Author: NowReadThis

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Hulk: Skaar, Son of Hulk


By Greg Pak, Ron Garney, Jackson Guice & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851- (hb)   978-0-7851-2714-7 (tpb)

Once upon a time, Bruce Banner was a military scientist accidentally caught in a gamma bomb blast of his own devising. As a result, stress or other factors caused him to regularly transform into a gigantic green monster of unstoppable strength and fury. As both occasional hero and mindless monster he has rampaged across the Marvel Universe for decades, becoming one of Marvel’s most popular comicbook features and multi-media titans.

As such, he has often undergone radical changes in scope and format to keep his stories fresh and his exploits explosively compelling…

In recent years the number of Gamma-mutated monsters rampaging across the Marvel landscape has proliferated to inconceivable proportions. The days of Banner getting angry and going Green at the drop of a hat are long gone, so anybody taking their cues from the TV or movie incarnations will be wise to assume a level of unavoidable confusion. There are now numerous assorted Hulks, She-Hulks, Abominations and all kinds of ancillary atomic berserkers roaming the planet, so be prepared to experience a little confusion if you’re coming to this particular character cold. Nevertheless these always epic stories are generally worth the effort so persist if you can.

During the more than year-long ‘Planet Hulk’ storyline of 2006-2007, the Jade Juggernaut was exiled in space and crashed on the distant, brutally primitive world Sakarr, where he was enslaved as a gladiator before rising to briefly become messiah-king of the entire place by defeating the terrifying Red King.

He married an incredibly powerful once-enemy with ancient, ancestral tectonic gifts dubbed Caiera the Oldstrong, unknowingly spawned a son, and lost his new wife when the ship that brought him to Sakaar exploded…

Bereft and enraged he returned to Earth, oblivious of what he had left behind…

This collection gathers the first six issues of the spin-off series Skaar, Son of Hulk, the one -shot Savage World of Sakaar and a short piece from the anthology Hulk Family: Green Genes covering August 2008 – February 2009, written in its entirety by film director and screenwriter Greg Pak. Each issue of Son of Hulk was divided into a main feature illustrated by Ron Garney and/or Jackson “Butch” Guice and an ancillary back-up ‘Shadow Tales’ with Guice supplying all the drawing, and everything was lavishly coloured by Paul Mounts.

The blockbusting barbarian action begins with a quick and ominous recap before the gestating egg of the interplanetary lovers, left to quicken in a lake of fire when the shuttle exploded, gives violent birth to a monstrous green child that easily defeats the myriad horrors and beasts of the burning swamps. Already fast, tough and durable, the bestial boy screams its name and can apparently hear the voice of his deceased Oldstrong mother as he battles his way out of his ‘Cradle of Fire’…

Within a month, the rapidly maturing waif he has saved a group of survivors from the Red King’s successor, Axeman Bone, who has ordered his armies to kill every newborn they can find, acting on prophecies offered by the enigmatic shadow-priests he has enslaved…

A year later the Son of Hulk is finally assassinated by the dragon-riding Bone and a messianic movement begun by the re-enslaved masses falters. But if Skaar is dead then who or what is the approximately teen-aged, mute, green-skinned youth who attacks the bloody tyrant’s camp..?

Elderly ex-slave Old Sam claims that it’s only a beast from the swamps, but he’s been secretly educating the creature for his own ends. When Skaar crushes Bone and his cohort of war-reptiles, the dictator’s imperial rival Princess Omaka senses a potential threat – or ally – in ‘Blood of the Dragon’…

‘Shadow Tales part 1’ takes a sidebar look at Bones’ defeat from the tyrant’s camp and through the eyes of slaves who have survived three different rulers in short succession, but although long gone, the Hulk’s unique legacy remains. As the Green King he freed the different peoples of Sakaar and his blood even reinvigorated new plant growth in arid deserts. Of course those fresh and sustaining vines now consume anybody who comes near them…

‘The Princess and the Beast’ finds Omaka and Old Sam discussing their plans for the brutish boy before Bone attacks again and the Princess decides to kill the emerald distraction. However as the armies and deadly cybernetic wildebots close in, Skaar reveals his greatest secret: he is both smart and able to talk, as he proves when routing Bones’ forces with strength of arm and savage strategy…

The sorely wounded Axeman takes centre stage in ‘Shadow Tales part 2’ remembering when he was merely chief general in the armies of the ruthless potentates Omaka and the Red King, after which Savage World of Sakaar provides a selection of short tales fleshing out the ferocious history and culture of Planet Hulk.

With art from Carlo Pagulayan, Timothy Truman, Timothy Green II, Gabriel Hardman & Jason Paz, campfire stories told by the wandering rebels reveal the birth and childhood of Axeman Bone, Omaka’s defeat by Skaar’s mother Caiera whilst they both served the Red King, and how the still-infant Son of Hulk befriended the giant swamp-bugs and won his characteristic battle tattoos, before closing with a Moses-like miracle as the Green Teen leads the salvation-hungry hordes who follow him through the deadly garden grown from his father’s spilled blood…

And at every turn Skaar tells them he is not their messiah, he just wants the Old Power…

Skaar, Son of Hulk #4 finds the Boy Behemoth still following Old Sam’s guidance and millennial footsteps as he retraces ‘The Prophet’s Walk’, overcoming elemental weather and appalling monsters – with his unwelcome followers more than ever convinced that he is the Second Coming – before confronting one of Bones’ Shadow Priest slaves, as steeped in the ancient Oldstrong power as his mother Caiera had been; a phenomenon expanded upon in ‘Shadow Tales part 3’…

‘Fall of the Prophet’ sees the Green Pretender on the edge of defeat against Oldstrong Hiro-Amin – even despite the unwanted aid of Omaka – until Old Sam reveals the astonishing true history and nature of the world-shaking genetic gifts Skaar has inherited, and ghostly advice from Caiera enables her embattled son to defeat the Axeman’s unbeatable, fanatical living weapon…

‘Shadow Tales part 4’ focuses on the broken Hiro-Amin as he reveals the story behind the boy passed off as Skaar and long-ago executed by Bones. His audience is a child-slave named Hiro-Kala – a boy with an unsuspected connection to both Skaar and the Incredible Hulk…

This saga rushes to a cataclysmic cliffhanger in ‘Heroes and Monsters’ as Skaar marches to a final confrontation with Axeman Bone whilst the planet reels from the devastating disturbances caused by his battle with the Oldstrong slave. With the Jade Juvenile’s followers unable to decide if he is saviour Sakaarson or ultimate destroyer Worldbreaker, Old Sam finally discloses the origins of all that savage world’s myths and legends just as a revitalised Red King and Skaar meet face to face…

With the Old Power in his grasp Skaar then turns to see herald of planetary disaster, the Silver Surfer, waiting to confront him…

The comicbook carnage concludes with a glimpse of Skaar’s early days with Old Sam in ‘School for Savages’ (from Hulk Family: Green Genes and illustrated by Jheremy Raapack & Greg Adams),wherein the untutored wild-child displays the first hints of his destiny by routing a barbarian cannibal horde and finally mastering the wearing of pants all in one day…

This collection also includes a cover and variant gallery by Garney, Carlo Pagulayan, Julie Bell, David Yardin & Francis Tsai, plus character designs and cover sketches and pencils by Pagulayan and Garney.

Although painfully short on plot, depending too much on a working familiarity with what’s come before and insufferably ending on a trenchant cliffhanger which means you’d be well advised to have the sequel at hand before you start, there’s still a lot to recommend this blistering, all-action rollercoaster if you’re a fan of magnificent mindless graphic mayhem – and what follower of the Hulk isn’t?
© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Bram Stoker’s Dracula


By Bram Stoker & Fernando Fernández (Catalan Communications/Del Rey Books)
DLB: 18118-1984 (Catalan)    ISBN: 978-0-34548-312-6 (Del Rey)

Multi-disciplinary Spanish artist Fernando Fernández began working to help support his family at age 13 whilst still at High School. He graduated in 1956 and immediately began working for British and French comics publishers. In 1958 his family relocated to Argentina and whilst there he added strips for El Gorrión, Tótem and Puño Fuerte to his ongoing European and British assignments for Valentina, Roxy and Marilyn.

In 1959 he returned to Spain and began a long association with Fleetway Publications in London, producing mostly war and girls’ romance stories.

During the mid-1960’s he began to experiment with painting and began selling book covers and illustrations to a number of clients, before again taking up comics work in 1970, creating a variety of strips (many of which found their way into US horror magazine Vampirella), the successful comedy feature ‘Mosca’ for Diario de Barcelona and educational strips for the publishing house Afha.

Becoming increasingly experimental as the decade passed, Fernández produced ‘Cuba, 1898’ and ‘Círculos’ before in 1980 beginning his science fiction spectacular ‘Zora y los Hibernautas’ for the Spanish iteration of fantasy magazine 1984 which was eventually seen in English in Heavy Metal magazine as ‘Zora and the Hibernauts’.

He then adapted this moody, Hammer Films-influenced version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula for the Spanish iteration of Creepy, before (working with Carlos Trillo) moving on to mediaeval fantasy thriller ‘La Leyenda de las Cuatro Sombras’, after which he created ‘Argón, el Salvaje’ and a number of adaptations of Isaac Asimov tales in ‘Firmado por: Isaac Asimov’ and ‘Lucky Starr – Los Océanos de Venus’.

His last comics work was ‘Zodíaco’ begun in 1989, but his increasing heart problems soon curtailed the series and he returned to painting and illustration. He passed away in August 2010, aged 70.

For his interpretation of the gothic masterpiece under review here, Fernández sidelined the expansive, experimental layouts and lavish page design that worked so effectively in Zora and the Hibernauts for a moodily classical and oppressively claustrophobic, traditional page construction, trusting to his staggering mastery of colour and form to carry his luxuriously mesmeric message of mystery, seduction and terror.

The story is undoubtedly a familiar one and the set pieces are all executed with astounding skill and confident aplomb as in May 1897 English lawyer Jonathan Harker was lured to the wilds of Transylvania and horror beyond imagining as an ancient bloodsucking horror prepared to move to the pulsing heart of the modern world.

Leaving Harker to the tender mercies of his vampiric harem, Dracula travelled by schooner to England, slaughtering every seaman aboard the S.S. Demeter and unleashing a reign of terror on the sedate and complacent British countryside…

Meanwhile, in the seat of Empire, Harker’s fiancée Mina Murray found her flighty friend Lucy Westenra fading from troublesome dreams and an uncanny lethargy which none of her determined suitors, Dr. Jack Seward, Texan Quincy P. Morris and Arthur Holmwood, the future Lord Godalming, seemed capable of dispelling…

As Harker strove to survive lost in the Carpathians, in Britain, Seward’s deranged but impotent patient Renfield began to claim horrifying visions and became greatly agitated…

Dracula, although only freshly arrived in England, was already causing chaos and disaster, as well as constantly returning to the rapidly declining Lucy. His bestial bloodletting prompted her three beaux to summon famed Dutch physician Abraham Van Helsing to save her life and cure her increasing mania.

Harker survived his Transylvanian ordeal, and when nuns summoned Mina she rushed to Romania where she married him in a hasty ceremony to save his health and wits….

In London, Dracula renewed his assaults and Lucy died, only to be reborn as a predatory child-killing monster. After dispatching her to eternal rest, Van Helsing, Holmwood, Seward and Morris, joined by the recently returned and much altered Harker and his new bride, determined to hunt down and destroy the ancient evil in their midst after a chance encounter in a London street between the newlyweds and the astoundingly rejuvenated Count…

Dracula however, had incredible forces and centuries of experience on his side and tainted Mina with his blood-drinking curse, before fleeing back to his ancestral lands. Frantically the mortal champions gave chase, battling the elements, Dracula’s enslaved gypsy army and the monster’s horrific eldritch power in a race against time lest Mina finally succumb forever to his unholy influence…

Although the translation to English in the Catalan version is a little slapdash in places – a fact happily addressed in the 2005 re-release from Del Rey – the original does have the subtly enhanced benefit of richer colours, sturdier paper stock and a slightly larger page size (285 x 219mm as opposed to 274 x 211mm) which somehow makes the 1984 edition feel more substantial.

This breathtaking oft-retold yarn delivers fast paced, action-packed, staggeringly beautiful and astoundingly exciting thrills and chills in a most beguiling manner. Being Spanish, however, there’s perhaps the slightest hint of brooding machismo, if not subverted sexism, on display and – of course – there’s plenty of heaving, gauze-filtered female nudity which might challenge modern sensibilities, but what predominates in this Dracula is an overwhelming impression of unstoppable evil and impending doom.

There’s no sympathy for the devil here – this is a monster from Hell that all good men must oppose to their last breath and final drop of blood and sweat…

With an emphatic introduction (‘Dracula Lives!’) from noted comics historian Maurice Horn, this is a sublime treatment by a master craftsman that all dark-fearing, red- blooded fans will want to track down and savour.
© 1984, 2005 Fernando Fernández. All rights reserved.

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Batman and the Outsiders: The Chrysalis


By Chuck Dixon, Julian Lopez, Carlos Rodriguez & Bit (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-070-3

Following the forcible dissolution of Nightwing’s covert and pre-emptive strike force, Batman once again took over the leadership of the Outsiders and, after a daunting series of auditions, settled on a core squad comprising the Martian Manhunter, Metamorpho, Grace, Katana and Catwoman, with standby options on a number of others and rejecting mass-moving powerhouse Thunder mooching about on probation…

This first slim tome collects issues #1-5 of the second run of Batman and the Outsiders, and is the initial book of a triptych of volumes (the last still forthcoming) covering an epic struggle against a terrifying extraterrestrial plot which threatened to engulf the Earth; eventually growing to involve a goodly portion of the planet’s metahuman protectors…

Written throughout by Chuck Dixon and inked by Bit, the breakneck action erupts in ‘The Chrysalis’, illustrated by Julian Lopez, wherein master strategist Batman dispatches Katana, Metamorpho and Catwoman to infiltrate the skyscraper HQ of mystery Eurotrash money-man Mister Jardine, whose corporate conglomerate has been making some very peculiar purchases – items dubious enough to set alarms roaring in the Bat-computer…

With the Martian Manhunter inserted as a psionic Trojan Horse inside the building, the infiltrators discover the enigmatic billionaire has not only illegally stockpiled radioactive and fissionable materials but also unearthed a deadly anti-metahuman weapon of the sort which nearly overran the world during the Infinite Crisis…

The Observational Metahuman Activity Construct – or Omac – is a nanotech-purposed cyborg designed to overcome any super-powered foe, and in ‘Infestation’ (pencilled by Carlos Rodriguez) the freshly repurposed death-machine goes after the Outsiders whilst the Manhunter plunders Jardine’s data.

With the situation rapidly going south, Thunder defies Batman and rushes to the rescue, proving his assertion that she is not professional enough for the team. Already en route, rowdy Amazon Grace Choi is preparing an escape route for the sorely pressed team when, in a desperate move, the Element Man channels all the citadel’s power through his own unique body and immobilises the Omac…

‘Throwdown’ (with Lopez returning to the pencil art) sees the terrified and self-preserving Catwoman quit and replaced by Cassandra Cain, the reformed assassin who was briefly the third Batgirl, as Batman and the Outsiders defy the Justice League by refusing to destroy the captured nano-nemesis.

When it suddenly reactivates itself, both teams are simultaneously attacked and only a tremendous joint effort subdues it once more.

In the aftermath, JLA-er Geo-Force quits and rejoins his old Outsider allies, unaware that the Dark Knight has manipulated his former comrades, allowing his science squad Francine Langstrom and Salah Miandad time to reprogram the death machine as another member of the covert team…

In ‘Mission: Creep’ a pair of mysterious strangers also enlist, as does radical wild card Green Arrow, before the Outsiders invade French Guiana to stop a commercial space launch. Langstrom’s investigations have revealed that the sinister Jardine has been using Omac technology to create new biological species designed to live off-Earth…

Whilst the billionaire moves to take over the site, eliminating the launch personnel and loading two ships with his mysterious payloads, in the surrounding rainforest wildly differing perspectives and methodology have set the Outsiders at each others’ throats…

Meanwhile in Gotham, Salah has finally erased the captured cyborg’s protocols and dubbed the reformed member Remac, blissfully unaware that the giant automaton still has a measure of its old sinister sentience…

And in the jungle, Batman and his squad close in on the launch-pad determined to stop whatever Jardine wants rocketed into space, blithely oblivious to the cadre of metahuman mercenaries waiting to ambush them…

This first cliffhanging chronicle concludes with ‘Ghosts’ as Batman’s ethereal emissaries Ralph and Sue Dibny (dead but still battling evil as Ghost Detectives) scuttle the trap, allowing Metamorpho, Katana, Green Arrow and Batgirl to overcome murderous assassins Gunhawk, Militia, Bunny and Camorouge, whilst even Jardine’s personal Omac bodyguard is unable to withstand the gravity-warping power of Geo-Force.

Nevertheless, the mission is not a success as one of the ships manages to launch, carrying with it into appalling unknown dangers the valiant but vastly over-matched Metamorpho…

To Be Continued…

Fast and furious, beautifully illustrated and totally mesmerising, this spectacular romp is a fabulous Fights ‘n ‘Tights thriller to delight fans of the genre and art-lovers will also adore the gallery of covers and variants by Doug Braithwaite, Ryan Sook, Eric Battle & Art Thibert.

Straightforward action adventure at its very best…
© 2007, 2008, DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Star Trek the Manga volume 1: Shinsei Shinsei (“New Lives/New Stars”)


By Chris Dows, Joshua Ortega, Jim Alexander, Mike W. Barr, Rob Tokar, Makoto Nakatsuka, Gregory Giovanni Johnson, Michael Shelfer, Jeong Mo Yang & EJ Su (Tokyopop)
ISBN: 978-1-59816-744-3

Whilst the stellar Star Trek brand and franchise might not have actually reached any new worlds yet, it certainly has permeated every civilisation here on Earth, with daily live-action and animated screen appearances appearing somewhere on the planet almost every hour and comics iterations generated in a host of countries long lying fallow and unseen.

If only somebody could sort out the legal and logistical hassles so we could see again the stunning UK strips which appeared in Joe 90, TV21, TV Comic and Valiant from such fabulous creators as Angus Allan, Harry Lindfield, Mike Noble, Alan Willow, Ron Turner, Jim Baikie, Harold Johns, Carlos Pino, Vicente Alcázar, John Stokes and others, I could die a happy boy…

In 2006, to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the phenomenon, and capitalising on the global boom in Japanese styled comics, Tokyopop began releasing a series of all new manga adventures starring the indomitable crew of the Starship Enterprise as they boldly went all over the universe, courtesy of a serried band of international comics creators…

This initial monochrome masterpiece kicks off with ‘Side Effects’ by Chris Dows & Makoto Nakatsuka, and finds Captain Kirk, Science Officer Spock, Dr. McCoy and Ensign Pavel Chekov investigating a derelict ship which houses unsuspected horrors. Aboard the aged vessel are bodies from many species, displaying the hideous evidence of ruthless biological and mechanical augmentation…

When they release an exotic woman who appears to be the only survivor, she attacks them and infects Chekov with a virulent mutagenic virus whilst the other “corpses” revive and converge on them…

Although they beam back to the relative safety of the Enterprise, when a colossal vessel emerges from a wormhole, the derelict and Federation ship are swiftly snagged in a tractor beam and pulled into the time-dilation field of a Black Hole, seemingly harnessed to a ramshackle space-station.

Lost in space and time, Kirk beams a party over to the satellite in search of a cure for the disease ravaging Chekov, only to find the same unstoppable woman devastating the equally-infected remnants of an ancient civilisation who have sheltered aboard the station for centuries. Chief scientist Mynzek has been seeking a cure for untold ages, experimenting on volunteers and captives alike, but with success in his grasp at last, his latest subject has returned with vengeance in mind and her own all-assimilating agenda…

With resistance futile and the station rapidly self-destructing, Spock manages to secure a blood-sample to save Chekov, and the Enterprise quickly hurtles back through the wormhole and to the 23rd century, utterly unaware of the universal threat that will grow over the millennia from the last gasp of a desperate, dying civilisation and its first cyborg queen…

‘Anything But Alone’, by Joshua Ortega & Gregory Giovanni Johnson, sees the Enterprise orbiting an unknown world in response to a mysterious signal. Beaming down, Kirk, Spock and McCoy discover the thriving survivors of a long dead civilisation, maintained by miraculous nano-machines which can construct anything the people could possibly need. However the gracious, welcoming, childless citizens of Ximega II are concealing a tragic secret which only head scientist Prekraft seems willing to reveal. Moreover, he seems to going crazy with loneliness…

”Til Death’ (Mike W. Barr & Jeong Mo Yang) opens with Captain Kirk performing one of his more pleasant duties by officiating at the wedding of crewmembers Becky Randall and Tom Markham whilst the Enterprise scans a long-dead planet. However when dormant automated systems begin firing on the ship from separate locations, the survey mission switches to investigation mode and two landing parties beam down to find the shattered remnants of a civilisation which clearly self-destructed.

Retrieving twin sarcophagi which have somehow survived the holocaust, the explorers return to the Federation vessel, but soon inexplicable events begin to disrupt the ordered running of the ship and discipline of the crew…

The elaborate electronic coffins had each contained a withered husk and, momentarily forgotten as friends and lovers increasingly turn on each other, power is leeched from ship’s systems to rejuvenate the interred aliens. Soon the telepathic tyrants Faron and Nadira are fully restored and ready to finally end the hate-fuelled gender-war which pitted male against female and eradicated all life on their world. How lucky that there are so many men and women on the ship to act as their drones. But how unfortunate that one is a coldly dispassionate telepathic half-breed whose best friend is the most stubborn man in the galaxy…

A diplomatic mission to end an interplanetary conflict sees the Enterprise acting as a cargo courier, shuttling peace-making gifts between warring worlds. But whilst the entrancing emotion-reactive screen entitled The Weave by its Xoxxan craftsmen delights and beguiles all who regard it, the cutely appealing sacred animal ‘Oban’ genetically  recreated by the Xanvians conceals a monstrous and deadly secret which only becomes apparent when an unfortunate accident releases a mind-boggling, indestructible horror on the ship…

Faced with the prospect of renewed war, Kirk and Spock must determine if a maverick dissident, a duplicitous government or an impossible freak occurrence has endangered the tenuous peace process in a compelling political thriller by Jim Alexander & Michael Shelfer.

The manga action ends in classic style with ‘Orphans’, by Rob Tokar & E.J. Su, as the Enterprise performs escort duty for a peaceful space-faring race plagued by piracy. However the Lowarians and James T. Kirk have sadly underestimated the determination of the Haarkos, whose one-man raider-craft were shaped like humanoid robot-knights – complete with gigantic, lethal swords and shields…

When the battle-crazed mecha attack the starship, the lead pilot loses her life and another is captured before the Enterprise’s superior firepower drives off the rest of the pack, leaving Kirk with the impossible task of trying to reason with a merciless, ten-year old boy-soldier trained to kill from infancy.

If Kirk cannot find a way to reason with the honour-obsessed, battle-hardened warrior Xill he may have no choice but to exterminate all of these brutal, suicidal children who are as much victims as the race they now prey upon…

This particular edition (there are three counting a Diamond Distributor Exclusive and a Convention Special Exclusive) also includes the moving short-story ‘First, Do No Harm’ (by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dillmore from the prose Star Trek anthology Constellations) which details an unpleasant and unwelcome mission to extract rogue doctor Revati Jendra from the closed, primitive world of Grennai.

The fugitive medic’s actions contravene the Prime Directive and daily endanger the social development of the entire planet, even though she perfectly blends in with the natives and saves lives in a manner no patient would ever suspect as being beyond planetary norms…

However, as her close friend of twenty years, Leonard McCoy knows that there must be a damned good reason for her actions, whilst Kirk and Spock are more concerned by Starfleet’s suspicious wall of “classified” and “top security” roadblocks surrounding every aspect of her first expedition to Grennai decades ago…

Full of the verve, sparkle and wide-eyed enthusiasm of the original TV show, these continuing adventures are a real treat, and even if the manga visuals are a bit of a shock at first, you’ll soon adapt and surely settle in for another splendid ride on the timeless rollercoaster ride that is Star Trek…
™, ® & © 2006 CBS Studios Inc. All rights reserved.

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Silver Surfer: In Thy Name


By Simon Spurrier & Tan Eng Huat (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2749-9

Although pretty much a last minute addition to Fantastic Four #48-50’s ‘Galactus Trilogy’, Jack Kirby’s scintillating creation the Silver Surfer quickly became a watchword for depth and subtext in the Swinging 1960s Marvel Universe, and one character Stan Lee kept as his own personal toy for many years.

Tasked with finding planets for space-god Galactus to consume, one day the Silver Surfer discovered Earth, where the latent nobility of humanity reawakened his own suppressed morality; causing the shining scout to rebel against his master and help the FF save the world.

In retaliation, Galactus imprisoned his one-time herald on Earth, making him the ultimate outsider on a planet remarkably ungrateful for his sacrifice. In 1968, after increasingly frequent guest-shots and even a solo adventure in the back of Fantastic Four Annual #5, the Surfer finally got his own (initially double-sized) title at long last.

The last questing, vital soul of a soft and decadent civilisation, Norrin Radd allowed himself to be transformed into gleaming herald in a Faustian bargain with Galactus to save his home-world Zenn-La from the planet-devouring cosmic entity. His eventual emancipation never gave him the opportunity to permanently return to his place of birth, nor settle down with his lost love Shalla Bal, whom he had forsaken for a life of service to the Great Destroyer.

The Silver Surfer was always a pristine and iconic character when handled well – and sparingly – yet once he gained and sustained a regular comic book presence in the 1980s he became somewhat diminished; less… special.

After a strong start his adventures became formulaic and even dull. In reworking the character for the modern market, a huge amount of the mystique that made the critically beloved but commercially disastrous Christ allegory from the Stars a cause celebre was lost.

In recent times the Space-bound Scout has been used more sparingly and with greater innovation as in this fanciful fable from scripter Simon Spurrier, artist Tan Eng Huat and colourist Jose Villarrubia, originally released as a four-part miniseries in 2007.

Adrift and aimless, the Silver Surfer glides through the trackless void, pondering the nature of life and how vastly varied but fundamentally similar it seems throughout creation, when he is suddenly attacked by organ-pirates determined to reduce him to saleable spare parts…

When a colossal starship drives off the grisly bandits the sky-rider meets the sublimely civilised Explorocrat Ruqtar Koil, urbane envoy-at-large and dutiful Minister Plenipotentiary of the star-spanning Ama Collective.

Norrin is extremely impressed with the grandiose, genteel and winningly cultured fellow voyager and the vast peacefully utopian alliance of scholars and explorers he represents, as epitomised by their holy credo the Binarc – “to improve ourselves, and seek others who wish the same”…

However, after accepting an invitation to visit Ama-Prime, the Surfer experiences a few nagging doubts after meeting the autocratic and far too unctuous Empress, but is easily assuaged by the calm serenity of her manifested paradise world.

Some time later his peaceful reveries are interrupted when Koil begs a small favour…

Brekknis is a poor and primitive “ripening world” whose unhappy natives are currently under threat from a ravening demon apparently made from old ghosts. Dispatched to assist the lowly aborigines, the Explorocrat felt the Surfer’s power might be beneficial, but when the Silver Sentinel sees how the Ama envoy treats the poverty-stricken people his suspicions return.

Brekk leader Accordite Tol-Wes paints a very different picture of the Collective: one of haughty disdain, galling paternalism and enforced cultural solidarity. To ensure right and rational thinking, the Ama long ago closed all the Brekk churches and temples…

When the demon manifests it is revealed as a monstrous monolith of rage comprised of broken war-machines and slaughtered soldier’s spirits screaming “vengeance for genocide”…

After the Surfer’s incredible Cosmic Power dispatches the creature, a strange thing happens: the stunned and grateful primitives fall to their knees and declare Norrin to be their promised messiah the Lightlord…

When the Empress visits her troubled and uncivilised Brekknian children, her offhand manner and an assassination attempt – quickly thwarted by the Surfer – inexorably ramps up festering tensions and the Star-born Scout clandestinely confers with Tol-Wes for the other side of the story.

Long ago the Brekk were a militant and warlike people who found a measure of peace in a new religion which united their world. However when they tried to take their gospel to other worlds, they quickly encountered the atheistic Ama Collective who took them into their star-girdling fold and made them quit their extreme and foolishly fanatical ideas of Faith and higher powers…

Now with the Lightlord’s long promised return, the Brekk will rise and throw off the yoke of the impious invaders…

Refusing the ridiculous role of messiah, Norrin attempts to defuse the escalating situation, but is attacked again by organ pirates and succumbs to a force even greater than his own…

Koil and the pirates are working together and the Sky-Rider is simply an expendable piece in a vast Machiavellian game. Crucified on Brekknis, the Surfer realises that the Ama want a final war with the Brekk, but he has tragically underestimated the fanatical missionary zeal of the equally blood-hungry, faith-fuelled fundamentalists…

Refusing to be a figurehead for the forthcoming madness, Norrin flies away but discovers a horrific secret: the Ama are holding hostage the offspring of a sublime trans-dimensional being, forcing its “mother” to reshape events in ways that will make the outcome of desired conflict a brutal certainty…

Confronted at last by a truly innocent victim in this sorry affair, the Surfer tries once more to broker a ceasefire but, with both rationalist autocrats and religious maniacs determined to exterminate each other, is at last forced to combat the bloodshed with his own brand of overwhelming firepower and desperate duplicity…

Sadly, some things, such as prejudice, hatred and fanaticism are beyond physical force or reasoned argument…

This is a sharp, cynical political allegory of colonial expansionism and callous manipulation delivered with classic British wit, dry understatement and heartfelt, bitter resignation, cloaked in the gleaming armour of a spectacular cosmic action-clash, courtesy of the splendidly imaginative art and colours.

This slim but beguiling tome also includes a cover gallery by Michael Turner & Peter Steigerwald and a sketch section featuring Tan Eng Huat’s remarkable concept designs for the many and varied aliens populating the tale.
© 2007, 2008 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Dark Hunger


By Christine Feehan, adapted by Dana Kurtin, illustrated by Zid & Imaginary Friends Studios (Berkley)
ISBN: 978-0-42521-783-2

Hard though it might be for us to imagine, there are people who go months at a time – even longer in rare cases – without reading a comicbook or graphic novel. Unbelievably these sad unfortunates derive their regular fun-fixes from other forms of entertainment such as TV, movies or even prose stories, so it’s just as well that every so often a brave creator from that side of the tracks makes moves to cross-pollinate by turning their favoured medium of creative expression into something we panel-pushers are more at home with.

Christine Feehan is an extraordinarily prolific and successful author of romantic fantasies and paranormal thrillers. Since 1999 she has produced a wealth of novels, novellas and short-stories, many of them for five distinct series which – like the book under review here – often interact with each other.

Her “Carpathian” novels deal with a savage but noble subspecies of vampire who eschew killing their human “blood donors” and hunt their murderously traditional cousins, determined to eradicate the monstrous horrors to extinction.

Amongst their many gifts are virtual immortality, shape-shifting, telepathy, flight, fantastic strength and speed and the power to manipulate lightning, but like all their kind they cannot abide sunlight…

Carpathians are an endangered species with few females, and if a male cannot find a “lifemate” he gradually withers; first losing the ability to see colour and experience emotion. Eventually all he can feel is the thrill of killing and he turns into a full, ravening undead vampire or commits suicide by “greeting the dawn”…

This intriguing manga-style tome from 2007 adapts the 14th Carpathian yarn and originally appeared as a text tale in the anthology Hot Blooded in 2004, describing how dedicated animal rights activist Juliette Sangria meets her ideal man whilst raiding a hidden testing facility deep in the heart of the jungle…

With her younger sister Jasmine, Juliette raids the high-security Morrison Laboratory intent on releasing the many endangered big cats held there, but the pair have no idea what other horrors the lab perpetrates until Juliette discovers a beautiful, exotic man chained in a cell…

Riordan De La Cruz has been a long-suffering prisoner of vampire and human scientists who run the lab, poisoned, tortured and humiliated until he considered ending his own immortal life. However, when the woman touches him he feels a burst of power and emotion. Viewing colours for the first time in ages, the Carpathian realises that somehow he has found his one and only: his lifemate…

In a fit of passion, he bites her and, refuelled by her blood, destroys the facility…

With Jasmine apparently still inside…

Flown to safety in his arms, Juliette’s heart and mind are reeling with the intensity of the inexplicable passion she feels for this sublime stranger, but as the night passes and Riordan explains his history, nature and powers she realises his absurd assessment is true; they are bonded for ever…

With the vampires in hot pursuit the couple flee and, of necessity, Riordan feeds on her again, before, to restore his beloved, sharing his own invigorating blood with her. However Juliette has a fantastic secret of her own and when Riordan burrows into the Earth at dawn she reverts to her animal form to search for her lost sister.

Juliette is a Were-Jaguar and her people do not marry. Their males are cruel brutes who beat and force themselves upon were-females they capture. Propagation is usually by rape and with Jasmine and her cousin Solange unaccounted for, Juliette is terribly worried. Whilst the physically comatose Riordan speaks to her telepathically, Juliette searches all day and when he comes to her at night they discover a partially destroyed hut where Were-women were recently held…

The trails lead in different directions and male Jaguar tracks are everywhere, but as they ponder how to proceed a Master Vampire attacks and Riordan is severely hurt driving it off. Giving her blood to save him, Juliette is aware that she is changing. Soon she will be unable to walk in daylight too…

As Riordan sleeps Solange appears, recounting that the were-males are holding Jasmine in a distant cave. Unable to tolerate the sun in human form, Juliette becomes a cat for the last time and with her ferocious cousin heads for a showdown…

The frantic Carpathian, psychically bonded to her, desperately urges Juliette to wait for sunset but they cannot and rush the assembled brutes. The alpha male rips Juliette’s throat out, and as she lies dying Riordan appears in a clap of thunder and wielding lightning like a whip…

To save his lifemate, the enraged hunter converts her fully, forcing the Jaguar-essence from her torn body but giving her the mystic arsenal of a full Carpathian. When they next emerge from the nourishing jungle Earth they will hunt together, determined to destroy forever the unholy alliance of humans, Were-men and the Master Vampire…

Despite being squarely aimed at the broadly female and teenaged Supernatural bodice-ripper market, this strange romance has strong thread of action and good steady pace underpinning it, so lads too will get a big charge from the book, whilst hopefully traditional prose readers tempted by the adaptation will be impressed enough by the clean, slick black and white visuals to give other graphic novels a go…
© 2004 Christine Feehan. All rights reserved.

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Batman: Turning Points


By Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker, Chuck Dixon, Steve Lieber, Joe Giella, Dick Giordano & Bob Smith, Brent Anderson, Paul Pope & Claude St. Aubin (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1360-2

Over the many decades of Batman’s existence, almost as important as the partnership between Dark Knight and assorted Boy Wonders has been the bizarrely offbeat yet symbiotic relationship between those caped and costumed vigilantes and Gotham City’s top cop James Gordon.

In this collection, compiling five individual pastiches released as the miniseries Turning Points in 2001, readers saw revealed significant moments in the development of that shadowy alliance produced, as an added bonus for long-term aficionados, in tribute to key eras in Batman’s waxing and waning career by veteran artists and the toast of the new wave creators…

It all begins with ‘Uneasy Allies’ by Greg Rucka & Steve Lieber, set in the days – and style – of the mysterious vigilante’s stormy debut in Frank Miller & Dave Mazzucchelli’s Batman: Year One.

Police Captain Gordon is still the only honest cop in a corrupt and brutally gung-ho force, reeling from the shock of his wife divorcing him. When bereaved, heartsick and crazed college professor Hale Corbett takes a wedding hostage, Gotham’s SWAT team commander is champing at the bit to storm in and rack up the body-count, but wanted felon The Batman offers Gordon a slim hope of ending the siege without loss of life…

All the masked nut-case wants in return is a sympathetic ear at the GCPD…

A working relationship established, ‘…And Then There Were… Three?’ (by Ed Brubaker & Joe Giella – who drew many of the 1960s stories and the Batman newspaper strip) celebrates the era of TV’s “Batmania” as, about a year after their first meeting, reports of a garishly garbed boy assistant to Batman begin to filter in. As deadly psychopath Mr. Freeze rampages through the city, Gordon demands to why the now-tolerated Caped Crusader is recklessly endangering a child…

In a romp filled with such past icons as giant props and gaudy villains, a decidedly deadly outcome makes Gordon realise the true nature of Batman and Robin’s relationship…

‘Casualties of War’ (Brubaker, Dick Giordano & Bob Smith) is set in the bleak aftermath following the death of second Robin Jason Todd, the crippling of Barbara (Batgirl) Gordon and the torture of her father, all at the bone-white hands of The Joker.

A solitary, driven Dark Knight haunts the streets and allies, ceaselessly crushing criminals with brutal callousness, whilst sinister serial killer The Garbage Man prowls unchallenged…

When the wheelchair-bound Barbara fails in an attempted intervention to calm a Batman pushing himself near to breaking-point, it takes a rooftop heart-to-heart with now Commissioner Gordon to finally crack the Gotham Guardian’s shell and begin the healing process…

Years later, as a result of a strategically systematic attack by would-be crime-lord Bane, an exhausted and broken Batman was replaced by another, darker hero. Set during the Knight-Fall publishing event, ‘The Ultimate Betrayal’ (by Chuck Dixon & Brent Anderson) describes the moment Gordon realised that his enigmatic ally had become a remorseless machine and exterminating angel hunting criminals with no regard to life anymore.

If only third Robin Tim Drake could have told him that the man behind the cowl – and claws and razor-armour – was actually Azrael: hereditary and murderously programmed living weapon of an ancient warrior-cult…

The journey comes full circle with ‘Comrades in Arms’ by Rucka, Paul Pope & Claude St. Aubin, wherein a mysterious stranger and his family hit Gotham on a mission to find Gordon and Batman, just as the Commissioner introduces his destined successor Michael Akins to the Major Crimes Unit.

Word on the street is that the Russian mob are planning a huge retaliatory strike and every cop is waiting for the hammer to fall when Hale Corbett walks into Police HQ demanding to see Gordon and the masked manhunter who changed his life all those years ago…

Filtered through gritty modern sensibilities but still able to revere past glories and the Batman’s softer side, this superbly readable collection also includes a cover gallery by artistic all-stars Javier Pulido, Ty Templeton, Joe Kubert, Howard Chaykin, Pope & Tim Sale.
© 2001, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Death of Captain America: The Man who Bought America


By Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, Fabio Laguna, Luke Ross & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2971-4

I’m usually a little at odds and uneasy with today’s all-pervasive, consumer-crazed “Have it First! Have it Now!” philosophy. I generally prefer to see things working well and a bit worn in before I commit myself to an opinion or risk time and/or money on an item.

I also find that this policy pays dividends when looking at comics and graphic novels. Something you love at first sight often palls and pales into insignificance on re-reading, whilst often a little mellowing and maturation offers insights into material that might not have impressed on initial inspection…

A perfect case in point is the unceasing cacophony of collections which poured out of Marvel during their headline-grabbing stunt of having legendary patriotic icon Captain America assassinated as the climax of the publishing event Civil War. Despite being superbly crafted and gripping material, the sheer manic hyperbole of the press machine involved at the time turned many folks off and I quickly turned my attention elsewhere…

The Star Spangled Avenger was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby at the end of 1940 and launched in his own title (Captain America Comics, #1 cover-dated March 1941) with overwhelming success. He was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely (Marvel’s early predecessor) Comics’ “Big Three” – the other two being the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner. He was also the first to fall from popularity at the end of the Golden Age.

When the Korean War and Communist aggression dominated the American psyche in the early 1950s he was briefly revived – with the Torch and Sub-Mariner – in 1953 before sinking once more into obscurity until a resurgent Marvel Comics once more brought him back in Avengers #4.

It was March 1964 and the Vietnam conflict was just beginning to pervade the minds of the American public…

This time he stuck around.

Whilst perpetually agonising over the death of his young sidekick (James Buchanan Barnes AKA Bucky) in the final days of the war, the resurrected Steve Rogers first stole the show in the Avengers, then promptly graduated to his own series and title as well. He waxed and waned through the most turbulent period of social change in US history, but always struggled to find an ideological niche and stable footing in the modern world.

Eventually, whilst another morally suspect war raged in the real world, during the Marvel event known as Civil War he became an anti-government rebel and was ambushed on the steps of a Federal Courthouse.

Naturally, nobody really believed he was dead…

Over the course of three volumes he was replaced by that dead sidekick. Years previously Bucky had been captured by the Soviets and used as their own super-assassin – The Winter Soldier. There’s no truer maxim than “nobody stays dead in comics”, however, and after being rescued from his unwanted spy-role the artificially youthful and part cyborg Barnes reluctantly stepped into his mentor’s boots…

Whilst Bucky was coming to terms with his inheritance; still largely unknown and unwelcome to the general public, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter – pregnant with Steve’s baby and a prisoner of Nazi über-menace the Red Skull – was undergoing a subtle program of brainwashing by perfidious psychologist Dr. Johan Faustus.

Although the mind-bending had succeeded in making her shoot Captain America on the Courthouse steps, the doped and duped operative was slowly clawing her way back to sanity, but received a huge shock after she discovered a comatose Steve alive and in captive in an underground cell…

The Skull – a disembodied malign consciousness trapped in the head of ex-Soviet General Aleksander Lukin – is well on the way to conquering the USA at last and also determined to have a new perfect body of his own again. Closeted with his body-swapping, gene-warping wizard Arnim Zola, a mysterious plan for Sharon’s baby and the body in the basement are coming to fruition…

Marvel’s extended publicity stunt was building to a blockbusting, revelatory close in this third volume (collecting issues #37-42 of Captain America volume 5 from 2008) written by master planner Ed Brubaker with art from Steve Epting, Mike Perkins, Luke Ross, Fabio Laguna, Rick Magyar & Roberto De La Torre, with the promise of a new Captain America in situ at the close…

In a close-fought election year, the sudden rise of independent candidate Senator Gordon Wright and his Third Wing Party takes America by storm. Backed by corporate colossus Kronas and monolithic security division Kane-Myer and very publicly targeted by conservatives, radicals, liberals and nut-jobs alike, Wright seems the perfect and only candidate for the sensible ordinary man-in-the-street…

Whilst S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Tony Stark orders The Falcon to partner up with the still reluctant Bucky and track down Faustus, in Lukin’s lair Sharon has escaped again and gone searching for Steve…

What she finds is the deranged duplicate who briefly played Captain America in the 1950s. After a few short months the reactionary patriot had been forcibly “retired” when the super-soldier serum he’d used soured and turned him into a raving, racist paranoid. The fascistic facsimile had a tenuous grip on reality at best and attacked the real Sentinel of Liberty many times after escaping government custody…

Before she can shoot the horrific travesty of the man she loved, the Skull and Faustus recapture Sharon. Taking careful steps not to harm her, they restrain the dazed agent in the infirmary. Meanwhile Falcon and the new Captain America clash with Zola and agents of Advanced Idea Mechanics, destroying one of the Skull’s hidden facilities. Despite the heroes’ stunning triumph the Skull’s overall progress seems unchecked and unstoppable…

His next move is to release the reconditioned 1950s Cap and convince the public that the replica is their real fallen hero miraculously returned. When the Avenger then endorses Wright on live TV the political outsider suddenly seems a certainty for the White House, but things go awry when the Cap impostor clashes with Barnes and the young replacement defeats the veteran fake.

His nerve and spirit broken, the ersatz Avenger disappears, just as another disaster strikes at the plotters, when the Skull’s deeply disturbed daughter Sin attacks Sharon and causes her to lose the baby she’s carrying…

When AIM agents recapture the counterfeit Cap, Barnes and the Falcon are watching and get an unexpected hand from Faustus, who knows exactly when to leave a sinking ship. After triggering Sharon’s long disabled GPS chip the sinister shrink also makes a few last-minute adjustments to her memory and programming…

The disparate paths converge at a televised Presidential Debate – which now includes Wright – where, the Senator believes, one of his rivals will be assassinated and the Third Wing’s National Security stance will make him a shoo-in for the Oval Office. However the Skull has never played straight in his life and has agendas within schemes inside his plot…

As Falcon and Russian super-spy Black Widow spearhead a devastating rescue raid on the Nazi’s base, the new Captain America saves all the candidates on live TV before spectacularly capturing the assassins. In the midst of yet another Götterdämmerung the Skull and Zola play their final card and attempt to transfer the Machiavellian maniac’s mind out of Lukin’s body, but gravely underestimate the paranoid rage of their fake Cap and Sharon’s sheer determination to stop them at any cost…

In the shattering aftermath, Sharon is recuperating with S.H.I.E.L.D., Wright is disgraced, and Bucky Barnes is publicly acclaimed as the only Captain America, but although defeated the Red Skull is not dead.

Zola, it seems, has saved his master again, but the process has not met with approval and might be seen more as a punishment than salvation by the bitterly frustrated fascist overlord…

With covers and variants from Epting, Jackson Guice and Frank Cho, this concluding tome in The Death of Captain America triptych is a dark, tension-packed action-extravaganza that probably depends a little too much upon a working knowledge of Marvel continuity but, for those willing to eschew subtext or able to ignore seeming incongruities and go with the flow, this sinister conspiracy-thriller epic with guest-shots from Avengers luminaries Nick Fury, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Tony Stark is genuinely enthralling and well worth the effort.

The saga of the new Sentinel of Liberty resumed in Captain America: the Man with No Face and if you’re a full-on fan of the Fights ‘n’ Tights genre you’re assured of a thoroughly grand time there too.
© 2008 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Fantastic Four: The New Fantastic Four


By Dwayne McDuffie, Paul Pelletier, Rick Magyar & Scott Hanna (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2483-2

If you’re new to the first family of comic books, or worse yet returning after a sustained absence, you might have a few problems with this otherwise superb selection of high-concept hi-jinks featuring Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Thing and the Human Torch. However if you’re prepared to ignore a lot of unexplained references to stuff you’ve missed there’s a magically enthralling epic on offer in this terrific tome.

The Fantastic Four were – usually – maverick scientist Reed Richards, his fianceé and later wife Sue Storm, their friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother Johnny, driven survivors of a private space-shot which went horribly wrong when Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

When they crashed back to Earth the quartet found that they had all been hideously mutated into outlandish freaks. Richards’ body became elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible and project force-fields, Johnny could turn into living flame, and tragic Ben was trapped as a shambling, rocky freak. Shaken but unbowed they vowed to dedicate their new abilities to benefiting mankind.

After years of stunning adventures the close-knit fantastic family came to a parting after the Federal Superhuman Registration Act put the team on opposing sides of the costumed heroes’ Civil War, when Reed sided with the Government and his wife and brother-in-law joined the rebels. Ben, appalled at the entire situation, dodged the issue by moving to France…

This volume collects Fantastic Four #544-550 (June-November 2007 and originally running as the story-arc ‘Reconstruction’) and picks up in the aftermath of a group reconciliation, with temperaments still frayed and emotional wounds barely scabbed over…

The witty drama begins with ‘From the Ridiculous to the Sublime’ as, in an attempt to repair their damaged marriage, Reed and Sue take a second honeymoon to the moon of Titan courtesy of the Eternal demi-gods who inhabit the artificial paradise, whilst on Earth, Ben and Johnny are joined by temporary houseguests Black Panther and his wife Ororo, the former X-Man Storm.

The royal couple of Wakanda have only recently been forced to leave their palatial New York embassy after it was bombed…

No sooner have they settled in than old ally Michael Collins – formerly the cyborg Deathlok – comes asking a favour…

When a young hero code-named Gravity sacrificed his life to save Collins and a host of other heroes, his body was laid to rest with full honours. But now, his grave has been desecrated and the remains stolen. When the appalled New Fantastic Four investigate, the trail leads directly into intergalactic space…

After visiting the Moon and eliciting information from pan-galactic voyeur Uatu the Watcher, the quartet travel to the ends of the universe where cosmic entity Epoch is resurrecting Gravity to become the latest “Protector of the Universe”.

Unfortunately she might not finish as the Silver Surfer and Galactus’ new herald Stardust are preparing the sidereal monolith to be the World-Eater’s latest snack…

‘Don’t Make Me Embarrass You in Front of Your Friends’ finds Reed and Sue nearing Titan and beginning their break as, in another corner of the Cosmos, the FF battle the gleaming invaders in a desperate holding action. Whilst the Panther and Collins return to Earth for a Deus ex Machina weapon, ‘Aw, That’s Just Crude’ sees Gravity revived just as Galactus himself shows up, ravenous and ready to eat everything…

As the new universal protector shows his mettle by defeating the planet-devourer, Reed is forced to put the honeymoon on pause when his idle examination of an interstellar probe makes him suspect that the entire solar system might well be in danger…

‘Never Ask Her if she’s Wearing Colored Contact Lenses’ finds Reed back on Earth, with Sue simply sunning herself on Titan. However, whilst Mr. Fantastic’s suspicions are confirmed by fellow heroic super-scientist Hank Pym, The Wizard and a host of super-villains from previously iterations the Frightful Four attack and capture the Invisible Woman, but only after a truly cataclysmic clash…

Already distracted by the revelation that an alien race on the verge of extinction had sent the probe as a warning and that an all-consuming horde of marauders dubbed Contrasepsis was heading earthward, Richards flies off the handle when the Wizard boasts of Sue’s plight via long range radio beam. However when he rushes to return to Titan, Reed’s ship explodes…

Luckily the wily Panther had suspected a trap and ‘Kind of an Expensive Test’ finds the heroes hurtling towards the outer moon and a Battle Royale with the despicable scum who had tortured the Invisible Woman.

Even though the Wizard had a terrifying hidden ally, the devastating duel eventually ends in the good guys favour, but not before Sue displays why she is the scariest member of the FF and not one to ever be pushed around, after which ‘So I Guess You’re Saying the Honeymoon’s Over’ finds the Fantastic Six hurtling into deeper space where the Contrasepsis are massing. What they find is a violent degradation in the fabric of reality and a massing of the Watchers, all gathered to observe the end of everything…

It all comes together in a spectacular anniversary romp wherein the assembled heroes, Gravity, Stardust and the Silver Surfer and master of magic Doctor Strange unite to solve a cosmic mystery and save the conceptual being who is the very personification of life in ‘Should Eternity Perish’…

Also including a cover gallery from fan-favourite Michael Turner and pencilled pages from the penciller, this brilliantly scripted yarn by Dwayne McDuffie, with captivating art from Paul Pelletier, Rick Magyar & Scott Hanna, perfectly blends high-concept action with dazzling wit and razor-sharp comedy moments to create a perfectly wonderful Fights ‘n’ Tights extravaganza no clued-in, space freak comics fan could possibly find fault with.

Fantastic Fun. Get it.
© 2007 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

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The World’s Greatest Middle Age Cartoons


By various, edited by Mark Bryant (Exley)
ISBN: 978-1-85015-508-9

Here’s another little dip into the vast library of cartoon comedy generated by Britain’s greatest natural resource (and still un-privatised so it belongs to us all for the moment): folks what make us laugh…

This selection comprises a nice slice of lesser known but still-pithily opinionated pen-smiths and brush-mongers, all turning a jaded and indeed long-suffering, probably myopic and squinty eye on the inescapable fate that awaits most of us. I’m assuming of course, that nobody here today has yet reached those lofty depths of “Middle Age”…

The cartoons re-presented here have been harvested from the pages of such literary colossi as Punch, The Spectator and Private Eye amongst many national and international sources and deftly display the wry, smug, elegant, frantic, resigned and obnoxious attractions of and reactions to the slow bit between adolescence and senescence which seems to revolve around cake, comfy chairs and utter bewilderment at how bad things have gotten…

In these pages you’ll first discover the heartbreak of exhausted skin, creaking bones and meandering waistlines, the joy of taking up hobbies and pastimes, the faithfulness of pets, gardening, vanity, self-delusion, impatience, futility, embarrassingly roving eyes and wandering hands, the brutal cruelty of fashion, an increasing familiarity with Doctors’ waiting rooms, unsuspected ailments, crisis after crisis, hair where it shouldn’t be and not where you’d like it, that first whiff of approaching death, grandchildren, personal “use-by dates”, how love never dies but increasingly needs a little help and especially how one can go off sarcasm…

As usual this particular book isn’t as much what I’m recommending (although if you can find a copy you won’t regret it) as the type of publication that I’m commemorating. Such life-affirming cartoons by Norman Thelwell, Gerard Hoffnung, Bill Stott, Sally Artz, Les Barton, Helen Cusack, Stidley Easel, Charles Rodriguez, Hector Breeze, Tony Husband, Clive Collins, Michael ffolkes, Donegan, David Haldane, Fleo, Grizelda Grizlingham, Bud Handelsman, Holte, Henry Martin, David Austin, Edward McLachlan, Cluff, David Myers, Ken Pyne, Viv Quillin, Bryan Reading, Heath and Roland Fiddy are sitting idly out of touch when they could be filling your bookshelves and giving your somnolent hearts a damned good, potentially invigorating laugh time and time again…
Selection © 1994 Exley Publications, Ltd. The copyright of each cartoon remains with each cartoonist or copyright holder.