Category: Adaptations

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Man of Steel – the Official Movie Novelization


By Greg Cox (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-599-7                  E-book edition ISBN: 978-1-78116-600-0

As you might have noticed, there’s another Superman movie hitting big screens at the moment and, as is the norm, the movie blockbuster comes with all the usual attendant extras.

Released a week after the premiere of Man of Steel, the Official Movie Novelization recapitulates that tale in an absorbing 320 page paperback – sadly sans any illustrations – for fans of a literary bent, duly expanding the breathtaking visual experience in the adroit, incisive way specialist author Greg Cox has made his own.

Don’t take my word for it: check his adaptations of films such as the Underworld trilogy, Daredevil, Ghost Rider or The Dark Knight Rises, comics series such as Infinite Crisis, Countdown, Final Crisis amongst others, as well as his legion of cult media tie-ins and comics-related books…

Spoiler Alert: since almost everybody alive knows the mythos of Superman by now and the whole point of this latest movie is to reinterpret, reinvigorate and reinstate that legend, I’m going to manfully restrain myself from outlining the plot of this engaging prose package in anything but the vaguest detail, in case you haven’t seen the stunning visual tour de force yet.

Krypton dies and scientific rebels Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van send their newborn son to another world to escape its destruction. However a goodly portion of film and book concentrate on the fabulous, uncanny and war-torn planet where Jor-El struggles with former friend and desperate terrorist General Zod as each strives to preserve Krypton in their diametrically opposed ways, so you won’t be reading about the child of two worlds until chapter seven…

A ship lands in Kansas, years pass and strange, anonymous miracles occur…

A young reporter begins to chart these odd occurrences.

Another star-craft is found, buried millennia-deep in polar ice…

And one day a ghastly extraterrestrial war-craft comes to Earth, full of deadly super-beings hunting someone called Kal-El…

Full of sly in-joke nods to previous comics, film and TV iterations and littered with those arcane snippets of lore beloved by seasoned fans, this engaging yarn, based on the original screenplay by David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan, adds some depth to the frantic on-screen spectacle and will delight every Superman that loves to curl up with a good book.

© 2013 DC Comics. MAN OF STEEL and all related characters and elements ™ and © DC Comics.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Remaining Sunlight


By Andi Watson, Joe Bennett & Rick Ketchum with J. L. van Meter & Luke Ross (Dark Horse/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-078-9

Fully established as a media sensation, Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted in her own monthly comicbook in 1998, with sharp, thrilling tales that perfectly complimented the sensational, groundbreaking and so, so cool TV show.

After debuting with an original graphic novel (see Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the Dust Waltz) the character quickly became a major draw for publisher Dark Horse – whose many other licensed comicbook successes included Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Aliens and Predator – and her monthly exploits were frequently supplemented by short stories in the company’s showcase anthology Dark Horse Presents and other venues.

This premier compilation (I’m once more featuring the British Titan Books edition and – if you’re asking – the stories are all set during TV Season 2) collects the first three issues of the regular Dark Horse comicbook crafted by Andi Watson, Joe Bennett & Rick Ketchum.

Included as a bonus is the short story which was the Slayer’s very first comicbook appearance, taken from Dark Horse Presents Annual 1998, written by J.L. van Meter, with art by Luke Ross & Ketcham.

In case you’ve only just returned From Beyond the Veil: Buffy Summers was a clueless Valley Girl and hip teen cheerleader until she turned overnight into a monster-killer: latest winner of a mystic, genetic lottery which transformed mortal maids into human killing machines: Slayers.

Moving to the small California hamlet of Sunnydale, obliviously located on the edge of a mystic portal dubbed The Hellmouth, she, a close band of new friends and her cult-appointed magical mentor Rupert Giles battled devils, demons and every species of terror inexorably drawn to the area and who/what/which considered humanity a snack…

The action begins with ‘Wu-Tang Fang’ as, after another tedious school day Willow, Xander and Buffy blow off steam at local club The Bronze.

When a pack of Vampires attacks them on the way home, the Slayer easily deals with the ill-conceived assault but is afterwards confronted and threatened by a mysterious oriental figure in a cloak and straw hat.

It disappears without incident but Xander, fed up with being saved by a girl and following an all night kung fu movie marathon, enrols next day at a martial arts Dojo.

As he painfully finds his new sensei is a bullying brute, Buffy and Giles are discovering a string of martial artists killed by vampires. The standard searches of the Library’s lore-books turn up a name: San Sui of the Xiang River – an ancient wandering warrior who challenged fighters to duels and drank their blood when they lost…

However, after Xander’s teacher meets an horrific end courtesy of the mysterious stranger, San Sui is unprepared for Buffy, who takes out all the extra training she’s been forced to endure on his smug, undead ass…

The next issue covered the annual arcane imbecility of ‘Halloween’ in Sunnydale – a night when vamps generally stayed in due to the hordes of happy people wandering about. This time, however, a pack of smart young dead things decide to stock up on tasty human titbits for their enforced vacation…

One of them is scholarly stalwart Willow who was snatched after storming out of an argument with her folks. Since, like most of the older high-schoolers, Buffy is stuck with chaperoning little kids on the night, nobody notices her BFF is missing until almost too late…

Of course the Slayer does her thing and rescues her gal-pal in time, but after a spectacular vamp-eviscerating battle, Buffy’s concern for Willow causes her to miss one demon who manages to flee with severe – but not death-threatening – injuries. That would prove a costly oversight in months to come as Selke slowly regained her power and fed her burning hatred…

From issue #3 ‘Cold Turkey’ continued the holiday horrors with Buffy lumbered by her mother with producing the daunting Thanksgiving blow-out. Stuck with necessarily late-night shopping in-between school and Slayer-ing, she and Giles are obsessing over the missing fourth Halloween human-hoarder.

Selke is hiding out and recuperating via the most degrading and disgusting means, but when she spots her hated enemy picking up turkey and trimmings at the soul-destroying All-Nite-O-Mart, the damaged devil decides to surprise the Slayer and speed her recovery with a hot meal.

Not her best idea ever, but even after a blistering cemetery confrontation the irrepressible Queen of the Damned again escapes with most of her scurvy skin intact…

The devastating and dramatic danses macabre conclude here with the aforementioned added bonus ‘MacGuffins’ from Dark Horse Presents Annual 1998: a gleeful mirthquake wherein Buffy receives a brace of mischievous, uncontrollable gremlins in the post.

This time however the trollish terrors are not a malign menace but a Watcher-sponsored test – one Giles would learn to regret once the hilariously grudge-bearing Slayer finally got her hands on the slippery little supernatural sods…

With photos and original covers by Arthur Adams, Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend & Joe Bennett, this fast and furious, pictorially powerful compilation is sharply scripted and proceeds at a breakneck rollercoaster pace, to perfectly capture the brittle, intoxicating spirit of the TV series.

The Remaining Sunlight is an easily accessible romp even if you’re not familiar with the vast backstory: a creepy chronicle and tumultuous thriller as easily enjoyed by the most callow neophyte as by any dedicated devotee.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer ™ & © 1999 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Ring of Fire


By Doug Petrie & Ryan Sook (Dark Horse/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-200-5

A hunger to be frightened is printed on our genes and courses through our surging blood. Psycho-killers, ravening monsters, unsuspected epidemics, funfair rides, overdue bills and a host of other things – daft and not – all trigger our visceral, panicky fright, fight or flight response and thus always feature highly in our mass entertainments.

These days however the slow-building tension and cerebral suspense of the printed genre has been largely overtaken and superseded by the shock-values and sudden kinetic surprise action of both small and big screens with the entire oeuvre also doused in a hot sauce of teen alienation, unrequited love and uncontrollable hormones – all making for a heady (if often uncomplicated and flavourless) brew.

That transition was very much the result of a landmark American TV show and assorted media spin-offs which refocused the zeitgeist. However Dark Horse Comics’ clever, witty graphic interpretation of the cult global mega-hit TV franchise Buffy the Vampire Slayer is what interests me most, so here’s another look at the still-active illustrated narrative iteration to revel in and reel over.

Once the company secured the strip licensing rights, they began producing an engaging regular series, a welter of impressive original Graphic Novels, numerous miniseries, spin-offs and specials. Moreover, long after the beloved TV show finally died, from 2007 onward comics delivered creator Joss Whedon’s un-produced continuity-canonical Season Eight and beyond to the faithful fans and followers.

In case you’re young or just terminally clueless: Buffy Summers was a run of the fashion mill bimbo-ised Californian Valley Girl and hip teen cheerleader until she suddenly metamorphosed overnight into a monster-killer: latest inheritor of a mystic, unpredictable genetic lottery which transformed mortal maids into human killing machines historically known as Slayers.

After moving to the small Californian hamlet of Sunnydale – secretly situated on the edge of a mystic portal The Hellmouth – she and a close band of friends battled devils and demons and every sort of horror inexorably drawn to the area and all of whom, what and which considered humanity a snack and our world an eldritch “fixer-upper” opportunity…

Scripted by prominent screenwriter and producer Doug Petrie (in his time a writer, director and co-executive producer on the Buffy show) and sublimely illustrated by Ryan Sook, Ring of Fire was released in 2000 as a slim, full-colour, all-original graphic novel which firmly established the artist as a major comics talent.

I’m concentrating here on the Titan Books British edition and – if you’re asking – the tale is set during TV Season 2 (which ran from Autumn 1997 to Spring 1998) when Buffy’s mysterious vampire boyfriend Angel had reverted to a soulless slaughterer of innocents.

His latest victim was High School computer teacher Jenny Calendar, who moonlighted as a gypsy witch and practising technopagan. She was also the one true love of Buffy’s mentor Rupert Giles, a Watcher of the venerable cult tasked with training and assisting Slayers in their anti-arcane endeavours.…

The suspense unfolds one dark and stormy night twelve miles off the coast in ‘The Rising’ as a Japanese cargo ship transporting ancient Samurai armour weathers staggering waves and a visit from a ghastly vampiric horror calling himself “Angelus”…

The 500-year-old war suit once belonged to warrior demon Kelgor, who tied his power to it and raised an army of undead killers in 16th century Japan.

Now all Angelus and his less-than-willing allies Spike and Drusilla need to bring on the necromantic End of the World designated “The Ring of Fire” is the corpse of Kelgor himself (hidden by Watchers half a millennium ago) – and they’re expecting the Slayer to find that for them…

Cool vampire villain and über-predator Spike eventually became a love-interest and even a moodily tarnished white knight, but at the time of this collection he was still a blood-hungry, immortal immoral jaded psychopath – every girl’s dream date – even though he was severely wounded and confined to a wheelchair. His eternal paramour was Drusilla: a scarily demented precognitive vampire who originally made him an immortal bloodsucker. She thrived on new decadent thrills and revelled in baroque and outré bloodletting…

With Giles all but paralysed by grief, “Scooby-Gang” stalwarts, Willow, Xander and Oz are left to search the reference files for information. As their painstaking study bears dark fruit Giles is ambushed by Angel and Dru at Jenny’s grave. Buffy is there to rescue him, but that just gives Spike the opportunity to follow the merely human vampire hunters and activate the Samurai’s blazing revival spell…

Rushing to their side Buffy manages to (mostly) destroy the freshly resurrected Kelgor, but as she pursues the Slayer is arrested by Federal spooks who know exactly who and what she is…

Frustrated but not thwarted the vicious vampire trio are at each others throats until Dru realises that there is still a little life in Kelgor’s remains. Moreover, the demon is offering to share his centuries old back-up plan with them.

Hidden with the scattered remains of ‘The Seven Samurai’ graves throughout the state is the secret of true resurrection, and if they gather the contents of those hidden toms, all their wicked wishes can still come true…

Meanwhile, locked in a covert police detention centre Buffy faces exposure to the world and worst yet, her mother…

Giles is gone: fallen far off the deep end and reverted to his old, manic persona of “Ripper”, but that’s not a bad thing since he knows the people who arrested Buffy aren’t government agents… or even people.

However before he can get to her, back-up Slayer Kendra busts her imprisoned predecessor out.

(When Buffy once briefly died the next Slayer was activated, and even though the Blonde Bombshell was subsequently revived, Kendra, once here, wasn’t going away…)

The manic action ramps into high gear as the Japanese hell-lord is finally fully reconstituted and forms an alliance with Dru, leaving Angel and Spike twisting in the wind even as the “Feds” are exposed as opportunistic demons trying to secure the resurrection spell for themselves in ‘Kelgor Unbound’.

They are ultimately frustrated in that diabolical dream as Ripper has taken off with it, crazily hellbent on bringing back his Jenny…

…And across town Buffy, Kendra and the gang are too late to stop the final ritual. Dru and Kelgor exultantly awaken a colossal flame-breathing devil bird to expedite their conquest of humanity and, forced into a tempestuous alliance with Angel and Spike, the vastly overmatched Buffy and Co need more magic than Willow can conjure.

They need Giles back or the world is lost…

Visually engaging, sharply scripted and proceeding at a breakneck rollercoaster pace, this smart and furious action-fest perfectly captures the brittle, intoxicating spirit of the TV series and remains an easily accessible romp even if you’re not familiar with the vast backstory: a creepy chronicle and torrid thriller as easily enjoyed by the most callow neophyte as by any dedicated devotee, and this compulsive chronicle also includes a quirky introduction by author Petrie and a fascinating sketchbook/commentary section by editor Scott Allie, liberally illustrated with production art and preliminary designs from Ryan Sook.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer ™ & © 2000 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Dust Waltz


By Dan Brereton, Hector Gomez & Sandu Florea (Dark Horse/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-057-4

Terrifying things are in our blood. Scary monsters, rabid maniacs, Armageddon, being stuck at school: all trigger our visceral, panicky fright, fight or flight response and thus always feature highly in our mass entertainments.

These days the slow-building tension and cerebral suspense of the genre has been largely overtaken and by shock-values and surprise action, with the mix liberally doused in a hot sauce of teen alienation, unrequited love and uncontrollable hormones – all making for a heady brew indeed.

This transition was very much the result of a clever, witty, breakthrough TV show and the long-lived comicbook tie-in which refocused the international zeitgeist, so here’s another look at Dark Horse Comics’ interpretation of the cult global mega-hit TV franchise Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Dark Horse won the strip licensing rights in the USA, subsequently producing an engaging regular series, a welter of impressive miniseries, original Graphic Novels, spin-offs and specials. Moreover, when the beloved TV iteration finally died, from 2007 on comics delivered creator Joss Whedon’s un-made continuity-canonical Season Eight and beyond to the faithful fans and followers.

In case you’ve lived in a bubble all this time: Buffy Summers was a clueless Valley Girl and hip teen cheerleader until she suddenly turned into a monster-killer: latest inheritor of a mystic, unpredictable genetic lottery which transformed mortal maids into human killing machines: Slayers.

Living in the small California hamlet of Sunnydale on the edge of a mystic portal – The Hellmouth – she and a close band of friends battled devils and demons and every sort of horror inexorably drawn to the area and who/what/which considered humanity a snack and Earth an eldritch “fiver-upper” opportunity.

The Dust Waltz, scripted by graphic horror maestro Dan Brereton and illustrated by Hector Gomez & Sandu Florea, was the initial comics offering, released in 1997 as a slim, full-colour, all-original graphic novel which firmly established the tone and timbre of the forthcoming series. The following year Titan Books reprinted the tale for the British market and – if you really need to know – the tale is set during TV Season 2 (which ran from Autumn 1997 to Spring 1998)…

It all begins in ‘Promenade’ as a brace of ancient vampiric horrors slowly cruise towards California and a showdown in sleepy Sunnydale, whilst at the local High School Buffy is still insolently resisting the stern admonitions of mentor Giles, a Watcher of the venerable cult tasked with training and assisting the Slayer in her anti-arcane endeavours.

A merciful interlude is offered when the Watcher invites Buffy and her gang – Willow, Xander and Cordelia – to accompany him to the Baytown Port to meet his niece Jane, imminently due to disembark from a world cruise.

It also offers the squad their first, albeit unsuspected, glimpse of Vampire “Old Ones” Lilith and Lamia, who have travelled to the Hellmouth with their puissant, bloodsucking Champions to indulge in a savage ritualistic combat dubbed the Dust Waltz…

Events kick into high gear that night when Buffy, on monster patrol with reformed vampire boyfriend Angel, encounter and destroy one of those ancient Champions.

Deprived of her weapon in the ritual, Lilith decides that Angel will be his replacement – whatever it takes…

In ‘Moondance’ the tension intensifies Buffy hunts for the vanished Angel, with Jane tagging along in defiance of Giles’ wishes. The Bloody Sisters have brought all manner of beasts and creatures with them, however, and soon the gang is captured and dragged to the Hellmouth even as the Watcher frantically tries to discover the true purpose of the dark ceremony…

Buffy however is far more direct and simply marches straight into the monsters’ midst to deal with the threat and free her friends “slayer-style” in the blistering action-packed eponymous conclusion ‘The Dust Waltz’.

Of course even after trashing the vampire hordes there’s the small problem of un-summoning the colossal elder god the battle has aroused…

Visually engaging, sharply scripted and proceeding at a breakneck rollercoaster pace, this smart and straightforward action-fest perfectly captures the brittle, intoxicating spirit of the TV series and remains an easily accessible romp even if you’re not familiar with the vast backstory: a creepy chronicle and torrid thriller as easily enjoyed by the most callow neophyte as by the dedicated devotee – and besides, with the shows readily available on TV and DVD, if you aren’t a follower yet you soon could – and should – be…
Buffy the Vampire Slayer ™ & © 1998 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

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Doctor Who Graphic Novels volume 15: Nemesis of the Daleks


By Richard Starkings, John Tomlinson, John Freeman, Paul Cornell, Dan Abnett, Steve Moore, Lee Sullivan, John Ridgway, Steve Dillon, David Lloyd & many and various (Panini Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-531-4

The British love comic strips and they love celebrity and they love “Odd Characters.”

The history of our graphic narrative has a peculiarly disproportionate amount of radio comedians, stars of theatre, film and TV such as Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Askey, Winifred Atwell, Max Bygraves, Charlie Drake and their ilk, as well as actual shows and properties such as Whacko!, ITMA, Our Gang, (there was a British version of the Hal Roach film sensation by Dudley Watkins in Dandy as well as the American comicbook series by Walt Kelly), Old Mother Riley, Supercar, Pinky & Perky and literally hundreds more.

Anthology comics such as Radio Fun, Film Fun, TV Fun, Look-In, TV Tornado, TV Comic and Countdown amongst others translated our viewing and listening favourites into pictorial escapism every week, and it was a pretty poor lead or show which couldn’t parley the day job into a licensed comic property.

Television’s Doctor Who premiered with part one of ‘An Unearthly Child’ on November 23rd 1963, and the following year his (their?) decades-long association with TV Comic began in issue #674 and the first instalment of ‘The Klepton Parasites’ – so this year marks the 50th or Golden Anniversary of the evergreen show and the 49th (Apoplexium, I believe) of the strip iteration.

On 11th October 1979 (although, adhering to the US off-sale cover-dating system, it says 17th) Marvel’s UK subsidiary launched Doctor Who Weekly, which became a monthly magazine in September 1980 (#44) and has been with us through various title-changes ever since. All of which only goes to prove that the Time Lord is a comic hero with an impressive pedigree and big shoes to fill.

Marvel/Panini is in the ongoing process of collecting every strip from the prodigious annals and archives in a uniform series of over-sized graphic albums, each concentrating on a particular incarnation of the deathless wanderer. This particular one gathers stories from a range of sources (specifically Doctor Who Magazine #152-156, 159-162, The Incredible Hulk Presents #1-12, Doctor Who Weekly #17-20, #27-30 and Doctor Who Monthly #44-46; spanning 1980-1990) and nominally stars the Seventh Doctor -Sylvester McCoy.

Also on show are some awesome ancillary stars from the monolithic Time Lord Universe (Whoniverse?) including the eponymous trundling terrors of the title, legendary cosmic crusaders the Star Tigers and the long-revered tragic, demented antihero Abslom Daak, Dalek-Killer.

Delivered beauty-contest style in reverse order, the magnificent magic opens with the cataclysmic ‘Nemesis of the Daleks’ (from DWM #152-155) as Richard and Steve Alan – AKA Richard Starkings & John Tomlinson – deliver a definitive and classic clash between the nomadic Time Lord and the ultimate foes of life wherein the deadly Daleks enslave a primitive civilisation and drive the pitiful native Helkans to the brink of extinction by forcing them to construct a Dalek Death Wheel armed with the universe’s most potent and toxic Weapon of Mass Destruction.

Grittily illustrated by Lee Sullivan, the blockbuster saga opens with the valiant last stand of incongruous chmpions the Star Tigers before the peripatetic Doctor accidentally arrives in the right place at the wrong time – no surprise there then – and joins death-obsessed Abslom Daak in a hopeless attempt to stop the Emperor of the Daleks from achieving supreme power…

Filled with evocative do-or-die heroics this is a battle only one being can survive…

As a complete change-of-pace, ‘Stairway to Heaven’ (#156 from January 1990 and by John Freeman, Paul Cornell & Gerry Dolan) offers a wry and merrily murderous poke at modern art and the slavish gullibility of its patrons that still holds true today – and probably always will…

The Incredible Hulk Presents was a short-lived reprint weekly from Marvel UK which launched on September 30th 1989, targeting younger readers and featuring four media-fed features.

As well as the Big Green TV sensation it also reprinted American-produced stories of Indiana Jones and GI Joe/Action Force, but the mix was augmented by all-new adventures of the Gallant Gallifreyan by a rapidly rotating roster of British creators.

The plan was to eventually reprint the Who stories in DWM – thus maximising the costly outlay of new material at a time in British comics publishing where every penny counted. It didn’t quite go to plan and the comic folded after 12 issues, with only a couple of the far simpler – though no less enjoyable offerings – ever making it into the more mature magazine publication.

It all began with ‘Once in a Lifetime’ by Freeman & Geoff Senior wherein an obnoxious alien reporter learned to his dismay that some stories are too big even for the gutter press, after which issues #2-3 featured creators Dan Abnett & John Ridgway whose ‘Hunger From the Ends of Time!’ saw the Doctor and Foreign Hazard Duty – the future iteration of UNIT – save the Universal Library from creatures who literally consumed knowledge.

‘War World!’ by Freeman, Art Wetherell & Dave Harwood found the irascible time-traveller uncharacteristically fooled by an (un)common foot soldier, whilst in ‘Technical Hitch’ by Abnett & Wetherell, the Doctor saved a lonely spacer from unhappy dreams of paradise…

Freeman & Senior concocted a riotous, monster-mash for ‘A Switch in Time!’ whilst ‘The Sentinel!’ by Tomlinson & Andy Wildman found the Time Lord helpless before a being beyond the limits of temporal physics who claimed to have created all life in the universe but still needed a little something from Gallifrey to finish his latest project…

Another 2-parter in #8-9 declared ‘Who’s That Girl!’ as the Doctor’s latest regeneration apparently resulted in a female form just as the Time Lord was required to  stop an inter-dimensional war between malicious macho martial empires. Of course there was more than met the eye going in this silly but engaging thriller by Simon Furman, John Marshall & Stephen Baskerville.

Simon Jowett & Wildman produced a light-hearted salutary fable as ‘The Enlightenment of Ly-Chee the Wise’ proved that some travellers are too much for even the most mellow of meditators to handle, after which Mike Collins, Tim Robins & Senior proved just how dangerous fat-farms could be in ‘Slimmer!’ before The Incredible Hulk Presents ended its foray into time-warping with the portentous ‘Nineveh!’ by Tomlinson & Cam Smith, wherein the Tardis was ensnared in the deadly clutches of the Watcher at the End of Time – an impossible mythical being who harvested Time Lords after their final regeneration…

For most of its run and in all its guises the Doctor Who title suffered from criminally low budgets and restricted access to concepts, images and character-likenesses from the show (many actors, quite rightfully owning their faces, wanted to be paid if they appeared in print…) but diligent work by successive editors gradually bore fruit and every so often fans got a real treat…

‘Train-Flight’ by Andrew Donkin, Graham S. Brand & John Ridgway ran in DWM #159-161 from April to June 1990 and benefited from some slick editorial wheeler-dealing and the generosity of actress Elizabeth Sladen (who allowed her Sarah Jane Smith character to be used for a pittance) in a chilling tale of alien abductions.

A long overdue reunion between the Time Lord and his old Companion was swiftly derailed when their commuter train was hijacked by marauding carnivorous insects…

‘Doctor Conkerer!’ (#162 by Ian Rimmer & Mike Collins) then terminates the Time Lord’s travails in this tome with a humorous tale describing the unsuspected origins of that noble game played with horse chestnuts beloved by British schoolboys, assorted aliens and, of course, Vikings of every stripe…

There’s still plenty of high quality action and adventure to enjoy here, however, as the complete saga of ‘Abslom Daak, Dalek-Killer’ by Steve Moore and artists Steve Dillon& David Lloyd (from Doctor Who Weekly #17-20, February-March 1980, Doctor Who Weekly #27-30, April 1980 and Doctor Who Monthly #44-46, December 1980-February 1981) fills in the blanks on the doomed defenders of organic life everywhere…

In the 26th century the Earth Empire is in a death struggle with voracious Dalek forces yet still riven with home-grown threats.

One such is inveterate, antisocial killer Abslom Daak, who, on sentencing for his many crimes, chooses “Exile D-K” – being beamed into enemy territory to die as a “Dalek Killer”. His life expectancy as such is less than three hours… and that suits him just fine.

Materialising on an alien world the madman eagerly expects to die but finds an unexpected reason to live until she too is taken from him, leaving only an unquenchable thirst for Dalek destruction…

The initial ferociously action-packed back-up series led to a sequel and ‘Star Tigers’ found the manic marauder winning such improbable allies as a rebel Draconian Prince, a devilish Ice Warrior and the smartest sociopath in Human space, all willing to trade their pointless lives to kill Daleks…

As always the book is supplemented with lots of text features, and truly avid fans can also enjoy a treasure-trove of background information in the 17-page text Commentary section at the back, comprising story-by-story background, history and insights from the authors and illustrators, supplemented by scads of sketches, script pages, roughs, designs, production art covers and photos.

This includes full background from former DWM editor/scripter John Freeman on the stories, plus background on the guest stars in ‘Tales from the Daak Side’ by John Tomlinson.

More details and creator-biographies accompany the commentaries on The Incredible Hulk Presents tales and there’s a feature on ‘Hulk meets Who’ explaining that odd publishing alliance, as well as reminisces from editor Andy Seddon and even more info on the legendary Dalek killer and his Star Tiger allies to pore and exult over.

None of which is relevant if all you want is a darn good read. However all the creators involved have managed the ultimate task of any artisan – to produce engaging, thrilling, fun work which can be equally enjoyed by the merest beginner and the most slavishly dedicated and opinionated fans imaginable.

This is another marvellous book for casual readers, a fine shelf-addition for dedicated fans of the show and a perfect opportunity to cross-promote our particular art-form to anyone minded to give comics one more go…

All Doctor Who material © BBCtv. Doctor Who, the Tardis and all logos are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence. Licenced by BBC Worldwide. Tardis image © BBC 1963. Daleks © Terry Nation. All commentaries © 2013 their respective authors. Published 2013 by Panini Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Supernatural: Origins


By Peter Johnson, Geoff Johns, Matthew Don Smith & various (WildStorm)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-754-7

Comicbooks have always enjoyed a long, successful affiliation and nigh-symbiotic relationship with television, but in these days when even the ubiquitous goggle-box business is paralysed and endangered by on-demand streaming, too many channels and far too much choice, the numbers and types of program that migrate to funnybooks is increasingly limited.

Excluding kids’ animation shows, cult fantasy adventure series now predominate in this dwindling arena and one of the best to make that transition to the printed page was the epic monster-fighting saga of two brothers literally on the road to Hell as they tracked down unnatural horrors, mystical malignancies and all the unexplainable things that treat humanity as fair game and delicious delicacies…

Over eight seasons since 2006, the TV series Supernatural has followed Sam and Dean Winchester whose lives were forever changed when a yellow-eyed demon killed their mother.  The horrific event drove their distraught father into a life of eternal wandering: stalking and killing the impossible beasts and horrors he now knew lurked in every shadow.

Years after growing up from a baby on the road to hell, Sam got out of the life and tried to live a normal existence but was eventually dragged back when disaffected, alienated brother Dean called to say that their father had gone missing. It happened right about the time Sam’s girlfriend was killed by a fiery demon…

This impressive official prequel to the TV show follows the dysfunctional Winchester family in the days, months and years after the boys’ mother floated up into the air and spontaneously combusted, leaving father John with unanswerable questions, a hunger for vengeance and two unnatural kids to raise…

After Mary’s death, John packs little Dean and baby Sam into his car and goes into a spin of booze and bar-fights, until he meets palm-reader Missouri Mosley. The prognosticator offers veiled answers and a glimpse into a world of mumbo-jumbo which is proven to be impossibly real when an unseen monster kills Mary’s best friend Julie, who had been babysitting the traumatised boys. Lodged in her ghastly remains was a huge rune-carved fang from no creature ever born on Earth…

Armed with only hints into the true nature of the world, the former marine begins a quest for the tooth’s owner and in Tempe, Arizona meets prickly, reclusive outré scholar Fletcher Gable who identifies it as belonging to a Black Shuck… a Hellhound.

Sending Winchester on to a reported sighting of such in California, the savant offers a further gift: a blank journal in which to record all the notes, photos, clippings, drawings, thoughts and experiences that will inevitably occur now that father and sons are irrevocably set on their particular road to Perdition…

The wise man and his latest student are both painfully unaware that Winchester is himself being hunted…

When Mary’s formidable brother Jacob comes looking for the boys and fearing the worst (although he has no idea of what the can worst actually be), he too becomes embroiled in the quest – to his eternal regret – and only the arrival of the mysterious shadower saves John from becoming the latest casualty of the hellhound…

“Hunter” – more a job description than his name – helps Winchester clear up the mess and cover up the evidence before introducing the now-doubly bereaved and shell-shocked single parent to the full horror of the hidden world of the Supernatural. It’s 1983 and all Hell’s breaking loose…

Soon Winchester is part of an amorphous hidden association of loners known as Hunters: mortals who’ve lost loved ones, seen the truth and had the guts to look for payback…

Partnered with his brusque and enigmatic mentor, John Winchester is still looking for a golden eyed demon and a hellhound with a missing fang as he tackles his first monster – a leaping carnivore known as a “Heeler” with Hunter and another clean-up man named Ichi.

However by the time the trio return to the grimly unique bar known as Harvelle’s Roadhouse where Sam and Dean have been waiting under the lethally efficient care of waitress Ellen, John is a full-blooded monster killer. Good thing too, as Ichi isn’t friendly or human anymore…

Thus begins the perilous pattern: John and Hunter dumping the kids on someone blithely oblivious or horribly in on the secret for a few days whilst they take care of business and that journal filling up with accounts of incredible horror.

Winchester is a fast learner and, after meeting a resurrected priest who gives him a few precious tainted moments with Mary’s spirit, he and his extremely hands-on senior partner revisit Fletcher Gable with some useful intel on the rune-carved fang. Before long they’re heading to one of the spookiest locations in American geography for an appalling gauntlet of terrors, a confrontation with the hellhound, its master, inevitable betrayal and an explanation for all that the bereaved father and his sons have endured…

Dotted with moving, telling “flashbacks” such as the moment in 1991 when even tough, independent and lethally dangerous Dean had enough and tried to run away, abandoning his dad and little brother to an interminable legion of monsters, this initial chronicle also includes a short tale of the boys by Geoff Johns, Phil Hester & colourist JD Mettler.

‘Speak No Evil’ harks back to a day in 1989 when the taciturn Sam asked his big brother just how their mother died. He might even have received an answer if a demon hadn’t smashed through the motel window just then, locked in a death grip with their father…

This rip-snorting, tense and moody thriller lives up to the demands of the dedicated TV following and still fulfils all that’s demanded of a horror comic for readers who haven’t followed the torturous trail of the Winchesters, and this chilling compendium even offers in-process views of covers by Tim Sale and pin-ups, working drawings and sketches by series illustrator Matthew Dow Smith.

Punchy, powerful and spookily addictive…
Compilation and sketchbook © 2008 Warner Bros Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. Supernatural and all characters, distinctive likenesses and related elements are ™ Warner Bros Entertainment, Inc.

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Hellraisers – a Graphic Biography


By Robert Sellers & JAKe (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-906838-36-2

I’m a sucker for comics biographies, and when I saw this superbly engaging and imaginative one on the shelves of my local library I just couldn’t resist a peek…

Robert Sellers is a former stand-up comedian and current film journalist with prose biographies of Sting, Tom Cruise, Sean Connery and the Monty Python phenomenon to his name, as well a regular contributor to periodicals and magazines such as The Independent, Empire, Total Film, SFX and Cinema Retro. He has also been seen on TV.

In 2009 he published a magnificent history of brilliance and excess in his “Life and Inebriated Times of Burton, Harris, O’Toole and Reed” in 2011 in collaboration with prestigious illustrator, designer and animator JAKe (How to Speak Wookiee, cartoon series Geekboy, Mighty Book of Boosh, The Prodigy’s Fat of the Land and so much more, both singly and with the studio Detonator which he co-founded). The artist keeps himself to himself and lets his superb artistry do all the talking.

Self-adapted from his prose history of the iconic barnstorming British film and theatre legends Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed and Peter O’Toole, Sellers here transformed Hellraisers into a pictorial feast, featuring the unique lives of a quartet of new wave, working class thespian heroes – more famed for boozing and brawling than acting – into a masterful parable and celebration of the vital, vibrant creative force of rebellion, interpreted with savage, witty style in ferociously addictive and expressive monochrome cartoon and caricature by the enigmatic artist.

Working on the principle that a Hellraiser is “a person who causes trouble by violent, drunken or outrageous behaviour” and cloaked in the guise of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the salutary fable opens as another drunken reprobate is thrown out of another pub. It’s Christmas Eve at the Rose & Crown of Broken Dreams and Martin should be home with his wife and son.

After again disgracing himself the pathetic drunk staggers back, shaking with DT’s and unexpunged rage to his loving but scared family, only to pass out. He is awoken by his hellraising father who drank and smoked himself to death seven years ago…

Told that he has one last chance to save himself, Martin is warned that he will be visited by four spirits (no, not that sort) who will regale him with the stories of their lives and fates and failures and triumphs …

What follows is a beguiling journey of bitter self-discovery as Burton, Harris, Reed and O’Toole (still alive but part of the visitation of “spooky buggers” since it’s just a matter of time, my dear boy) recount their own sodden histories, experiences and considerations in an attempt to turn the neophyte around.

They’re certainly not that repentant, however, and even proud of the excesses and sheer exuberant manly mythology they’ve made of their lives…

Managing the masterful magic trick of perfectly capturing the sheer charismatic force and personality of these giants of their craft and willing accomplices in their own downfalls, this superb saga even ends on an upbeat note, but only after cataloguing the incredible achievements, starry careers, broken relationships, impossibly impressive and frequently hilarious exploits of debauchery, intoxication and affray perpetrated singly and in unison by the departed, unquiet soused souls…

Filled with the legendary exploits and barroom legends of four astoundingly gifted men who couldn’t stop breaking rules and hearts (especially their own), blessed or cursed with infinitely unquenchable thirsts for the hard stuff and appetites for self-destruction, this intoxicating and so very tasty tome venerates the myths these unforgettable icons promulgated and built around themselves, but never descends into pious recrimination or laudatory gratification.

It’s just how they were…

Sellers has the gift of forensic language and perfectly reproduces the voices and idiom of each star even as JAKe perfectly blends shocking historical reportage with evocative surreal metafiction in this wonderful example of the power of sequential narrative.

Clever, witty and unmissable.
© 2010 Robert Sellers and JAKe. All rights reserved.

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The Guild


By Felicia Day, Jim Rugg & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-549-0

The Guild is a US comedy show which first appeared on the web in 2007, brainchild of actress and author Felicia Day. The quirkily smart, geeky-outsider fantasy revolves around Cyd Sherman, a musician who is more than usually prone to problems in the real world and escapes the dreary horror of it all by joining like misfits in a cyber-spacey online gang (or “Guild”) in a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (or MMORPG) called unsurprisingly “The Game”.

The live action episodes revolve around the interactions of Cyd and her associate ‘Knights of Good’ – all of whom find themselves more at home in an artificial universe of magic, myth, monsters and really mean people rather than mundane reality – although of course there are plenty of impossible tasks, unpalatable hardships and actual mean people here too.

You can check out the show – six seasons thus far – on Day’s dedicated YouTube channel Geek and Sundry…

We don’t do shows here, but since the material clearly overlaps with that old fashioned fantastic universe of comics, Dark Horse Comics approached Day in 2009 in search of a canny cross-fertilisation. The result was a 3-issue miniseries and a short story which appeared on the publisher’s own digital dimension in MySpace Dark Horse Presents #27. That pithy 2-page debut/introduction (illustrated by Jim Rugg and painted and coloured by Juan Ferreya & Dan Jackson) is included here at the conclusion of the main storyline.

On screen the seductive soap opera story is ongoing and began with the characters already in place and interacting, but The Guild comicbook gave Day the chance to work with an unlimited visual budget (that’s the advantage of comics: a monologue in a bedroom costs as much and as little to draw as all the hordes of hell unleashed and riding winged monkeys up the Champs–Elysées) and thus inspired her to reveal the secret origins of her outré comrades in a winning, hilarious and deftly moving prequel tale.

Cyd plays far less than second fiddle at the back of a sub-par orchestra and is very fed up with her crappy life. She knows that she’s a failure at everything and a disappointment to everybody.

Although she has a boyfriend and fools herself that it’s love, deep down she knows that Trevor is a manipulative, exploitative, controlling jerk only using her as roadie, housekeeper, bedwarmer, manager, press-officer, writer and arranger of the music he claims as his as he tries hopelessly to break into the rock biz.

She even goes all over town pinning up the flyers she designed for his third-rate band’s gigs…

Cyd first learned about the manic world of consensual alternate realities when she was pinning up a poster in a comicbook and gaming store and, on the insistence of the therapist her dad is paying for, one day tried to break out of her dis-comfort zone by making new friends – if only by becoming a completely different person in a role-playing alternate universe…

After yet another ungrateful disappointment from Trevor the Rock God, she sat at her keyboard and became Codex, a mystic healer in the captivating fairyland of The Game…

Soon she was exulting in graphic slaughter, thievery and high adventure, meeting loads of wild people all revelling in being someone or something other than they were…

And as she learns and evolves in fantasyland, Cyd makes true friends and proper foes, forming her own guild of like-minded questors. They’re all real even if they aren’t actually there, and their effect on Cyd even leads to a satisfactory showdown with the increasingly unbearable Trevor…

Sharp, clever, moving and painfully funny, this an engaging introduction to the milieu and characters of the show and if I’ve skimped on detail you’ll thank me when you marvel at the captivating interactions of the beguiling cast of adorable misfits and wonder at the astonishing facility of illustrator Rugg as he makes both grim reality and miraculous meta-world come to life – each in its own unforgettable manner…

With covers and supplemental artwork by Georges, Jeanty, Dexter Vines & Tariq Hassan, Matthew Stawicki, Kristian Donaldson, Cary Nord & Dave Stewart, Rugg & Dan Jackson, Juan Ferreyra, Paul Lee, Jason Gonzalez and Jon Adams, working designs and a sketchbook collection from illustrator Rugg, complete with commentary by editor Scott Allie, plus a Bonus Section of tryout pages by a crazed band of artists including Zack Finfrock, Indigo Kelleigh, Kevin McGovern and Ron Chan, this slim, fanciful and thoughtfully funny fantasy offers a wry counterpoint to both gaming bombast and comicbook blood and thunder whilst defending your right to another life, liberty of imagination and the pursuit of fairy gold…

If you need the odd, gentle laugh in your hectic, horrible life The Guild might be just the tonic…
The Guild © 2010 The Guild. All rights reserved.

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The Silver-Metal Lover


By Tanith Lee, adapted by Trina Robbins (Harmony/Crown Books)
ISBN: 0-517-55853-X

During the 1980s, comics finally began to filter through to the mainstream of American popular culture, helped in no small part by a few impressive adaptations of works of literary fantasy such as Michael Moorcock’s Elric or DC’s Science Fiction Graphic Novel line.

Cartoonist, author and comics historian Trina Robbins joined the throng with this deceptively powerful and effectively bittersweet romance adapted from Tanith Lee’s short tale about an earnest young girl in a spoiled, indolent world who discovered abiding love in the most unexpected of places.

In the far-flung, ferociously formal and civilised future everything is perfect – if you can afford it – but human nature has not evolved to match Mankind’s technological and sociological advancements.

Jane has everything a 16-year old could want but is still unhappy. Her mother Demeta provides all she needs – except human warmth – whilst her six registered friends do their best to provide for her growing associative and societal needs. Of her carefully selected peer circle, Jane only actually likes flighty, melodramatic needily narcissistic Egyptia – whom Jane’s mother approves of but considers certifiably insane.

In this world people can live in the clouds if they want, and robots perform most manual toil and tedious services, but it’s far from paradise. Humans still get suspicious and bored with their chatty labour-saving devices and the monumental Electronic Metals, Ltd strive constantly to improve their ubiquitous inventions…

One day Jane agrees to accompany Egyptia to an audition and the fully made-up thespian is accosted by a rude man who mistakes her for a new android. He wants to buy her.

Ruffled by the rude man’s manner, Jane’s attention is then distracted by a beautiful metal minstrel busking in the plaza. The robot’s performance and his lovely song move and frighten Jane in way she cannot understand, and when S.I.L.V.E.R. (Silver Ionized Locomotive Verisimulated Electronic Robot) affably introduces himself the flustered girl bolts, running for the relative security of the nearby home of sardonic friend Clovis, where the beautiful tart is in the process of dumping another lover. He proves unsurprisingly unsympathetic to Jane’s confusion and distress, telling her to go home where, still inexplicably upset, she tries to talk the experience out with her mother. Impatient as always, the matron simply enquires if Jane is masturbating enough before telling her to record whatever’s bothering her for mummy to deal with later…

Sulking in a bath Jane is awoken from a sleep by the ecstatic Egyptia who has passed her audition. Bubbling with glee the neophyte actress demands Jane join her at a big party. Avoiding a persistent old letch who is creepily fixated on the fresh young thing, Jane stumbles again upon S.I.L.V.E.R. and once more reacts histrionically to his singing.

As he profusely apologizes for the inexplicable distress he’s somehow caused her, Jane realizes the disturbing mechanical minstrel has been rented by Egyptia for quite another kind of performance later… a private one…

With a gasp of surprise Jane at last understands what she’s feeling and kisses the alluring automaton before fleeing.

Her mother is as useless as ever. Whilst futilely attempting to explain her problem but failing even to catch Demeta’s full attention, Jane gives up and claims she’s in love with Clovis just to cause a shock…

The next day the heartsick waif visits the offices of Electronic Metals, Ltd ostensibly to rent the droid of her dreams – as a minor she has to lie about her age – but is sickened when she finds him partially dissembled whilst the techs try to track down an anomalous response in his systems…

Despondent, she is astonished when Machiavellian Clovis intervenes, renting S.I.L.V.E.R. for Egyptia and convincing the too, too-busy starlet to let Jane look after it for her…

Alone with the object of her affection, insecure Jane’s imagined affair quickly becomes earthily, libidinously real but the honeymoon ends far too soon when Clovis informs her the rental period is over. Crippled by her burning love for the artificial Adonis, Jane begs her mother to buy him for her. When the cold guardian refuses the obsessed child at last rebels…

When Demeta disappears on another of her interminable business trips Jane sells her apartment’s contents, moves into the slums and desperately claims her dream lover with the ill-gotten gains…

Following a tragically brief transformative period of sheer uncompromised joy with her adored mechanical man, reality suddenly hits the happy couple hard as Demeta tracks Jane down and smugly applies financial pressure to force her wayward child to return. Undaunted, the pair become unlicensed street performers and grow ever closer but even as Jane grows in confidence and ability, becoming fiercely independent, public opinion has turned against the latest generation of far-too human mechanical servants. When Electronic Metals recalls all its now hated products, the improper couple flee the city. However the heartless auditors track them down and reclaim Jane’s Silver Metal Lover…

Lyrical and poetic, this is a grand old-fashioned tale of doomed love which still has a lot to say about transformation, growing up and walking your own path, with Trina Robbins’ idyllic and idealised cartooning deceptively disguising the heartbreaking savagery and brutal cruelty of the story to superb effect, making the tragedy even more potent.

Regrettably out of print for years, this is a comics experience long overdue for revival – perhaps in conjunction with new interpretations of the author’s later sequels to the saga of love against the odds…
Illustrations © 1985 Trina Robbins. Text © 1985 Tanith Lee. All rights reserved.

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Solomon Kane volume 1: the Castle of the Devil


By Scott Allie, Mario Guevara, Dave Stewart & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-282-6

Following on from their revitalisation – if not actual creation – of the comicbook Sword and Sorcery genre in the early 1970s with their magnificent adaptation of pulp superstar Conan the Barbarian, Marvel Comics quite naturally looked for more of the same, and found ample material in Robert Ervin Howard’s other warrior heroes such as King Kull, Bran Mac Morn and dour Puritan Avenger Solomon Kane.

The fantasy genre had undergone a global prose revival in the paperback marketplace since the release of soft-cover editions of Lord of the Rings (first published in 1954), and the 1960s resurgence of two-fisted action extravaganzas by such pioneer writers as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline and Fritz Lieber. This led to a generation of modern writers such as Michael Moorcock and Lin Carter kick-starting their careers with contemporary interpretations of man, monster and mage. Without doubt, though, nobody did it better than the tragic Texan whose other red-handed stalwarts and tough guys such as El Borak, Steve Costigan, Dark Agnes and Red Sonya of Rogatino excelled in a host of associated genres and like milieus.

Solomon Kane debuted in the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales in a gripping tale of vengeance entitled “Red Shadows”, making seven more appearances before vanishing in 1932 as his creator concentrated on the far more successful Conan. Three more tales, some epic poems and a few unfinished ideas and passages remained unpublished until 1968 when renewed interest in the author’s work prompted publishers to disinter and complete the yarns.

Apart from two noteworthy 4-colour exceptions, during the 1970s and 1980s, Marvel was content to leave Solomon Kane to monochrome adaptations of canonical Howard stories in Dracula Lives, Savage Sword of Conan, Monsters Unleashed and other older-reader magazines, but with his transfer to the Dark Horse stable the Holy Terror has recently flourished in broader, lavishly-hued interpretations of the unfinished snippets left when the prolific Howard took his life in 1936.

Beginning in 2008 and released as a succession of miniseries, these almost-new adventures offer the modern fan a far darker and more moody glimpse at the driven, doom-laden wanderer.

Kane is a disenfranchised English soldier of fortune in the 16th century on a self-appointed mission to roam the Earth doing God’s Work: punishing the wicked and destroying devils and monsters. With no seeming plan, the devout Puritan lets fate guide his footsteps ever towards trouble…

Expanded upon and scripted by Scott Allie from the tantalisingly unfinished fragment The Castle of the Devil, this initial paperback volume collects the 5-issue story-arc from September 2008-February 2009 and also includes a short piece which originally featured online in the digital MySpace Dark Horse Presents site in June 2008.

The drama opens as the surly pilgrim bloodily encounters bandits and an horrific wolf-beast in Germany’s Black Forest, losing his horse in the attack. Proceeding on foot he finds a boy hanging from a gibbet and cuts the near-dead body down. Soon after, he meets mercenary John Silent, another Englishman in search of fortune…

From his new companion, Kane learns that local lord, Baron von Staler, has an evil reputation and will not be happy to have his affairs meddled with. The puritan doesn’t care: he wants harsh words with the kind of man who would execute children…

Despite genuine misgivings the insufferably jolly Silent insists on accompanying his clearly suicidal countryman and soon the pair are admitted to a bleak and terrifying Schloss built on the remains of an old abbey…

Von Staler is not the mad tyrant they had been warned of. The gracious, pious old warrior with devoted servants and a beautiful young Moorish wife welcomes them in, offers them the hospitality of his hearth and charms them with his easy manner. The lord is appalled by the tale of the hanged boy, denying any knowledge of the atrocity and swearing to bring the culprits to justice.

Over supper he and his bride Mahasti explain that their ill-repute is unjustly earned. The simple peasants have unfairly conflated him with the manse’s previous accursed inhabitants: a chapter of monks who murdered their own Prior two centuries past.

Vater Stuttman had been a holy man until he sold himself to Satan and his desperate brethren had been forced to entomb and starve him to contain his evil. With the church determinedly ignoring their plight the chapter faded from the sight of Man and eventually Staler’s family had purchased the lands, building their ancestral seat upon the ruins.

The peasants however, still called it “the Church of the Devil”…

Gratified to find a man as devoted to God as himself, Kane relaxes for the first time in months, thankful to spend a night in a warm bed with people as devout as he…

The truth begins to out in ‘The Dead of Night’ as Silent goes prowling within the castle and kills one of the Baron’s retainers, even as Kane’s rest is disturbed by the shameless Mahasti offering herself to him…

Spurning her advances, the furious puritan leaves the citadel to wander the forest, again encountering the colossal wolf thing. Back in his bed Silent, nursing a deep wound, dreams of beleaguered old monks and their apostate Prior…

In ‘Offerings’ the truth slowly begins to dawn on the melancholy wanderer as he discourses with the strangely ill-tempered Silent. Something is badly amiss in the household, but when Kane and the Baron ride out that morning all suspicions are stayed by the discovery of another gibbet and another boy. This one however is nothing but ragged scraps for the crows that festoon his corpse, and Kane’s rage is dwarfed by the ghastly uncomprehending shock and disbelief of the Baron…

The servants however are not so flustered and something about their muted conversations with their master jars with the morose Englishman. And in the castle, Mahasti finds Silent a far more amenable prospect, happy to listen to the secrets she wants to share…

‘Sound Reasons and Evil Dictates’ offer more insights into the incredible truth about von Staler, as Kane takes his fellow Englishman into his full confidence before Silent and Mahasti ride out into the wild woods and meet a ghost who reveals the terrifying truth about the Vater Stuttman and the appalling thing the monks uncovered two hundred years past…

That demonic cadaver has whispered unknowable secrets to one of that long-gone congregation and has continued for all the days and years since. Now the man who was Father Albrecht is ready to welcome it and its appalling kin back to full, ravening life in these benighted grounds…

Von Staler and Kane are arguing and, as accusations become blows, the secret of ‘The Wolf’ is at last revealed, even as faithful retainers capture Mahasti and Silent, leaving them on the gibbets as fodder for a quartet of horrors returning for their fleshly tribute in ‘His Angels of the Four Winds’. Spectacularly battling his way free of the castle, Kane is only in time to save one of the monsters’ victims, but more than ready to avenge the centuries of slaughter and blasphemy in ‘The Chapel of the Devil’ and grimly cleansing the tainted lands in the ‘Epilogue: Wanderers on the Face of the Earth’…

The art is beguiling and emphatically evocative with Mario Guevara’s pencils astonishingly augmented by a painted palette courtesy of colourist Dave Stewart, and the book is packed with artistic extras and behind-the-scenes bonuses such as a gallery of covers and variants and ‘The Art of Solomon Kane’ with sketches and designs by the penciller, architectural shaper Guy Davis and illustrators John Cassaday, Stewart, Laura Martin & Joe Kubert before the tome terminates with that aforementioned digital vignette wherein Kane applies his own savage wisdom of Solomon to a troubled village of ghost-bedevilled souls in ‘The Nightcomers’…

Powerful, engaging and satisfactorily spooky, this fantasy fear-fest will delight both fans of the original canon and lovers of darkly dreaming, ghost-busting thrillers.
© 2009 Solomon Kane Inc. (“SKI”). Solomon Kane and all related characters, names and logos are ™ and ® SKI.