Category: Apes & Monkeys!

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Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus volume two


By Gaylord DuBois & Jesse Marsh (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-294-9 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Dynamic Days-Gone-By Derring Do … 8/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

I don’t know an awful lot about Jesse Marsh, other than that he was born on 27th July 1907 and died far too young: on April 28th 1966 from diabetic complications at the height of a TV Tarzan revival he was in large part responsible for. What I do know, however, is that to my unformed, pre-fanboy, kid’s mentality, his drawings were somehow better than most of the other artists and that every other kid who read comics in my school disagreed with me.

There’s a phrase we used to use at 2000 AD that summed it up: “Artist’s artist”, which usually meant someone whose fan-mail divided equally into fanatical raves and bile-filled hate-mail. It seems there are some makers of comic strips that many readers simply don’t get.

It isn’t about the basic principles or artistic quality or even anything tangible – although you’ll hear some cracking justifications: “I don’t like his feet” (presumably the way he draws them) and “it just creeps me out” being my two favourites. Never forget in the 1980s DC were told by the Comics Code Authority that Kevin O’Neill’s entire style and manner of Drawing was unacceptable to American readers!

I got Jesse Marsh.

Like many Western Publishing stalwarts Jesse Mace Marsh originally worked for Disney Studios (1939-1948) as an animator on projects including Pinocchio and Fantasia. His first comics work appeared in 1945, and he continued as a staff artist until his death in 1966. In addition to his Tarzan contributions, he illustrated Gene Autry, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and more, as well as John Carter of Mars: three 4-Color series issues. In this second compilation, hyper-prolific Gaylord McIlvaine Du Bois (August 24th 1899 – October 20th 1993) is scripter as – nourished by a burgeoning movie franchise, radio, newspaper and new novels – the comic book Ape-Man phenomenon grew and steadied for the long haul. The editor/scripter (for ALL the Tarzan titles and spin-offs, Lone Ranger, Lost in Space, Turok, Son of Stone, Brothers of the Spear, Lassie, Andy Panda, Red Ryder, Tom and Jerry, Bonanza and so many more) would be Marsh’s creative collaborator for the next 19 years.

Situated on the West Coast, Western’s Dell/Gold Key imprints rivalled DC and Marvel at the height of their powers, and the licensee famously never capitulated to the wave of anti-comics hysteria that resulted in the crippling self-censorship of the 1950s. No Dell Comics ever displayed a Comics Code Authority symbol on the cover – they never needed to…

Marsh jobbed around adapted movie properties – mostly westerns – until 1948 when Dell introduced the first all-new Tarzan comic book. The newspaper strip had been running since January 1929 and all previous collections and funnybook releases had featured expurgated and modified reprints of those exploits. Everything changed with Dell Four Color Comic #134 (February 1947) which offered a lengthy, captivating tale of the Ape-Man, scripted by Robert P. Thompson. He had also written both the Tarzan radio show and the aforementioned syndicated strip. link to Tarzan and the Adventurers please.

‘Tarzan and the Devil Ogre’ was very much in the Burroughs tradition: John Clayton, Lord Greystoke and his friend Paul D’Arnot aid a young woman in rescuing her lost father from a hidden tribe ruled over by a monster. The engrossing yarn was made magical by the simple, underplayed magic of a heavy brush line and absolutely unmatched design sense. Marsh was unique in the way he positioned characters in space, employing primitivist forms and hidden shapes to augment his backgrounds. He was a fanatical researcher: his trees, rocks, and constructions were 100% accurate. His animals and natives, especially children and women, were all distinct and recognisable; not the badly-shaded stock figures in grass skirts that even the greatest artists so often resorted to.

Marsh also knew when to draw big and draw small: the internal dynamism of his work is spellbinding. His Africa became mine, and as the try-out comic book was an instant hit he stuck around for decades. Dell never messed with something that was already working. Marsh and Thompson’s Tarzan returned with two tales in Dell Four Color Comic #161, cover-dated August 1947. That was remarkable: Four Colour was a catch-all title showcasing literally hundreds of different licensed properties in rotation, often as many as ten separate and stunningly diverse issues per month. So rapid a return engagement meant pretty solid sales figures…

Following a gracious and wondering Foreword by Gilbert Hernandez discussing the sheer ubiquity of Tarzan comics in households – particularly Latino ones – we return to distant days of rampaging fantasy, garnished by yet another warning from me. In past reviews I’ve described how this character comes with lots of inbuilt colonial baggage and an unhealthy side-order of appalling white supremacy for those readers pre-sensitised pro or con. What I haven’t addressed is the sheerly shocking death toll of animals, killed for food, for sport or because someone needs an action scene proving how cruel villains are or how mighty the hero is. This is not a book for vegans or animal activists, okay?

Volume Two gathers the pertinent material from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan #5-10, spanning September/October 1948 through July/August 1949) and includes (line art) covers and back covers by eventual painter/illustrator Morris Gollub. Most issues also include two colour frontispieces and endpieces offering lessons in ‘Tarzan’s Ape-English Dictionary’, prompting millions of kids everywhere to shout “Kreegah! Bundolo!” and “Tantor, ho!” in the playground and look like complete loons trying to talk to baboons and monkeys every time we visited a zoo…

The dramas resume with Tarzan #5 (September/October 1948) with harsh morality play ‘Tarzan and the Men of Greed’. Here, wife Jane and son Boy (latterly “Korak”) are kidnapped by American gangsters and a bandit sheikh as a means of forcing Tarzan to bring them and their army of African bandits to the lost treasure vaults of Opar. After an arduous trek, and terrifying ascent of an ancient escarpment, the thieves learn to their eternal cost why it’s not healthy to antagonise the legendary Ape-Man…

As well as the epic 33 page saga and the opportunity to practise primate patois “Mangani to Paco” there’s a stunning back cover pinup of the forest family before – cover dated November/December 1948 – we dig deep into the novels’ mythology for #6 as ‘Tarzan and the Outlaws of Pal-ul-don’ sees Jane abducted (again!). This time it’s raiders from a primordial enclave first introduced in eighth novel Tarzan the Terrible (1921), necessitating man and boy chasing the perfidious primitives all the way back to their lost realm. This is a huge oasis of jungles, mountains, dinosaurs and evolutionary dead-ends at the centre of a vast desert and results in reunion with old Waz-don ally Om-At and war with bandit nation Ho-Don, using Triceratops as tanks…

Following another pin-up, Tarzan #7 (January/February 1949) finds the family back home, and bored Tarzan making a hot air balloon. His efforts lead to more trouble when Boy and his Waziri friend Dombie are accidentally caught when it breaks loose and transported to a land of terrors. ‘Tarzan and the Valley of the Monsters’ sees the Jungle Lord and his ally Muviro (Dombie’s dad) give chase in a plane until brought down by Pterodactyls. From there it’s all fight and flight from giant lizard and volcanoes until the humans are reunited and heading home again.

Morris Gollub takes over covers and pin-up duties with #8 (March/April 1949) as the lost quartet continue the trek home. Traversing mountains and deserts, they almost fail until meeting a strange albino tribe in ‘Tarzan and the White Pygmies’, and in return for aid when they need it most teach their benefactors modern warfare by introducing them to archery, and saving them from predation by legions of giant vultures…

Cover-dated May/June 1949, issue #9 returns to Pal-ul-don as ‘Tarzan and the Men of A-lur’ sees King Ja-Don usurped by surly vassal Dak-Lot, propelling Tarzan, Boy and even Jane into a full-scale civil war (with lots of comparatively shocking violence for a Golden Age comic book!) as humans, pre-men, cave bears, dinosaurs and modern elephants clash to decide the fate of the kingdom time forgot…

This second time-wracked voyage to the past pauses with Tarzan #10 (July/August 1949) as the epic page counts drop to allow side stories and a greater range of fun. Main event ‘Tarzan and the Treasure of the Bolgani’ is a pure sci fi romp as the Ape-man and his Waziri subjects are captured by intelligent gorillas who shrink them to half size so that they can mine gems for them. When the process goes awry, Tarzan becomes a hyper-dense (Must you? Really?) tiny titan who leads a revolt and ends a threat to all of Africa, after which DuBois and Marsh begin years of light-hearted backup tales as Boy tries to avoid his chores and learns to regret running off to become ‘The Baboons’ King’…

Although these are tales from a far-off, simpler time they have lost none of their passion, inclusivity and charm, whilst the artistic virtuosity of Marsh looks better than ever. Perhaps this time a few more people will “get” him, especially if the rest of this series finally makes the jump to digital editions as Volume One has…
Edgar Rice Burroughs® Tarzan®: The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus Volume Two © 1948, 1949, 2009, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. Tarzan ® Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. All rights reserved.

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Ant-Man/Giant-Man Epic Collection volume 2: Ant-Man No More (1964-1979)


By Stan Lee, Leon Lazarus, Al Hartley, Roy Thomas, Mike Friedrich, Chris Claremont, Bill Mantlo, Tony Isabella, David Micheline, Dick Ayers, Joe Orlando, Steve Ditko, Carl Burgos, Bob Powell, Ross Andru, Herb Trimpe, P. Craig Russell, Jim Starlin, Jimmy Janes, George Tuska, Ron Wilson, John Byrne, Rich Buckler, Keith Pollard & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4965-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Marvel Comics built its fervent fan base through strong and contemporarily relevant stories and striking art, but most importantly by creating a shared continuity that closely followed the characters through not just their own titles but also through many guest appearances in other comics. Such an interweaving meant that even today completists and fans seek out extraneous stories to get a fuller picture of their favourite’s adventures.

In such an environment, archival series like this one are a priceless resource approaching the status of a public service for collectors, especially when you can now purchase and peruse them electronically from the comfort of your own couch, or the lesser luxury of your parents’ basement, garage or attic…

If you’re of a particularly picky nature – and what comic book superhero fan isn’t? – you may consider the Astonishing Ant-Man to be the second star of the Marvel Age of Comics. The unlikeliest of titans first appeared in Tales to Astonish #27 (cover-dated January 1962, on sale in the last months of 1961) in one of the splendidly addictive men-vs-monsters anthology titles that dominated in the heady days of Science Fiction Double-Feature B-Movies.

It was intended as nothing more than another here-today, gone-tomorrow filler in one of the company’s madly engaging pre-superhero “monster-mags”. However, the character struck a chord with someone, and as the DC Comics-inspired superhero boom blossomed, and Lee sprung The Hulk, Thor and Spider-Man on the unsuspecting kids of America, Henry Pym was economically retooled as a fully-fledged costumed do-gooder for TtA #35 (September 1962). You can read about his extremely eccentric career elsewhere, but suffice it to say Pym was never settled in his persona: changing name and modus operandi many times before junking his Ant-Man/Giant-Man identities for the reasonably more stable and more imposing role of Yellowjacket…

This episodic, eclectic and entomologically edifying compendium gathers the last initial outings of the original Ant-Man, plus the legacy of science adventurer Dr. Hank Pym as his size-shifting discoveries were employed by other champions. Contained herein are pertinent portions of Tales to Astonish #60-69, Marvel Feature #4-10; Invincible Iron Man #44; Power Man #24-25; Black Goliath #1-5, The Champions #11-13 and Marvel Premiere #47-48, convolutedly spanning cover-dates October 1964 to June 1979.

The first tale in this collection follows the beginning of the end after The Incredible Hulk became Giant-Man’s co-dependent in #59. With the next issue, the jade juggernaut began his second solo series and even featured on the covers whilst Giant-Man’s adventures shrank back to a dozen or so pages. Ten issues later Hank and partner Janet (The Wasp) Van Dyne retired, making way for amphibian antihero Namor, the Sub-Mariner. (Gi-)Ant-Man & the Wasp did not die, but instead joined the vast cast of characters which Marvel kept in relatively constant play through team books, via guest shots and in occasional re-launches and mini-series… just like the Hulk had.

Here, however, Tales to Astonish #60 delivers the first half-sized yarn. Stan Lee, Dick Ayers & Paul Reinman’s ‘The Beasts of Berlin!’ is a throwback to the daft old days, as the diminutive duo smuggle themselves over the infamous (then brand-new) Wall and into the Russian Sector to battle Commie primates (no, really!) behind the Iron Curtain.

The writing was on the wall by issue #61. With The Hulk already the most prominent on covers, hastily-executed stories and a rapid rotation of artists, it was obvious the appeal of the Masters of Many Sizes was waning. ‘Now Walks the Android’ was a fill-in rather rapidly illustrated by Steve Ditko & George (“Bell”) Roussos, featuring archnemesis Egghead and his latest technological terror-weapon, after which ‘Versus the Wonderful Wasp’ (by Golden Age icon Carl Burgos & Ayers) recycled an ancient plot wherein a thief steals Giant-Man’s costume and equipment, leaving the “mere girl” to save the day…

‘The Gangsters and the Giant’ by Lee, Burgos & Chic Stone in TtA #63 channelled the plot of #37 with the gem-stealing Protector here re-imagined as The Wrecker, but at least it came with a Marvel Masterwork pin-up of the Diminutive Duo by Chic Stone, after which ‘When Attuma Strikes’ – by Leon Lazarus, Burgos & Reinman – conjured up a happy crumb of imagination and wit as Hank & Jan split up! The heartbroken lass was then abducted with a plane full of air passengers by the undersea tyrant and was reunited with her man when he came to the rescue. This uncharacteristically mature-for-its-time romp was scripted by incredibly under-appreciated and nigh-anonymous comics veteran Leon Lazarus whose Pre-Marvel Age credits included genre stars like Black Rider, Arizona Kid and Kid Colt, Outlaw…

One last sustained attempt to resuscitate the series came with the addition of more Golden-Age greats beginning with Bob Powell (Cave Girl, Blackhawk, Jet Powers) who signed on as artist for issue #65’s ‘Presenting the New Giant-Man’ (scripted by Lee, inked by Don Heck) wherein the frustrated, uncomfortable hero built a better costume and greater powers, but almost died at in attacks by a spider and his own cat, accidentally enlarged in the testing process.

With a fresh new look, the last five tales were actually some of the best tales in the run, but it was too late. Frankie (Giacoia) Ray inked Powell on ‘The Menace of Madam Macabre’ with a murderous “oriental” seductress attempting to steal Pym’s secrets, with Chic Stone applying the brushes for ‘The Mystery of the Hidden Man and his Rays of Doom!’ – wherein a power-stealing alien removes Pym’s ability to shrink – before the series concluded with a powerfully impressive 2-parter in Tales to Astonish #68 and 69. ‘Peril from the Long-Dead Past!’ and ‘Oh, Wasp, Where is Thy Sting?’ were inked by Vince Colletta and John Giunta respectively. So far along was the decline that Al Hartley had to finish what Stan started: concisely concluding a tense, thrilling tale of the Wasp’s abduction by the Human Top and abrupt retirement of the weary, shell-shocked heroes at saga’s end.

Despite variable quality and treatment, the eclectic, eccentric and always fun exploits of Marvel’s premier “odd couple” these tales remain an intriguing, engaging reminder that the House of Ideas didn’t always get it right, but generally gave their all to entertaining the fans.

By turns superb, stupid, exciting and appalling this tome and these tales epitomise the best and worst of Early Marvel (with the delightful far outweighing the duff) and certainly won’t appeal to everybody, but if you’re a Fights ‘n’ Tights fan with a forgiving nature the good stuff here will charm, amaze and enthral you whilst the rest could just be considered as a garish garnish to provide added flavour…

In-world, those aforementioned guest shots from Limbo led to a lengthy stint as Avengers and a convoluted transformation from Giant-Man to Goliath to Yellowjacket, before retiring again. However, after a key role in the legendary Kree-Skrull war (yet not reprinted here!) he returned to his roots and got a second start…

The ball starts re-rolling here with a brief back-up vignette from Invincible Iron Man #44 with Roy Thomas, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito light-heartedly depicting ‘Armageddon on Avenue ‘A”, as Ant-Man Pym clashes again with the sinister creepy crawly the Scarlet Beetle. The evil arthropod stills seeks to eradicate humanity, but is kept too busy battling Pym to notice his secret citadel catching alight as part of a seedy insurance scam. Bah! Biped scum!

Marvel Feature #4 then opens a new series with ‘The Incredible Shrinking Doom!’ (by Mike Friedrich & Herb Trimpe) as a hero history recap segues into ‘The Beginning’ with Peter Parker interviewing Dr Pym before they team up to rescue a kidnapped boy. The son of Curt Conners (The Lizard) has been snatched to force the surrender of a valuable formula. However, whilst cleaning up M’Sieu Téte’s vicious underlings, Pym is injected with a bacterial enzyme that traps him at the size of an insect… and not even Spider-Man can help him…

Tension builds in #5’s ‘Fear’s the Way He Dies!’ as Egghead returns even as Ant-Man loses all that precious technology bolstering his powers. Deprived of his insect-controlling helmet, Pym is helpless until the maniac’s niece Trixie Starr makes him new duds and gear. It’s not quite enough to defeat the villain, but at least the shattering explosion of his mobile HQ seems to drive the killer away…

Janet Pym (née Van Dyne) resurfaces in Marvel Feature #6’s ‘Hellstorm!’ (inked by Mike Trimpe) as the beleaguered hero – thanks to trusty pet hound Orkie the dog – finally reaches his own home, only to be attacked by another old foe: Whirlwind. As a result the house is totally destroyed and Mr & Mrs Pym are officially declared dead. P. Craig Russell, Dan Adkins & Mark Kersey illustrate ‘Paranoia is the Para-Man!’ in MF #7 as a new android enemy captures Hank and Jan. Escape and the mechanoid’s inevitable defeat mutates the Wasp into a true insectoid predator for #8’s deadline-wracked ‘Prelude to Disaster!’

Russell, Jim Starlin & Jimmy Janes’ framing sequence here originally supported a Lee, Kirby & Don Heck origin flashback but you can just consult the first volume in this series if you’re feeling a little completist…

Here and now, however, Marvel Feature #9 revealed ‘…The Killer is My Wife!’ – limned by Russell & Frank Bolle, finally finding Hank battling his mutated. mindless spouse as Pym’s lab partner Bill Foster and Iron Man investigate their “deaths”. Tragically, not so far from them, the tiny terror is overwhelmed and temporarily cured by her husband just in time for both to fall victim to new nutcase Doctor Nemesis, before the saga and the series hastily wrapped up in Friedrich, Russell & Frank Chiaramonte’s concluding chapter ‘Ant-Man No More!’. With that Ant-Man faded from view, eventually replaced by Yellowjacket again, and one among many in The Avengers. Years passed and a new writer decided it was time to try size-shifting sagas again. It began as so often, with a try-out in an already established title…

While hiding in plain sight as a Hero for Hire in Times Square, escaped convict Luke Cage fell in love with doctor Claire Temple. When she abruptly vanished, Cage and buddy D.W. Griffiths scoured America looking for her. The trek fed directly into a 2-part premier for another African American superhero as the trail led to the Ringmaster’s Circus of Crime in Power Man #24 (January 1975, by Tony Isabella, George Tuska & Dave Hunt) for ‘Among Us Walks… a Black Goliath!’.

One of the earliest returning black characters in Marvel’s comics, the above-mentioned Bill Foster was a highly educated biochemist working for Tony Stark and with Henry Pym. Foster first appeared in The Avengers #32 (September 1966), working to find a cure when – as Goliath – Pym was trapped at a 10-foot height. Foster faded from view when Hank regained size-changing abilities. Having continued his own experiments in size-shifting, Foster was trapped as a freakish colossus, unable to shrink back to human proportions. Cage painfully learned he was also Claire’s former husband and when he too became trapped as a giant, she had rushed back to Foster’s substantial side to help find a cure.

When Luke shows up, passions are stoked, causing another classic heroes-clash moment until the mesmeric Ringmaster hypnotises all combatants, intent on using their strength to feather his own 3-ring nest. ‘Crime and Circuses’ (Isabella, Bill Mantlo, Ron Wilson & Fred Kida) sees the heroes helpless until Claire comes to the rescue, before making her choice and returning to New York with Luke. Foster gravitated to his own short-run series, becoming Marvel’s fourth African American costumed hero under a heavy-handed and rather uninspired sobriquet…

Cover-dated February 1976 and courtesy of Isabella, Tuska & Colletta, Black Goliath #1 reintroduced a far better hero. Foster was now in complete control of his powers and leading an exotic, eccentric Stark International Think Tank in Los Angeles. Sadly, his arrival coincides with high tech burglaries proving how out-of-depth ‘Black Goliath!’ was when the gang’s leader was exposed as living nuclear nightmare Atom-Smasher! He doled out ‘White Fire, Atomic Death!’ in #2 as scripter Chris Claremont joined Tuska & Colletta.

Barely surviving the first meeting, Foster brought in his team of maverick geniuses for the decisive second round, blissfully unaware the thermonuclear thug was working for a hidden mastermind. ‘Dance to the Murder!’ offers partial explanations as mystery man Vulcan leads multiple attacks on the Think Tank in his effort to secure an enigmatic alien artefact. The result is chaos and catastrophe, exacerbated in BG #4 when ‘Enter Stilt-Man… Exit Black Goliath!’ – with art from Rich Buckler & Heck – depicts the hero distracted by a supervillain hungry to upgrade his powers and status, whilst the mystery box is swiped from the rubble by a common looter…

The series came to an abrupt halt with #5 (November 1976), with Keith Pollard illustrating a tale of ‘Survival!’ as Foster and two bystanders are transported to a deadly alien world. Meanwhile on Earth, the Box begins to awaken…

The storyline was completed in LA-based team title The Champions (#11, February 1977 by Bill Mantlo, John Byrne & Bob Layton) as ‘The Shadow from the Stars’ saw Foster returned without explanation and building tech for the team (consisting then of Black Widow, Angel, Iceman, Hercules, Ghost Rider and soviet superhero Dark Star) as a side bar to the main event wherein Hawkeye and Two Gun Kid call for help in repelling an alien incursion by vintage villain/sentient shadow Warlord Kaa…

Back at the plot in #12, ‘Did Someone say… the Stranger?’ sees Black Goliath ambushed by Stilt-Man as that long-contested Box begins to activate. When universal Elder The Stranger comes to reclaim his planet-destroying Null-Life Bomb, he deems it too late once the device warps reality and dumps The Champions in the realm of former Thor foe Kamo Tharnn, leaving Foster on Earth to prevent ‘The Doom That Went on Forever!’

Arter the fireworks ended, the Big Guy again faded from sight until revived for 1980s classic the Project Pegasus Saga, where he reclaimed the name Giant-Man, but this collection concludes with arguably the most successful size-shifting centurion: solo superhero, security consultant single dad, Avenger, entrepreneur, comedy turn and screen superstar Scott Lang: a true legacy hero made good.

Comics creators are six parts meddler and five parts chronic nostalgia buff so eventually somebody convinced somebody else that the concept and properties of Ant-Man could be viable again, and thus we end here with the introduction of reformed thief Lang from his debut in Marvel Premiere #47 & 48 (cover-dated April & June 1979).

Those first somebodies were David Michelinie, John Byrne & Bob Layton who produced ‘To Steal an Ant-Man!’: disclosing how a former electronics engineer had turned to crime – more out of boredom than necessity – and, after being caught and serving his time, joined Stark International as a resolutely reformed character. Tragically, when his little daughter Cassie developed a heart condition that wiped out his savings, Scott reverted to his old methods to save her…

Desperate to find the wherewithal to hire experimental surgeon Dr. Erica Sondheim, he cases likely prospects, but is crushed when Sondheim is abducted by psychotic industrialist Darren Cross. The magnate is already using all the resources – legal and otherwise – of his mega-corporation Cross Technological Enterprises to keep himself alive. Needing cash just to broach the CTE complex, Lang goes back to Plan A, burgling the lab of retired superhero Henry Pym. The intruder discovers mothballed Ant-Man gear and size-changing gases and in a moment of madness, decides not to sell the stolen tech as planned but instead use it to break into Cross’ citadel and rescue Sondheim…

That plan doesn’t go so great either, as Lang discovers the dying billionaire – in his attempts to stay alive – has been harvesting the hearts of homeless people to power an experimental device which has subsequently mutated him into a monstrous brute. After learning with horror ‘The Price of a Heart!’ Lang eventually triumphs, unaware until the very last that Pym had allowed him to take the suit and was backstopping him every inch of the way. With Cassie saved, Yellowjacket then invites Lang to continue as the new Ant-Man. And so it begins. Again.

With rousing covers throughout by Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Giacoia, Joe Sinnott, Trimpe, Starlin, John Romita & Sal Buscema, Russell & Adkins, Wilson, Rich Buckler, Lieber, Al Milgrom, Layton, Dave Cockrum and Bob McLeod, this triptych treat includes extras such as original art pages by Powell & Giacoia, Larry Lieber and Trimpe; lost art samples by mainstream illustrator Dick Rockwell; the unused ending to Marvel Feature #10 by Russell (compared in situ with what actually got published) and a brace of unused Layton covers to Marvel Premiere #48.

Seen here are three of the earliest heroes from a size shifting dynasty every true ant-ficionado (yes. I said that, and I’m not sorry!) will be delighted to see. These itty-bitty sagas range from lost oddities to true classics to dazzle Marvel Movie buffs as well as the redoubtable ranks of dedicated comic book readers all cheerfully celebrating this truly Astonishing phenomenon.
© 2023 MARVEL.

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Fantastic Four Omnibus volume 2


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with Chic Stone, Frank Giacoia, Vince Colletta, Sam Rosen, Art Simek & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: ?978-0-7851-8567-3 (HB/Digital edition)

It’s not an international public holiday yet but August 28th is the birthday of Comics’ Greatest Imagineer…

Jacob Kurtzberg AKA Jack Curtiss, Curt Davis, Lance Kirby, Ted Grey, Charles Nicholas, Fred Sande, Teddy The King and others was born on this day in 1917 in New York City, U.S.A. Before dying on February 6th 1994 he did lots of stuff and inspired millions of people. This is some of the most inspirational stuff he did…

In my opinion Fantastic Four #1 is the third most important Silver Age comic book ever, behind Action Comics #1 – introducing Superman – and All Star Comics  #3, which invented superhero teams with the debut of The Justice Society of America. Feel free to disagree…

After a troubled period at DC Comics (National Periodicals as it then was) and a creatively productive but disheartening time on the poisoned chalice of the Sky Masters newspaper strip (see Complete Sky Masters of the Space Force), Jack Kirby settled into his job at a small outfit that used to be publishing powerhouse Timely/Marvel/Atlas Comics. He churned out high quality mystery, monster, romance and western material in a market he feared to be ultimately doomed, as always doing the best job possible. That generic fare is now considered some of the best of its kind ever seen. However, his fertile imagination couldn’t be suppressed for long and when the Justice League of America caught readers’ attention it gave him and writer/editor Stan Lee an opportunity to change our industry forever.

According to popular myth, a golfing afternoon led to ever-opportunistic publisher Martin Goodman ordering his nephew Stan to do a title about a group of super-characters like the DC crowd then dominating the marketplace.

The resultant team took those same fans by storm. It wasn’t the powers: they’d all been seen since the beginning of the medium. It wasn’t the costumes: they didn’t have any until the third issue. It was Kirby’s compelling art and the fact that these characters weren’t anodyne cardboard cut-outs. In a real and recognizable location – New York City – imperfect, raw-nerved, touchy outsider people banded together out of tragedy, disaster and necessity to face the incredible. In many ways, The Challengers of the Unknown (Jack’s prototype partners-in-peril for National/DC) had already laid all the groundwork for the wonders to come, but staid, nigh-hidebound editorial strictures of the market leader would never have allowed the undiluted energy of the concept to run all-but-unregulated.

Concocted by “Lee & Kirby”, with inks by George Klein & Christopher Rule, Fantastic Four #1 (bi-monthly and cover-dated November 1961) saw maverick scientist Dr. Reed Richards summon his fiancée Sue Storm, their close friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother before heading off on their first mission. They are all survivors of a private space-shot that went horribly wrong when Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding and mutated them all.

Richards’ body became elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible, Johnny Storm could turn into living flame and tragic Ben devolved into a shambling, rocky freak. It was crude, rough, passionate and uncontrolled excitement unlike anything young fans had ever seen before. Thrill-hungry kids pounced on it and the raw storytelling caught a wave of change starting to build in America. It and succeeding issues changed comic books forever.

This second omnibus compendium collects Fantastic Four #31-60, double-sized Annuals #2-4 and and a tale from parody vehicle Not Brand Echh #1 (spanning September 1964 to August1967): issues of progressive landmarks cannily building on that early energy to consolidate the Fantastic Four as the leading title and most innovative series of the era.

Following typically effusive “found footage”, Foreword: A Universal Favorite from Stan – with two more to follow as these many pages turn – precedes the contents of Fantastic Four Annual #2 (September 1964) with Chic Stone inking ‘The Fantastic Origin of Doctor Doom!’ A short (12 page) scene-setter, it momentously details how brilliant Roma (called “gypsy” back then) boy Victor Von Doom remakes himself into the most deadly villain in creation. Ruthlessly surmounting obstacles such as ethnic oppression, crushing poverty and the shocking stigma of a sorceress mother, he rises to national dominance and global status…

Following a batch of villains in ‘A Gallery of the Fantastic Four’s Most Famous Foes!’ (Super-Skrull, Rama-Tut, Molecule Man, Hate-Monger, The Infant Terrible and Diablo) plus pin-ups of Johnny, Sue, Ben, Alicia Masters and Reed, Past informs Present as the ultimate villain believes he has achieved ‘The Final Victory of Dr. Doom!’ through guile, subterfuge and mind-control whereas he has in fact suffered his most ignominious defeat…

Monthly wonderment resumes with #31’s ‘The Mad Menace of the Macabre Mole Man!’ which precariously balances a loopy plan by the subterranean satrap to steal entire streets of New York City with a portentous subplot featuring a mysterious man from Sue’s past, as well as renewing the quartet’s somewhat fractious relationship with The Mighty Avengers…

After the first of every Fantastic 4 Fan Page letter column included for your delectation, the mystery man’s secret is revealed in ‘Death of a Hero!’: a powerful tale of tragedy and regret spanning two galaxies starring the uniquely villainous Invincible Man – who is not at all what he seems…

Supplemented by a glorious Kirby & Stone ‘Prince Namor Pin-up’ and adorned with an experimental photo montage cover from Kirby, FF #33’s ‘Side-by-Side with Sub-Mariner!’ follows, bringing the aquatic antihero one step closer to his own series as the quarrelsome quartet lend surreptitious aid to the embattled undersea monarch against deadly debuting barbarian Attuma after which ‘A House Divided!’ sees the team almost destroyed by power-hungry Mr. Gregory Hungerford Gideon, a Richest Man in the World who still can’t get all he wants…

Following a wry ‘Yancy Street Pin-Up’, #35’s ‘Calamity on the Campus!’ sees the fighting family visit Reed’s old Alma Mater in a tale designed to pander to a burgeoning college fan-base Marvel was then cultivating. Incorporating a cameo role for then-prospective college student Peter Parker, the rousing yarn brings back demon alchemist Diablo and introduces monstrous misunderstood homunculus Dragon Man.

Fantastic Four #36 premiered the team’s theoretical nemeses ‘The Frightful Four’: a group of villains comprising The Wizard, Sandman, Trapster (he was still Paste Pot-Pete here, but not for much longer) plus enigmatic new character Madame Medusa, whose origins were to have a huge impact on the heroes in months to come…

Most notable in this auspicious, action-packed, guest-star-stuffed (all the Avengers and X-Men) but inconclusive duel is the official announcement after so many months of Reed & Sue’s engagement – in itself a rare event in the realm of comic books at that time.

The team spectacularly travel to the homeworld of the shapeshifting Skrulls in #37, seeking justice or vengeance for Sue & Johnny’s recently-murdered father in ‘Behold! A Distant Star!’ They return only to be ‘Defeated by the Frightful Four!’ in #38: a sinister sneak attack and catastrophic clash of opposing forces with a startling cliffhanger that marked Chic Stone’s departure in suitably epic manner.

Frank Giacoia – under the pseudonym Frank Ray – stepped in to ink #39’s ‘A Blind Man Shall Lead Them!’ wherein a suddenly-powerless FF are targeted by an enraged and humiliated Doctor Doom, with only sightless vigilante Daredevil offering a chance to keep them alive.

The saga concludes in ‘The Battle of the Baxter Building’ as Vince Colletta assumes inking duties for a bombastic conclusion dramatically displaying the undeniable power, overwhelming pathos and indomitable heroism of the brutish Thing.

Pausing for another Lee Introduction – ‘When Inspiration Struck’ – a new era of fantastic suspense begins with the first chapter of a tensely traumatic trilogy in which the other (EVIL) FF brainwash the despondent and increasingly isolated Thing: turning him against his former team-mates. It starts with ‘The Brutal Betrayal of Ben Grimm!’, continues in rip-roaring fashion as ‘To Save You, Why Must I Kill You?’ pits the monster’s baffled former comrades against their best friend and the world’s most insidious villains, before concluding in bombastic glory with #44’s ‘Lo! There Shall be an Ending!’

After that Colletta signed off by inking the most crowded Marvel story yet conceived. Cover-dated November 1965, Fantastic Four Annual #3 famously features every hero, most of the villains and lots of ancillary characters from the company pantheon (such as teen-romance stars Patsy Walker & Hedy Wolf and even Stan & Jack themselves). ‘Bedlam at the Baxter Building!’ spectacularly celebrates the Richards-Storm nuptials, despite a massed attack by an army of baddies mesmerised by diabolical Doctor Doom. In its classical simplicity it signalled the end of one era and the start of another…

FF #44 was also a landmark in so many ways. Firstly, it saw the arrival of Joe Sinnott as regular inker: a skilled brush-man with a deft line and a superb grasp of anatomy and facial expression, and an artist prepared to match Kirby’s greatest efforts with his own. Some inkers had problems with just how much detail the King would pencil in; Sinnott relished it and the effort showed. What was wonderful now became incomparable…

‘The Gentleman’s Name is Gorgon!’ premieres a mysterious powerhouse with ponderous metal hooves instead of feet: a hunter implacably stalking Medusa. She then entangles the Human Torch – and thus the whole team – in her frantic bid to escape, and that’s before tmonstrous android Dragon Man shows up to complicate matters. All this is mere prelude, however: with the next issue we meet a hidden race of super-beings secretly sharing Earth for millennia. ‘Among Us Hide… The Inhumans’ reveals Medusa to be part of the Royal Family of Attilan, paranormal aristocrats on the run ever since a coup deposed the true king.

Black Bolt, Triton, Karnak and the rest would quickly become mainstays of the ever-expanding Marvel Universe, but their bewitching young cousin Crystal with her faithful giant teleporting dog Lockjaw (“who’s a Guh-hood chunky Boh-oy?”) were the real stars here. For young Johnny it is love at first sight, and Crystal’s eventual fate would finally season and mature his character, giving him a hint of angst-ridden tragedy to resonate greatly with the generation of young readers who were growing up with the comic…

‘Those Who Would Destroy Us!’ and ‘Beware the Hidden Land!’ (#46 – 47) see the team join the Inhumans as Black Bolt struggles to take back the throne from his bonkers brother Maximus the Mad, only to stumble into the usurper’s plan to wipe “inferior” humanity from the Earth.

Ideas just seem to explode from Kirby at this time. Despite being only halfway through one storyline, FF #48 trumpeted ‘The Coming of Galactus!’ so the Inhumans saga was swiftly but satisfyingly wrapped up (by page 6!) with the entire clandestine race sealed behind an impenetrable dome called the Negative Zone (later retitled Negative Barrier to avoid confusion with the sub-space gateway Reed worked on for years). Meanwhile, a cosmic entity approaches Earth, preceded by a gleaming herald on a board of pure cosmic energy…

I suspect this experimental – and vaguely uncomfortable – approach to narrative mechanics was calculated and deliberate, mirroring the way TV soap operas increasingly delivered their interwoven overlapped storylines, and used here as a means to keep readers glued to the series.

They needn’t have bothered. The stories and concepts were more than enough…

‘If this be Doomsday!’ sees planet-eating Galactus setting up shop over the Baxter Building despite the FF’s best efforts, whilst his coldly gleaming herald has his humanity accidentally rekindled by simply conversing with The Thing’s blind girlfriend Alicia. Issue #50’s ‘The Startling Saga of the Silver Surfer!’ concludes the epic in grand manner as the reawakened ethical core of the Surfer and heroism of the FF buy enough time for Richards to literally save the world with a boldly-borrowed Deus ex Machina gadget…

Once again, the tale ends in the middle of the issue, with the remaining half concentrating on the team getting back to “normal”. To that extent, Johnny finally enrols at Metro College, desperate to forget lost love Crystal and his unnerving jaunts to the ends of the universe. On his first day, the lad meets imposing and enigmatic Native American Wyatt Wingfoot, who is destined to become his greatest friend…

That would be a great place to stop but its only a final pause and third Lee Introduction ‘A Combo That’s Hard to Beat’ before moving on to a tale many fans consider the greatest single FF story ever. Illustrated by Kirby and inked by Sinnott, ‘This Man… This Monster!’ finds Ben’s grotesque body usurped and stolen by a vengeful, petty-minded scientist harbouring a grudge against Reed. The anonymous boffin subsequently discovers the true measure of his unsuspecting intellectual rival and willingly pays a fateful price for his envy…

By now the FF had become the most consistently groundbreaking and indisputable core title and series of Marvel’s ever-unfolding web of cosmic creation: a forge for new concepts and characters at a time when Kirby was in his conceptual prime and continually unleashing his vast imagination on plot after spectacular plot as Lee scripted some of the most passionate superhero sagas that Marvel – or any publisher for that matter – has ever seen.

Both were on an unstoppable roll, at the height of their creative powers, and full of the confidence that only success brings, with The King particularly eager to see how far the genre and the medium and even society could be pushed…

Without preamble the wonderment recommenced with an actual cultural revolution as a new unforgettable character debuted. ‘The Black Panther!’ (#52, cover-dated July 1966) was an enigmatic African monarch whose secretive kingdom was the only source of a vibration-absorbing alien metal. Mineral riches had enabled him to turn his country into a technological wonderland and – bold and confident – he lured the quartet into his savage super-scientific kingdom as part of an extended plan to gain vengeance on the murderer of his father. He was the first black superhero in American comics.

After battling the team to a standstill, King T’Challa reveals his tragic origin in ‘The Way it Began..!’, therby also introducing sonic supervillain Klaw. In the aftermath Johnny and tag-along college roommate Wyatt embark on a quest to rescue Crystal (still imprisoned with her people behind an impenetrable energy barrier in the Himalayas). The journey is paused when they discover the lost tomb of Prester John in #54’s‘Whosoever Finds the Evil Eye…!’ and almost perish in devastating, misguided combat…

For aiding the FF against Galactus, the Silver Surfer was imprisoned on Earth by the vengeful space-god. The brooding, perpetually moralising former herald had quickly become a fan-favourite and his regular appearances were always a guarantee of something special. ‘When Strikes the Silver Surfer!’ sees him in uncomprehending, brutal battle with Ben Grimm, whose insecurities over his sightless girlfriend explode into searing jealousy when the gleaming skyglider comes calling, before business as unusual resumes when ‘Klaw, the Murderous Master of Sound!’ ambushes the team in their own home in #56.

Throughout all the stories since their imprisonment, a running sub-plot with The Inhumans had been slowly building, with Johnny & Wyatt stuck on the other side of the Great Barrier: wandering the Himalayan wilds whilst seeking a way to liberate the Hidden City.

Their quest led directly into spectacular battle yarn ‘The Torch that Was!’: lead feature in the fourth FF Annual (November 1966) wherein The Mad Thinker recovers and resurrects the original Human Torch (in actuality world’s first android and a major star of Timely/Marvel’s Golden Age). The reawakened revanant is soon reprogrammed to destroy the flaming teenager who succeeded him and the blistering battle briefly reunites the entire team, leading into an epic clash with their greatest foe…

Fantastic Four #57-60 is Lee & Kirby at their sublime best, with unbearable tension, breathtaking drama and shattering action on all fronts as the most dangerous man on Earth steals and empowers himself with the Silver Surfer’s cosmic forces, even as The Inhumans at last win their freedom and we learn the tragic secret of mute Black Bolt in all its awesome fury.

It begins with a jailbreak by Sandman in #57’s ‘Enter… Dr. Doom!’, escalates in ‘The Dismal Dregs of Defeat!’ as Doom tests his limitless stolen power and crushes all earthly resistance; builds to a crescendo in ‘Doomsday’ with the heroes’ utter defeat and humiliation before culminating in brains and valour saving the day – and all humanity – in truly magnificent manner in ‘The Peril and the Power!’

After all the heartstopping action and suspense the affair ends for the present on a comedic note, with a pertinent parody from spoof title Not Brand Echh, opening with #1 (August 1967) and Lee, Kirby & Giacoia’s reassessment of Doom’s theft of the Power Cosmic in ‘The Silver Burper!’…

Art lovers and history buffs can also enjoy a boundless hidden bounty at the end of this volume as we close with fascinating freebies in the form of essays ‘Fantastic Four’s Golden Year’ by Roy Thomas, ‘From This Day Forward: How Marriage Changes Everything (Even for the FF)’ by Jon B. Cooke, ‘Wonderment Aplenty’ by Mark Evanier, ‘What’s in a Name’ by John Morrow and ‘The Start of a Revolution’ by Reginald Hudlin, all supported by visual treats including numerous house ads, initial designs for Coal Tiger (who evolved into the Black Panther), Kirby & Sinnott’s unused first cover for FF #52, an unmodified version of the cover for #38, bolstered by the covers for FF reprint titles Marvel Collectors’ Item Classics/Marvel’s Greatest Comics #1-43 and Marvel Triple Action #1-4 by Kirby, Gil Kane, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Jim Starlin and Kirby augmented by original art pages and Ladrönn’s cover for the 2007 FF Omnibus #2 edition.

Epic, revolutionary and unutterably unmissable, these are the stories which made Marvel the unassailable leaders in comics fantasy entertainment and they remain some of the most important superhero stories ever crafted. The verve, conceptual scope and sheer enthusiasm shines through on every page and the wonder is there for you to share. If you’ve never thrilled to these spectacular sagas then this book of marvels is the perfect key to another – far brighter – world and time.
© 2022 MARVEL.

And since So Many Others are already talking of Yule fuel…
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Total Entertainment Perfection… 10/10

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Robot Archie and the Time Machine


By E. George Cowan, Ted Kearon, Mike Western & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-83786-169-9 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

British comics have always enjoyed an extended love affair with what can only be described as “unconventional” (for which feel free to substitute “weird” or “creepy”) heroes. So many stars and notional role models of our serials and strips have been outrageous or just plain “off”: self-righteous voyeur/vigilantes like Jason Hyde, sinister masterminds in the manner of The Dwarf or Black Max, arrogant former criminals like The Spider or outright racist overmen such as fearsome white ideologue Captain Hurricane…

Joking aside, British comics are unlike any other kind: having to be seen to be believed and always enjoying – especially when “homaging” such uniquely American fare as costumed crimefighters – a touch of insouciant rebelliousness…

Until the 1980s, UK periodicals employed an anthological model, offering variety of genre, theme and character on a weekly – sometimes fortnightly – basis. Humour comics like The Beano were leavened by action-heroes like The Q-Bikes or General Jumbo whilst adventure papers like Smash, The Eagle, Hotspur or Valiant always offered palate-cleansing gagsters like The Cloak, Grimly Feendish, Mowser and sundry other titter-treats.

At first glance, prior to the advent of game changers Action and 2000AD, British comics seemingly fell into fairly ironclad categories. Back then, you had genial and/or fantastic preschool fantasy; a large selection of licensed entertainment properties; action; adventure; war; school dramas, sports and straight comedy strands. Closer examination would confirm there was always a subversive merging, mixing undertone, especially in such antihero series as Dennis the Menace or our rather strained interpretation of superheroes. Just check out The Phantom Viking, Kelly’s Eye or early Steel Claw stories…

After post-war austerity, the 1950s ushered in a revolution for British comics. With printing and paper restrictions gone, a steady stream of titles emerged from companies new and old, aimed at the many different levels of childish attainment from pre-school to young adult. When Hulton Press launched The Eagle in April 1950, the very concept of what weeklies could be changed forever. That oversized prestige package with photogravure colour was exorbitantly expensive, however, and when venerable London-based publishing powerhouse Amalgamated Press retaliated, it was a far more economical affair.

I’m assuming AP only waited so long before the first issue of Lion launched (cover-dated February 23rd 1952) to see if their flashy rival periodical was going to last. Lion – just like The Eagle – was a mix of prose stories, features and comic strips and even offered its own cover-featured space-farer in Captain Condor – Space Ship Pilot. Initially edited by Reg Eves, the title ran 1156 weekly issues until 18th May 1974 when it merged with sister-title Valiant. Along the way – in the tradition of British publishing which subsumed weaker-selling titles to keep popular strips going – Lion absorbed Sun (1959) and Champion (1966) before going on to swallow The Eagle in April 1969: soon after merging with Thunder (1971). In its capacity as one of the country’s most popular and enduring adventure comics, the last vestiges of Lion only vanished in 1976 during Valiant’s amalgamation with Battle Picture Weekly.

Despite that demise, there were 30 Lion Annuals between 1953 and 1982, all benefitting from the UK’s lucrative Christmas market, combining a variety of original strips with topical and historical prose adventures; sports, science/general interest features; short humour strips and – increasingly from the 1970s – reformatted reprints from IPC/Fleetway’s back catalogue.

The Jungle Robot debuted in Lion’s first issue, created by incredible prolific E. George Cowan (Ginger Nutt, The Spider, Saber, King of the Jungle, Smokeman/UFO Agent, Nick Jolly the Flying Highwayman, Paddy Payne, Girls’ Crystal Libraries) and drawn by Alan Philpott (The Deathless Men/V for Vengeance, A Classic in Pictures, Rebels of Ancient Rome, War/Super Detective/Cowboy Comics & Picture Libraries, Look-In, Klanky). It enthralled readers for a couple of months before abruptly vanishing with the August 9th issue.

Other than an appearance in the 1955 Lion Annual that was it until January 19th 1957 when the mechanical marvel was revived and revised by Cowan & A. Forbes before veteran artist Ernest “Ted” Kearon (Spot the Clue with Zip Nolan, The Day the World Drowned, Steel Commando and DC Thomson’s Morgyn the Mighty) signed on in 1958 and soldiered on for most of the next 17-ish years. On his return the mighty mouthed mechanoid became one of the most popular and well-remembered heroes of the British scene and was successfully syndicated all across Europe and around the world. Hopefully this compilation of later material will be soon supplemented by earlier annals in the fullness of time…

Reprinting stories from Lion between 20th April 1968 to 11th January 1969 plus yarns from Lion & Valiant Special 1969 and Lion Summer Special 1970 the saga returns and -following a fulsome reminiscence and Introduction by John Reppion – the latterday ongoing adventures of explorers and troubleshooters Ted Ritchie, Ken Dale and arrogant, smug, self-absorbed yet innately paternally benevolent super-robot Robot Archie resume and take an outrageous turn…

The former Jungle Robot was once the greatest achievement of Ted’s inventor uncle Professor C. R. Ritchie: battling monsters & aliens, foiling crooks and battling disasters, but in ‘Robot Archie’s Time Machine’ – by Cowan & Kearon and running from 20th April to 29th June 1968 – the boastful ‘bot discovers the wonders and perils of spacetime after the boys inherit The Castle, a colossal inhabitable two-storey faux chess piece which can take them anywhere in history and even into the future…

The first tempestuous test drive dumps them in the 14th century and into a minor peasants’ revolt as cruel, ambitious tyrant Hugo the Black Wolf terrorises his bit of Britain, and sees the armoured interloper and his pitiful retinue as a mighty rival knight and squires. Soon the visitors are battling injustice and beloved of the peasantry, but also risking accusations of sorcery with Archie’s many electromechanical add-ons (magnets, extendible claws, jet pack etc.) and incredible strength and durability adding to his lustrous legend… as a warlock!

Hugo despatched, the voyagers seek their own time and home but a technical hitch sees them overshoot by nearly a 100 years in second saga ‘Robot Archie and the Superons’ (6th July to 2nd November 1968). Obviously influenced by TV series/movie adaptation Doctor Who: Dalek Invasion Earth 2150 AD, the extended epic finds the trio in a London resembling a rain forest and overrun with wild animals, where the surviving dregs of humanity are hunted by invading aliens inside an infinite army of mechas ranging from tiny to gigantic …until Archie and Co organise a resistance and repel the rapacious robotic rogues…

Final weekly serial ‘Robot Archie – Time Traveller’ sees the garrulous gadget admitting he cannot control The Castle as another attempt to return to 1968 deposits them all in 18th century England where the big guy is mistaken for a heroic and popular highwayman battling corrupt and unjust magistrate Sir Jeremiah Creefe, who uses The Law and the King’s Soldiery to scourge London Town and line his own coffers in the days before Christmas. But not for long; once Archie sets his mechanical mind to it…

A section of ‘Extras’ kicks off with a brace of short complete tales from the Lion & Valiant Special 1969 and Lion Summer Special 1970 respectively. The first sees the time-tossed trio fetch up on a desert island just as bunch of pirates is bury their ill-gotten gains. Sadly, Blackbeard’s pistol balls briefly blow one of Archie’s fuses and only sheer luck and attacking Spaniards save the heroes from the plank…

This romp is illustrated by magnificent Mike Western who also closes this book with a half-dozen full-colour covers, but before that one last jaunt takes the team all the way back to who knows when and a lost isle of dinosaurs, cavemen and exploding volcanoes: a breathless rollercoaster ride by an artist unknown to me…

Now part of Rebellion Publishing’s line of British Comics Classics, Robot Archie is an icon of UK fantasy long overdue for revival. I hope not much time passes before we see all the old stories back again…
© 1968, 1969 & 2024 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter volume 1


By Jack Miller, Joe Samachson, Dave Wood, Edmund Hamilton, Bob Kane, Joe Certa, Lew Sayre Schwartz & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1368-8 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Stress-alleviating Fun is in pretty short supply everywhere these days, but if you’re a comics fan susceptible to charming nostalgia, this item – readily available in paperback, but tragically still not formally full-colour archived or even compiled in any digital format yet – might just appeal to the starry-eyed wonderer in you.

As the 1950’s opened, comic book superheroes were in inescapable decline, giving way to a steady stream of genre-locked he-men and “Ordinary Joes” dramatically caught up in weird or extraordinary circumstances. By the time the “Red-baiting”, witch-hunting Senate hearings and media investigations into causes of juvenile delinquency fizzled out mid-decade, the industry was further depleted by the excision of any sort of mature content or themes.

The self-imposed Comics Code Authority took all the hard edges out of the industry, banning horror and crime comics whilst leaving ghostly, sanitised anodyne shades to inhabit the remaining adventure, western, war, humour and fantasy titles that remained. American comics – for which read a misperceived readership comprising only children and cretins – could have bowdlerised concepts of evil and felonious conduct, but not the simplest note of repercussion: a world where mad scientists plotted to conquer humanity without killing anybody and cowboys severed gun-belts or shot guns out of opponents’ hands with a well-aimed bullet without ever drawing blood. Moreover, no civil or government official or public servant could be depicted as anything other than a saint…

With corruption, venality and menace excised from the equation, comics were forced to supply punch and tension to proceedings via mystery and imagination – but only as long as it all had a rational, non-supernatural explanation…

Beating by a year the new Flash (who launched in Showcase #4 cover-dated October 1956) and now officially the first superhero of the Silver Age, the series depicting the clandestine cases of stranded alien scientist J’onn J’onzz was initially entitled John Jones, Manhunter from Mars: an honourable, decent being unwillingly trapped on Earth who chose to confront injustice and fight crime secretly using incredible powers, knowledge and advanced technical abilities with no human even aware of his existence.

In truth, even before that low-key debut, Batman #78 trialled the concept in ‘The Manhunter From Mars!’ (August/September 1953) wherein Edmund Hamilton, Bob Kane, Lew Sayre Schwartz & Charlie Paris told the tale of Roh Kar: lawman of the Fourth Planet who assisted the Dynamic Duo in capturing a Martian bandit plundering Gotham City. That stirring titbit opens this first magnificent monochrome compendium before doling out a main course of the eccentric, frequently formulaic but never disappointing back-up series from Detective Comics #225 to 304, cumulatively spanning November 1955 to June 1962.

In one of the longest creative tenures in DC comics’ history, all the art for the series was by veteran illustrator Joe Certa (1919-1986), who had previously worked for the Funnies Incorporated comics “Shop”. His credits included work on Captain Marvel Junior and assorted genre titles for Magazine Enterprises (Dan’l Boone, Durango Kid), Lev Gleason’s crime comics and Harvey romance titles. For DC he drew nautical sleuth Captain Compass and many tales for such anthological titles as Gang Busters and House of Mystery.

Certa also drew the newspaper strips Straight Arrow and Tarzan, and ghosted long-lived boxing strip Joe Palooka. In the 1970s he moved to Gold Key, working on TV adaptations, mystery tales and all-ages horror stories, before ending his career at DC on Challengers of the Unknown and Legion of Super-Heroes…

At the height of global Flying Saucer fever John Jones, Manhunter from Mars debuted in Detective Comics #225 (cover-dated November 1955). Written by Joe Samachson, ‘The Strange Experiment of Dr. Erdel’ describes how a reclusive genius builds a robot-brain able to access Time, Space and the Fourth Dimension, and accidentally plucks an alien scientist from his home on Mars. After a brief conversation with his unfortunate guest, Erdel succumbs to a heart attack whilst attempting to return the incredible J’onn J’onzz to his point of origin.

Marooned on Earth, the Martian realises his new home is riddled with the primitive cancer of Crime and resolves to use his natural abilities (which include telepathy, mind-over-matter psychokinesis, shape-shifting, invisibility, intangibility, super strength and speed, flight, assorted super vision powers, invulnerability and many more) to eradicate the blight; working clandestinely disguised as a human policeman. His only concern is the commonplace chemical reaction of fire which saps all Martians of their mighty powers…

With his name Americanised to John Jones he enlists as a Police Detective and with #226’s ‘The Case of the Magic Baseball’ began a long, peril-fraught career tackling a variety of Earthly thugs, mobsters and monsters, starting with the sordid case of Big Bob Michaels – a reformed ex-con and baseball player blackmailed into throwing games by a gang of crooked gamblers. He continues in ‘The Man with 20 Lives’ as the mind-reading cop impersonates a ghost to force a confession from a hard-bitten killer.

The tantalising prospect of a return to Mars confronts Jones in the Dave Wood scripted ‘Escape to the Stars’ (Detective #228) wherein criminal scientist Alex Dunster cracks the secret of Erdel’s Robot Brain. However, duty overrules selfish desire and the mastermind destroys his stolen super-machine when Jones arrests him…

With #229 Jack Miller took over scripting, leading off with ‘The Phantom Bodyguard’ as the Hidden Hero signs on to protect a businessman from his murderous partner, only to discover a far more complex plot unfolding, before #230’s ‘The Sleuth Without a Clue’ sees the covert cop battling a deadline to get the goods on a vicious gang, just as a wandering comet causes his powers to malfunction…

Detective Comics #231 heralds a shift towards sci fi roots in ‘The Thief Who Had Super Powers!’, as an impossible bandit proves to be simply another refugee from the Red Planet, after which ‘The Dog with a Martian Master’ is revealed to be just another delightful if fanciful animal champion. Jones returns to straight crimebusting and clandestine cops-&-robbers capers by becoming ‘The Ghost from Outer Space’ in #233 before going undercover in a prison to thwart a smart operator in #234’s ‘The Martian Convict’.

Jones infiltrates a circus as ‘The World’s Greatest Magician’ to catch a Phantom Thief and finally re-establishes contact with his extraterrestrial family to solve ‘The Great Earth-Mars Mystery’ in #236, all before seeing out 1956 as ‘The Sleuth Who went to Jail’ (this time one operated by crooks) and loses his powers to work as an ‘Earth Detective for a Day’ in #238.

For Detective #239 (January 1957) ‘Ordeal By Fire!’ finds the Anonymous Avenger transferred to the Fire Department to track down an arson ring, whilst in ‘The Hero Maker’ Jones surreptitiously uses his gifts to help a retiring cop go out on a high, prior to yet another firebug targeting historical treasures sparking ‘The Impossible Manhunt!’ in #241.

Jones thought he’d be safe as a underwater officer in ‘The Thirty Fathom Sleuth’ but even there flames find a way to threaten him, after which he battles legendary Martian robot Tor in #243’s ‘The Criminal from Outer Space’, latterly doubling for an endangered actor in ‘The Four Stunts of Doom!’ and busting up a clever racket utilising ‘The Phantom Fire Alarms!’ in #245.

As a back-up feature, expectations were never particularly high but occasionally all those formula elements gelled to produce exemplary adventure tales such as #246’s ‘John Jones’ Female Nemesis’, introducing pert, perky and pestiferous trainee policewoman Diane Meade. Being a 1950’s woman, naturally she had romance most in mind, but was absent for the next equally engaging thriller wherein our indomitable alien cop puzzled over ‘The Impossible Messages’ of scurrilous smugglers and #248’s marvellous tale of ‘The Martian Without a Memory’. Struck by lightning, Jones must utilise earthly deductive skills to discern his lost identity, and almost exposes his own extraterrestrial secret in the process…

In Detective #249’s ‘Target for a Day’ the Martian disguises himself as the State Governor marked for death by a brutal gang whilst as ‘The Stymied Sleuth!’ he is forced to stay in hospital to protect his alien identity as radium thieves run amok in town, after which he seemingly becomes a brilliant crook himself… ‘Alias Mr. Zero’.

For #252 Jones confronts a scientific super-criminal in ‘The Menace of the Super-Weapons’ before infiltrating a highly suspicious newspaper as ‘The Super Reporter!’ and invisibly battle rogue soldiers as ‘The One-Man Army’ in #254. The Hidden Hero attempts to foil an audacious murder-plot encompassing the four corners of Earth in a ‘World-Wide Manhunt!’, after which #256’s ‘The Carnival of Doom’ pits him against crafty crooks whilst babysitting a VIP kid whilst #257 sees the Starborn Sleuth perpetrating spectacular crimes to trap the ‘King of the Underworld!’

In Detective #258 Jones takes an unexpectedly dangerous vacation cruise on ‘The Jinxed Ship’ and return to tackle another criminal genius in ‘The Getaway King!’ before helping a failing fellow cop in the heartwarming tale of ‘John Jones’ Super-Secret’, after which ab-normality resumes in #261 as a shrink ray reduces him to ‘The Midget Manhunter!’.

It was an era of ubiquitous evil masterminds and another one used beasts for banditry in ‘The Animal Crime Kingdom’, whilst a sinister stage magician tested Manhunter’s mettle and wits in #263’s ‘The Crime Conjurer!’ before the hero’s hidden powers are almost exposed after cheap hoods find a crashed capsule and unleash ‘The Menace of the Martian Weapons!’

Masked and costumed villains were still a rarity when J’onzz tackled ‘The Fantastic Human Falcon’ in #265 whilst ‘The Challenge of the Masked Avenger!’ was the only case for a new – and inept – wannabe hero, after which the Martian’s sense of duty and justice force him to forego a chance to return home in #267’s ‘John Jones’ Farewell to Earth!’

A menacing fallen meteor results in ‘The Mixed-Up Martian Powers’ and a blackmailing reporter almost becoming ‘The Man who Exposed John Jones’, before a trip escorting an extradited felon from Africa results in J’onzz becoming ‘The Hunted Martian’. The Manhunter’s origin was revisited in #271 when Erdel’s robot-brain accidentally froze the Martian’s powers in ‘The Lost Identity’ whilst death threats compelled Jones’ boss to appoint a well-meaning hindrance in the form of ‘The Super-Sleuth’s Bodyguard’…

By the time Detective Comics #273 was released (autumn 1959 and cover-dated November) the Silver Age superhero revival was in full swing and, with a plethora of new costumed characters catching the public imagination, old survivors and hardy perennials like Green Arrow, Aquaman and others were given a thorough makeover. Perhaps the boldest was the new direction taken by the Manhunter from Mars as his undercover existence on Earth was revealed to all mankind when he very publicly battled and defeated a criminal from his home world in ‘The Unmasking of J’onn J’onzz’. As part of the revamp, J’onzz lost the ability to use his powers whilst invisible and became a very high-profile superhero. At least that vulnerability to common flame was still a closely guarded secret…

Nonetheless, this tale was followed by the debut of incendiary villain ‘The Human Flame’ in #274 and the introduction of a secret-identity-hunting romantic interest as policewoman Diane Meade returned in #275 recast as ‘John Jones’ Pesky Partner’…

‘The Crimes of John Jones’ finds the new superhero an amnesiac pawn of bank robbers before another fantastic foe premiered in #277 with ‘The Menace of Mr. Moth’. Invading Venusians almost cause ‘The Defeat of J’onn J’onzz’ next, and a hapless millionaire inventor nearly wrecks the city by accident with ‘The Impossible Inventions’…

Advance word of an underworld plot compels the Manhunter to be ‘Bodyguard to a Bandit’ and keep a crook out of jail, whilst #281’s ‘The Menace of Marsville’ inadvertently grants criminals powers to equal his after which another fallen meteorite temporarily makes Diane ‘The Girl with the Martian Powers’ – or does it?

To help out an imperilled ship captain, J’onzz becomes ‘The Amazing One-Man Crew’ whilst in #284 Diane – unaware of his extraterrestrial origins – seeks to seduce her partner in ‘The Courtship of J’onn J’onzz!’ after which monster apes tear up the city in ‘The Menace of the Martian Mandrills!’

Detective #286 found ‘His Majesty, John Jones’ standing in for an endangered Prince in a take on The Prisoner of Zenda before ‘J’onn J’onzz’s Kid Brother!’ T’omm is briefly stranded on Earth. Only one of the siblings could return…

‘The Case of the Honest Swindler’ in #288 sees a well-meaning man accidentally endanger the populace with magical artefacts after which a quick trip to Asia pits the Martian against a cunning jungle conman in ‘J’onn J’onzz – Witch Doctor’. Then when a movie is repeatedly sabotaged, Diane assumes the job of lead stunt-girl with some assistance from the Manhunter in ‘Lights, Camera – and Doom!’ and a lovesick suitor masquerades as ‘The Second Martian Manhunter’ to win his bride in #291. ‘The Ex-Convicts Club’ almost founders before it begins after someone impersonates reformed criminals to pull new jobs. Luckily J’onzz is more trusting than most…

Diane finds herself with a rival in policewoman Sally Winters and their enmity can apparently only be resolved with ‘The Girl-Hero Contest!’, after which the Manhunter pursues crooks into another dimension and becomes ‘The Martian Weakling’ (DC #294), and thereafter ‘The Martian Show-Off!’ to inexplicably deprive a fellow cop of his 1000th arrest! When that mystery is solved, he acts as ‘The Alien Bodyguard’ for Diane who is blithely unaware she has been marked for death…

Detective #297’s ‘J’onn J’onzz vs. the Vigilantes’ has the Green Guardian expose the secret agenda of a committee of wealthy “concerned citizens” before going to the aid of a stage performer who is ‘The Man Who Impersonated J’onn J’onzz!’ He then almost fails as a ‘Bodyguard for a Spy’ because Diane is jealous of the beautiful Princess in his charge…

Detective Comics #300 unveiled ‘The J’onn J’onzz Museum’ – a canny ploy by a master criminal who believes he has uncovered the Martian’s secret weakness, whilst ‘The Mystery of the Martian Marauders!’ has our hero battling impossible odds when an army of his fellows invaded Earth…

‘The Crime King of Mount Olympus’ matches the Manhunter against a pantheon of Hellenic super-criminals to save Diane’s life after which more plebeian thugs attempt to expose his secret identity in ‘The Great J’onn J’onzz Hunt!’ This first beguiling compendium then concludes with #304’s rousing tale of an academy of scientific lawbreakers as John Jones infiltrates ‘The Crime College!’…

Although certainly dated, these complex yet uncomplicated adventures are drenched in charm and still sparkle with innocent wit and wonder. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste nowadays, such vintage exploits of the Manhunter from Mars are still an all-ages buffet of fun, thrills and action no fan should miss.
© 1953, 1955-1962, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Detective Chimp Casebook


By John Broome, Mike Tiefenbacher, Carmine Infantino, Irwin Hasen, Alex Kotzky, Gil Kane, Joe Giella, Sy Barry, Bernard Sachs & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-2165-1 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Detective stories are a literary subgenre wherein an investigation by amateur or professional (active or retired) into a legal transgression or moral/social injustice plays out before the consumer, who may or may not include themselves in the process. Like exploration and adventuring, fantasy, horror and science fiction, Detective stories blossomed in white western societies during the mid-19th century: spreading from magazines and prose novels to later forms of entertainment media such as plays, films and radio shows, with early crime puzzle solvers including C. Auguste Dupin, Judge Dee/Di Gong An, Sherlock Holmes, Jules Maigret, Father Brown, Lord Peter Wimsey, Sexton Blake and Hercule Poirot. Tales targeting youngsters generated their own sleuthing stars: Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys and more, sparking a subgenre especially popular on television…

Comic strips developed detective stalwarts like Hawkshaw, Dick Tracy, Charlie Chan, Kerry Drake ad infinitum: all contributing to a tidal wave of fictive crimebusters that in many ways inspired true literary legends – Philip Marlow, Sam Spade, Simon Templar, Mike Hammer and so on. Where there is such variety and richness, strange yet rewarding things may blossom, none more rewarding than those seen in graphic narratives. Gathered here is the original, seminal comics lunacy in the hirsute form of Detective Chimp: a Florida-based do-gooder who – thanks to an extremely unconventional official lawman – became assistant sheriff of a major coastal metropolis.

In later years, wit and whimsey fell prey to the all-consuming fan-drive for rationality and reason (at least in comic book science terms) and both the police primate and his comic book host Rex the Wonder Dog were given origins rationalising and explaining their mighty mentalities. You can see the first hint of that at the end of this compilation which gathers the madcap monkeyshines of an ape answering to Bobo, as first seen in The Adventures of Rex The Wonder Dog #4 and thereafter #6-46, plus a canny codicil from  DC Comics Presents #35: spanning July 1952 to September/October 1959 and including a moment of animal magic from July 1981. Also in here is material from DC Special #1, Helmet of Fate: Detective Chimp #1, Tarzan #231, 234 & 235, Amazing World of DC Comics #1 and Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #6. And while we’re at it, let’s get one thing straight: I know and you know chimpanzees are APES. The author(s) did too, but to have more fun and engage euphony I – as they did – reserve the right to use many terms associated with both primates and prosimians throughout…

We now pause for me to pontificate some more…

Boasting a March 1937 cover-date, Detective Comics #1 was the third and final anthology title devised by luckless comics pioneer Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. In 1935, the entrepreneur had seen the potential in Max Gaines’ new invention – the Comic Book – and reacted quickly, conceiving and releasing packages of all-new strips in New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine and follow-up New Fun/New Adventure (ultimately Adventure Comics) under the banner of National Allied Publications. These publications differed from similar prototype comics magazines which simply reprinted edited collations culled from established newspaper strips. However, these vanguard titles were as varied and undirected in content as any newspaper funnies page.

Detective Comics was different. Specialising solely in tales of crime and crimebusters, the initial roster included (amongst others) adventurer Speed Saunders, Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise, Gumshoe Gus and two series by a couple of kids from Cleveland named Siegel & Shuster – espionage agent Bart Regan and two-fisted shamus Slam Bradley…

Within two years the commercially inept and unseasoned Wheeler-Nicholson had been forced out by his more savvy business partners, and his company eventually grew into monolithic DC (for Detective Comics) Comics. Surviving a myriad of changes and temporary shifts of identity and aims, it’s still with us – albeit primarily as a vehicle for the breakthrough character who debuted in the 27th issue…

In the years when superheroes were in retreat and considered a bit foolish, DC concentrated on genre stars. At the end of 1951 they launched Rex the Wonder Dog (#1 cover-dated January/February 1952), based equally on Rin Tin Tin, Lassie and their own miracle mutt Streak – the original Green Lantern’s dog who had ousted Alan Scott and Co. from his own title in the dying days of the Golden Age.

Rex solved crimes, saved lives in disasters, fought dinosaurs and saved the world, but that wasn’t enough and real-world legal restrictions dictated his title required other strips to qualify for favourable postal shipping rates. In #4 (July/August 1952), a future back-up feature was trialled. Written by John Broome, drawn by Carmine Infantino and inked by Sy Barry, the tale of a little chimp who helped solve the murder of his beloved owner captivated readers. Infantino always claimed this hirsute anthropoid crimebuster was his favourite character…

In The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #4 readers were invited to ‘Meet Detective Chimp!’ in a charming comedy thriller. It was the first outing of undeniably captivating comics lunacy revealing how, when Oscaloosa Florida’s Sheriff Chase snared the killer of prominent businessman and owner of Thorpe Animal Farm, it was only with the valiant and uncanny help of a certain young chimp. He consequently adopts and deputises the beast, with Bobo thereafter acting as assistant sheriff right up until the final issue. The hairy savant also enjoyed a revival at the end of the century and fresh fame in the 21st as new generations of creators and fans rediscovered him…

Response must have been overwhelming and immediate in 1952, because mere months later ‘The Return of Detective Chimp!’ came with #6 (cover-dated November/December – and remember, this was the company that took 3 years to give The Flash his own title…). Broome again scripted the hirsute Hawkshaw – as he would almost all (I’m presuming: records are sadly incomplete) – in a delightful succession of what we would call “Cosy Mysteries”. Infantino was inked by Joe Giella as the chimp – with the aid of an enraged nesting bird – solved a family murder, restored a sabotaged will and settled a family inheritance in a wild romp setting the pattern for years to come…

Illustrated by Alex (The Sandman, Plastic Man) Kotzky, #7 settled in for the long haul and exposed ‘Monkeyshines at the Wax Museum!’, with Bobo catching the killer of amiable murder-enthusiast Len Billings, after which Irwin (Green Lantern, Wildcat, Justice Society of America, Dondi) Hasen & Giella highlighted how ‘Death Walks the High Wire!’ as the savvy simian proved a circus trapeze accident was anything but, even deputising some four-legged performers to bring the assassin to justice…

For RtWD #9 (May/June 1953), Broome, Hasen & Bernard Sachs indulged a passion for sports as Bobo saved his favourite baseball star from kidnappers in ‘Crime Runs the Bases’ before uncovering ‘Monkey Business on the Briny Deep!’ (Broome, Hasen & Giella, July-August 1953). Here, Bobo became an inveterate but dilettante hobby fanatic, exploring a different fascination each episode which would miraculously impact on the current case. This time it was sea fishing that netted cunning thieves, whilst in #11 it was horses and jockeys, as the impressionable assistant solved ‘The Riddle of the Riverside Raceway!’ (Hasen & Giella): befriending a prize steed, stymying race-fixing gangsters and collaring the FBI’s Most Wanted fugitive…

Th chimp made and lost a new friend next with Hasen & Giella limning the saga of how ‘The Million Dollar Gorilla!’ was killed by a big game hunter’s jealous love-rival before Infantino (inked by Sy Barry) embraced Bobo’s new love of Westerns in #13’s ‘The Case of the Runaway Ostrich!’. This hobby afforded the hairy half-pint much opportunity to display his roping and riding skills when corralling a rare bird rustler…

In RtWD #14 (March/April 1954, with art by Hasen & Sachs) Bobo became a Flying Fool addicted to aircraft just in time to stumble over ‘Murder in the Blue Yonder!’ and catch the killer of his flight instructor, after which Infantino settled in for the long haul as his favourite character became a lifeguard and solved ‘The Case of the Fishy Alibi!’, wherein a gambler almost pulls off the perfect crime. For #16 Bobo’s new passion for scuba diving/ spearfishing exposes a millionaire’s murderer in ‘Monkey Sees, Monkey Does!’ Two months later Bobo cracked ‘The Case of the Suspicious Signature!’ (September/October 1954) when his new passion for autograph collecting accidentally lands him in a Hollywood star’s kidnapping…

When Chase starts paying his deputy in cash as well as room-&-board and bananas, Bobo goes ape over finance with ‘The Case of Bobo’s Bankbook!’ leaving him in the right place at the right time to foil a big heist, prior to succumbing to more basic fascination in #19’s ‘See No Evil, Hear No Evil!’ Bobo falls for visiting movie star Moka and takes up bodybuilding to impress her, but it proves no help at all when “The Most Famous Female Chimpanzee in the World” is kidnapped and he needs all his old skills to save the day…

With Sy Barry inking Infantino, ‘Detective Bobo… Chimp-Napped!’ sees the deputy abducted when his circus chums hit town again, just in time to thwart a jewel snatch, after which #21’s ‘The Secret of the ‘Indian’ Monkey!’ offers opportunity for dressing up when a historical pageant uncovers a treasure map and draws thieves like flies. In #22’s topical tale – inked by Giella – the chimp goes ape for sci fi stories yet still foils a cunning robbery scheme after ‘Bobo Rides a Flying Saucer!’ RtWD #23 saw Sheriff Chase’s only hobby – stamp collecting – key to solving ‘The Secret of the Spanish Castle!’ as a misdelivered letter inadvertently draws the lawgivers into a robbery/hostage situation, whilst Bobo’s temporary love of railways is the spur for ‘The Mystery of the Silver Bullet!’ when locomotive driver Mike Layton allows the chimp onto the footplate just as hijackers attack…

A dalliance with firefighting in #25 proves ‘Where There’s Smoke – There’s Trouble!’ as Bobo joins the Junior Forest Rangers just when a couple of thieves trying to hide their loot in the woods start throwing lighted cigarettes around, and #26 sees the simian Sherlock take up Egyptology in time to solve ‘The Mystery of the Missing Mummy!’ (Giella inks) and save Chase from being entombed forever…

After months of eating premium-promotion cereal, the eager ape at last opens the pack containing ‘A Whistle for Bobo!’ and subsequently drives everyone crazy as an impromptu traffic cop… until one car packed with brigands and boodle refuses to stop. Then a string of robberies by the Goliath Gang again sees him seeking to build up his physique by using ‘Bobo’s Amazing Jungle Gym!’ That turns into bad news for the bandits…

Broome & Infantino transformed Detective Chimp into ‘The Scientific Crook-Catcher!’ (#29 September/October 1956) when the savvy simian sneaks into a symposium of savants disguised as human professor and wowing the assembled savants by tracking down quick-change disguise artist Larry the Lynx, after which a duel with a jewel thief and rendezvous with a robbing raven presents ‘A Jailbird for Bobo!’…

The special deputy met his match in a gang of boy do-gooders in ‘Clue of the Secret Seven!’ but even collaboratively collaring a brace of escaped convicts was no preparation for tackling the maritime ‘Mystery of the Talking Fish!’ (#32) after returning to diving to hunt for sunken treasure. When Bobo’s friend Alice Rogers – inheritor of the animal farm in the first adventure – needs a favour, the detective is more than happy to be companion to her new albino Guereza monkey. However, when it vanishes, Bobo attempts to impersonate a creature he has never seen, whilst seeking to find ‘The Mystery Monkey from Zanzibar!’ leads to the capture of its opportunistic abductors instead…

Infantino tested a range of stylistic innovations on Detective Chimp and excels in #34’s ‘The Case of the Chimpanzee’s Camera!’ when Bobo takes up photography and snaps a trio of paranoid thieves casing their next caper, whilst ‘Bobo’s New York Adventure!’ sees the little ape in the Big Apple, pinch-hitting for a monkey TV star and stumbling into Oscaloosa’s Most Wanted: murderous jewel thief “Dangerous Jack” Diamond…

Giella inks in #36 as ‘The Mystery of the Missing Missile!’ sees Bobo and Secret Seven pal Tommy Wheeler stymie thieves and test a new invention before the chimp takes a vacation in human guise and unearths ‘The Treasure of Thunder Island!’ In #38 he catches canny counterfeiters whilst accidentally debunking the theories of a scientist who believes he can make animals talk in ‘The Amazing Experiment of Professor Snodgrass!’

For the next case ‘Bobo Goes to Sheriff’s School!’ as Chase sends the assistant in his place to a detection and criminology seminar. It disturbs the chimp’s latest passion of collecting marbles but the substitution works out okay as the chimp outshines all human attendees and even catches a couple of robbers along the way, after which ‘Bobo the Baby Sitter!’ recovers escaped circus star Kangy (the Boxing ’Roo) and nabs a brace of thieving fugitives prior to becoming ‘Bobo – Sleuth on Skis!’ when freak weather turns Oscaloosa into a snowcapped winter playground for thieves…

Giella inks a road rage riot in #42 as hot-rod fanatic Bobo drives a kiddie stock car for the Secret Seven in a big meet, becoming ‘Demon of the Speedways!’ after his new invention allows him to pip all rivals at the post. This attracts the unwanted attention of a gang boss in need of  super-fast getaway car, but does not end well for him…

Keen on being a model citizen, Bobo resolves to ‘Stop That Litterbug!’ in #43, accidentally intercepting a scrap of paper worth millions to the desperate men who lost it, before Giella’s last inking hurrah confirms ‘Where There’s Smoke – There’s Bobo!’ as the ape’s drive to be a fireman almost costs him his real job – until he encounters crooks at a fire – after which a logical outcome of Bobo’s career comes to pass in penultimate episode ‘The Case of the Monkey Witness!’ Here the anthropoid must testify against crime boss Legs Dunne, with the mobster’s gang seeking to end him before the trial begins…

Bobo’s last case came in #46 as he joins a Little League team and becomes ‘The Chimp-Champ of Baseball!’ (September/October 1959), all while preventing a pair of crooks escaping custody.

And that was that…

To make room for resurgent superheroes, The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog folded with that issue and – other than an occasional reprint – Bobo vanished for years. The covers of most of those re-appearances are displayed at the back of this book and are listed there, but before that one last story falls under the aegis of this pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths collection.

DC Comics Presents had an occasional back-up series offering short tales of lost stars and in #35 (July 1981) Mike Tiefenbacher & Gil Kane (who had drawn the majority of exploits starring Bobo’s canine companion) revealed ‘Whatever Became of Rex the Wonder Dog?’ Here the canine marvel teamed with now-ancient and decrepit ape Bobo to solve one last mystery, inadvertently restoring themselves to youthful health and vitality for another round of action adventures…

The collection closes with gallery of images under the umbrella of ‘The Ape Files’ which include the 1969 cover to DC Special #1 (an “All-Infantino Issue”), those for Joe Kubert’s covers for Tarzan #231, 234, 235 (which carried Bobo reprints) and Amazing World of DC Comics #1: another Infantino mega montage. Brian Bolland’s preliminary pencil art for Helmet of Fate: Detective Chimp #1 is augmented by the finished full-colour piece before all the ape antics end with Infantino & Bill Wray’s page on Bobo from Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #6, a brief biography ‘About the Ape’ and similar treatment for creators Broome and Infantino.

In this century an ape solving crimes is less of a sure-fire winner – as many other hirsute DC gumshoes could attest – and Detective Chimp speaks many human tongues, consults with Batman and works with Shadowpact and for Justice League Dark: a far different beast operating on less charming levels. However, if you’re looking for daft laughs, sublime wit and astounding artwork, this is a book worth casing…
© 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1968, 1974, 1975, 1981, 1985, 2007, 2023 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Hawkman volume 2


By Gardner F. Fox & Murphy Anderson, Bob Haney, Dick Dillon, Arnold Drake, Raymond Marais, Robert Kanigher, Denny O’Neill, Johnny Craig, Chuck Cuidera, Gil Kane, Sid Greene, Joe Giella, Joe Kubert & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1817-1 (TPB)

After fighting long and hard to win his own title it was such a pity that time and fashion seemed to conspire against the Winged Wonder…

Katar Hol and his wife Shayera Thal were police officers on their own highly advanced planet of Thanagar. They originally travelled to Earth from the star system Polaris in pursuit of a shape-changing spree-thief named Byth but stayed to study Earth police methods in the cultural metropolis of Midway City. This all occurred in the wonderful ‘Creature of a Thousand Shapes’ in The Brave and the Bold #34 (cover-dated February/March 1961), but the public was initially resistant and it was three years and many further issues, guest-shots and even a back-up feature in Mystery in Space before the Winged Warriors finally won their own title.

Cover-dated April/May 1964, Hawkman #1 signalled the beginning of a superb run of witty, thrilling, imaginative and hugely entertaining science fiction, crime-mystery and superhero adventures that captivated the devoted but still painfully small audience. All those wonderful stories can be found in Showcase Presents Hawkman volume 1, and hopefully one day in proper full-colour archival editions both paper and pixel forms.

Until then there’s this second, concluding Showcase volume, reprinting in crisp efficient monochrome Hawkman (volume 1) #12-27, Brave and the Bold (volume 1) #70, The Atom (volume 1) #31 and avian portions of last-ditch combination-comic The Atom and Hawkman #39-45, spanning cover-dates February/March 1966 to November 1969.

All-out action and sci fi thrills and spills recommence with a large-scale cosmic epic that originally debuted in Hawkman #12. ‘The Million-Year-Long War!’ is pure Gardner Fox bravura storytelling, recounting how a Thanagarian exploration team awakens two aliens determined to kill each other even after eons of suspended animation. That reawakened enmity drove them both to possess all Thanagar, turning Hawkman’s homeworld into one huge weapon. As usual Fox’s imaginings are gloriously illustrated by Murphy Anderson (Superman, Atomic Knights, The Spectre, Captain Comet, Adam Strange, Korak, Son of Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, Buck Rogers) – as they would be until Julie Schwartz surrendered editorial control with issue #22.

Hawkman #13 offered startling time-bending saga ‘Quest of the Immortal Queen!’ wherein a Valkyrie from Earth’s far future opted to add the Winged Wonder to her seraglio of lusty warriors plucked from history. Happily, wife Shayera strenuously objects and is both smart and tough enough to sort things out. Fox’s treatment of female characters was highly unique for those pre-feminist times: all his heroines – a large number of them wives, not wishy-washy “girlfriends” – were capable, intelligent and most importantly, wholly independent and autonomous individuals.

Hawkgirl was written as every bit her husband’s equal. The Hawks had one of the most subtle and sophisticated relationships in the business. Like Sue and Ralph Dibney (Elongated Man & wife) Katar and Shayera were full partners (both couples clearly influenced by Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man movies) and the interplay between them was always rich in humour and warmth.

As a sign of the times, super-secret criminal conspirators C.A.W. (Criminal Alliance of the World) returned to seize control of the ‘Treasure of the Talking Head!’ This ancient computer was built before the birth of Christ and held all the world’s knowledge, and was a hard-won prize prior to the Pinioned Paladins facing a fantastic monster in ‘Scourge of the Human Race!’: an encounter revealing the true history of humanity when the last surviving specimen of Homo Sapiens’ earliest rival for mastery of the planet attempts to reverse evolution…

Hawkman #16’s ‘Lord of the Flying Gorillas!’ was a dimension-hopping sequel to issue #6 (‘World Where Evolution Ran Wild’): an incredible Lost Worlds romp combining secret history, fantastic fantasy and DC’s fabled fascination with apes and simians of every sort, whilst #17’s ‘Ruse of the Robbing Raven’ changed pace with a clever costumed crook caper. The issue also contained the first short back-up tale in over a year – another science-based whodunnit entitled ‘Enigma of the Escape-Happy Jewel Thieves!’

Hawkman then guest-starred – and clashed – with Batman in The Brave and the Bold #70 (February/March 1967). ‘Cancelled: 2 Super-Heroes’ was by Bob Haney, EC legend Johnny Craig & Charles “Chuck” Cuidera depicting the usually comradely crimebusters at each other’s throats due to the machinations of a manic millionaire who collected secret identities. Later that month in his own title the Winged Wonder teamed with Adam Strange against malevolent Manhawks to locate the ‘World That Vanished!’ The planet in question was Thanagar and when it went, it took beloved Shayera with it…

This colossal tale concluded in the next issue with the action-packed ‘Parasite Planet Peril!’ after which the Avian Ace joined his old ally in The Atom #31 for ‘Good Man, Bad Man, Turnabout Thief!’ (Fox, Gil Kane & Sid Greene) to battle a phantom super-criminal hidden within the brain of an innocent man. Katar Hol returned to home ground for Hawkman #20’s ‘Death of the Living Flame’: a classy anthropological tomb-raiding yarn and the introduction of a new and persistent foe in ‘Lion-Mane… the Tabu Menace!’

The alien-infected leonine marauder was back in the very next issue but ‘Attack of the Jungle Juggernaut!’– a typically classy thriller for Fox &Anderson – was their swan song. Admin trading saw them bowing out as Julius Schwartz moved to more important titles and – with #22 – George Kashdan took over Hawkman’s editorial reins. He tapped his go-to guys Haney, Dick Dillin & Cuidera to continue the adventures of the Winged Wonders in a market increasingly indifferent to costumed characters.

‘Quoth the Falcon… Hawkman Die!…’ certainly hit the ground running in a tale of extraterrestrial-induced paranoia and civil unrest, resulting in Hawkman revealing his secret identity and alien heritage to an increasingly hostile and intolerant Earth…

In #23 ‘The Hawkman from 1,000,000 B.C.!’ delivered another dark, moody tale wherein a mad scientist’s time-plundering ray inflicts dinosaurs, ancient warriors and an amnesiac Hawkman on the shell-shocked citizens of Midway City. Arnold Drake scripted alien invasion epic ‘The Robot-Raiders from Planet Midnight!’ and Haney resurfaced for ‘Return of the Death Goddess!’ offering Shayera Thal’s brief but ghastly possession by the ghost of the mythical Medusa…

The writing was on the wall by June-July 1968 and the prophetically entitled ‘Last Stand on Thanagar!’(#26  scripted by Raymond Marais), was a rushed inconsequential affair preceding final tale ‘…When the Snow-Fiend Strikes!’ which ended Hawkman’s solo career with a muddled tale of Communist agents and Yetis in the Himalayas.

The close of the 1960s were bad times for superheroes. Buying tastes had changed and a drop in comic sales and attendant rise of interest in supernatural themes prompted publishers to drop or amend much of the anti-horror provisions of the Comics Code Authority. Tales of mystery and imagination were returning after nearly a decade-and-a-half, but sales figures notwithstanding, Julie Schwartz had worked too hard to just let Hawkman die. Just as Marvel were converting their double-feature “split books” into solo titles, the Avian Ace was crammed into the equally-struggling Atom comic title for one last year of trying. Beginning with #39 (October/November 1968 and carrying on the numbering of the Tiny Titan’s title) The Atom and Hawkman featured some of Schwartz’s biggest creative guns, alternating short solo stories with shared adventures. The first of these was ‘Vengeance of the Silver Vulture!’: an epic clash against resurgent Mayan death-cultists written by Bob Kanigher, illustrated by Anderson & Joe Giella with cover art by Joe Kubert – who would also contribute interior art to the feature he struggled so long and hard to create.

Written by Fox, pencilled by Kubert and inked by Anderson, the Hawkman portion of #40 – ‘Man with the Inbuilt Panic Button!’ and its sequel ‘Yo-Yo Hangup in the Sky!’ from #41 – are one last splendid slice of the “Good Old Days”: an intriguing mystery about an ordinary man who suddenly develops the power of teleportation – but only from one life-threatening crisis to a greater one…

Denny O’Neil joined Dick Dillin & Sid Greene for ‘When the Gods Make Madness!’, a full-length team-up pitting heroes against Hindu gods, before Kanigher revived the Golden Age Hawkman’s greatest foe The Gentleman Ghost in 2-part saga ‘Come to my Hanging!’ and concluding clash ‘The Ghost Laughs Last’, both limned by Anderson.

The Atom and Hawkman #45 was the FINAL final issue: a revelatory psycho-drama by O’Neil, Dillin & Greene starring both heroes. It wrapped up their comic tenure and set them up with a prolonged series of further adventures to be seen in Justice League of America (a veritable lifeboat for cancelled costumed crime-fighters at that time) and later 1970s’ series like Secret Society of Super-Villains and Super Team Family.

‘Queen Jean, Why Must We Die?’ revealed the Atom’s fiancée Jean Loring was descended from aliens who had crashed on Earth in the Stone Age. Returned from sub-molecular exile, the modern-day survivors of the accident drove her insane because their hereditary rulers must be free of all care. The heroes rescue but not cure her, and this tale would provide the basis for Loring’s actions in later sagas Identity Crisis and Countdown to Final Crisis. Apart from the JLA, occasional guest-spots and back-up features in Action and Detective Comics that was it for the Winged Wonders until changing tastes and times gave them another, indeed many other, shots at the stars.

Hawkman briefly grew into one of the most iconic characters of the second superhero boom, not just for the superb art but also because of brilliant, subtle writing and incomparable imagination. These tales are comfortably familiar but grippingly timeless. Yet comics are a funny business; circumstances, tastes and fashions often mean that wonderful works are missed and unappreciated.

Don’t make the same mistake readers did in the 1960s. Together with its first volume this book captures and perfectly preserves the very essence of the Silver Age of Superheroes. Whatever your own vintage, read these astounding adventures and become a fan. It’s never too late.
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Fiery Arrow (Before Blake and Mortimer volume 2)


By Jean Van Hamme, Christian Cailleaux & Etienne Shréder after Edgar P. Jacobs: coloured by Bruno Tatti, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBNs: 978-1-80044-095-1 (album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect. If any use of such, slurs, epithets, terms or treatments offend you, you really should not be reading this book – or maybe you need it more than most.

Belgian Edgard Félix Pierre Jacobs (1904-1987) is rightly considered one of the founding fathers of the European comics industry. Although his output is relatively meagre when compared to some of his contemporaries, his iconic works formed the basis and backbone of the art form across post-war Europe and far beyond. As a world rebuilt, his splendidly adroit, roguish and impeccably British adventurers Blake and Mortimer – created for the first issue of Le Journal de Tintin in 1946 – became a staple of Continental kids’ life just as Dan Dare did in Britain starting four years later.

Jacobs was born in Brussels, a precocious child who began feverishly drawing from an early age but was even more obsessed with music and the performing arts – especially opera. He attended a commercial school but – having resolved never to work in an office – pursued art and drama following graduation in 1919. A succession of odd jobs at opera-houses (scene-painting, set decoration, acting, singing as an Extra) supplemented his private performance studies. In 1929, Jacobs won a Government award for classical singing, but his dream career as an opera singer was thwarted by the Great Depression, as the arts funding and performances nosedived following the stock market crash.

Picking up whatever stage work was to be had – including singing and performing – Jacobs finally switched streams to commercial illustration in 1940 and found regular employment at magazine Bravo. While illustrating short stories and novels, he famously took over the Flash Gordon syndicated strip after the German occupation authorities banned Alex Raymond’s All-American Hero, leaving the publishers desperately seeking someone to satisfactorily complete the saga.

Jacob’s Stormer Gordon lasted less than a month before being similarly sanctioned by the Nazis, after which Jacobs created his own epic science-fantasy feature – Le Rayon U: a weekly comics milestone in both Belgian comics and the greater annals of science fiction adventure. The Nazis may have banned the strikingly Aryan Flash Gordon but there was no denying public appetite for his kind of action, so Jacobs dipped deep from that established well of romanticism and fantasy as well as borrowing heavily from US movie serial chapterplays.

The U Ray was a huge hit in 1943 and scored big all over again a generation later when Jacobs reformatted the original and traditional “text-block & picture” material to incorporate speech balloons prior to re-running the entire adventure in Le Journal de Tintin in 1973. It was subsequently released as graphic albums beginning in 1974.

Whilst creating U Ray, one of Jacob’s many other jobs was scene-painting, and during the staging of a theatrical version of Tintin and the Cigars of the Pharaoh Hergé and Jacobs met and became friends. If the comics maestro was unaware of Jacob’s comics output before then, he was certainly made aware of it after.

Jacobs started working on Tintin, colouring originally monochrome strips of The Shooting Star from newspaper Le Soir for a forthcoming album collection. By 1944, he was performing similar service for Tintin in the Congo, Tintin in America, King Ottokar’s Sceptre and The Blue Lotus. He also contributed to the illustration of extended epic The Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners of the Sun. His love of opera made it into the feature as Hergé (who loathed it), teasingly created bombastic Bianca Castafiore as a comedy foil and basing bit players like Jacobini in The Calculus Affair on his long-suffering assistant.

After war and liberation, publisher Raymond Leblanc convinced Hergé, Jacobs and other creatives to work for his new venture. Launching publishing house Le Lombard, Leblanc also started Le Journal de Tintin: an anthology comic edited by Hergé with editions in Belgium, France and Holland starring the intrepid boy reporter plus a host of newer heroes.

Beside Hergé, Jacobs and writer Jacques van Melkebeke, the weekly featured Paul Cuvelier’s Corentin and Jacques Laudy’s The Legend of the Four Aymon Brothers. Laudy had been friends of Jacobs’ since working together on Bravo and was model for some of his characters.

Le secret de l’Espadon (which eventually ran from LJdT #1, 26th September 1946 to 8th September 1949) cemented Jacobs’ status as a star in his own right: offering peril, action and suspense in stunning thrillers blending science fiction, detective mysteries and supernatural mysteries in the universally engaging Ligne Claire style which had done so much to make intrepid boy reporter Tintin a global sensation.

In 1950, with the first 18 pages slightly redrawn, Le secret de l’espladon V1 (The Secret of the Swordfish) became Le Lombard’s first album release, with a concluding volume published three years later. These were reprinted nine more times between 1955 and 1982, with an additional single complete deluxe edition released in 1964. The epic romp featured a distinguished duo of Scientific Adventurers: a bluff, gruff Scots/British scientist and English Military Intelligence officer (closely modelled on his comics colleague Laudy): Professor Philip Mortimer and Captain Francis Blake. They and archfoe Olrik (based on Jacobs himself) were a thematic evolution of characters created for The U Ray…

After decades of old farts like me whining, the lost gem was finally released in English translation in 2023 and followed up at years end by sequel La Flèche Ardente. This latter came courtesy of Jean Van Hamme (Thorgal, XIII, Largo Winch, Blake & Mortimer) & Christian Cailleaux (Tchaï Masala, Gramercy Park, Le troisième thé, Blake & Mortimer), bolstered by colourist Étienne Shréder – and it was worth all that waiting…

Previously in another place and time, the nations of Norlandia and Austradia were at war. The former’s chief scientist Professor Marduk had devised an ultimate weapon capable of ending the conflict but lacked a fuel source to power his “U ray”. He believed mystery element “Uradium” could be found on an unexplored lost continent and headed an expedition to locate and secure samples of the miracle ore.

His prototypical party included assistant Sylvia Hollis, heroic Major Walton and Lord John Calder, Captain Dagon, Sergeant MacDuff and “Asiatic” manservant Adji, spearheading a sturdy crew of true-blue stalwarts. However, their desperate mission to the Black Isles Archipelago was doomed from the start thanks to a spy planted in their ranks…

After many fraught moments and sabotage attempts, the expedition broached the forbidding jungles of a lost world teeming with uncanny primal beasts and savage humanoids, but misfortune, deadly natural hazards and an Austradian assault force reaped a heavy harvest of tragedy as the explorers trekked inland to where Marduk’s researches indicated uradium would be found. Thankfully, Walton was a steadfast counter to danger of every description…

After heartbreaking effort the survivors found a lost civilisation, befriending Prince Nazca and Princess Ica of The Underground City. These highly evolved beneficiaries allowed them samples of magic mineral but then refused to let their “guests” leave… until Walton, the lost world’s overwhelming threats, dire circumstance and the hidden traitor jointly triggered a spectacular reversal of fortune, a lucky escape and ultimate triumph for Norlandia…

Eight decades later the saga resumes with the triumphant survivors and refugee Princess Ica recuperating in their embattled but still free homeland. As Calder romances Sylvia, and learns how her geologist father Kellart Hollis was lost discovering uradium, her boss Marduk finally unlocks its secrets.

In the enemy camp, vile tyrant Emperor Babylos moves to end the current impasse by conquering the lost continent. He is resolved to prevent Norlandia exploiting uradium, even if he has no idea what the element actually does. Despicable Captain Dagon renews his own efforts to destroy the enemies of Austradia after being rescued from a nightmare of primaeval peril by brutal General Robioff when Austradian forces occupy the Black Isles.

Their ultra-modern military ruthlessly ravages the primordial preserve, with monster-animals, beast-men and primitive humans alike falling to lethal ordnance indiscriminately applied. The callous blitzkrieg even precipitates the fall of the hidden city and merciless torture of Prince Nazca for information on the U-force…

The devout ruler and his people worship supreme deity Puncha Taloc and regard “The Stone of Life and Death” as his sacred gift, and Nazca valiantly resists every cruel effort to extract information. All around him his people and world are dying and his strength cannot long resist more torture…

In Norlandia, Adji also warns against exploiting uradium, crying sacrilege and worse, blithely unaware of the terrible fate of the Black Isles. When Marduk reveals a weapon to harness the incredible energies of uradium, the devastating energy of his “ultraphonic” ray rifle horrifies and outrages all who see it demonstrated. Tragically, the secret of his “Fiery Arrow” is already compromised as another traitor seeks to pass it on to Dagon…

Thankfully, Walton and MacDuff are on hand to foil the handover if not capture their slippery foe, and soon after Princess Ica begins playing a role in the heroes’ counterattack…

In the subjugated Underground City, Nazca is saved by a cloaked figure from the past, just as the Black Isles explode in a furious detonation even the civilised, rationalist citizens of Norlandia wonder might be the outraged retribution of Puncha Taloc…

In the aftermath, Austradian dreams are shattered. The story of an earlier mighty race and culture emerges, and the miraculous survival of friends thought lost forever sweetens the victory of the heroes and fall of Emperor Babylos: especially for Sylvia and the man she has secretly loved but never thought she could ever have…

Replete with Old World fun and thrills that cannot be denied or ignored, this album also offers tantalising teasers for the original auteur’s brand and classics: specifically The Time Trap, Professor Sato’s Three Formulae and S.O.S. Meteors plus a bibliography & publishing timeline,  should further inducements be needed to catch your eye.

Deceptively simplistic, effortlessly engaging and cunningly customised to merge retro futurist tastes with modern sensibilities, The Fiery Arrow is pure escapist joy to behold, and a book no serious fantasy nostalgic can afford to miss.
Original edition © Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud-Lombard S.A.) 2023. All rights reserved. English translation © 2023 Cinebook Ltd.

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Tarzan and the Adventurers (Complete Burne Hogarth Comic Strip Library volume 5)


By Burne Hogarth & Rob Thompson with James Freeman, Dan Barry, Nick Cardy, Bob Lubbers & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78565-380-3 (landscape album HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

The 1930 and 1940s were decades of astounding pictorial periodical adventure. In the age before mass television, newspaper strips (and their bastard spawn comic books) were the only form of visually-based home entertainment for millions of citizens young and old, consequently shaping the culture of many nations. Relatively few strips attained nigh-universal approval and acclaim. The Gumps, Little Orphan Annie, Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, Terry and the Pirates and Prince Valiant were in that rarefied pantheon but arguably the most famous was Tarzan.

Evolving from mock melodrama comedic features like Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs or Carl Ed’s Harold Teen, the full-blown dramatic adventure serial truly started on January 7th 1929 with Buck Rogers and Tarzan debuting that day. Both were skilful adaptations of pre-existing prose properties and their influence changed the shape of the medium forever. The following years saw an explosion of similar fare, launched with astounding rapidity to huge success. Not only strips, but also actual fictive genres were born in that decade, still impacting today’s comic books and all our popular entertainment forms.

In terms of art quality, adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ immensely successful novels starring jungle-bred John Clayton, Lord Greystoke by Canadian commercial artist Harold “Hal” Foster were unsurpassed. The strip soon became beloved by the masses, supplementing and nurtured by the movies, books, radio show and ubiquitous advertising appearances.

As detailed in previous volumes of this sublime oversized (330 x 254 mm), monochrome/full -colour hardback series, Foster initially quit at the end of a 10-week adaptation of first novel Tarzan of the Apes. He was replaced by Rex Maxon, but at the insistent urging of author Burroughs, returned when the black-&-white daily expanded to include a lush, full colour Sunday page offering original adventures. Maxon was left to capably handle the weekday book adaptations, as Foster crafted the epic and lavish Sunday page until 1936: 233 consecutive weeks. He then left again for good: moving to King Features Syndicate and his own landmark weekend masterpiece Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur which debuted in February 1937. Once the 4-month backlog of material he had built up was gone, Foster was succeeded by a precociously brilliant 25-year old neophyte.

Burne Hogarth was a passionate graphic visionary whose superb anatomical skill, cinematic design flair and compelling page composition revolutionised action/adventure narrative illustration. His galvanic dynamism of idealised human figures and animals can still be seen in today’s comic books: all that impossibly body-positive perfection in motion can be directly attributed to Hogarth’s pioneering drawing and, in later years, educational efforts. Burroughs was a big fan and cannily used the increasingly popular comic strip to cross-market his own prose efforts with great effect.

This fabulous fifth & final tome encompasses Sunday pages from October 1949 to September 1950 and the equivalent Daily strips (September 1947 through September 1950), with Hogarth gradually easing out of the now-onerous job and employing a legion of gifted ghosts to fulfil his obligations. During this period, commercially-led format changes reduced the size and changed the shape of the Sunday strip from tabloid to landscape framing, but the contents suffered no loss of wonder, action or drama. The transition and repercussions are discussed with some academic frontloading and fitting further explanation in the form of extended essay ‘Transforming Tarzan’s Jungle’ by Henry G. Franke III. Fully briefed for our trek, we resume the fun with ‘Tarzan and the Adventurers’: Sunday pages #973 – 1010 as seen spanning October 30th 1949 to July 16th 1950. The saga was crafted by Hogarth, writer Rob Thompson and latterly James Freeman – who was forced upon Hogarth after the syndicate fired his preferred collaborator. It sees the Ape-Man visiting old ally Masai chief N’Kola just as white explorers Baker and Cleveland arrive, seeking the tribes’ help in locating a medicinal herb which might be a malaria cure.

In truth, the scurrilous duo are hunting lost treasure sunk in kingdom-demarcating Lake Dagomba, and need help in convincing Dagomba headman Mabuli to allow them access. This chief hates Tarzan but the impasse is ended when wicked witch doctor Chaka strikes a sinister side deal that triggers valiant efforts and vile betrayal, double cross, murder and bloody civil warfare incorporating spectacular chases, fantastic duels with beasts, mortals and the very landscape, captivating readers for months until the saga ended with explosive irony and tons of TNT…

The end was near for Hogarth and the Jungle Lord, and the Sunday association closed in a short serial finished by a comic book artist slowly making strips his career. Born in 1922, Robert Bartow “Bob” Lubbers drew a host of features before WWII, but other than The Vigilante and The Human Fly after hostilities ceased, mostly settled on newspaper stars like The Saint, Big Ben Bolt, Li’l Abner, Secret Agent X-9 and his own creations Long Sam and Robin Malone. That all occurred after a stellar run assisting/replacing Hogarth.

Ostensibly crafted by – and still signed “Hogarth”, ‘Tarzan and the Wild Game Hunters’ (#1011-1019: July 23rd to September 17th 1950) saw the vine-voyaging valiant aid cowboy-turned safari man Russ Rawson in capturing a rhino and gorilla for Winchester Zoo… but only after determining that Africa would be a far better place without these pair of particularly perilous rogue beasts…

Before switching to moody monochrome and standard single tier-per-diem layouts for the dailies section, Franke III explores ‘The Daily Grind’ in another erudite prose prologue preceding the accumulated serial sequences: providing context and background on writer Thompson and artistic aids/replacements Dan Barry, Nick Cardy & Lubbers, with John Lehti and Paul Reinman also getting a worthy mention.

Monday to Saturday storylines were relentless and tough to get right. No matter how good you are, there’s only so much progress to be made in 3-4 panels at a time, and savvy creators usually combined classic themes with familiar material whenever they could. Here that notion resulted in a (very) broad adaptation/reinterpretation of ERB’s prose pulp serial Tarzan at the Earth’s Core, which had been first serialised between September 1929 and March 1930 ,before becoming the 13th canonical novel in 1932. The strips comprising ‘Tarzan at the Earth’s Core’ (#2509 to 2616, September 1st 1947 through January 3rd 1948) were supervised by Hogarth & Thompson but limned primarily by Dan Barry (1911-1997).

He also began as a jobbing comic book guy. Like his own brother Seymour “Sy” Barry – who produced The Phantom newspaper strip for three decades – Dan worked in a finely-detailed, broadly realistic style, blending aesthetic sensibility with straightforward visual clarity and firm, almost burly virile toughness: a gritty “He-man” attitude for a new era, contemporarily christened “New York Slick”.

He drew masked hero fare like Airboy, Skywolf, Boy King, Black Owl, Spy Smasher, Doc Savage and more before joining the US Air Force and, on returning after the hostilities, drew monster hero The Heap and sundry genre shorts for titles like Crimebusters whilst running his own outfit producing educational/informational comics. Dan began his  gradual withdrawal from funnybooks as early as 1947, joining Hogarth’s studio and assuming art chores on the Tarzan daily for a year, whilst still gracing DC’s crime, mystery and science fiction anthologies until as late as 1954. He was offered Flash Gordon and quickly accepted, but that’s the stuff of another review…

In deepest, darkest Africa, the Jungle Lord is tracked down by explorer Jason Gridley who has been in contact with a man named David Innes, and resolved to save that lost soul. Innes is an adventurer who joined Professor Abner Perry in a giant drilling vehicle that took them deep inside the Earth. They are now trapped in an incredible antediluvian realm more than 500 miles below the world’s crust: a land of beast men, lost empires, dinosaurs and even more incredible things…

Tarzan is largely a spectator for this sequence as ERB’s prose adventures in Pellucidar are updated and recounted for readers before Lord Greystoke joins the rescue party using another mole machine – built by boffin Dr. Dana Franklin – to reach the exotic underworld. Adding romantic interest is Franklin’s glamourous daughter/assistant Doris as they voyage deep into a myriad of incredible adventures.

As well as saving Innes and Perry and reuniting the former with his own true love Dian the Beautiful, the newcomers face sentient pterodactyl tyrants (Thipdars if you’re au fait with the books), clash with cavemen and ape beasts (Sagoths), fight a macabre menagerie of long-extinct monsters, war with lizard warriors (Horibs) and get utterly lost and reunited in a land where time does not pass and night never comes…

The series is a paean to primitivism and is a boost to all those besotted with wild kingdoms. There are even pulchritudinous primeval pairings… Gridley to cavegirl princess Jana and Doris with Clovian cave chief Ulan…

The drama is divided into individual overlapping adventures until all the players eventually reunite for a big, big finale. With the aforementioned ghost artists deployed to augment Barry & Thompson, the saga concludes with episodes #2617-2640 of ‘Tarzan at the Earth’s Core’ (January 5th – 31st January 1948) as all the plot threads cleave together and those who want to return to the surface do so…

Although he was still involved in a mostly administrative capacity, Hogarth’s signature had been missing for some time when ‘Tarzan and Hard-Luck Harrigan’ #3361-3414: 22nd May – 22nd July 1950) began. The strip sported the name of new illustrator Nick Cardy; AKA strip veteran Nicolas Viscardi, who had drawn Lady Luck and other features for Will Eisner, and post-war became a DC mainstay on Gang Busters, Congo Bill, Aquaman, Teen Titans, Bat Lash, Batman/The Brave and the Bold and so much more. The tale itself was lighter fare with humorous overtones as Greystoke encountered a decrepit and devious old western prospector/snake oil peddler who had foolishly hitched his wagon to an African adventure… The affable scoundrel initially tried to capture Tarzan’s monkey pals before attempting to catch and sell the Ape-man himself before learning the error of his ways…

Sadly, old habits died hard. When the odd companions encountered desert raider El Mahmud dying of wounds, they were forced by the bandit’s devoted lieutenant Rambul to “cure” him with Harrigan’s bottled nostrum. That’s when the literal gold-digger spots the treasure the raiders possess and reverts to type, determined to enjoy one last lucky strike, no matter who he must betray…

Again demarcated by an artist change, ‘Tarzan and Hard-Luck Harrigan’ concluded with episodes #3415-3420 (24th – 29th July 1950) signifying the beginning of Lubbers 3½ year tenure, with a rowdily raucous big battle and the old coot’s redemption before moving briefly on to final inclusion ‘Attack of the Apes’ (#3421-3462: 31st July – 16th September 1950) with Lubbers benefitting from Hogarth’s last moments of oversight in a spooky yarn where a renegade troop of Great Apes (the fictious subspecies that reared Tarzan) begin attacking native villages…

After investigating in the primal manner of the lord of the forests, Tarzan gains a new anthropoid assistant in brutal Bay-At, learns who, why and what the true culprits are and renders his own judgement…

And that was that for Hogarth’s Tarzan until a flurry of new material appeared as graphic novel prototypes in the 1970s, which helped usher in a more mature view of the comics medium itself.

Tarzan is a fictive figure who has attained immortal reality in a number of different creative arenas, but none offer the breathtaking visceral immediacy of Burne Hogarth’s comic strips. These vivid visual masterworks are all coiled-spring tension or vital, violent explosive motion: stretching, running, fighting, surging rushes of power and glory where even backgrounds and landscapes achieve a degree of dramatic interactive expressionism. It’s a dream come true that these majestic exploits are available in full for ours and future generations of dedicated fantasists to enjoy.
Trademarks Tarzan® and Edgar Rice Burroughs® owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. and Used by Permission. Copyright © 2018 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Tiny Titans volume 2: Adventures in Awesomeness


By Art Baltazar & Franco & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2328-1 (TPB/digital edition)

Links between animated features and comic books are long established and, for younger consumers, indistinguishable. Honestly, it’s all just entertainment in the end…

For quite some time at the beginning of this century, DC’s Cartoon Network imprint was arguably the last bastion of children’s comics in America and worked to consolidate that link between television and printed fun and thrills with stunning interpretations of such small screen landmarks as Ben 10, Scooby Doo, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory and many more screen gems.

The kids’ comics line also generated truly exceptional material based on TV iterations of the publisher’s proprietary characters – such as Legion of Super Heroes, Batman: Brave and the Bold and Krypto the Super Dog as well as material like Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! which was merely similar in tone and content. For many (mostly adults) the line’s finest release was a series ostensibly aimed at early-readers but which quickly became a firm favourite of older fans and a multi-award winner too.

Superbly mirroring the magical wonderland inside a child’s head where everything is joyfully all smooshed up together, Tiny Titans became a sublime antidote to continuity cops and slavish fan-boy quibbling (all together now: “… erm, uh… I think you’ll find that in…”) by reducing the vast cast of the Teen Titans Go! animated series, the far greater boutique supplied by mainstream comics – and eventually the entire DC Universe continuity – to little kids and their parents/guardians in a wholesome kindergarten environment.

It’s a scenario spring-loaded with multilayered in-jokes, sight-gags and the beloved yet gently mocked trappings and paraphernalia generations of strip readers and screen-watchers can never forget… and all located in the utopian Sidekick City Elementary School. Art Baltazar and co-creator Franco (Aureliani) mastered a witty, bemusingly gentle manner of storytelling that just happily rolls along, with assorted (sort-of familiar) characters getting by, trying to make sense of the great big world. The method generally involves stringing together smaller incidents and moments into an overall themed portmanteau tale and it works astoundingly well.

After handy and as-standard identifying roll-call pages ‘Meet the… Tiny Titans’ and a poster page cover of ‘Titans in Space’, the pint-sized tomfoolery opens with ‘Ya Think?’ as transparent-headed Psimon deliberates over his checkers game with similarly glass-fronted The Brain… until Kid Flash and Wonder Girl start heckling…

Meanwhile, at school, Starfire gets a text from her dad telling her to come home. Of course, she invites all her friends and two-and-a-half days later the entire class is wandering around alien planet Tameran…

Once they get back Robin convenes a meeting of his new avian themed ‘Bird Scouts’, only to find his alternate identities causing a little contention and confusion…

The issue ends with a Franco Tiny Titans pinup preceded by a return confrontation between Psimon and his hecklers in ‘To Get to the Other Side’. Sadly, once again his tormentors get the last word…

‘Report Card Pickup!’ finds adult Justice Leaguers confronting Principal Slade (AKA Deathstroke) and substitute teacher Mr. Trigon over the grades of the little folk whilst introducing a new intake from Sidekick City Preschool – ominously dubbed the Tiny Terror Titans…

Starfire gives Blue Beetle an unwanted makeover in ‘Happy Feeling Blue’ whilst Robin, Batgirl and Ace the Bat-hound get invitations to BB’s birthday party in ‘Joke’s on You’.

Elsewhere, the other Wonder Girl (the series played extremely fast-&-loose with continuity so suck it up if you’re expecting serious logic, ok?) and tiny winged Bumblebee indulge their ‘Book Smarts’ until Beast Boy shows up. Meanwhile under the sea, Aqualad chairs a meeting of ‘Pet Club, Atlantis’ until Raven and The Ant spoil things by breaking the first rule…

Concluding with a Puzzler page and a bonus pinup, #8 gives way to a 9th issue and inescapable predicament as the kids go ape because of ‘Monkey Magic’…

When Beppo the Super-Chimp gets hold of a magic wand at Robin’s Comic Book Party, the attendees are soon reduced to hirsute ancestral forms. Thankfully Batgirl & Bumblebee are meeting with the size-shifting Atom family (The Atom, Mrs. Atom, Crumb, Dot, baby Smidgen and little dog Spot) and initially missing the ensuing chaos.

Bad boys of the Brotherhood of Evil aren’t so lucky when Beppo flies over and suddenly Brain and Psimon are as simian and banana-dependent as their talking-gorilla comrade M’sieu Mallah and before long Starfire and Batgirl also get monkey-zapped…

Resolute, bureaucratic Robin then institutes the first meeting of ‘The Titan Apes’ but that only provokes the pesky Super-Chimp to really see what his wand can do and even after Raven’s magic sorts everything out, Beppo rises to the challenge…

Closing with another Tiny Titans Puzzler Page and pinup of the diminutive ‘Atom’s Family’ the animal antics carry over into the next month as ‘World’s Funnest!’ sees Supergirl entertaining Batgirl at ‘Tea Time’. Tragically, the Girl of Steel has forgotten to feed pet cat Streaky and her guest has been equally derelict in her duties to Ace, forcing the power pets to seek redress as the little ladies set out on a global jaunt, meeting annoying monsters Kroc and Bizarro…

A Tiny Titans Word Link Puzzler and Bonus Pinup of the eventually-reconciled stars wraps up the issue before the penultimate outing reveals romantically declined Beast Boy in the throes of ‘Terra Trouble’. The green Romeo’s intended inamorata is a feisty lass with refined tastes and in ‘Counting on Love Rocks!’ she shows him the depth and density of her disaffection, after which Robin greets visiting Russian student Starfire and gets wrapped up in a tempestuous ‘Name Exchange’ dilemma.

Terra meanwhile is not fooled by a viridian ‘Rock Dog’ and Beast Boy ends up with more bruises. Wiser, younger heads (mask, helmets, etc) just go to a carnival and leave them to it, with the lovesick loser escalating his campaign with a little ‘Rock Show’ whereas Aqualad and scary blob Plasmus attend a monster movie ‘Double Feature’…

Agonisingly undaunted, Beast Boy decides on a costume makeover and new origin. Dressed like Superman he builds a ‘Rocket Box’ but yet again fails to kindle a spark…

Silent mirth then illuminates ‘Tiny Titans Presents… The Kroc Files: Changing a Lightbulb’ before another TT Puzzler and ‘Super Bonus Pin-Up! of Alfred and the Penguins’ escort us smartly to the final outing in this smart and sassy tome.

‘Faces of Mischief’ focuses on the school staff as ‘Morning with the Trigons’ finds the substitute teacher and demonic overlord called in on short notice. It’s ‘Monday Morning’ and as the Principal and Trigon goof off to a baseball game, Slade leaves cafeteria server Darkseid in charge. This is the chance the Apokolyptian Lord of Destruction has been waiting for…

With the adult slackers listening to ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’, the kids are forced to endure exams and their ‘Finals Crisis’ seems eternal. After apparent ages, Robin needs a ‘Hall Pass’ but is soon accosted by not just the official Monitor but also the diabolical Anti-Monitor (trust me, if you’re wedded to DC Lore, this is comedy gold: for the rest of you, it’s still hilariously drawn…)

Finally, the dread day ends for the kids, but as Raven heads home with Slade’s kids Rose and Jericho, she hears something that could ruin her life and takes drastic steps to ensure ‘Our Little Secret’ just as their dads concoct a sinister do-over for the following week…

Bringing the graphic glee to a halt is a silent ‘Kroc Files: Sending an E-Mail’, a TT Baseball Unscramble Puzzler and a pin-up of the entire nefarious ‘Sidekick City Elementary Faculty’.

Despite being aimed at super-juniors and TV kids, these wonderful, wacky yarns – which marvellously marry the heart and spirit of such classic strips as Peanuts and The Perishers with something uniquely mired and marinated in unadulterated nerdish comic bookery – are unforgettable gags and japes no self-respecting fun-fan should miss: accessible, entertaining, and wickedly intoxicating to readers of any age and temperament. What more do you need to know?
© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.