Category: DC Horror

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Showcase Presents Ghosts


By Leo Dorfman, Murray Boltinoff, John Broome, Jack Miller, Joe Samachson, George Kashdan, Bob Haney, Richard E. Hughes, Carl Wessler, Tony DeZuñiga, Jim Aparo, Sam Glanzman, Carmine Infantino, Sy Barry, Frank Giacoia, John Calnan, Bob Brown, George Tuska, Wally Wood, Curt Swan, Ruben Moreira, Irwin Hasen, Leonard Starr, Jerry Grandenetti, Nick Cardy, Ramona Fradon, Art Saaf, Michael William Kaluta, Jack Sparling, Win Mortimer, Ernie Chan, Buddy Gernale, Nestor, Quico & Frank Redondo, Alfredo Alcala, Gerry Talaoc, Nestor Malgapo, E.R. Cruz, Rico Rival, Abe Ocampo, Ernesto Patricio & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-836-1 (TPB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Perfect Serving of Spectral Wonderment… 8/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Happy Dia de los Muertos! Let’s wind down our own Halloween celebrations and enjoy the more life-affirming Day of the Dead with a fabulously appropriate tome…

DC Comics came relatively late to funnybooks’ phantom-peril party, only bowing to the inevitable hunger for horror and mystery in the early 1950s. Comparatively straight-laced anthology The House of Mystery (cover-dated December 1951/January 1952) started the ball rolling with a gradual pick up that stopped dead after a hysterical censorship scandal and governmental witch-hunt created a spectacular backlash. It resulted in the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulatory rules. Horror titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, even though the appetite for suspense was still high. Nevertheless, in 1956 National/DC added sister title House of Secrets which specialised in taut human-interest tales in a fantasy milieu.

Stories were dialled back into marvellously illustrated, rationalistic, fantasy-adventure vehicles which dominated the market until the 1960s when super-heroes finally overtook them. When that bout of cape-and-cowl craziness peaked and popped, sales began bottoming out for Costumed Dramas and comics faced another punishing sales downturn.

Nothing combats censorship better than falling profits. As the end of the 1960s saw the superhero boom end with so many titles dead and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain too, the publishers took drastic action. This real-world Crisis led to the surviving players in the field agreeing to loosen their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles but as liberalisation coincided with another bump in public interest in all aspects of the Worlds Beyond, a resurrection of spooky comics was a foregone conclusion…

The chilling comeback resumed with The House of Mystery in 1968, and soon supernatural mystery titles dominated the marketplace, DC began a steady stream of launches along narrowly differing thematic lines. There was gothic horror romance title Sinister House of Secret Love, combat iteration Weird War Tales and, from late summer 1970, a bold new book which proudly boasted “True Tales of the Weird and Supernatural!” and challenged readers to read on… if they dared…

Originally released on St Valentine’s Day 2012, this sadly sole and singular monochrome encyclopaedia of the uncanny collects the first 18 issues of Ghosts, covering like a shroud September/October 1970 to September 1973. Lead scripter and supernatural enthusiast Leo Dorfman produced most of the original material for a title he is generally credited with creating. Dorfman was one of the most prolific scripters of the era (also working as David George and Geoff Brown) and a major scripter of horror stories for DC and Gold Key titles.

The thrills and chills begin with a graphic ‘Introduction’ from Tony DeZuñiga – probably scripted by editor Murray Boltinoff – prior to ‘Death’s Bridegroom’ (Dorfman & Jim Aparo) exposing a conniving bluebeard conman who finally picked the wrong girl to bilk and jilt. Sam Glanzman illustrated a fearsome tale of a shipbuilder slain while sabotaging a Nazi U-Boat before returning as a vengeful ‘Ghost in the Iron Coffin’, after which John Broome, Carmine Infantino & Sy Barry’s ‘The Tattooed Terror’ offers a slice of Golden Age anxiety (from Sensation Mystery #112, November 1952) with a career criminal seemingly haunted by his betrayed partner. Broome, Infantino & Frank Giacoia then relived ‘The Last Dream’ (Sensation Comics #107, December 1951-January 1952) as a 400-year old rivalry results in death for a 20th century sceptic, and this initial issue ends with a Western mystery in ‘The Spectral Coachman’ by Dorfman & DeZuñiga.

The second issue opens with a predatory ghost-witch persecuting a Carpathian village in Dorfman, John Calnan & George Tuska’s ‘No Grave can Hold Me’, whilst ‘Mission Supernatural’ (limned by Bob Brown & Wally Wood) reveals a WWII secret perpetually plaguing a modern English airport. A brace of revered reprints begin with light-hearted romp ‘The Sorrow of the Spirits’ from HoM #21 (December 1953, Jack Miller, Curt Swan & Ray Burnley) wherein a plague of famous phantoms attempt to possess their descendants’ bodies and ‘Enter the Ghost’ (Joe Samachson & Ruben Moreira, HoM #29, August 1954) finds an actor endangered by a dead thespian jealous of anyone recreating his greatest role…

With Dorfman still writing the lion’s share of new material, DeZuñiga renders the sorry fate of an unscrupulous diver seduced by discovery of a ‘Galleon of Death’, as Miller & Irwin Hasen’s ‘Lantern in the Rain’ (Sensation Mystery #113, January/February 1953) recounts an eerie railroad episode. Dorfman & Glanzman reunite to tell an original tale of ‘The Ghost Battalions’ who still haunt the world’s battle sites from Gallipoli to Korea.

Dorfman & DeZuñiga visited 17th century Scotland for #3’s opening occult observation, wherein a sea-born princess demands her child back from a wicked Laird in ‘Death is My Mother’, after which ‘The Magician who Haunted Hollywood’ (George Kashdan & Leonard Starr, HoM #10, January 1953) reveals how actor Dick Mayhew may have been aided by a deceased escapologist when playing the starring role in the magician’s biopic…

Drawn by Calnan, ‘The Dark Goddess of Doom’ reveals how a statue of Kali deals with the ruthless collector who stole her, after which anonymously authored ‘Station G.H.O.S.T.’ (limned by Moreira for HoM #17, August 1953) discloses how a man’s scheme to corruptly purchase a house haunted by his ancestor goes weirdly awry, before Tuska draws the saga of a WWII pilot who crashes into a desert nightmare and fatefully meets a ‘Legion of the Dead’. Following a reprinted fact-file on ‘Ghostly Miners’, Jerry Grandenetti depicts how a French landowner who unwisely disturbs a burial ground meets ‘The Screaming Skulls’…

Ghosts #4 starts with a secret history of one of America’s most infamous killers in ‘The Crimson Claw’ (Tuska & cover artist Nick Cardy) before ‘The Ghostly Cities of Gold’ (Grandenetti) reveals some truth about fabled, haunted Cibola as the first reprint reveals ‘The Man Who Killed his Shadow!’ Crafted by Miller, Swan & Burnley for HoM #16 (July 1953) it tells how a murdered photographer reaches from beyond the grave for justice. Thereafter, Ernie Chan limns ‘The Fanged Spectres of Kinshoro’, with a Big Game hunter pitting 20th century rationality against an ancient Ju-Ju threat, whilst the superb team of Bob Haney, Ramona Fradon & Charles Paris shine again with ‘The Legend of the Black Swan’ (HoM #48, March 1956) wherein three sceptical US students in Spain have an eerie encounter with doomed 17th century sailors before concluding on ‘The Threshold of Nightmare House’ with Calnan & Grandenetti illustrating inevitable doom for a woman haunted by her own ghost…

During the invasion of China in 1939, a greedy Japanese warlord meets his fate – and the spirits of the Mongol warriors whose tomb he robbed. Issue #5’s lead tale ‘Death, the Pale Horseman’ (Dorfman & Art Saaf) is followed by ‘The Hands from the Grave’ (Calnan) which somehow saves a young tourist from early death, after which reprint ‘The Telltale Mirror’ (by an unknown author & Grandenetti from HoM #13, April 1953) shows the dread downside of owning a looking glass that reflects the future…

Original yarn ‘Caravan of Doom’ (Jack Sparling) tells of an uncanny African warrior aiding enslaved Tommies in WWI Tanganyika, balanced by uncredited reprint ‘The Phantom of the Fog’ (Moreira art from HoM #123, June 1962), wherein valiant rebels overthrow a petty dictator with the apparent aid of an oceanic apparition, before Grandinetti’s ‘The Hearse Came at Midnight’ ends the issue with spoiled college frat boys learning an horrific lesson about hazing and initiation rites…

With Ghosts #6, page counts dropped from 52 to 32 pages and reprints were curtailed in favour of new material. Proceedings begin with Dorfman & Saaf’s cautionary tale of an avaricious arcane apothecary when ‘A Specter Poured the Potion’, before ‘Ride with the Devil’ (Calnan) tells of a most unexpected lift for an unwary hitchhiker whilst ‘Death Awaits Me’ (Grandenetti) exposes an eerie premonition marking the bizarre death of dancer Isadora Duncan. A rare DC outing for mercurial comics genius Richard E. Hughes illustrated by Sparling closes this slimline edition with ‘Ghost Cargo from the Sky’, exposing the incredible power of wishing to Pacific Islanders in the aftermath of WWII.

Michael William Kaluta stood in for Cardy as cover artist for #7 but Dorfman remained as writer, beginning with ‘Death’s Finger Points’ (Sparling) as a bullying Australian sheep farmer falls foul of aborigines he’d abused, whilst President in waiting Lyndon B. Johnson becomes the latest VIP to learn the cost of ignoring a Fakir’s warning in the Saaf-illustrated ‘Touch not my Tomb’.

Calnan closed things out with ‘The Sweet Smile of Death’ in a doomed romance between a 20th century photographer and a flighty Regency phantom who refused to let this last admirer go. ‘The Cadaver in the Clock’ (art by Buddy Gernale) opened #8, as a succession of heirs learn the downside of an inheritance which perforce included a mummified corpse inside a grand chronometer, but Glanzman’s ‘The Guns of the Dead’ shows a far more beneficial side to spectres as US marines are saved by their unstoppable – deceased – sergeant in 1944. Lovingly limned by the wonderful Nestor Redondo, ‘Hotline to the Supernatural’ recounts cases of supernatural premonition, whilst ‘To Kill a Tyrant’ (Quico Redondo) implausibly links the incredible last hours of Rasputin to the so-necessary death of Stalin decades later…

Ghosts #9 begins with Calnan’s ‘The Curse of the Phantom Prophet’ as an Indian holy man continues his war against the insolent British and rapacious white men long after his death by firing squad. ‘The Last Ride of Rosie the Wrecker’ (gloriously illustrated by Alfredo Alcala) then details the indomitable determination of a crushed US tank that shouldn’t have been able to move at all, and Grandenetti’s ‘The Spectral Shepherd of Dartmoor’ shows how a long-dead repentant convict still aids the weak and imperilled in modern Britain. Events end on an eerie note as vacationers see horrific apparitions but discover ‘The Phantom that Never Was’ has created a real ghost out of a hoax disaster in a genuine chiller drawn by Bob Brown & Frank McLaughlin.

Fact page ‘Experimenters Beyond the Grave’ – from Dorfman & Win Mortimer – details attempts by Harry Houdini, Mackenzie King and Aldous Huxley to send messages from the vale of shades before storytelling resumes in #10 with the Gerry Talaoc/Redondo Studio limned tale of a Vietnamese Harbinger of Doom in ‘A Specter Stalks Saigon’. Increasingly, superb Filipino artists took on art chores for the ubiquitous Dorfman’s scripts, such as ‘The Ghost of Wandsgate Gallows’ by Ernie Chan, detailing the inevitable fate of an English noble who hires and then betrays a contract killer. Although naval savant Sam Glanzman could be the only choice for the US maritime mystery ‘Death Came at Dawn’, Nestor Malgapo artfully handles horrific saga ‘The Hell Beast of Berkeley Square’, which for decades slaughtered guilty and innocents alike in prosperous Mayfair…

Ghosts #11 opened with Eufronio Reyes (E.R.) Cruz’s contemporary thriller wherein Nazi war criminals recovering long-hidden loot finally pay for their foul crimes in ‘The Devil’s Lake’, before Chan sketches a subway journey where the ‘Next Stop is Nowhere’. Graphic master Grandenetti visually captures ‘The Specter Who Stalked Cellblock 13’ (of San Quentin), and Brown returns to illustrate how a church organ killed anyone who played it in ‘The Instrument of Death’ before Sparling charts the sinister coincidences of ‘The Death Circle’ dictating that every US President elected in a year ending in zero dies in office. Of course, not everyone today is happy that the myth has been debunked…

Issue #12 featured ‘The Macabre Mummy of Takhem-Ahtem’ (Calnan): more a traditional monster-mash than purportedly true report, after which Grandinetti’s ‘Chimes for a Corpse’ sees a German watchmaker die for his malicious treatment of an apprentice before the always amazing Glanzman-limned ‘Beyond the Portal of the Unknown’ closed proceedings in magnificent style when French soldiers in 1915 uncover a terrible tomb and unleash a centuries old vendetta of vengeance…

Dorfman & Brown open issue #13 with ‘The Nightmare in the Sandbox’ detailing a war of voodoo practitioners in Haitian garden, whilst Calnan’s ‘Voice of Vengeance’ depicts macabre marionette vengeance on an embezzling official who silences their maker. ‘Have Tomb, Will Travel’ (Talaoc) sees contract killers using a scrapyard to lose their latest corpse discover their brand-new car comes with his unquiet spirit as an angry extra as Nestor Redondo depicts the inexplicable experience of lost GIs spending a night in a castle that isn’t there and learning ‘Hell is One Mile High’…

In #14, an heirloom wedding dress that comes with a curse doesn’t stop Diane Chapman marrying her young man in Gernale’s ‘The Bride Wore a Shroud’, whilst ‘Death Weaves a Web’ (Kashdan & Chan) sees a bullying uncle live to regret destroying his little nephew’s spider collection – but not for long. Talaoc’s ‘Phantom of the Iron Horseman’ finds a young train driver and host of passengers saved from disaster by the spirit of his disgraced grandpa before the issue ends with a catalogue of global portents warning of the appalling 1966 Aberfan tragedy in Cruz’s ‘The Dark Dream of Death’.

Gernale opened #15 with ‘The Ghost that Wouldn’t Die’, another case of domestic gold-digging, ectoplasmic doppelgangers and living ghosts, whilst ‘A Phantom in the Alamo’ (Carl Wessler & Glanzman) reveals the ghastly fate of the American who sold out the valiant defenders to the Mexican attackers. Alcala lent his prodigious gifts to the Balkan tale of a corpse collector who abandons morality and to profit from his sacred trust in ‘Who Dares Cheat the Dead?’ and Rico Rival delineates a gripping yarn wherein a corrupt surgeon is haunted by the hit-and-run victim he’d silenced in ‘Hand from the Grave’.

Ghosts #16 has a Spanish “gypsy” cursed to see ‘Death’s Grinning Face’ whenever someone is going to die, in a stirring thriller from Rival, and Glanzman again displays his uncanny knack for capturing shipboard life – and death – when, after 25 years, a deserter finally joins his dead comrades in ‘The Mothball Ghost’. Talaoc then delineates Napoleon Bonaparte’s services to France after the Little Corporal dies to become ‘The Haunted Hero of St. Helena’.

Issue #17 finds a phantom lady saving flood-lost children in Dorfman & Alcala’s moving ‘Death Held the Lantern High’ after which editor Murray Boltinoff & Talaoc reveal ‘The Specters Were the Stars’ as a film company tries to capture the horror of the 1920 Ulster Uprising, whilst Kashdan & Calnan expose the seductive allure and inescapable power of traditional Roma using ‘The Devil’s Ouija’ to combat centuries of prejudice…

This first terrifying tome terminates with Ghosts #18 and Alcala’s account of a hateful Delaware medicine chief still luring white men to his watery ‘Graveyard of Vengeance’, centuries after his death, whilst Abe Ocampo details the unlikely ‘Death of a Ghost’ at the hands of a very smug inventor who has just moved into a haunted mansion. Frank Redondo describes how villagers in old Austria knew young Adolf would come to a bad end because the boy had ‘The Eye of Evil’ and the spookiness at last ceases with Ernesto Patricio & Talaoc’s ‘Death Came Creeping’ as a visiting Egyptian merchant and his unique pet stop a sneak thief’s predations in an age-old manner…

These turbulent terror-tales captivated readers and critics alike when they first appeared and it’s almost certain that they saved DC during one of the toughest downturns in comics publishing history. Their blend of sinister mirth, classic horror scenarios and suspense set-pieces can most familiarly be seen in such children’s series as Goosebumps, Horrible Histories and their many imitators. Everybody loves a good healthy scare – especially today or even on those dark Christmas nights to come – and this beautiful gathering of ethereal escapism (sadly, still only available in monochrome and paperback) is a treat fans of fear and fantastic art should readily take to their cold, dead hearts…
© 1971, 1972, 1973, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents The House of Secrets volume 1


By Mike Friedrich, Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Steve Skeates, Robert Kanigher, Raymond Marais, Sam Glanzman, Jack Kirby, Mark Evanier, Jack Oleck, Mary Skrenes (as Virgil North), Jerry Grandenetti, Bill Draut, Werner Roth, Jack Sparling, Dick Giordano, Dick Dillin, Neal Adams, Sid Greene, Alex Toth, Mike Royer, Mike Peppe, Don Heck, Wally Wood, Ralph Reese, John Costanza, Gil Kane, George Tuska, Gray Morrow, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Rich Buckler, Bernie Wrightson, Al Weiss, Tony DeZuñiga, Jim Aparo, Sergio Aragonés, Nestor Redondo, José Delbo, Adolfo Buylla & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1818-8 (TPB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Splendid Slice of Spectral Shock & Awe… 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s the time for sweet indulgence, shocking over-eating and spooky stories, so let’s pay a visit to a much-neglected old favourite…

American comic books started slowly until the creation of superheroes unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and invented a new genre. Implacably vested in the Second World War, the Overman swept all before him (and very occasionally her or it) until the troops came home and the more traditional genres resurfaced and eventually supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd. Although new kids kept on buying, much of the previous generation of consumers also retained their four-colour habit but increasingly sought older themes in the reading matter. The war years altered the psychological landscape of the world and as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything, their chosen forms of entertainment (film and prose as well as comics) reflected this.

As well as Westerns, War and Crime comics, celebrity tie-ins, madcap escapist comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent, but gradually another of the cyclical revivals of spiritualism and public fascination with all things occult, eldritch and arcane led to them being outshone and outsold by a wave of increasingly impressive, evocative and shocking horror comics.

There had been grisly, gory and supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, monsters and wizards draped in mystery-man garb and trappings (The Spectre, Mr. Justice, Sgt. Spook, Frankenstein, The Heap, Sargon the Sorcerer, Zatara, Monako, Zambini the Miracle Man, Kardak the Mystic, Dr. Fate and dozens more), but these had been victims of circumstance: The Unknown as a “narrativium” power source for super-heroics.

Now the focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering, the reader. Almost every publisher jumped on the increasingly popular bandwagon, with B & I (which became magical one-man-band Richard E. Hughes’ American Comics Group) launching the first regularly published horror comic in the Autumn of 1948. Technically though, Adventures Into the Unknown was actually pipped by Avon who had released an impressive single issue entitled Eerie in January 1947 before finally committing to a regular series in 1951.

By this time, and following the filmic horror heyday of Universal Pictures’ fright films franchises, worthy comic book monolith Classics Illustrated had already long milked the literary end of the medium with adaptations of The Headless Horseman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both 1943), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1944) and Frankenstein (1945) among others.

If we’re keeping score this was also the period in which Joe Simon & Jack Kirby identified another “mature market” gap by inventing the Romance comic (Young Romance #1, cover-dated September 1947) but they too saw the sales potential for macabre mood material, resulting in seminal anthologies Black Magic (launched in 1950) and boldly obscure psychological drama vehicle Strange World of Your Dreams (1952).

Around that time the staid cautious company that would become DC Comics bowed to the commercial inevitable and launched a comparatively straightlaced anthology that became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with the December 1951/January 1952 opening of The House of Mystery. When the hysterical censorship scandal which led to witch-hunting hearings was at its height, the mobs with pitchforks furore was adroitly curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulatory rules.

Horror titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore. However, since the appetite for suspenseful short stories was still high, in 1956 National introduced sister title House of Secrets which debuted with a November/December cover-date. Plots were dialled back into superbly illustrated, rationalistic, fantasy-adventure vehicles which would dominate the market until the 1960s when superheroes (which had begun sneaking back in 1956 after Julius Schwartz began the Silver Age of comics by reintroducing The Flash in Showcase #4), finally overtook them.

Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom and a slew of other costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked mavens which even forced the dedicated anthology suspense titles to transform into super-character split-books, with Martian Manhunter and Dial H for Hero monopolising House of Mystery whilst Mark Merlin – later Prince Ra-Man – sharing space with Eclipso in House of Secrets. When caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, Secrets was one of the first casualties, folding with #80, the September/October 1966 issue.

However, nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and by the end of the 1960s the Silver Age superhero boom was over, with many titles gone and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain…

This real-world Crisis prompted surviving publishers to loosen the self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles at that juncture, but as the liberalisation coincided with another bump in public interest in all aspects of the Worlds Beyond, the resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious no-brainer…

Even ultra-wholesome Archie Comics re-entered the field with a rather tasty line of Red Circle Chillers: a minor substrate they regularly return to with style and potency to this day.

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all, House of Secrets returned with issue #81 (August/ September 1969) just as big sister The House of Mystery had done a year previously. Under a bold banner declaiming “There’s No Escape From… The House of Secrets”, writer Mike Friedrich, Jerry Grandenetti & George Roussos introduced a ramshackle, sentient old pile in ‘Don’t Move It!’, after which Bill Draut limned the introduction of bumbling caretaker Abel (with a guest-shot by his murderous older brother Cain from HoM) in eponymous intro set-up fable ‘House of Secrets’. The portly porter then kicked off his storytelling career with Gerry Conway & Jack Sparling yarn ‘Aaron Philip’s Photo Finish!’ before the inaugural issue was put to bed with a Draut limned ‘Epilogue’…

HoS #82 was a largely Conway scripted affair as Draut drew both ‘Welcome to the House of Secrets’ and ‘Epilogue’, whilst cinema shocker ‘Realer Than Real’ was illustrated by Werner Roth & Vince Colletta. Written by Marv Wolfman, ‘Sudden Madness’ delivered a short sci fi saga via the brush of Dick Giordano, ere Conway regaled us with ‘The Little Old Winemaker’ (Sparling art): a salutary tale of murder and revenge. Wolfman – realised by Dick Dillin & Neal Adams – wowed again with ‘The One and Only, Fully-Guaranteed, Super-Permanent, 100%’: a darkly comedic tale of domestic bliss and how to get it…

After Draut & Giordano’s ‘Welcome to the House of Secrets‘ piece, superstar Alex Toth made his modern HoS debut with Wolfman-written fantasy ‘The Stuff That Dreams are Made Of’, and Mikes Royer & Peppe visualised sinister love-story ‘Bigger Than a Breadbox’ before Conway & Draut revived gothic menace for a chilling fable ‘The House of Endless Years’.

Conway & Draut maintained the light-hearted bracketing of the stories prior to #84, properly beginning with ‘If I Had but World Enough and Time’ (Len Wein, Dillin & Peppe), a cautionary tale about too much TV. Tensions grow with Wolfman & Sid Greene’s warning against wagering in ‘Double or Nothing!’ and Steve Skeates, Sparling & Jack Abel’s utterly manic parable of greed ‘The Unbelievable! The Unexplained!’, before Wein & Sparling mess with our dreams in ‘If I Should Die before I Wake…’

Cain & Abel acrimoniously open HoS #85, after which Wein & Don Heck disclose what happens to some ‘People Who Live in Glass Houses…’ whilst art-legend Ralph Reese limns Wein’s daftly ironic ‘Reggie Rabbit, Heathcliffe Hog, Archibald Aardvark, J. Benson Baboon and Bertram the Dancing Frog’…

John Costanza contributed a comedy page entitled ‘House of Wacks’ and Conway, Gil Kane & Adams herald the upcoming age of slick and seductive barbarian fantasy with gloriously vivid and vital ‘Second Chance’. Issue #86 featured the eerily seductive ‘Strain’ with art by George Tuska, powerful prose puzzler ‘The Golden Tower of the Sun’ – written by Conway with illustrations from Gray Morrow – after which the writer and Draut tug heartstrings and stun senses in the moving, moody madness of ‘The Ballad of Little Joe’. The issue ends with another episode of peripatetic, post-apocalyptic, ironic occasional series ‘The Day after Doomsday’, courtesy of Wein & Sparling.

Chatty introductions and interludes with Abel were gradually diminishing to make way for longer stories and experimental episodes like #87’s ‘And in the Darkness… Light’; subdivided into ‘Death Has Marble Lips!’, a sculptural shocker by Robert Kanigher, Dillin & Giordano; sinister sci fi scenario ‘The Man’ by Wolfman, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, and excellent weird pulps pastiche ‘The Coming of Ghaglan’ by Raymond Marais & talented newcomer Michael William Kaluta. Much the same was #88’s dread duo ‘The Morning Ghost’ (Wolfman, Dillin & Frank Giacoia) and ‘Eyesore!’ by Conway & Draut.

The majority of covers were the magnificent work of Neal Adams but HoS #89 sports a rare and surprisingly effective tonal image by Irv Novick (albeit attributed here to Gray Morrow): a gothic romance special with period thrillers ‘Where Dead Men Walk!’ – drawn by Morrow – and ‘A Taste of Dark Fire!’ from Conway & Heck. This latter tale debuted Victorian devil-busting duo Father John Christian & Rabbi Samuel Shulman, who appeared far too infrequently in succeeding years (see also Showcase Presents the Phantom Stranger).

Tuska illustrated Skeates’ futuristic thriller ‘The Distant Dome’ in #90, whilst Wolfman, Rich Buckler & Adams described the short, sharp lives of ‘The Symbionts’, after which Mike Friedrich & Morrow end the SF extravaganza with the perplexing tale of ‘Jedediah!’ HoS #91 was almost entirely Conway scripted, leading with a South American revolutionary rollercoaster ‘The Eagle’s Talon!’, illustrated by Grandenetti & Wally Wood. Sparling limned faux-factual feature ‘Realm of the Mystics’, prior to writer/artist Sam Glanzman producing a potent parable of alienation in ‘Please, Don’t Cry Johnny!’ before Murphy Anderson wrapped up the wonderment with Conway’s deadly doppelganger drama ‘There are Two of Me… and One Must Die!’

Issue #92 was one of those rare moments in comics when all factors are in perfect alignment for a major breakthrough. Cover-dated June/July 1971, the 12th anthological issue of House of Secrets cemented the genre into place as industry leader as Len Wein & artist Bernie Wrightson produced a throwaway thriller set at the turn of the 19th century. Here, gentleman scientist Alex Olsen is murdered by his best friend and his body dumped in a swamp. Years later, his beloved bride – now the unsuspecting wife of the murderer – is stalked by a shambling, disgusting beast seemingly composed of mud and muck…

‘Swamp Thing’ was cover-featured – also eerily illustrated by Wrightson – striking an instant and sustained chord with the buying public. It was the bestselling DC comic of that month and reader response was fervent and persistent. By all accounts, the only reason there wasn’t an immediate sequel or spin-off was that the creative team didn’t want to produce one.

Eventually, however, bowing to interminable pressure, and with the sensible notion of transplanting the concept to contemporary America, the first issue of Swamp Thing appeared on newsstands in the spring of 1972. It was an instant hit and immortal classic.

The remaining pages in that groundbreaking HoS issue weren’t bad either, with Jack Kirby & Mark Evanier scripting psychodrama ‘After I Die’ for old Prize/Crestwood Comics stablemate Draut to illustrate, whilst ‘It’s Better to Give…’ – by Virgil North (AKA Mary Skrenes) provided an early chance for Al Weiss & Tony DeZuñiga to strut their superbly engaging artistic stuff. The issue ends with Conway & Dillin’s sudden shocker ‘Trick or Treat’…

House of Secrets #93 (August/September 1971) saw the title expand from 32 to 52 pages – as did all DC’s titles for the next couple of years – opening access to a magnificent hoard of new material wedded to the best of their prodigious archives for an appreciative, impressionable audience. Jim Aparo made his HoS debut in Skeates-scripted spook-fest ‘Lonely in Death’, and so did macabre cartoonist Sergio Aragonés in ‘Abel’s Fables’, after which the reprint bonanza began with ‘The Curse of the Cat’s Cradle’ (originally seen in My Greatest Adventure #85) stupendously depicted by Alex Toth.

Jack Abel’s ‘Nightmare’ was followed by golden oldie ‘The Beast from the Box’ – courtesy of Nick Cardy and House of Mystery #24 – after which Lore (Shoberg) contributed a page of ‘Abel’s Fables’ before the entertainment ended with John Albano & DeZuñiga’s chilling ‘Never Kill a Witch’s Son!’ rounding out the fearsome fun in period style. HoS #94 began by exposing ‘The Man with My Face’ (Sparling art) and Wein & DeZuñiga’s ‘Hyde… and Go Seek!’, whilst ‘The Day Nobody Died’ (George Roussos; Tales of the Unexpected #9) and ‘Track of the Invisible Beast!’ (Toth from HoM #109) provided vintage voltage before another Aragonés ‘Abel’s Fables’ and ‘A Bottle of Incense… a Whiff of the Past!’ by Francis (Gerry Conway) Bushmaster, Weiss & Wrightson closed proceedings in devilishly high style.

Albano & Heck showed domesticity wasn’t pretty in ‘Creature…’ before everybody got a nasty case of chills in ‘And Thing That Go Bump in the Night!’ (credited here to Sparling but probably Tuska & Win Mortimer) before ‘The Last Sorcerer’ (Bernard Baily from HoM #69) and ‘The Phantom of the Flames!’ – a rare DC illustration job for magnificent Marvel Mainstay Joe Maneely from HoM #71. The dark dramas close with Jack Oleck & Nestor Redondo’s ‘The Bride of Death’. HoS #95 also included a couple of Lore’s ‘Abel’s Fables’, a Sparling ‘Realm of the Mystics’ and a Wein/Sparling ‘Day after Doomsday’ vignette.

Oleck & Draut’s ‘World for a Witch’ opened the next peril-packed issue, followed by a high-tension, high-tech Toth reprint ‘The Great Dimensional Brain Swap’ (HoS #48) and Wein, Dillin & Jack Abel’s ‘Be it Ever So Humble…’ whilst Oleck & Wood’s ‘The Monster’ describes a different kind of horror. ‘The Indestructible Man’ (by master-draughtsman Bill Ely, originally in Tales of the Unexpected #12) closes the show. Also lurking within this issue is another agonisingly funny Aragonés ‘Abel’s Fables’ fun frolic…

The penultimate issue in this sparkling collection – incomprehensibly still the only way to affordably access these chilling classics – leads with Sparling’s classical creep-show ‘The Curse of Morby Castle’ after which Skeates & Aparo return to ‘Divide and Murder’ before Aragonés strikes again in ‘Abel’s Fables’. Blasts from the past ‘The Tomb of Ramfis’ (HoM #59, by the fabulous John Prentice) and ‘Dead Man’s Diary’ (drawn by Ralph Mayo for HoM #46) are demarcated by another trenchant Wein/Sparling ‘Day after Doomsday’, whilst José Delbo delineates manic monster-fest ‘Domain of the Damned’.

The last issue in this magnificent monochrome compendium opens with a glorious intro page from Mark Hanerfeld & Kaluta, after which the artist entrancingly illustrates Albano’s tough-as-nails-thriller ‘Born Losers’ and Toth illuminates ‘Secret Hero of Center City’ (originally seen in HoM #120). After one last Aragonés ‘Abel’s Fables’, Wein and Mikes Royer & Peppe reveal why ‘The Night Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore!’, and another John Prentice treat is served up in ‘The Fatal Superstition’ (HoM #35) before the legendary Adolfo Buylla celebrates the end of the affair in grisly fashion with ‘Happy Birthday, Herman!’

These terror-tales captivated the reading public and critics alike when they first appeared and it’s no stretch to posit that they probably saved DC during one of the toughest downturns in comics publishing history. Now their blend of sinister mirth, classic horror scenarios and suspense set-pieces can most familiarly be seen in such children’s series as Goosebumps, Horrible Histories and so many latterday imitators. If you crave beautifully realised, tastefully gore-light and splatter-free sagas of mystery and imagination, not to mention a huge supply of bad-taste, kid-friendly cartoon chills, book your stay at the House of Secrets as soon as you possibly can…

Terms and conditions Do Not Necessarily apply…
© 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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DC Horror – Sgt. Rock vs. the Army of the Dead


By Bruce Campbell & Eduardo Risso, coloured by Kristian Rossi & lettered by Rob Leigh (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-20654 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Sgt Rock and Easy Company are two of the great and enduring creations of the American comic book industry. The gritty meta-realism of Robert Kanigher’s ordinary guys in life-or-death situations has captured the imaginations of generations of readers, young and old.

Early this century the artist most closely associated with these characters – Joe Kubert – got together with acclaimed modern writer Brian Azzarello (Hellblazer, Wonder Woman, 100 Bullets) to produce a powerful, if simplistic, respectful morality play about the nature of killing. It’s a damn fine read.

Offering a completely different take on the characters is actor, producer, novelist and horror film legend Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead franchise, Sundown: Vampires in Retreat, Bubba Hotep). His far too infrequent comics sallies include The Hire and Man with the Screaming Brain and here he crafts a truly gung-ho genre mash-up taking DC’s least exploited legend in a compellingly novel direction. His partner in crime is Eduardo Risso (assorted Batman tales, Boy Vampiro, Aliens, Logan, 100 Bullets) adding sleek, eerie style to the grimy, gritty proceeding.

It’s 1944 and War is still Hell, but of an utterly different kind, as the near-defeated German army plumbs abysmal depths in its quest to triumph over democracy and tolerance. With resources drained, every piece of materiel must be dedicated to saving the Fatherland, and, thanks to evil genius Dr. Morell, that now includes the reanimated, souped-up bodies of the glorious dead…

On the front lines surrounding Berlin, Sgt. Frank Rock and his battered veterans are catching up to the advance teams closing in on the dying Wehrmacht, when they are urgently seconded for a Level 9 Assignment. The brass have seen what early Nazi zombie units can do, and want their very best men on the job of stopping the rot before it’s too late…

Although this is a pretty commonplace plot for us Brits (brace yourself for a forthcoming Fiends of Eastern Front review!), here, sheer verve and darkly sardonic humour carry the tale across the battlefields and deep into the heart of Hitler’s crumbling Festung Europa, with plenty of action and twisty turns to feed the beast of a tale that just needed telling…

From sinister, portentous beginnings in ‘No Time like the Present’ and ‘What Could Go Wrong?’, through the ‘Belly of the Beast’ to ‘Where the Rubber Meets the Road’, and building to an epic confrontation as ‘Wanted: Hitler – Dead or Alive’ results in armageddon at ‘Target Zero’ this is a riotous, rip-roaring revenant rumble to breeze through and laugh loudly with… just like any well-made B-movie.

With covers and variants by Charlie Adlard, Chris Mooneyham, Pia Guerra, Frank Quitely, Kyle Hotz & Dan Brown, Christopher Mitten, Evan “Doc” Shaner, Ben Templesmith, Elizabeth Torque, Gary Frank, Brad Anderson & Francesco Francavilla, Sgt. Rock and the Army of the Dead is a grimly witty escapade that is certainly not your dad’s Easy Company, but certainly is a fabulously fun fear frolic.
© 2022, 2023 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents the Haunted Tank volume 1


By Robert Kanigher, Russ Heath, Irv Novick, Jerry Grandenetti, Joe Kubert, Jack Abel & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0789-2 (TPB)

Robert Kanigher (1915-2002) was one of the most distinctive authorial voices in American comics, blending rugged realism with fantastic fantasy in his signature war comics, horror stories and superhero titles such as Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, Hawkman, Metal Men, Flash, Batman and even other genres too numerous to mention here. In 1956, he scripted ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ – the first story of the Silver Age, introducing Barry Allen as a new Flash to the hero-hungry kids of the world.

Kanigher sold his first stories and poetry in 1932, wrote for the theatre, film and radio, and joined the Fox Features shop where he created The Bouncer, Steel Sterling and The Web, and provided scripts for Blue Beetle and the original Captain Marvel. In 1945 he settled at All-American Comics as writer and editor, staying on when the company amalgamated with National Comics to become the forerunner of today’s DC. Writing Flash and Hawkman, he also created Black Canary and, decades later, debuted another memorable female lead in Lady Cop, as well as so many memorable villainesses like Harlequin and Rose and the Thorn. That last torrid noir temptress he redesigned during the relevancy era of the early 1970s, launching a “schizophrenic” crime-busting super-heroine to haunt the back of Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane… which Kanigher also scripted.

When mystery-men faded out at the end of the 1940s, the ever-resourceful scribe  shifted over to westerns and war stories, becoming in 1952 writer/editor of the company’s combat titles: All-American War Stories, Star Spangled War Stories and Our Army at War.

He created Our Fighting Forces in 1954 and added G.I. Combat to his burgeoning battle-boutique when Quality Comics sold their titles to DC in 1956, all the while scripting Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, Rex the Wonder Dog, Silent Knight, Sea Devils, Viking Prince and a host of others.

Kanigher was a restlessly creative writer and used his uncanny but formulaic adventure arenas as a testing ground for future series concepts. Among many epochal war features he created were Sgt. Rock, Enemy Ace, The War that Time Forgot and The Losers… as well as the irresistibly compelling “combat ghost stories” collected in this stunning, economical monochrome war-journal. This terrific first tome re-presents the early blockbusting exploits of boyhood friends Jeb Stuart Smith, Arch Asher, Slim Stryker and Rick Rawlins, as depicted in G.I. Combat #87-119 (April/May 1961- August/September 1966), and also includes guest-star missions from The Brave and the Bold #52 (February/March 1964) and Our Army at War #155 (June 1965).

The eerie action opens with ‘Introducing – the Haunted Tank’, illustrated by the sublime Russ Heath. In this debut the now-adult pals are all assigned to the same M-3 Stuart Light Tank, named for a legendary Confederate Army General who was a strategic wizard of cavalry combat. During a patrol, the underdog neophytes somehow destroy an enemy Panzer even though they are all knocked unconscious in the process…

Narrated by Jeb as he mans the Commander’s spotter-position (head and torso sticking out of the top hatch and completely exposed to enemy fire whilst driver Slim, gunner Rick and loader Arch remain inside), the tanker recounts how a ghostly voice seems to offer advice and prescient, if veiled, warnings. These statements and their midget war machine soon draw the jibes of fellow soldiers who drive bigger, tougher war machines…

Eventually the little tank proves its worth and Jeb wonders if he imagined it all due to shock and his injuries, but in #88 ‘Haunted Tank vs. the Ghost Tank’, Jeb is actually seeing and conversing with his phantom namesake as he and the boys solve the utterly rational mystery of an enemy battle-wagon which seems to disappear at will. ‘Tank with Wings’ in G.I. Combat #89 was illustrated by Irv Novick, describing how old General Stuart’s impossible prophecy comes chillingly true after the M-3 shoots down a fighter plane whilst hanging from a parachute, after which Heath is back to limn a brutal clash against German ‘Tank Raiders’ who steal the Americans’ haunted home on treads.

Throughout the early days Jeb’s comrades continually argued about what to do with him. Nobody believed in the ghost and they all doubted his sanity, but ever since he began to see the spirit soldier, Stuart Smith has somehow become a tactical genius. His “gifts” are keeping them all alive against incredible, impossible odds…

G.I.C #91’s ‘The Tank and the Turtle’ sees a chance encounter with a plucky terrapin lead to clashes with strafing aircraft, hidden anti-tank guns and a booby-trapped village, whilst ‘The Tank of Doom’ (art by Jerry Grandenetti) sees the snowbound tank-jockeys witnessing true heroism and learning that flesh, not steel, wins wars. In #93 Heath depicted a ‘No-Return Mission’ which depletes American tank forces until the Ghostly General takes a spectral hand to guide his mortal protégés through a veritable barrage of traps and ambushes, after which ‘The Haunted Tank vs. the Killer Tank’ seeks to widen the General’s role as the phantom protector agonises over intel he is forbidden to share with his Earthly namesake during a combined Allied push to locate a Nazi terror-weapon. This time, the young sergeant must provide his own answers…

The rest of the crew are near breaking point and ready to hand Jeb over to the medics in #95’s ‘The Ghost of the Haunted Tank’, but when Slim assumes command he too starts seeing and hearing the General amidst the blistering heat of battle…

In ‘The Lonesome Tank’ Jeb is back in the hot-seat and scoffing at other tank commanders’ reliance on lucky talismans, until the General seemingly abandons him and he is pushed to the brink of desperation, after which G.I.C #97’s ‘The Decoy Tank’ proves that a brave man makes his own luck after a Nazi infiltrator takes the entire crew hostage. ‘Trap of Dragon’s Teeth’ allows the Ghostly Guardian to teach Jeb a useful lesson in trusting one’s own senses over weapons and machinery in combat, and issue #99 greets legendary Joe Kubert who starts a stint on the series in the book-length thriller ‘Battle of the Thirsty Tanks’, with the Stuart labouring under desert conditions which reduce both German and American forces to thirsty wrecks as they struggled to capture a tantalising oasis.

The crew reveal their fathers had all been tank jockeys in WWI and who disappeared in action when ‘Return of the Ghost Tank’ in #100 finds the lads back in Europe. Shock follows shock as they realise their sires had all been part of the same crew, with credibility further stretched when the M-3 begins to retrace and re-enact the last mission of their missing dads…

Any doubts about whether the General is real or imagined are laid to rest in #101’s ‘The Haunted Tank vs. Attila’s Battle Tiger’ (illustrated by Jack Abel), as the barbarian’s evil spirit becomes patron to a German Panzer, opening a campaign to destroy both living and dead Jeb Stuarts, after which Kubert returned for ‘Battle Window’: a moving tale of old soldiers wherein a broken-down, nonagenarian French warrior gets one final chance to serve his country, as the American tank blithely trundles into a perfect ambush…

A particularly arcane prognostication in #103 drives Jeb crazy until ‘Rabbit Punch for a Tiger’ shows him how improvisation can work like magic in a host of hostile situations, whilst ‘Blind Man’s Radar’ helps the crew complete a dead man’s mission after picking up the sightless sole survivor of an Axis attack.

In the mid-1960s before the Batman TV show led to rampant “Bat-mania”, The Brave and the Bold featured team-ups of assorted DC stars. Issue #52 (February/March 1964) grouped Tankman Stuart with Sgt. Rock and Lt. Cloud as the 3 Battle Stars in ‘Suicide Mission! Save Him or Kill Him!’ (by Kanigher & Kubert). In this superb thriller, the armoured cavalry, infantry and Air Force heroes unite to escort and safeguard a vital Allied agent… who had been sealed into a cruel and all-encompassing iron suit. Fast-paced, action-packed and utterly outrageous, the perilous chase across occupied France is one of the best battle blockbusters of the era.

Back in G.I. Combat #105 the ‘Time-Bomb Tank!’ starts seconds after the B&B yarn, as the Haunted Tank receives intel that Rock’s Easy Company are under attack. As they dash to the rescue, however, circumstances cause the M-3 to become a mobile Marie Celeste…

The ‘Two-Sided War’ finds Jeb promoted to Lieutenant and suffering apparent hallucinations when he and his crew are trapped in the Civil War, after which #107’s ‘The Ghost Pipers!’ details how the tankers aid the last survivor of a Scottish battalion in an attack that actually spans two wars, before again teaming up with Rock in ‘The Wounded Won’t Wait’. As Rick, Arch and Slim are injured, the Easy Co. topkick rides shotgun on the brutal return trip back to base…

Issue #109’s ‘Battle of the Tank Graveyard’ downplays supernatural overtones for a more straightforward clash deep within a deadly mountain pass, whilst ‘Choose Your War’ has the Confederate General chafing at his role assisting “Union” cavalry – until circumstances again seem to place the modern soldiers in a historical setting and the two Jebs work out their differences.

For #111’s ‘Death Trap’ the uncanny crew again work with Easy Company – in the desert this time since continuity was never a big concern for Kanigher. However, when the M-3 is captured, Jeb and the boys endure a bloody taste of infantry fighting before taking it back.

‘No Stripes for Me’ is actually a Rock tale from Our Army at War #155 (June 1965) with the Haunted Tank in close support as a battle-hungry General’s son continually refuses the commendations and promotions his valiant actions deserve, no matter what the cost to men or morale around him…

Rock and Jeb stayed together for G.I. Combat #112’s struggle against the Luftwaffe ‘Ghost Ace!’ who is Attila the Hun’s latest mortal avatar: a blistering supernatural shocker that once more forces the Phantom General to take a spectral hand in the battle against evil, after which ‘Tank Fight in Death Town!’ sees the war follow the M-3 crew back into a much-needed leave. Luckily Rock and Easy Co. are around to provide vigorous fire-support…

After nearly four years in the saddle, scripter Kanigher decided to revamp the backstory of the crew and issue #114 (October/November 1965) featured the Heath illustrated ‘Battle Origin of the Haunted Tank’, with the General revealing he had been assigned to watch over the M-3’s boys by Alexander the Great. In the afterlife, all great military commanders sponsor mortal combatants, but Stuart had refused to pick anybody and was stuck looking after “Damned Yankees”. Happily, the mettle and courage under fire of the boys changed many of his opinions after watching their first battle in the deserts of North Africa…

Heath also drew the team-up in #115 wherein Jeb is reunited with Navajo fighter-pilot Johnny Cloud as ‘Medal for Mayhem!’ pits both spiritually-sponsored warriors against overwhelming odds and forced to trade places in the air and on the ground. (Cloud regularly encountered a cirrus-mounted “Indian Brave” dubbed Big-Brother-in-the Sky galloping across the heavens during his fighter missions…) Novick then illustrated a sequel when Cloud and Stuart help proud Greek soldier Leonidas fulfil his final mission in the stirring ‘Battle Cry of a Dead Man!’

‘Tank in the Icebox’ in #117 is another Heath martial masterpiece wherein a baffling mystery is solved and a weapon that turns the desert into a frozen hell is destroyed, before Novick assumes the controls for the last two tales in this volume, beginning with ‘My Buddy – My Enemy!’ wherein bigoted Slim learns tragically too late that not all Japanese soldiers are monsters, and #119 again asks difficult questions when Jeb and the crew must escort an American deserter to his execution, with German forces attempting to kill them all before they get there in ‘Target for a Firing Squad!’ An added attraction for art fans and battle buffs are the breathtaking covers by Heath, Kubert & Grandenetti, many of them further enhanced through the stunning tonal values added by DC’s brilliant chief of production Jack Adler.

These spectacular tales cover The Haunted Tank through the blazing, gung-ho early years to a time when America began to question the very nature and necessity of war (Vietnam was just beginning to really hurt the home front in 1966), and combat comics started addressing the issues in a most impressive and sensitive manner.

The war fare here combines spooky chills with combat thrills but always offer a powerful human message that has never dated and may well rank amongst the very best war stories ever produced. This is a series long overdue for a modern archival and digital renaissance.
© 1961-1966, 2006 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Haunted Knight


By Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1 401-28486-2 (TPB/Digital edition) 978-1-7795-1638-1 (Deluxe HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Timeless Seasonal Wonderment… 9/10

The creative team of Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale tackled many iconic characters in a number of landmark tales, but their reworkings of early Batman mythology – such as The Long Halloween – must certainly rank amongst their most memorable. Set during the iconic Batman: Year One scenario created by Frank Miller, and originally released as a 13-part miniseries (running from Halloween to Halloween), that epic shed new light and plenty more shadows on the early alliance of Police Captain Jim Gordon, District Attorney Harvey Dent and the mysterious vigilante Batman, to destroy the unassailable mob boss who ran Gotham City; Carmine Falcone: “The Roman…”

However, prior to that epic undertaking, the creators coproduced another All Hallows adventure; one that grew like Topsy to eventually become a triptych of Prestige One-Shot Specials under the aegis of Archie Goodwin’s most significant editorial project…

After the continuity-wide reset of Crisis on Infinite Earths, and with DC still in the throes of re-jigging its entire narrative history, a new Batman title launched, presenting multi-part epics refining and infilling the history of the post-Crisis hero and his entourage. The added fillip was a fluid cast of prominent and impressively up-and-coming creators…

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight was a fascinating experiment, even if ultimately the overall quality became a little haphazard and hit-or-miss. Most early story-arcs were quickly collected as trade paperback editions – helping to jumpstart the graphic novel sector of the comics industry – and the moody re-imaginings of the Gotham Guardian’s salad days gave fans a wholly modern insight into the ancient yet highly malleable concept.

As explained in ‘Trick or Treat’ – Editors Goodwin’s reproduced introduction from the 1996 compilation – the first Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special began life as a story-arc for the monthly series, before being cannily promoted to a single, stand-alone publication released for October 1993. Its success spawned the two sequels also included in this volume and the aforementioned Long Halloween epic. If you spring for the spiffy Deluxe Edition from 2022, there are even more secrets revealed…

Otherwise, collected in one spooky, stripped-down paperback and/or eBook compilation, those three scary stories comprise a raw and visceral examination of an obsessive hero still learning his trade and capable of deadly misjudgements as seen in initial yarn ‘Fears’.

Here, after spectacularly capturing terror-obsessed psychopath Jonathan Crane, the neophyte Caped Crimebuster leaves him to mere policemen ill-equipped to cope with the particular brand of malicious insanity cultivated by The Scarecrow…

It’s fair to say that the man behind the bat mask is distracted; still attempting to reconcile his nocturnal and diurnal activities. Young Bruce Wayne is currently floundering before the seductive and sophisticated blandishments of predatory social butterfly and matrimonial black widow Jillian Maxwell. Faithful major-domo Alfred Pennyworth, however, is not so easily swayed. Left too much to his own devices, The Scarecrow has run wild through Gotham, but when he abducts Gordon, he at last makes a mistake the Dark Knight can capitalise upon…

One year later, another Halloween brings ‘Madness’ as rebellious teen Barbara Gordon choses exactly the wrong moment to run away from home: a night when her dad’s mysterious caped pal is frantically hunting Jervis Tetch – a certified nutcase abducting runaways to attend decidedly deadly Tea Parties orchestrated by a truly Mad Hatter…

Steeped in personal nostalgia as a maniac rampages through his city, inadvertently trampling upon some of Bruce Wayne’s only happy memories (of his mother’s favourite book), the heroic pursuer almost dies at the hands of the Looking Glass Loon, only to be saved by unlikely angel Leslie Thompkins – another woman who will loom large in Batman’s future…

The final fable here pastiches that Christmas classic by Charles Dickens as ‘Ghosts’ sees a delirious Bruce uncharacteristically taking to his bed early on the night before Halloween.

After socialising with young financier Lucius Fox, eating bad shrimp and crushing baroque bird bandit The Penguin, our sick and weary playboy lapses into troubled sleep, only to be visited by three spectres…

Looking like Poison Ivy, The Joker and the corpse of Batman himself, whilst representing Past, Present and inescapable Future, these phantoms prove that only doom awaits unless the overachieving hero strikes a balance – or perhaps truce – between his two divergent identities.

Trenchant with narrative foreboding (long-time fans already know the tragedies in store for all the participants, although total neophytes won’t be left wondering) these eerily enthralling Noir thrillers by Loeb perfectly capture the spirit of the modern Batman, supremely graced with startlingly powerful images of Mood, Mystery and rampant Mayhem from the magic pencil and brush of much-missed Tim Sale, vividly augmented by the colours of Gregory Wright and lettering of Todd Klein.

Adding lustre to these moody proceedings are a gallery of prior covers culled from earlier collections as well as a Sale Batman sketch, making this one of the very best Batman books you could read.

So, do…
© 1993, 1994, 1995, 2014, 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Sgt. Rock volume 4


By Robert Kanigher, Bob Haney, Joe Kubert, Russ Heath, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012- (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In America after the demise of EC Comics in the mid-1950’s and prior to game-changing Blazing Combat magazine, the only certain place to find controversial, challenging and entertaining US war comics was at DC. In fact, even whilst Archie Goodwin’s stunning but tragically mis-marketed quartet of classics were waking up a generation, the home of Flash, Green Arrow and the Justice League of America was a veritable cornucopia of gritty, intriguing and beautifully illustrated battle tales presenting combat on a variety of fronts and from differing points of view.

Whilst the Vietnam War escalated, 1960s America increasingly endured a Home Front death-struggle pitting deeply-ingrained Establishment social attitudes against a youth-&-freedom oriented generation with a radical new sensibility. In response DC’s (or rather National Periodical Publishing, as it then was) military-themed comic books became even more bold and innovative…

For what seemed like forever at the time, the “combat-happy Joes” of Easy Company and their indomitable invincible “top-kick” Sgt Rock were one of the great and enduring creations of American comics. The gritty meta-realism of Robert Kanigher’s ordinary guys in a constant welter of life-or-death situations captured the imaginations of generations of readers, young and old. So pervasive is this icon of pictorial combat that it’s hard to grasp that Rock is not an immortal industry prototype like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman – with us since the earliest moments of the industry – but was in fact a late addition to and child of the Silver Age of Comics: debuting as just another Kanigher & Joe Kubert tale in war anthology G.I. Combat (#68, January 1959). Happy 65th Anniversary you G.I. guys!

The archetypal and idealised “common man” sergeant was an anonymous boxer who wasn’t especially skilled or gifted but simply refused to be beaten: absorbing all punishment dealt out to him. When ‘The Rock!’ enlisted, that same Horatian quality soon attained mythic proportions as he held back an overwhelming Nazi attack by sheer grit and determination, remaining bloody but unbowed on a field littered with dead and broken men. The tale inspired an instant sequel or two before – in Our Army at War #83 (June 1959) – the mythmaking truly began…

This fourth monumental military milestone collects in chronological publishing order and stark, stunning monochrome, more of the groundbreaking classics which made Sgt. Rock a legend. These grimly gritty, epically poetic war stories are taken from still-anthological Our Army at War #181-216 (bracketing cover-dates June 1967 – February 1967): a period when American comics underwent a spectacular renaissance in style, theme and quality, even as the Vietnam war took over the nation’s consciousness and conscience.

They are also still criminally unavailable in modern editions – colour and/or digital – but hope and profit motives still cling on…

Scripted throughout by Writer/Editor Kanigher and illustrated primarily by Russ Heath and/or Joe Kubert, the terse episodes herein begin with #181 as the taciturn topkick meets ‘Monday’s Coward – Tuesday’s Hero’ with Heath depicting how the sarge helps three deserters find their fates whilst Easy escort them to a firing squad, after which a change of venue – to North Africa – sees ‘The Desert Rats of Easy!’ (#182, Kanigher & Heath) avenge their comrades of Baker Company by destroying a cunningly concealed munitions dump…

A general industry shift towards mystery and supernatural themes was impacting all sectors of DC’s output and OAaW #183’s ‘Sergeants Don’t Stay Dead!’ tipped into symbolism and metaphysics as a dying soldier’s drawing and an exploding tank seemingly send the titanic topkick back into earlier manifestations as a key combatant in the Revolutionary, Civil and First World wars, prior to Kubert illustrating a terse ethical psycho-drama in #184 as Rock and his comrades risk their lives saving a ‘Candidate for a Firing Squad!’ who is happy to see them all die if he can save his own skin…

Unsafely ensconced in Europe again, ‘Battle Flag for a G.I.’ finds the weary warriors endangered by a starry-eyed young patriot whose battle banner imperils and – ultimately – inspires them all before #186 reprinted the Kanigher/Kubert classic from OAaW #90 as ‘3 Stripes Hill!’ revealing how Rock won his stripes, after which Heath returns for #187’s ‘Shadow of a Sergeant!’ as a hero-worshipping replacement dogs Rock’s heels and gets too close to the action…

Kubert & Jack Abel limn ‘Death Comes for Easy!’ as Easy are knocked off-kilter by fortune-telling replacement “Gypsy” after which #189 tackles the unsettling topic of child-soldiers in Kanigher, Kubert & Abel’s ‘The Mission was Murder!’ When French resistance fighters are killed, their kids regroup as Unit 3 to assist Rock and Easy in eradicating a hidden Nazi radar station, after which Our Army at War #190 (an 80-page Giant reprint issue) offers another chance to read Kubert’s ‘What Makes a Sergeant Run?’ as Rock shares his hard-earned war wisdom with the young and the hapless, as first seen in OAaW #97.

Air Ace and proud Navajo flier Johnny Cloud co-stars in 191’s ‘Death Flies High!’ as the soldiers and airman complete a downed bomber’s mission against a lethal windmill(!) after which Kubert & Abel illustrate another Unit 3 thriller as Rock is captured and faces ‘A Firing Squad for a Sergeant!’, before Kubert flies solo in #193in a flashback to Easy’s African campaign. ‘Blood in the Desert’ sees the tough top kick playing bodyguard to a farmer obsessed with making the sands bloom, even if he must irrigate it with his own blood…

Kubert writes and draws the next Unit 3 yarn in #194 as a mission goes sour and Rock is caught by sadistic Colonel Koldbludt. The gleeful torturer really wants the kid guerillas and in ‘A Time for Vengeance’ regrets getting his wish…

Kanigher & Kubert reunite for #195 as Rock and the kids hit a ‘Dead Town!’ dripping with recent blood and ancient history to liberate slave labourers before another Kubert all-alone tale foresightedly explores PTSD before we even had the term when Rock reaches his limit in ‘Stop the War… I Want to Get Off’ and a mysterious figure helps him out with a perspective-altering voyage through history…

In OAaW #197, Kanigher & Heath place Rock’s guys and Unit 3 between the German army and a doomed French village in ‘Last Exit for Easy’ (if you are precious about chronology the inexplicable placement of this yarn just after Dunkirk will drive you bonkers, but just remind yourself it’s only comics and you’ll survive), after which Kanigher & Kubert return to basics for # 198’s ‘Plugged Nickel!’ as the sarge proves the true value of good luck keepsakes in combat and tackles an alpine fortress and its ‘Nazi Ghost-Wolf’ in #199…

As much to celebrate the era as the anniversary, Our Army at War #200 inducted proto-hippie ‘The Troubadour’ in a bizarre tale of frontline pacifism and protest (delivered in rhyme and sans word balloons, too!). It’s supplemented by a classy ‘Special Battle Pin-up’ by Kubert and precedes a subtle shift in narrative emphasis beginning with #201’s ‘The Graffiti Writer!’ as Easy company slog across battlefield and devastated villages only to discover that “Kilroy was here!” first…

The ”combat happy Joes” take centre stage in #202 after learning (erroneously) that ‘The Sarge is Dead!’ but their battles briefly pause for an 80-Page Giant in #203 which offers similarly-themed reprint ‘Easy’s Had It!’ (by Bob Haney & Kubert from #103), exploring what happens when Rock is wounded and the company must fight without their guiding light and lucky talisman…

OAaW #204 & 205 were also reprint issues, represented here by their superb Kubert covers, but #206 resumes abnormal military service with ‘There’s a War On!’ as a Nazi psy-ops expert targets Rock with drugs, women and real food, but still fails to break his resolve, after which ‘A Sparrow’s Prayer’ harks back to North Africa where a tough spot seemed to need a devout recruit’s ardent orisons to save his companions’ bodies and souls…

Heath returned as regular artist with # 208 as ‘A Piece of Rag… a Hank of Hair!’ found Easy in a French village and reluctant babysitters to a little girl used a decoy by SS killers, before ‘I’m Still Alive!’ focussed on a replacement who was convinced his days were numbered…

Our Army at War #210 delivered a much-demanded sequel when Easy infiltrated an Italian fishing village and found their cheeky bugbear was still there first in ‘I’m Kilroy!’

A spiritual tone pervades #211’s Alpine adventure ‘The Treasure of St. Daniel!’ as the liberation of a small village reveals the location of a long lost treasure and the fact that the greedy occupiers didn’t really leave, after which a bombing raid renders the sarge deaf in in the middle of a joint US/UK commando raid in ‘The Quiet War!’

A small tale with big impact comes in #213’s ‘A Letter for Bulldozer!’ as the company strongman is torn apart by an envelope he dares not open, prior to the arrival of disruptive loner PFC Willy Hogan who leans too late how to be Easy in 214 ‘Easy Co… Where Are You?’ before the new material concludes with ‘The Pied Piper of Peril!’ in #215, wherein French kids appear to prefer their retreating Nazi overlords to the liberating Americans. Of course, there’s a simple nasty explanation if only Rock can find it…

Designated Sgt. Rock’s Prize Battle Tales, 80-Page Giant OAaW #216 ends this combat catalogue with Kanigher & Kubert’s classic yarn ‘Doom over Easy!’ – as seen originally in #107 – with the usually savvy soldiers afflicted by crippling superstition until the sergeant steps in…

Robert Kanigher at his worst was a declarative, heavy-handed and formulaic writer, but when writing his best stuff – as here – his stories are imaginative, evocative, iconoclastic and heart-rending. He was a unique reporter and observer of the warrior’s way and the unchanging condition of the dedicated and so very human ordinary foot-slogging G.I. He was also a strident and early advocate of equality and integration.

With superb combat covers from Kubert or Heath fronting each sortie, this battle-book is a visually vital compendium and certified delight for any jaded comics fan seeking something more than flash and dazzle. A perfect example of true Shock and Awe; these are stories every comics fan and combat collector should see, and one day we’ll have them in the full archival dress and trimmings they deserve…
© 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Batman volume 6


By Dennis O’Neil, Frank Robbins, Robert Kanigher, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Neal Adams, Irv Novick, Bob Brown, Dick Giordano & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5153-6 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

After three seasons the overwhelmingly successful Batman TV show ended in March, 1968. It had clocked up 120 episodes plus a theatrical-release movie since its premiere on January 12, 1966; triggering a global furore of “Batmania” and causing hysteria for all things costumed, zany and mystery-mannish.

Once the series foundered and crashed, humanity’s fascination with “camp” superheroes burst as quickly as it had boomed, and the Caped Crusader was left to a hard core of dedicated fans and followers who hoped they might now have Their hero back.

For comic book editor Julius Schwartz – who had tried to keep the most ludicrous excesses of the show out whilst still cashing in on his global popularity – the solution was simple: ditch the tired shtick, gimmicks and gaudy paraphernalia and get Batman back to basics; solving baffling mysteries and facing life-threatening perils.

That also meant phasing out the boy sidekick…

Although the college freshman Teen Wonder would still pop back for the occasional guest-shot yarn, this 6th astoundingly economical monochrome monument to comics ingenuity and narrative brilliance features him only sporadically. Robin had finally spread his wings and flown the nest: for a solo back-up slot in Detective Comics, alternating with Batgirl.

Chronologically collecting Batman’s cases from cover-dates February 1971 to September 1972, in issues #229-244 of his own title and the front halves of Detective Comics #408-426, the 33 tales gathered here (some Batman issues were giant reprint editions, so only their covers are reproduced within these pages) were written and illustrated by forward-thinking creators determined make the hero relevant and interesting on his own terms once more.

One huge factor aiding the transition was the fact that the publishers now finally acknowledged that a large proportion of their faithful readership were discerning teens or even adults, not just kids looking for a quick, cheap, disposable entertainment fix. Working through other contemporary tropes – most notably a renewed global fascination in all things supernatural and gothic – the creative staff reshaped Batman into a champion capable of working within the new “big things” in comics: realism, organised crime, social issues, suspense and even supernatural horror…

During this period the long road to our modern obsessive, scarily dark Knight gradually produced a harder-edged, grimly serious caped crimebuster whilst carefully expanding the milieu and scope of Batman’s universe. That especially meant re-assessing his fearsome foes, who ceased to be harmless buffoons and inexorably metamorphosed back into the macabre Grand Guignol murder-fiends which typified the villains of the early 1940s.

This mini-renaissance also resulted in a groundbreaking experiment now lauded as one of the first great extended Batman epics…

The moody mayhem begins with ‘Asylum of the Futurians’ (Batman #229, by Robert Kanigher, Irv Novick & Frank Giacoia) pitting the astounded hero against a sect of self-proclaimed mutants who might simply have been the craziest, most self-deluding killers he had ever faced. Almost simultaneously, Detective Comics #408 offered a short sharp shocker by neophyte scripters Len Wein & Marv Wolfman. Limned by Neal Adams & Dick Giordano ‘The House That Haunted Batman’ showcased spectral apparitions, the apparent death of Robin and a devilish mystery callously perpetrated by one of the Gotham Guardian’s most sinister enemies. Frank Robbins, Novick & Giordano then addressed the ongoing social revolution as our hero stopped a juvenile delinquent gang-war. When the now united kids occupied a palatial new building the ‘Take-Over of Paradise’ (Batman #230) provoked a vicious murder. Luckily the Caped Crimebuster was on hand to solve the case before a renewed bloodbath began…

Detective #409 saw Batman face a disfigured lunatic slashing portraits and killing their subjects in ‘Man in the Eternal Mask’ (Robbins, Bob Brown & Giacoia) whilst next issue proved to be another chillingly memorable murder-mystery from the most celebrated creative team of the decade. ‘A Vow from the Grave!’ by Denny O’Neil, Adams & Giordano at their spectacular best featured an exhausted Batman hunting one ruthless killer and inadvertently stumbling into another murder amidst an enclave of retired circus freaks…

Multi-talented Dick Giordano was inker of choice for the Darknight Detective at this time: his slick, lush line and brushwork lending a veneer of continuity to every penciller. Unless I say otherwise, please assume it’s him on every cited story from now on…

The Dark Knight was lured to Vietnam to save an airliner full of hostages in Batman #231 (Robbins with Novick pencils), barely surviving a vicious vengeance scheme triggered by the ‘Blind Rage of the Ten-Eyed Man’. Then the first subtle plot-strands of a breathtakingly ambitious saga unlike anything seen in comics before were woven in Detective Comics #411. Still in the East, undercover and hunting Dr. Darrk (leader of lethally clandestine League of Assassins introduced in #405), Batman’s pursuit led ‘Into the Den of the Death-Dealers’ (O’Neil & Brown) where a climactic struggle resulted in the death monger’s demise and freedom for an exotic hostage he was holding. Her name was Talia…

We learned more of her in Batman #232 where O’Neil & Adams introduced her father – immortal eco-terrorist Ra’s Al Ghul – in a whirlwind adventure which became a signature high-point of the entire Batman canon. ‘Daughter of the Demon’ is a timeless globe-girdling pulp mystery yarn drawing the increasingly dark detective from Gotham’s concrete canyons to the Himalayas in search of Robin and Talia: hostages purportedly captured by forces inimical to both Batman and the mysterious figure who claims to working in secret to save the world…

Ra’s was a contemporary, hopefully more acceptable embodiment of the classic inscrutable ultimate foreign devil (typified in a less forgiving age as the “Yellow Peril” or Dr. Fu Manchu). This kind of alien archetype permeates popular fiction and is still an astonishingly powerful villain-symbol, although the character’s Arabic origins – neutral at that time – seem to uncomfortably embody a different kind of ethnic bogeyman in today’s world.

The concept of a villain who has the best interests of the planet at heart is also not new, but Ra’s Al Ghul – whose avowed intent is to reduce teeming humanity to viable levels and save the world from our poison – hit a chord in the 1970s, a period where ecological issues first came to the attention of the young. It was a rare kid who didn’t find a note of sense in what “the Demon’s Head” planned.

The spectacular tale ended with a shocking pronouncement of what Ra’s intended for Batman…

A return to relative normality came in ‘Legacy of Hate!’ (Detective Comics #412 by Robbins, Brown) as Bruce Wayne heads to Northern England for a convocation of kin gathered to settle the ownership and disposition of ancient Waynemoor Castle. Sadly, even Batman couldn’t separate the spate of attempted murders which followed into purely human perpetrators and the fault of the manor’s vengeful ghost knight…

DC #413 blended the spooky tone of the times with a healthy dose of social inclusion as ‘Freak-Out at Phantom Hollow!’ (Robbins & Brown) sees Batman saving two abused hippie kids being picked on by folk in a rural hamlet, only to become embroiled in a witch’s curse and mad bomber’s plot. Batman #233 was an all-reprint edition, after which #234 featured the stellar return of one of the hero’s most tragic foes. As comics became increasingly more anodyne in the 1950s, psychologically warped actualised schizophrenic Two-Face slipped from Batman’s roster of rogues, but with ‘Half an Evil’ (O’Neil, Adams & Giordano) he resurfaced at the forefront of grimmer, grittier stories. When a string of bizarre and brutal robberies afflicts Gotham, the baffled Batman must use all his ingenuity to discern the reasoning and discover the identity of a ruthless hidden mastermind in time to thwart a diabolical scheme…

An aura of Film Noir redemption colours O’Neil & Novick’s ‘Legend of the Key Hook Lighthouse!’ (Detective #414), as Batman tracks gunrunners to a haunted coastal bastion in Florida. However, only supernatural intervention enables him to save bystanders who, whilst not exactly innocent, certainly don’t deserve the fate psychotic banana republic despot General Ruizo planned for them…

In Batman #235’s ‘Swamp Sinister!’ (O’Neil & Novick) early insights into the true character of Talia and her ruthless sire manifest when the Dark Knight races to recover a stolen bio-weapon, whilst in Detective #415 Robbins & Brown’s ‘Challenge of the Consumer Crusader’ sees the Gotham Gangbuster uncover an extortion ring inside the nation’s most respected product-testing organisation.

Detective Comics #400 had introduced a dark twisted doppelganger to Gotham’s Guardian when driven scientist Kirk Langstrom created a serum to make him superior to Batman… and paid a heavy price. Over two further tales Langstrom and his fiancée Francine endured his monstrous transformations until Batman found a cure. Now that trilogy expanded in DC #416 as Robbins illustrated his own script in ‘Man-Bat Madness!’ Here Kirk seemingly slips back into his mutative madness. Luckily, Batman has the faith to look beyond appearances and discerns a hidden factor in the scientist’s inexplicable recidivism…

In Batman #236, Robbins & Novick blend mysticism with a solid murder-plot, cover-up and blistering action in ‘Wail of the Ghost-Bride!’ after which a journalist tries to become ‘Batman for a Night’ (Detective #417, Robbins, Brown & Giordano) but only succeeds after experiencing a similar crime-created loss…

‘Night of the Reaper!’ – by O’Neil, Adams & Giordano from Batman #237 – is another of the era’s most revered tales: a harrowing Halloween epic finding Robin working with his former mentor to solve a string of barbarous killings, only to uncover a pitifully deranged perpetrator as much sinned-against as sinner…

Following the cover of reprint giant Batman #238, Detective Comics #418 delivers a (temporary) finish to the short-lived career of The Creeper as ‘…And Be a Villain!’ (O’Neil & Novick) pits the Gotham Guardian against a former hero being simultaneously killed and driven crazy by his own powers. At the heart of the problem is a criminal scientist forcing The Creeper to steal in return for a promised cure, but that’s no help as Batman battles a foe faster, stronger, more agile and far scarier than he…

A corpse weighed down with Batman figurines leads our hero into an underworld imbroglio packed with shameful family freaks, a ruthless master smuggler and the pitiful ‘Secret of the Slaying Statues!’ (Detective #419 by O’Neil & Novick) before Christmas classic ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night!’ (O’Neil & Novick in Batman #239) sees the masked manhunter striving to save a desperate, poverty-struck single parent from making the worst decision of his life – with a little seasonal help from a Jolly higher power…

Robbins again solos for Detective Comics #420’s ‘Forecast for Tonight… Murder!’ as a radioactive dead man stalks one of Gotham’s greatest philanthropists, easily outwitting Batman’s every preventative measure. It only gets tougher when the hero discovers he might be safeguarding the wrong injured party…

The long-brewing war between Batman and Ra’s Al Ghul goes to Def Con 3 in Batman #240 when O’Neil, Novick & Giordano set the scene for a groundbreaking “series-within-a-series” soon to follow. After Batman uncovers one of his opponent’s less worthy and far more grisly projects, he is forced to compromise his principles and deliver ‘Vengeance for a Dead Man!’ The end result will be open war between Batman and the Demon’s Head…

Batman has to break a blackmailer who knows all Gotham’s dirty secrets out of prison during a full-scale riot in ‘Blind Justice… Blind Fear!’ (another all-Robbins affair from DC #421) whilst in the following issue O’Neil, Brown & Giordano have the Dark Knight expose a cunning hijacking ring using radical methodology for corporate reasons in ‘Highway to Nowhere!’ Another sociopathic killer then debuts in Batman #241 as the hero hunts freelance spy Colonel Sulphur, whose extortion scheme revolves around his threat to kill a Pentagon officer’s wife.

‘At Dawn Dies Mary McGuffin!’ by O’Neil & Novick sees Batman scouring Gotham in a tense race against the clock in direct counterpoint to Detective #423’s ‘The Most Dangerous Twenty Miles in Gotham City’ (Robbins, Brown) wherein the masked manhunter’s cognitive skills are tested trying to slip a Russian agent past a gang of ultra-patriots. The killers don’t care that he’s being exchanged for a captive American, they just want to kill a commie and send a message…

Batman #242-244 (and an epilogue from #245 not included in this volume) formed a single extended saga taken out of normal DC continuity. It promised the final confrontation between two opposing ideals. O’Neil, Novick & Giordano opened the campaign in Batman #242 with ‘Bruce Wayne – Rest in Peace!’ as – his civilian identity taken off the board – Batman gathers a small team of specialist allies. These comprise criminal alternate-identity Matches Malone, scientific advisor Dr. Harris Blaine and Ra’s’ top assassin Ling all coerced and sworn to destroy the Demon forever.

Meanwhile it was business as usual in Detective #424 where ‘Double-Cross-Fire!’ by Robbins & Brown played out an astoundingly cunning murder plot with Batman challenging Commissioner Gordon (and us readers) to spot a telltale clue giving the game away. O’Neil & Novick then get all Shakespearean in #425 where ‘The Stage is Set… for Murder!’ and Batman carefully seeks to glean which thespian is plotting a big, bloody finish before the curtain comes down forever…

O’Neil, Adams & Giordano returned with the second chapter of their landmark epic in Batman #243 as the team – plus latecomer Molly Post – bombastically invade Ra’s’ Swiss citadel moments after their intended target passes away. Nobody suspects the ageless villain’s resources include ‘The Lazarus Pit’ which can revive the dead…

In Detective #426, a spate of inexplicable suicides amongst the wealthy leads Batman to suave gambler Conway Treach: a man who just can’t lose. Soon, however, the huckster learns his grim opponent has his own system for winning ‘Killer’s Roulette!’ in another suspenseful all-Robbins gem leading chronologically and conclusively to Batman #244 and the fateful finale wherein ‘The Demon Lives Again!’ Sadly, despite all his supernal gifts and forces, Ra’s cannot escape the climactic vengeance of his implacable foe in dream-team O’Neil, Adams & Giordano’s compulsive climax.

With the game-changing classics in this volume, Batman finally and fully returned to the commercial and critical top flight he had enjoyed in the 1940s, reviving and expanding upon his original conception as a remorseless, relentless avenger of injustice. The next few years would see the hero rise to unparalleled heights of quality so stay tuned: the very best is just around the corner …that dark, dark corner…
© 1971, 1972, 2015 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents Hawkman volume 2


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Showcase Presents Batman volume 5


By Frank Robbins, Dennis O’Neil, Mike Friedrich, Irv Novick, Bob Brown, Neal Adams, Carmine Infantino, Joe Giella, Dick Giordano, Frank Giacoia & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3236-8 (TPB)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

After three seasons (perhaps two and a half would be closer) the overwhelmingly successful Batman TV show ended in March, 1968. It had clocked up 120 episodes and a movie since the US premiere on January 12, 1966 and triggered a global furore of “Batmania” – and indeed hysteria for all things zany and mystery-mannish. As the series foundered and crashed the global fascination with “camp” superheroes (and yes, the term had everything to do with lifestyle choices but absolutely nothing to do with sexual orientation, no matter what you and Mel Brooks might think about Men in Tights) burst as quickly as it had boomed, and the Caped Crusader was left with a hard core of dedicated fans and followers who now wanted their hero back.

For DC editor Julius Schwartz – who had tried to keep the most ludicrous excesses of the show out whilst still cashing in on his global popularity – the reasoning seemed simple: strip out the tired gimmicks and gaudy paraphernalia and get him back to solving mysteries and facing genuine perils as soon and as thrillingly as possible.

This also meant slowly phasing out the boy sidekick…

Many readers were now acknowledged as discerning, independent teens and the kid was no longer relevant to them or the changing times. Although the soon-to-be college-bound freshman Teen Wonder would still pop back for the occasional guest-shot yarn, this fifth astoundingly economical monochrome monument to comics ingenuity and narrative brilliance would see him finally spread his wings and fly the nest for an alternating back-up slot in Detective, shared with relative newcomer Batgirl in stirring hip and mod solo sallies.

Collecting the newly independent Batman’s cases from September 1969 to February 1971 (#216-228 of his own title as well as the front halves of Detective Comics #391-407), the 30 stories gathered here – some of the Batman issues were giant reprint editions so only the covers are reproduced on these pages – were written and illustrated by an evolving team of fresh-thinking creators as editor Schwartz lost many of his elite stable to age, attrition and corporate pressure.

However, the “new blood” was fresh only to the Gotham Guardian, not the industry, and their sterling efforts swiftly moulded the character into a hero capable of actually working within the new “big things” in comics: suspense, horror and the supernatural…

During this pivotal period the long slow road to today’s scarily crazed Dark Knight gradually revealed a harder-edged, grimly serious caped crusader, even whilst carefully expanding the milieu and scope of Batman’s universe… especially his fearsome foes, who slowly ceased to be harmless buffoons and inexorably metamorphosed into the macabre Grand Guignol murder fiends of the early 1940s.

The transformational process continues here with Frank Robbins-scripted Detective #391 as ‘The Gal Most Likely to Be – Batman’s Widow!’ (illustrated by Bob Brown & Joe Giella) sees the fleeting return of abortive modern love interest Ginny Jenkins who had inadvertently become the passing fancy of mobbed-up publisher and extortionist Arnie Arnold. By crushing the crooked editor’s scam to fleece Gotham’s society eateries, Batman paved the way for Ginny to settle down with the true man of her dreams…

Robbins (creator of newspaper strip Johnny Hazard) always had a deft grip on both light adventure and darker crime capers as seen in issue #392’s ‘I Died… A Thousand Deaths!’ as the Gotham Gangbuster’s plan to take down mobster Scap Scarpel goes dangerously awry after trusting a less than honest “confidential informant” whilst in Batman #216 (November), Robbins gifted faithful butler Alfred a surname (after 30 years of anonymous service) by introducing the retainer’s niece Daphne Pennyworth in ‘Angel – or Devil?’ (limned by Irv Novick & Dick Giordano).

The aspiring actress had become ensnared in the coils of a band of very crooked travelling players and was very nearly their patsy for murder…

In an era where teen angst and the counterculture played an increasingly strident part in the public consciousness, Robin’s role as spokesperson for a generation became increasingly important, with disputes and splits from his senior partner constantly recurring. A long overdue separation came in Detective #393’s ‘The Combo Caper!’ (Robbins, Brown & Giella) wherein Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson take a young delinquent with them on their last vacation together, embroiling Batman & Robin in a sinister string of high-end gem heists.

The partnership formally sundered in Batman #217’s ‘One Bullet Too Many!’ (Robbins, Novick & Giordano) as Dick ships out for Hudson University and Batman begins a radical rethink of his mission and goals.

Dapper Gentleman’s Gentleman Alfred became a far more hands-on emotionally involved part of the mythos – like Margery Allingham’s Magersfontein Lugg in her Albert Campion mysteries or ex-Sergeant/valet Mervyn Bunter in Dorothy L. Sayer’s Lord Peter Wimsey tales – from this point on: shutting up the stately Manor and moving the Batcave into the basement of the Wayne Foundation building in the heart of the city where most of the crime and injustice actually happened…

The first case – a superbly crafted classic whodunit of the streamlined setup – involved the unsolved murder of a paediatrician, but the real innovation was the creation of a new Wayne Foundation outreach project: the Victims Incorporated Program which saw philanthropy and superheroics combine to provide justice for those who couldn’t afford to buy it. The worthy scheme immediately hit a deadly snag in Detective #394’s ‘A Victim’s Victim!’ (Robbins, Brown & Giella) when a crippled racing car driver came seeking vengeance, claiming Wayne had personally sabotaged his career. It took all of the Dark Detective’s skills to uncover the deadly truth…

Batman #218 was an all-reprint Giant Annual represented here only by its glorious Murphy Anderson cover, whereas the next tale marked a landmark step forward in the history of the Caped Crusader.

Neal Adams had been producing a stunning succession of mesmerising covers on both Batman and Detective Comics, as well as illustrating a phenomenal run of team-up tales in World’s Finest Comics and The Brave and the Bold, so his inevitable bump up to the premier league was hotly anticipated. However Dennis O’Neil’s script for Detective Comics #395’s ‘The Secret of the Waiting Graves’ (January 1970, inked by Giordano) also instituted a far more mature and sinister – almost gothic – take on the hero as he confronted psychotic nigh-immortal lovers named Muerto whose passion for each other was fuelled by deadly drugs and sustained by a century of murder…

Adams’ captivating dynamic hyperrealism was just the final cog in the reconstruction of the epic Batman edifice, but it was also an irresistibly attractive one, especially as the growing public taste for supernatural stories overtook costumed crimebusting….

Nevertheless, Batman #219 led with a cracking political thriller in Robbins, Novick & Giordano’s ‘Death Casts the Deciding Vote’, wherein Bruce brings his V.I.P. scheme to Washington DC and stumbles into a plot to assassinate an anti-crime Senator, before astounding Christmas vignette ‘The Silent Night of the Batman’ (Mike Friedrich, Adams & Giordano) completely steals the show – and became a revered classic – with its eerily gentle, moving modern take on the Season of Miracles…

Adams couldn’t do it all and he didn’t have to. Detective #396 saw artists Brown & Giella up their game in Robbins’ clever contemporary yarn ‘The Brain-Pickers!’ as teen finance wizard Rory Bell corners the stock market from the back of his freewheeling motorbike, only to be kidnapped by a gang with an eye to a big killing – corporate and otherwise – until the Caped Crimebuster gets on their trail. Novick & Giordano similarly adapted their styles for Batman #220 with ‘This Murder has been… Pre-Recorded!’ (scripted by Robbins) finding Bruce finally meeting journalist Marla Manning (whose writing inspired the V.I.P. initiative) when an exposé of corrupt practises makes her the target of a murder-for-hire veteran.

O’Neil, Adams & Giordano reunited in Detective #397 for another otherworldly mystery when obsessive millionaire art collector Orson Payne resorts to theft and worse in his quest for an unobtainable love in ‘Paint a Picture of Peril!’, whilst #398 sees Robbins, Brown & Giella pose ‘The Poison Pen Puzzle!’ after muckraking gossip columnist Maxine Melanie’s latest book inspires her murder with an overabundance of perpetrators queuing up to take the credit…

Robbins, Novick & Giordano’s ‘A Bat-Death for Batman!’ leads in #221 as the Dark Knight heads for Germany in search of Nazi war criminals and their bio-agent which turns domestic animals and livestock into rabid killers, whilst the Friedrich-scripted ‘A Hot Time in Gotham Town Tonight!’ sees the Masked Manhunter eradicate the threat of a mystic idol capable of turning the city into smouldering ashes. Then Detective #399 (O’Neil, Brown & Giella) debuts anti-Batman campaigner/political opportunist Arthur Reeves and reveals how ‘Death Comes to a Small, Locked Room!’: a clever mystery centred on the apparent assassination of a martial arts teacher, after which Batman #222 offers two tales illustrated by Novick & Giordano.

Robbins’ ‘Dead… Till Proven Alive!’ features a guest shot from Robin as British band The Oliver Twists hit Gotham, reviving speculation that one of that Fabulous Foursome had been killed and secretly replaced (a contemporary conspiracy theory had it that Beatle Paul McCartney had been similarly dealt with), after which Friedrich contributed another superb human interest yarn as an exhausted hero pushes himself beyond his limits to help a deaf mugging victim in ‘The Case of No Consequence!’ Then anniversary Detective Comics #400 introduces a dark counterpoint to the Gotham Gangbuster as driven scientist Kirk Langstrom pays a heavy price for devising a serum making him superior to Batman in ‘Challenge of the Man-Bat!’ (Robbins, Adams & Giordano).

Batman #223 was another Annual, this time sporting a captivating Curt Swan/Murphy Anderson cover, before Detective #401 spotlights Robbins, Brown & Giella’s ‘Target for Tonight!’ as insane playboy hunter Carleton Yager stalks Gotham’s most dangerous game, armed only with his wits, weapons and knowledge of the Dark Knight’s true identity…

Batman #224 opens an era of eerie psychodramas and manic murder as our hero travels to New Orleans to solve the mysterious demise of a Jazz legend and battles monstrous Moloch in ‘Carnival of the Cursed’ (O’Neil, Novick & Giordano), after which Detective #402 sees the Dark Knight capture the out-of-control thing that was Kirk Langstrom and ponder if he had the right to kill or cure the beast in Robbins, Adams & Giordano’s ‘Man or Bat?’.

Batman #225 (O’Neil, Novick & Giordano) details the murder of divisive talk show host Jonah Jory with witnesses swearing the city’s great hero is the killer in ‘Wanted for Murder-One, the Batman’ and Detective #403 delivers gothic thriller ‘You Die by Mourning!’ (Robbins, Brown & Frank Giacoia, with a splash page by Carmine Infantino), in which the V.I.P. project turns up grieving widow Angie Randall who needs justice for her murdered husband. This cunning conundrum revolves around the fact that dear dead Laird wasn’t dead yet – but will be tomorrow; and is followed by Detective Comics #404’s offering by O’Neil, Adams & Giordano’s utterly exceptional and magnificent ‘Ghost of the Killer Skies!’ As the Masked Manhunter seek to solve a series of impossible murders on the set of a film about German WWI fighter ace Hans von Hammer, all evidence seeming to prove the slayer can only be a vengeful phantom…

Batman #226 skews science to introduce a new mad menace in ‘The Man with Ten Eyes!’ by Robbins, Novick & Giordano. A cruel misunderstanding during a robbery pits security guard Reardon against Batman just as the real thieves detonate a huge explosion. Traumatised, shell-shocked and blinded, Reardon is subjected to an experimental procedure which allows him to see through his fingertips but the Vietnam vet blames the Caped Crimebuster for his freakish fate and resolves to extract his vengeance in kind…

Detective #405 was an inauspicious start to a fresh world of intrigue and adventure as ‘The First of the Assassins!’ (O’Neil, Brown & Frank Giacoia) finds the Gotham Guardian seconded to Interpol to solve the killing of 15 shipping magnates. Whilst struggling to keep the 16th healthy against a fusillade of esoteric threats from oriental fiend Tejja, the hero first learns of a vast global League of killers…

Another groundbreaking narrative strand debuted in Batman #227 in O’Neil, Novick & Giordano’s ‘The Demon of Gothos Mansion’ as Daphne Pennyworth encores, begging help to escape her latest employment as a governess. Batman investigates the remote household and uncovers a cult of madmen, demonic possession and what less-rational men might consider a captive ghost…

The epic, slow-boiling battle against the League of Assassins expands in Detective Comics #406 as Your Servant of Death – Dr. Darrk!’ (by O’Neil, Brown & Giacoia) another tycoon almost dies and Batman at last clashes with the deadly mastermind behind a global campaign of terror. Or does he?

This staggering compendium of wonderment concludes with Detective #407: final chapter in a triptych introducing tragic Kirk Langstrom. In ‘Marriage: Impossible!’ (Robbins, Adams & Giordano), the ambitious scientist’s fall from grace is completed when he infects his fiancée Francine Lee with his mutational curse and forces the Dark Knight into an horrific decision.

One last treat here is the cover to Giant Batman #228: another spectacular visual feast from Swan & Anderson closing this marvellous meander down memory lane in classic style. With the game-changing gems in this volume, Batman finally shed his alien-bashing Boy Scout silliness and was restored to his original defining concept as a grim relentless avenger of injustice. The next few years would see the hero rise to unparalleled heights of quality so stay tuned: the very best is just around the corner… that dark, dark corner…
© 1969, 1970, 1971, 2011 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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John Constantine, Hellblazer volume 1: Original Sins


By Jamie Delano, Rick Veitch, John Ridgway, Alfredo Alcala, Tom Mandrake, Brett Ewins, Jim McCarthy & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3006-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

Originally created by Alan Moore during his groundbreaking run on Swamp Thing, mercurial modern wizard John Constantine is a dissolute chancer who plays with magic like an addict but on his own terms for his own ends. He is not a hero. He is not a nice person. Sometimes though, he’s all there is between us and the void…

Given his own series by popular demand, Constantine premiered at the height of Thatcherite Barbarism in Britain, during the dying days of Reaganite Atrocity in the US, to become a founding father of DC’s adult-oriented Vertigo imprint. Hard to imagine back then that we’d one day be looking back with any sense of fond nostalgia, but there you go…

This collection collects John Constantine, Hellblazer #1-9 plus crossover chapters from Swamp Thing #76-77; cumulatively spanning January – October 1988 at what was the beginning of a renaissance in comic book horror that continues to this day.

Back in 1987 Creative Arts and Liberal Sentiments were dirty words in many quarters and the readership of Vertigo was pretty easy to profile. British scripter Jamie Delano began the series with a relatively safe horror-comic plot about an escaped hunger demon, introducing us to Constantine’s unpleasant nature and odd acquaintances – such as Papa Midnite – in a tale of infernal possession and modern voodoo, but even then, discriminating fans were aware of a welcome anti-establishment political line and metaphorical underpinnings.

‘Hunger’ and ‘A Feast of Friends’ also established another vital fact. Anyone who got too close to John Constantine tended to end very badly, very quickly…

‘Going for It’ successfully equated Conservative Britain with Hell (no change there either, obviously), with demons trading souls on their own stock market and Yuppies getting ahead in the rat race by selling short. Set on Election Day 1987, this potent pastiche never loses sight of its goal to entertain, whilst making telling points about humanity, individuality and society.

Constantine’s cousin Gemma and tantalising splinters of his Liverpool childhood are revealed in ‘Waiting for the Man’: a tale of abduction and ghosts introducing disturbing Christian fundamentalists The Resurrection Crusade, and a mysterious woman known only as Zed.

America is once again the focus of terror in ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’ as the Vietnam war breaks out again in rural Iowa, before we pop back to Blighty for ‘Extreme Prejudice’.

Skinheads, racism demons and more abound as Delano cannily joins up lots of previously unconnected dots to reveal a giant storyline in the making. The Damnation Army are up to something, but nobody knows who they are. Now everything’s going bad and somehow Zed and the Resurrection Crusade are at the heart of it all…

Brett Ewins & Jim McCarthy briefly replaced magnificent regular illustrator John Ridgway for the first 3 pages of ‘Ghost in the Machine’, before the beautifully restrained, poignantly humanistic stylism returns with Constantine further unravelling the Damnation plot by catching up with the Coming Thing: the cutting edge mysticism dubbed cyber-shamanism.

In Delano’s world the edges between science and magic aren’t blurred – they simply don’t exist…

Alfredo Alcala signs on as inker with ‘Intensive Care’ and the drama ramps up to a full gallop as the plans of both Crusade and Army are revealed, with the value and purpose of Zed finally exposed. All Constantine can do in response is make the first of many bad bargains with Hell…

We then take a stranger turn due to the nature of periodical publishing. The storyline in Hellblazer #1-8 ran contiguously, before converging with Swamp Thing wherein the wizard reluctantly lends his physical body to the planetary plant elemental so that the monster can impregnate its human girlfriend Abigail Arcane. Thus, in the ninth issue, there’s a kind of dissolute holding pattern in play as the weary wizard confronts ghosts of all the people he’s gotten killed to allow all the pieces to be suitably arranged. ‘Shot to Hell’ (Delano, Ridgway & Alcala) then neatly segues into Swamp Thing #76-77 for the conception of a new messiah. Sort of.

Immediately post-Alan Moore, Swamp Thing comics were sidelined by many fans. However they soon realised successor (writer-artist) Rick Veitch – aided by moody inker Alcala – was producing a stunning sequence of mini-classics well worthy of serious scrutiny. The issues built on Moore’s cerebral, visceral writing as the world’s plant elemental became increasingly involved with ecological matters.

Having decided to “retire”, Swamp Thing (an anthropomorphic plant imprinted with the personality and mind of murdered biologist Alec Holland) was charged by his ephemeral overlords in “The Green” with facilitating the creation of his/its successor. However, the ancient and agonising process was contaminated by consecutive failures and false starts, leading to a horrendous series of abortive creatures and a potentially catastrophic Synchronicity Maelstrom.

Alec, “wife” Abigail and chillingly charismatic Constantine are eventually compelled to combine forces – and some body-fluids – in ‘L’Adoration de la Terre’ (ST #76, by Veitch & Alcala) – to conceive a solution before the resultant chaos-storm destroys the Earth.

The process is not with risk – or embarrassment – but the affair is brought to a successful conclusion in ‘Infernal Tringles’ (Swamp Thing #77, Tom Mandrake pencilling) and with terrestrial order restored, the participants go their separate ways… but events have affected them all in ways that will have terrible repercussions in months and years to come…

Rounding out this so-sophisticated spook-fest is an original covers gallery by Dave McKean and John Totleben, plus an in-world exposé of Constantine in ‘Faces on the Street’ by faux journalist Satchmo Hawkins. Also included are other relics of the antihero’s sordid past such as the lyrics from Venus of the hardsell – a single from John’s aberrant punk band mucous membrane – and extracts from the magician’s medical file whilst he was held in Ravenscar Secure Psychiatric Facility…

Delivered by creators capable and satiric, but still wedded to the basic tenets of their craft, these superb examples of horror fiction – inextricably linking politics, religion, human nature and sheer bloody-mindedness as the root cause of all ills – are still powerfully engaging. Lovingly constructed, they make a truly abominable character seem an admirable force for our survival. The art is clear, understated and subtly subversive while the slyly witty, innovative stories jangle at the subconscious with scratchy edginess.

This is a book no fear-fan should be without.
© 1987, 1988, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.