Numbercruncher


By Simon Spurrier & P.J. Holden with Jordie Bellaire (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-004-7

I’ve made a resolution to be more terse and concise in my reviews. Let’s see how long that lasts…

Sometimes a story just cries out to be told – especially if your tastes run to the sentimentally cynical, soppily savage or wide-eyed and jaded. If that’s you, Numbercruncher is just what you need to confirm all your suspicions about life whilst having a really good time.

The tale – by Simon Spurrier (Judge Dredd, X-Men: Legacy, Six-Gun Gorilla and others) & P.J. Holden (that man Dredd again, Rogue Trooper, Battlefields, Terminator/Robocop and more) – began as a creator-owned project in Judge Dredd Megazine before being expanded into a 4-issue miniseries from Titan Comics. Now it’s available as a splendid hardback packed with clever, controversial notions that will delight and astound lovers of metaphysical whimsy, romantic fantasy and unnecessarily extreme violence.

Like The Wizard of Oz and especially A Matter of Life and Death, this story is told on two separate levels of existence and differentiated by full-colour earthly sections and black-&-white views of the Afterlife. Unlike them, it’s a nasty and wittily vicious piece of work; just like handy geezer Bastard Zane, operative #494 employed by The Divine Calculator to enforce the Karmic Accountancy and keep souls circulating through the great cosmic all.

The Universe is just numbers and God is a mean, pedantic bean-counter, only concerned with the smooth running of his Grand Algorithm. Unfortunately, it all starts to fall apart when Zane is tasked by the weaselly Big Boss with stopping an in-love and dying young mathematician from gaming the system.

Genius Richard Thyme, in his final seconds of mortal life, has a Eureka moment and divines the true and exact nature of everything – and how to manipulate it…

Armed with such inspirational knowledge, Thyme’s soul arrives before the Writer in the Grand Ledger and wheedles another spin on the Karmic Wheel – Reincarnation.

Brilliant Richard had been utterly in love with a dippy hippy chick named Jessica Reed, and bargains for another chance at a life with her, and mean, petty-minded Divine Calculator gleefully accepts the proposition.

Thyme will be reborn, with all memories intact, but when this second life ends his soul will be employed by the Karmic Accountancy Agency as a collector just like Zane. The standard term of employment is for eternity – unless he can convince somebody to take his place. The indentured operatives call it “Recirculation”…

There is only one get-out: a “Zero-clause” which means that if Thyme can live a life completely and totally without sin, his contract is null and void. But who could possibly live a mortal life without the slightest transgression…?

Of course, The Accountant doesn’t play fair: stacking the deck so that reborn Richard is unable to even get near his lost love until it’s too late. However when Zane finally shows up in 2035AD, eagerly expecting to close the case-file and retire with Thyme taking his long-suffering place in The Register, the frustrated, cheated genius plays his own trump card.

He’d always expected to be short-changed and made his own Karmic deal. By selling his contract to another Accountancy operative, he had bought another life. And as the psychotically furious Bastard Zane soon sees, Thyme has pulled the trick over and over again. No matter how often Richard dies, he’s already being born again somewhere else…

With the mathematician’s sold-and-resold soul promised to practically every agent in the Afterlife, Zane’s only hope of retirement rests in killing the kid’s each and every reincarnation whilst simultaneously slaughtering all the Karmic operatives who have been suckered into a deal with the lovesick little sod…

And on Earth, despite perpetual setbacks, each brief existence inches Richard slowly closer to Jess. That should make his eventual capture inevitable – but even here the genius has an incredible Plan B in operation which even the Supreme Architect of the Cosmos didn’t see coming… one which could well undo the Algorithm underpinning Everything That Is…

Poignant, funny, outrageously gory, gloriously rude and wickedly clever, this is a ferociously upbeat and hilariously dark black comedy no insufferable incurable romantic could possibly resist.

Moreover, for all us dyed-in-the-wool comics freaks, there’s a host of background features included,

Interspersed between a gallery of covers and variants – plus unused iterations – and loads of original art, roughs and sketches, the ‘Author’s Note’ takes us behind the genesis of the tale, which is further expanded upon in ‘A Comic for Talking to God – an interview with Brian Truitt of USA Today’.

A discussion and explanation of Jordie Bellaire’s colouring process is the focus of ‘Working Flat-Out’ and ‘Birth Placement’ details the procedure for creating a cover, before the usual Creator’s Biographies ends things on a knowledgeable note.

Love, Death, Sex, more Death, Rebirth, lots of Death and Numbers: there’s your Meaning of Life right there…
™ & © 2013 Simon Spurrier & P.J. Holden. All rights reserved.

Numbercruncher is scheduled for release in January 2014.

X-Men – Battle of the Atom


By Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, Stuart Immonen, Frank Cho, Chris Bachalo & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-553-6

At the dawn of the Marvel Age, some very special kids were chosen by wheelchair-bound mutant telepath Charles Xavier. Scott Summers, Bobby Drake, Warren Worthington III, Jean Grey and Henry McCoy were taken under the wing of the enigmatic Professor X as he enacted his dream of brokering peace and achieving integration between humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants, no matter what the cost.

To achieve his dream he educated and trained the youngsters – codenamed Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and The Beast – for unique roles as heroes, ambassadors and symbols in an effort to counter the growing tide of human prejudice and fear. The dream was noble, inspirational and worth dying for, and over the years many mutants battling under the X-banner did just that. The struggle to integrate mutants into society seemed to inevitably result in conflict, compromise and tragedy.

During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men the idealistic, steadfast and trustworthy team leader Cyclops killed Xavier before eventually joining with old comrade Magik and former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, if necessary, of human ones. This new attitude appalled many of their formers associates.

Abandoning Scott, his surviving team-mates Beast and Iceman with second generation X-Men such as Wolverine, Psylocke and Storm and stayed true to Xavier’s dream. Opting to protect and train the coming X-generation of mutant kids whilst honouring Xavier’s Dream, they are continuing his methods at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning under the direction of new Head Professor Kitty Pryde…

Things got really complicated after Hank McCoy discovered he was dying. Obsessed with the idea that the naive First Class of X-Men might be able to sway Mutant Enemy terrorist No. 1 back from his current path of doctrinaire madness and ideological race war insanity, the Beast used time-travel tech in a last-ditch attempt to prevent a species war. By bringing the five youngsters back to the future he hoped to reason with the debased, potentially deranged Cyclops and fix everything before his impending death…

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways. Rather than shocking Scott back to his senses, the confrontation simply hardened the renegade’s heart and strengthened his resolve. Moreover, even after the younger McCoy impossibly cured his older self, young Henry and the rest of the X-Kids refused to go home until “bad” Scott was stopped…

The elder Cyclops and his “Extinction Team” face many problems. Magneto is playing a double (or is it a treble?) game; betraying the terrorists to S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill, and her to Cyclops. Moreover as they travel the world gathering up freshly activated Homo Superior kids, the Extinction-ers have been repeatedly targeted by a new mysterious next generation of robotic hunter/killer Sentinels.

All these tales were detailed in X-titles which resulted from the MarvelNOW! publishing event: a jumping-on point which reshaped the whole company continuity, taking the various mutant bands in strange new directions.

Scripted primarily by Brian Michael Bendis, this chronal chronicle collects all the issues in a crossover affecting those niche X-titles through September and October 2013 – specifically All-New X-Men #16-17, Uncanny X-Men #12-13, X-Men #5-6 and Wolverine & the X-Men #36-37, bracketed by the bookend miniseries X-Men – Battle of the Atom #1-2; a plot-light but action-packed, tension-drenched time-travel drama which sets up the next year’s worth of mutant mayhem…

It all begins with X-Men – Battle of the Atom #1, illustrated by Frank Cho, Stuart Immonen & Wade Von Grawbadger, wherein Magik, using her teleportational ability to traverse time and space, travels into the future to see what tomorrow holds for her kind. The answer seems to be Sentinels, increased human hatred and never-ending conflict…

Back in the now, Professor Pryde is continuing the First Class kids’ on-the-job training against an emergent and very ticked off mutant when more of the mystery sentinels attack. Like evil cavalry the Extermination team materialise and the ideological opponents pitch in together, but in the melee young Cyclops is killed by a stray blast and his older self blinks out of existence. Thankfully even as the entire area begins to shake and fall apart, mutant healer Triage is able to resurrect the dying X-Man. The disruptions cease, but the near-disaster reopens the old argument: the Original Five X-Men are endangering all of existence by being in their own future…

Resolute Kitty overrules young Jean Grey and orders the Beast to send them back, but when he activates the time-cube a strange yet familiar band of X-Men tumble out of it…

The tale resumes in All-New X-Men #16 (Immonen & Von Grawbadger) as the Extinction team (which now includes Jean Grey School defectors Stepford Sisters Celeste, Mindee & Phoebe as well as the time-displaced young Angel) review the attack and consider the notion that S.H.I.E.L.D. might be behind the new Sentinels. Meanwhile at the Grey School the intruders (an elderly Kitty Pride, the grandson of Charles Xavier, an Iceman-Hulk, Deadpool, a further mutated Beast, adult Molly Hayes from the Runaways and mystery telepath Xorn) are demanding that the Original 5 be sent back to their own time immediately…

Or else…

Naturally a huge fight breaks out and in the confusion the traumatised Scott and Jean steal a plane, running away to make sense of all the pressure and acrimony. Most importantly, although the future X-Men’s minds were psi-screened, young Marvel Girl had picked up something indefinable and threatening with her new telepathic abilities…

In the aftermath, as tempers cool Xorn removes her mask and reveals herself as the fugitive girl’s bitter, wiser, fiercely determined older self…

X-Men #5 (art by Davis Lopez) picks up the pace as the now tentatively combined teams set off after the kids. Storm, however, gives her all-female squad different instructions: Rogue and Psylocke join the main party whilst Pryde, Rachel Grey (the confusingly alternate Earth daughter of a different Cyclops and Jean Grey) and vampiric-mutant Jubilee are tasked with guarding the remaining Originals, little Henry McCoy and Bobby Drake…

Never good at obeying orders, they instead follow Scott and Jean themselves, provoking another all-X confrontation and allowing the runaways to bolt for ruined mutant sanctuary Utopia… where the Extinction team are already waiting…

Uncanny X-Men #12 (Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend, Mark Irwin, Jaime Mendoza, Victor Olazaba & Al Vey) ramps up the tension as the “mutant terrorists” learn of the future X-Men and their mission. It is then that Magik reveals her own time-travel jaunt and (some) of what she’s been keeping to herself…

In the light of these events the Extinction-ers are split: Cyclops wanting to help the youngsters whilst Emma rebels and announces that she’ll be helping Xorn and her crew send all the early X-Men back where they belong…

That resolution only lasts as long s it takes to meet their descendents and legacies. Wolverine & the X-Men #36 (Giuseppe Camuncoli & Andrew Currie) quickly finds all three generations of mutants in brutal intercine combat which only ends when young Jean at last acquiesces to the constant pressure and promises to take her team back where they came from…

Then all hell breaks loose as the real Future X-Men show up…

Thanks to Magik, the true defenders of Xavier’s dream have travelled back to Now, following the instigators of an assassination atrocity committed at the crowning moment of mutant/human cooperation. Colossus, Wiccan, Ice Master, Wolverine (AKA Jubilee), Quentin “Phoenix” Quire, Kymera and Sentinel-X  plan to ensure the madness will end before it begins…

No more spoilers from me then except to say that Cam Smith & Terry Pallot help with inks on X-Men #6 and the concluding X-Men: Battle of the Atom #2 is written by Jason Aaron with portentous ‘Epilogues‘ by Bendis & Brian Wood, illustrated by Esad Ribic, Camuncoli, Currie, Tom Palmer & Kristopher Anka.

In that stunning, ever-escalating blockbuster clash the various iterations of Once-and-Future mutant champions switch sides and back again, fight, quip, discover which presumed ally is behind the new Sentinels and in some cases give their lives to preserve everything good before it all turns out OK – at least for the moment…

When the smoke clears a new chapter will begin with the Original kids willing but now unable to return to their time, the JeanGreySchool forever changed, friendships and alliances destroyed and Cyclops’ Extinction team immeasurably stronger…

Unfortunately, the most psychotic and potentially lethal monster from the future never made it back to the future and might possibly be stalking the heroes of today, and the time-disruptions caused by the assorted chronally-misplaced persons bodes badly for the continuance of existence…

X-Men: Battle of the Atom also includes many pinups and a huge cover-&-variants gallery by Art Adams, Simone Bianchi & Frank Martin, Frazer Irving, Ed McGuiness & Dexter Vines, Marte Gacia, Lopez, Phil Noto, Stefano Casselli & Andres Mossa, Frank Cho, Shane Davis, Nick Bradshaw, Stephanie Hans, Adi Granov, Immonen, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Leonel Castellani, Bachalo, Anka, Milo Manara and Esad Ribic.

™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

Last apologies of the year…

Still plagued by storms, power cuts and with at least one of us recovering from injuries far too slowly for my liking, we’ve all decided to concentrate on paid work and a little bit of celebration to see out this year.

A regular and hopefully fully restored review service will recommence on January 1st 2014 – weather and fate permitting.

In the meantime, have a Happy New Year.

From W!n and the team at Now Read This.

Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant volume 5: 1945-1946


By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-484-9

Probably the most successful comic strip fantasy ever produced, Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur launched on February 13th 1937, a luscious full-colour Sunday page offering a perfect realm adventure and romance. Year by year, in real time, the strip followed the exploits of a refugee boy driven by invaders from his ancestral homeland in Scandinavian Thule who grew up to roam the world and rose to a paramount position amongst the mightiest heroes of fabled Camelot.

As crafted by sublime master draftsman Harold “Hal” Foster, the princeling matured to clean-limbed manhood in a heady sea of exotic wonderment; visiting far-flung lands and siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes whilst captivating and influencing generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts.

There have been films, animated series and all manner of books, toys, records, games and collections based on the strip – one of too few to have lasted from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (over 4000 episodes and still forging ever onward) – and even in these declining days of the newspaper narrative strip as a viable medium it still claims over 300 American papers as its home. It has even made it into the very ether with an online edition.

Foster produced the strip, one spectacular page a week until 1971, when he began to ease up on his self-appointed workload. With the syndicate’s approval, after auditioning such notables as Wally Wood and Gray Morrow, Big Ben Bolt illustrator John Cullen Murphy was chosen to draw the feature. Foster continued as writer and layout designer until 1980, after which he fully retired and Murphy’s son assumed the writer’s role.

In 2004 the senior Cullen Murphy also retired (he died a month later on July 2nd) and the strip has soldiered on under the extremely talented auspices of writer Mark Schultz and artists Gary Gianni and Tom Yeates.

This seventh gloriously oversized full-colour hardback volume reprints the strips from January 7th 1945 to 29th December 1946 during which time his celebrated yet rarely seen “Footer strip” The Mediaeval Castle was brought to conclusion.

Because of wartime paper rationing, newspapers across the country needed to fill their reduced page counts carefully. To assist their clients the syndicate dictated format-changes to most of their strip properties and Prince Valiant began to appear with an unrelated (and therefore optional) second feature, which individual papers could opt to omit according to their local space considerations.

Apparently the three-panel-per week saga starring the 11th century family of Lord and Lady Harwood, their young sons Arn and Guy and teenaged daughter Alice – a feudal pot-boiler so popular that it spawned a couple of relatively contemporary book collections – wasn’t dropped by a single paper throughout its 18-month run from April 23rd 1944 to 25th November 1945, but Foster was happy to return to one epic per full page once the newsprint restrictions were lifted.

In this volume the strip sees a less than historical Christmas celebration and harsh winter turn into a fruitful spring as the bitter rivalry with neighbour Sir Gregory slowly mends, thanks in no small part to a hostage swap of their first-born sons and Alice’s romantic inclinations towards young and dashing Hubert Gregory. Of course it doesn’t hurt that their quarrelsome fathers have been called away Crusading…

P. Craig Russell’s introductory essay ‘Jack Kirby, Hal Foster and Me’ expresses and describes Prince Valiant‘s influence on one of today’s most lauded creators, after which the magnificent main saga then resumes.

What Has Gone Before: Despite his many exploits and triumphs, restless Valiant is haunted by visions of Queen Aleta of The Misty Isles, whom he believes has bewitched him, utterly unaware that she saved his life not once but twice.

Val pays an adventure-filled to his father King Aguar – whom he has restored to overlordship of Thule, eradicating assorted bandit bands, being shipwrecked and cast away before foiling a plot to oust the aged monarch.

Once home, however, a hunting accident almost kills him and, laid up, he plays Cupid for a crippled artist and a Viking’s daughter. Once, barely recovered, he then repulses an invasion by barbarian Finns.

Never a man for peace and indolence, Val then determines to free himself of Aleta’s bewitching spell. Returning to Camelot the Prince enlists the aid of Sir Gawain and they promptly set off across Europe towards Misty Isles. In Germany they are attacked by barbaric Goths, before taking ship in Rome and being shipwrecked. The squire Beric and now amnesiac Val are marooned whilst Gawain is captured for ransom by an ambitious Sicilian noble.

As Beric sacrifices himself to save his Prince’s life, Valiant finally recovers his wits and lands on the extremely hostile Misty Isles…

Aleta, spellbinder of Val’s nightmares, has recently been ill-used by fate. Never the supernatural monster he believed, she was, however, in dire straits with a flock of suitors and her own courtiers pressing her to marry immediately and produce an heir. So it was with mixed emotions that she saw the boy she had saved burst in, snatch her up and flee the Isles with her as his rather uncomplaining prisoner.

Val, wounded, exhausted but triumphant, now has the cause of all his woes chained and at his mercy as he turns toward England…

After crossing a vast desert with pursuers hard on their heels the couple reach the port of Tobruch, where the local despot tries to buy Val’s hard-won prize. Somehow his hatred towards her has become something else and soon he is protecting her from bandits and numerous other perils.

She returns the favour when he is injured: nursing him through fever and even convincing a band of roving Tuaregs to escort them across Arabia. By the time the couple reach Bengasi Val is again her slave, but only realises it after a recuperative stay in the palace of the Sultan. It’s at that moment that Donardo, Robber Emperor of Saramand strikes, stealing Aleta and setting his band of brigands upon Valiant.

The villain’s biggest mistake is not ensuring Val is dead. Alone and weaponless, the Arthurian knight relentlessly tracks the thieves and deals with them mercilessly before reaching Donardo’s citadel moments too late to exact full vengeance.

Unable to liberate Aleta, he instead foments a full scale war between the Robber Emperor and his neighbours, each as wicked and untrustworthy as Aleta’s abductor…

Barbaric and time-consuming, the conflict rages, with each king secretly seeking to double-cross his temporary ally. However, whilst Val is riding a tiger by acting as the warlord of the attacking forces, Aleta takes her fate into her own hands and escapes from Donardo’s castle and is (relatively) safe when Saramand is sacked and the Emperor meets his long-delayed fate…

Leaving the devastated city, Val, reunited with his love and his legendary Singing Sword, travels to Rome, arriving just as Vandal general Genseric attacks the Eternal City. Befriended by Genseric’s employer, the former Empress Eudoxia, Val and Aleta are married there before again trying for England. To do so, they steal a ship from the victorious, blood-crazed and very drunk Vandals, heading to the relative safety of Lyon.

As they quit the vessel, a slave implores Val to free him, and the scribe Amurath joins their party. He is clearly quite taken with Aleta’s new handmaiden Cidi…

With Rome fallen every vestige of civilisation – such as safe roads – has ended and the party is soon under attack by bandits. These Val can handle, but he has no conception of the peril he faces when Cidi develops a lethally obsessive fascination for him…

When besotted Amurath stops the handmaiden from poisoning Aleta, Cidi responds by committing suicide and the heartbroken scribe changes. As the newlyweds enter Paris, he schemes to have them shamed and killed by the noble Thane Roth as they stay in his palace…

The freed slave had underestimated Aleta however, and the sinister plan fails…

As Val and Aleta commence the last leg of their journey they meet and employ a tempestuous fire-haired northern titan named Katwin. She will be the Lady’s handmaiden in England…

With little trouble the party reach Camelot where Aleta soon becomes a Court favourite – despite a few hilariously compromising moments before she is formally introduced to Arthur. She soon sets tongues wagging by riding and hunting just like man…

The scandals continue after Valiant and others are despatched on a mission against the Saxons. Refusing to be separated from her husband, the headstrong Queen of the Misty Isles impersonates a knight and joins the war-party…

Soon after, whilst hunting with Val and Gawain, she charms a band of outlaws led by charismatic Hugh-the-Fox when they are all captured for ransom. Brokering a peace and pardon from Arthur she turns the woodsmen into scouts against the ever-encroaching Jutes and Saxons of high king Horsa.

After spectacularly repulsing the invaders with “his” wood scouts, Val’s next adventure pits him against the treacherous Sir Modred, who seeks power by exposing Sir Launcelot‘s relationship with Queen Guinevere. To save the monarch’s shame, Aleta impetuously confesses to being the knight’s actual lover… just as Val returns from a mission and gets the wrong idea…

The outraged, betrayed Prince flees Camelot and only loyal Katwin is able to bring him to his senses. Reunited and both penitent, the newlyweds decide to spend winter in Thule, where Aguar can get to know his new daughter-in-law. It’s not a happy homecoming, however, and as the barely-rested Val is forced to quell a potential rebellion in Overgaard another brews in the fiefdom of Earl Jon.

Amidst the dour, grim-minded warriors, bright-and-breezy Aleta struggles to win the favour of the King – until she shows him another way to deal with his subjects’ dissatisfaction…

To Be Continued…

This volume also includes a stellar glimpse of the storyteller’s commercial endeavours in magazines and advertising in Brian M. Kane’s informative essay ‘Foster the Illustrator’ and a discussion of the strip’s amazing, groundbreaking co-star in ‘Aleta: Water Nymph of the Misty Isles’ to wrap up the full immersion in the myriad splendours of a long-gone age…

Rendered in a simply stunning panorama of glowing visual passion and precision, Prince Valiant is a constantly onrushing rollercoaster of rousing action, exotic adventure and grand romance; mixing glorious human-scaled fantasy with dry wit, broad humour with shatteringly dark violence.

Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring, this is a masterpiece of fiction: a never-ending story no one should miss. If you have never experienced the intoxicating grandeur of Foster’s magnum opus these magnificent, lavishly substantial deluxe editions are the best way to do so and will be your portal to an eye-opening world of wonder and imagination…
Prince Valiant © 2012 King Features Syndicate. All other content and properties © 2011 their respective creators or holders. All rights reserved.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Food Chain


By Christopher Golden, Tom Sniegoski, Doug Petrie, Jamie S. Rich, Tom Fassbender, Jim Pascoe, Christian Zanier, Cliff Richards Ryan Sook & others (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-315-5

Having conquered television, Buffy the Vampire Slayer began a similar crusade with the far harder-to-please comicbook audiences. Launched in 1998 and offering smart, sassy tales to accompany the funny, action-packed and mega-cool onscreen entertainment, the saga began in an original graphic novel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the Dust Waltz) before debuting as a monthly series.

She quickly became a major draw for publisher Dark Horse – whose line of licensed comicbook successes included Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Aliens and Predator – and her exploits were regularly supplemented by short stories in company showcase anthology Dark Horse Presents and other venues.

This commodious UK Titan Books compilation features stories spanning 1999 and 2000 – set during Seasons 3 and 4 of the TV show – including issues #12, 16 and 20 of the regular title, a couple of yarns from Buffy the Vampire Slayer Annual 1999 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Lovers’ Walk plus the Dark Horse/Wizard co- published Buffy/Angel #½: a period which saw Buffy’s noble vampire lover Angel set up shop in his own spin-off series –both small screen and printed…

What You Need to Know: Buffy Summers was a hapless Californian cheerleader Valley Girl until the night she inexplicably turned into a hyper-strong, impossibly durable monster-killer. Accosted by a creepy old coot from a secret society of Watchers she discovered that she had become a “Slayer” – the most recent recipient of an ancient geas which transformed selected mortal maids into living slaughter-machines of all things undead, arcane or uncanny.

After little trouble in Los Angeles she moved with her mom to the deceptively quiet hamlet of Sunnydale, but Buffy quickly and painfully discovered that her new hometown was situated on the edge of an eldritch gateway known to all the unhallowed as The Hellmouth…

Enrolling at Sunnydale High, Buffy made some friends and, tutored by new Watcher Rupert Giles, conducted a never-ending war on devils, demons and every shade of predatory supernatural species inexorably drawn to the area…

The stories re-presented here span Buffy’s horrific Graduation Day and eventual transition to the local college (complete with a new boyfriend – federal/military spook-buster Riley Finn) but open with a few High School escapades such as ‘Food Chain Part 1’ (by Christopher Golden, Christian Zanier & Andy Owens from Buffy #12 where it was originally seen under the title ‘A Nice Girl Like You’) as new student Sandy inexplicably gets involved with bad boy Brad Caulfield and his gang.

No one in the “Scooby-Gang” (Willow, Xander, Cordelia and werewolf Oz) can understand what she sees in the local louts… until Buffy uncovers Sandy’s true nature and her nasty habit of feeding on the energy of young folk…

Golden, Tom Sniegoski, Cliff Richards & Joe Pimentel then detail ‘The Latest Craze’ (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Annual 1999) wherein an avaricious old enemy introduces demonically addictive toy “pets” to the impressionable Sunnydale kids. However, the wickedly adorable “Hooligans” are not only moonlight kleptomaniacs but have a sinister agenda all their own…

From the same source, by Doug Petrie, Ryan Sook & Tim Goodyear comes ‘Bad Dog’ wherein the Slayer, whilst hunting for Oz on one of his bad (i.e. full moon) nights, encounters a nasty young sorcerer determined to turn himself into a god at Willow’s expense, after which ‘Food Chain Part 2‘ (Buffy #16 by Golden, Zanier, Marvin Mariano, Draxhall Jump, Curtis P. Arnold, Jason Minor & Owens) reveals how Brad is still connected to the demonic Sandy’s monstrous master and killing in his name…

Set in the aftermath of the pivotal Graduation Day episode, ‘Double Cross’ (#20, by Petrie, Minor & Arnold) follows Angel as he heads for his new mission in LA and stay-at-home Buffy when  a demon who feeds on lost hope targets both monster-hunters simultaneously, eager to destroy them both at their lowest ebb…

A bright change of pace follows as trainee witch Willow and new partner Tara go hunting for a rare magical flower and stay in a haunted Bed-&-Breakfast. ‘Punish Me with Kisses’ (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Lovers’ Walk by Jamie S. Rich & China Clugston-Major) sees the young lovers futilely trying to placate and exorcise a married couple who had been quarrelling for most of the century since their deaths…

The special also provided ‘One Small Promise’ by Tom Fassbender & Jim Pascoe, with art by Richards & P. Craig Russell, in which Buffy and Riley have a thoroughly entertaining spat which a band of roving vampires mistakenly assume might put them off their staking game…

Wrapping things up is ‘City of Despair’ from Buffy/Angel #½ (Fassbender, Pascoe, Richards & Owens) wherein Angel and Buffy – although separated by hundreds of miles – are united in an extra-dimensional arena after their souls are stolen to take part in a demon’s gladiatorial game…

This is one more splendidly accessible assemblage of arcane action and furious phantasm fighting, even for those unfamiliar with the extensive back history: another self-contained chronicle of creepy carnage and witty wonderments as easily enjoyed by the newest neophyte as any confirmed connoisseur.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer ™ & © 2001 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

Madison Square Tragedy


By Rick Geary (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-762-1

Master cartoonist Rick Geary is a one-of-kind cartoon presence: proficient in and dedicated to both comics and true crime literature.

His compelling dissections in the form of graphic novel reconstructions have revitalised many of the world’s most infamous “cold cases” and groundbreaking murder mysteries since policing began and these pictorial dossiers never fail to darkly beguile or entertain.

This particular review copy plunked onto my mat on Christmas Eve (always a time of drawn knives and frayed tempers) and really made my Holiday Season complete, so I felt I had to share the dark tidings with you as soon as possible…

Combining a superlative talent for laconic prose, incisive observation and detailed visual extrapolation with his fascination for the nastier aspects of human nature, Geary’s past works include biographies of J. Edgar Hoover and Trotsky and the 8-volume Treasury of Victorian Murder series.

In 2008 he then turned his forensic eye on the last hundred years or so for his ongoing Treasury of XXth Century Murder series and this sixth volume focuses on a little-remembered sordid scandal which seared the headlines during the “Gilded Age”.

Madison Square Tragedy – The Murder of Stanford White relates a tale with no unsolved mystery but still laden with all the appalling ingredients of a tabloid reporter’s dreams, and opens after a bibliography and the author’s handily informative map of Central Manhattan with ‘The City of the New Century’ describing the great and the good of the breathtaking modern metropolis New York in 1901 and setting the scene for a grim tragedy and lust, depravity and madness…

‘Stanny’ covers the history, career and character of prominent architect and personage Stanford White: bon vivant, theatre patron, dashing roué and secret deflowerer of young ladies, whose fascination with one particular damsel led to his untimely – if not entirely undeserved – demise.

The arch cad – a notable bastion of the city’s Cultured elite – had a secret hideaway: luxurious, opulent and infamously fitted with a red velvet swing where he indulged his urges…

The lady who brought about his demise was ‘Evelyn’: Florence Evelyn Nesbit – a sensation of turn-of-the-century New York. Only 16 years old, she was already a famous artist’s model (Charles Dana Gibson immortalised her as “The Eternal Question”), much photographed and cover-featured in the period’s periodicals and journals. She soon turned her talents to the stage as both actress and dancer, catching White’s eye – as she also had many millionaires young and old.

White was patient. Befriending Evelyn’s mother, he was soon known as the girl’s de facto guardian. Eventually he brought her to his lair and date-raped her, subsequently carrying on the dalliance until he was bored, after which he moved on to fresher fields…

Hushing up her disgrace, Evelyn began a chaste relationship with cartoonist Jack Barrymore (of the legendary acting dynasty) but her mother and White enrolled her in private boarding school to end the affair.

There she languished until one of her former admirers entered the picture…

‘Harry’ describes the third face in the tragedy as wealthy scion (drug addict, closet sadist and psychopath) Harry K. Thaw relentlessly pursues and eventually weds Evelyn. This was only after a protracted courtship which culminated in her revealing what Stanford White had done.

Harry married her anyway, but was a much an abuser as the architect was. Moreover he became increasingly obsessed with destroying the ravisher of innocence…

The actual murder occurred on ‘The Fatal Night’ of June 25th 1906 in a crowded restaurant in front of hundreds of well-to-do patrons, after which the most fascinating component of the crime began: the astonishing permutations and multiple ‘Trials and Tribulations’ which saw Harry retried numerous times as his powerful, dominating mother scrambled to preserve some shred of the family prestige and dignity whilst her son proclaimed his justified guilt and poor Evelyn was skewered in the harsh spotlight of tawdry publicity…

This is a shocking tale with no winners and Geary’s meticulous and logical presentation as he dissects the crime, illuminates the major and minor players and dutifully pursues all to their recorded ends is utterly compelling.

The author is a unique talent in the comic industry not simply because of his manner of drawing but because of the subject matter and methodology in the telling of his tales. Geary always presents facts, theories and even contemporary minutiae with absorbing pictorial precision, captivating clarity and devastating dry wit, re-examining the case with a force and power Oliver Stone would envy.

Seductive storytelling, erudite argument and audacious drawing give these tales an irresistible dash and verve which makes for unforgettable reading and such superb storytelling is an ideal exemplar of how graphic narrative can be so much more than simple fantasy entertainment. These merrily morbid murder masterpieces should be mandatory reading for every mystery addict and crime collector.
© 2013 Rick Geary. All rights reserved.

Merry Christmas, Boys and Girls!

In keeping with my self-imposed Holiday tradition here’s yet another selection of British Annuals selected not just for nostalgia’s sake but because it’s my blog and I just want to…

After decades when only American comics and nostalgia items were considered collectable or worthy, these days the resurgence of interest in home-grown comics and stories means there’s a lot more of this kind of material out there and if you’re lucky enough to stumble across a vintage volume, I hope my words can convince you to acquire it.

Topping my Xmas wish-list would be further collections from those fans and publishers who have begun to rescue this magical material from print limbo in affordable new collections…

Great writing and art is rotting in boxes and attics or the archives of publishing houses, when it needs to be back in the hands of readers once again. As the tastes of the public have never been broader and a selective sampling of our popular heritage will always appeal to some part of the mass consumer base, let’s all continue rewarding publishers for their efforts and prove that there’s money to be made from these glorious examples of our communal childhood.

The Beano Book 1974


By various (DC Thomson & Co., Ltd.)
Retroactively awarded ISBN: 978-0-85116-077-1

For many British readers – whether comics fans or not – fans, the Holiday Season can only mean The Beano Book, so I’ve once more highlighted another of the venerable, beloved tomes as particularly representative of the time of year.

Way back when, many annuals were produced in a wonderful “half-colour” which British publishers used to keep costs down. This was done by printing sections or “Signatures” of the books with only two plates, such as Cyan (Blue) and Magenta (Red) or Yellow and Black.

The sheer versatility and colour range provided was simply astounding. Even now this technique inescapably screams “Holiday Extras” for me and my aging contemporaries and none more than in this spectacular example which would have hit shop shelves in September of 1963.

As is so often the case, my knowledge of the creators involved is appallingly sub-standard, but I’ll hazard my usual wild guesses in the hope that someone with more substantial information will correct me when I err …

This anarchically rousing compilation kicks off with a double-page splash of ‘Peculiar Pets’ Picture Gallery’ (by Robert Nixon, I think) displaying a number of comics stars and their companion animals of choice, after which Minnie the Minx (Jim Petrie) and a few chums and latterly Biffo the Bear with human pal Buster (by David Sutherland) introduce this year’s annual before Ron Spencer’s Baby-Face Finlayson (“The Cutest Bandit in the West”) imagines life as a giant and not a pipsqueak…

“Fastest Boy on Earth” Billy Whizz (drawn superbly as ever by Malcolm Judge) then learns to respect the power of traffic signs – in his house – before the crafty campaigns of ‘The Nibblers’ (John Sherwood) wins them a grand Christmas nosh-up and sanctuary from the seasonal snows.

Back then The Beano still had the odd adventure strip and perhaps the greatest of these was boy superhero Billy the Cat. Sutherland next proves his astounding visual versatility in The Bash Street Kids where the pupils plump for pop and resist the calming charms of classical music – leading to a camera-shattering pinup of ugly mug Plug – before switching to action mode as the acrobatic champion – now teamed with his cousin as Billie the Cat and Katie – jointly recapture an escaped convict and preserve their secret identities from curious school chums in a splendid rollercoaster romp.

Petrie’s Minnie the Minx then painfully learns that she’s not cut out for pony riding, after which Nixon panoramically maps out ‘A Funny Look at “Beano-Town”‘ whilst Bob McGrath details the sub-zero antics of The Three Bears as they try to find fuel to heat their chilly cave.

Also ably illustrated by the tireless Sutherland, Biffo and Buster return as rivals clashing in a man-powered flight competition, after his Pin-up Pup! of Dennis the Menace’s perilous pooch Gnasher leads into a custard-coloured clash between his master and simpering swot Walter.

Spencer’s Little Plum experiences a mysterious clean-up whilst sleepwalking before Nixon’s Lord Snooty and his snowballing pals at Bunkerton Castle get some startling help from the estate’s star stag Angus even as elsewhere – and keeping up the Hibernian humour – Haggis hunters The McTickles (by Vic Neill?) fall foul of their canny shaggy prey…

Pup Parade starring the Bash Street Pups (Gordon Bell) finds the mini-mutts (eventually) enjoying an old dinosaur bone before a dedicated and extended niche chapter from Nixon. Here in an expansive section of his own, Roger the Dodger’s Special Mini-Book offers the rollicking tale of the ‘Disappearing Dodger’, a pin-up, his hilarious, historically inaccurate ‘Family Tree’, ‘A Dodger’s Outfit’, and an informative peek at ‘A Dodger’s Den’ before closing with the final pin-up ‘Dreaming of Dodges’…

Biffo’s back – and points south – endure a battering due to the bear’s interest in buttercups (Sutherland) before Nixon reveals how the obstreperous Grandpa still catastrophically refuses to act his age and The Nibblers (Sherwood) again overcome malicious moggy Whiskers to fill their bellies with purloined goodies.

The riddle of Billy Whizz’ footwear replacement is solved in a quick-fire yarn by Judge before Bell’s Pup Parade starring the Bash Street Pups tale discloses the secret of their unlikely alliance with a very big cat…

Heading out West, The Three Bears (McGrath) find – and lose – a mountain of gold, The McTickles lose a skirmish with the wily Stilt-legged McHaggises, and Baby-Face Finlayson rewrites a few favourite nursery rhymes before Teacher and even Head have another go at civilising the Bash Street Kids with music – appended with a stomach-churning pin-up of Cuthbert Cringeworthy in Teacher’s Pet’s Picture Gallery…

Ron Spencer stretches his artistic muscles providing ghastly genealogical ‘Fun with the Finlayson Family’ and illustrating how Little Plum gets into big trouble trying to recapture girlfriend Little Peach‘s pet parrot, before Billy the Cat and Katie swing back into action, turning on the town’s Christmas lights and tracking down a hold-up gang (Sutherland).

Another gloriously funny Lord Snooty strip from Robert Nixon segues into Minnie the Minx’s hilarious crush on an American boy-band – and older readers will cringe with mirth at Jim Petrie’s hilarious spoof of then-sensation Donny Osmond – before Nixon strikes back with a Grandpa yarn involving the old codger’s inability to stay clean…

Beano star Dennis the Menace was only slightly involved in the Annuals of this period as he had his own Christmas Bumper book to run riot in, but he closes this tumultuous tome with an funny educational strip that’s a thinly disguised advert for his solo venture before the merriment closes here with another superb dose of Nixon’s ‘Peculiar Pets’ Picture Gallery’ …

This is supremely entertaining book, and even without legendary contributors Dudley Watkins, Leo Baxendale and Ken Reid there’s still an abundance of satisfyingly madcap, infectious insanity. With so much merriment on offer I can’t believe this 40-year old book is still sprightlier and more entertaining than most of my surviving friends and relatives. If ever anything needed to be issued as commemorative collections it’s these fabulous DC Thomson annuals…

Divorcing the sheer quality of this brilliant book from nostalgia may be a healthy exercise – perhaps impossible, but I’m quite happy to luxuriously wallow in the potent emotions this annual still stirs. It’s a fabulous laugh-and-thrill-packed read from a magical time, and turning those stiffened two-colour pages is always an unmatchable Christmas experience, happily still relatively easy to find these days.
© 1973 DC Thomson & Co., Ltd.

Pow! Annual 1970


By various (Odhams Books)
ASIN: B003VUO2SC

This splendidly intriguing item is one of my favourite childhood delights: addictively captivating at the time and these days a fascinating indicator of the perceived tastes of Britain’s kids. Most importantly it’s still a surprisingly qualitative read with its blend of American adventure strips playing well with a selection of steadfastly English and wickedly surreal comedy material.

With Scotland’s DC Thomson steadily overtaking their London-based competitors throughout the 1960s, the sheer variety of material the southerners unleashed to compete offered incredible vistas in adventure material and – thanks especially to the defection of Leo Baxendale and Ken Reid to monolithic comics publishing giant Amalgamated Press (created by Alfred Harmsworth at the beginning of the twentieth century) – had finally found a wealth of anarchic comedy material to challenge the likes of the Bash Street Kids, Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx and their unruly ilk.

During that latter end of the period the Batman TV show sent the entire world superhero crazy and Amalgamated had almost finished absorbing all its rivals such as Eagle‘s Hulton Press to form Fleetway/Odhams/IPC.

Formerly the biggest player in children’s comics, Amalgamated had stayed at the forefront of sales by latching onto every fad: keeping their material contemporary, if not fresh. The all-consuming company had been reprinting the early successes of Marvel comics for a few years; feeding on the growing fashion for US style adventure which had largely supplanted the rather tired True Blue Brit style of Dan Dare or DC Thompson’s Wolf of Kabul.

“Power Comics” was a sub-brand used by Odhams to differentiate those periodicals which contained reprinted American superhero material from the company’s regular blend of sports, war, western adventure and gag comics – such as Buster, Lion or Tiger. During the Swinging Sixties these ubiquitous weeklies did much to popularise the budding Marvel characters and universe in this country, which was still poorly served by distribution of the actual American imports. Fantastic and its sister paper Terrific were notable for not reformatting or resizing the original artwork whilst in Wham!, Pow! or Smash!, an entire 24-page yarn could be resized and squeezed into 10 or 11 pages over two weeks…

Pow! launched with a cover date of January 31st 1967, combining home-grown funnies such as Mike Higgs’ The Cloak, Baxendale’s The Dolls of St Dominic’s, Reid’s Dare-a-Day Davy, Wee Willie Haggis: The Spy from Skye and many others, British originated thrillers such as Jack Magic and The Python and resized US strips Spider-Man and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

After 53 weekly issues the title merged with Wham!, that combination running until #86 when it was absorbed into Smash! Nevertheless, the title generated a number of annuals, even though, by 1969 when this annual was released, the trend generated by TV Batmania was dying.

Interest in superheroes and fantasy in general were on the wane and British weeklies were diversifying. Some switched back to war, sports and adventure stories whilst with comedy strips on the rise again, others became largely humour outlets.

This was one of the last Odhams Christmas compendia to feature imported Marvel material: from then on the Americans would handle their own Seasonal books rather than franchise out their classics to mingle with the Empire’s motley, anarchic rabble.

The content is eclectic and amazingly broad, beginning with a complete but compacted retelling of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #5 by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby from January 1964.

The full-colour WWII tale found the doughty warrior ‘At the Mercy of Baron Strucker’; beaten and humiliated in a duel with an Aryan nobleman. Soon filmed footage was used as a Nazi propaganda tool and Fury hero was a broken man – until one of his men realised the nonplussed noncom had fallen for the oldest trick in Hollywood’s playbook. The riotous rematch went rather better…

This was followed by a welter of gag strips beginning with an outing for Graham Allen’s The Nervs (revolting creatures that lived inside and piloted unlovely schoolboy Fatty) after which The Swots and the Blots (probably drawn by Mike Lacey) ushered in the economical 2-colour section with another Darwinian example of schoolboy Good vs. Evil and an unnamed substitute for Mike Higgs rendered the comedy caper The Cloak vs. Cloakwoman…

Next up is a short Marvel sci fi thriller as ‘Escape into Space!’ (from Tales of Suspense #42 June 1963 by Lee, Larry Lieber & Matt Fox) sees a convict escape to freedom into the void – or does he…? – before Wee Willie Haggis – the Spy from Skye scotches a plot to nobble Scotland’s prime (in)edible export and Percy’s Pets finds the obsessed animal enthusiast in deep water after getting hold of a hyena and crocodile…

Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #5 provides a factual page devoted to ‘Weapons of War: Light Machine Guns of World War II’ to restart the full colour fun, which continues with another Swots and the Blots romp ‘n’ riot after which idiot espionage continues with The Cloak vs. Blubberman…

Back then to red-&-black for the not-resized Amazing Spider-Man #36 (May 1966, by Lee and Steve Ditko) as the Wallcrawler faces deranged super strong thief the Looter in ‘When Falls the Meteor!’

The magnificently strange comic villain Grimly Feendish then fails in another bid to get rich nefariously before tiny terror Sammy Shrink restarts a final segment of full-colour wonders with more boyish pranks, after which the reformatted ‘Death of a Hero’ (Fantastic Four #32, November 1964, by Lee, Kirby & Chic Stone) uncovers the secret of Sue and Johnny Storm‘s father: a convict who gains incredible power as the rampaging Invincible Man…

This is a strange and beloved book for me and these are all great little adventures, even though I suspect it’s more nostalgia for a brilliant childhood rather than any intrinsic merit. Feel perfectly free to track this down and contradict me if you like though…
© 1969 The Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited.