Graphic Novels – Page 152

October 14, 2013October 13, 2013

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Autumnal

By Chris Boal, Tom Fassbender, Jim Pascoe, Cliff Richards & Joe Pimentel (Dark Horse Books/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-382-7

Having conquered television, Buffy the Vampire Slayer began a similar crusade with the far harder-to-please comicbook audiences. Launched in 1998 and offering smart, sassy tales to accompany the funny, action-packed and mega-cool onscreen entertainment, the series began in an original graphic novel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the Dust Waltz) before debuting in a monthly series.

She quickly became a major draw for publisher Dark Horse – whose line of licensed comicbook successes included Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Aliens and Predator – and her exploits were regularly supplemented by short stories in the company’s showcase anthology Dark Horse Presents and other venues.

This particular UK Titan Books edition – illustrated by Cliff Richards & Joe Pimentel – features stories set during TV Season 4 and gathers issues #26-28 (October-December 2000), the pertinent covers by Christian Zanier, John Totleben, Ryan Sook, Galen Showman & Dave Stewart, plus a few photo portraits of the blonde bombshell in reflective mood.

What You Need to Know: Buffy Summers was a hapless Californian cheerleader Valley Girl until the night she inexplicably turned into a hyper-strong, impossibly durable monster-killer. Meeting a creepy old coot from a secret society of Watchers she discovered that she had become a â€œSlayerâ€ – the most recent recipient of an ancient geas which transformed mortal maids into living death-machines to all things undead, arcane or uncanny.

Moving with her mom to the deceptively quiet hamlet of Sunnydale, Buffy soon learned her new hometown was located on the edge of an eldritch gateway known to the unhallowed as The Hellmouthâ€¦

Enrolling at Sunnydale High, Buffy made some friends and, schooled by new Watcher Rupert Giles, conducted a never-ending war on devils, demons and every shade of predatory supernatural species inexorably drawn to the areaâ€¦

This slim supernal compilation finds Buffy with a new boyfriend – federal spook-buster Riley Finn – and starting out as a freshman college girl, as is trainee sorceress, roommate and BFF Willow. There’s no respite from her true calling, however, as the two-part ‘Heart of a Slayer’ scripted by Chris Boal soon provesâ€¦

The drama begins as a Slayer from the Dark Ages skitters through time to the present just as a seemingly indestructible horror targets Buffy. The beast is only driven away after the foul-smelling barbarous sword-maiden arrives, but the two monster-hunters are separated by more than language and seem destined to become bitter enemies.

The remnants of the â€œScooby Gangâ€ gather (Oz has gone walkabout and Cordelia has moved to Los Angeles with Angel) to try and learn the secret of the creature and the origins of the gothic slayer, but even as their researches uncover the appalling cost of stopping the ravenous monster, Buffy is astounded to find herself afflicted with an unwelcome messianic destinyâ€¦

Tom Fassbender and Jim Pascoe then pen the nightmarish voodoo thriller ‘Cemetery of Lost Love’ wherein the One True Slayer is plagued by unsavoury events and apparitions as she and recently reformed bad-boy vampire Spike seek to stop a very wilful girl getting herself immortalised by the local bloodsucker gang. Of course it’s all a devious trapâ€¦

This is another extremely accessible assemblage of arcane action and furious phantasm fighting, even for those unfamiliar with the extensive back history: one more self-contained creepy chronicle of stirring sagas as readily enjoyed by the newest neophyte as any confirmed connoisseur.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer â„¢ & Â© 2001 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

October 13, 2013October 12, 2013

Uncanny X-Men: Lovelorn

By Matt Fraction, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Mitch Breitweiser, Daniel AcuÃ±a & Justin Ponsor (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2999-8

Most people who read comics have a passing familiarity with Marvel’s fluidly fluctuating X-Men franchise and even newcomers or occasional consumers won’t have too much trouble following this particular jumping-on tome, so let’s just plunge in as our hostile world once more kicks sand in the faces of the planet’s most dangerous and reviled minorityâ€¦

At this particularly juncture, the evolutionary offshoot dubbed Homo Superior is at its lowest ebb. This follows the House of M and Decimation storylines, wherein Wanda Maximoff, former Avenger Scarlet Witch – ravaged by madness and her own chaos-fuelled reality-warping power – reduced the world’s entire mutant population to a couple of hundred individuals with a three simple words…

Most of those genetic outsiders have accepted a generous and earnest offer to relocate to San FranciscoBay, but of course, trouble is always happy to make house callsâ€¦

This sleek, slim tome re-presents Uncanny X-Men #504-507 and Uncanny X-Men Annual volume 2, #2, cover-dated January-May 2009: one of a number of collections cataloguing the assorted mutant heroes’ and villains’ responses to the offer in a publishing event dubbed Manifest Destiny.

This compelling compilation commences with the 4-part ‘Lovelorn: Every Little Bit Hurts’, scripted by Matt Fraction and illustrated by Terry & Rachel Dodson with colourist Justin Ponsor, beginning as Russian expatriate Piotr Rasputin languishes in remorse and agonises over the recent fate which took his beloved Kitty Pryde from him.

Colossus‘ moping is beginning to affect every survivor at the newly occupied Greymalkin Facility on the Marin Headlands so leader Scott â€œCyclopsâ€ Summers and Emma Frost, ex-White Queen of the Hellfire Club resort to tough love, ordering him to get his head together.

The uncrowned rulers of the mutant enclave are going through a tense patch in their own rocky relationship. The telepathic Frost is chafing over the fact that Scott is keeping one small section of his mind permanently closed to her probes and her resentment is growing dailyâ€¦

As Piotr wanders through San Francisco’s Russian quarter in the Richmond District he stops for a snack in a diner and finds the owners being harassed by mobsters from the old country. Against his better judgement he agrees not to interfere, but then realises the gang leader is a mutantâ€¦ one he recognises from his childhoodâ€¦

Founding X-Men Angel and the Beast are in Argentina trying to recruit one of Earth’s oldest mutants for a unique â€œthink tankâ€. In the 1930s abrasive and obnoxious super-genius James Bradley worked with Phineas Horton to create the android Human Torch before becoming the masked vigilante Doctor Nemesis. Now, preternaturally spry, he spends his days hunting down those Nazi war criminals he didn’t finish off during WWII.

He has no interest in helping the X-Men undo the effects of the Scarlet Witch’s spell – but none of that matters to the high-tech neo-Nazi supermen hunting Nemesis in turnâ€¦

Suddenly the world changes again as reports of a massacre leak out of Alaska. Terrorists have razed remote Cooperstown to burning rubble, apparently because a mutant baby was born thereâ€¦

Already anti-mutant activist Simon Trask is stirring the flames of panic and prejudice as a Press Statement from his Humanity Now Coalition asks if this is true â€œwhat happens when one is born in your town?â€

With anti-mutant hysteria growing and Trask actively lobbying in Washington, Cyclops, Beast and Emma visit the San Francisco Mayor. However, even with most of the feared and despised genetic outcasts now housed in her city and the entire population potentially at risk from fanatics and mutant-hunters, Sadie Sinclair stands firm on her offer of sanctuary.

She does however eventually suggest that they relocate the community to an uninhabited, more fortifiable island in the Bayâ€¦

Colossus is hunting. The thug in the diner was the same tattooed mutant monster who had terrorised and blackmailed his family in Russia long before the X-Men were formed. Now that he has spread his web to America and Piotr has found the reasons he needed to resume the role of heroâ€¦

As what passes for normality returns to the X-enclave Scott broods on his daughter Hope, first mutant born after â€œthe Decimationâ€ and currently lost in future with his son Nathan AKA Cable. Emma broods because she still can’t read her man’s mind and, in the Yukon, mutant tech-morph Madison Jeffries broods on his impending demise at the clamps, claws, grippers and wires of the autonomous mechanical life forms he’s just created.

His certain doom is deferred when Beast, Angel and Dr. Nemesis arrive to offer him a position in their â€œX-Clubâ€â€¦

In San Francisco Piotr has decided on a long game and joined the mutant racketeer’s gang, and Emma’s fretting has turned to nights filled with bad dreams. As Trask’s hate-message spreads, an increasing number of former mutants and their parents begin to arrive begging for sanctuary and Colossus only adds to the influx crisis when he rescues a cargo of trafficked Russians and brings them the relative safety of the X-enclave.

After dealing with the mech-things, the ever-expanding science team has travelled to Japan to recruit atomic mutation expert Dr. Yuriko Takiguchi where the reclusive paranoid has a slight problem.

He’s trapped on a remote island by the giant monsters he created to protect him from being abducted by the Soviets and the travellers only survive the Brobdingnagian assaults after Angel is forced to reveal his own deadly transformative secret to his astounded and horrified colleaguesâ€¦

Back in San Francisco, Colossus ends his infiltration of Tattoo’s mob in decisive manner when Emma – never a big fan of men who abuse girls – invites herself along for the rideâ€¦

Later the reassembled and victorious mutants enjoy a moment of relative calm but are blithely unaware of the distant reawakening of an old and dreaded foeâ€¦

This engaging Costumed Drama then concludes with a lengthy examination of the history and motives of Emma Frost in ‘White Queen, Dark Reign’ from Uncanny X-Men Annual #2, illustrated by Mitch Breitweiser on modern-day chapters with Daniel AcuÃ±a handling the scenes from her sordid serried pastâ€¦

When she was young and a villainous consort of Hellfire Club ruler Sebastian Shaw, the precocious telepath was â€œexpectedâ€ to get cosy with Atlantean monarch and public enemy Prince Namor of Atlantis. Now the new US Metahuman Security Supremo Norman Osborn (see Dark Avengers volume 1: Assemble) has invited both Emma and Namor to join his covert cabal of criminal masterminds and global outlaws, the conniving Frost sees an opportunity to pay a few old and still-painful debtsâ€¦

Exciting, enthralling and exceptionally entertaining, this stirring, supremely sensuous Fights ‘n’ Tights tome is treasure trove of treats for fans of sexy superheroes and combat connoisseurs and also includes a selection of cover reproductions and variants by Mr. & Mrs. Dodson, Greg Land & Michael Golden

October 11, 2013October 10, 2013

By Jason Aaron & Simone Bianchi (Marvel Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-543-7

In the wake of the epochal Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company’s entire continuity was reconfigured as a jumping on point for new and returning readers. From that point on the banner MarvelNOW! indicated a radical repositioning and recasting of all the characters in an undertaking designed to keep the superhero universe an inviting, interesting place to visit.

This involved a varying degree of drastic rethink for beloved icons, concepts and brands, always, of course, with one wary eye on how the material would look on a movie screenâ€¦

Thus in advance of the forthcoming comics event Infinity and his own movie debut, the renegade Mad Titan Thanos got his own tell-all 5-issue miniseries (running from April to August 2013) collected here as a brooding, moody and extremely gory chronicle of rejection, depravity, insanity and death.

Lots and lots of deathâ€¦

Thanos first appeared in Iron Man #55, as did his nemesis Drax the Destroyer, in the prelude to an epic campaign of conquest from 1972-1974 which appeared in Captain Marvel #25-33 with side skirmishes in Marvel Feature #12 andÂ Avengers #125 plus a few issues of Daredevil. The alien â€œMasterlordâ€ seemed obsessed with conquest and destruction; using an army of space pirates, a coterie of super-villains and the wish-fulfilling Cosmic Cube to attain his ends.

In the end Thanos transformed himself into God and was revealed to be in love with the personification of Death herself. Only a cosmic entity who had awaited his emergence for eight billion years eventually turned the tide of terror.

This tale was a key event in Marvel history, innovative and still deeply thrilling on a raw, visceral instinctual level. Thanos, the death-obsessed master-villain, was a critical and commercial success in all his appearances: battles with Captain Marvel, the Avengers, the Thing and Spider-Man, whilst his destruction at the hands of the agent of Universal Life Adam Warlock was an absolute highpoint in superhero storytelling.

Thanos died but was of course brought back from The Great Beyond to resume redressing the imbalance between the Living and the Dead to please his mistress. He also worked hard fulfilling equally dark and deranged agendas of his own – such as waging an all-out war for hands-on control Reality and becoming the Supreme Beingâ€¦

Scripted by Jason Aaron and beautifully illustrated by Simone Bianchi, this fearsome glance into the formative years of the Scourge of Life begins amidst the shattered ruins of Titan where Thanos regularly returns to cogitate amongst the fragments of his earliest atrocities.

The moon of Saturn had been home to an offshoot race of Eternals for millennia when the boy was born to saviour, supreme scientist and leader A’Lars and his wife Sui-San. The babe was born disfigured, a mutant amongst a population of perfect people. However it was the chilling look in the child’s eyes and not his deformities which prompted the exhausted mother to try and kill him the moment she first held himâ€¦

With Sui-San under permanent medical restraint, the freak grew up lonely but not outcast – although something in him made all the other kids uncomfortable. Eager to please and fit in, young Thanos exhibited great scientific aptitude but only ever really had one friend, a girl who constantly challenged him to greater and more incisive enquires – especially biologyâ€¦

To tell more would ruin some delightfully dark passages and spoil an extremely engaging reconstruction of the Cosmic Destroyer as he transitions from comicbook mad dictator into that most popular of modern monsters, the serial psycho-killer.

Suffice to say that the saga of how Thanos leaves home, destroys home, becomes a pirate and sires an army of children before at last discovering his true vocation and destiny is a most intriguing and plausible journey: one that will impress contemporary readers and most die-hard fans alike.

Also included are pages of extra content for tech-minded consumers via the AR icon option (a printed portal providing code for free digital copy on Marvel Comics app for iPhoneÂ®, iPadÂ®, iPad TouchÂ® & Android devices and Marvel Digital Comics Shop: a special augmented reality content available exclusive through the Marvel AR app which includes trailers, character bios, video commentaries and more) as well as a good-old-fashioned cover-and-variants gallery by Bianchi, Marko Djurdjevic, Carlo Barberi, Mark Brooks, Skottie Young, Ed McGuiness & Mike Deodato Jr.

October 9, 2013October 9, 2013

Batman: Impostors

By David Hine, Scott McDaniel & Andy Owen (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3144-6

At the climax of a harrowing and sustained campaign of terror by insidious cabal The Black Hand and following an all-out invasion by the New Gods of Apokolips, the original Batman was apparently killed. Although the world was unaware of the loss, the superhero community secretly mourned whilst a small dedicated army of assistants, protÃ©gÃ©s and allies – trained over years by the contingency-obsessed Dark Knight – formed a â€œNetworkâ€ to police GothamCity in the days which followed: marking time until a successor could be found or the original returnedâ€¦

Most of the Bat-schooled battalion refused to believe their inspirational mentor dead. On the understanding that he was merely lost, they eventually accepted Dick Grayson – the first Robin and latterly Nightwing – as a stand-in until Bruce Wayne could find his way back to themâ€¦

None of that is germane to this sleek and sinisterly straightforward vigilante adventure, designed to tie-in with a videogame release (and thus deliciously free of extraneous subplot) which first ran in Detective Comics #867-870 from September to December 2010, and can be accessibly consumed as a cunning and compelling case of heroes vs. impending chaosâ€¦

It all begins with ‘Laugh and the World Laughs with You’ wherein yuppies and bored Gothamites take up the latest recreational drug and craze of the spoiled and over-privileged: snorting non-lethal, metamorphic Joker Juice before going wilding through the city.

The transformed Jokerz then indulge in liberating, conscience-free vandalism, chaos and carnage until the Juice wears off. It’s a rush but nobody really gets hurt. Not really, truly, fatally hurtâ€¦

However, the recurring, ever-expanding â€œmad mobsâ€ are actually being orchestrated by a king Joker; someone not submerged in temporary insanity but rather following an appalling secret agendaâ€¦

As the new Batman, Oracle and Gotham’s police struggle to maintain order without bloodshed, tempers are beginning to fray and when one young cop is wounded in a scuffle, he responds with deadly forceâ€¦

The king Joker is plagued with memories of the night he was an unwilling witness and a collateral casualty in a terrifying clash between the true Harlequin of Hate and the Dynamic Duo. Of course, the heroes rushed him to hospital and his life was saved from the toxins sprayed on the rooftops during that particular murder-spree – but in their haste the heroes missed his girlfriend. She died in ghastly agony all aloneâ€¦

The death of the first party-rager polarises the city and The Impostor is quick to capitalise on the tragedy, calling for a massive Jokerz rally to show support and solidarity for their fallen comrade.

But when the Dark Knight leads squads of strictly-censured police officers in trying to contain the subsequent riot, three cops are ambushed and assassinatedâ€¦

A new factor then weighs in: an Impostor Batman calling on all decent, hard-working citizens to take back their city from the drug-addled, party-crazy Jokerz. Soon there is open warfare in ‘The (s)Laughter of Fools’ and Batman is forced into a desperate experiment and takes a dose of the Joker Juice to discover just what he’s up againstâ€¦

Whilst he’s trapped in the throes of the psycho-drug, both Impostors are busy exhorting their growing followings to even greater acts of violence and there are even rumblings of mutiny in the GCPD ranks.

Eventually the inevitable occurs and a gang of Jokerz are found shot to death from behind. They were fleeing, not attacking, and the Guardian Bats all claim that it was the Impostor Batman who murdered themâ€¦

By day ten the brutality is almost commonplace and industrialist Winslow Heath, the survivor of that long-ago rooftop battle, calls his chief chemist Doctor Kaligari for a progress report. He wants to know when the next Joker Juice upgrade will be ready for distributionâ€¦

‘Laughter out of Bellies’ sees top cop Harvey Bullock helpless to prove his suspicion that his own men are bolstering the ranks of the Guardian Bats gang: crippling, maiming or killing Jokerz in the streets. It’s a small mercy that the supply of J-Juice has dried up, although the hopelessly â€œJonesingâ€ junkies don’t think soâ€¦

After a week without liberating transformations, the thousands of Juicer addicts are going crazyâ€¦ which is when philanthropist Heath announces his Bartholomew’s Fair as a way of soothing tempers on all sides. He’s also ready to release his brand new Joker Juice hyper-amped onto the bloody, fun-starved streetsâ€¦

Batman can’t prove Heath’s involvement, and his terse confrontation with the philanthropist doesn’t shake the vengeful maniac from executing his insane plan in ‘Last Man Laughing’, but as the Fair explodes into a vast, orgiastic bloodbath, all the hard-pressed hero can do is hope to take out both Impostors before the city becomes a living Hell on Earthâ€¦Â

Complete with a cover gallery by Peter Nguyen, this is a splendid, stripped down, all-action tense suspense thriller (designed to tie-in to the Videogame of the same name) elevated by the ingenious efforts of scripter David Hine and penciller Scott McDaniel – two of the modern industry’s most underrated and undervalued talents – ably augmented by inker Andy Owen – that will delight any Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatic
Â© 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

October 8, 2013October 7, 2013

Batman: The Collected Adventures volume 2

By Kelly Puckett, Mike Parobeck & Rick Burchett (DC Comics/Titan Books)
ISBNs: 978-1-56389-124-3 (DC) Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 978-1-85286-563-6 (Titan)

As re-imagined by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, Batman: The Animated Series aired in America from September 5^th 1992 until September 15^th 1995. The TV cartoon series – ostensibly for kids – revolutionised the image of the Dark Knight and happily fed back into the print iteration, leading to some of the absolute best comicbook tales in the hero’s many decades of existence-year publishing history.

By employing a timeless visual style (dubbed â€œDark Decoâ€), the show mixed elements from all iterations of the character and, without diluting the power, tone or mood of the premise, re-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 panache that only most devout and obsessive Batmaniac could possibly object to.

The comicbook version was inevitably prime material for collection in the newly-emergent trade paperback market and this long out-of print second volume – published in America by DC and by Titan Books in Britain – gathered issues #7-12 of The Batman Adventures all-ages comicbook (originally published from to April -September 1993) in a stunning, no-nonsense furore of family-friendly Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy.

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

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

Following an ‘Introduction by Bruce Timm’, accompanied by a wealth of series concept sketches, the stories – all divided into three chapters scripted by Kelly Puckett and inked by Rich Burchett – begin 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 humiliated and broke 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!’ and naturally all those trajectories converge in the third act for a major throw-down ‘Under the Waterfront!’â€¦

In 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 ends the crime-wave he also exposes a monstrous old foe 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 District Attorney Harvey Dent for the beginning of ‘Rupert’s Reckoning!’â€¦

‘The Last R?ddler Story’ describes ‘Nygma’s Nadir!’ as the perpetually frustrated Prince of Puzzles considers retirement. Dispirited because the Caped Crusader always solves his felonious games, the villain is convinced by his faithful hench-persons 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 the infamous trio Mastermind, Mr. Nice and The Perfesser in ‘Triumph or Tragedy â€¦?

‘The Beast Within!’ features obsessed scientist Kirk Langstrom who believes he, is uncontrollably transforming into the monstrous Man-Bat in the ‘The Sleeper Awakens!’ The truth is far more sinister but incarcerated in ‘G.C.P.D.H.Q!’ neither the chemist nor his beloved Francine can discern ‘The Awful Truth!’ Happily Batman plays by his own rulesâ€¦

This fabulous foray into classic four-colour fun finishes with a shocking shift in focus as young Barbara Gordon makes a superhero costume for a party in ‘Batgirl: Day One!’ and stumbles into a larcenous ‘Ladies Night’ when the High Society bash is crashed by Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy.

With no professional help on hand, Babs has to act as ‘If the Suit Fits!’ and tackle the bad girls herselfâ€¦ but then Catwoman shows up for the frantic finale ‘Out of the Frying Pan!’â€¦

Breathtakingly written and iconically illustrated, these stripped-down rollercoaster-romps are the ultimate Bat-magic, and this is a collection every fan of any age and vintage will adore.

Pure, unadulterated delight – so keep kicking and agitating for new editions now!
Â© 1993, 1994 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

October 4, 2013October 6, 2013

Rogue Touch

By Christine Woodward (Hyperion)
ISBN: 978-1-4013-1102-5

It seems that the signature genre of comics – the superhero – has at last gained some degree of literary legitimacy. Even if you ignore the collected pulp exploits of Doc Savage or The Shadow, or the assorted novelisations and prose forays from funnybook publishers capitalising on the early success of series like Wild Cards with their own key brands, the timbre of modern times has allowed costumed do-gooders and crazed masterminds to finally break into â€œrealâ€ publishing.

Now even proper book companies have many titles that blend crime, horror, science fiction and the peculiarly comicbook cult of the Over-Man into their mainstream fare.

With that in mind here’s something a little different and probably more in tune with the tastes of female readers, Young Adults and those fans possessing only a passing familiarity with X-Men continuity.

LET ME BE SPECIFIC. THIS IS A NOVEL. THERE ARE NO PICTURES INSIDE.

In the Marvel Universe Rogue was first seen as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants: a disturbed young girl cursed with a power that stole abilities and memories from anybody who touched her skin-to-skin.

It was an ability she could not control or turn off, and any overlong fleshy contact resulted in the victim falling into a coma with their entire history and essence drained into her. Rogue then became a reluctant jailer with stolen powers and personalities locked in her head forever.

Played as a â€œbad-girlâ€ and mystery woman for years, Rogue grew to become one of the most popular characters in the excessively large X-cast, winning her own miniseries where it was first revealed that as a young girl her powers manifested just as she was kissing her first love Cody Robbinsâ€¦

With the boy she wanted imprisoned in her head whilst his body permanently shut down, the girl knew she was a freak and monster who must never again experience human contactâ€¦

This novel picks up a little later and never mentions any aspect of the Marvel Universe as it begins the story of 20-year old Anna Marie: a reluctant recluse working a dead-end night job at a small bakery in Jackson, Mississippi.

Always wrapped head-to-toe in many layers, the odd night owl one night sees a weird lurking man almost waiting for her. She takes steps to avoid him, the way she avoids everybody who might accidentally touch her and suffer the horrific consequencesâ€¦

However the non-incident rattles her and gives boss Wendy Lee an excuse to fire herâ€¦

All but unemployable and strapped for cash, Anna Marie is forced to apply for food stamps, but waiting in line she sees the same creepy, good-looking guy. However when she challenges him she inadvertently calls attention to the fact that he’s pulling some kind of scam and security guards chase him from the building.

She sees her stalker again on the streets and realises that even in the Mississippi heat the guy is cold and really, really hungry. Without really knowing why, she gives him some of her food stampsâ€¦

Over the next few days they keep meeting and become friendlier, but James is a strange and cagy man with an accent she can’t place and the weirdest gaps in his knowledge of everyday life.

Her prospects don’t improve and one night, reduced to desperation, Anna Marie breaks into the bakery, intent on taking food to the value of the severance check she didn’t get. Tragically, Wendy Lee discovers her and in the scuffle makes contactâ€¦

Now with a young boy and an old lady stuck in her head, the horrified, guilt-ridden girl realises she has to steal a car and get out of town as soon as possible â€¦and that’s when James drives up, offering her a ride to anywhere she wantsâ€¦

Thus begins an epic and immensely engaging rollercoaster ride across America as the mismatched loners discover each other and the incredible secrets both are concealing. He prefers to be called â€œTouchâ€ rather than James and has impossible gifts too. As she slowly allows herself to love the boy, â€œRogueâ€ – as he insists on calling her – is forced to accept just how much of a stranger he isâ€¦ especially once the super-scientific pursuers and monster animals chasing him start to close in on her too.

He also knows far more about her than he at first let onâ€¦

Draped in the eternal allure of two kids in love and on the run, and designed to attract readers raised on Roswell High, Sookie Stackhouse, Twilight and generations of road-buddy movies, in Rogue Touch Christine Woodward successfully translates the X-Men’s memory-&-power-leeching Southern Belle into a compelling, alienated but ultimately powerful, self-reliant and triumphant woman in an increasingly fantastic and dangerous world.

Immensely readable and engaging, this is a supremely cunning and clever confection: easily affixable to Marvel’s mutant mythology should you be so inclined, but also a completely self-contained science fiction/young romance thriller that will delight the aficionados of all those so-successful alienated teen prose franchises. There’s even room and scope for a sequel or twoâ€¦

September 25, 2013September 29, 2013

Superior Spider-Man: A Troubled Mind

By Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos, Ryan Stegman, Victor Olazaba & Cam Smith (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-538-3

Over the years the Wondrous Wallcrawler has undergone many evolutions, refits and even backsliding revisions, but his latest evolution – springing out of the landmark Amazing Spider-Man #700 – is certainly the most radical character change of all the MarvelNOW! relaunches.

In that issue the personality of Peter Parker died and Doctor Otto Octavius took over his body, becoming a wholly Superior Spider-Man.

Parker’s mind had been transferred into the rapidly failing body of the super-villain where, despite every desperate effort, in the end he perished with and within that decrepit, expiring frame. Now Octopus is permanently installed in the Amazing Arachnid’s body and living Peter’s life, albeit with a few minor but necessary alterations, upgrades and improvementsâ€¦

The situation is not completely intolerable. At the moment of the villain’s greatest triumph Parker forced Octavius to relive and experience every moment of tragedy and sacrifice that made Spider-Man the champion he was.

From that emotional turmoil came understanding and the villain reformed, swearing to live the rest of his stolen life in tribute to his enemy; honestly endeavouring to carry on Spider-Man’s self-imposed mission and equally guided by the binding principle that â€œwith great power comes great responsibilityâ€â€¦

However the megalomaniac within proved hard to suppress and the new web-spinner incessantly worked to prove himself a better man: augmenting the hero’s gadgets and methodology with millions of spy robots to patrol the entire city at once, adding advanced weaponry to the suit and even acting pre-emptively rather than merely reacting to crises.

Otto went back to college because he was appalled Parker had no doctorate and even tried to rekindle his new body’s old relationship with Mary Jane Watson.

The new, ultra-efficient Spider-Man has become New York’s darling and even Mayor J. Jonah Jameson has embraced the Web-spinner, all but appropriating the wallcrawler as a deputy – to the utter incredulity of an imperceptible phantom of Peter Parker lurking within the deepest recesses of the overwritten mind of Spider-Manâ€¦

The helpless ghost is an unwilling passenger, unsuspected by Octavius but increasingly privy to the villain’s own barely-suppressed memories. Moreover, some of Parker’s oldest friends are beginning to suspect something hinky is happening.

Police CSI Officer and ex-girlfriend Carlie Cooper knew of Peter’s incredible secret life and is increasingly reminded of the last time Spider-Man fought Doc Ock, when the killer broke her arm. He also claimed then that he was Peter trapped in the villain’s bodyâ€¦

Everybody accepts Spider-Man has changed. Not only is he more efficient these days, but he’s far more brutal too. Giving bad-guys like Boomerang and the Vulture the thorough thrashings they so richly deserve plays really well with the public and, after a deadly hostage siege, the hero’s status with city cops peaked after the Amazing Arachnid executed the sociopathic perpetrator Massacreâ€¦

Written by Dan Slott, A Troubled Mind collects issues #6-10 of The Superior Spider-Man (released March-July 2013) and continues following the author’s introductory summation ‘Superior Minds’.

Humberto Ramos & Victor Olazaba illustrated ‘Joking Hazard’ which sees prankster villains Jester and Screwball win vast popular acclaim for their â€œharmlessâ€ public humiliations of the rich and powerful – such as Mayor Jameson.

Even though the pair are actually using their internet site to phish financial details from the millions of viewers who access their posts, the world loves them – but not the new Spider-Man, who horrifically overreacts to being made to look a foolâ€¦

Meanwhile, as Parker and new romantic interest Anna Maria Marconi negotiate the obstacles to Peter obtaining his doctorate – a mission not helped by the candidate’s innate smug arrogance – the Avengers are becoming extremely concerned about their young comrade’s erratic behaviour, whilst in the shadows a new Hobgoblin carefully lays plans to conquer the cityâ€¦

The multi-part ‘Troubled Mind’ then commences with ‘Right Hand Man’ as Robin Hood villain Cardiac returns, still stealing technology to treat patients who can’t afford medical care. With a little girl in desperate need of advanced brain scanning, the rogue raids an impound facility and liberates a device devised by the dead madman Otto Octavius. He cannot understand why former frenemy Spider-Man seems to take the theft so personallyâ€¦

The ghost of Peter Parker later feels a swell of hope when the Avengers forcibly arrest his stolen body and subject it to a battery of tests. Sadly, the Avengers in ‘Proof Positive’ don’t include geniuses like Tony Stark or Henry Pym, and cannot properly interpret the data their machines provide.

Doc Ock can, however, and now realises why occasionally he feels inexplicable resistance when his angry, violent natures boils overâ€¦

With Octavius exultant and Parker’s ghost crushed, the wallcrawler tracks down Cardiac’s illegal free hospital to retrieve â€œhisâ€ scanner, only to feel his righteous indignation crumbling at the sight of the dying little girl the maverick surgeon is trying to helpâ€¦

Consumed by guilt, the Superior Spider-Man uses the purloined scanner to perform brain surgery on the child but, after saving her, retains the scanner to perform a similar service upon himselfâ€¦

‘Gray Matters’ discloses how the Avengers’ tests revealed a phantom echo of Peter’s brain patterns beneath his own freshly encoded, dominant patterns and how, with the aid of his scanner, Otto hunts down and forever erases the aggravating voice within his skullâ€¦

Now wiped forever free of that annoying shadow of conscience, the finally triumphant mad doctor can celebrate his ‘Independence Day’ (art by Ryan Stegman & Cam Smith) completely devoid of limiting considerations such as pity or humanity. Of course, the same applies to the new iterations of supervillains such as White Dragon, The Owl and Tombstone, organised by Hobgoblin as the vanguard of an unstoppable army of evil to take New York Cityâ€¦

More importantly, with Phantom Parker no longer incessantly, fruitlessly screaming in his head, the hero’s nearest and dearest are coming to the inescapable conclusion that there is something just plain wrong with â€œPeterâ€â€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Capped off with a selection of Ramos’s design sketches in ‘Superior Insight’ augmenting a gallery of his covers, this astounding reinvention carries as standard that wonder-of-21^st-century invention AR icon sections. These Marvel Augmented Reality App pages offer access to story bonuses once you download the little dickens – free from marvel.com – onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Spider-Man has been reinvented so often it has become something of a norm, but this incarnation – for however long it lasts – is one that no fan or newbie can afford to miss: shocking, clever and impossibly addictive.

September 23, 2013September 24, 2013

Love and Rockets: the Covers

By Gilbert, Jaime & Mario Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-598-3

In the 1980s a qualitative revolution forever destroyed the tired moribund, stereotypical and ghettoised ways different genres of comic strips were produced and marketed. The iconic force most evidently shattering those comfy pigeonholes we’d built for ourselves were three guys from Oxnard, California; Jaime, Mario and Gilberto Hernandez.

Love and Rockets was an anthology magazine originally self-published in 1981which featuring intriguing, adventuresome larks and wildly different comic narratives that pretty much defied classification, all wrapped up in the sheen and ephemera of LA’s Hispanic and punk music scenes.

Stories varied from slick, sci-fi-soused hi-jinx starring punky young gadabouts and their extended eccentric circle of friends – or the heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasies from the rural Central American paradise of Palomar.

Jaime Hernandez was always the most noticeable part of the graphic literary revolution: his sleek, seductive, clean black line and beautiful composition, impeccably rendered heroes and villains and the comfortingly recognisable – though thoroughly â€œroofiedâ€ comic book iconography – particularly appealing to readers raised on traditional Marvel and DC fare.

However his love of that material, as well as the influence of Archie Comics cartoonists (especially Sam Schwartz, Harry Lucey and Dan De Carlo), accomplished and enticing as it is, often distracted from the power of his writing, especially in his extended epics featuring of Maggie Chascarillo and Hopey Glass â€“ AKA Maggie & Hopey, Las Locas, something never true of Gilbert, whose simplified cartooning and subtle, reined-in graphics never overwhelmed the sheer magnetic compulsion of his scriptsâ€¦

The Hernandez Boys, gifted synthesists all, enthralled and enchanted with incredible stories that sampled a thousand influences conceptual and actual – everything from Comics, TV cartoons, masked wrestlers, the exotica of American Hispanic pop culture and even German Expressionism. There was also a perpetual backdrop displaying the holy trinity of youth: Sex and Drugs and Rock and Rollâ€¦

The result was dynamite. Mario only officially contributed on rare occasions but his galvanising energy informed everything – and his covers here display a fondness for those battered genres both tantalising and darkly skewedâ€¦

Jaime’s sleek, enticing visual forays explored friendship and modern love whilst destroying stereotypes of feminine attraction through his fetching coterie of Gals Gone Wild, and Gilberto created a hyper-real rural landscape macrocosm in Palomar: a playground of wit and passion and human imperfection in the quicksilver form of a poor Latin-American village with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast created for his extended saga Heartbreak Soup.

Life, death, poverty, adultery, murder, boredom, magic, weird science and gossip shaped Palomar’s metafictional environs, as the artist mined his own post-punk influences in his deceptively addictive primitivist drawing style which blended his personal mythologies of comics, music, drugs, strong women, gangs, sex and family.

The denizens and survivors of Palomar still inform and shape Beto’s work, both directly and as imaginative spurs for spin-off stories.

Winning critical acclaim but little financial success, the brothers temporarily went their own ways in the mid-1990s, creating side projects and special series before creatively reuniting a few years back to produce annual collections of new material in their shared or, rather, intermittently adjacent pen-and-ink universes.

In more than three decades of groundbreaking creative endeavour, Los Bros Hernandez crafted a vast and magnificent canon of cartoon brilliance and literary enchantment and this truly spectacular art book presents all the eye-popping front and back covers from 1982-1996: fifty incredible issues which graced and lit up comic shop shelves, always looking nothing like any publication produced at the time.

This huge hardback (338x262mm) comes with a cool cover-cel overlay and re-presents each glorious, intriguing and occasionally controversial image, restored, re-mastered and de-cluttered to remove all extraneous, obfuscating text – such as barcodes and pricing information.

Moreover, also included are many pages of original pencils and inks, correction stages, production ephemera from each part of the art-to-finished-cover process, plus an extensive commentary section where Los Bros share their thoughts and intimate moments of â€œcreators’ remorseâ€.

As well as the captivating magazine iterations by the guys as they mastered their craft, this astounding collection also includes 28 pages of covers from the numerous collected editions which propelled the mature creators to global comics stardom and contributed so much to the growth of today’s graphic novel market.

Mesmerising, breathtaking graphic wonderment and enticing pop art masterpieces; these incredible concoctions capture the spirit of subversive, intoxicating youthful vitality which changed the comic industry forever and comprise a truly essential catalogue of artistic excellence no lover of narrative art should miss.

September 21, 2013September 20, 2013

Batman: The Collected Adventures volume 1

By Kelly Puckett, Marty Pasko, Ty Templeton, Brad Rader & Rick Burchett (DC Comics/Titan Books)
ISBNs: 978-1-56389-098-7 (DC), Â Â Â Â 978-1-85286-521-4 (Titan)

Batman: The Animated Series launched in America on September 5^th 1992 and ran until September 15^th 1995. Masterminded by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, the show revolutionised the image of the Dark Knight and led to some of the absolute best comicbook tales in his almost 75-year publishing history.

By employing a timeless visual tone (dubbed â€œDark Decoâ€) the show mixed 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 was an cast-iron contender for collection in the newly-emergent trade paperback market and this long out-of print edition – published in America by DC and by Titan Books in Britain – gathered the first half-dozen all-ages epics from The Batman Adventures comicbook (originally published from October 1992 to March 1993) in a smashing, straightforward sampler of Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy.

Preceded by ‘An Introduction by Paul Dini: Batman’s Most Animated Adventures’ and accompanied by a plethora of pulsating storyboards, the 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 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!’ 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 inescapable 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 Rick 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 the slackers of the modern world a 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!’

This initial foray into classic four-colour fun ends with a stunning 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 kid to ferret out the realÂ killer in the tense conclusion ‘War and Peace’â€¦

Compellingly written, superbly designed and spectacularly illustrated, these stripped-down rollercoaster-romps are quintessential Bat-magic, and as a host of big name bad-guys vie with timeless crime scenarios on every page, this is a book any fan of any age and vintage will adore.

September 19, 2013September 18, 2013

Batgirl: The Flood

By Bryan Q. Miller, Lee Garbett, Pere Perez & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3142-2

Batman has gathered young allies about him since the second year of his all-consuming crusade: adopting assorted waifs or strays and training them to be the best that they can be, all for the greater good of his beloved GothamCity.

Stephanie Brown, daughter of C-list bad-guy Cluemaster, began her costumed crime-busting career as the Spoiler, secretly scotching Daddy Dearest’s schemes before graduating to a more general campaign against the city’s underworld.

Eventually, she undertook a disastrous stint as the fourth Robin: a tenure which provoked a brutal gang war which devastated Gotham and ostensibly caused her own demise under torture at the red hands of psychopathic mob boss Black Mask.

When Stephanie returned to Gotham after months in self-imposed exile, she overcame incredible obstacles – the greatest of which was her former Bat-family’s deep mistrust. Thus she inherited the role of Batgirl from Cassandra Cain, a former assassin who had revived the role after her own predecessor was crippled and forced to retireâ€¦

Barbara Gordon, the computer crusader known as Oracle, is the daughter of Gotham City’s Police Commissioner. Her own valiant vocation as Batgirl was ended after the Joker blew out her spine during one of his incomprehensible capers. Although trapped in a wheelchair, she still hungered for justice and found new ways to make a difference in a very bad world.

Reinventing herself as a cyber-world information gatherer for Batman, she wound up an invaluable resource for the entire superhero community, before putting together her own fluctuating squad of female fighters – the Birds of Prey.

She also crossed keyboards with her intellectual antithesis: a sociopathic computer hacker and ex-costumed whacko called the Calculatorâ€¦

Barbara, with grudging acceptance of stand-in Dark Knight Dick Grayson, then decided to mentor Stephanie as the troublesome teen attempted to combine undergraduate studies with her compulsive mission to save lives and help the helplessâ€¦

Collecting issues #9-14 of Batgirl volume 3 (from June-November 2010), this full-on action romp scripted by Bryan Q. Miller blends grim urban adventure and deadly Weird Science with infectious wry humour, as perfectly seen in the 4-part ‘Batgirl Rising: The Flood’ (illustrated by Lee Garbett, Pere Perez and inkers Jonathan Glapion, Richard Friend, Rodney Ramos, Walden Wong).

After Batgirl saves a subway train from a crazed suicide bomber, Stephanie is drawn into her mentor’s deadly ongoing cyber-war with the Calculator.

Not only does the digital desperado bear an unhealthy grudge for his past humiliations at the hands of the enigmatic Oracle, but now, since the computer crusader harbours his own estranged and wheelchair-bound daughter Wendy, turning her against him, all bets are offâ€¦

His diabolical revenge includes not only a devastating hack-attack on Oracle’s database and systems but also, using stolen alien programming code, mind-controlling thousands of citizens. The Apokolips nanites are everywhere, turning ordinary folk into savage suicide-assassins aimed at Barbara and the new Batgirl.

Either they surrender Wendy or an army of innocents will turn the city into a charnel-houseâ€¦

Forced to lethal lengths to combat the Calculator’s bloody assault, Babs goes mobile but succumbs to the mind-stealing mechanoid plague, leaving Wendy to act as Stephanie’s new partner and digital quartermaster. However since the villain’s army of thralls now include brain-bound techno-zombies like Man-Bat, Catwoman and The Huntress, the task seems impossibleâ€¦

Reduced to a last-ditch frontal assault Batgirl spectacularly invades the Calculator’s base, unaware that, despite being a victim of the nanovirus, Barbara has begun her own counterattack from within the vengeful villain’s own mindâ€¦

After the main event this delightful Fights ‘n’ Tights fun-fest clears the palate with a brace of one-off yarns beginning with ‘Trust’ (illustrated by Pere Perez) detailing Stephanie’s unique response to a cocked-up bank hostage-situation perpetrated by Clayface.

The grim debacle is made excessively complicated not only because the Teen Tornado’s Person of Potential Romantic Interest (Police Detective Nick Gage) is on scene, but also -since the shape-shifting charlatan is disguised as one of the imperilled customers – because Batgirl is the one holding them all captive until she can deduce who he isâ€¦

Manic insanity rounds off this chronicle with ‘Terror in the 3^rd Dimension’ (Garbett & Trevor Scott) as a civilian Girl’s Night Out with BFF Supergirl goes crazily wrong when a campus science experiment goes â€œboink!â€ and 24 Draculas from an all-night classic movie show are materialised to run riot through the city.

With obviously no peace for the wicked-hot, the World’s Finest Blondes have their work cut out doing a passable imitation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer before things return to any semblance of â€œnormalâ€â€¦

With a stunning cover gallery by Stanley â€œartgermâ€ Lau, this collection offers that rarest of modern delights for comics fans: complication-free, easily accessible thrills, chills, spills and fun, fun, fun!!!

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