Category: Graphic Novels

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Inhumanity


By Matt Fraction, Kelly Sue Deconnick, Warren Ellis, Samuel Humphries, Matt Kindt, Christos N. Gage, Jonathan Hickman, Olivier Coipel, Nick Bradshaw, Todd Nauck, Matteo Buffagni, André Lima Araújo, Paul Davidson, Stephanie Hans, Simone Bianchi & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-614-4

During earlier mega-crossover blockbuster Infinity, mad Titan Thanos invaded Earth and clashed with the Inhumans’ ruler Black Bolt to a standstill. As a last resort the embattled Inhuman king crashed the flying city of Attilan onto New York and into the Hudson River, simultaneously releasing the Hidden People’s mutagenic Terrigen Mist into the atmosphere where it triggered mutation in millions, proving that Human and Inhuman were not necessarily different races…

Collecting assorted incidents of Terrigen exposure – specifically Inhumanity #1-2, Avengers Assemble #21.INH to 23.INH, #24-25, Avengers A.I. #7, Inhumanity: The Awakening #1-2, Inhumanity: Superior Spider-Man #1 and New Avengers #13.INH (spanning December 2013 to May 2014) – this epic chronicle of a game-changing publishing event takes a look at the fallout of that colossal catastrophe wherein a vast portion of the planet discovers everything they believed about themselves was wrong whilst coping with the shock of developing new and scary unnatural abilities…

The drama begins with Inhumanity #1, by Matt Fraction, Olivier Coipel, Mark Morales and Laura Martin (with flashback sequences illustrated by Leinil Francis Yu, Gerardo Alanguilan, Dustin Weaver & Israel Silva), as in the immediate aftermath of the cataclysm the Inhuman called Karnak is arrested by the Avengers.

His incomparable ability has been to infallibly detect the flaw and weakness of anything – object, person, even concept – but as he wearily describes the history of his people to his captors/hosts he reaches a startling fresh conclusion…

The Inhumans came into existence 25,000 years ago, after Imperial Kree explorers landed on Earth and tampered with the genetics of a tribe of primitives, just as they had on hundreds of other worlds.

Millennia later Randac, one of the rulers of the intellectual super-race that subsequently developed, took that meddling to its ultimate end by devising the Terrigen Mist process, enabling citizens to mutate into infinitely unique individuals of astounding power.

The measure originally met with much opposition and many citizens of Attilan quit the city forever, setting up their own diasporic enclaves and increasingly interbreeding with their unevolved cousins. As the Inhumans retreated further into myth, isolation and dogma, their alien-altered genetic heritage was slowly spreading and disseminating throughout baseline humankind.

Now the clash with Thanos has unleashed a Terrigen cloud that will slowly pass over the entire planet, activating all those dormant genes and metamorphosing possibly millions into new lives via body-altering cocoons…

The diminutive warrior also speaks of the last moments of the city, the final official use of Terrigen and how his people evacuated the doomed city: passing through the chimerical living teleport door Eldrac; scattered to the place the living portal deemed they “most needed to be”…

As Karnak continues his ruminations, his cousin Queen Medusa arrives. Believing herself widowed and facing the shattering burden of saving her people without the aid of her messianic man Black Bolt, she is further shaken when her logic-driven kinsman continues his evaluation and arrives at an inescapable conclusion he simply will not abide…

Inhumanity #2, with art by Nick Bradshaw & Todd Nauck (augmented by Scott Hanna, Tom Palmer, Antonio Fabela & Andres Motta), follows Medusa as she copes with a fresh tragedy, the aching responsibility of repairing New York and the horrific tidings that a variety of human villains and scientists are stealing and experimenting on the cocoons of the newest and most vulnerable Inhumans…

As the Avengers’ top brains try to assess the scale of transformations, evil men are murderously hijacking her freshly revealed fellows whilst some full-blooded Inhumans – such as exiled former king The Unspoken – have organised into militias to reclaim the transformative pods and slaughter the sub-Inhuman transgressors who took them.

Worst of all, most inhabitants of fallen Attilan remain missing, included cousin Triton and all of the city’s children…

With such pressures engulfing her it’s almost a relief to learn of an A.I.M. science citadel where the technological terrorists are vivisecting confiscated cocoons and furiously lead a vengeful squad or outraged Inhumans against it…

The story shifts to a more personal mode with Avengers Assemble #21.INH to 23.INH and #24-25, written by Kelly Sue Deconnick and Warren Ellis with art by Matteo Buffagni, Paco Diaz& Nolan Woodward. Here the focus is on novice super-hero Anya Corazón – the latest Spider-Girl – as she strives to rescue someone close to her…

With Terrigen pods now a highly valuable commodity, rogue genetic researcher Dr. June Covington – AKA The Toxic Doxie – takes delivery of one and barely escapes a lethal booby trap which kills her favourite assistant.

Covington’s MO includes assimilating genetic discoveries and improvement into her own body and taking vicious, excruciating vengeance on those who cross her, so the failed ploy by A.I.M. agents quickly takes up all the outraged mad scientist’s attention…

Meanwhile at Avengers Tower the big guns are being swamped by the Inhuman pandemic and haven’t time to listen to the junior arachnid as she demands some help to recover two stolen pods, one of which contains her Social Studies teacher Mr. Schlickeisen…

Finally, after plenty of sniping and her explosive tantrum, Captain America orders Spider-Woman Jessica Drew and Black Widow to assist and the trio quickly track down an errant A.I.M. cell run by wicked whacko Kashmir Vennema. Sadly the spider squad is promptly overwhelmed whilst learning that Schlickeisen is already dead, just as elsewhere Toxic Doxie takes over a rogue science lab to begin her mission of research and retribution…

Breaking free, the Arachnoid Avengers escape and return to base but Anya is unsatisfied and wants to go back, declaring that her teacher deserves a decent burial. This time grizzled warrior Wolverine and scary scientist Bruce Banner tag along and soon extract information out of a severely rattled Vennema.

Mr. Schlickeisen was gimmicked up and sold to Covington and now Spider-Girl has a fresh target to hunt…

Whilst Toxic Doxie completes her Terrigen-assisted biological improvements, Wolverine takes Anya aside for a little private tuition and technological upgrading before they hit the trail for the maniac’s last known whereabouts. They’re too late but the battle against her abandoned and crazed associates yields more useful intel, such as the fact that Schlickeisen is still alive…

Iron Man then assumes the role of on-the-job trainer, teaching Spider-Girl the value of research and preparation whilst deducing where the body-in-question is stashed. After rescuing the still comatose New Inhuman they have a solid idea of what new enhancements Covington has added to her body arsenal and that’s she’s readying an attack on the A.I.M. faction that set her up…

With the victim safe and a target location provided, Anya then gets the promotion of a lifetime, leading a team of veteran Avengers in a blistering raid to wrap up all the bad guys in her own web of justice…

This fast-paced and deliciously light-hearted action romp gives way to a far more emotive and evocative tale in Avengers A.I. #7.INH (Samuel Humphries, André Lima Araújo & Frank G. D’Armata) which examines the experiences of a recently transformed New Inhuman.

As Hank Pym‘s quirky cybernetic team encounter Daredevil and a lonely old lady mutated into a nauseating monster, the shock of her fate seems likely to drive poor Doris over the edge until a most unlikely robotic saviour talks her down…

Inhumanity: The Awakening #1and 2 by Matt Kindt & Paul Davidson then traces the efforts of a combined group of teen heroes from the X-Men’s Jean Grey School and Avengers Academy as they respond to the desperate social media cry for help of young Fiona who hatched out of a pod as a bird girl and was immediately targeted by online trolls and High School bullies.

The young thugs posted what they did to her on the web, but that proved to be very unwise as her angry little brother also mutated… and his power-set was far from benign or inconsequential…

Sharp, witty and painfully relevant, the solutions proffered and accommodations reached in this no-easy-answers yarn are remarkably astute and optimistically hopeful…

Inhumanity: Superior Spider-Man #1 by Christos N. Gage & Stephanie Hans offers more emotional insight as arch-villain Doctor Octopus – currently inhabiting the body of the Wondrous Wallcrawler (see Superior Spider-Man: My Own Worst Enemy) – battles a tragic human victim of circumstance determined to exploit a Terrigen transformee. The original motive might have been cruel and ultimately selfish but a misconceived battle soon teaches everyone something about true power and responsibility…

The portentous wrap-up provides a dark glimpse of horrors yet to come when The Illuminati clash over the Terrigen crisis in New Avengers #13.INH.

Scripted by Jonathan Hickman and illustrated by Simone Bianchi, the response of the world’s most powerful and important individuals (Black Bolt, Namor, Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Hank McCoy, Dr. Strange and Black Panther) is framed against a background of an even greater disaster – the ongoing collapse of the multiverse as alternate Earths randomly smash into each other.

On Earth-23099, a subtly different Illuminati conclave convenes to combat the threat of a Terrigen Bomb detonated by Maximus the Mad as another world hurtles towards them. From this malign Earth come unstoppable Black Priests who destroy everything and everybody. With their grim harvest completed the cosmic clerics then turn their gaze to our world…

To Be Continued…

With cover-&-variants by Coipel, Dean White, Bradshaw, Skottie Young, Mike Deodato Jr., David Marquez, Davidson, Hans, Bianchi and Jorge Molina, this comprehensive exploration of a strange new phase for troubled planet Earth offers suspense, drama, explosive action, wry humour and a potent metaphorical message as it describes the reunification of two deliberately distant branches of mankind, and comes fully equipped with the usual digital extras accessible via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet,

™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Wallace & Gromit – The Complete Newspaper Comics Strips Collection volume 2: 2011-2012


By various (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-87276-082-5

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a Grand New Christmas Tradition… 10/10

Hard though it is to believe, Wallace & Gromit have been delighting us for nearly 25 years and this second extremely engaging newspaper strip compilation – originally published 2011-12 – again attests to just how much a cornerstone of British culture the potty putty pair have become.

The quintessentially English cheese-chasing chaps were originally conceived as an Art School graphic novel for the student Nick Park, before the Plasticene lure of movement and sound redirected the concept to the world of animation.

With the films a global multi-media phenomenon, the animator’s ingenious inventors went full circle bringing the dog and his old boy to cartoon album audiences. After years of perpetually pining for more Wallace & Gromit, the public were then given a big treat when Aardman and Titan Comics put their collective creative noggins together and produced a daily, full-colour comic strip to run in Red-Top tabloid The Sun.

Easily overcoming some early controversy about the suitability of the sometimes saucy venue, Wallace & Gromit debuted on Monday 17th May, 2010, establishing a regular weekly adventure format which comprised six complete, stand-alone gags in traditional format (three panels: Set-up, Delivery, Punchline!) that built to one full storyline.

The tone is always bright and breezy, inventive family fare with all the film-originated regulars in play and the emphasis squarely focused on weird science, appalling puns and the beloved traditions of British sitcoms and farce.

…And Cheese. Mountains and mountains of fermented milk-curd mirth…

Following a foreword of fond remembrance from animator and Aardman co-founder David Sproxton CBE, the witty workouts of nutty northern boffin Wallace and his incomparable best-of-breed working dog Gromit, in their preferred environs of scenic 62 West Wallaby Street, Wigan, start with ‘Library Mate 5000’ wherein a hastily constructed robotic shelf-filler soon proves too much for the staff and readers, after which ‘Pick of the Litter’ finds the likely lads inadvertently changing the nature and face of the Mayor’s clean-up campaign whilst the ‘Lazy Reader 3000’ proves no help at all when Wallace tries to bluff his way into wonderful Wendolene‘s new book club…

As ever there’s a host of howling in-jokes scattered throughout the strips such as scholarly Gromit’s quirky reading habits (Mansfield Bark, Bleak Doghouse, Larry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Charles Spaniel, etc…) as well as a glorious parade of pained and hangdog expressions on the haunted hound’s hard-pressed, long suffering snout, such as seen when a blow to the head inflicts Wallace with ‘Am-cheesy-a‘ or, after the inventor is happily restored to what passes for normal, he misconstrues a sewing moment at Wendolene’s shop for a frenzied scissors attack in ‘D is for Dummy’…

As always the strips are accompanied by a wealth of double-page photo-spreads taken from the original animated features and after the first of these the movie themes continue in ‘Not Matinee Idles’ when W & G take over a failing cinema and attempt to augment the viewing experience with a little technology…

‘The Umpire Strikes Back’ then finds the canny craftsman regretting building a tinker-toy tennis partner whilst a bit of a cellar clearout leads to a cash bonanza in ‘Car Boot’ prompting our heroes to open their own cleaning business utilising the formidable yet ultimately useless ‘Washinator 600′.

Following another photo-op poster the vacation season finds Wallace testing to destruction his cybernetic camping kit in ‘Climb Any Mountain’ and designing a most troublesome vegetable labyrinth in ‘Mazed and Confused’ before succumbing to the invention-proof vicissitudes of a British ‘Heatwave’. When that results in ‘Coughs and Sneezes’ good old Gromit proves more of a remedy than the robot nurse Wallace constructs…

A film set poster leads to a spate of camera creativity and the making of a remarkable ‘Home Movie’ before the lads head for ‘The Grand Tour of Cheese’. The first stop is naturally Wensleydale, after which week two finds them on the continent scouting out France and (mis)hap-pily stocking up on Camembert and Brie inevitably ending up in Holland for ‘The Grand Tour of Cheese #3’.

An intimate poster or Wallace in romantic mood segues neatly into the balding boffin’s brief flirtation with ‘Street Art’, physical fitness in ‘One Dog and his Man’, the perils of barbeque in ‘Garden Party’ and ballooning in ‘Pup Pup and Away’.

Wallace and Wendolene share an romantic poster moment before the comic capers resume with ‘Polly Wants a Cracker (with Cheese)’ as the boys try to capture an escaped Macaw, whilst a haircut for Gromit inspires a new grooming robot, but ends up in ‘Hairs and Disgraces’.

A scheme to build toys for kids in hospital goes strangely awry but ends well on Halloween in ‘Night of the Living Bears’, but there’s no such saving grace when Wallace devises a Magic-o-tron for children’s parties in ‘The Entertainer’. At least his chickens derive some benefit from the wildly inappropriate ‘Rooster Booster 800’…

An industrious photo-spread leads into a week of frantic fiddling with a mechanoid drinks dispenser in ‘Tea Party’, after which the lads turn their skills to trapping ‘The West Wallaby… Wallaby!’ and latterly solving traffic congestion with their mobile, multi-decker ‘Easy Parker’ garaging invention.

They then turn into detectorists to unearth a fabulous lost horde (of cheese) in ‘Treasure Hunters’ and, after another poster break, construct something to take the drudgery out of present shopping in ‘That’s a Wrap’ before foiling a bold robbery attempt by evil penguin Feathers McGraw in ‘T’was the Night Before Christmas…’

A cold snap offers an opportunity to make some dirty money with a chimney cleaning gimmick in ‘Soots You!’ and leads to a bout of hang-gliding in ‘Blown Off Course’, before – after another photographic interlude – ‘Driving Ambition’ details the inventor’s attempts to start his own mass transportation system.

‘Foreign Exchange’ introduces the lads’ oddly similar French cousins Waltier et Bagget whilst in ‘Encounters of the Furred Kind’ Gromit has a brush with a dog from outer space and saves his boss from a big mistake babysitting a python as part of his ‘Pet Hotel’ venture…

Following another poster ‘Bark Life’ depicts the duo’s dealings with a rowdy canine bully before those animated teddy bears pop up again as ‘Wallace’s Grizzly Valentines’, leading to much-needed break on the canals in ‘Straight and Narrow’, despite the boffin’s balmy barge improvements…

Wallace gets completely the wrong idea after attentive Miss Anita Goodman starts pursuing him in ‘Leaping to Conclusions’ and, following another poster-show, returns to sow more chaos through her unruly pet mutt Cuddles in ‘Gromit the Underdog’…

Wallace’s plans to improve Gromit’s favourite chair go predictably haywire in ‘Sofa So Good’ before the tinkerer takes up a new post teaching ‘Evening Classes’, and that short-lived endeavour necessitates a cycling tour only ruined by the inventor’s habit of “fixing” things which aren’t broken in ‘On Yer Bike’…

Easter brings an increased demand for baked goods which the bonkers brainbox tries to meet with his robotic ‘Hot Crossed Bunny’, after which he renovates an old bomber plane and takes the skies in ‘Wallace’s Wings’.

A stint in the Security business leads to skulduggery ‘Behind the Screams at the Museum’, jazzing up old horror films results in more neighbourhood terror in ‘Movie Night’ whilst Gromit eschews exercise for cunning and sheer luck to defeat a canine thug in ‘Dog Fight’ before a national holiday parade leads to out of control dragons and knightly nonsense to catch an fraudulent saint in ‘By George!’

Rounding out this annual of machine-based mirth are the tribulations of wasp nest removal in ‘Sting in the Tail’ and the greatest advancement in the noble game of Cricket ever misconceived with the invention of bombastic bowling machine the ‘Dibbly Dobbly 2000’…

This classy collection closes with informational feature ‘Tomb of the Unknown Artist’ which tells all but reveals nothing of the Creation-by-Committee process which realised (for this edition at least) the mirthful material name-checking scripters Richy Chandler, Robert Etherington, Ned Hartley, Rik Hoskin, David Leach, J.P. Rutter and Rona Simpson, illustrators Jimmy Hansen & Mychailo Kazybrid, inker Bambos and colourist John Burns, all empirically overseen by Aardman’s enigmatic Keeper of the Flame, Cheese and Biscuits: Tristan.

Britain has a grand tradition of converting popular entertainment stars into sterling and memorable comic strip fare which gloriously continues in these superbly inviting, hilariously pun-chy, picture-perfect mini-sagas.

Moreover, all those parents who deliberately avoided the strip because of the paper which carried it no longer have any excuse and should now make this collection a “must have” for the family bookshelf…

WALLACE & GROMIT, AARDMAN, the logos and all related characters and elements are © and ™ Aardman/Wallace & Gromit Ltd. 2014. All rights reserved.

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Modesty Blaise: The Grim Joker


By Peter O’Donnell & Enric Badia Romero (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-711-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: unmissable comics for fans of classic blockbusting adventure… 9/10

Modesty Blaise and her lethally adept, compulsively platonic partner Willie Garvin gained their 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.

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 …

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 years…

The inseparable associates first appeared in The Evening Standard on May 13th 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, others) assumed the art reins, taking the partners in peril to even greater heights.

The series has been syndicated world-wide and Modesty Blaise 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 2002.

The tales are a broad blend of hip and cool capers combining espionage, crime, straight adventure 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-fallible human defenders of the helpless and avengers of the wronged…

Reproduced in stark and stunning black & white – and quite right too – Titan Books’ superb and scrupulous serial re-presentations of the ultimate newspaper troubleshooters continue here with O’Donnell and Romero offering a chilling trio of tales spanning November 1992 to February 1994, each prefaced with informative prose introductions from devotee and historian Simon Ward.

The rollercoaster ride begins with eerie thriller ‘A Present for the Princess’ (originally seen in The Evening Standard from November 3rd 1992 to April 8th 1993) with Garvin deep in the emerald mining region of Montelero, near Colombia.

He is in search of raw materials to create another of his outrageously over-the-top gifts for Modesty and is prepared for trouble from the thugs and bandits who inhabit the region, but not his own partner and guide Ramon who is, after all, a former pal from their long-defunct crime combine The Network…

In England Modesty takes it easy whilst entertaining psychic researchers Steve and Dinah Collier – truly gifted individuals Tarrant wants to employ – who are happily on hand when Blaise has a nightmare premonition that Willie is in trouble.

As usual Garvin has told no one of his plans or destination and when Ramon attacked him had no hope of ever being found. However, the indomitable survivor escaped the ambush – barely – only to be washed up more dead than alive miles downriver. He was then nursed back to health by poor peon Rima: a young woman who looks astonishingly like Modesty.

Willie doesn’t recognise the fact though. The brutalised, battered Englishman has lost his memory…

Although his history is denied him Garvin’s deadly skills are intact and he jumps to the obvious conclusion that he is some kind of criminal. His actions disprove this notion, efficiently saving Rima from an abusive landowner and his thugs.

Although she has fallen for him the native girl knows his clouded mind is obsessed with another woman and she treks with him to the capital city Toccopina to obtain papers and possibly passage back to Britain…

At home, with Willie long overdue, Modesty has employed the Colliers and another psychic to search for him. Their endeavours have narrowed the search to the selfsame South American city. They have also resulted in an enigmatic prophecy…

Willie’s gift for card-playing has meanwhile won the wanderers a nice nest-egg but dropped him clueless amongst the city’s criminal element, most of whom have good reason to despise him.

After an old enemy recognises him, Willie is befriended by the wily conman and unknowingly “sold” to local mob boss Senor Strobel, who cunningly convinces the lethally talented amnesiac that he is an evil man wanted for murder who would only be safe if he rejoins the gang as a hit-man…

By the time Modesty arrives, Willie is safely tucked away in a fortress-like nest of bandits, where his inner self rebels from the acts he’s expected to perform. Naturally she has a plan to save her brother-in-arms and make all the guilty parties very sorry indeed…

Following that spectacular and explosive resolution, the tables are turned somewhat for ‘Black Queen’s Pawn’, a riotous African adventure yarn (April 13th – September 10th) which begins in 1834 when Ranavalona, autocratic and utterly insane queen of Madagascar, obtains a treasure guaranteed to make her immortal. She then hides it away from the eyes of mankind and, just to be sure, has every person who knew of it slaughtered…

Now one hundred and sixty years later hard times have befallen the island, as is clearly observed by veterinary surgeon Greg Lawton who has been commissioned by government officials to find a giant fossil egg.

He’s brought old chum Modesty with him, but when they reach the poverty-stricken village of Mandofo they find the place has been taken over by ruthless thugs on a treasure hunt.

The leader Koch has crossed swords with her before and convinces his murderous underlings not to kill the westerners out of hand. If she dies, nothing could stop the absent Willie Garvin hunting them down. Far better to keep her alive and on her best behaviour by holding innocent villagers hostage…

Forced into unwilling neutrality, Modesty and Greg befriend local missionary Father Brienne and discover the savage invaders are seeking Ranavalona’s legendary lost hoard for mysterious millionaire paymaster Salim. As the cleric is also Koch’s unwilling translator of ancient documents, he provides clues which enable Modesty to deduce where the treasure actually is…

The suspenseful standoff continues until Willie – acting on his own uncanny instincts – surprisingly joins the party, but with Garvin now here in front of them instead of lurking unsuspected at their heels, Koch and Salim decide to arrange a little accident.

However with the deadly détente effectively negated their targets know full well all bets are off and, after brilliantly locating the treasure for the gangsters, go on to prove just a bit smarter and more efficient in settling scores…

The addictive action concludes in a classic murder mystery which sees Modesty take a rare personal interest in a news sensation as Britain is gripped by a series of bizarre, baroque and flamboyant murders by a macabre psychopath signing himself ‘The Grim Joker’ (September 13th 1993 – February 9th 1994)…

The killer apparently devises convoluted, extremely public executions for sheer amusement but such callous slaughter for pleasure disgusts reluctant professionals such as Blaise and Garvin.

Soon they have made themselves prime targets for the maniac, unaware that the Grim Joker is not what he seems. The insanely Machiavellian exploits are in fact a cunning blind concocted by a trio of greedy brats eager to expedite an eventual inheritance.

Brothers Matthew and Mark Goodchild, along with their shared girlfriend Prudence, originally set up the crimes to divert suspicion after they decided to bump off their rich uncle, but as they carried out the string of publicity seeking murders, the thrill of achievement affected them.

Prudence especially has become intoxicated with the undertaking, and begs for more before topping their true target and retiring. Her wish is granted after Willie publicly ridicules the Grim Joker on television and arouses the righteous indignation of the brothers.

It’s all a cunning plan by the ex-Network leaders. After consulting old friend Police Inspector Brook, Modesty and Willie have correctly deduced that the crimes are the work of a team not a lone maniac, and Garvin has offered himself as a too-tempting follow-up target.

Relocating to an isolated Scottish island “for a holiday”, Willie makes himself available for his unknown foes, with Modesty concealed waiting to spring their trap.

Unfortunately they’re keeping watch for a couple of strong men, not the frail helpless girl who first washes up on the desolate death trap…

What follows is smart, chaotic and shatteringly thrill-a-minute excitement, before the dust finally settles and the final tally is taken…

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

Modesty Blaise © 2014 Associated Newspapers/Solo Syndication.

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Wolverine and the X-Men: Tomorrow Never Learns


By Jason Latour, Mahmud Asrar, Mateo Lolli, Pepe Larraz, David Messina, Massimiliano Veltri, Marc Deering & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-610-6

Wolverine is all things to most people and in his long life has worn many hats; Avenger, Teacher, Protector, Punisher.

As leader of covert black ops (and frequently wetworks) unit X-Force he was responsible for executing many maverick mutants but experiences misplaced guilt and shared responsibility for sparing reborn mutant nemesis Apocalypse when he should by all rights have put down his kind’s ultimate foe…

Now that confused child of terrifying potential resides at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning where even his fellow students find it hard to believe that love and a good education can overcome the legacy of death latent within the boy now called Evan…

Collecting issues #1-6 of Wolverine and the X-Men volume 2 (May – September 2014), this fast and furious saga finds the diminished mutant everyman abandoning his preferred role as trainer of the next generation in ‘Tomorrow Never Learns’ to drag old X-Force comrade Fantomex back from a self-imposed exile of torture and unending combat…

While he’s gone many of the latest class of students are undergoing a wave of communal angst prompted not just by Evan’s proximity and existence. Also adding to the tension is the chilling realisation that former fellow student Quentin “Kid Omega” Quire has been revealed (by a batch of X-Men from the future) to be the destined host of supernal cosmic ravager the Phoenix and by the simple, sobering fact that being an X-Man is tantamount to receiving a death sentence…

As Logan returns with Fantomex the next crisis commences in ‘Storm Chasers’ as a global ad campaign co-opting the image of the Phoenix lures Quentin into a devious trap. The mind behind the Phoenix Corporation has employed time-displaced warrior Faithful John to psychically destabilise the already troubled Omega mutant and even the late arriving Storm and Wolverine are unable to overcome the Tomorrow Soldier’s mental assaults and sheer physical prowess…

In ‘True Believers’, as John escapes the adult heroes and turns to attacking their school, Quentin is hotly debating his possible future with disciple of destruction Edan Younge who worships the Phoenix and only wants to help the true host live up to his cataclysmic, universe-rending potential…

Happily Quentin’s feisty not-girlfriend Oya is made of sterner stuff. With Wolverine out of action and whilst Quire brutally rebuffs Younge, she leads a squad of classmates against rampaging zealot John despite a wave psychic strikes which decimate the youthful defenders.

Kid Omega uses the opportunity to run for unlikely help ‘In the Land of the Blind…’, recruiting ideological opponents Cyclops and his Extinction Team to the battle, but even as Younge gloatingly discloses his ancient connections to the Phoenix to a dying Wolverine and hints of a hand guiding his own, Evan and the still traumatised Fantomex make their own off-kilter move on Faithful John in ‘Chekhov’s Gun’ before the shocking revelation of mastermind behind everything exposes the actual motivation behind the attacks in ‘A Fate Far Worse’…

Non-stop visceral action, smart characterisation, hilarious interplay and shocking suspense propel this explosive yarn from high-octane start to explosive finish and the frantic Fights ‘n’ Tights School Daze delights is complimented by a beautiful gallery of covers and variants by Asrar, Marte Gracia, Mark Brooks, Jenny Parks, Art Adams, Jorge Molina and Michael Del Mundo.

Also upping the entertainment ante are added extras provided by of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Magneto: Infamous


By Cullen Bunn, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Javier Fernandez & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-618-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Solid, Mature Superhero Storytelling… 8/10

Cover-dated September 1963, X-Men #1 introduced gloomy, serious Scott “Slim” Summers (Cyclops), ebullient Bobby Drake AKA Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III – codenamed Angel – and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy as The Beast.

These teens were very special students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and Homo Superior: an emergent off-shoot race of mutants with incredible extra abilities.

That first issue also introduced their murderous and utterly evil arch nemesis Magneto: a terrifying and supremely powerful radical menace determined to seize the world for mutantkind and enslave or destroy humanity. The master of magnetism quickly became one of the early Marvel Universe’s A-List villains.

Over the years, however, a wealth of transformations, introspective investigations and personal re-evaluations turned the monster into a too-often misunderstood freedom fighter for his own kind and increasingly an ally of the ever-evolving X-Men.

Then, during the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men, staunch and steadfast Cyclops – transformed and possessed by the overwhelming Phoenix Force – killed his beloved father-figure Xavier and in the devastating aftermath united with former comrade Magik and occasional enemies Emma Frost and Magneto in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at all costs: even, if necessary, by sacrificing human ones.

This new attitude appalled many of their former associates and created a schism in the ranks of Xavier’s many protégés.

The quartet instituted their own training academy – The New Charles Xavier School – and began drilling a new generation of mutants in the tactics of survival in a covert college dedicated to training mutants to fight and survive rather than placidly wait for mankind to turn on them.

The tutors, whose powers had all been radically curtailed in the battle against the Phoenix, also began a public campaign to win a place in the world for mutants, operated under the guise of terrorist group The Extinction Team.

Throughout his time with the group the war-weary elder continued to pay a deep game and, as this volume (collecting issues #1-6 of Magneto volume 3, March-July 2014) commences, he has left them and returned to old ways and his primary purpose…

Written by Cullen Bunn and grittily illustrated by Gabriel Hernandez Walta and Javier Fernandez, the tripwire-taut suspense begins in Missouri as witnesses describe a baroque and grotesque execution carried out by a man who could manipulate metal and who accused his victim of “crimes against evolution and genetic genocide”…

Magneto has used many names since his powers first manifested in a Nazi concentration camp during WWII, but now, with his once planet-wrecking potentialities reduced to merely moving around objects no heavier than a man could lift with flesh, bone and muscle, his priorities have changed. Now he is a creature of terror again, dealing final judgement to those who would eradicate mutants like some stain or mistake of nature…

Subject of a global manhunt by S.H.IE.L.D. – and lesser law-enforcement agencies – Magneto is restlessly travelling from region to region acting as a Homo Superior Punisher, protecting and avenging his people when human authorities can’t or won’t.

Now his travels have brought him to Mountain Air, California where a guilt-stricken vagrant has turned himself in after murdering three mutants. The magnetic menace is not prepared to leave such a killer to indifferent human justice…

However when he blasts into the Courthouse to administer his sentence the helpless, terrified indigent suddenly morphs into an Omega Sentinel and attacks him.

Quickly dispatching the cyborg mutant-hunter, the magnetic avenger is horrified to realise that the scared and totally bewildered human had no idea of the mechanical monster lurking within…

Whilst S.H.I.E.L.D Special Agents Rodriguez and Haines dog his heels, the master of magnetism backtracks the vagrant’s trail to a huge shanty-town where hundreds of dispossessed families cluster together, economic victims eking out a communal existence until they can break back into the society that abandoned them.

Welcomed as just another victim/loser to the spartan community of Down Acres, the punisher discovers that the tent city provokes long-buried memories of the Nazi-controlled Warsaw ghetto little Max Eisenhardt grew up in. The aged undercover vigilante realises that the same type of unfeeling monsters are at work here; kidnapping unwitting humans for raw materials and rebuilding them as stealth sentinels to hunt down mutants.

When the pressgang turns up to take more human fodder, Magneto is waiting…

By the time Haines and Rodriguez arrive, he is gone, following the Sentinel makers’ trail to a factory facility he will not allow to exist for one moment longer. However with his might so severely curtailed, the death and destruction he envisages has to be carried out at close quarters and preferably face-to-face…

His gory task concluded, Magneto travels to the Adirondack Mountains to destroy a secret base where religious fundamentalist sect The Purifiers experiment on mutant children before turning his angry attention to the constantly re-cloned mutant team known as The Marauders…

Human Briar Raleigh had been stalking Magneto for years. A survivor of one of his earlier rampages, the enigmatic manipulator offers her services to him as a skilled information-gatherer, providing data on the latest incarnation of Marauders for her own unspecified reasons.

The Marauders are all mutants, servants of genetic zealot Mr. Sinister, tasked with eradicating the crazed biologist’s failed experiments and anybody he considers a threat or valueless. The number of their own people they have callously slaughtered is incalculable and Magneto dearly wants to find these too-long unchecked race-traitors.

Entering into a cautious alliance with Briar, Magneto meticulously and permanently deals with Scalphunter, Prism, Scrambler, Arclight, Harpoon, Riptide and Blockbuster but simply executing the oft-cloned killers is not his ultimate goal. By finding where the next generation are maturing and deftly reprogramming them, the mutant avenger expects to add to his own growing arsenal of resources…

To Be Continued…

Non-stop visceral action, shocking suspense and a roaring sense of social injustice underpin this excessively grim and noir-tinted saga, exploring a savage genetic realpolitik that will astound and engage readers from bleak start to explosive finish.

This compulsive read also includes a gallery of covers and variants by Paolo Rivera, Chris Samnee & Matthew Wilson, Declan Shalvey & Jordie Bellaire, John Cassaday, Michael Del Mundo, Gurihiru Studios, Skott Young, Jerome Opena, Mark Brooks and Stephanie Hans plus added extras provided by AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Superman Annual 2015


By Joshua Hale, Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Rob Williams, Todd Seavey, Joelle Jones, Wes Craig, Chris Weston, Chris Jones, Craig Yeung, Al Nickerson & various (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-190-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: What Every Kid Deserves… 8/10

The first British Superman Annual was for 1951, a power packed mono-colour monolith that introduced a legion of kids to the decidedly different American style of comic strips. It opened the floodgates to a tidal wave of other DC characters ranging from Tommy Tomorrow to Detective Chimp.

By the end of the 1970s the Superman (and Batman) Christmas editions were a slim and slight shadow of their former bumper selves, even though during the mid-1980s a new crop of editors and designers found a way to invigorate and add value to the tired tomes.

The perennial favourites’ fortunes waxed and waned as different companies attempted to reinvent the tradition but sadly the “World’s Finest” superheroes disappeared completely from British stockings for most of the 21st century.

Thankfully the Cape & Cowl tradition was revived by Titan Books last year and the current crop are ready to liven up a few more Christmas mornings…

This book is the 37th annual for the Action Ace (not counting a series of five combination Superman and Batman tomes for 1975-1978) and the publishers have again wisely catered to the characters’ small and larger screen presence throughout.

The majority of tales collected here come from the continuity-neutral original webcomic Adventures of Superman (#2 and 4, August and October 2013) with material and features from Superman: Secret Files and Origins plus a cool bonus story starring the World’s Greatest Superheroes from the TV spin-off Justice League Adventures #5.

The “Never-ending Battles” begin with ‘Slow News Day’ by Joshua Hale & Joelle Jones wherein a friendly “scoop” contest between rival reporters Lois and Clark inexplicably draws the Man of Tomorrow into the most hectic and annoying day of his life, after which a fulsome fact feature by James Robinson, Sterling Gates & Pete Woods provides everything you need to know about the vast and fascinating city of ‘Metropolis’.

Next Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Wes Craig & Craig Yeung reveal ‘A Day in the Life’, offering a sneaky peek inside the disturbed mind of Lex Luthor as the bonkers billionaire daydreams ways to kill his greatest foe, before another tranche of fact-files (by Geoff Johns & Francis Manapul) delivers the lowdown on both Luthor and space scourge Brainiac.

‘Saviour’ (Rob Williams & Chris Weston from Adventures of Superman #4) contrasts the frantic infallible Man of Steel’s battle against a bevy of super freaks with the loving homeboy who likes to visit with his mum in Kansas, before ‘The Daily Planet’ staff come under the fact-file spotlight courtesy of Gates, Jamal Igle & Jon Sibal, and Johns & Manapul provide the same information overload for superdog ‘Krypto’.

Wrapping up the story portion of this thrilling tome is ‘The Star-Conqueror’ (Todd Seavey, Chris Jones & Al Nickerson from Justice League Adventures #5, May 2002) wherein Superman, Green Lantern John Stewart, Hawkgirl, Flash and Wonder Woman voyage to a distant planet to liberate the population from the mental domination of stellar horror Starro…

With a final fact file on ‘Supergirl’ by Gates & Igle and big, bold cover/pin-ups by John Delaney, Rob Leigh & Bruce Timm, this stunningly seductive and engaging oversized (292 x 227mm) hardback bonanza is a perfect treat for comicbook buffs that will delight and dazzle young and old alike.

Superman and all other characters featured in this book and the distinctive likenesses thereof are ™ DC Comics, Inc. Superman created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster. By special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family. Used with permission all rights reserved. © 2002, 2009, 2013, 2014 DC Comics, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. All rights reserved.

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X-Men: Bloodline


By Brian Wood, Matteo Buffagni, Phil Briones, Clay Mann, Gerardo Sandoval,Seth Mann, Paco Diaz & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-622-9

Since its revival in 1975 Marvel’s Mutant franchise has always strongly featured powerful and often controversial female characters, so when the fourth volume of the adjectiveless X-Men launched it was no real surprise to see that the leading line-up comprised exclusively women warriors.

This third collected chronicle, scripted by Brian Wood, re-presents issues #13-17 (from April to July 2014) – a spectacular, all-action five-part thriller ‘Bloodlines’ lavishly illustrated by Matteo Buffagni, Clay & Seth Mann, Gerardo Sandoval and Paco Diaz.

In recent times vampire mutant Jubilation Lee turned up at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning as a devoted new mother to mystery baby Shogo.

A littler later, in a clash with mutants from the future, Storm’s teenaged daughter appeared, apparently deeply involved with a grown-up Shogo and after the time-bending clash concluded, Kymera opted to stay in our time-period for unspecified reasons of her own.

Now a few of that wonder baby’s secrets are revealed when, in a distant land, the most dangerous man on Earth slaughters his way out of an inescapable jail and heads for America, determined at all costs to reclaim his baby boy…

At the Jean Grey School Jubilee is attending her baby’s latest check-up with resident mutant medical savant Henry McCoy. The Beast has good news about Shogo but is concerned over the foster mother’s state of mind…

The quiet times then end suddenly when one of the students playing in the school grounds is shot by a sniper…

As the facility goes into immediate lock-down and McCoy begins operating to save Primal‘s life, another student – Sprite – is suddenly struck down by a mystery toxin and Jubilee receives a text message threatening death for everyone unless she surrenders Shogo. It is signed “The Future”…

The first three issues also contained a supplementary back-up tale illustrated by Wood & Phil Briones.

Eager to help, a band of older boys head for the Danger Room to prove to combat tutor Psylocke that they are ready to graduate to the big leagues and front lines during this current crisis. However, the ‘Bromo-Superior’ squad of Hellion, Rockslide, Broo and Anole find they may have bitten off more than they can chew against an army of orcs and monsters after Psylocke turns off all the safeguards and makes the test “pass or die”…

Back at the main event wonder woman Monet St. Croix and Marvel Girl Rachel Grey (the alternate Earth daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey) have tracked down and captured the shooter even as The Beast, out of safe options, opts to use denatured genetic material from ancient alien meteor-borne infection and über-predator Arkea (see X-Men: Primer) to repair the damage done to Sprite and Primal.

It is not a decision he makes lightly…

In a quiet alcove Storm presses the stranger who will be her daughter for information and learns that the threat of The Future is the reason she stayed in this fluid time before her birth. Knowing what the child-obsessed assassin will do, she has gambled everything on changing the past – even if it means committing murder and suicide.

As Kymera’s plan begins, however, the school shudders to a wave of cataclysmic explosions…

In the wake of the destruction the girl from tomorrow briefs Storm and her team on the exact nature of what she’s resolved to prevent and fateful plans are laid to end that fate, whatever the cost…

Unfortunately it all seems futile as, when the seemingly unbeatable assassin makes his move, he cuts through the defenders like a scythe through ripe wheat and casually makes off with Jubilee: a perfect hostage to trade for his boy…

With their testing over, the battered but unbowed Bromo-Superior squad break the fully recovered Primal and Sprite out of the infirmary and – with Psylocke surprisingly backing them – convince Storm to let them all join the pursuit team. The undisputed leader of this latest band of mutant warriors is determined that the future she has heard described will never occur, and if that means blooding the next generation under full combat conditions, then that’s what has to happen…

The trail leads deep into the Adirondack Mountains where The Future and his slavish cult of killers have initiated a deadly prototype techno-organic defence-system. “Bloodline” uses the maniac’s own ichor to animate and turn the environment into a savagely hostile geological attack-dog which psychically renders most of the mutants helpless, but when the fanatical father demands his “property” back in return for Jubilee, Kymera uses little Shogo to pull a supremely risky masterstroke…

With a gallery of covers by Terry & Rachel Dodson, Briones and Paul Renaud, this fast and furious adventure offers clever characterisation, wry laughs, taut tension and a colossal amount of comicbook carnage in a no-nonsense rollercoaster romp of Fights ‘n’ Tights fun mutant mavens and Costumed Drama addicts will adore.
™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Batman Annual 2015


By Ivan Cohen, Jim Zubkavich, Matthew Manning, Luciano Vecchio, Neil Googe, Dario Brizuela & various (Titan Comics)

ISBN: 978-1-78276-189-1

A staple of Christmas mornings since the early 1950s, Seasonal annuals featuring DC superstars (generally Superman and Batman plus a few other less enduring icons) slowly became a shadow of themselves as the 20th century concluded.

By the end of the 1970s the Superman and Batman Christmas books were a slim and slight shadow of their former bumper selves, even though during the mid-1980s a new crop of editors and designers found a way to invigorate and add value to the tired tomes.

The perennial favourites’ fortunes waxed and waned as different companies attempted to reinvent the tradition but sadly the “World’s Finest” superheroes disappeared completely from British stockings for most of the 21st century.

Thankfully they were revived by British sequential arts bastion Titan Books last year and the current crop are ready and waiting to liven up a few more Christmas mornings…

The first Batman annual was dated 1960, with two separate publishers releasing Holiday collections during the heydays of “Batmania”, and this current one is the thirty-fifth (not counting a series of five combination Superman and Batman tomes for 1975-1978) and the publishers have again wisely played up the characters’ small and larger screen presence throughout.

Most of the stories and features are taken from the US comicbook tie-in to the tragically controversial CGI television series Beware the Batman; specifically #2-5 from January to April 2014, with a particularly tasty “in-continuity” comics bonus from Legends of the Dark Knight 100-page Super Spectacular #1, (December 2013).

The power-packed peril kicks off with ‘Son of Man-Bat’ by Ivan Cohen & Luciano Vecchio wherein the still barely qualified Caped Crusader, two-fisted butler Alfred and junior assistant Katana become embroiled in a comedy of errors when monstrous mutate Man-Bat begins another midnight rampage of terror and destruction.

However, thanks to the timely assistance of Commissioner Gordon‘s daughter Barbara (who moonlights as clandestine information analyst Oracle), it soon becomes clear that the leathery-winged horror terrorising the city is not Kirk Langstrom but a little kid who was in the wrong place when the afflicted scientist was testing out the latest cure for his mutation…

Soon the Batman and his eerie counterpart are hunting together and the desperate Langstrom is forced to choose between using his one shot at redemption on himself or a stupid, innocent child…

Next up is quirky psychological thriller ‘Diagnosis’ (by Jim Zubkavich & Neil Googe, originally seen in Legends of the Dark Knight 100-page Super Spectacular #1) which sees the Gotham Gangbuster in a tense standoff with former psychologist Harleen Quinzel. As Harley Quinn the demented Joker-groupie has Batman in a bad situation that he can only escape by allowing her to psychoanalyse him, but the daffy death-dealer has completely underestimated the hero’s determination and ingenuity…

Being a British Christmas book there’s a sheaf of extra features and the DC Nation Secret File lowdown on Catwoman nicely clears the emotional palate for the final comics clash as ‘Rule of Three’ (by Matthew Manning & Dario Brizuela from Beware the Batman #2) offers the origins of Batman, Alfred and Katana as backdrop to the shocking tale of a family visiting Gotham who are incomprehensibly targeted by psychotic eco-maniac Professor Pyg.

The porcine plunderer has no idea of the storm he has provoked by trying to deprive a small boy of his parents…

The mayhem and magic then wraps up with a DC Nation Secret File on Gotham gang boss Black Mask…

This fabulously engaging oversized (292 x 227mm) hardback bonanza, stuffed with additional big, bold pin-ups and portraits, is an impressive tome that will be of much interest to aging chronic nostalgists like me, but will also delight and enthral the younger members of your clan – the ones you can’t quiet down with a shot of hooch and a Great Escape DVD…
© 2013, 2014 DC Comics, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. All rights reserved.

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Uncanny X-Men Vs. S.H.I.E.L.D.


By Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Bachalo, Kris Anka, Tim Townsend, Al Vey & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-628-1

During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men, staunch and steadfast Scott “Cyclops” Summers – transformed and possessed by the overwhelming Phoenix Force – killed his beloved mentor and father-figure Professor Charles Xavier.

In the aftermath Summers united with former comrades Magik, Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at all costs: even, if necessary, by sacrificing human ones.

This attitude appalled many of his friends and associates, creating a schism in the ranks of Xavier’s legion of protégés. Discarding Scott, his surviving “First Class” team-mates Beast and Iceman sided with second generation X-Men Wolverine, Psylocke and Storm: staying true to Xavier’s dream and opting to protect and train future X-generations of mutant kids through traditional methods at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning in Westchester, New York.

The opposing sides of the mutant question frequently clashed as the world experienced constant challenge and attack from all quarters. Amid the rising chaos new mutants began appearing in increasing numbers, all with more impressive talents than ever before.

Through careful orchestration, brilliant media massaging and by avoiding unprovoked acts of violence, Cyclops’ Extinction faction began winning the trust and respect of many oppressed sectors of humanity: the poor, the disenfranchised, the rebellious, the young…

When Xavier’s teenaged First Class of X-Men were brought into their own future and our Now (see All-New X-Men: Here Comes Yesterday) they initially stayed with the teachers and students of the Grey School but following the events of X-Men: Battle of the Atom, Hank “Beast” McCoy, Bobby “Iceman” Drake, Warren “the Angel” Worthington, fiercely idealistic young Scott, Jean Grey, as well as teenaged female Wolverine clone Laura “X-23” Kinney and even Grey School Head Professor Kitty Pryde shockingly defected to the mutant terrorist band they were summoned to counteract.

After a very public humiliation of Government-sponsored human/mutant team Uncanny Avengers, the internecine conflict had already heated up when the elder Cyclops – utterly convinced of his species’ imminent and inevitable eradication at human hands – offered a place to any Grey’s student wishing to join his own academy, the New Charles Xavier School: a covert college dedicated to training mutants to fight and survive rather than placidly wait for mankind to turn on them…

With Uncanny X-Men volume 3, #19.NOW and #20-24 (May-October 2014) scripter Brian Michael Bendis and primary illustrators Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend (and additional inkers Jamie Mendoza, Mark Irwin, Victor Olazaba, Wayne Fauch & Jon Holdredge) rake the coals as a long-brewing plot pot boils over and the answers to a few long-running questions shake both mutant and human antagonists…

The eponymous 4-part drama opens in Atlanta where recently expelled Extinction student David Bond – AKA Hijack – is “detained” by a squad of S.H.I.E.L.D. heavies personally led by Director Maria Hill demanding to know the location of Scott Summers.

Almost from the start Magneto had been playing a double (or even treble) game; regularly betraying the mutant outlaws to Hill whilst also telling Cyclops at least some of what he was doing for her.

He then went missing after visiting the island of Madripoor where he found shapeshifter Mystique had created her own mutant utopia from the former rogue state. This exactly coincided with Alison Blaire, S.H.I.E.L.D. Mutant Liaison code-named Dazzler, being replaced by the chameleonic mutant Machiavelli …

Now the ongoing duel between the planet’s paramount paramilitary peacekeeping force and the Extinction faction is swiftly coming to a head.

The situation has been tensely escalating for months. The Extinction leaders had all suffered inexplicable major alterations to their powers after Xavier’s death and their public appearances usually resulted in attacks by robotic super-Sentinels which S.H.I.E.L.D. denied all knowledge of.

It was as if some undetected third force was in play…

In Madripoor the real Dazzler is in a coma, her body used to produce the highly addictive drug Mutant Growth Hormone. However when reprehensible Fred (The Blob) Dukes uncovers the secret it’s not long before his old boss Magneto knows too…

Meanwhile in Canada, Summers and time-bending student Eva Bell have used super computer Cerebro to hone in on a new mutant in Chicago and led the team into an ambush. The Sentinels awaiting their arrival possess the ability to disrupt their powers but happily are completely unable to withstand Magik’s demonic gifts…

Then in the catastrophic aftermath of the clash Cyclops sees common humanity again turning against his kind and declares war on S.H.I.E.L.D….

In Atlanta, Hill has gleaned only one useful titbit of information from Hijack. She now knows Summers is convinced S.H.I.E.L.D. is behind the Sentinel attacks but as she moves her team out to Chicago in the awesome and formidable Helicarrier she is psychically invaded by the mutants who probe her mind for confirmation.

In an act of bravado she opens her mind and shows that she knows nothing of the mechanical monsters. What she cannot prove – even to herself – is that some other faction of the Byzantine organisation is responsible, so she contacts her mutant expert Special Agent Dazzler…

And elsewhere the true power behind attacks gloats as his endgame approaches…

Back at base Summers finally deduces how their unknown foe has been targeting them with Sentinels and closes down Cerebro, whilst in Atlanta Hijack decides to strike out on his own, blithely unaware that he is being followed.

A brilliant, unconventional tactician, Cyclops makes a move nobody expects and pays a call on the Jean Grey School and enlists the aid of the elder Hank McCoy: his former comrade and a man who now despises him and everything he stands for…

However as he tries to question the Beast, his malfunctioning optic power goes wild and destruction rains down on the School just as, in the skies above, Hill arrives in the Helicarrier and Dazzler issues S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ultimatum…

Meanwhile in Madripoor the outraged Magneto has freed the real Alison, but as they make their way back to America the crisis is already peaking. On the grounds of the decimated school Hill and Summers face off but, even with suspicions at fever pitch on both sides, talk rather than action seems to be winning through.

Seeing all his schemes unravelling the mystery mastermind is forced into precipitate action, overriding the Helicarrier’s weaponry controls and raining down death and destruction on mutants and S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiery alike.

When Magneto and Dazzler arrives at the hidden Extinction Base he picks up the impatiently waiting students and fellow tutors before heading for Westchester to confront Mystique-as-Dazzler, unaware of the shattering clash already underway and utterly ignorant of the fact that the expelled and angry Hijack is also racing there…

At the Grey School the dreaded Mutant Extinction looks to be in full swing as the co-opted Helicarrier is reinforced by an army of Sentinels, driving outlaw Homo Superior, officially sanctioned X-Men and S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiery into a desperate alliance…

Bombastic and spectacular, all the plot threads and devious twists are drawn together and the true villains thoroughly dealt with in a classic and staggering resolution which will delight fans of mutant mayhem and Fights ‘n’ Tights furore… but this superb action-fest doesn’t end here.

Kris Anka steps in to render the last two issues – a shocking chapter in the then-ongoing Mortal Sins Crossover Event which begins when the sensational She-Hulk turns up at the battered Jean Grey School. She has a distressing and disturbing function to execute in her role as metahuman lawyer Jen Walters: the reading of ‘The Last Will and Testament of Charles Xavier’…

The first onerous and almost impossible task is to gather all the aggrieved, bereaved and estranged students of the pioneering mutant messiah in one room…

In the secret Canadian fortress that houses the Extinction Team and students of the New Xavier School Alison Blaire is considering what Mystique did to her. She is not coping well…

And in South Carolina a young man named Matthew feels the first stirrings of unrelenting power within his body. Soon he will be the only survivor of a catastrophic detonation and the target of all S.H.I.E.L.D.’s deadly anti-mutant technologies and capabilities…

Eventually Cyclops is convinced to attend the reading, much to the dismay and disgust of his former team-mates.

Everybody knows that Xavier considered Scott his son and believes the first X-Man will be the main beneficiary despite also being the Professor’s murderer. Tension is high as this thought simmers in every mind even though Cyclops has already declared that he won’t accept any bequest…

However when the recorded video message finally plays what the great saviour reveals is no dispensing of gifts and chattels but a disclosure of Charles Xavier’s greatest, darkest secret…

To Be Continued…

With cover-&-variants by Bachalo & Townsend, Anka, Alexander Lozano, J. Scott Campbell, Adi Granov and Terry & Rachel Dodson as well as the usual digital extras accessible via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Combining incredible adventure with clever characterisation and a colossal amount of comicbook carnage, this is a wonderfully cathartic conclusion and restart which no Costumed Drama addict could possibly resist.

™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Modesty Blaise: The Young Mistress


By Peter O’Donnell & Enric Badia Romero (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-709-0

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: unmissable comics for fans of classic blockbusting adventure… 9/10

Modesty Blaise and her lethally adept platonic partner Willie Garvin were superior criminals who retired young, rich and healthy – without ever getting too dirty – from a career where they made far too many enemies.

They were slowly dying of boredom in England when British Spymaster Sir Gerald Tarrant 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 of excitement and a chance to get some really evil sods.

With that tenuous beginning in ‘La Machine’ (see Modesty Blaise: the Gabriel Set-Up) the pair embarked upon a non-stop helter-skelter thrill-ride that has pitted them against the World’s vilest villains and maddest maniacs…

The legendary femme fatale first appeared in The Evening Standard on May 13th 1963 and over the following 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 – a light-hearted adventure strip from the 1950’s itself long overdue for revival and compilation) produced a treasure trove of brilliant graphic escapades until the illustrator’s tragic early death in 1970, whereupon Spanish artist Enric Badia Romero and others assumed the art reins, taking the daredevil duo to even greater heights.

Modesty has been syndicated world-wide and the partners in peril have also starred in 13 prose novels and short-story collections, several films, a TV pilot, a radio play and nearly one hundred comic strip adventures between 1963 and the strip’s conclusion in 2002.

The tales are always stylish and engaging spy/crime/thriller fare in the vein of Ian Fleming’s Bond stories (as opposed to the super-spy’s sometimes over-the-top cinema exploits) although Modesty and Willie are competent, canny, deadly, yet all-too-fallibly human.

Reproduced in stark and stunning black & white – as they should be – Titan Books’ superb and scrupulous serial re-presentations of the ultimate newspaper troubleshooter continue here with O’Donnell and perennial collaborator Romero at the top of their game in a trio of tales spanning August 5th 1991 to November 2nd 1992, each prefaced with informative prose introductions from devotee and historian Lawrence Blackmore.

The rollercoaster ride begins with eponymous thriller ‘The Young Mistress’ (originally seen in The London Evening Standard from August 5th 1991 – January 6th 1992) which delves into the thorny subject of domestic abuse and the high-stakes world of art forgery.

When Modesty and current paramour Dr. Giles Pennyfeather aid a young woman thrashed with a riding crop they are astounded when the terrified Marian Hall refuses to press charges against shady art dealer Bruce Lacey.

Not only does the sadistic bully have unsubstantiated links to the underworld but he clearly enjoys inflicting pain. However when he surprises Marian’s rescuers, his attempts to teach Modesty “a lesson” rebound on him painfully and humiliatingly. They even take his toy girlfriend away…

Safely ensconced with Modesty and Willie, Marian explains that it’s not love but fear and guilt that keep her with Lacey. The young commercial artist is a brilliant copyist and when she first began seeing the astoundingly well-connected gallery owner, he convinced her to counterfeit a valuable painting before selling it on to an unsuspecting collector.

As a participant (albeit innocently) in fraud, she is in the monster’s pocket. Moreover Lacey was intending to use Marian to forge a borrowed Rembrandt and subsequently kidnaps her and her understanding old boyfriend to ensure the talented lass’ compliance in his nefarious multi-million-dollar scheme.

Determined to end the beast’s predations and thoroughly aware that Lacey will never rest until he has subjected Modesty to the brutal tortures that push his sick buttons, Willie and Modesty undertake a convoluted sting to break his power base, but are unaware of just how vicious and violent Lacey can be.

He, of course, has completely underestimated the lengths to which Modesty will go to defend the helpless…

‘Ivory Dancer’ (January 7th – June 5th 1992) changes tack as Modesty and Willie take their feisty, horse-mad prodigy Samantha to Kentucky for a vacation with billionaire John Dall.

The equine enthusiast is an old lover of Modesty’s as well as owner of the world’s most successful and valuable race horse, but the dream holiday unfortunately coincides with a cruel attempt to kidnap the four-legged superstar by ruthless gangster Gallo.

Sadly for the murderous thugs little Sam has an almost preternatural connection with the horse and once the steed goes missing she’s hot on his trail.

…And Willie and Modesty are hard on her heels; in no mood to be gentle with thugs who steal horses and threaten children…

The addictive action concludes in a classic espionage extravaganza as ‘Our Friend Maud’ (June 8th – November 2nd 1992) reintroduces Sir Gerald’s top agent in a clever tale of brainwashing, contract killing and international intrigue.

Maud Tiller is a top operative and when occasional dalliance Willie Garvin is blanked by her in a French restaurant he simply assumes she’s undercover on a mission. However his danger-honed senses are troubled and a little quiet checking reveals that the agent has gone AWOL.

Liaising with Modesty and Tarrant, Willie soon discovers that Maud has been kidnapped by fixer-for-hire the High Contractor and deduces she is being slowly programmed to assassinate somebody important and generally untouchable…

Linking up with Modesty, the outraged Garvin tracks Maud down and with the aid of unconventional Gallic operative Code-Name: Henri proceeds to infiltrate the upper echelons of grand society to rescue his English Rose, consequently dismantling one of the most dangerous international terror rings ever to threaten world peace…

These are unforgettable stories from brilliant creators at the peak of their powers; revelling in the majesty of an iconic creation. As timeless adventure romps packed with sex appeal, dry wit and devastating tension, the stories here are more enthralling now than ever and never fail to deliver maximum impact and total enjoyment.

Modesty Blaise © 2014 All rights reserved.