Author: NowReadThis

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Superman Spectacular No. 2


By Cary Bates, Alex Saviuk & Vince Colletta (DC/London Editions)
ISBN: 0-86173-042-9

The Superman album clearly made some impact in Britain (or at least the editors thought it would) and a second volume – also sporting a lushly airbrushed Alan Craddock cover – was produced. Also celebrating the sharp, plot-driven costumed dramas which predominated in the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC universe, this cosmic mystery revenge saga ideally shows how old stories could and should be reinvigorated rather than overwritten…

‘Superman Meets the Zod Squad’ was created by cobbling together Action Comics #548-549 (October and November 1983) into one improbable saga of cosmic vengeance as a race of primordial reivers discovered the remains of Argo City and realised that there was at least one Kryptonian left in the cosmos…

Superman’s cousin Kara Zor-El had been born on a city-sized fragment of Krypton, hurled intact into space when the planet exploded. Eventually Argo City turned to Kryptonite like the rest of the detonated world’s debris, and her dying parents, observing Earth through their scopes, sent their daughter to safety as they perished. Landing on Earth, she met the Man of Steel who created for her the identities of Linda Lee and Supergirl, hiding her from the world whilst she learned about her new home and to use astounding abilities in secrecy and safety.

The aliens were Vrangs – savage slavers who had conquered Krypton in ages past: brutally using the primitive populace to mine minerals too toxic for the aliens to handle. The planet’s greatest hero was Val-Lor who died instigating the rebellion which drove the Vrang from Krypton and prompted the birth and rise of the super-scientific civilisation.

All Kryptonians developed an inbred hatred of the Vrang, and when Phantom Zone prisoners Jax-Ur, Professor Va-Kox, Faora Hu-Ul and General Dru-Zod observed their ancestral oppressors from the stark and silent realm of nullity that had been their drearily, unchanging, timeless jail since before Krypton perished, they swore to destroy them.

If their ‘Escape from the Phantom Zone!’ also allowed the Kryptonian outcasts to kill the hated son of the discoverer of the eerie dimension of stultifying intangibility so much the better…

Using the psycho-active properties of Jewel Kryptonite – a post-cataclysm isotope of the very element so poisonous to Vrangs – a quartet of Zoners perpetrate a mass break-out and head to Earth for vengeance… but who is their primary target?

Not long after, Clark Kent, still blithely unaware of his peril, is investigating a new citizens’ defence group that has sprung up in Metropolis in response to a city-wide rash of petty crimes. Even as Zod, Faora, Tyb-Ol and Murkk infiltrate human society and bide their time, the Man of Steel and Lois are most concerned with how the grassroots White Wildcats can afford to police their neighbourhoods with jet-packs and martial arts skills unknown on Earth…

Uncovering militarist order-freak Zod behind the scheme, Superman is astounded when the Kryptonian criminals surrender, offering a truce until their ancient common foes are defeated.

…And that’s when the Vrang teleport the Man of Steel into their ship, exultant that they now possess the mightiest slave in existence. Moreover, there are four more potentially priceless victims hurtling up to attack them, utterly unaware in their blind rage and hatred that the Vrangs have weapon even Kryptonians cannot survive…

This clever, compulsive thriller of cross, double and even triple-cross is a fabulously intoxicating, tension-drenched treat from scripter Cary Bates and illustrated by Alex Saviuk & Colletta that still blends human foible with notions of honour, and shows that even the most reprehensible villains understand the value of sacrifice and the principle of something worth dying for…

Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence, and with the character again undergoing another radical overhaul, these timeless tales of charm and joy and wholesome wit are more necessary than ever: not just as a reminder of great tales of the past but as an all-ages primer of the wonders still to come…
© 1982 DC Comics Inc. This edition © 1982 London Editions Magazines (formerly Egmont Publishing). All Rights Reserved.

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DC Superheroes Presents Superman Spectacular No. 1


By Bob Rozakis, Paul Kupperberg, Adrian Gonzales & Vince Colletta (DC/London Editions)
ISBN: 0-86173-041-0

These days, when maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for the made-up worlds comicbooks inhabit is paramount, the saddest casualty of those periodic sweeping changes, upgrades, rationalisations and reboots is the great stories that suddenly “never happened”.

The most painful example of this – for me at least – was the wholesale loss of the entire bizarre and charm-drenched mythology that had evolved around Superman’s birthworld in the wonder years between 1948 and 1985.

Here then, in response to the new Superman film is something not every Kryptonian Kompletist may be treasuring in his vault: a canonical pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Man of Steel yarn which didn’t appear in the regular runs of Superman or Action Comics, packed with all the gloriously convoluted lore, wry wit and all-ages thrills which for decades made the Man of Tomorrow indisputably the most recognisable comics character on Earth.

This extra-sized tale was actually devised by American creators for the European market as Superman Album series #1 (cover-dated Januar 1982 und pronounzed mit ein deutsche achzent, iff you pliss), printed in what was then West Germany by Ehapa Verlag.

It subsequently appeared in the USA as an English-language edition in a large (212 x 397mm) one-off paperback album in American convenience chains like 7-11 later that year. In Britain, where London Editions then held a DC reprint license, producing a wonderfully eclectic black-&-white anthology The Superheroes Monthly (with painted covers by the likes of Alan Craddock, David Jackson, Bryan Talbot and Brian Bolland), the tale was released as a similarly sized, full-colour edition to rack beside such beloved European imports as Asterix and Tintin.

In case you’re wondering: it was printed in Germany, presumably by simply replacing the black plate of the four-colour print process with one that had the lettering in English.

The ‘Startling Saga of Superman-Red & Superman-Blue!’ was scripted by Paul Kupperberg from a Bob Rozakis plot and illustrated by Adrian Gonzales & Vince Colletta, with the legendary Julius Schwartz in editorial command as always.

The bombastic battle royale was based on a much-beloved imaginary story by Leo Dorfman, Curt Swan & George Klein from Superman #162, July 1963, adroitly co-opted into the mainstream continuity to beef up the ominous if ill-starred alliance of arch nemesis Lex Luthor with space owlhoot Terra-Man.

(This last was conceived during the period when costumed heroes were in decline during the early 1970s. The Deep Space Desperado resembled a space-age Clint Eastwood in Spaghetti Western mode. He was a Wild West bandit’s son shanghaied into space. After eventually killing his kidnapper, the young man returned to Earth only to discover a century had passed. The furious outcast of infinity had already adapted his purloined extraterrestrial technology to accommodate his childhood antecedents and decided to drive aliens such as Superman off “his” planet forever…)

This intergalactic grudge match opens as Luthor invades a Daily Planet story conference to challenge Superman to another fight. The resulting clash goes badly for the criminal genius, however, even though he has devised an entirely new form of energy weapon to destroy his alien antithesis…

Meanwhile in space, solitary star rider Terra-Man has finally found a chunk of Kryptonite. He had long heard stories that the rare radioactive remnant was fatal to Superman, and now believes the end of his vendetta against the extraterrestrial squatter on his home range is near.

He should have listened more closely to the stories, though, as the shard he holds is red, not green…

Wary of being beaten again, Terra-Man contacts Luthor and proposes a combined attack, but doesn’t trust his new partner enough to hand over the radioactive space rock…

On Earth Superman is renewing his oft-postponed romance with Lois Lane when Terra-Man attacks, and after deflecting the initial assault is lured into orbit where the menacing mineral is secreted.

From his hiding place Luthor can only watch in horror as the Red K (which produced not radiation poisoning and death but temporary mutagenic effects on Kryptonians) divided the Man of Steel into twins in primarily blue or red uniforms…

It wasn’t a complete disaster, however, as each of the pair seemed to be missing some of Superman’s vast array of powers…

Frantically regrouping, Luthor and Terra-Man deduced what had happened, and as Clark Kent endured confusion at work with a brace of himself tripping over each other, the vile villains plotted to use their conventional resources and Lex’s new discovery to destroy their foe(s).

With double the super manpower, “Red” and “Blue” begin cleaning all the trouble spots on Earth and discover a new crisis: an inter-dimensional rift threatening to consume the world. The mystery of Luthor’s new energy source is revealed – the madman has tapped magical forces from another plane of existence and weaponised it to kill his arch foe, regardless of the potential for universal cataclysm…

As Supermans Red and Blue move to quell the threat, they find one more quandary confronting them: each is only half as powerful as the whole hero. When the divided defenders split up to battle Terra-Man and Luthor, this tragic deficiency causes the Crimson Crusader’s “death” with the collateral catastrophe of Lois felled by Luthor’s lethal magic weapon…

And at that very moment the Red K effect faded and the one true Man of Tomorrow was reborn…

Once upon a time smart, affecting absorbing drama and wild-eyed adventure such as this was the bread-and-butter of comics. For decades, new exploits and dangers were created – sometime three of four times a month – with characters operating seamlessly in a shared milieu that wasn’t obsessed with incessantly mining and refining the hero’s origin or shockingly revealing lost or evil relatives like some spandex-bedecked cheap soap opera. And they frequently began and ended in one issue…

This tale is a delicious example from the dying days of that era and perfectly shows us what we’re missing today…
© 1982 DC Comics Inc. This edition © 1982 London Editions Magazines (formerly Egmont Publishing). All Rights Reserved.

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Wake Up, Percy Gloom


By Cathy Malkasian (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-638-6

There are a lot of graphic novels out there these days, and even the most in-tune fan or dedicated aficionado just can’t read everything new being published – and that’s not even counting the historical wealth of already published material that’s been released since the dawn of trade paperbacks and comics albums at the end of the 1970s.

A perfect case in point is Percy Gloom by Cathy Malkasian which was released in 2007 and which I completely missed. However, as soon as I read my review copy of the sequel Wake Up, Percy Gloom – the subject of today’s rave review – I realised what an utter joy I had missed and determined to track a copy down.

Whilst that’s happening however, let’s look at one of the best comics fantasy books I’ve read in all my many years…

Someplace, sometime far stranger than here or now, an innocuous little man who loved helping people lost his wife and left his ordered, simple life.

Actually it wasn’t that simple: although Percy is meek and gentle and desperately keen to help everybody, his lazy-eye and enormous head – which lights up when he’s happy – often creates false impressions amongst people who are at best rude and often just plain mean.

He’s also had some rather distressing news recently.

His Mum revealed to him that he is, like her, immortal but prone to naps which can take anything from months to decades. It’s why everything always seems so different every time he wakes up in the “morning”…

After his last kip he found true affection with Margaret, whom he met at his new job in a failing company…

Now we find them enjoying a sailboat ride as she searches for her long-lost twin. Percy has never been happier. As they reach a new land however Margaret realises her search is nearly over and, as she realises her growing affection for Percy, her extremely contented companion begins to feel very sleepy…

Percy’s mum is even more unique than her son. She has been alive for millennia and spends her maternal days shepherding humanity; devising devices and inventing awesome, clever things, such as the barrel which always collected her slumbering son wherever he’s dropped off and safely storing him until he awakes again.

Unfortunately one of her previous diversions – a joke-book – has become, over the last five centuries, the World’s Holy Book: an unshakable, adamant and infallible guide to living and the eternal Rewards Beyond, utterly believed as gospel by the short-lived, unquestioning and remarkably po-faced people.

Sadly the gag most misunderstood by the ardent the worshippers was the 29th Prophecy which said that after 182,515 days – just after tea-time – Voatzle would drop from the sky and land on The Good and The Lucky. By every cleric’s calculations that’s tomorrow afternoon…

Appalled at the people’s literal-mindedness, Mum has been busily building the Paradise the self-deluded worshippers are expecting and – now that she’s almost finished – is delighted to learn that Percy is waking up. Dispatching his barrel to a location that will appear familiar to her drowsy boy, Mum then pops off to meet her current beau Horace – a quiet and contemplative grandfather and extremely ingenious gardener/topiarist who knows her as dear old Clara…

Whilst ensuring Percy’s safe awakening, Clara reveals her true nature to Horace and discloses the cheese-based disguise secrets which have enabled her to maintain the imposture of aging, blithely unaware that there has been a little hitch…

When Percy succumbed to slumber he was with his adored Margaret but now, as he languorously comes to on a lovely moonlit night, he has no idea that only a year has passed. The counting device in his barrel has malfunctioned and one year has become 200…

Still groggy and heartbroken that his Margaret has long gone, Percy sets off across this odd land to find his mum; once again an innocuous, naively innocent wanderer in a very bizarre place and time. He has no idea that it’s only this odd because the all those true believers are excited that Voatzle is finally coming and are absorbed in performing their final rites and rituals…

As he progresses Percy meets and takes charge of the brusquely tragic Mr. Tetzel who accidentally locked himself out of his very small country and now must travel right around the world in a straight line to get back to the front door again. Not far away the morose Margaret has been deeply heartened by finally rendezvousing with sister Lily, who in turn will introduce her to Percy’s extended family too…

You meet a lot of people and make many friends if you live forever – including, it would seem, other immortals – and as Mum introduces Horace to her own affably eternal inner circle – and the talking goats – Percy’s peregrinations have also resulted in a few shocks.

Although a native, the closeted Mr. Tetzel is an even stranger Stranger in a StrangeLand and his shocking manners require all Percy’s tact and forbearance to keep them from harm. Despite his selfish and cavalier attitude, the brusque banished martinet is all too human and secretly endures his own tragically lost love. However that small glimpse of common humanity is quickly quashed when a committee of Voatzle priests and prelates mistake the obnoxious official for the Dimpled Ambassador – Last Prophet of Voatzle. Moreover the deluded Tetzel believes it too…

Happily though, that clash with the inevitably outraged Holy zealots gives Percy his first clue of exactly how little time has actually passed and puts him on the path to a gloriously reunion with his much-missed Margaret…

Cathy Malkasian is another brilliant (and multi-award winning) animator who has seamlessly segued into graphic narrative and turned the medium on its head. You’ll have seen her screen work as designer, storyboarder and/or director on such features as Curious George, The Wild Thornberrys Movie, As Told by Ginger, Psyko Ferret, Stressed Eric, Rugrats, Jumanji, Duckman and elsewhere. Perhaps you’ve seen her aforementioned Percy Gloom debut or Temperance graphic novels. She is currently occupied creating the animatic series Hiding in Happytown on YouTube.

Her latest surreal and intoxicatingly-rendered fable manages the almost impossible trick of being simultaneously sad and eerie, funny and thrilling, astonishingly mature and ingenuously innocent and childlike, resulting in a brilliant, enthralling, evocative and wryly uplifting fable of loss and reunion in a fantastical realm as overwhelmingly convincing and real as Oz, Narnia or Alice’s Looking Glass Land.

If you crave the acme of comics storytelling, you must read this fabulous yarn.

© 2013 Cathy Malkasian. All rights reserved.

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Ultimate Comics Wolverine: Legacies


By Cullen Bunn, David Messina, Gary Erskine & Gaetano Carlucci (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-546-8

The Marvel Ultimates project started in 2000 with a thoroughly contemporary remodelling of major characters and concepts to bring them into line with a generation of potential readers separated by more than three decades from the starry-eyed, idealistic kids who were the primary buyers of “the House that Stan & Jack (and Steve) Built”.

Eventually even this streamlined new universe became as crowded and continuity-constricted as its predecessor, and in 2008 the publishing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which wiped out loads of heroes and villains as well as millions of ordinary mortals in a vast Tsunami triggered by mutant terrorist Magneto.

After dramatically rebuilding this darker, grimmer continuum, Armageddon happened again in 2012 as a perilously destabilised world sank into international metahuman anarchy. America succumbed to a mass-secession of states resulting in a second Civil War before the remaining heroes, surviving mutants and a new Spider-Man brought a measure of peace and stability to the planet…

From this latest aftermath comes a canny thriller (collecting the 4-issue miniseries Ultimate Comics Wolverine from March to May 2013, deftly written by Cullen Bunn and illustrated by David Messina, Gary Erskine & Gaetano Carlucci) which simultaneously explores the past and outlines the future of Jimmy Hudson: troubled offspring of the mutant legend who gave his life to end Magneto…

But first, a little more background: sixteen year-old Hudson only discovered who his real father was when fugitive Kitty Pride turned up bearing a hologram message from the fabled mutant-hero Wolverine. The device also explained the boy’s incredible healing ability and the claws which keep inconveniently popping out of his knuckles whenever he got stressed…

Civilisation had been shakily stumbling from crisis to catastrophe since the Deluge. That progress ended when the world learned that the super-powered mutants proliferating around the globe were not a product of inexorable evolution but rather the result of a 50-year old American program of genetic manipulation. Unfortunately, the experiment had slipped from their control when their initial test subject escaped.

Now, as the news spread, humanity went crazy. A wave of prejudice sparked violent protests around the globe and, as atrocities mounted, the attacks threatened the very existence of the feared and despised human lab-rats. In the political furore following the disclosure, the bloodshed grew into planetary panic and a genetic arms-race in Asia (see Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye and The Ultimates: The Republic is Burning), resulted in the near-eradication of the homo Superior strain and consequent creation of new superhuman subspecies.

In response the US President unexpectedly sidelined S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury in favour of co-operation with Magneto’s son Pietro Lensherr – who had inherited control of the mutant-terrorist group the Brotherhood of Mutants. The super-swift manipulator dubbed Quicksilver struck a Faustian Bargain with the Leader of the Free World, but their plans were subverted by fundamentalist preacher Reverend William Stryker who seized control of the government’s Sentinel technology and used it to attack mutants all over America as part of his genocidal crusade to purify humanity…

Pietro had intended to co-opt America’s Nimrod Sentinels to his own purposes but Stryker struck first, taking personal control of the program and unleashing every killer robot in the USA’s arsenal to hunt down mutants wherever they might be hiding.

The pogrom turned a large part of the southwest into a killing zone where the unholy freaks were held in camps, just waiting to die…

In Mutant Internment Camp Angel, the guards and Sentinels were overthrown by former X-Men Colossus and Storm, and once the younger prisoners discovered what atrocities the humans had been secretly perpetrating against the captives the entire facility erupted into open rebellion.

When WashingtonDC, the President and his Cabinet were wiped out in a nuclear attack, Texas seceded from the Union, provoking a series of similar rebellions by right-wing militias and libertarian hate-groups throughout the nation. Hopelessly out of his depth, Acting President Howard declared martial law and the second American Civil War began…

In New York former X-Man Karen Grant (nee Jean Grey) had been secretly furthering Charles Xavier‘s dream of fostering Human/Mutant co-existence, gathering young mutants and hiding them together for safety. When she vanished during the burgeoning Asian conflict her mission had been taken up by Kitty Pryde…

Jimmy Hudson – whose father Wolverine had been the Military’s “Mutant Zero” and reviled or celebrated as progenitor of mutantkind – was one of Pryde’s flock of refugees hiding beneath New York when the war began.

With news seeping in of wholesale mutant-cleansing in the west, Pryde, Jimmy and a number of others travelled across their hostile homeland to Camp Angel to join the Last Stand of their race.

When they arrived the long-undercover Nick Fury resurfaced, training mutants and working with them to establish a separate, safe homeland. As war wracked America the tiny outcast force faced its greatest martial threat to emerge as an independent Mutant Nation…

Set in the days following that incredible victory, Legacies actually begins with a flashback to earlier times long before The Deluge when S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Wolverine and his support team closed in on an assassin targeting Senator Gregory Lee.

Intel was scarce. All they knew was that something or someone called “Mothervine” wanted the crusading politician dead…

When a bystander apparently turned a little girl into a mutant to slaughter the Senator and his Secret Service detail, Wolverine’s frustrated team gave chase only to find the instigator’s freshly killed corpse…

Back in the present, Jimmy is again watching the recorded messages on his father’s hologram disc when mutant technopath Black Box bursts in. The kid’s uncanny affinity with machines has detected a hidden message underneath the transmission. Soon Hudson and Black Box have left the Mutant Nation far behind and gone in search of Wolverine’s final bequest – a coded message concerning something called Project: Mothervine…

Meanwhile, across the continent, human agents tasked with monitoring the long-dormant Mothervine are suddenly, sadistically despatched by mutant Machiavelli Quicksilver…

Years ago Wolverine and his crew had relentlessly tracked the elusive enigma, uncovering a conspiracy to create a means of mass-producing and weaponising mutants. But when they raided the Human Engineering Life Laboratories and ostensibly ended the threat, Wolverine again encountered an old adversary also hunting for the secret: Magda, ex-wife of Magneto and under her codename “The Witch” one of the deadliest freelance secret agents on Earth…

In the now, before following the old trail of Wolverine and Mothervine, Jimmy and Black Box waste precious time checking on Hudson’s foster parents. Unfortunately this sentimental side trip also brings them to the attention of psychotic freelancer Wildchild – another special services killer hired by an unknown party to clean up all traces of and links to Mothervine…

As Box’s gifts track down and interrogate old computer records, Wildchild’s gang attack and – despite Jimmy’s best efforts – the mutant kids are overpowered. They would have died if Quicksilver hadn’t turned up to revoltingly end the lives of the filthy humans…

As another flashback reveals the origins of Jimmy and the reasons his mother and father abandoned him, Pietro admits that he is Hudson’s half-brother, before disclosing the horrific truth about Mothervine and his plans for Jimmy.

Apparently his newly found sibling’s blood is apparently the only surviving source of the mutant-making concoction…

The family reunion isn’t a happy one however and, as Quicksilver explains his vision, Jimmy realises exactly what kind of monster his brother is. Pietro wants to build a mutant army to eradicate mankind and he’s perfectly willing to bleed the appalled Hudson dry to accomplish his goals…

It is only after their fast, furious final battle to decide the fate of humanity that Jimmy at last accepts his destiny is to be the new Wolverine…

There is a delicious covers-&-variants gallery by Arthur Adams & Axel Torvenius and no high-tech Marvel Augmented Reality App inclusions here; but frankly you won’t need them for this superbly sinister drama of spooks and monsters which perfectly sets up the replacement Feral Fury as defender of mutants and mankind alike. Moreover, as with all great spy stories, Legacies ends with portentous foreshadowing and the promise of more mayhem to come…

This is a craftily wry, cynical yet revelatory shocker and one more breathtakingly effective yarn only possible outside the Marvel Universe: and one which will resonate with readers who love the darkest side of science fiction and superheroes as well as casual readers more au fait with the company’s movies than the comics lore.

© 2013 Marvel. All rights reserved. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Superman


By Otto Binder, Jerry Coleman, Bill Finger, Edmond Hamilton, Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye (Four Square/New English Library)
ISBN: 1757

I’ve often bored anyone who would listen about the mini-publishing revolution during the “Camp” superhero-crazed 1960s, which first saw previously denigrated four-colour comic stories migrate from cheap, flimsy pamphlet to the stiffened covers and relative respectability of paperback bookshelves.

I can’t express the sheer nostalgic elation these mostly forgotten fancies still afford (to me at least) so, just because I want to, here’s one that probably qualifies as one of my absolute top three, just in time to cash in on the new Superman film.

Silver Age readers – we just thought of ourselves as “kids” – buying Superman, Action Comics, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, World’s Finest Comics and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (not forgetting Superboy, Adventure Comics and Justice League of America) would delight every time some fascinating snippet of information leaked out. We spent our days filling in the impossible blanks about incredible alien worlds (America as much as Krypton) through the enthralling, thrilling yarns in those halcyon treasures. But somehow when the tales appeared in proper books it made the dream realms a little more substantial; and perhaps even real…

The Man of Steel has proven to be all things to all fans over his 75-year existence and, with the character currently undergoing yet another radical overhaul, these fabulous gems of charm and joy and wholesome wit are more welcome than ever: not just as a reminder of grand times past but also as an all-ages primer for wonders still to come…

At the time this British edition of the New American Library edition was published, the Action Ace was enjoying a youthful swell of revived interest. Thanks to the TV Batman-led boom in superheroes generally and a highly efficient global licensing push, Superman was starring in a new television cartoon show, enjoying a rampant merchandising wave and had even secured his own Broadway musical: all working to keep the Last Son of Krypton a vibrant icon of modern, Space-Age America.

Although we might think of Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s iconic invention as the epitome of comicbook chic, the plain truth is that within months of his landmark 1938 launch in Action Comics #1, Superman had already grown into a multimedia star. Far more people have enjoyed the Man of Steel than have ever read his illustrated exploits and yes, that does include the globally syndicated newspaper strips which have existed since 1939.

By the time his 25th anniversary rolled around he had been a regular on radio, appeared in an eponymous novel by George Lowther and stunned audiences in a series of astounding animated cartoons.

In 1948 and 1950 he starred in a brace of live-action movie serials (Superman and Atom Man vs. Superman) before graduating to a full-length feature in 1951’s Superman and the Mole Men which led in turn to a groundbreaking and long-running television series.

He was a perennial success for toy and puzzle manufacturers and, after six seasons of The Adventures of Superman, an almost seamless succession of TV cartoons began with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966.

In his future were more TV shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville), a franchise of stellar movies and, once they’d been invented, computer and video game incarnations. Even super-dog Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

This terrific little black and white paperback pocket book – part of National Periodical Publications’ on-going efforts to reach wider reading audiences – surfaced in 1967 during the “Camp” superhero craze, re-presenting five reformatted Superman stories culled from the archives illustrated by signature illustrator Wayne Boring and all inked by regular collaborator Stan Kaye.

At this time many American comics publishers used the “Batman Bounce” to get out of their ghetto and onto “proper” bookshelves, however understandably DC concentrated most of their efforts on comics compilations and prose novels starring the Dynamic Duo…

The wholesome intrigue and breathtaking fantasy commence here with ‘The Invulnerable Enemy’ written by Otto Binder, and originally seen in Action Comics #226 (March 1957) wherein archaeologists uncovered the statue of a giant gladiator. Further excavation revealed the colossus to be a petrified alien crashed to Earth in ages past. When the Man of Steel brought the unmoving artefact to Metropolis an incredible accident caused by Lex Luthor brought the giant back to life.

The revived relic went on a rampage of destruction with powers even Superman could not cope with until, forced to use wits instead of muscles, the harried hero solved his dilemma and returned the marooned monolith to his proper place…

During the 1950s, even as his comicbook back-story was expanded and elaborated, the Metropolis Marvel had settled into a remarkably ordered existence. Nothing could really hurt him, nothing ever changed, and sheer excitement seemed in short supply. With the TV show concentrating on action, DC’s Comics Code-hamstrung scripters increasingly concentrated on supplying wonder, intrigue, imagination, a few laughs and, whenever possible, drama and pathos…

‘Superman’s 3 Mistakes!’ (by Edmond Hamilton from Superman #105, May 1956) provided both personal revelation and tense suspense when ClarkKent received an anonymous letter which declared that the writer knew his secret. Forced to review his past for cases which might expose evidence of his alter ego, Kent carefully excised all errors but could not learn the identity of his potential blackmailer until a second post-dated letter surfaced…

Superman #127 (February 1959) saw the debut of a hugely popular returning menace in ‘Titano the Super-Ape!’ The chimpanzee had mutated into a gigantic ape with Kryptonite vision after being shot into space, and upon his return caused massive destruction with only Lois Lane able to sooth savage ravages.

Again the Man of Might had to resort to brains not brawn to solve the crisis in a true classic of the period, courtesy of Binder, Boring & Kaye’s sublime treatment which combined action and sentiment to superb effect in a memorable homage to King Kong.

‘The Menace of Cosmic Man’ was a sharp mystery with political overtones written by Bill Finger (Action Comics #258, November 1959) wherein an impoverished European dictatorship improbably announced it had its own all-powerful costumed champion; drawing Lois and Clark into a potentially deadly covert investigation, after which this riot of reformatted revels concludes with ‘The Menace of Red-Green Kryptonite!’ (Jerry Coleman, Action #275, April 1961).

Guest-starring Supergirl, this uncanny conundrum featured a bizarre battle between Superman and alien marauder Brainiac, whose latest weapon combined two isotopes of the deadly radioactive remnants of Krypton to produce a truly weird transformation and inexplicable behavioural changes in the embattled Man of Tomorrow…

Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence and, with the character currently undergoing another overhaul, these peerless parables of power and glory are more welcome than ever: not just as memorial to what has been but also as a benchmark for future tales to aspire to…

This book is probably impossible to find today – even though entirely worth the effort – but whatever format or collection you happen upon, such forgotten stories of the immortal Superman are part of our cultural comics heritage and should never be lost.

You owe it to yourself to know them…
© 1956, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1966 National Periodical Publications. All rights reserved.

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The End


By Anders Nilsen (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 987-1-60699-635-5

Cheryl Weaver and Anders Nilsen were a couple. They were engaged and together forever and then in 2005 she died.

Her passing wasn’t sudden or dramatic and he had time to say goodbye. He carried on doing so for the next year, while his sketchbooks filled with questions and notions and helpless, hapless, hurt responses as he adjusted to his new, so unwanted, normal; all expressed in the form of his other reason for living – narrative graphic art.

Born in Minneapolis in 1973, Nilsen now lives in Chicago – when not travelling the world – producing such thought-provoking, award-winning comics and graphic novels as Dogs and Water, Monologues for the Coming Plague, the still-unfolding Big Questions and his heartbreaking thematic companion to this volume Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow.

Much of the material collected in this astoundingly frank and distressingly intimate hardcover memoir first appeared in the author’s therapeutic 2007 comicbook The End #1, whilst other portions of this much-expanded record originated in such disparate places as much-missed anthology Mome (Spring 2007) and even from screen-prints created in the months and years encompassing Nilsen’s slow voyage to acceptance.

The uncomfortably earnest eulogy begins with a poetic ‘Prologue’, before ‘Is That All There Is?’ wordlessly depicts an all-engulfing sense of loss and isolation, interrupted only by the text soliloquy ‘Love Story’.

The heart-rending catalogue of painful solitary moments ‘Since You’ve Been Gone I Can Do Whatever I Want To Do all the Time’ leads into inspirational prose observation with ‘I Have Two Lives’ after which the artist coolly examines the simple equation of loss and emotional paralysis with ‘Solve for X’…

Poem ‘In the Future’ and cartoon pantomime ‘Pulling a Giant Block’ precede harsh but ultimately uplifting debate in ’25 Dollars’ (originally seen in Mome as ‘It’s OK, You Have Everything You Need’) after which diagrammatic epigram ‘Eternity Analogy’ offers welcome hope and advice to fellow sufferers…

Primitivist drawing and photographic collage colourfully and philosophically combine in ‘You Were Born and So You’re Free’ before stark, simple lines return to illustrate an extensive imaginary conversation with the memory of love in ‘Talking to the Dead’ whilst print photomontages resume for the wistfully querulous ‘How Can I Prepare You for What’s To Follow?’ – created to welcome a newborn into the world…

The painful truism “life goes on” is reinterpreted in one final chat with the inevitable truth to close this memento mori in quiet contemplation with ‘Only Sometimes’…

To say this is a deeply moving book is grotesquely trite and staggeringly obtuse, but it’s also true. Every loss is always completely unique and utterly, selfishly personal, but most of us also have some capacity to empathise, share and see our own situation in the emotional disclosures of others. When it’s done as honestly, effectively and evocatively as here, the result is simply, devastatingly, unforgettably magical.

© 2013 Anders Nilsen. All rights reserved.
So much more of Nilsen’s cartoon conceptions and considerations (including outtakes from The End) can be seen at his beguiling blog the monologuist…

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Superman: The Return of Superman


By Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-2-56289-149-6

Although largely out of favour these days as all the myriad decades of Superman mythology are inexorably re-assimilated into one overarching all-inclusive multi-media Film-favoured DC continuity, the stripped-down, gritty post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Man of Steel as re-imagined by John Byrne, and marvellously built upon by a succession of immensely talented comics craftsmen, resulted in some genuine comics classics.

Most significant of them was a three-pronged story-arc which saw the martyrdom, loss, replacement and inevitable resurrection of the World’s Greatest Superhero in a stellar saga which broke all records and proved that a jaded general public still cared about the venerable, veteran icon of Truth, Justice and the American Way.

The dramatic events also provided a spectacular springboard for a resurgent burst of new characters who revitalised and reinvigorated more than one ailing franchise over the next decade…

This final landmark collection features material which originally appeared in Action Comics #687-691, Superman: the Man of Steel #22-26, Superman #78-82 and Adventures of Superman #500-505, plus Green Lantern volume 3 #46, spanning cover-dates June-October 1993 and originally published as the braided mega-saga “Reign of the Supermen”.

Written by Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, Louise Simonson & Roger Stern with art by Jon Bogdanove, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice, Jurgens, Brett Breeding, Doug Hazlewood, Dennis Janke & Denis Rodier, it details the stunning events which led up to the resurrection and return of the one and only Man of Tomorrow – although just who that might be was the subject of much debate at the time…

After a brutal rampage across Middle America a mysterious monster dubbed Doomsday had only been stopped in the heart of Metropolis by an overwhelming and fatal effort on Superman’s part.

Dying at the scene, the fallen hero’s body was the subject of many legal battles before it was ostensibly laid to rest in a tomb in Metropolis’ Centennial Park. However as Earth adjusted to a World Without a Superman rumours began to circulate that, like Elvis, the Man of Tomorrow was not dead…

It all began with a series of teaser ‘First Sightings’ (from Adventures of Superman #500) as, across America, four very different individuals appeared, saving lives and performing good deeds as only the departed defender could.

Then events start to properly unfold in ‘Born Again’ (Action #687 by Stern, Guice & Rodier) as scientists in Antarctica experienced unnatural power manifestations whilst, deep below the polar crust in the Fortress of Solitude, a confused creature more energy than matter manifested.

The bizarre being remembered dying in battle against Doomsday and, after flicking across the world in an eye-blink to explore an empty tomb in Metropolis, it reasonably concluded he was Superman reborn through Kryptonian technology…

He was however much reduced and changed. Unable to covert solar radiation into strength, he was so painfully sensitive to light he had to wear a protective visor. This Man of Tomorrow only manipulated energy and, after returning to Metropolis to resume his “never-ending battle” against chaos and injustice, soon displayed a callous disregard for the humans he protected when he executed a rapist and crippled a car-jacker…

The “Dirty Harry with a cape” soon attracted the attention of apparently benevolent billionaire Lex Luthor II (actually the wicked original in a cloned body) and Supergirl, but received his most telling confirmation when he met Lois Lane and disclosed things only Clark Kent could know…

In Man of Steel #22, ordinary construction worker John Henry Irons – who had been saved by Superman in the past – felt compelled to carry on the hero’s mission and built a high-tech suit of armour to facilitate his crusade. ‘Steel’, by Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke, found the urban inventor cleaning up the streets of Metropolis and searching for a gang who used a deadly new form of super-gun dubbed “toastmasters” – a weapon Irons had designed in another life…

Tracking the munitions enabled him to save the life of a fortune-teller and brought him into savage conflict with White Rabbit – a new criminal major player in the city – but life only got more complicated the morning after, when Psychic Rosie went on TV claiming Steel was possessed by the unquiet soul of Superman…

Superman # 78 (by Jurgens & Breeding) offered another apparent pretender. ‘Alive’ saw a Superman grotesquely bonded with mechanical appendages raid the top-secret genetics lab Cadmus Project to take the comatose Doomsday from rogue Director Paul Westfield, before dispatching the deadly mystery monster into deep space where no Earthly agency could exploit it.

When the partially amnesiac Cyborg-Superman subsequently met Lois, her suspicions were shockingly quelled by the few facts he could recall: the name Kent, a farm in Kansas, his feelings for her…

And when she took him to see maverick inventor Emil Hamilton, the Action Ace’s personal scientific advisor pronounced the bionic additions to be Kryptonian machines whilst the fleshly parts of the modern Prometheus comprised Superman’s unique DNA…

The final contender for the S-shield cropped up in Adventures of Superman #501 as ‘…When He Was a Boy!’ by Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood revealed the secret history of a brash and cocky kid who wore an adaptation of the Man of Tomorrow’s outfit and claimed to be a clone of the deceased hero, escaped from Cadmus.

After alienating everybody at the Daily Planet the horny, inexperienced juvenile latched onto ambitious journalist – and hottie – Tana Moon and fell under the spell of corrupt media mogul Vinnie Edge. Soon the kid was fighting crime live on TV to boost ratings…

As the world reeled from news that their defender was back, the fallen champion’s intimates and enemies were forced to wonder which – if any – of the newcomers was the real deal…

After hard-line hero Guy Gardner clashed with the visored energy Superman in Action #688, the former Green Lantern determined that the Kryptonian vigilante’s brutal treatment of offenders in ‘An Eye for an Eye’ (Stern, Guice & Rodier) proved that, even if he wasn’t exactly like the old guy, he was the kind of champion criminals deserved to meet.

In Man of Steel #22 (Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke), the spiritual successor of Superman barely survived an insidious ‘Ambush!’ Even with Toastmasters, street-gang the Sharks proved no match for Steel’s armoured might, but after a contentious clash of wills with the juvenile Krypton clone, Irons met White Rabbit and discovered she was an old flame from his Army weapons building days.

Caught off-guard he almost perished until “Don’t-call-me-Super BOY” flashed in to rescue him…

Jurgens & Breeding took an experimental tack in Superman #79 as Daily Planet reporter Ronald Troupe reviewed all the facts on the quartet of newcomers in ‘Prove It.’ After the Cyborg crusader spectacularly saved President Clinton from assassination he – and the Federal Government – could reach only one conclusion…

Meanwhile in Adventures of Superman #502, ‘Boy Meets Girl’ (Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood) followed the impetuous clone as he clashed with – and perved over – Supergirl before tangling with hired gun Stinger, commissioned by Vinnie Edge to perk up the viewing figures whatever the collateral costs…

Action and mystery expanded exponentially in #689’s ‘Who is the True Hero?’ by Stern, Guice & Rodier. Metropolis reeled from the devastation caused by the clone’s clash with Stinger, with Supergirl and the horrified kid frantically saving survivors, whilst in the Antarctic Fortress a fifth Superman emerged from a Kryptonian regeneration matrix…

Although barely stronger than an ordinary human, the reborn Kal-El quickly began catching up on what had happened since his demise, courtesy of the battery of alien machines in the icy citadel…

Back in Metropolis the merciless avenging Superman cataclysmically clashed with his ethical opposite Steel with Lois and Jimmy Olsen utterly unable to calm them down.

The combat carried over into Man of Steel #23, but the furious heroes were blithely unaware that an horrific alien conqueror was approaching Earth in ‘Impact!’ by Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke. Also oblivious to the impending disaster, the forces of Luthor and White Rabbit bloodily battled for control of the city…

‘Deadly Alliance’ (Jurgens & Breeding) in Superman #80 found Earth’s authorities made too-suddenly aware of the alien intruder. They responded by sending the Caped Cyborg to intercept it.

En route the officially recognised hero joined forces with his energy-based alternate – only to kill him and allow 77,000 space mines to explosively erase Coast City and its seven million inhabitants from the face of the planet.

As the planet shuddered the invader was revealed as cosmic conqueror Mongul – but nobody on Earth knew he was simply a pawn and the devoted servant of the Cyborg…

The drama kicked into overdrive in Adventures of Superman #503, with ‘Line of Fire!’ (Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood) showing the bionic betrayer eradicating survivors before luring the clone to ground zero and disposing of him as he had the Avenger, whilst in Antarctica the merely mortal Kal-El climbed into a Kryptonian war-suit and headed for the disaster zone…

‘Lies & Revelations’ (Action #690, by Stern, Guice & Rodier) saw the visored vigilante framed for the mass destruction by Cyborg Superman and Mogul as they sought to divert the attention of the Justice League and Earth’s other heroes.

The allies-in-atrocity had a plan and a timetable. Planning to raze Metropolis too, they would construct colossal world-moving engines in the craters and turn the planet into a War-World capable of dominating the galaxy and populated by the army of extraterrestrial soldiers they had amassed…

As Kal-El approached his hometown and the site of the next horrific Engine City, in Antarctica the swiftly-fading visored vigilante learned his true origins at last and, re-energised, headed back to the remains of Coast City…

Man of Steel #24 featured ‘The Return!’ (Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke) as Super-clone broke free and attempted to warn the world, even as Steel and Supergirl intercepted the war-suited warrior and discovered that the one true Metropolis Marvel was back …

Superman #81 ‘Resurrections’ (Jurgens & Breeding) revealed the secret origin of the Cyborg and his pact with Mongul, as Kal-El, Steel, Supergirl and the Superboy rocketed to California and a desperate ‘Assault on Engine City!’ (Adventures of Superman #504 Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood)

It all culminated in a cross-continental chase and the clone kid seemingly sacrificing himself to destroy the city-smashing space-ordinance in the skies above Metropolis…

Action #691 revealed the heroes’ late-arriving and extremely angry ‘Secret Weapon’ (Stern, Guice & Rodier) just as the war in Engine City roared to a blockbusting climax, after which ‘Blast Off!’ (Man of Steel #25, Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke) saw Kal fall to the merciless fists of Mongul as John Henry used his own armoured body to wreck the heart of Engine City…

Such an epic storyline naturally had repercussions outside Superman continuity and Green Lantern #46 intersected with the ongoing epic. GL Hal Jordan was a Coast City native and his inability to save his home, family and friends shattered him. (In fact these events would lead to his becoming manic mad mass-murderer Parallax and destroying the entire Green Lantern Corps – but that’s a tale for another tome…)

Arriving in ‘Death City’ (by Gerard Jones, M.D. Bright & Romeo Tanghal) just as Mongul prepared to deliver a killing blow, the Emerald Avenger saved Kal before venting all his wrath on the genocidal monster.

This savage assault allowed the restored Caped Kryptonian to reclaim his name and save the world once again in Superman #82’s ‘Back for Good’ (Jurgens & Breeding)… but only after one of his well-meaning pretenders surrendered everything he was…

This Earth-shattering epic winds down with a brace of excepts designed to re-establish the natural order, beginning with the first two pages of ‘Reign of the Superman’ (from Adventures of Superman #505 by Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood) as the one and only Superman at last returns to his grieving widow, before ‘Epilog: …And Who, Disguised as Clark Kent’ (from Action #692 courtesy of Stern, Guice & Rodier) clears up the last little details by “finding” the mild-mannered reporter in the subterranean basement he had been trapped in since Doomsday’s rampage through Metropolis months previously.

This powerful if ponderous epic perfectly embodies all the human drama and cosmic spectacle of the Superman mythology: evocative, tense, drenched in action and spilling over with great ideas and characters

This enthralling classic served as a valuable and necessary expansion of the legend, introducing a plethora of Supermen in a bold and long-term push to revitalise the venerable franchise, whilst the positively manic public interest beyond the world of comics took everyone by surprise and made the Man of Tomorrow as vital and vibrant a sensation as he was in the earliest days of his creation.

Best of all, it looks beautiful and reads great.

Together with the previous two volumes in this truly magnificent triptych, this saga is possibly the greatest Superman story ever told. What more do you need to know?
© 1993 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Golden Age Starman Archives volume 1


By Jack Burnley, Gardner Fox, Alfred Bester, Ray Burnley & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-622-4

After the staggering success of Superman and Batman, National Comics/DC rapidly launched many other mystery-men in their efforts to capitalise on the phenomenon of superheroes, and from our decades-distant perspective it’s only fair to say that by 1941 the editors had only the vaguest inkling of what they were doing.

Since newest creations Sandman, The Spectre and Hourman were each imbued with equal investments of innovation, creativity and exposure, the editorial powers-that-be were rather disappointed that their later additions never took off to the same explosive degree.

Publishing partner but separate editorial entity All American Comics had since generated many barnstorming successes like The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman and Hop Harrigan and would soon actually produce the only rival to Superman and Batman status when Wonder Woman debuted late in the year. Of course AA clearly filtered all ideas through the brilliantly “in-tune” creative and editorial prodigy Sheldon Mayer…

Thus when Starman launched in the April 1941 issue of Adventure Comics (relegating Sandman to a back-up role in the already venerable heroic anthology), National/DC trusted in craft and quality rather than some indefinable “pizzazz” and the editors were especially convinced that the forcefully realistic, conventionally dramatic illustration of Hardin “Jack” Burnley would propel their newest concept to the same giddy heights of popularity as the Action Ace and Gotham Guardian.

And indeed the strip, always magnificently drawn and indisputably one of the most beautiful of the period, was further blessed with mature and compelling scripts by Gardner Fox and Alfred Bester. Compulsive and brilliant: by today’s standards these are some one of the very best comics that era ever produced.

However – according to the artist in his Foreword to this first stunning deluxe hardback collection – that was possibly the problem. The subtle, moody, slower-paced stories just didn’t have the sheer exuberance and kinetic energy of the most popular series, which happily eschewed craft and discipline for spectacle and all-out action.

Happily these days, with an appreciably older and more discerning audience, Starman‘s less-than-stellar career in his own time can be fully seen for the superb example of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction it truly is…

This epic collection reprints the earliest astounding exploits of the Astral Avenger from Adventure Comics #61-76 (spanning April 1941 to July 1942) and includes some of the most iconic covers of the Golden Age: by Burnley and, latterly, wonder-kids Joe Simon & Jack Kirby.

Burnley came up with the Starman concept but, as was often the case, a professional writer was assigned to flesh out and co-create the stories. In this case said scribe was the multi-talented Gardner Fox who wrote most of them, whilst the illustrator also liberally called on the talents of his brother Dupree “Ray” Burnley as art assistant and sister Betty as letterer to finish the episodes in sublimely cinematic style.

In those simpler times origins were far less important than today, and the moonlit magic begins with ‘The Amazing Starman’ from #61 wherein America suddenly suffered a wave of deadly electrical events and FBI chief Woodley Allen summoned his latest volunteer operative. Bored socialite Ted Knight promptly abandoned his scathing date Doris Lee and assumed his mystery man persona, flying off to stop the deranged scientist behind all the death and destruction.

Almost as an aside we learned that secret genius Knight had previously discovered a way to collect and redirect the energy of Starlight through an awesome tool he called his “gravity rod” and resolved to do good with his discoveries…

Soon the intrepid adventurer had tracked the diabolical Dr. Doog to his mountain fortress and spectacularly decimated the subversive Secret Brotherhood of the Electron…

In #62 the Sidereal Sentinel met another deadly deranged genius who had devised a shrinking ray. It even briefly diminished Starman before the sky warrior extinguished ‘The Menace of the Lethal Light’, whilst ‘The Adventure of the Earthquake Terror’ in #63 revealed how the nation was attacked by foreign agent Captain Vurm who enslaved a lost South American tribe to administer his grotesque ground-shock engines. He too fell before the unstoppable cosmic power of harnessed starlight.

America was still neutral at this time, but the writing was on the wall and increasingly villains had monocles and German accents…

Adventure Comics #64 pitted the Astral Avenger against a sinister mesmerist who could turn men into robot slaves in ‘The Mystery of the Men with Staring Eyes’, after which – behind a stunning proto-patriotic cover – Starman solved ‘The Mystery of the Undersea Terror’ wherein the ship-sinking League of the Octopus proved to be another deadly outlet for the greedy genius of The Light…

In #66 ‘The Case of the Camera Curse’ layered a dose of supernatural horror into the high-tech mix when Starman tackled a crazed photographer who used a voodoo lens to enslave and destroy his subjects, whilst in #67 ‘The Menace of the Invisible Raiders’ introduced the Astral Avenger’s greatest foe.

The Mist had devised a way to make men and machines imperceptible and would have conquered America with his unseen air force had not the Starry Knight stopped him… Alfred Bester provided a searing patriotic script for #68 as ‘The Blaze of Doom’ found Starman quenching a forest fire and uncovering a lumberjack gang intent on holding America’s Defence effort to ransom, after which Fox returned for ‘The Adventure of the Singapore Stranglers’ in #69 which pitted heavenly hero against sinister cult. In actuality the killers were sadistic saboteurs of a certain aggressive Asiatic Empire. American involvement in WWII was mere months away.

The martial tone continued in ‘The Adventure of the Ring of Hijackers’ as Starman battled Baron X whose deadly minions were wrecking American trains shipping supplies and munitions to embattled Great Britain’s convoy vessels, but there was a welcome change of pace in #71 when ‘The Invaders from the Future’ struck. These brigands from Tomorrow were bad enough, but when Starman discovered which of his old enemies had recruited them, all bets were off…

In #72 an Arabian curse seemed the reason returned explorers kept dying of fright, but the ‘Case of the Magic Bloodstone’ proved to have a far more prosaic but no less sinister cause…

With Adventure Comics #73 Starman lost his regular cover-spot as dynamic duo Simon & Kirby took over ailing strips Paul Kirk, Manhunter and Sandman. However ‘The Case of the Murders in Outer Space’ proved the series was not lacking in imagination or dynamic quality, as the Astral Avenger matched wits with a brilliant mastermind murdering heirs to a Californian fortune by an unfathomable method and disposing of the bodies in an utterly unique manner…

Sinister science again reigned in #74 as ‘The Case of the Monstrous Animal-Men’ found the Starlight Centurion battling ghastly tragic pawns of a maniac who turned men into beasts, whilst in #75 ‘The Case of the Luckless Liars’ revealed how Ted Knight’s initiation into a millionaires’ fibbing society led to Starman becoming a hypnotised terror tool of deadly killer The Veil…

This initial foray into darkness ends with a rollicking action riot in ‘The Case of the Sinister Sun’ wherein cheap thugs the Moroni Gang upgraded their act with deadly gadgets and patterned themselves after the solar system in a blazing crime blitz – until Starman eclipsed them all…

Enthralling, engaging and fantastically inviting, these Golden Age adventures are a true high-point of the era – even if readers of the time didn’t realise it – and offer astonishing thrills and chills for today’s sophisticated readership. Starman’s exploits are some of the best but most neglected thrillers of those halcyon days, but modern tastes will find these yarns are far more in tune with contemporary mores, making this book a truly terrific treat for fans of mad science, mystery, murder and stylish intrigue…
© 1941, 1942, 2000 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman Chronicles volumes 1 and 2

New revised reviews

By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0764-9 & 978-1-4012-1215-5

It’s incontrovertible: the American comicbook industry – if it existed at all – would have been an utterly unrecognisable thing without Superman. His unprecedented invention and adoption by a desperate and joy-starved generation gave birth to an entire genre if not an actual art form.

Superman spawned an inconceivable army of imitators and variations, and within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and social wish-fulfilment which hallmarked the early Man of Steel had grown to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East finally involved America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and vigorous dashing derring-do.

Now with moviegoers again anticipating a new cinematic interpretation of the ultimate immigrant tale here’s my chance to once more highlight perhaps the most authentic of the many delightful versions of his oft-reprinted early tales.

Re-presenting the epochal run of raw, unpolished but viscerally vibrant stories by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster which set the funnybook world on fire, here – in as near-as-dammit the texture, smell and colour of the original newsprint – are the crude, rough, uncontrollable wish-fulfilling, cathartically exuberant exploits of a righteous and superior man dealing out summary justice equally to social malcontents, exploitative capitalists, thugs and ne’er-do-wells that initially captured the imagination of a generation.

The first of these oft-covered recollections of the primal Man of Steel – printed in chronological order – features the groundbreaking yarns from Action Comics #1 through #13 (June 1938 – June 1939) and his pivotal appearance from New York’s World Fair No. 1 (also June 1939) before comicbook history is made with the landmark first issue of his own solo title.

Most of the early tales were untitled, but for everyone’s convenience have been given descriptive appellations by the editors. Thus after describing the foundling’s escape from exploding Planet Krypton and explaining his astonishing powers in nine panels, with absolutely no preamble the wonderment begins with ‘Superman: Champion of the Oppressed!’ as the costumed crusader -masquerading by day as reporter Clark Kent – began averting numerous tragedies.

As well as saving an innocent woman from the Electric Chair and roughing up a wife beater, the tireless crusader worked over racketeer Butch Matson – consequently saving feisty colleague Lois Lane from abduction and worse – and outed a lobbyist for the armaments industry who was bribing Senators on behalf of greedy munitions interests fomenting war in Europe…

The next breathtaking instalment in Action #2 (July 1938) saw the mercurial mystery-man travelling to the war-zone to spectacularly dampen down the hostilities already in progress in ‘Revolution in San Monte Pt 2’ before ‘The Blakely Mine Disaster’ found the Man of Steel responding to a coal-mine cave-in to expose corrupt corporate practises before cleaning up gamblers who ruthless fixed games and players in #4’s ‘Superman Plays Football’.

The Action Ace’s untapped physical potential was highlighted in the next issue as ‘Superman and the Dam’ pitted the human dynamo against the power of a devastating natural disaster, after which in #6 canny chiseller Nick Williams attempted to monetise the hero – without asking first. ‘Superman’s Phony Manager’ even attempted to replace the real thing with a cheap knock-off but quickly learned a very painful lesson in ethics…

Although Superman featured on the first cover the staid and cautious editors were initially dubious about the alien strongman’s popular appeal and preferred more traditional genre scenes for the following issues (all by Leo E. O’Mealia and all included here).

Superman’s (and Joe Shuster’s) second cover appeared on Action Comics #7 (December 1938) and prompted a big jump in sales as a riotous romp inside revealed why ‘Superman Joins the Circus’ as the caped crusader crushed racketeers taking over the Big Top. Fred Guardineer then produced general genre covers for #8 and 9 whilst the interiors saw ‘Superman in the Slums’ working to save young delinquents from a future life of crime and depravity and latterly featured the city cops’ disastrous decision to stop the costumed vigilante’s unsanctioned interference in ‘Wanted: Superman’.

That manhunt ended in an uncomfortable stalemate…

Action #7 had been one of the highest-selling issues ever, so #10 again sported a stunning Shuster shot whilst Siegel’s smart story of ‘Superman Goes to Prison’ struck another telling blow against institutionalised injustice with the Man of Tomorrow infiltrating and exposing the brutal horrors of the State Chain Gangs.

Action Comics #11 featured a maritime cover by Guardineer as inside heartless conmen were driving investors to penury and suicide before the caped crimebuster interceded in ‘Superman and the “Black Gold” Swindle’.

Guardineer’s cover of magician hero Zatara on Action #12 incorporated another landmark as the Man of Steel was given a cameo badge declaring he was inside each and every issue, even as inside ‘Superman Declares War on Reckless Drivers’ provided a hard-hitting tale of casual joy-riders, cost-cutting automobile manufacturers, corrupt lawmakers and dodgy car salesmen who all felt the wrath of the hero after a friend of Clark Kent was killed in a hit-&-run incident.

By now the editors had realised that the debut of Superman had propelled National Comics to the forefront of the fledgling industry, and in 1939 the company was licensed to produce a commemorative comicbook celebrating the opening of the New York World’s Fair, with the Man of Tomorrow topping the bill on the appropriately titled New York World’s Fair Comics among such early DC four-colour stars as Zatara, Butch the Pup, Gingersnap and The Sandman.

Following an inspirational cover by Sheldon Mayer, ‘Superman at the World’s Fair’, by Siegel & Shuster, described how Clark and Lois were dispatched to cover the gala event giving the mystery man an opportunity to contribute his own exhibit and bag a bunch of brutal bandits to boot…

Back in Action Comics #13 (June 1939 and another Shuster cover) the road-rage theme of the previous issue continued as ‘Superman vs. the Cab Protective League’ pitted the tireless foe of felons against a murderous gang trying to take over the city’s taxi companies. The tale also introduced – in almost invisibly low key – The Man of Steel’s first great nemesis – The Ultra-Humanite…

This initial compilation concludes with a truncated version of Superman #1. This was because the first solo-starring comicbook in history actually reprinted the earliest tales from Action, supplemented with new and recovered material – and that alone is featured here.

Behind the iconic Shuster cover the first episode was at last printed in full, describing the alien foundling’s escape from exploding Planet Krypton, his childhood with unnamed Earthling foster parents and journey to the big city. Also included in those six pages (cut from Action Comics #1 and restored for Superman #1) was the Man of Steel’s routing of a lynch mob and capture of the real killer which preceded his spectacular saving of the accused murderess that started the legend…

Rounding off the unseen treasures is the solo page ‘Scientific Explanation of Superman’s Amazing Strength!’, a 2-page prose adventure of the Caped Crime-crusher, a biographical feature on Siegel & Shuster and a glorious Shuster pin-up from Superman #1’s back cover.

 

Superman Chronicles volume Two resumes the power-packed procession featuring the high- (leaping-but-not-yet) flying hero in tales from Action Comics #14-20 (July 1939-January 1940) and issues #2-3 of his 64 page solo spectaculars; cover-dated Fall and Winter 1939 respectively.

Sporting a Guardineer Zatara cover, Action #14 saw the return of the premier money-mad scientist in ‘Superman Meets the Ultra-Humanite’ wherein the mercenary malcontent switch from incessant graft, corruption and murder to an obsessive campaign to destroy the Man of Tomorrow.

Whilst Shuster concentrated on the interior epic ‘Superman on the High Seas’ – wherein the heroic hurricane tackled sub-sea pirates and dry land gangsters – Guardineer illustrated an aquatic Superman cover for #15, as well as the Foreign Legion cover on Action #16 wherein ‘Superman and the Numbers Racket’ saw the hero save an embezzler from suicide and disrupt another wicked gambling cabal.

By #16 sales figures confirmed that whenever the big guy appeared up-front issues sold out and, inevitably, Superman assumed that pole position for decades to come from #19 onwards.

Superman’s rise was meteoric and inexorable. He was the indisputable star of Action, plus his own dedicated title; a daily newspaper strip had begun on 16th January 1939, with a separate Sunday strip following from November 5th of that year, which was garnering millions of new fans. A thrice-weekly radio serial was in the offing and would launch on February 12th 1940. With games, toys, a newspaper strip and a growing international media presence, Superman was swiftly becoming everybody’s hero…

The second issue of the Man of Tomorrow’s own title opened with ‘The Comeback of Larry Trent’ – a stirring human drama wherein the Action Ace cleared the name of the broken heavyweight boxer, coincidentally cleaning the scum out of the fight game, and followed by ‘Superman Champions Universal Peace!’ wherein the hero crushed a gang who had stolen the world’s deadliest poison gas weapon, once more going up against unscrupulous munitions manufacturers.

‘Superman and the Skyscrapers’ found Kent investigating suspicious deaths in the construction industry, leading his alter ego into confrontation with mindless thugs and their fat-cat corporate boss, after which a Superman text tale ended the issue.

Action Comics #17 featured ‘The Return of the Ultra-Humanite’ in a viciously homicidal caper involving extortion and the wanton sinking of US ships and featured a classic Shuster Super-cover as the Man of Steel was awarded all the odd-numbered issues for his attention-grabbing playground.

That didn’t last long: after Guardineer’s last adventure cover – an aerial dog fight – on #18 and which masked into ‘Superman’s Super-Campaign’ as both Kent and Superman determined to crush a merciless blackmailer, Superman just appeared on the front every month from #19, which found the city temporarily in the grip of a deadly epidemic created by the Ultra-Humanite in ‘Superman and the Purple Plague’.

Only the first and last strips from Superman #3 are in this volume, as the other two were reprints of Action #5 and 6.

‘Superman and the Runaway’ however offered a gripping, shockingly uncompromising expose of corrupt orphanages, after which Lois went out on a date with hapless Clark simply because she needed to get closer to a gang of murderous smugglers. Happily his hidden alter ego was on hand to rescue her in the bombastic gang-busting ‘Superman and the Jewel Smugglers’…

This incredible panorama of torrid tales ends with ‘Superman and the Screen Siren’ from Action #20 (January 1940) as beautiful actress Delores Winters was revealed not as another sinister super-scientific megalomaniac but the latest tragic victim and organic hideaway of the Ultra-Humanite who had perfected his greatest horror… brain transplant surgery!

Although the gaudy burlesque of monsters and super-villains still lay years ahead of our hero, these primitive captivating tales of corruption, disaster and social injustice are just as engrossing and speak powerfully of the tenor of the times. The perilous parade of rip-roaring action, hoods, masterminds, plagues, disasters, lost kids and distressed damsels are all dealt with in a direct and captivating manner by our relentlessly entertaining champion in summarily swift and decisive fashion.

No continued stories here!

As fresh and thrilling now as they ever were, these endlessly re-readable epics are perfectly housed in these glorious paperback collections where the savage intensity and sly wit still shine through in Siegel’s stories – which literally defined what being a Super Hero means – whilst Shuster created the basic iconography for all others to follow.

Such Golden Age tales are priceless enjoyment at an absurdly affordable price and in a durable, comfortingly approachable format. What dedicated comics fan could possibly resist them?

As well as cheap price and no-nonsense design and presentation, and notwithstanding the historical significance of the material presented within, the most important bonus for any one who hasn’t read some or all of these tales before is that they are all astonishingly well-told and engrossing mini-epics that cannot fail to grip the reader.

In a world where Angels With Dirty Faces, Bringing Up Baby and The Front Page are as familiar to our shared cultural consciousness as the latest episode of Dr Who or Downton Abbey, the dress, manner and idiom in these near-seventy-five-year-old stories can’t jar or confuse. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.

Once read you’ll understand why today’s creators keep returning to this material every time they need to revamp the big guy. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.

© 1938, 1939, 1940, 2006, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Captain America: Castaway in Dimension Z


By Rick Remender, John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson, Scott Hanna, Thomas Palmer & Dean White (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-534-5

The MarvelNOW! publishing event, which began at the end of 2012, gave the publishing house an irresistible opportunity to try a few different things with its vast catalogue of characters: options a bit more imaginative than simply killing somebody off or changing the identity of the hero under the mask…

‘Castaway in Dimension Z‘ opens with a flashback to Steve Roger’s early life in Depression Era New York. This book is packed with such recurring, revelatory glimpses of the hero’s rough early childhood: scenes of crushing poverty, bravery, endurance and idealism that shaped the character of America’s indomitable ideal…

The contemporary action commences with Captain America crushing an insane plot by deranged eco-terrorist The Green Skull before meeting long term girlfriend and S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison Sharon Carter. It’s his birthday – the 4th of July, of course – and the immortal Sentinel of Liberty is celebrating by investigating a phantom subway train with his favourite partner.

His mind isn’t in the game however: after years of waiting, Sharon has given up and just asked Steve to marry her…

The train is a trap and before he can react Rogers is chained, drugged and catapulted into an impossible other universe leaving Sharon and a normal life behind, perhaps forever…

The Sentinel of Liberty groggily awakes strapped to a lab machine next to a baby floating in a tank. Monstrous radical geneticist and Fascist war-criminal Arnim Zola is an old foe, but here he seem to be working alone, intent on extracting the Super-Soldier serum which has kept Steve the world’s most perfect man for nine decades…

As the devil doctor plunges a giant needle deep into Steve’s chest, the still-doped champion breaks free and, retrieving his shield, impossibly battles his way to freedom past an army of monsters and genetically reconstructed horrors…

In the rubble of the ruined lab and shattered baby tank, Zola screams to a little girl that the Avenger has killed her brother, his “perfect son”…

As Captain America flies a stolen jet deep into the arid wastes of an unrecognisable place, Zola tasks his mutate army with hunting down the fugitive infanticide, utterly unaware that the rescued baby is safe in the hero’s brawny arms…

‘One Year Later’ Cap and the unnaturally advanced boy he’s named Ian are scavenging in the wastes of a world where all the recognised laws of physics seem optional. The food they hunt hunts them too and Zola’s patrols are everywhere. After a particularly brutal clash with Zolandian warriors and a hidden monster, the humans are unable to fend off a further attack and captured by hideous armoured beasts who seem to be an indigenous race…

The Phrox are on the edge of extinction: their harsh home further twisted by the invader Zola who is determined to exterminate them and repopulate with his ghastly subservient creations. Steve’s problems are more immediate. Zofjor, dictator of the Phrox, wants him dead but the harassed hero and his “son” are adopted by forward-seeing noble Ksul, who sees in them a future weapon against Zola…

A seeming diversion shows us Zola’s sordid past in Switzerland in 1929, before revealing how his Dimension Z daughter Jet has become a revenge-fuelled fighting fury. In the subterranean caverns of the Phrox Steve and Ian find friends and time to heal in relative security. However the Sentinel is keeping secrets: Zola did something to him when he was first captured and a true horror is growing inside him…

The genetic time-bomb doesn’t stop Steve overthrowing Zofjor, but even as the Phrox exult in their new-found freedom, Zola’s hidden gift reveals itself and begins a slow, remorseless conquest of Captain America’s mind and body…

‘Eleven Years Later’ Ian is an experienced soldier, trained by the Sentinel of Liberty to fight for what’s right even as Zola’s forces inexorably close in on the last remnants of the embattled Phrox. However even as they repel another mutate advance, the thing in Steve continually taunts him with Zola’s memories and urges him to return the boy to his creator. The decision is taken from him when he collapses and Ian sees and hears the infection for himself…

Knowing the end is near Steve settles on a drastic step: breaching his enemy’s citadel, fighting his way back to Earth for medical assistance and returning with Avengers reinforcements.

Zola too has plans. His now-grown daughter Jet Black is capably in command of his mass-manufactured armies and has captured a Phrox long-exiled by Rogers. After securing the location of the hidden hideaway, she leads the mutates and her father’s latest crop of warped horrors – all grown from Steve’s blood – on an all-out attack on the human who slaughtered her baby brother…

The devastating assault is a complete success. However as Jet recaptures her impossibly alive brother and beats Captain America to near-death she experiences doubts. The man she has hated all her life has clearly cared for the boy and is a valiant foe. What else might be untrue?

The hesitation is too much for Zola who uses a monster body to destroy his foe before ordering the extermination of the Phrox Ian considers his extended family.

Steve Rogers is not dead. Recovering in the ruins he takes a knife to his chest and excises Zola’s appalling agent and makes a plan. After 11 years on the defensive and on the run Captain America is ready to fight back and bring the war to his hated enemy…

To Be Continued…

Brutal, bewildering, bewitching and bombastic, this eye-popping otherworld epic re-presents Captain America volume 7, #1-5, originally released between November 2012-March 2013, wherein Rick Remender’s boldly unconventional action-packed saga at last creates a full childhood for America’s greatest champion to temper and inform the unshakable idealism.

Moreover the stunning art by John Romita Jr., inkers Klaus Janson, Scott Hanna & Thomas Palmer and colour-renderer Dean White is simply too good to be true.

This book also includes a vast cover-and-variants gallery by Romita Jr., Janson, Joe Quesada, Jerome Opeña, Charles Paul Wilson III, Ryan Meinerding, Skott Young, Paolo Rivera, Julian Totino, Tedesco, Alexander Maleev, Simone Bianchi & Jung-Geun Yoon and the now as-standard AR icon add-on sections.

This Marvel Augmented Reality App give access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Magnificently reminiscent of the spectacular, innovative 1976-1977 Jack Kirby run on the Star-Spangled Avenger, this bombastic science-fiction epic of freedom fighting fantasy is a delicious, mysterious and mesmerising all-action extravaganza no Fights ‘n’ Tights can afford to ignore.

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