NowReadThis

April 30, 2013April 29, 2013

Dead Air

By M. Dalton Allred with Laura Allred (Slave Labor Books)
No ISBN, ASIN: B000GLP8JG

Major comicbook creative force M. Dalton (‘we call him â€œMikeâ€’) Allred’s many comicbook writer/artist triumphs include Madman, The Atomics, and Red Rocket 7 as well as notable collaborative runs on Marvel’s X-Force and X-Statix with Peter Milligan and Vertigo thriller iZombie with Chris Roberson, but unlike almost everyone else in the industry to reach an exalted status, most of his early work was – and remains – extremely readableâ€¦

After switching from a career in the media to funnybooks, he commenced his unique brand of tale-telling (aided as always by wife Laura) with a dreamily paranoid, visually symphonic suspense shocker very much in the mould of classic 1960s Rod Serling Twilight Zone mystery tales.

Originally designed as a black and white 4-issue miniseries, Dead Air was instead released by independent publisher Slave Labor as a complete Original Graphic Novel and reintroduced comics to the thrills of uncanny, inexplicable paranoiac peril through the channelled artistic sensibilities of modern design legend Patrick Nagel (upon whose remorselessly pared-down stylisations Allred based his own early drawing).

Following The End of the World, the poignant personal horror begins in ‘Shapes of Things’ as, in the small American town of Roseburg, Oregon, radio DJ Calvin Lennox stares at the blue glow coming from over the mountains and wondersâ€¦

One night all communication with the outside world was completely lost. All the TV channels blinked out to static and there was nothing but dead air on the radio. Soon Mayor Leroy Black had declared Martial Law and instigated a curfew: nobody out and nobody in, and order viciously imposed by the sheriff’s bully-boys.

Everybody knew it had to have been the long-deaded nuclear war, but Lennox didn’t care. His wife Sydney and their two boys Michael and Connor were miles away in Eugene when the disaster – whatever it actually was – had struck, and Calvin was going crazy trying to get to them.

Asking Black to let him leave only resulted in a savage beating, so Lennox carefully laid plans with lifelong pals Charlie Custen, Warren Goodrich and Kevin Zelch to escape from the captive population, all the while barely holding off the bubbling madness, desperation of loss and agony of not knowingâ€¦

Their moment came in ‘Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere’ as the determined quartet made their break with the unexpected assistance of an unsuspected ally. The attempt led to a desperate car-chase and an exchange of gunfire which permanently scarred the frantic family man and badly wounded Warren, but soon they were all on their way, riding on an open empty highway that was somehow, subtlyâ€¦ wrong.

Warren was the one who spotted it.

Everything looked fine, with no sign of atomic – or any other physical – destruction, but the road no longer had any turn-offs or exitsâ€¦

Freaked out, the fugitives continued on and began to notice that the scenery, landscape and mountains now seemed altered and oddly different. It was like they’d been transported to another worldâ€¦.

With reality reeling, they stop to assess their situation and, after some discussion, decide to push on and find Sydney and the kids. Switching to the motorbikes, they travel on – far, far further than the normal distance to Eugene.

The horror starts to hit home in ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’ when the interminable highway is interrupted by a beach and sea-shore miles from where it should be. Nonplussed, Calvin breaks into an empty lighthouse and sees his destination just over a ridge. Somehow Eugene was just there, but there was something not right about the city’s edges and outskirtsâ€¦

Baffled and combative, the freaked out friends move on to find a familiar city filled with forgotten childhood treasures but utterly devoid of life. As they separate to explore, Calvin discovers he can now see through John’s eyes just as a glowing blue cloud begins to dissolve all the buildingsâ€¦

Only Warren and Calvin escape the all-enveloping mist and the heartsick, bereft family man is filled with a terrifying partial understanding as he turns their vehicle back towards Roseburg for the incredible answers to all mysteries in ‘A Sort of Homecoming’. Even then only Calvin Lennox makes it, to finally confront the agent of all his woes and find the answers he’s been seekingâ€¦

Stylish, wry, moving, quirkily lyrical and inundated with iconic islands of popular culture, Dead Air is a beguiling puzzle picture and decidedly different love story which still packs a punch for fantasy fans and comics lovers to enjoy over and over again.
Â© 1989 M. Dalton Allred. All rights reserved.

April 29, 2013April 28, 2013

Trinity volume 1

By Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza, Mark Bagley, Scott McDaniel, Tom Derenick, Jerry Ordway & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2277-2

DC’s mythologizing of its most renowned character properties saw their ultimate expression in the ambitious if overly-convoluted year-long publishing event Trinity which revealed the unexpected cosmic significance of the relationship between Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.

The series explored the metaphysical underpinnings of the DC Universe through 52 weekly instalments, split into a lead chapter with a connected ancillary episode intended to ultimately combine into a complex web of narrative encompassing the entire multiversal cosmos.

This initial volume – of three, natch – collects issues #1-17 of the omniversal odyssey (from June to October 2008) and was conceived and written by Kurt Busiek, with Fabian Nicieza co-scripting the sidebar stories. The art on the primaries was by Mark Bagley& Art Thibert, with Scott McDaniel, Tom Derenick, Mike Norton and others tag-teaming on the back-upsâ€¦

The reality-busting drama begins with ‘Boys and their Gamesâ€¦’ in the heart of the cosmos where an ancient, immensely powerful and obsessive being struggles to break free of a vast all-encompassing prison. Meanwhile in Keystone City, as their heroic associates take care of the usual distractions, old friends Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince meet for breakfast and discuss the distressing fact that they have all been enduring the same disturbing dreams of a monster escaping its imprisonmentâ€¦

The first back-up tale ‘In the Morrows to Come’, by Busiek, Nicieza, McDaniel & Andy Owens, casts a light on Castle Branek where dark witch Morgaine Le Fey is accosted by a mysterious mortal dubbed Enigma who offers her the chance to rewrite Reality in her favour, tempting her with glimpses of other Earths and unfamiliar heroes. The first thing they need to do, however, is find a third co-conspirator and then seek out and capture a young girl with a strange knack for reading Tarot cardsâ€¦

As the conspirators’ plans come together, reality begins to warp and wobble around Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman in ‘A Personal Best at Giant Robot Smashing’ (Busiek, Bagley & Thibert) but the heroes are proving remarkably resilient in the face of the bizarre and deadly outbreaks. Things are tougher for Green Lantern John Stewart in ‘It’s Gonna Throw the Car’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Derenick & Wayne Faucher) as alien powerhouse Konvikt and his diminutive mouthpiece and legal advocate Graak crash to Earth and go on a rampage.

Before long the unstoppable ETs are thrashing the entire Justice League in ‘Kplow’ (Busiek, Bagley & Thibert) and only the big three are left to stop themâ€¦ until the big bruiser decks Supermanâ€¦ Meanwhile ‘Earth to Rita’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Norton & Jerry Ordway) reveals how street Tarot reader Marguerita Covas starts getting some very strange readings even as she realises her predictions have been misused by a local gangbanger.

However when the superstitious thug tries to abduct Rita to secure her exclusive services, concerned citizen Jose Delgado steps in too late and finds her dazed and reeling near a pile of dismembered gangstas. Something far more dangerous than the urban vigilante called Gangbuster is watching over the baffled clairvoyantâ€¦

The spectacular struggle against the fully amok Konvikt is going badly, prompting Batman to break off to investigate the aliens’ arrival point in ‘Caped Simoid Thinks So, Hm?’ (Busiek, Bagley, Thibert). During his absence a secretive new player makes use of the melee to surreptitiously brand Wonder Woman with a mystic sigil, whilst ‘World-Somethingâ€¦’ (by Busiek, Nicieza, Norton, Ordway, McDaniel & Owens) reveals how Rita’s dreams contact another alienÂ monster. The bloodthirsty Despero is mercilessly eradicating the forces of his stellar rival Kanjar Ro and, although she doesn’t know how or why, Rita is painfully aware that her foresights will become fact, affecting her and the entire Earthâ€¦

‘Great. Now He’s Holding His Breath.’ (another BBT production) sees the defeat of Konvikt by Batman, who also captures the mystic Howler which branded Wonder Woman. Miles away Rita’s Tarot face cards undergo a bizarre transformation, whilst things get hot for her self-appointed bodyguard Delgado as hired super-freaks Blindside, Throttle and Whiteout attack the ‘Knight in Shiny Armor’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Norton & Mark Farmer) to seize the tarot-readerâ€¦

Barely escaping, the hero and his charge flee, but Tarot is almost oblivious to her personal peril: all she can see is that the pictures on her cards keep changingâ€¦

‘Truth, Justice & the American Wayâ€¦’ follows the recovering Trinity of heroes through the visions of the ever-evolving Tarot. Her attempts to divine the meaning and significance bear no fruit until a horde of Howlers overpower Gangbuster and drag the girl away. Just as ‘Almost’ (Busiek, Nicieza, McDaniel & Owens) shifts focus to Hawkman, as he defeats the seductive Nocturna , the reincarnated warrior stumbles onto the bloodied and brutalised Delgado who is obsessively searching for Rita. His hunt has taken him to StonechatMuseum – where her old Gangsta associates are stealing ancient artefacts – and into accidental combat with the Winged Wonder.

Once the dust settles and amends are made, the two heroes confer and learn that other relics are being taken from museums all over the worldâ€¦

With odd incidences of threes occurring everywhere, the League start researching and discover a link to the â€œprimal creation energies of the universeâ€. A check on the Cosmic Egg holding captive the rogue Guardian of the Universe Krona proves a dead end, but the Amazon’s brand has changed shape and ‘A Third Symbol Now’ is revealed just as Hawkman and Gangbuster arrive.

Soon the Pinioned Paladin’s millennia of knowledge and Batman’s deductive ability have reasoned out a link to Ancient Egyptian Tarot rites and discovered that an army of the Dark Knight’s old enemies have been hired to steal pertinent items and relics for an unknown clientâ€¦

And far across the galaxies Morgaine and Enigma appear to Despero and offer him an equal partnership in controlling all that isâ€¦

In ‘Away from Creation’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Derenick & Faucher), John Stewart gives new Firestorm Jason Rausch a history lesson on Krona, who brought evil into the universe through his hunger for forbidden knowledge, unaware that the rogue Guardian and the Cosmic Egg that holds him are now in the possession of the triumvirate of universal usurpersâ€¦

Back on Earth ‘Have You Tied Him Up, Yet?’ finds Batman fighting off an attempt to brand him with a sigil as a new force of super-foes is formed by the still-unidentified masterminds. Atomic Furnace Sun-Chained-in-Ink, lovelorn super-ape Primat, eerie Trans-Volitional Man and the flamboyant Swashbuckler have their ‘Dreams of Power’ (art by McDaniel & Owens) as do the exultant Morgaine and her two comrades in re-Creationâ€¦

Overcoming the Howler pack assaulting him, the Dark Knight notices that he is acting out of character. All of the Trinity are slowly assuming each others attributes and attitudes, but this hasn’t stopped him deducing who is behind the Tarot-related plot in ‘Crumbs in the Forest’ (still Busiek, Bagley & Thibert) but before he can act a global crisis diverts the JLA’s attentions and forces the team to travel to another dimension, leaving Barbara Gordon, AKA digital information-wizard Oracle, to coordinate Batman’s network of Gotham-based champions on Earth by ‘Making the Pieces Fit’ as a series of macabre and surreal robberies mark the second part of the Dark Trinity’s schemeâ€¦

Anti-matter alternate metahumans the Crime Syndicate of Amerika have often battled the JLA but after their last clash their planet, – a polar opposite of ours where Evil, not Good, is dominant, was devastated by a super weapon called the Void Hound.

In ‘Rough World’ the villains were revealed to have abducted humans from many other Earths as a slave force intended to rebuild and repopulate the shattered world. However, as the Justice League arrived to rescue the victims, Superman became increasing infuriated and unstableâ€¦

On our Earth, the Dark Trinity’s plan continued to unfold as Robin and Nightwing clashed with Primat in ‘Maybe She Doesn’t Like Concrete?’ and Oracle got an inkling of what the bizarre scavenger hunts were actually forâ€¦

‘Distinguished Visitor’ saw the battle in the Anti-Universe seesaw dramatically with each side gaining and loosing ground whilst ‘The Next Step’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Derenick & Faucher) found Hawkman and gangbuster seemingly lose a battle but win the war against Primat and her esoteric allies, after which ‘100101010’ added a new wrinkle to the inter-dimension struggle as GL Stewart was revealed to have been possessed by the devastating Void Hound, and back here reformed villain Edward Nigma investigated the Tarot thefts and found himself accused of being the man behind the mask in ‘Riddle Me This’ from Busiek, Nicieza, Norton & Karl Keselâ€¦

‘That Was a Sonic Boom’ revealed the League’s secret weapon in their war against the CSA, whilst ‘Drop the Coffin and Surrender’ (illustrated by Derenick & Faucher) saw a showdown between Hawkman, Gangbuster and the odd squad turn into an all-out clash involving the Outsiders, Justice Society and Teen Titans which went catastrophically awry when the Ink Chaining the Sun was atomically disruptedâ€¦

In the Anti-Matter realm the JLA’s victory provoked global anarchy and chaos which their attempts to rectify only exacerbated. However, ‘So What Now?’ also forced the enigmatic Enigma to reveal some of his many secrets, but when the victorious heroes gratefully returned to their own world, Superman had been sigil-branded. Dark Trinity: 2, Heroes 0â€¦

With Sun-Chained-in-Ink literally in meltdown, ‘Let the Burning Begin’ (Derenick & Faucher) almost saw Earth’s last sunrise until Supergirl and Geo-force managed to shift the threat into deep space, whilst half a world away Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman tracked down Morgaine, Despero and Enigma for a climactic confrontation in ‘And I Finally See It’ but, even with almost every hero on Earth beside them, things did not go according to plan in ‘A Bit of Overkill’ (Busiek, Nicieza, McDaniel & Owens) and

‘We’ll Finish Things Here’ saw the conniving plotters win the dayâ€¦

Scattered to the Winds’ (art by Norton & Ordway) found the helpless Rita come into her terrifying dormant powers just as Morgaine was ultimately victorious, and the heroic Trinity who inadvertently dictated the Shape of Reality vanished in ‘But So No Longer’ by Busiek, Bagley & Thibertâ€¦

As the universe altered into a new and unknown configuration, the origins of Konvikt were revealed in ‘Honor and Justice’ from Busiek, Nicieza, McDaniel & Owens, and this first volume ends on the incredible sight of an impossible world where there never was was a Man of Tomorrow, Dark Knight or Amazon Avengerâ€¦

This convoluted but compelling collection also includes a vast selection of covers by Carlos Pacheco, Jesus Merino, Allen Passalaqua, Andy Kubert, Edgar Delgado, Jim Lee, Scott Williams and Alex Sinclair and nine pages of sketches by Bagley and Shane Davis, but, despite being long, frantic and bombastically suspense-filled, it’s just the prologue for the really big story.

To Be Continuedâ€¦
Â© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

April 28, 2013May 4, 2013

All-New X-Men: Here Comes Yesterday

By Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger & Craig Yeung (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-532-1

Radical perpetual change – or the appearance of such – is a driving force in modern comics. There must be a constant changing of the guard, a shifting of scene and milieu and, in latter times, a regular diet of death, resurrection and rebirth – all grounded in relatively contemporary terms and situations.

With a property as valuable as the X-Men such incessant remodelling is a necessarily good thing, even if you sometimes need a scorecard to keep up, and over the decades the franchise has repeatedly reinterpreted, refashioned and updated the formative early epics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas and Werner Roth and others to give a solid underpinning to all the thoroughly modern Mutant mayhem.

Now following all the bad choices and horrendous paths taken by the mutant mavericks over the last few years, and in the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, latest company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! recasts the entire continuity and allows writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Stuart Immonen (with the assistance of Wade Von Grawbadger & Craig Yeung) to take the franchise in a truly bizarre old new direction.

Collecting All-New X-Men #1-5 from November 2012 – March 2013, this dark yet breezy reboot finds mutant Moses Charles Xavier dead, murdered by his favourite son who has also splintered his chosen people into polarised if not actually warring factions.

Way back in 1963, The X-Men #1 introduced gloomy, serious Scott Summers/Cyclops, ebullient Bobby Drake/Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III/the Angel, standoffish Jean Grey/Marvel Girl and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy/the Beast. These very special youngsters were selected to be students by the wheelchair-bound telepath Xavier: a man dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants with extra abilities, ominously dubbed Homo Superior.

After years of eccentric, quirky adventures, the masked misfits faded away in early 1970. When they eventually made their comeback they weren’t kids any moreâ€¦

Over the intervening years the struggle to integrate Homo Superior with baseline humanity has produced many tragedies and compromises, resulting in the death of Jean Grey and Cyclops allying with former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, if necessary, of human ones. His former team-mates and newer X-Men such as Wolverine, Storm and Kitty Pryde have stayed on Xavier’s path, abandoning Scott to protect and train the next X-generation at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learningâ€¦

The five part ‘What Happens Now?’ opens at the school as Hank McCoy realises he is dying.

The team’s resident super-genius was the first to strike out on his own and paid a high price for it, but now those days have come back to haunt him one last timeâ€¦

Premiering in Amazing Adventures #11 (March 1972) ‘The Beast!’ told how the brilliant student had left Xavier’s school and taken a research position at the Brand Corporation. Using private sector resources to research the causes of genetic mutation, McCoy became embroiled in industrial skulduggery and to hide his identity used his discoveries to â€œupgradeâ€ his natural animalistic abilities – temporarily turning himself into a fearsome furry anthropoid creature with startling new abilities. At least it was supposed to be temporaryâ€¦

Now, after years as a big blue Beast, McCoy is uncontrollably mutating further and realises he will not survive the agonising process. As Cyclops and his new team of freedom fighters begin a very public crusade, rescuing the latest mutants to manifest from their own power and the hostility of humankind, Hank and fellow tutors Pryde, Storm, and oldest friend Iceman discuss how far their friend has fallen.

Drake then muses on the team’s earliest days and remarks that if the Scott Summers from back then could see himself now, he’d slap some sense into himselfâ€¦

With no time left, staring a prospective mutant civil war in the face and determined to leave a lasting, meaningful legacy, McCoy risks the entire continuum by bringing not only Cyclops but the rest of the original team back to the future in a desperate attempt to heal and restore the noble, dedicated Scott Summers he used to implicitly trust with his life and the future of mutantkindâ€¦

Back in our present, Marvel Girl suddenly gains the telepathic powers which originally took her years to develop as the shocked innocent kids become aware of the catalogue of horrors they will endure whilst defending Xavier’s dream. Young, idealistic Scott especially cannot believeâ€¦ and will not allow his later self to continue betraying his/their life’s purposeâ€¦

However as Wolverine and the others become dramatically aware of what McCoy has done, the elder Beast collapses. Realising their moral compass is dying, the 21^st century X-Men lock up and isolate the newly-arrive, future-shocked kids to prevent further problems.

They have however completely underestimated the squad who where regularly saving the world years before they could vote or buy beerâ€¦

Breaking out and stealing a jet, the juvenile first team take off to confront the terrorist Cyclops and his allies, but discussion quickly devolves into brutal battle and the elders choose escape over further risky conflictâ€¦

Shaken but resolved the kids return and, whilst the time-twisted McCoy boys find a way to save the dying Beast, the original X-Men come to a fateful decision. They won’t go home until they have stopped the wayward modern Cyclops. Moreover Jean, having learned of her own dark destiny, is set on ensuring it will never happenâ€¦

Engaging, exciting and extremely entertaining; blending spectacular adventure with the signature themes of alienation and personal freedom but finally finding room for much-missed humour, warmth and affection, this utterly beguiling, enticinglyÂ unpredictable yarn promises a genuinely fresh approach to the moribund, dead-ended, water-treading mutant franchise and offers a perfect jumping-on point for new and retired fans alike.

This book also includes a stunning cover-and-variants gallery by Immonen, Joe Quesada, J. Scott Campbell, Salvador Larroca, Pablo Manuel Rivera, Skott Young, Pasqual Ferry, Ed McGuiness, Jim Cheung and Olivier Coipel, and also the now nigh-compulsory 21st century add-on for all those tech-savvy consumers in the form of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the little dickens – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet thingy.

April 27, 2013May 4, 2013

Race to Incarcerate – a Graphic Retelling

By Marc Mauer & Sabrina Jones (The New Press)
ISBN: 978-1-59558-514-7

This book made me really, really angry.

That’s okay though; it was supposed to.

Marc Mauer is the Executive Director of The Sentencing Project, a non-profit organisation working for over 25 years to establish â€œa fair and effective U.S. criminal justice system by promoting reforms in sentencing policy, addressing unjust racial disparities and practices, and advocating for alternatives to incarcerationâ€.

They provide training for American defense lawyers, explore methods of changing the ferociously slanted legal system in regard to socially disadvantaged and racial minorities, debunk politically advantageous myths about the efficacy of incarceration and work towards reducing the nation’s reliance on prison sentences through advocacy and by affecting policy on how best to safeguard the citizenry and punish criminals.

Highlighting disturbing trends and inequities in the criminal justice system since 1986 – especially in the treatment of non-white and juvenile offenders – the organisation has been consulted by Congress, The United States Sentencing Commission, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and other Federal Agencies, subsequently overseeing changes to national drug policy guidelines and helping shape The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010.

The Project particularly concerns itself with combating racial disparity in detention, cataloguing various forms of felony disenfranchisement and has led campaigns to end the widespread practice of condemning juveniles to life without parole as well as working to beef up the mandate of The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.

All of which made Mauer the perfect person to write 1999’s landmark expose Race to Incarcerate, which detailed the causes and minutia of the meteoric rise in America’s prison population since 1970. He then followed up in 2002 with Invisible Punishment: the Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment (co-edited by Meda Chesney-Lind).

A telling indictment of a flawed, cruel, unfair and unscrupulous system, Race to Incarcerate was re-released in 2006 and now the powerfully polemical tract has been brilliantly updated, revised and adapted by cartoonist Sabrina Jones into a ferocious indictment re-positioned to engage and inform the general public and especially older kids as well .

Jones is a painter, illustrator, scenic artist, writer and activist whose evocatively lush and organically primitivist work has graced such politically aware publications as Studs Terkel’s Working, FDR and the New Deal for Beginners, The Real Cost of Prisons, graphics collective World War 3 Illustrated and autobiographical anthology GirlTalk amongst many others. Her most notable solo project to date is the beguiling Isadora Duncan: a Graphic Biography.

Following an evocative Foreword from Civil Rights lawyer and author Michelle Alexander and an updated, heart-rending but hope-filled Preface by author Mauer, the bare, bald facts are starkly presented in ‘Introduction: U.S. Prisons from Inception to Export’ which follows the invention of penitentiaries by the Puritans to the current situation where America has the disturbing honour of being number 1 country in the field of locking up citizens. The USA has the highest rate of incarceration in the world.

Perhaps that’s because they don’t just execute their criminalsâ€¦ no, waitâ€¦

The stunningly effective visual history lesson is followed by the political background and lowdown on ‘The Rise of the â€œTough on Crimeâ€ Movement’ from 1973, examining the divisive policies and calculated duplicity of Nixon and the Republicans in the wake of the triumphant Civil Rights Movement and tracking the switch from programs of rehabilitation to specious but vote-winning punitive prison policies.

The situation culminated with ‘The Triumph of â€œTough on Crimeâ€’ which casts a spotlight on the disparities in dealing with increasing drug abuse during the rise of the Black Power movement and focuses on the draconian, tragically trend-setting policies of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who instigated the harshest drug laws in the USA when ‘The Rock Gets Rolling’â€¦

With prison populations rising rapidly and disparately, things took a turn for the worst from 1980 as seen in ‘Crime as Politics: The Reagan-Bush Years’ after which a particularly heinous travesty of justice is spotlighted in ‘Kemba Smith: a Case of Extreme Sentencing’.

The problem was not simply the self-serving prejudice of one party as poignantly, frustratingly illustrated in ‘Crime as Politics: The Clinton Years’, but hit new depths of hypocrisy in 2000 as ‘Crime as Politics: The George W. Bush Years’ stomach-churningly showsâ€¦

Over the last half-century the whole situation seems to have been predicated upon a few fallacious if not deliberately disingenuous dictums clearly exposed in ‘The Prison-Crime Connection’ which inexorably led to a monumental institutionalised injustice system generating ‘Color-Coded Justice’ and concentration on a profiling or criminality as seen in ‘The War on Drugs and African-Americans’.

The biggest shock however comes in ‘A New Direction’ as the authors reveal that – despite all the rhetoric and entrenched biases – the situation is actually improving as more and more States abandon the old, costly, failing punishment policies to try something new and humane.

After decades where States stopped building schools to pay for bigger and bigger prisons – with no appreciable effect other than depriving kids of an education – various localities are trying different approaches and finding that where costly incarceration and harsh punishments don’t work social programs, rehabilitation projects and investment in people doâ€¦

Coda: Â Also included in this book are details of outreach projects asking readers to contribute books to prisoners or become pen-friends with inmates, illustrated by Carnell Hunnicutt, a long-term inmate whose comics about his penal experiences and prison issues first inspired Mauer to release Race to Incarcerate as a graphic novel.

Packed throughout with shocking, well-documented, specific cases and backed up by an eye-watering torrent of shameful statistics, this is a work with the power to change society, so, with British politicians increasingly keen on emulating the idiotic mistakes and politically-advantageous, socially destructive criminal justice policies of our American cousins, Race to Incarcerate is a book every school library and home should have.

Moreover if you care about people and justice it’s one you must readâ€¦

Â© 2013 by The New Press, based on Race to Incarcerate by Marc Mauer Â© 1999, 2006 by The Sentencing Project. ‘Kemba Smith: a Case of Extreme Sentencing’ Â© 2013 by Sabrina Jones. Foreword Â© 2013 by Michelle Alexander. Preface Â© 2013 by The Sentencing Project. All rights reserved.

April 26, 2013May 4, 2013

Iron Man: Believe

By Kieron Gillen, Greg Land & Jay Leisten (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-530-7

The upcoming third Iron Man movie has naturally inspired a few new releases and this one, despite being another upgrade and notional reboot of the Golden Avenger, is also a thrill-packed finale to an earlier, but no less revolutionary tale â€“ specifically Iron Man: Extremis.

Arch-technocrat and supreme survivor Tony Stark has changed his profile many times since his debut in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963) when, as a VIP visitor in an East Asian war-zone observing the efficacy of the munitions he had designed, he was critically wounded and captured by sinister, cruel Communists.

Put to work building weapons with the dubious promise of medical assistance on completion, Stark instead created the first Iron Man suit to keep himself alive and deliver him from his oppressors.

Since then the inventor and armaments manufacturer has become a liberal capitalist, eco-warrior, space pioneer, Federal politician, affirmed Futurist, Statesman and even Director of the world’s most scientifically advanced spy agency, the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate, and, of course, one of the world’s most prominent superheroes with the Mighty Avengersâ€¦

For a popular character/concept lumbered with a fifty-year pedigree, radical reboots are a painful but vital periodic necessity. To keep contemporary, Stark’s origin and Iron Man’s continuity have been drastically revised every so often with the crucible trigger event perpetually leapfrogging to feature America’s most-recent conflicts. As always, change is everythingâ€¦

Thus, with the aforementioned movie hurtling like a missile towards us, this tale opens a brand new era by closing out an outmoded and obsolete model: specifically Warren Ellis & Adi Granov’s cyberpunk epic which directly influenced the filmic franchise and led to illustrator Granov working as a designer and producer on the cinema interpretation.

Collecting Iron Man volume 5, issues #1-5 from November 2012 – March 2013, Believe is part of MarvelNOW! (the latest company-wide refit and relaunch) which recasts the entire continuity in the wake of the all-consuming Avengers versus X-Men war: another inspired attempt to lure readers back to the ever-dwindling periodical publishing market.

Stark has been through hell, but has reinvented himself and his company. Even after cutting himself loose from official Governmental affiliations and all military contracts, abandoning guns and bombs to return to the life of a maverick entrepreneur, happily risking profits for the betterment of humanity, his past continues to haunt him.

In ‘Demons and Genies’, as he and trusted partner Pepper Potts build up their new company Stark Resilient, the inveterate playboy gets a frantic message from an old flame: a pre-recorded failsafe message from Maya Hansen which states that she is dead and Extremis is looseâ€¦

When she first devised the nano-tube bio-package it was designed to overwrite human biology and cure any disease or injury. Tragically the military were the only institution interested in funding her research as the process also made super-soldiers possible, with injections capable of making a body faster, stronger, tougher and able to grow new organs with unsuspected capabilities.

In the wrong hands, Extremis caused untold death and destruction and almost wiped humanity from the face of the Earthâ€¦

A diluted, specifically-tailored dose of her incredible restorative solution even allowed Stark to rewire his own brain and make Iron Man part of his skeletal structure – until it went bad and he had to remove it all at risk of his life, sanity and soul.

Now Stark discovers Maya had been captive of ruthless tech-merchants Advanced Idea Mechanics for more than a year and forced to recreate the deadly process. At least she left him a method of tracking any â€œEnhancileâ€ altered by the seductive transformative menaceâ€¦

Now with his Iron Man armours repurposed into an arsenal of specifically designed iterations – like a shiny, walk-in utility belt with the right tool/suit to wear for every occasion – Stark sets out to track down and eradicate each and every Extremis altered human, determined to shove this genie back into the bottle or die tryingâ€¦

After brutally dealing with the AIM connection, Stark is contacted by the mysterious â€œArthurâ€ who has purchased the nano-solution to turn a number of individuals into a futuristic iteration of The Round Table. The honour-obsessed paladin proposes ‘A Gentleman’s Wager’ wherein his Circle of Tech-Knights will joust with the Golden Avenger for possession of both Hansen and Stark technology, but makes one big mistake. Extremis is too dangerous to leave loose and Stark is no gentlemanâ€¦

The next mission takes Iron Man – in a stealth suit which sacrifices power for speed and concealment – into the citadel of a Colombian drug-lord with the best reason in the world to buy the nano-solution. Although ‘It Makes Us Stronger’ eventually saw the Hansen’s serum used for its original medical purpose, that was only after a cataclysmic clash with old Iron Man enemies Firebrand, Vibro and Living Laser practically decimated the regionâ€¦

In ‘Fear of the Void’ the trail led to the catacombs beneath Paris where insanely devoted men had used Extremis to transform 13 women into creatures strong enough to host beings from the Great Black Infinite. Far from his normal comfort zones, battling demons to the death, Stark was never happier to be wearing the heavy-duty armour designed to stop the Hulk.

Even so, only a dozen of the demonic damsels died in that savage final confrontation and the thirteenth presaged even greater horror in the months to comeâ€¦

The first new adventure concluded with ‘Men of the World’ as the Extremis trail led to space and a clash with an old friend.

Stark’s old mentor Eli also had altruistic intentions when he and his disciples took the nano-solution. All they wanted was to be able to thrive beyond Earth’s sustaining air and gravity. And, after the inevitable clash, Iron Man let themâ€¦ but only on his termsâ€¦

Straightforward, smart, and surprisingly engaging, this compelling return to the basics of Fights ‘n’ Tights action offers big fights, big thrills and big ideas pace that will satisfy any reader, new or old, who likes the movie franchise as much as the comicbook canon. This sleek, slim tome also includes a stunning cover-gallery and variants by Land, Carlos Pagulayan, Adi Granov, Skott Young, Joe Quesada, Mike Deodato Jr. and Jim Cheung and also includes a now traditional 21^st century perk for all those tech-savvy consumers with added value in mind.

Many pages contained herein are offer an AR icon (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which gives access to all sorts of extras once you download the little dickens – for free – from marvel.com/ARapp onto your iPhone or Android-enabled device.

Gritty, clever and hard-hitting, this is another explosively entertaining yarn to delight established fans with the added distinction of being self-contained and readily accessible to new, returning or casual readers.

April 25, 2013May 4, 2013

Superman and Philosophy â€“ What Would the Man of Steel Do?

Essays by various, Edited by Mark D. White (Wiley-Blackwell)
ISBN: 978-1-118-01809-5

With the latest Superman movie set for a summer release there’s going to be a lot of ancillary material around, so here’s a comics-adjacent item that celebrates 75 years of the Man of Tomorrow whilst offering an interesting view askew of the merely expectedâ€¦

Like organised religion, the discipline of Philosophy has had a hard time relating to modern people in the last half century and, just like innumerable vicars in pulpits everywhere, the greatest and most all-consuming preoccupation of the mind of Man has sought fresh ways to make its eternal questions and subjective verities understandable and palatable to us hoi-polloi and thickoesâ€¦

Publishers Wiley-Blackwell have certainly succeeded in making their message relevant by repackaging key and core concepts of the never-ending debate. Their intriguing and imaginatively far-ranging Philosophy and Pop Culture Series includes more than 40 enticing titles such as Batman and Philosophy: the Dark Knight of the Soul, Downton Abbey: the Truth is Neither Here Nor There, The Avengers and Philosophy: Earth’s Mightiest Thinkers and Terminator: I’ll Be Back, Therefore I Am amongst others. These engaging tracts marry the product of millennia of deep thought to easily accessible and seductively shared contexts you and I know like the backs of our hairy hands.

That’s applied phenomenology, that isâ€¦

It doesn’t hurt either that all the essays, produced by a legion of very smart people possessing a vast degree of familiarity with both their academic subject and the impossibly convoluted minutiae of the Superman mythology in all its multifarious multimedia formats, keep their arguments and verbal illustrations short, sharp, sweet and joyously funny.

And, by the way, this is a grown-up book so don’t expect any pictures insideâ€¦

The immensely engaging and successfully thought-provoking journey begins with

Following ‘Introduction: It’s a Bird, It’s a Planeâ€¦ It’s Philosophy!’ our rocket-ship ride to reason opens with a crash course in Utilitarianism, Deontology and Virtue Ethics.Â Part One – The Big Blue Boy Scout: Ethics, Judgment, and Reason investigates the underpinnings and outcomes of doing good by scrutinised the powder-keg of â€œmoral philosophyâ€ (concerned primarily with questioning the best way to live) through the super-vision lenses of ‘Moral Judgment: The Power that Makes Superman Human’ by Mark D. White, ‘Action Comics! Superman and Practical Reason’ by Brian Feltham, ‘Can the Man of Tomorrow be the Journalist of Today?’Â by Jason Southworth & Ruth Tallman and ‘Could Superman Have Joined the Third Reich? The Importance and Shortcomings of Moral Upbringing’ by Robert Sharp.

The conundrums continue in Part Two â€“ Truth, Justice and the American Way: What Do They Mean? as Daniel P. Malloy posits ‘Clark Kent is Superman! The Ethics of Secrecy’ after which Christopher Robichaud investigates the true meaning of ‘Superman and Justice’ and Andrew Terjesen asks ‘Is Superman an American Icon?’

Part Three – The Will to Superpower: Nietzsche, the Ãœbermensch, and Existentialism goes a long way to cleaning up the cruelly tarnished reputation of the author of Thus Spake Zarathustra (inexplicably and unnecessarily retitled these days as Thus Spokeâ€¦) with ‘Rediscovering Nietzsche’s Ãœbermensch in Superman as a Heroic Ideal’ by Arno Bogaerts, ‘Superman or Last Man: the Ethics of Superpower’ by David Gordon, ‘Superman: From Anti-Christ to Christ-Type’ by Adam Barkman and the tantalising argument ‘Superman Must be Destroyed! Lex Luthor as Existentialist Anti-Hero’ by Sarah K. Donovan & Nicholas Richardsonâ€¦

We get to the heart of the matter – for comicbook geeks like me anyway â€“ with Part Four â€“ The Ultimate Hero: What Do We Expect from Superman? Using some very specific canonical examples, we sift through ‘Superman’s Revelation: The Problem of Violence in Kingdom Come‘ by David Hatfield, ‘A World Without a Clark Kent?’ by Randall M. Jensen and close the case with ‘The Weight of the World: How Much is Superman Morally Responsible For?’ by Audrey L. Anton.

The review of the Big Picture continues with Part Five â€“ Superman and Humanity: A Match Made on Krypton?, as Leonard Finkelman guesstimates ‘Superman and Man: What a Kryptonian Can Teach Us About Humanity’ whilst Terjesen returns to ask ‘Can the Man of Steel Feel Our Pain? Sympathy and Superman’ and Carsten Fogh Nielsen deliberates on ‘World’s Finest Philosophers: Superman and Batman on Human Nature’ before it all wraps up for now in Part Six â€“ Of Superman and Superminds: Who Is Superman, Anyway? with the deepest levels of Persona examination in ‘â€œIt’s a Bird, It’s a Planeâ€¦ It’s Clark Kentâ€ Superman and the Problem of Identity‘ by Nicholas Michaud, ‘Superman Family Resemblance’ from Dennis Knepp and ‘Why Superman Should Not Be Able to Read Minds’ by Mahesh Ananth.

In proper, rigorous academic manner there are also biographies in Contributors: Trapped in the Philosophy Zone, plenty of notes and attributions and a full Index: From Brainiac’s Files to aid you if your interests are piqued and your enquiring mind wants to know moreâ€¦

Philosophy doesn’t exist in a vacuum: its primary purpose, whatever substrate espoused (Aesthetics, Epistemology, Ethics, Logic, Metaphysics, Social theory, Politics or any other field concerned with understanding reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind or language), is to promote discourse and debate. The whole point is to get you thinking tooâ€¦

And this delightfully appealing tome does exactly thatâ€¦

Superman and Philosophy â€“ What Would the Man of Steel Do? is set for publication on May 16^th 2013.

April 24, 2013April 23, 2013

Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter volume 2

By Jack Miller & Joe Certa & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1368-8

As the 1950’s opened, comicbook superheroes were in a steep decline, giving way to a steady stream of genre-based he-men and â€œOrdinary Joesâ€ in extraordinary circumstances.

By the time the â€œRed-baitingâ€, witch-hunting Senate hearings and media investigations into causes of juvenile delinquency had finished, the industry was further depleted by the excision of any kind of reference to mature themes or content. The self-imposed Comics Code Authority took all the hard edges out of the industry, banning horror and crime comics whilst leaving their ghostly, sanitised anodyne shades to inhabit the remaining adventure, western, war and fantasy titles that remained.

American comics could have the bowdlerised concept of evil and felonious conduct but not the simplest kind of repercussion: a world where mad scientists plotted to conquer humanity without killing anybody, and cowboys shot guns out of opponents’ hands and severed gun-belts with a well-aimed bullet, without ever drawing bloodâ€¦

Moreover no civil or government official or public servant could be depicted as anything other than a saintâ€¦

With corruption, venality and menace removed from the equation, comics were forced to supply suspense and tension to their works via mystery and imagination â€“ but only as long as it all had a rational, non-supernatural explanationâ€¦

Arguably the first superhero of the Silver Age, beating by a year the new Flash (who launched in Showcase #4 cover-dated October 1956), the series depicting the clandestine adventures of stranded alien J’onn J’onzz was initially entitled John Jones, Manhunter from Mars; an eccentric, often formulaic but never disappointing B-feature strip which debuted at the height of American Flying Saucer fever in Detective Comics #225.

Hardly evolving at all – except for finally going public as a superhero in Detective Comics #273 (November 1959) – the police-based strip ran there until #326, (1955 to 1964) before shifting over to The House of Mystery and a whole new modus vivendi, beginning with #143 where he continued until #173, finally fading away during the Great Superhero Cull of 1968-70.

In volume 1 ‘The Strange Experiment of Dr. Erdel’ described how a reclusive genius built a robot-brain which could access Time, Space and the Fourth Dimension, accidentally plucking an alien scientist from his home on Mars. After a brief conversation with his unfortunate guest, Erdel succumbed to a heart attack whilst attempting to return the incredible J’onn J’onzz to his point of origin.

Marooned on Earth the Martian discovered that his new home was riddled with the ancient and primitive cancer of Crime and, being decent and right-thinking, determined to use his natural abilities (which included telepathy, psychokinesis, shape-shifting, invisibility, intangibility, super-strength, speed, flight, vision, super-breath, invulnerability and many others) to eradicate the evil, working clandestinely disguised as a human policeman. His only concern was the commonplace chemical reaction of fire which sapped Martians of all their mighty powersâ€¦

With his name Americanised to John Jones he enlisted as a Police Detective in Middletown and worked tirelessly to improve his new home; fighting evil secretly using his inherent powers and advanced knowledge with no human even aware of his existence.

This second and final Silver Age selection reprints in moody monochrome Detective Comics #305-226 (July 1962-April 1964) and the Manhunter’s entire House of Mystery career (#143-173, from July 1964-March-April 1968), almost all of which were written by Jack Miller and illustrated by the indefatigable Joe Certa.

One of the longest tenures and partnerships in DC comics’ history (although creator records are sadly incomplete), Miller and perhaps Bob Haney produced a wealth of scripts for veteran illustrator Certa, who had previously worked for the Funnies Incorporated comics â€œShopâ€ and all over the industry.

His other credits included work on Captain Marvel Junior and assorted genre titles for Magazine Enterprises (Dan’l Boone, Durango Kid), Lev Gleason’s crime comics, Harvey romance titles and others, whilst at DC he drew nautical sleuth Captain Compass and many anthology tales for such titles as Gang Busters and House of Mystery. Certa also drew the newspaper strip Straight Arrow and ghosted the long-lived boxing legend Joe Palooka. In the 1970s he moved to Gold Key, working on TV adaptations, mystery tales and all-ages horror stories.

This traditional all-ages delight opens with ‘J’onn J’onzz vs. Futureman’ from Detective Comics #305 wherein a cop from the 30^th century followed a Martian lawbreaker back to 1962 and mistook J’onzz for his fugitive quarry. When malign B’enn B’urnzz then aligned himself with ruthless earth criminals, the stage was set for a spectacular super-power showdownâ€¦

In #306 criminals using fantastic robot animals were given an unexpected boost when a blazing meteor sapped the Manhunter’s life force and almost spelled ‘The Last Days of J’onn J’onzz’, whilst a bewildering display of disguises and quick-changes was necessary to save John Jones’ police partner Diane Meade when the detective – ‘Alias Scarface Scanlon’– went undercover to expose a criminal safe-house in #307.

Detective Comics #308 revealed how a visit to a feudal European county found the Alien Adventurer embroiled in a coup and battling ancient magic on ‘The Day John Jones Vanished!‘ after which he foiled an alien invasion whilst wearing the form of a reclusive human as ‘The Man Who Saved Earth’ in #309 and overcame a cunning crook with a shrinking ray in #310’s ‘The Miniature Manhunter’

Vacationing Diane was on JadeIsland when it became the beachhead for ‘The Invaders from the Space Warp’ in #311, but to defeat the uncanny extra-dimensional thieves, J’onzz also needed the aid of friendly alien R’ell and his uncanny talking pet. When the war was over, however, the bizarre Zook was trapped on our world foreverâ€¦

A new era began in #312 as the cute E.T. became ‘J’onn J’onzz’ Pesky Partner’. Zook could change shape, generate extremes of heat and cold and had the mind of a five-year old, but posed a frequent threat to the hero’s secret identity by slavishly trailing him as he hunted crooksâ€¦

The kid learned quickly though and by #313, wherein ‘The Wizard who Conquered J’onn J’onzz’ almost killed the Martian with a stolen magic wand, Zook had adapted to a life of seclusion on Earth as the hero’s secret weapon. He proved his worth in #314 when a shape-shifting Saturnian stole the detective’s identity in ‘J’onn J’onzz vs. John Jones’ and the extra-dimensional ET helped defeat a villain as powerful as Manhunter himself, and again in #315 when his uncanny senses penetrated the various identities of a crooked stage performer who was also ‘The Man of 1000 Disguises’â€¦

Another bizarre meteor transferred all the hero’s abilities to ‘The Bandits with Super-Powers’ in Detective #316, but Zook and an equally Martian-powered Diane proved up to the task of thwarting them, after which J’onzz, Diane and Zook had their hands full dealing with ‘The Challenge of the Alien Robots’ found by ambitious, greedy humanÂ bandit Jasper Dowd in #317

When the terrific tyke took a blow to the head he briefly became ‘J’onn J’onzz’ Enemy – Zook’ but was restored by another bash on the bonce, after which the vacationing police detective strolled through a time warp and into a war of succession in mediaeval Auvergne, restoring rightful ruler Prince Charles to his stolen throne as ‘J’onn J’onzz â€“ Wizard of 1463’.

Back in the 20^th century, #320 saw the detective Jones and Zook solve ‘The Case of the Golden Eagle’ and restore a lost treasure to France, whilst #321 found the Martian and his pal battling the fantastic shape-shifting threat of ‘The Cosmic Creature’, after which an old Batman villain moved from Gotham to Middletown intent on becoming ‘The Man who Destroyed J’onn J’onzz’ in #322.

Professor Arnold Hugo had enlarged his intellect – and cranium â€“ to become a cerebral super-villain whose devices enabled him to steal the hero’s powers. However the wily mastermind had not realised that the ludicrous-seeming pet Zook was privy to his fallen friend’s weaknesses tooâ€¦

In Detective #323 the Manhunter flew solo on ‘The Hobby Missions’ wherein a charity auction for his services was suborned by a vicious criminal seeking lost artefacts which bestowed awesome power, whilst in #324 the hero tackled a bizarre rampaging monster and was trapped in a hideous bestial form, becoming ‘The Beast who was J’onn J’onzz’ until Zook intervened, after which a crook’s time-ray banished the hero to Ancient Greece where he helped ‘The Hero of 500 B.C.’ battle incredible beasts until Zook could rescue himâ€¦

Big changes were in the air at DC and by the end of 1963 Julius Schwartz, who had revived much of DC’s line – and the entire industry – with his modernization of the superhero, was then asked to work his magic with the creatively stalled and nigh-moribund Caped Crusader.

Bringing his usual team of top-notch creators with him, Schwartz stripped down the core-concept, downplaying all the aliens, outlandish villains and daft transformation tales, bringing a cool modern take to the capture of criminals and even overseeing a streamlining rationalisation of the art style itself. The most apparent change to us kids was a yellow circle around the Bat-symbol but, far more importantly, the stories also changed. A subtle aura of genuine menace had re-entered the comfortable and absurdly abstract world of GothamCity.

The â€œNew Lookâ€ Batman debuted in Detective Comics #327 and changed the shape of the industry but as part of the makeover the increasingly fantastic Martian Manhunter was no longer welcome.

In a rare move for the genre at the time, departing Bat-Editor Jack Schiff, who was taking J’onzz with him to his new post, decided to shake up everything and end the era in style so Detective Comics #326 (April 1964) marked ‘The Death of John Jones, Detective’ as the veteran cop was dispatched to investigate the theft of The Idol-Head of Diabolu and discovered that the outrÃ© relic was in fact a terrifying portal to uncountable extra-dimensional horrors.

When it transformed the thief who took it into a deadly menace, it also unleashed a dreadful beast which apparently killed the valiant cop before Manhunter ended the twin threats. However the unleashed Idol-Head was lost and promised to unleash a new menace at every first full moon, so the Manhunter gave up his human identity forever, leaving Middletown and swearing to track down the mystic menace whatever the costâ€¦

Thus the oldest Silver Age superhero moved over to House of Mystery (from #143, June 1964, and finally getting his to feature on covers) where, in keeping with the title and context of his new home, he became a wandering monster-hunter.

But don’t panic, chums, Zook came with himâ€¦

J’onnz’ adventures began as the Idol disgorged ‘The Giant-Maker’, a beast which transformed men – and poor Zook – into rampaging colossi and freed the wicked wizard Malador from millennia of bondage until the Manhunter stopped the dual dangers, whilst one full moon later in HoM #144 the peripatetic head opened a voracious space warp which sucked people into ‘The Weird World of Gilgana’ until J’onnz plunged in to seal the breach.

Issue #145 revealed the ‘Secret of the Purple People’ when the Idol allowed the metamorphic Venomee to ravage Egypt until Zook and the Martian stopped them, whilst #146 saw the wanderers find and lose the Diabolu head to fantastic cat-beast Aroo but still save Earth from the life-sucking, monstrous Chulko in ‘The Doom Shadow’â€¦

In #147 the Idol vomited forth living, malevolent musical instruments who mesmerised humans as ‘The Orchestra of Doom!’, whilst #148 unleashed ‘The Beings in the Color Rings’ which warped physical reality in ghastly ways.

An unwary beachcomber became ‘The Man-Thing that Unearthed Secrets’ in #149, changing into a succession of incredible creatures and compulsively retrieving lost mystic artefacts, whilst in #150 an artist’s brushes were ensorcelled and permitted the creation of ‘The Supernatural Masterpieces!’ with calamitous resultsâ€¦

‘The Doom from Two Worlds’ split J’onzz and Zook as the Manhunter battled horrors in a trans-dimensional nightmare world whilst his pal was left to defend Earth from a rapacious fire-demon, following which HoM #152 ‘Iwangis â€“ Creature King’ saw a bestial stone giant lead an army of monsters against humanityâ€¦

There was a brief busman’s holiday in #153 when Professor Hugo again reared his outlandish, oversized head to awaken and enslave ‘The Giants Who Slept 1,000,000 Years’ for an orgy of destruction and profit, whilst in #154 convict Orry Kane used a stolen magic looking-glass to create ‘The Mirror Martian Manhunter’ – a distorted, devilish doppelganger which needed the Manhunter to exercise his wits as well as his powers to exorciseâ€¦

The Idol-Head of Diabolu returned in #155 unleashing ‘The Giant Genie of Gensu’ to grant the wishes of evil men, but comicbook fashions were changing again and the Manhunter was about to be relegated to a B-Feature once moreâ€¦

The entire world was going crazy for costumed crusaders in the mid-Sixties, and every comicbook publisher was keenly seeking new ways to repackage an extremely exciting yet intrinsically limited concept. Perhaps its ultimate expression came with the creation of teen-aged everyman Robby Reed who battled crime and disaster in his little town with the aid of a fantastic wonder-tool in Dial H for Heroâ€¦

Taking the lead from House of Mystery #156 (January 1966), the birth of this new and outlandish hero pushed J’onzz into the back-up spot for ‘Look What Happened to J’onn J’onzz!’, a position he maintained until #173 (March-April 1968) when the comicbook disappeared for a few months to re-emerge as DC’s first – of many – modern anthological supernatural mystery titles.

In that truncated tale a sinister snake-beast almost absorbed and consumed the valiant Martian (irony, or what?), whilst in #157 Professor Hugo returned to mesmerise and humiliate his alien nemesis in ‘Manhunter, World’s Greatest Clown!’

House of Mystery #158 ended the long-running and now tired saga by revealing ‘The Origin of the Diabolu Idol-Head’ by plunging Manhunter back in time to Ancient Babylonia where the Martian finally learned how to destroy it, after which J’onzz marked the occasion by returning to his roots and foiling an invasion by ‘The Devil Men of Pluto’ in #159.

Apparently a helpless victim of trends, ‘Manhunter’s New Secret Identity’ debuted in HoM #160 (July 1966) as the hero tapped into the global super-spy fad by taking over the identity of an international playboy and suspected criminal to penetrate the inner echelons of sinister secret society Vulture. Soon he was popping up all over Europe, hot on the trail of mysterious leader Faceless, AKA â€œMr. Vâ€, forced to undertake increasingly suspect tasks and missions which threatened to compromise his ethics and integrity if not end his lifeâ€¦

He was almost immediately rumbled in #161 when ‘The Unmasking of Marco Xavier!’ found him battling Vulture’s top operative Abba Sulkar and only a tragic accident saved his stolen face.

A devious courier mission for Xavier in #162 allowed Manhunter to raid ‘The Lair of Mr. V!’ but Faceless proved to be a truly capable foe who easily eluded him, whilst in #163 an alliance between Vulture and a fugitive Mercurian resulted in the Martian becoming ‘The Doomed Captive!’ until the hero’s brains triumphed over the bad guys’ brawn and scienceâ€¦

In #164 the undercover agent was placed in an impossible position when Faceless ordered a hit on J’onn J’onzz and expected his playboy pal to carry it out. ‘Marco vs. Manhunter!’ offered a bewildering display of the hero’s disguise dexterity, whilst the next devilish ploy of Professor Hugo provided an unwelcome break as the rogue genius used nuclear blackmail and atomic science to transform the hero into ‘The Deadly Martian’â€¦

When the infiltration campaign had begun Zook had been abandoned in America, but he popped up again in #166 after Marco Xavier was dispatched to the States to secure the secret of turning men into monsters in ‘Vulture’s Crime Goliaths!’

On arrival back in Europe, Faceless tasked his playboy pawn with ingratiating himself with the enemy. ‘Marco Xavier, Manhunter’s Ally!’ proved to be a complex and ultimately unrewarding mission after which Zook called J’onzz back to the USA to tackle the alien predations of ‘Thantos – the 3-in-1 Man!’ in #168, before ‘The Manhunter Monster!’ saw the hero infiltrate Mr. V’s secret lab and become stuck in the shape of the gang’s latest horrific bio-weaponâ€¦

Events in the real world were starting to affect comicbooks, and after #170’s ‘The Martian Double-Cross!’ saw â€œXavierâ€ wrongly deduce the Manhunter’s weakness and only narrowly survive his failure, House of Mystery underwent a radical remodelling to display a slightly darker tone. The writing was clearly on the wall for exuberant, angst-free adventurersâ€¦

With #171 Zook was back for good and in ‘The Martian Marauders’ the odd couple battled an expeditionary force of invaders from the Manhunter’s home-world, whilst #172 found the hero mind-swapped and prisoner in the body of a Vulture assassin as the killer wore his alien frame in ‘Manhunter’s Stolen Identity!’

In those distant days series ended abruptly, without fanfare and often in the middle of something – and such was the fate of Robby Reed – but for J’onn J’onzz at least HoM#173 (March/April 1968) managed â€“ admittedly in an abbreviated manner – to wrap up the undercover agent’s mission in the climactic and explosive ‘So You’re Faceless!’

And that was that. The series was gone, the market was again abandoning Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction, and on the horizon a host of war, western, barbarian and horror comics were beginning to emergeâ€¦

Exciting, fun, engaging and silly in equal amounts (heck, even I couldn’t resist a jibe or too and I genuinely revere these daft, nostalgia-soaked gems) J’onzz has been subsequently re-imagined a number of time since these innocent odysseys first ran, but never with the clear-cut, unsophisticated, welcoming charm displayed here.

Although certainly dated and definitely formulaic, these complex yet uncomplicated adventures are drenched in charm and still sparkle with innocent wit and wonder. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste nowadays, these exploits of the Manhunter from Mars are nevertheless an all-ages buffet of fun, thrills and action no fan should miss.
Â© 1962-1968, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

April 23, 2013April 22, 2013

Heroes for Hire: Civil War

By Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Billy Tucci, Francis Portela, Tom Palmer & Terry Pallot (Marvel)
ISBN 978-1-7851-2362-8

The Patriot Act changed America as much as the destruction of the World Trade Towers, and it’s fair to say that that popular arts grow from the social climate as much as the target audience. In post 9-11 America the creators and the consumers now think different thoughts in different ways. Thus the company that first challenged the middle-class suburban status quo of the comic industry in the late 1960s made Homeland Security and the exigencies of safety and liberty the themes of a major publishing event in 2006.

After a TV reality show starring superheroes went hideously wrong and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of children in Stamford, Connecticut, popular opinion turned massively against masked crusaders.

The Federal government quickly instituted and mandated a scheme to licence, train and regulate all metahumans but the plan split the superhero community and a terrified and indignant merely mortal populace quivered as a significant faction of their former defenders, led by the ultimate icon of Liberty, Captain America, refused to surrender their autonomy and in many cases, anonymity to the bureaucratic vicissitudes of the Superhuman Registration Act.

The Avengers and Fantastic Four, bedrock teams of the Marvel Universe, fragmented in scenes reminiscent of America’s War Between the States, with â€œbrother pitted against brotherâ€. As the conflict escalated it became clear to all involved that the increasingly bitter fighting was for souls as much as lives.

Both sides battled for love of Country and Constitution and both sides knew they were rightâ€¦

This collection, re-presenting issues #1-5 of the second Heroes for Hire comicbook series (from October 2006 to February 2007), gathers a particularly cogent and impressive sidebar sequence to the overarching epic Marvel Crossover Event which opens in the aftermath of the Stamford incident, as a panicked government attempts to enforce the hastily enacted legislation requiring every super-being in the USA to submit to the law.

Those who resist are guilty of treason, and of course the authorities need creatures as powerful and specialised as the resistors to tackle the problem of costumed malcontents and scofflawsâ€¦

Bionic detective Misty Knight and her ninja partner Colleen Wing are former associates of Power Man & Iron Fist and have revived their old firm Heroes for Hire to apprehend metas who refuse to comply.

The exact terms of their contract are revealed in ‘Taking it to the Streets’ parts 1 and 2, scripted by Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti, illustrated by Billy Tucci, Francis Portela & Tom Palmer. Specifically recruited by Iron Man, Spider-Man and Fantastic Four leader Reed Richards, the former Daughters of the Dragon and their team – acrobatic ex-thief Black Cat, Kung Fu Master Shang-Chi, insect avatar Humbug, Atlantean powerhouse Orka, sadistic martial artist Tarantula and veteran mercenary Paladin – will never be asked to arrest any of their errant superhero colleagues, but only take down super-villains who won’t registerâ€¦

Their first public appearance finds the new team getting to know each other even as they hunt down technologically-augmented samurai dubbed â€œMandarin’s Avatarsâ€ and a crime-ring led by old arch-foe Vienna offering new identities to a host of minor meta-felons.

Humbug’s ability to communicate with all insects leads the squad unerringly to the mastermind’s hideout but it’s a trap and a massive battle ensues. However, in this harsh new world, there’s no honour amongst thieves â€“ or anyone else â€“ and soon everybody is embroiled in a string of double and even triple crossesâ€¦

The saga takes a dark turn after the first rebel fatality incites a bitter argument in the team and Misty agrees to find – but not arrest – the fugitive Captain America and invite him to truce talks. The hunt leads to an illicit lab where villains are being surgically altered with organs culled from shape-shifting alien Skrulls; enabling criminals to alter their physical appearances and even conceal their powersâ€¦

In the meantime the search for the leading dissident and rebel bears fruit as the Sentinel of Liberty agrees to talks, only for Paladin to betray his own comrades and capture the ultimate Avenger for the huge bounty on his star-spangled headâ€¦

The story concludes in ‘Civil Disobedience’ (with Portela taking on the major portion of the illustration) as Paladin discovers he’s been tricked by Misty’s most honourable team-mate. With Cap and his dissidents allowed to safely escape, Misty and Co. perforce return to the problem of the sinister surgeons – who have been very busy indeed – if only to prove Heroes for Hire is still of use to the governmentâ€¦

After a squad of augmented villains break crime-boss Ricadonna out of prison, she quickly begins taking her long-anticipated vengeance on Knight and Wing. The first step is blowing up the Federal stooges HQâ€¦

This first volume concludes with two untitled tales (inked by Palmer and Terry Pallot) as the maniacal Ricadonna tasks her army of super-powered, Skrull-flavoured minions with ambushing Misty’s team in unguarded moments. The resultant death and destruction provokes a thoroughly understandable and excessively violent response from the Heroes for Hire who raid the finally-found surgical facility and begin cleaning up all those warrants on the Government’s most wanted list.

Unfortunately, Ricadonna has been under the surgeons’ knives and recreated herself as a veritable legion of monstersâ€¦

Gritty, witty, fast-paced and spectacularly action-packed, this sharp, edgy collection is a largely forgotten gem from a frequently heavy-handed and often pompous mega-event which offers spills, chills and thrills to delight older fans of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction.

April 22, 2013April 21, 2013

Superman/Shazam!: First Thunder

New, Revised Review

By Judd Winick & Joshua Middleton (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0923-0

At their most impressive, superhero comics combine all the gravitas of mythology with all the sheer child-like fun and exuberance of a first rollercoaster ride. A perfect example of this is the 4-issue miniseries from November – February of 2006 collected as Superman/Shazam!: First Thunder.

One of the most venerated and loved characters in American comics, (the original) Captain Marvel was created by Bill Parker and Charles Clarence Beck as part of the wave of opportunistic creativity that followed the successful launch of Superman in 1938. Although there were many similarities in the early years, the Fawcett character moved solidly into the area of light entertainment and even comedy, whilst as the 1940s progressed the Man of Steel increasingly left whimsy behind in favour of action and drama.

At the height of his popularity the World’s Mightiest Mortal outsold the Man of Steel by a wide margin and was even published twice-monthly, but as the Furious Forties closed tastes changed, sales slowed and Fawcett saw the way the wind was blowing. They settled an infamous long-running copyright infringement case instigated by DC/National in 1940 and the Big Red Cheese vanished – as did so many superheroes – becoming little more than a fond memory for older fans.

As America lived through another superhero boom-and-bust from 1956-1968, the 1970s dawned with a shrinking industry and a wide variety of comics genres servicing a base that was increasingly founded on collector/fans and not casual or impulse buys. DC Comics needed sales and were prepared to look for them in unusual places.

After the settlement with Fawcett in 1953 they had secured the rights to Captain Marvel and Family, and even though the name itself had been taken up by Marvel Comics (via a circuitous and quirky robotic character published by Carl Burgos and M.F. Publications in 1967) decided to tap into that discriminating older, nostalgia fuelled fan-base, even as the entire entertainment world began looking back in time for fresh entertainments such as The Waltons or Little House on the Prairieâ€¦

In 1973, riding that burgeoning wave of nostalgia, DC brought back the entire beloved cast of the Captain Marvel strips: restored to their own kinder, weirder universe. To circumvent an intellectual property clash, they entitled the new comic book Shazam! (‘With One Magic Wordâ€¦’; the trigger phrase used by the Marvels to transform to and from mortal form and a word that had already entered the American language due to the success of the franchise the first time around.

You know what comics fans are like: they had been arguing for decades – and still do – over who was best (for which read â€œwho would win if they fought?â€) out of Superman or Captain Marvel. Eventually, though excised from the regular DCU and stuck on a parallel universe, the old commercial rivals met and clashed a number of times, but until the landmark Crisis on Infinite Earths subsumed all those myriad worlds into one overarching continuity, the most powerful heroes in existence maintained the status of â€œequal but separateâ€.

In that new reality everything happened in one cosmos and Captain Marvel was fully rebooted and integrated. The basics remained untouched: homeless orphan and good kid Billy Batson was selected by an ancient wizard to be given the powers of six gods and heroes to battle injustice. He is given the ability to transform from scrawny precocious kid to brawny (adult) hero by speaking aloud the wizard’s acronymic name â€“ invoking the powers of legendary patrons Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury.

After twenty years in this iteration, Captain Marvel’s early days were re-explored in this canny, big-hearted thriller which reveals the details of the first shared case of paragons of power.

Written by Judd Winick and illustrated by Joshua Middleton in a painterly style gloriously reminiscent of the old Fleischer Studio Superman cartoons, this magical treat is chronologically set just after Superman: Man of Steel volume 1 and The Power of Shazam! original graphic novel, and opens with ‘A Face in the Crowd’ as a new hero begins saving lives in West Coast Fawcett City, whilst a continent eastwards in Metropolis, Superman stumbles onto a museum robbery and is surprisingly beaten by thieves employing magic. The robbers belong to a cult – the Temple of Bagdan – and are on a nationwide spree to collect ancient Russian relics for some sinister master-planâ€¦

In Fawcett, Marvel destroys giant robots attacking a new solar powered construction site designed by Doctor Bruce Gordon, unexpectedly inspiring the enmity of billionaire industrialist Thaddeus Sivana. Although the owner of the Solar Center project, Sivana has huge petrochemical interests and only intended his eco-friendly enterprise as a tax-shelter. He certainly has no intention of supplying cheap, clean energy to the proles of â€œhisâ€ cityâ€¦

In a make-shift shelter, homeless kid Billy Batson talks his day over with Scoot Cooper, another hard-luck kid and the only person who knows his secret, even as Sivana deals with his hated East Coast rival Lex Luthor. The arrogant Metropolis financier has experience with super-powered meddlers and resources to combat their interference. It’s time to make a deal with a devilâ€¦

Later when the Bagdan cultists raid Fawcett’s McKeon History Museum, Marvel is waiting for them but is also overmatched by the magical Mallus Trolls employed by the thieves. At least until Superman shows upâ€¦

The team-up explodes into action in ‘Odd Couples’ with the heroes battling together, discovering their similarities and major differences even as in Metropolis Luthor sells Sivana the answer to all his superhero problems: an exemplary operative dubbed Specâ€¦

The cultists have again escaped however and are in the final stage of their plan. Having secured the mystic paraphernalia to summon consummate evil they then force disturbed kidnap victim Timothy Barnes to become host to six infernal fiends. Sabbac is the antithesis of Shazam’s agent: a supernatural super-being sponsored by devil-lords Satan, Aym, Belial, Beeelzebub, Asmodeus and Createis in the way the ancient gods and heroes empower Captain Marvel, and he is free to wreak havoc and destruction upon the world.

To make matters worse, at that very moment Bruce Gordon succumbs to his own twilight curse at the Solar Centre as a lunar eclipse allows the diabolical Spirit of Vengeance to escape from his fleshy prisonâ€¦

‘Titans’ finds Captain Marvel furious battling his dark counterpart as Superman struggles against not only the evil Eclipso but also his possessed army of innocents enslaved by the dark destroyer’s black diamond. When Sivana secretly funded the cultists he intended their tool to simply destroy Gordon and his power plant but now events have spiralled beyond anyone’s control. Even as the hated heroes inadvertently fix both of Sivana’s awry schemes, Spec is hunting through Fawcett. Soon his astounding abilities have ferreted out Billy Batson’s secret and arranged a permanent solutionâ€¦

The drama roars to a terrific conclusion in ‘Men and Boys! Gods and Thunder!’ as a paramilitary hit squad attempts to gun down the merely human Billy but only hits his best friend instead, leaving Sivana to face the wrath of a lonely, bitter 10-year old boy, amok and enraged with righteous fury in the body of one of the most powerful creatures in the universeâ€¦

In the awesome aftermath Superman decides to deal with the shell-shocked Marvel in a way that will change both of their lives foreverâ€¦

This is a big, bold, grand old fashioned comicbook romp full of big fights, dastardly villains, giant monsters, big robots and lasting camaraderie that will delight all lovers of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction, and whilst not a breakthrough classic like Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns, is an equally mythic retelling of superhero mythology which ranks amongst the very best of the genre.
Â© 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

April 21, 2013April 19, 2013

Asterix and the Great Crossing, Obelix and Co., Asterix in Belgium

By Goscinny & Uderzo, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Orion Books and others)
ISBNs: 978-0-75286-648-2, 978-0-75286-652-9-and 978-0-75286-650-5-

One of the most popular comics features on Earth, the collected chronicles of Asterix the Gaul have been translated into more than 100 languages since his debut in 1959, with twelve animated and live-action movies, TV series, assorted games, toys, merchandise and even a theme park outside Paris (Parc AstÃ©rix, unsurprisinglyâ€¦); all stemming from his glorious exploits.

More than 325 million copies of 34 Asterix books have sold worldwide, making his joint creators France’s best-selling international authors. There is even the tantalising yet frightening promise of a new volume sometime this year by a substitute creative team: Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conradâ€¦

The diminutive, doughty, potion-powered paragon of Gallic Pride was created by two of the industry’s greatest masters, RenÃ© Goscinny & Albert Uderzo, as a weekly strip in Pilote, swiftly becoming a national success and symbol. Although their inspirational collaborations ended in 1977 with the death of the prolific scripter, the creative wonderment continued until 2010 from Uderzo and assistants – albeit at a slightly reduced rate.

After nearly 15 years as a comic strip subsequently collected into compilations, in 1974 the 21^st tale (Asterix and Caesar’s Gift) was the first to be published as a complete original album before being serialised. Thereafter each new release was a long anticipated, eagerly awaited treat for the strip’s millions of fansâ€¦

The comics magic operates on multiple levels: ostensibly, younger readers revel in the action-packed, lavishly illustrated comedic romps where sneaky, bullying baddies get their just deserts, whilst we more worldly readers enthuse over the dry, pun-filled, sly satire, especially as enhanced for English speakers by the brilliantly light touch of translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge, who played no small part in making the indomitable Gaul and his gallant companions so palatable to the Anglo-Saxon world. (Pour Moi, though, a perfectly produced physically poetic â€œPaf!â€ to the phizzog is as welcome and wondrous as any painfully potent procession of puns or sardonic satirical sideswipesâ€¦)

More than half of the canon occurs on Uderzo’s beloved Brittany coast, where, circa 50 B.C., a small village of cantankerous, proudly defiant warriors and their families resisted every effort of the Roman Empire to complete the conquest of Gaul. The land had been divided by the conquerors into the provinces of Celtica, Aquitania and Amorica, but the very tip of the latter just refused to be pacifiedâ€¦

The remaining epics occur in various locales throughout the Ancient World, as the Garrulous Gallic Gentlemen visited all the fantastic lands and corners of civilisations of the eraâ€¦

When the heroes were playing at home, the Romans, unable to defeat the last bastion of Gallic insouciance, futilely resorted to a policy of absolute containment. Thus the little seaside hamlet was permanently hemmed in by the heavily fortified garrisons of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium.

The Gauls don’t care: daily defying the world’s greatest military machine simply by going about their everyday affairs, protected by the magic potion of resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits of the diminutive dynamo and his simplistic, supercharged best friendâ€¦

Firmly established as a global brand and premium French export by the mid-1960s, Asterix the Gaul continued to grow in quality as Goscinny & Uderzo toiled ever onward, crafting further fabulous sagas; building a stunning legacy of graphic excellence and storytelling gold. Moreover, following the civil unrest and nigh-revolution in French society following the Paris riots of 1968, the tales took on an increasingly acerbic tang of trenchant satire and pithy socio-political commentaryâ€¦

Asterix and the Great Crossing was the 22^nd saga and second original book release in France, premiering in 1975, with a British hardcover edition the following year.

It begins with the usual village kerfuffle as to the true and relative vintage of Unhygienix the fishmonger’s wares and descends into the standard brawl. However, the situation is rather more serious this time as Druid Getafix needs really fresh fish for the magic potion that keeps them all free of Romeâ€¦

A merchant but not a fisherman, Unhygienix refuses to catch his own stock and Asterix and Obelix volunteer take to sea in old Geriatrix’ dilapidated skiff to replenish the wizard’s stores even tough a big storm is brewing. Sadly they aren’t fishermen either, and after losing the nets are blown far from homeâ€¦

Lost at sea and starving they encounter their old pals the Pirates, but Obelix eats all their provisions in one go and soon the mismatched mariners – and faithful mutt Dogmatix – are in even direr straits as another storm blows them ever further westward.

Just as death seems inevitable, the Gauls wash up on an island of the Empire they have never seen before. In this strange outpost the Romans have red skins, paint their faces and wear feathers in their hair. Terrifyingly, there are no wild boar to eat, only big ugly birds that go â€œgobble, gobbleâ€â€¦

After the usual two-fisted diplomacy with the â€œIberians, or perhaps Thraciansâ€, Asterix and Obelix settle down comfortably enough, but things change when the chief decides the big pale face is going to marry his daughter. Desperately the Gauls steal a canoe one night and strike out across the Big Water towards home but only get as far as a little islet where they’re picked up by Viking explorers Herendethelessen, SteptÃ¸Ã¥nssen, NÃ¸gÃ¸Ã¸dreÃ¥ssen, HÃ¥rÃ¥ldwilssen and their Great Dane HuntingseÃ¥ssen, who are looking for unmapped continentsâ€¦

Convinced their odd discoveries are natives of this strange New World, the Danes try to entice the oddly eager indigenes to come home with them as proof of Herendethelessen’s incredible discovery. Braving icy Atlantic seas the dragon ship is soon back in cold, mist-enshrouded Scandinavia where gruff, dismissive Chief Ã˜diuscomparissen is amazedâ€¦

However when Gaulish slave Catastrofix reveals they are from his European homeland, tempers get heated and another big fight breaks out.

Taking advantage of the commotion, Asterix, Obelix and Catastrofix – a fisherman by trade – steal a boat and head at last for home, picking up some piscine presents for Getafix en routeâ€¦

This is a delightfully arch but wittily straightforward yarn, big on action and thrills, packed with knowing in-jokes and sly references to other French Western strips such as Lucky Luke and Ompa-pa (Oumpah-pah in French) as well as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and formed the basis of the animated feature film Asterix Conquers America.

Strong, stinging satire was the foundation of the next saga. Obelix and Co. debuted in 1976 with the English-language hardcover launching in 1978 and again saw the frustration-wracked Julius Caesar attempting to end the aggravating resistance of the indomitable Gauls.

To that effect the most powerful man in the world dispatches a bold, brash go-getter from the Latin School of Economics to destroy their unity forever. Financial whiz-kid Preposterus has a plan that simply can’t fail and will pay huge dividends to the Empire.

Meanwhile, the replacing of the Totorum Garrison with fresh troops has allowed the Gauls to give Obelix a truly inspired birthday gift. After beating up the entire contingent on his own and without having to share the soldiers, the delighted big man goes back to carving and delivering Menhirs and meets a strange young Roman.

Preposterus (a cruelly effective caricature of France’s then Prime Minister Jacques Chirac) intends to destroy the villagers by making them as greedy, lazy and corrupt as any Roman Patrician through the introduction of Capitalism and Market Forces.

To that end he pretends to be a Menhir buyer, willing to pay any amount for the giant stone obelisks (which have no appreciable use or worth and were usually swapped for small treats or favours) telling the big gullible oaf that money makes men important and powerful.

Without really understanding, gullible Obelix begins accepting ever-larger sums for each stone, forcing himself to work harder and never stop. He doesn’t know what to do with the money but is caught up in an ever-hastening spiral of production.

Too busy to have fun hunting wild boars or play with Dogmatix, he begins hiring his equally gullible friends and neighbours: first to hunt for him and later to help sculpt Menhirs. All does is work and spend his growing mountain of cash on increasingly daft fancy clothes as he drives himself to miserable exhaustion.

Soon most of the village is caught in the spiral, except wily Asterix, who attempts to bring his old pal to his senses by suggesting to his friends that they set up as rival Menhir manufacturers. He’s inadvertently helped in this by the status-obsessed village wives who push their men to become as â€œsuccessful and influentialâ€ as the fat oafâ€¦

In Totorum, the megaliths are beginning to pile up as Preposterus proceeds to exhaust all Rome’s funds purchasing Menhirs. Centurion Ignoramus is happy the plan to destroy the Gauls through cutthroat competition is working, but wants the mountain of shaped stones out of his camp, so Preposterous has them shipped back to Rome and starts selling them to rich trendies as indispensable fashion accessories.

The whiz-kid had nearly emptied Caesar’s coffers but his swish and intensive advertising campaign looks sets to recoup the losses with a folk art sales boomâ€¦ until Italian entrepreneur Meretricius starts selling cut-rate Rome produced Menhirs and the Boom leads to a ruthless price war and inevitable Bust which almost topples the Empireâ€¦

Success has not made Obelix happy and he’s thinking of quitting, just as the desperate Preposterous returns and inconsiderately, immediately stops buying Menhirs. Of course being simple peasants the Gauls don’t understand supply and demand or the finer principles of a free market: they’re just really annoyed and frustrated. Luckily there’s lots of Romans around to help deal with their pent-up tensionsâ€¦

Soon the air is cleared and the villagers have returned to their old-fashioned ways and Asterix and Getafix can laugh at news of the financial crisis wracking Romeâ€¦

This hilarious anti-Capitalist tract and telling parody shows Goscinny & Uderzo at their absolute, satirical best, riffing on modern ideologies and dogmas whilst spoofing and lampooning the habits and tactics of greedy bosses and intransigent workers alike. Many politicians and economists have cited this tale which is again stuffed with cameos and in-joke guest shots. I’m told that the beautiful page 36, which featured Preposterus explaining his ad campaign, was also the 1000^th page of Asterix since his debut in 1959.

Asterix travel epics are always packed with captivating historical titbits, soupcons of healthy cynicism, singularly surreal situations and amazingly addictive but generally consequence-free action, always illustrated in a magically enticing manner. Such was certainly the case with Asterix in Belgium, the 24^th adventure and Goscinny’s last. The indefatigable writer passed away in 1977 just as the book was nearing completion.

The story is a grand old romp of friendly rivalries and begins when a relief troop takes over the garrison of Laudanum. These soldiers are delighted to be in Amorica, because it means they are no longer fighting the Belgians. Those barbarians are even worse than the indomitable villagers in Amorica and Caesar himself has called them â€œthe bravest of all the Gaulish Peoplesâ€â€¦

Perplexed by the laid-back attitude of the new occupiers, who consider their new posting a â€œrest cureâ€, Asterix and Obelix question one of the new Romans. They report his unbelievable news to Chief Vitalstatistix, who is beside himself with indignation. Most of the others don’t really care, but when the furious Chief storms off for the border to see for himself, the old pals follow to keep him out of troubleâ€¦

Soon they have crossed the border and encounter the fabled warriors, led by their chiefs Beefix and Brawnix. They are indeed mighty fighters but arrogant too, and soon Vitalstatistix has become so incensed with their boasting that he proposes a competition to see who can bash the most Romans and prove just who are the Bravest Gauls.

Obelix doesn’t mind: the Belgians are just like him. The only thing they like more than hitting Romans is eating and they seem to do the latter all day longâ€¦

Before long however there are no more Roman forts in the vicinity and the matter of honour is still unsettled. What they need is an unbiased umpire to judge who is the greatest and luckily Julius Caesar, moved to action by the terrible news from Belgium and rumours that the Amoricans (three of them at least) are also rising in revolt, has rushed to the frontier with the massed armies of the Empireâ€¦

Against such a force the squabbling cousins can only unite to force Caesar to admit who’s bestâ€¦

Stuffed with sly pokes and good-natured joshing over perceived national characteristics and celebrating the spectacular illustrative ability of Uderzo, this raucous, bombastic, bellicose delight delivers splendid hi-jinks and fast-paced action, and is perhaps the most jolly and accessible of these magical all-ages entertainments.
Â© 1975-1979 Goscinny/Uderzo. Revised English translation Â© 2005 Hachette. All rights reserved.

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