Category: Graphic Novels

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The Love and Rockets Companion – 30 Years and Counting


Edited by Marc Sobel & Kristy Valenti (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-579-2

In the 1980s a qualitative revolution forever destroyed the clichéd, stereotypical ways different genres of comic strips were produced and marketed. Most prominent in destroying the comfy pigeonholes we’d built for ourselves were three guys from Oxnard, California; Jaime, Mario (occasionally) and Gilberto Hernandez.

Love and Rockets was an anthology magazine (which first appeared as a self-published comic in 1981) featuring intriguing, adventuresome larks and bold experimental comic narratives that pretty much defied classification, all wrapped up in the ephemera of the LA Hispanic and punk music scene.

Most stories focussed on either the slick, sci-fi-soused hi-jinx of punky young gadabouts Maggie and Hopey (and their extended eccentric circle of friends) or the heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasies from the rural Central American paradise of Palomar.

Jaime Hernandez was always the most visible part of the graphic and literary revolution: his sleek, seductive, clean black line and beautiful composition – not to mention impeccably rendered heroes and villains and the comfortingly recognisable comic book iconography – being particularly welcomed by readers weaned on traditional Marvel and DC superheroes.

However his love of that material, as well as the influence of Archie Comics cartoonists (I often see shades of the great Sam Schwartz and Harry Lucey in his drawing and staging), accomplished and enticing as it is, often distracted from the power of his writing, especially in his extended saga of Maggie Chascarillo and Hopey Glass – Las Locas, something never true of Gilbert, whose cartoony, reined-in graphics never overwhelmed the sheer magnetic power of his writing…

The Hernandez Boys, gifted synthesists all, enthralled and enchanted with incredible stories that sampled a thousand influences conceptual and actual – 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 – 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, and Gilberto created a hyper-real microcosm in the rural landscape of Palomar: a playground of wit and passion in the quicksilver form of a poor Latin-American village with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast created for his extended serial Heartbreak Soup.

Everything from life, death, adultery, magic, serial killing 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 blended the highly personal mythologies of comics, music, drugs, 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 went their own ways, working 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 more than three decades of groundbreaking creative endeavour, Los Bros Hernandez have crafted a vast and magnificent canon of cartoon brilliance and literary wonder and this long-overdue companion volume collects rarely seen conversations with the boys as well as two new interviews and also offers a host of truly essential lists and features no serious student of Love and Rockets lore can afford to miss.

Heavily illustrated throughout with candid photos, seen, unseen and unpublished art from the artists and excerpted examples by the many assorted creators who inspired them – everybody from Jack Kirby monsters to Jesse Marsh’s Tarzan to Warren Kremer and Ernie Colon’s Hot Stuff, the Little Devil – this invaluable volume commences with Interviews…

The first is from The Comics Journal #126 (January 1989), conducted by publisher Gary Groth and covering ‘Origins’, ‘Early Affection’, ‘Mostly Music’ (with a Love & Lists  album discography) and a solo section on both Jaime and Gilbert.

The Comics Journal #178 (July 1995) saw Los Bros chatting candidly with Neil Gaiman on personal work and the state of the Comics biz.

Completists will be delighted to know that although both these features have been edited for relevance the entire, unexpurgated interviews can be found online if you are of an historical bent.

Marc Sobel conducted a new interview with Los Bros especially for this volume, discussing ’30 years and Counting’, ‘Family’, ‘Bent Worlds’, a list of the story within a story of ‘Rosalba Fritz Martinez’ B-Movie Roles’, ‘The Naked Cosmos’, ‘Influences’, ‘Post-Comics Depression’, ‘The Indy-Comics Ghetto’, ‘Preconceived Notions’, ‘Anthologies’, ‘The Future of Comics’ and more.

The editor also spoke at length with Gary Groth on why and how he took a chance on three unproved kids and the effect the series has had on the global comics scene, encompassing, ‘Back to the Beginning’, how ‘Four-Color Separations’ worked, ‘Breaking into Bookstores’, ‘Foreign Affairs’ and so many more dark secrets…

Fascinating as the background insights are, the true worth of this huge tome (368 pages and 195x240mm) is the fan-friendly such as the 20-page Timelines listing all the stories, descriptions and references for both Locas and Palomar continuities, and the immense (73 page) Character Guides for each ongoing epic – originally compiled by Chris Staros in his fanzine The Staros Report and completely updated for this book.

Love and Rockets took the comics community by storm when it debuted and although the magazine only infrequently published letters of comment, when they did the missives were usually outrageous and often from impressive and familiar names. In the Letter Column Highlights section the likes of Steve Leialoha, Scott Hampton, Steve Rude, Mark Wheatley, Christie Marx, Kurt Busiek, Evan Dorkin, Andi Watson and many others famed and infamous passed comment and made waves. This is followed by an illuminating group of Bros.’ Favorite Comics which is both revelatory and charming.

Invaluable to all devotees and prospective beginners alike, the Checklist catalogues every story and piece of artwork by the brothers in all iterations of Love and Rockets as well as all the specials, miniseries, side-projects and even outside commissions ranging as far afield as GI Joe to DC Who’s Who, and the whole glorious compilation is capped off with a vast fold out dust-jacket featuring the Locas/Luba Family Charts.

A genuine phenomenon and classic of comics entertainment, Love and Rockets should be compulsory reading for any friend of the art form. This Companion tome will make navigating the huge interconnected Hernandez universe simplicity itself and I thoroughly commend it to your house…
© 2013 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. Love and Rockets © 2013 Gilbert Hernandez and Jaime Hernandez. All images, articles and stories © their respective copyright holders.

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X-Men: X-Termination


By Greg Pak, David Lapham, Marjorie Liu, Matteo Buffagni, André Araújo, David López & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-549-9

Since the 1960s comics fans have been totally au fait with the concept and complexities of alternate universes and the bewildering potentialities of an infinity of Earths. Offering irresistible temptations to writers and fans alike, the hallowed plot device offers the opportunity to creatively meddle and play at will and still back-pedal if readers get too stroppy or upset or – worse yet – bored and confused…

Marvel has a highly structured multiverse and every alternate realm comes with its own “Official Reality Number” – the regular mainstream continuity is set to Earth-616 and the Ultimates Universe is designated Earth-1610 for example.

Of course, once introduced, each and every new iteration is somebody’s favourite and consequently characters regularly traverse the cosmic void between continua barely distinguishable or wildly variant.

There have been many miniseries such as Avengers: United They Stand or Blink and even regular series set on or between these divergent planes such as Exiles, Age of Apocalypse and others…

It generally takes a clear head and true devotion to follow and wallow in the minutia of the enterprise. Consider that your only warning…

Collecting Age of Apocalypse #13-14, X-Treme X-Men #12-13, X-Termination #1-2 and Astonishing X-Men volume 3, #60-61 this hugely enjoyable but woefully continuity-entangled cosmic rumble attempts to bring a little clarity and clear some very crowded decks with a bombastic brouhaha that first appeared between March and April 2013.

The mini-event appeared in selected mutant titles beginning with Age of Apocalypse #13 which offered an ‘X-Termination Prologue’ by David Lapham, Renato Arlem & Valentine De Landro set on the alternate dubbed Earth-295, where the early death of Charles Xavier led to an appalling Reality in which the self-appointed mutant god of natural selection Apocalypse almost eradicated humanity before a coterie of radically different heroes and villains stopped him.

In the wake of the 1995 “Age of Apocalypse” event, many of this Earth-295’s inhabitants escaped to “our” world and generated a tidal wave of plots and story-arcs. One such was tragic widower Kurt Wagner, a teleporting sword-wielding X-warrior determined to hunt down a band of genocidal Apocalypse minions including Sugar Man, the Blob and evil twisted versions of Iceman and the Beast.

However, whilst he pursued vengeance in our world, on his own Earth the last survivors were losing a battle against the legacies of the defeated Apocalypse: a shattered eco-system, insuperable differences between the equally devastated human and mutant populations and even cosmic meddling by cosmic interlopers…

Led by Jean Grey , her lover Graydon “Horror Show” Creed and a mysterious strategist dubbed Prophet, a disparate band (including cyborg Donald “Goodnight” Pierce, Deadeye and Fiend) have spent more than a decade fighting Apocalypse’s self-appointed successor Weapon Omega and hunting a cosmic artefact dubbed a “Life Seed” hidden millennia past by one of the pan-dimensional star gods called Celestials.

Now their apparently futile battles are nearing an end, whilst on Earth-616 their old comrade Nightcrawler – currently working with Wolverine’s covert black ops team X-Force – having captured his major objective Henry (Dark Beast) McCoy, prepares to abandon his new friends and return to his broken home world…

Simultaneously in X-Treme X-Men #12 – another ‘X-Termination Prologue’ by Greg Pak & André Araújo – Alison Blair, the Dazzler of Earth-616, is leading a team of heroes from a plethora of Realities in a crusade against a league of malign Charles Xaviers. These terrifying telepotents have pooled their formidable psychic resources in a scheme to conquer the entire multiverse and Alison is determined to stop them

Even with an appalling attrition rate her squad – psionic super-computer Sage, Grecian man-god Hercules and strange versions of her old X-Men comrades Wolverine (Howlett), Scott Summers and a very young Nightcrawler Kurt Waggoner – are barely holding their own against the Evil Xaviers.

Now, on a predominantly Egyptian Earth, the rogue telepaths have opened an inter-dimensional rift and begun feeding on the energies released by sacrificing hundreds of humans. In a frantic assault the X-Treme team rescue and apparently redeem an enslaved Xavier (or rather a self-sustaining Professor X head in a jar), but the sinister psychic savants’ meddling has opened a hole to a far greater realm and deadlier threat…

The saga properly begins in X-Termination #1 (by Marjorie Liu, Pak, David López & Allen Martinez) with the origin of the multiverse – a deliberate construction of massive and ancient cosmic intellects designed to imprison their greatest mistake in the void between Realities, trapped for eternity between infinite layers of Creation.

Recently, however, the incessant crossings and transfers between supposed inviolate Realities has weakened those walls ands now the portal manufactured by the Xaviers has breached it completely, allowing something intolerable to break out…

On Earth-616 Wolverine’s X-Force team – Gambit, Iceman, Northstar and Karma – are hunting their treacherous former ally Nightcrawler (of Earth-295, remember?) whose actions have led to the death of team mate Fantomex, and brought him into an insane alliance with the Dark Beast.

The inter-dimensional fugitives are in San Francisco attempting to manipulate the power of a dormant Space God known as the “Dreaming Celestial” when X-Force arrives, but the Beast is able to use the giant’s power to open a gateway to 295 through which the pair escape.

However, as Nightcrawler hands the war-criminal McCoy over to Jean and Prophet, it becomes clear that something is wrong. The portal isn’t closing, only spewing out a torrent of vile detritus from who knows where…

Only when in short order both X-Force and then Dazzler’s X-Treme team emerge from the spitting, arcing rent in reality does Nightcrawler begin to realise the potential catastrophe his rash actions have triggered – a fear confirmed when a trio of monstrous unstoppable humanoids emerge and begin absorbing all this Earth’s energy and life-force. They have already consumed the Egyptian Earth to get here and within seconds the amassed, amazed army of heroes suffers its first fatality…

The saga continues in Astonishing X-Men volume 3, #60 (Liu, Matteo Buffagni & Arlem) as the assembled warriors redouble their efforts but are easily repulsed. The only successes come when Karma’s psionic talent provides the embattled heroes with the secret origin of the deadly devourers and Iceman’s powers provide a defence the creatures cannot absorb…

The elation is short-lived as the beings split up and one uses the still-open portal to voyage to Earth-616 and another irresistible, immovable feast…

Panicked and galvanised, the 616 heroes prepare to follow but Prophet bids them stop and think. He has a notion that the Celestial Life Seed lost somewhere on Earth-295 might be the only weapon capable of stopping the inter-dimensional ravagers. However as the heroes separate into teams to tackle the threat to multiple Earths and seek out the seed, Dark Beast McCoy makes his own plans to profit from the heroes’ sacrifices…

Lapham, Araújo & Arlem extend the epic in Age of Apocalypse #14 as Wolverine, Howlett, Hercules and Northstar join Prophet, Gambit, Deadeye, young Kurt Waggoner and Sage in San Francisco on 616 and find the devourer absorbing the inestimable energy of the Dreaming Celestial.

On 295 a team of X-champions and a battalion of robotic Sentinels fight a futile holding action as McCoy, Nightcrawler, Scott Summers, Dazzler and Jean hunt deep under the Earth for the Seed, painfully aware that the ancient artefact created Apocalypse and threatens to transform whoever uses it into something as bad, if not worse…

However when Jean and Nightcrawler secure the “Apocalypse pod” and abandon their former comrades, they are in turn ambushed by McCoy who steals the vital, yet horrific device for his own purposes…

On Earth 616 another hero dies as the antediluvian invader absorbs the forces within the Dreaming Celestial and grows to monumental proportions. Moreover as the X-fighters regroup in X-Treme X-Men #13 (Pak, Lapham, Liu, Guillermo Mogorron, Raul Valdés, Edgar Tadeo, Carlos Cuevas, Don Ho & Walden Wong) they discover an even more ghastly threat.

The trio are merely a vanguard for an infinite army of energy eaters and all the power being consumed will be used to free the horde to absorb and end each and every iota of creation…

With multiversal Armageddon imminent, Astonishing X-Men volume 3, #61 (Liu, Arlem, Jose Kleber de Moura Jr. Buffagni & Raul Valdés) sees more heroes fall, one self-despising villain redeemed and a valiant sacrifice to the Apocalypse Seed at last result in an effective weapon against the devourers. Also unleashed is the true secret origin of Reality, revealed before it all spectacularly wraps up in X-Termination #2 (Lapham, López, Mogorron, Valdés, Cuevas & Martinez) with the end of one universe and the migration of the last of the heroes to another.

No prizes for guessing which one…

Taught, fraught, beautifully rendered by many talented hands and unarguably spectacular, if a little hard to follow in places, X-Termination also includes a beautiful cover-and-variants gallery by Greg Land, Salvador Larroca, Kalman Andrasofszky, Ed McGuiness, Morry Hollowell, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Cam Smith, Rain Beredo, Mike Deodato and Philip Noto – but no digital add-ons or extras this time.
™ & © 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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Usagi Yojimbo Book 4: The Dragon Bellow Conspiracy


By Stan Sakai (Fantagraphics)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-063-7

Usagi Yojimbo (literally “rabbit bodyguard”) premiered 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.

Sakai was born in 1953 in Kyoto, Japan before the family moved to Hawaii two years later. After graduating 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 intoxicating period epic is set in a world of sentient animals (with a few unobtrusive human characters scattered about) but scrupulously mirrors the Edo Period of Feudal Japan – the early 17th century by our reckoning, simultaneously sampling classic contemporary cultural icons from sources as varied as Lone Wolf and Cub, Zatoichi and even Godzilla, whilst specifically recounting the life of Miyamoto Usagi, 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 fabulous fourth black and white blockbuster gathers tales which originally appeared in Fantagraphics’ Usagi Yojimbo volume 1, #13-18 from 1988-1991, and temporarily sacrifices short stories and vignettes for another grand multi-chapter saga of blood and steel and cloak and dagger.

The drama begins after an illuminating Introduction from the legendary multi-media imagineer Alejandro Jodorowsky before the epic and slowly-brewing Dragon Bellows Conspiracy flares into fulgent fury in a grandiose epic where weather and environment are as much major players as the wide cast of regulars brought together by fate and a brewing tempest…

In recent days young Lord Noriyuki – new and still politically insecure leader of the prestigious Geishu Clan – had been targeted by various schemes to destabilise his position, and in ‘The Clouds Gather’ his devoted bodyguard Tomoe Ame is despatched to make diplomatic overtures and undertake covert inquiries at the castle of neighbouring Lord Tamakuro, an elder noble of undisclosed loyalties.

What she finds is an abomination: Tamakuro is stockpiling Teppo – forbidden western matchlock muskets and black powder weapons…

When she is discovered, her loyal entourage sacrifice themselves, allowing Tomoe time to escape and alert Noriyuki, but in her pell-mell flight she is relentlessly pursued…

Elsewhere, blind outlaw swords-pig Zato-Ino is still searching for peace and finding nothing but mercenaries and thugs hungry for the price on his head, with fate inevitably drawing him closer to a clash with money-mad bounty-hunter Gennosuké.

As the rains begin to fall, a wandering long-eared Ronin is forced off the road by a party of Samurai dragging the captured Tomoe towards the fortress of Lord Tamakuro…

The players begin to converge in ‘The Winds Howl’ when sinister imperial plotter Lord Hebi despatches Neko ninja chief Shingen to take command of an operation already underway in Tamakuro’s lands.

That paranoid rebel is keenly aware of official eyes upon him. Hurrying after Tomoe, Usagi wanders into a village laid waste by Tamakuro’s forces and finds himself blamed by Shingen for the slaughter of the inhabitants – every one an undercover Neko…

Barely surviving a savage protracted duel with the ninja chief, the weary Yojimbo at last reaches the gates of Tamakuro’s citadel in ‘Downpour’ and defeats many of the rebel warlord’s warriors to win an officer’s post in his new, musket-equipped army.

Even as, in the sodden lands beyond the gates, Gen closes in on Ino, within the fortress Usagi rashly breaks the brutally abused Tomoe free and the pair flee into the tumultuous night with hordes of troops hard on their heels.

At least that’s what the pursuing soldiers believe. In truth the Ronin has fled alone to draw the rebels away and warn Lord Noriyuki, but his rash ride brings him crashing right into another clash with the vengeance-crazed Shingen…

Awakening from horrific nightmares to ‘Thunder and Lightning’, Usagi realises that the ninja has been ministering to the rabbit’s many wounds. Shingen has realised the truth and now wants to work together to destroy Tamakuro and to that end has marshalled more Neko to attack the fortress.

Tamakuro, meanwhile, is restless. His plans have come undone and he has just learned that the diabolical Tomoe is hiding somewhere in his house, waiting for the right moment to strike…

As Usagi and the ninjas move on the castle, the Ronin finds an old friend on the road. Spot is a Tokagé lizard (ubiquitous, omnivorous reptiles that populate this world, replacing scavenger species like rats, cats and dogs in the fictitious ecosystem) and was once his faithful companion in his wanderings.

However the pet long ago switched his devotion to Blind Ino. If Spot is here, the blood-spilling porcine brigand – whose incredible olfactory sense more than compensates for his useless eyes – cannot be far away…

He isn’t – but Usagi finds him engaged in a furious fight to the death with Gennosuké under skies ablaze with electric fire and shattered by booming clamour…

Grimly determined, the rabbit convinces both of them to join his band in an assault on the castle in ‘The Heart of the Storm’ even as many miles distant a Neko ninja infiltrates Noriyuki’s private chambers with a message from Usagi.

Her deed done, she vanishes, leaving the Boy Lord to rouse the families loyal to the Shogun. It is not the last time we shall see the beautiful, deadly sister of Shingen…

By the time dawn breaks, however, it is all over and the ferocious bloodletting has ended with the deaths of many comrades and valiant souls as well as the explosive destruction of all Tamakuro’s dreams…

With the grand design concluded, the Dragon Bellows Conspiracy wraps up with two gentler episodes as, in ‘Storm Clouds Part’, Noriyuki formally offers the wandering Yojimbo the friendship of the Geishu Clan, whilst rough-handed Gen resumes his far more fraternal rivalry with Usagi.

Then ‘The Fate of the Blind Swordspig’ reveals one secret the bounty hunter refused to share with even his greatest friend as, far away, another major player is plagued with a tantalising, impossible choice…

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. He has guest-starred in many other series and even nearly made it into 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, 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 © 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991 Stan Sakai. Usagi Yojimbo is ® Stan Sakai. Book editions © 1990, 1991, 1998 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Dark Horse Book of Witchcraft


By various, edited by Scott Allie (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-108-0

Scary stories have always been a staple of comics, and anthology collections invariably offer fearsome fun and the biggest Boo for your buck so I’m taking a skittish peek at one that has definitely stood the test of time.

Following a bucolic Introduction by series Editor Scott Allie, this glorious hardback grimoire of ghoulish delights and funny fables opens with an illustrated extract from ‘Macbeth’ (guess witch bit) chillingly adapted by Tony Millionaire, after which comics and movie fans get a treat all their own.

This captivating “Book of…” mystery compilation is part of a series that spun out of Dark Horse Comics’ legendary monster-hit Hellboy, and ‘The Troll Witch’ by Mike Mignola presents a terrific vignette of the hulking demon foundling who visits Norway in 1963 and has a tense conversation with a very peculiar Wise-woman.

Next up is a classic prose short story by Weird Tales horror star Clark Ashton Smith. Illustrated by Gary Gianni, ‘Mother of Toads’ offers the chilling and ghastly feudal tale of a lusty peasant, love philtres and the consequences of cavorting with strange women who live far off the beaten track…

Editor Scott Allie and artists Paul Lee and Brian Horton briefly abandon their Devil’s Footprint series to recount the chilling choice of ‘The Flower Girl’ who, pushed to the limits by her diabolically spoiled and obnoxious little sister, is offered a vile solution by a neighbour with very dark secrets of her own…

Set in Louisiana in 1838 ‘The Gris-Gris’, by Jim & Ruth Keegan, blends the rich dark earth of voodoo with the theme of witchcraft as a cowardly Southern Gentleman picks the wrong crone to trifle with when trying to cheat his way out of a duel of honour, after which 1938 Mississippi hosts the ‘Golden Calf Blues’, by Mark Ricketts & Sean Phillips, exploring the power of an accursed guitar and the Devil’s Music to seduce the supposedly righteous…

‘The Truth About Witchcraft’ is an extended and fascinating interview with attorney, advocate and Wiccan High Priestess Phyllis Curott, after which the comics wonderment resumes with a stunning tale from the height of the infamous “Witch Trials” in ‘Salem and Mary Sibley’ by Scott Morse, before everything ends in an engaging and hilarious romp wherein the neighbourhood mutts and a deeply confused cat join forces to thwart the Forces of Darkness and the local coven of Crones in ‘Unfamiliar’, scripted by Evan Dorkin and magnificently rendered by Jill Thompson.

As anthologies go, horror and mystery are never out of style and collections like this serve as the ideal vehicle for pulling resistant readers into our world of comics. When they can be this diverse whilst maintaining such a staggering level of craft, variety and quality, they should be mandatory for any proselytizing fan, and hold pride of place on any aficionado’s bookshelf
Dark Horse Book of Witchcraft ™ and © 2004 Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All interior stories and features © their respective copyright holders.

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Iron Man: The Secret Origin of Tony Stark


By Kieron Gillen, Greg Land, Dale Eaglesham & Jay Leisten (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-550-5

Supreme survivor Tony Stark has changed his profile many times since his 1963 debut in Tales of Suspense #39 when, as a VIP visitor in Vietnam observing the efficacy of the munitions he had designed, the arch-technocrat was critically wounded and captured by a Communist warlord.

Put to work building weapons with the spurious promise of medical assistance upon completion, Stark instead created a prototype Iron Man suit to keep his heart beating and deliver him from his oppressors. From there it was a small jump into a second career as a high-tech Knight in Shining Armour…

Since then the inventor and armaments manufacturer has been a liberal capitalist, eco-warrior, space pioneer, affirmed Futurist, civil servant, Statesman, and even Director of the world’s most scientifically advanced spy agency, the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate. Of course, he was also a founder of the world’s most prominent superheroes, the Mighty Avengers…

For a popular character/concept weighed down with a fifty-year pedigree, radical reboots are a painful but periodic necessity. To keep contemporary, Stark’s origin and Iron Man’s continuity have been drastically revised every so often, but never so radically as with the upgrade featured in this saga (originally seen as issues #8-12 of the MarvelNOW! relaunched Iron Man volume 5, April-August 2013) by scripter Kieron Gillen…

Illustrated by Greg Land & Jay Leisten the drama begins with a 3-part cosmic epic as ‘The God-Killer’ finds Stark in his new space armour routing star pirates for the effete, aristocratic and decadently beautiful Voldi Tear.

One of the most ancient races in the cosmos, the Voldi have mastered the art of living graciously – off the kindness of strangers – and have all their needs met by their sacred artefact the Heart of the Voldi, which cleanly draws infinite power from a myriad of cosmic entities.

Tempted by the delights of the open-to-all civilisation, Stark returns to their Citadel of Rapture, feeling great and looking forward to an intimate assignation with the glorious princess Veritina…

Until that is he removes his helmet and she starts puking…

The party-animal Voldi have an open door policy for most races and beings – even welcoming 30-foot tall robotic killers such as Freelance Peacekeeping Agent Death’s Head (never, ever call him a bounty hunter!) – but Iron Man is clearly no longer welcome since a trio of Voldi “mechnohoplites” immediately begin shooting.

Easily overcoming the drones, Stark is appalled to then find himself accused of Deicide. Good guy at heart, he can only surrender to the mercies of the Supreme Justicar, convinced that a little straight talking can clear up whatever misunderstanding has occurred.

Unfortunately the Voldi worship the Phoenix Force – which Stark and his allies (see Avengers vs. X-Men) did indeed destroy the last time it attacked Earth…

Languishing in a cell, Stark is approached by a flying drinks tray, which transforms into a Rigellian Recorder – one of millions of sentient automatons programmed to travel the universe acquiring knowledge. Recorder 451 however developed a programming flaw and has struck out on its own.

Surprisingly sympathetic to Stark’s plight, the mechanoid suggests a way out of the mandatory death sentence imposed at the very brief trial when the Justicar revealed the secret of the Voldi: the energy harvested by the Voldi Heart is stolen and the consequences would be dire indeed if creatures such as Galactus, The Celestials or the Phoenix realised they had parasites tapping their infinite resources…

The Recorder’s solution is simple: invoke an ancient rite of Trial by Combat and stay alive until the Voldi get bored or 451 can retrieve Stark’s confiscated armour…

Since his opponents are broadly similar humanoids it all starts well enough, until the Justicar, unable to bear the humiliation of seeing the desperate warrior Earth-ape escaping the rule of law, changes the rules and hires titanic terminator Death’s Head to end the fiasco.

Unhappily for the Voldi, however, 451 has been furthering his own secret agenda all along and uses the distraction to steal the Heart and bring cosmic cataclysm down upon the ancient race of leeches.

However The Recorder hasn’t finished with Stark yet and dispatches the Iron Man suit to save the human even as the benighted Voldi all expire in an apocalyptic attack from the cosmic giants they had exploited for eons. Furious and disgusted, Stark swears vengeance on the murderous mechanoid whose last infuriating communication claims the genocide was a necessary evil…

Dale Eaglesham handles the art for the next revelatory triptych as the eponymous ‘Secret Origin of Tony Stark’ completely changes everything the inventive genius believed about himself.

After checking in with self-appointed universal police force Guardians of the Galaxy and exhausting all his own leads, Iron Man resorts to hiring Death’s Head – the greatest tracker in history – to ferret out 451. Their brief hunt proves successful, but it’s all a trap and Stark is easily captured by the Rigellian renegade who reveals how he has been watching over the Earthly inventor since before he was born…

I’m not going to spoil the shocks for you here but suffice to say that 451 was working with Tony’s parents Howard and Maria Stark in a complex scheme on Earth in the era before superheroes returned, battling aliens beside such Marvel stalwarts as Lieutenant “Thunderbolt” Ross, special agents Jimmy Woo and “Dum Dum” Dugan and others.

The robot’s Machiavellian long-range plan would alter forever the fate of the unborn Stark heir and eventually impact upon the entire universe…

Ranging from bleak and grim to spectacular and hilarious, this fun and furious rocket-pace romp genuinely offers a brand new take on the Golden Avenger and the volume also includes the regular extra goodies of a vast and expansive cover-and-variants gallery by Land, Steven McNiven, Terry Dodson, Mike Deodato Jr., and a brace of photo covers plus the now standard 21st century add-on of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code – 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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Savage Wolverine: Kill Island


By Frank Cho, coloured by Jason Keith (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-539-0

It must be summer now, since here’s a popular entertainment featuring mutants and dinosaurs all garnished with heavy helpings of aliens, explosions and hot chicks in skimpy fur bikinis…

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.

The company initiative MarvelNOW! having reshaped the entire continuity, the various factors of X-champions are generally starting life anew and this collection, gathering issues #1-5 of Savage Wolverine (spanning March-July 2013), proffers a deliciously rare and oddly appetising aspect of the feral fury.

One word seldom applied to the exploits of the Clawful Canadian is “Fun” but that’s exactly what this sharp, explosive mystery adventure offers as 21st century heroic everyman Wolverine literally falls into an exotic, frantic, deadly dangerous and darkly hilarious romp in the antediluvian wonder world known as the Savage Land.

It all began eight months ago as jungle queen Shanna, the She-Devil led a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists and cartographers on a research trip to the most desolate and unmapped section of the vast Antarctic subterranean dinosaur preserve.

The voyage ended in disaster as their aircraft was disabled by a technological damping field enveloping an enigmatic island in an inland sea. The vehicle plunged to Earth and no more was heard from the explorers…

Now, following an explosion of light that turns night to day, Wolverine groggily regains consciousness and his super-senses inform him that somehow he has been transported to the Savage Land – split seconds before a velociraptor tries to make him supper.

After dispatching the hungry beast the amazed mutant spots a native war-party carrying a wounded S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and leaps to the rescue.

Slaughtering the primitives, he learns from the dying Mike McSwiggin where the ship went down and, locating the wreckage, also finds Shanna who mistakes him for an attacking native and almost kills him…

The She-Devil tells a grim tale of slow attrition that saw her entire team, deprived of their electronic arsenal, fall one by one as they repeatedly tried to escape the monsters and savages. Mike had reasoned that the damping device was hidden within a fantastic monster-shaped mountain at the centre of the isle and built a bomb to destroy it. Now the only survivor Shanna convinces Wolverine they must carry out Mike’s plan if they have any hope of returning to civilisation…

And then a flight of pteranodons attack, coordinated as if they had human intellects…

At the caveman camp, another flash of light has resulted in the unexplained arrival of abrasive teenaged super-genius Amadeus Cho.

With his advanced personal tech and universal translator he soon has the ape-men believing that he is a god and, despite being rather distracted by some of the more nubile offerings (teenage boy, right?), quickly ascertains the true history of the Island…

Wolverine has meanwhile been rescued by Shanna, and the pair – squabbling like an old married couple – set to battling their way through a horde of natives and beasts, intent on climbing the monster-faced mountain and destroying the tech-disruption gadget.

Amadeus has found something interesting in his discussions with the village head-man. The chief speaker has an elixir which can instantaneously heal wounds and perhaps even revive the dead. The story the chief tells is incredible and terrifying…

Uncounted eons past a star crashed to earth. When the dust settled it was revealed to be a colossal giant battling a horrific alien beast. Subduing the monstrous “Dark Walker” the giant (deduced by Cho to be one of the multiverse-spanning space gods known as “Celestials”) then imprisoned the thing inside a mountain with a Great Machine to keep it dormant.

To protect the device the Celestial, with a wave of its hand, casually evolved the primitive hominids who observed the spectacle into humans to forever guard the prison and prevent tampering. He even granted them uncanny powers, which was lucky as periodically humans from elsewhere would materialise, baffled but always intent on making trouble…

The latest such interloper is having second thoughts, but when a war party tentatively offers a truce, Shanna accidentally spooks them and the result is yet another appalling bloodbath that results in her death…

Pushed off a cliff, Wolverine of course survives but determines to destroy the machine whatever it takes, unaware that Cho has convince the chief to use his life-elixir to resurrect the She-Devil. When she revives she is no longer the same person…

The fluid connects the reawakened to the island and imparts immense power and greater intelligence, as the morose mutant finds when he is attacked by the mountain’s last defenders – a pack of super gorillas…

Cho, meanwhile, has uncovered another impossible mystery, one somehow connected to a monster thought tragically unique, but has no time to ponder upon it as Shanna – now onside – reveals that Wolverine has a bomb and will be more determined than ever to blow up the machine. With the terrifying realisation that it is the only thing containing a creature even Celestials could not kill, the assembled heroes and jungle guardians rush to the mountain just in time to meet the latest outsider teleported in… the rampaging, incredible Hulk…

And in the resulting chaotic melee the ancient alien sleeper awakes…

Blisteringly bombastic, lavishly beautiful and staggeringly visceral, this blockbuster book is enthralling and utterly compelling, with portents and warning of even greater epics to come, but nevertheless reserves plenty of room for humour and even baldly slapstick comedy – another perfect jumping-on point for new and retired fans alike…

Kill Island also includes a beautiful cover-and-variants gallery by Cho, Joe Quesada, J. Scott Campbell, Gabrielle Dell’ Otto, Skott Young, Milo Manara, Leinil Francis Yu, Adi Granov & David Johnson, 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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Uncanny X-Men: Revolution


By Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Bachalo, Fraser Irving, Jaime Mendoza, Tim Townsend, Al Vey & Victor Olazaba (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-548-2

Following all the poor choices and horrendous paths taken by assorted mutant heroes over the last few years, and spinning off from the events of Avengers versus X-Men, MarvelNOW! reshaped the entire continuity, taking the various factors of X-iterations in truly bizarre directions.

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

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

Over years the struggle to integrate mutants into society resulted in constant conflict, compromise and tragedy, including Jean’s death, Warren’s mutilation, Hank’s further mutation and eventually Cyclops’ radicalisation.

The formerly idealistic, steadfast and trustworthy team-leader Cyclops was even forced to kill Xavier before eventually joining with old (demon-possessed) ally Magik and former foes Magneto and “White Queen” Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, whenever necessary, of human ones.

Abandoning Scott, his surviving team-mates and newer X-Men such as Wolverine, Storm and Kitty Pryde stayed true to Xavier’s dream, opting to protect and train the next X-generation of kids at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning…

Furthermore when McCoy realised he was dying, he became obsessed with the notion that the still starry-eyed First Class of X-Men could bring the Mutant Enemy terrorist No. 1 back from his current path of doctrinaire madness and ideological race war insanity.

To that end the dying Beast used time-travel technology in a last-ditch attempt to avoid a species war: risking the entire space/time continuum by bringing the valiant youngsters back to the future to reason with the debased and possibly deranged Cyclops.

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways. Rather than restoring noble, dedicated Scott Summers to reason, the confrontation simply hardened the renegade’s heart and strengthened his resolve.

Moreover, even though McCoy’s younger self impossibly cured his older iteration, young Henry and the rest of the X-Kids refused to go home until “bad” Cyclops was stopped…

All that occurred in All-New X-Men: Here Comes Yesterday but here Revolution offers the other side of the coin in a slim seductive tome collecting Uncanny X-Men volume 3, #1-5 from February-April 2013; a dark and angst-drenched chronicle of desperate freedom fighters’ war to save their endangered species…

Scripted by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Chris Bachalo (with Jaime Mendoza, Tim Townsend, Al Vey & Victor Olazaba), this suspenseful reboot opens with ‘The New Revolution’ as an impenetrable bastion of global security is broached with ease by a mutant outlaw with a personal agenda. The wanted warrior is offering to betray Cyclops and his “Extinction Team”, and S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill and her trusted advisors simply cannot afford to dismiss the intel or waste an opportunity…

The world is changing rapidly. New mutants are appearing in increasing numbers and all with more impressive talents than ever before. Worse still, by carefully avoiding unprovoked acts of violence, Cyclops’ crew are gaining the trust and respect of many oppressed sectors of humanity: the young, the poor, the disenfranchised and rebellious…

Summers and his allies are busy too: saving recently triggered student Fabio Medina from his own powers and police over-reaction in San Diego. The youthful and extremely telegenic Extinction Squad’s argument is all but made for them when a flight of hunter/killer Sentinels attack, utterly disregarding the safety of the humans watching in their programmed frenzy to destroy all mutants…

Following their possession by the Phoenix force in Avengers versus X-Men, the powers of Cyclops, Magik, Magneto and Frost are no longer reliable, flaring from overload to ineffectuality without warning and ‘Poink is the New Bamf’ finds the former White Queen agonising over the apparent loss of her telepathic gifts and recent break-up with Cyclops.

Magneto, meanwhile, is occupied with the often odious task of teaching obnoxious, frightened kids how to use their powers and survive in a state of perpetual combat readiness in the underground bunker dubbed the New Charles Xavier School for Mutants.

After a few terrifying sessions, raw recruits Fabio, metamorphic chameleon Benjamin Deeds and healer Christopher Muse – AKA Triage – welcome the prospect of a field trip, accompanying the grown-ups on a reluctant visit to the mother of time-bending Eva “Tempus” Bell in Australia…

However when the kids and their mentors teleport in, thanks to the mutant traitor, America’s greatest heroes are waiting for them…

‘Avengers vs. Uncanny X-Men Go!’ presents something totally unexpected as furious battle does not immediately break out and Captain America instead engages Cyclops in impassioned debate in front of the waiting media’s cameras.

The two sides are philosophically diametrically opposed, however, and with hotheads like Hawkeye and the Hulk itching for a fight inevitably negotiations break down. It’s no contest though as Eva instantly freezes all the Avengers in a static time bubble. After making another subversive, politically charged statement the Uncanny X-Men wink out; victorious without a blow being struck…

In the untitled 4th issue the repercussions begin. With the authorities going ballistic at the ease with which the Extinction team defeated the World’s Mightiest heroes and terrified by the terrorists’ successful wooing of discontented humans globally, the internecine ideological mutant conflict heats up after Cyclops, Emma, Magik and Magneto turn up at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning with a chilling proposition.

Convinced of coming mutant extinction at human hands, Scott has come with an open invitation to any student who might wish to join his own academy: one dedicated to training Homo Superior to fight and survive rather than wait for humanity to turn on them…

At first disquieted by confronting his younger, stupid self and his naive childhood friends, the elder Cyclops is gratified when the psychically conjoined, socially-challenged Stepford Sisters Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe agree to switch, and stunned when the teenaged Warren Worthington also agrees to ditch his former classmates…

Unfortunately even as Emma’s trio of telepotent protégés take a cruel opportunity to test and torment their “psi-blind” former tutor, back in the bunker the unsupervised new mutants have stumbled into the Danger Room and pushed some buttons they really shouldn’t have…

The adults and transfer students arrive in time to save the kids but then Magik explodes in an agonised paroxysm of demonic flame…

Fraser Irving illustrates the final chapter in this compelling compilation as an arcane spotlight falls on llyana Nikolievna Rasputina. The teleporting mutant is wielder of the puissant Soulsword and mortal host to a supernal, infernal entity known as the Darkchylde and her teleporting discs work by instantaneously shunting subjects through the hellish realm of Limbo, but now her jaunts are fraught with peril and pain.

On investigating she finds the Limbo dimension that is her true home has been annexed by dark god Dread Dormammu and she is forced to show the ghastly invader the extreme error of his ways by letting loose the very worst part of herself…

Addictive, enthralling and utterly compelling, this alternative X-outing mixes blistering action, paranoiac suspense and slowly-mounting tension with the signature themes of alienation and personal freedom to deliver a frighteningly direct continuation of the nihilistic end of the once directionless mutant franchise.

Nevertheless, there’s still room for humour and this book offers a perfect jumping-on point for new and retired fans alike – as long as you also read the companion All-New X-Men volumes…

Revolution also includes a beautiful cover-and-variants gallery by Bachalo, Irving, Joe Quesada, Gabrielle Dell’ Otto, Skott Young, Francesco Francavilla, Stuart Immonen, Phil Noto, Kris Anka & Ed McGuiness, and the now standard 21st century add-on of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code – 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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Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Wolverine Reloaded


By Chris Claremont, Larry Hama, Daniel Way, Marc Guggenheim, Rick Remender, Paul Smith, Alan Davis, John Buscema, Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, Steve Dillon, Howard Chaykin, Phil Noto & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-537-6

Wolverine debuted as a throwaway foe for the Incredible Hulk in a tantalising teaser-glimpse at the end of issue #180 (October 1974) before indulging in a full-on scrap with the Green Goliath in the next issue, and then vanished until the launch of the All-New, All Different X-Men.

The semi-feral Canadian mutant with fearsome claws and killer attitude rode – or perhaps caused – the meteoric rise of the reconstructed and rebooted outcast hero team before gaining his own series, super-star status and silver screen immortality.

He hasn’t looked back since, although over the years many untold tales of the aged agent (it was revealed in Origin: the True Story of Wolverine that he had been born in the 19th century) have explored his missing exploits in ever-increasing intensity and torturous detail.

Thus Wolverine’s secret origin(s) and stream of revelatory disclosures regarding his extended, self-obscured life have gradually seeped out. Cursed with recurring and periodic bouts of amnesia, and mind-wiped ad nauseum by sinister or even well-meaning friends and foes, the Chaotic Canucklehead has packed a lot of adventurous living into his centuries of existence – but frequently doesn’t remember much of it.

This permanently unploughed field has conveniently resulted in a crop of dramatically mysterious, undisclosed back-histories, some of which are contained within this intriguing but frequently contradictory action extravaganza produced under the always rewarding Marvel Platinum Definitive Editions umbrella.

This latest treasury of titanic tales gathers some more impressive – if less obvious landmarks – from the Savage Stalker’s extensive canon and cannily focuses on the character’s Asian connections and even a struggle with sinister mastermind (and movie menace) the Mandarin.

Contained herein are alien encounters, high-tech hi-jinks and samurai slaughter-fests from Uncanny X-Men #172-173 and 256-258, Uncanny X-Men Annual #11, Wolverine volume 2 #s 10 and 57, Wolverine Origins #5, Wolverine volume 3 #61 and Uncanny X-Force #34, spanning August 1983 to January 2013, offering a fair representation of what is quite frankly an over-abundance of riches to pick from…

The carnage begins with a sleekly impressive turn from scripter Chris Claremont and illustrators Paul Smith & Bob Wiacek from Uncanny X-Men #172 (August 1983) as ‘Scarlet in Glory’ sees Logan announcing his impending wedding to Mariko, daughter of old enemy Shingen Harada, lord of Yakuza Clan Yashida…

When the rest of the team arrive in Japan for the impending nuptials they are all poisoned, leaving Logan and Rogue – whom he deeply distrusts – to seek out an antidote. Meanwhile staid maternal Storm is transformed from placid nature goddess to grim-and-gritty bad-ass by mercenary maniac and devoted Logan-lover Yukio even as the last X-Man races a ticking toxic clock to a literal deadline…

The result is sheer carnage as the feral mutant goes wild. With desperate-to-please probationary X-Man Rogue in tow Wolverine carves a bloody trail to Yakuza mercenary (and Mariko’s rival for the rule of Clan Yashida) Silver Samurai and psychopathic mastermind Viper in ‘To Have and Have Not’…

Although the bold champions are eventually triumphant, the victory comes at great cost. Logan returns to America alone and unwed after Mariko inexplicably calls off the nuptials…

Depressed, heartbroken and far off the rails, Logan is dragged to another reality in ‘Lost in the Funhouse’ – by Claremont, Alan Davis & Paul Neary from Uncanny X-Men Annual #11 – when duplicitous super-mutant Horde compels the team (Storm, Rogue, Dazzler, Longshot, Psylocke and Havok plus guests Captain Britain and Meggan) to obtain the cosmic Crystal of Ultimate Vision for him. None are aware that the fate of all Mankind is at stake and that Wolverine’s bestial instincts are the key to humanity’s ultimate salvation…

Wolverine volume 2 #10 (from August 1989 by Claremont, John Buscema & Bill Sienkiewicz) then counted down ’24 Hours’ as the mutant’s solitary birthday drink in modern day Madripoor stirs horrific memories of ancient, distant tragedy. On the same day years ago Sabretooth had slaughtered Logan’s woman Silver Fawn and Wolverine’s attempts to gain justice and vengeance proved ineffectual and humiliating…

Moreover those agonised reminiscences keep getting interrupted by gun-toting idiots and even with the aid of Spider-Woman Jessica Drew the incognito hero – who goes by the nom-de-guerre “Patch” in the Asiatic sin city can’t catch the sinister stranger pulling the strings…

Uncanny X-Men #256-258 (December 1989-January 1990) highlight the artistic gifts of Jim Lee & Scott Williams in a dramatic but rather bewildering 3-part thriller that originally featured as part of Marvel’s “Acts of Vengeance” crossover event.

Wolverine hardly features at all in ‘The Key That Breaks the Lock’ which finds telepath Betsy Braddock AKA Psylocke captured by ninja cabal the Hand. The brainwashing and mystic body-swapping engineered by Hand boss Matsuo Tsurayaba turns the English Rose into a sexy Chinese assassin/siren and the perfect gift for the undisputed Overlord of the Orient who employs her as his ‘Lady Mandarin’ in #257 to attack the X-Men…

Just as a physically depleted and delusional Logan – with new sidekick Jubilee in tow – are captured by the Hand, their heroic comrades are targeted by the Mandarin attempting to honour his part of a super-villain pact to switch arch-enemies by destroying the misunderstood mutants…

The tale devolves into a hi-octane, turbulent and overblown battle and the chaotic clash concludes in ‘Broken Chains’ with loads of semi-naked, exotic women, ninjas, big guns, mutants and even ghosts shouting and hitting everything – just what every fan at the end of the 1980s demanded.

Wolverine volume 2 #57 follows with ‘Death in the Family!’ (by Larry Hama, Marc Silvestri, Dan Green, Al Milgrom & Joe Rubinstein from July 1992) as the long-running Clan Yashida storyline was brought to a tragic climax when Wolverine, Silver Samurai and X-Man Gambit came to Mariko’s aid in her struggle to restore the honour of her family, even as Jubilee and Yukio battle for their lives against the Hand and cyborg psycho-killer Cylla. There was no happy ending here…

Since his earliest glory days with the X-Men, the mutant berserker known variously as Wolverine, Logan, Patch and latterly (originally) James Howlett had been a fan-favourite who appealed to the suppressed, put-upon, catharsis-craving comic fan by perpetually promising to cut loose and give bad guys the kind of final punishment we all know they truly deserve. But he also seemed to be a loner within the team.

Always walking the line between and blurring the definitions of indomitable hero and maniac murderer, he soldiered on; a tragic, brutal, misunderstood figure cloaked in mysteries and contradictions until society changed and, as with ethically-challenged colleague the Punisher, final sanction and quick dispatch became acceptable and even preferred options for costumed crusaders.

Inevitably Wolverine grew bigger than his team and increasingly worked alone, or with other groups and heroes.

When Wolverine Origins launched, the title was intended to fill in historical gaps and blanks, using an extended plot which revealed that over course of the 20th century Howlett had been repeatedly manipulated and tortured by a madman, who had moved invisibly in and out of his life, exerting complete mental dominance over the wandering warrior.

When Logan realised this he set all his prodigious instincts and skills to the task of finding the mysterious sadistic phantom known only as Romulus…

He discovered his quarry was the force behind numerous programs such as Weapon X (which first agonisingly bonded miracle metal Adamantium to Wolverine’s skeleton) and was dedicated to manufacturing and augmenting appalling human killing machines such as tortured US super-soldier Nuke, old associates like Wildchild and foes Sabretooth, Cyber and Omega Red…

From issue #5, ‘Born in Blood: Conclusion’ by Daniel Way & Steve Dillon ends the first leg of that monolithic hunt and sees Wolverine infiltrating the White House. It’s a trap and a magic Muramasa sword infects the obsessed mutant with a killing rage. The blood-crazed hero is barely held at bay by Captain America, Cyclops, Emma Frost and New Mutant Hellion and his fury is further stoked by the shocking new memory that decades ago Romulus had killed Logan’s wife Itsu and stolen the son the X-Man never knew existed…

The outré revelations continue in Wolverine volume 3 #61 as ‘Logan Dies: the Conclusion – Soul Survivor’ (January 2006, by Marc Guggenheim & Howard Chaykin) discloses that the true reason Howlett is still alive is that an Angel of Death named Lazear (née Azrael) spiritually battles him at every moment of death – and has since 1914.

Now Lazear, in alliance with enigmatic Hand mystic Phaedra, intends to finish the arcane arrangement, having already excised portions of Howlett’s soul. However the wily Wolverine has a plan to turn his weakness into triumphant strength…

The comics portion of this catalogue of death comes from Uncanny X-Force #34, January 2013. ‘From the Cradle to the Grave: Final Execution’ by Rick Remender & Phil Noto sees the final fate of Wolverine’s ultra-covert mutant wet-work squad as his fully grown and sadistically psychotic son Daken caps a lifetime of monstrous deeds by convening a new brotherhood of Evil, murders Wolverine’s ally Fantomex, turns an innocent child into the new Apocalypse and battles the father he never knew to the death…

With covers and pin-ups by Steven Segovia, Paul Smith, Dougie Braithwaite, Alan Davis & Paul Neary, Bill Sienkiewicz, Jim Lee & Scott Williams, Marc Silvestri & Dan Green, Joe Quesada, Arthur Suydam and Julian Totino Tedesco, this spectacular splatterfest also includes 10 pages of background and biographies of Wolverine’s foes Azrael/Lazear, Daken, Muramasa, Lord Shingen, Phaedra, Silver Fox, Sabretooth and Viper.

Stuffed with non-stop tension and blockbuster action, this another well-tailored on-target tool to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comic incarnation and another solid sampling to entice the newcomers and charm even the most jaded slice ‘n’ dice fanatic.
© 2013 Marvel. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Green Eggs and Maakies


By Tony Millionaire (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-618-8

As a career and lifestyle, cartooning has far more than its share of individuals with a unique perspective on the world. Ronald Searle, Charles Addams, George Herriman, Gerald Scarfe, Rick Geary, Steve Bell, Berke Breathed, Ralph Steadman, Bill Watterson, Matt Groening, Gary Larson – the list is potentially endless. Perhaps it’s the power to create entire sculptured worlds coupled with the constant catharsis of vented spleen that so colours their work – whether they paint or draw – or maybe it’s simply the crucible of constant deadlines that makes their efforts so addictive and effective.

In Green Eggs and Maakies the astounding Tony Millionaire returns again with another two year compilation of his impossibly wonderful weekly newspaper strip and clearly time has not withered his infinite grotesque variety one little bit…

The man loves to draw and does it very, very well; referencing classical art, timeless children’s book illustration and an eclectic mix of pioneering comics draughtsmen – like George McManus, Rudolph Dirks, Cliff Sterrett, Frank Willard, Harold Gray, Elzie Segar and George Herriman – and seamlessly blending their styles and sensibilities with European engravings masters from the “legitimate” side of the storytelling picture racket.

Born Scott Richardson, he especially cites Johnny (Raggedy Ann and Andy) Gruelle and English illustrator Ernest H. Shepard (The Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh) as definitive formative influences.

With a variety of graphical strings to his bow such as his own coterie of books for children (particularly the superbly stirring Billy Hazelnuts series), animation and the now legendary Sock Monkey, Mr. Millionaire still finds the time to produce the deliciously deeply disturbing weekly Maakies which describes the riotously vulgar and absurdly surreal adventures of an Irish monkey called Uncle Gabby and his fellow macro-alcoholic and nautical mis-adventurer Drinky Crow.

They are abetted but never aided by a peculiarly twisted, off-kilter cast of reprobates, antagonists and confrontational well-wishers, such as Drunken Cop, old Wachtel, The Captain’s Daughter and avian Aunt Phoebe and constantly opposed by a nefarious French crocodile dubbed The Frenchman. Or not. It depends…

In the grand tradition of the earliest US newspaper cartoon features, each episode comes with a linked mini-strip running across the foot of the strip – although often that link is quite hard to ascertain. Nominally based in a nautical setting of  rip-roaring 19th century sea-faring situations, replete with maritime monsters and stunning vistas, the dark-and-bitter comical instalments vary from staggeringly rude and crude through absolutely hysterical to conceptually impenetrable, with content and gags utterly unfettered by the bounds of taste or any acquiescence to wholesome fun-squelching decency.

Millionaire even promotes his other creative endeavours in his Maakies pages, digresses into autobiography and personal rants, brings in selected guest creators to mess with his toys and invites the readership to contribute ideas, pictures and objects of communal interest to the mix – especially any tattoos his dedicated readership bother to send…

This penetratingly incisive, witty and often poignant cartoon arena is his playground and if you don’t like it, leave… but quietly please, ’cause there’s a hangover going on here most days…

Launching in February 1994 in The New York Press, the strip is now widely syndicated in US alternative newspapers such as LA Weekly and The Stranger and globally in comics magazines such as Linus and Rocky. There’s even an animated series on Time-Warner’s Adult Swim strand.

Since continuity usually plays second fiddle to the avalanche of inventive ideas and outré action the strips can be read in almost any order, and the debauched drunkenness, manic ultra-violence in the manner of the best Tom & Jerry or Itchy & Scratchy cartoons, acerbic view of sexuality and deep core of existentialist angst (like Sartre ghostwriting The Office or perhaps The Simpsons) still finds a welcome with Slackers, Laggards, the un-Christian and all those scurrilous, lost Generations after X and everyone addicted to bad taste tomfoolery.

This latest lush landscape hardcover collection provides – in indisputable black and white – still more of the wonderful same with such spit-take, eye-watering, drink-coming-out-of-your-nose moments as how mermaids and ugly fish are created, fun with snakes, the thoughts of ‘Real Ladies of the Dog Park’, the best Superman fart joke in decades and so much more scraped from the edges of all time and space and history.

Moreover, in a positive frenzy of public-spirited beneficence, this book features ‘Maakies Womb Portraits’, returning visits of ‘Dr. Dubel, Helicopter faith healer’, easily absorbed lessons on ‘How to Drink’, scatological marriage proposals, a running commentary on ‘Married Days’ and general sex advice, revelations of ‘The Accidental Sobrietist’, secrets of such self-surgical procedures as removing impacted belly hair or how to conduct an auto-splenectomy, an ode to ‘The Robust Human Liver’ and more bright ideas from ‘The Universal Moon Genius’.

All the timeless favourite themes Millionaire specialises in are on show and the usual variations of sordid sexual encounters, ghastly interspecies progeny, assorted single entendres, bodily function faux pas and gory death-scenes share space with some of literature’s greatest poets and sots – who never knew what hit them…

There are even a few continued tales starring ‘Noah’s Ark’, barbarian dwarf ‘Klaus Santa, son of Kleas, son of Wachtel’ and two sets of cut-out, colour-and-keep Christmas tree ornaments to make any seasonal pine a domestic no-go zone…

If you’re not easily upset this is a spectacularly funny and rewarding strip, one of the most constantly creative and entertaining in existence today, and if you can thrive on gorge-rousing gags and mind-bending rumination this is an experience you simply cannot deny yourself.

If you’re still not a fan, Green Eggs and Maakies is the perfect opportunity to become one, and if you’re already converted it’s an ideal gift for them that isn’t …
© 2013 Tony Millionaire. All rights reserved.

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Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage


By Tom DeFalco, J.M. DeMatteis, Terry Kavanagh, David Michelinie, Mark Bagley, Sal Buscema, Ron Lim, Tom Lyle, Alex Saviuk & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-7851-0038-5 (1994)                                               978-0-7851-0987-7 (2005)

After a shaky start in 1962 The Amazing Spider-Man soon became a popular sensation with kids of all ages, rivalling the creative powerhouse that was Lee & Kirby’s Fantastic Four. Soon the quirky, charming, action-packed comicbook soap-opera would become the model for an entire generation of younger heroes elbowing aside the staid, (relatively) old costumed-crimebusters of previous publications.

You all know the story: Peter Parker was a smart but alienated kid bitten by a radioactive spider during a school science trip. Discovering he had developed astonishing arachnid abilities – which he augmented with his own natural chemistry, physics and engineering genius – the kid did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do with such newfound prowess: he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money.

Making a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor media celebrity – and a criminally self-important one. To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him one night he didn’t lift a finger to stop him, only to find when he returned home that his guardian uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.

Crazed with a need for vengeance, Peter hunted the assailant who had made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known, finding, to his horror, that it was the selfsame felon he had neglected to stop. His irresponsibility had resulted in the death of the man who raised him, and the traumatised boy swore to forevermore use his powers to help others…

Since that night the Wondrous Wallcrawler has tirelessly battled miscreants, monsters and madmen, with a fickle, ungrateful public usually baying for his blood even as he perpetually saves them.

In the anything-goes, desperate hurly-burly of the late 1980s and 1990s, fad-fever and spin-off madness obsessed the superhero genre in America as comics publishers hungrily exploited every trick to bolster flagging sales. In the melee Spider-Man spawned an intractable enemy called Venom: a disgraced and deranged reporter named Eddie Brock who bonded with Peter Parker‘s black costume (an semi-sentient alien parasite called the Symbiote) to become a savage, shape-changing dark-side version of the Amazing Arachnid.

Eventually the spidery adversaries reached a brooding détente and Venom became a “Lethal Protector”, dispensing a highly individualistic brand of justice everywhere but New York City.

However the danger had not completely passed. When the Symbiote went into breeding mode it created a junior version of itself that merged with a deranged psycho-killer named Cletus Kasady (in Amazing Spider-Man #344, March 1991).

Totally amoral, murderously twisted and addicted to both pain and excitement, Kasady became the terrifying metamorphic Carnage – a kill-crazy monster who carved a bloody swathe through the Big Apple before Spider-Man and Venom united to stop him.

Collecting the franchise-wide crossover which originally appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #378-389, Spectacular Spider-Man #201-203, Spider-Man #35-37, Spider-Man Unlimited #1-2 and Web of Spider-Man #101-103 (spanning from May – August 1993), this mammoth and extremely controversial summer event featured the inevitable return of the terrifying travesty and his bloodcurdling assault on everything Peter Parker held dear: love, family, responsibility and the heartfelt faith that killing was never justifiable…

After a behind-the-scenes Introduction (‘Darkness, Light… and Free Food’– with a corresponding Afterword at the end of the epic) by J.M. DeMatteis, this fast and furious slash-fest kicks off with ‘Carnage Rising’ by Tom DeFalco, Ron Lim & Jim Sanders III from Spider-Man Unlimited #1.

When a seemingly powerless Kasady is moved from ultra high security penitentiary The Vault to an experimental lab at Ravencroft Asylum, ambitious psychiatrist Dr. Pournella believes she can cure the monster’s underlying psychosis. Those opinions die with her and the rest of the staff and security officers when the long-dormant Carnage entity manifests and breaks free…

Across town, tormented by guilt and shame, Peter Parker and his new wife Mary Jane are attending the funeral of their friend Harry Osborn – who had gone mad and perished battling Spider-Man as the second Green Goblin. As the downcast hero wallows in soul-searching and wonders at the point of his life, in Ravencroft a nihilistic scourge of insane bloodlust rampages through the facility until he is stopped in his tracks by another inmate.

Shriek is a creature after Carnage’s own heart; a survivor of appalling childhood abuse who discovered she possessed incredible powers to make all her vile drives and dreams come true…

Instantly attracted to each other the pair join forces as a twisted “couple” and resolve to kill as often and as many as they can…

Escaping into New York they soon encounter and battle a mystical, nigh-mindless Spider-Man Doppelganger (which has been stalking the Webslinger since the end of the Infinity War crossover event) and adopt it. Together the ultimate embodiment of a dysfunctional family set out to teach the city the pointlessness of life and the imminent inevitability of remorseless death…

Peter meanwhile has quarrelled with Mary Jane, but after making up he hears of the bloodbath at Ravencroft and dutifully rushes off to recapture Carnage. He is utterly unprepared for the trio of terror he finds and is savagely beaten before barely escaping with his life…

The tale continues in ‘Dark Light’ (by Terry Kavanagh, Alex Saviuk & Don Hudson from Web of Spider-Man #101) as the incapacitated Arachnid is accosted by street thugs hungry for vengeance and only saved by the appearance of homeless vigilantes Cloak and Dagger.

The nomadic teens are two juvenile runaways who fell into the clutches of drug-pushing gangsters. As part of a group of abducted kids they were used as guinea pigs for new designer drugs, but though all the other test subjects died horribly Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen were mutated by the chemical cocktail into something more – and less – than human.

Isolated, alone, and vengeful they swore to help other lost kids by fighting drug dealers and all who preyed on the weak in the blackest corners of New York City. Cloak is connected to a dimension of darkness; able to teleport, become intangible, amplifying and feeding on the wickedness in his targets. His unceasing hunger for these negative emotions must be regularly if only temporarily sated by super-acrobat Dagger’s dazzling radiance. Her power too has advantages and hazards. The power can cleanse the gnawing dependency afflicting addicts, but constantly, agonizingly, builds up within her when not released. Thus Cloak’s incessant hunger can be assuaged by her light-knives and his apparently insatiable darkness.

Whilst tending to Spider-Man – whose injuries include cripplingly painful broken ribs – Cloak and Dagger are ambushed by the Carnage clan and a catastrophic clash razes the church they are sheltering in.

Shriek especially is revelling in the chaos. She has battled Cloak before and loathes him, taking sublime joy in tormenting him. Her greatest triumph comes when she uses her sonic powers to disintegrate his beloved Dagger before his horrified eyes…

‘Demons on Broadway’ (Amazing Spider-Man #378, by David Michelinie, Mark Bagley & Randy Emberlin) ramps up the tension as Venom returns to New York, determined to exterminate the appalling threat he inadvertently created. The severely wounded Spider-Man is meanwhile trying to console Cloak who is crazed with grief and fury. Elsewhere Carnage, Shriek and Doppelganger are simultaneously gloating, planning further bloodshed and fighting each other…

When Cloak disappears in a blink of black torment the barely conscious Wallcrawler resumes his search for the trio of horrors and instead stumbles upon another old foe – Demogoblin.

Originally a science-powered super-crook, the mercenary killer was mystically cursed and transfigured into a supernatural scourge dedicated to cleansing the earth of sin. To his diseased mind that means slaughtering humans because they are all sinners…

As the messianic devil thrashes the utterly exhausted and overstretched Spider-Man in Central Park, Venom tracks down Kasady but is similarly crushed by Doppelganger, Shriek and his sadistically exultant “offspring”…

Brock barely escapes with his life and crawls to Peter and Mary Jane’s apartment in Spider-Man #35, driving Mrs. Parker crazy with fear and resentment. In fact it seems as if the entire city is on the edge and ready to explode in rage, negativity and violence…

As Spider-Man resigns himself to working again with his murderous worst nightmare, Demogoblin joins the fiendish family. The good guys recruit Peter’s ex-girlfriend The Black Cat to even the odds in ‘Team Venom’ (David Michelinie, Tom Lyle & Scott Hanna), but by the time they find their constantly bickering homicidal foes Cloak has already impetuously attacked them and is close to death…

As another blockbusting battle ends in defeat for the heroes, the Amazing Arachnid finds himself berated and deserted by his own allies. Taken to task for his foolish unwillingness to use lethal force, Peter questions his ingrained reluctance to go ‘Over the Line!’ (Spectacular Spider-Man #201, J.M. DeMatteis & Sal Buscema) even as Carnage adopts another psychotic menace into his growing killer kin.

The cadaverous mutated clone Carrion shares their ambitions and eagerly joins in their avowed mission to kill every human in New York.

The blood-soaked brood are aided in their task by the very citizens they imperil, as an inexplicable wave of fear and hatred grips the populace, sparking savage rioting and a tide of death. The inflamed innocents even attempt to lynch Spider-Man when he comes to their aid…

As Parker faces an overwhelming crisis of conscience in ‘Sinking Fast’ (by Kavanagh, Saviuk & Hudson from Web of Spider-Man #102), Venom’s vengeance squad recruits another old Spider-Man foe in the ghastly shape of Michael Morbius – a science-spawned Living Vampire with an unquenchable appetite for human blood.

After years of death and torment, the helpless victim had recently begun to seek a form of redemption by only slaking his thirst on the wicked…

With her husband insanely risking his life beside allies as bad as the villains, Mary Jane attempts to ease her own rage by going clubbing, just as Carnage’s “carnival of chaos” tears into the fashionable nightspot eager to display their warped philosophy of senseless death.

She is only saved by the appearance of Team Venom, with Spider-Man arriving far too late to help. After helping to drive off the macabre marauders a heartbroken Parker is forced to accept the antihero’s methods and rejoins the squad in time to confront ‘The Gathering Storm’ (Amazing Spider-Man #379, Michelinie, Bagley & Emberlin)…

As the notional white hats again spectacularly and pointlessly clash with the cotillion of crazies – resulting in the collateral deaths of the NYPD’s Extreme Emergency Team – a new player enters the conflict.

Deathlok was pacifist scientist Michael Collins until his consciousness was imprisoned within a cyborg body built to be the ultimate battlefield weapon. Rebelling against the corporate monsters who doomed him to the life of a mechanical zombie, Collins turned the war body into a macabre force for justice, so when he detected strange energies at work in town he immediately entered the fray… and was trashed by Clan Carnage, just as Spider-Man and Cloak recruited the idealistic mutant Firestar to their side…

Fighting chaos and terror with logic, the Web-spinner had reasoned that since all Symbiote spawn were chronically susceptible to excessive heat (as well as high energy sonic assault) a champion capable of emitting unstoppable microwaves would turn the tide in humanity’s favour…

As the heroes lay their plans, ‘Hate is In The Air’ (Spider-Man #36 by Kavanagh, Lyle & Hanna) reveals the horrific childhood of Cletus Kasady and events which shaped the unrepentant kill-crazed fiend. Meanwhile martial arts hero Iron Fist steps in to rescue the broken Deathlok and the Venom gang again engage Carnage’s crew. They almost succeed but for the rallying efforts of the increasingly rebellious and independent Shriek…

One secret is revealed in ‘The Turning Point’ (Spectacular Spider-Man #202, DeMatteis & Buscema) as a crazed mob attacks the battling metahumans, and Shriek discloses her powers enable her to broadcast her own madness to the entire city, driving everyone into paroxysms of despair and fury. With Spider-Man actively urging Firestar to kill Carnage, the heroes’ ethical collapse seems assured…

From the depths of his soul Peter’s moral core finally breaks through the madness and he stops the equally conflicted microwave mutant from committing the ultimate sin, just as inspirational legend Captain America arrives to take charge…

With both Avengers and Fantastic Four occupied elsewhere, the Sentinel of Liberty has rushed back to save ‘Sin City’ (Kavanagh, Saviuk & Hudson, Web of Spider-Man #103) from Armageddon, and instantly rallies the hard-pressed heroes and their more ambivalent allies.

Sadly his presence causes a schism and as mysterious vigilante Nightwatch joins the dark defenders in still more reactive, pointless violence, ‘Soldiers of Hope’ (Amazing Spider-Man #380, Michelinie, Bagley & Emberlin) sees Parker at last use his brains rather than brawn. With Cap’s resources, the philosophical discipline of Iron Fist and technical skills of Deathlok, a weapon is devised that could disable and even cure the frenzied killers running wild in the streets…

An even greater turnabout occurs in ‘The Light!’ ( courtesy of DeMatteis, Lyle, Hanna & Al Milgrom and Spider-Man #37) as, at the height of the most savage battle yet, the three factions are stunned by the luminescent resurrection of Dagger, who spearheads a triumphant ‘War of the Heart!’ (Spectacular Spider-Man #203, DeMatteis & Buscema) that crushes the clan and kills Carnage…

Of course it’s never that easy and the cunning maniac is only shamming, as the exhausted and traumatised Spider-Man and Venom discover when the blood-red maniac ambushes them in one last all-or-nothing attack in ‘The Hatred, the Horror, & the Hero!’ by DeFalco, Bagley, Lim, Sanders III & Sam de la Rosa from Spider-Man Unlimited #2…

If you love the extended hyperbolic, continual conflict which is at the core of all Costumed Dramas, this non-stop battle bonanza is the ideal way to spoil yourself. Logic and pacing are subsumed into one long, escalating struggle, and a working knowledge of the players is largely unnecessary to the raw, brutal clash of wills, ideologies and super-powers. One fair warning however: although handled with a degree of reserve and taste, this yarn has an appalling bodycount and scenes of torture that might upset younger fans of the Amazing Arachnid.
© 1993, 1994, 2005 Marvel Entertainment Group Inc/Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.