Category: Graphic Novels

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Star Wars: Darth Vader and Son


By Jeffrey Brown (Lucas Books/Chronicle Books)
ISBN: 978-1-4521-0655-7

It’s never too late to find a treasure or have a good time. Cartoonist Jeffrey Brown certainly knows that, as a glance at any of his painfully incisive autobiographical mini-comics, quirky literary graphic novels and hilarious all-ages comedy cartoons will show.

Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1975, Brown studied Fine Art at the Chicago Art Institute but abandoned painting to concentrate on comics.

His painfully intense, bizarrely funny observational strips soon garnered him fans amongst in-the-know consumers and fellow creators alike: all finding something to love in such varied fare as Every Girl Is The End of the World For Me, Cat Getting Out of a Bag and Other Observations, Little Things or current on-going series Sulk.

Happily, unlike so many creators with such an eclectic oeuvre, Brown has also achieved a measure of mainstream success thanks to his keen artistic sense and a lifelong love affair with the most significant popular arts phenomenon of the last 35 years.

In 2012 Brown created a breakout and mainstream best-seller with his hilarious spin on the soft and nurturing side of the Dark Lord of the Sith: exploring what might have been, had the most dangerous man (more or less) in the Empire had the opportunity to spend a little quality time with his missing son and heir…

The hilarious pre (Jedi) school experiences of Star Wars – Episode Three and a Half: Darth Vader and Son features deliriously daft and telling snatches of Skywalker domesticity highlighting such memorable moments as baseball practise with light sabre, a day at the beach (on Tatooine), budding sibling rivalry with a stupid-head sister, having “the talk” about babies, Trick or Treating with dad in tow, playing in Trash (compactors), finding a babysitter for a precocious kid, shovelling snow on Hoth, playing with that Solo kid and the joy of that first (Speeder) bike as well as a host of other awkward, touching warm moments in the otherwise drab life of a galactic nemesis.

No fan of the all-conquering franchise could possibly do without this deliciously sweet and still readily available hardcover hit – or its recent sequel Vader’s Little Princess – and these superbly subversive cartoon treats could easily make converts of the hardest hearted, fun-starved rationalist or clone.

Gloriously daft and entrancingly fun, this is a superb treat for fans and unbelievers alike and there’s even the promise of a third volume in the pipeline…

© 2012 by Lucasfilm Ltd & ® or ™ where indicated. All rights reserved.

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Stars Wars: Vader’s Little Princess


By Jeffrey Brown (Lucas Books/Chronicle Books)
ISBN: 978-1-4521-1869-7

Since its launch in 1977 the Star Wars franchise has spawned an awful lot of comic books, toys, games, countless examples of merchandise and even some more movies. The disciples, followers, fans, adherents and devotees are as helplessly dedicated as Trekkies and Whovians (without, as far as I’m aware, being subject to a demeaning descriptive appellation) and are well on the way to becoming the first religion to actively admit it’s completely fictional.

In 2012 Jeffrey Brown, star of such quirkily irresistible indy comics as Unlikely, Clumsy, Bighead, Funny, Misshapen Body and Incredible Change-Bots, scored his first global best-seller with a hilarious spin on the soft and nurturing side of the Jedi experience in Darth Vader and Son and now – just in time for National Star Wars Day – has expanded the concept with “Episode Three and Three-Quarters” to cover Luke Skywalker’s long-lost, turbulent, truculent twin sister Leia (we don’t call her Ambassador Organa anymore… yet… whatever…) in Vader’s Little Princess.

If we peek behind the midnight cape and ebony re-breather helmet of the long-suffering Lord of the Sith, we can glimpse the dark side for the hard-working single parent trying his best to bring up a rebellious girl child and her rather disappointing brother…

Dear daddy Darth only wants a little peace and quiet to destroy the Rebel Alliance and maybe rule the Galactic Empire, but it’s not easy as we can see in this sublime, full colour hardcover charting the rocky road of his capricious, changeable and charming little madam, from nosy, bossy, know-it-all brat to feisty, capable independent know-it-all college applicant in a series of gloriously arch and whimsical cartoons that will delight young and old alike.

It’s the same oft-told tale of parenthood: one minute she’s knitting you ugly presents, hiding your X-Wing’s keys or making faces behind your back whilst you admonish Grand Moff Tarkin, and the next she’s embarrassed to be seen with you; not taking messages from The Emperor and trying to stop you from even “talking” to that good-for-nothing, obnoxious, sneaky Corellian Solo kid who’s always hanging around…

Of course it’s not all one way traffic: Dads – no matter how important – don’t care about important things like fashion, never like your boyfriends and can be so-ooo embarrassing when you’re trying to impress the cool kids…

Gloriously daft and entrancingly fun, this is a superb treat for fans and unbelievers alike and there’s even the promise of a third volume in the pipeline…

© 2013 by Lucasfilm Ltd. LCC & ® or ™ where indicated. All rights reserved.

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Trinity volume 1


By Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza, Mark Bagley, Scott McDaniel, Tom Derenick, Jerry Ordway & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2277-2

DC’s mythologizing of its most renowned character properties saw their ultimate expression in the ambitious if overly-convoluted year-long publishing event Trinity which revealed the unexpected cosmic significance of the relationship between Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.

The series explored the metaphysical underpinnings of the DC Universe through 52 weekly instalments, split into a lead chapter with a connected ancillary episode intended to ultimately combine into a complex web of narrative encompassing the entire multiversal cosmos.

This initial volume – of three, natch – collects issues #1-17 of the omniversal odyssey (from June to October 2008) and was conceived and written by Kurt Busiek, with Fabian Nicieza co-scripting the sidebar stories. The art on the primaries was by Mark Bagley& Art Thibert, with Scott McDaniel, Tom Derenick, Mike Norton and others tag-teaming on the back-ups…

The reality-busting drama begins with ‘Boys and their Games…’ in the heart of the cosmos where an ancient, immensely powerful and obsessive being struggles to break free of a vast all-encompassing prison. Meanwhile in Keystone City, as their heroic associates take care of the usual distractions, old friends Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince meet for breakfast and discuss the distressing fact that they have all been enduring the same disturbing dreams of a monster escaping its imprisonment…

The first back-up tale ‘In the Morrows to Come’, by Busiek, Nicieza, McDaniel & Andy Owens, casts a light on Castle Branek where dark witch Morgaine Le Fey is accosted by a mysterious mortal dubbed Enigma who offers her the chance to rewrite Reality in her favour, tempting her with glimpses of other Earths and unfamiliar heroes. The first thing they need to do, however, is find a third co-conspirator and then seek out and capture a young girl with a strange knack for reading Tarot cards…

As the conspirators’ plans come together, reality begins to warp and wobble around Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman in ‘A Personal Best at Giant Robot Smashing’ (Busiek, Bagley & Thibert) but the heroes are proving remarkably resilient in the face of the bizarre and deadly outbreaks. Things are tougher for Green Lantern John Stewart in ‘It’s Gonna Throw the Car’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Derenick & Wayne Faucher) as alien powerhouse Konvikt and his diminutive mouthpiece and legal advocate Graak crash to Earth and go on a rampage.

Before long the unstoppable ETs are thrashing the entire Justice League in ‘Kplow’ (Busiek, Bagley & Thibert) and only the big three are left to stop them… until the big bruiser decks Superman… Meanwhile ‘Earth to Rita’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Norton & Jerry Ordway) reveals how street Tarot reader Marguerita Covas starts getting some very strange readings even as she realises her predictions have been misused by a local gangbanger.

However when the superstitious thug tries to abduct Rita to secure her exclusive services, concerned citizen Jose Delgado steps in too late and finds her dazed and reeling near a pile of dismembered gangstas. Something far more dangerous than the urban vigilante called Gangbuster is watching over the baffled clairvoyant…

The spectacular struggle against the fully amok Konvikt is going badly, prompting Batman to break off to investigate the aliens’ arrival point in ‘Caped Simoid Thinks So, Hm?’ (Busiek, Bagley, Thibert). During his absence a secretive new player makes use of the melee to surreptitiously brand Wonder Woman with a mystic sigil, whilst ‘World-Something…’ (by Busiek, Nicieza, Norton, Ordway, McDaniel & Owens) reveals how Rita’s dreams contact another alien  monster. The bloodthirsty Despero is mercilessly eradicating the forces of his stellar rival Kanjar Ro and, although she doesn’t know how or why, Rita is painfully aware that her foresights will become fact, affecting her and the entire Earth…

‘Great. Now He’s Holding His Breath.’ (another BBT production) sees the defeat of Konvikt by Batman, who also captures the mystic Howler which branded Wonder Woman. Miles away Rita’s Tarot face cards undergo a bizarre transformation, whilst things get hot for her self-appointed bodyguard Delgado as hired super-freaks Blindside, Throttle and Whiteout attack the ‘Knight in Shiny Armor’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Norton & Mark Farmer) to seize the tarot-reader…

Barely escaping, the hero and his charge flee, but Tarot is almost oblivious to her personal peril: all she can see is that the pictures on her cards keep changing…

‘Truth, Justice & the American Way…’ follows the recovering Trinity of heroes through the visions of the ever-evolving Tarot. Her attempts to divine the meaning and significance bear no fruit until a horde of Howlers overpower Gangbuster and drag the girl away. Just as ‘Almost’ (Busiek, Nicieza, McDaniel & Owens) shifts focus to Hawkman, as he defeats the seductive Nocturna , the reincarnated warrior stumbles onto the bloodied and brutalised Delgado who is obsessively searching for Rita. His hunt has taken him to StonechatMuseum – where her old Gangsta associates are stealing ancient artefacts – and into accidental combat with the Winged Wonder.

Once the dust settles and amends are made, the two heroes confer and learn that other relics are being taken from museums all over the world…

With odd incidences of threes occurring everywhere, the League start researching and discover a link to the “primal creation energies of the universe”. A check on the Cosmic Egg holding captive the rogue Guardian of the Universe Krona proves a dead end, but the Amazon’s brand has changed shape and ‘A Third Symbol Now’ is revealed just as Hawkman and Gangbuster arrive.

Soon the Pinioned Paladin’s millennia of knowledge and Batman’s deductive ability have reasoned out a link to Ancient Egyptian Tarot rites and discovered that an army of the Dark Knight’s old enemies have been hired to steal pertinent items and relics for an unknown client…

And far across the galaxies Morgaine and Enigma appear to Despero and offer him an equal partnership in controlling all that is…

In ‘Away from Creation’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Derenick & Faucher), John Stewart gives new Firestorm Jason Rausch a history lesson on Krona, who brought evil into the universe through his hunger for forbidden knowledge, unaware that the rogue Guardian and the Cosmic Egg that holds him are now in the possession of the triumvirate of universal usurpers…

Back on Earth ‘Have You Tied Him Up, Yet?’ finds Batman fighting off an attempt to brand him with a sigil as a new force of super-foes is formed by the still-unidentified masterminds. Atomic Furnace Sun-Chained-in-Ink, lovelorn super-ape Primat, eerie Trans-Volitional Man and the flamboyant Swashbuckler have their ‘Dreams of Power’ (art by McDaniel & Owens) as do the exultant Morgaine and her two comrades in re-Creation…

Overcoming the Howler pack assaulting him, the Dark Knight notices that he is acting out of character. All of the Trinity are slowly assuming each others attributes and attitudes, but this hasn’t stopped him deducing who is behind the Tarot-related plot in ‘Crumbs in the Forest’ (still Busiek, Bagley & Thibert) but before he can act a global crisis diverts the JLA’s attentions and forces the team to travel to another dimension, leaving Barbara Gordon, AKA digital information-wizard Oracle, to coordinate Batman’s network of Gotham-based champions on Earth by ‘Making the Pieces Fit’ as a series of macabre and surreal robberies mark the second part of the Dark Trinity’s scheme…

Anti-matter alternate metahumans the Crime Syndicate of Amerika have often battled the JLA but after their last clash their planet, – a polar opposite of ours where Evil, not Good, is dominant, was devastated by a super weapon called the Void Hound.

In ‘Rough World’ the villains were revealed to have abducted humans from many other Earths as a slave force intended to rebuild and repopulate the shattered world. However, as the Justice League arrived to rescue the victims, Superman became increasing infuriated and unstable…

On our Earth, the Dark Trinity’s plan continued to unfold as Robin and Nightwing clashed with Primat in ‘Maybe She Doesn’t Like Concrete?’ and Oracle got an inkling of what the bizarre scavenger hunts were actually for…

‘Distinguished Visitor’ saw the battle in the Anti-Universe seesaw dramatically with each side gaining and loosing ground whilst ‘The Next Step’ (Busiek, Nicieza, Derenick & Faucher) found Hawkman and gangbuster seemingly lose a battle but win the war against Primat and her esoteric allies, after which ‘100101010’ added a new wrinkle to the inter-dimension struggle as GL Stewart was revealed to have been possessed by the devastating Void Hound, and back here reformed villain Edward Nigma investigated the Tarot thefts and found himself accused of being the man behind the mask in ‘Riddle Me This’ from Busiek, Nicieza, Norton & Karl Kesel…

‘That Was a Sonic Boom’ revealed the League’s secret weapon in their war against the CSA, whilst ‘Drop the Coffin and Surrender’ (illustrated by Derenick & Faucher) saw a showdown between Hawkman, Gangbuster and the odd squad turn into an all-out clash involving the Outsiders, Justice Society and Teen Titans which went catastrophically awry when the Ink Chaining the Sun was atomically disrupted…

In the Anti-Matter realm the JLA’s victory provoked global anarchy and chaos which their attempts to rectify only exacerbated. However, ‘So What Now?’ also forced the enigmatic Enigma to reveal some of his many secrets, but when the victorious heroes gratefully returned to their own world, Superman had been sigil-branded. Dark Trinity: 2, Heroes 0…

With Sun-Chained-in-Ink literally in meltdown, ‘Let the Burning Begin’ (Derenick & Faucher) almost saw Earth’s last sunrise until Supergirl and Geo-force managed to shift the threat into deep space, whilst half a world away Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman tracked down Morgaine, Despero and Enigma for a climactic confrontation in ‘And I Finally See It’ but, even with almost every hero on Earth beside them, things did not go according to plan in ‘A Bit of Overkill’ (Busiek, Nicieza, McDaniel & Owens) and

‘We’ll Finish Things Here’ saw the conniving plotters win the day…

Scattered to the Winds’ (art by Norton & Ordway) found the helpless Rita come into her terrifying dormant powers just as Morgaine was ultimately victorious, and the heroic Trinity who inadvertently dictated the Shape of Reality vanished in ‘But So No Longer’ by Busiek, Bagley & Thibert…

As the universe altered into a new and unknown configuration, the origins of Konvikt were revealed in ‘Honor and Justice’ from Busiek, Nicieza, McDaniel & Owens, and this first volume ends on the incredible sight of an impossible world where there never was was a Man of Tomorrow, Dark Knight or Amazon Avenger…

This convoluted but compelling collection also includes a vast selection of covers by Carlos Pacheco, Jesus Merino, Allen Passalaqua, Andy Kubert, Edgar Delgado, Jim Lee, Scott Williams and Alex Sinclair and nine pages of sketches by Bagley and Shane Davis, but, despite being long, frantic and bombastically suspense-filled, it’s just the prologue for the really big story.

To Be Continued…
© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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All-New X-Men: Here Comes Yesterday


By Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger & Craig Yeung (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-532-1

Radical perpetual change – or the appearance of such – is a driving force in modern comics. There must be a constant changing of the guard, a shifting of scene and milieu and, in latter times, a regular diet of death, resurrection and rebirth – all grounded in relatively contemporary terms and situations.

With a property as valuable as the X-Men such incessant remodelling is a necessarily good thing, even if you sometimes need a scorecard to keep up, and over the decades the franchise has repeatedly reinterpreted, refashioned and updated the formative early epics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas and Werner Roth and others to give a solid underpinning to all the thoroughly modern Mutant mayhem.

Now following all the bad choices and horrendous paths taken by the mutant mavericks over the last few years, and in the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, latest company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! recasts the entire continuity and allows writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Stuart Immonen (with the assistance of Wade Von Grawbadger & Craig Yeung) to take the franchise in a truly bizarre old new direction.

Collecting All-New X-Men #1-5 from November 2012 – March 2013, this dark yet breezy reboot finds mutant Moses Charles Xavier dead, murdered by his favourite son who has also splintered his chosen people into polarised if not actually warring factions.

Way back in 1963, The X-Men #1 introduced gloomy, serious Scott Summers/Cyclops, ebullient Bobby Drake/Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III/the Angel, standoffish Jean Grey/Marvel Girl and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy/the Beast. These very special youngsters were selected to be students by the wheelchair-bound telepath Xavier: a man dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants with extra abilities, ominously dubbed Homo Superior.

After years of eccentric, quirky adventures, the masked misfits faded away in early 1970. When they eventually made their comeback they weren’t kids any more…

Over the intervening years the struggle to integrate Homo Superior with baseline humanity has produced many tragedies and compromises, resulting in the death of Jean Grey and Cyclops allying with former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, if necessary, of human ones. His former team-mates and newer X-Men such as Wolverine, Storm and Kitty Pryde have stayed on Xavier’s path, abandoning Scott to protect and train the next X-generation at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning…

The five part ‘What Happens Now?’ opens at the school as Hank McCoy realises he is dying.

The team’s resident super-genius was the first to strike out on his own and paid a high price for it, but now those days have come back to haunt him one last time…

Premiering in Amazing Adventures #11 (March 1972) ‘The Beast!’ told how the brilliant student had left Xavier’s school and taken a research position at the Brand Corporation. Using private sector resources to research the causes of genetic mutation, McCoy became embroiled in industrial skulduggery and to hide his identity used his discoveries to “upgrade” his natural animalistic abilities – temporarily turning himself into a fearsome furry anthropoid creature with startling new abilities. At least it was supposed to be temporary…

Now, after years as a big blue Beast, McCoy is uncontrollably mutating further and realises he will not survive the agonising process. As Cyclops and his new team of freedom fighters begin a very public crusade, rescuing the latest mutants to manifest from their own power and the hostility of humankind, Hank and fellow tutors Pryde, Storm, and oldest friend Iceman discuss how far their friend has fallen.

Drake then muses on the team’s earliest days and remarks that if the Scott Summers from back then could see himself now, he’d slap some sense into himself…

With no time left, staring a prospective mutant civil war in the face and determined to leave a lasting, meaningful legacy, McCoy risks the entire continuum by bringing not only Cyclops but the rest of the original team back to the future in a desperate attempt to heal and restore the noble, dedicated Scott Summers he used to implicitly trust with his life and the future of mutantkind…

Back in our present, Marvel Girl suddenly gains the telepathic powers which originally took her years to develop as the shocked innocent kids become aware of the catalogue of horrors they will endure whilst defending Xavier’s dream. Young, idealistic Scott especially cannot believe… and will not allow his later self to continue betraying his/their life’s purpose…

However as Wolverine and the others become dramatically aware of what McCoy has done, the elder Beast collapses. Realising their moral compass is dying, the 21st century X-Men lock up and isolate the newly-arrive, future-shocked kids to prevent further problems.

They have however completely underestimated the squad who where regularly saving the world years before they could vote or buy beer…

Breaking out and stealing a jet, the juvenile first team take off to confront the terrorist Cyclops and his allies, but discussion quickly devolves into brutal battle and the elders choose escape over further risky conflict…

Shaken but resolved the kids return and, whilst the time-twisted McCoy boys find a way to save the dying Beast, the original X-Men come to a fateful decision. They won’t go home until they have stopped the wayward modern Cyclops. Moreover Jean, having learned of her own dark destiny, is set on ensuring it will never happen…

Engaging, exciting and extremely entertaining; blending spectacular adventure with the signature themes of alienation and personal freedom but finally finding room for much-missed humour, warmth and affection, this utterly beguiling, enticingly  unpredictable yarn promises a genuinely fresh approach to the moribund, dead-ended, water-treading mutant franchise and offers a perfect jumping-on point for new and retired fans alike.

This book also includes a stunning cover-and-variants gallery by Immonen, Joe Quesada, J. Scott Campbell, Salvador Larroca, Pablo Manuel Rivera, Skott Young, Pasqual Ferry, Ed McGuiness, Jim Cheung and Olivier Coipel, and also the now nigh-compulsory 21st century add-on for all those tech-savvy consumers in the form of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the little dickens – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet thingy.

™ & © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Iron Man: Believe


By Kieron Gillen, Greg Land & Jay Leisten (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-530-7

The upcoming third Iron Man movie has naturally inspired a few new releases and this one, despite being another upgrade and notional reboot of the Golden Avenger, is also a thrill-packed finale to an earlier, but no less revolutionary tale – specifically Iron Man: Extremis.

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 an East Asian war-zone 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.

Since then the inventor and armaments manufacturer has become 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 Avengers…

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 feature America’s most-recent conflicts. As always, change is everything…

Thus, with the aforementioned movie hurtling like a missile towards us, this tale opens a brand new era by closing out an outmoded and obsolete model: specifically Warren Ellis & Adi Granov’s cyberpunk epic which directly influenced the filmic franchise and led to illustrator Granov working as a designer and producer on the cinema interpretation.

Collecting Iron Man volume 5, issues #1-5 from November 2012 – March 2013, Believe is part of MarvelNOW! (the latest company-wide refit and relaunch) which recasts the entire continuity in the wake of the all-consuming Avengers versus X-Men war: another inspired attempt to lure readers back to the ever-dwindling periodical publishing market.

Stark has been through hell, but has reinvented himself and his company. Even after cutting himself loose from official Governmental affiliations and all military contracts, abandoning guns and bombs to return to the life of a maverick entrepreneur, happily risking profits for the betterment of humanity, his past continues to haunt him.

In ‘Demons and Genies’, as he and trusted partner Pepper Potts build up their new company Stark Resilient, the inveterate playboy gets a frantic message from an old flame: a pre-recorded failsafe message from Maya Hansen which states that she is dead and Extremis is loose…

When she first devised the nano-tube bio-package it was designed to overwrite human biology and cure any disease or injury. Tragically the military were the only institution interested in funding her research as the process also made super-soldiers possible, with injections capable of making a body faster, stronger, tougher and able to grow new organs with unsuspected capabilities.

In the wrong hands, Extremis caused untold death and destruction and almost wiped humanity from the face of the Earth…

A diluted, specifically-tailored dose of her incredible restorative solution even allowed Stark to rewire his own brain and make Iron Man part of his skeletal structure – until it went bad and he had to remove it all at risk of his life, sanity and soul.

Now Stark discovers Maya had been captive of ruthless tech-merchants Advanced Idea Mechanics for more than a year and forced to recreate the deadly process. At least she left him a method of tracking any “Enhancile” altered by the seductive transformative menace…

Now with his Iron Man armours repurposed into an arsenal of specifically designed iterations – like a shiny, walk-in utility belt with the right tool/suit to wear for every occasion – Stark sets out to track down and eradicate each and every Extremis altered human, determined to shove this genie back into the bottle or die trying…

After brutally dealing with the AIM connection, Stark is contacted by the mysterious “Arthur” who has purchased the nano-solution to turn a number of individuals into a futuristic iteration of The Round Table. The honour-obsessed paladin proposes ‘A Gentleman’s Wager’ wherein his Circle of Tech-Knights will joust with the Golden Avenger for possession of both Hansen and Stark technology, but makes one big mistake. Extremis is too dangerous to leave loose and Stark is no gentleman…

The next mission takes Iron Man – in a stealth suit which sacrifices power for speed and concealment – into the citadel of a Colombian drug-lord with the best reason in the world to buy the nano-solution. Although ‘It Makes Us Stronger’ eventually saw the Hansen’s serum used for its original medical purpose, that was only after a cataclysmic clash with old Iron Man enemies Firebrand, Vibro and Living Laser practically decimated the region…

In ‘Fear of the Void’ the trail led to the catacombs beneath Paris where insanely devoted men had used Extremis to transform 13 women into creatures strong enough to host beings from the Great Black Infinite. Far from his normal comfort zones, battling demons to the death, Stark was never happier to be wearing the heavy-duty armour designed to stop the Hulk.

Even so, only a dozen of the demonic damsels died in that savage final confrontation and the thirteenth presaged even greater horror in the months to come…

The first new adventure concluded with ‘Men of the World’ as the Extremis trail led to space and a clash with an old friend.

Stark’s old mentor Eli also had altruistic intentions when he and his disciples took the nano-solution. All they wanted was to be able to thrive beyond Earth’s sustaining air and gravity. And, after the inevitable clash, Iron Man let them… but only on his terms…

Straightforward, smart, and surprisingly engaging, this compelling return to the basics of Fights ‘n’ Tights action offers big fights, big thrills and big ideas pace that will satisfy any reader, new or old, who likes the movie franchise as much as the comicbook canon. This sleek, slim tome also includes a stunning cover-gallery and variants by Land, Carlos Pagulayan, Adi Granov, Skott Young, Joe Quesada, Mike Deodato Jr. and Jim Cheung and also includes a now traditional 21st century perk for all those tech-savvy consumers with added value in mind.

Many pages contained herein are offer an AR icon (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which gives access to all sorts of extras once you download the little dickens – for free – from marvel.com/ARapp onto your iPhone or Android-enabled device.

Gritty, clever and hard-hitting, this is another explosively entertaining yarn to delight established fans with the added distinction of being self-contained and readily accessible to new, returning or casual readers.

™ & © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Superman and Philosophy – What Would the Man of Steel Do?


Essays by various, Edited by Mark D. White (Wiley-Blackwell)
ISBN: 978-1-118-01809-5

With the latest Superman movie set for a summer release there’s going to be a lot of ancillary material around, so here’s a comics-adjacent item that celebrates 75 years of the Man of Tomorrow whilst offering an interesting view askew of the merely expected…

Like organised religion, the discipline of Philosophy has had a hard time relating to modern people in the last half century and, just like innumerable vicars in pulpits everywhere, the greatest and most all-consuming preoccupation of the mind of Man has sought fresh ways to make its eternal questions and subjective verities understandable and palatable to us hoi-polloi and thickoes…

Publishers Wiley-Blackwell have certainly succeeded in making their message relevant by repackaging key and core concepts of the never-ending debate. Their intriguing and imaginatively far-ranging Philosophy and Pop Culture Series includes more than 40 enticing titles such as Batman and Philosophy: the Dark Knight of the Soul, Downton Abbey: the Truth is Neither Here Nor There, The Avengers and Philosophy: Earth’s Mightiest Thinkers and Terminator: I’ll Be Back, Therefore I Am amongst others. These engaging tracts marry the product of millennia of deep thought to easily accessible and seductively shared contexts you and I know like the backs of our hairy hands.

That’s applied phenomenology, that is…

It doesn’t hurt either that all the essays, produced by a legion of very smart people possessing a vast degree of familiarity with both their academic subject and the impossibly convoluted minutiae of the Superman mythology in all its multifarious multimedia formats, keep their arguments and verbal illustrations short, sharp, sweet and joyously funny.

And, by the way, this is a grown-up book so don’t expect any pictures inside…

The immensely engaging and successfully thought-provoking journey begins with

Following ‘Introduction: It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane… It’s Philosophy!’ our rocket-ship ride to reason opens with a crash course in Utilitarianism, Deontology and Virtue Ethics.  Part One – The Big Blue Boy Scout: Ethics, Judgment, and Reason investigates the underpinnings and outcomes of doing good by scrutinised the powder-keg of “moral philosophy” (concerned primarily with questioning the best way to live) through the super-vision lenses of ‘Moral Judgment: The Power that Makes Superman Human’ by Mark D. White, ‘Action Comics! Superman and Practical Reason’ by Brian Feltham, ‘Can the Man of Tomorrow be the Journalist of Today?’  by Jason Southworth & Ruth Tallman and ‘Could Superman Have Joined the Third Reich? The Importance and Shortcomings of Moral Upbringing’ by Robert Sharp.

The conundrums continue in Part Two – Truth, Justice and the American Way: What Do They Mean? as Daniel P. Malloy posits ‘Clark Kent is Superman! The Ethics of Secrecy’ after which Christopher Robichaud investigates the true meaning of ‘Superman and Justice’ and Andrew Terjesen asks ‘Is Superman an American Icon?’

Part Three – The Will to Superpower: Nietzsche, the Ãœbermensch, and Existentialism goes a long way to cleaning up the cruelly tarnished reputation of the author of Thus Spake Zarathustra (inexplicably and unnecessarily retitled these days as Thus Spoke…) with ‘Rediscovering Nietzsche’s Ãœbermensch in Superman as a Heroic Ideal’ by Arno Bogaerts, ‘Superman or Last Man: the Ethics of Superpower’ by David Gordon, ‘Superman: From Anti-Christ to Christ-Type’ by Adam Barkman and the tantalising argument ‘Superman Must be Destroyed! Lex Luthor as Existentialist Anti-Hero’ by Sarah K. Donovan & Nicholas Richardson…

We get to the heart of the matter – for comicbook geeks like me anyway – with Part Four – The Ultimate Hero: What Do We Expect from Superman? Using some very specific canonical examples, we sift through ‘Superman’s Revelation: The Problem of Violence in Kingdom Come‘ by David Hatfield, ‘A World Without a Clark Kent?’ by Randall M. Jensen and close the case with ‘The Weight of the World: How Much is Superman Morally Responsible For?’ by Audrey L. Anton.

The review of the Big Picture continues with Part Five – Superman and Humanity: A Match Made on Krypton?, as Leonard Finkelman guesstimates ‘Superman and Man: What a Kryptonian Can Teach Us About Humanity’ whilst Terjesen returns to ask ‘Can the Man of Steel Feel Our Pain? Sympathy and Superman’ and Carsten Fogh Nielsen deliberates on ‘World’s Finest Philosophers: Superman and Batman on Human Nature’ before it all wraps up for now in Part Six – Of Superman and Superminds: Who Is Superman, Anyway? with the deepest levels of Persona examination in ‘“It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane… It’s Clark Kent” Superman and the Problem of Identity‘ by Nicholas Michaud, ‘Superman Family Resemblance’ from Dennis Knepp and ‘Why Superman Should Not Be Able to Read Minds’ by Mahesh Ananth.

In proper, rigorous academic manner there are also biographies in Contributors: Trapped in the Philosophy Zone, plenty of notes and attributions and a full Index: From Brainiac’s Files to aid you if your interests are piqued and your enquiring mind wants to know more…

Philosophy doesn’t exist in a vacuum: its primary purpose, whatever substrate espoused (Aesthetics, Epistemology, Ethics, Logic, Metaphysics, Social theory, Politics or any other field concerned with understanding reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind or language), is to promote discourse and debate. The whole point is to get you thinking too…

And this delightfully appealing tome does exactly that…

© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Superman and Philosophy – What Would the Man of Steel Do? is set for publication on May 16th 2013.

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Heroes for Hire: Civil War


By Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Billy Tucci, Francis Portela, Tom Palmer & Terry Pallot (Marvel)
ISBN 978-1-7851-2362-8

The Patriot Act changed America as much as the destruction of the World Trade Towers, and it’s fair to say that that popular arts grow from the social climate as much as the target audience. In post 9-11 America the creators and the consumers now think different thoughts in different ways. Thus the company that first challenged the middle-class suburban status quo of the comic industry in the late 1960s made Homeland Security and the exigencies of safety and liberty the themes of a major publishing event in 2006.

After a TV reality show starring superheroes went hideously wrong and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of children in Stamford, Connecticut, popular opinion turned massively against masked crusaders.

The Federal government quickly instituted and mandated a scheme to licence, train and regulate all metahumans but the plan split the superhero community and a terrified and indignant merely mortal populace quivered as a significant faction of their former defenders, led by the ultimate icon of Liberty, Captain America, refused to surrender their autonomy and in many cases, anonymity to the bureaucratic vicissitudes of the Superhuman Registration Act.

The Avengers and Fantastic Four, bedrock teams of the Marvel Universe, fragmented in scenes reminiscent of America’s War Between the States, with “brother pitted against brother”. 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…

This collection, re-presenting issues #1-5 of the second Heroes for Hire comicbook series (from October 2006 to February 2007), gathers a particularly cogent and impressive sidebar sequence to the overarching epic Marvel Crossover Event which opens in the aftermath of the Stamford incident, as a panicked government attempts to enforce the hastily enacted legislation requiring every super-being in the USA to submit to the law.

Those who resist are guilty of treason, and of course the authorities need creatures as powerful and specialised as the resistors to tackle the problem of costumed malcontents and scofflaws…

Bionic detective Misty Knight and her ninja partner Colleen Wing are former associates of Power Man & Iron Fist and have revived their old firm Heroes for Hire to apprehend metas who refuse to comply.

The exact terms of their contract are revealed in ‘Taking it to the Streets’ parts 1 and 2, scripted by Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti, illustrated by Billy Tucci, Francis Portela & Tom Palmer. Specifically recruited by Iron Man, Spider-Man and Fantastic Four leader Reed Richards, the former Daughters of the Dragon and their team – acrobatic ex-thief Black Cat, Kung Fu Master Shang-Chi, insect avatar Humbug, Atlantean powerhouse Orka, sadistic martial artist Tarantula and veteran mercenary Paladin – will never be asked to arrest any of their errant superhero colleagues, but only take down super-villains who won’t register…

Their first public appearance finds the new team getting to know each other even as they hunt down technologically-augmented samurai dubbed “Mandarin’s Avatars” and a crime-ring led by old arch-foe Vienna offering new identities to a host of minor meta-felons.

Humbug’s ability to communicate with all insects leads the squad unerringly to the mastermind’s hideout but it’s a trap and a massive battle ensues. However, in this harsh new world, there’s no honour amongst thieves – or anyone else – and soon everybody is embroiled in a string of double and even triple crosses…

The saga takes a dark turn after the first rebel fatality incites a bitter argument in the team and Misty agrees to find – but not arrest – the fugitive Captain America and invite him to truce talks. The hunt leads to an illicit lab where villains are being surgically altered with organs culled from shape-shifting alien Skrulls; enabling criminals to alter their physical appearances and even conceal their powers…

In the meantime the search for the leading dissident and rebel bears fruit as the Sentinel of Liberty agrees to talks, only for Paladin to betray his own comrades and capture the ultimate Avenger for the huge bounty on his star-spangled head…

The story concludes in ‘Civil Disobedience’ (with Portela taking on the major portion of the illustration) as Paladin discovers he’s been tricked by Misty’s most honourable team-mate. With Cap and his dissidents allowed to safely escape, Misty and Co. perforce return to the problem of the sinister surgeons – who have been very busy indeed – if only to prove Heroes for Hire is still of use to the government…

After a squad of augmented villains break crime-boss Ricadonna out of prison, she quickly begins taking her long-anticipated vengeance on Knight and Wing. The first step is blowing up the Federal stooges HQ…

This first volume concludes with two untitled tales (inked by Palmer and Terry Pallot) as the maniacal Ricadonna tasks her army of super-powered, Skrull-flavoured minions with ambushing Misty’s team in unguarded moments. The resultant death and destruction provokes a thoroughly understandable and excessively violent response from the Heroes for Hire who raid the finally-found surgical facility and begin cleaning up all those warrants on the Government’s most wanted list.

Unfortunately, Ricadonna has been under the surgeons’ knives and recreated herself as a veritable legion of monsters…

Gritty, witty, fast-paced and spectacularly action-packed, this sharp, edgy collection is a largely forgotten gem from a frequently heavy-handed and often pompous mega-event which offers spills, chills and thrills to delight older fans of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction.

This book also includes a cover gallery by Tucci & Mark Sparacio, and a fun-filled fact page of the wacky master of insects Humbug.
© 2006, 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman/Shazam!: First Thunder

New, Revised Review

By Judd Winick & Joshua Middleton (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0923-0

At their most impressive, superhero comics combine all the gravitas of mythology with all the sheer child-like fun and exuberance of a first rollercoaster ride. A perfect example of this is the 4-issue miniseries from November – February of 2006 collected as Superman/Shazam!: First Thunder.

One of the most venerated and loved characters in American comics, (the original) Captain Marvel was created by Bill Parker and Charles Clarence Beck as part of the wave of opportunistic creativity that followed the successful launch of Superman in 1938. Although there were many similarities in the early years, the Fawcett character moved solidly into the area of light entertainment and even comedy, whilst as the 1940s progressed the Man of Steel increasingly left whimsy behind in favour of action and drama.

At the height of his popularity the World’s Mightiest Mortal outsold the Man of Steel by a wide margin and was even published twice-monthly, but as the Furious Forties closed tastes changed, sales slowed and Fawcett saw the way the wind was blowing. They settled an infamous long-running copyright infringement case instigated by DC/National in 1940 and the Big Red Cheese vanished – as did so many superheroes – becoming little more than a fond memory for older fans.

As America lived through another superhero boom-and-bust from 1956-1968, the 1970s dawned with a shrinking industry and a wide variety of comics genres servicing a base that was increasingly founded on collector/fans and not casual or impulse buys. DC Comics needed sales and were prepared to look for them in unusual places.

After the settlement with Fawcett in 1953 they had secured the rights to Captain Marvel and Family, and even though the name itself had been taken up by Marvel Comics (via a circuitous and quirky robotic character published by Carl Burgos and M.F. Publications in 1967) decided to tap into that discriminating older, nostalgia fuelled fan-base, even as the entire entertainment world began looking back in time for fresh entertainments such as The Waltons or Little House on the Prairie…

In 1973, riding that burgeoning wave of nostalgia, DC brought back the entire beloved cast of the Captain Marvel strips: restored to their own kinder, weirder universe. To circumvent an intellectual property clash, they entitled the new comic book Shazam! (‘With One Magic Word…’; the trigger phrase used by the Marvels to transform to and from mortal form and a word that had already entered the American language due to the success of the franchise the first time around.

You know what comics fans are like: they had been arguing for decades – and still do – over who was best (for which read “who would win if they fought?”) out of Superman or Captain Marvel. Eventually, though excised from the regular DCU and stuck on a parallel universe, the old commercial rivals met and clashed a number of times, but until the landmark Crisis on Infinite Earths subsumed all those myriad worlds into one overarching continuity, the most powerful heroes in existence maintained the status of “equal but separate”.

In that new reality everything happened in one cosmos and Captain Marvel was fully rebooted and integrated. The basics remained untouched: homeless orphan and good kid Billy Batson was selected by an ancient wizard to be given the powers of six gods and heroes to battle injustice. He is given the ability to transform from scrawny precocious kid to brawny (adult) hero by speaking aloud the wizard’s acronymic name – invoking the powers of legendary patrons Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury.

After twenty years in this iteration, Captain Marvel’s early days were re-explored in this canny, big-hearted thriller which reveals the details of the first shared case of paragons of power.

Written by Judd Winick and illustrated by Joshua Middleton in a painterly style gloriously reminiscent of the old Fleischer Studio Superman cartoons, this magical treat is chronologically set just after Superman: Man of Steel volume 1 and The Power of Shazam! original graphic novel, and opens with ‘A Face in the Crowd’ as a new hero begins saving lives in West Coast Fawcett City, whilst a continent eastwards in Metropolis, Superman stumbles onto a museum robbery and is surprisingly beaten by thieves employing magic. The robbers belong to a cult – the Temple of Bagdan – and are on a nationwide spree to collect ancient Russian relics for some sinister master-plan…

In Fawcett, Marvel destroys giant robots attacking a new solar powered construction site designed by Doctor Bruce Gordon, unexpectedly inspiring the enmity of billionaire industrialist Thaddeus Sivana. Although the owner of the Solar Center project, Sivana has huge petrochemical interests and only intended his eco-friendly enterprise as a tax-shelter. He certainly has no intention of supplying cheap, clean energy to the proles of “his” city…

In a make-shift shelter, homeless kid Billy Batson talks his day over with Scoot Cooper, another hard-luck kid and the only person who knows his secret, even as Sivana deals with his hated East Coast rival Lex Luthor. The arrogant Metropolis financier has experience with super-powered meddlers and resources to combat their interference. It’s time to make a deal with a devil…

Later when the Bagdan cultists raid Fawcett’s McKeon History Museum, Marvel is waiting for them but is also overmatched by the magical Mallus Trolls employed by the thieves. At least until Superman shows up…

The team-up explodes into action in ‘Odd Couples’ with the heroes battling together, discovering their similarities and major differences even as in Metropolis Luthor sells Sivana the answer to all his superhero problems: an exemplary operative dubbed Spec…

The cultists have again escaped however and are in the final stage of their plan. Having secured the mystic paraphernalia to summon consummate evil they then force disturbed kidnap victim Timothy Barnes to become host to six infernal fiends. Sabbac is the antithesis of Shazam’s agent: a supernatural super-being sponsored by devil-lords Satan, Aym, Belial, Beeelzebub, Asmodeus and Createis in the way the ancient gods and heroes empower Captain Marvel, and he is free to wreak havoc and destruction upon the world.

To make matters worse, at that very moment Bruce Gordon succumbs to his own twilight curse at the Solar Centre as a lunar eclipse allows the diabolical Spirit of Vengeance to escape from his fleshy prison…

‘Titans’ finds Captain Marvel furious battling his dark counterpart as Superman struggles against not only the evil Eclipso but also his possessed army of innocents enslaved by the dark destroyer’s black diamond. When Sivana secretly funded the cultists he intended their tool to simply destroy Gordon and his power plant but now events have spiralled beyond anyone’s control. Even as the hated heroes inadvertently fix both of Sivana’s awry schemes, Spec is hunting through Fawcett. Soon his astounding abilities have ferreted out Billy Batson’s secret and arranged a permanent solution…

The drama roars to a terrific conclusion in ‘Men and Boys! Gods and Thunder!’ as a paramilitary hit squad attempts to gun down the merely human Billy but only hits his best friend instead, leaving Sivana to face the wrath of a lonely, bitter 10-year old boy, amok and enraged with righteous fury in the body of one of the most powerful creatures in the universe…

In the awesome aftermath Superman decides to deal with the shell-shocked Marvel in a way that will change both of their lives forever…

This is a big, bold, grand old fashioned comicbook romp full of big fights, dastardly villains, giant monsters, big robots and lasting camaraderie that will delight all lovers of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction, and whilst not a breakthrough classic like Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns, is an equally mythic retelling of superhero mythology which ranks amongst the very best of the genre.
© 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman Chronicles volumes 1 & 2

New, Revised Review

By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Gardner Fox, Sheldon Moldoff, Jerry Robinson, George Roussos & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0445-7 & 978-1-4012-0790-8

For anyone who’s read more than a few of these posts, my tastes should be fairly apparent, but in case you’re in any doubt, here’s a flat-out confession: I’m that shabby, crazy old geezer muttering at the bus stop about how things were better before, and all new things are crap and not the same and…

You get the picture. Now, ignore all that. It’s true but not relevant.

Batman Chronicles is one of many formats re-presenting the earliest Batman stories. The series does so in original, chronological order, foregoing glossy and expensive high-definition paper and reproduction techniques in favour of newsprint-like paper, and the same flat, bright-yet-muted colour palette which graced the originals.

There’s no fuss, fiddle or Foreword, and the book steams straight into the meat of the matter with Volume 1 re-presenting the stunning covers and all Dark Knight material from Detective Comics #27 through #38, (which introduced Robin, The Boy Wonder), and then the landmark Batman #1 covering May 1939-April 1940.

Detective Comics #27 introduced “The Bat-Man” and playboy/dilettante criminologist in ‘The Case of the Chemical Syndicate’ by Bob Kane & collaborator Bill Finger, wherein a cabal of sinister industrialists were successively murdered until an eerie human bat intruded on Police Commissioner Gordon‘s stalled investigation and ruthlessly dealt with the hidden killer.

Issue #28 saw the fugitive vigilante return to crush ‘Frenchy Blake’s Jewel Gang’ before encountering his very first psychopathic killer. ‘The Batman Meets Doctor Death’ was a deadly duel of wits with deranged, greedy General Practitioner Karl Hellfern and his assorted instruments of murder…

Confident of their new character’s potential, Kane & Finger revived the mad medic for the very next instalment and ‘The Return of Doctor Death’, before Gardner Fox scripted a 2-part shocker which introduced the first bat-plane, Bruce’s girlfriend Julie Madison and undead horror The Monk for an expansive spooky saga ‘Batman Versus The Vampire‘. The gripping yarn then concluded in an epic chase across Eastern Europe and a spectacular climax in a monster-filled castle in issue #32.

Detective Comics #33 featured ‘The Batman Wars Against the Dirigible of Doom’: a blockbusting disaster thriller which just casually slipped in the secret origin of the Gotham Guardian, as prelude to the air-pirate action, after which Euro-trash dastard Duc D’Orterre found his uncanny science and unsavoury appetites no match for the mighty Batman in ‘Peril in Paris’.

Scripter Bill Finger returned in issue #35, pitting the Cowled Crusader against crazed cultists murdering everyone who had seen their sacred jewel in ‘The Case of the Ruby Idol’, although the many deaths were caused by a far more prosaic villainy, after which grotesque criminal genius ‘Professor Hugo Strange’ (inked by new kid Jerry Robinson) debuted with his murderous man-made fog and lightning machine in #36, and all-pervasive ‘The Spies’ ultimately proved no match for the vengeful masked Manhunter in #37.

Detective Comics #38 (April 1940) changed the landscape of comicbooks forever with the introduction of ‘Robin, The Boy Wonder’: child trapeze artist Dick Grayson whose parents were murdered before his eyes and who joined Batman in a lifelong quest for justice, by bringing to justice mobster Boss Zucco…

After the Flying Grayson‘s killers were captured, Batman #1 (Spring 1940) opened proceedings with a recycled origin culled from portions of Detective Comics #33 and 34. ‘The Legend of the Batman – Who He Is and How He Came to Be!’ by Fox, Kane & Moldoff offered in two perfect pages what is still the best ever origin of the character, after which ‘The Joker’ (Finger, Kane & Robinson – who produced all the remaining tales in this astonishing premiere issue) introduced the greatest villain in DC’s entire rogues’ gallery via a stunning tale of extortion and wilful wanton murder.

‘Professor Hugo Strange and the Monsters’ followed as the old adversary returned with laboratory-grown hyperthyroid horrors to rampage through the terrified city, and ‘The Cat’ – who later added the suffix ‘Woman’ to her name to avoid any possible doubt or confusion – plied her felonious trade of jewel theft aboard the wrong cruise-liner and fell foul for the first time of the dashing Dynamic Duo.

The initial issue and the first Chronicles edition ended with the ‘The Joker Returns’ as the sinister clown broke jail and resumed his terrifying campaign of murder for fun and profit before “dying” in mortal combat with the Gotham Guardian.

 

Volume 2 featured more masterpieces from the dawn of comic-book time, re-presenting Detective Comics #39 through to #45, a story from New York World’s Fair Comics 1940, and Batman #2-3, covering May to November 1940 in original publishing order. Following a superb pin-up of the Dynamic Duo by Kane, the tense suspense and all-out action opens with The Horde of the Green Dragon” – oriental Tong killers in Chinatown – from Detective #39 by Finger, Kane & Robinson, before ‘Beware of Clayface!’ found the Dynamic Duo solving a string of murders on a film set which almost saw Julie Madison become the latest victim of a monstrous movie maniac…

Batman and Robin solved the baffling mystery of a kidnapped boy in Detective #41’s ‘A Master Murderer’ before enjoying their second solo outing in four comics classics from Batman #2 (Summer 1940).

It all began with ‘Joker Meets Cat-Woman‘ (by Finger, Kane, Robinson & extremely impressive new find George Roussos) wherein svelte thief, homicidal jester and a crime syndicate all tussled for the same treasure with the Caped Crusaders caught in the middle.

‘Wolf, the Crime Master’ was a fascinating take on the classic Jekyll and Hyde tragedy after which an insidious  and ingenious murder-mystery ensued in ‘The Case of the Clubfoot Murderers’ before Batman and Robin faced uncanny savages and ruthless showbiz promoters in a poignant monster story ‘The Case of the Missing Link’.

‘Batman and Robin Visit the New York World’s Fair’ from New York World’s Fair Comics which vintage wonderment – by Finger, Kane & Roussos – then followed the vacationing Dynamic Duo as they tracked down a maniac mastermind with a metal-dissolving ray, after which Detective Comics #42 again found the heroes ending another murder maniac’s rampage in ‘The Case of the Prophetic Pictures!’ before clashing with a corrupt mayor in #43’s ‘The Case of the City of Terror!’

An unparallelled hit, the stories perforce expanded their parameters in #44 with the dreamy fantasy of giants and goblins ‘The Land Behind the Light!’, after which Batman #3 (Fall 1940) saw Finger, Kane, Robinson & Roussos rise to even greater heights, beginning with ‘The Strange Case of the Diabolical Puppet Master’: an eerie episode of uncanny mesmerism and infamous espionage…

Next up was a grisly scheme wherein innocent citizens were mysteriously transformed into specimens of horror and artworks destroyed by the spiteful commands of ‘The Ugliest Man in the World’ before ‘The Crime School For Boys!!’ saw Robin infiltrate a gang who had a cruel and cunning recruitment plan for dead-end kids…

‘The Batman vs. The Cat-Woman’ found the larcenous burglar in well over her head when she stole for – and from – the wrong people, and the issue also included a magical Special Feature as ‘The Batman Says’ presented an illustrated prose Law & Order pep-talk crafted by Whitney Ellsworth and Robinson.

This second terrific tome then concludes with a magnificent and horrific Joker jape from Detective Comics #45 with ‘The Case of the Laughing Death’ wherein the Harlequin of Hate devised a campaign of macabre murder against everyone who had defied or offended him…

Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson and their compatriots created an iconography which carried the Batman feature well beyond its allotted life-span until later creators could re-invigorate it. They added a new dimension to children’s reading… and their work is still captivatingly accessible.

Moreover, these early stories set the standard for comic superheroes. Whatever you like now, you owe it to these stories. Superman gave us the idea, but writers like Finger and Fox refined and defined the meta-structure of the costumed crime-fighter. Where the Man of Steel was as much Social Force and wish fulfilment as hero, Batman and Robin did what we ordinary mortals wanted to do. They taught bad people the lesson they deserved.

These are tales of elemental power and joyful exuberance, brimming with deep mood and addictive action. Comic book heroics simply don’t come any better.

The history of the American comicbook industry in almost every major aspect stems from the raw, vital and still powerfully compelling tales of twin icons published by DC/National Comics: Superman and Batman. It’s only fair and fitting that both those characters are still going strong and that their earliest adventures can be relived in chronological order in a variety of formats from relatively economical newsprint paperbacks to stunning, deluxe hardcover commemorative Archive editions.

One final thing: I’m still that guy in paragraph one, right? I’ve read these stories many, many times, in every format imaginable, and I’d like to thank whoever decided that they should also be available in as close a facsimile to the originals as we can get these days.

More than anything else, this serves to perfectly recapture the mood and impact of that revolutionary masked avenger and, of course, delights my heavily concealed inner child no end.
© 1939, 1940, 2005 DC Comics and © 1940, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity

New, Revised Review

By Matt Wagner with Dave Stewart & Sean Konot (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0187-6 (TPB)         978-1-4012-0309-2 (HC)

Comics fans – especially aficionados of the superhero genre – have an innate appreciation and love of mythologizing. It lures like a siren, hits like a titan and dictates our lives and fate like Ragnarok arrived. We just can’t help ourselves…

DC comics have been compiling just such a feast of legend since the very creation of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, slowly interweaving these undying fantasy favourites into a rich tapestry of perfect adventure which has taken on a life of its own, inextricably entrenched in the dream-lives of generations of children and the adults they became.

However it was only relatively recently that DC tacitly acknowledged or even realised the imaginative treasure-trove they were sitting on. However, the publishers were quick to respond when they did wise-up, cannily building on the epic, cross-generational appeal of the elder statesman appeal of their stars. Amongst the most impressive of the efforts is this tale, originally released as a three-part (of course) Prestige Format miniseries in 2003.

Auteur Matt Wagner – who has an uncanny gift for re-imagining and updating the raw power of Golden Age classics (as seen in Batman and the Mad Monk or Sandman Mystery Theatre for example) – was tapped to reveal a new, canonical first meeting of the all-conquering triumvirate and he did not disappoint…

Following an effusive Introduction from novelist and A-List comics-scribe Brad Meltzer, the story opens in the Art Deco Metropolis as oafish Clark Kent‘s morning is ruined by an assassin who shoots a commuter train driver and brings the morning rush-hour to a screeching, crashing, cataclysmic halt…

It soon becomes clear that the subsequent near-disaster has been devised simply to distract and properly assess the mighty Man of Steel. That night a daring raid on S.T.A.R. Labs is ruthlessly foiled by a silent, caped visitor to the “City of Tomorrow” but Superman knows nothing about it until it’s all over.

…And at the bottom of the world more mysterious masked minions at last liberate Superman’s warped and retarded clonal antithesis Bizarro from its icy imprisonment deep beneath the Antarctic mantle…

Another promising day is spoiled for the reporter by a visit from Bruce Wayne, a reluctant occasional ally, and equally obnoxious whether in his playboy charade or as his true self: the dread Batman.

The visit is a courtesy call between distant colleagues. A terrorist group called “The Purge” would have obtained samples of Kryptonite if the Dark Knight hadn’t intervened, but now they plan to raid Lex Luthor’s citadel and professional courtesy demanded that Superman be fully apprised…

Meanwhile in a most secret hideaway a strangely formidable young girl named Diana auditions for the Most Dangerous Man on Earth: an overlord in need of a perfect warrior to lead his massed forces…

Ra’s Al Ghul always gets what he wants and after the charismatic Demon’s Head charms Bizarro with honeyed words of friendship, the freakish doppelganger is only too happy to bring him a present.

Tragically, Russian nuclear submarines are a bit tricky to handle and the super-simpleton manages to drop one of the atomic missiles en route. The lost nuke explodes far from any regular shipping lines, however. Apart from fish, the only creatures affected are a race of immortal women warriors, invisible to mortal eyes and forgotten by Man’s World for millennia…

As mysterious mercenary Diana prepares to carry out The Demon’s orders, in Metropolis another Amazon tracks down Superman and politely enquires why he dropped an A-Bomb on her home. Eschewing rash accusations or pointless fisticuffs they soon come to realise the true nature of the horrific event and unite to track the stolen sub to the Sahara, promptly falling into an ambush by Al Ghul’s fanatical forces.

The guns, knives, nerve gas and suicide bombers prove no problem but the booby-trapped nuke is another matter entirely…

Barely surviving the detonation, Man of Steel and Princess of Power head for GothamCity to seek the grudging assistance of The Demon’s most implacable foe, but the Dark Knight is already on the case, having just unsuccessfully engaged with Al Ghul’s Amazonian field commander.

Reluctant to admit a need for allies and inherently suspicious of bright and shiny super-people chronically unable to make hard decisions or get their hands dirty, Batman nevertheless enters into a tenuous alliance with the dilettante champions to stop the insane plans of an immortal madman determined to wipe out modern civilisation and cleanse the Earth of toxic humanity…

Hard-hitting, epic and spectacular, this Wagnerian (you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to use that) saga superbly illustrates the vast gulfs between the so-different heroes and how they nevertheless mesh to form the perfect team. Strongly character-driven throughout, the protracted struggle to defeat Al Ghul and his infamous allies offers tension, humour, mystery and powerful plot-twists galore, all wrapped up in a bombastic feast of frenzied action and supplemented with savvy cameos and guest shots by other, albeit lesser, keystones of  the DCU.

Stunningly illustrated by Wagner, lavishly coloured by Dave Stewart and subtly lettered by Sean Konot, the book also includes a glorious cover gallery and a beautiful Sketchbook section featuring many of the artist’s preliminary drawings and ideas.

When producing this type of tale there’s always the dilemma of whether to trade on current continuity or to deconstruct and attain a more grandiose, mythic feel, but part-time and casual readers need not worry. Wagner has hewn to the evergreen fundamentals to craft a gratifyingly “Big” story which still manages to reveal more about the individual stars involved than a year’s worth of periodical publishing.

Trinity is primal adventure: accessible, exciting and rewarding, with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman as they should always be but so seldom are. Team ups and retrofits should all be this good.
© 2003, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.