Graphic Novels – Page 173

September 8, 2012September 7, 2012

Spirit of Wonder

By Kenji Tsuruta, translated by Dana Lewis & Toren Smith (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56971-288-7

Unlike many manga tales translated into English, acclaimed author and illustrator Kenji Tsuruta’s beguiling fantasy Spirit of Wonder, although carrying all the trappings of a blistering science fiction comedy romp, is a sweet romantic comedy with genteel, anything is possible, sentimental yearning as the driving force.

Set in a charming alternate time and place so like our own world, it follows the Byzantine trials and tribulations of feisty, beautiful tavern owner Miss China and her truly bizarre, indigent and obnoxious upstairs tenants – the genuinely mad Professor Breckenridge and his gorgeous, hunky assistant Jim Floydâ€¦

Creator Kenji Tsuruta was born in 1961 and studied optical science, intending to pursue a career in photography before happily making the jump to narrative storytelling as manga artist, designer, book illustrator and anime creator.

A lifelong fan of â€œhard scienceâ€ science fiction authors like Robert A. Heinlein and the comic works of Tetsuya Chiba and Yukinobu (Saber Tiger) Hoshino, after years of producing self-published dÅjinshi whilst working as an assistant to established manga stars, Tsuruta began selling his own works in 1986 when his short fantasy serial Hiroku te suteki na uchÅ« ja nai ka (‘What a Big Wonderful Universe It Is’) was published in Kodansha’s Weekly Morning magazine.

Soon after, he began this enticing, enchanting scientific romance of gently colliding worlds which ran in both Weekly Morning and monthly magazine Afternoon between 1987 and 1996 before making the smooth transition to animated features and an award-winning TV series. This English edition comes courtesy of Dark Horse Comics who published the first few translated episodes as a 5-issue black and white comics miniseries in 1995-6.

In a comfortable faux-Victorian milieu, the exotic immigrant Lady Chinaruns the Ten-Kai Tavern in the sleepy yet cosmopolitan port-town ofBristol. The generally peaceful burg hardly ever-changes, but China’s life is one of constant struggle to make a comfortable living, especially as she rents her upstairs rooms to a couple of crackpot deadbeats who continually mess up the place with their idiotic contraptions and persistently fail to pay their rent.

The older guy is truly annoying and doesn’t care about anything beyond his latest weird invention but his assistant is a sweet and delightful young man who has capturedChina’s fast-beating heartâ€¦

The wonderment begins on another belated rent day with ‘Miss China’s Ring or Doctor Breckenridge and the Amazing Ether Reflector mirror!’ as the frustrated landlady is again forced to employ her formidable martial arts skills to get the insufferable Professor’s attention – if not the long-delayed and constantly accruing cash payable.

It’s not a good time, as Breckenridge is entertaining potential investors in his latest creation which promises safe travel to the Moonâ€¦

The meeting does not end well and both landlady and tenant depart unsatisfied, whilst in another part of town Jim – whose responsibilities include doing everything and somehow finding the money to pay for it – is picking up a vital component from pretty â€œfloristâ€ Lily (a girl with amazing connections able to procure anything wayward inventors might ever require).

UnfortunatelyChinasees the object of her desire spending what should be rent money on a very pretty flower girl and goes ballisticâ€¦

Floyd adoresChinatoo but as a typical guy is utterly unable to tell her. He can, however, thanks to his mad mentor Breckenridge and some astounding discoveries left by his own vanished father – another technological miracle man – give her the moon.

Literallyâ€¦

Jim givesChinaa ring as a birthday present but she is too furious to care. She wants rent not trinkets from a flighty gadabout. If only she could calm down enough, she would see that the gift is carved from actual moon rock, but beaten into a strategic retreat, Jim realises he needs to make a somewhat grander gestureâ€¦

Heartbroken,Chinafalls asleep and is much calmer when she awakes. Bringing her troublesome tenants tea, she looks up into the sky and sees the message Jim has carved into the shining luminous lunar surfaceâ€¦

Stunned and troubled she moves through the days in a dream. Even with the evidence above his head Breckenridge still can’t get anyone to bankroll him and is driven to unwise acts. Soon the entire world is imperilled by his etheric meddlings and the moon is plummeting on a deadly collision course withBristol.

Luckily the uniquely physical and practical talents of MissChinaare of some use in averting disaster if not setting things totally arightâ€¦

‘The Flight of Floyd’ opens with the Mad Professor oafishly seeking to make amends by giving China a flying broomstick, before concluding that he will never understand women. The lovelorn landlady simply wishes she could make Jim pay attention to her, superstitiously wishing upon a shooting star, but the object of her infatuation is preoccupied with completing his missing father’s gravity disrupter and with off-handed tactlessness explains that she’s doing it wrongâ€¦

Once again the cause of increasingChina’s woes, the hapless Floyd decides to use his Gravitation Gate to make things right – by creating a permanent rain of meteors for the lovely landlady to wish upon, momentarily forgetting that whilst pretty in the evening sky a bombardment of incandescent rock packs a bit of a punch when hitting the Earthâ€¦

The marvellous merriment concludes with ‘China strikes Back parts 1 and 2, or Doctor Breckenridge and the Astounding Instantaneous Matter Transmitter!’ which finds times hard in Bristol as the town shivers under a blanket of snow and the cash-strapped, customer-starved Lady China forced to get increasingly heavy with her free-loading lodgers. She is also taking out her bad moods on the townspeople and the few customers still frequenting the inn for food and drinks

However when she once again busts in the upstairs door in search of her overdue payments, she finds the Professor and Jim have vanished, taking all their ludicrous junk with them.

They haven’t gone far, however. In fact they haven’t gone anywhere at all, but simply set up a system by whichChina’s entrances and exits teleport her to and from an empty set of duplicate rooms, leaving the unscrupulous tinkerers free to stay at the tavern without being bothered.

Sadly they hadn’t bothered to soundproof the floors of the upper rooms or warn black market tech dealer Lily of their latest innovation and when China discovers the scam – in the most embarrassing manner possible – Jim is forced into a fury of improvisation before he’s able to make things rightâ€¦

This enchanting blend of Steampunk and gleeful science whimsy is a sharp, wry and fantastically ingenious human drama, filled with gentle good humour and warmth, rendered with such astonishing sensitivity and imagination that the most outrageous scenes appear thoroughly rational, authentic and real – although sadly some people might focus far too much on the innocent, unconscious and completely casual nudity rather than the superb story and characterisations on display.

Filled with extra cover illustrations, pin-ups and an engaging interview with the creator, Spirit of Wonder is a treat for every open-hearted, big-minded romantic and one no fantasy fan should be denied.
Â© 1996 Kenji Tsuruta. All rights reserved.

August 27, 2012August 27, 2012

Judge Dredd: the Complete Case Files 01

By John Wagner, Pat Mills, Carlos Ezquerra, Ian Gibson, Mike McMahon, Brian Bolland & various (Rebellion)
ISBN: 978-1-90426-579-0

Britain’s last great comic icon could be described as a combination of the other two, combining the futuristic milieu and thrills of Dan Dare with the terrifying anarchy and irreverent absurdity of Dennis the Menace. He’s also well on the way to becoming the longest-lasting adventure character in our admittedly meagre comics stable, having been continually published every week since February 1977 when he first appeared in the second issue of science-fiction anthology 2000AD – and now that the Dandy’s slated for cancellation, veterans Korky the Cat and Desperate Dan might one day be overtaken in the comedy stakes tooâ€¦

However with at least 52 2000AD strips a year, annuals, specials, a newspaper strip (in the Daily Star and later The Metro), the Judge Dredd Megazine, numerous reprinted classic comics collections and even two rather appalling DC Comics spin-off titles, that adds up to a phenomenal amount of material, most of which is still happily in print.

Bolland by his own admission was an uneconomically slow artist and much of his Dredd work appeared as weekly portions of large epics with other artists handling other episodes,

Judicial Briefing: Dredd and his dystopian ultra-metropolis of Mega-City One – originally it was to be a 21^st century New York – were created by a very talented committee including Pat Mills, Kelvin Gosnell, Carlos Ezquerra, Mike McMahon and others, but with the major contribution coming from legendary writer John Wagner, who has written the largest portion of the canon under his own and several pseudonyms.

Joe Dredd is a fanatically dedicated Judge in the super-city, where hundreds of millions of citizens idle away their days in a world where robots are cheaper and more efficient than humans, and jobs are both beloved pastime and treasured commodity. Boredom has reached epidemic proportions and almost everybody is just one askance glance away mental meltdown. Judges are peacekeepers who maintain order at all costs: investigating, taking action and trying all crimes and disturbances to the hard-won equilibrium of the constantly boiling melting pot. Justice is always immediateâ€¦

Dredd’s world is a polluted and precarious Future (In)Tense with all the key analogues for successful science fiction (as ever a social looking-glass for the times it’s created in) situated and sharply attuned to a Cold War Consumer Civilisation. The planet is divided into political camps with post-nuclear holocaust America locked in a slow death-struggle with the Sov Judges of the old Eastern Communist blocs. The Eastern lawmen are militaristic, oppressive and totalitarian – and that’s by the US Judges’ standards – so just imagine what they’re actually likeâ€¦

They are necessary fascists in a world permanently on the edge of catastrophe, and sadly, what far too many readers never realise is that the strip is a gigantic satirical black comedy with oodles of outrageous, vicarious cathartic action.

Such was not the case when the super-cop debuted in 2000AD Prog (that’s issue number to you) #2 (March 5^th 1977), stuck at the back of the new weekly comic in a tale finally scripted after much intensive re-hashing by Peter Harris and illustrated by Mike McMahon & Carlos Ezquerra.

The blazing, humourless, no-nonsense (all that would happily come later) action yarn introduced the bike-riding Sentinel of Order in the tale of brutal bandit Whitey whose savage crime spree was ended with ferocious efficiency before the thug was sentenced to Devil’s Island â€“ a high-rise artificial plateau surrounded by the City’s constant stream of lethal, never-ending, high-speed trafficâ€¦

In Prog 3 he investigated The New You in a cunning thriller by Kelvin Gosnell & McMahon wherein a crafty crook tried to escape justice by popping into his local face-changing shop, whilst #4 saw the first appearance of the outcast mutants in The Brotherhood of Darkness (Malcolm Shaw & McMahon) when the ghastly pariahs invaded the megalopolis in search of slaves.

The first hints of humour began in Prog 5’s Krong by Shaw & Ezquerra, with the introduction of Dredd’s Italian cleaner Maria, wherein deranged horror film fan and hologram salesman Kevin O’Neill – yes it’s an in-joke – unleashed a giant mechanical gorilla on the city. The issue was the first of many to cover-feature old Stone Faceâ€¦

Frankenstein 2 pitted Dredd against an audacious medical mastermind hijacking citizens to keep his rich aging clients in fresh, young organs, after which #7 saw ruthless reprobate Ringo’s gang of muggers flaunting their criminality in the very shadow of The Statue of Judgement until Dredd lowered the boom on themâ€¦

Charles Herring & Massimo Belardinelli produced the Antique Car Heist in #8, which first indicated that the super-cop’s face was hideously disfigured, when the Judge tracked down a murderous thief who stole an ancient petrol-burning vehicle, after which co-creator John Wagner returned in Prog 9 to begin his staggering run of tales with Robots, illustrated by veteran British science fiction artist Ron Turner, which set the scene for an ambitious mini-saga in #10-17. The gripping vignette was set at the Robot of the Year Show, and revealed the callous cruelty indulged in by citizens upon their mechanical slaves as a by-product of a violent blackmail threat by a disabled maniac in a mechanical-super chairâ€¦

Those casual injustices paved the way for Robot Wars (alternately illustrated over the weeks by Ezquerra, Turner, McMahon & Ian Gibson) wherein carpenter-robot Call-Me-Kenneth experienced a mechanical mind meltdown and became a human-hating steel Spartacus, leading a bloody revolution against the fleshy oppressors. The slaughter was widespread and terrible before the Judges regained control, helped in no small part by loyal, lisping Vending droid Walter the Wobot, who became at the epic’s end Dredd’s second live-in comedy foilâ€¦

With order restored a sequence of self-contained stories firmed up the vision of the crazed city. In Prog 18 Wagner & McMahon introduced the menace of mind-bending Brainblooms cultivated by a little old lady career criminal, Gerry Finley-Day & John Cooper described the galvanising effect of the Muggers Moon on Mega-City 1’s criminal class whilst Dredd demonstrated the inadvisability of being an uncooperative witnessâ€¦

Wagner & McMahon introduced Dredd’s bizarre paid informant Max Normal in #20, whose latest tip ended the profitable career of The Comic Pusher, Finley-Day & Turner turned in a workmanlike thriller as the super-cop tackled a seasoned killer with a deadly new weapon in The Solar Sniper and Wagner & Gibson showed the draconian steps Dredd was prepared to take to bring in mutant assassin Mr Buzzz.

Prog 23 launched into all-out ironic satire mode with Finley-Day & McMahon’s Smoker’s Crime when Dredd trailed a killer with a bad nicotine habit to a noxious City Smokatorium, after which Malcolm Shaw, McMahon & Ezquerra revealed the uncanny secret of The Wreath Murders in #24. The next issue began the feature’s long tradition of spoofing TV and media fashions when Wagner & Gibson concocted a lethal illegal game show in You Bet Your Life whilst #26 exposed the sordid illusory joys and dangers of the Dream Palace (McMahon) and #27-28 offered some crucial background on the Judges themselves when Dredd visited The Academy of Law (Wagner & Gibson) to give Cadet Judge Giant his final practical exam. Of course for Dredd there were no half measures or easy going and the novice barely survived his graduationâ€¦

With the concluding part in #28, Dredd moved to second spot in 2000AD (behind brutally jingoistic thriller Invasion) and the next issue saw Pat Mills & Gibson tackle robot racism as Klan-analogue The Neon Knights brutalised the reformed and broken artificial citizenry until the Juggernaut Judge crushed them.

Mills then offered tantalising hints on Dredd’s origins in The Return of Rico! (McMahon) when a bitter criminal resurfaced after twenty years on the penal colony of Titan, looking for vengeance upon the Judge who had sentenced him. From his earliest days as a fresh-faced rookie, Joe Dredd had no time for corrupt lawmen – even if one were his own clone-brotherâ€¦

Whitey escaped from Devil’s Island (Finley-Day & Gibson) in Prog 31, thanks to a cobbled-together device that turned off weather control, but didn’t get far before Dredd sent him back, whilst the fully automated skyscraper resort Komputel (Robert Flynn & McMahon) became a multi-story murder factory that only the City’s greatest Judge could counter before Wagner (frequently using the pseudonym John Howard) took sole control for a series ofÂ savage whacky escapades beginning with #33’s Walter’s Secret Job (Gibson) as the besotted droid was discovered moonlighting as a cabbie to buy pwesents for his beloved master.

McMahon and Gibson illustrated the two-part tale of Mutie the Pig: a flamboyant criminal who was also a bent Judge, and performed the same tag-team effort for The Troggies, a debased colony of ancient humans living under the city and preying on unwary citizensâ€¦

Something of a bogie man for wayward kids and exhausted parents, Dredd did himself no favours in Prog 38 when he burst in on Billy Jones (Gibson) and revealed a massive espionage plot utilising toys as surveillance tools, and tackled The Ape Gang in #39 (19^th November 1977 and drawn by McMahon), seamlessly graduating to the lead spot whilst shutting down a turf war between augmented, educated, criminal anthropoids in the unruly district dubbed â€œthe Jungleâ€â€¦

The Mega-City 5000 was an illegal and murderously bloody street race the Judges were determined to shut down, but the gripping action-illustration of the Bill Ward drawn first chapter was sadly overshadowed by hyper-realist rising star Brian Bolland, who began his legendary association with Dredd by concluding the mini-epic in blistering, captivating style in Prog 41.

From out of nowhere in a bold change of pace, Dredd was then seconded to the Moon for a six-month tour of duty in #42 to oversee the rambunctious, nigh-lawless colony set up by the unified efforts of three US Mega-Cities there. The place was as bonkers as Mega-City One and a good deal less civilised – a true Final Frontier townâ€¦

The extended epic began with Luna-1 by Wagner & Gibson, with Dredd and stowaway Walter almost shot down en route in a mysterious missile attack and then targeted by a suicide bomb robot before they could even unpack.

‘Showdown on Luna-1’ introduced permanent Deputy-Marshal Judge Tex from Texas-City whose jaded, laissez-faire attitudes got a good shaking up as Dredd demonstrated he was one lawman who wasn’t gong to coast by for the duration of his term in office. Hitting the dusty mean streets, Dredd began to clean up the wild boys in his town by outdrawing a mechanical Robo-Slinger and uncovering another assassination ploy. It seemed that reclusive mega-billionaire Mr. Moonie had a problem with the latest law on his lunar turfâ€¦

Whilst dispensing aggravating administrative edicts like a frustrated Solomon, Dredd chafed to hit the streets and do some real work in #44’s McMahon-limned ‘Red Christmas’. An opportunity arose when arrogant axe-murderer Geek Gorgon abducted Walter and demanded a showdown he lived to regret, whilst ’22nd Century Futsie!’ (Gibson) saw Moonie Fabrications clerk Arthur Goodworthy crack under the strain of over-work and go on a destructive binge with Dredd compelled to protect the Future-shocked father’s family from Moonie’s over-zealous security goons.

The plotline at last concluded in Prog 46 with ‘Meet Mr. Moonie’ (Gibson) as Dredd and Walter confronted the manipulative manufacturer and uncovered his horrific secret. The feature moved to the prestigious middle spot with this episode, allowing the artists to really open up and exploit the colour centre-spread, none more so than Bolland as seen in #47’s Land Race as Dredd officiated over a frantic scramble by colonists to secure newly opened plots of habitable territory. Of course there’s always someone who doesn’t want to shareâ€¦

Ian Gibson then illustrated 2-part drama ‘The Oxygen Desert’ in #48-49, wherein veteran moon-rat Wild Butch Carmody defeats Dredd using his superior knowledge of the airless wastes beyond the airtight domes. Broken, the Judge quits and slides into despondency but all is not as it seemsâ€¦

Prog 50 saw the debut of single-page comedy supplement Walter the Wobot: Fwiend of Dwedd – but more of that later – whilst the long-suffering Justice found himself knee-boot-deep in an international interplanetary crisis when ‘The First Lunar Olympics’ (Bolland) against a rival lunar colony controlled by the Machiavellian Judges of the Sov-Cities bloc escalated into assassination and a murderous politically-fuelled land grab. The issue was settled in ostensibly civilised manner with strictly controlled ‘War Games’ yet there was still a grievously high body-count by the time the moon-dust settledâ€¦ This vicious swipe at contemporary sport’s politicisation was and still is bloody, brutal and bitingly funnyâ€¦

Bolland also illustrated the sardonic saga of ruthless bandits who were up for a lethal laugh in #52’s The Face-Change Crimes, using morphing tech to change their appearances and rob at will until Dredd beat them at their own game, before Wagner & Gibson crafted a four-part mini-epic (Progs 53-56) wherein motor fanatic Dave Paton’s cybernetic, child-like pride-and-joy blew a fuse and terrorised the domed territory, slaughtering humans and even infiltrating Dredd’s own quarters before the Judge finally stopped Elvis, The Killer Car.

Bolland stunningly limned the savagely mordant saga of a gang of killer bandits who hijacked the moon’s air before themselves falling foul of The Oxygen Board in #57, but only managed the first two pages of 58’s Full Earth Crimes leaving Mike McMahon to complete the tale of regularly occurring chaos in the streets whenever the Big Blue Marble dominated the black sky aboveâ€¦

It was a fine and frantic note to end on as with ‘Return to Mega-City’ Dredd rotated back Earthside and business as unusual. Readers were probably baffled as to why the returned cop utterly ignored a plethora of crime and misdemeanours, but Wagner & McMahon provided the logical and perfect answer in a brilliant, action-packed set-up for the madcap dramas to come.

This first Case Files chronicle nominally concludes with Wagner & McMahon’s Firebug from Prog 60 as the ultimate lawgiver dealt with a crazed arsonist literally setting the city ablaze and discovered a venal motive to the apparent madness, but there’s still a wealth of superb bonus material to enjoy before we end this initial outing.

Kicking off proceedings and illustrated by Ezquerra is the controversial First Dredd strip which was bounced from 2000AD #1 and vigorously reworked – a fascinating glimpse of what the series might have been, followed by the first Walter the Wobot: Fwiend of Dwedd stwips (sowwy – couldn’t wesist!) from 2000AD Progs 50-58.

Scripted by Joe Collins, these madcap comedy shorts were an antidote to the savage and brutal action strips in the comic and served to set the scene for Dredd’s later full-on satirical lampoonery.

Tap Dancer was illustrated by Ian Gibson and dealt with an embarrassing plumbing emergency whilst Shoot Pool! (Gibson) saw the Wobot again taking the Judge’s instructions far too literallyâ€¦

Brian Bolland came aboard to give full rein to his own outrageous sense of the absurd with the 5-part tale of Walter’s Brother, a bizarre tale of evil twins, a cunning frame-up and mugging that inevitably resulted in us learning all we ever needed to know about the insipidly faithful and annoying rust-bucket. Dredd then had to rescue the plastic poltroon from becoming a prate of the airwaves in Radio Walter before the star-struck servant found his 15 seconds of fame as the winner of rigged quiz-show Masterbrain, and this big, big book concludes with a trio of Dredd covers from Progs 10, 44 and 59, courtesy of artists Ezquerra, Kev O’Neill and McMahon.

Always mesmerising and beautifully drawn, these short punchy stories starring Britain’s most successful and iconic modern comics character are the constantly evolving narrative bedrock from which all the later successes of the Mirthless Moral Myrmidon derive. More importantly, they timeless classics that no real comic fan can ignore – and just for a change something that you can easily get your hungry hands on. Even my local library has copies of this masterpiece of British literature and popular cultureâ€¦

August 27, 2012August 26, 2012

To celebrate the upcoming movie starring Britain’s greatest comics action-hero, here’s a long overdue glimpse at his early days. For information on a day of celebratory signings please check out our Noticeboard section.

August 26, 2012August 24, 2012

Ghost Rider – Danny Ketch Classic volume 1

By Howard Mackie, Javier Saltares & Mark Texeira with Jimmy Palmiotti (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3735-1

In the early 1970’s, following a downturn in superhero comics sales Marvel shifted focus from straight costumed crusaders to supernatural and horror characters and one of the most enduring was a certain flaming-skulled vigilante dubbed the Ghost Rider.

Carnival stunt-cyclist Johnny Blaze had sold his soul to the devil in an attempt to save his foster-father from cancer. As is always the way of such things Satan, or arch-liar Mephisto as he actually was, followed the letter, but not spirit, of the contract and Crash Simpson died anyway.

When the Demon Lord came for Blaze only the love of an innocent saved the bad-boy biker from eternal pain and damnation. Temporarily thwarted, Johnny was afflicted with a body that burned with the fires of Hell every time the sun went down and became the unwilling host for outcast and exiled demon Zarathos – the Spirit of Vengeance.

After years of travail and turmoil Blaze was liberated from the demon’s curse and seemingly retired from the hero’s life.

As Blaze briefly escaped his pre-destined doom, a tragic boy named Danny Ketch assumed the role of Zarathos’ host and prison by a route most circuitous and tragicâ€¦

From that dubious period of fashionably â€œGrim ‘n’ Grittyâ€ super-heroics in the early 1990s comes this slight but engagingly fast-paced horror-hero re-imagining courtesy of writer Howard Mackie and artists Javier Saltares & Mark Texeira, which quickly secured the new Ghost Rider status as one of the hottest hits of the period.

This first Danny Ketch Classic volume reprints issues #1-10 of the revitalised series spanning May 1990 – February 1991, and opens, following a reminiscence from the author, with the bonanza-sized introductory tale ‘Life’s Blood’ which sees young Danny and his photographer sister Barbara looking for Houdini’s tomb in the vast Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn on the eve of Halloween.

Unfortunately they stumble into a bloody criminal confrontation between ninjas and gangsters over a mysterious briefcase. Discovered, the siblings flee but Barb is hit by an arrow, whilst the case itself is snatched by a juvenile gang who plague the wooded necropolis.

The ninjas and their macabre leader Deathwatch are the victors of the fire-fight and are soon hunting for their hard-won prize and the witnessesâ€¦

In an adjacent junkyard Danny is helplessly watching Barb bleed out when his attention is caught by a glowing pair of eyes. Closer inspection reveals them to be an arcane design on the gas-cap of an abandoned motorbike. The ninjas, having caught the girl who stole the briefcase, are closing in on the Ketch kids when Danny, his hands soaked in his sister’s blood, touches the glowing bike symbol and is inexplicably transformed into a spectral horror, burning with fury and indignation – a Spirit of Vengeance hungry to assuage the pain of innocent blood spilled with inhuman vitality, toting an infinitely adaptable bike chain and a mystic â€œPenance Stareâ€ which subjected the guilty to unimaginable psychic pain and guiltâ€¦

The Blazing Biker makes short work of the ninjas, but when the police arrive and find him standing over the dying Barbara, they naturally jump to the wrong conclusionâ€¦

As the Ghost Rider flees on a bike with wheels of fire, causing spectacular amounts of collateral carnage, Barb is rushed to hospital, where a re-transfigured, bruised, bleeding and totally confused Danny finds her the next morningâ€¦

In the richest part of Manhattan, Wall Street shark and psionic monster Deathwatch makes a ghastly example of the man who lost his briefcase twice even as his rival for its possession, criminal overlord Wilson Fisk, similarly chastises his own minions for failure.

The contents of the case are not only hotly disputed but utterly lethal and both factions will tear Brooklyn apart to get themâ€¦

Meanwhile the teen thieves known as the Cyprus Pool Jokers find three canisters in that purloined case and hide them all over the vast cemetery, unaware that both Deathwatch’s ninjas and the Kingpin’s hoods are hunting for them. At Barbara’s bedside Danny is plagued by guilt and anger. Unable to help his comatose sister the lad determines to investigate what happened to him. When he awoke the blazing bike had returned to a normal configuration and now Danny climbs aboard and heads back to Cyprus Hills to look for answers just as the competing packs of killers are turning the streets into a free-fire zone.

Riding straight into the bloodbath, Danny sees his bike gas-cap glowing again and, almost against his will, slams his palm onto it, unleashing his skeletal passenger once againâ€¦

Devastating the assembled mobsters and murderers, the Ghost Rider then takes wounded Cyprus Pool Jokers Ralphie and Paulie to hospital and another pointless confrontation with the authoritiesâ€¦

‘Do Be Afraid of the Dark!’ finds open war between Deathwatch and the Kingpin’s forces for the canisters neither side possesses, with the Ghost Rider roaming the night tackling the increasingly savage hunters on both sides. The girl Paulie has admitted that she has no idea where two of the containers could be, since the Jokers split up to hide them and she’s now the last of themâ€¦

The urban horror escalates when Deathwatch’s metahuman enforcer Blackout joins the hunt: a sadistic man-made vampire with the ability to manipulate fields of complete darkness. This psychotic mass-murderer targets entire families and starts his search by â€œquestioningâ€ the cops who attended the initial battle in the graveyardâ€¦

Danny is on the verge of a breakdown, snapping viciously at his mother and girlfriend Stacy and utterly unable to share the horror that his life has become. Between days at Barb’s bedside, and nights as the slave to a primal force obsessed with blood and punishment, Ketch is drowningâ€¦

When Blackout tracks down the recovering Ralphie, the Ghost Rider is too late to save the young felon’s parents and only just manages to drive the vampire away before the boy too succumbs, leading to the inevitable final clash in ‘Deathwatch’, wherein the Wall Street dilettante’s forces find the canisters before being overwhelmed by the Kingpin. Ever pragmatic, the ninja-master simply surrenders, but the wildly unpredictable Blackout refuses to submit and slips into a berserker rage of slaughter, before escaping with the containers and terrified hostage Paulie.

The albino maniac knows the canisters contain a toxin that will wipe out New York and harbours an impossible plan to use them to kick-start an atomic war which will produce a nuclear winter on an Earth he would inevitably rule. However his delusional dreams are ended when the Ghost Rider appears and engages the vampire in blistering battle.

Incensed beyond endurance, Blackout savagely bites the blazing biker, but instead of blood sucks down raw, coruscating hellfire which leaves his face a melted, agonising ruin and burns the canisters to harmless slagâ€¦

Issue #4 found Danny, unable to resist the constant call to become the Furious Flaming Apparition, decide to lock up the cursed motorcycle beyond the reach of temptation in faraway Manhattan, only to find it had a mind of its own when a clash between a biker gang and an old Thor villain trapped both Ketch and an car full innocent bystanders in a subterranean parking garage. ‘You Can Run, but You Can’t Hyde!’ taught the troubled young man that the Rider was a cruel necessity in a bad world, an argument confirmed by the beginning of an extended subplot in which children began vanishing from the streets of Brooklynâ€¦

The very epitome of Grim’n’Gritty stopped by for a two issue guest-shot in #5-6 as ‘Getting Paid!’ and ‘Do or Die!’ saw a mysterious figure distributing free guns to children, drawing the attention of not just the night-stalking Spirit of Vengeance but also the merciless, militaristic vigilante Frank Castle, known to criminals and cops alike as The Punisher.

The weapons are turning the city into a deadly battleground, but the cops and unscrupulous TV reporter Linda Wei seem more concerned with stopping the Ghost Rider’s campaign against the youthful killers than ending the bloodshed. Danny decides to investigate in his mortal form and quickly finds himself in over his head, but for some reason the magic medallion won’t transform him. He is completely unaware how close he was to becoming the Punisher’s latest statisticâ€¦

The situation changes that night and the flaming-skulled zealot clashes with the Punisher before uniting to tackle the true mastermind – a manic anti-nationalist, anti-capitalist terrorist known as Flag-Smasher.

With the insane demagogue determined to unleash a storm of death on Wall Street, the driven anti-heroes are forced to briefly unite to end the scheme and save the â€œbadâ€ kids and the system that created themâ€¦

‘Obssesion’ in #7, illustrated solely by Texeira, saw the return of animal-trainer and contortionist the Scarecrow, who had barely troubled Iron Man, the X-Men and Captain America in his early days, but after having slipped into morbid thanophilia had become a death-preoccupied maniac who presented a truly different threat to the mystic agent of retribution.

A far greater menace was seen – or rather, not seen – with the return of Blackout who silently stalked Danny Ketch, savagely slaughtering everybody who knew him. Not even the police guards at Barbara’s hospital bedside could stop the fiend with half-a-faceâ€¦

Through dreams Danny debated his cursed existence with the Spirit of Vengeance in #8’s ‘Living Nightmare’ (Mackie, Saltares & Texeira) constantly bemoaning his fate but seemingly unable to affect the implacable, terrifying being he couldn’t stop becoming. Adding to his fevered nights were visions of Deathwatch, Barbara and the vile psycho-killer Blackout.

As Blackout continued to murder anybody coming into contact with the troubled Ketch – who was seemingly paralysed by his dilemma – girlfriend Stacy neared the end of her training as a cop, and her father increased patrols to catch the blazing Biker. Impatient and scared, the Cypress Hills Community Action Group took controversial steps to safeguard their streets by hiring maverick private security company H.E.A.R.T. (Humans Engaging All Racial Terrorism – truly one of the naffest and most inappropriate acronyms in comics history) who promptly decided Ghost Rider was the cause of all the chaos and went after him with an arsenal of high-tech military hardware and a helicopter gunshipâ€¦

The Spirit of Vengeance was already occupied, having found Blackout attacking a girl, but their final showdown was interrupted when the fiery skeleton was attacked by a colossal Morlock (feral mutants who live in tunnels beneath New York) who mistook the saviour for the assailantâ€¦

Issue #9 guest-starred the X-Factor – a reformed X-Men team comprising Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Iceman and the Beast who uncover the mystery of the missing children in ‘Pursuit’ (with additional inks by Jimmy Palmiotti) when they follow the Ghost Rider and Morlocks under the city.

Tragically, Blackout too is on the Blazing Biker’s trail and finds in the concrete depths even more victims to torture Danny Ketch’s breaking heart and blistered soul before their climactic last clashâ€¦

This volume ends on a thematic cliffhanger with ‘Stars of Blood’ as Danny begins a new phase of life reconciled to his burden. When a series of horrific murders are attributed to a publicity-seeking serial killer named Zodiak, the boy begins investigating the deaths and discovers that the haunted gas-cap is again inactive, although it does transform him later when he stumbles over a couple of kids fightingâ€¦

Arcanely active again, the Ghost Rider then follows a convenient tip to the astrological assassin and discovers a far more prosaic reason for the string of slayings before an inclusive and unsatisfying battle with the insufferable, elusive Zodiak.

Meanwhile across town, the humiliated H.E.A.R.T. team accept a commission from Deathwatch to destroy the Spirit of Vengeance, whilst in the western USA the previous victim of the curse of Zarathos is riding his motorcycle hard, determined to get to New York and destroy the latest Ghost Rider as soon as possibleâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

This expanded re-issue of the 1991 Ghost Rider Resurrected trade paperback also includes the cover and introduction to that volume, pin-ups by Saltares, Texeira & Palmiotti and a full cover gallery and, despite being markedly short on plot and utterly devoid of humour, does deliver the maximum amount of uncomplicated thrills, spills and chills for action-starved fight fans.

If you occasionally feel that subtlety isn’t everything and yearn for a vicarious dose of simple wickedness-whomping, this might well be the book for youâ€¦
Â© 1990, 1991, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

August 22, 2012August 26, 2012

Showcase Presents Showcase volume 1

By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-364-1

This review is incredibly long. If you want to skip it and just buy the book – because it’s truly brilliant – then please do. I won’t mind and you won’t regret it at allâ€¦

In almost every conceivable way the â€œtry-out titleâ€ Showcase created the Silver Age of American comicbooks and is responsible for the multi-million dollar industry and nascent art form we all enjoy today.

For many of us, the Silver Age is the ideal era and a still-calling Promised Land of fun and thrills. Varnished by nostalgia (because it’s the era when most of us caught this crazy childhood bug), the clean-cut, uncomplicated optimism of the late 1950s and early 1960s produced captivating heroes and compelling villains who were still far less terrifying than the Cold War baddies then troubling the grown-ups. The sheer talent and professionalism of the creators working in that too-briefly revitalised comics world resulted in triumph after triumph all of which brightened our young lives and still glow today with quality and achievement.

The principle was a sound one and graphically depicted in the very first issue: the Editors at National were apparently bombarded with readers’ suggestions for new titles and concepts and the only possible way to feasibly prove which would be popular was to offer test runs and assess the fans reactionsâ€¦

This magnificent monochrome tome starts firmly ensconced in the age of genre thrillers and human adventurers, covering the first 21 issues from that historic series, spanning March/April 1956 to July/August 1959, and starts the ball rolling with the first and last appearances of Fireman Farrell in a proposed series dubbed Fire Fighters.

Following the aforementioned short ‘The Story Behind Showcase’ by Jack Schiff & Win Mortimer, the realistic dramas begin in ‘The School for Smoke-Eaters’ by Schiff and the superb John Prentice, which introduced trainee fireman Mike Farrell during the last days of his training and desperate to simultaneously live up to and escape his father’s fabulous record as a legendary â€œsmoke-eaterâ€.

The remaining stories, both scripted by Arnold Drake, dealt with the day-to-day drama of the job: first in ‘Fire under the Big Top’ wherein an unscrupulous showman ignored Farrell’s Fire Inspection findings with tragic consequences, then in ‘Fourth Alarm’ which mixed an industrial dispute over fireman’s pay, a crooked factory owner and a waterfront blaze captured on live TV in a blisteringly authentic tale of human heroism.

Showcase #2 featured Kings of the Wild: tales of animal bravery imaginatively related in three tales scripted by Robert Kanigher – who had thrived after the demise of superheroes with a range of fantastical genre adventures covering western, war, espionage and straight adventure. ‘Rider of the Winds’, stunningly illustrated by Joe Kubert, told the tale of a Native American lad and his relationship with his totem spirit Eagle, ‘Outcast Heroes’ (Ross Andru & Mike Esposito) related how an orphan boy’s loneliness ended once he befriended a runaway mutt who eventually saved the town’s kids from a flood and ‘Runaway Bear’, drawn by Russ Heath, used broad comedy to describe how an escaped circus bruin battled all the horrors of the wilderness to get back to his comfortable, safe life under the Big Top.

Issue #3 debuted Kanigher & Heath’s The Frogmen in an extended single tale following candidates for a US Underwater Demolitions Team as they moved from students to successful undersea warriors. Beginning with ‘The Making of a Frogman’ as the smallest diver is mocked and chided as a ‘Sardine’ by his fellows – especially the ones nicknamed ‘Shark’ and ‘Whale’ – but persevering and forging bonds until the trio were dumped into blazing Pacific action in ‘Flying Frogmen’, eventually learning the worth of teamwork and sacrifice by destroying a Japanese Sub base in ‘Silent War’â€¦

The feature, if not the characters, became a semi-regular returning strip in All-American Men of War #44 (April #1957) and other Kanigher-edited war comics: making Frogmen the first but certainly not the last graduate of the try-out system. The next debut was to be the most successful but the cautious publishers took a long, long time to make it soâ€¦

No matter which way you look at it, the Silver Age of the American comic book began with The Flash. It’s an unjust but true fact that being first is not enough; it also helps to be best and people have to notice. The Shield beat Captain America to the news-stands by over a year yet the former is all but forgotten today.

The industry had never really stopped trying to revive the superhero genre when Showcase #4 was released in late summer of 1956, with such precursors as The Avenger (February-September 1955), Captain Flash (November 1954-July 1955), Marvel’s Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and the aforementioned Sentinel of Liberty (December 1953-October 1955) and even DC’s own Captain Comet (December 1953-October 1955) and Manhunter from Mars (November 1955 until the end of the 1960’s and almost the end of superheroes again!) still turning up in second-hand-stores and â€œFive-and-Dimeâ€ half-price bins. What made the new Fastest Man Alive stand out and stick was â€¦ well, everything!

Once the DC powers-that-be decided to try superheroes once more, they moved pretty fast themselves. Editor Julie Schwartz asked office partner and Golden-Age Flash scripter Robert Kanigher to recreate a speedster for the Space Age, aided and abetted by Carmine Infantino & Joe Kubert, who had also worked on the previous incarnation.

The new Flash was Barry Allen, a forensic scientist simultaneously struck by lightning and bathed in the exploding chemicals of his lab. Supercharged by the accident, Barry took his superhero identity from a comic book featuring his predecessor (a scientist named Jay Garrick who was exposed to the mutagenic fumes of â€œHard Waterâ€). Designing a sleek, streamlined bodysuit (courtesy of Infantino – a major talent who was rapidly approaching his artistic and creative pinnacle), Barry Allen became the point man for the spectacular revival of a genre and the entire industry.

‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ (scripted by Kanigher) and ‘The Man Who Broke the Time Barrier’ (written by the superb John Broome) are polished, coolly sophisticated short stories that introduce the comfortingly suburban superhero and firmly establish the broad parameters of his universe. Whether defeating bizarre criminal masterminds such as The Turtle or returning the criminal exile Mazdan to his own century, the new Flash was a protagonist of keen insight and sharp wits as well as overwhelming power. Nonetheless the concept was so controversial that despite phenomenal sales, rather than his own series the Fastest Man Alive was given a second Showcase tryout almost a year laterâ€¦

Showcase #5 featured the last comics concept in years that didn’t actually develop into an ongoing series, but that’s certainly due to the changing fashions of the times and not the quality of the work that made up the three crime yarns comprising the cops-&-robbers anthology Manhunters. ‘The Greatest Villain of all Time’ by Jack Miller & Mort Meskin told how Hollywood screenwriter-turned-police detective Lt. Fowler was dogged by a madman who was playing for real all the fantastic bad guys the mystery author had once created, whilst in ‘The Two Faces of Mr. X’ (Miller, Curt Swan & Sy Barry) a male model was drafted by the FBI to replace a prominent mob-boss. Unfortunately it was the day before the gangster was scheduled for face-changing plastic surgery.‘The Human Eel’ (Miller & Bill Ely) pitted a cop unable to endure heights against an international high-tech rogue who thought he knew all the answersâ€¦

The next tryout was on far firmer fashion grounds and was the first feature to win two issues in a row.

The Challengers of the Unknown were a bridging concept. As the superhero genre was ever so cautiously being alpha-tested in 1956 here was a super-team – the first new group- entry of the still-to-be codified Silver Age – but with no uncanny abilities or masks, the most basic and utilitarian of costumes, and the most dubious of motives: Suicide by Mysteryâ€¦

If you wanted to play editorially safe you could argue that were simply another para-military band of adventurers like the long running Blackhawksâ€¦ but they weren’t.

A huge early hit – winning their own title before the Flash (March 1959) and just two months after Lois Lane (March 1958, although she had been a star in the comics universe since 1938 and even had TV, radio and movie recognition on her side), the Squad struck a chord that lasted for more than a decade before they finally diedâ€¦ only to rise again and yet again. The idea of them was stirring enough, but their initial execution made their success all but inevitable.

Jack Kirby was – and still is – the most important single influence in the history of American comicbooks. There are quite rightly millions of words written about what the man has done and meant, and you should read those if you are at all interested in our medium. I’m going to add a few words to that superabundance in this review of one of his best projects, which like so many others, he perfectly constructed before moving on, leaving highly competent but never as inspired talents to build upon.

When the comic industry suffered a collapse in the mid 1950’s, Kirby returned briefly to DC Comics where he worked on mystery tales and the Green Arrow back-up strip whilst creating the newspaper strip Sky Masters of the Space Force. He also re-packaged for Showcase an original super-team concept that had been kicking around in his head since he and long-time collaborator Joe Simon had closed the innovative but unfortunate Mainline Comics.

After years of working for others, Simon and Kirby had finally established their own publishing company, producing comics with a much more sophisticated audience in mind, only to find themselves in a sales downturn and awash in public hysteria generated by the anti-comic book pogrom of US Senator Estes Kefauver and the psychologist Dr. Frederic Wertham. Simon quit the business for advertising, but Kirby soldiered on, taking his skills and ideas to a number of safer, if less experimental, companies.

The Challengers of the Unknown were four extraordinary mortals; heroic adventurers and explorers brought together for a television show who walked away unscathed from a terrible plane crash. Already obviously what we now call â€œadrenaline junkiesâ€, they decided that since they were all living on borrowed time, they would dedicate what remained of their lives to testing themselves and fate. They would risk their lives for Knowledge and, of course, Justice.

Showcase #6, dated January/February 1957 – which meant it came out in time for Christmas 1956 – introduced pilot Ace Morgan, wrestler Rocky Davis, daredevil acrobat Red Ryan and scholarly marine explorer â€œProfâ€ Haley in a no-nonsense short by Kirby, scripter Dave Wood and inkers Marvin Stein and Jack’s wife Roz, before devoting the rest of the issue to a spectacular epic with the doom-chasers hired by duplicitous magician Morelian to open an ancient container holding otherworldly secrets and powers in ‘The Secrets of the Sorcerer’s Box!’

This initial story roars along with all the tension and wonder of the B-movie thrillers it emulates, and Kirby’s awesome drawing resonates with power and dynamism as the heroes tackle ancient horrors such as ‘Dragon Seed!’, ‘The Freezing Sun!’ and ‘The Whirling Weaver!’

The fantasy magic continued in the sequel, a science fiction crisis caused when an alliance of Nazi technologies and American criminality unleashed a terrible robotic monster. Scripted by Kirby himself, ‘Ultivac is Loose!’ (Showcase #7, dated March/April 1957) introduced the beautiful and capable boffin Dr. June Robbins, who became the fifth Challenger at a time when most comic females had returned to a subsidiary status in that so-conservative era. As her computers predicted ‘A Challenger Must Die!’ the lads continued their hunt for the astonishing telepathic, sentient super-robot who inadvertently terrorised ‘The Fearful Millions’ but soon found their sympathies with the tragic artificial intelligence after ‘The Fateful Prediction!’ was fulfilledâ€¦

Showcase #8 (June 1957) again featured the Flash and led with another Kanigher tale. ‘The Secret of the Empty Box’, a perplexing but pedestrian mystery, saw Frank Giacoia debut as inker, but the real landmark was the John Broome thriller ‘The Coldest Man on Earth’.

With this yarn the author confirmed and consolidated the new phenomenon by introducing the first of a Rogues Gallery of outlandish super-villains. Unlike the almost forgotten Golden Age the new super-heroes would face predominantly costumed foes rather than thugs and spies. Bad guys would henceforth be as visually arresting and memorable as the champions of justice. Captain Cold would return time and again as the pre-eminent Flash Foe and Broome would go on to create every single member of Flash’s classic pantheon of super-villains.

The issue and this compilation also includes a filler reprint ‘The Race of Wheel and Keel’ by Gardner Fox, Gil Kane & Harry Lazarus, probably from Real Fact Comics and recounting the true story of how in 1858 a shipping magnate and stagecoach tycoon devised a contest to show which method of transportation was the fastestâ€¦

When Lois Lane – arguably the oldest supporting character/star in the Superman mythology if not DC universe – finally received her own shot at a solo title, it was very much on the terms of the times.

I must shamefacedly admit to a deep, nostalgic affection for her bright and breezy, fantastically fun adventures, but as a free-thinking, (nominally) adult liberal of the 21^st century I’m simultaneously shocked nowadays at the jolly, patronising, patriarchally misogynistic attitudes underpinning too many of the stories.

Yes, I’m fully aware that the series was intended for young readers at a time when â€œdizzy damesâ€ like Lucille Ball or Doris Day played to the popular American gestalt stereotype of Woman as jealous minx, silly goose, diffident wife and brood-hungry nester, but to ask kids to seriously accept that intelligent, courageous, ambitious, ethical and highly capable females would drop everything they’d worked hard for to lie, cheat, inveigle, manipulate and entrap a man just so that they could cook pot-roast and change super-diapers is just plain crazy and tantamount to child abuse.

I’m just sayingâ€¦

Showcase #9 (cover-dated July/August 1957) featured Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane in three tales by Jerry Coleman, Ruben Moreira & Al Plastino and opened with the seminal yarn ‘The Girl in Superman’s Past’ wherein Lois first met red-headed hussy Lana Lang, childhood sweetheart of Superboy and a pushy conniving go-getter out to win Lois’ intended at all costs. Naturally Miss Lane invited Miss Lang to stay at her apartment and the grand rivalry was off and runningâ€¦

‘The New Lois Lane’ aggravatingly saw Lois turn over a new leaf and stop attempting to uncover his secret identity just when Superman actually needed her to do so and the premier concludes with the concussion-induced day-dream ‘Mrs. Superman’ as Lois imagines a life of domestic super-blissâ€¦

The next issue (September/October 1957) featured three more of the same, all illustrated by Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye, beginning with ‘The Jilting of Superman’ scripted by Otto Binder, wherein the Man of Tomorrow almost fell for an ancient ploy when Lois pretended to marry another man to make the alien oaf realise what she meant to himâ€¦

‘The Sightless Lois Lane’ by Coleman told how a nuclear accident temporarily blinded the journalist, but her unexpected recovery almost exposed Clark Kent‘s secret when he callously changed to Superman in front of the blind girl, after which Binder delightfully detailed the contents of ‘The Forbidden Box from Krypton’: a cache of devices dug up by a Smallville archaeologist originally packed by Jor-El and intended to aid the infant superbaby on Earth. Of course when Lois opened the chest all she saw was a way to become as powerful as the Man of Steel and soon became addicted to being a super-champion in her own rightâ€¦

Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane launched into her own title scant months later, clearly exactly what the readers wantedâ€¦

Showcase #11 (November/December 1957) saw the Challengers return to combat an alien invasion on ‘The Day the Earth Blew Up’, with the unique realist Bruno Premiani inking a taut doomsday chiller that keeps readers on the edge of their seats even today, as whilst searching for missing Antarctic explorers the lads discovered an under-ice base where double-brained aliens were preparing to explosively alter the mass and gravity of Earth.

‘The Tyrans’, although intellectually superior, are no match for the indomitable human heroes and with their Plan A scotched, resort to brute force and ‘The Thing That Came out of the Sea’ even as Prof scuttles their aquatic ace in the hole with ‘One Minute to Doom’â€¦

By the time of their last Showcase issue (#12, January/February 1958) they had already won their own title. ‘The Menace of the Ancient Vials’ was defused by the usual blend of daredevil heroics and ingenuity (with the wonderful inking of George Klein, not Wally Wood as credited here) as international spy and criminal Karnak stole a clutch of ancient chemical weapons which created giants and ‘The Fire Being!’, summoned ‘The Demon from the Depths’ and created ‘The Deadly Duplicates!’ before the pre-fantastic four were able to put their enemy down.

Flash zipped back in Showcase #13 (March/April 1958) in a brace of tales pencilled by Infantino and inked by Joe Giella. ‘Around the World in 80 Minutes’, written by Kanigher, followed the Scarlet Speedster as he tackled atomic blackmail in Paris, foiled kidnappers and rebuilt a pyramid in Egypt, dismantled an avalanche in Tibet and scuttled a pirate submarine in the Pacific whilst Broome’s ‘Master of the Elements’ introduced the outlandish chemical criminal Al Desmond who ravaged Central City as Mr. Element until the Flash outwitted him.

One final try-out issue – inked by Giacoia – cemented the Flash’s future: Showcase#14 (May/June 1958) opened with Kanigher’s eerie ‘Giants of the Time-World!’ as the Fastest Man Alive smashed dimensional barriers to rescue his girlfriend Iris West from uncanny cosmic colossi and stamped out an alien invasion plan, after which Al Desmond returned with an altered M.O. and new identity as Doctor Alchemy whose discovery of the mystic Philosopher’s Stone made him ‘The Man who Changed the Earth!’ This stunning yarn was a memorable and worthy effort to bow out on, but it would still be a nearly a year until the first issue of his own title finally hit the stands.

To reiterate: Showcase was a try-out comic designed to launch new series and concepts with minimal commitment of publishing resources. If a new character sold well initially a regular series would follow. The process had been proved with Frogmen, Lois Lane, Challengers of the Unknown and Flash and Editorial Director Irwin Donenfeld now urged his two Showcase editors to create science fiction heroes to capitalise on the twin zeitgeists of the Space Race and the popular fascination with movie monsters and aliens.

Jack Schiff came up with a â€œmaskedâ€ crimefighter of the future who debuted in issues #15 and 16 whilst Julie Schwartz decided to concentrate on the now in the saga of a contemporary Earth explorer catapulted into the most uncharted territory yet imagined.

Showcase #15 (cover-dated September/October 1958) commenced without fanfare or origin the ongoing adventures of Space Ranger in ‘The Great Plutonium Plot’ plotted by Gardner Fox, scripted by pulp sci-fi veteran Edmond Hamilton and illustrated by Bob Brown.

The hero was in actuality Rick Starr, son of a wealthy interplanetary businessman who spent his free time battling evil and injustice with incredible gadgets and devices and the assistance of his shape-shifting alien pal Cryll and capable Girl Friday Myra Mason. When Jarko the Jovian space pirate began targeting only ships carrying the trans-uranic element, Rick suspected a hidden motive and donning his guise of the Space Ranger laid a cunning trap, which revealed a hidden mastermind and a deadly ancient device which endangered the entire solar systemâ€¦

From his base in a hollow asteroid, Space Ranger ranged the universe and ‘The Robot Planet’ took him and his team to Sirius after discovering a diabolical device designed to rip Sol’s planets out of their orbits. At the end of his voyage Starr discovered a sublime civilisation reduced to cave-dwelling and a mighty computer intelligence intent on controlling the entire universe unless he could stop itâ€¦

Issue #16 opened with ‘The Secret of the Space Monster’ (plot by John Forte, scripted by Hamilton, illustrated by Brown) as Rick, Myra and Cryll investigated an impossible void creature and uncovered a band of alien revolutionaries testing novel super-weapons after which ‘The Riddle of the Lost Race’ (Fox, Hamilton & Brown) took the team on a whistle-stop tour of the Solar system in pursuit of a vicious criminal and the hidden treasures of a long-vanished civilisation.

A few months later Space Ranger was transported to science fiction anthology Tales of the Unexpected, beginning with issue #40 (August 1959) and holding the lead and cover spot for a six year runâ€¦

One of the most compelling stars of those halcyon days was an ordinary Earthman who regularly travelled to another world for spectacular adventures, armed with nothing more than a ray-gun, a jetpack and his own ingenuity. His name was Adam Strange, and like so many of that era’s triumphs, he was the brainchild of Julius Schwartz and his close team of creative stars.

Showcase #17 (cover-dated November-December 1958) proclaimed Adventures on Other Worlds, courtesy of Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky & Bernard Sachs, and told of an archaeologist who, whilst fleeing from enraged natives in Peru, jumped a 25 foot chasm only to be hit by a stray teleport beam from a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. He materialised on another world filled with giant plants and monsters, and was rescued by a beautiful woman named Alanna who taught him her language via a cunning contrivance.

‘Secret of the Eternal City!’ revealed that Rann was a planet recovering from atomic war, and the beam was in fact a simple flare, one of many sent in an attempt to communicate with other races.

In the four years (speed of light, right? As You Know, Bob, Alpha Centauri is about 4.3 light-years from Sol) that the Zeta-Flare travelled through space, cosmic radiation converted it into a teleportation beam. Until the radiation drained from his body Strange was to be a very willing prisoner on a fantastic world of mystery, adventure and romance…

And an incredibly unlucky one apparently, as no sooner had Adam started acclimatising than an alien race named The Eternals invaded, seeking a mineral that would grant them immortality. Strange’s courage and sharp wits enabled him to defeat the invaders only to have the radiation finally fade, drawing him home before his adoring Alanna could administer a hero’s reward.

â€¦And thus was established the principles of this beguiling series. Adam would intercept a Zeta-beam hoping for some time with his alien sweetheart, only to be confronted with a planet-menacing crisis.

The very next of these, ‘The Planet and the Pendulum’ saw him obtain the crimson-and-white spacesuit and weaponry that became his distinctive trademark in a tale of alien invaders, attacking a lost colony of Rannians on planetary neighbour Anthorann which also introduced the subplot of Rann’s warring city-states, all desperate to progress and all at different stages of recovery and developmentâ€¦.

The next issue featured the self-explanatory ‘Invaders from the Atom Universe’ with sub-atomic marauders displacing the native races until Adam unravelled their nefarious plans and ‘The Dozen Dooms of Adam Strange’ wherein the hero had to outfox the dictator of Dys who planned to invade Alanna’s home-city Rannagar.

With this last story Sachs was replaced by Joe Giella as inker, although the former did ink Showcase #19’s stunning Gil Kane cover, (March/April 1959) which saw the unwieldy Adventures on Other Worlds title replaced with the eponymous logo Adam Strange.

‘Challenge of the Star-Hunter’ and ‘Mystery of the Mental Menace’ were classic puzzle tales wherein the Earthman had to outwit a shape-changing alien and an all-powerful energy-being, and after so doing Adam Strange took over the lead spot and cover of the anthology comic Mystery in Space with the August issue of that year.

Clearly on a creative high and riding a building wave, Showcase #20 (May/June 1959) introduced Rip Hunterâ€¦ Time Master and his dauntless crew as ‘Prisoners of 100 Million BC’ (by Jack Miller & Ruben Moreira in a novel-length introductory escapade which saw the daredevil physicist, his engineer friend Jeff Smith, girlfriend Bonnie Baxter and her little brother Corky travel back to the Mesozoic era, unaware that they were carrying two criminal stowaways.

Once there the thugs hi-jacked the Time Sphere and held it hostage until the explorers helped them stock up with rare and precious minerals. Reduced to the status of castaways Rip and his team became ‘The Modern-Day Cavemen’ but when an erupting volcano caused ‘The Great Beast Stampede’ the chrononauts finally turned the tables on their abductorsâ€¦

Miller was always careful to use the best research available but never afraid to blend historical fact with bold fantasy for Hunter’s escapades, and this volume concludes with an epic follow-up in ‘The Secret of the Lost Continent’ (Showcase #21, July/August, 1959, illustrated by Sekowsky & Joe Giella) wherein the Time Masters jumped progressively further back in time in search of Atlantis.

Starting with a dramatic meeting with Alexander the Great in 331BC, the explorers follow the trail back centuries to ‘The Forbidden Island’ of Aeaea in 700BC and uncover the secret of the witch Circe before finally reaching 14,000BC and ‘The Doomed Continent’ only to find the legendary pinnacle of early human achievement to be a colony of stranded extraterrestrial refugeesâ€¦

Rip Hunter would appear twice more in Showcase before winning his own comic and the succeeding months would see the Silver Age kick into frantic High Gear with classic launches coming thick and fastâ€¦

These stories from a uniquely influential comicbook truly determined the course of the entire American strip culture and for that alone they should be cherished, but the fact they are still some of the most timeless, accessible and entertaining graphic adventures ever produced is a gift that should be celebrated by every fan and casual reader.

Buy this for yourself, get it for your friends and get a spare just because you canâ€¦

August 17, 2012August 14, 2012

Wolverine/Hercules: Myths Monsters & Mutants

By Frank Teiri, Juan Roman Cano Santacruz with Mary Jo Duffy, Ken Landgraf & George PÃ©rez (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4110-5

Ever since his glory days in the All–New, All Different X-Men, the mutant berserker known variously as Wolverine, Logan and latterly James Howlett has 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 deserve.

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

Debuting as a 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, the semi-feral Canadian mutant with fearsome claws and killer attitude rode – and possibly caused – the meteoric rise of the reconstructed and rebooted X-Men before gaining his own series, super-star status and silver screen immortality.

He hasn’t looked back since.Â Short and feisty, Logan has always promised an explosion of visceral, vicarious ultra-violence and grim, gritty justice at every moment and in this slim and superb collection (gathering the 4-issue miniseries Wolverine/Hercules: Myths Monsters & Mutants from 2011 plus an earlier encounter from Marvel Treasury Edition #26, 1980), the panting public once again gets what it’s never stopped clamouring forâ€¦

Logan’s come a long way since then; barely surviving chronic over-exposure in the process but now a solid star of the Marvel firmament. However that status is not without its own peculiar pitfalls, as such A-List players constantly find themselves wrapped up in improbable team-ups â€¦

Himself no stranger to spectacular squabbles with the Jade Juggernaut, the Marvel iteration of Hercules first appeared in 1965’s Journey into Mystery Annual #1, wherein Thor, God of Thunder fell into the realm of the Greek Gods and ended up swapping bombastic blows with the easy-going but easily-riled Hellenic Prince of Power in the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby landmark ‘When Titans Clash! Thor vs. Hercules!’

Since then the immortal warrior has bounced around the Marvel Universe seeking out other heroes and heated fisticuffs as an Avenger, Defender, Champion, Renegade, Hero for Hire and any other super-squad prepared to take the big lug and his constant tales of the â€œGood Old Daysâ€â€¦

Scripted by Frank Tieri and deliciously depicted by Juan Roman Cano Santacruz, the saga starts with just such a reminiscence as the Lion of Olympus reveals how he avoided Zeus’ prohibition to not get involved in World War II by impersonating the Sub-Mariner in 1940’s Paris to fellow booze-hound Wolverine, who tops the tall tale by revealing that he was there too – albeit on a much darker missionâ€¦

Since their first official meeting (reprinted at the back of his book), the pair have become occasional drinking buddies: just two feisty fighting guys who love girls and cannot dieâ€¦

The mood switches as Wolverine realises he will one day bury all his friends, and he remembers an appointmentâ€¦

Years previously Ninja Master Matsu’o Tsurayaba murdered Logan’s true love Mariko, and ever since on the anniversary Wolverine has hunted him down and lopped off another piece of the Assassin-lord’s body. Now the time has come again and the weary mutant has decided to finish the punishment once and for all.

The once-supreme ruler of The Hand has fallen on hard times, with the organisation ostracising and shunning him, except for his most devoted personal guards. With the always ready Hercules in tow, Wolverine sets off on his-self-appointed mission, ploughing through the hapless ninja hordes like chaff, but this year the rules have been surreptitiously changed on the bereft berserker since the outcast Tsurayaba, now more machine than man, has been visited by supernatural entities offering the bargain of a lifetimeâ€¦

Achelous is the bull headed Grecian god of rivers and his master the immortal – if bodiless – Eurytheus, beheaded by Hercules in pre-history but hungrier than ever for revenge. The perfidious pair are seeking an ally to unearth all their Weapons of Mythical Destruction as they prepare to unleash all the pent-up horrors of Hellenic hell on the Prince of Power, and aren’t too mean to share if it means the destruction of Wolverine and all the other superheroes who have replaced the gods and usurped the rightful worship of mortalsâ€¦

The first revived are the Nemean Lion and the Minotaur but they only make short work for the hard-hitting heroes, unlike the ninja-clad gorgon Medusa who promptly turns Wolverine to stoneâ€¦

Cunningly recruiting the most unexpected ally of all, Hercules soon cures his diminutive ally and the chase is on to stop the plotters and save the world from a terrifying return to the bad old daysâ€¦

Jam-packed with mighty monster mashing, sinister schemes and barbed one-liners, all while hilariously and continuously riffing off the Clash of the Titans movies (be honest, could you resist?), this magnificently tongue-in cheek action-romp still finds time and space to be chillingly dramatic, poignantly moving and even deliver a shocking twist or two. Moreover the entire epic carefully avoids the need for any detailed foreknowledge on the part of new readers.

Furious, frantic fun for one and all with the day saved, virtue triumphant and the wicked punished in the worst possible ways. Who could ask for more?

As I previously mentioned, the collection also includes the rarely seen and wonderfully light-hearted first furious clash between the off-duty, grouchy mutant Logan and the fun-loving, girl-chasing godling which originally appeared in Marvel Treasury Edition #26. ‘At the Sign of the Lion’ is by Mary Jo Duffy, Ken Landgraf and a young George PÃ©rez, and shows exactly why most pubs and bars reserve the right to refuse admission â€¦

As the pithy vignette is a thematic prelude to the main event here, even though it’s tucked incongruously away at the back, nobody will mind if you read it firstâ€¦
Â© 1980, 2011 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

August 16, 2012August 15, 2012

Batman: KnightFall volume 1

By Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon, Alan Grant, Jim Aparo, Norm Breyfogle, Graham Nolan, Jim Balent, Bret Blevins, Klaus Janson, Mike Manley & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-094-7

The early 1990s were troubled times for the American comicbook industry with speculative collectors rather than fans driving the business. Many new companies had established themselves using attention-catching gimmicks augmented by new print technology and outright pandering to sex and violence and the tactics had worked, sparking a glossy, four-colour Gold-Rush amongst fans and, more importantly, previously disinterested outsiders.

With vapid ploys and fleeting trends fuelling mass-multiple purchases by buyers who were too scared to even open up the hundreds of polybagged, technologically-enhanced variant-covered issues they intended to pay for college and a condo with, the major publishers were driven to design boldly bonkers stunts just to keep the attention of their once-devoted readership. At least here, however, story-content still held some worth and valueâ€¦

In 1992 DC began their epic Death of Superman story-arc and clearly immediately afterward began preparing a similarly tradition-shaking, continuity-shattering epic for their other iconic household name property. Groundwork was already laid with the introduction of Jean-Paul Valley, a mild-mannered student utterly unaware that he had been programmed since birth by his father and an ancient warrior-cult to become an hereditary instrument of assassination (see Batman: Sword of Azrael) so all that was needed was to sort creative personnel and decide just how best to shake up the life of Gotham Guardianâ€¦

KnightFall and the subsequent KnightQuest and KnightsEnd, follow the tragic fall, replacement and inevitable return of Bruce Wayne as the indomitable, infallible Batman and was another, spectacular success from the old-guard which showed all the comicbook upstarts and Young Turks the true value of proper storytelling and the inescapable power of established characters, as the world was gripped by the Dark Knight’s horrific defeat at the hand’s of a superior foe.

The crossover publishing event impacted many comics outside the usual Batbook suspects, spawned a bunch of toys, three novelisations, many (necessarily incomplete) trade paperback collections and even jumped the pond to Britain’s staid BBC who turned it into a serialised audio-play on Radio Oneâ€¦

In 2012 DC finally began collecting the entire saga into three huge chronological compilations which, whilst still not truly complete, render the tale a far smoother readable experience for older fans and curious newcomersâ€¦

Batman: KnightFall volume 1, which could be best codified as and divided into ‘The Breaking of the Bat’ and ‘Who Rules the Night’, gathers the pertinent contents of Batman: Vengeance of Bane Special #1, Batman #491-500, Detective Comics #659-666, Showcase ’93 #7-8 & Batman: Shadow Of The Bat #16-18 – spanning January to October 1993 – and covers the most traumatic six months of Bruce Wayne’s adult life in instalments of a shared and progressing narrative alternating between Bat-titles.

What you won’t find out here: in the months preceding the start of KnightFall (roughly correlating to Batman issues #484-489 and Detective #654-658), a mysterious new criminal had covertly entered Gotham, discreetly observing the Caped Crimebuster at work as the hard-pressed hero tackled sinister crime-lord Black Mask, psycho-killer Metalhead and juvenile military genius The General, whilst foiling an assassination plot against Police Commissioner Jim Gordon.

On the edge of exhaustion, Wayne began seeing doctor and holistic therapist Shondra Kinsolving, whilst assigning Tim Drake – the third Robin – to training and monitoring Jean-Paul Valley, with the intention of turning the former Azrael‘s dark gifts to a beneficial purpose. Kinsolving was also treating Drake’s father, crippled after an attack by another of the City’s endless stream of criminal lunatics.

The cold observer Bane revealed himself and designed further tests for the depleted Dark Knight, challenging Batman for the right to rule Gotham, and manufacturing confrontations with Killer Croc and The Riddler, the latter augmented and driven crazy by a dose of deadly super-steroid Venomâ€¦

The action begins here with the origin of the challenger in ‘Vengeance of Bane’ by Chuck Dixon, Graham Nolan & Eduardo Barretto, wherein the hulking brute is fully revealed. Years ago on the Caribbean island of Santa Prisca, the ruling junta imprisoned the pregnant wife of a freedom fighter. When the baby was born he was sentenced in his father’s stead to life on the hellish prison rock of Pena Duro where he somehow thrived, touched by the horror and madness to become a terrifying, brilliant master of men.

Not merely surviving but educating himself and ultimately thriving on the hard medicine of life, the boy knew he had a destiny beyond those walls. Eventually he named himself Bane.

His only non-hostile contacts became his faithful lieutenants, Trogg, Zombie and the Americano Bird, whose tales of the Bat in Gotham City fired the eternal prisoner’s jealousy and imaginationâ€¦

Santa Prisca’s entire economy is based on drug smuggling and Bane’s moment came when one of his periodic rages crippled thirty inmates. After finally being subdued by an army of guards he was turned over to scientists testing a new iteration of the muscle and aggression-enhancing formulation Venom. The effects of the steroid had caused the death of all previous candidates, but Bane survived and the delighted technologists devised biological implants that would deliver doses of the drug directly into his brain, enabling him to swiftly multiply his strength and speed at the press of a buttonâ€¦

A plan formed and the patient faked his own death. Disposed of as trash, he returned, seizing the Venom supply, rescuing his comrades and indulging in a fearsome vengeance against his oppressors. Then he turned greedy eyes towards Gotham and the only rival he could imagineâ€¦

KnightFall proper begins after Bane’s challenge to the already on-the-ropes Gotham Gangbuster with Batman #491 as ‘The Freedom of Madness’ by Doug Moench & Jim Aparo sees the ambitious strategist steal National Guard armaments and use them to break free every insane super-criminal locked away in Arkham Asylum. Pushed almost beyond rationality, Batman orders Robin to stick with his mission to train and de-program Jean-Paul and sets out to recapture all his most dangerous enemies, whilst Bane sits back, watching and waitingâ€¦

Issue #492 sees the round-up start with the Mad Hatter in ‘Crossed Eyes and Dotty Teas’ (Moench & Norm Breyfogle) and proves that even Bane can make mistakes, for whilst Batman acts according to plan and scotches the Hatter’s main party, the Mad Cap Maniac has already despatched a mind-controlled Film Freak to track down their mysterious liberatorâ€¦

Detective Comics #659 opens with god-obsessed Maxie Zeus, innocuous Arnold Wesker and hyperthyroid brute Amygdala fleeing the broken Arkham in ‘Puppets’ (Dixon & Breyfogle) as Batman is called to the alley where the broken, lifeless body of Film Freak was found.

As The Ventriloquist, Wesker used the gangster doll Scarface to express his murderous schemes and with Amygdala now in tow has begun a lethal search to get back his old boss. The Dark Knight is obsessively locked on recapturing all his old enemies and ignores Robin’s pleas for rest and reason before tackling the hulking brute, but the confrontation does allow the cool-headed Boy Wonder to turn the tables on Bird, secretly following the Dynamic Duo for Bane.

However the Pena Duro inmate is too much for the apprentice adventurer and only Bane’s order stops Bird from killing the boy too soon. The chaos is building in Gotham and the master planner wants nothing to spoil his intricate schemesâ€¦

Moench & Breyfogle then contribute ‘Redslash’ in Batman #493 as knife-wielding maniac Victor Zsasz invades a girl’s school. The blood-soaked psycho marks each kill with a new scar on his own body and it’s been too long since his last, but by-the-book cop Lieutenant Stan Kitch‘s wait-and-see policy only results in two more deaths that Batman cannot scrub from his own over-worked conscience.

In the final confrontation patrolwoman Rene Montoya needs all her determination and utmost efforts to prevent the Dark Knight from beating Zsasz to deathâ€¦

The chaos growsâ€¦

When they last met, Bane nearly crippled Killer Croc and the diseased carnival freak goes looking for payback in Detective #660, but his ‘Crocodile Tears’ (by Dixon, Jim Balent & Scott Hanna) lead Robin, still craftily tracking Bird and Bane, into a deadly trap in the City’s sewers whilst Batman #494’s ‘Night Terrors’ (Moench, Aparo & Tom Mandrake) finally sees the re-emergence of the Joker, having fun his way whilst looking for a partner to play with.

A collapsed tunnel saves Robin, but Bruce Wayne seems hell-bent on self-destruction, unable to relax until the maniacs are back behind padded bars.

Ignoring all pleas from Alfred and Tim, he heads out into the night and narrowly prevents Jim Gordon’s murder at the hands of illusion-casting cannibal Cornelius Stirk, but is unaware that the Clown Prince has allied with the Scarecrow and kidnapped Gotham Mayor Armand Krolâ€¦

In Detective #661 the Arkham Alumni terrorise Krol, forcing him to sabotage the city through emergency edicts whilst pyromaniac Garfield Lynns sets the ‘City on Fire’ (Dixon, Nolan & Hanna). Having allowed Robin to tag along, Batman allows the Boy Wonder to tackle the Firefly whilst he searches for less predictable prey. Meanwhile Â Wesker is closing in on his Scarface and a recently de-venomed Riddler can’t pull off a robbery because there’s nobody around to answer his obsessively-constructed crime conundrumsâ€¦

Barely breaking stride to take out the Cavalier, the Caped Crusader stumbles across the Firefly and almost dies at the hands of the relative lightweight in ‘Strange Bedfellows’ (Batman #495,Â Moench, Aparo & Bob Wiacek) as, impatient to help, Jean-Paul takes to the streets on his own, eager to help in a makeshift masked identityâ€¦

Finally convinced to take a night off, Bruce attends a civic gala and is recognised by Bane just as Poison Ivy turns up to kidnap all of Gotham’s glitterati. As Batman fights floral-based zombies, Gordon and his top aide Bullock lead the GCPD into a perfect ambush set by Scarecrow and the Jokerâ€¦

Detective #662 sees Robin spectacularly if injudiciously tackle Riddler’s ‘Burning Questions’ (Dixon, Nolan & Hanna) as Batman at last ends Firefly’s horrific depredations, and unsanctioned vigilante The Huntress secretly joins the battle to stem the rising tide of chaos, after which Batman #496 begins the climactic clash between the completely exhausted Masked Manhunter and his maddest monsters in ‘Die Laughing’ (Moench, Aparo & Josef Rubinstein), as Scarecrow and Joker explosively seal off the Gotham River Tunnel with the broken Mayor at the bottom of it.

Only the detonation of the tunnel roof and a million gallons of ingressing river prevent Batman from beating the Harlequin of Hate to death, but Detective #663 proves there’s ‘No Rest for the Wicked’ (Dixon, Nolan & Hanna) as the hero frantically hauls Krol to safety, merely to fall victim to a concerted assault by Bane’s hit squad. Narrowly escaping, the harried hero heads home only to find Alfred unconscious and his home invaded by the orchestrator of all his woesâ€¦

Batman #497 presents the end of the road in ‘Broken Bat’ by Moench, Aparo & Dick Giordano as Bane finally attacks in person, mercilessly beating the exhausted but valiantly battling hero, ultimately breaking his spine in a savage demonstration of his physical and mental superiority.

Detective #664 sees the beginning of Bane’s Reign in ‘Who Rules the Night’ (Dixon, Nolan & Hanna) as the Scourge of Pena Duro drops the broken Batman’s body in the middle of Gotham and publicly declares himself the new boss. Even after Alfred and Robin intercept the ambulance carrying their shattered friend and mentor, saving his life proves a touch-and-go proposition and in the interval Joker and Scarecrow come to a parting of the ways and the Ventriloquist is reunited with his malevolent master Scarface. Gotham is a city at war and soon Boy Wonder and ex-Azrael are prowling the rooftops trying to stem the tideâ€¦

The tale diverges here to reveal the contents of Showcase ’93 #7 and 8, wherein Alfred, Robin and Jean-Paul restlessly wait by the comatose Wayne’s bedside, and traumatised Tim Drake recalls how mere days previously they thwarted the latest murder-spree of erstwhile Gotham DA Harvey Dent.

‘2-Face: Double Cross’ and the concluding ‘2-Face: Bad Judgment’ by Moench & Klaus Janson found the Double Desperado again challenging his one-time ally by setting up a hangman’s court in a confused and tragic attempt to convict Batman of causing all the former prosecutor’s problemsâ€¦

Batman #498’s ‘Knights in Darkness’ (Moench, Aparo & Rick Burchett) saw the shattered remnant of Bruce Wayne regain consciousness as a paralysed paraplegic wreck, only to reveal an even greater loss: his fighting spirit. Faking a road crash to explain his massive injuries, Tim and Alfred consult blithely oblivious Dr. Kinsolving in an attempt to restore the billionaire’s shattered spirit and broken body, whilst Bane goes wild in the city, brutally consolidating his hold on all the various gangs and rackets.

To further his schemes and swiftly counter any stubborn opposition, the King of Gotham then recruits Catwoman as his personal thief and retrieval serviceâ€¦

And in Wayne Mansion, as Shondra begins her course of therapy – knowing full well her patient’s injuries were not caused by pranging a Porsche – Tim Drake carries out Bruce’s wishes and offers Jean-Paul the role and Mantle of Batmanâ€¦

Gotham City is a criminal’s paradise with thugs big and small running riot now that the Dark Knight has been so publicly destroyed, but Detective #665 reveals ‘Lightning Changes’ (Dixon, Nolan & Giordano) as the new but still inexperienced Batman and Robin start wiping up the street scum and making them fear the night again, under strict instructions from Wayne to avoid major threats until they’re ready. Valley however, seems to be slowly coming unglued, happily using excessive force and chafing to test himself against Bane.

Meanwhile a demoralised and wheelchair-bound Bruce Wayne is becoming increasing dependent on Shondra. When he can’t find her, he wheels himself through the gardens to the adjoining house of Tim’s father Jack Drake in time to interrupt an abduction by masked gunmen. Despite his best efforts, he is unable to stop them taking Shondra and the elder Drake, whilst in Gotham the new Bat has overstepped his orders and determined to go after Bane – even if it means allying with gangsters and risking the lives of innocent childrenâ€¦

One final diversion comes next in a sidebar tale from Shadow of the Bat #16-18 wherein Alan Grant, Bret Blevins, Mike Manley & Steve George describe how the sinister Scarecrow returns to his old college life long enough to turn innocent students into his phobic slaves as part of a grandiose and clearly crazy plan to turn himself into ‘The God of Fear’â€¦

Juvenile ideologue and criminal genius Anarky escapes prison just in time to see â€œBatmanâ€ facing off against his first fully deranged super-villain and realises that the Dark Knight is a much a threat to the people as the Tatterdemalion of Terror. The young rebel decides that for the good of the common man he should take them both outâ€¦

It doesn’t quite work out that way, but after Scarecrow exposes Batman to his fear gas and it doesn’t work, they combine to vanquish the failed deity. Valley, in an increasingly rare moment of rationality, lets Anarky off with a pretty scary warning. The former Azrael muses on how his programming had made him immune to the fear chemicals, but he couldn’t be more wrongâ€¦

The Beginning of the End starts in Batman #499 with ‘The Venom Connection’ by Moench, Aparo & Hanna, as the replacement’s ruthless savagery and burgeoning paranoia drives a wedge between him and Robin, whilst oblivious to it all, the rededicated and driven Bruce Wayne uses the sleuthing skills of a lifetime to trace the kidnappers to Santa Priscaâ€¦

In the Batcave, Jean-Paul realises he is still subject to the deep programming that created Azrael when he falls into a trance and awakens to find he has designed deadly new high-tech gauntlets to augment his war on crime. Bane, meanwhile, ignores all entreaties to act, refusing to bother with a mere impostor.

In a blistering raid, Batman and Robin capture Bane’s lieutenants, although the Darker Knight coldly risks children’s lives to achieve victory. Alienated and deeply troubled, Tim determines to tell Bruce but finds the Mansion deserted, Bruce and Alfred having left for the Caribbean, unaware that they have a svelte stowaway in the form of Catwoman Selina Kyleâ€¦

Detective #666 pushes things to fever-pitch with ‘The Devil You Know’ (Dixon, Nolan & Hanna) as the augmented, ever-angry and clearly losing it Batman breaks Trogg, Bird and Zombie out of jail and follows them back to Bane, only to fall before the blockbusting power and ferocity of the Venom-addicted living juggernautâ€¦

Batman #500 is divided into a landmark two-part conclusion. ‘Dark Angel 1: the Fall’ by Moench, Aparo & Terry Austin, sees Batman frantically escape certain death at Bane’s hands and retreat to the Batcave where the Azrael’s submerged programming – dubbed â€œthe Systemâ€ – takes temporary control and devises a perfectly honed technological suit of armour that turns Batman into a human war-machine. Far more worrying is the rift that drives Robin, Nightwing and every other possible ally away as Valley prepares for his final confrontation with Baneâ€¦

The infuriated King of the City wants it too and challenges the impostor to a very visible duel in the centre of Gotham in ‘Dark Angel 2: the Descent’ (illustrated by Mike Manley), a blockbusting battle which comprehensively crushes Bane and publicly proclaims the return of a new, darker Champion of the Night. As Batman narrowly chooses to leave Bane a crushed and humiliated living trophy rather than dead example, Robin – who had to save a train full of innocent bystanders from becoming collateral casualties of Batman, not Bane – realises something very bad has come to Gothamâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

There’s something particularly enticing about these colossal mega-compilations (this one’s 640 pulse-pounding pages) that sheerly delights the 10-year old in me: proven, familiar favourite stories in a huge, wrist-numbing package offering a vast hit of full-colour funnybook action, suspense and solid entertainment. There’s also a superb gallery of covers from Glenn Fabry, Kelly Jones, Sam Kieth, Bill Sienkiewicz, Brian Stelfreeze, Joe Quesada & Kevin Nowlan and Mike Deodato Jr. and even tantalising ads for other books you just gotta have!

August 15, 2012August 14, 2012

Captain America: Road to Reborn

By Ed Brubaker, Marcos Martin, Luke Ross, Gene Colan & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4175-4

The Star Spangled Avenger was created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby at the end of 1940 and launched in his own title (Captain America Comics, #1 cover-dated March 1941) with overwhelming success. He was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely (now Marvel) Comics’ â€œBig Threeâ€ – the other two being the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner. He was also among the very first to fade at the end of the Golden Age.

When the Korean War and Communist aggression dominated the American psyche in the early 1950s he was briefly revived – with the Torch and Sub-Mariner – in 1953 before sinking once more into obscurity until a resurgent Marvel Comics once more brought him back in Avengers #4.

It was March 1964 and the Vietnam conflict was just beginning to pervade the minds of the American publicâ€¦

This time he stuck around. Whilst perpetually agonising over the death of his young sidekick (James Buchanan Barnes AKA Bucky) in the final days of the war, the resurrected Steve Rogers first stole the show in the Avengers, then promptly graduated to his own series and title as well. He waxed and waned through the most turbulent period of social change in US history, but always struggled to find an ideological niche and stable footing in the modern world.

Eventually, whilst another morally suspect war raged in the real world, during the Marvel event known as Civil War he became an anti-government rebel and was assassinated on the steps of a Federal Courthouse.

Over the course of three volumes he was replaced by that always assumed-dead sidekick. The truth was far more tragic. Bucky had been captured by the Russians and over decades had been brainwashed into becoming an infallible assassin before being turned loose as the lethal Soviet super-agent, The Winter Soldier.

Once rescued and cured of his unwanted enemy-agent role the artificially youthful and part-cyborg Barnes reluctantly stepped into his mentor’s big crimson bootsâ€¦

This powerful patriotic thriller, written as ever by Ed Brubaker, examines the nature and value of patriotism and collects Captain America issues #49-50 before returning to the original numbering for the anniversary #600 and follow-up #601.

After years of commercially advantageous restarts, volume 5 (#50 of the regular comicbook) was followed a month later by volume 1, #600, dated August 2008, setting in play characters and plot-threads which led up to the inevitable resurrection of the original Star-Spangled Avenger – details of which where subsequently revealed in Captain America Rebornâ€¦

The drama initially unfolds in ‘Sentinel of Liberty’ – illustrated by Marcos Martin – which recapitulates in graphic newsreel form the WWII careers of Captain America and Bucky from their origins to the formation of metahuman combat unit The Invaders and the tragic loss of the All-American Allies to the nefarious Baron Zemo. Picking up after Steve Rogers was revived by Sub-Mariner and the Mighty Avengers, the history lesson then follows his second glorious life until it was cut short on the steps of that infamous Courthouseâ€¦

‘The Daughter of Time’ finds Sharon Carter in her old Virginia home, recovering from her ordeal as a captive and puppet of the Red Skull, Arnim Zola and Dr. Faustus, and horribly traumatised by the knowledge that their programming forced her to shoot her beloved Steve Rogers. Seeking a less painful reality she visits the institutionalised Peggy Carter – who was Captain America’s lover during WWII – and shares again the stories and memories she first heard as an avid little girl. As she listens, she dreads the moment that Alzheimer’s finally takes her Aunt’s mind and life foreverâ€¦

Sam Wilson, the high-flying Falcon, is busy searching for William Burnside, a deranged duplicate who briefly played Captain America in the 1950s whilst the original languished in icy hibernation in the arctic.

As a student Burnside was obsessed with the Sentinel of Liberty and had diligently divined the hero’s true name, rediscovered most of the super-soldier serum which had created the Star-Spangled Avenger and even had his identity and features changed to perfectly mimic the Missing-In-Action Steve Rogers.

Volunteering his services to the FBI, then conducting a nationwide war on spies, subversives and suspected commies, Burnside and impressionable youngster Jack Monroe briefly became Captain America and Bucky; crushing every perceived threat to the nation.

Sadly it soon became apparent that their definition of such included not just criminals but also non-whites, independent women and anybody who disagreed with the governmentâ€¦

After a few short months the reactionary patriot had to be forcibly â€œretiredâ€ as the super-soldier serum he and Monroe used turned them into super-strong, raving, racist paranoids.

Years later when the fascistic facsimiles escaped their suspended animation in Federal prison they attacked the real Sentinel of Liberty only to be defeated by Cap, the Falcon and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter. Although Monroe was eventually cured, Burnside’s psychosis was too deeply rooted and he returned many times to tangle with the man he felt had betrayed the real America, most recently as an integral part of the Skull, Zola and Faustus’ plot to plant a Nazi stooge in the Oval Office.

When the scheme was foiled, the doppelganger Cap had escaped and disappeared into the nation’s heartlandâ€¦

Back in Virginia a chance meeting with an old friend of Steve’s leads to one more horrific discovery and more of Sharon’s occluded memories return. At last she recalls that during her domination by Dr. Faustus, she was knifed and lost the baby she was carrying: Steve Rogers’ unborn child and last legacyâ€¦

At the Larkmore Clinic Peggy is reliving old times and secrets with her lover. In her bewildered state of mind it’s still the 1940s and the sweet man beside her is Steve, not William Burnsideâ€¦

Back at the Carter residence Sharon awakens from another nightmare of recovered memories, but in these a mysteriously obscured figure is trying to make himself clear. Could the real Captain America still be alive?

‘Days Gone By’ (Ross & Magyar) focuses on Jim Barnes on his birthday, as the technically octogenarian replacement Cap recalls his early life and relives his glory days with Steve and the Invaders. Unbidden though, he also remembers the horrors of his life as a communist living weapon before his newfound Avenger comrades threw him the party of a lifetimeâ€¦

Captain America #600 opens with the two-page ‘Origin’ – a reprinted retelling from Alex Ross, Paul Dini & Todd Klein first seen in 2002’s Captain America: Red, White and Blue, after which Butch Guice, Howard Chaykin, Rafael Albuquerque, David Aja, Mitch Breitweiser, Frank D’Armata, Edgar Delgado & Matt Hollingsworth all collaborate on Brubaker’s ‘One Year Later’ in which a vigil on the Courthouse steps draws a number of seemingly unconnected characters into dramatic conflict.

In ‘Sharon Carter’s Lament’, impelled by her unveiled memories, the still-reeling ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent savagely tracks down the other participants in Cap’s shooting and uncovers the weapon she used on her lover. She is elated to discover it is not a normal gunâ€¦

A cunning fugitive travelling through the economically ravaged Middle America, Burnside –‘The Other Steve Rogers’ – reviews again his own origins. When an unwise thief tries to rob him, the â€œBad Capâ€ gets an inkling of how to turn his life aroundâ€¦

Before the Super-Soldier serum was used on Rogers it was shamefully pre-tested on Negro volunteers, leading to the very first Captain America being briefly a black soldier named Isaiah Bradley.

His life and sacrifice covered up for decades, Bradley was a forgotten hero but his grandson Elijah, afflicted with the same unflinching sense of right and wrong, has recently become a star-spangled vigilante codenamed the Patriot and worked as a Young Avenger. In ‘The Youth of Today’ he has a life changing encounter with Rikki Barnes, the dimensionally-displaced sidekick of an alternate universe Sentinel of Libertyâ€¦

‘Crossbones and Sin’ were lovers as well as being the Red Skull’s enforcer and daughter respectively. As back-up shooter for the Captain America hit, Crossbones had been a model prisoner at the H.A.M.M.E.R. Federal Holding Facility. Then some fool guard taunted him that Sin had also been captured and was badly wounded in the infirmaryâ€¦

‘The Avengers Dilemma’ is simple: Norman Osborn, Director of H.A.M.M.E.R. and de facto Federal overlord of American metahuman affairs, has declared the proposed candlelit vigil an illegal gathering. Barnes, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Luke Cage and the others are not going to let that stop themâ€¦

After an ironic interlude observing ‘The Red Skull’s Delerium’ whilst the malign disembodied intelligence is trapped in a mechanical corpse designed by Zola, ‘The Vigilant’ dramatically divulges the surprising confrontation between Cap’s many friends and mourners and Osborn’s deadly Dark Avengers with a despondent and defiant American public looking nervously onâ€¦

Also included in that memorable comicbook milestone were a number of shorts from past contributors to the ever-lasting legend beginning with ‘In Memoriam’ by Roger Stern, Kalman Andrasofszky & Marte Gracia, wherein old friend Josh Cooper and Steve’s one-time girlfriend Bernie Rosenthal get together to remember the man and the legend in their own way, whilst ‘The Persistence of Memorabilia’ by Mark Waid, Dale Eaglesham & Paul Mounts describes the hero’s legacy as Cap’s greatest fan liquidates his entire collection of keepsakes and mementoes to further the fallen hero’s work in his own inadequate wayâ€¦

Topping off the celebrations are a comedic tribute ‘Passing the Torch’ by Fred Hembeck and the prose reminiscence ‘My Bulletin Board’ from Cap’s co-creator Joe Simonâ€¦

A different kind of commemoration filled issues #601 (September 2009) as legendary artist and oft-time Cap illustrator Gene Colan (assisted by colour artist Dean White rendering moody hues over the master’s inimitable â€œpainting-with-pencil style) delivers one last impressive WWII yarn to close the comics part of this classic chronicle.

Scripted by Brubaker, the eerie epic reveals Captain America and Bucky’s determined and relentless pursuit of a sinister leech haunting the bloody Allied frontlines of Bastogne in 1945, mercilessly turning gallant G.I.’s into vile and vicious vampires in ‘Red, White and Blue-Blood’â€¦

The book is rounded out with a stirring tribute to Colan and gallery of cover reproductions from Marko Djurdjevic, Alex Ross, Colan and Steve Epting.

Despite being thoroughly mired in the minutia of the Star-Spangled Hero’s history, this thoroughly readable and exceedingly pretty collection is a fascinating examination of political idealism and personal loss and generally avoids the usual trap of depending too much upon a working knowledge of Marvel continuity.

August 13, 2012August 10, 2012

X-Men: Pixie Strikes Back

By Kathryn Immonen & Sara Pichelli (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4676-6

Pixie is Megan Gwynn, a purportedly Welsh mutant with fairy wings, a sparkly dust which causes hallucinations, a talent for mass teleportation and an affinity for sorcery. In her earlier appearances she battled necromantic monster Belasco and former New Mutant Magik and gained an eldritch super-weapon called the Souldagger which usually reposes safely inside her chest.

Originally something of a minor pest and a perennial X-Man-in-training, she has become a key player in the fortunes of the World’s Most Harried sub-species, having survived the numerous slaughters which have decimated her classmates, perpetual mystic attacks from assorted devils and elder gods such as the N’Garai and repeated assaults by mutant-hunters of all description.

That’s pretty much all you need to know (although the rest of her immensely convoluted back-story does make for interesting and entertaining reading) to enjoy this delightful, game-changing tale – originally released as a 4-part miniseries in 2010 – which set up the elfin X-Man for a far bigger role in the madcap mutant multiverse.

Written by Kathryn Immonen in a breezy, sassy girl-power style and superbly illustrated by Sara Pichelli, the action kicks off with Megan and BFFs Ruth Aldine, Laura Kinney, Hisako Ichiki and Cessily Kincaid strutting their stuff as the most popular girls in High School – as usual.

Only thing is Pixie, Blindfold, X-23, Armor and Mercury aren’t simple spoiled human brats but mutant warriors in training, and none of them particularly like the fairy dust flinger anywayâ€¦

Megan is in some distress: the comforting reality of a normal – if appallingly obnoxious and privileged – life is constantly unravelling and revealing glimpses of demons, monsters and excessive violence. Why is she constantly seeing such things?

Meanwhile on Utopia Island, isolated enclave of Earth’s few remaining Homo Superior, Pixie’s mother – and a genuine Faerie elder – has come looking for her daughter with the news that her father wasn’t actually the man who sired herâ€¦

Moreover a headcount reveals Mercury, Armor, X-23 and Pixie are missing, leaving Blindfold and classmates Rockslide and Anole to reluctantly seek help from baffled and harassed teachers Psylocke and Nightcrawlerâ€¦

The missing girls have been abducted by an ambitious and overreaching demon dubbed Saturnine who is feeding them all tailored illusions powered by Megan’s own hallucinogenic dust. The foul hell-beast had a plan to achieve ultimate power by bringing Megan’s dark side out and capturing her Fey mother, but increasingly, Pixie is reshaping the unreal fantasy world to suit her own tastes and everything is slowly sliding out of his controlâ€¦

Back on Utopia, Nightcrawler and the kids have called in snarky headmistress Emma Frost, and the White Queen is extremely unhappy to be bothered with such trifles. Only when the precognitive Blindfold begins experiencing terrible future-flashes does Frost take executive action in her own draconian mannerâ€¦

In the otherworldly demon-dungeon Pixie is beginning to turn, attacking her friends with the eldritch Souldagger just as her still-searching mother tracks down Megan’s siblings: equally aberrant daughters of her beguiling mutant birth-father.

It appears Megan is the child of one of the X-Men’s most insidious enemiesâ€¦

In Saturnine’s lair things are not going well. Pixie’s resistance is threatening to overturn all his multifarious plans. Moreover, the mutant maid’s distress should have drawn her puissant mother into his trap but â€œMrs. Gwynnâ€ is still conspicuously absent. To cap it all, the X-Girls Pixie stabbed with her Souldagger have been cleansed of her mystic glamours and are attempting to break freeâ€¦

It all hits the fan at once as Pixie rejects Saturnine’s illusions just as X-23, Mercury and Armor bust loose at the very instant Mrs. Gwynn and Megan’s extremely wicked step-sisters arrive. Hard on their heels are an extremely upset Emma Frost with a squad of X-Men and the chaotic battle lines are drawn for apocalyptic confrontationâ€¦

His plans all in tatters and resorting to mindless violence at last, the demonic guardian of the Road of Lost Souls and his unholy hordes are astounded when Pixie seemingly turns on her rescuers and allies before giving Saturnine a mighty soulsword all of his own and the key to ultimate powerâ€¦

Fast-paced, action-packed but still laced with devilishly clever sharp-clawed humour, this is a uncomplicated Fights ‘n’ Tights thriller that should appeal as much to casual girl readers as died-in-the-spandex aging X-Fans.

July 27, 2012July 27, 2012

I gather that there’s some sort of extended International Sports Day happening here in London over the next few weeks which its Corporate sponsors won’t allow me – or any other individual – to mention under pain of litigation.

Nevertheless, in what I perceive to be the true spirit of modern games – i.e. mercilessly cashing in for all you can get and exploiting the damned thing for all it’s worth – I’m going to dedicate the next couple of weeks to reviewing the works of international creators I might not have got around to for ages under normal circumstances.

As you’d expect, sometimes I’ve had to stretch a point to fulfil my own tacky criteriaâ€¦

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