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Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus volume two


By Gaylord DuBois & Jesse Marsh (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-294-9 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Dynamic Days-Gone-By Derring Do … 8/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

I don’t know an awful lot about Jesse Marsh, other than that he was born on 27th July 1907 and died far too young: on April 28th 1966 from diabetic complications at the height of a TV Tarzan revival he was in large part responsible for. What I do know, however, is that to my unformed, pre-fanboy, kid’s mentality, his drawings were somehow better than most of the other artists and that every other kid who read comics in my school disagreed with me.

There’s a phrase we used to use at 2000 AD that summed it up: “Artist’s artist”, which usually meant someone whose fan-mail divided equally into fanatical raves and bile-filled hate-mail. It seems there are some makers of comic strips that many readers simply don’t get.

It isn’t about the basic principles or artistic quality or even anything tangible – although you’ll hear some cracking justifications: “I don’t like his feet” (presumably the way he draws them) and “it just creeps me out” being my two favourites. Never forget in the 1980s DC were told by the Comics Code Authority that Kevin O’Neill’s entire style and manner of Drawing was unacceptable to American readers!

I got Jesse Marsh.

Like many Western Publishing stalwarts Jesse Mace Marsh originally worked for Disney Studios (1939-1948) as an animator on projects including Pinocchio and Fantasia. His first comics work appeared in 1945, and he continued as a staff artist until his death in 1966. In addition to his Tarzan contributions, he illustrated Gene Autry, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and more, as well as John Carter of Mars: three 4-Color series issues. In this second compilation, hyper-prolific Gaylord McIlvaine Du Bois (August 24th 1899 – October 20th 1993) is scripter as – nourished by a burgeoning movie franchise, radio, newspaper and new novels – the comic book Ape-Man phenomenon grew and steadied for the long haul. The editor/scripter (for ALL the Tarzan titles and spin-offs, Lone Ranger, Lost in Space, Turok, Son of Stone, Brothers of the Spear, Lassie, Andy Panda, Red Ryder, Tom and Jerry, Bonanza and so many more) would be Marsh’s creative collaborator for the next 19 years.

Situated on the West Coast, Western’s Dell/Gold Key imprints rivalled DC and Marvel at the height of their powers, and the licensee famously never capitulated to the wave of anti-comics hysteria that resulted in the crippling self-censorship of the 1950s. No Dell Comics ever displayed a Comics Code Authority symbol on the cover – they never needed to…

Marsh jobbed around adapted movie properties – mostly westerns – until 1948 when Dell introduced the first all-new Tarzan comic book. The newspaper strip had been running since January 1929 and all previous collections and funnybook releases had featured expurgated and modified reprints of those exploits. Everything changed with Dell Four Color Comic #134 (February 1947) which offered a lengthy, captivating tale of the Ape-Man, scripted by Robert P. Thompson. He had also written both the Tarzan radio show and the aforementioned syndicated strip. link to Tarzan and the Adventurers please.

‘Tarzan and the Devil Ogre’ was very much in the Burroughs tradition: John Clayton, Lord Greystoke and his friend Paul D’Arnot aid a young woman in rescuing her lost father from a hidden tribe ruled over by a monster. The engrossing yarn was made magical by the simple, underplayed magic of a heavy brush line and absolutely unmatched design sense. Marsh was unique in the way he positioned characters in space, employing primitivist forms and hidden shapes to augment his backgrounds. He was a fanatical researcher: his trees, rocks, and constructions were 100% accurate. His animals and natives, especially children and women, were all distinct and recognisable; not the badly-shaded stock figures in grass skirts that even the greatest artists so often resorted to.

Marsh also knew when to draw big and draw small: the internal dynamism of his work is spellbinding. His Africa became mine, and as the try-out comic book was an instant hit he stuck around for decades. Dell never messed with something that was already working. Marsh and Thompson’s Tarzan returned with two tales in Dell Four Color Comic #161, cover-dated August 1947. That was remarkable: Four Colour was a catch-all title showcasing literally hundreds of different licensed properties in rotation, often as many as ten separate and stunningly diverse issues per month. So rapid a return engagement meant pretty solid sales figures…

Following a gracious and wondering Foreword by Gilbert Hernandez discussing the sheer ubiquity of Tarzan comics in households – particularly Latino ones – we return to distant days of rampaging fantasy, garnished by yet another warning from me. In past reviews I’ve described how this character comes with lots of inbuilt colonial baggage and an unhealthy side-order of appalling white supremacy for those readers pre-sensitised pro or con. What I haven’t addressed is the sheerly shocking death toll of animals, killed for food, for sport or because someone needs an action scene proving how cruel villains are or how mighty the hero is. This is not a book for vegans or animal activists, okay?

Volume Two gathers the pertinent material from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan #5-10, spanning September/October 1948 through July/August 1949) and includes (line art) covers and back covers by eventual painter/illustrator Morris Gollub. Most issues also include two colour frontispieces and endpieces offering lessons in ‘Tarzan’s Ape-English Dictionary’, prompting millions of kids everywhere to shout “Kreegah! Bundolo!” and “Tantor, ho!” in the playground and look like complete loons trying to talk to baboons and monkeys every time we visited a zoo…

The dramas resume with Tarzan #5 (September/October 1948) with harsh morality play ‘Tarzan and the Men of Greed’. Here, wife Jane and son Boy (latterly “Korak”) are kidnapped by American gangsters and a bandit sheikh as a means of forcing Tarzan to bring them and their army of African bandits to the lost treasure vaults of Opar. After an arduous trek, and terrifying ascent of an ancient escarpment, the thieves learn to their eternal cost why it’s not healthy to antagonise the legendary Ape-Man…

As well as the epic 33 page saga and the opportunity to practise primate patois “Mangani to Paco” there’s a stunning back cover pinup of the forest family before – cover dated November/December 1948 – we dig deep into the novels’ mythology for #6 as ‘Tarzan and the Outlaws of Pal-ul-don’ sees Jane abducted (again!). This time it’s raiders from a primordial enclave first introduced in eighth novel Tarzan the Terrible (1921), necessitating man and boy chasing the perfidious primitives all the way back to their lost realm. This is a huge oasis of jungles, mountains, dinosaurs and evolutionary dead-ends at the centre of a vast desert and results in reunion with old Waz-don ally Om-At and war with bandit nation Ho-Don, using Triceratops as tanks…

Following another pin-up, Tarzan #7 (January/February 1949) finds the family back home, and bored Tarzan making a hot air balloon. His efforts lead to more trouble when Boy and his Waziri friend Dombie are accidentally caught when it breaks loose and transported to a land of terrors. ‘Tarzan and the Valley of the Monsters’ sees the Jungle Lord and his ally Muviro (Dombie’s dad) give chase in a plane until brought down by Pterodactyls. From there it’s all fight and flight from giant lizard and volcanoes until the humans are reunited and heading home again.

Morris Gollub takes over covers and pin-up duties with #8 (March/April 1949) as the lost quartet continue the trek home. Traversing mountains and deserts, they almost fail until meeting a strange albino tribe in ‘Tarzan and the White Pygmies’, and in return for aid when they need it most teach their benefactors modern warfare by introducing them to archery, and saving them from predation by legions of giant vultures…

Cover-dated May/June 1949, issue #9 returns to Pal-ul-don as ‘Tarzan and the Men of A-lur’ sees King Ja-Don usurped by surly vassal Dak-Lot, propelling Tarzan, Boy and even Jane into a full-scale civil war (with lots of comparatively shocking violence for a Golden Age comic book!) as humans, pre-men, cave bears, dinosaurs and modern elephants clash to decide the fate of the kingdom time forgot…

This second time-wracked voyage to the past pauses with Tarzan #10 (July/August 1949) as the epic page counts drop to allow side stories and a greater range of fun. Main event ‘Tarzan and the Treasure of the Bolgani’ is a pure sci fi romp as the Ape-man and his Waziri subjects are captured by intelligent gorillas who shrink them to half size so that they can mine gems for them. When the process goes awry, Tarzan becomes a hyper-dense (Must you? Really?) tiny titan who leads a revolt and ends a threat to all of Africa, after which DuBois and Marsh begin years of light-hearted backup tales as Boy tries to avoid his chores and learns to regret running off to become ‘The Baboons’ King’…

Although these are tales from a far-off, simpler time they have lost none of their passion, inclusivity and charm, whilst the artistic virtuosity of Marsh looks better than ever. Perhaps this time a few more people will “get” him, especially if the rest of this series finally makes the jump to digital editions as Volume One has…
Edgar Rice Burroughs® Tarzan®: The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus Volume Two © 1948, 1949, 2009, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. Tarzan ® Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Leopard From Lime Street Book Three: Rise of the Snow Beast!


By Tom Tully, Mike Western, Eric Bradbury & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78618-830-4 (TPB/Digital edition) 978-1-83786-036-4 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Traditional True Brit Comic Treats …8/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Other than lawyers, most people claim imitation as the sincerest form of flattery. You can make your own mind up on that score when seeking out these quirky and remarkable vintage treats offering a wonderfully downbeat, quintessentially British spin on a very familiar story. UK comics always enjoyed a strange, extended love affair with what can only be described as “unconventional” (for which feel free to substitute “weird” or “creepy”) heroes. So many stars and putative role models of our serials and strips have been outrageous or just plain “off”: self-righteous voyeurs-vigilantes like Jason Hyde, sinister masterminds in the manner of The Dwarf, self-absorbed outsiders like Robot Archie, arrogant former criminals like The Spider or outright racist supermen such as Captain Hurricane…

Joking aside, British comics were unlike any other kind: having to be seen to be believed and enjoyed – especially if “homaging” such uniquely American fare as costumed crimefighters…

Until the 1980s, UK periodicals employed an anthological model, offering variety of genre, theme and character on a weekly – sometimes fortnightly – basis. Humorous comics like The Beano were leavened by action-heroes like The Q-Bikes or General Jumbo whilst adventure papers like Smash, Lion or Valiant always carried palate-cleansing gagsters like The Cloak, Grimly Feendish, Mowser and other laugh treats. Buster offered the best of all worlds.

Running 1902 issues from May 28th 1960 to 4th January 2000, it juggled drama, mystery, action and comedy, with its earliest days – thanks to absorbing Radio Fun and Film Fun – heavily spiced with celebrity-licensed material starring media mavens like Charlie Drake, Bruce Forsyth and Benny Hill backing up the eponymous cover star who was 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 its cumulative strip content is wide, wild and usually pretty 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/or fantastic preschool fantasy; a large selection of licensed entertainment properties; action; adventure; war; school dramas, sports and straight comedy strands. Closer looks would confirm that there was always a subversive merging, mixing undertone, especially in such antihero series as Dennis the Menace or our rather strained interpretation of superheroes. Just check out The Phantom Viking, Kelly’s Eye or early Steel Claw. We had dabbled with the classic form in the early Marvel and Batman-influenced 1960s (and slightly before and beyond), but Tri-Man, Black Sapper, Red Star Robinson, Gadgetman & Gimmick Kid, Thunderbolt Jaxon and Johnny Future remained off-kilter oddities. In the March 27th 1976 edition of Buster everything changed…

Part of Rebellion Publishing’s British Comics Classics line, The Leopard from Lime Street originally ran 470 episodes (50 adventures) until May 18th 1985 – and even later as colorized reprints and in 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 viewed through a superbly time-stamped English lens of life in a Northern Town. It was utterly unmissable reading…

This third compilation volume gathers Buster and Buster & Monster Fun strips spanning July 22nd 1978 through September 29th 1979: a period of intense political and social change, and one barely touching the residents of a typical British small city…

What you need to know: Somewhere in middle(ish) England lies Selbridge, where scrawny 13-year-old Billy Farmer was constantly bullied, by kids at school and especially his Uncle Charlie. Billy’s abiding interests were journalism and photography. He started a school newspaper (Farmer’s World) all by himself, probably to compensate for his home life. He lived with loving but frail Aunt Joan and her vicious, indolent, physically abusive partner Charlie Farmer who avoided honest work like the plague, but was always ready to deliver a memorable life-lesson with fist, boot or belt to those under his shoddy roof…

Billy’s life forever changed after visiting the Jarman Zoological Institute where he was 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 was given a rapid once-over by the boffins in charge, declared fine and sent home. When Uncle Charlie tried to hit him. he was casually chucked into the dustbins and the lad realised he had developed the strength, speed, stamina and agility of a jungle cat, as well as enhanced senses, empathic feelings, a paralysing roar and a predator’s “danger-sense”…

Soon, clad in a modified pantomime costume, Billy prowled Selbridge’s dark streets and low rooftops, incurring the curiosity and animosity of Thaddeus Clegg: editor of local rag The Selbridge Sun. Soon the ever-more confidant Billy was selling exclusive photos of burglars, crooks and kidnappers preyed upon by the vigilante “leopardman”. Somehow, the raw kid could also get candid shots of secluded celebrities no adult journo could get near…

Moreover, the lad’s earnings – grudgingly paid by Clegg – started making life easier for Aunt Joan, whilst the Beast’s constant proximity to Lime Street ensured Charlie kept his outbursts verbal and his drunken fists unclenched. School remained a nightmare of bullies and almost-exposure of Billy’s secret, but home life improved further once police identified Billy as an official confidante of the vigilante. They even noted how Charlie was regularly brutalised by the feral fury in defence of his “friend”…

Over months the leopard man caught many criminals, was implicated – and cleared – of arson and theft, was abducted by a crooked circus owner, caught child abductors, battled a fame-obsessed masked wrestler and circus acrobat mimicking his abilities to frame the catman for crimes. On a school trip to a Safari Park, Billy was reunited with his accidental creator Sheba and his powers seemed to exponentially increase beyond his ability to control them…

The costumed melodramas resume now as author Tom Tully scripts for unknown (presumably Spanish or South American) fill-in artists as a mysterious new headmaster acts up at Billy’s school before being ultimately and spectacularly exposed as a crime boss with a need for a nice flat playing field. Artists extraordinaire Mike Western & Eric Bradbury pick up the pace for the next saga as a simple game of cricket exposes Billy’s secret to thuggish motorcycle bullies who try – and fail – to trap the leopardman and cash in, just as the local police adjust to a manic new boss with an animal hunting agenda and a gung-ho firearms unit. Eventually. even brutal Bulldog Brady will admit when he’s beaten, but that’s many episodes down the line…

Billy meanwhile, has dusted off an old makeup kit and cobbled together a cunning scheme to fool the bikers once and for all…

Billy’s occasional exhibitions of extreme sporting prowess get in him trouble with teachers who can’t understand why he can’t repeat his feats while in school teams (it’s unfair and cheating!), but he has no such compunctions in his clashes with a fame-seeking punk rock band. As impostor leopard men the brutes almost kill aunty Joan during one of their attention seeking stunts and, again needing money to support her, Billy pulls out all the stops and even start working with Clegg again. His good intentions only make his alter ego a bigger pariah, as shutting them down scuppers a forthcoming local musical festival. Vilified in public, guilty again and resolved to fix things, Billy explores how he can make the leopardman a paying proposition for bored music fans…

After a rare moment of popular triumph and well-deserved acclaim, it’s back to being wanted as a minor cold snap sees an icy, gem-swiping supervillain hit Selbridge, with the leopard blamed for the Snow Beast’s depredations… until Billy outsmarts the bad guy and cops too…

Another stint by fill-in artists sees Billy’s masked other save a classmate’s farm from crooked property speculators (is that a thing?) prior to Western & Bradbury detailing how the media arrives in force to solve the mystery of the Leopard From Lime Street, sparking greed, panic and mob madness in equal amounts. With a high profile reward on offer, madness grips Selbridge – especially uncle Charlie – and as a friend of the fugitive Billy is tortured by school bullies and stalked by opportunists looking for tips…

The situation spirals into pure insanity when another leopardman impostor shows up, hunting Billy and threatening his family. Facing someone who is his physical equal and totally ruthless, there’s is only one thing the real deal can do…

Beguilingly scripted by British comics superstar Tully (Roy of the Rovers; Heros the Spartan; Janus Stark; Mytek the Mighty; Adam Eterno; Johnny Red; Harlem Heroes and many of the strips cited above) these tales are magnificently illustrated. Working collaboratively British comics royalty Mike Western (Lucky Logan; No Hiding Place; The Avenger; Biggles; The Wild Wonders; Darkie’s Mob; The Sarge; HMS Nightshade; Jack O’Justice; Billy’s Boots; Roy of the Rovers) shared pencilling and inking with mood master Eric Bradbury (Mytek the Mighty; Maxwell Hawke; Cursitor Doom; Von Hoffman’s Invasion; House of Dolmann; Death Squad; Hook Jaw; Rogue Trooper; Doomlord; Invasion; Mean Arena; Tharg the Mighty and more) to craft a pre-modern masterwork affording a fascinating insight into the slant a different culture can bring to a genre.

The concept of a “real-life” superhero has never been more clearly and cleverly explored than in these low-key tales of the cat kid who survives not supervillains but a hard-knock life…
The Leopard from Lime Street and all related elements featured ™ & © 1978, 1979, 2023, Rebellion Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Roy Rogers King of the Cowboys: The Collected Dailies and Sundays


By Albert Laws Stoffel, Mike Arens, Hy Mankin, Al, Bob, Chuck & Tom McKimson, John Ushler, Pete Alvarado, Alex Toth & various (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-1-932563-51-1 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Classic Holiday Fare & Your Granddad’s Delight … 8/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

If you live long enough, you will either calcify into a barking reactionary nightmare-to-know or possibly spend your last days wracked with shame and guilt: an apologist for your life and loves. It’s especially true in film and comics, where suspect or devalued prior cultural modes and mores can slap happily-woke, proudly re-informed You right in the face as soon as you start.

A conscience is a wonderful thing but so is the ability to realise how components of your idealised past were not so golden and glorious for everyone. It may be hard to admit, but lots of great old stuff had ethical sell-by dates and now can’t be more than purely historical or aesthetic artefacts but not comprehensively accepted popular entertainment. So BIG NOs to race/ethnic/religious humour, sexist attitudes and exploitation, gender suppression, white/male supremacy, cultural appropriation in all forms, anything claiming to be “just banter”, and everything else I’ve missed. You literally know what I mean.

If you have a fondness or connection to any kind of cross-generational entertainment you are at risk of this phenomenon. Take a good hard listen to almost any pop song lyric from 1956  onwards and think “stalker?” And just how rapey do leading men need to be before they are seen as villains?

As an ancient Briton, I personally suffer from a nostalgic sin. I love so many comic strips where casual and pointless female nudity is a given, and periodical comics tales where chicks put on skimpy costumes just to serve sandwiches, get held captive or be told “no dear”. I have argued art-appreciation and acknowledged sublime illustrative talent but it’s still gratification via nudity…

And yet there are still comics, films, shows, records, posters and books that I will ask you to exempt, accept and explore for what I consider worthwhile reasons.

One of the most tricky subsets of this quandary is westerns. In almost every aspect and platform this overwhelmingly popular genre just can’t be defended without a raft of caveats and picky exemptions. Root and branch, westerns are a shoddy defence and inadequate alibi for brutal colonialism, constructed by victors to whitewash and justify their sins. But again, there are so, so many really entertaining ones…

If any fellow shameful hypocrites are still with me, I’m not saying some things deserve a pass because of exculpatory artistic merits, but only asking that if you admire such wonderful “guilty-pleasure” arts and stories, keep foremost in mind that what you see is not the same as what others may. The same of course applies to anyone I’ve offended with the previous pontificating paragraphs. Yes, it is your childhood, and yes it was great and did you no appreciable harm, but you are not the only past and potential consumer of such material, whether Cowboys & Indians yarns, husbands & boyfriends who’ll “be watching you” or the latest Irish or poof joke…

Moving on…

Born Leonard Franklin Slye on November 5th 1911, American – and for a while, global – cultural touchstone Roy Rogers was a hugely popular entertainer who started as a rodeo performer and singing cowboy and built an empire on a folksy yet heroic image and fictionalised life. As a singer and actor (live shows, 90 movies, radio serials and more) he was a household name even before conquering the new medium of television. From 1951-1957, Roy, wife Dale Evans, horse Trigger and faithful dog Bullet were weekly invited into everybody’s home and enjoyed a mini-empire of comic books, strips. Rogers died on July 8th 1998. Unlike many contemporary media icons, he has not sustained his celebrity much beyond his generation of fans even though his name – and Trigger’s – remain an aspect of colloquial folklore.

While at his acme, however, Roy Rogers merchandise was exemplary. Artists such as John Buscema and Nat Edson drew his comic books (which sold north of 2 million copies per issue in the late 1950s), and his personalised toy guns, archery gear and cowboy/cowgirl playsets topped Christmas shopping lists. As seen in this curated compilation, the syndicated strip drew upon gifted but usually uncredited journeymen artists like Mike Arens, Hy Mankin, Al, Bob, Chuck & Tom McKimson, John Ushler and Pete Alvarado, and employed gifted ghosts and part-timers like Alex Toth.

Running seven days a week for 12 years, Roy Rogers King of the Cowboys graced 186 papers across America. As with all Hermes volumes, the vintage material is supplemented by picture-packed essays and editorial additions. Here that begins with Foreword ‘Roy Rogers and waiting at the Newsstand’, penned by his son Roy “Dusty” Rogers Jr., and precedes Tim Lasiuta’s Introduction ‘Roy Rogers, the 1950s, and the Funnies’ offering background, context and artist biographical data amidst many glorious illustrations including painted comic book covers, candid photos, panel details, and fabulous merch items such as fan club cards, movie posters, lunchboxes, press stills, original art and more.

The storytelling (by journalist Albert Laws Stoffel), and art are exemplary, and it’s a shame this is a commemorative celebratory selection rather than complete collection. Unlike many similar western strips of the era, the Rogers experience was vaguely contemporary, and family oriented, with action and violence taking a backseat to domestic drama, humour and mysteries suitable to children.

Opening the comics section and spanning January 2nd to February 17th 1950, ‘The Shasta Valley Dam’ details daily how a local irrigation project is almost scuttled by a selfish landowner, putting ranch owner Roy and old pal/travelling salesman Willie Dooley through a gauntlet of pacy perils, promptly followed by ‘Jack Spratt’ (January 2nd to February 17th), wherein our hero helps the sheriff of Jericho capture ghostly bandit “The Stick”…

Portly but astonishingly spry and astute “Zumaho Medicine Man” ‘Two Shadow’ (April 17th – June 10th) requests the Rogers touch when his tribe are framed for crimes and dangerous recidivism next, tumultuously causing chaos all around before leading to the exposure of a rich white man’s plot to deprive the tribe of oil deposits beneath their lands.

Pausing briefly to enjoy original art for a Roy Rogers Colouring Book, comics fun resumes with ‘Chili’ (June 12th – August 5th) as Willie Dooley discovers his dream of settling down endangered when hydraulic engineers divert all the region’s waters for illicit mining. Thankfully a sharp little Mexican kid is on hand to point out a solution, but not before an uncharacteristic and violent protracted shooting battle breaks out…

More colouring book art carries us into ‘The Sheep-Cattle War’ (August 7th – September 30th) as Roy is made deputy marshal of Peace City to quell a manufactured crisis that only benefits enigmatic bandit chief The Shroud, but also somehow helps a local business casualty get even richer, after which 1950’s daily dilemmas conclude with ‘The Stagecoach Race’ (October 2nd – November 25th). The stories all very much mirror the plots of the movie and TV serials that inspired them, and this was no doubt exactly what the franchise holders and reading public wanted as in this much-told tale of rival businesses competing for a stagecoach contract with Roy in the middle of sassy, gun-totin’ owners’ daughters and evil entrepreneurs…

As with many strips of the era, Roy Rogers Dailies and Sunday strips told separate stories. Here credited to Al McKimson and in full colour is ‘The Charity Carnival’ (August 21st – November 20th 1955) as Roy ends the cheating ways of a bunch of fairground folk before joining little Chili – from March 4th to 27th May 1956 – in stopping the ‘Attempted Murder’ of a man who’s been dead for 50 years…

Covering 26th May to September 1st 1957, ‘Bride By Mail’ offers a comedy break when a woman contracted to marry a man she’s never met expresses her anger that the hubby sent her a picture of Roy instead for his own far less attractive face. Cue a disgruntled wedding party and much gun-waving until the real sender of the picture is exposed as well as his greedy reason…

The storytelling concludes with Roy exposing scuba divers mimicking sea monsters for nefarious purposes in ‘Underwater Mystery’ (24th August to November 23rd 1958) before we return to academia with Daniel Herman’s copiously illustrated essay ‘Roy Rogers and the Art of Alex Toth’, revealing the graphic maestro’s previously unheralded contributions, before ending with another tranche of ‘Memorabilia’…

A treasure very much of its time, but with enough intrinsic charm and artistic merit to be worth a cautious modern revisit, Roy Rogers King of the Cowboys: The Collected Dailies and Sundays is an acquired taste that might just make a select comeback.
© 2011 The Roy Rogers Family Entertainment Corporation, reprinted with permission.  Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Invincible Iron Man Omnibus volume 2


By Stan Lee, Archie Goodwin, Roy Thomas, Gene Colan, George Tuska, Johnny Craig, Don Heck, Frank Giacoia, Dan Adkins, Mike Esposito, Sam Grainger & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5899-2 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Solid Gold, Sterling Silver so-Shiny Wonders … 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Super-rich supergenius inventor Tony Stark moonlights as a superhero: wearing a formidable, ever-evolving suit of armour stuffed with his own ingenious creations. An arch-technologist who hates to lose and constantly upgrades his gear, Stark continually re-makes Iron Man one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe. There are a number of ways to interpret his creation and early years: glamorous playboy, super-rich industrialist, inventor, philanthropist – even when not operating in his armoured alter-ego.

Created in the immediate aftermath of the 1960s Cuban Missile Crisis at a time when “Red-baiting” and “Commie-bashing” were American national obsessions, the emergence of a brilliant new Thomas Edison employing Yankee ingenuity and invention to safeguard and better the World seemed inevitable. Combining that era’s all-pervasive belief that technology could solve any problem with the universal imagery of noble knights battling tangible and easily recognisable Evil, the proposition almost becomes a certainty. Of course, it might simply be that we kids thought it both great fun and very, very cool…

This fabulous full-colour compendium revisits the dawn days of Marvel’s rise to ascendancy via the Steel Shod Sentinel’s early days: chronologically re-presenting all his solo exploits, feature, letters & editorial pages, pin-ups and pertinent sections from Tales of Suspense #84-99; interim attraction Iron Man and the Sub-Mariner #1 and thereafter Iron Man #1-25, spanning December 1966 to May 1970, as well as essays and Introductions from previous, less lengthy collections that were so important in establishing rapport and building a unified comics fandom…

This period under review saw the much-diminished and almost-bankrupt former comics colossus finally surpass DC Comics’ preeminent pole position and become darling of the student counter-culture. In these tales, Stark is still very much a gung-ho, patriotic armaments manufacturer, and not the enlightened capitalist liberal dissenter he would become…

Marvel’s dominance of the US comic book was confirmed in 1968 when most of their characters finally got their own titles. Prior to that – due to a highly restrictive distribution deal – the company had been limited to 16 publications per month. To circumvent this drawback, Marvel developed “split-books” with two features per title, such as Tales of Suspense where Iron Man originally solo-starred before being joined by patriotic cohort Captain America in issue #59 (cover-dated November 1964). Marvel’s fortunes prospered; thanks in large part to Stan Lee’s gift for promotion, but primarily because of superbly engaging stories such as the ones collected in this enticing hardback/eBook edition.

With the new distributor came demand for more product, and the split book stars all won their own titles. When the division came, the Armoured Avenger started afresh with a “Collector’s Item First Issue” – but only after a shared one-shot with The Sub-Mariner that squared divergent schedules. Of course, Cap retained the numbering of the original title; thereby premiering in number #100.

Following a critique by critic and historian Arlen Schumer in his Introduction (from Marvel Masterworks Iron Man volume 5) the sterling adventures – all-Gene Colan illustrated – resume with the shiny portion of ToS #84 picking up soap opera style with Stark submitting to months of governmental pressure and testifying to a Congressional Committee hungry for the secrets of his greatest creation. However. at the critical moment, the inventor keels over…

Stark’s controversial reputation is finally restored as the public at last learns that his life is only preserved by a metallic chest-plate keeping his maimed heart beating in ‘The Other Iron Man!’ (scripted by Lee and inked by Frank Giacoia). Somehow, nobody at all connects that hunk of steel to the identical one his Avenging “bodyguard” wears…

With the hero stuck in a hospital bed, best friend Happy Hogan foolishly dons the suit to preserve that precious secret, only to be abducted by the insidious Mandarin in another extended assault that begins with ‘Into the Jaws of Death’. Prior to that, readers are whisked back to so-different days by the first letters page offering Mails of Suspense…

Propelled by guilt and fuelled by fear, still-ailing Stark breaks into his own Congressionally-closed factory to create new, more powerful armour and flies to the rescue in ‘Death Duel for the Life of Happy Hogan!’ The cataclysmic clash rattles the “bamboo curtain” but is soon successfully concluded, and the Americans return home just in time for #87 and #88 to host the merciless Mole Man who attacks from below, prompting a ‘Crisis… at the Earth’s Core!’ Sadly, the villain has no idea who hostage Stark really is, believing hottie assistant Pepper Potts and her boss ‘Beyond all Rescue!’, but is soon proved very wrong, after which another old B-List bad-guy takes his shot in ‘The Monstrous Menace of the Mysterious Melter!’ and tense, terse sequel ‘The Golden Ghost!’ which fabulously feature a glorious reprise of Iron Man’s original bulky battle suit and a wonderfully twisty conclusion, before ‘The Uncanny Challenge of the Crusher!’ offers an all-action tale – possibly marred for modern audiences by a painful Commie-bustin’ sub-plot featuring a thinly disguised Fidel Castro…

Also somewhat dated but still gripping are references to then then-ongoing “Police Action” in Indo-China which look a little gung-ho (if completely understandable) as Iron Man goes hunting for Red Menace Half-Face ‘Within the Vastness of Viet Nam!’ The urgent insertion results in another clash with incorrigible old foe Titanium Man in ‘The Golden Gladiator and… the Giant!’ before our hero at last snatches victory from the mechanical jaws of defeat in ‘The Tragedy and the Triumph!’ (this last inked by Dan Adkins). Giacoia returns and a new cast member then debuts in #95 as eager-beaver adult boy scout S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jasper Sitwell is assigned as security advisor to America’s most prominent weapons maker. It coincides with Thor villain Grey Gargoyle attacking in ‘If a Man be Stone!’, but he utterly mismatched and overpowered maniac is summarily defeated in ‘The Deadly Victory!’ in anticipation of Tales of Suspense #97 launching an extended story-arc to carry the series into the solo series and beyond, as criminal cartel the Maggia seeks to move in on Stark’s company.

The campaign opens with the hero’s capture as ‘The Coming of… Whiplash!’ reveals the Golden Avenger cut to steely ribbons, drawn out in ‘The Warrior and the Whip!’ and – as the magnificent Archie Goodwin assumed scripting duties and EC legend Johnny Craig came aboard as inker – trapped on a sinking submarine ‘At the Mercy of the Maggia’, just as the venerable Tales of Suspense ends with the 99th issue…

Of course, it was just changing title to Captain America as Tales to Astonish seamlessly morphed into The Incredible Hulk, but – due to a scheduling snafu – neither of the split-book co-stars had a home that month (April 1968). This situation led to the one-&-only Iron Man and the Sub-Mariner #1 to carry concluding episode ‘The Torrent Without… The Tumult Within!’, wherein sinister super-scientists of A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics, acronym-fans) snatch the Armoured Avenger from the Maggia’s swiftly sinking submarine, intent on stealing the hero’s technical secrets. Invincible Iron Man #1 finally appeared with a May 1968 cover-date, triumphantly ending the extended subsea-saga as our hero stands ‘Alone against A.I.M.!’: a thrilling roller-coaster ride supplemented by ‘The Origin of Iron Man’ offering a revitalised re-telling to conclude Colan’s impressive tenure on the character.

Breaking briefly for an educational Introduction from comics historian Dewey Cassell, running down the stellar career and achievements of debuting artist George Tuska, the action accelerates into a bold new era with Invincible Iron Man #2. Entrenched illustrator Colan moved on and ‘The Day of the Demolisher!’ found EC megastar Johnny Craig tackling the art-chores. His first job was a cracker, as scripter Goodwin lays down years of useful groundwork by introducing Janice Cord as a romantic interest for the playboy inventor. The real problem is a monolithic killer robot built by her deranged father and the start of a running plot-thread examining the effects of the munitions business and the kind of inventors who work for it. Also from this point on the letters page became ‘Sock it to Shell-Head’. No comment.

Goodwin & Craig brought back Stark’s bodyguard Happy Hogan in time to help rebuild the now-obsolete Iron Man armour and consequently devolve into a marauding monstrous menace in ‘My Friend, My Foe… the Freak!’ for #3, and retooled a long-forgotten Soviet super-villain into a major threat in ‘Unconquered is the Unicorn!’ in #4. This particular tech-enhanced maniac is dying from his own powers and thinks Tony will be able – if not exactly willing – to fix him…

With Iron Man #5, another Golden Age veteran joined the creative team. George Tuska – who had worked on huge hits such as the original (Fawcett) Captain Marvel and Crime Does Not Pay, plus newspaper strips like The Spirit and Buck Rogers – would illustrate the majority of Iron Man’s adventures for the next decade, becoming synonymous with the Armoured Avenger…

Inked by Craig, ‘Frenzy in a Far-Flung Future!’ is an intriguing time-paradox tale wherein Stark is kidnapped by the last survivors of humanity, determined to kill him before he can build the super-computer that eradicated mankind. Did somebody say “Terminator”?

A super-dense (by which I mean strong and heavy) Cuban Commie threat returned – but not for long – in ‘Vengeance… Cries the Crusher!’ Next, the sinister scheme begun way back in ToS #97 finally bears brutal – and for preppie S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jasper Sitwell – painful fruit in 2-part thriller ‘The Maggia Strikes!’ and ‘A Duel Must End!’ Here former Daredevil foe the Gladiator leads a savage attack on Stark’s factory, friends and would-be new love. The saga also reveals the tragic history of mystery woman Whitney Frost and lays the seeds of her evolution into one of Iron Man’s most implacable foes…

A 3-part saga follows as The Mandarin resurfaces with a cunning plan and the certain conviction that Stark and Iron Man are the same person. Beginning with a seeming Hulk guest-shot in #9’s ‘There Lives a Green Goliath!’, proceeding through the revelatory and explosive Nick Fury team-up ‘Once More… The Mandarin!’ before climaxing in spectacular “saves-the-day” fashion as our hero is ‘Unmasked!’ This epic by Goodwin, Tuska & Craig offers astounding thrills and potent drama with dozens of devious twists, just as the first inklings of the social upheaval America was experiencing began to seep into Marvel’s publications. As the core audience started to grow into the Flower Power generation, future tales would take arch-capitalist weapon-smith Stark in many unexpected and often peculiar directions. All of a sudden maybe that money and fancy gadgetry weren’t quite so fun or cool anymore?

Goodwin, Tuska & Craig build on a sterling run of solid science-flavoured action epics with the introduction of a new sinister super-foe in #12 as ‘The Coming of the Controller’ sees a twisted genius using life-energy stolen from mind-slaved citizens to power a cybernetic exo-skeleton. Along the way he and his brother embezzle the fortune of Stark’s girlfriend Janice Cord to pay for it all. Of course, Iron Man is ready and able to overcome the scheming maniac, culminating in a cataclysmic climax ‘Captives of the Controller!’ as the mind-bending terror attempts to extend his mesmeric, parasitic sway over the entire populace of New York City…

Another educational and fascinating Introduction – The Tony Stark/Iron Man Dilemma – by dynamic draughtsman George Tuska, detailing his stellar career and achievements, leads us into an era of constant change. Originally, combining then-sacrosanct belief that technology and business could solve any problem with the universal imagery of noble knights battling evil made the concept behind the Invincible Iron Man an infallibly successful proposition.

Of course where once Tony Stark was the acceptable face of Capitalism, the tumultuous tone of the closing decade soon resigned his suave image to the dustbin of history. With ecological disasters and social catastrophe from the abuse of industry and technology the new mantras of the young, the Golden Avenger and Stark International were soon confronting some tricky questions from the increasingly socially conscious readership. All of a sudden maybe that money and fancy gadgetry weren’t quite so fun or cool anymore?

With an Iron Clad promise of stunning action and compelling intrigue this iconic hardback (and digital) chronological compendium covers Iron Man #14-25, spanning June 1969 – May 1970, and opens with an educational and fascinating Introduction from dynamic draughtsman George Tuska, detailing the stellar career and achievements of the veteran artist.

Writer Archie Goodwin and illustrious illustrators Tuska & Johnny Craig continued a sterling run of genre-flavoured action epics as IM #14 depicts ‘The Night Phantom Walks!’ with the scripter craftily paying tribute to Craig’s past history drawing EC’s landmark horror comics. Here the artist pencilled & inked the tale of a zombie-like monster prowling a Caribbean island, destroying Stark Industry installations. As well as being a terse, moody thriller, the story marks the first indications of a different attitude as the menace’s ecologically inspired reign of terror includes some pretty fair arguments about the downsides of “Progress” and rapacious globalisation…

With Craig back inking, Tuska returned with #15 and ‘Said the Unicorn to the Ghost…!’ as the demented former superspy allies himself with Fantastic Four foe The Red Ghost in a desperate bid to find a cure for his drastically shortened lifespan. Attempting to kidnap Stark, the Ghost betrays the Unicorn and retrenches to an African Cosmic Ray research facility in concluding instalment ‘Of Beasts and Men!’, where it takes a fraught alliance of hero and villain to thwart the ethereal mastermind’s ill-conceived plans…

A suspenseful extended epic opened in IM #17 after an advanced android designed to protect Stark’s secret identity achieves sinister sentience and sneakily replaces him. ‘The Beginning of the End!’ also introduces enigmatic Madame Masque and her malevolent master Midas, who plans to take over America’s greatest technology company… as hostilely as possible…

Dispossessed and on the run, Stark is abducted and aligns with Masque and Midas to reclaim his identity, only to suffer a fatal heart-attack in ‘Even Heroes Die!’ (guest-starring The Avengers) before a ground-breaking transplant – still practically science fiction in those distant days – offers renewed hope in ‘What Price Life?’ When the ruthlessly opportunistic Midas instantly strikes again, Madame Masque switches sides and all hell breaks loose…

The X-Men’s dimensionally displaced alien nemesis attacks the restored and recuperating hero in ‘Who Serves Lucifer?’ (inked by Joe Gaudioso – AKA Mike Esposito) before being rudely returned to his personal dungeon dimension, after which African-American boxer Eddie March becomes the new Iron Man in #21’s ‘The Replacement!’ as Stark – free from the heart-stimulating chest-plate which had preserved his life for years – is briefly tempted by a life without strife. Unfortunately, and unknown to all, Eddie has a little health problem of his own…

When Soviet-sponsored armoured archenemy Titanium Man resurfaces, it’s in conjunction – if not union – with another old Cold War warrior in the form of a newly-upgraded Crimson Dynamo in #22’s chilling classic confrontation ‘From this Conflict… Death!’ With a loved one murdered, a vengeance-crazed Iron Man then goes ballistic in innovative action-thriller ‘The Man Who Killed Tony Stark!!’ before ultimately finding solace in the open arms of Madame Masque as Craig returns to fully illustrate superb mythological monster-mash ‘My Son… The Minotaur!’ and stays on as imminently departing scripter Goodwin pins Iron Man’s new Green colours to the comic’s mast in #25’s stunning eco-parable ‘This Doomed Land… This Dying Sea!’ Ably aided and abetted by Craig – whose slick understated mastery adds a sheen of terrifying authenticity to proceedings – the Armoured Avenger clashes and ultimately teams with veteran antihero Namor the Sub-Mariner. Ultimately the turbulent rivals must destroy Stark’s own hyper-polluting facility, consequently overruling and abandoning his company’s previous position and business model. Tragically, his attempts to convince other industry leaders to do likewise meets with the kind of reaction that tragically then (and again now) typified America’s response to the real-world situation…

Although the action ends here, there are many fantastic extras to enjoy, beginning with a comedy short gleaned from Marvel’s contemporaneous comedy pastiche magazine Not Brand Echh #2 (September 1967). Here Roy Thomas, Don Heck & Dan Adkins pit clunky 20th century crusader The Unrinseable Ironed Man against a parody-prone 40th century stalwart old fans will surely – if not surlily – recognise, even if here he’s called ‘Magnut, Robot Biter!’…

With covers throughout by Kirby, Colan, Gil Kane, Bill Everett, Craig, Tuska, Marie Severin, Giacoia, John Romita, Esposito, Larry Lieber, & John Verpoorten, other art treats include a character-packed Colan self-portrait from 1970; 15 pages of interior page and cover art, and the covers of Marvel Double Feature Classics #1-19 and Marvel Super-Heroes #31; plus the text-free art for this collection by Salvador Larocca & Frank D’Amata.

On show here is a fantastic period in the Golden Gladiator’s career, one that perfectly encapsulates the changes Marvel and America went through and some of the best and most memorable efforts of a simply stellar band of creators. These are epic exploits, still charged with all the urgency and potency of a time of crisis and a nation in tumult, so what better time than now to finally tune in, switch on or return to the Power of Iron Man?
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Yoko Tsuno volume 16: The Cannon of Kra


By Roger Leloup, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-019-7 (Album PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Affirmative, Inclusive & Bursting with Blockbuster Thrills… 8/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

On 24th September 1970, indomitable intellectual adventurer and “electronics engineer” Yoko Tsuno began her career in Le Journal de Spirou via a cartoony “Marcinelle style” 8 page short entitled ‘Hold-up en hi-fi’. She is still delighting readers and making new fans to this day in astonishing, action-packed, astoundingly accessible adventures numbering amongst the most intoxicating, absorbing and broad-ranging comics thrillers ever created.

Her globe-girdling mysteries and space-&-time-spanning epics were devised by multitalented Belgian maestro Roger Leloup who – from 1953 – truly started his own solo career after working as a studio assistant and technical artist on Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin.

Compellingly told, superbly imaginative and – no matter how implausible the premise of any individual yarn may seem – always firmly grounded in hyper-realistic settings underpinned by authentic, unshakably believable technology and scientific principles, Leloup’s illustrated escapades were at the vanguard of a wave of strips revolutionising European comics. Very early in the process, he switched from loose illustration to the mesmerising nigh-photo realistic Ligne Claire style that is a series signature.

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

Her first outings (the aforementioned but STILL unavailable Hold-up en hi-fi, and sequels La belle et la bête and Cap 351) were mere introductory vignettes before epic authenticism took hold in 1971 when the unflappable troubleshooter met valiant but lesser (male) pals Pol Paris and Vic Van Steen, properly hitting her stride in premier full-length saga Le trio de l’étrange starting in LJdS’s May 13th edition. From that point, Yoko’s cases would include explosive exploits in exotic corners of our world, sinister deep-space sagas and even time-travelling jaunts. There are 31 European bande dessinée albums to date, with 19 translated into English thus far, albeit – and ironically – none of them available in digital formats…

First serialised in LJdS #2452-2455, Le canon de Kra was first released in 1985: a gripping war-tinged thriller and sublimely understated espionage epic. Laced with solid hard-science foundations and stark historical and geopolitical overtones, it was the 20th album, reaching us Brits as Cinebook’s 16th outing, exploring a heritage of hate and destruction and forcing the troubleshooter to ponder a recent time of madness in her country’s long and proud history…

It opens as Miss Tsuno – a supremely gifted aviation and glider pilot – finishes testing super-compact jet the Hummingbird for a mystery millionaire. After regretfully signing off on the nippy craft, she is reintroduced to old friends Colonel Tagashi (Daughter of the Wind) and benevolent billionaire/tech entrepreneur/German security agent Peter Hertzel (Wotan’s Fire)  who reveal they have been secretly prepping her for a critical and deadly mission.

The intelligence men have uncovered a diabolical plot to use a reconstructed rail-mounted super gun to fire 500mm shells into South Asia. In 1942, these mobile artillery pieces were abandoned on the Isthmus of Kra in the Malay Peninsula. Rebuilt, ready, and situated in oil-rich new nation Kampong, the bombardments could reach Indonesia, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand and more.

Moreover, the former Japanese pilot masterminding the scheme has become the world’s most successful criminal arms dealer since WWII ended. Sakamoto plans to enact revenge for the shame of defeat by filling those shells with explosives and stolen radioactive waste in equal measure…

With a week until their counterattack can begin, Yoko goes undercover as a photojournalist in Kampong, infiltrating warlord Sakamoto’s palatial fortress but bringing devastating retaliation upon herself and Kampong’s vastly overmatched police force. Nevertheless, Tsuno divines the fine detail of Sakamoto’s scheme and, with police captain Onago, heads to where the super-gun and his appalling ammo await the madman’s orders to fire. Revenge is not the villain’s only goal. By backing anti-government rebels, the warlords intend to be Kampong’s king…

As Pol and Vic move in to assist at an pre-arranged rendezvous point, the grand plan is shot down – literally – and Yoko and Onago find themselves accidentally allied to the anti-government rebels Sakamoto had backed but now betrays. As the villain spirals into madness, the resistance target his rail installation, leading to an epic battle to sabotage the rail cannon and defeat the deranged warlord’s plans of atomic armageddon…

Drenched in intrigue and packed with breathtaking air-combat and jungle war set pieces, The Cannon of Kra thunders along, inexorably building to a shattering climax and blistering conclusion. This epic again confirms Yoko Tsuno as a multi-faceted adventurer, at home in every manner of scenario, holding her own against the likes of James Bond, Modesty Blaise, Tintin and other genre-busting super-stars, triumphantly facing spies and maniacs as well as aliens, weird science or unchecked forces of nature…

As always the most effective asset in these breathtaking tales is the astonishingly authentic and staggeringly detailed draughtsmanship and storytelling, which superbly benefits from Leloup’s diligent research and meticulous attention to detail, honed through years of working on Tintin. The Cannon of Kra is a magnificently wide-screen thriller, tense, complex and evocative, appealing to any fan of blockbuster action fantasy or devious derring-do.
Original edition © Dupuis, 1985 by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation 2021 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Teen Titans: Year One (New Edition)


By Amy Wolfram, Karl Kerschl & Serge Lapointe, coloured by Stéphane Péru & John Rausch, lettered by Nick J. Napolitano (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-6724-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: How Growing-Up-Super Really Feels… 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

The concept of kid hero teams was not a new one when DC finally entrusted their big heroes’ assorted sidekicks with their own regular comic:  resulting in a fab, hip and groovy ensemble as dedicated to helping kids as they were to stamping out insidious evil.

The biggest difference between juvenile wartime groups such as The Young Allies, Newsboy Legion and Boy Commandos or 1950s holdovers like The Little Wise Guys or Boy Explorers and the creation of the Teen Titans was quite simply the burgeoning phenomena of “the Teenager” as a discrete social and commercial force. These were kids who could – and should – be allowed to do things themselves without constant adult “help” or supervision. As early as The Brave and the Bold #54 (June/July 1964), DC’s Powers-That-Be tested the waters in a gripping tale by Bob Haney & Bruno Premiani teaming Robin, Kid Flash and Aqualad.

The wild punt was a huge hit and the kids – supplemented by Wonder Girl and Speedy – got their own title, offering teen tinged tales crafted by old(ish) white guys. To be fair, the sagas were certainly unlike anything else DC was concurrently producing and have certainly withstood the test of time as a peek at Teen Titans The Silver Age volumes 1 & 2 will confirm.

However, ways in which society relates to kids – and vice versa – has changed radically since the hazy crazy, shimmery sixties, and this delicious dose of post-modern retro-revelation details how a new century and fresh thinking can reevaluate the trials and costs of growing up super. Originally released in 2008 as 6-part miniseries Teen Titans: Year One, this coming of ages yarn is packed with humour and pathos as well as action, making many memorable points whilst delivering a wonderful superhero romp. It was crafted by animation screen writer/comics writer Amy Wolfram (Sym-Bionic Titan, Teen Titans, Teen Titans Go!, The Secret Saturdays, Supergirl, Legion of Super-Heroes) and Karl Kerschl (Adventures of Superman, Gotham Academy, All-Flash, Majestic) with the assistance of inker Serge Lapointe, colourists Stéphane Péru & John Rausch and letterer Nick J. Napolitano.

Offering a compelling reinterpretation of those classic quirkily eclectic Silver Age sagas, there’s a heavy emphasis on the kind of adults who would expose kids to violent thugs, murderers and psychopaths on a nightly basis… including the pressures involved all around and the coping mechanisms evolved to manage that kind of life…

It begins with the Boy Wonder distracted and painfully not meeting Batman’s expectations, wasting time with some costumed sidekicks he’s recently met. Soon the kids are trading stories and covertly working together against the likes of The Ant and Ding Dong Daddy, becoming overnight sensations as in the background, psionic monster the Antithesis is making its move.

It all gets crazy serious when the super-juniors realize their guardians and mentors are going off the rails and becoming increasingly dangerous to the world and themselves, and it’s now up to them to save the day and the world…

Despite how heavy that all sounds, the epic exploit – originally entitled “In the Beginning…’, ‘Flash in the Pan’, ‘Young Heroes in Love’ and ‘Awakening’ – is actually bright, breezy, inspiring and frequently hilarious, but it does pull no punches.

Fast paced, funny, compelling and captivating, this is absolute escapism and absolutely delightful and you absolutely should get this book, Absolutely.
© 2008, 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Power Pack Classic volume 1


By Louise Simonson, June Brigman & Bob Wiacek, with Mary Wilshire, Mark Badger, Brent Anderson & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1193-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Lost Kids Classic …8/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

During the 1980s American comic books experienced a magical proliferation of new titles and companies following the launch of the Direct Sales Market. With publishers now able to firm-sell straight to retail outlets rather than overprint and accept returned copies from non-specialised shops, the industry could experiment and even support less generic titles. Moreover creators could try new ideas out without losing their shirts or their rights.

In response, Marvel developed its own line of creator-owned properties and concentrated a lot of resources into the development of high quality original graphic novels. As the company trundled down the path of corporate growth and risk avoidance (some would say picking up speed for a period of truly dire, lacklustre, unimaginative, uninspired woefully “safe” product) those exploratory feelings nevertheless, filtered through in a few concepts that sparkled with a spirit of creative adventure.

Am ideal perfect example is Power Pack. Concocted by comics veteran Louise Simonson & then-book illustrator June Brigman, the series offered readers an askance view of the Marvel Universe as seen by some extraordinary children enjoying a brief chance to shine in a world dominated by adults. In that place, where even super-empowered kids had some grown-up somewhere calling the shots and saving the day for them, there were moments when only a young perspective mattered…

Spanning cover-dates August 1984 to May 1985 (happy anniversary kids!) and packed with guest stars, the yarns in Power Pack Classic volume 1 re-present the first ten issues of the monthly comic book, and deliver a perfect modern fairytale, with classic goodies and baddies, rollicking thrills and adventure and – most importantly – brave, inquiring and fundamentally competent heroes who are still recognizably, perfectly realized children, not adults-in-all-but-name…

It all begins in double-length debut tale ‘Power Play’ (by Simonson, Bigman & inker Bob Wiacek). High above Earth, a sentient spaceship and its benevolent alien pilot are shot down whilst attempting to warn Earth of impending doom. The triumphant aggressors are lizard-like marauders called Snarks (because we can’t pronounce their actual name, “Z^n’rx”), sent to steal the prototype engine utilising a new scientific principle discovered by physicist Dr. James Power. Idealistic youthful Kymellian Aelfyre Whitemane seeks to foil the raid and quash the scientific secret behind it: a principle that nearly eradicated his own race when they first used it…

At their isolated Virginia beach-house, Power and his wife Margaret are abducted by the Snarks, for interrogation mind-probing and worse, but their four exuberant kids Alex, Julie, Jack and Katie – who had seen the Kymellian crash – are absent when the lizards attack. Tracked down but sheltered by heroic “Whitey”, they learn that their father’s Anti-Matter energy converter can and will destroy worlds.

Tragically, before the friendly alien can save their parents, Whitey dies of his wounds. The distraught and horrified kids then discover they have been bequeathed his fantastic abilities (one each) and, with the assistance of the Kymellian’s “Smart-ship” Friday, must save their parents – as well as the galaxy. Of course that means first escaping from the wicked Snarks who have cornered them, an action that occurs with alarming ease after they all lose control of their new abilities while in the Snark brig…

Pausing for a brief bio page introducing Simonson, Bigman & inker Bob Wiacek, in ‘The Power behind the Pack’ the origin continues in second instalment ‘Butterfingers’ as Friday, having provided unstable molecule uniforms to adventure in, reluctantly helps them break into their father’s workplace to destroy the antimatter converter. Although neophyte, secret superheroes, the Power Pack succeed, but only after clashing with their dad’s paranoid boss Douglas Carmody. He is convinced he has barely survived a close encounter with hostile aliens… or maybe tiny evil mutants…

‘Kidnapped!’ sees Friday ferry the argumentative nippers onto the Snark mothership – run by ferocious avaricious Snark Queen Mother Maraud – where the mind probe is messing up mum and dad’s short-term memories. Determined and scared in equal amounts, the kids cut loose with their still-unpredictable powers and against all odds save their parents and the planet, albeit with a little help from a late-arriving Kymellian fleet led by Whitey’s sire Byrel offering ‘Rescue!’ and eternal friendship…

With Mary Wilshire doing art breakdowns for Wiacek in PP #5, ‘Homecoming!’ sees Carmody send federal spook Henry Peter Gyrich after the “mutant” Power children, with humiliating consequences for all bad guys involved, and prompting a major move. As the family relocate to Manhattan, Mum and Dad are still adapting to not remembering those recent days when they were kidnapped and Power’s invention flopped.

As Dr. Power adjusts to his new college job and his illustrator wife looks for clients, their children adapt to life in new schools/kindergarten and, more importantly, as the shortest new additions to America’s burgeoning superhero community. The hardest part is keeping their new lives and double identities from Mum and Dad who believe their kids are completely human..

A classic team-up romp follows as ‘Secrets’ and ‘Man and Dragon Man’ both by Brigman & Wiacek and concluding chapter ‘Monsters’ (Mark Badger breakdowns) see Julie and Katie befriend magically-alive robot Dragon Man, as Alex and Jack become accidentally embroiled in a drugs gang war amped up by rampaging AI constructs and mecha-monsters, with Spider-Man and Cloak & Dagger knocking heads, punching out lights and saving lives as a gang war explodes…

This first classic collection concludes with a two-part tale by Simonson, Wiacek and Guest penciller Brent Anderson. ‘Fish Tale!’ find the little Powers visiting a marine museum with their grandpa, before encountering a lost alien sea serpent – a mesmerising Boulder Crusher named Snake Eyes if you’re keeping count – and meeting aquatic Alpha Flight hero Marrina. The search involves Friday, who has spent much of the intervening time parked at the bottom of the Hudson River, prior to embarking on a deep dark ‘Sea Hunt!’ for the marauding reptile and learning the dangers of deep sea derring-do…

Adding background and context the collection closes with pages from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe detailing everything else you need to know about Energizer (Katie), Gee (Alex), Lightspeed (Julie), Mass Master (Jack), and later permutations of Power Pack…

This charming thriller revisits a rare, creatively unique high point in Marvel’s middle period output (although it wasn’t long before the kids were subsumed into the greater mutant-teen morass of the X-Men franchise) and these tales still stand as a sensitive and positive example of plucky kids overcoming all odds, matching Peter Pan, Swallows and Amazons or the very best of Baum’s Oz books. Superbly observed, breezily scripted and beautifully drawn, this is a book comic-loving parents need their kids to read.
© 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Identity Crisis 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition


By Brad Meltzer, Rags Morales & Michael Bair & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-2592-5 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Dark Highlights Not to Be Forgotten… 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

For most of us older acolytes, comics – drenched as they are in childhoods shared and solitary – are a nostalgic wonderland as much as fantasy playground. We grew up with certain characters and they mean a lot to us. It’s often a wrench to share such golden moments with other – usually new or just younger – disciples, especially if those new guys have different notions on what we communally cherish.

Jam-packed with all the heroes and villains and supporting cast Silver Agers and Boomers grew up with, 2004 miniseries Identity Crisis was, more than any other, the story that changed the tone and timbre of the DC universe forever.

For such an impressive, far-reaching comics event, the core collection is a rather slim and swift read. Whilst the serialised comic book drove the narrative forward in the manner of a whodunit, most of the character by-play and staggeringly tectonic ripples of the bare-bones murder-mystery at the heart of the story could only be properly experienced in interlinked, individual issues of involved (or perhaps “implicated”) titles. As this was all absorbed week-by-week, month-by-month, the cumulative effect was both bewildering and engrossing, and I doubt that such a muti-level entertainment experience could be duplicated or even attempted in traditional publishing… or any other medium.

Comprising and compiling Identity Crisis #1-7, with additional editorial material from Identity Crisis, Absolute Edition, this potent memento mori opens with an ‘Introduction by Dan Didio’ explaining some hows and whys of the tale. Still controversial after all these years, the plot unfolds next, involving DC heroes brutally, painfully and uncompromisingly re-assessing their careers whilst frantically hunting a murderer.

This assailant struck too close to home however, killing Sue Dearborn-Dibny, the beloved and adored-by-all wife of second-string hero/deceptively top drawer detective The Elongated Man. The deed is done in ‘Coffin’, exposing a toxic ‘House of Lies’ and leading to escalating incidents that point to a cape-&-cowl ‘Serial Killer’ on the rampage. However, with heroes at each other’s throats and cuttingly questioning past mistakes – especially a very vocal younger generation of costumed champions only just learning of cover-ups and dubious decisions made by their mentors – eventually, rational heads and deductive procedures force distraught protagonists to ask ‘Who Benefits’.

This leads to revelatory discoveries on ‘Father’s Day’ and appalling disclosures between ‘Husbands and Wives’ before the culprit is unmasked and the superhero community reels and begins a long, painful recovery…

As the investigation proceeds, the heroes – and villains – confront and reassess many of their bedrock principles including tactics, allegiances and even the modern validity of that genre staple, the Secret Identity.

Throughout, characterisation is spot-on and dialogue is memorable with the artwork never short of magnificent. Moreover, this time the aftershocks of revelation did indeed live up to their hype. How sad then than this central book feels like a rushed “Readers Digest” edition, whilst many of the key moments are scattered in a dozen other (unrelated) collections. Maybe it’s time to start more modern omnibus collected editions, and even make them available digitally  too?

As befits a 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, there is a vast amount of extra material, and behind the scenes treats including a ‘Cover Gallery’, heavily-illustrated essays ‘The Making of Identity Crisis’, ‘The Making of The Covers’, ‘The Making of the Action Figures’ (!!) and an appreciative memorial piece ‘Remembering Michael Turner’.

Gripping, painful in places but extraordinarily cathartic, Identity Crisis is a book every superhero fan must see and will never forget.
© 2004, 2005, 2011, 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Hellboy Omnibus volume 1


By Mike Mignola, with John Byrne, Mark Chiarello, Matt Hollingsworth, James Sinclair, Dave Stewart, Pat Brosseau & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-50670-666-5 (TPB) eISBN: 978-1-50670-687-0

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Seasonal Standard for Shock Addicts… 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

After the establishment of the US comic book direct market system, there came a huge wave of independent publishers. As with all booms, a lot of them went bust. Some few however were more than flash-in-the-pans, growing into major players of a new world order. Arguably, the most successful was Dark Horse Comics who fully embraced the concept of creator ownership (amongst other radical ideas). This concept – and their professional outlook and attitude – drew many big name creators to the new company and in 1994 Frank Miller & John Byrne formally instituted sub-imprint Legend for major creators wanting to produce their own way and at their own pace.

Over the next four years the brand counted Mike Mignola, Art Adams, Mike Allred, Paul Chadwick, Dave Gibbons and Geof Darrow amongst its ranks; generating a wealth of superbly entertaining and groundbreaking series and concepts. Unquestionably, most impressive, popular (and long-lived) was Mignola’s supernatural thriller Hellboy. The monstrous monster-hunter debuted in event program San Diego Comic-Con Comics #2 (August 1993) before formally launching in 4-issue miniseries Seed of Destruction (where Byrne scripted over Mignola’s plot and art). Colourist Mark Chiarello added loads of mood with his understated hues.

That story and the string of sequels that followed were re-presented in the first of four trade paperback offerings (also available as a complete boxed set). This particular tome offers Mignola’s earliest longform triumphs starring the Scourge of Sheol – The Wolves of Saint August; The Chained Coffin; Wake the Devil and Almost Colossus. The omnibi were latterly accompanied by a companion series featuring all the short stories.

The incredible story begins with a review of secret files. On December 23rd 1944 American Patriotic Superhero The Torch of Liberty and a squad of US Rangers interrupt a satanic ritual predicted by Allied parapsychologist Professors Trevor Bruttenholm and Malcolm Frost. They were working in conjunction with influential medium Lady Cynthia Eden-Jones. All waited at a ruined church in East Bromwich, England when a demon baby with a huge stone right hand eventually appeared in a fireball. The startled soldiers took the infernal yet seemingly innocent waif into custody. Far, far further north, off the Scottish Coast on Tarmagant Island, a cabal of Nazi Sorcerers roundly berated ancient wizard Grigori Rasputin whose Project Ragna Rok ritual seems to have failed. The Russian is unfazed. Events are unfolding as he wishes…

Five decades later, the baby has grown into a mighty warrior engaging in a never-ending secret war: the world’s most successful paranormal investigator. Bruttenholm has spent the years lovingly raising the weird foundling whilst forming an organisation to destroy unnatural threats and supernatural monsters: The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. “Hellboy” is now its lead agent. Today, the recently-returned, painfully aged professor summons his surrogate son and warns of impending peril wrapped in obscured reminiscences of his own last mission. The Cavendish Expedition uncovered an ancient temple submerged in arctic ice, but what occurred next has been somehow excised from Bruttenholm’s memory. Before he can say more, the mentor is killed by a rampaging plague of frogs, and enraged Hellboy is battling for his life against a demonic giant amphibian…

Following fact-files about Project Ragna Rok and ‘An African Myth about a Frog’, Chapter Two opens at eerie Cavendish Hall, set on a foetid lake in America’s Heartland. Matriarch Emma Cavendish welcomes Hellboy and fellow BPRD investigators Elizabeth Sherman and Dr. Abraham Sapien, but is not particularly forthcoming about her family’s obsession. Nine generations of Cavendish have sought – and sponsored the search for – the Temple at the Top of the World. Three of her own sons were lost on the latest foray, from which only Bruttenholm returned, but her story of how founding patriarch Elihu Cavendish’s obsession infects every male heir for hundreds of years imparts no fresh insights. She also says she knows nothing about frogs, but she’s lying and the agents know it…

As they retire for the night, Hellboy’s companions prepare for battle. Psychic firestarter Liz is taken unawares when the frogs attack and our Dauntless Demon fares little better against another titanic toad-monster. Of Abe there is no sign: the BPRD’s own amphibian has taken to the dank waters of the lake in search of long-buried answers…

And then a bald Russian guy claiming to know the truth of Hellboy’s origins appears and monstrous tentacles drag the hero through the floor…

Chapter Three views a vast hidden cellar where Rasputin explains he is the agent for undying and infinite antediluvian evil: seven-sided serpent Ogdru-Jahad who sleeps and waits to be reawakened. Hellboy was originally summoned from the pit to be the control interface between the Great Beast and the wizard whilst he oversaw the fall of mankind, but when the BPRD agent refuses his destiny – in his obtuse, obnoxious manner – Rasputin goes crazy…

Overwhelmed by the Russian’s frog foot soldiers, Hellboy is forced to listen to the story of Rasputin’s alliance with Himmler and Hitler, and how they sponsored a mystic Nazi think-tank to conquer Earth. Of how the mage manipulated the fanatics, found the Temple at the Top of the World and communed with The Serpent, and of how that last Cavendish Expedition awoke him. Of how he used them to trace the crucial tool he had summoned from Hell half a century ago… And then the raving Russian reveals how his infernal sponsor Sadu-Hem – The Serpent’s intermediary – has grown strong on human victims but will become unstoppable after feasting on Liz’s pyrokinetic internal forces…

With all hell literally breaking loose, the final chapter sees Rasputin exultantly calling upon each of the seven aspects as Hellboy attempts a desperate, doomed diversion and the long-missing Abe Sapien finally makes his move, aided by a hidden faction Rasputin had not anticipated…

The breathtaking conclusion sees supernal forces spectacularly laid to rest, but the defeat of Sadu-Hem and his Russian doll only opens the door for other arcane adversaries to emerge…

Bombastic, moody, laconically paced, suspenseful and explosively action-packed, Seed of Destruction manages the masterful magic trick of introducing a whole new world and making it seem like we’ve always lived there.

‘The Wolves of Saint August’ was originally serialised in Dark Horse Presents #88-91 during 1994, before being reworked a year later for a Hellboy one-shot of the same name. Mignola handles art and script, with James Sinclair on colours and Pat Brosseau making it all legible and intelligible.

Set contemporarily, the moody piece sees the red redeemer working with BPRD colleague Kate Corrigan, investigating the death of Hellboy’s old pal Father Kelly in the Balkan village of Griart. It’s not long before they realise the sleepy hamlet is actually a covert den of great antiquity, where a pack of mankind’s most infamous and iniquitous predators still thrive…

Mignola has a sublime gift for setting tone and building tension with great economy. It always means that the inevitable confrontation between Good and Evil has plenty of room to unfold with capacious visceral intensity. This clash between unfrocked demon and alpha lycanthrope is one of the most unforgettable battle blockbusters ever seen…

In 1995 Dark Horse Presents 100 #2 debuted ‘The Chained Coffin’. Here Hellboy returns to the English church where he first arrived on Earth in 1943. Five decades of mystery and adventure have passed, but as the demon-hunter observes ghostly events replay before his eyes, he learns the truth of his origins. All too soon, Hellboy devoutly wishes he had never come back…

Wake the Devil delivered a decidedly different take on the undying attraction of vampires when a past case becomes active again. Hellboy and fellow outré BPRD agents Sherman & Sapien are still reeling from losing their aged mentor and uncovering Rasputin’s hellish scheme to rouse sleeping Elder Gods he served. Moreover, the apparently undying wizard – agent for antediluvian infinitely evil seven-sided serpent Ogdru-Jahad who-sleeps-and-waits-to-be-reawakened – is responsible for initially summoning Hellboy to Earth as part of the Nazi’s Ragna Rok Project. Now the Russian’s clandestine alliance with Himmler, Hitler and their mystic Nazi think-tank is further explored as, deep inside Norway’s Arctic Circle region, a driven millionaire visits a hidden castle. He is seeking the arcane Aryans long-closeted within, eager to deliver a message from “The Master”. In return, the oligarch wants sanctuary from the imminent end of civilisation…

In New York City, a bloody robbery occurs in a tawdry mystic museum and the BPRD are briefed on legendary Napoleonic soldier Vladimir Giurescu. It now appears that enigmatic warrior wasn’t particularly wedded to any side in that conflict… and was probably much older than reports indicated. More important is re-examined folklore suggesting Giurescu was mortally wounded many times but, after retreating to a certain castle in his homeland, would always reappear: renewed, refreshed and deadlier than ever. In 1882 he was in England and clashed with Queen Victoria’s personal ghost-breaker Sir Edward Grey, who was the first to officially identify him as a “Vampire”.  In 1944, Hitler met with Vladimir to convince the creature to join him, but something went wrong and Himmler’s envoy Ilsa Haupstein was ordered to arrest Giurescu and his “family”. The creatures were despatched in the traditional manner and sealed in boxes… one of which has now been stolen from an NYC museum. Intriguingly, the murdered owner was once part of the Nazi group responsible for Ragna Rok. The BPRD always consider worst-case scenarios, and if that box actually contained vampire remains…

The location of the bloodsucker’s fabled castle is unknown, but with three prospects in Romania and only six agents available, a trio of compact strike-teams is deployed with Hellboy in solo mode headed for the most likely location. Although not an active agent, Dr. Kate Corrigan wants Hellboy to take especial care. All indications are that this vampire might be the Big One, even though nobody wants to use the “D” word…

In Romania, still youthful Ilsa Haupstein talks to a wooden box, whilst in Norway her slyly observing colleagues Kurtz and Kroenen express concern. Once the most ardent of believers, Ilsa may have been turned from the path of Nazi resurgence and bloody vengeance. Her former companions are no longer so enamoured of the Fuehrer’s old dream of a vampire army either. Leopold especially places more faith in the creatures he has been building and growing…

Over Romania, Hellboy leaps out of a plane and engages his experimental jet-pack, wishing he was going with one of the other team… and even more so after it flames out. At least he has the limited satisfaction of crashing into the very fortress Ilsa is occupying…

The battle with the witch-woman’s grotesque servants is short and savage and as the ancient edifice crumbles, Chapter Two reveals how on the night Hellboy was born, Rasputin suborned Ilsa and her comrades. Making them devout disciples awaiting Ogdru-Jahad’s awakening, he saves them from Germany’s ignominious collapse. Now the Russian ghost appears offering her another prophecy and a great transformation…

Deep in the vaults, Hellboy comes to and meets a most garrulous dead man, unaware that in the village below the Keep, the natives are recognising old signs and making the traditional preparations again…

Hellboy’s conversation provides much useful background information but lulls him into a false sense of security, allowing the revenant to savagely attack and set up a confrontation with the ferocious forces actually responsible for the vampire’s power. Battling for his life, Hellboy is a stunned witness to Giurescu’s resurrection and ultimate cause of his latest demise, whilst far above, Rasputin shares his own origins with acolyte Ilsa, revealing the night he met the infamous witch Baba Yaga…

Nearly 300 miles away, Liz and her team scour ruined Castle Czege. There’s no sign of vampires but they do uncover a hidden alchemy lab with an incredible artefact in it: a stony homunculus. Idly touching the artificial man, Liz is horrified when her pyrokinetic energies surge uncontrollably into the artefact and he goes on a destructive rampage…

With the situation escalating at Castle Giurescu, Hellboy ignites a vast cache of explosives with the faint hope that he will be airlifted out before they go off, but is distracted by a most fetching monster who calls him by a name he doesn’t recognise before trying to kill him.

If she doesn’t, the catastrophic detonation might…

As the dust settles and civil war breaks out amongst the Norway Nazis, in Romania Ilsa makes a horrific transition and Hellboy awakes to face Rasputin, even as the BPRD rush to the rescue. Tragically Abe Sapien and his squad won’t make it before the revived and resplendent Giurescu takes his shot, whilst the world’s most successful paranormal investigator confronts and is seduced by uncanny aspects of his long-hidden infernal ancestry. With all hell breaking loose, the displaced devil makes a decision which will not only affect his life but dictate the course of humanity’s existence…

The breathtakingly explosive ending also resets the game for Rasputin’s next scheme, but the weird wonderment rolls on in a potent epilogue, wherein the mad monk visits macabre patron Baba Yaga for advice…

The story-portion of this magnificent terror-tome terminates with 1997’s 2-part miniseries ‘Almost Colossus’ wherein traumatised pyrokinetic Liz awaits test results. During the Castle Czege mission, an artificial man she discovered inadvertently drained Liz’s infernal energies, bringing it to life and causing hers to gradually slip away. Now, Hellboy and Corrigan are back in the legend-drenched region, watching a graveyard from which 68 bodies have been stolen. Elsewhere, the fiery homunculus is undergoing a strange experience: he has been abducted by his older “brother” who seeks, through purloined flesh, blackest magic and forbidden crafts to perfect their centuries-dead creator’s animation techniques.

Before the curtain falls, Hellboy – aided by the ghosts of repentant monks and the younger homunculus – battles a metal giant determined to crown itself God of Science, saving the world if he can and Liz because he must…

Wrapping up the show is a wealth of arty extras, beginning with the 1991 convention illustration Mignola created because he just wanted to draw a monster. From tiny acorns…

Following on – with author’s commentary – is a horror hero group shot that is Hellboy’s second ever appearance and a brace of early promo posters, and the full colour Convention book premiere appearance as ‘Hellboy – World’s Greatest Paranormal Investigator’ battles a giant demon dog, courtesy of Mignola & Byrne. Hellboy Sketchbook then shares a treasure trove of drawings, designs and roughs from the early stories again, fully annotated to round out the eerie celebratory experience.

Available in paperback and digital formats, this bombastic, moodily suspenseful, explosively action-packed tome is a superb scary romp to delight one and all, celebrating the verve, imagination and longevity of the greatest Outsider Hero of All: a supernatural thriller no comics fan should be without.
Hellboy™ & © Seed of Destruction © 1993, 2018 Mike Mignola. Hellboy, Abe Sapien, Liz Sherman and all other prominently featured characters are trademarks of Mike Mignola. All rights reserved.

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Hägar the Horrible: The Epic Chronicles – Dailies 1980-1981


By Dik Browne (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-715-1 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Perfect Traditional Plunder-fun… 8/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Although very much in decline these days, for nearly 200 years cartoon strips and gag-panels were the universal medium of wit, satire, mirth and cultural exchange. Latterly we purveyors of primarily sequential narrative have exhibited an unhappy tendency to become protective and parochial about our own particular specialism within the greater art form. How many times have we heard an artist or writer working on a hot new comic book property revelling in sales of 50 thousand monthly copies, almost simultaneously disparage strips such as Dilbert, Dick Tracy or Garfield whose daily readership can be numbered in millions, if not billions?

Let’s all just try to remember that tastes differ, and that we’re all just making lines on a surface here, and most especially that TV and Computer Games are the real enemy of our industry, shall we?

OK, rant over.

Mainstream cartooning is a huge daily joy to a vast and often global readership whose needs are quite different from those of hard-core, dedicated comic fans, or even that ever-growing base of intrigued browsers dipping their toes in the sequential narrative pool. Even the stuck-up stickybeaks who have STILL pointedly “never read a comic” have enjoyed strips or panels, and in this arena Britain has seen not only a golden bounty of home produced material but also imported some of the very best the rest of the world has to offer.

Richard Arthur Allan “Dik” Browne was a native New Yorker born in 1917 who studied at Cooper Union and apprenticed as a copy boy and art-bod for the New York Journal America before joining the US Army. His wartime duties in the Engineering Corps included strategic map-making, but whilst in service he also created the comic strip Jinny Jeep about the Women’s Army Corps, which set the tone for his peacetime career. As a professional cartoonist and illustrator, he worked for Newsweek and in advertising after mustering out, gaining a reputation as a superb logo designer (The Campbell Soup Kids, Chiquita Banana and the Birdseye Bird number amongst his most memorable creations).

Dik also dabbled with comic books – a few Classics Illustrated Junior issues – and produced children’s books, before teaming up in 1954 with Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker to draw hugely successful spin-off strip Hi and Lois. Whilst illustrating that family comedy – and deviously training his sons Chance and Chris to take eventually over his cartooning duties – Browne devised another strip that he would write as well as render.

Hägar the Horrible debuted through the King Features Syndicate on February 4th 1973 and quickly became a global hit. The strip is a fixture of 1900 papers in 56 countries and a dozen languages with the characters migrating to books, comic albums, games, animated movies, toys and more. Dik Browne retired from cartooning in 1988 and died from cancer on June 4th 1989. Chance continued Hi and Lois whilst Chris, assisted by Gary Hallgren, wielded pen, waved sword and wore the chief’s horned helmet on Hägar until his own death on February 5th 2023…

A certified classic of World Cartooning, Hägar the Horrible is the ongoing subject of comprehensive collectors series. This one – the sixth monolithic hardback compendium of a treasured and much missed series – is a personal favourite, covering 7th July 1980 – January 2nd 1982, with the hard-drinking, voracious sea-roving Viking and his scurvy crew trekking out to far climes before perennially staggering home to their quirky families in a never-ending stream of sight gags, painful puns and surreal situations.

We open with a passionate reverie from a close associate and fellow star cartoonist in the Foreword by Lynn Johnston before Chris Browne shares memories of one of his dad’s most imaginative and appealing children’s books (The Land of Lost Things, co-created with Mort Walker) in ‘The Lost World of Dik Browne’. Then, before the cavalcade of comic calamity commences, readers old and new are regaled with a handy chart of the Hägar Family Tree, reintroducing the great man and his doughty dependents: Helga the long-suffering wife, studious son Hamlet and troublesome teenaged daughter Honi. Also making an appearance are faithful canine Snert, stroppy house-duck Kvack and the hero’s faithful if intellectually challenged sidekick Lucky Eddie…

The magic of these daily strips’ stream of japes and capers is that they constantly revisit established themes and hot-button topics. Over hundreds of pages that follow you will see Hägar’s perpetual struggle to bring home the bacon (and wine and gold and textiles and…), spar with Helga as she fruitlessly struggles to civilise her barbaric oaf of a man, and Honi’s torment as she pines equally for seedy musician Lute and noble knight Sir Philip Courtright whilst testing out other matrimonial options; and alternatively considers a career as an axe-swinging Valkyrie…

Bookish Hamlet is always there to disappoint and delight his gregarious, bellicose dad; Snert and Kvack frequently outwit and appal the humans who share their home whilst Lucky Eddie and the mismatched crew of incompetent sea-reavers follow the red-bearded rascal into battle against foreign armies, daunting dragons, a coterie of assorted clergy and the unwelcoming elements, content in the knowledge that somehow, somewhere they will find more booze…

Enticing, irrepressible, outrageously old-fashioned, utterly unreconstructed, hilarious and yet deeply satisfying, Hägar the Horrible is a masterpiece of the strip cartoonists’ unique art form and one guaranteed to deliver delight over and over again to young and old alike.
Hägar the Horrible is © 2014 King Features Syndicate ™ & © Hearst Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved. All strips © 1980 & 1981 King Features Syndicate. All rights reserved. All other material © 2014 their respective authors.