Graphic Novels – Page 157

June 19, 2013June 18, 2013

DC Superheroes Presents Superman Spectacular No. 1

By Bob Rozakis, Paul Kupperberg, Adrian Gonzales & Vince Colletta (DC/London Editions)
ISBN: 0-86173-041-0

These days, when maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for the made-up worlds comicbooks inhabit is paramount, the saddest casualty of those periodic sweeping changes, upgrades, rationalisations and reboots is the great stories that suddenly â€œnever happenedâ€.

The most painful example of this – for me at least – was the wholesale loss of the entire bizarre and charm-drenched mythology that had evolved around Superman’s birthworld in the wonder years between 1948 and 1985.

Here then, in response to the new Superman film is something not every Kryptonian Kompletist may be treasuring in his vault: a canonical pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Man of Steel yarn which didn’t appear in the regular runs of Superman or Action Comics, packed with all the gloriously convoluted lore, wry wit and all-ages thrills which for decades made the Man of Tomorrow indisputably the most recognisable comics character on Earth.

This extra-sized tale was actually devised by American creators for the European market as Superman Album series #1 (cover-dated Januar 1982 und pronounzed mit ein deutsche achzent, iff you pliss), printed in what was then West Germany by Ehapa Verlag.

It subsequently appeared in the USA as an English-language edition in a large (212 x 397mm) one-off paperback album in American convenience chains like 7-11 later that year. In Britain, where London Editions then held a DC reprint license, producing a wonderfully eclectic black-&-white anthology The Superheroes Monthly (with painted covers by the likes of Alan Craddock, David Jackson, Bryan Talbot and Brian Bolland), the tale was released as a similarly sized, full-colour edition to rack beside such beloved European imports as Asterix and Tintin.

In case you’re wondering: it was printed in Germany, presumably by simply replacing the black plate of the four-colour print process with one that had the lettering in English.

The ‘Startling Saga of Superman-Red & Superman-Blue!’ was scripted by Paul Kupperberg from a Bob Rozakis plot and illustrated by Adrian Gonzales & Vince Colletta, with the legendary Julius Schwartz in editorial command as always.

The bombastic battle royale was based on a much-beloved imaginary story by Leo Dorfman, Curt Swan & George Klein from Superman #162, July 1963, adroitly co-opted into the mainstream continuity to beef up the ominous if ill-starred alliance of arch nemesis Lex Luthor with space owlhoot Terra-Man.

(This last was conceived during the period when costumed heroes were in decline during the early 1970s. The Deep Space Desperado resembled a space-age Clint Eastwood in Spaghetti Western mode. He was a Wild West bandit’s son shanghaied into space. After eventually killing his kidnapper, the young man returned to Earth only to discover a century had passed. The furious outcast of infinity had already adapted his purloined extraterrestrial technology to accommodate his childhood antecedents and decided to drive aliens such as Superman off â€œhisâ€ planet foreverâ€¦)

This intergalactic grudge match opens as Luthor invades a Daily Planet story conference to challenge Superman to another fight. The resulting clash goes badly for the criminal genius, however, even though he has devised an entirely new form of energy weapon to destroy his alien antithesisâ€¦

Meanwhile in space, solitary star rider Terra-Man has finally found a chunk of Kryptonite. He had long heard stories that the rare radioactive remnant was fatal to Superman, and now believes the end of his vendetta against the extraterrestrial squatter on his home range is near.

He should have listened more closely to the stories, though, as the shard he holds is red, not greenâ€¦

Wary of being beaten again, Terra-Man contacts Luthor and proposes a combined attack, but doesn’t trust his new partner enough to hand over the radioactive space rockâ€¦

On Earth Superman is renewing his oft-postponed romance with Lois Lane when Terra-Man attacks, and after deflecting the initial assault is lured into orbit where the menacing mineral is secreted.

From his hiding place Luthor can only watch in horror as the Red K (which produced not radiation poisoning and death but temporary mutagenic effects on Kryptonians) divided the Man of Steel into twins in primarily blue or red uniformsâ€¦

It wasn’t a complete disaster, however, as each of the pair seemed to be missing some of Superman’s vast array of powersâ€¦

Frantically regrouping, Luthor and Terra-Man deduced what had happened, and as Clark Kent endured confusion at work with a brace of himself tripping over each other, the vile villains plotted to use their conventional resources and Lex’s new discovery to destroy their foe(s).

With double the super manpower, â€œRedâ€ and â€œBlueâ€ begin cleaning all the trouble spots on Earth and discover a new crisis: an inter-dimensional rift threatening to consume the world. The mystery of Luthor’s new energy source is revealed – the madman has tapped magical forces from another plane of existence and weaponised it to kill his arch foe, regardless of the potential for universal cataclysmâ€¦

As Supermans Red and Blue move to quell the threat, they find one more quandary confronting them: each is only half as powerful as the whole hero. When the divided defenders split up to battle Terra-Man and Luthor, this tragic deficiency causes the Crimson Crusader’s â€œdeathâ€ with the collateral catastrophe of Lois felled by Luthor’s lethal magic weaponâ€¦

And at that very moment the Red K effect faded and the one true Man of Tomorrow was rebornâ€¦

Once upon a time smart, affecting absorbing drama and wild-eyed adventure such as this was the bread-and-butter of comics. For decades, new exploits and dangers were created – sometime three of four times a month – with characters operating seamlessly in a shared milieu that wasn’t obsessed with incessantly mining and refining the hero’s origin or shockingly revealing lost or evil relatives like some spandex-bedecked cheap soap opera. And they frequently began and ended in one issueâ€¦

This tale is a delicious example from the dying days of that era and perfectly shows us what we’re missing todayâ€¦
Â© 1982 DC Comics Inc. This edition Â© 1982 London Editions Magazines (formerly Egmont Publishing). All Rights Reserved.

June 17, 2013June 22, 2013

Ultimate Comics Wolverine: Legacies

By Cullen Bunn, David Messina, Gary Erskine & Gaetano Carlucci (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-546-8

The Marvel Ultimates project started in 2000 with a thoroughly contemporary remodelling of major characters and concepts to bring them into line with a generation of potential readers separated by more than three decades from the starry-eyed, idealistic kids who were the primary buyers of â€œthe House that Stan & Jack (and Steve) Builtâ€.

Eventually even this streamlined new universe became as crowded and continuity-constricted as its predecessor, and in 2008 the publishing event â€œUltimatumâ€ culminated in a reign of terror which wiped out loads of heroes and villains as well as millions of ordinary mortals in a vast Tsunami triggered by mutant terrorist Magneto.

After dramatically rebuilding this darker, grimmer continuum, Armageddon happened again in 2012 as a perilously destabilised world sank into international metahuman anarchy. America succumbed to a mass-secession of states resulting in a second Civil War before the remaining heroes, surviving mutants and a new Spider-Man brought a measure of peace and stability to the planetâ€¦

From this latest aftermath comes a canny thriller (collecting the 4-issue miniseries Ultimate Comics Wolverine from March to May 2013, deftly written by Cullen Bunn and illustrated by David Messina, Gary Erskine & Gaetano Carlucci) which simultaneously explores the past and outlines the future of Jimmy Hudson: troubled offspring of the mutant legend who gave his life to end Magnetoâ€¦

But first, a little more background: sixteen year-old Hudson only discovered who his real father was when fugitive Kitty Pride turned up bearing a hologram message from the fabled mutant-hero Wolverine. The device also explained the boy’s incredible healing ability and the claws which keep inconveniently popping out of his knuckles whenever he got stressedâ€¦

Civilisation had been shakily stumbling from crisis to catastrophe since the Deluge. That progress ended when the world learned that the super-powered mutants proliferating around the globe were not a product of inexorable evolution but rather the result of a 50-year old American program of genetic manipulation. Unfortunately, the experiment had slipped from their control when their initial test subject escaped.

Now, as the news spread, humanity went crazy. A wave of prejudice sparked violent protests around the globe and, as atrocities mounted, the attacks threatened the very existence of the feared and despised human lab-rats. In the political furore following the disclosure, the bloodshed grew into planetary panic and a genetic arms-race in Asia (see Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye and The Ultimates: The Republic is Burning), resulted in the near-eradication of the homo Superior strain and consequent creation of new superhuman subspecies.

In response the US President unexpectedly sidelined S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury in favour of co-operation with Magneto’s son Pietro Lensherr – who had inherited control of the mutant-terrorist group the Brotherhood of Mutants. The super-swift manipulator dubbed Quicksilver struck a Faustian Bargain with the Leader of the Free World, but their plans were subverted by fundamentalist preacher Reverend William Stryker who seized control of the government’s Sentinel technology and used it to attack mutants all over America as part of his genocidal crusade to purify humanityâ€¦

Pietro had intended to co-opt America’s Nimrod Sentinels to his own purposes but Stryker struck first, taking personal control of the program and unleashing every killer robot in the USA’s arsenal to hunt down mutants wherever they might be hiding.

The pogrom turned a large part of the southwest into a killing zone where the unholy freaks were held in camps, just waiting to dieâ€¦

In Mutant Internment Camp Angel, the guards and Sentinels were overthrown by former X-Men Colossus and Storm, and once the younger prisoners discovered what atrocities the humans had been secretly perpetrating against the captives the entire facility erupted into open rebellion.

When WashingtonDC, the President and his Cabinet were wiped out in a nuclear attack, Texas seceded from the Union, provoking a series of similar rebellions by right-wing militias and libertarian hate-groups throughout the nation. Hopelessly out of his depth, Acting President Howard declared martial law and the second American Civil War beganâ€¦

In New York former X-Man Karen Grant (nee Jean Grey) had been secretly furthering Charles Xavier‘s dream of fostering Human/Mutant co-existence, gathering young mutants and hiding them together for safety. When she vanished during the burgeoning Asian conflict her mission had been taken up by Kitty Prydeâ€¦

Jimmy Hudson – whose father Wolverine had been the Military’s â€œMutant Zeroâ€ and reviled or celebrated as progenitor of mutantkind – was one of Pryde’s flock of refugees hiding beneath New York when the war began.

With news seeping in of wholesale mutant-cleansing in the west, Pryde, Jimmy and a number of others travelled across their hostile homeland to Camp Angel to join the Last Stand of their race.

When they arrived the long-undercover Nick Fury resurfaced, training mutants and working with them to establish a separate, safe homeland. As war wracked America the tiny outcast force faced its greatest martial threat to emerge as an independent Mutant Nationâ€¦

Set in the days following that incredible victory, Legacies actually begins with a flashback to earlier times long before The Deluge when S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Wolverine and his support team closed in on an assassin targeting Senator Gregory Lee.

Intel was scarce. All they knew was that something or someone called â€œMothervineâ€ wanted the crusading politician deadâ€¦

When a bystander apparently turned a little girl into a mutant to slaughter the Senator and his Secret Service detail, Wolverine’s frustrated team gave chase only to find the instigator’s freshly killed corpseâ€¦

Back in the present, Jimmy is again watching the recorded messages on his father’s hologram disc when mutant technopath Black Box bursts in. The kid’s uncanny affinity with machines has detected a hidden message underneath the transmission. Soon Hudson and Black Box have left the Mutant Nation far behind and gone in search of Wolverine’s final bequest – a coded message concerning something called Project: Mothervineâ€¦

Meanwhile, across the continent, human agents tasked with monitoring the long-dormant Mothervine are suddenly, sadistically despatched by mutant Machiavelli Quicksilverâ€¦

Years ago Wolverine and his crew had relentlessly tracked the elusive enigma, uncovering a conspiracy to create a means of mass-producing and weaponising mutants. But when they raided the Human Engineering Life Laboratories and ostensibly ended the threat, Wolverine again encountered an old adversary also hunting for the secret: Magda, ex-wife of Magneto and under her codename â€œThe Witchâ€ one of the deadliest freelance secret agents on Earthâ€¦

In the now, before following the old trail of Wolverine and Mothervine, Jimmy and Black Box waste precious time checking on Hudson’s foster parents. Unfortunately this sentimental side trip also brings them to the attention of psychotic freelancer Wildchild â€“ another special services killer hired by an unknown party to clean up all traces of and links to Mothervineâ€¦

As Box’s gifts track down and interrogate old computer records, Wildchild’s gang attack and – despite Jimmy’s best efforts – the mutant kids are overpowered. They would have died if Quicksilver hadn’t turned up to revoltingly end the lives of the filthy humansâ€¦

As another flashback reveals the origins of Jimmy and the reasons his mother and father abandoned him, Pietro admits that he is Hudson’s half-brother, before disclosing the horrific truth about Mothervine and his plans for Jimmy.

Apparently his newly found sibling’s blood is apparently the only surviving source of the mutant-making concoctionâ€¦

The family reunion isn’t a happy one however and, as Quicksilver explains his vision, Jimmy realises exactly what kind of monster his brother is. Pietro wants to build a mutant army to eradicate mankind and he’s perfectly willing to bleed the appalled Hudson dry to accomplish his goalsâ€¦

It is only after their fast, furious final battle to decide the fate of humanity that Jimmy at last accepts his destiny is to be the new Wolverineâ€¦

There is a delicious covers-&-variants gallery by Arthur Adams & Axel Torvenius and no high-tech Marvel Augmented Reality App inclusions here; but frankly you won’t need them for this superbly sinister drama of spooks and monsters which perfectly sets up the replacement Feral Fury as defender of mutants and mankind alike. Moreover, as with all great spy stories, Legacies ends with portentous foreshadowing and the promise of more mayhem to comeâ€¦

This is a craftily wry, cynical yet revelatory shocker and one more breathtakingly effective yarn only possible outside the Marvel Universe: and one which will resonate with readers who love the darkest side of science fiction and superheroes as well as casual readers more au fait with the company’s movies than the comics lore.

June 15, 2013June 13, 2013

Superman

By Otto Binder, Jerry Coleman, Bill Finger, Edmond Hamilton, Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye (Four Square/New English Library)
ISBN: 1757

I’ve often bored anyone who would listen about the mini-publishing revolution during the â€œCampâ€ superhero-crazed 1960s, which first saw previously denigrated four-colour comic stories migrate from cheap, flimsy pamphlet to the stiffened covers and relative respectability of paperback bookshelves.

I can’t express the sheer nostalgic elation these mostly forgotten fancies still afford (to me at least) so, just because I want to, here’s one that probably qualifies as one of my absolute top three, just in time to cash in on the new Superman film.

Silver Age readers – we just thought of ourselves as â€œkidsâ€ – buying Superman, Action Comics, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, World’s Finest Comics and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (not forgetting Superboy, Adventure Comics and Justice League of America) would delight every time some fascinating snippet of information leaked out. We spent our days filling in the impossible blanks about incredible alien worlds (America as much as Krypton) through the enthralling, thrilling yarns in those halcyon treasures. But somehow when the tales appeared in proper books it made the dream realms a little more substantial; and perhaps even realâ€¦

The Man of Steel has proven to be all things to all fans over his 75-year existence and, with the character currently undergoing yet another radical overhaul, these fabulous gems of charm and joy and wholesome wit are more welcome than ever: not just as a reminder of grand times past but also as an all-ages primer for wonders still to comeâ€¦

At the time this British edition of the New American Library edition was published, the Action Ace was enjoying a youthful swell of revived interest. Thanks to the TV Batman-led boom in superheroes generally and a highly efficient global licensing push, Superman was starring in a new television cartoon show, enjoying a rampant merchandising wave and had even secured his own Broadway musical: all working to keep the Last Son of Krypton a vibrant icon of modern, Space-Age America.

Although we might think of Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s iconic invention as the epitome of comicbook chic, the plain truth is that within months of his landmark 1938 launch in Action Comics #1, Superman had already grown into a multimedia star. Far more people have enjoyed the Man of Steel than have ever read his illustrated exploits and yes, that does include the globally syndicated newspaper strips which have existed since 1939.

By the time his 25^th anniversary rolled around he had been a regular on radio, appeared in an eponymous novel by George Lowther and stunned audiences in a series of astounding animated cartoons.

In 1948 and 1950 he starred in a brace of live-action movie serials (Superman and Atom Man vs. Superman) before graduating to a full-length feature in 1951’s Superman and the Mole Men which led in turn to a groundbreaking and long-running television series.

He was a perennial success for toy and puzzle manufacturers and, after six seasons of The Adventures of Superman, an almost seamless succession of TV cartoons began with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966.

In his future were more TV shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville), a franchise of stellar movies and, once they’d been invented, computer and video game incarnations. Even super-dog Krypto got in on the small-screen actâ€¦

This terrific little black and white paperback pocket book – part of National Periodical Publications’ on-going efforts to reach wider reading audiences – surfaced in 1967 during the â€œCampâ€ superhero craze, re-presenting five reformatted Superman stories culled from the archives illustrated by signature illustrator Wayne Boring and all inked by regular collaborator Stan Kaye.

At this time many American comics publishers used the â€œBatman Bounceâ€ to get out of their ghetto and onto â€œproperâ€ bookshelves, however understandably DC concentrated most of their efforts on comics compilations and prose novels starring the Dynamic Duoâ€¦

The wholesome intrigue and breathtaking fantasy commence here with ‘The Invulnerable Enemy’ written by Otto Binder, and originally seen in Action Comics #226 (March 1957) wherein archaeologists uncovered the statue of a giant gladiator. Further excavation revealed the colossus to be a petrified alien crashed to Earth in ages past. When the Man of Steel brought the unmoving artefact to Metropolis an incredible accident caused by Lex Luthor brought the giant back to life.

The revived relic went on a rampage of destruction with powers even Superman could not cope with until, forced to use wits instead of muscles, the harried hero solved his dilemma and returned the marooned monolith to his proper placeâ€¦

During the 1950s, even as his comicbook back-story was expanded and elaborated, the Metropolis Marvel had settled into a remarkably ordered existence. Nothing could really hurt him, nothing ever changed, and sheer excitement seemed in short supply. With the TV show concentrating on action, DC’s Comics Code-hamstrung scripters increasingly concentrated on supplying wonder, intrigue, imagination, a few laughs and, whenever possible, drama and pathosâ€¦

‘Superman’s 3 Mistakes!’ (by Edmond Hamilton from Superman #105, May 1956) provided both personal revelation and tense suspense when ClarkKent received an anonymous letter which declared that the writer knew his secret. Forced to review his past for cases which might expose evidence of his alter ego, Kent carefully excised all errors but could not learn the identity of his potential blackmailer until a second post-dated letter surfacedâ€¦

Superman #127 (February 1959) saw the debut of a hugely popular returning menace in ‘Titano the Super-Ape!’ The chimpanzee had mutated into a gigantic ape with Kryptonite vision after being shot into space, and upon his return caused massive destruction with only Lois Lane able to sooth savage ravages.

Again the Man of Might had to resort to brains not brawn to solve the crisis in a true classic of the period, courtesy of Binder, Boring & Kaye’s sublime treatment which combined action and sentiment to superb effect in a memorable homage to King Kong.

‘The Menace of Cosmic Man’ was a sharp mystery with political overtones written by Bill Finger (Action Comics #258, November 1959) wherein an impoverished European dictatorship improbably announced it had its own all-powerful costumed champion; drawing Lois and Clark into a potentially deadly covert investigation, after which this riot of reformatted revels concludes with ‘The Menace of Red-Green Kryptonite!’ (Jerry Coleman, Action #275, April 1961).

Guest-starring Supergirl, this uncanny conundrum featured a bizarre battle between Superman and alien marauder Brainiac, whose latest weapon combined two isotopes of the deadly radioactive remnants of Krypton to produce a truly weird transformation and inexplicable behavioural changes in the embattled Man of Tomorrowâ€¦

Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence and, with the character currently undergoing another overhaul, these peerless parables of power and glory are more welcome than ever: not just as memorial to what has been but also as a benchmark for future tales to aspire toâ€¦

This book is probably impossible to find today – even though entirely worth the effort â€“ but whatever format or collection you happen upon, such forgotten stories of the immortal Superman are part of our cultural comics heritage and should never be lost.

You owe it to yourself to know themâ€¦
Â© 1956, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1966 National Periodical Publications. All rights reserved.

June 13, 2013June 12, 2013

Superman: The Return of Superman

By Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-2-56289-149-6

Although largely out of favour these days as all the myriad decades of Superman mythology are inexorably re-assimilated into one overarching all-inclusive multi-media Film-favoured DC continuity, the stripped-down, gritty post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Man of Steel as re-imagined by John Byrne, and marvellously built upon by a succession of immensely talented comics craftsmen, resulted in some genuine comics classics.

Most significant of them was a three-pronged story-arc which saw the martyrdom, loss, replacement and inevitable resurrection of the World’s Greatest Superhero in a stellar saga which broke all records and proved that a jaded general public still cared about the venerable, veteran icon of Truth, Justice and the American Way.

The dramatic events also provided a spectacular springboard for a resurgent burst of new characters who revitalised and reinvigorated more than one ailing franchise over the next decadeâ€¦

This final landmark collection features material which originally appeared in Action Comics #687-691, Superman: the Man of Steel #22-26, Superman #78-82 and Adventures of Superman #500-505, plus Green Lantern volume 3 #46, spanning cover-dates June-October 1993 and originally published as the braided mega-saga â€œReign of the Supermenâ€.

Written by Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, Louise Simonson & Roger Stern with art by Jon Bogdanove, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice, Jurgens, Brett Breeding, Doug Hazlewood, Dennis Janke & Denis Rodier, it details the stunning events which led up to the resurrection and return of the one and only Man of Tomorrow – although just who that might be was the subject of much debate at the timeâ€¦

After a brutal rampage across Middle America a mysterious monster dubbed Doomsday had only been stopped in the heart of Metropolis by an overwhelming and fatal effort on Superman’s part.

Dying at the scene, the fallen hero’s body was the subject of many legal battles before it was ostensibly laid to rest in a tomb in Metropolis’ Centennial Park. However as Earth adjusted to a World Without a Superman rumours began to circulate that, like Elvis, the Man of Tomorrow was not deadâ€¦

It all began with a series of teaser ‘First Sightings’ (from Adventures of Superman #500) as, across America, four very different individuals appeared, saving lives and performing good deeds as only the departed defender could.

Then events start to properly unfold in ‘Born Again’ (Action #687 by Stern, Guice & Rodier) as scientists in Antarctica experienced unnatural power manifestations whilst, deep below the polar crust in the Fortress of Solitude, a confused creature more energy than matter manifested.

The bizarre being remembered dying in battle against Doomsday and, after flicking across the world in an eye-blink to explore an empty tomb in Metropolis, it reasonably concluded he was Superman reborn through Kryptonian technologyâ€¦

He was however much reduced and changed. Unable to covert solar radiation into strength, he was so painfully sensitive to light he had to wear a protective visor. This Man of Tomorrow only manipulated energy and, after returning to Metropolis to resume his â€œnever-ending battleâ€ against chaos and injustice, soon displayed a callous disregard for the humans he protected when he executed a rapist and crippled a car-jackerâ€¦

The â€œDirty Harry with a capeâ€ soon attracted the attention of apparently benevolent billionaire Lex Luthor II (actually the wicked original in a cloned body) and Supergirl, but received his most telling confirmation when he met Lois Lane and disclosed things only Clark Kent could knowâ€¦

In Man of Steel #22, ordinary construction worker John Henry Irons – who had been saved by Superman in the past – felt compelled to carry on the hero’s mission and built a high-tech suit of armour to facilitate his crusade. ‘Steel’, by Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke, found the urban inventor cleaning up the streets of Metropolis and searching for a gang who used a deadly new form of super-gun dubbed â€œtoastmastersâ€ – a weapon Irons had designed in another lifeâ€¦

Tracking the munitions enabled him to save the life of a fortune-teller and brought him into savage conflict with White Rabbit – a new criminal major player in the city – but life only got more complicated the morning after, when Psychic Rosie went on TV claiming Steel was possessed by the unquiet soul of Supermanâ€¦

Superman # 78 (by Jurgens & Breeding) offered another apparent pretender. ‘Alive’ saw a Superman grotesquely bonded with mechanical appendages raid the top-secret genetics lab Cadmus Project to take the comatose Doomsday from rogue Director Paul Westfield, before dispatching the deadly mystery monster into deep space where no Earthly agency could exploit it.

When the partially amnesiac Cyborg-Superman subsequently met Lois, her suspicions were shockingly quelled by the few facts he could recall: the name Kent, a farm in Kansas, his feelings for herâ€¦

And when she took him to see maverick inventor Emil Hamilton, the Action Ace’s personal scientific advisor pronounced the bionic additions to be Kryptonian machines whilst the fleshly parts of the modern Prometheus comprised Superman’s unique DNAâ€¦

The final contender for the S-shield cropped up in Adventures of Superman #501 as ‘â€¦When He Was a Boy!’ by Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood revealed the secret history of a brash and cocky kid who wore an adaptation of the Man of Tomorrow’s outfit and claimed to be a clone of the deceased hero, escaped from Cadmus.

After alienating everybody at the Daily Planet the horny, inexperienced juvenile latched onto ambitious journalist – and hottie – Tana Moon and fell under the spell of corrupt media mogul Vinnie Edge. Soon the kid was fighting crime live on TV to boost ratingsâ€¦

As the world reeled from news that their defender was back, the fallen champion’s intimates and enemies were forced to wonder which – if any – of the newcomers was the real dealâ€¦

After hard-line hero Guy Gardner clashed with the visored energy Superman in Action #688, the former Green Lantern determined that the Kryptonian vigilante’s brutal treatment of offenders in ‘An Eye for an Eye’ (Stern, Guice & Rodier) proved that, even if he wasn’t exactly like the old guy, he was the kind of champion criminals deserved to meet.

In Man of Steel #22 (Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke), the spiritual successor of Superman barely survived an insidious ‘Ambush!’ Even with Toastmasters, street-gang the Sharks proved no match for Steel’s armoured might, but after a contentious clash of wills with the juvenile Krypton clone, Irons met White Rabbit and discovered she was an old flame from his Army weapons building days.

Caught off-guard he almost perished until â€œDon’t-call-me-Super BOYâ€ flashed in to rescue himâ€¦

Jurgens & Breeding took an experimental tack in Superman #79 as Daily Planet reporter Ronald Troupe reviewed all the facts on the quartet of newcomers in ‘Prove It.’ After the Cyborg crusader spectacularly saved President Clinton from assassination he – and the Federal Government – could reach only one conclusionâ€¦

Meanwhile in Adventures of Superman #502, ‘Boy Meets Girl’ (Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood) followed the impetuous clone as he clashed with – and perved over – Supergirl before tangling with hired gun Stinger, commissioned by Vinnie Edge to perk up the viewing figures whatever the collateral costsâ€¦

Action and mystery expanded exponentially in #689’s ‘Who is the True Hero?’ by Stern, Guice & Rodier. Metropolis reeled from the devastation caused by the clone’s clash with Stinger, with Supergirl and the horrified kid frantically saving survivors, whilst in the Antarctic Fortress a fifth Superman emerged from a Kryptonian regeneration matrixâ€¦

Although barely stronger than an ordinary human, the reborn Kal-El quickly began catching up on what had happened since his demise, courtesy of the battery of alien machines in the icy citadelâ€¦

Back in Metropolis the merciless avenging Superman cataclysmically clashed with his ethical opposite Steel with Lois and Jimmy Olsen utterly unable to calm them down.

The combat carried over into Man of Steel #23, but the furious heroes were blithely unaware that an horrific alien conqueror was approaching Earth in ‘Impact!’ by Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke. Also oblivious to the impending disaster, the forces of Luthor and White Rabbit bloodily battled for control of the cityâ€¦

‘Deadly Alliance’ (Jurgens & Breeding) in Superman #80 found Earth’s authorities made too-suddenly aware of the alien intruder. They responded by sending the Caped Cyborg to intercept it.

En route the officially recognised hero joined forces with his energy-based alternate – only to kill him and allow 77,000 space mines to explosively erase Coast City and its seven million inhabitants from the face of the planet.

As the planet shuddered the invader was revealed as cosmic conqueror Mongul – but nobody on Earth knew he was simply a pawn and the devoted servant of the Cyborgâ€¦

The drama kicked into overdrive in Adventures of Superman #503, with ‘Line of Fire!’ (Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood) showing the bionic betrayer eradicating survivors before luring the clone to ground zero and disposing of him as he had the Avenger, whilst in Antarctica the merely mortal Kal-El climbed into a Kryptonian war-suit and headed for the disaster zoneâ€¦

‘Lies & Revelations’ (Action #690, by Stern, Guice & Rodier) saw the visored vigilante framed for the mass destruction by Cyborg Superman and Mogul as they sought to divert the attention of the Justice League and Earth’s other heroes.

The allies-in-atrocity had a plan and a timetable. Planning to raze Metropolis too, they would construct colossal world-moving engines in the craters and turn the planet into a War-World capable of dominating the galaxy and populated by the army of extraterrestrial soldiers they had amassedâ€¦

As Kal-El approached his hometown and the site of the next horrific Engine City, in Antarctica the swiftly-fading visored vigilante learned his true origins at last and, re-energised, headed back to the remains of Coast Cityâ€¦

Man of Steel #24 featured ‘The Return!’ (Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke) as Super-clone broke free and attempted to warn the world, even as Steel and Supergirl intercepted the war-suited warrior and discovered that the one true Metropolis Marvel was back â€¦

Superman #81 ‘Resurrections’ (Jurgens & Breeding) revealed the secret origin of the Cyborg and his pact with Mongul, as Kal-El, Steel, Supergirl and the Superboy rocketed to California and a desperate ‘Assault on Engine City!’ (Adventures of Superman #504 Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood)

It all culminated in a cross-continental chase and the clone kid seemingly sacrificing himself to destroy the city-smashing space-ordinance in the skies above Metropolisâ€¦

Action #691 revealed the heroes’ late-arriving and extremely angry ‘Secret Weapon’ (Stern, Guice & Rodier) just as the war in Engine City roared to a blockbusting climax, after which ‘Blast Off!’ (Man of Steel #25, Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke) saw Kal fall to the merciless fists of Mongul as John Henry used his own armoured body to wreck the heart of Engine Cityâ€¦

Such an epic storyline naturally had repercussions outside Superman continuity and Green Lantern #46 intersected with the ongoing epic. GL Hal Jordan was a Coast City native and his inability to save his home, family and friends shattered him. (In fact these events would lead to his becoming manic mad mass-murderer Parallax and destroying the entire Green Lantern Corps â€“ but that’s a tale for another tomeâ€¦)

Arriving in ‘Death City’ (by Gerard Jones, M.D. Bright & Romeo Tanghal) just as Mongul prepared to deliver a killing blow, the Emerald Avenger saved Kal before venting all his wrath on the genocidal monster.

This savage assault allowed the restored Caped Kryptonian to reclaim his name and save the world once again in Superman #82’s ‘Back for Good’ (Jurgens & Breeding)â€¦ but only after one of his well-meaning pretenders surrendered everything he wasâ€¦

This Earth-shattering epic winds down with a brace of excepts designed to re-establish the natural order, beginning with the first two pages of ‘Reign of the Superman’ (from Adventures of Superman #505 by Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood) as the one and only Superman at last returns to his grieving widow, before ‘Epilog: â€¦And Who, Disguised as Clark Kent’ (from Action #692 courtesy of Stern, Guice & Rodier) clears up the last little details by â€œfindingâ€ the mild-mannered reporter in the subterranean basement he had been trapped in since Doomsday’s rampage through Metropolis months previously.

This powerful if ponderous epic perfectly embodies all the human drama and cosmic spectacle of the Superman mythology: evocative, tense, drenched in action and spilling over with great ideas and characters

This enthralling classic served as a valuable and necessary expansion of the legend, introducing a plethora of Supermen in a bold and long-term push to revitalise the venerable franchise, whilst the positively manic public interest beyond the world of comics took everyone by surprise and made the Man of Tomorrow as vital and vibrant a sensation as he was in the earliest days of his creation.

Best of all, it looks beautiful and reads great.

Together with the previous two volumes in this truly magnificent triptych, this saga is possibly the greatest Superman story ever told. What more do you need to know?
Â© 1993 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

June 11, 2013June 10, 2013

Superman Chronicles volumes 1 and 2

New revised reviews

By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0764-9 & 978-1-4012-1215-5

It’s incontrovertible: the American comicbook industry – if it existed at all – would have been an utterly unrecognisable thing without Superman. His unprecedented invention and adoption by a desperate and joy-starved generation gave birth to an entire genre if not an actual art form.

Superman spawned an inconceivable army of imitators and variations, and within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and social wish-fulfilment which hallmarked the early Man of Steel had grown to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East finally involved 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.

Now with moviegoers again anticipating a new cinematic interpretation of the ultimate immigrant tale here’s my chance to once more highlight perhaps the most authentic of the many delightful versions of his oft-reprinted early tales.

Re-presenting the epochal run of raw, unpolished but viscerally vibrant stories by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster which set the funnybook world on fire, here – in as near-as-dammit the texture, smell and colour of the original newsprint – are the crude, rough, uncontrollable wish-fulfilling, cathartically exuberant exploits of a righteous and superior man dealing out summary justice equally to social malcontents, exploitative capitalists, thugs and ne’er-do-wells that initially captured the imagination of a generation.

The first of these oft-covered recollections of the primal Man of Steel – printed in chronological order â€“ features the groundbreaking yarns from Action Comics #1 through #13 (June 1938 – June 1939) and his pivotal appearance from New York’s World Fair No. 1 (also June 1939) before comicbook history is made with the landmark first issue of his own solo title.

Most of the early tales were untitled, but for everyone’s convenience have been given descriptive appellations by the editors. Thus after describing the foundling’s escape from exploding Planet Krypton and explaining his astonishing powers in nine panels, with absolutely no preamble the wonderment begins with ‘Superman: Champion of the Oppressed!’ as the costumed crusader -masquerading by day as reporter Clark Kent – began averting numerous tragedies.

As well as saving an innocent woman from the Electric Chair and roughing up a wife beater, the tireless crusader worked over racketeer Butch Matson – consequently saving feisty colleague Lois Lane from abduction and worse – and outed a lobbyist for the armaments industry who was bribing Senators on behalf of greedy munitions interests fomenting war in Europeâ€¦

The next breathtaking instalment in Action #2 (July 1938) saw the mercurial mystery-man travelling to the war-zone to spectacularly dampen down the hostilities already in progress in ‘Revolution in San Monte Pt 2’ before ‘The Blakely Mine Disaster’ found the Man of Steel responding to a coal-mine cave-in to expose corrupt corporate practises before cleaning up gamblers who ruthless fixed games and players in #4’s ‘Superman Plays Football’.

The Action Ace’s untapped physical potential was highlighted in the next issue as ‘Superman and the Dam’ pitted the human dynamo against the power of a devastating natural disaster, after which in #6 canny chiseller Nick Williams attempted to monetise the hero – without asking first. ‘Superman’s Phony Manager’ even attempted to replace the real thing with a cheap knock-off but quickly learned a very painful lesson in ethicsâ€¦

Although Superman featured on the first cover the staid and cautious editors were initially dubious about the alien strongman’s popular appeal and preferred more traditional genre scenes for the following issues (all by Leo E. O’Mealia and all included here).

Superman’s (and Joe Shuster’s) second cover appeared on Action Comics #7 (December 1938) and prompted a big jump in sales as a riotous romp inside revealed why ‘Superman Joins the Circus’ as the caped crusader crushed racketeers taking over the Big Top. Fred Guardineer then produced general genre covers for #8 and 9 whilst the interiors saw ‘Superman in the Slums’ working to save young delinquents from a future life of crime and depravity and latterly featured the city cops’ disastrous decision to stop the costumed vigilante’s unsanctioned interference in ‘Wanted: Superman’.

That manhunt ended in an uncomfortable stalemateâ€¦

Action #7 had been one of the highest-selling issues ever, so #10 again sported a stunning Shuster shot whilst Siegel’s smart story of ‘Superman Goes to Prison’ struck another telling blow against institutionalised injustice with the Man of Tomorrow infiltrating and exposing the brutal horrors of the State Chain Gangs.

Action Comics #11 featured a maritime cover by Guardineer as inside heartless conmen were driving investors to penury and suicide before the caped crimebuster interceded in ‘Superman and the â€œBlack Goldâ€ Swindle’.

Guardineer’s cover of magician hero Zatara on Action #12 incorporated another landmark as the Man of Steel was given a cameo badge declaring he was inside each and every issue, even as inside ‘Superman Declares War on Reckless Drivers’ provided a hard-hitting tale of casual joy-riders, cost-cutting automobile manufacturers, corrupt lawmakers and dodgy car salesmen who all felt the wrath of the hero after a friend of Clark Kent was killed in a hit-&-run incident.

By now the editors had realised that the debut of Superman had propelled National Comics to the forefront of the fledgling industry, and in 1939 the company was licensed to produce a commemorative comicbook celebrating the opening of the New York World’s Fair, with the Man of Tomorrow topping the bill on the appropriately titled New York World’s Fair Comics among such early DC four-colour stars as Zatara, Butch the Pup, Gingersnap and The Sandman.

Following an inspirational cover by Sheldon Mayer, ‘Superman at the World’s Fair’, by Siegel & Shuster, described how Clark and Lois were dispatched to cover the gala event giving the mystery man an opportunity to contribute his own exhibit and bag a bunch of brutal bandits to bootâ€¦

Back in Action Comics #13 (June 1939 and another Shuster cover) the road-rage theme of the previous issue continued as ‘Superman vs. the Cab Protective League’ pitted the tireless foe of felons against a murderous gang trying to take over the city’s taxi companies. The tale also introduced â€“ in almost invisibly low key – The Man of Steel’s first great nemesis â€“ The Ultra-Humaniteâ€¦

This initial compilation concludes with a truncated version of Superman #1. This was because the first solo-starring comicbook in history actually reprinted the earliest tales from Action, supplemented with new and recovered material – and that alone is featured here.

Behind the iconic Shuster cover the first episode was at last printed in full, describing the alien foundling’s escape from exploding Planet Krypton, his childhood with unnamed Earthling foster parents and journey to the big city. Also included in those six pages (cut from Action Comics #1 and restored for Superman #1) was the Man of Steel’s routing of a lynch mob and capture of the real killer which preceded his spectacular saving of the accused murderess that started the legendâ€¦

Rounding off the unseen treasures is the solo page ‘Scientific Explanation of Superman’s Amazing Strength!’, a 2-page prose adventure of the Caped Crime-crusher, a biographical feature on Siegel & Shuster and a glorious Shuster pin-up from Superman #1’s back cover.

Superman Chronicles volume Two resumes the power-packed procession featuring the high- (leaping-but-not-yet) flying hero in tales from Action Comics #14-20 (July 1939-January 1940) and issues #2-3 of his 64 page solo spectaculars; cover-dated Fall and Winter 1939 respectively.

Sporting a Guardineer Zatara cover, Action #14 saw the return of the premier money-mad scientist in ‘Superman Meets the Ultra-Humanite’ wherein the mercenary malcontent switch from incessant graft, corruption and murder to an obsessive campaign to destroy the Man of Tomorrow.

Whilst Shuster concentrated on the interior epic ‘Superman on the High Seas’ – wherein the heroic hurricane tackled sub-sea pirates and dry land gangsters – Guardineer illustrated an aquatic Superman cover for #15, as well as the Foreign Legion cover on Action #16 wherein ‘Superman and the Numbers Racket’ saw the hero save an embezzler from suicide and disrupt another wicked gambling cabal.

By #16 sales figures confirmed that whenever the big guy appeared up-front issues sold out and, inevitably, Superman assumed that pole position for decades to come from #19 onwards.

Superman’s rise was meteoric and inexorable. He was the indisputable star of Action, plus his own dedicated title; a daily newspaper strip had begun on 16th January 1939, with a separate Sunday strip following from November 5^th of that year, which was garnering millions of new fans. A thrice-weekly radio serial was in the offing and would launch on February 12th 1940. With games, toys, a newspaper strip and a growing international media presence, Superman was swiftly becoming everybody’s heroâ€¦

The second issue of the Man of Tomorrow’s own title opened with ‘The Comeback of Larry Trent’ – a stirring human drama wherein the Action Ace cleared the name of the broken heavyweight boxer, coincidentally cleaning the scum out of the fight game, and followed by ‘Superman Champions Universal Peace!’ wherein the hero crushed a gang who had stolen the world’s deadliest poison gas weapon, once more going up against unscrupulous munitions manufacturers.

‘Superman and the Skyscrapers’ found Kent investigating suspicious deaths in the construction industry, leading his alter ego into confrontation with mindless thugs and their fat-cat corporate boss, after which a Superman text tale ended the issue.

Action Comics #17 featured ‘The Return of the Ultra-Humanite’ in a viciously homicidal caper involving extortion and the wanton sinking of US ships and featured a classic Shuster Super-cover as the Man of Steel was awarded all the odd-numbered issues for his attention-grabbing playground.

That didn’t last long: after Guardineer’s last adventure cover – an aerial dog fight – on #18 and which masked into ‘Superman’s Super-Campaign’ as both Kent and Superman determined to crush a merciless blackmailer, Superman just appeared on the front every month from #19, which found the city temporarily in the grip of a deadly epidemic created by the Ultra-Humanite in ‘Superman and the Purple Plague’.

Only the first and last strips from Superman #3 are in this volume, as the other two were reprints of Action #5 and 6.

‘Superman and the Runaway’ however offered a gripping, shockingly uncompromising expose of corrupt orphanages, after which Lois went out on a date with hapless Clark simply because she needed to get closer to a gang of murderous smugglers. Happily his hidden alter ego was on hand to rescue her in the bombastic gang-busting ‘Superman and the Jewel Smugglers’â€¦

This incredible panorama of torrid tales ends with ‘Superman and the Screen Siren’ from Action #20 (January 1940) as beautiful actress Delores Winters was revealed not as another sinister super-scientific megalomaniac but the latest tragic victim and organic hideaway of the Ultra-Humanite who had perfected his greatest horrorâ€¦ brain transplant surgery!

Although the gaudy burlesque of monsters and super-villains still lay years ahead of our hero, these primitive captivating tales of corruption, disaster and social injustice are just as engrossing and speak powerfully of the tenor of the times. The perilous parade of rip-roaring action, hoods, masterminds, plagues, disasters, lost kids and distressed damsels are all dealt with in a direct and captivating manner by our relentlessly entertaining champion in summarily swift and decisive fashion.

No continued stories here!

As fresh and thrilling now as they ever were, these endlessly re-readable epics are perfectly housed in these glorious paperback collections where the savage intensity and sly wit still shine through in Siegel’s stories – which literally defined what being a Super Hero means – whilst Shuster created the basic iconography for all others to follow.

Such Golden Age tales are priceless enjoyment at an absurdly affordable price and in a durable, comfortingly approachable format. What dedicated comics fan could possibly resist them?

As well as cheap price and no-nonsense design and presentation, and notwithstanding the historical significance of the material presented within, the most important bonus for any one who hasn’t read some or all of these tales before is that they are all astonishingly well-told and engrossing mini-epics that cannot fail to grip the reader.

In a world where Angels With Dirty Faces, Bringing Up Baby and The Front Page are as familiar to our shared cultural consciousness as the latest episode of Dr Who or Downton Abbey, the dress, manner and idiom in these near-seventy-five-year-old stories can’t jar or confuse. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.

Once read you’ll understand why today’s creators keep returning to this material every time they need to revamp the big guy. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.

June 7, 2013June 22, 2013

All-New X-Men: Here to Stay

By Brian Michael Bendis, David Marquez, Stuart Immonen & Wade Von Grawbadger (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-547-5

Surely everybody wonders what might result if they could meet their older selves one day, and as scripter Brian Michael Bendis continues his intriguing regeneration and restating of the Mutant Question, the answers here increasingly indicate it might all be a very bad idea indeedâ€¦

Following all the poor choices and horrendous paths taken by assorted Homo Superior heroes over the last few years, and in the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, MarvelNOW! reformed the entire continuity, taking the outcast champions in truly bizarre old/new directions.

At the beginning of the Marvel Age, a very special bunch of kids were singled out by wheelchair-bound telepath Charles Xavier. Gloomy Scott Summers, ebullient Bobby Drake, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III, insular Jean Grey and animalistic genius Henry McCoy were gathered up by â€œProfessor Xâ€ – a driven man dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between massed humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants, ominously dubbed Homo Superior.

To achieve his dream he educated and trained the five youngsters – codenamed Cyclops, Iceman, the Angel, Marvel Girl and the Beast – for unique roles as heroes, ambassadors and symbols in an effort to counter the growing tide of human prejudice and fear.

Over the intervening years the struggle to integrate mutants into society resulted in many tragedies and compromises, including Jean’s death, Warren’s mutilation, Hank’s further mutation and eventually Cyclops’ radicalisation. The steadfast and trustworthy team-leader eventually joined with former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, whenever necessary, of human ones.

His former team-mates and newer X-Men such as Wolverine, Storm and Kitty Pryde stayed true to Xavier’s ideal, abandoning Scott to protect and train the next X-generation of mutant kids at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learningâ€¦

When Hank McCoy realised he was fatally mutating, he became obsessed with the notion that the early idealistic First Class of X-Men – especially Scottâ€“ could bring the mutant terrorist Cyclops back from his current path of doctrinaire madness and ideological race war insanity.

To that end he utilised time-travel technology in a last-ditch attempt to avoid inevitable mutant civil war: risking the entire space/time continuum by bringing not only his old friend but also the rest of the valiant young team back to the future to reason with the fallen Cyclops.

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways: rather than restoring noble, dedicated Scott Summers to the man he used to be, the confrontation simply hardened the maverick’s heart and strengthened his resolve.

Moreover, even though McCoy’s younger self impossibly cured his older iteration, young Henry and the rest of the X-Kids refused to go home until â€œEvilâ€ Cyclops was stoppedâ€¦

Collecting All-New X-Men #6-10, cover-dated March-June 2013, this time-warping reboot finds the displaced teens adapting to a scary world (in a 3-part tale illustrated by David Marquez) as previously diffident wallflower Jean Grey suddenly takes charge of her future-shocked classmates.

At first overwhelmed by the instant onset of vast telepathic powers to augment her established telekinesis, Jean is given useful tips and hints on mental control by Kitty Pryde who resigns as headmistress to devote all her energies to training the chronally-displaced quintet.

Young Scott is especially traumatised. He just can’t believe the man he’s become and will not allow his later self to continue betraying his life’s purpose. Stealing Wolverine’s motorbike he flees the school where the First Class have been forcibly sequestered and heads out into the real world with the feral mutant hard on his heelsâ€¦

Even as Warren at last meets his impossibly alien older self, Scott is learning far more than he ever wanted to about the 21^st century, unaware that he has been discovered by one of the X-dynasty’s most cunning and ruthless enemiesâ€¦

Teen Scott has made it to Manhattan and finagled his way into the bank where his older self has kept a safety- deposit box. The financial time-capsule contains one more big shock: a souvenir from his wedding to Jean and another impossible pill to swallowâ€¦

However before he can digest the fact, Wolverine catches him and convinces him to come quietly.

There’s another surprise though when the obnoxious Canadian turns into a quiet alley and transforms into a blue-skinned woman. Although he doesn’t know it, Scott is in the manipulative clutches of Raven Darkholme, a merciless mutant criminal known as Mystique. The innocent hours she spends talking to the still-naÃ¯ve champion will affect his life foreverâ€¦

When the real Wolverine finally tracks down the truant, he has no idea what Mystique has wrought as he drags the confused kid back to the WestchesterSchool, and when Scott shows Jean the retrieved wedding memento she too is speechlessâ€¦

Young Warren cannot understand the changes time and circumstance have wrought upon his older self, and the ebullient flighty creature seems unable or unwilling to confide in him. However, as the two Angels soar through the heavens together they become aware of an attack on distant AvengersTower. Instantly back in battle mode the pair rout a deadly Hydra task force, but when the World’s Mightiest Superheroes meet, them Captain America is understandably aghast at the potentially continuum-rending consequences of five time-displaced teens running loose in their own futureâ€¦

No sooner have the Avengers been temporarily placated than Cap’s fears are justified when young Warren, appalled at the things he’s seen and learned, attempts to commandeer the time-machine and return to his rightful time and place.

Shockingly, Jean seizes control of his mind and reprograms him so that he wants to stayâ€¦

Stuart Immonen returns to illustrate the final two chapters (with the assistance of Wade Von Grawbadger) as Kitty begins to accelerate the kids’ X-training and Scott lets slip that he’s met Mystique. As Kitty goes into damage control mode, in New York the subject of her fears is advancing her latest scheme.

With ravening psycho-killer Sabretooth she is raiding maximum security penitentiary The Raft to liberate mutant super-illusionist Lady Mastermind. Their new, shared ambition is lethally simple: use their powers to steal so much money that nobody will ever be able to touch themâ€¦

Meanwhile the ideological mutant conflict heats up when the elder Cyclops, Emma Frost, Magik and Magneto arrive at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning with a chilling proposition. Convinced of coming mutant extinction at human hands, the renegade terrorist Scott Summers has come with an open invitation: any students who wish may join his own academy – dedicated to training Homo Superior to fight and survive rather than co-exist with humanityâ€¦

With horror, X-Men young and old realise that the outrageous appeal has been accepted by some of the ungrateful students in their careâ€¦

Even as the faculty and temporal-fugitives ponder that shock, word arrives that the situation has worsened. A gang of mutants have slaughtered dozens of humans in a raid that netted millions of dollars and human/mutant relations have never been shakierâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Addictive, enthralling and utterly compelling, this second All-New X-outing mixes blistering action, sharp humour and slowly-mounting tension with the signature themes of alienation and personal freedom to deliver a refreshingly direct drive to the once water-treading mutant franchise and offers a perfect jumping-on point for new and retired fans alike as long as you also read the previous volume (All-New X-Men: Here Comes Yesterday)â€¦

This book also includes a beautiful cover-and-variants gallery by Immonen, Chris Bachalo, Nick Bradshaw & Greg Horn and the now standard 21st century add-on of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code â€“ for free â€“ from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

June 5, 2013June 22, 2013

Superior Spider-Man: My Own Worst Enemy

By Dan Slott, Ryan Stegman, Giuseppe Camuncoli & John Dell (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 this new continuation, picking up where Amazing Spider-Man #700 shockingly ended, is probably the most radical character revamp yet and the boldest of all the MarvelNOW! relaunches.

There is no way to avoid this so be prepared to suffer at least temporary consternation and a major spoiler alert. If you don’t want to know what’s happened to Marvel’s signature character, stop now and read no further.

For those who remain: for the majority of the aforementioned anniversary epic, the mind of Peter Parker had been transferred into the rapidly failing body of deranged super-creep Otto Octavius and, despite his every valiant effort, in the end perished with that decrepit, expiring frame.

Now the former Doctor Octopus is permanently installed in the Amazing Arachnid’s body and ready to assume his lifeâ€¦ with a few minor alterations and improvementsâ€¦

The outlook for humanity is not as bleak as it might seem: on the very brink of defeat Parker pulled off a brilliant coup and forced Octavius to emotionally relive every moment of tragedy and sacrifice that made Spider-Man the champion he was.

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

Written by Dan Slott with art by Ryan Stegman, Giuseppe Camuncoli & John Dell, My Own Worst Enemy collects issues #1-5 of The Superior Spider-Man (cover-dates March- May 2013) and opens with ‘Hero or Menace?’ as the still shell-shocked and guilt-tinged amalgam answers the call to duty when a new iteration of his old gang the Sinister Six begins a series of daring raids.

Boomerang, The Shocker, Speed Demon, Overdrive, a new female Beetle and robot prototype The Living Brain are attacking a science lab when the resolute Wallcrawler swings in with great intentions. Sadly when the opposition proves too much, the transplanted terror quickly reverts to type and flees.

â€¦Until he spots an innocent in danger and, despite himself, turns back to effect a spectacular rescue and drive off his foes with a savage efficiency quite unlike Spider-Man and more fitting to a super-villainâ€¦

Appropriating the Living Brain for himself, â€œParkerâ€ then reports for work at commercial think-tank Horizon Labs, determined to make stopping The Six his priority. Fellow workers notice a distinct change in their once easy-going pal and, after a cagy chat with head genius Max Modell, the arrogant, egotist agonisingly realises that every new scientific achievement, breakthrough and triumph will henceforward be credited to his greatest enemy.

There is one advantage however: as Parker, Octavius is rekindling an intimate relationship with the stunning female Mary Jane Watsonâ€¦

When the Sinister Six attack again the Superior Spider-Man is waiting. A coldly methodical rationalist, the ingenious savant has deduced their plans and laid a trap: countering their numerical and power advantages by setting technological ambushes, stroking his own ego by calling the press in advance so that they can record his triumph.

However he almost blows it all by flying into a rage and nearly beating Boomerang to death.

Octavius has no idea what finally stays his hand: no conception that some portion of Peter Parker’s consciousness survives and is beginning to have a tangible effect on his purloined lifeâ€¦

As ‘The Peter Principle’ opens, the new, ultra-efficient Spider-Man has become New York’s darling. Even Mayor J. Jonah Jameson has embraced the Web-spinner, to the utter incredulity of not only the imperceptible phantom of Parker but also two of his former girlfriends.

Mary Jane and Police CSI Officer Carlie Cooper both know of Peter’s secret life and are discussing how much he’s changed. However when MJ reveals she’s considering getting back together with him, Carlie is reminded of something. The last time Spider-Man fought Doc Ock the killer maniac broke her arm. He also claimed that he was Peter trapped in the villain’s bodyâ€¦

The new Parker is exultant. He has spent his day improving Spider-Man’s costume, gimmicks and methodology, building spy robots to patrol the city for him while he plans a scientific strategy to bed Mary Jane, to the petulant horror of his unsuspected in-house voyeur.

Before the campaign can progress however another old Spider-foe resurfaces as The Vulture strikes, employing children as surrogate flying thieves working to steal one final big score for the ancient crookâ€¦.

‘Everything You Know is Wrong’ opens as Jameson takes the City’s relationship with Spider-Man one step further towards full legitimisation, whilst MJ reels from a shocking announcement from â€œPeterâ€ and Carlie’s suspicions begin to obsess her. The Web-spinner’s hunt for the Vulture is also stalled.

Octavius had a special affinity with the wily old bird and isn’t keen on catching him, but that all changes when he realises just how the flying Fagin truly regards his flock, inadvertently inflicting Otto’s horrific and revelatory childhood memories on the hapless ghost Parker. The appalling injuries the hero then inflicts on the Vulture push Carlie towards the only logical conclusion possibleâ€¦

This stunning reinvention ends with a staggeringly potent 2-parter beginning with ‘The Aggressive Approach’ wherein the hidden Otto Octavius continues to shine at Horizon, smugly producing groundbreaking technologies until he is reminded that the body he wears never finished college.

Ego gutted by Parker having no doctorate, he determines to return to University and win the coveted honorific, even as at Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane the lethal sociopath Massacre escapes, leaving another trail of bodies. The ever-present shade of the true Peter Parker is appalled and wracked with guilt. He once had the chance to end the killer’s atrocities and chose not toâ€¦

The new Spider-Man has no such qualms and promises Mayor Jameson that will not be the outcome this timeâ€¦

Unknown to all, the Wallcrawler’s greatest foe is also readying himself for a return match even as ‘Emotional Triggers’ finds Octavius turning all his intellect and resources to finding the murderous Massacre.

Well, almostâ€¦

With Phantom Parker incessantly and fruitlessly screaming at him, the decidedly less excitable Spider-Man first takes time off to cultivate a new lady-friend and satiate his culinary appetites before tackling the fugitive psycho-killer, who has meanwhile formed an alliance with an unscrupulous businesswoman keen on using his ability to grab headlines and air-time to promote her company.

Eventually, however, the Wallcrawler’s robot eyes find Massacre, and Spider-Man leads a SWAT team against the emotionless mass murderer, ending a horrific hostage crisis in a manner no real hero ever wouldâ€¦

This marvellously intriguing fresh start includes the usual cover-&-variants gallery – by Stegman, Mike Deodato, Jr., Joe Quesada, Camuncoli, J. Scott Campbell, Adi Granov, Humberto Ramos, Skott Young, Ed McGuiness, Simone Bianchi & Mike Bagley – behind-the-scenes production feature ‘Superior Insight’ and the now obligatory 21^st century extra content for tech-savvy consumers in the form of AR icon sections.

These Marvel Augmented Reality App pages give access to story bonuses once you download the little dickens – free from marvel.com – onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

If you’ve never read a Spider-Man comic in your life you can start right here. Honestly, everything you need to start fresh and cold is covered in this smart spin, even if nobody in fandom really believes Peter Parker is gone for goodâ€¦

June 1, 2013May 30, 2013

Heroes for Hire: World War Hulk

By Zeb Wells, Fred Van Lente, Clay Mann, Alvin Lee, Leonard Kirk, AlÃ© Garcia, James Cordeiro, Terry Pallot & John Bosco (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-7851-2800-7

After a TV reality show starring actual superheroes went hideously wrong and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of children in Stamford, Connecticut, popular opinion turned massively against masked crusaders. The US government mandated a scheme to licence, train and regulate all metahumans but the plan split the superhero community, and an indignant, terrified general populace quivered as a significant faction of their former defenders refused to surrender to the bureaucratic vicissitudes of the Super-Human Registration Act.

The Avengers and Fantastic Four fragmented and, as the conflict escalated, it became clear to all involved that the increasingly bitter fighting was for souls as much as lives.

Both sides battled for love of Country and Constitution and both sides knew they were right.

At the heart of the savage clash of ideologies, bionic detective Misty Knight and her ninja partner Colleen Wing assembled a squad of warriors to do some real good during the worst of timesâ€¦

Knight and Wing – the Daughters of the Dragon – were former associates of Power Man & Iron Fist, and revived their old firm Heroes for Hire to apprehend metas who refused to comply with the SHRA.

However the new squad – ex-thief Black Cat, Kung Fu Master Shang-Chi, insect avatar Humbug, sadistic martial arts polymath Tarantula and super-mercenary Paladin – soon found themselves at odds with the tricky path they were following as their promised role (only apprehending villains) began to suffer increasing â€œmission creepâ€â€¦

Moreover as they tracked their sanctioned targets, they lost a comrade (Atlantean powerhouse Orka), credibility and the trust of all sides in the Civil Warâ€¦

This collection, gathering issues #11-15 and primarily scripted by Zeb Wells, brings down the curtain on the second Heroes for Hire series (spanning August to December 2007) and saw the team founder and die amidst internal strife and the end of the world â€¦

This particular Armageddon was the result of The Incredible Hulk returning to Earth after months away on another planet.

He had been peremptorily exiled to a brutal, barbaric world by Reed Richards, Dr. Strange and Tony Stark but found lasting love and family there. However, when the savage paradise was destroyed by Earthly technology, the Grim Green Giant returned to his homeworld at the head of an alien coalition of survivors dubbed The Warbound, determined to exact vengeance in kindâ€¦

The frantic call to arms begins in ‘Infestation’ (illustrated by Clay Mann & Terry Pallot) as the H4H team land in New York after a mission in the antediluvian Savage Land and walk into a city under martial law.

The job had been to capture a missing link Homo Habilis specimen (dubbed Moon Boy) for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s science division, but during the expedition, unknown to the others, insect avatar Humbug was taken by colossal bugs long-vanished from the rest of the world, leaving his friends to believe him dead and eaten.

He was subsequently found, but somehow changed: no longer the whiny clown they knew. Powerful, confident and slightly frightening, he informed them that they had to rush home to fight a threat to the entire planet. His friends had no idea what Earth’s ancient insect masters of had transformed their laughable companion intoâ€¦

Brought up to speed by S.H.I.E.L.D., the heroes join the mobilisation to resist Hulk and the Warbound, ignoring the bizarre warnings of Humbug that the true threat was â€œthe warrior-beetle and his queenâ€â€¦

Seeing no profit, Paladin leaves even as the frantic insect master, wracked by inexpressible contacts with the invader-bugs, rushes off into the locked-down city. Following, Shang-Chi and the others discover their deranged comrade stalking bizarrely cute insect scavengers. As they try to befriend one of the â€œHivelingsâ€, Humbug casually dismembers it and showers them with its â€œbloodâ€â€¦

These tales were accompanied by a sidebar serial, ‘Killer Instincts’ (by Fred Van Lente, John Bosco & Pallot), wherein the absconding Paladin discovers S.H.I.E.L.D.’s new super-agent Scorpion raiding the NYPD’s confiscated super-weapon and evidence warehouse and gets into a fight he can’t winâ€¦

‘Subjugation’ (Wells, Mann & Pallot) finds the team and Moon Boy – fully-cloaked from the scout aliens’ chemical senses by bug ichor – infiltrating the Warbound flagship until the ultra-advanced King Miek penetrates the subterfuge.

Humbug chooses to slip away rather than warn his companions, leaving them all to be captured as he confronts the true threat to Earth. Tragically when he faces the sinister Brood Queen her presence is too much and the man-bug becomes her helpless thrallâ€¦

Meanwhile, back at ‘Killer Instincts’ (Van Lente, Bosco & Pallot), the struggle between Paladin and Scorpion escalates as both combatants begin employing all the stashed gimmicks impounded thereâ€¦

‘Incarceration’ reveals how the situation goes from bad to worse as Humbug turns on his former comrades, allowing them to be tortured. However, whereas the Brood Queen sees his connection to Earth’s insect overlords as a means of subverting the entire planet – and making it her new global nest – Miek only sees a rivalâ€¦

When the King demands to know which one of the infiltrators killed his Hiveling, Humbug blames Tarantula. Shocked and appalled, but refusing to snitch on Humbug, Colleen claims she did it and both women are dragged off to be tortured to deathâ€¦

‘Killer Instincts’ concludes with the apparent death of Paladin, but the whole fight has been orchestrated as a test, with Scorpion utterly unaware who has been pulling her psychotic stringsâ€¦

‘Procreation’ (Wells, Alvin Lee, Mann & Pallot) then finds Misty, Shang, Black Cat and Moon Boy casually discarded in Central Park as their framed companions are made the hosts and food for a new generation of horrific bugsâ€¦

As the Brood Queen prepares to do likewise to all of New York, Paladin steals a S.H.I.E.L.D. super-tank, links up with the remaining members of Heroes For Hire and leads a last charge into the proto-nest under MadisonSquareGardenâ€¦

The final confrontation comes in ‘Extermination’ (with art by Lee, Leonard Kirk, AlÃ© Garcia, James Cordeiro & Pallot) as the heroes brutally clash with Humbug and discover how little humanity remains in his ghastly mutated form.

Defeated and discarded by their former sidekick, the Heroes regroup to rescue Colleen and Tarantula.

As Humbug agonisingly transforms into his ultimate form, the surprise secret weapon of the Insect Lords ends the threat of the Brood Queen, and one member of H4H takes uncharacteristic measures to end both Humbug’s dishonourable career and a beloved comrade’s eternal suffering.

Tragically, even in the aftermath of it all, there’s one final betrayal for the broken heroes to endureâ€¦

Dark, destructive and decidedly downbeat, this turbulent tome closed the books on the Commerce-fuelled Champions with a distinct tinge of unfinished business and led to a third iteration in 2010â€¦

Before this lot shut up shop, however, there’s still space to mention that this collection includes a cover gallery by Clayton Henry, Takeshi Miyazawa, Sana Takeda & Francis Tsai, and again strongly recommend this splendidly gritty, witty, funny, fast-paced and spectacularly action-packed series which will surely delight all older fans of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction.
Â© 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

May 29, 2013May 28, 2013

Showcase Presents the Spectre volume 1

By Gardner F. Fox, Bob Haney, Michael L. Fleisher, Paul Kupperberg, Murphy Anderson, Neal Adams, Jim Aparo & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3417-1

The Spectre is one of the oldest characters in DC’s vast stable, created by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily in 1940 and debuting via a 2-part origin epic in More Fun Comics #52 and 53. Moreover, just like Siegel’s other iconic creation, he soon began to suffer from a basic design flaw: he’s just too darn powerful.

Unlike Superman however, this champion of justice was already dead, so he can’t really be logically or dramatically imperilled. Of course in those far off early days that wasn’t nearly as important as sheer spectacle: forcibly grabbing the reader’s utter attention and keeping it stoked to a fantastic fever pitch.

Starting as a virtually omnipotent ghost, the Grim Ghost evolved, over various returns, refits and reboots into a tormented mortal soul bonded inescapably to the actual embodiment of the biblical Wrath of God.

The story is a genuinely gruesome one: police detective Jim Corrigan was callously executed by gangsters before being called back to the land of the living. Ordered to fight crime and evil by a glowing light and disembodied voice, he was indisputably the most formidable hero of the Golden Age.

He has been revamped and revived many times, and in the 1990s was revealed to be God’s Spirit of Vengeance wedded to a human conscience. When Corrigan was finally laid to rest, Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan and latterly murdered Gotham City cop Crispus Allen replaced him as the mitigating conscience of the force of Divine Retributionâ€¦

However the true start of that radically revised and revitalised career began in the superhero-saturated mid-1960s when, hot on the heels of feverish fan-interest in the alternate world of the Justice Society of America and Earth-2 (where all the WWII heroes retroactively resided), DC began trying out solo revivals of 1940’s characters, as opposed to their wildly successful Silver Age reconfigurations such as Flash, Green Lantern, Atom and Hawkmanâ€¦

This sublime and colossal Showcase selection collects and documents the Man of Darkness’ return in the Swinging Sixties, his landmark reinterpretation in the horror-soaked, brutalised 1970s and even finds room for some later appearances before the character was fully de-powered and retrofitted for the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe.

As such this mammoth monochrome tome (624 peril-packed pages!) contains Showcase #60, 61 and 64, The Spectre #1-10, team-up tales from The Brave and the Bold #72, 75, 116, 180 & 199 and DC Comics Presents #29, the lead strips from Adventure Comics #431-440 and one last hurrah from horror-anthology Ghosts #97-99, encompassing the end of 1965 to the middle of 1983.

As previously mentioned, DC tried out a number of Earth-2 iterations (Starman/Black Canary – with Wildcat – in The Brave and the Bold #61-62 whilst Showcase #55 & 56 spotlighted Doctor Fate & Hourman with a cameo from the original Green Lantern), but Schwartz and Fox only finally achieved their ambition to launch a Golden Age hero into his own title with the revival of the Ghostly Guardian in Showcase – but it was hard going and perhaps benefited from a growing general public interest in supernatural storiesâ€¦

After three full length appearances and many guest-shots, The Spectre won his own solo series at the end of 1967, just as the super-hero craze went into a steep decline, but maybe Showcase #60 (January/February 1966) anticipated the rise of supernatural comics by re-introducing Corrigan and his phantom passenger in ‘War That Shook the Universe’ by Earth-2 team supreme Gardner F. Fox & Murphy Anderson.

This spectacular saga revealed that the Heroic Haunt had vanished two decades previously, leaving the fundamentally human Corrigan to pursue his war against evil on merely mortal terms until a chance encounter with a psychic investigator freed the ghost buried within him.

A diligent search revealed that, twenty years previously, a supernal astral invader had broken into the Earth plane and possessed a mortal, but was so inimical to our laws of reality that both it and the Grim Ghost were locked into their meat shells – until nowâ€¦

Thus began a truly spectre-acular (don’t groan – that’s what they called it back then) clash with the devilish Azmodus that spanned all creation and blew the minds of us gobsmacked kidsâ€¦

Issue #61 (March/April) upped the ante when the even more satanic Shathan the Eternal subsequently insinuated himself into our realm from ‘Beyond the Sinister Barrier’, stealing mortal men’s shadows until he was powerful enough to conquer the physical universe. This time The Spectre treated us to an exploration of the universe’s creation before narrowly defeating the source of all evilâ€¦

The Sentinel Spirit returned in Showcase #64 (September/October 1966) for a marginally more mundane but no less thrilling adventure when ‘The Ghost of Ace Chance’ took up residence in Jim’s body. By this time it was established that ghosts needed a mortal anchor to recharge their ectoplasmic â€œbatteriesâ€, and the unscrupulous crooked gambler was determined to inhabit the best frame availableâ€¦

The try-out run concluded, the editors sat back and waited for sales figures to dictate the next move. When they proved inconclusive Schwartz orchestrated a concerted publicity campaign to further promote Earth-2’s Ethereal Adventurer.

The Brave and the Bold #72 (June/July 1967) saw the Spectre clash with Earth-1’s Scarlet Speedster in ‘Phantom Flash, Cosmic Traitor’ by Bob Haney, Carmine Infantino & Charles â€œChuckâ€ Cuidera. This sinister saga saw the mortal meteor transformed into a sinister spirit-force and power-focus for unquiet American aviator Luther Jarvis who returned from death in 1918 to wreak vengeance on the survivors of his squadron – until the Spectre intervenedâ€¦

Due to the vagaries of comicbook scheduling, Brave and the Bold #75 (December 1967/January 1968) appeared at around the same time as The Spectre #1, although the latter had a cover-date of November/December 1967.

In the Batman team-up title – scripted by Haney and drawn by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito – the Ghostly Guardian joined the Dark Knight to free Gotham City’s Chinatown from ‘The Grasp of Shahn-Zi!’: an ancient oriental sorcerer determined to prolong his reign of terror at the expense of an entire community and through the sacrifice of an innocent child, after which the Astral Avenger finally, simultaneously, debuted in his own titleâ€¦

The Spectre #1 featured ‘The Sinister Lives of Captain Skull’ by Fox & Anderson, and divulged how the botched assassination of American Ambassador Joseph Clanton and an experimental surgical procedure allowed one of the diplomat’s earlier incarnations to take over his body and, armed with mysterious eldritch energies, run amok on Earth.

Those â€œmegacyclic energyâ€ abilities enabled the revenant to harm and potentially destroy the Ghostly Guardian and compelled the Spectre to pursue the piratical Skull through a line of previous lives until he could find their source and purge the peril from all time and spaceâ€¦

With issue #2 (January/February 1968) artistic iconoclast Neal Adams came aboard for the Fox-scripted mystery ‘Die Spectre – Again’ wherein crooked magician Dirk Rawley accidentally manifested his etheric self and severely tested both Corrigan and his phantom partner as they sought to end the double-menace’s string of crimes, mundane and magical. At this time the first inklings of a distinct separation and individual identities began. The two halves of the formerly sole soul of Corrigan were beginning to disagree and even squabbleâ€¦

New scripter Mike Friedrich joined Adams for #3’s ‘Menace of the Mystic Mastermind’ wherein pugilistic paragon Wildcat faced the inevitable prospect of age and infirmity even as an inconceivable force from another universe possessed petty thug Sad Jack Dold and turned him into a nigh-unstoppable force of cosmic chaosâ€¦

‘Stop that Kidâ€¦ Before He Wrecks the World’ was written & illustrated by Adams and saw a similar trans-universal malignity deliberately empower a young boy as a prelude to its ultimate conquest, whilst #5’s ‘The Spectre Means Death?’ (all Adams again) appeared to show the Ghostly Guardian transformed into a pariah and deadly menace to society, until Jim’s investigations uncovered the emotion-controlling Psycho Pirate at the root of the Spectre’s problemsâ€¦

Despite all the incredible talent and effort lavished upon it, The Spectre simply wasn’t finding a big enough audience. Adams departed for straight superhero glory elsewhere and a hint of changing tastes came as veteran illustrator of horror comics Jerry Grandenetti came aboard.

Issue #6 (September/October 1968) saw his eccentric, manic cartooning adding raw wildness to the returning Fox’s moody thriller ‘Pilgrims of Peril!’ and Murphy Anderson also re-enlisted to apply a solid ink grounding to the story of a sinister invasion by a quartet of phantom Puritans who invaded the slums of Gateway City, driving out the poor and hopeless as they sought lost arcane treasures. These would allow demon lord Nawor of Giempo access to Earth unless The Spectre could win his unlife or death duel with the trans-dimensional horrorâ€¦

As the back of issue #7 was dedicated to a solo strip starring Hourman (not included in this collection), The Spectre saga here – by Fox, Grandenetti & Anderson – was a half-length tale which followed the drastic steps necessary to convince the soul of bank-robber Frankie Barron to move on. Since he was killed during a heist, the astral form of aversion therapy used to cure ‘The Ghost That Haunted Money!’ proved to be not only ectoplasmically effective but outrageously entertainingâ€¦

Issue #8 (January/February 1969) was scripted by Steve Skeates and began a last-ditch and obviously desperate attempt to turn The Spectre into something the new wave of anthology horror readers would buy.

As a twisted, time-lost apprentice wizard struggled to return to Earth after murdering his master and stealing cosmic might from the void, on the mundane plane an exhausted Ghostly Guardian neglected his duties and was taken to task by his celestial creator.

As a reminder of his error, Penitent Phantasm was burdened by a fluctuating weakness – which would change without warning – to keep him honest and earnest. What a moment for the desperate disciple Narkran to return then, determined to secure his elevated god-like existence by securing ‘The Parchment of Power Perilous!’â€¦

The Spectre #9 completed the transition and opened with an untitled short from Friedrich (illustrated by Grandenetti & Bill Draut) which saw the Man of Darkness again overstep his bounds by executing a criminal. This prompted Corrigan to refuse the weary wraith the shelter of his reinvigorating form and, when the Grim Ghost then assaulted his own host form, the Heavenly Voice punished the spirit by chaining him to the dreadful Journal of Judgment: demanding he atone by investigating the lives inscribed therein in a trial designed to teach him again the value of mercyâ€¦

The now anthologised issue continued with ‘Abraca-Doom’ (Dennis J. O’Neil & Bernie Wrightson) as The Spectre attempted to stop a greedy carnival conjurer from signing a contract with the Devil, whilst ‘Shadow Show’ by Mark Hanerfeld & Jack Sparling detailed the fate of a cheap mugger who thought he could outrun the consequences of a capital crimeâ€¦

The next issue gave up the ghost and The Spectre folded with #10 (May/June 1969), but not before a quartet of tantalising tales by writer or writers unknown showed what might have beenâ€¦

‘Footsteps of Disaster’ with art from Grandenetti & George Roussos, followed a man from cradle to early grave and revealed the true wages of sin, whilst ‘Hit and Run’ (probably drawn by Ralph Reese) proved again that the Spirit of Judgment was not infallible and even human scum could be redeemedâ€¦

‘How Much Can a Guy Take?’ (Sparling) offered salvation to a shoeshine boy pushed almost too far by an arrogant mobster, and the series closed with a cunning murder mystery involving what appeared to be a killer ventriloquists doll in the Grandenetti & George Roussos illustrated ‘Will the Real Killer Please Rise?’

With that the Astral Avenger returned to comicbook limbo for nearly half a decade until changing tastes and another liberalising of the Comics Code saw him return as the lead feature in Adventure Comics #431 (January/February 1974) in a shocking run of macabre, ultra-violent tales from Michael L. Fleisher & Jim Aparo.

‘The Wrath ofâ€¦ The Spectre’ offered a far more stark and unforgiving take on the Spirit Sentinel and reflected the increasingly violent tone of the times as a gang of murderous thieves slaughtered the crew of a security truck and were tracked down by a harsh, uncompromising police lieutenant named Corrigan.

When the bandits were exposed, the cop unleashed a horrific green and white apparition from his body which inflicted ghastly punishments that horrendously fitted their crimesâ€¦

With art continuity (and no, I’m not sure what that means either), from Russell Carley, the draconian fables continued in #432 as in ‘The Anguish ofâ€¦ The Spectre’ assassins murdered millionaire Adrian Sterling and Corrigan met the victim’s daughter Gwen. Although the now-infallible Wrathful Wraith soon exposed and excised the culprits, the dead detective had to reveal his true nature to the grieving daughter. Moreover, Corrigan began to feel the stirring of impossible, unattainable yearningsâ€¦

Adventure #433 exposed ‘The Swami andâ€¦ The Spectre’ as Gwen sought spiritual guidance from a ruthless charlatan who promptly paid the appalling price when he finally met a real ghost, whilst in #434 ‘The Nightmare Dummies andâ€¦ The Spectre’ (with additional pencils by the great Frank Thorne) saw a plague of department store mannequins run wild in a killing spree at the behest of a crazed artisan who believed in magic – but couldn’t imagine the cost of his dabblingâ€¦

Issue #435 introduced journalist Earl Crawford who tracked the ghastly fallout of the vengeful spirit’s anti-crime campaign and became ‘The Man Who Stalked The Spectre!’ Of course once he saw the ghost in grisly action Crawford realised the impossibility of publishing this scoopâ€¦

Adventure #436 saw Crawford still trying to sell his story as ‘The Gasmen andâ€¦ The Spectre’ set the Spectral Slaughterman on the trail of a gang who killed everybody at a car show as a demonstration of intent before blackmailing the city. Their gorily inescapable fate only put Crawford closer to exposing Corrigan, after which in #437 ‘The Human Bombs andâ€¦ The Spectre’ (with pencils from Ernie Chan & Aparo inks) found a kidnapper abducting prominent persons – including Gwen – to further a merciless madÂ scheme of amassing untold wealthâ€¦ until the Astral Avenger ended their depredations foreverâ€¦

In #438 ‘The Spectre Haunts the Museum of Fear’ (Chan & Aparo again) saw a crazed taxidermist turning people into unique dioramas until the Grim Ghost intervened, but the end was in sight again for the Savage Shade and #439’s ‘The Voice that Doomedâ€¦ The Spectre’ (all Aparo) turned the wheel of death full circle, as the Heavenly Presence who created him allowed Corrigan to fully live again so that he could marry Gwen.

Sadly it was only to have the joyous hero succumb to ‘The Second Death of Theâ€¦ Spectre’ (#440, July/August 1975) and tragically resume his endless missionâ€¦

This milestone serial set a stunning new tone and style for the Ghostly Guardian which has informed each iteration ever sinceâ€¦

From midway through that run, Brave and the Bold #116 provided another continuity-crunching supernatural team-up with Batman in a far less graphically violent struggle against the ‘Grasp of the Killer Cult’ (Haney & Aparo). When Kali-worshipping Thugs from India seemingly targeted survivors of a WWII American Army Engineer unit, Detective Corrigan and the Dark Knight clashed on both the method and motives of the mysterious murderersâ€¦

DC Comics Presents #29 (January 1981, by Len Wein, Jim Starlin & Romeo Tanghal) revealed what happened after Supergirl was knocked unconscious after a cataclysmic battle and sent hurtling through dimensions measureless to man. When her cousin tried to follow, the Ghostly Guardian was dispatched to stop the Metropolis Marvel from transgressing ‘Where No Superman Has Gone Before’â€¦

By the early 1980s the horror boom had exhausted itself and DC’s anthology comics were disappearing. As part of the effort to keep them alive, Ghosts featured a 3-part serial starring â€œGhost-Breakerâ€ and inveterate sceptic Dr. Terry 13 who at last encountered ‘The Spectre’ in issue #97 (February 1981, by Paul Kupperberg, Michael R. Adams & Tex Blaisdell), where terrorists invaded a high society sÃ©ance and were summarily dispatched by the inhuman poetic justice of the Astral Avengerâ€¦

Now determined to destroy the monstrous revenant vigilante, Dr. 13 returned in #98 as ‘The Haunted House and The Spectre’ found the Ghost-Breaker interviewing Earl Crawford and subsequently discovering the long sought killer of his own father. Before 13 could act, however, the Spectre appeared and stole his justifiable retribution from the aggrieved psychic investigatorâ€¦

The drama closed in Ghosts #99 as ‘Deathâ€¦ and The Spectre’ (Kupperberg, Michael R. Adams & Tony DeZuniga) found the scientist and the spirit locked in one final furious confrontation.

This staggering compendium of supernatural thrillers concludes with two more team-up classics from Brave and the Bold beginning with ‘The Scepter of the Dragon God’ by Fleisher & Aparo (from #180, November 1980).

Although Chinese wizard Wa’an-Zen stole enough mystic artefacts to conquer the world and destroy the Spectre, he foolishly underestimated the skill and bravery of the merely mortal Batman, whilst #199 (June 1983) ‘The Body-napping of Jim Corrigan’, by Mike W. Barr, Ross Andru & Rick Hoberg, found the ethereal avenger baffled by the abduction and disappearance of his mortal host.

Even though he could not trace his own body, the Spectre did know where the World’s Greatest Detective hung outâ€¦

Ranging from fabulously fantastical to darkly â€“ violently â€“ enthralling, these comic masterpieces perfectly encapsulate the way superheroes changed over a brief twenty year span, but remain throughout some of the most beguiling and exciting tales of DC’s near-80 years of existence. If you love comicbooks you’d be crazy to ignore this oneâ€¦
Â© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1974, 1975, 1981, 1983, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved

May 27, 2013May 28, 2013

Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Iron Man Reloaded

By Stan Lee, Archie Goodwin, Mike Friedrich, Tony Isabella, Len Kaminski, Matt Fraction, Don Heck, George Tuska, Greg LaRocque, Kev Hopgood, Salvador Larroca, Carmine di Giandomenico, Nathan Fox, Haim Kano & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-529-1

With Summer Movie Blockbuster season hard upon us Marvel has again sagaciously released a wealth of film-inspired tie-in books and trade paperback collections to maximise exposure and cater to those movie fans wanting to follow up the cinematic exposure with a comicbook experience.

Produced under the always intriguing Marvel Platinum/Definitive Editions umbrella, this treasury of tales gathers a few of the more impressive but happily less obvious landmarks from the Steel Sentinel’s extensive canon; this time cannily focusing on sinister mastermind, ultimate arch-enemy and movie menace the Mandarin.

Contained herein are high-tech hi-jinks from Tales of Suspense #50, Iron Man volume 1, #21-22, 68-71, 291 & 500, Marvel Team-Up #146 and Iron Man volume 5 #19, (listed on Marvel’s Database as Invincible Iron Man volume 1 #19), spanning 1964 to 2011, which offers a fair representation of what is quite frankly an over-abundance of riches to pick fromâ€¦

Arch-technocrat and supreme survivor Tony Stark has changed his profile many times since his debut in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963) when, as a VIP visitor in Vietnam observing the efficacy of the munitions he had designed, he was critically wounded and captured by sinister, cruel Communists.

Put to work building weapons with the dubious promise of medical assistance on completion, Stark instead created the first Iron Man suit to keep himself alive and deliver him from his oppressors. From there it was a simple jump to full time superheroics as a modern Knight in Shining Armourâ€¦

Since then the inventor and armaments manufacturer has been a liberal capitalist, eco-warrior, space pioneer, Federal politician, affirmed Futurist, Statesman and even Director of the world’s most scientifically advanced spy agency, the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate, and, of course, one of the world’s most prominent superheroes with the Mighty Avengersâ€¦

For a popular character/concept lumbered with a fifty-year pedigree, radical reboots are a painful but vital periodic necessity. To keep contemporary, Stark’s origin and Iron Man’s continuity have been drastically revised every so often with the crucible trigger event perpetually leapfrogging to America’s most recent conflicts. As always, change is everything but, remember Man, these aren’t just alterations, these are upgradesâ€¦

After the now-mandatory introduction from Stan Lee, the star-studded action begins with ‘The Hands of the Mandarin!’ from Tales of Suspense #50 wherein the wonderful Don Heck returned as regular penciller and occasional inker after a brief absence, and Lee introduced The Golden Avenger’s first major menace: a modern-day Fu Manchu who terrified the Red Chinese so much they tricked him into attacking America in the hope that one threat would destroy the other.

In response Iron Man invaded the mastermind’s oriental citadel where, after a ferocious but futilely inconclusive fight, he simply went back home to the Land of the Free.

The furious Mandarin held a grudge however and would make himself arguably Iron Man’s greatest foe.

Of course whilst Stark was the acceptable face of 1960s Capitalism – a glamorous millionaire industrialist, scientist and a benevolent all-conquering hero when clad in the super-scientific armour of his alter-ego – the turbulent tone of the 1970s soon relegated his suave, â€œcan-doâ€ image to the dustbin of history. With ecological disaster and social catastrophe from the myriad abuses of big business manifestly the new zeitgeists of the young, the Golden Avenger and Stark International were soon confronting a few tricky questions from their increasingly politically savvy readership.

With glamour, money and fancy gadgetry not quite so cool anymore, the questing voices of a new generation of writers began posing uncomfortable questions in the pages of a series that was once the bastion of militarised Americaâ€¦

Iron Man #21-22 (January & February 1970, by Archie Goodwin, George Tuska & Joe Gaudioso) found the multi-millionaire trying to get out of the arms business and – following a heart transplant – looking to retire from the superhero biz.

African-American boxer Eddie March, became ‘The Replacement!’ as Stark, free from the heart-stimulating chest-plate which had preserved him for years, was briefly tempted by a life without strife. Unfortunately, unknown to all, Eddie had a major health problem of his ownâ€¦

As Stark pursued a romantic future with business rival Janice Cord, her chief researcher and would-be lover Alex Niven was revealed as a Russian fugitive using her resources to rebuild the deadly armour of the Crimson Dynamo. The renegade easily overcame the ailing substitute Avenger and, when Soviet heavy metal super-enforcer Titanium Man resurfaced with orders to arrest Niven, a three-way clash ensued. Stark was forced to take up his metal burden again – but not before Eddie was grievously injured and Janice killed in #22’s classic ‘From this Conflictâ€¦ Death!’

Stark’s romantic liaisons always ended badly. Four years later he was ardently pursuing Roxie Gilbert, a radical pacifist and sister of his old enemy Firebrand. She, of course, had no time for a man with so much blood on his handsâ€¦

Iron Man #68-71 (June to November 1974) was the opening sortie in a multi-part epic which saw mystic menace The Black Lama foment a war amongst the World’s greatest villains with ultimate power and inner peace as the promised prize. Written by Mike Friedrich and illustrated by Tuska & Mike Esposito, it began in Vietnam on the ‘Night of the Rising Sun!’ as the Mandarin struggled to free his mind, which was currently trapped in the dying body of Russian villain the Unicorn.

Roxie had dragged Stark to the recently â€œliberatedâ€ People’s Republic in search of Eddie March’s lost brother, a POW missing since the last days of the war. Then the Americans were separated when Japanese ultra-nationalist, ambulatory atomic inferno and sometime X-Man Sunfire was tricked into attacking the Yankee Imperialists. The attack was abruptly ended when Mandarin shanghaied the Solar Samurai and used his mutant energies to power the mind-transfer back into his own body.

Reinstated in his original form, the Chinese Conqueror began his campaign in earnest, eager to regain his castle from rival oriental overlord Yellow Claw. Firstly though, he had to crush Iron Man who had tracked him down and freed Sunfire in ‘Confrontation!’ That bombastic battle ended when the Golden Avenger was rendered unconscious and thrown into spaceâ€¦

‘Who Shall Stopâ€¦ Ultimo?’ found the reactivated giant robot-monster attacking the Mandarin’s castle as the sinister Celestial duelled the Claw to the death, with both Iron Man and Sunfire arriving too late and forced to mop up the sole survivor of the contest in ‘Battle: Tooth and Yellow Claw!’â€¦

‘Hometown Boy’ (September 1984, by Tony Isabella, Greg LaRocque & Esposito) comes from the period when Stark succumbed to alcoholism and lost everything and his friend and bodyguard Jim Rhodes took over the role of Golden Avenger.

As Stark tried to make good with a new start-up company, this engaging yarn from Marvel Team-Up #146 sees the substitute hero still finding his ferrous feet whilst battling oft-failed assassin Blacklash at a trade fair in Cleveland, as much hindered as helped by visiting hero Spider-Manâ€¦

Despite successfully rebuilding his company, Stark’s woes actually increased. Iron Man # 291 (April 1993) found the technocrat trapped in total paralysis and using a neural interface to pilot the armour like a telemetric telepresence drone. He had also utterly alienated Rhodey who had been acting as his proxy in a tailored battle suit dubbed War Machineâ€¦

Concluding an epic saga, ‘Judgment Day’ by Len Kaminski & Kev Hopgood explosively revealed how the two feuding friends achieved a tentative rapprochement whilst battling a proverbial army of killer robots and death dealing devices programmed to hunt down Rhodes at all costsâ€¦

Invincible Iron Man #19 comes from December 2009 by Matt Fraction &Salvador Larroca. During this time the Federal initiative known as Superhuman Registration Act led to Civil War between costumed heroes and Stark was appointed the American government’s Security Czar – the â€œtop copâ€ in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom. As Director of high-tech enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D. he was the last word in all matters involving metahumans and the USA’s vast costumed communityâ€¦

However his mismanagement of various crises led to the arrest and assassination of Captain America and an unimaginable escalation of global tension and destruction, culminating in an almost-successful Secret Invasion by shape-shifting alien Skrulls.

Discredited and ostracised, Stark was replaced by rehabilitated villain and recovering split-personality Norman Osborn (the original Green Goblin), who assumed full control of the USA’s covert agencies and military resources, disbanded S.H.I.E.L.D. and placed the nation under the aegis of his new umbrella organisation H.A.M.M.E.R.

Osborn was still a monster at heart however and wanted total power. Intending to appropriate all Stark’s technological assets, the â€œreformedâ€ villain began hunting the fugitive ex-Avenger. Terrified that not only his weaponry but also the secret identities of most of Earth’s heroes would fall into a ruthless maniac’s hands, Stark began to systematically erase all his memories, effectively lobotomising himself to save everythingâ€¦

‘Into the White (Einstein on the Beach)’ reveals the conclusion of that quest as Stark, little more than an animated vegetable wearing his very first suit of armour, faced his merciless adversary in pointless futile battle, whilst in America faithful aide Pepper Potts, the Black Widow and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s last deputy director Maria Hill raided Osborn’s base to retrieve a disc with Tony’s last hope on it and simultaneously engineer the maniac’s ultimate defeatâ€¦

The comics portion of this winning compilation concludes with the lead tale from Iron Man volume 1 #500 (March 2011) wherein the generally recovered Stark is plagued by gaps in his mostly restored memory.

‘The New Iron Age’ by Matt Fraction, Carmine di Giandomenico, Nathan Fox, Haim Kano & Salvador Larroca, is a clever, twice-told tale which begins when Stark approaches sometime ally and employee Peter Parker in an effort to regain more of his lost past.

Stark is plagued by dreams of a super-weapon he may or may not have designed, and together they track down the stolen plans for the ultimate Stark-tech atrocity which has fallen into the hands of murderous anti-progress fanatics resulting in spectacular showdown of men versus machinesâ€¦

Contiguously and interlaced throughout the tale are dark scenes of the near future where the Mandarin has conquered the world, enslaved Tony Stark and his son Howard and, with the ruthless deployment of Iron Man troopers and that long-ago designed super weapon, all but eradicated humanity.

With Earth dying, rebel leader Ginny Stark leads the suicidal Black Widows in one last charge against the dictator, armed with primitive weapons, aided by two traitors within the Mandarin’s household and guided by a message and mantra from the far forgotten pastâ€¦

The book is rounded out with pertinent covers from Jack Kirby, Tuska, Esposito, Jim Starlin, Dave Cockrum, Ron Wilson, John Romita Sr., LaRoque, Bob Layton, Hopgood & Larroca, plus a dense and hefty 21 pages of text features, including ‘The Origin of the Mandarin’ by Mike Conroy and history, background and technical secrets of Crimson Dynamo, Justin Hammer, Happy Hogan, Mandarin, Pepper Potts, Stark Industries, Titanium Man and War Machine.

This thoroughly entertaining accompaniment to the cinema spectacle is also a well-tailored device to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comic incarnation and another solid sampling to entice the newcomers and charm the veteran Ferro-phile.
Â© 2013 Marvel. 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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