Category: Fantasy

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Superman: The Many Worlds of Krypton


By E. Nelson Bridwell, Denny O’Neil, Cary Bates, Marv Wolfman, Elliot S. Maggin, Paul Kupperberg, John Byrne, Murphy Anderson, Dick Giordano, Gray Morrow, Michael Kaluta, Dave Cockrum, Dick Dillin, Marshall Rogers, Howard Chaykin, Paul Kupperberg, Mike Mignola, Rick Bryant, Carlos Garzon & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7889-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For fans and comics creators alike, continuity can be a harsh mistress. These days, maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for the made-up worlds we inhabit is paramount, and the worst casualty of the semi-regular sweeping changes, rationalisations and reboots is great stories that suddenly “never happened”. A most painful example of this – for me at least – was the wholesale loss of the entire charm-drenched mythology that had evolved around Superman’s birthworld in the wonder years between 1948 and 1985.

Silver Age readers avidly consuming Superman, Action Comics, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, World’s Finest Comics and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (not forgetting Superboy and Adventure Comics) would delight every time some fascinating snippet of information leaked out. We spent our rainy days filling in incredible blanks about the lost world through the tantalising and thrilling tales from those halcyon publications.

Throughout the 1970s, The Fabulous World of Krypton was a back-up feature in Superman specifically revealing intriguing glimpses from the history of that lost world. But during Crisis on Infinite Earths and it’s in its wake that was all unmade. Happily, however, these days a far wiser DC has opened the doors to all those lost moments with a more inviting and inclusive definition of continuity, so a “yay them” all around!

Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s – and an issue of giant-sized anthology Superman Family – the peripatetic feature delivered 27 “Untold Tales of Superman’s Native Planet” (and is long overdue for a complete archival collection; perhaps as a DC Finest edition?) by a host of the industry’s greatest talents all further exploring that defunct wonderland. A far-too-small selection of those are re-presented in this beguiling commemoration, taken from Superman #233, 236, 238, 240, 248, 257, 266 and Superman Family #182, to augment a brace of miniseries World of Krypton #1-3 and World of Krypton (vol. 2) #1-4. These collectively span 1971-1988 and, following enticing scene-setting introduction ‘The World (of Krypton) According to Paul (Kupperberg)’, kick off Chapter 1: Fabulous World of Krypton with E. Nelson Bridwell (always the go-to guy for any detail of fact, or trivia concerning the company’s vast comics output) & Murphy Anderson’s trendsetting, groundbreaking yarn ‘Jor-El’s Golden Folly’.

Follow-up tales would alternate between glimpses of historical or mythological moments in the development of the Kryptonians and tales of the House of El, such as this astoundingly concise and tension-soaked drama which in seven pages introduces Superman’s father, traces his scholastic graduation and early triumphs in anti-gravity physics & rocketry and reveals how he met his bride-to-be, trainee astronaut Lara Lor-Van. The story also reveals how she stows away on a test rocket, crashes on the (luckily) habitable moon Wegthor and survives until her infatuated suitor finds a way to rescue her…

This a superb adventure in its own right and, set against what we fans already knew about the doomed planet, augured well what was to follow…

The remaining tales in this section concentrate on non-Jor-El episodes – presumably in lieu of what follows – so the next fable comes from Superman #236 with Green Arrow & Black Canary hearing their Justice League colleague recount the story of ‘The Doomsayer’ (by Denny O’Neil & Dick Giordano). This eco-terror tale reveals how scientist Mo-De detected mounting tectonic pressures at the planet’s core but was silenced by modern day lotus eaters who didn’t want to hear any unpleasant truths…

In the guise of a Kryptonian kindergarten class story time session, Cary Bates & Gray Morrow devised a hard science creation myth for Superman #238 as ‘A Name is Born’ details how two marooned – and initially mutually antagonistic – aliens crashed on the primeval planet and joined to birth a new race together…

Bates & Michael Kaluta united in #240 for a cunning, irony-drenched murder mystery as ‘The Man Who Cheated Time’ details the unexpected consequences of an ambitious scientist who stole from and slaughtered his rivals only to pay for his crimes in a most unexpected manner. Then, Kryptonian archaeologists unearth a lost moment in planetary history as ‘All in the Mind’ (Marv Wolfman & Dave Cockrum from #248) discloses how war between ancient city states Erkol and Xan resulted in a generation of mutants. If only the parents had been more understanding and less intolerant, those super-kids could have saved their forebears from extinction…

Superman #257 (October 1972) generated a timeless instant classic wherein Elliot S! Maggin and illustrators Dick Dillin & Giordano celebrated ‘The Greatest Green Lantern of All’. Here avian GL Tomar-Re reports his tragic failure in preventing Krypton’s detonation, unaware that the Guardians of the Universe had a plan to preserve and use that world’s greatest bloodline – or at least its last son…

Maggin, Dick Dillin & Joe Giella then emphasised a long-hidden connection between Earth and Krypton in #266 as ‘The Face on the Falling Star’ reveals how, in eons past, two Kryptonian children were saved from doom by a strange device fallen from the sky: a machine sent from a lost civilisation on pre-historic Terra…

Wrapping up this section is Paul Kupperberg, Marshall Rogers & Frank Springer’s ‘The Stranger’ as first seen in Superman Family #182: an analogue Christmas fable explaining how four millennia past a holy man named Jo-Mon sacrificed his life to liberate the people and end the depredations of tyrannical despot Al-Nei…

The second section – Chapter 2: The Life of Jor-El – reprints a pioneering miniseries that referenced many of those 27 vignettes, as well as the key Krypton-focussed yarns of the Superman franchise. In 1979 – when the first Superman movie had made the hero a global sensation once more – scripter Paul Kupperberg and artist Howard Chaykin (assisted and ghost-pencilled by Alan Kupperberg) plus inkers Murphy Anderson & Frank Chiaramonte, synthesised many scattered back-story details into DC’s first limited series World of Krypton.

Although never collected into a graphic novel, this glorious indulgence was resized into a monochrome pocket paperback book in 1982, supervised by and with an introduction from much-missed, multi-talented official DC memory E. Nelson Bridwell. That enchanting, magical celebration of life on the best of all fictional worlds remains a grand old slice of comics fun and forms the spine of the new composite compilation.

It opens on ‘The Jor-El Story’ with Superman reviewing a tape-diary found on Earth’s moon: a record from his long-deceased father detailing the scientist’s life, career and struggle with nay-saying political authorities whose inaction doomed the Kryptonian race to near-extinction. As the Man of Steel listens, he hears how Jor-El wooed and won his mother Lara Lor-Van despite sinister and aberrant efforts of the planetary marriage computer to frustrate them; how his sire discovered anti-gravity and invented the Phantom Zone ray; uncovered lost technology of a dead race that provided the basis of Kal-El’s escape rocket, and learns his father’s take on Superman’s many time-twisting trips to Krypton…

In ‘This Planet is Doomed’ the troubled orphan feels his father’s pain when android marauder Brainiac steals the city of Kandor, reels as rogue scientist Jax-Ur blows up inhabited moon Wegthor, and is revolted as civil war almost crushes civilisation thanks to deranged militarist General Zod – and how and when his own cousin Kru-El forever disgraced the noble House of El. The countdown to disaster continues until ‘The Last Days of Krypton’, as political intrigue and exhaustion overwhelm the distraught scientist and – all avenues closed to him – Jor-El takes drastic action…

Heavily referencing immortal classics such as ‘Superman’s Return to Krypton’ (Superman vol. 1 #141, November 1960), Fabulous World of Krypton mini-epics ‘Jor-El’s Golden Folly’, ‘Moon-Crossed Love’, ‘Marriage, Kryptonian Style’ and a host of others, this epochal saga from simpler and more wondrous times is still a sheer delight for any fan tired of unremitting angst and non-stop crises…

Final section Chapter 3: The World of Krypton is John Byrne, Mike Mignola, Rick Bryant & Carlos Garzon’s dark reworking of the myth, depicting a radically different planet which came with the reordering of reality. In 1985, when DC decided to rationalise, reconstruct and reinvigorate their continuity via Crisis on Infinite Earths, they used the event to regenerate key properties at the same time. The biggest gun they had was Superman and it’s hard to argue that the change was not before time. This new Superman repurposed the hero into a harsher, more uncompromising hero who might be alien in physicality but completely human in terms of feelings and attitudes. As seen in Man of Steel #1 (not included here), ‘From Out of the Green Dawn’ traced the child’s voyage in a self-propelled birthing matrix to a primitive but vital and vibrant world. He had escaped from a cold, sterile, soulless and emotionally barren planet barely glimpsed before it was gone in a cosmic flash.

As the reconfigured hero’s new adventures became a sensational success, his creators felt compelled to revisit his bleakly dystopian birthworld. It was however, now conceived of as a far darker and more forbidding place and 1987’s 4-issue miniseries opted to reveal how that transformation came about.

Scripted by Byrne, it all begins in ‘Pieces’ (art by Mignola & Bryant) as an indolent hedonistic scientific paradise comes crashing into ruin after the age’s greatest moral dilemma boils over into global civil war. For 10 thousand generations, Kryptonians enjoyed virtual immortality thanks to the constant cultivation of clones to use for medical spare parts. The rights of the clones had been debated for centuries, but recently resulted in sporadic violence. The situation changes after ultra-privileged Nyra is exposed as having stolen one of her supposedly braindead clones for an act of shockingly aberrant social abomination. Her exposure leads to murder, suicide and a rapidly escalating collapse of social cohesion…

Centuries ‘After the Fall’, technologist Van-L wanders a planet shattered by devastating war technologies, surviving only because of his nurturing war suit. The grand planetary society is gone, replaced by constantly warring pockets of humanity, but Van needs allies, be they former lovers or despised foes. He has learned that the original instigator of the collapse still lives and plans to assuage accumulated shame and guilt by blowing up the planet…

For the third issue, the scene shifts to millennia later as young scholar Jor-El immerses himself in a traumatic ‘History Lesson’. This distant descendant of Van-L obsessively probes the last days of the conflict and the nuclear annihilation scheme of terrorist cell Black Zero, but his compulsion causes him to almost miss a crucial social obligation: meeting his father and the grandparent of Lara, selected by The Masters of the Gestation Chamber as his ideal DNA co-contributor to what will be the first Kryptonian allowed to be born in centuries…

Carlos Garzon steps in to finish Mignola’s pencils for concluding chapter ‘Family History’ as, in contemporary times, Superman agrees to an interview with Daily Plant reporter Lois Lane. The subject is how Krypton died, and why…

Recapping the intervening millennia of history and stagnation, the Last Son of Krypton reveals how his own birth-father uncovered a shocking secret, rebelled against his moribund, morbid and repressed culture, and found brief comfort with perhaps the last kindred spirit on his world. Kal-El then tells of how they ensured his survival at the cost of their own…

Celebrating the many and varied Worlds of Krypton, this is a magnificent tribute to the imagination of many creators and the power of modern mythology: the ever-changing evolution of a world we all wanted to live on back in the heady Days of Yore(-El)…
© 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1987, 2008, 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Maroc the Mighty


By an unknown author & Don Lawrence with Alfredo Marculeta (Rebellion Studios/ Treasury of UK Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-83786-517-8 (TPB/Digital edition) 978-1-83786-518-5 (Webshop Edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For British, commonwealth and European readers of a certain age and prone to debilitating nostalgia, the comic works of Don Lawrence (17th November 1928 – 29th December 2003) are a treat that never pales and always satisfies. His lavish painted-narrative illustration was only ever about two things: boyish wish-fulfilment and staggeringly beautiful images.

Beginning in the 1950s, Lawrence (Marvelman, Wells Fargo, Billy the Kid, Fireball XL5, Olac the Gladiator, The Adventures of Tarzan, The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire, adult comedy strip Carrie and multi-volume Dutch magnum opus Storm), inspired a host of artists like Brian Bolland and Dave Gibbons. However, as Lawrence worked into the 1990s, his eyesight was increasingly impaired by cataracts, and he took on and diligently trained apprentices like modern stars Chris Weston and Liam Sharp who collaborated with the venerable mentor on his last Storm stories.

Although magnificent painted fantasies are Don’s everlasting legacy, he was also a supremely gifted master of monochrome illumination and gritty realism. Astoundingly, in Britain most of those pre-colour comics remained unreprinted until relatively recently. Now a regular and recognised wellspring for Rebellion Studios’ Treasury of UK Comics, two volumes of his Karl the Viking have been augmented by a true lost classic: a historical but engagingly daft fantasy that Lawrence was plucked from in midstream to begin the Trigan Empire opus…

The extraordinary adventures of a valiant and benevolent wandering Devonshire yeoman making his way back to England after the Third Crusade never actually carried the hero’s name in the weeklies where it was serialised, but ever since the feature – long mis-attributed to writer Michael Moorcock, but now officially devoid of a credited author – has been called by fans Maroc the Mighty…

This brief but bombastic movie-influenced (particularly Ray Harryhausen) skein of sword & Sorcery sagas was first seen in Lion: a triptych of tales spanning 3rd October 1964 to 6th February 1965 (The Hand of Zar); 13th February – May 1st (The Red Knights of Morda) and then May 8th to 3rd July 1965 (The Gigantos), augmented by a short escapade from Lion Annual 1967 as originally released in the autumn of 1966.

Following an enthusiastic and informative Introduction from historian Steve Holland ‘The Hand of Zar’ introduces John Maroc: a doughty English fighter serving the Lords and Nobles of militant Christendom, who now the defeated Christian warriors flee the Holy Land. Sadly, the term “noble” never really applied to aristocratic leader Sir Guy who uses the retreat to pillage and plunder, and when his depredations threaten a helpless Arab boy, outraged Maroc leaps to his defence and must battle his way out with young Ahmid. Fleeing to the mountains they meet an old man who gives the Englishman a golden wrist bracer. The Hand of Zar originally belonged to an ancient “Sun warrior” who fought for justice, and will make Maroc “a giant among men”. It gets the chance almost immediately as Sir Guy’s men ambush them and overwhelm them… until John discovers he has strength enough to snap chains and topple stone pillars…

Over ensuing weeks Maroc and Ahmid thwart Sir Guy’s schemes despite quickly discovering that although the relict imparts incomprehensible strength – and a little enhanced stamina and durability – it only does so as long as it remains in direct sunlight. If clouds appear or night arrives, Maroc is reduced to his ordinary self…

The clashes eventually attract the attention of Richard the Lionheart, who values and admires the efforts of the peasant warrior, but must follow the codes of chivalry and shun him for fighting against his betters, no matter how scurrilous they might be. To make matters worse, Sir Guy accuses the lowly hero of treason and settles a death sentence upon his head…

Their flight across the middle east brings them into extended conflict with all-conquering Warlord Kalin and his war elephants, wicked mountain wizards and dinosaurs, marine slavers, shark packs and reivers, and embroils Maroc and Ahmid in a deadly quest for a mystic artifact – the Stone of Aolath – fighting antediluvian primitives inhabiting The City of the Clouds. Ultimately the legacy of Zar proves unconquerable and the wandering heroes part ways…

One week later, the Englishman abroad reached Spain as The Red Knights of Morda plunged into more of the episodic same. In mountainous, arid Morda Maroc encounters a band of rogue paladins steadily eroding established rule and bleeding the coffers of true local sovereign Don Miguel Y Cipriano. When Maroc befriends the Baron’s son Carlos and charming scoundrel “Ramon the Gypsy”, it begins a brutal, bloody fightback to restore order and justice. The real enemy is a secret society led by evil genius mastermind Satana, and encompasses defeating his colossal enforcer Khala the Strong and legions of fanatical killers, bad knights, huge swamp lizards and more war elephants…

The final Lawrence exploit began in colour on the cover of Lion’s May 8th 1965 issue, with the wanderer still trudging through Spain and abruptly ambushed by archers. Falling victim to the assault he sees with amazement that none of his attackers are over four feet tall…

Explanations by the Minimas lead to the Englishman enlisting to aid the “dwarf folk” against a determined foe sworn to enslave them for their mines – ‘The Gigantos’. Nominative determinism was a major factor at this time in comics and their oppressors are a tribe of oversized tyrants misusing their strength and exploiting equally prodigious wildlife – like giant eagles and bears – to tyrannise the Minimas, but all their might, diabolical traps and the wiles of their leader Pesado – and the active volcano they live in – are insufficient to deter Maroc when he finds injustice festering…

… And that was it for Lawrence’s most superheroic star since Marvelman. From September 18th 1965 fans were periodically gobsmacked and enthralled by The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire – and never really looked back. Editors, however, are callous pragmatic folk and established name brand Maroc returned via Lion Annual 1967 in another anonymously scripted, done-in-one tale illustrated by UK comics mainstay Alfredo Marculeta. He was a regular of the era’s weeklies probably most recognisable today for The Rubber Man, a superhero knock-off of Jack Cole’s Plastic Man written by Ken Mennell and running in Smash from #15.

I can’t find out much about him, but his work and overall style look remarkably similar to that of Spanish political exile, cartoonist, caricaturist and comics illustrator Edmundo Marculeta (6th April 1923 – 3rd May 1989 and AKA “Marcouleta”, “Marcouletta”, “Marcou”, “Tony Cranach” & “Boris Tunder”) who worked in Europe and the UK in the 1960s & 1970s on everything from all-ages westerns and historical adventures to adult comics.

Here, those gifts are employed depicting how mighty Maroc is tramping through Germany’s Black Forest and attacked. Losing and winning back the armlet of Zar, he joins ousted prince Johann of Grunde, helping him regain his birthright from usurping murderer Baron Grimm, a tyrant obsessed with gladiatorial contests and animal cruelty…

Based in equal part on cinematic Sword & Sandal and Knight & Ladies epics and a long-cherished movie genre of manly blockbusters to construct a vast sprawling serial of heroic vigilantism, two-fisted warriors, wild beasts, deadly monsters and even occasionally the odd female (very, very occasionally in this instance!) Maroc the Mighty is the quintessential 5-minute read, but with visuals every boy I knew spent hours staring at. Some – who shall remain nameless – might even have traced or copied many of the panels and tableaux for art and history projects, Hem Hem…

Incorporating a tantalising teaser for the next volume and creator biographies, this truly spectacular visual triumph is a monument to British Comics creativity, simultaneously pushing memory buttons for old folk whilst offering a light but beautiful straightforward epic readily accessible to the curious and genre inquisitive alike or anyone who actually saw the latest William Tell movie…

Is that you or someone you know?
Maroc the Mighty is ™ Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. © 1964, 1965, 1966 & 2025 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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The Spider’s Syndicate of Crime vs The Crime Genie (volume 3)


By Jerry Siegel & Reg Bunn, with Geoff Campion, David Sque, Jesús Blasco & various (Rebellion)
ISBN 978-1-83786-173-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

I once again find myself in a quandary. When seriously reviewing something you must always keep a weather eye on your critical criteria. For me, the biggest danger when looking at comic collections is to ensure the removal of the nostalgia-tinted spectacles of the excitable, uncritical scruffy little kid who adored and devoured the source material every week in the long ago and long-missed.

However, after thoroughly scrutinising myself – no pleasant task, as you can imagine – I can honestly say that not only are the adventures of the macabre and malevolent Spider as engrossing and enjoyable as I remember, but will also provide the newest, most contemporary reader with a huge hit of superb artwork, compelling, caper-style cops ‘n’ robbers fantasy and thrill-a-minute adventure. After all, the strip usually ran two (later three) pages per episode, so a lot had to happen in pretty short order.

A triumphant beacon of Rebellion’s Treasury of British Comics line, The Spider’s Syndicate of Crime vs. The Crime Genie is the latest offering in what I hope will be a complete revival of the UK’s most marvellous vintage comics fantasies (bring on Smoke Man, Tri Man, Gadget Man & Gimmick Kid – we can take it!). Gathering material from peerless weekly anthology Lion and Champion spanning February 4th 1967- May 20th 1967, plus pertinent extracts from Lion Annual 1968 and 1969.

Mystery criminal genius and eventual superhero The Spider debuted on June 26th 1965 and reigned supreme until April 26th 1969. He has periodically returned in reprint form and occasional new stories ever since. As first introduced by Ted Cowan (Ginger Nutt, Paddy Payne, Adam Eterno, Robot Archie) & Reg Bunn (Robin Hood, Buck Jones, Captain Kid, Clip McCord), the moody malcontent was an enigmatic super-scientist whose goal was to be acclaimed the greatest criminal of all time. The flamboyantly wicked narcissist began his public career by recruiting crime specialists – safecracker Roy Ordini and genteelly evil genius inventor Professor Pelham – prior to a massive gem-theft from America’s greatest city. He was foiled by cruel luck and resolute cops Gilmore and Trask: crack detectives cursed with the task of capturing the arachnid arch-villain.

Cowan scripted the first two serialised sagas before handing over to comics royalty: Jerry Siegel (Superman, Superboy, The Spectre, Doctor Occult, Slam Bradley, Funnyman, The Mighty Crusaders, Starling), who had been forced to look elsewhere for work after an infamous dispute with DC Comics over the rights to the Man of Steel. His supervision of UK arachnid amazement began just as Britain and the entire, but less fab & groovy world succumbed to “Batmania”. In case you’re not old, the term covers a period of global hysteria sparked by the 1966 Batman TV show, as the planet went crazy for superheroes and an era dubbed “camp” saw humour, satire, and fantastic psychedelic whimsy infect all categories of entertainment. It was a time of peace, love, wild music and radical change, and I believe there were lots of drugs being experimented with at the time…

British comics were not immune, and a host of more conventional costumed crusaders sprang up in our traditionally unconventional pages. Scripted by the godfather of the genre – and an inveterate humourist – The Spider skilfully shifted gears without a squeak and became a superhero, battling in rapid succession The Exterminator, Crime Incorporated, The Silhouette, Dr. Mysterioso, The Android Emperor, The Infernal Gadgeteer, and The Crook From Outer Space…

Played out for months at breakneck rollercoaster pace, each monochrome story positively bulged with imaginative ingenuity, manic combats and crazy inventions peppering wide-eyed British kids with a bizarre conception of the USA. The strip grew ever more popular and by the time of this epic encounter demanded a full 5 pagers per episode, in a periodical where one or two pages a week was the norm. At the height of its creativity The Spider embraced full on surrealism in the tale as petty convict and recently escaped fugitive from a chain gang Steve Gurko finds a bottle with a djinn inside and strikes the deal of a lifetime…

Gifted with unlimited wishes, Gurko and the Genie go on a crime rampage and draw The Spider’s attention, leading to a protracted war of fantastic creatures against the arrogant hero’s ingenuity and inventions. A masterpiece of illustrative wonderment displaying Reg Bunn’s incredible gift for visualisation, the lengthy campaign finds The Spider, Pelham & Ordini facing hyper-enlarged insects, banishment to other eras, ancient warriors, terrible titans, wicked wizards, an army of modern mobsters, monstrous disembodied limbs, legions of trolls and giants, swarms of flying “stingers”, invading transdimensional “monstrogs”, erupting volcanoes, rampaging dinosaurs, missing links and Gurko himself willingly transformed into a super-heated “Sun-Man”…

Eventually, when he’s fed up with Gurko’s insipid uninspired ideas, the immortal genie turns on his Master and sets out to punish the infernal humans who have constantly escaped and humiliated him, and then the war gets really wild. Ultimately however, The Spider’s brain proves too much for ancient mystical brawn, especially after the increasing incensed apparition angers fellow mystical immortal Queen Lana of Valley of the Doomed…

It could have all ended there, but for the haughty Spider rebuffing her amorous advances and offers of alliance…

The climax comes when the retrenching genie mind controls the police as his new army and sets colossal arachnids on the hero, only to fall for a slick piece of conceptual sleight of hand and return to his own specialised “glass house”…

The months-long miracle war concluded, there’s still space for some extras, beginning with comic romp ‘The Spider and the Stone of Venus’. Illustrated by David Sque (The Skid Kids, Roy of the Rovers, Scorer) for Lion Annual 1968 and set when the Spider was seeking to shed his villainous, past it sees rival arch fiend Mister Mastermind frame him for a jewel theft and regret his folly very much indeed…

A year later an untitled Spider text story – lavishly adorned with Geoff (Battler Britton, Captain Condor, Typhoon Tracy, The Spellbinder, Captain Hurricane, D-Day Dawson) Campion illustrations – revealed how an army of assassins play on their enemy’s immense ego and successfully invade his castle as a film crew seeking to record his greatness for history. Sadly for them, even the Spider isn’t that vain…

Also from Lion Annual 1969, a second treat sees comics master Jesús Blasco (Steel Claw, Tex Willer, Buffalo Bill, Cuto, Capitán Trueno) limn a brutal war of wills and inventions as a fascistic tyrant threatens civilisation with his super weapons only to fall to the Spider’s boldness and amazing arachnid arsenal…

Completing the vintage treats is a full colour cover gallery, a Crime Syndicate pinup by Campion from Lion Summer Special 1968 and creator biographies. This compilation of retro/camp masterpieces is jam-packed with arcane dialogue, insane devices and outrageous antics that are perhaps an acquired taste. However, no one with functioning eyes can fail to be astounded by the artwork of Reg “crosshatch king” Bunn which handles mood, spectacle, action and Siegel’s frankly unbelievable script demands with captivating aplomb.

This titanic tome confirms that the King is back at last and should find a home in every kid’s heart and mind, no matter how young they might be, or threaten to remain. Batty, baroque and often simply bonkers, The Spider proves that although crime does not pay, it always provides a huge amount of white-knuckle fun…
© 1967, 1968, 1969, 2024 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung



Adapted by P. Craig Russell, translated by Patrick Mason, with Lovern Kindzierski & Galen Showman (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-401-9 (HB) eISBN 978-1-63008-154-6

This book includes some Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

If you’re planning on being in Germany next month, music lovers are reminded that THE BAYREUTH FESTIVAL is performing Wagner’s superhero-inspiring RING CYCLE (Das Rheingold:26 July – Schwarz/Young, Die Walküre: 27 July – Schwarz/Young, Parsifal: 28 July – Scheib/Heras-Casado and Siegfried: 29 July – Schwarz/Young. If you check out or even take this tasty tome along, you may achieve a far greater understanding of the text and even certain leitmotif…  but probably not most of the prevailing attitudes, bad manners and big fancy hats…

  1. Craig Russell began his illustrious career in comics during the early 1970s: coming to fame early for a groundbreaking run on science fiction adventure series Killraven, Warrior of the Worlds.

Russell’s fanciful, meticulous classicist style was derived from the great illustrators of Victorian/Edwardian heroic fantasy and was greatly at odds with the sausage-factory deadlines and sensibilities of the mainstream comic book industry. By the 1980s he had largely retired from the merciless daily grind, preferring to work on his own projects (mostly adapting operas and plays into sequential narratives) whilst undertaking occasional high-profile Special Projects for the majors – such as Dr. Strange Annual 1976 (totally reworked and re-released as the magnificent Dr. Strange: What Is It that Disturbs You, Stephen? in 1996) or Batman: Robin 3000.

As the industry grew up and a fantasy boom began, he returned to comics with 1982’s Marvel Graphic Novel: Elric, further adapting Michael Moorcock’s iconic sword-&-sorcery star in the magazine Epic Illustrated and elsewhere. Russell’s stage-arts adaptations had begun appearing in 1978: firstly in groundbreaking independent Star*Reach specials Night Music and Parsifal and then, from 1984, at Eclipse Comics where the revived Night Music became an anthological series showcasing his earlier experimental adaptations: not only the operatic dramas but also tales from Kipling’s Jungle Books and other sources.

As mainstream comics rapidly matured, his stylings were seen in Vertigo titles like The Sandman and Mike Mignola’s Hellboy titles. He never, however, abandoned his love of operatic drama. In 2003 Canadian publisher NBM began a prodigious program to collect all those music-based masterpieces into The P. Craig Russell Library of Opera Adaptations, but just before that, the artist took a couple of years (2000 – 2001) to complete a passion project. Originally released as a procession of linked miniseries – The Ring of the Nibelung: The Rhinegold #1-4, The Ring of the Nibelung: The Valkyrie #1-3, The Ring of the Nibelung: Siegfried #1-3 and The Ring of the Nibelung: Götterdämmerung #1-4 – Russell and his regular collaborator Lovern Kindzierski adapted Richard Wagner’s masterpiece to comics. His wasn’t the first, but it’s most certainly the best.

Collected in a stunning single volume the Teutonic saga is augmented by a Preface from music critic and scholar Michael Kennedy, an Introduction by comics star Matt (no relation) Wagner, and is followed by Russell’s fascinating, heavily-illustrated essay ‘What is an Adaptation?’: describing his thinking, creative process and philosophy in the crafting of this epic, whilst offering an intimate peek into how the magic was made along via a range of pencil, ink and/or fully-coloured sketches and art studies as well as the entire gallery of covers from the original comics.

The four operas Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung (or Twilight of the Gods if you’re less pompous or well-travelled than me) is a classic distillation of Germano-Norse myth and the poems collected as the Icelandic Eddas. Over 26 years the master of German music distilled them into a cycle of staggering power, which people either love or hate. Great tunes, too.

Doesn’t absolutely everybody love the brilliant animated tribute-come-distillation starring Bugs Bunny entitled ‘What’s Opera, Doc?’ They probably refer to it as “Kill the Wabbit!” though. Joking aside, the Ring Cycle is a true masterpiece of Western Culture and immortal inspiration to purveyors of drama and historic fiction. In 1989 and 1990 long-time fans and comics superstars Roy Thomas (who’d already integrated the plot into the canon of Marvel’s Mighty Thor) and Gil Kane produced a 4-part, prestige-format miniseries that adapted the events into comic strip form. That’s superbly impressive, but trust me, Russell’s is in a league of its own…

Bold, bright, glittering and tightly adhering to the rhythms and staging of the theatre version – thanks to translator Patrick Mason’s deft contribution – it all begins with the creation of the world…

At some time later, Alberich the Nibelung is a hideous troglodytic Dwarf shunned by all, but smart enough to outwit the three haughty Rhine Maidens. Commanded to guard an accursed treasure horde even the Gods cannot tame, the river nymphs reveal the secret to the glib intruder. Whoever casts The Rhinegold into a ring will have all the wealth and power of the world, but must forever forswear love and joy. Never having known either, greedy Alberich readily and scornfully forsakes these dubious emotional necessities and seizes the treasure even All-Father Voton feared to touch.

Meanwhile, wily Logé has convinced Voton to promise giants Fasolt and Fafnir anything they wish if they build the great castle Valhalla to house the world’s heroes. Assured that the trickster god can free him from his promise to the giants, the All-Father and Preserver of Oaths accepts their price, but on completion the giants demand possession of Freia; goddess of the apples of immortality.

Bound by their Lord’s sworn oath, the gods must surrender Freia, but malicious Logé suggests that Alberich’s stolen gold – now reshaped into a finger-ring – can be used by any other possessor without abandoning love. The brothers then demand the world-conquering trinket as a replacement fee… and no god can sway or deter them. The course is set to disaster!

Second miniseries The Valkyrie sees an earthly warrior calling himself “Woeful” as the sole survivor of a blood-feud. Fleeing, he claims Right of Hospitality from a beautiful woman in a remote cottage. However, when her husband Hunding returns, they all discover that he belongs to the clan Woeful recently slaughtered so many of…

Secure for the night under the sacrosanct bond of Hospitality, Woeful realises he must fight for his life in the morning when the sacred truce expires. Without weapons, he counts little for his chances until the woman reveals to him a magic sword embedded in the giant Ash tree that supports the house. Unfortunately, the gods have already decreed that there can be no happy ending to be won, only further sin and shame and the fall of Voton’s most beloved servant Brunhildé…

Sixteen years later, Siegfried is the child of an illicit union, raised by malicious, cunning Mime: a blacksmith who knows the secrets of the Nibelung. No loving parent, the metal-shaper wants the indomitable wild boy to kill a dragon (Fafnir, who was once a giant) and steal the magical golden horde the monster so jealously guards. Of course, the young hero has his own heroic dreams and faces the fearsome firedrake for his own reasons: glory, fame, pride and because he wishes to awaken an otherworldly maiden who slumbers eternally behind a wall of fire!

Years of plotting and treachery and the inescapable onerous burden of fate culminate in Götterdämmerung as all the machinations, faithlessness and oath-breaking of truly flawed divinities lead to their ultimate destruction. Siegfried has won his beauteous Brunhildé from the flames but their happiness is not to be. False friends Hagen and Gunther drug him to steal his beloved, simultaneously betrothing the befuddled hero to a woman he does not love. Final betrayal by a comrade – whose father was Alberich – leads to his death and the inevitable fall of all that is!

If you know the operas you know how much more remains to enjoy in this quartet of tales, and the scintillating passion and glowing beauty the art magnificently captures the grandeur and tragedy of it all. This primal epic is visual poetry and no fan should be without it.
© 2000, 2001, 2014 P. Craig Russell. All rights reserved.

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Mighty Thor Marvel Masterworks volume 18


By Roy Thomas, Don Glut, Don Thompson, Maggie Thompson, Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio, John Buscema, Keith Pollard, Walter Simonson, Alan Kupperberg, Wayne Boring, Arvell Jones, Pablo Marcos, Tom Palmer, Chic Stone, Ernie Chan, Tony DeZuñiga & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1821-7 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Once upon a time, disabled physician Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway, only to stumble into an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, he found an ancient walking stick which, when struck against the ground, turned him into the Norse God of Thunder! Within moments, he was defending the weak and smiting the wicked. Months swiftly passed, with the Lord of Storms tackling rapacious extraterrestrials, Commie dictators, costumed crazies and cheap thugs, but these soon gave way to a vast kaleidoscope of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces, usually tackled with an ever-changing cast of stalwart immortal warriors at his side…

As the ever-expanding Marvel Universe grew increasingly interconnected and matured through its first decade – with characters literally tripping over each other in New York City – Thor’s Asgardian heritage and the soaring imagination of Jack Kirby most often drew the Thunderer away from mortal realms into stunning, unique landscapes and scenarios. Now as the King prepared to leave Marvel again and mostly mainstream comics entirely behind, his successors had room to play with his creations…

Spanning cover-dates January to December 1979, this power-packed compilation re-presents The Mighty Thor #279-290 and Thor Annual #7 & 8. By blending stints on Midgard with cosmic doom and whilst playing with established prophecy, inspired scribe Roy Thomas opens this tome with an engaging Introduction detailing his interest and relationship with Kirby’s other, other Marvel pantheon and discussing The King’s last great contributory concept to the House of Ideas…

Then the comics catastrophes and revelations resume with Thomas, Walt Simonson & Ernie Chan using the extra page count of Thor Annual #7 (cover-dated September 1978 and on sale from June 20th) to detail a forgotten “first contact” moment. After Balder is killed by Loki’s machinations in an attempt to trigger Ragnarok (Thor Marvel Masterworks #17), the Thunder God reluctantly consults hostile prophet Mimir. The flaming seer of the Well of Wisdom instead emphasises how untrustworthy Odin is by telling of an event Thor cannot remember even though it was one of his most significant exploits…

Tale within a tale ‘And Ever …The Eternals!’ reviews the creation of and war between Asgardian and Greek pantheons – which Thor readily recalled – before going on to disclose how the proud prince had continued seeking new mortal worshippers. Roaming Midgard doing heroic deeds, he had encountered and barely defeated a monstrous mind-controlling horror dubbed Dromedan. Moving on, in what would be later called Central America he meets another – unsuspected – god-like race: Polar Eternals Ajak, Druig, Valkin and Virako.

Thor then reexperiences how he learned Midgard was a laboratory preserve of incredible super-gods from space: “Celestials” who had genetically modified proto-hominids to create humanity, Eternals and horrific predatory Deviants. These subspecies had battled for ownership of Earth in wars spanning the length of human existence…

Confronted by such sheer heresy and baffled by obvious nonsense, Thor learns now that his new friends were as treacherous as any god or mortal, with all knowledge of Celestials excised after he and the Eternals defeated a resurgent Dromedan and horde of Deviants and Mutates. Mindwiped, he returned to Asgard, oblivious to the fact that Space Gods would periodically return to judge the progress of their three-pronged project… as indeed they were doing at that very moment under a colossal gleaming dome in Earth’s Andes mountains…

When Kirby’s series debuted in 1976, we met anthropologist Professor Daniel Damien and daughter Margo, whose explorations revealed giant aliens had visited Earth in ages past: sculpting hominid beasts into distinct sentient species – Human Beings; genetically unstable Deviants and god-like superbeings who called themselves Eternals. Moreover, those Space Gods had occasionally returned to check up on their experiment.

Over 19 issues and an Annual, the series avoided true contact with Marvel continuity as modern mankind’s military and moneyed movers-&-shakers dealt with the politics and panic of a world-shattering event. Ikaris (son of Valkin and Virako), Margo, Ajak, Sersi, Makkari, Zuras, Thena, Sprite and Druig fought and foiled Deviants Kro, Brother Tode, Dromedan, Ransak and Karkas with humanity terrified in the background and under the microscope as The Fourth Host of Celestials hovered above the world in a city-sized ship, pondering final judgement: a process that would take 50 years.

Never a comfortable fit with the rest of the Marvel Universe – only S.H.I.E.L.D. ever really got involved – The Eternals further embodied Kirby’s fascination with Deities, the immensity of Space and potential of Supernature through the lens of very human observers. Once the series ended, Kirby moved on and other creators eagerly co-opted his concepts (with mixed success) into the company’s mainstream continuity…

In Mighty Thor #279 (cover-dated January 1978) the new quest is briefly diverted as Don Glut, Alan Kupperberg & Pablo Marcos detail how the Thunderer’s latest exile to Earth results in more reminiscing and “untold tale” ‘A Hammer in Hades!’ After a chance encounter with first love Jane Foster led to her imprisonment in the underworld, Thor flew right into an ambush organised by Loki, Grecian death god Pluto and super-troll Ulik, but proved more than even that trio of terror could handle…

Still preparing to confront the Fourth Host, Thor is again forestalled in #280 where Thomas, Wayne Boring & Tom Palmer pastiche DC’s Annual JLA/JSA summer team-ups with ‘Crisis on Twin Earths!’ after Superman-analogue Mark Milton/Hyperion of the Squadron Supreme requests Thor’s assistance on his own alternate Earth. Sadly, the evil Hyperion of the Squadron Sinister manages to replace his goody-goody doppelganger and a shattering battle erupts before order and dimensional stability is restored…

One last digression came in #281 as Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio, Keith Pollard & Marcos probe continuity in ‘This Hammer Lost!’ Thor prepares for his confrontation with the Celestials by time-travelling to the moment the First Host arrived. However, en route Mjolnir is snatched from him and the Thunderer ends up trapped in Limbo, confronting old foes like the Space Phantom and other chronally adrift threats before he can recover his mallet…

Ambushed and embattled, Thor then faces Time Lord Immortus and temporal tyrant Tempus before escaping in #282’s ‘Rites of Passage’, but only at the cost of one of the greatest weapons in his armoury…

Cover-dated May 1979 (and on sale from February 6th) The Mighty Thor #283 at last proclaims ‘Suddenly… the Celestials!’ as John Buscema & Chic Stone return to art duties for the opening shots of the long-anticipated clash. After a brief, crime-crushing stopover in Mexico City and another savage argument with All-Father Odin, Thor accepts that his sire is somehow complicit in the Celestials’ schemes and presses on to confront them on his own…

When the Andean dome proves utterly impenetrable fortune seems to desert the Asgardian when 2000ft tall Gammenon the Gatherer attacks him whilst seizing a circling passenger jet…

Apparently destroyed in #284, the deity has given way to Dr. Don Blake who sneaks aboard the captured pane and surreptitiously enters ‘The City of the Space Gods!’ Blake befriends Dr. Damien and constant companion Ajak who have observed the Space Gods’ mysterious works for three years now. None are aware the jet also carries an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and legendary Deviant warrior queen Ereshkigal, who has tormented humans for centuries as Hecate…

Back in Manhattan and unaware of a brutal three-way firefight under the Fourth Host Dome, Ikaris, Margo and Sersi fear the truce they had brokered between the three species is unravelling, even as Thor manages to rescue the jet and its passengers. The effort leaves them all locked outside the Dome as ‘Deviants and Doormen!’ (#285 by Buscema & Stone) opens with Thor back in New York and battling philosopher/poet/gladiator Karkas – a Deviant Mutate who switched allegiance to the Eternals. The misunderstanding is quickly settled, and the warriors unite to track down missing allies Ikaris, Margo, Thena, Ransak & Sersi: a trail taking them deep below the city to an ancient Deviant citadel.

After a ferocious clash with the forces of Warlord Kro and Brother Tode in #286’s ‘Mayhem under Manhattan!’ (Thomas, Stone and new regular penciler Keith Pollard) the citadel is destroyed. Deprived of Asgardian allies, Thor travels with his new friends to the mountain home of the Eternals in hopes of finding someone to help repel the space gods and end their threatened judgement…

With additional material by Gruenwald & Macchio, ‘Assault on Olympia!’ sees Thor very much a stranger in paradise, and challenged by deviously-manipulated Eternal outlaw The Forgotten One, even as many realms away, Sif and Warriors Three Fandral, Volstagg and Hogun undertake a perilous mission for Odin, one bringing them into the deadly grip of abominable dragon Fafnir…

In Olympia the duel escalates into vast brawl involving most of the Eternals, but at its height, Thor and the Forgotten One vanish to reappear miles above at the feet of prime Celestial The One Above All…

Unable and unwilling to stop fighting, the ‘Fury of the Forgotten Hero!’ is only stilled when Thor downs him, but such tactics have no effect on the space god who shows the Prince of Asgard a shocking image: Odin in eons past kneeling in submission before the Third Host…

And in the Nine Realms, Sif and her allies draw closer to the All-Father’s objective, working to complete a scheme none but Odin are aware of…

Shattered by revelations of betrayal Thor is swifty banished by The One Above All, rematerialising in Olympia with The Forgotten One as the tempers begin to cool all around. Meanwhile, Odin voyages to other pantheons to call in old markers in his grand plan and Sif takes control of Asgard’s ultimate Doomsday weapon to defeat and despatch her beloved Thor when the incensed hero tries to storm the Rainbow Bridge in #289’s ‘Look Homeward, Asgardian!’ before Arvel Jones pencils the final chapter of the ongoing epic as ‘Ring Around the Red Bull!’ sees the Thunderer fortuitously crash down in Hollywood in time to save Luchador (costumed Lucha Libre wrestler) Vampiro from ruthless sadistic opponent El Toro Rojo. It’s not as simple as it sounds: the former is an Eternal and Red Bull is a brutal Deviant methodically removing long-lived immortal second stringers from the world before the final battle against the Celestials begins…

Happily Thor is enough to rebalance the odds…

To Be Continued…

Although the unfolding epic pauses here, there’s one last legendary call to battle as The Mighty Thor Annual #8 (1979) depicts ‘Thunder Over Troy!’ as Thomas, Buscema & Tony DeZuñiga (with the help of consultants Don & Maggie Thompson) bring you a refresher course in the classics – specifically The Illiad/Trojan War with a touch of the Aeneid thrown in – as young Thor and Loki are again hurled through time to ancient Greece, with the Thunderer allying with the besieged Trojans whilst his wily stepbrother played it cool as an advisor to cunning strategist Odysseus…

Repeatedly unable to save any of his newfound comrades, the callow arrogant storm god futilely attacks Zeus himself, but it’s a war of Thunder he has no chance of winning.

Augmenting this volume is a full cover gallery by Simonson, Dave Cockrum, Joe Sinnott, Pollard, Palmer, Marcos, Buscema, Bob McLeod, Al Milgrom, Bob Layton & Stone; Thomas’ editorials from The Mighty Thor Annual #7 & 8 and seven fabulous pages of original art and covers from Simonson, Chan, Sinnott, Boring, Palmer, Cockrum & McLeod.

The tales gathered here may lack the sheer punch and verve of the early years but fans of ferocious Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy will find this tome still stuffed with intrigue and action, magnificently rendered by artists who, whilst not possessing Kirby’s vaulting visionary passion, were every inch his equal in craft and dedication, making this a definite and decidedly economical must-read for all fans of the character and the genre.
© 2019 MARVEL.

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Leonard & Larry 4: How Real Men Do It


By Tim Barela (Palliard Press)
ISBN: 978-1884568060 (Album PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content employed for comedic and dramatic effect.

We live in an era where Pride events are world-wide and commonplace: where acceptance of LGBTQIA+ citizens is a given… at least in all the civilised countries where dog-whistle politicians, populist “hard men” totalitarian dictators (I’m laughing at a private dirty joke right now) and sundry organised religions are kept in their generally law-aware-if-not-actually-abiding places by their hunger for profitable acceptance and desperation to stay tax-exempt, scandal-free, rich and powerful.

There’s still too many places where it’s not so good to be Gay but at least Queer themes and scenes are no longer universally illegal and can be ubiquitously seen in entertainment media of all types and age ranges… and even on the streets of most cities. For all the injustices and oppressions, we’ve still come a long, long way and it’s and simply No Big Deal anymore. Let’s affirm that victory and all work harder to keep it that way…

Such was not always the case and, to be honest, the other team (with most organised religions and minor theological hate-groups proudly egging them on and backing them up) are fighting hard and dirty to reclaim all the intolerant high ground they’ve lost thus far.

Incredibly, all that change and counteraction happened within the span of living memory (mine, in this case). For English-language comics, the shift from illicit pornography to homosexual inclusion in all drama, comedy, adventure and other genres started as late as the 1970s and matured in the 1980s – despite resistance from most western governments – thanks to the efforts of editors like Robert Triptow and Andy Mangels and cartoonists like Howard Cruse, Vaughn Bode, Trina Robbins, Lee Marrs, Gerard P. Donelan, Roberta Gregory, Touko Valio Laaksonen/“Tom of Finland” and Tim Barela.

A native of Los Angeles, Barela was born in 1954, and became a fundamentalist Christian in High School. He loved motorbikes and had dreams of becoming a cartoonist. He was also a gay kid struggling to come to terms with what was still judged illegal, wilfully mind-altering psychosis and perversion – if not actual genetic deviancy – and an appalling sin by his pious peers and close family…

In 1976, Barela began an untitled comic strip about working in a bike shop for Cycle News. Some characters then reappeared in later efforts Just Puttin (Biker, 1977-1978); Short Strokes (Cycle World, 1977-1979); Hard Tale (Choppers, 1978-1979) plus The Adventures of Rickie Racer, and even cooking strip (!) The Puttin Gourmet… America’s Favorite Low-Life Epicurean in Biker Lifestyle and FTW News. Four years later, the cartoonist unsuccessfully pitched a domestic (AKA “family”) strip called Ozone to LGBTQA news periodical The Advocate. Among its proposed quotidian cast were literal and metaphorical straight man Rodger and openly gay Leonard Goldman… who had a “roommate” named Larry Evans…

Gay Comix was an irregularly published anthology, edited at that time by Underground star Robert Triptow (Strip AIDs U.S.A.; Class Photo). He advised Barela to ditch the restrictive newspaper strip format in favour of longer complete episodes, and printed the first of these in Gay Comix #5 in 1984. The remodelled new feature was a big success, included in many successive issues and in 1992 became the solo star of Gay Comix Special #1.

Leonard & Larry also showed up in prestigious benefit comic Strip AIDs U.S.A. before triumphantly relocating to The Advocate in 1988, and from 1990 to rival publication Frontiers. The lovely lads even moved into live drama in 1994: adapted by Theatre Rhinoceros of San Francisco as part of stage show Out of the Inkwell. In the 1990s their episodic exploits were gathered in a quartet of wonderfully oversized (220 x 280 mm) monochrome albums which gained a modicum of international stardom and some glittering prizes. Final compendium How Real Men Do It was released by Palliard Press in 2003, and follows the convoluted, constantly crossing paths of the vast cast until the strip’s painfully abrupt demise…

As previously stated, as well as featuring a multi-generational cast, Leonard & Larry was a strip that progressed in real time, with characters all aging and developing accordingly. The episodes were never about sex – except in that the subject is a constant generator of hilarious jokes and outrageously embarrassing situations. Triumphantly skewering hypocrisy and rebuking ignorance with dry wit and superb drawing, instalments and extended sequences cover various couples’ home and work lives, perpetual parties, physical deterioration, social gaffes, rows, family revelations, holidays and even events like earthquakes and ever imminent anti-gay legislation and even fanciful prognostications.

Following an Introduction from Ron Jackson Suresha and the standard recaps, the highly strung hilarity continues much as it always has…

Leonard Goldman and Larry Evans live together in relatively calm, happily and expressively snide happiness, despite vast family circles and friend groups all at odds with each other. As well as an overwhelming panoply of real life travails and traumas, their existences are complicated by redoubling dreams, weird events and increasingly odd fantasy and dream manifestations, such the ghosts of composers Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and his bitter frenemy Johannes Brahms who plague many cast members: acting always as the vanguard of even odder occurrences to come…

The interwoven family tapestry is primarily a comedy of manners, played out against social prejudices and changing attitudes to gay life, but also delivers shocking moments of drama and tension and heartwarming sentiment set in and around West Hollywood. The extensive L&L clan comprise Goldman’s formidable, eternally unaccepting mother Esther – who still ambushes him with blind dates and nice Jewish girls – and Mr. Evans’ ex-wife Sharon: mother of Richard and David (the sons of their 18-year marriage).

Whilst still in school Richard knocked up and wed classmate Debbie, making the scrappy loco parentals and Leonard unwilling grandparents years (decades even!) before they were ready. By this stage the oldsters equally adore baby Lauren and little brother Michael…

Maternal grandparents Phil and Barbra Dunbarton are ultra conservative and stridently Christian, spending much time fretting over all those unsaved souls… and their own social standing. They’re particularly concerned over role models and whatever horrors the grandkids are exposed to whenever the gay guys babysit. Their appearances are always some of funniest and most satisfying as the deviant clan expands exponentially, as in this edition when some of Phil’s own youthful indiscretions are exposed, thanks to one of Larry’s cherished and long hoarded 1970’s gay porn magazines that he refused to throw away…

David Evans is as queer as his dad, and works in Larry’s leather/fetish boutique store on Melrose Avenue. That iconic venue provides loads of quick, easy laughs and many edgy moments, thanks to local developer/predatory expansionist Lillian Lynch who still wants the store at any cost and passing trade who all carry secrets of their own.

David also adds to grandparental burden after he and his bestie Collin help their lesbian roommate Nat get pregnant with the net result that our freaked out oldsters become grandfathers yet again…

The store is also the meeting point for many other couples in Leonard & Larry’s eccentric orbit. Close friend and flamboyant former aerospace engineer Frank Freeman lives with acclaimed concert pianist Bob Mendez and is saddled with a compulsive yen for uniforms. It’s previously come in handy whenever Bob’s sex-crazed celebrity stalker Fiona Birkenstock breaks jail to re-kidnap him, but almost every acquaintance brings fresh wonders to the mix.

L&L’s friends and clients all enjoy expanded roles this time, offering other perspectives on LA life, as the cast broadens ever wider, to include a wave of faded starlets, B-movie actors, workmen, contractors and ever more aggressive anti-gay activists…

Larry’s other store employee is Jim Buchanan whose alarming dating history stabilised when he met a genuine cowboy at one of L&L’s parties. Merle Oberon was a newly “out” Texan trucker who added romance and stability to Jim’s lonely life. Sadly, it got complicated in other ways once Merle became a Hollywood soap star and his agents, managers and co-star convinced him his career needed Oberon back in that closet. That extremely long-running plot thread comes to a most satisfactory conclusion here after Merle comes out in the most spectacular stunt TV sitcoms have ever seen, but also brings fresh perils when Merle’s scheming PA Vicky decides to add poor timid Jim to the list of gay men she’s attempted to cure with her bodily allure and ruthless manipulations…

Jim, by the way, was the original and central focus of the overly-critical dead composers’ puckish visits, but now has to share them with so many others. He’s not sorry about that…

As the demanding ghost composers play pranks on more of the minor cast members, their wild games and snarky comments are always balanced by the slow panic of ever-kvetching aging-averse Larry who is painfully refusing to adapt to being a doting grandad/perennial babysitter while observing his failing facilities. Even the local Gym for “his people” don’t want him: apparently hairy men are so last decade. Larry does, however, find some new lease on life when Leonard has the kitchen redone and he meets the burly contractors toiling hard and stripped down to their skivvies in the fierce Melrose summer heat…

Ex-wife Sharon remains a prime source of hilarious woe having been recently “knocked up” at one of Leonard & Larry’s frequent dinner parties thanks to fine wine and their only straight acquaintance (classical violinist Gene Slatkin). Their brief encounter originally sparked incomprehensible jealousy and primeval macho ownership behaviour in Larry, but now his nights attending her geriatric pregnancy have made him an unpaid babysitter for yet another family addition…

As the Millennium approaches, Larry gets extremely house proud and increasingly voyeuristic, but all hopes for “easy eyefuls” and schemes to arrange for good-looking, similarly minded pretty men to move in next door are disasters, leading to shame, humiliation, Leonard’s sustained mockery, minor injury and the world’s worst case of manifest “be careful what you wish for”…

After losing his safe comfy show, Texan star Merle joins the cast of a Sesame Street knock-off where he learns puppets, puppeteers and kids’ entertainers are a breed unto themselves…

With younger players taking centre stage, the author takes every opportunity to spike not just anti-gay bigots but take on good old-fashioned racism and dated ideas too, such as granddaughter Lauren’s inappropriate underwear moment or via gleefully potent pokes at American fundamentalism, as when the “Christian Coalition” relentlessly pursue anti-gay marriage legislation Proposition 22 and seeks to “turn” Larry’s Lauren into a propaganda spouting angel of good…

The series ended on an accidental cliffhanger as Good God-fearing Christians bought the building complex David lived in and started evicting tenants. Just the ones with same-sex roommates of course…

That was where it all ended back then, but see below for an update…

Leonard & Larry was a traditional domestic marital sitcom/soap opera with Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz – or more aptly, Dick Van Dyke & Mary Tyler Moore – replaced by a hulking bearded “bear” with biker, cowboy and leather fetishes and a stylishly moustachioed, no-nonsense fashion photographer. Taken in total, it’s a love story about growing old together, but not gracefully or with any semblance of dignity. Populated by adorable, appetisingly fully fleshed out characters, the strip was always about finding and then being yourself. It remains an irresistible slice of gentle whimsy to nourish the spirit and beguile the jaded palate. If you feel like taking a Walk on the Mild Side now this tome is still at large through internet vendors. So why don’t you?
How Real Men Do It © 2002, 2004 Palliard Press. All artwork and strips © 2002-2004 Tim Barela. All rights reserved Introduction © 2003 Ron Jackson Suresha.


After decades of waiting, the entire ensemble epic was made available again courtesy of Rattling Good Yarns Press. Hefty hardback uber-compilation Finally! The Complete Leonard & Larry Collection (ISBN: 978-1-955826-05-1) was released in 2021, reprinting the entire saga – including cartoon afterword ‘…Meanwhile Twenty Years Later’ to catch readers up on what happened when the strip shut down. It’s a little smaller in page dimensions (216 x 280mm) and far harder to lift, but it’s Out There if you want it…

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The Fox: Freak Magnet


By Dean Haspiel, Mark Waid, JM DeMatteis, Mike Cavallaro, Terry Austin & various (Red Circle Comics/Archie)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-93-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also includes Discriminatory Content included for comedic and literary effect.

In the early days of the US comicbook biz, just after Superman and Batman had ushered in a new genre of storytelling, a rash of publishers jumped onto the bandwagon and made their own bids for cash and glory. Many thrived and many more didn’t, relished only as trivia by sad old blokes like me. Some few made it to an amorphous middle-ground: not forgotten, but certainly not household names either…

MLJ were one of the quickest outfits to pump out a mystery-man pantheon, following the spectacular successes of the Man of Tomorrow and Darknight Detective with their own small but inspirational pantheon of gaudily clad crusaders.

It all began in November 1939 (one month after a little game-changer entitled Marvel Comics #1) with Blue Ribbon Comics #1: content comprising the standard blend of two-fisted adventure strips, prose pieces and gag panels and, from #2 on, costumed heroes. They rapidly followed up with Top-Notch and Pep Comics. However, after only a few years Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (hence MLJ) spotted a gap in the blossoming market and in December 1941 nudged aside their masked heroes and action strips to make room for a far less imposing hero; an “average teen” who would have ordinary adventures like the readers, but with triumphs, romance and slapstick emphasised.

Pep #22 (December 1941) featured a gap-toothed, freckle-faced, red-headed goof taking his lead from the popular Andy Hardy movies starring Mickey Rooney. Goldwater developed the concept of a youthful everyman protagonist, tasking writer Vic Bloom and artist Bob Montana with the job of making the concept work. A 6-page tale introduced Archie Andrews and pretty girl-next-door Betty Cooper plus an unconventional best friend/confidante Jughead Jones; all growing up in a small-town utopia called Riverdale.

The feature was an instant hit and by the winter of 1942 had migrated to its own title. Archie Comics #1 was the company’s first solo-star magazine and with it began a metamorphosis of the entire company. With the introduction of rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the comic book industry’s second Genuine Phenomenon (as influential, if not so all-pervasive, as Superman)…

By 1946 the kids had taken over, and MLJ – renamed Archie Comics – retired its heroic characters years before the end of the Golden Age, becoming, to all intents and purposes, a publisher of family comedies. Its success, like Superman’s, changed the content of every other publisher’s titles, and led to a multi-media industry including TV shows, movies, and a chain of restaurants. In the swinging sixties the pop hit Sugar, Sugar (a tune from their animated show) became a global smash, and their wholesome garage band The Archies has been a fixture of the comics ever since.

Nonetheless the company had by this stage also blazed through a rather impressive legion of costumed champions (such as The Shield who predated Captain America by 13 months) who would form the backbone of numerous future superhero revivals, most notably during the High-Camp/Marvel Explosion/Batman TV show-frenzied mid-60’s…

The heroes impressively resurfaced in the 1980s under the company’s Red Circle banner but again failed to catch enough public attention. Archie let them lie fallow – except for occasional revivals and intermittent guest-shots in regular Archie titles – until 1991, when the company licensed its heroes to superhero specialists DC for a magically fun, all-ages iteration (and where’s that star-studded curated collection, huh?!).

Impact Comics was a vibrant, engaging and fun all-ages rethink that really should have been a huge hit but was again incomprehensibly unsuccessful. When the Impact line folded in 1993 the characters returned to limbo until the company had one more crack at them in 2008, briefly and boldly incorporating Mighty Crusaders & Co into DC’s own maturely angst-ridden, stridently dark continuity… with the usual overwhelming lack of success.

In 2012 the company began restoring their superhero credentials with a series of online adventures under the aegis of a revived Red Circle subdivision. They began with The Mighty Crusaders (reinforced by traditional monthly print versions six months later): new costumed capers emphasising fun and action equally welcoming to inveterate fanboys and eager newcomers alike…

Moreover…

One of the company’s most tantalising and oddly appealing Golden Age second stringers was a notional Batman knockoff dubbed The Fox. Debuting in Blue Ribbon #4 (cover dated June 1940, but on sale from March 28th) the feature followed ambitious, go-getting young photojournalist Paul Patton, who initially dressed up as a costumed crusader to get exclusive scoops before inevitably and properly catching the hero-bug and doing his thing for the Right Reasons.

Running until #22 – March 1943 – the first Fox strips were scripted by Joe Blair and drawn by Irwin Hasen (who recycled the timelessly elegant costume design for DC/All American’s pugilistic powerhouse Wildcat in January 1942’s Sensation Comics #1). The dark detective vanished in the wave of Archie’s ascent, until revived as a walk-on in Mighty Crusaders #4 (April 1966). He was particularly well-served during a subsequent 1980s revival when visual narrative genius Alex Toth illustrated many of his new adventures. In 2013 the character – or rather his son – was singled out for solo stardom in the most recent (and mainly digital) Red Circle resurrection.

This superbly riotous collection collects the first story-arc and a few cool on-line extras published in 2013 as the sublimely witty and engaging action-romp The Fox: Freak Magnet #1-5. There was also a second miniseries/sequel collection that we’ll get to in the fullness of time…

As seen in New Crusaders: Rise of the Heroes, this Earth’s masked heroes were generally enjoying a well-deserved retirement in the ideal little city of Red Circle, until tracked down and murdered by old foe The Brain Emperor. Only elderly Joe Higgins was left to save their children and heirs. He shepherded them to safety thanks to a long-established and practised escape plan devised by the Mighty Crusaders and tutored the instant orphans to the eventual attainment of their true potential as heroes in their own right…

Higgins was a lucky choice: the world’s first masked superman and a trusty Shield against all evil and injustice…

At first, all that has very little to do with Paul Patton Jr., who has voluntarily followed in his own father’s footsteps both as a photojournalist and masked mystery man – and for the same venal petty reasons – only to discover that both jobs come at an inescapable price. In his case trouble and insanity always finds him, so he might as well be dressed and ready for the occasions…

Following a Foreword by Mike Allred, the further adventures of The Fox – as imagined by plotter/artist Dean Haspiel and scripter/dialoguer Mark Waid – begin with ‘Freak Magnet part 1: Public Face’ as the reluctant champion accidentally exposes the shady secrets of the world’s most beautiful social media tycoon whilst on a cushy photo assignment. Magnificent Lucy Fur seems to have everything going for her, but the Fox’s infallible gift for stumbling into unfortunate situations soon “outs” the beautiful siren as manic murder-monster Madame Satan…

No sooner has our Roguish Reynard despatched her and caught a breath than he’s accosted by an extradimensional princess in distress, desperately seeking a few good men in ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’. The frantic Queen of Diamonds has already shanghaied some of Earth’s greatest champions, sending them to save her beloved husband from wicked menace the Druid who has transformed hubby into a ravening monster. Now, however, as her power to fight back – and options – dwindle, she finally arrives at merely mortal but weirdly lucky Patton…

Given no chance to refuse, the fed-up Fox is soon questing through a bizarre world, enduring horrific hallucinations (including his not-so-understanding wife Mae who infrequently suits-up as the savage She-Fox) and a succession of marauding man-things. After he defeats a particularly big beast, it reverts to the battered form of missing pulp hero Bob Phantom…

That issue also began a back-up serial by JM DeMatteis, Mike Cavallaro & Terry Austin, included here as ‘Shield: The Face of Hate part 1 – A Very Cold War’ which finds aged but still vital Joe Higgins in a bar, recounting one of his WWII exploits…

Debuting way back when in Pep Comics #1, Higgins was an FBI scientist who devised a suit which gave him enhanced strength, speed and durability, battling the USA’s enemies as The Shield in the days before America entered WWII. He also devised a serum which enhanced those powers, smashing spies, saboteurs, subversives and every threat to Democracy and decency. This particular old soldier’s yarn concerns a 1944 mission in Antarctica to crush an Axis super-weapon, but which found him facing not just a legion of monsters but also his Nazi and Japanese counterparts Master Race and Hachiman…

Chapter three of Freak Magnet resumed with Haspiel & Waid’s lucky lad wandering through ‘Hell’s Half Acre’ like a Lycra-draped Indiana Jones in Dante’s Inferno; en route defeating and curing lost hero/mutated monster Inferno, the Flame Breather prior to rescuing gun-toting pulp-era vigilante The Marvel from a macabre torture chamber. Unfortunately, once released, the Scourge of Gangland is a wee bit traumatised and can no longer tell friend from foe…

Meanwhile back in World War II, ‘The Face of Hate part 2 – The Enemy of My Enemy’ (DeMatteis, Cavallaro & Austin) sees the sworn enemies’ 3-way battle boil over into berserker rage… until a grotesque horror jumps all three of them…

In the Diamond Dimension of today, whilst Inferno tackles a maddened Marvel, Fox must face the Queen’s ensorcelled husband in ‘The Voodoo You Do’ (Haspiel & Waid), until the nigh-omnipotent Druid takes a personal hand. Happily, at that moment the more-or-less dutiful wives appear, the power of love and sparkly expensive engagement rings having allowed the Queen and Mae to cross the dimensional divide and tip the scales. With the Druid blasted to chunks, Patton believe the madness has subsided for a while… until the Diamond Ruler blasts the Earthlings home and Patton arrives alone in Antarctica, dumped into another insanely dangerous situation…

‘Shield: The Face of Hate part 3 – A Mind of Shattered Glass’ (DeMatteis, Cavallaro & Austin) saw the hate-filled human foes swallow their feelings to unite in combat against an incredible predatory horror which has grown from a fragment of a far greater being destroyed in antiquity and scattered throughout the universe. This entity fed on hate and planned to transform Earth into a world of monsters, but just as it completes its evolution into a new, much more malign and menacing Druid, a black clad, long-eared and annoyingly familiar figure materialises…

The time-tossed twin sagas combine for the epic conclusion ‘Freak Magnet: Future’s End’ (by DeMatteis & Haspiel) as Fox, Shield, Hachiman and Master Race team up: striving together to save humanity and finding themselves forever changed by the cosmic experience.

A fulsome ‘Afterword by Dean Haspiel’ follows and is augmented by one more comics treat as our effulgent everyman crafts a delicious and hilariously thrilling short yarn starring Paul Patten Jr., explaining his choice of cameras in ‘Epilogue: A Picture Lasts Forever’…

This delightful exercise in reviving the fun-filled excitement of comics that don’t think they’re Shakespeare or Orwell also includes such extra inducements as a covers-&-variants gallery (23 in total) from Haspiel and guests Darwyn Cooke, Fiona Staples, Mike Norton, Allen Passalaqua, Paul Pope, Mike & Laura Allred, David Mack, Howard Chaykin, Jesus Aburto, Mike Cavallaro & Alex Toth, as well as a fact-packed ‘Special Feature’ section revealing some of ‘The Fox Files’.

Beginning with the lowdown on the cagy crusaders in ‘Origin of the Freak Magnet’ and ‘She-Fox: The Vivacious Vixen’, there’s even room for bonus featurette ‘Red Circle Heroes: Extra Pulp’, offering character insights and publication histories for ‘Bob Phantom’, ‘Inferno’ and ‘The Marvel’.

… And best yet, there’s a great big tantalising “To Be Continued…”

Full of vim & vigour, this phenomenal Will Eisner-inspired romp delivers no-nonsense, outrageously emphatic superhero hijinks drenched in slick, smart, tried-&-true comic book bombast and outrageous action which manages to feel brand-new whilst simultaneously remaining faithful to all the past iterations and re-imaginings of the assorted superheroes.

Fast, fulfilling and immediately addictive, The Fox should always have been Archie’s long-awaited superhero superstar… and might just yet be the one…

If you yearn for all the uncomplicated fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights furore of your youth – whenever that was – this is a book you must not miss.
THE FOX ™ & © RED CIRCLE COMICS ® ACP, Inc. The individual characters; names and likenesses are the exclusive trademarks of Archie Comics Publications, Inc. © 2014 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Gomer Goof volume 12: Twenty-One Goof Salute!


By Franquin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-161-3 (PB Album/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times and some used for dramatic and comedic effect.

Born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924, André Franquin began his astounding career in the golden age of European cartooning. In 1946, as assistant to Joseph “Jijé” Gillain on top strip Spirou, he inherited sole control of the keynote feature, going on to create countless unforgettable characters like Fantasio and The Marsupilami. Over two decades Franquin made the strip purely his, expanding its scope and horizons, as co-stars Spirou & Fantasio – with hairy Greek Chorus Spip the squirrel – became globetrotting troubleshooters visiting exotic places, exposing crimes, exploring the incredible and clashing with bizarre, eccentric arch-enemies. Throughout all that, Fantasio remained a full-fledged – albeit entirely fictional – reporter for Le Journal de Spirou, popping back to base between assignments. Regrettably, ensconced there like a splinter under a fingernail was an arrogant, accident-prone office junior tasked with minor jobs and general dogs-bodying. He was Gaston Lagaffe; Franquin’s other immortal – or peut-être unkillable? – conception…

There’s a hoary tradition of comics personalising fictitiously back-office creatives and the arcane processes they indulge in, whether it’s Marvel’s Bullpen or DC Thomson’s lugubrious Editor and underlings at The Beano and Dandy; it’s a truly international practise. Somehow though, after debuting in LJdS #985 (February 28th 1957), the affable dimwit grew – like one of his own monstrous DIY projects – beyond control. Whether guesting in Spirou’s romps or his own strips/faux reports on the editorial pages Lagaffe became one of the most popular and ubiquitous components of the comic he was supposed to paste up.

In initial cameos or occasional asides on text pages, the well-meaning foul-up and ostensible studio gofer Gaston lurked and lounged amidst a crowd of diligent toilers until the workshy slacker employed as a general assistant at LJdS’s head office became a solid immovable fixture. Ultimately the scruffy bit-player inevitably stumbled into his own star feature…

In terms of schtick and delivery, older readers will recognise favourite beats and elements of well-intentioned helpfulness wedded to irrepressible self-delusion as seen in Benny Hill or Jacques Tati vehicles and recognise recurring riffs from Only Fools and Horses and Mr Bean. It’s blunt-force slapstick, using paralysing puns, fantastic ingenuity and inspired invention to mug smugness, puncture pomposity, lampoon the status quoi? (and that’s British punning, see?) and ensure no good deed goes noticed, rewarded or unpunished…

As previously stated, Gaston/Gomer can be seen (if you’re very quick or extremely patient) toiling at Le Journal de Spirou’s editorial offices. At first he reported to Fantasio, but as pressure of work took the hero away, the Goof instead complicated the lives of office manager Léon Prunelle and other harassed and bewildered staffers, all whilst effectively ignoring any tasks he’s paid to actually handle. These notionally include page paste-up, posting packages, filing, clean-up, collecting stuff inbound from off-site and editing readers’ letters – the reason why fans’ requests and suggestions are never acknowledged or answered…

Gomer is lazy, hyperkinetic, opinionated, ever-ravenous, impetuous, underfed, forgetful and eternally hungry: a passionate sports fan, self-proclaimed musician maestro and animal lover whose most manic moments all stem from cutting work corners, stashing or consuming contraband nosh in the office or inventing the Next Big Thing. This situation leads to constant clashes with colleagues and draws in notionally unaffiliated bystanders like increasingly manic traffic cop Longsnoot and fireman Captain Morwater, plus ordinary passers-by who should know by now to keep away from this street.

Through it all, the obtuse office oaf remains affable, easy-going and incorrigible. Only three questions matter: why everyone keeps giving him one last chance, what does gentle, lovelorn Miss Jeanne see in the self-opinionated idiot, and will perpetually-outraged and accidentally abused capitalist financier De Mesmaeker ever get his perennial, pestiferous contracts signed?

Gathering material created between 1980-1982, Gaston – La saga des gaffe became the 14th European album, and the last to use originated material solely by the increasingly troubled genius. Released in translation, it’s Cinebook 12th compilation, offering non-stop, all-Franquin gags and wry observations in formats ranging from single tier and half pagers to extended multi-page yarns.

There’s a preponderance of bitter and bizarre clashes with hard-pressed, long suffering traffic cop Longsnoot (AKA Joseph Longtarin in European editions) that has become known as the “Parking Meter War”, as their protracted clash of ideologies and nerves seemingly reflected Franquin’s mounting ecological concerns and increasingly fraught emotional state and declining mental health.

Here, many strips indulge that struggle via clashes with forces of authority, revealed via encounters with polluters, open support of Greenpeace, advocacy of urban “greening” projects and even anti-military, pro “Save the Whales” episodes, which never forget to be funny as well as trenchant.

The simmering duel with the rulers of the road peaks over many car-based clashes as a cold war involving the million-&-one things that can be done with (and to) parking meters goes into overdrive. This all culminates in the Goof’s invention of mobile dummy replicas of the despised coin collecting taxation-tools, programable roving units and prophetically realistic wandering self-driving robots like those terrorising us all right now…

Other riffs revisited include rare moments of paradise with inexplicably besotted paramour Miss Jeanne, more nigh-deadly diversions with his menagerie (Cheese the mouse, goldfish Bubelle, an adopted feral cat and a black-headed gull) and Gomer’s growing tendency to insomnia or nightmares with real world consequences…

As ever, the forward-looking Goof is blind to the problems his antiquated automobile causes, despite numerous attempts to soup up, cleanse, modify and mollify the motorised atrocity he calls his. The decrepit, dilapidated Fiat 509 is only fit for assisted dying, and here the ultimate improvements are beta-tested, as the boy genius trials super-elastic seat belts and his electric, (barely) roadworthy mobile bedstead – to the shock, awe and horror of all that see it…

Naturally, many moments of chaos still occur at work (if and when he gets there): incidents involving “improved” fire suppression systems, coatracks, photocopiers, recycling schemes and especially the untapped potential of the studio’s new computers…

Our well-meaning, overconfident, overly-helpful know-it-all hindrance invents more stuff making office life unnecessarily dangerous, and continues his pioneering and perilous attempts to befriend and boost fauna and flora alike and improve the modern mechanised world, but this doesn’t leave much time for recreation. Still, there’s time to “master” kitchen bicycle trials and haul out the truly terrifying old Brontosaurophone/Goofophone, and Gomer does make a new enemy after a protracted dispute with the office plumber – an old lag who knows a blowhard meddler when he sees one…

At least lovely Miss Jeanne and forever faithful pal/accomplice Jules-from-Smith’s-across-the-street are still keenly appreciative of his efforts to improve the world, even if it seems at the cost of a few paltry lives, much municipal and private property, the wellbeing of long-suffering Prunelle and eternally frustrated De Mesmaeker …

Dipped in dark mordant wit, but still the funniest French comic ever, isn’t it time you quit being so serious and started Goofing around?
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 2009 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2025 Cinebook Ltd.

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DC Finest: Aquaman – The King of Atlantis


By Robert Bernstein & Ramona Fradon, with Jack Miller, Joe Millard, Otto Binder, George Kashdan, Bob Haney, Nick Cardy, Kurt Schaffenberger, Curt Swan, Jim Mooney, Sheldon Moldoff, Stan Kaye, Charles Paris & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77952-989-3 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s a big year for comics anniversaries, and we can’t let this guy go unmentioned. This epic compilation is one of the long-awaited DC Finest editions: full colour continuations of their chronolgically curated monochrome Showcase Presents line, delivering “affordably priced, large-size (comic book dimensions and generally around 600 pages) paperback collections”. Whilst primarily and understandably concentrating on superheroes, later releases will also cover genre selections like horror and war books, and themed compendia. Sadly, they’re not yet available digitally, as were the last decade’s Bronze, Silver & Golden Age collections, but we live in hope…

Aquaman is that oddest of comic book phenomena: a survivor. One of the few superheroes to carry on in unbroken exploits since the Golden Age, the Sea King has endured endless cancellations, reboots and makeovers in the name of trendy relevance and fickle fashion but has somehow always recovered: coming back fresher, stronger and more intriguing. He’s also one of the earliest comic champions to make the jump to cartoon TV stardom…

Created by Mort Weisinger & Paul Norris, Aquaman began his reign in in the wake of and in response to Timely Comics’ barnstorming antihero Namor the Sub-Mariner. The watery latecomer debuted in More Fun Comics #73 (November 1941) beside fellow born survivor Green Arrow. Strictly second-string for most of his career, the Marine marvel nevertheless swam on far beyond many stronger features, rendered with style by Norris, Louis Cazeneuve, John Daly, Charles Paris, and ultimately young Ramona Fradon, who took over drawing in 1954.

The Fifties Superhero Interregnum saw Fradon (countless genre anthology tales, The Brave & The Bold, Metamorpho, Fantastic Four, Super Friends, Plastic Man, Freedom Fighters, Brenda Starr, SpongeBob Comics) assume full art chores, by which time Aquaman was settled like a barnacle in a regular Adventure Comics back-up slot, offering slick, smart and extremely genteel aquatic action. She was to draw every single adventure until 1960, making the feature one of the best looking if only mildly thrilling hero strips of the era.

By then, Aquaman had settled into a nice regular back-up slot in Adventure Comics that Fradon drew without missing a beat until 1961: indelibly stamping the submersible stalwart with her unique blend of charm and sleek competence. Month after month, page by page the hero inexhaustibly solved maritime mysteries, crushed nautical naughtiness, wandered and time-travelled, rescuing fish and people from subsea disaster, solving whatever crimes he came across and generally promoting American paternal niceness.

In 1956, Showcase #4 rekindled the reading public’s imagination and slowly but surely spawned a fresh zest for costumed crimebusters. As well as re-imagining its lost Golden Age stalwarts, National/DC undertook to update and remake its hoary survivors. Records are incomplete, sadly, so we don’t always know who wrote what, but this compilation definitely gathers a wealth of Aquaman strips from Adventure Comics #229-284 (October 1956-May 1961), plus short yarns from Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #12 (October 1959), Action Comics #272 (January 1961), Detective Comics #293-300 (July 1961- February 1962) and World’s Finest Comics #125 (May 1962), plus the longer stories from Showcase #30-33 (January/February to July/August 1961), and at long last those from Aquaman #1-3 (cover-dated January/February -May/June 1962)…

Without preamble we dive right into a quartet of sagas by an author unknown, with Adventure Comics #229 revealing how the Sea King spends time in crime-infested Canadian waters and auditions a number of sea creatures to seeking to be ‘Aquaman’s Undersea Partner’, after which smugglers use a stolen shrinking ray to briefly turn the hero into ‘The Tom Thumb Aquaman’ prior to being his being perplexed and endangered by a computor’s prediction of ‘Three Fates for Aquaman’.

Although a citizen of the world, the Marine Marvel was American by default, decent by choice and patriotic by inclination, always helping law men and peacekeepers. Thus AC #232 (January 1957) wryly describes how the Sea King is asked to boost recruitment by joining a US ship’s crew incognito in ‘Aquaman Joins the Navy!’
Aquaman endured public scorn and mockery after comedy impersonator Wackyman used high tech mecahnical sea creatures to lampoon the hero. However, the reasons for the skits of ‘The Sea Clown’ were far from innocent, after which Jack Miller tapped into UFO fever, revealing how aliens from Pluto demand the Sea King fill ‘The Super-Aquarium’ with his “finny friends” before an unknown writer made him ‘The Show-off of the Sea’, ruining an actor’s TV big break… but for the very best of reasons.

In Adventure #236 Otto Binder detailed a battle against a crooked shipping magnate who unleashed ‘The Iceberg of Doom’ before four more uncredited tales swiftly ensued. Chemical pollution was the reason behind Aquaman’s brutal cruelty in ‘The Secret of the Sea King’, a plot to mine shipping lanes was crushed in ‘The Floating Doom’, and ‘The Voyage of the Good Ship Aquaman’ finds the big hearted hero helping an elderly rescue ship skipper before #240 reveals how he helps a children’s author complete ‘The Alphabet Book of the Sea!’ whilst Miller wrote ‘The Mutiny Against Aquaman’ wherein a crooked lawyer poisons his sea pals to facilitate cheating a young man out of an inheritance…

Editorial wisdom at the time decreed comics were ephemeral throway fodder that not even the readership cared about, so many themes and plots resurfaced over the course of months. In ‘The Amazing Feats of Aqua-Melvin’ another, different clown is tranfused with the hero’s blood and develops similar powers, but not the acumen to realise he’s being conned by crooks, whilst in 243 ‘Aquaman’s Amazing Bets!’ the Sea King teaches a gambler/conman a lesson before Robert Bernstein breaks hearts by unleashing ‘The Copy Cat Creature!’ – a fabulous loving beastie from primeval times that adores Aquaman but is simply too big and boisterous to allowed to live in the modern world

In #245, George Kashdan introduces ‘The Sorceror of the Sea’ who outpowers the watery wonder, just as he’s trying to put modern pirates out of business, before we visit ‘The Town That Went Underwater’ where an apparently obsessed Aquaman is determined to make every inhaitant visit his new underwater theme park. Of course, there is deadly reason behind his antics…

Miller detailed ‘Aquaman’s Super Sea-Squad!’ next as his top-trained fish pals help stave off nuclear disaster and a month later wrote how he became ‘The Traitor of the Seven Seas!’: allowing aliens to abduct his beloved sea creatures, after which Bernstein described how aseries of head blows turn the hero evil and greedy. Luckily, faithful octopus Topo is amatch for the piratical Barnacle Gang exploiting the sea change in ‘Wanted: Aqua-Crook!’

For Adventure Comics #250, Joe Millard & Fradon delivered ‘The Guinea Pig of the Sea’ as the Sea King is abducted by a well-intentioned but obsessive researcher fed up with waiting for a moment in the hero’s hectic schedule to open up, prior to being catapulted into the future to find Earth ‘A World Without Water!’ – and remember at this juncture Aquaman needed water every 60 munutes or he would die…

Millard gave way to Miller for a salty tale of Aquaman’s plight as ‘The Robinson Crusoe of the Sea’ (Adventure Comics #252, September 1958), when a chemical spill renders the Sea King allergic to seawater, offering a charming sequence of crisis management stunts by Topo…

Now an affable, dedicated seagoing nomad with a tendency to find trouble, Aquaman braves ‘The Ocean of 1,000,000 B.C.’ (by Bernstein in AC #253, October 1958) after swimming through a time warp, helping a seashore-dwelling caveman against a marauding dragon before finding his way back to the future, in time to end ‘The Menace of the Electric Man’ – a rare dark drama by Miller involving an escaped convict who gains deadly voltaic powers…

Three from Berstein begin with whimsical fantasy ‘Aquaman’s Double Trouble!’ as too many crises at once lead to sea God Neptune stepping in for the hero whilst in ‘The Ordeal of Aquaman!’ crooks maroon the hero in an “arid desert” only to discover how water aware the hero is, prior to battling a crook surgically altered and modified to become ‘The Imitation Aquaman!’

Miller wrote a brace of action tales beginning with #258’s ‘The Incredible Fish of Doctor Danton!’ as Aquaman and a young scientist battle sea beasts mutated by atomic radiation, before the hero is cast out of his body by a crook and must take psychic residence in a fish before ending up ‘The Octopus Man!’ and regaining his own form…

As the Silver Age took true hold, the Sea King’s initial revamp began in Adventure Comics #260 (May 1959) with Bernstein & Fradon’s ‘How Aquaman Got His Powers!’ with the Sea King interfering in US naval manoeuvres to keep Atlantis safe from discovery and harm. From here on, the hero’s nebulous origin – offspring of a union between a human (American) lighthouse keeper and refugee from the embargoed undersea city – was expanded upon and filled out. Eventually, all the trappings of the modern superhero manifested: themed hideout, steadfast sidekick and even supervillains! Moreover, greater attention was paid to continuity and the concept of one shared universe…

In #261, Bernstein pits the hero against a deranged lion tamer in ‘Aquaman Duels the Animal Master!’, and has him launch ‘The Undersea Hospital!’ for ailing sea creatures a month later, before Miller has the hero bring democracy and fair elections to an island nation in AC #263’s ‘The Great Ocean Election!’ prior to Bernstein taking us to New Venice (a US city with canals not roads) where ‘Aquaman and His Sea-Police!’ teach rude and uncaring malefactors how to use boats properly and not litter their submerged marine metropolis…

For Adventure #265 (October 1959) he & Fradon exposed ‘The Secret of the Super Safe!’ detailing a plan to keep the subsea stalwart in soggy isolation whilst dealing with a counterfeiter and blackmailers, before an early crossover heralded Aquaman’s entrance into the wider DC universe.

DC supported the popular 1950s Adventures of Superman TV show with a number of successful spin-off titles. Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #12 (October 1959) featured ‘The Mermaid of Metropolis’ wherein the plucky “news hen” suffers crippling injuries in a scuba-diving accident. On hand to save her is Aquaman and a surgeon who turns her (without her permission or even knowledge!) into a mermaid so she can live a worthwhile life without legs beneath the waves…

I know, I know: but just accepting the adage “Simpler Times” often helps me at times like this. In all seriousness, this silly story by Bernstein is a key moment in the development of DC’s shared universe continuity. The fact that it’s drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger – one of the most accomplished artists ever to work in American comics – makes it even more adorable, for all its silliness; and you can’t make me change my mind…
As National/DC began cautiously remodelling its superhero survivors, amongst the first to feel the benefits were Green Arrow and the Subsea Sentinel. The program included a new origin and expanded cast for each and here (AC #266, November 1959) Bernstein & Fradon tested the waters as ‘Aquaman Meets Aquagirl!’ This offered more information on fabled modern Atlantis whilst testing the waters (Sorry! Not sorry) for a possible sidekick. Remember, in those days the Sea King spent most of his time explaining things to an octopus…

In Adventure Comics #267 the editors tried a novel experiment. At this time the title starred Superboy plus two back-up features – generally Aquaman and Green Arrow. That issue’s seagoing saga ‘The Manhunt on Land!’ saw villain Shark Norton trade territories with GA’s foe The Wizard. A rare crossover with both parts written by Bernstein; the heroes worked the same case with the Sea King facing Norton under open skies whilst the Emerald Archer pursued his foe beneath the waves in his own exploit. Illustrated by the great Lee Elias, ‘The Underwater Archers!’ was a fitting climax to the test, but sadly the arrow portion of the show didn’t make it into this tome, being apparently six pages too many…

In the next issue’s ‘The Adventures of Aquaboy!’ we saw the early years of the Sea King, and following that, permanent sidekick Aqualad was introduced in #269 (February 1960) as Bernstein & Fradon completed the refit by introducing permanent junior partner ‘The Kid from Atlantis!’: a young, purple-eyed outcast from the forbidden city possessing the same powers as Aquaman but terrified of fish… at least until the Sea King applies a little firm but kindly psychology. By the end of the tale the little guy has happily adapted and would help patrol the endless oceans – and add a child’s awestruck perspective to the mix – for nearly a decade thereafter.

With Bernstein & Fradon firmly in control, in quick succession came birthday surprise ‘The Menace of Aqualad!’ (which premiered the Aqua-Cave), battle against mad scientist Captain Noah who was happy to trigger ‘The Second Deluge!’ in his quest for riches, and first proper supervillain ‘The Human Flying Fish!’: a convict rebuilt by a different mad scientist to be Aquaman’s evil counterpart and superior. After all that the heroes took a breather from evil to swim ‘Around the World in 80 Hours!’ only to face constant peril as all Earth’s seagoing crooks used their planned course as a killing ground…

Miller introduced spoiled rich brat Dale Conroy who spends millions to become the hero’s ‘Aqua-Queen!’ in #274, prior to intriguing mystery ‘The Interplanetary Mission!’ in Adventure Comics #275. This was published mere months after the Justice League of America debuted in The Brave and the Bold #28, wherein aliens ask for Aquaman’s help on a rescue mission in space. They are, in fact, human crooks seeking an irresistible weapon and hoping to dupe the bush league hero: securing Kryptonite by to use against Superman. The Man of Steel did not appear, but nets of shared continuity were being gradually interwoven. Heroes would no longer work in assured solitude…

It was back to business as usual for ‘The Aqua-thief of the Seven Seas!’ as Aquaman must clear his name after being framed for stealing a chest full of diamonds, whilst a topical global sporting event prompts the Sea King to organise ‘The Underwater Olympics’ – even though he has ulterior motives that involve more Kryptonite and secret plans. In #278, poor ‘Aqualad Goes to School!’, before proving he has no real need of education, after which cautionary tale ‘Silly Sailors of the Sea!’ see the seagoing heroes give wayward boat joyriders a lesson in responsibility. All of these light pieces were setting the scene for a really Big Event…

Cover-dated January/February 1961, Showcase #30 saw Jack Miller & Fradon vastly expand upon the origin of Aquaman in full-length epic ‘The Creatures from Atlantis!’ Here extra-dimensional creatures conquer the sunken civilisation and Aquaman and Aqualad infiltrate the forbidden city to save the so-superior beings who had always shunned them. From this point on, fanciful whimsy would be downplayed in favour of character-driven drama.

The epic reimagination is followed by another prototype team-up as seen in Action Comics #272 (January 1961) ‘Superman’s Rival Mental Man!’: a clever criminal-sting yarn by Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan & Stan Kaye, centring around Lois’ unsuspected talents as a comic strip artist and career sidestep. Typically, her success as a cartoon creator somehow causes her invention “Mental Man” to come to life and woo her… or does he?

Back in Adventure Comics #280 ‘The Lost Ocean!’ finds the sea sentinels fighting a giant Jurassic centipede to save their favourite TV show before offering more of the same in Showcase #31 (March/April 1961). Second full-length try-out ‘The Sea Beasts from One Million B.C.’ is a wild romp of fabulous creatures, dotty scientists and evolution rays presaging a new path for the Sea King, as Miller scripted the debut Aquaman yarn for comics veteran Nick Cardy. He would visually make Aquaman his own for the next half-decade.

Adventure Comics #282 then delivered tense thriller ‘One Hour to Doom!’ Inked by Charles Paris, this was Fradon’s last Aqua art job for nearly a year and a half, revealing how the heroes survive being trapped on land and away from life-sustaining water, before Showcase #32 (May/June 1961) offered another spectacular epic as Miller & Cardy pull out all the stops for ‘The Creature King of the Sea!’: an action-packed deadly duel against a monstrous villain with murder in mind.

It segued into ‘The Charge of Aquaman’s Sea Soldiers!’, drawn by Jim Mooney in Adventure #284, with the salty stars and their finny legions battling Professor Snark’s scheme to convert Earth’s ocean to fresh water. With this tale the series upped sticks for a new home, replaced by Tales of the Bizarro World. Aquaman and Aqualad were headed to the hind end of Detective Comics, beginning with #293 (July 1961) where they needed only six pages to solve Miller & Cardy’s mystery of ‘The Sensational Sea Scoops’ uncovered by a reporter tracking a submarine pirates. All this time the artist – who had initially altered his drawing style to mirror Fradon – had been gradually reverting to his natural humanistic mode. By the time of fourth Showcase outing ‘Prisoners of the Aqua-Planet’ (#33), the Sea King was a rugged, burly He-Man, and his world – no matter how fantastic – now had an added edge of realism to it, even in this wild romp as the heroes are pressganged into an interplanetary war and shanghaied to a distant water-world…

Detective #294’s deceptively displayed ‘The Fantastic Fish that Defeated Aquaman’ whilst DC #295 saw our heroes defy ‘The Curse of the Sea Hermit’ (Kashdan script), before a new month exposed ‘The Mystery of Demon Island!’ by Miller and the unflagging Cardy. To accompany his more realistic art, and perhaps in honour of their new home, stories became – briefly – less fantasy oriented. ‘Aqualad, Stand-In for a Star’ – (#297 by Miller & Batman regular Sheldon Moldoff) was a standard hero-in-Hollywood crime caper, before Cardy returned to draw #298’s‘The Secret Sentry of the Sea’ – encompassing security duty at a secret international treaty signing…

The next month saw another milestone. After two decades of continuous adventuring the Sea King finally got a comic book of his own. Aquaman #1 (January/February 1962) was a 25-page fantasy thriller introducing one of the most controversial supporting characters in comics lore. Pixie-like Water-Sprite Quisp was part of a strange trend for cute imps and elves who attached themselves to far too many heroes of the time, but his contributions in ‘The Invasion of the Fire-Trolls’ and succeeding issues were numerous and obviously carefully calculated and considered…

The wanderer’s residency in Detective Comics was coming to an end. In #299 the sea scions taught an old blowhard a lesson in tall-tale telling whilst #300’s relic theft-&-recovery case ‘The Mystery of the Undersea Safari!’ was the last Aqua-caper before he moved again, this time to World’s Finest Comics. However, prior to that, his own second issue appeared. ‘Captain Sykes’ Deadly Missions’ is a lovely-looking thriller with fabulous monsters and a flamboyant pirate blackmailing the Sea King into retrieving deadly mystical artefacts.

The World’s Finest run started with #125’s ‘Aquaman’s Super-Sidekick’ by Miller & Cardy as the junior partner briefly becomes an unstoppable uncontrollable pintsized powerhouse before Aquaman #3 closes this compilation in grand style and full-length thrills as ‘The Aquaman from Atlantis’ offers more exposure for the lost city in a tale of traitors, treasures and time-travelling bandit who accidentally takes Aquaman back to the era of swords, sandals and strange creatures…

The 72 adventures gathered here encompass and embrace a period of renewal, taking Aquaman from peripatetic back-up bit-player to his own comic book and the brink of TV stardom. The stories were intentionally undemanding fare, ranging from simply charming to simply bewildering examples of all-ages action to rank alongside the best the company offered at that time. That’s what made them ideal templates for tales of later TV-spawned iterations like Super Friends, Batman: The Brave and the Bold and especially landmark sixties icon The Superman/Aquaman Hour. Comics writers from those years include the abovementioned Bernstein, Binder, Miller, Millard, Kashdan, as well (possibly) as Bob Haney, Edmund Hamiliton, Jerry Coleman and other DC regulars. However at the start the art was always by Fradon, whose captivatingly clean economical line always made the pictures something special…

DC has a long history of gentle, innocuous yarn-spinning with quality artwork. Fradon’s Aquaman is one of the most neglected runs of such universally-accessible material, and it’s a sheer pleasure to discover just how readable they still are. When the opportunity arises to compare her astounding work to the best of a stellar talent like as Nick Cardy, this book becomes a true fan’s must-have item and even more so when the stories are still suitable for kids of all ages. Even though it’s not complete and not available digitally yet, this is a landmark moment for all lovers of pure cartooning brilliance and all-ages adventure storytelling. Why not treat the entire family to a seaside spectacle of timelessly inviting adventure?
© 1956-1962, 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Fantastic Four: Extended Family


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, John Byrne, Steve Englehart, Walter Simonson, Dwayne McDuffie, Tom DeFalco, Carlos Pacheco, Rafael Marin, Jeph Loeb, John Buscema, Rich Buckler, Arthur Adams, Paul Ryan, Stuart Immonen, Paul Pelletier, George Klein, Sol Brodsky, Chris Rule, Joe Sinnott, Art Thibert, Danny Bulanadi, Wade von Grawbadger, Rick Mounts & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5303-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

With only 67 days (but who’s counting?) to the premiere of Fantastic Four: First Steps, let’s activate our public service to newcomers option and start looking at the immense and critically important history and legacy of the fourth most important moment in US comic books – the creation of “The World’s Greatest Comics Magazine”…

Of course, whatever is up on screen won’t be what has gone before but try to remember it’s NOT REAL. It’s not even the comics you purport to love. It’s just another movie designed to appeal to the largest number of movie fans possessing only rudimentary knowledge of what involved. If you genuinely want to uphold the purity of the comics incarnations, buy a book like this one. Heck, buy a bunch and hand them out to people you’d like to impress and convert. This one would be a good place to start…

The Fantastic Four is considered by many the most pivotal series in modern comic book history, introducing both a new style of storytelling and a decidedly different manner of engaging the readers’ passionate attention. Regarded more as a family than a team, the line-up changed constantly over the years and this examination from 2011 gathered a selection of those comings and goings in a fascinating primer for new fans looking for a quick catch-up class.

I strongly suspect that it also performed a similar function for doddering old devotees such as me, always looking for a salutary refresher session…

If you’re absolutely new to the first family of superhero fantasy, or returning after a sustained hiatus, you might have a few problems with this otherwise superb selection of clannish classics featuring not only Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, The Thing and The Human Torch, but also many of the other Marvel stalwarts who have stuck a big “4” on their chests (or thereabouts) and forged ahead into the annals of four-colour heroic history. However, if you’re prepared to ignore a lot of unexplained references to stuff you’ve missed (but will enjoy subsequently tracking down), there’s a still a magically enthralling treat on offer in this terrific tome.

The Fantastic Four are – usually – maverick genius Reed Richards, his fiancée – and later wife – Susan Storm, their trusty college friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother Johnny: moral, brave, decent, philanthropic and driven survivors of a privately-funded space-shot which went horribly wrong after cosmic rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

After crashing back to Earth, the quartet found they had all been hideously mutated into outlandish freaks.

This compilation gathers Fantastic Four #1, 81, 132, 168, 265, 307, 384 & 544, plus #42 of the third volume which began in 1998. Confusingly, the title resumed original numbering with this tale, so it’s also #471 of the overall canon.

Everything began with the premier release (cover-dated November 1961 and on sale from August 8th of that year) which introduced Lee & Kirby’s ‘The Fantastic Four’ (with inkers George Klein, Sol Brodsky, Chris Rule and others, plus Artie Simek lettering and Stan Goldberg colouring) depicting mysterious mad scientist Dr. Richards summoning helpful helpmeet Sue, burly buddy Ben and Sue’s brother Johnny before heading off on their first mission. Via flashback we discover their incredible origins and how the uncanny cosmos made them all into outlandish freaks…

Richards’ body had become impossibly pliable and elastic, Sue could fade away as a living phantom, Johnny would briefly blaze like a star and fly like a rocket whilst poor, tormented Ben devolved into a horrifying brute who, unlike his comrades, could not return to a semblance of normality on command. Shaken but unbowed, the valiant quartet vowed to dedicate their new abilities to benefiting all mankind. In second chapter ‘The Fantastic Four meet the Mole Man’ they foil a sinister scheme by another hideous outcast who controls a legion of monsters and army of subhuman slaves from far beneath the Earth by uncovering ‘The Moleman’s Secret!’

This summation of the admittedly mediocre plot cannot do justice to the engrossing wonder of that breakthrough issue; we really have no grasp today of just how different in tone, how utterly shocking it all was.

“Different” doesn’t always mean “better”, but the FF was like no other comic on the market at the time and buyers responded to it hungrily. Throughout the turbulent 1960s, Lee & Kirby’s astonishing ongoing collaboration rewrote all the rules on what comics could be and introduced fresh characters and astounding concepts on a monthly basis. One such was The Inhumans. Conceived as a lost civilisation and debuting in 1965 (Fantastic Four #44-48) during Stan & Jack’s most fertile and productive creative period, they were a race of disparate (generally) humanoid beings, genetically altered by aliens in Earth’s distant pre-history, who consequently became technologically advanced far ahead of emergent Homo Sapiens.

Few in numbers, they isolated themselves from barbarous dawn-age humans, firstly on an island and latterly in a hidden Himalayan valley, voluntarily confined to their fabulous city Attilan – until a civil war and a deranged usurper brought them into humanity’s gaze. Old foe and charter member of the villainous Frightful Four, Madame Medusa was revealed as a fugitive member Attilan’s Royal Family, on the run ever since a coup deposed her lover: the true king Black Bolt.

With her cousins Triton, Karnak and Gorgon, the rest would quickly become mainstays of the Marvel Universe, but Medusa’s bewitching teenaged sister Crystal and her giant teleporting dog Lockjaw were the real stars of the show. For young Johnny, it was love at first sight, and Crystal’s eventual fate would greatly change his character, giving him a hint of angst-ridden tragedy that resonated greatly with the generation of young readers who were growing up with the comic…

Crystal stuck around for many adventures and eventually when the now-married Sue had a baby and began “taking things easy”, the Inhuman Princess became the team’s first official replacement. FF #81 (December 1968 by Lee, Kirby & Joe Sinnott) announced ‘Enter – the Exquisite Elemental’ as the devastatingly powerful slip of a girl joined Reed, Ben & Johnny just as incorrigible technological terror The Wizard attacked the team. In blisteringly short order Crystal promptly pulverized the murderous maniac and began a long combat career with the heroes.

After untold centuries in seclusion, increasing global pollution levels began to attack the Inhumans’ elevated biological systems and eventually Crystal had to abandon Johnny and return to Attilan. By the time of Fantastic Four #132 (March 1973) Lee & Kirby had also split up and Roy Thomas, John Buscema & Sinnott were in charge of the show. The concluding chapter of a 2-part tale, ‘Omega! The Ultimate Enemy!’ described how Crystal, her brand new fiancé Quicksilver and the rest of the Inhumans were attacked by their own genetically-programmed slave-race (!!) the Alpha Primitives, seemingly at the behest of Black Bolt’s diabolical brother Maximus the Mad. The truth was far stranger but the strife and struggle resulted in Medusa returning to America with the team…

The more things changed the more they stayed the same, however, and by FF #168 (March 1976) Sue was back but the Thing was forcibly retired. In ‘Where Have All the Powers Gone?’, Thomas, Rich Buckler & Sinnott revealed how Ben had been cured of his condition. Reverted to normal, pedestrian humanity thanks to radiation exposure and a blockbusting battle with The Hulk, Ben was apparently forever deprived of the Thing’s sheer power, and Reed had enlisted Hero for Hire Luke Cage as his replacement. However, the embittered Grimm simply couldn’t adjust to a life on the sidelines and when brutal bludgeoning super-thug Wrecker went on a rampage, merely mortal Ben risked life and limb to prove he could still play with the big boys…

After years in creative doldrums the FF were dynamically revitalised when John Byrne took over scripting and illustrating the feature. Following a sequence of bold innovations, he used companywide crossover Secret Wars to radically overhaul the team. In #265 (April 1984) he revealed the big change in a brace of short tales re-presented here. Firstly, ‘The House That Reed Built’ sees the group’s Baxter Building HQ as the star when the automated marvel diligently deals with a sinister home-invasion by Frightful Four alumnus The Trapster, after which Sue Richards is introduced to the Thing’s replacement (Ben having remained on the distant planet of The Beyonder for personal reasons) as the green-&-glam She-Hulk joins up in ‘Home Are the Heroes’.

Jumping to October 1987, Fantastic Four #307 offered the most radical change yet as Reed & Sue retired to the suburbs to raise their terrifyingly powered omega-mutant son Franklin, leaving the long-returned Thing leading a team consisting of the Human Torch, old flame Crystal and super-strong but emotionally damaged Amazon Sharon Ventura initially employing the sobriquet Ms Marvel. However, before they even have a chance to shake hands, the new team is battling arcane alchemist Diablo in the Steve Englehart, John Buscema & Sinnott gripping thriller ‘Good Bye!’

An even bigger shake-up occurred during Walter Simonson’s run in the gimmick-crazed 1990s. In an era of dwindling sales, high-profile stunts were the norm in comics as companies – realizing that a large sector of the buying public thought of themselves as canny “Investors” – began exploiting the readership’s greed and credulity. A plot twist, a costume change, a different format or shiny cover (or better yet covers: plural): anything, just so long as The Press got hold of it, translated directly into extra units moved. There are many stories and concepts from that era which (mercifully) may never make it into collections, but there are some that deserved to, did, and really still should be.

Simonson was writing (and usually drawing) the venerable flagship title with the original cast happily back in harness and abruptly interrupted his high-tech, high-tension saga with a gloriously tongue-in-cheek graphic digression. Over three issues – #347-349 – he poked gentle fun at trendmeisters and speculators, consequently crafting some of the “hottest” comics of that year. Reprinted from FF #347 (December 1990) is splendid first chapter ‘Big Trouble on Little Earth’ (illustrated by Arthur Adams & Art Thibert, assisted by Gracine Tanaka) revealing how a Skrull outlaw invades Earth, with her own people hot on her viridian high heels. Evading heavy pursuit she attacks the FF and seemingly kills them. Disguised as a mourning Sue Richards she then recruits the four bestselling heroes in the Marvel Universe – Spider-Man, The Hulk, Wolverine & Ghost Rider – to hunt down their “murderers” as The NEW Fantastic Four! The hunt takes them to the bowels of the Earth and battle with the Mole Man, revealing fascinating background into the origins of monsters and supernormal life on Earth…

What could so easily have died as a cheap stunt is elevated not only by the phenomenal art but also a lovingly reverential script, referencing all those goofy old “Furry-Underpants Monsters” of immediate pre-FF vintage, and is packed with traditional action and fun besides. Sadly, only the first pulse-pounding chapter is here so you should track down the entire tale as seen in Fantastic Four: Monsters Unleashed.

Roster change was a constant during that desperate decade. When Tom DeFalco, Paul Ryan & Danny Bulandi took over the series, they tried every trick to drive up sales but the title was in a spiral of commercial decline. Reed was dead – although Sue refused to believe it – and Franklin had been abducted. Her traumatised fellow survivors had their own problems. Johnny discovered his wife Alicia was in fact Skrull infiltrator Lyja, Sharon Ventura was missing and Ben had been mutilated in battle and was obsessively wearing a full-face helmet at all times.

In #384’s (January 1994) ‘My Enemy, My Son!’, Sue hired Scott Lang AKA Ant-Man as the team’s science officer whilst she led an increasingly compulsive search for her lost love. No sooner has the new guy arrived than Franklin reappears, grown to manhood and determined to save the world from his mother, whom he believes to be possessed by malign spirit Malice.

Following crossover event Onslaught the FF were excised from Marvel’s continuity for a year. When they returned rebooted and revitalised in 1998, it was as Stan & Jack first envisioned them, and in a brand-spanking new volume. Always more explorer than traditional crimebuster team, the FF were constantly voyaging to other worlds and dimensions. In Volume 3, #42 (June 2001 and double-numbered as #471) Carlos Pacheco, Rafael Marin, Jeff Loeb, Stuart Immonen & Wade von Grawbadger offered a blistering battle between the Torch and old frenemy Namor the Sub-Mariner which rages through New York City whilst Reed, Sue & Ben are lost in the Negative Zone. Strapped for allies, the torrid two form an alliance against mutual foe Gideon, with Johnny re-recruiting Ant-Man and She-Hulk prior to accepting the Atlantean’s cousin Namorita as the latest Fantastic Four part-timer.

This meander down memory lane concludes with another major overhaul, this one stemming from 2007’s publishing event The Initiative. Crafted by Dwayne McDuffie, Paul Pelletier & Rick Magyar, Fantastic Four #544 (March of that year) featured ‘Reconstruction: Chapter One – From the Ridiculous to the Sublime’, with Marvel’s first family bitterly divided after the events of the superhero Civil War. After years of stunning adventures, the closeknit clan split up over the Federal Superhuman Registration Act. Insolubly divided, Reed sides with the Government and his wife and brother-in-law join the rebels. Ben, appalled at the entire situation, dodges the whole issue by moving to France…

A story-arc from FF #544-550 (originally running as ‘Reconstruction’) began in the aftermath in the group’s inevitable reconciliation. However, temperaments are still frayed and emotional wounds have barely scabbed over. When Reed & Sue attempt to repair their dented marriage by way of a second honeymoon (because the first was just so memorable!) they head to the moon of Titan; courtesy of the Eternal demi-gods who inhabited that artificial paradise. On Earth, Ben & Johnny are joined by temporary houseguests Black Panther and his new wife Ororo, the former/part-time X-Man called Storm. The royal couple of Wakanda are forced to leave their palatial New York embassy after it is bombed, but no sooner have they settled in than old ally Michael Collins – formerly cyborg hero Deathlok – comes asking for a favour.

A new hero named Gravity had sacrificed his life to save Collins and a host of other heroes, and his body was laid to rest with full honours. Now, that grave has been desecrated and the remains stolen. When the appalled New FF investigate, the trail leads directly to intergalactic space. After visiting the Moon and eliciting information from pan-galactic voyeur Uatu the Watcher, the new questing quartet travel to the ends of the universe where cosmic entity Epoch is covertly resurrecting Gravity to become her latest “Protector of the Universe”. Unfortunately, she isn’t likely to finish her magic as the Silver Surfer and Galactus’ new herald Stardust are attacking the sidereal monolith, preparatory to her becoming the World-Eater’s next meal…

For the rest of that epic you’ll need to seek out Fantastic Four: the New Fantastic Four.

With a full gallery of covers by Kirby, Sinnott, Steranko, Marie Severin, Buckler, Byrne, Ron Frenz, Arthur Adams & Thibert, Ryan, Pacheco, Michael Turner & more plus pin-ups by Steve Epting & Paul Mounts, this power-packed primer and all-action snapshot album is a great way to reacquaint yourself with or better yet discover for the first time the comicbook magic of a truly ideal invention: the Family that Fights Together…
© 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.