Author: NowReadThis

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The Flash: Rogues


By Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Doug Hazlewood & various (DC)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-950-8

When Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash whose creation ushered in a new and seemingly unstoppable era of costumed crusaders, was killed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985, he was succeeded by his young sidekick Wally West, a young man who initially struggled to fill the boots of his predecessor, but like a true hero persevered and eventually overcame…

After years in the role West adapted and made a convincing argument for being an even greater hero as he triumphed over both his mentor’s uncanny foes and a whole new Rogue’s Gallery of his own.

This volume, Rogues – which follows directly on from Blood Will Run – is part of a massive continued storyline by scripter Geoff Johns and will be best enjoyed if you can also lay your hands on Crossfire and Blitz – at the very least – and collects issues #177-182 of the long-gone monthly comicbook.

The twin cities of Keystone and Central City are in economic turmoil. In an atmosphere of job-cuts and financial woe, ostensibly-reformed super-villain Keith Kenyon AKA Goldface is causing (mostly legal) trouble promoting his militant blue-collar union, whilst on the crime front a new conglomeration of Rogues is being formed by a sinister mastermind…

The action in this particular tome, all pencilled and mostly inked by Doug Hazlewood, begins with ‘Event Horizon’ when Flash’s oldest ally and human Black Hole Chester Runk, gifted with incredible teleportation and gravity-warping powers, is shot by an assassin. Although Chunk survives the bullet, the wound causes his powers to spiral out of control and subsequently endangers the entire planet until Wally can find a typically fast-paced fix.

Meanwhile in Keystone City, a new, non-union manufacturer of detention units falls foul of Kenyon’s pickets, allowing the lethally destructive super-gorilla Grodd to escape in ‘Caged’…

Immensely strong, carnivorous and possessing staggering psionic abilities, the savage simian goes on an earth-shattering rampage through the city until the hard-pressed hyper-fast hero finally stops him. Across town at that moment, another Flash-friend is arrested for murder…

‘Smile for the Camera’ incorporates a DC braided crossover event which spanned the entire DC pantheon (for more details and murderous high jinks see Batman: The Joker’s Last Laugh) which can be summed up by saying the Joker thought he was dying and infected hundreds of villains with his looks and madness before setting them loose to hilariously wreck civilisation and kill millions.

By the time the Pied Piper is remanded to super-penitentiary Iron Heights, the Jokerising plague is in full effect and chaos ensues. Even with Flash on hand the situation only gets more difficult as the Piper also succumbs to the contagious insanity…

A new villain is introduced in ‘Peek-a-boo’ when a desperate medical student uses her teleporting powers to steal harvested organs for her dying dad. Unfortunately, whenever young Lashawn Baez triggers her power, the air explodes with the force of a detonating missile. Happily for Wally, his old Teen Titans pal Cyborg has moved to town and is able to lend a detachable hand…

‘Fallout’ was a radioactive minor player illegally exploited to power Iron Heights until the Flash liberated him; but the walking atomic reactor was finding life on the outside increasingly hazardous. However, whilst the Scarlet Speedster struggled to find an ethical solution to his dilemma his oldest friends and mentors were falling victim to terrible personal tragedy…

The Rogues and their new boss Blacksmith are happily celebrating their carefully laid plans as Flash’s police contact Detective Jared Morillo becomes their latest victim, but the villains have no idea what trouble is waiting them as this tense tome concludes with ‘Absolute Zero’ (inked by Dan Panosian) when Captain Cold goes renegade to avenge the murder of his sister and affords us all a look at the early life which made him such a cold-hearted killer…

Fast, furious and fantastic, The Flash has always epitomised the very best of Fight ‘n’ Tights fiction. This impressive slice of top-speed, high-octane action can happily be read as is, but as part of the intended, extended epic these tales become vital parts of an overwhelming whole.

The Geoff Johns years are slick and absolutely addictive: engrossing, suspenseful and often genuinely scary comics you simply have to read. If you haven’t seen them yet, run – don’t walk – to your nearest purveyor of graphic magnificence and snag all the breathless excitement you could ever withstand.

© 2000, 2001, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Venom


By Rick Remender, Tony Moore, Crimelab! Studios, Sandu Florea, Karl Kesel & Tom Fowler ((Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-493-5

In the anything goes, desperate hurly-burly of the late 1980s and 1990s, fad-fever and spin-off madness gripped the superhero genre in America as publishers hungrily exploited every trick to bolster flagging sales.

In the melee Spider-Man spawned an implacable enemy called Venom: a deranged and disgraced reporter named Eddie Brock who bonded with Peter Parker’s alternate costume (a semi-sentient alien parasite called the Symbiote which the wall-crawler first wore in Secret Wars #8, December 1984).

Brock became a savage, shape-changing, dark-side version of the Amazing Arachnid but after numerous spectacular clashes, the spidery adversaries eventually reached a brooding détente and Venom became a “Lethal Protector”, dispensing a highly individualistic brand of justice everywhere but New York City.

At one stage the Symbiote went into breeding mode; creating a junior version of itself that merged with a deranged psycho-killer named Cletus Kasady to form the even more terrifying metamorphic Carnage.

Since then many other hosts have bonded with the ebony parasite, including Brock’s wife Ann Weying, Mac Gargan, AKA the Scorpion, mobster Angelo Fortunato, Mayoral assistant Edward Saks and even Franklin Richards and other members of the Fantastic Four.

In the beginning of 2011 a new iteration of the lethal Protector debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man #654 and was swiftly followed by this classy and viscerally action-packed rollercoaster ride from scripter Rick Remender and penciller Tony Moore, ably augmented by inkers Crimelab! Studios, Sandu Florea, Karl Kesel, Tom Fowler & colourist John Rauch.

This time the host is Flash Thompson, Spider-Man’s greatest fan and a war hero who came back from Afghanistan without his legs. A recovering alcoholic, Eugene, as he now prefers, is part of a top-secret military black-ops operation which uses the Symbiote to carry out under-the-radar missions vital to US security.

In return, Thompson gets to be a hero (of sorts), feel useful again, serve his country and get out of his wheelchair prison for 48 hours at a time.

Of course there are drawbacks: the parasite is a deadly menace, constantly seeking to permanently bond with its wearer and is classed as one of the most dangerous entities on the planet. If the new Venom should go berserk or if the human host stays bonded for more than two days the war room controllers of the mysterious General Dodge will simply detonate the explosives attached to Thompson’s body and start the project over with another volunteer. It’s what they had to do with the previous wearer, after all…

This superb blend of visceral action and powerful drama opens with Venom trying to extract to the US a genocidal scientist attempting to ethnically cleanse his Balkan homeland with the unstoppable Vibranium weaponry he was contracted to build for American gang boss Crime Master.

Even inside an alien skin driving him crazy whilst granting him incredible, intoxicating power, Flash can’t help going off-mission to save dying civilians, so he’s doubly distracted when Crime Master’s kill-crazy enforcer Jack O’Lantern attempts to steal the mad scientist out from under him, resulting in a devastating battle…

Only partially successful, Thompson limps home to girlfriend Betty Brant and pal Peter Parker, trusted confidantes he cannot tell about his new private life and who are therefore terrified that his constant disappearances mean he’s drinking again…

Venom’s second mission is to stop the supply of Vibranium from the Antarctic Lost World known as the Savage Land but that goes even more Fubar (it’s military slang and rude – look it up if you must) when Kraven the Hunter unexpectedly attacks and delays him long past his time limit.

With the parasite making inroads into his psyche and Crime Master’s goons delaying him even longer over his deadline, his identity is exposed to the Machiavellian mastermind and Flash mistakes a military technical hitch for Dodge’s trust in his ability to resist the Symbiote’s influence when, after days as Venom, his brain still hasn’t detonated…

In America, however, Jack O’Lantern has kidnapped Betty and uses her to force the extremely famous and recognisable paraplegic war-hero to bring him all the remaining Vibranium. Desperate, and with his mind slowly being eaten away by contact with the alien parasite, Venom runs amok in New York battling Spider-Man as a bomb counts down under baffled hostage Betty Brant, all leading to a staggering and supremely satisfying bombastic battle climax.

But wait: there’s more…

Rick Remender is a stellar writer and somehow convinced his editors to end this blistering adventure miniseries on a small, quiet and highly poignant note. After a brief but gruesome clash with cannibal serial killer the Human Fly, Venom is safely squared away as the last issue follows the wheelchair-bound Flash through his abusive past and traumatic present by focusing on his brutal, alcoholic cop-father who so nearly made his son into a doomed and self-destructive carbon copy of himself.

Moving and thought-provoking, this affords a powerfully intimate glimpse into the real world behind all those high-flying fantasy heroes, villains and monsters.

Fast-paced, scary, clever and full of heart, this is a thriller to delight action fan and superhero deep-thinkers alike.

™ & © 2011 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A., Italy. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini UK, Ltd.

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Zorro – the Masters Edition volume 1


By Johnston McCulley (Pulp Adventures Inc.)
ISBN: 978-1-89172-920-1

One the earliest masked heroes and still phenomenally popular throughout the world is perennial film favourite “El Zorro, The Fox”, originally created by jobbing writer Johnston McCulley in 1919 in a five part serial entitled ‘The Curse of Capistrano’ and launched in prose magazine All-Story Weekly beginning in with the August 6th edition and concluding with 6th September).

The tale was subsequently collected as a novella and published by Grossett & Dunlap in 1924 as The Mark of Zorro and further reissued in 1959 and 1998 by MacDonald & Co. and Tor respectively.

Famously Hollywood royalty Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford read the ‘The Curse of Capistrano’ in All-Story Weekly whilst on their honeymoon and immediately optioned the rights for the first film release from their new production company/studio United Artists.

The Mark of Zorro movie was a global sensation in 1920 and for years after, so a second prose serial was understandably commissioned from McCulley. ‘The Further Adventures of Zorro’ ran in All-Story Weekly from May 6th to June 10th 1922, but the magic thunderbolt didn’t strike twice and the Swashbuckling Señor wasn’t seen again until revived in the 1930’s pulps as part of a boom in extraordinary, more-than-merely-mortal adventures.

New York based McCulley was clearly no fool and had re-tailored his creation to match the extremely different filmic incarnation, making Zorro more a prototypical superhero than the broad Scarlet Pimpernel knock-off he had begun as (although many fictive historians prefer the idea that the character was based on real-life bandit Joaquin Murrieta, the “Mexican/Chilean Robin Hood”, whose life was fictionalized by John Rollin Ridge in 1854), so the Caped Crusader aptly fitted the burgeoning genre that would soon be peopled by the likes of The Shadow, Doc Savage and the Spider.

Weekly Argosy Magazine featured the four-chapter serial ‘Zorro Rides Again’ from October 3rd – 24th 1931 and a year later began a succession of complete novellas which ran between 1932 and 1935 and these are all reprinted in this glorious, album-sized volume.

McCulley produced a further chapter-novel ‘The Sign of Zorro’ for Argosy in 1941 (following the 1940 Rouben Mamoulian movie The Mark of Zorro) before switching to the monthly West Magazine in 1944. The first two of the 52 short stories produced between then and 1951 are also included, closing out this initial collection.

The author wrote two further stories ‘Zorro Rides the Trail’ for the May 1954 Max Brand Western Magazine and another, different version of ‘The Mark of Zorro’ which was published in Short Story Magazine in April 1959, the year after McCulley’s death and just as Disney’s epochal Zorro TV show was ending its three year run..

This wonderful monochrome celebration opens with an introduction from Don McGregor, who scripted comicbooks and a newspaper strip about the character, after which the stirring prose exploits begin…

For the uninitiated: Don Diego de la Vega was the foppish son of a grand house in old California when it was a Spanish Possession, who used the masked persona of Se̱or Zorro (the Fox) to right wrongs, defend the weak and oppressed Рparticularly the pitifully maltreated natives and Indians Рand thwart the schemes of a succession of military leaders and the colonial Governor determined to milk the populace for all they had.

Whenever Zorro struck he left his mark – a letter “Z” carved into walls, doors, faces…

By the time of ‘Zorro Saves a Friend’ (Argosy November 12th 1932) he had become simply Don Diego Vega, and had a whole support structure in place. His stiff-necked Hildalgo father knew his secret, as did his two assistants Bernardo (the deaf-mute manservant retained for the assorted TV and movies) and Jose of the Cocopahs – a native chief who often acted as stableman, decoy and body-double for the Masked Avenger. Diego also employed a retired, reformed one-eyed pirate named Bardoso to act as his spy amongst townsfolk and outlaws…

It is the pirate who warns the seemingly effete nobleman that his young comrade Don Carlos Cassara, amongst others, has been especially targeted by military overseer Capitán Torello. That cunning strategist had hired a professional gambler and card-sharp to ruin the wealthy grandees who constantly resist the Governor’s political schemes, intending to humiliate or even cause the suicide of a generation of rich men…

Forewarned, The Fox took action as only he could…

‘Zorro Hunts a Jackal’ first appeared in April 1933, and detailed in stirring fashion how Torello hires a horse-breaker to abuse and cheat the natives in a plot to draw out Zorro and expose him as Don Diego. However, the mercenary has a darker secret of his own, but all his machinations are as nothing against the wiles of The Fox…

New Army chief Marcos Lopez was an even more cunning opponent. In ‘Zorro Deals With Treason’ (August 1934) the Capitán employed an impostor Zorro to foment rebellion among the Indians, but was soon made painfully aware of the regard and trust they placed in the genuine masked marvel…

The lengthy novelette which follows was first published in two parts in the Argosy issues for September 21st and 28th 1935, and is here presented as an interrupted saga of grand romance and spectacular action as Don Diego and Bernardo travelled to distant San Diego de Alcála to escort his father’s greatest friend, his entire wealth and his beautiful daughter Carmelita to a new life in Reina de Los Angeles.

Major headaches along the way include astute new military commander Capitán Carlos Gonzales, assorted bandits, murderous rogues Pedro Pico and Valentino Vargas and an enigmatic mastermind building a criminals’ army known only as the ‘Mysterious Don Miguel’…

The last two tales come from West Magazine: a brace of short stories from July and September 1944. The first ‘Zorro Draws His Blade’ finds Don Diego contacted by the Friars of the local Mission – who also aware of his other identity – to clear the name and save the life of a peasant who has been framed for murdering a landowner. Of course the task is accomplished with cunning and devastating panache before the adventure concludes with ‘Zorro Upsets a Plot’ as the dashing Night-rider is forced to clear his name and confound another military frame-up when a masked and cloaked figure boldly and conspicuously abducts a beautiful maiden…

These are classic Blood-and-Thunder tales chock-full of fights and midnight chases, with scurvy blackguards maimed or slaughtered according to their crimes and station in life and dastardly plots unravelled with great style.

The more observant will note that as the years went by the rate of wounding decreased whilst the body-count steadily rose: a sure sign of the changing times and one which was repeated decades later in the superhero comics this series is such a clear template for…

The volume also contains a complete checklist of the prose canon and is liberally sprinkled with spot illustrations and full-page plates by Joel F. Naprestek, Franklyn E. Hamilton, Glen Ostrander, Mark Bloodworth and Randy Zimmerman as well as all the (sadly unattributed) illustrations which accompanied the original incarnations, as well as the painted magazine covers of those issues.

This edition and its successors apparently retail for staggering prices, but since there’s only one Rights owner and the character is so unbelievably popular, surely there’s a publisher out there willing and able to produce decent new collectors editions of these timeless tales along the sturdy, standard B-format paperback lines of Doc Savage, Sherlock Holmes or The Casebook of Sexton Blake?

I want more and surely there are hordes of others ready and eager to spend £s and $s for more “Z”s?
Zorro ® and © Zorro Productions. All Rights Reserved. This edition © 2000 Pulp Adventures, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Valerian and Laureline book 2: The Empire of a Thousand Planets


By J.-C. Méziéres & P. Christin, with colours by E. Tranlé and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-087-0

Val̩rian is arguably the most influential comics science fiction series ever drawn Рand yes, I am including both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in that expansive and undoubtedly contentious statement.

Although to a large extent those venerable strips defined the medium itself, anybody who has seen a Star Wars movie has seen some of Jean-Claude Méziéres & Pierre Christin’s brilliant imaginings which the filmic phenomenon has shamelessly plundered for decades: everything from the look of the Millennium Falcon to Leia‘s Slave Girl outfit -as this second volume powerfully proves in a stunning comparisons feature following after the magnificent adventure contained herein…

Simply put, more carbon-based lifeforms have experienced and marvelled at the uniquely innovative, grungy, lived-in tech realism and light-hearted swashbuckling rollercoaster romps of Méziéres & Christin than any other cartoon spacer ever imagined possible.

The groundbreaking series followed a Franco-Belgian mini-boom in fantasy fiction triggered by Jean-Claude Forest’s 1962 creation Barbarella. Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent launched in the November 9th, 1967 edition of Pilote (#420) and was an instant hit. In combination with Greg & Eddy Paape’s Luc Orient and Philippe Druillet’s Lone Sloane, Valérian‘s hot public reception led to the creation of dedicated adult graphic sci fi magazine Métal Hurlant in 1977.

Valérian and Laureline (as the series eventually became) is light-hearted, wildly imaginative time-travelling, space-warping fantasy (a bit like Dr. Who, but not really at all…), drenched in wry, satirical, humanist action and political commentary, starring, in the beginning, an affable, capable, unimaginative and by-the-book cop tasked with protecting the official universal chronology and counteracting paradoxes caused by casual time-travellers.

When Valérian travelled to 11th century France in the initial tale ‘Les Mauvais Rêves (‘Bad Dreams’) he was rescued from doom by a fiery, capable young woman named Laureline whom he brought back to the 28th century super-citadel and administrative wonderland of Galaxity, capital of the Terran Empire. The indomitable lass trained as a Spatio-Temporal operative and began accompanying him on his missions.

Every subsequent Valérian adventure until the 13th was first serialised weekly in Pilote until the conclusion of ‘The Rage of Hypsis’ after which the mind-boggling sagas were only published as all-new complete graphic novels, until the whole spectacular saga resolved and ended in 2010.

The Empire of a Thousand Planets originally ran in Pilote #520-541from October 23rd 1969 to March 19th 1970 and saw the veteran and rookie despatched to the fabled planet Syrte the Magnificent, capital of vast system-wide civilisation and a world in inexplicable and rapid technological and social decline.

The mission is one of threat-assessment: staying in their base time-period (October 2720) the pair are tasked with examining the first galactic civilisation ever discovered that has never experienced any human contact or contamination, but as usual, events don’t go according to plan…

Despite easily blending into a culture with a thousand sentient species, Valerian and Laureline soon find themselves plunged into intrigue and dire danger when the acquisitive girl buys an old watch in the market.

Nobody on Syrte knows what it is since all the creatures of this civilisation have an innate, infallible time-sense, but the gaudy bauble soon attracts the attention of one of the Enlightened – a sinister cult of masked mystics who have the ear of the Emperor and a stranglehold on all technologies….

The Enlightened are responsible for the stagnation within this once-vital interplanetary colossus and they quickly move to eradicate the Spatio-temporal agents. Narrowly escaping doom, the pair reluctantly experience the staggering natural wonders and perils of the wilds beyond the capital city before dutifully returning to retrieve their docked spaceship.

Soon however our dauntless duo are distracted and embroiled in a deadly rebellion fomented by the Commercial Traders Guild. Infiltrating the awesome palace of the puppet-Emperor and exploring the mysterious outer planets Valerian and Laureline discover a long-fomenting plot to destroy Earth – a world supposedly unknown to anyone in this Millennial Empire…

All-out war looms and the Enlightened’s incredible connection to post-Atomic disaster Earth is astonishingly revealed just as inter-stellar conflict erupts between rebels and Imperial forces, with our heroes forced to fully abandon their neutrality and take up arms to save two civilisations a universe apart yet inextricably linked…

Comfortingly, yet unjustly familiar, this spectacular space-opera is fun-filled, action-packed, visually breathtaking and mind-bogglingly ingenious.  Drenched in wide-eyed fantasy wonderment, science fiction adventures have never been better than this.

© Dargaud Paris, 1971 Christin, Méziéres & Tran-Lệ. All rights reserved. English translation © 2011 Cinebook Ltd.

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Showcase Presents World’s Finest volume 1


By Edmond Hamilton, Bill Finger, Curt Swan, Dick Sprang & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1697-9

Some things were just meant to be: Bacon & Eggs, Rhubarb & Custard, Chalk & Cheese…

For many years Superman and Batman worked together as the “World’s Finest” team. They were friends as well as colleagues and the pairing made sound financial sense since DC’s top heroes (in effect the company’s only costumed stars) could cross-pollinate and, more importantly, cross-sell their combined readerships.

This most inevitable of Paladin Pairings first occurred on the Superman radio show in the early 1940s, whilst in comics the pair had only briefly met whilst on a Justice Society of America adventure in All-Star Comics #36 (August-September 1947) – and perhaps even there they missed each other in the gaudy hubbub…

Of course they had shared the covers on World’s Finest Comics from the outset, but never crossed paths inside; sticking firmly to their specified solo adventures within. So for us pictorial continuity buffs, the climactic first time was in the pages of Superman’s own bi-monthly comic (issue #76, May/June 1952).

Science fiction author Edmond Hamilton was tasked with revealing how Man of Steel and Caped Crusader first met – and accidentally discovered each other’s identities – whilst sharing a cabin on an over-booked cruise liner. Although an average crime-stopper yarn, it was the start of a phenomenon. The art for ‘The Mightiest Team in the World’ was by the superb Curt Swan and inkers John Fischetti & Stan Kaye with that keynote caper the opening inclusion in this first magnificent monochrome compendium (which thereafter re-presents their first 41 collaborations from World’s Finest Comics #71-111).

With dwindling page counts, rising costs but a proven readership and years of co-starring but never mingling, World’s Finest Comics #71 (July-August 1954) presented the Man of Tomorrow and the Gotham Gangbuster in the first of their official shared cases as the Caped Crusader became ‘Batman – Double For Superman!’ (by scripter Alvin Schwartz with Swan & Kaye providing the pictures) as the merely mortal hero traded identities to preserve his comrade’s alter ego and latterly, his life…

‘Fort Crime!’ (Schwartz, Swan & Kaye) saw them unite to crush a highly organised mob with a seemingly impregnable hideout, after which Hamilton returned to script ‘Superman and Batman, Swamis Inc’, a clever sting-operation that almost went tragically awry before an alien invader prompted an insane rivalry which resulted in ‘The Contest of Heroes’ by Bill Finger, Swan & Kaye, from World’s Finest #74.

The same creative team produced ‘Superman and Robin!’ wherein a disabled Batman could only fret and fume as his erstwhile assistant seemingly dumped him for a better man, whereas ‘When Gotham City Challenged Metropolis’ (Hamilton, Swan & Charles Paris) saw the champions at odds as their hometowns over-aggressively vied for a multi-million dollar electronics convention before a landmark tale by Hamilton, Swan & Kaye invented a new sub-genre when a mad scientist’s accident temporarily removed the Caped Kryptonian’s powers and created ‘The Super-Batman!’ in WF #77.

Arguably Batman’s greatest artist joined the creative crew ‘When Superman’s Identity is Exposed!’ (by Hamilton, Dick Sprang & Kaye) as a mysterious source kept revealing the Man of Steel’s greatest secret, only to be revealed as a well-intentioned disinformation stunt, whereas the accent was on high adventure when the trio became ‘The Three Musicians of Bagdad’ – a stunning time-travel romp from Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye.

When the Gotham Gazette faced closure days before a spectacular crime-expose, Clark Kent and Lois Lane joined dilettante Bruce Wayne as pinch-hitting reporters on ‘The Super-Newspaper of Gotham City’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Charles Paris) after which ‘The True History of Superman and Batman’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye, #81) saw a future historian blackmail the heroes into restaging their greatest exploits so his erroneous treatise on them would be accurate…

Hamilton also produced a magnificent and classy costumed drama when ‘The Three Super-Musketeers!’ visited 17th century France to solve the mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask whilst Bill Finger wrote a brilliant and delightful caper-without-a-crime in ‘The Case of the Mother Goose Mystery! before Hamilton provided insight on a much earlier meeting of the World’s Finest Team with ‘The Super-Mystery of Metropolis!’ in #84, all for Sprang & Kaye to enticingly illustrate.

Hamilton, Swan, Sprang & Kaye demonstrated how a comely Ruritanian Princess inadvertently turned the level-headed heroes into ‘The Super-Rivals’ (or did she?), before a monolithic charity-event ‘The Super-Show of Gotham City’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) was almost turned into a mammoth pay-day for unscrupulous con-men whilst ‘The Reversed Heroes’ (Finger, Sprang & Ray Burnley) once again saw the costumed champions swap roles when Batman and Robin gained powers thanks to Kryptonian pep-pills found by criminal Elton Craig, just as Superman’s powers faded…

World’s Finest #87 presented ‘Superman and Batman’s Greatest Foes!’ (Hamilton, Sprang, Kaye) and found “reformed” villains Lex Luthor and the Joker ostensibly setting up in the commercial robot business – which nobody really believed – after which seminal sequel ‘The Club of Heroes’ by Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye, reprised a meeting of Batmen from many nations (Detective Comics #215, January 1955 or Batman: the Black Casebook and a key plank of Grant Morrison’s epic Batman: the Black Glove serial) but added the intriguing sub-plot of an amnesiac Superman and a brand-new costumed champion…

That evergreen power-swap plot was revisited in #90’s ‘The Super-Batwoman’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) when the headstrong heroine defied Batman by restarting her costumed career and was quickly compelled to swallow Elton Craig’s last Krypton pill to prevent criminals getting it, after which the stirring time-busting saga of ‘The Three Super-Sleepers’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) saw our heroes fall into a trap which caused them to slumber for 1000 years and awaken in a fantastic world they could never escape…

But of course they could and once back where they belonged ‘The Boy From Outer Space!’ by Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye detailed how a super-powered amnesiac lad crashed to Earth and briefly became Superman’s sidekick Skyboy, whilst ‘The Boss of Superman and Batman’ (author unknown, Sprang & Kaye) revealed how a brain-amplifying machine turned Robin into a super-genius more than qualified to lead the trio in their battle against insidious rogue scientist Victor Danning.

When the Man of Tomorrow replaced the Caped Crusader with a new partner it led to a review of ‘The Origin of the Superman-Batman Team’ by Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye after which Dave Wood, Sprang & Ray Burnley pitted the now equally multi-powered and alien-entranced champions against each other in ‘The Battle of the Super-Heroes’ from WF #95.

A magical succession of magnificent and whacky classics began in #96 with Hamilton’s ‘The Super-Foes From Planet X’ as indolent and effete aliens dispatched fantastic monsters to battle the titanic trio for the best possible reasons, before Bill Finger took over scripting and turned the Man of Steel on his greatest friends in ‘The Day Superman Betrayed Batman’ after which ‘The Menace of the Moonman!’ pitted the heroes against a deranged hyper-powered astronaut, ‘Batman’s Super-Spending Spree!’ baffled all his close friends and Luthor then trapped Superman in the newly recovered Bottle City of Kandor and became ‘The Dictator of Krypton City’ – all astounding epics beautifully limned by Sprang & Kaye.

Sprang inked himself in the rocket-paced super-crime thriller ‘The Menace of the Atom-Master’ whilst it took Swan, Burnley, Sprang & Paris to properly unveil the titanic tragedy of ‘The Caveman from Krypton’ in #102.

‘The Secret of the Sorcerer’s Treasure’ (art by Sprang & Paris) found two treasure hunters driven mad by the tempting power unearthed magical artefacts and Luthor quickly regretted used a hostage Batwoman to facilitate ‘The Plot to Destroy Superman’ whereas the metamorphosis which turned Clark Kent into ‘The Alien Superman’ proved not at all what it seemed.

‘The Duplicate Man’ in WF #106 had developed an almost unbeatable crime tool – whereas ‘The Secret of the Time-Creature’ spanned centuries and produced one of Finger’s very best detective thrillers to baffle but never stump the Terrific Team.

Jerry Coleman took over scripting with ‘The Star Creatures’, (art by Sprang & Paris), the tale of an extraterrestrial moviemaker whose deadly props were stolen by Earth crooks, whilst ‘The Bewitched Batman’ drawn by Swan & Kaye, was a tense race to save the Gotham Guardian from an ancient curse and ‘The Alien who Doomed Robin’ (Sprang & Sheldon Moldoff) saw a symbiotic link between monster marauder and Boy Wonder leave the senior heroes apparently helpless… at least for a little while…

This inaugural black and white chronicle concludes with ‘Superman’s Secret Kingdom’ by Finger, Sprang & Moldoff from World’s Finest #111 (August 1960): a compelling lost world yarn wherein a cataclysmic holocaust deprives the Man of Steel of his memory and Batman and Robin have to find and cure him at all costs…

These are gloriously clever yet uncomplicated tales whose dazzling style has returned to inform if not dictate the form for much of DC’s modern television animation – especially the fabulous Batman: the Brave and the Bold series – and the contents of this tome are a veritable feast of witty, charming thrillers packing as much punch and wonder now as they always have.
© 1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Masterworks volume 5: The Amazing Spider-Man 11-20


By Stan Lee & Steve Ditko (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-480-2

After a shaky start The Amazing Spider-Man quickly became a popular sensation with kids of all ages, rivalling the creative powerhouse that was Lee & Kirby’s Fantastic Four and soon the quirky, charming action-packed comics soap-opera would become the model for an entire generation of younger heroes elbowing aside the staid, (relatively) old thirty-something mystery-men of previous publications.

This second supremely lavish deluxe hardback collection gathers issues #11-20 of the pulsating prodigy’s enduring exploits, covering April 1964 to January 1965, a truly stellar period of imaginative innovation and terrific thrills…

The wonderment begins with a magical two-part adventure ‘Turning Point’ and ‘Unmasked by Dr. Octopus!’ which saw the return of the lethally deranged and deformed scientist and the disclosure of a long-hidden secret which had haunted Peter Parker’s girlfriend Betty Brant for years.

The dark, tragedy-filled tale of extortion and excoriating tension stretched from Philadelphia to the Bronx Zoo and cannily tempered the trenchant melodrama with spectacular fight scenes in unusual and exotic locations, before culminating in a truly staggering super-powered duel as only the masterful Steve Ditko could orchestrate it.

A new super-foe premiered in Amazing Spider-Man #13 with ‘The Menace of Mysterio!’ as a seemingly eldritch bounty-hunter hired by Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson to capture Spider-Man eventually revealed his own dark agenda, whilst #14 was an absolute milestone in the series as a hidden criminal mastermind manipulated a Hollywood studio into making a movie about the wall-crawler.

Even with guest-star opponents such as the Enforcers and the Incredible Hulk ‘The Grotesque Adventure of the Green Goblin’ is most notable for introducing Spider-Man’s most perfidious and flamboyant enemy.

Jungle superman and thrill-junkie ‘Kraven the Hunter!’ made Spider-Man his intended prey at the behest of embittered old Spidey-foe the Chameleon in #15, whilst the Ringmaster and his Circus of Evil prompted #16′s dazzling and delightful ‘Duel with Daredevil’.

An ambitious three-part saga began in Amazing Spider-Man #17 which saw the rapidly-maturing hero touch emotional bottom before rising to triumphant victory over all manner of enemies. ‘The Return of the Green Goblin!’ saw the wall-crawler endure renewed print assaults from the Daily Bugle just as the Goblin began a war of nerves using the Enforcers, Sandman and an army of thugs to publicly humiliate the Amazing Arachnid, just as Aunt May’s health took a drastic downward turn.

Continued in ‘The End of Spider-Man!’ and concluded in ‘Spidey Strikes Back!’ – featuring a turbulent team-up with friendly rival the Human Torch – this extended tale proved that the fans were ready for every kind of narrative experiment (single issue and even two stories per issue were still the norm in 1964) and Stan and Steve were more than happy to try anything.

This magical compendium closes with ‘The Coming of the Scorpion!’ wherein Jameson let his obsessive hatred for the cocky kid crusader get the better of him; hiring scientist Farley Stillwell to endow a private detective with insectoid-based superpowers. Unfortunately the process drove Mac Gargan completely mad before he could capture Spidey, leaving the web-spinner with yet another lethally dangerous meta-nutcase to deal with…

Such was the early life of comic’s most misunderstood hero and this gloriously lavish collection of landmark tales absolutely resonates with mesmerising power and creativity.

This sturdy chronicle is simply the most self-indulgent way to enjoy these Marvel masterpieces.
© 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Masterworks volume 11: Giant-Size X-Men #1 and X-Men 94-100


By Len Wein, Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-597-3

The X-Men #1 introduced Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and the Beast: very special students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the emergent off-shoot race of mutants dubbed Homo Superior. After years of eccentric and spectacular adventures the mutant misfits disappeared at the beginning of 1970 (issue #66 cover-dated March) during a sustained downturn in costumed hero comics as mystery and all things supernatural once more gripped the world’s entertainment fields.

Although their title was revived at the end of the year as a cheap reprint vehicle, the missing mutants were reduced to guest-stars and bit-players throughout the Marvel universe and the Beast was transformed into a monster to cash in on the horror boom, until Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas green-lighted a bold one-shot in 1975 as part of the company’s line of Giant-Sized specials.

This magnificent deluxe hardcover compendium recaptures the sun-bright excitement of those exuberant and pivotal early stories from Giant Size X-Men #1 and issues #94-100 of the definitely “All-New, All-Different” X-Men from May 1975, through to August 1976 when the merry mutants were still, young, fresh and delightfully under-exposed and opens with a classic mystery monster mash in ‘Second Genesis!’ as Len Wein & Dave Cockrum (the latter hot from a stint reviving DC’s equally eclectic super-team The Legion of Super-Heroes) detailed how the classic team had been lost in action, leaving Charles Xavier to scour the Earth and the Marvel Universe for a replacement team.

To old foes-turned-friends Banshee and Sunfire was added a one-shot Hulk villain dubbed the Wolverine, but most time and attention was paid to new creations Kurt Wagner, a demonic German teleporter who would be codenamed Nightcrawler, African weather “goddess” Ororo Monroe AKA Storm, Russian farmboy Peter Rasputin, who could transform into a living steel Colossus and bitter, disillusioned Apache superman John Proudstar who was cajoled into joining the makeshift squad as Thunderbird.

The second chapter of the epic introductory adventure ‘…And When There Was One!’ reintroduced the wounded team leader Cyclops who swiftly trained the team before leading them into primordial danger against the monolithic threat of ‘Krakoa… the Island That Walks Like a Man!’

Overcoming the phenomenal terror of the living mutant eco-system and rescuing the original team should have led to the next quarterly issue, but so great was the groundswell of support that the follow-up adventure was reworked into a two part for in the rapidly reconfigured reprint monthly which became a bimonthly home to the team and began the mutant madness we’re still experiencing today.

X-Men #94 (August 1975) presented ‘The Doomsmith Scenario!’, plotted by Editor Wein, scripted by Chris Claremont and with Bob McLeod inking the man-on-fire Dave Cockrum, in a canny Armageddon-countdown shocker as the newly pared-down strike-squad (minus Sunfire and recovering mutants Marvel Girl, Angel, Iceman, Havok and Lorna Dane) were dispatched by The Beast – then serving as a full-time Avenger – to stop criminal terrorist Count Nefaria from starting an atomic war.

The insidious mastermind had invaded America’s Norad citadel with a gang of artificial superhumans and accidentally turned a nuclear blackmail scheme into an inescapable holocaust before the new mutants stormed in to save the world in the epic conclusion ‘Warhunt! (inked by Sam Grainger).

However one of the valiant neophytes didn’t make it back…

X-Men #96 saw Claremont take full control of the team’s writing (albeit with some plotting input from Bill Mantlo) in ‘Night of the Demon!’ as a guilt-wracked Cyclops, blaming himself for the loss of a team-mate, accidentally unleashed a demonic antediluvian horror from earth’s dimmest prehistory for the heroes-in-training to thrash. The infernal Nagarai would return over and again to bedevil mankind, but the biggest innovation in this issue was the introduction of gun-toting biologist/housekeeper Moira MacTaggert and the first inklings of the return of implacable old adversaries…

Issue #97 began a long-running, intergalactically-widescreen plotline with ‘My Brother, My Enemy!’ as Xavier, plagued by visions of interstellar wars, tried to take a vacation, just as Havok and Lorna Dane (finally settling on the superhero nom de guerre Polaris) attacked the team, seemingly willing servants of a mysterious madman using Cyclops’ old alter ego Eric the Red.

The devastating conflict segued into a spectacular, three-part saga as the pitiless robotic Sentinels returned under the hate-filled auspices of mutantophobic Steven Lang and his mysterious backers of Project Armageddon. The action began with #98’s ‘Merry Christmas, X-Men…the Sentinels Have Returned!’ with coordinated attacks successfully capturing the semi-retired Marvel Girl, Wolverine, Banshee and Xavier, compelling Cyclops and the remaining heroes to co-opt a space shuttle and storm Lang’s orbital HQ to rescue them in ‘Deathstar Rising!‘ (inks by Frank Chiaremonte) – another phenomenal all-action episode.

After a magical pinup of the extended team by Arthur Adams (the cover of Classic X-Men #1 from 1986 if you were wondering) this first stellar, deluxe hardcover compilation concludes on an agonising cliffhanger with the 100th issue anniversary classic ‘Greater Love Hath no X-Man…’ (with Cockrum inking his own pencils) wherein the new X-Men apparently battled the original team before overturning Lang’s monstrous schemes forever.

However, their catastrophic clash had destroyed their only means of escape and, as a colossal solar flare threatened to eradicate the entire satellite, the only chance to survive meant certain death for another X-Man…

With even greater excitement and innovation to follow in succeeding issues, these superb comics thrillers revolutionised a moribund genre and led directly to today’s ubiquitous popular cultural landscape where superheroes are as common as cops, cowboys, monsters or rom-com romeos.

The immortal epics compiled here are available in numerous formats (including softcover editions of the luxurious and enticing hardback under review here), but for a selection that will survive the continual re-readings of the serious, incurable fan there’s nothing to beat the sturdy and substantial full-colour feel of these Marvellous Masterwork editions.
© 1975, 1976, 1989 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc/Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Carnage


By Zeb Wells & Clayton Crain ((Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-492-8

In the anything goes, desperate hurly-burly of the late 1980s and 1990s, fad-fever and spin-off madness gripped the superhero genre in America as publishers hungrily exploited every trick to bolster flagging sales. In the melee Spider-Man spawned an intractable enemy called Venom: a deranged and disgraced reporter named Eddie Brock who bonded with Peter Parker’s old costume (an semi-sentient alien parasite called the Symbiote) to become a savage, shape-changing dark-side version of the Amazing Arachnid.

Eventually the spidery adversaries reached a brooding détente and Venom became a “Lethal Protector”, dispensing a highly individualistic brand of justice everywhere but New York City.

At one stage the Symbiote went into breeding mode; creating a junior version of itself that merged with a deranged psycho-killer named Cletus Kasady (in Amazing Spider-Man #344, March 1991). Totally amoral, murderously twisted and addicted to both pain and excitement, Kasady became the terrifying metamorphic Carnage and the kill-crazy monster tore a bloody swathe through the Big Apple before an army of superheroes caught him and the equally deadly “family” of otherworldly killers Kasady had gathered around himself – as seen in the crossover epic Maximum Carnage.

Kasady swiftly became one of the most dangerous beings on Earth until he was finally killed; his remains dumped safely into high-Earth orbit.

However, “safe” is an extremely relative word…

He made his inevitable, memorable return in a five-issue miniseries which ran from October 2010 to June 2011 and now collected in this dark and impressive tome which describes how ruthless media mogul Michael Hall allows his greed, arrogance and imagined rivalry with inventive genius Tony Stark to put the entire planet at risk once more…

Dr. Tanis Nieves is the dedicated psychotherapist tasked with curing Carnage’s mind-warping mutant “girlfriend” Shriek, but when a mysterious corporation buys the mental facility she works at and begins “employing” her patient in a top secret enterprise she fears the worst. As Doppelganger, another monstrous family member of the Maximum Carnage Family, resurfaces she is embroiled in a brutal superhero clash and maimed by her new employer’s security forces…

Meanwhile Hall has announced a new generation of prosthetic replacements, which too-perfectly mimic the subtlest actions of living limbs, as well as a cadre of armoured super-warriors to match the invincible Iron Man.

But his proposed business campaign is plagued by problems and escalating bloodshed. When Spider-Man and the Armoured Avenger investigate, they discover the monstrous lengths Hall has stooped to in his bid to become World Leader in advanced tech and, as the horrors Hall has resurrected rapidly achieve a blood-soaked autonomy, not only does Kasady make his own catastrophic return but a new generation of Symbiote is also unleashed…

Intoxicating, gripping and stunningly intense, this is a breathtaking horror movie-meets-corporate thriller yarn by Zeb Wells that rightly downplays the costumed heroics of Iron Man and the Wall-crawler to better revitalise and reinvigorate the now truly terrifying Carnage… and then let him loose on the Marvel Universe once more.

The only slight quibble I can proffer is that in some places the astounding painted artwork of Clayton Crain is perhaps a tad too dark and moody for my tired old eyes: still, that’s a minor moan and equally antiquated readers can at least revel in the glorious gallery of alternate covers at the back by the serried likes of Arthur Adams and Patrick Zircher.

Sharp superheroics, devilish corporate skulduggery, stupendous suspense and well-earned comeuppances abound and this is a shocker no fright-night thrill-fan will want to miss.

™ & © 2011 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A., Italy. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini UK, Ltd.

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Batman: The Black Glove


By Grant Morrison, J.H. Williams, Tony S. Daniel & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-962-8

In all the furore and hype surrounding the death and inevitable resurrection of Batman by Grant Morrison everybody seemed so concerned with what was going to happen next that they appeared to sideline what was actually occurring in the monthly comicbooks they were holding in their hands.

Now with the dust long settled let’s take a look at one of the collected volumes comprising the extended campaign of psychological warfare the Dark Knight faced on the complex and rocky road to his demise and disappearance at the conclusion of Batman R.I.P. (and Final Crisis, if you’re of a nitpicky nature like all us true comics fans…)

In the build-up to that epochal event a sustained and vicious multi-pronged attack was launched against the Gotham Guardian by an all-encompassing criminal hegemony calling itself The Black Glove which succeeded in destabilising the already dubious mental equilibrium of the emotionally and physically burned out Batman.

The Glove’s enigmatic, quixotic leader Dr. Hurt was masterminding every minute aspect of the war and was merrily dredging up long-forgotten foes and cases Bruce Wayne had all but banished from his mind…

This volume collects the contents of monthly Batman comicbooks #667-669 and #672-675; two impressive story-arcs which intensively reference tales included in the associate compilation Batman: the Black Casebook – so you might want to keep that tome handy, even though the new stories herein can readily be enjoyed without it.

The first of these is a delightful play on the hallowed and time-tested “locked-room” mysteries and “ten little Indians” plots of traditional detective thrillers as a group of Batman-inspired heroes from around the world reunite on a desolate isle to mull over the old days and what might have been…

Their original meetings had occurred in ‘The Batmen of All Nations!’ (Detective Comics #215, January 1955 and included in Black Casebook with its sequel ‘The Club of Heroes’ appearing in World’s Finest Comics #89, July-August 1957 – and collected in Showcase Presents World Finest volume 1).

Against his better judgement Batman agrees to a attend a reunion of the club – after a decade of embarrassment and acrimony – on ‘The Island of Mister Mayhew’ the millionaire backer of the original enterprise and a movie producer who’s most notable effort was a thriller entitled “The Black Glove”.

Like a garish High School Reunion, the years have not been kind to many of the B-list champions, but things get much worse when their transport is destroyed and heroes start dying in ‘Now We Are Dead!’ before traitors are uncovered, impostors unmasked and the true culprits get away to menace another day in the spectacular conclusion ‘The Dark Knight Must Die!’

Scripted by Grant Morrison with stunning illustration from J.H. Williams III, this is top-rate, classic Batman fare and some of the survivors of this saga even made it into the later Batman Incorporated storyline…

The four-part drama that follows (the intervening issues having formed chapters of Batman: the Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul crossover saga) sees a series of violently degenerate substitute Batmen unleashed on Gotham, beginning in ‘Space Medicine’, as the first ersatz crusader targets cops and their long-suffering chief Commissioner Jim Gordon.

When the real Dark Knight gets involved he soon realises in ‘Joe Chill in Hell’ that an old, nigh-forgotten case not only offers clues to his current dilemma, but might also have sown the seeds of his eventual defeat or victory.

Life-saving hallucinations and deeper explorations reveal that a long-buried contingency plan to protect his sanity might not be enough when ‘Batman Dies at Dawn’ before it all astonishingly comes together when he finally confronts ‘The Fiend with Nine Eyes’ and realises who his true enemy is and always has been…

With astounding art by Tony S. Daniel, Ryan Benjamin, Jonathan Glapion, Mark Irwin, Sandu Florea & Saleem Crawford, this visceral, imaginative and deliciously off-balance frantic psycho-thriller sets the scene for the ultimate showdown in Batman R.I.P. …

© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Add Toner – a Cometbus Collection


By Aaron Cometbus (Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-753-2

Before the advent of computers and the internet gave everybody with a keyboard and an ounce of determination the ability to become writers and publishers, only those truly dedicated, driven or Full-On Compulsive individualists self-published.

…Or those with something to say.

Aaron Cometbus (not his real name: use your search engine if you absolutely must find out about the man, but the best route would be to read his wonderful work) has been a drummer, roadie, author, designer, traveller, raconteur, social historian, bookseller and cultural anthropologist of the American Punk movement from long before he began his hugely acclaimed and long-running ‘Zine Cometbus in 1981.

In the decades over which his hand-crafted publication has been released (as photocopy pamphlet, offset magazine and even audio-mag) his writing and art have covered every aspect of the life of the contemporary outsider from self-exploratory introspection, reportage, criticism, oral history, music journalism, philosophical discourse and even unalloyed fiction – from epigram to novella, news bulletin to chatty remembrance – usually in a distinctive hand-lettered style all his own, augmented by cartoons, photo-collage, comics and a dozen other monochrome techniques beloved of today’s art-house cognoscenti.

Cometbus tells stories and has been doing so since the first death of the Punk Rock movement at the end of the 1970s, but the material is and always has been about real, involved people, not trendy, commercialised bastardisations.

In 2002 Last Gasp released Despite Everything, a 600+ page Omnibus distillation of the best bits from the first 43 issues (and still available) and now, with the publication of Cometbus #54,a second compilation has been released.

Add Toner, which samples issues #44-46, 46½, and 47-48 is a far more comprehensive collection with stories, reminiscences, interviews, artworks and added features such as the novella ‘Lanky’ and a selection of previously withheld and self-censored pieces which simply captivate and enthral.

Particularly informative and moving for me are the collected illustrated interviews with the “staff” and patrons of punk watering hole and communal meeting space Dead End Café from #46 (gloriously redolent and evocative of my own art-school punk band hang-out The Horn of Plenty in St. Albans) and a fabulous three-chapter oral history examination of the post-hippie “Back to nature” movement divided into interviews with ‘The Kids’, ‘The Adults’ and an appreciation of ‘Back to the Land’: a fascinating period in American history neglected by just about everybody, probably since most of those flower-power Arcadians and disenchanted just-plain-folks grew more pot than potatoes…

With graphic contributions and supplementary interviews from Phil Lollar, Nate Powell, Katie Glicksberg, Idon, Lawrence Livermore & Michael Silverberg, this is a gloriously honest and seditiously entertaining view of life from the trenches: happy, sad, funny and shocking…

Eccentric, eclectic and essentially, magically picayune, Add Toner is a fabulous cultural doctorate from the Kerouac of m-m-my generation…

© Aaron Cometbus. All rights reserved.