Category: Graphic Novels

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The Secret Service: Kingsman


By Mark Millar, Dave Gibbons and Matthew Vaughn with Andy Lanning & Angus McKie (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-703-8

We Brits know everything about the spy-game and think we’ve probably seen it all, from Bond to Smiley, Harry Palmer to Johnny Worricker and Spooks to Carry On Spying.

So it’s not often we get a look at a fresh take, but that’s what’s on offer here as comicbook legends Mark Millar & Dave Gibbons team up with film director/producer Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass, Stardust, Layer Cake, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) to update the genre in a wickedly sly, cynically funny and irreverential thriller which nevertheless harks back to the glory-days of the “great game” of gentlemanly cloak-and-dagger as it was called when were still an empire, as well as the swinging superspy sagas of the 1960s and 1970s…

The original 6-issue miniseries The Secret Service was released as part of Millarworld’s unfailing hit-factory deal with Marvel Comics’ Icon sub-imprint, and this slick, sharp and wickedly tongue-in-cheek pastiche mixes all the favourite trappings and spectacle of big budget movie blockbusters with an archly satisfying class-war aesthetic that finds full expression following the traditional all-action opening attention-grabber, which finds actor Mark Hamill (almost) saved from abduction by an armed gang by an unlucky British secret agent…

The scene then switches to the urban wasteland of Peckham where Gary Unwin – known to his no-hoper wannabe-gangsta pals as “Eggsy” – is again at odds with the cheap thug who’s shacked up with his mum.

Dean is a former soldier. He’s also a bully and a brute: a typical South London Chav who thinks he’s hard and takes it out too often on Gary and his little brother Ryan as well as their long-suffering mother Sharon.

No wonder the jobless, shiftless teen spends all his time playing computer games, doing drugs, nicking cars and making mischief with his mates. Tonight is no exception, except for the part where the hapless joyriders crash their purloined ride and end up in police cells…

Meanwhile in the swank part of town, two movers-&-shakers in Intelligence are discussing a wave of mysterious abductions: actors from Star Wars, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek have all disappeared, as have scientists, sporting legends and other notables. There is clearly some major scheme afoot…

Jack London (I gather they’ve changed his name in the film version) is a self-made man. He escaped his lowborn origins and remade himself into a suave, sophisticated international man-of-mystery and Great Britain’s top operative: the spy who never fails. Nobody does it better. He’s also Sharon’s brother and is once again forced to apply his influence to save his nephew from the consequences of his actions…

He’s had to step in before but he swears it’s the last time and, after an unpleasant confrontation, determines to get Gary out of the toxic environment he escaped from decades ago…

As a mass wedding in Hawaii is turned into a bloodbath by a mysterious mastermind’s hi-tech secret weapon, in Peckham Uncle Jack is telling Eggsy the unbelievable truth. He gets a chance to prove his outrageous claims when Dean’s loutish cronies pick a fight…

Jack, plagued with guilt for neglecting his shameful family, then offers his nephew a chance to better himself by joining the Secret Service training program that made him one of the deadliest men alive…

The boy jumps at the chance to get away and is soon an outcast amongst the cream of Britain’s posh-boy private school and military college recruits, doggedly learning unarmed combat, ballistics, weapons training, tactics, computer science, seduction techniques, languages, piloting any vehicle and every skill and trick needed to keep the world safe from invasion and subversion…

Despite his background and lack of social skills Gary thrives – and even excels – in many of the less salubrious exercises (such as killing drug-dealers on a live fire exercise) even as Uncle Jack returns to his mystery kidnapping case. He slowly makes progress across the world, tracking a certain mad young billionaire with dreams of saving the planet from the plague of humanity. Doctor James Arnold is also extremely keen on preserving his childhood heroes from the Armageddon he’s about to trigger…

At precisely the wrong moment Gary drags Jack back to London again. When the pauper student overhears his well-meaning but privileged comrades condescending and pitying him, Eggsy steals Jack’s gadget-laden, weaponised sports car and goes for an explosive drunken joyride with his real mates from the estate.

Now the super-agent is forced to take extreme measures to sort him out…

Gary wakes up in Colombia with nothing but his underwear and is told he has 24 hours to return to Britain. The Resource Test is the final stage of an agent’s training and is make or break: neither the agency nor his uncle will have anything to do with him if he fails…

He passes with flying colours, and even destroys a drug cartel in the process, leading Jack to take him on as an apprentice, offering style tips and a chance for a palate-cleansing final confrontation with Dean and his mates in Peckham before setting off together to foil Dr. Arnold’s deadly scheme.

…And that’s when it all goes terribly wrong, leaving Gary to cope with imminent world collapse all on his own…

The film was in production simultaneously with the creation of the original six-issue miniseries with Millar, Vaughn and illustrator Gibbons (aided by inker Andy Lanning and colourist Angus McKie) frequently cross-fertilising and amending the print and movie iterations to produce a stunningly clever, outrageously rip-roaring, high-octane read which will astound all us paper-jockeys and no doubt be satisfactorily mirrored in the upcoming filmic extravaganza.

But why wait? Grab some popcorn, hit your favourite chair and experience all the thrills, spills and chills you can handle right now just by picking up this fabulous action comics classic in the making…
© 2012, 2013, 2014 Millarworld Limited, Marv Films Limited and Dave Gibbons Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Mighty Avengers: No Single Hero


By Al Ewing, Greg Land & Jay Leisten (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-568-0

In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! reformed the entire overarching continuity: a drastic reshuffle and rethink of characters, concepts and brands with an eye to winning new readers and feeding the company’s burgeoning movie blockbuster machine…

Moreover many disparate story strands were slowly congealing to kick off the Next Big Thing with the cosmically expanded Avengers titles forming the spine of an encroaching mega-epic.

The colossal Infinity storyline detailed that grandiose advance into Armageddon as an intergalactic Hammer of Doom fell with an all-out attack by an impossibly ancient race. The Builders claimed to have fostered all life in the universe, but now they were attempting to rectify their mistake on Earth – and woe betide any species or intergalactic civilisation that got in their way.

When the Avengers mobilised most of their assemblage off-planet to tackle the threat before it reached us, old enemy Thanos of Titan took advantage of the dearth of metahuman defenders to invade, leaving the world’s remaining superheroes with an almost impossible task…

Written by Jonathan Hickman and illustrated by Greg Land & Jay Leisten, Mighty Avengers volume 2 #1-5 (released between November 2013 and March 2014) describes how some of those left behind united as a resistance and stayed together as a decidedly different kind of crusading team…

The action begins as Thanos heads for Earth where blithely unaware former Avenger Luke Cage is pitting his Heroes for Hire apprentices – White Tiger and a new, teenaged Power Man – against seasoned super-thief The Plunderer. Their efforts are interrupted and derided by the Superior Spider-Man who orders them to quit and insultingly offers Cage’s kids a real job.

Everybody sees that the Wallcrawler has become insufferable since he technologically upgraded his act and hired a paramilitary gang to act as his deputies. Many of his oldest friends even think he might be going crazy. What no one knows is that the mind inside the arachnid hero’s head is actually arch villain Otto Octavius AKA Doctor Octopus who, despite a passionate initial desire to reform is slowly reverting to his original manner and habits…

The Web-spinner’s derision spurs White Tiger into quitting but only fuels her male teammates into trying harder to prove Spider-Man wrong…

Elsewhere ex-Avenger Monica Rambeau (formerly Captain Marvel and Photon but now calling herself Spectrum) is getting back into the crimebusting game after a bout of retirement. She sorting out her costume and talking over old times with an enigmatic fellow champion when the first wave of the Titan’s invasion force smashes into New York.

Donning a store-bought comedy costume, the stranger joins Monica as a generic “Spider Hero” and converges on the landing site where Cage and the still-enraged Superior Spider-Man are battling Thanos’ soldiers and ferocious warlord Proxima Midnight…

Elsewhere Mystic Master Doctor Strange has been possessed and corrupted by the Ebony Maw – the most personally ambitious of Thanos’ lieutenants – whilst at the bottom of the sea forgotten hero Dr. Adam Brashear receives a cosmic visitor.

The Blue Marvel is thus stirred from a lengthy self-imposed exile and grudgingly agrees to return to the world which shunned and sidelined him…

In New York ‘The Assembly’ give battle but the Amazing Arachnid seems more concerned with suing his “copyright infringer” than defeating the invaders and Spectrum is gravely wounded by Midnight.

As Cage tackles Proxima, the ordinary citizens are emboldened and join the struggle, compelling ever-watching Thanos to order a retreat.

It’s not over though, as the ravaged metropolis is then assaulted by an overwhelming aspect of voracious Elder God Shuma-Gorath, summoned by the enslaved Stephen Strange. The rampant horror gleefully begins transforming native New Yorkers into ghastly demon duplicates…

As Blue Marvel rockets to the rescue, temporarily stymieing the devil god and healing Spectrum, the mystically empowered White Tiger and Power Man arrive and Spider Hero, demonstrating a keen knowledge of arcane rites devises a scheme to drive Shuma-Gorath back to its own dimension for good.

Cage then has a eureka moment and realising ‘No Single Hero’ could have managed, declares that they are all Avengers…

Once parked above Manhattan, the Inhumans‘ floating city Attilan was destroyed during the war and its ruins now languish in the Hudson River. Moreover when Thanos personally attacked Black Bolt, the embattled Inhuman monarch released genetically transformative Terrigen Mists and created a host of new super-powered warriors from the ranks of the humans below…

Issue #4 is set after the invasion is finally repelled and the city engrossed in rapid reconstruction. The space-bound Avengers are still missing off-world but life is returning to normal.

Sleazy entrepreneur Jason Quantrell despatches his industrial spy Quickfire – a recent recipient of Terrigen-induced abilities – to raid the sunken citadel in search of fresh mutagens that he can monetise whilst in Times Square Cage has turned his old Gem Theatre offices into a storefront Avengers HQ.

He has a bold new idea: opening the heroic volunteer brigade to the public who can come to them with meta-related problems or issues of injustice. Even though Reservist The Falcon has come aboard Spider-Man is becoming increasingly intolerant, alternately demanding to be placed in charge and ordering Cage’s crew to cease and desist.

Unable to convince them, the furious wallcrawler storms off…

Meanwhile Spider Hero – who has some ominous magical acquaintances older fans will recognise – has detected an encroaching mystic crisis and resolved to stay. Adopting the vacant costume and identity of martial arts mystery man Ronin, he invites the team to join him in stopping an impending burglary in Attilan…

It’s not Quickfire’s illegal raid that’s the problem but rather that she’s going to inadvertently awaken the slumbering submerged threat of the Death Walkers if somebody doesn’t stop her…

However, whilst the latest Ronin lead the Avengers to the already happening monster catastrophe, Octavius returns to the Gem Theatre and in a manic fit of frustrated rage attacks Cage with all the paramilitary resources he can muster: mercenaries, spider-robots and urban assault vehicles all primed to shut down the Avengers forever.

Happily the harassed Hero for Free had already contacted his lawyer and is delighted to follow Jennifer Walters‘ guidance… which basically boils down to “She-Hulk Smash!”…

Fast furious and fantastically offbeat, this epic epistle also offers a gallery of stunning covers-and-variants by Land, Steve Epting,  Bryan Hitch, Jason Latour, Carlo Barberi, Skottie Young, Humberto Ramos, Leonel Castellani, J. Scott Campbell, Francesco Francavilla, Mark Bagley, Salvador Larroca, Ron Wimberly, Daniel Acuña and Kalman Andrasofszky and a wealth of extra content online for those consumers au fait with the AR icons accessed via a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop.
™ & © 2013 and 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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Marvel Knights Spider-Man: 99 Problems


By Matt Kindt, Marco Rudy & Val Staples (Marvel Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-576-5

The Marvel Knights imprint began as a way to produce slightly darker and more mature miniseries starring favourite characters in stories aimed at older readers. Whilst more askance than outside regular continuity, the adventures of familiar stalwarts could be counted as canon or discarded as the readership pleased, but eventually the Knights tales were all absorbed into the mainstream and the imprint generally retired.

In 2013 the subset was revived with a few new limited series…

The classic days of the Amazing Arachnid (i.e. pre-or-post Otto Octavius as The Superior Spider-Man) briefly returned and were subject to a visually impressive plot-light treatment in Marvel Knights Spider-Man: 99 Problems #1-5 which ran from December 2013 to April 2014 and featured a startling scenario for everybody’s favourite original hard-luck hero.

In case you forgot…

Outcast, orphaned science-nerd schoolboy Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, after seeking to cash-in on the astonishing abilities which subsequently developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy. His beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered by a burglar Peter could have stopped but didn’t because he refused to get involved.

Permanently traumatised and feeling irreconcilably responsible for Ben’s death, the 15-year old determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in need.

Parker loved and lost many more close friends and family during his crime-busting, world-saving career, but eventually won a measure of joy from all the heartache when he married the girl next door, Mary Jane Watson…

For years the brilliant, indomitable everyman hero suffered privation and travail in his domestic situation whilst his notorious alter ego endured public condemnation and mistrust as he valiantly battled all manner of threat and foe.

He made a lot of enemies…

Sometimes basics is best in storytelling and the plot here is one constant chase and battle as Parker takes a crummy freelance photo gig and is ambushed, drugged and kidnapped in ‘Let the Games Begin’…

Spider-Man battles his way off a plane past a gauntlet of costumed villains but the ‘Arachnophobia’ even continues in the ocean before ‘Combat’ transfers the action to a submarine stuffed with prior punks and perils until the battered but incomprehensibly driven Wallcrawler meets at last ‘The Most Dangerous Player’ on a tropical island.

He thinks he’s worked it all out but Peter still hasn’t faced the instigator of his woes and master of his 99 foes. That happens in the blistering conclusion ‘Game Over’…

Scripter Matt Kindt’s catalogue of carnage moves things along at a rollercoasting rocket’s pace but the artwork here deserves the most attention.

This tale is primary a stunning exercise in visual acuity and dexterity from Marco Rudy and colourist Val Staples. Explosive, panoramic, even psychedelic in places, the pictorial narrative sublimely pushes Parker to the extreme limits as the hero faces an army of enemies before finally uncovering the twisted brain behind the concerted attack and finding his ultimate enemy is neither who nor what he ever expected…

With covers and variants by Rudy and Carlo Barberi, this is a stripped down, breathtaking primal comics experience that will delight fans of high octane Fights ‘n’ Tights action.

™ & © 2013 and 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: – The Silver Age Dailies 1959-1961


By Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan, Wayne Boring &Stan Kaye with Otto Binder, Robert Bernstein & Jerry Coleman (IDW Publishing Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-6137-7666-7

It’s indisputable that the American comicbook industry – if it existed at all – would have been an utterly unrecognisable thing without Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s Superman. Their unprecedented invention was fervidly adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation and quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form.

Spawning an impossible army of imitators and variations within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and wish-fulfilment which epitomised the early Man of Steel grew to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East sucked in America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and vigorous dashing derring-do.

In comicbook terms Superman was master of the world. Moreover, whilst transforming the shape of the fledgling funnybook industry, the Man of tomorrow relentlessly expanded into all areas of the entertainment media.

Although we all think of Cleveland boys’ iconic creation as the epitome and acme of comicbook creation, the truth is that very soon after his debut in Action Comics #1 Superman became a fictional multimedia monolith in the same league as Popeye, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes and Mickey Mouse.

We parochial and possessive comics fans too often regard our purest and most powerful icons in purely graphic narrative terms, but the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, X-Men, Avengers and Superman long ago outgrew their four-colour origins and are now fully mythologized modern media creatures instantly familiar in mass markets, platforms and age ranges…

Far more people have seen or heard the Man of Steel than have ever read his comicbooks. The globally syndicated newspaper strips alone reached untold millions. By the time his 20th anniversary rolled around at the very start of what we know as the Silver Age of Comics, he had been a thrice-weekly radio serial regular, starred in a series of astounding animated cartoons, two films and a novel by George Lowther.

He was a perennial success for toy, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers and had just ended his first smash live-action television serial. In his future were three more shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville), a stage musical, a franchise of blockbuster movies and an almost seamless succession of games, bubblegum cards and TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since.

Even superdog Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for the majority of the last century the newspaper comic strip was the Holy Grail that all American cartoonists and graphic narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country – and perhaps the planet – with millions, if not billions, of readers and generally accepted as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic-books, it also paid better.

And rightly so: some of the most enduring and entertaining characters and concepts of all time were created to lure readers from one particular paper to another and many of them grew to be part of a global culture.

Mutt and Jeff, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Charlie Brown and so many more escaped their humble tawdry newsprint origins to become meta-real: existing in the minds of earthlings from Albuquerque to Zanzibar.

Most still do…

So it was always something of a risky double-edged sword when a comic-book character became so popular that it swam against the tide (after all weren’t the funny-books invented just to reprint the strips in cheap accessible form?) to became a genuinely mass-entertainment syndicated serial strip.

Superman was the first original comicbook character to make that leap – almost as soon as he was created – but only a few have ever successfully followed. Wonder Woman, Batman (eventually) and groundbreaking teen icon Archie made the jump in the 1940s and only a handful like Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian have done so since.

The daily Superman newspaper comic strip launched on 16th January 1939 and was supplemented by a full-colour Sunday page from November 5th of that year. Originally crafted by such luminaries as Siegel & Shuster and their studio (Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring) the mammoth task soon reqired the additional talents of Jack Burnley and writers like Whitney Ellsworth, Jack Schiff & Alvin Schwartz.

The McClure Syndicate feature ran continuously until May 1966, appearing at its peak in more than 300 daily and 90 Sunday newspapers, boasting a combined readership of more than 20 million. Eventually artists Win Mortimer and Curt Swan joined the unfailing Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye whilst Bill Finger and Seigel provided the stories, telling serial tales largely separate and divorced from comicbook continuity throughout years when superheroes were scarcely seen.

In 1956 Julie Schwartz opened the Silver Age with a new Flash in Showcase #4. Soon cosumed crusaders began returning en masse to thrill a new generation. As the trend grew, many companies began to experiment with the mystery man tradition and the Superman newspaper strip began to slowly adapt: drawing closer to the revolution on the comicbook pages.

As the Jet age gave way to the Space-Age, the Last Son of Krypton was a vibrant yet comfortably familiar icon of domestic modern America: particularly in the constantly evolving, ever-more dramatic and imaginative comicbook stories which had received such a terrific creative boost as super heroes gradually began to proliferate once more. Since 1954 the franchise had been cautiously expanding and in 1959 the Caped Kryptonian could be seen not only in Golden Age survivors Action Comics, Superman, Adventure Comics, World’s Finest Comics and Superboy but now also in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane and soon Justice League of America.

Such increased attention naturally filtered through to the far more widely seen newspaper strip and resulted in a rather strange and commercially sound evolution…

After author and educator Tom De Haven’s impassioned Foreword, Sidney Friedfertig’s Introduction explains how and why Jerry Siegel was tasked with turning recently published comicbook tales into daily 3-and-4 panel continuities for the apparently more sophisticated and discerning newspaper audiences. This meant major rewrites, frequently plot and tone changes and, in some cases, merging two stories into one.

If you’re a fan, don’t be fooled: these stories are not mere rehashes, but variations on an idea for an audience perceived as completely separate from kids’ funnybooks.

Even if you are familiar with the comicbook source material, the adventures gathered here will read as brand new, especially as they are gloriously illustrated by Curt Swan and latterly Wayne Boring at the very peak of their artistic powers.

As an added bonus the covers of the issues those adapted stories came from have been added as a full nostalgia-inducing colour gallery…

The astounding everyday entertainment commences with Episode #107 from April 6th to July 11th 1959.

‘Earth’s Super-Idiot!’ by Siegel, Swan & Stan Kaye is a mostly original story which borrows heavily from the author’s own ‘The Trio of Steel’ (Superman #135, February 1960, where it was drawn by Al Plastino) detailing the tricks of an unscrupulous super-scientific telepathic alien producer of “Realies” who blackmailed Superman into making a fool and villain of himself for extraterrestrial viewers.

If the hero didn’t comply – acting the goat, performing spectacular stunts and torturing his friends – Earth would suffer the consequences….

After eventually getting the better of the UFO sleaze-bag, our hero returned to Earth with a bump and encountered ‘The Ugly Superman’ (July 13th–September 5th, first seen in Lois Lane #8 April 1959, written by Robert Bernstein and illustrated by Kurt Schaffenberger).

Here, the eternally on-the-shelf Lois agreed to marry a brutish wrestler, and the Man of Tomorrow, for the most spurious of reasons, acted to foil her plans…

Episode #109 ran from September 7th to October 28th 1959 and saw Superman reluctantly agree to try and make a dying billionaire laugh in return for the miserable misanthrope signing over his entire fortune to charity.

Some of the apparently odd timing discrepancies in publication dates can be explained by the fact that submitted comicbook stories often appeared months after they were completed, so the comicbook version of Siegel’s ‘The Super-Clown of Metropolis’ didn’t get published until Superman #136 (April 1960) where Al Plastino took the art in completely different directions…

‘Captive of the Amazons’ – October 29th 1959 to February 6th 1960 – combined two funnybook adventures both originally limned by Boring & Kaye. The eponymous equivalent from Action #266 (Jul 1960) was augmented by Bernstein’s tale ‘When Superman Lost His Powers’ (Action Comics #262) detailing how super-powered alien queen Jena came to Earth intent on making Superman her husband. When he refused she removed his Kryptonian abilities, subsequently trapping now merely mortal Clark with other Daily Planet staff in a lost valley of monsters where Lois’ suspicions were again aroused…

Episode #111 ran from 8th February – 6th April. ‘The Superman of the Future’ originated in Action #256 (September 1959, by Otto Binder, Swan & Kaye) and both versions seemingly saw Superman swap places with a hyper-evolved descendent intent on preventing four catastrophic historical disasters, but the incredible events were actually part of a devious hoax…

Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #10 (July 1959 by Siegel & Schaffenberger) offered up a comedy interlude as ‘The Cry-Baby of Metropolis’ (April 7th to May 28th) found Lois – terrified of losing her looks – exposing herself to a youth ray and rapidly regenerating into an infant, much to the amusement of arch-rival Lana Lang and Superman…

Episode #113 May 30th – July 2nd featured ‘The Super-Servant of Crime’ (by Bernstein, from Superman #130, July 1959) which saw the hero outsmarting a petty crook who had bamboozled the Action Ace into granting him five wishes, after which ‘The Super-Sword’ (4th July to August 13th and originally by Jerry Coleman & Plastino for Superman #124, September 1958) pitted the Kryptonian Crimebuster against a ancient knight with a magic blade which could penetrate his invulnerable skin. Once more, however, all was not as it seemed…

Siegel, Boring & Kaye’s epic ‘Superman’s Return to Krypton’ from Superman #141, November 1960) was first seen in daily instalments from August 15th to November 12th 1960, telling a subtly different tale of epic love lost as an accident marooned the adoptive Earth hero in the past on his doomed home-world. Reconciled to dying there with his people, Kal-El befriended his own parents and found love with his ideal soul-mate Lyla Lerrol, only to be torn from her side and returned to Earth against his will in a cruel twist of fate.

The strip version here is one of Swan’s most beautiful art jobs ever and, although the bold comicbook saga was a fan favourite for decades thereafter, the restoration of this more mature interpretation might have some rethinking their decision…

Wayne Boring once more became the premiere Superman strip illustrator with Episode #116 (November 14th – December 31st), reprising his and Siegel’s work on ‘The Lady and the Lion’ from Action #243 August 1958, wherein the Man of Steel was transformed into an inhuman  beast by a Kryptonian émigré the ancients knew as Circe…

Siegel then adapted Bernstein’s ‘The Great Superman Hoax’ and Boring & Kaye redrew their artwork for the Episode (January 2nd – February 4th 1961) which appeared in Superman #143, February 1961, and saw a cunning criminal try to convince Lois and Clark that he was actually the Man of Might, blissfully unaware of who he was failing to fool.

Then February 6th to March 4th had Superman using brains as well as brawn to thwart an alien invasion in ‘The Duel for Earth’ which originally appeared as a Superboy story in Adventure Comics #277 (October 1960) by Siegel & George Papp.

Superman #114 (July 1957) and scripter Otto Binder provided Siegel with the raw material for a deliciously wry and topical tax-time tale ‘Superman’s Billion-Dollar Debt’ – March 6th to April 8th – wherein an ambitious IRS agent presented the Man of Steel with an bill for unpaid back-taxes, whilst Episode #120 (April 10th – May 13th) introduced ‘The Great Mento’ (from Bernstein & Plastino’s yarn in Superman #147, August 1961): a tawdry showbiz masked mind-reader who blackmailed the hero by threatening to expose his precious secret identity…  

The final two stories in this premiere collection both come from Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane – issues #24, April and #26, July respectively – and both were originally crafted by Bernstein & Schaffenberger.

In ‘The Perfect Husband’ (15th May to July 1st), begun and ended by Boring but with Swan pinch-hitting for 2 weeks in the middle, Lois’ sister Lucy tricks the journalist into going on a TV dating show where she meets her ideal man, a millionaire sportsman and war hero who looks just like Clark Kent.

Then ‘The Mad Woman of Metropolis’ finds Lois driven to the edge of sanity by a vengeance-hungry killer, a rare chance to see the girl-reporter and shameless butt of so many male gags show her true mettle by solving the case without the Man of Tomorrow’s avuncular, often patronising assistance…

Superman: – The Silver Age Dailies 1959-1961 is the first in a series of huge (305 x 236mm), lavish, high-end hardback collections starring the Man of Steel and a welcome addition to the superb commemorative series of Library of American Comics which has preserved and re-presented in luxurious splendour such landmark strips as Li’l Abner, Tarzan, Little Orphan Annie, Terry and the Pirates, Bringing Up Father, Rip Kirby, Polly and her Pals and many of the abovementioned cartoon icons.

If you love the era, these stories are great comics reading, and this is a book you simply must have.
Superman ™ and © 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Amazing Spider-Man volume 10: New Avengers


By J. Michael Straczynski, Mike Deodato Jr., Joe Pimentel & Tom Palmer (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7852-1764-4

When the original hard-luck hero became a full-time Avenger (as seen in New Avengers: Breakout), Peter Parker foolishly hoped that his life might finally be on the upswing, but of course every step forward results in two leaps back for the Wondrous Wallcrawler…

Crafted by scripter J. Michael Straczynski and illustrated by Mike Deodato Jr. with Joe Pimentel & Tom Palmer, New Avengers collects Amazing Spider-Man #519-524 (June-November 2005) and examines a period of tense and fractious adaptation in the ultimate loner’s life beginning with ‘Moving Up’ and the tragic aftermath of a fire which has destroyed May Parker‘s house and rendered both the old lady and her family/tenants Peter and Mary Jane homeless.

As the heartbroken women rummage through ashes and rubble for any salvageable mementos, billionaire Tony Stark arrives and invites them all to live in his grandiose and futuristic skyscraper in the centre of Manhattan. It’s the very least he can do for his new Avenging comrade, but the grateful trio have no idea of the trouble they’ve stepped into by accepting…

Meanwhile, all over America the glorified parvenu gangsters who currently control the criminal organisation Hydra are being rounded up by passionate and disgruntled usurpers determined to return the once-deadly secret society to its fanatical terrorist roots…

The rejuvenated evil underground empire begins its terrifying resurgence in ‘Acts of Aggression’ by unleashing their greatest weapon: a squad of super-powered killers insidiously patterned on Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye and Thor. Their first cataclysmic rampage is only barely contained by the assembled New Avengers.

However, Peter doesn’t need his Spider Sense to realise that there’s some deeper game in play, and by using his press contacts at the Daily Bugle discovers the chaos was used to cover the arrival of smuggled missile components…

His overconfident buddies are more interested in catching the hit-and-run “Hydra-vengers” and Mary Jane is all wrapped up in her imminent stage debut, so nobody is ready for the next surprise.

Whilst Peter follows a slim lead and accidentally exposes the criminal cabal’s new Supreme Hydra, his wife heads back to Stark Tower and experiences ‘Unintended Consequences’ when she is door-stepped by a sleazy tabloid journalist who says he knows her secret…

Terrified of Spider-Man’s identity being exposed she thinks fast and brazenly bluffs, but next morning awakens to headlines screaming that she’s having an affair with party-mad playboy Tony Stark…

Hydra meanwhile have moved up their schedule, planning to launch a rocket filled with assorted plagues, bacilli and toxins into America’s largest aquifer…

Having finally convinced Iron Man and the others, ‘Moving Targets’ finds Spider-Man infiltrating the subterranean Hydra Bunker and confronting an army of gun-toting maniacs as well as the facsimile Avengers…

Desperately trying to stay alive until Captain America, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, Wolverine and Stark can find him, the Astounding Arachnid is forced to take ‘Extreme Measures’ when the toxic rocket blasts off…

Everything neatly wraps up in ‘All Fall Down’ as Spidey saves the day but has to recuperate from the lethal – for anyone else – germ exposure. With Peter incapacitated, Stark deals with Mary Jane’s media situation in a manner both slick and terrifying…

It’s not all good though: there’s a recurring and possibly fatal medical complication the weary Wallcrawler refuses to share with either family or his heroic friends…

To Be Continued…

With covers by Deodato Jr., Kaare Andrews, Terry & Rachel Dodson and Tony Harris – augmented by behind-the-scenes designs stage pages – this canny chronicle delivers a rocket-paced, straightforward thriller stuffed with sentiment and outrageous hilarity (amongst other mad moments Aunt May has a disturbing fling with Avengers butler Edwin Jarvis – at least as far as her nephew is concerned: it’s loaded with sly laughs for the rest of us…).

Despite the foreshadowed conclusion this is a cracking Fights ‘n’ Tights romp every action fan will adore. This is super-heroics at its most satisfying.
© 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Usagi Yojimbo book 7: Gen’s Story


By Stan Sakai (Fantagraphics)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-304-1

Usagi Yojimbo (which translates as “rabbit bodyguard”) first appeared as a background character in Stan Sakai’s anthropomorphic comedy The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy, which premiered in 1984 amongst the assorted furry ‘n’ fuzzy folk Albedo Anthropomorphics #1. He subsequently graduated to a solo act in Critters, Amazing Heroes, Furrlough and the Munden’s Bar back-up series in Grimjack.

In 1955, when Sakai was two years old, his family moved to Hawaii from Kyoto, Japan. He left the University of Hawaii with a BA in Fine Arts, and pursued further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design in California.

His early forays into comics were as a letterer – most famously for the inimitable Groo the Wanderer – before his nimble pens and brushes found a way to express his passion for Japanese history, legend and the filmic works of Akira Kurosawa and his peers, and transformed a proposed story about a human historical hero into one of the most enticing and impressive fantasy sagas of all time.

And it’s still more educational, informative and authentic than any dozen Samurai sagas you can name…

Although the deliriously peripatetic and expansive period epic stars sentient animals and details the life of a peripatetic Lord-less Samurai eking out as honourable a living as possible by selling his sword as a Yojimbo (bodyguard-for-hire), the milieu and scenarios all scrupulously mirror the Feudal Edo Period of Japan (roughly the 17th century AD by our reckoning) whilst simultaneously referencing other cultural icons from sources as varied as Zatoichi and Godzilla.

Miyamoto Usagi is brave, noble, industrious, honest, sentimental, gentle, artistic, empathetic, long-suffering and conscientious: a rabbit devoted to the tenets of Bushido.  He simply cannot turn down any request for help or ignore the slightest evidence of injustice. As such, his destiny is to be perpetually drawn into an unending panorama of incredible situations.

This evocative and enticingly seventh black-&-white blockbuster collects yarns from Fantagraphics’ Usagi Yojimbo comicbook volume 1, #32-38 plus an extra attraction from funny animal anthology Critters #38, offering a selection of complete adventures tantalisingly tinged with supernatural terror and drenched in wit, irony and pathos.

Following a lavish and laudatory Introduction from Groo-some co-worker Sergio Aragonés, the historical drama resumes as the restless, roaming Miyamoto encounters street performer ‘Kitsune’ whose beguiling beauty and dexterity with spinning tops turns many a head.

Of course whilst everybody’s gaping in astonishment the foxy lady is picking their pockets…

The philosophical wandering warrior takes it in his stride but when crooked gambler Hatsu‘s customary conniving tricks provoke a bloody fight in an inn, Kitsune is forced to show the still blithely unaware bunny her other – far more lethal skills – to save their lives…

‘Gaki’ (literally “Hungry Ghost”) then delightfully skips backs to the bunny’s boyhood as a Bushido disciple of master warrior Katsuichi, wherein that venerable warrior teaches his fractious student a valuable and terrifying lesson in staying alert, after which ‘Broken Ritual’ (from a plot by Aragonés) offers a magnificent ghost story of honour regained.

It begins when the Yojimbo wanders into a village of terrified peasants cowering from the nightly horrors of a spectral warrior. The unhappy revenant is General Tadaoka, an old comrade of Usagi’s and, as the story of the defeated soldier’s frustrated attempt to commit Seppuku comes out, the heart-sore hare realises what he must do to give his deceased friend peace…

Once, Miyamoto Usagi was simply the son of a small-town magistrate who had spent years learning the Way of Bushido from his stern, leonine master: not just superior technique and tactics, but also Katsuichi’s creed of justice and restraint which would serve the Ronin well throughout his turbulent life.

Mere months after graduating, Usagi was personally recruited by the personal bodyguard of Great Lord Mifunė. The young man advanced quickly and was soon a trusted bodyguard too, serving beside the indomitable Gunichi. It was a time of great unrest and war was brewing…

In his third year of service the Lord’s castle was attacked by Neko Ninja assassins and, although the doughty heroes managed to save their master, the Lord’s wife Kazumi and heir Tsuruichi were murdered. Realising ambitious rival Lord Hikiji was responsible, MifunÄ— declared war…

The epic conflict ended on the great Adachigahara plain when MifunÄ—’s general Todo switched sides and the Great Lord fell. At the crucial moment Gunichi also broke, fleeing to save his own skin and leaving the helpless Usagi to preserve the fallen Lord’s head – and honour – from shameful desecration…

The next tale here returns to the days after that tragic betrayal and finds the hunted Usagi hiding in the wild forest known as ‘The Tangled Skein’ and taking shelter in the hut of an old woman. The crone was in fact a demonic Obakemono and, easily overpowering the fugitive, was set to devour Usagi when dead MifunÄ— returned to repay his most faithful servant for his unswerving loyalty…

This is followed by an extended contemporary tale featuring old frenemy ‘Gen’ and the title tale of this tome.

When the irascibly bombastic, money-mad bounty-hunter and conniving thief-taker bites off more than he can chew, he is lucky Usagi is there to rescue him. Whilst the roguish rhino is recovering from severe wounds, however, the Ronin is approached by a haughty but destitute noblewoman and is drawn into ‘Lady Asano’s Story’ and her quest for vengeance against the traitor who destroyed her clan and family.

The Yojimbo is looking for a way to let her down gently when the dowager recognises Gennosuké as the lost son of her most trusted general…

The bitter bounty hunter wants nothing to do with her but when the traitor Oda – now the town magistrate – arrests the lady and Usagi learns of his companion’s awful upbringing in ‘Sins of the Father’ he decides to help even if Gen won’t.

The attempt fails and he is captured, compelling the rhino to get involved in ‘Lady Asano’s Revenge’: an epic final confrontation of Shakespearean proportions…

The sober, weary pair of itinerants then trek to another village in time for more trouble and ‘The Return of Kitsune’. The shady entertainer has been plying her trade and accidentally stolen a very dangerous letter: one detailing a proposed rebellion and scheme to profiteer from the crisis. Now she in hiding from the mercenaries of a hugely powerful and influential merchant…

However after the ill-starred trio savagely end the threat in typical bloodletting fashion a hidden faction springs a galling surprise on the weary victors…

‘The Last Ino Story’ ends the story section of this volume with a tale of brooding emotional drama and features the return of the Blind Swordspig; a blood-spilling porcine outlaw with a huge price on his head whose incredible olfactory sense more than compensates for his useless eyes.

Although Ino was a ruthless, blood-spilling villain he valiantly helped Gen in a desperate crisis, and the thief-taker returned the favour by leading everyone to believe his profitable quarry had perished.

Now, after fighting their way out of a vicious bandit ambush, the bounty hunter and his bunny buddy discover the swine has simply settled down as an innocuous farmer, but his violent past will not leave him be. Ino is dying of an infected arrow wound and his frantic young wife Fujiko begs them to save him any way they can…

This medieval monochrome masterwork also includes a gallery of covers to charm and delight one and all.

Despite changing publishers a few times the Roaming Rabbit has been in continuous publication since 1987, with more than 30 collections and books to date. He has guest-starred in many other series (most notably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its TV incarnation) and even almost made it into his own small-screen show.

There are high-end collectibles, art prints, computer games and RPGs, a spin-off sci-fi comics serial and lots of toys. Sakai and his creation have won numerous awards both within the Comics community and amongst the greater reading public.

Fast-paced yet lyrical, informative and funny, the saga alternately bristles with tension and thrills and often breaks your heart with astounding tales of pride and tragedy.

Simply bursting with veracity and verve, Usagi Yojimbo is the perfect comics epic: a monolithic magical saga of irresistible appeal that will delight devotees and make converts of the most hardened hater of “funny animal” stories.

Sheer comicbook poetry by a Comicbook Sensei…
© 1992, 1993, 1996, 2009 Stan Sakai. Usagi Yojimbo is a registered trademark of Stan Sakai. All rights reserved.

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Teen Titans: Ravager – Fresh Hell


By Sean McKeever, David Hine, Yildiray Cinar, Georges Jeanty & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2919-1

Deathstroke the Terminator is a flamboyant cover identity for mercenary/assassin Slade Wilson who was treated with an experimental serum whilst serving as an American Special Forces soldier. He was invalided out but later developed fantastic physical abilities that augmented his military capabilities.

He debuted in the second issue of the New Teen Titans in 1980, assuming a contract that had been forfeited when neophyte costumed assassin The Ravager died trying to destroy the kid heroes. The deceased would-be killer was actually Grant Wilson, a very troubled young man desperately trying to impress his dad.

Slade’s other children would also be the cause of much heartache and bloodshed over the years…

After years he tracked down his illegitimate daughter Rose Wilson Worth. The child already had severe daddy-issues but after abducting, brainwashing and torturing her with the serum that created him he turned her into something even he couldn’t predict.

Doped and delirious, she gained physical abilities ands regenerative power like his but, in a moment of madness, cut out her left eye in a manic attempt to become just like dear old dad.

She was saved by Dick Grayson in his Nightwing persona and began a long, not entirely successful, attempt to throw off Wilson’s dire influence and sadistic parenting. After the events of Infinite Crisis she joined the Teen Titans, but found them an extremely poor fit…

This exceeding dark chronicle details Rose’s mounting struggle to come to terms with her killer instincts and conflicting determination to be nothing like her sire, gathering the one-shot Faces of Evil: Deathstroke #1 from March 2009, Teen Titans volume 3, #71 and the short back-up serial from #72-76 and #79-82 (July 2009-June 2010), beginning with ‘The Beginning’ from the aforementioned Deathstroke special, courtesy of writer David Hine and illustrators Georges Jeanty & Mark McKenna.

Following a rare defeat and well-deserved, life-threatening beating, Slade Wilson is somehow failing to recuperate in super-penitentiary Belle Reve. In his traumatic delirium he triggers a security lockdown and the harassed authorities call in Rose to save hostages and tackle her dad, the deadliest man alive…

Typically, their savage rehashing of old times ultimately frustrates the heartsick and agonised Ravager and only allows Deathstroke a chance to spectacularly escape…

With readers by now fully clued in to Rose’s ghastly past, the main event opens as ‘Fresh Hell’ (Sean McKeever, Yildiray Cinar & Julio Ferreira) opens with ‘Homecoming’ and Ravager’s return to Titans, concealing her growing addiction to adrenaline substitute Epinephrine – which gives her a kind of combat precognition – and growing dissatisfaction with the judgemental attitudes of child-heroes who have never experienced episodes of genuine “kill-or-be-killed”…

When a misunderstanding leads to bloody battle with atomic ace Bombshell, a meeting is called to discuss Rose’s future but the action junkie decides to jump before she’s pushed…

The Terminator’s daughter has finally shaken off her father’s malign influence and joined the forces of good, but almost nobody seems to believe her so she gets on her bike and heads north and away…

Some time later, the hallucination-wracked rider is robbing a pharmacy for more Epinephrine, plagued by a conscience which manifests as her preachiest ex-partners (such as Wonder Girl and Miss Martian) and desperately outracing pursuing cops. Even with the drugs her clairvoyance is diminishing and now she’s also suffering from rather inconvenient blackouts…

She snaps awake in a frozen wilderness, having crashed. Trekking over uncounted icy miles, she eventually reaches a small town filled with the unfriendliest men she’s ever met and has to break a few heads and limbs just to get a meal. However at the height of the battle she just keels over…

Slowly regaining consciousness, she’s informed by the local medic of Angelsport, Northwest Territories that his examinations have uncovered a cruel fact: all the adrenaline she’s been snorting has wrecked her heart and other organs to the point where not even her serum-based regenerative capabilities will fix them if she doesn’t stop.

Will the barman is slightly friendlier than the rest of the town, but even he is hiding something. So when she beds down in the cabin he’s provided, Rose is waiting for a next move.

It comes in a massed attack of gunmen using rocket-propelled grenades…

Despite explosively escaping and despatching many assailants, Rose is forced to run: chased by the surviving ambushers who send her to a watery grave in the frozen ocean…

They’ve grievously underestimated the Ravager, and when she follows Rose discovers the reason for the town’s hostility. The entire place is a smuggling port and former spy Will is a ruthless entrepreneur using contacts in Russia and a submarine to provide highly profitable, illicit merchandise: weapons, drugs, underage girls…

Rose is utterly determined to end him and his business and rescue the stolen children but she’s never faced a foe like Will, and before her mission is over she will have to decide if she’s a shining champion and protector or just a bloody, red-handed avenger…

With covers by Cinar, Ladrönn, Joe Bennett, Jack Jadson & Guy Major, Fresh Hell is a nasty, violent and extremely dark blend of superhero drama and real world criminal depravity that will satisfy Fights ‘n’ Tights fans with a penchant for the raw underbelly of action/adventure.
© 2009, 2010 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Mighty Avengers: The Unspoken


By Dan Slott, Christos N. Gage, Khoi Pham, Sean Chen & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3746-7

One of the most momentous events in Marvel Comics history occurred in 1963 when a disparate array of individual heroes banded together to stop the Incredible Hulk. The Avengers combined most of the company’s fledgling superhero line in one bright, shiny and highly commercial package. Over the decades the roster has continually changed until now almost every character in their universe has at some time numbered amongst their colourful ranks…

At one time in recent years Norman Osborn (the original Green Goblin) had, through various machinations, replaced Tony Stark as America’s Security Czar: the “top cop” in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to ultra-technological threats and all metahuman influences…

Under Stark’s tenure a Superhuman Registration Act had resulted in a divisive Civil War amongst the costumed community with tragic repercussions, but the nation and the world were no safer and the planet was almost lost to an insidious Secret Invasion by alien Skrulls.

After executing the Skull leader on live TV, Osborn’s popularity skyrocketed, and when Stark was inevitably fired the former villain got his job. Slowly at first, he began to exert overt control over America: instigating an oppressive “Dark Reign” which saw the World’s Mightiest Heroes driven underground.

To cement his position Osborn actually replaced the Avengers with his own hand-picked coterie of criminals and impostors.

Eventually however the madman’s reach exceeded his grasp and Founding Avenger Henry Pym took back the hallowed name and formed his own squad of champions to restore both the team’s reputation and his own.

In the past the periodically mentally unstable Dr. Pym created the roles of Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath and Yellowjacket to fight crime, disaster and injustice, but since the Skrulls killed his former wife (she was actually only mutated and lost in another dimension: it’s comics and nobody dies forever) he’s been calling himself The Wasp in her honour…

Aided by the mystic machinations of Wanda Maximoff, the once-reviled Scarlet Witch, Pym reluctantly gathered a disparate group of veterans and neophytes under his banner. Former Young Avengers Stature and a juvenile Vision joined Hercules, child prodigy Amadeus Cho, U.S. Agent and faithful butler Edwin Jarvis in a reorganised, revitalised gang which was soon augmented by robotic siren Jocasta, forcibly encoded with the lost Janet Van Dyne‘s brain patterns and memories.

This fact has generated a few problems: for a start she was increasingly drawn to Pym, a man Jan was married to for years and a bi-polar genius who has just changed his powers and identity yet again…

The presence of the Scarlet Witch soon draws her twin brother Quicksilver back into the fold, but even after defeating an attempt by Osborn’s H.A.M.M.E.R. agency to shut them down and surviving a fractious quarrel with the Fantastic Four, Pym’s Avengers are far from settled into their new role.

That might be due to the fact that the Witch is actually a subversive impostor: the team’s oldest foe pursuing a Machiavellian and deadly personal agenda…

Plotted by Dan Slott and written by Christos Gage, this all-action volume collects Mighty Avengers #27-31 (September 2009-January 2010) and opens with a history lesson from the hidden race known as Inhumans.

Illustrated by Khoi Pham & Allen Martinez, the flashback shows how current monarch Black Bolt and his cousins Medusa, Gorgon and Karnak impossibly overthrew the reigning king – the most powerful Inhuman ever born – because he overstepped his authority and stole the race’s most puissant weapon The Slave Engine.

The device was created to balance the scales should the teeming hordes of humanity ever attack the pitifully small race of outcasts but the complacent and too-soft King deemed it an abomination and hid it from his fellows.

Although defeated and banished he would not return it, and for his crime his name was stricken from all records and was forever ‘Unspoken’…

Now, uncounted years later, U.S. Agent and Quicksilver are in Tibet amidst rumours that an unknown Inhuman might be allying with unfriendly power China. Having married into Black Bolt’s family the super fast mutant instantly recognises the towering figure for who he really is and panics…

Elsewhere Pym is conducting a tour of the Avengers new HQ. The Infinite Avengers Mansion is an immeasurable trans-dimensional palace with doors that can open into anywhere…

Back in the Himalayas, U.S. Agent’s fears of a Sino/Inhuman pact are laid to rest when China’s entire metahuman military division The People’s Defense Force is deployed to attack the trespassing Unspoken… and soundly thrashed in mere moments…

Over the intervening years the dethroned, pro-human king – exiled with only a few mentally deficient, slavish Alpha Primitives for company – has suffered agonies of loneliness and is now resolved to trigger the Slave Engine and destroy humanity, whilst back at the Infinite Mansion Stature has her suspicions about Wanda confirmed when she sees the Witch intercept and delete Quicksilver’s SOS alarm call.

However before she can warn anybody the plucky teenager is mystically gagged by the gloating sorceress…

As the China crisis worsens, Stature finds a way to circumvent her handicap and invites some old Young Avenger pals to the mansion for a party, hoping the inevitable rambunctious chaos will give her an opportunity to act. The ploy works especially well since Clint Barton (former Hawkeye and current New Avenger Ronin) gatecrashes the bash and instantly attacks the woman who once killed him…

Pym meanwhile is oblivious to all mundane events. Having reconciled with FF leader Reed Richards he is embarking on an exploratory foray into Macrospace, intent on growing beyond the limits of the universe in search of new discoveries…

As Hawkeye and the Young Avengers inconceivably drive off the faux Witch in the Infinite Mansion, the battle is almost lost in the East where the Unspoken has finally unleashed his race’s ultimate weapon: a crystal compound which turns humans into Alpha Primitives…

At home, free to speak at last, Stature tells the assembled heroes of Quicksilver’s alert and they immediately deploy to Tibet…

Sean Chen, Mark Morales & Craig Yeung take over the illustration as Pym escapes the boundaries of Reality and meets the conceptual being Eternity, whilst back on Earth Jarvis calls in even more Avengers for the upcoming battle against the Unspoken.

Tragically, most of them are susceptible to the Inhumans’ mutagenic weapon and the army of heroes seems destined to fail, until Pym dramatically returns.

His conference with the personification of Universal Life proved fruitful as Eternity promoted him to the position of Earth’s Scientist Supreme. Now armed with confidence, knowledge, imagination and terrifying technology, he begins the Avengers counterattack…

Another remarkably self-contained, clear-cut and astonishingly engaging Fights ‘n’ Tights adventure, this sterling tome also offers a gallery of covers and variants by Khoi Pham, Crimelab’s Allen Martinez & John Rauch and Howard Chaykin: perfectly exemplifying all that’s great in fanciful, all-action superhero storytelling.
© 2009, 2010  Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved

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Wonder Woman: The Twelve Labors


By Martin Pasko, Elliot S. Maggin, Cary Bates, Len Wein, Curt Swan, John Rosenberger, Irv Novick, Dick Dillin, Kurt Schaffenberger, Dick Giordano, Jose Delbo & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3494-2

The Princess of Paradise Island originally debuted as a special feature in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941), conceived by polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston and illustrated by Harry G. Peter, in a calculated attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model and, on forward thinking Editor M.C. Gaines’ part, sell more funnybooks.

She catapulted into her own series and the cover-spot of new anthology title Sensation Comics a month later. An instant hit, the Amazing Amazon won her own eponymous supplemental title a few months later, cover-dated Summer 1942.

Once upon a time on a hidden island of immortal super-women, American aviator Steve Trevor of US Army Intelligence crashed to Earth. Near death, he was nursed back to health by young, impressionable Princess Diana.

Fearful of her besotted child’s growing obsession with the creature from a long-forgotten and madly violent world, Diana’s mother Queen Hippolyte revealed the hidden history of the Amazons: how they were seduced and betrayed by men but rescued by the goddess Aphrodite on condition that they forever isolated themselves from the mortal world and devoted their eternal lives to becoming ideal, perfect creatures.

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

On arriving in the Land of the Free she purchased the identity and credentials of lovelorn Army nurse Diana Prince, which elegantly allowed the Amazing Amazon to stay close to Steve whilst enabling the heartsick care-worker to join her own fiancé in South America. Diana soon gained a position with Army Intelligence as secretary to General Darnell, further ensuring she would always be able to watch over her beloved. She little suspected that, although the painfully shallow Steve only had eyes for the dazzling Amazon superwoman, the General had fallen for the mousy but supremely competent Lieutenant Prince…

That set up enabled the Star Spangled Siren to weather the vicissitudes of the notoriously transient comicbook marketplace and survive the end of the Golden Age of costumed heroes along with Superman, Batman and a few lucky hangers-on who inhabited the backs of their titles.

She soldiered on well into the Silver Age revival under the canny auspices of Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, but by 1968 superhero comics were in decline again and publishers sought new ways to keep audiences interested as tastes – and American society – changed.

Back then, the entire industry depended on newsstand sales and if you weren’t popular, you died.

Editor Jack Miller and Mike Sekowsky stepped up with a radical proposal and made a little bit of comic book history with the only female superhero to still have her own title that marketplace.

The superbly eccentric art of Sekowsky had been a DC mainstay for nearly two decades, and he had also scored big with fans at Gold Key with Man from Uncle and at Tower Comics in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and on war title Fight The Enemy!

His unique take on the Justice League of America had cemented its overwhelming success, and now in 1968 he began stretching himself further with a number of experimental, young-adult oriented projects.

Tapping into the teen zeitgeist with Easy Rider style drama Jason’s Quest proved ultimately unsuccessful, but with the Metal Men and the hopelessly moribund Wonder Woman he had much greater impact. He would subsequently work the same magic with Supergirl.

The big change came when the Amazons were forced to leave our dimension, taking with them all their magic – including Wonder Woman’s powers and all her weapons. Now no more or less than human, she opted to stay on Earth permanently, assuming her own secret identity of Diana Prince, dedicated to fighting injustice as a mortal, very much in the manner of Emma Peel and Modesty Blaise.

Blind Buddhist monk I Ching trained her as a martial artist, and she quickly became embroiled in the schemes of would-be world-conqueror Doctor Cyber. Most shockingly her beloved Steve was branded a traitor and murdered…

Sekowsky’s root and branch overhaul offered a whole new kind of Wonder Woman (and can be seen in the magical quartet of full-colour collections entitled Diana Prince: Wonder Woman) but as I’ve already said fashion ruled and in a few years, without any fanfare or warning, everything that had happened since Wonder Woman lost her powers was unwritten.

Her mythical origins were revised and re-established as she returned to a world of immortals, gods, mythical monster and super-villains with a new nemesis, an African (Greek?) American half-sister named Nubia…

Such an abrupt reversal had tongues wagging and heads spinning in fan circles. Had the series offended some shady “higher-ups” who didn’t want controversy or a shake-up of the status quo?

Probably not.

Sales were never great even on the Sekowsky run and the most logical reason is probably Television.

The Amazon had been optioned as a series since the days of the Batman TV show in 1967, and by this time (1973) production work had begun on the original 1974 pilot featuring Cathy Lee Crosby. An abrupt return to the character most viewers would be familiar with from their own childhoods seems perfectly logical to me… By the time Linda Carter made the concept live in 1975 Wonder Woman was once again “Stronger than Hercules, swifter than Mercury and more beautiful than Aphrodite”…

But as Diana returned to mainstream DC continuity the fans expected her to fully reintegrate, leading to this early and impressive example of a comics miniseries which ran in Wonder Woman #212 to 222 (cover-dated July 1974 – March 1976) and detailed how the Amazing Amazon rejoined the JLA.

Scripter Len Wein and artists Curt Swan & Tex Blaisdell got the ball rolling with ‘The Man Who Mastered Women!’ as the Hellenic Heroine thwarted a terrorist attack at New York’s United Nations building where Diana Prince worked as a translator. In the aftermath she surprisingly met old friend Clark Kent.

Over the course of the conversation she realised her memories had been tampered with and suddenly understood why her JLA colleagues hadn’t called her to any meetings… she had resigned years ago…

Although her former comrades begged her to re-enlist, she declined, fearing that her memory lapses might endanger the team and the world. After much insistent pleading she relented enough to suggest that the League should covertly monitor her next dozen major cases – in the manner of Hercules’ twelve legendary tests – as she proved herself competent and worthy, for her own peace of mind if not the JLA’s…

Once they grudgingly agreed she left and Superman began the surveillance, observing her flying to Paradise Island in her Invisible Plane. Correctly deducing that she had been subject to Amazonian selective memory manipulation, she confronted her mother and learned of her time as a mere mortal and of Steve’s death.

Although the past had been removed by her well-meaning Amazon sisters, Diana now demanded that every recollection excised be returned…

Back in Man’s World a crisis was already brewing as costumed crazy The Cavalier began exerting his uncanny influence over women to controlling female Heads of State, but his powers proved ultimately ineffectual over Wonder Woman…

As a result of that case Diana Prince changed jobs, going to work as a troubleshooter for dashing Morgan Tracy at the UN Crisis Bureau, and her first mission wasn’t long in coming…

Wonder Woman #213 was crafted by Cary Bates, Irv Novick & Blaisdell as an alien robot landed and removed all aggression from humanity in one stroke. As the Flash helplessly observed however ‘The War-No-More Machine!’ also quashed all bravery, determination, confidence and capability and the species faced imminent – if long and drawn out – extinction.

Happily Diana, a teenaged girl and a murderous criminal were all somehow immune to the invader’s influence…

Elliot S. Maggin, Swan & Phil Zupa then disclosed Green Lantern Hal Jordan‘s undercover observations after a lost Amazon gem in unwitting, unscrupulous hands almost started World War III and the Princess of Power had to avert a nuclear holocaust triggered by a ‘Wish Upon a Star!’

The superb and vastly undervalued John Rosenberger pencilled Cary Bates’ tale of the ‘Amazon Attack Against Atlantis’ (inked by Vince Colletta) as Aquaman watched Wonder Woman unravel a baroque and barbaric plot by Mars, God of War to set Earth’s two most advanced nations at each throats, after which #216 found Black Canary uncovering the Amazon Sisterhood’s greatest secret in ‘Paradise in Peril!’ by Maggin, Rosenberger & Colletta.

The tale concerned an obsessed multi-millionaire risking everything – including possibly the collapse of civilisation – to uncover exactly what would happen if a man set foot upon the hidden Island of the Amazons…

One of Wonder Woman’s oldest foes resurfaced in ‘The Day Time Broke Loose!’ (by Maggin, Dick Dillin & Colletta) and Green Arrow was caught in the crossfire as the Duke of Deception attacked the UN with temporally torturous images and hallucinations designed to create madness and death on a global scale.

Issue #218 was produced by Martin Pasko & Kurt Schaffenberger and offered two short complete tales. Firstly Red Tornado reported on the ‘Revolt of the Wonder Weapons’ as an influential astrologer used mind-control techniques to gain power and accidentally undermined Diana’s arsenal, after which The Phantom Stranger stealthily observed her foiling a mystic plot by sorcerer Felix Faust which animated and enraged the Statue of Liberty in ‘Give Her Liberty – and Give Her Death!’

This was a time when feminism was finally making inroads into American culture and Pasko, Swan & Colletta slyly tipped their hats to the burgeoning movement in a wry and fanciful sci-fi thriller.

Thus issue  #219 found Diana preventing a vile incursion by the dominating males of Xro, a ‘World of Enslaved Women!’ with stretchable sleuth Elongated Man secretly traversing the parallel dimensions in Wonder Woman’s wake.

With the epic endeavour almost ended, regular scripter Pasko added a patina of mystery to the affair as the Atom watched Diana tackle ‘The Man Who Wiped Out Time!’ Illustrated by Dick Giordano, Wonder Woman #220 found temporal obsessive Chronos eradicating New York’s ability to discern time and time pieces: a plot foiled with style and brilliance by the on-form, in-time Power Princess.

The only problem was that during that entire exacting episode Hawkman had been watching Diana tackling another potential disaster hundreds of miles away…

The Feathered Fury’s report detailed how Crisis Bureau operative Diana Prince had been targeted by Dr. Cyber and Professor Moon – old enemies from her powerless period – who combined a hunger for vengeance with a plan to steal a UN-controlled chemical weapon in ‘The Fiend with the Face of Glass’ (illustrated by Swan & Colletta).

How she could be in two places simultaneously was revealed by Batman, who wrapped up the twelve trials in ‘Will the Real Wonder Woman Please… Stand Up Drop Dead!’ (art by Jose Delbo & Blaisdell), detailing how a beloved children’s entertainment icon had been subverted into a monster feeding off people and replacing them with perfect duplicates…

With covers by Bob Oksner, Nick Cardy, Mike Grell, Dick Giordano & Ernie Chan, this is a spectacular slice of pure, uncomplicated, all ages superhero action/adventure starring one of comics’ true all stars.

Stuffed with stunning art and witty, beguiling stories, this is Wonder Woman at her most welcoming in a timeless, pivotal classic of the medium: one that still provides astounding amounts of fun and thrills for anyone interested in a grand old time.
© 1974, 1975, 1976, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Bruce Wayne – The Road Home


By Fabian Nicieza, Mike W. Barr, Bryan Q. Miller, Derek Fridolfs, Adam Beechen, Marc Andreyko & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3081-4

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.

The world at large was unaware of the loss, leaving the superhero community to mourn in secret whilst a small, dedicated army of assistants, protégés and allies – trained over years by the contingency-obsessed Dark Knight – formed the Network to police Gotham City in the days which followed: marking time until a successor could be found or the original restored…

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 them…

This companion volume to Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne features eight one-shot specials depicting how after the original Dark Knight (marooned in the corridors of history by Darkseid) got back, he created a new identity to scrutinise just how his absence had affected the friends and deputies who soldiered on without him in the urban hell-pit he called home.

Collecting the outrageously tongue-twisting octet Batman: Bruce Wayne: Batman & Robin #1, Batman: Bruce Wayne: Red Robin #1, Batman: Bruce Wayne: Outsiders #1, Batman: Bruce Wayne: Batgirl #1, Batman: Bruce Wayne: Catwoman #1, Batman: Bruce Wayne: Commissioner Gordon #1, Batman: Bruce Wayne: Oracle #1 and Batman: Bruce Wayne: Ra’s Al Ghul #1 from December 2010, the drama begins with ‘Outside Looking In’ by Fabian Nicieza & Cliff Richards and a covert scrutiny of Bruce’s son Damien Wayne and Grayson – the triumphantly innovative new Batman & Robin…

As these Partners in Peril are foiling an attack on Mayor Hady by super-assassins the Hangmen, former star reporter Vicki Vale is nailing down the story of her life.

She has spent months assiduously gathering snippets of information, following hunches and piecing vague suspicions together and is now convinced that she has identified the secret identities of all Gotham’s Bat guardians – and that her old boyfriend Bruce is Batman.

All she needs is proof, and when she finds a bat-bug placed on her by Dick, she has it…

As the Dynamic Duo follow the last Hangman, they are unaware that they are in turn being tracked by an enigmatic armoured figure whose all-encompassing bodysuit mimics the many powers of the Justice League…

Elsewhere caretaker patriarch Alfred Pennyworth enacts a desperate plan to deceive Vicki, blackmailing Tommy Elliot – the villain Hush, who had turned himself into a perfect duplicate of Bruce – into again impersonating the missing playboy, but the canny journalist is not fooled…

Elsewhere the enigmatic Insider rendezvous with Tim Drake AKA Red Robin.

The third Boy Wonder already knows who is inside the super-suit and tentatively acknowledges the necessity of keeping the return a secret, but comes bearing critical new information. He has discovered the abortive scheme to murder Hady was only part of a concerted international effort by cadres of assassins to eradicate city leaders across the globe…

With a live case going global Bruce is forced to adapt his reconnaissance assessment mission on the fly…

The saga continues in Batman: Bruce Wayne: Red Robin #1, where ‘The Insider’ (Nicieza Ramon Bachs & John Lucas) sees Tim head for Amsterdam and a confrontation with killer cabal The Council of Spiders. The battle leads to a reunion with unpredictable erstwhile companion Prudence, a former member of the League of Assassins and devout follower of immortal conqueror Ra’s Al Ghul.

She claims to serve Tim now but the lad has his doubts…

Even together they are barely a match for the arachnoid assassins, but then the Insider appears…

In Gotham Alfred plays his final card and tells Vicki everything she’s compiled and deduced is true. While she’s reeling he then swipes her only piece of evidence…

Back in Holland Insider, having infiltrated the Spiders, uses their initiation assignment to test Tim’s combat skills in a no-holds barred rooftop battle, having discovered the planet-wide contract on city leaders is part of a mystery manipulator’s vast, inexplicable Tournament of Death…

When Batman’s methods clashed with the JLA’s scruples, the Dark Knight formed his own superteam. Eventually he dumped them, only occasionally reuniting with Geo-Force, Halo, Looker, Katana and the rest.

Now in Batman: Bruce Wayne: Outsiders #1, (‘Inside Interference’ by Mike W. Barr, Javier Saltares, Rebecca Buchman & Walden Wong) the returned crusader travels to European kingdom Markovia to find his former followers in the midst of civil unrest with their current leader targeted for death…

Having sorted that crisis with a little inside help, Bruce confronts his forth sidekick Stephanie Brown…

Daughter of C-list bad-guy Cluemaster, she 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 the Bat-family’s deep mistrust – and 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 retire…

Batman: Bruce Wayne: Batgirl #1, ‘Batgirl’ by Bryan Q. Miller & Pere Perez sees the Insider directly assault the flamboyant, cocky teen tornado, simultaneously testing her fighting skills and deductive abilities even as elsewhere the undaunted Vicki Vale attempts to push original Batgirl Barbara Gordon into an unguarded admission…

Selina Kyle had taken Bruce’s death hard, aligning herself with known felons Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. In Batman: Bruce Wayne: Catwoman #1, ‘Lifting the Vale’ by Derek Fridolfs, Peter Nguyen & Ryan Winn, the former thief and her new gal-pals save Vicki from disaster when she invades an underworld auction. It’s all a scam however as the feline fury only wants to copy all the journalist’s findings for Bruce…

The most impressive chapter here is the stark and shocking ‘Gotham’s Finest’ (Adam Beechen & Szymon Kudranski) from Batman: Bruce Wayne: Commissioner Gordon #1. In it the Tournament of Death takes a personal turn when Vicki becomes the target of The Penguin‘s metahuman mercenaries and Gotham’s top cop has to fight his way out of his own HQ with her, whilst every bent officer on the force tries to kill them.

With the Insider almost too late Jim Gordon proves just why he’s the man Batman respects and trusts the most…

Police Commissioner’s daughter Barbara became computer crusader Oracle after her career as Batgirl ended when the Joker blew out her spine during one of his manic kill sprees. 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 became an invaluable resource for the entire superhero community, before putting together her own fluctuating squad of crimefighters – the Birds of Prey.

With the grudging acceptance of stand-in Dark Knight Dick Grayson, she mentored Stephanie as the troublesome teen attempted to combine undergraduate studies with her compulsive mission to save lives and help the helpless…

In ‘Oracle’ by Mark Andreyko & Agustin Padilla (Batman: Bruce Wayne: Oracle #1) Babs makes the missing connections and works out who’s behind the massed assassin squads around the world… and how it impacts the entire Bat Network.

However with the legendary Seven Men of Death moving to silence Vicki – now revealed as the ultimate target – Oracle sets the Insider to guard the journalist while she activates all her available Birds (Man-Bat, Hawk & Dove, Ragman, Manhunter and Batgirl), but even their massed might is insufficient to prevent the reporter being abducted by Batman’s hidden foe: a man who will let nothing sully the pristine reputation and myth of the only person on Earth worthy of his respect…

With a cover gallery by Shane Davis & Barbara Ciardo, the sprawling, explosively absorbing saga concludes with the inevitable confrontation between the resurgent Bruce and his polar opposite as Batman: Bruce Wayne: Ra’s Al Ghul #1, (by Nicieza, Scott McDaniel & Andy Owens) details the final fate of Vicki in ‘A Life Worth Saving’…

Fast, furious, complex and enticing, this is a spectacular and accessible yarn that stands on its own merits, so even the freshest newcomers and the very antithesis of Batmaniacs can enjoy the helter-skelter thrill-ride in perfect confidence of a great read.
© 2010, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.