Superman Chronicles volumes 1 and 2

New revised reviews

By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0764-9 & 978-1-4012-1215-5

It’s incontrovertible: the American comicbook industry – if it existed at all – would have been an utterly unrecognisable thing without Superman. His unprecedented invention and adoption by a desperate and joy-starved generation gave birth to an entire genre if not an actual art form.

Superman spawned an inconceivable army of imitators and variations, and within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and social wish-fulfilment which hallmarked the early Man of Steel had grown to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East finally involved America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and vigorous dashing derring-do.

Now with moviegoers again anticipating a new cinematic interpretation of the ultimate immigrant tale here’s my chance to once more highlight perhaps the most authentic of the many delightful versions of his oft-reprinted early tales.

Re-presenting the epochal run of raw, unpolished but viscerally vibrant stories by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster which set the funnybook world on fire, here – in as near-as-dammit the texture, smell and colour of the original newsprint – are the crude, rough, uncontrollable wish-fulfilling, cathartically exuberant exploits of a righteous and superior man dealing out summary justice equally to social malcontents, exploitative capitalists, thugs and ne’er-do-wells that initially captured the imagination of a generation.

The first of these oft-covered recollections of the primal Man of Steel – printed in chronological order – features the groundbreaking yarns from Action Comics #1 through #13 (June 1938 – June 1939) and his pivotal appearance from New York’s World Fair No. 1 (also June 1939) before comicbook history is made with the landmark first issue of his own solo title.

Most of the early tales were untitled, but for everyone’s convenience have been given descriptive appellations by the editors. Thus after describing the foundling’s escape from exploding Planet Krypton and explaining his astonishing powers in nine panels, with absolutely no preamble the wonderment begins with ‘Superman: Champion of the Oppressed!’ as the costumed crusader -masquerading by day as reporter Clark Kent – began averting numerous tragedies.

As well as saving an innocent woman from the Electric Chair and roughing up a wife beater, the tireless crusader worked over racketeer Butch Matson – consequently saving feisty colleague Lois Lane from abduction and worse – and outed a lobbyist for the armaments industry who was bribing Senators on behalf of greedy munitions interests fomenting war in Europe…

The next breathtaking instalment in Action #2 (July 1938) saw the mercurial mystery-man travelling to the war-zone to spectacularly dampen down the hostilities already in progress in ‘Revolution in San Monte Pt 2’ before ‘The Blakely Mine Disaster’ found the Man of Steel responding to a coal-mine cave-in to expose corrupt corporate practises before cleaning up gamblers who ruthless fixed games and players in #4’s ‘Superman Plays Football’.

The Action Ace’s untapped physical potential was highlighted in the next issue as ‘Superman and the Dam’ pitted the human dynamo against the power of a devastating natural disaster, after which in #6 canny chiseller Nick Williams attempted to monetise the hero – without asking first. ‘Superman’s Phony Manager’ even attempted to replace the real thing with a cheap knock-off but quickly learned a very painful lesson in ethics…

Although Superman featured on the first cover the staid and cautious editors were initially dubious about the alien strongman’s popular appeal and preferred more traditional genre scenes for the following issues (all by Leo E. O’Mealia and all included here).

Superman’s (and Joe Shuster’s) second cover appeared on Action Comics #7 (December 1938) and prompted a big jump in sales as a riotous romp inside revealed why ‘Superman Joins the Circus’ as the caped crusader crushed racketeers taking over the Big Top. Fred Guardineer then produced general genre covers for #8 and 9 whilst the interiors saw ‘Superman in the Slums’ working to save young delinquents from a future life of crime and depravity and latterly featured the city cops’ disastrous decision to stop the costumed vigilante’s unsanctioned interference in ‘Wanted: Superman’.

That manhunt ended in an uncomfortable stalemate…

Action #7 had been one of the highest-selling issues ever, so #10 again sported a stunning Shuster shot whilst Siegel’s smart story of ‘Superman Goes to Prison’ struck another telling blow against institutionalised injustice with the Man of Tomorrow infiltrating and exposing the brutal horrors of the State Chain Gangs.

Action Comics #11 featured a maritime cover by Guardineer as inside heartless conmen were driving investors to penury and suicide before the caped crimebuster interceded in ‘Superman and the “Black Gold” Swindle’.

Guardineer’s cover of magician hero Zatara on Action #12 incorporated another landmark as the Man of Steel was given a cameo badge declaring he was inside each and every issue, even as inside ‘Superman Declares War on Reckless Drivers’ provided a hard-hitting tale of casual joy-riders, cost-cutting automobile manufacturers, corrupt lawmakers and dodgy car salesmen who all felt the wrath of the hero after a friend of Clark Kent was killed in a hit-&-run incident.

By now the editors had realised that the debut of Superman had propelled National Comics to the forefront of the fledgling industry, and in 1939 the company was licensed to produce a commemorative comicbook celebrating the opening of the New York World’s Fair, with the Man of Tomorrow topping the bill on the appropriately titled New York World’s Fair Comics among such early DC four-colour stars as Zatara, Butch the Pup, Gingersnap and The Sandman.

Following an inspirational cover by Sheldon Mayer, ‘Superman at the World’s Fair’, by Siegel & Shuster, described how Clark and Lois were dispatched to cover the gala event giving the mystery man an opportunity to contribute his own exhibit and bag a bunch of brutal bandits to boot…

Back in Action Comics #13 (June 1939 and another Shuster cover) the road-rage theme of the previous issue continued as ‘Superman vs. the Cab Protective League’ pitted the tireless foe of felons against a murderous gang trying to take over the city’s taxi companies. The tale also introduced – in almost invisibly low key – The Man of Steel’s first great nemesis – The Ultra-Humanite…

This initial compilation concludes with a truncated version of Superman #1. This was because the first solo-starring comicbook in history actually reprinted the earliest tales from Action, supplemented with new and recovered material – and that alone is featured here.

Behind the iconic Shuster cover the first episode was at last printed in full, describing the alien foundling’s escape from exploding Planet Krypton, his childhood with unnamed Earthling foster parents and journey to the big city. Also included in those six pages (cut from Action Comics #1 and restored for Superman #1) was the Man of Steel’s routing of a lynch mob and capture of the real killer which preceded his spectacular saving of the accused murderess that started the legend…

Rounding off the unseen treasures is the solo page ‘Scientific Explanation of Superman’s Amazing Strength!’, a 2-page prose adventure of the Caped Crime-crusher, a biographical feature on Siegel & Shuster and a glorious Shuster pin-up from Superman #1’s back cover.

 

Superman Chronicles volume Two resumes the power-packed procession featuring the high- (leaping-but-not-yet) flying hero in tales from Action Comics #14-20 (July 1939-January 1940) and issues #2-3 of his 64 page solo spectaculars; cover-dated Fall and Winter 1939 respectively.

Sporting a Guardineer Zatara cover, Action #14 saw the return of the premier money-mad scientist in ‘Superman Meets the Ultra-Humanite’ wherein the mercenary malcontent switch from incessant graft, corruption and murder to an obsessive campaign to destroy the Man of Tomorrow.

Whilst Shuster concentrated on the interior epic ‘Superman on the High Seas’ – wherein the heroic hurricane tackled sub-sea pirates and dry land gangsters – Guardineer illustrated an aquatic Superman cover for #15, as well as the Foreign Legion cover on Action #16 wherein ‘Superman and the Numbers Racket’ saw the hero save an embezzler from suicide and disrupt another wicked gambling cabal.

By #16 sales figures confirmed that whenever the big guy appeared up-front issues sold out and, inevitably, Superman assumed that pole position for decades to come from #19 onwards.

Superman’s rise was meteoric and inexorable. He was the indisputable star of Action, plus his own dedicated title; a daily newspaper strip had begun on 16th January 1939, with a separate Sunday strip following from November 5th of that year, which was garnering millions of new fans. A thrice-weekly radio serial was in the offing and would launch on February 12th 1940. With games, toys, a newspaper strip and a growing international media presence, Superman was swiftly becoming everybody’s hero…

The second issue of the Man of Tomorrow’s own title opened with ‘The Comeback of Larry Trent’ – a stirring human drama wherein the Action Ace cleared the name of the broken heavyweight boxer, coincidentally cleaning the scum out of the fight game, and followed by ‘Superman Champions Universal Peace!’ wherein the hero crushed a gang who had stolen the world’s deadliest poison gas weapon, once more going up against unscrupulous munitions manufacturers.

‘Superman and the Skyscrapers’ found Kent investigating suspicious deaths in the construction industry, leading his alter ego into confrontation with mindless thugs and their fat-cat corporate boss, after which a Superman text tale ended the issue.

Action Comics #17 featured ‘The Return of the Ultra-Humanite’ in a viciously homicidal caper involving extortion and the wanton sinking of US ships and featured a classic Shuster Super-cover as the Man of Steel was awarded all the odd-numbered issues for his attention-grabbing playground.

That didn’t last long: after Guardineer’s last adventure cover – an aerial dog fight – on #18 and which masked into ‘Superman’s Super-Campaign’ as both Kent and Superman determined to crush a merciless blackmailer, Superman just appeared on the front every month from #19, which found the city temporarily in the grip of a deadly epidemic created by the Ultra-Humanite in ‘Superman and the Purple Plague’.

Only the first and last strips from Superman #3 are in this volume, as the other two were reprints of Action #5 and 6.

‘Superman and the Runaway’ however offered a gripping, shockingly uncompromising expose of corrupt orphanages, after which Lois went out on a date with hapless Clark simply because she needed to get closer to a gang of murderous smugglers. Happily his hidden alter ego was on hand to rescue her in the bombastic gang-busting ‘Superman and the Jewel Smugglers’…

This incredible panorama of torrid tales ends with ‘Superman and the Screen Siren’ from Action #20 (January 1940) as beautiful actress Delores Winters was revealed not as another sinister super-scientific megalomaniac but the latest tragic victim and organic hideaway of the Ultra-Humanite who had perfected his greatest horror… brain transplant surgery!

Although the gaudy burlesque of monsters and super-villains still lay years ahead of our hero, these primitive captivating tales of corruption, disaster and social injustice are just as engrossing and speak powerfully of the tenor of the times. The perilous parade of rip-roaring action, hoods, masterminds, plagues, disasters, lost kids and distressed damsels are all dealt with in a direct and captivating manner by our relentlessly entertaining champion in summarily swift and decisive fashion.

No continued stories here!

As fresh and thrilling now as they ever were, these endlessly re-readable epics are perfectly housed in these glorious paperback collections where the savage intensity and sly wit still shine through in Siegel’s stories – which literally defined what being a Super Hero means – whilst Shuster created the basic iconography for all others to follow.

Such Golden Age tales are priceless enjoyment at an absurdly affordable price and in a durable, comfortingly approachable format. What dedicated comics fan could possibly resist them?

As well as cheap price and no-nonsense design and presentation, and notwithstanding the historical significance of the material presented within, the most important bonus for any one who hasn’t read some or all of these tales before is that they are all astonishingly well-told and engrossing mini-epics that cannot fail to grip the reader.

In a world where Angels With Dirty Faces, Bringing Up Baby and The Front Page are as familiar to our shared cultural consciousness as the latest episode of Dr Who or Downton Abbey, the dress, manner and idiom in these near-seventy-five-year-old stories can’t jar or confuse. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.

Once read you’ll understand why today’s creators keep returning to this material every time they need to revamp the big guy. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.

© 1938, 1939, 1940, 2006, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Golden Age Flash Archives Volume II


By Gardner F. Fox, E.E. Hibbard, Hal Sharp & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0784-7

The innovative array of companies that became DC published a number of iconic “Firsts” in the early years of the industry. Associated outfit All-American Publications (who were bought out and acquired by National in 1946) were responsible for the first comicbook super-speedster as well as the iconic Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and many others who became mainstays of DC’s pantheon of stars.

Devised, created and written by Gardner Fox and first drawn by Harry Lampert, Jay Garrick debuted as the very first Monarch of Motion in Flash Comics #1 and quickly – how else? – became a veritable sensation.

“The Fastest Man Alive” wowed readers in anthologies Flash Comics, Comics Cavalcade, All Star Comics and others – as well as his own solo vehicle All-Flash Quarterly – for just over a decade before changing tastes benched him and most other Mystery Man heroes in the early1950s.

His invention as a strictly single-power superhero created a new trend in the burgeoning action-adventure funnybook marketplace, and his particular riff was specifically replicated many times at various companies where myriad Fast Furies sprang up.

After over half a decade of mostly interchangeable cops, cowboys and cosmic invaders, the concept of human rockets and superheroes in general was spectacularly revived in 1956 by Julie Schwartz in Showcase #4 when police scientist Barry Allen became the second hero to run with the concept. It’s been non-stop ever since …

This charmingly seductive deluxe Archive edition collects the Fastest Yarns Alive from Flash Comics #18-24, covering June-December 1941, as well as the first two issues of the irrepressible Garrick’s whimsically eccentric full-length exploits from All-Flash Quarterly (Summer and Fall of that same fateful year), all written by the apparently inexhaustible Gardner Fox.

After another informative Introduction from comicbook everyman Jim Amash, the rollercoaster of fun and thrills gathers steam with ‘The Restaurant Protective Association’ (illustrated by Hal Sharp), with Jay and girlfriend/confidante Joan Williams stumbling upon a pack of extortionists and exposing a treacherous viper preying on Joan’s best gal-pal, after which ‘The Fall Guy’ in #19 revealed how a gang of agile fraudsters were faking motor accidents to fleece insurance companies.

Both cases gave Garrick ample opportunity to display the hilarious and humiliating bag of super-speed tricks and punishing pranks which astounded playful kids of the day and still delight decades later.

Flash Comics #20 led with ‘The Adventure of the Auctioned Utility Company’ wherein Joan accidentally bought a regional power outfit and Jay used all his energies to reconcile a feuding family whilst teaching a miserly embezzler an unforgettable lesson…

Sharp had been doing such splendid artistic service on the monthly tales because regular illustrator E. E. Hibbard had presumably been devoting all his creative energies to the contents of the forthcoming 64-page All-Flash Quarterly #1.

The epic premiere issue opened with a tantalising frontispiece ‘The JSA Bid Farewell to the Flash’, celebrating the fact that The Fastest Man Alive was the third character to win his own solo comic – after Superman and Batman – and would therefore be “too busy for Justice Society get-togethers”…

‘The Origin of the Flash’ was then retold by Fox & Hibbard revealing again how some years previously college student Garrick had passed out in the lab at Midwestern University, only to awaken hyper-charged and the fastest creature on Earth thanks to the “hard water fumes” he had inhaled whilst unconscious.

After weeks recovering in hospital, the formerly-frail apprentice chemist realised the exposure had given him super-speed and endurance, so he promptly sought to impress his sort-of girlfriend Joan Williams by becoming an unstoppable football player. Eventually the kids graduated and Garrick moved to New York where, appalled by rampant criminality, he decided to use his gifts to fight it.

The Flash operated mostly in secret, as much hindered as helped by wilful, headstrong Joan who began her own lifetime obsession of pesky do-gooding here…

‘The Men Who Turned to Stone’ plunged us back to the present as one of Garrick’s colleagues at Chemical Research Incorporated discovered an instant petrification process and was abducted by criminals who saw a chance to make lots of illegal money…

Hibbard also illustrated the uncredited fun-fact featurette ‘The Flash Presents his Hall of Speed Records’ before ‘Meet the Author and Artist of the Flash’ offered an intimate introduction to the creative team, after which ‘The Adventure of the Monocle and his Garden of Gems’ saw the debut of a rare returning villain with an unwise addiction to other people’s jewels, but enough brains to counter The Flash’s speed – if not Jay’s courage and ingenuity.

When Flash prevented the murder of a cowboy performer in New York ‘The Rodeo Mystery’ soon took Jay and Joan to Oklahoma and a crooked ploy to steal a newly discovered oil well before the issue closed with Flash smashing a gambler trying to take over the sport of Ice Hockey in ‘Menace of the Racket King’.

In Flash Comics #21 gambling was still a problem as ‘The Lottery’ (illustrated by Sharp) saw the Speedster expose a cunning criminal scheme to bilk theatre patrons and carnival-goers whilst in #22 ‘The Hatchet Cult’ took an uncustomarily dark walk on the wild side as the Flash became involved in a Chinatown Tong war and exposed the incredible secret of modern Mongol mastermind Mighty Kong…

Hibbard & Sharp collaborated on issue #23’s ‘A Millionaire’s Revenge’ wherein wealthy plutocrat Leffingwell Funk decided to avenge an imagined slight by a poor but happy man. His method was unique: it began with engineering unsuspecting shoe store owner Jim Sewell‘s inheritance of half a million dollars and would have ended with leg-breaking thugs, disgrace and prison had not Jim counted Jay Garrick amongst his circle of friends…

The Fall 1941 All-Flash Quarterly (#2 and again an all Fox/Hibbard production) kicked off with a spectacular all-action ‘Title Page’ and informative recap in ‘A Short History of the Flash’ before the creators ambitiously undertook a massive four-chapter saga of vengeance and justice.

In an era where story was paramount this oddly time-skewed tale might jar slightly with modern continuity-freaks, spanning as it does nearly a lifetime in the telling, but trust me just go with it…

‘The Threat: Part One – The Adventure of Roy Revenge!’ opens as brilliant young criminal Joe Connor is sentenced to ten years in jail and swears vengeance on DA Jim Kelley. The convict means it too, spending every waking moment inside improving himself educationally, becoming a trustee to foster the illusion of rehabilitation.

On his release Connor befriends Kelley, who is pursuing a political career, and orchestrates the abduction of the lawyer’s newborn son…

Years later a bold young thug dubbed Roy Revenge begins a campaign of terror against Mayor Jim Kelley which even the Flash is hard-pressed to stop. When the bandit is at last apprehended Kelley pushes hard to have the boy jailed, unaware of his biological connection to the savage youth.

In the intervening years Connor had truly reformed – until his angelic wife died leaving him to care for their little girl Ann and “adopted” son Roy. Without his wife’s influence Connor again turned to crime and raised the stolen boy to hate his real father…

‘The Flash Presents his Hall of Speed Records’ and ‘How to Develop Your Speed by the Flash’ break up the melodrama before the saga continues in ‘The Threat: Part Two – Adventure of the Blood-Red Ray’ as Connor rises in the Underworld and plans to take over the country. Ann has grown up a decent and upstanding – if oblivious – citizen whose only weakness is her constant concealment of her brother Roy, who has been hiding from the law for years…

Even when the elder master criminal’s plan to destroy the Kelleys with a heat-ray is scotched by the Flash the canny crook convinces the Speedster that he is merely a henchman and escapes the full force of justice…

‘The Threat: Part Three – The Wrecker Racket’ sees a new gang plaguing the city, led by a monstrous disfigured albino. Nobody realises this is Connor who escaped custody by a method which physically ruined his body and only increased his hatred of Kelley.

Locating Roy, who has since found peace in rural isolation, the malign menace again draws the young man into his maniacal schemes. When the boy nearly kills his “sister” Ann in pursuance of Connor’s ambitions only the Flash can save the day, leading to a swathe of revelation and a shocking conclusion in ‘The Threat: Part Four – The End of the Threat’…

After that monumental generational saga this splendid selection closes with a full-on alien extravaganza from Flash Comics #24 as Garrick investigates a series of abductions and foils a madman’s plot to forcibly colonise the Red Planet. Unfortunately when inventor Jennings and his gangster backer reached their destination with Jay a helpless prisoner, nobody expected the arid world to be already occupied by belligerent insectoids. ‘The Flash and the Spider-Man of Mars’ by Hibbard & Sharp ends the book on a gloriously madcap, spectacular fantasy high note…

Amazing, exciting and quirkily captivating – even if not to every modern fan’s taste – the sheer exuberance, light-hearted tone and constant narrative invention in the tales of a brilliant nerd who became a social crusader and justice-dispensing human meteor are addictively appealing, and with covers by Sharp, Sheldon Moldoff & Hibbard, this book is another utter delight for lovers of early Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy.

Of course, with such straightforward thrills on show any reader with an open mind could find his opinion changed in a flash.
© 1941, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Showcase Presents the Spectre volume 1


By Gardner F. Fox, Bob Haney, Michael L. Fleisher, Paul Kupperberg, Murphy Anderson, Neal Adams, Jim Aparo & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3417-1

The Spectre is one of the oldest characters in DC’s vast stable, created by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily in 1940 and debuting via a 2-part origin epic in More Fun Comics #52 and 53. Moreover, just like Siegel’s other iconic creation, he soon began to suffer from a basic design flaw: he’s just too darn powerful.

Unlike Superman however, this champion of justice was already dead, so he can’t really be logically or dramatically imperilled. Of course in those far off early days that wasn’t nearly as important as sheer spectacle: forcibly grabbing the reader’s utter attention and keeping it stoked to a fantastic fever pitch.

Starting as a virtually omnipotent ghost, the Grim Ghost evolved, over various returns, refits and reboots into a tormented mortal soul bonded inescapably to the actual embodiment of the biblical Wrath of God.

The story is a genuinely gruesome one: police detective Jim Corrigan was callously executed by gangsters before being called back to the land of the living. Ordered to fight crime and evil by a glowing light and disembodied voice, he was indisputably the most formidable hero of the Golden Age.

He has been revamped and revived many times, and in the 1990s was revealed to be God’s Spirit of Vengeance wedded to a human conscience. When Corrigan was finally laid to rest, Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan and latterly murdered Gotham City cop Crispus Allen replaced him as the mitigating conscience of the force of Divine Retribution…

However the true start of that radically revised and revitalised career began in the superhero-saturated mid-1960s when, hot on the heels of feverish fan-interest in the alternate world of the Justice Society of America and Earth-2 (where all the WWII heroes retroactively resided), DC began trying out solo revivals of 1940’s characters, as opposed to their wildly successful Silver Age reconfigurations such as Flash, Green Lantern, Atom and Hawkman…

This sublime and colossal Showcase selection collects and documents the Man of Darkness’ return in the Swinging Sixties, his landmark reinterpretation in the horror-soaked, brutalised 1970s and even finds room for some later appearances before the character was fully de-powered and retrofitted for the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe.

As such this mammoth monochrome tome (624 peril-packed pages!) contains Showcase #60, 61 and 64, The Spectre #1-10, team-up tales from The Brave and the Bold #72, 75, 116, 180 & 199 and DC Comics Presents #29, the lead strips from Adventure Comics #431-440 and one last hurrah from horror-anthology Ghosts #97-99, encompassing the end of 1965 to the middle of 1983.

As previously mentioned, DC tried out a number of Earth-2 iterations (Starman/Black Canary – with Wildcat – in The Brave and the Bold #61-62 whilst Showcase #55 & 56 spotlighted Doctor Fate & Hourman with a cameo from the original Green Lantern), but Schwartz and Fox only finally achieved their ambition to launch a Golden Age hero into his own title with the revival of the Ghostly Guardian in Showcase – but it was hard going and perhaps benefited from a growing general public interest in supernatural stories…

After three full length appearances and many guest-shots, The Spectre won his own solo series at the end of 1967, just as the super-hero craze went into a steep decline, but maybe Showcase #60 (January/February 1966) anticipated the rise of supernatural comics by re-introducing Corrigan and his phantom passenger in ‘War That Shook the Universe’ by Earth-2 team supreme Gardner F. Fox & Murphy Anderson.

This spectacular saga revealed that the Heroic Haunt had vanished two decades previously, leaving the fundamentally human Corrigan to pursue his war against evil on merely mortal terms until a chance encounter with a psychic investigator freed the ghost buried within him.

A diligent search revealed that, twenty years previously, a supernal astral invader had broken into the Earth plane and possessed a mortal, but was so inimical to our laws of reality that both it and the Grim Ghost were locked into their meat shells – until now…

Thus began a truly spectre-acular (don’t groan – that’s what they called it back then) clash with the devilish Azmodus that spanned all creation and blew the minds of us gobsmacked kids…

Issue #61 (March/April) upped the ante when the even more satanic Shathan the Eternal subsequently insinuated himself into our realm from ‘Beyond the Sinister Barrier’, stealing mortal men’s shadows until he was powerful enough to conquer the physical universe. This time The Spectre treated us to an exploration of the universe’s creation before narrowly defeating the source of all evil…

The Sentinel Spirit returned in Showcase #64 (September/October 1966) for a marginally more mundane but no less thrilling adventure when ‘The Ghost of Ace Chance’ took up residence in Jim’s body. By this time it was established that ghosts needed a mortal anchor to recharge their ectoplasmic “batteries”, and the unscrupulous crooked gambler was determined to inhabit the best frame available…

The try-out run concluded, the editors sat back and waited for sales figures to dictate the next move. When they proved inconclusive Schwartz orchestrated a concerted publicity campaign to further promote Earth-2’s Ethereal Adventurer.

The Brave and the Bold #72 (June/July 1967) saw the Spectre clash with Earth-1’s Scarlet Speedster in ‘Phantom Flash, Cosmic Traitor’ by Bob Haney, Carmine Infantino & Charles “Chuck” Cuidera. This sinister saga saw the mortal meteor transformed into a sinister spirit-force and power-focus for unquiet American aviator Luther Jarvis who returned from death in 1918 to wreak vengeance on the survivors of his squadron – until the Spectre intervened…

Due to the vagaries of comicbook scheduling, Brave and the Bold #75 (December 1967/January 1968) appeared at around the same time as The Spectre #1, although the latter had a cover-date of November/December 1967.

In the Batman team-up title – scripted by Haney and drawn by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito – the Ghostly Guardian joined the Dark Knight to free Gotham City’s Chinatown from ‘The Grasp of Shahn-Zi!’: an ancient oriental sorcerer determined to prolong his reign of terror at the expense of an entire community and through the sacrifice of an innocent child, after which the Astral Avenger finally, simultaneously, debuted in his own title…

The Spectre #1 featured ‘The Sinister Lives of Captain Skull’ by Fox & Anderson, and divulged how the botched assassination of American Ambassador Joseph Clanton and an experimental surgical procedure allowed one of the diplomat’s earlier incarnations to take over his body and, armed with mysterious eldritch energies, run amok on Earth.

Those “megacyclic energy” abilities enabled the revenant to harm and potentially destroy the Ghostly Guardian and compelled the Spectre to pursue the piratical Skull through a line of previous lives until he could find their source and purge the peril from all time and space…

With issue #2 (January/February 1968) artistic iconoclast Neal Adams came aboard for the Fox-scripted mystery ‘Die Spectre – Again’ wherein crooked magician Dirk Rawley accidentally manifested his etheric self and severely tested both Corrigan and his phantom partner as they sought to end the double-menace’s string of crimes, mundane and magical. At this time the first inklings of a distinct separation and individual identities began. The two halves of the formerly sole soul of Corrigan were beginning to disagree and even squabble…

New scripter Mike Friedrich joined Adams for #3’s ‘Menace of the Mystic Mastermind’ wherein pugilistic paragon Wildcat faced the inevitable prospect of age and infirmity even as an inconceivable force from another universe possessed petty thug Sad Jack Dold and turned him into a nigh-unstoppable force of cosmic chaos…

‘Stop that Kid… Before He Wrecks the World’ was written & illustrated by Adams and saw a similar trans-universal malignity deliberately empower a young boy as a prelude to its ultimate conquest, whilst #5’s ‘The Spectre Means Death?’ (all Adams again) appeared to show the Ghostly Guardian transformed into a pariah and deadly menace to society, until Jim’s investigations uncovered the emotion-controlling Psycho Pirate at the root of the Spectre’s problems…

Despite all the incredible talent and effort lavished upon it, The Spectre simply wasn’t finding a big enough audience. Adams departed for straight superhero glory elsewhere and a hint of changing tastes came as veteran illustrator of horror comics Jerry Grandenetti came aboard.

Issue #6 (September/October 1968) saw his eccentric, manic cartooning adding raw wildness to the returning Fox’s moody thriller ‘Pilgrims of Peril!’ and Murphy Anderson also re-enlisted to apply a solid ink grounding to the story of a sinister invasion by a quartet of phantom Puritans who invaded the slums of Gateway City, driving out the poor and hopeless as they sought lost arcane treasures. These would allow demon lord Nawor of Giempo access to Earth unless The Spectre could win his unlife or death duel with the trans-dimensional horror…

As the back of issue #7 was dedicated to a solo strip starring Hourman (not included in this collection), The Spectre saga here – by Fox, Grandenetti & Anderson – was a half-length tale which followed the drastic steps necessary to convince the soul of bank-robber Frankie Barron to move on. Since he was killed during a heist, the astral form of aversion therapy used to cure ‘The Ghost That Haunted Money!’ proved to be not only ectoplasmically effective but outrageously entertaining…

Issue #8 (January/February 1969) was scripted by Steve Skeates and began a last-ditch and obviously desperate attempt to turn The Spectre into something the new wave of anthology horror readers would buy.

As a twisted, time-lost apprentice wizard struggled to return to Earth after murdering his master and stealing cosmic might from the void, on the mundane plane an exhausted Ghostly Guardian neglected his duties and was taken to task by his celestial creator.

As a reminder of his error, Penitent Phantasm was burdened by a fluctuating weakness – which would change without warning – to keep him honest and earnest. What a moment for the desperate disciple Narkran to return then, determined to secure his elevated god-like existence by securing ‘The Parchment of Power Perilous!’…

The Spectre #9 completed the transition and opened with an untitled short from Friedrich (illustrated by Grandenetti & Bill Draut) which saw the Man of Darkness again overstep his bounds by executing a criminal. This prompted Corrigan to refuse the weary wraith the shelter of his reinvigorating form and, when the Grim Ghost then assaulted his own host form, the Heavenly Voice punished the spirit by chaining him to the dreadful Journal of Judgment: demanding he atone by investigating the lives inscribed therein in a trial designed to teach him again the value of mercy…

The now anthologised issue continued with ‘Abraca-Doom’ (Dennis J. O’Neil & Bernie Wrightson) as The Spectre attempted to stop a greedy carnival conjurer from signing a contract with the Devil, whilst ‘Shadow Show’ by Mark Hanerfeld & Jack Sparling detailed the fate of a cheap mugger who thought he could outrun the consequences of a capital crime…

The next issue gave up the ghost and The Spectre folded with #10 (May/June 1969), but not before a quartet of tantalising tales by writer or writers unknown showed what might have been…

‘Footsteps of Disaster’ with art from Grandenetti & George Roussos, followed a man from cradle to early grave and revealed the true wages of sin, whilst ‘Hit and Run’ (probably drawn by Ralph Reese) proved again that the Spirit of Judgment was not infallible and even human scum could be redeemed…

‘How Much Can a Guy Take?’ (Sparling) offered salvation to a shoeshine boy pushed almost too far by an arrogant mobster, and the series closed with a cunning murder mystery involving what appeared to be a killer ventriloquists doll in the Grandenetti & George Roussos illustrated ‘Will the Real Killer Please Rise?’

With that the Astral Avenger returned to comicbook limbo for nearly half a decade until changing tastes and another liberalising of the Comics Code saw him return as the lead feature in Adventure Comics #431 (January/February 1974) in a shocking run of macabre, ultra-violent tales from Michael L. Fleisher & Jim Aparo.

‘The Wrath of… The Spectre’ offered a far more stark and unforgiving take on the Spirit Sentinel and reflected the increasingly violent tone of the times as a gang of murderous thieves slaughtered the crew of a security truck and were tracked down by a harsh, uncompromising police lieutenant named Corrigan.

When the bandits were exposed, the cop unleashed a horrific green and white apparition from his body which inflicted ghastly punishments that horrendously fitted their crimes…

With art continuity (and no, I’m not sure what that means either), from Russell Carley, the draconian fables continued in #432 as in ‘The Anguish of… The Spectre’ assassins murdered millionaire Adrian Sterling and Corrigan met the victim’s daughter Gwen. Although the now-infallible Wrathful Wraith soon exposed and excised the culprits, the dead detective had to reveal his true nature to the grieving daughter. Moreover, Corrigan began to feel the stirring of impossible, unattainable yearnings…

Adventure #433 exposed ‘The Swami and… The Spectre’ as Gwen sought spiritual guidance from a ruthless charlatan who promptly paid the appalling price when he finally met a real ghost, whilst in #434 ‘The Nightmare Dummies and… The Spectre’ (with additional pencils by the great Frank Thorne) saw a plague of department store mannequins run wild in a killing spree at the behest of a crazed artisan who believed in magic – but couldn’t imagine the cost of his dabbling…

Issue #435 introduced journalist Earl Crawford who tracked the ghastly fallout of the vengeful spirit’s anti-crime campaign and became ‘The Man Who Stalked The Spectre!’ Of course once he saw the ghost in grisly action Crawford realised the impossibility of publishing this scoop…

Adventure #436 saw Crawford still trying to sell his story as ‘The Gasmen and… The Spectre’ set the Spectral Slaughterman on the trail of a gang who killed everybody at a car show as a demonstration of intent before blackmailing the city. Their gorily inescapable fate only put Crawford closer to exposing Corrigan, after which in #437 ‘The Human Bombs and… The Spectre’ (with pencils from Ernie Chan & Aparo inks) found a kidnapper abducting prominent persons – including Gwen – to further a merciless mad  scheme of amassing untold wealth… until the Astral Avenger ended their depredations forever…

In #438 ‘The Spectre Haunts the Museum of Fear’ (Chan & Aparo again) saw a crazed taxidermist turning people into unique dioramas until the Grim Ghost intervened, but the end was in sight again for the Savage Shade and #439’s ‘The Voice that Doomed… The Spectre’ (all Aparo) turned the wheel of death full circle, as the Heavenly Presence who created him allowed Corrigan to fully live again so that he could marry Gwen.

Sadly it was only to have the joyous hero succumb to ‘The Second Death of The… Spectre’ (#440, July/August 1975) and tragically resume his endless mission…

This milestone serial set a stunning new tone and style for the Ghostly Guardian which has informed each iteration ever since…

From midway through that run, Brave and the Bold #116 provided another continuity-crunching supernatural team-up with Batman in a far less graphically violent struggle against the ‘Grasp of the Killer Cult’ (Haney & Aparo). When Kali-worshipping Thugs from India seemingly targeted survivors of a WWII American Army Engineer unit, Detective Corrigan and the Dark Knight clashed on both the method and motives of the mysterious murderers…

DC Comics Presents #29 (January 1981, by Len Wein, Jim Starlin & Romeo Tanghal) revealed what happened after Supergirl was knocked unconscious after a cataclysmic battle and sent hurtling through dimensions measureless to man. When her cousin tried to follow, the Ghostly Guardian was dispatched to stop the Metropolis Marvel from transgressing ‘Where No Superman Has Gone Before’…

By the early 1980s the horror boom had exhausted itself and DC’s anthology comics were disappearing. As part of the effort to keep them alive, Ghosts featured a 3-part serial starring “Ghost-Breaker” and inveterate sceptic Dr. Terry 13 who at last encountered ‘The Spectre’ in issue #97 (February 1981, by Paul Kupperberg, Michael R. Adams & Tex Blaisdell), where terrorists invaded a high society séance and were summarily dispatched by the inhuman poetic justice of the Astral Avenger…

Now determined to destroy the monstrous revenant vigilante, Dr. 13 returned in #98 as ‘The Haunted House and The Spectre’ found the Ghost-Breaker interviewing Earl Crawford and subsequently discovering the long sought killer of his own father. Before 13 could act, however, the Spectre appeared and stole his justifiable retribution from the aggrieved psychic investigator…

The drama closed in Ghosts #99 as ‘Death… and The Spectre’ (Kupperberg, Michael R. Adams & Tony DeZuniga) found the scientist and the spirit locked in one final furious confrontation.

This staggering compendium of supernatural thrillers concludes with two more team-up classics from Brave and the Bold beginning with ‘The Scepter of the Dragon God’ by Fleisher & Aparo (from #180, November 1980).

Although Chinese wizard Wa’an-Zen stole enough mystic artefacts to conquer the world and destroy the Spectre, he foolishly underestimated the skill and bravery of the merely mortal Batman, whilst #199 (June 1983) ‘The Body-napping of Jim Corrigan’, by Mike W. Barr, Ross Andru & Rick Hoberg, found the ethereal avenger baffled by the abduction and disappearance of his mortal host.

Even though he could not trace his own body, the Spectre did know where the World’s Greatest Detective hung out…

Ranging from fabulously fantastical to darkly – violently – enthralling, these comic masterpieces perfectly encapsulate the way superheroes changed over a brief twenty year span, but remain throughout some of the most beguiling and exciting tales of DC’s near-80 years of existence. If you love comicbooks you’d be crazy to ignore this one…
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1974, 1975, 1981, 1983, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved

Showcase Presents Batman volume 5


By Frank Robbins, Dennis O’Neil, Mike Friedrich, Irv Novick, Bob Brown, Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Joe Giella & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-853-8

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 character 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 baffling 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 (issues #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 their covers are reproduced within 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 deftly 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 our scarily 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 continued here with the Frank Robbins-scripted Detective #391, as ‘The Gal Most Likely to Be – Batman’s Widow!’ (illustrated by Bob Brown & Joe Giella) saw the fleeting return of abortive modern love interest Ginny Jenkins who had 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 (illustrious 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!’ wherein the Gotham Gangbuster’s plan to take down mobster Scap Scarpel went dangerously awry after trusting a less than honest “confidential informant”. In Batman #216 (November 1968), Robbins gave faithful butler Alfred a surname (after thirty years of service) by introducing the old retainer’s niece Daphne Pennyworth in ‘Angel – or Devil?’ (art from Irv Novick & Dick Giordano).

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

In an era where teen angst and the counter-culture played an increasingly strident part in the public consciousness, Robin’s role as spokesperson for a generation was becoming 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) as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson took a young delinquent with them on their last vacation together, embroiling Batman and Robin in a sinister string of high end gem heists…

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

Dapper Gentleman’s Gentleman Alfred became a far more hands-on part of the mythology – like Margery Allingham’s Magersfontein Lugg from the Albert Campion mysteries rather than Wodehouse’s smugly unflappable Jeeves – from this point on: shutting up the stately Manor and moving the Batcave into the basement of the Wayne Foundation in the heart of the city where all the crime and injustice actually lurked…

The first case – a brilliant old-fashioned 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 both superheroism and philanthropy combine to provide justice for those who couldn’t afford to buy it…

The scheme immediately hit a deadly snag in Detective #394’s ‘A Victim’s Victim!’ (Robbins, Brown & Giella) when a crippled racing car driver came looking for 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 the 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 switch 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 and inked by Giordano) also instituted a far more mature and sinister – almost gothic – take on the hero as he confronted the 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.

Issue #219 led with a cracking political thriller in (Robbins, Novick & Giordano’s) ‘Death Casts the Deciding Vote’ wherein Bruce took his V.I.P. scheme to Washington DC and stumbled into a plot to assassinate an-anti-crime Senator, but the astounding Christmas vignette ‘The Silent Night of the Batman’ (by Mike Friedrich, Adams & Giordano) completely stole the show – and became a revered classic – with its eerily gentle, moving modern interpretation of 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!’

Teen financial wizard Rory Bell cornered the stock market from the back of his freewheeling motorbike, only to be kidnapped by a greedy gang with an eye to a big killing – corporate and otherwise – until the Caped Crimebuster got on their trail whilst Novick & Giordano similarly adapted their styles for Batman #220.

‘This Murder has been… Pre-Recorded!’, scripted by Robbins, saw Bruce finally meet journalist Marla Manning (whose writing inspired the V.I.P. initiative) when an exposé of corrupt practises made her the target of a murder-for-hire veteran.

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

‘A Bat-Death for Batman!’ by Robbins, Novick & Giordano led in issue #221 as the Dark Knight headed for Germany to track down Nazi war criminals and their bio-agent which turned domestic animals and livestock into rabid killers, whilst the Friedrich-scripted ‘A Hot Time in Gotham Town Tonight!’ saw the Masked Manhunter eradicate the threat of a mystic idol capable of turning the city into smouldering ashes.

Detective #399, by O’Neil, Brown & Giella, introduced anti-Batman campaigner and political hack Arthur Reeves and revealed how ‘Death Comes to a Small, Locked Room!’ in a clever mystery centred on the apparent assassination of a martial arts teacher, whilst Batman #222 featured two tales illustrated by Novick & Giordano.

‘Dead… Till Proven Alive!’, written by Robbins, featured a guest shot by Robin as British band The Oliver Twists hit Gotham, mired in 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 pushed himself beyond his limits to help a deaf mugging victim in ‘The Case of No Consequence!’

The big anniversary Detective Comics #400 introduced a dark counterpoint to the Gotham Gangbuster as driven scientist Kirk Langstrom created a serum to make himself superior to Batman and paid a heavy price in ‘Challenge of the Man-Bat!’ by Robbins, Adams & Giordano.

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

Batman #224 opened an era of eerie psychodramas and manic murder as the hero travelled to New Orleans to solve the mystery murder of a Jazz legend and battled the monstrous Moloch in ‘Carnival of the Cursed’ by O’Neil, Novick & Giordano, after which Detective #402 saw the Dark Knight capture the out-of-control thing that was once Kirk Langstrom and ponder if he had the right to kill or cure the beast in ‘Man or Bat?’ by Robbins, Adams & Giordano.

Batman #225 (O’Neil, Novick & Giordano) saw the murder of divisive talk show host Jonah Jory with witnesses swearing the city’s greatest hero was the killer in ‘Wanted for Murder-One, the Batman’, after which Detective #403 featured the gothic thriller ‘You Die by Mourning!’ (Robbins, Brown & Frank Giacoia, with a splash page by Carmine Infantino), in which the V.I.P. project turned up grieving widow Angie Randall who needed justice for her murdered husband.

This cunning conundrum revolves around the fact that dear dead Laird wasn’t dead yet – but would be tomorrow…

Detective Comics #404 then offered the magnificent ‘Ghost of the Killer Skies!’ (O’Neil, Adams & Giordano) which found the Masked Manhunter attempting to solve a series of impossible murders on the set of a film about German WWI fighter ace Hans von Hammer.

All evidence seemed to prove that the killer could only be a vengeful phantom, whereas in Batman #226 skewed science produced a new mad menace in ‘The Man with Ten Eyes!’ by Robbins, Novick & Giordano.

A cruel misunderstanding during a robbery pitted security guard Reardon against Batman just as the real thieves detonated a huge explosion. Blinded, traumatised and shell-shocked, Reardon was then subjected to an experimental procedure which allowed him to see through his fingertips but the Vietnam vet blamed the Caped Crimebuster for his freakish fate and determined to extract his vengeance in kind…

Detective #405 was the inauspicious start to a whole new world of intrigue and adventure as ‘The First of the Assassins!’ (O’Neil, Brown & Giacoia) found the Gotham Guardian seconded to Interpol to solve the murders of fifteen shipping magnates. Whilst struggling to keep the sixteenth healthy against a fusillade of esoteric threats from oriental fiend Tejja, the Dark Night first learned of a vast global League of killers…

Another groundbreaking narrative strand debuted in Batman #227 in ‘The Demon of Gothos Mansion’ (O’Neil, Novick & Giordano) as Daphne Pennyworth returned, begging help to escape her latest employment as a governess in a remote household. When Batman investigated he discovered 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 continued in Detective Comics #406 as in ‘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 the global campaign of terror… or does he?

This staggering compendium of comics wonderment concludes with Detective #407; the final chapter in a triptych of tales 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 mutated curse and forces the Dark Knight into an horrific choice…

One last treat here is the cover to Giant Batman #228: another spectacular visual feast from Swan & Anderson which ends this marvellous meander through memory lane in perfect style.

With the game-changing classics in this volume, Batman finally shed his alien-bashing Boy Scout silliness and returned 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.

Golden Age Green Lantern Archives Volume I


By Bill Finger, Martin Nodell, E.E. Hibbard, Irwin Hasen & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-507-4

Thanks to comics genius and editorial wunderkind Sheldon Mayer, the innovative fledgling company All-American Comics (who co-published in association with and would eventually be absorbed by DC) published the first comicbook super-speedster in Flash Comics and followed up a few months later with another evergreen and immortal all-star.

The Green Lantern debuted in issue #16 of the company’s flagship title just as superheroes began to dominate the market, supplanting newspaper strip reprints and stock genre characters in the still primarily-anthologised comicbooks. He would be swiftly joined in All-American Comics by The Atom, Red Tornado, Sargon the Sorcerer and Doctor Mid-Nite until eventually only gag strips such Mutt and Jeff and exceptional tough-guy military strips Hop Harrigan and Red, White and Blue remained to represent mere mortal heroes.

At least until tastes changed again after the war and costumed crusaders faded away, to be replaced by cowboys, cops and private eyes…

Devised by up-and-coming cartoonist Martin Nodell (and fleshed out by Bill Finger in the same generally unsung way he had contributed to the success of Batman), Green Lantern soon became AA’s second smash sensation.

The arcane avenger gained his own solo-starring title little more than a year after his premiere and appeared in other anthologies such as Comics Cavalcade, All Star Comics and others for just over a decade before, like most first-generation superheroes, he faded away in the early1950s, having first suffered the humiliating fate of being edged out of his own strip and comicbook by his pet Streak the Wonder Dog…

However that’s the stuff of future reviews. This spectacular quirkily beguiling deluxe Archive edition opens with a rousing reminiscence from Nodell in a Foreword which discusses the origins of the character before the parade of raw, graphic enchantment (collecting the Sentinel of Justice’s appearances from All-American Comics #16-30 – covering July 1940 to September 1941 and Green Lantern #1 from Fall 1941) starts with the incredible history of The Green Flame of Life…

Ambitious young engineer Alan Scott only survived the sabotage and destruction of a passenger-packed train due to the intervention of a battered old railway lantern. Bathed in its eerie emerald light he was regaled by a mysterious green voice with the legend of how a meteor fell in ancient China and spoke to the people: predicting Death, Life and Power.

The star-stone’s viridian glow brought doom to the savant who reshaped it into a lamp, sanity to a madman centuries later and now promised incredible might to bring justice to the innocent…

Instructing Scott to fashion a ring from its metal and draw a charge of power from the lantern every 24 hours, the ancient artefact urged the engineer to use his formidable willpower to end all evil: a mission Scott eagerly took up by promptly crushing the corrupt industrialist Dekker who had callously caused wholesale death just to secure a lucrative rail contract.

The ring made Scott immune to all minerals and metals, enabled him to fly and pass through walls but as he battled Dekker’s thugs the grim avenger painfully discovered that living – perhaps organic – materials such as wood or rubber could penetrate his jade defences and cause him mortal harm…

The saboteurs punished, Scott determined to carry on the fight and devised a “bizarre costume” to disguise his identity and strike fear and awe into wrongdoers…

Most of the stories at this time were untitled, and All-American Comics #17 (August 1940) found Scott in Metropolis (long before it became the fictional home of Superman) where his new employer was squeezed out of a building contract by a crooked City Commissioner in bed with racketeers. With lives at risk from shoddy construction the Green Lantern moved to stop the gangsters but nearly lost his life to overconfidence before finally triumphing, after which #18 found Scott visiting the 1940 New York World’s Fair.

This yarn (which I suspect was devised for DC’s legendary comicbook premium 1940 New York World’s Fair Comics, but shelved at the last moment) introduced feisty romantic interest Irene Miller as she attempted to shoot a gangster who had framed her brother. Naturally gallant he-man Scott had to get involved, promptly discovering untouchable gang-boss Murdock even owned his own Judge, by the simple expedient of holding the magistrate’s daughter captive…

However once Alan applied his keen wits and ruthless mystic might to the problem Murdock’s power – and life – were soon forfeit, after which in All-American Comics #19 Scott saved a man from an attempted hit-and-run and found himself ferreting out a deadly ring of insurance scammers collecting big payouts by inflicting “accidents” upon unsuspecting citizens.

Issue #20 began with a quick recap of Green Lantern’s origin before instituting a major change in the young engineer’s life. Following the gunning down of a roving radio announcer and assassination of the reporter’s wife, the hero investigated APEX Broadcasting System in Capitol City and again met Irene Miller.

She worked at the company and with her help Alan uncovered a scheme whereby broadcasts were used to transmit coded instructions to merciless smugglers. Once GL mopped up the cunning gang and their inside man, engineer Alan Scott took a job at the company and began a hapless romantic pursuit of the capable, valiant Irene.

Thanks to scripter Finger, Green Lantern was initially a grim vengeful and spookily mysterious figure of vengeance weeding out criminals and gangsters but, just as with early Batman sagas, there was always a strong undercurrent of social issues, ballsy sentimentality and human drama.

All-American #21 found the hero exposing a cruel con wherein a crooked lawyer pressed young criminal Cub Brenner into posing as the long-lost son of a wealthy couple to steal their fortune. Of course, the kid had a change of heart and everything ended happily, but not before stupendous skulduggery and atrocious violence ensued.

In #22 when prize-fighter Kid McKay refused to throw a bout, mobsters kidnapped his wife and even temporarily overcame the fighting-mad Emerald Guardian. However, when one of the brutal thugs put on the magic ring he swiftly suffered a ghastly doom which allowed GL to emerge victorious…

Slick veteran Everett E. Hibbard provided the art for #23, and his famed light touch framed GL’s development into a less fearsome and more public hero. As Irene continued to rebuff Alan’s advances – in vain hopes of landing his magnificent mystery man alter ego – the engineer accompanied her to interview movie star Delia Day and stumbled into a cruel blackmail racket.

Despite their best efforts the net result was heartbreak, tragedy and many deaths. Issue #24 then saw the Man of Light go undercover to expose philanthropist tycoon R.J. Karns, who maintained his vast fortune by selling unemployed Americans into slavery on a tropical Devil’s Island, whilst #25 found Irene uncovering sabotage at a steel mill. With the unsuspected help of GL she then exposed purported enemy mastermind The Leader as no more than an unscrupulous American insider trader trying to force the price down for a simple Capitalist coup…

Celebrated strip cartoonist Irwin Hasen began his long association with Green Lantern in #26 when the hero came to the rescue of swindled citizens whose lending agreements with a loan shark were being imperceptibly altered by a forger to keep them paying in perpetuity, after which the artist illustrated the debut appearance of overnight sensation Doiby Dickles in All-American #27 (June 1941).

The rotund, middle-aged Brooklyn-born cab driver was simply intended as light foil and occasional sidekick for the grim, poker-faced Emerald Avenger but grew to be one of the most popular and beloved comedy stooges of the era; soon sharing covers and even by-lines with the star.

In this initial dramatic outing he bravely defended fare Irene (sorry: irresistible – bad, but irresistible) from assailants as she carried plans for a new radio receiver device. For his noble efforts Doiby was sought out and thanked by Green Lantern and, after the verdant crusader investigated, he discovered enemy agents at the root of the problem. When Irene was again targeted the Emerald Avenger was seemingly killed…

This time, to save Miss Miller, Doiby disguised himself as “de Lantrin” and confronted the killers alone before the real deal turned up to end things. As a reward the Brooklyn bravo was offered an unofficial partnership…

In #28 the convenient death of millionaire Cyrus Brand and a suspicious bequest to a wastrel nephew led Irene, Doiby and Alan to a sinister gangster dubbed The Spider who manufactured deaths by natural causes, after which #29 found GL and the corpulent cabbie hunting mobster Mitch Hogan, who forced pharmacies to buy his counterfeit drugs and products; utilising strong-arm tactics to ensure even the courts carried out his wishes – at least until the Lantern and his wrench-wielding buddy gave him a dose of his own medicine…

The last All-American yarn here is from issue #30 (cover-dated September 1941) and again featured Irene sticking her nose into other peoples’ business. This time she exposed a brace of crooked bail bondsmen exploiting former criminals trying to go straight, and was again kidnapped.

This raw and vital high-energy compilation ends with the stirring contents of Green Lantern #1 from Fall 1941, scripted by Finger and exclusively illustrated by Nodell, who had by this time dropped his potentially face-saving pseudonym Mart “Dellon”.

The magic began with a 2-page origin recap in ‘Green Lantern – His Personal History’ after which ‘The Masquerading Mare!’ saw GL and Doiby smash the schemes of racketeer Scar Jorgis who went to quite extraordinary lengths to obtain a racehorse inherited by Irene, after which an article by Dr. William Moulton Marston (an eminent psychologist familiar to us today as the creator of Wonder Woman) discussed the topic of ‘Will Power’.

The comic thrills resumed when a city official was accused of mishandling funds allocated to buy pneumonia serum in ‘Disease!!’ Although Green Lantern and Doiby spearheaded a campaign to raise more money to prevent an epidemic, events took a dark turn when the untouchable, unimpeachable Boss Filch experienced personal tragedy and exposed his grafting silent partners high in the city’s governing hierarchy…

Blistering spectacle was the result of ‘Arson in the Slums’, when Alan and Irene became entangled in a crusading publisher’s strident campaign to renovate a ghetto. Of course, the philanthropic Barton and his real estate pal Murker had only altruistic reasons for their drive to re-house the city’s poorest citizens…

Doiby was absent from that high octane thriller but did guest-star with the Emerald Ace in the prose tale ‘Hop Harrigan in “Trailers of Treachery”’ – by an unknown scripter and probably illustrated by Sheldon Mayer – a ripping yarn starring AA’s aviation hero (and star of his own radio show) after which ‘Green Lantern’ and Doiby travelled South of the Border to scenic Landavo to investigate tampering with APEX’s short-wave station and end up in a civil war.

They soon discovered that the entire affair had been fomented by foreign agents intent on destroying democracy on the continent…

With the threat of involvement in the “European War” a constant subject of American headlines, this sort of spy story was gradually superseding general gangster yarns, and as Green Lantern displayed his full bombastic might against tanks, fighter planes and invading armies,nobody realised that within mere months America and the entire comicbook industry were to metamorphose beyond all recognition.

Soon mystery men would become patriotic morale boosters parading and sermonising ad infinitum in every corner of the industry’s output as the real world brutally intruded on the hearts and minds of the nation…

Including a breathtaking selection of stunning and powerfully evocative covers by Sheldon Moldoff, Hasen and Howard Purcell, this magnificent book is a sheer delight for lovers of the early Fights ‘n’ Tights genre: gripping, imaginative and exuberantly exciting – even if certainly not to every modern fan’s taste.

Of course, with such straightforward thrills on show any reader with an open mind might quickly see the light…
© 1940, 1941, 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Green Lantern Corps: Emerald Eclipse (Prelude to Darkest Night)


By Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason, Rebecca Buchman, Christian Alamy, Prentis Rollins & Tom Nguyen (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2529-2

The Green Lantern Corps has protected the cosmos from evil and disaster for uncounted millennia, policing vast numbers of sentient beings under the severe but benevolent auspices of immortal super-beings who dubbed themselves Guardians of the Universe.

These undying patrons of Order were one of the first races to evolve and dwelt in sublime, emotionless security and tranquillity on the world of Oa at the very centre of creation.

Green Lanterns are chosen for their capacity to overcome fear and are equipped and armed with a ring that creates constructs out of emerald light. This miracle weapon is fuelled by the strength of their willpower, making it one of the mightiest tools in the universe.

For millennia, a single individual from each of the 3600 sectors of known space was selected to patrol his, her or its own beat, but in recent years the Guardians have frequently changed their own rules and laws. Now two GLs are assigned to work in each stellar division.

The Guardians’ motives have also increasingly come into question by many of their once-devoted operatives and peacekeepers, who have frequently seen the formerly infallible little blue gods exposed as venal, ruthless, doctrinaire and even capricious…

In the aftermath of the Sinestro Corps War, the universe was in turmoil at the revelation that Green was not the only colour and that an entire emotional spectrum of puissant energies underpinned and operated upon reality – and could thus be appropriated and exploited.

Soon each colour was being wielded by a power faction such as Atrocitus‘ anger-charged Red Lanterns, Zamaron‘s love-manipulating Violet-powered Star Sapphires or the enigmatic Agent Orange. The Guardians themselves were clearly off-balance, constantly changing the adamantine Laws in their precious Book of Oa and obviously terrified that some ancient prophecy was coming to fruition despite all their coldly calculated efforts…

This volume (collecting Green Lantern Corps #33-39 from 2009) is billed as a “Prelude to Blackest Night” and if you’re particularly wedded to strict running order and overarching continuity there are other books you should read such as the aforementioned Sinestro War volumes (all three of them), Rage of the Red Lanterns, Green Lantern: Secret Origin and Green Lantern: Agent Orange at the very least. Heck, read them all – if you’ve come this far you’re clearly already intrigued by the sheer immensity and scope of it all…

The space opera/cop procedural opens here as two of the wearily battered but triumphant interstellar peacekeepers enjoy some downtime by painting a mural in their still-not-open “cop-bar” on Oa.

“Honor Guard” Earth Lanterns Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner are debating the Guardian’s latest emotion-crunching edict banning relationships between serving officers and how many of their fellows it will affect. Soon their paint party is augmented by dozens of others officers keen to contribute and chat; all blithely unaware that one of their venerated masters has been suborned to The Black and actively works to destroy them and all they cherish…

Meanwhile, on the violently xenophobic planet Daxam, the remnants of Sinestro’s Corps, now led by the sadistic superman Mongul II, is committing genocide for entertainment as the despot consolidates his leadership and plans to take his growing army of yellow fear-worshippers on a new crusade of terror and destruction.

On Oa resignations are up as many veterans choose love over duty and quit the Corps. Rayner has a personal stake in the new Law too: enjoying a clandestine – and now forbidden – relationship with fellow lantern Soranik Natu of Korugar. Even as the lovers discuss their insurmountable problem, in the distant depths of space GL Saarek meets a passion-powered Star Sapphire as he uses his unique ability on a fragment of the carcass of the once terrible multiversal menace The Anti-Monitor…

The dead speak to Saarek and his conversation with the Zamaron Miri is painful and portentous for both of them and the entire cosmos…

On Daxam the wanton bloodshed is temporarily halted when the monstrous Arkillo challenges Mongul for leadership of the Yellow Lanterns. This distraction allows a desperate survivor to flee offworld and alert the Sector’s GL team: Arisia of Graxos IV and self-exiled Daxamite Sodam Yat.

The fugitive is his own mother, but Yat is fiercely disinclined to help. As a star-gazing youth he yearned to visit other worlds but his family, like all Daxamites, brutally discouraged his dreams. When the boy actually encountered a shipwrecked alien his parents had the poor creature stuffed and mounted as a warning…

Once Yat finally escaped his fundamentalist, bigoted, supremacist world he swore never to return. It takes all Arisia’s efforts to convince him otherwise.

As Natu leaves Oa for Korugar, deep in the Guardians’ Citadel, the hundreds of horrors isolated in impenetrable Sciencells become agitated when Gardner, Salaak and Kilowog try to slam the door on newest inmate Vice.

The raging Red Lantern is barely locked in when Warden GL Voz is attacked. Deep in the bowels of Oa, the renegade Black Guardian had deactivated the Sciencells and soon a complete riot ensues, exacerbated when the captured yellow rings of Sinestro’s adherents are reactivated and returned to the rampaging prisoners…

With carnage erupting and deaths mounting, all GLs on Oa are dispatched to the penitentiary, whilst on Daxam Yat and Arisia have linked up with a band of surviving Daxamites and begun training them to fight back against the blood-crazed invaders.

A darker confrontation occurs on Korugar as Natu is ambushed by escaped megalomaniac Sinestro who reveals a shattering secret about her comfortable happy childhood…

The riot on Oa finally subsides – after spectacular damage and catastrophic losses – with the Greens victorious even as, on Daxam, Yat loses a ferocious battle against Mongul but ultimately wins the war by making the most impossible of sacrifices…

And on Oa the once unshakable Guardians irretrievably shatter their already tarnished reputations by ordering the elite Alpha-Lanterns to summarily and secretly execute all the recaptured prisoners, prompting even their most devoted servants to lose hope and faith…

Now The Blackest Night begins and the universe itself will pay for the Guardians’ arrogance and duplicity……

Also featuring a beautiful and stirring gallery of covers and variants from Gleason, Buchman, Rodolfo Migliari and Glenn Fabry, this spectacular collection of plot threads and opening gambits combines all the spectacle, cosmic derring-do, tense suspense and blazing action fans adore, but even this “jumping on” epic is not really a beginning and far, far from a neat and tidy end.

Although this bombastic yarn is highly continuity-dependent, determined newcomers should still be able to extract a vast amount of histrionic enjoyment out of the explosive, compulsive, compelling, pell-mell onslaught of action… and you could always find those other volumes and get fully in the picture…
© 2009 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

Final Crisis: Rogues Revenge


By Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Dan Panosian & Doug Hazlewood (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2334-2

During the first decade of the 21st century DC and Marvel were obsessed with vast company-wide crossover events presumably to boost – or maybe simply sustain – dwindling sales.

The company that had invented Big Bombastic Crisis stories seemingly went bonkers mid-decade and propagated one Extreme Extinction Event after another, all with attendant crossovers, specials and miniseries until they could only promise to end it all with one Final Crisis.

We didn’t believe them of course, but there were some great stories amidst the constant proliferating armada of monthly Armageddons…

The concept of speedsters has been intrinsic to all of DC’s superhero comics since the revival of the Flash jumpstarted the Silver Age and created a whole new style of storytelling.

There had been earlier cyclonic champions such as Jay Garrick, who debuted as the very first Scarlet Speedster in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940) and as “The Fastest Man Alive” wowed readers for over a decade before changing tastes benched him and most of his ilk in 1951.

The entire mystery man genre was subsequently revived (and exponentially expanded to overarching prominence) in 1956 when Julie Schwartz oversaw the creation of police scientist Barry Allen who became the second hero to run with the concept in Showcase #4.

The Silver Age Flash, whose example ushered in a new and seemingly unstoppable era of costumed crusaders, died heroically during Crisis on Infinite Earths (which rationalised and standardised the entire continuity in 1985-1986) and was promptly succeeded by his sidekick Kid Flash.

Of course Allen later returned from the dead – but doesn’t everyone?

Kid Flash Wally West struggled at first to fill the boots of his predecessor, but persevered and eventually overcame, becoming the greatest to own the name. After many amazing adventures he married his beloved Linda Park, but just as happiness seemed certain they both disappeared in the reality-bending chaos of the Infinite Crisis…

In the slow build up to Final Crisis and by way of all those other “end-of-everything” multi-part mega-sagas, Bart Allen had finally acceded to the crimson mantle. Introduced as the impetuous unruly Impulse, Barry Allen’s grandson had come hot-footed from the 30th century to join the pantheon, and had matured through a career as the second Kid Flash to finally become the third hero to wear the family costume.

Keep up: he’s technically the fourth Flash since Garrick was the first speedster to use the name, albeit in a different outfit and originally on a completely different Earth.

However, as Bart was quickly adapting to his new role in Los Angeles, studying to be a cop and forensic scientist like his grandpa with a procession of old Rogues and new villains complicating matters, he was utterly unaware that his evil clone Inertia (no, seriously) was assembling an army of his predecessors’ enemies for an all-out attack.

They succeeded too well. Although the Rogues were looking for glory and payback, they had no idea they were being manipulated by the pre-meditating Inertia into actually murdering the kid.

After the brief death of Bart Allen (he too was soon resurrected) Wally and Linda returned in a spectacular blaze of glory accompanied by their two children, somehow grown into teens over the course of a few months and already heroes in waiting…

And that’s just that’s background to this collection featuring the staggering finale to a years-long saga as much about the unique band of villains associated with the Twin Cities as the ever-imperilled Fastest Men Alive…

Published as a supplemental sidebar to the Big Show of 2008, Final Crisis: Rogues Revenge was a 3-part miniseries by old allies Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins which followed the paths of Rogues Gallery veterans Captain Cold, Heat Wave and Weather Wizard plus relative newcomer the second Mirror Master as they came to terms with the repercussions of their infamous, if involuntary, act of murder.

To fill out the admittedly brief page count this collection also includes the contents of The Flash volume 2, issues #182 and #197 from 2002 and 2003: two key, Rogue-heavy episodes which provided chilling insight into the minds of the utterly compelling bad guys…

It all begins with the fugitive villains returning to their Central City hideout only to find the place infested with petty thugs led by Axel Walker, the new upstart Trickster. It’s a whole new world now. Many of their former comrades – as well as much of the Underworld’s super-powered elite – have signed up to the cause of overarching new villain Libra: a man you just don’t say no to.

A relative newcomer, Libra has compelled such heavies as Lex Luthor and Gorilla Grodd to join his monumental league of villains and espouses the adoption of a religion of Evil. He has already killed the Martian Manhunter and expects the Rogues to sign up to his cause.

Never one to be pushed, Captain Cold did say no and now he and his trusted comrades are hunted by heroes and villains alike.

Routing Walker’s thugs, the fugitives grudgingly accept the new Trickster into their ranks, but can’t stomach the kid’s crowing over Flash’s murder.

Cold has no scruples over killing but he has never committed homicide for fun. If it isn’t for profit or vengeance or to make a point, it isn’t worth the trouble and for people like the Rogues there’s always an alternative.

Moreover, Cold really resents the attention and grief Inertia has brought down on them all by slaying a speedster but most of all, he really, really, really hates being a vicious little thug’s patsy…

With everybody hunting them Cold and his companions are looking for a way to bring things back to “normal”, but are unaware that they are also being targeted by reformed Rogue Pied Piper who has his own warped reasons to confront them…

When Cold again refuses Libra’s demand to join or die, it is the final straw for the Prophet of Evil, who is the covert herald of an invasion by forces far beyond human ken.  Libra decides to remove the obstinate obstacles and make a very public point…

Meanwhile, Wally West has beaten and horrifically incarcerated Bart’s killer, but Inertia has been subsequently released by the ultimate enemy of all Speedsters. Hunter Zolomon was an FBI profiler who went mad and, patterning himself on old Rogue Professor Zoom, the Reverse Flash, determined to make heroes “better” by torturing them with savage personal tragedy and heartbreak.

Now his latest scheme involves converting the psychotic Inertia into his own protégé, Kid Zoom…

The hard-pressed Rogues also have Inertia in mind, and Captain Cold decides the best way to make things right again is to execute the kid who is the root cause of all their current problems…

Libra quickly moves to the head of his “to-do” list, though, when the Herald of Apokolips makes an example of Paul Gambi, the tailor and armourer who has armed and equipped the Rogues throughout their criminal careers. Libra has the old man tortured by cheap imitations of the Rogues, intending them to become their replacements in his League of Evil, but the upstarts are no match for the real thing who also know a thing or two about sending a murderous message…

As Zoom continues his awful education of Kid Zoom, Libra makes more mistakes by targeting Cold’s despised father and abducting the Weather Wizard’s son, precipitating a crisis of faith with devastating repercussions for the planet and all reality…

All paths coincide when another dead Flash returns, and the Rogues score their greatest triumph whilst making one more hugely selfish misjudgement which will only become apparent in the traumatic days to come…

This turbulent tome then concludes with a brace of insightful character histories. ‘Absolute Zero’ (inked by Dan Panosian) revealed the traumatic story of career criminal Len Snart and the outcome when, as Captain Cold, he avenged the murder of his sister Lisa, affording us all a look at the early life which made him such a cold-hearted killer (first seen in Flash #182), whilst Kolins & Hazlewood collaborated on #197’s ‘Rogue Profile: Zoom’ wherein Hunter Zolomon’s cruel fate was fully revealed.

Once the FBI’s hotshot star profiler, an innocent mistake unleashed horrific consequences for Hunter’s loved ones. Years later whilst seeking redemption, he compounded his personal tragedy and became the time-bending sociopath Zoom whose mission was to make his best friend Wally West a better hero through the white-hot crucible of personal tragedy…

Dark, gritty and spectacularly potent, this tale can simply be read as a satisfactory conclusion to the hyper-extended Rogue War saga in the Flash, rather than as an adjunct to the Final Crisis, but whatever your reasons for enjoying this powerful Fights ‘n’ Tights drama, this is a book no dyed-in-the-crimson-wool Flash-fan should miss.
© 2002, 2003, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns (Prelude to Blackest Night)


By Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, Mike McKone, Shane Davis & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-4012-2302-1

Since the dawn of the Silver Age of Comics where and when The Flash kick-started it all to become the fast-beating heart of the revived genre of superheroes, his fellow jet-age retread Green Lantern has always provided the conceptual core framework for the comprehensive, pervasive magic of the monolithic DC Universe’s shared continuity.

Hal Jordan was a young test pilot in California when an alien policeman crashed on Earth. Mortally wounded, Abin Sur commanded his Green Power-ring – a device fuelled by willpower which could materialise thoughts – to seek out a replacement ring-bearer, honest and without fear. Scanning the planet it selected Jordan and brought him to the crash-site. The dying alien bequeathed his ring, the lantern-shaped Battery of Power and his profession to the astonished Earthman.

Over the years Jordan became one of the greatest members of that serried band of law-enforcers, the Green Lantern Corps, which had protected the cosmos from evil for uncounted millennia under the auspices of immortal super-beings who dubbed themselves the Guardians of the Universe.

These undying patrons of Order were one of the first races in creation and currently dwell in sublime emotionless security on the world of Oa at the very centre of creation.

Even if you are a true Fights ‘n’ Tights epic aficionado, if all this is new to you then Rage of the Red Lanterns should absolutely not be your introduction to the series.

Go read (at least) Green Lantern: Secret Origin and preferably all the other collections of this monumental fixture in the comicbook firmament before attempting to decipher the compulsive, compelling, pell-mell onslaught of characters and concepts scripter Geoff Johns threw at the reader as his extended epic thoroughly reshaped that aforementioned DCU.

Still here? Okay then…

Following the bombastic, blockbusting Sinestro Corps War, all of creation was in turmoil at the revelation that Green was not the only colour and an entire emotional spectrum of unsuspected yet puissant energies underpinned and operated upon reality. In increasingly ambitious storylines, Johns began exploring the adherents and disciples of each hue and the forces transformed by or seeking to control them…a situation which would lead inexorably and inescapably into DC’s major crossover events Blackest Night and its sequel Brightest Day.

In themselves these twinned mega-sagas were the result of an increasingly all-encompassing series of comicbook crises which would dominate the company’s output for nearly three years…

This volume (collecting Green Lantern #26-28, 36-38 and the one-shot Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns #1) is billed as a “Prelude to Blackest Night” and its chronologically telescoped tales actually straddle the separately released Green Lantern: Secret Origins), so if you’re particularly wedded to strict running order that’s one more hurdle to your full enjoyment.

If you’ll permit an earnest aside: all this prevarication might seem like I’m trying to put readers off and don’t like the material I’m covering, but nothing could be further than the truth. When done right, these kinds of epic super-sagas are utterly mesmerising narrative intoxicants that no other medium of human expression can match, but very few of them can be enjoyed on purely ambient knowledge.

Almost anybody can come cold to Lord of the Rings, Gone With the Wind, Michener’s Centennial, Clavell’s Shogun or EE Smith’s Lensman books but still enjoy them with only the barest smattering of background and targeted exposition, whereas periodical comicbooks are more akin to long-running TV soaps like Coronation Street or Days of Our Lives, with neither time nor space to constantly reintroduce key characters, concepts and history, but still keenly dependent on specific knowledge to fully engage with the material.

I find it personally daunting and, after 30-plus years in the creative, educational and retail arenas of comics, know it is crucially off-putting for many potential newcomers and even old fans tempted to start reading their childhood favourites again. That’s just the way it is and why I’ll always go on about getting through this stuff in the most favourable order.

Here endeth the Sermon…

Written in entirety by Johns, the multi-hued madness here begins with a 3-part tale that originally appeared immediately after the conclusion of the Sinestro Corps War. ‘The Alpha Lanterns’, pencilled by Mike McKone with inks from Andy Lanning, Marlo Aquiza, Cam Smith, Mark Farmer & Norm Rapmund, detailed how cracks began to form in the solidarity of the Green Lantern Corps after the immortal, emotionally constricted Guardians began arbitrarily rewriting the ancient Laws in their biblical Book of Oa, such as no fraternisation between serving Lanterns and – crucially – revoking the Corps’ eons-old no deadly force mandate.

Moreover the little blue gods were clearly concealing important facts from their devoted peace-keeping force when they summarily created a harsh and draconian Internal Affairs division to police their police.

Worst of all, these new Alpha Lanterns had been surgically altered, becoming more slavish automaton than sentient sentinel…

Imprisoned in an Oan sciencell, rogue GL Sinestro of Korugar crowed over his ultimate victory. His army of monsters, armed with yellow rings fuelled by fear, had ravaged the universe and compelled the complacent, emotion-disdaining Guardians to panic and change their billion-year-old policies and edicts. He seemed utterly unmoved by the fact that his captors had retaliated by sentencing him to death…

The bubbling undercurrents of tense friction exploded when GL Laira took the new General Orders too far and executed a Yellow Lantern who had surrendered. She immediately fell under the remorseless jurisdiction of the Alphas, and her subsequent show trial and conviction further split the Corps. Galaxies away, the maimed Guardian dubbed “Scar” covertly seconded maverick GL Ash and dispatched him on a secret mission to recover the remains of universal nemesis the Anti-Monitor…

And on the devastated hell-world Ysmault – scene of the Guardians’ greatest shame – Atrocitus, one of only five survivors of his entire space sector, moved to create his own Corps of ring-bearers. These aggrieved agents would all be powered by the scarlet bile of red hot rage…

Battle lines were being drawn as the universe moved inexorably towards the fulfilment of an ancient dark prophecy.

Due to the Guardians’ ancient treaty with a deadly uncontrollable force wielding Orange light, the star-system of Vega had always been outside GL Corps’ jurisdiction, subsequently becoming an interstellar sinkhole and safe-haven for the very worst scum of universe.

Now, however, ancient racial offshoot The Controllers (a splinter group who split from the Guardians eons ago) entered the bewilderingly vast conflict, determined to appropriate the colour for their own arsenal, but tragically unaware of the horror they would unleash…

Convicted, stripped of rank and power but still unrepentant, furious Laira was being transported back to her home planet when a Red Lantern ring found her and completed her fall from grace…

‘Rage of the Red Lanterns Part 1’, illustrated by Shane Davis & Sandra Hope, then revealed the secrets of Atrocitus’ rise to power, expanded upon Ash’s quest for the husk of the Anti-Monitor and followed a doomed convoy of Green Lanterns tasked with transporting Sinestro to his place of execution on Korugar.

When they were ambushed by Red Lanterns determined to take the leader of the Yellow Lanterns to a far worse fate than death, all seemed lost until Hal Jordan was rescued by a benign saviour called Saint Walker who wore a ring of shining, cleansing Blue…

This wild spectacle continued in Green Lantern #36-38 with art from Ivan Reis, Oclair Albert & Julio Ferreira, as Jordan became focus and crucible of the conflict, with both Red Rage and Blue Hope attempting to possess him, making him their agent in a rapidly unfolding War of Light and horrific Darkest Night which would soon endanger all life and creation…

First, however, the conflicted earthman had to face Atrocitus and rescue Sinestro so that the renegade could be properly executed by the rightful authorities of the universe, even as on Earth his ex-girlfriend Carol Ferris was again targeted by the Violet light of Love and one of the coldly pious Guardians slipped further into black madness…

To Be So Very Continued…

Also featuring a beautiful and stirring gallery of covers by McKone, Lanning, Davis & Hope, this spectacular collection of plot threads and opening gambits combines all the signature big-picture theatrics, cosmic derring-do, tense suspense, solid characterization and blistering action fans adore, but even this “jumping on” epic is not really a beginning and far, far from a neat and tidy end.

So brush up on DC/Green Lantern history before even contemplating this astounding and ambitious first course in a banquet of comics indulgence…
© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

Wonder Woman Archives volume 5

WW arc 5 bk
By Charles Moulton (William Moulton Marston & Harry G. Peter) with Joye Murchison (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1270-4

The Princess of Paradise Island debuted as a special feature in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941), conceived by polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston and illustrated by Harry G. Peter, in a calculated attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model and, on Editor M.C. Gaines’ part, sell funnybooks.

She then catapulted into her own series, and held the cover-spot of new anthology title Sensation Comics a month later. An instant hit, the Amazing Amazon won her own eponymous supplemental title a few months later, cover-dated Summer 1942.

Once upon a time on a hidden island of immortal super-women, American aviator Steve Trevor of US Army Intelligence crashed to Earth. Near death, he was nursed back to health by young, impressionable Princess Diana.

Fearful of her besotted child’s growing obsession with the creature from a long-forgotten and madly violent world, Diana’s mother Queen Hippolyte revealed the hidden history of the Amazons: how they were seduced and betrayed by men but rescued by the goddess Aphrodite on condition that they forever isolated themselves from the mortal world and devoted their eternal lives to becoming ideal, perfect creatures.

However with the planet in crisis, goddesses Athena and Aphrodite now instructed Hippolyte to send an Amazon back with the American to fight for global freedom and liberty, and Diana clandestinely overcame all other candidates to become their emissary Wonder Woman.

On arriving in America she bought the identity and credentials of lovelorn Army nurse Diana Prince, elegantly allowing the Amazon to be close to Steve whilst enabling the heartsick medic to join her own fiancé in South America. Diana gained a position with Army Intelligence as secretary to General Darnell, ensuring she would always be able to watch over her beloved. She little suspected that, although the painfully shallow Steve only had eyes for the dazzling Amazon superwoman, the General had fallen for the mousy but supremely competent Lieutenant Prince…

Using the nom de plume Charles Moulton, Marston (with some help in later years from assistant Joye Murchison) scripted the Amazing Amazon’s fabulous adventures until his death in 1947, whereupon Robert Kanigher took over the writer’s role. Venerable veteran illustrator and co-creator H.G. Peter performed the same feat, limning practically every titanic tale until his own death in 1958.

This fifth lavishly deluxe full-colour hardback edition collects the increasingly fanciful and intoxicating adventures from Wonder Woman #10-12 and Sensation Comics #33-40, spanning cover-dates September 1944-April 1945 and following the unique champion of freedom from her primarily war-footing to the scary days of a world notionally at peace…

After an appreciative Foreword from industry insider, historian and comics all-star Jim Amash detailing the cultural contribution of the creators and their billion-dollar baby, the action opens with ‘The Disappearance of Tama’ from Sensation Comics #33, wherein the Amazon’s college friend Etta Candy overhears a plot to kidnap and murder a movie starlet and embroils herself and Diana in a delightfully bewildering farrago of deadly doubles and impish impostors, after which Wonder Woman #10 (Fall 1944) offered a novel-length epic of alien invasion.

In ‘Spies From Saturn’, a rare vacation with Etta and her sorority sister Holliday Girls leads to trouble with outrageous neighbour Mephisto Saturno who turns out to be the leader of a spy ring from the Ringed Planet. However even after imprisoning his extraterrestrial espionage squad the danger is not ended, as the aliens insidious “lassitude gas” turns America into a helpless sleeping nation and forces the Amazon to take ‘The Sky Road’ to the invaders’ home world to find a cure and rescue her beloved Steve…

The cataclysmic clash concludes in ‘Wonder Woman’s Boots’ as the victorious Earthlings return home, unaware that Mephisto is still free and has a plan to avenge his defeat…

Social injustice informed ‘Edgar’s New World’ in Sensation Comics #34, when the Amazing Amazon tackled the case of a “problem child” near-blind and living in squalor whilst his mother languished in jail. Soon however the big-hearted heroine uncovered political chicanery and grotesque graft behind the murder charge sending innocent Esta Poore to the death chamber…

In Sensation #35 ‘Girls Under the Sea’ found Wonder Woman again battling to save lost Atlantis from tyranny and misrule after beneficent ruler Octavia was ousted by a committee of seditious anarchists, whilst #36 pitted the Power Princess against deranged actor Bedwin Footh, a jealous loon who envied the Amazon’s headline grabbing, and organised her old foes Blakfu the Mole Man, Duke of Deception, Queen Clea, Dr. Psycho, The Cheetah and Giganta into an army against her. However all was not as it seemed in the ‘Battle Against Revenge’…

Wonder Woman #11 (Winter 1944) offered big thrills and rare (for the times) plot continuity as ‘The Slaves of the Evil Eye’ saw Steve and Diana battling an uncanny mesmerist intent on stealing America’s defence plans against Saturn.

The spy trail led to bizarre performer Hypnota the Great and his decidedly off-kilter assistant Serva, but there were layers of deceit behind ‘The Unseen Menace’, and a hidden mastermind intent on re-igniting the recently-ended war with Saturn in the climactic final chapter ‘The Slave Smugglers’.

This spectacular psycho-drama of multiple personalities and gender disassociation was another masterpiece directly informed by Marston’s psychiatric background and provided another weirdly eccentric tale unique to the genre…

With the war in Europe all but over, comicbook content was changing and constantly experimenting. Sensation Comics #37 (January 1945) depicted ‘The Invasion of Paradise Island’ wherein troubled orphans Kitty and Terry stow away aboard Wonder Woman’s invisible plane even as Diana and Steve were busting the orphanage’s crooked, grafting owner. When the kids were discovered back on Paradise Island they found themselves at the tender mercies of a horde of rambunctious Amazon toddlers (don’t ask – it’s comics, ok?) just as a U-Boat of escaping Nazis arrived looking for a safe harbour and refuge to conquer…

For years Wonder Woman had been celebrating Christmas with exceptional Seasonal offerings and #38 was no exception. ‘Racketeers Kidnap Miss Santa Claus’ revealed how young sceptic Pete Allen sought the Amazon’s help to save his mother from an abusive relationship and learned the true spirit of giving after the Amazon stopped a brutal bullion grab…

Etta and the Holliday Girls then resurfaced in #39 as an expedition to find a lost Roman colony left them ‘In the Clutches of Nero’ and urgently requiring the assistance of their Amazon associate to quash the ambitions of the latest madman to bear the name, whilst Sensation Comics #40 introduced urbane, untrustworthy freelance spy Countess Draska Nishki, eager to earn cold hard cash spying for General Darnell. Sadly her loyalties couldn’t stay bought and Steve and Diana had good reason to call her ‘Draska the Deadly’…

This glorious tome of treasures concludes with Wonder Woman #12 and another epic fantasy.

When alien Queen Desira declared WWII over, she also brought warning that warmongers were already preparing for the next conflict. In ‘The Winged Maidens of Venus’ this news inadvertently led to Diana Prince’s capture by spy Nerva and her bosses – a cabal of Capitalists who always profited from destruction – until Steve and Etta came to her rescue…

When the profiteers were transported to Venus for reconditioning, they escaped and fomented chaos and rebellion in ‘The Ordeal of Fire’ almost resulting in ‘The Conquest of Venus’ and carnage on Earth until Wonder Woman and Steve stepped in to save the day…

This last tale is credited to Marston’s assistant Joye Murchison who shared the author’s workload as first polio and then lung cancer increasingly hampered him until his death in 1947.

Seen through modern eyes, there’s a lot that might be disturbing in these old comics classics, such as plentiful examples of apparent bondage, or racial stereotypes from bull-headed Germans to caricatured African-Americans, but there’s also a vast amount of truly groundbreaking comics innovation too. The skilfully concocted dramas and incredibly imaginative story-elements are drawn from hugely disparate and often wondrously sophisticated sources, but the creators never forgot that they were in the business of entertaining as well as edifying the young.

Always stuffed with huge amounts of action, suspense, contemporary reflection and loads of laughs, as well as the scandalous message that girls are as good as boys and can even be better if they want, Wonder Woman influenced the entire nascent superhero genre as much as Superman or Batman and we’re all the richer for it.

This exemplary book of delights is a triumph of exotic, baroque, beguiling and uniquely exciting adventure: Golden Age exploits of the World’s Most Marvellous Warrior Maiden which are timeless, pivotal classics in the development of our medium and still offer astounding amounts of fun and thrills for anyone interested in a grand old time.
© 1944, 1945, 2007 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Trinity volume 1


By Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza, Mark Bagley, Scott McDaniel, Tom Derenick, Jerry Ordway & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2277-2

DC’s mythologizing of its most renowned character properties saw their ultimate expression in the ambitious if overly-convoluted year-long publishing event Trinity which revealed the unexpected cosmic significance of the relationship between Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.

The series explored the metaphysical underpinnings of the DC Universe through 52 weekly instalments, split into a lead chapter with a connected ancillary episode intended to ultimately combine into a complex web of narrative encompassing the entire multiversal cosmos.

This initial volume – of three, natch – collects issues #1-17 of the omniversal odyssey (from June to October 2008) and was conceived and written by Kurt Busiek, with Fabian Nicieza co-scripting the sidebar stories. The art on the primaries was by Mark Bagley& Art Thibert, with Scott McDaniel, Tom Derenick, Mike Norton and others tag-teaming on the back-ups…

The reality-busting drama begins with ‘Boys and their Games…’ in the heart of the cosmos where an ancient, immensely powerful and obsessive being struggles to break free of a vast all-encompassing prison. Meanwhile in Keystone City, as their heroic associates take care of the usual distractions, old friends Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince meet for breakfast and discuss the distressing fact that they have all been enduring the same disturbing dreams of a monster escaping its imprisonment…

The first back-up tale ‘In the Morrows to Come’, by Busiek, Nicieza, McDaniel & Andy Owens, casts a light on Castle Branek where dark witch Morgaine Le Fey is accosted by a mysterious mortal dubbed Enigma who offers her the chance to rewrite Reality in her favour, tempting her with glimpses of other Earths and unfamiliar heroes. The first thing they need to do, however, is find a third co-conspirator and then seek out and capture a young girl with a strange knack for reading Tarot cards…

As the conspirators’ plans come together, reality begins to warp and wobble around Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman in ‘A Personal Best at Giant Robot Smashing’ (Busiek, Bagley & Thibert) but the heroes are proving remarkably resilient in the face of the bizarre and deadly outbreaks. Things are tougher for Green Lantern John Stewart in ‘It’s Gonna Throw the Car’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Derenick & Wayne Faucher) as alien powerhouse Konvikt and his diminutive mouthpiece and legal advocate Graak crash to Earth and go on a rampage.

Before long the unstoppable ETs are thrashing the entire Justice League in ‘Kplow’ (Busiek, Bagley & Thibert) and only the big three are left to stop them… until the big bruiser decks Superman… Meanwhile ‘Earth to Rita’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Norton & Jerry Ordway) reveals how street Tarot reader Marguerita Covas starts getting some very strange readings even as she realises her predictions have been misused by a local gangbanger.

However when the superstitious thug tries to abduct Rita to secure her exclusive services, concerned citizen Jose Delgado steps in too late and finds her dazed and reeling near a pile of dismembered gangstas. Something far more dangerous than the urban vigilante called Gangbuster is watching over the baffled clairvoyant…

The spectacular struggle against the fully amok Konvikt is going badly, prompting Batman to break off to investigate the aliens’ arrival point in ‘Caped Simoid Thinks So, Hm?’ (Busiek, Bagley, Thibert). During his absence a secretive new player makes use of the melee to surreptitiously brand Wonder Woman with a mystic sigil, whilst ‘World-Something…’ (by Busiek, Nicieza, Norton, Ordway, McDaniel & Owens) reveals how Rita’s dreams contact another alien  monster. The bloodthirsty Despero is mercilessly eradicating the forces of his stellar rival Kanjar Ro and, although she doesn’t know how or why, Rita is painfully aware that her foresights will become fact, affecting her and the entire Earth…

‘Great. Now He’s Holding His Breath.’ (another BBT production) sees the defeat of Konvikt by Batman, who also captures the mystic Howler which branded Wonder Woman. Miles away Rita’s Tarot face cards undergo a bizarre transformation, whilst things get hot for her self-appointed bodyguard Delgado as hired super-freaks Blindside, Throttle and Whiteout attack the ‘Knight in Shiny Armor’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Norton & Mark Farmer) to seize the tarot-reader…

Barely escaping, the hero and his charge flee, but Tarot is almost oblivious to her personal peril: all she can see is that the pictures on her cards keep changing…

‘Truth, Justice & the American Way…’ follows the recovering Trinity of heroes through the visions of the ever-evolving Tarot. Her attempts to divine the meaning and significance bear no fruit until a horde of Howlers overpower Gangbuster and drag the girl away. Just as ‘Almost’ (Busiek, Nicieza, McDaniel & Owens) shifts focus to Hawkman, as he defeats the seductive Nocturna , the reincarnated warrior stumbles onto the bloodied and brutalised Delgado who is obsessively searching for Rita. His hunt has taken him to StonechatMuseum – where her old Gangsta associates are stealing ancient artefacts – and into accidental combat with the Winged Wonder.

Once the dust settles and amends are made, the two heroes confer and learn that other relics are being taken from museums all over the world…

With odd incidences of threes occurring everywhere, the League start researching and discover a link to the “primal creation energies of the universe”. A check on the Cosmic Egg holding captive the rogue Guardian of the Universe Krona proves a dead end, but the Amazon’s brand has changed shape and ‘A Third Symbol Now’ is revealed just as Hawkman and Gangbuster arrive.

Soon the Pinioned Paladin’s millennia of knowledge and Batman’s deductive ability have reasoned out a link to Ancient Egyptian Tarot rites and discovered that an army of the Dark Knight’s old enemies have been hired to steal pertinent items and relics for an unknown client…

And far across the galaxies Morgaine and Enigma appear to Despero and offer him an equal partnership in controlling all that is…

In ‘Away from Creation’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Derenick & Faucher), John Stewart gives new Firestorm Jason Rausch a history lesson on Krona, who brought evil into the universe through his hunger for forbidden knowledge, unaware that the rogue Guardian and the Cosmic Egg that holds him are now in the possession of the triumvirate of universal usurpers…

Back on Earth ‘Have You Tied Him Up, Yet?’ finds Batman fighting off an attempt to brand him with a sigil as a new force of super-foes is formed by the still-unidentified masterminds. Atomic Furnace Sun-Chained-in-Ink, lovelorn super-ape Primat, eerie Trans-Volitional Man and the flamboyant Swashbuckler have their ‘Dreams of Power’ (art by McDaniel & Owens) as do the exultant Morgaine and her two comrades in re-Creation…

Overcoming the Howler pack assaulting him, the Dark Knight notices that he is acting out of character. All of the Trinity are slowly assuming each others attributes and attitudes, but this hasn’t stopped him deducing who is behind the Tarot-related plot in ‘Crumbs in the Forest’ (still Busiek, Bagley & Thibert) but before he can act a global crisis diverts the JLA’s attentions and forces the team to travel to another dimension, leaving Barbara Gordon, AKA digital information-wizard Oracle, to coordinate Batman’s network of Gotham-based champions on Earth by ‘Making the Pieces Fit’ as a series of macabre and surreal robberies mark the second part of the Dark Trinity’s scheme…

Anti-matter alternate metahumans the Crime Syndicate of Amerika have often battled the JLA but after their last clash their planet, – a polar opposite of ours where Evil, not Good, is dominant, was devastated by a super weapon called the Void Hound.

In ‘Rough World’ the villains were revealed to have abducted humans from many other Earths as a slave force intended to rebuild and repopulate the shattered world. However, as the Justice League arrived to rescue the victims, Superman became increasing infuriated and unstable…

On our Earth, the Dark Trinity’s plan continued to unfold as Robin and Nightwing clashed with Primat in ‘Maybe She Doesn’t Like Concrete?’ and Oracle got an inkling of what the bizarre scavenger hunts were actually for…

‘Distinguished Visitor’ saw the battle in the Anti-Universe seesaw dramatically with each side gaining and loosing ground whilst ‘The Next Step’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Derenick & Faucher) found Hawkman and gangbuster seemingly lose a battle but win the war against Primat and her esoteric allies, after which ‘100101010’ added a new wrinkle to the inter-dimension struggle as GL Stewart was revealed to have been possessed by the devastating Void Hound, and back here reformed villain Edward Nigma investigated the Tarot thefts and found himself accused of being the man behind the mask in ‘Riddle Me This’ from Busiek, Nicieza, Norton & Karl Kesel…

‘That Was a Sonic Boom’ revealed the League’s secret weapon in their war against the CSA, whilst ‘Drop the Coffin and Surrender’ (illustrated by Derenick & Faucher) saw a showdown between Hawkman, Gangbuster and the odd squad turn into an all-out clash involving the Outsiders, Justice Society and Teen Titans which went catastrophically awry when the Ink Chaining the Sun was atomically disrupted…

In the Anti-Matter realm the JLA’s victory provoked global anarchy and chaos which their attempts to rectify only exacerbated. However, ‘So What Now?’ also forced the enigmatic Enigma to reveal some of his many secrets, but when the victorious heroes gratefully returned to their own world, Superman had been sigil-branded. Dark Trinity: 2, Heroes 0…

With Sun-Chained-in-Ink literally in meltdown, ‘Let the Burning Begin’ (Derenick & Faucher) almost saw Earth’s last sunrise until Supergirl and Geo-force managed to shift the threat into deep space, whilst half a world away Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman tracked down Morgaine, Despero and Enigma for a climactic confrontation in ‘And I Finally See It’ but, even with almost every hero on Earth beside them, things did not go according to plan in ‘A Bit of Overkill’ (Busiek, Nicieza, McDaniel & Owens) and

‘We’ll Finish Things Here’ saw the conniving plotters win the day…

Scattered to the Winds’ (art by Norton & Ordway) found the helpless Rita come into her terrifying dormant powers just as Morgaine was ultimately victorious, and the heroic Trinity who inadvertently dictated the Shape of Reality vanished in ‘But So No Longer’ by Busiek, Bagley & Thibert…

As the universe altered into a new and unknown configuration, the origins of Konvikt were revealed in ‘Honor and Justice’ from Busiek, Nicieza, McDaniel & Owens, and this first volume ends on the incredible sight of an impossible world where there never was was a Man of Tomorrow, Dark Knight or Amazon Avenger…

This convoluted but compelling collection also includes a vast selection of covers by Carlos Pacheco, Jesus Merino, Allen Passalaqua, Andy Kubert, Edgar Delgado, Jim Lee, Scott Williams and Alex Sinclair and nine pages of sketches by Bagley and Shane Davis, but, despite being long, frantic and bombastically suspense-filled, it’s just the prologue for the really big story.

To Be Continued…
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