Category: DC Superhero

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Black Canary Archives volume 1


By Bob Kanigher, Gardner Fox, Denny O’Neil, Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella, Murphy Anderson, Alex Toth & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-743-2

Black Canary was one of the first of the relatively few female furies to hold a star spot in the DC universe, following Wonder Woman, Liberty Belle and Red Tornado (who actually masqueraded as a man to comedically crush crime – with a couple of kids in tow, too!) and predating Merry, the Gimmick Girl. She disappeared with most of the other super-doers at the end of the Golden Age, to be revived with the Justice Society of America in 1963.

She was created by Bob Kanigher and Carmine Infantino in 1947, echoing the worldly, dangerous women cropping up in the burgeoning wave of crime novels and on the silver screen in film noir tales more suited to the wiser, more cynical Americans who had just endured a blazing World War and were even then gearing up for a paranoiac Cold one…

Clad in a revealing bolero jacket, shorts, fishnet stockings and high-heeled pirate boots, the devastating shady lady who looked like Veronica Lake even began life as a thief…

This superb full-colour hardback collection was released in 2001 to capitalise on the character’s small screen debut in the Birds of Prey TV series and represents her admittedly short run of tales in Flash Comics (#86-104, August 1947 – February 1949), Comics Cavalcade #25 (February/March 1948) plus two adventures that went unused when the comicbook folded: one of the earliest casualties in the wave of changing tastes which decimated the superhero genre until the late 1950s.

Those last only resurfaced at the end of the Second Great Superhero Winnowing and were subsequently published in DC Special #3 and Adventure Comics #399 (June 1969 and November 1970 respectively).

Also intriguingly included are her two stellar appearances in Brave and the Bold #61-62, (September and November 1965), therein teamed up with JSA team-mate Starman as part of a concerted but ultimately vain editorial effort by Julius Schwartz to revive the Golden Age squad of champions situated on parallel world Earth-2.

Best of all is the re-presentation of a two-part solo thriller from Adventure Comics #418-419 (April and May 1972) after the heroine successfully migrated to “our” world and replaced Wonder Woman in the Justice League of America.

In those heady, desperate days continuity was meagre and nobody cared at all about origins. All that mattered was pace, plot, action and spectacle. As we’ll see, even when the Black Bird got her own strip, where she came from was never as important as who she faced…

Flash Comics #86 was just another superhero anthology publication, suffering a slow downturn in sales and the perennial back-up feature Johnny Thunder had long since passed its sell-by date. Although a member of the JSA, Johnny was an idiot, a genuine simpleton who just happened to control a genie-like Thunderbolt.

His affable good-hearted bumbling had carried him through the war, but those changing fashions had no room for a hapless hero anymore and when he encountered a masked female Robin Hood who stole from crooks, the writing was on the wall. In this introductory yarn, ‘The Black Canary’ tricked him and the T-Bolt into acquiring an invitation to a crime-lord’s party, lifted the ill-gotten loot and left Johnny to mop up the hoods. It was lust at first sight…

Nothing much was expected from these complete-in-one-episode filler strips. Hawkman and The Flash still hogged all the covers and the glory, and although young artists Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella gave it their all as they learned their craft on the job, writer/editor Robert Kanigher was often clearly making it up as he went along…

The next Johnny Thunder instalment in #87 featured the immediate return of the Blonde Bombshell as she again made the big goof her patsy leaving ‘The Package of Peril’ in his inept hands. When mobsters retrieved the purloined parcel and the secret documents it contained Johnny followed and, more by luck than design, rescued the Canary from a deadly trap.

She was back in #88 – sans domino-mask now – and using trained black canaries to deliver messages as she again found herself in over her head and forced to use the big sap and his magic pal to extricate herself before retrieving ‘The Map that Wasn’t There’ from a pack of human jackals.

Flash Comics #89 featured the last Johnny Thunder solo tale as ‘Produce the Crime!’ found the cheerful chump accidentally busting a gem smuggling scheme without any help from the Girl Gladiator – but she did return in full force for #90 as ‘Johnny Thunder and the Black Canary’ officially teamed up to thwart a photographic frame-up and blackmail plot in ‘Triple Exposure!’

They resumed the partnership in #91 as gangsters used rockets and ‘The Tumbling Trees!’ in their efforts to trap the svelte nemesis of evil – and just to be clear: that’s her, not Johnny…

The strip became Black Canary with the next issue and she got to appear on the Lee Elias cover with Flash and Hawkman. Johnny simply vanished without trace or mention and his name was peremptorily applied elsewhere to a new cowboy hero as the rise of genre material like westerns relentlessly rolled on…

In ‘The Huntress of the Highway!’ feisty florist Dinah Drake was being pestered by arrogant, obnoxious but so very manly private eye Larry Lance, only to realise that the wreath she was working on was for him. Doffing her dowdy duds to investigate as the Blonde Bombshell, she was just in time to save him from a wily gang of truck hijackers.

And that’s all the set-up we got.

The new status quo was established and a pattern for fast-paced but inconsequential rollercoaster action romps set…

To celebrate her arrival, Black Canary also appeared in catch-all anthology Comics Cavalcade #25 (February/March 1948) flamboyantly finishing a ‘Tune of Terror!’ inflicted on a rural hick trying to claim an inheritance but encountering nothing but music-themed menace.

A word of warning: Kanigher was a superbly gifted and wildly imaginative writer, but he never let sense come between him and a memorable visual. The manic Deus ex Machina moment where a carpet of black canaries snatch the eponymous avenger and the victim out of a death-plunge is, indeed, utter idiocy, but in those days anything went…

Back in a more rational milieu and mood for Flash Comics #93, the ‘Mystery of the Crimson Crystal!’ found the Canary tracking down a conman who had bamboozled many gullible women into parting with their fortunes for spurious immortality. On the home front, the utterly oblivious Larry had pressured shy Dinah into letting him use her shop as his detective office. Of course the oaf had no idea his mousy landlady was the lethal object of his crime-busting desires…

The rather pedestrian ‘Corsage of Death!’ in #94 saw them save a scientist’s ultimate weapon from canny crooks, whilst ‘An Orchid for the Deceased!’ spectacularly found the Avian Avenger framed for murder in an extremely classy Noir murder mystery before #96 combined equestrian robbery with aerial combat as gem thieves risked innocent lives to solve ‘The Riddle of the Topaz Brooch!’

Finally finding a formula that worked, Kanigher then had Larry and the Canary investigate the textile thieving thugs involved in ‘The Mystery of the Stolen Cloth!’ and murdering stamp-stealers in #98’s ‘The Byzantine Black’ as Infantino’s art became ever more efficient and boldly effective.

‘Time Runs Out!’ in #99 upped the drama as ruthless radium-stealing gangsters trapped the pair in a giant hourglass, and #100 again introduced baroque props and plots as they tracked down a model-making gang of burglars and were unexpectedly caught in ‘The Circle of Terror!’

Just as the stories were building momentum and finding a unique voice, the curtains were beginning to draw closed. ‘The Day that Wouldn’t End!’ in #101 saw the Canary and the gumshoe uncover a sinister scheme to drive a rich man mad, Dinah’s shop became an unsuspected tool of crafty crooks in ‘The Riddle of the Roses!’, and ‘Mystery on Ice!’ found the capable crime-crushers suckered by a pack of thieves determined to steal a formula vital to America’s security.

Flash Comics disappeared with #104, making way for new titles and less fantastic thrills. ‘Crime on Her Hands’ ended the Canary’s crusade on a high, however, with an absorbing murder-mystery involving a college class of criminologists. She wouldn’t be seen again until the return of the Justice Society as part of the Silver Age revival of costumed mystery men, when awestruck readers learned that there were infinite Earths and untold wonders to see…

Nevertheless the sudden cancellation had meant that two months’ worth of material was in various stages of preparation when the axe fell. The “All-Girl Issue” of reprint series DC Special (#3) subsequently printed one of the Canary yarns in 1969, with Bernard Sachs inking Infantino as ‘Special Delivery Death!’ found Larry framed for murder and both Dinah and Black Canary using their particular gifts to clear him. Adventure Comics #399 printed the last story as ‘Television Told the Tale!’ revealed how a live broadcast tipped off the Blonde Bombshell to a crime in the making…

Once the Silver Age revival took hold superheroes were simply everywhere and the response to Earth-2 appearances prompted the publisher to try-out a number of impressive permutations designed to bring back the World’s team of costumed Adventurers.

Try-out comic The Brave and the Bold #61 offered a brace of truly titanic tales by Gardner Fox & Murphy Anderson, pairing the Canary with Ted Knight, the Sentinel of Super-Science known as Starman. The deliriously cool cases began with ‘Mastermind of Menaces’ as wicked techno-wizard The Mist returned, using doctored flowers to hypnotise his victims into voluntarily surrendering their wealth. But when he utilised Dinah’s flower shop to source his souped-up blooms, she, husband Larry and visiting pal Ted were soon on the villain’s trail…

Mystery and intrigue gave way to all-out action in #62’s ‘The Great Superhero Hunt!’ when husband-and-wife criminals Sportsmaster and Huntress began stalking superheroes for kicks and profit. By the time Feline Fury Wildcat became their first victim Ted and Dinah were on the case and ready for anything…

These latter classic tales alone are worth the price of purchase but this splendid tome still has the very best to come as Adventure Comics #418 and 419 provide a scintillating 2-part graphic extravaganza by Dennis O’Neil & the legendary Alex Toth.

Originally an Earth-2 crime-fighter, Dinah was transplanted to our world by the wonders of trans-dimensional vibration after husband Larry was killed (see Justice League of America #73-75 or Showcase Presents Justice League of America volume 4). Beginning a romance with Green Arrow she struggled to find her feet on a strangely different yet familiar world and in ‘The Canary and the Cat! Parts 1 & 2’ accepted a job teaching self-defence tricks to women.

The still-traumatised Blonde Bombshell had no idea that her pupils were hired by Catwoman and those martial arts moves she was sharing would lead to the Canary’s certain death and the liberation of a deadly menace…

Augmented by a fond remembrance from co-creator Carmine Infantino in his Foreword and detailed biographies of the many people who worked on the character, this admittedly erratic collection starts slow but builds in quality until it ranks amongst the very best examples of Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy.
© 1947-1949, 1965, 1969, 1970, 1972, 2001 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents the Doom Patrol volume 2


By Arnold Drake, Bruno Premiani, Bob Brown & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-85768-077-8

In 1963 DC/National Comics converted a venerable anthology-mystery title – My Greatest Adventure – into a fringe superhero team-book with the 80th issue, introducing a startling squad of champions with their thematic roots still firmly planted in the B-movie monster films of the era which had for so long informed the tone and timbre of the parent title.

That aesthetic subtly shaped the progression of the strip – which took control of the comic within months, prompting a title change to The Doom Patrol with #86 – and throughout a six-year run made the series one of the most eerily innovative and incessantly hip reads of that generation.

No traditional team of masked adventurers, the cast comprised a robot, a mummy and a 50-foot woman in a mini-skirt, who joined forces with and were guided by a brusque, domineering, crippled mad scientist, all equally determined to prove themselves by fighting injustice their way…

Spanning March 1966 to their radically bold demise in the September/October 1968 final issue, this concluding quirky monochrome compilation collects the Fabulous Freaks’ last exploits from Doom Patrol #102 to 121.

The dramas were especially enhanced by the superb skills of Italian cartoonist and classicist artist Giordano Bruno Premiani, whose comfortably detailed, subtly representational illustration made even the strangest situation frighteningly authentic and grimly believable.

As such he was the perfect vehicle to squeeze every nuance of comedy and pathos from the captivatingly involved and grimly light-hearted scripts by Arnold Drake who always proffered a tantalising believably world for the outcast heroes to strive in.

Those damaged champions comprised competitive car racer Cliff Steele, but only after he’d had “died” in a horrific pile up, with his undamaged brain transplanted into a fantastic mechanical body – without his knowledge or permission…

Test pilot Larry Trainor had been trapped in an experimental stratospheric plane and become permanently radioactive, with the dubious benefit of gaining a semi-sentient energy avatar which could escape his body to perform incredible stunts for up to a minute at a time. To pass safely amongst men Trainor had to constantly wrap himself in special radiation-proof bandages.

Former movie star Rita Farr had been exposed to mysterious gases which gave her the unpredictable and, at first, uncontrolled ability to shrink or grow to incredible sizes.

These outcasts were brought together by brilliant but enigmatic Renaissance Man Niles Caulder who, as The Chief, sought to mould the solitary misfits into a force for good. The wheelchair-bound savant directed the trio of solitary strangers in many terrifying missions as they slowly grew into a uniquely bonded family…

Firmly established in the heroic pantheon, the Doom Patrol teamed with fellow outsiders The Challengers of the Unknown in #102, battling murderous shape-shifting maniac Multi-Man and his robotic allies as they planned to unleash a horde of zombies from a lost world upon modern humanity in ‘8 Against Eternity’.

Meanwhile, multi-millionaire Steve Dayton – who had created the psycho-kinetic superhero persona Mento solely to woo and wed Rita, met the outrageous, obnoxious Gar Logan. It was disgust at first sight, but neither the ruthless, driven authority figure nor the wildly rebellious Beast Boy realised how their lives would soon entwine.

Whilst in Africaas a toddler Loganhad contracted a rare disease. Although his scientist parent’s experimental cure had beaten the contagion before they died, it left the boy the colour of cabbage and able to change shape at will. A protracted storyline commenced in #100 wherein the secretive, chameleonic kid revealed how he was now an abused orphan being swindled out of his inheritance by his guardian Nicholas Galtry. The greedy, conniving accountant had even leased his emerald-hued charge to rogue scientists…

Rita especially had empathised with Gar’s plight and resolved to free him from the unscrupulous Galtry whatever the cost…

DP #103 offered two tales beginning with the tragedy which ensued when Professor Randolph Ormsby asked for the team’s aid in a space shot. When the doddery savant was transformed into a rampaging flaming monster dubbed ‘The Meteor Man’ it took the entire patrol as well as Beast Boy and Mento to secure a happy outcome.

‘No Home for a Robot’, however, continued to reveal the Mechanical Marvel’s early days following Caulder’s implantation of Cliff’s brain into an artificial body. The shock had seemingly driven the patient crazy and Steele subsequently went on a city-wide rampage, continuously hunted and hounded by the police. Here the ferrous fugitive found temporary respite with his brother Randy but quickly realised that trouble would trail him anywhere…

Issue #104 astounded everybody when Rita abruptly stopped refusing the loathed Steve and became ‘The Bride of the Doom Patrol’. However the guest star-stuffed wedding was almost spoiled when alien arch-foe Garguax and the Brotherhood of Evil attempted to crash the party and murder the groom. So unhappy were Cliff and Larry with Rita’s “betrayal” that they almost let them…

Even whilst indulging in her new bride status in issue #105, Rita couldn’t abandon the team and joined them in tackling old elemental enemy Mr. 103 during a ‘Honeymoon of Terror’ whilst the back-up yarn ‘The Robot-Maker Must Die’ concluded the origin of Cliff Steele as the renegade attempted to kill the Surgeon who had imprisoned him in a metal hell… which finally give Caulder a chance to fix the malfunction in Steele’s systems…

‘Blood Brothers’ in #106 introduced domestic disharmony as Rita steadfastly refused to be a good trophy wife and resumed the hunt for Mr. 103 with the rest of the Patrol. Her separate lives continued to intersect however when Galtry hired the elemental assassin to wipe Gar Logan and his freakish allies off the books.

The back-up section then shifted focus onto ‘The Private World of Negative Man’: recapitulating Larry Trainor’s doomed flight and the radioactive close encounter which turned him into a walking mummy. However even after being allowed to walk amongst men again, the gregarious pilot found himself utterly isolated and alone…

Doom Patrol #107 began an epic story-arc which concerned ‘The War over Beast Boy’ as Rita and Steve started legal proceedings to get Gar and his money away from Galtry. The embezzler responded by opening a criminal campaign to beggar Dayton and inadvertently aligned himself with the Patrol’s greatest foes. Already distracted by the depredations of marauding automaton Ultimax, the hard-pressed heroes swiftly fell to the murderous mechanoid and Rita was dispatched to a barbaric sub-atomic universe…

Meanwhile the secret history of Negative Man continued with ‘The Race Against Dr. Death’ when fellow self-imposed outcast Dr. Drew tried to draw the pilot into a scheme to destroy the human species which had cruelly excluded them both, and the ebony energy being demonstrated the incredible power it possessed to save the world from fiery doom.

In #108 ‘Kid Disaster’ saw Mento diminished and despatched to rescue Rita whilst Galtry’s allies revealed their true nature before ambushing and killing the entire team…

… Almost.

With only Caulder and Beast Boy remaining, the exceedingly odd couple nevertheless pulled a off a major medical miracle to revive the heroes in time to endure the incredible attack of alien colossus ‘Mandred the Executioner’ whilst Larry’s ‘Flight into Fear’ at the comic’s rear proved that Drew hadn’t finished with the itinerant Negative Man yet…

DP #110 wonderfully wrapped up the Beast Boy saga as Galtry, Mandred and the Brotherhood marshalled one last futile attack before the ‘Trial by Terror’ finally found Gar Logan legally adopted by the newlywed Mr. and Mrs. Dayton, but that was mere prelude to a titanic extraterrestrial invasion which began in #111 with the arrival of ‘Zarox-13, Emperor of the Cosmos!’

The cosmic overlord and his vanguard Garguax made short work of the Fabulous Freaks and with all Earth imperilled an unbelievable alliance was formed, but nor before ‘Neg Man’s Last Road!’ ended the origin of Larry Trainor as the alienated aviator again battled Dr. Death before joining a band of fellow outcasts in a bold new team venture…

Unbelievably, the uneasy alliance of the DP with The Brain, Monsieur Mallah and Madame Rouge as ‘Brothers in Blood!’ in #112 resulted in no betrayals and the last-minute defeat of the invincible aliens – and although no rivalries were reconciled, a hint of romance did develop between two of the sworn foes. At the back, untold tales of Beast Boy began as ‘Waif of the Wilderness’ introduced millionaire doctors Mark and Marie Logan, whose passion for charity took them to deepest Africa and into the sights of native witch-man Mobu who saw his powerbase crumbling.

When their toddler Gar contracted dreaded disease Sakutia, the parents’ radical treatment saved their child and gave him metamorphic abilities, but when they subsequently lost their lives in a river accident, the baby boy didn’t understand their plight and blithely watched them die.

Orphaned and lonely, the lad inadvertently saved the life of the local chief with his animal antics and was adopted… making of Mobu an implacable, but impatient enemy…

Doom Patrol #113 pitted the team against a malevolent mechanoid one-man army in ‘Who Dares to Challenge the Arsenal’ but the real drama was manifesting in a subplot which saw Caulder attempt to seduce the schizophrenic Rouge away from the lure of wickedness and malign influence of the Brotherhood of Evil. The issue also included another Beast Boy short as ‘The Diamonds of Destiny’ saw two thieves kidnap the amazing boy, just as concerned executor Nicholas Galtry took ship for the Dark Continent to find the heir to his deceased employers millions…

Issue #114 opened with the team attempting to aid Soviet asylum seeker Anton Koravyk and becoming embroiled in a time-twisting fight against an incredible caveman called ‘Kor – the Conqueror’ whilst in the Beast Boy segment ‘The Kid who was King of Crooks’ saw young Gar turned into a thief in Johannesburg until his faginish abductors had a fatal falling out, after which #115’s ‘The Mutant Master’ pitted the Patrol against three hideous but incredibly powerful atomic atrocities determined to eradicate the world which had cruelly treated them. Things might have fared better had not the Chief neglected his comrades in his obsessive – and at last successful – pursuit of Madame Rouge…

The comic also included ‘General Beast Boy – of the Ape Brigade!’ wherein a Nazi war criminal was accidentally foiled by the lost wandering Gar. The madman’s loss was the Galtry’s gain however, as his persistent search ended with the crook “rescuing” the boy and taking him back to safe, secure America…

The mutant maelstrom concluded in #116 as ‘Two to Get Ready… and Three to Die!’ featured the ebullient Caulder save the world from mutant-created obliteration and reap his reward in a passionate fling with the cured but still fragile Rouge.

The wheelchair-bound genius took centre stage in #117 as his neglect drove the team away and left him vulnerable to attack from a mystery man with a big grudge in ‘The Black Vulture’, but it took the whole reunited squad to deal with the grotesque madman ‘Videx, Monarch of Light’ even as the Brain challenged Caulder to return his stolen chattel Rouge. Nobody asked her what she wanted, though…

Tastes and fashions were changing in those turbulent late 1960s and the series was in trouble. Superheroes were about to plunge into a huge decline, and the creators addressed the problem head-on in #119 by embracing the psychedelic culture with a clever tale of supernal power, brainwashing and behaviour modification as the DP found themselves cowering ‘In the Shadow of the Great Guru’…

An issue later they faced the furious Luddite ‘Rage of the Wrecker’ when a crazed scientist declared war on all technology – including the assorted bodies which kept Cliff Steele alive – before the then-unthinkable occurred and the series spectacularly, abruptly ended with what we all believed at the time to be ‘The Death of the Doom Patrol!’

Faced with cancellation, Editor Murray Boltinoff and creators Drake & Premiani had wrapped up all the long-running plot threads as the spurned Madame Rouge went off the deep end and declared war on both the Brain and Caulder’s “children”. Blowing up the Brotherhood, she then attacked the city until the Patrol removed themselves to an island fortress. Even there they were not safe and her forces ambushed them. Captured and facing death, she offered them mercy if they would abandon their principles and allow her to destroy a village of 14 complete strangers instead…

At a time when comics came and went with no fanfare and cancelled titles seldom provided any closure, the sacrifice and death of the Doom Patrol was a shocking event for us youngsters. We wouldn’t see anything like it again for decades – and never again with such style and impact…

With the edge of time and experience on my side, it’s obvious just how incredibly mature Drake & Premiani’s take on superheroes actually was, and these superbly engaging, frenetically fun and breathtakingly beautiful stories should rightfully rank amongst the very best Fights ‘n’ Tights tales ever told.

Even the mercilessly exploitative many returns of the team since can’t diminish that incredible impact, and no fan of the genre or comic dramas in general should consider their superhero education complete until they’ve seen these classics.
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 2010 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Plastic Man Archives volume 2


By Jack Cole (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-621-4

Jack Cole was one of the most uniquely gifted talents of American Comics’ Golden Age, crafting landmark tales in horror, true crime, war, adventure and especially superhero genres. His incredible humour-hero Plastic Man remains an unsurpassed benchmark of screwball costumed hi-jinks: frequently copied but never equalled. In 1954 Cole quit comics for gag and glamour cartooning, becoming a household name when his brilliant watercolour gags and stunningly saucy pictures began running in Playboy with the fifth issue. Cole eventually moved into the lofty realms of newspaper strips and, in May 1958, achieved his life-long ambition by launching a syndicated newspaper strip, the domestic comedy Betsy and Me.

OnAugust 13th 1958, at the moment of his greatest success he took his own life. The reasons remain unknown.

Without doubt – and despite his other comicbook innovations and triumphs such as Silver Streak, Daredevil, The Claw, Death Patrol, Midnight, Quicksilver, The Barker and The Comet as well as through a uniquely twisted take on the crime and horror genres – Cole’s greatest creation was the zany, malleable Plastic Man who quickly grew from a minor back-up character into one of the most memorable and popular heroes of the Golden Age. “Plas” was the wondrously perfect fantastic embodiment of the sheer energy, verve and creativity of an era when anything went and comics-makers were prepared to try out every outlandish idea…

This second superbly lavish full-colour deluxe hardback reprints Plastic Man #1 and the cover-featured lead tales from Police Comics #21-30, covering August 1943 to May 1944 and sees, after a convivial commentary in the Foreword by author, strip writer and historian Ron Goulart, the Stretchable Sleuth’s meteoric rise, fully converting from hilariously edgy benevolent rogue to malleable super straight man as his comedy relief sidekick increasingly stole the show in a series of explosive exploits which shaped the early industry every inch as much as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman or the “Shazam” shouting Captain Marvel…

Eel O’Brian was a career criminal wounded during a factory robbery, soaked by a vat of spilled acid and callously abandoned by his thieving buddies. Crawling away to die, O’Brian was found by a monk who nursed him back to health and proved to the hardened thug that the world was not just filled with brutes and vicious chisellers after a fast buck.

His entire outlook altered and, gifted with incredible malleability (he surmises it was the chemical bath mingling with his bullet wounds), Eel resolved to put his new powers to use in cleaning up the scum he used to run with.

Creating a costumed alter ego he began a stormy association with theNew York Citycops before being recruited as a most special agent of the FBI…

Shortages and government rationing were gripping the country at this time. For publishers it was lack of paper that particularly plagued and Plastic Man #1 was released (a Summer 1943 cover-date) through a subsidiary company Vital Books, rather than as a straight addition to Quality Comics’ prestigious line of stars.

Irrespective of the name on the masthead, the mammoth 64 page tome offered a quartet of stunning tales of humour, heroic hi-jinks and horror, beginning with cover-featured ‘The Game of Death’ in which Plas and his inimitable, often unwanted assistant set upon the trail of an engrossing mystery and incredible threat posed by a rich man’s gambling club which concealed a sadistic death cult using games of chance to recruit victims …and new disciples…

Said assistant Woozy Winks was an indolent slob, paltry pickpocket, utterly venal yet slavishly loyal oaf who accidentally saved a wizard’s life and was gifted in return with a gift of invulnerability: all the forces of nature would henceforth protect him from injury or death – if said forces felt like it.

After failing to halt the thief’s impossible crime spree, Plas appealed to his sentimentality and better nature and, once Woozy tearfully repented, was compelled to keep him around in case he strayed again…

Winks – equal parts Artful Dodger and Mr. Micawber, with the verbal skills and intellect of Lou Costello’s screen persona or the over-filled potato sack he resembled – was the perfect foil for Plastic Man: a lazy, greedy, ethically challenged reprobate with perennially sticky fingers who got all the best lines, possessed an inexplicable charm and had a habit of finding trouble. It was the perfect marriage of inconvenience…

In ‘Now You See it, Now You Don’t’ the rotund rogue got involved with a goofy Professor and became the greedy owner of an invisibility spray. He wanted to sell it to the Army but Japanese spies captured both the formula and Plastic Man, and dispatched them toTokyo for disposal.

Of course this simply allowed the Man of a Thousand Shapes to deliver such a sound and vicariously joyful thrashing to the Dishonourable Sons of Nippon that it must have had every American kid who saw it jumping for joy.

Cole then touched the heartstrings with the tragic tale of ‘Willie McGoon, Dope’ as a hulking yet gentle simpleton disfigured by neighbourhood kids became the embittered pawn of a career criminal. The duo’s terrifying crime-wave paralysed the city until Plas and Woozy stepped in.

The stunning solo package closed with ‘Go West Young Plastic Man, Go West’ after Woozy bought a gold mine from a guy in a bar and greedily galloped to Tecos Gulch to make his fortune. By the time Plas arrived to save him from his folly the corpulent clown had been framed for rustling and murder…

Police Comics #21 featured conspiracy by a financial cabal attempting to corner the travel and shipping routes of the nation. Only one man could counter the impending monopoly but he was missing, seduced by the prognostications of a circus fortune teller. If Plas couldn’t rescue Sylvester Smirk from ‘The Menace of Serpina’ the entire country would grind to a standstill…

In #22, ‘The Eyes Have It!’ pitted Plas and Woozy against a child-trafficking human horror dubbed The Sphinx who was exercising all his resources to regain possession of a little mute boy who had seen too much, whilst #23’s purportedly supernatural thriller saw the Stretchable Sleuth prove ‘The Ghost Train’ to be no such thing, but only a scam by a shareholder trying to buy up a rail line the Government needed to acquire for vital war work.

A rash of tire thefts (also severely rationed during war time) in Police #24 had a sinister purpose as gangsters and a mad scientist joined forces to synthesise evil knock-offs of their greatest enemy in ‘The Hundred Plastic Men’ after which Woozy again stole the show – and sundry other items – when his addiction to mystery stories led him and Plastic Man on a deadly chase to discover the culprit and cause of ‘The Rare Edition Murders’ in #25.

Over and above his artistic virtuosity, Jack Cole was an astonishing adept writer. His regular 15-page adventures were always packed with clever, innovative notions, sophisticated character shtick and far more complex plots than any of his competitors. In #26’s ‘Body, Mind and Soul’ he starts with Plas’ FBI boss discovering his shady past, and builds on it as the exposed O’Brian agrees to a take on three impossible cases to prove he really has reformed. From there it’s all rollercoaster action as the Pliable Paladin rounds up brutish Slugger Crott, ferrets out the true identity of the city’s smartest mob boss and ends the depredations of a tragically cursed werewolf…

The rotund rascal again took centre stage – and even the cover – in #27 as ‘Woozy Winks, Juror’ hilariously endangered the very nature and sacred process of jurisprudence after being excluded from jury duty. After all, he only had a small criminal record and the impish imbecile was determined to serve so when a sharp operator gave him a few tips Woozy was so grateful that he…

The star-struck schmuck dominated again in #28 as Hollywoodcalled and the Flexible Fed agreed to star in a film. However with Mr. Winks as his manager it was inevitable that ‘Plastic Man – the Movie’ would start with intrigue, sex and murder but as usual end as a furious fun-filled fiasco.

The trail of America’s biggest tax-evader drew Plastic Man to ‘Death in Derlin’s Castle’ as the FBI’s Odd Couple followed the absence of money to an historic pile and a nefarious scheme with moody movie echoes of Citizen Kane and The Cat and the Canary, before this sublime Archive selection ceases with the outrageously odd and supremely surreal ‘Blinky Winks and Gooie Louie’ from Police Comics #30.

Plas and Woozy are drawn into incredible peril when ruthless butter-leggers begin supplying illicit spreads to the city’s dairy-deprived (rationing again) denizens. Even dedicated crime-busters like Woozy found it hard to resist the lure of the lard and when the creamy trail unfortunately led to Woozy’s uncle Blinky justice had to be done. Of course there was always lots of hard-to-find food to be found on a farm but that was just a happy coincidence…

Always exciting, breathtakingly original, thrilling, funny, scary and still visually intoxicating seventy years later, Jack Cole’s Plastic Man is a truly unique creation that has only grown in stature and appeal. This is a magical, unique comics experience fans would be crazy to deny themselves.
© 1943, 1944, 2000 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Battle for the Cowl


By Tony S. Daniel, Sandu Florea, Fabian Nicieza & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-4012-2417-2

I’m innately suspicious of and generally hostile to big, bombastic braided crossover events in comics.

Does any other popular art form use them yet, or are they too often simply an excuse to shear cash from hard-up fans?

(Coming Soon to Your Screen: CSIs Las Vegas, Miami, New York and Croydon must race both NCISs, all the various Law & Orders, The Bill and Inspector Montalbano to battle an international conspiracy and discover who ate all the pies on Man vs. Food, with sidebar stories on Holby City, Grey’s Anatomy and Body of Proof, whilst Cold Case investigates the connection to an unsolved Miss Marple poisoning before Dr. Who wraps it up in a time-spanning Christmas Special…)

Undoubtedly in terms of mainstream superhero stories, with some key characters spread out over many titles, epochal continuity events can and should be reflected in all the various comicbooks, but the whipping up of buyer’s frenzy until readers don’t dare miss any mention or moment of an event has always struck me as cruel and unusual punishment directed towards the people who love you most – and that’s just abuse, plain and simple…

That’s not to say that some pretty impressive yarns haven’t resulted from the practice and undoubtedly the modern wrinkle of producing discrete “Nested Storylines” within the broader framework has eased the previously daunting burden somewhat – although that might be more a necessary function of the increasingly important trade paperback/graphic novel market: after all who could even lift a book containing every episode and instalment of Civil War or Crisis on Infinite Earths?

Even so, I prefer not to get caught up in the hype and furore if at all possible, and even re-reread such blockbusters before passing my own awesome, implacable Final Judgement…

Thus with all the fervour and kerfuffle surrounding the epic death and inevitable resurrection of Batman finally finished and forgotten, now seems the moment to take another look at one the critical elements of the positively vast Batman R.I.P./Final Crisis/Last Rites/Batman Reborn/Return of Bruce Wayne affair to see how it stands bereft of hysteria…

Following a harrowing and sustained campaign of terror by insidious cabal The Black Hand, the mighty Batman was apparently killed by diabolical New God Darkseid during the “Final Crisis”. Although the news was kept from the general public, the superhero community secretly mourned and a dedicated army of assistants, protégés and allies assembled through the years by the Dark Knight formed a “Network” of champions to police Gotham City in the tumultuous days and weeks that followed…

This slim volume collects the contents of core miniseries Batman: Battle for the Cowl #1-3 plus themed anthology specials Gotham Gazette: Batman Dead? #1 and Gotham Gazette: Batman Alive? #1 (March-July 2009) recounting how with the city descended into chaos as the hard-pressed Network strive against a three-way power struggle whilst hoping to keep their patriarch’s legacy alive…

Most of the Batman-trained Network refuse to believe their inspirational mentor is dead and thus, believing him only lost, have urged Dick Grayson – first Robin , now Nightwing – to assume his teacher’s identity again (as he did post-KnightFall during the Batman: Prodigal storyline) until Bruce Wayne can find his way back to them. This, the bereaved junior hero has steadfastly refused to do…

Written and pencilled by Tony S. Daniel with inks from Sandu Florea, the epic opens during ‘A Hostile Takeover’ with third Robin Tim Drake and his British analogue The Squire valiantly battling a gang of killer clowns only to find their job finished for them by an unseen vigilante who deals out justice with extreme violence and leaves little love-notes declaring “I AM BATMAN”…

As an army of heroes – including The Knight, Wildcat, Birds of Prey, Outsiders and even a new Batwoman work with the police to maintain order, but as the Dark Knight hasn’t been seen for weeks Gotham’s criminal classes are beginning to suspect that something has happened to their greatest nemesis…

Already moving to consolidate power are The Penguin and Two-Face: each attempting to create an insurmountable powerbase and win complete control of the underworld by the time the Batman shows his face again, but unknown to each a third player has begun his own campaign.

Black Mask is a sadistic psychotic – but a methodical and strategically brilliant one. His first move is to free a busload of Batman’s most maniacal menaces being shipped back to Arkham Asylum and let them loose to add to the chaos and carnage…

Meanwhile Tim continually presses Nightwing to assume the mantle of the Bat, arguing that even a fake Caped Crusader will have a terrifying calming effect onGotham’s rampant rogues and robbers.

Moreover, it must be one of them, rather than allowing the increasingly out-of-control mystery impostor to steal the role and tarnish the legend…

Grayson again refuses before heading back to damage control leaving Tim to track the fake as he brutally demolishes and even murders malefactors throughout the city. With a chilling inkling as to the fraud’s identity, Drake himself puts on the cowl and costume to hunt the killer to his hidden lair beneath Gotham’s sewers, even as Bruce Wayne’s assassin-trained son Damian – continuing as the headstrong and potentially lethal latest iteration of Robin, the Boy Wonder – is attacked by liberated lunatics Poison Ivy and Killer Croc and a horde of lesser criminals.

Even after Nightwing swings in to assist, the odds seem hopeless …until the Fake Knight bursts in, all guns blazing…

‘Army of One’ finds Nightwing battling the killer charlatan to a standstill amidst the bodies of his dead and dying attackers and reaching the same conclusion Tim had. The blood-hungry facsimile is Jason Todd …

Another orphan taken in by Batman, Todd served valiantly as the second Boy Wonder but his psychological problems remained hidden and unresolved and the boy was murdered by the Joker. Subsequently resurrected by one of the frequent Cosmic Upheavals (Infinite Crisis if you’re interested, but it all happened off-camera and post hoc…) that plague the DC Universe, the boy took on the identity of the Red Hood and began cleaning up Gotham his way; using his Bat-training and the merciless tactics of the villains he remorselessly stalked. Now with the role of Dark Knight vacant he intends to become theBatmanGothamCity always deserved…

Unable to defeat each other, the impasse between Nightwing and the killer Caped Crusader is broken when Birds of Prey Huntress and Black Canary arrive. Todd simply shoots Damian in the chest and escapes whilst the heroes rush to tend the boy…

Black Mask, meanwhile, is deploying more of the freed Arkham inmates; using them to covertly amp up the death-struggle between Two-Face and the Penguin. Deep below Gotham Tim, still dressed as his teacher, searches Todd’s hideout and encounters a far from friendly Catwoman…

As Grayson and Alfred doctor the wounded Damian in the Batcave, Black Mask’s sinister subordinates blow up Police Headquarters, whilst Catwoman and Tim search Todd’s files for clues. Her hostility had stemmed from the lad wearing her ex-lover’s clothes, but she’s a lot angrier when the impostor returns and attacks…

Leaving them both for dead, Todd then moves to his lethal endgame intent on being the ‘Last Man Standing’…

As Nightwing gathers his Network to tackle the mounting chaos, Black Mask unobtrusively takes full control of the underworld and Grayson at last realises that only one man can be allowed to carry the burden of being Batman. All he has to do is beat Jason, who has brutally removed and almost murdered every other contender for the Cowl…

Book-ending the actual event, but safely tucked in at the back of this book, were a brace of anthology specials scripted by Fabian Nicieza and focussing on some of the supporting characters involved in the affair.

Thus Gotham Gazette: Batman Dead? #1 introduces a new player in ‘The Veil’ – illustrated by Dustin Nguyen (who also provided covers for both comics) – an enigmatic figure hidden in shadows and cogently assessing the situation for both her and our benefit, after which disgraced reporter and ex-Wayne girlfriend ‘Vicki Vale’ begins to investigate her former beau in a tantalising teaser limned by Guillem March.

Temporary hero ‘Stephanie Brown’ (The Spoiler and, briefly, Robin Mark IV) returned to the city after being run out of town by Batman and soon stumbles back into her old ways after seeing her ex-boyfriend Tim Drake hunting the deliriously larcenous Nocturna (art from ChrisCross), whilst Bruce Wayne’s closest confidante and replacement mum ‘Leslie Thompkins’ also snuck back in, determined as ever to open a free clinic for the underprivileged.

Illustrated by Jamie McKelvie, the tale showed why Batman closed her down as she quickly began treating escaped lunatics like the Cavalier, regardless of how many innocents they had harmed…

The first collection closed with a glimpse at bad cop ‘Harvey Bullock’ (Alex Konat & Mark McKenna) given one more “last chance” by Commissioner Gordon and determined to find a killer who beheaded his victims…

Gotham Gazette: Batman Alive? #1 resumed all of these opened affairs with all the same creators finishing what they started.

‘The Veil’ at last reached her conclusions and passed judgement on the new Batman whilst ‘Harvey Bullock’ identified his mystery killer and opened the doors for a new Azrael to haunt the city’s criminals and ‘Leslie Thompkins’ proved that her help could provide redemption for even the most lost and depraved souls…

‘Stephanie Brown’ then began her own road back by taking up her original costumed identity as ‘Vicki Vale’ began piecing together many threads to uncover absentee playboy Bruce’s darkest, most incredible secret…

This collection also offers the assorted covers and variants the comicbooks generated, dotted throughout the saga, and this tumultuous tome concludes with ‘Building the Network’  – a copious collection of pencilled cover art, story-pages and sketches by Daniel that will dazzle and delight those interested in the creative process.

So what’s the verdict? Actually, I’d go with a tentative “thumbs up”…

There’s not much plot to wrestle with, but the action and drama are kept to an angsty maximum and, even though not all the characters and backstory might be familiar to new or casual readers, the pace and delivery will carry fans of the genre along with suitable panache. Moreover it’s all very, very pretty to look at and even the freshest neophyte is well aware that it’s all just a prelude to the return of the real Dark Knight…

© 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman Archives volume 7


By Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Don Cameron, Bill Finger, Ed Dobrotka, George Roussos, Sam Citron, Ira Yarbrough, Wayne Boring, Fred Ray & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1051-9

It’s almost 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 quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form.

Spawning an impossible army of imitators and variations, 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 embroiled 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.

In comicbook terms at least Superman was master of the world, having already utterly changed the shape of the fledgling industry. There was the phenomenally popular newspaper strip, a thrice-weekly radio serial, games, toys, as much global syndication as the war would allow and the perennially re-run Fleischer studio’s astounding animated cartoons.

Despite all the years tat have passed since then, I – and so many others – still believe that superhero comics were never more apt or effective than when they were whole-heartedly combating the agents of Fascism (and yes by heck, even the dirty, doggone, Reds-Under-the-Beds Commies, who took their place in the 1960s too!) with explosive, improbable excitement and mysterious masked marvel men.

The most evocative and breathtaking moments of the genre seem to come when those gaudy gladiators soundly thrashed – and please forgive the offensive contemporary colloquialism – “Nips and Nazis”. However, even in those long-ago dark days, comics creators were wise enough to augment their tales of espionage and invasion with a range of gentler, more whimsical four-colour fare. By the time of the tales in this stunning seventh Superman coterie of classics – collecting #25-29 (November/December 1943 to July/August 1944) of the Man of Tomorrow’s solo title – the intense apprehension of the early war years had been replaced with eager anticipation of tyranny’s forces were being rolled back on every Front.

Superman was the premier, vibrant, vital role model whose startling abilities and take-charge, can-do attitude had won the hearts of the public at home and the troops across the war-torn world. Now, although the shooting was far from over, the stirring, morale-boosting covers were being phased out in favour of gentler and even purely comedic themes. After an informative Foreword: Siegel, Shuster & Associates by author and historian Ron Goulart (offering commentary and scrupulously detailing the working secrets of the Superman Studio at that troubled time), the only cover by Jack Burnley in this book shows Superman teaching kids to draw, before the quartet of thrillers behind that front image commenced with a full-on patriotic call to arms.

‘The Man Superman Refused to Help!’ by Jerry Siegel, Ira Yarbrough & George Roussos exposed the American Nazi Party – dubbed the “101% Americanism Society” – whilst offering a rousing tale of social injustice as an American war hero is wrongly implicated in the fascists’ scheme… until the Man of Steel investigated.

This is followed by a much reprinted and deservedly lauded patriotic classic.

‘I Sustain the Wings!’ by Mort Weisinger & Fred Ray, was created in conjunction with the Army Air Forces Technical Training Command under Major General Walter R. Weaver and designed to boost enlistment in the maintenance services of the military. In it Clark Kent attends a Technical Training Command school as part of the Daily Planet’s attempt to address a shortfall in vital services recruitment – a genuine problem at this time in our real world – but still finds time to delightfully play cupid to a love-struck kid who really wants to be a hot shot pilot not a mere “grease monkey”…

Siegel, co-creator Joe Shuster & Yarbrough then gloriously bit the hand that fed them by spoofing the budding superhero genre with the ‘King of the Comic Books’ as a disenchanted cartoonist is taught to value the worth of his mighty creation Geezer. Good thing too, as Adolf Hitler, totally fed up with being lampooned by the strip, had dispatched his best assassins to shut up the Verdammte artist for goot – sorry – good…

The issue ended with an exceptional crime thriller by Bill Finger, Ed Dobrotka & Roussos wherein the Metropolis Marvel tangled with ‘Hi-Jack – Jackal of Crime!’: an arrogant maniac determined to make a lasting name in the annals of villainy. But, as was so often the case, there was far more to the mastermind than first appeared…

Wayne Boring & Roussos provided a stunning anti-Nazi cover for #26 with the Man of Might giving the enemy propaganda minister a sound slapping, before ‘The Super Stunt Man!’ (Finger, Shuster, Yarbrough & Roussos) saw the Kryptonian Crimebuster restore the nerve, prospects and humour of a disgraced circus daredevil, whilst in ‘Comedians’ Holiday!’ by Don Cameron & Yarbrough, an aging vaudevillian film troupe gets a boost and new lease on life when Lois and Clark investigate their manager – a shady cove named J. Wilbur Wolfingham.

The scurvy scoundrel – a magnificent pastiche of W. C. Fields as an utterly heartless Mr. Micawber – would return over and over again to bedevil honest folk and greedy saps…

Andy Hoops was a no-good kid capitalising on an honest man’s tale of woe. When he blackmailed the Action Ace, ‘Superman’s Master!’ (by Siegel, Yarbrough & Roussos) tragically overstepped the mark and too late learned a very final lesson in decency, whilst ‘The Quicksilver Kid!’ (Cameron, Sam Citron & Roussos) pitted Superman against a revived and utterly amoral god Mercury who only wanted a little fun and exercise, but couldn’t handle their persistent alien protector…

Boring & Roussos depicted Superman cheekily teaching Lois to type on the cover of #27, whilst Cameron & Dobrotka produced all the interior wonders beginning the murderous Toyman‘s roguish return to bedevil honest citizens of Metropolis with ‘The Palace of Perilous Play!’ – a novelty arcade with perilous purpose. It wasn’t Superman-proof though…

Stuck in the woods pursuing a story, Lois and Clark met old lumberjacks and heard what happened after legendary logger Paul Bunyan met the Man of Steel in ‘When Giants Meet!’ after which, safely back in civilisation, Superman came to the aid of hayseed farmer Hiram Pardee who came to Metropolis to collect his millionaire inheritance and fell foul of shysters and brigands in the ‘Robber’s Roost!’ before ‘Dear Diary’ blended the journal-keeping habits of ambitious financier Randall Rocksell, gang-boss and conman Goldie Gates and Lois Lane in a heart-warming cautionary tale of greed and redemption, courtesy of a uniquely Kryptonian brand of problem-solving…

The cover of Superman #28 (May/June 1944) saw Boring & Stan Kaye combine to comedically compare the Metropolis Marvel with mythical monoliths Hercules and Atlas whilst the interior opened with the return of a certain swindling charlatan in ‘Lambs versus Wolfingham!’ (Cameron, Yarbrough & Roussos) which saw Clark, his alter ego and Lois save a town of sheepherders from the unscrupulous land-grabbing attentions of the roguish reprobate, simultaneously dispensing a hard lesson in business ethics to the shameless schemer, whilst Sam Citron pencilled ‘The Golden Galleons!’ in which a model-building competition in the Daily Planet led to bullying, cheating, skulduggery and even attempted murder amongst the poorest faction of Metropolitan society…

Scripted by an anonymous author and fully realised by Roussos, ‘Be a Magician – Turn Waste Paper into War Weapons!’ offered sage patriotic public service advice to the readership before Cameron & Dobrotka inaugurated a radical new series with ‘Lois Lane, Girl Reporter: The Suicidal Swain’.

In those turbulent times the interpretation of the plucky news-hen was far less derogatory than the post-war sneaky minx of the 1950s and 1960s. Lois might have been ambitious and life-threateningly precipitate but it was always to advance her own career, help underdogs and put bad guys away, not trap a man into marriage.

This premier 4-page vignette offered a breathless, fast-paced screwball comedy-thriller wherein the canny lass fails to talk a crazed jumper down from a ledge but still saves his life in a far more flamboyant manner, reaping the just reward of a front page headline.

The issue the ended with ‘Stand-In for Hercules!’ by Siegel, Yarbrough & Roussos, in which Superman travelled back to Ancient Greece to help out a dying scientist and ended up carrying out a dozen good deeds for an ailing legend. Of course the tale had a solidly humorous basis and a sneaky sting included…

Issue #29’s cover was a peacefully patriotic one as Boring & Roussos showed Lois entertaining “her Supermen” – a Soldier, Sailor and Marine – after which malign mischief-maker The Prankster became ‘The Wizard of Wishes!’, exploiting people’s dreams for personal profit until Superman put his foot down in a classy thriller by Cameron & Dobrotka.

Bill Finger then scripted ‘The Tycoon of Crime!‘ for Dobrotka, in which the Action Ace tackled a retired and very bored businessman who turned gangster to alleviate his ennui and managed to mass market villainy after he hypnotised the Man of Steel, after which

‘Lois Lane, Girl Reporter: The Bakery Counterfeiters’ by Cameron, Dobrotka & Roussos, found the peerless newshound turn her demotion to the women’s cookery pages into another blockbusting scoop.

This convivial collection then concludes with a cleverly moving yarn by Joe Samachson & Dobrotka wherein Clark is mistaken for a missing heir and incurs the wrath of a host of greedy, frustrated relatives eager to get rid of ‘The Pride of the Kents’…

As fresh and thrilling now as they ever were, these endlessly re-readable epics are perfectly situated in these glorious hardback Archive Editions; a worthy, long-lasting vehicle for the greatest and most influential comics stories the art form has ever produced.

So what are you waiting for…?
© 1943, 1944, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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R.E.B.E.L.S. volume 2: Strange Companions


By Tony Bedard, Andy Clarke, Claude St. Aubin, Karl Moline, Derec Donovan, Kalman Andrasofszky & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 987-1-4012-2761-6

Once upon a time, DC’s vast pantheon of characters was sensibly scattered, segregated and wholly distinct: separated and situated on a variety of alternate Earths which comprised Golden Age hold-overs, contemporaneous Silver Age stars and later-created heroes. Further Earths were subsequently introduced for every superhero stable the company scooped up in a voracious and protracted campaign of acquisition over the decades. Charlton, Fawcett, Quality Comics and others’ characters resided upon their own globes, occasionally meeting in trans-dimensional alliances and apparently deterring new readers from getting on with DC.

Latterly, when DC retconned their entire ponderous continuity following Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985-1986, ejecting the entire concept of a multiverse and re-knitting time so that there had only been one world literally festooned with heroes and villains, many of their greatest characters got a unique restart, with the conceit being that the characters had been around for years and the readership were simply tuning in on just another working day.

Of course now the multiverse concept is back and not confusing at all (no! seriously?) but whatever the original reasons, that dramatic 1980s refit did provide for some utterly astounding and cleverly cohesive stories…

In the aftermath of that event, the hero-packed planet Earth was targeted by a coalition of alien races and endured a full-on Invasion which was repulsed by the indomitable resistance of the World’s assembled heroes and villains and a few selected extraterrestrial allies. When the cosmic dust settled a few of these stayed together and formed cops-for-profit outfit dubbed L.E.G.I.O.N., led by a lying, scheming, manipulative obsessive super-genius bastard named Vril Dox: notional son of the villainous super-villain Brainiac of Colu and one of the most superciliously smug creatures in creation.

Overcoming all odds and the general distaste of his own chief lieutenants, Dox moulded his organisation into a force for justice and peace in the universe, with over 80 client worlds happily prospering, until his own son Lyrl – whilst still a baby – usurped control of the organisation: hunting Vril and his core agent team across the universe as desperate R.E.B.E.L.S. ruthlessly pursued by their own intergalactic commercial police force.

By the end of that run of comicbooks in 1996, order and the status quo were fully restored and the Licensed Extra-Governmental Interstellar Operatives Network went back to scrupulously and competently doling out all the peace and security solvent worlds could afford…

In the first volume, Dox’s organisation was snatched from his implacable grasp by an alien incursion from another galaxy, led by a terrifying mystery despot who had apparently subjugated the predatory Starros and turned their mind-sucking, power-leeching abilities to the creation of an unbelievably vast inter-galactic empire, policed by an unstoppable host of super-slaves and subservient legions.

Acting upon information received from his own descendent in the 31st century, Dox began assembling a super-powered strike force from across known space: old allies and pawns, new heroes – and even villains and monsters. Whoever he couldn’t coerce or co-opt Dox created, such as with the crippled Anasazi girl he transformed into a ball of sentient space-spanning energy he dubbed Wildstar…

However, just as he was compiling his arsenal of living weapons and preparing to take back control of L.E.G.I.O.N., events overtook him again. From far outside our galaxy an impossible army of invaders burst through a space rift, all enslaved by and connected to a telepathic starfish creature named Starro, yet somehow controlled by a humanoid master who had learned how to psychically dominate the universally-feared pentagram predators…

Within hours the Armada had destroyed the impregnable homeworld of the dreaded Dominators and were preparing to spread across the Milky Way, until Dox, with typical reckless brilliance, locked the entire quadrant within an impenetrable forcefield stalling the invasion by trapping hundreds of worlds – and his ragtag R.E.B.E.L.S. unit with them – in an inescapable cage with the most rapacious creatures in creation…

Collecting issues #7-9 of the revived comicbook series and the first R.E.B.E.L.S. Annual: Starro the Conqueror (all from 2009), the drama is scripted as ever by Tony Bedard and continues with ‘No Way Out’ (illustrated by Andy Clarke) wherein the only Dominator to escape the fall of his own species’ ancient empire goes hunting for allies and revenge. Dox too is seeking outside help – with as little success – from planetary dictators such as Despero or Kanjar Ro and extremist regimes such as the bellicose Khunds: all elements he used to be paid good money to keep away from decent sentients and his client worlds…

The aquatic, methane breathing mega-teleporters of Gil’Dishpan at least agreed to a meeting with both Dox and the Dominator, keenly aware that their inherent space-shifting capabilities presented Starro’s forces with an irresistible opportunity to break out of the vast but impenetrable force cage frustrating their outward expansion…

The venal Gil’Dishpan had actually planned to give their diplomatic guests to Starro in return for a neutrality pact but the invaders instead attacked the methane-dwellers, ultimately forcing Dox and the last Dominator to make absolutely sure no teleporters remained for the starfish to mind-control…

In ‘Stealth’ (Clarke art again) the ragtag band of resistors track down the banished and now teenaged Lyrl Dox, press-ganging the former tiny tyrant into the fight just as Starro’s metahuman brigade turned their unstoppable attentions upon the Khundish empire – with the now inevitable result of total submission through horrendous bloodshed.

On another front the insidious Psions contrived a ghastly biological cloaking mechanism and despatched the far-from happy Omega Men through the still-open space rift to the Horde’s mysterious point of origin…

The titular ‘Strange Companions’ – lavishly rendered by Claude St. Aubin & Scott Hanna – pulls more threads into the swiftly expanding cosmic tapestry as Wildstar goes in search of other allies trapped within the contained quadrant whilst the Omega Men discover disquieting, unsuspected secrets on the other side of the sky.

As Starro lieutenant Smite personally crushes all resistance on Kanjar Ro’s fortress world Dhor, the dictator is rescued at the last moment by his archenemy Adam Strange, another recruit to Dox’s resistance movement as is Earthling mutant superman Captain Comet.

The assembled rebels don’t have long to catch their breath however as the frustrated Smite arrives in blockbusting manner leading a squad of Starro super-soldiers and tasked with capturing – or is that liberating? – Lyrl Dox: a lad who’s been correctly assessed as even smarter and more ruthless than the father he’s always hated…

To Be Continued…

The rest of this volume reprints the Annual; offering a quintet of tales uncovering secrets and disclosing hidden facts about the unbeatable enemy forces. The eponymous framing sequence ‘Starro the Conqueror’ (illustrated by St. Aubin & Hanna) connects five powerfully revelatory chapters beginning with ‘The Doom that Came to Kalanor’ as the supreme master of the invaders personally destroys the diabolical Despero – a brutal juggernaut who has killed billions in his day. That day, though, is soon done…

The action continues by revealing the backgrounds of the pitiless, uncompromising invaders beginning with the tragic ‘Daughter of Storms’ (with art from Karl Moline & Mark Pennington): life-giving goddess of a world who lost everything when the starfish landed in her skies…

This is followed by an introduction to the worst Starro can offer as St. Aubin & Hanna convene ‘The High Vanguard’: brutal monsters who serve the as the semi-autonomous elite of the rapacious Horde, after which Derec Donovan delineates the story of Smite who was ‘Scourge of the Stars’ even before falling to the unrelenting overlord of infinity…

This volume concludes with the horrific origin of ‘The Star Conqueror’ (art by Kalman Andrasofszky) which shows how a gentle holy man defeated an intolerable invading interplanetary predator and unwittingly unleashed a far greater menace upon all of creation…

With a spectacular cover gallery by Andy Clark & Andrasofszky, this slim tome offers a deliciously intoxicating blend of space opera and cosmic action that will push every button for lovers of staggering science fiction thrills, cut with sharp, mature dialogue and sublimely beautiful artwork. More straight and simple, mind-boggling, slyly cynical, riotous rollercoaster fun no fan of fantasy should do without…
© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Wonder Woman Archives volume 3


By Charles Moulton (William Moulton Marston & Harry G. Peter) with Frank Godwin (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-814-4

Wonder Woman was conceived by polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston and illustrated by Harry G. Peter in an attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model. She debuted as a special feature in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941), before springing into her own series and the cover-spot of new anthology title Sensation Comics a month later. An instant hit the Amazing Amazon quickly won her own eponymous supplemental title in late Spring of that year (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 and impressionable Princess Diana.

Fearing her growing obsession with the creature from a long-forgotten and madly violent world, her 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 isolated themselves from the rest of the world and devoted their eternal lives to becoming ideal, perfect creatures.

However when goddesses Athena and Aphrodite subsequently instructed Hippolyte to send an Amazon back with the American to fight for global freedom and liberty, Diana overcame all other candidates and became their emissary – Wonder Woman.

On arriving in Americashe 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. Soon Diana also 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 superbly competent Lieutenant Prince…

Using the nom de plume Charles Moulton, Marston (with some help in later years from assistant Joye Murchison) scripted almost all of the Amazing Amazon’s many and 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. A couple of the very rare exceptions appear in this volume…

This third superbly luxurious full-colour deluxe hardback edition collects her every groundbreaking adventure from Wonder Woman #5-7 and Sensation Comics #18-24 from June-December 1943, and commences, after an appreciative Foreword from comics historian Les Daniels, with ‘The Secret City of the Incas’ from Sensation #18, illustrated by the superbly talented classical artist Frank Godwin, in which the Princess of Power rescued a lost Inca tribe from a despotic theocracy and ancient greed whilst in #19 (Godwin again)‘The Unbound Amazon’ responded to a little boy’s letter and stumbled onto big trouble in the far north woods. Of course Diana knew little Bobby from the Adventure of the Talking Lion (as seen in the previous Archive edition) and with wicked Nazi spy Mavis on the loose wasn’t about to take any chances.

This terrific thriller is notable for the revelation that if an Amazon removed her Bracelets of Submission she turned into a raving, uncontrolled engine of sheer destruction…

H. G. Peter drew the vast entirety of Wonder Woman #5 (June/July 1943), which presented an interlinked epic in the ‘Battle for Womanhood’ as war-god Mars (who instigated the World War from his HQ on the distant red planet through his earthly pawns Hitler,  Mussolini and Hirohito) returned to plague humanity. This time he enlisted the aid of a brilliant but deformed and demented misogynistic psychologist with psychic powers. The tormented Dr. Psycho used his talents to marry and dominate a medium named Marva, using her abilities to form ectoplasmic bodies as he sought to enslave every woman in the world.

Happily Wonder Woman countered his gods-sponsored schemes, after which prominent sidekicks ‘Etta Candy and her Holliday Girls’ comedically crushed a burglary before ‘Mars Invades the Moon’ returned to the overarching tale when the frustrated war-god was ousted by the Duke of Deception.

In attempting to take over the Moon – home of peace-loving goddess Diana – Mars made the biggest error of his eternal life as the Amazing Amazon led a spectacular rescue mission which resulted in the invaders’ utter rout.

The issue then concluded with ‘The Return of Dr. Psycho’ who had escaped prison and again perpetrated a series of ghastly attacks on America’s security and the freedom of women everywhere until the Holliday Girls and their demi-divine mentor stepped in…

Sensation #20 was also by Peter – who was slowly coming to grips with the increased extra workload of the explosively popular 64-page Wonder Woman series every three months – and ‘The Girl with the Gun’ saw Diana Prince investigate sabotage at a munitions factory and the murder of a General at WAACs training base Camp Doe. To the Amazon’s complete surprise the culprit appeared to be Marva Psycho, but there was far more going on than at first appeared…

Godwin handled the art for #21 as Steve and Diana tracked down insidious traitor the American Adolf as he conducted a murderous ‘War Against Society’ whilst issue #6 – another all-Peter extravaganza – introduced another macabre foe in ‘Wonder Woman and the Cheetah’.

Marston’s psychiatric background provided yet another deeply disturbed antagonist in the form of sugar sweet debutante Priscilla Rich who shared her own body with a jealously narcissistic, savage feline counterpart dedicated to murder and robbery. The Cheetah framed the Amazing Amazon and almost destroyed Steve, Etta and the Holliday girls before Wonder Woman finally quashed her wild rampages.

It wasn’t for long as the Cheetah returned to mastermind an espionage-for-profit ring in ‘The Adventure of the Beauty Club’ which resulted in the Perfect Princess being captured by Japan’s High Command before spectacularly busting loose for a final confrontation in ‘The Conquest of Paradise’. Here the Feline Fury infiltrated the home of the Amazons and almost irretrievably poisoned the minds of the super women sequestered there…

By this time Peter was fully adapted to his new schedule and in Sensation Comics #22 took the psychological dramas to new heights when a cured Priscilla Rich was seemingly attacked by her manifested evil self  after the Cheetah stole America’s latest weapon ‘The Secret Submarine’…

In issue #23 the creators tackled school bullying and women in the workplace as production line staff were increasingly stricken by ‘War Laugh Mania’. Only one of the problems was being promulgated by Nazi spies though…

It was back to straight action in #24 as ‘The Adventure of the Pilotless Plane’ saw Steve abducted by Japanese agents whilst investigating a new gas weapon which prevented US aircraft from flying. The vile villains had nothing that could stop Wonder Woman from smashing them and freeing him however, and the status quo was fully restored for the last saga in this lavish hardcover collection.

Wonder Woman #7 offered an optimistic view of the future in a fantastic fantasy tale ‘The Adventure of the Life Vitamin’ wherein America in the year 3000AD revealed a paradisiacal world ruled by a very familiar female President where a miracle supplement had expanded longevity to such an extent that Steve, Etta and all Diana’s friends were still thriving.

Sadly some old throwbacks still yearned for the days when women were second-class citizens subservient to males which meant there was still work for the Amazing Amazon to do…

‘America’s Wonder Women of Tomorrow’ continued the wry but wholesome sex war with Steve going undercover with the rebel forces uncovering a startling threat in ‘The Secret Weapon’ before the focus returned to the present and a far more intimate crisis for wilful child Gerta whose mother Paula (fully reformed ex-Nazi Baroness Paula von Gunther) was forced to deal with a ‘Demon of the Depths’.

But was that the evil octopus at the bottom of the paddling pool or her daughter’s dangerously anti-authoritarian attitudes…?

Far too much has been made of supposed subtexts and imagery of bondage and submission in these early tales – and yes, there really are a lot of scenes with girls tied up, chained or about to be whipped – but I still don’t care. Whatever Marston and Peters might have intended, the plain truth is that the skilfully innovative dramas and incredibly imaginative story-elements influenced the entire nascent superhero genre as much as Superman or Batman, and we’re all the richer for it.

This sterling deluxe book of nostalgic delights is a marvel of exotic, baroque, beguiling and uniquely exciting wonder and these Golden Age adventures of the World’s Most Fabulous female are timeless, pivotal classics in the development of comicbooks and still provide astounding amounts of fun and thrills for anyone interested in a grand nostalgic read.
© 1943, 2002 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Streets of Gotham volume 1 – Hush Money


By Paul Dini, Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-853-8

With all the furore and hype surrounding the epic death and inevitable resurrection of Batman cunningly orchestrated by Grant Morrison, everybody seemed so concerned with what was going to happen next that they apparently ignored what was actually occurring in the monthly comicbooks in their hands. Now with the dust long settled let’s take a look at one of the better sidebar-series to come out of the braided Batman R.I.P./Final Crisis/Last Rites/Batman Reborn/Return of Bruce Wayne publishing events…

In the aftermath of the epochal loss of the Gotham Guardian, a sustained and epic Battle for the Cowl ensued amongst the fallen hero’s closest allies. Eventually Dick Grayson succeeded his lost mentor, carrying on the tradition of the Dark Knight with Bruce Wayne’s assassin-trained son Damian continuing as the headstrong and potentially lethal latest iteration of Robin, the Boy Wonder…

This volume collects the contents of Detective Comics #852, Batman #685 (both March 2009), before re-presenting the first four tension-drenched issues of Batman: Streets of Gotham spanning June to September of that portentous year, and deals with the strange fact that although most of the masked hero community knew the tragic truth, the general populace was blithely unaware that the true Batman had been replaced…

As if all that complex crossover-ry wasn’t enough, also working hard to ensure that no reader would dare miss a single issue was a project dubbed ‘Faces of Evil’ in which DC villains took centre stage in every comicbook that month. Thus, in the aforementioned Detective #852 and Batman #685, one of the hero’s most pernicious and obsessive foes reappeared to rebuild his empire of evil after the last crushing defeat at the gauntleted hands of Batman…

Sublimely illustrated by Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs, the saga was another triumph for award-winning animator and director Paul Dini who once again proved himself the very best of contemporary Batman writers with a chilling, suspenseful epic of revenge and obsession featuring Bruce Wayne’s ultimate adversary Dr. Tommy Elliot, a beloved boyhood friend as warped by his own mother’s malign influence as the boy Bruce was transformed by the murder of his beloved parents Thomas and Martha Wayne.

Eminent surgeon Elliot became the twisted, sadistic and obsessive Hush to obtain vengeance on his only friend and childhood companion: one who had been perpetually held up to him as a perfect example of a son by Elliot’s disabled and deranged mother. Tommy even divined the billionaire’s greatest secret – the true identity of the Dark Knight…

After many deeply personal and lethally psychotic attacks on Wayne’s legacy and Batman’s friends, Hush took the ultimate step in his psychological war against his oldest pal by surgically transforming himself into Bruce’s doppelganger – attempting to entirely usurp his life.

After nearly killing Selina Kyle by literally stealing her heart, the faux-Bruce was only narrowly defeated and the captive Catwoman restored to some semblance of her former self (see Batman: Heart of Hush)…

Now in ‘Reconstruction’ a broken Elliot wanders the snowy shady docks ofGotham before tumbling into the freezing river. Everything is over: his best efforts to destroy the Wayne myth have all failed and, in revenge for his attack on her, Catwoman has tracked down all his hidden bank accounts and stolen every penny he had – $200 million dollars – giving it all away to bleeding-heart charities…

Expecting to die, Elliot awakes on a boat, saved by hard-working stiffs who believe they’ve rescued wild-partying playboy Wayne from a drunken accident. Inspired, Elliot doesn’t disabuse them and begins to trade on his stolen looks to rebuild his fortune and take another stab at revenge…

Luck is with him: for some reason no one has seen either Bruce Wayne or Batman for weeks. Using the playboy’s reputation, Hush makes his way to the Caribbean, leaving a well-concealed trail of bodies and empty wallets behind him. By the time he reaches Australia he’s feeling pretty cocky but after being spotted by shapeshifting local hero Tasmanian Devil, Elliot heads for Vietnam, eager to put more miles and far less friendly borders between him and his inevitable pursuers. It’s a near-fatal mistake…

The tale concludes in ‘Catspaw’ as “Bruce Wayne” is kidnapped by bandits from an animal poaching ring and finds himself face-to-stolen-face with Catwoman who has taken over the pet traders to actually save endangered species. Always willing to bear a grudge, she is delighted with the opportunity to put her former tormentor at the top of that list…

However the cat burglar has gotten in too deep and her greedily impatient gang are fed up with their animal-loving leader. Sensing a coup, Selina agrees to a truce with Elliot until they can escape the jungles and the bandits. To that end, she despatches her two most faithful henchmen to bring Hush to safety, but unfortunately nobody could leave a trail like Elliot’s and not be noticed by the well-schooled heirs of the World’s Greatest Detective…

Streets of Gotham debuted scant months later with Elliot an utterly isolated prisoner of the new Batman and Robin…

In ‘Ignition!’ a fresh era began with a reformed Harley Quinn making a nuisance of herself and distracting the Dark Dynamic Duo’s attention from a real threat. In the power vacuum following all the concatenating crises, many of Arkham Asylum’s inmates had absconded and were loose in the city, and flamboyant gangster Black Mask was celebrating his victory over rivals Two-Face and the Penguin – and subsequent elevation to supreme boss of the underworld – by recruiting the more biddable escaped maniacs to his team…

With a mysterious new vigilante called Abuse adding to the general atmosphere of tension, one of Black Mask’s wildest employees finally slipped into total psychosis. Third-rate arsonist Garfield Lynns suddenly stopped torching buildings as Firefly and began turning random civilians into spontaneously combusting human torches…

Taking full advantage of the situation in ‘City on Fire’, Hush then broke out of his velvet-lined cage whilst Batman and Robin tackled the utterly demented arsonist and again used his perfect imposture of Bruce Wayne to outmanoeuvre his foes.

Before Grayson, Damian and former Robin Tim Drake could react, Elliot made a very public appearance on TV and offered to bankrupt “himself” to rebuild Gotham’s shattered infrastructure and decimated industries…

The Batman Family had never accepted that their mentor was dead and all their actions were predicated upon the premise that he would eventually return to reclaim his mantle. Thus as ‘Hush Money’ opened, they were all forced to publicly accept and even join the returned “Bruce Wayne” as he effectively dismantled the lost hero’s life’s work to popular adulation…

Simultaneously in the city’s darkest nooks and crannies Black Mask’s disciples began to chafe under his increasingly oppressive and unpredictable yoke. The mobster’s most radical action was to give free rein to knife-wielding serial killer Victor Zsasz, offering to bankroll the butcher’s scheme to industrialise and mass-produce his particular brand of bloodletting…

As the new Batman finally finds a way to neutralise Hush’s bold imposture, this initial volume concludes with a dark and nasty tale following Zsasz’s escalation of terror and slaughter by focussing on the tightrope-thin line career criminals must walk in Gotham. ‘Business’ invades the personal space of illicit fixer the Broker as the premier “go-to guy” in the city at last discovers to his surprise that there some things he won’t – can’t – do, no matter how big the pay-off might be…

With astounding covers by Andrew Robinson, Alex Ross, J. G. Jones & Dustin Nguyen, this visceral, imaginative and deliciously off-balance frantic psycho-thriller sets the scene for even darker strides down the darkest avenues in all of comics…

© 2009, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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R.E.B.E.L.S. volume 1: the Coming of Starro


By Tony Bedard, Andy Clarke, Claude St. Aubin, Scott Hanna & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 987-1-4012-2589-6

Once upon a time, DC’s vast pantheon of characters was sensibly scattered, segregated and wholly distinct: separated and situated on a variety of alternate Earths which comprised Golden Age hold-overs, contemporaneous Silver Age stars and later-created heroes. Further Earths were subsequently introduced for every superhero stable the company scooped up in a voracious and protracted campaign of acquisition over the decades. Charlton, Fawcett, Quality Comics and others characters resided upon their own globes, occasionally meeting in trans-dimensional alliances and apparently deterring new readers from getting on with DC.

Latterly, when DC retconned their entire ponderous continuity following Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985-1986, ejecting the entire concept of a multiverse and re-knitting time so that there had only been one world literally festooned with heroes and villains, many of their greatest characters got a unique restart, with the conceit being that the characters had been around for years and the readership were simply tuning in on just another working day.

Of course now the multiverse concept is back and not confusing at all (no! seriously?) but whatever the original reasons, that dramatic 1980s refit did provide for some utterly astounding and cleverly cohesive stories…

In the aftermath of that event, the hero-packed planet Earth was targeted by a coalition of alien races and endured a full-on Invasion which was repulsed by the indomitable resistance of the World’s assembled heroes and villains and a few selected extraterrestrial allies. When the cosmic dust settled a few of these stayed together and formed cops-for-profit outfit dubbed L.E.G.I.O.N., led by a lying, scheming, manipulative obsessive super-genius bastard named Vril Dox: notional son of the villainous super-villain Brainiac of Colu and one of the most superciliously smug creatures in creation.

Overcoming all odds and the general distaste of his own chief lieutenants, Dox moulded his organisation into a force for justice and peace in the universe, with over 80 client worlds happily prospering, until his own son Lyrl – whilst still a baby – usurped control of the organisation: hunting Vril and his core agent team across the universe as desperate R.E.B.E.L.S. ruthlessly pursued by their own intergalactic commercial police force.

By the end of that run of comicbooks in 1996, order and the status quo were fully restored and the Licensed Extra-Governmental Interstellar Operatives Network went back to scrupulously and competently doling out all the peace and security solvent worlds could afford…

All that background is largely superfluous to the enjoyment of this latest iteration of the splendidly wry and cynical sci fi adventure series as history repeated itself in 2008, and another cosmic event forced DC’s assorted space sentinels into action again. Adam Strange, the Omega Men, Captain Comet and Dox’s L.E.G.I.O.N. again came to the fore and their intergalactic exploits again began to impinge on the fate of this island Earth…

Collecting the first six issues of the revived R.E.B.E.L.S. comicbook series concocted by scripter Tony Bedard, the superbly intoxicating action begins in ‘The Future is Now’ (illustrated by Andy Clarke) as a fugitive Vril Dox crashes on Earth fleeing from a team of bounty hunters.

To ensure no further insurrections by greedy – or worse yet, moralistic – employees, the 10th Level Intellect had largely replaced all his annoyingly autonomous agents with robotic units, but that had simply enabled some bright spark to co-opt his entire intergalactic army – again! – and Dox was now a target for assassination by L.E.G.I.O.N.’s new owner, as well as many of the criminals and warlords the Coluan had previously antagonised…

Within mere moments of reaching our embattled world Dox, hotly pursued by monstrous alien powerhouse Tribulus, its cyborg controller Getorix, super-psychic Skwaul and former elite L.E.G.I.O.N.-ary Amon Hakk, is confronted by Supergirl, keen on stopping the sheer carnage caused by the invaders’ battles.

Freshly returned from an extended stay in the 31st century, the teenaged Kryptonian had been turned into the unwitting receptacle of a message from Dox’s distant descendent Brainiac 5, conveying data and specifications for Vril to construct a precursor brigade of the Legion of Super-Heroes to combat an imminent threat to the universe…

Dox, contrary as ever, was more impressed with the files on the LSH’s terrifying enemies…

Elsewhere the outlaw warriors dubbed the Omega Men had learned of Dox’s predicament and become aware what a powerful, if untrustworthy, ally he would make…

The action resumed at the South Pole as the ousted Coluan cop and the Girl of Tomorrow defeated the alien hunters and turned the nigh-mindless Tribulus into ‘The First Recruit’. Dox then fled Earth in search of fresh cannon-fodder for his future-foretold team and exploited rather than allied himself with the Omega Men before heading to a lost colony of Amerindian ex-slaves for his next target.

Nearly a millennium before, an entire tribe of Native Americans had been stolen and dumped on the distant world Starhaven where they had evolved into the Anasazi, winged trackers of immense power and sensitivity. Now Dox arrived and offered to give a weak and feeble outcast the gifts fate and feeble genetics had denied her. However, even though he kept his word, the thing that Wildstar became had good reason to regret her devil’s bargain…

‘A World of Hurt’ saw the new R.E.B.E.L.S. take the battle to the usurped L.E.G.I.O.N. hierarchy; along the way picking up old comrade and dedicated Dox-hater Strata – a woman of living stone and high moral standards – plus energetic new recruit Bounder.

Just as the robotic forces now commanded by artificial life-form and ambulatory computer server Silica begin mercilessly eradicating anybody connected with the Coluan’s old organisation, the utterly dispensible Omega Men attack L.E.G.I.O.N.’s HQ on Maltus and destroy the traitorous living computer which had taken over the organisation.

Covertly despatched by the manipulative Dox, the Omegans have inadvertently handed back control of the rent-a-cops to Dox, but in the digital woman’s corpse the victors find the first clues as to the real threat: an eerie starfish creature capable of controlling anything it possesses. Tragically, before they can react another Starro beast arrives – wearing the body of a brutal alien war goddess named Astrid Storm-Daughter…

With Claude St. Aubin & Scott Hanna taking over the art chores, ‘From Beyond’ kicks the already fast-paced thriller into maximum overdrive as Amon Hakk, Getorix and Skwaul are rescued from earthly imprisonment by Durlan shapeshifter Ciji, unaware that Dox is no longer the problem…

On Maltus, the surviving Omega Men narrowly escape the new threat but discover the entire planet – the most populous in the galaxy – has been taken: each citizen wearing a Starro seed and contributing their enslaved psychic resources to a hidden master…

Meanwhile in another part of space the aggressive space faring hive-culture known as the Dominators are also under attack by the Starro slaves. However this is unlike any previous incursion by the frequently occurring stellar starfish: there’s an implacable devouring consciousness behind the assaults. Even the inimical, scientifically sadistic Psions are scared – as evidenced by their rescuing of their greatest enemies the Omega Men – and propose an alliance to defeat a threat that is pouring into our galaxy from a cosmic hole into another existence…

As ‘The Stars We Are’ opens, in the strategically crucial Xylon Expanse a vast subspace rift is disgorging a host of ships and super-powered slaves into one of the most populous areas of the galaxy – and a centre of L.E.G.I.O.N. influence. Even as the Dominator’s mighty empire falls in hours, Astrid Storm-Daughter attacks Dox’s ship just as Ciji’s forces arrive. With all sentient life threatened, this initial collection concludes with the superb ‘Dominator’ as Dox again pulls an intellectual rabbit out of his hat and traps the entire invasion force – and their space rift – behind an impenetrable, quadrant-wide force field. Locked within an inescapable, parsecs-wide box of force, the terrifying humanoid master of the Starros is safely contained in a relatively small buffer zone and prevented from all further expansion.

Of course stuck on the wrong side of the fence with him are Dox, his unwilling newfound enemies-turned-allies and billions of potential slave-sentients on hundreds of sitting-duck worlds…

To Be Continued…

With a spectacular cover gallery by Andy Clark, Ed Benes, Rob Hunter, Kalman Andrasofszky, this slim tome offers a deliciously intoxicating blend of space opera and cosmic Fights ‘n’ Tights action that will push every button for fans of staggering science fiction thrills, cut with sharp, mature dialogue and sublimely beautiful artwork. Plain and simple rip-roaring, rollercoaster rocket riding fun that no devotee of the genres should miss…

© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Golden Age Spectre Archives volume 1


By Jerry Siegel & Bernard Baily with various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-955-3

The Spectre is one of the oldest characters in DC’s vast stable of characters, created by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily in 1940 and debuting with a 2-part origin epic in More Fun Comics #52 and 53 where he was the first superhero to star in the previously all-genres adventure anthology. For a few years the Ghostly Guardian reigned supreme in the title with flamboyant and eerily eccentric supernatural thrillers, but gradually slipped from popularity as firstly Dr. Fate and successively Johnny Quick, Aquaman, Green Arrow and finally Superboy turned up to steal the show. By the time of his last appearance the Spectre had been reduced to a foil for his own comedic sidekick Percival Popp, the Super-Cop…

Just like Siegel’s other iconic creation, the Dark Man suffered from a basic design flaw: he was just too darn powerful. Unlike the vigorously vital and earthy early Superman however, the ethereal champion of justice was already dead, so he couldn’t be logically or dramatically imperilled. Of course in those far-off early days that wasn’t nearly as important as sheer spectacle: grabbing the reader’s utter attention and keeping it stoked to a fantastic fever pitch. This the Grim Ghost could do with ease and always-increasing intensity.

Re-presenting the first 19 eerie episodes and following a fulsome Foreword from pre-eminent Comics historian Dr. Jerry Bails, detailing the state of play within the budding marketplace during those last months of the 1930s, the arcane action commences in this stunning full-colour deluxe hardback with ‘The Spectre: Introduction’ from More Fun Comics #52 (February 1940).

This wasn’t the actual title: like so many strips of those early days, most stories didn’t have individual titles and many have been only retroactively designated for collections such as this.

The Ghostly Guardian was only barely glimpsed in this initial instalment. Instead the action rested upon Jim Corrigan, a hard-bitten police detective, who was about to marry rich heiress Clarice Winston when they were abducted by mobster Gat Benson. Stuffed into a barrel of cement and pitched off a pier, Corrigan died and went to his eternal reward. Almost…

Rather than finding Paradise and peace, Corrigan’s spirit was accosted by a glowing light and disembodied voice which, over his strident protests, ordered him return to Earth to fight crime and evil until all vestiges of them were gone…

Standing on the seabed and looking at his own corpse, Corrigan began his mission by going after his own killers…

In #53 ‘The Spectre Strikes’ found the furious revenant swiftly, mercilessly and horrifically ending his murderers and saving Clarice, before calling off the engagement and moving out of the digs he shared with fellow cop and best friend Wayne Grant. After all, a cold, dead man has no need for the living…

The origin ends with Corrigan implausibly sewing himself a green and white costume and swearing to eradicate all crime…

Splendidly daft, this two-part yarn is one of the darkest and most memorable origins in comicbook history and the feature only got better with each issue as the bitter, increasingly isolated lawman swiftly grew into most overwhelmingly powerful hero of the Golden Age.

In MFC #54 the Supernatural Sentinel tackled ‘The Spiritualist’, a murderous medium and unscrupulous charlatan who almost killed Clarice and forever ended the Spectre’s hopes for eternal rest, after which #55 introduced ‘Zor’: a ghost of far greater vintage and power, dedicated to promulgating evil on Earth. He too menaced Clarice and only the intervention of the Heavenly Voice and a quick upgrade in phantasmal power enabled The Spectre to overcome the malign menace.

More Fun Comics #56 was the first to feature Howard Sherman’s Dr. Fate on the cover but the Spectre was still the big attraction even if  the merely mundane bandits and blackmailers instigating ‘Terror at Lytell’s’ were no match for the ever-inventive wrathful wraith. Far more serious was ‘The Return of Zor’ in #57, as the horrific haunt returned from beyond to frame Corrigan for murder and again endanger the girl Jim dared not love…

An embezzler turned to murder as ‘The Arsonist’ in #58, but was no match for the cop – let alone his eldritch alter ego – whilst ‘The Fur Hi-Jackers’ actually succeeded in killing the cop yet were still brought to the Spectre’s unique brand of justice.

In #60 ‘The Menace of Xnon’ found a super-scientist using incredible inventions to frame the ghost and even menace his ethereal existence, prompting The Voice to again increase its servant’s power – this time by giving The Spectre the all-powerful Ring of Life – but not before the Ghostly Guardian had been branded Public Enemy No. 1.

With Corrigan now ordered to arrest his spectral other self on sight, #61 (another Dr. Fate cover) featured ‘The Golden Curse Deaths’ wherein prominent citizens were dying from a scientific terror with a deadly Midas Touch, after which ‘The Mad Creation of Professor Fenton’ pitted the Phantom Protector against a roving, ravaging disembodied mutant super-brain…

In #63 a kill-crazy racketeer got his just deserts in the electric chair only to return and personally execute ‘Trigger Daniels’ Death Curse’ on all who had opposed him in life. Happily The Spectre proved to be more than his match but ‘The Ghost of Elmer Watson’ was a far harder foe to face. Murdered by mobsters who had also nearly killed Corrigan’s only friend Wayne Grant, the remnant of the vengeful dead man refused to listen to The Spectre’s brand of reason and its dreadful depredations had to be dealt with in fearsome fashion…

‘Dr. Mephisto’ was a spiritualist who utilised an uncanny blue flame for crime in #65, after which the Ghostly Guardian battled horrendous monsters called forth from ‘The World Within the Paintings’ probably written by the series’ first guest writer – Gardner Fox – before Siegel returned with ‘The Incredible Robberies’ which found the phantom policeman battling deadly mystic Deeja Kathoon to the death and beyond…

With MFC #68 The Spectre finally lost his protracted cover battle to Dr. Fate even though, inside, the ‘Menace of the Dark Planet’ featured a fabulously telling tale of Earthbound Spirit against alien invasion by life-leeching Little Green Men, before in #69 ‘The Strangler’ murders led Corrigan into an improbable case with an impossible killer…

This first fearful tome terminates with issue #70 and ‘The Crimson Circle Mystery Society’ in which a sinister cult employed a merciless phantasmal psychic agent named Bandar to carry out its deadly schemes…

Still a mighty force of fun and fearful entertainment, The Spectre’s Glory Days – and Nights – were waning and more credible champions were coming to the fore. He would be one of the first casualties of the post-War decline in mystery men and not be seen again until the Silver Age 1960’s…

Moreover, when he did return to comics, the previously omnipotent ghost was given strict limits and as he continued to evolve through various returns, refits and reboots The Spectre was finally transmogrified into a tormented mortal soul bonded inescapably to the actual embodiment of the biblical Wrath of God. Revamped and revived in perpetuity, revealed to be the Spirit of Vengeance wedded to a human conscience, Jim Corrigan was finally laid to rest in the 1990s and Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan replaced him. Returning to basics in recent years, the latest host is murdered Gotham City cop Crispus Allen.

They’re all worth tracking down and exhuming: spooky comic champions who have never failed to deliver an enthralling, haunted hero rollercoaster – or is that Ghost Train? – of thrills and chills.
© 1940, 1941, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.