Category: Graphic Novels

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Superman versus Terminator: Death to the Future


By Alan Grant & Steve Pugh (DC Comics/Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56971-476-8

I’ve never been all that partial to crossovers combining licensed characters. It seems to contravene an intrinsic law of narrative integrity simply for petty profit when two (or more) disparate headlining money-spinners are shoehorned into a story with scant regard for intrinsic values and often necessitating ludicrous plot-maguffins simply to make the match work. How many of these packages actually convert die-hards and newbies into comics fans?

Pleasantly countering that admittedly Grumpy Old Attitude is this rather effective star-sandwich that adds rather than combines the terrifying potential tomorrow of the Terminator films and Dark Horse comicbooks to the bright shiny world of Superman…

Sarah Connor and her son John are on the run and their prolonged flight has brought them to Metropolis, but even the home of Superman is not proof against unstoppable killer robots from a dystopian tomorrow where rogue computer Skynet has almost completed its program to exterminate humanity.

With Terminators ripping up his streets the Man of Steel is quick to step in and soon learns that the unconventional boy he’s protecting is destined to save mankind – but only if he isn’t murdered before he can begin…

Unknown to all, the cybernetic assassins have an ally: a techno-organic psychopath known as the Cyborg Superman. His insider knowledge allows Skynet to specifically upgrade its next wave of walking time-bombs against the Man of Tomorrow, and with the present looking shaky Superman is whisked into the turbulent future to join an old friend in taking the battle directly to Skynet.

With the capable Connors and Lois Lane holding the fort, assisted by Supergirl and Superboy, shady billionaire-technocrat Lex Luthor offers his double-edged assistance… but is he protecting his empire or prospecting for the future’s unborn secrets?

Meanwhile thirty years way Superman and humanity’s last defenders risk everything on a last-ditch raid on Skynet, but even with victory achieved there’s a nasty surprise awaiting the Caped Kryptonian when he gets back from the future…

Originally released as a four issue miniseries collaboration between DC and Dark Horse in 1999, this gripping script from the always-entertaining Alan Grant and stunning illustration from Steve Pugh, Mike Perkins and colourist David Stewart drive the high-octane, high-tension thriller with non-stop energy, delivering a killer punch that will delight fans of both franchises and perfectly proves that when it comes to spectacle and intensity, comics always have the home-ground advantage.
Text and illustrations © 1999, 2000 DC Comics, Inc., Canal+ DA and Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All other material © 2000 Dark Horse Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Penelope Rides Again


By Thelwell (Mandarin)
ISBN: 978-0-74930-735-6

Norman Thelwell is one of Britain’s most beloved cartoonists and his appeal hasn’t dwindled since his untimely death in 2004. If you want to know more about this brilliant creator – and see more of his work before you inevitably succumb and start hunting down the 42 assorted books themselves – you should simply crank up your preferred search-engine and go hunting. I especially recommend his official website www.thelwell.org.uk/biography/biography.html or the always entrancing and revelatory Bear Alley from British comics art scholar Steve Hollands.

Thelwell’s superbly gentle cartooning combined Bigfoot abstractions with a keen and accurate eye for background detail, not just on the riding and countryside themes that made him a household name, but on all the myriad subjects he turned his canny eye to. His pictures are an immaculate condensation of everything warm yet charged and resonant about being Post-War, Baby-Booming British, without ever being parochial or provincial. His work has international implications and scope, neatly achieving that by presenting us to the world. There are dozens of books to enjoy, both humorous and instructional, and any aficionado of humour and masterful draftsmanship could do much worse than own them all.

From 1950 when his gag-panel Chicko first began in the Eagle, and especially two years later with his first sale to Punch, he built a solid body of irresistible, seductive and always funny work. He appeared in innumerable magazines, comics and papers ranging from Men Only to Everybody’s Weekly. In 1957 Angels on Horseback, his first collection of published cartoons was released, and in 1961 he made the rare reverse trip by releasing a book of all-new cartoons that was subsequently serialised in the Sunday Express.

A Leg at Each Corner was a huge success and other books followed. Eventually this led to the strip collected in the book reviewed here, a hilarious weekly account of the dubious joys of riding and the ineffable love between little monsters and the demented children who try to ride them.

Apparently Thelwell’s short, obnoxious muses originated in the field next door to his home, where roamed two shaggy ponies. As he recalled years later…

“Small and round and fat and of very uncertain temper” – apparently owned by “Two little girls about three feet high who could have done with losing a few ounces themselves….”

“As the children got near, the ponies would swing round and present their ample hindquarters and give a few lightning kicks which the children would side-step calmly as if they were avoiding the kitchen table, and they had the head-collars on those animals before they knew what was happening. I was astonished at how meekly they were led away; but they were planning vengeance – you could tell by their eyes.”

Those determined little lasses were a lasting inspiration and led to a long-running newspaper strip featuring the equine trials and tribulations of an irrepressible young lady and her hairy true love which ran under the title Penelope in the Sunday Express sporadically from 1962 to 1971.

Also regularly appearing were a coterie of equally stalwart, philosophical stable-mates including the unflappable Fiona on her Old English Sheep-horse and Billy Bog-Spavin and Magnus – a couple of boys whom you’d think would know better – daily risking life and limb on the surly backs of squat, demonic steeds.

Of course the real star is the shambling, greedy, lazy and downright hostile Kipper – clearly a thinly disguised Przewalski’s Horse (world’s most savagely truculent herbivore – look it up and see!) who spent most of the strip’s run in  the Sunday Express from 1962 to 1971 eating, throwing, kicking and generally frustrating that sweetly determined little girl.

This second collection is far harder to find than the first, which leads me to ask why some savvy publisher hasn’t already gathered both these delightful books into one irresistible complete edition? Timeless laughs, brilliant art and cute fluffy critters (except the ponies): who could resist?
© 1989 Norman Thelwell and Express Newspapers Plc.

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Kull: The Vale of Shadow (A Marvel Graphic Novel)


By Alan Zelenetz & Tony DeZuniga, with Tom Vincent & Michael Heisler (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-87135-558-4

Following on from the creation of the comicbook Sword and Sorcery genre in the early 1970s with their magnificent adaptation of pulp superstar Conan the Barbarian, Marvel naturally looked for more of the same, and found it in Robert Ervin Howard’s prototypical wild warrior hero King Kull whose first adventure The Shadow Kingdom was published in the fantasy pulp Weird Tales in August 1929. Two more tales followed before Howard abandoned the character, but nine others and a poem ‘The King and the Oak’ were published posthumously, long after the troubled author had committed suicide.

The S&S genre had undergone a global prose revival through the paperback marketplace since the release of soft-cover editions of Lord of the Rings (first published in 1954), and by the 1960s the resurgence of two-fisted fantasies by such pioneer writers as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline and Fritz Lieber, whilst many modern writers such as Michael Moorcock and Lin Carter kick-started their careers with contemporary interpretations of man, monster and mage. Without doubt though, nobody did it better than the tragic Texan whose other red-handed stalwart included, Bran Mac Morn, Solomon Kane and El Borak as well tough guys in a variety of other genres such as Steve Costigan, Dark Agnes and Red Sonya of Rogatino.

Marvel Comics tested the waters in early 1970 with a little tale called ‘The Sword and the Sorcerers’ (in horror anthology Chamber of Darkness #4) whose hero Starr the Slayer bore no small resemblance to Conan. It was written by Roy Thomas and drawn by young Englishman Barry Smith, a recent Marvel find, and one who was just breaking out of the company’s Kirby house-style.

Thomas was a huge fan of the prose genre and took great pains to adapt novels and short stories to the graphic medium, even transferring other Howard tales into the canon by replacing his admittedly formulaic leading men with the surly Cimmerian (as Howard himself had done rewriting his unused Kull tale ‘By This Axe, I Rule’ into Conan novella ‘The Phoenix on the Sword’).

Marvel found solid ancillary supporting features with Solomon Kane, Bran Mac Morn and, most successfully King Kull: a wandering Atlantean mercenary who took the throne of a mighty kingdom by force of arms only to spend the rest of his life battling supernatural threats to it and guarding his own back from greedy, ambitious courtiers.

His comics publishing history was as chequered as his prose one; debuting in spectacular manner in Kull the Conqueror (29 issues from 1971-1978 with artistic contributions from Ross Andru, Wally Wood, John and Marie Severin and Mike Ploog among others), a black and white mature magazine Kull and the Barbarians (3 issues, 1975) and a revived, revised, comicbook version from 1982-1985. He even stared with Spider-Man in Marvel Team-Up #112

This sleek and glossy, lavishly oversized gem (285mm x 220mm rather than today’s standard 258 x 168mm) comes from 1989: an eerie, lyrical and poetic tale as the aging King battles his greatest foe and defeats her in characteristically barbaric and unflinching manner…

Kull is dying, sweating and straining on his deathbed as infected wounds seem set to carry him into the great beyond. Gathered for the deathwatch are his most trusted advisors and as they individually reminisce about the gore-spattered gladiator who became Valusia’s greatest monarch, we share their recollections to discover the kind of man he was.

Oblivious, unaware, Kull’s body thrashes and writhes. He struggles on, his soul trapped in an ethereal realm, dancing an erotic duet with the darkly seductive angel of death who has come to take him to the gods…

This eldritch crossing of the final Rubicon is beautifully illustrated in the grand, ostentatiously humanesque manner of the Filipino artists who became such a mainstay of DC and Marvel during the 1970s and early 1980s. Tony DeZuniga was one of the first to break into American comics and his work is always of the highest quality, especially here, enhanced by the glowing, lush hues of colorist Tom Vincent.

Once upon a time Marvel led the publishing pack in high quality original graphic novels: mixing creator-owned properties, licensed assets like Kull and movie adaptations with Marvel Universe tales and even new series launches in extravagant squarebound packages based on the European album model. To me it seems these slim tomes always shine with some intangible extra oomph – perhaps it’s simply the bigger pages with more art on them?

Still readily available, this is a magnificent moody yarn that will delight any fan of the genre and should easily convert a few die-hards too.
© 1989 Conan Properties Inc All Rights Reserved.

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Essential Classic X-Men volume 3


By Roy Thomas, Neal Adams, Werner Roth, Steve Englehart, Tom Sutton & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3060-4

X-Men was never one of young Marvel’s top titles but it did secure a devout and dedicated following, with the frantic, freakish energy of Jack Kirby’s heroic dynamism comfortably transitting into the slick, sleek prettiness of Werner Roth as the blunt tension of hunted outsider kids settled into a pastiche of the college and school scenarios so familiar to the students who were the series’ main audience.

The core team still consisted of tragic Scott Summers/Cyclops, ebullient Bobby Drake/Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington/Angel and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy/Beast in training with Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound (and temporarily deceased) telepath dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the gradually emerging race of mutant Homo Superior.

Jean Grey/Marvel Girl had recently returned to the team which was also occasionally supplemented by cosmic powerhouse Havok and magnetic minx Polaris although they were usually referred to as Alex Summers and Lorna Dane.

However by the time of this final massive black and white tome (collecting issues #54-66 of the turbulent teens’ original series, guest appearances in Amazing Spider-Man #92, Incredible Hulk #150 and #161, Marvel Team-Up #4 and spin-off solo series The Beast from Amazing Adventures #11-17), despite some of the most impressive and influential stories and art of the decade, the writing was definitely on the wall for Marvel’s misunderstood mutants…

The mayhem begins with ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive… Cyclops!’ (X-Men #54, March 1969, by Arnold Drake, Don Heck & Vince Colletta), which introduced Scott’s kid brother Alex just in time for the lad to be kidnapped by Egyptian acolytes of The Living Pharaoh. It appears the boy had a hidden power the Pharaoh coveted, which necessitated framing the X-Men’s leader…

At that time the back of the X-Men comic was running “untold origins” of the team, and ‘The Million Dollar Angel’ by Drake & Werner Roth, began the tale of Warren Worthington III, a precocious rich boy rushed off to prep school where he grew wings and concealed them by making himself the most despised and lonely person on campus…

Roy Thomas returned as scripter for #55’s ‘The Living Pharaoh!’ illustrated by Heck, Roth & Colletta which saw the full team follow the Summers brothers to the Valley of the Kings and soundly thrash the faux king’s minions only to have the new mutant’s unsuspected power go wild. Meanwhile, in ‘Where Angels Fear to Tread!’ (Thomas, Roth & Sam Grainger) little Warren has left school and planned a superhero career until an atomic accident brought him into contact with a couple of kids code-named Cyclops and Iceman…

Nobody knew it at the time – and sales certainly didn’t reflect it – but with X-Men #56 superhero comics changed forever. Neal Adams had stunned the comics buying public with his horror anthology work and revolutionary adventure art on Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Batman, but here, with writer Thomas in iconoclastic form, they began to expand the horizons of graphic narrative with a succession of boldly innovative, tensely paranoid dramas that pitted mutants against an increasingly hostile world.

Pitched at an older audience, the run of gripping, addictively beautiful epics captivated and enchanted a small band of amazed readers – and were completely ignored by the greater mass of the buying public. Without these tales the modern X-phenomenon could not have existed, but they couldn’t save the series from cancellation. The cruelest phrase in comics is “ahead of its time…”

‘What is… the Power?’ (Thomas, Adams & inker extraordinaire Tom Palmer) revealed the uncanny connection between Pharaoh and Alex Summers and as the Egyptian mastermind transformed into a colossal Living Monolith, the terrified boy’s mutant energies were unleashed with catastrophic results. At the back, the unbalanced Angel had become ‘The Flying A-Bomb!’ but luckily he was defused in time to become the newest X-Man.

Issue #57 brought back the team’s most relentless adversaries in ‘The Sentinels Live!’ as a public witch-hunt prompted the mutant hunting robots to hunt down X-Men across the globe. Amongst the first victims were magnetic Lorna Dane and Alex Summers but the sinister Sentinels had their unblinking eyes set on all mutants… That issue also saw a rundown on Marvel Girl’s abilities in the last back-up feature ‘The Female of the Species!’. From the next issue Thomas and Adams would have an entire issue to play with…

‘Mission: Murder!’ ramped up the tension as the toll of fallen mutants increased, with Iceman, the Pharaoh, Angel and Mesmero all falling to the murderous mechanoids, but when their human controller discovered an unsuspected secret the automatons struck out on their own…

With all other mutants in the Marvel universe captured, Cyclops, Marvel Girl and Beast were reduced to a suicidal frontal assault in ‘Do or Die, Baby!’, pulling off a spectacular victory, but only at the cost of Alex Summers, now known as Havok…

Badly injured, Alex was brought to an old colleague of Professor Xavier’s named Karl Lykos – a discreet physician hiding a dark secret. ‘In the Shadow of Sauron!’ revealed that the not-so-good doctor had been bitten by Pterodactyls from the Antarctic Savage Land and become an energy vampire. Now with a powerful mutant to feed on, his addiction fully manifested as Lykos transformed into a winged saurian with hypnotic powers, determined to sate himself on the other X-Men.

After a shattering struggle in ‘Monsters Also Weep!’ Lykos was defeated, instinctively flying South to the Savage Land. Drained of his power he reverted to human form and when the X-Men tracked him down the tormented leech chose suicide rather than become Sauron once more. Searching for his body Angel was also attacked by Pteranodons and crashed to the bottom of a vast crevasse, precipitating the mutants into another primordial encounter with wild man Ka-Zar as ‘Strangers …in a Savage Land!’

Marooned once more in a lost world Angel was healed by the enigmatic Creator, a wounded genius protecting the Savage Land’s mutant population with his own team of X-Men counterparts. As his team-mates search for him the Winged Wonder switched allegiance, unaware that his benefactor was actually the X-Men’s oldest enemy…

‘War in the World Below!’ saw the villain’s plans revealed and finally thwarted by the heroes and Ka-Zar, leaving the returning team to tackle a controversial Japanese extremist in ‘The Coming of Sunfire!’ (#64, with stalwart Don Heck doing an impressive fill-in job for Adams) whilst the next issue brought back the long-dead Professor Xavier – only to nearly kill him again in the Denny O’Neil scripted alien invasion yarn ‘Before I’d Be Slave…’ an astounding epic that ended Neal Adams’ artistic tenure in grand style.

All the staffing changes were hints of a bigger shake-up. With X-Men #66 (March 1970), the series was cancelled despite all the frantic and radical innovations crafted by a succession of supremely talented creators. ‘The Mutants and the Monster’ by Thomas, Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger, sent the team hunting for Bruce Banner in an attempt to save Professor X from a coma induced by his psychic battle against the aliens. Unfortunately when you hunt Banner what you usually end up with is an irate Incredible Hulk…

Although gone, the mutants were far from forgotten. The standard policy at that time to revive characters that had fallen was to pile on the guest-shots and reprints. X-Men #67 (December 1970) saw them return, re-presenting early classics and with Amazing Spider-Man #92 (January 1971), individually and collectively the Merry Mutants began their comeback tour. ‘When Iceman Attacks’ (Stan Lee, Gil Kane & John Romita Sr.) concluded the Amazing Arachnid’s battle against corrupt political boss Sam Bullit, as the ambitious demagogue convinced the youngest X-Man that Spider-Man was a kidnapper. Despite being a concluding chapter, this all-out action extravaganza efficiently recaps itself and is perfectly comprehensible to readers.

Alec Summers had left the X-Men, terrified of his uncontrollable cosmic power, to isolate himself in the deserts of New Mexico. When Lorna went looking for him in ‘Cry Hulk, Cry Havok!’(Incredible Hulk #150 April 1972, Archie Goodwin, Herb Trimpe & John Severin) she encountered a menacing biker gang and an Emerald Giant violently protective of his privacy. Mercifully Havok proved a match for the rampaging titan…

The previous month Marvel had launched a reinvented X-Man in a solo series as a response to the world horror boom which shifted general comicbook fare from bright shiny costumed heroes to dark and sinister monsters. Premiering in Amazing Adventures #11 (March 1972), written by Gerry Conway and illustrated by the incredibly effective team of Tom Sutton & Syd Shores, ‘The Beast!’ told how the brilliant Hank McCoy had left Xavier’s school and taken a research position at the conglomerate Brand Corporation.

Using private sector resources to research the causes of genetic mutation McCoy became embroiled in industrial skullduggery and to hide his identity used his discoveries to “upgrade” his animalistic abilities – temporarily turning himself into a fearsome anthropoid creature with startling new abilities. At least it was supposed to be temporary…

Steve Englehart assumed the writing reins and monster maestro Mike Ploog took the inker’s chair for ‘Iron Man: D.O.A.’ as McCoy, trapped in a monstrous new shape, took extreme measures to appear human as he desperately strove to find a cure for his condition. Unfortunately Brand was riddled with bad characters and when Tony Stark came to visit it was inevitable that the Beast and Iron Man would clash…

Incomprehensibly that battle led to Iron Man’s death – or so McCoy thought. In fact the monster had been mesmerized by the villainous Mastermind in a scheme to force the outcast to join the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. ‘Evil is All in Your Mind!’ (Englehart, Sutton & Frank Giacoia) also reintroduced two characters from the wildest fringes of Early Marvel continuity who would both play major roles in months and years to come. Patsy Walker was an ideal girl-next-door whose wholesome teen-comedy exploits had delighted readers for decades since her debut in Miss America #2 (Nov. 1944).

She starred in seven separate comicbooks until 1967. Now she joined the cast of the Beast as the tag-along wife of her boyhood sweetheart Buzz Baxter who had grown from an appealing decent goof to a rather daunting military martinet and Pentagon liaison. As McCoy was throwing off the psychic influence of Mastermind Captain Baxter was laying plans to capture the maligned mutate…

Meanwhile the other X-Men were not forgotten. New horror-star Morbius, the Living Vampire was making things tough for Spider-Man in Marvel Team-Up. In #4 (September 1972) the Human Torch was replaced by the mutant team as the Wall-crawler’s partner in ‘And Then… the X-Men!’ a terse, tense thriller written by Conway, inked by Steve Mitchell and illustrated by the magnificent Gil Kane at the top of his form.

Bloodsuckers literal and metaphorical were also the order of the day in Amazing Adventures #14. ‘The Vampire Machine’ (inked by Jim Mooney) saw Iron Man return as computer assassin Quasimodo attacked Brand Corp. in an attempt to steal the technology to build a new body, whilst #15 ‘Murder in Mi-Air!’ (with art from Sutton, Giacoia & John Tartaglione) found a gravely wounded McCoy make an unexpected ally and confidante, before the Angel came calling, encountering a hideous monster named the Griffin en route.

This tale reintroduced another old friend of McCoy’s and neatly segued into another Incredible Hulk crossover (#161, March 1973), but not before our hirsute hero battled an old foe in the Halloween thriller ‘…And the Juggernaut Will Get You… If You Don’t Watch Out!’ by Englehart, Bob Brown & Frank McLaughlin.

‘Beyond the Border Lurks Death!’ (Englehart, Trimpe & Sal Trapani), saw the Hulk and the Beast as reluctant allies in a battle against the Mimic, another old X-foe, whose ability to absorb the attributes of others had gone tragically, catastrophically haywire.

It was the last time McCoy would be seen in a full tale until the bombastic Beast joined the Avengers. Amazing Adventures #17 featured a two-page framing sequence by Englehart, Jim Starlin & Mike Esposito (included here) which bracketed an abridged reprint of the Beast origin back-ups from X-Men #49-53 (which are not – so see Essential Classic X-Men volume 2 for the full story).

Although a little scrappy and none too cohesive in layout these disparate stories are wonderful comics sagas that were too radical for the readership of the times but have since been acknowledged as groundbreaking mini-masterpieces which reshaped the way we tell stories to this day. Moreover this brilliant blockbuster still has treats to share. Included at the end are the 29 covers of the X-Men reprint run (#67-94 and Annuals #1-2) an unused Adams cover and 8 original art pages from #64, which make this comprehensive collection an unquestionable treasure no fan should be without.

© 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Superman vs. Predator


By Mark Schultz & Ariel Olivetti (DC Comics/Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-319-3

I’m never particularly comfortable with crossovers combining licensed characters. It seems to me that some basic law of narrative integrity is being flouted purely for venal profit when two (or more) disparate headlining money-spinners are shoehorned into a story with scant regard for intrinsic values and often necessitating ludicrous plot-maguffins simply to make the mismatch work.

On first look just such commercial instincts seem to ride roughshod over all other considerations in this Battle of The Brands from DC and Dark Horse, which originally appeared as a three-issue miniseries in 2000 before making the jump to stiff covers and nominal legitimacy as a graphic novel…

However, appearances can be deceiving and once the necessary leveling gimmick has de-powered the nigh-omnipotent Man of Tomorrow what’s left is a beautifully illustrated and tensely effective thriller that both movie mavens and funnybook fans can read and enjoy.

Written by David Michelinie and illustrated by Alex Maleev the action opens with a S.T.A.R. Labs expedition to La Jungla de Las Sombras, one of the hottest and isolated areas of the South American rain forest. A small group of scientists looking for specimens discover a half-buried alien spacecraft and immediately fall out. Whilst ambitious young Dr. Marla Rollins is bedazzled by the potential benefits and glory that would accrue from such a find, grizzled xenobiologist Casey Trabor wants to blow it up. He knows trouble when he sees it. Of course the mound of human skulls he’s standing on might be colouring his judgement…

In Metropolis, Lois Lane gets wind of the find and promptly heads South, but Superman arrives first, only to be exposed to a fast-acting extraterrestrial virus when he enters the fallen vessel with the squabbling scientists. The first inkling that something is wrong comes when the “dead” ship awakens and emits an alarm signal. Before anybody can react a surprise attack by paramilitary mercenaries drives off both the explorers and a painfully weakened Man of Steel.

Fleeing into the jungles the Americans learn the legend of the Predators (heavily referencing the first movie) from a native and when Lois finally turns up Superman is captured trying to rescue her from the mysterious soldiers.

All is revealed when the entire party is dragged before mad scientist Solomon Ward, who has turned a lost city into his private lab. Ward intends to inject a chemical into the Earth’s atmosphere that will wipe out all hereditary disease and disability. Unfortunately it works by killing all the “genetically impure” carriers at once, leaving only healthy, “pure” people alive to breed…

With Superman crippled and an unstoppable madman about to eugenically euthanise possibly everyone on Earth, dark secrets are revealed about more than one of the S.T.A.R. scientists, whilst elsewhere chaos and horror erupt as an invisible monster begins slaughtering the mercenaries…

The good guys escape and try to warn civilisation, whilst the dying Superman heads back to the downed ship looking for a last-ditch cure. What he finds is a bloody charnel house and an alien hunter summoned by the reactivated vessel.

Dying but indomitable, the Man of Steel must defeat an inhuman killing machine in time to stop mass genocide by far more wicked human monsters. The inscrutable Predator, however, has an agenda of its own, and of course there’s a thermonuclear self-destruct clock counting down too…

We are all, on some level, still just kids in our own heads, inhabiting a vast metafictional gestalt where Dracula, Adam Adamant, Thursday Next, Danger Mouse, Fu Manchu, James Bond and Carnacki, the Ghost Breaker stalk the same London streets (hey! That I would buy…) and occasionally it’s okay to giver in to the wide-eyed wonder addict – but only if the product is a well written and beautifully executed as this rare treat…

© 2001 DC Comics, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Dark Horse Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Hawkman Volume 3: Wings of Fury


By Geoff Johns, Rags Morales, José Luis García-López, Scot Eaton & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0467-9

Rising to even greater heights this third volume of the resurrected Winged Wonders (collecting issues #15-22 of their own high-flying series and including material from JLA A to Z #1-2) intensified the high-octane thrills and dynamic tension of the lovers-with-many-lives in a sequence of tales which delved deeper into their many and varied pasts and even had a bold shot at reconciling all the bewildering iterations generated by the many reboots and retcons the Feathered Furies have endured over the decades.

Despite being DC’s most popular and visually striking characters, the various versions of Hawkman and Hawkwoman always struggled to find enough of an audience to sustain a solo title. From the very beginning as the second feature in Flash Comics, they battled through many excellent yet always short-lived reconfigurations. From ancient heroes to space-cops and (post-Crisis on Infinite Earths) Thanagarian freedom fighters, they never quite hit the big time they deserved…

Hawkman premiered in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940), created by Gardner Fox and Dennis Neville, with Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Kubert carrying on the strip’s illustration, whilst a young Robert Kanigher was justly proud of his later run as writer. Carter Hall was a playboy archaeologist until he found a crystal knife that unlocked his dormant memories. He realised that once he was Prince Khufu of ancient Egypt and that he and his lover Chay-Ara had been murdered by High Priest Hath-Set. Moreover with his returned memories came the knowledge that both lover and killer were also nearby and aware…

Hall fashioned a garish uniform and anti-gravity harness, becoming a crime-fighting phenomenon. Soon the equally reincarnated Shiera Sanders was fighting and flying beside him as Hawkgirl. Together these gladiatorial “Mystery-Men” battled modern crime and tyranny with weapons of the past.

Fading away at the end of the Golden Age (the last appearance was in All Star Comics #57, 1951 as leader of the Justice Society of America) they were revived nine years later as Katar Hol and Shayera Thal of Thanagar by Julie Schwartz’s crack creative team Gardner Fox and Joe Kubert – a more space-aged interpretation which survived until 1985’s Crisis, and their long career, numerous revamps and retcons ended during the 1994 Zero Hour crisis. After the universe-shuffling a new team of Winged Wonders appeared (See Hawkworld) – refuges from a militaristic Thanagarian Empire who found new purpose on Earth.

When a new Hawkgirl was created as part of a revived Justice Society comicbook, fans knew it was only a matter of time before her Pinioned Paramour rejoined her, which he did in the excellent JSA: the Return of Hawkman, after which he immediately regained his own book. This time the blending of all previous versions into a reincarnating, immortal berserker-warrior appeared to strike the right note of freshness and seasoned maturity. Superb artwork and stunning stories didn’t hurt either.

The reconstituted Hawkman now remembers all his past lives: many millennia when and where he and Chay-Ara fought evil together as bird-themed champions, dying over and over at the hands of an equally renewed Hath-Set. Most importantly, Kendra Saunders, the new Hawkgirl, differs from all previous incarnations since Shiera was not reborn this time, but rather possessed the body of her grand-niece when that tragic girl committed suicide. Although Carter Hall still loves his immortal inamorata his companion of a million battles is no longer quite so secure or sure of her feelings…

This cracking chronicle opens with a portentous reunion between the Winged Warrior and alien cop Shayera Thal in ‘The Thanagarian’ a three-part saga by Geoff Johns, Rags Morales & Michael Bair which sees the alien virago seeking to discover the final fate of “her” Hawkman…

With Katar Hol now incorporated into the body and memories of Hawkman nobody is prepared for the brutal attack of another Winged Wonder claiming to be the actual Thanagarian hero… It takes the combined efforts of Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Shayera Thal and guest-star Animal Man to divine the secret of the murderous mystery marauder…

Artistic maestro José Luis García-López took over for ‘Blood Lines’ as the old soldier revisits his history and some of the places where he has been buried over the centuries, affording us an insight into the tragedy of reincarnation, before Carter Hall revives his career as an archaeologist in ‘Hunting For History’ (Scott Eaton & Ray Kryssing), excavating in Saharan Kahndaq and renewing a somewhat strained relationship with five thousand-year-old erstwhile comrade Black Adam…

An arcane supernatural threat materialises in St. Roch when ‘The Headhunter’ (Morales, Bair & McMurray) comes to steal the memories of the Aerial Ace and not even best friend the Atom can tip the balance when Hawkman’s past incarnations slip their graves to hunt them down in ‘Taking Off the Mask’. As ever, in the end it’s all a matter of guts and determination to end Headhunter’s ‘Blood and Lies’, but victory might well be just a far more subtle kind of defeat…

Tense, terse, beautiful and extremely violent this book saw the start of far more savage hero than previously seen but Geoff Johns’ worthy attempts to rationalise the chequered histories of Hawkmen new and old should easily stifle the qualms of the old guard: this new composite Winged Wonder is an unmissable, visceral delight no superhero devotee can afford to be without.

© 2003, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Hellblazer: The Fear Machine


By Jamie Delano and various & (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-880-5

You’ve either heard of John Constantine by now or you haven’t, so I’ll be as brief as I can. Originally created by Alan Moore during his groundbreaking run on Swamp Thing, he is a mercurial modern wizard, a chancer who plays with magic on his own terms for his own ends. He is not a hero. He is not a nice person. Sometimes though, he’s all there is between us and the void.

Given his own series by popular demand, he premiered in the dying days of Reaganite Atrocity in the US but at the height of Thatcherite Barbarism in England, so as we’re singing the same song now (but with second-rate Britain’s Got Talent cover-artists as leaders) I thought I’d cover a few old gems that might be regaining their relevance in the days ahead…

In 1987 Creative Arts and Liberal attitudes were dirty words in many quarters and the readership of Vertigo was pretty easy to profile. Jamie Delano began the series with relatively safe horror plots, introducing us to Constantine’s unpleasant nature, chequered history and odd acquaintances but even then discriminating fans were aware of a joyously anti-establishment political line and wild metaphorical underpinnings.

Skinheads, racism, Darwinian politics, gruesome supernature and more abound in the dark dystopian present of John Constantine – a world of cutting edge of mysticism, Cyber-shamanism and political soul-stealing. In Delano’s world the edges between science and magic aren’t blurred – they simply don’t exist.

Some terrors are eternal and some seem inextricably tied to a specific time and place: The Fear Machine (collecting issues #14-22 of the mature readers monthly comicbook) is an engrossing extended epic which began when the wizard went on the run after the tabloid press pilloried him as a Satanist serial killer in ‘Touching the Earth’ (by Delano, Richard Piers Rayner & Mark Buckingham).

Forced to flee his inner London comfort-zone he is adopted by a band of neo-pagan Travellers (apparently as responsible for all the ills plaguing society in the 1980s and 1990s as fat people and immigrants are today…) and journeys through the heartland of Britain.

Going native amongst the drop-outs, druggies, bath-dodgers and social misfits Constantine buddies up with an immensely powerful psychic girl named Mercury and her extremely engaging mum, Marj, but even amidst these freewheeling folks he can feel something nasty building. The first inkling occurs in ‘Shepherd’s Warning’ when Mercury discovers an ancient stone circle has been fenced off by a quasi-governmental company named Geotroniks. Someone is trying to shackle Mother Earth’s circulatory system of Ley lines…

Meanwhile elsewhere, people are compelled to kill and mutilate themselves and Geotroniks is watching and taking notes…

When police raid the Travellers campsite in ‘Rough Justice’ Mercury is abducted and imprisoned in a secret complex where the mind’s limits and the Earth’s forces are being radically tested. Cutting edge stuff… if only the subjects and observing scientists can be persuaded to stop committing suicide…

Mike Hoffman illustrated the fourth chapter, ‘Fellow Travellers’ as Constantine headed back to London for help in finding Mercury and uncovering the secrets of Geotroniks. He gains a horrific insight when the train he’s on is devastated by a psychic assault which makes all the passengers destroy themselves…

‘Hate Mail & Love Letters’ (with art by Buckingham & Alfredo Alcala) begins two months later. Marj and the travellers are hiding in the Highlands with a fringe group called the Pagan Nation, led by the mysterious Zed – an old friend of the wily trickster. Constantine keeps digging, but across the country suicide and self harm are increasing. Society itself seems diseased, but at least the Satanist witch hunt has been forgotten as the Press rage on to their next sanctimonious cause celebré…

Touching base with his few police contacts and pet journalists the metropolitan mage soon stumbles into a fresh aspect of the mystery when a Masonic hitman begins removing anyone who could be of use to his enquiries in ‘The Broken Man’. Saving journalist Simon Hughes from assassination in a particularly exotic manner guaranteed to divert attention from his politically damaging investigations, Constantine finds new clues that a the psychic horror and social unrest are all being orchestrated by reactionary aspects of the government and a sinister “Old Boy network”…

And somewhere dark and hidden Mercury’s captors are opening doors to places mortals were never meant to…

As the Pagan Nation’s priestesses work their subtle magics to find the missing girl and save humanity’s soul, a disgusting, conglomerate beast-thing is maturing, made from fear and pain, greed and suffering and deep black despair: provoking a response from and guest-appearance by Morpheus, the Sandman, and prompting Constantine, Hughes and possibly the last decent copper in London to go hunting…

Picking up another recruit in the form of KGB scientist Sergei, events spiral ever faster as the Freemasons – or at least their “Magi Caecus” elite – are revealed to be organising the plot in ‘Betrayal’, combining Cold War paranormal research, economic imperialism, Thatcherite divisive self-gratification and the order’s own quasi-mystical arcana to create a situation in which their guiding principles will control society and the physical world. It nothing more than a greedy power-grab using blood and horror to fuel the engines of change…

All pretence of scientific research at Geotroniks is abandoned in ‘The God of All Gods’ as Masonic hitman Mr. Webster goes off the deep end, ignoring his own Lodge Grandmaster’s orders to abort the project amidst an increasing national atmosphere of mania, determined to free the fearful thing they’ve created and unmake the modern world at all costs. Constantine’s allies are all taken and the wizard is left to fight on alone.

Knee deep in intrigue, conspiracy and spilled guts, humanity seems doomed unless Constantine’s band of unhappy brothers and a bunch of Highland witch women can pull the biggest, bloodiest rabbit out of the mother of all hats in the spectacular conclusion ‘Balance’…

The heady blend of authoritarian intransigence, counterculture optimism, espionage action, murder-mystery conspiracy theories and ancient sex-magic mix perfectly to create an oppressive tract of inexorable terror and smashed hope before the astounding climax forestalls if not saves the day of doom, in this extremely impressive dark chronicle which still resonates with the bleak and cheerless zeitgeist of the time.

This is a superb example of modern horror fiction, inextricably linking politics, religion human nature and sheer bloody-mindedness as the root cause of all ills. That our best chance of survival is a truly reprehensible exploitative monomaniac seems a perfect metaphor for the world we’re locked into…

Clever, subversive and painfully prophetic, even at its most outlandish, this tale jabs at the subconscious with its scratchy edginess and jangles the nerves from beginning to end. An unmissable feast for fear fans, humanists and political mavericks everywhere…

© 1989, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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100 Bullets: Samurai


By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-800-3

Not long after Columbus landed in America, thirteen ancient European crime-families migrated to the New World and clandestinely carved up the continent in perpetuity between them. As the country grew cultured and a new nation was born the Trust embedded itself in every aspect of it.

To prevent their own greed and ambition from destroying the sweetest deal in history the Families created an extraordinary police force to mediate and act when any Trust member or faction acted against the unity and best interests of the whole. They were called the Minutemen and were always led by the kind of peacekeeper needed to keep them honest and actively cooperating – a man uniquely honest, dedicated, smart and remorseless.

Not too long ago though, The Trust’s leaders decided they no longer needed overseers and acted with characteristic ruthlessness to remove them. Betrayed Minutemen leader Agent Graves didn’t take his dismissal well and has been slowly enacting a plan to rectify that casual injustice. For years he has been appearing to various betrayed and defeated people as a “Court of Last Resort” offering answers, secrets, an untraceable handgun and 100 Bullets…

Beginning as one of the best crime-comics in decades, 100 Bullets slowly, steadily transformed into a captivating conspiracy thriller of terrifying scope and immense, intimate detail. With this seventh volume (collecting issues #43-49 of the magnificently adult comicbook) creators Azzarello and Risso began arraying their huge cast of pawns and key pieces for the endgame and unguessable conclusion even though it was only the halfway point of the show…

With ‘Chill in the Oven’ the action switches to a maximum security prison where Loop Hughes is just getting out of solitary. Sadly that’s only the beginning of his problems since both the convict alpha dogs and the guards have been waiting for this moment…

Luckily, or probably not, the heat is temporarily off since the new intake includes the most dangerous sociopath nut-job in America… Lono, a brutal force of nature planning to take charge even from behind bars, fresh from an unexpected encounter in 100 Bullets: Six Feet Under the Gun. Sadly, the murderous ex-Minuteman also has a score to settle with Loop too…

When the Trust’s fixer Shepherd pays a surprise visit Lono realises who is behind all his problems if not why and decides to take matters into his own calloused, bloodstained hands…

Meanwhile out in the free world junkie Jack Daw (100 Bullets: A Foregone Tomorrow) still has one of those untraceable guns and is travelling south with his skeevy pal Mikey. ‘In Stinked’ finds the pair laying low at a seedy wild animal park that secretly caters to “businessmen” who want to kill a big cat without the hassle of licenses, laws or leaving the country…

Jack clearly thinks he has more in common with the caged beasts but when he discovers what else goes on at Jungle Land the lost boy finally makes a stand that leaves the walls red and nobody standing…

Wicked, clever, blackly funny and gloriously, gratuitously vicarious, this ultra-violent, sex-stuffed, profanity-packed, utterly addictive thrill ride goes from strength to strength but always pay close attention! Every beautiful panel on every thrilling page might hold clues to the grand saga unfolding before your eyes.

If there are still any of you rush-starved story fans – grown-up, paid-up, immured to harsh language and unshaken by rude, nude and very violent behaviour – who aren’t addicted to this compulsive classic yet, get out there and grab every one of these graphic novels at all costs! You need them all and the very best is yet to come…

© 2003, 2004 Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso & DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Flash Gordon: complete daily strips – 19th November 1951-20th April 1953


By Dan Barry & Harvey Kurtzman, with Frank Frazetta (Kitchen Sink Press)
ISBN: 978-0-86801-969-7

By most lights Flash Gordon is the most influential comic strip in the world. When the hero debuted on Sunday January 7th 1934 (with the superb Jungle Jim running as a supplementary “topper” strip) as an answer to the revolutionary, inspirational, but rather clunky Buck Rogers strip of Philip Nolan and Dick Calkins (which also began on January 7th, but five years earlier) two new elements were added to the wonderment; Classical Lyricism and astonishing beauty.

Where Rogers blended traditional adventure and high science concepts, Flash Gordon reinterpreted Fairy Tales, Heroic Epics and Mythology, spectacularly draping them in the trappings of the contemporary future, with varying ‘Rays’, ‘Engines’ and ‘Motors’ substituting for spells, swords and steeds – although there were also plenty of those – and exotic craft and contraptions standing in for Galleons, Chariots and Magic Carpets.

Most important of all, the sheer artistic talent of Raymond, his compositional skills, fine line-work, eye for sumptuous detail and just plain genius for drawing beautiful people and things, swiftly made this the strip that all young artists swiped from.

When all-original comicbooks began a few years later, dozens of talented kids weaned on the strip’s clean-lined, athletic Romanticism entered the field, their interpretations of Raymond’s mastery a ticket to future success in the field of adventure strips. Almost as many went with Milton Caniff’s expressionistic masterpiece Terry and the Pirates (and to see one of his better disciples check out Beyond Mars, illustrated by the wonderful Lee Elias).

For over a decade sheer escapist magic in a Ruritanian Neverland, blending Camelot, Oz and every fabled paradise that promised paradise yet concealed hidden vipers, ogres and demons, enthralled the entire world, all cloaked in a glimmering sheen of sleek art deco futurism. Worthy adversaries such as utterly evil, animally magnetic Ming, emperor of a fantastic wandering planet; myriad exotic races and fabulous conflicts offered a fantastic alternative to the drab and dangerous real world…

Alex Raymond’s ‘On the Planet Mongo’, with Don Moore doing the bulk of the scripting, ran every Sunday until 1944, when the artist joined the Marines. On his return he would create the gentleman detective serial Rip Kirby. The one continuous, unmissable weekly appointment with sheer wonderment, continued under the artistic auspices of Raymond’s assistant Austin Briggs who had drawn the daily instalments since 1940.

That Monday to Saturday black and white feature ran from 1940-1944 when it was cancelled to allow Briggs to take over the Sunday page. Often regarded as the poor relation, the daily strip got an impressive reboot in 1951 when King Features, keenly aware of the science fiction zeitgeist of the post-war world, revived it, asking Dan Barry to produce the package. The Sunday was continued by Austin Briggs until 1948 when Mac Raboy assumed artistic control, beginning a twenty year resurgence of classical brilliance. On Raboy’s death Barry added the Sunday to his workload until he quit over a pay dispute in 1990.

Barry (1911-1997) started as a jobbing artist in comicbooks, a contemporary of Leonard Starr and Stan Drake. Like them and his brother Seymour “Sy” Barry (who produced The Phantom newspaper strip for three decades) Dan worked in a finely detailed, broadly realistic style, blending esthetic sensibility with sharp detail and strong, almost burly virile toughness – a gritty “He-man” attitude for a new era and defined as “New York Slick”.

Dan Barry drew such varied comicbook series as Airboy, Skywolf, Boy King, Black Owl, Spy Smasher and Doc Savage before joining the Air Force. Returning after the hostilities he drew The Heap and assorted genre shorts for new titles such as Crimebusters. He also started his own business producing educational and informational comics.

He began the gradual departure from funny-books as early as 1947 when he took over the Tarzan daily strip for a year but he was still gracing DC’s crime, mystery and science fiction anthologies as late as 1954. When offered Flash Gordon he agreed, intending to write the feature himself. However, the financial rewards were meager and soon he was looking for a scripter.

The story of how cartoon genius Harvey Kurtzman came aboard (probably in February 1952) makes a fascinating postscript in this magnificent volume so I won’t spoil the revelations of the text feature at the back: a section which also contains a wealth of the new writer’s rough-penciled script layouts, sketches, ghosted pencils from young Frank Frazetta and a selection of Flash Gordon spoofs from other magazines. (If you’re interested, they include ‘Flesh Garden’ by Wally Wood from Mad #11 (May 1954), ‘Flyashi Gordonovitch’ (Jack Davis, Humbug #10, June 1958), ‘Little Annie Fanny’ (Playboy 1962, Will Elder) and Kurtzman’s own art for the cover of Snarf #5, September 1972).

This huge black and white tome, 320mm x 260mm, available as both hardback and softcover, reprints the entire run until Kurtzman’s departure with the 20th April episode. Later Flash Gordon story collaborators included writers Harry Harrison and Julian May and art assistants Bob Fujitani and Hillman Publications comrade Fred Kida – more magical material well worth collecting someday….

The new Flash Gordon daily debuted on 19th November 1951 with all the beloved history and scenarios of Mongo and the Ruritanian universe sidelined in favour of a grittier, harder-edged pulp fiction atmosphere. Sometime in the near future astronaut Flash launches into space, part of an expedition to Jupiter, However technical trouble forces the ship to stop at the Space Prison Station.

Docked for repairs the crew inadvertently triggers a riot as the ruthless convicts take a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to escape the space rock… Terse and gripping, this two-fisted yarn rockets along with Flash, Dale and the crew fighting for their lives before finding an ally among the rioters, one who would eventually join them on their voyage to the gas giant and beyond…

With new iconoclastic tone and milieu firmly established, ‘Man Against Jupiter!’ began on Monday, February 25th 1952 (with Kurtzman’s first scripts appearing sometime in April). The crew orbiting the colossal globe once more experiences terrifying malfunctions and their atomic ship “Planet Pioneer” heads to the moon Ganymede to effect repairs. On landing the bold explorers discover a subterranean civilisation within the icy satellite and a young Earth boy…

Ray Carson was the son of a lost lunar scientist and his presence halfway across the solar system is but one of the intriguing mysteries challenging Flash and Dale as they battle alien madmen and malicious monsters in the hidden City of Ice… Of course the real threat is the willful, voluptuous Queen Marla who abducted Ray and his father…

Using teleport technology she had dispatched the missing scientist to another star-system to search for an element vital to the Ganymedan’s survival but when upheaval and revolution tear the city apart Flash, Dale, Ray and Marla can only escape by following the missing savant into an unknown universe…

Slowly the old accoutrements of the classic strip had been returning: lost civilizations, monsters, arena duels… and with this new sequence (beginning 17th June 1952) the creators brought back more fantasy elements as the survivors explore this new world hunting Dale, who had been lost in transit. After an intriguingly off-beat encounter with Butterfly Men and a grueling ocean odyssey the Flash, Marla and Ray discover a feudal race of horned and tailed, cloven-hoofed warriors in the devil city of Tartarus and an old friend making earth weapons for them as they strive to overthrow their tyrannical warlord…

Wherever Flash Gordon goes war and revolution seem to follow, but once the devil-men have settled their differences Flash, Marla and Ray resume the search for Dale, and stumble into the bizarrely advanced city of Pasturia, ruled by masters of the mind…

With “Planet Pioneer” crewman Bill Kent, the trio press on and soon make the most astounding discovery of all: this distant world is the retirement home of legendary Earth wizard Merlin, whose super technology includes a time-machine which not only recovers Dale and returns them all to Earth but subsequently endangers our home world by accidentally allowing criminals from the future to poison the planet…

Gripping, alluring, stunningly well illustrated (did I mention that the incomparable Frank Frazetta penciled a long sequence of incredible strips?) this lost treasure is pure graphic gold, presented on huge pages that perfectly display the virtuosity of all involved. Perfect, perfect comic strip wonderment…
© 1988 King Features Syndicate. Additional material © 1988 its respective copyright holders. This edition © 1988 Kitchen Sink Press. All Rights Reserved.

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JLA volume 9: Terror Incognita


By Mark Waid & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-936-2

By the time of these tales (reprinting issues #55-60) the Justice League of America had become once more a fully integrated part of the DCU and no longer a high-profile niche project for creative superstars. Mark Waid, joined here by Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty, proved that the heroes were the true stars in a succession of fast, furious and funny fights ‘n’ tights romps that managed to blend high concept and big science with all the classical riffs beloved by long-term fans.

Starting off this volume is the extended, eponymous dark and devilish thriller ‘Terror Incognita’ as the sinister White Martians (first rearing their pallid spiky heads in JLA: New World Order) return to transform the planet into their own recreational slaughterhouse. Launching the campaign with a series of blistering personalised psychic assaults in ‘Came the Pale Riders’ by Waid, Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary, their intensifying efforts were met with valiant resistance in ‘Harvest’ (illustrated by Mike S. Miller & Dave Meikis), before Batman led the counterpunch with plenty of guest-stars in tow in ‘Mind Over Matter’ (Miller & Neary) resulting in a calamitous crescendo and glorious triumph in ‘Dying Breath’.

With no appreciable pause for breath the team then became involved in the cross-company publishing event that saw “Jokerised” super-villains running amok throughout the DCU (see Batman: the Joker’s Last Laugh for further details).

‘Bipolar Disorder’ (scripted by Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty, with art from Darryl Banks & Wayne Faucher) saw magnetic malcontent and world class lunatic Dr. Polaris made even crazier when infected by the Crazy Clown’s unique brand of insanity, stretching Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Plastic Man to their utmost in a bid to preserve the planet deep in the icy Antarctic wastes…

Rounding out the book is a classy Christmas neo-classic as Plastic Man reveals how Santa Claus joined the JLA in the outrageously engrossing ‘Merry Christmas, Justice League… Now Die!’ by Waid, Cliff Rathburn & Paul Neary.

Witty, engaging, beautiful and incredibly exciting these are some of the best superhero adventures ever created: timeless, rewarding sagas that must be part of your permanent collection…
© 2001, 2002 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.