Author: NowReadThis

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Showcase Presents the Haunted Tank volume 2


By Robert Kanigher, Russ Heath, Irv Novick, Joe Kubert, Sam Glanzman & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0789-8

Robert Kanigher (1915-2002) was one of the most distinctive authorial voices in American comics, blending rugged realism with fantastic fantasy in his signature war comics, as well as in horror stories, westerns and superhero titles such as Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, Hawkman, Metal Men, Batman plus other genres too numerous to cover here.

Kanigher sold his first stories and poetry in 1932, wrote for the theatre, film and radio, and joined the Fox Features shop where he created The Bouncer, Steel Sterling and The Web, whilst providing scripts for Blue Beetle and the original Captain Marvel.

In 1945 he settled at All-American Comics as both writer and editor, staying on when the company amalgamated with National Comics to become the forerunner of today’s DC. He wrote Flash and Hawkman, created Black Canary and Lady Cop, and many memorable villainesses such as Harlequin and Rose and the Thorn. This last temptress he redesigned during the relevancy era of the early 1970s into a schizophrenic crime-busting super-heroine who haunted the back of Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, which Kanigher also scripted.

When mystery-men faded out at the end of the 1940s, Kanigher moved into westerns and war stories, becoming in 1952 writer/editor of the company’s combat titles: All-American War Stories, Star Spangled War Stories and Our Army at War. He created Our Fighting Forces in 1954 and added G.I. Combat to his burgeoning portfolio when Quality Comics sold their line of titles to DC in 1956, all the while working on Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, Rex the Wonder Dog, Silent Knight, Sea Devils, Viking Prince and a host of others.

In 1956 he scripted ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ – the first story of the Silver Age which introduced Barry Allen as the new Flash to the hero-hungry kids of the world.

Kanigher was a restlessly creative writer and frequently used his uncanny but formulaic adventure arenas as a testing ground for future series concepts. Among the many epochal war features he created were Sgt. Rock, Enemy Ace, The War that Time Forgot and The Losers as well as the irresistibly compelling “combat ghost stories” collected here in this second stupendously expansive war-journal.

This terrific monochrome tome re-presents more blockbusting exploits of boyhood friends Jeb Stuart Smith, Arch Asher, Slim Stryker and Rick Rawlins from G.I. Combat #120-156 (October/November 1966 – October/November 1972), a period during which superheroes rose to astonishing global dominance before almost vanishing into history once more.

Apparently immune to such tenuous trendiness, the battle-hardened veterans of the M-3 Stuart Light Tank – named for the legendary Confederate Army General who was a genius of cavalry combat, and haunted by his restless spirit – soldiered on, battling threats mortal and often metaphysical on many fronts during World War II, becoming (after Sgt. Rock) DC’s most successful and long-lived combat feature.

The tales were generally narrated by Jeb as he manned the Commander’s spotter-position (head and torso sticking out of the top hatch and completely exposed to enemy fire whilst driver Slim, gunner Rick and loader Arch remained relatively safe inside) constantly conversing with his spectral namesake who offered philosophy, advice and prescient, if often veiled, warnings …

Throughout the early days Jeb’s comrades continually argued about what to do with him. Nobody believed in the ghost and they all doubted their commander’s sanity, but since he began seeing the General, Stuart Smith had become a tactical genius and his “gifts” were keeping them all alive against incredible odds…

This volume opens with G.I. Combat #120 ‘Pull a Tiger’s Tail!’, illustrated by Irv Novick, detailing how, after accompanying both Sgt. Rock and Navajo fighter-pilot Johnny Cloud, on sorties, Jeb defied orders to capture a giant Tiger tank his own way…

Another spiritually-sponsored warrior, Cloud regularly saw a mounted Indian Brave dubbed Big-Brother-in-the Sky galloping across the heavens during his missions.

The inspirational Russ Heath illustrated #121’s ‘Battle of Two Wars!’ wherein after rescuing a shell-shocked pigeon the tankers are inexplicably drawn back to WWI to save Sgt Rock’s father, who then returns the favour once the Stuart returns to its proper time whilst in ‘Who Dies Next?’ (#122 and with art from Novick), the General issued a dire proclamation that one of their own would not last the day out – a forecast that came true in a most shocking manner…

Heath returned to the art with #123’s ‘The Target of Terror!’ as guest star Mlle. Marie returned with news of a secret weapon to be destroyed at all costs. Unfortunately the French Resistance leader had partial amnesia and didn’t remember exactly what or where, whilst in ‘Scratch that Tank!’ the crew’s shiny new replacement vehicle was a cause of acute embarrassment until it finally gained a few praiseworthy combat scars…

G.I. Combat #125 decreed ‘Stay Alive… Until Dark!’ as Jeb’s sorely reduced battle-group attempted to hold too much ground with too few tanks, culminating in a Horatian last stand in the shattered, cloistered streets of a tiny French town, after which the crew endured deadly desert warfare in a desperate search for Panzers hidden by a cunning ‘Tank Umbrella!’

Novick illustrated the two-fisted ‘Mission – Sudden Death!!’ in #127 as Mlle. Marie led the tank-jockeys far from their comfort zone in an infantry raid to rescue her captured father before Heath returned to limn ‘The Ghost of the Haunted Tank!’, a superbly evocative thriller in which the crew finally cracked during a brutal massed Panzer assault and restrained their clearly delusional commander for his own good. However when solid, no-nonsense Slim took the observer’s spot he too began to see the spectral sentinel and was forced to act on the apparition’s strategic advice…

Issue #129 is pure Kanigher poesy as ‘Hold that Town for a Dead Man!’ saw the tankers roll past an American soldier expired at his post, and swear to eradicate the foes who felled him… and when the blistering cat-and-mouse duel seemed to go against the crew they were saved by an impossible burst of gunfire fired by a cold, stiff hand…

In the afterlife all great military commanders sponsored mortal combatants. General Stuart was stuck looking after a pack of “Damned Yankees”, but the other side also had phantom patrons.

G.I. Combat #130 saw the return of savage shade Attila the Hun, who directly attacked his revenant rival in a deadly ‘Battle of the Generals!’ with Jeb watching helplessly whilst trying to save his tank from mundane but just as murderous German panzer, artillery and air attacks…

Their next mission took the crew and a band of savage child-warriors (the short-lived and controversial Kid Guerrillas of Unit 3 who had debuted in a Sgt. Rock tale in Our Army at War #194, June 1968) into the heart of Paris to rescue Mlle. Marie from the Gestapo in #131’s ‘The Devil for Dinner!’ after which Mike Sekowsky & Joe Giella stepped in to illustrate the follow-up wherein the Belle of La Resistance led Jeb and the boys – bizarrely disguised as a circus troupe – against merciless SS leader ‘The Executioner!’

The artists stayed on for #133’s ‘Operation: Death Trap’ as the Haunted Tank and crew were parachuted into North Africa to liberate enslaved natives working in a German diamond mine, before, following a ‘Special Battle Pinup’ of the tankers by Joe Kubert, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito signed up for a stint, beginning with ‘Desert Holocaust’ wherein the boys dealt out vengeance for the three MacBane brothers, sibling tank-commanders slaughtered by the Afrika Korps.

Continuity was never a big concern for Kanigher and stories would often occur in no logical or chronological order. In #135 they were back in France battling paratroopers and air-lifted Panzers with only aged WWI survivors to aid them in ‘Death is the Joker’ whilst ‘Kill Now – Pay Later!’ pitted Tank against Nazi U-Boat and Jeb against its driven doom-obsessed Commander in an improbable duel, before Russ Heath returned in #137 to illustrate the African adventure ‘We Can’t See!’ wherein the lads were all temporarily blinded but nevertheless succeeded in destroying a poison gas cache thanks to aid of a little Arab boy.

Kanigher often used his stories as a testing ground for new series ideas and G.I. Combat #138 introduced one of his most successful in ‘The Losers!’ when the Armoured Cavalry unit encountered a sailor, two marines and old friend Johnny Cloud, all utterly demoralised after losing all the men in their respective commands.

Inspired by Jeb and a desire for revenge, the crushed survivors regained a measure of respect and fighting spirit after surviving a certain suicide-mission and destroying a Nazi Radar tower…

The new team were formed by amalgamating three old war series together. Gunner and Sarge (later supplemented by Pooch, the Fighting Devil Dog) were Pacific-based Marines debuting in All-American Men of War #67, March 1959 and ran for fifty issues in Our Fighting Forces (#45-94, May 1959-August 1965), whilst Captain Johnny Cloud was a native American fighter pilot who shot down his first bogie in All-American Men of War #82.

The “Navaho Ace” flew solo until issue #115, (1966) whilst Captain Storm was a disabled PT Boat skipper who fought on despite his wooden left leg in his own eponymous 18-issue series from 1964 to 1967. All three series were originally created by comicbook warlord Kanigher and The Losers soon returned as an elite unit of suicide-soldiers to star in Our Fighting Forces.

G.I. Combat #139 again saw the Haunted Tank parachuted into an Arabian nightmare when the crew interrupt a funeral and save the widow from being forced onto the pyre with her deceased husband. ‘Corner of Hell’ saw Jeb wed and lose his bride to Nazi sympathizers and an ancient prophecy…

Issue #140 featured a reprint not included here – although the new Kubert introduction page is – and the graphic narratives resume with ‘Let me Live… Let me Die!’ as Kanigher & Heath confronted the topics of race and discrimination in a powerful tale describing the plight of African-American soldiers who were used as porters, gravediggers and ammunition carriers but forbidden from bearing or actually using arms.

When Jeb arrived at a recently decimated ammo dump the sole survivor of the Segregated Negro unit demanded to accompany the crew and be allowed to fight and die like a man. Rushing to reinforce Sgt. Rock’s Easy Company and despite the thinly veiled disdain of Slim, Arch and Rick, when Jeb was wounded the valiant tag-along finally got his chance…

G.I. Combat #142 found Jeb obsessed with the moment of his own death in ‘Checkpoint – Death!’ but when the General wasn’t forthcoming soon forgot it about as an unseasonal snowstorm turned the world into a frozen hell, after which ‘The Iron Horseman!’ saw a frustrated WWI tanker finally get at chance to be a hero when Panzers attacked a convent and Jeb’s crew were ambushed. There follows an informational spread ‘Battle Album: General Stuart Light Tank M31A’ by Kubert, before #144 revealed a retrofitted origin for the Haunted Tanker in ‘Every Man a Fort!’ (illustrated by Heath). Now with Jeb a Northern Yankee, the tale revealed how he had to win the respect of Southerners Rick, Slim and Arch with his fists before they’d let him call himself Jeb Stuart, and cemented that bond during their first foray under fire in North Africa…

The desert milieu continued in #145’s ‘Sun, Sand & Death!’ when a sandstorm forced the tank off-course and led them to an abandoned B-25 bomber, giving the dying pilot a chance to redeem his lost honour, whilst #146 saw the M-3 and its crew endure debilitating hazards battling the Afrika Korps but still persevere when the General advised Jeb to ‘Move the World!’…

For some Americans the wounds of the Civil War still festered, as Jeb discovered when he encountered the hostile commander of a ‘Rebel Tank’ in #147. Of course, the Germans were happy to remind the feuders who was currently doing all the shooting, whilst in #148 ‘The Gold-Plated General!’ (a thinly disguised analogue of George S. “Blood and Guts” Patton) demanded a spit-and-polish war, but even under combat conditions led by painful example…

American services discrimination was again confronted in G.I. Combat #149 when a Jewish soldier joined the division in ‘Leave the Fighting to Us!’ Many of the good guys had to eat their words when the tank group liberated a Nazi concentration camp…

A major visual change came in #150 with ‘The Death of the Haunted Tank!’, which saw the M-3 destroyed in combat and the crew jury-rig a jigsaw replacement from the remnants of other scrapped and abandoned and, unsurprisingly, bigger, more powerful vehicles.

Proving again that men and not the machine were the heart of the partnership, the General stuck around, and when the new Haunted Tankers passed through an alpine village they relived a mediaeval battle against barbarian invaders in #151’s ‘A Strong Right Arm!’ before bringing a Nazi infiltrator aboard who turned their homemade rolling fortress into a deadly ‘Decoy Tank’ to lure Allied forces into an ambush…

Comics and animation legend Doug Wildey replaced Heath for #153 as sentimental fool Jeb adopted a lost piglet, orphan puppy and lame duckling before completing his tank’s transformation to ‘The Armored Ark!’ by packing in a homeless and displaced family, all while tracking down and eradicating a hidden Nazi rocket silo, after which the series took on a far grittier and raw feel with the addition of a new regular artist.

With G.I. Combat #154 (June/July 1972), unsung master and battle-scarred veteran Sam Glanzman began his decades-long association with the feature, pencilling and inking the blistering improbable ‘Battle Prize!’ wherein the Haunted Tank and crew were captured and paraded before Hitler in Berlin before busting loose and heading East. Hijacked by Polish Resistance fighters soon the Yanks were stranded in ice-bound, siege-locked Russia…

Shamefully, Sam Glanzman is one of the least highly-regarded creators in American comics, despite having one of the longest careers and certainly one of the most unique styles. His work, in genres from war to mystery, westerns, science fiction, sword & sorcery, horror, fantasy and even graphic autobiography is passionate, powerful, subtly engaging and irresistibly compelling.

With a solid, uniquely rough-hewn style he has worked since the 1940s on a variety of titles for many companies, mostly on anthology material for fantasy, mystery, war and adventure titles, but also on serial characters such Attu, Sgt. Rock, Jonah Hex, Hercules and Jungle Tales of Tarzan for Charlton, Kona and Voyage to the Deep for Dell/Gold Key: magnificent action sagas that fired the imagination and stirred the blood, selling copies and winning a legion of fans amongst his fellow artists if not from the small but over-vocal fan-press.

His most significant works are undoubtedly the two semi-autobiographical graphic novels A Sailor’s Story and Wind, Dreams and Dragons although his Vietnam set ‘The Lonely War of Willie Schultz’ and the subtly beguiling U.S.S. Stevens (and if anybody from DC is reading this, those 46-odd U.S.S. Stevens strips are so-very-long-overdue for the trade paperback treatment…).

Glanzman, born in 1924, is still active today producing online strips and a new USS Stevens story is forthcoming in October 2012.

G.I. Combat #155 undertook ‘The Long Journey’ as the Haunted Tank experienced the worst horrors of war whilst trekking across the embattled Eastern Front, aided by Russian partisans, women, children and dotards as they fought off the fascists with every drop of their blood and sweat whilst making their way to a port and the normal war…

This second sterling tome ends with the crew back in Africa where the desert and the German vie for the privilege of destroying the beleaguered tankers and their frantic search for fuel and water drags them ‘Beyond Hell’…

An added attraction for art fans and battle buffs are the breathtaking covers by Heath and Kubert…

These spectacular tales took the Haunted Tank through tumultuous times when America fervently questioned the very nature and necessity of war. Vietnam was progressively blighting the nation’s sensibilities, and in response DC’s war comics addressed the issue and also confronted the problems of race and gender roles in a most impressive and sensitive manner.

As always they combine spooky chills with combat thrills and a fierce examination of both war and warriors but always offer a powerful human message that has never dated and may well rank this work amongst the very best war stories ever produced.
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 2008, DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Avengers: X Sanction


By Jeph Loeb, Ed McGuinness & Dexter Vines (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-514-7

As the new Avengers film screens across the world, Marvel has released more books and trade paperback collections to maximise exposure and cater to those movie fans wanting to follow up the cinematic exposure with a comicbook experience.

This particular short and sweet saga from megastar scripter Jeph Loeb & the art team supreme Ed McGuinness & Dexter Vines engagingly entangles two filmic franchises as the World’s Mightiest Superheroes and Marvel’s misunderstood mutants clash in a time-busting tale originally released at the end of 2011 as the 4-part miniseries Avengers: X Sanction.

And that was merely the prologue to a summer-long publishing event which pitted Avengers against X-Men in a catastrophic all-out war…

Superbly self-contained, this epic encounter opens with Captain America, Iron Man, Red Hulk, Wolverine, Spider-Man and other heroes responding to a mass-escape by super-villains from the Lethal Legion when the Falcon is shot by a hidden sniper and spirited away…

Only the Sentinel of Liberty notices something amiss and follows the abductor to a freighter in the harbour, where he finds his friend trapped in a containment tube and wired to a colossal cache of explosives. The sniper is revealed as sometime-ally Nathan Summers AKA Cable, a mutant warrior from the far future possessing awesome psionic abilities yet cursed with an incurable, progressive techno-organic virus which is inexorably consuming his flesh and only held in check by the victim’s indomitable force of will…

In temporally tantalising forward flashbacks it is revealed that Cable is at last succumbing to his infection. He has a day to live and has travelled back from the end of time to unmake history and save his daughter Hope (destined to prevent the planet’s doom) from being killed. Unfortunately that can only be achieved by murdering the Avengers…

After a spectacular battle Cable also subdues Captain America just as Iron Man notices his missing comrades and tracks them to the Hudson River. Plagued by half memories and lost moments with Hope, Cable attacks and after a shattering struggle also overwhelms the Armoured Avenger, only to be ambushed by the brutally efficient Red Hulk…

Wracked by the final stages of his fleshly consumption, Cable is vastly overmatched, even with the timely martial assistance of his future mentor Blaquesmith, but Summers’ handicap becomes an advantage when the techno-organic contagion abandons his dying frame and infects the Crimson Colossus…

As Cable prepares to execute his targets, X-Men Cyclops and Hope burst in, intent on talking him down. Faced with his father and imminently endangered daughter (an outrageously long and overly-complicated time travel story which isn’t germane or necessary to know here: just Google it afterwards, ok?), Cable falters but can’t be dissuaded…

Just as he prepares to save the future by killing everyone present, the final players arrive when Spider-Man and Wolverine crash in…

Unable to stop and mere minutes from his own end, Cable attacks again knowing that no sacrifice is too great to prevent the death of Hope and the salvation of Earth…

Fast, furious and wickedly compelling, this time-twisting all-action thriller delivers a mighty punch without any real necessity to study beforehand that comics-continuity veterans and film-fed newbies alike will relish.

The comicbooks in this short series also sported a host of variant covers and the extensive gallery at the back includes simply stunning images from McGuinness, Bryan Hitch, Joe Quesada, Carlo Pagulayan, Stephen Platt, Ian Churchill, Steve Skroce and four from Leinil Francis Yu to delight and astound the artistically astute amongst you.

™ & © 2012 Marvel and subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A, Italy. All Rights Reserved. A British edition published by Panini UK, Ltd.

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Kick-Ass

Revised, expanded edition

By Mark Millar, John Romita Jr., Tom Palmer & (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-102-7

Now that the furore has died down over the first movie and is yet to begin in regard to the sequel, I thought I’d take a look at the marvellously fun, blackly comedic and ultra-violent comedy that is Kick-Ass purely in terms of a reading experience, courtesy of the 2010 British Titan Books edition, which includes – as well as all 8 issues of the creator-owned comicbook miniseries (originally published through Marvel’s Icon imprint) – 15 pages of unseen design sketches, pages in process and assorted unseen artworks featuring the scene-stealing tyke of terror Hit-Girl…

Set in the horribly drab and disappointing real world, it all begins with the trenchant recollections of High School no-hoper Dave Lizewski, a pitifully average and unhappy teenager who loves comicbooks. With no chance of being part of the in-crowd, Dave hangs out with the other geeks, talking TV, movies, funnybooks and girls – and, of course, is besotted with ultra-queen of cool Katie Deauxma – who naturally despises him…

One day he has his big inspiration – he’s going to be a masked superhero. All he needs is a costume and a gimmick. Oh, and a codename too…

Clad in a wetsuit bought online and filled with hope, Dave starts patrolling the streets and promptly gets beaten into a coma by three kids tagging a wall…

After months in hospital and with three metal plates in his skull, Dave eventually returns to school, but the compulsion hasn’t left him and he is soon prowling the city again. Chancing on a mugging the masked moron again piles in and – more by sheer bloody-mindedness than any particular skill or power – manages to drive off the assailants. Moreover, this time his battle was caught on witnesses’ camera-phones and uploaded to YouTube…

An overnight internet sensation and supremely overconfident, Dave, or Kick-Ass, is floating on a cloud. Even Katie seems to have finally noticed him… but only because he’s gay: a rumour that had started when he was found naked and severely battered months ago…

So desperate is Dave that he plays to the rumour and becomes the prom queen’s “gay best friend”, whilst spending solitary moment stalking the streets, alleyways and rooftops in his superhero persona. He even starts a Kick-Ass MySpace page where fans and people in trouble can contact him…

Dave’s life goes into deadly overdrive when he acts on one plea and marches into a grungy apartment determined to talk a lowlife thug out of harassing and stalking his ex-wife. Suddenly confronted with a posse of brutal criminals for whom violence is a way of life, Kick-Ass is being beaten to death when a diminutive 10-year old girl slaughters the entire gang with deadly ease and honking great samurai swords…

Dave can only watch in awe as Hit-Girl glides like a ghost over the rooftops and returns to her burly partner Big Daddy: cool, efficient ninjas of justice and everything he’s aspired to be but could never approach in a million years…

These urban vigilantes are utter ciphers, stalking and destroying the operations of brutal Mafia boss Johnny Genovese with remorseless efficiency and in complete attention-shunning anonymity.

Dave is simply not in their league and doesn’t care for their methods. After all, superheroes don’t kill… Chastened and a little scared, he grudgingly carries on his own small-scale endeavours, drawing some measure of comfort from the growing band of costumed imitators Kick-Ass has inspired and those regular intimate moments when the still blithely ingenuous Katie tells him all her secrets, dreams and desires…

Things start to look up when he meets Red Mist, a fellow adventurer and one with a flashy car and lots of expensive toys. When the pair very visibly become media darlings during a tenement fire, Kick-Ass is visited by Big Daddy and Hit-Girl, who think they’ve found the perfect back-ups to help them finally eradicate the Genovese mob…

After telling Katie the truth, Dave rendezvous with Red Mist for the big push only to find that his partner is Genovese’s geeky, psychotic son, and the whole act has been an elaborate trap to kill the far-too effective and expensively competent Big Daddy and Hit-Girl…

With both his allies apparently dead, Dave is being slowly tortured to death. Kick-Ass can only draw upon his one advantage – his sheer, stupid inability to give up – until the miraculously surviving Hit-Girl comes to rescue with her customary mercilessness…

Bloody, bruised, broken but unbowed, Kick-Ass finally sheds his last superhero scruple and tools up for a blistering bloody showdown in the mobster’s skyscraper fortress…

Appallingly, graphically hyper-violent and atrociously foul-mouthed, Kick-Ass is the ultimate extension of the trend for “realistic” superhero stories and simultaneously a brilliantly engaging and cynically hilarious examination of boyhood dreams and power fantasies, delivered with dazzling aplomb, studied self-deprecation and spellbinding style.

Mark Millar’s compelling script – unlike the movie adaptation – never steps beyond the bounds of possibility and credibility, whilst the stunning art collaboration of John Romita Jr., Tom Palmer and colourist Dean White delivers an all too familiar picture-perfect New York.

Sharp, shocking, superb and with the promise of yet more and even better to come, the graphic novel Kick-Ass is a story not just for comics fans but a genuine treasure for all followers of furious fun and fantasy in any medium.

Kick-Ass comic strip © 2010 Mark Millar and John S. Romita.

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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.
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