Category: Graphic Novels

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Blue Beetle: Black and Blue


By Matthew Sturges, Will Pfeifer, Mike Norton, David Baldeón, Carlo Barberi & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-85768-016-7

At the height of the Infinite Crisis El Paso teenager Jaime Reyes found a strange bug-shaped blue jewel. That night it attached itself to his spine, transforming him into a bizarre insectoid warrior. He was promptly swept up in the universe-rending chaos, aiding Batman and other heroes in a space battle. He was lost for a year…

Finally returned home, he revealed his secret to his family and tried to do some good in El Paso but had to rapidly adjust to some big changes. His best bud Paco had joined a gang of super-powered freaks, the local crime mastermind was the foster-mom of his other best bud Brenda and a really scary military dude named Peacemaker started hanging around, claiming the thing in Jaime’s back was malfunctioning alien tech not life-affirming Egyptian magic…

The Scarabs were designed to pave the way for a full invasion but fortunately the one attached to Jaime had been damaged over the centuries it was buried here and wasn’t working properly. With a little help from his friends and the newly rebellious gem itself Jaime thwarted the rapacious and infinitely patient invaders of The Reach and continued his unlikely mission as protector of El Paso and superhero in training.

The Hispanic Blue Beetle pluckily battled on as a back-up feature in Booster Gold and as a Teen Titan and this final volume (or perhaps not, since rumours of a Blue Beetle TV show still abound…) collects the previously-uncollected issues #27, 28, 35 and 36 of his own comicbook plus the Booster Gold back-ups from volume 2, issues #21-25 and 28-29 for your undoubted approval, courtesy of writers Matthew Sturges and Will Pfeifer and artist Mike Norton, David Baldeón, Carlo Barberi, Steve Bird, Jacob Eguren, Norm Rapmund & Sandra Hope.   J. Torres & Freddie Williams Jr. and battles one of the DC Universe’s gravest menaces in the startlingly powerful change of pace tale ‘Total Eclipso: the Heart’ by Rogers & Albuquerque.

The wonderment commences with ‘Black Magic Woman’ as Jaime and new girlfriend Traci Thirteen stumble onto an out-of-control supernatural vengeance plot instigated by a trio of slacker teens that looks likely to rip El Paso apart. Good thing then that our hero’s significant other is one of the most powerful witches on Earth…

Following that is a superb little yarn of generational evil, forgiveness and redemption guest-starring original Blue Beetle Dan Garrett which perfectly illustrates how much the kid hero had grown in the monstrous parable of ‘Brutus’, after which the continuity jumps to issue #35 (and if you’re a chronology-fiend here’s where Blue Beetle: Boundaries should go, so if you need to, read that before continuing…).

The solo comicbook concluded in a tense, life-changing two-parter ‘Only Change Endures’ which opened with a horde of the second Blue Beetle’s old foes attacking El Paso only to be soundly thrashed by his youthful successor. During the fray Jaime realised something was severely amiss with his scarab: it was becoming increasingly bloodthirsty and constantly urged him to use deadly force options from its vast weapons array…

At school romance was in the air, but when a battalion of other scarab-powered Blue Beetles calling themselves the “Khaji-Da Revolutionary Army” the situation went from hearts and flowers to def-con four …

Apparently when Jaime defeated the all-conquering alien Reach (Blue Beetle: Reach for the Stars) he inadvertently started a dissident movement amongst the interlinked insectoid warriors. Now they want Jaime to lead them in a bloody war of liberation across the galaxies and although the human was appalled by the thought his rebellious scarab was overwhelmingly in favour…

Of course it all ends in a devastating blockbuster battle, but before Jaime can regain control of his symbiotic scarab one of his closest friends pays the ultimate price and life just isn’t so much fun anymore…

After a brief sojourn in funnybook limbo Blue Beetle returned as a supporting strip in Booster Gold and those tales follow here, starting with a reintroduction and recap in ‘The Golden Child’ – part one of the thee-chapter ‘Armour-Plated’ wherein Jaime tackled a succession of robots with daddy-issues, resulting in excessive carnage and destruction in ‘Silver Spoon’ before ‘Thoroughly Modern Maria’ ended the drama on a cliffhanger when future villain Black Beetle turned up to instigate a centuries-long vendetta in the two-part ‘Black and Blue’ by attempting to murder the entire Reyes family…

The saga reached a climactic conclusion when old tutor Peacemaker helped heal the madly malfunctioning scarab in ‘The Beginning of the End’ after which a mission to the ancient Reach pyramid set everything to rights (for the moment at least) in the spectacular ‘The End of the End’.

Although long-gone as a comicbook series the latest incarnation of the undying Blue Beetle brand still survives and thrives in trade paperback collections where you can – and must – experience the frantic, fun, thrill-packed and startlingly moving exploits of a truly ordinary teenager catapulted into the terrifying world of high-level super-heroics.

Hopefully with the TV series apparently completed and awaiting scheduling, a new comicbook series can’t be too far away, so what better time can there be to finally tune in and catch up with all of these addictive super-teen triumphs?

© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Jack of Fables volume 4: Americana


By Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges, Russ Braun, Tony Akins, Andrew Pepoy, & Steve Leialoha (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-050-5

Just so you know, Fables are fairytale, storybook and mythical beings hidden on our mundane Earth since their various magical realms fell to a sinister monstrous Adversary. Arriving hundreds of years ago (and still coming) the fantastic refugees hid their true natures from humanity and built isolated enclaves where their immortality and utter strangeness could not endanger the life of uneasy luxury they buried themselves within. Many of these elusive eternals wander the human world, but always under strict and draconian mandate to never get noticed.

In Fables: Homelands the utterly self-absorbed and absolutely amoral Jack of the Tales (basis for such legends as Beanstalk, Giant-killer, Frost, Be Nimble and many more) broke all the rules – because that’s his nature – by stealing Fabletown cash and moving to Hollywood. Once there he set up as a movie producer, created the most popular fantasy film triptych of all time.

A key tenet of the series is that the more “mundies” (that’s mortals like you and me) think about a fable character, the stronger that actual character becomes. Books, TV, songs, all feed their vitality. So when the movies based on Jack’s life ultra-charged him they also brought him much unwelcome attention. The avaricious rat-bag coined vast amounts of filthy lucre in the process, but it all led the Fabletown authorities straight to him.

In Jack of Fables: The (Nearly) Great Escape our irreverent faux-hero was brought to task by the Fables Police, exiled from Hollywood and ordered to disappear, with only a suitcase full of cash to tide him over. He was also banished from all Fable properties and domains. Alone and unprotected he was soon captured by The Golden Bough, a clandestine organisation that had been hunting Fables for centuries.

Jack escaped during a mass break-out of forgotten, adulterated and abridged Fables, all fleeing from a particularly horrific fate – metaphysical and contextual neutering.

He is presently on the run from those selfsame forces (in the distractingly vivacious shape of the Page Sisters, dedicated hunters of everything Fable-ulous) and constantly seeking to restore his cash-flow as this fourth volume – collecting issues #17-21 of the monthly Vertigo comic – commences with first chapter of the eponymous ‘Americana’ as Jack reviews his simple life goals – to be the richest, most powerful and best-looking Fable in the universe – and have lots of really hot sex…

‘On Eggshells’ opens with Jack, Gary, the Pathetic Fallacy and cynical sidekick Native American Raven hiding out in a cheap motel as Hillary Page, with diminished giant Paul Bunyan and Babe (a blue ox with a remarkable imagination), zeroes in on the fugitives.

Things pick up however when Jack reassembles the shell-shocked Humpty Dumpty who has the location of a monolithic treasure drawn on fractured exterior. Such a shame a few fragments are missing, or the daring band of brothers could go directly to the mythic Fable-realm of Americana and plunder the Lost City of Cibola…

As it is, the treasure-seekers have to hop a freight-train in time-honoured legendary manner, but ghostly iron horses are few and far between, so it’s no real surprise that they catch the same one as Hillary and Company…

‘Mind the Zombies’ follows the uneasy allies’ circuitous route via steamboat to the perfectly average, undead-infested picture-perfect little town of Idyll where they meet the utterly sinister Librarian of Americana. His name is Burner, but he considers it more of a job-description…

Narrowly escaping with their legendary, literary lives Jack, Hillary and the rest resume their peripatetic journey to Cibola, unaware that Burner has set the indefatigable Leatherstocking Nathaniel “Natty” Bumppo (that’s Hawkeye to you folks) on their rapidly scampering tails…

‘On the Road’ details the inevitable clash with literature’s greatest tracker and subsequent narrow escape into more trouble amidst the Ganglands of hard-boiled crime fiction. From their it’s an epic trek to the Great White North, mythical New York City and Broadway, Witch-haunted Puritan New England, the Antebellum South and the “Injun” infested Wild West, before finally reaching their ultimate goal in ‘Goldrush’ wherein Jack achieves all his ambitions, fiscal and carnal…

It’s not long before the boom is once more lowered on the obnoxious sap and Americana concludes on a chilling cliffhanger as the Bookburner vacates the United States of Fiction, intending to eradicate all the Fables still interned at the Golden Bough…

However there’s yet one more treat for fans as the metaphysical, engagingly peculiar and trouble-attracting Pathetic Fallacy takes centre-stage for ‘Gary Does Denmark’ wherein the affable, nigh-omnipotent sad-sack recounts his history with Shakespeare’s greatest work, ably hampered by our regular cast and with Jack’s evil prototype Wicked John standing in for the named star of our show…

Written by Bill Willingham & Matthew Sturges, illustrated by Russ Braun, Tony Akins, Andrew Pepoy & Steve Leialoha this tome sees the series develop into a uniquely whimsical and absurdist meta-fictional delight that no fan of reading, high art or low comedy can afford to miss…

This imaginative and breathtakingly bold rollercoaster ride of flamboyant fantasy and snappy street-smarts is a supremely saucy, self-referential, darkly, funny fairytale for adults concocted with much more sly cynical humour and sex than your average funnybook – so po-faced moralistas and societal stickybeaks be warned!

Every enchanting volume should be compulsory reading for jaded imagineers everywhere – and in some as yet unreachable realm they actually are…

© 2007, 2008 Bill Willingham and DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Warlock 5 the Graphic Album


By Gordon Derry & Denis Beauvais (Aircel)
ISBN: 0-921052-08-1

The late 1980s were a fertile time for American comics-creators. It was as if an entire new industry had been born with the proliferation of the Direct Sales market and dedicated specialist retail outlets; new companies were experimenting with format and content, and punters even had a bit of spare cash to play with.

Moreover much of the “kid’s stuff” stigma had finally abated and the country was catching up to the rest of the world in acknowledging that sequential narrative might just be a for-real actual art-form…

Consequently many young start-up companies began competing for the attention and cash of punters who had grown accustomed – or resigned – to getting their on-going picture stories from DC, Marvel, Archie and/or Harvey Comics. European and Japanese material had been creeping in and by 1983 a host of young companies such as WaRP Graphics, Pacific, Eclipse, Capital, Now, Comico, Dark Horse, First and many others had established themselves and were making impressive inroads.

New talent, established stars and fresh ideas all found a thriving forum to try something a little different both in terms of content and format. Even smaller companies had a fair shot at the big time and a lot of great material came – and too often, quickly went – without getting the attention or success it warranted.

One of the most critically acclaimed and just plain fun features came from Canadian outfit Aircel Publishing, founded by prolific all-rounder Barry Blair. Aircel began publishing at the start of the black and white comics bubble of 1985-1986 with strong, impressively airbrush-toned monochrome fantasy/adventure titles such as Samurai, Elflord, Adventurers and Dragonring; swiftly becoming one of the movement’s major players and most prodigious publishers.

After weathering the worst of the industry’s vicissitudes Aircel merged with Malibu/Eternity Comics in 1988 before the entire agglomeration was purchased by Marvel in 1994.

This original iteration of Warlock 5 (a rebooted second volume version came later, written by Blair himself) debuted in 1987 and instantly caught the comic-buying public’s attention, due in large part to its manic narrative style, luscious art and glorious blend of contemporary cultural tropes, fads and icons, happily poaching striking imagery from Cyberpunk, popular movies, rock and punk music scenes and role-playing gaming.

Conceived and crafted by Gordon Derry and Denis Beauvais the series posited a universe of multiple worlds in a splintered reality, each divergent slice shepherded by a supreme mystic being dubbed “warlock”.

This collection reprints the first five issues of the initial run (with selected text and background features from #6) and details the escalating conflict between a handful of warlocks competing, colluding and double-dealing their way to sole dominion of the world.

In eons past the universe fractured into disparate realities and time-lines, cosmically overlaying and overlapping each other in a fantastic web of being referred to as The Grid. Each of these varied Realities converge in a present-moment under a certain North American city on Our Earth and the ongoing situation has resulted in a highly volatile multiverse with new Realities born or destroyed every moment.

Each reality has a Gate to the convergence with a warlock guardian and, since the Cosmos is constantly seeking to realign and balance itself, these gatekeepers are constantly battling each other. In the end when Reality finally corrects itself… there can be only one Warlock.

Starting explosively and getting faster and more frenetic, the saga opens with malign medieval magician Doomidor assembling his knights to attack his rivals at their latest parlay in a vast subterranean car-park; just as Terminator inspired robot Argon does the same…

When White Witch Tanith and man-dragon Savashtar (a serpentine mage from the far future) try to mediate the clash they and their armies are also sucked into the battle. When punkette, zombie-slut-queen Zania arrives she resolves the dispute by attacking everybody indiscriminately…

As the madness escalates the wildly warring warlocks tear a hole in the Grid itself allowing the dead of all realities to begin pouring in to our world…

…And that’s just issue #1. The drama recommences in issue #2 with the mutually inimical and hostile forces compelled to grudgingly work together and rectify the situation, but even under such conditions they cannot act honestly and shifting alliances begin to tear the crisis-management team apart even before they can start…

Moreover even the Warlocks’ trusted familiars and servants are looking to betray their masters and as events unfold, intriguing peeks into the back-stories of the protagonists only reveal deeper darknesses and more exploitable chinks in their mystic armours…

Raw, frantic, hyper-violent, explosively imaginative and beautifully compelling, Warlock 5 is a fabulous forgotten treasure from a wild and crazy time, long overdue for a comprehensive review and reappraisal.
© 1987, 1988 Gordon Derry and Denis Beauvais. All rights reserved.

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JLA vol. 13: Rules Of Engagement


By Joe Kelly, Rick Veitch, Darryl Banks, Doug Mankhe, Duncan Rouleau & various (DC Comics)
ISBN 978-1-84023-923-5

When the Justice League of America, driving force and cornerstone of the Silver Age of Comics, were relaunched in 1997 (see JLA: New World Order) the sheer bravura quality of the stories propelled the series back to the forefront of industry attention, making as many new fans as it recaptured old ones; but the intoxicating sheen of “fresh and new” never lasts and by the time of these tales there had been numerous changes of creative personnel – usually a bad sign…

However Joe Kelly’s tenure proved to be a marvellous blend of steadying hands and iconoclastic antics through which the JLA happily continued their tricky task of keeping excitement levels stoked for a fan-base cursed with a criminally short attention span.

Kelly’s run on the series has some notable highs (and lows) and this portmanteau collection (gathering issues #77-82 of the monthly comicbook) happily falls into the former category as the team readjusted to modern life after the time-lost traumas of the Obsidian Age (see JLA:The Obsidian Age).

However the adventure actually kicks off with an impressive, clever and fast-paced fill-in tale from Rick Veitch, Darryl Banks & Wayne Faucher wherein the team – Batman, Superman, Atom, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern John Stewart and Firestorm – are attacked by a civilisation-crushing cosmic wanderer which achieves its goals by invading brains and stealing knowledge in ‘Stardust Memories’…

That threat successfully circumvented, the World’s Greatest Superheroes learn of an interplanetary conflict that looks likely to divide the team forever in the eponymous two-parter ‘Rules of Engagement’ by Kelly, Doug Mankhe and Tom Nguyen. With half the team travelling, uninvited, many light-years to stop a war, the remainder of the JLA stay to police Earth, giving the opportunity to add some long-missed sub-plots to the usually straightforward storytelling; specifically some unpleasant hints into new member Faith’s clouded past, a long-deferred romantic dinner for Bruce Wayne and Amazonian Princess Diana and the beginnings of a very hot time for the Martian Manhunter with fiery potential paramour Scorch…

On the distant world of Kylaq, Leaguers Superman, Wonder Woman, Major Disaster, Manitou Raven, John Stewart and Faith act unilaterally to prevent the invasion of the Peacemaker Collective but are keenly aware that once they succeed they leave the rescued world to the mercies of its own highly suspect government… especially Defense Minister Kanjar Ro, intergalactic slave-trader and one of their oldest, most despotic foes…

The last half of the book fills in some of Faith’s background as the reunited team are called to an Oregon cult compound where a new Messiah has created Safe Haven: a separatist enclave for metahuman children. Unfortunately, the Federal Authorities are not prepared to leave them alone and the resultant clash of ideologies leaves a thousand dead children on the crippled consciences of the devastated superheroes…

Yet something isn’t right: why does each JLA-er believe that they alone are responsible for the massacre? Moreover, what is the actual goal of master manipulator Manson and how does neo-Nazi team Axis America fit into the scheme?

This thrilling, action-packed three-part mystery saga comes courtesy of Kelly, Duncan Rouleau & Aaron Sowd and satisfyingly closes this fast and furious selection of witty, engaging, beautiful and incredibly exciting yarns: some of the best modern superhero adventures ever created and a reading treat well worth your time and attention.

© 2003, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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JSA vs. Kobra


By Eric S. Trautmann, Don Kramer & Michael Babinski, with Neil Edwards (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-955-3
After the actual invention of the comicbook superhero – for which read the launch of Superman in 1938 – the most significant event in the genre, and indeed industry’s, progress was the combination of individual attention-getters into a group. Thus what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven – a number of popular characters could multiply readership by combining forces and readerships. Plus of course, a whole bunch of superheroes is a lot cooler than just one – or even one and a sidekick.

The Justice Society of America was created in the third issue (Winter 1940/1941) of All-Star Comics, an anthology title featuring established characters from various All-American Comics publications. The magic was instigated by the simple expedient of having the assorted heroes gather around a table and tell each other their latest adventure. From this low key collaboration it wasn’t long before the guys – and they were all guys (except Red Tornado who merely pretended to be one) – regularly joined forces to defeat the greatest villains – and social ills of their generation. Within months the concept had spread far and wide…

And so the Justice Society of America is rightly revered as a true landmark in the development of comicbooks and, when Julius Schwartz revived the superhero genre in the late 1950s, the game-changing moment came with the inevitable teaming of the reconfigured mystery men into a Justice League of America.

From there it wasn’t long until the original and genuine article returned. Since then there have been many attempts to formally revive the team’s fortunes but it wasn’t until 1999, on the back of both the highly successful rebooting of the JLA by Grant Morrison & Howard Porter and the seminal but critically favoured new Starman by Golden Age devotee James Robinson, that the multi-generational team found a concept and fan-base big enough to support them. In 1999 the original super-team returned and have been with us in one form or another ever since.

Kobra originated in February 1976 in his own short-lived title, during a period of desperate experimentation whilst super-hero tales were plummeting and the industry feared its inevitable extinction. Credited to Martin Pasko, Steve Sherman, Jack Kirby and Pablo Marcos, the saga is a radical updating of Alexandre Dumas’ seminal 1844 novel Les Frères Corses – “The Corsican Brothers”.

When conjoined twins Jeffrey and Jason Burr were surgically separated soon after birth, Jeffrey was abducted by disciples of the Cult of Kobra and raised to be their Dark Messiah: a deadly warrior, scientist and strategist dedicated to bringing about the end of civilisation and initiating a cleansing “Age of Chaos”. The peculiar circumstances of their birth meant that Jeffrey and his brother Jason maintained an uncanny connection wherein one would experience the hurts and harms inflicted upon the other, leading Jason to become the ultimate weapon in the war waged by numerous DC heroes against his serpentine terrorist sibling over the years.

Eventually Jason was safely murdered by Kobra, but later resurrected as an even greater evil, assuming his brother’s position as head of the World’s most dangerous death-cult. The new Kobra is an utterly dedicated fanatic who married the cult’s technological resources to hideous, sacrificial blood-magic and preferred faith-driven disciples to the disaffected proto-thugs employed by his predecessor (for further details see Checkmate: Pawn Breaks)…

The JSA battled the first Kobra many times (most notably in JSA: Darkness Falls and JSA: Savage Times) but were utterly unprepared for the sheer horrors in store when they swung into action against the inheritor of the Snake cult…

This terse, tense collection re-presents the six-issue JSA vs. Kobra ‘Engines of Faith’ miniseries and, informed by the real-world terrorism of fundamentalist factions around the globe, finally elevates Kobra to the first rank of villains as the deadly herald of the World’s End plays a lethal game of cat-and-mouse with the Planet’s Smartest Man and some of the most experienced heroes of all time…

The Serpent Lord begins his campaign of terror in ‘Bad Religion’ by dispatching suicide bombers to destroy the Justice Society in their own home; confronting logic and superpowers with pure faith and high-tech explosives. Caught off-guard by foes actually happy to die if they can strike a blow against their master’s enemies, the JSA are further wrong-footed by seemingly random attacks against civilians and institutions, all orchestrated by field commander and fanatical bride of death Ariadne Persakis.

The sheer scale of the bloodletting and illogical nature of the attacks soon have the heroes fighting amongst themselves as they strive to find some rhyme or reason behind the murderous assaults… so why then does Persakis surrender herself to their custody?

‘Strange Days’ finds the team seething but still unable to fathom the terrorist’s game plan until Ariadne breaks free of Checkmate custody. Apparently the covert international spy-force has been hopelessly infiltrated and compromised. The senseless death-toll mounts exponentially and as, the team narrowly thwart an assault on a giant particle accelerator that could split the Earth in two, masked genius Mr. Terrific begins to discern a pattern to the random madness in ‘Misdirection’…

The brutal attacks intensify and, although it appears the heroes are slowly gaining the upper hand, Terrific perceives the hidden agenda behind the unceasing ghastly blows against decency and civilisation. ‘Lightning in a Bottle’ finds Kobra making his ultimate move and apparently failing, leading to a gathering of champions ‘Beating the Grass’ and taking the war to the relentless foe, but even after the stunning climax of ‘Shedding Skin’ the weary heroes cannot be sure if they have won the day or somehow lost the war entirely…

This is a stunning piece of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction: dark, dramatic and intensely compelling. Writer Eric S. Trautmann has melded shiny super-heroics, grim realpolitik and genuine cultural zeitgeists into a splendidly mature costumed drama and the effective underplayed art of Don Kramer, Neil Edwards and inker Michael Babinski is chillingly effective at capturing the tone as well as the events.

If you’ve grown beyond gaudy mystery men and “goodies” against “baddies” this graphic novel is more than likely to make you think again…

© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents DC Comics Presents Superman Team-Ups volume 1


By Martin Pasko, Paul Levitz, Denny O’Neil, José Luis García-López, Dick Dillin, Joe Staton & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-471-8

From the moment a kid first sees his second superhero the only thing he/she wants is to see how the new gaudy gladiator stacks up against the first. From the earliest days of the funnybook industry (and according to DC Comics Presents editor Julie Schwartz it was the same with the pulps and dime novels that preceded it) we’ve wanted our idols to meet, associate, battle together – and if you follow the Timely/Marvel model, that means against each other – far more than we want to see them trounce their archenemies together…

The concept of team-up books – an established star pairing or battling (usually both) with less well-selling company characters – was far from new when DC awarded their then biggest gun (it was the publicity drenched weeks before the release of Superman: the Movie, and Tim Burton’s Batman was over a decade away) a regular arena to have adventures with other stars of their firmament, just as Batman had been doing since the middle of the 1960s in the Brave and the Bold.

In truth the Man of Steel had already enjoyed the sharing experience once before when World’s Finest Comics briefly ejected the Caped Crusader and Superman battled beside a coterie of heroes including Flash, Robin, Teen Titans, Dr. Fate and others (issues #198-214 November 1970 to October/November 1972) before the immortal status quo was re-established.

This superbly economical monochrome collection re-presents the first twenty-six issues of the star-studded monthly and opens the show with a two-part thriller featuring Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash who had also been Superman’s first co-star in the aforementioned World’s Finest Comics run.

‘Chase to the End of Time!’ and ‘Race to the End of Time!’ debuted in DC Comics Presents #1-2, (July-August and September-October 1978) as scripter Marty Pasko and the utterly astounding José Luis García-López (inked by Dan Adkins) rather reprised the World’s Finest tale as warring alien races tricked Superman and Flash into speeding through the time-stream to prevent Earth’s history from being corrupted and destroyed. As if that wasn’t dangerous enough, nobody could predict the deadly intervention of the Scarlet Speedster’s most dangerous foe, Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash…

David Michelinie wrote a tantalising pastiche of classic Adam Strange Mysteries in Space for García-López to draw and ink in ‘The Riddle of Little Earth Lost’ wherein the Man of Two Worlds and Man of Steel foiled the cosmic scheme of a deranged genius to transpose, subjugate and/or destroy Earth and light-years distant planet Rann, and Len Wein scripted the superb ‘Sun-Stroke!’ wherein the Action Ace and the madly-malleable Metal Men joined forces to thwart solar-fuelled genius I.Q. and elemental menace Chemo as a ill-considered plan to enhance solar radiation provoked a catastrophic solar-flare.

Sea King Aquaman became embroiled in ‘The War of the Undersea Cities’ (by Wein, Paul Levitz & Murphy Anderson) when his subjects opened hostilities with the mer-folk of Tritonis, home of Superman’s old college girlfriend Lori Lemaris. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed when the deadly Ocean Master was revealed to be meddling in their sub-sea politics, after which ‘The Fantastic Fall of Green Lantern’ (Levitz, Curt Swan & Francisco Chiaramonte) saw the Man of Steel inherit the awesome power ring after Hal Jordan fell in battle with Star Sapphire.

Although triumphant against his female foe, Superman was ambushed by anti-matter warriors from Qward leading to ‘The Paralyzed Planet Peril!’ (#7, Levitz, Dick Dillin & Chiaramonte) wherein those aliens attempted to colonise Earth until the Red Tornado swept in to the rescue.

‘The Sixty Deaths of Solomon Grundy’ by Steve Englehart & Murphy Anderson featured Swamp Thing (at a time when the bog-beast still believed he was a transformed human and not an enhanced plant) searching the sewers of Metropolis for a cure to his condition, only to stumble onto a battle between the Man of Steel and the mystic zombie who was “born on a Monday”…

Marty Pasko returned to script the Joe Staton & Jack Abel illustrated ‘Invasion of the Ice People!’ wherein Wonder Woman assisted in repelling an attack by malign disembodied intellects before another two-part tale began with ‘The Miracle Man of Easy Company’ (Cary Bates, Staton & Abel) as a super-bomb blasted Superman back to World War II and a meeting with Sgt. Rock, before returning home to battle a brainwashed and power-amplified Hawkman in ‘Murder by Starlight!’ (by Bates, Staton & Chiaramonte).

DCCP #12 featured a duel between the Action Ace and New God Mister Miracle in ‘Winner Take Metropolis’ by Englehart, Richard Buckler & Dick Giordano before Levitz returned to script an ambitious continued epic which began with ‘To Live in Peace… Nevermore!’ (art from Dillin & Giordano), wherein the Legion of Super-Heroes prevented Superman saving a little boy from alien abduction to preserve the integrity of the time-line. It didn’t help that the lad was Jon Ross, son of Clark Kent’s oldest friend…

Driven mad by loss Pete Ross risked the destruction of reality itself by enlisting the aid of Superboy to battle his older self in ‘Judge, Jury… and No Justice!’ (Levitz, Dillin & Giordano) after which the Man of Steel helped scientist-hero Ray Palmer regain his size-changing powers in ‘The Plight of the Giant Atom!’ by Bates, Staton & Chiaramonte.

Issue #16 found Superman and Black Lightning battling a heartsick alien trapped on Earth in ‘The De-volver!’ (Denny O’Neil, Staton & Chiaramonte) after which Gerry Conway, García-López & Steve Mitchell heralded the return of Firestorm in ‘The Ice Slaves of Killer Frost!’, a bombastic, saves-the-day epic which brought the Nuclear Man back into the active DC pantheon after a long hiatus.

Zatanna co-starred in the Conway, Dillin & Chiaramonte rollercoaster ride ‘The Night it Rained Magic!’, Batgirl helped solve the eerie mystery ‘Who Haunts This House?’ (O’Neil, Staton & Chiaramonte) and Green Arrow excelled in the gripping, big-business-busting eco-thriller ‘Inferno From the Sky!’ by O’Neil, García-López & Joe Giella.

DCCP #21 found the eclectic detective Elongated Man as patient zero in ‘The Alien Epidemic’, a tense medical mystery by Conway, Staton & Chiaramonte, and Mike W. Barr wrote an effective science fiction doom-tale co-starring Captain Comet as the future-man endured ‘The Plight of the Human Comet!’ (art by Dillin & Frank McLaughlin).

‘The Curse Out of Time!’ (#23, O’Neil, Staton & Vince Colletta) affected two separate Earths, compelling Superman and Doctor Fate to defeat imps and ghosts before normality could be restored. The supernatural theme continued in the magnificent team-up with Deadman in #24 wherein Wein & García-López revealed the tragic and chilling story of ‘The Man Who Was the World!’

The long unresolved fate of Jon Ross was happily concluded in the cunning and redemptive ‘Judgement Night’ with the enigmatic Phantom Stranger overcoming an insoluble, intolerable situation with Superman, courtesy of Levitz, Dillin & McLaughlin.

This stellar collection concludes with a spectacular return engagement for Green Lantern as Emerald Crusader and Man of Tomorrow battled each other and a trans-dimensional shape-shifter in ‘Between Friend and Foe!’ plotted and pencilled by Jim Starlin, scripted by Marv Wolfman and inked by Steve Mitchell.

These short, pithy adventures act as perfect shop window for DC’s fascinating catalogue of characters and creators; delivering a breadth and variety of self-contained, exciting and satisfying entertainments ranging from the merely excellent all the way to utterly unmissable. This book is the perfect introduction to the DC Universe for every kid of any age and a delightful slice of the ideal Costumed Dramas of a simpler more inviting time…

© 1978, 1979, 1980, 2009 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Valerian and Laureline book 1: The City of Shifting Waters


By J.-C. Méziéres & P. Christin, with colours by E. Tranlé and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-038-2

Valérian is possibly the most influential science fiction series ever drawn – and yes, I am including both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in that expansive and undoubtedly contentious statement. Although to a large extent those venerable newspaper strips formed the medium itself, anybody who has seen a Star Wars movie has seen some of Jean-Claude Méziéres & Pierre Christin’s brilliant imaginings which the filmic phenomenon has shamelessly plundered for decades: everything from the look of the Millennium Falcon to Leia’s Slave Girl outfit…

Simply put, more carbon-based lifeforms have experienced and marvelled at the uniquely innovative, grungy, lived-in tech realism and light-hearted swashbuckling rollercoasting of Méziéres & Christin than any other cartoon spacer ever imagined possible.

Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent launched in the November 9th, 1967 edition of Pilote (#420, running until February 15th 1968) and was an instant hit. The graphic novel under discussion here ‘The City of Shifting Waters’ is actually the second chronological yarn.

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

Other notable successes of the era include Greg & Eddy Paape’s Luc Orient and Philippe Druillet’s Lone Sloane and, which all with Valérian‘s hot public reception led to the creation of dedicated fantasy masterpiece Métal Hurlant in 1977.

Valérian and Laureline (as the series eventually became) is a light-hearted, wildly imaginative time-travel adventure-romp (a bit like Dr. Who, but not really at all…), drenched in wry, satirical, humanist and political commentary, starring (at first) an affable, capable, unimaginative and by-the-book cop tasked with protecting the universal time-lines and counteracting paradoxes caused by casual time-travellers.

When Valérian travelled to 11th century France in the first tale ‘Les Mauvais Rêves (‘Bad Dreams’) he was rescued from a tricky situation by a fiery, capable young woman named Laureline and he brought her back with him to the 28th super-citadel and administrative wonderland of Galaxity, capital of the Terran Empire. The indomitable girl trained as a Spatio-Temporal operative and by the time of this book was accompanying him on his missions throughout time and space.

Every subsequent Valérian adventure until the 13th was first serialised weekly in Pilote until the conclusion of ‘The Rage of Hypsis’ (January 1st – September 1st 1985) after which the mind-bending sagas were published as all new complete graphic novels, until the magnificent opus concluded in 2010.

(One clarifying note: in the canon “Hypsis” is counted as the twelfth tale, due to the collected albums being numbered from ‘The City of Shifting Waters’ – the second story but the first to be released in collected book form. When ‘Bad Dreams’ was finally released in a collected edition in 1983 it was given the number #0.)

The City of Shifting Waters was originally published in two tranches; ‘La Cité des Eaux Mouvantes’ (#455 25th July to 468, 24th October 1968) and ‘Terre en Flammes’ (‘Earth in Flames’, #492-505, 10th April to 10th July 1969), and opens here with the odd couple dispatched to 1986 – when civilisation on earth was destroyed due to ecological negligence and political chicanery – to recapture Xombul, a madman determined to undermine Galaxity and establish himself as Dictator of the Universe.

To attain his goal the renegade has travelled to New York after a nuclear accident has melted the ice caps and flooded the metropolis (and everywhere else), seeking hidden scientific secrets that would allow him to conquer the devastated planet and prevent the Terran Empire from ever forming…

Plunged back into an apocalyptic nightmare where Broadway and Wall Street are under water, jungle vines connect the deserted skyscrapers, Tsunamis are an hourly hazard and bold looters are snatching up the last golden treasures of a lost civilisation, the S-T agents find unique allies to preserve the proper past, survive even greater catastrophes such as the volcanic eruption of Yellowstone Park and frustrate the plans of the most ambitious mass killer in all of history…

Visually spectacular, mind-bogglingly ingenious and steeped in delightful in-jokes (the utterly-mad-yet-brilliant boffin who helps them is a hilarious dead ringer for Jerry Lewis in the 1963 film “The Nutty Professor”) this is still a timelessly perfect Science Fiction masterpiece every fan of the genre – in whatever medium – would be crazy to miss…
© Dargaud Paris, 1976 Christin, Méziéres & Tran-Lệ. All rights reserved. English translation © 2010 Cinebook Ltd.

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Essential Avengers volume 4


By Roy Thomas, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Tom Palmer, Neal Adams, Barry Smith & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1485-7

The Avengers always proved that putting all one’s star eggs in on single basket paid off big-time; even when all Marvel’s all-stars such as Thor, Captain America and Iron Man were absent, it merely allowed the lesser lights of the team to shine more brightly.

Of course all the founding stars regularly featured due to the rotating, open door policy which meant that most issues included somebody’s fave-rave and the increasingly bold and impressive stories and artwork were no hindrance either.

This monolithic and monumental phonebook-sized fourth tome, collecting the absolute best of the Mighty Avengers‘ world-saving exploits (presenting in crisp, stylish black and white the astounding contents of issues #69-97 of their monthly comic book and the crossover Incredible Hulk #140), confirmed Roy Thomas as a major creative force in comics and consolidated John Buscema’s status as the foremost artist of Marvel’s second age.

These compelling yarns certainly enhanced the reputations of JB’s brother Sal and increased the high profile of the iconoclastic Neal Adams, whose brief stint here, on the X-Men and in a few other select places, set the industry ablaze and spawned a generation of avid artistic imitators…

Opening this epochal tome is ‘Let the Game Begin’ from Avengers #69, by writer Thomas (who wrote all the stories contained here) and illustrated by Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger, wherein the team – Captain America, Yellowjacket, Wasp, Goliath, Iron Man, Vision and Thor – were called to the hospital bedside of ailing Tony Stark just in time to prevent his abduction by the grotesque Growing Man. After battling boldly against the unbeatable homunculus the team were summarily and collectively snatched into the future by old enemy Kang the Conqueror who co-opted the team to act as pieces in a cosmic chess-game with an omnipotent alien called the Grandmaster.

If the Avengers failed the Earth would be eradicated…

Issue #70 and 71 began a fertile period for writer Thomas as he introduced two new teams who would, in the fullness of time, star in their own stellar series: Squadron Supreme and The Invaders.

‘When Strikes the Squadron Sinister!’ saw the Avengers returned to their own time to battle a team of deadly villains (mischievously based on DC’s Justice League of America) and ‘Endgame!’, guest-starring the Black Knight, found the Vision, Black Panther and Yellowjacket dispatched to 1941 to clash with the WWII incarnations of the Sub-Mariner, Human Torch and Captain America…

After foiling Kang’s ambitions the team victoriously returned to the present where Avengers # 72 featured a guest-appearance from Captain Marvel and Rick Jones as ‘Did You Hear the One About Scorpio?’ introduced the menace of super-mob Zodiac, after which ‘The Sting of the Serpent’ (with art by Frank Giacoia & Grainger) pitted the Panther against seditious hate-mongers determined to set New York ablaze, leading to a spectacular and shocking clash between Avengers and Sons of the Serpent in ‘Pursue the Panther!’; the first in a string of glorious issues illustrated by the dream team of John Buscema & Tom Palmer.

The long-missing mutant Avengers Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch returned in #75, desperate to stave off an extra-dimensional invasion and nuclear Armageddon by Conan prototype Arkon the Magnificent in ‘The Warlord and the Witch!’ before the staggering threat was finally thwarted in ‘The Blaze of Battle… the Flames of Love!’ after which a far more mundane and insidious menace manifested when billionaire financier Cornelius Van Lunt almost bankrupted Avengers sponsor Tony Stark, compelling the team to become his ‘Heroes for Hire!’

Sal Buscema popped in to pencil ‘The Man-Ape Always Strikes Twice!’ as the team were targeted by a coterie of vengeful villains competing to join a new league of evil, culminating in a grand clash with the aforementioned anthropoid, Swordsman, Power Man, Living Laser and Grim Reaper in ‘Lo! The Lethal Legion!’, which also heralded the artistic return of Big Brother John.

Marvel introduced its first Native American costumed hero in ‘The Coming of Red Wolf!’ as the Avengers were drawn into a highly personal and decidedly brutal clash between Cornelius Van Lunt and a tribe of Indians he was defrauding. The dramatic dilemma (heralding the team’s entry into the era of “Relevant”, socially conscious tales) divided the team and concluded with Vision, Scarlet Witch and Goliath aiding Red Wolf in ‘When Dies A Legend!’, whilst the remaining team pursued Zodiac.

Sadly the malevolent mob moved first and took the entire island of Manhattan ‘Hostage!’, leaving only the solitary vigilante Daredevil free to save the day, after which Militant Feminism raised its strident head as the Wasp, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch and Madame Medusa were seduced into joining a new team called the Lady Liberators (yes, I know, but the all-male creative team meant well…). However, the Valkyrie who declared ‘Come on in… the Revolution’s Fine!’ had her own sinister agenda that had nothing to do with justice or equality…

Avengers #84 featured part-time paladin Black Knight who was becoming addicted to the bloodthirsty hunger of his Ebony Blade, resulting in an otherworldly confrontation with Arkon and the Enchantress in ‘The Sword and the Sorceress!’ which left half the team lost on a parallel world.

In ‘The World is Not For Burning!’ (inked by Giacoia), Vision, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver found themselves trapped on an Earth where the Squadron Supreme were the World’s Greatest heroes and a solar Armageddon was only hours away…

‘Brain-Child to the Dark Tower Came…!’ (art by Sal B & Jim Mooney) saw the extremely reluctant allies unite to save a very different world after which, back home, the Black Panther reprised his origin before taking leave of his comrades to assume the throne of his hidden African nation in ‘Look Homeward, Avenger’ (Giacoia & Sal B).

Novelist Harlan Ellison was a very vocal comics fan in the 1970s and occasionally collaborated on Marvel tales. Avengers #88 began a radical adaptation of one his best short stories, beginning with ‘The Summons of Psyklop’ (Ellison, Thomas, Sal Buscema & Mooney) wherein an experiment to cure the Hulk of his destructive nature led to the man-beast’s abduction by a preternatural entity. The saga concluded in The Incredible Hulk #140 (Ellison, Thomas, Herb Trimpe & Grainger) as ‘The Brute… That Shouted Love at the Heart of the Atom!’ saw the Jade Goliath find love and peace in a sub-molecular paradise, only to lose it all…

Avengers #89 began perhaps the most ambitious saga in Marvel’s brief history: an astounding epic of tremendous scope which dumped Earth into a cosmic war the likes of which comics fans had never before seen and creating the template for all multi-part crossovers and publishing events ever since.

It all began relatively quietly as marooned Kree warrior Captain Marvel was finally freed from his prison in the Negative Zone in ‘The Only Good Alien…’ (art by Sal Buscema and Sam Grainger), inadvertently alerting the public to the panic-striking notion that extraterrestrials lurk among us, whilst awakening a long-dormant robotic Kree Sentry which promptly enacted a protocol to devolve humanity to the level of cavemen in ‘Judgment Day’.

Even with Kree heavyweight Ronan the Accuser taking personal charge the scheme was narrowly defeated in ‘Take One Giant Step… Backward!’, but the cat was out of the bag and public opinion had turned against the heroes for concealing the threat of alien incursions.

In a powerful allegory of the Communist Witch-hunts of the 1950s the epic expanded in #92 (Sal B & George Roussos) when ‘All Things Must End!’ saw riots in the streets and political demagogues capitalising on the crisis. Subpoenaed by the authorities, castigated by friends and public, the current team was ordered to disband by their founding fathers Thor, Iron Man and Captain America.

Or were they…?

The plot thickened and the art quality took an exponential leap as Neal Adams and Tom Palmer assumed the chores with the giant-sized #93’s ‘This Beachhead Earth’ as the Vision was nigh-fatally attacked and those same founding fathers evinced no knowledge of having benched the regular team. With Ant-Man forced to undertake ‘A Journey to the Center of the Android!’ to save the Vision’s artificial life, the Avengers become aware of not one but two alien presences on Earth: bellicose Kree and sneaky shape-shifting Skrulls, beginning a ‘War of the Weirds!’ on our fragile globe. Acting too late they were unable to prevent the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Captain Marvel from being abducted by the Skrulls…

‘More than Inhuman!’ in issue #94 embroiled the hidden race of advanced beings called Inhumans in the mix, disclosing that their advanced science and super-powers were the result of genetic meddling by the Kree in the depths of prehistory. Now with their king Black Bolt missing and the nefarious Maximus in charge, the aliens were calling in their ancient markers…

The second chapter ‘1971: A Space Odyssey’ (pencilled by John Buscema) focused on Captain Marvel increasingly pressured to reveal military secrets to his shape-shifting captors as the Skrulls prepared to launch a final devastating attack on their eons-old rivals, whilst on Earth ‘Behold the Mandroids!’ saw the authorities attempt to arrest all costumed heroes…

Avengers #95 ‘Something Inhuman This Way Come…!’ coalesced the disparate story strands as the aquatic Triton helped defeat the Mandroids before beseeching the beleaguered heroes to find his missing monarch and rescue his people from the press-ganging Kree. After so doing, with a solid victory under their belts the Avengers headed into space to liberate their kidnapped comrades and save Earth from becoming collateral damage in the impending Kree-Skrull War…

‘The Andromeda Swarm!’ (with additional inking from Adams and Al Weiss) was perhaps the Avenger’s finest hour, as the small, brave band held off an immense armada of starships, losing one of their number in the conflict, whilst the Kree Supreme Intelligence was revealed to have been pursuing its own clandestine agenda all along and had snatched bewildered sidekick Rick Jones to clinch its terrifyingly ambitious plans.

The astounding final episode ‘Godhood’s End!’ brought the uncanny epic (and this volume) to a perfect end with a literal deus ex machina as the master-plan was finally revealed and the war ended in a costumed hero overload-extravaganza which has never been surpassed in the annals of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction.

Roy Thomas and John Buscema gloriously led Marvel’s second generation of creators who brilliantly built on and consolidated Lee, Kirby and Ditko’s initial burst of comics creativity: spearheading and constructing a logical, fully functioning wonder- machine of places and events that so many others were inspired by and could add to.

These terrific tales are perfect examples of superheroes done exactly right and also a pivotal step of the little company into the corporate colossus.

© 1967, 1968, 2001 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Captain America: Man out of Time


By Mark Waid, Jorge Molina, Karl Kesel & Scott Hanna (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-487-4

One of the pivotal moments in Marvel Comics history occurred when the Mighty Avengers recovered a tattered body floating in a block of ice (issue #4, March 1964) and resurrected the World War II hero Captain America. With this act bridging the years to Timely and Atlas Comics begun with the return of the Sub-Mariner in Fantastic Four #4, Marvel confirmed and consolidated a solid, concrete, potential-packed history and created an enticing sense of mythic continuance for the fledgling company that instantly gave it the same cachet and enduring grandeur of market leader National/DC

In 2010, after years of conflicting continuity (and with a movie in the offing) Marvel tasked fan-favourite writer Mark Waid (see Captain America: Operation Rebirth) with updating those pivotal events and early future-shocked days in the contemporary world. Of course that modern milieu is the year 2000, not 1964…

This captivating re-interpretation and updating (collecting the 5 issue miniseries Captain America: Man Out of Time from November 2010-April 2011) opens in the dying days of the war as Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are sent from the European frontline to England and an appointment with doom-laden destiny, before seamlessly segueing into the Sentinel of Liberty’s stunned awakening in tomorrow’s world and a meeting with the World’s Mightiest Heroes.

Waid, perfectly complimented by artists Jorge Molina, Karl Kesel & Scott Hanna, wisely leaves the classic adventures largely unchanged, to concentrate on the missing, contemplative moments and personal crises confronting the uncomprehending Steve Rogers, which means that readers completely unaware of the character’s history and exploits might experience a little confusion in places. However, the narrative, although superficially disjointed, is clear-cut enough to counter this and interested new fans can easily fill in the gaps by perusing one of the many available reprint collections, such as Essential Avengers volume 1, which covers the entire period featured here…

In chapter 2 the reeling hero meets ex- Hulk sidekick Rick Jones (an absurdly close double for the departed Bucky), gets a rapid reality check on his new home and finally accepts that there’s no way home for this Old Soldier…

But that’s not strictly true…

Among the many technological miracles his new allies introduce him to is the embryonic science of time-travel and even while battling such threats as the Lava Men and Masters of Evil the unhappy warrior can only think of returning to his proper place and saving his best friend from death…

The old adage “be careful what you wish for” never proved more true than when the time-ravaging Kang the Conqueror attacks: utterly overwhelming the 21st century heroes and casually dispatching Captain America back to 1945. However, his sense of duty, the threat to his new allies and the unpalatable things he had forgotten about “the Good Old Days” prompt Cap into brilliantly escaping his honeyed time-trap and returning to the place where he is most needed before once more saving the day…

Resolved and ready to tackle his Brave New World Captain America is now ready to carve out a whole new legend…

I’m generally less than sanguine about updates and reboots of classic comics material but I will admit that such things are a necessary evil as the years go by, so when the deed is done with sensitivity and imagination (not to mention dynamic, bravura flamboyance) I can only applaud and commend the effort.

Thrilling, superbly entertaining, compelling and genuinely moving Captain America: Man out of Time is a wonderful confection that will delight old aficionados, impress new readers and should serve to make many fresh fans for the immortal Star-Spangled Avenger.

™ and © 2011 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

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Showcase Presents Booster Gold


By Dan Jurgens & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-852-2

After the cosmos-crunching Crisis on Infinite Earths re-sculpted the DC Universe in the mid-1980s, a host of characters got floor-up rebuilds for the tougher, no-nonsense, straight-shooting New American readership of the Reagan-era and a number of corporate buy-outs such as Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and The Question joined the DC roster with their own much-hyped solo titles. There were even a couple of all-new big launches for the altered sensibilities of the Decade of Excess such as Suicide Squad and a Shiny, Happy Hero named Booster Gold.

This economical black and white edition (released to coincide with the hero’s relaunch as a time-roving chronal cop) features the entire 25 issue run of Booster Gold volume 1 (from February 1986 to February 1988), plus a crossover appearance from Action Comics #594 and his redefined backstory from Secret Origins #35 (December 1988).

The blue and yellow paladin appeared amidst plenty of hoopla in his own title cover-dated February 1986 (the first post-Crisis premiere of the freshly integrated superhero line) and presented a wholly different approach to the traditional DC costumed boy-scout.  Created, written and drawn by Dan Jurgens with inks by Mike DeCarlo ‘The Big Fall’ introduced a brash, cocky, mysterious metahuman golden-boy jock who had set up his stall as a superhero in Metropolis, actively seeking corporate sponsorships, selling endorsements and with a management team in place to maximise the profit potential of his crusading celebrity.

Accompanied everywhere by a sentient flying-football-shaped  robot Skeets, the glitzy showboat soon encountered high-tech criminal gang The 1000 and their super-enforcer Blackguard, earning the ire of sinister mastermind The Director and the shallow approbation of models, actresses, headline-hungry journalists, politicians and the ever fickle public…

In issue #2’s ‘Cold Redemption’ Blackguard was assisted by thought-casting mercenary Mindancer as the Director’s campaign of malice led to another close call for Booster. Meanwhile his highly public private life took a tawdry turn in ‘The Night Has a Thousand Eyes’ when opportunistic starlet Monica Lake began briefing the media on her “relationship” with the Man of Gold. He was unable to refute the claims since he was knee-deep in hired thugs and super-villains at the time…

That cataclysmic combat in #4 resulted in a tremendous ‘Crash’ when urban vigilante The Thorn dropped in to help scuttle the 1000’s latest scheme, but once the dust settled Booster found himself in real trouble as business manager Dirk Davis was so busy licensing his boss for a comicbook that he failed to head off an IRS audit…

It appeared Booster Gold had no official record and had never paid a penny in taxes…

In ‘Face Off’, our hero saved an entire stadium of ice hockey fans from avaricious terrorist Mr. Twister, earning himself a reprieve from the Federal authorities, after which an alien refugee crashed in Metropolis’ Centennial Park in #6’s ‘To Cross the Rubicon’, just as Man of Gold met Man of Steel for the long-awaited origin saga.

Michael Jon “Booster” Carter was a rising sports star in the 25th century who fell in with a gambling syndicate and began fixing games for cash pay-outs. When he was caught and banned from competition he could only find menial work as a night-watchman in The Space Museum. Whilst there he struck up a friendship with automated tour-guide and security-bot Skeets, embarking on a bold plan to redeem himself.

Stealing a mysterious flight ring and force-field belt plus energy-rods, an alien super-suit and wrist-blasters, Booster used the Museum’s prize exhibit, Rip Hunter’s time machine, to travel to 20th Century Age of Heroes and earn all the fame and glory his mistakes had cost him in his own time…

Superman, already antagonistic because of Booster’s attitude, is ready to arrest him for theft when the almost forgotten alien attacks…

They all awaken on a distant world embroiled in a vicious civil war and still at odds. As a result of ‘The Lesson’ and a vicious battle Superman and Booster Gold both learned some uncomfortable truths and agreed to tolerate each other when they returned home. Meanwhile, back in Metropolis, Dirk Davis and company PA Trixie Collins hired hotshot scientist Jack Soo to build a super-suit that would enable Booster to hire a camera-friendly, eye-candy, girly sidekick…

More questions were answered in the two-part ‘Time Bridge’ when the 30th century Legion of Super-Heroes discovered evidence that their flight-rings and forcefield technology were being used by a temporal fugitive named Michael Carter. Dispatched to 1985 by the Time Institute, Ultra Boy, Chameleon Boy and Brainiac 5 arrived soon after the fugitive Carter and became involved in his very first case. The Director and shape-shifting assassin Chiller were planning to murder and replace Ronald Reagan but in the best superhero tradition Carter and the Legionnaires misunderstood each other’s intentions and butted heads…The plot might have succeeded had not Skeets intervened, allowing Carter to save the day and get official Presidential approval. Ronnie even got to name the new hero…

Back in 1986 the long-building final clash with the Director began in #10 with ‘Death Grip of the 1000’ when Dirk’s daughter was kidnapped and he was coerced into betraying Booster, just as the nefarious super-mob unleashed a horde of robotic terrors on Metropolis to wear out the Man of Gold and assess his weaknesses…

After Trixie was also abducted in ‘When Glass Houses Shatter’ the 1000 increased the pressure by setting blockbusting thug Shockwave on Booster, resulting in the utter destruction of the hero’s corporate headquarters and home before a frenzied and frenetic final clash in ‘War’…

With the threat of the 1000 ended ‘The Tomorrow Run’ (inked by Gary Martin) found Booster at death’s door, not because of his numerous injuries but because his 25th century body had succumbed to 20th century diseases. Set during the Legends publishing event, which saw the public turn violently against costumed heroes, the dying Carter was rescued from a mob by Trixie wearing Jack Soo’s completed super-suit after which the cast resolve to take Michael back to the future where he can be properly treated, even though Booster’s offences carried a mandatory death penalty in his home era…

Recruiting young Rip Hunter (destined to become the Master of Time) Trixie and Dr. Soo accompanied the distressed hero to a time where ruthless Darwinian capitalism ruled and everything Michael Carter once dreamed of had turned to bitter ashes…

‘A Future Lost’ (inked by DeCarlo) followed Booster and Trixie as they searched for a cure (and his missing twin sister Michelle) whilst Hunter and Soo attempted to find a way to return them all to 1986.

Booster’s illness was only cured after they were arrested: the authorities believing it barbaric to execute anybody too sick to stand up, before ‘Runback’ (inked by Bruce D. Patterson) concluded the saga in fine style with the missing Carter twin saving the day and retreating to the 20th century with the time-lost travellers.

Booster Gold’s close call had a salutary effect on his attitudes and character. ‘Fresh Start’ (inked by Bob Lewis) saw a kinder, gentler corporate entrepreneur begin to re-establish his heroic credentials with the celebrity-crazed public of Metropolis, to the extent that Maxwell Lord even offered him membership in the newly re-formed Justice League, just as sultry assassin Cheshire began raiding a biotech company recently acquired by Booster Gold International…

‘Dream of Terror’ (inked by Arne Starr) revealed all as new owner Booster discovered that his latest corporate asset had been making bio-toxins designed to eradicate all “undeserving” individuals (for which read non-white and poor) and that its creator was currently loose in Mexico City with the lethal bug. Moreover, the deranged biochemist had bamboozled militant hero the Hawk into acting as bodyguard while his plans to “save humanity from itself” took effect…

Decarlo returned to ink ‘Showdown’ in #18, as a relentless lawman from Booster’s home-time tracked him down through history, determined to render final judgement before ‘Revenge of the Rainbow Raider’ (inked by Al Vey) pitted the Man of Gold against the colour-blind and utterly demented Flash villain in a two-part revenge thriller that saw our hero rendered sightless and his future shocked sister go native amongst the 20th century primitives.

The tale concluded with ‘The Colors of Justice’ as Dr. Soo came to Booster’s rescue whilst Michelle was being kidnapped by extra-dimensional invaders…

Up until this moment the art in this volume, whilst always competent, had been suffering an annoying hindrance, designed as it was for high quality, full-colour comicbooks, not stark, black and white reproduction. Although legible, discernable and adequate, much of the earlier art is fine-lined, lacking contrasting dark areas and often giving the impression that the illustrations lack solidity and definition.

With Booster Gold #21 the marvellous Ty Templeton became regular inker and his bold, luscious brush-strokes brought a reassuring firmness and texture to the proceedings. As if to affirm the artistic redirection the stories became a tad darker too…

‘Invasion From Dimension X’ has Booster’s search for his missing sister impinge on a covert intrusion by belligerent aliens first encountered and defeated by the Teen Titans (see Showcase Presents Teen Titans volume 2). To make matters worse the extra-dimensionals are using Michelle as a power-source to fuel their invasion, resulting in ‘Tortured Options’ for Booster who had to decide between saving Michelle or the city of Minneapolis when the invaders opened their assault with a colossal monster attack…

Guest-starring Justice League International, the astounding battle climaxed in public triumph and personal tragedy after which the heart-broken, embittered Booster seemingly attacked Superman in ‘All That Glisters’ (Action Comics #594, November 1987, by John Byrne & Keith Williams); a terse, brutal confrontation that concluded in Booster Gold #23 and ‘Blind Obsession’ (Jurgens & Roy Richardson) as the real Man of Gold crushed a Kryptonite-powered facsimile android designed by the world’s most unscrupulous businessman to kill Superman and frame his closest commercial rival…

If only they had known that at that very moment Booster Gold International was being bankrupted by a traitor at the heart of the company…

After Crisis on Infinite Earths and Legends, DC’s third company-wide crossover Millennium saw Steve Englehart describe how robotic peacekeepers called Manhunters had infiltrated Earth to abort the next stage in human evolution. Built by the Guardians of the Universe billions of years ago, the automated peacekeepers had rebelled against their creators and now planned to thwart their makers’ latest project, destroying or suborning Earth’s costumed defenders in the process.

In its original form each weekly instalment of Millennium acted as a catalyst for events which played out in the rest of the DC Universe’s comics. In addition to the miniseries itself, Millennium spread across 21 titles for two months – another 37 issues – for a grand total of 44 comic-books. Issues #24 and 25 of Booster Gold were two of them.

‘Betrayal’ revealed that one of Michael Carter’s inner circle had been a Manhunter agent all along and had bankrupted the hero at the most propitious moment simply so that the robots could buy his loyalty during their assault on humanity…

The series came to a shocking climax in ‘The End’ as the scheme worked and Booster actually switched sides… or did he?

After the surprisingly satisfying and upbeat denouement Booster became a perennial star of Justice League International where, with fellow homeless hero Blue Beetle, he became half of the one of funniest double-acts in comics. As “Blue and Gold” the hapless, cash-strapped odd couple were always at the heart of the action – pecuniary or otherwise – and the final tale here ‘From the Depths’ (by Jurgens & Tim Dzon, originally presented in Secret Origins #35, December 1988) reprised the early tragic days of Michael Jon Carter in a brief and exceedingly impressive tale played as much to tug the heartstrings as tickle the funny-bone…

As a frontrunner of the new DC, Booster Gold was a radical experiment in character that didn’t always succeed, but which definitely and exponentially improved as the months rolled by. The early episodes are a necessary chore but by the time the volume ends it’s a real shame that the now thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable ride is over. Perhaps not to every Fights ‘n’ Tights fan’s taste; these formative fictions are absolutely vital to your understanding of the later classics. Cheap and fun this book is worth the investment simply because of what follows in such comics gems as Justice League International volume 1 and 2 and Booster Gold: Blue and Gold.

© 1986, 1987, 1988, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.