DC Superhero – Page 67 – Now Read This!

April 22, 2013April 21, 2013

Superman/Shazam!: First Thunder

New, Revised Review

By Judd Winick & Joshua Middleton (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0923-0

At their most impressive, superhero comics combine all the gravitas of mythology with all the sheer child-like fun and exuberance of a first rollercoaster ride. A perfect example of this is the 4-issue miniseries from November – February of 2006 collected as Superman/Shazam!: First Thunder.

One of the most venerated and loved characters in American comics, (the original) Captain Marvel was created by Bill Parker and Charles Clarence Beck as part of the wave of opportunistic creativity that followed the successful launch of Superman in 1938. Although there were many similarities in the early years, the Fawcett character moved solidly into the area of light entertainment and even comedy, whilst as the 1940s progressed the Man of Steel increasingly left whimsy behind in favour of action and drama.

At the height of his popularity the World’s Mightiest Mortal outsold the Man of Steel by a wide margin and was even published twice-monthly, but as the Furious Forties closed tastes changed, sales slowed and Fawcett saw the way the wind was blowing. They settled an infamous long-running copyright infringement case instigated by DC/National in 1940 and the Big Red Cheese vanished – as did so many superheroes – becoming little more than a fond memory for older fans.

As America lived through another superhero boom-and-bust from 1956-1968, the 1970s dawned with a shrinking industry and a wide variety of comics genres servicing a base that was increasingly founded on collector/fans and not casual or impulse buys. DC Comics needed sales and were prepared to look for them in unusual places.

After the settlement with Fawcett in 1953 they had secured the rights to Captain Marvel and Family, and even though the name itself had been taken up by Marvel Comics (via a circuitous and quirky robotic character published by Carl Burgos and M.F. Publications in 1967) decided to tap into that discriminating older, nostalgia fuelled fan-base, even as the entire entertainment world began looking back in time for fresh entertainments such as The Waltons or Little House on the Prairieâ€¦

In 1973, riding that burgeoning wave of nostalgia, DC brought back the entire beloved cast of the Captain Marvel strips: restored to their own kinder, weirder universe. To circumvent an intellectual property clash, they entitled the new comic book Shazam! (‘With One Magic Wordâ€¦’; the trigger phrase used by the Marvels to transform to and from mortal form and a word that had already entered the American language due to the success of the franchise the first time around.

You know what comics fans are like: they had been arguing for decades – and still do – over who was best (for which read â€œwho would win if they fought?â€) out of Superman or Captain Marvel. Eventually, though excised from the regular DCU and stuck on a parallel universe, the old commercial rivals met and clashed a number of times, but until the landmark Crisis on Infinite Earths subsumed all those myriad worlds into one overarching continuity, the most powerful heroes in existence maintained the status of â€œequal but separateâ€.

In that new reality everything happened in one cosmos and Captain Marvel was fully rebooted and integrated. The basics remained untouched: 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 is given the ability to transform from scrawny precocious kid to brawny (adult) hero by speaking aloud the wizard’s acronymic name â€“ invoking the powers of legendary patrons Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury.

After twenty years in this iteration, Captain Marvel’s early days were re-explored in this canny, big-hearted thriller which reveals the details of the first shared case of paragons of power.

Written by Judd Winick and illustrated by Joshua Middleton in a painterly style gloriously reminiscent of the old Fleischer Studio Superman cartoons, this magical treat is chronologically set just after Superman: Man of Steel volume 1 and The Power of Shazam! original graphic novel, and opens with ‘A Face in the Crowd’ as a new hero begins saving lives in West Coast Fawcett City, whilst a continent eastwards in Metropolis, Superman stumbles onto a museum robbery and is surprisingly beaten by thieves employing magic. The robbers belong to a cult – the Temple of Bagdan – and are on a nationwide spree to collect ancient Russian relics for some sinister master-planâ€¦

In Fawcett, Marvel destroys giant robots attacking a new solar powered construction site designed by Doctor Bruce Gordon, unexpectedly inspiring the enmity of billionaire industrialist Thaddeus Sivana. Although the owner of the Solar Center project, Sivana has huge petrochemical interests and only intended his eco-friendly enterprise as a tax-shelter. He certainly has no intention of supplying cheap, clean energy to the proles of â€œhisâ€ cityâ€¦

In a make-shift shelter, homeless kid Billy Batson talks his day over with Scoot Cooper, another hard-luck kid and the only person who knows his secret, even as Sivana deals with his hated East Coast rival Lex Luthor. The arrogant Metropolis financier has experience with super-powered meddlers and resources to combat their interference. It’s time to make a deal with a devilâ€¦

Later when the Bagdan cultists raid Fawcett’s McKeon History Museum, Marvel is waiting for them but is also overmatched by the magical Mallus Trolls employed by the thieves. At least until Superman shows upâ€¦

The team-up explodes into action in ‘Odd Couples’ with the heroes battling together, discovering their similarities and major differences even as in Metropolis Luthor sells Sivana the answer to all his superhero problems: an exemplary operative dubbed Specâ€¦

The cultists have again escaped however and are in the final stage of their plan. Having secured the mystic paraphernalia to summon consummate evil they then force disturbed kidnap victim Timothy Barnes to become host to six infernal fiends. Sabbac is the antithesis of Shazam’s agent: a supernatural super-being sponsored by devil-lords Satan, Aym, Belial, Beeelzebub, Asmodeus and Createis in the way the ancient gods and heroes empower Captain Marvel, and he is free to wreak havoc and destruction upon the world.

To make matters worse, at that very moment Bruce Gordon succumbs to his own twilight curse at the Solar Centre as a lunar eclipse allows the diabolical Spirit of Vengeance to escape from his fleshy prisonâ€¦

‘Titans’ finds Captain Marvel furious battling his dark counterpart as Superman struggles against not only the evil Eclipso but also his possessed army of innocents enslaved by the dark destroyer’s black diamond. When Sivana secretly funded the cultists he intended their tool to simply destroy Gordon and his power plant but now events have spiralled beyond anyone’s control. Even as the hated heroes inadvertently fix both of Sivana’s awry schemes, Spec is hunting through Fawcett. Soon his astounding abilities have ferreted out Billy Batson’s secret and arranged a permanent solutionâ€¦

The drama roars to a terrific conclusion in ‘Men and Boys! Gods and Thunder!’ as a paramilitary hit squad attempts to gun down the merely human Billy but only hits his best friend instead, leaving Sivana to face the wrath of a lonely, bitter 10-year old boy, amok and enraged with righteous fury in the body of one of the most powerful creatures in the universeâ€¦

In the awesome aftermath Superman decides to deal with the shell-shocked Marvel in a way that will change both of their lives foreverâ€¦

This is a big, bold, grand old fashioned comicbook romp full of big fights, dastardly villains, giant monsters, big robots and lasting camaraderie that will delight all lovers of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction, and whilst not a breakthrough classic like Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns, is an equally mythic retelling of superhero mythology which ranks amongst the very best of the genre.
Â© 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

April 20, 2013April 18, 2013

Golden Age Flash Archives Volume I

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

The innovative fledgling company that became DC published the first comicbook super-speedster and over the decades has constantly added more to its pantheon of stars. Devised, created and written by Gardner Fox and first realised by Harry Lampert, Jay Garrick debuted as the very first Monarch of Motion in Flash Comics #1 and quickly – of course – became a veritable sensation.

â€œThe Fastest Man Aliveâ€ wowed readers of anthologies like Flash Comics, Comics Cavalcade, All Star Comics and other titles – as well as solo vehicle All-Flash Quarterly – for just over a decade before changing tastes benched him and most other first-generation costumed heroes in the early1950s.

His invention as a strictly single-power superhero created a new trend in the burgeoning action-adventure funnybook marketplace, and his particular riff was specifically replicated many times at various companies where myriad Fast Furies sprang up such as Johnny Quick , Hurricane, Silver Streak, the Whizzer, Quicksilver and Snurtle McTurtle, the Terrific Whatzit amongst so many othersâ€¦

After half a decade of mostly interchangeable cops, cowboys and cosmic invaders, the concept of human speedsters and the superhero genre in general was spectacularly revived in 1956 by Julie Schwartz in Showcase #4 when police scientist Barry Allen became the second hero to run with the concept. We’ve not looked back since – and if we did it would all be a great big blurâ€¦

This oddly beguiling deluxe Archive edition collects the first year and a half – January 1940 to May 1941 – of the irrepressible Garrick’s whimsically eccentric exploits in seventeen (regrettably untitled) adventures from the anthology Flash Comics, revealing

an appealing rawness, light-hearted whimsy and scads of narrative experimentation in the tales of brilliant nerd but physical sad-sack who became a social crusader and justice-dispensing human meteor.

Following a fulsome Foreword from contemporary Flash scribe Mark Waid, the fast fictions begin with his very first appearance as ‘The Fastest Man Alive’ which speedily delivered in a mere 15 pages an origin, introduced a returning cast and a carried out a classic confrontation with a sinister gang of gangsters.

It all started some years previously when college student Garrick passed out in the lab at MidwesternUniversity, only to awaken hyper-charged and the fastest creature on Earth thanks to the â€œhard water fumesâ€ he had inhaled whilst unconscious.

After weeks recovering in hospital, the formerly-frail apprentice chemist realised the exposure had given him super-speed and endurance, so he promptly sought to impress his sort-of girlfriend Joan Williams by becoming an unstoppable football playerâ€¦

Time passed, the kids graduated and Garrick moved to New York where, appalled by the rampant crime, he decided to do something about it. The Flash operated mostly in secret until one day, whilst idly playing tennis with himself, Jay met Joan again, just as mobsters tried to kill her in a drive-by shooting.

Catching the bullets, Jay gets reacquainted with his former paramour and discovers that she is a target of criminal combine the Faultless Four, master criminals set on obtaining her father’s invention the Atomic Bombarder. In the blink of an eye Flash has crushed the sinister schemes of the gang and their diabolical leader Sieur Satan, saving Joan’s life whilst revelling in the sheer liberating fun and freedom of being gloriously unstoppableâ€¦

In his second appearance The Flash stumbled upon a showgirl’s murder and discovered that yankee mobster Boss Goll and British aristocrat Lord Donelin planned to take over the entire entertainment industry with their ruthless strong-arm tactics. The speedster was as much hindered as helped by wilful, headstrong Joan who began her own lifetime-obsession of pesky do-gooding hereâ€¦

Everett E. Hibbard began his decade long association with the Flash in issue #3 when, in a rare display of continuity, Major Williams’ Atomic Bombarder became the target of foreign spies and the elderly boffin was framed for treason, once more prompting Garrick to come to his future father-in-law’s aid, after which Jay and Joan combined to smash an off-shore gambling ring which had graduated to kidnapping and blackmail in #4.

During these early adventures, the Flash seldom donned his red, blue and yellow outfit, usually operating invisibly or undercover and playing super-speed pranks with merciless, puckish glee, but that began to change in #5, when the speedster saved an elderly artist from hit-men to foil mad collector Vandal who used murder to increase the market value of his purchases.

Flash Comics #6 found Jay and Joan foiling a scheme to dope athletes trying to qualify for the Olympics at old Alma Mater Midwestern, before #7 revealed how a stopover in Duluth led to the foiling of gambler Black Mike who was fixing motorcar races with a metal melting ray. For #8, the Vizier of Velocity tracked down seemingly corrupt contractors building shoddy, dangerous buildings only to find the graft and skulduggery went much further up the financial food chainâ€¦

In issue #9, gangsters got hold of a scientist’s invention and the Flash found himself battling a brigade of giant Gila Monsters, after which #10 depicted the speedy downfall of a cabal of politicians in the pocket of gangster Killer Kelly and stealing from the schools they administered, whilst in #11, Garrick met his first serious opponent in kidnap racketeer The Chief, whose brilliance enabled him to devise stroboscopic glasses which could track and target the invisibly fast crime-crusherâ€¦

With the threat of involvement in the â€œEuropean Warâ€ a constant subject of American headlines, Flash Comics #12 (December 1940) had the heroic human hurricane intervene to save tiny Ruritanian nation Kurtavia from ruthless invasion. His spectacular lightning war saw Garrick sinking submarines, repelling land armies and crushing airborne blitzkriegs for a fairytale happy ending here, but within a year the process would become a patriotic morale booster repeated ad infinitum in every American comicbook as the real world brutally intruded on the industry and nationâ€¦

Back in the USA for #13, Garrick went to aid old friend Jim Carter in cowboy country where the young inheritor of a silver mine was gunned down by murdering owlhoots, before Jay heading back east to crush a criminal combine sabotaging city subway construction in #14 and saving a circus from robbery, sabotage and poor attendances in #15.

Throughout all these yarns Jay had paid scant attention to preserving any kind of secret identity – a fact that would soon change – but as Hal Sharp took over the illustration with #16 (Hibbard presumably devoting his energies to the contents of the forthcoming 64-page All-Flash Quarterly #1 – to be seen in the succeeding Archive collection), Joan was kidnapped by Mexican mobsters aware of her connection to The Flash.

Rushing to her rescue Garrick was forced to battle a small army, but not only saved his girlfriend but even managed to reform bandit chief JosÃ© Salvez.

This first high-energy compilation ends with another light-hearted sporting escapade as the speedster intervenes in a gambling plot, saving a moribund baseball team from sabotage even as Jay Garrick – officially â€œalmost as fast as the Flashâ€ – becomes the Redskins’ star player to save them from lousy performancesâ€¦

With covers by Sheldon Moldoff, Dennis Neville, George Storm, Jon L. Blummer, Hibbard and Sharp, this book is a sheer delight for lovers of the early Fights ‘n’ Tights genre: amazing, exciting and funny, although certainly not to every modern fan’s taste. Of course, with such straightforward thrills on show any reader with an open mind could find his opinion changed in a flash.
Â© 1940, 1941, 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

April 14, 2013April 13, 2013

Batman Chronicles volumes 1 & 2

New, Revised Review

By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Gardner Fox, Sheldon Moldoff, Jerry Robinson, George Roussos & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0445-7 & 978-1-4012-0790-8

For anyone who’s read more than a few of these posts, my tastes should be fairly apparent, but in case you’re in any doubt, here’s a flat-out confession: I’m that shabby, crazy old geezer muttering at the bus stop about how things were better before, and all new things are crap and not the same andâ€¦

You get the picture. Now, ignore all that. It’s true but not relevant.

Batman Chronicles is one of many formats re-presenting the earliest Batman stories. The series does so in original, chronological order, foregoing glossy and expensive high-definition paper and reproduction techniques in favour of newsprint-like paper, and the same flat, bright-yet-muted colour palette which graced the originals.

There’s no fuss, fiddle or Foreword, and the book steams straight into the meat of the matter with Volume 1 re-presenting the stunning covers and all Dark Knight material from Detective Comics #27 through #38, (which introduced Robin, The Boy Wonder), and then the landmark Batman #1 covering May 1939-April 1940.

Detective Comics #27 introduced â€œThe Bat-Manâ€ and playboy/dilettante criminologist in ‘The Case of the Chemical Syndicate’ by Bob Kane & collaborator Bill Finger, wherein a cabal of sinister industrialists were successively murdered until an eerie human bat intruded on Police Commissioner Gordon‘s stalled investigation and ruthlessly dealt with the hidden killer.

Issue #28 saw the fugitive vigilante return to crush ‘Frenchy Blake’s Jewel Gang’ before encountering his very first psychopathic killer. ‘The Batman Meets Doctor Death’ was a deadly duel of wits with deranged, greedy General Practitioner Karl Hellfern and his assorted instruments of murderâ€¦

Confident of their new character’s potential, Kane & Finger revived the mad medic for the very next instalment and ‘The Return of Doctor Death’, before Gardner Fox scripted a 2-part shocker which introduced the first bat-plane, Bruce’s girlfriend Julie Madison and undead horror The Monk for an expansive spooky saga ‘Batman Versus The Vampire‘. The gripping yarn then concluded in an epic chase across Eastern Europe and a spectacular climax in a monster-filled castle in issue #32.

Detective Comics #33 featured ‘The Batman Wars Against the Dirigible of Doom’: a blockbusting disaster thriller which just casually slipped in the secret origin of the Gotham Guardian, as prelude to the air-pirate action, after which Euro-trash dastard Duc D’Orterre found his uncanny science and unsavoury appetites no match for the mighty Batman in ‘Peril in Paris’.

Scripter Bill Finger returned in issue #35, pitting the Cowled Crusader against crazed cultists murdering everyone who had seen their sacred jewel in ‘The Case of the Ruby Idol’, although the many deaths were caused by a far more prosaic villainy, after which grotesque criminal genius ‘Professor Hugo Strange’ (inked by new kid Jerry Robinson) debuted with his murderous man-made fog and lightning machine in #36, and all-pervasive ‘The Spies’ ultimately proved no match for the vengeful masked Manhunter in #37.

Detective Comics #38 (April 1940) changed the landscape of comicbooks forever with the introduction of ‘Robin, The Boy Wonder’: child trapeze artist Dick Grayson whose parents were murdered before his eyes and who joined Batman in a lifelong quest for justice, by bringing to justice mobster Boss Zuccoâ€¦

After the Flying Grayson‘s killers were captured, Batman #1 (Spring 1940) opened proceedings with a recycled origin culled from portions of Detective Comics #33 and 34. ‘The Legend of the Batman – Who He Is and How He Came to Be!’ by Fox, Kane & Moldoff offered in two perfect pages what is still the best ever origin of the character, after which ‘The Joker’ (Finger, Kane & Robinson – who produced all the remaining tales in this astonishing premiere issue) introduced the greatest villain in DC’s entire rogues’ gallery via a stunning tale of extortion and wilful wanton murder.

‘Professor Hugo Strange and the Monsters’ followed as the old adversary returned with laboratory-grown hyperthyroid horrors to rampage through the terrified city, and ‘The Cat’ – who later added the suffix ‘Woman’ to her name to avoid any possible doubt or confusion – plied her felonious trade of jewel theft aboard the wrong cruise-liner and fell foul for the first time of the dashing Dynamic Duo.

The initial issue and the first Chronicles edition ended with the ‘The Joker Returns’ as the sinister clown broke jail and resumed his terrifying campaign of murder for fun and profit before â€œdyingâ€ in mortal combat with the Gotham Guardian.

Volume 2 featured more masterpieces from the dawn of comic-book time, re-presenting Detective Comics #39 through to #45, a story from New York World’s Fair Comics 1940, and Batman #2-3, covering May to November 1940 in original publishing order. Following a superb pin-up of the Dynamic Duo by Kane, the tense suspense and all-out action opens with The Horde of the Green Dragonâ€ – oriental Tong killers in Chinatown – from Detective #39 by Finger, Kane & Robinson, before ‘Beware of Clayface!’ found the Dynamic Duo solving a string of murders on a film set which almost saw Julie Madison become the latest victim of a monstrous movie maniacâ€¦

Batman and Robin solved the baffling mystery of a kidnapped boy in Detective #41’s ‘A Master Murderer’ before enjoying their second solo outing in four comics classics from Batman #2 (Summer 1940).

It all began with ‘Joker Meets Cat-Woman‘ (by Finger, Kane, Robinson & extremely impressive new find George Roussos) wherein svelte thief, homicidal jester and a crime syndicate all tussled for the same treasure with the Caped Crusaders caught in the middle.

‘Wolf, the Crime Master’ was a fascinating take on the classic Jekyll and Hyde tragedy after which an insidiousÂ and ingenious murder-mystery ensued in ‘The Case of the Clubfoot Murderers’ before Batman and Robin faced uncanny savages and ruthless showbiz promoters in a poignant monster story ‘The Case of the Missing Link’.

‘Batman and Robin Visit the New York World’s Fair’ from New York World’s Fair Comics which vintage wonderment – by Finger, Kane & Roussos – then followed the vacationing Dynamic Duo as they tracked down a maniac mastermind with a metal-dissolving ray, after which Detective Comics #42 again found the heroes ending another murder maniac’s rampage in ‘The Case of the Prophetic Pictures!’ before clashing with a corrupt mayor in #43’s ‘The Case of the City of Terror!’

An unparallelled hit, the stories perforce expanded their parameters in #44 with the dreamy fantasy of giants and goblins ‘The Land Behind the Light!’, after which Batman #3 (Fall 1940) saw Finger, Kane, Robinson & Roussos rise to even greater heights, beginning with ‘The Strange Case of the Diabolical Puppet Master’: an eerie episode of uncanny mesmerism and infamous espionageâ€¦

Next up was a grisly scheme wherein innocent citizens were mysteriously transformed into specimens of horror and artworks destroyed by the spiteful commands of ‘The Ugliest Man in the World’ before ‘The Crime School For Boys!!’ saw Robin infiltrate a gang who had a cruel and cunning recruitment plan for dead-end kidsâ€¦

‘The Batman vs. The Cat-Woman’ found the larcenous burglar in well over her head when she stole for – and from – the wrong people, and the issue also included a magical Special Feature as ‘The Batman Says’ presented an illustrated prose Law & Order pep-talk crafted by Whitney Ellsworth and Robinson.

This second terrific tome then concludes with a magnificent and horrific Joker jape from Detective Comics #45 with ‘The Case of the Laughing Death’ wherein the Harlequin of Hate devised a campaign of macabre murder against everyone who had defied or offended himâ€¦

Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson and their compatriots created an iconography which carried the Batman feature well beyond its allotted life-span until later creators could re-invigorate it. They added a new dimension to children’s readingâ€¦ and their work is still captivatingly accessible.

Moreover, these early stories set the standard for comic superheroes. Whatever you like now, you owe it to these stories. Superman gave us the idea, but writers like Finger and Fox refined and defined the meta-structure of the costumed crime-fighter. Where the Man of Steel was as much Social Force and wish fulfilment as hero, Batman and Robin did what we ordinary mortals wanted to do. They taught bad people the lesson they deserved.

These are tales of elemental power and joyful exuberance, brimming with deep mood and addictive action. Comic book heroics simply don’t come any better.

The history of the American comicbook industry in almost every major aspect stems from the raw, vital and still powerfully compelling tales of twin icons published by DC/National Comics: Superman and Batman. It’s only fair and fitting that both those characters are still going strong and that their earliest adventures can be relived in chronological order in a variety of formats from relatively economical newsprint paperbacks to stunning, deluxe hardcover commemorative Archive editions.

One final thing: I’m still that guy in paragraph one, right? I’ve read these stories many, many times, in every format imaginable, and I’d like to thank whoever decided that they should also be available in as close a facsimile to the originals as we can get these days.

More than anything else, this serves to perfectly recapture the mood and impact of that revolutionary masked avenger and, of course, delights my heavily concealed inner child no end.
Â© 1939, 1940, 2005 DC Comics and Â© 1940, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

April 13, 2013April 12, 2013

Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity

New, Revised Review

By Matt Wagner with Dave Stewart & Sean Konot (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0187-6 (TPB)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 978-1-4012-0309-2 (HC)

Comics fans – especially aficionados of the superhero genre – have an innate appreciation and love of mythologizing. It lures like a siren, hits like a titan and dictates our lives and fate like Ragnarok arrived. We just can’t help ourselves…

DC comics have been compiling just such a feast of legend since the very creation of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, slowly interweaving these undying fantasy favourites into a rich tapestry of perfect adventure which has taken on a life of its own, inextricably entrenched in the dream-lives of generations of children and the adults they became.

However it was only relatively recently that DC tacitly acknowledged or even realised the imaginative treasure-trove they were sitting on. However, the publishers were quick to respond when they did wise-up, cannily building on the epic, cross-generational appeal of the elder statesman appeal of their stars. Amongst the most impressive of the efforts is this tale, originally released as a three-part (of course) Prestige Format miniseries in 2003.

Auteur Matt Wagner – who has an uncanny gift for re-imagining and updating the raw power of Golden Age classics (as seen in Batman and the Mad Monk or Sandman Mystery Theatre for example) – was tapped to reveal a new, canonical first meeting of the all-conquering triumvirate and he did not disappointâ€¦

Following an effusive Introduction from novelist and A-List comics-scribe Brad Meltzer, the story opens in the Art Deco Metropolis as oafish Clark Kent‘s morning is ruined by an assassin who shoots a commuter train driver and brings the morning rush-hour to a screeching, crashing, cataclysmic haltâ€¦

It soon becomes clear that the subsequent near-disaster has been devised simply to distract and properly assess the mighty Man of Steel. That night a daring raid on S.T.A.R. Labs is ruthlessly foiled by a silent, caped visitor to the â€œCity of Tomorrowâ€ but Superman knows nothing about it until it’s all over.

â€¦And at the bottom of the world more mysterious masked minions at last liberate Superman’s warped and retarded clonal antithesis Bizarro from its icy imprisonment deep beneath the Antarctic mantleâ€¦

Another promising day is spoiled for the reporter by a visit from Bruce Wayne, a reluctant occasional ally, and equally obnoxious whether in his playboy charade or as his true self: the dread Batman.

The visit is a courtesy call between distant colleagues. A terrorist group called â€œThe Purgeâ€ would have obtained samples of Kryptonite if the Dark Knight hadn’t intervened, but now they plan to raid Lex Luthor’s citadel and professional courtesy demanded that Superman be fully apprisedâ€¦

Meanwhile in a most secret hideaway a strangely formidable young girl named Diana auditions for the Most Dangerous Man on Earth: an overlord in need of a perfect warrior to lead his massed forcesâ€¦

Ra’s Al Ghul always gets what he wants and after the charismatic Demon’s Head charms Bizarro with honeyed words of friendship, the freakish doppelganger is only too happy to bring him a present.

Tragically, Russian nuclear submarines are a bit tricky to handle and the super-simpleton manages to drop one of the atomic missiles en route. The lost nuke explodes far from any regular shipping lines, however. Apart from fish, the only creatures affected are a race of immortal women warriors, invisible to mortal eyes and forgotten by Man’s World for millenniaâ€¦

As mysterious mercenary Diana prepares to carry out The Demon’s orders, in Metropolis another Amazon tracks down Superman and politely enquires why he dropped an A-Bomb on her home. Eschewing rash accusations or pointless fisticuffs they soon come to realise the true nature of the horrific event and unite to track the stolen sub to the Sahara, promptly falling into an ambush by Al Ghul’s fanatical forces.

The guns, knives, nerve gas and suicide bombers prove no problem but the booby-trapped nuke is another matter entirelyâ€¦

Barely surviving the detonation, Man of Steel and Princess of Power head for GothamCity to seek the grudging assistance of The Demon’s most implacable foe, but the Dark Knight is already on the case, having just unsuccessfully engaged with Al Ghul’s Amazonian field commander.

Reluctant to admit a need for allies and inherently suspicious of bright and shiny super-people chronically unable to make hard decisions or get their hands dirty, Batman nevertheless enters into a tenuous alliance with the dilettante champions to stop the insane plans of an immortal madman determined to wipe out modern civilisation and cleanse the Earth of toxic humanityâ€¦

Hard-hitting, epic and spectacular, this Wagnerian (you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to use that) saga superbly illustrates the vast gulfs between the so-different heroes and how they nevertheless mesh to form the perfect team. Strongly character-driven throughout, the protracted struggle to defeat Al Ghul and his infamous allies offers tension, humour, mystery and powerful plot-twists galore, all wrapped up in a bombastic feast of frenzied action and supplemented with savvy cameos and guest shots by other, albeit lesser, keystones ofÂ the DCU.

Stunningly illustrated by Wagner, lavishly coloured by Dave Stewart and subtly lettered by Sean Konot, the book also includes a glorious cover gallery and a beautiful Sketchbook section featuring many of the artist’s preliminary drawings and ideas.

When producing this type of tale there’s always the dilemma of whether to trade on current continuity or to deconstruct and attain a more grandiose, mythic feel, but part-time and casual readers need not worry. Wagner has hewn to the evergreen fundamentals to craft a gratifyingly â€œBigâ€ story which still manages to reveal more about the individual stars involved than a year’s worth of periodical publishing.

Trinity is primal adventure: accessible, exciting and rewarding, with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman as they should always be but so seldom are. Team ups and retrofits should all be this good.
Â© 2003, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

April 7, 2013April 5, 2013

Golden Age Hawkman Archives volume I

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

Although perhaps one of DC’s most long-lived and certainly their most visually iconic character, the various iterations of Hawkman have always struggled to find enough of an audience to sustain a solo title. From his beginnings as one of the assorted B-features in Flash Comics (the others being Cliff Cornwall, The King, The Whip and Johnny Thunder, all adding lustre to the soaraway success of the eponymous speedster at the helm of the comicbook), Winged Wonder Carter Hall has struggled through assorted engaging, exciting but always short-lived reconfigurations.

Over decades from ancient hero to re-imagined alien space-cop and post-Crisis on Infinite Earths freedom fighter (both named Katar Hol – see Showcase presents Hawkman volumes 1-2 and Hawkworld respectively) or the seemingly desperate but highly readable bundling together of all previous iterations into the reincarnating immortal berserker-warrior of today, the Pinioned Paladin has performed exemplary service without ever really making it to the big time.

Where’s a big-time movie producer/fan when you need one?

Created by Gardner Fox and Dennis Neville, Hawkman premiered in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940) and stayed there, growing in quality and prestige until the title died, with the most celebrated artists to have drawn the Winged Wonder being Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Kubert, whilst a young Robert Kanigher was justly proud of his later run as writer.

Together with his partner Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman, the gladiatorial mystery-man countered fantastic arcane threats and battled modern crime and tyranny with weapons of the past for over a decade before vanishing with the bulk of costumed heroes as the 1950s began.

His last appearance was in All Star Comics #57 (1951) as leader of the Justice Society of America, but the husband-and-wife hellions were revived and re-imagined nine years later as Katar Hol and Shayera Thal of planet Thanagar by Julie Schwartz’s crack creative team Gardner Fox and Joe Kubert – a space-age interpretation which even survived 1985’s winnowing Crisis on Infinite Earths. Their long career, numerous revamps and perpetual retcons ended during the 1994 Zero Hour crisis, but they’ve reincarnated and returned a couple of times since then tooâ€¦

However, despite being amongst DC’s most popular and picturesque strips over the years, Hawkman (and Hawkwoman) always struggled to find sufficient audience to sustain their numerous solo titles.

This spectacular deluxe hardcover re-presentation of the formative years (collecting appearances from Flash Comics #1-22, January 1940 – October 1941) begins with a fond reminiscence by artist Moldoff in the ‘Foreword’ before the magic begins as it should with ‘The Origin of Hawkman’ by Fox & Neville.

In his first epochal episode Carter Hall is a playboy scientific tinkerer and part-time archaeologist with a penchant for collecting old, rare weapons, whose dormant memory is unlocked by an ancient crystal dagger purchased for his collection. Through dreams the dilettante realises that once he had been Prince Khufu of ancient Egypt, murdered with his lover Shiera by Anubis’ High Priest Hath-Set.

Moreover, with his newly returned memories Hall knows that the eternal struggle is primed to play out once moreâ€¦

As if pre-destined, he bumps into the equally reincarnated and remembering Shiera Sanders just a terrifying electrical menace turns New York’s Subway into a killing field and they realised the deadly Doctor Hastor is their ancient nemesis reborn. Fashioning an outlandish uniform and anti-gravity harness of mystic Egyptian â€œNinth Metalâ€, Hall hunts the deranged electrical scientist to his lair in time to save the mesmerised Shiera from a second death by sacrifice and mercilessly ends the cycle â€“ at least for nowâ€¦

In Flash #2, ‘The Globe Conquerors’ concentrated on fantastic science as Hall and Shiera tackled a modern Alexander the Great who built a gravity-altering machine in his ruthless quest to conquer the world, whilst ‘The Secret of Dick Blendon’ in #3 saw â€œThe Hawk-Manâ€ expose a wicked scheme by insidious slavers turning brilliant men into zombies for profit to gather riches and find the secret of eternal life.

Sheldon Moldoff debuted as artist in Flash Comics #4 (April 1940), illustrating a splendidly barbarous thriller wherein the Winged Warrior clashed with ‘The Thought Terror’, a sinister mesmerist enslaving the city’s wealthy citizens, whilst ‘The Kidnapping of Ione Craig’ in #5 pitted the crime-fighting phenomenon against Asiatic cultists led by legendary assassin Hassan Ibn Saddah, determined to stop a pretty missionary and secret agent from investigating distant Araby.

Moldoff has received overly unfair criticism over the years for his frequent, copious but stylishly artistic swipes from newspaper strips by master craftsmen Alex Raymond and Hal Foster in his work of this period, but one look at the stunning results here as the feature took a quantum leap in visual quality should silence those quibblers for goodâ€¦

Maintaining the use of exotic locales, the story extended in issue #6 as Hall and Ione struggled to cross burning Saharan sands to the African coast before defeating Arab slavers and their deadly ‘Sheba, Queen of the Desert’â€¦

Issue #7 further explored the mystical and supernatural underpinnings of the strip which easily lent themselves to spooky tales of quasi-horror and barbaric intensity. â€œThe Eerie Unknownâ€ and deluded dabblers in darkness were much-used elements in Hawkman sagas, as seen in ‘Czar, the Unkillable Man’ wherein the Avian Avenger, back in America and reunited with Shiera, clashed with a merciless golem animated by a crazed sculptor determined to get rich at any cost.

Flash Comics #8 featured another deranged technologist as ‘The Sunspot Wizard’ Professor Kitzoff altered the pattern and frequency of the solar blemishes and created riot, madness and chaos on Earth until the Winged Wonder intervened, whilst in ‘The Creatures from the Canyon’ Hawkman foiled aquatic invaders living in the deeps 5,000 feet below Manhattan Island who decided to expand their ancient empire upwardsâ€¦

Bidding for an old firearm at an auction in #10, Hall was inexorably drawn into a murder-mystery and the hunt for a lost Colorado goldmine in ‘Adventures of the Spanish Blunderers’, before ‘Trouble in Suburbia’ manifested after a hit-and-run accident drew plucky Shiera into a corrupt and convoluted property-scam. Boyfriend Carter Hall was quite prepared to stand back and let her deal with the villains – even if Hawkman did exert a little surreptitious brawn to close the caseâ€¦

Another murderous scam involved an old society chum as ‘The Heart Patient’ revealed how a pretty gold-digger and rogue doctor serially poisoned healthy young men and fleeced them for a cure, whilst in #13 ‘Satana, the Tiger Girl’ preyed on admirers for far more sinister reasons, pitting Hawkman and Shiera against scientifically hybridised killer-cats, after which ‘The Awesome Alligator’ saw an elder god return to Earth to inspire and equip a madman in a plot to conquer America with ancient secrets and futuristic super-weapons. None of those incredible threats could withstand cold fury and a well-wielded mace, howeverâ€¦

At this time the Pinioned Paladin usually dispatched foes of humanity with icy aplomb and single-minded ruthlessness, and such supernatural thrillers as #15’s ‘The Hand’ gave Fox & Moldoff ample scope to display the reincarnated warrior’s savage efficiency when he tracked down a sentient severed fist which stole and slaughtered at its inventive master’s command, whilst ‘The Graydon Expedition’ in #16 reinforced the hero’s crusading credentials when Shiera went missing in Mongolia, and the Winged Wonder undertook a one-man invasion of a fabulous lost kingdom to save her.

In Flash Comics #17, ‘Murder at the Opera’ put the bold birdman on the trail of an arcane Golden Mummy Sect with a perilously prosaic origin and agenda, whilst #18 found him investigating skulduggery in the Yukon when Shiera rushed north to offer aid to starving miners during ‘The Gold Rush of ’41’.

Evidently capable of triumphing in any environment or milieu, Hawkman next thwarted deranged physicist Pratt Palmer in #19, when that arrogant savant attempted to become the overlord of crime using his deadly ‘Cold Light’. ‘The Mad Bomber’ in #20 then found the Avian Ace allied with a racketeer to stop mad scientist Sathan destroying their city with remote-controlled aerial torpedoes, after which Hawkman was forced to end the tragically lethal rampage of an alien foundling raised by a callous rival for Shiera’s affections in ‘Menace from Space’â€¦

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

Already in All Star Comics #5 (July 1941) she had first worn wings and a costume of her own, and in Flash Comics #24 (December 1941) she would at last become an equal partner in peril and fully-fledged heroine: Hawkgirlâ€¦ but sadly that’s a tale for another volumeâ€¦

Exotic, engaging and fantastically inviting, these Golden Age adventures are a true high-point of the era and still offer astonishing thrills and chills. When all’s said and done it’s all about the heady rush of nostalgia: trying to recapture that magical full-sensorium burst of smell and feel and imagination-overload that finds kids at a perfect moment and provokes something visual and conceptual that almost literally blows the mindâ€¦

We re-read stories hoping to rekindle that instantly addictive buzz and constantly seek out new comics desperately hoping to recapture that pure, halcyon burst, and these lost mini-epics are phenomenally imbued with everything fans need to make that breathtaking moment happenâ€¦
Â© 1940, 1941, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

March 24, 2013March 23, 2013

Golden Age Sandman Archives volume 1

Sandman Arc front
By Bert Christman, Gardner F. Fox, Creig Flessel, Chad Grothkopf, Ogden Whitney & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0155-5

Probably created by and originally illustrated and scripted by multi-talented all-rounder Bert Christman (with the assistance of young scripting star Gardner Fox), The Sandman premiered in either Adventure Comics #40 July 1939 (two months after Batman debuted in Detective Comics #27) or two weeks earlier in New York World’s Fair Comics 1939, depending on which distribution records you choose to believe.

Intriguingly, the Dark Knight didn’t make the cut for the legendary commemorative comicbook and only appeared in New York World’s Fair Comics #2 in Summer 1940â€¦

Head utterly obscured by a gas-mask and slouch hat; caped, business-suited millionaire adventurer Wesley Dodds was cut from the radio drama and pulp fiction mystery-man mould that had made The Shadow, Green Hornet, The Lone Ranger, Phantom Detective, Black Bat, Spider, Avenger and so many more household names big hits of early mass-entertainment and periodical publication.

Wielding a sleeping-gas gun and haunting the night to hunt a host of killers, crooks and spies, he was eventually joined and accompanied by plucky paramour Dian Belmont, before gradually losing the readers’ interest and slipping from cover-spot to last feature in Adventure Comics, just as the shadowy, morally ambiguous avengers he emulated slipped from popularity in favour of more flamboyant and true-blue fictional fare.

This splendidly sturdy, moodily atmospheric Archive edition re-presents the landmark early appearances from both New York World’s Fair Comics, (1939 and 1940) and the rip-roaring exploits from Adventure Comics #40-59 – July 1939-February 1941 – a period when Detective Comics Incorporated frantically sought to follow up Superman and Batman with the Next Big Thing in Comicbooksâ€¦

Following an erudite appreciation from historian and comics all-star Jim Amash, the adventure begins here with the fast-paced thriller from the groundbreaking, pioneering comics premium New York World’s Fair Comics #1 as Christman & Fox introduced ‘Sandman at the World’s Fair’â€¦

In those long-lost days, origins and back story were not nearly as important as action and spectacle so we’re quickly plunged into a fast-paced yarn as wealthy, rugged playboy scientist Dodds visits the global festival with the plans for a new ray-gun and encounters spies and a traitor within his own company. Already active as The Sandman -and sought by the cops for it – the vigilante quickly and beguilingly tracked down and dealt with the pre-war enemies of Americaâ€¦

Over in Adventure Comics #40, at about the same time, the cover-featured crusader was on hand to save kidnapped actress Vivian Dale when ‘The Tarantula Strikes’ (Christman & Fox) in a rousing romp reminiscent of the High Society hi-jinks of movie marvels the Saint, Falcon or Lone Wolf; prowling allies and rooftops, breaking into criminals’ lairs, rifling safes and dealing as much death as dream gas. He also had a unique calling card: sprinkled sand to proclaim and terrify wherever he had silently been and goneâ€¦

Christman wrote and drew many of the early thrillers such as #41’s ‘On the Waterfront’ wherein plucky reporter Janice Blue inadvertently stumbled into a dockside narcotics ring just as murderous seadog Captain Wing made a fateful takeover bid. Luckily for her the stealthy Sandman was already on the caseâ€¦

Adventure #42 highlighted Christman’s love of aviation in ‘The Three Sandmen’ as Wes Dodds met up with a couple of his old Navy Flying Corps buddies to solve a string of murders. Somebody was rubbing out all the members of the old squadronâ€¦

Allen Bert Christman first came to public attention by following the near-mythic Noel Sickles on seminal newspaper strip Scorchy Smith. A dedicated patriot and flyer, Christman entered the Naval Air School in 1940 and joined Claire Lee Chennault’s 1st American Volunteer Group, known as the legendary fighter squadron the Flying Tigers.

These volunteers began fighting the Japanese in China long before America officially entered WWII on December 8^th 1941, and Christman – officially designated a Colonel in the Chinese Air Force – used his artistic talents to personalise and decorate many of theÂ planes in his Flight.Â He was shot down and died in horrific circumstances on January 23^rd 1942.

Issue #43 featured his last official story as Dodds went on a South Seas flying vacation and became embroiled in an ‘Island Uprising’, spectacularly saving embattled white pearl hunters from natives enraged to fury by latter-day pirate Red Hatchâ€¦

In Adventure #44 (November 1939), Fox & Creig Flessel stepped into the breach left by Christman as ‘The Sandman Meets the Face’ found the playboy back in civilisation and aiding a down-and-out old friend against a mercurial disguise artist and mob boss terrorising the city. This splendid blood-&-thunder caper also saw the feature’s page count rise from six to ten as the Sandman finally found his lurking, moody metierâ€¦

‘The Golden Gusher’ (#45 by Fox & Flessel) was nightclub singer Gloria Gordon, threatened with kidnap or worse until the Master of Sleep intervened, whilst #46 ‘The Sandman Meets with Murder’ saw rising talent Ogden Whitney step into the artistic hot seat when the slaying of an old Dodds pal led into a deliciously convoluted murder-mystery involving beautiful twins, counterfeiting and a macabre cross-dressing killerâ€¦

A huge step in continuity occurred in #47 as District Attorney Belmont agreed to an unofficial truce with the Sandman following the assassination of a prominent banker. Simultaneously, Wesley Dodds caught a wily thief trying to crack his safe and became unwilling partner to the ‘Lady in Evening Clothes’ (Fox & Whitney) after she discovered his secret identity.

A celebrated cat-burglar, the sophisticated she-devil was plagued by not knowing who her parents were but happily went straight(ish) in return for Dodd’s pledge to help herâ€¦

Revealed as long-lost Dian Belmont she became a regular cast addition in #48 as ‘Death to the D.A.’ found her newly-restored father under threat from gangsters and far less obvious killers on a palatial island retreat after which ‘Common Cold – Uncommon Crime’ (#49 by Fox, Flessel & perhaps Chad Grothkopf on inks) found the mystery-man tracking killers who were eradicating the scientists who refused to hand over their cure for one of our most unforgiving ailments.

With a year gone by and global war looming, the â€œWorld of Tomorrowâ€ exhibition was slowly closing but there was still time for New York World’s Fair Comics #2, where this time ‘Sandman Goes to the World’s Fair’ (by Fox & Grothkopf on pencils and inks) delivered a blistering crime caper wherein Wesley and Dian got stuck babysitting her maiden Aunt Agatha around the fair and were targeted by ambitious but exceedingly unwise kidnapper Slugger Sladeâ€¦

In Adventure Comics #50 ‘Tuffy and Limpy’s Revenge Plot’, by Fox & Flessel, covered similar ground as a murderous campaign of apparently unrelated deaths eventually pointed to another scheme to get rid of the dauntless DA and led Sandman and Dian into a blockbusting battle against ruthless rogues, whilst in #51 (June 1940, by Fox & Flessel and previously reprinted elsewhere as ‘The Pawn Broker’) ‘The Van Leew Emeralds’ provided a fascinating detective mystery romp for the romantically inclined crimebusters to solve in fine style and double-quick timeâ€¦

A burglary at the Belmont residence only netted a pair of gloves in #52’s ‘Wanted! Dead or Alive’ but inexorably led to a perplexing scavenger hunt with sinister overtones and a deadly pay-off when scandalous Claudia Norgan tried to frame her best gal-pal Dian for the Amber Apple Gang‘s crimes, after which in #53 ‘The Loan Sharks’ unwisely aroused the ire of the dynamic dream-maker when they graduated from simple leg-breaking to murder to enforce their demands. They almost ended the Sandman too before he finally got the better of themâ€¦

In issue #54 ‘The Case of the Kidnapped Heiress’ found Wes and Dian witnesses to a bold snatch-and-grab but their frenzied pursuit only resulted in both the DA’s daughter and millionairess Nana Martin being abducted together. Fury-filled and frantic, the Sandman tracked down the ransoming rogues only to find himself in the unexpected role of Cupid.

When the legendary jewel ‘The Star of Singapore’ was stolen in #55, the trail led to a ever increasing spiral of death and destruction until the Man of Dreams finally recovered it, whilst in the next issue ‘The Crook Who Knew the Sandman’s Identity’ (Fox, Flessel & Grothkopf) learned to his eternal regret that it just wasn’t so, thanks to some delightfully imaginative improvisation from Dianâ€¦

The mystery and general skulduggery gave way to world-threatening science fiction in #57 when the Sandman battled a mad scientist who had devised a deadly atom-smasher for blackmail and ‘To Hammer the Earth’, after which some macabre murders pointed the dream-team towards spies and killers profiting from ‘Orchids of Doom’, before this stylish selection of outrÃ© crime-thrillers concludes with Adventure #59’s ‘The Story of the Flaming Ruby’ as a cursed gem enabled a hypnotic horror to turn honest men into thieves and Dian into a mindless assassinâ€¦

Possessing a certain indefinable style and charm but definitely dwindling pizzazz, the feature was on the verge of being dropped when The Sandman abruptly switched to a skin-tight yellow-and-purple costume – complete with billowing cape for two issues – and gained a boy-sidekick, Sandy the Golden Boy (in Adventure Comics #69, December 1941, courtesy of Mort Weisinger & Paul Norris), presumably to emulate the overwhelmingly successful Batman and Captain America models currently reaping such big dividends. It didn’t help much at first but when Joe Simon & Jack Kirby came aboard with #72 that all spectacularly changed.

A semi-supernatural element and fascination with the world of dreams (revisited by S&K a decade later in their short-lived experimental suspense series The Strange World of Your Dreams) added a moody conceptual punch to equal the kinetic fury of their art, as Sandman and Sandy became literally the stuff of nightmares to the bizarre bandits and murderous mugs they stalked. Those spectacular but decidedly different adventures can be found in The Sandman by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby if you dareâ€¦

With covers by Sheldon Mayer, Jack Burnley and Flessel, these raw, wild and excessively engaging comics capers are actually some of the best but most neglected thrillers of the halcyon Golden Age. Modern tastes too have moved on and these yarns are probably far more in tune with contemporary mores, making this a truly unmissable treat for fans of mystery, murder and stylish intrigueâ€¦
Â© 1939, 1940, 1941, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

March 22, 2013March 15, 2013

Batman and Robin volume 1: Batman Reborn

By Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Philip Tan & Jonathan Glapion (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-213-0

The Final Crisis cost Earth dearly, but only the superheroic community really understood the scale of the true loss. In the process of defeating invading evil god Darkseid, the mighty Batman had been lost.

In the aftermath of that epochal loss, a secret, sustained and epic Battle for the Cowl ensued amongst the fallen hero’s closest allies and disciples before eventually Dick Grayson succeeded his lost mentor.

Carrying on the tradition of the Dark Knight, the new Batman took it upon himself to complete the education of Bruce Wayne‘s League of Assassins-trained son Damian, continuing the rehabilitation with the headstrong and potentially lethal lad as the latest iteration of Robin, the Boy Wonderâ€¦

In 2009, the post-Crisis Dynamic Duo debuted in new series Batman & Robin; core title of a refreshed and edgy franchise with scripter Grant Morrison joined by preferred partner and collaborator Frank Quitely. This collected volume gathers the first six issues and hits the ground running in a spectacular 3-part thriller aptly entitled ‘Batman Reborn’â€¦

It all begins with ‘Domino Effect’ as yet another baroque and murderously bizarre villain invades the benighted city. However the recklessly manic Mr. Toad‘s spectacular rise and fall merely presages the arrival of a much more macabre gang of criminals and their mad master Professor Pygâ€¦

At home in a new Bat Bunker, the Caped Crusaders are undergoing a difficult period of adjustment with the obnoxious Damian constantly testing his unwanted senior partner at every opportunity, but their relationship takes a solid upswing once they start patrolling Gotham in the new flying Batmobileâ€¦

Whilst Pyg is happily mutilating one of his less trustworthy flunkies and turning the fool’s daughter Sasha into his latest slave by burning one of his slave masks onto her face, more of his myriad vassals are raiding Police Headquarters to spring Toad in a bravura display of ruthless abandon. Despite Batman and Robin being on hand, the odiously outrageous freaks comprising ‘The Circus of Strange’ are almost too much for the heroes to handleâ€¦

Once the battle is over, however, Robin again overreacts and sullenly storms off, falling into a subtle trap set by Pygâ€¦

With Batman hot on his trail, Robin faces a dire crisis of conscience and confidence when, in the blistering finale ‘Mommy Made of Nails’, he and the Dark Knight save Sasha from Pyg only to lose her to someone far worseâ€¦

Philip Tan & Jonathan Glapion provided the art for the second story-arc ‘Revenge of the Red Hood’ as the most dangerous contender for Bruce Wayne’s legacy returned with a bloody Plan Bâ€¦

Another orphan taken in by Batman, Jason Todd once served valiantly as the second Boy Wonder, but his many psychological problems remained hidden and unresolved even after he was murdered by the Joker.

Subsequently resurrected by one of the frequent Cosmic Upheavals that plague the DC Universe (Infinite Crisis if you’re interested, but it all happened off-camera and post hocâ€¦), the boy took on the identity of the Red Hood and began cleaning up Gotham his way: using Batman’s training and the merciless tactics of the villains he remorselessly stalked.

When the role of Dark Knight became vacant Todd tried to make the mask and the mission his own, but was resoundingly defeated by Grayson.

Now, still determined to deliver the heroes Gotham City always deserved, he recruits the traumatised Sasha, dragging her from hospital to become his sidekick and ‘Red Right Hand’: beginning a lethal campaign against small-time creeps like Lightning Bug before graduating to the city’s super-criminal aristocracy such as Black Mask, Two-Face and the Penguinâ€¦ Â

Even the arrival and assistance of enigmatic British masked sleuth Oberon Sexton AKA Gravedigger isn’t enough to staunch the terror, and Batman and Robin are compelled to play catch-up as the homicidal vigilantes cut a brutal, bloody swathe through the streets. Both teams are blithely unaware of even greater chaos in store as global crimelord El Penitente, fed up with caped clowns interfering with his business, dispatches the world’s most infallible punisher to deal with the mess. The Eater of Faces is comingâ€¦

The carnage continues until Red Hood and ‘Scarlet’ crash a crime conference and come face to face with the CapeCrimebusters, resulting in a catastrophic but inconclusive clash of arms and ideology. The war comes to an unexpected end when Batman and Robin are soundly defeated and captured by their dark counterparts.

Meanwhile a few miles away a plane lands in Gotham, filled with flayed corpses gorily announcing that ‘Flamingo is Here!’

Before long the ultimate assassin has tracked the Hood and his homely help to their hideout, easily overpowering and humiliating them, but the deadly debacle has given the Dark Knights time to break free for the most dangerous fight of their livesâ€¦

Accompanying the covers and variants (by J.G. Jones, Andy Kubert, Tony S. Daniel, Quitely & Tan) is ‘Batman Redrawn’, an extended sketchbook and commentary section by Morrison, Quitely & Tan, offering an issue-by-issue tour of the re-imagining process that led to the new state of play.

Bold, explosive and breathtaking, this furious renewal and reboot of the World’s most successful comics franchise is a highly-charged, high-octane action extravaganza both impressive and imaginative. If you were bored with Batman, this might well make you a fan all over againâ€¦
Â© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

March 12, 2013March 11, 2013

Batman Archives volume 7

Bat Arc 7 bk
By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Lew Sayre Schwartz, Win Mortimer, Jim Mooney, Charles Paris & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1493-7

Debuting a year after Superman, â€œThe Bat-Manâ€ (joined eventually by Robin, the Boy Wonder) cemented DC/National Comics as the market and conceptual leader of the burgeoning comicbook industry. Having established the parameters of the metahuman in their Man of Tomorrow, the physical mortal perfection and dashing derring-do of the strictly human-scaled adventures starring the Dynamic Duo rapidly became the swashbuckling benchmark by which all other four-colour crimebusters were judged.

By the time of the tales in this sublime seventh deluxe hardback compilation (collecting Batman’s cases from Detective Comics #136-154, cover-dates June 1948 – December 1949) the Gotham Gangbusters were one of the few superhero features to buck the declining trend that was slowly sounding the death knell for flamboyant costumed crusaders.

Just as â€œreal lifeâ€ headline-grabbers were overtaking sheer escapist fantasy, named creator Bob Kane was cutting back. Most of the work here is the fruit of unsung and uncredited super-stars Bill Finger and Dick Sprang – usually inked by the superb Charles Paris – and this period of more realist wonders saw the creation of one last great themed villain and the beginning of real life celebrity guest-stars as the re-emergence and dominance of tough, clever mobsters became the order of the day.

During these years the comics landscape would radically alter with masks and capes drowning under a tidal wave of business suits, Stetsons, space-ships, fighter-jets and tanks as genre tales of gangsters, cowboys, spacemen, ghosts and soldiers supplanted most mystery-men for nearly a decade – an entire comics-buying generation.

Some of these stories’ authors are still unknown to us, although most are correctly attributed to the transcendent Finger. My own humble guesses would be either Edmond Hamilton or Don Cameron – although Alvin Schwartz, David Vern Reed, Ed â€œFranceâ€ Herron and Jack Schiff are also potential contributors at this time – but sadly, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever really know.

Following an effulgent and educational Foreword from industry insider and historian Jim Amash, the drama commences in ‘The Dead Man’s Chest!’ (from Detective #136, with Sprang inking his own pencils) as Gotham Museum trustee Bruce Wayne examined a 17^th century pirate map and recognised his own handwriting disclosing the route to Henry Morgan‘s buried treasure! Soon the millionaire and his ward Dick Grayson were consulting time travel pioneer Professor Carter Nichols and whirling back to the age of buccaneers to solve an incredible mystery in stunning styleâ€¦

The most popular villain of this period was still the Joker and in #137 the Harlequin of Hate again attempted to dumbfound the Dynamic Duo: this time with the perpetration of ‘The Rebus Crimes!’, and Charles Paris inking the scintillating Sprang on a tour de force of comics crime-busting.

The Mountebank of Mirth was back in the very next issue forcing scientist Walter Timmins to commit ‘The Invisible Crimes!’ and running Joker wild until Batman finally crushed his scheme, after which #139’s ‘The Crimes of Jade!’ found the Gotham Guardians infiltrating the city’s exotic Chinatown district in search of bandit/smugglers and an apparently oriental mastermind.

Detective Comics #140 introduced ‘The Riddler!’ (Finger, Sprang & Paris) as cheating carnival con-man Edward Nigma took his obsession with puzzles to a perilous extreme by becoming a costumed criminal and matching wits with the brilliant Batman in a contest that threatened to set the entire city ablaze.

It was back to basics in #141 as ‘Gallery of Public Heroes!’ (illustrated by Bob Kane’s protÃ©gÃ© and ghost Lew Sayre Schwartz & the ever-appealing Paris) revealed how Public Enemy Blackie Nason tried to expose and eliminate all undercover cops through his gang of insidious investigators. His biggest target and eventual downfall was that undisputed master of disguise Batmanâ€¦

Riddler returned in #142, fomenting chaos with ‘Crime’s Puzzle Contest!’ (Sprang & Paris) until the Team Supreme scuppered his hidden scheme to plunder a treasure of the ages, whilst in #143 the crazed crime spree of a tobacconist utterly obsessed with smoking paraphernalia and all forms of pipes blew up in the face of ‘The Pied Piper of Peril!’ (art by Jim Mooney & Paris).

The late 1940’s saw the first slow rise of media-fuelled celebrity culture and fast fading fads and #144 featured a popular bandleader and radio/movie star in ‘Kay Kyser’s Mystery Broadcast!’ by Sprang &Paris. The popular entertainer (just Google Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge to learn more) was touring in Gotham when a ruthless killer forcibly insinuated himself into his band – forcing the musical sharpie to seek help from Batman and Robin by the most convoluted means imaginableâ€¦

‘Robin, the Boy Failure!’ in #145 saw the torrid teen suffer a work-related injury and temporary amnesia, and even after recovery the kid had no memory of his alter ego. Confidence shattered, his mentor took extraordinary steps to effect a full recovery to fighting fettle for the lad, just in time to find that ‘Three’s a Crime’ (another all-Sprang extravaganza) when small-time hood and inveterate gambler Carl C. Cave graduated to big-time crime after seemingly discovering his own unbeatable lucky numberâ€¦

Undersea adventure and a close brush with death was the result of the Dynamic Duo intruding in the domain of costumed pirate ‘Tiger Shark!’ (Sprang & Paris) in #147, but the fishy felon’s alter ego held a shocking secret for socialite Bruce Wayne, after which bold science fiction thrills resulted from #148’s ‘The Experiment of Professor Zero’ (Finger, Sprang & Paris) as a peek into Batman’s crime casebook and trophy room revealed how a mad scientist almost reduced the Gotham Guardians to fatal insignificance with a shrinking gimmickâ€¦

The Joker crashed back into action in #149 undertaking another potty plot to plunder the city with ‘The Sound-Effect Crimes!’ (Finger & Sprang), whilst in #150 ‘The Ghost of Gotham City!’ (Paris inks) seemed to see judge and jury hunted by the spirit of a wrongly convicted man they had sent to the electric chair. The phantom’s short reign of terror only ended after the Dark Knight unravelled an incredible truthâ€¦

With eye-catching, flamboyant villains in decline, creators were compelled to concoct clever stories such as #151’s (all Sprang) delight wherein a string of close calls and rescues of businessmen revealed a character saving lives and collecting promises of future reciprocation in ‘I.O.U. My Life!’ The reasons behind Ben Kole‘s peculiar predilection were both chilling and spellbindingly complexâ€¦

An even more devious Detective tale featured in #152 as ‘The Goblin of Gotham City!’ (with art from Sayre Schwartz & Paris) temporarily halted his campaign of crime after photographer Vicki Vale took a photo which threatened to expose his secret. Unfortunately nobody, including Batman, knew exactly what they had, even after the villain began ruthlessly rubbing out anyone who had seen the snapâ€¦

Fantastic fantasy informed #153 as an incredible invention enabled the Caped Crusader to become ‘The Flying Batman!’ (Sprang & Paris), but the phenomenal exploits of the new Dark Knight had a pitifully prosaic explanation, after which this superb seventh deluxe hardback compilation concludes with the ‘The Underground Railroad of Crime!’ (#154 and drawn by Sayre Schwartz & Paris) wherein an impossible series of escapes from State Prison led an undercover Batman to an ingenious and perfidious program of extortion and plunder as well as the welcome redemption of a hopeless career criminalâ€¦

With glorious covers by Sprang, Bob Kane, Win Mortimer, Jim Mooney and Charles Paris, this is another superb package of timeless masterpieces from a crucial yet long-neglected period which saw a careful repositioning and reformatting of the heroes, as publishers cautiously toned down all things bombastic, macabre and outlandish in favour of a wide variety of mundane mobsters and petty criminals, clever mysteries and personally challenging situations – although there was always some room for the most irrepressibly popular favourites such as Penguin and The Joker.

Thrilling, dazzling and spectacularly swashbuckling, this action-packed compendium provides another perfect snapshot of the Batman’s amazing range from moody avenger to suave swashbuckler to sophisticated Devil-May-Care Detective, in tales which have never lost their edge or their power to enthral and enrapture. Moreover, these sublimely sturdy Archive Editions are without doubt the most luxuriously satisfying way to enjoy them over and over again.
Â© 1948, 1949, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

March 9, 2013March 7, 2013

Batman: Knight and Squire

Batman - Knight and Squire
By Paul Cornell & Jimmy Broxton with Staz Johnson (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3071-5

British Dynamic Duo Knight and Squire first appeared in the cheerfully anodyne, all-ages 1950s – specifically in a throwaway story from Batman #62 (December 1950/January 1951) – as ‘The Batman of England!’

Earl Percy Sheldrake and his son Cyril returned a few years later as part of seminal assemblage ‘The Batmen of All Nations!’ (Detective Comics #215 January 1955) – a tale retrieved from the ranks of funnybook limbo in recent times and included in Batman: Black Casebook – with sequel ‘The Club of Heroes’ appearing in World’s Finest Comics #89, July-August 1957. That one’s reprinted in Showcase Presents World’s Finest volume 1.

The characters had languished in virtual obscurity for decades before fully entering modern continuity as part of Grant Morrison’s build-up to the Death of Batman and Batman Incorporated retro-fittings of the ever-ongoing legend of the Dark Knight dynastyâ€¦

They floated around the brave New World for awhile with guest shots in places like Morrison’s JLA reboot and Battle For the Cowl before finally getting their own 6-issue miniseries (December 2010 – May 2011), courtesy of scripter Paul Cornell and artist Jimmy Broxton (with some layout assistance from Staz Johnson), who rather bit the hand that fed them by producing a far from serious, but captivating quirky and quintessentially English frolicsome fantasy masterpiece.

It all begins, as most things boldly British do, down the pub. However The Time in a Bottle is no ordinary boozer but in fact the favourite hostelry for the United Kingdom’s entire superhuman community: the worthy and the wickedâ€¦

Hero and villain alike can kick back here, taking a load off and enjoying a mellow moment’s peace thanks to a pre-agreed truce on utterly neutral ground, all mystically enforced by magics and wards dating back to the time of Merlinâ€¦

As the half-dozen chapters of ‘For Six’ open it’s the regular first Thursday of the month – and that’s an in-joke for Britain’s comics creator community – with the inn abuzz with costumed crusaders and crazies, all determined to have a good time.

Cyril Sheldrake, current Earl of Wordenshire and second hero to wear the helm and mantle of The Knight, sends his trusty sidekick Beryl Hutchinson – AKA The Squire – to head off a potential problem as established exotics Salt of the Earth, The Milkman, Coalface, The Professional Scotsman and the Black and White Minstrels all tease nervous newcomer The Shrike.

He’d do it himself but he’s chatting with Jarvis Poker, the British Jokerâ€¦

The place is packed tonight in honour of visiting yank celebrity Wildcat, and a host of strange, outrageous and even deadly patrons all bustle about as Beryl chats to the formerly cocky kid who’s also getting a bit of grief because he hasn’t quite decided if he’s a hero or villain yetâ€¦

She’s giving him a potted history of the place when the customary bar fight breaks out but things take an unconventionally dark turn and an actual attempted murder occurs. It would appear that two of these new gritty modern heroes have conspired to circumvent Merlin’s pacifying protectionsâ€¦

Each original issue was supplemented with a hilarious text page which here act as chapter breaks, so after ‘What You Missed If You’re A Non-Brit’ (a glossary of national terms, traits, terminology and concepts adorned with delightful faux small ads), the tale continues as Beryl and Cyril spend a little down-time in rural Wordenshire where the local civilians tackle the insidious threat of The Organ Grinder and his Monkey so as not to bother the off-duty Defenders.

However the pair do rouse themselves to scotch the far more sinister schemes of inter-dimensional invader Major Morris and the deadly Morris Menâ€¦

That’s supplemented by the far-from-serious text feature ‘What Morris Men are Like’â€¦

The saga then kicks into high gear with the third instalment as Britain’s Council for Organised Research announces its latest breakthrough.

C.O.R.’s obsessively romantic Yorkist Professor Merryweather had no idea that her DNA reclamation project would lead to a constitutional crisis after she reconstituted Richard III, but it seems history and Shakespeare hadn’t slandered the Plantagenet at all. The wicked monarch was soon fomenting rebellion, using his benefactor’s technology to resurrect equally troublesome tyrants Edward I, Charles I, William II and the ever-appalling King John and even giving them very modern superpowersâ€¦

Of course Knight, Squire and her now besotted not-boyfriend Shrike were at the vanguard of the British (heroic) Legion mustered to fight for Queen and Country and repel the concerted criminal uprisingâ€¦

Following a history lesson on ‘Cabbages and Kings’, Beryl invited the Shrike back to the Castle for tea, teasing and some secret origins, but things went typically wrong when Cyril’s high tech armour rebelled, going rogue and attacking them all.

The text piece deals with ‘Butlers and Batmen’ before it all goes very dark when lovable celebrity rogue Jarvis Poker gets some very bad news from his doctor and a terrifying follow-up visit from the real Joker.

The CampCriminal was desperately concerned about his national legacy but GothamCity’s Harlequin of Hate is just keen on increasing his ghastly and frankly already astronomical body-count. First on the list is that annoying Shrike kid, but the American psycho-killer has big, bold, bizarre plans to make the UK a completely good guy-free zoneâ€¦

Broken up with a two-part ‘The Knight and Squire Character List’, it all culminates and climaxes with a spectacular and breathtaking showdown after the malevolent Mountebank of Mirth goes on a horrendously imaginative hero-killing spree that decimates the Costumed Champions of Albion: a campaign so shocking that even Britain’s bad-guys end up helping to catch the crazed culpritâ€¦

Rewarding us all for putting up with decades of â€œGor, blimey guv’norâ€ nonsense in American comics whilst simultaneously paying the Yanks back for all those badly researched foggy, cobbled-rooftops-of-London five minutes from Stonehenge stories which littered every aspect of our image in the USA, this witty, self-deprecating, action-packed and deucedly dashing outing perfectly encapsulates all the truly daft things we noble Scions of Empire Commonwealth love and cherish about ourselves.

Stuffed with surreal, outrageous humour, double entendres, quirky characters, catchphrases and the comedy accents beloved by us Brits – Oh, I say, Innit Blud? – and rife with astonishingly cheeky pokes at our frankly indefensible cultural quirks and foibles, this is the perfect book for anyone who loves grand adventure in the inimitable manner of Benny Hill, Monty Python and the Beano.

Also included are covers and variants from Yanick Paquette & Michel Lacombe and Billy Tucci & HiFi, plus a wealth of working art, character designs and sketches by Jimmy Broxton and an unpublished spoof cover in tribute to the immortal Jarvis Pokerâ€¦

February 26, 2013February 25, 2013

Wonder Woman Archives volume 4

WW arc 4 front
By Charles Moulton (William Moulton Marston & Harry G. Peter) (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-4012-0145-8

Wonder Woman was conceived by polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston and illustrated by Harry G. Peter in a calculated attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model and, on Editor M.C. Gaines’ part, sell funnybooks.

The Princess of Paradise 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 astonishing 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 America she bought the identity and credentials of lovelorn Army nurse Diana Prince, elegantly allowing the Amazon to be close to Steve whilst enabling the heartsick medic to join her own fiancÃ© 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 Princeâ€¦

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.

This fourth lavishly deluxe full-colour hardback edition collects the increasingly fanciful and intoxicating adventures from Wonder Woman #8-9 and Sensation Comics #25-32 spanning cover-dates January to August 1944. After an appreciative Foreword from comics journalist and historian Maggie Thompson who outlines the landmarks and catalogues the achievements of the Amazing Amazon, the war-woven epics and imaginatively inspirational dramas begin with Sensation #25 and the ‘Adventure of the Kidnapers of Astral Spirits’ as Diana Prince witnesses a murder. However the killer was asleep at home in bed at the time and soon more impossible killings occur, drawing Wonder Woman into an incredible adventure beyond the Walls of Sleep into uncanny realms where even her gifts are useless and only determination and rational deduction can save the dayâ€¦

Far less outrÃ© but no less deadly was the menace of ‘The Masquerader’ who replaced the Amazing Amazon in #26, following an unshakeable prophecy which saw the champion of Love and Freedom murdered by merciless racketeer Duke Dalgan. It took the covert intervention of Aphrodite and a Girl’s Best Friend to thwart that dire fate, but Diana never knew just who took her placeâ€¦

When the Amazon, Etta Candy, her sorority Holliday Girls and former convict Gay Frollik resolved to raise a billion dollars for ‘The Fun Foundation’, they never expected their most trusted advisor to turn against them, but his greed led to his downfall and the clearing of a framed woman’s name in Sensation #27, after which Wonder Woman #8 offered another novel-length triumph of groundbreaking adventure.

The drama opened with ‘Queen Clea’s Tournament of Death’ as Steve, on an undercover mission, was snatched by a giant barbarian woman. Hot on his trail, Diana discovered her beau a captive of undersea Amazons from lost Atlantis, living in colossal caverns below the oceans.

Diana soon found herself embroiled in a brutal civil war battling the forces of usurping conqueror Clea of belligerent state Venturia and trying to restore the rightful ruler Eeras to peaceful, beleaguered Aurania. Should she fail, Clea intended to invade the upper world, looking for husky men like Steve to replace the depleted, worn-out puny males of her own realmâ€¦

After restoring order in Atlantis, the Amazon returned to her military job and civilian identity until a little girl begged for aid in finding her missing father. Closer investigation revealed that Clea’s forces had been capturing sailors and airmen but with the rebel queen imprisoned as ‘The Girl with the Iron Mask’, who could the leader of the raids possibly be?

After another fearsome subterranean clash the status quo was re-established, but when Diana later met a huge a powerful student at Holliday College she realised that the adventure was still not over as ‘The Captive Queen’ infiltrates Paradise Island and captures both Wonder Woman and Eeras’ wayward daughter Octavia.

Even after defeating her ponderous perpetual foe the action doesn’t end for the Princess of Power as her return to the land beneath the sea is interrupted by another revolution.

This time the ineffectual Atlantean men had used the constant distractions and American modern weapons to enslave the women, making the sub-sea empire a brutal, domineering patriarchyâ€¦

But not for long, as Diana and Steve led a brilliant counter-offensiveâ€¦

In Sensation Comics #28 ‘The Malice of the Green Imps’ offered a welcome dose of metaphysical suspense as jealous thought and impulses were made manifest and drove gangsters and even good folks to attack the recently opened Fun Foundation Clinics sponsored by Diana and Gay Frollik, after which #29 saw another Amazon in Man’s World in the ‘Adventure of the Escaped Prisoner’. After imprisoning gambling racketeer and blackmailer Mimi on the Amazon’s prison island, Wonder Woman was unaware that the harridan’s subsequent escape also brought confused and naively curious fellow warrior Mala to New York where she quickly fell in with the wrong crowdâ€¦

Marston’s psychiatric background provided yet another weirdly eccentric psychic scenario in #30’s ‘The Blue Spirit Mystery’ as Steve, Etta Candy and Diana investigated Anton Unreal, a mystic and mentalist who offered to send his client to the heavenly Fourth Dimension – for a large fee, of courseâ€¦

Unfortunately – although a crook – Unreal was no charlatan and the â€œascended onesâ€ certainly found themselves in a realm utterly unearthly, but definitely no paradise until Steve and Diana followed and took matters into their own immaterial handsâ€¦

Wonder Woman #9 saw the origins of one of the Amazon’s most radical foes and bizarre adventures. ‘Evolution Goes Haywire’ began with zoo gorilla Giganta stealing Steve’s little niece before the Amazon effected a rescue, after which crazy scientist Professor Zool used his experimental Hyper-Atomic Evolutionizer to transform the hirsute simian into an gorgeous 8-foot tall Junoesque human beauty. Sadly the artificial Amazon retained her bestial instincts and, battling Wonder Woman, managed to damage Zool’s machine, resulting in the entire region being devolved back to the days of cavemen and dinosaursâ€¦

With even Diana converted to barbarism it was an uphill struggle to rerun the rise to culture and civilisation sufficiently to achieve a primitive Golden Age in ‘The Freed Captive’, but eventually the twisted time-travel tale took them back to where they had started, even if only after ‘Wonder Woman vs. Achilles’ – a deranged diversion to save her own mother and people from male oppression by the legendary warrior kingâ€¦

Sensation Comics #31, by contrast, offered delicious whimsy and biting social commentary when the Princess of Power visited ‘Grown-Down Land’. When a wealthy socialite mother neglected her children the tykes ran away and almost died. Rescued by Wonder Woman, they told her of a dream world far better and happier than reality and next morning, when the kids can’t be awoken from a deep sleep, Diana realises they have chosen to stay in their topsy-turvy imaginary country. However when she enters their dream she finds genuine peril of a most unexpected kindâ€¦

This glorious tome of treasures then concludes with #32’s ‘The Crime Combine’ as Wonder Woman finds herself at the top of the American underworld’s hit-list. To scotch the scheme Diana asks fully reformed ex-Nazi and trainee Amazon Baroness Paula von Gunther to leave ParadiseIsland and infiltrate the hierarchy of hate, but it quickly seems that the temptations of Man’s World and allure of evil have seduced the villainess back to her wicked waysâ€¦

Seen through modern eyes there’s a lot that might be disturbing in theses old comics classics, such as the plentiful examples of apparent bondage, or racial stereotypes from bull-headed Germans to caricatured African Americans, but there’s also a vast amount of truly groundbreaking comics innovation.

The skilfully concocted dramas and incredibly imaginative story-elements are drawn from hugely disparate and often gratifyingly sophisticated sources, but the creators never forget they’re in the business of entertaining as well as edifying the young. There’s huge amounts of action, suspense, contemporary reflection and loads of laughs to be found here, and always the message is: girls are as good as boys and can even be better if they want toâ€¦

Wonder Woman influenced the entire nascent superhero genre as much as Superman or Batman and we’re all the richer for it. Even better, this exemplary book of past delights is a triumph of exotic, baroque, beguiling and uniquely exciting adventure, and these Golden Age exploits of the World’s Most Marvellous Warrior Maiden are timeless, pivotal classics in the development of the medium and still offer astounding amounts of fun and thrills for anyone interested in a grand nostalgic read.
Â© 1944, 2003 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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