Category: Graphic Novels

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Ultimate Comics X-Men: Divided We Fall, United We Stand


By Brian Wood, Paco Medina, Reilly Brown, Carlo Barberi, Agustin Padilla, Juan Vlasco & Terry Pallot (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-525-3

Marvel’s Ultimates imprint launched in 2000 with major characters and concepts re-imagined to bring them into line with the presumed-more sophisticated tastes of modern readers and free from decades of extraneous story baggage.

Eventually the alternate, darkly nihilistic universe became as continuity-constricted as its predecessor, and in 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which apparently (this is still comics, after all) killed dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals.

The era-ending event was a colossal tsunami triggered by mutant terrorist messiah Magneto which inundated the superhero-heavy island of Manhattan and utterly devastated the world’s mutant population. The X-Men – and many other superhumans, good and bad – died, and in the aftermath anybody classed as “Homo Superior” had to surrender to the authorities or be shot on sight. Understandably most survivors as well any newly emergent X-people kept themselves well hidden…

Mutants had always been feared and despised. As the indisputable inheritors of Earth, the often lethally-empowered and wildly uncontrollable creatures were generally believed to be an intrinsically hostile species: the new race destined to take the world from humanity as we took it from the Neanderthals…

This volume, collecting Ultimate Comics: X-Men issues #13-18 (August – December 2012), is part of an imprint-wide crossover which saw America fall into chaos and civil war, with the events affecting and seen from the points of view of a new Spider-Man, a restored team of Ultimates and the current crop of X-Men…

The world had been stumbling from crisis to catastrophe ever since the Deluge (for fuller comprehension the reader is also advised that a thorough reading of companion series Ultimate Comics: the Ultimates volumes 1 & 2 will greatly enhance understanding of the parlous state of this alternate universe in its darkest hours) when word was leaked that all the mutants proliferating around the globe were the result of a 50-year old covert program of genetic manipulation which had slipped from American control, rather than a process of inexorable evolution and natural selection.

Humanity went crazy and a wave of violent prejudice quickly threatened the existence of the feared and despised metahuman lab-rats. In the political furore following the disclosure, bloodshed grew to global panic and a genetic arms-race in Asia (see Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye and The Ultimates: The Republic is Burning), and the 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 terrorist group known as the Brotherhood of Mutants.

The super-swift manipulator had a Faustian Bargain for the severely embattled 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 humanity…

Quicksilver planned to co-opt the latest Nimrod Sentinels to his own purposes but Stryker had outwitted him by taking personal control of the entire program.

The hate-filled preacher then unleashed every killer robot in America’s arsenal to hunt down all remaining mutants wherever they might be hiding, turning a large part of the southwest USA into a killing zone where the freaks were held in experimental facilities, just waiting to die…

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

Tragically, before the situation could escalate further, the sky filled with unstoppable Nimrods who began their program of total eradication by indiscriminately targeting human and aberration alike…

…And after the camps, the Nimrods turned their attention on those human cities which foolishly allowed mutants to live amongst them, before beginning to construct their own robotic god and master – a Supreme Sentinel which somehow gained the personality of the recently killed Reverend Stryker…

Simultaneously in Washington DC, the President and the entire Cabinet were wiped out in a nuclear attack from Reed Richards‘ future men of the Dome (that’s all in the Ultimates volumes) whilst Texas seceded from the Union, provoking a series of similar rebellions by 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 began…

Former X-Man Karen Grant (nee Jean Grey) had been secretly continuing Charles Xavier‘s dream of fostering Human/Mutant co-existence and had gathered a few young mutants together for safety. After vanishing during the burgeoning Asian conflict her role had been taken up by “Mutant Terrorist” and public enemy Kitty Pryde…

Now Jimmy Hudson (whose dead father Wolverine had been revealed as the Military’s ‘Mutant Zero’), languished in hiding with Pryde as well as Iceman Bobby Drake, Marian “Rogue” Carlisle and Human Torch Johnny Storm, all on the run ever since their friend and fellow teen prodigy Peter Parker was murdered in his Spider-Man identity…

The kids had been laying low after Stryker was killed trying to eradicate all of New York’s mutants in a televised ambush. The kids had all survived and subsequently become accidental guardians to a group of mutant children found in tunnels beneath the city…

Written in entirety by Brian Wood, the unRealpolitik begins with ‘Born Free’ (art by Paco Medina, Reilly Brown, Juan Vlasco & Terry Pallot) as Kitty and her band reel in shock as President Howard officially cedes control of the Sentinel-held southwest states to human anti-mutant militias and mechanical murderers; legitimising the mass murder of their rare breed…

Unable to abide any more, Pryde decides to make a stand and invites any who feel the same to join her as she travels across her hostile homeland to Camp Angel. Only Johnny declines: as a mere enhanced human, he believes he’ll be safely left alone to look after their young mutant charges. He’s tragically mistaken and has sorely misjudged how much mankind can hate the different…

The twinned event begins with ‘Divided We Fall‘ and the 2-part ‘Road Worn’ as the freedom fighters escape from New York and slowly make their way across the broken country to Sentinel-subdued Arizona/New Mexico/Utah/Oklahoma, encountering and defeating vile prejudice and murderous men, but only by surrendering to those worst aspects of behaviour that they apparently share with savage unforgiving humanity…

At their lowest point the teen rebels link up with the long-undercover Nick Fury and a young mutant Paige Guthrie. The disgraced and disavowed superspy has been secretly saving the hunted Homo Superior and hiding them from the hordes of would-be genetic purifiers…

Now with inspirational and gutsy fighters to inspire his demoralised charges, Fury takes a back seat and schools Kitty in the role of Mutant Messiah for the upbeat fight back of ‘United We Stand:’ (illustrated by Barberi, Medina, Vlasco & Agustin Padilla)…

The desperate campaign begins with an assault on a newly constructed death-camp and the visible destruction of a brace of the not-so-invulnerable Nimrods, but these robot killers have hidden advantages the freedom fighters are painfully unaware of.

Soon the colossal Super Sentinel that thinks it is William Stryker is on the move with his entire artificial army assembled to wipe out the stain of mutants forever…

As other sectors of the sundered country begin their own climactic last battles, in the southwest states the tiny mutant force faces its greatest martial threat and emerges as an independent Mutant Nation, but victory only brings new problems…

This bombastic battle for life, liberty and honour is deliberately tangential to the other story arcs comprising the full saga (and can thus be read independently if desired), so I’m not going to spoil the manner in which Kitty’s magnificent triumph is soured, except to say that the new President of the forcibly re-United States extends the hand of friendship and cooperation whilst simultaneously offering the rebel leader the most punishing of choices…

The darkly trenchant, nihilistically cynical Ultimate fare, with its trademark post-modernity and bleakly brutal action, still delivers the grim ‘n’ gritty punch fans crave, but sweetens the deal here by offering a powerfully uplifting message of hope for the determinedly worthy that is both satisfying and keenly tantalising. However for maximum impact you really should read the other two collections in this triptych of comics delights…

As usual the volume also contains a gallery of covers and variants by Kaare Andrews, Dave Johnson & Phil Noto, Jorge Molina & Adi Granov, and this up-to-the-minute epic also incorporates 21st century extras for all those tech-savvy consumers with added value in mind.

Many chapters contain an AR icon (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which gives access to all sorts of story extras once you download the little dickens – for free – from marvel.com onto your iPhone or Android-enabled device.

Stay tuned, fans, there’s much more to come…
™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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X-Men – First Class: Finals


By Jeff Parker, Amilcar Pinna, Roger Cruz & Colleen Coover, Len Wein & Dave Cockrum (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-4051-3348-3

Radical perpetual change – or at least the appearance of such – is a cornerstone of 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 intervening decades the franchise has repeatedly represented, refashioned and updated the formative early epics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Roy Thomas and Werner Roth to give a solid underpinning to all the modern Mutant mayhem.

A case in point is this rather impressive and deliriously fun-filled restating of the Mutant paradigm from Marvel wherein the latest status quo gets the boot and a new beginning equates with a return to the good old days…

Most people who read comics have a passing familiarity with Marvel’s ever-changing X-Men franchise, and newcomers or occasional consumers won’t have too much trouble following the backstory, so let’s plunge in as the hostile world once more kicks sand in the faces of the planet’s most dangerous and reviled minority…

In 1963 The X-Men #1 introduced gloomy, serious Scott Summers/Cyclops, ebullient Bobby Drake/Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III/Angel, Jean Grey/Marvel Girl and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy/Beast: very special youngsters and students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath 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.

The team was also occasionally supplemented by magnetic minx Polaris and cosmic powerhouse Havok – although they were usually referred to respectively if not respectfully as Lorna Dane and Scott’s brother Alex.

After nearly a decade of eccentric, mind-blowing adventures, the masked misfits faded away in early 1970 when mystery and supernatural horror themes once again gripped the world’s entertainment fields causing a consequent sustained downturn in costumed hero comics.

Although the title was revived at the end of the year as a cheap reprint package, the mutants were reduced to guest-stars and bit-players across the Marvel Universe whilst the Beast was further mutated into a monster to cash in on the new boom. A few years later Marvel Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas green-lighted a risky Giant-Size one-shot as part of the company’s line of over-sized specials. The introduction of a fresh team of mutants made history and began a still-burgeoning frenzied phenomenon…

In 2006 those deliriously naive secret school days inspired X-Men First Class (a comicbook iteration, not the movie) which once again updated and reinterpreted the seminal 1960s adventures for a far more sophisticated modern audience (as had happened twice before in the intervening decades).

An 8-issue miniseries and a One-Shot Special led to a further 16 issue run: retrofitting old material and creating new stories by in-filling cases and teaming the teenaged school squad with assorted guest stars such as Doctor Strange, Man-Thing, Gorilla-Man, Thor and Invisible Woman, and even leading to a number of spin-off series based on the same winning “untold X-tales” format.

However all good things come to an end – until the next time a few years from now – and the junior league finally had to move on into their later lives and rejoin the ongoing Marvel Universe continuity. Thus in 2009 the 4-issue miniseries X-Men – First Class: Finals revealed the story of the student heroes’ graduation and fed directly into the tale which would introduce the All-New, All Different modern team…

Written throughout by Jeff Parker and coloured by Val Staples, the end begins with ‘Seniorities’ – illustrated by Roger Cruz – wherein the boys inexplicably find themselves in a fantastic realm and at last shamefully realise that they are conscious and experiencing the newly telepathic Jean’s dreams. The visual tour and fearful panorama make them all realise how far they’ve come since joining the XavierSchool.

The Professor would know what to do but he’s gone now…

Back in the waking world later, a Danger Room training session gets inexplicably out of hand resulting in lots of collateral damage, but the kids are soon in genuine peril when horrific and formidable mutant marauder Frederick comes calling, looking for a rematch with Cyclops…

Each chapter here is broken up with a comedic short by Parker & Colleen Coover so, after ‘Scott and Jean Go on a Date!’, the suspense recommences with ‘Beginning of the End’ (by Amilcar Pinna & Cruz) as the vengeful monstrosity attempts to make Summers pay for past indignities by killing the so-serious class captain’s classmates. The overmatched heroes are only saved when one of their most feared enemies materialises, trashes Frederick and promptly vanishes again…

As Henry McCoy ponders a job offer from the multinational Brand Corporation following his graduation (for the outcome of that you’ll need to check out Essential Classic X-Men volume 3), the anxious students track a mutant sighting on electronic wonder-computer Cerebro.

The trail leads into the wilds of upstate New York and as the baffled champions search for answers they are attacked by an animated and extremely hostile pile of junk and machine scraps that look like the ghost of arch-enemy Magneto…

Following the charmingly daft interlude of ‘X-Date part 2’, the dread doom resumes in ‘Higher Learning’ as the inexplicable attacks and mystery rescues continue until the freshly returned Charles Xavier steps in to solve the riddle. However it’s actually Scott who deduces the true nature and origin of the ongoing threat, and after the madly whacky ending of ‘X-Date part 3’, the team unite to quell the insane attacks by entering and exorcising ‘The Mind of Jean Grey’…

This thoroughly entertaining read keeps the continuity baggage to a sustainable minimum for non-addicts and concentrates on delivering a vibrant fun and fast-paced rollercoaster thriller packed with smart laughs, heavy on action and light on extended sub-plots before the rather jarring jump to the added extra of the aforementioned Giant Size X-Men #1 from 1975.

Reprinted in full here the big, big blockbuster details how the original team was lost in action, forcing the distraught Professor X to scour Earth for replacements…

Recruiting established old foes-turned-friends Banshee and Sunfire plus Hulk villain and Canadian secret agent Wolverine, most of the Professor’s time and attention was invested in unexploited and hidden mutants scattered around the globe.

One such was Kurt Wagner, a demonic-looking German teleporter who would be codenamed Nightcrawler, whom Xavier saved from a religious lynch mob, after which the quest focussed on young Russian farm worker Peter Rasputin, who could transform into a living steel Colossus; embittered, disillusioned Apache superman John Proudstar – who was cajoled and pressured into joining the makeshift squad as Thunderbird, and Ororo Monroe, a young woman who comported herself as an African weather goddess and would be known as Storm. These raw replacements were all introduced in the stirring opening chapter ‘Second Genesis’…

‘…And When There Was One!’ found wounded team-captain Cyclops swiftly drilling the far from willing or eager team before leading them into primordial danger against the monolithic threat of ‘Krakoa… the Island That Walks Like a Man!’

Overcoming the phenomenal terror of a sentient mutant eco-system and rescuing the original team should have led to another Special, but so great was the groundswell of support that the follow-up adventure was reworked into a 2-parter for the rapidly reconfigured reprint monthly which became a bimonthly home to the team and began the mutant madness we’re still experiencing today.

Engaging, exciting and extremely entertaining, the saga perfectly wrapped up the school days of the First Class and led perfectly into a sequel series starring the newcomers and offering more untold moments of mutant mirth and mayhem…
© 1975, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Batman: Life After Death


By Tony S. Daniel, Guillem March, Sandu Florea, Norm Rapmund & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85767-123-2

At the climax of a harrowing and sustained campaign of terror by insidious cabal The Black Hand, Batman was apparently killed (by evil New God Darkseid during the “Final Crisis”). Although the news was kept from the general public, the superhero community secretly mourned whilst a small dedicated army of assistants, protégés and allies trained over the years by the Dark Knight formed a “Network” of champions to police GothamCity in the catastrophic days and weeks which followed: marking time until a successor could be found…

Most of the Batman-trained task force refuse to believe their inspirational mentor is dead and thus, believing him only lost, have accepted Dick Grayson – first Robin and latterly Nightwing – as the stand-in Gotham Guardian until Bruce Wayne can find his way back to them.

The transition has been bloody and brutal. Grayson had to stop an outcast contender who sought to usurp the legacy of Batman and turn the role of Dark Knight into debased red-handed avenger rather than benign shadowy protector. For now former Robin and erstwhile Red Hood Jason Todd has been defeated, abandoning his quest to become the new Gotham Guardian even as a new iteration of deceased crimelord Black Mask runs rampant in the city.

Crushed and cast aside in the savage gang-war with the triumphant mobster’s mind-controlled False Face Society, mercurial maniac Two-Face has simply vanished, whilst third force The Penguin has been apparently conquered and cowed: remaining only as a meek and compliant vassal of the triumphant newcomer.

Whoever he is, the current Black Mask is as sadistic, psychotic, meticulously methodical and strategically brilliant as his predecessor. His first move had been to free many of Batman’s most maniacal menaces – temporarily stored at Blackgate Prison after the infamous Arkham Asylum was destroyed. Despite the Network’s utmost efforts and the completion of a new high-tech institution, many of the worst inmates remain at large…

This terse and occasionally histrionic volume collects the contents of Batman #692-699 (December 2009 – July 2010) revealing the identity of the mastermind behind the mask and recounting the final fate of the pretender as well as heralding the return of a much misunderstood and fearfully underestimated foe…

Written and primarily pencilled by Tony S. Daniel, the eponymous saga ‘Life After Death’ begins with ‘The Awakening’ (inked by Sandu Florea) as Grayson – grudgingly assisted by Bruce Wayne’s assassin-trained son Damian as the latest Boy Wonder – continues to hunt the escapees and their Machiavellian manipulator…

So great was the crisis that the National Guard had been deployed to enforce Martial Law, driving back the False Face legions and more or less cordoning them into the Devil’s Square area of the city.

With the successor Batman and Police Commissioner Jim Gordon forced to play a waiting game, Black Mask and his inner circle – malignant “Ministry of Science” boffins Fright, Professor Hugo Strange and Dr. Death – go on the offensive by resurrecting a deadly nemesis even as the new director of Arkham seeks a way of undoing the brainwashing techniques used on the False Faces. Hard pressed on all fronts, Grayson seeks the unique assistance of his mentor’s greatest, most secret asset Selina Kyle, and together they discover a new player in the drama. Marco Falcone has returned to Gotham…

Years ago the original Batman had destroyed the power of the Mafia in the city, driving the last of the “Made Men” into exile and breaking the all-pervasive organisation of Carmine “The Roman” Falcone. Now his last surviving son seems intent on using the current chaos to reclaim his inheritance and re-establish the family business…

However the gangster has his own setbacks to deal with: his safe has just been broken into and the contents swiped by Catwoman. As well as cash and jewels the vault contained the most valuable and potentially dangerous document in Gotham…

Luckily for all concerned, Mario doesn’t realise the role his beloved “niece” Kitrina – a very capable and dangerous teenaged cat-burglar in her own right – played in that theft…

The Ministry of Science now has a ferociously hands-on new member. Concentration Camp survivor Dr. Grant Gruener once haunted Gotham as the scythe-wielding vigilante The Reaper, until his apparent demise at the gauntleted hands of the Dark Knight. After years of genetic tampering and behaviour modification by Strange, the killer is back and ready to resume his crusade…

Moreover new information has revealed that the mesmerised False Faces aren’t just enslaved career criminals but also have members recruited from ordinary law-abiding citizens, all equally mind-controlled by the hideous masks they wear – and now someone is killing them, guilty and innocent alike…

The campaign of terror continues as the headstrong and potentially lethal latest Robin joins his barely tolerated commanding officer in winnowing the hordes of False Faces before the pair are distracted by different enemy in ‘Charades’.

Bruce Wayne’s (if not Batman’s) ultimate adversary is Dr. Tommy Elliot, a beloved boyhood friend as warped by his own mother’s malign influence as Bruce was reshaped by the murder of his beloved parents.

Eminent surgeon Elliot became the twisted, sadistic and obsessive Hush to punish his only friend and childhood companion: one who had been perpetually held up to the troubled, never-good-enough kid as a perfect example of a son by Elliot’s deranged parent. Tommy even divined the billionaire’s greatest secret – the true identity of the Dark Knight…

After many deeply personal, psychotic attacks on Wayne’s legacy and Batman’s friends, Hush took the ultimate step in his psychological war against his oldest confidante by surgically transforming himself into Wayne’s mirror image and attempting to entirely usurp his life (see Batman – Streets of Gotham: Hush Money).

The Batman Family had never accepted that their mentor was dead, and all their actions were predicated upon the premise that he would eventually return to reclaim his mantle, so once Catwoman tracked down and emptied all Elliot’s hidden bank accounts Hush began trading on his stolen looks to rebuild his fortune and take another stab at revenge by bankrupting the Wayne financial empire, simultaneously removing the Bat-Network’s crucial operating capital at the same time…

Only recently reformed criminal-turned-High Society Private Eye Edward Nigma – still known as The Riddler – seemed to suspect the imposture, with Grayson and his comrades ironically compelled to publicly cover for the faux Bruce to keep their own secrets…

At a grand benefit to mark the re-opening of Arkham Asylum, Grayson and the undercover Huntress verbally spar with Elliot, Riddler and the Falcones, but when Kitrina perpetrates another robbery Nigma chases her and sustains a life-altering head injury…

Meanwhile in the bloody streets The Reaper is taking a brutal toll on Black Mask’s enemies and the general public too…

Batman begins his fight back by targeting the suspiciously quiescent Penguin in ‘Fractured Pieces’ even as the newly open Arkham begins to suffer mysterious attacks and its builders and administrators begin succumbing to tragic accidents. But even as the Dark Knight’s strategy prompts a murderous attack on the Bird Bandit by Black Mask forces, Mario has discovered Kitrina’s role in his misfortunes and takes steps to end her interference.

Tragically he has completely underestimated her abilities as he hunts for missing maps of Devil’s Square – and Black Mask’s secret sanctum – which she originally created and has now reclaimed…

Norm Rapmund joins Florea on inking with ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ as Kitrina begins her brutal retaliation against the Falcones and Batman discovers who she really is. As Mario flees the aftermath, the mob boss is ambushed by the Reaper and only the last minute intervention of Batman and Huntress save him from a grisly end.

On the deadly, near-deserted streets, Riddler’s confusion slowly abates as he begins making connections to a life he’d forgotten and re-experiences a compulsion long controlled…

The war takes an ugly turn in ‘Mind Games’ when the Penguin at last makes his move: enslaving Batman with Black Mask’s mind-binding gimmicks and dispatching the befuddled crimebuster to even the score – and perhaps even assassinate the murderous mastermind behind everyone’s woes…

By the time Robin has rescued his brainwashed senior partner, Kitrina has found an ally and mentor of her own – one with no love for the Falcones, Penguin or Black Mask and an agenda all her own – and the Boy Wonder’s unsavoury task is to reconstruct just what horrors Batman has committed since he fell under the spell of the mind-controlling mask.

Armed with inevitable conclusions, hard-won knowledge and unpalatable truths regarding presumed friends and foes, the new Dark Knight at last implacably ends the plague of unrest afflicting Gotham but, even after taking out the Ministry of Science, overcoming the rampaging Reaper and exposing Black Mask, the ‘Liberator’ and his Network allies are acutely aware that the job never ends and the battle is barely begun…

This collection then concludes with the 2-part ‘Riddle Me This’ (illustrated by Guillem March & colourist Tomeu Morey) as the Prince of Puzzlers encounters a murderous old associate in criminal conjuror Blackspell whose ‘Magic Tricks’ concealed a cunning, years-long revenge scheme.

However as the bloodshed and mystery escalated in ‘A Means to an End’ the increasingly overworked Batman was forced to accept that the obvious suspect might not be the guilty one… nor that all his allies were working with him…

Torturous, tumultuous, convoluted and challenging, this action-packed, high-octane Fights ‘n’ Tights drama will deliver all the thrills, spills and chill fans could hope for with impressive punch and panache aplenty. Moreover it’s all very, very pretty to look at and even the freshest neophyte is well aware that it’s all just a prelude to the return of the real Dark Knight…
© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Runaways: Rock Zombies


By Terry Moore, Chris Yost, James Asmus, Takeshi Miyazawa, Sara Pichelli, Emma Rios, Norman Lee, Craig Yeung & Roland Paris (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4074-0

The Runaways are a bunch of super-powered kids whose parents lied to them.

Whilst conveying an aura of affluent respectability, the adults were in actuality a secret cabal of super-criminals: “The Pride”. These extremely circumspect and clandestine villains played it smart for years and ran Los Angeles without the populace knowing they even existed – and were so ruthlessly dominant that most of the baddies and monsters in the Marvel Universe gave the city a wide berth.

When the appalled, betrayed offspring discovered the truth they rebelled and ran away (Duh!) and after many trials and tribulations – including the death of some of the pesky kids – the young absconders confronted, overthrew and eradicated their progenitors, with the unwelcome result that LA became a newly open city and soft target for ambitious costumed ne’er-do-wells and malevolent masterminds.

The orphans were briefly placed with well-meaning, clueless social services, but before long the renegades – who had inherited assorted powers, talents and devices, if not the amoral proclivities of their progenitors – were compelled to bolt: preferring to stick together on the streets rather than be separated again.

They also felt responsible for and were driven to protect the city they had unwittingly endangered. It was a dangerous wild life and the kids lost friends and recruited new members of the dysfunctional family with alarming frequency

…But not all of them were trustworthy either…

The underlying premise of this series is that adults can’t be trusted – only your friends – and this volume (collecting volume 3, issues #7-10 of the monthly comic-book) sees the kids, after adventures in New York and another century, resettled back in LA and endeavouring to taking their self-imposed role of city defenders seriously.

The current roster comprises Nico Minoru, last in a long line of hereditary sorcerers, whilst Karolina Dean was once the compliant daughter of two domineering aliens intent on global conquest. The extraterrestrial Valley Girl has just lost her lover (rebellious shape-shifting, gender-fluid apprentice Super-Skrull Prince Xavin) who sacrificed him/her/itself to save Karolina from vengeful alien invaders.

Little Molly Hayes is much younger than the others, a super-strong, invulnerable child of evil mutant parents, whilst oafish teen Chase Stein was the son of genuine mad scientists. He might not have inherited their intellects but he has got lots of toys from their arsenal. He also sort of inherited the genetically-augmented 87th century empathic dinosaur Old Lace when her adored previous owner Gertrude Yorkes was killed by the Pride.

Gert’s folks were time-travelling bandits and would-be world conquerors…

The latest editions to the group are Victor Mancha, who can control electricity and manipulate metals; gifts his “father” – genocidal robotic despot Ultron – considered quite useful in the secret weapon he was building and growing, and little Klara Prast, a 12-year Swiss girl rescued from her abusive husband in 1907. She can accelerate the growth and control the motion of plants, and thinks the 21st century is a joyous paradisiacal wonderland…

As this book opens with the 3-part tale ‘Rock Zombies’ by Terry Moore and artists Takeshi Miyazawa, Norman Lee, Craig Yeung & Roland Paris, the voluntary outcasts are back in LA LA land just taking it easy and bonding.

Over at radio station KZIT however, ambitious, greedy power-mad DJ Val Rhymin is chatting to an old friend. Wicked wizard and accountant Monk “Mother” Theppie has come far since the demise of the Minorus who kept the city’s magical denizens tightly bound, and Val’s talk of making zombies has produced a dark inspiration in the cagy mage/treasurer.

He can’t just magic up an army of enslaved undead, but he could use a transformation spell on something that many people have communally experienced. Something like plastic surgery, for example…

It’s Los Angeles: who knows how many people that sort of spell might affect…?

As Nico, Karolina and the younger girls tackle a hostage stand-off, Val is layering the spell into his latest dub mix and whilst the team are blithely vacationing in the desert the demented DJ plays it repeatedly on his show.

By the time the gang hit the city again, thousands of monster-zombies are rampaging through the sunny streets gathering booty for their avaricious master, and when Nico uses her mystic weapon the Staff of One to stop the ghastly rioters the spell is warped and hundreds of individual victims merge into a colossal composite horror…

Whilst she was in the past, the Last of the Minorus was captured and tortured by her own ancestor, a witch determined to make Nico attain her full potential. That scheme has clearly worked as her spells are fantastically stronger and drastically misfire every time she tries one…

After a further disastrous attempt to save the ensorcelled zombies, the kids withdraw and instead go after Rhymin at the Hollywood Bowl where he waits for his slaves to bring all the money and jewels they’ve been ordered to steal.

Also there is Mother, who attempts to steal Nico’s Staff – and regrets it for the last three seconds of his life…

With the wizard gone it doesn’t take the kids long to reverse the spell and save the day but Nico is now terrified by how lethally uncontrollable her power has become…

Issue #10 offered two tales, beginning with the hilarious ‘Mollifest Destiny’ by Chris Yost & Sara Pichelli. Molly is a super-strong and tough mutant going through those difficult bossy-boots years but she’s faithful, loyal and extremely protective of her friends.

Elsewhere in the world, the world’s mutant population was reduced to a couple of hundred desperate souls, following the temporary madness of the Avenger Scarlet Witch (as seen in the various House of M story-arcs).

Most of the empowered survivors banded together in self-imposed exile on Utopia Island in San Francisco Bay: a defensive enclave led and defended by the X-Men. Although generally welcomed by most of the easygoing residents of the city, tensions were high and leader Cyclops ran the colony in an increasingly draconian and military manner whilst telepath Emma Frost sent out a psychic summons offering all remaining mutants sanctuary.

Heeding the call, little Mollie reluctantly obeyed but she would rather have stayed with her friends…

…And after a very short while trying to deal with the hyper-active, super-curious, annoyingly perky, indestructible and incredibly destructive little girl, Colossus, the Beast, Frost, Cyclops and especially Wolverine were more than happy to return her to them – especially after Wolverine saw how Mollie dealt with a gang of super-villains who wanted to take revenge on the turbulent tyke for the unexpiated sins of her parents…

The stories end with a warmly informative character piece by James Asmus & Emma Rios, which finds the reunited runaways playing ‘Truth or Dare’ in the Malibu beach house they have appropriated.

As well as learning more about each other, the kids discover just how unruly Nico’s Staff has become after it grotesquely interacts with another mystic talisman recently confiscated from racist cult The Sons of the Serpent. There’s kissing and violence and giant snakes and icky grossness, dudes…

With covers and variants by Humberto Ramos, David LaFuente & Christina Strain, cover production art by LaFuente and design sketches from Rios, this marvellously upbeat and deliciously funny thriller is a superbly entertaining, thought-provoking Fights ‘n’ Tights treasure bursting with wit, action, horror, humour, charm and poignant passion, once more proving that superhero comics can surmount their escapist, gratuitous power-fantasy roots and deliver stories of depth and even joy.

© 2009 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four


By Christos Gage & Mario Alberti with Bill Mantlo, Mike Zeck, John Byrne & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4423-6

After a shaky start in 1962, The Amazing Spider-Man quickly became a popular sensation with kids of all ages, rivalling the groundbreaking creative powerhouse that was Lee & Kirby’s Fantastic Four. Eventually the quirky, charming action-packed comics soap-opera became the model for an entire generation of younger heroes who imperceptibly began elbowing aside the staid, more mature costumed-crimebusters of previous publications and eras.

Since the 1970s the Astounding Arachnid and his hard-luck alter ego Peter Parker have become full-blown multimedia icons and survived every manner of seemingly insane reboot and upgrade to become globally real in the manner of Sherlock Holmes, Mickey Mouse, Tarzan, Superman, Batman and Harry Potter.

The Fantastic Four are – more often than not – maverick genius Reed Richards, his fiancée (later wife) Sue Storm, their trusty friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother Johnny, driven survivors of a independently-funded space-shot which went horribly wrong after Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

When they crashed back to Earth, the quartet found that they had all been hideously mutated into outlandish freaks. Richards’ body became elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible and, eventually, project force-fields, Johnny could turn into living flame, and poor, tormented Ben was mutated into a horrifying brute who, unlike his comrades, could not return to a semblance of normality on command.

A core element of superhero comics is the “team-up” wherein costumed champions unite to tackle a greater than usual threat, or even each other; a sales-generating tactic taken to its logical extreme at Marvel wherein most early encounters between masked mystery men were generally prompted by jurisdictional disputes resulting in usually spectacular punch-ups before the heroes finally got on with allying to confront the real menace…

Combining Marvel’s biggest franchise and most creatively influential series, this slim, slick tome collects the 4-issue miniseries Spider-Man/Fantastic Four (from August to September 2010) by scripter Christos Gage and artist Mario Alberti, reprising their earlier trawl through key points of Marvel history affecting the wall-crawler and assorted iterations of X-Men.

Also focussing on the long, convoluted, inextricably interwoven relationship of the solitary web-spinner and the First Family of Superheroics, this compilation also offers an earlier crossover of the icons first seen in Peter Parker, the Sensational Spider-Man #42 and Fantastic Four #218 (both from May 1980).

The first chapter of the main story is set just after stuffy Mr. Fantastic and Sue Storm announced their engagement, a time when Peter Parker had just started college at Empire State University.

A ‘Crisis on Campus’ was triggered when the institution hosted a secret conference of world leaders and Victor Von Doom, absolute monarch of Balkan kingdom Latveria, demanded his arch-foes the FF should be his bodyguards. With the State Department pushing all the patriotism buttons the furious foursome had no choice but to reluctantly comply…

Intended merely as a means to aggravate and humiliate his enemies, the ploy became deadly serious when enraged Atlantean Prince Namor and his sub-sea legions attacked the meeting seeking vengeance on Doom.

Events escalated when the Iron Dictator refused to stay locked in a super-secure Panic Room and possessed the body of the Human Torch to personally rebuke the Sub-Mariner‘s insults. Total catastrophe seemed unavoidable until the physically overmatched web-spinner proffered a brilliantly sneaky way to break up the cataclysmic fight…

Unknown to all participants, however, a clandestine time-travelling foe was the chaos as cover to acquire elements necessary to bring about the downfall of his greatest foes and the very rewriting of history…

‘Symbiosis’ skips forward a few years to the time after the first Secret Wars, when Spider-Man discovered that his new smart-tech black costume was in fact an alien parasite. The uniform had attempted to bond permanently to Peter and had to be forcibly removed and contained by Reed and the FF.

The strange invader (see Spider-Man vs. Venom and Amazing Spider-Man: the Saga of the Alien Costume for further details) would eventually bond with deranged, disgraced reporter Eddie Brock, becoming Venom, a savage, shape-changing dark-side version of the Astounding Arachnid, but in this untold aside the cosmic creature broke free almost immediately, seizing control of Richards, temporary replacement She-Hulk and eventually Reed’s son Franklin.

The boy possessed dormant power on a level to reshape the universe and, as Spider-Man selflessly attempted to lure the Symbiote away by offering himself as a sacrifice, the mysterious time-thief again surreptitiously stepped in to purloin another artefact crucial to his plan…

Once the heroes had at last repelled and incarcerated the parasite peril, the saga shifted forward to the time when Skrull outlaw De’Lila invaded Earth, with her own people hot on her viridian high heels.

Evading heavy pursuit she attacked the FF and seemingly killed them. Disguised as a grieving Sue Richards she then recruited four heroes – The Hulk, Wolverine, Ghost Rider and Spider-Man – to hunt down the murderers.

Their quest took them deep into the bowels of the Earth and battle with the Mole Man and his legion of monsters, before she was exposed and defeated. The shapeshifting psionic siren had been seeking a semi-sentient ultimate weapon called a Technotroid and ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ occurs minutes after the close of the original story (for which see Fantastic Four: Monsters Unleashed) as the temporal raider frees De’Lila from her Skrull captors as a deadly diversion whilst he takes the essence of the Technotroid for himself

Deprived of her trademark duplicity but with her telepathic abilities augmented, the temptress simply makes most of the men and Skrull cops her love-slaves and sets them upon Sue, new temp Sharon “She-Thing” Ventura and Spider-Man, forcing the irrepressible wall-crawler to use the most shocking of tactics to free the males from their murderous stupors…

The decade-long scheme of the mystery time-bandit is finally revealed in the concluding chapter ‘Family Values’ as – in the present – Spider-Man is lured to the Fantastic Four’s HQ and attacked with the rest of the team by one they had long considered to be part of their exotic extended family, lost in combat years ago…

Armoured with ultimate power and sporting a colossal chip on his shoulder, the prodigal intends to destroy Dr. Doom and offers the astounded gathering a chance to prove their loyalty by joining him…

When they try to humour the clearly disturbed assailant he cracks and all hell breaks loose…

However not all the heroes’ power can affect the attacker but Spider-Man, child of misuse, ill-fortune and isolation thinks he sees a kindred damaged spirit in the maniacal marauder…

Wry, witty, explosively action-packed, bombastic and genuinely moving, this clever re-evaluation of the bonds between the First Family and the solitary Spider-Man is a delightful celebration of everything that made Marvel such a force for change in the industry, and it’s a real shame that new readers won’t be able to pick up on the historical continuity scholarship that underpins a great fun yarn. That being said, this is still a funnybook frolic the freshest newbie to comics can easily follow…

Following the fearsome festivities is a section of sketches, pencils, unused and working drawings from Alberti, before the compilation concludes with an old-school saga from Peter Parker, the Sensational Spider-Man #42 and Fantastic Four #218.

The action begins when ESU student Peter Parker goes on a class jaunt on a party boat  and is lured into a trap by the Frightful Four in ‘Give Me Liberty of Give Me Death’ by Bill Mantlo, Mike Zeck & Jim Mooney.

The villains had broadsided the wall-crawler after new recruit Electro impersonated the Human Torch and, in the concluding ‘When a Spider-Man Comes Calling!’ (FF #218 by Mantlo, John Byrne & Joe Sinnott, the Trapster repeats the tactic to ambush the crime-busting quartet, allowing his comrades the Wizard and Sandman to take over the Baxter Building citadel of the heroes.

…At least until the fighting-mad web-spinner finally breaks free to launch an unstoppable counter attack…

Most people who read comics have a passing familiarity with all these characters, and even occasional consumers won’t have too much trouble following the backstory in this magnificently compelling Costumed Drama, so if you’re looking for some fun-friendly Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy this could well be the one for you…
© 1980, 2010 and 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Spider-Man: With Great Power…


By David Lapham & Tony Harris, with Jim Clark, Stefano Gaudiano and Matt Milla (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1968-5

One of the most astounding comicbook stories ever began with the sublime origin tale of ‘Spider-Man!’ by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko in the last issue of  Amazing Fantasy #15 (cover-dated September 1962); describing in 11 captivating pages the parable of Peter Parker, a smart but alienated kid bitten by a radioactive spider on a High School science trip.

Discovering he had developed arachnid abilities – which he augmented with his own natural genius in the fields of chemistry, physics and engineering – the boy did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do when given such a gift…  he tried to milk for all it was worth in the hormone-fuelled determination to get girls, prestige, fame, money and girls.

Making a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor celebrity – and a criminally self-important one.

To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him one night after a TV interview, the self-aggrandized Peter didn’t lift a finger to stop the felon, only to find when he returned home that his guardian and uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.

Crazy with a need for vengeance, Peter hunted the assailant who had made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known, and tragically realised that it was the crook he couldn’t be bothered to stop.

His social irresponsibility had led to the death of the man who raised him and the boy swore to always use his powers to help others…

It wasn’t a new story, but the setting was one familiar to every kid reading it and the artwork was downright spooky. This wasn’t the gleaming high-tech world of moon-rockets, giant monsters and flying cars – this stuff could happen to anybody…

From that tortuous beginning Spider-Man swiftly evolved into one of the world’s most popular heroic characters with generations of writers returning to, mining and refining that simple tale for every possible nuance.

In 2008 star creators David Lapham and Tony Harris (with inkers Jim Clark and Stefano Gaudiano and colourist Matt Milla) took a hard look at the origin and came up with an impressive fresh avenue previously unexplored: what exactly happened during Parker’s brief fling with showbiz celebrity?

The result was a 5-issue miniseries under the elite Marvel Knights imprint that impressively added an even greater edge of tragedy and recrimination to the lad’s subsequent campaign and injustice…

Opening with the key page from the Lee/Ditko classic, most of this turbulent tale is set pretty much between those two panels and finds “the Spider-Man” signed up with a cheesy wrestling federation. The masked and obsessively secretive kid is obnoxiously revelling in his newfound power amongst these shady adult characters yet still being bullied in his “normal” life at High School: continually harassed by jock Flash Thompson whilst fruitlessly lusting after queen of the popular kids Liz Allen…

Uncle Ben and Aunt May are increasingly concerned by their sweet, clever boy. He’s become secretive, argumentative and unnaturally rebellious. Although they’ve been expecting it for years, the “Troubled Teen” phase is still a bit of shock and the solicitously understanding seniors combat it by giving the boy a clunky old car to show they accept his growing independence…

With the kid being taught all the tricks of show-fighting by the welcoming but jaded older wrestlers in the fight-stable, promoter Monty Caabash sees his compulsively anonymous new find as his ticket to the big time – and so do his gangster backers. With a lucrative West Coast TV sport show in the offing, they just can’t afford to lose their mysterious cash-cow, but the adulation and ready money is turning Peter’s head.

He dumps Uncle Ben’s gift in favour of a sports car only to wreck in a crazy drag race with Flash: an incident which puts him in an E.R., although his worried guardians have no idea since the unruly kid is frequently staying out all night these days…

As Monty invests more time and money in his prize fighter, the boy becomes a New York sensation and the promoter’s worldly-wise associate Tiffany LeBeck sees a way to use her own mature charms to win a piece of the millions Spider-Man could generate.

Before long the sex-starved kid is beguiled and besotted by the older woman’s charms and she becomes his manager; promising an inevitably clash with Monty’s ruthless backers.

At school Parker’s increased confidence has enabled him to make real headway with Liz too. With everything going right the ebullient boy spends some time back in his lab inventing a way to increase his cachet by inventing webbing and web-shooters: tricks that will make him even more spectacular in the ring and on the screen…

New York loves the mysterious celebrity and goes into media frenzy mode – all except the contrary publisher of the Daily Bugle. Inexplicably incensed, J. Jonah Jameson wants to know the truth about this Amazing Spider-Man and begins a highly provocative campaign against the wrestler and his management…

There are bigger stories. The first team of superheroes since WWII has emerged, battling monsters and villains with shining valour and full public disclosure. Spider-Man even watched the Fantastic Four in action once, battling the horrific spawn of the Miracle Man.

The kid was sitting in a safe skyscraper perch with one of his groupies nestled safely in his arms…

Peter doesn’t care about bad publicity and unfair comparisons: he’s a celebrity sportsman, not a crime-busting crusader. Even when a thief runs right past him after a TV interview, he does nothing. That’s the police’s job…

Ditching school, chasing girls, falling further under Tiffany’s slowly seductive influence, Peter gets a huge reality check when, during a confrontation with Uncle Ben outside a nightclub where he’s spent all night dancing with Liz, a colossal monster attacks the city, raining death and destruction upon hundreds of helpless citizens. Despite himself the boy explodes into action, saving Ben and his traumatised date, but horrifically failing to rescue a trapped stranger, even after the impressive man-monster dubbed The Thing comes to his assistance…

Shocked, confused and deeply upset in the aftermath, Parker gets blind drunk and returns to Tiffany’s boudoir, only to pass out too soon… Waking up face to face with Monty’s extremely unsavoury bosses he discovers the kind of people’s he’s involved with as chief hood Mr. Angel explains the facts of life.

Hollywood means big, legitimate money and Jameson’s smear campaign is making the TV execs nervous. So if everybody wants heroes like the FF, Spider-Man is going to be one – even if the mob has to set up kittens to rescue and slobs to save…

Peter complies but his heart isn’t in it: it’s only by sheer luck that he doesn’t cause the deaths of dozens of people and when that doesn’t placate Angel the racketeer opts to end his problems by shutting up Jameson for good…

Even Tiffany can’t handle that however and when she drunkenly reveals the scheme to her besotted boy Peter, he puts his mask back on and heads out to change his destiny forever…

With Jameson saved and his life back on track, Peter heads home to reconcile with Aunt May and Uncle Ben, only to find he house surrounded by police cars…

Dark, gritty, subtly sophisticated and rationally reasonable, this clever exploration of the in-between moments adds those layers of meaning to the tragic tale that modern, mature readers seem to dote on and, child of the simplistic Sixties though I am, even I found this extension of the classic story to be both beguiling and exceptionally entertaining.

This might not appeal to all readers but fans of the movie franchise will definitely find this a book worth pursuing.
© 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Gorilla-Man


By Jeff Parker, Jason Aaron, Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Giancarlo Caracuzzo, Jack Kirby, Bob Powell, Bob Q. Sale & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4911-8

Apes have long fascinated comics audiences, and although Marvel never reached the giddy heights of DC’s slavish and ubiquitous exploitation of the Anthropoid X-factor, the House of Ideas also dabbled in monkey madness over its long years of existence.

This slim mixed-bag of a tome gathers newer adventures of happily hirsute hero Ken Hale – gregarious Gorilla-Man of resurrected 1950s super-group pioneers Agents of Atlas – culled from the eponymous 2010 three-issue miniseries and supplemented with pertinent material from Avengers vs. Atlas #4, X-Men First Class #8, plus assorted earlier interpretations of Ape Avengers culled from the company’s back catalogue of anthology horror and mystery titles: specifically Men’s Adventures #26, Tales to Astonish #28 and 30 and Weird Wonder Tales #7.

What you need to know: the Agents of Atlas comprise rejuvenated 1950s super-spy Jimmy Woo and similarly vintaged superhuman crusaders Namora (Sub-Mariner’s cousin), spurious love-goddess Venus, a deeply disturbing unhuman Marvel Boy from Uranus, primitive wonder-robot M11 and the aforementioned anthropoid avenger. As the Atlas Foundation, these veterans surreptitiously fight for justice and a free world as the nominal leaders of a clandestine crime-cult which still thinks it’s being patiently guided towards the overthrow of all governments. The real power behind the organisation however is a terrible mystical dragon named Lao…

The modern mainstream saga concentrates on ‘Ken Hale, the Gorilla-Man: The Serpent and the Hawk’ – from Jeff Parker & Giancarlo Caracuzzo – by exploring the anthropoid adventurer’s origins following a particularly bizarre battle against spidery cyborg Borgia Omega.

In search of another action-packed mission, Hale spots a familiar face on an Atlas “wanted poster” and heads for Africa, flashbacking his past for us along the way.

Missouri, 1930 and a visiting big-shot spots something in a poor orphan kid holding his own against seven bigger boys who picked the wrong dirt-grubber to bully…

J. Avery Wolward was a millionaire man-of-intrigue with interests all over the globe and for the next decade little Kenny became his companion and partner in a series of non-stop escapades that would make Indiana Jones green with envy. Ken learned a lot about life and loyalty, eventually discovering that Wolward owed much of his success to a mystical snake walking stick.

Now that cane is in the hands of an African crime-lord calling himself Mustafa Kazun who is well on the way to stealing an entire country and building an empire of blood…

Each issue of the miniseries was augmented by comedic faux email conversations between Hale and his social networking fans, which delightfully act here to buffer the transitions between modern menace and reprinted monkey mystery tales.

The first of these is ‘It Walks Erect!’ taken from 1974’s Weird Wonder Tales #7 (which itself rescued the yarn from pre-Comics Code Mystery Tales #21(September 1954).

The story (by an unknown author and illustrated by the brilliant Bob Powell) concerns compulsive rogue surgeon Arthur Nagan whose obsession with brain transplants took a decidedly outré turn when his gorilla test-subjects rebelled and wreaked a darkly ironic revenge upon him…

Slavish fanboys like me might remember Nagan as the eventual leader of arcane villain alliance The Headmen… but probably not…

Hale’s origin resumes as he and local agent Ji Banda are attacked by Kazun’s enslaved army, but that doesn’t stop the simian superman describing how a clash with Wolward’s arch-rival Bastoc to recover an ancient bird talisman in Polynesia led the then-full-grown soldier-of-fortune to split with his mentor and enlist in the US military just before Pearl Harbor…

By the time the war ended Wolward was gone and the magnate’s daughter Lily had inherited both the family business and the walking stick…

After another message-board break, the classic ‘I Am the Gorilla Man’ (from Tales to Astonish #28 February 1962, by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) revealed how criminal genius Franz Radzik developed a mind-swapping process so that he could use a mighty ape’s body to commit robberies.

Sadly the big brain forgot that, with its personality in a human body, the anthropoid might have its own agenda and plenty of opportunity…

The conclusion of ‘The Serpent and the Hawk’ then sees Hale link up with a tribe of gorillas to overturn Kazun’s schemes and unlock the secret of the stick, even as his mind is firmly replaying his bad marriage to Lily, subsequent decline into drunken dissolution, recruitment by the arcane Mr. Lao, and eventual confrontation with the previous Immortal Gorilla-Man…

The role is an inherited one and a curse. To kill the undying Gorilla is to become him, and the previous victim had by this time had enough. Even after Hale refused to end the creature’s torment, it relentlessly followed him until it could trick the drunken mercenary into taking on the curse…

However, after linking up with 1950s heroes like Jimmy Woo and Venus, Hale found it truly liberating grew to accept his new status…

Thus when Kazun’s true identity is revealed and the weary adventurer offered a permanent if Faustian cure, Gorilla-Man makes the only choice a true champion can…

A final text presentation precedes Lee, Lieber, Kirby & Ayers’ ‘The Return of the Gorilla Man’ (from Tales to Astonish #30, April 1962) wherein Radzik, still locked in a gorilla’s body, escapes captivity and frantically attempts to prove to scientists how smart he is.

Big mistake…

Further insight into Hale is provided by ‘My Dinner with Gorilla-Man’ by Jason Aaron & Caracuzzo from Avengers vs. Atlas #4, as a desperate man with nothing to lose hunts down the ageless anthropoid, intent on fulfilling the ageless equation: “Kill the Gorilla and live forever”…

This is followed by a glorious romp from X-Men: First Class #8. ‘Treasure Hunters’ by Jeff Parker & Roger Cruz finds the debut generation of Xavier’s mutants – Cyclops, Angel, Beast, Iceman and Marvel Girl – hunting for their missing teacher in the Congo. Along the way they encounter a talking gorilla who becomes their guide, inadvertently pulling reclusive hermit Hale out of a decades-long funk…

This collection concludes with the seminal supernatural suspense thriller which first introduced ‘Gorilla Man’ to the world. Again by an anonymous writer (possibly Hank Chapman) and illustrated by the wonderful Robert (“Bob Q”) Sale, this evocative chiller from Men’s Adventures #26 (March 1954) offers a far grittier take on the origin as a man terrified of dying and plagued by nightmares of fighting apes hears a crazy legend and heads for Kenya and an inescapable, horrific destiny…

Also included is a selection of 21st century covers by Dave Johnson, Leonard Kirk, Dave McCaig, Gabrielle Dell’Otto, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado & Marko Djurdjevic, with the vintage frontages represented by Jack Kirby, Larry Lieber and Dick Ayers.

Outrageous, over the top and never taking itself seriously, this is a riot of hairy scary fun-filled frolics and a perfect antidote to po-faced Costumed Dramas.
© 1954, 2007, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Incredible Hercules: the New Prince of Power


By Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente, Ariel Olivetti, Paul Tobin, Reilly Brown, Jason Paz, Terry Pallot, Zach Howard, Adam Archer & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4370-3

Comicbook Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas are serious business – but they don’t have to be.

There are too few light-hearted adventure comics around for my liking. Have readers become so sullen, depressed and angst-ridden that it takes nothing but oceans of blood and devastating cosmic trauma to rouse them?

Let’s hope not since we all adore a modicum of mirth with our mayhem, and let’s be honest, there are lashings of sheer comedic potential to play with when men-in-tights  – or in the Lion of Olympus’ case, a very short skirt and leather bondage-leggings – start hitting each other with clubs and cars and buildings.

The contemporary Marvel iteration of Hercules first appeared in 1965’s Journey into Mystery Annual #1, wherein Thor, God of Thunder fell into the realm of the Greek Gods and ended up swapping bombastic blows with the happy-go-lucky but easily-riled Hellenic Prince of Power in the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby landmark ‘When Titans Clash! Thor Vs. Hercules!’

Since then the bombastic immortal warrior has bounced around the Marvel Universe seeking out other heroes and heated fisticuffs as an Avenger, Defender, Champion, Renegade, Hero for Hire and any other super-squad prepared to take the big lug and his constant, perpetual boozing, wenching, bragging and blathering about the “Good Old Days”…

In recent years Herc got a good deal more serious, becoming a far more conventionally po-faced world-saver and even found himself a protégé – don’t call him “sidekick” – in keen teen Amadeus Cho, notionally the Seventh Smartest Person on Earth.

This deliciously wicked and engaging collection, gathering often inappropriate and simultaneously stirring and uproarious contents of Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #1-2 and the follow-up 4-issue miniseries Heroic Age: Prince of Power from 2010, is actually the prequel to a larger epic event but self-contained enough and so entertaining that readers won’t mind or feel short-changed.

The drama unfolds in the aftermath of the mighty man-god’s apparent death with the aforementioned ‘Hercules: Fall of an Avenger’, by writers Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente with art by Ariel Olivetti, as many of the Gods and mortals touched by the life of the departed legend gather at the Parthenon for a wondrous wake to memorialise his passing.

Athena now rules the gods ofOlympus and turns up stylishly late as the gathering share personal tales of the departed legend.

Whilst the he-man heroes such as Thor, Bruce Banner, Skaar, Son of Hulk, the Warriors Three, Wolverine, Angel, and Sub-Mariner dwell on their comrade’s fighting spirit, the women such as Namora, Black Widow, Inuit goddess Snowbird and Alflyse, Queen of the Dark Elves prefer to share fond reminiscences of his other prowess – despite the blushes of the congregation.

However just as Cho prepares to speak his own thoughts, Athena and the remaining Hellenic Pantheon materialise and announce the boy is to be the new commander of the globe-spanning corporation known as the Olympus Group, becoming the next Prince of Power to act as the god’s representative on Earth…

Before Amadeus can react, Athena’s decree leads to a minor rebellion in her own ranks as Apollo challenges her and the assemblage degenerates into another epic brawl. Cho doesn’t care and uses the distraction to act on a suspicion that Hercules is not actually dead. His search of Hades, however, proves fruitless…

One of the smartest humans alive, Amadeus acquiesces and takes control of the Olympus Group to further his own agenda, but makes no secret of his dislike and mistrust of Athena…

Further repercussions of Hercules’ demise are seen when Namora and fellow Agent of Atlas Venus (a seductive Greek Siren, only recently promoted to actual love goddess) are dispatched by Athena to set the Man-God’s earthly affairs in order. Over the millennia the big-hearted, happy warrior accrued vast wealth and used it to set up businesses, trusts, foundations and charities, but now the Queen of Olympus wants to absorb the profitable ones and shut down the lame ducks.

As they track down his holdings and inform administrators of the situation, the grieving wonder women uncover an unsuspected ‘Greek Tragedy’ (by Paul Tobin, Reilly Brown & Jason Paz) on a lost Greek island – a cash-sucking black hole of an orphanage caring for children who just happen to be the innocent spawn of the many monsters Hercules slew in his voyages.

How then can Namora and Venus obey the dictates of the hard-hearted Athena and still honour the spirit of their soft-hearted former lover…?

‘Heroic Age: Prince of Power’ (Pak, Van Lente, Brown, Zach Howard, Adam Archer & Pallot) then occupies the major portion of this chronicle following the progress of Cho as he settles into the uncomfortable role of divine Prince of Power and mortal Chairman of the Board. His first order of business is to divert vast funds into searching the multiverse for Hercules…

Athena’s driving motivation for recruiting Amadeus is that an Age has passed on Earth: where once brute strength was the defining characteristic of the era, the Modern Age is subject to the force of intellect. The new Prince of Power must reflect the reliance on Reason and Intelligence, especially since a long-prophesied “Great Chaos” is coming…

A cosmic congress of pantheons convenes to select a mortal to lead the fight against the on-coming threat and, after much debate, Athena gets her way: clever kid Amadeus Cho is expected to save the entirety of creation…

On Earth the unsuspecting and intolerably obnoxious seventeen-year-old is dealing with lesser problems whilst working towards his own ultimate goal – rescuing Hercules from wherever he’s gone…

The most pressing of these daily duties is defeating mutated maniac the Griffin and saving an amusement park from becoming lunch, just the latest in a procession of monsters acting as vanguards for the approaching Chaos King…

Another problem is that he’s had to lock up his girlfriend Delphyne – Queen of the Gorgons – for trying to assassinate Athena, so when Vali Halfling (son of Asgardian god of Evil Loki) comes calling offering the secret of ultimate divine power, the distracted Cho is understandably intrigued, although not enough to fall for the trickster’s devious scheme…

The vile demigod wants to gather mystical elements from assorted pantheons (Greek, Norse, Egyptian and Hindu) to create a potion that will deliver ultimate divine power and enable the upstart kids to eliminate all other deities, but Cho isn’t fooled and rather than fall for a dishonest alliance he sets out to beat Vali to the ingredients – Hellenic Ambrosia, the Apples of Idunn, the Book of Thoth and Moon-cup of Dhanvantari. The race commences in ‘Blasphemy Can be Fun’ and, after pausing for ‘The Origin of Hercules’ by Van Lente, Ryan Stegman, Michael Babinski, continues with Cho’s one-man invasion of Asgard in ‘Valhalla Blues’.

The neophyte Prince of Power has no idea that he’s been played, and whilst clashing with former idol Thor for the Apples his rival already possesses, Halfling and his super-powered human Pantheon invades and seizes control of the Olympus Group headquarters to grab the Nectar of the Gods…

After a spectacularly pointless battle Thor and Cho unite to stop Vali, heading to the EgyptianLandof the Dead to grab the Book. Again they are too late and their outrageous clash with cat-goddess Sekhmet in ‘Our Lady of Slaughter’ only allows Halfling to come closer to his ultimate goal.

With the old gods on the back foot and Athena close to death, the fate of Cho’s people falls to the furious and lethally ticked off Delphyne…

It all comes to a shattering close in ‘Omnipotence for Dummies’ as Cho ultimately and brilliantly outwits everybody, wins ultimate power, retrieves Hercules from his uncanny fate and promptly surrenders all his divine might to the returned Man-god. He has to: the Chaos King has arrived to annihilate All Of Reality and the situation demands a real hero…

To Be Continued…

With covers and variants by Olivetti, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado, Khoi Pham, Carlo Pagulayan, Paz, Peter Steigerwald, Salva Espin & Beth Sotelo plus pages of character designs by Brown, this bombastic, action-packed thriller also offers scenes of genuine tear-jerking poignancy and hilarious moments of mirth (the tale is especially stuffed with saucy moments of the sort that make grandmothers smirk knowingly, and teenaged boys go as red as Captain America’s boots). An absolute joy for older fans, this epic is also a great example of self-contained Marvel Magic, funny, outrageous, charming and full of good-natured punch-ups.

This is a rare but welcome instance of the company using the continuity without unnecessarily exposing newcomers to the excess baggage which may deter some casual readers from approaching long-running comics material, and if you’re looking for something fresh but traditional, you couldn’t do better than this superb slice of modern mythology.
© 2010 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

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Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign


By Jeff Parker, Carlo Pagulayan, Gabriel Hardman, Benton Jew, Leonard Kirk, Clayton Henry & various (Marvel)

ISBN: 978-0-7851-4126-6

After the unprecedented explosion of mystery men characters during American comics’ Golden Age, the end of the 1940s saw a gradual decimation of colourful costumed marvels and the rise of genre heroes in adventure, war, western, crime, science fiction and horror titles. Fighting a rising tide, Timely Comics struggled on with the mask-and-cape crowd for quite a while; even creating new characters such as Namora (Sub-Mariner’s sexy, super-powered cousin), immortal love-goddess Venus and juvenile outer space crusader Marvel Boy, but nothing really caught the public’s attention.

In the mid-1950s the company, now known as “Atlas”, tried to revive their ‘Big Three’ – and super-heroes in general – on the back of a proposed Sub-Mariner television series, hoping to cash in on the success of the monumentally successful Adventures of Superman TV show.

This led to some impressively entertaining tales, but no appreciable results as the Atlantean anti-hero, the Human Torch and Captain America briefly returned… and just as rapidly disappeared again when theHollywood deal fell through.

When this last gasp of super-heroic shenanigans failed, the publisher once again concentrated on humour, romance and more-or-less straight adventure anthologies with the accent strongly on weird monsters, invading aliens and robotic rogues. They never stopped exploring that fantasy hero niche however, and hooded, cloaked cowboys like Apache Kid, Black Rider or Outlaw Kid and mysterious masked warriors such as the Black Knight occasionally popped up to keep the flame alive. In 1957 the little company came closest to a full revival of flamboyantly garbed wonders by creating a full-on super-villain for genre G-Men to battle.

The best of the industry’s many knock-offs of Sax Rohmer’s legendary archetype of evil Fu Manchu, The Yellow Claw menaced Freedom and Democracy in the days of Commie technological supremacy and imminent invasion by Sputniks. He was regularly thwarted by the bold endeavours of Chinese American FBI agent Jimmy Woo but he too peaked and faded too soon…

Once DC’s Showcase unleashed the Flash and the Silver Age kicked off, the 1960s saw a resurgence in costumed characters and Marvel reinvented itself and finally brought back its Golden Trio in one form or another…

Then in June 1978 with a concrete character continuity fully established, avowed Fifties-ophile and Marvel Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas retroactively introduced a team of heroes culled from those misfiring experiments in the alternate realities book What If?

Volume 1, #9 asked ‘What If The Avengers Had Fought Evil During the 1950s?’ (by Don Glut, Paul Kupperberg & Bill Black), and although non-canonical then, the concept slowly filtered into fans’ group consciousness and over the decades a team that never existed were gradually assimilated into mainstream Marvel History…

Now official canon, it was revealed that Woo and a scratch team of contemporary super-characters briefly and clandestinely clashed with the Claw and other unearthly menaces in 1958 before being shut down by the US government. Their heroics unsung and unremarked, the team broke up and was forgotten…

Retooled and updated for the more cynical modern audience the Agents of Atlas formally debuted in 2006 when Jimmy Woo, now an aging agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., began investigating the mysterious Atlas Foundation and found it was a front for his greatest and most unforgiving enemy. Through circumstances best left to another review, Jimmy was severely injured, but eventually revived and rejuvenated to the prime of life by his old comrades Namora, Venus, vintage wonder-robot M11, immortal anthropoid avenger Gorilla-Man and the deeply disturbing Marvel Boy from Uranus whose incredible science restored Jimmy to full vitality.

Together they defeated the Claw’s ultimate plans before assuming control of his organisation, planning to subvert the evil empire from the top down and use its awesome reputation to dismantle from within other covert threats to world peace and security …

Before they could begin, however, they had to clean up the myriad messes and malevolences perpetrated by the Atlas Foundation and all without letting the public – and the burgeoning superhero community – that there had been any change in the criminal corporation’s goals or methods…

This surreptitious sea-change had begun just as the Skrulls’ Secret Invasion culminated in a world-wide crisis, the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the rise to power of Norman Osborn who, as America’s new Chief of Homeland Security, instituted a Dark Reign of draconian oppression using co-opted super-villains and a new personally controlled paramilitary force dubbed H.A.M.M.E.R.…

During his Dark Reign, the former Green Goblin and recovering madman – through means fair and foul – officially worked to curb the unchecked power and threat of meta-humanity, all whilst secretly operating a cabal of major super-villains and dictators intent on divvying up the planet between them. The repercussions of Osborn’s rise and fall were felt throughout and featured in many series and collections covering the entire fictive universe.

Scripted throughout by Jeff Parker this canny collection gathers Agents of Atlas #1-5, a previously electronic adventure of Wolverine: Agent of Atlas from Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited and material from Dark Reign: New Nation, Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust?, and Giant-Size Marvel Adventures Avengers #1; tales spanning 2007 to 2008.

It begins with ‘The Heist’ illustrated by Carlo Pagulayan, Jason Paz & Jana Schirmer from Dark Reign: New Nation wherein the newly appointed Emperor Woo has his team raid Fort Knox to “reclaim” billions in bullion with the simple intention of getting the attention of and proving their criminal credentials to Security Czar Osborn.

No one but Woo knew the former Goblin had planned to appropriate the gold himself to buy an illicit weapons system for his private use…

The full story commences in ‘First Contact’ as the Atlas agents step up the high profile pressure by stealing confiscated weapons from the ATF and forcing Osborn to deal with them personally – and by deal Woo means “collaborate”…

Even as the Security Supremo enters into an underworld alliance with Atlas, he’s looking to betray them, but Woo’s team are distracted by the politics of the evil empire they’ve secretly subverted when their long-term plans are threatened by the forced installation of a deputy leader who is still honestly dedicated to world domination.

The true power behind the globe-girdling organisation is an immortal, immensely powerful dragon named Lao, and so, with no other option, Woo’s crew cautiously welcome the Mandarin’s son Temugin to their inner circle, knowing that should he learn of their true goals the entire Atlas Empire will turn on them in a heartbeat…

Even whilst providing information and materiel to Osborn’s people the veteran heroes are uncovering more secrets about Atlas; such as how the organisation’s unique method of teleportation transport harks back to one of their most perplexing unsolved cases from 1958 in ‘The Sale/Dragon’s Corridor’ (with additional art by Gabriel Hardman, Elizabeth Dismang & Clayton Henry)…

‘Interlude at Sea’ further unravels the ancient avengers’ occluded history as Osborn at last bites and agrees to fill all his armament requirements through the Atlas Foundation’s weapon makers. However as the mutually suspicious partners meet in a ship offshore, the meeting is crashed by a certain Star Spangled Sentinel of Liberty, who has his own memories of working with Gorilla-Man during WWII and ‘Inside America’…

Woo’s subtle scheme to defang Osborn culminates in luring the Avengers (Captain America, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Ronin, Ms. Marvel and Spider-Man) into attacking Atlas’ weapons ship, capturing all the ordnance intended for the duplicitous top cop and hopefully exposing Osborn to public scrutiny whilst bolstering Woo’s own reputation as a major crime-lord. It worked too, but almost went completely awry when M-11, reacting to some long buried program, went berserk and inexplicably attacked the mutant Avenger…

The answer to the mystery came with the flashback feature ‘Wolverine: Agent of Atlas’ illustrated by Benton Jew & Dismang, which saw FBI operative Woo infiltrate Cuba in 1958 accompanied by the robot and Gorilla-Man only to encounter an alien invasion by parasitic mind-bending bugs. In stopping the infestation they were helped and hindered in equal measure by an implausible Canadian secret agent named Logan…

Next up here ‘The Resistance’ by Leonard Kirk, Karl Kesel & Michelle Madsen from Invasion: Who Do You Trust? revealed the key role played by the modern-day Agents of Atlas in repelling and overcoming the insidious occupation of the scurrilous shape-shifters who almost conquered our world…

Inter-dimensional realm-hopping and terrifying time-warping were the order of the day in the team-up tale from Giant-Size Marvel Adventures Avengers #1 (Leonard Kirk & Val Staples) wherein 40th century despot Kang attempted to destroy his greatest foes by altering history and having Woo, Venus, Marvel Boy, M-11, Namora and Gorilla-Man dig Captain America out of the ice in 1958, years before the Avengers were destined to rescue him.

In a desperate race against time itself Cap, Storm, Iron Man, Giant-Girl, Wolverine & Spider-Man had to work fast with the Atlas Agents’ contemporary selves before reality caught up with and overwrote them all in a rousing, light-hearted romp that ends this clever and enjoyable Fights ‘n’ Tights thriller on a delirious high note.

Augmenting the cunning Costumed Dramas area wealth of covers and variants by Kirk, Terry Pallot, Chris Sotomayor, Art Adams & Guru eFX, Greg Land & Justin Ponsor, Adi Granov, Stuart Immonen & John Rauch, Billy Tan & Frank D’Armata, Daniel Acuña, Phil Jimenez, Andy Lanning & Christina Strain as well as a host of pencil sketches and roughs by Ed McGuiness, giving art lovers a delicious bonus every bit as absorbing as the splendid comics story magic that preceded them.

© 2007, 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents the Doom Patrol volume 2


By Arnold Drake, Bruno Premiani, Bob Brown & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-85768-077-8

In 1963 DC/National Comics converted a venerable anthology-mystery title – My Greatest Adventure – into a fringe superhero team-book with the 80th issue, introducing a startling squad of champions with their thematic roots still firmly planted in the B-movie monster films of the era which had for so long informed the tone and timbre of the parent title.

That aesthetic subtly shaped the progression of the strip – which took control of the comic within months, prompting a title change to The Doom Patrol with #86 – and throughout a six-year run made the series one of the most eerily innovative and incessantly hip reads of that generation.

No traditional team of masked adventurers, the cast comprised a robot, a mummy and a 50-foot woman in a mini-skirt, who joined forces with and were guided by a brusque, domineering, crippled mad scientist, all equally determined to prove themselves by fighting injustice their way…

Spanning March 1966 to their radically bold demise in the September/October 1968 final issue, this concluding quirky monochrome compilation collects the Fabulous Freaks’ last exploits from Doom Patrol #102 to 121.

The dramas were especially enhanced by the superb skills of Italian cartoonist and classicist artist Giordano Bruno Premiani, whose comfortably detailed, subtly representational illustration made even the strangest situation frighteningly authentic and grimly believable.

As such he was the perfect vehicle to squeeze every nuance of comedy and pathos from the captivatingly involved and grimly light-hearted scripts by Arnold Drake who always proffered a tantalising believably world for the outcast heroes to strive in.

Those damaged champions comprised competitive car racer Cliff Steele, but only after he’d had “died” in a horrific pile up, with his undamaged brain transplanted into a fantastic mechanical body – without his knowledge or permission…

Test pilot Larry Trainor had been trapped in an experimental stratospheric plane and become permanently radioactive, with the dubious benefit of gaining a semi-sentient energy avatar which could escape his body to perform incredible stunts for up to a minute at a time. To pass safely amongst men Trainor had to constantly wrap himself in special radiation-proof bandages.

Former movie star Rita Farr had been exposed to mysterious gases which gave her the unpredictable and, at first, uncontrolled ability to shrink or grow to incredible sizes.

These outcasts were brought together by brilliant but enigmatic Renaissance Man Niles Caulder who, as The Chief, sought to mould the solitary misfits into a force for good. The wheelchair-bound savant directed the trio of solitary strangers in many terrifying missions as they slowly grew into a uniquely bonded family…

Firmly established in the heroic pantheon, the Doom Patrol teamed with fellow outsiders The Challengers of the Unknown in #102, battling murderous shape-shifting maniac Multi-Man and his robotic allies as they planned to unleash a horde of zombies from a lost world upon modern humanity in ‘8 Against Eternity’.

Meanwhile, multi-millionaire Steve Dayton – who had created the psycho-kinetic superhero persona Mento solely to woo and wed Rita, met the outrageous, obnoxious Gar Logan. It was disgust at first sight, but neither the ruthless, driven authority figure nor the wildly rebellious Beast Boy realised how their lives would soon entwine.

Whilst in Africaas a toddler Loganhad contracted a rare disease. Although his scientist parent’s experimental cure had beaten the contagion before they died, it left the boy the colour of cabbage and able to change shape at will. A protracted storyline commenced in #100 wherein the secretive, chameleonic kid revealed how he was now an abused orphan being swindled out of his inheritance by his guardian Nicholas Galtry. The greedy, conniving accountant had even leased his emerald-hued charge to rogue scientists…

Rita especially had empathised with Gar’s plight and resolved to free him from the unscrupulous Galtry whatever the cost…

DP #103 offered two tales beginning with the tragedy which ensued when Professor Randolph Ormsby asked for the team’s aid in a space shot. When the doddery savant was transformed into a rampaging flaming monster dubbed ‘The Meteor Man’ it took the entire patrol as well as Beast Boy and Mento to secure a happy outcome.

‘No Home for a Robot’, however, continued to reveal the Mechanical Marvel’s early days following Caulder’s implantation of Cliff’s brain into an artificial body. The shock had seemingly driven the patient crazy and Steele subsequently went on a city-wide rampage, continuously hunted and hounded by the police. Here the ferrous fugitive found temporary respite with his brother Randy but quickly realised that trouble would trail him anywhere…

Issue #104 astounded everybody when Rita abruptly stopped refusing the loathed Steve and became ‘The Bride of the Doom Patrol’. However the guest star-stuffed wedding was almost spoiled when alien arch-foe Garguax and the Brotherhood of Evil attempted to crash the party and murder the groom. So unhappy were Cliff and Larry with Rita’s “betrayal” that they almost let them…

Even whilst indulging in her new bride status in issue #105, Rita couldn’t abandon the team and joined them in tackling old elemental enemy Mr. 103 during a ‘Honeymoon of Terror’ whilst the back-up yarn ‘The Robot-Maker Must Die’ concluded the origin of Cliff Steele as the renegade attempted to kill the Surgeon who had imprisoned him in a metal hell… which finally give Caulder a chance to fix the malfunction in Steele’s systems…

‘Blood Brothers’ in #106 introduced domestic disharmony as Rita steadfastly refused to be a good trophy wife and resumed the hunt for Mr. 103 with the rest of the Patrol. Her separate lives continued to intersect however when Galtry hired the elemental assassin to wipe Gar Logan and his freakish allies off the books.

The back-up section then shifted focus onto ‘The Private World of Negative Man’: recapitulating Larry Trainor’s doomed flight and the radioactive close encounter which turned him into a walking mummy. However even after being allowed to walk amongst men again, the gregarious pilot found himself utterly isolated and alone…

Doom Patrol #107 began an epic story-arc which concerned ‘The War over Beast Boy’ as Rita and Steve started legal proceedings to get Gar and his money away from Galtry. The embezzler responded by opening a criminal campaign to beggar Dayton and inadvertently aligned himself with the Patrol’s greatest foes. Already distracted by the depredations of marauding automaton Ultimax, the hard-pressed heroes swiftly fell to the murderous mechanoid and Rita was dispatched to a barbaric sub-atomic universe…

Meanwhile the secret history of Negative Man continued with ‘The Race Against Dr. Death’ when fellow self-imposed outcast Dr. Drew tried to draw the pilot into a scheme to destroy the human species which had cruelly excluded them both, and the ebony energy being demonstrated the incredible power it possessed to save the world from fiery doom.

In #108 ‘Kid Disaster’ saw Mento diminished and despatched to rescue Rita whilst Galtry’s allies revealed their true nature before ambushing and killing the entire team…

… Almost.

With only Caulder and Beast Boy remaining, the exceedingly odd couple nevertheless pulled a off a major medical miracle to revive the heroes in time to endure the incredible attack of alien colossus ‘Mandred the Executioner’ whilst Larry’s ‘Flight into Fear’ at the comic’s rear proved that Drew hadn’t finished with the itinerant Negative Man yet…

DP #110 wonderfully wrapped up the Beast Boy saga as Galtry, Mandred and the Brotherhood marshalled one last futile attack before the ‘Trial by Terror’ finally found Gar Logan legally adopted by the newlywed Mr. and Mrs. Dayton, but that was mere prelude to a titanic extraterrestrial invasion which began in #111 with the arrival of ‘Zarox-13, Emperor of the Cosmos!’

The cosmic overlord and his vanguard Garguax made short work of the Fabulous Freaks and with all Earth imperilled an unbelievable alliance was formed, but nor before ‘Neg Man’s Last Road!’ ended the origin of Larry Trainor as the alienated aviator again battled Dr. Death before joining a band of fellow outcasts in a bold new team venture…

Unbelievably, the uneasy alliance of the DP with The Brain, Monsieur Mallah and Madame Rouge as ‘Brothers in Blood!’ in #112 resulted in no betrayals and the last-minute defeat of the invincible aliens – and although no rivalries were reconciled, a hint of romance did develop between two of the sworn foes. At the back, untold tales of Beast Boy began as ‘Waif of the Wilderness’ introduced millionaire doctors Mark and Marie Logan, whose passion for charity took them to deepest Africa and into the sights of native witch-man Mobu who saw his powerbase crumbling.

When their toddler Gar contracted dreaded disease Sakutia, the parents’ radical treatment saved their child and gave him metamorphic abilities, but when they subsequently lost their lives in a river accident, the baby boy didn’t understand their plight and blithely watched them die.

Orphaned and lonely, the lad inadvertently saved the life of the local chief with his animal antics and was adopted… making of Mobu an implacable, but impatient enemy…

Doom Patrol #113 pitted the team against a malevolent mechanoid one-man army in ‘Who Dares to Challenge the Arsenal’ but the real drama was manifesting in a subplot which saw Caulder attempt to seduce the schizophrenic Rouge away from the lure of wickedness and malign influence of the Brotherhood of Evil. The issue also included another Beast Boy short as ‘The Diamonds of Destiny’ saw two thieves kidnap the amazing boy, just as concerned executor Nicholas Galtry took ship for the Dark Continent to find the heir to his deceased employers millions…

Issue #114 opened with the team attempting to aid Soviet asylum seeker Anton Koravyk and becoming embroiled in a time-twisting fight against an incredible caveman called ‘Kor – the Conqueror’ whilst in the Beast Boy segment ‘The Kid who was King of Crooks’ saw young Gar turned into a thief in Johannesburg until his faginish abductors had a fatal falling out, after which #115’s ‘The Mutant Master’ pitted the Patrol against three hideous but incredibly powerful atomic atrocities determined to eradicate the world which had cruelly treated them. Things might have fared better had not the Chief neglected his comrades in his obsessive – and at last successful – pursuit of Madame Rouge…

The comic also included ‘General Beast Boy – of the Ape Brigade!’ wherein a Nazi war criminal was accidentally foiled by the lost wandering Gar. The madman’s loss was the Galtry’s gain however, as his persistent search ended with the crook “rescuing” the boy and taking him back to safe, secure America…

The mutant maelstrom concluded in #116 as ‘Two to Get Ready… and Three to Die!’ featured the ebullient Caulder save the world from mutant-created obliteration and reap his reward in a passionate fling with the cured but still fragile Rouge.

The wheelchair-bound genius took centre stage in #117 as his neglect drove the team away and left him vulnerable to attack from a mystery man with a big grudge in ‘The Black Vulture’, but it took the whole reunited squad to deal with the grotesque madman ‘Videx, Monarch of Light’ even as the Brain challenged Caulder to return his stolen chattel Rouge. Nobody asked her what she wanted, though…

Tastes and fashions were changing in those turbulent late 1960s and the series was in trouble. Superheroes were about to plunge into a huge decline, and the creators addressed the problem head-on in #119 by embracing the psychedelic culture with a clever tale of supernal power, brainwashing and behaviour modification as the DP found themselves cowering ‘In the Shadow of the Great Guru’…

An issue later they faced the furious Luddite ‘Rage of the Wrecker’ when a crazed scientist declared war on all technology – including the assorted bodies which kept Cliff Steele alive – before the then-unthinkable occurred and the series spectacularly, abruptly ended with what we all believed at the time to be ‘The Death of the Doom Patrol!’

Faced with cancellation, Editor Murray Boltinoff and creators Drake & Premiani had wrapped up all the long-running plot threads as the spurned Madame Rouge went off the deep end and declared war on both the Brain and Caulder’s “children”. Blowing up the Brotherhood, she then attacked the city until the Patrol removed themselves to an island fortress. Even there they were not safe and her forces ambushed them. Captured and facing death, she offered them mercy if they would abandon their principles and allow her to destroy a village of 14 complete strangers instead…

At a time when comics came and went with no fanfare and cancelled titles seldom provided any closure, the sacrifice and death of the Doom Patrol was a shocking event for us youngsters. We wouldn’t see anything like it again for decades – and never again with such style and impact…

With the edge of time and experience on my side, it’s obvious just how incredibly mature Drake & Premiani’s take on superheroes actually was, and these superbly engaging, frenetically fun and breathtakingly beautiful stories should rightfully rank amongst the very best Fights ‘n’ Tights tales ever told.

Even the mercilessly exploitative many returns of the team since can’t diminish that incredible impact, and no fan of the genre or comic dramas in general should consider their superhero education complete until they’ve seen these classics.
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 2010 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.