Graphic Novel Reviews and Recommendations by WIN WIACEK
We’re going offline for a few days – Big Press and Small Game hunting in the Serengeti don’cha know? – but we will be back sometime in the next few days.
Enjoy the break and remember Oranges are not the Only Thing You Can Read (or something like that)…
By Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges, Jesus Merino & various (DC)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2714-2
The Justice Society of America was created for the third issue (Winter 1940/1941) of All-Star Comics, an anthology title featuring established characters from various All-American Comics publications. The magic was sparked by the simple expedient of having assorted heroes gather around a table and tell each other their latest adventure. From this low-key collaboration it wasn’t long before the guys – and they were all white men (except Red Tornado who merely pretended to be one) – joined forces on a regular basis to defeat the greatest villains and challenge the social ills of their generation. Within months the concept had spread far and wide…
And so the Justice Society of America is rightly revered as a true landmark in the development of comicbooks. When Julius Schwartz re-energised the superhero genre in the late 1950s, the game-changing moment came with the inevitable teaming of the reconfigured mystery men into a Justice League of America.
From there it wasn’t long until the original and genuine article returned. Despite many attempts to revive the team’s popularity however it wasn’t until 1999, on the back of both the highly successful rebooting of the JLA by Grant Morrison & Howard Porter and the seminal but critically favoured new Starman series by Golden Age devotee James Robinson, that the multi-generational team found a new mission and fan-base big enough to support them. As the century ended the original superteam returned and have been with us in one form or another ever since.
This iteration, called to order after Infinite Crisis and Identity Crisis, found the last surviving heroes from World War II acting as mentors and teachers for the latest generation of young champions and metahuman “legacy-heroes†(family successors or inheritors of departed champions’ powers or code-names): a large, cumbersome but captivating combination of raw talent and uneasy exuberance with weary hard-earned experience.
And this slim compilation, collecting JSA volume 3 #29-33 (September 2009 to January 2010) details their greatest challenge, how they met it and what resulted from it…
Accepting the necessity of becoming elder statesmen to the next generations of heroes as well as defenders of the right, the already ponderous organisation began inviting ‘Fresh Meat’ to sign up. Unfortunately as they induct effusive All-American Kid and moody teen King Chimera, the JSA discover their mystic guardian Obsidian has been reduced to an inert egg of dormant ebony energy…
Even as they interview the newbies and probe the cause of the dark avenger’s strange transformation, news arrives of a massive super-villain army attacking the city.
Exactly how to respond reignites a doctrinal debate between old school brawler Wildcat and military martinet Magog, but soon the heroes head off en masse, leaving super-genius Mr. Terrific to mind the juniors and investigate Obsidian’s condition…
The metahuman confrontation is a trap. An unknown mastermind has gathered an army of super-creeps specially chosen to counter individual JSA-ers and put bounties on all the heroes’ heads…
As a colossal battle ensues in the heart of the city something strange becomes apparent. Although the brutes, beasts and monsters run amok and mercilessly assault the JSA-ers they actually attack each other whenever teen hero Stargirl gets into the firing line.
For some reason the mystery Machiavelli behind the coalition of evil has specified that if she is even scratched nobody gets paid…
And as the super-war escalates, back at the JSA Brownstone Mr. Terrific is brutally stabbed by the last person he expected…
Caught completely by surprise the JSA are soon reduced to baffled Stargirl and defiant Jay Garrick standing over the battered bodies of their comrades. The first Flash is forced to risk everything on the villains obeying orders as he rushes off in ‘Hot Pursuit’ of major reinforcements and returns almost instantly with Doctor Fate: a crime-fighting mage with the powers of a god… or so the villains believe…
With the bad guys fleeing in terror the thrashed heroes regroup at their HQ and discover Terrific bleeding out. As magic-wielders and medical doctors strive to keep his fading spark alive, Magog and Wildcat renew their argument about how the team should be run and already-frayed tempers snap…
‘New Blood, Old Blood, Spilled Blood’ sees the medical contingent working miracles to keep Terrific alive as Flash and Power Girl begin reconstructing the murder attempt and grilling the few villains they managed to capture. Soon the big scheme is starting to become clear – even if Stargirl’s sacrosanct status is not – and when the reconvened evil army attacks, even the worst possible news about Terrific is not enough to hinder the fighting mad champions in ‘The Worth of a Hero’…
The truth about the traitor comes out in the final climactic clash and even though the greater plot remains unsolved, the resurgent team storms to another astounding against-the-odds victory. However in the rubble of their home and shattered unity it becomes clear that to survive at all the Justice Society has to ‘Split Up’…
To Be Continued…
Scripted with deft skill by Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges and compellingly limned by Jesus Merino – who should be paid a major bonus for keeping distinct and dynamic the hordes of heroes and villains populating this shocking saga – The Bad Seed is another blockbusting epic that will delight the already informed but might well be all but unreadable to anyone not deeply immersed in the complex continuity of DC’s last three decades.
Nevertheless, if you love Fights ‘n’ Tights mass melodrama and are prepared to do a little reading around then you might find yourself with a whole new universe to play in…
© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.
By Kou Yaginuma (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-935654-23-0
Kou Yaginuma first captured the hearts and minds with poignant short story 2015 Nen no Uchiage Hanabi (2015: Fireworks, published in Gekkan Comics Flapper, June 2000), before expanding the subject and themes into a major manga epic combining hard science and humanist fiction with lyrical mysticism and traditional tales of school-days and growing up.
2024 AD: diminutive teenager Asumi Kamogawa has always dreamed of going into space. From her earliest moments the solitary child gazed up at the stars with imaginary friend Mr. Lion, especially gripped by the twinkling glow of Virgo and alluring binary star Spica.
An isolated, serious child, she lived with her father, a common labourer who had once worked for the consortium which built the rockets for Japan’s Space Program.
When Asumi was one year old, the first Japanese manned launch ended in catastrophe after rocket-ship ShishigÅ (“The Lionâ€) exploded during its maiden flight: crashing to earth on the coastal city of Yuigahama. Hundreds were killed and many more injured, including Asumi’s mother.
Maimed and comatose, the matron took years to die. The shock crushed her grieving husband and utterly traumatised infant Asumi.
In response to the disaster Japan set up an astronautics and space sciences training facility where, after years of determined struggle, Asumi was accepted by the Tokyo National Space School. Slowly making friends like Shinnosuke Fuchuya (who used to bully her as a child in school), boisterous Kei Oumi, chilly and distant Marika Ukita and spooky, ultra-cool Shu Suzuki, Asumi inexorably moved closer to her unshakable dream of going to the stars.
Against all odds – she is small, shy, retiring, looks weak and is very poor – Asumi endures and always succeeds. She still talks with Mr. Lion, who seems to be the ghost of an astronaut from the ShishigÅ…
Individual instalments in these compelling monochrome volumes are presented as “Missionsâ€, methodically combining into an overarching mosaic detailing the subtle interconnectedness of generations of characters, all linked by the call of the heavens.
Volume 9 comprises numbers 47-55, and also includes a brace of enchanting autobiographical vignettes from the author’s own teenage years.
As Asumi sleeps the story resumes with Mission: 47 and a flashback to happier times in Yuigahama when the class buried a time capsule and revealed what they wanted to do as adults. There and then brash little Fuchuya found a library book with a picture of an astronaut who had come from the tragic town…
The repose resolves into a rush as Asumi and Kei hurry to their first day as Juniors at the Tokyo School. En route they discover classmate Shu Suzuki has become an overnight celebrity as news of his short-listing to join a US space mission has become public. They are even door-stepped at the gate by an inquisitive reporter who has his own reasons for remembering the Lion…
The jaded hack’s breath is taken away when enigmatic, aloof Ukita follows them in. He has seen her before – or a least someone from long ago who looks exactly as she does now…
Tetchy Fuchuya’s impatience with the Principal’s welcome speech is only exacerbated when the girls of the new intake bombard him with stupid questions about classmate and superstar Shu. His mood is only changed later when he inadvertently discovers proud Ukita is secretly working in a coffee shop…
Nothing stops Kei flying off the handle when a bunch of loudmouths snipe behind Suzuki’s back, accusing him of using Space School to further his well-connected family’s political ambitions. Only Shu himself can convince the infuriated girl to back down and apologise. He doesn’t care what anybody says: he’s one step closer to space…
And at Asauri News HQ, journalist Ichimura finally finds a photo of that troubling girl from decades ago…
Mission: 48 sees Asumi welcoming new student Mikan Tokushima to the Seagull Hostel before reporting to class for the latest in the never-ending series of gruelling physical and mental challenges designed to winnow out all but the very best potential astronauts. The arduous decompression tests seem to have a salutary effect on Oumi though; she has never seemed so determined or uncomplaining. Perhaps it’s because she loves Suzuki and wants to be worthy of him…
When a little kid gives Asumi a note and map, the trail takes her to a certain coffee shop and a strange confrontation with Marika. It seems the ice-maiden has been taking steps to learn how to interact with people…
Asumi is unsettled. As she discusses things with Mr. Lion that night, it feels like she is the only one incapable of change or progress. She couldn’t be more wrong, as unwilling big-shot Shu points out to Mikan whilst they watch her doggedly run on the sports track next day. Everyone else in class envies her determination and covets her stamina: she’s the one the entire new intake should be patterning themselves on…
Mission: 49 offers another revelatory flashback as a relentless and troubled man finally uncovers the truth behind the Lion: how government cost-cutting, political chicanery and PR glad-handing resulted in a second-rate spaceship and a rush to launch before every detail was checked. Now in possession of the full facts, aggrieved Dr. Sano is ready to make the guilty ones pay and he’s starting with Space School Chair Mr. Shiomi…
As he’s taken away by police, Sano asks Asumi to give a package to her dad; his fellow disgraced rocket design engineer on the Lion project…
In the wake of the ShishigÅ disaster, Tomoro Kamogawa was assigned by the corporation who built the ship to head a reparations committee. Guilt-wracked and personally bereaved, the devastated technologist had to visit and formally apologise to each and every survivor or victim’s grieving family. The experience completely destroyed him.
He lost all joy and faith in the space program, having lost his wife, his career and his pride to the race for the stars. He raised his daughter alone by working two and often three menial jobs at a time for over a decade and could not countenance losing the very last of his loved ones to the cold black heavens.
Eventually he accepted Asumi’s decision and dream but as Mission: 50 opens, the records Sano has sent to his old lab partner carry him spiralling back to those heady days of his own stellar ambitions…
Sano has his own memories to torment him: a wonderful woman who loved him and went to Yuigahama to witness his “triumphâ€, even though he stubbornly refused to go.
A little later, the old engineering comrades meet up again and share a new dream…
Life goes on and training continues in Mission 51 with the Junior year experiencing their first taste of the G-Force simulator. When Shu has an adverse reaction, Ukita is particularly concerned. She has seen his symptoms before but Suzuki brushes it all off and asks her not to report what she suspects…
The quixotic class frontrunners are slowly becoming inseparable friends and as days pass Marika becomes embroiled by a strange new mystery: someone is leaving her odd cartoon messages at work…
And in a playground lonely Mr. Lion is lost in his own memories; concerned if he is really helping his “little oneâ€â€¦
Mission 52 finds Asumi coping with an unexpected and perhaps unwelcome visitor. Kasane Shibata is an old schoolmate from Yuigahama whom Asumi barely knew, but now she’s come looking for something but cannot explain what or why…
In 53 the mystery deepens as Kasane’s obvious lie about attending preparatory exam classes is proved false when Fuchuya catches her sleeping in a park, but Asumi’s gentle confrontation in Mission 54 not only uncovers the roots of her fellow crash survivor’s problems but also offers her a new path to happiness…
The story glides to a temporary halt with Mission 55 as at Asauri News, Ichimura gets closer to an astounding conclusion whilst at Space School the Juniors learn of their next extra-curricular exercise. There is a frightening subtext to the outing: they will be competing against robots that the funding authorities are considering using in space instead of – not beside – living astronauts…
Moreover, whilst the students fret and train, journalist Ichimura intently watches Marika, having just uncovered her improbable connection to life-sciences mogul Senri Ukita, a publicity-shy mystery-man the reporter knows from long ago…
To Be Continued…
Also included in this volume are two more wistfully autobiographical ‘Another Spica’ vignettes culled from author Yaginuma’s lovelorn days as a part-time server on a soft-drink stand in a theme park; the first focussing on his youthful ambitions – girls or drawing – whilst the latter ponders the power and worth of regret…
These magically moving marvels originally appeared in 2006 as Futatsu no Supika 10 and 11 in the Seinen manga magazine Gekkan Comics Flapper, targeted at male readers aged 18-30, but this ongoing, unfolding beguiling saga is perfect for any older kid with stars in their eyes…
Twin Spica ran from September 2001-August 2009: sixteen volumes tracing the trajectories of Asumi and friends from callow students to trained astronauts, and the series has spawned both anime and live action TV series.
This delightful saga has everything: plenty of hard science to back up the informed extrapolation, an engaging cast, mystery and frustrated passion, alienation, angst and true friendships; all welded seamlessly into a joyous coming-of-age drama with supernatural overtones, raucous humour and masses of sheer sentiment.
These books are printed in the Japanese right to left, back to front format.
© 2011 by Kou Yaginuma/MEDIA FACTORY Inc. Translation © 2011 Vertical, Inc. All rights reserved.
By Jim Alexander & Mike Perkins with Will Pickering (Planet Jimbot)
No ISBN:
The wonderful thing about comics is the fact that you can readily utilise huge casts, vast exotic locales and even the most intimate of inner landscapes with the simplest tools.
In fact very often the more limited the resources the greater the result in terms of creativity, innovation and quality. It’s like a law of inverse proportions affecting imagination…
A superb example of that dictum is independent comics publisher Planet Jimbot (canny fellows Jim Alexander and Jim Campbell) whose ongoing series Wolf Country will star in our next Small Press Sunday feature. The Little Company That Could numbers many intriguing projects in its burgeoning portfolio, with this slim monochrome trade paperback compilation being one of its best: a cerebral science fiction saga that challenges your mind, heart and soul… and there’s not a robot or fishbowl-helmeted bikini-babe in sight…
Writer Alexander’s prodigious back catalogue includes Calhab Justice and other strips for 2000 AD, Star Trek the Manga, GoodCopBadCop, many features for The Dandy and work for DC, Marvel, Metal Hurlant, and loads of other places whilst illustrator Mike Perkins has gone on to co-create Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and draw Ruse, Astonishing X-Men, Superman vs Terminator, Carver Hale, Captain America, Stephen King’s The Stand and a host of other major properties.
If I remember aright Amongst the Stars was first serialised in much-missed Caliber Comics anthology Negative Burn back in the 1990s, and like so many great fantasy concoctions it takes a hoary cliché and stands it on its head with immense style and total conviction.
The wonderment begins with ‘Naturally Occurring Reactions’ as all over Earth individuals go about their lives unaware that they are sharing them. Incomprehensible distances away a unified collective of alien called the Tchailungians have reached psionically out to make contact with us and been trapped en masse inside our angry/sad/hungry/terrified, chaotically helter-skelter minds…
From ‘The Fullness of Space’ their benign pacific unity is being irrevocably shredded and shattered by everything that makes us human, but perhaps some spark of hope remains in rediscovering individual action through the cosmic ruminations of a brilliant British physicist trapped inside his body by motor-neurone disease…
‘Contact: How Tchailung came across the Regressive Planet and all of this started’ details the extent of the stellar paragons’ greatest mistake and how one bold constituent – either less paralysed or more contaminated than the rest – begins fighting back against the all-encompassing mental malady even as that earthly shut-in ponders the myth of ‘Icarus’ and the tragic ‘Marker Point’ which divided the collective gestalt and now spurs the dying Tchailung to embrace radical action.
Moreover, on Earth at least one fragile example of the seething masses is becoming acutely aware that he has ailing passengers in his head whilst events on two worlds spiral towards a shocking revelation in ‘The Eagle’s Nest’…
The cosmic cogitation and eerie awe of the lurking unknown is supplemented and counterpointed by a grand paranoia-drenched vignette dedicated to the other end of the “They Lurk Amongst Us†literary spectrum. ‘Growing Pains’ by Alexander & Will Pickering takes us to an anonymous Scottish housing estate where the police are warily employing a very unlikely negotiations-specialist to counter the rarest – yet by no means unheard of – domestic violence situations.
Unfortunately no matter how experienced an alienist pretty Officer McGuinness might be, there’s always the possibility of overconfidence leading to deadly human error…
Light, bright, bold, beguilingly presented, confidently challenging and beautifully realised, Amongst the Stars is a delight for those who need some intellectual meat in their reading matter, so dig in now.
Amongst the Stars © 2015 Jim Alexander (story) and Mike Perkins (art). Growing Pains © 2015 Jim Alexander (story) and Will Pickering (art).
Amongst the Stars is available at the Planet Jimbot shop for a special SICBA price of £5.50 plus P&P, so go to: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/PlanetJimbot
Amongst the Stars has made the Scottish Independent Comic Book Alliance (SICBA) shortlist for Best Graphic Novel 2015. Why not get a copy and then vote for it? For relevant details check out the official SICBA site: http://www.sicba.org.uk/
The winners will be announced in Glasgow on the 4th of July so best get cracking…
Barring that, those generous Jimbot denizens have put together a PDF sampler which features 5 pages of the story, absolutely free to everybody, so please feel free to publish/share/comment on as you wish. Just head for: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1mcab4gr8utanu7/ATS_SICBA_Sampler.pdf?dl=0
By Christopher Yost, Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Andy Schmidt, Michael Hoskin, Dustin Weaver, Paul Pelletier, Bong Dazo, Frazer Irving & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3967-6
As every comics fan knows, the world is not enough. Eventually all horizons expand and your favourite character goes cosmic. Marvel Comics have long been capitalising on dramas from beyond the unknown and in 2006 constructed a monumental crossover epic which not only featured the usual stellar stalwarts but was also expansive enough to encompass a host of more Earthbound stars.
Annihilation spawned a cascade of sidereal sequels and in 2008 many of Marvel’s major players became deeply involved in one of the most expansive as War of Kings redefined the role of mutants, Inhumans and three perpetually warring stellar empires.
As usual the tale spread through a number of titles, miniseries and specials over many months, enveloping such disparate do-gooders as the Guardians of the Galaxy, Nova, Skaar – Son of Hulk, Darkhawk and more.
This slim compilation collects pivotal opening sallies X-Men: Kingbreaker #1-4, Secret Invasion: War of Kings, War of Kings Saga and pertinent extracts from X-Men: Divided We Stand #2, spanning July 2008 to May 2009.
Crafted by writers Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning and illustrators Paul Pelletier, Bong Dazo, Rick Magyar & Joe Pimentel, Secret Invasion: War of Kings finds a fleet of shapeshifting Skrulls desperately fleeing Earth after their all-out incursion was repulsed.
As part of the scheme the invaders had imprisoned and tortured Inhuman ruler Black Bolt for months, and when his family freed him the silent monarch’s fury knew no bounds…
Conceived as another fantastic lost civilisation and debuting in 1965’s Fantastic Four #44-48 during Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s most fertile and productive creative period, The Inhumans are a race of (generally) humanoid beings genetically altered 25,000 years ago, after Imperial Kree explorers landed on Earth and tampered with the biology of a tribe of primitives, just as they had on hundreds of other worlds.
Consequently the guinea pigs became technologically advanced far ahead of emergent Homo Sapiens and isolated themselves from the world and barbarous dawn-age humanity in a fabulous city named Attilan: first on an island and latterly in a hidden valley in the Himalayas.
Long ago Randac, one of the rulers of the intellectual super-race, took DNA manipulation to its ultimate end, devising the Terrigen Mist process, which mutated citizens into infinitely unique individuals of astounding power. The measure originally met with much opposition and hordes of Attilans quit the city forever, setting up their own isolated enclaves and increasingly interbreeding with their less evolved cousins…
After millennia in hiding, growing global pollution levels began to attack the Inhumans’ elevated biological systems and they relocated their entire city-civilisation to the Moon. This bold act exposed them to military scrutiny and they became known at last to Earth’s teeming masses.
Run along quasi-mystic lines by a priesthood, the Attilan mark of citizenship is gained through immersion in the Terrigen Mists which enhance and transform individuals into radically unique and generally super-powered beings. The subspecies is obsessed with genetic structure and heritage, worshipping their ruling Royal Family as the rationalist equivalent of mortal gods.
Now, following the Skrulls’ shameful debasement of Black Bolt, the citizens are ready to fully embrace their millennial destiny as living weapons and carve a place for themselves in the greater universe.
The shapeshifters are only the first to fall and by the time he has done, Blackbolt has taken the Kree Empire by the throat and made himself its lord…
‘The Hole’ originally saw print in X-Men: Divided We Stand #2, wherein Andy Schmidt and Frazer Irving detailed the ordeal of former X-Men Alex Summers – AKA Havok – and his one-time lover Polaris following their participation in a coup intended to remove the head of the Shi’ar Empire.
That vile potentate was crazed mutant Vulcan (revealed as Alex’s half brother Gabriel Summers) who had risen from the rank of slave to seize power in a blood-drenched, if politically astute, campaign of terror. After failing to destroy his insane sibling, Havok was imprisoned under an ocean on a remote world and systematically tortured by the triumphant Vulcan.
It didn’t matter: Alex bided his time and waited…
Opportunity knocked at last in 4-part miniseries X-Men: Kingbreaker (by Christopher Yost, Dustin Weaver, Paco Diaz, Jaime Mendoza, Victor Olazaba & Vicente Cifuentes) which forms the majority of this introductory tome.
After consolidating his position Vulcan, with his Shi’ar queen-consort Deathbird, begin a studied attack on the intergalactic status quo, greedily snatching up new worlds in a devastating war of expansion. With the dominant states of the universe reluctantly ranging against him ,Vulcan is caught off-guard when a coalition of Earth mutants join freebooting space-pirates The Starjammers in a rescue mission to free Alex, Polaris and their own captured comrades…
Stretched and already unstable, the upstart Emperor responds by freeing the five greatest menaces in Shi’ar custody as a penal battalion and is utterly astonished when the devilish malcontents increasingly run amok, killing civilians and even destroying entire worlds…
When the dust finally settles his greatest foes are free and many of his dutiful allies and subjects are thinking of switching sides…
Truly deranged but undeterred Vulcan continues his rush to conquest, turning his attention to The Kree, where newly enthroned Supremor Black Bolt is ready and waiting…
To Be Continued in various War of Kings collections…
Although the sequential narratives end here this catalogue of cosmic calamity carries one last prize as the incipient interstellar insurrection is scrupulously diarised and knitted together from its scattered beginnings through extracts and snippets from a vast number of assorted comics issues collated by Michael Hoskin.
How it all began and where it will lead is diligently tracked via the sterling strip efforts of writers Carlos Pacheco, Rafael Marin, David Hine, Paul Jenkins, Sean McKeever, Andy Schmidt, Joe Pokaski, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Greg Pak, Abnett, Lanning & Yost with the appropriate and stunning visual accompaniments by Ladrönn, Jorge Pereira Lucas, Irving, Jae Lee, Matthew Clark, Roy Allan Martinez, Tom Raney, Jim Cheung, Alex, Maleev, Trevor Hairsine, Billy Tan, Adi Granov, John Romita Jr., Weaver, Wellington Alves & Pelletier to form a mosaic of data vital to further progress whether you’re a Marvel die-hard or callow comic neophyte.
Sprawling, epic and remarkably engaging, if you’re into cosmic conflagration this is a splendid starting point for a grand adventure…
© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.
By Geoff Johns, Jerry Ordway (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2531-5
After the actual invention of the superhero – which means Superman in 1938 – the most significant event in the genre’s (and indeed industry’s) progress was the combination of individual stars into a group. Thus what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven: a number of popular characters could multiply readership by combining forces and fan-bases. Plus, of course, a whole bunch of superheroes is a lot cooler than just one – or even one and a sidekick.
The Justice Society of America was debuted in the third issue of All-Star Comics (Winter 1940-1941), a communal anthology title featuring established characters from various National and All-American Comics publications. The groundbreaking landmark was instigated by the simple expedient of having assorted heroes gather around a table and tell each other their latest adventure.
From this low key collaboration it wasn’t long before the guys – and they were all white guys (except Red Tornado: a woman who merely pretended to be one) – regularly joined forces to defeat the greatest villains and social ills of their generation. Within months the blockbusting concept had spread far and wide…
And so the Justice Society of America is rightly revered as a milestone in the development of comicbooks. When Julius Schwartz resurrected the superhero genre in the late 1950s, his game-changing moment came with the inevitable teaming of the reconfigured mystery men into a modern Justice League of America.
From there it wasn’t too long before the original and genuine article returned. Since then there were many attempts to formally revive the team’s fortunes but it wasn’t until 1999, on the back of both the highly successful rebooting of the JLA by Grant Morrison & Howard Porter and the seminal but critically favoured new Starman series by Golden Age devotee James Robinson, that the multi-generational team found a new mission and fan-base big enough to support them.
As the century turned the original super-team returned and have been with us in one form or another ever since.
This iteration, called to order after mega crossover events Infinite Crisis and Identity Crisis, found the last surviving heroes of World War II acting as mentors and teachers for the latest generation of young champions and metahuman “legacy-heroes†(family successors or inheritors of departed champions’ powers or code-names).
Such a large, cumbersome but worthy assemblage of raw talent, uneasy exuberance and weary hard-earned experience (for details see Justice Society of America: the Next Age and Justice League of America: The Lightning Saga) can certainly do with some help, and this turbulent tomes collects issues #23-28 of Justice Society of America (volume 3, spanning March – August 2009): finding the august body closing one era whilst nervously embarking upon the next.
Once upon a time Billy Batson was a little boy living on the streets of Fawcett City. His archaeologist parents left him with his uncle when they went on a dig to Egypt. They never returned, his little sister vanished and he was thrown out when his guardian stole his inheritance.
Sleeping in a storm drain, selling newspapers for cash, the indomitable lad grew street-smart and resilient, but when a shadowy stranger bade him follow into an eerie subway, the boy somehow knew it was all okay. Soon after, he met the wizard Shazam and gained the powers of six ancient Gods and Heroes.
Thus began an astounding career as wholesome powerhouse hero Captain Marvel. Billy eventually found his lost sister Mary and shared his nigh-infinite power with her, as they both subsequently did with disabled friend Freddy Freeman.
They battled but eventually reached an accommodation with militant progenitor Black Adam, the wizard’s first superhuman champion who had been reborn in the body of Theo Adam – the man who murdered the Batsons’ parents. However when a succession of crises arose, everything changed. Immortal Shazam was murdered, Billy was exiled to the transcendent Rock of Eternity as his replacement and Freddy became a new Captain Marvel; his mighty gifts supplied by a completely different pantheon of patrons.
Black Adam had found peace and redemption in the love of ascendant nature goddess Isis until she was cruelly taken from him but the worst tragedies befell poor Mary. Deprived of her intoxicating powers she found herself an addict without a fix… until soul-sick Adam shared his dark energies with her. His corrupted spirit fatally tainted the once-vibrant innocent…
The saga resumes here with wrap-up epic ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’ (by scripters Geoff Johns & Jerry Ordway with Ordway & Bob Wiacek supplying the artwork), commencing with ‘The Power of Shazam’ as Adam finds his beloved Isis has been resurrected by sorcerer Felix Faust and turned into his helpless plaything…
Whilst he is savagely saving his revenant inamorata from the mage’s vile clutches, far away in the JSA’s brownstone HQ, the rifts caused by the recent war against space god Gog result in hothead Hawkman quitting in fury over doctrinal issues and how best to train the next generation.
The remaining first rank of heroes continue doggedly debating the way forward as, outside, recent additions fear for their place on the team and beyond time and space Billy the wizard’s tedious monitoring of reality is interrupted by a surprise attack.
Despite a desperate struggle he soon falls to Black Adam and an eerily reborn Isis, who somehow has lost every ounce of the vast compassion and understanding she once embodied, but none of her shattering power…
Stripped of his magical might and adult frame, the terrified boy Billy is ignominiously dumped back on Earth whilst Isis plans her next step and faithful Adam begins to fear that he has made a horrific mistake…
‘Family Ties’ sees indomitable Billy begin the fight back by convincing an extremely dubious JSA to join him in a trip to the Rock of Eternity. The rescue mission first entails sharing his outrageous origins with the adults, backed up by confirmation from teenager Stargirl who has long known Billy’s secrets.
By the time the contingent of champions arrives, Isis has “adopted†Mary Batson – still polluted with Black Adam’s contaminated powers – as she pushes forward her operation to “fix†the world.
In a blistering blitz attack the JSA are separated: the bulk of the team barely surviving Adam’s frenzied assault, Billy and Stargirl cruelly targeted for torture by Black Mary and elder Flash Jay Garrick lured away by the ghost of Billy’s father…
The frantic furore ends in ‘Family Feud’ as Mary forces her powerless brother to share her debauched and corrupting energies, mutating into psychotic deviant Black Billy. The deadly Adam family then translates back to Earth and their former homeland Khandaq – where the global pariah and his bride are worshipped as messiahs – with the battered but determined JLA hot on their heels.
Flash and Mr. Batson (Deceased) have meanwhile traversed the most dangerous corridors of infinity (but not without consequences that will later threaten the world) to reawaken the only being capable of ending the accelerating cosmic catastrophe, but as the trio speed to Kahndaq the situation has again shifted.
The game-changing moment occurred when Isis casually eradicated her devoted human worshippers and revealed to her shocked husband that her intent is to scour Earth of all life and repopulate with beings of her own making…
By the time Jay arrives with a literal Deus ex Machina in his wake, Adam has repented and switched sides, but that makes no difference to the apocalyptic fury of the world’s enraged deliverer…
Following that tragic and spectacular clash a semblance of normality takes hold in heart-warming “day in the life†tale ‘Black Adam Ruined my Birthday’ (by Johns, Dale Eaglesham & Nathan Massengill) as Stargirl Courtney Whitmore is ambushed with a belated sixteenth birthday party and gets her most fervent wish granted… almost…
Ordway & Wiacek return for one last blast from the past in ‘Ghosts in the Darkness’ as the many-handed team are attacked by a horde of disposed and extremely angry sprits who breach the brownstone’s esoteric, ebon defences to hijack Flash, Green Lantern, Wildcat, Liberty Bell and Hourman.
The shanghaied stalwarts soon discover they have fetched up in Hiroshima moments before that fateful atomic bombing…
With the ghosts revealed to have been manipulated by a Machiavellian old foe, the saga shockingly concludes with a cunning doublecross and sneaky twist, even after nigh-omnipotent former JSAer The Spectre takes relative new kids on the block Power Girl, Damage, Atom Smasher and Judomaster on a time-busting rescue mission against the ‘Phantom Menace’…
Tipped in as an added bonus is a doom-laden recap of past glories and upcoming tragedies in a trenchant Origins and Omens strip-vignette courtesy of Matthew Sturges & Fernando Pasarin, deftly laying the groundwork for the horrors to come in forthcoming adventures…
Even with covers, variants and celebratory triptychs by Alex Ross, Ordway & Wiacek, this in one more blockbusting epic that will be all but unreadable to anyone not deeply immersed in the complex continuity of DC’s last three decades, which is a real shame as the writing is superb, the artwork incredible and the sheer scope and ambition breathtaking.
Nevertheless, if you love Fights ‘n’ Tights cosmic melodrama and are prepared to do a little reading around then you might find yourself with a whole new universe to play in…
© 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.
By Mike W. Barr & Jerry Bingham (DC Comics)
ISBNs: 0-930289-24-2 (original hardcover), 978-0930289256 (2003 trade paper)
Debuting twelve months after Superman, “The Bat-Man†(joined within a year by Robin, the Boy Wonder) cemented DC/National Comics as the market and conceptual leader of the burgeoning comicbook industry.
Having established the scope and parameters of the metahuman with their Man of Tomorrow, the magnificently mortal physical perfection and dashing derring-do of the human-scaled adventures starring the Dynamic Duo rapidly became the swashbuckling benchmark by which all four-colour crimebusters were judged.
Batman is in many ways the ultimate superhero: uniquely adaptable and able to work in any type or genre of story – as is clearly evident from the plethora of vintage tales collected in so many captivating volumes over the years.
One the most well-mined periods is the moody 1970-1980s era when the Caped Crusader was re-tooled in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, becoming a driven – but still level-headed – deeply rational Manhunter, rather than the dark, out-of-control paranoid of later days or the costumed boy-scout of the “Campâ€-crazed Sixties.
There had been many “Most Important Batman†stories over the long decades since his launch in 1939 but very few had the resounding impact of this pioneering album from 1987, capping a period when DC were creatively on fire and could do no wrong commercially.
Not only did the tale add new depth to the Dark Knight, but the package itself – oversized (294 x 226 mm), on high-quality paper and available in both hardback and softcover editions – helped kickstart the fledgling graphic novel marketplace. In 2006 to tie in with Grant Morrison’s unfolding Batman and Son storyline, a standard comicbook sized trade paperback edition was reissued, but deprived of the panoramic size it seemed somehow lacking…
The hardcover opens with an Introduction by Mark Hamill, illustrated with beautiful pencil character sketches by Jerry Bingham, whose dynamic, cleanly measured realism perfectly augments the terse and suspenseful script by author Mike W. Barr which follows…
The torrid tale begins as the Dark Knight ends a brutal terrorist/hostage crisis with typical efficiency and vanishes before anyone can see how the uncompromising clash has wounded him…
Collapsing on the way back to his subterranean lair, Bruce Wayne is astonished to awaken in his own bed, his wounds bandaged. Hovering over him is Talia, daughter of his most powerful enemy…
The concept of a villain who has the best interests of the planet at heart is not a new one, but Ra’s Al Ghul, whose avowed intent is to cull teeming humanity back to ecologically viable levels and save Earth from mankind’s poisonous polluting madness, hit a chord in the 1970s – a period where such issues first came to the attention of the young.
It was a rare kid who didn’t find a core of good sense in what “the Demon’s Head†planned.
Immortal mastermind and eco-activist Al Ghul was a contemporary and presumably more acceptable visual embodiment of the classic inscrutable foreign devil typified in a less forgiving age as the “Yellow Peril†and most famously embodied in Dr. Fu Manchu. This kind of alien archetype had permeated fiction for more than sixty years and is still an overwhelmingly potent villain symbol today, although the character’s Arabic origins, neutral at the time, seem to embody a different kind of ethnic bogeyman in today’s post 9/11 world.
Possessed of vast resources, an army of zealots and every inch Batman’s physical and mental match, Ra’s Al Ghul featured in many of the greatest stories of the 1970s and early 1980s. He had easily deduced the Caped Crusader’s secret identity and now wanted his masked adversary to become his ally… and son-in-law.
Talia explains to the wary manhunter how his latest exploit has brought him into conflict with one of her father’s greatest enemies, a murderous fanatic named Qayin. The plot thickens when Batman’s old ally Dr. Harris Blaine (who helped him defeat Ra’s in the Dark Knight’s first epochal clash with the eco-messiah) is murdered and all the evidence points to Al Ghul, despite Talia’s strenuous protests.
Batman boldly accepts her invitation to join The Demon’s Head at his secret base and soon learns the incredible truth: Qayin had once been part of Ra’s’ inner circle before killing Talia’s mother and fleeing. Over the decades he has evolved into a murderous, power-hungry madman whose current plans include blackmailing the world using satellites to weaponise the planet’s weather systems.
However, if Batman wants The Demon’s help in finding Blaine’s killer and ending Qayin’s threat, he must first wed Talia and wholeheartedly join the family…
The moody manhunter acquiesces but after Bruce and the Mrs lead a savage but ultimately futile strike against their nemesis and his allies in the rogue state of Golatia, the Batman receives some shocking news: Talia is pregnant…
The revelation completely skews the once-solitary manhunter’s perspective and when Qayin responds with a brutal counterstrike on Ra’s’ HQ, Batman’s obvious distraction almost costs his life. Seeing how the situation has changed and weakened her man, Talia comes to a horrific decision…
As the war between Al Ghul, Qayin and Batman escalates, encompassing the USA and Soviet Union and nearly sparking nuclear Armageddon, the final showdown with the merciless meteorological terror-monger provokes life-changing decisions for both the daughter and son of the Demon and forces Ra’s into making a choice he will always regret…
As deeply emotional as it is action packed, this stunning yarn is one of the most sophisticated and mature tales in Batman’s canon: intelligent, passionate, tragic and carrying a devious twist to delight and confound fans and casual readers alike.
© 1987, 2006 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
By Tome & Janry, colour by Stephane De Becker & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-248-5
For the majority of English-speaking comics readers Spirou might be Europe’s biggest secret. The phenomenally long-lived character was a rough contemporary – and shrewdly calculated commercial response – to Hergé’s globally popular Tintin, whilst the fun-filled periodical he has headlined for decades is only beaten in sheer longevity and manic creativity by our own Beano.
Conceived in 1936 at Belgian Printing House Éditions Dupuis by boss-man Jean Dupuis, the proposed new enterprise homed in on juvenile audiences and launched on April 21st 1938; debuting neatly between DC Thomson’s The Dandy (4th December 1937) and The Beano (July 30th 1938) in the UK.
In America at that time a small comicbook publisher was preparing to release a new anthology entitled Action Comics. Ah, good times…
Spirou the publication was to be edited by 19 year-old Charles Dupuis and derived its name from the lead feature, which related improbable adventures of a plucky bellboy and lift operator employed at the glamorous Moustique Hotel (an in-joke reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique).
Spirou the hero – whose name translates as both “squirrel†and “mischievous†in the Walloon language – was first realised by French cartoonist François Robert Velter under his pen-name Rob-Vel to counter the runaway success of Hergé’s carrot-topped boy reporter. Tintin had been a certified money-spinning phenomenon for rival publisher Casterman ever since his own launch on January 10th 1929 in Le Petit Vingtième, the kids’ supplement to Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle.
Spirou magazine premiered with the plucky bellboy and his pet squirrel Spip as the headliners in a weekly anthology which bears his name to this day; featuring fast-paced, improbable incidents which eventually evolved into high-flying, surreal comedy dramas.
Spirou and his pals have spearheaded the magazine for most of its life, with a phalanx of major creators carrying on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine†Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939.
She was aided by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943 when Dupuis purchased all rights to the feature, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (“Jijéâ€) took over. In 1944 he introduced Fantasio as Spirou’s new best friend and companion-in-adventure: a blonde headed reporter with a quick temper, uncontrolled imagination and penchant for finding trouble.
In 1946 Jijé‘s assistant André Franquin assumed the reins, slowly sidelining the shorter, gag-like vignettes in favour of extended light-hearted adventure serials whilst introducing a wide and engaging cast of regulars.
He was succeeded by Jean-Claude Fournier who updated the feature over the course of nine stirring adventures that tapped into the rebellious, relevant zeitgeist of the times with tales of environmental concern, nuclear energy, drug cartels and repressive regimes.
By the 1980s the series seemed outdated and without direction so three different creative teams were commissioned to alternate on the serial, until settling at last upon Philippe Vandevelde writing as Tome and artist Jean-Richard Geurts AKA Janry.
Their winning approach was to carefully adapt, reference and, in many ways, return to the beloved Franquin era. These sterling efforts consequently revived the floundering feature’s fortunes, resulting in fourteen wonderful albums between 1984 and 1998.
This one, originally entitled Vito la Déveine from 1991, was their 11th collaboration and the 43rd collected exploit of the tireless wanderers, whose exploits have filled more than sixty albums, specials and spin-off collections.
With the customary cavalcade of gags soft-pedalled in favour of scintillating suspense and riotous action this tale commences with former Mafia mastermind Don Vito “Lucky†Cortizone (last seen in Spirou & Fantasio in New York and now known as “Tough Luck Vitoâ€) attacking his shady pilot Von Schnabbel after the unprincipled scoundrel tries to gouge the gangster for more money.
This is very bad idea as they are currently flying over the Pacific Ocean, ferrying the Don’s enigmatic “get-rich-again-quick†cargo, brazenly swiped from the Chinese Triads…
After kicking the conniving extortionist out of the plane, the infuriated Mafiosi is unable to prevent the craft crashing into a lagoon on a deserted atoll. At least there’s an abandoned hotel to shelter in and plenty of crabs to eat…
Months later Spirou and Fantasio are navigating stormy seas nearby in a sailing boat. Well, one of them is: Fantasio is too depressed and heartbroken over a girl he met in Tahiti to be of any use.
She was far more interested in the guy who rented them the good ship Antares and now the journalist is pining away his tragic existence, a soul-shattered, broken man…
As a result of the tropical typhoon the vessel is soon in a similar condition and barely limps into the shaded waters of an isolated lagoon. The shaken mariners are astounded to find the lovely isle surrounding it has a population of one: a ragged, skinny guy with a weird accent, hungry for food and companionship.
Physically Vito is unrecognisable and as the vessel limps into the sheltered, shark-infested waters he makes his plans to kill whoever’s aboard and sail away. As he laces the lush vegetation with deadly traps and pitfalls he thinks only of coming back and retrieving his precious cargo from the ocean floor.
Those plans swiftly alter when he realises that his rescuers are the interfering whelps who cost him his criminal empire…
They alter again after he walks into one of his own booby-traps and Spirou and Fantasio come to his aid. The do-gooders have no idea who he is and take him back to their boat to recuperate. Spirou even offers to dive down to the plane wreck and retrieve his cargo whilst they’re repairing the Antares’ damaged rudder…
Everything seems to be turning around for the hard-luck kid, but as he gorges on the ship’s stores and shaves, he soon starts to resume his former appearance and, after his first attempt to murder Spirou fails, the duplicitous Don opts for a more subtle revenge…
Drugging the sharp-witted red-haired lad, he then tells Fantasio who he is but claims his privations have made him a new, repentant and changed man. With Spirou apparently bedridden by “tropical feverâ€, Vito has the utterly gulled reporter finish salvaging the cargo in search of a spurious antidote supposedly packed in one of the sunken crates.
After all there’s plenty of time to kill them both once Vito has all his precious loot back…
Naturally things don’t quite work as he intended, but before our heroes can properly turn the tables on Tough Luck Vito, fate proves the aptness of his nickname when Von Schnabbel and the extremely put out original owners of the contentious cargo turn up, hungry for vengeance and not too worried about the odd case of collateral damage…
Swiftly switching from tense suspense to all out action, events spiral out of control and our now fully recovered heroes only need the right moment to make their move…
This kind of lightly-barbed, keenly-conceived, fun thriller is a sheer joy in an arena far too full of adults-only carnage, testosterone-fuelled breast-beating, teen-romance monsters or sickly sweet fantasy. Readily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with all the beguiling style and seductively wholesome élan which makes Asterix, Lucky Luke and their ilk so compelling, this is another cracking read from a series with a stunning pedigree of superb exploits; one certain to be as much a household name as those series, and even that other pesky red-headed kid with the white dog…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1991 by Tome & Janry. All rights reserved. English translation 2015 © Cinebook Ltd.
By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Edmond Hamilton, Jerry Coleman, David Wood, France Herron, Sheldon Moldoff, Lew Sayre Schwartz, Dick Sprang, Curt Swan & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2791-3
There’s a lot of truly splendid 1940s and 1950s comics material around these days in a lot of impressive formats. DC’s Classics Comics Library hardbacks are a remarkably accessible, collectible range of products and one of the best is this wonderful aggregation of four of the most influential and beloved comicbooks of the Silver Age of American comicbooks.
Batman Annual #1 was released in June 1961, a year after the phenomenally successful Superman Annual #1. The big, bold anthology format was hugely popular with readers. The Man of Steel’s second Annual was rushed out before Christmas and the third came out a mere year after the first. That same month the first Secret Origins compilation and the aforementioned Batman Blockbuster all arrived in shops and on newsstands.
It’s probably hard to appreciate now but those huge books – 80 pages instead of 32 and practically no advertising – were a magical resource with a colossal impact for kids who loved comics. I don’t mean the ubiquitous scruffs, oiks and scallywags of school days who read casually then chucked them away (most kids were comics consumers in the days before computer games) but rather those quiet, secretive few of us who treasured and kept them, constantly re-reading, discussing, pondering, even making our own.
Only posh kids with wicked parents read no comics at all: those prissy, starchy types who were beaten up by the scruffs, oiks and scallywags even more than us bookworms. But I digress…
For budding collectors the Annuals were a gateway to a fabulous lost past. Just Imagine!: adventures your heroes had from before you were even born…
Those fantastic innovative aggregations in the early 1960s changed comics publishing. Soon Marvel, Charlton and Archie were also releasing giant books of old stories, then came new ones, crossovers, continued stories…
Annuals proved two things to publishers: that there was a dedicated, long-term appetite for more material – and that punters were willing to pay a little bit more for it…
This hardback compendium gathers Batman Annuals #4-7 from (1963-1966) in their mythic entirety: 33 terrific complete stories, stunning pin-ups and those magnificently iconic compartmentalized covers. Also included are original publication details and credits (the only bad thing about those big books of magic was never knowing “Who†and “Whereâ€â€¦), creator biographies and another reminiscing Introduction from Michael Uslan, putting the entire nostalgic experience into perspective
Way back then the editors sagely packaged Annuals as themed collections, the first here being ‘The Secret Adventures of Batman and Robin’ (released November 8th 1962) which started the ball rolling with ‘The First Batman’ (by Bill Finger & Sheldon Moldoff and originally seen in Detective Comics #235, September 1956): a key story of this period which introduced a strong psychological component to Batman’s origins, disclosing how when Bruce Wayne was still a toddler his father had clashed with gangsters whilst clad in a fancy dress bat costume…
‘Am I Really Batman?’ (Finger, Moldoff & Charles Paris, Batman #112, December 1957) saw bona fide mad scientist Professor Milo poison the hero with a rare plant, forcing Robin and Alfred to put the Masked Manhunter through a baffling psychological ordeal to counteract the toxin…
Today fans are pretty used to a vast battalion of bat-themed champions haunting Gotham City and its troubled environs, but for the longest time it was just Bruce, Dick Grayson and occasionally their borrowed dog Ace keeping crime on the run. However in Detective Comics #233 (July 1956, three months before the debut of the Flash officially ushered in the Silver Age) the editorial powers-that-be introduced bold heiress Kathy Kane, who incessantly suited-up in chiropteran red and yellow for the next eight years.
‘Origin of the Batwoman’ by Edmond Hamilton, Moldoff & Paris premiered with the former circus acrobat bursting into Batman’s life, challenging him to discover her secret identity at the risk of exposing his own…
The Boy Wonder began very publicly working solo after ‘The Vanished Batman’ (Hamilton, Moldoff & Paris or Stan Kaye, from Batman #101, August 1956) saw the Gotham Gangbuster declared dead and presumed gone by the underworld whilst ‘The Phantom of the Bat-Cave’ (Hamilton, Moldoff & Paris, Batman #99, April 1956) offered a genuine mystery as persons unknown began somehow stealing and replacing items from the heroes’ sacrosanct trophy room…
‘Batman’s College Days’ (Finger, Moldoff & Paris, Batman #96, December 1955) found Bruce Wayne on a sea cruise with three fellow alumni, one of whom planned murder and had deduced his alter ego, after which ‘The Marriage of Batman and Batwoman’ (Finger, Moldoff & Ray Burnley, Batman #122, March 1959) depicted Robin’s nightmares should such a nuptial event occur whereas ‘The Second Boy Wonder’ (France Herron, Moldoff & Burnley, Batman #105, February 1957) was all too real as a stranger apparently infiltrated the Batcave by impersonating the kid crimebuster…
The Annual ended with ‘The Man who Ended Batman’s Career’ (Finger, Moldoff & Paris from Detective Comics #247, September 1957) which presented a significantly different-looking Professor Milo using psychological warfare and scientific mind-control to attack the Dark Knight by inducing a fear of bats…
The next Annual, released in summer 1963, highlighted ‘The Strange Lives of Batman and Robin’ and opened with ‘The Power that Doomed Batman’ (Finger, Moldoff & Paris, Detective Comics #268 June 1959) as exposure to a comet gifted the Dark Knight with super-strength. Sadly the effect was also cumulatively fatal and forced the heroes into a desperate hunt for a missing man who possessed a cure…
The same creative team dredged up ‘The Merman Batman’ (Batman #118, September 1958) wherein an lightning strike transformed the Caped crimebuster into a water-breather, aroused ‘Rip Van Batman’ (Batman #119, October 1958) who fell into a plant-induced coma to seemingly awake in the future and corralled ‘The Zebra Batman’ (Detective Comics #275, January 1960) when the hero was turned into an uncontrollable human magnet…
‘The Grown-Up Boy Wonder’ (Finger, Moldoff & Stan Kaye, Batman #107, April 1957) detailed what happens when space gas turned the likely lad into a strapping young man – but only in body, not mind – after which World’s Finest Comics #109, from May 1960, revealed Robin and Superman‘s tense race to save the Gotham Guardian from an ancient curse in ‘The Bewitched Batman’ by Jerry Coleman, Curt Swan & Moldoff.
‘The Phantom Batman’ (Hamilton, Dick Sprang & Paris, Batman #110, September 1957 showed how an electrical mishap reversed the polarity of the Caped Crusader’s atoms, relegating him to helpless intangibility, and the uncanny yarns end with ‘The Giant Batman’ (from Detective Comics #243 May 1957, by the same team and originally entitled “Batman the Giant!â€).
Here the hero was exposed to a well-meaning scientist’s “Maximizer†ray and grew too large to catch the thieves who stole it and the antidote…
Six months later saw publication of Batman Annual #6 (Winter 1963-1964) featuring ‘Batman and Robin’s Most Thrilling Mystery Cases’ which kicked off with ‘Murder at Mystery Castle’ (Finger, Moldoff & Paris, Detective Comics #246 August 1957) as visitors – Batman and Robin included – to a reconstructed medieval fortress witnessed a devilish remote control killing and had to deduce who set the fiendish trap…
‘The Gotham City Safari’ (Finger, Moldoff & Paris Batman #111, October 1957) saw the Dynamic Duo hunting a hidden killer through a fabulous theme-park of exotic locales whilst ‘The Mystery of the Sky Museum’ (Hamilton, Moldoff & Paris, Batman #94, September 1955) found them at an aviation museum on the trail of sinister smugglers.
‘The Mystery of the Four Batmen’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Paris Batman #88, December 1954) was a seagoing enigma with the Partners in Peril seeking a mysterious smuggler with a tenuous connection to bats in one form or another, after which a movie monster made trouble on location, compelling the crimebusting champions to tackle ‘The Creature from the Green Lagoon’ (David Wood, Moldoff & Paris Detective Comics #252 February 1958)…
A stunning chase to expose a killer searching for a lost golden hoard involved solving ‘The Map of Mystery’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Paris, Batman #91, April 1955), whilst a disgruntled family member seemingly threatened to kill every member of ‘The Danger Club’ (Hamilton, Lew Sayre Schwartz & Paris, Batman #76, April/May 1953).
The astounding sleuthing ceases after uncovering ‘Doom in Dinosaur Hall’ (Finger, Moldoff & Paris, Detective Comics #255 May 1958) where the curator’s murder at the Gotham’s Mechanical Museum of Natural History led to a fantastic chase and a surprise culprit…
Summer 1964 produced Batman Annual #7 and ‘Thrilling Adventures of the Whole Batman Family’ beginning with the introduction of the Gotham Guardian’s most controversial “partner†– a pestiferous, prank-playing extra-dimensional elf – in ‘Batman Meets Bat-Mite’ by Finger, Moldoff & Paris from Detective Comics #267 May 1959) after which the eponymous masked dog Ace narrates ‘The Secret Life of Bat-Hound’ (Finger, Moldoff & Paris, Batman #125, August 1959) and his part in capturing the nefarious Midas Gang…
Finger, Moldoff & Paris enlarged the fictitious family in Batman #139 (April 1961), ‘Introducing Bat-Girl’ as Kathy Kane’s niece Betty began dressing up and acting out as her unwanted assistant, eventually proving adults and boys wrong by taking down the deadly King Cobra and his crew, after which Hamilton wrote the only adventure of ‘The Dynamic Trio’ (Detective Comics #245 July 1957), with a very old friend donning cape and cowl as Mysteryman to help combat a smuggling ring facilitating the escape of Gotham’s fugitives.
Courtesy of Finger, Moldoff & Paris, faithful manservant Alfred personally revealed an early failure and its shocking resolution in ‘The Secret of Batman’s Butler’ (Batman #110, September 1957) before ‘The New Team of Superman and Robin’ (Finger, Swan & Moldoff, World’s Finest Comics # 75, March/April 1955) revealed how a disabled Batman could only fret and fume as his erstwhile assistant seemingly dumped him for a better man…
When Bat-Mite elected himself ‘Batwoman’s Publicity Agent’ (Finger & Moldoff, Batman #133, August 1960) the result was naturally chaos and unbridled craziness but not as much as the “Imaginary Story†devised by Alfred debuting ‘The Second Batman and Robin Team’ (Finger, Moldoff & Paris, Batman #131, April 1960) which would inevitably emerge after Bruce and Kathy wed and Dick assumed the mantle of the bat…
Moldoff’s unforgettable back page pin-up ‘Greetings from the Batman Family’ then wraps this final glimpse at simpler, weirder times.
Strange, addictive and still potently engrossing, these weird wonder tales typify a lost time of gentler danger, more wholesome evil and irresistible fun. They’re also impossibly compelling, incredibly illustrated and undeniably influential. A perfect treat for young and old alike.
© 1962, 1963, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.
By Mike Carey, Paul Davidson, Harvey Tolibao, Jorge Molina, Rafa Sandoval, Sandu Florea, Craig Yeung & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5636-9
Since its creation in 1963 and triumphant revival in 1975, Marvel’s Mutant franchise has grown into an almighty engine for telling all manner of stories and tackling a host of social issues, so it’s nice to see one that falls back on the basics and simply addresses the prime directive of superhero comics: beat the bad guys, mash the monsters and save the day. Of course with the X-Men nothing is ever that straightforward…
Written throughout by Mike Carey, this particular collection gathers X-Men Legacy #242-244 and 248-249 (released between November 2010 and May 2011), neatly bridging one of those incessantly periodic crossover events to relate small tales of everyday strangeness…
At this point in time, the evolutionary offshoot dubbed Homo Sapiens Superior is at its lowest ebb. As seen in the House of M and Decimation storylines, Scarlet Witch Wanda Maximoff – ravaged by madness and her own reality-warping power – had reduced the world’s multi-million plus mutant population to a couple of hundred individuals with three simple words… “No More Mutantsâ€â€¦
In the wake of this horrific reduction in numbers, Earth’s remaining Children of the Atom relocated to an island off San Francisco, only to be mercilessly targeted by super-Sentinel Bastion who attacked both their enclave of Utopia and the human city surrounding it in response to the birth of the first new mutant, Hope Summers…
It all begins here with the two-part ‘Fables of the Reconstruction’ (illustrated by Paul Davidson) as young psionic Hellion is undergoing therapy. He’s reacting badly to the robotic hands he’s been beta-testing ever since Bastion took his real ones.
They work fine but the young man is barely suppressing a lot of unexpressed anger over his maiming…
With regular remedies not working, leader of the X-nation Cyclops includes him in the squads of mutants assisting in the reconstruction of San Francisco but events spiral hopelessly out of control when the last vestiges of Bastion’s programming turns cyborg ally Karima Shapandar into a marauding Omega Sentinel hell-bent on destroying them all.
With all her friends fighting at less than their best, desperately trying to save the decent human within, only deeply-traumatised Hellion seems capable of acting decisively. But why did he go so far and how did he get so powerful…?
Following those shocking events, ‘None So Blind’ then focuses on telepathic precognitive Ruth “Blindfold†Aldine who is the only one to notice that something is abducting mutants right off Utopia Island. She’s used to being ignored, however, so sets off to find the threat on her own.
Good thing Rogue and mutant machine-smith Madison Jeffries decided to check up on her wacky theory of a transdimensional trapdoor spider…
Chronologically the events of the apocalyptic ‘Age of X’ follow – neatly fitting into their own trade paperback which I’ll get to one day – before the day-to-day dramas resume here with all the psychically-scarred mutant warriors re-evaluating their lives following a week in an alternate world that was the best and worst of all possible worlds…
Back in our reality but all deeply dosed in PTSD, the heroes are all trying to come to grips with revelations of their own dark inner demons in the first part of ‘Aftermath’ (with art by Jorge Molina, Craig Yeung & Pat Davidson) when mutant elder statesman Magneto shares with Rogue a story of his childhood in Nazi concentration camps…
The ferocious self-assessments they and others such as former thief Gambit and reformed villain Frenzy undergo in the concluding chapter – illustrated by Rafa Sandoval – will forever change the way the X-nation is perceived by humanity…
With covers by Leinil Francis Yu, Joy Ang, Mico Suayan and Marte Gracia plus information pages on Blindfold, Hellion and the Omega Sentinel this slim, stirring, compelling Fights ‘n’ Tights tome is a superb example of how, even in comicbooks, might makes right.
© 2010, 2011, 2012 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.