Author: NowReadThis

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Betty and Veronica Storybook: Archie & Friends All-Stars Series volume 7


By Dan Parent, Rick Koslowski & Jim Amash (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-879794-60-3

Archie Andrews has been around for nearly seventy years: a good-hearted lad lacking common sense and Betty Cooper the pretty, sensible girl next door, with all that entails, who loves the ginger goof. Veronica Lodge is a rich, exotic and glamorous debutante who only settles for our boy if there’s nobody better around. She might actually love him too, though. Despite their rivalry, Betty and Veronica are firm friends. Archie, of course, can’t decide who or what he wants…

Archie’s unconventional best friend Jughead Jones is Mercutio to Archie’s Romeo, providing rationality and a reader’s voice, as well as being a powerful catalyst of events in his own right. That charming triangle (+ one) has been the foundation of decades of cartoon magic. Moreover the concept is eternally self-renewing…

Adapting seamlessly to every trend and fad of the growing youth culture, the host of writers and artists who’ve crafted the stories over the decades have made the “everyteen” characters of mythical Riverdale a benchmark for youth and a visual barometer of growing up.

In this collection, reprinting tales from 1995-2009, the warring gal-pals and extended cast of the small-town American Follies are plunged deep into whimsy and fable as writer/artist Dan Parent reinterprets classic fairytales and popular classics like a New World Crackerjack Christmas Panto (and boy, will that reference baffle anybody not British and/or under thirty), providing wry and often outright hilarious takes on the eternal nature and magic of young love…

Dotted with funny fashion page pin-ups such as ‘Storybook Style’ and ‘Bewitching Beauties’, lovely cover reproductions and behind-the-scenes commentaries, the wild whimsy begins with ‘Betty in Wonderland’ (inked by Jim Amash) wherein the ever-helpful Miss Cooper gives up a date with Archie to babysit for a neighbour in need. Letting her imagination run wild, her bedtime reading of the Lewis Carroll classic repopulates the tale with some very familiar faces…

Especially effective are science nerd Dilton as the sagacious caterpillar and Jughead and mean Reggie as Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum. However picturing Veronica as the vicious Blood-red Queen of Hearts might have been a little too close to the truth…

‘Sleeping Betty’ is another enchanting retelling as baby Princess Betty is cursed by the evil fairy Veronica to fall into a deep sleep on her sixteenth birthday. To thwart the hex the little princess was sent away to be raised in secret, but Veronica’s reach is long… Luckily there’s a red-headed prince hanging around…

‘There’s No Place Like… Riverdale’ (inked by Rich Koslowski) transports Betty and her little cat Carmel to a fantastic land over the rainbow where she lucks into some highly desirable Ruby Sneakers. To get home she needs unconventional help in the unappealing shapes of Archie the Scarecrow, Tin Man Jughead and the Cowardly Reggie, so it’s a good thing that Veronica is less a Wicked Witch and more a sorcerous spoiled brat…

The last tale in this collection is ‘Cinderellas’ (Amash inks again) as both girls find themselves helpless drudges working for an evil new mom and dreaming of a prince to whisk them away. Despite the sabotaging antics of mean stepsister Cheryl Blossom and a pretty second-rate Fairy Godmother, Cideronica and Cinderbetty overcome all odds and go to the Ball. In the slipper-sampling aftermath, thanks to some deft plotting, both girls get a happy ending…

Charming and clever, these tales are a marvellous example of why Archie has been unsurpassed in this genre; providing decades of family friendly fun and wholesome teen entertainment. Moreover, aspiring creators will also delight in the closing Sketch Book section of this collection which provides a fascinating glimpse of Parent’s original pencilled art in 9 pages culled from the preceding stories.

© 2010 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Batman Beyond


By Hilary J. Bader, Rich Burchett, Joe Staton & Terry Beatty (DC comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-604-0

The Batman Animated TV series masterminded by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini in the 1990s revolutionised the Dark Knight and also led to some of the absolute best comicbook adventures in his seventy-year publishing history with the tie-in monthly printed series. With the Dark Knight’s small screen credentials firmly re-established, follow-up series began (and are still coming), even recently feeding back into the overarching DCU continuity.

Following those award-winning cartoons in 1999 came a new incarnation set a generation into the future, featuring Bruce Wayne in the twilight of his life and a new teenaged hero picking up the eerily-scalloped mantle. In Britain the series was inspirationally re-titled Batman of the Future but for most of the impressed cognoscenti and awe-struck kids everywhere it was Batman Beyond!

Once again the show was augmented by a cool kid’s comicbook and this collection re-presents the first 6-issue miniseries in a hip and trendy, immensely entertaining package suitable for fans and aficionados of all ages. Although not necessary to the reader’s enjoyment, a passing familiarity with the TV episodes will enhance the overall experience…

All stories are written by Hilary J. Bader and the book opens with a two part adaptation of the pilot episode, illustrated by Rick Burchett & Terry Beatty. ‘Not On My Watch!’ offers brief glimpses of the last days of Batman’s crusade against crime before age, infirmity and injury slow him down to the point of compromising his principles and endangering the citizens he’s sworn to protect.

Years later Gotham City in the mid-21st century (notionally accepted as 2039AD – 100 years after the comic book debut of Batman in Detective Comics #27) is a dystopian urban jungle where angry, rebellious school-kid Terry McGinnis strikes a blow against pernicious street-punks The Jokerz and is chased out of the metropolis to the gates of a ramshackle mansion.

Meanwhile his research-scientist father has discovered too much about the company he works for…

Wayne-Powers used to be a decent place to work before old man Wayne became a recluse. Now Derek Powers runs the show and is ruthless enough to do anything to increase his profits… Outside town Terry is saved from a potentially fatal encounter with the Jokerz by a burly old man who then collapses. Helping the aged Bruce Wayne inside the mansion Terry discovers the long neglected Batcave before being chased away by the surly Wayne but doesn’t really care until he gets home to find his father has been murdered…

A storm of mixed emotions, he returns to Wayne Manor…

The concluding chapter ‘I Am Batman’ sees McGinnis attempt to force Wayne to act before giving up in frustration and stealing the hero’s greatest weapon; a cybernetic bat-suit that enhances strength, speed, durability and perception. Alone, untrained and unaided the new Batman sets to exact justice and revenge…

In the ensuing clash with Powers the unscrupulous entrepreneur is mutated into a radioactive monster named Blight before Wayne and Terry reach a tenuous truce and understanding. For the moment Terry will continue to clean up the Dark Knight’s city as a probationary, apprentice hero…

With issue #3 Bader, Burchett & Beatty began to tell original stories in the newly established future Gotham, commencing with ‘Never Mix, Never Worry’ wherein Blight returns to steal a selection of man-made radioactive elements which can only be used to cause harm… or can they?

Joe Staton took over the pencilling with #4 as a schoolboy nerd freed a devil from limbo and old man Wayne introduced the cocksure Terry to parapsychologist Jason Blood and his eldritch alter ego Etrigan the Demon in the spooky shocker ‘Magic Is Everywhere’, a sentiment repeated when a school-trip to the museum unleashed ancient lovers who fed on the life energy in the delightfully comical tragedy of ‘Mummy, Oh! and Juliet’

This captivating compendium of action and adventure ends in another compelling and edgy thriller as Terry stumbles into a return bout with a shape-shifting super-thief in ‘Permanent Inque Stains’, only to find that there are far worse crimes and far more evil villains haunting his city…

Fun, thrilling and surprisingly moving, these tales are magnificent examples of comics that appeal to young and old alike and are well overdue for re-issue. And once that’s done, there’s still another 24 issues from the 1999-2001 run plus a Return of the Joker one-shot to collect in spiffy graphic novel compilations…

In 2000 Titan Books released a British edition re-titled Batman of the Future (to comply with the renamed UK TV series) and this version is a little easier to locate by those eager to enjoy the stories rather than own an artefact.
© 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Richard Corben Complete Works volume 1: Underground


By Richard Corben and various (Catalan Communications)
ISBN: 978-0-87416-018-5

Although he has only infrequently strayed into the comicbook mainstream, animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist Richard Corben is one of America’s greatest living proponents of sequential narrative: a stunningly accomplished artist and unique, uncompromising stylist who grew out of the independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a globally revered, multi-award winning creator.

He is best known for his mastery of the airbrush and delight in sardonic, darkly comedic horror and science fiction tales.

Born in Anderson, Missouri in 1940, he graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute with a Fine Arts degree in 1965 and found work as an animator. At that time, the Underground Commix revolution was just beginning as a motley crew of independent-minded creators across the continent began making and publishing stories that appealed to their rebellious, pharmacologically-enhanced sensibilities and unconventional lifestyles. Most of them were hugely influenced either by 1950s tales from EC Comics or Carl Barks’ Duck tales – and occasionally both.

Corben started the same way, producing the kind of stories that he would like to read, in as variety of small-press publications including Grim Wit, Slow Death, Skull, Fever Dreams and his own Fantagor often signed with his affectionate pseudonym “Gore”. As his style matured and his skills developed Corben’s work increasingly began to appear in more professionally produced venues. He began working for Warren Publishing in 1970 with tales in Eerie, Creepy, Vampirella, Comix International and laterally, the aggressively audacious adult science fiction anthology 1984. He also famously re-coloured a number of reprinted Spirit strips for the revival of Will Eisner’s the Spirit magazine.

In 1975 Corben submitted work to the French phenomenon Métal Hurlant and subsequently became a fixture in the magazine’s American iteration Heavy Metal where his career really took off. Soon he was producing stunning adult fantasy tales for a number of companies, making animated movies, painting film posters and producing record covers such as the multi-million-selling Meatloaf album Bat Out of Hell. He never stopped producing comics but always stuck to his own independent projects with collaborators such as Harlan Ellison, Bruce Jones and Jan Strnad.

This regrettably out-of-print collection of those early strip efforts, translated from a European edition by Jim Lisle, features a rather inaccurate introduction by Luis Vigil but boasts a dynamic collection of raw, powerful and wickedly sardonic and whimsical suspense tales in the EC vein that graphically display the artist’s rapid, radical creative development beginning with ‘Heirs of Earth’ (1971), a post-apocalyptic tale of love and cannibalism.

Corben’s infamous signature-stylisation includes lots of nudity, graphic violence and near grotesquely proportioned male and female physiques, none of which are apparent in the tantalisingly low-key spoof ‘Alice in Wanderlust’; an early skit by long-term co-creator Jan Strnad, after which ‘Horrible Harveys House’ (1971) tells an intriguing tale of young lust when film student Jarvis talks his stacked and rather easy girlfriend Zara into visiting an abandoned house to make an “art-movie”. Turns out the place isn’t completely empty after all…

From 1970, ‘Twilight of the Dogs’ is a classic sting-in-the-tale saga as Earth’s last surviving free men uncover some rather unfortunate facts about the aliens who conquered them whilst ‘Gastric Fortitude’ displays another side of love. ‘The Dweller in the Dark’ (from a story by Herb Arnold) is an early exploration of Corben’s fascination with and facility for depicting lost civilisations, wherein rain-forest dwellers Bo Glan and Nipta break taboo to explore a dead city only to fall foul of rapacious, invading white men and ancient things far worse…

All the previous yarns were reproduced in black and white: ranging from pen-line to airbrushed monochrome tones but worlds-within-worlds alien romance ‘Cidopey’ reveals its tragic twist in full colour, as does ‘For the Love of a Daemon’ which shows inklings of the artist’s later airbrush expertise in a boisterous black comedy of Barbarians and hot naked babes in distress.

Jan Strnad also wrote the dark dystopian ‘Kittens for Christian’, a moody post-cataclysm thriller with chilling echoes of Corben’s later graphic novel Vic and Blood (an adaptation and extension of Harlan Ellison’s “A Boy and his Dog”) before this volume concludes on a light and colourful note in the artist’s 1973 collaboration with Doug Moench: ‘Damsel in Dragon Dress’: a gleeful witches brew of fantasy, fairytale foible – a saucy cautionary tale on the unexpected dangers of drug abuse…

Richard Corben is a groundbreaking and rightfully renowned figure in our art-form and the fact that so much of his work is currently unavailable in English is a disgrace. Not only are his early works long overdue for a definitive re-issue but all his rude, riotous, raucously ribald revels need to be re-released now. Until that time stay tuned…
© 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1985 Richard Corben. © 1985 Catalan Communications. All rights reserved.

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Emperor Doom starring the Mighty Avengers – A Marvel Graphic Novel


By Dave Michelinie, Bob Hall & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-87135-256-9

I can’t recall the last time Marvel published an all-original graphic novel as opposed to a collection of previously printed material, but once they were a market leader in the field with an entire range of “big stories” told on larger than normal pages (285 x 220 mm rather than the generally standard 258 x 168 mm of today’s books) featuring not only proprietary characters in out-of-the-ordinary adventures but also licensed assets like Conan, creator-owned properties like Alien Legion and new character debuts.

Nonetheless, Marvel’s ambitious dalliance with graphic novel publishing in the 1980s and 1990s produced some classy results that the company has never come close to repeating in the intervening years. Both original concepts and their own properties were represented in that initial run and many of the stories still stand out today – or would if they were still in print.

Released in 1987 Emperor Doom was conceived by Mark Gruenwald, David Michelinie and Jim Shooter, scripted by Michelinie and illustrated by Bob Hall with some additional inking by Keith Williams, and fits comfortably into the tightly policed continuity of the mainstream Marvel Universe.

If you’re wondering, despite coming out nearly two years after the launch of regular comicbook series West Coast Avengers, this saga is set just before that auspicious fresh start for Iron Man, Tigra, Wonder Man , Hawkeye and Mockingbird…

The plot itself is delightfully sly and simple: for once eschewing rash attacks against assembled superheroes, deadly dictator Doctor Doom has devised a scheme to dominate humanity through subtler means. Inviting Sub-Mariner to act as his agent the master villain uses the sub-sea anti-hero to neutralise mechanical heroes and rivals prior to using a pheromone-based bio-weapon to make all organic beings utterly compliant to his will. Naturally Doom then once-more betrayed his aquatic ally…

Meanwhile living energy being Wonder Man is undergoing a month-long isolation experiment to determine the nature of his abilities. When he exits the chamber 30 days later he discovers the entire planet has willingly, joyously accepted Doom as their natural and beloved ruler. Alone and desperate the last Avenger must devise a method of saving the world from its contented subjugation…

Of course there’s another side to this story. Doom, ultimately utterly successful, has turned the planet into an orderly, antiseptic paradise: no war, no want, no sickness and no conflict, just happy productive citizens doing what they’re told. In this perfect totalitarian triumph all the trains run on time and nobody is discontented. All Doom has to do is accept heartfelt cheers and do the daily paperwork.

With the entire world an idealised clone of Switzerland, the Iron Despot is bored out of his mind…

So it’s with mixed emotion that Doom realises Wonder Man and a select band of newly liberated Avengers are coming for him, determined to free the world or die…

Tense and compelling this intriguingly low-key tale abandoned the traditional all-out action for a far more reasoned and sinisterly realistic solution – disappointing and baffling a large number of fans at the time – but the clever premise and solution, underplayed art and wicked, tongue-in-cheek attitude remove this yarn from the ordinary Fights ‘n’ Tights milieu and elevate it to one of the most chillingly mature Avengers epics ever produced.

A cut above the average and well worth an open-eyed reappraisal, this is an Avengers adventure for every jaded superhero fan.
© 1987 Marvel Entertainment Group/Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Twilight of the Assholes: Cartoons and Essays


By Tim Kreider (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-398-9

This book is intended to make adults laugh and think. If the title isn’t clue enough, please be warned that these pages contain nudity, sexual imagery, intentionally insulting images of political figures and rational opinions clothed in harsh language and thought-provoking political comedy.

If that sort of thing offends you or you believe that blasphemy is a sin and/or a crime, read no further and don’t buy this book. The rest of us will just have to manage without you.

The early years of the 21st century were plagued with horrors and disasters exacerbated by a hideous global proliferation of lying, greedy, venal, demented and just plain stupid rulers and governments who finally elevated politicians to that phylum of useless tools and pimples on the butt of humanity once only occupied by lawyers.

Since then bankers, astrologers, wedding planners, doorstep evangelists, celebrity gossip columnists and all types of psychics have joined their rarefied ranks and I’m thinking I need to cut down on coffee or tighten my critical parameters…

When George Dubya Bush acceded to the throne of America there were a lot of apologetic liberals and whooping goons. There was also cartoonist Ted Kreider.

Born in 1967 and raised on comicbooks whilst actually paying attention in school, Kreider is an erudite and passionate man with thoughtfully reasoned opinions on politics, religion and the human condition among many other things. He is also an extremely gifted writer and cartoonist who began self publishing in 1994.

By 1997 The Baltimore City Paper had picked up his deliciously polemical panel strip-with-accompanying essay ‘The Pain – When Will it End?’ and they were closely followed by the Jackson Planet Weekly, Illinois’ Indy in Bloomington-Normal, The New York Press, The Stranger, Philadelphia Weekly plus other independent and alternative papers. In September 2000 Kreider began releasing the material as a webcomic.

Although a self-confessed left-leaning Democrat, that hasn’t ever stopped him punishing his own camp’s many gaffes, goofs, lies, embarrassments and ideological idiocies. Like our own Gerald Scarfe and Steve Bell with Margaret Thatcher, Kreider was lucky enough (if you discount elevated blood-pressure, maxed-out sense of disbelief and perpetually outraged moral compass) to have been given the gift of a perfect incumbent target in the Bush administration of 2000-2008 and the greater, right-wing anti-intellectual, Christian-fundamentalist crusade/pogrom that brought them to power.

Along the way Kreider also managed to incense other churches and faiths from Catholics to Moslems, all manner of bigot from racists to homophobes and outrage proponents of all those other aspects of modern US society that makes all us non-Americans nervous and giggly in equal measure.

Subtitled ‘Volume II of the Chronicles of the Era of Darkness 2004-2009’ this weighty and hilariously biting collection of gags and commentaries covers the – to Kreider especially – incomprehensible re-election and second term of the Republican Saviour and his dark apostles Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Rice and the rest, whilst still finding room and Reasonable Cause to pictorially pummel Chinese expansion, assorted religions’ definitions of life and attitudes to sex, aspects and definitions of Freedom, geopolitics and Big Oil, Intelligent Design, the new Russian Empire, Secret Fantasies of the rich and statesmanlike, Crackpot Theories and all sorts of Science: from the author’s spirited defence of Pluto’s planet-hood to Human-Animal Hybrids, Parallel Universes and new roles for the Giant Squid…

With stunning examples of the cartoonist’s eternal roles as social conscience, intellectual champion, puncturer of pomposity and lampooning last bastion of grace under oppressive political pressure, Kreider boldly kicks the shins of the smug over-class and stamps on the toes of all the entrenched whited sepulchres and obnoxiously applied shibboleths that made him annoyed and ashamed of huge swathes of his fellow Americans. Not that Britain or any other colonial power has any moral high-ground to sneer down from…

The work covers the period November 4th 2004 to October 29th 2009 and includes the shocked rapture of a Democratic win and the nation’s first non-white president – and ends with a shaky dawning suspicion that all politicians might just be the same…

Particularly effective are ‘Jesus vs. Jeezus’, ‘The Conservative Christian’s Guide to Compassion’, ‘I “heart” Saddam’, ‘The War on Christmas’, ‘Americans vs. ‘Muricans’, ‘What is Freedom?’, ‘Me & George, We Got Problems’, ‘Silver Linings of the Holocaust’, ‘What You Can Do to Fight the War on Sex’, ‘Everything I Know I Learned from the Bush Administration’, ‘Secret Vices of the Liberals’, ‘Republican Sex Toys’, ‘God: Republican or Democrat?’, ‘After All the Money’s Gone’, ‘We Even Yet?’ and the 5-part ‘Contributions of the World’s Religions’ but there’s guaranteed to be something to shock  or offend everybody here – you might even be compelled to think for yourself and question a little bit more…

Excoriating, withering humour and viciously necessary satire tellingly rendered and savage yet personable and winningly intimate reportage make this one of the best cartoon coshes ever applied to the politics of this century.

His previous collections include The Pain – When Will It End? (2004) and Why Do They Kill Me? or: Scream, Honkey, Scream (2005), and I look forward to more from Kreider in the sorry certainty that people won’t get less stupid, rulers can’t change their spots and religions will never stop dictating what their followers can think or feel…

Cartoons and text © 2011 Tim Kreider. All rights reserved.

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Axa volumes 3 and 4


By Donne Avenell & Enrique Badia Romero (Ken Pierce Books)
Vol. 3 No ISBN: 0-912277-00-9  Vol. 4 no ISBN: 0-912277-00-9

During the 1970s British newspapers radically altered much of their style and content to varying degrees in response to the seemingly inexorable move towards female social emancipation and sexual equality. Nevertheless, this somehow allowed newspaper editors to squeeze in even more undraped women, who finally escaped from the perfectly rendered comics strips and onto the regular pages, usually the third one, the centre-spreads and into the fashion features…

The only place where truly strong female role-models were taken seriously was the aforementioned cartoon sections but even there the likes of Modesty Blaise, Danielle, Scarth, Amanda and all the other capable ladies who walked all over the oppressor gender, both humorously and in straight adventure scenarios, lost clothes and shed undies repeatedly, continuously and in the manner they always had…

Nobody complained (no one important or who was ever taken seriously): it was just tradition and the idiom of the medium… and besides, artists liked to draw bare-naked ladies as much as blokes liked to see them and it was even educational for the kiddies – who could buy any newspaper in any shop without interference even if they couldn’t get into cinemas to view Flashdance, Trading Places, Octopussy or Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone without an accompanying adult…

Sales kept going up…

Take-charge chicks were almost commonplace when the Star Wars phenomenon reinvigorated public interest in science fiction and the old standby of scantily-clad, curvy amazons and post-apocalyptic wonderlands regained their sales-appeal. Thus The Sun hired Enrique Badia Romero and Donne Avenell to produce just such an attention-getter for their already well-stacked cartoon section.

Romero had begun his career in Spain in 1953, producing everything from westerns, sports, war stories and trading cards, often in conjunction with his brother Jorge Badía Romero. He even formed his own publishing house. “Enric” began working for the higher-paying UK market in the 1960s on strips such as ‘Cathy and Wendy’, ‘Isometrics’ and ‘Cassius Clay’ before successfully assuming the drawing duties on the high-profile Modesty Blaise strip in 1970 (see Modesty Blaise: The Hell Makers and Modesty Blaise: The Green Eyed Monster), only leaving when this enticing new prospect appeared.

In 1986 political and editorial intrigue saw Axa cancelled in the middle of a story and Romero returned to the bodacious Blaise until creator/writer Peter O’Donnell retired in 2001. Since then he has produced Modesty material for Scandinavia and a number of projects such as Durham Red for 2000AD.

Axa ran in The Sun Monday to Saturday from 1978 to her abrupt disappearance in 1986 and other than these slim volumes from strip historian Ken Pierce has never been graced with a definitive collection. It should be noted also that at the time of these books the strip was still being published to great acclaim.

In the first two volumes Axa, a pampered citizen of a sterile, domed community in 2080AD, rebelled against her antiseptic society’s cloying strictures and escaped to the ravaged, mutant-infested post apocalyptic wilderness to be free. Her journeys took her across the ravaged planet, discovering lost enclaves and encountering bizarre new tribes and cultures.

The third volume opens with an avid appreciation by C.C. Beck, the “Crusty Curmudgeon” most celebrated as co-creator of the Shazam!-shouting Captain Marvel before the nubile nomad resumed her explorations in ‘Axa the Brave’ with her latest companion Jason Arkady in tow. Crossing a frozen wasteland reclaimed by wolves after man’s Great Contamination excised human civilisation, the pair stagger into a lush tropical valley populated by dinosaurs and cavemen.

The historical anomalies are disturbing and dangerous enough, but when they were invited to join the new stone-agers they uncovered an even greater enigma: the cave-walls were covered in paintings of robots and weird machines… The secret of the hidden valley is yet another example of the brilliance and folly of the lost human civilisation and leads the unstoppable freedom-seeker to a swamp-city where an enclave of scientists had survived the disaster…

The hidden sages had a big plan to reshape the world and wanted Axa aboard, so they built her the perfect companion: a faithful, semi-sentient laser-wielding robot dubbed Mark 10 who instantly aroused the jealous ire of Jason. As so often the case however, Axa’s male benefactors had hidden plans for her but the scientists had built too well and the utterly devoted Mark came rattling rapidly to her rescue…

In ‘Axa the Gambler’ the winsome wanderer, with Mark and Jason faithfully following, stumbled onto a community where wagering was the basis for existence and pilgrims came from miles around to bet with the fervour of religious zealots.

In The City of Hope patrons worshipped Las Vegan relics, seeking instant gratification for their greedy, hungry prayers. Soon Jason had caught the bug and gambled away all their meager possessions including the magnificent ancient sword Axa had carried since her first escape from the Domed City.

Of course the game was fixed, but with Mark’s cybernetic intervention Axa recouped all their losses, narrowly escaping the hidden penalty that underpinned the barter-economy of the City: when you don’t have any more goods to wager with, you become the property of the house…

When Jason discovered a historic family link to big boss Mr. Nero he switched allegiance and Axa ended up fighting for her life and liberty in the gladiatorial arena beside motorcycle warrior Dirk. With freedom her greatest love, Axa inevitably engineered Nero’s bloody fall, but lost Jason to the lure of greed and an idle life of pleasure…

Axa 4 begins with an appreciation and “previously on…” by publisher Bernie McCarty before ‘Axa the Earthbound’ saw the blonde bombshell and Dirk hunting the missing mechanical Mark 10 through a haunted, monster-haunted swamp until they stumbled upon a lost oasis of beauty – a veritable paradise amidst the ruins of the world.

In a ramshackle old house lived aged Joy Eden who happily welcomed the wanderers to stay. Axa was subtly drawn to the aged free spirit’s talk of Mother Earth and pagan renewal but Dirk had his suspicions: did the old lady thrive despite the mutants and mud-monsters… or because of them?

Deeply steeped in Earth-magic and transformative mysticism, did the lonely old crone have another reason for keeping Dirk and Axa within the tumbledown walls of her “Seventh Heaven”… and just what did happen to the coldly technological but absolutely loyal Mark?

Ending as always in bitter revelation, chilling conflict and spectacular conflagration the denouements led the explorers back into the desert wastes in ‘Axa the Tempted’. Their trek brought them to the coast where mutated seaweed and giant sea-life threatened to end their trials for ever and whilst fleeing giant land-crustaceans the couple found an ancient beached ocean-liner from where inbred pirates raided other coastal settlements for slaves, provisions and “Old People” technological artifacts.

Escaping from “The Crewmen”, Axa and Dirk allied themselves with the united sea-villagers and the heroic Cap, King of the Coast, who protects the scattered communities from pirate depredations. The wily wild-girl was strangely attracted to the larger-than-life champion and his luxurious life of adventure, excitement and bold deeds, but Dirk had mysteriously vanished and something just didn’t ring true about the magnanimous warrior-king…

Once more bitter disappointment and righteous indignation awaited Axa as she once more learned that no matter where she roamed men were all the same whilst greed and depravity had not vanished with the Old Ones and their Great Contamination.

These tales are superb examples of the uniquely British newspaper strip style: lavishly drawn, subversively written, expansive in scope and utterly enchanting in their basic simplicity – with lots of flashed flesh, emphatic action and sly humour. Eminently readable and re-readable (and there’s still that dwindling promise of a major motion picture) Axa is long overdue for a definitive collection. so here’s hoping there’s a bold publisher out there looking for the next big thing…

© 1983 Express Newspapers, Ltd. First American Collectors Edition Series ™ & © 1983 Ken Pierce, Inc.

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John Constantine, Hellblazer: Tainted Love


By Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-85286-994-6

John Constantine is probably the greatest anti-hero in comics: a cynical, wide-boy magician and seedy, troubled soul who danced on the edge of damnation every minute of his life, ever unsure of his own motives, shrewdly manipulating events and standing back just to see what happens.

Collecting issues #68-71 of the monthly comicbook, the Heartland one-shot, Hellblazer Special #1 and the Constantine tale from Vertigo Jam #1 this volume describes with astonishing effect the absolute nadir in the Scouse sorcerer’s chequered career and also reveals some hidden secrets from his sordid past… Also included herein is an impressive ‘Hellblazer Gallery’ with stunning contributions from Glenn Fabry, Gary Erskine, Richard Case and Phil Winslade as well as the beautiful Fabry covers which accompanied the original tales.

After years of saving the world without even knowing why – although he feared it was just to spite beings who thought themselves better than him – Constantine fell in love with Irish ex-pat Kit Ryan and seemed on the verge of turning his hell-bent life around, before as usual, his magical heritage and nasty nature messed it all up.

Kit returned to Ireland and Constantine fell apart, hitting the bottle harder than ever and ending up a booze-soaked derelict on London’s cold, hard streets. However, as low as he’s fallen, the entities he’s mocked, manipulated and made mischief with are unforgiving and ready to make things as bad as they can ever get…

This eclectic collection of most-modern horror-thrillers opens with the two-part ‘Last Night of the King of the Vampires’, the final encounter between Constantine and the supernal monster who had fed on humanity since we came down out the trees. Immortal, worldly-wise and blasé as he was the undying lych had never been so grossly insulted as when he first met and propositioned the arrogant magus in Hellblazer: Bloodlines.

Now in ‘Down All the Days’ the decadent bloodsucker executes his revenge on the debased, addled, gin-soaked street trash, determined to wring the last vestige of humiliation, pain and terror out of his fallen foe, commencing by killing the only person still talking to the Hellblazer in ‘Rough Trade’.

However, even in the very pit of despair Constantine had a surprise up his tattered sleeve. It’s not even that he particularly wanted to live; it’s simply his accursed pride wouldn’t let an overbearing, smug, supernatural tosser have the last word…

The second story-arc ‘Fall and Rise’ opens with the eponymous ‘Tainted Love’ (from Vertigo Jam #1) as the old souse relates a salutary tale to a fellow drunk. Once upon a time Constantine had a mate who was a bit of a player. And when Seth cheated on his girlfriend the wizard was there to profit from the revenge sex with Annette. Trouble was the wronged girl had more in mind than tit-for-tat and sneaked a peak at Constantine’s spell-books. Before the blood and dust settled Seth and Annette had both learned not to meddle with the dark arts and that in the end love hurts… and hurts and hurts and hurts…

Whilst the mage was pickling his brains and liver, Kit Ryan had returned to her home and broken family in Belfast. ‘Heartland’ – a superbly poignant shaggy dog tale – saw Kit revisit her formative years and able demonstrated that not all horror stems from devils and demons. Too often the monsters are us…

Constantine’s return to grace and glory finally began with ‘Finest Hour’ as the burned out wreck lay down to die by the river and was sucked into the life and final moments of a Spitfire pilot who had been shot down in flames during the Battle of Britain. Revitalised by his death-or-life experience the wizard took hold of himself and sobered up; ready to face the world once more, beginning with giving his ghostly saviour a decent and long-deserved send-off…

This episodic and eerily eccentric compendium closes with ‘Confessional’ (from Hellblazer Special #1) as the cleaned up conjuror has a chance second encounter with a defrocked priest who nearly succeeded where uncounted eldritch horrors had failed. Long ago a runaway teen named John Constantine hitched a lift with the wrong man, and now decades later there’s a piper to be paid…

I’m once again avoiding specific details since these masterful examples of bravura storytelling from Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon should be enjoyed without any dilution – but for the greatest impact you should also have handy their other collaborations. So track down >Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits, the aforementioned Bloodlines, Fear and Loathing and Damnation’s Flame to embark on a truly moving, terrifying and incredible experience.

Hellblazer is a superb series about flawed heroism and desperate necessity, with a tragic everyman anti-hero compelled to do the right thing no matter what the cost, arrayed against the worst that the world can offer. It’s also the best horror drama in comics and worthy of your devoted attention. Adult comics just don’t come any better than this

© 1993, 1998 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Robin/Batgirl: Fresh Blood


By Bill Willingham, Andersen Gabrych, Damion Scott, Alé Garza & Jesse Delperdang (DC Comics)
ISBN: 987-1-84576-200-1

Batman has gathered young allies about him since the second year of his crusade: adopting waif and strays and training them to be the best that they can be, all for the greater good of his beloved Gotham City.

When Gotham City was devastated by an earthquake and abandoned by the US government (Batman: Cataclysm and Batman: No Man’s Land volumes 1-3), a few heroes stayed to protect the innocent. One of these was a new, mute incarnation of Batgirl.

The crisis ended and a semblance of normality returned to the battered metropolis. The new heroine, named Cassandra Cain, was brought under the wing of Barbara Gordon, wheelchair-bound crime-fighter Oracle (and the previous Batgirl) who now ran her own crew of women heroes – the Birds of Prey.

Cassandra, mute, unable to communicate in any manner yet fluent in reading gesture, posture and body-language, was raised as an experiment by her father, super-assassin David Cain. The hired killer had over-ridden her language centres to make combat her only method of expression. An apparent runaway, she was adopted by Batman as a weapon in his never-ending battle, but the more humane Oracle had become her guardian and teacher.

Cassandra’s brain and learning disabilities were subsequently alleviated by a telepath and the unbeatable martial artist was just beginning to carve out her own life when the War Games crisis made Gotham too hot for heroes…

Tim Drake was the third Robin, a child prodigy who deduced Batman’s secret identity and his impending guilt-fuelled nervous breakdown following the murder of Jason Todd – Robin #2. Drake attempted to manipulate Dick Grayson – the first boy hero to be dubbed “Boy Wonder” – into returning as the Dark Knight’s partner before grudgingly accepting the position himself (see Batman: A Death in the Family and Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying).

After a long period of training and acclimation Batman offered Tim the job instead, and this interpretation took fans by storm, securing a series of increasingly impressive solo mini-series (see Robin: A Hero Reborn) and eventually his own long-running comic book.

Being trained by Batman is clearly an arduous and agonising undertaking. During the terrifying Batman: Wargames saga Drake in his turn became estranged from his moody mentor and forcibly retired from the fights ‘n’ tights game. Batman replaced Tim with Stephanie Brown, daughter of the criminal Cluemaster, who became the vigilante Spoiler to compensate for her father’s depredations. Don’t get too excited though, since she only starred as the fourth Robin for a fraction over six pages…

Soon Tim was back – ‘though you won’t see how or why here – setting up on his own as defender of the nearby city of Blüdhaven – a mini-Metropolis that made Gotham look like paradise…

The slim volume collects monthly issues #132-133 of Robin and #58-59 of Batgirl, a canny crossover concoction entitled Fresh Blood that saw both newly emancipated and independent street warriors striking out on their own in the very heart of urban darkness. The drama opened with ‘Too Many Ghosts’ as Tim, still recovering from Stephanie’s death, cautiously planned his first anti-crime campaign.

With faithful family Butler Alfred in tow as mentor and quartermaster he had moved to Blüdhaven planning to methodically dismantle the city’s mob hierarchy, but had no inkling that deceased criminal-mastermind Blockbuster was seemingly returned from the dead. Whilst on his first reconnaissance run Robin was ambushed and almost killed by super-assassin Shrike until an unexpected ally stepped in…

‘Following Footsteps’ revealed how Cassandra Cain also set up in Blüdhaven to go it alone. Soon however she was working with Tim; her combat skills meshing perfectly with his strategic flair and deductive abilities. Establishing clandestine links with two of the few honest cops in town they planned to take down the returned Blockbuster, but discover a shocking secret in ‘The Auction’ and end up tackling one of Batman’s greatest and most insidious foes instead: a deadly and spectacular clash that they cannot possibly survive…

Na-aah, just kidding – of course they do: but the concluding chapter ‘Settling Up’ is probably one of the best and most satisfying fight-fests of that era, with assorted thugs, wise-guys and meta-threats Brutale and the Trigger Twins adding to the panorama of exotic carnage before the new kids in town triumph and carve up the territory between them: their incompatible approaches pulling them apart before they could really get together….

Where does the time go? It seems like only yesterday that these nifty little thrillers were the acme of the Batman franchise, but the pace of change in comics is relentlessly rapid and remorselessly unforgiving, so engaging little gems like this come and go like wisps of mist caught in a million candlepower bat-signal beam…

Nevertheless, the edgy, fresh scripting of Bill Willingham and Andersen Gabrych married to the unconventional but superbly effective art of Damion Scott, Alé Garza & Jesse Delperdang prove to be a heady and irresistible brew that delivers as much kick now as it ever did. This is a Bat-bunfight no fan could possibly bear to miss…

© 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Conan the Barbarian: The Horn of Azoth – A Marvel Graphic Novel


By Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Mike Docherty, Tony DeZuniga & Tom Vincent (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-87135-639-0

During the 1970′s, in response to a global downturn in superhero sales, and rise in interest in all things supernatural, the American comic book industry opened up after more than fifteen years of cautious and calcified publishing practices. These had come about as a reaction to the scrupulously-censorious oversight of the self-inflicted Comics Code Authority: A body created by publishers to police their product and keep it palatable and wholesome after the industry suffered their very own McCarthy-inspired Witch-hunt during the 1950s. Thus instead of crime comics – the other big casualty of the CCA – the first genre to be revisited was Horror/Mystery comics and from that came the pulp masterpiece Conan the Cimmerian.

Sword & Sorcery prose stories had undergone a global renaissance in the paperback marketplace since the release of soft-cover editions of Lord of the Rings (first published in 1954), and the 1960s saw the resurgence of the two-fisted fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline and Fritz Lieber, whilst many modern writers such as Michael Moorcock and Lin Carter kick-started their careers with contemporary versions of man, monster and mage. Indisputably the grand master of the genre was Robert E. Howard.

Marvel Comics tested the waters in early 1970 with a little tale called ‘The Sword and the Sorcerers’ (from the horror anthology Chamber of Darkness #4) whose hero Starr the Slayer bore no small resemblance to the Barbarian. It was written by Roy Thomas and drawn by young Englishman Barry Smith, a recent Marvel find, and one who was just breaking out of the company’s Kirby house-style.

Despite some early teething problems, including being cancelled and reinstated in the same month, the comic-strip adventures of Robert E. Howard’s characters were as big a success as the prose yarns. Conan became a huge success: a mega-brand that saw new prose tales, a TV series and cartoon show, a newspaper strip and most importantly a Major Motion Picture in 1982.

…And it all largely stemmed from the vast range of comics initiated by Thomas, Windsor-Smith (as he became) and the excellent succession of comics creators that followed.

Thomas was a huge fan of the prose material and took great pains to adapt the novels and short stories into the graphic canon, but he was also one of the top writers in his field and much of the franchise’s success devolves from his visceral grasp on the character, which makes this particular graphic novel of particular interest.

After the success of the first film Thomas and fellow Marvel stalwart Gerry Conway were invited to write the second movie script.  How they did and why their script was accepted and never made is textbook Hollywood (I know whereof I speak: buy us a drink one day and I’ll tell you my own tales of Tinsel Town Tactics) and makes a fascinating introduction to this tome; but the upshot was at the end of the protracted process the scripters had a brilliant Conan yarn that everybody loved but that wasn’t going to be Conan the Destroyer. This meant of course, that with a little wheeler-dealing and a few secured permissions it could be returned to the artform that spawned it…

Thus “King of Thieves” became the superb savage thriller ‘The Horn of Azoth’ and opens with the itinerant Barbarian earning a crust pit-fighting in Shadizar the Wicked until he runs afoul of a local Magistrate – to the legislator’s lasting regret. The burly brigand is captured by the city guard but escapes the dungeons with the aid of a beautiful young witch. Together they flee the city with her giant bodyguard and it transpires that she needs Conan to help her fulfil a dark and ancient prophecy. Of course she tells him it’s to help unearth a fabulous treasure…

Locating the lost fortress and broaching its defences are child’s play for a bandit like the Cimmerian, but the mages within prove an unexpected obstacle and the little band is soon augmented by a boy-wizard with his own hidden agenda and an Amazonian Nubian warrior princess as they all converge on a distant rendezvous with fate.

It’s soon clear that everybody is lying to Conan as warring factions struggle to awaken or re-inter antediluvian god Azoth. Whoever wins the world is equally imperilled and unless he works a miracle Conan is collateral damage in a cosmic war that has been brewing for eons…

With brawny battles, warring wizards and enough suspense to choke a mastodon, this action-packed yarn is rip-roaring fantasy fare, brimming with supernatural horrors, wild women and spectacular titanic clashes, cannily recounted by immensely talented creators at the top of their form. Especially effective is Mike Docherty’s supremely illustrative art, ably enhanced by Tony DeZuniga’s smooth inking and Tom Vincent’s lush colours.

Still available, this is a another magnificently oversized tale (produced in the European Album format with glossy white pages 285mm x 220mm rather than the standard US proportions of 258 x 168mm) that provides another heady swig of untrammelled joy for lovers of the genre and fans of the greatest hero ever to swing a sword or plunder a tomb…
© 1990 Conan Properties Inc All Rights Reserved.

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Superman Vs. The Revenge Squad!


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-487-9

Here’s another thrilling snapshot which highlights the era of superb creativity following in the wake of the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman reboot. If you’re counting, the tale first appeared – in whole or in part – in Adventures of Superman #539, 542, 543, Action Comics #726, 730, Man of Steel #61, 65 and Superman: Man of Tomorrow #7.

By extracting pertinent episodes from a selection of sub-plots and entire episodes, the assembled creators – writers Karl Kesel, David Michelinie, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson and Roger Stern in close conjunction with artists Jon Bogdanove, Sal Buscema, Tom Grummett, Stuart Immonen, Ron Lim, Tom Morgan, Paul Ryan, Brett Breeding, Klaus Janson, Dennis Janke, Jose Marzan Jr. & Denis Rodier – assembled a crafty and exciting romp which pitted the Metropolis Marvel against a peculiar array of particularly irate enemies all working for a mysterious mastermind who was far from what he appeared…

The action commences with ‘Dopplegangster’ wherein a clone from the top-secret Cadmus Project intercepts a high-tech intruder and is infected with a hideous condition which brings all his submerged evil to the surface.

The invader is Misa, a spoiled, fun-loving, metahuman brat with incredible futuristic devices who has plagued Superman and the Project before, but here her skirmish with the re-grown Floyd “Bullets” Barstow has lasting effects, accidentally transforming the good-natured clone into a troubled paranoid soul who might suddenly transform at any moment into a brutal Anomaly with elemental shape-changing powers and no conscience at all.

Meanwhile in Metropolis Superman has his hands full defending the city and shuffling his new job as Editor of The Daily Planet, whilst venerable boss Perry White recovers from lung cancer and the subsequent chemo-therapy. It gets no easier when living weapons-platform Barrage returns in ‘Arms’, determined to kill Police Chief Maggie Sawyer, whom he blames for the loss of his right limb, and the anarchic Riot – a raving loon who generates living duplicates every time he is struck – also pops up to cause mischief and mayhem in ‘Losin’ It’.

‘Hero or Villain?’ concentrates on the history of Lex Luthor, providing insight and oversight to the multi-billionaire inventor who is under arrest and awaiting trial, whilst alien superwoman Maxima frets and festers in her futile quest to find a suitable mate. The Man of Steel was her first choice and he refused her many times. Once again she tries to have her way with him and the violent rejection sends her straight into the influence of someone who is gathering a team to destroy the Caped Kryptonian forever…

The unified assault begins in ‘The Honeymoon’s Over’ as Riot, Misa, Anomaly and Barrage meet Maxima and take their shot at their mutual enemy in ‘President of the United Hates’, but there is something not quite right about their enigmatic, shadowy leader and besides, what strategic genius would put five incompatible, uncontrollable ego-maniacs in the same team and expect them to have a ghost of a chance against Superman?

The final, spectacular battle inevitably goes awry for the rogues in ‘Losers’ and as the dust settles all the evidence points to only one possible culprit for the Revenge Squad’s campaign of terror. But is it really that clear-cut…?

Although a little disconnected in places – this storyline was running simultaneously with another extended saga (collected in the soon-to-be-reviewed Superman Transformed!) and the excision of irrelevant pages doesn’t lend itself to a seamless and smooth read – this tale perfectly exemplifies the brilliant blend of cosmic adventure, fights ‘n’ tights action, soap opera drama and sheer enthusiastic excitement that typified the Superman franchise at this time.

This kind of close-plotted continuity was a hallmark of the 1980s and 1990s Superman, and that such a strong tale could be constituted from snippets around the main story is a lasting tribute to the efficacy and power of the technique. Superman vs. the Revenge Squad! is a delightfully old-fashioned fun-fest that will delight fans of The Legend and followers of the genre alike.

A British edition (ISBN: 978-1-84023-077-2) was released by Titan Books at the time and may well be easier to find than the out-of-print US original.

© 1996, 1997, 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.