Category: Graphic Novels

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Essential Avengers volume 7


By Steve Englehart, Gerry Conway, Jim Shooter, George Pérez, Don Heck, Dave Cockrum, Rich Buckler, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, George Tuska & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4453-3

The Avengers always proved that putting all one’s star eggs in a single basket pays off big-time: even when Marvel’s major players like Thor, Captain America and Iron Man are absent, it simply allows the team’s lesser lights and continuity players to shine more brightly.

Although the founding stars were regularly featured due to the rotating, open door policy, the human-scale narrative drivers were the regulars without titles of their own and whose eventful lives played out only within these stories and no others.

This monumental seventh monochrome tome, collecting the ever-amazing Avengers‘ extraordinary exploits from issues #140-163 of their monthly comicbook (spanning November 1975-September 1975), also includes material from Avengers Annual #6 plus a crossover appearance from Super-Villain Team-Up #9.

This era saw revered and multi-award winning scripter Steve Englehart surrender the writing reins to Gerry Conway during a period of painful recurring deadline problems – before neophyte wunderkind Jim Shooter came aboard to stabilise and reshape the cosmology and history of the Marvel Universe through the adventures of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes…

Opening this epochal tome is ‘The Phantom Empire!’ (Avengers #141, by Englehart, George Pérez & Vince Colletta), which began another complex, multi-layered epic combining superheroic Sturm und Drang with searing – for 1975, at least – political commentary.

It all began when new member The Beast was ambushed by mercenaries from corporate behemoth Roxxon Oil.

He was saved by ex-Avenger Captain America who had been investigating the company on a related case and, after comparing notes, realised something very big and very bad was going on…

Linking up with Thor, Iron Man, other trainee Moondragon and the newly returned newlyweds Vision and Scarlet Witch, the pair learned of another crisis building as Hawkeye had gone missing, probably captured by time tyrant Kang the Conqueror…

Just as the Assemblage was agreeing to split into teams, former child model Patsy Walker-Baxter (star of a bunch of Marvel’s girl’s market comics such as Patsy Walker and Patsy & Hedy) burst in, threatening to expose Beast’s secret identity…

When he had first further mutated, Hank McCoy had attempted to mask his anthropoid form and Patsy had helped him in return for his promise to make her a superhero. Now she had resurfaced prepared to use blackmail to make him honour his vow. She got dragged along as one squad (Cap, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch and Vision) joined Beast’s as he returned to his old lab at Brand/Roxxon… where they were ambushed by alternate Earth heroes the Squadron Supreme…

Moondragon and Thor meanwhile co-opted sometime ally Immortus and followed Hawkeye back to 1873 but were also bushwhacked, finding themselves battling Kang beside a coterie of cowboy legends including Kid Colt, Night Rider, Ringo Kid, Rawhide Kid and Two-Gun Kid in ‘Go West, Young Gods!’ even as the present-day team learned that their perilous plight involved a threat to two different dimensions’ situations because Roxxon had joined with the corporations which had taken over the Squadron Supreme’s America – thanks to the malignly mesmeric Serpent Crown of Set…

The Wild West showdown culminated in the apparent death of a deity in ‘Right Between the Eons!’ (Avengers #143, inked by Sam Grainger). Elsewhen, the 20th century heroes were beginning their counterattack in the esoteric weaponry factory at Brand, and during all that running wild the heroes found the technologically advanced, ability-enhancing uniform of short-lived adventurer The Cat in a storeroom.

When Patsy put it on the hero-groupie neophyte dubbed herself Hellcat in ‘Claws!’ (Mike Esposito inks)…

Soon after, the Avengers were cornered by the Squadron and as battle recommenced Roxxon president Hugh Jones played his trump card and transported all the combatants to the other Earth…

The dreaded deadline doom hit just at this crucial juncture and issues #145-146 were taken up with a 2-part fill-in by Tony Isabella, Don Heck & John Tartaglione with additional pencils by Keith Pollard for the concluding chapter.

‘The Taking of the Avengers!’ revealed how a criminal combine had taken out a colossal contract on the World’s Mightiest Superheroes but even though ‘The Assassin Never Fails!’ the killer was thwarted and Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Beast, Vision and Scarlet Witch – plus Wasp, Yellowjacket and the Falcon all safely returned to their various cases untroubled by the vagaries of continuity or chronology which makes this rather impressive yarn such a annoyance in this specific instance…

The trans-dimensional traumas finally resumed in Avengers #147 which described the ‘Crisis on Other-Earth!’ (Englehart, Pérez & Colletta). With the corporate takeover of the other America revealed to have been facilitated by use of the mind-bending mystical serpent crown, the Scarlet Witch took possession of the sinister helm and her team-mates tried desperately to keep the overwhelming Squadron Supreme from regaining it.

On our Earth Hawkeye brought Two-Gun Kid to the modern world but decided to go walkabout rather than rejoin his fellow Avengers even as Thor and Moondragon began searching for their missing colleagues…

It was back to business in #148 as ‘20,000 Leagues Under Justice!’ (Grainger) featured the final showdown and the Avengers’ victory over a wiser and repentant Squadron Supreme, and as the heroes returned to their home dimension ‘The Gods and the Gang!’ reunited them with Moondragon and the Thunder God to clean up Brand/Roxxon. The Corporate cabal still had one trick left to play however: a colossal and biologically augmented Atlantean dubbed Orka, the Human Killer Whale…

Avengers #150 saw an official changing of the guard as ‘Avengers Assemble’ by Englehart, Pérez, Tartaglione & Duffy Vohland – supplemented part-way through by half of ‘The Old Order Changeth!’ (reprinted from #16 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) – settled the membership question and made way for new scripter Gerry Conway in #151 whose ‘At Last: The Decision’ (with additional scripting by Jim Shooter & Englehart and art from Pérez & Tartaglione) set the group off on new, less cosmic adventures.

No sooner had the long-delayed announcement been made (this membership drive had begun in Avengers #137 after all) though, than a mysterious crate disgorged the long-dead body of Wonder Man which shockingly shambled to its feet and accused the stunned android Vision of stealing his mind…

Long ago Simon Williams had been turned into a human powerhouse by arch-villain Baron Zemo and used as a Trojan horse to infiltrate the team, but eventually gave his life to redeem himself. After he was buried his brain patterns were used to provide an operating system for The Vision, inadvertently creating a unique human personality for the cold thing of plastic wires and metal…

In #152 ‘Nightmare in New Orleans!’ kicked the simmering saga into high gear as the team began a search for the fallen Wonder Man’s grave robber/re-animator, in a tale by Conway, John Buscema & Joe Sinnott which soon found the team facing voodoo lord Black Talon in New Orleans…

‘Home is the Hero!’ reintroduced 1940 Marvel sensation Bob Frank (AKA super fast superhero The Whizzer). In a tragic tale of desperation the aged speedster sought the heroes’ help before he was seemingly possessed and attacked the team.

Avengers Annual #6 answered all the mysteries and wrapped up the storyline with ‘No Final Victory’ (illustrated by Pérez, Esposito, Tartaglione & Vohland), as a conspiracy involving the Serpent-helmed Living Laser, Whizzer’s government-abducted son mutant son Nuklo and rogue US Army General Pollock almost succeeded in conquering California if not America – until the resurgent Avengers laid down the law…

Also included in the annual – and here – was ‘Night Vision’ by Scott Edelman & Herb Trimpe: a stirring solo story of the Android Avenger battling super swift psychopath Whirlwind.

In Avengers #154 ‘When Strikes Attuma?’ Conway, Pérez & Pablo Marcos began a blockbuster battle bonanza which was in part a crossover with Super-Villain Team-Up (this series followed the uneasy coalition of Dr. Doom and Namor the Sub-Mariner). The initial chapter found the Vision captured by subsea barbarian Attuma even as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes were ambushed and defeated by the warlord’s augmented Atlantean thrall Tyrak the Treacherous.

The scheme was simple enough: use the enslaved surface champions as cannon fodder in an assault against Namor…

At this time US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had recently signed a non-aggression pact with the Dictator of Latveria with Doom subsequently blackmailing the Sub-Mariner into serving as his unwilling ally. One American vigilante observed no such legal or diplomatic niceties. The Shroud thought he had freed the Atlantean from his vow by “killing” Doom but the villain had survived the assault: rescued and secretly imprisoned by Sub-Mariner’s cousin Namorita and girlfriend Tamara under the misguided apprehension that they could force the Metal-shod Monarch into helping Atlantis and their lost Prince.

SVT-U #9 carried on the epic encounter with the heroes now ‘Pawns of Attuma’ (scripted by Bill Mantlo, drawn by Jim Shooter & Sal Trapani) as the Avengers were unleashed upon the Atlanteans, only to discover Doom now in charge and easily able to thwart their half-hearted assault.

In Avengers #155 the beaten heroes were helpless, leaving only confused, despondent and battle-crazed Namor ‘To Stand Alone!’ (Conway Perez & Marcos), joined by lone stragglers the Beast, Whizzer and Wonder Man to hunt down the triumphant barbarian sea lord.

The epic conclusion came in ‘The Private War of Doctor Doom!’ (Avengers#156, by Shooter, with art from Sal Buscema & Marcos) wherein the liberated and furious heroes joined forces to crush Attuma whilst simultaneously preventing Doom from turning the situation to his own world-conquering advantage…

In #157 ‘A Ghost of Stone!’ (Conway, Heck & Marcos) addressed a long-unresolved mystery of the Black Knight – his body had been petrified whilst his soul was trapped in the 12th century – as a strange force reanimated the statue and set it upon the weary heroes, after which ‘When Avengers Clash!!’ (Shooter, Sal Buscema & Marcos) saw the revived and now fully-recovered Wonder Man clash with an impossibly jealous Vision over the Scarlet Witch.

That Wanda loved the android Avenger was seemingly forgotten as his “borrowed” brain patterns fixated on the logical assumption that eventually his flesh-and-blood wife would gravitate to a normal man with his personality rather than stay married to a mere mobile mechanism…

Domestic tantrums were quickly laid aside when the entire team – plus late arrivals Black Panther and Thor) battled research scientist Frank Hall following an accident which gave him complete control over the forces of gravity…

Apparently unstoppable, Graviton almost destroyed New York in #159 as ‘Siege by Stealth and Storm!’ (Shooter, Sal Buscema & Marcos) resulted in a savage clash and the unbeatable villain defeating himself…

Avengers #160 featured Eric Williams, the deranged Grim Reaper. With portentous hints of a hidden backer and his dead brother seemingly returned, he conducted ‘…The Trial!’ (Shooter, Pérez & Marcos) to see whether Wonder Man or the Vision was the “true” Simon Williams… but didn’t like the answer he got…

The next issue extended the sub-plot as ‘Beware the Ant-Man’ found the team attacked by a frenzied Henry Pym, whose mind had regressed to mere days after the Avengers first formed. The crazed hero had allied with the homicidal robot he no longer remembered creating and was unwittingly helping it build ‘The Bride of Ultron!’ (#162), pitifully oblivious that for the almost completed Jocasta to live his own wife Janet had to die…

At the close the Avengers believed they had finally destroyed the murderous mechanoid, but they were wrong…

This classic collection of costumed clashes closes with Shooter, George Tuska & Marcos’ stand-alone tale ‘The Demi-God Must Die!’ wherein mythological maniac Typhon returns to capture the team. Despite forcing Iron Man to attack Hercules (to save his hostage Avenging comrades), and even after lots of spectacular smashing, the scheme naturally fails and the World’s Mightiest are triumphant again…

This type of heroic adventure might not be to every reader’s taste but these – and the truly epic yarns that followed – set the tone for fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas for decades to come and can still boggle the mind and take the breath away, even here in the so slick and cool 21st century…

No lovers of Costumed Dramas can afford to ignore this superbly bombastic book and fans who think themselves above superhero stories might also be pleasantly surprised…
© 1975, 1976, 1977, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman/Batman: Night and Day


By Michael Green, Mike Johnson, Scott Kolins, Francis Manapul, Rafael Albuquerque & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2808-8

For decades Superman and Batman were quintessential superhero partners: the “World’s Finest team”. The affable champions were best buddies as well as mutually respectful colleagues, and their pairing made sound financial sense since DC’s top heroes could happily cross-pollinate and cross-sell their combined readerships.

In darker post-Crisis on Infinite Earth Times, the champions were retconned into grudging colleagues, at odds with each other over their methods and attitudes: as different as night and day, but with the passage of time the relationship was revitalised and renewed and the World’s Finest Heroes were fully restored to their bizarrely apt pre-eminence, regaining respect and friendship even though they were still in most ways polar opposites.

Finally, after a few tentative miniseries forays, in 2003 the World’s Finest Superheroes bowed to the inevitable and officially reunited in a new team-up series entitled Superman/Batman: an angsty, edgy, post-modern take on a relationship almost as old as the industry itself.

Reformed as firm friends for the style-over-content 21st century, their new stories were all big blockbuster events by major creators, designed to be repackaged as graphic novels. Eventually however the momentum slowed and shallow spectacle gave way to some genuinely interesting and different stories…

This volume contains Superman/Batman #60-63 and #65-67 (from 2009 and 2010), offering just such intriguing glimpses at other, lesser seen aspects of the mythology surrounding the Cape and Cowl Crusaders.

‘Mash-Up’ (by Michael Greene & Mike Johnson with art by Francis Manapul from Superman/Batman #60-61 from July & August 2009) apparently finds the Dark Knight and Man of Steel side-slipped into yet another alternate Earth where old and familiar faces take on new and disturbing forms. However, as they join the heroes of the valiant Justice Titans in battle against Lex Joker and Doomstroke, the razor sharp intellect and obsessive suspicions of Batman slowly determine a far more logical cause for their current situation; something only one of their old foes could possibly be behind…

There’s a far darker tone to ‘Sidekicked’ (Greene, Johnson and illustrated by Raphael Albuquerque from #62) as Tim (Robin III) Drake and Linda Lang AKA Supergirl meet for lunch and reminisce about their first meeting.

Left alone after their respective mentors were called away to a JLA emergency, the kids had to respond when a riot broke out at Arkham Asylum, but although Robin was worried that the sheltered ingénue from Krypton might not be prepared for crazed killers such as Joker, Two-Face, Scarecrow, Clayface, Mad Hatter, Killer Croc, Poison Ivy and Mr. Zsasz, it was his own sanity that nearly sundered before the kids finally triumphed…

‘Night & Day’ – Greene, Johnson & Albuquerque – from Superman/Batman #63 – finds Batman the last person free on an Earth dominated by super-gorilla Grodd. With Superman trapped off-world by a planetary Green Kryptonite force screen, the Dark Knight is forced to make the ultimate sacrifice to save his world – but once again, nothing is as it seems…

This volume omits #64, but resumes with more mindgames as ‘Sweet Dreams’ (#65 by Johnson, Matt Cherniss and artists Brian Stelfreeze, Brian Haberlin, Kelly Jones, Joe Quinones & Federico Dallocchio) depicts Superman’s greatest failures and Batman’s final breakdown – or at least that’s how the Scarecrow prefers to remember it…

The macabre madness of Blackest Night features in the concluding 2-parter by Scott Kolins from Superman/Batman #65-67 (January-February 2010) , as undead muck-monster Solomon Grundy is possessed by a Black Lantern ring and goes hunting for life to extinguish.

With every hero dead or preoccupied, tragic Man-Bat Kirk Langstrom and debased Superman clone Bizarro become unlikely defenders of humanity, with only the ferocious Mr. and Mrs. Frankenstein of Super-Human Advanced Defense Executive to assist them. And ultimately at stake on the ‘Night of the Cure’ is salvation and peace for each of the ghastly travesties of life…

With a stunning gallery of covers by Manapul, Brian Buccellato, Albuquerque, Dustin Nguyen, Scott Kolins & Michael Atiyeh, this book delivers a superb series of short and sweet sharp shocks that no lover of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction could resist.
© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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X-Men – Battle of the Atom


By Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, Stuart Immonen, Frank Cho, Chris Bachalo & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-553-6

At the dawn of the Marvel Age, some very special kids were chosen by wheelchair-bound mutant telepath Charles Xavier. Scott Summers, Bobby Drake, Warren Worthington III, Jean Grey and Henry McCoy were taken under the wing of the enigmatic Professor X as he enacted his dream of brokering peace and achieving integration between humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants, no matter what the cost.

To achieve his dream he educated and trained the youngsters – codenamed Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and The Beast – for unique roles as heroes, ambassadors and symbols in an effort to counter the growing tide of human prejudice and fear. The dream was noble, inspirational and worth dying for, and over the years many mutants battling under the X-banner did just that. The struggle to integrate mutants into society seemed to inevitably result in conflict, compromise and tragedy.

During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men the idealistic, steadfast and trustworthy team leader Cyclops killed Xavier before eventually joining with old comrade Magik and former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, if necessary, of human ones. This new attitude appalled many of their formers associates.

Abandoning Scott, his surviving team-mates Beast and Iceman with second generation X-Men such as Wolverine, Psylocke and Storm and stayed true to Xavier’s dream. Opting to protect and train the coming X-generation of mutant kids whilst honouring Xavier’s Dream, they are continuing his methods at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning under the direction of new Head Professor Kitty Pryde…

Things got really complicated after Hank McCoy discovered he was dying. Obsessed with the idea that the naive First Class of X-Men might be able to sway Mutant Enemy terrorist No. 1 back from his current path of doctrinaire madness and ideological race war insanity, the Beast used time-travel tech in a last-ditch attempt to prevent a species war. By bringing the five youngsters back to the future he hoped to reason with the debased, potentially deranged Cyclops and fix everything before his impending death…

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways. Rather than shocking Scott back to his senses, the confrontation simply hardened the renegade’s heart and strengthened his resolve. Moreover, even after the younger McCoy impossibly cured his older self, young Henry and the rest of the X-Kids refused to go home until “bad” Scott was stopped…

The elder Cyclops and his “Extinction Team” face many problems. Magneto is playing a double (or is it a treble?) game; betraying the terrorists to S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill, and her to Cyclops. Moreover as they travel the world gathering up freshly activated Homo Superior kids, the Extinction-ers have been repeatedly targeted by a new mysterious next generation of robotic hunter/killer Sentinels.

All these tales were detailed in X-titles which resulted from the MarvelNOW! publishing event: a jumping-on point which reshaped the whole company continuity, taking the various mutant bands in strange new directions.

Scripted primarily by Brian Michael Bendis, this chronal chronicle collects all the issues in a crossover affecting those niche X-titles through September and October 2013 – specifically All-New X-Men #16-17, Uncanny X-Men #12-13, X-Men #5-6 and Wolverine & the X-Men #36-37, bracketed by the bookend miniseries X-Men – Battle of the Atom #1-2; a plot-light but action-packed, tension-drenched time-travel drama which sets up the next year’s worth of mutant mayhem…

It all begins with X-Men – Battle of the Atom #1, illustrated by Frank Cho, Stuart Immonen & Wade Von Grawbadger, wherein Magik, using her teleportational ability to traverse time and space, travels into the future to see what tomorrow holds for her kind. The answer seems to be Sentinels, increased human hatred and never-ending conflict…

Back in the now, Professor Pryde is continuing the First Class kids’ on-the-job training against an emergent and very ticked off mutant when more of the mystery sentinels attack. Like evil cavalry the Extermination team materialise and the ideological opponents pitch in together, but in the melee young Cyclops is killed by a stray blast and his older self blinks out of existence. Thankfully even as the entire area begins to shake and fall apart, mutant healer Triage is able to resurrect the dying X-Man. The disruptions cease, but the near-disaster reopens the old argument: the Original Five X-Men are endangering all of existence by being in their own future…

Resolute Kitty overrules young Jean Grey and orders the Beast to send them back, but when he activates the time-cube a strange yet familiar band of X-Men tumble out of it…

The tale resumes in All-New X-Men #16 (Immonen & Von Grawbadger) as the Extinction team (which now includes Jean Grey School defectors Stepford Sisters Celeste, Mindee & Phoebe as well as the time-displaced young Angel) review the attack and consider the notion that S.H.I.E.L.D. might be behind the new Sentinels. Meanwhile at the Grey School the intruders (an elderly Kitty Pride, the grandson of Charles Xavier, an Iceman-Hulk, Deadpool, a further mutated Beast, adult Molly Hayes from the Runaways and mystery telepath Xorn) are demanding that the Original 5 be sent back to their own time immediately…

Or else…

Naturally a huge fight breaks out and in the confusion the traumatised Scott and Jean steal a plane, running away to make sense of all the pressure and acrimony. Most importantly, although the future X-Men’s minds were psi-screened, young Marvel Girl had picked up something indefinable and threatening with her new telepathic abilities…

In the aftermath, as tempers cool Xorn removes her mask and reveals herself as the fugitive girl’s bitter, wiser, fiercely determined older self…

X-Men #5 (art by Davis Lopez) picks up the pace as the now tentatively combined teams set off after the kids. Storm, however, gives her all-female squad different instructions: Rogue and Psylocke join the main party whilst Pryde, Rachel Grey (the confusingly alternate Earth daughter of a different Cyclops and Jean Grey) and vampiric-mutant Jubilee are tasked with guarding the remaining Originals, little Henry McCoy and Bobby Drake…

Never good at obeying orders, they instead follow Scott and Jean themselves, provoking another all-X confrontation and allowing the runaways to bolt for ruined mutant sanctuary Utopia… where the Extinction team are already waiting…

Uncanny X-Men #12 (Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend, Mark Irwin, Jaime Mendoza, Victor Olazaba & Al Vey) ramps up the tension as the “mutant terrorists” learn of the future X-Men and their mission. It is then that Magik reveals her own time-travel jaunt and (some) of what she’s been keeping to herself…

In the light of these events the Extinction-ers are split: Cyclops wanting to help the youngsters whilst Emma rebels and announces that she’ll be helping Xorn and her crew send all the early X-Men back where they belong…

That resolution only lasts as long s it takes to meet their descendents and legacies. Wolverine & the X-Men #36 (Giuseppe Camuncoli & Andrew Currie) quickly finds all three generations of mutants in brutal intercine combat which only ends when young Jean at last acquiesces to the constant pressure and promises to take her team back where they came from…

Then all hell breaks loose as the real Future X-Men show up…

Thanks to Magik, the true defenders of Xavier’s dream have travelled back to Now, following the instigators of an assassination atrocity committed at the crowning moment of mutant/human cooperation. Colossus, Wiccan, Ice Master, Wolverine (AKA Jubilee), Quentin “Phoenix” Quire, Kymera and Sentinel-X  plan to ensure the madness will end before it begins…

No more spoilers from me then except to say that Cam Smith & Terry Pallot help with inks on X-Men #6 and the concluding X-Men: Battle of the Atom #2 is written by Jason Aaron with portentous ‘Epilogues‘ by Bendis & Brian Wood, illustrated by Esad Ribic, Camuncoli, Currie, Tom Palmer & Kristopher Anka.

In that stunning, ever-escalating blockbuster clash the various iterations of Once-and-Future mutant champions switch sides and back again, fight, quip, discover which presumed ally is behind the new Sentinels and in some cases give their lives to preserve everything good before it all turns out OK – at least for the moment…

When the smoke clears a new chapter will begin with the Original kids willing but now unable to return to their time, the JeanGreySchool forever changed, friendships and alliances destroyed and Cyclops’ Extinction team immeasurably stronger…

Unfortunately, the most psychotic and potentially lethal monster from the future never made it back to the future and might possibly be stalking the heroes of today, and the time-disruptions caused by the assorted chronally-misplaced persons bodes badly for the continuance of existence…

X-Men: Battle of the Atom also includes many pinups and a huge cover-&-variants gallery by Art Adams, Simone Bianchi & Frank Martin, Frazer Irving, Ed McGuiness & Dexter Vines, Marte Gacia, Lopez, Phil Noto, Stefano Casselli & Andres Mossa, Frank Cho, Shane Davis, Nick Bradshaw, Stephanie Hans, Adi Granov, Immonen, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Leonel Castellani, Bachalo, Anka, Milo Manara and Esad Ribic.

™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Last apologies of the year…

Still plagued by storms, power cuts and with at least one of us recovering from injuries far too slowly for my liking, we’ve all decided to concentrate on paid work and a little bit of celebration to see out this year.

A regular and hopefully fully restored review service will recommence on January 1st 2014 – weather and fate permitting.

In the meantime, have a Happy New Year.

From W!n and the team at Now Read This.

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Superior Spider-Man volume 4: Necessary Evil


By Dan Slott, Ryan Stegman, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Livesay & John Dell (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-581-9

Amazing Spider-Man #700 began one of the most impressive reboots of the Spider-Man mythology and was certainly the most striking and compelling character shake-up of all the MarvelNOW! relaunches.

In that issue, all that was Peter Parker apparently died when Doctor Otto Octavius took over his body. The hero’s mind had been transferred and trapped in the dying body of the super-villain where, despite his every desperate effort, in the end Peter perished with and within that decrepit, expiring frame, arguably becoming a wholly Superior Spider-Man.

Now the coldly calculating Octopus is permanently installed in the Wondrous Wallcrawler’s body and successfully living Peter’s life, albeit with a few minor but necessary alterations, upgrades and improvements…

At first the situation did not seem completely hopeless. At the moment of the monster’s greatest triumph Parker inflicted his full unvarnished memories on the psychic invader, forcing Octavius to experience every ghastly moment of tragedy and sacrifice which combined to make Spider-Man the compulsive do-gooder that he was.

From that enforced emotional turmoil came a bitter understanding. Otto had a change of heart and swore to live the rest of his stolen life in tribute to his greatest enemy; earnestly endeavouring to carry on Spider-Man’s self-imposed mission, guided by Peter’s abiding principle: “with great power comes great responsibility”…

However Octavius’ ingrained monomania proved hard to suppress and the usurped web-spinner constantly toiled to prove himself the better man: augmenting Parker’s paltry gadgets and methodology with millions of spy robots to patrol the entire city at once, constantly adding advanced tech and refining new weaponry to the suit and even acting pre-emptively rather than merely reacting to crises as the original had…

Otto went back to college because he arrogantly refused to live life without a doctorate and even briefly tried to rekindle his new body’s old relationship with Mary Jane Watson.

The new, ultra-efficient Spider-Man became New York’s darling and even Mayor J. Jonah Jameson embraced the Web-spinner; all but adopting the Arachnid as his deputy – to the utter incredulity of an imperceptible psychic shard of Peter which still screamed in frustration within the deepest recesses of the hero’s overwritten consciousness…

The helpless ghost was an unwilling passenger, unsuspected by Octavius yet increasingly privy to the villain’s own barely-suppressed memories. Moreover, more and more of Parker’s oldest friends began to suspect something amiss…

Police CSI Officer and ex-girlfriend Carlie Cooper knew Peter’s secret identity and recalled the last time Spidey fought Doc Ock, when the killer broke her arm. He claimed then that he was Peter trapped in the villain’s body…

The public seems happy with how Spider-Man has changed. Not only is he exceedingly more efficient, but far more brutal too: practically crippling bad guys like Boomerang, Vulture and Scorpion. This new hard-line attitude actually increased the webslinger’s approval rating and, after a hostage siege, his status peaked after he executed the psychotic perpetrator Massacre…

Eventually Octavius realised there was a noble passenger in his head and eradicated the last vestiges of his enemy’s presence – at the cost of many of Parker’s later memories and fully liberated extended his campaign of modernised crime-fighting.

Helping Jameson after the Spider-Slayer and other super-felons broke loose on The Raft penitentiary, Spider-Man then blackmailed the Mayor into donating the now empty edifice for a base. The Superior wallcrawler designed a new costume, built giant war-tanks and even hired henchmen to help him clean up the city for the decent, law-abiding citizens.

“Parker’s” personal life is all but over and he’s constantly harassed for a lack of productivity by employer Max Modell at technological think-tank Horizon Labs. He still wants that elusive doctorate, however, and is prepared to put up with lots of grief from his lecturer Dr. Lamaze – even though the oaf is a bumbling fool even more stupid than when he was Otto Octavius’ college lab partner. At least Parker’s blossoming romance with brilliant Anna Maria Marconi is still progressing satisfactorily…

From his transformed citadel on the now-renamed Spider Island II, Spider-Man watches over his city through the electronic eyes of thousands of tiny Spider-bots…

There’s still lots he doesn’t see though: resurgent and hidden criminal mastermind Goblin King (former Green Goblin Norman Osborn) is successfully completing his own campaign to take over the underworld with his Goblin Army Cult.

To that end he has transformed young Phil Urich – latest iteration of The Hobgoblin – into his latest living weapon: a Goblin Knight to lead his armies to inevitable victory…

Meanwhile, Carlie Cooper has shared her suspicions about Spider-Man with her friend and Captain Yuri Watanabe (who secretly moonlights as costumed vigilante The Wraith). Together the women have been gathering definitive proofs of their suspicions regarding the Wallcrawler; and now with an Island fortress and a mercenary gang to pay for they have a money trail to follow…

Most dangerous of all, disgraced former Horizon employee Ty Stone is still free: a malevolent genius and subtle manipulator with a deadly agenda all his own slowly building his own powerbase…

This latest collection ties in to the various time travel stories and stems from the after-effects generated by the disruptions in the (Marvel) universes caused by the Avengers unmaking the Age of Ultron, but don’t fret as the stories work well enough on their own…

Illustrated by Ryan Stegman & John Livesay, the 3-part story-arc Necessary Evil begins with ‘Let’s Do the Time Warp Again’ and a glimpse at Nueva York in 2099, where Miguel O’Hara is knee-deep in a chronal crisis. His entire world is unravelling, with dinosaurs and other time-lost threats materialising even as his archenemy (and biological father) Tyler Stone of world-owning corporation Alchemax is gradually disappearing thanks to some threat to an ancestor in 2013…

A Word to the Wise: At a time when Marvel’s product quality was at an all time low, and following a purported last minute dispute between the company and prodigal son John Byrne (who had re-invented himself by re-inventing Superman), the House of Ideas launched a whole new continuity strand with all-new heroes (and franchise extensions) set more than a century into the future.

The world was a corporate dystopia, the scenarios were fantastical and the initial character-pool was predictable if not actually uninspired. A lot of the early material was by any critical yardstick sub-par. But there was also Spider-Man 2099.

Some analogue of the wall-crawler is always going to happen in any Marvel imprint (anybody remember Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham?), and in those insane days of speculator-led markets (where greedy kids – and adults – dreamed of cornering the market in “Hot Issues” and becoming instant squillionaires) the future wallcrawler was a spectacular example of quality creators producing superior work (don’t take my word for it, just check out Spider-Man 2099: Genesis)…

In 2099 world governments were openly in the capacious pockets of huge multi-national corporations which controlled every aspect of society. All superheroes had been gone for decades, although their legends still comforted the underclass living at the fringes – and below the feet – of the favoured ones who could survive in a society based on unchecked, rampant free-marker capitalism.

Miguel O’Hara was a brilliant young geneticist fast-tracked and swiftly rising through the ranks of Alchemax. He enjoyed the privileges that his work (creating super-soldiers for the company) won him. He loved solving problems and despite interference from salary-men and corporate drudges he made a major breakthrough: a technique to alter genetic make-up and combine it with DNA from other organisms…

Following a demonstration which went grotesquely awry the arrogant scientist made a big mistake and threatened to quit. Unwilling to lose such a valuable asset CEO Tyler Stone poisoned O’Hara with the most addictive drug in existence – one only available from Alchemax – to keep him loyal.

The boy wonder was then forced to use his genetic modifier, resetting his physiology to purge the addiction from his cells. However one of the lab assistants he used to bully saw a chance for some payback and sabotaged the attempt, adding spider DNA to the matrix…

Miguel became the ultimate rebel in his time and was at the cutting edge of a new “Age of Heroes” fighting Stone and Alchemax as well as many other menaces. He eventually discovered the other reason for his privileged fast tracking: his mother’s long-ago affair which had resulted in a son…

Now O’Hara had to ally with Stone and stop the temporal threat in 2013 – to save his world and his own life…

In New York, Horizon labs are under threat: a corporate takeover by Allan Chemical (owned by Parker’s old school flame Liz Allan-Osborn) but orchestrated by the conniving Ty Stone, who had been sabotaging the Think-Tank’s experiments and stock price for months.

The geniuses there use experimental time-tech to record Stones perfidious deeds, but when they first turn on the machine Spider-Man 2099 explodes out of it, desperate to stop the chronal anomaly before his future dies. Before too long however he is confronted by this era’s wondrous webslinger.

O’Hara’s not worried: after all he and his predecessor have met before and fought as allies. Unfortunately that adventure is not one that remained in his memory after Ock removed the last vestiges of Peter’s consciousness…

Because of this, ‘Smack to the Future’ finds the Spider-Men in savage combat, leaving Ty Stone to continue his machinations unobstructed: absorbing Horizon and taking over the company that results from the hostile takeover.

He’s thinking perhaps… Al-Chem-Max?

With the future rapidly unravelling, the scene changes to the Caribbean where Yuri and Carlie are chasing down the final piece in their detective jigsaw puzzle in the concluding chapter ‘Event Horizon’, where a last minute save sees the Superior Spider-Man and his notional legatee vanish into an explosive time glitch. Only one reappears when the crisis is over and Parker/Octavius has no memory of what has happened…

And in 2099, Tyler Stone gloats; his world is safe and, by destroying Alchemax’ time tech, he has stranded “his” Spider-Man where nobody can save him…

It’s back to business with artists Giuseppe Camuncoli & John Dell as ‘Still Standing’ takes a look back to just after Octavius triumphed in stealing Spider-Man’s body and life. Following that cataclysmic clash a John and Jane Doe were admitted to hospital. She was considerably disturbed by hallucinations in which she saw the “Great Web coming undone” and “all the Spiders dying” whilst he kept deliriously demanding where Otto Octavius was…

Retuning to the present day, the ever-efficient Spider-Man encounters super-thief and some-time adventure Black Cat. As a former lover, the feline felon expects her former beau to go easy on her as usual, but is astonished at his new attitude and the savage beating she receives before he leaves her to the cops…

In the meantime the hospitalised John Doe is released, intent on some secret task to perform, as the increasingly acerbic and domineering Peter Parker wheedles money from his Aunt May and her husband to start his new tech company – backing up that investment with the last of Dr. Octopus’ off-shore hidden funds.

Carlie is tracking those accounts and sets off to give her findings to the Avengers but she doesn’t make it…

And at his Doctoral Board meeting the exultant Parker gets a stunning shock after his successful presentation is ruined by Lamaze who accuses the candidate of plagiarising the work of another scientist: his old college chum Otto Octavius…

This portentous package concludes with ‘Lethal Ladies’ as Doc Ock’s old girlfriend Stunner goes on a rampage, tearing up the town in her solid hologram form, forcing the Superior Spider-Man into a battle he just doesn’t want to fight.

As Carlie discovers that there’s no corpse in the tentacled super-villain’s grave, only to be abducted, Spider-Man uses Stunner’s equipment to solve his Doctoral problem with Don Lamaze, utterly unaware that the Goblin Army Cult now possesses Carlie’s proof of who’s really living in Peter Parker’s skull…

To Be Continued…

Scripted as ever by Dan Slott, Necessary Evil collects issues #17-21 of the fortnightly Superior Spider-Man (4th September-13th November 2013), ramping up the tension in advance of truly shocking revelations to come, and this titanic time-busting tome includes a covers-&-variants gallery by Stegman, Camuncoli, Humberto Ramos, Mike McKone, J.G. Jones, Olivier Coipel, Leonel Castellani, J. Scott Campbell & Adi Granov

This up-to-the minute tech-heavy reinvention is naturally accompanied with some AR icon sections – Marvel Augmented Reality App pages which provide access to story bonuses and content on your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Spider-Man has been reinvented so often it’s almost become commonplace, but this iteration – for however long it lasts – is one no lover of high-octane adventure should miss: smart, shocking and incredibly addictive.
™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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JLA Classified: New Maps of Hell

New, revised review

By Warren Ellis & Jackson Guice (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0944-5

It’s been quite a while since we covered a good old-fashioned straightforward and no-strings-attached superhero blockbuster: one which any old punter can pick up with no worry over continuity or identification and where good guys and bad guys are clearly defined.

That’s due in large part to the fact that nobody makes many of those anymore, but at least it gives me the opportunity to take another look a tale I didn’t much like when it first came out in 2006, but which has definitely grown on me after a recent re-read.

Produced at a time when the Justice League of America was enjoying immense popularity and benefiting from a major reboot courtesy of Grant Morrison, the end-of-the-world epic – starring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Oracle and Martian Manhunter – originally ran in issues #10-15 of ancillary spin-off title JLA Classified (September 2005-February 2006) with gritty futurist super-scribe Warren Ellis upping the angst-quotient on a hoary old plot whilst hyper-realist illustrator Jackson Guice adds a terrifying veracity to events.

The drama begins as Clark Kent and wife Lois Lane stumble onto a dirty little secret. Assorted, and presumably unconnected, scientists and bean-counters at President Luthor‘s Lexcorp conglomerate have committed suicide in large numbers and the intrepid reporters suspect something very nasty is going on…

In Gotham City Batman learns the police have been turned away from an extremely unconventional crime-scene by Feds and a private security company, and he too begins to dig…

In the Bermuda triangle, a group of researchers are invited to the Amazon’s ancient library of knowledge only to die when the sky-floating island explodes in a horrendous detonation.

Wally West has terrible dreams of his beloved predecessor Barry Allen which lead him to a similar catastrophic conflagration, whilst Green Lantern Kyle Rayner ruminates on a primordial legend of the Corps’ origins until a wave of explosions rouses him to action.

In the ruins of each disaster the scattered, hard-pressed heroes find an ancient parchment of alien hieroglyphs and, when Superman recovers another page of the same from the shredded remnants of a plummeting space station, the call goes out to activate the League…

Tasking cyber-savant Oracle and aged Martian sole survivor J’onn J’onzz with digging up information, the team learn of an antediluvian scourge which wracked the red planet million’s of years past. A God/Devil which tested species’ right to survive and heralded its coming through a written code…

Luthor’s scientist’s had found such writings in remnants of ancient Sumeria and begun deciphering the text…

Mobilising to stop the summoning, the heroes confront Luthor in the White House but are too late. In Las Vegas the bowels of Hell vomit horrors into the streets and as the frantic team rushes to battle they are snatched up separated by the malign entity which has spent eons traversing the universe testing the worth of intelligent races and individually putting them to their sorest tests.

However the monstrous terror has never faced beings like the JLA before, or a mind like Batman’s, and soon its own darkest secret is exposed and its fatal weakness exploited to devastating effect…

With a painted cover gallery by Michael Stribling, this book offers simple, solid Fights ‘n’ Tights fun gilded with a sly and cynical post-modern edge: a sound example of contemporary action blockbuster comics at their best.
© 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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X-Men Noir: the Mark of Cain


By Fred Van Lente & Dennis Calero (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4437-3

When fictional heroes and villains become really popular – to the point where fans celebrate their births and deaths and dress up like them at the slightest opportunity or provocation – eventually a tendency develops to explore other potential character facets that the regular, cash-cow continuity might normally prohibit.

DC invented a whole company sub-strand of “Imaginary Stories” and Marvel asked “What If…?” sharing glimpses of alternate realities. Even television series got into the act with shows like Star Trek, Roswell and Stargate SG-1 offering coolly jarring, different takes on their established stars and scenarios.

The little dark gem of alternate continuity on offer today comes from an intriguing experiment in 2009 wherein Marvel took many of their biggest stars and reconfigured them for a universe drenched in the tone, lore and ephemera of pulp fiction and Film Noir: a dark land where shiny gleaming super-powered heroes were replaced by bleakly paranoid, deeply flawed and self-serving individuals just trying to get by as best they could…

X-Men Noir: the Mark of Cain is actually a sequel to the initial foray and benefits from not having to explain or differentiate the so-similar seeming stars from the bastions of the regular continuity. It ran as a 4-issue miniseries from February-May 2010 offering a moody glimpse of a world with no heroes, only shades of villainy. Nevertheless it still provides a satisfying slice of suspenseful entertainment for Fights ‘n’ Tights fans in search of something genuinely edgier than their regular fare. After all, the big draw for the jaded is that these folks might actually die and stay that way…

What You Need to Know: situated in the 1930s, these X-Men are not mutants with incredible, science-defying powers but rather a gang of mentally disturbed juvenile delinquents. They had been lab rats for rogue psychiatrist Charles Xavier in his School for Gifted Youngsters, where he strove to exacerbate rather than cure their various anti-social behaviours.

The batty boffin believed that sociopathy was the next stage in human behavioural development and spent his days training and refining the criminal talents and tendencies of his disturbed charges – until he was exposed and thrown in jail on Riker’s Island Prison.

The truth came out after the body of one of his “students” was washed up on the shore, covered in odd, three bladed knife slashes…

There is one costumed mystery man on the scene during these parlous times. Nosy, troublesome reporter Tom Halloway is not-so-secretly also a violent vigilante dubbed The Angel and the hunt for him preoccupied many familiarly different characters such as corrupt Chief of Detectives Eric “Magnus” Magnisky, his troubled children Peter and Wanda, casino owner Remy LeBeau, mobster Unus the Untouchable and drug runner Sean Cassidy…

This sequel volume opens with a public scandal as the government’s secret prison camp at Genosha Bay is exposed. Charges of torture and Applied Eugenics are levelled against the operators but despite rising protests the prison still carries on its inhumane treatments on the legion of sociopaths held there without Due Process or Representation.

In other news: due to lack of evidence, “Professor of Crime” Xavier is freed from Riker’s, arrogantly swearing to track down the killer of his recently assassinate “friend” Magnus…

A continent and ocean away, some of his former successes are cutting their way through the jungles of Madripoor and hordes of berserk headhunters as they try to find the lost temple of Cyttorak and retrieve a fabulous gem.

Sharpshooter Scott “Cyclops” Summers and unpredictable seagoing brawler Captain Logan are temporarily with the Angel, following a map provided by bootlegger and mercenary Cain Marko. They don’t give much credence to the native legends of vengeance inflicted on transgressors by Cyttorak’s “Juggernaut” but that soon changes when Marko is found in the no-man’s land around GenoshaBay, crushed to pulp. Of the enormous jewel there is no trace…

Peppered with evocative flashbacks, the story and trail leads Angel – who learned most of his nasty bag of tricks from Cain – to the USA’s extraterritorial prison and the shocking revelation that Xavier is secretly in charge…

Despite being captured and subjected to the Professor X’s methods of persuasion – administered by the warped woman Warden Frost – Halloway soon breaks free and begins pursuing the how and the who of Marko’s murder.

Fighting his way past the Professor of Crime’s newest protégés, a big burly Russian and an exotic black woman with a white Mohawk haircut, he is recaptured before he can reach Logan’s boat and sometime allies Cyclops and Eugene “Puck” Judd.

Undergoing more of Xavier’s “treatments”, the Angel is then confronted with the scientist’s secret weapon: his own thoroughly crazy – sociopathic – twin brother Robert Halloway…

The period drama and sinister suspense kick into compelling overdrive as the various parties hunting the Gem clash when the action shifts from noir detective to pulp sci-fi and the Professor’s true plan emerges. With the government’s covert connections exposed, and all surviving participants trapped aboard a huge flying battleship, the real value of the Gem of Cyttorak is revealed and, amidst flying fists, double- and triple-crosses abound.

As the agendas of all interested parties crash together thousands of feet above Manhattan, only antisocial violence works and at last a kind of justice is won…

Bleak, cynical and trenchantly effective, this excellent thriller by scripter Fred Van Lente and illustrator Dennis Calero provides a huge helping of thrills and chills that would work equally well even if you had never heard of Marvel’s mighty mutants.

This pocketbook sized collection also includes a covers and variants gallery by Calero as well as a dozen original art pages shot prior to the digital colouring stage.
© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Love and Rockets: New Stories volume 6


By The Hernandez Brothers (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-679-9

It’s nearly Christmas again so it must be year since the last annual instalment of Love and Rockets: New Stories. Yep, there it is and about time too…

With this volume the most iconic, transcendent and formative force of the American independent comics movement enters its 40th year of publication. Love and Rockets was an anthology magazine featuring the slick, intriguing, sci-fi-tinged hi-jinx of punky young things Maggie and Hopey – las Locas – and heart-warming, gut-wrenching soap-opera epics set in a rural Central American paradise called Palomar.

The Hernandez Boys (three guys from Oxnard, California: Jaime, Gilberto and Mario), gifted synthesists all, captivated the comics cognoscenti with incredible stories sampling and referencing a host of influences – everything from Comics, TV cartoons, masked wrestlers and the exotica of American Hispanic pop culture to German Expressionism.

There was also a perpetual backdrop displaying the holy trinity of youth: Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll – also alternative music, hip hop and punk.

The result was dynamite then and the guys have only got better with the passing years. Mario only officially contributed on rare occasions, but Jaime’s slick, enticing visual forays explored friendship and modern love by destroying stereotypes of feminine attraction through his fetching coterie of Gals Gone Wild, whilst Gilberto created a hyper-real landscape and playground of wit and passion created for his extended generational saga Heartbreak Soup: a quicksilver chimera of breadline Latin-American village life with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast.

The shadows cast by Palomar still define and inform his latest tales both directly and as imaginative spurs for ostensibly unaffiliated stories.

This masterful anthology of wonders simultaneously runs a string of contiguous story strands, opening with Jaime’s evocative ‘Fuck Summer’ wherein young Tonta Agajanian is losing her battle with boredom. The older, cooler kids don’t want to hang with her or her charming associate Gomez, and for some reason Coach Rivera is chasing her all over town, cutting into her precious vacation time and pushing her to join the swim team…

With no other resort they head to the swimming hole where wild girl Gretchen keeps finding “presents” from a forest spirit.

Gilbert then offers ‘Song of Our Sad Girl’ as Doralis “Killer” Rivera apparently quits her cinema career before heading back to Palomar to visit her distanced family. With flashbacks inter-cutting to the grandmother she’s playing in her new movie Maria M, the story primarily focuses on the starlet’s latest crisis.

She’s fleeing rumours that she’s pregnant and just wants some peace and a normal life. At least that’s what she’s telling herself…

‘Wrench World’ (Jaime again) finds Tonta the recipient of some shocking news: her step-father has been shot and her far-from-normal mother is the prime suspect. Even her older brothers and sisters believe the old bitch did it…

Killer’s star shines in ‘Willow, Weep No More’ (by Beto) as her quest for understanding the family – and especially her grandmother – turns up an old tape of shocking content…

Jaime then begins a series of revelatory vignettes filling in detail and character on Tonta’s extended, unconventional family of half-siblings in ‘Crimen Uno’ before the surly girl and BFF Gomez stalk Coach Rivera to some quirkily engaging ‘Tarzana Adventures’.

Thereafter Tonta’s little sisters need some surly-styled comforting in ‘Urchins’ whilst ‘Crimen Dos’ covers the elders’ discussion of their mother’s other (alleged) victims.

Gilbert’s firm grasp of the Hollywood rumour mill is shown in ‘…Killer’s Dad – Grampa Hector?’ and ‘Killer in the Mix’ sees the busty phenomenon head back to the USA in time for the release of the Directors Cut of Maria M, garnering grief from her friends about keeping the (alleged) baby she may or may not be carrying…

‘Crimen Tres’ continues with Tonta’s family simultaneously reminiscing and planning to get rid of their embarrassing surviving parent, whilst in ‘Pack Mules’ our girl and Gomez steal a car and head off to finally uncover Coach’s big secret…

It’s a doozy – seen in ‘Crestfallen Angel’ – but does break the ice, and, after ‘Crimen Cuatro’, Tonta at last begins to change her opinions…

An incongruous and lewdly fantastic untitled monster yarn from Gilberto segues into Jaime’s ‘Familylimaf’ wherein Tonta’s older sisters invade gym class and expose an unsuspected – an immensely humiliating – connection to Rivera after which ‘Crimen Cinco’ delivers one more shock to the girl and her constantly expanding family, before a reconciliation of sorts materialises in ‘Dogs Follow Dogs’…

There are further familial secrets disclosed and generational ties uncovered for Killer in ‘Willow, Weep No More 2’ and ‘Willow, Weep No More 3’ after which Jaime hits the home stretch with ‘Crimen Seis’ – wherein the progeny get a good telling off – and Tonta gives in and joins the swimming squad in ‘Go! Go! Go!’ before ‘Crimen Final’ resolves the courtroom dilemma.

Gilbert ends his stint with a ghostly visitation in ‘And Palomar Again’ and Jaime takes us back to the beginning as Tonta heads back, back, back  to the swimming hole for more telling glimpses of her compelling family life in ‘Rrrregresamos’…

Warm-hearted, deceptively heart-wrenching, subtly shocking, challenging, charming and irresistibly addictive, Love and Rockets: New Stories is a grown up comics fan’s dream come true and remains as valid and groundbreaking as its earlier incarnations – the diamond point of the cutting edge of American graphic narrative.
© 2013 Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Maria M. Book One


By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-719-2

In addition to being part of the graphic/literary revolution of Love and Rockets (where his astonishingly addictive tales of rural Palomar first garnered overwhelming critical acclaim), Gilbert Hernandez has produced stand-alone books such as Sloth, Birdland, Grip and Girl Crazy, all marked by his bold, compellingly simplified artwork and inspired adaptation of literary techniques used by Magical Realist writers such as Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez: techniques which he has amplified and, visually at least, made his own.

Hernandez also frequently acknowledges such outré mainstream influences as filmmakers Roger Corman and John Cassavetes, and crime writers Elmore Leonard and Jim Thompson as he entered new territories and reforms the cultural influences which shaped all us baby-boomers.

In Luba we glimpsed the troubled life of the lead character’s half-sister Rosalba “Fritzi” Martinez: a brilliant, troubled woman, speech-impaired psychotherapist, sex-worker, belly-dancer and “B-movie” starlet of such faux screen gems as We Love Alone, Seven Bullets to Hell, Chest Fever, Blood is the Drug and Lie Down in the Dark.

Although Fritzi only had a bit part in it, Hernandez “adapted” one of those trashy movies into a graphic novel (Chance in Hell, 2007) and repeated the story-within-a-story- within-a-story gimmick in 2009 with The Troublemakers – a frantic, hell-bent pulp fiction crime thriller which was part of the screen queen’s canon – and did it again in 2011 with Love From the Shadows.

Now he’s turned up the tension and doubled down on the plundering of his own mythologies. Maria M delves even deeper into the labyrinthine coils and onion-skin layers of meta-reality as the filmic biography of Fritzi’s long-absconded grandmother becomes a revelatory expose of the turbulent life of a beautiful, competent immigrant fugitive; carving out her own slice of the American Dream after escaping the rustic drudgery of Palomar.

Deftly mimicking a compelling-but-trashy post-Noir gangster thriller and sordid Fifties B-Picture melodrama, this first volume of Maria M sees a lovely Amazonian Latin beauty hit Everytown, USA in 1957, promptly befriended and taken in by couple of sympathetic working girls…

It’s all a huge mistake. Maria is actually the girlfriend of a mobster who has expedited her passage into the country. Unfortunately, by the time the mix-up is sorted and she finds his place, the poor guy is staring down the barrel of a rival’s gun.

Witness to murder and with no other place to go, the pneumatic stranger heads back to Trixie and Pam and begins her career in the men’s entertainment industry: “hostessing”, photo-shoots and – inevitably for someone with her looks – stag films…

Every attempt to go legit is frustrated by lustful men wanting her, and inevitably she settles for her new life. She still sees people from the Old Country, but they’re usually gangsters, hoodlums or worse…

She makes some friends along the way: other girls in the shady world of men’s movies, film critic Clyde and even bought cop Valdez, but her life only really turns around when she catches the eye of gang boss Luis Cienfuegos. The older man is so smitten with his sex kitten that he marries her…

His sons – both older than Maria – are dutiful and pay her every respect, but whereas taciturn, brutal Gorgo is clearly fascinated with his new stepmother, slick, businesslike, modern Herman makes no effort to conceal his distaste.

It’s a time of great turmoil for the Latino gangs in the USA. Tenuous alliances and collaborations are commonplace, but the assorted leaders have very different views on the rise of Communism in their homelands: beliefs which will inevitably lead to disagreements and bloodshed. And of course everybody plans on eventually being the only game in town…

Maria keeps herself insulated from her husband’s business, but does develop a passionate affinity for guns. It’s just as well. Over the next few years Luis barely survives numerous assassination attempts.

…And always silent, staring Gorgo waits in the background, watching her as his father’s employees, allies and enemies circle, drawn to her voluptuous beauty like moths to a flame…

In such a murky, dangerous world it’s impossible for Maria to keep completely apart from her husband’s affairs and when she is abducted by supposed allies Gorgo allows his true feelings to show in a savagely horrific manner, after which she divorces her man for the best possible motives…

Dark, evocative and astoundingly compelling, this perfect pastiche of a beloved genre and fabled time-period is a stunning graphic rollercoaster ride of sex, violence, greed, obsession and outlaw antiheroes: a mesmerising read jam-packed with Hernandez’s coolly understated narrative suspense, intoxicating illustration, brutally raw tension and sly elements of filmic surrealism which carry the reader through to the low-key cliffhanger ending in classic style.

And please, don’t get too het up over the convolutions and continuity provenances that resulted in this book. If you need to see the “True Story” of Maria, just check out the story ‘Poison River’ in the Heartbreak Soup collection Beyond Palomar, but otherwise why not just revel in a grim and gripping, saga of love and hope and inescapable doom…

Every adult lover of top-notch drama should snap up Maria M immediately to revel in the sheer brilliance of a master storyteller at the peak of his prowess, and open-minded comics fans should be advised to step beyond the costumes and chains of continuity to take a heady shot of pure imagination at work.
© 2013 Gilbert Hernandez. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All rights reserved.