Category: Adventure

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Yakari volume 21: Fury From the Skies


By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominique and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-019-4 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Another Kind of Wonderful Life… 9/10

In 1964 children’s magazine Le Crapaud à lunettes was founded by Swiss journalist André Jobin, who then wrote for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later he hired fellow Franco-Swiss artist Claude de Ribaupierre AKA “Derib”. The illustrator had launched his own career as an assistant at Studio Peyo (home of Les Schtroumpfs): working on The Smurfs strips for venerable weekly Le Journal de Spirou. Thereafter, together they created the splendid Adventures of the Owl Pythagore before striking pure comics gold a few years later with their next collaboration.

Derib – equally au fait with enticing, comically dynamic “Marcinelle” cartoon style yarns and devastatingly compelling meta-realistic action illustrated action epics – went on to become one of the Continent’s most prolific and revered creators. It’s a crime such groundbreaking strips as Buddy Longway, Celui-qui-est-nà-deux-fois, Jo (first comic to deal with AIDS), Pour toi, Sandra and La Grande Saga Indienne) haven’t been translated into English yet, but we still patiently wait in hope and anticipation…

Over decades, much of Derib’s stunning works have featured his beloved Western themes: magnificent geographical backdrops and epic landscapes. Yakari is considered by fans and critics to be the strip which led him to his deserved mega-stardom. Debuting in 1969, self-contained episodes trace the eventful, nomadic life of a young Oglala Lakota boy on the Great Plains, with stories set sometime after the introduction of horses (by colonising Conquistadores) but before the coming of modern Europeans.

The series – which also generated two separate animated TV series and a movie – is up to 42 albums thus far: a testament to its evergreen vitality and brilliance of its creators, even though originator Job moved on and Frenchman Joris Chamblain took on the writing in 2016.

Abundant with gentle whimsy and heady compassion, Yakari’s life is a largely bucolic and happy existence: at one with nature and generally free from privation or strife. For the sake of dramatic delectation however, the ever-changing seasons are punctuated with the odd crisis, generally resolved without fuss, fame or fanfare by a little lad who is smart and brave – and who can, thanks to a boon of his totem guide the Great Eagle, converse with animals…

In 1996, La fureur du ciel was the 22nd European album, but as always, the content and set-up are both stunningly simple and sublimely accessible, affording new readers total enjoyment with a minimum of familiarity or foreknowledge required…

Fury from the Skies is painfully topical as Yakari’s wandering people are moving into lands occupied by buffalo after an eventful winter. The spring sun has brought further problems with oppressive heat and tempers fray when the adults start arguing. Medicine man He-Who-Knows wants to stop and set up camp, but Yakari’s father Bold Gaze chooses to follow his wise son a little further on. The action incenses self-appointed leader Bold Crow and magnifies bad feeling in all the riders…

As Yakari’s parents ride on, the boy is unhorsed by a plague of biting bugs, but his painful embarrassment is as nothing to the distress of his former companions as they set up camp. Old pals Slow Motion and Eyes-Always-Shut have their own ways of dealing with debilitating heat and ravenous flies, but for the rest – even children Rainbow and Buffalo Seed – stress and petty bickering looks like igniting a war, and He-Who-Knows fears big trouble ahead…

Those worries are confirmed when the sky is suddenly filled with fleeing ravens ahead of a monstrous whirlwind that smashing through, devasting the camp, scattering the tribe and injuring helpless humans and their animals. By the time Yakari and his parents return to the demolished campsite, their shocked friends are in a daze with Slow Motion bewailing the disappearance into the clouds of his large lazy friend. The Medicine Man is also gone, and Bold Crow harshly decrees the search party he forms should seek the wise one, not the fat, sleepy one…

Of course, Yakari has his own ideas and – riding his sarcastic steed Little Thunder – sets off to learn what happened to Eyes-Always-Shut. The answer is astonishing and quite troublesome, but at least the lad has a still-stunned camp dog and some very helpful wild turkeys to help him solve a very tricky and potentially dangerous puzzle.

With the big guy recovered, Yakari can turn his attention to finding out what happened to He-Who-Knows, before the adults all go crazy. They had depended on the wise man for years and are beginning to panic and lash out. This task is far more difficult and requires a long journey over spectacularly-realised terrain, some assistance from the Great Eagle himself and literally changing horses in mid-stream before the boy wonder can save the shaman and his world…

Yakari is one of the most unfailingly absorbing and entertaining all-ages strips ever conceived and should be in every home, right next to Tintin, Uncle Scrooge, Asterix and The Moomins. It’s never too late to start reading something wonderful, so why not get back to nature as soon as you can?
Original edition © Derib + Job – Editions du Lombard (Dargaud – Lombard s. a.) – 2000. All rights reserved. English translation 2023 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Alley Oop: The First Time Travel Adventure (Library of American Comic Essentials)


By V.T. Hamlin (IDW/Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-829-6 (Landscape HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Reliving Those Golden Days… 9/10

Modern comics evolved from newspaper strips. These pictorial features were, until relatively recently, extremely popular with the public and highly valued by publishers who used them as a powerful weapon to guarantee and even increase circulation and profits. From the outset humour was paramount; hence our umbrella terms “Funnies” and of course “comics”.

Despite the odd ancestor or precedent like Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs (comedic when it began in 1924; gradually moving from mock-heroics to light-action into full-blown adventure with the introduction of Captain Easy in 1929) or Tarzan and Buck Rogers – both debuting January 7th 1929 as adaptations of pre-existing prose properties – the vast bulk of strips produced were generally feel-good humour strips supplemented by the occasional jolly child-oriented fantasy.

This abruptly changed in the 1930s when an explosion of rollicking drama strips launched with astounding rapidity. Not only features but actual genres were created in that decade which still impact on not just today’s comicbooks but all our popular fiction.

Another infinitely deep well of fascination for humans is cavemen and dinosaurs. During that distant heyday of America’s strip-surge a rather unique real character created a rather unique and paradoxical cartoon character: at once both adventurous and comedic; simultaneously forward-looking and fantastically “retro” in the same engagingly rendered package…

Vincent Trout Hamlin was born in 1900 and did many things before settling as a cartoonist. After mustering out of the US Expeditionary Force at the end of the Great War, V.T. finished High School and then went to the University of Missouri. This was in 1920 and he studied journalism but, since he’d always loved drawing, the eager beaver took advantage of the institution’s art courses too.

Hamlin was always a supreme storyteller and lived long enough to give plenty of interviews and accounts – many impishly contradictory – about the birth of his antediluvian archetype…

As a press photographer, Hamlin had roamed the Lone Star State filming the beginnings of the petroleum industry and caught the bug for finding fossils. Whilst drawing ads for a Texas Oil company, he became further fascinated with bones and rocks as he struggled to create a strip which would provide his family with a regular income…

When V.T. resolved to chance his arm at the booming comic strip business, those fossil fragments got his imagination percolating and he came up with a perfect set-up for action, adventure, big laughs and even a healthy dose of social satire.

Alley Oop is a Neanderthal (-ish) caveman inhabiting a lush, fantastic land where dinosaurs still thrive. In fact his greatest friend and boon companion is Dinny; a faithful, valiant saurian chum who terrifies every other dinosaur in creation… as well as all the annoying spear-waving bipeds swarming about. Because Dinny is as smart and obedient as a dog, all the other cave folk – like arrogant, insecure King Guzzle – generally treat the mighty, free-thinking, disrespectful Oop with immense caution…

Unlike most of his audience, Hamlin knew such things could never have occurred, but didn’t much care: the set-up was too sweet to waste and it would prove to be the very least of the supremely imaginative creative anachronisms he and his brilliant wife Dorothy would concoct as the strip grew in scope and popularity.

Oop actually launched twice. In 1930 Hamlin whipped up primeval prototype Oop the Mighty which he then radically retooled and sold to small, local Bonnet-Brown Syndicate as Alley Oop. It debuted on December 5th 1932 and was steadily gaining traction when Bonnet-Brown foundered in the worst days of the Great Depression a year later.

Happily the strip had enough of a popular following that Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicate – whose other properties included Major Hoople, Boots and Her Buddies and the aforementioned Wash Tubbs – tracked down the neophyte scribbler and offered him a regular slot in papers all over America. Thus Alley Oop re-debuted as a daily strip on August 7th 1933, swiftly reprising old stories for a far larger audience before starting new adventures. He inevitably won a Sunday colour page on September 9th 1934, the year V.T., Dorothy and new daughter Theodora relocated to affluent Sarasota, Florida.

Sadly for such a revered series with a huge pedigree – still running today, scripted by Joey Alison Sayers and drawn by Jonathan Lemon – there has never been a concerted effort to properly collect the entire epic. There have however been tantalising reprints in magazines and archive editions from Kitchen Sink, Dark Horse and IDW. This intriguing monochrome hardback (part of The Library of American Comics Essentials range) re-presents – in one day per elongated landscape page – the absolutely most crucial game-changing sequence in the strip’s history as the protagonists escaped their antediluvian environs and calamitously catapulted into the 20th century…

Supplementing the cartoon bedazzlement is a superbly informative and candidly-picture packed introduction by Michael H. Price. ‘V.T. Hamlin and the Road to Moo’ reviews the creator’s amazing life and other strip endeavours before starting his magnum opus and what the feature meant to him, before the grand adventure (Monday March 6th 1939 to Saturday March 23rd 1940) opens in a strange land a long, long way from here and now…

A little background: the cave-folk of that far-ago time lived in a rocky village ruled over by devious, semi-paranoid King Guzzle and his formidable, achingly status-conscious wife Queen Umpateedle. The kingdom was known as Moo and the elite ruling couple were guided, advised and manipulated in equal amounts by the sneaky shaman Grand Wizer, and all three constantly sought to curb the excesses of a rebelliously independent, free-spirited, instinctively democratic kibitzer. Our hero – the toughest, most honest man in the land – had no time for silly fripperies and dumb made-up rules of interfering civilisation, but he did usually give in to the stern glances and fierce admonishments of his long-suffering girl “companion” Ooola. The uneasy balance of power in the kingdom comes from the fact that Guz and the Wizer – even with the entire nation behind them – were never a match for Oop and Dinny when they got mad – which was pretty often…

The big change came when Dinny turned up with an egg: all broody and uncooperative. With Oop’s mighty pal out of sorts, the Wizer played a cruel master-stoke and declared that only the contents of the egg could cure the King’s mystery ailment, prompting a mini civil war…

After revolution and counterrevolution Oop & Ooola are on the run when they encounter a bizarre object which vanishes before their eyes. As they stare in stupefaction they’re ambushed by Guz’s men and only escape because they too fade from sight…

Somewhere in rural America in 1939, brilliant researcher Dr. Elbert Wonmug (that’s a really convoluted but clever pun) discusses with his assistant movies their camera took when they sent it into the distant past via their experimental time machine…

The heated debate about the strangely beautiful and modern-looking cave woman and her monstrously odd-looking mate are curtailed as the subjects actually materialise in the room and the absentminded professor realises he left his chronal scoop running…

Before he can reverse his mistake and return the unwilling, unwitting guests to their point of origin, the colossal mechanism catastrophically explodes, wrecking the lab and burying the astounded antediluvians in rubble.

Thanks to an unexplained quirk of temporal trans-placement, time travellers always speak the language of wherever they’ve fetched up – albeit through their own slang and idiom – so after utterly unharmed Oop digs his way out, explanations are soon forthcoming from the modern tinkerers. Before long the cave folk are introduced to the fabulous advances of 20th century America.

At least Ooola is – thanks to the friendly advice of Wonmug’s daughter Dee – but the hulking male primitive is quickly fed up with this fragile place, all snarled up with just as many foolish rules and customs as home…

Storming off to catch and eat something he understands, Oop is suddenly whisked across country in a spectacular and hilarious rampage of destruction – in the best silent movie chase tradition – after falling asleep in a transcontinental freighttrain car. After weeks of wondering, Wonmug and the now thoroughly-acclimated Ooola read newspaper reports of a cunning and destructive “Great White Ape” and make plans to fetch their stray home. The government meanwhile have put top agent G.I.Tum on the case…

The Phantom Ape has plans of his own and, after “trapping” an aeroplane and its pilot, makes his own tempestuous way back to the isolated lab. Eventually the whole story comes out and the displaced primal pair become media sensations, just as Wonmug finally completes repairs to the time machine. Now though, Ooola – and to a lesser extent Alley – are not keen on returning to their dangerous point of origin…

Moreover, not everybody believes Elbert has actually cracked the time barrier and the next segment sees scientific sceptic Dr. Bronson demand proof. However, when he eagerly zips off to experience Moo first hand, he disappears and – after much pleading – Oop is convinced to follow him and find out what happened. When the swirling sensation ends, our hirsute hero discovers what the problem is: the machine is by no means accurate and its focus has shifted,  rematerializing outside a gigantic walled city of what we’d call the Bronze Age…

What follows is a stupendous romp of action, adventure and so many laughs as Oop and Bronson become improbable and forgotten heroes of the Trojan War, turning the so-pretty head of enchanting Helen of Troy and becoming the embattled city’s top warrior generals.

In the 20th century Wonmug is arrested for murder. Dee and his assistant Jon struggle to perfect their chronal contraption but in the end resort to busting the genius out to fix the problem and bring the time-lost wanderers back.

In a race against time that’s all soon sorted and Ooola heads for ancient Greece to save the lost boys. Unfortunately she’s picked up by besieging Greeks and, thanks to her skill with guns, mistaken for the goddess Minerva. The legendary story further unfolds with Oop & Ooola on opposite sides until wily Bronson makes a breakthrough based on his historical knowledge and they all return home in time to save Wonmug from the cops…

Soon a compact time team is established to exploit the invention – but not before Oop returns to devastated Troy to retrieve his beloved stone axe. With Bronson and Ooola in tow he then finds himself swept up in little sea voyage we know as The Odyssey…

Back in America, the team expands after college chum and genius of all knowledge G. Oscar Boom invites himself to Wonmug’s scientific party. With all contact lost, the unscrupulous rogue offers to go looking for them in the untrammelled past …providing he can take his specially tricked-out station wagon. As this stunning collection concludes Boom and a mighty hitchhiker named Hercules have just run into the missing chrononauts as they are about to enter the Amazonian wilds of the Land of Warrior Women…

Escaping the ultimately limiting confines of the strip and becoming a seasoned time travellers Hamlin made the best of all worlds for his characters: Oop and Ooola periodically returned home to Dinny and Moo but they also roamed every intriguing nook and cranny of history – even escaping planet Earth entirely. Hopefully our own future holds the prospect of more such splendid strip sagas. Fast-paced, furious, fantastically funny and bitterly barbed in the wryly acerbic manner of Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges, Alley Oop is a bone fide classic of strip narrative, long overdue the respect of a complete curated chronological collection.

However, until some enlightened publisher gets around to it, by all means start digging online and in bargain bins for each – or any – of the wonderful tomes already released. It’s barely the tip of an iceberg, but we all have to start sometime…
Alley Oop © and ® 2013 United Features Syndicate, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Master of Kung Fu Epic Collection volume 2: Fight Without Pity


By Doug Moench, Paul Gulacy, Sal Buscema, Keith Pollard, Jim Craig & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0135-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: All-Out Action Blockbusterism… 9/10

Comic books have always operated within outworld popular trends and fashions – just look at what got published whenever westerns or science fiction dominated on TV – so when the ancient philosophy and discipline of Kung Fu made its mark on western entertainment, it wasn’t long before all those kicks and punches found their way onto four-colour pages of America’s periodicals. Early starter Charlton Comics added Yang and House of Yang to the pioneering Judo Joe and Frank McLaughlin’s Judomaster; DC debuted Richard Dragon and rebooted Karate Kid; Atlas/Seaboard opened (and as quickly closed again) The Hands of the Dragon and Marvel converted a developing proposed literary adaptation into an ongoing saga about a villain’s son.

A month after it launched, a second orient-inspired hero debuted with Iron Fist: combining combat philosophy, high fantasy and magical forces with a proper superhero mask and costume…

Although largely retrofitted for modern times, inspirational Master of Kung Fu star Shang-Chi originated with a lot of tricky baggage. He launched in the autumn of 1973, cashing in on a contemporary craze for Eastern philosophy and martial arts action that generated an avalanche of “Chop Sockey” movies and a controversial TV sensation entitled Kung Fu. You may recall that the lead in that western-set saga was a half-Chinese Shaolin monk, played – after much publicised legal and industry agitation – by a white actor…

At Marvel, no one at that time particularly griped about the fact that Shang-Chi was designed by editor Roy Thomas and artisans Steve Englehart, Jim Starlin & Al Milgrom as a naive innocent (also half Chinese, with an American mother) thrown into tumultuous modern society as a rebellious but involved counterpoint to his father: an insidious scheming fiend intent on global domination. Back then, securing rights to a major literary property and wrapping new comics in it was an established practise. It had worked spectacularly with Conan the Barbarian and horror stars like Dracula and Frankenstein. The same process also brilliantly informed seminal science fiction icon Killraven in War of the Worlds and plenty more…

These days we comics apologists keep saying “it was a different era”, but I genuinely don’t think anyone in the editorial office paused for a moment of second thoughts when their new Kung Fu book secured the use one of literature’s greatest villains as a major player. Special Marvel Edition #15 (cover-dated December 1973 so Happy 50th Anniversary) launched to great success, and an overarching villain already a global personification of infamy… Fu Manchu.

Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward AKA Sax Rohmer’s ultimate embodiment of patronising mistrust and racist suspicion had been hugely popular since 1913’s The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu. The prime archetype for mad scientists and the remorseless “Yellow Peril” threatening civilization, the character spread to stage, screen, airwaves and comics (even appropriating the cover of Detective Comics #1, heralding an interior series that ran until #28), but most importantly, became the visual affirmation and conceptual basis for countless evil “Asiatics”, “Orientals” and “Celestials” dominating popular fiction ever since.

In recent years we’ve all (well, mostly all) acknowledged past iniquities and Shang-Chi has been fully reimagined, with that paternal link downplayed and ultimately abandoned – as much for licensing laws as social justice. And cultural respect.

Like most comics companies, Marvel employed plenty of “Yellow Peril” knock-offs and personifications – including Wong Chu; Plan Tzu (AKA the Yellow – or latterly Golden – Claw); Huang Zhu; Silver Samurai; Doctor Sun, ad infinitum: all birds of another colour that are still nastily pejorative shades of saffron. Perhaps this is just my white guilt and fanboy shame talking. These stories, crafted by Marvel’s employees were – and remain – some of the best action comics you’ll ever encounter, but never forget what they’re actually about -distrust of the obviously other…

Without making excuses, I should also state that despite the casual racism suggested by legions of outrageously exotic, inscrutable lemon-hued bad guys haunting this series at every level, Master of Kung Fu did sensitively address issues of race and honestly attempt to share non-Christian philosophies and thought whilst, most importantly, offering potently powerful role models to kids of Asian origins. So at least there’s that …

Packed with stunning adventure and compellingly convincing drama, this second collection gathers Master of Kung Fu #29-53 and Master of Kung Fu Annual #1 (collectively spanning June 1975-August 1977). Written entirely by Doug Moench, surrendering to his love of spy fiction it opens without a preamble in the middle of a mighty struggle…

Previously: the series launched in bimonthly reprint title Special Marvel Edition as The Hands of Shang Chi: Master of Kung Fu and by the third issue (April 1974) became exclusively his. Origin episode ‘Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu!’ introduced a vibrant, brilliant young man raised in utter isolation in the style and manner of imperial China. Reared by monks and savants, the boy is the result of a match between a physically perfect American woman and “misunderstood patriot” Fu Manchu: a noble hero unfairly hunted and slandered by corrupt western governments and the communist usurpers now blasphemously controlling the world’s greatest empire.

His son was schooled to respect and obey his sire, trained to perfection in martial arts: designed as the ultimate warrior servant and the doctor’s devoted personal weapon against lifelong enemies Sir Dennis Nayland Smith and Doctor Petrie.

On reaching maturity, Shang – whose name means “the rising and advancing of a spirit” – was despatched to execute Petrie. However, after the obedient weapon completes his mission, he subsequently questions his entire life and the worldly benefit of killing an elderly, dying man. An emotional confrontation with Nayland Smith – who endured daily agonies from being maimed at the Devil Doctor’s command – further shakes the boy’s resolve and eventually Shang’s sublime education demands he reassess everything his father has taught him…

After invading the villain’s New York citadel and crushing his army of freaks and monsters, Shang Chi faces his father and rejects all he stands for. The battle lines of an epic family struggle were drawn…

Banished from his cloistered childhood home and environs, the philosophically minded innocent was forced to adapt rapidly to frenetic constant violence in the modern world and eventually accepted shelter with Nayland Smith in return for (espionage) services rendered…

A turning point in his rising and advancement came in MOKF #29 (cover-dated June 1975) as Shang finds a reason to abandon his pacifistic aspirations and become involved in western affairs after seeing firsthand the harm drugs cause. He joins Nayland Smith’s team – Petrie,  Blackjack Tarr and Clive Reston (descendent of a famed “Consulting Detective” and a Double-0 operative “on Her Majesty’s Secret Service”) – to cripple the drug trade.

The entire series was slowly morphing into a James Bond pastiche and with this mission to end effetely urbane drug dealer/ covert nuclear terrorist Carlton Velcro, illustrator Paul Gulacy began a visual progression that would make him one of most watched and admired artists of the era as he referenced movie star and set pieces throughout the saga.

‘The Crystal Connection’ begins with Reston undercover at Velcro’s French coast fortress, playing heroin buyer Mr Blue until Shang and Tarr can infiltrate and secure the dope stocks . Nobody was expecting the massive defences, an army of killers led by deadly assassin Razor-Fist and a nuclear arsenal hidden below ‘A Gulf of Lions’ (#30, inked by Dan Adkins), with the pitched battle ranging far and wide as Razor Fist’s defeat led to Shang clashing with whip-wielding panther woman Pavane before a truly explosive conclusion in ‘Snowbuster’…

‘Assault on an Angry Sea!’ was a hasty fill-in illustrated by Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito as Shang returns to London by ship and is drawn into the hunt for an undercover courier who is unaware that counteragents intend to intercept and end them. A proper mystery yarn, Chi has many suspects and can’t tell friend from foe from target, but triumphs nonetheless…

MOKF #33 resumes the Moench/Gulacy filmic fun-fest as ‘Wicked Messenger of Madness’ introduces seductive, conflicted agent Leiko Wu as both romantic interest and wedge between Shang Chi and his colleagues, as a robotic mannequin fails to assassinate Nayland Smith thanks to martial arts mastery but opens the door to a complex web of lies, double-dealing, insane artificial intelligences and a doomsday weapon.

The robot was a tool of agent Simon Bretnor, revealed too late as narcissistic hired killer and would-be world conqueror Mordillo who wants a space weapon using the ozone layer and sunlight to ravage sites on Earth. The plans for it are encoded in Wu’s brain, but by the time she realises her current boyfriend Bretnor is the bad guy Leiko’s his prisoner on a manically murderous version of Fantasy Island…

As Shang and Resto race to the madly modified atoll-turned-playground-of-peril, Wu is attempting to reason with the crazed Mordillo, but gets more sense from his Pinocchio-like robot sidekick Brynocki who is trying to mediate the ‘Cyclone at the Center of a Madman’s Crown!’ She does, however, learn her captor had a connection to Pavane and Carleton Velcro and holds Chi responsible for a huge loss of face and fortune…

Another spectacular conclusion comes when manic and martial artist clash in the skies above the island as the villain briefly unleashes his stolen Solar Chute and rains destruction down on the island in ‘Death-Hand and the Sun of Mordillo’…

What feels like a reformatted leftover from the Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu era follows in #36 and 37 (January & February 1976, by Moench, Keith Pollard & Sal Trapani) as Shang enters a magical maze of mystery: seeking to defend a carnival of freaks voluntarily living in ‘Cages of Myth, Menagerie of Mirrors!’ from ninjas and their leader Darkstrider who weaves a ‘Web of Dark Death!’

Moench, Pollard, John Tartaglione & Duffy Vohland then continue the fantasy themes in Master of Kung Fu Annual #1 and a team-up with fellow transplanted warrior Iron Fist. Danny Rand and Shang are tricked into entering another dimension and invading ‘The Fortress of S’ahra Sharn!’ by trickster wizard Quan-St’ar, whose true goal is the destruction of immortal city K’un-Lun, but he made one big mistake…

At their creative peak Moench & Gulacy started an epic, ambitious, truly sophisticated and industry-changing run in MOKF #38 (March 1976). Here Shang Chi reluctantly accepts a rescue mission to extract an agent from Hong Kong, meeting lies, passion, disinformation and deadly love in ‘Cat’. Nayland Smith has again orchestrated events to satisfy his own agenda and saving Julia leads Chi into a ‘Fight Without Pity’ against an opponent who might well be his superior in combat ability and also holds the moral high ground…

The landmark clash is simply prologue to an extended, character driven serial that opens at ‘The Murder Agency’ (#40 with Gulacy inking himself) as the on-fire creators pioneer storytelling techniques later employed in Christopher Nolan’s Memento. A traitor in British Intelligence is murdering agents and the information Nayland Smith wanted from Julia should have given them vital advantage. However, as Shang again quits all “games of death and deceit” he, Tarr and Leiko are attacked by apparently Chinese agents masquerading as “Oriental Expediters”.

After helping to defeat the attackers, Wu leaves on a similar extraction mission and suggests that the embattled operatives re-enlist disgraced former agent and current drunken sot James Larner. When they try, he’s got a new pal also boozing himself to death… Reston…

That’s when another well-armed gang burst in guns blazing, laying down their lives simply to bait a trap the agents can’t afford to avoid…

With the spy saga solidly underway everything suddenly screeched to a halt as a deadline crunch necessitated another fill-in moment, with Moench, Sal Buscema & Esposito revealing a childhood moment in ‘Slain in Secrecy, and by Illusion!’ Here Shang recalls reluctant clashes with childhood companion M’nai – AKA Si Fan assassin Midnight – to prove Fu Manchu’s hallowed home harboured a thief and traitor…

Inked by Tom Sutton, the main event resumes in #42 with a welter of flashbacks, cross-cuts and flash forwards as ‘The Clock of Shattered Time’ introduces an electrically enhanced martial arts assassin who almost kills Chi. Shock-Wave has a strong but top-secret connection to Nayland Smith and nearly succeeds in blowing up the spy chief too…

As the MI5 mole and Shock-Wave set more bombs, MOKF #43 sees a changed and vengeful Shang Chi win a rematch with the amplified assassin in ‘A Flash of Purple Sparks’. As Leiko Wu escorted her own living package across Europe with the Oriental Expediters chasing them all the way to an MI5 safehouse in Switzerland, Shang was waiting, but his triumph was short-lived as Leiko’s charge revealed who was behind all the deaths and the Oriental Expediter organisation, and that in London another of his allies had fallen…

The drama kicked into overdrive with a long-anticipated event. Cover-dated September 1976, #44 heralded ‘The Return of Fu Manchu, Prelude: “Golden Daggers (A Death Run)”’ as the scattered British agents head for home under a hail of gunfire and assorted ambushes. At last revealed is how the Devil Doctor’s recalcitrant first-born Fah Lo Suee is at war with their father for control of his empire.

She originally debuted in third novel The Si-Fan Mysteries / The Hand of Fu-Manchu in 1917 (or fourth outing The Daughter of Fu-Manchu in 1931, depending on who you ask) and was a minor character here since Master of Kung Fu #26, but here steps into the spotlight after Nayland Smith is finally downed by his most trusted ally…

On the back foot and losing, Fah Lo Suee seeks alliances and her brother’s aid in ‘Part One (Shang Chi): “The Death Seed!”’ while Fu Manchu is occupied with resurrecting his founding ancestor to be his new – loyal – son/enforcer. In London, Larner saves Nayland Smith even as Reston, Shang and Wu reunite and rebuff the “daughter of the Devil” – and that’s when Clive makes a big mistake and is taken by Fah Lo Suee…

Inked by Pablo Marcos, ‘Part Two (Clive Reston): “The Spider Spell!”’ divides attention between the British agent’s trial and eventual triumph and Fu resurrecting legendary warlord Shaka Kharn, whilst ‘Part Three (Leiko Wu): “Phantom Sand”’ details how she and Shang infiltrate a fantastic city at the north pole in advance of what’s left of the team joining them to destroy the citadel. Before that, though, the final clash between father and daughter again confirms the total mastery of the malevolent mandarin…

The true appalling scope of the Devil Doctor’s ambitions are exposed in ‘Part Four (Black Jack Tarr): “City in the Top of the World”’ as the schemer prepares to leave Earth and cull its population by 90% as Shang duels resurrected revenant Shaka Kharn, and battles his way aboard his sire’s space shuttle even as his companions destroy the base at the cost of another valiant soul in ‘Part Five (Sir Dennis Nayland Smith): “The Affair of the Agent Who Died!”’

The astounding saga – and Gulacy’s interior involvement – ends with #50 with the villain speaking for himself as his plans and perhaps his over-extended life are ended in ‘Part Six (Fu Manchu): “The Dreamslayer!”’

Master of Kung Fu #51 saw Jim Craig join Moench & Marcos, taking over the art for ‘Epilogue: “Brass and Blackness!” (A Death Move!!)’ infilling details of interments and getting back to Earth where the unhappy warrior again quit the spy world…

The final tale here (#52, May 1977) is one more fill-in as Moench & Pollard reintroduce Groucho Marx tribute Rufus T. Hackstabber who invites our baffled battler to ‘A Night at the 1001 Nights!’ in search of family (such as reprobate/WC Fields analogue Quigley J. Warmflash), riches and safety from mercenaries led by Si-Fan general Tiger-Claw…

Ernie Chan’s cover to MOKF #53 (which reprinted #20) leads into an extras section including Gil Kane & Adkins’ covers to Savage Fists of Kung Fu tabloid collectors edition, house ads and 10 pages of original art, unused and modified covers. The published ones throughout were crafted by Kane, Adkins, Sal Buscema, Rich Buckler, Dave Cockrum, Marie Severin, Chan, Gulacy, John Romita Jr., Ron Wilson & Jack Abel, Al Milgrom, Esposito, Joe Sinnott, Frank Giacoia and Klaus Janson.

In recent years, Shang Chi’s backstory has been adapted and altered. His father was understandably reinvented as Zheng Zu, Mr. Han, Chang Hu, Wang Yu-Seng and The Devil Doctor so depending on your attitude, you have the ultimate choice and sanction of not buying or reading this material. If you do – with eyes wide open and fully acknowledging that the past is another place that we can now consign to history – your comics appreciation faculties will see some amazing stories incredibly well illustrated: ranking amongst the most exciting and enjoyable in Marvel’s canon.
© 2018 MARVEL.

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Marsupilami volumes 7 & 8: The Gold of Boavista & The Temple of Boavista


By Yann & Batem, coloured by Cerise and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-069-2 (Album PB/Digital edition Gold)
ISBN: 978-1 80044-099-9 (Album PB/Digital edition Temple)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Mad Monkeyshines with Gallic Aplomb… 9/10

One of Europe’s most popular comic stars is an eccentrically irascible, loyally unpredictable, super-strong, rubber-limbed ball of explosive energy with a seemingly infinite elastic tail. The frantic, frenetic Marsupilami is a wonder of nature and icon of European entertainment originally spun-off from another immortal comedy adventure strip…

When Andre Franquin began crafting eponymous keystone strip Spirou for eponymous flagship publication Le Journal de Spirou, he quickly abandoned the previous format of short complete gags to pioneer longer adventure serials, and began introducing a wide and engaging cast of new characters.

For 1952’s Spirou et les heritiers, he then devised a beguilingly boisterous South American critter and tossed him like an elastic-arsed grenade into the mix. Thereafter – until resigning in 1969 – Franquin constantly added the bombastic little beast to Spirou’s increasingly incredible escapades…

Marsupilami popped up constantly: a phenomenally popular wonder animal who inevitably grew into a solo star of screen, toy store, console games and albums all his own. In 1955 a contractual spat with Dupuis saw Franquin sign up with publishing rivals Casterman for Le Journal de Tintin: collaborating with René Goscinny and old pal Peyo whilst creating raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon.

Franquin and Dupuis patched things up within days, and he went back to Le Journal de Spirou. In 1957, he co-created Gaston Lagaffe, but was still legally obliged to carry on his Tintin work too. From 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem assisted, but over the next decade Franquin reached his Spirou limit. In 1969 he quit for good, taking his mystic yellow monkey with him…

Plagued by bouts of depression, Franquin passed away on January 5th 1997, but his legacy remains: a vast body of work that reshaped European comics. Moreover, having learned his lessons about publishers, Franquin retained all rights to Marsupilami and in the late 1980’s began publishing his own adventures of the rambunctious miracle-worker.

He recruited old comrade Greg as scripter and invited commercial artist/illustrator Luc Collin (AKA Batem) to collaborate on – and later monopolise – art duties for the new adventures. In recent years, the commercial world triumphed again and – since 2016 – the universes of Marsupilami and Spirou have reconnected, allowing the old firm to participate in shared exploits of a world created and populated by Franquin.

Graced with a talent for mischief, the Marsupilami is a deviously ingenious anthropoid inhabiting the rainforests of Palombia. One of the rarest animals on Earth, it speaks a language uniquely its own and has a reputation for making trouble and sparking chaos. The species is rare and is fanatically dedicated to its young. Sometimes that takes the form of “tough love”. This behaviour frequently extends to any humans it encounters and “adopts”…

The first of two books telling one tale, L’or de Boavista was released in October 1992. The seventh of 33 solo albums, it was followed a year later by concluding volume Le Temple de Boavista, combining into an edgily gripping comedy drama with much dark and scary social activism underpinning the usual hairy hijinks.

It opens in Palombian capital Chiquito, where children are going missing. No one cared when it was orphans and homeless urchins, but it’s quite different when Donald Maxwell-Trent plays truant and is abducted off the street. He’s spoiled, rich and the son of the US Ambassador…

Tragically, that means nothing to the ruthless thugs who need a constant supply of kids his size and age to work at an illegal, highly polluting goldmine in the jungle upriver. The toxic mess and mercury-made mire these Garimpeiros are creating has incensed and outraged the Marsupilami who now deems them his worst enemies ever…

After another of the yellow terror’s night attacks, overseer Solaria – a slightly older boy with an agenda of his own – helps Donald, now cruelly called “Gordito” by his malnourished comrades, to escape into the green hell. The older boy is only interested in freedom, wealth and returning to the undiscovered tribe he was stolen from, but from his cough may have waited too long to make his break…

Soon brutal gang boss Ingo is in hot pursuit, but his party’s progress is severely hampered by the stalking Marsu – whenever the golden beast isn’t clandestinely helping the fugitives. The furious furry (called by Polombians “El diablo”, and “La catestrofe amarilla”) is then instrumental in linking up the lads with an acceptable resident human…

Transplanted animal trainer Noah keeps his menagerie of friends on a river boat. Appalled by what Solario tells him, Noah resolves to stop the mining but that confrontation does not work out as planned and soon they are all fleeing for their lives up the dreaded Rio Boavista into lethal, legend-drenched “Spatoolah Territory” with dozens of killers on their collective tails…

To Be Concluded…

 

The dark drama heads into even wilder regions with The Temple of Boavista as relentless pursuit drives our heroes ever deeper into unexplored locales of the mighty tributary. Thankfully the hidden people they meet are mostly friendly, but their heightened state of fear is not ended for long. That night the jungle reverberates with horrific laughter emanating from a gargantuan edifice almost reclaimed by centuries of encroaching trees and vines…

The building is an ancient Zygomaztec temple and in its lee are some very nasty tomb robbers. Zoltan and Zorrino plan on stealing Noah’s floating zoo to carry their latest haul, but haven’t reckoned on the alliance of kids and tribal people, nor whatever is making the dire noises wracking the night with sinister sounds.

… And that’s before Ingo’s Garimpeiros and utterly fed up and furious Marsupilami get involved, or morose millionaire Harold “Buster” Stonelove and his safari guide Rhode Island Smith show up. These “ugly Americans” are looking for the secret of laughter and believe the raucous ruins can supply their answer, when they should be watching the yellow critter with the elastic tail and bad attitude…

As all the competing factions calamitously converge on the temple interior, a remarkable answer to the mirth mystery emerges and in a storm of giggling terror everybody gets jut what they deserve…

These eccentric exploits of the garrulous golden monkey are moodily macabre, furiously funny and pithily pertinent, offering engagingly riotous romps and devastating debacles for wide-eyed kids of every age all over the world. Fancy channelling your inner El Diablo and joining in the fun? It all starts with Hoobee, Hoobah Hoobah…
Marsupilami: The Gold of Boavista Original edition © Dupuis 1992, by Batem & Yann
Marsupilami: Temple of Boavista Original edition © Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 1993, by Batem & Yann, Franquin. All rights reserved. English translations © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.
© Marsu Productions 1992. All rights reserved. English translation © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.

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Asterix and the Griffin (volume 39)


By Jean-Yves Ferri & Didier Conrad, coloured by Thierry Mébarki, translated by Adriana Hunter (Sphere)
ISBN: 978-0-7515-8398-4 (Album HB) eISBN: 978-0-7515-8397-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Seasonal Sensations with Gallic Chill… 9/10

Whoops! Missed one!

As we saw a few days ago, Asterix le Gaulois has been around, amazing and amusing the planet since 1959 and become part of the fabric of French life. His exploits have touched billions of people all around the world.

For five and a half decades and for almost all of that time his astounding adventures were the sole preserve of originators René Goscinny and/or Albert Uderzo.

After nearly 15 years dissemination as weekly serials before invariably collected into book-length compilations, in 1974 the 21st saga – Asterix and Caesar’s Gift – was the first to be released as a complete, original album prior to serialisation. Thereafter each new tome was an eagerly anticipated, impatiently awaited treat for legions of devotees. The eager anxiety hadn’t diminished any when Uderzo’s handpicked replacements – scripter Jean-Yves Ferri (Fables Autonomes, La Retour à la terre) and illustrator Didier Conrad (Les Innomables, L’Avatar, Le Piège Malais, Tatum) – settled into the creative role on his retirement in 2009.

Whether an action-packed comedic romp with sneaky, bullying baddies getting their just deserts or a sly satire for older-if-no-wiser heads, these new yarns are just as engrossing as the established canon. As you already know, half of the epics take place in exotic locales throughout the Ancient World, whilst the alternating rest are set in and around Uderzo’s adored Brittany where, circa 50 BC, a little hamlet of cantankerous, proudly defiant warriors and their families resist every effort of the mighty Roman Empire to complete the conquest of Gaul. This one’s solidly of the former variety as our major cast members make it all the way to “barbaricum”: literally beyond the known world…

Although divided by its Roman conquerors into provinces Celtica, Aquitania and Armorica, the very tip of the last-named region stubbornly refuses to be properly pacified. Utterly unable to overrun this last little bastion of Gallic insouciance, the otherwise supreme Roman overlords are reduced to a pointless policy of absolute containment – even though the irksome Gauls come and go as they please…

Thus, a tiny seaside hamlet is permanently hemmed in by heavily fortified garrisons Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium, filled with veteran fighters who would rather be anywhere else on earth than there. The residents couldn’t care less: daily defying, frustrating and often terrorising the world’s greatest military machine by going about their everyday affairs, bolstered by magic potion brewed by resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits and strategic aplomb of diminutive dynamo Asterix… and his simplistic, supercharged best friend Obelix. And their dog…

In Rome, Julius Caesar is in need of a diversion for his sensation seeking subjects, so when geographer Cartographus claims to have discovered a fabled griffin, the Emperor funds a huge expedition to capture it via legions of soldiers and engineers. The beast resides far to the east in the icy Sarmatian wastes, but the scholar is convinced he can snare it as he has captured a Sarmatian Amazon woman to guide them. Terrifying and seductive, Kalashnikova only sees a chance to return home…

Meanwhile, the frozen lands under discussion have welcomed some familiar friends as Asterix, Obelix and canine wonder Dogmatix escort a very ill (no, no, it’s just a cold, really!) Getafix to the yurt of Fanciakuppov. That cheery shaman had visions of Roman invaders stealing his people’s sacred animal, so his old druid pal has brought a keg of magic potion to resist the incursion. There are, however, a couple of snags…

Firstly, the tribe is proudly matriarchal, with powerful warrior women doing all the fighting. They do it fantastically well, and don’t need help from foreigners – no matter how attractive they might be! – or magic. It’s a good thing too, as local conditions soon render the potion useless and Asterix has to rely on his brains and his giant pal’s innate brawn…

The big guy is quite distracted. Primarily by Dogmatix running away to become a wolf, but also by the obvious attentions of some of the amorous Amazons…

The Roman expedition is led by seasoned centurion Intrepidus, and Cartographus (who naturally has a secret agenda in play) has brought along famed venator (animal-fighting gladiator) Vainglorius, as a specialist to tame the griffin when they find it.

Army morale is low: the commanders squabble constantly, these lands are gloomy, frozen cold, steeped in legends and packed with people and things trying to kill them. Worst of all, when they should be building forts to secure their supply lines, the men are instead fighting each other for the right to guard the prisoner. Aloof, beautiful Kalashnikova disdains and discards them all… and they love it.

When the military monsters capture Fanciakuppov, he is forced to lead the smug raiders to the secret abode of the griffin, but thanks to the hit-&-run tactics of the Gaul-enhanced war women their numbers are so severely depleted, no one thinks they’ll make it back to sunnier climes…

The mission ends in spectacular failure but they do all get to see the fabulous beast before they die…

Packed with hilarious action, genuine chills, potent punning and cartooning delights, this tale provides plenty of pokes at fake news, current affairs, conspiracy theories, a certain global retail/delivery brand, and lands many wry jabs at all sides of the battle of the sexes and role of women in societies ancient and modern.

Asterix and the Griffin is a sure win and another triumphant addition to the magically mythic Gaulish oeuvre for laugh-seekers in general and all devotees of comics.
Original edition © 2021 Les Éditions Albert René. English translation: © 2021 Les Éditions Albert René. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents Strange Adventures volume 1


By John Broome, Otto Binder, Edmond Hamilton, Joe Samachson, Gardner Fox, Dave Wood, Bill Finger, Harry Sharp, Sid Gerson, Ed Herron, Jerry Coleman, Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Harry Sharp, Sid Greene, Murphy Anderson, Sy Barry, Joe Giella, Jerry Grandenetti, John Giunta, Joe Kubert & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1544-6 (TPB)

As the 1940s closed, masked mystery-men dwindled in popularity and the American comicbook industry found new heroes. Classic genre titles flourished; resulting in anthologies dedicated to crime, war, westerns and horror dominating most comics publishing. These were augmented by newer fads like funny animal, romance and especially science fiction which, in 1950, finally escaped its glorious thud and blunder/ray guns/bikini babes in giant fishbowl helmets pulp roots – as perfectly epitomised in the uniquely wonderful Golden Age icon Planet Comics. It all came about with the introduction of Strange Adventures.

Packed with short adventures from jobbing SF prose writers offering done-in-one dramas and new heroes such as Chris KL99, Captain Comet, The Atomic Knights and more, the magnificent monthly magazine – supplemented a year later by companion title Mystery in Space – introduced wide-eyed youngsters to a fantastic yet intrinsically rationalist universe and all the potential wonders and terrors it might conceal…

This economical monochrome collection (astonishingly, still no archival collections of this stuff available to modern readers these days; not even via that future-fangled interweb) re-presents stories from the inception of the self-regulatory Comics Code: specifically Strange Adventures #54-73 (cover-dates March 1955 to October 1956, right up to the start of the Silver Age when superheroes successfully returned, offering beguiled readers technological wonderment and the sure-&-certain knowledge there were many and varied somethings “Out There”…

On a thematic note: a general but by no means concrete rule of thumb was the Strange Adventures generally occurred on Earth or were at least Earth-adjacent, whilst – as the name suggests – Mystery in Space offered readers the run of the rest of the universe. Moreover, many plots, gimmicks, maguffins and even art and design would be cleverly recycled for the later technologically-based Silver Age superhero revivals…

This mind-blowing, physics-challenging monochrome colossus opens with the March 1955 issue and four classic vignettes, beginning with ‘The Electric Man!’ by John Broome & Sy Barry, wherein a geologist in search of new power sources accidentally unleashes destructive voltaic beings from the centre of the Earth. As always – and in the grand tradition of pulp sci-fi editor John Campbell – human ingenuity/decency generally solves the assorted crises efficiently and expeditiously…

‘The World’s Mightiest Weakling!’ from Otto Binder, Carmine Infantino & Bernard Sachs, offers a charming yet impossible conundrum after a puny stripling gains incomprehensible mass and density during the course of an experiment, whilst ‘Interplanetary Camera!’ (Binder, Gil Kane & Sachs) grants a photographer a glimpse of the unknown when he finds an alien image recorder and uncovers a plot to destroy Earth.

The issue concludes with another Binder blinder in the taut thriller ‘The Robot Dragnet!’, illustrated by Harry Sharp & Joe Giella, with a rip-roaring romp of rampaging robotic rage.

This tale was actually sequel to an earlier yarn but sufficiently and cleverly recapped so that there’s no confusion or loss of comprehensibility…

Issue #55 led with ‘The Gorilla who Challenged the World’ by Edmond Hamilton & Barry, wherein an ape’s intellect is scientifically enhanced to the point where he becomes a menace to all mankind. So great was his threat that this tale also carried over to the next issue…

During this period baffled editors discovered a bizarre truism: any issue of any title which featured gorillas on the cover ALWAYS resulted in increased sales. Little wonder then that so many DC comics had hairy headliners…

‘Movie Men from Mars!’ (Hamilton, Sharp & Giella) sees our world the unwilling location for cinematographers from the Red Planet. Unfortunately, they’re making a disaster movie…

Joe Kubert’s ‘A World Destroyed!’ offered a fanciful yet gripping explanation for how the asteroid belts between Mars and Jupiter were formed, with that cataclysm theme revisited in ‘The Day the Sun Exploded!’ with Broome, Kane & Sachs depicting a desperate dash by scientists to save Earth from melting. Sid Gerson, Murphy Anderson & Giella wrapped up by revealing the baffling puzzle of ‘The Invisible Spaceman!’

SA #56 opened whimsically with ‘The Fish-Men of Earth!’ (Broome, Infantino & Sachs) as air density goes temporarily askew thanks to invading aliens, before ‘Explorers of the Crystal Moon!’ (Broome, Sharp & Sachs) sees a little boy going for a secret solar safari with visiting extraterrestrials.

Artist Paul Paxton then inadvertently becomes ‘The Sculptor Who Saved the World!’ when future-men ask him to make some highly specific pieces for them: a fast-paced yarn by Broome, Kane & Giella whilst penitent Dr. Jonas Mills corrects his evolutionary error by finally defeating his mutated gorilla in the concluding part of Hamilton & Barry’s simian saga ‘The Jungle Emperor!’

Broome, Sid Greene & Sachs’ ‘The Spy from Saturn!’ opened #57 with a Terran scientist replaced by a perfect impostor, prior to ‘The Moonman and the Meteor!’ (Bill Finger & Barry) positing millionaires and aliens trying to buy or inveigle a fallen star from a humble amateur astronomer for the best and worst of reasons. Binder, Kane & Giella proffer ‘The Riddle of Animal “X”!’ as a small boy finds a pet like no other creature on Earth after which Broome, Infantino & Giella reveal an incredible ancient find to a Uranium prospector and some fugitive convicts desperate enough to try any means of escape in ‘Spaceship Under the Earth!’…

Strange Adventures #58 opens with a police chief’s frantic search for a superhuman felon in ‘I Hunted the Radium Man!’ (Dave Wood & Infantino) whilst ‘Prisoner of Two Worlds!’ – Finger & Barry – sees the long-awaited return of genius detective Darwin Jones of The Department of Scientific Investigation. Although an anthology of short stories, the periodical featured numerous returning characters and concepts such as Star Hawkins, Space Museum and others during its run.

Jones debuted in the very first issue, solving fringe science dilemmas for the Federal Government and making 13 appearances over as many years. In this third adventure he assists alien peace-officers in preventing a visiting extraterrestrial taking a commonplace earth object back to his homeworld where it would be a ghastly terror-weapon…

Broome, Kane & Sachs’ ‘Dream-Journey Through Space!’ depicts an ordinary human plucked from Earth to rescue an ancient civilisation from destruction as well as a humble but cunning ventriloquist who saves us all from invasion by invincible aliens in Finger, Greene & Giella’s ‘The Invisible Masters of Earth!’

A young married couple must find a way to prove they aren’t dumb animals on ‘The Ark from Planet X’ (Broome, Greene & Giella) which opened #59, after which ‘The Super-Athletes from Outer Space!’ came to our world to train in a heavier gravity environment and find the galaxy’s greatest sports-coach in a charming tale by Binder, Kane & Sachs. Ed “France” Herron & Infantino then explore the domino theory of cause & effect in ‘Legacy from the Future!’, before Broome & Barry delve into ancient history and doomsday weaponry to discover the secret of our solar system and ‘The World that Vanished!’

SA #60 featured a light-hearted time-travel teaser by Broome, Jerry Grandenetti & Giella concerning historians gathering famous historic personages from ‘Across the Ages!’ before Binder, Kane & Sachs’ ‘The Man Who Remembered 100,000 Years Ago!’ offers terse, tense thrills as lightning provokes ancestral memories of a previous civilisation just in time for a scientist to cancel his unwitting repeat of the self-same experiment which had eradicated them.

Broome, Greene & Sachs then follow the life of a foundling boy who turns out to be an ‘Orphan of the Stars!’, and the issue concludes with a future-set thriller wherein schoolboy Ted Carter wins a place on a multi-species outing to the ‘World at the Edge of the Universe!’ (Binder & Barry).

In #61, ‘The Mirages from Space!’ (Binder, Kane & Sachs) are a portal into a fantastic other world holding the secret of Earth’s ultimate salvation and ‘The Thermometer Man’ – Binder, Greene & Giella – sees a scientist striving to save a stranded Neptunian from melting in the scorching hell of our world. Next, a lighthouse keeper is forced to play smart to counter a Plutonian invasion with ‘The Strange Thinking-Cap of Willie Jones!’ (Herron & Barry).

In conclusion Binder, Greene & Giella’s ‘The Amazing Two-Time Inventions’ has an amateur inventor making fortuitous contact with his counterparts in 3000AD…

Broome, Infantino & Sachs introduced ‘The Fireproof Man’ in SA #62, with his equally astounding dog foiling an alien invasion even as an ordinary handyman falls into another dimension to become a messiah as‘The Emperor of Planet X’ (Broome, Greene & Giella). Binder, Kane & Giella then detail an abortive ‘Invasion from Inner Space!’ before ‘The Watchdogs of the Universe!’ recruit their first human agent in a tantalising tale by Binder, Greene & Giella.

Joe Samachson, Grandenetti & Giella open #63 with ‘I Was the Man in the Moon!’: an intriguing puzzle for an ordinary Joe awakened to find aliens have inexplicably re-sculpted the lunar surface with his face, whilst a Native American forest ranger is Earth’s only hope of translating an alien warning in ‘The Sign Language of Space!’ (Binder, Greene & Giella).

Jerry Coleman, Kane & Giella’s ‘Strange Journey to Earth!’ sees a school teacher deduce an alien’s odd actions and save the world before the issue ends in ‘Catastrophe County, U.S.A.!’ wherein Hamilton, Greene & Giella introduce scientists to the Government’s vast outdoor natural disaster lab…

Sales-boosting simians resurface in #64 as Finger, Infantino & Sachs deliver hostile ‘Gorillas in Space!’ who are anything but, whilst a first contact misunderstanding results in terror and near-death for an Earth explorer lost in ‘The Maze of Mars’ (Binder, Greene & Sachs) and a technological Indiana Jones becomes ‘The Man Who Discovered the West Pole!’ (Binder, Kane & Giella) whilst Samachson & Grandenetti craft a canny tale of planetary peril in ‘The Earth-Drowners!’

For #65 (February 1956) Binder, Greene & Giella’s ‘The Prisoner from Pluto!’ features an alien attempt to warn Earth of imminent Saturnian attack and forced to extreme measures to accomplish his mission. A different kind of cultural upheaval is referenced in quaint-but-clever tale ‘The Rock-and-Roll Kid from Mars!’ (Samachson, Kane & Giella) and a stage mentalist outfoxes genuine telepaths in Binder, Infantino & Sachs’ ‘War of the Mind Readers!’ just before a biologist turns temporary superhero to foil an alien attack in ‘The Man who Grew Wings!’ by Binder, Greene & Giella.

Issue #66 opens with Broome & Infantino’s tale of ‘The Human Battery!’ as an undercover cop suddenly develops incredible power, whilst a guy in a diner mistakenly picks up ‘The Flying Raincoat!’ (Samachson, Greene & Giella) – accidentally averting an insidious clandestine invasion of our world. Binder, Kane & Sachs then see Darwin Jones solve the ‘Strange Secret of the Time Capsule!’ as a metamorphic ‘Man of a Thousand Shapes!’ (Samachson, Infantino & Sachs) proves to have a few secrets of his own…

‘The Martian Masquerader!’ (Strange Adventures #67, by Broome, Kane & Giella) plays clever games as editor Julie Schwartz (AKA “Mr. Black”) is approached by an alien in need of assistance tracking down an ET terrorist, after which Hamilton, Greene & Giella hone in on a subatomic scientist desperate to find his infinitesimal point of origin in ‘Search for a Lost World!’

‘The Talking Flower!’ in chemist Willie Pickens‘ buttonhole is a lost alien who helps him save the world in Samachson, Infantino & Sachs’ charming romance, but the time-travelling travails experienced by archaeologist Roger Thorn after he discovers the ‘Gateway Through the Ages!’ (Hamilton, Greene & Giella) lead only to danger and hard-earned knowledge.

Broome, Infantino & Sachs’ ‘The Man who Couldn’t Drown!’ leads #68: a tale of genetic throwbacks and unfathomable mystery segueing into Samachson, Greene & Giella’s ‘Strange Gift from Space!’ which results in a safer planet for all. A chance chemical discovery then produces a happy salvation in ‘The Balloons That Lifted a City!’ (Samachson, Kane & Giella) and a common thief gets in way over his head after robbing a laboratory in Samachson, Greene & Sachs’ witty ‘The Game of Science!’

SA #69 sees a time-traveller voyage into pre-history and help dawn-age humans overcome ‘The Gorilla Conquest of Earth’ (Broome, Kane & Sachs) whilst the arrival of ‘The Museum from Mars’ (Gardner Fox, Greene & Giella) offers nigh-irresistible temptation and deadly danger to humanity before ‘The Man with Four Minds!’ (Hamilton & Infantino) sees a man with too much knowledge and power eschew it all for normality. ‘The Human Homing Pigeon!’ (Samachson, Greene & Giella) then burns out his own unique gift in the service of his fellows…

‘The Triple Life of Dr. Pluto!’ (Broome, Greene & Giella in #70) deals with the dangers of a human duplicating ray before Darwin Jones confronts a deadly dilemma when warring aliens both claim to be our friends and ‘Earth’s Secret Weapon!’ (Samachson, Kane & Giella). An early computer falls into the hands of a petty thief with outrageous consequences in ‘The Mechanical Mastermind!’ (Samachson & Infantino) whilst Broome, Greene & Giella’s ‘Menace of the Martian Bubble!’ is foiled by a purely human mind and skills of a stage magician.

Issue #71 features ‘Zero Hour for Earth!’ (Broome & Barry) as a scientist at world’s end sends a time-twisting thought-message back to change future history, whilst invisible thieves of our fissionable resources are thwarted by a scientist with unique visual impairments in ‘Raiders from the Ultra-Violet!’ (Binder, Greene & Giella). Writer Ray Hollis sees a star fall and encounters ‘The Living Meteor!’ (Fox, Kane & Sachs) whilst a guy with a weight problem discovers he has become ‘The Man Who Ate Sunshine!’ in a clever conundrum from Samachson, Grandenetti & Giella.

Strange Adventures #72 starts with a fabulous, self-evident spectacular in ‘The Skyscraper that Came to Life!’ by Broome, Greene & Giella, whilst a shooting star reveals an ancient ‘Puzzle from Planet X!’, promising friendship or doom in a classy yarn by Hamilton, Greene & Sachs.

Gerson & John Giunta’s ‘The Time-Wise Thief!’ provides a salutary moral for a bandit with too much technology and temptation before ‘The Man Who Lived Nine Lifetimes!’ (Binder, Kane & Giella) is aroused from a sleep of ages to save us all from robot invasion…

These flights of fantasy conclude with #73: firstly Broome, Greene & Giella’s ‘The Amazing Rain of Gems!’, wherein a sentient jewel almost beguiles the entire world, whilst humans are hijacked to attend a ‘Science-Fiction Convention on Mars’ (Fox, Kane & Giella) and ‘The Man with Future-Vision!’ (Fox, Infantino & Sachs) discovers knowing what’s coming isn’t necessarily enough…

The imaginative inspiration ends with a clever time-paradox fable in Hamilton, Greene & Giella’s ‘Reverse Rescue of Earth!’

Conceived and edited by the brilliant Julie Schwartz and starring the cream of the era’s writers and artists, Strange Adventures set the standard for mind-boggling all-ages fantasy fiction. With stunning, evocative covers from such stellar art luminaries as Murphy Anderson, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane and Ruben Moreira, this titanic tome is a perfect portal to other worlds and, in many ways, far better times.

If you dream in steel and plastic, are ready for all AI can do and are agonising and still wondering why you don’t yet own a personal jet-pack, this volume might go some way to assuaging that unquenchable fire for the stars!

Then again, so might a spiffy new collection as part of DC’s Silver Age archive strand…
© 1955, 1956, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Lucky Luke volume 38 – Doc Doxey’s Elixir


By Morris, translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-141-6 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Doughty, dashing and dependable cowboy “good guy” Lucky Luke is a rangy, implacably even-tempered do-gooder able to “draw faster than his own shadow”. He amiably ambles around the mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures on his petulant and rather sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper.

Over nine decades, his exploits have made him one of the top-ranking comic characters in the world, generating upwards of 85 individual albums and spin-off series like Kid Lucky and Ran-Tan-Plan, with sales thus far totalling upwards of 300 million in 30 languages. That renown has translated into a mountain of merchandise, toys, games, animated cartoons, TV shows and live-action movies and even commemorative exhibitions. No theme park yet, but you never know…

Originally the brainchild of Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”) and first – officially – seen in Le Journal de Spirou’s seasonal Annual L’Almanach Spirou 1947, Luke actually sprang to (un-titled) laconic life in mid-1946, before inevitably ambling into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th of that year.

Morris was one of “la Bande des quatre”– The Gang of Four – comprising Jijé, Will and Franquin: leading proponents of a fresh, loosely free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School”. It came to dominate Le Journal de Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style favoured by Hergé, E.P. Jacobs and other artists in Le Journal de Tintin. In 1948 said Gang (all but Will) visited America, meeting US creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, befriended René Goscinny, scored work at newly-formed EC sensation Mad and constantly, copiously, noted and sketched a swiftly vanishing Old West.

Working solo until 1955 (with early script assistance from his brother Louis De Bevere), Morris crafted nine albums – of which today’s was #7 – of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before teaming with old pal and fellow transatlantic émigré Goscinny. With him as regular wordsmith, Luke attained dizzying, legendary heights starting with Des rails sur la Prairie (Rails on the Prairie) which began serialisation on August 25th 1955.

In 1967, the six-gun straight-shooter switched sides, joining Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote in La Diligence (The Stagecoach). Goscinny co-created 45 albums with Morris before his untimely death, whereupon Morris soldiered on both singly and with other collaborators. He went to the Last Roundup in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus numerous sidebar sagebrush sagas crafted with Achdé & Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and more, all taking their own shot at the venerable vigilante.

Lucky Luke has a long history in Britain, having first pseudonymously amused and enthralled young readers during the late 1950s, syndicated to weekly anthology Film Fun. He later rode back into comics-town in 1967 for comedy paper Giggle, using nom de plume Buck Bingo. And that’s not counting the many attempts to establish him as a book star starting with Brockhampton Press in 1972 and continuing via Knight Books, Hodder Dargaud UK, Ravette Books and Glo’Worm, until Cinebook finally found the right path in 2006.

As L’elixir du Docteur Doxey, today’s yarn spanned December 11th 1952 to 8th October 1953 when originally serialised in LJdS #765-808. The extended serial was then compiled as the seventh annual Lucky Luke album: published in November 1955, with successive volumes launching every year thereafter in that month.

Doc Doxey’s Elixir (entitled “Lucky Luke and Doc Doxey” on the opening page) relates the predatory journeys of a charlatan physician dispensing disgusting and often lethal liquid cure-alls, aided and abetted by his athletic stooge Scraggy. He gulls the public with disguises, near-miraculous instantaneous “recuperations” and equally fast exits.

Their pernicious peregrinations come to an end after poisoning the frontier town of Green Valley, putting dogged do-gooder Lucky on their trail – a long, perilous and relentless pursuit packed with classic and episodic chase gags. Said hunt concludes with the sneaky snake oil peddler behind bars. Of course, he doesn’t stay there long as sequel saga ‘Manhunt’ details his cunning escape, a change of identity – but not modus operandi – and an ultimately unsuccessful plot to murder the wandering cowboy…

Ideal for older kids who have gained a bit of historical perspective and social understanding – although the action and slapstick situations are no more contentious than any Laurel and Hardy film, Chuckle Brothers skit and whatever TikTok clip the waifs of the coming generation (Gen Eric?) titter to – these early exploits are a grand old hoot in the tradition of Destry Rides Again or Support Your Local Sheriff, superbly executed by a master storyteller, and a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never was…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2012 Cinebook Ltd.

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Asterix and the White Iris (volume 40)


By Fabcaro & Didier Conrad, coloured by Thierry Mébarki, translated by Adriana Hunter (Sphere)
ISBN: 978-1-40873-021-8 (Album HB) eISBN: 978-1-4087-3020-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Celebrate the Season in Classical Style… 9/10

Asterix le Gaulois debuted in 1959 and has since become part of the fabric of French life. His exploits have touched billions of people around the world for over sixty years and for almost all of that time his astounding adventures were the sole preserve of originators René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo.

After nearly 15 years dissemination as weekly serials (subsequently collected into book-length compilations), in 1974 the 21st saga – Asterix and Caesar’s Gift – was the first to be released as a complete, original album prior to serialisation. Thereafter each new tome was an eagerly anticipated, impatiently awaited treat for legions of devotees.

The eager anxiety hasn’t diminished even now as L’Iris Blanc sees third scripter Jean-Yves Ferri make way for physicist/novelist/musician/comics writer “Fabcaro” (Like a Steak Machine, Les Marseillais, Mars) – AKA Fabrice Caro – who joins in situ illustrator Didier Conrad (Les Innomables, Tatum, ASTERIX!). Fabcaro & Didier’s first album/40th canonical chronicle of Asterix L’Iris Blanc was released on October 25th 2023, with the English edition hitting shelves and digital emporia as Asterix and the White Iris one day later.

Although divided by its Roman conquerors into provinces Celtica, Aquitania and Armorica, the very tip of the last-named land stubbornly refuses to be properly pacified. The otherwise supreme overlords, utterly unable to overrun this last little bastion of Gallic insouciance, are reduced to a pointless policy of absolute containment – even though the irksome Gauls come and go as they please. Thus, a tiny seaside hamlet is permanently hemmed in by heavily fortified garrisons Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium: packed with seasoned and terrified soldiers who would rather be anywhere else on earth than there…

Those supposedly contained couldn’t care less: daily defying and frustrating the world’s greatest military machine by going about their everyday affairs, bolstered by magic potion brewed by resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits and strategic aplomb of diminutive dynamo Asterix and the stopping power of his simplistic, supercharged best pal Obelix…

As always, action, suspense and comedy are very much in evidence. There’s a healthy helping of satirical lampooning of the generation gap, fads and trends as well as the traditional regional and nationalistic leitmotifs. Whether as an comedic romp with sneaky, bullying baddies getting their just deserts or as a sly and wicked satire for older-if-no-wiser heads, these new yarns are just as engrossing as the established canon.

As you already know, half of the intoxicating epics take place in various exotic locales throughout the Ancient World, whilst the alternating rest are set in and around Uderzo’s adored Brittany circa 50 BC. This one’s a little of both as our major cast members make it all the way to fashionable Lutetia before their current Roman problems are solved…

It all begins in the established traditional manner before we cut to Rome where Julius Caesar is defending his record amidst a miasma of growing unrest and depleted morale that has caused a spike in insubordination and desertions from the army that holds the Empire together.

A potential solution comes from Chief Medical Officer/Lifestyle guru Isivertuus, who has devised a blend of pop psychology, life-coaching and philosophical chicanery he calls “the White Iris.” The poetry-heavy flummery seems capable of bamboozling the gullible – basically anyone but Isivertuus – into modifying their behaviours. The military conman proposes visiting Amorica and convincing its downtrodden, defeatist garrisons that the enemy aren’t indomitable or invincible at all.

Hopeful but cautious, Caesar agrees to the quack working his solution on Totorum camp, and also – just to be sure – destroying that pesky village of rebel Gauls…

At first it all goes quite well, with a combination of recycled adages, meaningless homilies and mental homeopathy lifting military spirits and even – when the charming charlatan starts spouting off to the Gauls themselves – dividing them from each other… not a hard task for such garrulous, combustible and opinionated souls…

Soon, no one’s quarrelling and even Obelix’s beloved wild boars are losing the will to fight, but Isivertuus just cannot close the deal. That’s when he changes tactics and woos Chief Vitalstatistix’s formidable wife away with honied assurances that she deserves a better life in cosmopolitan Lutetia. However, it’s all a ploy to deliver her to Caesar and blackmail the Gauls into surrendering…

Once the heartbroken old Chief gets over the crushing rejection and stifles his maudlin carping, he’s off in hot pursuit with Asterix and the big one going along to keep him out of trouble… and safe from said hostage/bride Impedimenta…

Jam-packed with classic laughs, hilarious fights, the usual cameos by the pirates and other old favourites there’s also plenty of contemporary satire: swipes at modern theatre, pop psyche, kick scooters, fusion cuisine, mindfulness and even HS2 before the fun escalates to a crescendo that only proves the truth and power of one old phrase… Amor vincit omnia*.

Asterix and the White Iris is a sure win and another triumphant addition to the mythic canon for laugh-seekers in general and all devotees of comics.
© 2023 HACHETTE LIVRE/GOSCINNY-UDERZO. English translation: © 2023 HACHETTE LIVRE/GOSCINNY-UDERZO

*Love conquers all. Maybe you should read more old books after you get this new one?

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks X-Men volume 3: Divided We Fall


By Roy Thomas, Werner Roth, Dick Ayers, John Tartaglione, Art Simek, Joe Rosen & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: ?978-1-3029-4901-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Celebrate in X-quisite Classical Style… 9/10

These stories are timeless and have been gathered many times so here’s my now-standard advisory on format.

The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line is designed with economy in mind. Classic tales of Marvel – such as the birthday boys and girl on show today – have been an archival book staple since the 1990s, but always in lavish, expensive hardback collectors’ editions. The new tomes are far cheaper, on lower quality paper and smaller, about the size of a paperback book.

Your eyesight might be failing and your hands too big and shaky, but at 152 x 227mm, they’re perfect for kids. If you opt for the digital editions, that’s no issue at all…

Way back in 1963 things really took off for the budding Marvel Comics Group as Stan Lee & Jack Kirby expanded their meagre line of action titles: putting a bunch of relatively new super-heroes (including hot-off-the-presses Iron Man) together as The Avengers; launching a decidedly different war comic in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and creating a group of alienated heroic teenagers united to fight a rather specific, previously unperceived threat to humanity. Those halcyon days are revisited in this splendid trade paperback/eBook compilation, gathering from May 1966 to February 1967, the contents of X-Men #20-29.

Way back in the summer of 1963, the premiere issue had introduced Cyclops/Scott Summers, Iceman/Bobby Drake, Angel/Warren Worthington III and The Beast/Henry “Hank” McCoy: extremely special students of Professor Charles Xavier. This brilliant, driven, charismatic and wheelchair-bound telepath was dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the emergent off-shoot race: human mutants called Homo Superior. The story saw the students welcome newest classmate Jean Grey, who would be codenamed Marvel Girl. She possessed the ability to move objects with her mind.

No sooner has the Professor explained their mission than an actual Evil Mutant – Magneto – singlehandedly took over American missile base Cape Citadel. A seemingly unbeatable threat, the master of magnetism was nonetheless driven off in under 15 minutes by the young heroes on their first combat mission…

These days, young heroes are ten-a-penny, but it should be noted that these kids were among Marvel’s first juvenile super-doers (unless you count Spider-Man or Human Torch Johnny Storm) since the Golden Age, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that in early tales the youngsters regularly benefitted from a little adult supervision, such as is the case in the landmark tale that opens this book…

With Werner Roth & Dick Ayers making the pictures, in X-Men #20, the writing reins were turned over to Roy Thomas, who promptly jumped in guns blazing with ‘I, Lucifer…’: an alien invasion yarn starring Xavier’s arch-nemesis as well as old adversaries Unus the Untouchable and the Blob. Most importantly, it revealed in passing how Professor X lost the use of his legs.

With canny concluding chapter ‘From Whence Comes Dominus?’, Thomas & Roth completely made the series their own: blending juvenile high spirits, classy superhero action and torrid soap opera with beautiful drawing and stirring adventure.

At this time Marvel Comics had a vast and growing following among older teens and college kids, and the youthful Thomas spoke and wrote as they did (or maybe a little better?). Coupled with his easy delight in large casts, this would increasingly make X-Men a most welcoming read for any educated adolescent – like you or me…

As suggested already, X-Men was never one of young Marvel’s top titles, but it found a devout and dedicated following, with the frantic, freakish energy of Jack Kirby’s heroic dynamism comfortably transiting into the slick, sleek attractiveness of Roth as the fierce tension of hunted, haunted juvenile outsider settled into a pastiche of college and school scenarios familiar to the students who were the series’ primary audience.

The action continues with a crafty 2-parter resurrecting veteran Avengers villain Count Nefaria who employs illusion-casting technology and a band of other heroes’ second-string foes (The Unicorn, Porcupine, Plantman, Scarecrow and Eel, if you’re wondering) to hold Washington DC hostage and frame the X-Men for the entire scheme.

‘Divided… We Fall!’ and ‘To Save a City!’ form a fast-paced, old-fashioned Goodies vs. Baddies battle with a decided sting in the tail. Moreover, the tale concludes with Marvel Girl yanked off the team when her parents insist she furthers her education by leaving the Xavier School to attend New York’s Metro University…

Illustrated by Roth & Ayers she is off the team and packed off to college but here visits her old chums to regale them with tales of life outside. Her departure segues neatly into a beloved plot standard – Evil Scientist Grows Giant Bugs – when she enrols and meets an embittered recently-fired professor, leading her erstwhile comrades to confront ‘The Plague of… the Locust!’

Perhaps X-Men #24 isn’t the most memorable tale in the canon but it still reads well and has the added drama of Jean Grey’s departure crystallizing the romantic rivalry for her affections between Cyclops and Angel: providing another deft sop to readers as it enabled many future epics to include Campus life in the action-packed, fun-filled mix…

Somehow Jean still managed to turn up in every issue even as ‘The Power and the Pendant’ (#25, October 1966) finds the boys tracking new menace El Tigre. This South American hunter is visiting New York to steal the second half of a Mayan amulet which willgrant him god-like powers…

Having soundly thrashed the male X-Men, newly-ascended and reborn as Kukulkan, the malign meta returns to Amazonian San Rico to recreate a fallen pre-Columbian empire with the heroes in hot pursuit. The result is a cataclysmic showdown in ‘Holocaust!’ which leaves Angel fighting for his life and deputy leader Cyclops crushed by guilt…

Issue #27 see the return of some old foes in ‘Re-enter: The Mimic!’ as the mesmerising Puppet Master pits power-duplicating Calvin Rankin against a team riven by dissention and ill-feeling, before ‘The Wail of the Banshee!’ sees Rankin join the X-Men in a tale introducing the sonic-powered mutant (eventually to become a valued team-mate and team-leader) as a deadly threat.

This was the opening salvo of an ambitious extended epic featuring a global coalition of sinister, mutant-abductors… Factor Three.

This turbulent tome terminates with John Tartaglione replacing Ayers as regular inker beginning with bright and breezy thriller ‘When Titans Clash!’, wherein the power-duplicating Super-Adaptoid almost turns the entire team into super-slaves before ending the Mimic’s career…

Supplemented by original art – an unused Roth cover for X-Men #25 – these charming idiosyncratic tales are a million miles removed from the angst-ridden, breast-beating, cripplingly convoluted X-brand of today’s Marvel, and in many ways are all the better for it. Superbly rendered, highly readable adventures are never unwelcome or out of favour and it should be remembered that everything here informs so very much of the mutant monolith. These are stories for dedicated fans and the rawest converts. Everyone should have this book.
© 2023 MARVEL

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Doug Wildey’s Rio: The Complete Saga


By Doug Wildey (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-210-2  eISBN: 978-1-62302-476-5

There have been many Western comics over many years created by Americans and other nations. Most were banged out as commercial fodder to feed fashion during periods when mainstream media celebrated a periodic re-emergence of the genre. Rio most definitely ain’t one of those.

Working at his own pace for his own pleasure over long years and virtually isolated from the mainstream comics world, the late Doug Wildey – famed animator (Johnny Quest) and comic strip artist (Outlaw Kid) – produced an iconic and elegiac immortal character.

After a meandering trail of appearances at Eclipse, Comico and Marvel, the wanderer most recently settled at IDW resulting in this glorious collection: far more serious art book than collection of wondrous comics stories.

Almost the entirety of this stupendous compendium is shot from Wildey’s immaculate multi-media original art with corrections, amendments and every instance and evidence of the creator’s interaction with the page left for aficionados to enjoy. No flattening bowdlerisation by the print process here: Think of it as a gallery visit in your hands.

The content comprises all Wildey’s published stories, one entire unpublished tale and a final almost-complete saga he was working on when he died. As he was a rather mercurial cove Wildey skipped about a job, wrapping up pages as whim took him, so the missing parts are there in spirit too: as roughs, sketches, pencils or script and layout designs. It’s a fascinating glimpse of a born raconteur and relentless perfectionist plying his trade. Also included are dozens of sketches, pin-ups and other associated images given weight and context through a loving appreciation by Mark Evanier in his Introduction. What more can a fan want?

Well, obviously, a damned fine read…

An old gunfighter and badman in the heydays of the Wild West, Rio is a rangy loner wandering the country just ahead of creeping civilisation, trying to live the rest of his life as best he can as the end draws near.

The saga began as a serial in early 1980s experiment Eclipse Monthly, during the days of American Comics’ Direct Market revolution. Then it was collected into an album-sized compilation and assorted reprints many times since.

In ‘The Hide Butchers’, the iconically world-weary “tall rider” is engrossed on a tricky and dangerous mission. Offered a full pardon by President Ulysses S. Grant in return for stopping the decimation of the Buffalo herds by “Sporting Special”, Rio is in Wyoming Territory vainly attempting to reason with Railway boss Dorsey. These train excursions – wherein customers could slaughter the animals from the comfort of their seats – nearly wiped out the animals, consequently almost starving to their own extinction Indians who lived off them.

Deemed a threat to profits, Rio is framed for murder by the bigwig’s hirelings – the Grady Parrish gang – and must down a small army of gunmen before he can know any real peace…

His hunt begins in ‘Satan’s Doorstep’ as the trail leads into Apache country and a doomed clash with a cavalry troop led by a glory-obsessed fool who thinks he’s the next Napoleon Bonaparte…

Sole survivor of that desert confrontation, Rio picks up his quarry’s trail in Endsville, Wyoming, before crossing the border to an enslaved Mexican town turned into a ‘Robber’s Roost’ by the bandits he’s chasing. To pass the time, the sadistic brutes play a murderous game with the citizens, but when Rio is captured he deftly turn the tables against them…

Wildey was a master storyteller and a Western Historian of some note. His art graced many galleries and museums, but his greatest achievements are here, where his artistry brings a lost and fabled world briefly back to vibrant life, in spirit as well as look.

Wildey switched over to colour in his own unique style and a more luscious and painterly colour palette, transferring his iconic lone rider from the wilderness to the very borders of the creeping Civilisation he so patently abhorred in a sequel to his original tale of ‘Mr. Howard’s Son’…

Finally pardoned by President Grant, Rio is invited to become sheriff of Limestone City, a burgeoning metropolis less than 100 miles from Kansas City yet somehow a town with no crime! Whilst pondering the offer, he finds old friends already living there; two of the most infamous outlaws in history who – with their families – are living quietly as respectable, albeit incognito, citizens of the progressive paradise.

However, after a botched kidnapping and speculative bank raid exposes the retired outlaws, human nature and petty spite lead to disastrous chaos and a spiral of bloody tragedy which the new lawman is ill-equipped and much disinclined to help with…

In ‘Hot Lead for Johnny Hardluck’, Rio meets a young Dutch kid hardened by exploitative mine work who has chanced upon a fortune. After winning a huge diamond at poker the boy heads for San Francisco, unaware the sore loser has hired thieves to restore what he lost at all costs. Happily, Rio is working as stagecoach guard on the route the kid follows, but even after the fireworks are over, the danger and bloodshed isn’t…

Another brush with famous gunmen informs ‘Red Dust in Tombstone’ as Rio meets up with Doc Holliday and his pals the Earp brothers. Trouble is brewing in town and tensions are high, but Wildey smartly shows us a telling side of all concerned that movies have not…

Wrapping the narratives up with a tantalising promise of what might have been, ‘Reprisal’ is an unfinished masterpiece of cowboy lore as the lone rider saunters into a brewing border crisis. Bandits are raiding ranches, but when the wanderer uncovers a scam with soldiers selling gunpowder to outlaws, the situation explosively escalates into savage tragedy…

This wagon train of wonders wraps with an epic visual treat as ‘Doug Wildey’s Rio Gallery’ re-presents covers, evocative colour illustrations, sketches and model sheets to delight every fan of the genre or just great illustration.

Gripping, authentic, and satisfyingly mythic, these tales from a lost master of his subject and his craft are some of the best westerns America has ever produced and some of the most sublime sequential art every set to paper. Go see why pilgrim…
© 2012 Ellen Wildey. All Rights Reserved. Introduction © 2012 Mark Evanier.