Author: NowReadThis

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American Vampire Book 1


By Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque & Stephen King (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-032-7

Here’s another welcome and long-past-due remedy to the scarlet deluge of lovey-dovey, kissey-poo tales of forbidden love between innocent modern maids and moody, tragic carriers of the Curse of the Night’s Children, and one that uses for its themes Darwinian Survival of the Fittest, old-fashioned Revenge and the ultimate grisly example of Manifest Destiny; all played out against the chillingly familiar backdrop of the bloody birth of a modern nation…

In Scott Snyder & Rafael Albuquerque’s stellar first narrative arc, augmented and supplemented here by a stunning sidebar storyline from the functionally mythical Stephen King, the kind of vampires that you should rightly beware of are introduced and explained, but although there are love stories in this series they’re probably not the sort you want your impressionable kids to read…

The sinister suspense begins with Snyder & Albuquerque’s ‘Big Break’ as, in the Hollywood of 1925, struggling but popular and ambitious would-be starlets Pearl Jones and Hattie Hargrove followed their dream of celluloid stardom working days as bit-players in movie mogul D. B. Bloch’s latest silent epic.

The girls had only been best friends for a short while but shared hardship had made them closer than sisters, even if, too often, Pearlwas distracted by itinerant musician Henry Preston and the aggravatingly persistent and obnoxious drifter who hung out near their Ladies-Only boarding house.

The actresses’ careers seemed destined to blossom when leading man Chase Hamilton invited the fame-hungry girls to one of Bloch’s legendary Producer’s parties. Despite shaded warnings from their laconic stalker,Pearl and Hattie attended but when the unctuous Chase took the Jones girl aside to meet D. B. it wasn’t for the kind of assignation she expected.

Reeling with horror the feisty actress found herself a morsel and kickback offering for a pack of wealthy European money-men who were also literal blood-sucking monsters…

King & Albuquerque then take us back to the hoary days of 1880 and Sidewinder, Colorado, as author Will Bunting relates the true story behind his novel ‘Bad Blood’ to a group of eager fans and historians…

The ancient scribbler recounts the fantastic but apparently non-fictional tale of outlaw Skinner Sweet, a remorseless thief frustrating progress, killing good folks and stealing funds from sun-shy, Euro-trash millionaire railroad speculator Mr. Percy. When the psychotic bandit was finally captured by Pinkerton agent Jim Book and his deputy Felix Camillo, the triumphant banker laid on a special train and a gaggle of journalists to record the victory of civilisation over lawlessness…

As the killer’s gang subsequently derailed the train and massacred everybody who survived the crash Skinner cruelly and casually took time out to reveal how he had killed Book’s wife …

Sweet then gunned down Book and overwhelmed Camillo, but was utterly unprepared for the attack of the effete-seeming Percy who shrugged off the gang’s fusillade of bullets before slaughtering them all. Skinner didn’t die easily though, and in close combat with the fanged, gore-guzzling horror blew the European monstrosity’s eye out, consequently taking its blood into his own body before at last expiring…

Unknown to all, Bunting had seen everything and, as the fully-healed Percy tended to Book and Camillo, wisely decided to say nothing of the horror he’d witnessed…

The Hollywood story resumes with ‘Morning Star’ as Hattie and Henry discoveredPearl was missing. Driving to the isolated mansion they found her; ravaged, chewed to ribbons as if by some animal yet inexplicably clinging to life.

Pearlawoke in the Morgue, having been visited by her mysterious stalker. Skinner Sweet had shared his unique blood with her and now, as the once-deceased actress listened in astonishment, the smirking ghoul explained some facts of life – and death – to her.

Like himself she had been attacked by ancient, old-world vampires, but by sharing their blood – accidentally in his case but quite deliberately when Sweet bestowed his own kiss upon her – Pearl had become a new form of hybrid-bloodsucker, perfectly evolved to inhabit the New World, with completely different weaknesses to the old guard and, hopefully, sharing Sweet’s lust for revenge, taste for chaos and hunger for life…

After giving her a quick lesson on the differences between the European nosferatu who have carved themselves an almost unassailable position of closeted wealth and power in the young nation and the new American Vampires (now numbering two), the morally bankrupt wanderer then took off, leaving his hungry new offspring to sink, swim or stand on her own shape-shifting, taloned feet…

He did leave a present though: locked in her closet, Chase Hamilton quickly realised he was about to pay for all his many sins…

‘Deep Water’ saw author Will Bunting also in 1925, talking about the re-issue of his fantastic novel to a store full of avid fans. The tale, which described the iconic life of heroic Jim Book and his battle against vampire outlaw Skinner Sweet, resumed at the point when the infected owlhoot woke up in his own grave. Far above him the cabal of expatriate vampires secretly dominatingAmerica’s nascent financial system continued accruing wealth and power and insouciantly turned the entire town ofSidewinder intoColorado’s latest reservoir and boating lake…

For nearly thirty years Book continued with his peacekeeping profession and eventually Camillo became Mayor of the new town of Lakeview. Bunting had turned the tale of Sweet and the vampires into a popular dime-novel and sensation-seekers and treasure-hunters were regularly dredging the man-made mere for souvenirs of the infamous outlaw.

One day in 1909 a couple of them unearthed the now legendary bad-man’s buried, sunken coffin and unleashed a rabid horror unlike anything ever seen in the world before: a leech unaffected by running water, stakes or sunlight. Hungry for revenge and sustenance Skinner Sweet emerged into a newAmericaand began hunting old “friends” he owed a debt to…

In TinselTownmeanwhile, Pearlhad returned to her lodgings and told the shell-shocked Hattie to flee before continuing her own quest for vengeance in ‘Rough Cut’. The immortal Euro-cabal were, as usual, discussing what to do about their personal nemesis Sweet and his protracted annoyance, unaware that they had a far more pressing problem. That all changed after the unstoppable and infinitely superior Pearl slaughtered three of them. Without knowing what could kill this new world species of vampire, the clique resorted to age-old stratagems even as Miss Jones – resuming mortal form – turned to Henry for a little comfort and support…

Just then the phone rang and Bloch demanded that she surrender herself or Hattie would die horribly…

Back in 1909 Sweet’s ‘Blood Vengeance’ eliminated every human in Lakeview and proclaimed his intentions to a horrified coterie of arrogant old-world bloodsuckers who had previously believed themselves the planet’s apex predators. Even so, the resurgent outlaw had more pressing business. Before the last man in town died, Sweet made him send a telegram to Jim Book…

‘Double Exposure’ found Pearl desperately negotiating for Hattie’s life, knowing surrender would lead her to becoming the cabal’s eternal, experimental lab rat but utterly unaware that she had already been betrayed by someone close to her who was pitifully greedy and unable to resist the subtle pressures and obvious blandishments of the European ancients.

However even bushwhacked, mysteriously weakened and brutally assaulted, Pearl, with the aid of her last true friend, managed to turn the tables and even destroy Bloch’s fortress before escaping to prepare for one last showdown…

The writer’s tale was also approaching a climax as ‘One Drop of Blood’ found Book, Felix, the young Bunting and Camillo’s daughter Abilena hunting Sweet in the hellish ruins of Lakeview just as the bloodthirsty travesty discovered that his powers and energies were unaccountably waning. Watching unsuspected from a distant position of seclusion, the “Euro-Vamps” bided their time and saw the shocking finale as the valiant comrades used dynamite to bury the debilitated devil in a deep mine-shaft under tons of unyielding rock – but not before the sadistic Skinner had deliberately infected Book with his own tainted, mutagenic blood…

Pearl’s story in this first stunning volume concludes in a sustained spray of scarlet gore as she climactically confronts Bloch and his surviving comrades only to face one final tragic betrayal in ‘Curtain Call’ whilst ‘If Thy Right Hand Offend Thee…‘ discloses Jim Book’s last desperate battle against the cursed thirst Sweet had inflicted upon him, even as the unstoppable Skinner enjoyed one last chat with the Euro-leech who created him…

The time-distanced yet parallel tales then coincide and conclude with a hint of foreboding; presaging more horrors in the days and decades to come…

This initial creepy, compelling chronicle also includes a pithy Afterword from Snyder, a welter of variant covers by Albuquerque, Jim Lee, Bernie Wrightson, Andy Kubert, JH Williams III and Paul Pope, a feature on the script-to-art process and 6 pages of designs and sketches by the supremely skilled and multi-faceted Albuquerque to delight and impress all fans of truly mature supernatural thrills and chills.

Far more True Blood than Twilight and substantially closer to Sam Peckinpah than John Ford or Tod Browning, this lightning-paced, sardonic and gory excursion into blood and sand and love and death is a spectacular and absorbing riot by two of the industry’s best and new talents, backed up and covered by an absolute master of tone and terror, combining to craft a splendid, sordid, sexy and utterly spellbinding saga, riddled with far deeper metaphors than “unrequited love sucks”.

American Vampire offers solid screams and enchantingly fresh ideas that all fear-fiends will find irresistible making this book an absolute “must-have” and a certain reminder that there are such things as monsters and some beasts just should not be tamed…
© 2010, Scott Snyder and Stephen King.  All Rights Reserved.

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‘There’s a Lot of it About’


By Geoffrey Dickinson (Columbus Books)
ISBN: 978-0-86287-253-3

Since we’re well into the snot and sniffles season I thought I’d cheer myself up with this handy handbook of ailments and medical mis-practice from one of Britain’s best and most influential cartoonists Geoffrey Dickinson, a veteran mainstay of Punch, Time, The Financial Times and many others. This is probably his best collection of gags but his second opinion on medical matters ‘Probably Just a Virus’ is almost as good but a lot harder to find these days…

British cartooning has been magnificently served over the centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly clever ideas, repeatedly poking our funny bones, pricking our pomposities and feeding our fascinations, and nothing says more about us than our rocky relationship with the beloved yet dreaded agents of the National Health Service.

Award-winning cartoonist Geoffrey Samuel Dickinson was born on May 5th 1933 inLiverpool and studied at Southport School Art (1950-1953) before graduating to the Royal Academy Schools. Set on a career as a landscape painter he taught art in Croyden, atTavistockBoysSchool and theSelhurstGrammar School until 1967.

To supplement his income he freelanced as a graphic designer and animator for the BBC and began selling gags to Punch as early as 1963.

In 1966 his famous cover for the April 15th issue of Time Magazine was deemed to have officially launched “the Swinging Sixties” and London as the capital city of cool, and a year later he took a staff position with Punch as Deputy Art Editor under the legendary Bill Hewison, but still found time to freelance, working for Reader’s Digest, Which?, Esquire, Highlife, Hallmark Cards and many more.

In 1984 Dickinsonleft the humour standard to take up a position at the Financial Times, drawing cartoons for the daily and producing illustration material for the weekend supplement. He died far too young in 1988.

Within the pages of ‘There’s a Lot of it About’ – and following a pithy introduction from much-missed master of acerbic wit Alan Coren – the fit, the fat, the festering and the foolish will all learn the truth about the health of the nation in such chapters of chilling encounters and dodgy diagnoses as ‘The Waiting-Room’, ‘In the Surgery’ and ‘Sharp Practice’, before meeting stroppy secretaries, seen-it-all sawbones and formidably starched matrons as well as the puling punks, cadaverous clerks and clerics, cocky kids, goofy old gaffers, loony little old ladies, brusque businessmen and other tedious time-wasters all abusing valuable visiting hours ‘On the Touchline’, ‘At the Barbers’ and ‘At the Dentist’…

Moreover, as well as warning of ‘Student Doctors’, ‘Showbiz Doctors’ and the ‘Bogus Doctor’, we follow fully-rounded physicians into their private lives ‘On Holiday’, ‘At the Wheel’, in the garden with ‘Doctor Greenfinger’, at the ‘Doctor’s Wedding’, over ‘The Festive Season’ and on ‘The Morning After’, before examining doctors in love undergoing ‘Affairs of the Heart’…

These kinds of cartoon collections were once ubiquitous best-sellers available everywhere, but these days are perennial library and jumble sale fare – in fact I actually found this brilliant cure-all for the blues at a Hospital charity shop – but if you ever see a Dickinson (or indeed, any cartoon collection) in such a place, do yourself a favour, help out a good cause and have a healthy horse-laugh with these all-but-forgotten masters of illustrative mirth.

They’re really good for what ails you…
© 1985 Geoffrey Dickinson. 1933-1988

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Spider-Girl: Who Killed Gwen Reilly?


By Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, Sal Buscema & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4319-2

During a truly scary sales downturn in comicbook sales that afflicted the mid-1990s, American publishers tried all manner of stunts and ideas to retain their rapidly-diminishing readerships. Marvel especially attempted ever-wilder schemes to bolster sales and the one with the most lasting effect, if not success, was to create a pocket universe of interlocking titles featuring the offspring of mainstream characters such as The Avengers and Spider-Man.

Kicking off with a throwaway tale in What If…? volume 2, #105 (February 1998 and clumsily asking ‘What If Mary Jane had never lost the baby, and Spider-Man had a Spider-Girl?’) the notion launched a batch of younger, ostensibly contemporary characters battling modern menaces in the old-fashioned way.

That introductory yarn was eventually re-released as Spider-Girl #0 and is reprinted at the end of this collection of recent episodes which primarily gathers the Alternate Arachnoid Avenger’s short stories from Amazing Spider-Man Family #1-8 and back-up strips from Web of Spider-Man (2009) #1-4.

May “Mayday” Parker is the daughter of Peter Parker and wife Mary Jane, and she developed arachnoid superpowers whilst in High School, giving writer/creator Tom DeFalco a chance to rehash the teen-angst shtick of the primal, all-hallowed – and supremely successful – Stan Lee/Steve Ditko days of the company’s infancy.

What with disapproving parental units to dodge, vengeful enemies to tackle, lots of guest stars and the hell that has always been school days to wade through, it frequently felt like a pretty cynical attempt to recapture the glory days, but it was extremely entertaining, worked well and struck a chord with the Faithful.

Spider-Girl became Marvel’s longest running female-starring solo-title, outliving by years every other book in the “MC2” Universe.

Although she is much less a nerd than her father ever was – I suspect modern kids aren’t so ready to own their alienation issues, and besides, reading comic books is enough geekiness for anyone to admit to – Mayday still endured the traditional torments of teen life, but after many months her concerned guardians grudgingly accepted her need to help humanity as a bona fide super-hero and so, whilst perpetually dealing with classroom politics, hesitant romantic overtures, crushes and strained relations with the rest of the second-generation Marvel Offspring (such as Darkdevil, Stinger, The Buzz, New Avengers and the Fantastic Five), Spider-Girl gradually became a fixture of the alternate future Marvel Universe.

Eventually Mayday’s popularity waned and her first volume ended with issue #100 in 2005, only to return a year later for a 30-issue run as The Amazing Spider-Girl before transferring to support strip status in the anthological Amazing Spider-Man Family (#5-8) and simultaneously as a part of Marvel’s Digital Comics Unlimited webcomic experiment in 2009 as Spectacular Spider-Girl.

Thereafter Mayday sprang into the back of the latest incarnation of Web of Spider-Man, out into a 4-issue miniseries (Spectacular Spider-Girl again) and the finale one-shot Spider-Girl: The End.

I think I got all that right, but…

This quirky collection opens with the pertinent parts of Amazing Spider-Man Family #5-8, by DeFalco, Frenz & Sal Buscema, and asks ‘Who is Gwen Reilly?’ A very brief recap of those 130 intervening issues reminds us of May’s origins and how she is currently acting as big sister to her own clone who had been grown in secret by the maniacal secret society The Order of the Goblin. Subsequently she gained the metamorphic powers – and weaknesses – of the sinister alien Symbiote which had created Venom and Carnage…

The clone – who of course claims to be the original May – is wildly unstable and prone to viciously excessive violence, as seen when the girls encounter a robbery in the street, part of an escalating gang war between New Yorkcrime kingpin Black Tarantula and potential cyborg usurper Silverback…

Peter and Mary Jane Parker, barely coping with their new son’s physical problems, are more concerned that there are two teenaged May’s in the house but whilst the clone solves that problem with her shape-shifting abilities, she is far more reluctant to surrender her claim to the actual identity of the “real” daughter of Spider-Man…

That all changes at school next morning when she rolls up as sexy, flamboyant wild-child “cousin” April Parker and begins to steal all May’s friends. The senior Parker goes ballistic that night at home but is cut short when another impossible girl turns up.

Gwen Reilly claims to be the long-lost daughter of Peter’s brother Ben but is clearly unaware that the identity was just a fictitious persona used by a Spider-Man clone in the years before the Wall-crawler was maimed in battle against the Green Goblin and retired from costumed crusading…

When the stranger leaves, May and April follow her but are separated by another gang crime. When May finally catches up she finds her doppelganger standing over the brutalised corpse of the mystery girl…

‘Who Killed Gwen Reilly? ratchets up the tension as May calls her dad – now a forensic scientist working in the NYPD crime lab – to deal with the mystery. Most troubling is April’s callous disregard for the stranger’s death: is it possible her emotionally stunted double could actually have committed the murder, despite all her protestations of innocence?

Certainly the female facsimile is no stranger to mischief, using her shape-shifting power to covertly cosy-up to the boy May shyly adores, but with a slaying to solve, Spider-Girl pushes it all onto a back-burner and seeks assistance from demonic do-gooder Darkdevil, before being ambushed by one of her father’s oldest and most savage foes…

As a result of her hopeless battle against Tombstone, May is left for dead and dumped in the New Jersey Pine Barrens whilst April is busy saving victims of a tenement blaze in ‘Into the Fire!’ but once the crisis is over, the clone ruthlessly ends the Granite Gangster’s threat for ever and simply assumes May’s identity, even fooling Peter and Mary Jane as she luxuriates in finally becoming the only child and declaring ‘There’s a New Spider-Girl in Town!’…

The convoluted commotion continued without missing a beat in Web of Spider-Man (2009) #1-4, as two lazy thugs cut corners and dump May’s battered, broken body short of their regular disposal spot, thus allowing the supposed corpse a last, desperate chance to escape in ‘Angels and Devils’. Scared and furious, the gunsels track the wounded warrior but are attacked by a monstrous winged beast which can only be the mythical Jersey Devil…

Struggling back to relative civilisation May sneaks into her home, utterly unaware that “Spider-Girl” has been ambushed by the deadly Goblin Queen in ‘Like a Fury Scorned!’ The last heir of the twisted Osborn legacy was responsible for creating the Mayday clone and the Gwen Reilly conspiracy but is in a desperate war with her sire’s Order of the Goblin  personality cult. Claiming April as her spiritual sister, Fury has captured the spider-clone with the heartfelt intention of making her an ally.

May, meanwhile, has recovered and deduced how April has attempted to replace her. Heading to school and eager to reclaim her life, the bruised battler stumbles straight into another catastrophe as Goblin Queen attacks, attempting to kill René DeSantos, an influential member of the Order whose unfortunate and unaware daughter Simone is a classmate of the real Ms Parker…

Barely surviving the shattering attack, May and Darkdevil unite to track down Fury in ‘Whom Gods Destroy’, backed up by erstwhile Spider-clone super-menace Kaine – now a very senior and Special Federal Agent – and raid her lair only to find the morally ambiguous and definitely untrustworthy April in full Carnage Symbiote mode as the Goblin Queen’s ally…

The saga culminates in a blockbuster brouhaha as ‘They First Make Mad!’ brings the house down and sets events in motion for the final chapter in Mayday Parker’s fantastic life…

But that’s not included here, even though there’s still plenty of web-spinning wonderment on show.

First up is a terrifically enjoyable run of vignettes from Amazing Spider-Man Family #1-4, set in the same futureverse, but in the early years when May was still a baby. Mr. and Mrs. Spider-Man by DeFalco, Frenz & Sal Buscema opened with the still-active and cash-strapped Wall-Crawler battling the lethal Lizard whilst Mary Jane discussed the pressure of ‘Family Ties!’ with the mutated biochemist – and potential employer’s – distraught and desperate wife and child…

After a horrific drive-by shooting ‘Those Who Never Return!’ explored the understandable worries of the wife of a practising superhero confronted by a situation where only her hubby could make things right, the absolutely brilliant ‘Common Ground’ (illustrated by Todd Nauck) found Pete and MJ in a bustling, frustrating hospital Emergency Room, frantically waiting to see a doctor after baby May catches her first cold.

It’s not the place you want to see short-tempered super-villain the Rhino trying to cut the line because his beloved ancient auntie is really sick…

The domestic delights finish up with ‘Career Paths’ as a very convincing and sympathetic thief takes the young Marrieds hostage for the very best of reasons and for a very galling ride, after which this tome concludes with that aforementioned What If?/Spider-Girl #0 yarn.

‘Legacy… in Black and White’, illustrated by Frenz & Bill Sienkiewicz, relates how ordinary lass May Parker suddenly found herself possessed of incredible abilities just as the last Green Goblin inexplicably attacked her fuddy-duddy crime lab daddy. When her mother revealed the long-kept secret of his former life, the horrified girl only had one real choice to make…

Even though the stories are capable and well produced and accompanied by a superb cover gallery by Frenz, Paulo Siqueira, Joe Suitor, Nuno Plati, Pasqual Ferry & Jelen Djurdjevic to enchant the eyes, this is a truly odd book to read: starting in the middle, proceeding without conclusion to the penultimate, skipping back to a prologue and ending at the beginning.

Even after all the Spider-Girl issues I’ve read from the feature’s inception I found myself regularly stopping to check elsewhere before being able to continue with this collection, so I’ve never been more serious when I say don’t read this unless you’re well versed in the arcane arachnid arcane and lore or need a headache to get out of some even more onerous task…

Even so: if some editor would kindly re-order and re-release this tome I’d happily give the Weirdly Winsome Webbed Wonder another go…
© 1998, 2009 & 2010 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Runaways


By Joss Whedon, Michael Ryan & Rick Ketchum, Jay Leisten, Andrew Hennessy, Victor Olazaba & Roland Paris (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-408-9

The Runaways are a bunch of super-powered kids whose parents kept from them the rather surprising news that were secretly a cabal of would-be world conquerors called “The Pride”. These extremely circumspect and clandestine villains played it smart for years and completely controlledLos Angeleswithout the populace knowing they even existed – which was why all the baddies and monsters in the Marvel Universe generally hung out aroundNew Yorkand the East Coast.

After many trials and tribulations – including the death of some of the rebellious kids – the young absconders overthrew and eradicated their progenitors, with the unwelcome result that LA became a soft target and open city for ambitious costumed ne’er-do-wells.

The orphans were all placed with well-meaning but clueless social services, forcing them to again run away, taking to the streets again.

Preferring life together and driven to protect the city they unwittingly endangered, the kids even found a few new recruits but not all of them were trustworthy either…

The underlying premise of this series is that adults can’t be trusted – only your friends and comrades – and this volume (collecting volume 2, issues #25-30 of the monthly comic-book) takes that to deliciously ludicrous extremes whilst simultaneously exploring a long-neglected era of America’s metahuman history, and even dabbling in a little doomed romancing as only the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dollhouse could conceive it…

Visiting the Big Apple, the fugitive kids encountered such obstructive and overbearing adult luminaries as Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Luke Cage and Wolverine as well as the skeevyNew York underclass who were the Runaways’ East Coast counterparts…

Even after returning to their nominal home turf things weren’t easy and they even inconclusively clashed with the Federal Government…

The current roster comprises Nico Minoru, last in a long line of hereditary sorcerers, whilst Karolina Dean was once the compliant daughter of two domineering aliens intent on global conquest. But now they’re gone she’s unexpectedly entered into a loving relationship with the rebellious shape-shifting, gender-fluid apprentice Super-Skrull Prince Xavin that they had previously arranged for her to wed as a condition of truce between their warring civilisations…

Little Molly Hayes is much younger that the others, a super-strong, invulnerable child of evil mutant parents, whilst oafish teen Chase Stein was the son of genuine mad scientists. He might not have inherited their intellects but he has got lots of toys from their arsenal. He also sort of inherited the genetically-augmented 87th century empathic dinosaur Old Lace when her beloved owner Gertrude Yorkes was killed by the Pride.

Gertrude’s folks were time-travelling bandits and would-be world conquerors…

The latest edition to the group is Victor Mancha, who can control electricity and manipulate metals; gifts his “father” (robotic despot Ultron) considered quite useful in the secret weapon he was building and growing…

As this story opens the outcasts are back in the City that Never Sleeps (but Steals your Stuff if You Do), painfully aware of their legal status and parents’ reputation. In unfamiliar territory and perilously isolated, they enter into a deal with nefarious Wilson Fisk, the ganglord who truly rules New York. The kids want license to move about freely, unmolested by cops, heroes and Social Services. In return the Kingpin wants them to “acquire” a certain object for him…

…And across the sleeping city, a very old woman and her monstrous guardian angel wait for events to tragically replay themselves out…

With Gert dead, Nico has become leader – a role she neither wants nor believes herself qualified to perform – and reluctantly acquiesces to the ponderous crime-lord’s wishes, committing the kids to breaking into a skyscraper citadel and purloining a mysterious egg-like chronometer, but the mission goes horrendously wrong when urban vigilante Frank Castle explosively intervenes…

However The Punisher is himself ambushed by a ghastly winged apparition who apparently wants to kill the kids himself. Caught flat footed, the youngsters run away and regroup at the Leapfrog (their futuristic vehicle and another useful tool inherited from the deceased Yorkes) but are again surprised by Castle.

The ever-prepared and action-savvy Punisher learns a painful lesson however when he lets little Molly get too close and catches a super-punch somewhere between his chest armour and knee-guards…

Chase meanwhile has examined the object and realised it’s something his parents built using the Yorkes’ future tech…

When they meet up with the Kingpin, the mountainous malcontent attempts to double-cross them, but his ninjas are no match for the furious betrayed kids and in the melee the monster angel reappears and gives Victor a message…

On the run again the fugitives bundle into the Leapfrog and Chase plugs the stolen artefact into the dashboard. There is a strange flash of light and the ship crashes into an alley… in 1907…

Talking over their options the kids deduce that the time-jump was pre-programmed and therefore the deceased Yorkes must have cached helpful technology in this era. Setting out to search the primitive city they stumble upon a tenement fire and unhesitatingly use their flamboyant abilities to save the women and children trapped in what turns out to be a completely legal sweatshop.

The rubbernecking spectators don’t seem too shocked and the reason soon becomes apparent when shady character Eddie Gunnam introduces himself…

Carrying a lucky magic walking stick and calling himself The Swell, Eddie is part of a growing band of metahumans he calls “Wonders of the Modern Age”. Soon he’s introducing the time-lost tribe to own his band of ragamuffin companions; aerial dancer Lillie “The Spieler” McGurty, diminutive Creeper, brutish tomboy Hoyden, The Yellow Kid, Dead George Pelham and a hulking winged bravo named Tristan…

In this harsh exploitative world the street urchins try their best to survive but hard times are made worse by a brewing war between two gangs of Wonders with diametrically opposed philosophies: the nominally virtuous but ruthless Upward Path and The Sinners, a savage band of criminals led by a mysterious husband and wife team with fantastic inventive skills…

Karolina is distracted. During the fire she had tried to rescue a little Swiss immigrant girl – barely Molly’s age – only to see the waif use incredible plant hyper-acceleration abilities to save herself. The alien princess tracked the child to her home where her brutal, indolent father was beating the household’s only breadwinner for her laziness. With Molly in tow Karolina returns the next day and offers Klara Plast refuge, but the frightened lass is too scared to leave her husband…

Before she can be convinced, a riot between unionists and vicious strike-breakers erupts and Victor, seeing Spieler in all her combative flying glory, feels the first buzz and whirr of love in his artificial heart, utterly unaware that jealous Tristan is already besotted with her…

Across town Nico has raided a bank in search of the Yorkes’ stash of devices but has been captured by the Upward Path. Whilst torturing the future girl, their resident sorceress reveals that Nico is her direct descendent, but tragically for the time-tossed captive, loyalty to family has never been a Minoru trait…

The Swell, meanwhile has introduced Xavin and Chase to the Sinners and discovered that the enigmatic bosses are the Yorkes from an earlier period of their personal timelines…

The future felons instantly realise what has happened but are stunned to discover their daughter will die fighting them, allowing the Runaway lads to bust loose, as miles away Victor and Lillie cavort in the sky, lost in the sheer giddy exuberance of first love…

As a final showdown between the Sinners and The Upward Path inexorably approaches, the foredoomed but forewarned Yorkes make radical plans to escape their fate and change the history of the future…

The brutal bloody finale and all-out war of the Wonders leaves a trail of bodies in the streets ofNew Yorkand pits friend against friend until they discover a doomsday bomb set by the destiny-challenging Futurians…

Chase, however, has been busy and devised a way to save the day that allows the kids to return to the present day with the newest member of their youthful outcast family…

Sadly however in the aftermath, the original instigator of all the chronal chaos and calamity is revealed and has again failed to change the past or reverse the foolish decision she made on a dirty street in 1907…

Sexually frank but never explicit, this is a superbly well-reasoned and executed, thought-provoking and imaginatively mature Fights ‘n’ Tights tale from Whedon, stuffed to bursting with wit, action, horror, humour, charm and poignant passion and magically illustrated by Michael Ryan (ably assisted by inkers Rick Ketchum, Jay Leisten, Andrew Hennessy, Victor Olazaba & Roland Paris) which proves that superhero comics can surmount their escapist, gratuitous power-fantasy roots and deliver stories of true depth and worth.
© 2007, 2008 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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JLA/Avengers


By Kurt Busiek & George Pérez, coloured by Tom Smith & lettered by Richard Starkings (DC/Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1957-4

Fair Warning: this review deals with the very bedrock of superhero comics. If you’re not utterly au fait with the continuity minutiae of Marvel and DC Comics, this review won’t make much sense, and might well cause migraines or dizziness and could well prevent you from operating gigantic universe-bending machineries.

If you’d rather read something else I’ll quite understand and will hopefully see you tomorrow…

From the moment a kid first sees his second superhero the only thing he/she wants is to see how the new costumed crusader stacks up against the first. From the earliest days of the industry we’ve wanted our idols to meet, associate, battle together – and if you follow the Timely/Marvel model, that means against each other – far more than we want to see them trounce their arch-enemy one more time.

For many years that immature “who’s strongest/fastest/toughest?” preoccupation could only be addressed within individual company boundaries, but once publishers at DC and Marvel realised the sales potential of inter-continuity crossover clashes in the 1970s a veritable torrent of “impossible” superhero mash-ups (of generally excellent artistic quality but mired in inescapably mediocre plots) followed, all generally suffering from the protective partisanship of their legal owners.

After all, who wanted their pantheon to come off second-best in any confrontation?

When a much-touted and eagerly anticipated meeting of the Avengers and Justice League of America famously foundered due to irreconcilable creative differences between the sponsoring publishers, the crossover practise was shelved for years until cooler heads, a general sales decline and the far less hide-bound attitudes of smaller new companies (such as Valiant and Image) who simply found a negotiated way to make these temporary mergers work amicably and effectively, revitalised the whole concept and practise…

Which is a shame as Busiek is one of the most skilled writers in the business, easily ably to inject telling personal emotion and poignant character revelation into the driest plot – but here there’s simply not enough room…

Gathering together the deluxe 4-issue miniseries from 2003-2004, this powers-packed tome opens with a joint Introduction from the co-instigators of the Silver Age of Comics, Julie Schwartz and Stan Lee, after which the non-stop creative chaos begins with ‘A Journey into Mystery’ as the obsessive monster Krona smashes his way into the Cosmos we’ll call Marvel.

The cosmic intruder is a renegade Guardian of his own Universe, driven insane by an insatiable hunger to learn the origin of Reality. His previous rabid inquiries had already introduced evil into his own once-innocent continuum, shortened its sidereal lifespan and reduced an incomparable multiverse to a few straggling survivor dimensions, but now his impassioned search has brought him to a previously unreachable and unsuspected parallel realm only to encounter a being almost his equal…

En Dwi Gast, a puissant conniving being dedicated to games of chance, contests of power and duels of skill, is an Elder of the Universe and one of the most powerful creatures in this existence, but even The Grandmaster is helpless before Krona’s fanatical assault and manic inquisition. Nevertheless the wily immortal manages to inveigle Krona into a diverting little side-bet…

A month later, the world’s greatest champions in two vastly differing dimensions find themselves battling incomprehensible threats from beyond their reality. Investigations indicate that invaders from an alternate Earth are inexplicably appearing and causing devastating damage.

It also seems that the too-incompatible realms are colliding…

Offering a solution, the Grandmaster appears to the Justice League of Americaand sets them off in search of twelve objects of sublime power (six from each Earth) that will end the crisis. On Marvel Earth the morally ambiguous New God Metron tasks the Avengers with the same goal and soon the duped heroes are all engaged in furious and escalating clashes across two worlds, culminating in a shattering confrontation on Earth-DC…

In a place beyond physics and geography, the size-shifting Atom has hitched a ride with the unsuspecting Grandmaster and becomes privy to a private conversation with the New Genesisian God of Knowledge.

However, even after discovering the real nature of the crisis and the true threat involved, the hapless hero is unable to reach either fooled friends or foes to warn them…

‘A Contest of Champions’ open with the JLA and Avengers at war above Metropolis whilst the cooler heads of Batman and Captain America have both deduced that something is not kosher. The two surreptitiously declare a truce and leave their unnaturally enraged comrades to their futile battles and continued competition for the dozen arcane objects of power, and instead track down the Atom in the Grandmaster’s non-dimensional lair.

The deeper plan is revealed: the Grandmaster’s game is rigged and the prize Krona is vying for is possession of Galactus: a being from the reality that preceded the Big Bang…

Meanwhile the massed armies of heroes have finished their savagely fought duels. The Grandmaster’s side has been victorious…

…Which means nothing to Krona who simply blasts the Elder, cruelly claiming and dismantling the prized Galactus as nothing more than a new research tool. However the renegade Guardian has been duped: En Dwi Gast was after the twelve objects all along and uses them to reorder the realities and the once-incompatible Earths…

In a world of constant turmoil and ‘Strange Adventures’, the JLA and Avengers are now old allies, frequently pairing to battle overwhelming menaces in union, but Captain America can’t shake the feeling that something is not right. On anther Earth Batman has the same notion, as blips in reality and temporal hiccups shift heroes and even replace them with dead or departed predecessors. It’s soon clear that Existence is in big trouble and when Superman and Iron Man travel into space they observe huge metaphysical hands catastrophically mashing the two Earths together…

With chaos rising and all life threatened, the constantly changing teams are led by the inscrutably unfathomable Phantom Stranger to a place beyond where the dying Grandmaster – who has once again underestimated the merciless, self-destructive and utterly determined Krona – warns them of the imminent end of all since the Guardian is quite prepared to take the universe apart to find out how it began…

As both worlds shudder and shatter, all the heroes of the earths mobilise to save lives, allowing ‘The Brave… and the Bold’ JLA and Avengers to pursue Krona into the void for one last battle to preserve and restore the universes, but even here a double game is being played: Metron and the Grandmaster have one last surprise in store for when the status quo is inevitably restored…

With guest-shots from just about everybody created by the two comicbook companies over seven decades, there’s a awful lot of crowded, blistering action but not a lot of room for character or plot, but even so most action fans will find something to rave over. Moreover, for art lovers this book is a sublime treat, with some of Pérez’s most spectacular illustration, ably augmented by a stunning cover gallery at the back featuring all four of his stellar wraparound covers.

It’s fair to say that I’m not a great fun of such profit-led pairings, but there’s still enough of the fan-boy in me to viscerally thrill at armies of costumed stalwarts bashing the bezonkers out of each other and, even if the story is forced and patently menu-led (one from company A, one from Company B, over and over again…), there are still some nice fanatic-friendly touches and witty in-jokes whilst inarguably the artwork – every millimetre stuffed with manic detail and wry, deferential tributes and touches – is amongst the very best George Pérez has ever produced.

If you like this sort of thing this is certainly one of the best of its ilk…

© 2003, 2004, 2008 DC Comics and Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Ultimate Comics X-Men: His Will be Done


By Nick Spencer, Carlo Barberi, Paco Medina, Walden Wong & Juan Vlasco (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-516-1

Marvel’s Ultimates imprint launched in 2000 with major characters and concepts re-imagined to bring them into line with the presumed-different tastes of modern readers.

Eventually the alternate, darkly nihilistic universe became as continuity-constricted as its predecessor, and in 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which apparently (this is still comics, after all) killed dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals.

The era-ending event was a colossal tsunami triggered by mutant terrorist messiah Magneto which inundated the superhero-heavyisland ofManhattan and utterly devastated the world’s mutant population. The X-Men – as well as many other superhuman heroes and villains – died, and in the aftermath anybody classed as “Homo Superior” had to surrender to the authorities or be shot on sight. Understandably most survivors as well any newly emergent X-people kept themselves well hidden…

Mutants had always been feared and despised: as the indisputable inheritors of Earth, the often lethally-empowered and wildly uncontrollable creatures were generally believed to be an intrinsically hostile species; a new race destined to take the world from humanity the way we took it from the Neanderthals…

This second compilation continues to document the return of mutants to the post-deluge world, collecting Ultimate Comics: X-Men issues #7-12 (April-September 2012) as the alternate Earth begins to crumble from the horrific tide of ongoing disasters following the cataclysmic flood. (For fuller comprehension the reader is also advised that a thorough reading of companion series Ultimate Comics: the Ultimates volumes 1 & 2 will greatly enhance understanding of the parlous state of this alternate universe in its darkest hours…)

In a grandiose and compelling story-arc by writer Nick Spencer, artists Carlo Barberi, Paco Medina, Walden Wong & Juan Vlasco and colourist Marte Gracia, the slow descent into catastrophe and chaos continues after a shattering announcement from Presidential Special Advisor on Superhuman and Mutant Affairs Valerie Cooper. When she publicly disclosed that X-people, proliferating around the globe, were the result of a 50-year old American program of covert genetic manipulation which got out of control, rather than a result of inexorable evolution and natural selection, humanity went crazy.

In a world where Homo Superior are registered like assault weapons and imprisoned in internment camps, and where good, normal God-fearing folk would rather execute their children than have them grow up afflicted with the sin of “mutant-ness”, the news instantly caused uproar and riot across the nation all over the world…

Former X-Man Karen Grant (nee Jean Grey) has been continuing Charles Xavier‘s dream of fostering Human/Mutant co-existence when the news not only ripped the rug out from under her; but drove her young charges into a state of rebellion.

Especially upset was Jimmy Hudson, who heard on National TV that his dead father Wolverine was the US Military’s ‘Mutant Zero’ and all the pain, prejudice, horror and super-powered proliferation stemmed from that subject’s initial escape from American captivity five decades earlier…

In the aftermath of the announcement and with the entire world in crisis from a genetic arms-race in Asia (see Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye and The Ultimates: The Republic is Burning), the President unexpectedly sidelined S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury in favour of co-operation with Magneto’s son Pietro Lensherr who had inherited control of the terrorist group known as the Brotherhood of Mutants.

The super-swift manipulator had a Faustian Bargain for the severely embattled Leader of the Free World, but their plans were subverted by fundamentalist preacher Reverend William Stryker who seized control of the government’s Sentinel technology and used it to attack mutants all overAmerica as part of his genocidal crusade to purify humanity…

Quicksilver‘s plan had been to co-opt the new Nimrod Sentinels to his own purposes but Stryker had outwitted him: taking control of the entire Sentinel program, the hate-filled preacher had unleashed every killer robot inAmerica’s arsenal to hunt down all the remaining mutants wherever they might be hiding…

With Nimrods executing victims everywhere, His Will be Done opens as Pietro, reeling at the repercussions of his failed scheme, is unable to outrace the deaths he has caused amongst his rapidly depleting people. His guilt-charged flight leads to a savage confrontation with his missing sister Wanda and the revelation that the World’s deadliest mutant has returned…

Meanwhile in Asiatwo floating cities house the Earth’s latest metahuman races: both Celestials and Eternals are the result of state-sponsored scientific tampering which turned thousands of unwilling victims into another deadly super-powered population threatening embattled humanity just by existing. Moreover their ill-advised creators had already released a tailored-plague which neutralised those genes which caused mutants to develop, hoping to corner the market in living weapons by eradicating naturally occurring super-humans.

Of course now everybody knew that there was nothing natural about mutant genesis…

In Washington, Fury thinks Jean Grey is working for him and leading his Ultimate X Homo Superior task force against targets he has selected – but he couldn’t be more wrong…

Meanwhile in the remote Mutant Internment enclave Camp Angel, the human guards are casually torturing former X-Man Colossus whilst his former comrade Storm determinedly advocates a policy of appeasement and good behaviour in the face of Warden Colonel Lake‘s obvious company-line cant about keeping mutants safe and contained for their own good.

Some of the younger mutants are increasingly swayed by the rabble-rousing demagogue Stacy X, but trouble really occurs after the prisoners see Valerie Cooper’s televised announcement, whichLake’s guards were too slow to intercept…

With tensions rising Storm abandons her pacifist stance and destroys all the Sentinel defences, leaving the human guards helpless before the enraged and liberated mutants. After freeing Colossus the internees discover what other atrocities the normals have been secretly perpetrating against the captives and, after a close but heated discussion, enact their own form of justice on the Warden. However before the situation can escalate further the sky is filled with unstoppable Nimrod sentinels who begin their program of eradication by targeting human and mutant alike…

…And after the Camps, the Nimrods turn their attention on the cities of humanity which foolishly allowed mutants to live amongst them, before beginning to construct their own robotic god and master…

This volume concludes by focusing on another lost strand of mutant lore, as in a quiet corner of New York State, a sinister stranger slaughters all the patients and staff at an exclusive mental healthcare facility to liberate the cosmic-powered Alex Summers and bring him to the offices of one of the world’s most devious and corrupt corporations.

Summers is bemused and bewildered: constantly conversing with his dead brother Scott, but if he suspected just what undying monstrosity has returned, even in his deranged state the hero once called Havoc would recoil in very rational dread…

To Be Continued…

This welcome return to the darkly trenchant and cynical Ultimate fare, with the trademark post-modernity and bleakly brutal action, still delivers the grim ‘n’ gritty punch fans crave, but with so much backstory to absorb this is definitely not a book for anybody thinking on jumping on to the decidedly different world of Wonder. Nevertheless the striking drama and returning cast-favourites will certainly please those older readers who love this savage iteration of superhero sagas and any casual readers who are more familiar with the company’s movies than the comic-books.
A British edition published by Panini UK, Ltd. Licensed from Marvel Characters B.V. ™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. All Rights Reserved.

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Ultimate Comics the Utimates: Two Cities. Two Worlds.


By Jonathan Hickman & Sam Humphries, Esad Ribic & Luke Ross with Ron Garney, Butch Guice, Leonard Kirk & Patrich Zicher (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-517-8

Marvel’s Ultimates imprint began in 2000 with a new post-modern take on major characters and concepts to bring them into line with the presumed different tastes of 21st century readers and free of the sixty years of accumulated continuity baggage which had saturated the originals.

Eventually even this darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its ancestor, and in 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror and Tsunami which excised dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals, courtesy of mutant menace Magneto.

In the aftermath the meta-human survivors struggled to restore order to a dangerous new world…

This compilation collects Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates issue #7-12 (published in comicbook form from April to September 2012) which continued and expanded the core-story for the latest relaunch of the constantly-changing grim and gritty alternate universe.

Before the Deluge, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury ran an American Black Ops team of super-humans called the Avengers, but he was removed from his position for blatant rule-bending – and being caught.

In the wake of the global inundation, civil war amongst the covert ops community, and deadly brushfire wars which have broken out all over the planet, Fury returned to seize control of the entire spook-show, along with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s army of secret agents and both clandestine super-squad The Avengers and the officially sanctioned Ultimates: a superhero team as much for vote-winning public consumption as traditional world-saving…

Civilisation is falling apart at a phenomenal rate. Metahumans are classed as Weapons of Mass Destruction and personal superpowers are now the focus of a terrifying global arms race. In Asia the new nation SEAR (SouthEastAsianRepublic) dissolved into bloody conflict after developing a serum which randomly sparked fantastic abilities in humans. The plan was to corner the living weapon market and they tried to stack the deck by simultaneously releasing a global virus which neutralised the genes which triggered natural mutation…

When the Asian state collapsed from internal dissent and open warfare, a dual metahuman nation was established and these Celestials and Eternals began offering super-powers to anybody wanting the Serum…

Meanwhile premiere hero Spider-Man was murdered, resurrected WWII super soldier Captain America had gone AWOL and the gods of Asgard, who had been dragged from their heavenly halls and marooned on Earth, were slaughtered by a new fantastic race called the Children of Tomorrow.

Thor was the sole survivor of the Aesir, although deprived forever of his magic hammer and elemental thunder. Moreover, the last god was perpetually haunted by the ghosts of all the fallen Asgardians who constantly called out to him…

The Children were the results of a fantastic experiment by the Maker – in actuality disgraced and insane genius Reed Richards – who created a high-tech dome inNorthern Germany where enhanced time and ruthless scientific augmentation enabled the inhabitants to hyper-evolve thousands of years in the space of a few days.

The Dome inexorably expanded and absorbed much of Western Europe, despite every effort of the region’s superhumans, until Thor raided the City within, aided by boffin Sam Wilson (AKA the Falcon) and freed captive hero Captain Britain.

Unable to stop the Children, defeated humanity could only wait for the end…

The saga continues as Fury and his surviving operatives Falcon, Hawkeye and Black Widow attempt to forge an alliance with the elevated inhabitants of Tian, but the Celestials of Xorn and Eternals of Zorn are initially reluctant to join. That all changes once Richards, in his arrogance, flamboyantly murders the celestial envoy Shu-Tan, Oracle of Peace, provoking an unprecedented and unsuspected retaliation from Zorn, whose exposure to the enhancement serum dubbed The Source transformed him into a sentient singularity…

S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Flumm is attempting to oust Nick Fury and begins his campaign by blackmailing Bruce Banner into attacking the Dome. Initially successful the Hulk‘s assault goes catastrophically wrong when Richards convinces Banner to switch allegiances, even as inAmerica, the President launches the nation’s entire nuclear arsenal at the ever-evolving city. To ensure no interference the Commander-in-Chief has invoked “the Winter Protocols” and set S.H.I.E.L.D. forces to capture and/or kill both the Ultimates and Avengers…

In New York the permanently drunk Thor and Iron Man Tony Stark – secretly dying of a malignant brain tumour – easily repulse their Federal attackers even as the missiles close in and the Children of Tomorrow engage the enraged forces of the Eternals and Celestials in the skies above Europe.

Even the nuclear fusillade and Zorn’s attack could not obliterate the Dome but the collective, component intelligence of the living City beneath is badly damaged. In retaliation the Maker unleashes the Hulk and a very special Child of Tomorrow he had cultured without the knowledge of the hive-mind to exact bloody vengeance. The deadly child then eradicatesWashingtonDC…

As the shock of losing the capital and the entire ruling structure sinks in, self-promoted S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Flumm is further frustrated when Fury escapes arrest and disappears just as his former employees come for him. This also allows Falcon, Hawkeye and the Widow to escape capture…

Tony Stark is suffering badly and experiencing complex hallucinations – constantly arguing with a younger version of himself – but still has a brilliant plan to strike back at Richards and the Children. Sadly it involves turning himself in to the ambitious Flumm and new Leader of the Free World President Howard, who only a day previously was the earnest but under-qualified Secretary of Energy.

This new POTUS can’t even cope with the relatively minor and pedestrian crisis of a state seceding from theUnionand declaring itself an independent nation. Still, backed up by the advanced technology of the four biggest S.H.I.E.L.D. bases inAmerica, now happily defending the New Republic of Texas, this is a problem that also needs dealing with immediately…

Recruiting Richards’ estranged wife Sue – a brilliant scientist and super-powered survivor of the defunct Fantastic Four – Stark allows himself to be traded to the increasingly unstable Maker in his damaged Dome, whilst unknown to all in the devastated ruins of fallen Asgard something strange and magical is awakening…

With Hawkeye and his comrades on the run and seeking allies from the top secret West Coast Operational Security (another of the eternally paranoid Fury’s off-the-books super-team projects), S.H.I.E.L.D.’s usurper Director is rapidly losing control and cannot cope with any more bad news…

Ebullient and utterly jazzed with his ultimate triumph, Reed Richards is delighted with his peace offering from President Howard and happily begins torturing his greatest intellectual rival, but Stark has an incredible implausible plan and by the most impossible of stratagems turns the City and its collective populace against its Maker, allowing Thor and the Invisible Woman to invade the Dome. However the Hulk, now enlarged to the size of a building, is waiting for them…

…And in the Arctic, news of the World’s imminent demise finally reaches a Star-Spangled hermit who had thought himself finally beyond the reach of humanity and his own irrepressible sense of duty…

To Be Continued…

Once again this hot-off-the-presses epic pauses on a potent cliffhanger as what might well be the Last Battle of the Ultimate Marvel Universe moves towards a catastrophic end-game with scripters Jonathan Hickman and Sam Humphries providing gripping suspense and spectacular tension. Illustrators Esad Ribic, Luke Ross, Ron Garney, Butch Guice, Leonard Kirk & Patrich Zicher readily transform the tale into stunning action-packed visuals that will enthral and astound all fans of grim and gritty cosmic costumed drama, and this slick and compulsive read for older Fights ‘n’ Tights fans also includes an impressive cover gallery by Kaare Andrews & Oliver Coipel which adds even more impact to the book’s artistic appeal.

Much more in tune with the feel and sensibilities of the assorted Movie franchises than the traditional comicbook market, the post-modernity and cynical, bleak adventure delivers the visceral shocks and staggering revelations fans of this sub-imprint seem addicted to.

Whilst perhaps not the best book for anybody thinking of jumping on to the decidedly different Ultimate World, Two Cities. Two Worlds. will certainly strike a chord with older readers who love the darkest side of superheroes and those who know the company’s films better than their publications.
A British edition published by Panini UK, Ltd. Licensed from Marvel Characters B.V. ™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. All Rights Reserved.

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The Co-operative Revolution – A Graphic Novel


By Polyp, with Paul Monaghan, Rachel Vorburg-Rugh, Gillian Lonergan, Ed May and Ian Nixon (New Internationalist on behalf of the Co-operative Group)
ISBN: 978-1-906523-19-0

You might not be aware of it but 2012 is the United Nations International Year of Co-operatives – which I’ll define here as people working in community rather than competition, and applying that fundamental principle to the world of business.

Today Co-operative societies and groups have spread to every corner of the globe and proved a successful and frequently innovation-friendly alternative model to straight consume-expand-or-die Capitalism in commercial arenas as varied as wholesale and retail, agriculture, journalism, banking, car-making, textiles, construction, hotel management, all sorts of service industries and even Healthcare provision.

The potential of the simple notion of working together for mutual benefit seems to terrify some people – let’s call them greedy and selfish – but since the successful experiment of the Rochdale Pioneers in 1844 the philosophy has grown and blossomed and provided decent livelihoods for generations of workers and enabled them to provide increasingly better lives for their children.

Co-operation isn’t a tactic or model but rather a philosophy that encourages people to take full responsibility and reward for the fruits of their labours, which necessarily makes all their endeavours operate on a human scale and with a face anonymous corporate production finds impossible to match or emulate. The modern, thriving international movement grew from an impassioned but measured response to the worst excesses of the Commercial Age and is deftly recounted in the first section of this compelling and informative graphic history.

During the early years of the Industrial Revolution it was standard practice for the owners of British factories and industrial works to pay appalling wages to their workforces and simultaneously run the only shops where those meagre remunerations could be spent. Usually the bosses also owned the houses where workers lived: another method of ensuring the monies they paid out coming back into their own coffers.

As you’d expect such a closed system was easily prone to abuse: sales to the labourers – food, candles, clothes and every other household need – were rife with shoddy, cheap workmanship, with debased and adulterated food frequently sold in short measures and priced in such a way as to keep workers alive but with no hope of improving themselves or escaping the system. Credit was always extended – with no real intention of ever collecting on it – and workers were trapped forever in an inescapable spiral of debt to the company. It was pure economic feudalism and little better than slavery.

Many times before, workers had attempted to address the problem by uniting to buy goods in bulk and distribute them communally, but always the enterprises had failed. However on December 21st 1844 in Rochdale, a small band of working men – weavers, colliers, woolsorters and cloggers – pooled their small cash reserves and opened a rough-and-ready general store selling flour, sugar, butter and candles, promising “unadulterated wares in honest weights and measures”.

Instead of mutually ruinous credit, The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers offered all members of their collective enterprise a dividend – a fair and regular redistribution of profit after working costs were covered.

As the chapter ‘Yesterday’ details, despite fierce and unscrupulous opposition from established businessmen and authorities terrified of revolution by the lower class, the Co-operative movement endured and grew. When farmers and companies were squeezed to stop them providing produce to the Pioneers, the Society simply went further afield and even began sourcing or making their own items – a process and solution repeated over and again through nearly 170 years of continued existence and growth.

The burgeoning movement was a constant force for social mobility and improvement: in their first rented premises in Toad Lane, the upper floor swiftly became meeting rooms and a free Library, with not just books but microscopes, globes and all modern scientific instruments where the poor could educate themselves to eventually escape the trap of ignorance and poverty the wealthy created for them…

The slow but solid growth and geographical expansion of the radical movement is charted against the changing social and cultural climate in a beguiling and elegiac potted history after which ‘Today’ recounts many examples of successful Co-operative practice currently improving lives better all over the world.

One of the movement’s greatest successes was the establishment of Fair-Trade farms, plantations and other businesses around the globe, from Canada where more than a third of the World’s Maple Sugar is produced by Co-ops, to the USA where 900 rural Co-ops produce 42% of the nation’s electricity distribution, covering 75% of the landmass.

In India – where 239 million people belong to a Co-operative society – a tribe of hereditary snake-catchers even transformed their unique, traditional but dying trade into a thriving repurposed business.

Closer to home, when I first started freelancing as an artist/graphic designer, I belonged to a loose association of specialists who shared or traded jobs according to our specialities and particular strengths…

Almost as soon as they were published, Darwin’s discoveries regarding the fundamental evolutionary principle described as “Survival of the Fittest” were co-opted by Capitalists, hungry to justify their appalling excesses. Here ‘Always’ focuses on the plenitude of scientific discoveries which counter those spurious commercial notions and act as a happy rebuttal to the spurious commercial mantra of an utterly unchecked free market which continuously permits greedy and cavalier bankers to bankrupt economies and nations, whilst rapacious rampant tycoons and corporations create Crash after Recession after Depression, over and over again and with no thought of redress or reparations to the billions of people they impoverish…

‘Tomorrow’ takes a speculative look at how Co-operation could take us to even greater communal achievements by following a really good day in 2044 when the happy partners of the Rochdale Aerotech Co-op celebrate their contribution to the mission which is landing men on Mars…

This alluring and pleasingly education chronicle concludes with an absorbing ‘Timeline’ following the progress of “Co-operation Through History” by tracking changes in politics and culture promoted, prompted and provoked by the movement from the very first recorded 1769 bulk purchase scheme of the Fenwick Weavers to the 2012 UN declaration of the International Year of Co-operatives…

Since its creation, the Co-operative movement has promoted education for the poor, social equality, universal health, and equanimity in farming, banking, manufacturing and production. By making simple retail fair it has freed society’s least advantaged from de facto slavery, shaped political and social reform across the world and offered true opportunity for improvement and a better life for all people.

This wonderful book – hopefully destined for every school library and history syllabus – using all the force and power which only comics narrative can provide, is a sterling example of what people can do when working together and in unity and one no fair minded individual should miss.

© The Co-operative Group. All rights reserved.
Radical cartoonist and activist Polyp has worked with campaigning organizations around the world for over fifteen years. He lives and works in a co-operative housing complex inManchester,England.

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Nextwave Agents of H.A.T.E. the Ultimate Collection


By Warren Ellis, Stuart Immonen & Wade Von Grawbadger (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4461-8

Even for the most dedicated fans, superhero comics can become a little samey and pedestrian, so when gifted big- name creators such as Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen decide to have a little fun with the fringes of such a ponderous continuity as Marvel’s, expectations are always understandably high.

In 2006 Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. (Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort) launched for a breathtaking and controversial 12 issue run and happily proved to be everything one could hope for…

Wry, cynically Post-Modern and malevolently mischievous, the saga borrowed shamelessly from kid’s bubblegum pop culture – especially trans-pacific animation (there was even a theme-song you could hear online and a variant issue readers could colour in to win prizes) – as well as the forgotten contents of the daftest corners of Marvel’s nigh-seventy years of existence to captivatingly satirise the genre, the medium and itself – and it was hilariously anti-globalisation, counter-Capitalist, rude, sexy and excessively ultra-violent…

H.A.T.E. is another of those numerous acronymic quasi-governmental, covert high-tech agencies dedicated to keeping us all safe in our overpriced, indolent beds – at least that was what their eccentric team of operatives initially believed.

When they discovered that their employers were in fact a fully owned subsidiary of the Beyond Corporation© and the latest iteration of diabolical terrorist cabal S.I.L.E.N.T., former Avengers Monica Rambeau (Captain Marvel II/Photon) and artificial individual Aaron (Machine Man) Stack rightly rebelled.

With ex-X-Man girl Tabitha Smith (Meltdown/Boom Boom), stroppy immortal monster-hunter Elsa Bloodstone and hyper-powered, unimaginative enigma The Captain (formerly Captain $#!£ until ostracized by all the other military-monickered mystery-men, after which Captain America punched his foul-mouthed head in and washed his mouth out with soap) in tow, they went AWOL, intending to stop their former paymasters at all costs.

Further investigation disclosed that the terrorist conglomerate was actually planning to product-test potentially lucrative BWMDs – Bizarre Weapons of Mass Destruction – on American soil and ordinary folks, so the shocked quintet promptly stole a super-ship and all the plans, determined to stop the callous campaign and take down the despicable Beyond©-ers forever…

With their increasingly deranged, suicidal and sexually outré former commander Dirk Anger in hot pursuit, the team begins its fightback in Abcess, North Dakota where the legendary giant dragon in underpants Fin Fang Foom has been awakened and… stimulated… into going on a rampage of destructive frustration…

On the streets of Abcess, hordes of Beyond©’s mass-produced vegetable warriors are attacking the citizenry and exacerbating the chaos until Elsa and The Captain intervene with their signature lack of restraint.

As property damage and general unrest spiral upwards, Monica devises an unsavoury plan and orders Aaron – a fantastic robot who despises human “fleshy ones” and has reprogrammed himself to crave vast amounts of beer – to get himself swallowed and deal with the dragon from the inside…

With no rest for the Wicked-crushers the renegade revengers then head to Sink City, Illinoiswhere brutally corrupt cop Mac Mangel has been infected with a mechanistically mutating program, transforming him into a colossal flesh and steel beast hungry to eat metal and children…

With mounting carnage everywhere, the Captain still gets distracted into an origin flashback, leaving Tabitha to deal with the Transfomer-ed Mangel in her stylishly simple yet permanent manner…

In Wyoming, the Nextwave discover a Beyond© War Garden and set about destroying the next crop of broccoli berserkers and cabbage crusaders, just as Dirk Anger and his other – still-loyal – agents of H.A.T.E. arrive in their flying citadel to unleash all the insane instruments of doom in their arsenal. However even the Drop Bears of Cuddly Koala Death, a flock of Assault Pterosaurs, Samurai Robots and Homicide Crabs cannot contain the righteous indignation of the forgotten heroes, and when Aaron counterattacks by stealing Dirk’s chic-est most secret possession the deviant Director has no choice but to retreat…

Beyond©orp’s follow-up BWMD event sees the terrorist entrepreneurs summon an extremely minor and rather young Elder God, Rorkannu, Lord of the Dank Dimension, and trade that for access to a deadly invading army of mystic behemoths that Dr. Strange fans will recognise as merciless “Mindless Ones” to decimate the town of Shotcreek, Colorado. Ready to back-up the embattled townspeople are Monica and her crew but things take a decidedly surreal turn as the monolithic marauders prove to be not all that mindless…

In the blistering last-stand battle Elsa becomes lost in fond reminiscences of her truly unique and bloody childhood, before, against all odds, the Captain stumbles onto Rorkannu and contrary to everyone’s expectations finally does something right…

When Steve Rogers became CaptainAmerica in 1941, nobody realised that a second Nazi spy stole his urine sample. Now, through most torturous and arcane paths, that last remnant of the original Super-Soldier serum has allowed the ruling elite of the Beyond© group to create whole battalions of customised metahuman champions…

When Nextwave finally track the terrorists to their inverted floating fortress they are confronted by an army of esoteric adversaries derived and developed from the misappropriated hero-pee and aligned in specifically themed teams such as The Surgery, The Vestry and The Homosexuality, but even such lethally dedicated foes as Dr. Headless, Father Pain, Dr. Nosexy, Sun King, Red Rosary and Slightly Creepy Policewoman pale into insignificance beside the reality-altering threat of Forbush-Man and his eerily familiar comrades the New Paramounts…

Once again plunged into horrifically violent combat, the Nextwave are slowly making bloody headway until the diminutive demon plunges the team into depressing and dreary alternate lives from the worst recesses of their inner visions. Sadly for Forbush-Man, nobody had ever found any evidence of intellect or imagination in Tabitha, just an overwhelming vacuity, urge to steal and need to blow stuff up…

With the end in sight the triumphant heroes invade the Beyond Corporation©’s hidden HQ State 51 just as Dirk Anger, transformed and degraded beyond imagination, arrives culminating in an even more spectacular clash before confronting the utterly macabre mastermind behind the monstrous marketing campaign of destruction; only to discover an even more bizarre kingmaker behind it all and finally bringing the hammer down once and for all…

As action comics in their purest form, the tales are laced with light-hearted lethality and superbly smutty innuendo with hints of Garth Ennis and John McCrea’s Hitman, Ben Edlund’s The Tick, Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill’s Marshall Law and Ambush Bug, with all the verve, panache and invention of the Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory, Time Squad and Kids Next Door, all wrapped up in pithy corporate sloganeering a la Better Off Ted and Joseph Goebells…

Stuffed with in-joke extras such as the faux letters pages, sketches, the original Nextwave Pitch and the lyrics for that aforementioned theme song this is a glorious comic – in every sense of the word – and an experience no modern, fun-loving fan could possibly find fault with.

“Healing America by Beating People Up” and making us laugh by taking the piss…
© 2006, 2007, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Brain Camp


By Susan Kim, Laurence Klavan & Faith Erin Hicks, coloured by Hilary Sycamore & Sky Blue Ink (First Second)
ISBN: 978-1-59643-366-3

When I was a kid comics were cheap, plentiful and published in cognitive strands: Pre-school stuff read to you, kindergarten magazines read with someone, “Juvenile” stories for boys and girls together and “Post-juvenile” material you bought for yourself, generally divided by both genre and gender (although that’s not a consequence of old fashioned parochial prejudice these days, but more a sales-sensitive concern when getting simply boys to read anything at all is a tricky problem…).

Irrespective of quality, quantity or historical significance, that long-gone wealth and riot of affordable personal and private entertainment taught kids of all ages how to absorb and enjoy illustrated narratives, but although I can still lay claim to premature juvenility most days, in latter times the sheer cost of producing comics items have all but killed the market. If younger kids read printed comics at all these days it’s almost certainly as graphic novels.

So it’s a good thing that there are so many good ones around and – just like the good old days – separated into bands for kids of differing ages, temperaments, interests and cognitive abilities.

A sterling case in point is this moody, paranoiac fantasy chiller by writers Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan (more usually known as kids’ TV scripter and novelist as well as playwrights), beguilingly interpreted by cartoonist and pictorial tale-teller Faith Erin Hicks, which compellingly addresses children’s issues of parental pressure, self-worth and achievement whilst relating a rollicking rollercoaster scary story…

In the deep woods two kids from a Summer Camp are undertaking an orienteering exercise when one of them is taken ill. One minute Clerkson is his usual obnoxious self and then he’s having a fit, choking, and coughing up feathers…

Soon after in New Jersey, Jenna Chun is still disappointing her go-getting doctor parents with her useless obsession about art, and over in Queens, New York, slacker Lucas Meyer is also a problem for his mother. Stealing cars, goofing off and generally wasting everybody’s time, he’s certainly destined for jail, just like his dad…

However things change radically when mysterious distinguished gentlemen turn up and offer both families a last-minute place for their problem children at Camp Fielding: America’s most successful educational institution for hot-housing failing kids and difficult “late bloomers”. Some all-expenses-paid places have suddenly become vacant, but if the parents want to guarantee that their problem children will grow into successful, contributing citizens one day they must start them the very next day…

Set in isolated woodlands the camp doesn’t seem that different from other Summer catch-up boarding schools but there are a few oddities. No electronic devices, cellphones or games, no outside food  – and the dorm rooms are filthy. There are no lessons or teaching, just activities you can join if you want to, regular time-trials to solve a giant maze in the middle of the compound and, strangest of all for a specialist educational centre, the kids seem to be the usual mix of morons, geeks and bullies, some of whom suddenly become brilliant…

Lucas quickly makes a friend in perennial victim Dwayne, but when the new kid meets fellow late-starter Jenna it’s a case of mutual hate at first sight…

That soon passes as Dwayne and a friendly girl named Sherry clue them in to the lay of the land; which kids to avoid, Cabins Three and Six where the genius boys and girls sleep, and the cafeteria with its nauseating beige and grey goo-food, bizarre nutritional regime and ice cream-based reward system.

Thanks to disgust, stubbornness, ill-grace, Jenna’s first period and Dwayne’s illicit stash of cash, the kids manage to survive without eating much of the goo, whilst their attention is frequently diverted by a range of odd events: strange lights and sounds in the woods, personality and intellect changes in some of the kids, odd lesions and growths on others, and Jenna even finds a strange featherless dead bird behind one of the cabins…

After a night in the woods (somehow nobody noticed she was missing), Jenna makes a map of the area and Lucas decides to use it to run away – at least as far as the nearest fast-food diner. Accompanied by Dwayne and Jenna they set off and discover a secret lab in the woods, where more kids are locked in. Their faces are grossly malformed and they are spitting out feathers. One of them is the presumed flunked-out-and-sent-home Sherry…

Caught and hauled up before Director Fielding, the kids play dumb and are talked out of quitting camp and further disappointing their parents. But whilst eating Pizzas stolen from theCampCounsellors’ regular takeaway deliveries, the trio compare notes and theories, theorising that Fielding is covering up a disease outbreak in hisCampCash-cow.

The boys organise the other kids in their hut to attempt a mass breakout, but in Jenna’s cabin it’s too late: all the other girls have become smart and snarky, cackling at her like crows…

That night Lucas wakes from a disturbing dream about Jenna, and whilst cleaning his shorts in the sink spies two of the counsellors secretly injecting all the sleeping boys with a mystery drug. Next morning before he can tell anyone he realises how much smarter they have all become after the regular maze-run – even Dwayne…

Terrified and using his old bad-boy skills, Lucas hotwires a car and drives off with Jenna but they are quickly caught and returned, just in time for Parents’ Day. Again their punishment is negligible and, after stuffing themselves on the event’s catered food, the pair confront Fielding who surprisingly admits that they were right…

There is a medical emergency amongst the children and unless they also take the vaccine which the staff have been secretly dosing their classmates with, Jenna and Lucas could die horribly, just like Sherry…

Moreover, a side-effect of the necessary drug will increase their intelligence…

Complying with the inevitable Jenna and Lucas take their medicine, and with their intellects rapidly expanding, the still-suspicious kids spy on Fielding and his crew, only to discover the terrible truth: the Director is in league with extraterrestrials, using dumb kids as hosts for alien avian spawn!

Even worse, the conspiracy reaches high up into government and the exploited children’s ambitious parents were in on it from the start…

Something is different however: even with the embryos growing in their heads Lucas and Jenna are still resisting the change-over, still basically themselves, and with time running out, their intelligence increasing every minute and their feelings for each other growing too, they hatch a desperate last-minute plan to destroy the infestation and save all the implanted kids, even if their parents won’t…

Dark, seditious and creepily effective, this is a thriller with a bark and a bite that will satisfy the most demanding teen reader or aged savant, rendered in a loose and beguiling manner that easily combines innocent charm with clinical precision.
Text © 2010 Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan. Illustrations © 2010 FaithErinHicks. All rights reserved.