Graphic Novels – Page 130

June 11, 2015September 3, 2017

Valerian and Laureline book 9: ChÃ¢telet Station Destination Cassiopeia

By MÃ©ziÃ©res & Christin, with colours by E. TranlÃ©; translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-244-7

ValÃ©rian and Laureline is the most influential science fiction comics series ever created; witty, passionate, wry and jam-packed with stunning and disturbing ideas rendered in a hypnotic, addictive, truer-than-life art style that is impossible to resist.

ValÃ©rian: Spatio-Temporal Agent debuted in Pilote #420 (November 9th 1967) and was an instant hit. It gradually evolved intoÂ Valerian and LaurelineÂ as his rowdy red-headed female sidekick developed into an equal partner â€“ and eventually scene-stealing star â€“ in an intoxicating succession of light-hearted, fantastically imaginative, visually stunning, time-travelling, space-warping socially aware epics.

The so-sophisticated series always had room to propound a satirical, humanist ideology and agenda, launching telling fusillades of political commentary and social satire to underpin an astounding cascade of visionary space operas.

At first tough, bluff, taciturn, affably capable, unimaginative, by-the-book space cop Valerian just did his job: tasked with protecting official universal chronology (at least as per Terran Empire standards), he countered any paradoxes precipitated by incautious time-travellers.

When he fetched up in 11^th century France during debut tale ‘Les Mauvais RÃªves (‘Bad Dreams’, and infuriatingly still not translated into English), he was saved from inevitable doom by a capable young woman named Laureline. In gratitude he brought her back to the 28^th century super-citadel and administrative capital, Galaxity, where the feisty firebrand took a crash course in spatiotemporal ops before accompanying him on his cases.

The opening shot in the series’ first truly extended saga, ChÃ¢telet Station Destination Cassiopeia, was originally serialised in the monthly Pilote (issues #M47 to M50, 21st March to June 27th 1978) before being collected later that year as eighth album MÃ©tro ChÃ¢telet Direction CassiopÃ©e. The story concluded in follow-up album Brooklyn Line Terminus Cosmos â€“ which I’ll get to, once it’s published at the end of summerâ€¦

It all begins with the partners far apart in time and space. Laureline pensively voyages to the fabulous Cassiopeia system, for once enjoying the many wonders of space as she travels at sub-light speed through the phenomenally populous yet cosmically fragile region.

Her journey to Solum is broken up by many stopovers as she gradually gathers snippets of gossip which cohere to reveal an unsettling trend: subtly voiced concerns that some merchants are pushing strange and dangerous technologies on buyers extremely unsuited to possess themâ€¦

Although separated by centuries and light-years, Laureline and Valerian are enjoying impossibly intimate contact. Thanks to Terran ingenuity â€“ and recent neurosurgeries â€“ the partners are telepathically linked and sharing information on the mission.

His mission is playing out in Paris in 1980 where he idly observes the variety of human types frequenting the cafÃ© he impatiently haunts; constantly reminded how little he knows or understands the people and history of his birthworld.

Things aren’t helped by the volubly affable, infuriatingly unrushed and always tardy Mr. Albert. Galaxity’s man in the moment is a sort of human X-Files: investigating, sifting and collating incalculable amounts of data on everything fringe, strange or whacky which occurs in the 20^th century he has adopted as a home-away-from-home.

Breaking contact with Laureline, Valerian learns from the verbose nerd that appalling, monstrous manifestations have been terrorising the world and now this city’s subway system. Sensing action at last, the impulsive hero rushes to the site of the latest occurrence, abandoning Albert to follow up on something which has piqued his scholarly curiosity. Both are blithely unaware that a suspect band of not-so-ordinary Parisians with similar interests are mere metres ahead of them.

What Valerian confronts is a horrific thing out of the inferno, but even it is not immune to the futuristic weaponry he’s carrying in kit form. All he has to do is assemble it before being eatenâ€¦

In the aftermath Albert acts quickly to extract the wounded hero from hospital before doctors and cops start asking too many of the right questions. Later, over a luxurious dinner, the epicurean investigator shares a sheaf of files and clippings of monster and UFO sightings which only hint at why Valerian is stuck in a temporal backwater whilst his partner is covering the colossal Cassiopeia system aloneâ€¦

Synching up again later despite constant headaches, Valerian hears her tell of the incredible inhabitants of Solum and her candid interview with the living memory of the race as well as sundry other wonders before contact is explosively ended by a phone call from Albert warning him that he is being watchedâ€¦

After deftly dodging his tail Valerian receives a most distressing communication from Laureline. Her pleasant chat with the memory of Solum has uncovered news of a planet which long ago endured a similar plague of mysterious manifestations. It doesn’t exist anymoreâ€¦

Therefore she’s off to incomprehensibly vile universal garbage dump Zomuk in pursuit of another promising lead, but before Val can warn her to stay away from the junk world, mind-contact is lostâ€¦

At that 20^th century moment he and Mr. Albert are embarking on a bus ride to rural wetland idyll DoÃ«re-la RiviÃ¨re in search of marsh-monsters and dragons, only to surprisingly discover no accommodation available in the usually dead-in-the-off-season resort.

All rooms have been taken by scientists working for W.A.A.M (World American Advanced Machines): a mega-corporation in contention with the ubiquitous multinational Bellson & Gambler.

Both companies keep cropping up in Albert’s files of the weird and unexplainedâ€¦

Soon the mismatched spatio-temporal operatives are trudging through acres of misty mire, encountering young Jean-RenÃ© who offers to lead them to the infamous monster everybody is searching for.

When they find the Brobdingnagian beast, only Valerian’s disintegrator saves their lives. They quickly return to Albert’s paper-&-scrap-packed Paris flat, where the quirky researcher decides it’s time his impatient young colleague meets his secret source: a bizarre modern mystic and seer named Chatelard who cannily points out the affinities between the manifestations met so far and the classical ancient concept of The Four Elementsâ€¦

He also points out that one could call highly ranked corporate businessmen the â€œhidden high priests of today’s worldâ€, whilst mentioning that a pretty blonde woman from abroad recently offered him a lot of money for the same insightsâ€¦

Later, as Albert sifts through the precious papers, reviewing all he has on Bellson & Gambler, frantic Valerian finally re-establishes contact with Laureline, just as she concludes an epic struggle against ghastly odds and enters a hidden shrine to gaze upon fantastic representations of Four Elemental Forces which underpin the universeâ€¦

Once again contact is broken and in a petulant rage the astral adventurer storms out into the Parisian night. Utterly oblivious to the fact that he is being followed by enigmatic figures in an expensive automobile, he accepts a lift from a pretty girl in a sports-carâ€¦

To Be Concludedâ€¦

Bold, mind-boggling and moodily mysterious, this splendid change of pace accentuates the deadly dangers which underscore this astonishingly imaginative series; eschewing the usual concentration on witty japery and politico-philosophical trendiness in favour of mounting suspense, bubbling paranoia and stark suspense with mesmerising effect.

However, no matter how trenchant, barbed, culturally aware or ethically crusading, these tales never allow message to overshadow fun or entertainment and as ever MÃ©ziÃ©res & Christin leave their avid readers hungry for more â€¦

June 2, 2015June 1, 2015

Robin Archives volume 2

By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Win Mortimer, Jim Mooney & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2625-1

Created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger & Jerry Robinson, Robin the Boy Wonder debuted in Detective Comics #38 (April 1940), which introduced a juvenile circus acrobat whose parents were murdered by a mob boss.

The story of how Batman took the orphaned Dick Grayson under his scalloped wing and trained him to fight crime has been told, retold and revised many times over the decades and still regularly undergoes tweaking to this day.

In the original comics continuity Grayson fought beside his mentor until 1970 when, as an indicator of those turbulent times, he flew the nest, becoming a Teen Wonder, college student and eventually leader of a team of fellow sidekicks and young justice seekers – the Teen Titans.

He graduated to his own solo spot in the back of Detective Comics from the end of the 1960s, alternating with Batgirl, and held a similar spot throughout the 1970s in Batman. The college-based wonder won a starring feature in the anthology comic Batman Family and a run of Giant Detective Comics Dollar Comics before becoming a star all over again in the 1980s as leader of the New Teen Titans, first in his original costumed identity and eventually in the reinvented guise of Nightwing. He even re-established a turbulent working relationship with his dark, driven and dangerous former senior partner.

Robin’s creation as a junior hero for younger readers to identify with inspired an incomprehensible number of costumed kid crusaders and Grayson continues in similar innovative vein for the older, more worldly-wise readership of America’s increasingly rebellious contemporary youth cultureâ€¦ but his star potential was first realised much earlier in his eternally young careerâ€¦

From 1947 to 1952, (issues #65-130) Robin, the Boy Wonder had a solo series – and cover spot – in Star Spangled Comics at a time when the Golden Age superhero boom was fading, its gaudy bravos gradually being replaced by more traditional heroes in genres such as crime, westerns and boys’ adventure stories.

The exploits herein contained blended in-continuity action capers with more youth-oriented fare, frequently reducing adults Batman, Alfred and Commissioner Gordon to minor roles or rendering them entirely absent, allowing the kid crusader to display not just his physical accomplishments but also his brains, ingenuity and guts.

This second sturdy deluxe hardback Archive Edition re-presents more tales from Star Spangled #86-105 (covering November 1948 to June 1950) recapturing the dash, verve and universal appeal of one of fantasy literature’s greatest youth icons – albeit with a greater role for Batman – and opens with a fascinating Foreword by Bill Schelly who adds a layer of historical perspective and canny insight to the capers to come.

Every beautiful cover is included – although most of the later ones feature colonial-era frontier sensation Tomahawk – and are lovingly rendered by Jim Mooney, Win Mortimer, Charles Paris, Bob Kane and Fred Ray.

Although unverified, writers Bill Finger, Don Cameron, David Vern Reed and Jack Schiff are considered by most comics historians to be the authors of the stories in this volume and I’m going to happily concur here with that assessment until informed otherwise. Easier to ascertain is Mooney as penciller of almost all and inker of the majority, with other pencil and penmen credited as relevantâ€¦

The action-packed relatively carefree high jinks commence with Star Spangled Comics #86 and ‘The Barton Brothers!’ (inked by Win Mortimer, who remained until #90) as the Boy Wonder took up the lone vengeance trail to hunt down a trio of killers whose crime spree culminated in gunning down the mighty Batman, after which racketeer Benny Broot discovered he was related to the aristocracy and patterned all his subsequent vicious predations on medieval themes as ‘The Sinister Baron!’â€¦

Robin went AWOL in defiance of his mentor to clear the father of a schoolmate in ‘The Man Batman Refused to Help!’ but his good intentions in clearing the obviously framed felon almost upset a cunning plan to catch the real culprit, after which SSC #89 saw ingenious hoods get hold of ‘The Batman’s Utility Belt!’ and start selling customised knock-offs until the Dynamic Duo crushed the racket.

The murder of a geologist sent the partners in peril out west in #90 to solve ‘The Mystery of Rancho Fear!’, going undercover as itinerant cowboys to deal with a gang of extremely contemporary claim-jumpers whilst, with Mooney now handling all the art-chores, issue #91 found the Boy Wonder instigating a perplexing puzzle to stump his senior partner in ‘A Birthday for Batman!’

It would have all been the perfect gift if not for the genuine gangsters who stumbled upon the anniversary anticsâ€¦

The crimebusting kid played only a minor role in #92’s ‘Movie Hero No. 1’ wherein Batman surreptitiously replaced and eventually redeemed an action film actor who was a secret coward, but resumed star status in ‘The Riddle of the Sphinx!’ when a mute, masked mastermind seemingly murdered the Dark Knight and supplanted Gotham’s criminal top dog Red Mask.

Entertainment motifs abounded in those days and Star Spangled Comics #94 heralded ‘The End of Batman’ when the Dynamic Duo stumbled on a film company crating movie masterpieces tailored to the unique tastes and needs of America’s underworld after which greed and terror gripped the streets when a crook employed an ancient artefact to apparently transform objects – and even the Boy Wonder – to coldly glittering gold in #95’s ‘The Man with the Midas Touch!’

An indication of changing times and tastes came with the September 1949 Star Spangled as Fred Ray’s Tomahawk took over the cover-spot from #96 onwards whilst inside, Robin’s solo tale ‘The Boy Who Could Invent Miracles!’ was pencilled by Sheldon Moldoff with Mooney inking.

The story saw the kid crusader working alone whilst Batman recovered from gunshot wounds, encountering a well-meaning bright spark whose brilliantly conceived conceptions revolutionised the world – but almost exposed the masked avenger’s secret identityâ€¦

First seen in Star Spangled Comics #70, The Clock was an anonymous criminal time-and-motion expert who became the closest thing to an Archenemy Robin had. ‘The Man Who Stole Time!’ returned yet again in #97 (with Mooney back on full art), determined to publicly humiliate and crush his juvenile nemesis through a series of suitably-themed crimesâ€¦ but with the same degree of success as alwaysâ€¦

In #98 a classmate of Dick Grayson’s briefly became ‘Robin’s Rival!’ after devising a method of travelling on phone lines as Wireboy. Sadly his ingenuity was far in excess of his fighting ability or common sense and he was wisely convinced to retire, after which gambling gangster Sam Ferris broke jail and turned his obsession with turning circles into a campaign of ‘Crime on Wheels!’ until Robin set him straight againâ€¦

SSC #100 offered a powerfully moving tale as the Boy Wonder gave shelter to ‘The Killer-Dog of Gotham City!’ and proved that valiant Duke could shake off his criminal master’s training to become a boon to society.

In #101 High School elections were being elaborately suborned by ‘The Campaign Crooks!’ with a bizarre scheme to make an illicit buck from students, whilst in #102 ‘The Boy with Criminal Ears!’ developed super-hearing: making his life hell and ultimately bringing him to the attention of sadistic thugs with an eye to the main chanceâ€¦

Star Spangled Comics #103 saw the introduction of ‘Roberta the Girl Wonder!’ as class polymath Mary Wills decided to follow her heart and try to catch the ideal boyfriend by becoming his crime-fighting rival, whilst #104’s ‘Born to Skate’ revealed how classmate Tommy Wells‘ freewheeling passion led Robin to a gang using a roller-skate factory to mask crimes as varied as smuggling, kidnapping and murderâ€¦

The wholesome all-ages action ends with a rewarding tale blending model-making and malfeasance as a guilt-wracked Robin comes to the aid of a police pilot who had been crippled – and worse – whilst assisting on a case.

As part of his rehabilitation the Junior Manhunter devises high-tech models for Bill Cooper‘s aviation club but when ‘The Disappearing Batplanes!’ are purloined by cunning air pirates the scene is set for a terrifying aerial showdownâ€¦

Beautifully illustrated, wittily scripted and captivatingly addictive, these rousingly traditional superhero escapades are a perfect antidote to teen-angst and the strident, overblown, self-absorbed whining of contemporary comicbook kids.

Fast-paced, infinitely inventive and ferociously fun, here are superb yarns no young-at-heart Fights ‘n’ Tights fan will want to missâ€¦
Â© 1948, 1949, 1950, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

May 31, 2015May 29, 2015

Prometheus: Fire & Stone

By Paul Tobin, Juan Ferreyra & various (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-650-1

Spinning out of the movie Prometheus and its comicbook iteration, Fire and Stone was a bold and ambitious publishing event begun in 2014 designed to link four separate franchises into a coherent – if rather time-distanced – universe.

A quartet of 4-part miniseries featuring core concepts from Prometheus, Alien, Predator and AVP: Aliens Vs Predator was conceived by scripters Paul Tobin and Kelly Sue DeConnick, with the calamitous clash of cultures and creatures culminating in one-shot Fire and Stone: Omega.

The first of those pocket series is now available as a sleek paperback collection scripted by Tobin and moodily designed and illustrated by Juan Ferreyra, opening the time and space shredding saga in 2219 AD above the third moon of the Calpamos planetoid in the Zeta 2 Reticuli system.

Four Earth craft have rendezvoused there, seeking answers to the question of what happened to a long-lost research ship.

Historian and filmmaker Clara Atkinson aboard command ship Helios ponders the ongoing mission as the crews of engine core vehicle Geryon, military patrol ship Perses and salvage vessel Kadmos slowly shake off the effects of deep space hibernation and get reacquainted.

Captain Angela Foster is cranky but seems exhilarated at the prospect of hugely valuable salvage and effusive medical officer James Weddel is his usual grabby self, but apparently affable astrobiologist Francis Lane is hiding something. He’s coincidentally in charge of maintaining and servicing the service humanoids such as meek-seeming synthetic assistant Elden – the only being aware of the secretive boffin’s failing healthâ€¦

What nobody except Foster knows is the true purpose of the mission. She is hunting legendary exploratory ship Prometheus and chimeric, inspirational leader Sir Peter Weyland. Moreover, when Weyland was lost on LV-223 in 2090 he was seeking to prove a crazy theory that a race of giants he called â€œThe Engineersâ€ had seeded the universe with life. He wanted to find the creators of humanity, and now so does sheâ€¦

Leaving Geryon in orbit, the smaller ships confidently head for solid ground. Foster takes the Helios down and soon discovers that the supposedly barren moon is rich with weird, superabundant, aggressive and extremely ugly lifeforms. Strangely, most of it seems to be concentrated in a single implausible and very forbidding micro-rainforestâ€¦

Discoveries come thick, fast and increasingly disquieting. A strange, viscous black goo which seems to be the very essence of raw life. Bizarre corpses and skeletons crushed, torn apart or burned by acid. An ecosystem of fauna filling every biological niche and all looking as if they were patterned on the same creatureâ€¦

Lane is particularly taken with the omnipresent black ooze and he and Elden are missing when the main party discover a lost human-colony ship somehow shifted to the wrong planet and submerged by a wall of overgrown undergrowth.

They are utterly unprepared for the marauding xenomorphs hungrily waiting inside for fresh preyâ€¦

It all goes pretty much as you’d expect (and, I suspect, hope) after that, but whilst the Aliens begin their hideous and inexorable dance of death, other things that will impact the succeeding story-arcs come into play too.

Whilst Foster’s party is searching, a wave of the big-headed bugs swarm the Helios, leaving it locked down and besiegedâ€¦

Lane begins experimenting with the black goo in a cave, seeking a cure for his cancer. When he injects poor, passive Elden with a sample, the astrobiologist is appalled to see rapid and terrifying forced evolution in action, transforming a harmless and completely docile programmed servant into a monster with a ruthless will and deadly agenda of its ownâ€¦

Others explorers find a crashed craft of incontrovertibly alien origin and dependable, staunch and fun-loving ebullient military man Galgo grabs up extraterrestrial weaponry. Later, seeing the way the winds are blowing, he promptly abandons the science teams and the Helios to fateâ€¦

None of the wide-ranging humans are prepared for the consequences when a long-dormant Engineer begins checking his planetoid-sized laboratory again and, seeing assorted specimens and unidentified creatures running riot, starts dispassionately clearing up the mess and shutting down the chaosâ€¦

Soon only three humans are left cowering in the dark but refusing to give inâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Fast-paced, intensely gripping and closely following the tried-and-tested formula of the film franchises, this is a superb horror/sci fi romp to delight fans of the cinematic classics and breathtaking thrill rides in general, which also offers a cover gallery and chapter-break art by David Palumbo plus a potent and beguiling selection of designs and notes from illustrator’s Juan Ferreyra’s ‘Sketchbook’.

May 30, 2015May 27, 2015

Usagi Yojimbo: Senso

By Stan Sakai (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-709-6

One of the very best and most adaptable survivors of the 1980s black-&-white comicbook explosion/implosion is a truly bizarre and wonderful synthesis of historical Japanese samurai fiction and anthropomorphic animal adventure, as well as a perfect example of the versatility and strengths of a creator-owned character.

Usagi Yojimbo (which translates as â€œrabbit bodyguardâ€) first appeared as a background character in multi-talented creator Stan Sakai’s peripatetic comedy feature The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy, which debuted in furry ‘n’ fuzzy folk anthology Albedo Anthropomorphics #1 (1984) subsequently appearing there on his own terms as well as in Critters, Amazing Heroes, Furrlough and the Munden’s Bar back-up in Grimjack.

Sakai was born in 1953 in Kyoto, Japan before the family emigrated to Hawaii in 1955. He attended University of Hawaii, graduating with a BA in Fine Arts, and pursued further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design after moving to California.

His first comics work was as a letterer, most famously for the incredible Groo the Wanderer, before his nimble pens and brushes found a way to express a love of Japanese history and legend. Also shaped by his hearty interest in the filmic works of Akira Kurosawa and his peers, Sakai turned a proposed story about a human hero into one of the most enticing and impressive – and astoundingly authentic – sagas of all time.

The deliciously rambling and expansive period fantasy series is set in a world of sentient animals whilst specifically referencing the Edo Period of Feudal Japan (how did we cloth-eared Westerners ever get â€œJapanâ€ from â€œNihonâ€ anyway?) and is drenched in classic cultural icons as varied as Lone Wolf and Cub, Zatoichi and even Godzilla to enrich the ongoing exploits of Miyamoto Usagi, a Ronin (masterless, wandering Samurai) whose fate is to be drawn constantly into a plethora of incredible situations.

And yes, he’s a rabbit – a brave, sentimental, gentle, honourable, conscientious and heroic bunny who cannot turn down any request for helpâ€¦

The long-eared nomad has changed publishers a few times but has been in continuous publication since 1987 – with nearly 40 graphic novel collections and compilations to date – with guest-shots in sundry other series such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its TV incarnation – he even almost made it into his own small-screen show but there’s still time yet and fashions can revive as quickly as they die out â€¦

Sakai and his creation have won numerous awards both within the comics community and amongst the greater reading public and his bombastic bunny has branched out into high-end collectibles, art prints, computer games and RPGs, a spin-off sci fi comics serial and lots of toys. In November 2014 the Rabbit Ronin premiered in a stage show here in Londonâ€¦

Celebrating his 30^th anniversary our hero recently appeared in a staggering out-of-continuity cosmic clash first seen in the 6-issue miniseries Usagi Yojimbo: Senso (August 2014-January 2015) now gathered into a sturdy monochrome hardback edition.

Senso means War! – it says so on the back of the book – and this epic Armageddon tale opens fifteen years from the rabbit’s current timeframe with all the regular characters in play for the final battle between usurping over-villain Lord Hikiji and the forces of the Shogun led by Lord Noriyuki of the Geishu Clan.

Preceded by comedic cartoon Introduction ‘Usagi and Stan’ and a selection of cover sketches for the compilation volume, the action opens as the Shogun’s forces, led by recently aligned and fully restored Samurai Usagi, clash with the Dark Lord’s armies.

Also drawn into the cataclysmic battle and employed in key positions are valiant bodyguard Lady Tomoe, former bounty hunter General Gennosuke and even the rabbit’s (unsuspected and unacknowledged) son Jotaro.

Even though the battle seems to be going against them the noble young lord is appalled when chief scientist Takenoko-Sensei offers his new prototype weapon – an armoured, steam-powered, self-propelled moving fortress called Kameyama (â€œTurtle Mountainâ€).

Preferring defeat to the shame of utilising an atrocity weapon, the indomitable legion of heroes fight on with renewed desperation, but everything changes in an instant when the sky is suddenly rent by a fiery scream and a colossal metal shell crashes onto the field.

In the silent aftermath the shocked remnants of two shattered armies drag themselves from the blood and dust to discover a third force has entered the fray: ghastly beings like giant octopi, killing with heat and light and riding immense three-legged walking machinesâ€¦

It takes ninja leader Chizu to discover that the rubbery horrors can be killed and their diabolical machines destroyed, but her consequent and so-noble death will not be the lastâ€¦

Tense, oppressively ominous and downright scary in places, this fabulous reworking of HG Wells’ War of the Worlds is an astounding and compelling variation on the hallowed theme which offers one tantalising â€œmaybeâ€ after another as three decades of beloved characters assemble to face the end of a world and triumph in a most incredible manner, and at the most horrific of pricesâ€¦

Amongst the bonus features in this titanic tome are all six wraparound covers from the miniseries and a Process section offering comparisons, deleted and reworked pages and scenes plus fascinating developmental notes and sketches from the story.

The multi-faceted legendary Lepus’ nigh-universal irresistible appeal encompasses every aspect and genre of adventure comics and this moving â€œEnd of Daysâ€ epic will delight devotees and certainly make converts of the most hardened hater of â€œfunny animalâ€ stories.

May 28, 2015May 27, 2015

Modesty Blaise: The Killing Distance

By Peter O’Donnell & Enric Badia Romero (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-712-0

Modesty Blaise and her lethally adept, compulsively platonic partner Willie Garvin gained fearsome reputations as top-flight super-criminals before retiring young, rich and healthy. With their honour intact and their hands relatively clean, they cut themselves off completely from a career where they made all the money they would ever need and far too many enemies – a situation exacerbated by their heartfelt conviction that killing was only ever to be used as a last resort.

When devious British Spymaster Sir Gerald Tarrant sought them out they were slowly dying of boredom in England. The wily old bird offered them a chance to have fun, get back into harness and do a bit of good in the world. They jumped at his offer and have been cleaning up the world in their own unique way ever since â€¦

From that tenuous beginning in ‘La Machine’ (see Modesty Blaise: the Gabriel Set-Up) the dynamic duo went on to crush the world’s vilest villains and most macabre monsters in a perpetual storm of tense suspense and inspirational action for nearly forty yearsâ€¦

The inseparable associates first appeared in The Evening Standard on May 13^th 1963 and over the decades went on to star in some of the world’s most memorable crime fiction, all in three panels a day.

Creators Peter O’Donnell & Jim Holdaway (who had previously collaborated on Romeo Brown) produced a timeless treasure trove of brilliant graphic escapades until the illustrator’s tragic early death in 1970, whereupon Spanish artist Enric Badia Romero (and occasionally John Burns, Neville Colvin and Pat Wright) assumed the art reins, taking the partners-in-peril to even greater heights.

The series has been syndicated world-wide and Modesty has also starred in 13 prose novels and short-story collections, several films, a TV pilot, a radio play, an American graphic novel and nearly one hundred comic strip adventures until the strip’s conclusion in 2001.

The tales are a broad blend of hip adventuring lifestyle and cool capers combining espionage, crime, intrigue and even – now and again – plausibly intriguing sci fi and supernaturally tinged horror genre fare, with ever-competent Modesty and Willie canny, deadly, yet all-too-fallibly human defenders of the helpless and avengers of the wrongedâ€¦

Reproduced in stark and stunning black & white – and quite right too – Titan Books’ superb and scrupulous serial re-presentations of the ultimate strip trouble-shooters resume here with O’Donnell & Romero offering another chilling trio of tales spanning November 1992 to February 1994, each prefaced with informative prose introductions from devotee, publisher, strip historian and Mathematics Professor Rick Norwood.

The rollicking romps begin with non-stop thrill-ride ‘Guido the Jinx’ (originally seen in The Evening Standard from February 10^th to July 5^th 1994) as Blaise and Garvin take a well-deserved vacation tracing the route of the historical Silk Road, only to have their peace and contemplation disrupted by pompous yet lovable old self-promoter Guido Biganzoli.

The legend in his own mind is now working as promoter for a movie being shot in the lonely wastes but the production has hit a snag: the male and female stuntmen are unable to work on the big-money shotâ€¦

Against their better judgement Modesty and Willie tackle the terrible â€œwaterfall dropâ€ but naturally it goes terribly wrong and they are carried away and deposited under a mountainâ€¦

Trouble always finds the dynamic duo and whilst extricating themselves from their watery tomb they discover Soviet operative and former associate Colonel Greb gravely wounded and holed up in a cave.

As they minister to him a horrific story unfolds: the old soldier was guarding a secret installation warehousing uranium when a gang of mercenaries swooped in and wiped out the garrison. Ruthless bandit Kung-Li plans to fly out the priceless contraband and sell it to who knows how many terrorist groups, or even make himself a nuclear powerâ€¦

Resolved to stop the merciless gang with nothing more than hand-made stone-age weapons, Modesty and Willie’s arsenal of destruction gets an unexpected and unlikely boost when bad penny Guido suddenly turns up once againâ€¦

After that phenomenal and bloody exploit the canny couple are called upon to save the life of Sir Gerald Tarrant from one of the world’s richest and most reclusive men in ‘The Killing Distance’ (July 6^th – November 30^th 1994) which begins as Charles B. Delaney starts issuing orders from his impregnable fortress in the Atlas Mountains. Once upon a time he was KGB chief Ivan Brodsky but due to Tarrant’s undercover endeavours at the height of the Cold War lost everything and turned CIA informant.

Sadly the â€œRed Admiralâ€ used Uncle Sam’s bottomless pockets to kickstart a huge private fortune and is now ready to use it all to kill the man who beat him in the â€œGreat Gameâ€â€¦

When the first assassination attempt fails, Willie and Modesty rush to Tarrant’s hospital bedside and fill in the gaps of Tarrant’s tale with details from their own dealings with Delaney during the period when they seamlessly ran their crime-combine The Network.

Confronted with the grim facts, the old warhorse all but gives up the ghost, forbidding his friends to further endanger themselves, but as usual he has underestimated the depth of feeling and sense of gratitude they feel for him.

Immediately Modesty begins taking apart Delaney’s organisation and imperiously foiling his follow-up attempts on Sir Gerald and herself. Before long the frustrated egomaniac is pushed into making a colossal mistake, issuing a direct challenge to the formidable female.

He will end his attempts on the British agent’s life if she can – within thirty days – break into his unassailable citadel and get within arm’s length of himâ€¦

What happens when Willie and Modesty cunningly circumvent all his guards, resources and traps and she gets within the disputed â€œkilling distanceâ€ is something the outraged oligarch could never have imaginedâ€¦

The catalogue of compelling capers concludes with ‘The Aristo’ (December 1^st 1994 to May 3^rd 1995) wherein the peril-pursuing partners visit old friends in Hong Kong and barely survive an assassination attempt by old enemy Wu Smithâ€¦

Adrift in a raft on the South China Sea they are picked up by freighter captain Miguel Camacho, currently transporting a cargo of electronics and his beloved, heavily pregnant wife Joaquina to Singapore.

Welcomed and cosseted, Modesty and Willie can’t help but worry when they hear of a modern-day pirate – a supposed British lord in his heavily armed vessel The Etonian – currently terrorising shipping in the area. After all, trouble has a tendency to find them wherever they end upâ€¦

Especially appalling are the stories of what The Aristo does with any women he takes from his nautical conquests, so when the brigand inevitably surfaces Willie and Modesty enact the most desperate gamble of their long and vivid careers with Jo and her imminent unborn the invaluable bait.

Moreover the subsequent punishments the crusading couple inflict on the vile sea-reavers are brutal and most assuredly finalâ€¦

These are incomparable capers crafted by brilliant creators at the peak of their powers; revelling in the sheer perfection of an iconic creation. Unforgettable excitement-packed escapades packed with sleek sex appeal, dry wit, terrific tension and explosive action, the stories grow more appealing with every rereading and never fail to deliver maximum impact and total enjoyment.

May 24, 2015May 23, 2015

Superman: Kryptonite Nevermore – DC Comics Classic Library

By Denny O’Neil, Curt Swan, Murphy Anderson, Dick Giordano & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2085-3

Superman is the comicbook crusader who started the whole genre and in the decades since his debut in 1938 has probably undertaken every kind of adventure imaginable. With this in mind it’s tempting and very rewarding to gather up whole swathes of his inventory and periodically re-present them in specific themed collections, such as this hardback commemoration of one his greatest extended adventures originally released just as comics fandom was becoming a powerful – if headless – lobbying force reshaping the industry to its own specialised desires .

When Julie Schwartz took over the editorial duties of the Man of Steel in 1970, he was expected to shake things up with nothing less than spectacular results. To that end he incorporated many key characters and events that were developing as part of fellow iconoclast Jack Kirby’s freshly unfolding â€œFourth Worldâ€.

That bold experiment was a breathtaking tour de force of cosmic wonderment which introduced a staggering new universe to fans; instantly and permanently changing the way DC Comics were perceived and how the entire medium could be received.

Schwartz was simultaneously breathing fresh life into the all-powerful but moribund Superman franchise and his creative changes were just appearing in 1971. The new direction was also the vanguard and trigger for a wealth of controversial and socially challenging material unheard of since the feature’s earliest days: a wave of tales described as â€œrelevantâ€…

Here the era and those changes are described and contextualised – after ‘A Word from the Publisher’ – in Paul Levitz’s ‘Introduction’ after which the first radical shift in Superman’s vast mythology begins to unfold.

With iconic covers by Neal Adams, Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson this titanic tome collects Superman #233-238 and #240-242, originally running from January to September 1971.

Almost all the groundbreaking extended epic was crafted by scripter Denny O’Neil, veteran illustrator Curt Swan and inker Murphy Anderson – although stand-in Dick Giordano inked #240. The willing and very public abandonment of super-villains, Kryptonian scenarios and otherworldly paraphernalia instantly revitalised the Man of Tomorrow and began a period of superb human-scaled stories which made him a â€œmust-buyâ€ character all over again.

The innovations began in ‘Superman Breaks Loose’ (Superman #233) when a government experiment to harness the energy of Kryptonite goes explosively wrong. Closely monitoring the test, the Action Ace is blasted across the desert surrounding the isolated lab but somehow survives the supposedly fatal radiation-bath.

In the aftermath reports start to filter in from all over Earth: every piece of the deadly green mineral has been transformed to common ironâ€¦

As he goes about his protective, preventative patrols, the liberated hero experiences an emotional high at the prospect of all the good he can do now and isn’t even phased when the Daily Planet‘s new owner Morgan Edge (a key Kirby character) shakes up his civilian life: summarily ejecting Clark Kent from the print game and overnight remaking him into a roving TV journalistâ€¦

Meanwhile in the deep desert, the site of his recent crashlanding offers a moment of deep foreboding when Superman’s irradiated imprint in the sand shockingly grows solid and shambles away in ghastly parody of lifeâ€¦

The resurgent suspense resumes in #234’s ‘How to Tame a Wild Volcano!’ as an out-of-control plantation owner refuses to let his indentured native workforce flee an imminent eruption.

Handicapped by misused international laws, the Man of Tomorrow can only fume helplessly as the UN rushes towards a diplomatic solution, but his anxiety is intensified when the sinister sand-thing inadvertently passes him and agonisingly drains him of his mighty powers.

Crashing to Earth in a turbulent squall storm the de-powered hero is attacked by bossman Boysie Harker‘s thugs and instantly responds to the foolish provocation, relying for a change on determination rather than overwhelming might to save the dayâ€¦

The ‘Sinister Scream of the Devil’s Harp’ in #235 gave way to weirder ways (the industry was enjoying a periodic revival of interest in supernatural themes and stories) as mystery musician Ferlin Nyxly reveals that the secret of his impressive and ever-growing aptitudes is a archaic artefact which steals gifts, talents and even Superman’s abilities.

The Man of Steel is initially unaware of the drain as he’s trying to communicate with his eerily silent dusty doppelganger, but once Nyxly graduates to a full-on raving super-menace dubbed Pan, the taciturn homunculus unexpectedly joins its living template in trouncing the power thiefâ€¦

The next issue offered a science fictional morality play as cherubic aliens seek Superman’s assistance in defeating a band of devils and rescuing Clark Kent’s best friends from Hell. However the ‘Planet of the Angels’ proves to be nothing of the kind and the Caped Kryptonian has to pull out all the stops to save Earth from a very real Armageddonâ€¦

Superman #237 has the Metropolis Marvel save an astronaut only to see him succumb to a madness-inducing mutative disease. After another destructive confrontation with the sand-thing further debilitates him, the harried hero is present when more mortals fall to the contagion and, believing himself the cause and an uncontrollable ‘Enemy of Earth’, considers quarantining himself to spaceâ€¦

As he is deciding Lois Lane stumbles into another lethal situation and Superman’s instinctive intervention seemingly confirms his earlier diagnosis, but another clash with his always-close sandy simulacrum on the edge of space heralds an incredible truth.

Pathetically debilitated, Superman nevertheless saves Lois and again meets the ever-more human creature. Now able to speak, it gives a chilling warning and the Man of Steel realises exactly what it is taking from him and what it might becomeâ€¦

A mere shadow of his former self, the Man of Tomorrow is unable to prevent a band of terrorists taking over a magma-tapping drilling rig and endangering the entire Earth in #238’s ‘Menace at 1000 Degrees’.

With Lois one of a number of hostages and the madmen threatening to detonate a nuke in the pipeline, he desperately begs his doppelganger to assist him, before its cold rejection forces the depleted hero to take the biggest gamble of his lifeâ€¦

Superman #239 was an all-reprint giant featuring the Action Ace in his incalculably all-powerful days – and thus not included here – but the much-reduced Caped Kryptonian returned in #240 (Giordano inks) to confront his own lessened state and seek a solution in ‘To Save a Superman’.

The trigger was his inability to extinguish a tenement fire and the wider world’s realisation that their unconquerable champion was now vulnerable and fallibleâ€¦

Especially interested were his old enemies in the Anti-Superman Gang who immediately allocated all their resources to destroying their nemesis. After one particularly close call Clark is visited by an ancient Asian sage who somehow knows of his other identity and offers an unconventional solutionâ€¦

From 1968 onwards superhero comics began to decline and publishers sought new ways to keep audience as tastes changed. Back then, the entire industry depended on newsstand sales, and if you weren’t popular, you died.

Editor Jack Miller, innovating illustrator Mike Sekowsky and relatively new scripter Denny O’Neil stepped up with a radical proposal and made a little bit of funnybook history with the only female superhero then in the marketplace.

They revealed that the almighty mystical Amazons were forced to leave our dimension, and took with them all their magic – including Wonder Woman‘s powers and all her weaponsâ€¦

Reduced to mere humanity she opted to stay on Earth, assuming her own secret identity of Diana Prince, resolved to fighting injustice as a mortal. Tutored by blind Buddhist monk I Ching she trained as a martial artist, and quickly became a formidable enemy of contemporary evil.

Now this same I Ching claims to be able to repair Superman’s difficulties and dwindling might, but evil eyes are watching. Arriving clandestinely, Superman allows the adept to remove all his Kryptonian powers as a precursor to restoring them, allowing the A-S Gang the perfect opportunity to strike.

In the resultant melee the all too human hero triumphs in the hardest fight of his lifeâ€¦

The saga continues with â€œSwan-dersonâ€ back on the art in #241 as Superman overcomes a momentary but nearly overwhelming temptation to surrender his oppressive burden and lead a normal lifeâ€¦

Admonished and resolved he then submits to Ching’s resumed remedy ritual and finds his spirit soaring to where the sand-being lurks before explosively reclaiming the stolen powers. Leaving the golem a shattered husk, the phantom brings the awesome energies back to their true owner and a triumphant hero returns to saving the worldâ€¦

Over the next few days however it becomes clear that something has gone wrong. The Man of Tomorrow has become arrogant, erratic and unpredictable, acting rashly, overreacting and even making stupid mistakes.

In her boutique Diana Prince discusses the problem with Ching and the sagacious teacher soon deduces that during his time of mere mortality whilst fighting the gangsters, Superman received a punishing blow to the head. Clearly it has resulted in brain injury that did not heal when his powers returnedâ€¦

When the hero refuses to listen to them Diana and Ching have no choice but to track down the dying sand-thing and request its aid. Ching recognises it as a formless creature from the other-dimensional realm of Quarrm and listens to the amazing story of its entrance into our world. He also suggests a way for it to regain some of what it recently lostâ€¦

Superman meanwhile has blithely gone about his deranged business until savagely attacked by the possessed and animated statue of a Chinese war-demon. Also able to steal his power, this fugitive from Quarrm has no conscience and wears ‘The Shape of Fear!…

The staggering saga concludes in ‘The Ultimate Battle’ as the Quarrmer briefly falls under the away of a brace of brutal petty thugs who put the again de-powered Superman into hospitalâ€¦

Rushed into emergency surgery the Kryptonian fights for his life as the sand-thing fights the war-demon in the streets, but events take a bizarre turn once the latter drives off its foe and turns towards the hospital to finish off the flesh-&-blood Superman.

Recovering consciousness – and a portion of his power – the Metropolis Marvel battles the beast to a standstill but needs the aid of his silicon stand-in to drive the thing back beyond the paleâ€¦

With the immediate threat ended Man of Steel and Man of Sand face each other one last time, each determined to ensure his own existence no matter the costâ€¦

The stunning conclusion was a brilliant stroke on the part of the creators, one which left Superman approximately half the man he used to be. Of course all too soon he returned to his unassailable, god-like power levels but never lost the tension-free smug assurance of his 1950s-1960s self.

A fresh approach, snappy dialogue and more terrestrial, human-scaled concerns to shade the outrageous implausible fantasy elements, wedded to gripping plots and sublime artwork make Kryptonite Nevermore! One of the very best Superman sagas ever created

Also included here is the iconic ‘House Ad’ by Swan & Vince Colletta which proclaimed the big change throughout the DC Universe and a thoughtful ‘Afterword by Denny O’Neil’ wraps things up with some insights and reminiscences every lover of the medium will appreciate.
Â© 1971, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

May 23, 2015May 22, 2015

Essential Marvel Team-Up volume 2

By Len Wein, Gerry Conway, Bill Mantlo, Jim Mooney, Sal Buscema, Mike Esposito, Ron Wilson & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2173-3

Inspiration isn’t everything. In fact as Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in the wake of the losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties.

The only real exception to this was an en bloc creation of horror titles in response to the industry down-turn in super-hero sales – a move expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority mandates.

The concept of team-up books – an established star joining or battling (frequently both) less well-selling company characters – was not new when Marvel decided to award their most popular hero the lion’s share of this new title, but they wisely left their options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead in the Human Torch.

In those halcyon simpler times editors were acutely conscious of potential over-exposure – and since super-heroes were actually in a decline they may well have been right.

Nevertheless Marvel Team-Up was the second official Spider-Man title (an abortive companion title Spectacular Spider-Man was created for the more respectable – and expensive – magazine market in 1968 but folded after two issues) when it launched in March 1972, and immediately began bucking the downward trend for costumed crusaders.

Spanning September 1974 to November 1976, this second Essentially mammoth monochrome compilation gathers the turbulent collaborations from Marvel Team-Up #25-51 plus a crossover tale from Marvel Two-In-One # 17 and opens with ‘Three into Two Won’t Go!’ (by Len Wein, Jim Mooney & Frank Giacoia) as Daredevil joins the Wondrous Wallcrawler in thrashing inept costumed kidnappers Cat-Man, Bird-Man and Ape-Man, after which MTU #26 finds the Torch and Thor battling to save the world from Lava Men in ‘The Fire This Time…’ by Wein, Mooney, Giacoia & Dave Hunt.

At this time, in a desperate effort to build some internal continuity into the perforce brutally brief encounters, the scripter introduced a shadowy trio of sinister observers with an undisclosed agenda who would monitor superhero episodes and eventually be revealed as providers of outrageous technologies for many of the one-shot villains who came and went so quicklyâ€¦

They weren’t involved when the Chameleon framed Spider-Man (again) and tricked the Hulk into freeing a man from the New York Men’s Detention Center for the most unexpected reason of all in #27’s ‘A Friend in Need!’ (Wein, Mooney & Giacoia), but did have a hand in ‘The City Stealers!’ (#28 by new regular creative team Gerry Conway, Mooney & Vince Colletta) when strange mechanoids swiped the island of Manhattan, forcing Spidey and Hercules (mostly Hercules) to drag it back to its original positionâ€¦

Marvel Team-Up #29 displays a far less amicable pairing as flaming kid Johnny Storm and patronising know-it-all Iron Man butt heads whilst tracking a seeming super-saboteur in ‘Beware the Coming of Infinitus! or How Can You Stop the Reincarnated Man?’

Spider-Man and The Falcon then find that ‘All That Glitters is not Gold!’ in #30 whilst tracking a mind-control drug back to its crazy concoctor Midas, the Golden Man before Mooney bowed out in MTU #31 as the Webspinner and Iron Fist experience time unravelling whilst battling reverse-aging Drom, the Backwards Man ‘For a Few Fists More!’

Conway and Colletta welcomed Sal Buscema aboard as penciller in #32 for a fiery collaboration between the Human Torch and Son of Satan who inflicted ‘All the Fires in Hellâ€¦!’ on a demon which had possessed Johnny’s pal Wyatt Wingfoot and assorted fellow members of his Native American Keewazi tribe.

The search for continuity continued in #33 when Spider-Man and Nighthawk acrimoniously tackle raving mega-nutcase Norton Fester – who had forgotten he had super strength – in ‘Anybody Here Know a Guy Named Meteor Man?’

Whilst Nighthawk was happy to drop the case at the earliest opportunity, his Defenders comrade Valkyrie was ready to step in and help Spidey finish off the looney Looter, but they both missed the real threat: mutant demagogue Jeremiah, Prophet of the Lord, who had acquired Fester’s home to house his mind-controlled cult of human psychic batteries in ‘Beware the Death Crusade!’

The latter maniac’s predations were ended in Marvel Team-Up #35 when the Torch and Doctor Strange saved Valkyrie from becoming a sacrifice in the zealot’s deranged ‘Blood Church!’ whilst in #36 Spider-Man was kidnapped and shipped off to Switzerland by assuredly insane Baron Ludwig Von Shtupf, who proclaimed himself The Monster Makerâ€¦

‘Once Upon a Time, in a Castleâ€¦’ the bonkers biologist wanted to pick-&-mix creature traits and had already secured The Frankenstein Monster to practise on, but after the Webslinger busts them both out and they stumble upon sexy SHIELD Agent Klemmer their rapid counterattack goes badly wrong after Von Shtupf unleashes his other captive – the furiously feral Man-Wolf – and only big Frankie can prevent a wave of ‘Snow Death!’

As new creative team Bill Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito take over, the Amazing Arachnid is back in the USA for issue #38, meeting The Beast and barely surviving the ‘Night of the Griffin’ when the former X-Man’s constantly-evolving manmade monster foe goes on a ruthless murder spreeâ€¦

Another extended epic begins when Spider-Man and the Torch are simultaneously targeted by supposedly deceased archenemies Crime-Master and The Big Man in #39’s ‘Any Number Can Slay!’ The masked mobsters are fighting for control of the city and each has recruited their own specialist meta-thugs – Sandman and The Enforcers respectively – but the shady double-dealers are all utterly unprepared for the intervention of mystic martial arts mavens The Sons of the Tiger in #40’s ‘Murder’s Better the Second Time Around!’â€¦

Mantlo and Buscema then undertook a truly impressive and ambitious epic with a time-&-space spanning multi-parter which saw the Amazing Arachnid visiting the past and a number of alternate tomorrows beginning with ‘A Witch in Time!’ in Marvel Team-Up #41.

The opening instalment saw mutant Avenger Scarlet Witch abducted by infamous witch-hunter Cotton Mather who used Doctor Doom‘s time machine to drag her back to Salem in 1692. Her plight was observed by Spider-Man who naturally followed but he failed to save her and was himself accused of infernal sorcery in that rabid Massachusetts townâ€¦

Whilst Mather fanned hysterical flames of paranoia, the Avenger’s synthezoid husband time-travelled to her side in #42’s ‘Visions of Hate!’, only to fall before the witch-finder’s mysterious power too. As the innocents of Salem prepare themselves for death, the heroes make their escape but fall to Mather’s hitherto unseen benefactor The Dark Rider.

Just as the master manipulator reveals himself however the stakes change again when a severely affronted Doctor Doom appears angrily demanding to know who’s been playing with his toys in #43’s ‘A Past Gone Mad!’

The frantic battle against an immortal chronal predator seems predestined to fail until the time-tides are unexpectedly turned in MTU #44 with the last-minute arrival of mind-goddess Moondragon but in the aftermath Spider-Man tragically discovers that history is well-nigh impossible to alter in ‘Death in the Year Before Yesterday!’

The Arachnid is the last to return to the 20^th century but his departure in issue #45 results in deadly diversions and ‘Future-Shock!’ as he lands in devastated (alternate future) New York City 2019 where Warrior of the Worlds Killraven helps him survive numerous attacks by mutants and Martians in terrifying tripods before sending him back on his way home..

Unfortunately before he gets there the Wallcrawler experiences another shocking stopover in ‘Am I Now or Have I Ever Been?’, with cyborg warrior Deathlok saving him from a mutant hive-mind in a Manhattan shattered by war a mere fifteen years after his own lost and longed-for eraâ€¦

A scared, sad and sobered Spider-Man finally makes it home in Marvel Two-In-One #17 just in time for a crossover with The Thing. That blockbuster opens with ‘This Cityâ€¦ Afire!’ by Mantlo, Sal B & Esposito where, after battling beside Ka-Zar in the Savage Land, big Ben Grimm is ignominiously returned to the Big Apple by mutated madman Basilisk who has created an erupting volcano in the Hudson Riverâ€¦

Already reeling, Spidey swings into action for the cataclysmic conclusion in Marvel Team-Up #47 where Mantlo, Ron Wilson & Dan Adkins render the spectacular clash of heroes who boldly proclaim ‘I Have to Fight the Basilisk!’

MTU #48 begins another suspenseful extended saga when ‘Enter: the Wraith!’ (Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Esposito) introduces Police Captain Jean DeWolff as Spidey and Iron Man struggle to stop a mad bomber using model planes to destroy city landmarks and Stark International properties. As the heroes fruitlessly pursue leads, the enigmatic Wraith turns his attention upon them and proves to be not only connected to Jean but some kind of psionic metahumanâ€¦

With Iron Man again the guest-star, issue #49 reveals that ‘Madness is All in the Mind!’ as the masked maniac resumes his irresistible psychic assaults and explosive attacks on New York and the tragic story of Jean’s Police Commissioner dad and murdered cop brother comes out.

However the connection between them and the unstoppable villain are only exposed after the Webslinger recruits Master of Mystic Arts Doctor Strange to apply his unique gifts to the problem in #50’s ‘The Mystery of the Wraith!’

The saga and this character-packed compilation conclude with Marvel Team-Up #51 and ‘The Trial of the Wraith!’ by a most unusual panel of judges whose hidden abilities are not enough to prevent one last crack of the whip by the unrepentant renegadeâ€¦

These stories and illustration of these tales are of variable quality – frankly ranging from just plain daft to utterly gripping – but all have an honest drive to entertain and most fans of the genre would find little to complain about.

Although not really a book for the casual or more maturely-oriented enthusiast there’s lots of fun on hand and younger readers will have a blast, so there’s no real reason not to add this tome to your libraryâ€¦
Â© 1974, 1975, 1976, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

May 17, 2015May 16, 2015

Batman Adventures volume 1

By Kelly Puckett, Marty Pasko, Ty Templeton, Brad Rader, Mike Parobeck & Rick Burchett (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5229-8

Batman: The Animated Series aired in America from September 5^th 1992 until September 15^th 1995. The TV cartoon show – ostensibly for kids – was devised and designed by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm and quickly revolutionised the image of the Dark Knight, subsequently resulting in some of the absolute best comicbook tales in the Dark Knight’s decades-long publishing history as the series spawned a comicbook spinoff.

By employing a timeless visual tone (dubbed â€œDark Decoâ€) the TV episodes mixed iconic elements from all iterations of the character and, without diluting the power and mood of the premise, perfectly honed the grim avenger and his team into a wholly accessible, thematically memorable form that the youngest of readers could enjoy, whilst adding shades of exuberance and style that only most devout and obsessive Batmaniac could possibly find fault with.

Naturally the comicbook version became a cast-iron certainty for collection in the newly-emergent trade paperback market which stormed into and out of shops in the mid-1990s. Now those titanic all-ages tales have been rediscovered and gathered here are the first ten titanic tales epics The Batman Adventures comicbook (first seen from October 1992 to July 1993) in a smashing, straightforward sampler of Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy.

The moody magnificence action begins with ‘Penguin’s Big Score’ by Kelly Puckett, Ty Templeton & Rick Burchett. Each story was divided into three chapters and ‘Charm School Dropout!’ found the Bird of Ill Omen taking tips on how to rehabilitate his nefarious reputation from The Joker, whilst in ‘Top of the World, Ma!’ the Foul Fowl’s new standing as a philanthropist had all Gotham agog.

The sinister scheme was finally exposed by Batman in the climactic third act ‘Power of the Press’, but the hero had no idea that the real winner was the Clown Prince of Crimeâ€¦

In issue #2, ‘Catwoman’s Killer Caper’ (Puckett, Templeton & Burchett) kicked off with a gem heist before, on Joker’s insistent urging, sultry Selina Kyle visited England’s Tower of London to swipe ‘The Family Jewels!’

In hot pursuit, the Gotham Gangbuster headed across The Pond to quell ‘Panic over Londontown’ and solved the mystery of a seemingly impossible theft in ‘Midnight Madness’ – but not before the Harlequin of Hate snatched the real prizeâ€¦

All that crafty conniving culminated in ‘Joker’s Late-Night Lunacy!’ from #3 by Puckett, Templeton & Burchett, with Gotham’s airwaves hijacked and Commissioner Gordon kidnapped by the larcenous loon who made himself literally unmissable viewing in ‘A Star is Born!’

‘I Want My JTV!’ saw District Attorney Harvey Dent make it onto the Joker’s inhospitable guest list, but Batman was again one step ahead of the game and lowered the boom in the explosive ‘Flash in the Pan!’

Writer Marty Pasko and penciller Brad Rader joined inker Burchett for a gripping two-issue tale of terror guest starring Robin as ‘Riot Act’ describes ‘Panic in the Streets’ after a strange plague caused citizens to lose the ability to read.

Even with utter chaos gripping the city the Teen Wonder’s ‘Help on the Wing’ results in a huge step forward but when ‘Robin Takes a Fall’ the mastermind reveals himself and the drama intensifies in #4 with ‘Riot Act: Johnny Can’t Read!’ as the Scarecrow steps up his campaign to teach all the slackers of the modern world a harsh lessonâ€¦.

However, the Dynamic Duo are well aware of the ‘Hi-Fi Hijinx’ at the root of the problem and, with the help of a repentant henchman, end the crisis in ‘Those Who Can’t Do!’

Next comes a crafty change of pace as Bruce Wayne is arrested for murder in ‘The Third Door!’ Crafted by Puckett, Rader & Burchett, the cunning locked-room mystery opens with ‘The Party’s Over’ as the prime suspect details the facts of the case to young Dick Grayson, before being locked up with a mob of dangerous thugs in ‘Crime and Punishment’, leaving the wonder kid to ferret out the real killer in tense conclusion ‘War and Peace’â€¦

After a mere half-dozen superb stories the comicbook adventures took a step towards utter perfection when then-rising star Mike Parobeck assumed the pencilling duties.

Although his professional comics career was tragically short (1989 to 1996 when he died, aged 31, of complications from Type 1 Diabetes) Parobeck’s gracefully fluid, exuberant and magically kinetic fun-fuelled animation-inspired style revolutionised superhero action drawing and sparked a resurgence of kid-friendly comics and merchandise at DC and everywhere else in the comics publishing business.

His timeless tenure began with ‘Raging Lizard!’ which sees shady pro wrestler Killer Croc face a long dark night of the soul in ‘Requiem for a Mutant!’ when he’s scheduled to fight Masked Marauder – a grappler who had humiliated and broken him in their last matchâ€¦

Batman meanwhile is searching for Chicago mobster Mandrake who’s planning on taking over Gotham by ousting reigning crime czar Rupert Thorne in ‘Eye of the Reptile!’ Naturally all those trajectories converge in the third act for a major throw-down ‘Under the Waterfront!’â€¦

From issue #8 ‘Larceny, My Sweet’ begins with the hunt for an unstoppable thief who can ‘Break the Bank!’ with his bare hands, whilst TV reporter Summer Gleeson divides her time between chasing scoops and being romanced by a dashing stranger in ‘Love’s Lost Labours’. Sadly when the Gotham Gangbuster crushes the crime-wave he also exposes monstrous old muck menace Clayface and ends the affair of ‘Beauty and the Beast!’

In #9 ‘The Little Red Book’ everyone is chasing holds all Thorne’s dirty secrets and Commissioner Gordon is presiding over a ‘Gangster Boogie!’ With the cops and entire underworld looking to win out over ‘The Big Boss’, it takes all Batman’s energy and wits to bring the diary to DA Dent for the beginning of ‘Rupert’s Reckoning!’â€¦

Wrapping up the all-ages action is‘The Last R?ddler Story’ which describes ‘Nygma’s Nadir!’ as the perpetually frustrated Prince of Puzzlers considers retirement. Dispirited and despondent because the Caped Crusader always solves his felonious games, the villain grudgingly accedes to his faithful hench-persons’ pleas to give it one more try in ‘Days of Wine and Riddles!’

How upset would Eddie Nygma be if he knew Batman isn’t even aware of him, absorbed as he is in apprehending infamous trio Mastermind, Mr. Nice and The Perfesser in ‘Triumph or Tragedy â€¦?’

Breathtakingly written and iconically illustrated, these stripped-down rollercoaster-romps are quintessential Bat-magic, and this long-awaited compilation is a treasure every fan of any age and vintage will adore.

Pure, unadulterated delight!

May 15, 2015June 23, 2022

Dungeon: Twilight – the Complete Set (Dragon Cemetery, Armageddon and The New Centurions)

By Joann Sfar & Lewis Trondheim, Kerascoet & Obion, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBNs: 978-1-56163-460-6, 978-1-56163-477-4 & 978-1-56163-578-8

As cunningly crafted by prolific artisans Joann Sfar (Professeur Bell, Les olives noires, The Rabbi’s Cat) and Lewis Trondheim (La Mouche, Kaput and ZÃ¶sky, Little Nothings) with assorted associates of their New Wave-ish collective of bande dessinÃ©e creators – most often seen under the aegis of independent publisher L’Association – the Donjon saga has generated more than thirty interlinked volumes since it launched in 1998 and has become a massive cult hit all over the world.

These slim, translated (and re-released-in-one-complete-3-book-package) tales form a mere sub-division of a vast, generational, eccentrically raucous and addictively wacky franchise which welds starkly adult whimsy to the weird worlds of fantasy fiction, and these Twilight tomes take the loony legion of horribly human anthropomorphic characters into territories even wilder than those seen in Dungeon Early Years, Parade, Zenith, Monstres and Twilight.

All wholly defined sub-series of a truly vast epic, these all offer time-separated glimpses of a fantastic magic castle on the magically unstable world of Terra Amata. Inhabitants of this weirdly surreal universe include every kind of talking beast and bug as well as monsters, demons, smart-alecs, wizards, politicians and stroppy women-folk. Whenever and wherever you look there’s always something happening and it’s usually quite oddâ€¦

The nominal star is a duck with a magic sword which enabled – and eventually compelled – him to channel and be possessed by dead heroes and monsters. By this declining period on a dying world former hero Herbert of Craftiwich has risen to the unassailable rank of Grand Khan – though he’s still not quite sure how – and the doddering but still puissant old guy is steeped in Total Evilâ€¦

Crafted entirely by Sfar & Trondheim, Volume 1: Dragon Cemetery is composed of two original French albums (Donjon Crepuscule: Le Cimetiere des Dragons and Le Volcan des Vaucanson) from 1999. At this time the globe has ceased to spin, with one half eternally seared by light whilst the obverse is frozen into chilled darkness. Life only thrives on the narrow band between the extremes but is as harsh and unforgiving as it ever wasâ€¦

When a little talking bat is enticed to become the eyes of immortal blinded dragon and political exile The Dust King, the act prompts a cascade of events which will shake and shatter the dying world. The unchanging saurian is a mage of incredible power under perpetual house arrest on the orders of the Khan and, ravaged by ennui, has decided to die at lastâ€¦

Although Dust King has decided to end it all he is still too mighty for simple suicide. He needs to journey to a special place and requires a little assistanceâ€¦

He and the Khan were once great friends, but over intervening years the potentate has become increasingly wicked and isolated by a coterie of unctuous, ambitious hangers-on and would-be usurpers.

The dragon’s decision has been detected at the Black Fortress of Gehenna by one of those parasites and vile functionary Shiwomeez fiendishly facilitates the prisoner’s escape. The tedious journey is soon being scrupulously monitored by the malign major domo who despatches waves of military goons with orders to await an opportune moment to strike. The last unit also have instructions to eradicate the sundry soldiery. The plotter believes the old wizard is travelling to the legendary and mystically significant â€œDragon’s Graveyardâ€ and doesn’t want too many menials knowing its locationâ€¦

The trek is more complex than the sneaky pursuers realise. The Dust King needs the assistance of elusive shaman Orlandoh to pass over and is keenly aware that he is being followed. When he catches a crazy red rabbit warrior named Marvin the Destroyer he acts with precipitate haste and almost ends a willing would-be allyâ€¦

The obnoxious newcomer – named for a mighty killer of ancient times – attaches himself to the expedition and is stunned to find he is travelling with an old warrior who once also went by the legendary name Marvinâ€¦

After finally finding Orlandoh, the Dust King’s necropolitan journey takes a strange diversion and before long the pilgrims are battling Shiwomeez’s murderous minions and a host of diminutive horrors known as Olfs in their colossal citadel of Poopooloo. At long last the trek ends and the original Marvin prepares to let everything goâ€¦

However, events take a bizarre turn after the schemer’s mystic meddling accidentally drags long-eared young Marvin and the bitty bat to the Black Fortress where the crimson crusader’s manic skill with a sword causes utter carnageâ€¦

Not only is the pitiful plotter unable to stop the intruder but Shiwomeez also disturbs the long-distant Grand Khan, calling him back to the mundane worldâ€¦ and the overlord seems to know everythingâ€¦

Casually blasted back to the Dragon Cemetery, Marvin and the bat can only await further developmentsâ€¦

The Dust King’s demise isn’t going well and after awhile the blind antediluvian gives up attempting to expire. Deciding to find what has become of his odd acolytes, the testy titan stumbles across red rabbit Marvin dallying with some rather lascivious cat women.

The ancient mage has an announcement: seemingly emboldened by his brush with death he has decided to force a meeting with his old friend the Khan. All they have to do is retrace their wearisome path and fight their way through the legions of warriors determined to stop themâ€¦

The expedition results in a vast pile of exotic corpses but one fine day old Marvin and his former friend Herbert have their long-deferred conference. The Dust King pleads with the Grand Khan to renounce Evil and his ultimate power. Of course if he does Terra Amata will begin to rotate again and soon explodeâ€¦

Naturally Herbert refuses and with no other option The Dust King tries to kill him. The cataclysmic clash ends inconclusively and Herbert, mentally displaced by one of the many monsters which periodically possess him, gives orders for the blind beast and his puny companions’ capture and executionâ€¦

Fleeing on giant war-bats into the nocturnal zone the trio soon arrive at the troubled military outpost of Craftiwich, built on a huge volcano. The site is an armoury operated by fanatical duck soldiers, ruled by the Grand Khan’s son Arch-duke Papsukal. It also houses Herbert’s ogre son Elyacin and his libidinous, troublesome daughter Duchess Zakutu. There’s no love lost between this father and these childrenâ€¦

Papsukal is developing firearms and explosive ordnance, and to make conservative warriors give up swordsmanship he’s ordered that all smiths are to be hunted down and destroyedâ€¦

Pretending to be an envoy from the Grand Khan, bunny Marvin tricks the military technicians into fitting him with the first fully functional suit of nitro-powered super armourâ€¦

His impersonation – and assignation with the sexually voracious but insecure Zakutu – come a cropper, however, when the Khan arrives at the head of an army and resumes his death duel with the Dust Kingâ€¦

Illustrated by Kerascoet, the saga resumes in Volume 2: Armageddon (containing the French albums Donjon Crepuscule: Armageddon and Les Dojo du Lagon from 2002 and 2005) with the fugitives hiding out in the village of the cat women. The Dust King had been terribly maimed in his struggle with the Khan but was still unable to die and had regained a terrible power which he anticipated would come in most useful when their pursuers finally caught up with themâ€¦

Packing the women off with Red Marvin as guardian, The Dust King stays to meet the deadly duck forces. The result is the end of the Khan’s army and ambitions but in the aftermath, as birdlike shaman Gilberto helps the dragon and his faithful little bat hunt down his missing limbs, the surface of Terra Amata detonates, fragmenting into thousands of tiny floating islands above a core of lavaâ€¦

Jaunting from islet to islet the mystic duo eventually track down old Marvin’s missing parts before landing in the remnants of once-formidable Poopooloo. Here they encounter no Olfs but a far more deadly, invisible threatâ€¦

Pausing only to pillage a vast store of magic botanicals and thaumaturgic vegetable pharmaceuticals, the voyagers flee the hidden horrors but blunder into the free-floating Olf bastion of Boobooloo where they are condemned to deathâ€¦

Whilst awaiting execution the emotionally repressed Dust King shares some of Gilberto’s plundered stash and in a traumatic daze relives the dogmatic days of dragon philosophy which lost him his family and the subsequent event which cost him his eyesâ€¦

When he comes to his senses again the Olf courtroom is a shredded, burning wreck and what few survivors remain are fleeing in terror. Gilberto too has swallowed too many drugs and is stricken with a debilitating parade of incredible new powers. One of them makes him a perfect predictor of every floating island’s path whilst another inflicts random, uncontrollable teleportation upon himâ€¦

Forced to escape by more prosaic means (at least by Terra Amata standards), old Marvin and his bat buddy find their way to Orlandoh and the drifting Hut of Spirits to await fate’s next moveâ€¦

One day Red Marvin turns up and is promptly recruited as the Dust King and shamans of the Spirit Hut make plans to combat the remnants of the Grand Khan’s forces. Despatched on an infiltration to the rapidly approaching remnants of Craftiwich, the dry old lizard unexpectedly goes off the reservation and drags his bunny disciple to a passing islet inhabited by dragons. As the bunny makes eyes at a reptilian firebrand who subsequently swipes his super-armour, the elder Marvin is meeting a seductive sorceress who was once, so long ago, his wifeâ€¦

The Dust King is desperate to amend the sacrilege which drove them apart and is astounded when he meets his grandchildren. The rabbit meanwhile has joined a school of dragons learning how to be true warriors. Sadly, he is having trouble being taken seriously by the colossal students, let alone their grizzled old tutors. It takes a few pointers from the crestfallen Dust King to make the mockers pay proper attention to his eager friendâ€¦

And once he’s got them listening, the saurian sage goes about dismantling the doctrinaire dragon religion which cost him his love, his children and his eyes before the heroes return to their shamanic mission in time to rescue Duchess Zakutu from a parched death.

However taking the faithless trollop back to the dragon isle proves a big – almost fatal – mistake for the besotted rabbitâ€¦

Volume 3: The New Centurions

The final volume starts with the world’s various exotic survivors eking out a perilous existence on isolated islands chaotically afloat hundreds of metres above a global sea of molten lavaâ€¦

Again comprising two translated albums it all kicks off with ‘The New Centurions’ (formerly Donjon Crepuscule: Nouveaux Centurions from 2006 illustrated by the delightfully adroit Kerascoet). Herbert has lost much of his might and is being increasingly bullied by his advisors. Moreover his kids have also joined the ranks of those trying to remove himâ€¦

The Dragon students forge a tenuous association with the ducks of Craftiwich and are being fitted with flying armour as the vanguard of a new type of super-soldier ,but carmine lepine Marvin has started to chafe under the Machiavellian intrigues and back-biting which dominate life in the ruined court-in-exile of the Khan. Tasked with training assorted soldiery who still won’t take a rabbit-warrior seriously, yet keenly aware that the vultures are circling, boy Marvin knows that when the take-over attempt by Herbert’s double-dealing lieutenant Fayez begins, no one will be readyâ€¦

Inevitably that day comes and the usurpers are victorious, even though Herbert survives to regroup: however mammal Marvin and his mentor Marvin the dragon are fed up with the whole interminable push-and-shove of politics and promptly quit.

Sneaking away they go looking for some uncomplicated adventuring among the floating Islands in the Skyâ€¦

In ‘Revolutions’, with art by Obion, the nomadic duo become stranded on a giant chunk of land slowly rotating in a downward spiral. With their flying beast dead and Marvin’s armour lost to carnivorous grass the wanderers are forced to continually climb upwards just to stay in place. The alternative is a rapid and terminal plunge to the surging lava-lakes belowâ€¦

Eventually they come across a group of bears and other unfortunate creatures endlessly hauling a gigantic villa and attendant gardens in a circle around the tiny world, keeping everything one step ahead of the rotational doom.

Why do the bedraggled and exhausted volunteers pull so determinedly? Is it for the eight hours of rest and sustenance in the paradisiacal arbours they are granted every third shift? Is it the favours of the willing women of tiny Lord Takmool‘s family? Or is the diminutive aristocrat simply the slyest snake-oil salesman and most duplicitous capitalist conman in the universe?

The Dust King is not so easily fooled but even he eventually joins the eager Marvin on the team – it is, after all, the only game in town. However this Garden of Eden supplies its own temptations and serpents and the darkly satiric allegory looks set to come to a bloody end until unexpected catastrophe strikes the entire island and a whole new world comes into being in the spectacular aftermathâ€¦

Surreal, earthy, sharp, poignant, hilarious and brilliantly outlandish, these wittily sophisticated fantasy comedies are subtly addictive to read whilst the vibrant, wildly eccentric cartooning is an absolute marvel of exuberant, graphic style. Definitely not for the young reader, Dungeon Twilight is the kind of near-the-knuckle, illicit and just plain smart read that older kids and adults of all ages will adore, but for a fuller comprehension – and even more insane fun – I strongly recommend buying all the attendant incarnations too.
Â© 1999, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2009 Delcourt Productions-Trondheim-Sfar-Kerascoet-Obion. English translation Â© 2006, 2010 NBM.

May 7, 2015May 7, 2015

Superman: the World’s Finest Comics Archives volume 2

By Jerry Siegel, Don Cameron, Alvin Schwartz, Joe Samachson, Sam Citron, Ed Dobrotka, Ira Yarbrough, John Sikela, George Roussos, Stan Kaye & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2470-7

The debut of Superman rapidly propelled National Comics to the forefront of their fledgling industry and in 1939 the company was licensed to produce a commemorative extra-length comicbook celebrating the opening of the New York World’s Fair. With the Man of Tomorrow prominently featured on the appropriately titled New York World’s Fair Comics, the premium also featured such four-colour stars as Zatara, Butch the Pup, Gingersnap and The Sandman.

The experiment generated another such titanic tome a year later, and since the prodigious card-covered 96 page anthologies were a tolerable hit, the editors were inclined to further test the waters through another oversized anthology starring only their own pantheon of characters with market-leaders Superman and Batman prominently featured.

The format was retained for a wholly company-owned, quarterly high-end package, retailing for the then hefty price of 15Â¢. Launching as World’s Best Comics #1 (Spring 1941), the book transformed into the somehow-deemed-classier World’s Finest Comics from #2, beginning a stellar 45 year run which only ended as part of the massive clear-out and decluttering exercise that was Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Until a cost-cutting exercise in 1954 reduced the page count, the first 70 issues of World’s Finest only saw Superman, Batman and Robin united on the covers. From #71 (cover-dated July) onwards, however, the three began a long-lived partnership that lasted more or less until the title was cancelled.

This deliciously deluxe hardback Archive edition collects the Action Ace’s solo exploits from World’s Finest Comics #16-32 (Winter 1945 to January/February 1948) in gleaming, seductive full-colour and also includes an incisive Foreword by fan, historian, and comics creator Jim Amash as well as the now-traditional creator biographies.

With stunning, eye-catching covers from Jack Burnley, Dick Sprang and Win Mortimer, this fabulously exuberant compendium opens with the regrettably anonymous ‘Music for the Masses!’ illustrated by Sam Citron & George Roussos wherein Clark Kent and Lois Lane help a starry-eyed hick songwriter escape the machinations of arch conman J. Wilbur Wolfingham to find stardom and true love, and World’s Finest Comics #17 provided thrills and spills in Don Cameron, Citron & Roussos’ ‘The Great Godini!’, wherein a reformed convict struggles to escape his notorious past whilst attempting to forge a career as a stage magician and escapologistâ€¦

‘The Junior Reporters!’, by Alvin Schwartz & Ed Dobrotka, sees a young newsboy prove his grit and integrity in a journalism competition, scoring his first major scoop by exposing the crooked schemes of his older brother’s gang, after which WFC #19 details Cameron & Ira Yarbrough’s ‘The Battle of the Zodiac!’ as Lois’ investigation of a shady swami leads to a spectacular, phantasmagorical clash between the Man of Steel and animatedly aggressive astrological embodiments.

After swiping advanced electronic and atomic components, creepy Winslow Schott becomes ‘The Toyman: Super-Scientist!’ (Cameron, Dobrotka & Stan Kaye), bedevilling the Metropolis Marvel with lethally devious devices, whilst from #21, ‘The Plane of Tomorrow!’ (Joe Samachson, Yarbrough & Roussos) finds Superman feeling uncharacteristically jealous when Lois seemingly switches her fickle attentions to a dashing jet designer targeted by a dodgy industrialistâ€¦

When Lois and Clark are despatched north to cover radium mining they uncover a strange mystery. Aging prospector John Borealis seems to be just a crazy old man handing out gold to his struggling fellows but he harbours a dangerous secret which draws out an army of bandits in ‘The Siege of Aurora Roost!’ (Schwartz, Yarbrough & Kaye in #22)â€¦

When a handful of silent screen stars attempt a comeback they begin dotting the city with vast imitations of the Seven Wonders of the World. As the poorly built edifices begin to crumble, Superman steps in to save the day as ‘The Colossus of Metropolis!’ (Cameron, Yarbrough & Kaye from World’s Finest Comics #23), after which those artists delineate the again-anonymously-scripted ‘Impossible But True!’ wherein the presenter of a new TV show tells more and more blatant lies on camera.

What nobody knows is that poor Olga Olmstead is being fed false info by ruthless kidnappers and the Man of Tomorrow is biding his time until he can strikeâ€¦

‘Mad Weather in Metropolis!’ from WFC #25 (Cameron, Yarbrough & Kaye) follows similar themes when Lois is appointed Daily Planet meteorologist and resentfully fabricates impossible forecasts which Superman makes come true. What she doesn’t know is that the Caped Crimebuster is using her potty prognostications to help out an ailing sporting goods store and catch a gang of racketeersâ€¦

Co-creator Jerry Siegel returned after war service in 1946 and ‘The Confessions of Superman!’ (art by John Sikela & Kaye) saw him on top form as the promise of a huge charity donation convinces the Man of Might to pen his (somewhat expurgated) autobiography and then have to prove to his publisher that he did indeed perform the feats he describedâ€¦

World’s Finest #27’s featured ‘The Man who Out-Supered Superman!’ (Siegel, Sikela & Kaye again ) wherein downtrodden love sick schnook Nelson Swayne devised numerous sharp ways of outdoing the Man of Steel to win back his flighty, star-struck girlfriendâ€¦

Paramount mad scientist Lex Luthor returned with a â€œlife-rayâ€ to plunder and pillage Metropolis, galvanising a giant statue into becoming ‘Superman’s Super-Self!’ (Cameron, Yarbrough & Kaye) whilst ‘The Books that Couldn’t be Bound!’ (Schwartz, Sikela & Kaye in #29) found Clark and Lois following a harried bookbinder as he strove to fulfil three all-but-impossible commissions. Naturally the Caped Kryptonian also turned up to assist as a unique apprenticeâ€¦

‘Sheriff Clark Kent’ (Cameron, Win Mortimer & Dobrotka) took the Man of Steel to the Wild West but it was his meek alter ego and feisty little lad Roaring Pete who caught the cunning crook ramrodding the fearsome Rockdust Banditsâ€¦

Sheer whimsy guided ‘Superman’s Super-Rival!’ (Schwartz, Yarbrough & Kaye) as punchy boxer Dan the Dunce swipes an experimental sedative which turns him into a mighty muscled mauler able to mangle the Man of Steel and seduce away his girl Loisâ€¦ The last tale in this volume – from World’s Finest Comics #32, Fall 1944 – is ‘The Seventh Wonder of the World!’ by Siegel, Yarbrough & Kaye, astoundingly detailing how Superman briefly visits ancient Egypt just in time to smash an army of proto-Nazis, liberate Pharaoh’s slaves and complete the Pyramid of Cheops. All in a day’s work, reallyâ€¦

These blockbusting yarns provide a perfect snapshot of the Caped Kryptonian’s amazing development from unstoppable, outlaw social activist to trusted and omnipotent paragon of American virtues in timeless tales which have never lost their edge or their power to enthral and beguile.

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