Author: NowReadThis

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Showcase Presents Metal Men volume 1


By Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru, Mike Esposito & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1559-0

In contrast to his gritty war and adventure scripts Robert Kanigher usually kept his fantasy and superhero comicbook tales light, visually intriguing and often extremely outlandish… and that’s certainly the case with these eccentric artificial heroes who briefly caught the early 1960’s zeitgeist for bizarre and outrageous light-hearted adventure.

The Metal Men first appeared in four consecutive issues of National/DC’s try-out title Showcase: legendarily created over a weekend by Kanigher after an intended feature blew its press deadline and rapidly rendered by the art-team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. This last-minute filler attracted a large readership’s eager attention and within months of their fourth and final adventure the gleaming gladiatorial gadgets were stars of their own title.

This first cheap and cheerful monochrome compendium collects the electrifying contents of Showcase #37-40, Metal Men #1-15 and the first of their nine team-up appearances in Brave and the Bold; specifically #55.

The alchemical excitement began in Showcase #37 (March-April 1962) with ‘The Flaming Doom!’ as an horrific radioactive antediluvian beast flew out of a melting polar glacier and began devastating humanity’s great cities. Helpless to stop the creature the American military desperately approached brilliant young technologist Dr. Will Magnus for a solution. He rapidly constructed a doomsday squad of self-regulating, highly intelligent automatons, patterned after Tina, a prototype sexy robot constructed from platinum and malleable memory ceramic, governed by a micro-supercomputer dubbed a “Responsometer”.

This miracle of micro-engineering not only simulates – or perhaps creates – thought processes and emotional character for the robots but constantly reprograms the base form – allowing the mechanoids to change and alter their shapes.

Magnus patterned his handmade heroes on pure metals, with Gold as leader of a tight knit team consisting of Iron, Lead, Mercury and Tin warriors. Thanks to their responsometers, each robot specialised in physical changes based on its elemental properties but due to some quirk of programming the robots also developed personality traits mimicking the metaphorical attributes of their base metal.

Tina is especially intransigent, believing herself passionately in love with her dashing creator…

As soon as they’ve introduced themselves, the shining squad sets off to confront the deadly monster in their flying rocket-saucer and after a terrible battle, succeed at the cost of their own brief lives…

In Showcase #38 a very public campaign to reconstruct the Metal Men resulted in Magnus building them anew. However their unique characters were gone and they promptly failed in battle against a Soviet backed Nazi scientist’s robotic marauder until the desperate Yankee inventor managed to recover their original responsometers in ‘The Nightmare Menace!’

‘The Deathless Doom!’ pitted the malleable machines against an animated glassine tank used to store toxic residues from failed experiments by genius chemist Professor Norton. The intermingled waste products combined to create a deadly new life form named Chemo who (which?) would become one of the greatest menaces of the DC universe…

The Showcase run concluded with ‘The Day the Metal Men Melted!’ (September-October 1962) when Chemo returned just as Magnus’ previous exposure to the Toxic Terror coincidentally transformed the inventor into a radioactive metallic giant. Acutely aware of his dangerous condition Magnus exiled himself to deep space and managed to take Chemo with him, where, luckily, the outer limits provided the valiant scientist with an unexpected cure…

Whereas the first three tales were relatively straight dramas, with this yarn rational physics began giving way to fantastic fringe science and the comedic elements began to proliferate. By increasingly capitalising on the Metal’s Men quirky characters, successive stories became as much fantasy as drama.

Metal Men #1 launched with an April-May 1963 cover-date and detailed the astonishing ‘Rain of the Missile Men’ in which alien robot Z-1 fell in love with Tina from astronomically afar and built innumerable hordes of duplicates of himself to taker for his prize. When his automaton army invaded Earth only Tina survived to the end of the issue…

At this Magnus was becoming increasingly schizophrenic about the desperately lovesick and fiercely jealous Tina, alternately berating her impossible emotions then moping and missing her after he’d donated the troublesome toy to a museum… Huh! Robot Women: can’t live with them, can’t…

Kanigher’s greatest ability was his knack for dreaming up outlandish visual situations and bizarre emotive twists. ‘Robots of Terror’ described how the frustrated Tina built her own mechanical Doc Magnus which turned evil and developed an equally iniquitous team of elemental warriors – Barium, Aluminium, Calcium, Zirconium, Sodium and Plutonium – to battle the recently reconstructed Metal Men, whilst #3’s ‘The Moon’s Mechanical Army!’ saw the team undertake a lunar search for the Platinum Bombshell after she sacrificed herself to save them all. In the process they inadvertently brought an uncontrollable amoebic monster back to Earth…

Tin was the meekest Metal and most lacking in confidence, but in ‘The Bracelet of Doomed Heroes!’ an Giant-Alien-Robot-Amazon-Queen took a shine to the timid tyke and abducted him to her distant world. When his alchemical comrades came to the rescue they were trapped and enslaved until Tin turned the tide in the concluding ‘Menace of the Mammoth Robots!’

Back on Earth the Metal Men battled a Gas Gang (Oxygen, Helium, Chloroform Carbon Monoxide and Carbon Dioxide) of evil mechanical marauders after cosmic rays made Magnus evil and electronic on ‘The Day Doc Turned Robot!’ after which ‘The Living Gun!’ found a fully restored team facing a colossal monster formed from a runaway solar prominence.

Metal Men #8 had the team take a little blind boy on a jaunt to another world only to become trapped by extraterrestrial robots in ‘The Playground of Terror!’ before young Billy saved the day in the concluding battle with ‘The Robot Juggernaut!’

‘Revolt of the Gas Gang!’ found Doc forced to revive the vaporous mechanical villains when the Metal Men were accidentally merged into a monolithic menace, after which the tightly continuous sagas briefly halt here to include a team-up tale from Brave and the Bold #55 (August September 1965) in which writer Bob Haney and illustrators Ramona Fradon & Charles Paris detail the ‘Revenge of the Robot Reject’.

When a series of suspicious lab accidents destroyed the Heavy Metal Heroes, distraught Doc Magnus was menaced by rogue robot Uranium and its silver metal lover Agantha until size-changing champion Professor Ray Palmer intervened as the all-conquering Atom, after which the scrap-heap scrappers were once more resurrected to end the evil automaton’s nuclear threat forever.

Meanwhile, back in Metal Men #11, by the usual suspects of Kanigher, Andru & Esposito, ‘The Floating Furies!’ found the resourceful robots both upon and beneath the briny seas battling intelligent mines, giant crustaceans and even King Neptune, before Z-1’s inexhaustible horde of Missile Men returned to ‘Shake the Stars!’ after which the ‘Raid of the Skyscraper Robot’ introduced a new Metal Man… of sorts. When lonely Tin built himself a girlfriend from a toy kit, neither was able to withstand the mockery of fellow metal Mercury. The automatic lovers fled Earth only to encounter a devastated mobile planet of monolithic mechanical monsters which followed them back here – only to face final defeat at the gleaming hands of the reunited team.

Chemo returned to disable but never defeat the Metal Men in #14’s ‘The Headless Robots!’ and this initial instalment of elemental epics concludes with ‘The Revenge of the Rebel Robots!’ in which the fad for acronymic spy stories pitched the Sterling Squad into combat with a giant spy machine from the subversive secret society B.O.L.T.S.! (…and no, I don’t know what it stands for…)

Wildly imaginative, weirdly enthralling and brilliantly daft, these full-on, frantic fantasies are a superb slice of the nostalgic good old days, when every day lasted a week and the world was stuffed to bursting with dinosaurs, robots and monsters. Sometimes, if you buy the right book, you can still get all those thrills at once…
© 1962-1965, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers in “Grass Roots”

– a Knockabout Deluxe Edition

By Gilbert Shelton & Dave Sheridan (Knockabout Comics)
ISBN: 0-86166-015-3

Because you’re all decent, deity-fearing, upstanding citizens you’re probably utterly unaware of the extensive sub-culture which has grown up around the recreational abuse of narcotic pharmaceuticals – and so, of course, am I – but it must be said: those counter-culture chaps certainly know how to craft a comic tale.

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers shambled out of the Underground Commix counter-culture wave in 1968; initially appearing in Berkeley Print Mint’s Feds ‘n’ Heads, before creator Gilbert Shelton and a few friends founded their own San Francisco based Rip Off Press in 1969. This effective collective continued to maximise the madness as the hilarious antics of the “Freaks” (a contemporary term for lazy, dirty, drug-taking hippy folks) captured the imagination of the open-minded portions of America and the world.

In 1971 they published the first compilation: The Collected Adventures of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers – which has been in print all around the planet ever since – and soon assorted underground magazines and college papers were joined by the heady likes of Rip Off Comix, High Times and Playboy (and numerous foreign periodicals) in featuring the addictive adventures of Freewheelin’ Franklin, Phineas T. Freakears and Fat Freddy Freekowtski (and his cat): siblings in sybaritic self-indulgence.

Always written by Shelton and, from 1974 illustrated by Dave Sheridan (until his death in 1982) and Paul Mavrides; the disjointed strips (sorry; just could not resist) combined canny satirical cynicism, surreal situations, scatological sauciness and an astounding grasp of human nature in brilliantly comedic episodes that cannot fail to amuse anyone with a mature sense of humour.

All the strips have been collected in various formats (in Britain by the fabulous folks of Knockabout Comics) and have been happily absorbed by vast generations of fans – most of whom wouldn’t read any other comic.

Despite the hippy-dippy antecedents and stoner presentiments, Shelton is irrefutably a consummate professional. His ideas are always enchantingly fresh, the dialogue is permanently spot-on and his pacing perfect. The stories, whether half-page fillers, short vignettes or full blown sagas, start strong and relentlessly build to spectacular – and often wildly outrageous, hallucinogenic yet narrative-appropriate – climaxes.

And they’re so very, very funny.

Without Shelton and the Freaks the whole sub-genre of slacker/stoner movies, from Cheech and Chong‘s assorted escapades to Dude, Where’s My Car? and all the rest – good, bad or indifferent – wouldn’t exist. Whether or not that’s a good thing is up to you…

Freewheelin’ Franklin is the tough, street-savvy one who can pull the chicks best, Phineas T. Freakears is a wildly romantic, educated and dangerous (to himself) intellectual whilst Fat Freddy Freekowtski is us; weak-willed, greedy, not so smart, vastly put upon by an uncaring universe but oddly charming (you wish…)

One last point: despite the vast panoply of drugs imbibed, both real and invented, the Freaks don’t ever do heroin – which should tell you something…

‘Grass Roots’ has slowly been adapted into a “claymation” movie for as long as I can remember – and still not completed yet – but the tale it is based on has been a favourite for even longer (since first produced serially in 1976) and this luxurious full-colour hardback edition from 1984 is the very best way in which to enjoy it…

After a cartoon introduction from Shelton the intoxicating entertainment begins with a series of shorts strips ‘The Mellow Cab Man’, ‘Violence on the Bus’, an untitled culinary escapade, ‘Fat Freddy Demonstrates How to Use Rolling Papers’ and ‘Phineas and the Organic Mechanic’ after which the main event commences.

After being evicted again for not paying rent, the Freaks luck into a caretaking gig at a palatial “haunted” mansion where the hapless fools find a huge stash of cocaine. After selling most of it to legendary independent vendor Dealer McDope they have enough cash to buy a forty acre farm, pick up a bevy of hitchhiker babes and set up in the agricultural narcotics game. They also have an entire year’s supply of cocaine for personal use…

Their rural idyll suddenly turns painfully real when they blow all that coke (sorry: I’m just incorrigible, me) in two days and, stranded miles from the city, have no choice but to make the far-fetched farm pipe-dream work…

It’s hard, unrewarding labour, the friendly locals aren’t and without drugs the girls are finding the boys less and less appealing. As the joys of getting back to nature pall things temporarily turn around when they “discover gold” on the property and the farm turns into the lawless boomtown of Rush City overnight.

As picturesque Boondock County slowly succumbs to the imported blandishments of Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll, things seem to going great for the furry ones, but then the rains begin to fall on the desiccated, over-excavated soils of mining town.

It rains and rains and rains…

Anarchically sardonic and splendidly ludicrous, the madcap slapstick of the Freak Brothers is always an irresistible and joyously innocent tonic for the blues and these tales should be a compulsory experience for any fan of the comics medium. However, if you’re still worried about the content, which is definitely habit-forming, simply read but don’t inhale…
© 1984 Gilbert Shelton. All rights reserved.

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Essential Ms. Marvel volume 1


By Gerry Conway, Chris Claremont, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Dave Cockrum, Mike Vosburg & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2499-3

Until relatively recently American comics and especially Marvel had very little in the way of positive female role models and almost no viable solo stars. Although there was a woman starring in the very first comic of the Marvel Age, the Invisible Girl took years to become became a potent and independent character in her own right.

The company’s very first starring heroine was Black Fury, a leather-clad, whip-wielding crimebuster from the newspaper strips created by Tarpe Mills in April 1941. She was repackaged as a resized reprint for Timely’s funnybooks and renamed Miss Fury for a four-year run from 1942-1946 – although the tabloid strip survived until 1952. Fury was actually predated by the Silver Scorpion who debuted in Daring Mystery Comics #7 (April 1941), but she was relegated to a minor position in the book’s line-up and a very short shelf-life.

Miss America first appeared in the anthology Marvel Mystery Comics #49 (November1943), created by Otto Binder and artist Al Gabriele and after a few more appearances won her own title in early 1944 received her own book. Miss America Comics lasted but she didn’t as with the second issue (November1944) the format was changed, becoming a combination teen comedy/fashion/domestics tips magazine, and feisty super-heroics were steadily squeezed out. The publication is most famous now for introducing virginal evergreen teen ideal Patsy Walker.

A few others appeared immediately after the War, many spin-offs and sidekicks such as female Sub-Mariner Namora (debuting in Marvel Mystery Comics #82, May 1947 and graduating to her own three issue series in 1948), the Human Torch‘s secretary Mary Mitchell who as Sun Girl starred in her own three issue 1948 series before becoming a wandering sidekick and guest star in Sub-Mariner and Captain America Comics.

Masked detective Blonde Phantom was created by Stan Lee and Syd Shores for All Select Comics #11 (Fall 1946) and sort-of goddess Venus debuted in her own title in August 1948, becoming the gender’s biggest success until the advent of the Jungle Girl fad in the mid-1950s; mostly by dint of the superb stories and art by the great Bill Everett and by ruthlessly changing genres from crime to romance to horror every five minutes…

Jann of the Jungle (by Don Rico & Jay Scott Pike) was just part of an anthology line-up in Jungle Tales #1 (September 1954), but took over the title with the eighth issue (November 1955). Jann of the Jungle continued until issue June 1957 (#17) and spawned a host of in-company imitators such as Leopard Girl, Lorna the Jungle Queen and so on…

During the costumed hero boom of the 1960s Marvel experimented with a title shot for Madame Medusa in Marvel Super-Heroes (#15, July 1968) and a solo series for the Black Widow in Amazing Adventures # 1-8 (August 1970-September 1971). Both were sexy, reformed villainesses, not wholesome girl-next-door heroines… and neither lasted alone for long.

As the costumed crazies craze began to subside in the 1970s, Stan Lee and Roy Thomas looked into creating a girl-friendly boutique of heroines written by women, beginning with Claws of the Cat by Linda Fite, Marie Severin & Wally Wood and Night Nurse by Jean Thomas and Win Mortimer (both #1’s cover-dated November 1972). A new jungle goddess Shanna the She-Devil #1, by Carole Seuling & George Tuska, debuted in December 1972; but despite these impressive creative teams none of these fascinating experiments lasted beyond a fifth issue.

Red Sonja, She-Devil with a Sword, caught every one’s attention in Conan the Barbarian #23 (February 1973) and eventually gained her own series and The Cat mutated into Tigra, the Were-Woman in Giant-Size Creatures #1 (July 1974) but the general editorial position was that books about chicks didn’t sell.

The company kept trying and eventually found the right mix at the right time with Ms. Marvel who launched in her own title cover-dated January 1977. She was followed by the equally copyright-protecting Spider-Woman in Marvel Spotlight #32 (February 1977, winning her own title 15 months later) and Savage She-Hulk (#1, February 1980) as well as the music-biz sponsored Dazzler who premiered in Uncanny X-Men #130 that same month, before inevitably graduating to her own book.

Ms. Marvel was actually Carol Danvers, a United States Air Force security officer introduced in Marvel Super-Heroes #13 (March 1968): the second episode of the saga of Kree warrior Mar-Vell, who had been dispatched to Earth as a spy after the Fantastic Four had repulsed the aliens twice in two months (see Essential Fantastic Four volume 4 and Essential Captain Marvel volume 1).

The series was written by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Gene Colan and the immensely competent Carol investigated the Mar-Vell’s assumed identity of Walter Lawson for months until she was caught up in a devastating battle between the now-defecting alien and his nemesis Yon-Rogg. She was caught in a climactic explosion of alien technology and pretty much vanished from sight until Gerry Conway, John Buscema & Joe Sinnott revived her for ‘This Woman, This Warrior!’ (Ms. Marvel #1, January 1977) as a new chapter began for the company and the industry…

This volume, collecting Ms. Marvel #1-23, relevant portions of Marvel Super-Heroes Magazine #10-11 and Avengers Annual #10, opens with the irrepressible and partially amnesiac Danvers moving to New York to become editor of “Woman” a new magazine for modern misses published by Daily Bugle owner J. Jonah Jameson. Never having fully recovered from her near-death experience, Danvers had left the military and drifted into writing, slowly growing in confidence until the irascible publisher had made her an offer she couldn’t refuse…

At the same time as Carol was getting her feet under a desk a mysterious new masked heroine began appearing, such as when she pitched up to battle the sinister Scorpion in a brutal bank raid. The villain narrowly escaped to rendezvous with Professor Kerwin Korwin of AIM (a high-tech secret society claiming to be Advanced Idea Mechanics) who had promised to increase the Scorpion’s powers and allow him to take long-delayed revenge on Jameson – whom the demented thug blamed for his freakish condition…

Danvers had been secretly having premonitions and blackouts since her involvement in the final battle between Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg and had no idea she was transforming into Ms. Marvel. Her latest vision-flash occurred too late to save the publisher from abduction but her “Seventh Sense” did allow her to trace the Scorpion before her unwitting new boss is injured, whilst her incredible physical powers and knowledge of Kree combat techniques enabled her to easily trounce the maniac.

‘Enigma of Fear!’ featured a return engagement for the Scorpion as Korwin and AIM made Ms. Marvel their latest science project. Whilst the Professor turned himself into an armoured assassin codenamed Destructor, Carol’s therapist Mike Barnett made an analytical breakthrough with his patient and discovered she was a masked metahuman even before she did. Although she again felled the Scorpion Ms. Marvel was ambushed by the Destructor, but awoke in #3 (scripted by Chris Claremont) to turn the tables in ‘The Lady’s Not For Killing!’

Travelling to Cape Canaveral to interview old friend Salia Petrie for a women astronauts feature, Danvers was soon battling an old Silver Surfer foe on the edge of space and all her occluded memories returned just in time for a final confrontation with the Destructor during which she almost learnt that ‘Death is the Doomsday Man!’ (by Claremont, Jim Mooney & Sinnott).

Android Avenger the Vision guest-starred in #5 as Ms. Marvel crossed a ‘Bridge of No Return’. After Dr. Barnett revealed he knew her secret, Carol was forced to battle the Vision when AIM tricked the artificial hero into protecting a massive, mobile “dirty” bomb, before ‘…And Grotesk Shall Slay Thee!’ pitted her against a subterranean menace determined to eradicate the human race, culminating in a waking ‘Nightmare!’ when she was captured by AIM’s deadly leader Modok and all her secrets were exposed to his malign scientific scrutiny.

Grotesk returned in #8 as ‘The Last Sunset…?‘ almost dawned for the entire planet, whilst ‘Call Me Death-Bird!’ (illustrated by Keith Pollard, Sinnott & Sam Grainger) introduced a mysterious, murderous avian alien who would figure heavily in many an X-Men and Avengers saga, but who spent her early days allied to the unrelenting forces of AIM as they attacked once more in ‘Cry Murder… Cry Modok!’ (art by Sal Buscema & Tom Palmer).

Frank Giacoia inked #11’s ‘Day of the Dark Angel!’ wherein supernal supernatural menaces Hecate, the Witch-Queen and the Elementals attacked the Cape, preventing Carol from rescuing Salia Petrie and her space shuttle crew from an incredible inter-dimensional disaster…

The astonishing action continued in ‘The Warrior… and the Witch-Queen!’ (Sinnott inks) before ‘Homecoming!’ (Mooney & Sinnott) explored Carol’s blue collar origins in Boston as she battled a pair of marauding aliens and ‘Fear Stalks Floor 40’ (illustrated by Carmine Infantino & Steve Leialoha) pitted her against her construction worker, anti-feminist dad even as she was saving his business from the sinister sabotage of the Steeplejack.

Mooney & Tony DeZuniga provided the art for ‘The Shark is a Very Deadly Beast!’ as undersea villain Tiger Shark kidnapped the Sub-Mariner’s teenaged cousin Namorita and only Ms. Marvel, after a brief side trip to Avengers Mansion, was on hand to provide succour in ‘The Deep Deadly Silence!’ (inked by Frank Springer). ‘Shadow of the Gun!’ (Mooney & DeZuniga) enhanced the X-Men connection by introducing shape-shifting mutant Mystique in a raid on S.H.I.E.L.D. to purloin a new super-weapon, which saw impressive service in #18’s ‘The St. Valentine’s Day/Avengers Massacre!’ (Mooney & Ricardo Villamonte): a blockbuster battle that featured the beginning of a deadly plot from within the distant Kree Imperium.

The scheme swiftly culminated in ‘Mirror, Mirror!’ (Infantino & Bob McLeod) as the Kree Supreme Intelligence attempted to reinvigorate his race’s stalled evolutionary path by kidnapping the Earth/Kree hybrid Carol Danvers. However with both her and Captain Marvel hitting his emissary Ronan the Accuser eventually the plotters took the hint and went home empty handed…

Ms. Marvel #20 saw a great big makeover as Carol Danvers finally created her own look and identity in ‘The All-New Ms. Marvel’ courtesy of Claremont, Dave Cockrum & Bob Wiacek wherein the utterly re-purposed hero tackled a hidden kingdom of intelligent post-atomic dinosaurs infesting the American deserts, leading to a catastrophic clash with ‘The Devil in the Dark!’ (inked by Al Milgrom).

Now one of the most hands-on, bombastic battlers in the Marvel pantheon, she was more than ready for a return match with Death-Bird in ‘Second Chance!’ (art by Mike Vosburg & Mike Zeck), but thrown for a total loop when she was fired from Woman Magazine. All these changes came too late as the series’ sales had earmarked it for cancellation. ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’ (inked by Bruce D. Patterson) resolved the long-running disappearance of Salia Petrie in a tale guest-starring the time travelling Guardians of the Galaxy, just in time for the end of the road.

The series ended there but two more stories were in various stages of preparation and finally saw print in 1992 (the Summer and Fall issues of oversized anthology publication Marvel Super-Heroes Magazine #10-11) beginning with an untitled, ferocious fight with mutant maniac Sabretooth (by Claremont & Vosburg), followed by ‘Cry, Vengeance!’ (by Claremont, Simon Furman, Vosburg & Mike Gustovich) as Ms. Marvel, now a card-carrying Avenger, faced off against Mystique and her brotherhood of Evil Mutants. This tale features an additional section which explained how Carol was attacked by the young mutant Rogue, permanently lost her powers and memory and was eventually reborn as the cosmic being Binary: which is all well and good but somewhat takes the punch out of the last tale in this collection.

Admittedly Ms. Marvel only has a peripheral role in ‘By Friends… Betrayed!’ from Avengers Annual #10 (1981, by Claremont, Michael Golden & Armando Gil), as a powerless, amnesiac Carol Danvers was rescued from drowning by Spider-Woman, prior to Mystique and Rogue launching an all-out attack on the World’s Mightiest Heroes whilst attempting to free the Brotherhood from custody.

Spectacular and utterly compelling the tale seemed to write a satisfactory conclusion to Carol’s career but in comics nothing is forever…

This comprehensive monochrome chronicle also includes full entries on Death-Bird, Captain Marvel, the Kree and Rogue, taken from the Marvel Universe Handbook.

Always entertaining, often groundbreaking and painfully patronising (occasionally at the same time), the early Ms. Marvel, against all odds, grew into the modern Marvel icon of capable womanhood we see today. These adventures are a valuable grounding of the contemporary champion but also still stand up on their own as intriguing examples of the inevitable fall of even the staunchest of male bastions – superhero stories…

© 1977, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1992, 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Kingdom Come


By Mark Waid & Alex Ross (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2034-1

In the mid 1960s a teenaged Jim Shooter wrote a couple of stories about the Legion of Super-Heroes set some years into the team’s own future. Those stories of the adult Legionnaires revealed hints of things to come that shackled the series’ plotting and continuity for decades as eager, obsessed fans (by which I mean all of us) waited for the predicted characters to be introduced, presaged relationships to be consummated and heroes to die.

By being so impressive and similarly affecting the astonishing miniseries Kingdom Come accidentally repeated the trick and has subsequently painted the entire DC Universe into the same creative corner…

Envisaged and designed by artist Alex Ross as DC’s answer to the epic and groundbreaking Marvels, Kingdom Come was released as a 4-issue Prestige Format miniseries in 1996 to rapturous acclaim and, although set in the future and an “imaginary story” released under DC’s Elseworlds imprint, almost immediately began to affect the company’s mainstream continuity.

Set approximately twenty years into the future the grandiose saga details a tragic failure and subsequent loss of Faith for Superman and how his attempt to redeem himself almost led to an even greater and ultimate apocalypse.

The events are seen through the eyes and actions of Dantean witness Norman McCay, an aging cleric co-opted by Divine Agent of Wrath the Spectre after the pastor officiated at the last rites of dying superhero Wesley Dodds. As the Sandman, Dodds was cursed for decades with precognitive dreams which compelled him to act as an agent of justice.

The first chapter ‘Strange Visitor’ shows a world where metahumans have proliferated to ubiquitous proportions: a sub-culture of constant, violent clashes between the latest generation of costumed villains and vigilantes, all unheeding of the collateral damage they daily inflicted on the mere mortals around them.

The shaken preacher sees a final crisis coming, but feels helpless until the darkly angelic Spectre comes to him and takes him on a voyage of unfolding events and to act as his human perspective whilst the Spirit of Vengeance prepares to pass final judgement on Humanity. First stop is the secluded hideaway where farmer Kal-El has hidden himself since the ghastly events which compelled him to retire from the Good Fight and the eyes of the World.

The Man of Steel was already feeling like a dinosaur when newer, harsher, morally ambiguous mystery-men began to appear. After the Joker murdered the entire Daily Planet staff and hard-line new hero Magog executed him in the street, the public applauded the deed and, heartbroken and appalled, Superman disappeared for a decade. His legendary colleagues also felt the march of unwelcome progress and similarly disappeared.

With Earth left to the mercies of dangerously irresponsible new vigilantes, civil unrest soon escalated. The younger heroes displayed poor judgement and no restraint with the result that within a decade the entire planet had become a chaotic arena for metahuman duels.

Civilisation was fragmenting. Flash and Batman retreated to their home cities and made them secure, crime-free solitary fortresses. Green Lantern built an emerald castle in the sky, turning his eyes away from Earth and into the deep black fastnesses of space. Hawkman retreated to the wilderness, Aquaman to his sub-sea kingdom and Wonder Woman returned to her hidden paradise. She did not leave until Armageddon came one step closer.

When Magog and his Justice Battalion battled the Parasite in St. Louis the result was a nuclear accident which destroyed all of Kansas and much of Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska. Overnight the world f aced starvation as America’s breadbasket turned into a toxic wasteland. Now with McCay and the Spectre invisibly observing, Princess Diana convinces the bereft Kal-El to return and save the world on his own terms…

In ‘Truth and Justice’ a resurgent Justice League led by Superman begins a campaign of unilateral action to clean up the mess civilisation has become; renditioning “heroes” and villains alike, imprisoning all dangerous elements of super-humanity, telling governments how to behave, all utterly unaware that they are hastening a global catastrophe of Biblical proportions as the Spectre invisibly gathers the facts for his apocalyptic judgement.

In the ensuing chaos, crippled warrior Bruce Wayne rejects Superman’ paternalistic, doctrinaire crusade and allies himself with mortal humanity’s libertarian elite – Ted (Blue Beetle) Kord, Dinah (Black Canary) Lance and Oliver (Green Arrow) Queen – to resist what can only be a grab for world domination by the meta-human minority. As the helpless McCay watches in horror Wayne’s group makes its own plans; another dangerous thread in a tapestry of calamity…

At first Superman’s plans seem blessed to succeed, with many erstwhile threats flocking to his banner and his rules of discipline, but as ever there are self-serving villains with their own agendas. Lex Luthor organises a cabal of like-minded compatriots – Vandal Savage, Catwoman, Riddler, Kobra and Ibn Al Xu’ffasch, Son of the Demon Ra’s Al Ghul – into a “Mankind Liberation Front”.

With Captain Marvel as their slave, the group are determined the super-freaks shall not win and their cause is greatly advanced once Wayne’s clique joins them…

‘Up in the Sky’ sees events spiral into a deadly storm as McCay, still wracked by his visions of Armageddon, is shown the Gulag where all the recalcitrant metahumans have been dumped and sees how it will fail, learns from restless spirit Deadman that the Spectre is the Angel of Death and watches with growing helplessness as Luthor’s plan to usurp control from the army of Superman leads to a shocking confrontation, betrayal and a deadly countdown to the End of Days. The deadly drama culminates in a staggering battle of superpowers, last moment salvation and a second chance for humanity in ‘Never-Ending Battle’…

Thanks to McCay’s simple humanity the world gets another chance and this edition follows up with an epilogue ‘One Year Later’ which end this ponderous epic on a note of renewed hope…

This edition comes with an introduction by author and past DC Comics scribe Elliot S. Maggin, assorted cover reproductions and art-pieces, an illustrated checklist of the vast cast list and a plethora of creative notes and sketches in the ‘Apochrypha’ section, plus ‘Evolution’: notes on a restored scene that never made it into the miniseries.

Epic, engaging and operatically impressive Kingdom Come continues to reshape the DC Universe to this day and remains a solid slice of superior superhero entertainment, worthy of your attention.
© 1996, 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Drought Chic – a Dry Analysis of the Water Shortage


By Shary Flenniken (Shary Flenniken)
No ISBN

I’m feeling nostalgic, thirsty and in need of a laugh all at once so here’s an intriguing self-published gem from the mid-1970s whose theme and subject matter seems to be coming back into vogue as the days seep by…

Do you remember that sweet pretty girl you admired and day-dreamed about from afar? All glowing soft focus summer afternoons and sherbet refreshers, scents of new-mown hay, tinkly bells and soaring strings? And after a lifetime you found the courage to talk to her and she swore like a trooper, cackled like a loon, pulled your hair and was all loud and boisterous and not at all serious and girly and your heart broke just a little?

Shary Flenniken’s sense of humour is like that. With her affable, underplayed, deceptively simple line drawing style (so devastating effective in the glorious Girl and her Talking Dog strip Trots and Bonnie) everything looks clean and sugary and chocolate-coated, but then you realise there’s a devastatingly sharp mind and a tungsten-tipped razor-edged scalpel sense of humour at play as you’re hit with a really spiky and heavy giant pink boxing glove…

Flenniken is a scripter/artist/editor/illustrator/screenwriter of enormous talent who contributed to and edited the funniest years of National Lampoon, has published her own books – such as the slim gem under review today – and has illustrated some of the funniest books even written by other people, with titles such as When a Man Loves a Walnut, Blood-Lust Chickens & Renegade Sheep and Nice Guys Sleep Alone.

She started out as an underground cartoonist in 1971 with the fabulously notorious Air Pirates Collective (the other bold cartoonists taking on Disney whilst preserving the classic heritage of past cartoon masters and waving the flag for free speech and the Right to Parody and Satirise were Dan O’Neill, Bobby London, Gary Hallgren and Ted Richards).

Her own drawing style is often likened to pioneering strip artists Clare Briggs (When a Feller Needs a Friend!!, Danny Dreamer, The Days of Real Sport, Mr. and Mrs, Real Folks at Home, Someone’s Always Taking the Joy Out of Life) and the laconically mordant master Harold Tucker Webster (Our Boyhood Ambitions, How to Torture Your Wife, Life’s Darkest Moment, How to Torture Your Husband and the legendary Caspar Milquetoast/The Timid Soul) – especially in the long-running(1971-1990) and aforementioned sardonic comedy masterpiece Trots and Bonnie which I simply must get around to…

In recent years Flenniken has edited Seattle Laughs: Comic Stories about Seattle and worked for DC’s Paradox Press and Mad, freelanced in Premiere, Details and The American Lawyer whilst winning critical acclaim for her adaptations of the works of Mark Twain, O. Henry and others.

Drought Chic was self-published in 1977, and this tiny tidal wave of crafty cartoons and satisfyingly salty asides resulted from close observation and experience of the global heat-wave (can you remember that Long Hot Summer of Punk in the UK?) and the perennial water paucity of America’s West Coast; extrapolating on the sage advice offered by those in power as the country all-too briefly saw the (fashionably faddy) sense in dabbling with water discipline.

Suggestions to the trend-setters of society riffed-on here include “share baths and showers”, “don’t flush toilets”, “import icebergs”, “replant your lawn with cactus” and “drink something else”… directives I’m fairly sure we’ll all be considering again in the months and years ahead.

Of course here in Britain we’ve already taken the most effective step to conserve water consumption by selling off the water utility, privatising a natural resource and pricing it out of the reach of ordinary folk…

Still, if you’re saving a little time and money as a new member of the Great Unwashed at least you can spend your grubby free hours seeking out this wry, dry and slyly sophisticated soupcon of delightful disinformation.
© 1977 Shary Flenniken. All rights reserved.

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Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Captain America


By Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-483-6

As a primer or introductory collection for readers unfamiliar with the immortal Sentinel of Liberty this book has a lot to recommend it. In the past I’ve berated previous editions of the “definitive” line from Marvel because of the editorial selections, but this volume, compiled to support the impending cinema release, has a sensible selection of pertinent classics balanced by a few generally forgotten gems, so well done this time, chaps.

Captain America was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby at the end of 1940, and launched in his own Timely Comics’ (Marvel’s earliest iteration) title. Captain America Comics, #1 was cover-dated March 1941 and was a monster smash-hit. Cap was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely’s  “Big Three” – the other two being the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner – and one of very the first to fall from popularity at the end of the Golden Age.

When the Korean War and Communist aggression dominated the American psyche in the early 1950s Cap was briefly revived – as were his two fellow superstars – in 1953 before they all sank once more into obscurity until a resurgent Marvel Comics once more needed them. When the Stars and Stripes Centurion finally reappeared he finally managed to find a devoted following who stuck with him through thick and thin.

After taking over the Avengers he won his own series and, eventually, title. Cap waxed and waned through the most turbulent period of social change in US history but always struggled to find an ideological place and stable footing in the modern world, plagued by the trauma of his greatest failure: the death of his boy partner Bucky.

With another Captain America film about to launch around the world, Marvel has, quite understandably, released a batch of tie-in books and trade paperback collections to maximise exposure and cater for movie fans wanting to follow up with a comics experience. This celebratory compilation collects a selection of obvious and less well known epics under their Marvel Platinum/Definitive Editions umbrella, focusing on various versions of the Star-Spangled Avenger’s origin and first cases, combined with a canny collection of clashes against arch-foe and supreme villain the Red Skull.

This treasury of tales reprints the obvious landmarks from Captain America Comics #1, Avengers volume 1, #4, Tales of Suspense #80-81, Captain America volume 1, #143, 253-255, Marvel Fanfare volume 1, #18, Captain America volume 5, #25 and Captain America volume 1, #601 which, whilst not perhaps the absolute “definitive” sagas, come pretty damn close…

This career retrospective kicks off the only way it can: with two stories from the groundbreaking first issue of Captain America Comics (March 1941) by Simon & Kirby with inks by Al Liederman. Here we first see how scrawny, enfeebled young patriot Steven Rogers was continually rejected by the US Army until the Secret Service, desperate to counter a wave of Nazi-sympathizing espionage and sabotage, invited the passionate young man to become part of a clandestine experiment intended to create physically perfect super-soldiers.

When a Nazi agent infiltrated the project and murdered its key scientist, Rogers became the only successful graduate and America’s not-so-secret weapon. Sent undercover as a simple private he soon encountered James Buchanan Barnes: a headstrong, orphaned Army Brat who became his sidekick and costumed confidante “Bucky”. All of that was perfectly packaged into mere seven-and-a-half pages for ‘Meet Captain America’ whilst the Red, White and Blue Duo took a full 14 to first meet and defeat their greatest enemy whilst solving ‘The Riddle of the Red Skull’ – a thrill-packed, horror-drenched master-class in comics excitement.

During the Marvel Renaissance of the early 1960’s Stan Lee and Jack Kirby aped the tactic which had worked so tellingly for DC Comics, but with mixed results. Julie Schwartz had incredible success with revised and modernised versions of the company’s Golden Age greats, so it seemed natural to try and revive the characters that had dominated Timely/Atlas in those halcyon days.

A new Human Torch had premiered as part of the revolutionary Fantastic Four, and in the fourth issue of that title Sub-Mariner resurfaced after a twenty year amnesiac hiatus (everyone concerned had apparently forgotten the first abortive attempt to revive their superhero line in the mid 1950s).

The teenaged Torch was promptly given his own solo feature in Strange Tales (see Essential Human Torch vol.1) and in #114 the flaming teen fought an acrobat pretending to be Captain America; an unashamed test-run to see if the new readership had a taste for an old hero…

The real thing promptly resurfaced in Avengers #4 (March 1964): a true landmark of the genre as Marvel’s greatest Golden Age sensation was revived. ‘Captain America Joins the Avengers!’ has everything that made the company’s early tales so fresh and vital. The majesty of a legendary warrior (that most of the readers had never heard of!) returned in our time of greatest need, stark tragedy in the loss of his boon companion Bucky, aliens, gangsters, Sub-Mariner and even wry social commentary. This story by Stan Lee, Kirby & George Roussos just cannot get old.

Eight months later Cap started solo adventures in the split-book Tales of Suspense #59 (sharing with fellow Avenger Iron Man) and went from strength to strength in stories set both in the modern world and WWII. From Tales of Suspense #80-81 (August and September 1966), comes a spectacular saga as the resurrected embodiment of Nazism, aided by subversive technology group AIM, threatened the entire universe after purloining a reality-warping ultimate weapon in ‘He Who Holds the Cosmic Cube!’ (Lee, Kirby & Don Heck). Happily the valiant Cap saved the day in the astounding climax ‘The Red Skull Supreme!’(inked by Frank Giacoia).

Cap soldiered on in ToS until #99, after which the title was changed to Captain America with the 100th issue. Now an established hit of the Marvel universe the Star-Spangled Avenger went from strength to strength, but hit a shaky conceptual patch once the turbulent social changes wracking the country began to seep into and inform the comicbook stories.

By the time of Captain America volume 1, #143 (November 1971 by Gary Friedrich & John Romita Sr.) Steve Rogers had a love interest in the form of spy Sharon Carter, a new costumed partner in The Falcon, worked as a volunteer agent of Nick Fury’s S.H.I.E.L.D. agency and had a job as a New York City beat cop…

The Falcon, in his civilian identity of social worker Sam Wilson, had been trying to get friendly with “Black Power” activist Leila Taylor and at last a long-running subplot about racial tensions in Harlem boiled over… ‘Power to the People’ and ‘Burn, Whitey, Burn!’ (the issue was a giant-sized special) saw riots finally erupt with Cap and Falcon caught in the middle, but copped out in the final chapter by taking a painfully parochial and patronising stance and revealing that the unrest amongst the ghetto underclass was instigated by a rabble-rousing super-villain in ‘Red Skull in the Morning… Cap Take Warning!’

What a difference a decade makes. By the time of Captain America volume 1, #253-255 (January – March 1981 and part of an epochal run by Roger Stern, John Byrne & Joe Rubinstein collected in full in Captain America: War & Remembrance) the Sentinel of Liberty was once more a firmly entrenched establishment figure – almost running for president – concerned with saving the nation from extreme ulterior threats and sedition but not too concerned with social debate.

A grave peril from the past resurfaced in “Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot” wherein Cap was called to England and the deathbed of old comrade Lord Falsworth who battled Nazis as the legendary Union Jack in the WWII Allied superteam The Invaders. Steve found a brooding menace, family turmoil and an undying supernatural horror in the concluding “Blood on the Moors”, which saw the return of vampiric villain Baron Blood, the birth of a new patriotic hero and even now is still one of the very best handled Heroic Death stories in comics history. This sinister saga is followed by ‘The Living Legend’ from #255, as Stern, Byrne & Rubinstein reinterpret the Simon & Kirby origin tale with extra-added detail and enhanced drama…

Captain America has always been held up as a mirror of the American people and ‘Home Fires!’ by Stern, Frank Miller & Rubinstein (from Marvel Fanfare volume 1, #18, January 1985), tragically depicted how the hero’s faith and resolve could be turned against him when a devastating campaign of inner-city arson attacks led to the most unexpected of culprits with the vilest of motives, after which this chronicle leaps to the now classic ‘Death of the Dream’ by Ed Brubaker & Steve Epting from Captain America volume 5, #25 (April 2007).

This infamous issue depicted the startling events leading up to the murder of Steve Rogers after he surrendered to the US government at the conclusion of the Civil War which had tragically divided the country’s metahuman community. Interested parties requiring the full story should also track down Captain America: Reborn.

After years of killing and re-launching the series Captain America resumed its original numbering with volume 5, #50, being followed by volume 1, #600. From #601 (September 2009) comes one last impressive WWII yarn to close the comics part of this impressive tome as veteran Cap illustrator Gene Colan (assisted by colour artist Dean White), renders in his inimitable painting with pencil style, an eerie epic of the undead scripted by Brubaker wherein Captain America and Bucky stalk the bloody frontlines of Bastogne in 1945, stalking a bloodsucking assassin turning G.I.’s into vampires in ‘Red, White and Blue-Blood’…

The book is rounded out with a tribute to Gene Colan, cover reproductions, “technical secrets” and a comprehensive history of Cap’s seven-decade career and capabilities, ‘The True Origin of Captain America’ by historian Mike Conroy as well a fascinating postscript from Joe Simon’s Bulletin Board.

This book is one of the very best of these perennial supplements to cinema spectacle, but more importantly it is a supremely well-tailored device to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comic incarnation too. If there’s a movie sequel, I’m sure Marvel has plans for much of the masterful material – by a vast range of creators – necessarily omitted here, but at least we have a superb selection to entice newcomers and charm the veteran American Dreamers.

™ and © 1941, 1964, 1966, 1971, 1981, 1985, 2007, 2009, 2011 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

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The Odd Comic World of Richard Corben


By Richard Corben & various (Warren Adult Fantasy)
ISBN: 84-85138-21-X

Richard Corben flowered in the independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a globally revered, multi-award winning creator. He is most renowned for his mastery of the airbrush and his delight in sardonic, darkly comedic horror, fantasy and science fiction tales.

Although never a regular contributor to the comicbook mainstream, the animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist is one of America’s greatest proponents of sequential narrative: an astoundingly accomplished artist with an unmistakable style and vision.

Violent, cathartically graphic and often blackly hilarious, his infamous signature-stylisation always includes oodles of nudity, ultra-extreme explicit violence and impossibly proportioned male and female physiques – and nobody should be disappointed as there’s plenty of all that in here.

From a time when graphic novels and book-bound comics collections were almost unheard of, this quirky, racy collection opens after an effusive introduction by Will Eisner with ‘The Dweller in the Dark’ (co-written with Herb Arnold) – an early exploration of the artist’s fascination with and facility for depicting lost civilisations. Rain-forest dwellers Bo Glan and Nipta break tribal taboo to explore a dead city, and learn pain and sorrow when they fall foul of rapacious, invading white men and ancient things far worse…

‘Razar the Unhero’ (written in 1970 by Arnold as “Starr Armitage”) is a dark and sexily violent spoof with a deprecating edge, deliciously lampooning the Sword and Sorcery epics dominating paperback bookshelves of the day whilst the silly, saucy ‘Mangle, Robot Mangler’ does the same to classic comicbook hero Magnus with a sexy, seditious rabbit-punch parody.

‘How Howie Made it in the Real World’ jumps wholeheartedly into adult science fiction territory with a sinister gore-fest for unwary space-tourists whilst ‘For the Love of a Daemon’ – opening the full-colour section of this volume and showing the first hints of the artist’s later airbrush expertise – returns to traditional fantasy themes for a boisterous black comedy of Barbarians and mega-hot naked babes in distress.

The1973 collaboration with Doug Moench ‘Damsel in Dragon Dress’ is a gleeful witches’ brew of fantasy, fairytale foible and a curious cautionary tale about the unexpected dangers of drug abuse, whilst worlds-within-worlds alien romance ‘Cidopey’ conceals a tragic twist as well as the artist’s softer and more contemplative side.

The final tales in this collection are both from 1972. ‘Space Jacked’ blends Corben’s mordant sense of humour with a darkly cynical streak in the twisty-turny tale of an outer space Bonnie and Clyde who think they might be Adam and Eve, and ‘Going Home’ closes the show in a contemplative, poignant manner as the last man of Earth bequeaths the universe far better caretakers…

Mad, moody and magnificent, these early exotic episodes are too-long overdue for a proper re-evaluation but until some publisher finally wises up, at least there’s a still a goodly number of older editions just waiting to be found and treasured…
© 1971-1977 Richard Corben/Warren Publishing Co. All Rights Reserved.

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Walt Disney’s High Jinks on the Matterhorn and The Rain God of Uxmal


By Adolf Kabatek and the Gutenberghus Group, translated by Anne Kilborn (London Editions)
ISBNs: 7235-95038 and 7235-9502X

Scrooge McDuck premiered in the Donald Duck tale ‘Christmas on Bear Mountain’ (Four Colour Comics #178 December 1947) as a disposable foil to move along simple tales of Seasonal woe and joy. The old miser was crusty, energetic, menacing, money-mad and yet oddly lovable – and thus far too potentially valuable to be misspent or thrown away. Undoubtedly, the greatest cartoon creation of the legendary and magnificent story showman Carl Barks, the Downy Dodecadillionaire returned often and eventually expanded to fill all available space in the tales from Duckburg.

The comicbook stories and newspaper strips of the Disney studios quickly travelled around the world and were particularly loved and venerated in Europe where Italy, Germany, Britain and especially the Scandinavian countries made them all their own; with supplemental new adventures and frolics that surpassed the efforts of all but Carl Barks himself.

As Disney US gradually downsized their own comics output, eventually even Barks himself and latter-day American giants like Don Rosa were producing new material for the continental Disney Comics of the Gutenberghus Group.

By the 1980s Disney’s once-prodigious presence on the British comics scene had dwindled to almost nothing and latest license holder London Editions began releasing collected albums in the European manner and using all-European talent, and these two oversized, 48 page books (288mm x 218mm) were first released in Germany in 1983.

High Jinks on the Matterhorn opens with an ailing Money-mad Mallard diagnosed with “Cupiditas Pecuniae” and in desperate need of a break away from the pressure of his all-consuming financial empire. Donald and the ever-helpful nephews take him on a restful jaunt to Switzerland, but as soon as the restless octogenarian smells a fresh opportunity to make money the be-feathered brood are plunged into a breakneck scheme involving unlimited cheese production, super-milk and a frantic race up the mighty Mount Matterhorn in search of a legendary super-food for cows…

Bold, fast-paced, visually spectacular and hilariously funny, this worthy successor to the inventive satirical lunacy of Barks is full of all-ages thrills and creamy cartoon goodness.

These volumes come with an educational feature at the back and the space here is occupied with comprehensive and enticing history of the mountain and the men who first conquered it.

The Rain God of Uxmal returns to classic adventuring as Donald and the boys go in search of Uncle Scrooge after catching a conman who has sold the elderly entrepreneur a non-existent palatial holiday-home in Mexico…

Enlisting the aid of eccentric inventor Gyro Gearloose the would-be rescuers head South in an outrageous, off-beat flying car, but by the time they reach Mexico Scrooge has already stumbled into an incredible situation. The crusty capitalist had been abducted and adopted by a lost tribe of supposedly extinct Mayans and taken to their hidden city of Uxmal. Apparently Scrooge was the spitting image of their ancient god Quaxc-Quaxc and expected to bring rain to the drought-parched hidden kingdom…

After a remarkable journey and some scarily close calls, Donald and Co. turn up in the very nick of time, but seem destined to fail in their rescue bid until mysterious providence takes a terrifying hand in the proceedings…

This is an exciting, exotic and eye-popping romp in the wholesome blockbusting Barks manner: blending wit, history, madcap invention, plucky bravado and sheer wide-eyed wonder into a rollicking rollercoaster ride for readers of every age and vintage.

This volume also describes in fascinating detail the secrets of the real lost city of Uxmal.

Whatever your opinions on the corporate mega-colossus that is Disney today, the quality of the material derived from “The House that Walt Built” is undeniable and no fan of comics and old-fashioned fun should avoid any opportunity to revel in the magic – preferably over and over again…
© 1983, 1985 Walt Disney Productions.

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Sandman Presents The Furies


By Mike Carey & John Bolton (Vertigo)
ISBN: hardback 978-1-5638-9935-5, softcover 1-4012-0093-1

Even though the enchanting worlds of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman extravaganza have been generally hived off into their own authorial pocket universe these days, many of the elements and characters were drawn from pre-existing series and a number of them survived it to return to the greater DC universe.

Here one of the most poorly used women in comics got a chance to be the star in her own story for a change in a dark and moody semi-sequel to the events of Sandman: The Kindly Ones and Sandman: the Wake (which I must get around to reviewing one day…).

Lyta Hall has one of the most convoluted histories in comics continuity: pre- Crisis on Infinite Earths she was originally the daughter of Earth-2’s Wonder Woman, before being retro-fitted as the child of WWII heroine Helena Kosmatos AKA Fury: a Greek heroine possessed and empowered by The Eumenides: those fearsome implacable Furies of Grecian myth tasked with punishing all who spill the blood of kin…

Once the myriad Earths were blended into one in 1986 Lyta retroactively became the child of a Greek WWII heroine. Following in Mama’s footsteps she became a member of teen superteam Infinity Inc., where she loved and was impregnated by the son of Hawkman. He died and was subsumed into the Realm of Dreams as the red-and-gold 1970s Sandman created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon (for which check out The Sandman), after which Lyta married his ghost and moved into the dream-world. Missing for years she finally gave birth to a son Daniel, who was subsequently abducted by Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming.

In maternal madness and frustrated revenge Lyta set in motion the events which finally culminated in the Dream Master’s death and the installation of her lost baby as the new Master of Dreams.

The oneiric Daniel returned his mother to Earth under a spell of protection to ward off revenge from the supernatural forces she had exploited or offended; but Lyta was far from healed or even sane – nor was she safe…

There’s even more to her career set after this story but that’s for another time and place.

Three years after the climactic cosmic drama Lyta is a woman on the edge: under psychiatric observation, given to mood-swings, self-destructive acts, fits of violent rage and sweeping depressions. She is moments away from being dumped and forgotten in an institution; off the rails and obsessed with a missing child the physical universe knows never existed…

As a last resort her analyst convinces Lyta to join a theatrical troupe, indulge in some hopefully cathartic art-therapy and make a few friends she won’t sleep with or punch out, whilst in the Sublime Realms beyond reality a terrifying ancient foe of gods and men has freed himself from eternal torment and begun hunting the beings who betrayed and imprisoned him…

Events are shaped and the Goatsong Theatre Group is inexplicably offered the chance to perform in Athens, wellspring of Greek tragedy. How lucky for them then, that new recruit Lyta Hall is fluent in the language, history and customs? Capitalising on the mystical perturbations following Morpheus’ passing, the monstrous Cronus is closing in on Hermes and laying traps in the mortal world, ensnaring those pitiful, disposable wretches slowly warming to the troubled once-super-heroine. The cosmic patricide and unwilling father of gods is uncaring of the fact that his quest will bring him into conflict with the fearsome Furies who have hungered for his punishment since the dawn of time…

Cronus has a cunning plan…

Despite its convoluted antecedents this eerie, mythological horror story from Mike Carey is a compelling and inventive adult fable with a powerful kick and a disturbing message about love, friendship, duty and family, whilst artist John Bolton, who used this tale to shift his creative style from lush and mannered painterly illustration to a stronger, more photo-based expressionist form, excels in capturing mundane fantasy and inconceivable reality as diametrically opposed worlds collide.

Stylish, quirky and immensely impressive this nominal epilogue to Gaiman’s Sandman saga was released as an original hardcover graphic novel and is still generally available in a softcover edition.
© 2002 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Essential Captain America volume 4


By Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema, Frank Robbins & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2770-3

Created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby in an era of frantic patriotic fervour, Captain America was a dynamic and highly visible response to the horrors of Nazism and the threat of Liberty’s loss. He faded during the post-war reconstruction but briefly reappeared after the Korean War: a harder, darker sentinel ferreting out monsters, subversives and the “commies” who lurked under every American bed. Then he vanished once more until the burgeoning Marvel Age resurrected him just in time to experience turbulent, culturally divisive 1960s.

By the time of this fourth Essential collection, reprinting issues #157-186 (January 1973-June 1975) of his monthly comicbook the once convinced and confirmed Sentinel of Liberty had become the unhappy, uncomfortable symbol of a divided nation, but was looking to make the best of things and carve himself a new place in the Land of the Free. Real world events were about to put paid to that American dream…

After meeting and defeating an ugly past in the form of the Captain America and Bucky of the 1950s, Steve Rogers hoped for less troublesome times when ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici: Viper!’ (written by Steve Englehart, Steve Gerber, Sal Buscema & John Verpoorten) began an epic, engrossing storyline by introducing a despicable advertising executive-turned snaky super-villain ostensibly working for a enigmatic boss named the Cowled Commander.

It transpired that corrupt connections at the Precinct where Rogers worked as a policeman had been stirred into murderous action by our hero’s presence, leading to good cops being framed, bombs in offices and the Viper taking out survivors with lethally poisonous darts…

When social worker Sam Wilson, in the guise of the Falcon, came to investigate both he and Cap succumbed to the deadly venom until ‘The Crime Wave Breaks!’ (Englehart, Buscema & Verpoorten) saw a last-second escape from death, a ramping up of criminal activity and Rogers’ abduction, leading to a ‘Turning Point!’ wherein super-scum-for-hire Porcupine, Scarecrow, Plantman and the Eel’s ill-conceived attack gave the game away and uncovered the hidden mastermind in their midst.

‘Enter: Solarr!’ (inked by Frank McLaughlin) presented an old-fashioned clash with a super-powered maniac as the main attraction, but the real meat was the start of twin sub-plots that would shape the next half-dozen adventures, as the Star-Spangled Avenger’s newfound super-strength increasingly made Falcon feel like a junior and inferior partner, whilst Steve’s long-time romantic interest Sharon Carter stole away in the night without leaving a word of explanation…

Captain America and the Falcon #161 saw the tension between Steve and Sam intensify as the heroes went searching for Sharon in ‘…If he Loseth His Soul!’, finding a connection to the girl Cap loved and lost in World War II and a deadly psycho-drama overseen by criminal shrink Dr. Faustus, culminating in a singular lesson in extreme therapy which only proved ‘This Way Lies Madness!’

‘Beware of Serpents!’ saw the returning Viper and Eel combine with the Cobra to form a Serpent Squad as the vengeful ad-man began a campaign to destroy the Sentinel of Liberty with the “Big Lie” weapons and tactics of Madison Avenue. Although the instigator quickly fell, the scheme rumbled on with slow but certain consequences…

Issue #164 was a stunningly scary episode illustrated by Alan Lee Weiss, introducing minx-ish mad scientist Deadly Nightshade, a ‘Queen of the Werewolves!’ who infected Falcon with her chemical lycanthropy as an audition to enlist with one of the planet’s greatest menaces…

The full horror of the situation was revealed when ‘The Yellow Claw Strikes’ (Englehart, Buscema & McLaughlin), renewing a campaign of terror begun in the 1950s, but this time attacking his former Chinese Communist sponsors and the USA indiscriminately. Giant bugs, deadly slave assassins and reanimated mummies were bad enough, but when the Arcane Oriental’s formidable mind-control duped Cap into almost beating S.H.I.E.L.D. supremo Nick Fury to death during the ‘Night of the Lurking Dead!’ the blistering final battle could only result in further tragedy when an old ally perished in the Frank Giacoia inked ‘Ashes to Ashes’.

One of the Star-Spangled Avengers most durable enemies sort-of resurfaced in the tense thriller ‘…And a Phoenix Shall Arise!’ (inked by John Tartaglione & George Roussos) before the Viper’s long-laid plans began to finally bear bitter fruit in #169’s ‘When a Legend Dies!’ (additional scripting from Mike Friedrich) as anti Captain America TV spots made people doubt the honesty and sanity of the nation’s greatest hero. As the Falcon and his “Black Power” activist girlfriend Leila Taylor left for the super-scientific African nation of Wakanda in search of increased powers, Cap battled third-rate villain the Tumbler.

In the heat of battle the Sentinel of Liberty seemed to go too far and the thug died…

‘J’Accuse!’ (Englehart, Friedrich, Buscema & Vince Colletta) saw Cap beaten and arrested by too-good-to-be-true neophyte crusader Moonstone, whilst in Africa Leila was kidnapped by Harlem hood Stone-Face: far from home and hungry for some familiar foxy friendship… ‘Bust-Out!’ in #171 found Cap forcibly sprung from jail by a mysterious pack of “supporters” as Black Panther and the newly flying Falcon crushed Stone-Face preparatory to a quick dash back to America and a reunion with Cap.

‘Believe it or Not: The Banshee!’ began with Captain America and the Falcon beaten by but narrowly escaping Moonstone and his obscurely occluded masters, after which the hard-luck heroes followed a lead to Nashville, encountered the fugitive mutant Master of Sound, and stumbled into a secret pogrom.

For long months mutants had been disappearing unnoticed, but now the last remaining X-Men – Cyclops, Marvel Girl and Professor X – had tracked them down only to discover that Captain America’s problems also stemmed from ‘The Sins of the Secret Empire!’ whose ultimate goal was the conquest of the USA.

Eluding capture by S.H.I.E.L.D. Steve and Sam infiltrate the clandestine Empire, only to be exposed and confined in ‘It’s Always Darkest!’ before turning the tables and saving the day in #175’s ‘…Before the Dawn!’ wherein the grand plan is revealed, the mutants liberated and the culprits captured. In a shocking final scene the ultimate instigator is unmasked and shockingly dispatched within the Whitehouse itself…

At this time America was a nation reeling from a loss of idealism caused by Vietnam, Watergate and the partial exposure of President Nixon’s crimes. The general loss of idealism and painful public revelations that politicians are generally unpleasant – and even possibly ruthless, wicked exploiters – kicked the props out of most Americans who had an incomprehensibly rosy view of their leaders, so a conspiracy that reached into the halls and backrooms of government was extremely controversial yet oddly attractive in those distant, simpler days…

Shocked and stunned, Steve Rogers searched his soul and realised he could not be the symbol of such a country. Despite the arguments and advice of his Avenging allies he decided that ‘Captain America Must Die!’ Unable to convince him otherwise Sam Wilson carried on alone, tackling an invasion by a body-snatching old X-Men foe in ‘Lucifer be thy Name’ and wrapping up the threat in ‘If the Falcon Should Fall…!’ Meanwhile, as Steve Rogers settled into an uncomfortable retirement, a few painfully unqualified civilians began trying to fill the crimson boots of Captain America with dire results…

Captain America and the Falcon #179 saw Rogers hunted by a mysterious Golden Archer whose ‘Slings and Arrows!’ convinced the ex-hero that even if he couldn’t be Captain America, neither could he abandon the role of do-gooder; leading to a life-changing decision and ‘The Coming of the Nomad!’ in #180. The Serpent Squad turned up again with Princess Python in tow and maniac nihilist Madame Hydra assuming the suddenly vacant role of the Viper.

When “the Man Without a Country” tackled the ophidian villains he came off second best but did stumble across a sinister scheme by the Squad and Sub-Mariner’s arch-nemesis Warlord Krang to raise a sunken continent and restore an ancient civilisation in ‘The Mark of Madness!’ At the same time Falcon was ignoring his better judgement and agreeing to train a determined young man as the next celebrated Captain America…

An era ended when Sal Buscema surrendered Captain America and newspaper-strip creator Frank Robbins came aboard for a controversial run beginning with ‘Inferno!’ (inked by Joe Giella). Whilst Nomad successfully mopped up the Serpent Squad despite well-meaning police interference, Sam and Captain America’s substitute had encountered the Sentinel of Liberty’s greatest enemy with fatal consequences…

‘Nomad: No More!’ (inked by Giacoia) found the grief-stricken Steve Rogers once more take up his stars and stripes as the murderous Red Skull began simultaneously attacking the hero’s loved ones and destroying America’s economy by defiling the banks and slaughtering the financial wizards who ran them, beginning in the chillingly evocative ‘Cap’s Back!’ (Herb Trimpe, Giacoia & Mike Esposito), rampaging through the utterly shocking ‘Scream of the Scarlet Skull!’ (art by Buscema, Robbins & Giacoia) and climaxing in ‘Mindcage!’ (with additional scripting from John Warner and art by Robbins & Esposito) wherein our titular hero’s greatest friend was apparently revealed as the Skull’s stooge and slave.

And on that staggering cliffhanger note this epic collection concludes…

Despite the odd cringe-worthy moment (I specifically omitted the part where Cap battles three chicken-themed villains, for example, and still wince at some of the dialogue from this era of “blacksploitation” and ethnic awareness) these tales of matchless courage and indomitable heroism are fast-paced, action-packed, totally engrossing fights ‘n’ tights that no comics fan will care to miss, and joking aside, the cultural significance of these tales were crucial in informing the political consciences of the youngest members of post-Watergate generation…

Above all else ‘though, these are fabulously fun tales of a true American Dream…

© 1972, 1973, 1984, 1975, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.