Category: DC Superhero

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Outsiders volume 3: Wanted


By Judd Winick, Carlos D’Anda, Shawn Moll, Dan Jurgens, Karl Kerschl & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0460-0

Once upon a time superheroes, like firemen, sat around their assorted lairs or went about their civilian pursuits until the call of duty summoned them to deal with a breaking emergency. In the grim and gritty world after Crisis on Infinite Earths, that precept was challenged with a number of costumed adventurers evolving into pre-emptive strikers…

After the deaths of two Teen Titan comrades, Arsenal convinced the heartbroken Nightwing to run a covert and pre-emptive pack of self-professed “hunters”: seeking out and taking down metahuman threats and extraordinary criminals before they could do harm …

This third edgy chronicle eschews individual issue titles but for your convenience and mine I’ve again supplied them from the original issues (#16-23) of Judd Winick’s grim and gritty Outsiders comicbook, with the barely-functioning team facing their most disturbing cases yet and by the end of it all nothing will ever be the same…

The action opens quietly with ‘A Change of Plans’, illustrated by Dan Jurgens & Nelson, with the battered team recuperating after their battle with the Fearsome Five. Soon however recriminations lead to violence and, with co-founders Arsenal and Robin literally at each others’ throats, Jade takes charge, bringing in alien powerhouse and veteran Teen Titan Starfire to bolster the ranks and her position.

The three-part shocker ‘Most Wanted’ (with art from Carlos D’Anda) featured a guest-role for real-life TV criminologist and manhunter John Walsh, whose America’s Most Wanted programme hunts down actual criminals and human monsters with people power and video appeals.

The tale begins when a regular gun-bust also uncovers a child-sex slave ring where all the victims bear the same brand mystery Amazon Grace Choi bears on her back…

With her ghastly past back to haunt her, Grace goes ballistic whilst tracking down the human filth she only barely escaped from when she was twelve, and knowing the elusive slave-master Tanner is still operating drives her crazy…

Pitted against the kind of criminal superheroes almost never encounter, Nightwing calls in an expert to help them find and stop …

With boys and girls being abducted almost weekly John Walsh and the Outsiders pool resources to hunt the predators: going public on America’s Most Wanted where a viewer tip brings the outraged heroes to Tanner’s latest human warehouse a full hour before the police.

The operation is dismantled with uncharacteristic but justified excessive force, but Tanner escapes. Later Arsenal discovers his babysitter has been murdered and his four-year old daughter Lian has been abducted…

Terrified and ballistic with rage, the full force of the Outsiders comes into play as the team smash through the city’s criminal element in a frantic race to save Lian from Tanner, and when Grace finally gets her hands on the beast who has haunted her nightmares for a decade, the result isn’t pretty…

‘Back to Normal’ (Karl Kerschl art) finds the heroes winding down with elemental metamorph Shift and sexy-future android Indigo planning an exotically amorous night in, until exploding villain Shrapnel somehow invades their super-secure HQ. Meanwhile evidence is found that shows the team is being secretly bankrolled by Bruce Wayne, against Nightwing’s express wishes…

The inevitable confrontation between Nightwing and his dark mentor is further exacerbated when Arsenal admits that all their intelligence and target-tips have been supplied by Batman in ‘Silent Partner’ (D’Anda again), but during the heated clash the Dark Knight reveals that although he interfered and provided funds he hasn’t spoken to Arsenal for over a year…

‘Deep Throat’ (illustrated by Shawn Moll & Kevin Conrad) discloses the shocking answer when Arsenal confronts his source and finds that his bat-winged benefactor has been a mere disguise for the Teen Titan’s most implacable enemy: a man who has ruthlessly used the Outsiders to further his own ends almost from day one.

In the ensuing battle the still-recuperating hero quickly realises just how pitifully over-matched he actually is…

The book but not the saga ends on a spectacular cliffhanger in ‘Lockdown’ (Moll & Conrad again) as the Outsiders are sealed within their own citadel by the battered, bruised but unbowed Arsenal. The ex-leader is determined to unmask the mole in the team who has compromised, betrayed and endangered them all. The revelation and brutal dispatch of the traitor will stun you all… and the worst is yet to come in the next volume…

Wickedly barbed, action-packed and sometimes distressingly hard-hitting, Outsiders was one of the very best series pursuing that “hunting heroes” concept, resulting in some of the most exciting superhero sagas of the last decade. Still gripping, evocative and extremely readable, these bleakly powerful stories will astound and amaze older fans of the genre.
© 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Prey


By Doug Moench, Paul Gulacy & Terry Austin (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-93028-968-3

When DC found the World had gone completely Bat-crazy for the second time in twenty-five years, they quickly supplemented the Gotham Guardian’s stable of comicbooks with a new title designed to reveal the early days and cases of the Batman.

Three years earlier in 1985-1986, the publisher had boldly retconned their entire ponderous continuity via the landmark maxi-series Crisis on Infinite Earths; rejecting the entire concept of a vast multiverse and re-knitting time so that there had only ever been one Earth. For readers, the sole DC world provided a perfect place to jump on at the start: a planet literally festooned with iconic heroes and villains draped in a clear and cogent backstory that was still fresh and unfolding.

Many of their greatest properties were graced with a unique restart, employing the tacit conceit that all the characters had been around for years and the readership were simply tuning in on just another working day.

Batman’s popularity was at an intoxicating peak and as DC was still in the throes of re-jigging the entire narrative continuity, the new title presented multi-part epics refining and infilling the history of the post-Crisis hero and his entourage. The added fillip was a fluid cast of premiere and up-and-coming creators.

Most of those early story-arcs were collected as trade paperbacks, helping to jump-start the graphic novel sector of the comics industry, and the careful re-imagining of the hero’s early career gave fans a wholly modern insight into the highly malleable core-concept.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #11-15 (September 1990-February 1991) featured the official re-debut of one of Batman’s oldest foes: mad scientist Professor Hugo Strange (who had initially appeared in Detective Comics #36 in February 1940, Batman #1 and elsewhere) transformed into a contemporary pop psychologist at a time when the Caped Crimebuster was still an urban vigilante hunted by Gotham’s corrupt cops…

Batman: Prey added more background detail, psychological refinements and further expanded the mythos as the Dark Knight established a working relationship with Captain James Gordon – the only honest cop on the force – and built his first Batmobile…

‘Prey’ begins with the mysterious Batman again stealing the Police Department’s thunder, forcing Mayor Klass to succumb to public pressure drummed up by TV psychiatrist Hugo Strange by setting up a task force to take the masked vigilante off the streets.

Appointed to head the team is Captain James Gordon who has been promised every resource he needs and no interference…

Bruce Wayne isn’t worried by that: he and Gordon have a clandestine understanding and the mystery man is far more interested in his side-project – building a suitable vehicle to get him around Gotham quickly and safely.

The real problems only start after the Professor is attached to the task force and Strange’s public deductions and suppositions hit painfully home. Soon the Batman starts to doubt his own motivations and sanity…

Gordon picks Sergeant Max Cort as his number two, unaware that the brutal, old-school cop is riddled with jealousy and dangerously unstable – much like Strange himself, who spends his evenings pontificating, wining and dining a lingerie mannequin, and dressing up as the Batman in an effort to get into his head…

As the real hero stalks deadly drug-baron Manny the Fish and high-profile thief Catwoman begins to prowl the rooftops of the wealthy, Cort’s squad closes in, but the dope-peddler escapes the raid because some of his men, bought and paid for by the gang-boss, warn the Fish in advance.

In the resulting melee Batman again physically humiliates Cort before escaping, pushing the Sergeant far over the edge…

‘Dark Sides’ sees Wayne’s self-doubt increase and confusion mount as the task force accuses Batman and Catwoman of being partners-in-crime and Cort begins to investigate his own boss Gordon, who he correctly suspects of aiding the Dark Knight…

After Batman spectacularly takes down The Fish, Gordon devises a method of secretly contacting Batman by placing a bat-silhouette over the Police HQ spotlight, before disclosing to his silent partner how Strange and the Mayor are working closely together. The situation goes from bad to worse when Cort becomes the psychiatrist’s latest patient and is turned into a mesmerised uber-vigilante to literally show Batman how it should be done…

When the Mayor’s daughter belittles Strange and defends Batman, the Professor unleashes Cort as the ‘Night Scourge!’ – going on a savage rampage through the underworld, maiming and killing petty thugs and bikers. The Professor then accuses Batman of insanity, threatening the social order and inspiring dangerous copycats…

When Cort almost kills Catwoman, Batman intervenes and the hypnotised cop barely escapes, after which Strange has his perfect pawn impersonate the Dark Knight; attacking Mayor Klass before kidnapping his daughter Catherine.

The real Batman is blithely unaware: when he turned his back on her, Catwoman bashed his brains in…

Tensions escalate in ‘The Nightmare’ as the increasingly crazed Strange drugs and almost murders the wounded Batman before seeking to replace him, whilst the death-hungry Cort ups his own campaign of bloodletting and terror.

When the psychiatrist finally deduces his target’s true identity he turns Wayne Manor into a colossal psychological death-trap for Batman’s soul and sanity resulting in a staggering three-way showdown and bitter triumph for the Dark Knight in ‘The Kill’…

This five-part epic by Doug Moench, Paul Gulacy and Terry Austin established a new and grimly sexy aesthetic for Batman’s adventures, setting the scene for the next decade as it depicted the orphan billionaire’s growing obsession and mistrust of even his own intentions: a world of technological wonders where Batman became real and Bruce Wayne faded into a mere bit-part…

Fast-paced, action-packed and deviously compelling, this frantic caper is a breathtaking Fights ‘n’ Tights fiesta for fans and casual readers alike, further redefining the Caped Crusader’s previously shiny innocuous Gotham as a truly scary world of urban decay, corrupt authority, all-pervasive criminal violence and nightmarish insanity.

This is another superb modern Batman yarn: dark, intense, cunning and superbly understated. If you haven’t seen this supremely engaging tale – criminally out of print but well worth hunting down in the DC or British Titan Book edition – then you don’t really know the Dark Knight at all…

© 1990, 1992 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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New Teen Titans: the Judas Contract


By Marv Wolfman, George Perez, Romeo Tanghal, Dick Giordano & Mike DeCarlo (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-3A-X   (2004) ISBN: 978-0-93028-934-8

Deathstroke the Terminator is a flamboyant cover identity for mercenary/assassin Slade Wilson who underwent an experimental procedure whilst an American Special Forces soldier. He was invalided out but later developed fantastic physical abilities that augmented his military capabilities.

He debuted in the second issue of the New Teen Titans in 1980, assuming a contract that had been forfeited when neophyte costumed assassin The Ravager died trying to destroy the kid heroes. The deceased would-be killer was actually Grant Wilson, a very troubled young man desperately trying to impress his dad. Slade’s other children would also be the cause of much heartache and bloodshed over the years…

That venerable squad of sterling sidekicks had first debuted in the Swinging Sixties, battling all manner of outlandish threats and menaces (see Showcase Presents the Teen Titans volumes 1 and 2 for just how “out there” they were) but had been cancelled a number of times before writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez found just the right tone and brought them back to become one of DC’s biggest sensations.

The New Teen Titans went from strength to strength, with its close continuity, tight character interaction and stupendous action quickly winning a loyal and dedicated following and this controversial extended storyline proved it to be one of the most innovative and daring superhero series of the decade.

If a comic book story garners death-threats you know you’re doing something right, right?

In 1988 The Judas Contract (re-presenting The New Teen Titans #39-40, Tales of the New Teen Titans #41-44 and Annual #3 from February-July1984) was one of DC’s earliest and most successful trade paperback collections and remains so to this day.

The compendium opens with ‘Clash of the Titans’ a contextual explanatory introduction from author Wolfman and an insightful remembrance from Pérez entitled ‘The Contract Begins…’ before the comicbook wizardry started to unfold.

By the time of ‘Crossroads’ (inked by Romeo Tanghal) the youthful superteam were involved in a life or death battle with Brother Blood, a seemingly immortal and diabolically subtle cult-leader who used media manipulation and religious zealotry to supplement his awesome power and fanatical army of followers to run rings around the politically naive heroes.

Moreover they had just admitted as a probationary member Tara Markov, a 14 year old metahuman girl who had been the captive of terrorist kidnappers for years. Terra was slowly being accepted by the team when a turning point arrived and founder member Kid Flash decided to retire. Moreover, team leader Robin was facing a crisis of conscience and had decided to abandon the costumed identity he had employed since he was nine years old…

The war against the cult continued in ‘Lifeblood’ as Dick Grayson went undercover in the Rogue nation of Zandia where the Brotherhood was engaged in a cold war with the Island’s ruler. When the rest of the Titans invaded the villain’s temple sanctum they were overcome and the concluding ‘Baptism of Blood’ found them fighting for their lives and souls before Terra’s earth-moving geo-powers turned the tide…

The Judas Contract proper began in issue #42 with ‘The Eyes of Tara Markov’ (inked by Dick Giordano) wherein the irascible temperament and short temper of the newest member was finally explained. As the novice was granted full security access and learned the secret identities of her team-mates, Tara was exposed – to the readers at least – as the lover and pawn of the Titan’s greatest enemy Deathstroke: planted as a deep cover agent within the team and tasked with learning all their weaknesses before the Terminator’s final assault…

‘Betrayal’ (inked by Mike DeCarlo Giordano) opened with Dick Grayson narrowly escaping an ambush in his apartment and learning too late that all his friends were gone. On the run from Deathstroke, the heir of Batman deduced what had happened to his team just as he was approached by Wilson’s ex-wife Adeline and her mute son Joe who revealed the truth about Terra and her horrifyingly psychotic true nature.

With the Titans at last in the hands of criminal cabal The HIVE, who had originally commissioned the doomed Ravager, Adeline also revealed the astonishing origins of Slade and Joe before ‘There Shall Come a Titan’ in #44 introduced Grayson’s new costumed persona as he became Nightwing for the first time.

With Joe Wilson, in his own new heroic identity of Jericho, Nightwing invaded the organisation’s stronghold and in ‘Finale’ (Tales of the New Teen Titans Annual #3 and inked exclusively by Giordano) freed the helpless heroes only to fall foul of the terrifyingly insane Tara Markov who wouldn’t let the Titans, HIVE or even her lover Slade stop her from getting what she wanted…

Stirring, imaginative, controversial and immensely entertaining, this stunning Fights ‘n’ Tights extravaganza set a new standard for superhero storytelling and stills ranks as one of the best Costume Dramas ever crafted.
© 1983, 1984, 1988 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-932289-36-6

When the very concept of high priced graphic novels was just being tested in the late 1980s DC Comics produced a line of glorious full-colour hardback compilations spotlighting star characters and celebrating standout stories from the company’s illustrious and varied history decade by decade.

They then branched out into themed collections which shaped the output of the industry to this day, such as this fabulous congregation of yarns which offered equal billing and star status to one of the most enduring arch-foes in fiction: the Monarch of Malignant Mirth known only as the Joker.

Devised as a bookend and supplementary edition to the Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told and devised in the run-up to the launch of the immensely anticipated 1989 Batman movie, this glorious comedy of terrors features an eclectic and absorbing selection of stories (co)starring the Clown Prince of Crime which followed him through the then five decades of his comicbook existence.

Edited by Mike Gold with associates Brian Augustyn and Mark Waid, this splendid tome opens with ‘The Joker’s Dozen’ by Gold, describing the history and selection process involved in choosing from the literally hundreds of eligible stories, and also includes an end-piece essay ‘Stacking the Deck: The other Joker Stories’ by Waid, expansive biographies on the creators involved, and a fabulous gallery of the striking covers from tales which didn’t make the final cut.

However, fascinating and informative as those features are, the real literary largesse is to be found in the 19 stirring tales which comprise the bulk of this tome…

One note of advisement: when this collection was released many of the stories’ creative details were lost, but have been rediscovered since. Many of the credits are mistaken or just plain wrong, so wherever possible I’ve substituted the current attributions.

The suspenseful entertainment opens with ‘Batman vs. The Joker from Batman #1 (Spring 1940 by Bill Finger, Bob Kane & Jerry Robinson) which introduced the greatest villain in the Dark Knight’s rogues’ gallery via a stunning tale of brazen extortion and wilful wanton murder.

A year later ‘The Case of the Joker’s Crime Circus’ (Batman #4, Winter 1941) saw the Mountebank of Menace plunged into depressive madness before recruiting a gang from the worst that the entertainment industry and carnival trade could offer; setting off on a renewed course of plunder, mayhem and death…

‘The Joker and the Sparrow’ comes from the Sunday section of the short-lived Batman syndicated newspaper strip (from October 28th – December 9th 1945, but misattributed to 1946 in this volume) wherein Alvin Schwartz, Hardin “Jack” Burnley & Charles Paris recount the gripping and often hilarious war between the Deadly Jester and a mysterious new contender for the title of “Gotham’s Cleverest Criminal”…

‘The Man Behind the Red Hood’ (Detective Comics #168, February 1951) finally gave the Joker an origin in a brilliantly engrossing mystery by Finger, Lew Sayre Schwartz & Win Mortimer, which all began when the Caped Crusader regaled criminology students with the story of “the one who got away”…

‘The Joker’s Crime Costumes’ comes from Batman #63 (February/March 1951, by Finger, Dick Sprang & Charles Paris), recounting how the Laughing Larcenist impersonated famous historical comedy figures and clowns such as Falstaff, Mr. Pickwick and Old King “Coal” to commit modern day mayhem.

Batman #73, (October/November 1952, by pulp sci fi writer David Vern, Sprang & Paris) described a classic clash with the Dynamic Duo temporarily stymied by ‘The Joker’s Utility Belt’ as the Harlequin of Hate created his own uniquely perverse iteration of the heroes’ greatest weapon and accessory whilst, almost simultaneously over in World’s Finest Comics #61 (November 1952), ‘The Crimes of Batman’ by Vern, Kane & Paris found Robin a hostage and the Gotham Gangbuster compelled to commit a string of felonies to preserve the lad’s life. Or so the Joker vainly hoped…

From a period when the Joker appeared almost once a month in one Bat-title or other, Alvin Schwartz, Sprang & Paris concocted something extra-special for Batman #74 (December 1952-January 1953). ‘The Crazy Crime Clown’ had the exotic but strictly larcenous Baroque Bandit apparently go bonkers and end up committed to the Gotham Institute for the Insane. Of course, there was method in the seeming madness as Batman discovered when he infiltrated the worthy asylum in disguise…

By the time of World’s Finest Comics #88 (May/June 1957) the solo strips of the Man of Steel and Caped Crusader therein had amalgamated into a series of shared adventures, and ‘Superman and Batman’s Greatest Foes (by Edmond Hamilton, Sprang & Stan Kaye) offered a clever mystery as “reformed” villains Lex Luthor and the Joker set up in the commercial robot business as a blind for their most audacious scheme whilst in Batman #110 (September 1957), the ‘Crime-of-the-Month Club’ by Dave Wood, Sprang & Paris, a series of seemingly unconnected but brilliant robberies proved to be the Joker’s latest scheme: selling his felonious plans to other thieves while he worked on a much grander scheme…

‘The Great Clayface-Joker Feud’ (Batman #159 November 1963) was a bright moment at the otherwise uninspired tail-end of a bad period in Batman’s history. Bill Finger, Jim Mooney & Sheldon Moldoff produced a big story where two arch-rivals first competed and then became allies to almost overwhelm the Dynamic Duo and the original Batwoman and Bat-Girl too, whilst ‘The Joker Jury’ (Batman #163, May 1964 by Finger, Moldoff & Paris) found Robin and his mentor trapped in the criminal enclave of Jokerville, where every citizen was a criminal dressed up as the Clown Prince and where all lawmen were outlaws.

This was the very last old guard story: with the next issue Julie Schwartz ushered in his streamlined, more down-to-Earth “New Look” Batman and super-villains all but disappeared from the scene…

At least until the Batman TV show took the world by storm. Up next is a rarely seen and quite lovely tale by E. Nelson Bridwell, Carmine Infantino & Murphy Anderson which appeared in the Premium promotional giveaway Batman Kelloggs Special 1966.

‘The Joker’s Happy Victims’ is sheer graphic poetry in motion as the Dynamic Duo were forced to extraordinary measures when all the victims of the Riotous Rogue’s latest rash of robberies refused to press charges…

During the late 1960s superheroes experienced a rapid decline in popularity – possibly in reaction to the mass-media’s crass and crushing over-exposure – and the Batman books sought to escape their zany, “camp” image by methodically re-branding the character and returning to the original 1930s concept of a grim and driven Dark Avenger.

Such a hero demanded far deadlier villains and with one breakthrough tale Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams & Dick Giordano also reinstated the psychotic, diabolically unpredictable Killer Clown who scared the short pants off the readers of the Golden Age Dark Knight.

‘The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge’ (Batman #251, September 1973) is a genuine classic that totally redefined the Joker for our age as the Mirthful Maniac stalked his old gang, determined to eradicate them all as the hard-pressed Gotham Guardian desperately played catch-up. As the crooks died in all manner of Byzantine and bizarre ways, Batman realised his arch-foe has gone irrevocably off the deep end. Terrifying and beautiful, for many fans this is the definitive Batman/Joker story.

Brave and the Bold #111 (February/March 1974) boasted “the strangest team-up in history” as Batman joined forces with his greatest enemy for a brilliantly complex tale of cross and double cross in ‘Death has the Last Laugh!’ – by Bob Haney & Jim Aparo – which may well have lead to the Harlequin of Hate’s own short-run series a year later.

‘The Last Ha Ha’ came from The Joker # 3 (September 1975, written by O’Neil with art from Ernie Chan/Chua & José Luis García-López) wherein a robbery and the kidnap of star cartoonist Sandy Saturn, by a green-haired, laughing loon, led the cops to the ludicrous conclusion that The Creeper was the culprit. Cue lots of eerie cackling, mistaken identity shenanigans and explosive action…

When Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin took over the Batman feature in Detective Comics their landmark retro-styled collaboration utterly revitalised the character for a new generation of readers.

Their undoubted peak in a short but stellar run naturally starred the Dark Knight’s nemesis as his most chaotic beginning with ‘The Laughing Fish’ in #475 (February 1978) and spectacularly culminating a month later in ‘The Sign of the Joker!’, comprising one of the most reprinted Bat-tales ever concocted, and even adapted as an episode of the award-winning Batman: The Animated Adventures TV show in the 1990s. In fact you’ve probably already read it. But if you haven’t… what a treat you have awaiting you!

As fish with the Joker’s horrific smile began turning up in sea-catches all over the Eastern Seaboard the Clown Prince attempted to trademark them. When patent officials foolishly told him it can’t be done, they start dying… publicly, impossibly and incredibly painfully…

The story then culminated in a spectacular apocalyptic clash which shaped and informed the Batman mythos for the next two decades…

This terrific tome then concludes with ‘Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker…!’ from Batman #321 (March 1980), by Len Wein, Walt Simonson & Giordano, wherein the Malevolent Mummer planned to celebrate his anniversary in grand style: kidnapping a bunch of old friends like Robin, Jim Gordon, Alfred, Catwoman and others to be the exploding candles on his giant birthday cake…

The Joker has the rare distinction of being perhaps the most iconic villain in comics and can claim that title in whatever era you choose to concentrate on; Noir-ish Golden Age, sanitised Silver Age or malignant modern and Post-Modern milieus. This book captures just a fraction of all those superb stories and with the benefit of another two and a half decades of material since the release of this compendium, just think of what a couple of equally well-considered sequels might offer…

Slightly differing versions of this initial hardback volume have been released as the paperback editions Stacked Deck: The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told in 1990 and The Joker: Greatest Stories Ever Told in 2008.
© 1939-1983, 1988 DC Comics Inc. All rights reserved.

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Wonder Woman Archives Edition volume 1


By Charles Moulton (William Moulton Marston & Harry G. Peter) (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-402-5

Wonder Woman was famously created by polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston – apparently at the behest of his formidable wife Elizabeth – and illustrated by Harry G. Peter in an attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model.

Her launch and preview came as an extra feature in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941 – and that’s the comic book heroine, not Mrs. Marston), home of the immortal Justice Society of America and one of the company’s most popular publications. The Perfect Princess gained her own series and the cover-spot in new anthology title Sensation Comics a month later.

The Amazing Amazon was a huge and instant hit, quickly gaining her own eponymous title in late Spring of that year (cover-dated Summer 1942).

Using the nom de plume Charles Moulton, Marston scripted all the Amazing Amazon’s many and fabulous adventures until his death in 1947, whereupon Robert Kanigher took over the writer’s role. The venerable co-creator H.G. Peter illustrated almost every WW tale until his own death in 1958.

This superb full-colour deluxe hardback edition collects that seminal debut from All Star Comics #8, and her every iconic adventure from Sensation Comics #1-12 plus Wonder Woman #1, after opening with a heartfelt and appreciative Foreword from performer, writer and social activist Judy Collins.

The comic milestones begin with ‘Introducing Wonder Woman’ as on a hidden island of immortal super-women an American aviator crashed to Earth. Near death Captain Steve Trevor of US Army Intelligence was nursed back to health by young Princess Diana. Fearing her growing obsession with the man, 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 devote their eternal lives to becoming ideal, perfect creatures.

However when Trevor explained the perfidious spy plot which accidentally brought him to the Island enclave, Athena and Aphrodite appeared and ordered Hippolyte to assign an Amazon warrior to return with the American to fight for freedom and liberty.

Hippolyte declared an open contest to find the best candidate and, despite being forbidden to participate, young Diana won. Accepting the will of the gods, the worried mother outfits Diana in the guise of Wonder Woman and sends her out to Man’s World…

A month later the story continued where the introduction had left off in Sensation Comics #1 as ‘Wonder Woman Comes to America’ found the eager immigrant returning the recuperating Trevor to the modern World before trouncing a gang of bank robbers and falling in with a show business swindler. The major innovation was her buying the identity of love-lorn Army nurse Diana Prince, elegantly allowing the Amazon to be close to Steve whilst enabling the heartsick medic to join her fiancé in South America.

Even with all that there was still room for Wonder Woman and Captain Trevor to bust up a spy ring attempting to use poison gas on a Draft induction centre before Steve broke his leg and ended up in hospital again, where “Nurse Prince” could look after him…

Sensation #2 introduced the deadly enemy agent ‘Dr. Poison’ in a cannily crafted tale which also debuted the most radical comedy sidekicks of the era…

The plucky fun-loving gals of the Holliday College for Women and their chubby, chocolate-gorging Beeta Lamda sorority chief Etta Candy would get into trouble and save the day in equal proportions for years to come, constantly demonstrating Diana’s – and Marston’s – philosophical contention that girls, with the correct encouragement, could accomplish anything that men could …

With the War raging and a military setting espionage and sabotage were inescapable plot devices. ‘A Spy in the Office’ saw Diana transfer to the office of General Darnell as his secretary so that she could keep an eye on the finally fit Steve. She wasn’t there five minutes before she’d uncovered a ring of undercover infiltrators amongst the typing pool and saved her man from assassination.

Unlike most comics of the period Wonder Woman followed a tight continuity. ‘School for Spies’ in #4 saw some of those fallen girls murdered and introduced inventor genius and Nazi master manipulator Baroness Paula Von Gunther who used psychological tricks to enslave girls to her will and set otherwise decent Americans against their homeland. Even Diana succumbed to her deadly machinations until Steve and the Holliday Girls crashed in…

America’s newest submarine was saved from destruction and a brilliant gang of terrorists brought to justice in ‘Wonder Woman versus the Saboteurs’ before issue #6 found the Amazing Amazon accepting a ‘Summons to Paradise’ to battle her immortal sisters in Kanga-riding duels before receiving her greatest weapon: an unbreakable Lasso of Truth which could compel and control anybody who fell within its golden coils.

It proved very handy when Paula escaped prison and used her invisibility formula to wreak havoc on American coastal defences.

‘The Milk Swindle’ is a pure piece of 1940s social advocacy magic as racketeers and Nazi Von Gunther joined forces to seize control of America’s milk supply with the incredibly long-sighted intention of weakening the bones of the country’s next generation of soldiers, followed in Sensation #8 by ‘Department Store Perfidy’ wherein the Amazon went undercover in the monolithic Bullfinch emporium to win better working conditions and fair pay for the girls employed there.

There was a plethora of surprises in #9 with ‘The Return of Diana Prince’ from South America. Now Mrs Diana White, the young mother needed her job and identity back until her inventor husband could sell his invention to US army. Luckily, Wonder Woman and an obliging gang of saboteurs helped expedite matters…

The next landmark was the launch of her own solo quarterly title. The first issue began with the photo-feature ‘Introducing Wonder Woman’s New Editor’ before offering a text feature on the Amazon’s pantheon of godly patrons in ‘Who is Wonder Woman?’

The comic action then commenced with an greatly expanded revision of her first appearance in ‘A History of the Amazons: the Origin of Wonder Woman’, swiftly followed by the beguiling mystery tale ‘Wonder Woman Goes to the Circus’ wherein Diana had to solve the bizarre serial murders of the show’s elephants.

Paula Von Gunther again reared her shapely head in ‘Wonder Woman versus the Spy Ring’ wherein the loss of the Golden Lasso almost caused the heroine’s demise and the ultimate defeat of the American Army before the issued ended with ‘The Greatest Feat of Daring in Human History’ as Diana and Etta headed for Texas, only to become embroiled in a sinister scheme involving Latin Lotharios, lady bullfighters, lethal spies and a Nazi attempt to conquer Mexico…

Back in Sensation Comics #10 ‘The Railroad Plot’ celebrated Steve and Wonder Woman’s first anniversary by exposing a sinister plan by Japanese and German agents to blow up New York using the labyrinth of subway tunnels under the city, whilst ‘Mission to Planet Eros’ began the series’ long line of cosmic fantasies when the Queen of Venus requested the Amazon’s aid in saving an entire planetary civilisation from sexual inequality and total breakdown…

This first sterling compendium concludes with ‘America’s Guardian Angel’ from Sensation #12 with the Warrior Princess accepting an offer to play herself in a patriotic Hollywood movie, only to find the production had been infiltrated by Nazi Paula and her gang of slave-girls…

Too much has been posited about the subtexts of bondage and subjugation in Marston’s tales – and frankly there really are a lot of scenes with girls tied up, chained or about to be whipped – but I just don’t care what his intentions might have been: I’m more impressed with the skilful drama and incredible fantasy elements that are always wonderfully, intriguingly present: I mean, just where does the concept of giant battle kangaroos come from?

Exotic, baroque, beguiling and uniquely exciting these Golden Age adventures of the World’s Most Famous female superhero are timeless and pivotal classics in the development of comics books and still provide lashings of fun and thrills for anyone looking for a great nostalgic read.
© 1941, 1942, 1998 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Shaman


By Dennis O’Neil, Edward Hannigan & John Beatty (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-083-6

In 1989 when DC found that the World had gone completely Bat-crazy for the second time in twenty-five years, they were, apparently, already preparing a brand-new title to add to the Gotham Guardian’s stable of comicbooks.

Two years earlier in 1985-1986, the venerable publisher had grabbed headlines by boldly retconning their entire ponderous continuity via the groundbreaking maxi-series Crisis on Infinite Earths; ejecting the entire concept of a multiverse and re-knitting time so that there had only ever been one Earth. For readers, the planet was now a perfect place to jump on at the start: a world literally festooned with iconic heroes and villains draped in a clear and cogent backstory nobody knew yet.

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.

Because of the Tim Burton movie Batman’s popularity was at an intoxicating peak and since DC was still in the throes of re-jigging the entire narrative continuity, the new Bat-title was designed to present multi-part epics that were “earlier” cases; refining and infilling the history of the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths hero and his venerable cast. The added fillip was a fluid cast of premiere and up-and-coming creators.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (with a November 1989 cover-date) hit the Comics specialty stores three months after the movie debut: a fascinating experiment and huge hit even if over the years the overall quality proved rather haphazard. Most of the early story arcs were collected as trade paperbacks, helping to jump-start the graphic novel sector of the comics industry, and the re-imagining of the hero’s early career gave fans a wholly modern insight into the ancient if highly malleable concept.

The very first was Batman: Shaman which added detail to the long-established origin and incisive refinements and further psychological underpinning to the steep learning curve that turned over-eager masked avenger Bruce Wayne into an indomitable and terrifying force of nature.

The five-part epic by Dennis O’Neil was illustrated by Edward Hannigan & John Beatty and ran from November 1989 – February 1990, ideally setting the scene for the next decade as it depicted the driven millionaire’s descent into an obsession where Batman became real and Bruce Wayne the manufactured disguise…

After an introduction from Kevin Dooley (which incorporates the five stunning and evocative covers produced by George Pratt) the drama begins with bounty hunter Willy Doggett tracking a murderous felon named Tom Woodley across the frozen wastes of Alaska. Doggett is accompanied by a wealthy young man who has paid a fortune to learn the hunter’s tracking tricks. When Woodley ambushes them the lawman is killed and the boy only narrowly escapes a similar fate when the bushwhacker falls off a cliff.

The boy is critically injured and almost dies: saved only by an Inuit shaman and his granddaughter in the remote outpost of Otters Ridge, who share the secret medicine story of Bat and Raven with him. Nursed back to health after months Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham City to begin his mission against criminals. His saviours refuse all rewards but ask only that he never shares the healing tale with anyone…

In blithe arrogance Bruce tells anthropologist Madison Spurlock the secret sacred story before sending him to Alaska for research and to improve the natives’ lives with Wayne Foundation funds.

After his own life-changing encounter with a bat the young man creates the Batman persona and begins clearing up the streets. His first foray in costume is clearing out thieves terrorising a free clinic run by Dr. Leslie Thomkins in Crime Alley where his parents were gunned down a decade previously.

In his spooky element the triumphant avenger is staggered when a frantic eyewitness commits suicide in front of him, gasping out the name “Chubala”…

As six months pass the Batman becomes an urban legend on the city streets and a sinister cult begins to absorb Gotham’s underclass; a melange of drugs, petty crime and human sacrifice led by a seemingly crazed madman that goes spectacularly public when two bodies are found hideously mutilated and a cop is discovered babbling and near death. Moreover there’s a whiff of something more financial than fantastical about this reign of terror…

Meanwhile the anthropologist has returned and set up an exhibition of his findings. A prize piece is the carved bat-mask the Inuit shaman wore whilst saving Wayne’s life, but the avenger is far more concerned over Chubala than how Spurlock got the holy relic.

Spending his days building the Batcave and nights tracking Chubala’s thugs and a drug pipeline from tropical hell-hole Santa Prisca, the novice Dark Knight doesn’t attach as much significance to the murder of Spurlock’s assistant as he should, until an assassin wearing the Inuit mask attempts to kill him and succeeds in slaying Spurlock with arrows…

Convinced of a connection between Chubala and Otters Ridge, Bruce Wayne travels again to the Far North and sees with horror and self-loathing what his money and Spurlock’s probing ambitions have done to the once proud and noble natives…

And that’s when the next murder attempt occurs…

As the neophyte Batman struggles to piece together the disparate strands he comes to a chilling conclusion: he’s not been working on one incredibly complex case but two…

Combing a clever reworking of the origin legend with a skilful murder-mystery, a serial killer thriller and a corporate crime-caper, Batman: Shaman redefined the Caped Crusader’s previously shiny milieu as a truly scary world of urban decay, corrupt authority and all-pervasive criminal violence, all tinged with nightmarish supernatural overtones.

This is one of the very best of modern Batman yarns: dark, intense, cunning and superbly understated. If you haven’t seen this supremely engaging tale – criminally out of print but well worth hunting down – then you don’t really know the Dark Knight yet…
© 1989, 1990, 1993 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Secret Origins


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-50-1

The best and worst thing about comicbooks is the perpetual revamping of classic characters whenever changing tastes and the unceasing passage of years demand the reworking of origin tales for increasingly more sophisticated audiences.

Once upon a time, DC’s vast pantheon of characters was scattered and wholly distinct: separated and situated on a variety of alternate Earths which comprised Golden Age hold-overs, current Silver Age and later-created heroes. Further Earths were subsequently introduced for every superhero stable the company scooped up in a voracious 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.

Thus, 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.

Fans old and new therefore had no idea what pre-Crisis stories were still “true” or valid and to counter confusion the publishers launched the double-sized Secret Origins comicbook series to peek behind the curtain and provide all-new stories which related the current official histories of their vast and now exceedingly crowded pantheon…

Of course now the multiverse concept is back and not confusing at all (who’d have thunk it?) but whatever the original reasons the dramatic 1980s refit did provide for some utterly astounding and cleverly cohesive storytelling…

This sterling softcover collection from 1989 gathered some of the most impressive headline-grabbing reworkings and even offered an all-new reinterpretation of the Batman’s beginnings to fit the new world’s reconstructed history and opened the action after ‘Legends’, a fascinating Introduction by series editor Mark Waid.

‘The Man Who Falls’ by Dennis O’Neil & Dick Giordano incorporated the revisions of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s Batman: Year One and Batman: Shaman into a compelling examination of vengeance, obsession and duty describing how the only survivor of the Wayne Homicides dedicated his life to becoming a living weapon in the war on crime…

When DC Comics decided to rationalise and reconstruct their continuity the biggest shake-up was Superman and it’s hard to argue that change was unnecessary. All the Action Ace’s titles were suspended for three months – and boy, did that make the media sit-up and take notice – for the first time since the Christopher Reeve movie. But there was method in the madness…

In 1986 Man of Steel, a six-issue miniseries written and drawn by John Byrne with inks by Dick Giordano, stripped away vast amounts of accumulated baggage and returned the Strange Visitor from Another World to the far from omnipotent, edgy but good-hearted reformer Siegel and Shuster had first envisioned. It was a huge and instant success, becoming the decade’s premiere ‘break-out’ hit and from that overwhelming start Superman returned to his suspended comic-book homes with the addition of a third monthly title premiering in the same month.

The miniseries presented six complete stories highlighting key points in Superman’s career, reconstructed in the wake of the aforementioned Crisis and ‘The Haunting’ comes from the last issue; relating how the hero returned to his Kansas home and at last discovered his alien roots and heritage when a hologram of his father Jor-El attempted to possess and reprogram Clark Kent with the accumulated wisdom and ways of dead Krypton…

‘The Secret Origin of Green Lantern’ by James Owsley, M.D. Bright & José Marzan Jr. hails from Secret Origins #36 (January 1989) and told how Hal Jordan was selected to become an intergalactic peacekeeper by a dying alien, all viewed from the fresh perspective of a young aerospace engineer whose brief encounter with the Emerald Gladiator a decade earlier had changed his life forever. The expansive yarn re-visits all the classic highlights and even finds room to take the plucky guy on an adventure against resource raider on Oa, home of the Guardians of the Universe…

Mark Verheiden & Ken Steacy then drastically upgrade the legend of J’onn J’onzz in ‘Martian Manhunter’ (Secret Origins #35, Holiday edition 1988) in a moody innovative piece of 1950’s B-Movie paranoia, nicely balanced by an enthralling, tragic and triumphant reinterpretation and genuinely new take on the story of Silver Age icon Barry Allen . The freshly-deceased Flash  reveals the astonishing truth behind the ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ in a lost classic by Robert Loren Fleming, Carmine Infantino & Murphy Anderson, first published in Secret Origins Annual #2 1988.

The creation of the Justice League of America was the event which truly signalled the return of superheroes to comicbooks in 1960, inspiring the launch of the Fantastic Four, the birth of Marvel Comics and a frantic decade of costumed craziness.

Their rallying adventure wasn’t published until #9 of their own title and was in fact the twelfth tale in their canon, because, quite frankly, origins, crucible moments and inner motivation were just not considered that important back then.

When Keith Giffen, Peter David & Eric Shanower crafted ‘All Together Now’ for Secret Origins #32 (November 1989) such things had come to be regarded as pivotal moments in mystery-man mythology but it didn’t stop the creative team having lots of snide and engaging fun as they retooled the classic tale of rugged individuals separately battling an alien invasion only to unite in the final moments and form the World’s Greatest Heroic team. The refit wasn’t made any easier by the new continuity’s demands that Batman be excised from the legendary grouping of Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Flash and Superman whilst the under-reconstruction Wonder Woman had to be replaced by a teenaged Black Canary…

Nevertheless the substitution worked magnificently and the daring adventure is the perfect place to end this fabulous compendium of a DC’s second Lost Age as yet another continuity-upgrade revitalises some of the most recognisable names in popular fiction.

And No, I’m not playing “how long until the next one”…
© 1986, 1988, 1989 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Shazam! Archives volume 1


By Bill Parker, C. C. Beck & Pete Costanza (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-053-4

One of the most venerated and beloved characters of America’s Golden Age of comics was created by Bill Parker and Charles Clarence Beck as part of the wave of opportunistic creativity which followed the stunning success of Superman in 1938. Although there were many similarities in the early years, the Fawcett character quickly moved squarely into the area of light entertainment and even straight comedy, whilst as the 1940s progressed the Man of Steel increasingly left whimsy behind in favour of action, drama and suspense.

Homeless orphan and good kid Billy Batson was selected by an ancient wizard to be given the powers of six gods and heroes to battle injustice. He transforms from scrawny precocious kid to brawny (adult) hero Captain Marvel by speaking aloud the wizard’s name – an acronym for the six legendary patrons Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury.

This magnificent full-colour, deluxe hardback compendium re-presents the first 15 adventures from Whiz Comics #2 to 15 (February 1940 to March 1941 – there was no #1, two issue #5’s and two editions in March but I’ll try to explain all that as we go along) to cash in on the sales phenomenon of Superman and his many imitators and descendents.

Publisher Fawcett had first gained prominence through an immensely well-received light entertainment magazine for WWI veterans named Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang, before branching out into books and general interest magazines. Their most successful publication – at least until the Good Captain hit his stride – was the ubiquitous boy’s building bible Mechanix Illustrated and, as the decade unfolded, the scientific and engineering discipline and can-do demeanour underpinning MI suffused and informed both the art and plots of the Marvel Family titles.

The series was the brainchild of writer/editor Bill Parker and brilliant young illustrator Charles Clarence Beck who, with his assistant Pete Costanza, handled all the art in this book, and in this quirky first volume the adult hero is a serious, bluff and rather characterless powerhouse his whilst his junior alter ego Billy is the true star: a Horatio Alger archetype of impoverished, bold, self-reliant and resourceful youth overcoming impossible odds by pluck, grit and sheer determination…

Author, journalist and fan Richard A. Lupoff covers in great detail the torturous beginnings of the feature in his Foreword before the magic proper starts with a rare and priceless glimpse at the hero’s nigh-cursed design stage and the book also contains biographical details on all the creators.

To establish copyright, publishers used to legally register truncated black and white facsimile editions called “Ash-can Editions” in advance of their launch issues. For Fawcett, the production of their first comicbook proved an aggravating process since this registration twice uncovered costly snags which forced the editors to redesign both character and publication.

Contained herein are cover reproductions of Flash Comics #1 starring Captain Thunder (obliviously scheduled for release mere days after DC’s own Flash title hit the stands), Thrill Comics #1 which repeated the accident just as Standard’s Thrilling Comics launched, and the uncoloured art for the first half of the story of Captain Thunder which would eventually be re-lettered and released as the lead in anthology title Whiz Comics #2 cover-dated February 1940.

Like many Golden Age series the stories collected here never had individual titles and DC’s compilers have cleverly elected to use the original comics’ strap-lines or cover blurbs to differentiate the tales…

‘Gangway for Captain Marvel!’, drawn in style reminiscent of early Hergé, saw homeless orphan newsboy Billy Batson lured into an abandoned subway tunnel to a meeting with the many millennia-old wizard Shazam. At the end of a long life fighting evil, the white-bearded figure grants the lad the powers and signature gifts of six gods and heroes; bidding him to continue the good fight.

In thirteen delightfully clean and simple pages Billy gets his powers, has his secret origin revealed (he’s heir to a fortune embezzled by his crooked uncle Ebenezer), wins a job as a roaming radio reporter for Amalgamated Broadcasting and defeats the demonic schemes of Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana who is holding the airwaves of America hostage, with the mighty, taciturn and not yet invulnerable Marvel only sparingly used to do the heavy lifting.

It is sheer comicbook poetry…

The March issue had no cover number but was listed as #3 in the indicia and featured ‘The Return of Sivana’ as the insane inventor unleashed a mercenary army equipped with his super-weapons upon the nation, attempting to become Emperor of America. His plan was thwarted by Billy acting as a war correspondent and the mighty muscles of Marvel…

The third (April) Whiz Comics had “Number 3” on the cover but #4 inside and proudly proclaimed ‘Make Way for Captain Marvel!’ before bolding leaping into full science fiction mode as Billy was shanghaied to Venus in Sivana’s mighty rocket-ship. The boy was forced to reveal his amazing secret to the demented inventor whilst battling incredible monsters and the giant frog-men dubbed “Glompers” but the magnificently guileless and gallant Marvel was seemingly helpless against the savant’s new ally Queen Beautia as the deadly duo prepared to invade Earth.

Only seemingly though…

‘Captain Marvel Crashes Through’ (4 on the cover, #5 inside) detailed how the bewitching Beautia, aided by Sivana’s technology, ran for President. However the sinister siren had a soft heart and when Billy was captured (and faced the first of a multitude of clever gadgets designed to stop him saying his magic word) she freed him, thus falling foul of the gangsters who were backing her. Luckily Captain Marvel was there to save the day…

An inexplicable crime-wave shook the country in ‘Captain Marvel Scores Again!’ (5 on the cover and #5 inside: the wild numbers game finally ending here) as a different sinister scientist used a ray to turn children into thieves and even young Billy was not immune, whilst in ‘Captain Marvel and the Circus of Death’ (July 1940) Sivana returned with fantastic Venusian dino-monsters which the Good Captain was hard-pressed to handle. Incidentally, this was the first issue where the Big Red Cheese was seen definitely flying as opposed to leaping – something Superman is not acknowledged as doing until late 1941…

In ‘Captain Marvel and the Squadron of Doom’ young Billy travelled to the North Pole for a radio story and discovered a secret organisation thawing out frozen cavemen to act as an army of conquest, after which he and his mature magical avatar foiled a murderous spiritualist causing mass-drownings to bolster his reputation and fortune in ‘Saved by Captain Marvel!’

Whiz #9’s ‘Captain Marvel on the Job!’ saw the man and boy foil a revolution, recover foreign crown jewels and defeat a madman with a shrinking ray after which Sivana and Beautia returned in ‘Captain Marvel Battles the Winged Death’ a blistering yarn involving espionage and America’s latest secret weapon. In this tale the Empress of Venus finally reformed and became a solid citizen…

‘Hurrah for Captain Marvel!’ found Batson investigating college hazing and corrupt sporting events whilst in #12 (January 1941) the World War loomed large as “Gnatzi” maritime outrages brought Billy to London where he uncovered the spy responsible for sinking refugee ships in ‘Captain Marvel Rides the Engine of Doom!’

‘Captain Marvel – World’s Most Powerful Man!’ featured Sivana’s latest atrocity as the madman disrupted hockey matches, blitzed banks and incapacitated the US army with a formula that turned men into babies. Even Billy wasn’t immune but at least Beautia was there to help him…

War looked increasingly inescapable and many heroes jumped the gun and started fighting before America officially entered the fray. ‘Captain Marvel Boomerangs the Torpedo!’ was a superb patriotic cover for Whiz #14 (March 1941) but the actual story involved Sivana’s capture and subsequent discovery of a thought process which allowed him to walk through walls and bars. Happily the World’s Mightiest Mortal possessed the Wisdom of Solomon and deduced a solution to the unstoppable menace…

This superb collection concludes after another stirring cover ‘With the British Plane Streaking to a Fiery Doom, Captain Marvel Dives to the Rescue!’ (issue #15 and also cover-dated March) and an unrelated adventure which revealed the incredible origin of Dr. Sivana, his astounding connection to Beautia, and also introduced her brother Magnificus – almost as mighty a fighter as Marvel – when Billy was kidnapped and trapped once again on Venus…

DC/National Periodical Publications had filed suit against Fawcett for copyright infringement as soon as Whiz Comics #2 was released and the companies slugged it out in court until 1953, when, with the sales of superhero comics decimated by changing tastes, Captain Marvel’s publishers decided to capitulate. The name lay unclaimed until 1967 when M.F. Enterprises released six issues of an unrelated android hero before folding after which Marvel Comics secured rights to the name in 1968.

DC eventually acquired the Fawcett properties and characters and in 1973 revived the Captain for a new generation to see if his unique charm would work another sales miracle during one of comics’ periodic downturns. Retitled Shazam! due to the incontestable power of lawyers and copyright convention, the revived heroic ideal enjoyed mixed success before being subsumed into the company’s vast stable of characters…

Nevertheless Captain Marvel is a true icon of American comic history and a brilliantly conceived superhero for all ages. This collection only scratches the surface of the canon of delights produced over the years and is an ideal introduction to the world of adventure comics: one that will appeal to readers of any age and temperament.
© 1940, 1941, 1992 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Superman Family volume 1


By Otto Binder, Curt Swan & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0787-8

When the blockbusting Man of Tomorrow debuted in Action Comics #1 (June 1938) he was instantly the centre of attention but even then the need for a solid supporting cast was apparent and quickly tailored for. Glamorous daredevil girl reporter Lois Lane premiered with Clark Kent and was a constant companion and foil from the outset.

Although unnamed, a plucky red-headed, be-freckled kid worked alongside Clark and Lois from Action Comics #6 (November 1938) and was called by his first name from Superman #13 (November-December 1941) onwards. That lad was Jimmy Olsen and he was a major player in The Adventures of Superman radio show from its debut on April 15th 1940; somebody the same age as the target audience for the hero to explain stuff to (all for the listener’s benefit) and the closest thing to a sidekick the Man of Tomorrow ever needed…

When the similarly titled television show launched in the autumn of 1952 it became a monolithic hit and National Periodicals began cautiously expanding their increasingly valuable franchise with new characters and titles. First up were the gloriously charming, light-hearted escapades of that rash, capable but naïve photographer and “cub reporter” from the Daily Planet: the first spin-off star of the Caped Kryptonian’s rapidly expanding entourage began with Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #1, which launched in 1954 with a September-October cover date.

As the decade progressed the oh-so-cautious Editors at National Comics tentatively extended the franchise in 1957 just as the Silver Age of Comics was getting underway and it seemed there might be a fresh and sustainable appetite for costumed heroes and their unique brand of spectacular shenanigans. Try-out title Showcase, which had already launched The Flash (#4 & 8 ) and Challengers of the Unknown (#6-7) followed up with a brace of issues entitled Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane in #9 and 10 before swiftly awarding her a series of her own – in actuality her second, since for a brief while in the mid-1940s she had her own solo-spot in Superman.

This gloriously nostalgic and scintillatingly addictive monochrome tome chronologically covers those experimental franchise expansions, re-presenting Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #1-22, (September/October 1954 to August 1957 and Showcase #9 July/August 1957, plus the very first Lois Lane solo strip from Superman #28 – May/June 1944 as a welcome bonus.

The fabulous vintage all-ages entertainment (courtesy of dedicated creative team Otto Binder, Curt Swan & Ray Burnley) begins with ‘The Boy of 1000 Faces’ in which the ebullient junior journalist displays his phenomenal facility for make-up and disguise to tap a jewel thief before heading to timber country and solving the ‘Case of the Lumberjack Jinx’ before masquerading as ‘The Man of Steel’s Substitute’ and tackling public requests too trivial for his Kryptonian chum.

‘The Flying Jimmy Olsen’ opened the second issue with a daring tale of idiocy as the lad swallowed an alien power-potion with staggering disregard for the potential repercussions (a recurring theme of those simpler times) whilst ‘The Hide and Seek Mystery’ displayed his crime-solving pluck as he hunted down more jewel thieves after which the boy became ‘Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s Ex-Pal’ to expose a cunning conman.

He became ‘The Boy Millionaire’ in #3 when a wealthy dowager repaid a kind deed with a vast cash reward. Sadly all money brought Jimmy was scammers, conmen and murderous trouble. After that he headed to Tumbleweed, USA to cover a rodeo and somehow became ‘The Fastest Gun in the West’ before meeting the highly suspect eccentric who was ‘The Man Who Collected Excitement’.

‘The Disappearance of Superman’ perplexed Metropolis in #4 until his valiant pal solved the mystery and saved the Caped Kryptonian’s life whilst as ‘The Hunted Messenger’ Jimmy risked certain death to outwit gangsters before replacing a regal look-alike and playing ‘King for a Day’ in a far off land threatened by a ruthless usurper.

In issue #5 ‘The Boy Olympics’ displayed Jimmy’s sentimental side as he risked his job to help young news vendors from a rival paper and almost got replaced by a computer in ‘The Brain of Steel’ before beguiling and capturing a wanted felon with ‘The Story of Superman’s Souvenirs’…

The cutthroat world of stage conjuring found him competing to become ‘The King of Magic’ in JO #6’s first tale after which the diminutive lad endured a punishing diet regime – hilariously enforced by Superman – before covering the sports story of the year in ‘Jockey Olsen Rides Star Flash’. The last tale found Jimmy bravely recovering ‘100 Pieces of Kryptonite’ that fell on the city rendering Superman helpless and dying…

Jimmy Olsen #7 found the boy teaching three rich wastrels a life-changing lesson in ‘The Amazing Mirages’ after which a magic carpet whisked him away to write ‘The Scoop of 1869’ and the lad’s boyhood skills enabled him to become ‘The King of Marbles’, catching a crook and more headlines…

In #8 pride in his investigative abilities and a slick conman compelled him to uncover his pal’s secret identity in ‘The Betrayal of Superman’ after which he was ‘Superboy for a Day’ (sort of) and wowed the chicks when a sore throat enabled him to become ‘Jimmy Olsen, Crooner’, whilst in #9 he disastrously switched jobs to ‘Jimmy Olsen, Cub Inventor’, became a TV quiz mastermind in ‘The Million-Dollar Question’ and piloted a prototype Superman robot in ‘The Missile of Steel’.

In #10 the canny lad turned the tables on a greedy hoaxer in ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Martian Pal’ and suffered amnesia in ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Forgotten Adventure’ before going back to nature as ‘Jungle Jimmy Olsen’, whilst the next issue found him acting, after a stellar accident, as ‘Superman’s Seeing-Eye Dog’, dumping the neglectful and busy Man of Steel for a more appreciative comrade in ‘Jimmy Olsen, Clark Kent’s Pal’ and accidentally exposing a corrupt boxing scam as ‘T.N.T. Olsen, the Champ’.

He helped out a circus chum by becoming ‘Jimmy Olsen, Prince of Clowns’ in #12, thereafter uncovering ‘The Secret of Dinosaur Island’ and falling victim to a goofy – if not plain mad – scientist’s bizarre experiment and reluctantly became ‘The Invisible Jimmy Olsen’, whilst in #13 and tracking a swindler he met a half dozen namesakes in ‘The Six Jimmy Olsens’. Criminals then targeted the cub reporter’s secret weapon in ‘The Stolen Superman Signal’ and the lad found himself the subject of a cruel but necessary deception when the Metropolis Marvel perpetrated ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Super Illusions’…

Issue #14 opened with a time-travel western tale as the lad instigated ‘The Feats of Chief Super-Duper’ after which a scientific accident seemingly imbued the bold boy with Clark Kent’s personality and created ‘The Meek Jimmy Olsen’ before the cub was lost in American wilderness and was outrageously mistaken for ‘The Boy Superman’.

JO #15 found him demoted and at a dog-show where his infallible nose for news quickly uncovered ‘The Mystery of the Canine Champ’ after which an injudiciously swallowed serum gave him super-speed and he became ‘Jimmy Olsen, Speed Demon’ and a strange ailment forced him to dispose of his most treasured possessions in ‘Unwanted Superman Souvenirs’…

A scurrilous scammer in #16 offered to regress the boy’s consciousness and help him re-live ‘The Three Lives of Jimmy Olsen’ after which a series of crazy coincidences compelled identity-obsessed Clark to convince Lois Lane that Jimmy was ‘The Boy of Steel’ before another chemical concoction turned the lad into a compulsive fibber and ‘The Super Liar of Metropolis’.

The next thrill-packed issue featured ‘Jimmy Olsen in the 50th Century’ wherein the lad was transported to an era where history had conflated his and Superman’s lives, whilst in ‘The Case of the Cartoon Scoops’ he rediscovered a gift for drawing and the curse of clairvoyance before an horrific accident turned him into ‘The Radioactive Boy’, whereas in #18, humour was king as ‘The Super Safari’ found him using a “magic” flute to capture animals for a circus, ‘The Riddle Reporter’ saw him lose scoops to a masked mystery journalist and he then had to nursemaid his best friend when a criminal’s time weapon turned the Man of Steel into ‘Superbaby, Jimmy Olsen’s Pal’…

In #19 ‘The Two Jimmy Olsens’ introduced a robot replica of the cub reporter whilst in ‘The Human Geiger Counter’ the kid became allergic to the Action Ace before a brain injury convinced him he was ‘Superman’s Kid Brother’. The next issue opened with ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Super-Pet’ as a souvenir hatched into a living breathing dinosaur. His misguided efforts to save a small-town newspaper culminated in ‘The Trial of Jimmy Olsen’ after which Superman secretly turned his pal into ‘The Merman of Metropolis’ in a convoluted scheme to preserve his own alter ego.

Issue #21 revealed an unsuspected family skeleton and a curse which seemingly transformed reporter into pirate in ‘The Legend of Greenbeard Olsen’, whilst ingenuity and a few gimmicks briefly turned him into junior hero ‘Wonder Lad’ but arrogance and snooping were responsible for the humiliation that resulted from ‘The Wedding of Jimmy Olsen’ to Lois Lane…

A month later the lady finally starred in her own comicbook as, galvanised by a growing interest in superhero stories, the company’s premiere try-out title pitched a brace of issues focused on the burgeoning Superman family of features.

Showcase #9 (cover-dated July/August 1957) featured Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane in three tales by Jerry Coleman, Ruben Moreira & Al Plastino and opened with the seminal yarn ‘The Girl in Superman’s Past’ wherein Lois first met red-headed hussy Lana Lang, childhood sweetheart of Superboy and a pushy conniving go-getter out to win Lois’ intended at all costs. Naturally Miss Lane invited Miss Lang to stay at her apartment and the grand rivalry was off and running…

‘The New Lois Lane’ aggravatingly saw Lois turn over a new leaf and stop attempting to uncover his secret identity just when Superman actually needed her to do so and the premier concludes with the concussion-induced day-dream ‘Mrs. Superman’ as Lois imagines a life of domestic super-bliss…

When Lois Lane finally received her own shot at solo stardom it was very much on the terms of the times. I must shamefacedly admit to a deep, nostalgic affection for her bright and breezy, fantastically fun adventures, but as a free-thinking, liberal (nominally) adult of the 21st century I’m simultaneously shocked nowadays at the patronising, nigh-misogynistic attitudes underpinning many of the stories.

I’m fully aware that the series was intended for young readers at a time when “dizzy dames” like Lucille Ball or Doris Day played to the popular American gestalt stereotype of Woman as jealous minx, silly goose, diffident wife and brood-hungry nester, but to ask kids to seriously accept that intelligent, courageous, ambitious, ethical and highly capable females would drop everything they’d worked hard for to lie, cheat, inveigle, manipulate and entrap a man just so that they could cook pot-roast and change super-diapers is just plain crazy and tantamount to child abuse.

Oddly enough the 1940s interpretation of the plucky news-hen was far less derogatory: Lois might have been ambitious and life-threateningly precipitate but at least it was to advance her own career and put bad guys away as seen in the four-page vignette which closes this volume.

‘Lois Lane, Girl Reporter’ debuted in Superman #28 (May/June 1944) a breathless fast-paced screwball comedy-thriller by Don Cameron & Ed Dobrotka wherein the canny lass fails to talk a crazed jumper down from a ledge and saves him in another far more flamboyant manner, reaping the reward of a front page headline.

Before that Golden Age threat however there’s one last issue of the junior member of the Superman Family. JO #22 begins with ‘The Mystery of the Millionaire Hoboes’ as the lad tracked down the reason wealthy men are masquerading as down-and-outs before exposing the evil secrets behind ‘The Super-Hallucinations’ afflicting the Man of Tomorrow and ending with ‘The Super-Brain of Jimmy Olsen’ wherein resident affable crackpot genius Professor Phineas Potter evolved the boy into a man from 1,000,000AD. That cold but surely benevolent being had a hidden agenda however and was able to bend Superman to his hyper-intelligent will…

These spin-off, support series were highly popular top-sellers for over twenty years; blending action, adventure, broad, wacky comedy, fantasy and science fiction in the gently addictive manner scripter Otto Binder had first perfected a decade previously at Fawcett Comics on the magnificent Captain Marvel and his own myriad mini-universe of associated titles.

As well as containing some of the most delightful episodes of the pre angst-drenched, cosmically catastrophic DC, these fun, thrilling and yes, occasionally deeply moving all-ages stories also perfectly depict the changing mores and tastes which reshaped comics from the safe 1950s to the seditious, rebellious 1970s, all the while keeping to the prime directive of the industry – “keep them entertained and keep them wanting more”.

I know I certainly do…
© 1944, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come parts 1, 2 & 3


By Geoff Johns, Alex Ross, Dale Eaglesham, Fernando Pasarin & various (DC)
ISBNs: 978-1-4012-1741-9,   978-1-4012-1946-8,   978-1-4012-2167-6

After the actual invention of the comicbook superhero – for which read the launch of Superman in 1938 – the most significant event in the genre’s (and indeed industry’s) progress was the combination of individual stars into a group. Thus what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven – a number of popular characters could multiply readership by combining forces and fan-bases. Plus of course, a whole bunch of superheroes is a lot cooler than just one – or even one and a sidekick.

The Justice Society of America was created for the third issue (Winter 1940/1941) of All-Star Comics, an anthology title featuring established characters from various All-American Comics publications. The magic was instigated by the simple expedient of having the assorted heroes gather around a table and tell each other their latest adventure. From this low key collaboration it wasn’t long before the guys – and they were all white guys (except Red Tornado who merely pretended to be one) – regularly joined forces to defeat the greatest villains and social ills of their generation. Within months the concept had spread far and wide…

And so the Justice Society of America is rightly revered as a true landmark in the development of comicbooks. When Julius Schwartz revived the superhero genre in the late 1950s, the game-changing moment came with the inevitable teaming of the reconfigured mystery men into a Justice League of America.

From there it wasn’t long until the original and genuine article returned. Since then there have been many attempts to formally revive the team’s fortunes but it wasn’t until 1999, on the back of both the highly successful rebooting of the JLA by Grant Morrison & Howard Porter and the seminal but critically favoured new Starman series by Golden Age devotee James Robinson, that the multi-generational team found a new mission and fan-base big enough to support them. As the century ended the original super-team returned and have been with us in one form or another ever since.

This iteration, called to order after Infinite Crisis and Identity Crisis, found the surviving heroes from World War II acting as mentors and teachers for the latest generation of young champions and metahuman “legacy-heroes” (family successors or inheritors of departed champions’ powers or code-names): a large, cumbersome but nevertheless captivating assembly of raw talent, uneasy exuberance and weary hard-earned experience (for details see Justice Society of America: the Next Age and Justice League of America: The Lightning Saga).

This triptych of tomes collects issues #7-22 of the Justice Society of America series, the first Annual and Justice Society of America Kingdom Come Specials: Superman, Magog and The Kingdom; expanding, clarifying and building on those new heroes introduced in the landmark 1996 Mark Waid & Alex Ross miniseries, by rationalising many of the characters and concepts with the then-current DC continuity.

Kingdom Come and its belated sequel The Kingdom managed to connect that initially ring-fenced continuity to the mainstream DC universe and introduced “Hyper-Time”, a bridging concept which opened the way for all the storylines and history eradicated in Crisis on Infinite Earths to once more be “real and true”. Gradually a number of those variant elements began to coalesce in the relaunched Justice League and Justice Society series culminating in the expansive extended epic collected in these three volumes – although the entire saga could happily have fitted into one large tome…

This ambitious and almost daunting epic commences when Nathan Heywood awakes after an attack by modern Nazi meta-humans to realise most of his family have died in the assault. Of little comfort is the fact that his own crippling injuries have been repaired by the activation of his latent powers. The paraplegic youth has become a creature of living steel; unfeeling and ‘Indestructible’. For the sake of his surviving kin Heywood assumes the persona of new legacy hero Citizen Steel.

Soon after, ‘Bells and Whistles’ concentrates on the history of Jesse Chambers, wife of the second Hourman and daughter of WWII heroes Johnny Quick and Liberty Bell. Jesse inherited the powers of both parents but her level-headedness is all her own and vitally necessary when fellow member Damage, fuelled by berserker rage, breaks a State Exclusion Order whilst chasing super villain Zoom – the hyper-fast maniac who shredded the hero’s face and turned him into a hideous monster doomed to hide forever behind a mask.

‘Prologue: Thy Kingdom Come’ switches focus to Power Girl who has only recently discovered her true origins as a survivor from an alternate universe where her cousin Superman was the World’s Greatest Hero and leader of an another Justice Society, now all long-gone and forever lost in a universe-shredding Infinite Crisis…

During a gala party for three generations of heroes, the team are called to a flaming mystical conflagration and when 31st century refugee and barely-in control schizophrenic Starman uses his powers to extinguish the blaze he inadvertently plucks a survivor out of the void between dimensions.

This newcomer looks and sounds just like Power Girl’s own dearly-departed Earth-2 Superman…

‘What a Wonderful World’ sees the Man of Steel from the Kingdom Come continuity describe how the heroes and their successors of his world almost destroyed the planet (with flashback sequences painted by Alex Ross) before Starman explains his own connection to all the realms of the multiverse. Initially suspicious, the JLA come to accept the elder Man of Steel.

Elsewhere, a deadly predator begins to eradicate demi-gods and pretenders to divinity throughout the globe…

‘The Second Coming’ reveals how the Strange Visitor from Another Earth believes his world dead, just as a new crop of legacy heroes (Judomaster, Mr. America, Amazing Man, Lightning and David Reid) join the team, whilst in ‘New Recruits’ the death-toll of murdered godlings mounts rapidly…

This first volume concludes with an expansive sketch section from Alex Ross.

The second book of Thy Kingdom Come (collecting Justice Society of America #13-18 and Annual #1) opens with ‘Supermen’ wherein the latest incarnation of Mr. America (an FBI agent turned freelance super-villain profiler) alerts the JSA to the serial god-killer and points the way to a mysterious personage known only as Gog.

When his files reveal their suspect to be an old foe of this world’s Superman, his elder alternate volunteers to discuss the case with the Man of Steel whilst deep below the fertile earth of the Congo an alien presence communes with its apocalyptic herald…

‘Thy Kingdom Come: Gog’ at last begins the epic in earnest as the assembled team is attacked by the mysterious Gog, resulting in a staggering battle in ‘The Good Fight’ and culminating in a dramatic climax in Africa and the release and apotheosis of the One True Gog…

This immense being is an ancient deity from the race which spawned the New Gods and has been gestating in our Earth since his own world died uncounted millennia ago…

The colossal gleaming god immediately proclaims a new era for Mankind in ‘He Came, and Salvation With Him’: striding across Africa, ending want, cleansing the scorched earth, feeding the starving and curing the afflicted with broad waves of his gigantic hands.

The battle-hardened heroes are highly suspicious but since among those cured are Damage, Star Man, Doctor Midnite and Sand the miracles cause a split in the JSA ranks in ‘Wish Fulfillment’.

Something is not right though: beyond the haughty bombast there are inconsistencies. Atheist Mr. Terrific is apparently invisible to the wandering god and despite his hopes and prayers Citizen Steel is ignored whilst all others have their wishes granted even without asking.

For example Power Girl but not Superman are summarily dispatched “Home”…

With confrontation seemingly inevitable the beneficent Gog suddenly diverts from his path and declaims that he will eradicate all war…

‘Earth-2 chapter one: Golden Age’ and ‘Earth-2 chapter two: ‘The Hunted’ (from Justice Society of America Annual #1) starts with Power Girl materialised on the alternate Earth she believed long destroyed and reunited with all the friends she believed long dead. But then, why is she so unhappy and desperate to escape?

Before she can answer her own question another Power Girl turns up and all rationality and hope of a peaceful solution rapidly fades…

This volume ends with JSA #18’s ‘War Lords’ as, whilst preaching, peace, love and restoration, Gog inflicts outrageously cruel punishments on civil war soldiers in the Congo and to all sinners before transforming David Reid into his new almighty herald Magog…

The third and final Book (covering issues #19-22 of Justice Society of America and Justice Society of America Kingdom Come Specials: Superman, Magog and The Kingdom) begins with Power Girl trapped on Earth-2 and consulting that world’s Michael Holt (who never became Mr. Terrific like his other-dimensional counterpart) in ‘Out of Place’ whilst a universe away, Black Adam follows phenomena which indicate his dead beloved Isis is returning, and the JSA declares war on itself as one half of the team prepares to defend Gog from the other…

 

‘Earth Bound’ kicks everything into high gear as Power Girl escapes from there to here, followed by the amassed and enraged heroes of Earth-2: a shattering confrontation which re-establishes a whole new DC multiverse.

Then Justice League of America Kingdom Come Special: Superman pits “our” Man of Tomorrow against his other-dimensional doppelganger whilst revealing the secret tragedy which made the Kingdom Come Kryptonian quit in the first place, whilst Justice League of America Kingdom Come Special: Magog describes ‘The Real Me’ as Gog’s new herald re-examines his own sordid past and proves himself his own brutal, uncompromising man…

That issue also provided ‘The Secret Origin of Starman’ which discloses how a teenager from the 31st century became the key and roadmap to the myriad pathways of the multiverse.

Justice League of America Kingdom Come Special: The Kingdom opens the final conflict with Gog as the lost god reveals the staggering price he demands for his miraculous bounty and Sand uncovers its true cost whilst JSA #21 ‘Saints and Sinners’ opens the full-scale war when the heroes attack.

When Magog’s eyes are opened he deserts his malign god presaging the beginning of the end but humanity is saved in its most desperate hour in the concluding chapter ‘Thy Will Be Done’ after which, with the threat ended the lost heroes of the myriad Earths win their final rewards…

Conceived by Geoff Johns & Alex Ross to irrevocably button down the company’s new continuity, this extended tale is beguiling and impressive if you’re well-versed in the lore of the DC Universe but probably impenetrable if you’re not.

Executed by Johns with inserted segments illustrated and painted by Ross and the major proportion of the art provided by Dale Eaglesham, Fernando Pasarin, Ruy Jose, Rodney Ramos & Drew Geraci, Jerry Ordway, Prentis Rollins, Bob Wiacek, Richard Friend, Rebecca Buchman, John Stanisci, Mick Gray, Kris Justice, Norm Rapmund, Scott Kolins, Jack Purcell & Nathan Massengill, the final volume concludes with another expansive sketch section from Alex Ross and a stunning double-page portrait of the Earth-2 JSA by Jerry Ordway.

As I’ve already stated, I fear this blockbusting yarn will be all but unreadable to anyone not deeply immersed in the complex continuity of DC’s last three decades, which is a real shame as the writing is superb, the artwork incredible and the sheer scope and ambition breathtaking. However, if you love Fights ‘n’ Tights cosmic melodrama and are prepared to do a little reading around (Kingdom Come and The Kingdom are mandatory here) then you might find yourself with a whole new universe to play in…
© 2007, 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.