Category: JLA

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DC Universe Online Legends volume 1


By Marv Wolfman, Tony Bedard, Howard Porter, Adriana Melo, Mike S. Miller & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3218-4

No matter how much nostalgic old geezers like me might wish it otherwise, most of the classic American Superhero characters have far outgrown their static 2-Dimensional origins and are far more creatures of the screen now: Movie, TV or Computer – and often all three.

As such it’s no longer odd to see such veteran pen-and-ink superstars return to funnybook pages as their own spun-off avatars, in adventures where they are transformed, sometimes bastardised versions of (to me at least) their “true” selves.

One of the better examples in recent years of this chimerical commercial alchemy was a phenomenal Armageddon Epic based on a computer game starring the Justice League of America which actually surpassed much of the company’s contemporary output vis á vis thrills, chills and old fashioned comicbook class…

DC Universe Online Legends first appeared as a 27-issue series running from March 2011 to May 2012, based on a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (or MMORPG for those computerati already in the know). It featured the final triumph of paramount Superman villains Lex Luthor and Brainiac as the starting point for a blistering “Twilight of the Gods” scenario and this first compilation volume gathers #1-7 of the fortnightly series and also includes the “issue #0” which came free with the game itself.

‘Prelude’ by Tony Bedard and artists Oliver Nome, Michael Lopez & Livio Ramondelli, starts the ball of doom rolling as cosmic marauder and collector of civilisations Brainiac launches a harrowing assault on Metropolis, and the JLA – Aquaman, the Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Superman and Batman – mobilise to stop him. Unbelievably they fail…

Marv Wolfman, Bedard, Howard Porter, John Livesay, Adriana Melo & Norman Lee then kick things into high gear with ‘Legendary’ as in the near-future Luthor, now more machine than man, finally slays his life-long nemesis in the ruins of a ravaged Earth and leaves the Kryptonian to rot amidst the corpses of his fellow fallen heroes.

The obsessive villain had long ago entered into a devil’s bargain with Brainiac and now intends to rule the remains of Earth, but soon discovers that the Scourge from Space (an implacable, unstoppable planetary plunderer who has destroyed most of the civilised universe and even crushed the immortal Green Lantern Corps) has played him for a fool and now acts to assimilate the planet’s remaining valuable resources – which includes Luthor’s mind – and eradicate the gutted shell…

Realising too late the horrific mistake he’s made, Lex swiftly formulates a plan to undo the damage he’s caused and repay Brainiac for his treachery. The first step is to gather all the surviving metahumans – heroes and villains all oblivious to the fact that Luthor has already slain their greatest champions – into an attack force whilst the infuriated evil genius prepares to unmake recent history…

Meanwhile, several years earlier, a fully human and hero-hating Lex Luthor is contacted by a drone from deep space and enters into a sinister alliance with the alien reiver whose mutual dream is to destroy Superman forever…

Scripted by Bedard, ‘Control’ finds Luthor directing his rag-tag team of deeply suspicious resistance fighters (Dr. Fate, Mr. Freeze, August General in Iron, Solomon Grundy, Power Girl, Cheetah, Blue Beetle, Black Canary and the Atom) in forays against the extraterrestrial Exobyte nanomachines and robot drones disassembling the world, unaware that they were secretly produced in the malign magnate’s factories years before…

In those long-ago days, Brainiac’s probing attack has captured the Daily Planet building in Metropolis. The alien inquisitor apparently needs test samples of base-line humanity to examine before he can calibrate his ghastly devices and begin harvesting Earth’s metahuman resources…

In the furious future the schemer’s pawns continue their missions utterly unaware that, to ultimately save humanity, Luthor plans to sacrifice them all…

Wolfman, Mike S. Miller, Melo & Norman Lee disclose the master manipulator’s ‘Betrayal’ of his team after Power Girl discovers the corpse of her cousin Superman and the resistors demand vengeance. After first setting a horde of bloodthirsty villains upon them, Lex then murderously saves his squad of heroic stooges, pleading repentance and offering to surrender to justice once earth has been saved.

Of course, he’s still lying…

In the present, whilst Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Perry White explore their options as captives of Brainiac, an increasingly unstable and impatient Superman chafes at the JLA’s caution, unaware that the cosmic conqueror is planning an imminent and devastating sneak-attack of the League’s satellite citadel…

Bedard & Porter take the creative lead for the all-action episode ‘Strike Force’ as, in the world of today, the Justice League battle valiantly but futilely against swarms of Exobytes which readily bypass all their defences and begin stealing the powers of the embattled defenders. In the Foredoomed Tomorrow, Luthor leads his duped disciples in a fool’s errand onto Brainiac’s ship, tasked with recovering a city-full of yellow power rings, originally used by the minions of renegade Green Lantern Sinestro, whilst the master manipulator himself plans to confront the invader face-to-face…

Wolfman & Miller produced the shocking ‘Three Minutes’ in which the JLA lose their holding action and have to abandon their orbital Watchtower to the Exobytes – but not every hero escapes – whilst in the future the raid has gone equally badly and one of Luthor’s key pawns is maimed, leading to time-split ‘Downfall’ (Bedard, Porter, Livesay & Pop Mhan) for both teams of champions.

In our time, after warning Luthor to get out of the city, Brainiac casts the Watchtower out of orbit and aims it at what’s left of Metropolis, with the Man of Steel desperately attempting to rescue his stranded comrades and simultaneously save his hometown, whilst in days to come Luthor, Atom and Black Canary split up…

The heroes now carry a canister of retrieved Exobytes holding all the planet’s harvested super-powers – enough to turn all Earth’s survivors into metahuman warriors – but the disgraced Machiavelli who guides them is determined to personally destroy the alien who played him for a fool…

In the past, Superman narrowly saves Metropolis, but fallout and debris from his last-ditch attempt falls on the fleeing Luthor, crushing his body whilst in the future the cyborg genius at last battles Brainiac but is easily and resoundingly beaten…

This first explosive chronicle concludes with the revelation that Luthor has a secret ally as, in the untitled seventh chapter (by Wolfman, Porter & Livesay), a Batman also more mechanoid than mortal manhunter acts with a band of freshly created superheroes to use the Exobytes in a bold and radical manner.

Rather than boost the dying earth’s meagre surviving population with the stolen super-powers, what if the nanobots were taken back in time and used to turn an entire overpopulated earth into a planet of “metas” before Brainiac’s invasion beachhead was established?

Of course even here in Earth’s final hour, Luthor cannot resist betraying his comrades but has again underestimated the sheer dogged determination of the demi-digital Dark Knight…

This high-octane Fights ‘n’ Tights shocker also includes a selection of covers and variants by Carlos D’Anda, Jonny Wrench, Jim Lee, Scott Williams, Alex Sinclair, Ryan Sook, Ed Benes, Randy Mayor, Jorge Gonzalez, Tony Aviña & Carrie Strachan as well as pages of behind-the-scenes character, tech and scenario designs and sketches from the game iteration.

Fast, furious, spectacular and devilishly devious, this is a sharp, no-nonsense graphic Götterdämmerung saga that will delight traditional comicbook action fans as well as all those young plug-in babies of the digital age.
© 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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JLA/Avengers


By Kurt Busiek & George Pérez, coloured by Tom Smith & lettered by Richard Starkings (DC/Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1957-4

Fair Warning: this review deals with the very bedrock of superhero comics. If you’re not utterly au fait with the continuity minutiae of Marvel and DC Comics, this review won’t make much sense, and might well cause migraines or dizziness and could well prevent you from operating gigantic universe-bending machineries.

If you’d rather read something else I’ll quite understand and will hopefully see you tomorrow…

From the moment a kid first sees his second superhero the only thing he/she wants is to see how the new costumed crusader stacks up against the first. From the earliest days of the industry 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 arch-enemy one more time.

For many years that immature “who’s strongest/fastest/toughest?” preoccupation could only be addressed within individual company boundaries, but once publishers at DC and Marvel realised the sales potential of inter-continuity crossover clashes in the 1970s a veritable torrent of “impossible” superhero mash-ups (of generally excellent artistic quality but mired in inescapably mediocre plots) followed, all generally suffering from the protective partisanship of their legal owners.

After all, who wanted their pantheon to come off second-best in any confrontation?

When a much-touted and eagerly anticipated meeting of the Avengers and Justice League of America famously foundered due to irreconcilable creative differences between the sponsoring publishers, the crossover practise was shelved for years until cooler heads, a general sales decline and the far less hide-bound attitudes of smaller new companies (such as Valiant and Image) who simply found a negotiated way to make these temporary mergers work amicably and effectively, revitalised the whole concept and practise…

Which is a shame as Busiek is one of the most skilled writers in the business, easily ably to inject telling personal emotion and poignant character revelation into the driest plot – but here there’s simply not enough room…

Gathering together the deluxe 4-issue miniseries from 2003-2004, this powers-packed tome opens with a joint Introduction from the co-instigators of the Silver Age of Comics, Julie Schwartz and Stan Lee, after which the non-stop creative chaos begins with ‘A Journey into Mystery’ as the obsessive monster Krona smashes his way into the Cosmos we’ll call Marvel.

The cosmic intruder is a renegade Guardian of his own Universe, driven insane by an insatiable hunger to learn the origin of Reality. His previous rabid inquiries had already introduced evil into his own once-innocent continuum, shortened its sidereal lifespan and reduced an incomparable multiverse to a few straggling survivor dimensions, but now his impassioned search has brought him to a previously unreachable and unsuspected parallel realm only to encounter a being almost his equal…

En Dwi Gast, a puissant conniving being dedicated to games of chance, contests of power and duels of skill, is an Elder of the Universe and one of the most powerful creatures in this existence, but even The Grandmaster is helpless before Krona’s fanatical assault and manic inquisition. Nevertheless the wily immortal manages to inveigle Krona into a diverting little side-bet…

A month later, the world’s greatest champions in two vastly differing dimensions find themselves battling incomprehensible threats from beyond their reality. Investigations indicate that invaders from an alternate Earth are inexplicably appearing and causing devastating damage.

It also seems that the too-incompatible realms are colliding…

Offering a solution, the Grandmaster appears to the Justice League of Americaand sets them off in search of twelve objects of sublime power (six from each Earth) that will end the crisis. On Marvel Earth the morally ambiguous New God Metron tasks the Avengers with the same goal and soon the duped heroes are all engaged in furious and escalating clashes across two worlds, culminating in a shattering confrontation on Earth-DC…

In a place beyond physics and geography, the size-shifting Atom has hitched a ride with the unsuspecting Grandmaster and becomes privy to a private conversation with the New Genesisian God of Knowledge.

However, even after discovering the real nature of the crisis and the true threat involved, the hapless hero is unable to reach either fooled friends or foes to warn them…

‘A Contest of Champions’ open with the JLA and Avengers at war above Metropolis whilst the cooler heads of Batman and Captain America have both deduced that something is not kosher. The two surreptitiously declare a truce and leave their unnaturally enraged comrades to their futile battles and continued competition for the dozen arcane objects of power, and instead track down the Atom in the Grandmaster’s non-dimensional lair.

The deeper plan is revealed: the Grandmaster’s game is rigged and the prize Krona is vying for is possession of Galactus: a being from the reality that preceded the Big Bang…

Meanwhile the massed armies of heroes have finished their savagely fought duels. The Grandmaster’s side has been victorious…

…Which means nothing to Krona who simply blasts the Elder, cruelly claiming and dismantling the prized Galactus as nothing more than a new research tool. However the renegade Guardian has been duped: En Dwi Gast was after the twelve objects all along and uses them to reorder the realities and the once-incompatible Earths…

In a world of constant turmoil and ‘Strange Adventures’, the JLA and Avengers are now old allies, frequently pairing to battle overwhelming menaces in union, but Captain America can’t shake the feeling that something is not right. On anther Earth Batman has the same notion, as blips in reality and temporal hiccups shift heroes and even replace them with dead or departed predecessors. It’s soon clear that Existence is in big trouble and when Superman and Iron Man travel into space they observe huge metaphysical hands catastrophically mashing the two Earths together…

With chaos rising and all life threatened, the constantly changing teams are led by the inscrutably unfathomable Phantom Stranger to a place beyond where the dying Grandmaster – who has once again underestimated the merciless, self-destructive and utterly determined Krona – warns them of the imminent end of all since the Guardian is quite prepared to take the universe apart to find out how it began…

As both worlds shudder and shatter, all the heroes of the earths mobilise to save lives, allowing ‘The Brave… and the Bold’ JLA and Avengers to pursue Krona into the void for one last battle to preserve and restore the universes, but even here a double game is being played: Metron and the Grandmaster have one last surprise in store for when the status quo is inevitably restored…

With guest-shots from just about everybody created by the two comicbook companies over seven decades, there’s a awful lot of crowded, blistering action but not a lot of room for character or plot, but even so most action fans will find something to rave over. Moreover, for art lovers this book is a sublime treat, with some of Pérez’s most spectacular illustration, ably augmented by a stunning cover gallery at the back featuring all four of his stellar wraparound covers.

It’s fair to say that I’m not a great fun of such profit-led pairings, but there’s still enough of the fan-boy in me to viscerally thrill at armies of costumed stalwarts bashing the bezonkers out of each other and, even if the story is forced and patently menu-led (one from company A, one from Company B, over and over again…), there are still some nice fanatic-friendly touches and witty in-jokes whilst inarguably the artwork – every millimetre stuffed with manic detail and wry, deferential tributes and touches – is amongst the very best George Pérez has ever produced.

If you like this sort of thing this is certainly one of the best of its ilk…

© 2003, 2004, 2008 DC Comics and Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman: The Death of Superman


By Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-124-3

Although largely out of favour these days as all the myriad decades of Superman mythology are gradually re-assimilated into one overarching all-inclusive DC continuity, the stripped-down, gritty post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Man of Steel re-imagined by John Byrne and marvellously built upon by a stunning succession of gifted comics craftsman produced some genuine comics classics.

This is probably the most significant of them all: the first part in a truly epic triptych story-arc which saw the martyrdom, loss, replacement and eventual resurrection of the World’s Greatest Superhero in a stellar saga which broke all records and proved that apparently everybody still cared about the hoary icon of Truth, Justice and the American Way…

This landmark collection features material which originally appeared in Superman: the Man of Steel #17-19, Superman #73-75, Adventures of Superman #496-497, Action Comics #683-684 and Justice League America #69, spanning cover-dates November 1992 to January 1993 and opens with the fearsome first glimpses of a of a masked and manacled figure pounding its way free of an adamantine cell.

Breaking out of the earth in the heart of rural America the saga proper begins in ‘Doomsday’ by Louise Simonson, Jon Bogdanove & Dennis Janke, as Superman deals with successive terrorist attacks by dropouts, alien dregs and mortal monsters known as Underworlders who have infested the tunnels beneath Metropolis but are now hungry for their own place in the sun. Whilst the Action Ace brokers a tenuous peace-treaty the horrific and kill-crazy escapee carves a purposeless swathe of destruction across the country…

In ‘Down for the Count’ (Justice League America #69, by Dan Jurgens & Rick Burchett) Superman is tied up with a meaningless publicity interview whilst in Ohio his JLA comrades, Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, Fire, Ice, Bloodwynd, Maxima and Guy Gardner are savagely thrashed by the lumbering monstrosity, who maims and cripples many of the World’s Greatest Superheroes with one arm literally tied behind its back…

By the time Superman arrives in ‘Countdown to Doomsday!’ (Jurgens & Brett Breeding) the remnants of the team have regrouped, determined to sell their lives dearly to stop the creature rampaging through a housing development, but their combined efforts do little more than shred the remaining restraints holding it back.

In a catastrophic explosion the JLA succumb to their punishing injuries and Superman, determined to stop the beast, chases after it, utterly unaware that a family have been trapped in the burning remnants of their home…

‘Under Fire’ (scripted by Jerry Ordway and illustrated by Tom Grummett & Doug Hazlewood) sees the hard-pressed Man of Steel break off his desperate struggle to rescue both the trapped citizens and the fallen heroes, allowing Doomsday to wreak even more havoc and slaughter. Soon after however the Caped Kryptonian catches up with the howling horror in the idyllic hamlet of Griffith, but even with the frenzied aid of majestic alien superwoman Maxima is overcome in a shattering confrontation which razes the entire town to the ground.

In ‘…Doomsday is Near!’ (Roger Stern, Jackson Guice & Denis Rodier) he is joined by the cloned Cadmus security officer Guardian and comes to the conclusion that the brutal beast must be stopped at any and all costs, but as he follows its trail he is constantly diverted by the need to rescue civilians caught up in the mindless path of destruction. However when the monster sees a big screen TV ad, Doomsday diverts from its latest tussle with Superman and heads inexorably for the hero’s home town, smashing its way through the Cadmus testing grounds dubbed Habitat…

Despite Superman’s Herculean, repeated efforts, ‘Doomsday is Here!’ (Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke) sees the beast hit the streets of Metropolis like an atomic bomb and the Man of Steel realises he will happily give his life to destroy the unstoppable leviathan. A small respite is gained when Supergirl enters the fray (not Superman’s Kryptonian cousin but rather the devoted protoplasmic facsimile that held the title at this time) but she is quickly disposed of by the mysterious monster, as are all the super-scientific resources of Lex Luthor‘s private army.

Eventually all that’s left to save the day is the bruised, battered and utterly exhausted Man of Tomorrow…

The magnificent legendary saga concludes in ‘Doomsday!’ with a final chapter delivered as a succession of full-page splash-shots from writer/penciller Jurgens and inker Breeding depicting Superman and his savage nemesis going toe-to-toe in the rubble of the city, and concluding as the man expires at last, taking the monster with him…

Short on plot but bursting with tension, drama and breathtaking action, the epic encounter was but the first step in a bold and long-term plan to push the complacent readership off the edge of their collective seats and revitalise the Superman franchise, but the positively manic public interest beyond the world of comics took everyone by surprise and made the character as vital and vibrant a sensation as in the earliest days of his creation.

It worked…
© 1992, 1993 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Vixen: Return of the Lion


By G. Willow Wilson & Cafu, with Bit and Josh Middleton (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2512-4

In 1978 fashion model Mari Jiwe McCabe was almost the first black woman to star in her own American comicbook, but the fabled “DC Implosion” of that year saw the Vixen series cancelled before release. She eventually premiered three years later in Action Comics #521’s ‘The Deadly Rampage of the Lady Fox’ (by creator Gerry Conway and Superman mainstays Curt Swan & Frank Chiaramonte) and skulked around the DC Universe until she joined the re-booted JLA in Justice League of America Annual #2.

A classic team-player, over decades working within assorted JLA rosters, the Suicide Squad, Ultramarine Corps, Checkmate and the Birds of Prey, Vixen’s origin has changed a lot less than most.

Mari Jiwe comes from a line of warriors blessed by animist Trickster god Kwaku Anansi. The mythical creator of all stories claims to have designed her abilities – and those of fellow hero Animal Man – allowing Vixen, through use of an arcane artefact dubbed the Tantu Totem, to channel the attributes and power of every animal that has ever lived.

As a child in M’Changa Province, Zambesi, her mother was killed by poachers and her missionary father was murdered by his own brother over possession of the Totem.

To thwart her uncle, the orphan moves to America, eventually becoming a model to provide funding and cover for her mission of revenge…

At first a reluctant superhero, Vixen became one of the most effective crusaders on the international scene and was a key member of the latest Justice League when her powers began to malfunction and she was forced to confront Anansi himself (for which tales see Justice League of America: Sanctuary and Justice League of America: Second Coming)…

Vixen: Return of the Lion originally appeared as a 5-part miniseries in 2009 and opens with ‘Predators’ as a League operation uncovers a plot by techno-thugs Intergang to fund a revolution in troubled African nation Zambesi. Amongst the impounded files is a record which proves that fifteen years earlier, Vixen’s mother was actually killed by Aku Kwesi, a local warlord working with the American criminals…

When Mari learns the truth, not even Superman can stop her from heading straight to her old village to find the man responsible. Africa is not America however, and the lawless settlement has no time for a woman who does not know her place – even if she does have superpowers…

When Kwesi appears, Vixen’s powers are useless against him and she escapes with her life only because the warlord’s lieutenant Sia intervenes…

In ‘Prey’ the broken and severely wounded Mari is dumped in the veldt by Sia and staggers her way across the war-ravaged plain, battling beasts and hallucinating – or perhaps meeting ghosts – until she is attacked by a young lion and rescued by a holy man…

Alarmed at Vixen’s disappearance and further discoveries linking Kwesi and Intergang, the JLA mobilise in ‘Sanctuary’ as the lost Vixen gradually recuperates in a place where the constant battles of fang and claw survival are suspended and the saintly Brother Tabo offers her new perspective and greater understanding of her abilities. Her JLA comrades meanwhile have exposed Intergang’s infiltration but fallen to a power even Superman could not resist…

As the League struggles against overwhelming odds, ‘Risen’ sees a transcendent Vixen flying to the rescue, picking up some unexpected allies en route before facing her greatest challenge in the shocking conclusion ‘Idols’, wherein a few more hidden truths are revealed and a greater mystery begins to unfold…

Also featuring a gallery of stunning covers by Josh Middleton this is an exceptional and moodily exotic piece of Fights ‘n’ Tights fluff from scripter G. Willow Wilson and artists Cafu & Bit that will delight devotees of the genre and casual readers alike.
© 2006, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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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.

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Crisis on Multiple Earths volume 1


By Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky, Bernard Sachs & Sid Greene (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-895-2

As I’ve frequently mentioned before, I was one of the “Baby Boomer” crowd which grew up with Julie Schwartz, Gardner Fox and John Broome’s tantalisingly slow reintroduction of Golden Age superheroes during the halcyon, eternally summery days of the early 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; pioneering trendsetter of the Silver Age Revolution. After successfully ushering in the triumphant return of the superhero concept, the Scarlet Speedster with Fox & Broome at the writing reins set an unbelievably high standard for costumed adventure in sharp, witty tales of science and imagination, always illustrated with captivating style and clean simplicity by Carmine Infantino.

The epochal epic that literally changed the scope of American comics forever was Fox’s ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ (Flash #123 September 1961, as seen in Showcase Presents the Flash volume 2) which introduced the theory of alternate Earths to the continuity and by extension resulted in the multiversal structure of the DCU – and all the succeeding cosmos-shaking yearly “Crisis” sagas that grew from it.

And of course, where DC led, others followed…

Received with tumultuous acclaim, the concept was revisited months later in #129′s ‘Double Danger on Earth!’ which also teasingly reintroduced evergreen stalwarts Wonder Woman, Atom, Hawkman, Green Lantern, Doctor Mid-Nite and Black Canary. Clearly Editor Schwartz had something in mind…

‘Vengeance of the Immortal Villain!’ from Flash #137 (June 1963, inked by Giella) was the third incredible Earth-2 crossover, and 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 an annual tradition.

When ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ introduced the concept of Infinite Earths and multiple versions of costumed crusaders, public pressure had begun almost instantly to agitate for the return of the Greats of the “Golden Age” but Editorial powers-that-be were hesitant, fearing too many heroes would be silly and unmanageable, or worse yet, put readers off. If they could see us now…

These innovative yarns generated an avalanche of popular and critical approval (big sales figures, too) so inevitably these trans-dimensional tests led to the ultimate team-up in the summer of 1963.

This gloriously enthralling volume re-presents the first four JLA/JSA convocations: stunning superhero wonderments which never fails to astound and delight beginning with the landmark ‘Crisis on Earth-One’ and ‘Crisis on Earth-Two’ (Justice League of America #21-22, August and September) combining to form one of the most important stories in DC history and arguably one of the most crucial tales in American comics.

Written by Fox and compellingly illustrated by Mike Sekowsky & Bernard Sachs the yarn finds a coalition of assorted villains from each Earth plundering at will, meeting and defeating the mighty Justice League before imprisoning them in their own secret mountain HQ.

Temporarily helpless “our” heroes contrive a desperate plan to combine forces with the champions of another Earth to save the world – both of them – 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!

‘Crisis on Earth-Three’ and ‘The Most Dangerous Earth of All!’ (Justice League of America #29-30, August and September 1964) reprised the team-up of the Justice League and Justice Society, when the super-beings of a third alternate Earth discovered the secret of trans-universal travel.

Unfortunately Ultraman, Owlman, Superwoman, Johnny Quick and Power Ring were villains on a world without heroes and saw the costumed crime-busters of the JLA/JSA as living practise dummies to sharpen their evil skills upon. With this cracking thriller the annual summer get-together became solidly entrenched in heroic lore, giving fans endless entertainment for years to come and making the approaching end of school holidays less gloomy than they could have been.

(A little note: although the comic cover-date in America was the month by which unsold copies had to be returned – the “off-sale” deadline – export copies to Britain travelled as ballast in freighters. Thus they usually went on to those cool, spinning comic-racks the actual month printed on the front. You can unglaze your eyes and return to the review proper now, and thank you for your patient indulgence.)

The third annual event was a touch different; a largely forgotten and rather experimental tale wherein the dim but extremely larcenous Johnny Thunder of Earth-1 wrested control of the genie-like Thunderbolt from his other-world counterpart and used its magic powers to change the events which led to the creation of all Earth-1’s superheroes. With Earth-1 catastrophically altered in #37’s ‘Earth – Without a Justice League’ it was up to the JSA to come to the rescue in a gripping battle of wits and power before Reality was re-established in the concluding ‘Crisis on Earth-A!’ in #38.

Veteran inker Bernard Sachs retired before the fourth team-up, leaving the amazing Sid Greene to embellish the gloriously whacky saga that sprang out of the global “Batmania” craze engendered by the Batman television series…

A wise-cracking campy tone was fully in play, acknowledging the changing audience profile and this time the stakes were raised to encompass the destruction of both planets in ‘Crisis Between Earth-One and Earth-Two’ and ‘The Bridge Between Earths’ (Justice League of America #46-47, August & September 1966), wherein a bold – if rash – continuum warping experiment dragged the two sidereal worlds towards an inexorable hyper-space collision. Meanwhile, making matters worse, an awesome anti-matter being used the opportunity to break into and explore our positive matter universe whilst the heroes of both worlds were distracted by the destructive rampages of monster-men Blockbuster and Solomon Grundy.

Peppered with wisecracks and “hip” dialogue, it’s sometimes difficult to discern what a cracking yarn this actually is, but if you’re able to forgive or swallow the dated patter, this is one of the very best plotted and illustrated stories in the entire JLA/JSA canon. Furthermore, the vastly talented Greene’s expressive subtlety, beguiling texture and whimsical humour added unheard of depth to Sekowsky’s pencils and the light and frothy comedic scripts of Gardner Fox.

This volume also includes an enthralling introduction by Mark Waid, a comprehensive cover gallery and creator biographies.

These tales won’t suit everybody and I’m as aware as any that in terms of the “super-powered” genre the work here can be boiled down to two bunches of heroes formulaically getting together to deal with extra-extraordinary problems. In mature hindsight, it’s obviously also about sales and the attempted revival of more sellable super characters during a period of intense sales rivalry between DC Comics and Marvel.

But I don’t have to be mature in my off-hours and for those who love costume heroes, who crave these cunningly constructed modern mythologies and actually care, this is simply a grand parade of straightforward action, great causes and momentous victories.

…And since I wouldn’t have it any other way, why should you?
© 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 2002 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman: The Doomsday Wars


By Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-124-3

Although largely out of favour these days as all the myriad decades of Superman mythology are gradually reassimilated into DC continuity, the stripped down, gritty post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Man of Steel devised by John Byrne and marvellously built upon by a succession of gifted comics craftsman produced some genuine classics.

This isn’t one of them, but Superman: the Doomsday Wars is a supremely enjoyable and thrilling Fights ‘n’ Tights diversion that should delight anybody in need of a solid piece of mature graphic novel entertainment.

Originally released as a three-part Prestige Format miniseries in 1998, this story blends spectacular blockbuster action and plenty of guest stars with skilful soap opera sub-plots; focussing on the birth of Pete Ross and Lana Lang’s first child just as the greatest physical threat Superman ever faced returned yet again…

Lana, Pete and Clark Kent grew up together in Smallville and shared a lifelong bond, but it was stretched to the breaking point when a present-day battle with Brainiac was curtailed so the Man of Steel could rush back to his hometown for a family emergency.

Lana had just given birth months prematurely and the cottage hospital was not equipped to handle a “premie” with Baby Ross’ massive complications.

Lana was Clark’s first love and knew about his heroic alter-ego. Her oblivious husband Pete was Clark’s best friend but still jumped to all the wrong conclusions when his wife began demanding to see the Metropolis newsman…

Even as Lana begged Superman to take her baby any place where his too-early life could be preserved, the Justice League were being decimated by the devastating Doomsday. As the Metropolis Marvel began cautiously transporting the most precious and fragile thing he had ever held across America to the world’s most advanced Natal care centre in Atlanta he was unaware that his personal Bête Noir was unerringly heading there too, leaving a swathe of carnage in his mindless wake…

Except that Doomsday wasn’t mindless anymore…

By incredible, time-bending means Brainiac had taken over the living engine of destruction, but Doomsday’s pure, unrelenting rage was expelling the master villain’s consciousness. So, in need of a new body, Brainiac took baby Ross (later, unwisely christened “Clark”), determined to remake the infant into a perfect, permanent home for his insidious intellect…

Moving, tragic and revealing many intriguingly insightful moments which shaped the nature and personality of the World’s Greatest Hero, The Doomsday Wars is not merely a power-packed punch-fest – although there is an abundance of action too – but a magically affecting melodrama about choices and repercussions interspersed with a chilling remembrance of the ghastly consequences that followed the last time Clark Kent made the Expedient rather than Right choice…

If you love the genre but need a little more depth in your Costumed Dramas this is a lost gem you’ll be glad you tracked down.
© 1998, 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Kingdom Come


By Mark Waid & Alex Ross (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2034-1

In the mid 1960s a teenaged Jim Shooter wrote a couple of stories about the Legion of Super-Heroes set some years into the team’s own future. Those stories of the adult Legionnaires revealed hints of things to come that shackled the series’ plotting and continuity for decades as eager, obsessed fans (by which I mean all of us) waited for the predicted characters to be introduced, presaged relationships to be consummated and heroes to die.

By being so impressive and similarly affecting the astonishing miniseries Kingdom Come accidentally repeated the trick and has subsequently painted the entire DC Universe into the same creative corner…

Envisaged and designed by artist Alex Ross as DC’s answer to the epic and groundbreaking Marvels, Kingdom Come was released as a 4-issue Prestige Format miniseries in 1996 to rapturous acclaim and, although set in the future and an “imaginary story” released under DC’s Elseworlds imprint, almost immediately began to affect the company’s mainstream continuity.

Set approximately twenty years into the future the grandiose saga details a tragic failure and subsequent loss of Faith for Superman and how his attempt to redeem himself almost led to an even greater and ultimate apocalypse.

The events are seen through the eyes and actions of Dantean witness Norman McCay, an aging cleric co-opted by Divine Agent of Wrath the Spectre after the pastor officiated at the last rites of dying superhero Wesley Dodds. As the Sandman, Dodds was cursed for decades with precognitive dreams which compelled him to act as an agent of justice.

The first chapter ‘Strange Visitor’ shows a world where metahumans have proliferated to ubiquitous proportions: a sub-culture of constant, violent clashes between the latest generation of costumed villains and vigilantes, all unheeding of the collateral damage they daily inflicted on the mere mortals around them.

The shaken preacher sees a final crisis coming, but feels helpless until the darkly angelic Spectre comes to him and takes him on a voyage of unfolding events and to act as his human perspective whilst the Spirit of Vengeance prepares to pass final judgement on Humanity. First stop is the secluded hideaway where farmer Kal-El has hidden himself since the ghastly events which compelled him to retire from the Good Fight and the eyes of the World.

The Man of Steel was already feeling like a dinosaur when newer, harsher, morally ambiguous mystery-men began to appear. After the Joker murdered the entire Daily Planet staff and hard-line new hero Magog executed him in the street, the public applauded the deed and, heartbroken and appalled, Superman disappeared for a decade. His legendary colleagues also felt the march of unwelcome progress and similarly disappeared.

With Earth left to the mercies of dangerously irresponsible new vigilantes, civil unrest soon escalated. The younger heroes displayed poor judgement and no restraint with the result that within a decade the entire planet had become a chaotic arena for metahuman duels.

Civilisation was fragmenting. Flash and Batman retreated to their home cities and made them secure, crime-free solitary fortresses. Green Lantern built an emerald castle in the sky, turning his eyes away from Earth and into the deep black fastnesses of space. Hawkman retreated to the wilderness, Aquaman to his sub-sea kingdom and Wonder Woman returned to her hidden paradise. She did not leave until Armageddon came one step closer.

When Magog and his Justice Battalion battled the Parasite in St. Louis the result was a nuclear accident which destroyed all of Kansas and much of Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska. Overnight the world f aced starvation as America’s breadbasket turned into a toxic wasteland. Now with McCay and the Spectre invisibly observing, Princess Diana convinces the bereft Kal-El to return and save the world on his own terms…

In ‘Truth and Justice’ a resurgent Justice League led by Superman begins a campaign of unilateral action to clean up the mess civilisation has become; renditioning “heroes” and villains alike, imprisoning all dangerous elements of super-humanity, telling governments how to behave, all utterly unaware that they are hastening a global catastrophe of Biblical proportions as the Spectre invisibly gathers the facts for his apocalyptic judgement.

In the ensuing chaos, crippled warrior Bruce Wayne rejects Superman’ paternalistic, doctrinaire crusade and allies himself with mortal humanity’s libertarian elite – Ted (Blue Beetle) Kord, Dinah (Black Canary) Lance and Oliver (Green Arrow) Queen – to resist what can only be a grab for world domination by the meta-human minority. As the helpless McCay watches in horror Wayne’s group makes its own plans; another dangerous thread in a tapestry of calamity…

At first Superman’s plans seem blessed to succeed, with many erstwhile threats flocking to his banner and his rules of discipline, but as ever there are self-serving villains with their own agendas. Lex Luthor organises a cabal of like-minded compatriots – Vandal Savage, Catwoman, Riddler, Kobra and Ibn Al Xu’ffasch, Son of the Demon Ra’s Al Ghul – into a “Mankind Liberation Front”.

With Captain Marvel as their slave, the group are determined the super-freaks shall not win and their cause is greatly advanced once Wayne’s clique joins them…

‘Up in the Sky’ sees events spiral into a deadly storm as McCay, still wracked by his visions of Armageddon, is shown the Gulag where all the recalcitrant metahumans have been dumped and sees how it will fail, learns from restless spirit Deadman that the Spectre is the Angel of Death and watches with growing helplessness as Luthor’s plan to usurp control from the army of Superman leads to a shocking confrontation, betrayal and a deadly countdown to the End of Days. The deadly drama culminates in a staggering battle of superpowers, last moment salvation and a second chance for humanity in ‘Never-Ending Battle’…

Thanks to McCay’s simple humanity the world gets another chance and this edition follows up with an epilogue ‘One Year Later’ which end this ponderous epic on a note of renewed hope…

This edition comes with an introduction by author and past DC Comics scribe Elliot S. Maggin, assorted cover reproductions and art-pieces, an illustrated checklist of the vast cast list and a plethora of creative notes and sketches in the ‘Apochrypha’ section, plus ‘Evolution’: notes on a restored scene that never made it into the miniseries.

Epic, engaging and operatically impressive Kingdom Come continues to reshape the DC Universe to this day and remains a solid slice of superior superhero entertainment, worthy of your attention.
© 1996, 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Metamorpho, the Element Man


By Bob Haney, Ramona Fradon, Joe Orlando, Sal Trapani, Charles Paris & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0762-5

By the time Metamorpho, the Element Man was introduced to the costumed hero-obsessed world the first vestiges of a certifiable boom were just becoming apparent. As such the light-hearted, almost absurdist take struck a right-time, right-place chord, blending far out adventure with tongue-in-cheek comedy.

The character debuted in Brave and the Bold #57 (December 1964-January 1965) and after a follow-up try-out in the next issue catapulted into his own title for an eclectic and oddly engaging 17-issue run. This canny monochrome compendium collects all those eccentric adventures plus team-up tales from Brave and the Bold #66 and 68 and Justice League of America #42

Unlike most of these splendid Showcase editions the team-up stories here are not re-presented in original publication order but closeted together at the back, so if stringent continuity is important to you the always informative credit-pages will enable to navigate the wonderment in the correct sequence…

‘The Origin of Metamorpho’ written by Bob Haney (who created the character and wrote everything except the JLA story) with art from Ramona Fradon & Charles Paris, introduced glamorous he-man Soldier of Fortune Rex Mason, who worked as a globe-trotting artefact procurer and agent for ruthlessly acquisitive scientific genius/business tycoon Simon Stagg. Mason was obnoxious and insolent but his biggest fault as far as his boss was concerned was that the mercenary loved and was loved by the millionaire’s only daughter Sapphire…

Determined to rid himself of Mason, Stagg dispatched him to retrieve a fantastic artefact dubbed the Orb of Ra from the lost pyramid of Ahk-Ton in Egypt, accompanied only by Java, a previously fossilised Neanderthal corpse Rex had discovered in a swamp and which (whom?) Stagg had restored to full life. Mason planned to take his final fabulous fee and whisk Sapphire away from her controlling father forever…

Utterly faithful to the scientific wizard, Java sabotaged the mission and left Mason to die in the tomb, victim of an ancient, glowing meteor. The man-brute rushed back to his master, carrying the Orb and fully expecting Stagg to honour his promise and give him Sapphire in marriage.

Trapped, knowing his time had come; Mason swallowed a suicide pill as the scorching rays of the star-stone burned through him…

Rex did not die but mutated into a ghastly chemical freak capable of shape-shifting and transforming into any of the elements or compounds that comprised the human body: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, calcium, iron, cobalt and so many others…

Hungry for vengeance, Mason followed and confronted his betrayers but was overcome by the alien energies of the Orb of Ra. An uneasy détente was declared as Mason accepted Stagg’s desperate offer to cure him …if possible.

The rich man was further horrified when Rex revealed his condition to Sapphire and found she still loved him. Totally unaware of Stagg’s true depths of duplicity, Mason began working for the tycoon as a metahuman problem-solver: Metamorpho, the Element Man.

Brave and the Bold #58 (February-March 1965) revealed more of Stagg’s closeted skeletons when old partner Maxwell Tremayne kidnapped the Element Man and later abducted Sapphire in ‘The Junkyard of Doom!’ The deranged armaments manufacturer was once intimately acquainted with the girl’s mother and never quite got over it…

The tryout comics were an unqualified success and Metamorpho promptly debuted in his own title, cover-dated July-August 1965 just as the wildly tongue-in-cheek “High Camp” craze was catching on in all areas of popular culture; blending ironic vaudevillian kitsch with classic movie premises as theatrical mad scientists and scurrilous spies began to appear everywhere.

‘Attack of the Atomic Avenger’ saw nuclear nut-job Kurt Vornak try to crush Stagg Industries only to be turned into a deadly, planet-busting radioactive super-atom, whilst ‘Terror from the Telstar’ pitted the charismatic cast against Nicholas Balkan, a ruthless criminal boss determined to sabotage America’s Space program.

Mad multi-millionaire T.T. Trumbull used his own daughter Zelda to get to Simon Stagg through his heart (accidentally proving to everyone who knew him that the old goat actually had one) as part of his attempt to seize control of America in ‘Who Stole the U.S.A.?’ but the ambitious would-be despot backed up the scheme with an incredible robot specifically designed to destroy Metamorpho. Happily Rex Mason’s guts and ingenuity proved more effective than the Element Man’s astonishing powers…

America saved, the dysfunctional family headed South of the Border becoming embroiled in ‘The Awesome Escapades of the Abominable Playboy’ as Stagg tried to marry Sapphire off to Latino Lothario Cha Cha Chavez. The wilful girl thought she was just making Mason jealous and had no idea of her dad’s true plans and Stagg senior had no conception of Chavez’s real intentions or connections to the local tin-pot dictator…

With this issue the gloriously stylish Ramona Fradon left the series to be replaced by two artists who strove to emulate her unique manner of drawing with varying degrees of success. Luckily veteran inker Charles Paris stayed on to smooth out the rough edges…

First up was E.C. veteran Joe Orlando whose two issue tenure began with the outrageous doppelganger drama ‘Will the Real Metamorpho Please Stand Up?’ wherein eccentric architect Edifice K. Bulwark tried to convince Rex Mason to lend his abilities to his chemical skyscraper project. When Metamorpho declined Bulwark and Stagg decided to create their own Element Man… with predictably disastrous consequences.

‘Never Bet Against an Element Man!’ (#6 May-June 1966) took the team to the French Riviera as gambling grandee Achille Le Heele snookered Simon Stagg and won “ownership” of Metamorpho. The Creepy Conchon’s ultimate goal necessitated stealing the world’s seven greatest wonders (such as the Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower) and only the Element Man could make that happen…

Sal Trapani took over the pencilling with #7’s ‘Terror from Fahrenheit 5,000!’ as the acronymic super-spy fad hit hard and Metamorpho was enlisted by the C.I.A. to stop suicidal maniac Otto Von Stuttgart from destroying the entire planet by dropping a nuke into the Earth’s core, whilst costumed villain Doc Dread could only be countered by an undercover Metamorpho becoming ‘Element Man, Public Enemy!’ in a diabolical caper of doom and double-cross…

Metamorpho #9 moved into the realm of classic fantasy when suave and sinister despot El Mantanzas marooned the cast in ‘The Valley That Time Forgot!’ to battle cavemen and antediluvian alien automatons before a new catalysing element was added in ‘The Sinister Snares of Stingaree!’ with the introduction of Urania Blackwell – a secret agent who had somehow been transformed into an Element Girl with all Metamorpho’s incredible abilities. Not only was she dedicated to eradicating evil such as the criminal cabal Cyclops, but Urania was also the perfect paramour for Rex Mason… he even cancelled his wedding to Sapphire to go gang-busting with her…

With a new frisson of sexual chemistry sizzling beneath the surface, ‘They Came From Beyond?’ found the conflicted Element Man battling an apparent alien invasion whilst ‘The Trap of the Test-Tube Terrors!’ saw another attempt to cure Rex Mason of his unwanted powers allow mad scientist Franz Zorb access to Stagg Industry labs long enough to build an army of chemical horrors.

The plot thickened with Zorb’s theft of a Nucleonic Moleculizer, prompting a continuation in #14 wherein Urania was abducted only to triumphantly experience ‘The Return From Limbo’…

Events and stories grew increasingly outlandish and outrageous as the TV superhero craze intensified and ‘Enter the Thunderer!’ (#14, September-October 1967) saw Rex pulled between Sapphire and Urania as the extraterrestrial Neutrog terrorised the planet in preparation for the awesome arrival of his mighty mutant master. The next instalment heralded an ‘Hour of Armageddon!’ as the uniquely menacing Thunderer assumed control of Earth until boy genius Billy Barton assisted the Elemental defenders in defeating the mutant horror.

Trapani inked himself for Metamorpho #16; an homage to H. Rider Haggard’s “She” wherein ‘Jezeba, Queen of Fury!’ changed the Element Man’s life forever. When Sapphire Stagg married playboy Wally Bannister, the heartbroken Element Man undertook a mission to find the lost city of Ma-Phoor. Here he encountered an undying beauty who wanted to conquer the world and just happened to be Sapphire’s exact double.

Moreover the immortal empress of a lost civilisation had once loved an Element Man of her own: a Roman named Algon who had been transformed into a chemical warrior two millennia previously. Believing herself reunited with her lost love Jezeba finally launched her long-delayed attack on the outside world with disastrous, tragic consequences…

The strangely appetising series came to a shuddering and unsatisfactory halt with the next issue as the superhero bubble burst and costumed comic characters suffered their second recession in fifteen years. Metamorpho was one of the first casualties, cancelled just as (or perhaps because) the series was emerging from its quirky comedic shell with the March-April 1968 issue.

‘Last Mile for an Element Man!’, illustrated by Jack Sparling, saw Mason tried and executed for the murder of Wally Bannister, resurrected by Urania Blackwell and set on the trail of true killer Algon. Along the way Mason and Element Girl uncovered a vast, incredible conspiracy and rededicated themselves to defending humanity at all costs. The tale ended on a never-resolved cliffhanger: when Metamorpho was revived a few years later no mention was ever made of these last game-changing issues…

The elemental entertainment doesn’t end here though as this tome somewhat expiates the frustrating denouement with three terrific team-up tales beginning with Brave and the Bold #66 (June-July 1966) ‘Wreck the Renegade Robots’ as a mad scientist usurped control of the Metal Men just as their creator Will Magnus was preoccupied turning Metamorpho back into an ordinary mortal.

Two issues later (B& B #68October-November 1966) the still Chemically Active Crime-buster was battling the Penguin, Joker and Riddler as well as a fearsomely mutated Caped Crusader in the thoroughly bizarre ‘Alias the Bat-Hulk!’ – both tales courtesy of Haney, Mike Sekowsky & Mike Esposito.

Sekowsky also drew the last story in this volume. Justice League of America #42 (February 1966) had the hero join the World’s Greatest Superheroes to defeat a cosmic menace deemed “the Unimaginable”. The grateful champions instantly offered him membership but were surprised when and why ‘Metamorpho Says… No!’ in a classic adventure written by Gardner Fox and inked by Bernard Sachs.

The wonderment finally subsides after a lovely pin-up of the Element Man and his core cast by Fradon and Paris.

Individually enticing, always exciting but oddly frustrating in total this book will delight readers who aren’t too wedded to cloying continuity but simply seek a few moments of casual, fantastic escapism.
© 1965-1967, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Justice League of America volume 5


By Mike Friedrich, Len Wein, Dick Dillin & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-195-9

After the actual invention of the comicbook superhero – for which read the Action Comics debut of Superman in 1938 – the most significant event in the industry’s progress was the combination of individual sales-points into a group. Thus what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven: a number of popular characters could multiply readership by combining forces. Plus, of course, a mob of superheroes is just so much cooler than one (…or one-and-a-half if there’s a sidekick involved…).

And so the Justice Society of America is rightly revered as a true landmark in the development of comicbooks and when Julius Schwartz revived the superhero genre in the late 1950s, the key moment came with the inevitable banding together of the reconfigured mystery men.

That moment came with issue #28 of The Brave and the Bold, a classical adventure title that had recently transformed into a try-out magazine like Showcase. Just before Christmas 1959 the ads began running. “Just Imagine! The mightiest heroes of our time… have banded together as the Justice League of America to stamp out the forces of evil wherever and whenever they appear!”

The rest was history: the JLA captivated the youth of a nation, reinvigorated an industry and even inspired a small family-concern into creating the Fantastic Four, thereby transforming the art-form itself

Following a spectacular rise, TV spin-offs brought international awareness which led to catastrophic overexposure: by 1968 the superhero boom looked to be dying just as its predecessor had at the end of the 1940s. Sales were down generally in the industry and costs were beginning to spiral. More importantly “free” entertainment, in the form of television, was by now ensconced in even the poorest household. If you were a kid in the sixties, think just how many brilliant cartoon shows were created in that decade, when artists like Alex Toth and Doug Wildey worked in West Coast animation studios.

Moreover, comicbook heroes were now appearing on the small screen. Superman, Aquaman, Batman, the Marvel heroes and even the JLA were there every Saturday in your own living room even after the global bubble had burst…

It was a time of great political and social upheaval. Change was everywhere and unrest even reached the corridors of DC. When a number of creators agitated for increased work-benefits the request was not looked upon kindly. Many left the company – not always voluntarily – for other outfits. Some quit the business altogether.

This fifth monochrome volume compellingly reflects the signs of the times as new writers fostered a “new wave” before slowly and safely returning the World’s Greatest Superheroes to the tried and tested Fights ‘n’ Tights arena…

Collecting issues #84-106 (and re-presenting the stirring covers of #85 and 93: giant editions which reprinted issues #10-11and #13 and18, respectively), this tome covers the period when the market changed forever, and comics stopped being a casual, disposable mass-entertainment.

By the end of this volume the publishers had begun the conceptual and commercial transition from a mass-market medium which slavishly followed trends and fashions to become a niche industry producing only what its dedicated fans wanted…

The dramas begin here with Justice League of America #84 (November 1970) and a guest-script from veteran writer Robert Kanigher illustrated by Dick Dillin & Joe Giella. ‘The Devil in Paradise!’ wherein a well-meaning but demented scientist builds his own Eden to escape the world’s increasing savagery before attempting to cleanse the Earth and start civilisation afresh.

With superheroes on the outs the team was severely truncated too. Issue #86 tackled impending global starvation as Mike Friedrich began a run of excellent eco-thrillers with ‘Earth’s Final Hour!’ as businessman Theo Zappa traded away the planet’s plankton (base of our entire food-chain) to a race of aliens with only Superman, Batman, Flash, Aquaman, Atom and Hawkman on hand to thwart him, whilst #87’s ‘Batman… King of the World!’ brought in occasional guest-star Zatanna and the semi-retired Green Lantern to tackle a deadly alien robot raider: a devious and cleverly veiled attack on Big Business and the Vietnam war, most famous these days for introducing a group of alien superheroes mischievously based on Marvels Mighty Avengers…

The human spirit and enduring humanity were highlighted when ancient refugees from the lost city of Mu returned to find us in charge of the planet they had abandoned millennia ago. ‘The Last Survivors of Earth!’ showed that even when superheroes were outmatched by scientifically-instigated global catastrophes, the simple patience, charity and self-confidence of ordinary folks can move mountains and save worlds.

‘The Most Dangerous Dreams of All!’ is one of the oddest tales in JLA history with a thinly disguised Harlan Ellison psychically inserting himself into the consciousness of Superman and Batman to woo the Black Canary with near-fatal repercussions, in a self-indulgent but intriguing examination of the creative process whilst #90’s ‘Plague of the Pale People!’ saw Aquaman’s submerged kingdom of Atlantis conquered by a primitive sub-sea tribe (the Saremites from Flash #109 – for which story check out Showcase Presents the Flash volume 1) using nerve gas negligently dumped in the ocean by the  US military.

In a mordant and powerful parable about lost faith and taking responsibility the JLA were forced to deal with problems much tougher than repelling invaders and locking up bad-guys…

Justice League of America #91 (August 1971) began the hero-heavy first part of the annual JLA/JSA team-up with ‘Earth… the Monster-Maker!’ as the Supermen, Flashes, Green Lanterns, Hawkmen, Atoms and Robins of two separate Realities simultaneously and ineffectually battled an alien boy and his symbiotically-linked dog on two planets a universe apart, until ‘Solomon Grundy… the One and Only!’ gave them a life saving lesson on togetherness and lateral thinking…

Following the cover of reprint giant #93, Neal Adams stepped in to provide additional pencils for the tense mystery ‘Where Strikes Demonfang?’ as ghostly guardian Deadman helped Batman, Aquaman and Green Arrow foil a murder mission by the previously infallible Merlyn and the League of Assassins. The issue ended on a cliffhanger as Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman were lost in a teleporter accident leaving Batman, Black Canary, Green Arrow and the Atom to fight ‘The Private War of Johnny Dune!’ wherein a disaffected black Vietnam veteran discovered the power and temptation of superpowers. Tragically even the ability to control minds wasn’t enough to change an unjust society two hundred years in the making…

The JLA returned to large-scale cosmic drama with issue #96 as Superman located the lost Leaguers on the distant yet familiar world of Rann (at least if you’ve read Showcase Presents Adam Strange volume 1) battling a planet-killing energy vampire in ‘The Coming of… Starbreaker!’

Their hard-won triumph only brought Earth to the attention of the extinction-event-level villain, leading to #97’s ‘The Day the Earth Screams!’ – a 37-page epic incorporating and recapitulating the team’s origin from #9 – resulting in a positively charged team, aided by Golden Age magician Sargon the Sorcerer, finally crushing the Stellar Leech in the climactic ‘No More Tomorrows!’

Environment-in-extremis was once more the theme in #99’s ‘Seeds of Destruction!’ as two alien Johnny Appleseeds began reseeding Earth with plants irrespective of whether or not humans want – or can survive – their monstrous crop…

Justice League of America #100 (August 1972) heralded the move away from relevancy and hot button social topics and a return to full-on Costumed melodramas beginning with a colossal three way team-up featuring almost every hero in the then-DC pantheon.

Beginning as part of the annual JLA/JSA summer blockbuster ‘The Unknown Soldier of Victory!’ featured the debut of Len Wein as scripter as the assembled champions of two Earths began a monumental hunt through time to retrieve forgotten heroes the Seven Soldiers of Victory; not simply out of common decency but because the vanished vigilantes held the answer to defeating a criminal mastermind literally holding the world of Earth-2 to ransom.

The quest continued in ‘The Hand that Shook the World!’ before ending in one adventurer’s gallant final sacrifice in #102’s ‘And One of Us Must Die!’ (with additional inking from Dick Giordano).

Returned to their own planet the JLA teamed up with and then inducted one of the few mystery men who hadn’t accompanied them to Earth-2 in ‘A Stranger Walks Among Us!’ (Wein, Dillin & Giordano) as the cross-genre horror-hero Phantom Stranger foiled a plot to sorcerously slaughter six Leaguers during the annual Halloween carnival in Rutland, Vermont, after which Green Lantern’s arch-enemy Hector Hammond orchestrated an attack on his old foe by setting an unstoppable monster loose on the League in ‘The Shaggy Man Will Get You if You Don’t Watch Out!’

The “More-the-Merrier” recruitment drive continued in #105 as the Elongated Man signed up to save the day against marauding, malignant putty-men in ‘Specter in the Shadows!’, anonymously aided by a miraculously resurrected robotic Red Tornado who joined up in #106, unaware that he had been reprogrammed into becoming a ‘Wolf in the Fold!’ which neatly concludes this delightful fifth volume of extraordinary exploits.

The Justice League of America has become a keystone of American comics and these tales are still among the most thought-provoking, controversial and purely entertaining episodes in their half-century history.

Just Imagine…

© 1968-1972, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.