Category: Graphic Novels

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Superman in Action Comics Archives volume 1


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-335-3

The creation of the Man of Steel quite literally spawned a genre if not an actual art form and, nearly eight years after the first DC Archive Edition gathered the first four issues of the comicbook Superman into a spectacular lavish hardbound collection, the company finally got around to re-presenting the epochal run of raw, vibrant, unpolished stories which preceded them – and which first set the funnybook world on fire.

Here is the crude, rough, uncontrollable wish-fulfilling, cathartic exuberance of a righteous and superior man dealing out summary justice equally to social malcontents, exploitative capitalists, thugs and ne’er-do-wells that initially captured the imagination of a generation.

In this volume you’ll meet the first ever returning foe (us old lags call ’em “arch-enemies”) the Ultra Humanite plus a rip-roaring mix of hoods, masterminds, plagues, disasters, lost kids and distressed damsels – all dealt with in a direct and captivating manner by our relentlessly entertaining champion in swift and decisive fashion. Here they are presented in totality and chronological order from Action Comics #1 (June 1938) through #20 (January 1940).

Well, not exactly…

Because the first and third issues of the Man of Tomorrow’s own title featured an expanded version of the inaugural exploit and reprinted the Superman tales from Action Comics #2-5 – already seen in Superman Archives volume 1 – this tome is, perforce, not exactly a complete chronicle. However the cut-down, savagely truncated premier tale which appeared in June of 1938 to launch the long-lived anthology is here, in all its impressively terse, groundbreaking glory, as are all the Kryptonian contents of issues #7-20.

Most of these early tales were untitled, but for everyone’s convenience, have been given descriptive appellations by the editors; so after a fascinating introduction from Mark Waid, the wonderment begins with ‘Superman: Champion of the Oppressed!’ as, after describing the alien foundling’s escape from exploding Planet Krypton and astonishing powers in nine panels; the costumed crusader masquerading by day as reporter Clark Kent averted numerous tragedies by saving an innocent woman from the Electric Chair, roughing up a wife beater, busting racketeer Butch Matson – consequently saving feisty colleague Lois Lane from abduction and worse – and exposed a lobbyist for the armaments industry who was bribing Senators and fomenting war in Europe.

Although the stories themselves don’t appear, Action Comics #2-6 are represented here by a brief prose précis of each Superman yarn and the covers of the comics – all by Leo E. O’Mealia – and not one featuring the Caped Crimebuster…

The editors were initially dubious about the alien strongman’s popular appeal and preferred more traditional genre covers. By #16 sales figures confirmed that whenever the big guy did appear up-front sales jumped and, inevitably, Superman assumed pole position for decades to come with #19.

Action #7 was one of those high-selling issues, with a stunning Shuster cover of the still-leaping-not-flying hero which presaged ‘Superman Joins the Circus’ as the crusading mystery-man stopped racketeers taking over the Big Top, whilst the next episode saw ‘Superman in the Slums’ working to save young delinquents from a future life of crime and depravity and #9 featured the cops’ disastrous decision to stop the caped vigilante’s interference in ‘Wanted: Superman’. That manhunt ended in an uncomfortable stalemate…

‘Superman Goes to Prison’ in #10 again featured a Shuster cover (the non-super front images were by Fred Guardineer and are all included as an appetising bonus in this book) with the Man of Tomorrow infiltrating and exposing the brutal horrors of the State Chain Gangs, whilst #11 featured ruthless conmen driving investors to penury and suicide in ‘Superman and the “Black Gold Swindle”’.

Guardineer’s cover of Zatara on Action #12 incorporated another landmark as the Man of Steel was given a cameo badge declaring he was inside every issue, and his own adventure ‘Superman Declares War on Reckless Drivers’ was a hard-hitting tale of casual joy-riders, cost-cutting automobile manufacturers, corrupt lawmakers and dodgy car salesmen who all felt the wrath of the hero after a friend of Clark Kent was killed in a hit-&-run incident. The road-rage theme continued into the next instalment when ‘Superman vs. the Cab Protective League’ pitted the tireless force of nature against a murderous gang trying to take over the city’s taxi companies and quietly introduced the hero’s first great nemesis.

This issue also sported a classic Shuster Super-cover as the Man of Steel was awarded all the odd-numbered issues for his attention-grabbing playground.

Action #14 (which coincided with the launch of Superman #1) saw the return of the villain in ‘Superman Meets the Ultra-Humanite’ which had the mercenary scientist switch from incessant graft, corruption and murder to an obsessive campaign to destroy the Metropolis Marvel after which the cover-featured ‘Superman on the High Seas’ in #15 tackled sub-sea pirates and dry land gangsters. ‘Superman and the Numbers Racket’ saw the hero save an embezzler from suicide and disrupt another wicked gambling cabal, after which #17 featured ‘The Return of the Ultra-Humanite’ in another viciously homicidal caper.

Guardineer’s last human adventure cover – an aerial dog fight – on #18 led into ‘Superman’s Super-Campaign’ as both Kent and Superman determined to crush a merciless blackmailer, whilst ‘Superman and the Purple Plague’ found the city in the grip of a deadly epidemic created by the Ultra-Humanite.

This incredible run of tales ends with ‘Superman and the Screen Siren’ from Action Comics #20 (January 1940) as beautiful actress Delores Winters was revealed not as a sinister super-scientific monster but the latest tragic victim of the Ultra-Humanite’s greatest horror… brain transplant surgery!

Superman’s rise was meteoric and inexorable by now. He was the indisputable star of Action, plus his own dedicated title; a Superman daily newspaper strip began on 16th January 1939, with its separate Sunday strip following from November 5th of that year, which was garnering millions of new fans, and a radio show was in the offing and would launch on February 12th 1940.

Although the gaudy burlesque of monsters and super-villains still lay years ahead of our hero, these primitive captivating tales of corruption, disaster and social injustice are just as engrossing and speak powerfully of the tenor of the times. The raw intensity and sly wit still shine through in Siegel’s stories which literally defined what being a Super Hero means whilst Shuster created the basic iconography for all others to follow. These Golden Age tales are priceless enjoyment at an absurdly affordable price and in a durable, comfortingly lavish format. What dedicated comics fan could possibly resist them?
© 1938, 1939, 1940, 1997 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman Archives volume 1


By Bob Kane, Bill Finger & Jerry Robinson (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-60-9

The history of the American comicbook industry in almost every major aspect stems from the raw, vital and still powerfully compelling tales of twin icons published by DC/National Comics: Superman and Batman. It’s only fair and fitting that both those characters are still going strong and that their earliest adventures can be relived in chronological order in a variety of formats from relatively economical newsprint paperbacks to stunning, deluxe hardcover commemorative Archive editions.

This first bumper Batman edition, reprinting Detective Comics #27-50 (May 1939-April 1941) sees the grim solitary Darknight Detective begin his lifelong mission, picking up a youthful ally and far too many dedicated nemeses in a blistering collection of evocative and game-changing rollercoaster romps which utterly reshaped the burgeoning funnybook business and enthralled a generation of thrill-seeking kids of all ages.

After a stirring introduction from popular culture historian Rick Marschall the magic begins with “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate” by Bob Kane and collaborator Bill Finger from #27, wherein a cabal of sinister industrialists are progressively murdered until an eerie human bat intrudes on Police Commissioner Gordon’s stalled investigation and ruthlessly deals with the killer.

Issue #28 saw the fugitive vigilante crush the mob of jewel thief Frenchy Blake before encountering his very first psychopathic killer when ‘Batman Meets Doctor Death’ in #29. Confident of the innovation’s potential, Kane & Finger revived the mad medic for the very next instalment, before Gardner Fox scripted a two-part shocker which introduced the first bat-plane, Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend Julie Madison and vampiric horror ‘The Monk’: a saga which concluded in an epic chase across Eastern Europe and a spectacular climax in #32.

Detective Comics #33 featured ‘The Batman Wars Against the Dirigible of Doom’: a blockbusting disaster thriller which just casually slipped in the secret origin of the Gotham Guardian, as prelude to the air-pirate action, after which Euro-trash dastard Duc D’Orterre found his uncanny science and unsavoury appetites no match for the mighty Batman.

Issue #35 pitted the Cowled Crusader against crazed cultists murdering everyone who had seen their ruby idol, although the deaths were caused by a far more prosaic villainy, after which grotesque criminal genius Professor Hugo Strange debuted with his lethal man-made fog and lightning machine in #36, and an all-pervasive band of spies ultimately proved no match for the vengeful masked Manhunter in #37.

Detective Comics #38 (April 1940) changed the landscape of comicbooks forever with the introduction of ‘Robin, The Boy Wonder’: child trapeze artist Dick Grayson whose parents were murdered before his eyes and who joined Batman in a lifelong quest for justice, beginning, after the Flying Grayson’s killers were captured, with The Horde of the Green Dragon” – oriental Tong killers in Chinatown – from Detective #39 before the Dynamic Duo solved a string of murders on a movie set which almost saw Julie just another victim of the monstrous maniac ‘Clayface!’

Batman and Robin solved the baffling mystery of a kidnapped boy in #41 and ended another murder maniac’s rampage in ‘The Case of the Prophetic Pictures!’ before clashing with a corrupt mayor in #43’s ‘The Case of the City of Terror!’

An unparallelled hit, the stories perforce expanded their parameters in #44 with the dreamy fantasy of giants and goblins ‘The Land Behind the Light!’, and the Joker made his horrific Detective Comics debut in #45 with ‘The Case of the Laughing Death” whilst #46 features the return (and last appearance until 1977) of our hero’s most formidable scientific adversary in ‘Professor Strange’s Fear Dust’.

The drama was of a far more human scale in #47’s action-packed homily of parental expectation and the folly of greed ‘Money Can’t Buy Happiness’ whilst #48 found Batman and Robin defending America’s bullion reserves in ‘The Secret Cavern’ and they faced fresh horror in #49 from another old foe when ‘Clayface Walks Again’ as deranged actor Basil Karlo rekindled his passion for murder and resumed his attempts to kill Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend Julie …

The Batman yarn from Detective Comics #50 (April 1941) epically concludes this scintillating collection with a breathtaking rooftop and subterranean battle against acrobatic burglars in ‘The Case of the Three Devils’.

Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson and their compatriots created an iconography which carried the Batman feature well beyond its allotted life-span until later creators could re-invigorate it. They added a new dimension to children’s reading… and their work is still captivatingly accessible.

Moreover, these early stories set the standard for comic superheroes. Whatever you like now, you owe it to these stories. Superman gave us the idea, but writers like Bill Finger and Gardner Fox refined and defined the meta-structure of the costumed crime-fighter. Where the Man of Steel was as much Social Force and wish fulfilment as hero, Batman and Robin did what we ordinary mortals wanted to do. They taught bad people the lesson they deserved.

These are tales of elemental power and joyful exuberance, brimming with deep mood and addictive action. Comic book heroics simply don’t come any better.
© 1939, 1940, 1941, 1990 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman Archives volume 1


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-30289-47-1
Without doubt the creation of Superman and his unprecedented acceptance and adoption by a desperate and joy-starved generation quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form.

This stunning, lavish collection was also a significant first: the lovingly restored pages on glossy paper between gleaming hardback covers began DC’s superb Archive Editions series which, since 1989, has brought long forgotten and expensive classic tales to an appreciative wider audience.

Moreover the format has inestimably advanced the prestige and social standing of the medium itself as well as preserving a vital part of American popular culture.

Within this initial collection, following an effusive appreciation from legendary creator and comics historian Jim Steranko, are the complete contents of the first four issues of Superman, from Summer 1939 to Spring 1940. Here is the crude, rough, uncontrollable wish-fulfilling exuberance of a righteous and superior man dealing out summary justice to wife-beaters, reckless drivers and exploitative capitalists, as well as thugs and ne’er-do-wells, who captured the imagination of a nation and the world.

The character had debuted a year previously in Action Comics #1 in truncated, reformatted episodes by young, exuberant creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, cobbled together from a rejected newspaper strip proposal. An instant stand-out hit in the otherwise average comics anthology, the Man of Steel was given his own solo title – another first – and also starred in the tourist tie-in New York’s World Fair Comics #1 (June 1939).

Superman #1 began with an expanded partial reprint of the premier Action Comics tale, describing the alien foundling’s escape from exploding Planet Krypton before a costumed crusader masquerading by day as reporter Clark Kent averted a tragedy by saving an innocent woman from the Electric Chair, pounded a wife beater and busted racketeer Butch Matson, consequently saving feisty colleague Lois Lane from abduction and worse.

He also averted a European war fomented by greedy munitions dealers.

Superman’s first issue also re-presented the material from Action #2-4, with the mystery-man travelling to San Monte to spectacularly quiet down the hostilities already in progress and after a ‘Scientific Explanation of Superman’s Amazing Strength!’ the Man of Steel responded to a coal mine cave-in and exposed corrupt corporate practises before cleaning up gamblers who fixed football games. The first issue concluded with a two-page prose adventure of the Caped Crime-crusher and a biographical feature on Siegel & Shuster.

Superman #2 opened with a human drama as the Action Ace cleared the name of broken heavyweight boxer Larry Trent, coincidentally cleaning the scum out of the fight game and, after ‘Superman’s Tips for Super-Health’ and a captivating add for New York’s World Fair Comics, proceeded with ‘Superman Champions Universal Peace!’ wherein the hero crushed a gang who had stolen the world’s deadliest poison gas weapon, once more going up against unscrupulous munitions manufacturers.

‘Superman and the Skyscrapers’ found Kent investigating suspicious deaths in the construction industry, leading his alter ego into confrontation with ruthless thugs and their fat-cat corporate boss, after which another Superman text tale ended the issue.

The Winter Superman edition opened with a rip-roaring and shockingly uncompromising expose of corrupt orphanages, after which Lois stole Clark Kent’s assignment and became hopelessly embroiled in a deadly construction scam: imperilled by a colossal collapsing dam in a stirring yarn first published in Action #5.

Future Superboy star artist George Papp contributed science filler ‘Fantastic Facts’ and “Bert Lexington” penned prose crime thriller ‘Death by the Stars’ after which ‘Superman’s Manager’ turned up to scam Metropolis until he finally met his supposed client and ended up behind bars (reprinted from Action #6).

The exigencies of providing so much material was clearly beginning to tell: this issue is filled with fillers such as ‘Acquiring Super-Strength’, ‘Attaining Super-Health!’, prose prison yarn ‘Good Luck Charm’ by Hugh Langley and funny animal antics with dashing Dachshund ‘Shorty’ before the Man of Steel made his last appearance in another sterling gang-busting exploit, rescuing Lois from murderous smugglers.

Superman #4, cover-dated Spring 1940, concludes this inaugural compendium, with another four adventures; beginning with the landmark saga ‘The Challenge of Luthor’, wherein the red-headed rogue scientist used earthquakes to threaten civilisation. Following more ‘Attaining Super-Strength’, animal antics with ‘This Doggone World’ and facts ‘From the 4 Corners’ by Sheldon Moldoff, the mad scientist returned in ‘Luthor’s Undersea City’, a terrific tale of dinosaurs and super-science. Langley’s text vignette ‘Changer of Destiny’ preceded Superman’s battle against ‘The Economic Enemy,’ a spy-story about commercial sabotage instigated by an unspecified foreign power. Another Papp ‘Fantastic Facts’, some immensely enticing house ads and Lexington’s science fiction prose poser ‘Pioneer into the Unknown’ all act as palate-cleansers for the final fantastic thriller wherein the Man of Tomorrow clashed with gangsters and Teamsters in ‘Terror in the Trucker’s Union’.

Steranko then closed the show with an ‘Afterword’ detailing the contents of the adventures from Action Comics #1-14 (which were eventually collected in 1987 as Superman in Action Comics Archive volume 1).

As well as economical price and no-nonsense design and presentation, and notwithstanding the historical significance of the material presented within, there is a magnificent bonus for any one who hasn’t read these tales before. They are astonishingly well-told and engrossing mini-epics that can still grip and excite the reader.

In a world where Angels With Dirty Faces, Bringing Up Baby and The Front Page are as familiar to our shared cultural consciousness as the latest episode of Dr Who or the next Bond movie, the dress, manner and idiom in these seventy-plus-year-old stories can’t jar or confuse. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.

Read these yarns and you’ll understand why today’s creators keep returning to this material every time they need to revamp the big guy. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.
© 1939-1940, 1989 Dc Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Legion of Super-Heroes volume 1


By Otto Binder, Jerry Siegel, Edmond Hamilton, Curt Swan, John Forte & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1- 4012-1382-4

Once upon a time, in the far future, a band of super-powered kids from dozens of alien civilisations took inspiration from the greatest legend of all time and formed a club of heroes. One day those Children of Tomorrow came back in time and invited that legend to join them…

And thus began the vast and epic saga of the Legion of Super-Heroes, as first envisioned by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino in early 1958, just as the revived comicbook genre of superheroes was gathering an inexorable head of steam. Since that time the fortunes and popularity of the Legion have perpetually waxed and waned, with their future history tweaked and rebooted, retconned and overwritten again and again to comply with editorial diktat and popular whim.

This glorious, far-and-wide ranging monochrome collection assembles the many preliminary appearances of these valiant Tomorrow People and their inevitable progress towards and attainment of their own feature; including all pertinent material from Adventure Comics #247, 267, 282, 290, 293, and 300-321, Action Comics #267, 276, 287 and 289, Superboy #86, 89, 98, Superman #147, Superman Annual #4 and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #72 and 76.

The many-handed mob of juvenile universe-savers debuted in Adventure Comics #247 (April 1958) in a Superboy tale wherein three mysterious kids invited the Boy of Steel to the 30th century to join a team of metahuman champions all inspired by his historic career. Created by Otto Binder & Al Plastino, the throwaway concept inflamed public imagination and after a slew of further appearances throughout Superman Family titles, the LSH eventually took over Superboy’s lead spot in Adventure for their own far-flung, quirky escapades, with the Caped Kid Kryptonian reduced to “one of the in-crowd”…

However here the excitement was still gradually building as the kids returned more than a 18 months later in Adventure #267 (December 1959) for Jerry Siegel & George Papp to play with. In ‘Prisoner of the Super-Heroes!‘ the teen wonders turned up to attack and incarcerate the Boy of Steel because of a misunderstood ancient record…

The following summer Supergirl met the Legion in Action Comics #267 (August 1960, by Siegel & Jim Mooney) as Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy secretly travelled to “modern day” America to invite the Maid of Might to join the team, in a repetition of their offer to Superboy 15 years previously (in nit-picking fact they claimed to be the children of the original team – a fact glossed over and forgotten these days: don’t time-travel stories make your head hurt…?).

Due to a dubious technicality, young and eager Kara Zor-El failed her initiation at the hands of ‘The Three Super-Heroes’ and was asked to reapply later – but at least we got to meet a few more Legionnaires, including Chameleon Boy, Invisible Kid and Colossal Boy…

With the editors still cautiously testing the waters, it was Superboy #86 (January 1961) before the ‘The Army of Living Kryptonite Men!’ by Siegel & Papp turned the LSH into a last-minute Deus ex Machina to save the Smallville Sentinel from juvenile delinquent Lex Luthor’s most insidious assault. Two months later in Adventure #282, Binder & Papp introduced Star Boy as a romantic rival for the Krypton Kid in ‘Lana Lang and the Legion of Super-Heroes!’

Action #276 (May 1961) introduced ‘Supergirl’s Three Super Girl-Friends’ by Siegel & Mooney, which finally saw the her crack the plasti-glass ceiling and join the team, sponsored by Saturn Girl, Phantom Girl and Triplicate Girl. We also met for the first time Bouncing Boy, Shrinking Violet, Sun Boy and potential bad-boy love-interest Brainiac 5 (well at least his distant ancestor Brainiac was a very bad boy…)

Next comes a pivotal two-part tale ‘Superboy’s Big Brother’ (by Robert Bernstein & Papp from Superboy #89, June 1961) in which an amnesiac, super-powered space traveller crashes in Smallville, speaking Kryptonese and carrying star-maps written by the Boy of Steel’s long-dead father…

Jubilant, baffled and suspicious in equal amounts the Superboy eventually, tragically discovered ‘The Secret of Mon-El’ by accidentally exposing the stranger to a lingering, inexorable death, before desperately providing critical life-support by depositing the dying alien in the Phantom Zone until a cure could be found…

With an August 1961 cover-date Superman #147 unleashed ‘The Legion of Super-Villains’ (Siegel, Curt Swan & Sheldon Moldoff): a stand-out thriller featuring Lex Luthor and the adult Legion coming far too close to destroying the Action Ace until the temporal cavalry arrived…

Adventure #290 (November) by Bernstein & Papp seemingly gave Sun Boy a starring role in ‘The Secret of the Seventh Super-Hero!’ – a clever tale of redemption and second chances, followed in #293 (February 1962) by a gripping thriller from Siegel, Swan & George Klein: ‘The Legion of Super-Traitors’ wherein the future heroes were turned evil, prompting Saturn Girl to recruit a Legion of Super-Pets including Krypto, Streaky the Super Cat, Beppo, the monkey from Krypton and Comet the magical Super-horse to save the world – and yes, I typed all that with a reasonably straight face…

‘Supergirl’s Greatest Challenge!’ by Siegel & Mooney (Action #287 April 1962) saw her visit the Legion (quibblers be warned: for some reason it was mis-determined as the 21st century in this story) and saved future Earth from invasion. She also met a telepathic descendent of her cat Streaky. His name was Whizzy (I could have omitted that fact but chose not to – once more for smug, comedic effect and in sympathy with cat owners everywhere)…

Action #289 featured ‘Superman’s Super-Courtship!’ wherein the Girl of Steel scoured the universe for an ideal mate for her cousin. One highly possible candidate was the adult Saturn Woman, but her husband Lightning Man objected… Perhaps charming at the time, but modern sensibilities might quail at the conclusion that his perfect match was a doppelganger of Supergirl herself, but thankfully a bit older…

By the release of Superboy #98 (July 1962), the decision had been made. The buying public wanted more Legion stories and after ‘The Boy With Ultra-Powers’ by Siegel, Swan & Klein introduced a mysterious lad with greater powers than the Boy of Steel, focus shifted to Adventure Comics #300 (cover dated September 1962) where the futuristic super-squad finally landed their own gig; even occasionally taking an alternating cover-spot from the still top-featured Superboy.

Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes opened its stellar run with ‘The Face Behind the Lead Mask!’ by Siegel, John Forte & Plastino; a fast-paced premier which pitted Superboy and the 30th century champions against an impossibly unbeatable foe until Mon-El, long-trapped in the Phantom Zone, briefly escaped a millennium of confinement and saved the day…

In those halcyon days humour was as important as action, imagination and drama, so many of the early exploits were light-hearted and moralistic. Issue #301 offered hope to fat kids everywhere with ‘The Secret Origin of Bouncing Boy!’ by regular creative team Siegel & Forte, wherein the process of open auditions was instigated (providing devoted fans with loads of truly bizarre and memorable applicants over the years) whilst allowing the rebounding human rotunda to give a salutary pep talk and inspirational recount of heroism persevering over adversity.

Adventure #302 featured ‘Sun Boy’s Lost Power!’ as the golden boy was forced to resign until fortune and boldness restored his abilities whilst ‘The Fantastic Spy!’ in #303 provided a tense tale of espionage and possible betrayal by new member Matter-Eater Lad.

The happy readership was stunned by the events of #304 when Saturn Girl engineered ‘The Stolen Super-Powers!’ to make herself a one-woman Legion. Of course it was for the best possible reasons, but still didn’t prevent the shocking murder of Lightning Lad…

With comfortable complacency utterly destroyed #305 further shook everything up with ‘The Secret of the Mystery Legionnaire!’ who turned out to be the long-suffering Mon-El finally cured and freed from his Phantom Zone prison.

Normally I’d try to be more obscure about story details – after all my intention is to get new people reading old comics – but these “spoiler” revelations are crucial to further understanding here and besides you all know these characters are still around, don’t you?

Pulp science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton took over the major scripting role with Adventure #306 and introduced ‘The Legion of Substitute Heroes!’ (still quirkily, perfectly illustrated by John Forte): a group of rejected applicants who selflessly banded together to clandestinely assist the champions who had spurned them, after which transmuting orphan Element Lad joined the team, seeking vengeance of the space pirates who had wiped out his entire species in ‘The Secret Power of the Mystery Super-Hero!’ and #308 seemingly saw ‘The Return of Lightning Lad!’

Spoiler Warning: skip to the next paragraph NOW!!! if you don’t want to know it was actually his similarly empowered sister who once unmasked – and unmanned – took her brother’s place as Lightning Lass…

‘The Legion of Super-Monsters!’ was a straightforward clash with embittered applicant Jungle King who took his rejection far too personally and gathered a deadly clutch of space beasts to wreak havoc and vengeance whilst ‘The Doom of the Super-Heroes!’ in #310 was a frantic battle for survival against an impossible foe and Adventure #311 saw ‘The War Between the Substitute Heroes and the Legionnaires!’ begin with a cease-and-desist order from the A-Team which turned into secret salvation as the plucky, stubborn outcasts carried on anyway under the very noses of the blithely oblivious LSH…

Issue #312 (September 1963) saw the ‘The Super-Sacrifice of the Legionnaires!’ and the inevitable resurrection of Lightning Lad – but only after the harrowing sacrifice of one devoted team-member – whilst in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #72 (October) ‘The World of Doomed Olsens!’ (Siegel, Swan & Klein) depicted an intriguing enigma wherein the cub-reporter was confronted by materialisations of his most memorable metamorphoses (see the Superman: the Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen for further details), only to deduce it was all a prank by those naughty Legion scamps… but one with a serious purpose behind the jolly japery…

In #313’s ‘The Condemned Legionnaires!’ (Hamilton, Swan, Klein & Forte) Supergirl played a starring role when the mysterious Satan Girl infected the team with a deadly plague and forced them all into perpetual quarantine whilst ‘The Super-Villains of All Ages!’ (illustrated by Forte) had a manic mastermind steal a Legion Time-Bubble to recruit the greatest monsters and malcontents of history – Nero, Hitler and John Dillinger – as his irresistible army of crime.

Why he was surprised when they double-crossed him and took over the bodies of Superboy, Mon-El and Ultra Boy is beyond me… Happily, the lesser legionnaires still proved more a match for the brain-switched rogues.

‘The Legionnaires Super-Contest!’ in #315 finally saw the Substitute heroes go public, for which the primary team offered to allow one of them to join the big boys. Which one? That’s the contest part…

Issue #316’s ‘The Renegade Super-Hero!’ saw one trusted team-mate revealed as a career criminal and go on the run, but of course there was more to the tale than first appeared, after which the heroes were introduced to ‘The Menace of Dream Girl!’ a ravishing clairvoyant who beguiled her way into the Legion for her own obscure, arcane reasons. In her well-meaning way she presaged the coming of deadly threat The Time Trapper and also found a moment to convert the electrically redundant sister of the revived Lightning Lad into the gravity-defying Light Lass.

Adventure #318 featured ‘The Mutiny of the Legionnaires!’ wherein Sun Boy succumbed to battle fatigue and became a draconian Captain Bligh during an extended rescue mission, whilst in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #76 (April 1964) Siegel & Forte described ‘Elastic Lad Jimmy and his Legion Romances!’ wherein the plucky journalist was inveigled into the future and found himself inexplicably irresistible to the comely costumed champions of Tomorrow. It wasn’t his primitive charm, though…

Hamilton & Forte began a strong run of grittier tales from #319 on, beginning with ‘The Legion’s Suicide Squad!’ as the Science Police asked the team to destroy, at all costs, a monolithic space fortress, whilst #320 debuted a daring new character in Dev-Em, a forgotten survivor of Superman’s dead homeworld who was little more than a petty thug when Superboy first defeated him.

Now in ‘The Revenge of the Knave From Krypton!’ by Siegel, Forte, Papp, Moldoff & Plastino, the rapscallion returned as either a reformed undercover cop or the greatest traitor in history…

The story portion of this wonderful tome concludes with Adventure #321 and ‘The Code of the Legion!’ by Hamilton, Forte & Plastino which revealed the team’s underlying Articles of Procedure during a dire espionage flap, whilst testing one Legionnaire to the limits of his honour and ingenuity and actually ending another’s service forever.

Perhaps.

This is followed by an appropriate extra from Superman Annual #4 which featured a two-page informational guide illustrated and pictorial check-list of the team by Swan & Klein which was amended and supplemented in Adventure #316 with an additional two pages of stunning micro-pin-ups, all faithfully included here. This fabulously innocent and imaginative chronicle also includes every cover the team starred on: mostly the work of honorary Legionnaire Curt Swan and inkers George Klein, Stan Kaye, and Sheldon Moldoff.

The Legion is undoubtedly one of the most beloved and bewildering creations in American comicbook history and largely responsible for the growth of the groundswell movement that became Comics Fandom. Moreover, these sparkling, simplistic and devastatingly addictive stories as much as the legendary Julie Schwartz Justice League fired up the interest and imaginations of a generation of young readers and built the industry we all know today.

These naive, silly, joyous, stirring and utterly compelling yarns are precious and fun beyond any ability to explain – even if we old lags gently mock them to ourselves and one another. If you love comics and haven’t read this stuff, you are the poorer for it and need to enrich your future life as soon as possible.

© 1958-1964, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Green Arrow volume 1


By France Herron, Dave Wood, Jack Kirby, George Papp, Lee Elias & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0785-4

Green Arrow is one of DC’s Golden All-Stars: a fixture of the company’s landscape, in many instances for no discernable reason, more or less continually since his debut in 1941. He was originally created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp for More Fun Comics # 73 as an attempt to expand the company’s superhero portfolio, and in the early years proved quite successful. The bowman and boy partner Speedy were two of the few costumed heroes to survive the end of the Golden Age.

His blatant recombination of Batman and Robin Hood seemed to have very little going for itself but the Emerald Archer has somehow always managed to keep himself in vogue. He carried on adventuring in the back of other heroes’ comicbooks, joined the Justice League of America at the peak of their fame and became the spokes-hero of the anti-establishment generation during the 1960’s “Relevancy Comics” trend, courtesy of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams.

Under Mike Grell’s stewardship and thanks to the epic miniseries Green Arrow: the Longbow Hunters (DC’s second ‘Prestige Format Mini-Series’ after the groundbreaking success of Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns) he at last became a headliner: an urban predator dealing with corporate thugs and serial killers rather than costumed goof-balls.

After his long career and a few venue changes, by the time Julie Schwartz’s revivification of the Superhero genre the Emerald Archer was solid second feature in both Adventure and World’s Finest Comics where, as part of the wave of retcons, reworkings and spruce-ups the company administered to all their remaining costumed old soldiers, a fresh start began in the summer of 1958…

This splendidly eclectic collection of the peripatetic Bowman’s perennial second string exploits gathers the pertinent material from Adventure Comics #250-269, World’s Finest Comics #95-140, Justice League of America #4 and his guest-shots in Brave and the Bold #50, 71 and 85, covering the period July 1958 to September 1969.

Part of that revival happily coincided with the return to National Comics of Jack Kirby after the collapse of Mainline: the comics company he and partner Joe Simon had created as part of the Crestwood/Prize publishing combine.

Not long after that groundbreaking move the industry was hit by the Comics Code censorship controversy and a sales downturn that hit many creators very, very hard…

This stunning monochrome compendium opens with ‘The Green Arrows of the World’ (by scripter Dave Wood and Jack with wife Roz inking) wherein heroic masked archers from many nations attended a conference in Star City unaware that a fugitive criminal was lurking within their midst, whilst that same month George Papp illustrated the anonymously scripted ‘Green Arrow vs Red Dart’ in World’s Finest Comics #95, a dashing tale of the Ace Archer’s potential criminal counterpart and his inevitable downfall.

Adventure #251 took a welcome turn to fantastic science fiction as Ed Herron & the Kirbys resolved ‘The Case of the Super-Arrows’ wherein the heroes took possession of high-tech trick shafts from 3000AD, whilst WFC #96 (writer unknown) revealed ‘Five Clues to Danger’ – a classic kidnap mystery made even more impressive by Kirby’s lean, raw illustration.

A rare continued case spanned Adventure‘s #252 and 253 as Wood, Jack & Roz revealed ‘The Mystery of the Giant Arrows’ before Green Arrow and Speedy temporarily became ‘Prisoners of Dimension Zero’ – a spectacular riot of giant aliens and incredible exotic otherworlds, followed in WF #97 with a grand old-school crime-caper in Herron’s ‘The Mystery of the Mechanical Octopus’.

Kirby was going from strength to strength and Adventure #254’s ‘The Green Arrow’s Last Stand’, written by Wood, is a particularly fine example as the Bold Bowmen crashed into a hidden valley where Sioux braves had thrived unchanged since the time of Custer whilst the next issue saw them battle a battalion of Japanese soldiers who refused to surrender their island bunker in ‘The War That Never Ended’ (also by Wood).

World’s Finest #98 almost ended the heroes’ careers in Herron’s ‘The Unmasked Archers’ wherein a practical joke caused the pair to expose themselves to public scrutiny and deadly danger…

During those heady days origins weren’t as important as imaginative situations, storytelling and just plain getting on with it, so co-creators Weisinger & Papp never bothered to provide one, leaving later workmen Herron, Jack & Roz (in Kirby’s penultimate tale before devoting all his energies to the fabulous newspaper strip Sky Masters) to fill in the blanks with ‘The Green Arrow’s First Case’ as the Silver Age superhero revival hit its stride in Adventure Comics #256 (January 1959).

Here we learned how wealthy wastrel Oliver Queen was cast away on a deserted island and learned to use a hand-made bow simply to survive. When a band of scurvy mutineers fetched up on his desolate shores Queen used his newfound skills to defeat them and returned to civilisation with a new career and secret purpose…

Adventure #257’s ‘The Arrows That Failed’ saw a criminal mastermind tamper with the archer’s equipment in a low-key but intriguing yarn by an unknown scripter, most memorable for being the first artistic outing for golden-age great Lee Elias who would become the strip’s sole artist until its demise after Kirby’s spectacular swan-song in WF #99. ‘Crimes Under Glass’ was written by Robert Bernstein and found the GA and Speedy battling cunning criminals with a canny clutch of optical armaments.

Adventure Comics #258 (March 1959) featured a rare cover appearance for the Emerald Archer as he guest-starred in the lead feature ‘Superboy Meets the Young Green Arrow’ by Jerry Coleman & Papp, after which inspiring boyhood on-the-job training the mature bowman then schooled a lost patrol of soldiers in Toxophily (that’s posh talk for archery, folks), desert survival and crime-busting in ‘The Arrow Platoon’: another anonymously scripted yarn limned by Elias.

The same month in WF #100 the Emerald Avenger faced light-hearted lampoonery and sinister larcenists in ‘The Case of the Green Error Clown’ by Herron and the now-firmly entrenched Elias, whilst Adventure #259 showed that ‘The Green Arrow’s Mystery Pupil’ had ulterior and sinister motives for his studies whilst #260 revealed ‘Green Arrow’s New Partner’ to be only a passing worry for Speedy in a clever drama by Bernstein.

World’s Finest #101 introduced a crook who bought or stole outlandish ideas for malevolent purposes in ‘The Battle of the Useless Inventions’ by lead writer Herron, whereas Adventure #261 and the uncredited fable ‘The Curse of the Wizard’s Arrow!’ used bad luck and spurious sorcery to test the Archers’ ingenuity.

WF #102 featured Herron’s snazzy crime-caper ‘The Case of the Camouflage King!’ whilst in Adventure #262 ‘The World’s Worst Archer!’, by Bernstein, finally gave Boy Bowman Speedy an origin of his own and explained how just how narrowly the part-Native American boy Roy Harper came to not being adopted by Oliver Queen, after which #263 ‘Have Arrow – Will Travel’ (Bernstein) saw the independent lad sell his skills to buy a boat… a solid lesson in thrift and good parenting if not reference-checking….

World’s Finest #103 offered a Bob Haney mystery-thriller ‘Challenge of the Phantom Bandit’ after which an anonymous scripter finally bowed to the obvious and dispatched the Emerald Archer to feudal Sherwood Forest in ‘The Green Arrow Robin Hood’ (Adventure #264, September 1959) and WF #104 found GA undercover on a modern Native American Reservation ‘Alias Chief Magic Bow’ (by Herron).

‘The Amateur Arrows!’ (by Bernstein in Adventure #265) had the Battling Bowmen act as Summer Camp tutors on a perilously perfidious Dude Ranch for kids, #266 again saw their trick-shot kit malfunction in a clever conundrum with a surprise mystery guest-star in Bernstein’s ‘The Case of the Vanished Arrows!’ and WF #105 introduced deceptively deadly toy-making terror ‘The Mighty Mr. Miniature’ (Herron).

In Adventure Comics #267 the editors tried another novel experiment in closer continuity. At this time the title starred Superboy with two back-up features following. The first of these starred equally perennial B-list survivor Aquaman who in that tale ‘The Manhunt on Land’ (but not this volume: you’ll need to scoop up Showcase Presents Aquaman volume 1 for the full saga) saw villainous Shark Norton trade territories with Green Arrow’s foe The Wizard. In a rare crossover, both parts of which were written by Bernstein, the two heroes worked the same case with Aquaman fighting on dry land whilst the Emerald Archer pursued his enemy beneath the waves in his impressively innovative strip ‘The Underwater Archers’.

‘The Crimes of the Pneumatic Man’ by Herron, (WF #106) debuted a rather daft balloon-based bandit, whilst Adventure #268 saw another time-trip result in ‘The Green Arrow in King Arthur’s Court!’ by Bernstein who also scripted the February 1960 issue #269 wherein ‘The Comic Book Archer!’ saw the pair aid a cartoonist in need of inspiration and salvation.

That was the hero’s last appearance in Adventure. From then on the Amazing Archers’ only home was World’s Finest Comics, beginning a lengthy and enthralling run from Herron & Elias in #107-112, systematically defeating ‘The Menace of the Mole Men’ – who weren’t what they seemed – and ‘The Creature from the Crater’ – which also wasn’t – before becoming ‘Prisoners of the Giant Bubble’, a clever crime caper loaded with action.

WF 110 introduced photonic pillager ‘The Sinister Spectrum Man’ with a far more memorable menace challenging the heroes in ‘The Crimes of the Clock King’ before a lucky felon discovered their hidden lair and became ‘The Spy in the Arrow-Cave’ a tale that starts weakly but ends on a powerfully poignant high note.

The painfully parochial and patronising tone of the times seeped into the saga of ‘The Amazing Miss Arrowette’ (scripted by Wood) in WF #113 as a hopeful, ambitious Ladies’ Archery competitor tried her very best to become Green Arrow’s main helpmeet. Moreover, in a series famed for absurd gimmick shafts, nothing ever came close to surpassing the Hair-Pin, Needle-and-Thread, Powder-Puff or Lotion Arrows in Bonnie King’s fetching and stylish little quiver…

The times were changing in other aspects, however, and fantasy elements were again popular at the end of 1960, as evidenced by Herron’s teaser in WF #114. ‘Green Arrow’s Alien Ally’ neatly segued into ‘The Mighty Arrow Army’ as the Ace Archers battled a South American dictator and then encountered a sharp-shooting circus chimp in #116’s ‘The Ape Archer’.

A jump to the big time occurred in Justice League of America #4 (April 1961) when Green Arrow was invited to join the world’s Greatest Super-Heroes just in time to save them all – and the Earth for good measure in Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky & Bernard Sachs’ epic sci fi extravaganza ‘Doom of the Star Diamond’ before returning to quirkiness and mere crime-crushing in WF #117 and ‘The Cartoon Archer’ by Wood & Elias, wherein a kidnapped cartoonist used caricature as a deadly weapon and desperate life-line…

World’s Finest #118 featured ‘The Return of Miss Arrowette’ (more Wood); a far less cringeworthy effort which nonetheless still managed to make the Bow Babe both competent and imbecilic at the same time, before Herron penned ‘The Man with the Magic Bow’ in #119, with an actual sorcerous antique falling into the greedy hands of a career criminal whilst Oliver Queen and Roy Harper became victims of ‘The Deadly Trophy Hunt’ in #120 and needed a little Arrow action to save the day and their secret identities.

Master scribe John Broome provided a taut and impressive tale of despair and redemption in #121 with ‘The Cop Who Lost his Nerve’ and WF #122 saw ‘The Booby-Trap Bandits’ (Haney) almost destroy our heroes in a tense suspense thriller and Wood wrote one of his very best GA yarns in #123 ‘The Man Who Foretold Disaster’. Herron rose to the challenge in WF 124-125: a brace of bold and grittily terse mini-epics beginning with a breathtaking gang-busting yarn ‘The Case of the Crime Specialists’ and the taut human drama of ‘The Man Who Defied Death’ to pay his son’s medical bills…

‘Dupe of the Decoy Bandits’ by Wood in #126 was another sharp game of cops and robbers whilst George Kashdan revealed the heart-warming identity of ‘Green Arrow’s Secret Partner’ in #127 after which Wood successfully tried his hand at human-scaled melodrama as a retiring cop proved himself ‘The Too-Old Hero’ in #128.

Oddly – perhaps typically – just as the quality of Green Arrow’s adventures steadily improved, his days as a solo star were finally ending. Herron scripted all but one of remaining year’s World’s Finest exploits, beginning with #129’s robotic renegade ‘The Iron Archer’, after which an author unknown contributed ‘The Human Sharks’ as the Bold Bowmen returned to battle crime beneath the seas.

A despondent boy was boosted out of a dire depression by joining his heroes in #131 and ‘A Cure for Billy Jones’ whilst ‘The Green Arrow Dummy’ was an identity-saver and unexpected crook catcher in its own right.

Subterranean thugs accidentally invaded and became ‘The Thing in the Arrowcave’ in #133, whilst ‘The Mystery of the Missing Inventors’ saw a final appearance and proper treatment of Arrowette, but the writing was on the wall. Green Arrow became an alternating feature and didn’t work again until WF #136 and the exotic mystery of ‘The Magician Boss of the Incas’ (September 1963).

A month later Brave and the Bold #50 saw the Ace Archer team-up in a book length adventure with the Martian Manhunter. ‘Wanted – the Capsule Master!’ pitted the newly minted Green Team in a furious fight with marauding extraterrestrial menace Vulkor; a fast-paced thriller by Bob Haney & George Roussos followed by WF #138’s ‘The Secret Face of Funny-Arrow!’ wherein a formerly positive and good natured spoof-performer took a sudden turn into darker and nastier “jokes” and World’s Finest #140 (March 1964) aptly presented ‘The Land of No Return’ by Bill Finger, with the Battling Bowmen falling into a time-locked limbo where heroes from history perpetually strove against deadly beasts and monsters…

The heroes’ decades-long careers ended there and they became nothing more than bit-players in JLA and Teen Titans exploits until Brave and the Bold #71 (April-May 1967) written by Haney and drawn by his Golden Age co-creator George Papp, wherein Green Arrow helped Batman survive ‘The Wrath of the Thunderbird!’ and crush a criminal entrepreneur determined to take over the wealth and resources of the Kijowa Indian Nation.

This volume ends with the first cathartic and thoroughly modern re-imagining of the character which paved the way for the rebellious, riotous, passionately socially-aware avenger of modern times.

Brave and the Bold #85 is arguably the best of an incredible run of team-ups in that title’s prestigious history and certainly the best yarn in this collection. ‘The Senator’s Been Shot!’ reunited Batman and Green Arrow in a superb multi-layered thriller of politics, corruption and cast-iron integrity, wherein Bruce Wayne became a stand-in for a law-maker and the Emerald Archer got a radical make-over that turned him into the fiery liberal gadfly champion of the relevancy generation – and every one since.

Ranging from calamitously repetitive and formulaic – but in a very good and entertaining way – to moments of sublime wonder and excitement, this is genuine mixed bag of Fights ‘n’ Tights swashbuckling with something for everyone and certainly bound to annoy as much as delight. All ages superhero action that’s unmissable. Even if you won’t love it all you’ll hate yourself for missing this spot-on selection.

© 1958-1964, 1967, 1969, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Masterworks volume 27 The Avengers 21-30


By Stan Lee, Don Heck & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-993-6

After first launching the Avengers with the venerable concept of putting all your star eggs in one basket, narrative and scheduling problems prompted Stan Lee to downplay Marvel’s most popular stars in favour of lesser lights with les crowded schedules, allowing the title to develop healthy emotionally character-driven sub-plots that were necessarily missing for decades from its thematic precursor and rival Justice League of America.

By the time of this stellar third deluxe collection (re-presenting Avengers #21-30 from October 1965 to July 1966) the policy was paying big dividends as the team became another hotbed of stewing passions and brewing internal conflicts with veteran campaigner Captain America constantly at war with and doubting himself whilst wrangling young, unruly and ambitious newcomers – and ex-criminals – Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch in the tried and true, soapily operatic Marvel Manner.

Avengers #21 (by Stan Lee, Don Heck & Wally Wood) launched another big-name villain in Power Man, created by the evil Enchantress in ‘The Bitter Dregs of Defeat!’ as part of a diabolical plan to discredit and displace the heroic ideals. Her scheme succeeded in splitting up and outlawing the team, but after a clash with the Circus of Evil in #22 the plot was foiled by the indomitable Captain America in ‘The Road Back.’

A two-part Kang tale followed as the team was shanghaied into the far-flung future to battle against and latterly beside the Tyrant of Time. Avengers #23 (incidentally, my vote for the best Marvel cover Jack Kirby ever drew) ‘Once an Avenger…’ was superbly inked by the elder John Romita before the yarn spectacularly concludes with the epic ‘From the Ashes of Defeat!’ by Heck & Dick Ayers.

The underrated team faced their greatest test yet when they were cunningly captured, magnificently survived and easily escaped the deadliest man alive in #25′s ‘Enter… Dr. Doom!’ but, as change was ever the watchword for this series, the following two issues combined a threat to drown the world with the return of an old comrade.

‘The Voice of the Wasp!’ and ‘Four Against the Floodtide!’ (Lee, Heck & Frank Giacoia) made for a superlative action-romp as the undersea barbarian Attuma attempted to raise the world’s sea-level to destroy humanity. Notified by the long-retired Wasp the Avengers dashed to the depths to stop the marine maniac, but that saga was simply a prelude to the main event…

Issue #28 featured the return of Giant-Man in a new guise. ‘Among us Walks a Goliath!’ was an instant classic which introduced the villainous Collector and extended the company’s pet theme of alienation by tragically trapping the size-changing hero at a freakish ten-foot height, seemingly forever.

Avengers #29, ‘This Power Unleashed!’ then brought back Hawkeye’s lost love Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow and a brainwashed Soviet agent in an unlikely attempt to destroy the team using fearsome foes Power Man and Swordsman as cannon-fodder before this delightful diversion annoying ends on a classy cliffhanger with ‘Frenzy in a Far-Off Land!’ as the dispirited colossus desperately sought a cure to his colossal condition.

Seeking expert aid the grim giant became embroiled in a civil war amongst a lost South American civilisation: a two-part yarn that threatened to end in global incineration – but one that concludes in another volume…

Riveting tales of action and adventure, a charismatic blend of established and new characters and some of the best illustrated narrative in Marvel’s history makes this tome both utterly enticing and aggravatingly frustrating, but as the next book is also stuffed with brilliant adventure tales I suppose dedicated fans will be content  to buy that one too.

These stories set the tone for Marvel’s superheroes: the group dynamics, the themes and even the kinds of menaces they faced. Where the Fantastic Four were as much explorers as champions; a family with the same passions, the Avengers were disparate individuals called together to get a job done. How well these adventures still read is testament to how well the creators succeeded in their craft…
© 1965, 1966, 1993 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Sensational Spider-Man: Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut


By Roger Stern, John Romita Jr. & Jim Mooney (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-87135-572-0

Here’s one more slim yet elegant lost treasure from the early days of graphic novel compilations that might amuse and will certainly delight all-out aficionado and neophyte Spidey fans alike – and perhaps the odd X-Men completist also.

Released in 1989, this full-colour 48 page compendium collects two supremely impressive issues of Amazing Spider-Man (#229-230 from June-July 1982) which perfectly encapsulate everything that made the wondrous Wall-crawler such an unalloyed superstar and icon of youthful exuberance.

The drama opens as Peter Parker is warned by blind, paraplegic clairvoyant Madame Web that her life is about to be endangered by a monstrous and uncompromising force of nature – and that he is her only hope of survival. The Arachnid Adventurer has had experience of the seer’s psychic prowess before and his usual scepticism is tinged with genuine foreboding…

Meanwhile out at sea, a nondescript freighter is carrying mutant menaces Black Tom Cassidy and Cain Marko, the inhuman colossus known as The Juggernaut towards New York. Tom is determined to destroy the X-Men and plans to kidnap Madame Web and exploit her gifts to that end. Unfortunately, he has no idea that if she is unplugged from her life-support chair for even seconds she will die…

Brutish and impatient the mystic man-monster Marko, drops into the ocean and walks through the airless depths of the Atlantic sea-floor across the remaining miles to the Big Apple, for truly ‘Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut’…

Striding ashore determined and oblivious to all attempts to stop him, the Juggernaut ponderously proceeds in a direct line to his target, smashing through people, cars, buildings and Spider-Man. Unable to defeat or even slow the monster and with no other super-heroes available the Web-Spinner redoubles his efforts but fails to save Web…

Realising he has failed when the savant collapses into a coma, Marko callously turns away and starts his long, slow, immensely destructive walk back to his ship…

The saga concludes with ‘To Fight the Unbeatable Foe!’ wherein an impossibly overmatched and righteously enraged Wall-crawler determines to make the monster pay for his crimes at any and all costs, resulting in one of the most improbable and incredible triumphs of his career.

This spectacular David and Goliath clash, riotously referencing the classic monster-invaders-and-trashes-the-big-city film genre, is a perfect slice of what makes Spider-Man great: tension-packed drama, heroic ingenuity, indomitable courage and astounding action. This yarn is indubitably one of the best individual collections of the hero ever assembled another perfect primer for anyone looking to discover the magic for the first time.
© 1989 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents Superman volume 1


By Otto Binder, Jerry Coleman, Bill Finger, Jerry Siegel, Wayne Boring, Al Plastino, Curt Swan & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0758-8

Although we all think of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s iconic creation as the epitome of comicbook creation the truth is that very soon after his launch in Action Comics #1 he became a multimedia star and far more people have seen or heard the Man of Steel than have ever read him – and yes, that does include the globally syndicated newspaper strip. By the time his 20th anniversary rolled around he had been a regular on radio, starred in a series of astounding animated cartoons and two movies and just ended his first smash live-action television serial. In his future were three more (Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville), a stage musical, a franchise of stellar movies and an almost seamless succession of TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since. Even Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

It’s no wonder then that the tales from this Silver Age period should be so draped in the wholesome trappings of Tinseltown – even more so than most of celebrity-obsessed America. It didn’t hurt that editor Whitney Ellsworth was a part-time screenwriter, script editor and producer as well as National DC’s Hollywood point man.

However, that’s not all there is to these gloriously engaging super-sagas culled from Action Comics #241-257 and Superman #122-133, reliving the period June 1958 to November 1959 in crisp, clean black and white in this first economical Showcase Presents collection.

By the mid-1950s Superman had settled into an ordered existence. Nothing could really hurt him, nothing would ever change, and thrills seemed in short supply. With the TV show cementing the action, writers increasingly concentrated on supplying wonder, intrigue, imagination and, whenever possible, a few laughs as well.

The adventure begins with Action Comics #241 and ‘The Key to Fort Superman’ a fascinating and clever puzzle-play guest-featuring Batman, written by Jerry Coleman and illustrated by Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye, wherein an impossible intruder vexes the Man of Steel in his most sacrosanct sanctuary, after which Superman #122 (July, 1958) presented three yarns by veteran scripter Otto Binder beginning with ‘The Secret of the Space Souvenirs’ (illustrated by Al Plastino) as a temporary madness seemed to grip the Man of Tomorrow as he gathered artefacts for a proposed time-capsule, ‘Superman in the White House’ a fanciful dream by Jimmy Olsen also drawn by Plastino and the Boring/Kaye bamboozler which finds the hero investigating an outbreak of super-powers at a US military base in ‘The Super-Sergeant’…

That same month Binder & Plastino introduced both the greatest new villain and most expansive new character concept to the series had seen in years in The Super-Duel in Space’ (Action Comics #242) which saw an evil alien scientist named Brainiac attempt to add Metropolis to his collection of miniaturised cities in bottles.

As well as a titanic tussle in its own right, this tale completely changed the mythology of the Man of Steel, by introducing Kandor, a city full of Kryptonians who had escaped the planet’s destruction when Brainiac captured them. Although Superman rescued his fellow survivors, the villain escaped to strike again, and it would be years before the hero could restore the Kandorians to their true size.

Superman #123 (August 1958) featured ‘The Girl of Steel’ by Binder, Dick Sprang & Kaye which tested the potential of a distaff Supergirl as part of a three-chapter yarn involving a magic wishing totem, which tragically segued into ‘The Lost Super-Powers’ before granting the hero’s greatest dream and facilitating ‘Superman’s Return to Krypton’. Action #243 by Binder & Boring saw Superman mysteriously transformed into a beast in ‘The Lady and the Lion’ after which Superman #124 provided the intriguing menace of ‘The Super-Sword’ by Coleman & Plastino, Binder & Kurt Schaffenberger’s delightful desert island drama wherein Lois Lane became ‘Mrs. Superman’ and Clark Kent’s investigation of construction industry corruptions which compelled him to become ‘The Steeplejack of Steel’ (Binder, Boring & Kaye).

Curt Swan pencilled Binder’s ‘Super-Merman of the Sea’ (inked by Kaye) in Action #244: a canny mystery wherein the Man of Steel abandoned the surface world for an alien aquatic princess, after which Boring & Kaye delineated Binder’s compelling thriller ‘The Shrinking Superman!’ featuring an insidious menace from the Bottle City of Kandor…

‘Lois Lane’s Super-Dream’ (Coleman & Schaffenberger) opened Superman #125 (October-November 1958) with another potentially offensive and certainly sexist parable wherein the plucky news-hen learnt a salutary lesson about powers and responsibility whilst ‘Clark Kent’s College Days’ (illustrated by Plastino) began an occasional series of Untold Tales of Superman by revealing just how, when and why Superboy became the Man of Tomorrow, before Boring & Kaye concluded Coleman’s hat-trick with ‘Superman’s New Power’ as the hero gained new and incomprehensible abilities with catastrophic consequences

Action #246 featured ‘Krypton on Earth!’ (Binder, Boring & Kaye) as a trip to tourist attraction “Krypton Island” revealed a crafty criminal scam whilst #247 presented ‘Superman’s Lost Parents!’ (Binder & Plastino) wherein a criminal scheme to reveal the hero’s secret identity prompted an extreme face-saving solution, after which Superman #126 had Binder, Boring & Kaye reveal ‘Superman’s Hunt for Clark Kent’ a thrilling tale of amnesia and deduction whilst ‘The Spell of the Shandu Clock’ by Coleman, Boring & Kaye, provided spooky chills and clever ploys to outwit a malevolent mastermind and ‘The Two Faces of Superman’ (Coleman & Schaffenberger) again saw conniving Lois learn a much-needed lesson in humility.

Action #248 (January 1959) was a rare contribution from Bill Finger, illustrated by Boring & Kaye as the Caped Kryptonian became ‘The Man No Prison Could Hold!’ to topple a war criminal tyrant whilst Superman #127 opened with another Untold Tale of Superman, ‘When There Was No Clark Kent!’ (Coleman, Swan & Kaye) as an accident temporarily deprived the hero of his treasured alter ego, after which Coleman, Boring & Kaye exposed ‘The Make-Believe Superman’ as a depressed dad tried to impress his son with a most preposterous fib before another hugely popular character debuted in ‘Titano the Super-Ape!’. The chimpanzee who became a giant ape with Kryptonite vision was one of the most memorable “foes” of the period, courtesy of Binder, Boring & Kaye’s sublime treatment combining action, pathos and drama to superb effect.

‘The Kryptonite Man!’ by Binder & Plastino in Action #249, saw Lex Luthor deliberately irradiate himself with Green K to avoid capture, but his evil genius was no match for the hero’s sharp wits, used with equal aplomb in ‘The Eye of Metropolis!’ (Finger & Boring) as a prominent TV journalist sought to expose Superman’s secret identity in #250.

Bill Finger scripted the entirety of #128 as ‘Superman versus the Futuremen’ (Boring & Kaye) and ‘The Secret of the Futermen’ saw the Metropolis Marvel framed for heinous crimes and hijacked to the impossible year of 2000AD before outwitting his abductors and retuning in time to encounter ‘The Sleeping Beauty from Krypton!’ – actually Lois in another hare-brained scheme to trap her beloved into marriage, illustrated by the unmistakable and deliciously whimsical Kurt Schaffenberger.

‘The Oldest Man in Metropolis!’ by Robert Bernstein & Plastino, saw an unfortunate lab accident age Superman decades overnight in Action #251 whilst Superman #129 (May 1959) revealed ‘The Ghost of Lois Lane’ (Coleman, Boring & Kaye) to be anything but and Binder & Plastino’s ‘Clark Kent, Fireman of Steel!’ depicted the reporter’s aggravating and hilarious “luck” as a temporary fire-fighter before introducing the bewitching mermaid Lori Lemaris in ‘The Girl In Superman’s Past’ – another moving Untold Tale of Superman (from Finger & Boring) which again refined the Man of Steel’s intriguing early life.

Action Comics #252 (May 1959) would have been significant enough merely for introducing the threat of John Corben, a criminal whose crushed body was replaced by a robot body and Kryptonite heart to become ‘The Menace of Metallo!’ (by Bernstein & Plastino) but a new back-up feature also began in that issue which utterly revolutionised the Man of Tomorrow’s ongoing mythology.

‘The Supergirl from Krypton!’ introduced Kal-El’s cousin Kara Zor-El in another captivating, groundbreaking yarn by Binder & Plastino. The Maid of Might would occupy the back of Action and alternate covers for a decade and more to come, carving her own unique legend (see Showcase Presents Supergirl volumes 1 and 2)…

Issue #253 featured ‘The War Between Superman and Jimmy Olsen!’ by Alvin Schwartz, Swan & Kaye as an alien presence gave the boy reporter super-powers and a mania to conquer the world whilst Superman #130 presented ‘The Curse of Kryptonite!’ by Binder & Plastino, wherein the Man of Tomorrow relived his past experiences with the lethal mineral; ‘The Super-Servant of Crime!’ by Bernstein, Swan & John Sikela which finds the hero turning the tables on a petty crook who thinks he’s fooled the Action Ace, and ‘The Town That Hated Superman!’ (Binder, Boring & Kaye): a happy hamlet which had outlawed the hero and he simply had to know why…

‘The Battle with Bizarro!’ (Action Comics #254, by Binder & Plastino) re-introduced an imperfect duplicate super-being who had initially appeared in a well-received Superboy story (#68, from the previous year), courtesy of Luthor’s malfunctioning duplicator ray. Even way back then high sales trumped death and so popular was the fatally-flawed character that the tale was continued over two issues, concluding with ‘The Bride of Bizarro!’ in #255, an almost unheard of luxury back then, but here that bombastic, traumatic conclusion is separated by the contents of Superman #131, which firstly reintroduced a long-vanished pestiferous annoyance with ‘The Menace of Mr. Mxyzptlk!’ by Coleman & Plastino, before Lois Lane was granted a tantalising glimpse of ‘Superman’s Future Wife’ (Bernstein & Schaffenberger) and ‘The Unknown Super-Deeds’ revealed hitherto hidden connections with the Daily Planet staff long before Superboy left Smallville in another Untold Tale of Superman from Binder & Plastino.

Action #256 seemingly unleashed ‘The Superman of the Future’ (Binder, Swan & Kaye) whilst in Superman #132 (October 1959) Batman and the projections of a super-computer showed what might have happened if Superman had grown up on an unexploded Krypton in the three chapter epic ‘Superman’s Other Life’, ‘Futuro, Super-Hero of Krypton!’, ‘The Superman of Two Worlds!’ by Binder, Boring & Kaye.

Action #257 revealed Clark Kent as ‘The Reporter of Steel!’ after he was hit by a ray from mad scientist Luthor in a cunning yarn by Binder, Boring & Kaye before the contents of Superman #133 brings to a close this premier compendium with ‘The Super-Luck of Badge 77’ (Binder & Plastino) as the reporter tried his hand as a beat cop, before the first new tales by co-creator Jerry Siegel in nearly a decade: ‘How Perry White Hired Clark Kent’ (art by Plastino) and the wryly light-hearted ‘Superman Joins the Army!’ illustrated by Boring & Kaye.

Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence and with the character undergoing another radical overhaul at this time these timeless tales of charm and joy and wholesome wit are more necessary than ever: not just as a reminder of great tales of the past but as an all-ages primer of the wonders still to come…
© 1959-1963, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Masterworks volume 10: Amazing-Spider-Man 21-30 & Annual 1


By Stan Lee & Steve Ditko (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-596-5

The third magnificent full-colour hardback collection of Spider-Man’s earliest adventures sees the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero begin to challenge the dominance of the Fantastic Four as Marvel’s premier comicbook both in sales and quality. Steve Ditko’s off-beat plots and unconventionally inspirational art had gradually reached an accommodation with the slick and potent superhero house-style Jack Kirby was developing (at least as much as such a unique talent ever could), with less line-feathering, more controlled, moody backgrounds and fewer totemic villains.

Although still very much a Ditko vehicle, Spider-Man had by this time attained a sleek pictorial gloss. Stan Lee’s scripts were comfortably in tune with the times if not his collaborator’s tastes and, although his assessment of the audience was probably the more correct one, all disagreements with the artist over the strip’s editorial direction were still confined to the office and not the pages themselves.

Thematically, there’s still a large percentage of old-fashioned crime and gangsterism here. The dependence on costumed super-foes as antagonists was still finely balanced with ordinary thugs, hoods and mobsters, but those days were rapidly coming to an end too.

When Ditko abruptly left the series and the company, the dreaded loss in quality and sales never happened. The mere “safe pair of hands” that John Romita (senior) considered himself blossomed into a major talent in his own right, and the Wall-Crawler continued his unstoppable rise at an accelerated pace but that’s a bridge crossed in another volume…

This terrific tome (reprinting Amazing Spider-Man #21-30 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1) kicks off with ‘Where Flies The Beetle’ featuring a hilarious love triangle as the Human Torch’s girlfriend used Peter Parker to make the flaming hero jealous. Unfortunately the Beetle, a villain with a high-tech suit of insect-themed armour, was simultaneously planning to use her as bait for a trap. As ever Spider-Man was simply in the wrong place at the right time, resulting in a spectacular fight-fest.

‘The Clown, and his Masters of Menace’ saw a return engagement for the Circus of Crime with splendidly outré action and a lot of hearty laughs provided by increasingly irreplaceable supporting stars Aunt May, Betty Brant and J. Jonah Jameson whilst #23 presented a superb thriller blending the ordinary criminals that Ditko loved to depict with the arcane threat of a super-villain attempting to take over the Mob. ‘The Goblin and the Gangsters’ was both moody and explosive, a perfect contrast to ‘Spider-Man Goes Mad!’ in #24. This psychological stunner found a clearly delusional hero seeking psychiatric help, but there was more to the matter than simple insanity, as an insidious old foe made an unexpected return…

Issue #25 once again saw the obsessed Daily Bugle publisher take matters into his own hands: ‘Captured by J. Jonah Jameson!’ introduced Professor Smythe – whose robotic Spider-Slayers would bedevil the Web-Spinner for years to come – hired by the bellicose newsman to remove Spider-Man for good.

Issues #27 and 28 comprised a captivating two-part mystery exposing a deadly duel between the Green Goblin and an enigmatic new masked criminal. ‘The Man in the Crime-Master’s Mask!’ and ‘Bring Back my Goblin to Me!’ together form a perfect Spider-Man saga, with soap-opera melodrama and screwball comedy leavening tense thrills and all-out action.

‘The Menace of the Molten Man!’ from #28 was a tale of science gone bad and remains remarkable today not only for the spectacular action sequences – and possibly the most striking Spider-Man cover ever produced – but also as the story in which Peter Parker finally graduated from High School.

‘Never Step on a Scorpion!’ saw the return of that lab-made villain, hungry for vengeance against not just the Web-Spinner but also Jameson for turning a disreputable private eye into a super-powered monster, and the chronological tales here conclude with #30’s off-beat crime-caper which cannily sowed the seeds for future masterpieces. ‘The Claws of the Cat!’ featured the city-wide hunt for an extremely capable burglar (way more exciting than it sounds, trust me!), plus the introduction of an organised mob of thieves working for mysterious new menace the Master Planner.

Out of place but never unwelcome, this volume ends with the timeless landmark and still magnificently thrilling battle against the ‘Sinister Six’ which actually first appeared between Amazing Spider-Man #16 and 17.

When a team of villains comprising Electro, Kraven, Mysterio, Sandman, Vulture and Doctor Octopus abducted Aunt May and Peter Parker’s girlfriend Betty, Spider-Man was forced to confront them without his Spider-powers. A staggeringly enthralling Fights ‘n’ Tights saga, this influential tale also featured cameos (or more likely product placement ads) by every other extant hero of the budding Marvel universe. Also included are special feature pages on ‘The Secrets of Spider-Man!’ and the comedic short ‘How Stan Lee and Steve Ditko Create Spider-Man’ and a gallery of pin-up pages featuring ‘Spider-Man’s Most Famous Foes!’

Full of energy, verve, pathos and laughs, gloriously short of post-modern angst and breast-beating, these fun classics are quintessential comic magic and with the Fantastic Four form the very foundation of everything Marvel became. This sturdy compendium is another unmissable opportunity for readers of all ages to celebrate the magic and myths of the modern heroic ideal in delightfully decadent luxury – and would make an ideal gift.
© 1964, 1965, 1989 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Masterworks Invincible Iron Man volume 2: Tales of Suspense 51-65


By Stan Lee, Don Heck, Jack Kirby & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-0886-3 or 978-0-7851-1771-1

There are a number of ways to interpret the life and moonlighting career of Tony Stark, glamorous millionaire industrialist/inventor and his armoured alter-ego, Iron Man.

Created in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis and at a time when “Red-baiting” and “Commie-bashing” were American national obsessions, the emergence of a brilliant new Thomas Edison, using Yankee ingenuity and invention to safeguard and better the World, seemed inevitable. Combine the then-common belief that technology could solve any problem with the universal imagery of noble knights battling evil and the proposition almost becomes a certainty. Of course it might simply be us kids thought it both great fun and very, very cool…

This glorious full colour deluxe hardback compendium of the Golden Avenger’s early days reprints his further early adventures, with a smattering of feature pages and pin-ups from Tales of Suspense #51 (cover-dated March 19664) through #65 (May 1965), a period when Marvel built steadily and irresistibly on their creative inspiration and began scoring solid commercial successes: a time that would see them start to topple DC Comics from a position of dominance, but before the flashy underdogs became the darlings of the student counter-culture. In these tales Tony Stark is still very much the patriotic armaments manufacturer, and not the enlightened capitalist dissenter he would become.

Behind the first of fifteen fabulous Jack Kirby covers the wonderment begins with TOS #51 and ‘The Sinister Scarecrow’ (by Stan Lee & Don Heck) wherein the Golden Avenger tackled a tricky contortionist who quickly became a major menace after stealing vital weapons plans, after which Soviet femme fatale The Black Widow debuted with a savage partner who almost destroyed Iron Man in a Russian-made armour-suit when ‘The Crimson Dynamo Strikes Again!’ scripted, as was the next issue, by the enigmatic “N. Kurok”.

She was back in #53 when ‘The Black Widow Strikes Again!’ a far deadlier threat on her own after stealing an anti-gravity ray but nevertheless still failed to hit her gleaming target and the oriental mastermind who would become Stark’s greatest enemy returned in Tales of Suspense #54 to exact ‘The Mandarin’s Revenge!’; a two-part tale which concluded in ‘No One Escapes the Mandarin!’

Happily Iron Man did, and after bonus factoid-featurettes ‘All About Iron Man’ and ‘More Info About Iron Man’, plus pinups of devoted friends and confidantes Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts, our hero was attacked by Commie super agent ‘The Uncanny Unicorn!’

The Widow resurfaced to beguile budding superhero ‘Hawkeye, the Marksman!’ into attacking the Golden Avenger in #57, before a true landmark event occurred in the next issue. Iron Man had monopolised Tales of Suspense since his creation but ‘In Mortal Combat with Captain America’ (inked by Dick Ayers) an all-out battle between the two heroes – resulting from a clever impersonation by evil impressionist The Chameleon – hinted at a big change in the title.

The clash was a primer for the next issue when Cap would begin his own solo adventures, splitting the monthly comic into a shared anthology featuring Marvel’s top patriotic heroes.

Iron Man’s outing in TOS #59 was against high-tech bandit ‘The Black Knight!’ as a result of which Stark was unable to remove the armour without triggering a heart attack, a situation which hadn’t occurred since the initial heart injury forced Stark to devise his iron-shod alter-ego. Up until this time he had led a relatively normal life by simply wearing the life-sustaining chest-plate under his clothes but now he was a trapped by his own tech…

The introduction of soap-opera sub-plots were a necessitated by the shorter page counts, as were continued stories, but this seeming disadvantage worked to improve both the writing and the sales.

With Stark’s “disappearance,” Iron Man was ‘Suspected of Murder!’ – a tale which featured the return of Hawkeye and the Black Widow – leading directly into ‘The Death of Tony Stark!’ and after another stunning pin-up, ‘The Origin of the Mandarin!’.

After that extended epic, a change of narrative pace occurred as short, complete exploits returned. The first was #63’s industrial sabotage thriller ‘Somewhere Lurks the Phantom!’, followed by the surely self-explanatory ‘Hawkeye and the New Black Widow Strike Again!’ (inked by Chic Stone and disclosing the sultry spy’s conversion into a wall-crawling super-character), before this gold-plated triumph ends with ‘When Titans Clash!’ (inked by Mike Esposito under the pseudonym Mickey Demeo) as a petty thief steals the new armour and Stark must defeat his greatest invention clad only in his clunky old suit.

Iron Man developed amidst the growing political awareness of the Viet Nam Generation who were the comic’s maturing readership. Wedded as it was to the American Military-Industrial Complex, with a hero – originally the government’s wide-eyed golden boy – gradually becoming attuned to his country’s growing divisions, it was, as much as Spider-Man, a bellwether of the times.

That these tales also remain such a thrilling rollercoaster riot of classic super-hero fun is a lasting tribute to the talents of the superb creators who worked on them and this sturdy invincible tome is absolutely the best way to review these masterpieces of Marvel mettle.
© 1964, 1965, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.