Category: Fantasy

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Adam Warlock Omnibus


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, Mike Friedrich, Ron Goulart, Gerry Conway, Tony Isabella, Jim Starlin, Bill Mantlo, David Anthony Kraft, Len Wein, Mark Gruenwald, Gil Kane, Bob Brown, Herb Trimpe, John Buscema, Tom Sutton, John Byrne, Steve Leialoha, Jerry Bingham, Joe Sinnott, Vince Colletta, Dan Adkins, Jack Abel, Josef Rubinstein, Al Milgrom, Alan Weiss, Dave Hunt, Frank Giacoia, Mike Esposito, Gene Day & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4987-7 (HB/Digital edition)

And lo… there came another star to the firmament…

During the 1970s in America and Britain (the latter of which deemed newspaper cartoons and strips worthy of adult appreciation for centuries whilst fervently denying similar appreciation and potential for comics), the first inklings of wider public respect for the medium of graphic narratives began to blossom. This followed avid and favourable response to pioneering stories such as Denny O’Neil & Neal Adams’ “relevancy” Green Lantern run, Stan Lee & John Buscema’s biblically allegorical Silver Surfer or Roy Thomas’ ecologically strident antihero Sub-Mariner; a procession of thoughtfully-delivered depictions of drug crime in many titles, and the sustained use of positive racial role models everywhere on four-colour pages.

Comics were inexorably developing into a vibrant forum of debate (a situation also seen in Europe and Japan), engaging youngsters in real world issues relevant to them. As 1972 dawned, Thomas took the next logical step, transubstantiating an old Lee & Kirby Fantastic Four throwaway foe into a potent political and religious metaphor. As described in his Introduction ‘Rebirth’ the kernel of that character debuted as FF foe Him before being re-imagined by Thomas & Gil Kane as a modern interpretation of the Christ myth: stationed on an alternate Earth far more like our own than that of Marvel’s unique universe.

This massive epistle re-presents Fantastic Four #66-67, The Mighty Thor, #165-166, Marvel Premiere #1-2, Warlock #1-15, Strange Tales #178-181, Incredible Hulk #176-178 and Annual #6, Marvel Team-Up #55, Avengers Annual #7 and Marvel Two-in-One #61-63 and Annual #2 – collectively spanning cover-dates September 1967 to May 1980 – and starts with that cataclysmic clash as Ben Grimm and his friends search for The Thing’s true love Alicia Masters.

The mystery of her disappearance is revealed in ‘What Lurks Behind the Beehive?’ by Lee, Kirby & Joe Sinnott, as the outraged FF trail the seemingly helpless artisan to a man-made technological wonderland. Here a band of rogue geniuses have genetically engineered the next phase in evolution only to lose control of it even before it can be properly born…

Fantastic Four #67 exposes the secret of the creature known as Him in ‘When Opens the Cocoon!’ where only Alicia’s gentle nature is able to placate the nigh-omnipotent creature until the heroes save her and the creation deals with its squalid makers, before heading into the starry universe to mature…

‘Him!’ resurfaced in Thor #165 & 166 (June & July 1969), returned to earth in his gestation cocoon and stumbling into battle with a severely over-stressed Thunder God. The situation intensified when the creature created by evil scientists to conquer mankind sees Sif and decides it’s time he took a mate…

Conclusion ‘A God Berserk!’ sees Thor trailing the artificial superman across space and assorted dimensions with companion Balder who witnesses his gentle comrade’s descent into brutal “warrior-madness” resulting in a savage beating of naive childlike Him. By the time the Thunderer regains his equilibrium, he is a shaken, penitent and guilt-ridden hero eager to pay penance for his unaccustomed savagery whilst the modern homunculus has retreated to the chill depths of space again…

Jump forward to tumultuous turbulent 1971 where the story really begins with the April cover-dated Marvel Premiere #1 (on sale from November 1971) which boldly proclaimed on its cover The Power of… Warlock. Inside, the stunning fable by Thomas, Kane & Dan Adkins declared ‘And Men Shall Call Him… Warlock’: swiftly recapitulating the artificial man’s origins as a lab experiment concocted by rogue geneticists eager to create a superman they could control for conquest. Also on view is the manufactured man’s face off with the FF, and clash with Thor over the rights to a mate before returning to an all-encompassing cosmic cocoon to evolve a little more. Now the shell is plucked from the void thanks to the moon-sized ship of self-created god The High Evolutionary. Having artificially ascended to godhood, he is wrapped up in a bold new experiment…

Establishing contact with Him as he basks in his cocoon, the Evolutionary explains that he is constructing from space rubble a duplicate planet Earth on the opposite side of the sun. Here he will replay the development of life, intending that humanity on Counter-Earth will evolve without the taint of cruelty and greed and deprived of the lust to kill. It’s a magnificent scheme that might well have worked, but as the Evolutionary wearies, his greatest mistake intervenes…

Man-Beast was over-evolved from a wolf and gained mighty powers, but also ferocious savagery and ruthless wickedness. Now he invades the satellite, despoiling humanity’s rise and ensuring the new world’s development exactly mirrors True-Earth’s. The only exception is the meticulous exclusion of enhanced individuals. The beleaguered orb has all Earth’s woes but no superheroes to save or inspire its people.

A helpless witness to the desecration, the golden being furiously crashes free of his cocoon to save the High Evolutionary and rout Man-Beast and his bestial cronies (all similarly evolved animal-humanoids called “New-Men”). When the despondent, enraged science god recovers, he decides to erase his failed experiment but is stopped by his rescuer. As a helpless observer, Him saw the potential and value of embattled humanity. Despite all their flaws, he believes he can save them from imminent doom caused by their own unthinking actions, wars and intolerance. When his pleas convince the Evolutionary to give this mankind one last chance, the wanderer is hurled down to Counter-Earth, gifted and graced with a strange “Soul Gem” to focus his powers, on a divine mission to find the best in the fallen and a name of his own…

Marvel Premiere #2 (July 1972) sees the golden man-god crash down in America and immediately win over a small group of disciples: a quartet of disenchanted teen runaways fleeing The Man, The Establishment and their oppressive families. His cosmic nativity and transformation leave the newcomer briefly amnesiac, and as Warlock’s followers seek to help, all are unaware that Man-Beast has moved swiftly, insinuating himself and his bestial servants into the USA’s political hierarchy and Military/Industrial complex.

This devil knows the High Evolutionary is watching and breaks cover to introduce unnatural forces on a world previously devoid of superbeings or aliens. The result is an all-out attack by rat mutate Rhodan, who pounces on his prey at the very moment Colonel Barney Roberts, uber-capitalist Josiah Grey and Senator Nathan Carter track their missing kids to the desolate Southern Californian farm where they have been nursing a golden angel. Men of power and influence, they realise their world has changed forever after seeing Warlock destroy the monstrous beast and ‘The Hounds of Helios!’

Doctor Strange was revived to fill the space in MP #3, as the gleaming saviour catapulted into his own August cover-dated title. Inked by Tom Sutton, Warlock #1 decreed ‘The Day of the Prophet!’: recapping key events and seeing the High Evolutionary safeguard his failing project by masking Counter-Earth from the rest of the solar system behind a vibratory screen.

With his mistake securely isolated from further contamination, HE asks Adam if he’s had enough of this pointless mission, and is disappointed to see Warlock’s resolve is unshaken. That assessment is questioned when the disciples take the spaceman to his first human city. Senses reeling, Warlock is drawn to a bombastic street preacher and his psychic sister Astrella, both seemingly targeted by the Man-Beast. Of course, all is not as it seems…

This issue saw the first letter page ‘Comments from Counter-Earth’ and is included here as are all subsequent editorial columns.

Mike Friedrich scripted Thomas’s plot and John Buscema joins Sutton in #2’s illuminating ‘Count-Down for Counter-Earth!’: taking biblical allegory even further as Warlock is captured by his vile foes and tempted with power in partnership with evil, even as his young disciples are attacked and deny him. Counter-Earth has never been closer to damnation and doom, but once more the saviour’s determination overcomes the odds…

The epic expands with Friedrich in the hot seat and Kane & Sutton reunited to steer the redeemer’s path. ‘The Apollo Eclipse’ begins with Adam and his apostles harassed by the increasingly impatient High Evolutionary following a breaching of his vibratory barrier by the Incredible Hulk and the Rhino (in Hulk #158 and reprinted in many volumes… but not this one). That episode is soon forgotten when they are targeted by another Man-Beast crony, hiding his revolting origins and unstable psyche behind a pretty façade. The hirsute horror attacks a rocket base where Adam seeks to reconcile his youthful followers with their parents, but the subsequent clash turns to tragedy in #4’s ‘Come Sing a Searing Song of Vengeance!’ as the exposed monster takes the children hostage. Astrella senses that visiting Presidential candidate Rex Carpenter holds the key to the stalemate, but when he intervenes at her urging, unbridled escalation, death and disaster follow…

Although super-beings were excised from the world’s evolution, extraordinary beings still exist. Warlock #5 (April 1973) sees Ron Goulart write the anxious aftermath as the doubt-riddled redeemer emerges from another sojourn in a recuperative cocoon. In the intervening months Carpenter has become President and ordered increased weapons testing to combat the incredible new dangers he personally witnessed. Tragically, he also ignores warnings from government scientist Victor Von Doom, and when a military manoeuvre sparks ‘The Day of the Death-Birds!’ Adam helps when a dam is wrecked. His divine might is sufficient to halt autonomous robotic drones programmed to strafe ground-based beings, but cannot stop the grateful citizenry turning on him when Carter declares him a menace to society…

Friedrich scripts Goulart & Thomas’ plot and Bob Brown joins the team as penciller in #6 as Warlock battles the army and Doom contacts fellow genius Reed Richards for help. Sadly, the Latverian is unaware of a shocking change in his oldest friend who is now ‘The Brute!’: a mutated cosmic horror enthralled by the malign thing running the White House and now ordered to ambush Warlock as Astrella brings him to truce talks…

It’s a pack of lies and a trap. As the Golden Gladiator defeats Richards, enraged mobs egged on by PotUS attack Warlock’s growing band of supporters. Now, though, the alien’s very public life-saving heroics have swayed fickle opinion and Carter is forced to reverse his stance and exonerate Warlock. Even this is a ploy, though, allowing him to set the energy-absorbing Brute on the redeemer in ‘Doom: at the Earth’s Core!’ Beyond all control, Richards’ rampage threatens to explode Counter-Earth, and only the supreme sacrifice of one of Adams’s constantly dwindling band of supporters saves the planet…

Warlock’s rocky road paused with the next issue. Cancelled with #8, Friedrich, Brown & Sutton dutifully detailed ‘Confrontation’ in Washington DC as the supposed saviour’s supporters clashed with incensed cops. Intent on stopping a riot, Warlock’s work magnifies when Man-Beast’s New-Men minions join the battle. The saga ends on an eternal cliffhanger as Warlock finally exposes what Carpenter is… before vanishing from sight for 8 months.

The aforementioned Hulk #158 had seen the Jade Goliath dispatched to the far side of the Sun to clash on Counter-Earth with the messiah’s enemies. Although it is excluded here, the 3-issue sequel it spawned was concocted after the Golden Godling’s series ended. When the feature returned, the tone – like the times – had comprehensively changed. All the hopeful positivity and naivety had, post-Vietnam and Watergate, turned to world-weary cynicism in the manner of Moorcock’s doomed hero Elric. Maybe a harbinger of things to come…?

The cosmic codicil completing Warlock’s initial cosmic journey came after The Hulk’s encounter with the Uncanny Inhumans and a devastating duel with silent super-monarch Black Bolt. Following the usual collateral carnage, the bout ended with the monster hurtling in a rocket-ship to the far side of the sun for a date with allegory, if not destiny. Counter-Earth had seen messianic Adam Warlock futilely battle Satan-analogue Man-Beast: a struggle the Jade Juggernaut had learned of on his previous visit. Now he crashed there again to end the cruelly truncated metaphorical epic, beginning in ‘Crisis on Counter-Earth!’ (Incredible Hulk #176, June 1974) by Gerry Conway, Herb Trimpe & Jack Abel.

Since his last visit Man-Beast and his bestial flunkies had become America’s President and Cabinet. Moving deceptively but decisively, they had finally captured Warlock and led humanity to the brink of extinction, leaving the would-be messiah’s disciples in total confusion. With America reeling, Hulk’s shattering return gives Warlock’s faithful flock opportunity to save their saviour in ‘Peril of the Plural Planet!’ but the foray badly misfires and Adam is captured. Publicly crucified, humanity’s last hope perishes. The quasi-religious experience concludes with ‘Triumph on Terra-Two’ (Conway, Tony Isabella, Trimpe & Abel, Incredible Hulk #178). Whilst Hulk furiously battles Man-Beast, the expired redeemer resurrects in time to deliver a karmic coup de grace before ascending from Counter-Earth to the ever-beckoning stars.

The epic pauses here for Douglas Wolk’s critical appreciation of what happens next in ‘Unmistakable Talent’ before even more grandiose events are revealed…

The messianic saga apparently ended when Warlock died and was reborn, thwarting Satan-analogue Man-Beast with the aid of the Jade Juggernaut enacting a cosmic resurrection and ascending into the unknown. However, when the feature returned at the end of 1974 the tone, like the times, had hugely changed. In the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, hope, positivity and comfortable naivety had become world-weary cynicism. The new Adam had changed too, and was now draped in precepts of inescapable destiny in the manner of doomed warrior Elric. It was a harbinger of things to come…

The story resumed in Strange Tales #178 as ultra-imaginative morbid maverick Jim Starlin (Captain Marvel, Master of Kung Fu, Infinity Gauntlet, Dreadstar, Batman, Death in the Family, Kid Kosmos) turned the astral wanderer into a nihilistic, Michael Moorcock-inspired, death-obsessed, constantly outraged, exceedingly reluctant and cynical cosmic champion. The slow spiral to oblivion began in February cover-dated Strange Tales #178, wherein Starlin introduced alien Greek Chorus Sphinxor of Pegasus to recap the past by asking and answering ‘Who is Adam Warlock?’

Handling everything but lettering – that was left to Annette Kawecki – Starlin’s solitary stellar nomad Warlock is brooding on a desolate asteroid in the Hercules star cluster just as a trio of brutes attack a frightened girl. Despite his best efforts they execute her, proud of their status as Grand Inquisitors of the Universal Church of Truth who have ecstatically excised one more heathen unbeliever…

Appalled to have failed another innocent, Warlock employs the Soul Gem at his brow to briefly resurrect her and learns of an all-conquering ruthless militant religion dedicated to converting or eradicating all life. His search triggers a chilling confrontation as ‘Enter The Magus!’ manifests the living god of the UCT who attacks Warlock with a crushingly awful truth: the man who has subjugated worlds, exterminated trillions and fostered every dark desire of sentient beings is his own future self. Adam vows to end this perverse impossible situation, doing whatever is necessary to prevent becoming his own worst nightmare…

With Tom Orzechowski lettering and Glynis Oliver-Wein doing colours, Starlin’s pilgrimage sees Warlock attack a UCT warcraft transporting rebels, “degenerates” and “unproductives” from many converted worlds. The church only deems basic humanoids as sacred and worthy of salvation, with most other shapes useful only as fodder or fuel. However, despite their appearance as humanish, The Church does make an exception for the universally deplored, vulgar and proudly reprobate race called “Trolls” who are too salacious to exist…

In the dungeon-brig of the ship Great Divide, Adam’s gloomy mood is irresistibly lifted by disgusting troll Pip: a lout revelling in “independent manner and cavalier ways”, unphased or frightened by the imminent death awaiting them all. Meanwhile, enhanced true believer Captain Autolycus gets a message from Temporal Leader of the Faithful The Matriarch. She has decided to ignore her god’s instruction to capture Warlock and keep him unharmed…

As Adam instructs his fellow dregs in the nature of rule, Autolycus acts on her command, losing his entire crew and perishing when Warlock finally breaks loose. After escaping the ‘Death Ship!’, Adam realises Pip – keen to share a new adventure – has stowed away, but lets it go. He has a bigger problem: in the climactic final battle, the Soul Gem refused his wishes. Acting on its own, it consumed Autolycus’ memories and persona, binding them inside the twisted champion’s head…

With additional inking by Alan Weiss, ST #180’s ‘Judgment!’ finds Pip and Warlock submerged in the heaving masses of Homeworld whilst hunting the living god. Terrified of the uncontrollable spiritual vampire on his brow, Adam tries to remove it and discovers it has already stolen him: without it he will perish in seconds…

Living on borrowed time and pushed into precipitate action, the apostate avenger invades the Sacred Palace and is offered a curious deal by the Matriarch who imprisons him when he refuses. Subjected to ‘The Trial of Adam Warlock’, the appalled adventurer endures a twisted view of the universe courtesy of Grand Inquisitor Kray-Tor, even as in the city, Pip thinks he has scored with a hot chick when in fact he’s been targeted by public enemy number one. Called “the deadliest woman in the whole galaxy” Gamora has plans for Adam, which include him being alive and free…

Back in court, the golden man rejects Kray-Tor’s verdict and, revolted by the proceedings, foolishly lets his Soul Gem feed. The carnage it triggers and his subsequent guilt leaves Adam catatonic in the hands of the Matriarch’s cerebral re-programmers…

Starlin was always an outspoken, driven creator with opinions he struggled to suppress. His problems with Marvel’s working practises underpin ST #181’s ‘1000 Clowns!’ as old pal Al Milgrom inks a fantastic recap and psychological road trip inside the champion’s mind. None of the subtext is germane if you’re just looking for a great story however, and – in-world – Warlock’s resistance to mind-control is mirrored by Pip and Gamora’s advance through the UCT citadel to his side. Embattled by the psychic propaganda assaulting him, Warlock retreats into the safety of madness, learning to his horror that this is what The Magus wanted all along. Now the dark messiah’s victory and genesis are assured…

The triumph was celebrated by the resurrection of the hero’s own title. Cover-dated October 1975, Warlock #9 revealed the master plan of Adam’s future self. Inked by Steve Leialoha, ‘The Infinity Effect!’ depicted the mirror images in stark confrontation with evil ascendent, unaware Gamora was an agent of a hidden third party and that all the chaos and calamity was part of a war of cosmically conceptual forces. The saga heads into the Endgame as the Magus explains in cruel detail how he came to power and how warlock’s coming days are his past, before summoning abstract conceptual terror The In-Betweener to usher in their inevitable transfiguration. There is one problem however: the first time around Adam/Magus was never attacked and almost thwarted by an invisible green warrior woman…

Crushed by realisation that he will become a mass-murdering spiritual vampire, Adam reels as the hidden third element arrives to save everything. Inked by Leialoha, #10’s ‘How Strange My Destiny!’ finds Pip, Gamora, Adam and Thanos of Titan battling 25,000 cyborg Black Knights of the Church who rapturously pay ‘The Price!’ of devotion in a horrific stalling tactic until the In-Betweener comes…

Kree Captain Mar-Vell narrates a handy catch-up chapter detailing ‘Who is Thanos?’ as the beleaguered champions escape, before ‘Enter the Redemption Principle!’ explores some of the Titan’s scheme and why he opposes the Magus and his Church, even as the dark deity realises that Thanos’ time probe is the only thing that can upset his existence…

How Strange My Destiny – with finished art by Leialoha from Starlin’s layouts – continues and concludes in #11 as ‘Escape into the Inner Prison!’ sees the Magus and his Black Knight death squads brutally board Thanos’ space ark. A combination of raw power and the Soul Gem buy enough time for Warlock and Pip to use the time probe, which deposits them in the future, just as In-Betweener arrives to convert the hero and supervise ‘The Strange Death of Adam Warlock!’, resulting in a reshuffling of chronal reality and mad Thanos’ triumph…

After months of encroaching and overlapping Armageddons, Warlock #12 digresses and diverts with ‘A Trollish Tale!’ as Pip’s fondness for hedonism and debauchery entrap him in professional harlot Heater Delight’s plan to escape a life on (non)human sexual trafficking in a star-roaming pleasure cruiser. He’s happy with the promised reward for his efforts, but hasn’t considered that her pimp might object to losing his meal ticket…

Cosmic conflict returns in #13 as ‘…Here Dwells the Star Thief!’ introduces an existential threat to the entire universe lying in a hospital bed on Earth. New England’s Wildwood Hospital houses Barry Bauman, whose life is blighted by a total disconnection between his brain and nerve functions. Isolated, turned inward for his entire life, Barry has developed astounding psychic abilities, the first of which was to possess his nurse and navigate an unsuspecting outer world by proxy. Barry’s intellect also roams the endless universe and brooding, doomed Warlock is there when Barry consumes an entire star just for fun…

Outraged at such cruel wilful destruction, Warlock uses his own powers to trace the psionic force, resolved to follow it back to the planet of his original conception even as ‘The Bizarre Brain of Barry Bauman’ explores the Star Thief’s origins and motivations prior to the psionic savant formally challenging Adam to a game of “stop me if you can”…

Spitefully erasing stars and terrorising Earth as Warlock traverses galaxies at top speed, Bauman knows a secret about his foe that makes victory assured, but he still lays traps in the hero’s interstellar path. The ‘Homecoming!’ is accelerated by a shortcut through a black hole, but when Adam arrives in Sol system, he receives a staggering shock: his voyages and simple physics have wrought physical changes making it impossible to ever go home again. Sadly for gleeful Barry, the frustration of his foe distracts him just when he should be paying closer attention to his physical body…

The series abruptly ended again (November 1976), Starlin returned to full art & story chores in #15’s ‘Just a Series of Events!’ Exiled from Earth, Adam rants as elsewhere, Thanos expedites long-term plans. With The Magus removed, his desire for total stellar genocide can proceed, but the Titan worries that his adopted daughter Gamora might be a problem, when he really needs to be more concerned about his own nemesis-by-design Drax the Destroyer. The saga then pauses with Adam confronting a host of plebian injustices and seemingly regaining command of his Soul Gem at last…

Vanished again, Warlock only languished in limbo for a few months. In mid-December 1976, Marvel Team-Up #55 (cover-dated March 1977) addressed his physically altered state as Bill Mantlo, John Byrne & Dave Hunt crafted ‘Spider, Spider on the Moon!’ For reasons too complicated to explain here, Spider-Man had been trapped in a rocket and blasted into space before being happily intercepted and left by Warlock in Luna’s habitable “Blue Area”. The nomad then assisted the Arachnid and mysterious alien The Gardener against overbearing exotic ephemera collector The Stranger who sought possession of the Golden Gladiator’s life-sustaining Soul Gem, but soon discovered an equally fascinating alternate choice…

Despite his sporadic and frankly messy publishing career, Warlock has been at the heart of many of Marvel’s most epochal and well-regarded cosmic comic classics, and ending this compendium is probably the very best: an extended epic spanning two summer annuals and seemingly signalling the end on an era…

‘The Final Threat’ (by Starlin & Joe Rubinstein in Avengers Annual #70, sees Protector of the Universe Mar-Vell AKA Captain Marvel and Titanian ultra-mentalist Moondragon back on Earth with vague anticipations of impending catastrophe. The premonitions are confirmed when Warlock arrives with news that death-obsessed Thanos has amassed an alien armada and built a soul gem-fuelled weapon to snuff out stars like candles. Spanning interstellar space to stop the scheme, the assembled heroes forestall alien invasion and prevent the Dark Titan from destroying the Sun, but only at the cost of Warlock’s life…

‘Death Watch!’ (Starlin & Rubinstein, Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2) then finds Peter Parker plagued by prophetic nightmares. These disclose how Thanos had snatched victory from defeat and now holds The Avengers captive whilst again preparing to extinguish Sol. With nowhere else to turn, the anguished, disbelieving webspinner heads for the Baxter Building, hoping to borrow a spacecraft, and unaware that The Thing also has a history with the terrifying Titan. Utterly overmatched, the mismatched Champions of Life nevertheless upset Thanos’ plans for long enough to free the Avengers before the Universe’s true agent of retribution ends the Titan’s threat forever… at least until next time…

Meanwhile on Earth, events are unfolding that will impact the future. The Hulk, bereft by the death of his subatomic lover Jarella, joins Defender chief Doctor Stephen Strange in David Anthony Kraft, Herb Trimpe and inkers Frank Giacoia & Mike Esposito for Incredible Hulk King Size Annual #6’s ‘Beware the Beehive!’ Here three of the mad scientists who made Him attempt to recreate their greatest success and failure. Morlak, Shinsky and Zota of rogue science collective The Enclave reactivate their hidden “Beehive” for another go at building a compliant god they can control, and abduct Doctor Strange to replace their missing fourth. The undercover magician summons the Jade Juggernaut to extract him from the experiment’s inevitable consequences when a compassionless super-slave dubbed Paragon emerges from a cocoon.

Before The Hulk arrives the natal menace tries to eradicate Strange and subdue mankind, but happily, after a border-shattering, army-crunching global rampage, that’s when the Hulk kicks the wall in and goes to work, forcing Paragon to return to its chrysalis and pursue further growth…

The stellar epic continued in Marvel Two-In-One: a title that had become a clearing house for unfinished plotlines and sagas. In #61 (cover-dated March 1980), Mark Gruenwald, Jerry Bingham & Gene Day unveiled ‘The Coming of Her!’ as time-travelling space god and 31st century Guardian of the Galaxy Starhawk became entangled in the birth of a female counterpart to artificial superman Adam Warlock. Picking up threads of the Hulk tale as well as Warlock’s quest, the tale told how Paragon awoke fully empowered and in female form and configuration and instantly began searching Earth for her predecessor. The fading psychic trail led to Ben Grimm’s girlfriend Alicia and Moondragon, who were pressganged across the solar system, arriving by MTIO #62 in time to witness ‘The Taking of Counter-Earth!’

Hot on their heels, The Thing and Starhawk catch Her just as the women encounter a severely injured High Evolutionary, and discover the world the self-created science god so carefully built and casually discarded has been stolen. Now united in mystery, the strange grouping follow the lost planet’s trail out of the galaxy and uncover the incredible perpetrators, but Her’s desperate quest to secure her predestined mate ends in tragedy when she learns ‘Suffer Not a Warlock to Live!’

The sidereal saga seemingly done, this collection also offers a bonanza of bonus treats which include a gallery of covers by Kirby, Sinnott & Colletta, Kane & Adkins, Frank Giacoia, John Romita, John Buscema, Trimpe, Starlin, Weiss, George Pérez & Terry Austin, house ads, original art pages by Kirby, Sinnott & Colletta, the 1972 Marvel Bulletin Page announcing Adam Warlock’s debut, John Romita corner-box art for Marvel Premiere #1, unused and corrected page & panel art, 9 pages of Kane finished art and numerous pencil roughs, augmented by 16 pages by Starlin and the cover of F.O.O.M. #9 (March 1975 and a “Special Cosmic Issue”) plus Duffy Vohland’s illustrated essay ‘Man is the Father to Him’.

Also on view are Starlin & Alan Weiss’s contributions to The Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar 1976, and 16 pages of unused pencils by Weiss. (The photostats come from an issue lost in transit, and are supplemented by before-&-after panels judged unsuitable by the Comics Code Authority, the various production stages of Starlin & Weiss’ cover art for Warlock #9, with sketches, designs, frontispieces and full pages of original art). More Starlin original art and Weiss’ ‘Thanos War’ plate for the Marvel Team-Up Portfolio (1982).

Fact-filled pages on Warlock, The Enclave, Drax the Destroyer, The Gardener, In-Betweener, Gamora, Her, High Evolutionary, Moondragon, Pip the Troll, Thanos and 8 Alien Races from The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (1983-1985) precede a comedic offering from August 1982’s What If? #34 and Bob Budiansky & Bob Wiacek’s cover for Marvel Treasury Edition #24: The Rampaging Hulk (reprinting the Warlock saga from #175-178). The Fantastic Four “Him” debut was reprinted in Marvel’s Greatest Comics #49 & 50 (May & June 1974) and the covers are included here, as are those of Fantasy Masterpieces volume 2 #8-14 (1980-1981 reprinting Starlin’s early Warlock stories). They are augmented by the wraparound covers from 1983’s Warlock Special Edition #1-6 reprint series – including additional bridging pages, text and cartoon editorials by Al Milgrom and Starlin pin-ups.

A Craig Hamiliton Warlock plate from 1986’s Marvel’s Comics Limited Edition Superhero Print Series is followed by covers for 1992-1993’s Warlock rerun series (#1-6 and released to support the Infinity Gauntlet miniseries) and 9 prior collection and omnibus covers by Kane, Adkins, Richard Isanove, Starlin, Tom Smith, Weiss, Thomas Mason, Dean White and InHyuk Lee.

Ambitious, unconventional and beautiful to behold, Warlock’s oft-reprinted adventures are very much a product of their tempestuous, socially divisive times. For many, they proved how mature comics might become, but for others they were simply pretty pictures and epic fights with little lasting relevance. What they unquestionably remain is a series of crucial stepping stones to greater epics: unmissable appetisers to Marvel Magic at its finest.
© 2023 MARVEL.

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Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman volume 1


By Gail Simone & Ethan Van Scriver, Amanda Deibert & Cat Staggs, James Bischoff & David A. Williams, Ivan Cohen & Marcus To, Sean Williams & Marguerite Sauvage, Ollie Masters & Amy Mebberson, Gilbert Hernandez & John Rauch, Rob Williams & Tom Lyle, Neil Kleid & Dean Haspiel , Corinna Bechko & Gabriel Hardman & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5344-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

Beyond all dispute or doubt, Wonder Woman is the very acme of female role models. Since her premier in 1941 she has dominated every aspect of global consciousness to become not only a paradigm of comics’ very fabric but also a brilliant and vivid visual touchstone and mythic symbol to women everywhere. In whatever era you observe, the Amazing Amazon epitomises the perfect balance between thought and competence and, over those decades, has become one of that rarefied pantheon of literary creations to achieve meta-reality.

For decades, the official story was that the Princess of Paradise Island was conceived by psychologist and polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston as a calculated attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model who would sell more funnybooks to girls. Thanks to forward-thinking Editor M.C. Gaines, an introductory guest shot for the Amazon in All Star Comics #8 (cover-dated December 1941 and on sale from the third week of October), served to launch her one month later into her own series – and the cover-spot – of new anthology title Sensation Comics. We now know Wonder Woman was in fact a team if not communal effort, with Moulton Marston acting at the behest of his remarkable wife Elizabeth and their life partner Olive Byrne.

An instant hit, Wonder Woman won an eponymous supplemental title (cover-dated summer 1942) some months later. That set up enabled the Star-Spangled Sensation to weather the vicissitudes of the notoriously transient comic book marketplace and survive beyond the Golden Age of costumed heroes beside Superman, Batman and a few lucky hangers-on who inhabited the backs of their titles. She soldiered on well into the Silver Age revival under the official auspices of Kanigher, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, but by 1968 superhero comics were in decline again and publishers sought new ways to keep audiences interested as tastes – and American society – changed.

Barring a couple of early fill-ins by Frank Godwin, the vast majority of outlandish, eccentric, thematically barbed adventures they collectively penned were limned by classical illustrator Harry G. Peter. When Marston died on cancer in 1947, his assistant Joye Hummell carried on writing stories until DC replaced her with a man – in fact a “real Man’s Man” – Robert Kanigher…

Once upon a time on a hidden island of immortal super-women, American aviator Steve Trevor of US Army Intelligence crashed to Earth. Near death, he was nursed back to health by young, impressionable Princess Diana. Fearful of her besotted child’s growing obsession with the creature from a long-forgotten and madly violent world, Diana’s mother Queen Hippolyte revealed the hidden history of the Amazons: how they were seduced and betrayed by men but rescued from bondage by the goddess Aphrodite on condition they isolated themselves forever from the mortal world, devoting their eternal lives to becoming ideal, perfect creatures.

However with the planet in crisis, goddesses Athena and Aphrodite instructed Hippolyte to send an Amazon back with the American to fight for global liberty. Although forbidden to compete, closeted, cosseted teen Diana clandestinely overcame all other candidates to become their emissary: Wonder Woman.

On arriving in the Land of the Free she purchased the identity and credentials of lovelorn Army nurse Diana Prince, which elegantly allowed the unregistered immigrant to stay close to Steve whilst enabling the heartsick care-worker to join her own fiancé in South America.

The new Diana soon gained a position with Army Intelligence as secretary to General Darnell, further ensuring she would always be able to watch over her beloved. The Princess little suspected that, although the painfully shallow Steve only had eyes for the dazzling Amazon superwoman, the General had fallen for the mousy but supremely competent Lieutenant Prince…

Back then, the entire industry depended on newsstand sales and if you weren’t popular, you died. Editor Jack Miller & Mike Sekowsky stepped up with a radical proposal (a makeover in the manner of UK TV icon Emma Peel) and made comic book history with the only female superhero to still have her own title in that marketplace. Eventually the merely mortal troubleshooter gave way to a reinvigorated Amazing Amazon who battled declining sales until DC’s groundbreaking Crisis on Infinite Earths, after which she was radically rebooted.

There were minor tweaks in her continuity to accommodate different creators’ tenures, until 2011 when DC rebooted their entire comics line again and Wonder Woman once more underwent a drastic, fan-infuriating but sales-boosting root-&-branch re-imagining. Perhaps to mitigate the fallout, DC created a number of fall-back options such as this intriguing package: the first of three to date…

Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman began as an online “digital first” series before being collected (months later) as a new standard print comic reprinting three post/chapters per issue. Crafted by a fluctuating roster of artists and writers, the contents highlighted every previous era and incarnation of the character – and even a few wildly innovative alternative visions – offering a variety of thrilling, engaging and sincerely fun-filled moments to remember.

The comic book iteration was successful enough to warrant its own series of trade paperback compilations which – in the fullness of time and nature of circularity – gained their own digital avatars as eBooks too.

This first full-colour compilation collects Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman #1-5 (October 2014 – February 2015), displaying a wealth of talent and cornucopia of different insights, starting with Gail Simone & Ethan Van Scriver’s ‘Gothamazon’, detailing how a mythologically militaristic Wonder Woman uncompromisingly, permanently cleans up Batman’s benighted home when the Gotham Guardians are taken out of play…

Amanda Deibert & Cat Staggs’ ‘Defender of Truth’ pits the Amazon against man-hating sorceress Circe to deliver a lesson that never gets old before ‘Brace Yourself’ from James Bischoff & David A. Williams reveals how little Princess Diana spent her formative years testing her growing abilities – and the Queen’s patience and love…

In ‘Taketh Away’ Ivan Cohen & Marcus To tackle an interesting issue by addressing the religious implications of a pagan-worshipping hero in Judaeo-Christian America whilst delivering an action-packed mystery and super duel with old enemies Cheetah and Doctor Psycho, before Sean Williams & Marguerite Sauvage explore her media profile as crime buster, role model and singer/lead guitarist with global rock sensation ‘Bullets and Bracelets’.

‘Morning Coffee’ by Ollie Masters & Amy Mebberson offers a quirky, manga-inspired duel of wits and ideologies with infallible thief Catwoman after which Gilbert Hernandez & colourist John Rauch go incontrovertibly retro for a blockbusting Silver-Age celebration of maidenly might as Wonder Woman, Mary (Shazam!) Marvel and Supergirl smash robots, aliens, supervillains and each other in cathartically cataclysmic clash ‘No Chains Can Hold Her!’

An alternate Earth mash-up by Rob Williams & Tom Lyle sees the classic Justice League and Thanagarian shapeshifter Byth face the ‘Attack of the 500-Foot Wonder Woman’ whilst ‘Ghosts and Gods’ (Neil Kleid & Dean Haspiel) finds the Golden Age Amazon and trusty aide Etta Candy united with restless spirit Deadman to foil the schemes of immortal eco-terrorist Ra’s Al Ghul.

The comic cavalcade concludes on a far more sombre and sinister note as ‘Dig for Fire’ by Corinna Bechko & Gabriel Hardman discloses how Diana invades Hellworld Apokolips to rescue two Amazon sisters only to discover amidst the horror and degradation that true evil is not the sole preserve of depraved New God Darkseid…

Augmented by spectacular covers-&-variants from Van Scriver & Brian Miller, Phil Jimenez & Romula Farjardo Jr., Ivan Reis, Joe Prado & Carrie Strachan, Adam Hughes & Lawrence Reynolds, this fascinating snapshot of the sheer breadth and variety of visions Wonder Woman has inspired in her decades of existence is one to delight fans old and new alike.
© 2014, 2015 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Wolf of Baghdad


By Carol Isaacs/The Surreal McCoy (Myriad Editions)
ISBN: 978-1-912408-55-9 (TPB) eISBN: 978-1-912408-71-9

Contemporary history is a priceless resource in creating modern narratives. It has the benefits of immediacy and relevance – even if only on a generational level – whilst combining notional familiarity (could you tell the difference between a stone axe and a rock?) with a sense of distance and exoticism. In comics, we’re currently blessed with a wealth of superb material exploring the recent past and none better than this enchanting trawl through a tragic time most of us never knew of…

A successful musician who has worked with The Indigo Girls, Sinead O’Connor and the London Klezmer Quartet (which she co-founded) Carol Isaacs – as The Surreal McCoy – is also a cartoonist whose graphic gifts are regularly seen in The New Yorker, The Spectator, Private Eye, Sunday Times and The Inking Woman: 250 Years of Women Cartoon and Comic Artists in Britain. Some while ago she found great inspiration in a 2000-year old secret history that’s she been party to for most of her life.

British-born of Iraqi-Jewish parents, Isaacs grew up hearing tales of her ancestors’ lives in Baghdad: part of a thriving multicultural society which had welcomed – or at least peacefully tolerated – Jews in Persia since 597 BCE. How 150,000 Hebraic Baghdadians (a third of the city’s population in 1940) was reduced by 2016 to just 5 is revealed and eulogised in this potently evocative memoir, told in lyrical pictures and the curated words of her own family and their émigré friends, as related to Carol over her developing years in their comfortably suburban London home.

Those quotes and portraits sparked an elegiac dream-state excursion to the wrecked, abandoned sites and places of a socially integrated, vibrantly cohesive metropolis she knows intimately and pines for ferociously, even though she has never set a single foot there…

As well as this enthralling pictorial experience, the art and narrative were incorporated into a melancholy motion comic (slideshow with original musical accompaniment). That moving experience is supplemented by an Afterword comprising illustrate text piece ‘Deep Home’ (first seen in ‘Origin Stories’ from anthology Strumpet) which details those childhood sessions listening to the remembrances of adult guests and family elders, and is followed by ‘The Making of The Wolf of Baghdad’ explaining not only the book and show’s origins, but also clarifies the thematic premise of ‘The Wolf Myth’ that permeates the city’s intermingled cultures.

‘Other Iraqis’ then reveals some interactions with interested parties culled from Isaacs’ blog whilst crafting this book, whilst a comprehensive ‘Timeline of the Jews in Iraq’ outlines the little-known history of Persian Jews and how and why it all changed, before ‘A Carpet’s Story’ details 1950’s Operations Ezra and Nehemiah which saw 120,000 Jews airlifted to Israel. Wrapping up the show is a page of Acknowledgements and Suggested Reading.

Simultaneously timeless and topical, The Wolf of Baghdad is less a history lesson than a lament for a lost homeland and way of life: a wistful deliberation on why bad things happen and on how words pictures and music can turn back the years and make the longed-for momentarily real and true.
© Carol Isaacs (The Surreal McCoy) 2020. All rights reserved.

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Pucky, Prince of Bacon – A Breaking Cat News Adventure


By Georgia Dunn (Andrews McMeel)
ISBN: 978-1-5248-7128-4 (PB) eISBN: 978-1-5248-8295-2

There’s a burgeoning trend amongst certain men – mostly hiding on the internet – to think their threat of replacing women they can’t “get” with sex-bots that don’t exist is in some way a deterrent to being turned down by people they don’t have the ability to ask nicely in the first place. These uncouth, mis-evolved oafs also warn that if the “females” don’t wise up and lower their standards they will be stuck with living with cats…

Guys, wise up yourselves. Neither of those propositions are unwelcome outcomes. Cats already rule the world and you just can’t compete.

On any level.

In 2016, illustrator and cartoonist Georgia Dunn found a way to make her hairy housemates (the ones with more than two feet) earn their keep after watching them converge on a domestic accident and inquisitively, interminably poke their little snouts into the mess. That incident led to Breaking Cat News as a hilariously beguiling webcomic strip detailing how her forthright felines operate their own on-the-spot news-team, with studio anchor Lupin, and field reporters Elvis (investigative) and Puck (commentary) delivering around-the-clock reports on the events that really resonate with cats – because, after all, who else matters?

On March 27th 2017, a suitably modified (for which read fully redrawn and recoloured) version began newspaper syndication, alternating with new material designed expressly for print consumption. As the strip and cast grew, print publication led to books like these – also a far more enticing prospect than any night out with the boys…

If you’re a returning customer or already follow the strip, you’re au fait with the constantly expanding cast and its ceaselessly surreal absurdity, but this stuff is so welcoming even the merest neophyte can jump right in with no confusion other than that which is intentional…

Be warned though, Dunn is a master of emotional manipulation and never afraid to tug heartstrings. Always keep hankies close. You too, lads…

In this volume the cast return to episodic riffs as the Dunn’s toddler – under the guidance of the scoop-starved kitties – becomes mobile and adventurous. Moreover, the strips slowly and gleefully trace the events leading to the addition of his new baby sister, with the news team in the moment and in the wrong every step of the way.

You will see here said literal manchild learning to negotiate potential problems like toilets, sudden onset “sleepies”, furniture, The Man’s new job and interview attire, cat hair tagging and big family events like Christmas, New Years, Easter and The Woman’s sister coming to stay. When a fad for new year’s resolutions grips the cats, the kid is there to watch the fallout…

As always Rolling News episodes revisit favourite themes like things that don’t need to be on shelves, climbing into bags, the right packaging to play with (packing peanuts or tissue paper), helping The People exercise, getting more kibble, rainbows in the kitchen and whether mailmen exist, although new crises erupt and are covered in depth as they occur.

Of particular importance are how slow The Man is at cleaning the litter box and extended reports covering a cat war with the vacuum cleaner only ending when diligent feline investigations uncover maternal instinct behind the roaring beast’s increased rampages…

Breaking events are backed up by In-Depth packages and segments on whiskers, boxes for napping, crinkly candy wrappers, the quickest way to wake The People, new house plants (edible or not?), string & floss, how much The Woman sleeps, is sick or watches British cosy mysteries about crime-solving clerics.  In other news, an inherited cuckoo clock, a sustained campaign known as “Operation Second Breakfast”, and sudden leak of Elvis’ baby pictures from when he was adopted offer once in a lifetime opportunities for mockery and teasing…

When not reporting, our moggy mob – and outdoors cat Tommy – are happy to advise and comment on removing spiders, drying out phones, talking to skunks, cuteness, bathing, baby food, sweeping up, cat portraits, bad food, “booping” superglue, BCW (Best Cat Wrestling), Wet Food Wednesday, toys, spiffy moustaches, tuna water (proper cat persons call it “fishy-ssoise”),  books for sleeping in, snow and spring planting, and girl guide cookies. …And then everything changes with a new tiny People and the cats need to adapt – and report…

We pause our programme here with another Christmas and the explanation for why this book is called what it is…

Outrageous, alarming, occasionally courageous and always charming – and probably far too autobiographical for comfort – the romps, riffs and occasional sad bits about a fully integrated multi-species family is a growing necessity of life for many folk – just like men simply Are Not. Smart, witty, imaginative and deliciously whimsical, Breaking Cat News is fabulously funny infinitely re-readable feel-good fun rendered with artistic elan and a light and breezy touch to delight not just us irredeemable cat-addicts but also anyone in need of a good laugh.
Pucky, Prince of Bacon © 2022 Georgia Dunn. All rights reserved.

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The Adventures of Red Sonja volume 1


By Roy Thomas, Bruce Jones, Frank Thorne, Dick Giordano, Esteban Maroto, Neal Adams, Ernie Chan & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-93330-507-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Once upon a time, busty women expertly wielding swords and kicking butt were rarer than politicians and business leaders who respected personal boundaries. Then – for an inexplicably long time – it seemed no lady’s ensemble was complete without a favourite pig-sticker and accompanying armour accessories. That phenomenon eventually settled into women who fight kitted out and tooled up and those who battled unfeasibly underdressed and usually in gear that looked like it really chafed…

If you’d like more fascinating insights on this state of affairs in entertainment arenas you should also check out Jill Bearup’s Just Stab Me Now and/or her YouTube commentaries and lectures on safely and convincingly fighting with sharp objects, heavy implements and a sanguine attitude…

Meanwhile back in comics, you can probably trace the trend for combative, unsuitably cuirassed or chest plated cuties (just stab ME any time now!) to one breakthrough character. Although Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, Valkyrie, Asgardian goddess Sif and even Modesty Blaise all used bladed weapons on a daily basis, none of them ever racked up the kill quotient you’d expect or believe of women in battle until ‘The Song of Red Sonja’ (Conan the Barbarian #23, February 1973).

Drawn, inked and coloured by Barry Windsor-Smith with Roy Thomas scripting, the fragment of a larger epic introduced a dark-eyed hellion to the world. The tale became one of the most popular and reprinted stories of the decade, winning that year’s Academy of Comic Book Arts Awards in the Best Individual Story (Dramatic) category.

Although based on Robert E. Howard’s Russian war-woman Red Sonya of Rogatine (as seen in the 16th century-set thriller The Shadow of the Vulture, with a smidgen of Dark Agnes de Chastillon thrown into the mix) the comic book Red Sonja is very much Thomas’ brainchild.

In his Introduction here – ‘A Fond Look Back at Big Red’ – he shares many secrets of her convoluted genesis, development and achievements as part of the first (of three) archival collection (available in trade paperback and digital editions) of her Marvel appearances. Originally released at a time when accepted editorial wisdom declared comics starring women didn’t sell, Marvel Feature (volume 2) was launched to capitalise on a groundswell of popular interest stemming from Sonja’s ongoing guest shots in Conan stories. This first compilation collects issues #1-7 (November 1975-November 1976) and opens with a then scarce-seen reprint…

Sonja graduated from cameo queen to her first solo role in a short eponymous tale scripted by Thomas and illustrated by Esteban Maroto, Neal Adams & Ernie Chan, tucked into the premiere issue of monochrome mature-reader magazine Savage Sword of Conan – cover-dated August 1974. Colourised by Jose Villarrubia and edited to remove the racier bits, it filled out the premier general distribution Marvel Feature, and revealed in sumptuous style how the wandering woman mercenary undertook a mission for King Ghannif of Pah-Dishah. That task led to her momentous first meeting with Conan and her successful completion of the mission; which was supposed to pay off with the potentate’s most treasured gift. When that reward turned out to be a position as his next wife, Sonja’s response was swift, sharp and so very memorable…

That captivating catch-up yarn leads here to ‘The Temple of Abomination’ (Thomas & Dick Giordano) as the restless sell-sword stumbles upon a lost church dedicated to debauched antediluvian gods and saves a dying priest of Mitra from further torture at the paws of monstrous beast-men…

MF #2 delivered the last key component of Red Sonja’s ascendancy as Frank Thorne (June 16th 1930-March 7th 2021) signed on as illustrator. One of the most individualistic talents in American comics, he began his career in 1948, drawing romances for Standard Comics with the legendary Alex Toth before graduating to better paid newspaper strips. Thorne illustrated Perry Mason for King Features Syndicate and at Dell/Gold Key drew Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim and The Green Hornet, as well as the first years of seminal sci-fi classic Mighty Samson.

At DC he produced compelling work on Tomahawk and Son of Tomahawk before being hired by Thomas at Marvel to illustrate (belated) breakthrough strip Red Sonja. Forever-after connected with feisty, earthy, highly sexualised women, in 1978 Thorne created outrageously bawdy (some say vulgar) swordswoman Ghita of Alizarr for Warren’s adult science fantasy anthology 1984/1994 and a succession of adult satirical strips like Moonshine McJugs for Playboy and Danger Rangerette for The National Lampoon. He won the National Cartoonists Award for Comic Books, an Inkpot Award, a Playboy Editorial Award and countless international honorariums over his astoundingly long career. Throughout his controversial career, steadfast supportive wife Marilyn worked beside him. Their 69-year marriage ended when they both died on same day – March 7th 2021.

Applying his loose, vigorous style and frenetic design sense to a meticulously plotted script from Bruce Jones, Thorne hit the ground running with ‘Blood of the Hunter’ wherein Sonja tricks formidable rival Rejak the Tracker out of an enigmatic golden key. She has also unsuspectingly unleashed a whirlwind or torment as the hunter remorselessly stalks Sonja, butchering everyone she befriends and driving her to the brink of death before their final confrontation…

Marvel Feature #3 reveals the secret of the key after Sonja takes some very bad advice from an old wise-woman and reawakens a colossal death-engine from an earlier age in ‘Balek Lives!’ before endless meanderings bring her to a village terrorised by a mythological threat. However, when she looks into the ‘Eyes of the Gorgon’ she discovers the most merciless monsters are merely human. That same lesson is repeated when ‘The Bear God Walks’ but – after joining a profitable bounty hunt for a marauding beast – Sonja and her new comrades soon find that fake horrors can inadvertently summon up real ones…

With #6, Thomas returned as scripter and set up a crossover with Conan and then-paramour Bêlit: pirate queen of the Black Coast. Although the concomitant issues of Conan the Barbarian (#66-68) aren’t reproduced here, the story is constructed in such a way that most readers won’t notice anything amiss…

Thus, ‘Beware the Sacred Sons of Set’ sees Sonja – after routing a pack of jackal-headed humanoid assailants – commissioned by Karanthes, High Priest of the Ibis God, to secure a magical page torn from mystic grimoire the Iron-Bound Book of Skelos in demon-haunted Stygia. She’s barely aware of an unending war between ancient deities, or that old colleague and rival Conan of Cimmeria is similarly seeking the arcane artefact…

After clashing repeatedly with her rivals and defeating numerous beasts and terrors, Sonja believes she has gained the upper hand in ‘The Battle of the Barbarians’, but there is more at stake than any doughty warrior can imagine…

To Be Continued…

Augmented by a colour-remastered cover gallery by Gil Kane and Thorne, this is a bold and bombastic furiously fun fiesta for fantasy action fans of all ages, genders or persuasions.

RED SONJA® and related logos, characters, names and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Red Sonja Corporation unless otherwise noted. All Rights Reserved.

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Axa Adult Fantasy Color Album


By Enrique “Enric” Badía Romero & Donne Avenell (Ken Pierce Books/Eclipse Comics)
ISBN: 0-912277-27-0 (TPB)

Born in 1930 Enrique “Enric” Badía Romero’s comics career began in his native Spain fifteen years later when he was apprenticed to popular creator Emilio Freixas. By 1949 – as “Badia” – he was drawing strips for Susy and other publications, and in 1953, launched his own magazine Alex, before going on to found publishers Ruiz Romero where he produced everything from westerns, sports, war stories and trading cards – mostly in conjunction with his brothers Jorge and Jordi. Their most memorable series were Cromos, Hombres de Lucha and Historia de la Guerra.

“Enric” began working for the higher-paying UK market in the 1960s, on strips such as ‘Cathy and Wendy’, ‘Isometrics’ and ‘Cassius Clay’ before successfully assuming drawing duties on the high-profile Modesty Blaise adventure-serial in 1970. He left in 1978 when an enticing new prospect appeared whilst he was simultaneously illustrating Modesty and Rahan with André Chéret for Franco-Belgian weekly Pif gadget. Even for the prolific artist something had to give…

Axa ran in The Sun Monday to Saturday from 14th July 1978 to her abrupt cancellation on November 16th 1986 – purportedly a victim of political and editorial intrigue which saw the strip cancelled in the middle of a story. Other than the First American Edition series from strip historian Ken Pierce and this colour collection, there has never been a definitive English language collection. It should be noted also that at the time of this book she was still being published with great success and to popular acclaim.

Back then in Britain it often appeared the only place where truly affirmative female role-models appeared to be taken seriously were cartoon sections, but even there the likes of Modesty Blaise, Danielle, Scarth, Amanda, Wicked Wanda and all the other capable ladies who walked all over the oppressor gender – both humorously and in straight adventure scenarios – lost clothes and shed undies repeatedly, continuously, frivolously and in the manner they always had…

Nobody complained (at least no one important or who was ever taken seriously): it was just tradition and the idiom of the medium… and besides, artists have always liked to draw bare-naked ladies as much as blokes liked to see them. It was even “educational” for the kiddies – who could buy any newspaper in any shop without interference, even if they couldn’t get into cinemas to view Staying Alive, Octopussy or Return of the Jedi without an accompanying adult…

Tough ’n’ sexy take-charge chicks (without clothes) were a comic-strip standard by the time the Star Wars phenomenon rekindled interest in science fiction, and the infallible old standby of scantily-clad, curvy amazons in post-apocalyptic realms never had greater sales-appeal than when The Sun – Britain’s sleaziest yet best-selling tabloid – hired Romero & Donne Avenell to produce a new fantasy feature for their already well-stacked cartoon section.

This beautifully illustrated but oddly out of kilter collection doesn’t bear much similarity in terms of tone or format to the (ostensibly) family-oriented daily strip, and features none of the regular supporting cast like long-suffering lover Matt or robotic companion Mark 10, which leads me to suspect it was created independently for a European market, perhaps as a Sunday page in Romero’s homeland or elsewhere where attitudes and mores were more liberal.

Certainly in the early 1980s Axa appeared in adult bande dessinée icon Charlie Mensuel (which reprinted many classic newspaper strips from around the world) and after that closed in Swedish publication Magnum.

Whatever their origin, the tales collected here are far stronger and more explicitly sexual in nature; occasionally coming close to being macho rape-fantasies, so please be warned as such content, no matter how winningly illustrated, will certainly offend most modern consumers.

The eponymous heroine was raised in a stultifying, antiseptic and emotionless domed city: a bastion of technological advancement in a world destroyed by war, pollution and far worse. Chafing at the constricting life of loveless living dead men, Axa broke out and, ancient sword in hand, chose to roam the shattered Earth searching for something real and true and free…

This slim oversized tome opens with Axa crossing trackless wasteland under a scorching sun until she finds a hidden grotto beneath a ruined building. The coolly sensual hidden pool is a welcome delight but harbours a ghastly monster and mutant voyeur…

Captured by a hideously scarred human degenerate Axa discovers his gentle nature but is soon abducted by his far-less sympathetic brethren who want to use her as a brood mare for their next generation. Ultimately, fate, her newfound friend and that ever-present longsword combine to effect her escape…

Resuming aimless exploration, Axa encounters a coastal village and is almost killed by wild dogs. Desperate flight takes her to a lighthouse on the promontory above the deserted town where ruggedly handsome Juame and his teenaged daughter Maria have been trapped for months. Swiftly, sexual tension between Axa and Jaume culminates in the only way it can as Maria is driven mad by jealousy she can barely comprehend. When a roving band of vicious post-apocalyptic Hell’s Angels hits town hungry for slaughter and kicks, the conflicted teen opens the tower doors for them…

The brutes casually murder her father and are intent on adding her and Axa to their string of human playthings, when a terrific storm hits and Axa breaks loose to become the bloody tool of harsh, uncompromising and final fate…

This incarnation of the warrior wanderer is certainly harder-hitting and more visceral than the British strip version and has little of the feature’s sly, dry humour, but art-lovers cannot fail to be impressed by Romero’s vibrant mixed-media illustration and imaginative, liberating page compositions.

Lush, lavish, luxurious and strictly for adventure-loving adults, Axa is long overdue for a comprehensive ethical overhaul and definitive comics collection. Is there a bold publisher out there looking for the next big thing and prepared to face a barrage of ethical vituperation?
Axa © 1985 Enrique Badia Romero. Previously © 1983, 1984 in Spanish. Express Newspapers, Ltd.

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Krazy & Ignatz 1919-1921: The George Herriman Library volume 2


By George Herriman (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68396-367-7 (HB/Digital edition)

In a field positively brimming with magnificent, eternally evergreen achievements, Krazy Kat is – for most cartoon cognoscenti – the pinnacle of pictorial narrative innovation. The canon comprises a singular and hugely influential body of work which shaped the early days of the comics industry whilst elevating itself to the level of a treasure of world literature, adored by the literary and entertainment elite whilst simultaneously bewildering and annoying millions who didn’t “get it”…

Krazy & Ignatz is a creation which must always be approached and appreciated on its own terms. Over decades the strip developed a unique language – simultaneously visual and verbal – to allegorically delineate the immeasurable variety of human experience, foibles and peccadilloes with unfaltering warmth and understanding… and without ever offending anybody. Baffled millions, certainly, but offended… Nope, nehvah.

It certainly went over the heads and around the hearts of many, but Krazy Kat was never a strip for dull, slow or unimaginative people: those who can’t or won’t accept complex, multilayered verbal and visual whimsy, absurdist philosophy or seamless blending of sardonic slapstick with arcane joshing. It is still the closest thing to pure poesy narrative art has ever produced. Think of Dylan Thomas and Edward Lear playing “I Spy” with James Joyce amongst beautifully harsh, barren cactus fields as Gabriel García Márquez types up shorthand notes and keeps score…

George Joseph Herriman (August 22, 1880-April 25, 1944) was already successful as a cartoonist and journalist in 1913 when a cat and mouse who’d been noodling about at the edges of his domestic comedy strip The Family Upstairs graduated to their own feature on October 28th 1913. As covered here in heavily illustrated introductory article ‘A Mouse by Any Other Name: Krazy & Ignatz’s Early Life Under the Boards’ Krazy Kat – instantly mildly intoxicating and gently scene-stealing – had first popped up on July 26th 1910 in that strip’s precursor The Dingbat Family: a 5-day-a-week monochrome comedy strip in William Randolph Hearst’s New York Evening Journal.

By sheer dint of that overbearing publishing magnate’s enrapt adoration and direct influence and interference, the cat ‘n’ mouse capers gradually and inexorably spread throughout his vast stable of papers. Although Hearst and contemporary artistic and literary intelligentsia (such as Frank Capra, e.e. Cummings, Willem de Kooning, H.L. Mencken and more) adored the strip, many local and regional editors did not: taking every potentially career-ending opportunity to drop it from those circulation-crucial comics sections designed to entice Joe Public and the general populace.

The feature eventually found its true home and sanctuary in the Arts and Drama section of Hearst’s papers, protected there by Hearst’s unshakable patronage. At last enhanced (in 1935) with the cachet of enticing colour, the Ket & Ko. flourished, freed from editorial interference or fleeting fashion. It ran mostly unmolested until Herriman’s death on April 25th 1944 from cirrhosis caused by Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Eschewing standard industry policy and finding a substitute creator, Hearst decreed Krazy Kat would die with its originator.

The premise is simple: Krazy is what we would call gender-fluid; an effeminate, dreamy, sensitive, romantic feline, hopelessly smitten with venal, toxically masculine Ignatz Mouse. A married, spouse-abusing delinquent father, he is rude, crude, brutal, mendacious and thoroughly scurrilous. Ignatz is a proudly unreconstructed male and early forerunner of the men’s rights movement: drinking, stealing, fighting, conniving, constantly neglecting his wife and many children and always responding to Krazy’s genteel advances of friendship (or more) by clobbering the Kat with a well-aimed brick. These he obtains singly or in bulk from local brick-maker Kolin Kelly. The smitten kitten misidentifies these gritty gifts as tokens of equally recondite affection, showered upon him/her/they in the manner of Cupid’s arrows. It’s not a response, except perhaps a conditioned one: the mouse spends the majority of his time, energy and ingenuity (when not indulging in crime or philandering) launching missiles at the mild moggy’s mug. He can’t help himself, and Krazy waits for it to happen with the day bleakly unfulfilled if the adored, anticipated assault fails to happen.

The final critical element completing an anthropomorphic emotional triangle is lawman Offissa Bull Pupp. He is utterly besotted with Krazy, professionally aware of the Mouse’s true nature, but hamstrung from permanently removing his devilish rival for the foolish feline’s affections by his own amorous timidity and sense of honour. Krazy is blithely oblivious to the perennially “Friend-Zoned” Pupp’s dolorous dilemma…

Peripherally populating the mutable stage are a large, ever-growing supporting cast of inspired bit players. These include new player and relentless deliverer of babies Joe Stork; Hispanic huckster Don Kiyoti, hobo Bum Bill Bee, self-aggrandizing Walter Cephus Austridge, inscrutable, barely intelligible (and outrageously unreconstructed by modern standards) Chinese mallard Mock Duck, portraitist Michael O’Kobalt, dozy Joe Turtil and snoopily sagacious fowl Mrs. Kwakk Wakk, augmented by a host of audacious animal crackers such as Krazy’s relations Katfish, Katbird and niece Katrina – all equally capable of stealing the limelight and supporting their own features…

The exotic, quixotic episodes occur mainly amidst the Painted Desert environs of Coconino (patterned on Herriman’s vacation retreat in Coconino County, Arizona) where surreal playfulness and the fluid ambiguity of flora and landscape are perhaps the most important member of the cast. The strips are a masterful mélange of unique experimental drawing, cunningly designed, wildly expressionistic (frequently referencing Navajo arts) whilst harnessing sheer unbridled imagination and delightfully evocative lettering and language. This last is most effective here: alliterative, phonetically, onomatopoeically joyous with a compellingly melodious musical force and delicious whimsy (“Ignatz Ainjil” or “I’m a heppy, heppy ket!”).

Yet for all our high-fallutin’ intellectualism, these comic adventures are poetic, satirical, timely, timeless, bittersweet, self-referential, fourth-wall bending, eerily idiosyncratic, outrageously hilarious escapades encompassing every aspect of humour from painfully punning shaggy dog stories to riotous, violent slapstick. Herriman was a master of action: indulging in dialogue-free escapades as captivating as any Keystone Kop or Charlie Chaplin 2-reeler. Kids of any age will delight in them as much as any pompous old oaf like me and you…

This cartoon wonderment is bulked up with a veritable treasure trove of unique artefacts: candid photos, correspondence, original strip art and examples of Herriman’s personalised gifts and commissions (gorgeous hand-coloured artworks featuring the cast and settings), supported by fascinating insights and crucial history. Bill Blackbeard’s essay ‘A Mouse by Any Other Name: Krazy & Ignatz’s Early Life Under the Boards’ continues detailing the circuitous path to Krazy in Coconino via Herriman’s earlier strips successes The Dingbat Family and The Family Upstairs.

This volume then reveals – mostly in monochrome – the strips from January 5th 1919 to December 25th 1921 in a reassuringly hefty atlas of another land and time, with the unending dramas playing out as before, but with some intriguing diversions. These include a wealth of snow and farming gags, recurring tributes to Kipling’s “Just So Stories” (such as learning how Kookoo Klocks work, why bananas are slippy and hang around in bunches and why Lightning Bugs light up). Early in the year occasional unwelcome guest Blind Pig (a sly salute to speakeasies in Prohibition days) debuts even as the regulars tirelessly test out their strange threesome relationship in a dazzling array of short painful trysts…

The peculiar proceedings are delivered – much like Joe Stork’s bundles of joy/responsibility – every seven days, with running gags on Ignatz being furless and Krazy philanthropically and clandestinely finding ways to buy or grow him a warm winter coat; odd vegetables taking root in the region’s unfeasibly fertile soil and plenty of scandal and gossip spawning mischief from the animal onlookers. A nod to an unstable post war world comes with strikes at Kelly’s brickworks and sundry other reasons why bricks suddenly become scarce, all forcing Ignatz to find replacement ammunition…

Even so, always our benighted star gets hit with something solid: many, variegated, heavy and forever evoking joyous, grateful raptures and transports of delight from the heartsore, hard-headed recipient, with Pupp helpless to thwart Ignatz or even understand why the Ket longs for his hate-filled assaults. Often Herriman simply let nature takes its odd course: draughting surreal slapstick chases, weird physics events and convoluted climate conditions to carry the action and confound the reader, but gradually an unshakeable character dynamic forms involving love and pain, crime and punishment and – always – forgiveness, redemption and another chance for all transgressors and malefactors…

Much time and effort is expended to have Joe deliver a longed-for heir to rich but dissatisfied tycoon Mr. T Vanwagg-Taylor even though each time fate intervenes and the anticipated offspring is left with other mothers. The Ket’s ancient Egyptian antecedents are exposed whilst in the present Krazy is put on trial for being crazy…

A Katnippery is opened and many strips concentrate on how the magic herb is kultivated and konsumed, whilst a fashion for hats and helmets leads to a period of brick imperviousness before the mouse adapts again. Krazy explores careers in music, dance, acting and pugilism as Herriman opens decades of subversive playing with line and shade carefully probing where black ink and white paper are metaphors for race and colour.

When not sleeping in the bath or giving shelter to migrant Mexican jumping beans and land-locked castaway clams, Krazy falls in love with motoring and racing, and also sets up an electrical power company based upon cat fur static, whilst malevolent Ignatz delves deep into the lore of bricks and dornicks, edging closer to having his own kiln and manufactory…

Sometimes there’s no logic in control, as when Krazy obtains the Pied Piper’s magical instrument and the result is not what you’d expect, or as assorted ailments afflict the town too, or it is assailed by reformers and bluestocking moralists…

And then it was Christmas and a new year and volume lay ahead…

Before closing, though, at the far end of the tome you can enjoy some full-colour archival illustration and another batch of erudite and instructional acclimation in ‘The Ignatz Mouse Debaffler’, with Blackbeard, Jeet Heer and Michael Tisserand providing pertinent facts, snippets of contextual history and necessary notes for the young and potentially perplexed.

Tisserand discusses language, race and (undisclosed creole “passing” as white) Herriman’s career as an artist via his character Musical Mose in ‘The Impussanations of Krazy Kat” before Blackbeard’s biographical essay ‘George Herriman: 1880-1944’.

Herriman’s epochal classic is a remarkable triumph: in all arenas of Art and Literature there has never been anything like these comic strips which shaped our industry and creators, inspired auteurs in fields as disparate as prose fiction, film, dance, animation and music whilst delivering delight and delectation to generations of wonder-starved fans with a story of cartoon romance gone awry. If, however, you are one of Them and not Us, or if you actually haven’t experienced the gleeful graphic assault on the sensorium, mental equilibrium and emotional lexicon carefully thrown together by George Herriman from the dawn of the 20th century until the dog days of World War II, this glorious compendium is the most accessible way to do so. Don’t waste the opportunity…

That was harsh. Not everybody gets it and some of them aren’t even stupid or soulless, just unfortunate. Still, for lovers of whimsy and whimsical lovers “There Is A Heppy Lend Furfur A-Waay” if only you accept where and how to look…

The George Herriman Library: Krazy & Ignatz 1919-1921 © 2020 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All contents © 2020 Fantagraphics Books, Inc., unless otherwise noted. “A Mouse by Any Other Name: Krazy & Ignatz’s Early Life Under the Boards”, “The Ignatz Mouse Debaffler Page”, and Herriman biography © 2020 Bill Blackbeard. “The Impussanations of Krazy Kat” © 2020 Michael Tisserand. All other images and text © 2020 their respective copyright holders. All rights reserved.

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Numbercruncher


By Simon Spurrier & P.J. Holden, with Jordie Bellaire (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-004-7 (HB/Digital edition)

Sometimes a story just cries out to be told – especially if your tastes run to the sentimentally cynical, soppily savage or wide-eyed yet jaded. If that’s you, Numbercruncher will confirm all your suspicions about life whilst providing a really good time.

The tale – by Simon Spurrier (Judge Dredd, X-Men: Legacy, Six-Gun Gorilla, Damn Them All, John Constantine: Hellblazer) & P.J. Holden (also your man Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Battlefields, Terminator/Robocop Skullduggery Pleasant, The Moon Looked Down and Laughed) – began as a creator-owned project in The Judge Dredd Megazine before being expanded into a 4-issue miniseries at Titan Comics: a clever, controversial confection that will confound, delight and astound lovers of metaphysical whimsy, romantic fantasy and unnecessarily extreme violence.

Like 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, Werewolf by Night (2022) and especially A Matter of Life and Death, this unearthly tale is told on two separate levels of existence, differentiated by full-colour mundanity sections and monochrome views of The Afterlife. Unlike those movies, it’s a nasty and wittily vicious piece of work; just like handy geezer Bastard Zane, AKA operative #494, employed by The Divine Calculator to enforce Karmic Accountancy and keep souls circulating through the great cosmic All.

The Universe is just numbers and God is a mean, pedantic bean-counter, only concerned with the smooth running of his Grand Algorithm. Unfortunately, it all starts to fall apart when Zane is tasked by the weaselly Big Boss with stopping an in-love but dying young mathematician from gaming the system. SuperGenius Richard Thyme in his final seconds of mortal life, has a Eureka moment and divines the true and exact nature of everything… and how to manipulate it…

Armed with that inspirational knowledge, Thyme’s soul arrives before the Writer in the Grand Ledger and wheedles another spin on the Karmic Wheel – Reincarnation.

Brilliant Richard had been utterly in love with a dippy hippy chick named Jessica Reed, and when he bargains for another chance at a life with her, the petty-minded Divine Calculator gleefully accepts the proposition. Thyme will be reborn, with all memories intact, but when this second life ends, his soul will be gainfully employed – just like Zane – by the Karmic Accountancy Agency as a collector. Standard term of employment is for eternity… unless he can convince someone to take his place. The indentured operatives call it “Recirculation”…

There is only one get-out: a “Zero-clause” which means that if Thyme can live a life completely and totally without sin, his contract becomes null and void. But who could possibly live a mortal life without the slightest transgression?

Naturally, The Accountant won’t play fair: stacking the deck so reborn Richard is unable to even get near his lost love until it’s too late. However, when Zane finally shows up in AD 2035, eagerly expecting to close the case-file and retire with Thyme taking his long-suffering place in The Register, the frustrated, cheated SuperGenius plays his own trump card…

He’d always expected to be short-changed and made his own Karmic side-deal. By selling his contract to another Accountancy operative, he had bought another life, and as psychotically furious Bastard Zane soon sees, Thyme has pulled this trick over and over again. No matter how often Richard dies, he’s already being born again somewhere else…

With the mathematician’s sold-&-resold soul promised to practically every agent in the Afterlife, Zane’s only hope of retirement rests in killing the canny lad’s each and every reincarnation whilst simultaneously slaughtering every Karmic operative who’s been suckered into a deal with the lovesick little sod… On Earth, despite perpetual setbacks, each brief existence inches Richard slowly ever closer to Jess. That should make his eventual capture inevitable – but even here the smart guy has an incredible Plan B in operation: one even the Supreme Architect of the Cosmos didn’t see coming and one which may well undo the Algorithm underpinning Everything That Is…

Poignant, funny, outrageously gory, gloriously rude and wickedly clever, this is a ferociously upbeat, hilariously dark black comedy no insufferable incurable romantic could possibly resist. Moreover, for all us dyed-in-the-wool comics freaks, there’s a host of background features included. Interspersed between a gallery of covers and variants plus unused iterations and loads of original art, roughs and sketches, an ‘Author’s Note’ explores the genesis of the tale, further expanded upon in ‘A Comic for Talking to God – an interview with Brian Truitt of USA Today’. A discussion and explanation of Jordie Bellaire’s colouring process is the focus of ‘Working Flat-Out’ and ‘Birth Placement’ details the procedure for creating a cover, before the usual Creator’s Biographies ends things on a knowledgeable note.

Love, Death, Sex, more Death, Rebirth, lots of Death and Numbers: there’s your Meaning of Life right there…
™ & © 2013 Simon Spurrier & P.J. Holden. All rights reserved.

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Conan the Barbarian Epic Collection volume 4: Queen of the Black Coast (1974-1976)


By Roy Thomas, Fred Blosser, John Buscema, Mike Ploog, Tim Conrad & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 1-84576-137-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

In the 1970’s, America’s comic book industry opened up after more than 15 years of calcified publishing practises promulgated by the censorious, self-inflicted Comics Code Authority: a self-imposed oversight organisation created to police product after the industry suffered its very own McCarthy-style 1950s Witch-hunt. The first genre revisited during the literary liberation was Horror/Mystery, and from those changes sprang migrated pulp star Conan.

Sword & Sorcery stories had been undergoing a prose revival in the paperback marketplace since the release of softcover editions of Lord of the Rings in 1954 and, in the 1960s, revivals of the fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline, Fritz Lieber and others were making huge inroads into buying patterns across the world. The old masters had also been augmented by many modern writers. Michael Moorcock, Lin Carter and others kick-started their prose careers with contemporary versions of man against mage against monsters. The undisputed overlord of the genre was Robert E. Howard with his 1930s pulp masterpiece Conan of Cimmeria.

Gold Key had notionally opened the field in 1964 with cult hit Mighty Samson, followed by ‘Clawfang the Barbarian’ in Thrill-O-Rama #2 in 1966. Both steely warriors dwelt in post-apocalyptic techno-wildernesses, but in 1969 DC dabbled with previously code-proscribed mysticism as Nightmaster in Showcase #82 -84, following the example of CCA-exempt Warren anthologies Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. Marvel tested the waters with barbarian villain/Conan prototype Arkon the Magnificent in Avengers #76 (April 1970) and the same month went all-out with short supernatural thriller ‘The Sword and the Sorcerers’ in their own watered-down horror anthology Chamber of Darkness #4.

Written by Roy Thomas and drawn by fresh-faced Barry Smith (a recent Marvel find who was just breaking out of the company’s still-prevalent Kirby house-style) the tale introduced Starr the Slayer who also bore no small resemblance to the Barbarian-in-waiting…

Conan the Barbarian debuted with an October 1970 cover-date and – despite early teething problems, including being cancelled and reinstated in the same month – these strip adventures of Howard’s primal hero were as big a success as the prose yarns they adapted. Conan became a huge hit: a blockbuster brand that prompted new prose tales, movies, TV series, cartoon shows, a newspaper strip and all the other paraphernalia of global superstardom.

However, times changed, sales declined and in 2003 the property found a different comics publisher, before – after decades away – in 2019 the brawny brute returned to the aegis of Marvel.

Their first bite of the cherry was retroactively subtitled “the Original Marvel Years” due to the character’s sojourn with Dark Horse Comics and other intellectual rights holders with this fourth compendium – spanning cover-dates August 1974 to February 1976 – reprinting Conan the Barbarian #43-59 plus a tale from Savage Sword of Conan #1. It highlights a period when the burly brute was very much the darling of the Comics universe and when artist John Buscema made the hero his very own.

Adaptor Thomas had resolved to follow the character’s narrative timeline as laid out by Howard and successors such as L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, expanded and padded out with other adaptions of REH and his contemporaries and – almost as a last resort – all-new adventures. Thus, content was evermore redolent of pulp-oriented episodic action rather than traditional fantasy fiction.

As we hurtle back in time approximately 12,000 years to a forgotten age of wonders, and – following the now traditional map of ‘The Hyborean Age of Conan’ plus accompanying mandatory establishing quote, the saga resumes with a riotous romp from Savage Sword of Conan #1 (August 1974).

The series had broken many moulds, including being able to sustain not just a general audience but also appropriate for Marvel’s monochrome magazine division, offering more explicitly violent and risqué fare for supposedly more mature readers. For this market he debuted in Savage Tales #1 (1971) before winning his own magazine residency. Savage Sword of Conan launched in August 1974, running 235 issues until its cancellation in July 1995. Throughout its life SSoC offered powerful stories, features on all things RE Howard and some of the most incredible artwork ever to grace comics pages. The antediluvian experience opens with #1’s lead yarn. Thomas, John Buscema & Pablo Marcos’ ‘Curse of the Undead-Man’ was adapted from Howard’s short story Mistress of Death with Conan meeting old comrade Red Sonja amongst the fleshpots of “The Maul” in Zamora’s City of Thieves before falling foul of sorcerer Costranno: a mage for whom being chopped to mincemeat is only a minor inconvenience but who still strenuously objected to being robbed and murdered…

A sequence of self-contained tales resumes in the colour newsstand Conan the Barbarian #43 (October 1974) as Thomas continues to follow Howard and de Camp’s roadmap. The saga begins with the warriors’ rapid escape from Zamora, relentlessly pursued by bounty hunters. Trouble finds them when they are taken by bat-monsters to a ‘Tower of Blood’ (inked by Erni Chan nee Chua) where the husky lout is forcibly “admired” by ancient queen-with-a-secret Uathacht and threatened by her sorcerer brother Morophla. The mage has been hiding from Conan’s sworn foe Thoth Amon for simply ages and has revolting plans for both warriors which go appallingly awry in #44’s ‘Of Flame and the Fiend!’ (collaboratively inked by “The Crusty Bunkers”). Exposed as less than human the siblings inflict a ghastly burden on Conan but aren’t sage enough to escape his and Sonja’s inevitable vengeance…

An eerily memorable change-of-pace tragedy sees the shaken and morbidly morose barbarian befriend a foredoomed bard in ‘The Last Ballad of Laza-Lanti’: agreeing to take the troubled troubadour to his place of origin and encountering yet again the horrors that lurk in the Hyborian age…

The next half year comprises a protracted and loving adaptation of prose pulp yarn Kothar and the Conjurer’s Curse, originally penned by the prolific and justifiably legendary Gardner F. Fox (if anybody deserves the title of Elder God of comic books it must be He!). Here our cantankerous Cimmerian is once again embroiled in war between wizards and wades through imperilled maidens and gore galore in equal amounts, beginning with ‘The Curse of the Conjurer!’ as inked by Joe Sinnott. When the wanderer is coerced by magician Merdoramon into delivering a protective amulet to embattled Regent Themas Herklar of Phalkar, the simple mission to safeguard the ruler from his own treacherous court wizards soon proves riddled with undisclosed peril and duplicity.

En route he saves supposed witch Stefanya from burning at the stake and is diverted by her need to have him rescue her master Zoqquanor. Although a “good wizard”, the mage had linked her life force to his own and she needs to ensure his future safety. That proves tricky when they pull the comatose conjuror from his shattered castle and awaken crystal homunculus Shokkoth, and gets even harder in the Dan Adkins inked ‘Goblins in the Moonlight!’ (#47) as a R&R stopover in seemingly sedate ruins sparks an attack by more supernatural horrors…

The issue also provided a text feature on ‘Conan’s Parents’ illustrated by Tim Conrad, before the quest resumes in #48 where ‘The Rats Dance at Ravengard!’ Dick Giordano & Adkins inks) as a formative episode from Conan’s youth – with Priestess of the Wild Ursla – leads to a close shave with local warlord Torkal Moh, near death-by-rats and answers to many of the obscure machinations in play, thanks to Ursla’s latterday kinswoman Lupalina the Wolf Mistress…

With the aid of the ‘Wolf-Woman!’ Conan rescues Stefanya – revealed as a crucial pawn in the region’s politics – and topples Torkal Moh, but retrieving the Amulet in #50 unleashes ‘The Dweller in the Pool!’ whose subsequent dispatch by the Cimmerian triggers civil war, the downfall of the Phalkar’s resident magicians and the horror they served and the restoration of a long lost princess in concluding chapter ‘Man Born of Demon!’

Cover-dated July 1975 and stunningly crafted by Thomas, Buscema and Tom Palmer, Conan The Barbarian #52 signalled a turning point in the Cimmerian’s life as he signs on to fight a war with old Corinthian associate Murilo (from Conan #11): now leading a mercenary army of Condottieri dubbed the Crimson Company. He can always use a proven warrior, and also takes under his wing a street urchin/acrobat called Tara of Hanumar whom Conan had saved from an unfair fight…

Re-outfitting the almost-naked wanderer in arms and armour (and clothes!), Murilo’s band are headed to Ronnoco in anticipation of a war between states but the march almost ends in disaster when the mercenaries accidentally awaken an interred horror from antiquity in ‘The Altar and the Scorpion!’ Thanks to Conan the horror from the age of King Kull is defeated, but as the survivors depart they are unaware that a second terror was aroused… and now follows…

Frank Spinger embellished #53 as the Crimson Company reach their client city but are attacked by those inside. When the costly misunderstanding is rectified, Conan has made another enemy after displaying his feelings to arrogant autocrat Prince Vanni who ordered the assault on his comrades and refuses to allow any mercenaries inside walled city of Ronnoco.

King Belzamo is at least more diplomatic as he outlines the causes of the war with rival city-states Carnolla and Pergona and demands his hirelings’ first action: kidnapping the princess Yvonna of Pergona so she can be made to wed Vanni. However, defeating her terrifying bodyguards the ‘Brothers of the Blade!’ proves harder than anticipated and unknown to all, a dark hungry shadow is slowly consuming everything it its path…

Palmer returns in #54 as teen sole survivor Yusef brings a warning of the hungry shadow leading to Conan, Tara and Yusef ordered away to consult ‘The Oracle of Ophir!’ Their reconnaissance and information gathering is hampered by myriad mystic deterrents that culminate in the brawny barbarian battling his own deadly doppelganger and only getting away with highly suspect vague proclamations by guile not force. The party arrives back at Ronnoco (in #55) to find ‘A Shadow on the Land!’ and untold horror besieging the city, prompting Conan to go AWOL and return to the site of a previous victory. His hunch proves correct and he unleashes the one thing the shadow cannot consume, bring an abrupt universally unsatisfactory end to the war – and their pay – through political compromise and economic pragmatism…

Pausing for breath and the Jack Kirby & Joe Sinnott cover for November 1975’s Giant-Size Conan #5 (a reprint vehicle teaming our hero with Michael Moorcock’s doomed king Elric and not included here) Conan, Tara and Yusef quit the Crimson company and in CTB #56 discover ‘The Strange High Tower in the Mist!’ Inked by Pablo Marcos, the tale finds the trio bewildered by a keep apparently populated by oblivious silent ghosts and a bat monster, but seeing in not always believing…

Still sticking to Howard’s roadmap, Thomas and illustrator Mike (Ghost Rider, Man-Thing, Werewolf By Night, Monster of Frankenstein, Weirdworld, Planet of the Apes) Ploog detail an ‘Incident in Argos!’ for #57 that acts as a prelude to a momentous stage in Conan’s life. Falling foul of stupid laws, city guards and sanctimonious judges, the barbarian and his teen charges face jail and punitive amputation until Conan goes wild. Separated, they escape individually just in time for the Cimmerian to reach the long-awaited beginning of Howard’s great love story…

Pulp novelette Queen of the Black Coast was published in the May 1934 Weird Tales, obliquely told of Conan’s time as infamous pirate “Amra”: plundering the coasts of Kush (prehistoric Africa) beside his first great love. The brief but tragic tale of bold buccaneer Bêlit would be expanded over the next few years in an epic storyline that ran to #100 of the monthly comic and officially launched with Conan The Barbarian #58.

Here Thomas, Buscema & Steve Gan launched ‘Queen of the Black Coast!’ as the frantic Cimmerian fugitive finds safe harbour on an outward bound Argossean trading ship caught in a surging tide. Despite barely and extremely publicly escaping a fusillade of guards’ spears, the Northborn outlaw befriends entrepreneurial Captain Tito – himself a regular loser when faced with Argos’ corrupt lawmakers and taxmen – and settles into the mariner’s life.

After visiting many fabulous ports and exotic wild places, Conan’s life changes again when the ship encounters the most feared vessel afloat. When the fighting is done only Conan remains, having made a devil’s feast of the attacking pirates. Even he cannot beat this horde of Kushite warriors but as he prepares to die fighting, the white queen of these black pillagers grants him his life. When some pirates complain, Conan is allowed to earn his place by fighting the objectors and soon settles in… as Bêlit’s prize…

This volume concludes with Thomas, Buscema & Gan’s spellbinding origin yarn as #59 reveals in the words of shaman mentor/guardian N’yaga how the woman remade herself in ‘The Ballad of Bêlit!’. Conan hears how a Shemite child whose seafaring father was king of Asgalun until murdered by Stygians who placed her uncle on the vacant throne. He marvels at her life, growing up among barbarous tribesmen of the Silver Isles where she was trained in warrior arts to best any man. With amazement the Cimmerian learns how, by facing and mastering supernal horrors and using them to destroy a jealous chieftain, the war maiden became – in the eyes of the tribes – the earthly daughter of their Death Goddess Derketa, sworn to take her vengeance on Stygians and all who deal with them…

… And Conan also realises that he loves Bêlit beyond all else, even if she may not be human…

To Be Continued…

With covers by Boris Vallejo, Gil Kane, Dan Adkins, Neal Adams, John Romita, Tom Palmer, Dick Giordano, Jack Kirby, Joe Sinnott, Vince Colletta, this dark love story is also burnished by behind the scenes extras such as a more detailed map of ‘The Hyborean Age of Conan’ and world, taken from 1978’s Conan the Barbarian Marvel Treasury Edition #19 whilst #4 of the same name provides stunningly beautiful front & back covers by Barry Windsor-Smith, and text article ‘An Informal History of the Thomas/Smith Conan’.

There’s also Windsor-Smith’s watercolour Conan image and illustrated page (May) from the 1975 Mighty Marvel Calendar plus House ads, plus original Buscema unused cover art and pencil pages with equivalent inked version from Savage Sword of Conan #1. There are even pre and post CCA moderated images of Bêlit and Conan…

Stirring, evocative, cathartic and thrilling, these yarns are deeply satisfying on a primal level, and this is one of the best volumes in a superb series starring a paragon of adventure heroes. This is classic pulp/comic action in all its unashamed exuberance: an honestly guilty pleasure for old time fans and newbies of all persuasion. What more does any red-blooded, action-starved fan need to know?
© 2021 Conan Properties International, LLC (“CPI”)

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What Am I Going To Do Without You?


By Patt Kelley (Top Shelf Digital)
No ISBN. A Digital Exclusive (2012)

We live not just in the End Days but also truly Fortean Times. That’s artfully demonstrated and perfectly embodied in this forgotten gem from Patt Kelley (Fedor, Scout, And Then There Was Nothing, What’s for Breakfast?) who here pokes gently with a soft stick the sore subjects of love, loss, loneliness, mortality and embracing enforced change…

A dozen years ago in his debut graphic novel Kelley captivatingly mixed small town small mindedness with a look at enduring relationships and dawning independence played against a backdrop of the world turned upside down…

When little kids discover a dead dinosaur (an apatosaurus, if you’re asking) in the woods it soon escalates into a full-on media circus with gawkers, reporters and chancers invading a little piece of hamlet heaven we’re all programmed to crave. The news sensation doesn’t really affect Jeanie, who’s more concerned with stopping her moronic provincial classmates – especially Kaylee and her God-fearing Mean Girls – picking on her because she’s the only goth in high school. Typically though, her miracle-hungry mom goes crazy and drags the rebel sophisticate into the building gossip frenzy.

Across town, Flo and her husband Murray get some bad news when the doctor reveals what’s causing his persistent cough. Flo is facing the rest of her life alone and asks herself a question she doesn’t want answered…

When Kaylee starts spiteful Satanic rumours about Jeanie it’s not long before the faculty jump on board to ostracise the nonconformist weird kid, but the authorities’ disposal of the dead dino is what’s really gripping the parochial townsfolk. Even rapidly-declining Murray is blown away by the big lizard story. Hubby seems pretty accepting of his own imminent extinction, and just won’t shut up about what Flo should do once he’s out of the picture…

Everywhere strangers start talking to each other, moved by the incredible once-in-a-lifetime event, but Kaylee is gleefully punishing proudly unrepentant voluntary outsider Jeanie… until another unique one-in-a-billion happenstance settles that confrontation. It’s only the start of more strange encounters and freak accidents that Flo is oblivious to. For now Murray is all the world to her…

As chaos increasingly unfolds peaks and finally fades, the inevitable comes and many players confront their fears and reconcile regrets where they can. In the aftermath, widow Flo tries to adjust and on a whim heads for those woods where the dinosaur died and happens on one last once-in-a-lifetime meeting…

Slowly building and beguilingly understated, the interplay of little lives Kelly unpicks and puts under the microscope here form a mosaic of overwhelming emotion, wedding pedestrian and universally shared aspects of human existence with the reminder that there is wonder everywhere if you just look. So why don’t you?
What Am I Going To Do Without You? © & ™ Patt Kelley. All Rights Reserved.