The Phoenix Presents: The Pirates of Pangaea Book 1


By Daniel Hartwell & Neill Cameron (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-910200-08-7 (TPB)

Why are pirates so mean? I don’t know, they just AARRRR

Moreover, nobody tells pirates they can only have one day to be themselves, so here’s more buccaneer-bootied bravado and bombast with a little lizardly allure tipped in too…

The Phoenix has been the saving grace of British kids’ comics since 2012, regaling readers with anthology comics for girls, boys and all points between, offering humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material in a joyous parade of cartoon fun and fantasy.

Although best known for its comedy stylings, it’s always been pretty strong in its action and mystery yarns…

Crafted by Daniel Hartwell (Urban Beasts) and Neill Cameron (Mo-Bot High, How to Make Awesome Comics), by far the most engaging thriller so far featured is a sublime combination of rip-roaring endeavour and enticing fantasy blending canny corsairs, boldly brilliant kids, suspenseful swashbuckling escapades and gloriously gigantic dinosaurs.

The alternate-history lesson begins with 12-year old Sophie Delacourt voyaging out from England in 1717 to join her Uncle Silas, newly appointed Governor of the lost land of Pangaea.

The colossal continent is reputed the oldest landmass on Earth and a place primarily inhabited by stupendous reptiles of land and air. Master Bosun William takes a paternal interest in the girl, explaining the wondrous nature of the place, but nothing prepares her for the shock of a colossal “long-neck” diving under their vessel and lifting it bodily into the air.

The interior of Pangaea is a vast shifting ocean of long grass afflicted and infested with fast, deadly predators no man afoot could survive or escape, so all ships are picked up out of blue Caribbean waters then carried upon Brobdingnagian beasts’ backs between the rocky high points and plateaux where puny humanity has built its dwellings and settlements.

The big beasts are kept docile and compliant by administration of a herb dubbed “Snuff” and piloted by a skilful class of inland mariners known as “Snuffmen”

Sophie has never seen anything so wonderful in her life but, as Snuffman John guides the magnificent Bessie and her formerly-seagoing burden towards the Governor’s capital city, the amazed lass catches sight of an ever-present peril besetting this latest outpost of empire.

Through the shifting verdure hails a pirate vessel strapped atop a terrifying black Land Leviathan and soon the voyagers are fighting for their lives in an ‘Ambush on Pangaea’.

Sophie is locked in her cabin as the ferocious freebooters’ devastating attack pillages the outmatched victim-vessel. After insanely cruel Captain Brookes cries victory and makes the crew walk the plank to their deaths, she is the only survivor…

The second chapter opens with the Governor’s niece imprisoned on Brookes’ land-ship, a potential goldmine in ransom for a rapacious maniac. Furiously defiant, Sophie is slowly befriended by the brute’s cabin boy Timothy Kelsey. This lad is the tormented last survivor of a previous foray, having witnessed the murder of his mentor and master Dr. Shaw: a naturalist come to the lost land to catalogue the ‘Indigenous Fauna of the Pangaean Land-Mass’.

After experiencing Brookes’ cruelty, Sophie agrees to assist Timothy’s desperate plan for escape but as they make their move to fly off on the ship’s captive “Great Wing” lizard, they stumble over the first mate. Ten Gun Jones is also engaged in fleeing on the “Razor Beak”, but the din of their stumbling over each other rouses the ship and the three are forced to flee together into the night amidst a hail of musket fire…

Soon the trio are hopelessly ‘Lost in the Sea of Green’ as their gravely wounded pterosaur expires just shy of a high-projecting stony pinnacle. With deadly “Land Sharks” and “Belly Rippers” closing in, all hope seems lost until an even deadlier beast pounces. The “Tyrant” makes short work of the circling velociraptors, but its ravening hunger remains unsated. Only sheer terror carries the fugitives to relative safety – a rocky islet where, frantically scaling the igneous tower with the horror snapping at their heels, they tumble into a cave and find themselves inside an abandoned pirate lair…

The dusty den holds weapons, lamps, water, liquor and even brontosaur jerky: everything needful to outwait the roaring giant outside, but after a sleepless night with Ten Gun less than forthcoming about why he was deserting, Sophie conceives a dangerous idea.

Feeding the monster chunks of dried meat liberally doused in Snuff found in a barrel, in an act of seeming madness Sophie drops onto the horror’s head and soon has it – her, actually – acting like a very dangerous steed…

The fearless child then explains how an elderly servant in England taught her the secrets of horse-whispering before christening her scaly new pet “Cornflower”. Timothy is elated that they can use the Tyrant to safely cross the lethal Sea of Green to civilisation, but Jones has other plans…

The enigmatic seadog’s guarded directions soon bring them to an active volcano – in truth the neutral port used as safe-haven by all pirates plying the grassy deeps. In a tavern the children learn the ‘Secrets of Raptor Rock’ and are introduced to bombastic Captain Ford, who had planted Ten Gun in Brookes’ crew to secretly secure the second half of a disputed treasure map. With both pieces in hand the privateer immediately sets to emerald sea, but Ten Gun insists on bringing Sophie and Tim along. They have barely left the rock before Cornflower breaks out of her pen and doggedly follows…

The children are put to work and Sophie befriends Iwakian Snuffman Tak: a native Pangaean who steers the buccaneers’ bombastic brontosaur Gertrude, before the exploratory voyage comes to a sudden stop after crossing the eerie “Longnecks Graveyard” and approaches the fantastic plateau known in legend as “The Forbidden Isle”…

An expeditionary party is soon driving inland to an ancient temple in ‘Quest for the Golden Skull’ but upon entering, the greedy raiders are astounded to discover the priceless artefact they’re hunting is not a gilded human head but actually a full-size tyrant’s skull cast in precious metal. That’s when ferocious native defenders – the Kron Iwakia – ambush the party, driving them back to the relative safety of Gertrude. Sadly, the rapidly retreating reivers have no idea of what’s happened in the meantime. Young Kelsey, resentful of being enslaved again, has – more by accident than design – blown up the ship and stampeded Gertrude off into the Sea of Green, just as maniacal Captain Brookes arrives intent on reclaiming his map and slaughtering everyone…

Even though the enraged Iwakians vanished when the ship started burning, Ford’s rattled crew are no match for the nautical newcomers and things look bleak and bloody. Sophie and Kelsey desperately retreat to the temple, chased by Brookes’ men with death seemingly imminent until, from nowhere, Cornflower arrives and eagerly despatches the pursuing pirates. This draws the Kron Iwakia from concealment to guide Cornflower and the kids to their destination. The wilderness warriors worship Tyrant lizards and, after a strange ceremony, deem Sophie and her reptile holy. That’s when Tim realises the Golden Skull is not a mere ornament but battle armour for a tyrannosaur Chosen One…

With the Iwakians in close support, the valiant children return to the ongoing pirate war to settle a number of old scores before taking control of their own destinies…

Superbly engaging and utterly enthralling, this astounding all-action romp is a riotous delight of astonishing adventure: a fabulous first compilation that also includes many maps and crucial fact pages on assorted dinosaurs from Dr. Shaw’s ‘Indigenous Fauna of the Pangaean Land-Mass’: specifically ‘Sauropoda’, ‘Pterosauria’, ‘Dromaeosauridae’ and ‘Tyrannosauridae’, all scrupulously crafted, corrected and annotated by erstwhile cabin boy and greatest living expert Timothy Kelsey…

Bright, breezy furious fun for the entire family, so don’t miss this unburied treasure…
Text © Daniel Hartwell 2015. Illustrations © Neill Cameron 2015. All rights reserved.

The Adventures of Captain Pugwash: Best Pirate Jokes


By Ian D. Rylett & Ian Hillyard (Red Fox/Random House)
ISBN: 978-1-862-30793-3 (PB)

The problem with pirates is that they don’t know when enough’s enough, so here’s another review to reconnoitre: tangentially celebrating the greatest buccaneer of all…

John Ryan was an artist and storyteller who straddled three distinct disciplines of graphic narrative, with equal qualitative if not financial success.

Born in Edinburgh on March 4th 1921, Ryan was the son of a diplomat, served during WWII in Burma and India and – after attending the Regent Street Polytechnic (1946-48) – took up a post as assistant Art Master at Harrow School from 1948 to 1955. It was during this time that he began contributing strips to Fulton Press publications, in the company’s glossy distaff alternative Girl, but most especially to the pages of legendary “boys’ paper” The Eagle.

On April 14th 1950, Britain’s grey, post-war gloom was partially lifted with the premier issue of a new comic which literally shone with light and colour. Soon, avid excited boys (and girls!) were understandably enraptured with the gloss and dazzle of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future: the charismatic star-turn venerated to this day and licensed media stars like PC 49

The Eagle was a tabloid-sized paper with full-colour inserts alternating with text and a range of various other comic features. “Tabloid” is a big page and you can get a lot of material onto each one. Deep within, on the bottom third of a monochrome page was an 8-panel strip entitled Captain Pugwash – The story of a Bad Buccaneer and the many Sticky Ends which nearly befell him. Ryan’s quirky, spiky style also lent itself to the numerous spot illustrations required throughout the comic every week.

Pugwash, his harridan (sorry, not my word) of a wife and the useless, lazy crew of the Black Pig ran (or more accurately capered and fell about) until issue #19 when the feature disappeared. This was no real hardship for Ryan who had been writing and illustrating Harris Tweed – Extra Special Agent as a full-page (tabloid, remember, an average of twenty panels a page, per week!) from Eagle #16 onwards (and there’s a lost star and canon well worth revisiting sometime soon). Super sleuth Tweed ran as a page for three years until 1953 when it dropped to a half-page strip and was repositioned as a purely comedic venture…

In 1956 the indefatigable old sea-dog (I mean old Horatio Pugwash but it could so easily be Ryan) made the jump to children’s picture books. He was an unceasing story-peddler with a big family, but somehow also found time to be head cartoonist at The Catholic Herald for forty years.

A Pirate Story was first published by Bodley Head before switching to children’s publishing specialist Puffin for further editions and more adventures. It was the first of a vast (sorry, got away with meself again there!) run of kids’ books on a numerous subjects. Pugwash himself starred in 21 tomes: there were a dozen books based on the animated TV series Ark Stories, plus Sir Prancelot and many more creations. Ryan worked whenever he wanted to in the comics world and eventually his books and strips began to cross-pollinate.

The primary Pugwash is very traditional in format with blocks of text and single illustrations to illuminate a particular moment. But by the publication of Pugwash the Smuggler (1982) entire sequences were lavishly painted comic strips, with as many as eight panels per page, and including word balloons. A fitting circularity to his interlocking careers and a nice treat for us old-fashioned comic drones.

When A Pirate Story was released in 1957 the BBC pounced on the hot property, commissioning Ryan to produce 5-minute episodes: 86 in all from 1957 to 1968 and later reformatted in full colour and rebroadcast in 1976. In the budding arena of 1950s animated television cartoons, Ryan developed a new system for producing cheap, high quality animations to a tight deadline. He began with Pugwash, keeping the adventure milieu, but replaced shrewish wife with a tried-&-true boy assistant. Tom the Cabin Boy is the only capable member of a crew which included such visual archetypes as Willy, Barnabas and Master Mate (fat, thin, tall and all dim), instantly affirming to the rapt, young audience that grown-ups are fools and kids do, in fact, rule.

For eight years Ryan simultaneously drew a weekly Captain Pugwash strip for The Radio Times, going on to produce a number of other animated series including “latch-key” pals Mary, Mungo and Midge, The Friendly Giant and the aforementioned Sir Prancelot. There were also adaptations of his many other children’s books and in 1997 Pugwash was rebooted in an all-new CGI animated TV series.

The first book – A Pirate Story – sets the scene with a delightful clown’s romp as the so-very-motley crew of the Black Pig sail in search of buried treasure, only to fall into a cunning trap set by the truly nasty corsair Cut-Throat Jake. Luckily, Tom is as smart as his shipmates and Captain are not…

A 2008 edition of A Pirate Story from Frances Lincoln Children’s Books came with a free audio CD, and just in case I’ve tempted you beyond endurance here’s a full list of the good (ish) Captain’s exploits that you should make it your remaining life’s work to unearth…

There’s Captain Pugwash: A Pirate Story (1957), Pugwash Aloft (1960), Pugwash and the Ghost Ship (1962), Pugwash in the Pacific (1963), Pugwash and the Sea Monster (1976), Captain Pugwash and the Ruby (1976), Captain Pugwash and the Treasure Chest (1976), Captain Pugwash and the New Ship (1976), Captain Pugwash and the Elephant (1976), The Captain Pugwash Cartoon Book (1977), Pugwash and the Buried Treasure (1980), Pugwash the Smuggler (1982), Captain Pugwash and the Fancy Dress Party (1982), Captain Pugwash and the Mutiny (1982), Pugwash and the Wreckers (1984), Pugwash and the Midnight Feast (1984), The Battle of Bunkum Bay (1985), The Quest of the Golden Handshake (1985), The Secret of the San Fiasco (1985), Captain Pugwash and the Pigwig (1991) and Captain Pugwash and the Huge Reward (1991). These are all pearls beyond price and a true treasure of graphic excellence, so if you feel tempted to go all “Pirate Pokémon”, feel free to get ‘em all….

Although currently, cruelly out of print, Pugwash’s canon (the only sort this band of rapscallions can be trusted with) are widely available through online vendors and should be a prize you set your hearts on acquiring.

As you might expect, such success breeds ancillary projects, and cleaving close to the wind whilst running in the master’s wake is this minor mirthquake no sassy brat could possibly resist. Compiled by Ian D. Rylett and copiously illustrated by Ian Hillyard in stark monochrome, it’s a fairly standard cartoon joke book as beloved by generations of youngsters and loathed beyond endurance by parents, guardians, older siblings and every other adult whose patience is proven quite exhaustible. It’s the book your teacher confiscates in class but never returns at the end of term…

Divided into themed chapters ‘The Captain’s Crackers’, ‘Jakes’ Jests’, ‘Blundering Bucaneers, Hysterics in the Harbour’, ‘Fishy Funnies’ and ‘All Aboard’, the level of wit is almost lethal in its predictability and vintage (Q: why did the irate sailor go for a pee? A: he wanted to be a pirate.) but the relentless pace and remorseless progression are actually irresistible in delivery.

With the world crashing down around us and the water levels inexorably rising, we don’t have that much to laugh at, so why don’t you go and find something to take your minds off the chaos to come? Your kids will thank you and if you’ve any life left in your old and weary soul, you will too…
Pugwash books © 1957-2009 John Ryan and (presumably) the Estate of John Ryan. All rights reserved. Best Pirate Jokes © Britt-Allcroft (Development Ltd) Limited 2000. All rights worldwide Britt-Allcroft (Development Ltd) Limited.

And in case you were wondering…

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Pirate Stew


By Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell OBE (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
ISBN: 978-1-5266-1472-8 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-5266-1470-4

Ha-haarrrr! Tempests toss, the world turns summore and once again ‘tis time to Internationally Talk Like a Pirate!

Happily, it’s never too soon to begin practicing your piracy, and with that in mind here’s a pretty sharp kids’ picture book by certain someones with a lot of not-so-deeply buried treasures to their names getting in on the game, and producing a pretty and potent primer – if not route map – to a venerable profession and therapeutic briny waves…

Delivered as a flotilla of pictorial spreads peppered with blocks of rhyming text, this is the story of that night when Mum and Dad caught dinner and a show and hired ship’s cook Long John McRon to watch and feed their kids…

Before long the house was packed with pirates and before much longer, both brother and sister were acutely aware that if you ate pirate stew, strange things began to happen…

Equally prolific and far-ranging, both Gaiman and illustrator, author, political cartoonist and former UK Children’s Laureate Riddell have done way more stuff than I have time to cite, and it’s all top quality too, so after scoping it all out you should circle back to this wild ride: one guaranteed to deliver all the thrills and frills any adventure-starved tyke or tyro might expect.

Go on, get stuck in and heave ho ho, me hearties…
Text © Neil Gaiman, 2020. Illustrations © Chris Riddell, 2020. All rights reserved.

Namor, the Sub-Mariner Epic Collection volume 3: Who Strikes for Atlantis? (1968-1970)


By Roy Thomas, Marie Severin, John Buscema, Gene Colan, Sal Buscema, Jack Katz, Dan Adkins, Mike Esposito, Johnny Craig, Frank Giacoia, George Klein, Joe Sinnott, Vince Colletta, Jim Mooney & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: ?978-1-3029-4974-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner is the offspring of a water-breathing Atlantean princess and an American polar explorer; a hybrid being of immense strength, highly resistant to physical harm, able to fly, and thrive above and below the waves. Created by young, talented Bill Everett, Namor technically predates Marvel/Atlas/Timely Comics, and this is his 85th year of fictive existence.

He first caught the public’s avid attention as part of an elementally appealing fire vs. water headlining team-up in the October 1939 Marvel Comics #1 (which renamed itself Marvel Mystery Comics from #2 onwards). The amphibian antihero shared honours and top billing with The Human Torch, but was first seen (albeit in a truncated, monochrome version) in Motion Picture Funnies: a promotional booklet handed out to moviegoers earlier in the year. Rapidly emerging as one of the industry’s biggest draws, Namor won his own title at the end of 1940 (cover-dated Spring 1941) and was one of the last super-characters to vanish at the end of the first heroic age.

In 1954, when Atlas (as the company then was) briefly revived its “Big Three” line-up – the Torch and Captain America being the other two – Everett returned for an extended run of superbly dark, mordantly timely fantasy fables. However, even his input wasn’t sufficient to keep the title afloat and eventually Sub-Mariner sank again.

In 1961, as Stan Lee & Jack Kirby were reinventing superheroes with landmark title Fantastic Four, they revived the awesome, all-but-forgotten aquanaut as a troubled, semi-amnesiac antihero. Decidedly more bombastic, regal and grandiose, this returnee despised humanity: embittered by the loss of his subsea kingdom which had been (seemingly) destroyed by American atomic testing. His rightful revenge became infinitely complicated after he became utterly besotted with the FF’s Susan Storm.

Namor knocked around the budding Marvel universe for a few years, squabbling with other star turns such as The Hulk, Avengers, X-Men and Daredevil before securing his own series as one half of Tales to Astonish, and from there graduating in 1968 to his own solo title. This third subsea selection collects The Sub-Mariner #4-27, spanning August 1968 to July 1979

Previously, the hero’s recapitulated origins and some plot seeding had introduced malign super-telepath Destiny (who was responsible for those memory-deficient years), and the Prince had begun a search for the villain which led to his meeting undersea Inhuman courtier Triton. This volume resumes with Namor still hunting Destiny, and falling into the sadistic clutches of subsea barbarian Attuma after the merciless warlord attacks displaced, wandering Atlanteans. Although he triumphs in ‘Who Strikes for Atlantis?’ (by Roy Thomas, John Buscema & Frank Giacoia) and liberates his people, the Sub-Mariner swims on alone, believing his beloved Lady Dorma to have perished in the battle…

Twin nemeses debut next, in the forms of deranged bio-engineer Dr. Dorcas and disabled ex-Olympic swimmer Todd Arliss, who is mutated by mad science and Namor’s own hybrid powers into a ravening amphibian killer in ‘Watch Out for… Tiger Shark!’ As Dorcas’s blind ambition and lust for power unleash an aquatic horror he cannot control, Lady Dorma stumbles into Tiger Shark’s clutches after he seemingly kills Namor. The man-monster parlays the situation into an attempt to seize the throne of Atlantis (once it’s rebuilt) in ‘…And to the Vanquished… Death!’ (inked by Dan Adkins).

Namor is rescued by Arliss’ sister Diane (another beautiful surface-dweller who will be a romantic distraction for Sub-Mariner for years to come) but has no time for gratitude as he tracks the mutated human and defeats him in personal combat. Restored to his throne, people and beloved, the Sub-Mariner is immediately called away when his greatest enemy is located. The tyrant telepath is about to seal his plans by taking control of America in ‘For President… the Man Called Destiny!’ (we all know there have been far worse choices) but as Namor and Dorma challenge him in Manhattan, the villain’s own pride proves to be his downfall (Destiny, that is…)

An epic clash in #8 pits arrogant, impetuous Sub-Mariner against the Fantastic Four’s Ben Grimm – AKA The Thing – for possession of the eerie helmet which furnished Destiny’s mental powers. However, such pointless devastation ‘In the Rage of Battle!’ is almost irrelevant: what is truly significant is the reintroduction of a woman from Namor’s past who can reason with him with as no other human can…

Penciller Marie Severin joins writer Thomas and inker Adkins for a landmark moment as the helmet of power metamorphoses into an arcane artefact that will shape the history of the Marvel Universe. In ‘The Spell of the Serpent!’ the helm is exposed as a seductive supernatural crown that seizes the minds of the citizenry in Namor’s absence, recreating an antediluvian empire ruled by elder god Set. On his return, Namor confiscates the corrupting crown and is granted a glimpse of Earth’s secret history as well as a vision of a lost Pacific undersea race – the Lemurians.

There’s no such thing as coincidence though, so when their emissary Karthon the Quester attempts to take the serpentine totem, Namor is ready to resist in the Gene Colan limned modern-day pirate yarn ‘Never Bother a Barracuda!’ As a tale of dawn age skulduggery unfolds involving demonic immortal priest Naga and valiant Lemurian heroes who saved the world by stealing his crown, the water-breathers are ambushed by airbreathing pirate Cap’n Barracuda and forced to assist his scheme of nuclear blackmail…

Seizing his chance, Karthon swipes the crown and flees, leaving Namor to face ‘The Choice and the Challenge!’ (George Klein inks), and eventually scuttle the atomic armageddon agenda, before making the perilous journey to Lemuria to challenge the mystic might and deadly illusions of Naga in ‘A World Against Me!’ – gloriously pencilled, inked and coloured by Severin. The epic encounter concludes as Joe Sinnott inks ‘Death, Thou Shalt Die!’ with Naga overreaching and losing the world, the crown and everything else…

Next, innovative action and shameless nostalgia vie for attention as Thomas, Severin & Mike Esposito (moonlighting as Joe Gaudioso) decree ‘Burn, Namor… Burn!’ in Sub-Mariner #14, as the Mad Thinker apparently resurrects the original – android – Human Torch and sets him to destroy the monarch of Atlantis. This epic clash was one prong of an early experiment in multi-part cross-overs (Captain Marvel #14 and Avengers #64 being the other episodes of the triptych).

Inked by Vince Colletta, ‘The Day of the Dragon!’ finds Namor back in Atlantis after months away, only to find his beloved Dorma has been abducted by Dr. Dorcas. The trail leads above the waves and to Empire State University, culminating in brutal battle against mighty android Dragon Man

“Gaudioso” inked Namor’s voyage to a timeless phenomenon in search of Tiger Shark who had already conquered ‘The Sea that Time Forgot!’, after which the Avenging Son contends with an alien intent on draining Earth’s oceans in ‘From the Stars… the Stalker!’, pencilled in tandem by Severin and Golden Age Great Jack Katz, under nom de plume Jay Hawk.

The saga ends calamitously in ‘Side by Side with… Triton!’ (Thomas, Severin & Gaudioso) as, with the help of the aquatic Inhuman, Namor repels the extraterrestrial assault, but is stripped of his ability to breathe water. Forced to dwell on the surface, the despised Atlantean then crushingly clashes with an old friend in the livery of a new superhero in ‘Support Your Local Sting-Ray!’ This bombastic battle yarn also delivers a delicious peek at the Marvel Bullpen, courtesy of Severin & inker Johnny Craig’s deft caricaturing skills…

John Buscema resurfaces in #20, with Thomas scripting and Craig inking a chilling dose of realpolitik. ‘In the Darkness Dwells… Doom!’ sees Namor lured by the promise of a cure to his breathing difficulties into the exploitative clutches of the Monarch of Latveria. Trapping Sub-Mariner and keeping him, however, are two wildly differing prospects…

Informed of Namor’s condition, ‘Invasion from the Ocean Floor!’ (Severin & Craig art) features the armies of Atlantis marshalled by Dorma and disgraced Warlord Seth and besieging New York City. The clash almost invokes a new age of monsters…

As Namor’s malady is treated by Atlantean super-science, a key component of a new Superhero concept begins…

Last of the big star conglomerate super-groups, The Defenders would eventually count amongst its membership almost every hero – and many villains – of the Marvel Universe. No surprise there, as initially they were composed of the company’s bad-boys: misunderstood, outcast and often actually dangerous to know. The genesis of the team in fact derived from their status as distrusted “villains”. Before all that latterday inventive approbation, three linked tales of enigmatic antiheroes – Prince Namor, Incredible Hulk and Doctor Strange and stemming from the industry downturn in costumed superheroics started the ball rolling…

Dr. Strange #183 (November 1969 and not included here) introduced infernal elder demon race the Undying Ones, hungry to reconquer the Earth before that title folded. Now – cover-dated February 1970 – Sub-Mariner #22 tells what came next in ‘The Monarch and the Mystic!’ luring the Prince of Atlantis into the macabre mix, as Thomas, Severin & Craig’s moody tale of sacrifice has the Master of the Mystic Arts apparently die to hold the gates of Hell shut with the Undying Ones pent behind them…

In case you’re curious, the saga concludes on an upbeat note in Incredible Hulk #126 (April 1970). You might want to track down that too..

Even restored to full capacity, there’s no peace for the regal, and Sub-Mariner #23 finds Namor contending archvillain Warlord Krang after he and Dr. Dorcas use the power-transfer process to create an Atlantean wonder possessing the might of killer whales (if not their intellects!) in ‘The Coming of… Orka!’ The slow-witted psycho subsequently sets an army of enraged cetaceans against the sunken city as John Buscema & Jim Mooney step in artistically to depict how ‘The Lady and the Tiger Shark!’ finds Namor enslaved and Dorma making Faustian pacts to save Atlantis.

A landmark tale follows as – restored to rule and ready to be riled – Namor becomes an early and strident environmental activist after surface world pollution slaughters some of his subjects. Crafted by Thomas, Sal Buscema & Mooney, ‘A World My Enemy!’ follows Sub-Mariner’s bellicose confrontation with the UN as he puts humanity on notice: clean up your mess or I will. From this point on the antihero would become a minor icon and strident advocate of the issues, even if only to young comics readers.

Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner #26 offers more of Marvel’s secret history as the recently self-appointed relentless guardian of the safety and ecology of all Earth’s oceans, furtively returns to the surface world. In ‘“Kill!” Cried the Raven!’ (art by Sal B & Gaudioso/ Esposito) the Sub-Mariner comes topside to investigate reports of comatose superhuman Red Raven. He was the human emissary of a legendary race of sky-dwelling Birdmen recently encountered by The Angel (X-Men #44) in their last clash with Magneto. With the covert assistance of Diane Arliss, Namor seeks to forge an alliance with the Avian race, but shocks, surprises and the Raven’s trauma-induced madness all conspire to sink the plan…

Concluding this vintage voyage is another buccaneering bonanza as, back brooding in Atlantis in the wake of another failure, Namor’s mood is further poisoned when a surface pirate uses his giant monster-vessel to attack shipping, leaving Atlantis bearing the brunt of blame ‘When Wakes the Kraken!’.

Namor’s hunt for bizarre bandit Commander Kraken again involves Diane and ends only when the Sub-Mariner demonstrates what a real sea monster looks like…

With covers by John and Sal Buscema, Giacoia, Adkins, Herb Trimpe, Marie Severin, Colan, John Romita, Esposito, Sinnott, Frank Brunner & Craig; plus six pages of original story and cover art by the Buscemas, Giacoia, Severin, Craig, Colan, Adkins, and a magnificent Marie self-portrait print from 1970 this is a treat to savour. Many early Marvel Comics are more exuberant than qualitative, but this volume – especially from an art-lover’s point of view – is a wonderful exception: a historical treasure trove with narrative bite that fans can delight in forever. With the Prince of Atlantis now a bona fide big screen sensation (albeit one nobody’s ever heard of) this might be the time to get wise and impress your friends with the depth of your comics knowledge…
© 2023 MARVEL.

Teen Titans: The Silver Age Volume Two


By Bob Haney, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Nick Cardy, Irv Novick, Bill Draut, Gil Kane, Wally Wood, Neal Adams, Sal Amendola & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-8517-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

In the 1960s the hallowed concept of kid hero teams was already ancient when the impending Batman TV show prompted DC to trust their big heroes’ assorted sidekicks with their own regular outlet of expression. The outcome was a fab, hip and groovy ensemble as dedicated to helping kids as they were to stamping out insidious evil. Happy 60th anniversary, youngsters!

The biggest difference between the creation of the Teen Titans and wartime groups like The Young Allies, Newsboy Legion and Boy Commandos or even 1950s holdovers that included The Little Wise Guys or Boys Ranch was quite simply that burgeoning phenomena “The Teenager”: a discrete social and commercial force that had been born in the forties but ran wild in the following decade. These were kids who could – and should – be allowed to do things themselves, without constant adult help or supervision…

This quirkily eclectic compilation re-presents the rapidly-evolving –- ending – Swinging Sixties exploits from Teen Titans #12-24, plus a guest-shot from The Brave and the Bold #83, collectively spanning November/December 1967 to November/December 1969, with originating writer Bob Haney still scripting and the accent heavily on fun. The action resumes here with twin contemporary hot-topics “The Space-Race” and “Disc Jockeys” informing whacky sci fi thriller ‘Large Trouble in Space-Ville!’ as illustrated by Irv Novick (The Shield, Batman, The Flash) & Nick Cardy (Lady Luck, Aquaman, Batman) with the gang thwarting aliens stealing Earth’s monuments.

Cardy flies solo for TT #13, producing a seasonal comics masterpiece in ‘The TT’s Swingin’ Christmas Carol!’, a stylish retelling that’s one of the most reprinted Titans tales ever. At this time Cardy’s art really opened up as he grasped the experimental flavour of the times. The cover of #14, as well as interior illustration for the grim psycho-thriller ‘Requiem for a Titan’, are unforgettable. The tale introduces the team’s first serious returning villain The Gargoyle (Mad Mod does not count!): mesmerising, memorable and madly menacing. Although Cardy only inked Lee Elias’s pencils for #15’s eccentric tryst with Hippie counter-culture, ‘Captain Rumble Blasts the Scene!’ is another genuinely unique crime-thriller from a time when nobody over age 25 understood what the youth of the world was doing…

Teen Titans #16 returned to more solid ground with superb, scene-setting thriller ‘The Dimensional Caper!’, wherein rapacious sinister aliens infiltrate a rural high-school (and how many times have you seen that plot used since this 1968 epic?). Cardy’s art reached dizzying heights of innovation both here and in the next issue’s waggish jaunt to London ‘Holy Thimbles, It’s the Mad Mod!’ (alternatively and uninspiringly retitled ‘The Return of the Mad Mod’ here). The frantic criminal chase through the first and best Cool Britannia era which unfolds even includes a command performance from Her Majesty, the Queen…

Next up is a fandom landmark – and hint of things to come – as novice writers Len Wein & Marv Wolfman got their big break with a tale introducing (Soviet) Russian superhero Starfire (latterly redubbed Red Star for the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths generation) which set them firmly on a path of teen super-team writing. ‘Eye of the Beholder’ is a cool cat-burglar/super heist yarn set in trendy Stockholm, drawn with superb understatement by comics stalwart Bill Draut (Black Magic, Girls’ Love Stories, House of Secrets, Phantom Stranger), acting as a perfect indicator of the changing style and attitude that would imminently become part of the Teen Titans and comics industry…

Maintaining the experiments with youthful authorial voices, the entertainment continues with a beautifully realised comedy-thriller as boy Bowman Speedy joins the team full-time. ‘Teen Titans: Stepping Stones for a Giant Killer!’ (#19, January/February 1969) is written by Mike Friedrich with stunning art from Gil Kane (Green Lantern, Spider-Man, Rex the Wonder Dog, Star Hawks) & Wally Wood (Cannon, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, All-Star Comics, Daredevil), pitting the team against youthful criminal mastermind Punch. He intends killing the Justice League of America, and sagely reasons that a trial run against the junior division can’t hurt…

TT #20 took the long-brewing plot-thread of extra-dimensional invaders and gave it a counterculture twist in ‘Titans Fit the Battle of Jericho’: a spectacular rollercoaster romp deftly blending teen revolt, organised crime, anti-capitalist activism, bug-eyed monsters and cruelly cunning creepy conquerors, written by Neal Adams, pencilled by him and Sal (Phoenix, Archie Comics, Batman, Star Trek) Amendola, with inks by brush-maestro Cardy – one of the all-out prettiest illustration jobs of that decade.

Cover-dated April-May 1969, team-up vehicle The Brave and the Bold # 83 then took a radical turn as, in Haney & Adams’ ‘Punish Not my Evil Son!’, the Titans (sans Aqualad, who was dropped to appear more prominently in Aquaman and because there just ain’t that much subsea malfeasance) strive to save Bruce Wayne’s latest foster-son from his own inner demons in a tense thriller about trust and betrayal…

Symbolic super-teens Hawk and Dove briefly join proceedings for #21’s ‘Citadel of Fear’ (Adams & Cardy): chasing smugglers, finding aliens and ramping up the surly teen rebel quotient whilst moving the invasion story-arc towards its stunning conclusion. ‘Halfway to Holocaust’ is only half of #22, with the alien abduction of Kid Flash and Robin leading to a cross-planar climax where Wonder Girl, Speedy and a radical new ally quash the creeps’ ambitions forever, which still left enough room for a long overdue makeover in ‘The Origin of Wonder Girl’ by Wolfman, Kane & Cardy.

For years the series – and DC in general – had fudged the fact that their younger Amazon Princess was not actually human, a sidekick, or even a person, but rather an incarnation of the adult Wonder Woman as a child. As continuity backwriting strengthened its stranglehold on the industry, it was felt that the team’s token “chick” needed a fuller background, so this moving tale reveals she is in fact a human foundling rescued by Wonder Woman and raised on Paradise Island where their super-science gave her all the powers of a true Amazon.

They even found her a name – Donna Troy – and an apartment, complete with hot roommate. All Donna has to do was sew herself a glitzy, figure-hugging new costume…

Now thoroughly grounded in “reality”, the team jet south in #23’s fast-paced yarn ‘The Rock ‘n’ Roll Rogue’ (Haney, Kane & Cardy), seeking to rescue musical rebel Sammy Soul from his grasping family and subsequently, his missing dad from Amazonian headhunters.

This volume, and an era of relative innocence, ends on ‘Skis of Death!’ by the same creators, seeing the adventurous quartet vacationing in the mountains and uncovering a scam to defraud Native Americans of their tribal lands. It’s a terrific old-style tale but with the next issue the most radical change in DC’s cautious publishing history made Teen Titans a comic which had thrown out the rulebook… and maybe one day the company will get around to compiling it and the issues that followed into a third Titan-ish Tome in this sadly unfinished sequence….

Although perhaps dated in delivery, these tales were a liberating experience for kids when first released and remain a highly entertaining experience even now. They truly betokened a new empathy with independent youth and tried to address problems that were more relevant to and generated by that specific audience. That they are so captivating in execution is a wonderful bonus. This is absolute escapism and absolutely delightful.
© 1967, 1968, 1969, 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Will Eisner’s Hawks of the Sea


By Will Eisner & various (Kitchen Sink Press/Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-56971-427-0 (DH HB) 978-0-87816-023-5 (Kitchen Sink TPB)

In case you didn’t know, it’s my favourite global holiday next week – International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Fill yer big floppy boots, me ‘earties!

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s pretty much accepted today that Will Eisner was one of the absolute prime creative forces that shaped the comic book industry, but still many of his milestones escape public acclaim in the English-speaking world. This dynamic and pivotal treasure trove is one long overdue for fresh efforts and digital immortality.

From 1936 to 1938 Eisner worked as a jobbing cartoonist in the comics production firm known as the Eisner-Eiger Shop, creating a wave of strips to be published in both domestic US and foreign markets. Using among others the pen-name Willis B. Rensie he wrote and drew the sadly unfinished saga of a mysterious early American adventurer known only as “The Hawk”, who sailed the 18th century Caribbean seas with his piratical band. Intellectual and a dreamer, the freebooter had been taken as a slave, and now dedicated his life to destroying the slave trade and punishing injustice.

With a stalwart yet wholesomely scurvy crew of stock characters at his back, this charismatic blend of Robin Hood, Sir Francis Drake and the Count of Monte Cristo captivated readers all over the world in single-page instalments of swashbuckling thrills delivering spectacular bravura art and narrative ingenuity: appearing in newspapers and weekly magazines as far apart as England, South America, France, and Australia.

After years as a lost classic, it was first curated and gathered into an awesome collected edition (measuring 376 x 270) by the diligent and dedicated Dennis Kitchen, thanks mainly to happenstance and the good graces of another comics legend, Al Williamson. The illustrator had been a huge fan of the strip when it ran in Paquin – a weekly strip anthology magazine he’d avidly read growing up in Bogota, Colombia.

Decades later, now a revered professional artist, Williamson acquired an almost complete run of publisher’s proof sheets – in Spanish – which, when translated and re-lettered, formed the basis of this volume. Fellow well-wishers in France, England and Australia also contributed pages resulting in an (almost) complete run.

Seemingly lost again, Hawks of the Seas was re-issued in 2003 by Dark Horse as part of their Will Eisner Library (although at a more modest and bookshelf-friendly size than the tabloid-scaled KSP edition) and remains a fascinating insight into this creator’s imaginative power, moral and philosophical fascinations and spellbinding ability to tell a great story with magical pictures. It’s also a thumping good tale of action, suspense, and buccaneering derring-do that will captivate kids of all ages, so let’s PUH-LEASE have some savvy publisher makes the necessary moves soon.

Sod and keelhaul Jack Sparrow: get on the trail of The Hawk…
© 1986 Kitchen Sink Press. 2003 Will Eisner. All rights reserved.

Lord of the Flies – The Graphic Novel


By William Golding, adapted and illustrated by Aimée de Jongh (Faber & Faber)
ISBN: 978-0-571-37425-0 (HB/Digital edition)

In 1954, after many disappointments, one philosophy teacher, sailor (and Royal Navy D-Day veteran), actor and musician finally sold his first novel. Strangers from Within was a reaction to R. M. Ballantyne’s Christian-centric children’s classic The Coral Island, seen through the lens of a sensitive school teacher who had seen man at his very worst and was recuperating during the earliest era of a growing Cold War.

The book was knocked back many times before one editor at Faber – Charles Monteith (who liked and published Samuel Beckett, John Osborne, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, P. D. James, Philip Larkin and Alan Bennett and so many, many more gifted individuals) – saw something there and decided to have a punt…

As Lord of the Flies, the book hit the shelves and steadily grew to become one of the most revered, beloved and inspirational stories of all time and one that has literally reshaped social thought and opinion. In this 70th anniversary year, the book will be re-issued in an exclusive deluxe hardback edition, but its status as milestone and groundbreaker deserved more. Thus award-winning graphic novelist Aimée de Jongh (The Return of the Honey Buzzard, Days of Sand) was commissioned to create this adaptation and visual synthesis to celebrate the initial publication. The result is truly remarkable…

Golding went on to write more amazing books – such as The Inheritors, The Free Fall, Pincher Martin, The Double Tongue, and Booker Prize winner Rites of Passage, and was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature, and it’s very likely this pictorial treat will garner a few more glittering citations and prizes…

You may not have read it, but sheer cultural osmosis means you already know Lord of the Flies to some degree.

A plane carrying a large group of pre-adolescent British schoolboys crashes into the Pacific Ocean and a number of survivors make the arduous swim to a desolate but lush mountainous island. Shocked, stunned and starving, the ineffectual gaggle initially unite to find food and water and quickly evolve processes and systems to stay alive. A reflection of their schoolboy experiences soon divide the group into leaders and followers, as much by confusion and inertia as ambition or duty. The search for sustenance and means of rescue is constantly marred by a growing unease that their prison harbours monsters…

All too soon oppressive regulation and the nascent rules of conduct and governance – like only speaking at gatherings when holding the “Conch shell” – creates entrenched opposing viewpoints, factionalism and inevitably escalating violence…

Adaptor de Jongh magnificently captures the dichotomy of a paradise that is also hell and the inexorable mounting pressure upon narrative beacons Ralph, Piggy, Simon and Jack Merridew as the drama unfolds…

This superb creation is not a substitute for the three film adaptations, many stage and radio plays or the novel itself: it’s just another sublime opportunity of accessing a milestone tale in an increasingly and regrettable post-literate era where direct visual information has largely augmented if not yet replaced the semantic and semiotic processing of prose. It is, however, just as compelling and evocative as Golding’s world-shaking masterpiece and you really need to read both. I don’t have the conch of speaking anymore, so it’s up to you to choose which you do first…

Lord of the Flies © William Golding 1954. Adaptations and illustrations © Aimée de Jongh 2024. All rights reserved.
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Simply Unmissable …10/10

Astonishing X-Men volume 1: Gifted


By Joss Whedon, John Cassaday & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0785146957 (HB/Digital Edition)

The loss of John Cassaday is sudden and shocking but at least we have his wonderful work to console ourselves with. Here’s one of his best, that you should see or revisit…

Joss Whedon turned his inimitable skills with choreographing ensemble casts to the ultimate team-book when he started writing the high-profile Astonishing X-Men (the first six issues of which are collected in this volume). With the supremely talented John Cassaday (Hellboy, Just Imagine, Lone Ranger, Flash) as artist the comic was always going to look great and sell well, but the ease with which Whedon slips into the characters and lifts them out of the mire of decades of convoluted clichés and continuity was a joy to behold.

You’re either aware or not of mutant continuity, so I’ll forego the usual précis and simply state that new readers can jump on with the minimum of confusion, and – aided by a skilful use of banter – be brought up to speed as the team of Cyclops, EmmaWhite QueenFrost, Wolverine, Kitty Pryde and The Beast re-unite as proactive mutant do-gooders, but with a new and rather subversive mission statement.

In a world that hates and fears mutants, these heroes have traditionally fought secretive, furtive battles to save the day, with humanity despising them all the while. Their new agenda is simple: do the battling and saving, but in a public-relations savvy society, do it in such a way that the entire world knows who to thank. They will become public heroes and saviours, changing public opinion by doing good publicly.

The plan to alter those perceptions begins by ending a hostage situation where anti-mutant terrorists led by an alien named Ord of the Breakworld crash a swanky High Society function. Even as hungry paparazzi are mobbing the victorious heroes, however, word comes that the media blitz may be unnecessary. An announcement has been made that science has found a cure for the mutant gene…

That news divides not just the mutant community, but even the team itself. Is “mutant-ness” even a disease? Is it better to conform or be unique? Where did the cure come from and who actually benefits? What role does Ord play in these earth-shattering events and is he working alone? None of these deep issues get in the way of a rollercoaster-ride of action and genuine suspense that’s been missing since the earliest days of these characters.

Combining breathtaking illustration and stunning action with superb characterisation in a mystery/conspiracy tale is a Whedon trademark. Adding alienation metaphors that have been such a strong part of the X-Men mystique and fan psychology made this a powerful yet entertaining read that appealed to almost everybody. Having it rendered shockingly realistic and authentic-seeming by a modern comics master made it unmissable.
© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Dynamite Art of John Cassaday


ISBN: 978-1-52410-936-3 (HB/Digital edition)

It’s only Wednesday and already a grim week for lost heroes. On the back of hearing of the death of wonderful James Earl Jones and undeservedly forgotten Zoot Money comes news from closer to home as we learn that John Cassaday has gone far, far too early…

Born Texan in 1971, Oklahoma-raised John Cassaday was a multi-award-winning comics artist, actor and TV director, legendary for his depictions of Ghost, Captain America, The Astonishing X-Men, Planetary, Desperadoes, I Am Legion and Star Wars as well as his unforgettable procession of covers for many companies and characters. His particularly iconic, stridently symbolist use of imagery made his work globally known, admired and sought after whilst his imagination and imagery featured in numerous animated films and poster books.

Cassaday was self-taught with a superb eye for landscape and location. It underpinned a primal understanding of the body language of evil and heroism and deep affection for the classic landmarks and groundbreakers of our somewhat simplistic genre: combining to inform the astounding visuals in this mammoth hardback (234 x 307 mm) or digital catalogue of comic and fantasy masterpieces.

In 2006 Cassaday began a long and wonderfully fruitful association with Dynamite Entertainment, generating covers for a vast pantheon of stars comprising generational household names and the best of new concepts, and many are gathered here for you to ogle…

Following context and potted history from Dynamite Publisher Nick Barrucci’s Introduction and a Foreword by comics everyman Scott Dunbier, the Gallery of Graphic Wonders opens with 100+ pages of ‘The Lone Ranger’ and includes commentary by scripters Brett Matthews and Mark Russell and editor Joe Rybandt, augmenting pencil roughs, sketches and those astounding covers (including colour variants).
Throughout, Cassaday’s own colour work is bolstered by contributions from Dean White, Laura Martin, Francesco Francavilla, Marcelo Pinto, Ivan Nunes, José Villarrubia, June Chung & Tony A?ina
Garth Ennis’ war anthology ‘Battlefields’ boasted some of Cassaday’s most engaging images, and those paintings are here supplemented by designs, working sketches and colour variants as is Project Superpowers spinoff ‘The Death-Defying ‘Devil”’, and vintage stars ‘Buck Rogers’ and ‘Sherlock Holmes’.

‘The Complete Dracula’ boasts iconoclastic covers and commentary from co-writer Leah Moore before a return to pulp fictioneers offers additional character studies and designs for a staggering swathe of bombastic eyecatchers gracing the many series and crossover team-ups featuring ‘The Green Hornet’, ‘The Shadow’, ‘The Spider’ and ‘Doc Savage’.

Then ‘Grand Passion’ and ‘Ian Fleming’s James Bond’ artworks bring us to a selection of ‘Other Covers’ including ‘Red Sonja’, ‘The Boys’, ‘Zorro’, ‘Blackbeard: Legend of the Pyrate King’, ‘The Complete Alice in Wonderland’, ‘Project Superpowers Chapter 2’, ‘Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt’, ‘Will Eisner’s The Spirit’, ‘Kiss’, ‘John Wick’ and ‘Battlestar Galactica vs Battlestar Galactica’, and they are all simply beautiful and unmissable.

There are many books – both academic and/or instructional – designed to inculcate a love of comics whilst offering tips, secrets and an education in how to make your own sequential narratives.

There are far more intended to foster and further the apparently innate and universal desire to simply make art and do so proficiently and well, but here the emphasis is on promoting the artist’s sheer unassailable visual excitement and his treatment of a lexicon of legends. This book will delight everyone who wants to see a master in his element; showing that nobody does it better…
All properties © 2020 their respective rights holders. All rights reserved.

The Batman Adventures volume 3


By Kelley Puckett, Paul Dini, Mike Parobeck & Rick Burchett, Michael Reaves, Bruce Timm, Matt Wagner, Klaus Janson, Dan DeCarlo, John Byrne & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5872-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

With Batman: Caped Crusader storming the air waves in this anniversary year and making old farts like me tremble all over again, let’s take a peek back at the bonanza of great comics that came out of the last animated noir fest courtesy of Bruce Timm & Co…

The brainchild of Bruce Timm, Eric Radomski & Paul Dini, Batman: The Animated Series aired in the US from September 5th 1992 to September 15th 1995. Ostensibly for kids the TV cartoon revolutionised everybody’s image of the Dark Knight and inevitably fed back into print iterations, leading to some of the absolute best comic book tales in the hero’s many decades of existence. And it’s still true today…

Employing a timeless visual style dubbed “Dark Deco”, the show mixed elements from all eras of the character and, without diluting the power, tone or mood of the premise, re-honed the grim Bat and his team into a wholly accessible, thematically memorable form.

It entranced young fans whilst adding shades of exuberance and panache that only the most devout and obsessive Batmaniac could possibly object to. A faithful comic book translation was prime material for collection in the newly-emergent trade paperback market but only the first year was ever released, plus miniseries such as Batman: Gotham Adventures and Batman Adventures: the Lost Years. Nowadays, however, we’re much more evolved and reprint collections have established a solid niche amongst cognoscenti and young readers.

This third inclusive compendium gathers issues #21-27 of The Batman Adventures, originally published between June to December 1994  plus that year’s Batman Adventures Annual: a scintillating, no-nonsense frenzy of family-friendly Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy from Kelly Puckett, Mike Parobeck & Rick Burchett and a few fellow-pros-turned-fans…

Puckett is a writer who truly grasps the visual nature of the medium and his stories are always fast-paced, action packed and stripped down to the barest of essential dialogue. This skill has never been better exploited than by Parobeck who was at that time a rising star, especially when graced by Burchett’s slick, clean inking.

Although his professional career was tragically short (1989 to 1996 when he died, aged 31, from complications of Type 1 Diabetes) Parobeck’s gracefully fluid, exuberantly kinetic, frenetically fun-fuelled, animation-inspired style revolutionised superhero action drawing and sparked a renaissance in kid-friendly material and merchandise at DC – and everywhere else in the comics publishing business.

The wall to wall wonderment begins with the compulsive contents of Batman Adventures Annual #1: a giant-sized gathering of industry stars illustrating Paul Dini’s episodic, interlinked saga ‘Going Straight’.

Illustrators Timm & Burchett set the ball rolling as jet-propelled bandit Roxy Rocket is released from prison, prompting Batman and faithful retainer Alfred to discuss whether any villains ever reform.

Apparently one who almost made it is Arnold Wesker, who played mute Ventriloquist to his malign dummy Scarface. Tragically in ‘Puppet Show’ (art by Parobeck & Matt Wagner) we see how even a good job and the best of intentions are no defence when Arnold’s new boss wants to exploit his criminal past…

Harley Quinn is insanely devoted to killer clown The Joker as Dan DeCarlo & Timm wordlessly expose her profound weakness for that bad boy as she’s released from Arkham Asylum, only to be seduced back into committing crazy crimes in just ’24 Hours’

The Scarecrow’s return to terrorising the helpless resulted from his genuine desire to help a girl assaulted by her would-be boyfriend in the chilling, poignant ‘Study Hall’ (with art by Klaus Janson), after which ‘Going Straight’ concludes with Timm detailing how Roxy Rocket is framed by Catwoman, and Batman has to separate the warring female furies…

The melange of mayhem even came with its own enthralling encore with The Joker solo-starring in ‘Laughter After Midnight’ as the Mountebank of Mirth goes on a spree in Gotham, courtesy of artists John Byrne & Burchett…

The Batman Adventures #21 then saw Michael Reaves join Puckett to script tense thriller ‘House of Dorian’ for Parobeck & Burchett as deranged geneticist Emile Dorian escapes from Arkham and immediately turns Kirk Langstrom back into the marauding Man-Bat.

Moreover, although the Mad Doctor’s freedom is bad news for Gotham, Langstrom and Dorian’s previous beast-man Tygrus; for a desperate fugitive afflicted with lycanthropy, the insane physician is his last chance at a cure for his curse…

Dorian couldn’t care less. All he wants is revenge on Batman and Selina Kyle

Like the show, most stories were crafted as a 3-act plays and the conceit resumes with #22 as Puckett, Parobeck & Burchett settle in for the long haul. ‘Good Face Bad Face’ sees Two-Face return; also busting out of Arkham in ‘Harvey Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’ set to settle scores with Gotham’s top mobster Rupert Thorne. His first move is to free his gang in ‘Nor Iron Bars a Cage’, but this time Batman is waiting…

Poison Ivy is back in #23, spreading ‘Toxic Shock’ and teaming up with the Dark Knight in ‘Strange Bedfellows’ to save a famed botanist/ecologist dying from a mystery toxin. ‘Fighting Poison with Poison’, she and Batman hunt for a cure, forcing the mystery assassin into more prosaic methods in ‘How Deadly Was my Valley’

‘Grave Obligations’ sees the Gotham Guardian’s past come back to haunt him when a ninja clan invade the city. They seem more concerned with fighting each other in ‘Brother’s Keeper’ but a little digging reveals how one has come ‘From Tokyo, With Death’ in mind for Batman, and it takes a much higher authority to halt the chaos in ‘Cancelled Debts’

An inevitable team-up graces Batman Adventures #25 as Puckett, Parobeck & Burchett reintroduce legendary ‘Super Friends’. With Lex Luthor in town and bidding against Waynetech for a military contract, a mystery bombing campaign begins in ‘Tik, Tik, Tik…

Even as unwelcome guest Superman horns in, Batman realises his old foe Maxie Zeus might be taking the credit but is certainly not to blame for the ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Zeus!’ A little deduction and a grudging alliance with the Caped Kryptonian results in the true scheme unravelling in ‘The Gods Must be Crazy’ with Batman rejoicing in having made a powerful friend and a remorseless and resourceful new enemy…

‘Tree of Knowledge’ focuses on college students Dick Grayson and Babs Gordon as they score top marks in a criminology course. ‘Pop Gun Quiz’ sees them singled out for special study by impressed Professor Morton and on hand in ‘Careful What You Wish For’ to experience an impossible crime in the University Library. Despite all their investigations, it’s only as Robin and Batgirl that a devilish plot is exposed and crucial ‘Lessons Learned’

The last tale in this terrific tome revisits the tragedy of Batman’s origins as ‘Survivor Syndrome’ sees an impostor risking his life on Gotham’s streets in search of justice or possibly his own death.

‘Brother, Brother’ reveals how athlete Tom Dalton’s wife was murdered and how he surrenders to a ‘Call to Vengeance’. Everything changes once the real Dark Knight takes charge of Tom and trains him to regain ‘The Upper Hand’

With a full complement of covers by Timm, Parobeck & Burchett, plus a ‘Pin-Up Gallery’ with stunning images by Alex Toth, Dave Gibbons, Kelley Jones, Kevin Nowlan, Mark Chiarello, Mike Mignola, Matt Wagner, Chuck Dixon & Burchett – all coloured by the astounding Rick Taylor – this is another stunning treat for superhero lovers of every age and vintage.
© 1994, 2015 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.