Firestorm, the Nuclear Man: Reborn


By Stuart Moore, Jamal Igle & Keith Champagne (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1219-3

One of the best “straight” superhero series of the last decade came and went with very little fanfare and only (thus far) this intriguing collection to mark its passage. Firestorm the Nuclear Man was created by Gerry Conway and Al Milgrom, launched in 1978 and promptly fell foul of the “DC Implosion” after five flamboyant, fun-filled issues.

High School Jock Ronnie Raymond and Nobel winning nuclear physicist Martin Stein were, due to a bizarre concatenation of circumstances, caught in an atomic blast that melded their bodies and minds into a fusion-powered being with extraordinary powers over matter and energy. Ronnie had conscious control of their consolidated body, and became an exuberant, flashy superhero, with a unique pantheon of villains all his own.

He was drafted into the Justice League of America, and eventually starred in a well received back-up series in The Flash (#289 to 304) which led to his second chance; Fury of Firestorm (100 issues and five Annuals between June 1982 and August 1990) before fading into the quiet semi-obscurity of team-books and guest-shots.

In 2004 Dan Jolley and Chrisscross reinvented the character, as black Detroit kid Jason Rusch was brought back from the brink of death thanks to a blazing energy ball (the Firestorm matrix seeking a new host after the murder of its previous body – although nobody discovered that for nearly a year…). This new version of the Nuclear Man can absorb any other body into the matrix, using them as a kind of battery – or more accurately spark plug – for Jason’s powers.

After impressively establishing himself as a hero in his own right he joined Donna Troy’s Space Strike Force in the Infinite Crisis (ISBN: 978-1-4012-0959-9), consequently suffering hideous injuries.

Inexplicably this volume (reprinting issues #23-27 of the third Firestorm comicbook series) ignores all that back-story and begins as part of the One Year Later narrative strand. Jason can now only combine with fellow atomic hero Firehawk, and their uncombined personas cannot safely be more than a mile apart. That’s rather problematic as Jason is a student in New York and Lorraine Reilley, when not Firehawk, is a United States Senator. Jason’s teleporting girlfriend Gehenna isn’t too keen on how much time her man and that “Older Woman” spend together either…

As Firestorm they are desperately searching for Martin Stein, missing for a year and somehow connected to a plot to destroy the Earth, but their quest has also made them/him the target for some extremely dangerous people…

By trying not to give too much away I might have made this tale seem a bit daunting or confusing, but it really isn’t. This is a deliciously clever and witty adventure, providing plenty of opportunities to bring first-time fans up to speed, with likable characters, dastardly villains, an intriguing mystery, plenty of action and loads of laughs – just like the rest of the series was. It reads enchantingly and is really beautiful to look at; so I just don’t understand why newcomers’ first exposure to this material should be with the twenty-third chapter and not the first…

Hopefully Firestorm’s scheduled appearances in the second season of the Brave and the Bold TV show will prompt somebody to collect the rest of this utterly appetising little gem of comic in trade paperback form. For your sake, as well as mine, I truly hope so…

© 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

The Raven Banner – A Marvel Graphic Novel (#15)


By Alan Zelenetz & Charles Vess (Marvel)
ISBN: 0- 87135-060-2

It’s been a while since Marvel published an all-original graphic novel as opposed to a collection, but not too long ago they were the market leader in the field with an entire range of “big stories” told on larger than normal pages (285 x 220mm rather than the now customary 258 x 168mm) featuring not only proprietary characters but also licensed assets like Conan and even creator-owned properties like Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar.

From the cod mythology of Marvel’s bowdlerized Aesir Alan Zelenetz and Charles Vess crafted this beautiful fairytale/fable that would not be out of place amongst the true Elder Eddas. Merry Marvelites will be enthralled by the inclusion of Balder the Brave as well as cameos by such Asgardian stalwarts as Thor and Hogun, Fandral and Volstagg – the Warriors Three – but the true story of honour lost and redeemed in the name of eternal glory belongs to the young wastrel Greyval Grimson who forsook his duty and paid the proper price.

Asgard is land of warrior gods constantly confronting monstrous evil, but Storm Giants, witches and dark elves can never triumph as long as heroes battle beneath the flowing Raven Banner. As long as the standard bearer holds it high, victory is assured, although its ancient magic demands the death of the bearer every time. But when the eternal enemies clash upon the Plain of Ida and Grim Magnus fulfills his fated task, for the first time his successor is not there to take up the perilous pennon. Where is the dying warrior’s son?

Greyval Grimson, although wed to Sygnet the Valkyrie Shield-Maiden, is still a flighty lad, full of joy and keen on merriment. As the Banner is torn from his father’s dying grasp the boy is dancing drunk with the treacherous trolls. Seduced from his duty, he is yet unaware that his negligence has not only lost him a father but also imperiled the entire kingdom of the Gods…

The penitent boy’s quest to regain the Raven Banner and his own true self is an unparalleled, magical tale of heroism, as accompanied by Balder and the fuzzy but querulous Oddbrand, the Otter God, he strives to overcome not only the assembled forces of Death and Evil, but also the overbearing ambition of a fellow Asgardian, whose head has been turned by dreams of unearned fame…

This tale of triumph and tragedy is a perfect blend of Marvel’s Norse Gods and the classical legends that inspired them; stirring and beguiling by turns and painted with astounding facility by Vess in full, acknowledged tribute to the works of Arthur Rackham and Hal Foster. It is a magnificent piece of storytelling and I simply cannot understand why such a universally appealing work is not permanently in print. Track a copy down, and see what I mean…
© 1985 Marvel Comics Group. All Rights Reserved.

Joker


By Brian Azzarello & Lee Bermejo, with Mick Gray and Patricia Mulvihill (DC Comics/Titan Books Edition)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-983-3

I’m going to voice what is probably a minority opinion here, so please be aware that this is possibly one of those books that you’ll need to make your own mind up about – but then again, aren’t they all?

Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo have, singly and in partnership, created some of the best and most popularly received comics tales of the last decade or so: tough, uncompromising, visually memorable yarns that explore the darkest facets of human nature, yet with a deep core of sardonic wit – thoroughly readable, always-challenging.

So a book dedicated to the grotesque antithesis and ultimate foe of the coldly logical Dark Knight would seem like the ideal vehicle for their talents and particular world-views…

The Joker is getting out of Arkham Asylum. Incredibly, the Clown Prince of Crime and undisputed ruler of all Gotham City’s rackets has been judged sane. He’s coming out, and he’s going to want his old position back. The mobsters that now run the city are terrified but resigned. He’s coming back, so somebody has to go get him…

Made Man on a downward spiral Johnny Frost volunteers to be the guy, becoming his chauffeur and bodyguard in the process. The Joker is murderous time-bomb everybody expects to explode at any moment, and as soon as he hits the City he recruits Killer Croc as his enforcer, and begins to work his way back to the top of the heap, using his reputation and horrify propensity for Baroque bloodletting the way a rattlesnake uses his tail.

Many of Batman’s rogues’ gallery (Penguin, Two-Face, Riddler and so on) are in attendance in various uncharacteristic positions of nefarious authority, and the events – narrated with growing desperation by helpless witness Johnny Frost – spiral towards an inevitable and bloody climax of madness and conflict, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was just another post-modern take on the classic gangster plot of a ruthless thug reclaiming his territory.

No matter how beautiful or well executed (and it is), nor how much overlap there is with the Dark Knight film (despite company denials it seems like lots to me, at least in terms of look and feel) this just does not work as Joker story. Scar-Face, Blackmask, Maxie Zeus, even a real criminal like Al Capone perhaps, but the Joker isn’t a “Goodfella” with a grudge and some gory peccadilloes: he’s the ultimate expression of random, bloody chaos, a bundle of “Impulse Issues” wrapped tight in a spiky ball of psychosis…

Apparently devised as a miniseries and “promoted” to a high-profile original hardback before release, this is a taut and nasty thriller, immaculately illustrated: but there’s very little Batman in there, and no Joker at all…

© 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Thor


By J. Michael Straczynski, Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1722-3

I’m always a little dubious about high-profile, big-name relaunches, coming as I do from that curmudgeonly old school which believes that “there are no bad characters”, “Iconoclasm isn’t Creativity” and especially “Famous doesn’t mean Good”.

So it’s rather refreshing to be able to say that the newest incarnation of Marvel’s God of Thunder is a delightfully good read. Collecting issues #1-6 of the monthly comicbook it finds all the entities of Asgard dead and gone (see Avengers Disassembled: Thor, ISBN: 978-0-7851-1599-1 for the startling details) until a mysterious voice summons Thor back to life – and Earth (us fans call it Midgard) – in a crack of spectacular thunder. Revived for an unspecified purpose the solitary Lord of Asgard sets about retrieving the souls of his fellow godlings, scattered and hidden inside human hosts – or perhaps incubators?

There’s a welcome reappearance and significant role for Thor’s early alter-ego Don Blake when the Thunderer rebuilds Asgard in the wilds of Oklahoma and plenty of action as the immortal hero adapts to a world that has radically changed since his demise. Even with cataclysmic battles against former ally Iron Man and the Dread Demolisher, plus a radical new look for the hero’s oldest and most implacable foe, the real joy here is the savvy script, especially the interactions between the resurrected gods and their new neighbours the ordinary folks of Broxton, Oklahoma,.

Beautiful to look at, engagingly written and with a welcome dose of political intrigue and social commentary, this “cosmic comic” has a lot of earthy resonance to balance the scope of its own mythology and, despite ending on an annoying cliffhanger, is a book to recommend to complete neophytes as well as dedicated fans. If you’ve never seen Thor before, you should now…

© 2007, 2008 Marvel Publishing, Inc., a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

Connective Tissue


By Bob Fingerman (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-143-5

The always innovative and entertaining Bob Fingerman turns his post-modern attentions to the burgeoning sector of illustrated novellas (picture books for grown-ups) with this classy, sassy and wickedly beguiling blend of Alice in Wonderland, Stranger in a Strange Land and Clerks with just a dash of Allan Moyle’s hugely underrated 1995 movie Empire Records.

There’s a whole other class in the world, eternally young, worldly-wise and yet unaccountably innocent. They dress oddly, know cool but useless things, don’t care about pension plans or job security and work only to live their outside lives. They are the disaffected tribe who work for minimum wage in the odd corners of modern retail: record stores, non-chain book shops, computer games stores, comic shops…

They’re not an underclass, just a different one.

Darla Vogel earns her living at Kwok’s Video rental store. As a cool and rudely healthy chick in a venue that attracts a lot of loners and weirdoes she often finds herself the object of fumbling attention and unwanted gifts, but one particular night when she gets home she finds herself abducted via a poster on her wall into a disturbing new universe: bleakly undulating, slightly skewed, grossly organic and filled with far too much of the wrong kind of nakedness. Darla wants to go home…

Fingerman takes a classic plot with a much funnier and more feisty heroine, adds a dollop of queasy otherworldliness, peppers it all with dry wit and an avalanche of contemporary references – everything from celebrity gossip to comic strips – before adding his own subversively funny tone-and-wash illustrations (a delightful remembrance of the best Mad Magazine pages) to produce a runaway delight for adult lovers of the outré and outrageous.

Get it: it’s good!

© 2009 Bob Fingerman. All Rights Reserved.

The Best of Roy of the Rovers: the 1980s


By Tom Tulley & David Sque (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84576948-2

There was a time when comics in Britain reflected the interests of a much larger proportion of the youthful population, and when adults kept their bizarre reading habits a closely guarded secret. Now that it’s practically cool to read graphic narrative, one of the nation’s greatest heroes – sporting, as well as comic related – has been revived in a series of collections from Titan Books.

Roy of the Rovers began on the front cover of Tiger, a new weekly anthology comic published by Amalgamated Press (later IPC and Fleetway Publications). Launched on September 11th 1954, “The Sport and Adventure Picture Story Weekly” was a cannily crafted companion to Lion, Amalgamated’s successful response to Hulton Press’ mighty Eagle (home of Dan Dare).

From the first Tiger concentrated heavily on sports stars and themes, with issue #1 also featuring The Speedster from Bleakmoor, Mascot of Bad Luck and Tales of Whitestoke School amongst others. In later years racing driver Skid Solo and wrestler Johnny Cougar joined the more traditional, earthy strips such as Billy’s Boots, Nipper, Hotshot Hamish and Martin’s Marvellous Mini, but for most of its 1,555-issue run it was “the comic with Roy of the Rovers”.

Created by Frank S. Pepper, who used the pseudonym Stewart Colwyn, and drawn by Joe Colquhoun, Roy was written for much of his early career by the comic’s Editor Derek Birnage (although credited to “Bobby Charlton” for a couple of years). In 1975 Roy became player-manager and the following year got his own weekly comic, just in time for the 1976-77 season, premiering on September 25th and running for 855 issues (ending 20th March 1993).

Roy Race started as a humble apprentice at mighty Melchester Rovers, and after may years of winning all the glories the beautiful game could offer, settled down to live the dream: wife, kids, wealth, comfort and triumphant adventure every Saturday…

This glossy oversized paperback covers the period September 20th 1980 to 4th June 1982, when the comic was regularly selling a million copies a week. The stories were always much more than simply “He shoots! He’s scored!!!” formulaic episodes: they’re closer to the sports-based TV dramas of later decades like Dream Team (litigiously so, in some cases…).

This segment begins with Melchester Rovers’ worst season ever. The team are knocked out of the FA Cup and even relegated, only to fight their way back to the top flight despite such distractions as spoilt-brat players, a TV company making a serial about the club and even Roy’s wife leaving him…

Weekly comics have a tremendous advantage when it comes to staying topical. From draught script to issue-on-sale can be as little as six weeks. This meant that with a judicious eye to the upcoming events diary a strip can comfortably lock into big public occasions and even short lived crazes. Two solid examples here are Roy’s attendance of the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, and the dramatic sequence of events following the attempted murder of the indomitable player-manager.

The mystery of “Who Shot Roy Race” mirrored the “Who Shot JR?” furore generated by TV soap Dallas, although with a far more logical conclusion…

Old football comics are never going to be the toast of the medium’s Critical Glitterati, but these were astonishingly popular strips in their day, and produced for maximum entertainment value by highly skilled professionals. They still have the power to enthral and captivate far beyond the limits of nostalgia and fashion. If your footy-mad youngster isn’t reading enough, this might be the cunning tactic to catch him – or her – totally offside…

© 2008 Egmont UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Justice League Unlimited Sticker Book


By various (Alligator Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84750-335-0

It’s never too soon to get your young ‘uns hooked on the hard stuff as this wonderful black and white activity book for the three-and-up crowd proves with its selection of word puzzles, drawing grid exercises, recognition tests, mazes, join-the-dot puzzles and good old-fashioned colouring pages, all based on the DC characters who made up the cartoon Network version of the Justice League of America – that’s Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, the John Stewart/Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and my personal feisty favourite, Hawkgirl.

This attention-riveting tome is also a Sticker Book, which means that there are loads of very cool, full-colour, peel-off adhesive images (Reusable! It says on the front so you know it must be true!) which can be placed in relevant – or not – places to great effect.

Produced by the collective efforts of Brian Augustyn, Jason Hernandez Rosenblatt, Bob Rozakis, Jason Armstrong, Dan Davis, Mike DeCarlo, John Delaney, Craig Rousseau and Joe Staton this great package is another perfect tool in the never-ending crusade to teach kids to love comics, books and reading. And some of the kids who get this book will undoubtedly want to graduate to the comic afterward…

In a world where books are increasingly alien to people, the combination of great characters, compelling pictures and every darn attention-seizing trick in the book is a welcome tactic for getting kids reading and not Wii-ing. Forget video games, buy that child a book! And if you’re worried about exercise, make ’em do the colouring-in standing up…
TM and © 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Hanna-Barbera’s Shazzan: The Glass Princess


By Don Christiansen & Dan Spiegle (Whitman)
No ISBN ASIN: B000H7WMWA

Big Little Books were first produced by the Whitman Publishing Company in 1932: compact square-bound tiny tomes, typically 3⅝″ wide and 4½″ tall by 1½″ thick (hand-sized for kids, right?) anything from 212 to 432 pages long, retailing for the magical 10 cents (eventually hiking up to 15 cents) that even the poorest kids could find. Designed as blocks of text on one side accompanied by a full page illustration across the gutter they simply screamed “great value” to the budget-conscious kid who could find the adventures of his/her favourite radio, movie, literary, carton, newspaper strip and eventually toy or comicbook star within those stiffened pages. The very first was The Adventures of Dick Tracy, released in December 1932.

Quickly followed by other publishers such as Saalfield, Goldsmith, World Syndicate and others, the diminutive hardbacks were soon filling the shelves of retail chain shops such as Woolworths with the gaudy dramas of such luminaries as The Shadow, The Gumps, John Carter of Mars, Lone Ranger, Li’l Abner, Tarzan, Popeye and hundreds more. The format proved popular until the 1960s by which time Whitman was the lone survivor, producing TV (including comicbook properties that had made the jump to the small screen such as Aquaman, Fantastic Four and Batman) and toy tie-ins such as the Monkees, Bonanza and Major Matt Mason.

Whitman, based in Racine, Wisconsin had been part of the monolithic Western Publishing and Lithography Company since 1915, and could draw on the commercial resources and industry connections that came with editorial offices on both coasts and even a subsidiary printing plant in Poughkeepsie, New York. Another connection was with fellow Western subsidiary K.K. Publications (named for licensing legend Kay Kamen who facilitated merchandising deals for Walt Disney Studios between 1933 and 1949).

From 1938 Western’s comic book output was released under a partnership deal with a “pulps” periodical publisher under the imprint Dell Comics -and again those creative staff and commercial contacts fed into the line-up of the Big Little and Little Golden/Golden Press books for children. This partnership ended in 1962 and Western reinvented its comics division as Gold Key, but as always, its strong licenses allowed it to explore other book formats (see our review of Superman Smashes the Mad Director).

From 1968 comes this spiffy little adventure of based on a popular cartoon adventure show in which siblings Chuck and Nancy find two magic rings in a cave. Each has half a coin on it and when the rings are brought together they spell the name Shazzan – mightiest of all Genies!

Transported back to fabled Arabia the kids have been told by the genie that they must return the rings to the true owner before they can go home again, leading to many splendid adventures in the world of the 1,001 Nights…

In this remarkably entertaining and engrossing tale the kids, aided by their flying camel Kaboobie, get one step closer to their final destination when they battle barbarous sky-pirates, winged monsters and the villainous Shalagar, whose spells have enslaved a nation, turned the beautiful Princess Nada Tia into a crystal statue and whose Diamond Sword is the only weapon that can kill a Genie!

Fast-paced, fanciful and exceedingly well-written, Don Christiansen’s story is perfectly complimented by 123 colour plates from the astoundingly talented Gold Key mainstay Dan Spiegle, working in his patented Alex Toth TV cartoon style.

These little gems are long overdue for some sort of collective retrospective, but at least this fine tale can still be found at relatively low prices from various internet retailers, so if you’re intrigued, enthused or simple starved for nostalgia, you know what to do…
© 1968 Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Showcase Presents Jonah Hex volume 1


By John Albano, Michael Fleisher, Tony DeZuñiga, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1817-1

The Western is an odd genre that can almost be sub-divided into two discrete halves: the sparkly, shiny version that dominated kids’ books, comics and television for decades, best typified by Zane Grey stories and heroes such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry – and the other stuff.

That sort of cowboy tale, grimy, gritty, excessively dark, was done best for years by Europeans in such strips as Jean-Michel Charlier’s Lieutenant Blueberry or Bonelli and Galleppini’s Tex Willer which made their way into US culture through the films of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone. Jonah Hex is the latter sort.

DC (or National Periodicals as it then as) had run a stable (sorry!) of clean-cut gun-slingers since the collapse of the super-hero genre in 1949, with such dashing – and highly readable – luminaries as Johnny Thunder, The Trigger Twins, Nighthawk, Matt Savage and dozens of others in a marketplace that seemed limitless in its voracious hunger for chaps in chaps; but all things end, and by the early sixties the sagebrush brigade had dwindled to a few venerable properties.

As the 1960s closed, the thematic changes in the cinematic Cowboy filtered through to a comics industry suffering its second super-hero retreat in twenty years. Although a critical success, the light-hearted Western series Bat Lash couldn’t garner a solid following, but DC, desperate for a genre that readers would warm to, retrenched and revived an old title, gambling once again on heroes who were no longer simply boy scouts with six-guns.

All-Star Western #1 was released with an August/September 1970 cover date, filled with Pow-Wow Smith reprints, becoming an all-new anthology with its second bi-monthly issue. The magazine was allocated a large number of creative all-stars, including Robert Kanigher, Neal Adams, Gray Morrow, Al Williamson, Gil Kane, Angelo Torres, and Dick Giordano, working on such strips as Outlaw!, Billy the Kid and the cult sleeper hit El Diablo, which combined shoot-’em-up shenanigans with supernatural chills, in deference to the real hit genre-type that saved comics in those dark days.

But it wasn’t until issue #10 and the introduction of a disfigured and irascible bounty hunter created by writer John Albano and Tony DeZuniga that the company found its greatest and most enduring Western warrior. This superb collection of the early appearances of Jonah Hex has been around for a few years, with no apparent sign of a sequel yet, so consider this a heartfelt attempt to generate a few sales and lots of interest… But before we even get to the meat of the review let’s look at the back of this wonderfully economical black and white gun-fest where some of those abortive experimental series have been included at no added expense.

Outlaw was created by Kanigher and DeZuniga, a generation gap drama wherein Texas Ranger Sam Wilson was forced to hunt down his troubled and wayward son Rick. Over four stylish chapters – ‘Death Draw’, ‘Death Deals the Cards!’ (#3, illustrated by Gil Kane), ‘No Coffin for a Killer’ and the trenchant finale ‘Hangman Never Loses’ (#5, drawn by Jim Aparo), the eternal struggles of Good and Evil, Old and New were effectively played out, all strongly influenced by Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns.

The series was replaced by one of the best and definitely the most radical interpretation of Billy the Kid ever seen in comics; a sardonic, tragic vengeance-saga that began with the hunt for the killer of Billy’s father and developed into a poignant eulogy for the passing of an era. Billy’s quest (‘Billy the Kid… Killer’, Bullet for a Gambler’ and ‘The Scavenger’ all by Albano and DeZuniga) ran in issues #6-8. The book closes with a classic spooky Western tale from issue #7: ‘The Night of the Snake’ was written by Gil Kane and Denny O’Neil, and strikingly illustrated by Kane and DeZuniga, clearly showing each creator’s love for the genre…

As good as those lost gems are, the real star of this tome is the very model of the modern anti-hero, Jonah Hex, who first appeared in All-Star Comics #10, a coarse and callous bounty hunter clad in a battered Confederate Grey tunic and hat, half his face lost to some hideous past injury; a brutal thug little better than the scum he hunted – and certainly a man to avoid. ‘Welcome to Paradise’ by Albano and DeZuniga introduced the character and his world in a powerful action thriller, with a subtle sting of sentimentality that anyone who has seen the classic western “Shane” cannot fail to appreciate.

From the first set-up Albano was constantly hinting at the tortured depths hidden behind Hex’s hellishly scarred visage and deadly proficiency. In ‘The Hundred Dollar Deal’ (#11) the human killing machine encountered a wholesome young couple who weren’t what they seemed and the scripts took on an even darker tone from #12. The comic had been re-titled Weird Western Tales (aligning it with the company’s highly successful horror/mystery books and ‘Promise to a Princess’ combined charm and tragedy in the tale of a little Pawnee girl and the White Man’s insatiable greed and devilish ingenuity.

From the very start the series sought to redress some of the most unpalatable motifs of old style cowboy literature and any fan of films like Soldier Blue and Little Big Man or Dee Brown’s iconoclastic book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee will feel a grim sense of vicarious satisfaction and redress at most of the stories here. There’s also a huge degree of world-weary cynicism that wasn’t to be found in other comics until well past the Watergate Scandal, when America as whole lost its social and political innocence…

Issue #13 ‘The Killer’s Last Wish!’ again touched the heartstrings in the tale of a lovable old man and his greedy, impatient son, with Hex the unlikely arbiter of final justice. ‘Killers Die Alone!’ is an vicious tear jerker of a tale as Hex’s only friend dies to save him the vengeance of killers who blame the bounty hunter for their brother’s death, whilst ‘Grasshopper Courage’(#16 – Hex didn’t appear in #15) shows a shrewd grasp of human nature as Hex and an inept young sheriff track a gang of stagecoach robbers.

‘The Hangin’ Woman’ in #17 is a classy thriller wherein Hex runs afoul of a sadistic harridan who rules her hometown with hemp and hot lead, whilst ‘The Hoax’ finds him embroiled in a gold-rush scam that as usual ends bloody. With this tale the length of the stories, always growing, finally reached the stage where they pushed everything else out of the comic for the first time. Before too long the situation would become permanent. ‘Demon on my Trail’ in #19 dealt with kidnapping and racism, whilst ‘Blood Brothers’ (written by Arnold Drake) again addressed Indian injustice as Hex was hired by the US Cavalry to hunt down a woman stolen by a charismatic “redskin”.

Albano returned for ‘The Gunfighter’, as an injured Hex at last hinted about his veiled past while tracking a gang of killers, but it was new writer Michael Fleisher (assisted at first by Russell Carley) who would reveal Hex’s secrets beginning with Weird Western Tales #22’s ‘Showdown at Hard Times’. A chance meeting in a stagecoach put a cabal of ex-Confederate soldiers on the trail of their ex-comrade for some unrevealed betrayal that inevitably ended in a six-gun bloodbath, and introduced a returning nemesis for the grizzled gunslinger.

More was revealed in ‘The Point Pyrrhus Massacre!’ as another gang of Southern malcontents attempted to assassinate President Ulysses Grant, with Hex crossing their gun-sights for good measure. Issue #24 was illustrated by Noly Panaligan, and ‘The Point Pyrrhus Aftermath!’ found a severely wounded Hex a sitting duck for every gunman hot to make his reputation, depending for his life on the actions of a down-and-out actor…

‘Showdown with the Dangling Man’ looked at shady land deals and greedy businessmen with a typically jaundiced eye – and grisly imagination – whilst train-robbers were the bad-guys in the superb ‘Face-Off with the Gallagher Boys!’ illustrated by the inimitable Doug Wildey. Issue #27, by Fleisher and Panaligan featured ‘The Meadow Springs Crusade’ as the bounty hunter was hired to protect suffragettes agitating for women’s rights in oh-so-liberal Kansas, ‘Stagecoach to Oblivion’ (drawn by George Moliterni) saw him performing the same service for a gold-shipping company.

Hex’s past was finally revealed in #29’s ‘Breakout at Fort Charlotte’, a two-part extravaganza that gorily concluded with ‘The Trial’ (illustrated by Moliterni), as a battalion of Confederate veterans passed judgement on the man they believed to be the worst traitor in the history of the South.

‘Gunfight at Wolverine’ is a powerful variation on the legend of “Doc Holliday” and the Hex portion of the book concludes with a two-part adventure from Weird Western Tales #32 and 33, drawn by the great Jose Luis Garcia Lopez. ‘Bigfoot’s War’ and ‘Day of the Tomahawk’ is a compelling tale of intrigue, honour and double-cross as the bounty-hunter is again hired to rescue a white girl from those incorrigible “injuns” – and as usual hasn’t been told the full story…

Jonah Hex is the most unique and original character in cowboy comics, darkly comedic, rousing, chilling and cathartically satisfying. It’s a Western for those who despise the form whilst being the perfect modern interpretation of a great storytelling tradition. No matter what your reading preference, this is a collection you don’t want to miss.

© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Drinky Crow’s Maakies Treasury


By Tony Millionaire (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-975-3

Cartoonists have far more than their share of individuals with a unique perspective on the world. Ronald Searle, Charles Addams, George Herriman, Gerald Scarfe, Rick Geary, Steve Bell, Berke Breathed, Ralph Steadman, Bill Watterson, Matt Groening, Gary Larson – the list is potentially endless. Perhaps it’s the power to create entire sculptured worlds coupled with the constant threat of vented spleen that so colours their work – whether they paint or draw.

Tony Millionaire clearly loves to draw and does it very, very well; referencing classical art, the best of children’s books and an eclectic mix of pioneer draughtsmen like George McManus, Rudolph Dirks, Cliff Sterrett, Frank Willard, Harold Gray as well as the aforementioned Herriman from comics with European engravings from the “legitimate” side of the ink-slinging biz.

As well as children’s books, Billy Hazlenuts and the most wonderful Sock Monkey, Millionaire produces a powerfully bizarre weekly strip entitled Maakies which delineates the absurdly rude and surreal adventures of an Irish monkey called Uncle Gabby and his fellow alcoholic nautical adventurer Drinky Crow. In the tradition of the earliest US newspaper strips each episode comes with a linked mini-strip running across the base of the tale. Nominally based in a nautical setting of 19th century sea-faring adventure, the darkly-comical instalments vary from staggeringly rude and crude to absolutely hysterical, with content and gags utterly unhindered by the bounds of taste and decency: penetratingly incisive, witty and even poignant. It’s his playground – if you don’t like it, leave…

Launching in February 1994 in The New York Press the strip is now widely syndicated in the US in alternative newspapers such as LA Weekly and The Stranger and abroad in comics magazines such as Linus and Rocky. There was even an animated series that ran on Time-Warner’s Adult Swim strand.

Since continuity usually plays second fiddle to the wide range of inventive ideas, the strips can be read in almost any order and the debauched drunkenness, manic uber-violence, acerbic view of sexuality and deep core of existentialist angst (like Ingmar Bergman writing gags for Benny Hill) still finds a welcome with Slackers, Laggards, the un-Christian and all those scurrilous, hopeless Generations after X. Millionaire often surrenders a episode to fellow cartoonists to “do their own thing”.

If you’re not easily shock-able this is a fantastic and rewarding strip, one of the most constantly creative and entertaining on the market today, and this wonderful re-collection, gathering the material previously released in the out-of-print books When We Were Very Maakies, The House at Maakies Corner and Der Struwwelmaakies.

If you’re not a fan of Maakies this is the perfect tool to make you one; and if you’re already converted it’s the perfect gift for someone that ain’t…
© 2009 Tony Millionaire. All Rights Reserved.