Category: Graphic Novels

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Valerian and Laureline book 4: Welcome to Alflolol


By Méziéres & Christin, with colours by E. Tranlé and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-087-0   (Dargaud edition) 2-205-06573-4

Valérian is the most influential science fiction comics series ever drawn – and yes, that includes even Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Dan Dare and Judge Dredd.

Although to a large extent those venerable strips defined and later re-defined the medium itself, anybody who has seen a Star Wars movie or that franchise’s overwhelming homages, pastiches and rip-offs has been exposed to doses of Jean-Claude Méziéres & Pierre Christin’s brilliant imaginings (which the filmic phenomenon has shamelessly plundered for decades): everything from the character and look of alien races and cultures to the design of the Millennium Falcon and even Leia‘s Slave Girl outfit …

Simply put, more carbon-based life-forms have experienced and marvelled at the uniquely innovative, grungy, lived-in authentic futurism and light-hearted swashbuckling rollercoaster romps of Méziéres & Christin than any other cartoon spacer.

The groundbreaking series followed a Franco-Belgian mini-boom in fantasy fiction triggered by Jean-ClaudeForest’s 1962 creation Barbarella.

Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent launched in the November 9th, 1967 edition of Pilote (#420) and was an instant hit. In 1977 the fervour surrounding Greg & Eddy Paape’s Luc Orient and Philippe Druillet’s Lone Sloane, combined with Valérian‘s popularity led to the creation of an adult graphic sci-fi blockbuster – Métal Hurlant.

Val̩rian and Laureline (as the series eventually became) is a light-hearted, wildly imaginative time-travelling, space-warping fantasy teeming with wry, satirical, humanist action and political commentary, starring Рin the early days at least Рan affable, capable yet unimaginative by-the-book cop tasked with protecting the official universal chronology by counteracting paradoxes caused by incautious time-travellers.

When Valérian travelled to 11th century France in the initial tale ‘Les Mauvais Rêves (‘Bad Dreams’ and still not translated into English yet), he was rescued from doom by a fiery, capable young woman named Laureline whom he brought back to 28th century super-citadel and administrative capital of the Terran Empire, Galaxity.

The indomitable lass subsequently trained as a Spatio-Temporal operative and began accompanying him on all his missions.

Every subsequent Valérian adventure until the 13th was initially serialised weekly until ‘The Rage of Hypsis’ concluded, after which further yarns were solely published as all-new complete graphic novels. The whole spectacular saga resolved and ended in 2010.

Welcome to Alflolol originally ran in Pilote #631-652 (December 1971-May 11th 1972) and follows the Spatio-Temporal agents as they depart from Technorog, a desolate industrial planet whose vast resources are crucial to the running of human civilisation. So vital in fact that Galaxity sends her best agents just to inspect it every now and then…

As the S-T agents carefully negotiate the immense forcefield and asteroid belt that envelope the harsh and ferociously capitalistic factory world, Laureline is repeatedly possessed by an uncanny force. The fit also leads the couple to an immense ship which has foundered between the rocks and energy screen.

Investigating the vessel, which is purposely open to hard vacuum, Laureline again lapses into a glowing coma and eerily drifts towards a family of incredibly powerful yet rustically affable alien primitives sitting on the hull of their ship.

Valerian, closely following behind, prevents a terrible accident to his companion and is warmly greeted by the strangers, who explains that the eldest of the beings is very ill and in her throes has locked minds with his female. If they’re not careful, both could die…

Garrulous, easygoing Argol agrees to let Valerian treat the problem, and his wife Orgal telekinetically transports the Earthlings, her entire family and their pet Gumun back to the S-T astroship in mere moments. Soon Terran technology has saved both the human and alien and Argol settles back to explain what has happened…

The wanderers are naively friendly and immensely long-lived – like all their species – and are just returning to their homeworld Alflolol from an amusing perambulation through space. However since their departure – 4,000 Earth years ago – somebody has moved in…

Despite the Governor of Technorog’s protests, Galaxity law is clear and the Alflololians must be allowed back on their planet.

However the wheedling plutocrat – secure in his job’s importance to the empire – realises he doesn’t have to hand over the keys, just make room for the five meekly polite cosmic gypsies, who simply cannot grasp the concept of business and don’t understand why anybody would put up lots of flimsy, ugly buildings and spoil the hunting……

As Valerian allows the businessmen to walk all over the aliens’ rights, Laureline goes berserk: arguing for Argol’s family and indulging in a little light-hearted sabotage because the gentle giants won’t do it for themselves…

She needn’t bother though: their mere presence and incredible abilities are enough to disrupt the Governor’s precious productivity, especially when they get bored of sterile human accommodations and return to their ancestral ranges…

The real crisis only begins when the rest of the nomadic Alflololians return: one hundred separate ships full of natives protected by law and fully entitled to reclaim their homes.

The humans aren’t leaving, however, and soon the Governor has begun herding the wanderers onto a reservation and demanding they work if they want to eat.

Big mistake…

Socially aware and crusading, this is one of the earliest comics tales to catch the 1970s wave of ecological awareness and still ranks amongst the very best to explore the social iniquities which beset indigenous peoples at a time when most European ex-empires were still divesting themselves of their colonial possessions.

The theme of Capitalism versus Native Culture and the eternal struggle between territorial imperatives, moral rights and holy profit have seldom been dealt with in such an effective, sardonic and hilarious surreal manner. Ending on an outrageous twist, the story has lost none of its wit and punch forty years later.

And of course there’s the usual glorious blend of astounding action, imaginative imagery and fantastic creatures to leaven the morality play with space-operatic fun-filled, visually breathtaking and stunningly ingenious wide-eyed wonderment…

Between 1981 and 1985, Dargaud-Canada and Dargaud-USA published a quartet of these albums in English (with a limited UK imprint from Hodder-Dargaud) under the umbrella title Valerian: Spatiotemporal Agent and this tale was the third release, translated then by L. Mitchell.

Although this modern Cinebook release boasts far better print and colour values and a more fluid translation, total completists might also be interested in tracking down those 20th century releases too…
© Dargaud Paris, 1972 Christin, Méziéres & Tran-Lệ. All rights reserved. English translation © 2012 Cinebook Ltd.

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The Children of Palomar


By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 976-1-60699-625-6

In the 1980s a qualitative revolution forever destroyed the clichéd, segregated, stereotypical ways genres of comic strips were produced and marketed. Most effective in blasting the comfy funnybook pigeonholes were three young guys from Oxnard, California: Jaime, Mario and Gilberto Hernandez.

Love and Rockets was an anthology magazine (and previously a self-published comic in 1981) that broke all the rules, featuring intriguing, adventuresome larks and captivating, experimental narratives which pretty much defied classification, all cloaked in the ephemera of LA’s Hispanic and punk music scene.

Stories generally focussed on the slick, sci-fi-seasoned larks of young gadabouts Maggie, Hopey and their extended eccentric circle of friends or the heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera travails of rural Central American outpost Palomar.

The Hernandez Boys, gifted synthesists all, enthralled and enchanted with incredible stories that sampled a thousand influences conceptual and actual – everything from comics, cartoon shows, masked wrestlers, trashy movies and 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 – for which please hear mostly alternative music and punk rock.

The result was dynamite. Mario only officially contributed on rare occasions but his galvanising energy informed everything. The slick and enticing visual forays by Jaime explored friendship and modern love whilst destroying stereotypes of feminine attraction through his fetching coterie of Gals Gone Wild, whilst Gilberto mostly crafted a hyper-real microcosm in his Latinate landscape: a playground of wit, toil, passion and raw humanity in a poor village with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast created for his extended epic Heartbreak Soup.

Everything from life, death, adultery, magic, monsters, murder and especially gossip could happen in Palomar’s metafictional environs, as the artist mined his own post-punk influences in a deceptively effective primitivist art style which perfectly blended a personalised mythology of comics, music, intoxicants, strong women, gangs, sex and family. The denizens of Palomar still inform and shape Beto’s work, both directly and as imaginative spurs for spin-off stories.

Winning critical acclaim but little financial success, the brothers temporarily put aside their favourite toys to work on side projects and special series before creatively reuniting a few years back to produce annual collections of new material in their particularly peculiar shared or, rather, intermittently adjacent pen-and-ink universes.

In 2006, more than a decade after the canonical Heartbreak Soup stories, Beto popped back to his leafy arcadia via a three-magazine run entitled New Tales of Old Palomar, producing a too-brief selection of elucidating tales drenched in revelation and imagination which revealed a few answers to questions we never knew we had…

In the opening act of ‘The Children of Palomar’ the denizens of the little town are going about their daily business with a little less than usual calm since a couple of abandoned wild kids have been stealing food from everyone, everywhere. The naked little nippers are incredibly fleet-footed and not even Sheriff Chelo can catch them.

Her immediate problems are solved once sporty soccer-playing Pipo decides to prove who is truly the fastest runner in town, but unfortunately, once feral foundlings Tonantzin and Diana Villaseñor have been taken in, the village has to civilise and find homes for them…

The men meanwhile have devised a scheme to make Palomar a little export money. They mean well but when the mayor and his pals decide to blow up a boulder just as the stray kids take off, it takes all Pipo’s acceleration to prevent a horrific tragedy…

Another time little boys were on the other side of “The Crack” hazing young Gato before letting him join their black shirt gang. When they got bored and left, Pintor tried to help the traumatised candidate get home but the log across the giant gorge had vanished.

Stuck and terrified they were then abducted by strangers in space suits who experimented on them. The strangers spoke a strange language but another Palomar boy named Manuel was there and he said that soon they would be made to forget everything…

The villagers meanwhile had noticed them gone and Sheriff Chelo led a search party to the gap, but when their makeshift bridge sundered, only she managed to get across. By the time she found the kids their captors were arguing and the violence only escalated when she intervened…

The entire outpost then vanished in an explosion but at least she got the boys back…

Of course, Chelo had no idea that one of the ghostly White Strangers was still alive and intensely interested…

Palomar is surrounded by huge, ancient statues and the people all know they live in a world of magic. When babosa-selling Tonantzin began seeing a ghostly chuckling “Blooter Baby”, a wise woman explained that they only appeared to girls and women who would be childless, before telling her how to get rid of it.

Instead, she and the spectre reach an accommodation and the girl learns she is not alone before gaining a mission for life…

Our picaresque peregrinations conclude some time later when diminutive Carmen thinks she feels an Earth tremor no one else noticed. She considers asking the peculiar white scientists doing their weird bird research at the edge of town but doesn’t know their language.

Everybody goes about their day until the strangers kidnap Chelo and the horrified sheriff recognises one of the “aliens” from across the gorge all those years ago. Although formidable, she succumbs to superior force and wakes up maimed but back in bed in Palomar.

Not normally an unforgiving woman, Chelo goes looking for her tormentors as soon as she’s able… and finds them…

There’s fiction, there’s Meta-fiction and then there’s Gilbert Hernandez. In addition to Love and Rockets‘ captivating tales of Palomar he has produced numerous controversial and groundbreaking volumes such as Sloth, Grip, Birdland, Girl Crazy and Julio’s Day: all distinguished by his bold, instinctive, compellingly simplified artwork and a mature, sensitive adoption of the literary techniques of Magical Realist writers like Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez.

These techniques he has sublimely amplified and, visually at least, made utterly his own. This beguiling return to his landmark, signature series has been long overdue for a deluxe edition such as this splendid hardback, and such is the quality of the accessible writing and intoxicating art that first-timers will have no trouble slipping south of the border to join the veterans and devotees in a marvellous Latin mystery and adventure…
© 2013 Gilbert Hernandez. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Batman: Time and the Batman


By Grant Morrison, Fabian Nicieza, Tony S. Daniel, Cliff Richards, Andy Kubert, Frank Quitely, David Finch, Richard Friend, Scott Kolins & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2990-0

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

Most of the Bat-schooled taskforce refused to believe their inspirational mentor dead. On the understanding that he was merely lost, they accepted Dick Grayson – first Robin and latterly Nightwing – as a stand-in until Bruce Wayne could find his way back to them…

This slim, grim volume collects the contents of Batman #700-703 (August-November 2010) and takes an imaginative glimpse into the past and future whilst laying the groundwork for the imminent Return of Bruce Wayne…

The turbulent time-warping terror and tragedy begins in the anniversary #700, written as a detective mystery by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Tony S. Daniel. ‘Yesterday’ sees the Dynamic Duo at the start of their careers, with Batman and Robin saving chronal researcher Carter Nichols from a pack of kidnappers which include Catwoman, Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, Riddler and the Joker.

The assembled felons and maniacs are using Carter’s “Maybe Machine” discoveries to plunder and muck up the time-stream, but after capturing the Gotham Gangbusters the Harlequin of Hate is getting some particularly dangerous ideas about the nature of reality…

By the time Jim Gordon‘s SWAT team breaks in it’s all over, but Nichols is clearly disturbed. Why else would he want the Joker’s Jokebook as a souvenir…?

‘Today’ (with art from Frank Quitely & Scott Kolins) opens years later as Dark Knight Dick Grayson and Bruce’s assassin-trained son Damian (the latest Boy Wonder) investigate the locked-room murder of Nichols. The bullet-riddled corpse is decades older than it should be…

It’s a busy night: after brutally cleaning up “Crime Alley” the heroes are almost too late to break up an underworld auction where a horde of masked malcontents are bidding on the recently discovered Joker’s Jokebook…

‘Tomorrow’ (Andy Kubert) takes us into a previously established future where Damian is the Batman of a Gotham even more impossibly debased and chaotic, where Joker venom rains from the skies thanks to weather control sabotage by cyborg psycho Max Roboto.

However even with Jokerzombies marauding through the besieged urban jungle and Police Commissioner Barbara Gordon‘s forces ruthlessly hunting the Cowled Crime-crusher, Damian has no time to rest as he searches for the macabre 2-Face-2, who holds hostage innocent toddler Terry McGinnis.

The unpredictable maniac has the infamous Joker’s Jokebook and seems to have a time-traveller named Nichols as his advisor…

The generational saga ends in brief visits with a succession of Future Batmen in ‘And Tomorrow…’ by David Finch & Richard Friend; encompassing the mid 21st century and ADs 3000, 3050 and 85298 (with guest appearances by Batman Beyond, Batman and Robin 3000, Brane Taylor and Batman One Million…)

Issues #701 and 702 revisited a recent Batman crossover with ‘R.I.P. – the Missing Chapter: The Hole in Things’ wherein Morrison & Daniel at last supplied the details of what occurred between the Dark Knight’s nigh-pyrrhic victory over Dr. Hurt and the Black Glove and his apparent demise after New God Darkseid invaded our dimension in Final Crisis.

‘R.I.P. – the Missing Chapter: Batman’s Last Case’ also reveals what bizarre machinations led to Bruce Wayne being alive in the corridors of history whilst apparently rendered into a mouldering corpse in Blackest Night.

Confusing, no?

A measure of narrative normality returned in #703 as ‘The Great Escape’ – scripted by Fabian Nicieza and illustrated by Cliff Richards – resumed the adventures of Dick and Damian in the now, with the heroes trying to stop second-generation super-thief Getaway Genius, all whilst Red (Tim Drake) Robin carried on his campaign to stop investigative journalist Vicki Vale proving that all Bruce Wayne’s kids were masked vigilantes…

This bombastic collection also includes a host of pretty picture treats: a selection of covers and variants by Daniel, Finch, Scott Williams, Andy Kubert, Mike Mignola & Kevin Nowlan, plus ‘Creatures of the Night: A Batman Gallery’ by Shane Davis, Sandra Hope, Barbara Ciardo, Juan Doe, Dustin Nguyen, Guillem March, Tim Sale, Bill Sienkiewicz & Philip Tan, and detailed and instructive ‘Operational Files: The Batcave’ offering views, schematics and diagrams by Freddie Williams II & Mathew K. Manning to satisfy any rabid Batfan…

Torturous, tumultuous, convoluted and challenging, this action-packed, high-octane Fights ‘n’ Tights drama will deliver all the thrills, spills and chills fans could hope for with impressive punch and panache aplenty. Sadly, though it’s all very pretty to look at and deucedly clever, it’s probably utterly impenetrable to casual consumers.

I’m not saying don’t read it if you qualify as a neophyte, just be prepared… and, perhaps, patient…
© 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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X-Men: Alterniverse Visions


By Anne Nocenti, Simon Furman, Mariano Nicieza, Kurt Busiek & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-0194-9

Although now commonplace in regular fiction media, once upon a time parallel worlds and alternate Earths were almost unilaterally the province of comicbooks, offering tantalising glimpses of intriguingly different yet profoundly familiar characters.

DC pretty much owned the shtick in the early 1960s but kept it separate from their other exploratory narrative strand “Imaginary Stories”, but over at up-and-coming Marvel Comics, Roy Thomas in particular had a notion to marry the twain…

To be clear: Alternate Earths are part of the overarching shared continuity and Imaginary Stories are just that – fanciful riffs and chimeras using established characters and scenarios, but never part of the nuts-&-bolts universe.

Thus, despite such surrogate Earthers as Thundra, Arkon, Mahkizmo, Gaard and the Squadron Supreme cropping up in regular Fantastic Four and Avengers issues, the House of Ideas followed their competitor’s lead until the launch of What If?

This was an anthological series wherein cosmic voyeur The Watcher offered peeks into a myriad of other universes where key “real” continuity stories were replayed with vastly different outcomes – the same basic idea as Imaginary Stories but with a back-handed acknowledgement that somewhere these epics were “real”…

The first volume (48 issues from February 1977 to June 1988) posed such intriguing questions as ‘What If… Loki had Found the Hammer of Thor?’, ‘the Fantastic Four had not gained Their Powers?’ or ‘Spider-Man’s Clone had Lived?’ and when the title relaunched in 1989 for another 115 issues including ‘What If Wolverine was Lord of the Vampires?’ and ‘What if Captain Marvel had not Died?’, the tales were all back-written into an over-arching continuity and began to be catalogued as variant but equally viable Earths/universes and alternate timelines.

There have been seven more volumes since and a series of “Alterniverse” tales…

In case you’re wondering, those gritty Ultimate Marvel sagas all occur on Earth-1610, the Age of Apocalypse happened on Earth-295, everybody got eaten in the Zombieverse of Earth-2149, the Squadron Supreme originally hailed from Earth-712 and mainstream Marvel tales take place on Earth-616, whilst we readers all dwell on the dull, dreary Earth-1218…

Keep calm then, but never forget that Reality is just a plethora of differing dimensions, and if things go awry in one it can have a cumulative and ultimately catastrophic effect on all of them…

Soon after designating this publishing idiom an Alterniverse, a selection of relatively recent What If? (all from volume 2) yarns starring a selection of X-Men were collected into a trade paperback which, despite then being closely dependent on familiarity with Marvel mainstream, might now – in the wake of all those various movies – be a little more accessible to a general readership…

The extra-dimensional dramas kick off with ‘What If… Wolverine Led Alpha Flight?’ (originally published in #59, March 1994, as ‘What If Wolverine Had Remained a Captive of Alpha Flight?’) by Simon Furman, Bryan Hitch & Joe Rubenstein, wherein the Feral Mutant was imprisoned by the Canadian Government after events in X-Men #119-120.

Once the X-Men are killed trying to get him back and depressed former berserker is left to lead a Canadian team against the Hellfire Club and their Dark Phoenix…

Next up is ‘What If… Storm Had Remained a Thief?’, courtesy of #40, August 1992 and first seen as ‘What if Storm of the X-Men Had Remained a Thief?’

This is a lovely and rare happily-ending tale by Anne Nocenti and Kirkwood Studios – AKA Steve Carr, Deryl Skelton & Rubenstein – which describes how instead of becoming a pickpocket in Cairo and weather goddess in equatorial Africa, the orphan Ororo Munroe is taken under the wing of benign grifter Herman Hassel. Years later when she meets the X-Men it is not as a friend…

‘What If… Rogue Possessed the Power of Thor?’ (#66, August 1994, by Furman, John Royle & Bambos Georgiou) takes a sharp left from a critical point in Avengers Annual #10 wherein the power-leeching mutant battled the team and Spider-Woman.

This time/space, however, Rogue doesn’t let go until the Thunder God is dead and drained and soon finds herself cursed with his might but still a pawn in a cosmic war between eternal Asgard and Loki‘s forces of Ragnarok…

From #69 (January 1995, by Mariano Nicieza, J.R. Justiniano & Roy Richardson) ‘What If… Stryfe Killed the X-Men?’ does what it promises and shows the catastrophic outcome after Professor X dies and his hapless students are left to face the homicidal future-clone of Cable as well as the mutant leveller Apocalypse, after which these walks on the wild side end with a visceral, dark thriller from Kurt Busiek, Ron Randall & Art Nichols who ask ‘What If… Wolverine Battled Weapon-X?’

From #62, June 1994, the grim chronicle details how the rogue Canadian science team that inflicted an Adamantium skeleton and experimental behaviour modification on secret agent Logan missed their mark in this universe and had to settle for a second-best human lab rat.

When their Weapon-X escaped to carve a swathe of slaughter through the country and wiped out neophyte superteam Alpha Flight, the grizzled veteran knew what he had to do, and to whom…

Action-packed, cathartic and just plain fun, these different strokes offer old-fashioned fun in vast amounts, and now that a wider world is filmically conversant with a (if not “the ”) Marvel Universe, perhaps it’s time to raid the vaults again and release similar collections starring Spider-Man, Thor, The Hulk, Fantastic Four, Iron Man and/or the Avengers…

© 1995Marvel Entertainment Group. All rights reserved.
A British edition by published by Boxtree is also available.

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Usagi Yojimbo Book 5: Lone Goat and Kid


By Stan Sakai (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-088-0

The wandering rabbit bodyguard Miyamoto Usagi began as a background character in Stan Sakai’s anthropomorphic comedy The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper before indomitably carving his own unique path to graphic glory.

Creative mastermind Sakai was born in 1953 in Kyoto, Japan before the family moved to Hawaii two years later. After graduating from the University of Hawaii with a BA in Fine Arts, he pursued further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design in California and started in comics as a letterer, most famously for the inimitable Groo the Wanderer.

Eventually the cartoonist within resurfaced: blending his storytelling drive with a love of Japanese history and legend, and hearty interest in the filmic works of Akira Kurosawa and his peers, into one of the most enticing and impressive fantasy sagas of all time.

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

The addictive period epic is set in a world of sentient animals (with a few unobtrusive human characters scattered about) but scrupulously mirrors the Feudal Edo Period of Japan – (the 17th century by our reckoning), simultaneously referencing classic contemporary cultural icons from sources as varied as Zatoichi and Godzilla, whilst specifically recounting the life of a peripatetic masterless Samurai eking out an honourable living as a Yojimbo (bodyguard-for-hire).

As such, his fate is to be drawn constantly into a plethora of incredible situations.

And yes, he’s a rabbit – brave, noble, sentimental, gentle, artistic, empathetic, long-suffering, conscientious and devoted to the tenets of Bushido, the heroic everyman bunny simply cannot turn down any request for help or ignore the slightest evidence of injustice…

This fantastically funny fifth monochrome masterwork gathers tales from Fantagraphics’ Usagi Yojimbo comicbook volume 1, #19-24 and offers a selection of complete adventures culminating in an unbelievably welcome and long-awaited spoof of Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima’s legendary samurai manga Kozure ÅŒkami, best known in the West as Lone Wolf and Cub…

Following a fulsome Introduction from Stan Lee, the restless Ronin takes on a paying gig with very little honour attached in ‘Frost and Fire’. On the recommendation of friend and occasional patron Lord Noriyuki, Usagi contracts with the cold and snobbish Lady Koriko to recover the priceless antique swords – but not the body – of her husband; recently expired in a distant village.

On arrival however Usagi finds a thorny dilemma: fallen and shamed samurai Nagao broke all class stricture and protocol by consorting with a peasant girl. Grief-stricken Atsuko wants to keep his family’s blades as the only reminder of the man she loved and who loved her in return…

This impossible impasse is only broken when Atsuko’s greedy brother intervenes, more concerned with the blades’ monetary value than their sentimental worth…

‘A Kite Story’ is an enchanting agglomeration of connected vignettes divided into four visual epigrams beginning with ‘The Kite Maker’s Tale’ in which master craftsman Tatsusaburo describes his process and motivation in building the largest Odako ever to challenge the clouds…

Next comes disreputable Hatsu who in ‘The Gambler’s Tale’ discloses how a long-eared Ronin exposed his cheating and ruined his business. Now, Yojimbo has returned and the games-man sees a way to pay him back, but fails in his scurrilous scheme due to the warrior’s ingenuity and the giant kite in ‘The Ronin’s Tale’ after which the elegant micro-saga comes full circle with ‘The Kite Maker’s Tale II’…

Although telling short stories here, everything is a fragment of a greater mosaic. Sakai is gradually constructing a massive overarching history and in the 2-part ‘Blood Wings’ the wanderer stumbles upon a man cut to ribbons by a flying killer. He soon discovers a village plagued by Komori ninja – a clan of bats trained in all the deadly tactics of Chi no Tsubasa – killing silently from above on “wings of blood”…

Although Usagi succeeds in helping the desperate villagers he has no way of knowing how the sky killers will affect his future, as the Komori are actually striving to prove themselves worthy replacements for the decimated Neko ninjas who have fallen from the good graces of scheming Lord Hebi since the end of the Dragon Bellows Conspiracy…

In the next tale the Yojimbo meets martial legend General Oyaneko but is distressed to learn the aged warrior is dying of a wasting disease. He’s even more upset when the General attempts to kill him, wanting to earn a clean end in ‘The Way of the Samurai’…

This volume concludes with ‘Lone Goat and Kid’ wherein former imperial official Yagi – who became an assassin after being framed by underlings of Lord Hirone – is tricked into fighting a certain rabbit Ronin who has no idea he is the latest pawn in a Machiavellian scheme to destroy the noble goat and his capable kid Gorogoro…

However, even though Usagi is tricked into fighting the doom-laden duo, the guilty impatience of the plotters soon reveals the true state of affairs…

Despite changing publishers a few times, Usagi Yojimbo has been in continuous publication since 1987, resulting in dozens of graphic novel collections and books to date. The Legendary Lepus has guest-starred in many other series and nearly had his own TV show – there’s still time yet, and fashions can revive as quickly as they die out…

As well as generating a horde of high-end collectibles, art prints, computer games and RPGs, a spin-off sci-fi series and lots of toys to promote popularity, Sakai and his creation have deservedly won numerous awards both within the Comics community and amongst the greater reading public.

Fast-paced yet lyrical, funny and scary, always moving, astoundingly visceral, ferociously thrilling and simply bursting with veracity and verve, Usagi Yojimbo is a cartoon masterpiece of irresistible appeal that will delight devotees and make converts of the most hardened hater of “funny animal” stories and comics.
Text and illustrations © 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992 Stan Sakai. Usagi Yojimbo is ® Stan Sakai. Book editions © 1992, 2005 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Batman: Haunted Knight


By Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-273-8

The creative team of Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale have tackled many iconic characters in a number of landmark tales, but their reworkings of early Batman mythology – such as The Long Halloween – certainly rank amongst their most memorable.

Set during the Batman: Year One scenario created by Frank Miller, and originally released as a 13 part miniseries (running from Halloween to Halloween), it detailed the early alliance of Police Captain Jim Gordon, District Attorney Harvey Dent and the mysterious vigilante Batman to destroy the unassailable mob boss who ran Gotham City: Carmine Falcone – “The Roman”.

However, before that epic undertaking the creators worked together on another All Hallows adventure – one that grew like Topsy and eventually became a triptych of Prestige One-Shot Specials under the aegis of Archie Goodwin’s most significant editorial project.

After the continuity-wide reset of Crisis on Infinite Earths, with DC still in the throes of re-jigging its entire narrative history, a new Batman title launched, presenting multi-part epics refining and infilling the history of the post-Crisis hero and his entourage. The added fillip was a fluid cast of prominent and impressively up-and-coming creators.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight was a fascinating experiment, even if the overall quality was a little haphazard.

Most of the early story-arcs were collected as trade paperbacks – helping to jump-start the graphic novel sector of the comics industry – and the re-imagining of the Gotham Guardian’s early career gave fans a wholly modern insight into the ancient yet highly malleable concept.

As explained in Goodwin’s introduction ‘Trick or Treat’ the first Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special began life as a story-arc for the monthly series before being promoted to a single, stand-alone publication released for October 1993. Its success spawned two sequels – and the aforementioned Long Halloween epic…

Collected in one spooky stripped-down paperback compilation, those three scary stories comprise a raw and visceral examination of an obsessive hero still learning his trade and capable of deadly misjudgements as seen in ‘Fears’ when, after spectacularly capturing terror-obsessed psychopath Jonathan Crane, the neophyte Caped Crusader leaves him to policemen ill-equipped to cope with the particular brand of malicious insanity cultivated by The Scarecrow…

It’s fair to say that the man behind the bat mask is distracted; still attempting to reconcile his nocturnal and diurnal activities, Bruce Wayne is helpless before the seductive and sophisticated blandishments of predatory social butterfly Jillian Maxwell. Faithful major-domo Alfred Pennyworth is not so easily swayed, however…

Left too much to his own devices, Scarecrow has run wild through Gotham, but when he abducts Gordon he at last makes a mistake the Dark Knight can capitalise upon…

A year later another Halloween brought ‘Madness’ as rebellious teenager Barbara Gordon chose exactly the wrong moment to run away from home: a night when her dad’s mysterious caped pal was frantically hunting Jervis Tetch – a certified nutcase abducting runaways to attend decidedly deadly Tea Parties orchestrated by a truly Mad Hatter…

Steeped in personal nostalgia as a maniac rampages through his city, inadvertently trampling upon some of Bruce Wayne’s only happy memories (of his mother’s favourite book), the pursuer almost dies at the hands of the Looking Glass Loon, only to be saved by unlikely angel Leslie Thompkins – another woman who will loom large in the life of the Batman…

The final fable pastiches a Christmas classic by Charles Dickens as ‘Ghosts’ sees a delirious Bruce Wayne uncharacteristically take to his bed early on the night before Halloween.

After socialising with young financier Lucius Fox, eating bad shrimp and crushing bird bandit The Penguin, the sick and weary playboy lapses into troubled sleep only to be visited by three spectres…

Looking like Poison Ivy, The Joker and the corpse of Batman and representing Past, Present and inescapable Future, the phantoms prove that only doom awaits unless the overachieving hero strikes a balance – or perhaps truce – between his two divergent identities…

Trenchant with narrative foreboding – long time fans already know the tragedies in store for all the participants, although total neophytes won’t be left wondering – these eerily enthralling Noir thrillers by Loeb perfectly capture the spirit of the modern Batman, supremely graced with startlingly powerful images of Mood, Mystery and rampant Mayhem from the magic pencil and brush of Tim Sale.

One of the very best Batman books you could read.

So, do…
© 1996, 1997 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Age of Ultron


By Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Waid, Bryan Hitch, Brandon Peterson, Carlos Pacheco & others (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-542-0

Blockbuster crossovers are an intrinsic part of the comics business these days and before us doddery older fans can even catch our collective breath here’s the next big change (actually the second phase of the MarvelNOW! root and branch reboot), with attention focused on the Avengers as the launch of the next movie looms before us.

From March to June 2013 a massive, time-bending Armageddon extravaganza revealed the ultimate triumph of Ultron – the insidious and genocidal artificial intelligence originally invented by troubled tinkerer Henry Pym (AKA Ant-Man, Giant Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, Dr. Pym, The Wasp, et al), and the stupefying saga was augmented by more than a dozen sidebar stories occurring in Fantastic Four, Superior Spider-Man, Ultron #1AU, Wolverine and the X-Men, Avengers Assemble Uncanny Avengers and Fearless Defenders…

This impressively bombastic, streamlined and rocket-paced epic collects the core 10-part miniseries Age of Ultron and also includes as thematic epilogue Age of Ultron #10AI, with the drama beginning on a recently devastated Earth with human scum bartering lives and dignity amidst the ruins.

Hawkeye is on a solo mission to rescue a fellow superhero captured by barbaric, debased survivors of some apocalyptic attack which overnight blasted civilisation back to the Stone Age.

After freeing the barely-living Spider-Man from the dregs, the archer learns that the wall-crawler had been intended for trade with the new rulers of the world – legions of soulless, silently hovering, ever-vigilant Ultron Sentinels…

Scripted by Brian Michael Bendis, chapters #1-5 are illustrated by Bryan Hitch and Pauls Neary and Mounts and detail how the last Avengers and other metahumans – Captain America, Iron Man, Emma Frost, She-Hulk, Luke Cage, Storm, Invisible Woman & Wolverine amongst others – link up with similar pockets of superhuman resistance, such as Moon Knight and the Black Widow in San Francisco and Black Panther, Taskmaster and Red Hulk in Chicago, to discover just how Ultron achieved his shocking ultimate victory…

By sacrificing two comrades the assemblage determine that the attack came from the future via a contemporary proxy and, thanks to the intercession of a long-forgotten ally, the bulk of the team head off into tomorrow via Dr. Doom‘s time machine to crush the malign machine-monster forever.

Wolverine however has another idea, and despite being overruled by the majority and followed by Invisible Woman, travels into the recent past to assassinate Pym before he built the Artificial Oedipal Atrocity…

Issues #6-9 (with art from Brandon Peterson, Carlos Pacheco & Roger Martinez) reveals the horrific implications of Wolverine’s time-busting red-handed revisionism when he and Sue Richards return to find a world in even more horrifying condition.

With Pym gone the Skrull-Kree war engulfed Earth and in the savage aftermath 6th century sorceress Morgana Le Fey and Dr. Doom united to decimate the survivors…

After seeing what the time-shift had done to old friends such as Tony Stark, Charles Xavier, Cyclops, The Thing, Doctor Strange, Star-Lord, The Hulk and even himself, Wolverine knows he has to back and undo Pym’s fate…

And in a furious future the Avengers Task force is losing the battle against Ultron’s perfect, mechanised human-free society…

It all comes together in the shock and surprise-stuffed tenth chapter (illustrated by Alex Maleev, Hitch, Butch Guice, Peterson, Pacheco, Roger Bonet, Tom Palmer, David Marquez & Joe Quesada) as the much-travelled mutant meets a most unexpected obstacle and Pym himself devises the solution to save humanity and the much-abused time-line.

It’s almost enough: however the chronal catastrophes have had a disastrous “Butterfly Effect” on the fabric of reality and beings from beyond the multiverse (and indeed originally from another publishing company) are drawn into events yet to unfold in the months to come…

The collection concludes with a charming and clever epilogue issue reviewing and revising the origin of Hank Pym – Man of Many Names and Sizes – in ‘It Was Not a Wonderful Life’ (written by Mark Waid, illustrated by Andre Lima Araújo & Frank D’Armata), adroitly setting the scene for forthcoming series Avengers A.I.

With covers by Hitch, Neary & Mounts, Peterson, Sara Pichelli & Marte Gracia plus 30 variants by J. Scott Campbell, Mike Deodato Jr., Rock-He Kim, Marko Djurdjevic, Ed McGuiness, Skottie Young, Jung-Geun Yoan, In-Hyuk Lee, Adi Granov, Pacheco, Francis Leinil Francis Yu, Peterson, Jorge Molina, Joe Quesada, Mark Brooks, Salvador Larroca & Paola Rivera, this a spectacularly visual treat for fans of the time-buster genre which also reinforces Marvel’s game plan to make the stories more accessible to casual readers and non-comicbook fans.

Naturally the book also includes the now-standard added extras provided by many AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which are your gateway to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

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

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Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Avengers


By Brian Michael Bendis, Steve McNiven & Sara Pichelli with Michael Avon Oeming, Ming Doyle, Michael Del Mundo & John Dell (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-542-0

Although heralded since its launch in the early 1960s with making superheroes more realistic, Marvel Comics has also maintained its close connection with outlandish and outrageous cosmic calamity (as embodied in their pre-superhero “monster-mag” days), and this latest iteration of space crusaders maintains that delightful “Anything Goes” attitude in an impressive new launch – part of the MarvelNow! group reboot – that lays the groundwork for the upcoming big budget movie next year.

The Guardians of the Galaxy were created by Arnold Drake in 1968 for try-out title Marvel Super-Heroes (#18, January 1969), a group of futuristic freedom fighters dedicated to liberating star-scattered Mankind from domination by the sinister, reptilian Brotherhood of Badoon.

Initially unsuccessful, they floated in limbo until 1974 when Steve Gerber incorporated them into Marvel Two-In-One #4-5 and Giant Size Defenders #5 and the monthly Defenders #26-29 (July through November 1975), wherein assorted 20th century champions travelled a millennium into the future to ensure humanity’s liberation and survival.

This in turn led to the Guardians’ own short-lived series in Marvel Presents #3-12 (February 1976-August 1977) before cancellation left them roaming the Marvel Universe as perennial guest-stars in such cosmically-tinged titles as Thor, Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Two-in-One and The Avengers.

Eventually in June 1990 they secured a relatively successful series (#62 issues, annuals and spin-off miniseries until July 1995) before cancellation again claimed them.

This isn’t them; this is another bunch…

In 2006 a massive crossover involved most of Marvel’s 21st century space specialists in a spectacular “Annihilation” Event, leading writing team Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning to reconfigure the Guardians concept for modern times and tastes.

Among the stalwarts in play were Silver Surfer, Galactus, Firelord (and other previous heralds of the world-eater), Moondragon, Quasar, Star-Lord, Thanos, Super-Skrull, Tana Nile, Gamora, Ronan the Accuser, Nova, Drax the Destroyer, a Watcher and a host of alien civilisations such as the Kree, Skrulls, Xandarians, Shi’ar et al., all falling before a invasion of rapacious negative zone bugs and beasties unleashed by insectoid horror Annihilus.

The event spawned a number of specials, miniseries and new titles (subsequently collected in three volumes plus a Classics compilation that reprinted key appearances of a number of the saga’s major players), and inevitably led to a follow-up event…

In Annihilation: Conquest, the cast expanded to include Adam Warlock, the Inhumans, talking dog Cosmo, Kang the Conqueror, Vance Astro/Major Victory, Maelstrom, Jack Flag, Blastaar, the Magus, Galactic Warrior Bug (from the 1970’s phenomenon Micronauts), current Captain Universe (ditto), Shi’ar berserker Deathcry, failed Celestial Madonna Mantis, anamorphic adventurer Rocket Raccoon and gloriously whacky “Kirby Kritter” Groot, a walking killer tree and one-time “Monarch of Planet X”, amongst others…

I’ve covered part of that cataclysmic clash and will get to the rest one day: suffice to say that by the conclusion of the assorted Annihilations a new, pan-species Guardian group had appointed itself to defend civilisations and prevent any such wars from ever happening again.

This isn’t them either… exactly…

A few years later and many more cosmic crises – such as a devastating “War of Kings” – averted, the remnants of those many Sentinels of the Spaceways are getting the band back together, still determined to make the universe a safe place.

Thus this impressive and readily accessible volume (collecting Guardians of the Galaxy #0.1, Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow’s Avengers #1 & Guardians of the Galaxy #1-3 from February-June 2013) provides a handy jumping-on point, recapitulating the bare essentials before launching into a blistering and immensely absorbing interstellar romp which ties inextricably into mainstream Marvel continuity.

Brian Michael Bendis, Steve McNiven, John Dell & Justin Ponsor set the ball rolling with the secret origin of Star-Lord, revealing how thirty years ago warrior Prince J’Son of the interstellar empire of Spartax was shot down over Colorado and had a brief fling with solitary Earther Meredith Quill. Despite his desire to remain in idyllic isolation, duty called J’Son back to the battle and he left, leaving behind an unsuspected son and a unique weapon…

A decade later, the troubled boy saw his mother assassinated by alien lizard men determined on eradicating the legacy of Spartax. Peter vengefully slew the Badoon with Meredith’s shotgun, before his home was explosively destroyed by a flying saucer.

The orphan awoke in hospital, his only possession a “toy” ray-gun his mother had hidden from him his entire life…

Years later his destiny found him, and the half-breed scion of Spartax became Star-Lord. Rejecting both Earth and his father – now king of his corner of creation – Peter Quill chose freedom, the pursuit of justice and the comradeship of disreputable aliens…

The origin story concludes with Peter welcoming avid listener and neophyte spacer Tony Stark into his loose-knit fellowship of Guardians…

More delving into formative events occured in the anthological Tomorrow’s Avengers #1 (by Bendis and individually illustrated by Michael Avon Oeming, Ming Doyle & Michael Del Mundo), revealing how Quill tracked down old friends and prospective members for his new team, detailing recent exploits of at-large and unfocused stalwarts Drax the Destroyer, the decidedly odd couple Rocket Racoon and Groot and, of course, Gamora, “Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy”…

The former bane of Thanos Drax is idling away the days in pointless fighting when Star-Lord comes calling, whilst Groot at least is still defending the weak from the wicked in a classy farmers-vs.-bandits fable.

The unique, blaster-toting Peril-loving Procyonidae (look it up) was mouthing off in a bar, drinking and fighting as usual when he found tantalising evidence that there was at least one other Rocket Raccoon at large in the universe, whilst gorgeous Gamora just never stopped. She was still slaughtering her adopted dad’s minions when Star-Lord made his offer…

The series proper – by Bendis, McNiven, Dell & Ponsor – opens with Peter Quill diplomatically ambushed in a seedy dive by his long-lost dad. J’Son rules Spartax but the rift between him and the Star-Lord is wide and deep and impassable.

Dear old Dad also has a message: he has entered into a compact with the other major powers and principalities of the universe to declare Earth off limits and quarantined from all extraterrestrial contact. He and they will act immediately to stop any alien individual or species from contaminating it.

Of course that especially means his own wayward son…

A little later, Iron Man is playing with his new space armour when a Badoon starship attacks Earth. Overmatched, Stark is unexpectedly reinforced by Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket Raccoon and Groot who devastate the monolithic vessel – but not before fighter ships break atmosphere and bombard London.

With the Home Counties under attack despite The Council of Galactic Empires’ edicts – and apparently by one of the signatory civilisations – the Guardians go to work ending the Badoon, with Peter distracted in trying to divine his duplicitous father’s actual intent.

In the Negative Zone, J’Son is conferring virtually with his opposite numbers from the Kree, Shi’ar, Brood, Badoon and Asgard, with a new Annihilus presiding over the fractious meeting, and indeed dirty work and dirty tricks are afoot…

In blistering battles the Badoon are beaten, but no sooner do the Guardians pause for breath than a starfleet supposedly blockading Earth arrests them for breaking the embargo.

Imprisoned on Spartax, Quill and Co eventually bust out and publicly declare war on J’Son, sowing the seeds of a future rebellion – but even they are unaware that the devious and double-dealing king is also being played for a sucker…

Bright, breezy, bombastic and immensely enjoyable, the action-packed Cosmic Avengers also includes a beautiful gallery of 23 covers and variants – including a lovely movie-art landscape/wraparound – by McNiven, Dell & Ponsor, Doyle, Ed McGuiness, Joe Quesada, Adi Granov, Mark Brooks, Milo Manara, Terry Dodson, Mike Deodato Jr., Phil Jimenez, Mike Perkins, Paola Rivera and Joe Madureira, and of course the book comes with the standard added extras provided by many AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

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

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Wolverine: Hunting Season


By Paul Cornell, Alan Davis, Mirco Pierfederici, Mark Farmer, Zach Fischer, Karl Kesel & Tom Palmer (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-541-3

Following all the desperate and life-altering debacles of recent years, the emergent race dubbed Homo Sapiens Superior has, after the epochal events of Avengers versus X-Men, won something of a fresh start and clean slate for most mutants, especially the perennially punching-above-his-weight feral fury Wolverine.

The company initiative MarvelNOW!, having reinvigorated the entire continuity, the various flavours of X-champion are generally starting life anew and this collection, gathering issues #1-6 of Wolverine volume 5 (cover-dated May-September 2013), proffers a compellingly attractive and decidedly different side of the Canadian Crusader which – like companion series Savage Wolverine – explores the man beyond the blood-blind berserker of yesteryear…

Scripted by Paul Cornell and illustrated initially by Alan Davis & Mark Farmer and then Mirco Pierfederici, Zach Fischer, Karl Kesel & Tom Palmer, the all-out action and sinister subversion begins with the eponymous 4-part ‘Hunting Season’ right in the middle of the mayhem as our horrified hero desperately tries to talk down a spree-killer in the midst of a body-strewn hostage situation in a Mall. Partially disintegrated, Wolverine can only attempt to reason with the man until his arms and legs grow back…

Mild-mannered Robert Gregson is acting really weird and has an impossibly powerful supergun. He’s calm, rational and displays diffident concern to his young son Alex as he systematically vaporises all the shoppers in the arcade. By the time he turns the raygun on the boy, Wolverine is just healed enough to stop the complacent killer. Amidst charred bones and human ashes the cops burst in and Logan sees old friend and NYPD Detective Chieko Tomomatsu in the lead.

In the blistered aftermath nobody realises that the odd odour which permeated Gregson now emanates from Alex, until the kid attacks them all and flees with the gun. As he utilises the hand cannon to ravage the city, Wolverine is in close pursuit. Refusing to eviscerate a 10-year old, he tries to Alex keeps talking but the boy sounds like a dispassionate boffin absentmindedly taking notes…

Across town a trio of cops intercepts a gang of drug-dealers and they too suddenly acquire a strange smell and completely detached attitude. In unison, they turn on and dispatch the guy who turned up late…

Repeatedly dodging instant incineration, the Clawful Canuck corners Alex high up on a construction site and confirms that something has possessed the lad. Desperately trying to establish contact with the controlling force – which refers to itself in the plural – Wolverine is horrified as the kid jumps to his doom and the gun finds another triggerman before the slaughter continues…

When the new Nick Fury (long story short: the son of the original and looks like the African American S.H.I.E.L.D. Director from the assorted movies – see Battle Scars for further details) arrives and downs the shooter, the gun flies off before anyone can stop it…

As Wolverine brings the superspy up to speed, he has a bizarre vision and the cosmic observer known as The Watcher appears – only to the mutant’s enhanced senses – thus indicating that whatever is going on it’s a danger to the entire universe…

Oddly enough, the first stop in sorting the problem is a bar. Guernica on West Fourth is a superhero hostelry and a very unique think-tank meets there. As well as a comicbook writer, there’s an odds-maker on superhero battles, a professional powers cataloguer and the current CEO of repair conglomerate Damage Control, but what the fast-healing hero needs is the services of talented and unflappable surgeon Victoria Frankenstein (she pronounces it “Fronken-schteen”), possibly the only sawbones capable of removing the smart-bullet Alex embedded in the mutant’s shoulder.

The last in line of such a fateful dynasty is necessary since Logan’s flesh knits back together faster than most scalpels can cleave it. The brainstorming/field surgery session also leads to one inescapable conclusion: whoever or whatever is possessing people acts like an airborne virus…

The gun meanwhile has found those co-opted cops and robbers. Fury and Wolverine are right behind them and subsequently uncover a plot to explode a bomb full of those pesky microbe invaders over Yankee Stadium during the biggest game of the season…

Logan of course spectacularly foils the plot but since he can still see The Watcher, the confused champion knows things aren’t quite over yet…

‘Drowning Logan’, illustrated by Mirco Pierfederici, Mark Farmer, Zach Fischer, Karl Kesel & Tom Palmer, takes up the story as the insidious organisms, now evolved to deceive Wolverine’s sense of smell, possess an entire S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier crew – Fury Jr. included – and then capture the one being able to resist their mind-bending infection.

Trapped with a trio of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents also (temporarily) immune to the takeover terrors and a fading phone-link to the Guernica group, the Feral Fury must defeat an army of friends and colleagues housing an unstoppable invasion force before it’s judgement day for our universe. Thankfully a clue to the microbial possessors’ incredible origins lead to a fantastic counter-attack and their eventual repulsion – but not without shocking personal cost to the formerly fast-healing hero…

To Be Continued…

Hunting Season also includes a beautiful gallery of 16 covers and variants by Davis & Farmer, Jason Keith, Olivier Coipel, Salvador Larroca, Skottie Young, Humberto Ramos, Mike Deodato Jr., Ed McGuiness & Pascal Campion, and comes with the now-standard added extras provided by of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

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

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Batman & the Monster Men / Batman & the Mad Monk

Batman & the Monster Men
By Matt Wagner, with Dave Stewart (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1091-5

Grendel and Mage creator Matt Wagner has had an eclectic but never disappointing relationship with the Dark Knight, and in 2006 undertook an ambitious year-long project to update two of the earliest adventures (from Detective Comics #31-32 and Batman #1 no less), implanting them within the fresh new milieu devised by Frank Miller in Batman: Year 1.

Originally released as a 12-issue limited series, Batman: Dark Moon Rising was divided into matching trade paperback collections with the first, Batman & the Monster Men, expanding on the Golden Age original by Bill Finger, Bob Kane & Jerry Robinson, introducing a welter of psychological and political tensions to boost the already deranged, doom-drenched atmosphere…

Law student Julie is daughter to one of the city’s most forthright and prestigious businessmen, but even Norman Madison is unable to maintain his pristine reputation and stay out of the greedy clutches of criminals like Sal Maroni and over-boss “The Roman” who truly owns Gotham.

The mob’s tendrils run deep into City Hall and the Police Department, and even maverick scientists like Professor Hugo Strange go to Sal when they need cash in a hurry with no questions asked: legitimate inquiries like “where are you getting your illegal medical supplies and chemicals?” and “why are you paying hush-money to attendants at Arkham Asylum?”…

But now a crazy vigilante dressed like a bat is hitting the gangsters hard and fast and often, stirring the entire dark metropolis into a cauldron of deadly nervous tension…

Julie doesn’t care: she’s far more interested in uncovering the intimate secrets of her new and so enigmatic boyfriend Bruce Wayne…

The brilliant Strange has abandoned his chosen field of psychology to improve mankind through genetic manipulation, but his experiments are so costly. Luckily for him, he has never been burdened by ethics or scruples, and Gotham’s streets and asylums are filled with derelicts nobody will ever miss…

He also regularly avails himself of Maroni’s high-end loan-sharking operation, but that is always a process fraught with peril and humiliation…

When a snooty debutante at a High Society shindig mocks the bald, short and myopic Strange – fruitlessly peddling his theories of genetic perfection to the idle rich in hopes of finding more enlightened sponsors than The Mob – she and her escort vanish later that night…

Police Captain Jim Gordon – rumoured to have a secret working relationship with the Bat vigilante – is assigned the case when her arm washes out of a sewer. It’s gnawed and clawed and covered in brutish animal hairs which prove to be human… sort of…

Strange’s frustrations mount when Maroni’s men pay a little social call to remind him his next repayment is due. He uses his latest setbacks, a trio of hulking hyper-thyroidal genetic failures with a taste for human flesh and hides immune to bullets, to avenge his honour and as a means of procuring the funds he’s lacking.

Following the thugs to a high stakes poker game, he and devoted lab assistant Sanjay simply let their manufactured brutes run amok and scoop up all the blood-soaked cash afterwards.

Maroni’s business is booming. Although deeply suspicious of the money Strange paid him back with, the loan-shark has no such problems with high and mighty Norman Madison, whose sudden business reversals have put him in the mobster’s pocket to the tune of 3 million untraceable, dirty dollars…

Elsewhere, Julie is becoming increasingly frustrated by Bruce Wayne’s inability to keep an appointment or even turn up for a date, and Jim Gordon wonders what to do with a car filled with bizarre, exotic bat-motif weaponry left behind after the Bat-Man’s latest explosive clash with criminals in the streets of Gotham…

The Dark Knight doesn’t care: he’s obsessed with this cannibal case which somehow links rich women with slaughtered underworld gamblers and the near-completion of a stupendous, purpose-built automobile that will be the acme of his arsenal against crime…

After Batman pays Maroni a midnight visit the loan-shark bolts for the countryside and The Roman’s private hideaway. Left in charge, his brutish lieutenant puts the screws to Norman Madison and triggers the start of a nervous breakdown in the ashamed, guilt-ridden business leader, even as Batman traces the monster-men to a hidden lab and is ambushed by Strange.

Drugged and thrown to the gargantuan monstrosities, the neophyte avenger faces his first battle with foes more and far less than human…

Battling with Herculean passion and demonic cunning, the Gotham Gangbuster barely escapes with his life and awakens in his own bed with Julie tending him. She clearly does not believe his hastily concocted explanations…

Hard on the heels of his ignominious defeat by the masked madman, Strange is visited by Maroni’s flunkies who wreck the lab but inspire an intriguing thought. The Batman was clearly a perfect genetic specimen, far better than the human detritus he has been working with. Moreover, in his escape the vigilante left plenty of blood and other genetic material for the experimenter to play with…

Gordon is under pressure too. New Police Commissioner Edward Grogan knows of his connection to the vigilante and is leaning on the only incorruptible cop on the force, but the Captain is not prepared to hand over the Batman – yet…

Things come to a head when Sal’s boys put the squeeze on Madison by threatening his daughter Julie whilst Strange, having modified a fourth macabre monster man with Batman’s DNA, sends them after Maroni, still sequestered at the Roman’s fortress-like estate…

By the time the vigilante arrives in his breathtaking new “Bat-mobile” the slaughter is in full swing with Maroni’s army of thugs smashed, scattered or eaten, and the terrified Norman moments from grisly death. However the bat-garbed creature of the night is even more formidable, trouncing the human thugs and bestial colossi with an astounding array of gadgets and devastating martial arts attacks.

With Maroni beaten and the hulking horrors put down, the Batman tells the shell-shocked businessman to go home, where all Madison can recall is that the grim, terrifying agent of justice knew his name…
© 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Batman & the Mad Monk
By Matt Wagner with Dave Stewart (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1281-0

The concluding volume of Matt Wagner’s reinterpretation of two of Batman’s earliest and most iconic triumphs features a classic duel with the Dark Knight’s most obvious antithesis.

A flamboyant, supernatural vampire to combat the grim, steely rationalism of this hero was an obvious conceit when Gardner Fox conceived it in 1939 (Detective Comics #31 and #32 – frequently reprinted as in Batman Chronicles Volume 1) and here Wagner proves that it still has great merit and impressive cachet.

Following on from Batman and the Monster Men with the sub-plot of Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend Julie Madison and her tragically flawed and rapidly destabilising father, this subtle blending of archetypal gothic fantasy and modern Goth sensibility saw a mysterious cult leader moving into the upper and lower echelons of Gotham society, recruiting thugs, seducing the glitterati and killing at a whim.

After losing a tussle with a slinky cat-garbed jewel thief, Batman, still bleeding, thrashes a quartet of cops intent on crippling honest Police Captain Jim Gordon. Elsewhere, former business leader Norman Madison is becoming a paranoid recluse, obsessed with bats and expunging his sins…

The bat vigilante has stumbled upon another bizarre case to distract him from his meticulous campaign to dismantle the criminal empire of Carmine Falcone – “The Roman” who has ruled Gotham for decades.

A serial killer is at work, draining men and women of all their blood…

Unknown to the broken financier, in the aftermath of the monster men attack Batman ordered Sal Maroni to stay away from the Madisons: a fact he neglected to share with the victims. Now when the shattered, repentant businessman tries to pay off the loan-shark, he is forcibly ejected. Dirty money and unexpiated guilt shredding his soul, Madison is driven to even greater acts of desperation…

Batman meanwhile is covertly working with Gotham DA Harvey Dent to bring down Falcone, but soon distracted by another bloodless corpse. His subsequent savage investigations uncover a new phenomenon: a cult called The Brotherhood of the Eternal Night which numbers Gotham’s richest citizens, worst criminals and even street level gang-bangers amongst its scarlet-robed ranks…

Soon Julie too has fallen under its sway. Seeking help for her clearly crazed father, she had consulted the organisation’s founder Niccolai Tepes, who swore he could grant her father peace. By the time she sees boyfriend Bruce again Julie is oddly distant and has two neat puncture marks in her neck…

Maroni is also in deep trouble. When he refused to take Madison’s money, Norman tried to give it directly to Falcone. Three million dollars is nothing to The Roman, but he hates anything that makes ripples or causes undue attention in his town…

Still in the first year of a mission to end evil in his beleaguered city, the keen-but-inexperienced Batman is at last forced to ignore his instincts and prejudices and simply accept the impossible facts. Gotham is threatened by a horror out of fairytales and the Batman must adapt his methodology to purge the insidious fiends sucking Gotham dry in both figurative and a most literal manner…

This is a spectacular, moody yarn; a magnificently illustrated clash between darkness and even greater supernal blackness, blending Batman’s signature iconography with the venerated gothic mythology of vampires, paying proper respect to the triumphs of the past whilst reverently refreshing them for the modern reader: a classic Batman that everybody can enjoy and should.

Solid, stylish story-telling make this and its companion chronicle an irresistible treat for old-timers and new fans alike.
© 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.