Category: New Gods

Posted on

DC Finest: Fourth World – When the Old Gods Die


By Jack Kirby, with Vince Colletta, Curt Swan, Werner Roth, Murphy Anderson, Neal Adams, Frank Giacoia, Dick Giordano Heck, Dennis O’Neil, Bob Kanigher, John Costanza, Ben Oda, Mark Evanier, Steve Sherman, Marv Wolfman & various (DC Comics)

ISBN: ?978-1-79950-831-1 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Jack Kirby was born today in 1917. This is part one of his absolute greatest work and I’ll happily fight you if you disagree…

When Jack Kirby returned to the home of Superman in 1970, he brought with him one of the most powerful concepts in comic book history. The epic grandeur of his Fourth World saga grafted a whole new mythology over the existing DC universe and blew the developing minds of a generation of readers.

It began in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen where he revived his Golden Age kid-team The Newsboy Legion, introducing large-scale cloning in the form of The Project and hinting that the city’s gangsters had extraterrestrial connections, Kirby moved on to new titles The Forever People, New Gods & Mister Miracle; an interlinked triptych of projected finite length titles that together would form a mosaic of staggering potency and grandeur. The groundbreaking titles introduced rival races of gods, dark and light, risen from the ashes of a previous Armageddon to battle forever… and then their eternal conflict spread to Earth…

Kirby’s concepts, as always, fired and inspired his contemporaries and successors. The gods of Apokolips and New Genesis became a crucial keystone of unfolding DC continuity and integral foundation of that entire fictional universe thereafter, surviving numerous revisions and retcons which periodically bedevil long-lived comics fans. Many major talents dabbled with the concept over the years and a host of titles have come and gone starring Kirby’s creations.

This trade paperback collection reshapes the chronology slightly, rejecting strict release date order for a more syncretic narrative, but does include sidebar material never included in previous collected editions. Here you will see the pertinent contents of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133-139 & #141-143; The Forever People #1-4; Mister Miracle #1-4; The New Gods #1-3, plus relevant (but non-Kirby) material from Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #111, 114 & 115 and Superman #233, all collectively spanning cover-dates January – November 1971.

After his previous acrimonious departure from National/DC, Kirby had found fresh fields and an equally hungry new partner in Stan Lee at the remnants of ailing Atlas Comics (AKA once-mighty Timely Comics). There he launched and spearheaded a revolution in comics storytelling, but after just over a decade of a continual innovation and wonderment, Jack felt increasingly stifled. His efforts had transformed the dying outfit into industry-leader Marvel, but success had left him trapped in a profitable rut. Thus, he moved back to DC to generate another tidal wave of sheer imagination and pure invention. The result was experimental adult magazines Spirit World & In the Days of the Mob followed by a stunning reworking of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. By the time he had finished, all DC continuity was changed. The latter was a prelude to his landmark Fourth World saga comprising interlinked contemporaneous titles: the very definition of something game-changing and far too far ahead of its time…

Incidentally, on many levels Jimmy Olsen was an ideal match for the King and not an incongruous display of breast-beating or do-or-die audition. Olsen was an idealistic, heroic young man in the thick of the incredible at all times, and Kirby had a long history with such boy heroes. He and Joe Simon had invented the comic book “kid gang” subgenre and for the next two years Kirby revived it with his new take on The Newsboy Legion, albeit interlaced with a future-embracing backstory and aspirational wonder, rather than the poverty, privation and ongoing war of survival embodied by the Forties iteration.

As previously stated, in this tome we don’t start in Metropolis’ Suicide Slum, but long away and far ago as the scene is set by a history lesson from the distant past…

Cover-dated February/March 1971, New Gods #1 opened with an ‘Epilogue’ and closed on a ‘Prologue’ as Kirby & contractually assigned inker Vince Colletta declared ‘Orion Fights for Earth!’ Despite a promise of complete autonomy, the King had surrendered much to get his dream rolling. Crushing deadlines and ridiculous expected monthly page counts were one thing, but his choice of inkers was vetoed, and he had to compromise and accept insulting art edits drawn by regular Superman artists perennially pasted onto Superman’s trademarked face to present something DC demanded. Nevertheless, the work was everything and he persevered…

Here we learned that (relatively) soon after creation began, gods were born, lived and died – primarily by warring with each other. When the Old Gods perished in a cosmos-shaking conflagration their perfect primal world was sundered. When the chaos cooled, fragments had congealed into two new but lesser planets: the dark vicious globe of Apokolips and gleaming pristine orb New Genesis. Over millennia, a fresh generation of superior beings of might and majesty populated the spinning spheres, but sadly, a tragic trait New Gods shared with their progenitors was a capacity for destruction and taste for conflict. Denizens of both worlds always and inevitably found new ways to end each other’s immortal lives.

The tale proper begins on joyous, spiritual New Genesis years after the latest all-out war with Apokolips ceased. Mighty Orion arrives in paradisical Supertown where divine patriarch Highfather communes with cosmic mystery The Source. The ineffable metaphysical conduit despatches the turbulent, ever-anxious wolf in their fold to the antithetical diabolical hell-world, only to find despot Darkseid gone and – against all treaties – captive humans from Earth being “examined” for signs of the tyrant’s dream. For both races the basic tool is Mother Box: sentient circuitry connected to The Source and lifelong cyber-symbiotic companion, able to communicate, advise and manipulate the physical world.

The lord of Apokolips wants to do away with all that and personally control everything. Furthermore he’s decided this means possessing an irresistible, intangible ultimate weapon. The Anti-Life Equation is a cheat code for totalitarianism: the instant negation of choice and free will, and anyone using it would command all that lives. Darkseid’s obsessive search for it had led him to Earth and now he had kidnapped a cross-section of humans to test his extraction methodology. That he is gone and his realm is governed by Mass Control Units means the Evil One has found his key to success…

After batting his way onto the dire world against Parademons, Darkseid’s Dog Cavalry and assorted terror weapons, Orion frees the mortals as New Genesis God of Knowledge Metron delivers advice and a message. Thus, after outwitting and outfighting vile brute Kalibak the Cruel, the peaceful God of War uses a matter-transmitting Boom Tube to return them all to Earth. Darkseid and his elite warrior caste are waiting for him. They have already infiltrated Earth through its criminal class and begun testing humanity in search of the unique mind holding the Equation. Apparently, a sufficient amount of instilled terror should shake it loose…

The Forever People #1’s ‘In Search of a Dream!’ sees Kirby wonders unfold following a spectacular and contemporarily astute UFO sighting wherein friends of Jimmy Olsen witnessed the arrival of a quartet of weird wild kids on the strangest bike on – or off – Earth. Because they took pictures, Clark Kent’s life changed forever….

He had just completed a bruising interview that made him question his role and purpose on Earth when Jimmy’s snapshots of those weird kids offer Superman a glimpse of a place where he can be one guy among equals. Curiosity and a painful need to find the newcomers drive the Man of Steel to find them, and brings him into first known contact with the absolute embodiment of intellectual and philosophical totalitarianism. Darkseid had been infiltrating our world, quietly seeking a unique mind concealing a metaphysical ultimate weapon. The Anti-Life Equation was instant, irresistible negation of free will and with it the right despot would command all that lives. Darkseid’s obsessive search had led him to Earth and now he had kidnapped a psychic youngster from a world called New Genesis. Her name was Beautiful Dreamer…

All this Superman learned later, after being ambushed by alien-armed racketeers Intergang and saved by her friends Big Bear, Vykin the Black, Serifan & Mark Moonrider. They were all from that promised land Superman had glimpsed and had abandoned Eden to “get involved”, helping their friend and Earth. They called themselves Forever People…

Apparently benevolent, curious kids open to new experiences and welcoming the myriad choices the future holds, they were also trained to handle trouble. When Darkseid’s forces counterattacked and took out Superman they revealed one final trick, combining into an unbeatable enigmatic gestalt being called Infinity Man…

When Darkseid ceded the day, he left a booby trap only Superman could tackle and in return the kids let him travel to Supertown on their fabled paradise planet New Genesis. However, they stressed that any decent, right-thinking person’s place was here, fighting evil by facing Darkseid. For the briefest moment, need overwhelmed duty before, inevitably, the Man of Tomorrow turned back and took up the new never-ending battle…

After Forever People #1, crossovers with DC mainstays were largely sidelined in favour of a tense and relatively isolated new normal. Those kids were Kirby’s way of depicting how conflict affected peripheral players and dragged them in and down, whilst the most important component was seeing seasoned soldiers do their work. New Gods would focus on the war itself. With that all going on, next came something utterly unexpected: a non-hero reflecting a changing world, and seeking to ride the turbulent era’s zeitgeist by looking out for himself and breaking loose of expectations and societal shackles…

Cover-dated February/March 1971, the premiere issue of Mister Miracle – Super Escape Artist sprang the last piece of the puzzle on readers, opening with a sedate set of mysteries counterpointed by emotional tension and explosive action. The star – based on Jack & Roz Kirby’s friend (comics genius, magician/escapologist) Jim Steranko – was a fugitive runaway avoiding (perhaps dodging?) his responsibilities and searching for deeper truths. No matter how wild things got, that set-up was pure reportage…

Inked by Colletta ‘Murder Missile Trap!’ introduces aging entertainer Thaddeus Brown, an old war horse trying to get back in the saddle, practicing his old escapology act to win an unwise wager with Metropolis’ Intergang boss Steel Hand. A terrifying test run is interrupted by a young stranger who observes with shock Brown’s apparent suicide and the panic of equally aged assistant Oberon even as he rushes in to help them. That act of getting involved leads to orphan Scott Free inheriting the identity and stage persona of Mister Miracle after Steel Hand cheats and has Thaddeus shot and killed. Angry, intrigued and ready to settle down at last (or for a while at least), the wanderer (who has an astounding carpet bag of high-tech tricks) wins justice for his predecessor by beating a spectacular rocket trap before opting to try something strange but substantial for a change. However, the coils of his past are already preparing to ensnare him…

That premiere issue (and this collection) also offered a text feature by Marvin Wolfman wherein readers could enjoy ‘A Visit With Jack Kirby’ before New Gods #2 confirms that there are no civilians in war in ‘O’ Deadly Darkseid!’ After fighting off a savage ambush on arrival and confronting Darkseid himself, Orion drafts the shaken, rescued human hostages as his point men and intel unit. Private eye Dave Lincoln, secretary Claudia Shane, student Harvey Lockman and aging insurance salesman Victor Lanza are scared but resolved to help their world however possible, even as the dread tyrant reviews his forces scattered all over Earth applying a range of schemes to make humanity scream and shatter and give up that equation.

As New Genesis’ comrades volunteer for the fight on this isolated island Earth, the call to arms comes in Lincoln’s backyard as God of Depravity DeSaad triggers his gigantic Fear Machine to feed off the paralysing horror it generates. However, thanks to sentient miracle computer Mother Box, his innate personal power and the star-shattering Astro-Force he commands, Orion easily wins the initial skirmish…

This scene & agenda setting saga is complemented with Mark Evanier & Steve Sherman’s prose filler ‘To and From The Source’ prior to FP #2 finding our young explorers exuberantly enjoying their dalliance with a primitive culture. The reunited quintet joyously interact with toiling humanity, and find shelter in a mostly deserted slum with disabled kid Donnie and his aging Uncle Willie. The visiting star kids’ hunger to learn is sadly curtailed when Darkseid steps up his hunt for the equation. The monster’s reasoning says abject terror could shake loose the formula from whoever is afflicted with it, and to that end he orders bug-behemoth Mantis to declare shattering ‘Super War!’ on humanity.

Arguably marginally less powerful than the Master of Apokolips, Mantis can only be countered by Infinity Man, and the Forever People happily ask living computer Mother Box to perform the ritual that will call him and subtract them from existence, sparking a cataclysmic clash. The drama is again augmented by an Evanier & Sherman essay, specifically ‘Buzzing in the Boom Tube’ as is Mister Miracle #2 with ‘Miracle Talk’.

The comics magic preceding it considers the prosaic life of a showman, as amidst a beguiling setting Scott & Oberon plan a theatrical comeback, Sadly, the old stagehand/retainer learns just how different the new kid really is and his suspicions of a wider, wilder side are confirmed as the orphanage Scott fled comes looking for him. Vicious Apokolyptian virago Granny Goodness unleashes the techno-terrors of matter-warping monster Overlord, trapping the targets in the insidious, infernal ‘X-Pit!’ and provoking a battle for their lives and sanity…

Kirby’s arrival coincided with a major overhaul of DC’s biggest gun, and is represented here by the last three pages of Superman #233. The Mn of Tomorrow had been a mega-media star since his launch, with internationally syndicated comics, books, newspaper strips, movie and animated serials plus hugely successful radio and TV shows (live action and animated) making the franchise globally recognizable. Whenever that happens, inevitably overkill and overexposure inescapably set in and the core property needs to be carefully overhauled or vanish forever. Incoming editor Julie Schwartz knew his market and was open to new ideas, and his creative changes were just appearing as 1970 ended. The new direction was also vanguard and trigger for a wealth of controversial, socially-challenging “realistic” story content unseen since the feature’s earliest days: a wave of tales ultimately described as “Relevant”…

As the sixties closed Superman was in dire need of editorial revision. That officially began with Superman #233 in a groundbreaking serial by scripter Dennis J. “Denny” O’Neil, and illustrators Curt Swan & Murphy Anderson: a deliberate very public abandonment of tired old supervillains, fanciful Kryptonian scenarios and otherworldly paraphernalia instantly poked the readership and revitalised the Man of Tomorrow, attracting new readers and began a period of engagingly human-scaled stories making Superman a “must-buy” character all over again.

Although only the portentous ending is included here, the innovations began with ‘Superman Breaks Loose’ as a government experiment to harness Kryptonite as an energy source goes explosively wrong. Closely monitoring, the Metropolis Marvel is blasted across the desert surrounding the isolated lab, but somehow survives a supposedly fatal radiation-bath. Then, reports begin filtering in from all over Earth: every piece of the deadly mineral has been transformed to harmless, common iron! As he goes about his protective, preventative patrols, the liberated hero experiences an emotional high at the prospect of all the good he can now accomplish. He isn’t even phased when the Daily Planet’s new owner Morgan Edge (a key character created by Kirby and Darkseid’s top secret agent) shakes up Clark Kent’s cosy civilian life: summarily ejecting him from the print game to remake him as a roving TV journalist. (for more see DC Finest: Superman – Kryptonite Nevermore)…

As much humour feature as adventure series, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen was a long-running but increasingly lacklustre spin-off feature spawned by the TV show that had very much reached its end. Latterly, Leo Dorfman had begun the process of ending the cascade of comedic transformations and body-shaming events, remaking Jimmy into a competent, confident action hero and serious investigative journalist. This was in tune with a rebellious new era but stalled when the worlds of DC forever altered on the pages of what was then considered one of their least appreciated and poorest-selling titles. According to fan myth & legend, none of it apparently mattered when Kirby took over. By all popular accounts, he had asked for DC’s worst performing title to prove what he could do, and used that gesture to spearhead a wave of changes whilst adapting grand schemes his old employers at Marvel were too timid to countenance on their pages…

Jack’s first in-universe foray was Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #133, cover-dated October and on sale from August 25, 1970. Suddenly readers were thrown into a bravely strange new world where, out of nowhere, extremely shady incoming Daily Planet owner Morgan Edge gifts Jimmy with a fantastic supercar – the “Whiz Wagon” – demanding that he and his previously unseen pals ‘The Newsboy Legion!’ (technically the “New Newsboy Legion” comprising the sons of Tommy, Big-Words, Gabby & Scrapper, with the addition of African-American, scuba diving addict Flipper Dipper) deliver an exclusive scoop on a bizarre counterculture movement in the wilds outside Metropolis. The mysterious subjects are all weird hippie-types and don’t trust anyone over age 25, so Edge needs to send youth combined with experience, However, the one who can’t be trusted is Edge himself. He has undisclosed connections to crime combine Intergang and a chilling stone-faced alien dubbed Darkseid…

After very publicly surviving an assassination attempt, Clark Kent goes into hiding, allowing Superman to take off after Jimmy and the boys as they probe fantastic unsuspected region dubbed the Wild Area. Here Olsen survives trial by combat to become leader of futuristic biker gang The Outsiders, before being sucked into their quest for meaning by hunting a moving mountain inhabited by techno-pacifists “The Hairies”…

Linking up with the Man of Steel as tremors rock the organically grown refuge city of Habitat, Jimmy and the Newsboys chase the ultimate test of existence alongside other motor nomads, unaware that pal Superman already knows the secret they’re seeking. What Jimmy isn’t aware of is that Edge has boobytrapped the Whiz Wagon to satisfy his vile master’s desire to destroy what might be the next step in human evolution and a threat to his own schemes…

The total reboot closed with the King introducing himself to a prospective new audience text titbit ‘Jack Kirby – CONTINED’ but although Kirby & Colletta put their hearts and souls into the job, and despite Publisher Carmine Infantino’s promise of strict non-intervention, meddling with the concept began early, as regular Superman art staff redrew Superman and Jimmy’s faces. We’ll never know what they tried to do to the overall story arc…

Without pause for breath, exposition or recap SPJO #134 saw Jimmy and his petrol-head wild bunch catch up to monstrous mechanised white whale ‘The Mountain of Judgement!’ after astoundingly taking out Superman with weapons casually discarded by inveterate tinkerers the Hairies. Thankfully, Edge’s bomb is easily defused by the techno-hippies who all share an incredible secret; one the Action Ace is fully aware of. In short order, Jim and the lads are briefed on “The Project”: the US government’s cracking of the human genome and extensive duplication/experimentation on life forms. This had already resulted in cloning the dead, mass-producing soldiers & staff to order and even modifying or reconfiguring chromosomal structures to create “D.N.A.liens”. These included the genetically pacifist techno-wizard Hairies. Moreover, the whole Project is run for the government by none other than slum-kids made good the original Newsboy Legion!

Although commonplace now, the notion of cloning was practically unknown in 1970 and Kirby took the idea and ran with it: blending eternal questions about Life itself with Spy Fi tropes, gangsterism and Bond movie settings, all packed with freaks and monsters and underpinned by a constant threat posed by a mysterious mastermind and his own experimental devils. The inspired auteur was also pulling out all the stops visually and his experimental concepts were backed up by equally innovative art and photo collages. The issue ends with Kirby’s rumination on technology in ‘The Whiz Wagons are Coming!’

Followed by similar thoughts in ‘THE HAIRIES – Super-Race or Man’s Second Chance’, SPJO #135 introduces Simyan & Mokkari, whose raid on the Project’s genetic storehouse provides raw material to constantly reproduce wilder and wilder versions of our heroes in their own hidden ‘Evil Factory!’ Being utterly without restraint or ethical scruple, their goal of destroying the Project for Darkseid is well-advanced, and – as previously stated – Jimmy’s genes are a particularly promising medium for random transformations…

Their control of what they make is less impressive though, and a superstrong, giant Jimmy infused with artificial Kryptonite is teleported without plan into the Project simply to save Simyan & Mokkari from dying at the oversized hands of their own experiment. Although it almost kills Superman and his juvenile pals, the day is saved by the Senior Newsboys’ passion project – a new regrown and modified iteration of their murdered WWII superhero patron Jim Harper – The (Golden) Guardian – in concluding, action-packed background-filling expository chapter ‘The Saga of the D.N.A.liens!’ (cover-dated March 1971). Chronologically this led into the launch of Kirby’s official Fourth World titles Forever People, New Gods and Mister Miracle #1.

Scene set, Jimmy’s further exploits were generally Fourth World adjacent: a forge and funnel for concepts linking Superman to the ongoing narrative of Gods and Armageddons whilst exploring Mankind’s dangerous tendencies and corruptible natures. In Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #137, the Newsboys and Jimmy learn more about their own (utterly non-consensual) contributions to the Project. Without their knowledge Scrapper has been mass-produced as foot-soldiers and guards in different sizes – from six feet to six inches – and innumerable Gabbys man switchboards and communications consoles! As they reel in shock, the Evil Factory strike again. As Jimmy meets The Project’s emergent telepath and resident D.N.A.lien Dubbilex, elsewhere Darkseid demands results forcing Simyan & Mokkari to rashly unleash another Olsen variant on the hidden science citadel. Gifted with astounding strength and uncanny energy powers ‘The Four-Armed Terror!’ has been bred to feed on nuclear radiation and just one of them carves a wave of destruction that extends into the Wild Area on its path to the Project’s atomic power plant. Superman and the boys are easily disposed of and discarded, with the crisis escalating even further after the Apokolyptian biologists lose control of the other quadra-killers and beam the entire rampaging herd into the subterranean Project’s tunnels, forcing Superman to pull out all the stops to get free and save everything in cataclysmic closing chapter ‘The Big Boom!’

Cover-dated June/July 1971, New Gods #3 explored metaphysics and the unknowable. Dwelling in spaces far beyond the rational and mundane, New Gods are subject to forces beyond mortal understanding. One of them is the embodiment of cessation who personally calls for each of them as they perish. ‘Death is the Black Racer!’ opens with glorious, jovial innocent God of Illumination Lightray barely escaping his moment with the great shadow – thanks to coldly methodical Metron, but the close escape finds the cosmic force diverted and deposited on Earth. Throughout the overlapping clashes and conflicts there is undeniable indications that even gods are being moved and shaped by greater forces that have larger plans in motion. Thus the macabre soul collector inexplicably nests within the immobile form of paralysed Vietnam veteran Willie Walker, and – apparently inadvertently – derails a plot by Apokolips-backed mob Intergang to destroy all communications in Metropolis to create chaos and panic…

Elsewhere, having explored isolation versus community, introduced outside negation of free will and the concept of terror as addictive sustenance (Darkseid’s vile deputy DeSaad feasts on fear, pain and torture), Forever People #3 tackles head-on the saga’s core concepts. ‘Life vs. Anti-Life!’ probes conformity, personal freedoms, informed choices, organised bigotry and the tyranny of psychological and physical fascism as the wonder kids are tracked down by Justifiers: human zealots who willingly surrendered individual autonomy to what appears to be a televangelist telling them what they want to hear. Defeat doubt by surrendering to Anti-Life. It is Good to kill those who are better or weaker than you. I’m sure we’ve all dabbled with those notions…

Equipped with terrifying Apokolips weapons, Justifiers burn libraries, attack minorities and even drive the kids out of their tatty slum home and onto the attack, infiltrating Apokolyptian infiltrator/demagogue Glorious Godfrey’s appalling recruitment rally. Shockingly, when Infinity Man faces Darkseid, the devil defeats our mysterious angel and the traumatised kids are captured…

Still seeking his separate way Mister Miracle #3 opens a bravura double-issue imbroglio as Scott Free agrees to an honourable duel with dishonourable disembodied robot-wearing intelligence Doctor Bedlam. Darkseid’s war code is strict and binding and finds the escape artist challenged to make his way out of a packed 50-storey skyscraper. The problems comes because the edifice is sealed tight and every person inside it is a raving homicidal maniac thanks to mental murderer Bedlam’s administering of ‘The Paranoid Pill!’…

As stated before, Kirby’s Fourth World impacted other titles, particularly the Fourth Estate of Superman’s supporting cast. Here, crafted by Bob Kanigher, Werner Roth & Colletta, ‘The Dark Side of the Justice League!’ from Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #111 (July 1971) sees the feisty newsmaker targeted by a miniature, corrupted JLA grown by the Evil Factory. Turned into a unsuspecting bio-weapon to kill The Man of Steel, the plot fails as The Project had anticipated such a problem and provided Lane with what every girl needs: her own cloned well-armed protection force…

Forever People #4 then horrifically subverts the American Dream as theme park Happyland is revealed as ‘The Kingdom of the Damned’: a sprawling factory built to mass-produce terror by exploiting whimsy and fantasy. Here DeSaad torments countless human victims while others innocently see nothing but toys and robots dancing and playing for their pleasure. To this set-up the captive waifs of New Genesis are added as DeSaad feeds, but they have all underestimated the power of Mother Box who seeks aid and finds it in the form of zen wrestler ‘Sonny Sumo’…

At this juncture DC comic books expanded to 52 pages and as well as reprints, Kirby’s Korner ran short background vignettes. The lost history of the previous war of pantheons was filled in as here when ‘The Young Gods of Supertown Introducing Lonar’ finds a wandering historian picking through cosmic rubble on New Genesis and uncovering a living, breathing remnant of that cataclysmic conflict

This cliffhanger moment is somewhat offset by a trio of Forever People pinups: ‘The Super-Kids of the Century!’, ‘Beautiful Dreamer vs Darkseid!’ and ‘The Infinity Man…

Despite those promises of non-interference, DC editors and promotional staff perpetually sought to “goose up” Kirby’s flagship title. Always a team player, the King acquiesced to a guest-appearance by currently-hot comedian Don Rickles and oddly (in the manner of Marmite) it either worked uproariously or appalled readers. I thought it was a genuinely hilarious hoot. Further undercutting the narrative, the saga was bifurcated by a reprint 80-Page Giant of pre-Kirby Olsen escapades in SPJO #140 (not included here).

Nevertheless #139 & 141 (July’s ‘The Guardian Fights Again!!!’ and September’s ‘Will the Real Don Rickles Panic?’) comprise a compelling tale of Edge’s unfolding evil, Intergang’s growing influence and the creeping menace of Darkseid, as the tyrant allows his tech to be used to send Clark Kent into hyperspace destined for Apokolips whilst Jimmy and the Golden Guardian are poisoned by slow-acting incendiary Pyro-Granulate: a slow death that will turn them into human torches unless they find an antidote.

Slowing them down is equally doomed Galaxy Broadcasting staffer Goody Rickles whom Edge wants gone because he looks like the star Edge wants to sign up – and is really, really annoying…

The conclusion is compounded by text feature ‘The Newsboy Legion Returns’ by Evanier & Sherman and a Kirby self-portrait… before the last Mister Miracle inclusion (#4). As Oberon frets back at the Brown mansion, he is visited by another old friend of Scott’s. However, master warrior Big Barda is not out to assassinate the runaway. She seems more interested in his wellbeing and fate and teleports to the trap site in time to watch Mister Miracle deftly avoid ‘The Closing Jaws of Death!’ and humiliate another Apokolips monster. Barda is another abstention from the Apokolips method and a rowdy runaway like no other who will change Scott Free’s life forever in the next volume…

Extracted from Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #114, two brief pages by Kanigher, Roth & Colletta’s ‘The Foe of 100 Faces’ act as a set-up to ‘My Death… by Lois Lane!’ (SGFLL #115) wherein Morgan Edge attempts to kill his nosy top reporter as she closes in on his darkest secret and takes Superman with her. His biggest mistake, however, is attempting to suborn supernal force The Black Racer to do his dirty work…

With Kent, Lane and Superman reasonably safe, Kirby next addressed the rise in horror and supernatural tales via a 2-parter (reeler?) beginning in #142 with ‘The Man from Transilvane!’ Here, seemingly mystic vampire Count Dragorin and his wolfman assistant Lupek target and “turn” Edge’s PA Laura Conway in their desperate hunt for long-missing mad scientist Dabney Donovan. He was a planetologist who apparently built worlds in his secret laboratory and shaped entire civilisations by screening movies across their skies. Like all sensible scientists, Donovan planned to end his research project on a certain day and set up programmed measures involving his ‘Genocide Spray!’ (SPLO #143 ) with no consideration of the beings he had made and discarded… but Jimmy and Superman certainly did…

Elsewhere, the Newsboy Legion had their own case, one that again led to Intergang but also the thug who murdered the original Jim Harper/Guardian…

From SPJO #142, Kirby added short background-enhancing vignettes and here 2-pager ‘Strange Stories of the D.N.A. Project!! “Hairie” Secrets Revealed!!!’ offered a glimpse of the techno-hippies and their Mountain of Judgment, whilst the next issue added drama to fact-finding with ‘Strange Stories of the D.N.A. Project!! The Alien Thing!!!’ detailing the terrifying results of creating the first non-human clone…

To Be Continued…

DC Finest: Fourth World – When the Old Gods Die collects foundational chapters of Kirby’s legendary saga; a bold new cosmic playground for so many to forever build upon. Almost overnight and in one broad flourish, Kirby had created one of the most powerful concepts in comic book history. The Fourth World inserted a whole new mythology into the existing DC Universe and blew the developing minds of a generation of readers and especially those who would become the next generation of creators. Who knows what could have happened if the publishers had had a little more courage, patience and vision?
© 1970, 1971, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1917 Jack Kirby was born. Also on that date in 1917 pioneering Italian artist Aurelio Galleppini (Tex Willer, Occhio Cupo) arrived, sharing birthdays with Dell Barras (Savage Sword of Conan, Dark Angel, Deaths Head II, Web of Spider-Man) in 1957; colourist Pamela Rambo in 1968 and French ace Joann Sfar (Dungeon, The Rabbi’s Cat, Klezmer, Little Vampire) in 1971.

The great Frederick Burr (Happy Hooligan, And Her Name Was Maud, Alphonse and Gaston) died today in 1937, as did Belgian superstar Willy Vandersteen (Spike and Suzy, Bessy, De Rode Ridder) in 1990 and Dutch Master Bert Bus (Olaf Noord, Theban, de eerste wereldreiziger, Cliff Rendall, Stef Ardoba, Malorix, Russ Bender, Archie the Robot) in 2017.

Posted on

Green Lantern John Stewart: A Celebration of 50 Years


By Neal Adams, Dennis O’Neil, Len Wein, Steve Englehart, Christopher Priest, Jim Starlin, Ron Marz, Judd Winick, Geoff Johns, Tony Bedard, Peter J. Tomasi, Van Jensen, Robert Venditti, Stuart Moore, Derek Fridolfs & Dustin Nguyen, Dave Gibbons, Joe Staton, Gil Kane, Mike Mignola, Darryl Banks, Dale Eaglesham, Ed Benes & Maros Marz, Tyler Kirkham, Fernando Pasarin, Igor Lima, Rodney Buchemi & Geraldo Borges, Pat Broderick, Doug Mahnke, John Delaney, Eric Nguyen & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-1125-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Now a cornerstone underpinning the entire DC Universe, the many heroes called Green Lantern have waxed and waned over eight decades and are now much more Concept than Character. This stunning compilation – part of a dedicated series introducing and exploiting the comics pedigree of veteran DC icons – offers a brief but astoundingly enticing sequence of snapshots detailing how one particular Emerald Gladiator broke many boundaries whilst battling evil and injustice for the entertainment of millions across many generations.

This book features material from Action Comics #601; Batman Beyond Unlimited #4-5; Cosmic Odyssey #2, Green Lantern (volume 2) #87, 182, 185; Green Lantern (vol. 3) #74, 156; Green Lantern (vol. 4) #49; Green Lantern Corps #211; Green Lantern Corps (vol. 2) #60,; Green Lantern Corps (vol. 3) #9; Green Lantern: Futures End #1; Justice League #1 (vol. 4) #6, 40; Justice League Adventures #22; Justice League of America #110 and Secret Origins (vol. 4) #9. These span cover-dates January 1971 to April 2020, with the groundbreaking appearances are preceded by brief critical analysis of the significant stages in his development. The emerald exploits begin with Part I: 1971-1985 – A Sign of the Times and a revelatory essay by legendary activist/comics iconoclast Neal Adams who shares the secret origin of the first Green Lantern of colour, before we enjoy that seminal classic…

Originally created by Martin Nodell & Bill Finger, the first Emerald Avenger – Alan Scott – debuted in All-American Comics #16 (July 1940), just as superheroes started to take hold, and supplanting newspaper strip reprints and stock genre characters in still primarily-anthologised comic books. He was a white guy with a magic ring and an icon of his era.

After superheroes vanished and returned in the early 1950s, another GL was created: once again a symbol of his era. After the hugely successful revival and reworking of The Flash, DC/National Periodicals were keen to build on the resurgent superhero trend. Showcase #22 hit the stands at the same time as the fourth issue of the new Flash comic book (#108) and once again the guiding lights were editor Julie Schwartz and writer John Broome. Assigned as illustrator was action ace Gil Kane, inked by Joe Giella.

A vivid Space Age origin revealed how young test pilot Hal Jordan was plucked from his Californian aircraft factory by an alien policeman who had crashed his spaceship on Earth. Mortally wounded, Abin Sur commanded his power ring – a device to materialise thoughts – to seek out a replacement officer who was honest and without fear. Scanning the planet, it selected Jordan and brought him to the crash-site. The dying alien bequeathed his ring, lantern-shaped Battery of Power and his professional vocation to the astonished Earthman.

In six pages ‘S.O.S Green Lantern’ established characters, scenario and narrative thrust of a series that became the spine of DC continuity, leaving room for another two adventures in that premiere issue. Unlike the debut of The Flash, the editors were now confident of their ground. Two more Showcase issues carried even greater exploits, and six months later Green Lantern #1 was released.

For the new iteration, emerald ring-wielders were a members of a universal police force and Jordan’s “beat” – which included planet Earth – was Space Sector 2814. Having introduced the cosmic peacekeepers, Broome, Gardner Fox and others carefully expanded the concept throughout the 1960s, adding alien – and even female(!) GLs – as well as alternate human Lanterns like Charlie Vicker and Guy Gardner. They even brought back the original as Alan Scott (now designated Green Lantern of alternate world Earth-Two) became a semi regular cast member…

Over many traumatic years, Jordan emerged as one of the greatest members of a serried band of law-enforcers. For billions of years, the Green Lantern Corps protected and served the cosmos, policing countless sentient beings under the severe but benevolent auspices of immortal superbeings who deemed themselves Guardians of the Universe. These undying patrons and enforcers of Order were one of the first sentient species to evolve and dwelt in sublime, emotionless security and tranquillity at the very centre of creation on the small world of Oa. Primarily chosen for a capacity to overcome fear, Green Lanterns are equipped with a ring that forms solid constructs from emerald light. The miracle weapon is fuelled by the strength of the user’s willpower, making it one of the mightiest tools imaginable. For eons, a single individual from each of 3600 sectors of known space was selected to patrol their, his, her, or its own beat. Cautious, meticulous supervisors, Guardians laid contingency plans and frequently appointed designated reserve officers to inherit the office of their peacekeeping representatives.

Jordan’s originally assigned substitute was quiet, steadfast PE teacher Gardner, but when the other white Guy was critically injured and required long-term recuperation, the Oans’ fallback option was somewhat worrying to staid, by-the-book Hal. In GL #87 (cover-dated December 1971/January 1972 and crafted by Adams, his scripter of choice Denny O’Neil & inker Dick Giordano), ‘Beware My Power!’ introduced a bold new character to the DCU, conceived at a time when non-Caucasian heroes could be counted on the fingers of one hand…

The time was more than ripe for change. With superhero titles in decline, O’Neil & Adams had been asked to try something different to save the title and responded by assaulting all the traditional monoliths of contemporary costumed dramas with tightly targeted, protest-driven stories. The series was re-titled Green Lantern/Green Arrow with the loudly Liberal avenging Archer constantly mouthing off as a hot-headed sounding-board and platform for a generation-in-crisis, whilst staid, conservative, quasi-reactionary Hal Jordan played the part of the oblivious but well-meaning old guard. America had become a bubbling cauldron of social turmoil and experimentation. Everything was challenged and with issue #76 (April 1970 and the first issue of the new decade), O’Neil and comics iconoclast Adams utterly redefined superhero strips with relevancy-driven stories; transforming complacent establishment boy scouts into uncertain, questioning champions and strident explorers of the revolution.

Racial disparity had been the crux of the creators’ first outing. ‘No Evil Shall Escape My Sight!’ (not included here) broke the mould of the medium, utterly re-positioning the very concept of a costumed crusader as newly-minted ardent rebel/social justice warrior Oliver Queen challenged Jordan’s cosy worldview after the lofty space-cop painfully discovered real villains wear business suits, operate expense accounts, hurt people just because of skin colour and will happily poison their own nests for short-term gain…

Here, from GL/GA #87, that tone and strident attitude manifested as unemployed architect and full-time “radical” activist John Stewart “made the scene”. This angry black man was spoiling for a fight and would to take guff from no-one, making Jordan certain his bosses had grievously erred when selecting the rash, impetuous Stewart as Sector 2814’s official GL stand-in. However, after seeing how his proposed pinch-hitter handled a white supremacist US presidential candidate trying to ride into the Oval Office by fomenting race war, he was happy to change his tune…

Once established, Stewart was almost immediately forgotten. His next appearance came in Justice League of America #110 (March 1974) where Len Wein, Dick Dillin & Giordano delivered a delightful and potent seasonal present as Superman, Batman, Green Arrow, Black Canary and Red Tornado had to adapt to the abrasive substitute mid-mission, when the team gathered to hunt down ‘The Man Who Murdered Santa Claus!’ Murderous psychopath The Key had set up the heroes for ambush with the callous assassination of an actor hired to cheer orphaned kids, but his horrific deeper scheme was only foiled thanks to the supernatural intervention of almost forgotten Leaguer The Phantom Stranger, after which rebellious Stewart “finessed” his bosses’ cosmic rules and protocols to give destitute and impoverished ghetto dwellers a Christmas present that changed their lives forever…

Time passed and Stewart popped up occasionally as the Guardians’ motives and ineffability were increasingly called into question by many of their once-devoted operatives. Frequently, the grunts began seeing their formerly infallible little blue gods exposed as venal, ruthless, doctrinaire and even capricious. As his repute grew, headstrong Hal Jordan enjoyed an extremely tempestuous and fractious relationship with the Guardians, which eventually led to them accusing him of neglecting his space sector to concentrate on Earth’s problems and criminals. When he couldn’t reconcile his love for Carol Ferris with his offworld duty to the Corps, Jordan quit.

In Green Lantern #182 (November 1984), Wein, Dave Gibbons & Mark Farmer confirmed a landmark reshaping of the legend as ‘It’s a Dirty Job, But…!’ saw now merely mortal Jordan second-guessing his decision as he revisits Abin Sur’s remote resting place. Meanwhile, across the universe, the Guardians have moved swiftly, promoting Stewart to the full-time position in Space Sector 2814. At this time, the architect was working on rebuilding the shattered Ferris Aircraft complex and had no idea Jordan was the alter ego of his abruptly “retired” predecessor, nor that his predecessor’s old enemy Major Disaster was back and looking for a fight…

In Green Lantern #185, Wein & Gibbons took another brave step as ‘In Blackest Day…!’ found 2814’s newest ringslinger fully acclimated to his responsibilities. Overnight celebrity/media sensation Stewart is courted by TV reporter Tawny Young but only earns her enmity after refusing to divulge the circumstances of his origin and promotion. Meanwhile, in the wings evil energy entity Eclipso lays his own plans…

At that time, many fans and critics felt the substitution of Jordan with Stewart was little more than a PC stunt, but time and the quality of the stories proved the decision to be brilliant one. It certainly offered a cruelly underserved portion of the readership another solid role model but as time progressed and the different personalities and approaches coalesced, the move led to an expansion and re-evaluation the nature of being a DC hero…

Part II: 1987-1996 – More Than Just the Back-up Guy opens with John (12 Years a Slave; The Other History of the DC Universe; Future State: The Next Batman) Ridley’s discussion of Stewart’s evolution from experiment in “measured progressiveness” to uniquely individualist major character prior to another tantalising of tranche revolutionary tales.

In the mid-1980s, DC’s editorial hierarchy felt their vast 50-year continuity was deterring new readers. The solution was a colossal braided-mega series to streamline, redefine and even add new characters to the mix. The worlds-shattering, reality-altering Crisis on Infinite Earths resulted in such spectacular commercial success, those movers-&-shakers must have felt more than justified in revamping a number of their hoariest icons for their next fifty years of publishing. As well as Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman and Justice League of America, Green Lantern was earmarked for a radical revision, with the Guardians removed from existence and most of their surviving agents setting up a far smaller shop on Earth. Stuart, Jordan & Gardner were joined by a number of alien GLs, and John found unlikely romance with his former training officer Katma Tui of Korugar in Steve Englehart, Joe Staton & Farmer’s ‘Pink Elephants’ (Green Lantern Corps #211, April 1987). However, doom lurked in the wings in the form of Hector Hammond and Star Sapphire Carol Ferris…

Signature DC title Action Comics became a weekly anthology in May 1988, with the GL’s a key feature. Pulling no punches, first chapter ‘…And the Pain Shall Leave My Heart’ (#601, by Christopher Priest as James Owsley & Gil Kane) opened years of heartache for Stewart as Star Sapphire murdered his beloved…

Thanks to Jim Starlin, Mike Mignola & Carlos Garzon, the Emerald Gladiator’s troubles peaked as the year ended. Cosmic Odyssey was a stellar melodrama teaming Superman, Batman, Doctor Fate, a cadre of alien superheroes and many of Jack Kirby’s greatest DC creations in an interplanetary slugfest to save the Milky Way galaxy from malevolent and predatory sentient concept The Anti-Life Equation. Here from Book Two of the 4-part miniseries, unfolding events reveal how Green Lantern Stewart’s arrogance and unwarranted overconfidence causes the obliteration of inhabited world and rising civilisation Xanshi…

Years later, after the GL Corps was utterly destroyed by Hal Jordan as Parallax, only one hero remained. Youthful Kyle Rayner wielded the last power ring to keep the green flame burning until the peacekeeper force could rebuild. During that interim, Stewart joined rival paramilitary organisation The Darkstars, and in Ron Marz, Darryl Banks & Romeo Tanghal’s ‘Stand’ (Green Lantern vol. 3, #74, June 1996) unites with Rayner, Donna Troy/Troia and space veteran Adam Strange to save planet Rann from annihilation by Grayven, son of Darkseid…

Screenwriter/comics author Geoff Johns (JSA, The Flash, Superman, Green Lantern, Stargirl) then discusses Stewart’s modern major league status in Part III: 2003-2020 – The Identifiable Hero, which begins here in the aftermath of many changes to the history of DC’s first black superhero.

Courtesy of Judd Winick, Dale Eaglesham & Rodney Ramos, Green Lantern volume 3 #156 (January 2003), Stewart is again ‘Walking Tall’: a restored, reactivated ring-wielder freshly healed from wheelchair-bound paraplegia thanks to arch enemy and understandably aggrieved Xanshi survivor Fatality. Sadder, wiser and resolute, he’s ready to resume the duties he was born for. Ongoing continuity revisions had remade him as a former elite soldier, and ‘Semper Fi’ (Green Lantern #49, February 2003 by Johns, Ed Benes, Marcos Marz & Luciana del Negro) samples epic event Blackest Night as combat flashbacks and fallen Lantern buddies seek to wear Stewart down, after which an increasing breakdown of trust between the Guardians and their agents leads to all-out rebellion as seven different shades of the emotional power spectrum clash.

With Rayner empowered by blue hues of Hope and Stewart employing indigo shades of Compassion against reborn rogue Oan Krona, the odd couple embark on a suicide mission to assassinate a beloved emerald comrade suborned to ultimate evil in ‘War of the Green Lanterns, Part Eight’ (Green Lantern Corps #60 July 2011, by Tony Bedard, Tyler Kirkham & Matt Banning). Months later DC rebooted its entire line for a second time in high profile stunt “The New 52”. The mostly cosmetic changes barely affected the assorted GL boutique titles, which had been merrily dismantling and rebuilding the Master & Servant relationship between ring-wielders and their obsessively controlling bosses. With civil war rending the organisation, ‘Alpha War: Tried and True’ (Peter J. Tomasi, Fernando Pasarin & Scott Hanna, GLC #9 July 2012) saw rapidly ascendant figurehead Stewart railroaded and held for judgement by the Guardians’ new secret police, before scoring ultimate victory by embracing his sins and accepting his guilt…

In 2014, as the New 52 staggered to its conclusion, a company-wide event offered speculative glimpses at the eventual demise of its heroes. Green Lantern Corps: Futures End #1 (Van Jensen, Igor Lima, Rodney Buchemi, Geraldo Borges & Ruy José) detailed how, five years from “now” Stewart goes rogue: ruthlessly enforcing a Green Peace as ‘The Death Dealer’. He has no inkling of how one last sanction will change him…

Secret Origins #9, March 2015, by Jensen & Pat Broderick related his latest modified backstory in ‘The Architect’, after which Robert Venditti, Doug Mahnke & Richard Friend bring us relatively up to date with Justice League #40 (April 2020) and ‘Invasion of the Supermen Part One: Impact!’ with Stewart taking point for his earthly teammates when The Eradicator leads an army of Daxamites (each mightier than Superman) in a war of ruthless conquest…

This celebration concludes with a personal memoir from celebrated actor Phil LaMarr who played Stewart in TV shows Justice League & Justice League Unlimited: discussing the hero’s out-world impact in Part IV: The Animated Years – Voicing an Icon. It’s supported by tales from assorted DC comics based on animated shows adapted from the original DC comics – Whoa! Infinity moment! – and opens with ‘Second Contact’ from Justice League Adventures #22 (October 2003). Here Stuart Moore, John Delaney & Robin Riggs reveal how John leads a JL squad against the Shayol, perpetrators of a Green Lantern massacre five years previously and which only he survived. They claim to have changed, but can he trust himself to trust them?

The compulsive comics classics close with a yarn from 2012, culled from the thrilling and expansive sub-universe based on the animated Batman Beyond show. Set in the days when Gotham’s Dark Knight is troubled teen Terry McGinnis, it includes an elderly Superman and a new Justice League populated with the children and legatees of the originals. Taken from Batman Beyond Unlimited #4-5, back-up strip ‘Beyond Origin: Warhawk’ by Derek Fridolfs, Dustin Nguyen & Eric Nguyen details the doomed love story of Stewart and Thanagarian teammate Hawkgirl, his rebound romance with African superhero Vixen and the tragedy and terrors that led to the birth of his son and heir, before this celebratory chronicle closes with a ‘Poster Pinup’ from Green Lantern: Mosaic by Cully Hamner & Dan Panosian. The tome is immeasurably enhanced throughout by a superb collection of covers by Adams, Giordano, Gibbons, Banks & Tanghal, Ariel Olivetti, Benes, Kirkham & Banning, Fernando Pasarin & Scott Hanna, Francis Portela and Bryan Hitch. This is not a sop to minorities or appeasement to diversity, but a solid reminder that heroes and superstars come in all colours.

Green Lantern has a long, proud history of shaking things up and providing provocative, dynamic drama wedded to outstanding artwork. This compelling assortment of snapshots is staggeringly entertaining, titanically tantalising and a monolithic testament to the inestimable value of a strong core concept matured over decades of innovation.
© 1971, 1974, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988,1996, 2003, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2020, 2021 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1934 arrived Spanish-born artist of British & international comics Jesús Redondo Román (El Capitán Trueno, SOS Dossier Ecológico, Suzette of the Silver Sword, Mind Wars, Dan Dare, Motormouth and Killpower, Star Trek, Kitty Pryde), with Swiss raconteur & illuminator Claude de Ribaupierre AKA Derib (Yakari, Buddy Longway) popping by in 1944 and underground comix pioneer Rory Hayes (Arcade, Weirdo, Bijou Funnies, Snatch Comics, Bogeyman) in 1949. In 1952 prolific colourist Janice Cohen (Howard the Duck, Godzilla. Spider-Man, Warp, Starslayer, Jon Sable) was born, with German cartoonist Ralf König (The Killer Condom, Der bewegte Mann, Lysistrata, Pretty Baby, Wie die Karnickel, Santa Claus Junior) proudly joining the parade in 1960; master mangaka Kit? Mohiro (Noririn, Shadow Star, Bokurano) and in 1966; comic book artist Carlo Barbieri (Impulse, Harley Quinn, Gen13) in 1972 & Ryan Ottley (Invincible, Haunt, Amazing Spider-Man,) in 1975.

The date also marks the deaths of writer, screenwriter and poet Joseph Patrick “J.P.” McEvoy (Dixie Dugan) in 1958 and Mexican writer of Memin Pinguin Yolanda Vargas Dulché de la Parra in 1999.

Posted on

Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman volume 2


By Michael Jelenic, Adam P. Knave, Alex De Campi, Amy Chu, James Tynion IV, Heather Nuhfer, Lauren Beukes, Cecil Castelucci, Sara Ryan, Aaron Lopresti, Drew Johnson, Matthew Dow Smith, Ray Snyder, Neil Googe, Bernard Chang, Noelle Stevenson, Ryan Benjamin, Mike Maihack, Chris Sprouse & Karl Story, Christian Duce & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5862-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

Time to start planning for a Big Comics Anniversary later this year…

The Princess of Paradise Island originally debuted as a special feature in All Star Comics #8, cover-dated December 1941, but actually on sale from October 21st of that year). She was officially conceived by psychologist/polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston and illustrated by Harry G. Peter, in a calculated attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model and, on forward-thinking Editor M.C. Gaines’ part, to sell more funnybooks to girls. Later research has since disclosed much of her genesis was due to Moulton’s wife – attorney turned psychologist Sarah Elizabeth Marston (née Holloway) who had worked with him to create the systolic lie detector process – and their live-in partner Olive Byrne.

Despite all the complexities and confusion surrounding her genesis, Wonder Woman was an instant hit and catapulted from the try-out into her own series as the cover-feature character of new anthology title Sensation Comics one month later. The Amazing Amazon then won her own eponymous supplemental title a few months after that, cover-dated summer 1942…

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

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

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

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

That set up enabled the Star-Spangled Sentinel to weather the notoriously transient comic book marketplace, surviving the end of costumed heroes’ Golden Age beside Superman, Batman and a few lucky hangers-on who inhabited the backs of their titles. She soldiered on well into the Silver Age revival under the auspices of Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, but by 1968 superhero comics were in decline again and publishers sought new ways to keep audiences interested as tastes – and American society – changed.

Back then, as her sales withered during the mid-1960’s, the entire industry depended on newsstand sales and if you weren’t popular, you died. Jack Miller, Denny O’Neill & Mike Sekowsky stepped up with a radical depowering and made comic book history with the only female superhero to still have her own title in that marketplace. Eventually, however, merely mortal trouble-shooter gave way to a reinvigorated Amazing Amazon who battled declining sales (thanks to a TV-inspired boost) until DC’s groundbreaking Crisis on Infinite Earths after which she was once again fundamentally reimagined.

Minor tweaks in her continuity accommodated different creators’ tenures until 2011 when DC rebooted their entire comics line again and Wonder Woman once more underwent a drastic, fan-infuriating root-and-branch refit. Possibly to mitigate the fallout the publishers okayed a number of fall-back options such as this intriguing package…

Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman began as a “digital first” series online before collecting chapters into a new standard comic book. Crafted by a fluctuating roster of artists and writers, the contents highlighted every previous era and incarnation of the character – and even a few wildly innovative alternative visions – offering a wide variety of thrilling, engaging and sincerely fun-filled moments to remember. The physical iteration was enough to warrant a series of trade paperback compilations which – in the fullness of time and nature of circularity – gained their own digital avatars as eBooks too.

This second of three full-colour treasuries gathered Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman #6-10 (March-July 2015) and offered another legion of talent and multitude of different visions, beginning with ‘Generations’ by Michael Jelenic & Drew Johnson, wherein an annual odyssey for the perfect gift for Amazon Queen – and rather forbidding mother – Hippolyta leads Diana into battle with mythical monsters, an old enemy and her own obsessive drive to overachieve…

Adam P. Knave & Matthew Dow Smith’s ‘Not Included’ pairs the potent Paradise Islander with Apokolyptian New God Big Barda against evil super-science and robotic hordes of The Brain and M’sieu Mallah, after which a decidedly different take by Alex De Campi & Neil Googe has Wonder Woman coming to the rescue of a commercial space station above the Second Rock from the Sun in ‘Venus Rising’. Amy Chu & Bernard Chang then go out-world to celebrate the core concept of Wonder Woman in ‘Rescue Angel’, as soldiers pinned down in Afghanistan are saved by Lt. Angel Santiago. The wounded warrior claims her outstanding actions under fire are the result of a vision from her beloved, long-cherished comic books…

Spectacular action and sinister skulduggery inform Heather Nuhfer & Ryan Benjamin’s clash between the Amazing Amazon and Lex Luthor, who triggers ‘Sabotage is in the Stars’ when the Indian government’s space program starts impacting Lexcorp’s projected profits. James Tynion IV & Noelle Stevenson introduce feisty teen Riley as guide to a culture-shocked young Diana in ‘Wonder World’ next, but as they bond over stupid boys and cheesy beachside entertainments, the girls are blithely unaware the foreign newcomer’s Amazon bodyguards are frantically searching for their AWOL charge…

‘The Problem with Cats’ by Lauren Beukes & Mike Maihack takes a light-hearted look at sisterhood and the rivalry between Wonder Woman and The Cheetah – or is it all in the over-active imagination of frustrated. grounded little African girl Zozo? Possibly the best yarn this go-round comes as frosty, testy and possibly hostile Daily Planet journalist Lois Lane is ordered to interview Wonder Woman.

The ice is only broken after an monster invasion leads to a splendid ‘Girl’s Day Out’, courtesy of Cecil Castelucci, Chris Sprouse & Karl Story before Sara Ryan & Christian Duce reveal a timely intervention that saves the life and emotional stability of ‘VIP’ pop star Esperanza, before Aaron Lopresti wraps up this parade of pulse-pounding peril and imago of insightful episodes with a brutal dragonslaying clash as ‘Casualties of War’ shows Diana’s abiding reluctance to engage in battle, but how sometimes there is just no other choice…

Augmented by a spectacular covers-&-variants gallery from Paul Davey, Shane Davis, Michelle & Alex Sinclair, Ben Caldwell & Francesco Francavilla, this is a scintillating snapshot of the astounding variety of visions Wonder Woman has inspired in her decades of existence, and one to delight fans old and new alike.
© 2015 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1928 DC star artist/inker Joe Giella (Hopalong Cassidy, Flash, Adam Strange, Justice League of America, DC Comics Presents, Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Mary Worth) was born, with creator Dan Jurgens (Booster Gold, Superman, Captain America, Thor) arriving in 1959 and Jackson Guice (Micronauts, Action Comics, The Flash, Ruse) and Canadian cartoonist Bernie Mireault (Grendel, The Jam, Dr. Robot, McKenzie Queen) sharing a 1961 birthday.

In 20005, Atsushi Suzumi’s manga Venus Versus Virus began, as did Seinen anthology magazine Monthly Comic Alive one year later. In 2001 Tove Jansson died, predeceasing co-founder of The School of Visual Arts (AKA the Cartoonists and Illustrators School, NYC) Silas Rhodes in 2007, and Belgian creator, comics historian and Spirou editor Thierry Martens/Yves Varende.

Posted on

DC Finest: Deadman – How Many Times Can a Guy Die?


By Arnold Drake, Neal Adams, Jack Miller, Bob Haney, Robert Kanigher, Dennis O’Neil, Mike Friedrich, Jack Kirby, Paul Levitz, Cary Bates, Carmine Infantino, Dick Dillin, George Tuska, Jim Aparo, Mike Grell, Fred Carillo, Kurt Schaffenberger, George Roussos, Joe Giella, Mike Royer, Vince Colletta, Tex Blaisdell & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79950-771-0 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As the 1960s ended, a massive superhero boom became a slow, inescapable bust, with (formerly) major draws no longer able to find enough readers to keep them alive. The appetite for superheroes was diminishing in favour of more traditional genres, and rational editorial response was to reshape costumed characters to fit evolving contemporary tastes.

Publishers swiftly changed gears and even staid, cautious DC reacted rapidly to make masked adventurers fit the new reality. Newly revised and revived costumed features included roving mystic troubleshooter Phantom Stranger and golden age titan The Spectre, whilst resurgent traditional genres spawned atrocity-faced WWII spy Unknown Soldier and cowboy bounty hunter Jonah Hex, spectral western avenger El Diablo and game changing monster hero Swamp Thing, all spearheading a torrent of new formats, anthologies and concepts.

Crucially, supernatural themes and horror-tinged plots were shoehorned into those superhero titles that weathered the trend-storm. Arguably, the moment of surrender and change had already arrived in 1967 with the creation of Boston Brand in the autumn of “The Summer of Love”, as venerable sci fi anthology Strange Adventures was abruptly reconditioned as the haunted home of an angry ghost…

Without fanfare or warning, Deadman debuted in #205 with this collection re-presenting that origin event and thereafter, pertinent contents from #206-216 and crossovers and guest shots from Aquaman #50-52; The Brave and the Bold #79, 86, 104, 133, Justice League of America #94; The Phantom Stranger #33, 39-41; World’s Finest Comics #223 & 227, Challengers of the Unknown #74; Forever People #9-10 and Superman Family #183, all cumulatively spanning cover-dates October 1967 to May/June 1977.

Crafted by Arnold Drake, Carmine Infantino & George Roussos, SA #205’s ‘Who Has Been Lying in My Grave?’ opens at the funeral of high wire acrobat Boston Brand: a rough, tough, jaded performer who had seen everything and masked his decent human heart behind an obnoxious exterior and cynical demeanour. As “Deadman”, Brand had been the star attraction of Hills Circus and lover of its reluctant owner Lorna Carling. He also acted as a secret guardian for the misfits it employed and sheltered. That makeshift “family” includes simple-minded strongman Tiny and Asian mystic Vashnu, but also had some bad eggs too, like alcoholic animal trainer Heldrich and chiselling carnival Barker Leary. The aerialist kept them in line… with his fists, whenever necessary…

One fateful night, Brand almost missed his cue because of Leary and Heldrich’ antics, but also because he had to stop local cop Ramsey harassing Vashnu. It would have better if Brand had been late, because as soon as he started his act – 40 feet up and without a net – someone put a rifle slug into his heart. Despite being dead before he hit the ground, Brand was scared and furious. Nobody could see or hear him screaming, although Vashnu kept babbling on that he was the chosen of Rama Kushna – “the spirit of the universe”. The hokum all came horribly true when that entity astonishingly made contact, telling Boston that he would walk among men until he found his killer.

The gig came with some advantages. He was invisible, untouchable, immune to the laws of physics and able to take possession of the living and drive them like a meat car. His only clue was witnesses in the audience who claimed that a man with a hook had shot him…

Outraged, still disbelieving and seemingly stuck forever in the ghastly make-up and outfit of his performing persona, Deadman’s first posthumous act is to possess Tiny and check out key suspects. Soon the dormant Hercules finds that the cop Ramsey and Heydrich are involved in a criminal conspiracy, but they definitely are not Brand’s murderers. Eventually, the ghost learns a shocking fact: his desperation is not worth the life of anyone else and he must not let his anger put his “vessels” in harm’s way…

Scripted by Drake and inked by Roussos, second episode ‘An Eye for An Eye!’ was Neal Adams’ illustrative debut. He was born on June 15th 1941 at Governors Island, New York City. The family were career military and Neal grew up on bases across the world. In the late 1950s, he studied at the High School of Industrial Art in Manhattan, and graduated in 1959.

As the turbulent Sixties began, he was a budding illustrator working in advertising, ghosting newspaper strips and seeking to break into comics. Whilst pursuing a career in “real” and “commercial” art, Adams did pages for Joe Simon at Archie Comics (The Fly and that red-headed kid, too) before becoming one of the youngest artists to co-create/illustrate a major licensed newspaper strip (Ben Casey, based on a popular TV medical drama). The neophyte’s attempts to break in at DC were not so successful…

Comic book fascination never faded, and as the decade progressed, Adams drifted back to National/DC, creating covers as inker or penciller. His chance came via anthological war comics and he eventually found himself at the vanguard of a revolution in pictorial storytelling. He made such a mark that decades later, DC celebrated his contributions by reprinting every piece of work Adams ever did for them in commemorative collections. Sadly, we’re still awaiting a definitive book of his horror comics and covers, and will probably never see his sterling efforts on licensed titles like Hot Wheels, The Adventures of Bob Hope and The Adventures of Jerry Lewis. That’s a real shame: they all display his wry facility for gag staging and personal drama…

Most importantly, Adams was a tireless campaigner for creators’ rights, whose efforts finally secured some long-ignored liberties and rewards for the formerly invisible stars of comic books.

Back with Deadman, however, the tale is a strong one and indicates a sea change in narrative style as Deadman expedites his hunt for justice. The stories henceforth focus on those who are temporarily occupied by Brand: a string of episodic encounters mirroring the protagonist of contemporary hit TV show The Fugitive (and by extension, Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables), with an unfairly accused victim searching for personal justice across America, to the benefit of many people in crisis.

Here, that’s young Jeff  Carling, who’s fallen in with a dangerous biker gang and is set up to pay for their crimes. He’s also Lorna’s brother, which is how Deadman gets involved in the mess, after learning the cash-strapped kid had taken out a life insurance policy on circus star Deadman just before the Hook struck…

Having saved the kid from a perfect frame, Brand resumes his search and, as Jack Miller took over scripting in #207, is forced to ask ‘What Makes a Corpse Cry? The hunt leads him to revisit the night he saved bar girl Liz Martin from a drunken assault by her boss Rocky Manzel, but when the spook checks in, he finds Liz and boyfriend Paul being terrorised by Rocky, who coldly implies he caused the death of her last protector…

Even after using his ghost gifts to disqualify Manzel, Deadman is compelled to help the young lovers, and exposes the club owner’s criminal secret, but once again almost causes the death of his human host.

Miller & Adams were providing a very different reading experience with mature tales delivered via innovative, staggeringly powerful art, but they struggled with deadlines, and ‘How Many Ways Can a Guy Die?’ was delivered in 4 parts across Strange Adventures #208 and 209. The revelatory tale introduces Brand’s trapeze artist rival Eagle, who had tried to kill him years before, and now seeks to replace him in the big top and Lorna’s bed… whether she wants him or not. When Deadman again borrows Tiny to dissuade the thug, Eagle threatens the gentle strongman with the “same thing Brand got” and the ghost is convinced his quest is almost over.

However, the truth is far crueller, and when Deadman uncovers his rival’s actual scheme, the cost to Tiny and alternate vessel Pete is far too high…

His hunt stalled again, Brand finally thinks to check the official police investigation in #210’s ‘Hide and Seek’ (cover-dated March 1968). To his disgust, he finds the case is cold, with assigned detective Michael Riley dishonourably discharged from the force due to the testimony of a man with a hook. Sensing a breakthrough, Deadman possesses Riley and, visiting the other “witness” to the former cop’s reported use of excessive force, uncovers a devious plot. Sadly, despite clearing Riley’s name, Brand misses The Hook who flees to Mexico but not before coldly disposing of the only man who could describe him…

Hot on the trail, Deadman arrives in El Campo in #211, and endures a shocking surprise in ‘How Close to Me My Killer?’ as Miller’s last story introduces wayward twin brother Cleveland Brand. Flashbacks show the lost sibling had plenty of motive to murder his showbiz brother, but as the tale unfolds, Boston learns he has an unsuspected niece and his people-trafficking but repentant brother needs haunted help to save smuggled “wetback” labourers from a Texan businessman looking to whitewash his criminal endeavours…

Adams took over scripting with #212 and ‘The Fatal Call of Vengeance’ sees another change of direction, adding more conventional fantasy elements to the mix as Cleveland and his daughter Lita head north to the Hills Circus. Wearing his brother’s costume, Cleve revives the Deadman act and, in Mexico, a man with a hook sees a headline and rushes back to the USA. Faster than any jet, Boston is already there and watches helplessly as his brother makes himself a target of the unknown killer. The phantom is also completely spooked by new lion tamer Kleigman who is rude, unfriendly and missing his right hand…

With everyone at odds, both Boston’s returned killer and the circus family set traps with disastrous results, but in the end the Hook escapes again and it’s Tiny who’s left bleeding out from a gunshot…

‘The Call from Beyond!’ then tests Deadman’s abilities to the limit as he enters Tiny’s consciousness to expedite his recovery and break an assumed-fatal coma. Following that miracle, the restless revenant repays his debt by saving the reputation and life of Tiny’s surgeon Dr. Shasti after the medical savant is duped by murderous con artist/medium Madam Pegeen…

The afterlife of a reluctant and selfish spectral stalwart then continues in The Brave & Bold #79 (August/September 1968): heralding Adams’ assumption of interior art duties on that title and launching a groundbreaking run rewriting the rulebook for strip illustration. Penned by Bob Haney, ‘The Track of the Hook’ paired the Gotham Guardian with the justice-obsessed ghost as a false trail led Boston to Gotham. After clearing up the confusions and dethroning millionaire crime-lord Carleton “Kubla” Kaine, Deadman returned to finding own killer. However his earthy human tragedy elevated Batman’s costume theatrics into deeper, more mature realms of drama and action. It was probably mainstream superhero fandom’s first glimpse of the ghost. During this period, Adams was writing and illustrating Brand’s solo stories in Strange Adventures and although his consultation of the World’s Greatest Detective bore little useful progress, it had provided the lonely ghost with a first genuine point of human contact…

Back in Strange Adventures # 214 (cover-dated September/October 1968), Robert Kanigher scripted To Haunt a Killer’ as Brand is seduced by loneliness into sharing the romantic experiences of Phil and his girlfriend Ruth. That salacious intrusion sours once Brand discovers his new meat suit is a hitman and his overreaction almost costs innocent Ruth everything…

When Adams returns to full control in #215, the narrative arc takes a huge leap forward as ‘A New Lease on Death’ accidentally drops his killer right in his lap. Witnessing a murder, Deadman trails the shooter all the way to Hong Kong where he finds an ancient, super-advanced League of Assassins and discovers the truly trivial reason for his own extinction…

Furiously questioning ‘Can Vengeance Be So Hollow?’, Brand meets for the first time killer mystic The Sensei – a master murderer who has dealt with ghosts before – and helplessly, frustratingly, experiences the end of the Hook. When the sinister sage executes Boston’s death-long quarry, Rama Kushna asks if a balance has been struck and capitalises on Brand’s furious negative response. Brand demands true justice for everyone and inadvertently elects himself the agent of its enactment in ‘But I Still Exist’…

The drama abruptly concluded in Strange Adventures #216 (January/February 1969), as the grim ghost seeks to disrupt the Sensei’s next scheme: the violent erasure of a Tibetan spiritual paradise. Nanda Parbat is a sanctuary for the wicked where the ancient villain’s murderous recruits and other fallen folk live in inexplicable peace, harmony and safety. Such a benevolent Shangri La is bad for the business of murder, but Deadman’s efforts to save the city from invasion initially falter when he flies in and suddenly becomes a living, breathing person again.

… And that’s where the story ended as his Strange Adventures run ended without warning. The next issue began reprints of Adam Strange and The Atomic Knights as the title reverted to its space opera roots. Although his own series had stalled, Deadman stuck around as a perennial walk-on (float-on?) star in many titles, beginning with a return engagement with Batman as the year ended. The Brave & the Bold #86 (October/November 1969) found Brand back in Gotham City, where a string of civilian strangers inexplicably targeted the Caped Crimebuster. The “World’s Greatest Detective” deduced that they were possessed by his former ally and that ‘You Can’t Hide from a Deadman!’

Scripted by Haney, the captivating epic of death, redemption and resurrection pulled together all the floating strands from Deadman’s anticlimactic last issue in a classic clash that became a cornerstone of Bat-mythology forever after. Here, Adams’ concepts and art revealed how Nanda Parbat was under attack by the Sensei’s forces, and how Brand had been briefly brainwashed to attack the Gotham Guardian, in advance of a last-ditch defence of the holy city by the Dark Knight and Deadman’s possessed twin brother Cleveland.

Deadman rematerialised mere months later in a triptych of back-up tales interwoven into a larger but no-less-revolutionary Aquaman storyline (for the full story see Aquaman: Deadly Waters Deluxe edition wherein the Sea King is despatched to a Microverse by aliens working with super villain Ocean Master: a plot accidentally uncovered by Brand, when guilt drags him from a life of solid recuperation back to the intangible quest for cosmic justice…

Here, from Aquaman #50-52 (March/April to July/August 1970), ‘Deadman Rides Again!’ in supplemental tales written and illustrated by Adams: a complex braided crossover as the Sea King endures bizarre threats and incomprehensible rituals in a subatomic realm, whilst Brand acts invisibly and intangibly to save the hero and prevent an alien invasion.

‘The World Cannot Wait for a Deadman’ sees the spirit flitting between dimensions with shapeshifting enigma Tatsinda, before parallel plots converge and complete when ‘Never Underestimate a Deadman’ exhibits the extraterrestrials beaten by the ghost and his pal…

Deadman’s haunting wandering dramas lead to another non-team-up in Challengers of the Unknown #74 (June/July 1970): a far eerier affair tailored to the rise in supernatural terror tales. ‘To Call a Deadman’ is written by Dennis O’Neil, with George Tuska limning scenes featuring the still-breathing “Death-Cheaters”, whilst Adams illustrated those portions focussed on Brand as he imperceptibly aids them in thwarting an ethereal psychic kidnapper seeking to steal a little girl’s soul. The chilling thriller also guest-stars hardboiled private eye Jonny Double and every one of them is needed to defeat the ghastly menace behind the astral abduction.

The same separate artist trick worked supremely well in his next manifestation as Justice League of America #94’s ‘Where Strikes Demonfang?’ by Mike Friedrich, Dick Dillin, Adams & Joe Giella, as the ghostly guardian helps Batman, Aquaman & Green Arrow foil a murder mission by The Sensei’s previously infallible archer Merlyn and the League of Assassins.

The period was one of constant desperate experimentation. Jack Kirby’s Fourth World was a huge risk and massive gamble for an industry and company that was a watchword for conservatism and it was probably incredibly tough for editors and publishers to stop themselves interfering… and they often didn’t.

With sales low, spooky stories proliferating everywhere and popular wisdom saying character crossovers boosted sales, Kirby eventually caved to pressure and agreed to guest another creator’s star in his stand-apart unfolding epic. Thus Forever People #9 hosted homeless horror hero Deadman who was made marginally manifest by a seance and a New Genesis Cosmic Cartridge. The vengeance hunter then accepted an artificial body to pursue the man who killed him (already dead remember?) in an intriguing, action-packed but ultimately ridiculous aside that began by introducing a ‘Monster in the Morgue!’ It rampaged through town before tech bandits ‘The Scavengers’ sought to steal Brand’s new “mobile home”, and drew the wrath of ghost and teen godlings. The yarn actually ended with a plug for Kirby’s forthcoming series The Demon and we don’t talk about the divergent yarn at all around here…

A far more coherent crossover came in Brave and the Bold #104 as Haney & Jim Aparo detailed a poignant story of love from beyond the grave in the enigmatically entitled ‘Second Chance for a Deadman?’ wherein the ghost helps Batman take down murderous mobster Lilly Lang, wrongly assuming he can redeem her only to learn that even a corpse can be crushed by heartbreak…

In World’s Finest Comics #223, while hunting a serial killer, Superman & Batman recruit Brand to help. Shocks abound when evidence points to the culprit being the brain-damaged, secretly institutionalised, unsuspected older brother of Bruce Wayne but when the total truth emerges in ‘Wipe the Blood off My Name’ (Haney, Dillin & Vince Colletta), the lonely, isolated ghost goes off the rails and decides to keep possession of Thomas Wayne Jr.

Batman has other ideas though…

Ignoring these events, Deadman then clashes with The Phantom Stranger (#33, November 1974 by Drake & Mike Grell) during the Man with No Name’s war against spiritual mad scientist Dr Zorn. In ‘Deadman’s Bluff!’, the ghost’s protracted, apparently obsessively pointless hunt for his own murderer is exploited by the villain and, as ever, the chase ends in frustration and fury, even though Zorn fails to spark war between the ethereal avengers, and instead causes an antagonistic partnership to be established for the future…

After months of manhunting, Batman’s search for Thomas Wayne culminates in ‘Death Flaunts its Golden Grin’ (World’s Finest Comics #227, February 1975 by Haney, Dillin & Tex Blaisdell), as the caped crusaders find the fugitives whilst tracking global smugglers. The moment of triumph is brief and ends in tragedy for all concerned, after which the guy in the hat gets reacquainted with the spectre in skin-tights for Phantom Stranger #39’s ‘Death Calls Twice for a Deadman’: a last-ditch effort to revive dwindling sales as horror stories faced their own decline. Guest-starring The Sensei, it signalled a belated return to the company’s over-arching continuity, but was too little, too late. Deadman also co-starred in PS #40’s ‘In the Kingdom of the Blind’ and #41’s concluding chapter (February-March 1976 and both by Levitz & Carillo) ‘A Time for Endings’ as modern mage Dr Nathan Seine sought to bring Elder Gods to Earth using blind psychic Cassandra Craft as a medium. With that tale’s finish the series ended and the Stranger all-but-vanished until the winter of 1978 and a giant-sized Deadman team-up tale from DC Super-Stars #18 that is regrettably omitted here…

Instead Deadman – and Haney & Aparo – remanifested in B&B #133 to deliver ‘Another Kind of Justice!’ to rum-runner Turk Bannion when his heir and murderer turn to a more modern form of smuggling and Dark Knight and Wandering Wraith object…

The uncanny explorations end on a lighter note as Cary Bates, Kurt Schaffenberger & Colletta explore uncanny excursions on ‘The Day Lois Lane Walked All Over Superman!’ (Superman Family #183, May June 1977) with Brand invisibly aiding all concerned when a deadly. monomaniacal psychic begins messing with mind-control and body-borrowing…

With stunning covers by Infantino, Sekowsky, Roussos, Adams, Nick Cardy, Aparo, Tatjana Wood, Kirby & Royer, this graphic grimoire perfectly captures the tone of an era in transition through a delirious run of comics masterpieces no ardent art lover or fanatical fear aficionado can do without.
© 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 2026 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Born today in 1927, both Hugo (Sergeant Kirk, Ernie Pike, Corto Maltese) Pratt and Ross (Metal Men, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, The Punisher) Andru made major contributions to comics, as did animation historian, author, critic, and founding editor of Funnyworld Michael Barrier who arrived in 1940.

Today in 1941 Neal Adams (Batman, Superman, Deadman, X-Men, Avengers, Inhumans, Ms. Mystic) was born, followed four years later by iconoclastic author Don Macgregor (Sabre, Black Panther, Killraven, Morbius, Detectives Inc., Ragamuffins, Nathaniel Dusk, James Bond, Zorro); in 1955 by artist Brent Anderson (Ka-Zar the Savage, X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, Astro City) and in 1976 Dustin Nguyen (Ascender, Descender, The Authority, Batman: Streets of Gotham, Batman: Lil Gotham).

In 1958 today Cliff Sterrett’s Polly and her Pals appeared for the last time, and in 1999 Scottish cartoonist and playwright John Glashan (Genius, Lilliput, The Spectator, Punch, Private Eye, The New Yorker) died this day.

Posted on

New Gods by Jack Kirby


By Jack Kirby, Mike Royer, Vince Colletta, Don Heck, D. Bruce Berry, Greg Theakston, Mike Thibodeaux & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-8169-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Monumental Masterpieces… 9/10

Today in 1970 American comic books changed forever. On December 1st newsstands saw Superman meet the counterculture head on courtesy of Jack Kirby in a title like no other ever before. It was only one crucial component part of a bold experiment that quite honestly failed, but still undid and remade everything. That was Forever People #1 and it was followed on December 22nd with New Gods #1, as the world just kept on changing…

When Jack Kirby returned to the home of Superman in 1970 he brought with him one of the most powerful concepts in comic book history. The epic grandeur of his Fourth World saga grafted a complete new mythology onto and over the existing DC universe and blew the developing minds of a generation of readers. If only there had been a few more of them…

Starting in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, where he revived his 1940s kid-team The Newsboy Legion, introduced large-scale cloning in the form of The Project and hinted that the city’s gangsters had extraterrestrial connections, Kirby moved on to a main course beginning with The Forever People, intersecting where appropriate with New Gods and Mister Miracle to form an interlinked triptych of finite-length titles that together presented an epic mosaic. Those three groundbreaking titles collectively introduced rival races of gods, dark and light, risen from the ashes of a previous Armageddon to battle forever… and then their conflict spreads to Earth…

Kirby’s concepts, as always, fired and inspired contemporaries and successors. Gods of Apokolips & New Genesis became a crucial keystone of DC continuity and integral foundation of that entire fictional universe, surviving the numerous revisions and retcons which periodically bedevil long-lived comics fans. Many major talents dabbled with the concept over decades and a host of titles have come and gone starring Kirby’s creations. That’s happening now even as I type this…

As previously stated, the herald of all this innovation had been Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, which Kirby had used to lay groundwork since taking it over with #133. There readers first met Darkseid, Intergang, The Evil Project and so much more, but it was also used as an emotional setup for a fascinating notion that had seldom if ever previously troubled the mighty, generally satisfied and well situated Man of Tomorrow…

After The Forever People #1, crossovers with DC mainstays were dropped in favour of a tense new normal. Those kids were Kirby’s way of depicting how conflict affected peripheral players and dragged them in and down, but the next and most important component was seeing the seasoned soldiers do their work. New Gods would focus on the war itself…

Cover-dated February/March 1971 and on sale 55 years ago today, the premiere issue infamously opened with an ‘Epilogue’ and closed with a ‘Prologue’ as Kirby & inker Vince Colletta declared that ‘Orion Fights for Earth!’

We learned that (relatively) soon after creation began gods were born, lived and died – primarily by warring with each other. When the Old Gods died in a cosmos-shaking conflagration their perfect primal world was sundered. When the chaos cooled the fragments had congealed into two new but lesser planets: the dark vicious globe of Apokolips and gleaming noble orb New Genesis. Over millennia another generation of superior beings of might and majesty populated the spinning spheres, but sadly, a tragic trait New Gods shared with their progenitors was a capacity for destruction and taste for conflict. Denizens of both worlds always and inevitably find new ways to end each other’s immortal lives.

The tale proper begins on joyous, spiritual New Genesis years after the latest all-out war with Apokolips ceased. Mighty Orion arrives in paradisical Supertown where divine patriarch Highfather communes with cosmic mystery The Source. The metaphysical conduit despatches the turbulent, ever-anxious wolf in their fold to the antithetical diabolical hell-world, only to find despot Darkseid gone and – against all treaties – captive humans from Earth being “examined” for signs of the tyrant’s dream. For both races the basic tool is Mother Box: sentient circuitry connected to The Source and a lifelong cyber-symbiotic companion, able to communicate, advise and manipulate the physical world.

The lord of Apokolips wants to do away with all that and rule everything personally. Furthermore he has decided this means controlling an irresistible, intangible ultimate weapon. The “Anti-Life Equation” is a cheat code for totalitarianism: the instant negation of choice and free will, and anyone using it would command all that lives. Darkseid’s obsessive search for it had led him to Earth and now he had kidnapped a cross-section of humans to test his extraction methodology. That he is gone and his realm is governed by Mass Control Units means the Evil One has found his key to success…

After batting his way into the world, against Parademons, Darkseid’s Dog Cavalry and assorted terror weapons, Orion frees the mortals before New Genesis God of Knowledge Metron delivers advice and a message. Thus after outwitting and outfighting vile brute Kalibak the Cruel the peaceful God of War uses a matter-transmitting Boom Tube to return them all to Earth…

However, Darkseid and his elite warrior caste are waiting for him. They have already infiltrated Earth through its criminal class and begun testing humanity in search of the unique mind holding the Equation. Apparently, a sufficient amount of instilled terror should shake it loose…

‘O’ Deadly Darkseid!’ then confirms that there are no civilians in war as – after fighting off a savage ambush on arrival and confronting Darkseid himself – Orion drafts the shaken, rescued hostages as his point men and intel unit. Private eye Dave Lincoln, secretary Claudia Shane, aging insurance salesman Victor Lanza and student Harvey Lockman are scared but resolved to help their world however possible, even as the transplanted tyrant sees his forces scattered all over Earth, applying a range of schemes to make humanity scream and shatter and give up that equation.

As New Genesis’ comrades volunteer for the fight on this isolated island Earth, the call to arms comes in Lincoln’s backyard as God of Depravity DeSaad triggers his gigantic Fear Machine and feeds off the paralysing horror it generates. However, thanks to sentient miracle computer Mother Box, his innate personal power and the blockbusting Astro-Force Orion commands, the initial skirmish is easily won…

Dwelling in spaces far beyond the physical and mundane, New Gods are subject to forces beyond mortal understanding. One of them is the embodiment of cessation who personally calls for each of them as they perish. NG #3 opens with glorious, jovial innocent God of Illumination Lightray barely escaping his moment with the great shadow (again thanks to coldly methodical Metron) as ‘Death is the Black Racer!’ finds the spirit derailed and deposited on Earth.

Throughout the overlapping clashes and conflicts there is undeniable indications that even the gods are being moved and shaped by even greater forces that have larger plans in motion. Thus the macabre soul collector inexplicably nests within the immobile form of paralysed Vietnam veteran Willie Walker, and – apparently inadvertently – derails a plot by Apokolips-backed mob Intergang to destroy all communications in Metropolis and create even more chaos and panic…

Orion’s shattering counterattacks segue straight into issue #4 as New Genesis suffers its first casualty. In response, ‘The O’Ryan Gang and the Deep Six!’ sees him and his reluctant human allies tracking down an Intergang device that frustrates and negates Mother Boxes before stumbling into a staggering and diabolical plan to render Earth’s oceans off limits to humanity…

With Mike Royer replacing Colletta as inker, ‘Spawn’ sees Orion captive of six subsea Apokolyptians who warp sea life and grow an unstoppable marine mutant monster. Meanwhile, Kalibak arrives in Metropolis hungry for vengeance and bloodletting. The various players and cosmic factions are angling towards a catastrophic confrontation, but in Metropolis at least, some of the poor endangered mortals are seeking to take charge of their own destinies…

At this juncture, DC comic books expanded to 52 pages and as well as Golden Age reprints, “Kirby’s Korner” ran short background vignettes of upcoming characters and cosmic guest stars. Here, inked by Colletta, ‘The Young Gods of Supertown Introducing Fastbak!’ focuses on Supertown, where a rowdy juvenile speed freak constantly tests himself and the patience of peacekeeping Monitors but finds there are some things even his miraculous tech cannot outrace…

Cover-dated January 1972, New Gods #6 launched ‘The Glory Boat!’ a complex and tragic morality tale and metaphor for fractured Vietnam era society wherein father and his peace-nik son clashed over duty and morality in war time as Lightray joins Orion to destroy or subvert the colossal horror devised by the Deep Six leading to a shocking secret exposed concerning the increasing out-of-control Orion…

Before that though, New Gods #7 finally revealed how it all began for the heirs of those first gods. When the primal Godworld sundered into gleaming New Genesis and sulphurous Apokolips the beings who eventually populated them were constant foes and rivals. After untold eons of sniping and acrimony, however, a young prince of the dark world sought to overthrow his mother and seize power. However, when ambitious Darkseid engineered a fresh war with New Genesis it started with the inadvertent murder of Avia, wife of New Genesis leader Izaya the Inheritor. As a result the conflict grew without let-up or rules, Darkseid and his bellicose uncle Steppenwolf had underestimated the ingenuity and ferocity of the Light Gods and the resulting conflict almost destroyed both worlds as the ancient enemies harnessed all the destructive capabilities of the universe.

Teleporting tanks, energy-generators, bio-toxic agents and genetic monsters wreaked havoc at ground level in personal combat, but entire solar systems also died. The planetary opposites were in peril of extinction as escalating science – and emotionless even-handed researcher Metron – found increasingly catastrophic ways to destroy. Gravity-bombs, sun-sized lasers and precision-aimed asteroids almost ended all factions forever. Mercifully, war-weary visionary Izaya found solace in the mystical Source, and badly rattled Darkseid agreed to a hastily-brokered truce before the gods once more extinguished themselves.

A pause in fighting was agreed, allowing both sides to regroup and, in the case of New Genesis at least, seek other paths. To seal ‘The Pact!’ Darkseid and newly renamed Highfather traded their young sons as hostages to the tenuous peace process…

Kirby & Royer’s staggering cosmic spectacle is accompanied by another history lesson as backup feature ‘The Young Gods of Supertown! Vykin the Black!’ finds the Forever People’s science-nerd neatly expunging one monstrous results of the last war’s bio-bombs beneath the savaged crust of New Genesis after which NG #8 returns to the present and increasing resistance by one Metropolis cop to the foreign super-conflict imported to his turf. ‘The Death Wish of Terrible Turpin!’ sees Orion coming to terms with Lightray learning that he the son of Darkseid even as his despised half-brother Kalibak rips the city apart in a deadly deranged display of wounded honour demanding satisfaction…

When Orion brutally reacts to the challenge, nobody expected the doughty earthman to settle the issue for them…

The issue closes with another peep at the past in self-explanatory clash ‘The Young Gods of Supertown: Fastbak Returns in Beat the Black Racer!!’ whilst in New Gods #9, Kirby exposes a darker side to the Good Gods as ‘The Bug!’ details how they ruthlessly deal with “lesser beings” infesting New Genesis since the last war. However, as seen through the eyes of insectoid colony scout Forager, the pests are a sentient species with their own culture and imperatives. Unfortunately it’s one easily manipulated by Darkseid’s flunky Mantis who Boom Tubes them all to Metropolis in search of newer, safer conquests in concluding chapter

‘Earth – the Doomed Dominion!’ Here, Orion & Lighray barely repel a mass colonisation only to discover a shocking secret about Forager…

The Fourth World was a huge risk and massive gamble for an industry and company that was a watchword for conservatism. It was probably incredibly tough for editors and publishers to stop themselves interfering, and they often didn’t. With numbers low, and spooky stories proliferating everywhere, Kirby was pressured to drop the weird stuff and concentrate on old standards. Despite promises of support and complete autonomy, the King had already surrendered much to get his dream rolling. Crushing deadlines and ridiculous expected monthly page counts were one thing, but management had no understanding of what he was planning and promotion was non-existent. Thus, inevitably the series and its interlinked companions failed to find sufficient sales to keep on until the planned conclusion. Nobody in comics argued with numbers so New Gods #11 was the last, with the core title cancelled before Kirby could complete his grand experiment.

The King did however, go out in style as ‘Darkseid and Sons!’ saw Kalibak and Orion battle to the death, with the Black Racer in attendance as a hidden enemy tipped the scales against the war god… until the least expected player of all incongruously rebalanced the scales and ensured the death of another major actor in the grand design…

…And that was that. New Gods and Forever People were axed although Mister Miracle carried on with a sharp change of emphasis until it too passed on. Eventually time and tastes brought sequels and, at long last, Kirby’s return to craft a proper ending… of sorts. As explained in The King Returns! the growth of an independent comics industry and dedicated system of retail stores in the 1980s sparked a wave of fan-favourite reprints in expensive formats. In 1984 The New Gods miniseries reprinted the 11 issues from 1971-1972 and concluded with the long-delayed, all-new conclusion. All concerned admitted it wasn’t what Kirby had intended at the time and was very much the product of the older wiser, creator but ‘Even Gods Must Die!’ (inked by Bruce D. Berry) spectacularly and bombastically wrapped up the saga whilst setting the scene for a new chapter. If you were a fan of any of the non-Kirby revivals of the intervening years though, there was nothing for you. This was all Jack…

Moreover, the conclusion led to a re-energised new beginning as ‘The Hunger Dogs’ by Kirby, Berry, Royer & Grek Theakston, aided by Bill Wray & Tony Dispoto, expanded the saga with a true epic in the format Kirby had always predicted would come: book-length pictorial tomes…

 Released in March 1985 as DC Graphic Novel #5, wildly experimental, deeply philosophical, potently profound parable The Hunger Dogs explored the consequences of power lost and repercussions as fascism inevitably collapses. Set on Apokolips in the aftermath of a failed prophecy (that Darkseid would die at the hands of his son in the pits of the world’s gigantic slum sector Armagetto) it traces the efforts of eternal rebel dreamer Himon and his daughter Bekka in the face of the Dark Lord’s seeming total triumph.

With victory in the eternal conflict assured thanks to New Genesis traitor Esak, Darkseid is utterly unprepared when the gutter trash “Lowlies” who blindly worship, fear and despise him rise in revolt. Led by a most unsuspected mercilessly charismatic leader, the pitiful Hunger Dogs at the base of Darkseid’s pyramid of oppression prove too much for the despot and the entire universe shifts under his quaking boots…

This handy compendium also offers bonus material including pinups of ‘Lightray!’ & ‘Kalibak the Cruel!’ from NG #4, before the ‘Mother Box Files’ gather a dozen pertinent Kirby characters as revisited by himself, Theakston and Terry Austin from assorted editions of the DC Who’s Who fact files. Here a tremendous group treatment of The New Gods and New Genesis are complimented by solo entries for Black Racer, Darkseid, the Deep Six, Forager, Highfather, Kalibak, Lightray, Metron, Orion and Steppenwolf and supported by the covers and new art from that 1984 prestige reprint New Gods series, by Kirby, Mike Thibodeaux, Royer & Berry.

Closing the wonderment are more delights in ‘The Art of Jack Kirby’, including hand-coloured original designs for Orion, Lightray, Mantis & Mister Miracle; Concept Drawings of the New Gods, plus a selection of stunning pencilled pages from the original run and long-awaited continuation and conclusion.

What more do you need to know?
© 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1984, 1985, 1986, 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1908, Italian Gian Luigi Bonelli was born; he created Tex Willer. We can’t offer the original, but perhaps a taste can be gleaned from Tex: The Lonesome Rider?

In 1951 Black Lightning and The Champions creator Tony Isabella was born, with Bill (Elementals; Fables) creator Willingham arriving five years later.

In 1974 Welsh-born Canuck Adrian Dingle died, with nobody then appreciating that his creation of Canadian woman superhero Nelvana of the Northern Lights in Triumph-Adventure Comics #1 (August 1941) actually predates the debut of Wonder Woman. Where’s her movie franchise then, eh?

Posted on

The Forever People by Jack Kirby


By Jack Kirby, Vince Colletta, Don Heck, Mike Royer, Murphy Anderson, Al Plastino & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77950-230-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Monumental Masterpieces… 9/10

Today in 1970 American comic books changed forever. On December 1st newsstands saw Superman meet the counterculture head on courtesy of Jack Kirby in a title like no other ever before. Moreover it was only one crucial component part of a bold experiment that quite honestly failed, but still undid and remade everything. It was Forever People #1…

When Jack Kirby returned to the home of Superman in 1970 he brought with him one of the most powerful concepts in comic book history. The epic grandeur of his Fourth World saga grafted a complete new mythology onto and over the existing DC universe and blew the developing minds of a generation of readers. If only there had been a few more of them…

Starting in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, where he revived his 1940s kid-team The Newsboy Legion, introduced large-scale cloning in the form of The Project and hinted that the city’s gangsters had extraterrestrial connections, Kirby moved on to a main course beginning with The Forever People, intersecting where appropriate with New Gods and Mister Miracle to form an interlinked triptych of finite-length titles that together presented an epic mosaic. Those three groundbreaking titles collectively introduced rival races of gods, dark and light, risen from the ashes of a previous Armageddon to battle forever… and then their conflict spreads to Earth…

Kirby’s concepts, as always, fired and inspired contemporaries and successors. Gods of Apokolips & New Genesis became a crucial keystone of DC continuity and integral foundation of that entire fictional universe, surviving the numerous revisions and retcons which periodically bedevil long-lived comics fans. Many major talents dabbled with the concept over decades and a host of titles have come and gone starring Kirby’s creations. That’s happening now even as I type this…

As previously stated, the herald of all this innovation had been Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, which Kirby had used to lay groundwork since taking it over with #133. There readers first met Darkseid, Intergang, The Evil Project and so much more, but it was also used as an emotional setup for a fascinating notion that had seldom if ever previously troubled the mighty, generally satisfied and well situated Man of Tomorrow…

The Forever People #1’s ‘In Search of a Dream!’ saw Kirby & contractually assigned inker Vince Colletta open with a spectacular and contemporarily astute UFO sighting.

Despite a promise of complete autonomy, the King had surrendered much to get his dream rolling. Crushing deadlines and ridiculous expected monthly page counts were one thing, but his choice of inkers was vetoed, and he had to compromise and accept insulting art edits drawn by regular Superman artists perennially pasted onto Superman’s trademarked face to present something DC demanded. Nevertheless, the work was everything and wonders unfolded when friends of Jimmy Olsen witnessed the arrival of a quartet of weird wild kids on the strangest bike on – or off – Earth. Because they took pictures, Clark Kent’s life changed forever.

He had just completed a bruising interview that made him question his role and purpose on Earth when Jimmsys snapshots of those weird kids offered Superman a glimpse of a place where he could be one guy among equals…

Curiosity and a painful need to find those newcomers drove the Man of Steel to find them, and brought him into first known contact with the absolute embodiment of intellectual and philosophical totalitarianism…

Darkseid was infiltrating our world, quietly seeking a unique mind concealing a metaphysical ultimate weapon. The “Anti-Life Equation” was the instant, irresistible negation of choice and free will and with it the right despot would command all that lives. Darkseid’s obsessive search for it had led him to Earth and now he had kidnapped a psychic youngster from a world called New Genesis. Her name was Beautiful Dreamer…

All this Superman learned later, after being ambushed by Intergang and saved by her friends Big Bear, Vykin the Black, Serifan and Mark Moonrider. They were all from that promised land Superman had glimpsed but had abandoned Eden to “get involved” helping their friend and Earth. They called themselves Forever People…

Apparently benevolent, curious kids open to new experiences and welcoming the myriad choices the future holds, they were also trained to handle trouble. When Darkseid’s forces counterattacked and took out Superman they revealed one final trick, combining into an unbeatable enigmatic being called Infinity Man…

When Darkseid ceded the day, he left a booby trap only Superman could tackle and in return the kids let him travel to Supertown on their fabled paradise planet New Genesis. However, they stressed that any decent right-thinking person’s place was here, fighting evil by facing Darkseid. For the briefest moment, need overwhelmed duty before, inevitably, the Man of Tomorrow turned back and took up the new never-ending battle…

Exuberantly enjoying their dalliance with a primitive culture, the reunited quintet joyously interact with toiling humanity, finding shelter in a mostly deserted slum with disabled kid Donnie and his aging Uncle Willie. The odd youngster’s urge to learn is sadly curtailed when Darkseid steps up his hunt for the equation. His reasoning says abject terror might shake loose the formula from whoever is afflicted with it, and to that effect he orders bug-like behemoth Mantis to declare shattering ‘Super War!’ on humanity.

Arguably marginally less powerful than the Master of Apokolips, Mantis can only be countered by Infinity Man, and the Forever People happily ask mystic computer Mother Box to perform the ritual that will call him and subtract them from existence…

After exploring isolation versus community, introducing outside negation of free will and the concept of terror as addictive sustenance (vile deputy DeSaad feasts on fear and torture), FP #3 tackle’s head-on the series’ core concepts.

‘Life vs. Anti-Life!’ explores conformity, personal freedoms, informed choices, organised bigotry and the tyranny of psychological and physical fascism as the wonder kids are tracked down by Justifiers: human zealots who have willingly surrendered individual autonomy to what appears to be a televangelist telling them what they want to hear. Defeat doubt by surrendering to Anti-Life. It is Good to kill those who are better or weaker than you…

Equipped with terrifying Apokolips weapons, Justifiers burn libraries, attack minorities and even drive the kids out of their tatty home and onto the attack, infiltrating Apokoliptian infiltrator/demagogue Glorious Godfrey’s appalling recruitment rally. Shockingly, when Infinity Man faces Darkseid, the devil defeats the mysterious angel and the traumatised kids are captured…

Forever People #4, horrifically subverts the American dream as fun theme park Happyland is revealed as ‘The Kingdom of the Damned’: a sprawling factory built to mass-produce terror by exploiting whimsy and fantasy. Here DeSaad torments countless human victims while others innocently observe nothing but toys and robots dancing and playing for their pleasure. To this set-up the captured waifs of New Genesis are added and DeSaad feeds, but they have all underestimated the power of Mother Box who seeks aid and finds it in the form of zen wrestler ‘Sonny Sumo’…

With the living computer boosting his remarkable gifts, the pacifist warrior executes a one-man rescue that demonstrates the true horror of the Anti-Life Equation: a battle so fast and furious that even Darkseid is panicked and overreacts…

At this juncture DC comic books expanded to 52 pages and as well as reprints, Kirby’s Korner ran short background vignettes. The lost history of the previous war of pantheons was filled in as here when ‘The Young Gods of Supertown Introducing Lonar’ finds a wandering historian picking through cosmic rubble on New Genesis and uncovering a living, breathing remnant of that cataclysmic conflict

Cover-dated January 1971 FP #6 was inked by Mike Royer and revealed how the Master of Apokolips resorts to his personal ultimate weapon ‘The Omega Effect!!’: scattering Sumo and the triumphant New Genesisians throughout key moments of Earth’s history. All but sensitive Serifan who retreats bereft and shellshocked to their sentient Super-Cycle and a final brutal battle with Godfrey’s Justifiers…

Inked by Colletta, back-up The Young Gods of Supertown’ also focuses on the kid with cosmic cartridges as a sneaky ‘Raid from Apokolips’ ruins his and Big Bear’s meditation moment and makes them unpardonably rude in response…

Time travel travails are sorted in concluding episode ‘I’ll Find You in Yesterday!!’ as on New Genesis, Supreme Leader Highfather puts everyone back where they belong by use of almighty Alpha Bullets, and the kids find out how destiny dealt with their saviour Sonny Sumo. That’s bookended by ‘Lonar of New Genesis and his Battle-Horse Thunderer!!!’ as the survivor of the first fall meets current war god Orion…

Everything Darkseid ransacks humanity’s subconscious for is found in #8 as manipulative human parasite Billion-Dollar Bates reveals he has ‘The Power!’ of the Anti-Life Equation. Every vice readily embraced, he thinks he’s evil incarnate until the Apokolips crowd show up, but Darkseid’s joy turns to ashes as the Forever People rush in and fate takes a hand that even gods cannot turn aside…

The Fourth World was a huge risk and massive gamble for an industry and company that was a watchword for conservatism. It was probably incredibly tough for editors and publishers to stop themselves interfering, and they often didn’t. With numbers low, spooky stories proliferating everywhere and popular wisdom saying character crossovers boosted sales, Kirby eventually caved to pressure and agreed to host another creator’s star in his epic. Thus Forever People #9 hosted (failed) horror hero Boston Brand, AKA Deadman who was made marginally manifest by a seance and another Cosmic Cartridge. The vengeance hunter accepted an artificial body to pursue the man who killed him in an intriguing, action-packed but ultimately ridiculous aside that began by introducing a ‘Monster in the Morgue!’ It rampaged through town before tech bandits ‘The Scavengers’ sought to steal Brand’s new “mobile home”, and drew the wrath of ghost and teen godlings. The yarn actually ended with a plug for Kirby’s forthcoming series The Demon…

After that peculiar and extremely wearisome divertissement the war came for the interstellar innocents with ‘Devilance the Pursuer’. It was the last issue and at least the King had time enough to prepare a narrative pause if not proper conclusion. Simply put, Darkseid’s top killer is despatched to end the pesky brats and is unstoppable. Chased across Earth they appear doomed until the long missing Infinity Man is contacted, returning for one last hurrah that sees the Forever People vanished from the world and human ken…

And that was that. This title and New Gods were axed although Mister Miracle continued on with a definite change of emphasis until time and tastes brought sequels and, at long last, Kirby’s return to craft a proper ending… of sorts.

But that’s a tale for another day…

This handy compendium also offers bonus material including ‘Mother Box Files’ re-presenting dozens of pertinent Kirby characters as revisited by himself and others in various editions of the DC Who’s Who fact files. Here a group treatment of The Forever People augments solo entries for Beautiful Dreamer, Big Bear, DeSaad, Infinity Man, Mantis, Mark Moonrider and The Pursuer by Kirby & Greg Theakston; with Glorious Godfrey inked by Bob Smith, Serifan inked by Gary Martin and Vykin the Black inked by Karl Kesel. Augmenting them are Kirby pin-ups from the original run: the four guys in ‘The Forever People’, ‘Beautiful Dreamer versus Darkseid’ and ‘The Infinity Man’ plus a self-portrait of the King, all from FP #4 and inked by Colletta.

We close with a selection of stunning pencilled pages in ‘The Art of Jack Kirby’, what more do you need to know?
© 1970, 1971, 1972, 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Lucky Luke creator Morris was born today in 1923, and in 1945 Shazam/Captain Marvel spinoff Hoppy the Marvel Bunny debuted in Funny Animals Comics #1. Five years later cartoonist Gary Panter was born. I’m sure there’s no connection but just in case why not see Jimbo in Paradise.

Posted on

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby


By Jack Kirby, Vince Colletta & Mike Royer, with Murphy Anderson, Neal Adams, Al Plastino & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-746-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For nearly nine decades, Superman has provided excitement, imagination and fun in more or less equal amounts. Although unnamed, since Action Comics #6 (November 1938), a red-headed, be-freckled plucky kid worked alongside Clark Kent & Lois Lane and enjoyed a unique and special relationship with the Metropolis Marvel.

We saw him called by his first name in Superman #13 (November/ December 1941). Jimmy Olsen became a major player on The Adventures of Superman radio show from its debut on April 15th 1940: someone for the hero to explain stuff to for the listener’s benefit and the closest thing to a sidekick the Man of Tomorrow ever needed. That partnership transferred to the comics. Following a string of hit movie chapter plays, when the similarly titled television show launched in the autumn of 1952, it was a monolithic hit and co-star Jimmy was in constant attendance. Thus, National Periodicals began cautiously expanding their precious franchise with new characters and titles. First up was the gloriously charming, light-hearted escapades of an impetuous, naïve but capable Daily Planet cub reporter/photographer forever onward saddled with the cognomen Superman’s Pal. Jimmy Olsen, which launched in 1954 carrying a September/October cover date. For 20 years the comic blended action, adventure, wacky comedy, fantasy and science fiction in the gentle, wry, exceedingly popular manner scripter Otto Binder had perfected in the 1940s at Fawcett Comics on the magnificent Captain Marvel.

Over those years, one of its most popular plot-themes (and most fondly revered and referenced today by Baby-Boomer fans) was the unlucky lad’s appalling talent for being warped, mutated and physically manipulated by fate, aliens and even his supposed friends. Latterly, however, Leo Dorfman had begun the process of remaking Jimmy as a more competent action hero and serious investigative journalist in tune with the rebellious era when the worlds of DC forever altered on the pages of what was then considered one of their least appreciated and poorest-selling titles.

According to fan myth & legend, none of it apparently mattered when Jack Kirby – hot from making Marvel the top company in the business – took over. By all popular accounts, he had asked for DC’s worst performing title to prove what he could do, and used it to spearhead a wave of changes whilst adapting grand schemes his old employers were too timid to countenance on their pages…

Jack’s first issue was #133, cover-dated October and on sale from August 25, 1970.

Jack Kirby (28th August 1917 – 6th February 1994) was – and, more than three decades after his death, remains – the most important single influence in the history of American comics. There are innumerable accounts of and testaments to what the man has done and meant, and you should read all of those if you are at all interested in the bones and breath of our medium. Kirby was a man of vast imagination who translated big concepts into astoundingly potent, instantly accessible symbols, thereby creating an iconography for generations of fantasy fans. If you were exposed to Kirby as an impressionable child, you were his for life. To be honest, that probably applies at whatever age you jump aboard the “Kirby Express”…

Synonymous with larger-than-life characters and vast cosmic imaginings, he was an astute, spiritual man who lived through poverty, prejudice, gangsterism, The Great Depression and World War II. He experienced Pre-War privation, Post-War optimism, Cold War paranoia, political cynicism and the birth and death of peace-seeking counter-cultures, but always looked to the future while understanding human nature intimately. Beginning his career in the late 1930s, it took a remarkably short time for Jack and creative collaborator Joe Simon to become the wonder-kid dream-team of the newborn comic book industry. Together they produced a year’s worth of influential monthly magazine Blue Bolt, dashed off Captain Marvel Adventures #1 for overstretched Fawcett, and – after Martin Goodman appointed Simon editor at Timely Comics – launched a host of pivotal characters including Red Raven, Marvel Boy, Mercury/Hurricane, The Vision, Young Allies and million-selling mega-hit Captain America. When Goodman failed to honour his financial obligations, Simon & Kirby were snapped up by National/DC, who welcomed them with open arms and a fat chequebook.

Bursting with ideas these staid industry leaders were never really comfortable with, the pair were initially an uneasy fit. Awarded two moribund strips to play with until they found their creative feet, they turned around both Sandman and Manhunter virtually overnight and, once safely established and left to their own devices, switched to the “Kid Gang” genre they had pioneered at Timely. Joe & Jack created wartime sales sensation Boy Commandos and Homefront iteration The Newsboy Legion before being called up to serve in the war they had been fighting on comic pages since 1940. Once demobbed, they returned to a very different funnybook business, and soon after left National to create their own empire…

S&K ushered in the first age of mature American comics – not just by inventing the Romance genre, but with all manner of challenging modern material about real people in extraordinary situations, only to see it all disappear again in less than eight years. Simon & Kirby had established their own publishing house, creating comics for far more sophisticated readerships, but found themselves in a sales downturn and awash in public hysteria generated by an anti-comic book pogrom. Their small stable of magazines – generated for an association of companies known as Prize, Crestwood, Pines, Essenkay and Mainline Comics – blossomed and as quickly wilted when the industry contracted throughout the 1950s, but had left future generations fascinating ventures such as Boys’ Ranch, Bullseye, Crime Does Not Pay, Black Magic, Boy Explorers, Fighting American and the entire genre of Romance Comics…

Hysterical censorship fever spearheaded by US Senator Estes Kefauver and opportunistic pop psychologist Dr. Frederic Wertham led to witch-hunt Senate hearings. Most publishers caved, adopting a castrating self-regulatory straitjacket of draconian rules and guidelines. Crime & Horror titles produced under the aegis and emblem of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of mature themes, political commentary, shock and gore even though the market’s appetite for suspense and the uncanny was still high. Crime comics vanished as adult sensibilities challenging an increasingly stratified and oppressive society were suppressed. Salaciousness, suspense and horror were dialled back to the level of technological fairy tales and whimsical parables…

Simon left the business for advertising, but Jack soldiered on, taking his skills and ideas to safer, more conventional, less experimental companies. As the panic abated, he returned to DC Comics, working on bread-&-butter anthological mystery tales and revamping Green Arrow (at that time a back-up feature in Adventure Comics and World’s Finest Comics) whilst concentrating on a passion project: newspaper strip Sky Masters of the Space Force.

During this period Kirby also re-packaged a superteam concept that had kicked around in his head since he and Joe closed their innovative, ill-timed ventures. At the end of 1956, Showcase #6 premiered Challengers of the Unknown and following three further test issues they won their own title with Kirby crafting the first eight. Then a dispute with Editor Jack Schiff exploded and the King was gone…

He found fresh fields and an equally hungry new partner in Stan Lee at the ailing Atlas Comics outfit (AKA once mighty Timely Comics), launching and spearheading a revolution in comics storytelling. However, after just over a decade of a continual innovation and wonderment, Kirby felt increasingly stifled. His efforts had transformed a dying publisher into industry-leader Marvel, but success had left him trapped in a profitable rut. Thus, he moved back to DC to generate another tidal wave of sheer imagination and pure invention. The result was experimental adult magazines Spirit World & In the Days of the Mob followed by a stunning reworking of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen – and by the time he had finished, all DC continuity. The latter was a prelude to his landmark Fourth World Saga comprising interlinked and contemporaneous titles Forever People, New Gods & Mister Miracle: the very definition of something game-changing and too far ahead of its time…

Incidentally, on many levels Jimmy was an ideal match for the King and not an incongruous display of breast-beating or do-or-die audition. Olsen was an idealistic, heroic young man in the thick of the incredible at all times, and Kirby had a long history with such boy heroes. He and Joe Simon had invented the comic book “kid gang” subgenre and for the next two years Kirby revived it with a new take on The Newsboy Legion… albeit interlaced with a future-embracing backstory, and aspirational wonder, rather than the poverty, privation and ongoing war of survival embodied by the Forties iteration…

In last non-Jack issue, Jimmy had been abducted by gangsters convinced he knew Superman’s secret identity, before battling a soviet champion for sovereignty of a floating island (as you do…) but everything abruptly changed with Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #133. Suddenly readers were thrown into a bravely strange new world where, out of nowhere, extremely shady incoming Daily Planet owner Morgan Edge gifts Jimmy with a fantastic supercar – the “Whiz Wagon” – and demands that he and his previously unseen pals ‘The Newsboy Legion!’ (actually the “New Newsboy Legion” comprising the sons of Tommy, Big-Words, Gabby & Scrapper, with the addition of African-American, scuba diving addict Flipper Dipper) deliver an exclusive scoop on a strange counterculture movement living in the wilds outside Metropolis. The mysterious subjects are all weird hippie-types and don’t trust anyone over age 25, so he needs youth and experience…

However, the one who can’t be trusted is Edge himself. He has undisclosed connections to crime combine Intergang and a chilling stone-faced alien called Darkseid…

After very publicly surviving an assassination attempt, Clark Kent goes into hiding allowing Superman to take off after Jimmy and the boys as they probe a fantastic unsuspected region dubbed the Wild Area. Here Olsen survives trial by combat to become leader of futuristic biker gang The Outsiders, and is sucked into their quest for meaning by hunting a moving mountain inhabited by techno-pacifists “The Hairies”…

Linking up with the Man of Steel as tremors rock the organically grown refuge city of Habitat, Jimmy and the Newsboys chase the ultimate test of existence alongside all the other motor nomads, unaware that pal Superman already knows the secret they’re all seeking. What Jimmy isn’t aware of is that Edge has boobytrapped the Whiz Wagon to satisfy his master’s desire to destroy what might the next step in human evolution and a threat to his own schemes…

Although Kirby and Inker Vince Colletta put their hearts and souls into the job, and despite Publisher Carmine Infantino’s promise of strict non-intervention, meddling with the concept began early with regular Superman art staff redrawing Superman and Jimmy’s faces. We’ll never know what they tried to do to the overall story arc…

Without pause for breath, exposition or recap Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #134 saw Jimmy and his biker wild bunch catch up to monstrous mechanised white whale ‘The Mountain of Judgement!’ after astoundingly taking out Superman with weapons casually discarded by inveterate tinkerers the Hairies. Thankfully, Edge’s bomb is easily defused by the techno-hippies who all share an incredible secret – one Superman is fully aware of. In short order Jim and the lads are briefed on “The Project”: the US government’s cracking of the human genome and extensive duplication and experimentation of life forms. This has already resulted in cloning the deceased, mass-producing soldiers and staff and, most incredibly, meddling with/reconfiguring chromosomal structure to create new life forms: “D.N.A.liens” like the pacifist techno-wizards called Hairies…

Moreover, the Project is run by none other than slum-kids made good the original Newsboy Legion!

Although commonplace now, the notion of cloning was practically unknown in 1970 and Kirby took the idea and ran with it: blending eternal questions about Life itself with Spy Fi tropes, gansterism and Bond movie settings, all packed with freaks and monsters and underpinned by a constant threat posed by a mysterious mastermind and his own experimental devils. The inspired auteur was also pulling out all the stops visually and his experimental concepts were backed up by equally innovative art and photo collages.

In SPJO #135 we meet Simyan & Mokkari, whose raid on the Project’s genetic storehouse provides raw material to constantly reproduce wilder and wilder versions of our heroes in their own hidden ‘Evil Factory!’ Being utterly without restraint or ethical scruple, their goal of destroying the Project for Darkseid is well-advanced, and – as previously stated – Jimmy’s genes are a particularly promising medium for random transformations…

Their control of what they make is less impressive however, and a superstrong, giant Jimmy infused with Kryptonite is teleported without a plan into the Project simply to save Simyan & Mokkari being killed by their own experiment. Although it almost kills Superman and his pal, the day is saved by the Senior Newsboys’ passion project – a new iteration of their murdered WWII superhero patron Jim Harper – the (Golden) Guardian – in concluding, action-packed background-filling expository chapter ‘The Saga of the D.N.A.liens!’ (cover-dated March 1971 and leading into the launch of Kirby’s opening Fourth World titles Forever People and New Gods #1. We’ll be covering those and final plank Mister Miracle later in the year).

With the scene set, Jimmy’s further exploits are generally Fourth World adjacent: a forge and funnel for concepts linking Superman to the ongoing narrative of Gods and Armageddons whilst exploring Mankind’s dangerous tendencies and corruptible natures. In Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #137, as the Newsboys and Jimmy learn more about their own (utterly non-consensual) contributions to the Project (without their knowledge Scrapper has been mass-produced as soldiers and guards in different sizes from six feet to six inches, and innumerable Gabbys man switchboards and communications consoles!) the Evil Factory strike again.

As Jimmy meets The Project’s emergent telepath/resident D.N.A.lien Dubbilex, elsewhere Darkseid demands results and Simyan & Mokkari unleash another Olsen variant on the hidden science citadel. Gifted with astounding strength and uncanny energy powers ‘The Four-Armed Terror!’ has been bred to feed on nuclear radiation and carves a wave of destruction that extends into the Wild Area on its path to the Project’s atomic power plant. Superman and the boys are easily disposed of and discarded, with the crisis escalating even further after Simyan & Mokkari lose control of all the other quadra-killers and beam the entire rampaging herd into the subterranean Project’s tunnels, forcing Superman to pull out all the stops to get free and save everything in cataclysmic closing chapter ‘The Big Boom!’

Despite those promises of non-interference, DC editors and promotional staff perpetually sought to “goose up” the Kirby flagship title. Always a team player, the King acquiesced to a guest-appearance by currently-hot comedian Don Rickles and oddly – in the manner of Marmite – it either worked uproariously or appalled readers. I thought it was a genuine hilarious hoot. Further undercutting the narrative, the saga was bifurcated by a reprint 80-Page Giant of pre-Kirby Olsen escapades in SPJO #140 and not included here.

Nevertheless #139 and 141 ( July’s ‘The Guardian Fights Again!!!’ and September’s ‘Will the Real Don Rickles Panic?’) is a compelling tale of Edge’s unfolding evil, Intergang’s growing influence and the creeping menace of Darkseid, who allows his tech to be used to send Clark Kent into hyperspace destined for Apokolips whilst Jimmy and the Golden Guardian are poisoned by slow-acting incendiary poison Pyro-Granulate: a slow death that will turn them into human torches unless they find an antidote. Slowing them down is equally doomed Galaxy Broadcasting staffer Goody Rickles whom Edge wants gone because he looks like the star Edge wants to sign up… and is really, really annoying…

With Kent saved from a modern hell by New God Lightray, Kirby next addressed the rise in horror and supernatural tales via another two-parter that began in #142 with ‘The Man from Transilvane!’ Here, apparent vampire Count Dragorin and his wolfman assistant Lupek target and “turn” Edge’s PA Laura Conway in their desperate hunt for long-missing mad scientist Dabney Donovan: a planetologist who apparently built worlds in his laboratory and shaped civilisations by screening movies in their skies. Like all sensible scientists, Donovan planned to end his research project on a certain day and set up programmed measures involving his ‘Genocide Spray!’ with no consideration of the beings he had made and discarded… but Jimmy and Superman certainly did…

Elsewhere, the Newsboy Legion had their own case, one that again led to Intergang but also the thug who murdered the original Jim Harper/Guardian…

In SPJO #142, Kirby began adding short background-enhancing vignettes and here 2-pager ‘Strange Stories of the D.N.A. Project!! “Hairie” Secrets Revealed!!!’ offered a glimpse of the techno-hippies and their Mountain of Judgment, whilst the next issue added drama to fact-finding as ‘Strange Stories of the D.N.A. Project!! The Alien Thing!!!’ details the terrifying results of creating the first non-human clone…

More much-needed laughs underpin a return to and imminent ending of Olsen’s involvement with the Evil Factory and Apokolips after Edge sends the lads to Britain on a snipe hunt to find and film ‘A Big Thing in a Deep Scottish Lake!’ in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #144 (cover-dated December 1971). Sadly, it’s just another baroque attempt to kill the pesky, interfering kids, but Edge’s delightfully outré assassins are not up to the task and actually facilitate the Whiz Wagon wonders finally finding the long-sought Evil Factory…

Back in Metropolis, as Superman, the Guardian and Dubbilex visit a discotheque and accidentally uncover a connection to the Project and the New Gods, the back of the book discloses ‘Strange Stories of the D.N.A. Project! – The Torn Photograph!’, hinting that not all the mysteries of the top secret base were created by modern scientists…

Jimmy at last gets transformed himself as the Newsboys encounter a menagerie of uncanny creatures in ‘Brigadoom!’ (#145, January 1972) before falling victim to Simyan & Mokkari’s tender ministrations. Unfortunately for them, reverting Olsen to primal revenant ‘Homo Disastrous!’ opens the door to chaos and their own destruction, even if it does add a (semi-) friendly monster to the team in affable escapee “Angry Charlie”…

Issue #146 also added a little lore to Superman’s personal canon after ‘Tales of the DNA Project! Arin the Armored Man!!!’ reveals how the geneticists found a way to safeguard the man of Steel’s precious and potential deadly cell cultures and decoded genetic structure from potential abuse…

An issue later, heavily-edited down from his original idea, and inked by Mike Royer rather than Colletta, SPJO #147 saw ‘A Superman in Supertown!’, completing a plot thread begun in Forever People #1, wherein the one-&-only Man of Tomorrow accidentally ends up amongst his “own kind” on paradise planet New Genesis, only to realise he cannot rest until his work is done. An example of that carries over into Kirby’s final issue as Jim, the Newsboys and Angry Charlie head across the Atlantic for a confrontation with Morgan Edge and are abducted in mid-air by purely earthborn menace Professor Victor Volcanum.

Incongruously backed up by one last revelatory episode of ‘Tales of the DNA Project – Genetic Criminal’ with cloned killer Floyd “Bullets” Barstow apparently answering the question of whether evil is an inherited trait, the tale of a Victorian-era supergenius who made himself immortal by distilling the essence of volcanoes wrapped up Jimmy’s Kirby-Era. Volcanum had ended a lengthy period of solitude and isolation by attacking the modern world with robots, death-rays and an advanced flying gondola in his efforts to become ‘Monarch of All He Subdues!’ (SPJO #148, April 1972). His first mistake was capturing the Whiz Wagon riders, but when Highfather of New Genesis graciously dropped Superman into his ongoing campaign, the writing was on the wall.

Of course it had been for Jack for some while. Happy to be deprived of the poison chalice of the committee-mindset governing every aspect of all Superman titles, the King soldiered on with his original intention of creating a timeless saga of celestial drama, passion and mind-bending scope – but there too he would be ultimately thwarted and frustrated. Basically and as was always the case, management wanted New and Different, but didn’t like or understand it when they got it…

Almost overnight and in one broad flourish, Kirby had created one of the most powerful concepts in comic book history. His Fourth World inserted a whole new mythology into the existing DC Universe and blew the developing minds of a generation of readers and especially those who would become the next generation of creators. Who know what could have happened if the publishers had had a little more courage, patience and vision?

Kirby instinctively grasped the fundamentals of pleasing his audience and always diligently struggled against the appalling prejudice regarding the comics medium – especially from industry insiders and professionals who despised the “kiddies world” they felt trapped in. After his grandiose, controversial editorially unappreciated Fourth World was cancelled immediately prior to his long-planned grand finale, Kirby explored other projects that would stimulate his own vast creativity yet still appeal to a market growing ever more fickle. These included supernatural stalwart The Demon, traditional war stories starring established DC team The Losers, OMAC: One Man Army Corps and even a new metaphysically mighty Sandman – co-created with old pal Joe Simon and his biggest hit since science fictional survival saga Kamandi. However, although ideas kept coming (Atlas, Kobra, a new Manhunter and Dingbats of Danger Street), once again editorial disputes took up too much of his time. Reluctantly, he left again, choosing to believe in promises of more creative freedom elsewhere…

As early as 1974, worn down by a lack of editorial support and with his newest creations inexplicably tanking, Kirby considered returning to Marvel, but – ever the consummate professional – scrupulously rode out his contract and carried out every detail of an increasingly onerous, emotionally unrewarding DC contract. The Demon was cancelled after 16 issues and he needed another title to maintain his Herculean commitments (legally obliged to deliver 15 completed pages of art and story per week!): Kamandi – The Last Boy on Earth had found a solid and faithful audience. It also provided further scope to explore big concepts as seen in thematic companion OMAC. Both series granted Kirby’s darkest assumptions and prognostications free rein, and his “World That’s Coming” has proved far too close to the World we’re frantically trying to fix or escape from today…

It’s hard to see these stories – supplemented in this edition by ‘Mother Box Files’ culled from 1986’s Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #16 and glorious pages of pencils featuring ‘The Art of Jack Kirby’ – isolated from the original Fourth World titles, and to be honest Jimmy plays a back seat role in most of the tales here. When not driving, being chased by or turned into assorted monsters, he’s Superman’s sounding board and supervising adult for the new Newsboy Legion, but at least he’s treated as a clever and competent active player rather than charming directionless idiot…

Once Kirby left the book things changed slowly. The Newsboys and Angry Charlie stuck around for a while and characters like The Guardian, Morgan Edge and the Project became fundamentals of the Superman universe and continuity. The ongoing continuity repercussions of Kirby’s passing were mostly addressed in, of all places, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, so much as I’d like otherwise, there’s little chance of seeing collected curated editions of those…

Here though is Kirby at his finest and most iconoclastic, doing what he always did: telling stories of wonder, verve and unparalleled imagination. What more could you possibly want?
© 1970, 1971, 1972, 1986, 2019 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Carl Barks died today in 2000. If you want to learn about him, our most recent review of his magic can be found here.

Posted on

DC Finest: Team-Ups: Chase to the End of Time


By Bob Haney, Cary Burkett, Martin Pasko, Dave Michelinie, Len Wein, Cary Bates, Steve Englehart, Paul Levitz, Jim Aparo, José Luis García-López, Murphy Anderson, Curt Swan, Dick Dillin, Joe Staton, Rich Buckler, Don Newton, Romeo Tanghal, Frank McLaughlin, Frank Chiaramonte, Dick Giordano, Jack Abel, Bob Smith & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79950-082-7 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

Here’s another stunning and timely compilation comprising the best of vintage comics; one more astounding and epic DC Finest edition. These weighty, full colour treasure troves are chronologically curated themed tomes highlighting past glories from the company that invented superheroes and so much more. Sadly, they’re not yet available digitally, as were the last decade’s Bronze, Silver and Golden Age collections, but we live in hope…

As you’ve probably noticed, a big part of superhero fiction involves interacting – if not always uniting – with other costumed stars. Every producer, purveyor and publisher of Fights ‘n’ Tights fare employs and exploits the concept of allied action and chums in conflict, with apparently every consumer insatiably coveting them and more of the same. With The Man of Steel and a whole bunch of super-suited & booted associates happily and profitably cavorting across big screens everywhere now, let’s look at a few of his past collaborations… and while we’re at it, peek at some of his best pal’s other playmates at the same time…

From the moment a kid first sees his second superhero the only thing he/she wants is to observe how the new gaudy gladiator stacks up against the first. From the earliest days of the comics industry – and according to DC Comics Presents first editor Julie Schwartz, it was the same with the pulps and dime novels that preceded it – 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 archenemies in a united front…

The concept of team-up comic books – an established star pairing or battling (usually both) with less well-selling company characters – was far from new when DC awarded their then-biggest gun (it was the publicity-drenched weeks before the release of Superman: The Movie and Tim Burton’s Batman was over a decade away) a regular arena to share adventures with other stars of their firmament, just as Batman had been doing since the middle of the 1960s.

The Brave and the Bold began in 1955 as an anthology adventure comic featuring short tales of period heroes: a format mirroring contemporary movie fascination with historical dramas. Written by Bob Kanigher, issue #1 led with Golden Gladiator, the Silent Knight and Joe Kubert’s now legendary Viking Prince. From #5 the Gladiator was increasingly alternated with Robin Hood, and manly, mainly mainstream romps carried the title until the end of the decade when the burgeoning costumed character revival saw B&B transform into a try-out vehicle like sister publication Showcase.

Brave and the Bold #25 (August/September 1959) debuted Task Force X: Suicide Squad, followed by Justice League of America (#28), Cave Carson (#31) and Hawkman (#34). Since only the JLA hit first time out, there were return engagements for the Squad, Carson and Hawkman. Something truly different appeared in #45-49 with science fictional Strange Sports Stories before B&B #50 triggered a new concept that once again truly caught reader imaginations.

It paired superheroes Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter in a one-off team-up, as did succeeding issues: Aquaman and Hawkman in #51, WWII wonders Sgt. Rock, Captain Cloud, Mme. Marie and the Haunted Tank in #52 and Atom with Flash in #53. The next team-up – Robin, Aqualad & Kid Flash – swiftly evolved into the Teen Titans. After Metal Men/the Atom and Flash/Martian Manhunter, new hero Metamorpho, the Element Man debuted in #57-58. Then it was back to superhero pairings with #59, and although no one realised it at the time this particular conjunction (Batman & Green Lantern) would be particularly significant. Soon the book would become a vehicle for Batman team-ups…

With the 1978 release of Superman The Movie it was time to reward the Man of Tomorrow with a similar dedicated publication, although in truth, the Action Ace had already enjoyed the sharing experience once before, when World’s Finest Comics briefly ejected the Caped Crusader and Superman paired with a coterie of heroes including Flash, Robin, Aquaman, Teen Titans, Vigilante, Dr. Fate and others (i#198-214; cover-dated November 1970 to October/November 1972) before the traditional status quo was re-established.

This superb all action collection intriguingly re-presents the first 14 star-studded monthly DC Comics Presents releases and the equivalent contemporary issues of The Brave and the Bold – #141-155). These together collectively span May/June 1978 through October 1979. We open with B&B and resident creators Bob Haney & Jim Aparo, so before the off here’s some background.

Robert Gilbert Haney, Jr. was born on 15th March 1926, growing up in Philadelphia listening to radio dramas and serials, and reading newspaper strips like Prince Valiant and Flash Gordon. Higher education at Swathmore College led to service in the US Navy. He was one of the lucky ones to survive The Battle of Okinawa relatively unscathed.

Follow up studies at Columbia University led to a Master’s degree, after which Haney began a prolific storytelling career by writing a slew of popular novels under a number of noms de plume. In 1947, he moved sideways into comic books, beginning with racy tale ‘College for Murder’ in Harvey Comics’ Black Cat #9 (cover-dated January 1948). From then until 1955 he freelanced for various publishers like Fawcett, Hillman, Standard and St. John on genre tales packed with action, grit and wit.

When anti-comics witch-hunts in the 1950s led to a bowdlerising, self-inflicted Comics Code, Haney shifted gears and began an almost exclusive position as a scripter at DC/National Comics, initially for the war comic division. His first sale was ‘Frogmen’s Secret’ in All American Men of War #17 (January 1955), and he scripted the very first Sgt Rock story in 1959, and countless more for all the combat titles.

Immensely versatile, he wrote for every genre division from licensed to humour, western to superhero and for titles including Blackhawk, Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog, Sea Devils, Tomahawk, Challengers of the Unknown, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, My Greatest Adventure, Doom Patrol, Aquaman, Hawkman, Space Ranger, Green Arrow, Deadman, The Unknown Soldier, and the very first Batman team-up in The Brave and the Bold #59. For decades the book would be his personal playground and where he delivered his take on most of the company’s vast pantheon…

Haney co-created the Teen Titans, Metamorpho, Eclipso, Enchantress (in Strange Adventures), Aquagirl, Cain of The House of Mystery and the Super-Sons, but ultimately his style began to clash with DC’s changing teen demographic. Happily, he had also been working in animation since the mid-1960s, scripting episodes of The New Adventures of Superman and The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure TV shows; and in the 1980s, DC’s loss was cartoon kids’ gain. Haney worked extensively on new shows including Karate Kat, Silverhawks and ThunderCats, as well as producing books of general fiction and consumer journalism. Ultimately, rapprochement with a new DC management saw Haney return to comics for nostalgia-tinged titles including Elseworlds 80-Page Giant #1 (August 1999); Silver Age: The Brave and the Bold #1 (July 2000); and – posthumously published –Teen Titans Lost Annual #1 (March 2008).

Haney died on November 25th 2004, in La Mesa, California.

Taking his cues from news headlines, popular films and proven genre-sources, Haney continually produced gripping yarns that thrilled and enticed, with no need for more than a cursory nod to an ever-more-onerous continuity. Anybody could pick up an issue of B&B and be sucked into a world of wonder. Consequently, these tales are just as fresh and welcoming today, their themes and premises just as immediate now as then. Moreover, Jim Aparo’s magnificent art is still as compelling and engrossing as it always was.

James N. Aparo (August 24th 1932 – July 19th 2005) was a true but quiet giant of comic books. Self-taught, he grew up in New Britain Connecticut, and, after failing to join EC Comics whilst in his 20s, slipped easily into advertising, newspaper and fashion illustration. Even after finally becoming a comics artist he assiduously maintained his links with his first career. For most of his career he was a triple-threat, pencilling, inking and lettering his pages. In 1963 he began drawing Ralph Kanna’s newspaper strip Stern Wheeler, and three years later was working on a wide range of features for go-getting visionary editor Dick Giordano at Charlton Comics. Aparo especially shone on the minor company’s licensed top gun The Phantom. In 1968 when Giordano was lured away to National/DC he brought his top performers (primarily Steve Ditko, Steve Skeates and Aparo) with him. Aparo began a life-long association with the company where legends live illustrating and reinvigorating moribund title Aquaman – although he also continued with The Phantom until his duties grew with the addition of numerous short stories for the monolith’s burgeoning horror anthologies and revived 1950s supernatural champion The Phantom Stranger.

Aparo went on to become a multi award-winning mainstay of DC’s artistic arsenal, with stellar runs on The Spectre, The Outsiders and Green Arrow, but his star was always and forever linked to Batman’s.

In B&B #141’s ‘Pay – Or Die!’ that relationship and the artist’s versatility shines as Black Canary helps Batman quash The Joker’s byzantine extortion scheme.

Fast-paced, straightforward, done-in-one dramas almost by definition, these quick treats were perfect introducer tales and seldom carried over, but in #142, ‘Enigma of the Death-Ship!’ sees Aquaman and wife Mera battle the Dark Knight to suppress a family secret, before the sordid trail of a covert Gotham drug lord leads to the most respected man in America in the next issue, with Cary Burkett collaborating with Haney for conclusion ‘Cast the First Stone’ as manic crime-crusher The Creeper confronts his mentor and finds even the most esteemed hero can have feet of clay…

The brave, bold portion of our entertainment pauses here to allow the Metropolis Marvel his moment to shine with a debut 2-part thriller from DC Comics Presents #1 & 2 (July/August & September/October 1978), featuring Silver Age Flash Barry Allen, who had also been Superman’s first co-star in that aforementioned World’s Finest Comics run. ‘Chase to the End of Time!’ and ‘Race to the End of Time!’ by scripter Marty Pasko & utterly astounding José Luis García-López inked by Dan Adkins, rather reprises that selfsame WF tale. Here warring alien races trick both heroes into speeding relentlessly through the time-stream to prevent Earth’s history from being corrupted and destroyed. As if that isn’t dangerous enough, nobody could predict the deadly intervention of the Scarlet Speedster’s most dangerous foe, Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash, but the heroes sort it all out in the end…

In B&B #144 Haney& Aparo deliver a magical mystery tale of ‘The Arrow of Eternity’ as Caped Crusader and Emerald Archer head back in time to Agincourt and foil a wicked plot by time-tamperer the Gargoyle, whilst in DCCP #3, David Michelinie’s tantalising pastiche of classic Adam Strange/Mystery in Space thrillers results in a modern masterpiece for García-López to draw and ink in ‘The Riddle of Little Earth Lost’. Here Man of Two Worlds and Man of Steel foil the diabolical cosmic catastrophe scheme of deranged ex-tyrant Kaskor to transpose, subjugate and/or destroy Earth and light-years distant planet Rann.

Courtesy of Haney & Aparo, The Phantom Stranger and Batman face ‘A Choice of Dooms!’ pursuing voodoo crime lord Kaluu in B&B #145 whilst DCCP #4 welcomed Len Wein to script the superb ‘Sun-Stroke!’ for García-López, as Man of Steel and madly-malleable Metal Men join forces to thwart solar-fuelled genius I.Q. and toxic elemental menace Chemo after an ill-considered plan to enhance Earth’s solar radiation exposure provokes a cataclysmic solar-flare…

Haney and guest artists Romeo Tanghal & Frank McLaughlin switch worlds and times in B&B #146 as the Batman of World War II assists faceless superspy the Unknown Soldier in stopping Nazi assassin Count von Stauffen from murdering America’s top brass and greatest scientists to sabotage the nation’s most secret weapon project, whereas modern day Sea King Aquaman is embroiled in ‘The War of the Undersea Cities’ (by Wein, Paul Levitz & Murphy Anderson) in DCCP #5.

This time, Superman must step in after Aquaman’s subjects in Poseidonis re-open ancient hostilities with the mer-folk of undersea neighbour Tritonis, home of the caped Kryptonian’s college girlfriend Lori Lemaris. Fortunately, cooler heads prevail when the deadly Ocean Master is revealed to be meddling in their sub-sea politics…

Supergirl enjoyed her first ever B&B Bat team-up. She had previously paired with Wonder Woman in #63, in the outrageously-dated and utterly indefensible ‘Revolt of the Super-Chicks!’ but here in #147 however, Burkett & Aparo’s ‘Death-Scream from the Sky!’ sees her and the Gotham Guardian save the world from extermination by satellite and shady surprise super villain Dr. Light…

A DCCP two-parter opens with ‘The Fantastic Fall of Green Lantern’ (Levitz, Curt Swan & Francisco Chiaramonte) in #6 which sees the Man of Steel briefly inherit the awesome power ring after Hal Jordan falls in battle against his female antithesis Star Sapphire. Although triumphant against her, “Green Superman” is subsequently ambushed by warriors from antimatter universe Qward leading to ‘The Paralyzed Planet Peril!’ (#7 by Levitz, Dick Dillin & Chiaramonte) wherein those bellicose aliens seek to colonise Earth… until robotic AI hero Red Tornado swirls in to the rescue.

Back in B&B, Good Cheer mingles with Drama as ‘The Night the Mob Stole X-Mas!’ delivers seasonal fluff by Haney pencilled by Joe Staton, with Aparo applying his overpowering inks to a tale of cigarette smugglers and aging mafioso, with Plastic Man helping to provide a mandatory Christmas miracle. The disbanded Teen Titans briefly reform in #149 for Haney & Aparo’s ‘Look Homeward, Runaway!’ to help Batman hunt and redeem a kid gang moving from petty crime to the big leagues after which in DCCP #8, ‘The Sixty Deaths of Solomon Grundy’ (Steve Englehart & Murphy Anderson) teams Swamp Thing with Action Ace. At this time the bog-beast still believed he was a transformed human and not an enhanced plant, and Alec Holland searches the sewers of Metropolis for a cure to his condition, only to stumble onto a battle between the Man of Steel and the mystic zombie who was “born on a Monday”…

Anniversary event The Brave and the Bold #150 was celebrated with a pairing that was both old hat and never seen before. Haney & Aparo’s ‘Today Gotham… Tomorrow the World!’ commemorates the landmark anniversary with an extended tale of Bruce Wayne’s abduction by terrorists and the undercover superhero who secretly shadows him. No hints here from me…

In that other caped crimebuster’s book, Pasko returns to script Staton & Jack Abel’s ‘Invasion of the Ice People!’ in #9, wherein Wonder Woman assists in repelling an arctic assault by malign disembodied intellects whist in B&B #151, The Flash becomes prey and appetiser for a predatory haunt feeding off patrons at Gotham’s hippest nightspot… and Batman barely breaks the spell at the ‘Disco of Death’ (Haney & Aparo). Another 2-part tale commences with DCCP #10’s ‘The Miracle Man of Easy Company’ (Cary Bates, Staton & Abel), as a super-bomb blasts Superman back to WWII and a momentous if amnesia-tainted meeting with indomitable everyman soldier Sgt. Rock. However before the Caped Kryptonian returns home to battle a brainwashed and power-amplified Hawkman in #11’s ‘Murder by Starlight!’ (Bates, Staton & Chiaramonte) there’s an intriguing interruption. B&B #152 splits the saga as Haney & Aparo reveal ‘Death Has a Golden Grab!’. Here mighty mite The Atom helping the Gotham Gangbuster stop a deadly bullion theft.  Chronologically #153 – courtesy of Burkett, Don Newton & Bob Smith – then sees Red Tornado help Batman survive old school greed and the hi-tech ‘Menace of the Murder Machines’ before DCCP #12 arranged a duel between the Man of Steel and New God Mister Miracle in ‘Winner Take Metropolis’ by Englehart, Richard Buckler & Dick Giordano.


B&B #154 finds Element Man Metamorpho treading ‘The Pathway of Doom…’ to save former girlfriend Sapphire Stagg and help Batman disconnect a middle eastern smuggling pipeline, prior to the brave, bold portion of our entertainment coming to a close with #155’s ‘Fugitive from Two Worlds!’ as Haney & Aparo detail Green Lantern Hal Jordan clashing with the Dark Knight over jurisdiction rights regarding an earthshaking alien criminal.

Closing this perfectly curated portion of comics history is another two-part tale spanning centuries as Levitz scripts an ambitious epic limned by Dillin & Giordano that begins with ‘To Live in Peace… Nevermore!’ When the Legion of Super-Heroes visit the 20th century they must prevent Superman saving a little boy from alien abduction to preserve the integrity of the time-line. It doesn’t help that the lad is Jon Ross, son of Clark Kent’s oldest friend and most trusted confidante. Furious and deranged by loss, Pete Ross risks the destruction of reality itself by enlisting the aid of Superboy to battle his older self in ‘Judge, Jury… and No Justice!’, but achieves only stalemate and a promise from the Man of Tomorrow to somehow make things right…

This titanic tome offers a tantalising snapshot of combined A-lister capers and demonstrates the breadth of DC’s roster of lesser stars in punchy, pithy adventures acting as a perfect shop window and catalogue of legendary fascinating characters – and creators. It also delivers a delightful variety of self-contained, satisfying entertainments ranging from the merely excellent all the way to utterly unmissable. DC Finest: Team-Ups is an ideal introduction to the DC Universe for every kid of any age and passport to Costumed Dramas of a simpler, more inviting time.
© 1978, 1979, 2025 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Green Arrow/Black Canary: Till Death Do They Part


By Judd Winick, Cliff Chiang, Amanda Conner, Mike Norton, André Coehlo, Wayne Faucher, Rodney Ramos, Patricia Mulvihill, Paul Mounts, David Baron & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77950-929-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

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

Green Arrow is Oliver Queen, a cross between Batman and Robin Hood and one of DC’s Golden All-Stars. He’s been a fixture of the company’s landscape – often for no discernible reason – more or less continually since his debut in More Fun Comics # 73 in 1941. In those heady days origins weren’t considered as important as image and storytelling, so originators Mort Weisinger & George Papp never bothered, leaving later workmen to fill in the blanks. France Herron, Jack Kirby and his wife Roz crafted one that stuck in ‘The Green Arrow’s First Case’ at the start of the Silver Age superhero revival (Adventure Comics #256, January 1959), and variations of it still impact modern iterations.

As a fixture of the DC Universe GA was one of the few costumed heroes to survive the end of the Golden Age, consistently adventuring in the back of other heroes’ comic books, joining the Justice League during the Silver Age return of costumed crusaders before eventually evolving into a spokes-hero of the anti-establishment during the 1960’s period of “Relevant” comics, courtesy of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams. Under Mike Grell’s 1980/1990s stewardship he became a gritty and popular A-Lister: an urban hunter dealing harshly with corporate thugs, government spooks and serial killers rather than costumed goof-balls.

…And then he was killed and his son took over the role.

…And then the original came back…

Black Canary was one of the first of relatively few Golden Age women crimebusters in DC’s universe, following Wonder Woman, Liberty Belle and Red Tornado (who actually masqueraded as a man) and predating Merry the Gimmick Girl. Bullet Girl, Phantom Lady and Mary Marvel all began their careers in the same time frame but only joined the DC pantheon after the Golden Age officially ended, snapped up in canny acquisitions that are still paying dividends. The Black Canary (Dinah Lance nee Drake) was created by Bob Kanigher & Carmine Infantino, debuting in Flash Comics #86, August 1947. She derived from a surge in femme fatales (mostly criminals or simply misunderstood) debuting due to equivalent exemplars appearing in gritty film noir B-features, but disappeared with most of the other print superdoers at the end of the Golden Age. However she was one of the first to be revived with the Justice Society of America in 1963.

Originally an Earth-Two crimefighter transplanted to our world, BC has been ruthlessly retconned over and again, but most often now Dinah Laurel Lance is the daughter of an earlier, wartime champion. However you feel about the character, two consistent facts have remained since her reintroduction/assimilation in Justice League of America #73-75 (see Crisis on Multiple Earths vol 1 please link to July 9th 2022 and The Justice League Hereby Elects  please link to September 15th 2017): she has vied with Wonder Woman herself for the title of premiere heroine and she has been in a stormy romantic relationship with Green Arrow ever since.

The tempestuous affair – which actually began during the Summer of Love – finally reached a dramatic culmination some years ago when the couple at last named the day, with this fearsomely dramatic and cripplingly funny tome gathering those unforgettable moments in a celebratory chronicle to warm the hearts and chill the souls of sentimental thrill seekers everywhere.

Reprinting Green Arrow and Black Canary Wedding Special and issues #1-14 of the monthly Green Arrow and Black Canary comic book that sprang from it, the saga begins with a hilariously immature retelling of the path to wedlock from scripter Judd Winick & Amanda Conner. Here the first cute-meet, passion, spats and tender moments are reviewed culminating in riotous hen-nights, rowdy stag-parties and a tremendous battle as a huge guard of dishonour – comprising most of the villains in the DCU – attack the assembled heroes when they’re utterly off-guard…

Naturally the bad guys are defeated, the ceremony concludes and the newlyweds head off to enjoy their wedding night.

And then – in circumstances I’m not going to spoil for you – Green Arrow dies again…

Obviously it doesn’t end there. The dramatic moment acts as springboard for a major restart. In the first issue of the new series Winick & Cliff Chiang’s ‘Dead Again’ only shows Ollie Queen in flashbacks as the Black (Widow) Canary goes on a brutal crime-crushing rampage.

‘Here Comes the Bride’ finds her slowly going off the rails. Only Ollie’s son Connor Hawke – heir to the Arrow mantle – seems able to get through to her where friends and allies like Green Lantern, Superman, Oracle and even Ollie’s old sidekicks Speedy and Red Arrow urge her to move on. As usual it takes the ultra-rational Batman to divine what really happened on the wedding night and send the grief spiral into useful new territory…

In ‘The Naked and the Not-Quite-So-Dead’ Dinah and latest Speedy Mia Dearden infiltrate the secret island paradise of the sinister miscreants who secretly abducted and imprisoned Green Arrow (notice how vague I’m being; all for your benefit?) and find where Ollie is currently; and constantly proving to be more trouble than he can possibly be worth. Conner is also on hand, but whilst attempting to spring his wayward dad also falls captive to uniquely overwhelming forces…

‘Hit and Run, Run, Run!’ ramps up the tension as the heroes all escape – but not before one of their number is gravely wounded by a mystery assailant, prior to ‘Dead Again: Please Play Where Daddy Can See You’ turning the tables and revealing that it’s Ollie’s turn to fall apart as his son and protégé fights for life…

With André Coehlo illustrating, heart-warming reverie ‘Child Support’ (another sequence of poignant flashbacks) describes Green Arrow’s history with his family and the extended team Arrow coterie of sidekicks. Soon, however, Dinah must drag Ollie back from the brink of utter despair when brain dead Connor is abducted from the hospital and life-support machines keeping him breathing…

Cliff Chiang returns for ‘Haystack – First Needle’ as the hunt goes global and felons from Prague to New Jersey to London, England learn that the green team don’t act like heroes when one of their own is imperilled.

Illo 2 here please


Limned by Mike Norton & Wayne Faucher ‘Greetings from Faraway Lands’ introduces super tech thief Dodger. As the team stalk the mastermind behind the botched hit on Ollie and abduction of dying Connor, this lovable rogue slowly graduates from an initially unwilling ally into something far more for one naively impressionable archer. With dubious intel now targeting global threat Ras Al Ghul as their foe and his League of Assassins as the murder weapon, ‘Haystack part 3: the Needle’ – by Winick, Norton & Rodney Ramos – exposes even more duplicity and misinformation as a rushed rescue mission successfully liberates a covert captive hero long gone but somehow unmissed…

Sadly for Ollie & Dinah, it’s the wrong one and a semi-delirious Plastic Man joins the expanding cast of hunters for new story arc ‘A League of Their Own’. Winick, Norton & Faucher’s opening chapter ‘Rubber and Glue’ introduces an alternative/impostor League of Assassins with their own outré agenda and incredible resources but as Team Arrow ‘Step Up to the Plate and Swing Away’ in ever stranger locales, it becomes increasingly clear that ‘The Man Behind the Curtain’ is not someone they regularly face.

In fact ‘The Son of the Father, the Father of the Son’ exposes a friend not an enemy behind the plot; albeit one motivated by tragedy and desperation and trapped in the vile manipulations of a true mad scientist mastermind’s vengeance-tinged plot and opportunistic attempts to build a super-powered slave army…

Unexpectedly defeated by the valiant acts of Team Arrow, the malign malefactor gets his comeuppance and a vastly changed, amnesiac but mostly cured Connor  rejoins his family in ‘Home Again, Home Again’ and as father and son seek to bond as they never could before, Oliver Queen realises that always ‘One Door Closes, Another Opens’…

To Be Continued…

The book concludes with a stunning and often hilarious variant cover gallery by Ryan Sook, Cliff Chiang, and Amanda Connor, reminding us that Green Arrow and Black Canary are characters who epitomise the modern adventure hero’s best qualities, even if in many ways they are also the most traditional of “Old School” champions. This witty and wild ride is a cracking example of Fights ‘n’ Tights done right and is well worth an investment of your money, time and emotional commitment.
© 2007, 2008, 2009, 2021 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Superman: The Man of Steel volume 2


By John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, Paul Levitz, Jerry Ordway, Greg LaRoque, Erik Larsen, Karl Kesel, Dick Giordano, Keith Williams, Mike DeCarlo, Arne Starr, P. Craig Russell, Bob Smith, Jose Marzan Jr., John Beatty, India Inc. (Giordano, Kesel, Bob Lewis, Ordway, Russell, Smith, Robert Ian, Bill Wray), Kurt Schaffenberger & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-0591-0 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In 1985 when DC Comics rationalise, reconstructed and reinvigorated their continuity with Crisis on Infinite Earths they also used the event to simultaneously regenerate their key properties. The biggest gun they had was Superman and it’s hard to argue that the change was not before time. The big guy was in a bit of a slump, but he’d weathered those before. So how could a root and branch retooling be anything but a pathetic marketing ploy that would alienate “real” fans for a few fly-by-night Johnny-come-latelies who would jump ship as soon as the next fad surfaced? The new Superman was going to suck…

They couldn’t have been more wrong.

It began with all Superman titles being “cancelled” (actually suspended) for three months, and yes, for the first time in decades, that did make the real-world media sit up and take notice of the character everybody thought they knew. However, there was method in this seeming corporate madness. The missing mainstays were replaced by a 6-part miniseries running from October to December 1986. Entitled Man of Steel, it was written and drawn by Marvel’s mainstream superstar John Byrne – fresh off a spectacular, groundbreaking run on Fantastic Four – inked by venerated veteran Dick Giordano. The bold manoeuvre was a huge and instant success. So much so that when it was first collected as a stand-alone compilation album in 1991, it became one of comics’ premiere “break-out” hits in the new format that would eventually become the industry standard for reaching mass readerships. Nowadays few people buy the periodical pamphlets but almost everybody has read a graphic novel…

From that overwhelming start the Action Ace seamlessly returned to his suspended comic book homes, enjoying the addition of a third monthly title that premiered that same month. Superman, Adventures of Superman, and Action Comics (which became a fan-pleasing team-up title guest-starring other favourites of the DC Universe, in the manner of the cancelled DC Comics Presents) were instant best-sellers. The back-to-basics approach lured many readers to – and, crucially back to – the Superman franchise, but the sheer quality of the stories and art are what convinced them to stay. Such cracking, clear-cut superhero exploits are a high point in the Action Ace’s decades-long career, and these collections are certainly the easiest way to enjoy one of the most impressive reinventions of a comic book icon.

So successful was the relaunch that by the early 1990’s Superman would be carrying four monthly titles as well as Specials, Annuals, guest shots and regular appearances in titles like Justice League – quite a turnaround from the earlier heydays of the Man of Steel when editors were frantic about never overexposing their meal-ticket.

In Superman’s 85th year of more-or-less consecutive and continuous publication, a new sequence of collections brought Byrne & Co.’s tales to a new generation of fans, and at long last we’re getting around to plugging the rest of them whilst adding our usual plea that the series continues and re-presents more of this wonderful material…

Spanning cover-dates May to December 1987 and re-presenting Superman #5-11, Action #588-593 and Adventures of Superman #429-435, plus crossover issues Legion of Super-Heroes #37-38 with relevant informative bio-pages from Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #13 & 23 and Who’s Who Update 1987 #2, 4-5, this monumental sequel compilation follows the Never-Ending Battle in unfolding, overlapping story order, not chronological release dates, and opens with ‘How Did I Get Here?’ – a reprinting of editor Mike Carlin’s introduction from a 2006 collection before the Actions and Adventures continue to unfold…

With Byrne’s so-very-controversial reboot of the world’s first superhero a solid smashing hit, the collaborative teams tasked with ensuring his continued success really hit their stride with the tales here, beginning with ‘The Mummy Strikes’ and ‘The Last Five Hundred’ (Byrne & inker Karl Kesel, from Superman #5-6). This introduces a first hint of romance between the Man of Tomorrow and Wonder Woman before Lois Lane and Clark Kent are embroiled in an extraterrestrial invasion that started half a million years ago, and features rogue robots and antediluvian bodysnatchers.

In ‘Old Ties’ (Adventures of Superman #429) Marv Wolfman & Jerry Ordway reveal the catastrophic repercussions of hidden race of alien telepaths the Circle transferring their expansionist attentions from rogue state Qurac to Metropolis, before segueing into a sidereal saga from Action Comics #588-589. Here Byrne & Giordano combine the Caped Kryptonian with Hawkman & Hawkwoman in ‘All Wars Must End’ – an epic battle against malign Thanagarian invaders – before meeting Arisia, Salaak, Kilowog, Katma Tui and other luminaries of the Green Lantern Corps who rescue the star-lost Superman in ‘Green on Green’ before uniting together and eliminating an unstoppable planet-eating beast.

Superman #7 by Byrne & Kesel follows ‘Rampage!’ as a petty male colleague sabotages a Metropolis lab experiment, accidentally mutating his boss Dr. Kitty Faulkner into a super-strong, rage-fuelled monstrosity. Thankfully, Superman is on hand and keeps a cool head, but only until Adventures of Superman #430 which sees the Metropolis Marvel ‘Homeward Bound!’ courtesy of Wolfman & Ordway before resorting to harsh measures in pitched battle against metahuman bandits the Fearsome Five. In Action Comics #590 Byrne & Giordano explored ‘Better Living Dying Through Chemistry’, wherein a bizarre toxic accident turns ambulatory waste dump Chemo into a giant Superman clone. Happily, its old adversaries The Metal Men are on hand to aid in the extremely violent clean-up…

As the ripples of Crisis on Infinite Earths pinged across the new DCU, there were a few bumps to smooth out that had missed being sorted during the big show. One of the most confusing was how the new Superman was never a costumed, crusading Boy of Steel. This epic tome includes two critical issues of Legion of Super-Heroes (#37-38) which outlines and resolves the dilemma that occurred after the Man of Tomorrow’s retcon eliminated his entire career and achievements as Superboy. The crossover event provided a classic back-writing exercise to solve an impossible post-Crisis paradox whilst giving us old geeks one chance to see a favourite character die in a way all heroes should…

Legion of Super-Heroes #37 (August 1987, by Paul Levitz, Greg LaRoque, Mike DeCarlo & Arne Starr) sets the scene for ‘A Twist in Time’ as a team of 30th century Legionnaires head back to 1960s Smallville to visit inspirational founding member Superboy only to find themselves attacked by their greatest ally and inspiration – the Time Trapper. The saga segues into Byrne & Kesel’s ‘Future Shock’ (Superman #8) as a strange squad of aliens appear in his beloved boyhood hometown. Mistaking Superman for Superboy, the Legionnaires attack, and after an inconclusive clash concludes, start piecing together an incredible act of villainy and cosmic manipulation that has made suckers of them all…

When a kill-crazed Superboy shows up the tale shifts to Action #491 as Byrne & Keith Williams reveal a ‘Past Imperfect’ where the youthful and adult Kal-Els butt heads until a ghastly truth is exposed, leading to Levitz, LaRoque & DeCarlo’s stunning and tragic conclusion in Legion of Super-Heroes #38, where the devious reality-warping mastermind behind the scheme falls to ignominious defeat at the hands of ‘The Greatest Hero of Them All’…

Back on solid ground and his own reality the one-&-only Superman then battles a new kind of maniac malcontent in ‘They Call Him… Doctor Stratos’ (Adventures of Superman #431 by Wolfman, Erik Larsen & embellishment tag-team “India Inc.”), delivering a crushing defeat to a weather-warping would-be god before Byrne & Kesel’s Superman #9 sees the Last Son of Krypton meet The Joker for the first time in a maniacally murderous battle of wits ‘To Laugh and Die in Metropolis’…

Accompanied by inker P. Craig Russell, Wolfman & Ordway open extended story arc Gangwar with ‘From the Streets, to the Streets!’ as a mystery mastermind foments chaos and teen unrest, with unsavoury tycoon Lex Luthor implicated. Social worker/troubled youth mentor Jose Delgado returns, but seems as helpless as Superman, Lois or Jimmy Olsen in saving Perry White’s son from a life of crime or imminent incarceration…

Inked by Keith Williams, Byrne teams the Man of Steel with Jack Kirby’s New Gods Big Barda and Mr. Miracle in fighting depraved Apokolips émigré Sleez during ‘A Walk on the Darkside’ and sequel ‘The Suicide Snare’ before channelling our hero’s pre-Crisis days in ‘The Super Menace of Metropolis’. Aided by Kesel, he reveals how Luthor tries to discredit the Action Ace by boosting his powers after which Bob Smith joins Ordway illustrating ‘A Tragedy in Five Acts’: the second part of Gangwar where escalating street chaos leads to a life-altering injury for Jose Delgado…

For Superman #11, Byrne & Kesel reintroduce a carefully revamped fifth dimensional prankster in wickedly barbed, in-joke drenched Mr. Mxyzptlk romp ‘The Name Game’, whilst in AoS #435,Wolfman, Ordway & José Marzan complete this collection’s comics section with Gangwar conclusion ‘Shambles’ – introducing mystery street hero Gangbuster, before #436’s ‘The Circle Turns’ finds Superman assaulted by psychic delusions thanks to the vengeful alien telepaths: two slower tales building on the strong continuity and character interactions that typified this incarnation of the Man of Tomorrow.

Bonus features this time include previous collection covers by Ordway, and augmenting the Costumed Dramas are more extracted character profiles from Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #13 & 23 and Who’s Who Update 1987 #2, 4-5, featuring Mr. Mxyzptlk, Rampage!, Superboy (Kurt Schaffenberger inks), The Legion of Super-Heroes (by LaRoque & Larry Mahlstedt), and Time Trapper (Keith Giffen & Rick A, Bryant) before a big bold pin-up of the Man of Steel ends the fun for now.

These superhero sagas are true a high point in the Man of Tomorrow’s near nine decades of existence and these astoundingly readable collections are certainly the easiest way to enjoy a stand-out reinvention of the ultimate comic-book icon.
© 1986, 1987, 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.