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November 23, 2014

Gotham Central book 2: Jokers and Madmen

By Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Michael Lark, Stephen Gaudiano, Greg Scott, Brian Hurtt & various(DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2521-6

There are two names synonymous with Gotham City, USA.

If you’re a cop you keep your own opinions about the Batman, and it’s pretty much unanimous that The Joker is not someone you ever want to deal with. A madman with a homicidal flair for the theatrical, the clown loves a special occasion. It’s Christmas and it’s started to snowâ€¦

One of the greatest rewards of long-lasting, legendary comicbook characters is their infinite potential for innovation and reinterpretation. There always seems to be another facet or aspect to develop. Such is the case in regard to the much-missed sidebar series Gotham Central, wherein cop show sensibilities cannily combine with the deadly drudgery of the long-suffering boys in blue patrolling the world’s most famous four-colour city.

Owing as much to shows like Hill Street Blues, Law & Order or Blue Bloods as it did to the baroque continuity of The Dark Knight, the mesmerising tales of the series combined gritty, authentic police action with furtive, soft-underbelly glimpses at what merely mortal peacekeepers have to put up with in a world of psychotic vaudevillians, flying aliens and scumbag hairballs who just won’t stay dead.

This second huge hardback volume, collecting more procedural exploits of the hard-pressed guardians of the most dangerous city in America – specifically Gotham Central #11-22 spanning November 2003 to October 2004 – begins with moodily effulgent introduction ‘Noir Town’ by crime author Duane Swiercznski and a handy double-page feature re-introducing the hardworking stiffs of First Shift, Second Shift and the Police Support team of the ‘Gotham City Police Department, Major Crimes Unit’ before the dramas start to unfold.

First up is uncharacteristic tearjerker ‘Daydreams and Believers’ by Ed Brubaker, Brian Hurtt and colourist Lee Loughridge which explores the GCPD’s strange relationship with the masked manhunter.

They all know he’s out there, but the official line is that he’s an urban myth and the Administration refuses to acknowledge his existence. Thus, civilian receptionist Stacy is the only person allowed to operate the rooftop bat-signal whenever crises occur, whilst the public are told that the eerie light is simply used to keep the cowardly, stupid, superstitious underworld cowedâ€¦

Here however we get a glimpse into the shy lamplighter’s inner thoughts as she observes the fractious byplay of the MCU regulars: all getting by thinking they’re fooling everyone else with their jealous bitching, petty sniping and tawdry clandestine affairs.

It’s all okay, though. Stacy has her own world to retreat into: one where the mighty Batman is her enigmatic but passionate loverâ€¦

The main event opens with a Yuletide shopping panic that looks to be the most memorable ever as ‘Soft Targets’ by Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Michael Lark & Stephen Gaudiano finds the entire Major Crimes Unit frantically hunting a sniper randomly assassinating citizens. Things get even nastier and more fraught when Mayor Dickerson is killed as he consults with new Police Commissioner Michael Akins.

The ruthless shooter guns down a school teacher and the medical examiner collecting her body and soon the pre-Christmas streets are deserted. The assassin then identifies himself by launching a website promoting â€œBatman for Mayorâ€ and the appalled police realise just who they’re dealing withâ€¦

As Stacy turns on the roof signal her greatest wish comes true at last as the Gotham Guardian sweeps her off her feetâ€¦ microseconds before a fusillade of shots would have made her the latest statisticâ€¦

As the Dark Knight vanishes into the snowy darkness after the maniac, the cops get back to their meticulous police work, tracking ballistics and hunting for the website’s point of origin. Mounting media frenzy and their own frustration lead to crippling tension and soon they are all at each other’s throats, but a potentially nasty situation is immediately curtailed by a new postingâ€¦

A live web-cam feed starts, counting down to a fresh victim somewhere in the huge terrified powder-keg metroplisâ€¦

As the cops pull out all stops to identify the building on-screen and resort to old reliables, such as violently rousting the Harlequin of Hate’s old flunkies, the scene suddenly changes. Now it shows prime media pain-in-the-neck Angie Molina as a captive of the killer clown: stashed somewhere anonymous and slowly ticking down to a bloody and show-stopping demiseâ€¦

And just when things can’t get any crazier, The Joker turns himself inâ€¦

Even the insufferably cocky kook’s capture doesn’t halt the slaughter, since the proudly Machiavellian perpetrator can carry on killing by pre-programmed remote control even as he languishes in a cellâ€¦

When Lt. Ron Probson elects to go all â€œold schoolâ€ in his interview with the loon, it only results in his own death and the clown’s escape. Stacy only avoids death a second time because Captain Maggie Sawyer shoots first – and often – and saves her questions for laterâ€¦

Working a lead, Detectives Nate Patton and Romy Chandler have meanwhile found the captive reporter and realised the Joker’s convoluted, mass-murderous endgame, but even with Batman on scene they don’t all make it outâ€¦

‘Life is Full of Disappointments’ (by Brubaker and Rucka with art from Greg Scott) then focuses on disgruntled Second Shift veteran Jackson â€œSargeâ€ Davies who is still chafing at once again being passed over for promotion – especially as prissy new Day Shift commander David Cornwell has been parachuted in from outside the unit to run thingsâ€¦

As the squad come back from burying their dead, Sarge and partner Nelson Crowe catch a nasty case: a dead girl in a dumpster. However Stephanie Becker was no lost indigent or fun-loving party girl killed for the contents of her purse.

She worked in accounting at prestigious Washburn Pharmaceuticals and was killed with an exotic toxin. As the grizzled old-timers methodically work the case they find a succession of odd occurrences which lead them to First Shift colleagues Tommy Burke and Dagmar Procjnow, currently investigating the suspicious death of middle aged widow Maryellen Connolly, a still-warm stiff previously employed in the same office and slain the same wayâ€¦

All the evidence seems to point to an unsanctioned million dollar deficit and deep Mafia involvement at the Pharma factory, but the diligent detectives keep pushing and discover a far older potential motive for the murdersâ€¦

The gritty grimoire of Gotham atrocity ends with the bleakly chilling ‘Unresolved’ (by Brubaker, Lark & Gaudiano from issues #19-22) which features the reappearance of conflicted fan-favourite and all-around slob Harvey Bullock after the GCPD reopen a landmark cold case.

Marcus Driver and new partner Josie Mac are called to a hostage situation where a deranged perp continually screams about voices in his head before eating his own shotgunâ€¦

The troubled stiff was Kenny Booker – only survivor of an infamous High School bombing which shocked the city eight years previously – and the fresh tragedy compels Driver to take another look at the still unsolved mysteryâ€¦

The â€œGotham Hawksâ€ were a championship school baseball team eradicated in a locker room explosion but every effort of Bullock and his squad could not pin down a single lead. However, when Marcus and Josie re-examine the accumulated evidence they find a potential link to one of Batman’s weirdest and creepiest foes.

It’s not enough and they are forced to call in the disgraced ex-cop for a consult. The move is a huge mistake as they are utterly unprepared for the fallout when Bullock talks to them.

The legendary maverick was fired after arranging the death of a killer the law couldn’t touch, and he has taken to drowning his days in booze. However this case has haunted Harvey for years and now that he sees a possible solution he goes completely off the rails in his hunger to finish things.

The trouble is that even now the facts tumbling in are increasingly pointing to a completely different culprit from the one Bullock always suspected but the fixated former lawman just won’t listenâ€¦

Going on a rampage he courts death by brutalising malevolent mobster The Penguin whilst miles away another suspect, galvanised after years of apparent anonymity, breaks out of Arkham Asylum and goes huntingâ€¦

Even after all this the true story is far more twisted than the bewildered detectives could have possibly imagined and the eventual conclusion destroys further lives and sanity and honour before the dust finally settlesâ€¦

From an era when comicbook noir was enjoying a superb renaissance, these classic thrillers are masterpieces of edgy, fast-paced tension packed with layers of human drama, tension, stress and suspense.

Solid gritty police drama seamlessly blended with the grisly fantasy of the modern superhero seems like a strange brew, but it delivers knockout punches time after time in this captivating series which was the notional inspiration for the current TV sensation outlining just how Batman’s city got that way.

November 22, 2014

X-Factor volume 11: Happenings in Vegas

By Peter David, Sebastian Fiumara, Valentine De Landro, Emanuela Lupacchino, Pat Davidson & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4655-1

Since its debut in the 1980s, X-Factor has been a splendidly effective umbrella title for many uniquely off-kilter iterations of Marvel’s mutant phenomena. Undoubtedly the most impressive and enduring assemblage was created by writer Peter David in 2006; mixing starkly violent suspense with cool detective mystery, laugh-out-loud comedy and fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights action – and even slyly addressing social issues in a regular riot of superbly adult Costumed Drama.

The premise saw Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man – veteran of a formerly government-sponsored (and controlled) team – appropriating the name for his own, to create the specialist metahuman private detective agency X-Factor Investigations.

Setting up shop in the wake of â€œThe Decimationâ€, which had reduced the world’s mutant population to a couple of hundred empowered individuals and millions of distressingly humanised (ex) Homo Superior, he and a perpetually fluctuating team set out to discover why and how it had happened and, once that was settled, just kept goingâ€¦

This splendid sampling of strange happenings – written as ever by Peter David – collects X-Factor #207-212 (September 2010 – February 2011), exploring some less well scrutinised elements of the immortal themes of Love and Death in a most unique mannerâ€¦

Recently returned to New York from the wilds of Detroit (by way of the furious future), Madrox and literal mystery woman Layla Miller have no trouble settling in as ‘Lost Souls’ – illustrated by Sebastian Fuimara – opens with a stunning and statuesque client decked out in skimpy green sheen hiring X-Factor to track down a missing man and stolen pendant.

Her effect on the usually ambivalent-to-ladies, luck-manipulating alien Longshot is a study in weapons-grade pulchritude and should really have tipped off the detectives that all was not rightâ€¦

Elsewhere Guido â€œStrong Guyâ€ Carosella, Armando â€œDarwinâ€ MuÃ±oz and psionic super-woman Monet St. Croix are back from South America, having rescued the latter’s abducted dad from drug-lords and mystic menace Baron Mordo. To facilitate their escape Monet had to promise to let the dying sorcerer steal her life energies, but once on safe ground again the wizard finds that he has bitten off more than he can chewâ€¦

At a shooting range, young lovers Rictor and Shatterstar are working out a few emotional problems like men do, whilst a multitude of Madroxes and his unforgiving ex Theresa Rourke Cassidy (AKA Siryn) have located the fugitive thief Gofern. However, when they challenge the roistering rogue, things take a distinct left turn into pure wyrdâ€¦

Back home, Rictor’s former girlfriend Rahne â€œWolfsbaneâ€ Sinclair accidentally interrupts him and Shatterstar making up and her shock is transparent and devastating. It’s pretty mutual however as the furiously feral transmorph seems to be extremely pregnant with what Rictor assumes is his childâ€¦

The untitled second part opens with Rahne taking out her not-just hormonal anger on her boyfriend’s boyfriend whilst in a dingy dive across town Gofern – now revealed as objectionable alien oik Pip the Troll – fights desperately to regain the amulet Madrox has confiscated. He claims the piece was the only thing protecting himâ€¦

Whilst the rest of the team strive to stop Wolfsbane killing Shatterstar, back at the bar things get very cold as outraged Asgardian Death Goddess Hela manifests to reclaim the obnoxious jester who dared to run from herâ€¦

The action switches to Las Vegas in ‘Strip Search’ (Lupacchino & Davidson) as a hand-picked squad track the Queen of the Nordic Damned. Madrox is determined to cancel the contract and rescue poor shmuck Pip from the underworld, but the trail seems to lead to nothing but frustration.

Splitting up, Layla, Shatterstar, Siryn and Guido manage to wreck most of the town before Longshot’s luck powers draw them to vacationing Jane Foster (former love of Thor and expert on many things Asgardian) who advises them that the last thing they should do is attract the mercurial goddess’ attentionâ€¦

Never ready to accept good advice, Madrox sets Longshot loose on the casinos and almost bankrupts the city before Hela takes the blatant baitâ€¦

Valentine De Landro illustrates the untitled next chapter as, back in the Big Apple, Monet agrees to psi-probe a woman plagued by dreams of atrocity and is frankly astounded by a rare, easily achieved success. Rictor and Rahne meanwhile go for an ultrasound scan and discover something most unsettling and inexplicably lupine and mystical about their impending sprogâ€¦

The action returns to a secret necropolis of Nevada for ‘Staying in Vegas’ (Lupacchino & Davidson) with the wayward away team under attack by an unending horde of undying warrior zombies. Whilst Hela idly tortures Pip in Niffleheim, his would-be saviours battle effectively but not tirelessly in the lands above.

They’re almost glad when the formidably daunting thunder god Thor – having received a phone call from an old friend – explosively storms in and takes commandâ€¦

The saga astoundingly concludes as the unlikely and constantly sniping assemblage invades the nether regions to save the troll, much to Hela’s amusement. When challenged, she hands over the malodorous little troglodyte with a shrug and a smile.

She’s already bored with Pip and instead wants Longshot for her new toy, but when spurned the Queen of Hell is still in a good mood and grants them leave to depart.

Of course the exit is on the other side of her realm, but surely crossing the hostile, frozen perdition whilst every corpse and monster in her power tries to kill them won’t be any problemâ€¦?

As the heroes doggedly battle their way across the tundra of terror, Shatterstar is specifically targeted by recently deceased wolf-god Hrimhari, who claims the gleeful alien adventurer smells of his one true love. With horror Siryn remembers how the lupine lord once had a fling with the absent Wolfsbaneâ€¦

With inevitable doom at hand, coldly calculating Madrox challenges Hela directly, gambling Darwin’s ability to hyper-evolve and counter every threat to his existence will provide a means to beat the death goddessâ€¦

Against all odds it does and they all – even Pip – escape, but the horrifying effects and shattering power of gentle Armando’s latest adaptation don’t fade even after they are all safely back on Earthâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With covers by David Yardin, this volume continues a superb run of challenging, compelling, compulsive and supremely scary funny tales, making this iteration of X-Factor the ideal example of mature Costume Dramas: utterly indispensable for everyone who needs wit to underpin their superhero soap opera shenanigans.

November 21, 2014

Showcase Presents the Trial of the Flash

By Cary Bates, Carmine Infantino, Frank McLaughlin, Dennis Jensen & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3182-8

Barry Allen was the second comicbook comet to carry the name of Flash, and his debut was the Big Bang which finally triggered the Silver Age of American comicbooks after a series of abortive remnant revivals (Stuntman in 1954 and Marvel’s â€œBig Threeâ€, Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and Captain America from 1953 to 1955). There were also a few all-original attempts such as Captain Flash, The Avenger and Strongman from 1954-1955.

Although none of those – or other less high-profile efforts – had restored or renewed the popularity of masked mystery-men, they had presumably piqued readers’ consciousness, even at conservative National/DC. Thus the revived human rocket wasn’t quite the innovation he seemed: after all, alien crusader Martian Manhunter had already cracked open the company floodgates with his low-key launch in Detective Comics #225, November 1955.

However in terms of creative quality, originality and sheer style The Flash was an irresistible spark and after his landmark first appearance in Showcase #4 (October 1956) the series – eventually – became a benchmark by which every successive launch or reboot across the industry was measured.

Police Scientist – we’d call him a CSI today – Allen was transformed by a simultaneous lightning strike and chemical bath into a human thunderbolt of unparalleled velocity and ingenuity. Yet with characteristic indolence the new Fastest Man Alive took three more try-out issues and almost as many years to win his own title. However when he finally stood on his own wing-tipped feet in The Flash #105 (February-March 1959), he never looked backâ€¦

The comics business back then was a faddy, slavishly trend-beset affair, however, and following a manic boom for superhero tales prompted by the Batman TV show the fickle global consciousness moved on to a fixation with supernatural themes and merely mortal tales, triggering a huge revival of spooky films, shows, books and periodicals. With horror on the rise again, many superhero titles faced cancellation and even the most revered and popular were threatened. It was time to adapt or die: a process repeated every few years until the mid-1980s when DC’s powers-that-be decided to rationalise and downsize the sprawling multi-dimensional multiverse the Flash had innocently sparked into existence decades previouslyâ€¦

Barry had been through the wringer before: in 1979 (Flash #275 to be precise) his beloved wife Iris was brutally murdered and thereafter the Scarlet Speedster became a darker, grittier, truly careworn hero. Gradually over four years the lonely bachelor recovered and even found love again but a harshly evolving comics industry, changing fashions and jaded fan tastes were about to end his long run at the topâ€¦

The Vizier of Velocity was still a favoured, undisputed icon of the apparently unstoppable Superhero meme and a mighty pillar of the costumed establishment, but in times of precarious sales and with very little in the way of presence in other media like films, TV or merchandise, that just made him a bright red target for a company desperate to attract a larger readership.

It soon became an open secret that he was to be one of the major casualties of the reality-rending Crisis on Infinite Earths. The epic maxi-series was conceived as an attention-grabbing spectacle on every level and to truly succeed it needed a few sacrifices which would make the public really sit up and take noticeâ€¦

With such knowledge commonplace, long-time scripter Cary Bates went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the Crimson Comet and the comic title which inspired a super-heroic revolution went out in a totally absorbing blaze of gloryâ€¦

This momentously massive stand-alone monochrome collection gathers the pertinent chapters of an astonishingly extended and supremely gripping serial which charted the triumphs and tragedies of the Monarch of Motion’s last months and savoured the final moments of the paramount hero and symbol of the Silver Age.

Contained herein are Flash #323-327, 329-336 and 340-350, spanning July 1983 to October 1985, written throughout by Bates and pencilled by originating artist Carmine Infantino, opening on the day Barry is supposed to marry his new sweetheart Fiona Webb.

As the nervous groom dresses for the ceremony, however, an Oan Guardian of the Universe appears with appalling news. Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash has escaped from the timeless hell the vengeful Vizier of Velocity banished him to for murdering Irisâ€¦

Inked by Rodin Rodriguez, ‘Run Flash – Run for your Wife!’ sees the distraught hero pursuing and battling his ultimate enemy on the run all over he world as the clock ticks down, culminating in #324’s ‘The Slayer and the Slain’ (Dennis Jensen inks) with the police issuing a missing persons alert for the vanished Barry Allen.

Crushed Fiona finally gives up on her man and is leaving the church just as Zoom dashes in with Flash hard on his winged heels. The maniac has boasted that he will repeat himself by slaughtering his archenemy’s second love, but with femto-seconds to spare Barry goes into overdrive and grabs his foe by the neckâ€¦

When the dust settles the wedding guests see Flash trying to comfort the bride-to-be but Police Captain Darryl Frye and Detective Frank Curtis are distracted by something the speedster has not noticed: Zoom’s lifeless corpseâ€¦

The media circus begins in #325 as ‘Dead Reckoning’ sees the guilt-racked speedster go into heroic overdrive all around the world but somehow never quite outrunning the Press or his own remorse.

As friends and allies wonder where they stand, the vile miscreants of The Flash Rogues’ Gallery come together to steal Zoom’s cadaver. Captains Cold and Boomerang, Pied Piper, Weather Wizard and The Trickster actually despised the Reverse-Flash and need to desecrate his corpse for the utter embarrassment he has brought upon their association: letting himself get killed by the scarlet Boy Scoutâ€¦

Their heartbroken foe meanwhile has stopped running, and Barry visits Fiona where she lies in hospital. The shock of Barry’s abandonment has traumatised and perhaps even deranged her, but worse is in store. After leaving her room in his Flash persona, the hero is reluctantly arrested by Captain Frye on a charge of Manslaughterâ€¦

‘Shame in Scarlet’ (inked by Gary Martin) opens on the arrest and arraignment but the madhouse of raving pressmen and downhearted cops is just what the recently captured Weather Wizard needs to mask a bold getaway scheme.

Ever dutiful, Flash eludes custody long enough to stop the rogue before surrendering himself againâ€¦

Fiona’s doctors refuse to believe the still-missing Barry Allen came to see her and diagnose a delusional breakdown, whilst out on the streets Frank Curtis is further distracted by teenaged Angelo Torres; a kid barely surviving in a tough gang-controlled area of Central Cityâ€¦

Released on his own recognizance, Flash sneaks into his own apartment but as the realisation of his destroyed life finally sinks in, he loses control and trashes the place in an explosive outburst. By the time his terrified neighbours break in he has gone and the suspicion that someone has targeted the missing Police Scientist seems confirmedâ€¦

Roaming the streets the Crimson Comet sees Angelo fleeing from a mugging but is appalled to realise he has tackled the wrong guy. Torres was chasing the real thiefâ€¦

Still reeling at how far he has fallen, the shell-shocked speedster is barely aware that he is bleeding badly (from self-inflicted wounds incurred when destroying his home), and allows a cop to take him to hospital. The good deed does not go unpunished. When he arrives, Fiona is there and suddenly flares into a state of total hysteriaâ€¦

The horrors pile on in ‘Burnout’ (#327, inked by Jensen) as Flash reconciles with Angelo, unaware that the kid has been targeted by the malign Super-Gorilla Grodd as part of a convoluted vengeance scheme.

Flash is too preoccupied by his next personal crisis as the Justice League of America holds a special session to judge his actions and conduct. A nail-bitingly close vote of his crestfallen best friends will determine whether he can remain a member of the august groupâ€¦

Flash #328 is a partial reprint exploring the Flash/Professor Zoom vendetta and not included here, so the saga resumes with ‘What is the Sinister Secret of Simian and Son?’ (#329, with new regular inker Frank McLaughlin picking up the pens the brushes). Grodd uses Angelo and other kids to perpetrate series of bold raids even as, in front of the maddened media cameras, unscrupulous, publicity-hungry celebrity criminal defense attorney Nicholas D. Redik attempts to insert himself into the â€œCase of the Centuryâ€, claiming to be Flash’s lawyer and only chance of acquittalâ€¦

The oblivious, troubled human thunderbolt has other ideas. He has already contacted â€œBarry’sâ€ old friend Peter Farley to act on his behalf, blithely unaware that back home Grodd has taken over Angelo and Fiona has succumbed to a total mental breakdownâ€¦

The final confrontation with the Ã¼ber-ape begins in ‘Beware the Land of Grodd!’ (scripted by Joey Cavalieri over Bates’ plot) as Redik manipulates the media to force Flash to switch lawyers and Captain Frye pushes the ongoing search for the missing Barry to new heights. With all these distractions the Vizier of Velocity is easily ambushed by Grodd before Angelo, at the moment of truth in #331’s ‘Dead Heat!’, has a change of heart and mind. With a supreme effort of will the remorseful lad breaks the super-ape’s conditioning, allowing the speedster to triumph.

Returning the renegade to futuristic Gorilla City, Flash leaves the mental monster in the custody of his old comrade Solovar, returning to America just in time to hear Farley being murdered during a phone conferenceâ€¦

Bates rejoins Infantino & McLaughlin as ‘Defend the Flashâ€¦ and Die?‘ sees the Scarlet Speedster hurtle across the country to save his lawyer from a colossal explosion, but even he is not fast enough to prevent the victim incurring massive injuries.

As speculation runs riot in the media that someone is targeting Flash’s defenders, old enemy Rainbow Raider take advantage of the chaos to instigate a string of robberies, but even at his lowest ebb the hero is too much for the multicoloured malefactorâ€¦

Redik is now publicly offering to take the case for free, but Farley’s absentee business partner has already taken up her ailing associate’s celebrity caseloadâ€¦

In issue #333, as inexplicably hostile attorney Cecile Horton confers with her newly inherited client, ‘Down with the Flash!’ reveals how certain elements of Central City have seemingly turned on their former champion. Fiona too is still drawing trouble, as a petty thug and his crazy brother break into the asylum treating her, looking for a little one-stop emergency therapy. Sadly for them the Monarch of Motion is still keeping an eye on his tragic fiancÃ©eâ€¦

N.D. Redik then attempts to bribe and/or bully Horton off the case, but despite clearly despising her crimson client, Cecile is determined to honour Peter’s wishes and save the speedster.

The mastermind stirring up anti-Flash sentiment is revealed in ‘Flash-Freak-Out!’ Just as the pre-trial manoeuvrings begin, the formerly supportive Mayor suddenly becomes the disgraced hero’s biggest detractor.

Pied Piper’s mind-altering influence even manages to make the hero apparently go berserk on live TV in ‘How to Trash a Flash!’, leaving even his most devoted fans wondering if their beloved champion has in fact gone crazyâ€¦

â€¦And whilst Flash is trying to save the Mayor, at her secluded retreat Cecile Horton is caught in an explosive blast like the one that took out her partnerâ€¦

‘Murder on the Rocks’ in #336 finds Flash arriving too late for once, but the ecstatic speedster is astounded to discover his lawyer has saved herself through sheer quick thinking – although another woman has been killed. The tabloid reporter had been bugging the supposed â€œsafe houseâ€ and accidentally fallen foul of a couple of killers-for-hireâ€¦

The trail of death leads the forensically trained Flash inexorably to a man whose arrogant determination to be a star in the tragedy costs him everythingâ€¦

Rather annoyingly the next three chapters are absent here. They would have shown how Flash finally finished the Piper and incurred the wrath of the Rogues who subsequently turned a hulking simpleton into a programmed super killer dubbed Big Sir before unleashing him on the Scarlet Speedsterâ€¦

We rejoin the story with Flash #340 to ‘Reach Out and Waste Someone!’ as the hurtling hero turns the tables on Cold, Boomerang, Weather Wizard, Trickster and Mirror Master by befriending Big Sir. The danger averted, the Flash then surrenders himself to the courts.

After many months #341 sees proceedings finally open in ‘Trial and Tribulation!’ only for the weary defendant to discover that go-getting District Attorney Anton Slater has dropped the charges. The wily attention-seeker has abandoned his manslaughter case in favour of a charge of Second Degree Murderâ€¦

With the still at-large Rogues rampaging through the city, the opening arguments quickly start to make the stunned Flash appear like a cunning killer and, whilst he reels in court, Captain Cold and Co again brainwash the now docile Big Sir. When the shattered speedster leaves after his first bruising day the Brobdingnagian brute ambushes him, wrecking his face with a massive maceâ€¦

Maimed, dazed and reeling Flash flees in unconscious panic leaving Sir to assault the gathered media in ‘Smash-Up!’ Barely thinking, the wounded warrior heads for Gorilla City where the super simians’ miraculous medical technology saves his life. Recovered and ready to return, Flash is certain he has made the right decision by asking Solovar to use their advanced science to enact a certain alteration for himâ€¦

Upon his return the Vizier of Velocity again deprograms Big Sir and the odd couple make sure the Rogues can’t hurt anyone any moreâ€¦

Flash #343 kicks the drama into even higher gear in ‘Revenge and Revelations!’ as the secret of why Cecile hates her crimson-clad client is exposed and merciless mobster monster Goldface attacks, even as in the far future another Flash foe escapes an unbeatable prison and heads for the present, intent on adding to the doomed hero’s historic woesâ€¦

‘Betrayal!’ in #344 is a partial reprint (by Bates & John Broome, Infantino, McLaughlin & Joe Giella) which combines the first appearance and an early exploit of Kid Flash with that devoted protÃ©gÃ©’s devastating expert testimony under oath on the witness stand.

The reluctant lad’s damaging evidence is then compounded when Cecile makes an explosive mistake which exposes ‘The Secret Face of the Flash!’ to the courtroom and the worldâ€¦

Confusion reigns in #346 as the shocking revelation is upstaged by reports that the actual victim might not be dead. A merciless yellow-and-red blur has been spotted all over Central City attacking civilians and destroying police records in ‘Dead Man’s Bluff!’â€¦

The Reverse-Flash has escaped certain death many times before but as he mercilessly attacks the other Rogues – with even the Jurors narrowly escaping certain doom – there is a sure and certain feeling that something is not rightâ€¦

The trial concludes in #347’s ‘Back from the Dead!’ but even with the thoroughly thrashed Rogues and Police Captain Fry attesting the victim is still alive, more than one malign presence in the courtroom is affecting the jurors and ‘The Final Verdict!’ comes back â€œguiltyâ€â€¦

However the story is not over and #349 unleashes a cascade of staggering revelations revealing clandestine agents acting both for and against the harried Human Hurricane in ‘â€¦And the Truth Shall Set him Free!’ before the extended extravaganza of #350 begins by declaring ‘Flash Flees’ and thereafter shows the Scarlet Speedster defeating his ultimate nemesis, clearing his name and even living happily ever afterâ€¦ until that fore-destined final moment in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Staggering in scope, gripping in execution and astoundingly suspenseful, these last days of a legend make for stunning reading: a perfect example of the kind of plot-driven Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction we just don’t see enough of these days.

If you feel a need for a traditionally thrilling kind of speed reading, this is a chronicle you must not miss.

November 20, 2014November 19, 2014

Uncanny X-Men: Sisterhood

By Matt Fraction, Greg Land, Yanick Paquette, Terry Dodson, Jay Leisten, Karl Story & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4105-1

Since its revival in 1975 Marvel’s Mutant franchise has always strongly featured powerful and often controversial female characters and the balance has never rested solely on the side of light.

For every valiant woman – or indeed super-powered, conflicted teenage girl – fighting the good fight there has been a shady lady playing for the dark side.

This particular collection – gathering Uncanny X-Men #508-512, cover-dated June to August 2009 – primarily features a stupendous clash between the maligned mutant mavericks and a dastardly coterie of extremely wicked women warriors but also offers a fascinating insight into the occluded history of one of the endangered species’ most enigmatic survivorsâ€¦

At this point in time, the evolutionary offshoot dubbed Homo Sapiens Superior is at its lowest ebb. As seen in both House of M and Decimation storylines, Scarlet Witch Wanda Maximoff – ravaged by madness and her own reality-warping power – reduced the world’s multi-million plus mutant population to a couple of hundred individuals with three simple wordsâ€¦

Most of the remaining genetic outsiders accepted a generous and earnest offer to relocate to San Francisco but, of course, trouble is always happy to make house callsâ€¦

Scripted throughout by Matt Fraction, the 4-part saga ‘Sisterhood’ – illustrated by Greg Land, Jay Leisten and colourist Justin Ponsor – opens following the shocking news of a massacre in Cooperstown, Alaska.

Terrorists had razed the isolated town to burning rubble because of reports that the first mutant baby since The Decimation had been born thereâ€¦

Anti-mutant activist and passionate bigot Simon Trask was quick to stir the flames of panic and prejudice with his Humanity Now Coalition pushing the government to end the threat of mutants forever. With hysteria growing, even previously neutral outcasts began making their way to the mutant enclave of the Greymalkin Industries Facility on the Marin Headlands. However, even with an ever-growing host of feared and despised genetic pariahs housed in her city and the entire population potentially at risk from fanatics and mutant-hunters, Mayor Sadie Sinclair still stands firm on her offer of sanctuary.

The dark drama commences in a secluded private cemetery in Tokyo as the Sisterhood of Evil Mutants disinter a certain body. They are interrupted by probability-bending sometime X-ally Domino whose main talent seems to be landing in the wrong place at the right time.

Sadly, even her odds-altering powers and superspy training are not enough to stop the grave-robbing, and Regan and Martinique Wyngarde (daughters of the malevolent Mastermind), psychic assassin Chimera, cyborg killer Lady Deathstrike, extra-dimensional witch Spiral and the infernal spirit of Red Queen Madelyne Pryor get away with the corpse of ninja legend Kwannonâ€¦

In San Francisco Henry McCoy convenes his newly convened X-Club; a unique think tank comprising human geneticist Kavita Rao, mutant tech-savant Madison Jeffries, atomic mutation expert Dr. Yuriko Takiguchi and former Nazi-hunting mutant mystery man James Bradley AKA Doctor Nemesis.

The Beast carefully outlines their intended goal: finding a way to reactivate the millions of mutants â€œcuredâ€ by the Scarlet Witch. Their first session soon concludes that she has somehow switched off the power-creating â€œX-Geneâ€ in most of the mutant population, but they need to know more about the origin of their own species before they can turn them all on againâ€¦

Elsewhere in the city the Sisterhood have completely resurrected the purloined corpse and filled the body with a former hostâ€¦ or at least one of themâ€¦

Long ago (Uncanny X-Men #256-258, in fact) priests of ninja cult The Hand mystically transposed the mind of telepath Betsy Braddock – AKA Psylocke – into the physical shell of a lethally effective adherent named Kwannon. The brainwashing and mystic body-swapping turned the English Rose into a sultry, sexy Chinese bodyguard/concubine/siren and perfect gift for the undisputed overlord of the Orient, The Mandarin.

After much ado, myriad battles and many years, both mind-switched incarnations died in combat, but now the Red Queen has succeeded in reuniting the long-separated soul and form of the elite killerâ€¦

As the X-Men reach out and enlist former Canadian mutant hero – and media-savvy global Gay celebrity – Jean-Paul Beaubier (one-time Alpha Flight member Northstar), the sinister Sisterhood moves on to the next stage of Pryor’s convoluted game-planâ€¦

With the enclave happily acclimatising and being welcomed by the mellow Californians, the demagogue Trask springs his latest nasty surprise from Washington DC. Proposition X demands legislation to ensure the mandatory sterilisation of mutants and all humans carrying the X-Geneâ€¦

The news drives the younger mutants at Greymalkin into a fury, whilst in the science labs cooler heads have devised a potential plan to study the origins of their kind: all they have to do is travel back in time and get blood samples from the first humans to conceive a mutant childâ€¦

Outmanoeuvred, the usually reticent and inspirationally obnoxious Bradley is forced to admit having been born in 1906, and that his own parents might well be the best possible candidatesâ€¦

Before they can act, though, the Sisterhood invade the Facility using a prisoner in the detention centre to deactivate all the psychic security provisions. The assault is devastating and catches the X-Men completely off guard, but Pryor’s big mistake is underestimating the determination and sheer bloody-mindedness of student heroes X-23, Armor, Pixie and the telepathic gestalt called the Stepford Cuckoosâ€¦

Following the kids’ counterstrike, the swift recovery and retaliation of the adult X-folk quickly drives the Sisterhood out, but Wolverine is forced to admit that the invaders got what they came for: a lock of hair from Jean Grey he’s been treasuring since her death.

The sample could provide the ghostly Pryor with the genetic material needed to grow herself a new body – one with all the power of the nigh-omnipotent Phoenixâ€¦

The conclusion (with additional art by Terry & Rachel Dodson) sees the desperate X-Men rush to foil the plot and spectacularly triumph, not only ending the threat of cosmic resurrection but incidentally reclaiming one of their own fallen from the graveâ€¦

Following that all-out cosmic-tinged clash ‘The Origin of the Species’ (illustrated by Yanick Paquette & Karl Story) offers a taste of steam-punk and tragedy as the postponed jaunt to the dawn of the Mutant Age finally gets underway.

Accompanied by the restored Psylocke and Archangel, Beast’s â€œX-Clubâ€ of super science geeks pop back to San Francisco in 1906 on an extremely tight deadline to get blood samples from Dr. Nemesis’ parents but stumble into the birth of their worst nightmareâ€¦

Inventor Nicola Bradley and his wife Catherine have been striving to complete a generator that will provide free, unlimited broadcast power for humanity but are increasingly being threatened by thugs and brigands determined to steal it.

Cornelius Shaw and his mentor Lord Molyneux are using the sybaritic Hellfire Club to fund Bradley’s experiments but they want his incredible engine for purposes far darker than lighting the world.

Molyneux has visions of mankind crushed under the monstrous heel of a new superior race – â€œOvermenâ€ – and needs the battery to power his colossal mechanical Sentinel. Against that even the aberrations-to-come will be helplessâ€¦

He’s also behind the attempted raids; hedging his bets in case Bradley cannot complete the job, so when the freakish X-Club turns up he knows the time to act is nowâ€¦

Thankfully – and perhaps instinctively inspired by his wife’s pregnancy – Bradley solves the final problem, but soon regrets his actions as the Hellfire lords take his device and unleash a marauding mechanical myrmidon upon the populace.

â€¦And that’s when the strangers with wings and blue fur and other incredible abilities reveal themselvesâ€¦

Concluding in calamity, catastrophe and cruel, heartbreaking irony, this smart slice of time-tampering neatly wraps up a superb sample of Mutant Mayhem: at once exciting, enthralling and exceptionally entertaining.

This slim, stirring, supremely sensuous Fights ‘n’ Tights tome also includes a selection of cover reproductions and variants by Land, Ponsor, Paquette, Edgar Delgado, Laura Martin, J. Scott Campbell & StÃ©phane Roux, resulting in a treasure trove of treats for all fans of sexy superheroes and combat connoisseurs alike

November 19, 2014November 18, 2014

Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book

By Harvey Kurtzman (Ballantine/Kitchen Sink)
ISBNs: 978-0-87816-033-4 (Kitchen Sink HB),Â Â Â Â Â 338-K (Ballantine original PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Hard To Find – but absolutely worth itâ€¦ 10/10

Here in Britain we think we invented modern satire, and quite frankly it’s a pretty understandable notion, with The Great 1960s Wit Scare producing the likes of Peter Cook, John Bird, John Fortune, Bernard Levin, Richard Ingrams, Alan Bennett, Paul Foot, Ned Sherrin, Jonathan Miller, David Frost and institutions such as The Establishment club, That Was the Week that Was and the utterly wonderful Private Eye (long may She reign, offend, fly at Gads and survive repeated libel and defamation writsâ€¦).

Somehow our American cousins were not so copiously blessed. Their share of genuine world-changing, liberal-lefty intellectual troublemakers only really comprised Tom Lehrer and Harvey Kurtzman. Of course it a very large country with an unbelievable number of guns equally distributed amongst smart folks, idiots and lunatics alikeâ€¦

Creative genius Kurtzman is probably the most important cartoonist of the last half of the 20th century – even more so than Will Feiffer, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert or Will Eisner.

His early triumphs in the fledgling field of comicbooks (Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales and especially the groundbreaking, game-changing Mad) would be enough for most creators to lean back on but Kurtzman was a force in newspaper strips (See Flash Gordon Complete Daily Strips 1951-1953) and a restless innovator, commentator and social explorer who kept on looking at folk and their doings and just couldn’t stop making art to share his findingsâ€¦

He invented a whole new format when he converted the highly successful colour funny book Mad into a black-&-white magazine, safely distancing the brilliant satirical publication from the fall-out caused by the 1950s comics witch-hunt which eventually killed all EC’s other titles.

He pursued comedy and social satire further with the magazines Trump, Humbug and Help!, all the while creating challenging and powerfully effective humour strips such as Little Annie Fanny (for Playboy), Nutz, Goodman Beaver, Betsy and her Buddies and many more. He died far too soon, far too young in 1993.

In 1959, having left Mad over issues of financial control and with both follow-up independent ventures Trump andÂ Humbug defunct, the irrepressible Kurtzman convinced Ballantine Books to publish a mass-market paperback of all-new satirical material.

The company had just lost the rights to publish Mad‘s paperback reprint line and were cautiously amenableâ€¦

The intriguing oddment saw the Great Observer in top form, returning to his comic roots by spoofing and lambasting strip characters, classic cinema, contemporary television and apparently unchanging social sentiments in a quartet of hyper-charged tales. Unfortunately the project was the first of its kind in America and met with less than stellar success. No one had ever published 140 pages of new comics in one savage bite before, and even the plenitude of strip reprint books always had one eye to the kids’ market.

This stuff was strictly for adults who would happily read newspaper or magazine strips but didn’t want to be seen carrying a book of them. Duly enlightened Kurtzman returned to safer ground and launched Help! just in time for the Swinging Sixties’ satire boomâ€¦

The slim monochrome package might not have changed the nation but it certainly warped and affected a generation of budding cartoonists and writers. Quickly becoming a legend – and nearly a myth in fan circles – Jungle Book was rescued from limbo in 1987 when Denis Kitchen (that much-missed crusading champion of all things grand, esoteric, nostalgic and/or naughty in comics), released the entire lost volume as a deluxe oversized (214 x 149 x 19mm) collectors hardback edition through his Kitchen Sink Press.

It’s still one of the funniest, most marvellous examples of wit and creativity comics have ever produced, as well as Kurtzman’s longest single work and is long overdue for another go-round.

Large sized paperback editions were also released at the time, but are now just as hard to findâ€¦

Deemed one of the â€œTop 100 Comics of the 20th Centuryâ€ by The Comics Journal, the racy, revelatory controversial – and in 1959 completely ignored – tome’s full title is Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book: Or, Up from the Apes! (and Right Back Down) – In Which Are Described in Words and Pictures Businessmen, Private Eyes, Cowboys, and Other Heroes All Exhibiting the Progress of Man from the Darkness of the Cave into the Light of Civilization by Means of Television, Wide Screen Movies, the Stone Axe, and Other Useful Arts and the Kitchen Sink edition augments its reproduction with an effusive and captivating ‘Intro’ from devoted fan Art Spiegelman plus an information-packed ‘Outro’ by editor and comics historian Dave Schriener.

The material itself is gloriously timeless and revelatory. In 1959 it gave the author an opportunity to experiment with layout, page design, narrative rhythms and especially the graphic potential of lettering, all whilst asking pertinent probing questions about the world changing around him.

‘Thelonius Violence, Like Private Eye’ is ostensibly a parody of groundbreaking TV show Peter Gunn, with the jazz-loving hipster â€œWhite Knight for Hireâ€ scoring chicks and getting hit an awful lot as he infallibly and oh-so-coolly tracks a killer whilst protecting blackmail victim Lolita Nabokovâ€¦

The tale is slick and witty and sublimely smart, whereas the next piece barely contains a lot of pent-up frustration for past sins and misdemeanours.

For ‘Organization Man in the Grey Flannel Executive Suite’ Kurtzman accessed his experiences working for bosses (such as Marvel’s Martin Goodman) to create the salutary tale of a decent young man’s progress up the corporate ladder at Shlock Publications Inc. The quasi-autobiographical impressionable and ambitious naÃ¯f in question is Goodman Beaver (who would be resurrected for Help! and eventually, improbably evolve into Little Annie Fanny) and his transformation from sweet kid to cruel, corrupt, exploitative typical business jerk makes for truly outrageous reading.

The title comes from a trio of contemporary bestsellers on the subject of men in business: Executive Suite by Cameron Hawley (1952), The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson in 1955 and William H. Whyte’s 1956 drama The Organization Man.

‘Compulsion on the Range’ simultaneously spoofs top-rated western Gunsmoke and the era’s growing fascination with cod psychology and angst-ridden heroes as Marshal Matt Dolin‘s far-reaching obsession with out-shooting infallible outlaw Johnny Ringding which takes him to the end of the Earthâ€¦

The volume wraps up with an edgily barbed tribute to Great Southern novels like Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre and assorted works of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, filtered through a glorious froth of absurd melodrama, frustrated passions and steamy sex (by all accounts the Very Best Kind), all outrageously delivered via astoundingly rendered caricatures and inspired dialect and accent gags.

In ‘Decadence Degenerated’ us sees thet nothin’ evah changes in sleepy ole Rottenville. Then wun naht, when the boys is jus’ a-oglin’ purty Honey-Lou as ushul, somethin’ goes awry an’ it all leads to murdah an’ lynchin’ befoah a snoopy repohtah who claims he frum up Noath turn up thinkin’ he can fin’ the truthâ€¦

Soon violent passions is furtha aroused and nothin’ kin evah be the same aginâ€¦

Funny, evocative and still unparalleled in its depth and visual potency, Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book inspired and influenced creators and storytellers as disparate as Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton and Terry Gilliam. This is a masterpiece of our art form which no true devotee can afford to be without.

November 18, 2014

Uncanny X-Force volume 1: The Apocalypse Solution

By Rick Remender, Jerome OpeÃ±a, Leonardo Manco, Dean White, Chris Sotomayor & various (Marvel) ISBN: 978-0-7851-4655-1

There’s no such thing as simple background when dealing with Marvel’s mutant mythology. Uncanny X-Force debuted as a monthly title in October 2010, replacing its previous convoluted incarnation X-Force volume 3 (itself the inheritor of nearly twenty years of chopping, changing and hyper-charged complexity).

The premise of the prior title was to describe the actions of a covert team of X-Men convened to perform covert black-ops – and even wetwork – missions at a time when mutants numbered no more than a couple of hundred endangered souls. The group acted with the blessing of Cyclops – titular head of the sorely diminished X-nation – during the Messiah Complex and Second Coming publishing events but were summarily disbanded when exposed to the shocked scrutiny of their understandably appalled fellow mutantsâ€¦

Written by Rick Remender, the new iteration – and this collection (comprising material from Wolverine: The Road to Hell – November 2010 – and issues #1-4 of Uncanny X-Force published with December 2010 to March 2011cover-dates) – opens with ‘The First Day of the Rest of Your Life’ from the aforementioned Wolverine one-shot wherein the feral fury realises that there’s still a need for a squad ready to do whatever it takes to keep the species of Homo Sapiens Superior safeâ€¦

Illustrated by Leonardo Manco and colourist Chris Sotomayor the introductory vignette finds the man called Logan joining Archangel, Psylocke and Fantomex in secret base Cavern-X deep in the Arizona desert, all in agreement that they must continue their necessary work without Cyclops’ knowledge, if only to give him plausible deniability and a clean conscienceâ€¦

All are troubled souls with blood on their hands. Archangel will fund the project and has in fact already begun their first mission, despatching insane assassin Deadpool to track down the most dangerous mutant monster in historyâ€¦

Eponymous epic ‘The Apocalypse Solution’, with art by Jerome OpeÃ±a and colours from Dean White, then opens in Egypt as the mirthful maniac uncovers an underground Temple and finds devoted acolytes of Clan Akkaba led by the insidious Ozymandias resurrecting the recently slain Apocalypse with their own willingly spilled blood.

The monster had spent millennia testing mutantkind and frequently gathered prime examples to be his agents. Now as Deadpool searches the base he encounters a monstrous Minotaur. The resurrectionists have freed the Final Horsemen: Apocalypse’s last line of defence and the most wicked killers in historyâ€¦

With contact lost the rest of the team rush to the site in Fantomex’s extraordinary sentient vehicle EVA (in actuality a biomechanical exterior nervous system for the stylish, bio-engineered mutant thief/adventurer) all resigned that the Scourge of Earth must die again at all costs.

Archangel is riven by doubt and apprehension. When he was merely the X-Man Angel Apocalypse ripped out his wings, remade his body and rewired Warren Worthington‘s brain to make him one of his Horsemen. Thanks to the telepathic power of his lover Psylocke, Warren has regained autonomy now but lives in dread of that deep programming, constantly struggling to stop the murderous malice resurfacing. What will happen if and when he confronts his returned former master?

The rescue mission is only partially successful. Although they save Deadpool they are too late to prevent the Clan and revived Horsemen teleporting away with their newly restored yet strangely different masterâ€¦

The second chapter finds the team apparently carving their way through a mass of minions at the Akkaba Temple until Archangel intrudes and discovers that the entire exercise is a simulation designed to accustom Psylocke to killing the winged wonder if Apocalypse should take him over or – worse yet – should his own dark nature win out over the personality of Warren Worthingtonâ€¦

With the chilling realisation that Wolverine has been preparing her to do the same for all of them, Warren is shocked from his dark thoughts by news that the fugitives have been tracked to the Blue Area of the Moon and expedites their pursuit in EVAâ€¦

However the raid immediately falters as the team is picked off by the arisen Horsemen even as, far below them in a colossal sentient Celestial ship, fanatical factotum Ozymandias experiences a few difficulties with his adored master.

The reborn En Sabah Nur is an innocent child who simply won’t accept the merciless philosophies of his former incarnation. Whilst his determined would-be killers rally and overcome their foes, edging ever closer, the return of the true Apocalypse seems destined to failâ€¦

The blistering examination of relative moralities kicks into overdrive when Psylocke bursts into the child’s chamber just ahead of her red-handed comrades. Despite his warring personalities Archangel is ready to save the world; to Deadpool it’s just another hit and Wolverine knows that sometimes dark deeds are inevitable, but their readiness and resignation to execute the crying boy is nevertheless stalled.

Merciless, resolute Psylocke won’t let them harm the boyâ€¦

Tense, taut, bloodily action-packed and ethically challenging, The Apocalypse Solution offers a far darker side of the mutant question for fans – if not, perhaps, casual readers – to enjoy, leavening the grim tone with razor-sharp gallows humour and even moments of moving sentiment – which do nothing to dilute the shocking surprise endingâ€¦

This slim tome is further augmented by a covers-&-variants gallery by Mico Suayan, Jason Keith, Esad Ribic, Marko Djurdjevic, J. Scott Campbell, Edgar Delgado, Rob Liefeld, Thomas Mason and Clayton Crain, Behind-the-Scenes feature ‘Evolution of a Page: from Script to Colors’ plus a prose-&-picture history of recent ‘X-Force’ history narrated by Wolverine himself (as transcribed by Jeph York)â€¦

Complex, compelling, compulsive and chilling, X-Force is a splendid example of mature Costume Dramas for everyone looking for a dash of darkness in their superhero soap opera shenanigans.
Â© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

November 17, 2014

Shazam! Archives volume 4

By William Woolfolk, C.C. Beck, Mac Raboy & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0160-1

One of the most venerated and beloved characters of America’s Golden Age of comics, Captain Marvel was created in 1940 as part of a wave of opportunistic creativity which followed the stunning success of Superman in 1938.

Although there were many similarities in the early years, the Fawcett champion quickly moved squarely into the area of light entertainment and even straight comedy, whilst as the years passed the Man of Steel increasingly left whimsy behind in favour of action, drama and suspense.

Homeless orphan and good kid Billy Batson was selected by an ancient wizard to be given the powers of six gods and heroes to battle injustice. He transforms from scrawny precocious kid to brawny (adult) hero Captain Marvel by speaking aloud the wizard’s acronymic name – invoking the powers of legendary patrons Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury.

Publishing house Fawcett had first gained prominence through an immensely well-received light entertainment magazine for WWI veterans named Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang, before branching out into books and general interest magazines. Their most successful publication – at least until the Good Captain hit his stride – was the ubiquitous boy’s building bible Mechanix Illustrated and, as the decade unfolded, the scientific and engineering discipline and can-do demeanour underpinning MI suffused and informed both the art and plots of the Marvel Family titles.

Captain Marvel was the brainchild of writer/editor Bill Parker and brilliant young illustrator Charles Clarence Beck who, with his assistant Pete Costanza, handled most of the art on the series throughout its stellar run. Before eventually evolving his own affable personality the full-grown hero was a serious, bluff and rather characterless powerhouse whilst junior alter ego Billy was the true star: a Horatio Alger archetype of impoverished, bold, self-reliant and resourceful youth overcoming impossible odds through gumption, grit and sheer determinationâ€¦

After homeless orphan newsboy Billy was granted access to the power of legendary gods and heroes he won a job as a roaming radio reporter for Amalgamated Broadcasting and first defeated the demonic Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana, setting a pattern that would captivate readers for the next 14 yearsâ€¦

At the height of his popularity Captain Marvel was published twice-monthly and outsold Superman, but as the Furious Forties closed tastes changed, sales slowed and Fawcett saw the way the wind was blowing. They finally settled an infamous, long-running copyright infringement suit begun by National Comics in 1940 and the Big Red Cheese vanished – as did so many superheroes – becoming little more than a fond memory for older fansâ€¦

Fawcett in full bloom, however, was a true publishing innovator and marketing powerhouse – and regarded as the inventor of many established comicbook sales tactics we all take for granted today. In this fourth magnificent deluxe full-colour hardback compendium we can see one of their best manoeuvres at play as the company responsible for creating crossover-events invented a truly unforgettable villain, set him simultaneously loose on a range of costumed champions and used his (temporary) defeat to introduce a new hero to their colourful pantheon.

Spanning the fraught yet productive period October 31^st 1941 to May 13^th 1942 and collecting in their entirety Captain Marvel Adventures #4-5, exploits from Master Comics #21-22, an adventure from fortnightly Whiz Comics #25 and another from anthology America’s Greatest Comics #2 – plus all the stunning covers by Beck and Raboy – this splendid compendium kicks off with an erudite and incisive Foreword by P.C. Hammerlinck (artist, editor, historian and former student of C.C. Beck) who reveals many secrets of the original comics’ production before the cartoon classic commences.

Although there was increasing talk of inevitable war amongst the American public at the time, most of these tales were created before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, making the role of Adolf Hitler as a recurring villain and the creation of Captain Nazi in those by-no-means certain days acts of prophetic calculationâ€¦

However, as the thinly-veiled saboteur and spy sagas which previously permeated the genre until official Hostilities were finally established gave way to certainty, the Axis became the overarching threat of many comicbook heroes and this tome re-presents some of the very best clashes between exactingly defined polar opposites.

Of more interest perhaps is that at this period the stories – many of them still sadly uncredited – largely portray Marvel as a grimly heroic figure not averse to slaughtering the truly irredeemable villain and losing no sleep over itâ€¦

In those formative years, as the World’s Mightiest Mortal catapulted to the first rank of superhero superstars, there was actually a scramble to fill pages and, just as CMA #1 had been farmed out to up-and-coming whiz-kids Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, these first two solo issues were rapidly compiled by anonymous scripters under the guiding hand of veteran Jack Binder (whose brother Otto would soon become the assorted Marvels’ definitive scripter), another rising star who drew the issues in a hurry, working from Beck and Parker’s style guides.

The first of those uncredited issues is Captain Marvel Adventures #4 (October 31^st 1941) with possible authors including Parker, Rod Reed, Joe Millard, Manly Wade Wellman, Otto Binder and William Woolfolk, whilst the Jack Binder Studio consisted of the man himself plus neophyte artists and recent graduates from Pratt Institute including young Bob Butts and Bill Ward.

‘Sivana’s Revenge’ kicks things off with a return engagement for the Three Lieutenant Marvels (a trio of other kids named Billy Batson who somehow shared the magic of Shazam’s gift). Fat Billy, Tall Billy and Hill Billy were visiting their namesake when the Devil Doctor repeatedly attempted to murder the radio reporter before seemingly losing his life in the detonation of a trap consisting of one million tons of dynamiteâ€¦

The next tale introduced Hitler as the German-accented â€œwarlordâ€ of an aggressor nation which used slave labour from conquered European countries to dig ‘The Tunnel of Invasion’ right into the heart of Florida. Upon discovering the plot Marvel helped complete the projectâ€¦ but only so that he could trap the entire Nazi army at the bottom of the Atlantic.

‘The Secret Submarine Base’ found Billy investigating a murder and wrecking a scheme by sinister Mr. Fog to hide ambushing U-Boats in South America before calling in his adult alter ego to smash the site. Thereafter he teamed up with crusading DA Shaw to destroy the criminal empire of mobster Giggy Golton and his band of merciless assassins ‘The Lawless Legion’â€¦

Captain Marvel Adventures #5 (December 12^th) was communally illustrated by Beck’s â€œFawcett Captain Marvel Art Staffâ€ – which generally comprised Costanza, Marc Swayze, Pete Riss and Kurt Schaffenberger amongst others – opening with a stunning recap ‘Frontispiece’ before Sivana again rears his gleaming evil-stuffed head to perpetrate ‘Captain Marvel’s Double Trouble’ wherein a refugee princess is kidnapped by a boxer the wily genius has transformed through surgery. He’s still no match for the real deal thoughâ€¦

Nor is the volcano-making ‘King of the Crater’ who attempts to turn America into a bubbling ring of fire until Billy and the Captain spectacularly upset his engineering applecart, after which a reclamation project is saved from sabotage by a cunning mastermind and an aquatic monster when ‘Captain Marvel Solves the Swamp Mystery’â€¦

The issue ends with another bout of weird science as ‘Sivana’s Strange Chemical Potion’ transforms people into completely differentâ€¦ people!

When Billy is replaced by a new kid with no memory of the power of Shazam, it takes fate in the form of a bunch of kids playing Captain Marvel to release the hero and unleash justiceâ€¦

Bulletman – ably assisted by his companion Bulletgirl – was undoubtedly Fawcett’s second – if lesser – leading light, with his own solo comicbook and the star spot in monthly Master Comics. However, that all changed with issue #21 (December 1941) and ‘The Coming of Captain Nazi’ by William Woolfolk & Mac Raboy. In the rousing tale Hitler and his staff despatch their newest weapon – a literal Ãœbermensch – to spread terror and destruction in America and kill all its superheroes.

The murdering braggart gets right to work in New York City and soon Bulletman meets Captain Marvel as they both strive to stop the Fascist Fiend from wrecking the town and slaughtering innocents. The astounding battle – gracefully and immaculately rendered by Alex Raymond-inspired Raboy – only results in driving off the monsterâ€¦

The saga picks up in Whiz Comics #25 (December 12^th) with ‘The Origin of Captain Marvel Jr.’ (Woolfolk, Beck & Raboy) as the Nazi nemesis attempts to destroy a monumental hydroelectric dam before once again being foiled and fleeing…

When the monster tries to smash a new fighter plane prototype Captain Marvel stops him, but whilst pursuing the maniac is not quick enough to prevent him murdering an old man and brutally crushing a young boy.

Freddy Freeman seems destined to follow his grandfather into eternity, but remorseful Billy takes the dying lad to Shazam’s mystic citadel where the old wizard saves the boy’s life by giving him access to the power of the ancient gods and heroes. Now he will live – albeit with a permanently maimed leg – and whenever he pronounces the phrase â€œCaptain Marvelâ€ he will become a super-powered invulnerable version of himselfâ€¦

With the stage set the lad then rockets over to Master Comics #22 (January 1942) to join Bulletman and Bulletgirl in stopping a string of Captain Nazi-sponsored assassinations in ‘Dr. Eternity’s Wax Death’ (by Woolfolk & Raboy), victoriously ending with a bold announcement that from the very next issue (not included here, curses!) the mighty boy will be starring in his own solo adventuresâ€¦

The merits of the ongoing court-case notwithstanding, Fawcett undeniably took some of their publishing cues from the examples of Superman and Batman. Following on from a brace of Premium editions celebrating the New York World’s Fair, National Comics had released World’s Finest Comics; a huge, quarterly card-cover anthology featuring a host of their comicbook mainstays in new adventures, and early in 1941, Fawcett produced a 100-page bumper comic dedicated to their own dashing new hero and the other mystery-men in their stable: Spy Smasher, Bulletman, Minute Man and Mr. Scarlet & Pinky and more.

This startling slice of World War II Wonderment concludes with a Captain Marvel yarn from America’s Greatest Comics #2 (February 11^th – May 13^th 1942).

‘The Park Robberies’, anonymously scripted but illustrated by Beck, Berg and the Fawcett Captain Marvel Art Staff, features Billy’s battle to stop and redeem a gang of underage muggers headed for prison or worse, with Captain Marvel going undercover as an ordinary beat cop, but is most noteworthy today for introducing comedy sidekick – and by today’s standards, appalling minority stereotype – Steamboat Bill, who saved the day when real hardboiled thugs took over the scamâ€¦

After a rash of complaints, Steamboat was dropped and didn’t resurface when DC acquired the Fawcett properties and characters in 1973. The revived series brought the Captain and his genial crew to a new generation in a savvy experiment to see if his unique charm would work another sales miracle during one of comics’ periodic downturns.

Re-titled Shazam! – due to the incontestable power of lawyers and copyright convention – the revived heroic ideal enjoyed mixed success and a live action TV series in his own unique world before being subsumed into the company’s vast stable of charactersâ€¦

Notwithstanding, Captain Marvel is a true milestone of American comic history and a brilliantly conceived superhero for all ages. These magical tales again show why â€œThe Big Red Cheeseâ€ was such an icon of the industry and proves that such timeless, sublime comic masterpieces are an ideal introduction to the world of superhero fiction: tales that cannot help but appeal to readers of every age and temperamentâ€¦

November 16, 2014September 3, 2017

Valerian and Laureline book 7: On the False Earths

By MÃ©ziÃ©res & Christin, with colours by E. TranlÃ© and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-190-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Stellar Entertainment to last the year throughâ€¦ 9/10

ValÃ©rian and Laureline is the most influential science fiction comics series ever created; an innovation-packed, Big-Ideas bonanza stuffed with wry observation, knowing humour, intoxicating action and sardonic sideswipes at contemporary mores and prejudices.

As ValÃ©rian: Spatio-Temporal Agent the strip debuted in the weekly Pilote #420 (November 9^th 1967) and was an instant hit. It rapidly evolved into its current designation as his feisty, fire-headed sidekick developed into the equal partner – if not scene-stealing star – of light-hearted, fantastically imaginative, visually stunning, time-travelling, space-warping fantasies which nevertheless always found room to propound a satirical, humanist ideology and let loose telling fusillades of political commentary.

At first tough, bluff Valerian was an affable, capable (if unimaginative), by-the-book space cop tasked with protecting official universal chronology (at least as per Terran Empire standards) by intercepting or counteracting paradoxes caused by incautious time-travellers.

When ValÃ©rian landed in 11^th century France during debut tale ‘Les Mauvais RÃªves (‘Bad Dreams’ and infuriatingly still not translated into English yet), he was rescued from doom by a capable young woman named Laureline. He brought her back to the 28^th century super-citadel and administrative capital of the Terran Empire, Galaxity, where the indomitable female firebrand trained as a spatiotemporal operative and began accompanying him on all his missions.

On the False Earths originally appeared in the newly monthly Pilote (issues #M31 to M34 (30^th November 1976 -1^st March 1977) before being collected as seventh album Sur le terres truquÃ©es – spectacularly reinforcing the â€œspatiotemporalâ€ aspect of our heroes through a beguiling cosmic conundrumâ€¦

The story starts in frantic full flow as a very familiar figure fights valiantly and dies ignominiously during a pitched battle in 19^th century Colonial India. He doesn’t go easy, however, using his ray gun to disintegrate an attacking tiger before beaming back crucial data stolen from a sinister maharaja equipped with technology he simply shouldn’t haveâ€¦

In deep space distraught Laureline sees her man die, but her protests are ignored by heartless, man-despising historian Jadna. The scholar cares little for the oafish warrior undertaking a top secret mission for her. After all, there’s plenty more where he came fromâ€¦

That’s literally the case as, a little later, another Valerian infiltrates Victorian London Society, breaking into a swank Gentleman’s Club and crashing a meeting of the Empire’s greatest movers and shakers. Once again these potentates are communicating with a hidden high-tech master, and once again the star cop expires trying to determine the mastermind’s exact whereabouts.

He resurfaces in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1895 where enquiries arouse the wrath of the local tongs. This Valerian perishes after noting an increasing number of anachronisms – such as an Easy Rider on a chopped Harley Davidson motorbikeâ€¦

From their secure vantage point on a vast satellite Jadna and Laureline see their agent expire in another artificially constructed historical microcosm. The callous historian ruminates on their mystery opponent: a being capable of reshaping matter, crafting perfect little worlds and recreating human eras with the skill of a master artist whilst remaining utterly hidden from all their probing searches. If the enigma hadn’t been detected rifling through Terran time zones – presumably for research – no one would even know of its existenceâ€¦

The creator’s simulacrums are progressively advancing through brutal but significant periods of Terran history, but each visit by Valerian brings the investigation team closer to the mysterious maker’s actual location. Soon our hero is cautiously exploring a slice of Belle Ã‰poque France, but his enigmatic quarry is cognizant of the constant intrusions and has taken a few liberties with verisimilitude.

Waiting in ambush for Valerian are American gangsters with Tommygunsâ€¦

Rubbed out before he can even begin, Valerian is swiftly replaced by another short-lived duplicate whilst the original and genuine lies comatose in a clone-command tank. This last rapid substitution, however, finally allows the watching women to zero in on their target’s true location and they instantly shift their ship through the universal continua to reach the incredible being’s astounding baseâ€¦ and none too soon, as Jadna posits that the creature’s next construction will most likely be World War Iâ€¦

She is proved painfully correct. As they ready themselves for a confrontation with the maker Laureline and the scholar realise that the astral citadel is a perfect replica of a Great War battlefield. Seizing the initiative Jadna activates and musters all the remaining clones – as well as the original McCoy – programming them to play the marauding â€œbocheâ€ in an apocalyptic re-enactment simply as a diversion to allow her to get to the impossibly powerful being she so admiresâ€¦

Caught up in the incomprehensible slaughter and its bizarre aftermath the two spatiotemporal agents can only watch in astonishment as Jadna and the seemingly all-powerful artisan discover just how much they have in commonâ€¦

Trenchant, barbed, socially aware and ethically crusading, Valerian and Laureline stories never allow message to overshadow fun and wonder and On the False Earths is one of the sharpest, most intriguing sagas MÃ©ziÃ©res & Christin ever concocted, complete with a superb twist in the tale to delight and confound even the most experienced starfarer.

November 15, 2014November 14, 2014

The Crazy World of Rugby

By Bill Stott (Exley)
ISBN: 978-1-85015-770-0

We are apparently a nation of avid armchair sportsmen here in Britain, so I’ve taken this opportunity to re-examine the so-very-English obsession with chasing balls and incurring life-changing injury through the far gentler medium of cartoon books and in particular a collection of dry, droll and often painfully accurate observations by one of my favourite unsung gagsters.

Another prolific but criminally near-forgotten staple of British gag graphics, Bill Stott’s manically loose line, stunningly evocative drawing and mordantly acerbic conceptions (which basically boil down to â€œno matter how strange, if it can happen it will happen to you, but only if somebody is watchingâ€¦â€) were a mainstay of Punch, Private Eye, The Times and many other papers and publications from 1976 onwards.

In his other life he was – and probably still is – a degree-level college painting and drawing tutor. Moreover he’s still in the game – such as it is in these days of magazine and newspaper cartoon paucity – and you can check out his latest stuff or even commission an original simply by visiting billstott.co.uk.

There might even be copies of this superb little rib-tickler on sale thereâ€¦

British cartooning has been magnificently served over the centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly clever ideas repeatedly poking (and here actually bending) our funny bones whilst pricking our pomposities and fascinations, and nothing says more about us than our crazy compulsion to thrash about in mud, smiting perfectly civil strangers in the name of fun and exerciseâ€¦

Within the pages of the Crazy World of Rugby (released in both English and American editions as a hardcover and paperback) the wary watcher from the safety of the sidelines will learn the horrors and joys of Scrum and Ruck, the utter inefficacy of referees, the amusing things you can do with upright poles and the agonising dangers of tradition whilst developing a fascination for odd-shaped ballsâ€¦

The role of parental support and the sweet angelic singing of burly men in shorts, the wonders of a robust appetite and attendant health benefits of a little regular fresh air are emphasised and the girl-pulling attractions of broken noses and mouths uncluttered by teeth are counterbalanced with observations on international rule interpretation.

Moreover, the idiosyncrasies of training regimens and the terrific indifference of the rules of physics and Laws of Momentum are redefined, all filtered through the hazy bonhomie of the friendly post-match booze-upâ€¦

One of a splendid range of themed collections issued by transatlantic publishing outfit Exley in both English and American editions, this fabulous full colour landscape tome is guaranteed to wring a wry smile from retired competitors whilst confirming for the rest of us what we’ve always assumed about this most manly of sports and most sporting of menâ€¦

These kinds of cartoon collection are perennial library/charity shop and jumble sale fare and if you ever see a Stott collections (others in this particular series include The Crazy World of Cats, Cricket, Hospitals, Housework, Marriage and Gardening) in such a place, do yourself a favour, help out a good cause and have a brilliant laugh with another true master of mirth.

As for me and my armchairâ€¦ Books yes, Rugby not so muchâ€¦

November 14, 2014

Batman: Going Sane

By J.M. DeMatteis, Eddie Campbell, Darren White, Joe Staton, Bart Sears & Steve Mitchell (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1821-8

An old adage says that you can judge a person by the calibre of their enemies, and that’s never been more ably demonstrated than in the case of the Batman. Moreover for most of his decades-long existence, and most especially since the 1970s, the position of paramount antagonist has been indisputably filled by the Harlequin of Hate known only as The Joker.

The epic battles between these so similar yet utterly antithetical icons have filled many pages and this slim, shocking tome (collecting stories from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #66-68 and #200 from November 1994 to February 1995 and April 2006) again proves how that unending war of wills always results in top quality Fights ‘n’ Tights entertainment.

LoDK began in the frenzied atmosphere following the 1989 Batman movie. With the planet completely Bat-crazy for the second time in 25 years, DC wisely supplemented the Gotham Guardian’s regular stable of comicbooks with a new title specifically designed to focus on and redefine his early days and cases through succession of retuned, retold classic stories.

Three years earlier the publisher had boldly begun retconning their entire ponderous continuity via the landmark maxi-series Crisis on Infinite Earths; rejecting the concept of a vast multiverse and re-knitting time so that there had only ever been one Earth.

For new readers, this solitary DC world provided a perfect place to jump on at a notional starting point: a planet literally festooned with iconic heroes and villains draped in a clear and cogent backstory that was now fresh and newly unfolding.

Many of their greatest properties were graced with a reboot, all enjoying the tacit conceit that the characters had been around for years and the readership were simply tuning in on just another working day.

Batman’s popularity was at an intoxicating peak and, as DC was still in the throes of re-jigging narrative continuity, his latest title presented multi-part epics reconfiguring established villains and classic stories: infilling the new history of the re-imagined, post-Crisis hero and his entourage. The icing on the cake was a fluctuating cast of first-rank and up-and-coming creators each getting â€œtheir shotâ€ at arguably the most paradigmatic figure of the industry.

Most of the early story-arcs were then quickly collected as trade paperbacks, helping to jump-start the graphic novel sector of the comics industry, whilst the careful re-imagining of the hero’s early days gave fans a wholly modern insight into the highly malleable core-concept.

With that in mind, 4-part psychological study ‘Going Sane’ by J.M. DeMatteis, Joe Staton & Steve Mitchell takes us back to a time when Batman was still fresh to the game and had only crossed swords with the Clown Prince of Crime twice beforeâ€¦

The tale starts with a murderously macabre circus-themed killing-spree in the idyllic neighbourhood of Park Ridge, exacerbated by the abduction of honest, crusading Gotham Councilwoman Elizabeth Kenner. The twin travesties weigh heavily on a far-too-emotionally involved Batman as he furiously plays catch-up, leading to a one-sided battle in front of GCPD’s Bat signal and a frantic pursuit into the dark woods beyond the city.

Driven to a pinnacle of outrage, the neophyte manhunter falls into the Joker’s devilishly prepared trapâ€¦

Caught in a horrific explosion, the Dark Knight’s shattered body is then dumped ‘Into the Rushing River’ by an unbelieving killer clown reeling in shock at his utterly unexpected ultimate triumphâ€¦

‘Swimming Lessons’ opens with Batman missing and Police Captain James Gordon taking flak from all sides for not finding The Joker or the savage mystery assailant who had murdered an infamous underworld plastic surgeonâ€¦

Under Wayne Manor faithful manservant Alfred fears the very worst whilst in a cheap part of town thoroughly decent nonentity Joseph Kerr suffers terrifying nightmares of murder and madness.

His solitary days end when he bumps into mousy spinster Rebecca Brown. Over passing days the two lonely loners find love in their mutual isolation and a shared affection for classic slapstick comedy. The only shadows blighting this unlikely romance are poor Joe’s continual nightmares and occasional outbursts of barely suppressed rageâ€¦

As days turn to weeks and then months, Alfred sorrowfully accepts the situation and prepares to close the Batcave forever. As he descends, however, he is astounded to see the Dark Knight has returnedâ€¦

The mystery of Batman’s disappearance is revealed in ‘Breaking the Surface!’ as the Gotham Gangbuster slowly gets back into the swing of things, laboriously connecting the dots linking the plastic surgeon’s death and the Joker’s wherebouts.

When his broken body was carried out to the sleepy hamlet of Accord the shattered hero was ministered to by Doctor Lynn Eagles, an ex-Gothamite doubly brutalised during her time in the city. A strange relationship grew between her and the troubled man she called â€œLazarusâ€, but his clear yearning for the loving serenity the town offered couldn’t match his inner fire and unshakable sense of dutyâ€¦

The inevitable, tragic finale arrives with the ‘The Deluge!’ as Joe Kerr – fictive product of a deranged mind which simply couldn’t face life without Batman – pops like a soap bubble when confronted by his somehow-resurrected resolute nemesis.

The World’s Greatest Detective has relentlessly tracked his polar opposite to his new life, without ever knowing the Clown is no longer a threat and, with both unflinching enemies restored, their apocalyptic clash is terrible but never finalâ€¦

This emotive examination of twinned lives equally deprived of peace and contentment by their own intransigent natures is followed by a more traditional but intensely gripping thriller written by Eddie Campbell and Daren White with art by Bart Sears.

‘Gotham Emergency’ opens with the Dark Knight carrying a dying Joker into the Wayne Foundation Public Hospital ER. The mass-murdering Maniac of Mirth has poisoned himself with his own laughing toxin – â€œSmilexâ€ – but Batman is ferociously insistent that Doctor Natalie Koslowski desert all her other critical patients to treat the conscienceless killer.

The reason becomes apparent after a Joker-created virus attacks the hospital’s records database as well as all other civic computer systems. It’s part of a sustained assault on Gotham by the Harlequin of Hate and follows two catastrophic detonations already triggered by the dying lunatic.

The first catastrophically went off in a crowded and unsuspecting newspaper office but the second, at the Gotham Knights Stadium, quickly brought Batman and in the ensuing chaos of their combat Joker took a face-full of his own poison.

Now the already-stretched medics must struggle to save him – and his gang of suitably trounced thugs – because the caped crimebuster is convinced that somewhere in Gotham a third bomb is ticking down, hidden in another area packed with innocents: a transport hub, or school or even a hospitalâ€¦

And no one is prepared for what happens after the dedicated doctors bring the homicidal Harlequin out of his near-death comaâ€¦

Perfectly portrayed at his most devious and devilish, this duel between two decidedly different shades of darkness conclusively captures the conniving essence of the Joker making this smart, rocket-paced and chillingly suspenseful extra-length epic another unmissable example the eternal struggle between two of comics’ most potent characters.

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