Graphic Novels – Page 196

November 8, 2010November 4, 2010

Birds of Prey

By Chuck Dixon, Jordan Gorfinkel, Gary Frank & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-574-8

Birds of Prey recounts the missions and lives of a rotating team of female crime-fighters led by Barbara Gordon, the computer genius known as Oracle. Daughter of the Police Commissioner of Gotham City, her own career as Batgirl was ended when the Joker blew out her spine in a terrifying kidnap attempt. Trapped in a wheelchair she hungered for justice and sought new ways to make a difference in a very bad worldâ€¦

Reinventing herself as a covert information gatherer for the Batman’s clique of avengers and defenders, she gradually became an invaluable resource for the entire superhero community, but in the first of these collected tales Babs undertakes a new project that will allow her to become an even more effective crusader against injusticeâ€¦

This volume contains the one-shots, specials and miniseries that successfully introduced a spellbinding blend of sassy bad-girl attitude and spectacular all-out action which finally convinced timid editorial powers-that-be of the commercial viability of a team composed of nothing but female superheroes.

Who could possibly have guessed that some readers would like effective, positive, clever women kicking evil butt, and that boys would follow the adventures of violent, sexy, usually underdressed chicks hitting bad-guys – and occasionally each other â€¦?

The issues gathered here, Black Canary/Oracle: Birds of Prey #1, Birds of Prey: Revolution, the pertinent section of Showcase ’96 #3 and Birds of Prey: Manhunt #1-4 form a breathtaking riot of dynamic, glossy crime-busting heavily highlighting the kind of wickedness costumes crusaders usually ignore, white collar and black-heartedâ€¦

The first tale ‘One Man’s Hell’, written by Chuck Dixon and illustrated by Gary Frank & John Dell, is set at a time when veteran martial arts crime-crusher Black Canary was slowly going to hell after the death of her long-time lover Green Arrow (of course he got better a few years later – see Green Arrow: Quiver for details).

Broke, uncontrolled and hell-bent on self-destruction, the increasingly violent and adrenaline-addicted heroine was contacted by a mysterious unseen presence and dispatched to an third world country to investigate a series of â€œterrorist attacksâ€ that always seemed to profit one unimpeachably benevolent philanthropistâ€¦

With nothing left to lose Canary undertook the tragically brutal mission and gained an impossibly valuable prizeâ€¦ purpose.

Peppered with an intriguing array of guest-stars and villains this socially-conscious high-octane thriller established the Canary as one of the most competent and engaging combatants of the DCU and a roving agent of conscience and retribution more than capable of tackling the villainous scum who were clever enough to stay below the regular superhero radar: a reputation enhanced in the sequel ‘Revolution’.

Dixon, Stefano Raffaele & Bob McLeod crafted a superbly compelling tale wherein she and her silent partner (at this time Oracle was no more than a rumour to everybody but Batman and the Canary, who got â€œintelâ€ and advice from an anonymous voice that came by phone, text or the radio-jewellery of her new costume) tracked a human trafficking ring to the rogue state of Santa Prisca and stumbled into a dirty campaign by American interests to topple the standing dictator.

When the venerable Showcase title was revived in the 1990s it was as a monthly anthology that highlighted old unemployed characters and events already originated rather than new wholly new concepts, swiftly becoming a place to test the popularity of the company’s bit players with a huge range of heroes and team-ups passing through its eclectic pages. This made it a perfect place to trot out the new team for a broader audience who might have ignored the one-shots.

Showcase ’96 #3 cover-starred Black Canary and Lois Lane, featuring a frantic collusion between the reporter, the street fighter and the still â€œsilent partnerâ€ Oracle in a tale scripted by series editor Jordan B. Gorfinkel, laid out by Jennifer Graves and finished by Stan Woch. ‘Birds of a Feather’ found Superman’s then Girlfriend and the Birds taking out a metahuman gangmaster who had enslaved migrant workers to work in Metropolis’ secret sweat shop. Punchy and potent it led to the four-issue miniseries which ends this volume whilst introducing a new wrinkle in the formatâ€¦ teaming Oracle and Canary with an ever-changing cast of DC’s Fighting Females.

‘Manhunt’ saw Dixon again script a breakneck, raucous thriller which began ‘Where Revenge Delights’ (illustrated by Matt Haley & Wade Von Grawbadger) as the Birds’ pursuit of a philandering embezzler and scam-artist lead them into heated conflict with The Huntress – a mob-busting vigilante who even Batman thinks plays too rough. She also wanted the revoltingly skeevy Archer Braun (whom she knows and loathes as Tynan Sinclair) but her motives seem a good deal more personalâ€¦

The two active agents cautiously agree to cooperate but the mix gets even headier when Selina Kyle invites herself to the lynching party in ‘Girl Crazy’ (with additional inking from John Lowe). Canary consents over the strident objections of the never-more helpless and frustrated Oracle. Braun, it seems, is into bigger crimes than anyone suspected and has made the terminal error of bilking the notorious Catwomanâ€¦

Fed up with Babs shouting in her ear Canary goes off-line, subsequently getting captured by Braun, ‘The Man That Got Away’ (inked by Cam Smith) and clearly a major threat. He might even be a covert metahumanâ€¦

Shanghaied to a criminal enclave in Kazakhstan for the stunning conclusion ‘Ladies Choice’ (art by Sal Buscema, Haley & Von Grawbadger) Canary is more-or-less rescued by the unlikely and unhappy pairing of Catwoman and Huntress, but none of them is ready or able to handle Braun’s last surprise – Lady Shiva Woosan, the world’s greatest martial arts assassinâ€¦

This rollercoaster ride of thrills, spills and beautifully edgy, sardonic attitude finally won the Birds their own regular series which quickly became one of DC’s best and most consistently engaging superhero adventure series. This opening salvo is both groundbreaking and fantastically fun, and will delight any comics Fights ‘n’ Tights follower as well as anyone woman who’s ever had a man in her lifeâ€¦
Â© 1996, 1997, 2002 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

October 30, 2010October 16, 2010

Buster Book of Spooky Stories 1976

By various (IPC Magazines)
ISBN: 85037-199-6

Considering that Halloween is a still a children’s festival (tabloid press and TV reports of Binging adult excess notwithstanding) I thought I’d review this delightful package that epitomises the veritable End of Days of the traditional post-war English Comics industry.

By 1975 the glory days of the children’s periodical publishing business were swiftly fading. The accepted wisdoms that comics were only read by children who would eventually move on to better and more acceptable forms of entertainment (and these were opinions held by the monolithic managements which produced them!) were gradually eroded by more creative types within the industry who saw the potential of the medium and by the increasingly vocal fan movement which kept on buying and reading the iniquitous, garish little pamphlets even after they had all â€œgrown up.â€

Fleetway was an adjunct of the world’s largest publishing company IPC, and had, by the early 1970s swallowed or out-competed all the other companies producing mass-market comics except the exclusively television-themed Polystyle Publications. As it always had been, the megalith was locked in a death-struggle with Dundee’s DC Thomson for the hearts and minds of their assorted juvenile markets – a battle the publishers of the Beano and Dandy would finally win when Fleetway sold off its diminishing comics line to Egmont publishing and Rebellion Studios in 2002.

In 1974 Fleetway’s hidebound, autocratic bureaucracy still ruled the roost, even though sales had been steadily declining in all sectors of the industry (pre-school, juvenile, boys and girls, educational) since the end of the 1960s, and increasingly the company considered niche products to shore up sales rather than expand or experiment. A young sub-editor on Buster, Dez Skinn, who would go on to produce a number of successful independent publications such as Starburst, House of Hammer and Warrior, as well as partially reviving the fortunes of the moribund reprint house Marvel UK, proposed a kids horror comic called Chiller to fill a perceived gap in the market, even preparing new and revised reprint material to show the â€œhigher ups.â€

His cautious bosses nixed the idea but decreed that the prepared material would be used in one-off annuals as part of the occasional, themed series â€œThe Buster Book of â€¦â€ which had begun in 1970 with â€œGagsâ€ and provided cost-effective, profitable items with a longer shelf-life for the lucrative Christmas and summer holiday markets. For further details and intriguing insider information check out the excellent website Dezskinn.com.

Of course I knew none of this when I picked up this second Buster Book of Spooky Stories in 1975 (annuals were forwarded-dated) a period when I was far more interested in girls and beer than funnybooks. It was a remarkable experience: instant, brand new nostalgiaâ€¦

Behind its gaudy soft card covers lay a delightful blend of new and old; comedy strips, fact features and scary adventure yarns that had been the stuff of my formative Christmas experiences throughout the 1960s. The jollity commences with a Reg Parlett (?) ‘Rent-A-Ghost Ltd.’ two-page howler, the teasing essay ‘Do You Believe in Ghosts?’ and more ghost gags before the first lengthy scare-fest beginsâ€¦ ‘The Ghostly Guardian’ followed the trials and tribulations of young Jim Frobisher who fled the home of his abusive foster-uncle and took up residence with a stray dog and his own deceased ancestor – a 17^th century pirate named Firebrand Frobisher.

This is a resized weekly serial collected from I know not where, but is still resonates with thrills, spills and comedy chills, delivered in beautiful moody monochrome drawn by the Solano Lopez studio (sadly these credits are mostly guesswork as the work was deliberately un-attributed at the time). The eponymous star of the book contributes the first of 2 ‘Buster’s Dream World’ episodes, followed by a Ken Reid ‘Face Ache’ yarn, the first of many ‘Spooky Scapbook’ fact-files and a short tale of ‘Horace the Hopeless Haunter’ before the real gem of the book begins: the first of two Cursitor Doom tales, jazzed up for the sinister seventies by re-jigging them as tales of Curtis Bronson: Ghost Hunter.

Cursitor Doom first appeared in the revamped Smash in 1969, created by Ken Mennell and illustrated by the utterly brilliant Eric Bradbury, an elderly mystical troubleshooter (Doom not Bradbury) who hired burly he-man Angus McCraggan to be his agent in the physical side of the eternal battle against manifest evil. Here Angus has been redrawn to resemble contemporary anti-hero Charles Bronson and in ‘The Phantom Friar’ goes solo protecting a couple of damsels in distress from a spectral monk and greedy relative.

The next comedy section comprises ‘Angel Face and Dare Devil’, ‘The Creepy Crawleys’, ‘Whacky Waxworks’, ‘Chilling Chuckles’, an extended jape ‘The Mummy’s Curse’ and ‘The Scareys of St. Mary’s’, neatly bisected by the text terrors ‘Ghost Stories of the Sea’ and another ‘Do You Believe in Ghosts?’ before the original spooky thrill-fest resumes with ‘The Ghost of Gaunt Manor’ and a suitably themed ‘Puzzle Page’.

After another ‘Spooky Scrapbook’ Ken Reid returns with an hilarious ‘Davy Jones Locker’ strip and nefarious Buster regular Charlie Peace debuts in a Victorian shocker ‘The House of Thrills’ whilst tyrannical 15^th century warlord Ungar the Merciless comes a cropper when he tries to steal ‘The Mystic Fountain’. ‘Rent-A-Ghost Ltd.’, ‘The Scareys of St. Mary’s’, ‘Whacky Waxworks’ and yet another ‘Do You Believe in Ghosts?’ precede the second and final instalment of ‘The Ghostly Guardian’.

More ‘Angel Face and Dare Devil’, ‘Puzzle Page’ and ‘The Mummy’s Curse’ follow and a ‘Creepy Cackles with ‘The Scareys of St. Mary’s’, after which ‘The 13^th Man’ a brief western terror tale provides some all-new thrills, balanced by more ‘Davy Jones Locker’, ‘Horace the Hopeless Haunter’, ‘Do You Believe in Ghosts?’, ‘The Creepy Crawleys’, ‘Face Ache’ and ‘Ghost Stories of the Sea’ before the serialised Mummy’s Curse concludes.

The final section opens with a final witchly romp for ‘The Scareys of St. Mary’s’ and ‘Curtis Bronson meets The Snake Mummy’ a Bradbury drawn drama which tingles with menace and in which Cursitor Doom makes a telling appearance, albeit in the trendier guise of Septimus Drood. Just to ensure there’s not too many nightmares ‘Rent-A-Ghost Ltd.’, ‘Spooky Scapbook’ and the other ‘Buster’s Dream World’ make their last appearances and the book ends with an activity page, the ‘Haunted House Escape Game!’

In 1984 the company released the short-lived Scream!, an excellent weekly kids horror anthology modeled on the inexplicably (to management, at least) successful 2000AD, but the supernatural zeitgeist of the 1970s was long gone and the comic foundered and was cancelled after four months, which probably means something, but I’m to polite to say whatâ€¦

This book is a delightful monster-mish-mash and one that will delight older fans and deliver lots of laughs and shivers to the young. Well worth tracking down and rapturously reading over and over again.
Â© 1975 IPC Magazines. All rights reserved.

October 25, 2010October 30, 2010

Green Arrow/Black Canary: The Wedding album

By Judd Winick, Cliff Chiang, Amanda Conner & AndrÃ© Coehlo (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1841-6

Green Arrow is Oliver Queen, a cross between Batman and Robin Hood and one of DC’s Golden All-Stars. He’s been a fixture of the company’s landscape – often for no discernable reason – more or less continually since his debut in More Fun Comics # 73 in 1941. During those heady days origins weren’t as important as image and storytelling so creators Mort Weisinger and George Papp never bothered, leaving later workmen France Herron, Jack Kirby and his wife Roz to fill in the blanks with ‘The Green Arrow’s First Case’ at the start of the Silver Age superhero revival (Adventure Comics #256, January 1959).

As a fixture of the DC Universe since the early 1940s GA was one of the few costumed heroes to survive the end of the Golden Age, consistently adventuring in the back of other heroes’ comic books, joining the Justice League during the Silver Age return of costumed crusaders and eventually evolving into a spokes-hero of the anti-establishment during the 1960’s period of â€œRelevantâ€ comics, courtesy of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams.

Under Mike Grell’s 1980/1990s stewardship he became a gritty and popular A-Lister; an urban hunter who dealt harshly with corporate thugs, government spooks and serial killers rather than costumed goof-balls.

And then he was killed and his son took over the role.

And then the original was brought backâ€¦

Black Canary was one of the first of the relatively few female furies in the DC universe, following Wonder Woman, Liberty Belle and Red Tornado (who actually masqueraded as a man) and predating Merry the Gimmick Girl. She was created by Bob Kanigher and Carmine Infantino, debuting in Flash Comics #86, August 1947. She disappeared with most of the other super-doers at the end of the Golden Age, only to be revived with the Justice Society of America in 1963.

Originally an Earth-2 crimefighter transplanted to our world, she has been ruthlessly retconned over and again, and (currently) Dinah Laurel Lance is the daughter of an earlier, war-time heroine. However you feel about the character two consistent facts have remained since her reintroduction and assimilation in Justice League of America #73-75 (see Showcase Presents Justice League of America volume 4): she has vied with Wonder Woman herself for the title of premiere heroine and she has been in a stormy romantic relationship with Green Arrow.

The affair which began during of the Summer of Love finally reached a dramatic culmination a few years ago when the couple at last named the day, and this fearsomely dramatic and cripplingly funny tome gathers those unforgettable moments in a celebratory chronicle that will warm the hearts and chill the souls of sentimental thrill seekers everywhere.

Reprinting Green Arrow and Black Canary Wedding Special and issues #1-5 of the monthly Green Arrow and Black Canary comicbook, the saga begins with a hilariously immature retelling of the path to wedlock from scripter Judd Winick and Amanda Conner: spats, tender moments, hen-nights, stag-parties and a tremendous battle as a huge guard of dishonour comprising most of the villains in the DCU attack the assembled heroes when they’re â€œoff-guardâ€.

Naturally the bad-guys are defeated, the ceremony concludes and the newlyweds head off to enjoy their wedding night.

And then in circumstances I’m not going to spoil for you Green Arrow dies againâ€¦

Obviously it doesn’t end there. For the start of their new series and the story-arc ‘Dead Again’, by Winick and Cliff Chiang, Ollie Queen is only seen in flashbacks as the Black Widow Canary goes on a brutal crime-crushing rampage. ‘Here Comes the Bride’ finds her slowly going off the rails and only Ollie’s son Conner Hawke seems able to get through to her where friends like Green Lantern, Superman, Oracle and even Ollie’s old sidekicks Speedy and Red Arrow tell her to move on.

As usual it takes the ultra-rational Batman to divine what really happened on the wedding nightâ€¦

In ‘The Naked and the Not-Quite-So-Dead’ Dinah and Mia Dearden – the new Speedy -infiltrate the island home of the miscreants who have abducted and imprisoned Green Arrow (notice how vague I’m being; all for your benefit?) where Ollie is already proving to be more trouble than he can possibly be worth. Conner is also on hand and whilst attempting to spring his wayward dad also falls captive to overwhelming forcesâ€¦

‘Hit and Run, Run, Run!’ ramps up the tension as the heroes all escape but not before one of their number is gravely wounded by a new mystery assailant, and in ‘Dead Again: Please Play Where Daddy Can See You’ it’s Ollie’s turn to fall apart as his wounded young protÃ©gÃ© fights for life.

The book concludes in the heart-warming ‘Child Support’ with another series of poignant flashbacks describing Green Arrow’s history and his extended family of sidekicks before Dinah leads Ollie back from the brink of utter despairâ€¦

Green Arrow and Black Canary are characters that epitomise the modern adventure hero’s best qualities, even if in many ways they are also the most traditional of â€œOld Schoolâ€ champions. This is a cracking example of Fights ‘n’ Tights done right and is well worth an investment of your money and time.

October 22, 2010October 24, 2010

Love and Rockets: New Stories volume 3

By The Hernandez Brothers (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-379-8

A year goes by like 365 days when you’re waiting for something really special and very often the anticipation is far headier than the eventual pay-off. Mercifully in the case of Love and Rockets: New Stories such in not the case, as the third annual volume proves to be the best yet, combining eccentric drama, bright fantasy, captivating whimsy and appalling human frailty into a package of stunning graphic intensity.

In the 1980s a qualitative revolution forever destroyed the clichÃ©d, stereotypical ways different genres of comic strips were produced and marketed. Most prominent in destroying the comfy pigeonholes we’d built for ourselves were three guys from Oxnard, California; Jaime, Mario (occasionally) and Gilberto Hernandez.

Love and Rockets was an anthology magazine featuring slick, intriguing, sci-fi tinted hi-jinx of punky young things Maggie and Hopey – las Locas – and heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasies from the rural Central American paradise of Palomar. The Hernandez Boys, gifted synthesists all, enthralled and enchanted with incredible stories that sampled a thousand influences conceptual and actual – everything from Comics, TV cartoons, masked wrestlers and the exotica of American Hispanic pop culture to German Expressionism. There was also a perpetual backdrop displaying the holy trinity of youth: Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll – for which please hear alternative music and punk rock.

The result was dynamite. Mario only officially contributed on rare occasions but the slick and enticing visual forays by Jaime explored friendship and modern love whilst destroying stereotypes of feminine attraction through his fetching coterie of Gals Gone Wild and Gilberto created the hyper-real landscape of Palomar: a playground of wit and passion created for the extended serial Heartbreak Soup, in the quicksilver form of a poor Latin-American village with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast. The denizens of Palomar still inform and shape the latest tales from Beto both directly and as imaginative spurs for unassociated stories.

Everything from life death, adultery, magic, serial killing and especially gossip could happen in Palomar’s meta-fictional environs, as the artist mined his own post-punk influences in a deceptively effective primitivist art style which blended the highly personal mythologies of comics, music, drugs, strong women, gangs, sex and family using a narrative format that was the graphic equivalent to the literary discipline of Magical Realism.

Winning critical acclaim but little financial success the brothers temporarily went their own ways but a few years ago creatively reunited to produce these annual collections of new material in their particularly peculiar shared or rather, intermittently adjacent pen-and-ink universes.

This third volume commences with Gilbert’s ‘Scarlet by Starlight’ a multi-perspective narrative that appears at first to be a science fictional fable before evolving into something far more disturbing. On a distant world, a team of three earthling explorers are becoming far too intimate with the primitive yet buxom anthropoids that populate the planet and as the human relationships break down, unwise new bonds are formed with unpleasant and even harrowing resultsâ€¦

Savage and sexually explicit, this exploration of drives and desires takes a further step into forbidden territory when the explorers return homeâ€¦

Maggie Chascarrillo – star of las Locas – takes centre stage in Jaime’s ‘The Love Bunglers Part One’, a lonely middle-aged lady, still looking for her life’s path and still an unsuspecting object of desire to the men who flock around her. But who is that particularly dangerous-looking bum stalking her?

The central portion again features Gilbert’s newest fascination: the young, rebellious and dangerously pneumatic underage Latina spitfire dubbed â€œKillerâ€ – actually the juvenile character Dora Rivera – granddaughter of Palomar’s formidable Matriarch Luba (see Luba and Love and Rockets: New Stories volume 2) grown to a far more dangerous age.

As seen in the previous volume, Killer, who is slowly making her way into the exotic B-movie arena that fascinated and overwhelmed her Aunt Fritz (See also High Soft Lisp and The Troublemakers) is a highly strung creature on the verge of losing all her remaining innocence and in ‘Killer*Sad Girl*Star’ is considering remaking one of her aunt’s strangest movies whilst becoming involved in a senseless tragic crimeâ€¦ or is she?

Maggie’s turbulent childhood is revealed in Jaime’s startling and truly disturbing ‘Browntown’ as the Chascarrillo family move to a new city where both parents and all four kids undergo differing ordeals which reshape them forever. A note of warning: There are some heart-rending situations of child-abuse here that, although artistically valid and even necessary, are also genuinely upsetting, so please remember that this is a book strictly for mature readers.

The harrowing revelations of ‘Browntown’ lead directly into ‘The Love Bunglers Part Two’ as many of the mysteries set up in the first chapter are thrown into stark relief by the events from Maggie’s past, leading to a surprisingly warm-hearted conclusion to this deceptively hard-hitting book.

Stark, challenging, charming and irresistibly seductive, Love and Rockets: New Stories is a grown up comics fan’s dream come true and remains as valid and groundbreaking as its earlier incarnations – the cutting edge of American graphic narrative.

October 19, 2010October 24, 2010

Knights of Pendragon: Once and Future

By Dan Abnett, John Tomlinson, Gary Erskine & Andy Lanning (Marvel/Panini Publishing UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-431-7

The world was a rapidly changing place in 1990 and fledgling offshoot Marvel UK was critically rising high thanks to the immensely impressive original Captain Britain material being created by Alan Moore and Alan Davis. On a roll, the company attempted to expand its line with an associated title, once more combining Arthurian fantasy with tried and true Marvel superheroic action. Or so everybody thoughtâ€¦

The Knights of Pendragon prominently featured Captain Britain on the covers but the epic tale that unfolded over the next few months was far more a supernatural horror story in the manner of prophetic TV show â€œDoomwatchâ€ than a traditional Fights ‘n’ Tights slugfest – even by the often outrÃ© British standards.

Steeped in ecological hot-button topics and starring, initially at least, a podgy, over-the-hill welsh copper who had begun life as a authoritarian gadfly before becoming a solid, stolid comrade to Brian Braddock (Cap’s aristocratic Alter Ego), Knights of Pendragon followed Chief Inspector Dai Thomas as he seemingly went off the deep end, plagued by horrific premonitions of grisly massacres that all seemed linked to environmental crimes perpetrated by globe-girdling conglomerate the Omni Corporation. However as the months unfolded a pattern slowly unfolded that indicated something far older and more dangerous than money was flexing long dormant fangs and sinewsâ€¦

This book gathers issues #1-9, July 1990-March 1991, of the first volume (a second far more traditional series followed in 1993) and sees the saga begin with ‘Brands and Ashes’ as Thomas is summoned by Captain Britain to a meeting of the clandestine agency the Weird Happenings Organisation. It appears the retired cop’s dream of 87 hungry patrons mysteriously suffocating in a spacious, airy well-ventilated burger-bar has come hideously true. Meanwhile Omni Corp exec Grace has sent her dashing leg-breaker Dolph to â€œreasonâ€ with the minister in charge of W.H.Oâ€¦.

As Thomas is briefed on an increasingly large and violent tide of bizarre eco-mysteries, down in Kent something horrible is occurring on an Omni farm using new and lethally dangerous pesticides. Rogue TV journalist Kate McClellan is circling too. She smells a big story and is ruthlessly open-minded. She wants and will publish the truth no matter how strange and impossible it might appearâ€¦

Thomas is getting worse. His visions now include blackouts and fugue episodes in which he sees himself as the medieval hero of the ancient epic â€œSir Gawain and the Green Knightâ€ battling ogres, villains and monsters.

‘Skin and Bone’ finds him following a lead to Africa where ivory poachers are using helicopters and assault rifles to slaughter elephants in vast numbers. McClellan is there before him and has already discovered a link to smuggled diamonds and Omni but before Thomas can make an arrest the supernal force he is slowly coming to believe in exacts its own bloody justice, whilst ‘Oil and Water’ sees cop and reporter in Florida, investigating another bizarre Omni-related atrocity – smuggling endangered species – when an ambush goes wrong. Any doubt of supernatural involvement is abandoned when they are rescued from certain death by a creature that cannot possibly existâ€¦

Thomas is gradually changing: evolving into a younger, fitter version of himself and the premonitions and dreams of Gawain are occurring more frequently. In ‘Blood and Feathers’, Grace decides to end the old copper’s interference with an elite squad of high tech mercenaries led by Dolph. After smashing another animal smuggling ring – with his bare hands – Thomas and McClellan are attacked in broad daylight. He overcomes the super-commandoes with ease, but the machinations of Grace have made him a liability to W.H.O. and Captain Britain is ordered to bring him in at all costsâ€¦

‘Hope and Glory’ reveals Kate is having visions of her own. As Thomas makes his way across Costa Rica hunting the thing that’s hunting Omni’s assorted enterprises, she is arrested by W.H.O. agents. Dai is close to the answers he’s been seeking as he enters an apocalyptic area of jungle deforestation, convinced he is Gawain reborn. The spirit of the planet has given man one final chance to live with, not against, the eco-system, but the forces of progress and destruction are subtle and have turned his greatest friend against himâ€¦

After a stupendous battle Thomas is beaten to death by Captain Britain, and in the concluding ‘Once and Future’ Gawain takes full control of his broken body, casually revealing the guilt-wracked superhero to be Lancelot whilst Kate houses the spirit of Guinevere. Attacked by demonic monsters the trio trek through the devastated rain-forest, making a pilgrimage to the home of the embattled animating force called the Green Knight, saving the Green Chapel, mystical heart of the world, from dark forces that have worked through Omni and other modern enterprises which value profit over the planetâ€¦

Its mission accomplished, Gawain’s essence leaves Dai’s body, resurrecting and healing him, but there has been no victory, only a truce. The Green Knight will no longer attack human greed and folly directly, but the latest Knights of Pendragon are expected to work in its stead. The second story-arc sees new men of goodwill chosen as hosts for the immortal heroic essences and a redefinition of the vague dark forces they must combat.

In ‘Revelations’ author Ben Gallagher is drawn to a remote Scottish island to bear witness to a brutal slaughter of dolphins, whilst in London a serial killer hunts successful businesswomen and in her technological ivory tower, Omni exec Grace is possessed by the Green Knight’s opposite number, a vile entity calling itself The Bane.

During the Great War the British Empire was championed by a pioneering band of costumed heroes. Union Jack was mere mortal who used brains, brawn and good British ordnance to battle the Hun in two world wars before being succeeded by his son. The third incarnation was Joey Chapman, a true working class hero who here finds himself the next recipient of the spirit of Lancelot.

Kate has a troubled son squirreled away at a remote boarding school. When Cam McClellan goes missing after being possessed by the Merlin analogue known as Herne the Hunter, the situation forces elderly history teacher Peter Hunter to reveal his darkest secret. ‘The Only Child’ describes how in the Great War the schoolmaster was masked mystic superman Albion, but with his surrendered Pendragon force now inhabiting a disturbed child he fears he must reassume the role he gratefully relinquished decades ago.

Captain Britain and Union Jack join the search for Cam but spend more time battling each other than actually helping, leaving the London serial killer free to attack his next target – the world-famous TV journalist Kate McClellan. However, even though the madman is old acquaintance he has not reckoned on her new status as a full-blown Pendragon.

Events take a truly dark turn when Grace arrives at the school to abduct the confused and immensely powerful Cam, intending to corrupt him as once she damned Arthur’s son Mordredâ€¦

Gallagher’s sensitively creative yet indomitable nature makes him a perfect host for the returned Sir Percival and in the untitled closing tale he sees the powers arrayed against the returned Knights in full flow, as an innocent dies and entire families of dolphins are sacrificed to the horrific greed and paranoia of humanity and the awful hunger of the Bane

The epic has been building across the nine issues of the series collected here, written with chilling passion by Dan Abnett and John Tomlinson and illustrated with stunning power by then fresh-faced new boy Gary Erskine, suitably inked by near-veteran Any Lanning.

With intriguing and revelatory reminiscences from the writers and original series editor Steve White describing the initial resistance and eventually outright hostility from upper management to the title plus a cover gallery by such leading lights as Alan Davis, Simon Bisley, John Bolton and others, this engrossing and still controversial epic revives a pivotal moment in British mainstream comics and still enthrals two decades later.

Ending on a pensive set of cliffhangers, this absorbing thriller is but half-done, with another utterly fabulous and morally challenging volume still to see. I can’t waitâ€¦

October 17, 2010October 17, 2010

Nightschool: The Weirn Books volume 1

By Svetlana Chmakova (Yen Books)
ISBN: 978-0-7595-2859-8

The sub-genre of supernatural students and spooky schooldays has come a long way since the days of the Worst Witch or even Buffy of Sunnydale High, but this tantalising and impressive entry from Svetlana Chmakova (whose delightful series Dramacon introduced her as a major talent in the international manga world) which stands head and shoulders above the crowd and simply cries out for greater exposure.

PS 13W is just an ordinary High School during the day, but when darkness falls the place is sublet to an entirely different faculty teaching a far more bizarre and dangerous student body (well, different anyway – I’ve seen the everyday shamble of oiks, nerds, preppies and deviants that tumble out of our local educational establishment come chucking out time only to stampede past my front door on their way to celebrate their temporary freedom in mischief, malice and mishapâ€¦)

Because this Nightschool caters to such a diverse and often predatory catchment, the usual staff of wizardly teachers and assistants is generally supplemented by a Night Keeper – a supernatural security agent who keeps the peace and minimises collateral damage when students and staff – witches, warlocks (collectively known as Weirn), werewolves, vampires and every shade of juvenile haunt and horror – join in the business of Education.

Sadly the latest Keeper, thoroughly modern Miss Sarah Treveney has something of a punctuality problemâ€¦ Although the school caters for a broad spectrum of monsters, Sarah’s sister Alexius has to be home-schooled due to an unspecified secret problem, and splitting her time between teaching Alex the magic of the Weirn all day and working all night is taking its tollâ€¦

The peace that keeps mortals safe from the assorted eldritch tribes is due to an ancient pact: A Treaty administered by an enigmatic cult of young warriors called Hunters who prowl the city dealing with supernatural threats. They are led by a charismatic teacher called Daemon. Later volumes will eventually reveal a history of ancient strife and impending chaos, but for this first collection (comprising the first six months of the strip) they simply patrol and police the places where rogue night creatures prowlâ€¦

When Daemon’s team rescue a young Seer, Marina, from unscrupulous mortals seeking to exploit her prophetic abilities she warns him that a long-dormant menace is breaking the seals which have kept it safely imprisoned for centuriesâ€¦

Unknown to Sarah, little sister is not the housebound claustrophobe she imagines. Driven by urgings beyond her comprehension Alex often roams the night with only her astral familiar to protect her from mortals and monsters – or is it the other way round?

When she invades a cemetery Alex stumbles across a romantic vampiric tryst and Daemon’s Hunter team in the process of ending it. Suddenly all parties are attacked by Rippers – mindless devolved Nosferatu, all claws and teeth and burning lethal hungerâ€¦

When the spectacular battle ends Alex is gone and although more than a match for any known magical threat, three of the Hunters lie mysteriously comatose. The younger Treveny wakes safely at home with no recollection of how she returned, but at the Nightschool things aren’t going so well for Sarah.

Making inroads with the staff and students the Night Keeper thinks she might just make a real go of her job, but when a kid she doesn’t recognize lures her into a horrifying trap she disappears from sight and memory of everybody who once knew her. Moreover, all physical evidence of her existence is fading too. At home Alex sees a photograph gradually disappear and realises she must to something. Girding herself she enrolls in the midnight high school, as all over the cities something very nasty is stalking the Huntersâ€¦

This is the merely the opening stage of a much larger and more complex epic, (which has been and is still steadily progressing in monthly installments in the Japanese magazine Yen Plus since August 2008), so it might be preferable to pick up the first three volumes – all that has been collected into books so far – and tackle them at once.

However, the sheer exuberance and quality of storytelling and art here is enough to carry this first book; blending mystery, comedy and spellbinding action with a huge cast of engaging characters. Fun, thrilling and wonderfully addictive.

October 15, 2010October 16, 2010

Ultimate Avengers 2: Crime and Punishment

By Mark Millar, Lenil Francis Yu & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-465-2

Marvel Ultimates began in 2000 as a reconfiguration of key characters and concepts to bring them into line with the tastes of modern readers – perceived as a potentially separate buying public from the baby-boomers and their descendents, who were content to stick with the various efforts that had sprung from the fantastic originating talents of Kirby, Ditko and Lee – and one unable or unwilling to deal with the decades 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 â€œUltimatumâ€ culminated in a reign of terror which apparently (this is still comics, after all) killed three dozen odd heroes and villains plus millions of lesser mortals. Although a good seller (in contemporary terms, at least) the saga was largely trashed by the fans who bought it, and the ongoing new â€œUltimatum Comicsâ€ line quietly back-pedalled on its declared intentionsâ€¦

The key and era-ending event was a colossal tsunami that drowned the superhero-heavy island of Manhattan and this second post-tidal wave collection (assembling issues #7-12 of Ultimate Avengers 2) finds the survivors fully adapted to their dried-out world and back in business.

Before the Deluge Nick Fury ran an American Black Ops team of superhumans called the Avengers, but he was eventually toppled from his position for sundry rule-bending antics – and being caught doing them. Now he’s back, running another black ops team doing stuff real heroes wouldn’t dream ofâ€¦

His far from happy band of brothers 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 and ruthless super-spy Black Widow. You can never have enough super-stooges though, and Fury is actively recruitingâ€¦

First on his wish-list is the Punisher, a vengeance-crazed vigilante carving his way through the underworld of three continents. It’s hard to imagine an even colder stone-killer than the standard Marvel Universe Frank Castle but creators Mark Millar, Lenil Francis Yu, Gerry Alanguilan & Laura Martin just about manage. However, his campaign of retribution is promptly stopped cold by Captain America.

Imprisoned by Federal authorities, the Punisher never makes it to prison, and soon after a new masked hero with loads of guns and a big skull on his chest reluctantly joins Fury’s death-squadâ€¦

The other newbie is super-gangsta Tyrone Cash, whose recruitment causes a lot more collateral damage. Before being blackmailed onto the team the violence-addicted, invulnerable superhuman had another life: a college professor who researched how to maximise human physical potential. One day he just vanished, leaving a pile of rubble and some very instructive data that his student Bruce Banner developed to its ultimate endâ€¦ much to the world’s eternal regret.

Though not as strong as the Hulk, Cash is homicidally violent and aggressive, and enjoys breaking stuff and hurting people. Only the greatest threat imaginable could force Fury to keep such a dangerous tool aroundâ€¦

And that happens to be a flaming-skulled mutant biker called Ghost Rider who is relentlessly hunting and killing the Vice President’s oldest buddies and has now set his eyeless sights on the Veep himselfâ€¦ Carving a swathe of fiery destruction that leads to the White House itself, the Ghost Rider is utterly unstoppable. No mutant has ever been as powerful. If the press-ganged team didn’t know better, it would seem that the blazing biker is a real ghostâ€¦ but there’s no such thing, right?

Trenchant, sardonic and incredibly violent, the traditional super-science scenario takes a big, bold step into the realm of satanic, supernatural horror and, as always, the grim-and-gritty heroes are almost indistinguishable from the genuine bad-guys in this stunningly engrossing, anti-heroic epic. No shining knights here, but plenty of dark onesâ€¦

Given some distance and far removed from market hype and the frantic, relentless immediacy of the sales arena there’s a far better chance to honestly assess these tales on merit alone, and given such an opportunity you’d be daft not to take a long hard look at this spectacular, beautifully cynical thriller: another breathtaking, sinisterly effective yarn that could only be told outside the Marvel Universe, but it’s also one that should solidly resonate with older fans who love the darkest side of superheroes and especially those casual readers who know the company’s movies better than the comic-books.

October 3, 2010October 3, 2010

Teen Titans: Titans of Tomorrow

This slim volume of frantic Fights ‘n’ Tights teen angst follows on from an earlier saga when the constantly changing team of junior heroes arrived a decade into their own future and were aghast to find that their adult selves had conquered America in the name of peace and security. Forearmed with the knowledge of this dystopian tomorrow the kids came back to now (see Teen Titans: The Future is Now) and resolved to counter those eventsâ€¦

Superhero lives are fairly chaotic and in the interim a number of Crises occurred which seemed to guarantee that Tomorrow would never come true. This volume, collecting issues #50-54, opens with a memorial for Superboy and Kid Flash (both recently deceased) as Robin, Wonder Girl, Ravager, Kid Devil, Miss Martian and Supergirl share their grief and memories with previous members.

‘Passage’ (team written by Sean McKeever, Geoff Johns, Marv Wolfman & Todd Dezago and illustrated by Randy Green, Mike McKone, George PÃ©rez, Todd Nauck, Andy Lanning, Sandra Hope, Marlo Alquiza & Larry Stucker) finds the survivors reminiscing in ‘Friday Night Lights’ and ‘Dear Barryâ€¦’ whilst including a neat, entertaining digression that provides the other side of a team-up with the new Blue Beetle against Biker-Berserker Lobo (the main part of that saga is collected in the superb Blue Beetle: Reach For the Stars).

Meanwhile a mysterious gang are systematically defeating the Justice League and replacing themâ€¦

The four-part epic ‘The Titans of Tomorrowâ€¦ Today!’ begins with ‘Futures of the Past’ (McKeever, AlÃ© Garza, Derek Fridolfs, Rob Hunter & Marlo Alquiza) as the future Titans – including versions of the dead Superboy and Kid Flash – arrive in contemporary times to ensure their own existence by forcing their younger selves to comply with their draconian counterparts continually re-editing memories.

Simple, no? Perhaps not, as wild card Blue Beetle has inexplicably re-entered the mixâ€¦

Selecting a key moment when the alien invader Starro nearly conquered Earth, the future Titans substitute themselves for the JLA and attempt to seduce, demoralise and even thrash their teen incarnations into becoming the fascist monsters they are, but youth is always rebellious and plans go very wrong indeed in ‘Beat Yourself Up’ (art by Jamal Igle, Alquiza, Jesse Delperdang & Hunter) as Robin finds a uniquely dramatic way to stymie his tomorrow tormentor and Blue Beetle leads a counterattackâ€¦

The temporally fluid situation shifts again as the future Luthor materializes with a battalion of tomorrow’s corrupted superheroes in ‘Combine and Conquer’ (illustrated by Eddy Barrows & Rob Hunter) to finish the battle and save his own timeline, but his Titan’s Army has overlooked the mind-controlling power of Starro who (which?) simply takes them all over.

The action spectacularly concludes in ‘Fight the Future’ (Barrows, Joe Prado, Greg Tocchini, Hunter, Julio Ferreira & Oclair Albert) as allegiances shift and the future dies forever in an explosive battle and simple resignationâ€¦

Fast, furious, this extremely twisty-turny, time-travel extravaganza is better than most of its ilk, and on the whole this is a genuinely fun-filled action romp; but once again I can only remark that for the less well-informed reader or DC newcomer, the bits without hitting and explosions might be very confusing. As always, the choice is yours. The future is not immutableâ€¦

September 30, 2010October 3, 2010

New Avengers: The Reunion

By Jim McCann, David LÃ³pez & Alvaro LÃ³pez (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3855-6

The Marvel publishing event Secret Invasion revoked a number of hasty decisions made by writers and editors in the day-to-day, hand-to-mouth hurly-burly of periodical publication, among them a couple of â€œdeathsâ€. The Skrulls, shape-shifting aliens, had been infiltrating all corners of the Marvel Universe for years, even abducting and replacing certain heroes. Thus when Bobbi Morse-Barton, Mockingbird, ex-super-spy, West Coast Avenger and wife of Hawkeye was killed, it wasn’t herâ€¦

Freed and returned to Earth Mockingbird is having trouble readjusting. The world is a far darker place, and terrorists have overtaken super-villains as the greatest threat, Hawkeye is now the enigmatic warrior Ronin – and wants to pick up where they left off. When Bobbi â€œdiedâ€ the couple were going through a divorce, but he has since convinced himself that that was the Skrull impostor playing mind-gamesâ€¦

This is a rare thing for a Marvel graphic novel; a love story/Romcom with genuine sentiment and quite a few laughs riding shotgun on the traditional moody adventure the company generally specialises in. Collecting pertinent portions of Dark Reign: New Nation and the miniseries New Avengers: The Reunion #1-4, the saga opens with ‘Supicion’ as Clint Barton violently forces himself back into Mockingbird’s life and realises that his one-and-only is still carrying a secret trauma from her time as a Skrull prisoner. She wants nothing to do with him and has her own cure for what’s ailing herâ€¦

‘The Lady Vanishes’ finds the persistent Ace Archer making a pest of himself until she lets him join her new endeavour. Not prepared to rejoin the Avengers Mockingbird has returned to her old profession and working with a group of other returned Skrull captives has created her own spy network. The World has gone to hell in a hand-basket and if the superheroes can’t fix it her World Counterterrorism Agency will – by whatever means necessary.

Against her better judgement Bobbi allows her once-hubby to come along on a mission and ‘Double Indemnity’ finds them matching wits with the terrifying Monica Rappaccini, new leader of evil think-tank Advanced Idea Mechanics and the world’s most ruthlessly ambitious poisons specialistâ€¦

How the odd couple reconnect, save the world and come to terms with the horrors Bobbi experienced on Skrullworld makes for a rollicking, complications-free action-romp that is bright, breezy and just the tonic for romantic fans of modern lovers.

Saving civilisation, punching each other out and gradually redefining the term â€œTrue Loveâ€ this snappy little package is everything Mr. & Mrs. Smith should have been and writer Jim McCann and artists David LÃ³pez & Alvaro LÃ³pez have my fervent support for a sequel any time they’re in the moodâ€¦

September 27, 2010September 25, 2010

Amazing Spider-Man: Died in Your Arms Tonight

By Stan Lee, Mark Waid, Marc Guggenheim, Joe Quesada, John Romita Jr. & others (Marvel Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4485-4

When the Spider-Man continuity was drastically and controversially altered at the end of the â€œOne More Dayâ€ publishing event a refreshed, now single-and-never-been-married Peter Parker was parachuted into a new life, so if this is your first Web-spinning yarn in a while or if you’re drawing your cues from the movies prepare yourself for a little confusion. That being said this collection of Web-spun wonderment is more accessible than most: a vast celebratory collection commemorating then 600^th issue of the landmark comic-book and stuffed with vignettes, mini-masterpieces and clever nostalgia-steeped moments.

Gathering the contents of Amazing Spider-Man #600-601, material from Amazing Spider-Man Family #7 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #36, the merry Marvel Magic leads off with the comedic ‘Identity Crisis’ by Stan Lee & Marcos Martin, a whimsical look back and shaggy psychiatrist story, Whilst Mark Waid, Colleen Doran & Jose Villarrubia’s ‘My Brother’s Son’ is a glorious sentimental glimpse into Ben Parker’s life with the child Peter that will bring a tear to every fan’s eye. Written by Marc Guggenheim and illustrated by Mitch & Elizabeth Breitweiser offers a glimpse into the heart of Aunt May on the eve of her marriage to J. Jonah Jameson’s father.

From Amazing Spider-Man Family #7 comes ‘Just an Old Sweet Story’ by Roger Stern, Val Semeiks & Mike Getty, revealing how May Reilly and Ben Parker met and married, whilst Amazing Spider-Man Annual #36 provides Guggenheim, Pat Olliffe & Andy Lanning’s ‘Peter Parker Must Die’ as the impending Bride and Groom’s families meet for the rehearsal dinner in Boston.

This romp introduces a whole new sub-cast into the Wall-Crawling mix with the rambunctious Reilly Clan and also debuts a new villain intent on Peter’s demise. Or is the Raptor actually after somebody else? Also on offer are two more enchanting mood-pieces; ‘A Night at the Museum’ by Zeb Wells, Derec Donovan & Antonio Fabela, reminiscing about one of the most embarrassing moments in Spidey history and Bob Gale & Mario Alberti’s lovely ‘If I Was Spider-Man’ as the hero overhears kids answering the age-old question with startling honesty and profundityâ€¦

The latter half of this book is taken up with the stunning lead feature and its sequel. ‘Last Legs’ by Dan Slott, John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson is set during the wedding of Aunt May and Pa Jameson and recounts the last assault by Dr. Octopus, dying from years of being smacked around by the good guys and determined to make the City of New York remember his passing. Moreover as he almost married May Parker himself once, Ock’s not averse to playing gooseberry there if he canâ€¦

Packed with guest-stars like Daredevil, the Avengers and Fantastic Four, all of Manhattan is held hostage to the madman’s final rampage until Spider-Man and the Torch save the day and still get to the church on time. But at the reception there’s still one more shock for Peter Parkerâ€¦

Issue #601 presents a trio of tales set The Day After, beginning with Waid and Alberti’s ‘Red-Headed Stranger: No Place Like Home’ as the repercussions of Peter’s drunken response to the sudden return of Mary Jane Watson (missing for months) leaves him homeless and clueless whilst ‘The Very Best Version of Myself’ by Brian Michael Bendis & Joe Quesada shows the true heroic power of the wall-crawler and the concluding ‘Violent Visions’ (Joe Kelly, Max Fiumara & Chris Chuckry launches the next big thing as a war against Spider-themed characters begins with the â€œdeathâ€ of precognitive bit-player Madame Webâ€¦

Stuffed with a gallery of covers and alternate art-pieces by such luminaries as John Romita Jr., Joe Quesada, Joe Suitor, Olivier Coipel, Alex Ross, J. Scott Campbell and John Romita Sr. this treasury of delights proves the modern Wall-Crawler still has a broad reach and major appeal for fans old and new. This is the perfect place to rejoin or jump on if the Webbed Wonder crawled off your radar in recent yearsâ€¦

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