Category: Graphic Novels

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Love From the Shadows


By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-406-1
There’s fiction, there’s Meta-fiction and then there is Gilbert Hernandez. In addition to being part of the graphic and literary revolution of Love and Rockets (where his astonishingly accessible and captivating tales of rural Palomar first garnered overwhelming critical acclaim) he has produced stand-alone books such as Sloth, Grip, Birdland and Girl Crazy, all marked by his bold, instinctive, compellingly simplified artwork and a mature, sensitive adoption of the literary techniques of Magical Realist writers like Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez: techniques which he has amplified and, visually at least, made his own.

Then he acknowledged such influences as Roger Corman, John Cassavetes, Elmore Leonard and Jim Thompson as he broke new ground and reprocessed the cultural influences that shaped all us baby-boomers.

In Luba we glimpsed the troubled life of the lead character’s half-sister Rosalba “Fritz” Martinez: a brilliant, troubled woman, speech-impaired psychotherapist, sex-worker, belly-dancer and “B-movie” starlet of such faux screen gems as We Love Alone, Seven Bullets to Hell, Chest Fever, Blood is the Drug and Lie Down in the Dark.

Fritzi has an irresistible or incredibly annoying lisp and unfeasibly large breasts.

In 2007 Hernandez “adapted” one of those trashy movies as the graphic novel Chance in Hell – although Fritzi only had a bit part in it – and repeated the story-within-a-story- within-a-story trick in 2009 with The Troublemakers – a frantic, hell-bent pulp fiction crime thriller.

Now he returns to his eccentric sideline to translate the wildly experimental independent/exploitation/sexploitation tale Love From the Shadows into a stunning graphic rollercoaster ride of broken families, counter-culture angst, embezzlement, greed madness, obsession, charlatanry, psychics and mysterious aliens in possibly the greatest tribute to scurrilous lowbrow movie maestro Russ Meyer ever seen…

“Playing” three different roles in this dubious epic, Fritzi is mostly Dolores, the estranged and distractedly promiscuous daughter of a successful author.  In a world much like ours she meanders her solitary way, only occasionally impeded by the ubiquitous, mysterious Monitors who perpetually pester normal citizens with their oddly intrusive and brusque personal questions…

With her equally neglected and emotionally abused gay brother Sonny, she visits the old reprobate, daydreaming of either a heartfelt reconciliation or bloody patricide, but the stay is filled with the usual mind-games and confrontations.

When they all visit the beach the old man wanders into a cave and is lost. When he is eventually found daddy dearest’s razor-like mind is utterly shattered…

Since he is clearly a far better and more friendly father whilst deranged, the siblings move in to the palatial home to look after him, but one day after a swim Dolores is inexplicably drawn away to the city where she joins a trio of conmen scamming old men and widowers. Wistful, dreamy, always looking for love, she becomes their stooge, playing dead wives and ghostly daughters till her sexually charged presence splits the gang with fatal consequences…

Meanwhile, her own father has died and Sonny is horrified to discover that the entire multi-million dollar estate has been left to his vanished sister. Hurt, outcast and permanently ostracized, Sonny uses his own small bequest to pay for sex-change surgery and becomes “Dolores”, beginning an oddly gratifying affair with a psychic named Anton who seemingly discerned all his/her secrets with one telling glance.

Impossible, surreal tragedy strikes when against all logic Sonny’s body repairs all the surgeries and rejects the hormone treatments, reverting to full masculinity, just as the real Dolores returns…

Missing his beloved Sonny, Anton meets Dolores and takes her to the Cavern where her father died. He convinces her to replace Sonny just as her brother had impersonated her…

Now rich and contented, Dolores is drawn into a world of cults, continuing her lifetime obsession with a certain type of man, but the liaison inevitably leads to heartbreak and bloody death… and always the evocative imagery and subtly dangerous attraction of The Cave impinges and threatens…

As the Monitors inexplicably vanish from the streets, Dolores dyes her hair and hopes she’s finally free, but she’s only heading into the shadows of that ever-calling cavern…

Beguiling and absolutely mesmerising, this perfect pastiche of the genre is stuffed with Hernandez’s raw sexuality, trippy, mind-warping tension and sly elements of filmic surrealism which carry the reader through the deliberately obfuscative, intentionally challenging narrative, whilst his superbly primitivist cartooning seduces the eye as much as his glandular heroine ever could. These books are truly movies so bad and different they ought to be made…

Every adult who loved Up!, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens or Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! should snap this up immediately and revel in the graphic insanity, and open-minded comics fans should take a look beyond the costumes and chains of continuity to take a true walk on the Wild Side.

© 2011 Gilbert Hernandez. All rights reserved.

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Green Lantern: Agent Orange (Prelude to Blackest Night)


By Geoff Johns, Philip Tan & Jonathan Glapion (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2420-2

Hal Jordan was a young test pilot in California when an alien policeman crashed on Earth. Mortally wounded, Abin Sur commanded his ring, a device which could materialise thoughts and fuelled by willpower, to seek out a replacement ring-bearer, honest and without fear. Scanning the planet it selected Jordan and brought him to the crash-site. The dying alien bequeathed his ring, the lantern-shaped Battery of Power and his profession to the astonished Earthman.

Over the years Jordan became one of the greatest members of that serried band of law-enforcers, The Green Lantern Corps, which had protected the cosmos from evil for millennia under the auspices of immortal super-beings who dubbed themselves the Guardians of the Universe. These undying patrons of Order were one of the first races in creation and currently dwell in sublime emotionless security on the world of Oa at the very centre of creation.

If all this is new to you then this book should absolutely not be your introduction to the series. Go read (at least) Green Lantern: Secret Origin and preferably all the other collections of this monumental fixture in the comicbook firmament before attempting to decipher the compulsive, compelling, pell-mell onslaught of characters and concepts scripter Geoff Johns throws at the reader as his extended epic thoroughly reshapes the DC Universe.

Following the bombastic, blockbusting Sinestro Corps War the entire cosmos was in turmoil at the revelation that Green was not the only colour and an entire emotional spectrum of puissant energies underpinned and operated upon reality. In increasingly ambitious storylines, Johns began exploring the adherents and disciples of each hue and the forces transformed by or seeking to control them…a situation which led inexorably into DC’s major crossover events Blackest Night and its sequel Brightest Day.

This volume (collecting Green Lantern #39-42 and portions of Blackest Night #0), illustrated by Philip Tan & Jonathan Glapion, Eddy Barrows, Ruy José & Julio Ferreira, opens with a band of Controllers (a splinter group who split from the Guardians eons ago) encountering the possessor of the Orange light of Avarice.

The resultant slaughter precipitates another crisis when its sole user – a bestial, undying monstrosity named Larfleeze – abrogates an ancient secret treaty with the Oans and explodes out of his exile in the Vega system to take whatever takes his voracious fancy…

The very first thing he espies is Hal Jordan, currently overloaded by the exponentially increased power of a Blue Lantern ring overwhelming his own emerald weapon with the azure energy of Hope.

As revelations of the Guardians’ duplicitous past intrigues come to light, the vengeance-crazed, Green Lantern-hunting Fatality is overtaken by the Violet power of Love and becomes a Zamaron Star Sapphire (another dissident faction formed when the female Guardians also abandoned Oa) and attempts an uncomfortable rapprochement with her arch-enemy Green Lantern John Stewart…

Due to the Guardians’ ancient treaty with Larfleeze Vega had always been outside GL Corps jurisdiction and subsequently became a stellar sinkhole and safe-haven for the very worst scum of universe. With nothing left to hide anymore the remaining, still-squabbling Guardians lead a phalanx of their best peacekeepers in a punitive mission to clean out the sector of intergalactic criminals now that the Avatar of Greed has gone…

Sadly Larfleeze has left unique defences and the sortie ends badly. With the Orange Obsessive still hungry for Jordan’s Blue ring (which refuses to leave Hal’s hand and resists all efforts at removal) the Oans are forced to resort to a further deal with the devil…

Meanwhile Sinestro, controlling the Yellow light of Fear, and the diabolical Atrocitus, wielding the corrupting Red light of Rage, are jockeying into position for their own assaults on the embattled Guardians…

Jordan finally overcomes the paralysing burden of too much power and acts decisively to temporarily end the threat of Larfleeze, but not before the Guardians are betrayed from within and the Black light of Death resurrects the greatest threat to life there has ever been…

…Which will only become clear in the next volume.

Feeling uncomfortably like entering a play late and leaving before the end, the spectacle and action here will impress and bewilder in equal amounts, but at least there’s a selection of short complete vignettes included to afford the briefest modicum of narrative closure; beginning with ‘Origins and Omens’ (illustrated by Ivan Reis & Oclair Albert) which explores the history of the Star Sapphires and the salutary ‘Tales of the Orange Lanterns: Weed Killer’ with art by Rafael Albuquerque, which reveals the rise to power of the ravenous Orange subordinate Agent Glomulous…

After a gallery of variant covers and a fascinating design, commentary and sketch section from Philip Tan and Doug Mahnke, the book closes with informational pages on the eight colours of the Emotional Spectrum by Mahnke, Christian Alamy & Tom Nguyen

Combining big-picture theatrics with solid characterization, Green Lantern is an ideal contemporary superhero series, vast in scope, superb in execution and blending just the right amounts of angst, gloss and action in the storytelling mix – but a basic familiarity with DC/Green Lantern history is more necessary than advisable.

Impressive, exciting enticing and engrossing: all terms you’ll happily apply to Green Lantern: Agent Orange – but only after doing your homework and reading the other stuff first…
© 2009 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Invaders Now!


By Alex Ross, Christos Gage & Caio Reis (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-479-9

During World War II superhuman heroes regularly fought alongside merely mortal men-at-arms and far too often the repercussions of those battles echoed down the years growing stronger and not fading away.

After decades of relative European peace and prosperity one of the worst weapons of the conflict appears to have been rediscovered: an incurable disease which mutates victims into savage, blood-crazed monsters… and in America the survivors and heirs of premiere WWII super-team the Invaders are mystically manipulated into reuniting to relive the most painful event of their auspicious and glorious history.

During the lasts months of the war, with the Allies pushing hard towards Berlin, Captain America & Bucky, the Human Torch & Toro, Sub-Mariner, Spitfire and Union Jack, accompanied by trans-dimensional eldritch vigilante the Vision were battling through Holland when they encountered their Nazi counterparts Masterman, Baron Blood, U-Man, Warrior Woman and Iron Cross.

The Blitzkriegers were protecting Hitler’s top geneticist Arnim Zola, who was about to unleash a monstrous bio-weapon intended to turn the tide of the war… a virus that made civilians and enemy soldiers into bestial maniacs.

Faced with a village full of highly contagious, deranged living weapons, the Invaders had no choice but to sterilise the entire area and euthanise the infected victims…

Now nearly seventy years later Vision has been called back to our Reality as somebody is using magic to turn back time and re-run the whole ghastly affair once more. Moreover, Zola’s deadly virus is back and loose in a world where global transport is commonplace and no place is truly isolated…

This plain and simple, old-fashioned blockbuster romp (collecting the 5 issue miniseries from 2010) combines Alex Ross’s ardent passion for classic superhero comics with modern methodology, funnybook mythology with cosmic horror literature, and contemporary terrorism fiction with timeless action-adventure in a captivating countdown thriller scripted by Christos Gage and effectively illustrated by Caio Reis.

Supremely old-school and breathtakingly in tune with 21st century tastes Invaders Now! delivers a thoroughly gratifying good guys vs. bad guys drama drenched in pure bravura escapism.

All-out vintage Marvel Madness for the modern comics maven: you just know you want it…

™ and © 2010 & 2011 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

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X-Men: Curse of the Mutants


By Victor Gischler, Paco Medina & Juan Vlasco (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-480-5

With a property as valuable as the X-Men change is a necessarily good thing, even if you sometimes need a scorecard to keep up. This thoroughly entertaining read (collecting X-Men volume 2 #1-6 and text features from Marvel Spotlight: X-Men: Curse of the Mutants #1) keeps the baggage to a sustainable minimum for non-addicts and concentrates on delivering a tense and fast-paced rollercoaster thriller heavy on action and light on extended sub-plots.

Most of the World’s mutants now live on an island dubbed “Utopia” in San Francisco Bay, welcomed by the easygoing human population and with X-Men team-leader Cyclops running the show. In other news: the planet’s assorted vampire clans have been united after centuries of internecine struggle by Xarus, the son of Dracula who destroyed his own father to succeed to the position of Lord of Vampires…

When a nosferatu suicide-bomber explodes himself in a crowded plaza his re-engineered blood infects many shocked and helpless bystanders with a manufactured virus that inevitably infects and overwhelms any mortal exposed to it. The united night-hunters have declared all-out war on their food-supply, bolstering their ranks without risking being hunted… and one of the first infected is veteran X-warrior Jubilee…

Wolverine leads a scouting mission into the increasingly overrun city and discovers that the campaign is meticulously organised and extremely far advanced. Moreover the new vampire lord has planned ambitiously: a key tactic is to “turn” every mutant on Utopia, providing the would-be conqueror with a compliant army of super-powered blood-sucking storm-troopers. Jubilee has already joined them…

Always genned-up on undead affairs, Blade joins the party and brings the embattled mutants up to speed, but facing impossible odds. With new vampires springing up everywhere Cyclops makes the seemingly insane decision to revive Dracula, despite the Vampire Hunter’s strenuous objections.

And then Wolverine finally succumbs to the manufactured virus and switches sides…

When the Children of the Night make their final assault against the assembled mutant heroes all seems lost… but Cyclops has a cunning plan…

Laced with a profusion of variant covers by such artistic stalwarts as Olivier Coipel, Marko Djurdjevic, Mike Mayhew and John Romita Jr. this is an exhilarating romp that pushes all the right buttons, engagingly written by Victor Gischler and entrancingly illustrated by Paco Medina & Juan Vlasco. If you want fast, furious and fulfilling Fights ‘n’ Tights magic this is a perfect one-shop stop for your edification and delectation.

™ and © 2010 & 2011 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

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Avengers Prime


By Brian Michael Bendis, Alan Davis & Mark Farmer (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-480-5

There’s a wealth of Marvel material around starring Thor at the moment and this impressive fantasy fable (originally released as a 5 part miniseries) is one of the very best modern contributions, featuring as it does two of his most popular companions and a full-on foray to the fabled land of Asgard for the founding fathers of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes…

The story begins just seconds after the conclusion of Siege wherein Norman Osborn, America’s Security Czar, instigated a deadly war against the Norse gods currently trapped on Earth (see also Thor and Secret Invasion: Thor) in Broxton, Oklahoma. The incident served to reunite heroes divided by the Civil War orchestrated by Osborn when he was working to become the nation’ s Chief of Homeland Security.

Now in the aftermath of the colossal battle old friends on opposite sides of the political divide are counting their losses and almost rekindling old animosities amidst the ruins of Asgard – now lying scattered across the Oklahoma landscape when a magical vortex sucks Cap, Shellhead and Thor into a magical wonderland in crisis…

In cosmological terms Asgard was the centre of Nine mystical and conjoined Realms and its displacement and fall has destabilised the whole. Now the Sentinel of Liberty has fallen among hostile Elves, Thor has been drawn into empty Vanaheim to battle the Enchantress and her army of brutal trolls, whilst Iron Man has been dumped amidst dragons and Giants with his super-scientific armour barely able to generate a spark…

Moreover Hela, Goddess of Death believes the time has finally come for her to end all Life forever…

The fractured friendship of these primal heroes is re-forged in a spectacular, bombastic and wildly entertaining Saves-The-Day-Saga by Brian Michael Bendis, Alan Davis & Mark Farmer, packed with action, suspense and fabulous frantic fantasy that will equally delight new readers and faithful fuddy-duddies of my ilk.

Frantic, fast-paced fun to enchant every Fights ‘n’ Tights aficionado, and a graphic novel must-have item…

™ and © 2010 & 2011 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

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Ultimate Avengers volume 3: Blade versus the Avengers


By Mark Millar, Steve Dillon & Andy Lanning (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-478-2

Marvel’s Ultimates sub-imprint began in 2000 with key characters and concepts retooled to bring them into line with the tastes of modern readers – a potentially discrete market from the baby-boomers and their descendents, who were apparently content to stick with the universe which had sprung from the fantastic founding talents of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee – or most likely -  one unable or unwilling to deal with the five decades (seven if you include the Golden Age Timely tales retroactively co-opted into the mix) of continuity baggage that had accumulated around the originals.

Eventually this darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its predecessor and in 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which apparently (this is still comics, after all) killed dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals. Although a strong seller the saga was largely trashed by the fans who bought it and the ongoing new “Ultimatum Comics” line quietly back-pedalled on its declared intentions…

The key and era-ending event was a colossal tsunami that drowned the superhero-heavy island of Manhattan and this third post-tsunami collection (re-presenting Ultimate Comics Avengers 3, #1-6) focuses on a more or less dried out world with the diminished global populations adapted to the new status quo.

Before the Deluge Nick Fury ran an American Black Ops team of super-humans called the Avengers, but he was eventually toppled from his position for sundry rule-bending antics – and being caught doing them. Now he’s firmly re-established, running a black ops team doing stuff the officially sanctioned Ultimates wouldn’t dream of…

His secret army consists of  Hawkeye – the man who never misses, James Rhodes: a fanatical soldier wearing devastating War Machine battle armour; Gregory Stark, Iron Man’s smarter, utterly immoral older brother, Nerd Hulk, a cloned gamma-monster with all the original’s power but implanted with Banner’s brain and milksop character, size changing insect queen Red Wasp and ruthless super-spy Black Widow. Also popping in when nobody’s looking is resurrected WWII super soldier Captain America – part of the bright and shiny squad but always happy to slum it when necessary…

This time the dark-side heroes stumble into a secret war that has gone on uninterrupted by the end of the world, and kicks off with the half-human vampire-hunter Blade on the unaccustomed defensive. The Bloodsuckers he has generally picked off with ease are suddenly more organised, more effective and even more dangerous and as the story unfolds it transpires they have a new king with a new plan…

This mysterious mastermind is wearing Iron Man’s armour and ignoring ordinary mortals, preferring to turn super-heroes into a vampiric army. The situation starts bad and gets exponentially worse with metahuman heroes and guest-stars dropping like flies. With all possible saviours succumbing to the unstoppable plague, it looks hopeless when only Blade, Fury, Black Widow and Hawkeye are left untainted and only the greatest miracle or boldest masterstroke can save humanity…

Which it does in spectacular fashion in this dark, moody and rocket-paced thriller by Mark Millar and Steve Dillon: wry, violent and powerfully scary, this grim-and-gritty fan-fest is engrossing and eminently readable

This spooky, cynical, sinister shocker is another breathtakingly effective yarn that could only be told outside the Marvel Universe, but one that will resonate with older fans who love the darkest side of superheroes and casual readers who know the company’s movies better than the comic-books.
™ & © 2010 Marvel Entertainment LLC and its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. A British edition published by Panini.

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Ultimate Comics New Ultimates: Thor Reborn


By Jeph Loeb & Frank Cho (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-475-1

The stark, savage and nihilistically modern Utimates Comic universe is stocked with dark and gritty analogues of the shiny dynasty crafted by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, but since its inception at the turn of this century has resolved into something which can easily stand on its own merits.

With the Norse hero Thor very much in the public eye at the moment a number of his Ultimately alternative adventures have quickly found themselves translated into graphic novels and Thor Reborn, although certainly not the easiest to begin your acquaintance with, is probably the most action-packed and definitely the best illustrated.

Written by Jeph Loeb and captivatingly depicted by Frank Cho the saga is actually a tale of the alternate Avengers (originally published as Ultimate Comics New Ultimates #1-5) which opens with the Thunderer trapped in the land of the dead, and mourned on Earth by his fellow heroes – especially his devoted lover Valkyrie; a mortal woman artificially empowered by clandestine means who now wields Thor’s hammer.

When her old team the Defenders attacks Ultimates HQ, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Captain America, Valkyrie and mystery goddess Zarda are easily defeated and the attackers steal the mystic mallet, setting off a disastrous chain of deadly events…

Meanwhile the lost Thor has been granted a chance to escape his dolorous prison: all he has to do is impregnate his captor: Hela, Queen of Death…

Ka-Zar, Shanna the She-Devil and Black Panther are just strolling through the park when Loki, god of Madness and Mischief, with Amora the Enchantress in tow, leads an invasion of trolls and monsters to Earth. In his hand is Thor’s dimension-traversing hammer…

Before the assembled champions can muster a defence Amora mesmerises all the female Ultimates including S.H.I.E.L.D. Commander Carol Danvers, and inevitably the indomitable, hard-pressed heroes fall…

But at the moment of triumph a secret weapon turns the tide and the Ultimates escape to fight another day, whilst in Valhalla, bargain fully carried out, Thor readies himself to return, only to discover that one small detail has been neglected. For him to return to life once more, somebody on the other side must die…

Tense, compelling and explosively cathartic, the saga of the Thunderer’s return is pure comics hokum of the very highest quality: unassuming but wildly satisfying.

™ and © 2010 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

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Ultimate Thor


By Jonathan Hickman, Carlos Pacheco & Dexter Vines (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-484-3

In 2000, when Marvel retooled their traditional continuity into a separate, darker, grittier universe more relevant to the video game-playing, movie-watching 21st century readers than the 1960s Lee/Kirby/Ditko ongoing monolith, they started with the most popular characters and only gradually added analogues for the established characters and trademarks.

Even when the Avengers finally appeared as the Ultimates, readers were only sparingly brought up to speed on the assorted back-stories of the alternative heroes and villains – especially the wild, hammer-wielding warrior who couldn’t decide if he was Thorlief Golmen, mental patient, psychiatric nurse and anti-American radical protester or Thor, ancient Norse god of Thunder and battle.

After many struggles against his malicious, reality-warping brother Loki, the immensely powerful Thor is found here as a patient under the care of the European Union Super Soldier program. When his doctors call in linguistic expert and psychotherapist Donald Blake the true and fantastic story of his origins unfold…

Eons ago Asgard was a fantastic place of adventure and glory; an ideal paradise for the young warrior-brothers Balder, Thor and Loki to fight, carouse and enjoy life. But even gods grow older and apart…

The time is just prior to the start of World War II Nazi Occult scientist: Baron Zemo leads an army against Asgard, having already allied himself with the gods’ greatest enemies, the Frost Giants…

All is not as it seems however, and Zemo is no mortal invader. Moreover his intention is to end all the gods and bring about Ragnarok… and despite the magnificent heroics of the Norse deities he succeeds. But now it is revealed that the brothers did not die and were reborn in mortal form on Earth…

Now as an Age of Supermen begins the brothers awake… and one of them is mad…

Compellingly scripted by Jonathan Hickman and beautifully illustrated by Carlos Pacheco & Dexter Vines this lovely yarn (originally released as miniseries Ultimate Comics Thor #1-4) could probably be a mite confusing for readers who haven’t seen Thor’s other Ultimate appearances and certainly is quite choppy in delivery as it in-fills the missing portions of those stories. Even so, this is still a hugely engaging adventure that could easily act as an introduction to those other epics and is well worth your attention.

™ and © 2010 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

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The Futurians


By Dave Cockrum, with Ricardo Villagran & Paty (Marvel/Eternity)
ISBN: 0-939766-81-7 & 0-944735-00-2

Dave Cockrum was one of the last great classical stylists of the American comics industry; a supremely skilled draughtsman, proficient designer and uniquely imaginative yet whimsical storyteller who died far too young in 2006.

Born in 1943 in Oregon, he was raised an army brat, traveling all over America and found joy and companionship early on as part of the burgeoning fan community that developed during the Silver Age of Comicbooks.

A devoted science fiction reader and fan he was greatly influenced by the clean-lined, humanistic work of Wally Wood, Mac Raboy, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert and especially Murphy Anderson with whom Cockrum began his professional career as an art assistant and inker following military service in the navy during the Vietnam conflict.

After working with and then replacing Anderson on the freshly revived Legion of Super-Heroes strip in Superboy in 1973, Cockrum left for Marvel following a dispute over artwork ownership, bringing the same stylish flair and irrepressible imagination to the groundbreaking and landmark revamping of the moribund X-Men in 1975.

After co-creating the last true and enduring sensation of the 20th century, Cockrum moved on (and indeed, back) returning to the Merry Mutants for a second superb and innovative run from Uncanny X-Men #145- 164) before crafting this instantly intriguing, criminally underappreciated and tragically unfulfilled costumed fantasy very much in the manner of both the Legion and X-Men for the company’s new Marvel Graphic Novel format.

During the 1980s Marvel was an unassailable front-runner in the American comicbook business, outselling all its rivals and increasingly making inroads into the licensed properties market that once went automatically to the Whitman/Dell/Gold Key colossus. Far too much of their own superhero stable might have become cautious and moribund, but the company was eagerly expanding into other arenas and formats.

The company had moved quickly during the early days of the Direct Sales market and were soon market leader in the new field with a range of “big stories” told on larger sturdier, glossy white pages (285 x 220mm rather than the standard 258 x 168mm of the day’s standard comicbooks) emulating the long-established European Album.

The line had already featured not only proprietary characters in out-of-the-ordinary adventures (The Death of Captain Marvel and X-Men: God Loves Man Kills) but also in-continuity launches like The New Mutants, licensed assets like Elric: the Dreaming City and crucially creator-owned properties and concepts such as Super Boxers, Star Slammers and Dreadstar.

Let loose in a playground that clearly offered and delivered so much more bang-per-buck and peril-per-page, The Futurians synthesised and recapitulated with unbridled, enthusiastic abandon everything that Cockrum so obviously adored about swashbuckling comics adventures… liberally dosed with equal amounts of colourful escapism and dark, pragmatic common sense.

The story is cosmic in scope and chillingly effective in execution. In those long-gone days, actions seldom had truly far-reaching consequences but in The Futurians an entire superhero universe is constructed and the whole planet suffers accordingly. The death-toll was shocking for those innocent days but so logically apt…

In the far-distant world of Tomorrow a worn, spent planet Earth is still a place of war as humanity has developed into two species: the perfect men of terminus and the mutant “Inheritors” of Ghron. When the conflict escalated to the point where the Inheritors used the moon as a missile and literally destroyed the world the Science Generals of Terminus discovered that Ghron had taken an ultimate step – wrecking the sun itself and fleeing back into the planet’s past.

Unable to follow, the Last Men devised a desperate plan and, using the incredible sentient being who lived in our wounded star as a targeting method, sent packages of genetic material in scattershot fashion through Earth’s history: chromosomal “time-bombs” that would alter the nature of any mortals hit by the packets and create potential warriors to combat the Inheritors whenever and wherever they should materialise.

Not all the transformational bullets were on target, overshooting by millennia in some cases – but the majority strike the proper target: the 20th century. To make certain of their scheme the leader of the Last Men was reduced to bodiless intellect and dispatched to yesterday to act as shepherd, general and guide for the new champions.

The Time is Now: mysterious entrepreneur and technocrat Vandervecken has gathered a disparate group of individuals at the headquarters of Future Dynamics to participate in a grand – and extremely profitable – experiment. With the time-tossed aid of solar elemental Sunswift the eight men and women – all unsuspectingly primed by the mutagenic “time-bombs” – are transformed into incredibly powerful superhumans… and not a moment too soon as the Inheritors have also arrived and begun devastating the planet.

Animalistic Blackmayne, Terrayne the Earthmover, pocket-superman Avatar, aquatic metamorph Silkie, avian raptor Werehawk, insectoid Mosquito and phantasmal Silver Shadow join Sunswift and the tele-potent Vandervecken in defeating the initial assaults but not without terrible casualties – including New York City, utterly eradicated in a meteor bombardment…

In spectacular saves-the-day fashion the neophyte group finally overcome the temporal invaders and prepare themselves for further missions…

Which didn’t happen for quite a while since Cockrum then turned down a deal for a continued series with Marvel in favour of a too-good to-be-true and subsequently ill-starred alliance with new, independent publisher Lodestone Comics. That led to three issues (plus another that was never released) eventually all collected in an incredibly scarce, low-print run standard-format graphic novel from Eternity in 1987.


In that collection Cockrum, assisted as ever by his wife and colourist Paty and for the first time by inker Ricardo Villagran, explored the days after Doomsday beginning with ‘Aftermath’ wherein the world slowly adjusted to the destruction of Manhattan, a potential change in global climate and the psychic shock of what was to all intents and purposes an alien invasion. With fundamentalist groups claiming the wrath of their particular god, Cold War powers on nervous alert and a refugee crisis building on the East Coast, Sunswift set about repairing the atmospheric envelope whilst the rest of the team split up to tackle the rabble-rousing Thunderbolts and offer assistance to the survivors of New York.

Already at that monolithic Ground Zero are veteran superheroes Doctor Zeus, Hammerhand and affable mystic Jack O’Finagle, but there are also horrors lurking as monsters from deep within the Earth’s fractured mantle have begun hunting for tasty surface mortals in ‘The Burrowers From Beneath!’

Some metahumans and lots of mere mortals are missing so Avatar leads Silver Shadow, Mosquito and Terrayne after them and the AWOL Blackmane, resulting in a grisly and terrible showdown monster-mash deep within the ‘Web of Horror!’ that spills up and over onto the surface where the hard-pressed military bear the brunt of the battle…

Forced to retreat the Futurians regroup whilst Silkie discovers a new power which leads to a reassessment of their dire situation, the true origin of the giant horrors and a ratcheting up of tension when the army starts chucking nukes at the creatures which apparently feed on raw energy…

This glorious superhero fantasy saga resoundingly concludes as the heroes ‘Let the Fire Fall!’ but that was basically it for the Futurians. In recent years writer Clifford Meth has worked to bring the tale to Hollywood (with no news as of this writing) but if there’s any justice hopefully the renewed interest will at least lead to a proper and complete reissue of these cracking yarns in an appropriately grand deluxe edition…
The Futurians © 1983 David Cockrum. Volume 2 ™ and © 1987 David Cockrum. All rights reserved.

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JLA volumes 11 & 12: Obsidian Age books 1 & 2


By Joe Kelly, Doug Mankhe, Tom Nguyen & various (DC Comics)
ISBNs: 978-1-84023-702-3 & 978-1-84023-709-2

When the World’s Greatest Superheroes and cornerstone of the Silver Age of Comics were relaunched in 1997 (see JLA: New World Order) the intrinsic quality actually lived up to the massive hype and made as many new fans as it won back old ones, but the glistening aura of “fresh and new” never lasts forever and by the time of these tales there had been numerous changes of creative team – usually a bad sign…

However Joe Kelly, Doug Mankhe and Tom Nguyen’s tenure proved to be a competent blend of steadying hands and boldly 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 these two impressive editions collect the author’s boldest and most audacious adventure, an epic which spanned a year of publication and rewrote millennia of DC continuity.

Collecting issues # 66-71 and # 72-76 respectively, The Obsidian Age began in Book 1 with ‘The Destroyers Part 1’ wherein peculiar water-based events and phenomena indicated that Aquaman – believed killed in a catastrophe which eradicated Atlantis – was alive and trying to contact his JLA comrades. When the team are subsequently attacked by an ancient mystical warrior they get their first clue that it’s not “somewhere” but “somewhen”…

‘The Destroyers Part 2’ sees the team recovering from a second attack by the terrifying Tezumak and shaman Manitou Raven whose coordinated manipulations bring the heroes into the ruins of ‘Stillborn Atlantis’ and all-out combat with the deranged Ocean Master. When Tempest (the all grown-up Aqualad and now a magical adept himself) and a conclave of mystic heroes, including Zatanna, Faust and Doctors Occult and Fate, are called in to assess the deteriorating situation in the no-longer sunken city, the assembled champions of science and magic realise that something truly terrible is about to be unleashed….

Renewed assaults from the past indicate another global crisis and when the JLA discover a message from Aquaman they head back 3000 years to discover an unsuspected era of Atlantean domination. With Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Plastic Man gone, a stand-in team of heroes are left to guard the world but the ancient mastermind behind the menace has also prepared a contemporary trap for the substitute JLA…

‘New Blood’ (illustrated by Yvel Guichet & Mark Propst) features Zatanna and the Atom trying to stave off a concatenation of clearly unnatural natural disasters with the aid of Green Arrow, Captain Marvel, Firestorm, Jason Blood (with and without Etrigan the Demon), Hawkgirl, ex-villain and troubled soul Major Disaster, Nightwing and new find Faith (as well as a little help from the Justice Society of America) – a desperate scratch-team woefully overmatched and under-trained…

Meanwhile the strands of mystery are unravelled in ‘Revisionist History’ which finds the time-lost First Team in 1000BC where an above-the-waves Atlantis leads a coalition of nations and super-warriors in a campaign to conquer the known world by sword and sorcery. This unknown episode of human history contravenes all the records and clandestine reconnaissance by the JLA reveals an enchantress named Gamemnae is behind the scheme.

But her plans extend far beyond her own epoch and to that end she has kidnapped the 21st century water-breathing Atlanteans and enslaved their king Aquaman…

However Gamemnae’s own team is far from united: Manitou Raven and his bride Dawn are deeply troubled by the venality of their allies and the obvious nobility of the Justice Leaguers… Meanwhile back in the future the last story of Book 1 returns focus to the new team in ‘Transition’ (by Guichet & Propst again) as the planet is ravaged by geological catastrophes and Gamemnae’s millennial booby-trap activates, intent on conquering the world of tomorrow by suborning its meta-human and mystic defenders…

Ending on a stunning mystery cliffhanger this volume also includes a behind-the-scenes text feature on the formidable enemy team ‘The Ancients’ including a delightful assemblage of design sketches.

 

Obsidian Age Book 2 opens with a handy précis of previous events before launching into ‘History is Written By…’ (Kelly, Mahnke & Nguyen) wherein the JLA battles hopeless odds in ancient Atlantis whilst trying to liberate the enslaved water-breathing descendents, and in modern times ‘Last Call’ (Guichet & Propst) finds the alternative League faring badly against Gamemnae’s monstrous animated time-trap until a ghostly message from the past enables them to turn the tide…

‘Obsidian’ follows the final tragic battle between the JLA and The Ancients, revealing how Gamemnae’s future assaults began whilst Manitou finally succumbs to his conscience and changes sides. ‘Tragic Kingdom’ (by Mahnke, Guichet, Darryl Banks, Dietrich Smith and inkers Nguyen, Propst, Wayne Faucher & Sean Parsons) simultaneously provides the origin and final fall of the deadly Witch-Queen in a cataclysmic confrontation that bends times, breaks the barriers between life and death and costs one of the heroes everything…

The story-portion culminates in ‘Picking up the Pieces’ (with art from Lewis LaRosa & Al Milgrom)  as the JLA conclude a 3000 year quest to restore their fallen comrade and re-jig their roster in the aftermath of the epic adventure that has left them all changed…

This volume ends with an insightful and revealing ‘Afterword’ by Kelly.

The action of Obsidian Age takes place in the devastated aftermath of the DC Crossover Event “Our Worlds At War” wherein an alien doomsday device named Imperiex almost destroyed the planet – but there’s enough useful background and build-up in the chapters collected in both books to circumvent any possible confusion should that saga have passed you by…

Engaging, engrossing and especially entertaining this is a superior superhero slugfest that will appeal to a lot of readers who thought the Fights ‘n’ Tights genre beyond or beneath them…
© 2002, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.