is captured by AIM’s leader Modok and all her secrets are exposed to his malign scientific scrutiny. Grotesk strikes again in #8 as ‘The Last Sunset…?’ almost dawns for the planet, whilst ‘Call Me Death-Bird!’ (art by Keith Pollard, Sinnott & Sam Grainger) introduces a mysterious, murderous avian alien who would figure heavily in many a future X-Men and Avengers saga, but who spends her early days allied to the unrelenting forces of AIM as they attack once more in ‘Cry Murder… Cry Modok!’ (Sal Buscema & Tom Palmer).

A push to achieve greater popularity saw the neophyte in consecutive issues of Marvel Team-Up (#61-62, September & October 1977). Claremont had actually begun scripting that title with issue #57 with a succession of espionage-flavoured heroes and villains battling for possession of a mysterious clay statuette. As illustrated by John Byrne & Dave Hunt, the secret of the artefact is revealed in #61 as Human Torch Johnny Storm joins his creepy-crawly frenemy Spider-Man in battle against Super-Skrull and learns ‘Not All Thy Powers Can Save Thee!’, before the furious clash calamitously escalates to include Ms. Marvel with follow-up ‘All This and the QE2’. Here, the Kree-human hybrid uses knowledge and power she didn’t know she had and comes away in possession of an ancient, alien power crystal…

Frank Giacoia inks Sal B in Ms. Marvel #11’s ‘Day of the Dark Angel!’, wherein supernal supernatural menaces Hecate, the Witch-Queen and The Elementals (a group formerly seen fighting The Living Mummy) attack the Cape, tragically preventing Carol from rescuing Salia and her space shuttle crew from an incredible inter-dimensional disaster…

With Sinnott inking, the astonishing action continues in ‘The Warrior… and the Witch-Queen!’ before ‘Homecoming!’ (Mooney pencils) explores Carol’s blue-collar origins in Boston as she crushes a couple of marauding aliens before the all-out action and tense suspense concludes when ‘Fear Stalks Floor 40’ (illustrated by Carmine Infantino & Steve Leialoha) with the battered and weary warrior confronting her construction worker, anti-feminist dad whilst saving his business from the sinister sabotage of The Steeplejack’.

Wrapping up the show is another guest shot – this time from The Defenders #57 (March 1978). Crafted by Claremont, George Tuska & Dave Cockrum, ‘And Along Came… Ms. Marvel’ sees the “non-team” of outsiders and antiheroes paid a visit after Carol’s prescient senses warn her of their imminent ambush by AIM. Cue cataclysmic combat…

This comprehensive chronicle includes ‘Ms. Prints’: Conway and David Anthony Kraft’s editorials on the hero’s origins from Ms. Marvel #1 & 2, original character sketches by John Romita Senior, a house ad, and unused cover sketches by John Buscema and Marie Severin and pages of original art by Sal Buscema, Giacoia & Sinnott and Infantino & Leialoha.

Always entertaining, frequently groundbreaking and painfully patronising (occasionally at the same time), the early Ms. Marvel, against all odds, grew into the modern Marvel icon of capable womanhood we see today in both comics and on screen as Captain Marvel. These exploits are a valuable grounding of the contemporary champion but also still stand on their own as intriguing examples of the inevitable fall of even the staunchest of male bastions: superhero sagas…
© 1977, 1978, 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Axa Adult Fantasy Color Album


By Enrique “Enric” Badía Romero & Donne Avenell (Ken Pierce Books/Eclipse Comics)
ISBN: 0-912277-27-0 (TPB)

Born in 1930 Enrique “Enric” Badía Romero’s comics career began in his native Spain fifteen years later when he was apprenticed to popular creator Emilio Freixas. By 1949 – as “Badia” – he was drawing strips for Susy and other publications, and in 1953, launched his own magazine Alex, before going on to found publishers Ruiz Romero where he produced everything from westerns, sports, war stories and trading cards – mostly in conjunction with his brothers Jorge and Jordi. Their most memorable series were Cromos, Hombres de Lucha and Historia de la Guerra.

“Enric” began working for the higher-paying UK market in the 1960s, on strips such as ‘Cathy and Wendy’, ‘Isometrics’ and ‘Cassius Clay’ before successfully assuming drawing duties on the high-profile Modesty Blaise adventure-serial in 1970. He left in 1978 when an enticing new prospect appeared whilst he was simultaneously illustrating Modesty and Rahan with André Chéret for Franco-Belgian weekly Pif gadget. Even for the prolific artist something had to give…

Axa ran in The Sun Monday to Saturday from 14th July 1978 to her abrupt cancellation on November 16th 1986 – purportedly a victim of political and editorial intrigue which saw the strip cancelled in the middle of a story. Other than the First American Edition series from strip historian Ken Pierce and this colour collection, there has never been a definitive English language collection. It should be noted also that at the time of this book she was still being published with great success and to popular acclaim.

Back then in Britain it often appeared the only place where truly affirmative female role-models appeared to be taken seriously were cartoon sections, but even there the likes of Modesty Blaise, Danielle, Scarth, Amanda, Wicked Wanda and all the other capable ladies who walked all over the oppressor gender – both humorously and in straight adventure scenarios – lost clothes and shed undies repeatedly, continuously, frivolously and in the manner they always had…

Nobody complained (at least no one important or who was ever taken seriously): it was just tradition and the idiom of the medium… and besides, artists have always liked to draw bare-naked ladies as much as blokes liked to see them. It was even “educational” for the kiddies – who could buy any newspaper in any shop without interference, even if they couldn’t get into cinemas to view Staying Alive, Octopussy or Return of the Jedi without an accompanying adult…

Tough ’n’ sexy take-charge chicks (without clothes) were a comic-strip standard by the time the Star Wars phenomenon rekindled interest in science fiction, and the infallible old standby of scantily-clad, curvy amazons in post-apocalyptic realms never had greater sales-appeal than when The Sun – Britain’s sleaziest yet best-selling tabloid – hired Romero & Donne Avenell to produce a new fantasy feature for their already well-stacked cartoon section.

This beautifully illustrated but oddly out of kilter collection doesn’t bear much similarity in terms of tone or format to the (ostensibly) family-oriented daily strip, and features none of the regular supporting cast like long-suffering lover Matt or robotic companion Mark 10, which leads me to suspect it was created independently for a European market, perhaps as a Sunday page in Romero’s homeland or elsewhere where attitudes and mores were more liberal.

Certainly in the early 1980s Axa appeared in adult bande dessinée icon Charlie Mensuel (which reprinted many classic newspaper strips from around the world) and after that closed in Swedish publication Magnum.

Whatever their origin, the tales collected here are far stronger and more explicitly sexual in nature; occasionally coming close to being macho rape-fantasies, so please be warned as such content, no matter how winningly illustrated, will certainly offend most modern consumers.

The eponymous heroine was raised in a stultifying, antiseptic and emotionless domed city: a bastion of technological advancement in a world destroyed by war, pollution and far worse. Chafing at the constricting life of loveless living dead men, Axa broke out and, ancient sword in hand, chose to roam the shattered Earth searching for something real and true and free…

This slim oversized tome opens with Axa crossing trackless wasteland under a scorching sun until she finds a hidden grotto beneath a ruined building. The coolly sensual hidden pool is a welcome delight but harbours a ghastly monster and mutant voyeur…

Captured by a hideously scarred human degenerate Axa discovers his gentle nature but is soon abducted by his far-less sympathetic brethren who want to use her as a brood mare for their next generation. Ultimately, fate, her newfound friend and that ever-present longsword combine to effect her escape…

Resuming aimless exploration, Axa encounters a coastal village and is almost killed by wild dogs. Desperate flight takes her to a lighthouse on the promontory above the deserted town where ruggedly handsome Juame and his teenaged daughter Maria have been trapped for months. Swiftly, sexual tension between Axa and Jaume culminates in the only way it can as Maria is driven mad by jealousy she can barely comprehend. When a roving band of vicious post-apocalyptic Hell’s Angels hits town hungry for slaughter and kicks, the conflicted teen opens the tower doors for them…

The brutes casually murder her father and are intent on adding her and Axa to their string of human playthings, when a terrific storm hits and Axa breaks loose to become the bloody tool of harsh, uncompromising and final fate…

This incarnation of the warrior wanderer is certainly harder-hitting and more visceral than the British strip version and has little of the feature’s sly, dry humour, but art-lovers cannot fail to be impressed by Romero’s vibrant mixed-media illustration and imaginative, liberating page compositions.

Lush, lavish, luxurious and strictly for adventure-loving adults, Axa is long overdue for a comprehensive ethical overhaul and definitive comics collection. Is there a bold publisher out there looking for the next big thing and prepared to face a barrage of ethical vituperation?
Axa © 1985 Enrique Badia Romero. Previously © 1983, 1984 in Spanish. Express Newspapers, Ltd.

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Trish Trash Rollergirl of Mars – The Collected Edition


By Jessica Abel, with Lydia Roberts & Walter various (Super Genius/Papercutz)
ISBN: 978-1-5458-0167-3 (TPB/Digital edition) 978-1-5458-0166-6 (HB)

Our fascination with Mars has never faltered and now that we’re almost within touching distance, the Red Planet’s allure and presence in our fiction has never been more broad-based and healthily imaginative. Amidst all the recent TV, movie and literary product, one of the most engaging treatments was an enthralling comics serial detailing the life of an extraordinary young woman in exceedingly trying times.

After Earth collapses in an ecological and economic meltdown, recently arrived first settlers on Mars were trapped under an increasingly burdensome fixed economic structure and oppressive corporate plutocracy. Two centuries later, an entire class of indentured servants eke out a fraught existence, harvesting water and food with machines rented from Arex (“we’re the air that you breathe”). The air they don’t breathe is meagre, toxic, dust-filled and a bit radioactive…

On Mars, everything belongs to The Company, and people usually live from cradle to grave in crippling debt. There is, ostensibly, a chance to escape: mandatory offworld mining missions to the asteroid belt. These Temporary Labor Assignments, however, are regarded as a quick ticket to certain death.

All tyrannies need bread and circuses though. On Mars that’s Hoverderby…

Based on an ancient Earth entertainment, teams of women race around a hover track in flying boots, scoring points by beating each other up. It’s the planet’s most popular spectator sport and Arex own that too…

Trish Nupindu is seven-and-a-half (on Mars. In Earth terms she’s 15): a smart, recently-orphaned kid who’s really good with engines and most mechanical systems. Stuck on her aunt’s water farm, Trish dreams of becoming a Hoverderby star and is utterly discontented with the state of her existence. All “Marty” reel from the force of crushing, inescapable poverty and Trish totally believes her only chance of getting out from under a system stacked from the get-go against ordinary people is to become a media star of the great game.

Bold and impatient, one day she sneaks off to join the local team and is suckered into a binding intern’s contract, even though she’s under-age…

Trish doesn’t even get to play: the team manager wants her because she’s good at fixing the hoverboots continually malfunctioning due to the all-pervasive dust. Her world turns upside down after she and avowed-revolutionary/pal Marq discover a native Martian. Recalled from near-death, the mythical creature opens their eyes to a whole new world, and “her” secrets will change forever not just the way Hoverderby is played but also the very economic balance of power on the Red Planet – if the ruthless upper echelons of Arex don’t stop them first…

The inspirational drama is backed up by extensive supplemental features such as the rules of Hoverderby; Derby Gear: Then and Now; illustrated specifications for Radsuits; fact-features on The Homestead Debate, Native Martians, Ares Collective Statement of Debt (ACSOD), TLAs and Asteroid Mining all delivered in the manner of wiki pages. Also on show are data bursts on legendary water miner Ismail Khan, faux kids’ comics “True Tales of the Early Colonists” and a complete Timeline of Mars Colonization.

Jessica Abel has been wowing readers and winning prizes since 1997 when she took both the Harvey and Lulu awards for Best New Talent. Previous graphic delights include the fabulous Artbabe, Growing Gills, Life Sucks, Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, collections Soundtrack and Mirror, Window plus the Harvey-winning La Perdida.

Trish Trash began gradually unfolding in 2016: a sublime blend of subversive human drama and hard science fiction thriller with a supremely human and believable lead taking charge and changing the world. After three album releases, the entire saga was made available in this oversized (218 x 284 mm) hardback, plus paperback and eBook editions, at least one of which you really must see ASAP.
© Jessica Abel and Dargaud. All rights reserved. All other editorial material © 2018 by Super Genius.

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Deathlok: The Living Nightmare of Michael Collins


By Dwayne McDuffie, Gregory Wright, Jackson Guice, Denys Cowan, Scott Williams, Rick Magyar, Kyle Baker, Mike DeCarlo & Friends, Paul Mounts, Brad Vancata, Richard Starkings, Joe Rosen & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5988-9 (HB/Digital edition)

As created by Rich Buckler and originally scripted by Doug Moench in 1974, Deathlok the Demolisher was an honourable soldier condemned to an horrific fate in a dystopian alternate future. It’s his 50th anniversary this year and we’ll get around to the time-tossed travails of Manning another day. This book is not about him.

As you’d expect of a character who was designed as a bio-mechanised weapon, Deathlok is a complex concept with a lot of backstory and many later models. Most of that and those also belong in different reviews. Here we’re concentrating on the most successful iteration of the cyborg: a black man enduring living hell, subjugation and slavery to merciless masters who fights for his dignity and liberty with everything he has left to him…

Bookshelf format limited series Deathlok #1-4 was first released July through October 1990, and its success prompted a cheaper newsprint reprint run – as Deathlok Special #1-4 – less than a year later. Tragic champion Michael Collins sprang from this epic tale of deception and malfeasance into his own monthly series: 34 issues and 2 Annuals spanning July 1991 to April 1994, plus guest shots (across Marvel’s US and UK branches) in the nineties.

It begins in an 8-page prequel story from Marvel Comics Presents #62 (cover dated November 1990 but on sale in late summer) wherein Dwayne McDuffie, Gregory Wright & Jackson “Butch” Guice took Deathlok on a ‘Test Run’. The vignette saw soldier Colonel John Kelly – or at least his brain and assorted organic leftovers attached to a biomechanical body of intriguingly unknown origins – ruthlessly despatch a dozen mercenaries who had no idea what they were really facing; until a computer glitch ends the exercise and almost project leader Harlan Ryker.

Kelly would later be eventually resurrected as cyborg antihero Siege but the failed test left the Cybertek Systems Inc. team (cybernetics division of Marvel’s corporate villain organization Roxxon) in need of a new brain donor…

The story of this Deathlok really begins with the first solo issue as Dwayne McDuffie, (co-writer and colourist) Gregory Wright, Jackson Guice, Scott Williams & hard-pressed, overworked letterer Richard Starkings introduce readers to ‘The Brains of the Outfit’. Cybertek is dirty. It uses subterfuge to achieve its ends. When programmer, engineer, pacifist and devoted family man Michael Collins discovers his innovations are going into advanced weapons systems and not medical equipment he rebels and quits, inadvertently making himself the next candidate for the organic wetware of Deathlok. The enigmatic war frame requires a human brain to operate, but it doesn’t have to be alive…

Mere days after a tragic “accident”, good friend Harlan Ryker tries to comfort widow Tracy Collins and Michael’s son Nick, even as a new Deathlok is unleashed in Amazon rainforest republic Estrella. Here, future Roxxon profits require a change of environment, a new dam and an end to eco-guerilla resistance. However, once again the onboard systems malfunction mid fire-fight and the presumed expired personality of Michael Collins takes control of the body whilst striking a détente with the murderously efficient semi-sentient programmed systems.

In charge and very angry, Collins wants Ryker, Cybertek and Roxxon to pay, but cannot abandoned his principles. His first action is to institute a “no-kill” command in the super-soldier body he shares with a computer he must negotiate every action with. This does not hamper his combat efficiency in the slightest…

It proves a perfectly workable arrangement as Deathlok when he returns to the New Jersey Cybertek facility and violently confronts the “friends” who betrayed him. Ryker and his team desperately launch their other project – a cybernetically-controlled all-terrain super-tank piloted by ruthless paraplegic co-worker and barely suppressed psychopath Ben Jacobs. After wrecking the project, Deathlok flees but finds no solace. Now the embodiment of everything he loathes, he doesn’t even know if he’s truly still alive.

An attempt to reach out to Tracy and Nick results in disaster and only anonymous contact with his boy via a computer game stays him from self-termination. Lost and alone, he decides to use his situation to help others…

Second issue ‘Jesus Saves’ sees Deathlok operating as vigilante in New York’s Coney Island, defending the dregs of society – generally from themselves. After stopping a mugging he is befriended by the elderly victim Jesus who offers “Mike” shelter. Elsewhere, the event at Cybertek has reached the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (the white one), but Ryker is more concerned by pressure his Roxxon superiors are exerting on him. In response to a deadly deadline, he commissions a mercenary “fixer” called Wajler – AKA Mainframe – to eradicate Deathlok whilst Ryker unctuously probes Tracy and Nick for possible intel and warns them that a rogue robot might be stalking them. Nick is not fooled…

Wracked by human memories and doubts, Deathlok uses the ability to access computer files and enter a communal cyber-scape to look for ways to stop Ryker, but his reaching out endangers his few remaining friends. It also makes him a target and Mainframe’s mech-enhanced team zero in on Coney Island and explosively attack, uncaring of the innocent crowds enjoying themselves there. The resultant chaos makes headlines everywhere and as S.H.I.E.L.D. steps in Deathlok decides it’s time to go back to Estrella and fix what he inadvertently started as a slave of Cybertek…

Artists Denys Cowan & Rick Magyar joined McDuffie & Wright, in #3 as ‘Dam if He Don’t’ sees the cyborg hero subject to intense S.H.I.E.L.D. scrutiny even as Collins joins the remaining eco-guerillas in wrecking Roxxon’s scheme to build a super dam and make the entire region easier to mine. Even after convincing the resistors he’s on their side – this time – there’s still an army of soldiers and regiment of giant robot ants controlled by revenge hungry Ben Jacobs to deal with.

The unstoppable Deathlok’s crusade is greatly assisted by a late-in-the-day alliance with Nick Fury, setting up a final face-off with Ryker, but the malign master manipulator has one last card to play and offers to reinsert Collins’ brain in the body he removed it from and has been judiciously keeping alive “just in case”…

The clash of wills and Collins brief ethical “wobble” culminates in catastrophic combat that draws in naive Japanese ultra-nationalist/part-time X-Man Sunfire, his cunningly controlling sensei Yoritomo and a secret army of ninjas on ‘Ryker’s Island’ (McDuffie & Wright, Cowan, Kyle Baker, Mike DeCarlo & Friends). Despite at first being pacified by Harlan’s promises of restoring him alive to his family, Deathlok recovers his moral compass in time for S.H.I.E.L.D. to assist him in averting a nuclear armageddon Ryker thought he could profit from, but in the confusion everyone loses sight of Michal Collins’ bottled body…

The least Fury can do is lie to Tracy and Nick for him: telling them the pacifist is on a secret mission for S.H.I.E.L.D. as Deathlok hides, facing an uncertain future as a hero in waiting…

With covers by Joe Jusko, Bill Sienkiewicz, Kent Williams, Cowan & Tom Smith, plus frontispiece/inside cover art by Guice, an historical essay on ‘Deathlok’ by Peter Sanderson and covers for reprint series Deathlok Special #1-4 (Guice & Cowan), the origin of Marvel’s most conflicted champion is a challenging but rewarding romp for older readers.
© 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Art of Ramona Fradon


By Ramona Fradon; interviewed by Howard Chaykin (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-140-3 (HB/Digital edition)

In a matter of mere weeks that have taken many accomplished, acclaimed and beloved comics luminaries (including Paul Neary, Enrique Badía Romero, José Delbo, Marti (Riera), John G. Miller and Keith Giffen) – we are particularly saddened to learn that pioneering cartoonist Ramona Fradon died on February 24th. At the age of 97 she had only just officially retired a month previously. Her incomparable works will keep her with us through characters and titles such as Super Friends, Aquaman and Metamorpho (slated to appear in the next Superman film). Until then, here’s another tome you should own…

Although present in comic books from the start, women – like so many other non-white/male “minorities” – have been largely written out of history. One of the very few to have weathered that inexplicable exclusion was Ramona Fradon. This excellent commemorative art collection celebrates not only her life and contribution, but thanks to its format – a free, unexpurgated extended interview with iconoclastic creator Howard Chaykin – shares the artist’s frank and forthright views on everything from work practise to the power of fans…

It begins with an Introduction from Walt Simonson who proclaims ‘Meet your Idol… and discover They’re even Cooler than you Thought!’, before early days are revealed in ‘Part One: Setting the Scene’ and ‘Part Two: In the Beginning’…

Ramona Dom was born on October 2nd 1926 to an affluent Chicago family with many ties to commercial creative arts. Her father was a respected artisan, letterer and calligrapher who had designed the logos for Camel cigarettes, Elizabeth Arden and other major brands, and also formulated the fonts Dom Casual and Dom Bold. He had plans for his daughter, urging her to become a fashion designer…

The family moved to (outer) New York when Ramona was five. Ramona initially attended The Parsons School of Design, and discovered she had absolutely no interest in creating clothes. Although she’d never read comic books, she had voraciously read illustrated books like John Barton Gruelle’s Raggedy Anne and Andy series, and was a devoted fan of newspaper strips. Favourites included Dick Tracy, Bringing Up Father, The Phantom, Alley Oop, Flash Gordon, Terry and the Pirates and Li’l Abner (all herein represented by 1930s examples).

Ramona soon transferred to the New York Art Students League – a hotbed of cartooning – where she met and married Arthur Dana Fradon. He became a prolific illustrator, author and cartoonist and a regular contributor to The New Yorker between 1948-1992. They wed in 1948 and he actively encouraged her to seek work in the still young funnybook biz…

‘Part Three: Gingerly Breaking into Comics’ reveals how her first forays at Timely Comics led to DC/National Comics and a Shining Knight yarn published in Adventure Comics #165 (cover-dated June 1951), 10 months later taking over the veteran Aquaman feature in #167. Fradon was one of the first women to conspicuously and regularly illustrate comic books, drawing the strip throughout the 1950s and shepherding the Sea King from B-lister to solo star and Saturday morning TV pioneer.

In the first of a series of incisive, informative mini biographies, ‘Sidebar: Murray Boltinoff’ reveals the influence of that much-neglected and under-appreciated editor. ‘Part Four: Queen of the Seven Seas’ and ‘Part Five: Man of 1000 Elements’ show how occasional stints on The Brave and the Bold team-ups led to her co-creation of Sixties sensation Metamorpho, the Element Man. However in 1965 – at the pinnacle of success – she abruptly retired to raise a daughter, only returning to comics in 1972 for another stellar run of landmark work.

‘Sidebar: George Kashdan’ tells all about the multi-talented scripter before ‘Part Six: Ramona Returns to Comics… At Marvel???’ details how the House of Ideas lured the artist back to her board and highlights her difficulties working “Marvel-style” on assorted horror shorts, The Claws of the Cat and Fantastic Four, all presaging a return to DC…

‘Sidebar: Joseph Patterson’ looks into the astounding strip Svengali who green lit Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Gasoline Alley and more before ‘Part Seven: Back Home at DC Comics’ where she was busier than ever. As well as horror and humour shorts, Fradon drew a new Metamorpho try-out, superhero spinoff Freedom Fighters and her twin magnum opuses: revived comedy superhero Plastic Man and TV sensation Super Friends. These revelations are bolstered by ‘Sidebar: E. Nelson Bridwell’, exploring the life of the man who knew everything about everything…

In 1980, Fradon took over Dale Messick’s long-running newspaper strip Brenda Starr, drawing it for 15 years. ‘Part Eight: Leaping From Books to Strips’ explores that painful and unpleasant chore in sharp detail, supplemented by ‘Sidebar: Brenda Starr’ outlining the feature’s history and reprinting those episodes when the ageless reporter met a certain cop, allowing Fradon to finally draw childhood idol Dick Tracy…

The most fascinating stuff is left until last as ‘Part Nine: Ramona the Author’ discusses her career post-Brenda: drawing for Bart Simpson and Spongebob Squarepants comics, returning to higher education and writing a philosophical historical mystery novel – The Gnostic Faustus: The Secret Teachings Behind the Classic Text – as well as illustrated kids book The Dinosaur That Got Tired of Being Extinct.

Packed throughout with candid photos, and stunning pencil sketches, painted pictures and privately commissioned works – like Aquaman, assorted Super Friends, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Robin; Metal Men, Aqualad, Brenda Starr, Black Canary, Shazam/Captain Marvel, Shining Knight, The Atom, The Spirit, Metamorpho & cast, Marvel Girl, Miss America, Power Girl, Catwoman, Hawkman, numerous illustrations from The Story of Superman book plus convention sketches, this celebration concludes with even more fabulous sleek super art images in ‘Part Nine: Ramona Today’ and ‘Part Eleven: Bibliography’…

This is an amazing confirmation of an incredible career and any fan’s dream package. Amongst gems unearthed here are complete Aquaman stories ‘The Kid from Atlantis!’ (Adventure Comics #269, 1960), ‘A World Without Water’ (Adventure#251, 1958) and ‘How Aquaman Got his Powers!’ (Adventure #260, 1959), plus tales from Star Spangled War Stories (#184, 1975) and ‘The Invisible Bank Robbers!’ (Gangbusters #30, 1952).

Also on show are unpublished sample strips by Dana & Ramona Fradon and a monumental cover gallery of unforgettable images from Super Friends #3, 5-8, 10, 11, 13, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24-27, 31, 33, 36-39 & 41; Plastic Man #16-20; The Brave and the Bold #55, 57, 58, Showcase #30 & 33, Metamorpho, the Element Man #1-5, Namora #1 (2010), Fantastic Four #133 and Freedom Fighters #3.

These are supported by selected interior pages in full colour or monochrome from Star Spangled War Stories #8; Adventure Comics #190; Metamorpho, the Element Man #1; 1st Issue Special #3; Fantastic Four #133; The Brave and the Bold #57; House of Secrets #116 & 136; Secrets of Haunted House #3 & 14; House of Mystery #232 & 273; Plop! #5; Freedom Fighters #3 & 5; Plastic Man #14; Super Friends #6-8, 10, 13, 16, 19, 21, 23 & 25 and the Super DC Calendar 1977.

A truly definitive appreciation of the Comic Book Hall of Fame inductee 2006, this oversized (229 x 305 mm) hardback reproduces hundreds of pages and covers, plus a wealth of out-industry artwork and commissioned wonders, as accompaniment to an astonishingly forthright testament and career retrospective of a phenomenal and groundbreaking talent.

The Art of Ramona Fradon will delight everyone by showing everybody how comics should be done….
Marvel Characters © and ™ 1941-2013 Marvel Characters, Inc. DC Comics Characters © and ™ DC Comics. Brenda Starr™ © 2013 Tribune Media Services. All Rights Reserved.