Category: Apes & Monkeys!

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DC Finest: Superman Family – The Giant Turtle Man


By Jerry Siegel, Otto Binder, Robert Bernstein, Jerry Coleman, Leo Dorfman, Curt Swan, Jim Mooney, Kurt Schaffenberger, George Papp, Al Plastino, John Forte, Sheldon Moldoff, Stan Kaye & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79950-110-7 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

On April 18th 1938 when the Man of Tomorrow debuted in Action Comics #1, he was instantly the centre of attention. However, even then the need for a solid supporting cast was apparent and cleverly catered for. Glamorous daredevil reporter Lois Lane premiered right beside Clark Kent and was his constant companion and foil from the outset. Although unnamed, a plucky red-headed, freckled kid started working alongside Lois & Clark from issue #6 (November 1938) onwards.

His first name was disclosed in Superman #13 (November-December 1941), having already been revealed as Jimmy Olsen to radio fans as he was a major player in The Adventures of Superman show from its debut on April 15th 1940. As someone the same age as the target audience: on hand for the hero to explain stuff to (all for the listener’s benefit), Jimmy was the closest thing to a sidekick the Action Ace ever needed. He’s remained a sporadic yet amazingly popular one ever since.

When the similarly titled TV show launched in the autumn of 1952, it was again an overnight sensation and National Periodical Publications began cautiously expanding their revitalised franchise with new characters and titles. First to get a promotion to solo-star status was the Daily Planet’s impetuously capable if occasionally conveniently naive “cub reporter”. His addictively charming, light-hearted escapades began in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #1 (September/October 1954): only one of many spin-off stars in the Caped Kryptonian’s ever-expanding entourage.

Nevertheless, despite characters burgeoning on the pages of Superman’s titles it took three years for cautious Editors to tentatively extend the franchise again. In 1957, just as the Silver Age of Comics was getting underway, try-out title Showcase – which had already launched The Flash in #4 and Challengers of the Unknown in #6 – followed up with two issues entitled Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane (#9 & 10). Also conveniently naïve when a story demanded it, the “plucky News-hen” was awarded a series of her own. Technically it was her second, since in the 1940s she had commanded a regular solo-spot in Superman.

In previous reviews I’ve banged on about the patronising, parochial – and to at least some of us – potentially offensive portrayals of kids and most especially women during this period, and although some fairer, more affirmative instances were starting to appear, those warnings still bear repeating. Read with eyes open and social conscience primed please…

At that time, hers was one of precious few titles with a female lead, and, in the context of today, one that causes many 21st century fans understandable qualms of conscience. Within the confines of her series the valiant, capable and determined working woman careered crazily from man-hungry, unscrupulous paranoid bitch through ditzy simpleton to indomitable and brilliant troubleshooter – often all in the same issue. The comic book was clearly intended to appeal to the family demographic that made I Love Lucy a national phenomenon, and many stories were played for laughs in the same patriarchal, parochial manner: a “gosh, aren’t ladies funny?” tone that appals me today – but not as much as the fact that I still love them to bits.

That they’re mostly sublimely illustrated by the wonderfully whimsical Kurt Schaffenberger softens the repeated blows, but really, at my age I should know better…

For the close Superman Family and extended cast the tone of the times dictated a highly strictured code of conduct and parameters: Daily Planet Editor Perry White was a stern, shouty, elder statesman with a heart of gold, Cub Reporter Jimmy was a brave, impulsive, unseasoned fool – with a heart of gold – and Lois was brash, impetuous, unscrupulous and nosy, obsessed with marrying Superman, despite being – deep down – another possessor of an auric aorta. There were also more people with blue or green skin than brown or other human shades, but as I’m trying to plug this book’s virtues I’m just shutting up now.

While I’m at it though, this stunning compilation is another DC Finest editions: full colour extensions of their monochrome Showcase Presents line, delivering “affordably priced, large-size (comic book dimensions generally around 600 pages) paperback collections” highlighting past glories. Sadly, as yet they’re unavailable digitally but we live in hope…

Somehow, even with such byzantine editorial mandates in place the talented writers and artists assigned to detail these wholesomely uncanny exploits crafted tales both beguiling and breathtakingly memorable… and usually as funny as they were thrilling.

By today’s standards, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen wasn’t quite as contentious, but still far too often stories meant to amuse portrayed the bright, bold boy in demeaning if not downright cruel situations and experiencing humiliating physical transformations. Even so, a winning blend of slapstick adventure, action, fantasy and science fiction (in the gentle, insidiously charming manner scripter Otto Binder had perfected 15 years previously at Fawcett Comics on Captain Marvel) made the series one of the most popular of the era. Again, originally most yarns were played for laughs in a father-knows-best manner and tone which can again appal me today, even though I still count them amongst some of my very favourite comics. Confusing, ain’t it?

This cinematically timely, intriguingly chronologically comprehensive compendium collects exploits starring the Man of Steel’s mates and kin (and pets) as first seen in Action Comics #266, 277 & 278, Adventure Comics #287, Superman #142,143 & 147, Superboy #87, 90 & 92, Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #19-28, and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #47-56, cumulatively spanning July 1960 to October 1961: a period of infinite wackiness and outrageous absurdity, but heralding the inevitable dawning of a more serious milieu for the Action Ace and those close to him.

This particular series of ethical conundrums commence with ‘The World’s Mightiest Cat!’ by Jerry Siegel & Jim Mooney, as the Supergirl story in back of Action Comics #266 finds her secret identity of foundling Linda Lee endangered by a fellow orphan at Midvale Orphanage who thinks her ginger cat Streaky has super powers…

Our perpetual lady-in-waiting follows in 3 yarns limned by Schaffenberger as Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #19 (August 1960) opens with Robert Bernstein’s ‘The Day Lois Lane Forgot Superman!’ Here, devoted sister Lucy convinces her perennially heartbroken elder sibling to try hypnosis and get past her destructive obsession. Sadly, when it works, Lois finds time to pester Clark so much he has no time to save the world…

When an accident seemingly catapults Lois into history she becomes enamoured of Samson, a hero with a secret identity and ‘The Superman of the Past!’ This quirky yarn by Binder segues into a new occasional series from Siegel & Schaffenberger. ‘Mr. and Mrs. Clark (Superman) Kent!’ was the first of a poignant tragi-comedy feature depicting the laughter and tears that might result if Lois secretly married the Man of Steel. Although seemingly having achieved her heart’s desire, she is officially only married to dull, safe Clark, and must keep her relationship with Superman secret: unable to brag or show pride and forced to swallow the rage she feels whenever another woman throws herself at the still eligible bachelor hero…

For an artefact of an era uncomfortably dismissive of women, there’s actually genuine heart and understanding in this tale, and a minimum of snide sniping about “silly, empty-headed girls”. Perhaps it was the influence of the tailored-for-adults Superman newspaper strip Siegel was simultaneously scripting leaking into the funnybook line….

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #47 sees Jimmy in over his head, impersonating escaped convict Winky McCoy and trapped as ‘The King of Crime!’ in a cracking thriller by Bernstein, Curt Swan & John Forte, before the impatiently underage lad transforms into a husky 30-something thanks to another Professor Phineas Potter potion in ‘Jimmy Grows Up!’  Here Binder sagely proves maturity isn’t everything, before Siegel wraps up the issue with a rousing romp as alien producers who previously made horror movies starring Superman & Jimmy return to Earth seeking sequels. It soon transpires that the robot reporter they use to replace Jimmy doesn’t like the prospect of being junked at shooting’s end, and tries to do away with the original in ‘The Monsters from Earth!’…

SGLL #20 (October 1960) opens whimsically with ‘Superman’s Flight from Lois Lane’ (Siegel & Schaffenberger), as the Man of Steel escapes into his own past to see if a different life-path might result in a civilian existence unencumbered by “nosy snooping females”. Disc jockey Clark soon learns his inquisitive assistant Liza Landis makes Lois look positively disinterested and gladly ends the experiment, after which ‘The Luckiest Girl in Metropolis!’ (Bernstein & Al Plastino) finds Lois targeted by a Machiavellian mobster seeking to destroy her credibility as a witness, prior to Siegel & Schaffenberger revisiting the Imaginary Mr. & Mrs. scenario with ‘Lois Lane’s Super-Daughter!’ wherein attempts to adopt Linda Lee lead to heartbreak and disaster…

That same month in all-Swan & Forte Jimmy Olsen #48, anonymously scripted ‘The Story of Camp Superman!’ presents heartwarming mystery as the cub works as counsellor to troubled kids – one of whom knows entirely too much about Superman – whilst ‘The Disguises of Danger!’ revisits undercover Jimmy’s acting gifts to get close to a cunning crook. Binder’s ‘The Mystery of the Tiny Supermen!’ sees the Kryptonian Bottled City Kandor’s miniscule Superman Emergency Squad harass Olsen in a devious ploy to prevent his accidentally exposing the Man of Steel’s civilian identity…

All-Schaffenberger Lois Lane #21 delivers a double length epic by author unknown wherein the Anti-Superman Gang utilise explosive toys to endanger the pesky reporter in ‘The Lois Lane Doll!’ It compels the Action Ace to hide her in his Fortress of Solitude, but even that proves insufficient and she finds refuge – and unlikely romance – ‘Trapped in Kandor!’ Siegel then pens a classic yarn of bitter rivalry as the two women most dear to Superman gain incredible abilities and duke it out like men in ‘The Battle Between Super-Lois and Super-Lana!’

SPJO #49 leads with ‘Jimmy’s Gorilla Identity!’ as the luckless lad meets DC stalwart Congo Bill and gets his personality trapped in the hunter’s occasional alter ego – giant golden ape Congorilla. Next, Prof. Potter is blamed for – but entirely innocent of – turning the kid into ‘The Fat Boy of Metropolis!’ in a daft but clever crime caper, prior to Siegel playing with contemporary trends as Jimmy impersonates a rock ‘n’ roll star to impress Lucy Lane in ‘Alias, Chip O’Doole!’…

In Superman #142 (January 1961), Schaffenberger limns Binder’s ‘Lois Lane’s Secret Helper!’ wherein faithful super dog Krypto cunningly plays matchmaker to secure a comfy future for himself, before SGLL #22 – another all Schaffenberger affair – starts with a Red Kryptonite experiment afflicting the Metropolis Marvel with a compulsion to repeatedly pop the question to dubious and suspicious Lois in Siegel’s ‘The Day When Superman Proposed!’

Bernstein’s ‘Lois Lane’s X-Ray Vision!’ sees irradiated sunglasses create a tidal wave of problems for Superman, before making her the ‘Sweetheart of Robin Hood!’ in another time-shift dream seeing the reporter courted by a very familiar-seeming Defender of Truth, Justice and the Nottinghamshire Way…

In SPJO #50, Siegel, Swan & Sheldon Moldoff’s ‘The Lord of Olsen Castle!’ sees Jimmy as potential heir to a Swedish castle and title. All he must do is accomplish a slew of fantastic feats and defeat an ogre, utterly unaware Superman and a host of Kryptonians are secretly pitching in. ‘The Weirdest Asteroid in Space’ (Binder, Swan & Moldoff) then offers a bold monster mystery before another Potter experiment shifts all Superman’s might into his teen pal in ‘The Super-Life of Jimmy Olsen!’ (by an unknown author and illustrated by Plastino).

Superman #143 (February 1961 by Siegel & Forte) celebrates ‘Lois Lane’s Lucky Day!’ as the courageous reporter busts up a crooked carnival with some unsuspected Kryptonian help, before Lois Lane #23 opens with Binder & Schaffenberger’s riotous romp ‘The 10 Feats of Elastic Lass!’  Here our impetuous journalist borrows Jimmy’s stretching serum to track down mad bomber The Wrecker, before debunking ‘The Curse of Lena Thorul!’ (Siegel): exposing a bewitching beauty’s incredible connection to Lex Luthor and leading into another Seigel Imaginary visit to a possible future wherein ‘The Wife of Superman!’ is worn to a frazzle by twin super-toddlers and yearns for her old job at the Daily Planet…

Jimmy Olsen #51 discloses ‘Jimmy Olsen’s 1000th Scoop!’ (Bernstein, Swan & Forte), with the prospective milestone repeatedly delayed by Superman for the best possible reasons, after which a sultry alien takes an unlikely shine to the lad. Unfortunately, ‘The Girl with Green Hair’ (Binder, Swan & Forte) is the result of a scheme by a well-meaning third party to get Lucy to be nicer to Jimmy and it all goes painfully, horribly wrong before ‘The Dream Detective!’ (Swan & Kaye) finds the callow cub inexplicably develop psychometric abilities and unravel mysteries in his sleep…

In Superboy #87, Bernstein & George Papp reveal ‘When Lana Lang First Suspected Clark Kent!’ proving that even when he was a kid, pesky smart girls kept trying to expose his secret identity even as ‘Krypto’s First Romance!’ (Siegel & Papp) finds the star -spanning superdog falling for Kolli – a comely canine shot into space by nasty humanoids on planet Mogar as part of their war preparations. Tragically, Krypto’s brief fling is doomed from the start and he has to make an appalling decision and sacrifice…

‘The Super-Surprise!’ opens Lois Lane #24: an anonymously scripted thriller sending Lois undercover as a platinum blonde, to scupper a plot against Superman, and superbly rendered by Schaffenberger, as is Bernstein’s ‘The Perfect Husband!’, wherein a TV dating show leads Lois into a doomed affair with a he-man hunk almost the spitting image of Clark. Almost…

The issue closes on Bernstein & Forte’s ‘Lois Lane… Traitor!’ with her in the frame for murdering the King of Pahla… until the incredible, unbelievable true culprit comes forward. Also available that month, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #52 featured Leo Dorfman, Swan & Kaye’s ‘The Specter of the Haunted House!’ as a gang of cunning thieves use supernatural sceptic Olsen as a patsy for a robbery scheme, before ‘The Perils of Jimmy Olsen!’ (Swan & Forte art) sees the laid-up apprentice scribe use a robot double to perform feats of escalating daring… and stupidity. ‘Jimmy Olsen, Wolfman!’ (Siegel, Swan & Kaye) then delivers a welcome sequel to an earlier tale wherein Superman’s Pal is again afflicted by lycanthropy thanks to the pranks of 5th dimensional imp Mr. Mxyzptlk…

In Lois Lane #25 Siegel & Schaffenberger’s Imaginary series reaches a bittersweet high point in ‘Lois Lane and Superman, Newlyweds!’ as the severely sidelined spouse convinces hubby to announce their relationship to the world… and faces shocking consequences. The brilliant reporter side is highlighted in Bernstein’s diabolical thriller ‘Lois Lane’s Darkest Secret!’ with the daring investigator risking her life to draw out a mesmeric master criminal before ‘The Three Lives of Lois Lane!’ (uncredited, with Forte illustrating) sees her surviving a car crash, only to be subsumed into the personalities of dead historical figures Florence Nightingale, Betsy Ross and Queen Isabella of Spain. Here, Superman can only stay near and try to limit the damage her episodes create…

SPJO #53 opens with Siegel, Swan & Kaye’s ‘The Boy in the Bottle!’ as Jimmy suffers future shock whilst trapped in Kandor, after which sheer medical mischance results in Siegel, Swan & Forte’s now-legendary saga of ‘The Giant Turtle Man!’ and an oddly casualty-free monster rampage before ‘The Black Magician!’ (unknown writer, Swan & Forte) finds Olsen banished to King Arthur’s court by spiteful Mr. Mxyzptlk. Action Comics #277 then offers a truly delightful Supergirl yarn crafted by Siegel & Mooney. ‘The Battle of the Super-Pets!’ finds Streaky typically envious after she pays attention to shameless ingratiating mutt Krypto. When Superman suggests they compete for her attentions to prove who’s best (no, really!), they select the most unlucky locale of all for their arena…

Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #26 delivers three more Schaffenberger classics, starting with Siegel’s ‘The Day Superman Married Lana Lang!’  In this imaginary tragedy, the Action Ace finally settles down with his childhood sweetheart, but lives to regret it, whilst ‘Lois Lane’s Childhood!’ (Siegel) reveals how the lives of Kal-El on doomed Krypton and baby Lois on Earth were intertwined by fate and providence, before Bernstein’s ‘The Mad Woman of Metropolis’ closes the comics cavalcade on a stunning high. Here, Lois foils a diabolical plot by criminals to murder Clark and drive her insane, whilst for SPJO #54, Bernstein, Swan & Kaye’s ‘Elastic Lad’s Wrestling Match!’ finds Jimmy incensed after deducing that the grappling game is fixed and fake (shocking, no?).  The outraged fan uses his occasionally empowered alter ego to expose the institutionalised shenanigans, after which he comes into possession of Mr. Mxyzptlk’s magic wishing hat and – through a succession of whacky happenstances – saves Superman as ‘King of the Giant Ants!’ An unrecorded writer then employs Swan & Kaye’s gift for comedy to catalogue the horrors of literal infantilisation after the impetuous boy reporter accidentally transforms himself into ‘Baby Jimmy Olsen!’

Action Comics #278 exposed ‘The Super Powers of Perry White!’ (Jerry Coleman, Swan & Kaye) with the senescent editor suddenly gaining incredible abilities and an inexplicable urge to conquer the world, whilst in Superboy #90 another uncredited script – this time delineated by Papp – shares ‘Pete Ross’ Super-Secret!’ as Clark’s best friend discovers his alien alter ego. SGLL #27 follows, opening with Bernstein & Schaffenberger’s ‘Lois Lane’s Super-Brain!’ When Lois accidentally mutates herself into a creature with a colossal cranium she spends all her time and boosted intellect trying to hide it from Superman, before baffling mystery ‘The Battle of the Sisters!’ (Siegel Swan & Kaye) seemingly sees the Man of Steel ditch Lois for hot, blonde, younger sibling Lucy, prior to Bernstein & Schaffenberger relating ‘The Last Days of Lois Lane!’ as – believing herself fatally irradiated – the dedicated journalist resolves to risk what time she has left scoring the most dangerous scoops ever…

One of the most consistent motifs in fiction is the “Dark Opposite” or “player on the other side”: a complete antithesis of the protagonist often bearing many apparent similarities. Rock yourself to sleep at night if you wish, listing such deadly doppelgangers from Professor Moriarty to Gladstone Gander…

“Imperfect” Superman duplicate Bizarro either debuted as a misunderstood freak/unwilling monster in Binder & Papp’s captivatingly tragic ‘The Battle with Bizarro’ (Superboy #68, October 1958 and not included here) or in the similarly titled Superman newspaper strip sequence written by Alvin Schwartz (episode 105, pages #6147-6242, spanning August 25th -December 13th 1958), with the latter scribe claiming he’d thought up the idea months earlier. The newsprint version was certainly first to employ those eccentric reversed-logic thought-patterns and idiomatic speech impediment…

Although later played primarily for laughs, such as in his tenure in Tales of The Bizarro World (Adventure Comics #285-299 June 1961 – August 1962), most early comic book appearances of the dippy double were generally moving, child-appropriate tragedies, unlike here – Adventure Comics #287 – as ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Kookie Scoops!’ reveal the backwards-living artificial beings kidnapping him to run their newspaper on their square planet Htrae…

Next ‘Krypto Battles Titano’ (Superman #147, by Siegel & Plastino) after the Dog of Steel voyages back to the Age of Dinosaurs to romp, inadvertently saving humanity from alien invasion beside the Kryptonite-mutated giant ape. Then, SPJO #55 and Plastino plus unknown author introduce ‘The Monster That Loved Aqua-Jimmy!’ The odd coupling occurs after Olsen gains the powers of Aquaman and stands (swims?) in for him in the world’s oceans. The rest of the issue offers tales from Bernstein, Swan & Kaye, beginning with ‘Jimmy the Red, Thor’s Best Pal!’ wherein a magic tablet hurls the lucky lad back to ancient Scandinavia to befriend the god of thunder and help defeat Loki, after which ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Secret Power!’ exposes seeming betrayal as a strange new talent literally repels his best pal…

Pausing women’s business for now, Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #28 begins with ‘The Lois Lane of the Future!’ as Siegel & Forte supervise the Man of Tomorrow being banished to the far future by Lex Luthor. There he meets – and is incredibly annoyed by – super-powered possible descendent Lois 4XR until he finds his way home, prior to Schaffenberger & Siegel’s ‘Lois Lane’s Super-Lesson!’ with Superman secretly aiding billionaire Rajah Bandhi win her hand in marriage after she cruelly scorns and spurns him (!!) and concluding with Bill Finger & Schaffenberger’s ‘Lois Lane, Gun Moll!’ as another Luthor scheme apparently turns her into the most vicious criminal in Metropolis…

Cover-dated October 1961, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #56 leads with Imaginary Story ‘The Son of Jimmy Olsen!’ by Siegel & Schaffenberger, as Superman & Lois’ daughter elopes with the rash child of Jimmy & Lucy, culminating in catastrophic consequences. It’s followed by a return to consensual Continuity and Siegel & Forte’s mystery tale ‘The Jinx of Metropolis!’ as Jimmy suddenly becomes sudden death to anything metallic. This ushers us into Bernstein & Plastino’s Hollywood glamour-soaked yarn ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Sweethearts’, wherein Lucy is outraged – and utterly baffled – to find Jimmy apparently two-timing her with every starlet in Tinseltown. Of course, all is not what it seems…

This monumental memento to simpler, weirder times concludes with a shaggy dog tale from Superboy #92, where Coleman & Papp debuted ‘Krypto’s Arch-Enemy!’ after teenaged Lex Luthor’s canine companion Destructo stumbles into a lab experiment and gains superpowers. Obviously, the Bad Boy (and his mighty dog) seek to settle old scores, but happily Krypto is too smart for them…

As well as containing some of the most delightful episodes of the pre-angst, cosmically catastrophic DC, these fun, thrilling, deeply peculiar and, yes, occasionally offensive tales perfectly capture the changing tone and tastes reshaping comics moving from the smug, safe 1950s to the seditious, rebellious 1960s, all the while keeping to the prime directive of the industry: “keep them entertained and keep them wanting more.”

Despite all the well-intentioned quibbles from my high horse here in the 21st century, I think these stories still have a huge amount to offer funnybook fun-seekers and strongly urge you to check them out for yourselves. You won’t be sorry…
© 1960, 1961, 2025 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Gorilla-Man


By Jeff Parker, Jason Aaron, Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Giancarlo Caracuzzo, Jack Kirby, Bob Powell, Bob Q. Sale, Dick Ayers & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4911-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Apes have long fascinated comics audiences, and although Marvel never reached the giddy heights of DC’s slavish and nigh ubiquitous exploitation of the Anthropoid X-factor, the House of Ideas also dabbled in monkey business over its many years of existence.

This slim mixed-bag of a tome gathers newer adventures of happily hirsute occasional hero Ken Hale – gregarious Gorilla-Man of resurrected 1950s super-group pioneers Agents of Atlas – culled from an eponymous 2010 3-issue miniseries and supplemented with pertinent material from Avengers vs. Atlas #4, X-Men First Class #8, plus a splendid grab bag of assorted earlier interpretations culled from the company’s back catalogue of anthology horror and mystery titles: specifically Men’s Adventures #26, Tales to Astonish #28 & 30 and Weird Wonder Tales #7.

What you need to know: the Agents of Atlas comprise rejuvenated 1950s super-spy Jimmy Woo and similarly vintaged superhuman crusaders Namora (Sub-Mariner’s cousin), spurious love-goddess Venus, a deeply disturbing, extremely unhuman Marvel Boy from Uranus, primitive wonder-robot M11 and the aforementioned anthropoid avenger. As the Atlas Foundation, these veterans surreptitiously fight for justice and a free world as the nominal leaders of a clandestine crime-cult which still thinks it’s being patiently guided towards the overthrow of all governments. The real power behind the organisation however is a terrible mystical dragon named Lao…

The modern mainstream saga concentrates on ‘Ken Hale, the Gorilla-Man: The Serpent and the Hawk’ by Jeff Parker & Giancarlo Caracuzzo: exploring the anthropoid adventurer’s origins following a particularly bizarre battle against spidery cyborg Borgia Omega. In search of another action-packed mission, Hale spots a familiar face on an Atlas “wanted poster” and heads for Africa, flashbacking his past for us along the way.

It all began in Missouri in 1930 as a visiting big-shot spots something in a poor orphan kid holding his own against seven bigger boys who picked the wrong dirt-grubber to bully…

  1. Avery Wolward was a millionaire man-of-intrigue with interests all over the globe and for the next decade little Kenny became his companion and partner in a series of non-stop escapades that would make Indiana Jones green with envy. Ken learned a lot about life and loyalty, eventually discovering that Wolward owed much of his success to a mystical snake walking stick. Now that cane is in the hands of an African crime-lord calling himself Mustafa Kazun who’s well on the way to stealing an entire country and building an empire of blood…

Each miniseries issue was augmented by comedic faux email conversations between Hale and his social networking fans, and here delightfully act to buffer transitions between modern menace and reprinted monkey mystery vignettes. The first of these is ‘It Walks Erect!’, taken from 1974’s Weird Wonder Tales #7 which itself rescued the yarn from pre-Comics Code Mystery Tales #21 (cover-dated September 1954).

The story – by an unknown author but illustrated by the magnificent Bob Powell – concerns compulsive rogue surgeon Arthur Nagan whose obsession with brain transplants took a decidedly outré turn when his gorilla test subjects rebelled and wreaked a darkly ironic revenge upon him…

Slavish fanboys like me might remember Nagan as the eventual leader of arcane villain alliance The Headmen… but probably not…

Hale’s origin resumes as he and local agent Ji Banda are attacked by Kazun’s enslaved army, but that doesn’t stop the suave simian superman describing how a clash with Wolward’s arch rival Bastoc to recover an ancient bird talisman in Polynesia led the then-full-grown soldier-of-fortune to split with his mentor and enlist in the US military just before Pearl Harbor…

By the time the war ended Wolward was gone and the magnate’s daughter Lily had inherited both the family business and the walking stick…

After another message-board break, the classic ‘I Am the Gorilla Man’ (Tales to Astonish #28, February 1962, by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) reveals how criminal genius Franz Radzik developed a mind-swapping process so that he could use a mighty ape body to commit robberies. Sadly the big brain forgot that, with its personality in a human body, the anthropoid might have its own agenda and unbridled opportunity…

The conclusion of ‘The Serpent and the Hawk’ sees Hale unite with a gorilla clan to overturn Kazun’s schemes and unlock the secret of the stick, even as his mind is firmly replaying his bad marriage to Lily, subsequent decline into drunken dissolution, recruitment by the arcane Mr. Lao, and eventual confrontation with a previous Immortal Gorilla-Man.

The role is an inherited one and a curse. To kill the undying Gorilla is to become him, and the previous victim had by this time had more than enough. Even after Hale refused to end the creature’s torment, it relentlessly followed him until it could trick the drunken mercenary into taking on the curse. However, after linking up with 1950s heroes such as Jimmy Woo and Venus, Hale found it truly liberating and grew to accept his new status…

Thus when Kazun’s true identity is revealed and the weary adventurer is offered a permanent if Faustian cure, Gorilla-Man makes the only choice a true champion can…

A final text presentation precedes Lee, Lieber, Kirby & Ayers’ ‘The Return of the Gorilla Man’ (Tales to Astonish #30, April 1962) wherein Radzik – still locked in a gorilla’s body – escapes captivity and frantically attempts to prove to scientists how smart he is.

Big mistake…

Fresh insight into Hale is provided by Jason Aaron & Caracuzzo’s ‘My Dinner with Gorilla-Man’ from Avengers vs. Atlas #4, wherein a desperate man with nothing to lose hunts down the ageless anthropoid, intent on fulfilling the ageless equation: “Kill the Gorilla and live forever”…

This is followed by a gleefully glorious romp from X-Men: First Class #8. ‘Treasure Hunters’ by Jeff Parker & Roger Cruz, finds the debut generation of Xavier’s mutants – Cyclops, Angel, Beast, Iceman & Marvel Girl – in the Congo and hunting for their missing teacher. Along the way they encounter a talking gorilla who becomes their guide, which inadvertently pulls reclusive hermit Hale out of a decades-long funk…

The collection concludes with the seminal supernatural suspense thriller that first introduced ‘Gorilla Man’ to the world. Again by an anonymous writer (possibly Hank Chapman) and limned by unique stylist Robert “Bob Q.” Sale, this evocative chiller from Men’s Adventures #26 (March 1954) offers a much grittier take on the origin, as a man terrified of dying and plagued by nightmares of fighting apes hears a crazy legend and heads for Kenya and an inescapable, horrific destiny…

Also included is a selection of 21st century covers by Dave Johnson, Leonard Kirk, Dave McCaig, Gabrielle Dell’Otto, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado & Marko Djurdjevic, with the vintage frontages represented by Kirby, Lieber & Ayers.

Outrageous, over the top and never taking itself seriously, this is a riot of hairy scary fun-filled frolics and a perfect antidote to all those po-faced Costumed Dramas. I wonder if there’s a movie in this stuff?
© 1954, 2007, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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DC Finest: The Flash – The Human Thunderbolt


By Robert Kanigher, Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, John Broome, Gardner F. Fox, Frank Giacoia, Joe Giella, Murphy Anderson & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77952-836-0 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

This is another of the first tranche of long-awaited DC Finest editions: colour continuations of their chronologically curated monochrome Showcase Presents line, delivering “affordably priced, large-size (comic book dimensions and generally around 600 pages) paperback collections” highlighting past glories. Whilst primarily concentrating on the superhero pantheon, there will also be genre selections including horror and war books, and themed compendia such as the much anticpiated gathering of early ape stories (brace yourself for DC Finest: The Gorilla World in July!).

Sadly, they’re not yet available digitally, as were the last decade’s Bronze, Silver and Golden Age collections, but we live in hope…

The Silver Age of US comics is formally and forever tied to Showcase #4 and the rebirth of The Flash. The epochal issue was released in the late summer of 1956 and from it stems all today’s print, animation, games, collector cards, cosplay and TV/movie wonderment. No matter which way you look at it, the renaisance began with The Flash, but it’s an unjust yet true fact that being first is not enough: it also helps to be best and people have to notice. MLJ’s The Shield beat Captain America to the news-stands by over a year yet the former is all but forgotten today.

The US industry had never really stopped trying to revive superheroes when Showcase #4 was released. Readers had already been blessed – but were left generally unruffled by – such tentative precursors as The Avenger (February-September 1955); Captain Flash (November 1954-July 1955) and a full revival of Timely/Marvel’s 1940s “Big Three” – Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and aforementioned Captain America (from December 1953 to October 1955). Both DC’s own Captain Comet (December 1953-October 1955) and Manhunter from Mars (November 1955 until May 1969, and almost the end of superheroes again!) had come and been barely noticed. What made the new Fastest Man Alive stand out and stick was… well, everything!

Once DC’s powers-that-be decided to seriously try superheroes once more, they moved pretty fast themselves. Editor Julie Schwartz asked office partner, fellow editor and Golden-Age Flash scripter Robert Kanigher to recreate a speedster for the Space Age: aided and abetted by Carmine Infantino & Joe Kubert, who had also worked on the prior incarnation. The new Flash was Barry Allen, a forensic scientist simultaneously struck by lightning and bathed in exploding chemicals from his lab. Supercharged by the accident, Barry (a lifelong fan of comic books) took his superhero identity from his favourite childhood reading – and now his notional predecessor. Once upon a time there was a fictional scientist named Jay Garrick who was exposed to the mutagenic fumes of Hard Water and became the “fastest man alive”…

Wearing a sleek, streamlined bodysuit (courtesy of Infantino – a major talent approaching his artistic and creative peak), Barry became point man for the spectacular revival of a genre and an entire industry. This splendidly tempting full colour paperback sublimely displays Infantino’s talents and the tone of those halcyon times. These tales have been gathered many times but still offer punch, clarity and the ineffably comforting yet thrilling timbre of those now-distant times. Conversely, you might be as old as me and it was only the day before yesterday. This is what a big book of comics ought to feel like in your eager hands…

Collecting all four try-out issues (Showcase #4, 8, 13 & 14) – and the bombastic, trendsetting continuance into his own title (The Flash volume 1, #105-123) the contents span cover dates October 1956 to September 1961 with the high-speed thrills beginning in Showcase #4’s ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt!’ Scripted by Kanigher, it sees Barry endure electrical metamorphosis and promptly go on to subdue bizarre criminal mastermind and “Slowest Man Alive” Turtle Man, after which ‘The Man Who Broke the Time Barrier!’ – scripted by the brilliant John Broome – finds the newly-minted Scarlet Speedster batting a criminal from the future. A furious fight and battle of wills sees Allen accomplish the impossible by returning penal exile Mazdan to his own century, proving the new Flash was a protagonist of keen insight and sharp wits as well as overwhelming power.

These are all slickly polished, coolly sophisticated short stories, introducing a comfortingly ordinary, suburbanite superhero and firmly establishing the broad parameters of his universe. Showcase #8 (June 1957) opens with another Kanigher tale. ‘The Secret of the Empty Box’ is a perplexing if pedestrian mystery, with veteran Frank Giacoia returning as inker. However, the real landmark is Broome’s thriller ‘The Coldest Man on Earth’. With this yarn he confirmed and consolidated the new costumed character reality by introducing the first of a Rogues Gallery of memorably outlandish but stylish supervillains. Unlike the Golden Age, modern superheroes would face predominantly costumed foes rather than thugs and spies. Bad guys would henceforth be as memorable as the champions of justice. Captain Cold would return time and again even as Broome went on to create every single member of Flash’s pantheon of classic super-foes….

Joe Giella inked both tales in Showcase #13 (April 1958). Kanigher’s ‘Around the World in 80 Minutes!’ demonstrates Flash’s versatility as he tackles atomic terrorists, battles Arabian bandits, counters an avalanche on Mount Everest and scuttles submarine pirates in the specified time slot. Broome’s ‘Master of the Elements!’ then premiers bizarre bandit Mr. Element, utilising the periodic table as his formidable, innovative arsenal…

Showcase #14 (June 1958) opens with Kanigher’s eerie ‘Giants of the Time-World!’: a masterful fantasy thriller and a worthy effort to bow out on as Barry and journalist girlfriend Iris West encounter extra-dimensional invaders with the strangest life-cycle imaginable. The issue closed with a return engagement for Mr. Element, sporting a new M.O. and identity: Doctor Alchemy. ‘The Man Who Changed the Earth!’ is a classic crime-caper with serious psychological underpinnings as Flash struggles to overcome the villain’s latest weapon, mystic transmutational talisman the Philosopher’s Stone. When the Scarlet Speedster graduated to his own title, Broome became lead writer, supplemented by Gardner Fox. Kanigher would return briefly in the mid-1960s and later write many tales during DC’s ‘Relevancy’ period…

Taking its own sweet time, The Flash #105 launched with a February/March 1959 cover-date – so it was out for Christmas 1958 – and opened with Broome, Infantino & Giella’s sci-fi chiller ‘Conqueror From 8 Million B.C.!’ before introducing yet another money-mad super-villain in ‘The Master of Mirrors!’

The next issue premiered one of the most charismatic and memorable baddies in comics history. Gorilla Grodd and his hidden race of telepathic super-simians instantly captured fan attention in ‘Menace of the Super-Gorilla!’ Even after Flash soundly thrashed the hairy hooligan, Grodd promptly returned in the next two issues. Presumably this early confidence was fuelled by DC’s inexplicable but commercially sound pro-Gorilla editorial stance. In those far-ago days for some reason any comic with a substantial simian in it spectacularly outsold those that didn’t; here the tales are also packed with tension, action and challenging fantasy concepts.

By way of encore there is also ‘The Pied Piper of Peril!’: a mesmerising musical criminal mastermind, stealing for fun and attention rather than profit…

The Flash #107 led with the ‘Return of the Super-Gorilla!’ by Broome, Infantino & Giella: a multi-layered fantasy taking our hero from the (invisible) African city of the Super-Gorillas to the subterranean citadel of antediluvian Ornitho-Men, before closing with ‘The Amazing Race Against Time’, featuring an amnesiac who could outrun the Fastest Man Alive in a desperate collaborative dash to save all of creation from obliteration. With every issue the stakes got higher whilst the dramatic quality and narrative ingenuity got better!

Frank Giacoia inked #108’s high-tech death-trap thriller ‘The Speed of Doom!’ with trans-dimensional raiders stealing fulgurites (look it up, if you want) before Giella returned for ‘The Super-Gorilla’s Secret Identity!’, wherein Grodd devises a scheme to outwit evolution itself by turning himself into a human…

The next issue saw ‘The Return of the Mirror-Master!’ with the first in a series of bizarre physical transformations that increasingly became a signature device in Flash stories, whilst the contemporary Space Race provided an evocative maguffin for a fantastic undersea adventure in the ‘Secret of the Sunken Satellite’. Here Flash befriends an unsuspected subsea race on the edge of extinction whilst enquiring after the impossible survival of an astronaut trapped at the bottom of the sea for days after splashdown. The Flash #110 was a major landmark, not so much for the debut of another worthy addition to the burgeoning Rogues Gallery in ‘The Challenge of the Weather Wizard’ (inked by Schwartz’s incredibly versatile artistic top-gun Murphy Anderson) but for the introduction of Wally West, who in a bizarre and suspicious replay of the lightning strike that created the Vizier of Velocity became a junior version of the Fastest Man Alive. Inked by Giella, ‘Meet Kid Flash!’ debuted the first teenage sidekick of the Silver Age (cover dated December 1959-January 1960 and just pipping Aqualad who premiered in Adventure Comics #269’s February off-sale date).

Not only would Kid Flash begin his own series of back-up tales in the very next issue (a sure sign of the confidence the creators had in him) but he would eventually inherit the mantle of the Flash himself – one of the few times in comics where such torch-passing actually stuck.

Anderson inked #111’s ‘The Invasion of the Cloud Creatures!’, which successfully overcomes its frankly daft premise to deliver a taut, tense sci-fi thriller nicely counterpointing the first solo outing for Kid Flash in ‘The Challenge of the Crimson Crows!’ This folksy parable has small-town kid Wally use his new powers to rescue a gang of kids on the slippery slope to juvenile delinquency. Perhaps a tad paternalistic and heavy-handed by today’s standards, in the opening months of 1960 this was a strip about a boy heroically dealing with a kid’s real dilemmas. The occasional series would concentrate on such human-scaled problems, leaving super-menaces and world-saving for team-ups with his mentor…

Flash #112 – ‘The Mystery of the Elongated Man!’ – introduced an intriguing super-stretchable newcomer to the DC universe, who might have been hero or villain in a beguiling tantaliser, after which Wally tackled juvenile Go-Karters and corrupt school contractors in the surprisingly gripping ‘Danger on Wheels!’

Mercurial maniac The Trickster premiered in #113’s lead tale ‘Danger in the Air!’ whilst the second-generation speedster took a break so his senior partner could defeat ‘The Man Who Claimed the Earth!’: a full-on cosmic epic wherein ancient alien Po-Siden seeks to bring the lost colony of Earth back into the galaxy-spanning Empire of Zus. Next, Captain Cold and Murphy Anderson returned for ‘The Big Freeze!’, as the smitten villain turns Central City into a glacier just to impress Iris West. Meanwhile, her nephew Wally saves a lad unjustly accused of cheating from a life of crime when the despondent student falls under the influence of the ‘King of the Beatniks!’

Flash #115 offered another bizarre transformation, courtesy of Gorilla Grodd in ‘The Day Flash Weighed 1000 Pounds!’, and when aliens attempt to conquer Earth, the slimmed-down champion needs ‘The Elongated Man’s Secret Weapon!’ as well as the guest-star himself to save the day. Once again Anderson’s inking gave over-taxed Joe Giella a breather whilst taking art-lovers’ breath away in this beautiful, fast-paced thriller. The big science concepts kept coming and #116 introduced‘The Man Who Stole Central City!’ with a seemingly fool-proof way to kill the valiant hero, requiring both time-tinkering and serious outwitting to thwart, before Kid Flash returns in ‘The Race to Thunder Hill!’: a father-son tale of rally driving, but with car-stealing bandits and a young love interest for Wally to complicate the proceedings.

‘Here Comes Captain Boomerang’ (inked by Anderson), introduces a mercenary Australian marauder who turns a legitimate job opportunity into a criminal career in what is still one of the most original origin tales ever concocted to lead off #117 before ‘The Madcap Inventors of Central City’ sees Gardner Fox (creator of the Golden Age Flash) join the creative bullpen with a perhaps ill-considered attempt to reintroduce 1940s comedy sidekicks Winky, Blinky and Noddy to the modern fans. The fact that you’ve never heard of them should indicate how well that went although the yarn, illustrated by Infantino & Giella, is a fast, witty, enjoyably silly change of pace.

The Flash #118 highlighted the period’s (and DC’s) obsession with Hollywood in ‘The Doomed Scarecrow!’ (Anderson inks); a sharp, smart thriller featuring a minor villain with a unique reason to get rid of our hero, after which Wally West and a friend must spend the night in a haunted house for Kid Flash chiller ‘The Midnight Peril!’ In #119, Broome, Infantino & Anderson relate the adventure of‘The Mirror-Master’s Magic Bullet!’, which our hero narrowly evades, before ‘The Elongated Man’s Undersea Trap!’ introduces the stretchable sleuth’s new spouse Sue Dibny (née Dearbon) and sinister alien subsea slavers in a mysterious and stirring tale.

These earliest stories were historically vital to the development of our industry but, quite frankly, so what? The first exploits of The Flash should be judged solely on their merit, and on those terms, they are punchy, awe-inspiring, beautifully illustrated and captivating thrillers that amuse, amaze and enthral both new readers and old devotees. The title had gelled into a comfortable pattern of two tales per issue alternating with semi-regular booklength thrillers such as the glorious example in Flash #120 (May 1961). ‘Land of Golden Giants!’ is a minor masterpiece: a fanciful science fiction drama wherein a small private expedition of explorers – including Iris, Barry and protégé Wally – are catapulted back millennia to the very moment when the primal supercontinent (or at least the parts that would become Africa and South America) begin splitting apart.

Flash stories always found a way to make cutting-edge science integral and interesting. Regular filler-features were numerous speed-themed informational pages which became a component of the stories themselves via quirky little footnotes. This collection includes them all. Peppered throughout the dramas are numerous examples of ‘Flash Facts!’, ‘Science Says You’re Wrong if You Believe…!’, ‘Amazing Speeds!’, ‘The Speed of Sound!’, ‘Fastest Creatures on Earth!’, ‘Wonders of Speed!’, ‘Comparitive Speed Records!’, ‘Jet Speedboat Ace! (Donald Campbell)’, ‘Solar System Speeds!’, ‘Our Remarkable Bodies!’ and even a few assorted ads of the era. How many fans turned a C to a B by dint of recreational reading? I know I certainly impressed the heck out of a few nuns at the convent school I attended! (let’s not visualise; simply move on)…

The Flash #121 saw the return of a novel old foe on another robbery rampage when ‘The Trickster Strikes Back!’, after which costumed criminality is counterbalanced by Cold War skulduggery in gripping, Anderson inked thriller ‘Secret of the Stolen Blueprint!’ Another contemporary zeitgeist undoubtedly led to ‘Beware the Atomic Grenade!’, a witty yarn premiering a new member of Flash’s burgeoning Rogues Gallery after career criminal Roscoe Dillon graduates from second-rate thief to global extortionist The Top by means of a rather baroque thermonuclear device…

In counterpoint, Kid Flash deals with smaller scale catastrophe in ‘The Face Behind the Mask!’ A pop star with a secret identity (based on a young David Soul who began his career as folk singer “the Covered Man” because he performed wearing a mask) is blackmailed by a villainous gang of old school friends until whizz kid Wally steps in…

Fox didn’t write many Flash scripts at this time, but those few he did were all dynamite. None more so than the full-length epic closing this tome: a tale that literally changed the scope of American comics forever. ‘Flash of Two Worlds!’ introduced the theory of alternate Earths to the continuity and, by extension, resulted in the pivotal multiversal structure of the DCU, Crisis on Infinite Earths and all succeeding cosmos-shaking crossover sagas that grew from it. And, of course, where DC led, others followed…

During a charity benefit gig Flash accidentally slips into another dimension to find that the comic book hero he’s based his own superhero identity upon actually exists. Every adventure Barry absorbed as an eager child was grim reality to Jay Garrick and his mystery-men chums on (the controversially designated) Earth-2. Locating his idol, Barry convinces the elder to come out of retirement just as three Golden Age villains – The Shade, Thinker and Fiddler – make their own wicked comeback. And above all else, Flash #123 is a great read that still stands up today.

These tales were crucial to the development of our art-form, but, more importantly they are brilliant, awe-inspiring, beautifully realised thrillers to amuse, amaze and enthral both new readers and old lags. This splendid selection is another must-read item for anybody in love with the world of words-in-pictures.
© 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Godzilla: The Original Marvel Years


By Doug Moench, Herb Trimpe, Tom Sutton, Jim Mooney, Tony DeZuñiga, Klaus Janson, Fred Kida, Dan Green, Jack Abel, Frank Giacoia, George Tuska & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5875-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

What’s big and green and leaves your front room a complete mess? No, not any first world government’s policy on climate change, but (arguably) Earth’s most famous monster…

Back in 1976, although some television cartoons had introduced Japanese style and certain stars – like Astro Boy and Marine Boy – to western eyes, manga and anime were only starting to creep into global consciousness. However, the most well-known pop culture Japanese export was a colossal radioactive dinosaur who regularly rampaged through the East, crushing cities and fighting monsters even more bizarre and scary than he was.

At this time Marvel was well on the way to becoming the multimedia corporate colossus of today and was looking to increase its international profile. Comics companies have always sought licensed properties to bolster their market-share and in 1977 Marvel truly landed the big one, leading to a 2-year run of one of the world’s most recognisable characters. They also boldly broke with tradition by dropping him solidly into real-time, contemporary company continuity. The series ran for 24 guest-star-stuffed issues between August 1977 and July 1979.

Gojira first appeared in the eponymous 1954 anti-war, anti-nuke parable written and directed by Ishiro Honda for Toho Films: a symbol of ancient forces roused to violent reaction by mankind’s incessant meddling. The film was savagely re-cut and dubbed into English with young Raymond Burr inserted for US audience appeal and comprehension, with the Brobdingnagian beast inexplicably renamed Godzilla. The movie was released in the US on April 27th and – despite being a brutally bowdlerised hash of Ishiro Honda’s message and intent – became a monster hit anyway.

The King of Monsters smashed his way through 33 Japanese movies (and six & counting US iterations); and tons of records, books, games, associated merch and many, many comics. He is the originator of the manga sub-genre Daikaij? (giant strange beasts). After years away thanks to convoluted copyright issues, Marvel is regaining contact with many of its 1970/1980s licensing classics and this volume is a no-frills, simple sensation recovered from a time when the other Big Green Gargantuan rampaged across the Marvel firmament heavily (how else?) interacting with stalwarts of the shared universe as just one of the guys…

The saga is preceded by Introduction ‘“It Had to Happen” Godzilla in the Mighty Marvel Universe!’ by uberfan Karl Kesel before the compilation commences with ‘The Coming!’, courtesy of Doug Moench, Herb Trimpe & Jim Mooney, wherein the monstrous aquatic lizard with radioactive halitosis erupts out of the Pacific Ocean and rampages through Alaska.

Superspy security organisation S.H.I.E.L.D. is quickly dispatched to stop the onslaught, and Nick Fury (the original white one) summarily calls in Japanese looming-lizard experts Dr. Yuriko Takiguchi, his grandson Robert and their eye-candy assistant Tamara Hashioka. After an inconclusive battle of ancient strength against modern tech, Godzilla returns to the sea, but the seeds have been sown and everybody knows he will return…

In Japan, many people now believe that Godzilla is a benevolent force destined to oppose true evil. Young Robert is one of them and gets the chance to expound his devout views in #2’s ‘Thunder in the Darkness!’ (inked by Frank Giacoia & George Tuska) when the skyscraping saurian resurfaces in Seattle and nearly razes the place before being lured away by daring and ingenuity, S.H.I.E.L.D. style. Veteran agents Dum-Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones and Jimmy Woo are seconded to a permanent anti-lizard task force until the beast is finally vanquished, but sadly, there are also dozens of freelance do-gooders in the Marvel universe always ready to step up and when the Emerald antihero takes offence at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, he attracts the attention of the local superhero team. The Champions – a short-lived, California-based team consisting of Black Widow, Angel, Iceman, Ghost Rider and Hercules – rapidly respond in ‘A Tale of Two Saviours’ (with the lushly solid inks of Tony DeZuñiga adding welcome depth to the art). Typically, the humans spend more time fighting each other than the monster, before the beast bolts for quieter shores…

There’re only so many cities even the angriest dinosaur can trash before formula tedium sets in, so writer Moench begins his first continued story in #4 with ‘Godzilla Versus Batragon!’ (guest-pencilled by the superb Tom Sutton and again inked by DeZuñiga), wherein deranged scientist/monster mutator Dr. Demonicus enslaves Aleutian Islanders to help him grow his own world-wrecking giant horrors… until the real deal shows up. The epic encounter concludes catastrophically with plenty of collateral damage on ‘The Isle of Lost Monsters’ (inked by Klaus Janson) before ‘A Monster Enslaved!’ in #6 opens another extended epic as Trimpe returns and Godzilla – as well as the American general public – are introduced to another now commonplace Japanese innovation.

Giant, piloted battle-suits or Mecha first appeared in Go Nagai’s 1972 manga classic Mazinger Z, and Marvel did much to popularise the subgenre in their follow-up/spin-off licensed title Shogun Warriors, (based on an import toy rather than movie or comic characters, but by the same creative team as Godzilla). Here young Rob Takiguchi steals S.H.I.E.L.D.’s latest weapon – a colossal robot codenamed Red Ronin – to aid the Immense Intense Iguana when Godzilla is finally captured. Fred Kida stirringly inked the first of a long line of saurian sagas with #7’s ‘Birth of a Warrior!’ with more carnage culminating in the uneasy alliance ending in another huge fight in concluding chapter ‘Titan Time Two!’

Trimpe & Kida depicted ‘The Fate of Las Vegas!’ in Godzilla #9: a lighter-toned morality play with the monster destroying Boulder Dam and flooding the modern Sodom and Gomorrah, before returning to big beastie bashing in ‘Godzilla vs Yetrigar’: another multi-part mash-up that ends in ‘Arena for Three!’ as Red Ronin & Rob reappear to tackle both large looming lizard and stupendous, smashing Sasquatch, after which the first year ends with #12’s ‘The Beta-Beast!’ – first chapter in a classic alien invasion epic.

Shanghaied to the Moon, Godzilla is co-opted as a soldier in a war between alien races who breed giant monsters as weapons, and when the battle transfers to Earth in ‘The Mega-Monsters from Beyond!’, Red Ronin joins the fray for blockbusting conclusion ‘The Super-Beasts’ (this last inked by Dan Green). Afterwards, let loose in cowboy country, Godzilla stomps into a rustling mystery and modern showdown in ‘Roam on the Range’ and ‘The Great Godzilla Roundup!’ before the final story arc begins.

In #17 ‘Of Lizards, Great and Small’ starts with a logical but humane solution to the beast’s rampages after superhero Ant-Man’s shrinking gas is used to reduce Godzilla to a more manageable size. However, when the diminished devastator escapes from his lab cage and becomes a ‘Fugitive in Manhattan!’, it’s all hands on deck as the city waits for the shrinking vapour’s effects to wear off. ‘With Dugan on the Docks!’ then sees the aging secret agent battle the immortal saurian on more or less equal terms before the Fantastic Four step in for ‘A Night at the Museum.’

The FF have another non-lethal solution and dispatch Godzilla to a primeval age of dinosaurs in #21’s ‘The Doom Trip!’, allowing every big beast fan’s dream to come true as the King of the Monsters teams up with Jack Kirby’s uniquely splendid Devil Dinosaur – and Moon Boy – in the Jack Abel inked ‘The Devil and the Dinosaur!’, before returning to the 20th century and full size for a spectacular battle against the Mighty Avengers in ‘The King Once More’.

The story and series concluded in #24 (July 1979) with the remarkably satisfying ‘And Lo, a Child Shall Lead Them’, as all New York’s superheroes prove less effective than a single impassioned plea, and Godzilla wearily departs for new conquests and other licensed outlets.

By no means award-winners or critical masterpieces, these stories are nonetheless a perfect example of what comics should be: enticing, exciting, accessible and brimming with “bang for your buck”. Moench’s oft-times florid prose and dialogue meld perfectly here with Trimpe’s stylised interpretation, which often surpasses the artist’s excellent work on that other big, green galoot. Other than Kirby, Happy Herb was probably the most adept at capturing the astoundingly cathartic attraction of giant creatures running amok, and here he went hog wild at every opportunity…

With covers by Trimpe, Ernie Chan, Joe Rubinstein, Bobs Layton, Wiacek & McLeod and Dave Cockrum, plus bonus features including Archie Goodwin’s ‘Godzilla-Grams’ editorial page from the first issue, as well as covers to earlier compilations, letter page art by Sutton from and a text free version of this volume by painter Junggeun Yoon.

These are great tales to bring younger and/or disaffected readers back to comics and are well worth their space on any fan’s bookshelf. This is what monster comics are all about and demand your full attention.
© 2024 MARVEL.

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DC Finest: The Doom Patrol – The World’s Strangest Heroes


By Arnold Drake, Bob Haney, Bruno Premiani, Bob Brown, Dick Giordano, Sal Trapani, Bill Molno, Geoge Roussos & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79950-038-3 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

This stunning compilation is part of the first tranche of long-awaited DC Finest editions: full colour continuations of their chronolgically curated monochrome Showcase Presents line, delivering “affordably priced, large-size (comic book dimensions and generally around 600 pages) paperback collections” highlighting past glories.Whilst primarily and understandably concentrating on the superhero character pantheon, there will also be genre selections like horror and war books, and themed compendia such as the much anticpiated gathering of early ape stories (brace yourself for DC Finest: The Gorilla World in July!).

Sadly, they’re not yet available digitally, as were the lst decade’s Bronze, Silver and Golden Age collections, but we live in hope…

In 1963 traditionally cautious comic book publishers at last realised superheroes were back in a big way and began reviving and/or creating a host of costumed characters to battle with and against outrageous menaces and dastardly villains. Thus, the powers-that-be at National Comics decided venerable adventure-mystery anthology title My Greatest Adventure would dip its toe in the waters with a radical take on the fad. Still, infamous for cautious publishing, they introduced a startling squad of champions with thematic roots still firmly planted in the B-movie monster films of the era that had not-so-subtly informed the parent comic.

No traditional team of masked adventurers, this cast comprised a robot, a mummy and an occasional 50-foot woman, joining forces with and guided by a vivid, brusque, domineering, crippled mad scientist. They would fight injustice in a whole new way…

Covering June 1963 to May 1965, this stunning compilation collects the earliest exploits of the “Fabulous Freaks”, gathered from My Greatest Adventure #80-85 and thereafter issues #86-102 of the rapidly renamed title, once overwhelming reader response compelled editor Murray Boltinoff to change it to the Doom Patrol. For good measure this comprehensive collection also contains an early crossover from Challengers of the Unknown #48, a team-up from The Brave and the Bold #65 and a guest shot in Teen Titans #6.

The origins and many of the earlier dramas were especially enhanced and elevated by the drawing skills of Italian cartoonist/classicist artist Giordano Bruno Premiani, whose highly detailed, subtly humanistic illustration made even the strangest situation dauntingly authentic and grittily believable.

Eponymous premier tale ‘The Doom Patrol’ was co-scripted by Arnold Drake & Bob Haney, depicting how a mysterious wheelchair-bound scientist summons three outcasts to his home through the promise of changing their miserable lives forever. Competitive car racer and professional daredevil Cliff Steele had died in a horrific pile up, but his undamaged brain had been transplanted into a fantastic mechanical body. Test pilot Larry Trainor had been trapped in an experimental plane and become permanently irradiated by stratospheric radiation, with the dubious benefit of gaining a semi-sentient energy avatar which would escape his body to perform incredible feats but only for up to a minute at a time. To pass safely amongst men, Trainor had to constantly wrap himself in unique radiation-proof bandages…

Former movie star Rita Farr was exposed to mysterious gases which bestowed a terrifying, unpredictable and, at first, uncontrollable ability to shrink or grow to incredible sizes.

The outcasts were brought together by brilliant but enigmatic Renaissance Man The Chief, who sought to mould the solitary misfits into a force for good. He quickly proved his point when a mad bomber attempted to blow up the city docks. The surly savant directed the trio of strangers in defusing it, and no sooner had the misfits realised their true worth than they were on their first mission…

Second chapter ‘The Challenge of the Timeless Commander’, sees an implausibly ancient despot seeking to seize a fallen alien vessel: intent on turning its extraterrestrial secrets into weapons of world conquest, culminating in ‘The Deadly Duel with Gen. Immortus’, wherein the Doom Patrol defeat the old devil and thereafter dedicate their lives to saving humanity from all threats.

My Greatest Adventure #81 featured ‘The Nightmare Maker’, combining everyday disaster response – saving a damaged submarine – with a nationwide plague of monsters. Stuck at base, The Chief monitors missions by means of a TV camera attached to Robotman/Steele’s chest, and quickly deduces the uncanny secret of the beasts and their war criminal creator Josef Kreutz…

Solely scripted by Drake, a devious espionage ploy outs the Chief – or at least his image, if not name – in #82’s ‘Three Against the Earth!’, leading the team to believe Rita is a traitor. When the cabal of millionaires actually behind the scheme are exposed as an alien advance guard who assumed the wheelchair-bound leader to be a rival invader, the inevitable showdown nearly costs Cliff what remains of his life…

MGA #83’s ‘The Night Negative Man Went Berserk!’ spotlights the living mummy as a radio astronomy experiment interrupts Negative Man’s return to Trainor’s body: pitching the pilot into a coma and sending the ebony energy being on a global spree of destruction. Calamity piles upon calamity when crooks steal the military equipment constructed to destroy the radio-energy creature and only desperate improvisation by Cliff and Rita allows avatar and host to reunite…

Issue #84 heralded ‘The Return of General Immortus’ as ancient Babylonian artefacts lead the squad to the eternal malefactor, only to have the wily warrior turn the tables and take control of Robotman. Even though his comrades soon save him, Immortus escapes with the greatest treasures of all time, before My Greatest Adventure #85 ends an era. It was the last issue, featuring ‘The Furies from 4,000 Miles Below’: monstrous subterranean horrors fuelled by nuclear forces. Most importantly, despite having tricked Elasti-Girl into resuming her Hollywood career, the paternalistic heroes are all pretty grateful when she turns up to save them all from radioactive incineration…

An unqualified success, the comic book was seamlessly transformed into The Doom Patrol with #86: celebrated by debuting ‘The Brotherhood of Evil’: an assemblage of international terrorist super-criminals led by French genius-in-a-jar The Brain. He was backed up by his greatest creation, a super-intelligent talking gorilla dubbed Monsieur Mallah. Diametrically opposed and with some undisclosed back story amping up tension, the teams first cross swords after Brotherhood applicant Mr. Morden steals Rog: a giant robot the Chief has constructed for the US military…

DP #87 revealed ‘The Terrible Secret of Negative Man’ after Brotherhood femme fatale Madame Rouge seeks to seduce Larry. When the Brain’s unstoppable mechanical army invades the city, Trainor is forced to remove his bandages and let his lethal radiations disrupt their transmissions…

An occasional series of short solo adventures kicked off in this issue with ‘Robotman Fights Alone’. Here Cliff is dispatched to a Pacific island in search of an escaped killer, only to walk into a devastating series of WWII Japanese booby-traps before all mysteries surrounding the leader are finally revealed in #88 with ‘The Incredible Origin of the Chief’: a blistering drama telling how brilliant but impoverished student Niles Caulder suddenly received unlimited funding from an anonymous patron interested in his researches on extending life. Curiosity drove Caulder to track down his benefactor, and he was horrified to discover the money came from the head of a criminal syndicate claiming to be eons old…

Immortus had long ago consumed a potion which extended his life and wanted the student to recreate it since the years were finally catching up. To insure Caulder’s full cooperation, the General had a bomb inserted in the researcher’s chest and powered by his heartbeat. After building a robot surgeon, Caulder tricked Immortus into shooting him, determined to thwart the monster at all costs. Once clinically dead, his Ra-2 doctor-bot removed the now-inert explosive and revived the bold scientist. Tragically, the trusty mechanoid had been too slow and Caulder lost the use of his legs forever…

Undaunted, ‘The Man Who Lived Twice’ destroyed all his research and went into hiding for years, with Immortus utterly unaware that Caulder had actually succeeded in the task which had stymied history’s greatest doctors and biologists. Now, under the alias of super-thief The Baron, Immortus captures the Doom Patrol and demands a final confrontation with the Chief. Luckily, the wheelchair-locked inventor is not only a biologist and robotics genius but also adept at constructing concealed weapons…

In DP #89 the team tackle a duplicitous scientist who devises a means to transform himself into ‘The Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Menace’ before ‘The Private War of Elasti-Girl’ finds the Miss of Many Sizes using unsuspected or acknowledged detective skills to track down a missing soldier and reunite him with his adopted son. ‘The Enemy within the Doom Patrol’ then sees shape-shifting Madame Rouge infiltrate the team and turn them against each other whilst issue #91 introduces multi-millionaire Steve Dayton.

Used to getting whatever he wants, he creates a superhero persona solely to woo and wed Rita Farr. With such ambiguous motivations ‘Mento – the Man who Split the Doom Patrol’ was a radical character for the times, but at least his psycho-kinetic helmet proved a big help in defeating the plastic robots of grotesque alien invader Garguax…

DP #92 tasks the team with a temporal terrorist in ‘The Sinister Secret of Dr. Tyme’ and features abrasive Mento again saving the day, after which #93’s ‘Showdown on Nightmare Road’ features The Brain’s latest monstrous scheme: being transplanted inside Robotman’s skull whilst poor Cliff is dumped into a horrific beast… until the Chief out-plays the French Fiend at his own game…

Creature-feature veteran Bob Brown stepped in to illustrate #94’s lead tale ‘The Nightmare Fighters’ as an eastern mystic’s uncanny abilities are swiftly debunked by solid American science. Premiani returned to render back-up solo-feature ‘The Chief… Stands Alone’, wherein Caulder eschews his deputies’ aid to bring down bird-themed villain The Claw with a mixture of wit, nerve and weaponised wheelchair, prior to DP #95 disclosing The Chief’s disastrous effort to cure Rita and Larry, resulting in switched powers and the ‘Menace of the Turnabout Heroes’. Naturally, that’s the very moment Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man picks for a return bout…

Doom Patrol #96 opens on ‘The Day the World Went Mad!’ as frantic investigations reveal a global wave of insanity is being caused by a deadly alliance of old foes The Brotherhood of Evil, alien tyrant Garguax and undying terrorist General Immortus. Cue last-ditch heroics to save everything, before that sinister syndicate attacks Earth again in #97, transforming humans into crystal zombies, spectacularly resulting in ‘The War Against the Mind Slaves’, and heralding the return of super-rich wannabee and self-made superhero Mento. The net result is a stunning showdown free-for-all on the moon, after which #98 sees both ‘The Death of the Doom Patrol’ – a grievous over-exaggeration on behalf of transmutational foe Mr. 103 who was actually compelled to save Caulder from radiation poisoning – and Bob Brown-drawn solo-thriller ’60 Sinister Seconds’, in which Negative Man must find and make safe four atomic bombs in different countries… all within one minute…

Brown handled both tales in Doom Patrol #99, starting with an old-fashioned battle against a deranged entomologist whose mechanical insects deliver ‘The Deadly Sting of the Bug Man’ before proceeding to the groundbreaking first appearance of shapeshifting juvenile delinquent ‘The Beast-Boy’. The green kid burgles then saves the team with his incredible ability to become any animal he could imagine…

An extended storyline began with #100 and ‘The Fantastic Origin of Beast-Boy’ (limned by Premiani) wherein the obnoxious kid is revealed as orphan Gar Logan: a child being slowly swindled out of his inheritance by his ruthless guardian Nicholas Galtry. The conniving accountant even leases his emerald-hued charge to scientist Dr. Weir for assorted evil experiments, but when the Patrol later tackle rampaging dinosaurs, the trail leads unerringly to Gar, who at last explains his uncanny powers…

Whilst a toddler in Africa, Logan contracted a rare disease. His scientist father tried an experimental cure which left him the colour of cabbage but with the ability to change shape at will. Now it appears that Weir has used the lad’s altered biology to unlock the secrets of evolution – or has he? Despite foiling the scheme, the team have no choice but to return the boy to his guardian. Rita, however, is not prepared to leave the matter unresolved…

The anniversary issue also saw the start of an extended multi-part thriller exploring Cliff’s early days after his accident and subsequent resurrection, beginning with ‘Robotman… Wanted Dead or Alive’. Following Caulder’s implantation of Cliff’s brain into a mechanical body, the shock drove the patient crazy and Steele went on a city-wide rampage…

Doom Patrol #101’s riotous romp ‘I, Kranus, Robot Emperor!’, sees an apparently alien mechanoid exposed with a far more terrestrial and terrifying origin, before the real meat of the issue comes from the events of the ongoing war between Galtry and the Chief for possession of Beast Boy. The tale ends on a pensive cliffhanger as the Patrol then dash off to rescue fellow adventurers The Challengers of the Unknown – but before that the second instalment of the Robotman saga sees the occasionally rational, if paranoid, Cliff Steele hunted by the authorities and befriended by crippled, homeless derelicts in ‘The Lonely Giant’.

Firmly established in the heroic pantheon, the Doom Patrol surprisingly teamed with fellow outsiders The Challengers of the Unknown at the end of 1965. The crossover began in the Challs’ title (specifically #48, cover-dated February/March 1966). Scripted by Drake and limned by Brown, ‘Twilight of the Challengers’ opened with the death-cheaters’ apparent corpses, and the DP desperately hunting whoever killed them…

Thanks to the Chief, all our heroes recover and a furious coalition takes off after a cabal of bizarre supervillains. The drama explosively concluded in Doom Patrol #102, with ‘8 Against Eternity’, battling murderous shape-shifting maniac Multi-Man and his robotic allies to stop a horde of zombies from a lost world attacking humanity.

More team-ups and guest shots close this collection beginning with The Brave and the Bold #65 (May 1966), with Haney, Dick Giordano & Sal Trapani crafting ‘Alias Negative Man!’ Here Larry’s radio energy avatar is trapped by The Brotherhood of Evil and the Chief recruits speedster The Flash to impersonate and replace him… until the heroes can save their friend.

The weird wonderment pauses for now with Bill Molno & George Roussos illustrating Haney’s ‘The Fifth Titan’ from Teen Titans #6 (November/December 1966) seeing obnoxious juvenile know-it-all Beast Boy Jump ship. Feeling unappreciated by his adult mentors, the young hero wrongly assumes he’ll be welcomed by his peers. After being rejected again, he falls under the spell of an unscrupulous circus owner and the costumed kids need to set things right and set Gar free…

Although as kids we all happily suspended disbelief and bought into the fanciful antics of the myriad masked heroes available, somehow the exploits of Doom Patrol – and their strangely synchronistic Marvel counterparts The X-Men (freaks and outcasts, wheelchair geniuses, both debuting in the summer of 1963) – always seemed just a bit more authentic than the usual cape-&-costume crowd. With the edge of time and experience on my side it’s obvious just how incredibly mature and hardcore Drake, Haney & Premiani’s take on superheroes actually was. These superbly engaging, frantically fun and breathtakingly beautiful tales should be rightfully ranked amongst the finest Fights ‘n’ Tights tales ever told. Come and see what I mean…
© 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Roy Crane’s Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips volume 4 (1941-1942)


By Roy Crane with Leslie Turner (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-677-5 (Tabloid HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

The fourth and final collection of Roy Crane’s groundbreaking, trailblazing Sunday strip completes a quartet of comics compilations no lover of high adventure, action comedy and visual narrative excellence should be without.

Our industry and art form evolved from phenomenally popular newspaper strips born of the first four decades of the 20th century: monolithically powerful circulation-boosting features which could, until relatively recently, dictate success or failure in America’s cutthroat newspaper business. The daily cartoon stories were immensely addictive and thus regarded as invaluable by publishers who used them as a sales weapon to ensure consumer loyalty, increase sales and maximise profits. Many a pen-pushing scribbler became a millionaire thanks to their ability to draw pictures and spin a yarn…

With hundreds of 24-hour TV channels, streaming services, games and apps on demand now, it’s impossible for us to grasp the overwhelming allure of the comic strip in America and the wider world. From the Great Depression to the end of World War II, with no domestic television, radio coverage far from comprehensive and movie-shows a weekly treat at best for most, entertainment was generally garnered from those ubiquitous newspaper comic sections. Funny Pages were a universally shared, communal recreation for millions. Entire families were well-served by an astounding variety of features of spectacular graphic and narrative quality.

From the outset humour was paramount – that’s why they’re called “Comics” – but eventually anarchic baggy-pants clowning, cruelly raucous, racially stereotyped accent humour and gag-&-stunt cartoons palled, evolving into a thoroughly unique entertainment hybrid that was all about the dynamics of panels and pages. At the forefront of the transformation was Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs. It utilised a blend of silent movie slapstick, outrageous movie serial antics, fabulous fantasy and old fashioned vaudeville shtick, but also added compellingly witty and authentically true dialogue and a breathtaking sense of day-to-day progression – in short, serial continuity. There were also plenty of lovely women; what we used to call “something for the dads”…

What separated Crane from his close contemporaries and competitors – who were making similar advancements in the new art form – was that he was blending the fun with stirring, contemporary rollercoaster, implausible heroic action…

Washington Tubbs II began as a typical gag-a-day strip on April 21st 1924, bearing marked similarities to confirmed family favourite Harold Teen (by Crane’s pal and contemporary Carl Ed). Young Wash was a short, feisty and fiercely ambitious shop clerk permanently on the lookout for fortune and fame, but cursed with an eye for the ladies. Gradually his peripatetic wanderings moved from embarrassing gaffes towards mock-heroics, into full-blown – but still light-hearted – action and ultimately rip-roaring, decidedly dangerous hazardous trials, ordeals and exploits. This graphic evolution eventually demanded the introduction of a he-man sidekick to handle the fights the kid was getting into but seldom won. Thus enter moody, swashbuckling heroic prototype Captain Easy in the landmark episode for May 6th 1929…

Slap-bang in the middle of a European war, fast-talking, garrulous Tubbs saved a taciturn, down-on-his-luck, enigmatic fellow American from a cell and a perfect partnership was formed. They became inseparable: comrades-in-arms, roving the globe in search of treasure, lambasting louts and fighting thugs to rescue a stunning procession of wondrous women in assorted modes of distress…

The edgily capable, utterly dependable “Southern Gen’leman” was something previously unseen in Funnies: a raw, square-jawed hunk played dead straight rather than as the mock-heroic buffoon/music hall foil cluttering strips like Hairsbreadth Harry or Desperate Desmond. Moreover, Crane’s seductively simple blend of cartoon exuberance, combining faux-straight illustration with “bigfoot” cartooning (here carefully mimicked and even surpassed by his assistant and creative successor Leslie Turner) was a far more accessible and powerful medium for fast-paced adventure story-telling than the beautiful but stagy style favoured by artists like Hal Foster on Tarzan or Prince Valiant and Alex Raymond with Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim. Tubbs & Easy were much closer to the surreal, absurdly action-packed Popeye or V. T. Hamlin’s comedy caveman Alley Oop: full of vim, vigour and vinegar and seldom sombre or serious for long…

The overall effect was electrifying – and a host of young cartoonists used the strip as their bellwether: Floyd Gottfredson, Milton Caniff, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner and especially an impressionably admiring Joe Shuster…

After several abortive attempts at a Sunday feature starring his little warrior, Crane eventually settled on the burly sidekick as his potential star and Captain Easy launched on July 30th 1933. The content was unflinching exotic action: blistering two-fisted yarns set before the two buddies’ first meeting.

This fourth and final fabulous volume covers December 22nd 1940 to July 11th 1943, bringing to a close Crane’s association with the strip. He had abandoned the feature to NEA, joining William Randolph Hearst’s King Features to produce Buz Sawyer – a strip he would own and have creative control over. Turner continued both the daily Wash Tubbs and Sunday Captain Easy (with his own assistants) until his retirement in 1969.

This blockbuster collection opens with an Introduction from Michael H. Price tracing potential candidates as basis for the surly Southerner in ‘Roy Crane and the Man Who was Easy’ before the increasingly eccentric and comedic final pages, a goodly proportion of which were produced during the critical period just before America finally entered WWII.

The material is significant for one salient point – Tubbs and especially Easy are scarcely seen after hostilities commenced. The reason was obvious: all true patriots wanted to defend their country and the heroes enlisted…

The hilarious action begins with the reintroduction of comedy foil Lulu Belle: a homely, cigar-chomping hillbilly lady who had been a circus strongwoman and undisputed Female boxing champion for fifteen years. She had married serial bigamist and all-round bounder C. Hollis Wallis before going home heartbroken to her family, but as they just saw her as a meal ticket too, she was overjoyed when Tubbs & Easy wandered by the old homestead.

Soon she was accompanying them to Guatemala, following an out-of-date advert for workers at a wildcat oil field. Arriving eight years too late, the trio are gulled into joining a bandit gang run by savage and sultry Teresa Grande; a Latin spitfire who’s the most dangerous killer in the country. She, however, is smitten with Easy’s manly charms, and redeems herself at terrible cost when her gang try to steal sacred relics from a remote village and its ancient temple.

Homeless and broke as usual, the plucky Americans then walk to the coast and find passage on a ship run an eccentric who keeps pet tigers. The voyage goes as you’d expect and the trio end up shipwrecked somewhere off Cuba, only to be stalked by a wild Wolf Girl: a lost child marooned and grown wild as she matured in the jungle…

After numerous close shaves and hilarious escapades, Easy captures and partially tames the bestial lass, entrusting her to the care of a vacationing American psychologist, whilst Lulu Belle secures a job as cook in a dingy waterfront dive. It’s there that she meets and is romanced by Easy’s brutal arch-enemy Bull Dawson, and inadvertently lures Wash and the Captain aboard the rogue’s ship. Brokering a tenuous peace, she convinces her friend to work on the “reformed” Dawson’s new job: a jungle reclamation project near the Panama Canal. It’s all a big con, though. The treacherous pirate is actually building a secret landing-field for agents of a certain foreign power and when Wash and Easy uncover the truth the fists and fireworks fly…

Returned to the USA, heartbroken, lovelorn Lulu is taken in by the ambitious schemes of a millionaire who somehow finds the unprepossessing lady irresistible. Of course Akron O. Spratly also has plans to boost the war effort by extracting much-needed rubber from frogs…

After much outrageous flummery and hilarious misadventure Lulu is left even sadder, if no wiser, just as the now partially civilised Wolf Girl returns. She has escaped her collegiate captors and is running wild in the big city: her immense physical strength and speed causing much unladylike chaos in Gentlemen’s clubs, the circus, on sports fields and at the Zoo. She also displays amazing talent for acquiring pretty sparkly items like watches and jewellery…

A very different type of girl appears next as obnoxious ten-time married billionaire Horatio Boardman swears off women again and hires Easy to make sure the pledge sticks. Sadly, local mobsters are determined to introduce the World’s Eighth Richest Man to Baby Doll, a sexily appealing ingénue with the rapacious heart of a viper…

That screwball set-up was good for three months-worth of laughs before Lulu again takes centre stage when a boastful beautician is suckered into a bet that he can make any woman so lovely that she will be photographed in the newspapers…

Reduced to simple straight man by Lulu, Easy soon took third place as the boxing broad accidentally acquired a manic and capacious ostrich named Lucille. The big bird’s astounding appetite led to Lulu becoming the indentured slave of a shady farmer who first had her work off the giant’s gannet’s destructive binges and then sold his guilt-wracked toiler on to other men in need of fields ploughed, clothes washed and chores done… until the outraged Easy came back and dealt with the vile trafficker…

Stony broke but free once more, Lulu then roped Easy in on a culinary affair as she opened a diner in the worst place possible, just as her ne’er-do-well family palmed off a young cousin onto her. Augustus Mervin Gasby was a locust in human form, and his astonishing appetite seemed fit to bust the desperate pair… until the former-soldier-of-fortune found something that the shambling oaf could do really well…

A panoply of ludicrous sporting endeavours eventually led Gus into the Navy whilst on the Home Front Easy and Lulu went fishing and subsequently exposed a huge dope-smuggling ring in one of the last rousing adventure episodes, after which the tone switched back to screwball comedy with the re-emergence of C. Hollis Wallis who weaselled into town in search of another woman to marry and fleece. He wasn’t particularly picky and despite Lulu keeping a weather eye – and occasionally a couple of clenched fists – on him, the louse breezed through a few options before settling upon one eminent prospect who lived in a mansion with many oil-wells attached.

He had no idea she was only the cook…

A secondary plot began mid-stream as Zoot-suit gangster William “Trigger Boy” Scramooch got out of the State Pen and moved into Lulu’s boarding house. Ever prey to poor judgement, she took a shine to him whereas for Easy it was disgust at first sight…

Horning in on Wallis’ potential windfall, Trigger Boy planned a kidnap and tricked Lulu into doing his dirty work. Big mistake…

More single page gags follow, including a clever patriotic sequence where Lulu buys a big gas-guzzling automobile and leads the nation by her sacrificial example after which Easy makes his last appearance (28th February 1943) serving to reintroduce another old pal.

Magician, ventriloquist and escapologist Lonny “the Great” Plunkett pops up once more, pranking the cops and again becoming a target of crooks in dire need of illicit safecracking expertise. Lulu is a natural partner for the sharp guy and together they scotch the hoods’ plan, after which romance blooms again when 600-pound gorilla Roy Boy decides only she can be his ideal mate. When he’s frustrated in his amorous endeavours he smashes out of his cage and rampages like a hairy tornado through town…

The comic capers conclude on a high humour note with a return to C. Hollis Wallis’ ongoing marital scam, which escalates into brilliant farce before the loathsome little Lothario gets what’s coming to him…

Ending this final titanic (with pages 380mm high x 270mm wide) luxury hardback tome is a full-colour correction from volume 3, another hand-painted colour-guide strip by Crane and Rick Norwood’s ‘Transition’: an illustrated article explaining just where Tubbs & Easy went when they faded from Turner’s Sunday pages…

Roy Crane’s Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips is a magnificent undertaking: gathering in a wonderfully accessible form one of the most impressive, funny, exciting and influential comic strips of all time, in books that cannot help but inspire awe and affection. Captain Easy is perhaps the most unsung of all great pulp heroes and his spectacular, rip-snorting, pulse-pounding, exotically racy adventures should be just as familiar to lovers of classic adventure as Tintin, Doc Savage, Allan Quatermain, Scrooge McDuck and even Indiana Jones.

These astounding masterpieces are quite unforgettable: fanciful, entertaining and utterly irresistible. How can you possibly pass up the chance to experience the stories that inspired the giants of action adventure?

Captain Easy strips © 2013 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books, all other material © the respective copyright holders. All rights reserved.

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Bob Powell’s Complete Cave Girl


By Gardner Fox & Bob Powell, with James Vance, John Wooley, Mark Schultz & various (Kitchen Sink/Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-700-3 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

Like every art form, comics can be readily divided into masterpieces and populist pap, but that damning assessment necessarily comes with a bunch of exclusions and codicils. Periodical publications, like pop songs, movies and the entirety of television’s output (barring schools programming), are designed to sell to masses of consumers. As such the product must reflect the target and society at a specific moment in time and perforce quickly adapt and change with every variation in taste or fashion.

The situation is most especially true of comics – especially those created before they had won any kind of credibility: primarily deemed by their creators and publishers as a means of parting youngsters from disposable cash. The fact that so many have been found to possess redeeming literary and artistic merit or social worth is post hoc rationalisation. Those creators striving for better, doing the very best they could because of their inner artistic drives, were being rewarded with just as meagre a financial reward as the shmoes just phoning it in for the paycheck. That sad state of affairs in periodical publication wasn’t helped by the fact that most editors thought they knew what the readership wanted – safe, prurient gratification – and mostly they were right.

Even so, from such swamps gems occasionally emerged…

The entire genre of “Jungle Girls” is one fraught with perils for modern readers. Barely clad, unattainable, (generally) white paragons of feminine pulchritude lording it over superstitious primitives is one that is now pretty hard to digest for most of us hairless apes, but frankly so are most of the attitudes of our grandfathers’ time.

However, ways can be found to accommodate such crystallised or outdated attitudes, especially when reading from a suitably detached historical perspective and even more so when the art is crafted by a master storyteller like Bob Powell. After all, it’s not that big a jump from fictionalised 1950s forests to today’s filmic metropolises where leather armoured (generally white) Adonises with godlike power paternalistically watch over us, telling us lumpy, dumpy, ethnically mixed losers how to live and be happy…

Sorry, I love all comics in all genres from all eras, but sometimes the Guilty Pleasure meter on my conscience just redlines and I can’t stop it. Just remember, it’s not real…

As businessmen or employees of such, editors and publishers always knew what hormonal kids wanted to see and they gave it to them. It’s no different today. Just take a look at any comic shop shelf or cover listings site and see how many fully-clad, small-breasted females you can spot. And how many equivalent male inamoratii there aren’t..

Cave Girl was one of the last entries of the surprisingly long-lived Jungle Queen genre and consequently looks relatively mild in comparison to other titles as regards suggestive or prurient titillation. Here the action-adventure side of the equation was always most heavily stressed and readers of the time could see far more salacious material at every movie house if they needed to. And the pages were so damn well drawn…

End of self-gratifying apologies. Let’s talk about Bob.

Stanley Robert Pawlowski was born in 1916 in Buffalo, New York, and studied at the Pratt Institute in Manhattan before joining one of the earliest comics-packaging outfits: the Eisner-Iger Shop. He was a solid and dependable staple of American comic books’ Golden Age, illustrating a variety of key features. He drew original Jungle Queen Sheena in Jumbo Comics plus other JG featurettes and Spirit of ’76 for Harvey’s Pocket Comics. He handled assorted material for Timely titles such as Captain America in All-Winners Comics, Tough Kid Comics plus such genre material as Gale Allen and the Women’s Space Battalion for anthologies like Planet Comics, Mystery Men Comics and Wonder Comics.

Bob was recently revealed to have co-scripted/created Blackhawk as well as drawing Loops and Banks in Military Comics, as well as so many more now near-forgotten strips: all under a variety of English-sounding pseudonyms, since the tone of the times was rather unforgiving for creative people of minority origins. Eventually the artist settled on S. Bob Powell and had his name legally changed…

Probably his most well-remembered and highly regarded tour of duty was on Mr. Mystic in Will Eisner’s Spirit Section newspaper insert. After serving in WWII, Bob came home and quit to set up his own studio. Eisner never forgave him. Powell – with his assistants Howard Nostrand, Martin Epp & George Siefringer – swiftly established a solid reputation for quality, versatility and reliability: working for Fawcett (Vic Torry & His Flying Saucer, Hot Rod Comics, Lash Larue), Harvey Comics (Man in Black, Adventures in 3-D and True 3-D) and on Street and Smith’s Shadow Comics.

He was particularly prolific in many titles for Magazine Enterprises (ME), including early TV tie-in Bobby Benson’s B-Bar-B Riders, Red Hawk in Straight Arrow, Jet Powers and the short but bombastic run of quasi-superhero Strong Man. Bob easily turned his hand to a vast range of War, Western, Science Fiction, Crime, Comedy and Horror material: consequently generating as by-product some of the best and most glamorous “Good Girl art” of the era (remember, this is pre pornhub and MTV), both in comics and in premiums strip packages for business. In the 1960s he pencilled the infamous Mars Attacks cards, illustrated Bessie Little’s Teena-a-Go-Go and the Bat Masterson newspaper strip, before ending his days drawing Daredevil, Human Torch and Giant-Man for Marvel.

This captivating compilation gathers all the Cave Girl appearances – written by equally gifted and ubiquitous jobbing scripter Gardner F. Fox – from numerous ME publications.

The company employed a truly Byzantine method of numbering their comic books so I’ll cite Thun’da #2-6 (1953), Cave Girl #4 (1953-1954) and Africa, Thrilling Land of Mystery #1 (1955) simply for the sake of brevity and completeness, knowing that it makes no real difference to your enjoyment of what’s to come.

This splendid tome includes a Biography of Bob, an incisive Introduction from Mark (Xenozoic, Superman: Man of Steel, Prince Valiant) Schultz, and an erudite essay – ‘King of the Jungle Queens’– by James Vance & John Wooley, diligently examining the origins of the subgenre (courtesy of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, William Henry Hudson’s novel Green Mansions and a slew of B-movies); its development in publishing; the effect of the phenomenon and Powell’s overall contributions to comics in a far more even-handed and informed way than I can manage…

That done, it’s time to head to an Africa that never existed for action and adventure beyond compare. Cave Girl started as a back-up feature in Thun’da #2: a primeval barbarian saga set in an antediluvian region of the Dark Continent where dinosaurs still lived. In ‘The Ape God of Kor’ the mighty primitive encounters a blonde stranger who can speak to birds and beasts, and helps her escape the unwanted attentions of a bestial tyrant. When that’s not enough to deter the monstrous suitor, Thun’da and Cave Girl have no choice but to topple his empire…

In #3, the wild woman met ‘The Man Who Served Death!’ – a criminal from the outer world whose hunger for gold and savage brutality necessitates his urgent removal from the land of the living. Cave Girl’s beloved animal allies are being wantonly slaughtered to appease ‘The Shadow God of Korchak!’ next, forcing the gorgeous guardian of the green to topple the lost kingdom’s debauched queen, after which the tireless champion tackles a trio of sadistic killers from the civilised world in ‘Death Comes Three Ways!’

A rather demeaning comedy sidekick debuted in ‘The Little Man Who Was All There!’ (Thun’da #6) as pompous “pigmy” (sorry, so sorry!!) bumbler Bobo attaches himself to Cave Girl as her protector. From there the forest monarch sprang into her own title, beginning with Cave Girl #11. ‘The Pool of Life!’ delved back in time to when a scientific expedition was wiped out, leaving little blonde toddler Carol Mantomer to fend for herself. Happily, the child was adopted by Kattu the wolf and grew tall and strong and mighty…

The obligatory origin dispensed with, the story proceeds to reveal how two white explorers broach the lost valley and reap their deserved fate after finding a little lake with mystic properties. Time honoured tables are turned when explorer Luke Hardin deduces Cave Girl’s true identity and convinces the wild child to come with him to Nairobi and claim her inheritance. Already appalled by the gadgets and morass of humanity in ‘The City of Terror!’, Carol’s decision to leave is cemented by her only living relative’s attempts to murder her for said inheritance…

En route home, her wild beauty arouses the desires of millionaire hunter Alan Brandon, but his forceful pursuit and attempted abduction soon teaches him he has a ‘Tiger by the Tail!’ before, her trek done, Cave Girl traverses high mountains and finds Alan and Luke have been captured by beast-like primitives and faces the ‘Spears of the Snowmen’ to save them both.

Even the usually astoundingly high-quality scripting of veteran Gardner Fox couldn’t do much with the formulaic strictures of this subgenre, but he always tried his best, as in Cave Girl #12 which opened with ‘The Devil Boat!’ – a submarine disgorging devious crooks in death-masks intent on plundering archaeological treasures found by Luke. Then when an explorer steals a sacred cache of rubies he learns that even Cave Girl can’t prevent his becoming ‘Prey of the Headhunters!’

Fantastic fantasy replaces crass commercial concerns as ‘The Amazon Assassins’ seeking to expand their empire ravage villages under Cave Girl’s protection. The Women Warriors have no conception of the hornet’s nest they are stirring up…

Cave Girl #13 took its lead tale from newspaper headlines as the jungle defender clashed with ‘The Mau Mau Killers!’ butchering innocents and destabilising the region, after which ‘Altar of the Axe’ features the return of those formerly all-conquering Amazons. They believe they can counter their arch-enemy’s prowess with a battalion of war elephants. Their grievous error then seamlessly segues into a battle with escaped convict Buck Maldin as ‘The Jungle Badman’ who is beaten by Cave Girl but allows greedy buffoon Bobo to claim the reward – and quickly regrets it…

Powell reached a creative zenith illustrating for Cave Girl #14 (1954), his solid linework and enticing composition augmented by a burst of purely decorative design which made ‘The Man Who Conquered Death’ a dramatic tour de force. When a series of murders and resurrections lead Cave Girl to a mad scientist who has found a time machine, she is transformed into an aged crone, but still possesses the force of will to beat the deranged meddler…

A tad more prosaic, ‘The Shining Gods’ sees a rejuvenated Cave Girl (and Luke) stalking thieves swiping tribal relics, only to uncover a Soviet plot to secure Africa’s radium, after which the queen of the jungle is “saved” by well-intentioned rich woman Leona Carter and brought back to civilisation. Happily, after poor Carol endures a catalogue of modern mishaps which equate to ‘Terror in the Town’, Cave Girl is allowed to return to her true home…

Officially the series ended there, but ME had one last issue ready to print and deftly shifted emphasis by re-badging the package as Africa, Thrilling Land of Mystery #1. It appeared in 1955, sporting a Comics Code Authority symbol. Inside, however, was still formulaic but beautifully limned Cave Girl exposing a conniving witch doctor using ‘The Volcano Fury’ to fleece natives, restoring ‘The Lost Juju’ of the devout Wamboolis before foiling a murderous explorer stealing a million dollar gem, and crushing a potential uprising by taking a fateful ride on ‘The Doom Boat’…

And then she was gone.

Like the society it protected from subversion and corruption, the Comics Code Authority frowned on females disporting themselves freely or appearing able to cope without a man, and the next half-decade was one where women were either submissive, domesticated, silly objects of amusement, ornamental prizes or just plain marital manhunters. It would be the 1970s before strong, independent female characters reappeared in comic books…

Whatever your political leanings or social condition, Cave Girl – taken strictly on her own merits – is one of the mostly beautifully rendered characters in pictorial fiction, and a terrific tribute to the talents of Powell and his team. If you love perfect comics storytelling, of its time, but transcending fashion or trendiness, this is a treasure just waiting to be rediscovered.
Bob Powell’s Complete Cave Girl compilation © 2014 Kitchen, Lind and Associates LLC. Cave Girl is a trademark of AC Comics, successors in interest to Magazine Enterprises and is used here with permission of AC Comics. Introduction © 2014 Mark Schultz. “King of the Jungle Queens” essay © 2014 James Vance and John Wooley. All rights reserved.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks Presents volume 3 1963-1964: It Started on Yancy Street


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with George Roussos, Chic Stone, Sam Rosen, Art Simek & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4907-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

I’m partial to a bit of controversy so I’m going start off by saying that Fantastic Four #1 is the third most important Silver Age comic book ever, behind Showcase #4 – reintroducing The Flash in 1956 – and 1960’s The Brave and the Bold #28, which brought superhero teams back via the creation of The Justice League 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, Jack Kirby settled into his job at the small outfit that used to be publishing powerhouse Timely/Atlas. There he generated mystery, monster, romance, war and western material for a market he suspected to be ultimately doomed. However, as always, he did the best job possible and that genre fare is now considered some of the best of its kind ever seen.

Nevertheless Kirby’s explosive imagination couldn’t be suppressed for long and when the JLA caught readers’ attention it gave him and writer/editor Stan Lee an opportunity to change the industry forever. According to popular myth, a golfing afternoon led to publisher Martin Goodman ordering nephew Stan to do a series about a group of super-characters like the JLA. The resulting team quickly took the 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 people banded together out of tragedy, disaster and necessity to face the incredible. In so many ways, The Challengers of the Unknown (Kirby’s prototype partners in peril for National/DC) laid all the groundwork for the wonders to come, but staid, hidebound editorial strictures there would never have allowed the undiluted energy of the concept to run all-but-unregulated.

Another milestone in the kid-friendly paperback/eBooks line of Mighty Marvel Masterworks, this full-colour pocket-sized compendium collects Fantastic Four #21-29 (spanning cover-dates December 1961 to August 1964) and shows how Stan & Jack cannily built on that early energy to consolidate the FF as the leading title and most innovative series of the era.

As ever the team are maverick scientist Reed Richards, his fiancée Sue Storm, their closest friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother Johnny: survivors of a private space-shot that went horribly wrong after Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding and mutated them all. Richards’ body became elastic, Susan gained the power to turn invisible and her sibling could turn into living flame. Poor tragic Ben was reduced to a shambling, rocky super-strong freak of nature… Soon the FF was recognised as being like no other comic on the market and buyers responded to it avidly if not fanatically…

In late 1963, Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos was another solid newsstand hit for the young “House of Ideas.” Eventually its brusque and brutish star metamorphosed into Marvel’s answer to James Bond. Here, however, he’s a cunning world-weary CIA agent seeking the FF’s aid against a sinister, immigrant-hating racist supremacist demagogue called ‘The Hate-Monger’: a cracking yarn with a strong message, inked by comics veteran George Roussos, under the protective nom-de-plume George Bell.

By this juncture the FF were firmly established and Lee & Kirby well on the way to toppling DC/National Comics from a decades-held top spot through an engaging blend of brash, folksy and consciously contemporaneous sagas: mixing high concept, low comedy, trenchant melodrama and breathtaking action.

Unseen since the premiere issue, #22 heralded ‘The Return of the Mole Man!’ in another full-on monster-mashing fight-fest, chiefly notable for debuting Sue Storm’s new increased power-set. Her ability to project force fields of “invisible energy” also involved a power to reveal hidden things and make others invisible too: advances that would eventually make her one of the mightiest characters in Marvel’s pantheon – and not before time either…

FF #23 enacted ‘The Master Plan of Doctor Doom!’ by introducing his mediocre mercenary minions “the Terrible Trio” – Bull Brogin, Handsome Harry and Yogi Dakor – and the uncanny menace of “the Solar Wave” (which was enough to raise the hackles on my 5-year-old neck. Do I need to qualify that with: all of me was five, but only my neck had properly developed hackles back then?)…

‘The Infant Terrible!’ in #24’s is a classic case of sci fi paranoia and misunderstanding and a sterling yarn of inadvertent extragalactic menace and misplaced innocence, with a reality-warping space baby endangering Earth, and is followed by a 2-part tale truly emphasising the inherent difference between Lee & Kirby’s work and everybody else’s at that time.

Fantastic Four #25-26 offered a cataclysmic clash that had young heads spinning in 1964 and led directly to the Emerald Behemoth finally regaining a strip of his own. In ‘The Hulk vs The Thing’ and conclusion ‘The Avengers Take Over!’ a relentless, lightning-paced, all-out Battle Royale results when the disgruntled emerald man-monster returns to New York in search of side-kick Rick Jones, with only an injury-wracked FF in the way of his destructive rampage.

A definitive moment in The Thing’s character development, action ramps up to the max when a rather stiff-necked and officious Avengers team (Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man, The Wasp and recently-defrosted Captain America) horn in, claiming jurisdictional rights on “Bob” Banner and his Jaded alter ego. The tale is plagued with pesky continuity errors which would haunt Lee for decades, but – bloopers notwithstanding – is one of Marvel’s key moments and still a visceral, vital read today.

Stan & Jack had hit on a winning formula by including other stars in guest-shots – especially since readers could never anticipate if they would fight with or beside the home team. FF #27’s ‘The Search for Sub-Mariner!’ again saw the undersea antihero in amorous mood, and when he abducts Sue again, the boys call in Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts to locate them. Issue #28 delivered another terrific promotional infomercial team-up, but remains most notable (for me and many other fans) because of the man who replaced George Roussos as inker…

‘We Have to Fight the X-Men!’ sees the disparate super-squads in conflict due to the Mad Thinker and Puppet Master’s malign machinations, but the inclusion of Chic Stone – Kirby’s most simpatico and expressive inker – elevates the illustration to indescribable levels of beauty as the sinister savants briefly mind-control professor Charles Xavier and order him to set his students on the extremely surprised first family…

Closing this foray into the fantastic comes ‘It Started on Yancy Street!’ (FF #29) opening low-key and a little bit silly in the slum where Ben grew up, before the reappearance of the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes sees everything go wild and cosmic. The result is another meeting with the almighty Watcher, a blockbusting battle on the Moon, and the promise of bigger and even better to come…

To Be Continued…

Bolstered by all Kirby’s covers, this is a truly magnificent treat sharing pioneering tales that built a comics empire. The verve, imagination and sheer enthusiasm shines through and the wonder is there for you to share. If you’ve never thrilled to these spectacular sagas then this book of marvels is your best and most economical key to another world and time.
© 2023 MARVEL.

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Bunny vs Monkey: The Whopping World of Puzzles!


By Jamie Smart, with Sammy Borras (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-350-9 (Digest HB)

Bunny vs Monkey has been the hairy/fuzzy backbone of The Phoenix since the very first issue back in 2012: recounting a madcap vendetta gripping animal arch-enemies in an idyllic arcadia masquerading as more-or-less mundane but critically endangered English woodlands.

Concocted with gleefully gentle mania by cartoonist, comics artist and novelist Jamie Smart (Fish Head Steve!; Looshkin; Max and Chaffy, Flember), his trendsetting, mindbending multi award-winning yarns have been wisely retooled as graphic albums available in digest editions such as this one.

The tail-biting tension and animal argy-bargy began yonks ago after an obnoxiously annoying little anthropoid plopped down in some serene British woodland, in the wake of a disastrous local space shot. Crashed down in Crinkle Woods, scant miles from his launch site, lab animal Monkey reckoned himself the rightful owner of a strange new world… despite every effort to dissuade him by reasonable, rational, sensible, genteel, contemplative forest resident Bunny. No amount of patience, propriety or good breeding on the part of the laid-back lepine could curtail, contain or control the incorrigible idiot ape.

A keen rivalry arose between them, as the ape intruder crudely made himself at home, and to this day Monkey remains a rude, noise-loving, chaos-creating, troublemaking lout intent on building his perfect “Monkeyopia” – with or without the aid of evil supergenius ally Skunky or their “henches” Metal Steve and Action Beaver. Problems are exacerbated by other unconventional Crinkle creatures, like Pig, Weenie, Ai, Lucky, Le Fox. Mad scientist Skunky’s intellect and cavalier attitude to life presents as a propensity for building extremely dangerous robots, Brobdingnagian bio-beasts and sundry other super-weapons…

Here the mundane multi-coloured – albeit rendered here in multifarious shades of mystifying monochrome tones – manic war of nerves and mega-munitions is pettishly paused for a session of traditional entertainment and activities as the entire cast amble ‘To the Woods’ and into a fun-filled framing comic tale. Exploring and ending up somewhere never seen before, our cuddly combatants mutually discover and take charge of a ramshackle and abandoned “lost” fun-fair. Their ingrained competitive lunacy sees all involved revive old rides but also -and this is where you come in – refit and revamp games and puzzles stalls, seeking to make it a holiday fun ride for all…

Cue a selection of character-themed quizzes, puzzles, tests of skill and imagination and other pen and paper activities, Part One of which focuses on reconditioned ‘Games Stalls’. We open with the titular attention-seeking simian lout. His odd-one-out conundrum ‘I am Monkey’ leads to self-explanatory ‘Bunny’s Cross Words’ and more esoteric wordplay in ‘Action Beaver’s Bibblesearch’, ‘Weenie’s Wall of Words’, and ‘Ai’s Speedy Wordswitches’ before naughty wordsearch ‘Monkey’s Too Rude!’ brings us to pencil-driven ‘Metal E.V.E.’s Hall of Mirrors’, ‘Spaces for Faces’ and ‘Embiggening for Beginners’…

Riddles and enigmas abound next in ‘Codewords with Le Fox’ after which traversing the ‘Amazing Mud Maze’ will afford a pause to assess ‘Who Will Win? Only You Can Decide’ prior to Part Two commencing with ‘Costume Conundrums!’ and paper-folding foolishness for ‘Fortune-Telling Monkey’ and his ‘Laugh of Truth’ before ‘Bunny’s Would You Rather?’ poses challenging questions in advance of really AARRRRD! stuff in ‘Name That Pirate with Weenie and Pig’ and ‘Talk Like a Pirate’, before again asking ‘Who Will Succeed? Only you can decide!’

Part Three contains culinary calamities and chewy comestibles aplenty, all bedecking assorted ‘FoodStalls’. Learn how to deal with ‘Candyfloss Quiffs’ and identify ‘Weenie’s Cake a Difference’ whilst cowering in glee over ‘Cookery Corner: Wobbleberry Buns’. Having cooked but not burned, we wonder ‘What’s That Smell?’, ‘What’s That Noise?’ and ‘Who’s in the Loo?’ and reassess how ‘Only One Will Succeed!’ before Part Four brings us to a House of Horror uncovering Skunky’s private lab wherein lurks ‘Skunky’s Monster Maker’, ‘House of Horror’, and ‘The All-Seeing Eye!’

Should you need to take breath ‘Skudoku’ and ‘Badgoku’ are available as are ‘Metal E.V.E.’s Hints and Tips’ and ‘Skunky’s Number Puzzle’ just before a barrage of life-challenging decisions await those tackling adventure quiz ‘None of the Fun of the Fair’…

The comic story resumes and concludes in traditional shocking vulgar fashion before the last survivors stagger up to the bit with all the ‘Answers’…

Daft, compulsively addictive, dangerously read-out-loud-able and fearfully unputdownable, this cutting edge retro-treat is the perfect gift for anyone with crayons, paper and too many kids.
Text and illustrations © Fumboo Ltd. 2024. All rights reserved.

Bunny vs Monkey: The Whopping World of Puzzles! will be published on March 27th 2025 and is available for pre-order now.

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Golden Age Hawkman Archives volume 1


By Gardner F. Fox, Dennis Neville, Sheldon Moldoff & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0418-1 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are many comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant will be rightly celebrated, but a few are going to be unjustly ignored. As a feverish fanboy wedged firmly in the past, I’m again abusing my privileges here to carp about another brilliant vintage book, criminally out of print and not slated for revival either physically or in digital formats…

Although one of DC’s most long-lived and certainly their most visually iconic character, the various iterations of Hawkman have always struggled to find enough of an audience to sustain a solo title. From his beginnings as one of the assorted second features in new anthology Flash Comics (the others being Cliff Cornwall, The King, The Whip, spoof hero Johnny Thunder and Ed Wheelan’s “Picture Novels/Minute Movies”), adding lustre to the soaraway success of the eponymous speedster helming the title, Winged Wonder Carter Hall has struggled through assorted engaging, exciting but always short-lived reconfigurations.

Over decades from ancient hero to re-imagined alien space-cop and post-Crisis on Infinite Earths freedom fighter, or the seemingly desperate but highly readable bundling together of all previous iterations into the reincarnating immortal berserker-warrior of today, the Pinioned Paladin has performed exemplary service without ever really making it to the big time. Hopefully that’s all changed now, thanks to modern movie trends…

Created by Gardner Fox & Dennis Neville, Hawkman first took to the skies in Flash Comics #1 (cover-dated January 1940, but actually on sale from November 20th 1939). He stayed there, growing in quality and prestige until the title died at the end of the Golden Age, with the most celebrated artists to have drawn the Feathered Fury being Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Kubert, whilst a young Robert Kanigher was justly proud of his later run as writer.

Together with his partner Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman, for over a decade the gladiatorial mystery-man countered fantastic arcane threats and battled modern crime and tyranny with weapons of the past before vanishing with the bulk of costumed heroes as the 1950s dawned. His last contemporary appearance was in All Star Comics #57 (1951) as official leader of the Justice Society of America, after which the husband-and-wife hellions were revived and re-imagined nine years later as Katar Hol and Shayera Thal of planet Thanagar. That was thanks to Julie Schwartz’s crack creative couple Gardner Fox & Joe Kubert – a space-age reinterpretation which even survived 1985’s winnowing Crisis on Infinite Earths. Their long career, regular revamps and perpetual retcons stalled during 1994’s Zero Hour crisis, but they’ve reincarnated and returned many times since. However, despite being amongst DC’s most celebrated and visually vibrant strips over the years, Hawkman & Hawkwoman always struggled to retain sufficient audience share to sustain their numerous solo endeavours.

This spectacular deluxe hardcover re-presentation of their formative years (collecting appearances from Flash Comics #1-22, spanning cover dates January 1940 to October 1941) opens with a fond reminiscence by artist Moldoff (Batman, Black Pirate, Sea Devils, Gang Busters, Mr. District Attorney, Moon Girl) in his Foreword before the magic begins as it should with Fox & Neville’s ‘The Origin of Hawkman’. In an first epochal episode, dashing Carter Hall is a playboy scientific tinkerer and part-time archaeologist with a penchant for collecting old, rare weapons, whose dormant memory is abruptly unlocked by an ancient crystal dagger newly purchased for his collection. Through dreams, the dilettante realises that once he had been Prince Khufu of ancient Egypt, murdered with his lover Shiera by Anubis’ High Priest Hath-Set. Moreover, with his newly returned memories, Hall realises the eternal struggle is primed to play out once more…

As if pre-destined, he bumps into equally reincarnated and recently-remembering Shiera Sanders just as a terrifying electrical menace turns New York City’s subway system into a lightning-fuelled killing field. The new couple soon deduce the deadly genius Doctor Hastor is their reborn ancient nemesis Hastor and, after fashioning an outlandish uniform and anti-gravity harness from mystic Egyptian “Ninth Metal”, Hall hunts the deranged electrical scientist to his lair. He’s just in time to save mesmerised Shiera from a second death-by-sacrifice: mercilessly ending the cycle – at least for now…

Flash #2’s ‘The Globe Conquerors’ concentrated on fantastic science as Hall & Saunders tackle a modern Alexander the Great who builds a gravity-altering engine in a ruthless quest to conquer the world, whilst ‘The Secret of Dick Blendon’ in #3 sees “The Hawk-Man” expose a wicked scheme by insidious slavers turning brilliant men into zombies for profit, to gather riches and to ferret out the secret of eternal life.

Sheldon Moldoff debuted as artist in Flash Comics #4, illustrating a splendidly barbarous thriller wherein the Winged Warrior clashes with ‘The Thought Terror’: a sinister mesmerist enslaving the city’s wealthy citizens, prior to ‘The Kidnapping of Ione Craig’ in #5 pitting the crimefighting phenomenon against “Asiatic” cultists led by legendary assassin Hassan Ibn Saddah. These killers are determined to stop a pretty missionary and secret agent from investigating distant “Araby”. Moldoff has received overly unfair criticism over the years for his frequent, copious but stylishly artistic swipes from newspaper strips – usually those of  master craftsmen Alex Raymond and Hal Foster – in his work of this period, but one look at the stunning results here as the feature took a quantum leap in visual quality should silence those quibblers for good.

Maintaining the use of exotic locales, the story extended in #6 as Hall and Ione struggle to cross burning Saharan sands to the African coast before defeating Arab slavers and their deadly ruler ‘Sheba, Queen of the Desert’ before in #7 further exploring the mystical and supernatural underpinnings of the strip. These readily lent themselves to spooky tales of quasi-horror and barbaric intensity. Generally, “The Eerie Unknown” and deluded dabblers in darkness were oft-used elements in Hawkman tales, as seen in ‘Czar, the Unkillable Man’, wherein the Avian Avenger, back in the USA and reunited with Shiera, contests a merciless golem animated by a crazed sculptor aiming to get rich at any cost. Issue #8 offered another deranged technologist as Professor Kitzoff – ‘The Sunspot Wizard’ – alters the pattern and frequency of solar blemishes to foment riot, madness and chaos on Earth… until the Winged Wonder intervenes, after which in ‘The Creatures from the Canyon’ Hawkman repels aquatic invaders living in the depths 5,000 feet below Manhattan Island after they decide to expand their ancient empire upwards…

Bidding for an old firearm at an auction in #10, Hall is inexorably drawn into a maddening murder-mystery and hunt for a lost Colorado goldmine in ‘Adventures of the Spanish Blunderers’, before ‘Trouble in Suburbia’ manifests after a hit-&-run accident draws plucky Shiera into a corrupt and convoluted property-scam. Boyfriend Carter is quite prepared to stand back and let her deal with the villains – even if Hawkman must exert some surreptitious muscle to close the case. Another murderous scam then involves an old High Society chum as ‘The Heart Patient’ reveals how a devious gold digger and a rogue doctor serially poison healthy young men to fleece them into paying for a cure, whilst in #13, ‘Satana, the Tiger Girl’ preys on admirers for far more sinister reasons: pitting Hawkman and Shiera against scientifically hybridised killer-cats…

‘The Awesome Alligator’ sees an elder god return to Earth, inspiring and equipping a lethal lunatic in a plot to conquer America with ancient secrets and futuristic super-weapons. None of those incredible threats could withstand cold fury and a well-wielded mace, however…

At this time the Pinioned Paladin usually dispatched foes of humanity with icy aplomb and single-minded ruthlessness, and such supernatural thrillers as #15’s ‘The Hand’ gave Fox & Moldoff ample scope to display the reincarnated warrior’s savage efficiency, as when he tracks down a sentient severed fist stealing and slaughtering at its inventive master’s command. In #16,‘The Graydon Expedition’ reinforces the hero’s crusading credentials after ferociously independent Shiera Saunders goes missing in Mongolia, and the Winged Wonder undertakes a one-man invasion of a fabulous lost kingdom to save her. Flash Comics #17 offered ‘Murder at the Opera’, putting the bold birdman on the trail of an arcane Golden Mummy Sect with a perilously prosaic origin and agenda, whilst #18 has him investigating skulduggery in the Yukon after the philanthropic Miss Saunders rushes north to offer aid to starving miners during ‘The Gold Rush of ’41’.

Evidently capable of triumphing in any environment or milieu, Hawkman next derailed deranged physicist Pratt Palmer in #19, when that arrogant savant attempts to become the overlord of crime using his deadly ‘Cold Light’ discoveries. One month later, ‘The Mad Bomber’ sees the Avian Ace ally with a racketeer to stop mad scientist Sathan destroying their city with remote-controlled aerial torpedoes, after which Hawkman must end the tragically terrible accidental rampage of an extraterrestrial foundling raised by a callous rival for Shiera’s affections in ‘Menace from Space’…

This high-flying compilation concludes with October 1941’s Flash Comics #22 and ‘The Adventure of the Killer Gang’, wherein stubborn Shiera witnesses a bloody hijacking and determines to make the bandits pay. Although she again helps Hawkman deal with the murderous vermin as a civilian here, big changes were in store for her…

Already in All Star Comics #5 (July 1941) she had first worn wings and a costume of her own, and in Flash Comics #24 (December 1941) she would at last become an equal partner in peril and fully-fledged hero: Hawkgirl. Sadly that’s a tale for another volume…

Exotic, engaging and fantastically inviting, these Golden Age adventures are a true high-point of the era and still offer astonishing thrills and chills. When all’s said and done it’s all about the heady rush of raw adventure, but there’s also a fabulous frisson of nostalgia here to wallow in: recapturing that magical full-sensorium burst of smell and feel and imagination-overload that finds kids at a perfect moment and provokes something visual and conceptual that almost literally blows the mind.

We re-read stories hoping to rekindle that instantly addictive buzz and constantly seek out new comics desperately hoping to recapture that pure, halcyon burst, and these lost mini-epics are phenomenally imbued with everything fans need to make that breathtaking moment happen. Hopefully DC will realise that one day soon and revive these compelling compulsive collections: either in solid form or at least as digital editions…
© 1940, 1941, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.