Category: Adaptations

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The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes volume 1


By Christopher Yost, Scott Wegener Patrick Scherberger & Sandu Florea (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5619-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: proper old-fashioned action-adventure for every age of Fights ‘n’ Tights fan… 9/10

Since its earliest days Marvel has always courted the youngest comicbook audiences. Whether through animated movie or TV tie-ins such as Terrytoons Comics, Mighty Mouse, Super Rabbit Comics, Duckula, assorted Hanna-Barbera and Disney licenses and a myriad of others, or original creations such as Tessie the Typist, Millie the Model, Homer the Happy Ghost, Li’l Kids or even Calvin, the House of Ideas has always understood the necessity of cultivating the next generation of readers.

These days, however, accessible child-friendly titles are on the wane and with Marvel the publisher’s proprietary characters all over screens large and small, the company usually prefers to create adulterated versions of its own pantheon, making that eventual longed-for transition to more mature comics as painless as possible.

In 2003 the powers that be created a Marvel Age line which updated and retold classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and combined it with the remnants of its failed manga-based Tsunami imprint, which was also intended for a junior demographic. The experiment was tweaked in 2005, becoming Marvel Adventures with core titles transformed into Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man with all-original yarns replacing the reconstituted classics. More titles followed, including Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes, Hulk and The Avengers and these all ran until 2010 when they were cancelled and supplanted by new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man which carried on the newly-established continuities.

Never the success the company hoped, Marvel Adventures was superseded in 2012 by specific comics tied to Disney XD television shows, thereafter designated “Marvel Universe cartoons”, using the television shows to reinterpret key moments of the heroes’ stellar history whilst creating a new generation of readers to be hopefully funnelled into the increasingly archaic-seeming world of paper entertainments.

All the same, these tales are an intriguing and perhaps more culturally accessible means of introducing character and concepts to kids born sometimes two, three even four generations removed from those far-distant 1960s-originating events, and this initial volume of the barnstorming adventure ensemble Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes collects the contents of the first four issues from 2010, scripted by the parent cartoon’s chief writer Christopher Yost.

In short, terse, self-contained and immensely enjoyable romps aimed at kids of 10 and up (parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the level of violence contained in here might not be what everybody considers “All-Ages” action), the greatest champions of the Marvel Universe regularly assemble to save the world from every imaginable menace – and sometimes each other…

The wonderment begins with ‘Adaptation’, illustrated by Scott Wegener which sees freshly thawed WWII hero Captain America coming to terms with life in the 21st century by thrashing international mercenaries Batroc’s Brigade before he and Thor are summoned to aid the team against a bizarre android capable of mimicking their powers, abilities and skills. This is followed by a lower key yarn as Hawkeye and the Black Panther swallow their differences and learn to ‘Trust’ one another in battle against deadly demoness Whiplash in a short, sharp shocker limned by Patrick Scherberger.

The second issue opened with ‘Obsession’ (Wegener art) as Tony Stark‘s ongoing duel with Russian rival Ivan Vanko led to another cataclysmic clash between Iron Man and the deadly Crimson Dynamo. When the collateral damage drew in the rest of the Avengers the battle seemed all but over – until Russian super-team the Winter Guard stepped in claiming prior jurisdiction.

However, even as the dispute with Titanium Man, Ursa Major, Darkstar and Vanguard escalated into all-out war with the Westerners, Baron Zemo and the Masters of Evil were waiting in the wings to recruit Vanko to their vile ranks…

The back-up tale ‘Mutual Respect’ (Scherberger with Sandu Florea inks) featured an unlikely team-up between Ant-Man and the Hulk as the malevolent Mad Thinker apparently attempted to co-opt the Jade Juggernaut’s power, but as usual had actually schemes within schemes going on…

Bored Elders of the Universe the Grandmaster and the Collector visited Earth in ‘Savage’ (Wegener) planning to orchestrate a prize fight between Thor and the Hulk, and that titanic tussle of equals was offset by the brutal back-up ‘Courage’ (Scherberger) where flighty socialite the Wasp was forced to fight alone in arctic conditions to save a severely mauled Captain America from the lethal carnivorous Wendigo…

In ‘Team’ (Wegener with full page splash shots by Scherberger) the entire roster was on hand for a deadly full-length duel with the Masters of Evil and marauding giant robot Ultimo but even their incredible final victory was less trouble than satisfying the Wasp’s persistent demands for a suitable team photo…

This tasty treat also includes a wealth of covers, pin-ups, fact-packed character profiles of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Wasp, Ant-Man/Giant Man, Hawkeye, Black Panther, close associates and super-spies Nick Fury and the Black Widow and vile villains Baron Zemo, time Conqueror Kang, Baron Strucker, Asgardian god of evil Loki, Ultron, and Masters of Evil Enchantress, Crimson Dynamo and Abomination.

Even then there’s more such as technical gen on ‘Hawkeye’s Bag of Tricks’, the Thunder God’s mystic mallet ‘the Mighty Mjolnir’, Iron Man’s internal systems in ‘Breaking Down the Hud!’ and a quiz daring readers to deduce which villains’ terrible tools belong ‘In Evil Hands!’

Fast-paced and impressive, bright and breezy with lots of light-hearted action and loads of sly laughs, this book truly captures the zest and drive of both traditional comicbook and modern TV superhero shenanigans and will surely delight every unashamed fan of Costumed Dramas whatever their age or inclinations…
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the Origin


By Joss Whedon, Christopher Golden, Daniel Brereton, Joe Bennett & various (Dark Horse/Titan Books Edition)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-105-2

Blood-drenched doomed love is still something of a hot topic these days so let’s take another look at one of the ancient antecedents responsible for this state of affairs – in the shape of Dark Horse Comics’ sequential reinterpretation of the cult B-movie which launched the global mega-hit TV franchise Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Starring Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Luke Perry and Rutger Hauer, the film was released in 1992 with a modicum of success and to the lasting dissatisfaction of writer/creator Joss Whedon.

Five years later he got to do the thing right and in the manner he’d originally intended. The ensemble action horror comedy series became something of a phenomenon and inspired a whole new generation of gothy gore-lovers and many, many “homages” in assorted media – including comics.

Dark Horse won the licensing rights in the USA, subsequently producing an engaging regular comicbook series and a welter of impressive miniseries and specials. In 1999 the company – knowing how powerfully the inclusivity/continuity/completism gene dominates comics fan physiology – revisited the troublesome movie debut. Scrupulously returning to the author’s script and core concept, restoring excised material, shifting the tone back towards what Whedon originally intended whilst subtly reconfiguring events until they better jibed with the established and beloved TV mythology, adaptors Christopher Golden and Daniel Brereton and artists Joe Bennett, Rick Ketcham, Randy Emberlin & J. Jadsen produced a new 3-issue miniseries which – finally – canonically established exactly what the former vapid Valley Girl did in her old hometown that got her transferred to scenic Sunnydale and a life on the Hellmouth…

The story opens in ‘Destiny Free’ as shallow but popular teen queen and cheerleader Buffy Summers shrugs off her recurring nightmares of young women battling and being killed by vampires throughout history to continue her daily life of smug contentment. Even a chance meeting with grungy stoner badboys Pike and Benny can’t dent her aura of self-assured privilege and studied indolence.

The nightmares keep mounting in intensity however, and all over town teenagers are disappearing…

Things come to a head the week her parents leave town for a trip. In a dark park, a maniac attacks Pike and Benny and is only driven off by the intervention of a mysterious, formidable old man. Even so the assailant manages to take the screaming Benny with him… Next day the old geezer is at school, annoying Buffy. She is blithely mocking until he tells her about her nightmares and explains that she has an inescapable destiny… as a slayer of monsters…

Deep in the bowels of the Earth a monster is marshalling his forces and making terrifying converts out of the spoiled worthless children of California…

Buffy’s stranger is exceedingly persistent and that night, despite her disbelieving misgivings, she and Merrick – an agent of an ancient, monster-hunting secret society – lurk in a graveyard waiting for a recently murdered man to rise from his fresh grave…

When he does – along with unsuspected others – Buffy’s unsuspected powers and battle reflexes kick in and against all odds she spectacularly triumphs…

‘Defenseless Mechanisms’ finds the altered Buffy grudgingly dropping her fatuous after-school activities – and former friends – to train with the increasingly strident and impatient Watcher Merrick. Even though her attitude is appalling and attention easily diverted, the girl is serious about the job, and even has a few new ideas to add to The Slayer’s traditional arsenal…

Even as she begins her career by luring vile vamps out by pretending to be a helpless lost girl in dark alleys, across town Pike is in big trouble. He also knows what is happening: after all every night Benny comes to his window, begging to be let in and offering to share his new life with his old, best buddy…

At school the change in Buffy is quite noticeable and all her old associates are talking and pointedly snubbing her, even as every sundown Lothos‘ legion gets bolder and bigger. A fatal mistake occurs on the night when Slayer and Watcher save the finally outmanoeuvred Pike from Benny and the Vampire Lord. Only two of the embattled humans survive and escape…

The tales escalates to a fantastic spectacular climax when the undead army invades the long-awaited Hemery High School dance looking for Buffy and fresh meat/recruits. With his bloodsuckers surrounding the petrified revellers and demanding a final reckoning, Lothos believed his victory assured, but in all his centuries of unlife he’d never encountered a Slayer quite like Buffy Summers…

Visually impressive, sassily scripted and proceeding at a breakneck rollercoaster pace, this smart and simple action-fest is extremely engaging even if you’re not familiar with the vast backstory, and is a creepy chronicle 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…
™ & © 1999 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

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Stormbreaker – an Alex Rider Graphic Novel


By Anthony Horowitz, adapted by Antony Johnston, Kanako & Yuzuru (Walker Books)
ISBN: 978-1-4063-1877-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ignore the telly for once and get your postprandial Yuletide blockbuster hit from this superb comics classic… 8/10

One of the most thrilling and effective additions to Britain’s pantheon of spies and detectives in recent years is no hard-hearted and suavely mature super-agent but a conflicted yet ultimately indomitable English teenager, more worried about daily drudgery and bouts of lessons-induced coma than espionage and the end of civilisation as we adults know it…

In 2000 author and TV screenwriter Anthony Horowitz released Stormbreaker, the first of nine (and counting…) breathtaking, rollicking teen novels featuring 14-year old Alex Rider: a smart, fit, sports-mad lad like any other, who suddenly discovers that his guardian Uncle Ian had been keeping incredible secrets from his only kin…

After a dull English lesson and a tense schoolyard dalliance between the boy and classmate-of-his-dreams Sabina Pleasure inBrooklandSchool,London, the all-out action begins with a spectacular chase inCornwall as a desperate man in a tricked-up sports car desperately fights to avoid high speed death. It’s a futile effort: his dogged pursuers are on motor bikes and in helicopters and, in the midst of a hail of bullets and missiles, the quarry takes time out to call his nephew Alex and apologize for letting him down again.

It’s the last call Uncle Ian will ever make…

Returning to his Chelseahome Alex Rider is greeted by his eccentric Katana-wielding housekeeper Jack Starbright. She’s made sushi and thinks she’s perfected the recipe for fugu. Alex hopes so: Puffer fish is one of the deadliest poisons known to man…

The meal is interrupted by the police with some bad news…

At the funeral, staff from the private bank Ian Rider worked for tender their condolences but they’re like no businessmen Alex has ever seen, and when he and Ms. Starbright return to the flat they find workmen moving the last of Ian’s possessions into a van. Without thinking the furious schoolboy gives chase on his pedal-bike and the breakneck pursuit leads to an excessively secure junk yard inSouth Londonwhere Alex sees all his uncle’s stuff being destroyed. When the boy examines the soon to be crushed car he finds bullets holes and an ejector seat, but is trapped when the vehicle is dropped into a mechanical crusher.

Spectacularly escaping, he is then chased by gun-firing goons. Fighting his way clear the boy follows a lead to Liverpool Street Station and is lured, all unsuspecting, to a secret high-tech installation beneath the busy railway terminus.

Alex is greeted by the efficient Mrs Jones and her supercilious superior Mr. Blunt who reveal the incredible truth. Ian Rider was a secret agent working for MI6 and murdered in the line of duty. Moreover, the deceased super-spy had been surreptitiously teaching his nephew all the skills, techniques and disciplines needed to become a secret agent – and his successor…

When Blunt’s far-from-subtle hints that Alex should join up are hotly rejected, the Machiavellian spymaster resorts to blackmail and threatens to revoke Ms. Starbright’s visa and have her deported.

Soon Alex is training with an elite military unit inWalesand quickly distinguishes himself as someone with unique problem-solving capabilities and a knack for improvisation.

The case Ian was working on is still active. Mysterious billionaire philanthropist Darrius Sayle is a Man of the People, friend of the Prime Minister and about to donate one of his new Stormbreaker personal computers to every school inBritain. But Alex’s uncle was investigating Sayle’sCornwall factory/mine complex when he was killed and the agent’s last message warned of a virus. Now Blunt wants to send Alex in as a computer nerd competition winner to scope out the nature of the threat…

Alex’s grim, enforced resignation is briefly lifted when he is sent to a toyshop to pick up a batch of high-tech gadgets from ingenious and affable MI6 quartermaster Mr. Smithers, after which it’s all stations go and “Kevin Blake” is packed off to isolated South West village Port Tallon.

He is met by Sayle’s ferocious and formidable PA Nadia Vole and escorted deep into the depths of a facility that looks more like an army base than a factory. The billionaire himself is a creepy blend of Tim Curry and Richard Branson, and his other assistant – mute failed circus knife-thrower Mr. Grin – looks like a fugitive from a horror film…

Soon “Kevin” is experiencing the full incredible power and range of the virtual realities produced by Stormbreaker kit, but his unsanctioned investigations soon uncover an unspecified secondary purpose for the schools-destined computers…

After being caught wandering “lost” in the bowels of the installation, Alex has an effusive dinner chat with American ex-pat Sayle, unaware that Ms. Vole has tracked his origins and is currently attempting to murder Jack Starbright…

Later that night in Cornwall Alex spies on a conversation between Sayle and a lethal-looking Russian named Yassen Gregorovitch and, unaware that he has been compromised, sneaks into the deepest levels of the factory and uncovers a lab modifying a biological – not digital – virus to be hidden inside every free computer destined for the nation’s classrooms…

Confronted by Gregorovitch who nonchalantly admits to killing his uncle, the boy manages to escape but is swiftly recaptured and left to die in a tank of deadly jellyfish as Sayle triumphantly flies off to London and the culmination of a petty, vindictive, genocidal vengeance scheme thirty years in the making…

Following a staggering spectacular chase back to London, Alex, with only his unlucky amour Sabina to assist him, invades the Stormbreaker launch and dramatically prevents the virus from being released. On the roof ofLondon’s tallest skyscraper they clash with the bonkers billionaire in a brutal and extremely final confrontation before the madman meets his deserved doom from a most unexpected and bewilderingly unlikely source…

With the drama done with, the stunned and shaken kids return to school, but the shadowy worlds of tradecraft and spymasters are not done with Alex Rider just yet…

This adaptation is sharp and poignant, surely depicting the sense of loss and betrayal as Alex loses so much of his innocence amidst situations of breathtaking danger and nerve-tingling excitement.

Our popular literary heritage is littered with cunning sleuths and stealthy investigators from Sherlock Holmes and Dick Barton to the Scarlet Pimpernel, George Smiley, Harry Palmer and Bond – James Bond – but the ongoing adventures of boy-hero Alex Rider seem set fair to match them all in time.

Transformed into graphic novel interpretations, the first four adventures have been recently repackaged and re-released in larger, more graphic-friendly editions: their easy blend of action, invention, youthful rebellion and engaging James Bond pastiche perfectly captured in adaptations by writer Antony Johnston and manga artists (and sisters) Kanako Damerum & Yuzuru Takasaki.

They’re well worth further investigation, but remember: even though this is a notionally a children’s book there is a lot of realistic violence and a big body-count so if you intend sharing the book with younger children, read it yourself first.

These books and their comic counterparts are a fine addition to our fiction tradition. Alex Rider will return… and so should you.
Text and illustrations © 2006 Walker Books Ltd. Based on the original novel Stormbreaker © 2000 Stormbreaker Productions Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Doctor Who Graphic Novels volume 14: The Child of Time


By Jonathan Morris, Mike Collins, David A. Roach, Roger Langridge, Martin Geraghty, Dan McDaid, Rob Davis, Geraint Ford, Adrian Salmon, & James Offredi (Panini Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-460-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: scintillating, superior sci fi for the bigger kids cluttering up the house and waiting for the TV Specials to start … 8/10

Doctor Who launched on television in the first episode of ‘An Unearthly Child’ on November 23rd 1963. Less than a year later, his decades-long run in TV Comic began with issue #674 and the premier instalment of ‘The Klepton Parasites’. On 11th October 1979 (although adhering to the US off-sale cover-dating system so 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 under various names ever since.

All of which only goes to prove that the Time Lord is a comic hero with an impressive pedigree…

Panini is in the ongoing process of collecting every strip from its archive in a uniform series of over-sized graphic albums, each concentrating on a particular incarnation of the deathless wanderer. This particular one gathers stories short and long which, taken together comprise a two-year extended epic. From Doctor Who Magazine (or DWM) #421-441 (originally published between 2010-2011), this run features the strip debut of the Matt Smith incarnation of the far-flung, far-out Time Lord as well as his foremost companion Amy Pond.

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

With all tales written by Jonathan Morris (plus, according to the author, liberal input from editors Scott Gray & Tom Spilsbury), coloured by James Offredi and lettered by Roger Langridge, the drama kicks off in ‘Supernature’ (illustrated by Mike Collins & David A. Roach, from DWM #421-423, May-July 2010).

Arriving on a jungle paradise world The Doctor and Amy quickly discover Earthling colonists in the midst of a terrifying plague…

The humans – all convicts press-ganged and abandoned to turn the planet into a suitable home – are being transformed into uncanny mutant beasts, and even the Time Lord and his new companion are monsterised before the crisis is solved. However when they depart they take part of the problem with them…

A rare but very welcome art job for regular letterer Langridge results in a bizarre and wonderful spoof on ‘Planet Bollywood!’ when warring factions of an ancient empire – and a romantic leading man – all struggle to possess a sexy humanoid device which compels listeners to break out in song and dance routines, after which a trip to Tokyo found fresh horror in the metamorphosis of innocent – if educationally lacking – children into a deadly fifth column…

‘The Golden Ones’ (#425-428, by Martin Geraghty & Roach) is a grand old-fashioned blockbuster invasion saga with a huge body-count, valiant armed resistance by dedicated UNIT soldiers, a classic villain’s return, a brilliant scientific solution and a slew of subtle clues to the greater saga unfolding. Just who is that strange little girl who keeps popping up everywhen?

From #429 comes the literary fantasy-homage ‘The Professor, the Queen and the Bookshop’ (Rob Davis & Geraint Ford) wherein our heroes meet a reclusive writer and evacuee children Amy – and hubby-to-be Rory – encounter a strange man in an infinite shop which can travel anywhere…

It’s back to Paris in 1858 for Dan McDaid’s ‘The Screams of Death’ as aspiring but hopeless singer Cosette is taken under the wing of impresario Monsieur Valdemar and develops a voice that could shake the Opera House to its foundations. Of course, the Svengali-like Fugitive from the Future had far grander plans for his many captive songbirds until Mam’selle Pond and M’sieu le Docteur turned up to foil a mad scheme to rewrite history…

The over-arching epic takes a big step forward in #432’s ‘Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night’ (featuring a welcome full-art outing for the splendid David Roach) as the Tardis turns up in an old people’s home staffed by robots, haunted by children and plagued by a vanishing roster of residents, whilst Adrian Salmon gets his freak on in the trippy terror-tale ‘Forever Dreaming’ (#433-434) as Amy is apparently trapped in a 1960’s seaside town with a dark secret, a phantom octopus and a host of psychedelic icons who really should be dead…

The saga swings into full acceleration with ‘Apotheosis’ (DWM #435-437 and limned by McDaid) as the Doctor and Amy land aboard a derelict space station and walk into the closing act of a galaxy-spanning war between humanity and their scheduled replacements: the awesome autonomous androids of Galatea.

Aboard the station, a cadre of warrior Space Nuns are seeking an ultimate weapon to tip the scales of the conflict, but with lethal sanitation robots everywhere and rogue time-distortion fields making each step a potential death-march, the hunt is hard-going. With everybody – even the Time Lord – hyper-aging at vastly different rates, when the Tardis then mutates into something impossible, the stage is set for a spectacular threat to all of creation to be born…

Of course, first the Machiavellian, monstrously manipulative and atrociously amoral creature calling herself Chiyoko must carry out a number of crucial appointments in Eternity to ensure the existence and consolidate the celestial dominance of ‘The Child of Time’ (with art from Geraghty & Roach from (DWM #438-441 August -November 2011).

Two years’ worth of cleverly-concocted mystery and imagination are then wrapped up in a staggering, creatively-anachronistic display of temporal hocus-pocus by scripter Morris as The Doctor, Amy and allies Alan Turing and the Bronte Sisters ward off the unmaking of time, the end of humanity and eradication of all life in the universe before the tragic finale and a happy ever after of sorts…

Dedicated fans can also enjoy a treasure-trove of background information in the 25-page  text Commentary section at the back, comprising chapter-by-chapter background, history and insights from the author and each of the illustrators, supplemented by happy horde of sketches, roughs, designs, production art and even excised material from all concerned.

We’ve all have our private joys and hidden passions. Sometimes they overlap and magic is made. This is another superb set of supremely satisfying comic strips, starring an absolute Pillar of the British Fantasy pantheon.

If you’re a fan of only one, The Child of Time should certainly spark your hunger for the other. This is a fabulous book for casual readers, a fine shelf addition for devotees of the show, the ideal opportunity to cross-promote our particular art-form and the perfect present for the Telly Addict haunting your house…

All Doctor Who material © BBCtv. Doctor Who logo © BBC 2012. Tardis image © BBC 1963. Doctor Who, Tardis and all logos are trade marks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence by BBC Worldwide. Published 2012 by Panini Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Batman: the Brave and the Bold volume 1


By Matt Wayne, J. Torres, Andy Suriano, Phil Moy, Carlo Barberi, Dan Davis & Terry Beatty (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2878-1

The Brave and the Bold began in 1955 as an anthology adventure comic featuring short complete tales about a variety of period heroes: a format which mirrored that era’s filmic fascination with historical dramas. Devised and written by Bob Kanigher, issue #1 led with Roman epic Golden Gladiator, medieval mystery-man The Silent Knight and Joe Kubert’s now legendary Viking Prince. Soon the Gladiator was increasingly alternated with Robin Hood, but the adventure theme carried the title until the end of the decade when the burgeoning costumed character revival saw B&B transform into a try-out vehicle like Showcase.

Used to premiere concepts and characters such as Task Force X: the Suicide Squad, Cave Carson, Hawkman and Strange Sports Stories and the epochal Justice League of America, the comic soldiered on until issue #50 when it provided another innovative new direction which once again truly caught the public’s imagination.

That issue paired two superheroes – Green Arrow & Martian Manhunter – in a one-off team-up, as did succeeding ones: Aquaman and Hawkman in #51, WWII Battle Stars Sgt Rock, Captain Cloud, Mme. Marie & the Haunted Tank in #52 and Atom & Flash in #53. The next team-up, Robin, Aqualad & Kid Flash, evolved into the Teen Titans and after Metal Men/the Atom and Flash/Martian Manhunter appeared a new hero; Metamorpho, the Element Man debuted in #57-58.

From then it was back to the extremely popular superhero pairings with #59, and although no one realised it at the time, this particular conjunction, Batman with Green Lantern, would be particularly significant….

After a return engagement for the Teen Titans, two issues spotlighting Earth-2 champions Starman & Black Canary and Wonder Woman with Supergirl, an indication of things to come came when Batman duelled hero/villain Eclipso in #64: an acknowledgement of the brewing TV-induced mania mere months away.

Within two issues, following Flash/Doom Patrol and Metamorpho/Metal Men, Brave and the Bold #67 saw the Caped Crusader take de facto control of the title and the lion’s share of the team-ups. With the exception of #72-73 (Spectre/the Flash and Aquaman/Atom) the comic was henceforth a place where Batman invited the rest of company’s heroic pantheon to come and play…

Decades later the Batman Animated TV series masterminded by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini in the 1990s revolutionised the Dark Knight and subsequently led to some of the absolute best comicbook adventures in his seventy-year publishing history with the creation of the spin-off print title.

With constant funnybook iterations and tie-ins to a succession of TV cartoon series, Batman has remained popular and a sublime introducer of kids to the magical world of the printed page.

The most recent incarnation was Batman: the Brave and the Bold, which gloriously teamed up the all-ages small-screen Dark Knight with a torrent and profusion of DC’s other heroic creations, and once again the show was supplemented by a cool kid’s comicbook full of fun, verve and swashbuckling dash, cunningly crafted to appeal as much to the parents and grandparents as those fresh-faced neophyte kids…

This stellar premier collection re-presents the first 6 issues in a hip and trendy, immensely entertaining package suitable for newcomers, fans and aficionados of all ages and, although not necessary to the reader’s enjoyment, a passing familiarity with the TV episodes will enhance the overall experience (and they’re pretty good too)…

Following the format of the TV show, each tale opens with a brief vignette adventure before telling a longer tale. Issue #1 has the Caped Crimebuster and Aquaman putting paid to robotic rogue Carapax. This fed into main feature ‘The Panic of the Composite Creature’ (by Matt Wayne, Andy Suriano & Dan Davis) wherein Batman and the pulchritudinous Power Girl saved London from Lex Luthor‘s latest monster-making mechanism.

Phil Moy then illustrates Superman and the Gotham Guardian mopping up the terrible Toyman before ‘The Attack of the Virtual Villains’ finds the Bat and Blue Beetle in El Paso battling evil Artificial Intellect The Thinker in a compelling computer-game world…

After an introductory battle between Wonder Woman, Dark Knight and telepathic tyrant Dr. Psycho‘s zombie villains, ‘President Batman!’ (Wayne, Suriano & Davis) sees the Great Detective substitute for the Commander-in-Chief with Green Arrow as bodyguard when body-swapping mastermind Ultra-Humanite attempts to seize control of the nation. Then, in the full-length ‘Menace of the Time Thief!’ Aquaman and his bat-eared chum prevent well-intentioned Dr. Cyber from catastrophically rewriting history, following a magical and too brief prologue wherein sorcerer Felix Faust is foiled by a baby Batman and the glorious pushy terrible toddlers Sugar and Spike…

J. Torres, Carlo Barberi & Terry Beatty stepped in for both the chilling vignette wherein the nefarious Key was caught by Batman and a Haunted Tank whilst ‘The Case of the Fractured Fairy Tale’ began when the awesome Queen of Fables started stealing children for her Enchanted Forest and the Caped Crusader needed the help of both Billy Batson and his adult alter ego Captain Marvel…

This first compilation concludes with a preliminary clash between Hourman and Batman against the crafty Calculator, after which ‘Charge of the Army Eternal!’ (Torres, Suriano & Davis) finds the villainous General Immortus at the mercy of his own army of time-lost warriors and bandits and desperately seeking the help of the Gotham Gangbuster and ghostly Guardian Kid Eternity.

Although greatly outnumbered, the Kid’s ability to summon past heroes such as The Vigilante, Shining Knight, Viking Prince and G.I. Robot proves invaluable, especially once the General inevitably betrays his rescuers…

This fabulously fun rollercoaster ride also includes informative ‘Secret Bat Files’ on Luthor, Power Girl, Thinker, Blue Beetle, Ultra-Humanite, Green Arrow, Dr. Cyber, Aquaman, Queen of Fables, Captain Marvel, General Immortus and Kid Eternity, and the package is topped off with a spiffy cover gallery courtesy of James Tucker, Scott Jeralds & Hi-Fi.

DC’s Cartoon Network imprint is arguably the last bastion of all-ages children’s comics in Americaand has produced some truly magical homespun material (such as Tiny Titans or Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam!) as well as stunning interpretations of such television landmarks as Scooby Doo, Powerpuff Girls, Ben 10, Dexter’s Laboratory and others.

The links between kids’ animated features and comicbooks are long established and, I suspect, for young consumers, indistinguishable. After all, it’s just adventure entertainment in the end…

Despite being ostensibly aimed at TV viewing kids, these mini-sagas are also wonderful, traditional comics thrillers no self-respecting fun-fan should miss: accessible, entertaining, well-rendered yarns for the broadest range of excitement-seeking readers, making this terrific tome a perfect, old fashioned delight. What more do you need to know?
© 2009 DC Comics. Compilation © 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Eagle Strike: the Graphic Novel – an Alex Rider Adventure


By Anthony Horowitz, adapted by Antony Johnston, Kanako & Yuzuru (Walker Books)
ISBN: 978-1-4063-1877-7

One of the most thrilling and effective additions to Britain’s literary spies and detectives in recent years is not a hard-hearted and suavely mature super-agent but a troubled yet ultimately indomitable English teenager as concerned with revision, sports fixtures and girls as subversion, world domination and honey traps.

Our popular literary heritage is littered with cunning sleuths and stealthy investigators from Sherlock Holmes, Sexton Blake, Campion and Lord Peter Wimsey to the Scarlet Pimpernel, George Smiley, Harry Palmer and Bond – James Bond – but the ongoing adventures of underaged operative Alex Rider seem set fair to top them all in time.

Subsequently transformed into graphic novel interpretations, the first three adventures – reformatted in larger more art-friendly editions, repackaged and re-released, have recently been supplemented by the game-changing fourth tale, adapted as usual by Antony Johnston and sisters Kanako Damerum & Yuzuru Takasaki.

In 2000 author and TV screenwriter Anthony Horowitz produced Stormbreaker, the first of nine (and counting…) rip-snorting teen novels featuring 14-year old orphan Alex Rider: a smart, fit, sports-mad lad like any other, who suddenly discovers that his guardian Uncle Ian has also mysteriously died. Moreover the enigmatic but attentive deceased elder gentleman was apparently a spy of some distinction and had been surreptitiously teaching the lad all the skills, techniques and disciplines needed to become a secret agent…

Soon MI6 were knocking on his door…

As well as a major motion picture and video game, the books (the first four so far) have also been adapted to the comics medium; their easy blend of action, invention, youthful rebellion and overwhelmingly engaging 007 pastiche winning many fans in the traditionally perilous older-boys book market. They’re well worth further investigation…

His occasional paymasters at MI6 are always looking for ways to exploit his obvious talents but Alex, although highly skilled and naturally gifted, is at best a reluctant agent, preferring a normal life to the clandestine machinations of espionage.

Sadly trouble and duty seem unable to ignore him and whilst holidaying in France with schoolgirl friend and confidante Sabina Pleasure and her family, Alex spots Russian assassin Yassen Gregorovitch – the man who killed his Uncle Ian – and trails him.

The surveillance leads to a crowded café and an overheard suspicious phone call before reason prevails and Alex decides to leave it alone. After all, his experiences have shown that all spies are as bad as each other and he should have nothing to do with any of them.

However when he and Sabina return to Edward Pleasure’s holiday villa they find police, fire-crews, ambulances and a smouldering ruin. The place had inexplicably blown up with Sabina’s dad inside and almost caught Mrs Pleasure too…

Horrified, Alex concludes that the tragedy was all his fault. If only he had acted when he had the chance…

Unable to convince the French authorities that it was no accident, young Rider goes hunting for Gregorovitch and ambushes the assassin, determined to kill him with his own gun…

Unable to carry out his threat, Alex learns from the unexpectedly forthcoming mercenary that although the explosion was the killer’s work the boy spy was not the target…

When the Russian’s ally returns the boy is trapped, but rather than simply shoot him, Yassen gives Alex a chance of survival by making him the star in a bullfight. After initial shock Rider easily escapes the ordeal and heads towards the nearest port and England, but stops to ring a phone number he found in Gregorovitch’s possession. It is the direct line to Sir Damian Cray – beloved pop star, evergreen environmentalist and globally revered humanitarian. How can such a modern-day saint be connected to the world’s deadliest killer-for-hire?

Reaching Londonwithout incident, Alex begins researching the seemingly ageless musician. He also has a big fight with the newly returned Sabina (who can’t believe that her journalist father’s investigation of the star resulted in the explosion the French authorities claim was a gas leak) and turns to MI6 with his suspicions, but even they think he’s crazy and his manipulative sometime-boss Mr. Blunt sternly warns him off.

Utterly convinced he is right Alex storms out, unaware that Blunt is far more concerned that the boy might discover an unsuspected family connection to Yassen Gregorovitch…

Rider is determined to investigate Gray no matter what, but his disgust with adults in general and spies in particular is slightly tempered when the ingenious MI6 quartermaster Mr. Smithers surreptitiously sends him a tricked up pedal bike with a selection of useful technical “upgrades” and a bulletproof cycle-jersey…

Cray, a thinly veiled amalgam of Michael Jackson and Sir Cliff Richard, has his sublimely-manicured billionaire’s fingers in many pies and Alex tracks him down to an all-star Londonlaunch for the pop icon’s new Gameslayer computer console. Aided only by his housekeeper and former babysitter Jack Starbright, Alex infiltrates the launch party and is singled out by Cray to demonstrate the fully-immersive computer game in front of hundreds of journalists. When Alex begins to dominate the game Cray cheats and confirms beyond doubt that the musical saint not as benevolent as he seems…

A day later Alex and Miss Starbright are in Paris, tracking down the photographer who first put Sabina’s father onto Cray, but no sooner do they make contact with the terrified and apparently paranoid Marc Antonio than a heavily armed hit-squad raids the building.

Narrowly avoiding the killers after a harrowing rooftop pursuit, Alex ponders the snippets of information Antonio shared: Edward Pleasure was actually investigating Charlie Roper, a suspected NSA traitor possibly selling American secrets. However, when the reporters filmed the agent accepting a pay-off, it was neither North Korean nor Chinese officials but the world’s most famous pop star doling out the cash…

Soon, suspicious accidents and burglaries began and when Marc almost died from a bomb in his car he realised the awful truth…

Not knowing if the photo-journalist survived the latest attack, Alex heads acrossEuropeto the Dutch factory where Cray Software Technologies is building Gameslayer units and infiltrates the outrageously over-fortified facility in time to overhear Roper in conversation with Cray himself about a project Dubbed “Eagle Strike”…

The formerUSagent has just delivered a flash-drive which holds the most important and diligently guarded security codes inAmerica, but completely misjudged the moneyed musician’s playfully psychotic ruthlessness…

Reeling in shock at the horrific murder he’s just witnessed, Alex is then captured by Cray’s men and brought before the gloating popinjay. Obviously insane, the baroque megalomaniac overrules Yassen’s surprising objections and sentences the boy to death by forcing him to play in the life-sized, real-world mock-up of the Gameslayer scenario…

Overcoming fantastic threats and obstacles, Alex ultimately triumphs and escapes the game world. He then steals the flash-drive and spectacularly eludes an army of motorised, gun-toting pursuers before fleeing back toBritain, but the infuriated Cray has anticipated his further interference by kidnapping Sabina as she visits her father in hospital…

Cray demands that Rider bring the purloined codes to his Wiltshire mansion where he boastfully reveals his master-plan…

Damian Cray is a true philanthropist who loves the world and its many peoples. From his elevated, gifted position he has seen that drugs are the greatest threat to global harmony and has devised a simple plan to fix the problem. With the nuclear launch codes of the American President (a great personal friend) and the Presidential Jet he plans to steal, Cray will launch twenty five nuclear missiles at all the planet’s poppy fields and eradicate the problem forever…

And he gets far too close to complete success before Alex finally stops the manic maestro in a staggering, blockbuster sequence that would do any super-spy proud, but not before getting shot himself and discovering the awful truth about Gregorovitch and his own dead father…

In the weary aftermath of near-Armageddon, the swiftly-maturing Alex also has to come to terms with losing Sabina and keeping some secrets that even MI5 shouldn’t know…

This is another immensely intoxicating and hugely entertaining romp, hitting all the thrill-buttons for an ideal summer blockbuster, even though it’s told – and very convincingly – from the viewpoint of an uncertain boy rather than a suave, sophisticated adult.

This adaptation is sharp and poignant, depicting the unsure transition from boy to young man amidst situations of breathtaking danger and nerve-tingling excitement. The bold, do-or-die flair of the young hero is perfectly captured by the art of sisters Kanako & Yuzuru in their full-colour, computer-rendered manga style, happily handling the softer moments as well as the spectacular action set-pieces and spine-tingling interpersonal dramatic confrontations.

Be warned, however: even though this is a notionally a kid’s book there is a lot of realistic action and a big body-count so if you intend sharing the book with younger children, read it yourself first.

These books and their comic counterparts are a fine addition to our fiction tradition. Alex Rider will return… and so should you.
Text and illustrations © 2012 Walker Books Ltd. Based on the original novel Eagle Strike © 2002 Anthony Horowitz. All rights reserved.

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Point Blanc: the Graphic Novel – an Alex Rider Adventure


By Anthony Horowitz, adapted by Antony Johnston, Kanako Damerum & Yuzuru Takasaki (Walker Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84428-112-1

If Americais the spiritual home of the superhero, Britainis Great because of our fictional heritage of super spies and consulting detectives. Our mainstream literary life is littered with cunning sleuths and stealthy investigators from Sherlock Holmes, Sexton Blake, Campion and Lord Peter Wimsey to the Scarlet Pimpernel, George Smiley and Harry Palmer. And Bond… James Bond…

In 2000 Anthony Horowitz produced Stormbreaker, the first of nine (and counting…) rip-snorting teen novels featuring orphan Alex Rider: a smart, fit, sports-mad lad like any other, who tragically discovers that his guardian Uncle Ian has suddenly been killed. Moreover the deceased gentleman was apparently a spy of some distinction and had been surreptitiously teaching the lad all the skills, techniques and disciplines needed to become a secret agent…

Soon MI6 were knocking on his door and he was inextricably embroiled in a fantastic plot with only his wits and courage keeping him alive against fantastic odds and vicious villains…

As well as a major motion picture and video game, some of the books have also been adapted to the comics medium; their easy blend of action, youthful rebellion and overwhelmingly comfortable 007-style pastiche winning many fans in the traditionally perilous older-boys book market. They’re really rather good…

This particular graphic novel – the second cataclysmic case for the British Agent too young to drink martinis, whether shaken or stirred – comes to you simply because it was hanging about in the graphic novel section of my local library and caught my attention. Besides, I never have enough to read (that last bit is sarcasm…).

Despite his potentially fabulous, intoxicating, adrenaline-fuelled lifestyle, all Alex wants is a normal life but his lifelong conditioning and utterly heroic nature make all that an impossibility.

This gripping thriller for older kids opens with a shocking death at New York conglomerate Roscoe Electronics, just as in London, far-from-average student Alex determines to end the predations of a couple of drug pushers targeting his classmates at the Brookland School…

The boy’s solution is, as always, unconventional but highly effective, forever ending the dealers’ insidious threat with no lives lost, but unfortunately causing millions of pounds of collateral damage and publicly humiliating the Home Secretary.

It does however bring the lad into police custody and leave him at the tender mercies of blackmailing MI6 spymaster Mr. Blunt, who just happens to specifically need a trained teenager for a perilous new assignment…

It transpires that two of the world’s most influential and wealthy men have recently died in mysterious circumstances. One was Blunt’s old college friend Michael Roscoe and the other ex-KGB Kingmaker Viktor Ivanov – the second most powerful man in post-Cold War Russia. The only thing they have in common is “difficult” sons with a history of crime and troublemaking who both settled down after attending the French Alpine boarding school Point Blanc Academy…

Ever-reluctant to get involved with people he doesn’t trust, Alex only acquiesces after Blunt threatens to revoke the visa of Rider’s housekeeper and Guardian Miss Starbright…

The school is something of a legend among the rich and powerful. Run by an enigmatic albino named Hugo Grief, the establishment – a converted castle atop a mountain – has an incredible reputation for turning around spoiled rich boys with discipline problems and making them into solid citizens their fathers can be proud of…

However, when Roscoe’s son Paul came home for a holiday, the father felt something was amiss. Calling his old friend inLondon, the senior Roscoe fell down an elevator shaft before he could share his misgivings…

Coincidentally, Ivanov’s son Dimitry, also on holiday, was the only survivor when his father’s yacht mysteriously blew up in theBlack Sea…

Up against a wall as usual, Rider agrees to go undercover at the Finishing School/Boot Camp and becomes wild-child brat Alex Friend, incorrigible scion of an aristocratic retail magnate dispatched to Grief’s tender mercies by a long-suffering billionaire parent with the ear of Prime Ministers and royalty…

Kitted out with a few handy gadgets courtesy of the ingenious quartermaster Mr. Smithers, Alex is soon collected by the formidable Mrs. Stellenbosch and hurtling by private helicopter to Paris, for one last night of relative freedom. However, Grief’s incredible Gemini Project has already been put into operation and Alex is drugged and subjected to a barrage of covert tests and measurements…

The next day he checks into the austere institution and meets fellow 14-year old reprobate James Sprintz, chief disappointment of Germany’s richest banker…

Oddly for such a disciplinarian place, there seem to be few rules and no scheduled lessons. Stranger still is the fact that the entire student body only consists of seven 14-year old sons of rich and influential men, and all the boys are of approximately the same weight, height and skin colour…

Even with security cameras everywhere and armed guards constantly watching, within a week Alex uncovers the bare bones of an incredible scheme: a plot to somehow make the kids slaves of the sinister headmaster. However Rider/Friend has no idea of the actual scope of the plot or how truly insane and dangerous Grief is until he finds hidden dungeons and sees a plastic surgeon callously murdered.

Finding photos and measurements of himself taken whilst unconscious in Paris, Alex realises the idea involves replacing the heirs of the world’s most influential people and presses his concealed panic button for immediate rescue, but Blunt arbitrarily decides to hold off, preferring to see what else will happen…

Abandoned and left to his own resources, Alex attempts to free the real students but is captured, after which Grief reveals his true ambition. The replacements are not actors or doctored doubles, but 16 actual clones of the insane biochemist, surgically altered to look like the wild boys and imbued with the all aging albino’s memories, aspirations and ambitions….

Now miraculously stable these good sons will return to their homes and welcoming parents, patiently awaiting the day when they will inherit the planet…

In fact eight finished Point Blanc graduates are already in situ, just waiting for the right moment…

With no one to rely on, Alex busts out in spectacular fashion and is chased through the Alps to his death – or at least that’s what Grief and Stellenbosch are told – whilst Rider leads a crack team of SAS troops on a mission to rescue the fifteen boys still held in the mastermind’s dungeon…

The raid culminates in a brutal firefight, the deaths of the biochemist and his savage major domo and the rounding up and incarceration of Grief’s 15 deadly doppelgangers, so with the job done and Miss Starbright safe from deportation, Alex returns to Brookland and a salutary, surprise lesson in the value of simple arithmetic…

This is an another supremely scintillating adventure-romp; hitting all the thrill-buttons for an ideal summer blockbuster, even though it’s told – and very convincingly – from the viewpoint of an surly, uncertain boy rather than a suave, sophisticated adult. Johnson’s adaptation is slick and sharp whilst the art by sisters Kanako & Yuzuru is in a full-colour, computer-rendered manga style which might not please everybody but certainly works exceedingly well in capturing the tension, rollercoaster pace and spectacular action set-pieces.

Be warned however, even though this is a kid’s book there is a substantial amount of fighting and a big bodycount, and the violence is not at all cartoony in context. If you intend sharing the story with younger children, best read it yourself first.

These books and their comic counterparts are a fine addition to our splendid fiction tradition and Alex Rider will return over and again… so why don’t you join him?
Text and illustrations © 2007 Walker Books Ltd. Based on the original novel Point Blanc © 2001 Anthony Horowitz. All rights reserved.

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Gods from Outer Space: Atlantis, Men and Monsters


Inspired by the works of Erich von Däniken, freely interpreted by Alfred Górny, Arnold Mostowicz & Rosińskiego Bogusław Polch and translated from the German edition by Michael Heron (Methuen)
ISBNs: 0-416 87-160-7

Here in the West, Poland isn’t known for generating graphic novels or albums, although there has always been a thriving comics culture and many Polish creators have found fame in far-off lands. This pithy, quirky science fiction speculation is the second of four volumes to make a break across the borders and only then because of the notorious celebrity name attached to the project…

Once upon a time the ludicrous theories of Swiss author, convicted conman and fraudster Erich Anton Paul von Däniken captured the public imagination with his postulate that aliens had visited Earth in human prehistory and reshaped the destiny of our ancient ancestors.

Although mostly discredited these days, that tantalising kernel of an idea still persists in many places; and how different life might be if the imaginative and inventive writer had simply done what he should have with such a great notion and just made a cracking science fiction epic out of his “researches”…

Happily others have done just that and the result is a quirky yet enticing intergalactic generational saga that resulted in a mini-phenomenon in Poland which spread, despite all the restrictions of an embattled Cold War satellite-economy, through Germany and on to a number of other nations in at least a dozen different languages.

In 1977, publisher Alfred Górny, who generally specialised in sports and tourism, contacted his counterparts at West German non-fiction outfit Econ Verlag with a proposition for creating a new and mutually profitable cartoon album series.

Górny wanted to produce the series in Polandand had lined up the superb Grzegorz RosiÅ„ski to draw it. Unfortunately the artist quit before the job began, instead accepting the job of illustrating sci-fi barbarian series Thorgal for Jean Van Hamme in the prestigious French comic Tintin, after which the nation’s most prolific and popular comics artist, Jerzy Wróblewski, also stepped in before dropping out.

Górny and scripter Arnold Mostowicz settled for newcomer RosiÅ„skiego BogusÅ‚aw Polch – who would eventually win a measure of international renown for sci-fi/political/private eye thriller Funky Koval – to delineate the epic, meandering, saga of alien civil war, primeval strife and the birth and destruction of a primordial lost civilisation as well as the propagation of most of our world’s myths, legends and religions.

When finances and resources in the Warsaw Pact nation began to evaporate, Econ Verlag took on the international syndication responsibilities and the series took on a life of its own.

The result was eight original albums – ‘LÄ…dowanie w Andach’ (Landing in the Andes), ‘Ludzie i potwory’ (Men and Monsters), ‘Walka o planetÄ™’ (The Struggle for the Planet), ‘Bunt Olbrzymów’ (Giants’ Mutiny); ‘ZagÅ‚ada Wielkiej Wyspy’ (Great Island’s Doom), ‘Planeta pod kontrolÄ…’ (The Planet under Control), ‘Tajemnica Piramidy’ (The Mystery of the Pyramid) and ‘Ostatni Rozkaz’ (the Last Command). The series was even rebound in two huge compilation volumes for Polish consumption: true collector’s items these days…

In 1978 British publisher Methuen Children’s Books (then also publishing Hergé’s Tintin) picked up the English language rights for the first four books and released them – complete with spurious fringe-science trimmings and photo-extras – to a largely unimpressed British public.

Now, with time having stripped away the ludicrous faux facts and messianic furore underpinning the tales, I’m reviewing what is actually a rather impressive, entertaining slice of speculative fiction dressed in a workmanlike yet enthralling no-nonsense art style that will delight fans of illustrated storytelling…

The adventure began millennia ago with Descent in the Andes, as a colossal flying saucer carrying hundreds of scientists from Delos in the Sagittarius Nebula establishes orbit above Earth. Mission leader Ais – the only woman in the vast complement of scientists and technicians – and her lieutenants Chat and Roub oversee the mission dictated by the Great Brain of Delos to find a new world for the race, since their home planet was on the verge of annihilation. The men are resolved to re-order the wild blue planet beneath them, using their incredible science to create a Delosian sub-species able to thrive on the alien world and propagate their perfect culture and civilisation. The plan is to seed this world and then great ship will depart, finding more suitable worlds and repeating the procedure…

As Earth and its life-forms are probed by the Delosians, tensions mount among the crew: Chat and Roub are increasingly at odds and soon after a ground-base is established, the latter foments mutiny and forcibly attempts to make Ais his bed-mate…

The colonists’ attempts to create a labour force by domesticating the smart apes soon falter as loneliness and native intoxicants begin to unravel the discipline of the superior beings and the lonely, over-worked crewmen descend into brawling and inter-species fraternisation…

When Ais steps down hard on the malcontents, Roub, who violently advocates abandoning the mission and taking over the welcoming world below, sees his chance to further undermine her. The crisis breaks when the fuel for the aerosondes – planetary transport shuttles – suddenly runs out. Chat kills a saboteur and denounces Roub, but before outright war erupts a startling message announces the arrival of a second vessel fromDelos…

Meanwhile supreme scientist Zan‘s experiments on the native females have concluded and his findings indicate that for the mission to succeed, he must directly reconfigure the ape-beings’ genetic make-up, a step Ais is reluctant to consider…

Whilst Ais and Chat supervised construction of a vast landing-field base in what we know as the Andes, Roub fomented open rebellion. The militant rocketed into space, intent on destroying the orbiting ship and forcing the Delosians to settle on Earth, with Ais in hot pursuit.

After a vicious battle she drove Roub off the vessel and followed him back to Earth where Chat tracked him to his final fate in the deadly beast-filled jungles…

Their troubles were far from over. The second expedition, under the command of Beroub, had set up operations on a far-distant continent, but the back-up colony suddenly fell prey to an unknown contagion and, as Ais and Zan rocketed off to investigate, they barely survived a cataclysmic volcanic eruption which completely eradicated the Nazca facility…

With the entire colony wiped out, Chat was trapped in space and Zan and Ais had no choice but to head for unknown peril on the far distant Atlantic continent…

Atlantis, Men and Monsters picks up the story as Ais, Zan and pilot Eness land at the troubled second base and soon discover the cause of the disease. Somebody has adulterated the chemical solution used by the Delosians to aid respiration in Earth’s inimical atmosphere, turning it into a slow-acting poison.

Suspicion immediately falls upon their head scientist Satham, who seems to be plagued with the same lust for domination that afflicted Roub.

Ais is utterly determined to carry out the edicts of the Great Brain and decides to act decisively – as soon as she has proof…

Taking charge of the recovering survivors, she orders Zan to begin his genetic manipulation of the vast island’s carnivorous primates, wedding their DNA to the civilised germ-plasm of the Delosians.

During this process Satham and his cronies disappear and Ais uncovers his plans: a plethora of hideous, savage hybrids designed for conflict. Satham was making an army of monsters…

Ensuring that Zan’s benign, intelligent humanoids are secured in a protective wildlife preserve, Ais and a small team then track the deranged renegade and discover a third Delosian star-saucer crashed in a desert. There is no sign of the crew, and much of the intergalactic juggernaut’s machinery has been removed…

Satham has constructed a huge secret complex beneath an inland sea and is far along in his plans to build force to dominate the world, but is not so far removed from rationality that he will kill the only species-compatible female on Earth. Capturing Ais, he shows off his abhorrent triumphs and urges her to join him, but underestimates her determination and dedication, as well as Zan’s ingenuity…

Engineering her escape from afar, the master technologist lays siege to the submerged fortress and devastatingly destroys the lake to reveal Satham’s citadel to the massed firepower ofDelos, before rescuing Ais.

Sathan brokers a tenuous truce, but almost immediately reneges and lures his enemies into a explosive booby-trap aboard the downed star-saucer…

Ais was ready for such a move however and, after narrowly escaping, leads an all-out attack on the exposed fortress of horror, recovering the imprisoned crew of the doomed third ship and activating a dormant volcano under Satham’s facility, although the rebel himself eludes capture.

Meanwhile, tragedy has struck Zan’s “children”. Placed in a protective garden, the genetically augmented humanoids initially seemed a great success, but after eating the fruit of one particular tree they erupted into manic, mindless violence. The gourd had somehow triggered a regression to their more aggressive forebears and a spontaneous wave of violence compelled them to savagely attack and kill each other… all but one male and female…

Increasingly convinced that this Blue Planet is steeped in some inescapable psychic evil, Ais and Zan resolve to carry on regardless of setbacks when Satham attacks with a legion of monstrous beasts he has constructed and grown. After a fierce and decisive battle above the surviving hominid prototypes, Ais’ forces are finally triumphant, having used blazing energy guns and the flaming jets of the Aerosondes to burn the winged, fanged and clawed demon-beasts into oblivion – a racial memory forever seared into the consciousness of the first man and woman of Earth…

With the danger temporarily abated, the Delosians rededicate themselves to forever protecting their manufactured progeny and making their new Blue World the last bastion of their culture and civilisation.

Of course, there are more terrible tests to face; especially since Satham’s body cannot be found…

There’s a bucket-load of plot and plenty of action packed into this colourful, oversized (292x219mm) 52 page tome, and the increasingly sleek, slick illustration from Polch is beguilingly seductive and something no traditional science fiction connoisseur could resist. Maybe it’s time to revisit this lost series and even go looking for a few more of those embargoed comics classics from the Land of the White Eagle…
© 1978 Econ Verlag GmbH, Dusseldorf. English translation © 1978 Methuen Children’s Books, Ltd.

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Cartoon Network 2-in-1: Ben 10 Alien Force/The Secret Saturdays


By many and various
(DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2878-1

The links between kids’ animated features and comicbooks are long established and, I suspect, for young consumers, indistinguishable. After all, it’s just adventure entertainment in the end…

DC’s Cartoon Network imprint is arguably the last bastion of children’s comics in America and has produced some truly magical homespun material (such as Tiny Titans, Batman: Brave and the Bold or Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam!) as well as stunning interpretations of such television landmarks as Scooby Doo, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory and others.

This particular dynamic and fast-paced parcel of thrills gathers a brace of contemporary kids’ TV sensations in back-to-back exploits taken from monthly periodical Cartoon Network Action-Pack (issues # 26-42) and opens with the further adventures of a boy who becomes a one-man alien legion of extraterrestrial champions with the mere flick of a wrist…

Ben Tennyson was a plucky kid who could become ten different alien super-heroes by activating a fantastic device called the Omnitrix. At first the young boy clandestinely battled fantastic foes with his eccentric Grandpa Max and obnoxious cousin Gwen but by the time of these tales Ben is a teenager, having retired for a few years before again taking up the mantle of planetary protector.

He is also well on the way to becoming a global household name and has his own power-packed teen posse including Gwen, reformed super bad-boy Kevin Ethan Levin and romantic interest/techno-ninja Julie Yamamoto, all whilst struggling to master the far more powerful Ultimatrix device…

In short complete tales (following a handy guide to the cast and checklist of alien alternates which Ben can morph into) the reluctant hero, his hyper-charged avatars and BFFs tackle a continual stream of world-shaking threats and typical teen traumas beginning with ‘The New Order’ by Matt Wayne & Rob Haynes, wherein Kevin’s car is stolen.

The sweet ride is packed with advanced alien tech and only Gwen’s skill in manipulating “manna” or magic enables them to track it to old enemies the Forever Knights, servants of elitist primal race the Highbreed. Cue big, big fight…

Another fact-page, this time delivering the details on the Highbreed and their devoted servants the Forever Knights and insidiously cloaked infiltrators dubbed DNAliens is followed by ‘Bad Boy’ (Charlotte Fullerton, Mike Cavallaro & Mike DeCarlo) wherein Kevin seems to return to his evil ways by impersonating Ben. It’s all a ploy to fool DNAliens, but nobody thought to tell Gwen that…

‘A Blast from the Past’ (Fullerton & Min. S. Ku) sees a Space cop’s overeager son attempt to arrest Kevin only to accidentally uncover a very real hidden menace, whilst ‘A Brief Mystery of Time’ by the same creative team finds Ben stuck in a deadly time loop until sometimes ally Professor Paradox offers a few useful if unusual hints…

‘Double Trouble’ reintroduces Ben’s evil doppelganger Albedo, who has devised a perfect way to reactivate his own Omnitrix and finally replace the hero – or so he thinks – whilst in ‘Ship Shape’, a small gift from Ben to Julie causes big trouble after her alien mecha-pet suddenly goes wild and Ben’s planned ‘Lazy Day’ (Amy Wolfram & Ku) goes horribly wrong after Gwen reminds him of an appointment with a covert colony of DNAliens…

Robbie Busch, Cavallaro & DeCarlo then reveal a sweet trap for the young heroes at the local Ice Cream emporium, courtesy of a de-frocked Forever Knight who was their ‘Soda Jerk’, Jason Hall & Ku describe how ‘The Past is the Key to the Future’ when a long-dormant Highbreed doomsday bomb activates and Ben has to travel five years back in time to when he first became a hero to uncover the means of deactivating it – without being seen by his earlier self – before the Ben 10 bits conclude with Jake Black & Ku’s ‘Backcountry Battleground’ wherein a snowboarding holiday turns into a catastrophic confrontation when Ben, Gwen and Kevin unearth a DNAlien installation threatening all of Earth…

The second half of the bifurcated blockbuster is dedicated to a family of clandestine crypto-zoologists covertly discovering and protecting Earth’s hidden beasts of fact and fable against all threats and menaces as The Secret Saturdays.

“Doc” (don’t call him Solomon) and Drew Saturday are members of a hidden society called The Secret Scientists, dedicated to protecting the Earth from hidden threats both ancient and modern, unravelling mysteries, and saving lost and undiscovered species from human encroachment and exploitation.

When not in their hidden base and wildlife preserve they travel the globe with their precocious son Zak – who has an un explained psychic ability to connect with “cryptids” – and rescued creature-comrades gorilla-cat Fiskerton, genetically augmented dragon Komodo and pterosaur Zon, unravelling the unknown and battling hostile foes and forces.

Most notable among those are villainous TV crypto-zoologist V.V. Argost, beast-hunting mercenary Van Rook and Piecemeal, a dastardly and depraved culinary cove obsessed with and dedicated to eating the rarest creatures in the world…

The show was created by Jay Stephens and premiered in October 2008, framed very much in the mould of classic 1960s Hanna-Barbera adventure animations such as Jonny Quest and the Herculoids, beginning here with ‘The Cannibal Curse’ written and inked by Stephens with pencils by Scott Jeralds in which the family travel to Fiji to accept a ceremonial apology from the descendants of natives who ate Doc’s great, great, great grandfather, only to encounter Dakuwaqa, possibly a “living fossil” dunkleosteus but certainly not a genuine immortal shark god…? But they could be wrong…

Brandon Sawyer & Mike Manley take the clan to the Russian Steppes for ‘Crying Wolf!’ in search of Kalmakian snakes, but Zak and Fiskerton’s unconventional appearance soon has the natives screaming “Wawkalak!” However even though Fisk certainly isn’t the fabled Russian werewolf, the inevitable bandits hassling the town certainly have some uncanny creature in their thrall…

‘Way Past Bedtime’ (John Rozum, Jeralds & Manley) sees Zak, Fisk and Komodo try to escape their babysitter Abby Grey, only to be taken on a wild excursion to a lost sepulchre by the compulsive and tempestuous tomb-raider. In the crypt they encounter a fantastic watch-beast and the murderous Van Hook, looking for a lost artefact…

‘Sticks and Stones’ (Rozum, Will Sweeney & Manley) finds Zak, Fisk and Komodo trying to retrieve a replica artefact they’ve accidentally lost in the preserve beneath the Saturday base. Unfortunately Argost is also after it and he’s brought a pet peril of his own. To make things perfect, that’s when the storm and flash-floods hit…

By the same team, ‘The Storm that Shook Japan’ found the entire family investigating a devastated town with anthropoid ally Professor Mizuki. However the depredations of the tree-dwelling giant Lightning-Thunder-Birds are as nothing compared to the humans who have been wilfully clear-cutting their ancient forests, after which Komodo steals the spotlight in ‘Escape from Weird World’ when the canny dragon is stolen by Argost’s manservant Munya, only to orchestrate a mass breakout from his critter Colditz, whilst the entire reunited family encounter terror and cruel misunderstanding in Italy after an old shepherd dies and flocks begin disappearing. Only Doc’s uncanny perspicacity prevents a huge tragedy by unravelling the ancient mystery of the Guardian of ‘The Cave of the Cacus’…

The all-ages adventure ends on a rather gruesome and grisly note with Rozum, Jeralds & Manley’s ‘Meal Worms’ as the search for invisible skyfish in Mexico results in another nasty encounter with ghastly gourmand Piecemeal and the first sighting of a terrifying species of atmospheric jellyfish…

Despite being ostensibly aimed at TV kids, these mini-sagas are wonderful old-fashioned comics thrillers which no self-respecting fun-fan should miss: accessible, entertaining, well-rendered yarns for the broadest range of excitement-seeking readers, making this terrific tome a perfect, old fashioned delight. What more do you need to know?
™ and © 2010 Cartoon Network. Compilation © 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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OZ: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz


By L. Frank Baum, adapted by Eric Shanower & Skottie Young (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2921-9 (hb)          978-0-7851-2922-7 (tpb)

We all know the story of The Wizard of Oz – or at least the bare bones of it harvested to make the admittedly stunning 1939 film – but the truth is there’s a vast amount from that legendary 1900 novel by jobbing journalist and prolific author Lyman Frank Baum that remained unfilmed, and this superb and faithful adaptation by rabid fan Eric Shanower and artist Skottie Young rectifies and redresses those glaring tinseltown omissions and alterations with stunning skill and mesmerising charm.

As superb an illustrator as author, Shanower himself produced five original graphic novels set in Baum’s magic kingdom (The Enchanted Apples of Oz, The Secret Island of Oz, The Ice King of Oz, The Forgotten Forest of Oz, and The Blue Witch of Oz between 1986 and 1992, recently compiled into one scintillating chronicle as Adventures in Oz) as well as a new prose work, short stories and contributions to various academic and critical volumes on Baum and his creations.

In 2009 Marvel began producing a sequence of miniseries by Shanower and Skottie Young faithfully adapting Baum’s original texts, and the first 8-part classic has been collected as both a premier hardcover and trade paperback edition that will delight and astound both veteran and completely fresh readers.

Much of the familiar skeleton is there. Dorothy and her little dog Toto are spirited away from dreary, flat Kansas by a cataclysmic cyclone in the family house which, after many hours in the air, dumps the pair in a fantastic land of rolling hills and glorious vistas.

Under the fallen domicile is a dead witch and the blue-clad Munchkins who populate the place couldn’t be happier.

When the Good Witch of the North appeared, she explains that Dorothy has done a great thing, but she cannot help the little girl return home to her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em. Nobody has ever heard of Kansas, but perhaps the great and terrible Wizard of Oz could help. Dorothy and Toto are advised to follow the Yellow Brick Road to his City of Emeralds in the centre of Oz, and since the girl’s cheap boots were hardly up to the journey, it’s pretty lucky she was awarded the Silver Shoes of the deceased Hag…

She walked for a long time, feted everywhere by happy, witch-free folks and eventually encountered a scarecrow in a field of corn. He wasn’t much different from the ones at home except that he winked at her and struck up a conversation…

The straw man was uncomfortable and Dorothy extricated him from his uncomfortable position stranded on high with a pole up his back, after which they discussed her plight and the Wizard’s ability to do anything. After relating how he was made the Scarecrow, hoping the green sage could provide him with brains, asked the little lass if he could accompany her to the City of Emeralds…

Their route took them through a darkly wooded area overgrown with trees and as night was falling, Dorothy wanted to stop. The Scarecrow saw a cottage deep in the trees and although it was scary and abandoned they planned to rest there. However, whilst looking for water they heard eerie screams and followed them to a tin woodman immobile and rusting…

Once the little girl had used a handy oilcan to liberate him the Woodsman related a tragic – and gruesome – tale of cursed love and an enchanted axe which that turned an enamoured young man, piece by piece, into an unfeeling kettle without a heart.

Perhaps the Wizard could provide one if he joined them on their quest…?

As they journeyed onwards together through the seemingly endless forest Dorothy’s provisions began to run out and they were attacked by a fearsome and magnificent lion. As Toto bravely defended his mistress, the King of Beasts made to devour the dog and angry Dorothy slapped the savage beast’s face.

The predator crumbled into tears and shared his own tale of woe: a life built on bluff and the permanent terror that all the forest creatures currently afraid of him might discover that the Lion was far more scared of them. He too joined the party for Oz…

As they proceeded on their way they encountered and conquered many perils together: huge gorges cutting across the road, savage sabre-toothed Kalidahs, a huge river and a field of toxic poppies.

It was here that the Lion, Toto and Dorothy fell into an unshakable sleep, but luckily the Tin Woodman saved the life of a Field-mouse who happened to be the Queen of the mice. and in gratitude she bade all her millions of subjects to carry the slumberers to safety after which she gave Dorothy a whistle that could summon aid from the mice should she ever again need it.

Eventually they reached pleasant countryside where all the houses were painted green and at long last saw the high green wall of the City of Emerald…

After much shilly-shallying each postulant was granted an audience with the Wizard, who looked alarmingly different to each one of them and said they could only achieve their heart’s desires if they performed one little task – killing the deadly Wicked Witch of the West…

With no other choice the questors set off for the Land of the Winkies, defeating talking wolves, savage crow armies and killer bees before succumbing to an attack by flying monkeys which dismembered the Scarecrow and the Woodman and saw the Lion and Dorothy dragged off as slaves.

The feisty child’s life was one of terrible drudgery until the Witch stole one of the magic silver shoes and Dorothy threw a bucket of scrub-water over her…

With the Witch dead, the jubilant and liberated Winkies rebuilt the Woodman and reassembled the Scarecrow so that the triumphant adventurers could begin an epic Pilgrimage back to Oz and their promised rewards.

But their trials and tribulations were far from over…

And that’s barely past the half-way point in this astoundingly captivating book which is incontrovertibly the very best adaptation yet of one of the world’s greatest tales.

Shanower’s adaptation provides a far darker, more naturalistically vivid and far edgier atmosphere – after all, this was a story originally written at a time when it was still okay to frighten children or make them feel sad, and the grim facts of harsh life weren’t covered up unnecessarily – whilst Skottie Young’s gloriously stylised and vibrant interpretation is a wonder to behold, capturing idyllic fields of pastoral wonder, strange peoples, fantastic magic, scary beasts and spectacular events with supreme aplomb, all perfectly enhanced by the sensitive colour palette of Jean-Francois Beaulieu and Jeff Eckleberry’s deft calligraphy.

Also included are Shanower’s impassioned introduction ‘Blame it on Toto’, Baum’s original dedication from 1900 accompanied by a superb illustration of Dorothy and Toto by Young, a complete cover gallery of the miniseries, including variants by Shanower himself and J. Scott Campbell, an overview of the novels, theatrical productions and films and a stunning sketchbook section featuring working drawings and designs for Dorothy, The Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, The Good Witch of the North, Toto, Winged Monkeys, The Wizard of Oz and The Wicked Witch of the West. All capped off by a behind-the-scenes feature on how the covers and colour pages were processed and assembled

If you’ve seen the films and cartoons you only think you know Oz. Start reading these magnificently lush and luxurious comics adaptations and learn the truth – and while you’re at it, don’t forget to read Baums’s (unabridged) prose masterpieces too; you can even read them for free, courtesy of Project Gutenberg.

Win, the Wise and Powerful, has Spoken…
© 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.