Category: Graphic Novels

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100 Bullets: Hang Up on the Hang Low


By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (Vertigo)
ISBN: 1-84023-361-3

The best crime comic in decades oh-so-slowly begins transforming itself into the best conspiracy thriller in the business with this third volume (collecting issues 15-19# of the monthly comic book) as further hints about The Trust and their unique police squad The Minutemen slip out during the dark, bleak story of Louis “Loop” Hughes, a young street tough swiftly going the way of most of his class and race in the streets of Philadelphia… at least until the impeccable Agent Graves turns up with an untraceable gun, one hundred bullets and an ironclad guarantee of no repercussions.

Graves also knows exactly where Loop’s father has been for the embittered kid’s entire life, although he’s only telling about the last few years…

Curtis Hughes collects debts for one of the nastiest old loan-sharks in Philly. The broken down old leg-breaker has been around and seen it all, but he wasn’t expecting a street punk to stick one of those guns in his face – and certainly not the son he abandoned all those years ago.

Against the odds he reconciles with his son and starts teaching him business and life; but once family duty and work allegiances come into conflict, there’s only ever one outcome. And just how does Curtis know about Graves and the Minutemen?

This tense, bleak drama has as much resonance as The Wire and more punch than Goodfellas as it weaves a tragic tale of family, disillusionment and overwhelming necessity, and though readers of the original comic-books didn’t know it, laid much of the groundwork for the “Big Reveals” to come. Pay especial attention to the epilogue where Loop meets up with the brutal force of nature called “Lono”…

Astoundingly accessible and readable in its own right, this impressive, gripping yarn is another subtle step up on a path of intricate mystery and intrigue, and one no fiction-fan (grown-up, paid-up and immune to harsh language and rude behaviour) could resist… nor should you.

© 2000, 2001 Brian Azzarello and DC Comics.  All Rights Reserved.

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Spider-Man 2099: Genesis – UK Edition


By Peter David, Rick Leonardi, Al Williamson and various (Marvel/Panini Publishing UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-428-7

At a time when Marvel’s product quality was at an all time low, and following a purported last minute dispute between the company and prodigal son John Byrne (who had re-invented himself by re-inventing Superman) the House of Ideas launched a whole new continuity strand with all new heroes (and franchise extensions) set more than a century into the future.

The world was corporate and dystopian, the scenarios were fantastical and the initial character-pool was predictable if not actually uninspired. A lot of the early material was by any critical yardstick sub-par. But then again there was also Spider-Man 2099.

Some analogue of the wall-crawler is always going to happen in any Marvel imprint (anybody remember Peter Porker, Spider-Ham?), and in those insane days of speculator-led markets (where greedy kids and adults dreamed of cornering the market in “Hot Issues” and becoming instant squillionaires) the early episodes were always going to be big sellers. What nobody expected was just how good those stories were to actually read…

Now the first ten issues are available in a fantastic and entertaining full colour collection.

In 2099 world governments are openly in the capacious pockets of huge multi-national corporations that permeate every aspect of society. All superheroes have been gone for decades although their legends still comfort the underclass living at the fringes – and below the feet – of the favoured ones who can survive in a society based on unchecked, rampant free-marker capitalism.

Miguel O’Hara is a brilliant young geneticist fast-tracked and swiftly rising through the ranks of Alchemax. He enjoys the privileges that his work in creating super-soldiers for the company. He loves solving problems. And now despite the interference of the salary-men and corporate drudges he’s forced to work with he’s on the verge of a major breakthrough: a technique to alter genetic make-up and even instantly combine it with DNA from other organisms…

But after a demonstration goes grotesquely awry the arrogant scientist makes a big mistake when he tells his boss that he’s going to quit. Unwilling to lose such a valuable asset CEO Tyler Stone poisons O’Hara with the most addictive drug in existence – one only available from Alchemax – to keep him loyal.

Desperate, furious and still convinced he knows best the young scientist tries to use his genetic modifier to reset his physiology and purge the addiction from his cells. However one of the lab assistants he used to bully sees a chance for some payback and sabotages the attempt, adding spider DNA to the matrix…

Fast-paced and riotously tongue-in-cheek scripts from Peter David kept the series readable but the biggest asset to Spider-Man 2099 and the greatest factor in its initial success was undoubtedly the fluid design mastery and captivating rollercoaster pencilling of Rick Leonardi wedded to the legendary Al Williamson’s fine ink lines. The art just jumps off the pages at you.

After the eponymous origin issue, #2’s ‘Nothing Ventured…’, which introduced cyborg bounty hunter Venture, and the concluding chapter ‘Nothing Gained’, which saw him soundly defeat the company hired gun, the early editorial policy downplaying “super-villains” resulted in yet another hi-tech Corporate raider in ‘The Specialist’ and ‘Blood Oath’ (issues #4 and 5) going to any length to uncover the secrets of the first costumed adventurer since the mythic “Age of Heroes” ended.

In issue #6 the hero’s Pyrrhic victory leaves him wounded in the dank shanty-zone far beneath the giant skyscrapers of the productive citizens. Spider-Man has to survive ‘Downtown’, encountering an unsuspected underclass of discarded humanity, but soon falls foul of its top predator (and first super-villain) Vulture 2099 in #7’s ‘Wing and a Prayer’ and the concluding ‘Flight of Fancy’. Kelley Jones and Mark McKenna substituted for Leonardi and Williamson in #9’s ‘Home Again, Home Again’ as the reluctant hero finds himself the latest Idée Fixe of celebrity imitators – or are they John the Baptists for a brand new religion?

All through the stories a strong family cast including younger brother Gabe, girl friend Dana, annoying mother and plain-crazy personal computer Lyla have added drama and scintillating laughs in complex and enthralling sub-plots, but in the last tale of this collection ‘Mother’s Day’ they all take centre-stage as we get a peak into the childhood that made Miguel O’Hara the man he is. His reaffirmation of purpose at the end of the book closes this superb lost gem on a merry high and promises great things to come.

It’s not often that Marvel’s output reached this kind of quality after the mid-1980s, especially with a character and setting that didn’t demand prior knowledge of an entire continuity. For sheer enthusiastic enjoyment and old-fashioned Marvel Magic you simply need to step into this particular future…

© 1992, 1993, 2009 Marvel Entertainment Inc. and its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved.

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Marshal Law: Blood, Sweat and Fears


By Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-526-5

The anti-est of all anti-heroes returns in this prime collection of excessive violence and unnecessary force that further lampoons the All-American Icon of the superhero, courtesy of those Britannic Hero-Harriers Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill.

In 1987 Epic Comics, Marvel’s creator-owned imprint, published a six issue miniseries that starred a hero very much in the vein of Judge Dredd, but one who took the hallowed tenets of the superhero genre and gave them a thorough slapping, Brit-boy style, in the tale a costumed cop who did the Right Thing and did it His Way…

San Futuro is a Metropolitan urban dystopia built on the remnants of San Francisco after the Big Quake. America is recovering from another stupid exploitative war in somebody else’s country, and as usual the demobbed, damaged and brain-fried veterans are clogging the streets and menacing decent society. The problem is that this war was fought with artificially manufactured superheroes, and now they’re back they’re a dangerous embarrassment.

Marshal Law was one of them, but now he’s a cop; angry and disillusioned. His job is to put away masks and capes, but as bad as they are, the people he works for are worse. This establishing series was collected as Marshal Law: Fear and Loathing.

Being a creator-owned property, after a 1989 Epic Comics one shot ‘Marshal Law takes Manhattan’ (reprinted, out of sequence, in the third volume of his collected adventures) old zipper-face went with Mills and O’Neill to the British independent outfit Apocalypse, publishers of the talent-heavy 2000AD rival Toxic, which ran from March to October 1991. That troubled, influential periodical was preceded by a Marshal Law Special ‘Kingdom of the Blind’ at the end of 1990, which provides the first tale in this volume.

Although played for more overt laughs than the Epic tales the vented spleen and venom displayed in this captivating yarn is simply breathtaking as the creators put the boot into the most popular hero of the time. The Private Eye had trained himself to fight criminals ever since his parents were murdered in front of him. For decades he made the night his own, to universal popular acclaim: even Marshal Law thought he was the exception that proved the rule…

But when circumstances force Law to question his beliefs he uncovers a snake-pit of horror and corruption that shakes even his weary, embittered sensibilities, and makes him wonder why nobody ever questioned how one hero could get through so many sidekicks…

A second Special ‘The Hateful Dead’ began a two part odyssey wherein the toughest cop in San Futuro faced an undead plague as a Toxic accident (tee-hee; d’you see what they did there?) resurrected a graveyard full of dead supermen – many of them put there by Marshall Law -as well as ordinary ex-citizens to bedevil the conflicted hero-hunter. The story ended on an incredible cliffhanger… and Apocalypse went bust.

After two years Law jumped back across the pond to Dark Horse Comics, concluding the yarn in ‘Super Babylon’ as the resurgent Bad Cop quelled the return of the living dead and just by way of collateral damage devastated assorted superhero pantheons by ending thinly disguised versions of the Justice Society and League as well as such WWII super-patriots as the Invaders and Captain America (and all this decades before “Marvel Zombies” even stirred in their graves). In addition the creators couldn’t resist one more mighty pop at American Cold-War Imperialism that’s both utterly over-the-top and hilarious – unless you’re a Republican, I suppose…

Fiercely polemical and strident, this is nonetheless one of the most intimate of the Marshal Law exploits as Mills shows us another, softer side to the character and even introduces us to his family; but never fear, the uncompromising satirical attacks on US policies, attitudes and gosh-darn it, a whole way of life, isn’t watered down by sentiment: This is a series that always keeps one last punch in reserve and the superbly memorable art of O’Neill actually improves with every page.

This volume also includes back-up feature of sketches, variant and foreign-edition art to augment the experience of Futuro shock. Classically inappropriate mayhem; just who could resist it?

© 2003 Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill. Art © 1993 Kevin O’Neill All Rights Reserved.

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JLA: World Without Grown-Ups


By Todd Dezago, Humberto Ramos, Mike McKone, Todd Nauck & others (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-473-2

There are a lot of different aspects that contribute to the “perfect mix” in the creation of any continuing character in comics. How much more so then, when the idea is to build a superhero team that will stand out from the seething masses that already exist? In the mid-1990s a fresh batch of sidekicks and super-kids started cropping up at DC after some years of thematic disfavour, and as the name and modus operandi of the Teen Titans was already established something new needed to be done with them.

But why were kid crusaders back at all? Ignoring the intrinsic imbecility – and illegality if you count numerous child-endangerment laws – of on-the-job training for superheroes who can’t shave yet, why should young champions appeal at all to comics readers?

I don’t buy the old saw about it giving young readers someone to identify with: most kids I grew up with wanted to be the cool adult who got to drive the whatever-mobile, not the squawking brat in short pants. Every mission would feel like going out clubbing with your dad…

I rather suspect it’s quite the reverse: older readers with responsibilities and chores could fantasize about being powerful, effective, cool and able to beat people up without having to surrender a hormone-fuelled, purely juvenile frat-boy sense of goofy fun…

That’s certainly the case in the adventures of the frenetic trio here. Although pitched as a Justice League miniseries World Without Grown-Ups was really a commercially-loaded vehicle intended to introduce the new teen super-team, Young Justice, where teen issues and traditional caped crusading could be seamlessly blended with high-octane adventure and deft, daft home-room laughs.

This irresistibly contagious fun-fest collects that initial miniseries and also includes a related one-shot that appeared as part of that year’s (1998) skip-week publishing event “GirlFrenzy“.

‘Young Justice: the Secret’ (by the Todds Dezago and Nauck, with inks by Lary Stucker) finds Robin, Superboy and the super-speedster Impulse relating the suspicious circumstances that led them to rescue a young girl composed entirely of smoke and vapour from the supposedly benign federal agency the Department of ExtraNormal Operations – a exploit that would have major repercussions in later tales – before the main event kicks off.

‘World Without Grown-Ups’ sees a young boy use an Ancient Atlantean talisman to get rid of all adults, leaving the planet a responsibility-free playground. The planetary guardians the Justice League can only wait helplessly in some other existence as all the underage heroes left on Earth try to cope with the wave of idiocy and irresponsibility trying to cope with the spiralling disasters caused by a dearth of doctors, drivers, pilots and so forth. Robin, Superboy and Impulse meanwhile seek out the cause, desperate to set things right unaware that the malign entity imprisoned in the talisman has its own sinister agenda…

This canny blend of tension and high jinks, comedy and pathos, action and mystery fair rattles along with thrills and one-liners aplenty courtesy of Dezago, Humbert Ramos & Wayne Faucher (kids world) and Mike McKone, Paul Neary & Mark McKenna (JLA sequences) who combine a compelling countdown to calamity with outright raucous buffoonery.

Kids are all about having fun and this book utterly captures that purest of essences. Unleash your inner rapscallion with this addictive gem but remember not all genies want to get back in their bottle… and not all the Young Justice tales were ever collected.
© 1998 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Platinum: the Greatest Foes of Wolverine – UK Edition


By various (Marvel/Panini Publishing UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-422-5

The Wolverine juggernaut rolls confidently on with this bulky yet absorbing compendium of bombastic battles starring a selection of worthy adversaries as rendered by some of the biggest names in comics.

The carnage begins with a sleekly impressive turn from illustrators Paul Smith and Bob Wiacek, as the feral mutant Logan goes wild in Japan after the X-Men are poisoned at his wedding. With fellow mutant powerhouse Rogue in tow Wolverine carves a bloody trail to the Yakuza mercenary Silver Samurai and the deadly mastermind Viper in Chris Claremont’s ‘To Have and Have Not’ (from Uncanny X-Men # 173, September 1983).

This is followed by the concluding episode of the six part miniseries Kitty Pryde and Wolverine (April, 1985). ‘Honor’ by Claremont and Allen Milgrom features a big battle between Logan and an immortal Ninja magician named Ogun, but unless you’ve actually read the preceding five issues somewhere else, that’s about all you’ll comprehend plot-wise from this underrated saga which completely rewrote the character of the youngest X-Man and her relationship to the Canadian crazyman.

‘Wounded Wolf’ is a visceral, visual masterpiece from Uncanny X-Men # 205, (May 1986), courtesy of Claremont and Barry Windsor-Smith as Wolverine faces the vengeance-crazed cyborg Lady Deathstrike in a compelling tale guest-starring little Katie Power from Power Pack.

Marc Silvestri and Dan Green illustrated the first part of a classic clash with ex-Hellfire Club villain Donald Pierce (‘Fever Dream’ Uncanny X-Men # 251, November 1989) and his band of cyborg assassins the Reavers, whilst Rick Leonardi and Kent Williams finished Claremont’s brutal tale in the concluding ‘Where’s Wolverine?!?’

There’s no let-up in the extreme action and bloodletting in the untitled tale that follows as Peter David and Sam Kieth introduce the grotesque and decidedly warped Adamantium Assassin Cyber in an eight chapter, 64 page saga that originally ran in the fortnightly anthology Marvel Comics Presents (1991) whilst John Byrne, Jim Lee and Scott Williams pit the old Canuckle-head (albeit incredibly briefly and please don’t make explain that peculiarly inept nick-name) against toxic Cold War living weapon Omega Red in the first part of a much longer tale that begins in ‘The Resurrection and the Flesh’ from X-Men #4 (January 1992).

From the same month in Wolverine #50, Larry Hama, Marc Silvestri and Dan Green’s ‘Dreams of Gore: Phase 3’ reveals tantalizing snippets from Logan’s past life as secret agent when he fights a rogue computer program and a past lover in a choppy but oddly satisfying tale, whilst ‘The Dying Game’ (Wolverine #90, February 1995) by Hama, Adam Kubert, Mark Farmer and Dan Green, although not the final battle between Logan and his arch-foe Sabretooth it was proclaimed, is certainly one of the most cathartic and impressive.

‘Better than Best’ by Tom DeFalco, Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz (Wolverine #123, April 1998) finds a physically depleted Logan imprisoned and tortured by two of his oldest foes Roughouse (a giant troll) and Bloodscream (a vampire) in an unusually insightful tale of perseverance and the grudge matches conclude – once more unsatisfactorily I’m afraid – with parts one and two of the three part epic ‘Bloodsport’ by Frank Tieri, Dan Fraga and Norm Rapmund (Wolverine #167 and 168, October-November 2001). Herein the mutant mite competes in a gory martial arts/superpowers tournament against such second-raters as Taskmaster, Puma and the Terrible Toad just so he can confront Viper and the man he cannot defeat, the telepathic serial killer Mr. X.

The old, old plot still has plenty of punch here but I find it incomprehensible to have 18 pages of data-files and biographies of Wolverine’s foes pad out the book whilst omitting the 20 or so pages that would end the story! Visually this book contains some of Wolverine’s best moments, but I’ll never understand sacrificing story-content for pictures and punches…

© 1983, 1985, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2009 Marvel Entertainment Inc. and its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Detective #27


By Michael Uslan & Peter Snejbjerg with Lee Loughridge (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-4012-0185-7

For a brief while DC’s experimental Elseworlds imprint, where familiar characters and continuity were radically or subtly re-imagined, was a regular hive of productivity and generated some wonderful – and quite a few ridiculous – stories. Moreover by using what the reader thought he/she knew as a springboard, the result, usually constricted into a single story, had a solid and resolute immediacy that was often diluted by regular, periodical publications where the illusion of change always trumped actual innovation in long-running characters.

A fine example is this intriguing pulp mystery and generational drama that blends the lineage of the Wayne family of Gotham City with covert societies and the secret history of the United States of America.

April 1865, Washington DC: President Lincoln overrides the objections of Allan Pinkerton (who had created the Secret Service to protect him) and goes to see “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre. His assassination prompts the security genius to create a dedicated clandestine force beyond the reach of everything but their mission and their own consciences…

April 1929, Gotham City: a doctor, his wife and their young son exit a movie theatre where they have thrilled to the exploits of Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro. Suddenly sneak thieves confront them and in the struggle Thomas and Martha Wayne are gunned down, leaving a grieving boy kneeling over their bloody corpses. The family butler Alfred packs the coldly resolute boy off on a decade-long world tour to study with masters of criminology around the globe…

Lincoln’s murder was planned by a cabal of Confederate plotters named the Knights of the Golden Circle. Their leader, an early geneticist named Josiah Carr, outlines a Doomsday vengeance plot that will take decades to complete…

January 1st 1939: Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham ready to begin his life’s mission but is diverted when crusading newspaperman Lee Travis reveals the existence of the Secret Society of Detectives and invites the young man to become their 27th operative since Pinkerton…

Charming and relentlessly compelling, this superb thriller follows two time-lines as the founding Detective hunts the Golden Circle through the years enlisting the covert aid of many historical figures such as Kate Warne (America’s first female detective), journalist and President-to-be Teddy Roosevelt and biologist/monk Gregor Mendel whilst Wayne closes in on the climax of the Doomsday plot with the aid of Babe Ruth and Sigmund Freud, facing customised versions of such classic Bat-foes as Catwoman, Scarecrow, Hugo Strange and the Joker.

There’s even a cameo from the Golden Age Superman as well as a magnificent surprise ending to this two-fisted tribute to the “Thud-and-Blunder” era of the 1930s pulps… This is a conspiracy thriller stuffed to overflowing with in-jokes, referential asides, pop culture clues and universal icons that make The Da Vinci Code look like a bunch of dry words on dusty paper. The only flaw is that writer Uslan and artists Snejbjerg and Loughridge were never able to create a sequel…

And just in case you’re wondering… Detective Comics #27 (May 1939) featured the very first appearance of a certain Dark Knight…
© 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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She Hulk: Time Trials


By Dan Slott, Juan Babillo & Marcelo Sosa and various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-78511-795-7

Let’s re-cap: She Hulk is the cousin of the Incredible Hulk. Her alter-ego, lawyer Jennifer Walters, got a blood transfusion from Bruce Banner and the inevitable result was a super-powerful, ample-bosomed, seven foot tall green Valkyrie who is the poster-child for “As If…”

For most of her comics career she’s been played slightly skewed to the rest of the Marvel Universe. For a good deal of it she was the only character to refer to her life in comic-book terms, with all the fourth wall comedy that could be wrung out of that situation. In this incarnation (reprinting her five issue miniseries from 2005 – in which #3 is celebrated as her 100th full issue) she returns to the prestigious Manhattan law-firm which specialises in the fledgling legal grey area known as Superhuman Law (see also Single Green Female).

This volume is marginally less tongue-in-cheek, but still follows the delightfully accessible formula, albeit with a slightly darker overtone as the human Jennifer needs artificial methods to transform into her seven foot glamazon form due to psychological traumas incurred as a result of the Avengers: Disassembled storyline and her rampaging destruction of the city of Bone, Idaho.

Nonetheless she is soon back at work on a time-travel murder case with a fascinating underlying idea. As everybody in the potential jury pool has been prejudiced by constant media coverage of the attempted murder (the victim isn’t dead yet at time of trial) Jen’s defence team comes up with the brilliant notion of calling jurors from the recent past – courtesy of the multiversal temporal police force the Time Variance Authority…

It’s all going so well until Clint Barton is selected as a jury member: how can Jen work when one of the twelve is secretly Hawkeye – a fellow Avenger she feels responsible for killing!? Guilt-racked and conflicted, Jen decides to break her oath and the rules of time-travel to warn the Ace Archer of the doom that awaits his return to his own time…

The Time Variance Authority is infallible however and when Jen is accused of the capital offence of time-tampering she faces having her entire existence erased from the annals of reality.

This third chapter is also her 100th anniversary issue and features guest art from Paul Pelletier & Rick Magyar, Scott Kolins, Mike Vosburg, Amanda Conner & Jimmy Palmiotti, Ron Frenz, Joe Sinnott & Sal Buscema, Mike Mayhew, Don Simpson, Lee Weeks and Eric Powell as well as dozens of costumed guest-stars from her jaded career as a hero/villain, whilst #4 is a brief interlude in the greater story (illustrated by Scott Kolins) as She Hulk explores the aftermath of her Idaho rampage with the poignant and rewarding ‘Back to Bone’ before the jurisprudence and chronal carnage concludes with the rescue and return of a dead hero…

This is a priceless, clever romp with devastatingly sharp wit and low, vulgar slapstick in equal amounts plus loads of the mandatory angst-free action: a great read and possibly the Best Whacky Legal Drama since Boston Legal. But don’t listen to me: catch this book and judge for yourself…

© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Justice Society of America: the Next Age


By Geoff Johns, Dale Eaglesham, Art Thibert & Ruy Jose (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-606-1

The World’s first Superhero team reboots itself once more after the interminable series of universal Crises (specifically World War III) and in conjunction with the Justice League of America returns as an organisation of heroic veterans working with and training the next generation of young heroes in this new interpretation of the JSA.

Originally published as issues #1-4 of the latest monthly comicbook series, this gripping thriller sees Elder Statesmen Flash, Green Lantern and Wildcat begin a recruitment drive that leads them to the heirs and inheritors of a number of older mystery men just as the corpse of one of the very first costumed heroes comes crashing through their HQ’s skylight, alerting them to a vicious plot by their oldest foe to wipe out “legacy heroes” forever…

Fast paced, tense and eerily gratifying, the venerable, journeyman and apprentice heroes cut loose against modern super-Nazis and the most evil man alive as they gather Cyclone, a new (or perhaps not) Starman, Citizen Steel, Liberty Bell, Damage and another Wildcat into their burgeoning fold just in time for the incipient JLA/JSA crossover The Lightning Saga and the unfolding Countdown to Final Crisis.

Steeped in DC lore and continuity this won’t be accessible to every reader, but it is still a compelling and enjoyable new chapter for the Justice Society and a worthwhile endeavour for fans of big plots and bold costumed crusaders.

© 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Blue Beetle: Reach for the Stars


John Rogers, Rafael Albuquerque & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1642-9

Although long-gone as a monthly series the latest incarnation of the venerable Blue Beetle still survives in trade paperback collections where you can – and should – experience the frantic, fun and thrill-packed exploits of young Jaime Reyes, an El Paso teenager who was catapulted into the world of high-level super-heroics when a sentient scarab jewel affixed itself to his spine and transformed him into an armoured bio-weapon.

The third volume (collecting issues #13-19 of the monthly comic-book) begins with ‘Defective’ by Rogers, Albuquerque, David Baldeon and Dan Davis, wherein a benevolent seeming alien from an interstellar collective named The Reach introduces himself and reveals that the scarab is a invitation used to prepare endangered worlds like Earth for trade and commerce as part of a greater pan-galactic civilisation.

Unfortunately the one attached to Jaime has been damaged over the centuries it was here and isn’t working properly.

But the Reach envoy is a big, fat liar…

The Scarab should have paved the way for a full invasion and once they discover this, Jaime and militaristic superhero Peacemaker soon realise that The Reach are the worst kind of alien invaders; patient, subtle, deceptive and stocked with plenty of space-tech to sell to Earth’s greedy governments. The only hope of defeating the marauders is to expose their real scheme to the public – which is too dazzled by the intergalactic newcomers’ media blitz to listen…

‘Mister Nice Guy’ (Rogers & Albuquerque) finds the Beetle teamed again with the erratic Guy Gardner – a Green Lantern who knows all about The Reach and their Trojan Agenda – to defeat the macabre Ultra-Humanite who has sold his telepathic services to the invaders. Still looking for allies and a solution Jaime meets Superman in ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ by J. Torres & Freddie Williams Jr. and battles one of the DC Universe’s gravest menaces in the startlingly powerful change of pace tale ‘Total Eclipso: the Heart’ by Rogers & Albuquerque.

The same creative team produced ‘Something in the Water’ as the elemental menace Typhoon joins with The Reach to endanger an entire city – and Bruce Wayne’s off-shore oil wells – in a clever and insightful tale with plenty of punch whilst ‘Away Game’ (Rogers, Albuquerque, Baldeon & Davis) finds the Beetle and the Teen Titans in pitched and pithy battle against the unbeatable alien biker-punk Lobo.

Rogers and Albuquerque are joined by the weirdly whimsical Keith Giffen for the final tale in this collection which focuses on Jaime’s best friend Brenda, who has blithely lived her entire life unaware that her foster-mother is La Dama, El Paso’s crime boss supreme. The distraught girl only learns the dreadful ‘Hard Truths’ when the rival mob Intergang declares war and sends the fifty foot woman Giganta to smash her and her family to gooey pulp…

There are so few series that combine action and adventure with fun and wit, and can even evoke tragedy and poignant loss on command. John Rogers excels in this innovative and impossibly readable saga and the art is always top notch. And with the climactic final battle against the Reach still to come, this is a series any adventure fan will want to read over and over again.

© 2007, 2008 DC Comics.  All Rights Reserved.

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Wolverine/Ghost Rider: In Acts of Vengeance


By Howard Mackie, Mark Texeira & Harry Candelario (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-7851-0022-9

From that dubious period of “Grim ‘n’ Gritty” super-heroics in the early 1990s comes this slight but entertaining fast-paced pairing of Marvel’s (then) most savage champions which originally ran as the lead series in the fortnightly anthology Marvel Comics Presents #64-70, although dyed-in-the-wool continuity buffs should be warned that the connection to the company’s crossover event Acts of Vengeance is oblique – if not downright tenuous.

From his insalubrious bar on the pirate stronghold of Madripoor the globe-trotting mutant Wolverine is lured back to New York by a blatantly inept attack carried out by ninjas belonging to vampiric super-villain Deathwatch. Meanwhile Dan Ketch, human host of the fearsome Ghost Rider, finds one of his oldest friends also the target of similar ninjas.

The heroes’ paths cross with a karate instructor whose family also has a grudge against the criminal mastermind and all converge on the life-leech’s skyscraper headquarters for a surprise or two and a climactic showdown…

This yarn is just a stylish excuse for a big chase and huge fight – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing – so on those terms, this is a visceral, vicarious, effective use of the creators’ talents, with the added bonus of the introduction of yet another mutant superstar-in-waiting (I think he’s still waiting, even now) in the form of the unstoppable martial arts manhunter code-named Brass.

Sometimes no-frills cathartic comics combat is all you want from graphic narrative, and if you ever get that feeling this might be the book to buy…
© 1990, 1991, 1993 Marvel Entertainment Group. All rights reserved.