Year: 2021

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The Leopard from Lime St. Book One


By Tom Tully, Mike Western, Eric Bradbury & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 9-781-78108-597-4 (PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Superb All-Ages Entertainment and Adventure… 9/10

They – apart from lawyers – say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. You can make your own mind up on that score if you seek out these quirky and remarkable vintage thrillers offering a wonderfully downbeat and sublimely British spin on a very familiar story…

Until the 1980s, comics in the UK were always based on the anthological model, offering variety of genre and character on a weekly or sometimes fortnightly basis. Primarily humorous periodicals like The Beano would be leavened by the Q-Bikes or General Jumbo and action papers like Lion, Valiant or Smash! included gag serials like Grimly Feendish, Mowser, The Nutts or a wealth of other laugh treats.

Buster seemed to offer the best of all worlds. Running 1902 issues from May 28th 1960 to 4th January 2000, it finely balanced drama, action and comedy, with its the earliest days – thanks to absorbing Radio Fun and Film Fun – heavy with celebrity-licensed material like Charlie Drake, Bruce Forsyth and Benny Hill or the eponymous cover star billed as “the son of (newspaper strip star) Andy Capp”. The comic became the final resting place of many, many companion papers in its lifetime, including The Big One, Giggle, Jet, Cor!, Monster Fun, Jackpot, School Fun, Nipper, Oink!and Whizzer & Chips, so the cumulative roster of strip content is wide, wild and often wacky…

At first glance, British comics prior to the advent of 2000AD seem to fall into fairly ironclad categories. Back then, you had genial and fantastic preschool fantasy, a large selection of adapted media properties, action, adventure, war and comedy strands. A closer look, though, would confirm that there was always a subversive merging, mixing undertone, especially in such antihero series as Dennis the Menace or our rather strained understanding of the concept of superheroes. Just check out The Spider or the early Steel Claw…

We had dabbled with the classic form in the Batman-influenced 1960s and slightly beyond, but Tri-Man, Gadgetman, Johnny Future and the Phantom Viking remained uncomfortably off-kilter oddities. In the March 27th 1976 edition of Buster that all changed…

Now part of Rebellion Publishing’s line of British Comics Classics, The Leopard from Lime Street originally ran 470 episodes comprising 50 adventures until May 18th 1985 – and even later as colorized reprints and a wealth of foreign-language and overseas editions.

For most of that time it was a barely-legal knock-off of Marvel’s Spider-Man – with hints of DC Thomson’s Billy the Cat – as seen through a superbly English lens. It was also, however, utterly unmissable reading…

This first volume – available as large paperback (213 x 276 mm) or digital edition – was released in 2017 and reprints strips from Buster March 27th 1976 to June 11th 1977. The incredible stories are preceded by a superbly informative Introduction from comics historian and author Steve Holland ‘Behind the Mask’ before we head to the middle (or maybe north-ish) of England where in Selbridge, scrawny 13-year-old Billy Farmer is being bullied again: this time by the kids at school…

His abiding interests are journalism and photography and Billy publishes a school newspaper all by himself, probably to compensate for his home life. He lives with loving but frail Aunt Joan and vicious, indolent, work-shy and physically abusive Uncle Charlie who avoids work like the plague but is always ready to deliver a violent lesson with fist, boot or belt…

Life changes for Billy when he visits the Jarman Zoological Institute and is accidentally scratched by Sheba, an escaped leopard being treated with radioactive chemicals for an unspecified disease.

In the days before Health and Safety regulations or a culture of litigation, Billy is given a rapid once-over by the scientists in charge and declared fine before being sent home.

Only when Uncle Charlie tries to hit him and ends up thrown into the dustbins does Billy realise that something has changed: he now has the strength, speed, stamina and agility of a jungle cat as well as enhanced senses and a predator’s “danger-sense”…

Soon, he’s wearing a modified pantomime costume and prowling the dark streets and low rooftops, incurring the curiosity of Editor Thaddeus Clegg of the Selbridge Sun whilst ever-more confidant Billy sells news photos of the burglars, kidnappers and crooks the vigilante “leopardman” preys on. He’s also a dab hand at getting candid shots of the secluded celebrities no pro journo can get near…

School remains a nightmare of bullies and almost-exposure of Billy’s secret, but home life gets much better after the police identify Billy as being an official confidante of the cat creature even as Uncle Charlie is regularly brutalised by the feral fury in defence of his “friend”…

A major storyline sees the mystery prowler framed for arson and theft, but always Billy or the beast eventually clear the Leopard’s name and reputation. Moreover, the boy’s earnings – grudgingly paid by Clegg – start making life easier for Aunt Joan, while the beast’s constant proximity to Lime Street ensures Charlie keeps his outbursts verbal and his drunken fists unclenched…

All that almost ends when a crooked circus owner first tries to capture and exhibit the Leopardman and then creates his own inferior version, before earning a very painful object lesson. After crushing robbers, child abductors and a masked wrestler who all successively learn to fear the beast, the next challenges are even worse as a circus acrobat mimics the cat’s abilities to very publicly frame the Leopard for a string of crimes before a bullying classmate’s dad infiltrates the school trip to a stately home/safari park to pull off a million quid blag, leaving Billy trapped and accidentally reunited with his accidental creator Sheba.

Is that why his powers seem to be increasing beyond his ability to control them?…

Enthrallingly scripted by British comics superstar Tom Tully (Heros the Spartan; Janus Stark; Mytek the Mighty; Steel Claw; Adam Eterno; Johnny Red; Harlem Heroes; Roy of the Rovers) and collaboratively illustrated by British comics royalty Mike Western (Lucky Logan; No Hiding Place; Biggles; The Wild Wonders; Darkie’s Mob; The Sarge; HMS Nightshade; Jack O’Justice; The Avenger; Billy’s Boots; Roy of the Rovers) and Eric Bradbury (Mytek the Mighty; House of Dolmann; Maxwell Hawke; Cursitor Doom; Von Hoffman’s Invasion; Death Squad; Hook Jaw; Doomlord; Rogue Trooper; Invasion; Mean Arena; Tharg the Mighty and more) this moody pre-modern masterwork offers a fascinating insight into the slant a different culture can bring to as genre. The concept of a “real-life” superhero has never been more clearly explored than in these tales of the cat kid who survives not supervillains but a hard-knock life…
The Leopard from Lime Street ™ & © 1976, 1977, 2017 Rebellion Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Walt Disney’s Donald Duck volume 5: “Christmas on Bear Mountain” by Carl Barks


By Carl Barks (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-697-3 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: The Utter Acme of All-Ages Entertainment… 10/10

Carl Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon in 1901, growing up in the rural areas of the West during some of the leanest times in American history. He tried his hand at many jobs before settling into the profession that chose him. His early life is well-documented elsewhere if you need detail, but briefly, Barks worked as a animator at Disney’s studio before quitting in 1942 to work in the new-fangled field of comic books.

With cartoon studio partner Jack Hannah (another occasional strip illustrator) Barks adapted a Bob Karp script for an animated cartoon short into the comic book Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. It was published as Dell Four Color Comics Series II #9 in October of that year and – although not his first published comics work – it was the story that shaped the rest of his career.

From then until his official retirement in the mid-1960s, Barks worked in self-imposed seclusion, writing and drawing and devising a vast array of adventure comedies, gags, yarns and covers that gelled into a Duck Universe of memorable and highly bankable characters. These included Gladstone Gander (1948), Gyro Gearloose (1952), Magica De Spell (1961) and the nefarious Beagle Boys (1951) to supplement Disney’s stable of cartoon actors. His greatest creation was undoubtedly the crusty, energetic, paternalistic, money-mad giga-gazillionaire Scrooge McDuck: the World’s wealthiest winged septuagenarian and the harassed, hard-pressed star of this show.

Whilst producing all that landmark material Barks was just a working guy, generating cover art, illustrating other people’s scripts when asked and contributing stories to the burgeoning canon of Duck Lore. After Gladstone Publishing began re-packaging Barks material – and a selection of other Disney strips – in the 1980s, he discovered the well-earned appreciation he never imagined existed…

So potent were his creations that they inevitably fed back into Disney’s animation output itself, even though his brilliant comic work was done for licensing company Dell/Gold Key, and not directly for the studio. The greatest tribute was undoubtedly the animated series Duck Tales: heavily based on his comics output.

Most notably, Barks was a fan of wholesome action, unsolved mysteries and epics of exploration, and this led to him perfecting the art and technique of the blockbuster tale: blending wit, history, plucky bravado and sheer wide-eyed wonder into rollicking rollercoaster romps that utterly captivated readers of every age and vintage. Without the Barks expeditions there would never have been an Indiana Jones…

Throughout his working life Barks was blissfully unaware that his work (uncredited by official policy as was all Disney’s cartoon and comicbook output), had been singled out by a rabid and discerning public as being by “the Good Duck Artist.” When some of his most dedicated fans finally tracked him down, his belated celebrity began.

In 2013 Fantagraphics Books began collecting Barks’ Duck stuff in wonderful, carefully curated archival volumes, tracing his output year-by-year in hardback tomes and digital editions that finally do justice to the quiet creator. These will eventually comprise the Complete Carl Barks Disney Library. The physical copies are sturdy and luxurious albums – 193 x 261 mm – that would grace any bookshelf, with volume 5 – Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: “Christmas on Bear Mountain” (for reasons irrelevant here) acting as debut release, re-presenting works from 1947 – albeit not in strictly chronological release order.

It begins eponymously with landmark introduction of Bark’s most enduring creation. Scrooge McDuck premiered in seasonal full-length Donald Duck yarn ‘Christmas on Bear Mountain’ (Four Color #178 December 1947): a mere disposable comedy foil to move along a simple tale of Seasonal woe and joy. Here a miserly relative seethed in opulent isolation, hating everybody and opting to share the gloom by tormenting his nephews Donald, Huey, Louie and Dewey by gifting them his mountain cabin for the Holidays. Scrooge schemed, intent on terrorising them in a bear costume, but fate had other ideas…

The old coot  was crusty, energetic, menacing, money-mad and yet oddly lovable – and thus far too potentially valuable to be misspent or thrown away. Undoubtedly, the greatest cartoon creation of the legendary and magnificent story showman Carl Barks, the Downy Dodecadillionaire returned often and eventually expanded to fill all available space in the tales from the scenic metropolis of Duckburg.

From the same issue a brace of one-page gags expose Donald’s views on car culture in ‘Fashion in Flight‘ and annoying people looking for directions in ‘Turn for the Worse’ before

‘Donald’s Posy Patch’ (Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories#80, May) turns into another painful and humiliating experience as the bellicose bird tries getting rich by growing blooms…

June’s WDC&S #81 finds him and the kids prospecting and running foul of the post-war arms and rocket-race in ‘Donald Mines his Own Business’ before Four Color #147 (May) takes them on an epic voyage of fantastic discovery to ‘Volcano Valley’ after accidentally buying an army surplus bomber…

Always looking for a quick buck, Donald and the kids turn to commercial charters: flying innocuous-seeming Major Pablo Mañana back to Central American beauty-spot Volcanovia, but they all have a devilishly difficult time getting out again. This yarn sets a solid pattern for Bark’s adventure/travelogue yarns in years to come, blending comedy, thrills, whimsy and social commentary into an irresistible treat…

WDC&S #82 (July) sees adult and juvenile ducks in an ever-escalating war over who’s the best conjuror in ‘Magical Misery’ and by the time Daisy Duck deals with them, Donald is ready for a day of peace and quiet. Sadly, ‘Ring Wrongs’(AKA ‘Vacation Time’ from August’s Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #83 reveals that thanks to Huey, Louie and Dewey, he’s the target of a relentless wave of door-to-door salesmen and reacts with typical zest and vigour…

An inappropriate experiment in hypnosis transforms Donald (mentally) into a kangaroo and prompts an ‘Adventure Down Under’ (Four Color #159 August) with the eventually restored Drake and his nephews compelled to become ‘roo hunters to pay for return passage to Duckburg. They are mightily outmatched by Mournful Mary “Queen of the Kangaroos” until they meet some local aborigines and experience a change of heart.

Please be aware that – despite Bark’s careful research and diligent, sensitive storytelling – some modern folk might be upset by his depictions from over seven decades ago.

‘If the Hat Fits’ is a gag-page of chapeau japery from Four Color #147 (May), that precedes a medium-length tale describing Donald’s efforts to master dancing in ‘The Waltz Kings’ from WDC&S #84 (September) counterbalanced a month later by #85’s ‘The Masters of Melody’ wherein the boys struggle to learn to play musical instruments…

‘Donald Duck and the Ghost of the Grotto’ is an early masterpiece originating in Four Color #159 (August 1947), with Donald and the kids in the West Indies, running a kelp boat and harvesting seaweed from the abundant oceans.

After being temporarily stranded on an isolated reef, they discover monsters, a shipwrecked galleon, an ongoing abduction mystery dating back centuries and a particularly persistent phantom all blending into a supremely thrilling and beguiling mystery that has never dated…

WDC&S #86 exposes the rise and fall of ‘Fireman Donald’ whose smug hubris deprives him of a job he’s actually good at, after which ‘The Terrible Turkey’ from details the Duck’s frankly appalling efforts to secure a big bird for the Thanksgiving feast despite skyrocketing poultry prices…

Donald and Mickey Merry Christmas 1947 (cover-dated January 1948) sees the boys strive a little too late and much too hard to be ‘Three Good Little Ducks’ and ensure a wealth of swag on Christmas morning before one final single-pager sees kitchen confusion for Donald in ‘Machine Mix-up’ from Four Color #178 (December)…

With the visual verve done we move on to validation as ‘Story Notes’ provides erudite commentary for each Duck tale and Donald Ault relates ‘Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks’ before ‘Biographies’ reveals why he and commentators Alberto Beccatini, Joseph Robert Cowles, Craig Fischer, Jared Gardner, Rich Kreiner, Ken Parille, Stefano Priarone, R, Fiore, Mattias Wivel are saying all those nice and informative things.

We then close with an examination of provenance as ‘Where Did These Duck Stories First Appear?’ explains the somewhat byzantine publishing schedules of Dell Comics.

Carl Barks was one of the greatest exponents of comic art the world has ever seen, and almost all his work featured Disney’s characters: reaching and affecting untold millions of readers across the world and he all too belatedly won far-reaching recognition. You might be late to the party but it’s never too soon to climb aboard the Barks Express.
Walt Disney’s Donald Duck “Christmas on Bear Mountain” © 2013 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All contents © 2013 Disney Enterprises, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

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Star Wars – The New Republic Epic Collection volume 5: Dark Empire


By Tom Veitch, Peet Janes, Scott Allie, Jason Hall, Henry Gilroy, Joe Casey, Cam Kennedy, Jim Baikie, Paul Lee, Brian Horton, John McCrea, Dario Brizuela, Francisco Paronzini, Arthur Adams, Edvin Biuković, Steve Crespo, Rodolfo DaMaggio, Doug Mahnke, John Nadeau, Jordi Ensign, Stan Manoukian, Vince Roucher, Isaac Buckminster Owens, Dusty Abell, Jim Royal, Jan Duursema, Pop Mhan, Andrew Robinson & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2698-4 (TPB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Epic Entertainment and Adventure… 9/10

I’m sure we’re all familiar with the mythology of Star Wars. What you might not know is that the first sight future fanatics got of its breathtakingly expansive continuity and the mythology-in-the-making way back in 1977 was the premier issue of the Marvel comic book adaptation. It hit shelves two weeks before the film launched in cinemas, setting the scene for a legion of kids and beginning a mini-phenomenon which encompassed the initial movie trilogy and expanded those already vast imaginative horizons.

Marvel had an illustrious run with the franchise – nine years’ worth of comics, specials and paperback collections – before the option was left to die. Comic book exploits were reinstated in 1991 by Dark Horse Comics who built on the film legacy with numerous superb titles and tales until Disney acquired the rights to Star Wars in 2012. Around the same time, the home of Donald & Mickey also bought Marvel Comics and before long the original magic was being rekindled…

When Marvel relaunched the enterprise, they included not just a core title but also solo books for the lead stars. Moreover, rather than ignore what had passed between their two bites of the cherry, Disney/Marvel began reissuing the Dark Horse material too. Amongst the very best of it was a tryptic of miniseries released as one grand adventure under their Star Wars Legend imprint.

Scripted primarily by Tom Veitch, this fifth paperback/digital Epic Collection gathers Star Wars: Dark Empire #1-6; Dark Empire II #1-6; Empire’s End #1-2, plus material from Star Wars Tales #8, 11, 16, 17 and Star Wars Handbook volume one: X-Wing Rogue Squadron & Star Wars Handbook volume three: Dark Empire: originally seen between December 1991 and September 2003.

Set after the movie Return of the Jedi and now relegated conceptually to an alternate universe in light of later cinematic releases, Dark Horse kicked off its Star Wars franchise with a supremely moody, action-packed thriller. Illustrator Cam Kennedy (reuniting with scripter Veitch after previously collaborating on the excellent and peculiar Light and Darkness War), rendered the alien universe and familiar characters in his own unique and magnificent manner, delivering quirky but reassuringly authentic settings and scenarios for a space opera romp that satisfyingly captures the feel and pace of the cinema versions, whilst building on the canon for Force-starved fanatics everywhere.

Star Wars: Dark Empire opened in December 1991 with ‘The Destiny of a Jedi’: unfolding about ten years after the Battle of Endor and the death and redemption of Darth Vader. Although the Emperor is gone, the war continues. The militaristic remnants of the Empire are still battling for every inch of the galaxy. The New Republic is desperately hard-pressed. Han Solo and his wife Leia, although new parents, are as deeply involved as ever, and Luke Skywalker is pushed to ever-more desperate measures as he attempts to destroy the pervasive unleashed evil corrupting the universe. His solution to rebalance the Force is to revive and rebuild the fabled Jedi Knights…

A mysterious new leader employing ingenious new super-weapons is winning the war for the Empire in ‘Devastator of Worlds’ and the heroes must separate to succeed. The Alliance is being picked off world by world and as ‘The Battle for Calamari’ rages, Han and Leia pursue the strategic aspects of the conflict resulting in a ‘Confrontation on the Smugglers Moon’ whilst Luke heads directly to the source and succumbs to the Dark Side when a dead foe returns thanks to he horrors of cloning in ‘Emperor Reborn’.

‘The Fate of a Galaxy’ is decided with closing 6th issue (October 1992) with Leia’s newly conceived child destined to become the greatest threat the galaxy has ever faced…

Can the heroes reunite to avert the tragedy before all is lost?

No need to guess as December 1994 saw the start of sequel series Star Wars: Dark Empire II with ‘Operation Shadow Hand’.

Veitch & Kennedy returned in a blaze of glory after the runaway success of Dark Empire with a superb continuation featuring the further battles of Luke, Leia, Han Solo and all the other movie favourites…

Deprived of clone bodies he was incubating to ensure a return to physicality, the ghost of Emperor Palpatine is intent on possessing the unborn child in Leia’s belly even as his Dark Side lieutenants struggle to become his successor. The Empire’s last infrastructure remnants are producing more diabolical planet-killing weapons to terrorise and subdue the battered, war-weary galaxy and the monster expects success thanks to his last resort weapon: Seven Dark Jedi fanatically executing his contingency plans, whilst his nemesis Skywalker pursues a cosmic wild goose chase sparked by Jedi database the Holochron. It has set him in pursuit of scattered Jedi survivors who might have escaped the purge…

‘Duel on Nar Shaddaa’, ‘World of the Ancient Sith’ and ‘Battle on Byss’ unite old favourites with new Star Warriors – such as Ysanna tribe adepts Rayf and Jem – in a desperate struggle for survival even as reborn, young Palpatine readies ‘The Galaxy Weapon’ to deliver total victory.

Han and Leia have been hiding their Force-rich twins Jacen and Jaina from the Emperor for years, but are now fearful that their imminent third child will be the spectral horror’s new target for possession. When news comes that Palpatine has eradicated the entire Alliance leadership, Luke and his new Jedi disciples arrive in time to rally the last survivors in a last-ditch attempt to push back the swiftly-closing ‘Hand of Darkness’ (#6, May 1995). Tragically, the Dark Jedi are hot on their trail and a deadly confrontation looms…

This big bombastic blockbuster rockets along, packed with tension and invention, with action aplenty and spectacular set pieces for the fans – although it might be a tad bewildering if your Star Wars IQ is limited.

The trilogy concluded later that year in Star Wars: Empire’s End (October & November 1995) with Jim Baikie replacing Kennedy as artist for a much shorter adventure wrapping up all the plot-threads in a fittingly spectacular fashion. Issue #1’s ‘Triumph of the Empire’ sees the regrowth and expansion of a new rebel alliance and next generation of Jedi Knights when Palpatine discovers his clone-body is breaking down. The ‘Rage of the Emperor’ compels him to attempt a precipitous possession of new-born Anakin Solo leading to one final, sacrifice soaked confrontation…

Accompanying the colossal star-shaking events are a tranche of short stories taken from anthological series Star Wars Tales, beginning with ‘Tall Tales’ by Scott Allie, Paul Lee & Brian Horton from #11 (March 2002). Here, gossip among patrons in a cantina about a ship called the Millennium Falcon leads to another brawl by some very familiar strangers, after which ‘The Other’ (#16, June 2003 by Jason Hall & John McCrea) sees Luke and Leia on Coruscant, debating her future and provoking some awful memories of when they were constantly at war…

Star Wars Tales #8 (June 2001 by Henry Gilroy & Dario Brizuela & Francisco Paronzini) shares ‘The Secret Tales of Luke’s Hand’ as 4-year old Anakin Solo hears bedtime stories of his uncle’s prosthetic paw before Joe Casey & Francisco Paronzini expose ‘Phantom Menaces’ (#17, September 2003) when Ambassador Luke Skywalker encounters a seemingly spectral Sith Lord haunting a candidate planet of the New Republic …

After all that, true Jedi adepts and prospective Padawans can enhance their SWIQ through studying a veritable avalanche of new friends and foes whilst also reacquainting themselves with old favourites in data-drenched Star Wars Handbook volume one: X-Wing Rogue Squadron by Peet Janes, Arthur Adams, Edvin Biuković, Steve Crespo, Rodolfo DaMaggio, Doug Mahnke, John Nadeau, Jordi Ensign, Stan Manoukian, Vince Roucher and Star Wars Handbook volume three: Dark Empire by Janes, Nadeau, Ensign, Isaac Buckminster Owens, Dusty Abell, Jim Royal, Jan Duursema, Pop Mhan & Andrew Robinson.

These catalogues detail everybody and everything from Wedge Antilles and Boba Fett to World Devastators and the Jedi Holocron and segue efficiently into a trove of extras including a gallery of covers – movie photos and painted works from Dave Dorman, Ashley Wood, Kia Asamiya, John Nadeau – plus previous collection covers by Dorman, Mark Zug and Tsuneo Sanda.

There’s also Dark Empire painted promo art, character roughs and equipment sketches, and pencilled pages all by Cam Kennedy; text End-pieces and Introductions from the original comics as well as art Prints and Plates by Kennedy and Dorman.

Exceptional fun, in strong stories with beautiful pictures, this is an utter delight for devotees of a galaxy not so very far, far away and anyone hungry for good old fashioned action entertainment.
STAR WARS and related text and illustrations are trademarks and/or copyrights in the United States and other countries of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. © & ™ Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks – The Amazing Spider-Man: With Great Power…


By Stan Lee & Steve Ditko, with Jack Kirby & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2977-0 (PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: An Immaculate Confection… 10/10

As any fule kno, Spider-Man turns 60 in 2022. In advance of that, here’s a little preliminary stocking-stuffer to start next year’s party early. I’m celebrating it here and now… and in a rather controversial new format.

These stories are timeless and have been gathered many times before so I’m digressing to talk about format first. The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line has been designed with economy in mind. Classic tales of Marvel’s key creators and characters re-presented in chronological order have been a staple since the 1990s, but always in lavish, expensive hardback collectors editions. These new books are far cheaper, on lower quality paper and – crucially – are smaller, about the dimensions of a paperback book. Your eyesight might be failing and your hands too big and shaky, but at 152 x 227mm, they’re perfect for kids. If you opt for the digital editions, that’s no issue at all…

Marvel is often termed “the House that Jack Built” and King Kirby’s contributions are undeniable and inescapable in the creation of a new kind of comic book storytelling, but there was another unique visionary toiling at Atlas-Comics-as-was, one whose creativity and even philosophy seemed diametrically opposed to the bludgeoning power, vast imaginative scope and clean, broad lines of Kirby’s ever-expanding search for the external and infinite.

Steve Ditko was quiet and unassuming, voluntarily diffident to the point of invisibility, but his work was both subtle and striking: innovative and meticulously polished. Always questing for detail, he ever explored the man within. He saw heroism and humour and ultimate evil all contained within the frail but noble confines of humanity. His drawing could be oddly disquieting… and, when he wanted, decidedly creepy.

Crafting extremely well-received monster and mystery tales for and with Stan Lee, Ditko had been rewarded with his own title. Amazing Adventures/Amazing Adult Fantasy featured a subtler brand of yarn than Rampaging Aliens and Furry Underpants Monsters: an ilk which, though individually entertaining, had been slowly losing traction in the world of comics ever since National/DC had successfully reintroduced costumed heroes.

Lee & Kirby had responded with Fantastic Four and the ahead-of-its-time Incredible Hulk but there was no indication of the renaissance ahead when officially just-cancelled Amazing Fantasy featured a brand new and rather eerie adventure character.

This compelling and economical full-colour paperback/digital compilation re-presents that auspicious tale from Amazing Fantasy #15 and Amazing Spider-Man #1-10, (spanning cover-dates August 1962-March 1964): allowing newcomers and veteran readers to relive some of the greatest moments in sequential narrative.

The initial burst of wonderment came and concluded in 11 captivating pages. ‘Spider-Man!’ offers the parable of Peter Parker: a smart but alienated kid bitten by a radioactive spider on a high school science trip. Discovering he’s developed arachnid abilities – which he augments with his own ingenuity and engineering genius – Peter does what any lonely, geeky nerd would do when given such a gift… he tries to cash in for girls, fame and money.

Creating a costume to hide his identity in case he makes a fool of himself, Parker becomes a minor celebrity – and a vain, self-important one. To his eternal regret, when a thief flees past him, he doesn’t lift a finger to stop the thug, and days later returns home to find that his Uncle Ben has been murdered.

Crazy for vengeance, Parker stalks the assailant who made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known, only to find that it is the felon he couldn’t be bothered with. Since his social irresponsibility led to the death of the man who raised him, the boy swears to always use his powers to help others…

It wasn’t a new story, but the setting was familiar to every kid reading it and the artwork was downright spooky. This wasn’t the gleaming high-tech world of moon-rockets, mammoth monsters and flying cars… this stuff could happen to anybody…

Amazing Fantasy #15 came out the same month as Tales to Astonish #35 – the first to feature the Astonishing Ant-Man in costume, but it was the last issue of Ditko’s Amazing playground. In this volume you’ll find the ‘Fan Page – Important Announcement from the Editor!’ that completely misled fans as to what would happen next…

However, the tragic last-ditch tale struck a chord with the public and by year’s end a new comic book superstar was ready to launch in his own title, with Ditko eager to show what he could do with his first returning character since the demise of Charlton’s Captain Atom…

Holding on to the “Amazing” prefix to jog reader’s memories, the bi-monthly Amazing Spider-Man #1 arrived with a March 1963 cover-date and two complete stories. It also prominently featured the Fantastic Four and took the readership by storm. The opening tale, again simply entitled ‘Spider-Man!’, recapitulated the origin whilst adding a brilliant twist to the conventional mix…

By now the wall-crawling hero was feared and reviled by the general public thanks mostly to J. Jonah Jameson, a newspaper magnate who pilloried the adventurer from spite and for profit. With time-honoured comic book irony, Spider-Man then had to save Jameson’s astronaut son John from a defective space capsule in extremely low orbit…

Second yarn ‘Vs the Chameleon!’ finds the cash-strapped kid trying to force his way onto the roster – and payroll – of the FF whilst elsewhere a spy perfectly impersonates the webspinner to steal military secrets. This is a stunning example of the high-strung, antagonistic cameos and crossovers that so energised the jaded kids of the early 1960s. Heroes just didn’t act like that and they certainly didn’t speak directly to the fans as in the editorial ‘A Personal Message from Spider-Man’ page reprinted here…

With #2, our new champion began a meteoric rise in quality and innovative storytelling. ‘Duel to the Death with the Vulture!’ catches Parker chasing a flying thief as much for profit as justice. Desperate to help his aunt make ends meet, Spider-Man starts taking photos of his cases to sell to Jameson’s Daily Bugle, making the gadfly his sole means of support.

Matching his deft comedy and moody soap-operatic melodrama, Ditko’s action sequences were imaginative and magnificently visceral, with odd angle shots and quirky, mis-balanced poses adding a vertiginous sense of unease to fight scenes. But crime wasn’t the only threat to the world and Spider-Man was just as (un)comfortable battling “aliens” in ‘The Uncanny Threat of the Terrible Tinkerer!’

Amazing Spider-Man #3 introduced possibly the apprentice hero’s greatest enemy in ‘Versus Doctor Octopus’: a full-length saga wherein a dedicated scientist survives an atomic accident only to find his self-designed mechanical tentacles have permanently grafted to his body. Power-mad, Otto Octavius initially thrashes Spider-Man, sending the lad into a depression until an impromptu pep-talk from Human Torch Johnny Storm galvanises Spider-Man to one of his greatest victories. Rounding out the tense drama is a stunning ‘Special Surprise Bonus Spider-Man Pin-up Page!’…

‘Nothing Can Stop… the Sandman!’ was another instant classic wherein a common thug who gains the power to transform to sand – another pesky nuclear snafu – invades Parker’s school, and must be stopped at all costs, whilst #5 finds the webspinner ‘Marked for Destruction by Dr. Doom!’ – not so much winning as surviving his battle against the deadliest man on Earth.

Presumably he didn’t mind too much, as this marked the series’ transition from bi-monthly to monthly status. Here Parker’s social nemesis, jock bully Flash Thompson, first displays depths beyond the usual in contemporary comic books, beginning one of the most enduring love/hate buddy relationships in popular literature…

Sometime mentor Dr. Curtis Connors debuts in #6 when Spidey comes ‘Face-to-face with… The Lizard!’ with the wallcrawler fighting far from the concrete canyons and comfort zone of New York – specifically in the murky Florida Everglades. Parker was back in the Big Apple for #7 to breathtakingly tackle ‘The Return of the Vulture’ in a full-length masterpiece.

Fun and puckish hi-jinks were a signature feature of the series, as was Parker’s budding romance with “older woman” Betty Brant – Jameson’s secretary/PA at the Daily Bugle. Youthful exuberance was the underlying drive in #8′s lead tale‘The Living Brain!’ wherein an ambulatory robot calculator threatens to expose Spider-Man’s secret identity before running amok at beleaguered Midtown High, just as Parker is finally beating the stuffings out of school bully Flash.

This 17-page triumph is accompanied by ‘Spiderman Tackles the Torch!’: a 6-page vignette drawn by Jack Kirby and inked by Ditko, wherein a boisterous wall-crawler gate-crashes a beach party thrown by the flaming hero’s girlfriend… with suitably explosive consequences.

Amazing Spider-Man #9 is a qualitative step-up in dramatic terms, as Aunt May is revealed to be chronically ill – adding to Parker’s financial woes – with the action supplied by ‘The Man Called Electro!’ – an accidental super-criminal with grand aspirations.

The wallcrawler was always a loner, never far from the streets and small-scale-crime, and with this tale – wherein he also quells a prison riot single handed – Ditko’s preference for tales of human-scaled lawbreakers starts to show through: a predilection confirmed in #10’s ‘The Enforcers!’

This is a classy mystery with a masked mastermind known as the Big Man using a position of trust at the Bugle to organise all New York mobs into one unbeatable army against decency.

Longer plot-strands are also introduced as Betty mysteriously vanishes, although most fans remember this one for the spectacularly climactic 7-page fight scene in an underworld chop-shop that has still never been beaten for action-choreography.

And more and even better is yet to come…

The jumbo-economy selection is supplemented by an early 1960s monochrome promotional pin-up, unused covers, and house ads – including one from Fantastic Four #14 (May 1963) that announced the company’s new branding and name… the Marvel Comics Group!

These immortal epics are something no fan can be without, and will make the ideal gift for any curious newcomer.

Happy birthday Spidey and many, many more please…
© 2021 MARVEL

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Wonder Woman: 80 Years of the Amazon Warrior – The Deluxe Edition


By William Moulton Marston & Harry G. Peter, Trina Robbins, Joye Hummel, Robert Kanigher, Samuel R. Delany, Cary Bates, Roy Thomas, George Pérez, Len Wein, Lynda Carter, William Messner-Loebs, Phil Jimenez,Joe Kelly, Allan Heinberg, Amanda Conner, Brian Azzarello, Mariko Tamaki, Greg Rucka, Becky Cloonan & Michael W. Conrad, Patty Jenkins, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Dick Giordano, Don Heck, Gene Colan, Jill Thompson, Lee Moder, Gary Frank, Cliff Chiang, Elena Casagrande, Nicola Scott, Jen Bartel & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-1157-7 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Classic Triumphs of Wondrous Empowerment… 9/10

Without doubt Wonder Woman is the very acme of female role models. Since her premier in 1941 she has permeated every aspect of global consciousness and become not only a paradigm of comics’ very fabric but also a symbol to women everywhere. In whatever era you observe, the Amazing Amazon epitomises the eternal balance between Brains and Brawn 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: a calculated attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model and – for forward-thinking Editor M.C. Gaines – a sound move to sell more funnybooks to girls. From a guest shot in All Star Comics the Amazon immediately catapulted one month later into her own series and the cover-spot of new anthology title Sensation Comics.

An instant hit, Wonder Woman won her eponymous supplemental title a few months later (cover-dated summer 1942). 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.

We now know that Wonder Woman was a team if not truly communal effort, with Moulton Marston acting at the behest of his remarkable wife Elizabeth and their life partner Olive Byrne. 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.

This stunning compilation is part of a series introducing and exploring the historical and cultural pedigree of venerable DC icons. Available in hardback and digital formats, it offers a sequence of sublime snapshots detailing how Diana of the Amazons has evolved and thrived in worlds and times where women were generally regarded as second class, second rate, painfully functional or strictly ornamental.

It re-presents material from All-Star Comics #8; Sensation Comics #1; Wonder Woman volume 1 #5, 78, 98, 124, 162, 203, 206; Comic Cavalcade #11; DC Special #3; DC Comics Presents #41; Wonder Woman volume 2 #6, 57, 73, 170;Wonder Woman Annual #1, Wonder Woman volume 4 #23; Wonder Woman #600, 750; Future State: Immortal Wonder Woman #1 and 2: cumulatively covering July 1940 to February 2021. The comics stories are augmented throughout by essays and brief critical analyses from significant personages linked with the Amazon, but we begin with the origin…

‘Introducing Wonder Woman’ was an extra story in All Star Comics #8 (cover-dated December 1941/January 1942), home of the mighty and popular Justice Society of America, and led directly to ‘Wonder Woman Comes to America’: her formal debut in Sensation Comics #1 (January 1942). In combination they reveal how, once upon a time on a hidden island of immortal super-women, American aviator Steve Trevor of US Army Intelligence crashes to Earth. Near death, he is 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 reveals the hidden history of the Amazons: how they were seduced and betrayed by men but rescued by the goddess Aphrodite on condition that they forever isolate themselves from the mortal world: devoting their eternal lives to becoming ideal rational beings.

However, after Trevor explains the perfidious spy plot which accidentally brought him to the Island enclave and how the planet is in crisis, Athena and Aphrodite instruct the Queen to send an Amazon back with the American to fight for global freedom and liberty. Hippolyte declares an open contest to find the best candidate and, despite being forbidden to compete, young closeted, cosseted Diana clandestinely overcomes all other candidates to become their emissary.

Accepting the will of the gods, the worried mother outfits Diana in the guise of Wonder Woman and sends her out to Man’s World armed with an arsenal of super-scientific and magical weapons…

Leading from the front in her own series in anthological Sensation Comics, the first tale resumed where the introduction left off. ‘Wonder Woman Comes to America’ sees the eager culture-shocked immigrant returning the recuperating Trevor to Man’s World before trouncing a gang of bank robbers and briefly falling in with a show business swindler.

An intriguing innovation was her buying her secret identity from lovelorn Army nurse Diana Prince, elegantly allowing the Amazon to be close to Steve whilst enabling the heartsick medic to join her fiancé in South America. Even with all that going on, there was still room for Wonder Woman and Captain Trevor to bust up a spy ring attempting to use poison gas on a Draft Induction centre. Typically, Steve breaks his leg and ends up in hospital again, where “Nurse Prince” looks after him…

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

As previously mentioned, the Amazing Amazon was a huge and ever-growing hit, gaining her own title in late Spring of 1942 (cover-dated Summer). This comic frequently innovated with full-length stories, and the extract here – the opening chapter of Wonder Woman #5, June/July 1943 – presented an interlinked epic: the ‘Battle for Womanhood’ that had repercussion for the cast for decades to come.

War-god Mars (who had instigated the World War from his HQ on the red planet through earthly pawns Hitler, Mussoliniand Hirohito) returns to plague humanity directly, this time enlisting the aid of a brilliant but physically deformed and intellectually demented woman-hating psychologist with psychic powers. Tormented Dr. Psycho uses his gifts to marry and dominate a medium named Marva, employing her unique abilities to form ectoplasmic bodies as he seeks to enslave every woman on Earth. Allegorical or what, huh?

Veteran cartoonist and herself something of a feminist icon, Trina Robbins shares her thoughts on ‘Wonder Woman’before the Golden Age delights resume with ‘The Cheetah Returns!’ (Comics Cavalcade #11, Summer1945) as the savage miscreant and symbol of selfish, chaotic wilfulness wreaks havoc after escaping prison and replacing her remarkably similar-seeming cousin…

Drawn by Peter, this tale was scripted by another lost author – Joye Hummel. Born in 1924 and forgotten for decades, she ghost-wrote at least 70 Wonder Woman stories between 1944 and 1947 as Marston gradually succumbed to cancer. She left, ostensibly to raise a family but apparently because themes of universal female autonomy were being editorially edged out by male management…

The dawn era of superheroes was drawing to a close and fantasy was giving way to grittier, more manly themes. Included here is a rare treat, as ‘The Cheetah’s Thought Prisoners’ finds the cat criminal released on a legal technicality and using Amazon thought modification to torment and dominate her archenemy and friends.

With the author unknown – could it be Hummel? – this H.G. Peter yarn was scheduled for Comic Cavalcade but shelved when that quarterly became a funny animal title. Eventually exhumed and published in reprint giant DC Special #3 (June 1969), it shows the dangerous power of a woman in command!

By the time of Wonder Woman #78 (November 1955) Robert Kanigher was scripting Diana’s dramas and ‘Zero Hour for an Amazon!’ sees her struggling but triumphing after all her magic weapons malfunction: a standard tale as the author sought to maintain the series status quo.

Utilising group nom de plume Charles Moulton, Marston – and his collaborators, albeit with the women uniformly unacknowledged and uncredited for decades – generated the Amazon’s amazing exploits until his death in 1947, whereupon Kanigher ultimately assumed command with the venerable Peter soldiering on until his own death in 1958. Wonder Woman #97 – in April of that year – was his last hurrah and the end of an era.

Ross Andru & Mike Esposito had debuted as cover artists 3 issues earlier, but with the opening inclusion of Wonder Woman #98, took over the visual component whilst Kanigher reinvented much of the old mythology and even tinkered with her origins.

Whilst costumed colleagues foundered, Wonder Woman soldiered on well into the Silver Age and far beyond it, benefitting from constant revisionism under Kanigher’s canny auspices: re-energising her for the Silver Age renaissance and beyond…

With the exception of DC’s “Trinity” (plus those few innocuous back-up features like Aquaman and Green Arrow), superheroes all but vanished at the end of the 1940s, replaced by mostly mortal champions in a deluge of anthologised genre titles. Everything changed again after Showcase #4 rekindled the public’s interest in costumed crimebusters with a new iteration of The Flash in 1956.

From the moment those fanciful floodgates opened wide once more, and whilst re-inventing Golden Age Greats such as Green Lantern, The Atom and Hawkman, National/DC began updating the venerable veteran survivors who had weathered the 1950s backlash – none more so than the ever-resilient Amazon.

As editor, Kanigher had always tweaked or reinvented much of the original mythos, but now his tinkering with her origins unleashed a very enthusiastic yet motherly Diana on an unsuspecting world in a fanciful blend of girlish whimsy, rampant sexism, strange romance, alien invasion, monster-mashing, utterly surreal almost stream-of-consciousness storytelling. This was at a time when all DC’s newly revived, revised or reinvented costumed champions were getting together and teaming up at the drop of a hat – as indeed was the Princess of Power – in Justice League of America. However, within the pages of her own title, a timeless, isolated fantasy universe was carrying on much as it always had. Here, that transition is marked by ‘The Million Dollar Penny!’ from #98 (May 1958) with Kanigher, Andru & Esposito reinventing the mythology and adjusting her origins…

When goddess Athena visits an island of super-scientific, immortal women, she informs Queen Hippolyta that she must send an emissary and champion of justice to crime-ridden “Man’s World.”

Declaring an open competition for the job, the queen isn’t surprised when her daughter Diana wins. She is then given the task of turning one penny into a million dollars in a day – all profits going to children’s charities, of course…

Just as the new Wonder Woman commences her coin chore, American airman Steve Trevor bails out of his malfunctioning jet high above the magically hidden isle, unaware that should any male set foot on Amazon soil the immortals would lose all their powers. Promptly thwarting impending disaster, Diana and Steve team up to accomplish her task, encountering along the way ‘The Undersea Menace’ before building ‘The Impossible Bridge!’…

Following a chat about the comic champion’s real world influence ‘In Conversation with Gal Godot’, mythic madness resumes with ‘The Impossible Day!’ (WW #124, August 1961).

Amazon science (and the unfettered imagination of Kanigher, for whom slavish continuity, consistency or rationality were never as important as strong plots or breathtaking visuals) had already enabled readers to share the adventures of the teenaged Wonder Girl and toddler Wonder Tot both in their appropriate time-zones and, on occasion, teamed together on “Impossible Days”.

Here Tot, Teen and adult teamed together against shape-shifting nuclear threat Multiple Man, with the threat or promise of more pairings to come…

As the 1960s progressed Wonder Woman was looking tired and increasingly out of step with the rest of National/DC’s gradually gelling – and ultimately cohesively shared – continuity but, by the decade’s close, a radical overhaul was on the cards – but before looking forward, the company turned back…

Kanigher never forgot he was writing comic books and constantly pointed it out to the readership – even though their preference might not be to have narrative rules, and suspension of disbelief flouted whilst fourth walls were continually broached. In #158 (not included here), he gathered the entire – vast – series cast in his office and told them that most were fired. Readers were then challenged to guess who would be back for the Big Change…

The promised reboot consisted of a full switch to the faux 1940’s stories mimicking the triumphs of the Golden Age.

‘The Startling Secret of Diana Prince!’ opened WW #162, (May 1966) by reworking Sensation Comics #1, relating again how the Paradise Island Émigré purchased the identity and papers of lovelorn Army Nurse Diana Prince to be close to Trevor at all times…

By 1968 superhero comics were again in deep decline and publishers sought new ways to stay profitable – or even just in business – as audience tastes and American society evolved. Back then, with the industry dependent on newsstand sales, if you weren’t popular, you died.

Handing over the increasingly moribund title to Editor Jack Miller and Mike Sekowsky, the bosses sat back and waited for their eventual failure, and prepared to cancel the only female superhero in the marketplace. Sekowsky’s unique visualisation of the JLA had contributed to that title’s overwhelming success, and at this time he was stretching himself with a number of experimental projects, focussed on teen and youth-markets.

With scripter Denny O’Neil, he killed Steve Trevor, removed the Amazons and Paradise Island, taking with them all their magic and paraphernalia – including Diana’s astounding weapons, Invisible Plane, Golden Lasso and mighty superpowers. Despite all that, her love for Steve compelled her to remain on Earth. Effectively becoming her own secret identity of Diana Prince, the now-mortal champion resolved to fight injustice as a human would…

Sekowsky’s root and branch overhaul offered a whole new kind of Wonder Woman (one heavily based on TV character Emma Peel) but, as always, fashion ruled and in a few years, without any fanfare or warning, everything that had happened since Wonder Woman lost her powers was unwritten.

From that period comes the last adventure of Diana Prince, with celebrated novelist Samuel R. Delaney joining Dick Giordano to take the hero – abortively – in a fascinating new direction. Socially-aware polemic ‘The Grandee Caper’(December 1972) sees Ms. Prince championing underpaid, bullied and exploited department store workers (all women because they can be legally paid less) in a tale that pulls no punches, offers no easy solutions and can’t even manage a happy ending…

A true landmark in every way, it was immediately scuppered as – without warning or explanation – the superpowered Amazon was back in the next issue. Not included here but crucial to know is that in #204, her mythical origins were revised and re-established as she abruptly returned to a world of immortals, gods, magic monster and super-villains. There was even a new nemesis: an Greco-African American half-sister named Nubia…

Such an abrupt reversal had tongues wagging and heads spinning in fan circles. Had the series offended some shady “higher-ups” who didn’t want controversy or a shake-up of the status quo?

Probably not.

Sales were never great even on Sekowsky’s run and the most logical reason is probably television. Wonder Woman had been under option since the 1966 Batman TV show and by this time (1973) production had begun on an original pilot featuring Cathy Lee Crosby. An rapid return to the character most viewers were familiar with from their own childhoods seems perfectly logical to me. By the time Linda Carter made the concept work in 1975, Wonder Woman was once again “Stronger than Hercules, swifter than Mercury and more beautiful than Aphrodite”…

Eventually however – after the TV-inspired sales boost ended with the show’s cancellation – the comic slumped into another decline, leading to another revamp. Showcasing that tenuous era is ‘War of the Wonder Women!’ from #206, (July 1973) in which Cary Bates, Don Heck & Vince Colletta pit the Amazon and Nubia against war god Mars and discover the origins of Diana’s long-lost twin sister…

Another relaunch and return to past glory came in DC Comics Presents #41 (January 1982) as a “Prevue” insert by Roy Thomas, Gene Colan & Romeo Tanghal offered (‘A Bold New Direction for Wonder Woman’). It entailed returning Captain Prince and resurrected Colonel Trevor to military intelligence duty just in time for the Amazon to enjoy a costume tweak and settle old scores with Hercules – the demigod who abused his mother and brought about the first fall of the Amazons…

Those themes were key to the next iteration of the Amazon. Following Crisis on Infinite Earths‘ mass restructuring of continuity, Diana was radically re-imagined for the modern DCU. Her comic series started again from #1, with a February 1987 cover-date, crafted by Greg Potter, George Pérez & Bruce Patterson. The new history revealed how Amazons are actually reincarnated souls of women murdered by men in primordial times. Given potent new form by female Hellenic gods, they thrived in a segregated city of aloof and indomitable women until war god Ares orchestrated their downfall via his demigod dupe Herakles.

Abused, subjugated and despondent, the Amazons were rescued by their patron goddesses in return for eternal penance in isolation on hidden the island of Themyscira.

Into that paradise Diana was born: another murdered soul imbued with life in an infant body made from clay. She excelled in every endeavour and became the Wonder Woman…

After relocating to the outer world, Diana becomes an inspirational figure and global hero whilst constantly trying to integrate and understand the madness of “Patriarch’s World”, but only after saving all mankind from armageddon…

Concluding the initial story arc, ‘Powerplay’ – by George Pérez, Len Wein & Bruce Patterson from Wonder Woman volume 2 #1, 6 (July 1987) – sees a naive but valiant Diana fighting beside an elderly Steve Trevor who will never be her romantic partner and a select band of mortal friends to stop Ares and his vile children from making mankind destroy itself with nuclear war. Driven by the unbounded creativity and sensitivity of Pérez, this incarnation was possibly the most effective, entertaining and true to the Marston group’s original concept…

‘In Conversation with Gal Godot’ precedes ‘The Fugitive Kind’ (Wonder Woman vol. 2 #57, August 1991) with Pérez scripting for illustrator Jill Thompson & Romeo Tanghal as the Amazon is blamed for a massacre in Gotham City…

William Messner, Lee Moder & Ande Parks take the displaced Amazon further into fresh territory in ‘Losses’ (Wonder Woman vol. 2 #73, April 1993) as Themyscira vanishes from Earth and Diana, deprived of financial support, starts looking for work and a place to live, ignorant of the machinations of a new foe…

Change became a constant and by the time of ‘She’s a Wonder!’ (Wonder Woman vol. 2 #170, July 2001) by Phil Jimenez, Joe Kelly & Andy Lanning, she is again a global celebrity.

This beguiling day-in-the-life tale sees Lois Lane interviewing the superhero/Themysciran cultural ambassador to Mans’s World during a typical day, providing readers with valuable insights into the heroine and the woman.

‘Backstory’ from Wonder Woman Annual #1 (November 2007) has Allan Heinberg, Gary Frank & Jon Sibal set intelligence operatives Diana Prince and Nemesis on the trail of Wonder Woman following her execution of Maxwell Lordduring the Infinite Crisis event: a sharp way of updating the readership in a time of rapid and sweeping change, after which Amanda Conner delivers a sliver of sheer delight as the Amazon and Power Girl hilariously bond over baddie bashing and cat care tips in ‘Fuzzy Logic’ from Wonder Woman #600 (August 2010).

In 2011, the entire DCU was reimagined and Wonder Woman enjoyed one of the biggest upheavals, learning that she was not born from clay but was actually an illegitimate daughter of ever-philandering Zeus. Her life became a melee of shifting alliances or constant battle against outraged deities and fellow demigods culminating in ‘God Down’ (Wonder Woman volume 4 #23, October 2013). Here Brian Azzarello & Cliff Chiang detail the death of gods, defeat of the usurping First Born and the creation of anew god of war after which Wonder Woman #750 (March 2020) provides a brace of tales starting with Mariko Tamaki & Elena Casagrande’s ‘The Interrogation’.

Here Diana again defeats Ares – but in a most unconventional manner – whilst ‘Never Change’ by Greg Rucka & Nicola Scott sees her and former archenemy Circe offer one final chance at redemption and salvation to the monstrous Cheetah…

The comics conclude with a glimpse at a potential tomorrow. Future State: Immortal Wonder Woman #1 and 2 (January & February 2021) reveals how Diana copes with the end of existence in an impossibly distant tomorrow populated by ghosts and hardy survivors – like Superman and Darkseid – in an intriguing continued epic by Becky Cloonan & Michael W, Conrad, & Jen Bartel.

‘In Conversation with Patty Jenkins’ provides some final thoughts from the Wonder Woman. movies’ director to wrap up the celebrations…

Wonder Woman is a primal figure of comic fiction and global symbol, and looks set to remain one. This compilation might not be all of her best material but it is a solid representation of what gave her such fame and should grace any fan’s collection.
© 1941, 1943, 1945, 1955, 1958, 1961, 1966, 1969, 1973, 1982, 1987, 1991, 1993, 2001, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2020, 2021 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic volume 1


By Katie Cook, Andy Price, Heather Breckel & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-605-6 (TPB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Inexplicably Adorable and Absolutely Entertaining Romps and Hi-jinks… 8/10

The older I get – a close-run thing in itself, some days – the more I realise how little I know or understand. I’m all about comics, me, and I’m considered by many who’ve bought my books but haven’t actually met me as something of an expert. I’m also always up for a challenge so here’s a hopefully fair review of a graphic novel series that normally I wouldn’t go near…

My Little Pony is a toy and merchandising phenomenon that developed out of a failed line. Constantly reinvented and relaunched, My Pretty Pony debuted in 1981 but was quickly retooled into what we know today. The first successful toy line ran from 1982 to 1992 in the US and 1995 in the rest of the world. The brand was relaunched in 1997, 2003 and 2010, with another line revision this year. If you need more information, there’s this thing called the internet…

These comics are based on the 2010 designs and concepts and this initial collection gathers #1-4 of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: a vivid and charming reboot whose toys were sold until October 2019.  The next big thing is – or will be – My Little Pony: A New Generation…

Here, however, we visit the land of Equestria; a realm of magical horses like unicorns and Pegasuses, each blessed with special powers and a distinguishing symbol on their flanks: a “cutie mark”. It’s not all fun and games though, as we share the adventures of Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, the Cutie Mark Crusaders (think equine equivalents of Carl Barks’ Little Chickadees) and little dragon Spike, especially after their idyllic life is threatened by darkly demonic Queen Chrysalis who is determined to end the benevolent and protective nurturing rule of magical Princess Celestia…

Crafted by writer Katie Cook, illustrator Andy Price, colourist Heather Breckel and letterers Bobbie Robbins & Neil Uyatake, a shocking threat manifests with ‘The Return of Queen Chrysalis’ as all the younger horses and other creatures begin acting weirdly aloof and even hostile…

At first, it’s easy to write it off as bad moods and the impending stellar event of the Secretariat Comet about to narrowly miss Equestria, but as the day passes and the situation deepens, Rainbow Dash and Applejack investigate, and discover things are getting worse by the moment.

Even after calling in all their friends they are unable to contact Princess Celestia and so set out to solve the problem themselves. When diabolical Chrysalis taunts them and kidnaps the ever-eager Cutie Mark Crusaders, our stalwart steeds boldly undertake a fantastic quest under the brooding Appaloosan Mountain range to save the foolish foals, encountering cave trolls, monster spiders, demonic minions, carnivorous plants, Chupacabra and worse before confronting the malign sorceress and beginning a battle of magic they cannot hope to win.

And yet…

Fizzy, ebullient and intoxicatingly silly, this is an astonishingly witty and smart yarn mixing affirming values of friendship and cooperation with good old fashioned fun, thrills and sharp comedy, delivered with stunning visual flourish: a tale as much for parents as the kids they’re rearing.

Adding lustre to joyous laughter are all-Cook short yarns ‘How Much is That Pony in the Window?’ and ‘In the Interim…’, an art gallery by Price and covers and variants by Jill Thompson, Cook, Amy Mebberson, Stephanie Buscema, Amanda Connor & Paul Mounts, J. Scott Campbell & Nei Ruffino.

Despite my preconceptions and misgivings, this book is one of the most enjoyable I’ve seen this year and is well worth a bit of your time and attention.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic volume 1 © 2013 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved.

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G.I. JOE Classics volume 1


By Larry Hama, Herb Trimpe, Steven Grant, Don Perlin, Mike Vosburg & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-60010-345-2 (TPB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Nostalgic All-Action Romps… 8/10

Toys have always been a strong and successful component of comics output, and have frequently been amongst the most qualitative. For people like me, the distress experienced because DC’s Hot Wheels (by Joe Gill, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Alex Toth, Neal Adams & Dick Giordano) or Captain Action (Jim Shooter, Wally Wood & Gil Kane) tie-in titles will never be reprinted because intellectual properties lawyers can’t get their acts together is practically existential. I’m pretty sure that feeling is universal in my field and everyone has their own title to add to the list…

The problem has been the understandable tendency to include proprietary characters (such as Spider-Man in Transformers and the entire Marvel Universe in Rom, Space Knight and The Micronauts) for their immediate cross-selling potential with no regard for who actually owns what. Merchandise-driven comics are of necessity fully negotiable whereas such team-up combinations are by definition short-term and non-binding.

Publishers got a lot smarter and far-sighted in the 80s and – as a rule, but not always – stopped mixing and matching imported/temporary stars except for special events.

During that era Marvel’s biggest successes – driven by Jim Shooter in his role as the company’s Editor-in-Chief – were those aforementioned Transformers and another: one of the oldest toy brands in existence, and since the property was hived off the franchise into its own superhero-adjacent sub-universe, current license holder IDW was able to reprint the run of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero in its entirety…

It didn’t hurt that the stories were superbly crafted and didn’t insult the intelligence of the target readership (presumed to be kids of toy-buying age) and perfectly picked up the macho America tone of the times…

Arguably Marvel’s biggest success in merchandised publishing (even outdoing Star Wars and Conan), the triumph of the phenomenon convinced Marvel to create their juveniles and licensed titles imprint Star Comics, and the continuity of this series was carried over in its entirety when the property eventually landed at IDW. In 2009, writer Larry Hama (Wolverine; Elektra; Nth Man) simply picked up where he left off in 1994 and the series even continued the numbering…

This initial compendium collects the first tranche of Marvel’s output issues #1-10 spanning June 1982-April 1983: a hugely successful mini-franchise that encompassed three regular titles plus many specials at one stage.

I’ve no real interest in the film, or toy, and TV cartoon, but the comics phenomenon reached way more impressionable minds that most modern comics could even imagine and many of the strip adventures (both US and Marvel UK’s) were highpoints of sequential narrative at a time when innovation and imagination were highly regarded – and rewarded – so it’s great to see some of them finding a fresh audience.

In case you came in late: GI Joe is the operating name for an American covert, multi-disciplinary espionage and military intervention force drawing its members from all branches of the military. At the time of these tales the Joes and terrorist secret society Cobra Command are well known to each other and engaged in a full-on but clandestine global war…

Under Shooter’s reign Marvel became a hugely profitable home for businesses with properties to licence. The comic versions sold by the truckload and have become part of the nostalgic fabric of a generation. They still are.

The Marvel series ran 155 issues (ending with its December 1994 issue), plus numerous spin-off series such as GI Joe Special Missions: specials and overseas analogue such as Marvel UK’s Action Force (the British toy was branded as Action Man since the 1960s)

We begin at the start with ‘Operation: Lady Doomsday’ as Larry Hama, Herb Trimpe (Ka-Zar; Phantom Eagle; The Defenders; Iron Man; Machine Man) & Bob McLeod introduce the squad and their foes when a whistleblowing US atomic scientist is kidnapped by Cobra Commander and his deadly assistant the Baroness, and the Gung Ho Joes are assigned to rescue her traitorous, unpatriotic ass. The all-American heroes are successful but fully exercise their democratic right to complain all the way home…

Whilst namechecking dozens of characters and vehicles, the series was always intoxicatingly high energy and deceptively sophisticated in dealing with social and geopolitical issues. The next mission details ‘Panic at the North Pole!’ – by Hama, Don Perlin (Werewolf By Night; Ghost Rider; The Defenders; Solar, Man of the Atom; Bloodshot) & Jack Abel – as a small squad investigate the extermination of a US research station, uncovering a prototype Soviet secret weapon and clashing with “eskimo” (hopefully we’d say Inuit or something else less charged these days) mercenary Mighty Kwinn to keep the deadly device out of Cobra’s clutches…

Crafted by Hama, Trimpe, Abel & Jon D’Agostino, ‘The Trojan Gambit’ in #3 then delivered a thrilling countdown thriller as the Joes’ secret underground citadel is infiltrated by a deadly modular robot programmed to send back a signal and make it a target for Cobra assault…

For over a decade Herb Trimpe had been synonymous with the Incredible Hulk, making the character his own, and daily displaying a penchant for explosive action and an unparalleled facility for drawing technology – especially honking great ordnance and vehicles. With #4’s ‘Operation: Wingfield!’, he added story plotting to his creative dossier, as Hama scripted and D’Agostino & Abel inked a tale of infiltration wherein a squad joins the private army of a survivalist nutjob and his private militia – in a tale more relevant now than ever…

In #5, Hama, Perlin, Abel & Mike Esposito’s ‘“Tanks” for the Memories…’ adds notes of bellicose slapstick as Cobra attempt to steal the Joes’ super-secret Mobat (Multi Ordnance Battle Tank) during a parade in New York City, and our heroes had to fight without ammo…

As now, Afghanistan was a hot button topic in the mid-1980s and #6’s ‘To Fail is to Conquer… To Succeed is to Die!’ by Hama, Trimpe & Abel sees a select team despatched to aid mujahideen fighters against Soviet invasion and recover a downed experimental Russian spy-plane. The three horse race between the Good Guys, Cobra and Soviet Special Forces team the October Guard sees both tech and training stretched to the limit in the hostile terrain and makes for an unlikely alliance in #7’s explosive conclusion ‘Walls of Death!’ by Hama, Trimpe & Chic Stone.

G.I. Joe #8 was an all-Trimpe treat as ‘Code Name: Sea-Strike!’ sees the heroes valiantly defending a satellite launch and thwarting Cobra’s scheme to weaponise space from their floating subsea fortress, after which Steven Grant, Mike Vosburg & Stone explore the lives of top Joes Clutch, Scarlett, Snake-Eyes and Stalker as they draw tedious and unwanted protection duties for an unsuspected traitor in ‘The Diplomat’ and find themselves in more trouble than they can (probably) handle…

This initial collection closes on a foreboding and portentous note of gathering doom as Scarlett, Snake-Eyes and Zap are captured during a mission and end up in a suburban nightmare. In #10, Hama, Vosburg & Stone expose anonymous everytown Springfield as Cobra’s most sinister development: an ultra-immersive company town designed by vicious Dr. Venom and dedicated to mind-bending, brainwashing and overruling hearts and minds in ‘a little town like ours…’

Thankfully resistance and rebellion are everywhere and an extraordinary boy named Billy is able to orchestrate their narrow escape…

To Be Continued…

The ten tales gathered here are very much the basis of all successive comics merchandising and nearly 40 years later prove that the secret is in the comics themselves, not the product, No one there is republishing Marvel’s Inhumanoids,Popples or Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos adaptations…

I’m never sure of the social value of stories where secret government operatives act beyond the law or the constraints of Due Process, but the kid in me adores the pure satisfying simplicity of seeing a wrong and righting it: so on those terms this book of clever, witty action-packed adventures of honourable warriors doing their job is a delight worth sharing.
© 2009 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved.

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Yakari volume 18: The Wall of Fire


By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominique and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-591-2 (Album PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Superb All-Ages Entertainment and Adventure… 9/10

Children’s magazine Le Crapaud à lunettes was founded in 1964 by Swiss journalist André Jobin who then wrote for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later he hired fellow French-Swiss artist Claude de Ribaupierre AKA “Derib”. The illustrator had launched his own career as an assistant at Studio Peyo (home of Les Schtroumpfs), working on The Smurfs strips for venerable weekly Le Journal de Spirou. Together, they created the splendid Adventures of the Owl Pythagore before striking pure comics gold a few years later with their next collaboration.

Derib – equally au fait with enticing, comically dynamic “Marcinelle” cartoon style yarns and devastatingly compelling meta-realistic action illustrated action epics – went on to become one of the Continent’s most prolific and revered creators. It’s a crime that groundbreaking strips such as Celui-qui-est-né-deux-fois, Jo (the first comic ever published dealing with AIDS), Pour toi, Sandra and La Grande Saga Indienne) haven’t been translated into English yet, but we still patiently wait in hope and anticipation…

Many of Derib’s stunning works over the decades feature his cherished Western themes; magnificent geographical backdrops and epic landscapes. Yakari is considered by fans and critics to be the strip which first led him to deserved mega-stardom.

Debuting in 1969, Yakari follows the life of a young Oglala Lakota boy on the Great Plains and is set sometime after the introduction of horses by the Conquistadores but before the coming of modern Europeans.

The series – which has generated two separate animated TV series and a movie release last year – has achieved 40 albums thus far: a testament to the strip’s evergreen vitality and the brilliance of its creators, even though originator Job has moved on and Frenchman Joris Chamblain assumed the writer’s role in 2016.

Overflowing with gentle whimsy and heady compassion, young Yakari enjoys a largely bucolic existence: at one with nature and generally free from privation or strife. For the sake of our delectation, however, the ever-changing seasons are punctuated with the odd crisis, generally resolved without fuss, fame or fanfare by a little lad who is smart, brave… and can – thanks to a boon of his totem guide the Great Eagle – converse with all animals …

Originally released in 1993, la barrière de feu was the 19th European album, but – as always with the best books – the content and set-up are both stunningly simple and effectively timeless, affording new readers total enjoyment with a minimum of familiarity or foreknowledge required…

This time, the little wonder is embroiled in uncharacteristically dark deeds as a raiding party led by Wild Mane results in the loss of all the horses – except valiant pony Little Thunder who not only escapes but also raises the alarm and rouses the sleeping tribe.

As the adults set out on foot to recover their steeds and reclaim their honour, little Yakari tracks his equine friend and is amazed to find Little Thunder is trailing his stolen herdmates. As he follows, the loquacious lad meets a flying squirrel who kindly offers to act as an advance scout…

While the grown-ups are stymied by their cunning quarry’s tactics, the tiny tree-hugger rapidly reunites the boy with his horse and the trio set off together after the thieves. All too soon they have located the raiders, but instead of useless heroic gestures they sagely seek out Yakari’s father and lead his team to the thieves.

Dauntingly, it’s a nomadic convocation of thousands, and a retaliatory raid seems impossible. Moreover, something is shadowing the stalkers themselves, ever unseen but even getting close enough to steal supplies while they’re being carried! The adults are seriously considering swallowing their shame and retreating, but Yakari cannot let go of the notion that something is smarter than he is…

Ultimately, with help from his bestial buddies, the mystery is solved and the boy meets a new friend: a wounded lynx. The beautiful, cunning creature shows the curious kid a new trick: a sticky black liquid that oozes out of the ground and is ideal for sealing wounds.

When the shaman sees it he recognises it for all its many properties, including a tendency to burn, which gives Yakari’s father an inspired idea for countering the raiders’ superior numbers and getting back the tribe’s most treasured possessions…

Exotically enticing, deviously educational and wildly entertaining, this boldly action-packed and splendidly spectacular yarn sees Yakari’s gifts not only used to benefit his people and animal friends but also with the full acknowledgement of the adults he’s previously been unknowingly slighted by. Is our boy finally on the path to being a man?

Once again, Derib & Job display their astounding and compelling narrative virtuosity in another glorious graphic tour de force capturing the appealing courage of our diminutive heroes, and a visually stunning, seductively smart saga to delight young and old alike.

Yakari is one of the most unfailingly absorbing all-ages strips ever conceived and should be in every home, right beside Tintin, Uncle Scrooge, Asterix and The Moomins.
Original edition © Derib + Job – Editions du Lombard (Dargaud- Lombard s. a.) 1993. All rights reserved. English translation 2020 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Justice Society of America: A Celebration of 75 Years


By Gardner Fox, Robert Kanigher, John Broome, Denny O’Neil, Paul Levitz, Roy Thomas, Len Strazewski, James Robinson, David Goyer, Geoff Johns, Mike Sekowsky, Dick Dillin, Joe Staton, Rich Buckler, Jerry Ordway, Arvell Jones, Mike Parobeck, William Rosado, Stephen Sadowski, Alex Ross, Dale Eaglesham & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5531-2 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Stunning Super Sagas Whatever the Season… 8/10

After the actual invention of the comicbook superhero – via the Action Comics debut of Superman in June 1938 – the most significant event in our industry’s history was the combination of individual stars into a like-minded group. Thus, what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven: consumers couldn’t get enough of garishly-hued mystery men, and combining a multitude of characters inevitably increases readership. Plus, of course, a mob of superheroes is just so much cooler than one…or one-and-a-half if there’s a sidekick involved…

The creation of the Justice Society of America in 1941 utterly changed the shape of the budding industry.

Following the runaway success of Superman and Batman, both National Comics and its separate-but-equal publishing partner All American Comics went looking for the next big thing in funnybooks whilst frantically concentrating on getting anthology packages into the hands of a hungry readership. Thus All Star Comics: conceived as a joint venture affording characters already in their respective stables an extra push towards winning elusive but lucrative solo titles.

Technically, All Star Comics #3 (cover-dated Winter 1940-1941 and released in December 1940) was the kick-off, but the mystery men merely had dinner and recounted recent cases and didn’t actually go on a mission together until #4, which had an April 1941 cover-date.

This superb hardcover and/or eBook commemoration comes from five years ago, gathering significant adventures of the pioneering paragons: specifically All Star Comics #4, 37, 55; Justice League of America #21, 22, 30, 47, 82, 83, 193; Adventure Comics #466; All-Star Squadron #67; Justice Society of America #10; JSA Returns: All–Star Comics #2; JSA #25; Justice Society of America vol. 2 #10 and Earth 2 #6, and – like all these generational tomes – follows a fixed pattern by dividing into chapters curated by contextual essays.

Here Roy Thomas’s history-packed treatise describes how leading characters from National-DC’s Adventure Comics and More Fun Comics and All-Star Publishing’s Flash Comics and All-American Comics were first bundled together in an anthological quarterly. Back then ‘A Message from the Editors’ asked readers to vote on the most popular…

The merits of the marketing project would never be proved: rather than a runaway favourite graduating to their own starring vehicle as a result of the poll, something radically different evolved. For the third issue, prolific scribe Gardner Fox apparently had the bright idea of linking all the solo stories through a framing sequence with the heroes gathering to chat about their latest exploits. With that simple notion that mighty mystery men hung out together, history was made and it wasn’t long before they started working together…

The anniversary amazement opens with Part I 1941-1950: For America and Democracy which hones in on those early moments, as All Star #4 eventually unites the costumed community ‘For America and Democracy’ with Fox and illustrators EE Hibbard, Martin Nodell, Bernard Baily, Howard Sherman, Chad Grothkopf, Sheldon Moldoff & Ben Flinton detailing individual cases for The Flash, Green Lantern, The Spectre, Hourman, Doctor Fate, The Sandman, Hawkman, The Atom and Johnny Thunder which coincide and result in a concerted attack on Nazi espionage master Fritz Klaver…

Pattern set, the heroes marched on against all foes from petty criminals to social injustice; aliens, mobsters and magical invaders until post-war tastes began shifting the formula…

All Star Comics #37 (1947) introduced ‘The Injustice Society of the World’ (November 1947) in a yarn by Robert Kanigher, Irwin Hasen, Joe Kubert, Alex Toth, Carmine Infantino & John Belfi. This sinister saga sees America almost entirely conquered by a coalition of super-villains before the on-the-ropes mystery men counterattack and ultimately triumph.

As superheroes plunged in popularity, genre themes predominated and it was a stripped-down team (Flash, GL, Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Hawkman, Atom and Dr. Mid-Nite) who faced a flying saucer scare in #55 and scoured outer space for ‘The Man Who Conquered the Solar System!’ (October/November 1955 by John Broome, Frank Giacoia, Arthur F. Peddy & Bernard Sachs).

Thomas returns for another educational chat as Part II 1963-1970: The Silver Age of Crisis focuses on the era that changed comics forever.

As I’ve frequently stated, I was one of the lucky “Baby Boomer” crowd who grew up with Julie Schwartz, Fox & Broome’s tantalisingly slow reintroduction of Golden Age superheroes during the halcyon, eternally summery days of the early 1960s. To me those fascinating counterpart crusaders from Earth-Two weren’t vague and distant memories rubber-stamped by parents or older brothers – they were cool, beguiling and enigmatically new.

…And for some reason the “proper” heroes of Earth-One held them in high regard and treated them with obvious deference…

It all began, naturally enough, in The Flash; pioneering trendsetter of the Silver Age Revolution. After successfully ushering in the return of the superheroes, the Scarlet Speedster – with Fox & Broome at the writing reins – set an unbelievably high standard for costumed adventure in sharp, witty tales of science and imagination, illustrated with captivating style and clean simplicity by Carmine Infantino.

The epochal epic that literally changed the scope of American comics forever was Fox’s ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ (Flash #123 September 1961 and not included here), establishing the existence of Infinite alternate Earths, multiple versions of costumed crusaders, and – by extension – the multiversal structure of the DCU. Every succeeding, cosmos-shaking annual summer “Crisis” saga grew from it.

Fan pressure almost instantly agitated for the return of more “Golden Age Greats” but Editorial bigwigs were hesitant, fearing too many heroes would be silly and unmanageable, or worse yet, put readers off. If they could see us now…

These innovative crossover yarns generated an avalanche of popular and critical approval (big sales figures, too) so inevitably these trans-dimensional tests led to the ultimate team-up in the summer of 1963.

A gloriously enthralling string of JLA/JSA convocations and  stunning superhero wonderments begin with landmark opening salvoes ‘Crisis on Earth-One’ and ‘Crisis on Earth-Two’ (Justice League of America #21-22, August to September). In combination they comprise one of the most important stories in DC history and arguably one of the most crucial tales in American comics.

Written by Fox and compellingly illustrated by Mike Sekowsky & Bernard Sachs, the yarn sees a team of villains from each Earth plundering at will; meeting and defeating the mighty Justice League before imprisoning them in their own secret mountain HQ.

Temporarily helpless “our” heroes contrive a desperate plan to combine forces with the champions of another Earth to save the world – both of them – and the result is pure comic book majesty. It’s impossible for me to be totally objective about this saga. I was a drooling kid in short trousers when I first read it and the thrills haven’t diminished with this umpty-first re-reading.

This is what superhero comics are all about!

The second team-up is only represented by the concluding chapter ‘The Most Dangerous Earth of All!’ Justice League of America #30 (September 1964) reprised the team-up of the Justice League and Justice Society, after (evil) versions of our heroic champions-beings from third alternate Earth discover the secret of trans-universal travel.

Unfortunately, Ultraman, Owlman, Superwoman, Johnny Quick and Power Ring come from a world without heroes and see the crimebusting JLA and JSA as living practice dummies to sharpen their evil skills upon. With this cracking thriller the annual summer get-together became solidly entrenched in heroic lore, giving fans endless entertainment for years to come and making the approaching end of school holidays less gloomy than they could have been.

The fourth annual event was a touch different: flavoured by self-indulgent humour as a TV show drove the wider world bats. Veteran inker Bernard Sachs retired before the fourth team-up, leaving the amazing Sid Greene to embellish a gloriously whacky saga that sprang out of the global “Batmania” craze engendered by the twice-weekly Batman series…

A wise-cracking campy tone was fully in play, acknowledging the changing audience profile and this time the stakes were raised to encompass the destruction of both planets in ‘Crisis Between Earth-One and Earth-Two’ (not reprinted here) and ‘The Bridge Between Earths’ (Justice League of America #47, September 1966), wherein a bold but rash continuum-warping experiment drags two Earths towards an inexorable hyper-space collision. Meanwhile, making matters worse, an awesome anti-matter being uses the opportunity to break into and explore our positive matter universe whilst the heroes of two worlds are distracted by destructive rampages of monster-men Blockbuster and Solomon Grundy.

Peppered with wisecracking “hip” dialogue, it’s sometimes difficult to discern what a superb yarn this actually is, but if you can forgive or swallow the dated patter, this is one of the best plotted and illustrated stories in the entire canon.

Furthermore, the vastly talented Greene’s expressive subtlety, beguiling texture and whimsical humour added unheard-of depth to Sekowsky’s pencils and the light and frothy comedic scripts of Gardner Fox.

This exercise in fantastic nostalgia continues with both chapters of a saga wherein alien property speculators seek to simultaneously raze Earths One and Two in ‘Peril of the Paired Planets’ (#82 August 1970 by O’Neil, Dillin & Joe Giella) and only the ultimate sacrifice by a true hero can avert trans-dimensional disaster in ‘Where Valor Fails… Will Magic Triumph?’ (#83 September)

Part III: Bronze Age and Beyond 1971-1986 returns to independent status and stories as – following another pertinent briefing from Thomas – we next focus on a time when the team was on its second career after decades in retirement.

Set on parallel world Earth-2, the veterans were leavened with teen heroes combined into a contentious, generation-gap fuelled “Super Squad”. Those youngsters included a grown up Robin, Sylvester Pemberton, the Star-Spangled Kid (a 1940s teen superhero who had been lost in time for decades) and a busty young thing who quickly became the feisty favourite of a generation of growing boys: Kara Zor-L – AKA Power Girl.

It starts with a little history lesson as Paul Levitz & Joe Staton reveal how and why the JSA went away. In ‘The Defeat of the Justice Society’ (Adventure Comics #466 December, 1979) they expose the reason why the team vanished at the beginning of the 1950s as the American Government cravenly betrays its greatest champions during the McCarthy witch-hunts: provoking the mystery men into voluntarily withdrawing from public, heroic life for over a decade – until the costumed stalwarts of Earth-One started the whole Fights ‘n’ Tights scene all over again…

When Roy Thomas left Marvel for DC, he made a lifetime dream come true by writing his dream team… sort of. Justice League of America #193 (August 1981) featured a “Prevue” insert mini-comic featuring the ‘All-Star Squadron’. Thomas, Rich Buckler & Jerry Ordway  launched a series of new stories set in the immediate aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, told in real time and integrating published tales from the Golden Age into an overarching continuity. Here the JSA were augmented by contemporaries from other companies acquired by DC over the years – such as Plastic Man, Firebrand and Uncle Sam – and minor DC stalwarts like Liberty Belle, Johnny Quick and Robot Man. This prequel tells of December 6th 1941 and how the JSA heroes are attacked by villains from their own future as a mastermind seeks to alter history, leaving President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to issue a clarion call to all of Democracy’s other champions…

After an impressive and entertaining 5 year run that skilfully negotiated the rewriting of continuity during Crisis on Infinite Earths, the series ended with All-Star Squadron #67 (March 1987) as Thomas, Arvell Jones & Tony DeZuñiga recondition ‘The First Case of the Justice Society of America’ from All Star #4 and reveal how Nazi Fritz Klaver met justice…

Industry insider Ivan Cohen then reveals how things changed after the Crisis as a taster for Part IV: The JSA Returns 1992-2007 which opens with the last issue of Justice Society of America volume 1 (#10, May 1993). The series had concentrated on adventures of the aging heroes in modern times and ‘J.S.A. No More?’ by Len Strazewski, Mike Parobeck & Mike Machlan closed a superb and joyously fun run with the geriatric wonders polishing off ancient wizard Kulak and saving humanity from an army of unquiet ghosts and zombies…

The heroes were again rebooted six years later via a series of one-shots bracketed by a 2 issue miniseries and here James Robinson, David Goyer, William Rosado, John Dell & Ray Kryssing conclude the WWII-set battle against mystic marauder Stalker with ‘The JSA Returns, Conclusion: Time’s Arrow’ in JSA Returns: All-Star Comics #2 (Late May 1999).

All that attention led to a spectacular new series, which gained new fans for the old soldiers by turning the team into a mentoring service for new heroes. It must have been hard to select a sample from that era but the editors here went for ‘The Return of Hawkman: Seven Devils’ (JSA #25, August  2001 by Goyer, Geoff Johns, Stephen Sadowski, Michael Bair, Dave Meikis, Paul Neary & Rob Leigh).

But first, a slight digression…

Hawkman is one of the oldest and most revered heroes of all time, premiering in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940). Although created by Gardner Fox & Dennis Neville, the most celebrated artists to have drawn the Winged Wonder are Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Kubert, whilst a young Robert Kanigher was justly proud of his later run as writer.

Carter Hall was a playboy archaeologist until he uncovered a crystal knife that unlocked his memories. He realised that once he was Prince Khufu of ancient Egypt, and that he and his lover Shiera had been murdered by High Priest Hath-Set. Moreover, with his returned memories came the knowledge that his love and his killer were also nearby.

Using his past life knowledge, he fashioned a costume and flying harness, hunting his killer as the Hawkman. Once his aim was achieved he and Shiera maintained their “Mystery-Man” roles to fight modern crime and tyranny with weapons of the past.

Disappearing as the Golden Age ended, they were revived by Julie Schwartz’s crack creative team in the 1960s, but after a long career involving numerous revamps and retcons, the Pinioned Paladin “died” during the Zero Hour crisis.

The interconnection between all those iterations is resolved after time-lost Jay The Flash Garrick awakens in ancient Egypt, and learns from that era’s superheroes – Nabu, the Lord of Order who created Doctor Fate, Black Adam and Khufu himself – the true origins of Hawkman whilst in the 21st century, the modern Hawkgirl discovers his connection to alien cop Katar Hol, the Hawkworld Thanagar and true power of empowering Nth Metal.

When Hawkgirl is abducted to the aforementioned Thanagar by its last survivors, desperate to thwart the schemes of the insane death-demon Onimar Synn, the JSA frantically follow and Carter Hall makes his dramatic return from beyond to save the day in typical fashion before leading the team to magnificent victory in this concluding chapter…

There have been many attempts to formally revive the team’s fortunes but it wasn’t until 1999, on the back of both the highly successful rebooting of the JLA by Grant Morrison & Howard Porter and the seminal but critically favoured modern Starman by James Robinson, that the multi-generational team found a new mission and fan-base big enough to support them. As the century ended the original super-team returned and have been with us in one form or another ever since.

Called to order after Infinite Crisis and Identity Crisis, this JSA saw the surviving heroes from WWII as teachers for the latest generation of young champions and metahuman “legacy-heroes”: a large, cumbersome but nevertheless captivating assembly of raw talent, uneasy exuberance and weary hard-earned experience.

Taken from truly epic storyline ‘Thy Kingdom Come’, Geoff Johns, Alex Ross, Dale Eaglesham, Ruy Jose & Drew Geraci’s ‘What a Wonderful World’ comes from Justice Society of America vol. 2 #10 (November 2007): expanding, clarifying and building on heroes introduced in the landmark 1996 Mark Waid & Alex Ross miniseries Kingdom Come, and its belated sequel The Kingdom.

The elder Kal-El from that tragic future dystopia has crossed time and dimensions to stop his world ever forming and not even awakened god Gog or his new allies will stop him. ‘What a Wonderful World’ sees Tomorrow’s Man of Steel disclose how the heroes and their successors almost destroyed the planet (with flashback sequences painted by Alex Ross) before (another) Starman explains his own connection to all the realms of the multiverse. Initially suspicious, the JLA come to accept the elder Man of Steel, but elsewhere, a deadly predator begins to eradicate demi-gods and pretenders to divinity throughout the globe…

Having grown too large and unwieldy again, DC’s continuity was again pruned and repatterned in 2011, leading to a New 52 as sampled here in concluding segment Part IV: Revamp 2012. Accompanied by another Cohen text briefing, ‘End Times’ by Robinson, Nicola Scott & Trevor Scott comes from Earth 2 #6 (January 2012) with a recreated JSA operating on a restored alternate Earth, but one where an attack from Apokolips has created a living hell for the survivors of humanity, and a small group of metahumans such as Flash, Hawkgirl and Green Lantern struggles to keep humanity alive and free…

With covers by Hibbard, Irwin Hasen, Arthur F. Peddy & Bernard Sachs, Sekowsky, Murphy Anderson, Joe Giella, Neal Adams, Dick Dillin, George Pérez, Tom Grindberg & Tony DeZuñiga, Mike Parobeck, Dave Johnson, Andrew Robinson, Alex Ross, Ivan Reis & Joe Prado, this magnificent celebration of the premiere super-team is a glorious march down memory lane no fan can be without. Whether in sturdy hardback or approachable electronic format, this titanic tome must be yours…
© 1941, 1947, 1950, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1979, 1981, 1986, 1992, 1999, 2001, 2007, 2012, 2015, DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Calling Dick Tracy! volume 1


By Mike Curtis, Joe Staton & various (Rabbit Hole)
ISBN: 978-0-930645-11-0 (digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Brilliant Fun and the Only Way to Make Crime Pay: 8/10

Time for another anniversary celebration. Here’s a superb collection crying out for revival in either physical or digital forms. Time to agitate against the publishing powers-that-be, I think…

All in all, comics have a pretty good track record for creating household names. We could play the game of picking the most well-known fictional (or is that “meta”, now?) characters on Earth – usually topped by Sherlock Holmes, Mickey Mouse, Superman, Batman and Tarzan – and supplement the list with Popeye, Blondie, Charlie Brown, Tintin,Spider-Man, Garfield, and – not so much now, but once, most definitely – Dick Tracy…

At the height of the Great Depression cartoonist Chester Gould sought fresh strip ideas. The story goes that as a decent guy incensed by the exploits of gangsters like Al Capone – who monopolised the front pages of contemporary newspapers – the doughty doodler settled upon the only way a normal man could fight thugs: Passion and Public Opinion…

Raised in Oklahoma, Gould was a Chicago resident who hated seeing his home town in the grip of such wicked men, with far too many honest citizens beguiled by the gangsters’ charisma. He decided to pictorially get it off his chest with a procedural crime thriller that championed the ordinary cops who protected civilisation.

He took his proposal – “Plainclothes Tracy” – to Captain Joseph Patterson, the legendary newspaperman and strips Svengali whose golden touch had already blessed strips like The Gumps, Gasoline Alley, Little Orphan Annie, Winnie Winkle, Smilin’ Jack, Moon Mullins and Terry and the Pirates among others. Casting his gifted eye on the work, Patterson promptly renamed the hero Dick Tracy, whilst also revising his love interest into steady, steadfast girlfriend Tess Truehart.

The daily series launched on October 4th 1931 through Patterson’s own Chicago Tribune Syndicate, growing quickly into a phenomenon and monumental hit, with all the attendant media and merchandising hoopla that follows. Bolstered by toys, games, movies, serials, animated features, TV shows et al, the strip soldiered on, influencing generations of creators and entertaining millions of fans. Gould unfailingly wrote and drew the strip for decades until retirement in 1977.

The legendary lawman was a landmark creation who influenced not simply comics but the entirety of American popular fiction. Its signature use of baroque villains, outrageous crimes and fiendish death-traps pollinated the work of numerous strips (most notably Batman), shows and movies since then, whilst the indomitable Tracy’s studied, measured use – and startlingly accurate predictions – of crimefighting technology and techniques gave the world a taste of cop thrillers, police procedurals and forensic mysteries such as CSI decades before the current fascination took hold.

As with many creators in it for the long haul, the revolutionary 1960s were a harsh time for established cartoonists. Along with Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon, Gould’s grizzled gangbuster especially foundered in a social climate of radical change where popular slogans included “Never trust anybody over 21” and “Smash the Establishment”.

The strip’s momentum faltered, perhaps as much from the move towards science fiction (Tracy went off-Earth into space and the character Moon Maid was introduced) as the improbable, Bond-movie-style villains or its perceived “old-fashioned” attitudes. Even the introduction of more minority and women characters and hippie cop Groovy Groovecouldn’t stop the rot. However, the feature soldiered on regardless…

When Gould retired in 1977, 29-year old author Max Allen Collins (Road to Perdition Nathan Heller, Mike Mist, Ms. Tree) won the prestigious role as scripter, promptly taking the series back to its crime-busting roots for a breathtaking run, ably assisted by Gould as consultant with his chief artistic assistant Rick Fletcher promoted to full illustrator.

After 11 years, in 1992 Collins was removed and replaced by Mike Kilian – who apparently worked for half the up-&-coming author’s price – until his death in October 2005, whereafter Dick Locher took over story and art, with assistant Jim Brozman assuming drawing duties from March 2009. On January 19th 2011, Tribune Media Services announced Locher’s retirement and replacement by a new team. That’s where this digital only book begins…

Incredibly versatile artist and inker Joe Staton (E-Man, Mike Mauser, The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk, Green Lantern, Legion of Super-Heroes) has been an integral part of American comic books since the early 1970s and in later years made kids comics his metier. During a spectacular run on licensed classic Scooby Doo, he and series scripter Mike Curtis (Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich, Shanda the Panda) discovered a mutual love for Dick Tracy and – mostly for their own amusement – created a tribute strip entitled Major Crime Squad.

How that landed them the duty of continuing the ultimate cop’s official adventures is addressed in introductory text feature ‘Publisher’s Note – aka “The Dick Tracy vs. Major Crime Squad Caper”‘ by Steve Tippie (VP of Licensing, TMS News & Features, LLC) before a stunning chronological re-presentation of this all-new classic begins

Preceding those comic capers are more text-based insights and revelations: a Foreword by Mike Gold; former sheriff Curtis’ ‘How We Got the Job’ (supplemented by samples done in 2005 when they first tried to take on the strip) and Staton’s ‘Waiting For Dick Tracy’…

Next up is a brief visual refresher course of ‘Tracy and His Allies’ and the most nefarious of the repeat offenders in a ‘Rogues Gallery’ before the war on crime resumes in ‘Flyface and the Fifth Return’.

The strip has sadly long passed its heady glory days of mass sales, but that’s more about the death of print periodicals than this material. It still appears in a number of papers and as a potent online presences which means every episode is in full colour, with half-page Sunday strips still offering extras such as the ‘Crimestoppers Textbook’. One welcome addition is full credits so we can thank Shelley Pleger and Shane Fisher for their inks, colours and lettering…

The plot sees the long separated traditional squad fully reunited to combat right wing terrorism and gradually reintroduced to the fanciful gadgets and controversial space tech after Tracy’s inventor pal Diet Smith gets in touch. A disgruntled former employee has stolen plans for his energy-beam weapon “Thor’s Hammer”…

After selling it to old lags Flyface and the Fifth – who kidnap officer Lizz Worthington to set a trap for their old nemesis – events spiral out of control, but only the wicked pay the final price this time…

Longtime comedy characters B.O. Plenty and his wife Gravel Gertie resurface, celebrating the birth of their second child – the ugliest boy on earth! – and falling foul of a manipulative foodie TV celebrity who sees a chance to own the airwaves with the stomach-churning infant in ‘Flakey Biscuits Makes the Dough’. Sadly, her bribing gifts to the couple include a shipment of cocaine being secretly couriered by her assistant Hot Rize and soon bodies start dropping as the city’s  top drug lord seeks his missing product. Once Tracy realises what’s what, it’s all over bar the shooting…

‘Doubleup and the Scarlet Sting’ features the making of a movie starring a fictional superhero and how childhood fan and modern-day gangster Doubleup barges in: infiltrating the cast to shakedown the production. Soon he’s too involved and after murdering his girlfriend all that’s left is being caught facing real-world justice…

At this time alternate Sunday extra ‘Tracy’s Hall of Fame’ – celebrating police officers – began, days before an officially deceased and clearly incorrigible arch enemy reappeared in ‘B-B Eyes and Honeymoon’. When Tracy’s adopted son Junior goes undercover to investigate a video piracy ring, the case soon involves the old cop’s granddaughter too, when Honeymoon Tracy tries to help out and almost dies because of her enthusiasm and lack of training. Almost…

With the comics component concluded, there’s more informational extras to enjoy as Curtis offers ‘Dick Tracy vs. the Villains: A Comparison’ and we meet the creators in ‘Joe Staton’s Bio’, ‘Mike Curtis’ Bio’ and ‘Team Tracy Bios’ to end this initial casebook – hopefully the first of many.

Dick Tracy has always been a fantastically readable feature and this potent return to first principles is a terrific way to ease yourself into his stark, no-nonsense, Tough Love, Hard Justice world.

Comics just don’t get better than this…
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