Category: Flash

Posted on

Showcase Presents Elongated Man


By Gardner Fox, Carmine Infantino & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1042-2

Once upon a time American comics editors believed readers would become jaded if  characters were over-used or over-exposed and so to combat that potential danger – and for sundry other commercial and economic reasons – they developed back-up features in most of their titles. By the mid-1960s the policy was largely abandoned as resurgent superheroes sprang up everywhere and readers just couldn’t get enough…but there were still one or two memorable holdouts.

In late 1963 Julius Schwartz took editorial control of Batman and Detective Comics and finally found a place for a character who had been lying mostly fallow ever since his debut as a walk-on in the April/May 1960 Flash.

The Elongated Man was Ralph Dibny, a circus-performer who discovered an additive in soft drink Gingold which seemed to give certain people increased muscular flexibility. Intrigued, he refined the chemical until he had developed a serum which gave him the ability to stretch, bend and compress his body to an incredible degree. Then Ralph had to decide how to use his new powers…

This charming, witty and very pretty compilation gathers all the Flash guest appearances from issues #112, 115, 119, 124, 130, 134, and 138 spanning April/May 1960 to August 1963 before re-presenting the Stretchable Sleuth’s entire scintillating run from Detective Comics #327-371 (May 1964-January 1968).

Designed as a modern take on the classic Golden Age champion Plastic Man, Dibny debuted in Flash #112 in ‘The Mystery of the Elongated Man!’ as a mysterious masked yet attention-seeking elastic do-gooder, of whom the Scarlet Speedster was nonetheless highly suspicious, in a cunningly crafted crime caper by John Broome, Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella. Dibny returned in #115 (September 1960 and inked by Murphy Anderson) when aliens attempted to conquer the Earth and the Vizier of Velocity needed ‘The Elongated Man’s Secret Weapon!’ as well as the guest-star himself to save the day.

In Flash #119 (March 1961), Flash rescued the vanished hero from ‘The Elongated Man’s Undersea Trap!’ which introduced the vivacious Sue Dibny (as a newly wed “Mrs Elongated Man”) in a mysterious and stirring tale of sub-sea alien slavers by regular creative team Broome, Infantino & Giella.

The threat was again extraterrestrial with #124′s alien invasion thriller ‘Space-Boomerang Trap!’ (November 1961) which featured an uneasy alliance between the Scarlet Speedster, Elongated Man and the sinister Captain Boomerang who naturally couldn’t be trusted as far as you could throw him…

Ralph collaborated with Flash’s junior partner in #130 (August 1962) only just defeating the wily Weather Wizard when ‘Kid Flash Meets the Elongated Man!’ but then sprang back into action with – and against – the senior partner in Flash #134 (February 1963), seemingly allied with Captain Cold ‘The Man who Mastered Absolute Zero!’ in a flamboyant thriller that almost ended his budding heroic career…

Gardner Fox scripted ‘The Pied Piper’s Double Doom!’ in Flash #138 (August 1963) a mesmerising team-up which saw both Elongated Man and the Scarlet Speedster enslaved by the Sinister Sultan of Sound, before ingenuity and justice finally prevailed.

When the back-up spot opened in Detective Comics (a position held by the Martian Manhunter since 1955 and only vacated because J’onn J’onzz had been promoted to the lead position in House of Mystery) Schwartz had Ralph Dibny slightly reconfigured as a flamboyant, fame-hungry, brilliantly canny travelling private eye solving mysteries for the sheer fun of it. Aided by his equally smart but thoroughly grounded wife, the short tales were patterned on the classic “Thin Man” filmic adventures of Nick and Norah Charles, blending clever, impossible crimes with slick sleuthing, all garnished with the outré heroic permutations and frantic physical antics first perfected in Jack Cole’s Plastic Man.

These complex yet uncomplicated sorties, drenched in fanciful charm and sly dry wit, began in Detective Comics #327 (May 1964) and ‘Ten Miles to Nowhere!’ (by Fox & Infantino, who inked himself for all the early episodes) wherein Ralph, who had publicly unmasked and become a minor celebrity, discovered that someone had been stealing his car and bringing it back as if nothing had happened. Of course it had to be a clever criminal plot of some sort…

A month later he solved the ‘Curious Case of the Barn-door Bandit!’ and debuted his rather revolting trademark of manically twitching his expanded nose whenever he “detected the scent of mystery in the air” before heading for cowboy country to unravel the ‘Puzzle of the Purple Pony!’ and play cupid for a young couple hunting a gold mine in #329.

Ralph and Sue were on an extended honeymoon tour, making him the only costumed hero without a city to protect. When they reached California Ralph became embroiled in a ‘Desert Double-Cross!’ where hostage-taking thieves raided the home of a wealthy recluse after which Detective #331 offered a rare full-length story in ‘Museum of Mixed-Up Men!’ (Fox, Infantino & Giella) as Batman, Robin and the Elongated Man united against a super-scientific felon able to steal memories and reshape victims’ faces.

Returned to a solo support role in #332, the Ductile Detective discovered Sue had been replaced by an alien in ‘The Elongated Man’s Other-World Wife!’ (with Sid Greene becoming the new permanent inker). Of course, nothing was as it seemed…

‘The Robbery That Never Happened!’ began when a jewellery-store customer suspiciously claimed he had been given too much change whilst ‘Battle of the Elongated Weapons!’ in #334 concentrated on a crook who had adapted Ralph’s Gingold serum to affect objects, after which bombastic battle it was back to mystery-solving when the Elongated Man was invited by Fairview City to round up a brazen bunch of uncatchable bandits in ‘Break Up of the Bottleneck Gang!’

While visiting Central City again Ralph was lured to the Mirror Master’s old lair and only barely survived ‘The House of “Flashy” Traps!’ and then risked certain death in the ‘Case of the 20 Grand Pay-off!’ by replacing Sue with a look-alike – for the best possible reasons – but without her knowledge or permission…

Narrowly surviving his wife’s wrath by turning the American tour into a World cruise, Ralph then tackled the ‘Case of the Curious Compass!’ in Amsterdam, foiling a gang of diamond smugglers, before returning to America and ferreting out funny-money pushers in ‘The Counterfeit Crime-Buster!’

Globe-trotting creator John Broome returned to script ‘Mystery of the Millionaire Cowboy!’ in Detective #340 (June 1965) as Ralph and Sue stumbled onto a seemingly haunted theatre and found crooks at the heart of the matter, whilst ‘The Elongated Man’s Change-of-Face!’ (by Fox, Infantino & Greene) saw a desperate newsman publish fake exploits to draw the fame-fuelled hero into investigating a town under siege, and ‘The Bandits and the Baroness!’ (Broome) saw the perpetually vacationing couple check in at a resort where every other guest was a Ralph Dibny, in a classy insurance scam story heavy with intrigue and tension.

A second full-length team-up with Batman featured in Detective Comics #343 (September 1965, by Broome, Infantino & Giella), in ‘The Secret War of the Phantom General!’; a tense action-thriller pitting the hard-pressed heroes against a hidden army of gangsters and Nazi war criminals, determined to take over Gotham City.

Having broken Ralph’s biggest case the happy couple headed for the Continent and encountered ‘Peril in Paris!’ (Broome, Infantino & Greene) when Sue went shopping as an ignorant American and returned a few hours later a fluent French-speaker…

‘Robberies in Reverse!’ (Fox) saw a baffling situation when shopkeepers began paying customers, leading Ralph to a severely skewed scientist’s accidental discovery whilst #346’s ‘Peephole to the Future!’ (Broome) saw the Elongated Man inexplicably develop the power of clairvoyance, which cleared up long before he could use it to tackle ‘The Man Who Hated Money!’ (Fox); a bandit who destroyed every penny he stole.

‘My Wife, the Witch!’ was Greene’s last ink job for a nearly a year; a Fox thriller wherein Sue apparently gained magical powers whilst ‘The 13 O’clock Robbery!’ with Infantino again inking his own work, found Ralph walk into a bizarre mystery and deadly booby-trapped mansion, before Hal Jordan’s best friend sought out the stretchable Sleuth to solve the riddle of ‘Green Lantern’s Blackout!’ – an entrancing, action-packed team-up with a future Justice League colleague, after which ‘The Case of the Costume-made Crook!’ found the Elongated Man ambushed by a felon using his old uniform as a implausible burglary tool.

Broome devised ‘The Counter of Monte Carlo!’ as the peripatetic Dibnys fell into a colossal espionage conspiracy at the casino and became pawns of a fortune teller in ‘The Puzzling Prophecies of the Tea Leaves!’ (Fox) before Broome delighted one more time with ‘The Double-Dealing Jewel Thieves!’ as a museum owner found that his imitation jewel exhibit was indeed filled with fakes…

As Fox assumed full scripting duties Mystic Minx Zatanna guest-starred in #355’s ‘The Tantalising Troubles of the Tripod Thieves!’, wherein stolen magical artefacts led Ralph into conflict with a band of violent thugs whilst ‘Truth Behind the False Faces!’ saw Infantino bow out on a high note as the Elongated Man helped a beat cop to his first big bust and solved the conundrum of a criminal wax museum.

Detective #357 (November 1966) featured ‘Tragedy of the Too-Lucky Thief!‘ (by Fox, Murphy Anderson & Greene) as the Dibnys discovered a gambler who hated to win but could not lose whilst Greene handled all the art on ‘The Faker-Takers of the Baker’s Dozen!’ wherein Sue’s latest artistic project led to the theft of a ancient masterpiece. Anderson soloed with Fox’s ‘Riddle of the Sleepytime Taxi!’, a compelling and glamorous tale of theft and espionage and when Ralph and Sue hit Swinging England in Detective #360 (February 1967, Fox & Anderson) with ‘London Caper of the Rockers and Mods!’, they met the monarch and prevented warring kid-gangs from desecrating our most famous tourist traps before heading home to ‘The Curious Clue of the Circus Crook!’ (Greene), wherein Ralph visited his old Big-Top boss and stopped a rash of robberies which had followed the show around the country.

Infantino found time in his increasingly busy schedule for a few more episodes, (both inked by Greene) beginning with ‘The Horse that Hunted Hoods’, a police steed with uncanny crime solving abilities, and continuing in a ‘Way-out Day in Wishbone City!’ wherein normally solid citizens – and even Sue – went temporarily insane and started a riot, after which unsung master Irv Novick stepped in to delineate the mystery of ‘The Ship That Sank Twice!’

‘The Crooks who Captured Themselves!’ (#365, with art by Greene) found Ralph losing control of his powers whilst Broome & Infantino reunited one last time for ‘Robber Round-up in Kiddy City!’ as, for a change, Sue sniffed out a theme-park mystery for Ralph to solve and Infantino finally bowed out with the superb ‘Enigma of the Elongated Evildoer!’ (written by Fox and inked by Greene) as the Debonair Detectives found a thief in a ski lodge who seemed to possess all Ralph’s elastic abilities…

The Atom guest-starred in #368, helping battle clock-criminal Chronos in ‘The Treacherous Time-Trap!’ by Fox, Gil Kane, Greene and iconoclastic newcomer Neal Adams illustrated the poignant puzzler ‘Legend of the Lover’s Lantern!’, after which Kane & Greene limned the intriguing all-action ‘Case of the Colorless Cash!’. The end of the year signalled the end of an era as Fox, Mike Sekowsky & Greene finished off the Elongated Man’s expansive run with the delightfully dizzy lost-loot yarn ‘The Bellringer and the Baffling Bongs’ (#371, January 1968).

With the next issue Detective Comics became an all Bat-family title and Ralph and Sue Dibny temporarily faded from view until revived as bit players in Flash and finally recruited into the Justice League as semi-regulars. Their charismatic relationship and unique genteel style has however, not been seen again: casualties of changing comics tastes and the replacement of sophistication with angsty shouting and testosterone-fuelled sturm und drang…

Witty, bright, clever and genuinely exciting these smart stories from a lost age are all beautiful to look at and a joy to read for any sharp kid and all joy-starved adults. This book is a shining tribute to the very best of DC’s Silver Age and a volume no fan of fun and adventure should be without.
© 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

The Flash: Blitz

New revised review

By Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Phil Winslade & various (DC)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-986-7

Blitz brings to an end a stunning storyline which has already filled previous editions Blood Will Run, Rogues and Crossfire – so you’d better have read those first – and sees third incarnation of the Flash Fastest Man Alive Wally West end his protracted war against a veritable army of super-villains in triumph and tragedy as potentially his greatest foe, the “Reverse Flash” called Zoom, strikes his cruellest blow.

This climactic collection gathers the tumultuous epic conclusion from Flash volume 2, #192-200 and opens with ‘Run Riot, part 1: Awakened’ scripted, as ever, by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Scott Kolins & Doug Hazlewood wherein an army of apes invades Extreme-Security metahuman penitentiary Iron Heights to free diabolical super-gorilla Grodd, consequently liberating most of the Rogues Flash had spent so much time and energy capturing.

Instantly on the scene, Wally is hard-pressed to contain the chaos before ‘On the Run’ ramps up the tension as the monstrous anthropoid casually, callously cripples Wally’s friend Rogue-profiler Hunter Zolomon and leaves the Scarlet Speedster a physically and emotionally broken man before escaping.

‘Dead or Alive’ finishes the Run Riot triptych as an almost-restored and vengeful Vizier of Velocity visits the hidden Gorilla City which spawned Grodd in search of allies and answers just as that hirsute horror attempts to conquer the apes who first spurned him…

After that catastrophic combat Wally returns to America in ‘Off Balance’ where his wife Linda is experiencing some odd symptoms as her pregnancy progresses. And in the Twin Cities of Keystone and Central, deceased villain The Top has returned in a borrowed body… Meanwhile, wheelchair-bound Zolomon finds it impossible to accept his new condition…

Phil Winslade applies his gritty realist art-style to ‘Helpless’ as explosive teleporter Peek-a-boo returns and Zolomon presses Wally to use his time-travelling technology to undo the attack which incapacitated him.

Unable to comply, Flash abandons the angry profiler but is totally unprepared when Linda becomes a casualty of Peek-a-boo’s detonating departures and utterly unaware that the furious ex-cop – obsessed with changing his recent history at all costs – has stolen the time-bending Cosmic Treadmill…

Kolins & Hazlewood return for the eponymous story-arc Blitz and ‘Rogue Profile: Zoom’ wherein Hunter Zolomon’s tragic history is fully revealed and the horrific consequences of his desperate, doomed act become apparent before ‘Rush’ finds him as the newly-minted Zoom hunting everybody Wally holds dear…

‘Into the Fast Lane’ reveals the hideous effects the Treadmill have wrought on Zolomon as his campaign of terror extends to Wally’s hometown: his malign warped intent to inflict maximum suffering on his erstwhile friend, before the spectacular, brutally shocking conclusion ‘The Final Race’ wherein all the Flash’s greatest allies gather to protect Wally and Linda, but simply aren’t enough to forestall a ghastly tragedy…

The culmination of years of high-octane tension and action, this tale cleared the decks for a startling new direction and is prime Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction of the highest quality.
© 2003, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

The Flash: the Return of Barry Allen

New revised review

By Mark Waid, Greg LaRocque, Sal Velluto & Roy Richardson (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-268-4

When the Silver Age Flash died during the Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985, he was promptly succeeded by his grieving shell-shocked sidekick and nephew Wally West, who initially struggled to fill the boots of his groundbreaking predecessor, both in sheer physical ability and, more tellingly, in confidence. Wally felt like a fraud, but like a true hero he soldiered on and eventually rose to esteemed heights.

Just as he was becoming comfortable in the role though, the unthinkable happened… Actually in comics not so unthinkable and that idea is used to telling effect within the text.

Years later just as Wally was coming to terms with his historic heritage and still painful sense of bereavement Barry Allen reappeared, stunned, amnesiac, but unquestionably alive…

This slender chronicle collects issues #74-78 of the Wally West Flash (which originally ran from March to August 1993) and, after ‘Flashback’ – an informative introduction from Mark Waid & Brian Augustyn – opens with a couple of teasing, foreshadowing pages from earlier issues which lead to the late Scarlet Speedster turning up on Wally’s doorstep on Christmas Eve after which the high-speed action opens with ‘Trust’ by Waid, Greg LaRocque – assisted by Sal Velluto – & Roy Richardson.

Heroes have come back before and villains have always pulled imposturing fast ones too, so as Barry’s memories slowly return Wally is suspicious, although his mentor’s oldest friends Jay Garrick and Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan are quickly convinced. But still, something doesn’t seem quite right with the returned, but no longer so easygoing, heroic ideal…

In ‘Running Behind’ Barry and Wally are happily patrolling together and the younger Flash is becoming convinced that nothing more than insecurity and jealousy are colouring his misgivings. Even Garrick, the WWII Flash, is apparently content and cooperating in their unstoppable crime-blitz. Wally is even considering surrendering the name and creating a new heroic persona for himself when, during a skirmish with high-tech bandits Barry inexplicably flies into a psychotic rage…

Helpless, fearing Barry’s derangement is caused by his death and resurrection, Wally watches his mentor progressively lose it in ‘Identity Crisis’, whilst the utterly pragmatic Garrick recruits fellow veteran speedsters Johnny Quick and Max Mercury just in case the worst comes to pass. When the tech-bandits are revealed to be a deadly alien gang Wally and uncle Barry track them down and the younger Flash is apparently killed…

Wally has survived but is hiding: only he knows that his beloved uncle Barry has gone mad, attempting to murder his own nephew, after which in ‘Suicide Run’ the returned Scarlet Speedster tries to kill everybody else who might rival his standing as the Fastest Man Alive…

An incredible accident finally reveals the truth to the despondent Wally as “Barry Allen” goes on a murderous global rampage in ‘Blitzkrieg’ before the youngest Flash returns to lead a dramatic and desperate final charge against the most dangerous man of all time in the staggering, blockbuster, revelatory conclusion ‘The Once and Future Flash’.

That is one of the very best Fights ‘n’ Tights tales of the 1990s, a rollercoaster ride of bluff, misdirection and all-out action that was instrumental in shutting up old coots like me who kept whining about how the new stuff just wasn’t as good as the old…

Despite some less than stellar artwork this is a great tale, captivatingly told and which powerfully pushes the buttons of any superhero fan, whether a Flash follower or not. Catch and enjoy, time after time after time….

© 1993 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

The Flash: Rogues


By Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Doug Hazlewood & various (DC)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-950-8

When Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash whose creation ushered in a new and seemingly unstoppable era of costumed crusaders, was killed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985, he was succeeded by his young sidekick Wally West, a young man who initially struggled to fill the boots of his predecessor, but like a true hero persevered and eventually overcame…

After years in the role West adapted and made a convincing argument for being an even greater hero as he triumphed over both his mentor’s uncanny foes and a whole new Rogue’s Gallery of his own.

This volume, Rogues – which follows directly on from Blood Will Run – is part of a massive continued storyline by scripter Geoff Johns and will be best enjoyed if you can also lay your hands on Crossfire and Blitz – at the very least – and collects issues #177-182 of the long-gone monthly comicbook.

The twin cities of Keystone and Central City are in economic turmoil. In an atmosphere of job-cuts and financial woe, ostensibly-reformed super-villain Keith Kenyon AKA Goldface is causing (mostly legal) trouble promoting his militant blue-collar union, whilst on the crime front a new conglomeration of Rogues is being formed by a sinister mastermind…

The action in this particular tome, all pencilled and mostly inked by Doug Hazlewood, begins with ‘Event Horizon’ when Flash’s oldest ally and human Black Hole Chester Runk, gifted with incredible teleportation and gravity-warping powers, is shot by an assassin. Although Chunk survives the bullet, the wound causes his powers to spiral out of control and subsequently endangers the entire planet until Wally can find a typically fast-paced fix.

Meanwhile in Keystone City, a new, non-union manufacturer of detention units falls foul of Kenyon’s pickets, allowing the lethally destructive super-gorilla Grodd to escape in ‘Caged’…

Immensely strong, carnivorous and possessing staggering psionic abilities, the savage simian goes on an earth-shattering rampage through the city until the hard-pressed hyper-fast hero finally stops him. Across town at that moment, another Flash-friend is arrested for murder…

‘Smile for the Camera’ incorporates a DC braided crossover event which spanned the entire DC pantheon (for more details and murderous high jinks see Batman: The Joker’s Last Laugh) which can be summed up by saying the Joker thought he was dying and infected hundreds of villains with his looks and madness before setting them loose to hilariously wreck civilisation and kill millions.

By the time the Pied Piper is remanded to super-penitentiary Iron Heights, the Jokerising plague is in full effect and chaos ensues. Even with Flash on hand the situation only gets more difficult as the Piper also succumbs to the contagious insanity…

A new villain is introduced in ‘Peek-a-boo’ when a desperate medical student uses her teleporting powers to steal harvested organs for her dying dad. Unfortunately, whenever young Lashawn Baez triggers her power, the air explodes with the force of a detonating missile. Happily for Wally, his old Teen Titans pal Cyborg has moved to town and is able to lend a detachable hand…

‘Fallout’ was a radioactive minor player illegally exploited to power Iron Heights until the Flash liberated him; but the walking atomic reactor was finding life on the outside increasingly hazardous. However, whilst the Scarlet Speedster struggled to find an ethical solution to his dilemma his oldest friends and mentors were falling victim to terrible personal tragedy…

The Rogues and their new boss Blacksmith are happily celebrating their carefully laid plans as Flash’s police contact Detective Jared Morillo becomes their latest victim, but the villains have no idea what trouble is waiting them as this tense tome concludes with ‘Absolute Zero’ (inked by Dan Panosian) when Captain Cold goes renegade to avenge the murder of his sister and affords us all a look at the early life which made him such a cold-hearted killer…

Fast, furious and fantastic, The Flash has always epitomised the very best of Fight ‘n’ Tights fiction. This impressive slice of top-speed, high-octane action can happily be read as is, but as part of the intended, extended epic these tales become vital parts of an overwhelming whole.

The Geoff Johns years are slick and absolutely addictive: engrossing, suspenseful and often genuinely scary comics you simply have to read. If you haven’t seen them yet, run – don’t walk – to your nearest purveyor of graphic magnificence and snag all the breathless excitement you could ever withstand.

© 2000, 2001, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Valerian and Laureline book 2: The Empire of a Thousand Planets


By J.-C. Méziéres & P. Christin, with colours by E. Tranlé and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-087-0

Val̩rian is arguably the most influential comics science fiction series ever drawn Рand yes, I am including both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in that expansive and undoubtedly contentious statement.

Although to a large extent those venerable strips defined the medium itself, anybody who has seen a Star Wars movie has seen some of Jean-Claude Méziéres & Pierre Christin’s brilliant imaginings which the filmic phenomenon has shamelessly plundered for decades: everything from the look of the Millennium Falcon to Leia‘s Slave Girl outfit -as this second volume powerfully proves in a stunning comparisons feature following after the magnificent adventure contained herein…

Simply put, more carbon-based lifeforms have experienced and marvelled at the uniquely innovative, grungy, lived-in tech realism and light-hearted swashbuckling rollercoaster romps of Méziéres & Christin than any other cartoon spacer ever imagined possible.

The groundbreaking series followed a Franco-Belgian mini-boom in fantasy fiction triggered by Jean-Claude Forest’s 1962 creation Barbarella. Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent launched in the November 9th, 1967 edition of Pilote (#420) and was an instant hit. In combination with Greg & Eddy Paape’s Luc Orient and Philippe Druillet’s Lone Sloane, Valérian‘s hot public reception led to the creation of dedicated adult graphic sci fi magazine Métal Hurlant in 1977.

Valérian and Laureline (as the series eventually became) is light-hearted, wildly imaginative time-travelling, space-warping fantasy (a bit like Dr. Who, but not really at all…), drenched in wry, satirical, humanist action and political commentary, starring, in the beginning, an affable, capable, unimaginative and by-the-book cop tasked with protecting the official universal chronology and counteracting paradoxes caused by casual time-travellers.

When Valérian travelled to 11th century France in the initial tale ‘Les Mauvais Rêves (‘Bad Dreams’) he was rescued from doom by a fiery, capable young woman named Laureline whom he brought back to the 28th century super-citadel and administrative wonderland of Galaxity, capital of the Terran Empire. The indomitable lass trained as a Spatio-Temporal operative and began accompanying him on his missions.

Every subsequent Valérian adventure until the 13th was first serialised weekly in Pilote until the conclusion of ‘The Rage of Hypsis’ after which the mind-boggling sagas were only published as all-new complete graphic novels, until the whole spectacular saga resolved and ended in 2010.

The Empire of a Thousand Planets originally ran in Pilote #520-541from October 23rd 1969 to March 19th 1970 and saw the veteran and rookie despatched to the fabled planet Syrte the Magnificent, capital of vast system-wide civilisation and a world in inexplicable and rapid technological and social decline.

The mission is one of threat-assessment: staying in their base time-period (October 2720) the pair are tasked with examining the first galactic civilisation ever discovered that has never experienced any human contact or contamination, but as usual, events don’t go according to plan…

Despite easily blending into a culture with a thousand sentient species, Valerian and Laureline soon find themselves plunged into intrigue and dire danger when the acquisitive girl buys an old watch in the market.

Nobody on Syrte knows what it is since all the creatures of this civilisation have an innate, infallible time-sense, but the gaudy bauble soon attracts the attention of one of the Enlightened – a sinister cult of masked mystics who have the ear of the Emperor and a stranglehold on all technologies….

The Enlightened are responsible for the stagnation within this once-vital interplanetary colossus and they quickly move to eradicate the Spatio-temporal agents. Narrowly escaping doom, the pair reluctantly experience the staggering natural wonders and perils of the wilds beyond the capital city before dutifully returning to retrieve their docked spaceship.

Soon however our dauntless duo are distracted and embroiled in a deadly rebellion fomented by the Commercial Traders Guild. Infiltrating the awesome palace of the puppet-Emperor and exploring the mysterious outer planets Valerian and Laureline discover a long-fomenting plot to destroy Earth – a world supposedly unknown to anyone in this Millennial Empire…

All-out war looms and the Enlightened’s incredible connection to post-Atomic disaster Earth is astonishingly revealed just as inter-stellar conflict erupts between rebels and Imperial forces, with our heroes forced to fully abandon their neutrality and take up arms to save two civilisations a universe apart yet inextricably linked…

Comfortingly, yet unjustly familiar, this spectacular space-opera is fun-filled, action-packed, visually breathtaking and mind-bogglingly ingenious.  Drenched in wide-eyed fantasy wonderment, science fiction adventures have never been better than this.

© Dargaud Paris, 1971 Christin, Méziéres & Tran-Lệ. All rights reserved. English translation © 2011 Cinebook Ltd.

Posted on

The Flash: Crossfire


Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Doug Hazlewood & various (DC)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-852-5

There are many super-speedsters in the DCU and most of them congregate around the conjoined mid-western metropolis of Keystone and Central City. Wally West, third hero to claim the mantle of the Flash, lives there with his new wife Linda Park, his aunt Iris, and fellow Vizier of Velocity Jay Garrick – the original Fastest Man Alive.

Created by Gardner Fox & Harry Lampert, Garrick debuted in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940). “The Fastest Man Alive” wowed readers for over a decade before changing tastes benched him in 1951. The concept of speedsters and superheroes in general was successfully revived in 1956 by Julie Schwartz in Showcase #4 when police scientist Barry Allen became the second hero to run with the concept.

The Silver Age Flash, whose creation ushered in a new and apparently unstoppable era of costumed crusaders, died heroically during Crisis on Infinite Earths and was promptly succeeded by his sidekick Kid Flash. Of course, Allen later returned from the dead – but then again, doesn’t everyone?

The Flash: Crossfire (reprinting issues #183-191 of the monthly comicbook and portions of Flash: Secret Files #3) continues the astounding extended epic begun in Blood Will Run and Rogues – so you’d better have read those first – as Wally continued to fight a high-speed, all-out war on two fronts against a seemingly endless parade of super-villains and a deadly new/old AI villain, which is attempting to seize control of the twinned-metropolis of Keystone and Central City and the united mind of all humanity.

The rollercoaster action is initiated with the introduction of a new, nastier iteration of classic Rogue The Trickster in ‘Crossfire Prologue: Tricked!’ by revolutionary writer Geoff Johns, artists Scott Kolins & Doug Hazlewood and sublimely gifted colourist James Sinclair as the neophyte villain is introduced to the colossal criminal enterprise dubbed The Network; a national clearing house for loot and costumed looters run by the malevolent Blacksmith…

Crossfire proper opens with ‘Run Program’ and the tragic news that Joan Garrick, wife of half a century to the veteran hero, is dying of cancer. A little later Linda Park-West is attacked and suborned by evil electronic life form The Thinker in Keystone, but Wally is too busy to notice since an army of super-criminals has mounted a devastating assault on Central City…

Just when it seems too much threat for even the Scarlet Speedster to cope with, ‘Hide and Seek’ finds the Flash’s enemies attacking each other. The Thinker wants Wally for the World’s fastest computer processor whereas Blacksmith’s brigade just wants him dead…

As unconventional cops Morillo and Chyre discover just how different they are from your average Boys in Blue and launch their own counter-attack, the malignant AI invades Flash’s brain and both Keystone and Central City become explosive dual killing fields in ‘The Thinking Man’ with the war between Rogues and cybernetic parasite heating up to crisis point.

‘Run-Down’ (with additional inks from Dan Panosian) started the heroic fight-back as Wally began moving faster than thought to crush the conqueror inside his head and ex-Teen Titan Cyborg joined him to conclude the epic confrontation of ‘Metal and Flesh’.

In the aftermath Flash learned that Blacksmith had been acting to isolate the hero for months, but with her finally gone the surviving Rogues got a new leader just as Wally and Linda heard some truly shocking news..,

Rick Burchett & Dan Panosian then illustrated a tale of civic, civil and social reconstruction in ‘Messengers’ before Flash’s friend and reformed Rogue the Pied Piper – framed for murder and held in penal Hellhole Iron Heights and utterly unaware that he had already been cleared of all wrongdoing – became a desperate fugitive in the Justiano & Walden Wong limned ‘Rat Race’…

This volume concludes with a spectacular Kolins & Hazlewood fantasy thriller ‘The Brave and the Beaten’ with the battle-crazed Hawkman guest-starring in a classic fantasy-fest wherein demonic Brother Grimm returned (see Flash: Wonderland) to once more abduct and seduce Wally’s wife Linda…

Even with order restored, however, there’s a foreboding glimpse at even worse perils to come…

Also included in this magical Fights ‘n’ Tights bonanza is a gallery of covers from Kolins and Brian Bolland plus a Who’s Who entry revealing all you need to know about Iron Heights and its decidedly draconian and peculiarly hinky warden Gregory Wolfe…

These lightspeed-paced, all-action tales are the absolute acme of modern superhero comics: sharply written, enticingly drawn and designed to thrill the socks of the stunted eight year old in our heads.

Fun, furious and fantastic, The Flash has always epitomised the very best of fantasy fiction and these tales are more cream of that crop. The Geoff Johns years are slick and absolutely addictive: engrossing, rapid-paced, classily violent and often genuinely scary. If you haven’t seen them yet, run – don’t walk to your nearest dealer or on-line vendor and catch all the breathless action you can handle, lickety-split!
© 2002, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

The Flash: Blood Will Run


By Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Doug Hazlewood, Ethan Van Sciver & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1647-4

There are many super-speedsters in the DCU and most of them congregate around the conjoined mid-western metropolis of Keystone and Central City. Wally West, third incarnation of The Flash, lives there with his new wife Linda Park, his aunt Iris and fellow Vizier of Velocity Jay Garrick.

Impulse, a juvenile speedster from the future and his mentor/keeper Max Mercury – the Zen Master of hyper-velocity – live in Alabama but often visit as they only live picoseconds away and other recipients of the incredible Speed Force such as Jesse Quick are also frequent visitors.

It sounds pretty idyllic but there are constants threats to counteract the cosy friends and family atmosphere…

Created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert, Garrick debuted as the very first Scarlet Speedster in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940). “The Fastest Man Alive” wowed readers for over a decade before changing tastes benched him in 1951. The concept of speedsters and superheroes in general was successfully revived in 1956 by Julie Schwartz in Showcase #4 when police scientist Barry Allen became the second hero to run with the concept.

The Silver Age Flash, whose creation ushered in a new and seemingly unstoppable era of costumed crusaders, died heroically during Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-1986) and was promptly succeeded by his sidekick Kid Flash. Of course Allen later returned from the dead – but then again, doesn’t everyone?

Initially Wally struggled to fill the boots of his predecessor, both in sheer ability and, more tellingly, in confidence. Feeling a fraud, he nonetheless persevered and eventually overcame, becoming the greatest to carry the name.

Following on from the astonishing and brutally game-changing events of The Flash: Wonderland, Geoff Johns’ continued his reinvention of the third Scarlet Speedster with new artist-team Scott Kolins, Doug Hazlewood and especially colourist James Sinclair, whose muted palette imbued the increasingly dark and edgy stories with a uniquely bright and airily destabilising counterpoint. There’s even a gallery of Brian Bolland’s eye-popping covers to gloat over.

This volume collects issues #170-176 of the Wally West Flash Run, the lead story from Flash: Secret Files #3 and the dark and nasty Iron Heights one-shot, leading off with the eponymous four-part ‘Blood Will Run’ as in ‘Breaking the Foundation’ a sports-mad Linda Park-West has her day off ruined when Wally is dragged out of an ice-hockey match to tackle a hostage crisis. Unfortunately the situation goes bad when Flash’s crazy ex-girlfriend Frankie Kane shows up and inadvertently exposes a cult which has been methodically murdering all the people Wally had saved during his career…

Now calling herself Magenta, Frankie eventually suppresses her magnetic powers and lets the police arrest her, but Wally is pretty rattled.

He’s even more shocked to see police officer Julie Jackham, another one of his old romantic mistakes and one he’ll regret forever since she’s the next victim of the cult in ‘The Harvest’, leaving behind her a furious mentor in uncompromising cop Fred Chyre, a deeply guilt-wracked Scarlet Speedster and a baby who leaks lightning…

Detective Jared Morillo is the one who first noticed Flash’s connection to the wave of serial killings, but as Wally reels at the enormity of the campaign of death, elsewhere in the city ex-super-villain Goldface is slowly signing up the metropolis’ entire blue collar workforce to his insidious labour union whilst Flash’s old friend and reformed meta-bandit Pied Piper is bracing for an unwelcome reunion with his estranged parents…

In ‘Close to Home’ the increasingly unstable Magenta busts out of custody and joins the cult, capturing Wally in the process. Horrified, the Monarch of Motion meets the demented Cicada who has been siphoning life force the hundreds of victims in the hopes of resurrecting the wife he murdered. It’s not just deranged delusion either as the madman’s blade rips a hole in the Flash through which Speed Force energy begins to leak…

In ‘Uneasy Idol’ Linda narrowly escapes being murdered and Morillo is wounded by Cicada’s life-transferring dagger before Flash spectacularly wraps up the case, but it’s clear that the madness is only beginning, not ending…

‘Moving Right Along’ finds Wally and Linda relocating back to the heart of Keystone from the suburbs and tackling a new super threat in the plasmorphic Tar Pit rather than spend an evening with the in-laws, after which the Pied Piper is accused of murdering his parents and the secret of Jackie’s baby is revealed in the blisteringly engrossing ‘Birthright’ beginning with ‘Eye of the Storm’, in which old Rogue Weather Wizard returns as an uncharacteristically adept and capable foe, determined to steal the child and dissect him for the secret of his power, culminating in a devastating duel in ‘The Rainmaker’.

Throughout all these tales a sinister subplot detailed how a number of Flash Foes were uniting under a deadly new leader, but before all was revealed ‘Iron Heights’, illustrated by Ethan Van Sciver & Prentis Rollins introduced the harshest prison in the DC universe, where draconian warden Gregory Wolfe relished every opportunity to break his metahuman inmates and where horrific serial killer Murmur was attempting to murder the entire prison population with a virus manufactured from his own toxic blood.

When Wally and the Piper infiltrated the locked-down penitentiary on a mission of mercy, they discovered a litany of horrors that would eventually cause even more trouble for the Flash and his twinned hometown…

This superb compendium concludes with yet another introduction as FBI profiler of metahuman threats Hunter Zoloman joined the Keystone cops in ‘Rogues’ (with art by Kolins & José Marzán Jr. from Flash: Secret Files #3), an action-packed prelude to an all out super-war with the Speedster’s most vicious foes united against him…

But that’s the raw meat of another book…

Fast, furious and fantastic, The Flash has always epitomised the very best of Fight ‘n’ Tights fiction and these tales are the cream of that crop . The Geoff Johns years are slick and absolutely addictive: engrossing, rapid-paced, classily violent and often genuinely scary. If you haven’t seen them yet, run – don’t walk – to your nearest emporium or vendor-site and catch all the breathless action you can handle, quick as you can!
© 2000, 2001, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Flash: The Human Race


By Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Paul Ryan, Ron Wagner, Pop Mahn & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-382-7

There are many super-speedsters in the DCU and most of them congregate in the conjoined metropolis of Keystone and Central City. Wally West, third incarnation of The Flash, lives there with his true love Linda Park, his Aunt Iris and fellow fast-fighters such as Jay Garrick. Impulse, a juvenile speedster from the Future and his mentor/keeper Max Mercury – the Zen Master of hyper-velocity – live in Alabama but often visit as they only live picoseconds away…

Created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert, Garrick debuted as the very first Scarlet Speedster in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940). “The Fastest Man Alive” wowed readers for over a decade before changing tastes benched him in 1951 until the concept of speedsters and superheroes in general was revived in 1956 by Julie Schwartz in Showcase #4 when police scientist Barry Allen became the second hero to run with the concept.

The Silver Age Flash, whose creation ushered in a new and seemingly unstoppable era of costumed crusaders, died heroically during Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-1986) and was promptly succeeded by his sidekick Kid Flash. Of course Allen later returned from the dead – but doesn’t everyone?

Initially Wally West struggled to fill the boots of his predecessor, both in sheer ability and, more tellingly, in confidence. Feeling a fraud, he nonetheless persevered and eventually overcame, becoming the greatest to carry the name.

Following directly on from Morrison and Millar’s first turn on the Scarlet Speedster (see Flash: Terminal Velocity) this volume reprints issues #136-141 of the monthly comic and even finds room for a delicious extra feature from Secret Origins #50 and opens with a 10-year-old Wally playing with his Ham Radio kit and talking to an imaginary friend before we sprint into the present-day to find Wally seconds after his last exploit, when an alien super-speedster crashed at his feet, gasping out a warning with his dying breath…

The eponymous three-part lead tale The Human Race commences with ‘Radio Days’ (written by Morrison & Millar with art by the under-appreciated Paul Ryan and John Nyberg) when two god-like alien gamblers materialise and demand that Earth’s fastest inhabitant replaces the dead runner in a race across all time and space. If a contestant isn’t provided the world is forfeit and will be destroyed…

With the Justice League unable to defeat the cosmic wagerers Flash has no choice but to compete, however he almost falls apart when discovers his opponent is Krakkl, a radio-wave lifeform who used to talk to him when he was a kid. Now Wally has to beat a beloved memory he thought a mere childhood fancy to save his homeworld… and if he does, Krakkl’s entire species will die…

Ron Wagner came aboard as penciller for ‘Runner’ and ‘Home Run’ as, pushed to the limits of endurance and imagination Flash criss-crosses all reality but soon realises this a match he cannot win… until the valiant, self-sacrificing radio-racer imparts a deadly and world-saving secret…

Cosmic, clever and deeply sentimental in the fashion comics-fans are suckers for, this stunning saga ends with Earth enduring but its victorious hero on course for the ultimate finish in the tense thriller The Black Flash (Miller, Pop Mahn & Chris Ivy, with additional pencils from Joshua Hood) as a demonic entity that abides beyond the velocity-fuelling energy field the Speed Force comes for him in ‘The Late Wally West’.

Older speedsters have noticed over the decades that their ultra-swift comrades have all been hunted and taken by this supernal beast before their lives ended and when the creature is seen stalking Wally they do all they can to thwart it. Tragically they succeed… Unable to kill the Flash, the thing destroys his beloved Linda instead…

Jesse Quick, second generation hero who lost her father to the Black Flash, takes over Wally’s role as crushed, depressed and broken Wally loses his connection to the Speed Force, but after weeks of shell-shocked mourning he moves on, planning a new life in a foreign country, but the Black Flash is spiteful and never gives up…

When the beast attacks the powerless Wally at the airport in ‘The End’ Max Mercury, Garrick, Impulse and Jesse all confront the creature until the true Scarlet Speedster rediscovers the inner fire necessary to not only face and defeat the thing but also bring back Linda from the Great Unknown.

As if that wasn’t a perfect ending to this tumultuous tome there’s also a lost gem drawn by the magnificent Mike Parobeck (although probably included here because it’s one of Grant Morrison’s earliest DC scripts), inked by Romeo Tanghal which originally debuted in Secret Origins #50 in 1990 in celebration  of Flash’s 50th anniversary.

By the early 1950s costumed heroes had lost popularity and all but disappeared from comicbook pages for half a decade. The concept was revived and took off again when the Barry Allen Flash debuted in Showcase #4. ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ by Fox, Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella (from Flash #123, 1961) revived the Golden Age Flash, and by implication, the whole 1940s DC pantheon by introducing the concept of parallel worlds and multiple Earths which became the bedrock of the entire continuity.

The aforementioned Crisis on Infinite Earths rationalised that continuity, retconning DC’s history so that all its characters had always shared the same planet and dimension. Simple, no…?

This new ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ saw Morrison and Parobeck retell the landmark adventure of how Barry met Jay, keeping the wonder and thrills intact, incorporating a classic combat with arch-villains Fiddler, Thinker and the Shade and even found room for a little in-joke surprise or two…

Fast, furious and fabulous the Flash has always epitomised the best in costumed comic thrills and these tales are among the very best. If you haven’t seen them yet, run – don’t walk – to your nearest emporium or vendor-site and catch all the breathless action you can handle, A.S.A.P!
© 1990, 1998, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

The Greatest Team-Up Stories Ever Told


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-51-X

When the very concept of high priced graphic novels was just being tested in the early 1990s DC Comics produced a line of glorious hardback compilations spotlighting star characters and celebrating standout stories from the company’s illustrious and varied history decade by decade. They even branched out into themed collections which shaped the output of the industry to this day.

The Greatest Stories collections were revived this century as smaller paperback editions (with mostly differing content) and stand as an impressive and joyous introduction to the fantastic worlds and exploits of the World’s Greatest Superheroes. However for sheer physical satisfaction the older, larger books are by far the better product. Some of them made it to softcover trade paperback editions, but if you can afford it, the big hard ones are the jobs to go for…

From the moment a kid first sees his second superhero the only thing he/she wants is to see how the new costumed marvel stacks up against the first. From the earliest days of the industry (and according to Julie Schwartz’s fascinating introduction here, it was the same with the pulps and dime novels that preceded them) we’ve wanted our idols to meet, associate, battle together – and if you follow the Timely/Marvel model, that means against each other – far more than we want to see them trounce their archenemy one more time…

The Greatest Team-Up Stories Ever Told gathers together a stunning variety of classic tales and a few less famous but still worthy aggregations of heroes, but cleverly kicks off with a union of bad-guys in the Wayne Boring illustrated tale ‘The Terrible Trio!’ (Superman #88, March 1954) as the Man of Steel’s wiliest foes, Lex Luthor, Toyman and the Prankster joined forces to outwit and destroy him, whilst World’s Finest Comics #82 (May-June 1956) saw Batman and Robin join the Man of Tomorrow in a time-travelling romp to 17th century France as ‘The Three Super-Musketeers!’, helping embattled D’Artagnan solve the mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask.

A lot of these stories are regrettably uncredited, but nobody could miss the stunning artwork of Dick Sprang here, and subsequent research has since revealed writer Edmond Hamilton and inker Stan Kaye were also involved in crafting this terrific yarn.

Kid heroes prevailed when Superman was murdered and the Boy Wonder travelled back in time to enlist the victim’s younger self in ‘Superboy Meets Robin’ (Adventure Comics #253, October 1953) illustrated by Al Plastino, whilst two of that title’s venerable back-up stars almost collided in an experimental crossover from issue #267 (December 1959).

At this time Adventure starred Superboy and featured Aquaman and Green Arrow as supporting features. ‘The Manhunt on Land’, with art from Ramona Fradon & Charles Paris, saw villainous Shark Norton trade territories with Green Arrow’s foe The Wizard. Both parts were written by Robert Bernstein, and the two heroes and their sidekicks worked the same case with Aquaman fighting on dry land whilst the Emerald Archer pursued his enemy beneath the waves in his own strip; ‘The Underwater Archers’, illustrated by the excellent Lee Elias.

As I’ve mentioned before, I was one of the “Baby Boomer” crowd who grew up with Gardner Fox and John Broome’s tantalisingly slow reintroduction of Golden Age superheroes during the halcyon, eternally summery days of the 1960s. To me those fascinating counterpart crusaders from Earth-Two weren’t vague and distant memories rubber-stamped by parents or older brothers – they were cool, fascinating and enigmatically new. And for some reason the “proper” heroes of Earth-One held them in high regard and treated them with obvious deference…

It all began, naturally enough, in The Flash, flagship title of the Silver Age Revolution. After ushering in the triumphant return of the costumed superhero, the Scarlet Speedster, with Fox and Broome at the reins, set an unbelievably high standard for metahuman adventure in sharp, witty tales of science and imagination, illustrated with captivating style and clean simplicity by Carmine Infantino.

Fox didn’t write many Flash scripts at this time, but those few he did were all dynamite. None more so than the full-length epic that literally changed the scope of American comics forever. ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ (Flash #123 September 1961, illustrated by Infantino and Joe Giella) introduced alternate Earths to the continuity which resulted in the multiversal structure of the DCU, Crisis on Infinite Earths and all succeeding cosmos-shaking crossover sagas since. And of course where DC led, others followed…

During a benefit gig Flash (police scientist Barry Allen) accidentally slips into another dimension where he finds the comic-book champion he based his own superhero identity upon actually exists. Every adventure he’d avidly absorbed as an eager child was grim reality to Jay Garrick and his mystery-men comrades on the controversially named Earth-2. Locating his idol Barry convinces the elder to come out of retirement just as three Golden Age villains, Shade, Thinker and the Fiddler make their own wicked comeback… Thus is history made and above all else, ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ is still a magical tale that can electrify today’s reader.

The story generated an avalanche of popular and critical approval (big sales figures, too) so after a few more trans-dimensional test runs the ultimate team-up was delivered to slavering fans. ‘Crisis on Earth-One’ (Justice League of America #21, August 1963) and ‘Crisis on Earth-Two’ (#22) combine to become one of the most important stories in DC history and arguably one of the most important tales in American comics. When ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ introduced the concept of Infinite Earths and multiple heroes to the public, pressure had begun almost instantly to bring back the actual heroes of the “Golden Age”. Editorial powers-that-be were hesitant, though, fearing too many heroes would be silly and unmanageable, or worse yet put readers off. If they could see us now…

The story by Fox, Mike Sekowsky Bernard Sachs finds a coalition of assorted villains from each Earth plundering at will and trapping the mighty Justice League in their own HQ. Temporarily helpless the heroes contrive a desperate plan to combine forces with the champions of a bygone era and the result is pure comicbook majesty. It’s impossible for me to be totally objective about this saga. I was a drooling kid in short trousers when I first read it and the thrills haven’t diminished with this umpty-first re-reading. This is what superhero comics are all about!

The wonderment continues here with a science fiction hero team-up from Mystery in Space #90, which had been the home of star-spanning Adam Strange since issue #53 and with #87 Schwartz moved Hawkman and Hawkgirl into the back-up slot, and even granted them occasional cover-privileges before they graduated to their own title. These were brief, engaging action pieces but issue #90 (March 1964) was a full-length mystery thriller pairing the Winged Wonders and Earth’s interplanetary expatriate in a spectacular End-of the-World(s) epic.

‘Planets in Peril!’ written by Fox, illustrated by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson, found our fragile globe instantly transported to the Alpha-Centauri system and heading for a fatal collision with the constantly-under-threat world of Rann at the behest of a scientific madman who eventually proved no match for the high-flying, rocket-powered trio.

Before settling into a comfortable pattern as a Batman team-up title, Brave and the Bold had been a high-adventure anthology, a try-out book like Showcase and a floating team title, pairing disparate heroes together for one-off  adventures. One of the very best of these was ‘The Challenge of the Expanding World’ (#53, April-May 1964) in which the Atom and Flash strove valiantly to free a sub-atomic civilisation from a mad dictator and simultaneously battled to keep that miniature planet from explosively enlarging into our own.

This astounding thriller from Bob Haney and the incredible Alex Toth was followed in the next B&B issue by the origin of the Teen Titans and that event is repeated here. ‘The Thousand-and-One Dooms of Mr. Twister’ (#54, June-July 1964) by Haney, Bruno Premiani and Charles Paris united sidekicks Kid Flash, Aqualad and Robin the Boy Wonder in a desperate battle against a modern wizard-come-Pied Piper who had stolen the teen-agers of American everytown Hatton Corners. The young heroes had met in the town by chance when students invited them to mediate in a long-running dispute with the town adults, but didn’t even have a team name until their second appearance.

By the end of the 1960s America was a bubbling cauldron of social turmoil and experimentation. Everything was challenged and with issue #76 of Green Lantern, Denny O’Neil and comics iconoclast Neal Adams completely redefined contemporary superhero strips with relevancy-driven stories that transformed moribund establishment super-cops into questing champions and explorers of the revolution. ‘No Evil Shall Escape My Sight!’ (O’Neil, Adams & Frank Giacoica, April 1970) is a landmark in the medium, utterly re-positioning the very concept of the costumed crusader as ardent liberal Green Arrow challenges GL’s cosy worldview as the heroes discover true villainy can wear business suits, harm people just because of skin colour and happily poison its own nest for short term gain…

Of course the fact that the story is a brilliant crime-thriller with science-fiction overtones beautifully illustrated doesn’t hurt either…

The Fabulous World of Krypton was a long-running back-up feature in Superman during the 1970s, revealing intriguing glimpses from the history of that lost world. One of the very best is ‘The Greatest Green Lantern of All’ (#257, October, 1972 by Elliot Maggin, Dick Dillin & Dick Giordano) detailing the tragic failure of avian GL Tomar-Re, dispatched to prevent the planet’s detonation and how the Guardians of the Universe had planned to use that world’s greatest bloodline…

Brave and the Bold produced a plethora of tempestuous team-ups starring Batman and his many associates, and at first glance ‘Paperchase’ (#178, September 1981) by Alan Brennert & Jim Aparo from the dying days of the title might seem an odd choice, but don’t be fooled. This pell-mell pairing of Dark Knight and the Creeper in pursuit of an uncanny serial killer is tension-packed, turbo-charged thriller of intoxicating quality.

The narrative section of this collaborative chronicle concludes with the greatest and most influential comics writer of the 1980s, combining his signature character with DC guiding icon for a moody, melancholy masterpiece of horror-tinged melodrama. From DC Comics Presents #85 (September 1985) comes ‘The Jungle Line’ by Alan Moore, Rick Veitch & Al Williamson wherein Superman contracts a fatal disease from a Kryptonian spore and plagued by intermittent powerlessness, oncoming madness and inevitable death, deserts his loved ones and drives slowly south to die in isolation.

Mercifully in the dark green swamps he is found by the world’s plant elemental the Swamp Thing…

The book is edited by Mike Gold, Brian Augustyn & Robert Greenberger, with panoramic and comprehensive endpaper illustrations from Carmine Infantino (who blue-printed the Silver Age of Comicbooks) and text features ‘The Ghosts of Frank and Dick Merriwell’, ‘That Old Time Magic’ and a captivating end-note article ‘Just Imagine, Your Favourite Heroes…’. However for fans of all ages possibly the most beguiling feature in this volume is the tantalising cover reproduction section: team-ups that didn’t make it into this selection, filling in all the half-page breaks which advertised new comics in the originals. I defy any nostalgia-soaked fan not to start muttering “got; got; need it; Mother threw it away…”

This unbelievably enchanting collection is a pure package of superhero magnificence: fun-filled, action-packed and utterly addictive.
© 1954-1985, 1989 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

The Greatest Flash Stories Ever Told


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-93028-981-2

When the very concept of high priced graphic novels was just being gradually accepted in the early 1990s DC comics produced a line of glorious hardback compilations that highlighted star characters and even celebrated the standout stories from the company’s illustrious and varied history decade by decade.

The Greatest Stories collections were revived in this century as smaller paperback editions (with mostly differing content) and stand as an impressive introduction to the fantastic worlds and exploits of the World’s Greatest Superheroes but for sheer satisfaction the older, larger books are by far the better product. Some of them made it to softcover trade paperback editions, but if you can afford it the big hard ones are the jobs to go for…

Since I believe reading comics to be a fully immersive experience (smell, feel, good coffee, biscuits, a solid soundtrack playing and somewhere someone futilely shouting to get your attention) I’ll be reviewing most of them over the up next few months but I’m starting with the volume dedicated to the hero attributed with starting the Silver Age and the other characters who share the sobriquet of “the Fastest Man Alive”…

Edited by Mike Gold and Brian Augustyn with contributions from Robert Greenberger, Katie Main and Dan Thorsland plus a foreword by artist and ex-publisher Carmine Infantino, this volume presents some genuinely intriguing choices featuring the first three men to dazzle generations of readers as The Flash.

From the Golden Age comes four fabulous exploits of Jay Garrick – a scientist exposed to “hard water fumes” which gave him super-speed and endurance, beginning with his very first appearance ‘The Fastest Man Alive’ from Flash Comics #1 (January 1940) by Gardner Fox & Harry Lampert, who speedily delivered an origin, a returning cast and a classic confrontation with sinister gang the Faultless Four and their diabolical leader Sieur Satan.

This is followed by ‘The Flash and the Black Widow’ from issue #66 (August 1945) written by budding horror-novelist Robert Bloch and illustrated by E.E. Hibbard wherein a seductive menace transformed helpless victims – including hapless comedy sidekicks Winky, Blinky and Noddy – into talking animals.

‘Stone Age Menace’ (Flash Comics #86, 1947) is a time travel caper scripted by Robert Kanigher and illustrated by Lee Elias whilst from December of that year the same team crafted a spectacular clash with criminal mastermind the Turtle, who tried once more to profit from ‘The Slow-Motion Crimes’.

As the 1950s dawned the popularity of costumed heroes dwindled and for nearly a decade licensed properties, Crime, Westerns, War, Mystery and other genre fare dominated the newsstands. Despite the odd bold sally, costumed heroes barely held their own until Julius Schwartz ushered in a new age of brightly clad mystery-men by reviving the Flash in 1956. For the great majority of fans (aging baby-boomers that we are) police scientist Barry Allen will always be the “real” Scarlet Speedster, struck by lightning, bathed in chemicals – if you couldn’t find an atomic blast to survive, that kind of freak accident was the only way to start a career.

From his spectacular run comes the pivotal event which marked the beginning of a way of life for so many addicted kids: ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt!’ (Showcase #4), written by Kanigher, penciled by Infantino and inked by Joe Kubert, was another quick-fire origin with crime story attached as the brand new hero discovered his powers and mission and still found time to defeat a modern iteration of the Turtle.

John Broome and Gardner Fox would write the bulk of the early tales, introducing a “big science” sensibility and, courtesy of Broome, a Rogues Gallery of fantastic foes which would become the template for all proper superheroes. After four Showcase try-outs the Vizier of Velocity won his own title, picking up the numbering of Flash Comics which had folded in 1949 after 104 issues.

Such a one was Grodd, sole malcontent of a race of hyper-evolved simians who in Broome, Infantino & Joe Giella’s ‘Return of the Super-Gorilla’ (Flash #107, June 1959) lured the Scarlet Speedster to the centre of the Earth and a lost race of bird-men. Another was The Trickster, a prankster-bandit who could defy gravity. In his debut appearance ‘Danger in the Air!’ (Flash #1113, June 1960), Broome, Infantino & Giella provided the ideal counterpart to the rather stuffy hero whilst #119’s ‘The Mirror-Master’s Magic Bullet’ (March 1967 and inked by Murphy Anderson) showed the hero’s wits were always faster than any speed his feet could attain.

Ductile Detective Elongated Man began as a Flash cameo and his subsequent guest-shots were always a benchmark for offbeat thrills. In #124 (November 1961, inked by Giella) Captain Boomerang’s ‘Space Boomerang Trap’ led to an extra-dimensional invasion and an uneasy alliance of heroes and villain whereas next issue’s epic ‘The Conquerors of Time!’ was a mind-boggling classic as time-travelling aliens attempted to subjugate Earth in 2287AD by preventing fissionable elements from forming in 100,842,246BC. Antediluvian lost races, another pivotal role for Kid Flash Wally West (easily the most trusted and responsible sidekick of the Silver Age), the introduction of the insanely cool Cosmic Treadmill plus spectacular action make this a benchmark of quality graphic narrative.

‘Flash of Two Worlds’ (not included here so see either Showcase Presents the Flash volume 2 or the aforementioned Flash: the Greatest Stories Ever Told 2007 tpb) revived the Golden Age Flash, and by implication, the whole 1940s DC pantheon, by introducing the concept of parallel worlds and multiple Earths which became the bedrock of the entire continuity, and which the company still mines to such great effect.

What is included here is ‘Vengeance of the Immortal Villain!’ from Flash #137 (June 1963, written by Fox and inked by Giella) the third chronological Earth-2 crossover, which saw two Flashes unite to defeat 50,000 year old Vandal Savage and save the Justice Society of America: a tale which directly led into the veteran team’s first meeting with the Justice League of America and the start of all those beloved “Crisis” epics.

Barry Allen’s best friend was test pilot Hal Jordan who fought crime as an agent of the Guardians of the Universe, so the heroes joined forces on a regular basis. From Flash #143, March 1964 comes the intriguing high-tech mystery ‘Trail of the False Green Lanterns!’ by John Broome, Infantino and Giella, who also produced the award-winning and deeply moving ghost-story ‘The Doorway to the Unknown!’ (#148, November 1964).

Cary Bates became the Flash’s regular – and exclusive – writer from the early 1970s to the hero’s demise in 1985, but he was only a promising newcomer when he co-scripted with Fox the exuberant fourth-wall busting epic ‘The Flash – Fact or Fiction?’(#179, May 1968, illustrated by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito) which took the multiple Earths concept to its logical conclusion by trapping the Monarch of Motion in “our” Reality, where the Flash was just a comic-book character! However Bate’s slick solo effort ‘How to Prevent a Flash’ (Five-Star Super-Hero Spectacular 1977), illustrated by Irv Novick & Frank McLaughlin shows a mature subtlety that highlights not just superpowers but the hero’s forensic thinking…

Barry Allen died during the Crisis on Infinite Earths – and stayed dead for what is now a very long time in comics. In the years leading up to that he endured a monolithic saga wherein his wife was murdered, he destroyed her killer and was ultimately brought to trial for manslaughter. That saga, encompassing #275-350, is condensed here into ‘The Final Flash Storyline’ – a handy text feature by Bates with illustrations from Infantino, Dennis Jensen, Gary Martin, Frank McLaughlin, George Pérez & Jerry Ordway.

In honour of his ultimate sacrifice, Barry’s nephew Wally West graduated from sidekick to the third Sultan of Speed and carved his own legend in scarlet and gold. This terrific tome concludes with a Reagan-era classic as the severely outclassed new hero battled Vandal Savage in the gripping ‘Hearts… of Stone’ (Flash volume 2, #2 July 1987 by Mike Baron, Jackson Guice & Larry Mahlstedt) to close the book.

Not quite the icon Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman are, Flash is nevertheless the quintessential superhero and the reason we’re all doing this today. This delightful book is a superb example of superhero stories at their very best and whatever your age or temperament there’s something great here for you to enjoy and treasure.
© 1940-1987, 1991 DC Comics. All rights reserved.