Category: Graphic Novels

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Jenny Sparks: The Secret History of the Authority


By Mark Millar, John McCrea, James Hodgkins & Ian Hannin (WildStorm)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-310-0

Evolving from the comic-book Stormwatch, The Authority are a team of super-heroes who take their self-appointed duty to its only logical – if extreme – conclusion. As god-like super-beings they have eschewed the traditional societal role in favour of a pre-emptive strike policy, and a no-nonsense One-World paternalism, that allows them to tackle real problems such as hunger, pollution, genocides and corporate piracy as well as demented super-villains and alien invasions.

They have set themselves above the Machiavellian dances of world politics in a mission to save the entire planet, and naturally, that doesn’t endear them to the entrenched Interests of Government and Business.

When the team first formed the most intriguing member was easily the brittle, cynical English woman Jenny Sparks whose electrical powers were an expression of her metaphysical position as the incarnate “Spirit of the Twentieth Century”. This collection gathers the five issue miniseries that revealed her 100-year life (born at midnight, December 31st 1899…) but it’s less a secret origin and more a handy guide to the history of the alternate world that the Authority inhabit.

By flashing back to key moments with her fellow crusaders Swift, The Doctor, Apollo and the Midnighter, Jack Hawksmoor and The Engineer creators Miller and McCrea cleverly deliver subtle moments and insights into a feature mostly known for excess and spectacle.

This tale is a must-see for fans of the brand, but also a clever and entertaining fantasy adventure for lovers of good storytelling everywhere.

© 2000, 2001 WildStorm Productions. All Rights Reserved.

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Robin: A Hero Reborn


By Alan Grant, Chuck Dixon, Norm Breyfogle, Tom Lyle & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-029-1

No matter how hard creators try to avoid it or escape it, Batman and Robin are an inevitable pairing. The first one graduated, the second died (sort of, more or less, leave it, don’t go there) and the third, Tim Drake, volunteered and applied pester-power until he got the job…

Reprinting Batman #455-457 and the first Robin miniseries (#1-5), this volume shows how the plucky young computer whiz convinced the Gotham Guardian to let him assume the junior role in a cracking adventure yarn that has as much impact today as when it first appeared nearly twenty years ago.

‘Identity Crisis’ by Alan Grant, Norm Breyfogle and Steve Mitchell finds the newly orphaned (or as good as: his mother is dead and his dad’s in a coma) Tim Drake as Bruce Wayne’s new ward but forbidden from participating in the life of the Batman. The kid is willing and competent, after all, he deduced Batman’s secret identity before he even met him, but the guilt-racked Dark Knight won’t allow any more children to risk their lives…

However when an old foe lures the lone avenger into an inescapable trap Tim must disobey Batman’s express orders to save him, even if it means his own life… or even the new home he’s just beginning to love.

Following on the heels of that landmark saga Robin got a new costume and a try-out series. Writer Chuck Dixon, and artists Tom Lyle and Bob Smith relate the tale of the apprentice hero’s journey to Paris, ostensibly to train in secret, but which devolves into a helter-skelter race-against-time, as the murderous martial artist Lady Shiva leads the lad into a deadly battle against the Ghost Dragon Triad and Hong-Kong crime-lord King Snake for possession of a Nazi terror weapon.

There’s a breakneck pace and tremendous vivacity to this uncomplicated thriller that would rouse a corpse whilst the exotic scenarios make ‘Big Bad World’ a coming of age tale that any reader of super-hero fiction would adore.

This book is a lovely slice of sheer escapist entertainment and a genuine Bat-classic. If you don’t own this you really should.

© 1990, 1991, 1998 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Teen Titans: Titans Around The World


By Geoff Johns, Tony Daniel & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-442-5

After the non-stop calamity of the DC Infinite Crisis the company re-set the time line of all their publications to begin One Year Later.  This enabled them to retool their characters as they saw fit, provide a jumping on point for new converts and also give themselves some narrative wiggle-room.

One of the titles that made the most of that creative opportunity was the Teen Titans. In the missing year not only did the characters undergo vast personal changes but the team and the core-concept itself was stretched leaving a broad canvas to tell tales and spring “Big Reveals” on the reader (who after all had only been away for thirty days!).

Collecting issues # 34-41 of the comicbook series, the story opens with team lynchpin Cyborg coming out of a year-long coma caused by injuries received during the aforementioned Infinite Crisis. He awakens to a team he doesn’t recognise, including Rose, daughter of their arch-foe the Terminator, who was actively trying to kill him when he last saw her.

In rapid fashion Cyborg goes into action trashing not only her but also a teen-aged demon, and a couple of preppy teen whiz-kids before Robin intervenes. The Boy Wonder explains that in the past year since Superboy died saving the universe, Wonder Girl has gone solo, Beast Boy/Changeling has returned to the fatalistically surreal Doom Patrol and more than two dozen young heroes have joined – and mostly left – the ranks of the teen super-group.

Determined to pull the Titans back together, they set off to re-recruit some old friends only to fall afoul of both the Brotherhood of Evil and the Doom Patrol themselves, in a taut, devious thriller that perfectly kick-starts the new era. But what is the obsessive secret Robin is hiding from his comrades?

The four-part ‘New Teen Titans’ is by scripter Geoff Johns, penciller, Tony Daniel, with inks from Kevin Conrad, Andy Lanning and Norm Rapmund.

It’s followed by the eponymous ‘Titans around the World’ another four parter that reveals some of the incredible events of that lost year. While Cyborg was recovering, a huge number of troubles super-kids passed through the doors of Titans HQ, but as the new team mentor reviews recordings of that time he is unsettled…

The mystic Raven has disappeared and by checking with some of those past recruits he discovers that the team may have been harbouring a traitor in its midst…

Produced by Johns, Tony Daniel and fellow pencillers Carlos Ferreira, Paco Diaz and Ryan Benjamin, with inks by Conrad, Art Thibert, Drew Geraci, Silvio Spotti, Jonathan Glapion, Michael Lopez, Edwin Rosell, Saleem Crawford and Vincente Cifuentes, this is a thoroughly enjoyable romp in the classic Teen Titans manner that should delight fans of the superhero genre and might even make a few new converts along the way.

This is another fights ‘n’ tights triumph for Geoff Johns who seems determined to revitalize the entire DC pantheon. Surely such a noble undertaking deserves a few brief moments of your time?

© 2006, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Joker’s Asylum


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84856-047-5

This slim collection focuses on the A-list villains in Batman’s Rogues Gallery, reprinting five sinister one-shots beginning inevitably with The Joker, who stays on as EC-style host narrator for all the tales from his comfy padded cell at Arkham Asylum.

‘The Joker’s Wild’, by Arvid Nelson with art from Alex Sanchez and colours by Jose Villarrubia, offers a genuinely different slant on the old plot of the homicidal maniac who hijacks a live TV show. This is followed by the Penguin who waddles onto centre stage for a chilling, poignant and very dark love story entitled ‘He Who Laughs Last…!’ by Jason Aaron and Jason Pearson (coloured by Dave McCaig).

Possibly the weakest of these collected tales is ‘Deflowered’ wherein the unearthly floral siren Poison Ivy wreaks her unique brand of vengeance on manipulative fat-cat property speculators in a gory thriller from JT Krul and Guillem March. Luckily it’s followed by the most seductive and compelling yarn in this book of horrors as ‘The Dark Knight of the Scarecrow’ is visited upon a gaggle of High School Bitch-Princesses whose bullying leads to enlightenment of a most instructive and permanent kind, courtesy of the deadly Dr. Jonathan Crane and creative team Joe Harris & Juan Doe.

The savagely tragic Two-Face rounds off the volume in a powerful and challenging tale of tough choices and powerful compulsions. ‘Two-Face, Too’ is by David Hine, Andy Clarke and colourist Nathan Eyring, and while we’re handing out credit Rob Leigh lettered it, as he did all the tales in this superbly creepy walk with monsters in the dire environs of Gotham City.

There’s a lot of Batman material out there and this collection shows that he doesn’t have to be present to cast a long shadow. This is one of the best Bat-books of recent vintage and a worthy addition to any bookshelf.

© 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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EX MACHINA: EX CATHEDRA


By Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris, Jim Clark & JD Mettler (WildStorm)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-872-0

The seventh collection of high-powered politics (collecting issues #30-34 of the award-winning comics series) finds New York City Mayor Mitchell Hundred having to cope with something far outside his outside his already outré experience. In the final days of his Papacy, Pope John Paul II summons the super-hero-turned-civic-leader to a private audience in the Vatican. With forty percent of the city practicing Catholics, that’s simply an “offer” an independent candidate for re-election cannot refuse…

Since the Mayor is most definitely not a believer and his liberal views on Gay Rights, abortion and a thousand other doctrinal no-no’s have already led to a number of ecclesiastical frowns from all the major religions, our hero is already more than a little unnerved. But when the Vatican’s Chief Astronomer explains how the Church views the alien technology that bonded to the Mayor (giving him his powers to communicate with and command machinery) Mitchell Hundred’s world changes forever…

To further complicate matters a leftover team of Cold-War subversives have hit on a way to turn all that E.T. hardware in the Mayor’s brain into a remote control unit. Without his even knowing it Hundred could become a puppet, a spy or even an assassin at the flick of switch…

Sharp, witty, endlessly inventive and startlingly perspicacious, Ex Machina is still one of the absolute best comic reads on the market today, with characters and insights that always beguile and enthrall. And as the creators are never content to rest on their laurels it only gets better and better. If you’re not a fan yet, start today. If you are tell everyone you know. They’ll thank you for it…

© & TM 2007 Brian K. Vaughn & Tony Harris. All Rights Reserved.

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HAWKGIRL: HATH-SET


By Walter Simonson, Renato Arlem & Dennis Calero (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1665-8

The climactic third and final volume of the adventures of Hawkgirl, collecting issues #61-66 of her monthly magazine, goes all-out to deliver drama and spectacle in a thrilling and satisfying manner.

Hawkman and Hawkgirl are Egyptian lovers Prince Khufu and Lady Chay-Ara, murdered by the evil priest and usurper Hath-Set millennia ago. The heroes are inescapably trapped by a reincarnation spell to reunite, fight injustice and be murdered by the mad villain. All three souls are equally prisoners of an inescapable deathbed curse.

The last time she died Chay-Ara’s soul somehow possessed the fully grown body of Kendra Saunders when that troubled young woman committed suicide. With one variable altered the curse has been unraveling for some time now, and in this book the hidden truth of the trio’s situation is finally revealed, but before that there’s a few other problems to deal with…

Firstly there’s the Apokolyptian death squad known as the Female Furies, here to recover a planet-breaker weapon stolen three and a half thousand years ago. Hidden by the first Hath-Set, the deadly Beta-3 Gizmoid has now been activated by his latest incarnation…

Then there’s the plague of ensorcelled zombie citizens in Gotham City that needs all of Hawkgirl and Batman’s undivided attention, and the legion of suicidal Hath-Set servants that blight her trip to Metropolis.

Even Superman and Oracle can’t prevent her capture there, and only Hawkman is able to track her to the Valley of the Kings where millennia of passion and conflict leads to a final deadly resolution and a breaking of the spell holding the accursed lovers and their eternal tormentor together…

Coming directly from the “going out with a very big bang” school of entertainment these tales are witty, thrilling and vast in spectacle and scope. Ancient history, lost gods, giant robots, zombies, aliens, mummies, guest-stars, stark heroism and undying love all vie for the readers attention but never once feel forced or crowded. This is a bravura comics performance and the best possible way to end a series.

At least until we meet again…

© 2007, 2008 DC Comics.  All Rights Reserved

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SUPERMAN CHRONICLES VOLUME 4

By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Wayne Boring, Jack Burnley and the Superman Studio (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 9781-84576-743-3

This fourth collection of the Man of Tomorrow’s earliest adventures, reprinted in the order they originally appeared, sees out the year 1940 in another tremendous little album that covers his appearances in Action Comics #26-31as well as the bi-monthly Superman #6-7.

Siegel and Shuster had created a true phenomenon and were struggling to cope with it. As well as the monthly and bimonthly comics a new quarterly publication, World’s Finest Comics (springing from the success of the publisher’s New York World’s Fair comic-book tie-ins) would soon debut and their indefatigable hero was to feature prominently in it. Also, the Superman daily newspaper strip, which began on 16th January 1939, with its separate Sunday strip following from November 5th of that year, was garnering millions of new fans.

The need for new material was constant and terrible.

From Action Comics #25 (July 1940) came ‘Professor Cobalt’s Clinic’ wherein Clark Kent and Lois Lane exposed a murderous sham Heath Facility with a little Kryptonian help, and the next month dealt a similar blow to the corrupt orphanage ‘Brentwood Home for Wayward Youth’. The September issue found the him at the circus, solving the mystery of ‘The Strongarm Assaults’, a fast-paced thriller beautifully illustrated by the astonishingly talented Jack Burnley.

Whilst thrilling to that, kids of the time could also have picked up the sixth issue of Superman (September/October 1940). Produced by Siegel and the Superman Studio, with Shuster increasingly only overseeing and drawing key figures and faces, this contained four more lengthy adventures.

‘Lois Lane, Murderer’, ‘Racketeer Terror in Gateston’, ‘Terror Stalks San Caluma’ and ‘The Construction Scam’ had the Man of Action saving the plucky newshen (you can’t imagine how long I’ve waited to type that term) from a dastardly frame up, rescuing a small town from a mob invasion, foiling a blackmailer who’s discovered his secret identity and spectacularly fixing a corrupt company’s shoddy, death-trap buildings.

Action Comics #29 (October 1940) again features Burnley art in a gripping tale of murder for profit. Human drama in ‘The Life insurance Con’ was replaced by deadly super-science as the mastermind Zolar created ‘A Midsummer Snowstorm’, allowing Burnley a rare opportunity to display his fantastic imagination as well as his representational excellence.

Superman # 7(November/December1940), and the Man of Steel was embroiled in local politics when he confronted ‘Metropolis’ Most Savage Racketeers’, quelled man-made disasters in ‘The Exploding Citizens’, stamped out City Hall corruption in ‘Superman’s Clean-Up Campaign’ (illustrated by Wayne Boring, who was Shuster’s inker on the other tales in this issue) and put the villainous high society bandits ‘The Black Gang’ where they belonged – behind iron bars.

This volume ends with Burnley drawing another high-tech caper as criminals put an entire city to sleep and only Clark Kent isn’t ‘In the Grip of Morpheus’.

Although the gaudy burlesque of monsters and super-villains still lay years ahead of our hero, these tales of corruption, disaster and social injustice are just as engrossing and speak powerfully of the tenor of the times. The raw intensity and sly wit still shine through in Siegel’s stories which literally defined what being a Super Hero means whilst Shuster and his team created the iconography for all others to follow. These Golden Age tales are priceless enjoyment at an absurdly affordable price. What dedicated comics fan could possibly resist them?

So don’t…
© 1940, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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HAWKGIRL: HAWKMAN RETURNS

By Walter Simonson, Joe Bennett & Renato Arlem (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1488-3

After a year’s absence from the DC Universe, the fate of vanished Hawkman is finally revealed in this volume collecting Hawkgirl #57-60 and JSA Classified #21-22.

Hawkman and Hawkgirl are immortal Egyptian lovers Khufu and Chay-Ara, murdered by evil priest Hath-Set millennia ago. The heroes are bound by a reincarnation spell to ever reunite, fight injustice and be murdered again by the mad villain. All three souls are equally prisoners of an inescapable deathbed curse.

Due to numerous cosmic crises (company reboots and relaunches, if you prefer) rather than be reborn the last time she died Chay-Ara’s soul somehow possessed the fully grown body of Kendra Saunders when that troubled young woman committed suicide. Consequently Hawkgirl has problems sorting out memories and is unsure of who she actually is.

Lost in the aftermath of the Infinite Crisis (ISBN: 978-1-4012-0959-9) and the Rann-Thanagar War (ISBN: 1-84576-231-2) the male Winged Wonder is the focal point of this collection which starts with ‘Trial… And Execution’ written by Walter Simonson and illustrated by Joe Bennett; a two-part tale which explains that the reincarnated Egyptian warrior has been on the planet Rann trying to stop the Rannian and refugee Thanagarian populations from killing each other.

Alien Queen-bitch Blackfire has been rabble-rousing in a surreptitious power-play, and being a meticulous sort has sent a demented assassin to Earth to remove Hawkgirl. Just in case…

‘Relic of War’ reveals more off-world back-story, culminating in Blackfire (an energy-casting superwoman and evil, older sister of the Teen Titan Starfire) traveling to St. Roch to finish Hawkgirl herself. This tale is bisected by ‘Best Served Cold…’ and ‘Fire and Ice’ (from JSA Classified #21-22), both written and drawn by Simonson, which reveal more of the Hawks last days together in space and follows Hawkman up to the moment Blackfire and Hawkgirl clash on Earth.

The book ends in a tale that sets up the final Hawkgirl storyline (collected in Hawkgirl: Hath-Set: ISBN13:978-1-4012-1665-8).

‘A Cast of Hawks’, beautifully illustrated by Renato Arlem, describes how a doomsday weapon from the hell-world of Apokolips fell into the possession of Hath-Set three and a half thousand years ago. Contemporarily, just as the reunited Hawkgirl and Hawkman are getting reacquainted, the latest incarnation of the priest who has murdered them a thousand times over makes the first move in a plan to remove them and break the curse forever…

Sharp and witty science-fiction epics are Simonson’s especial forte, and the revelatory weaving of disparate plot-threads is accomplished with great style. The glorious variety and power of the art is a joy to behold, and even if the overall feeling is of an engaging interlude, the promise of a blockbuster to come is quite mouth-watering.

Here is high-quality genre entertainment that’s well worth seeking out.

© 2006, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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X-CAMPUS


By Francesco Artibani, Michele Medda, Denis Medri, Roberto Di Salvo & Marco Failla; translated by Luigi Mutti (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-90523-998-6

Here’s an intriguing re-imagining of the key elements that have made the X-Men a global phenomenon, courtesy of the company’s international connections. Created by European creators and published under the Marvel Transatlantique imprint this oddly numbered miniseries (1A&B – 4A&B) is set on the sprawling campus of the Worthington Foundation in Greenwich, Connecticut. This unique academy draws special students from all over the world…

The guy in charge is Professor Magnus whilst Charles Xavier is a biology teacher with an assistant named Jean Grey. The student body is highly polarised: First year students Hank McCoy, Scott Summers, Bobby Drake, Ororo Munroe, Warren Worthington III and the unruly Logan are all good kids. Magnus’s favoured group (all analogues of the Hellfire Club, led by the telepathic jailbait wild-child Emma Frost) – not to mention his school caretakers Mesmero, Pyro, Toad and Blob – clearly have a hidden agenda and turn all their dubious charms to getting new girl Anna Raven (you’ll know her as Rogue) to join their clique.

Magnus/Magneto is using the school to recruit a mutant army and Xavier’s plan is to covertly rescue impressionable mutants before it’s too late. Foiling the villain’s plan to acquire both the teleporter Kurt Wagner and Russian Man of Steel Peter Rasputin only leads to greater conflict and the maturing kids must decide once and for all whether they’ll be friends or foes of humanity…

Compacting all the elements of X-lore into a school divided between “goodies” and “baddies” works surprisingly well, as does making all the heroes troubled teenagers. This oddly engaging blend of The Demon Headmaster and Roswell High is written with great charm by Artibani and Medda, and whilst the manga style art (reminiscent of many modern animation shows for kids) is a little jarring to my old eyes, it does carry the tale with clarity and effectiveness, aimed as it is at drawing in a more contemporary audience, not cranky old gits like me.

Probably not welcomed by die-hard fans, this is nonetheless a refreshing take on the merry mutants and I’d honestly welcome more of the same. If you’re not too wedded to continuity and could stand a breezy change of pace, why not give this intriguing experiment a go?

© 2008 Marvel Entertainment, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. (A BRITISH EDITION BY PANINI UK LTD)

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HAWKGIRL: THE MAW


By Walter Simonson & Howard Chaykin (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1246-9

In the aftermath of the Infinite Crisis (ISBN: 978-1-4012-0959-9) and the Rann-Thanagar War (ISBN: 1-84576-231-2) the Hawkman comic-book experienced an overnight gender readjustment. Issue #50, renamed Hawkgirl, began the solo adventures of the distaff Winged Wonder, set “One Year Later”, as part of a company-wide reset of the DC Universe.

Hawkman and Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman are resurrected Egyptian lovers Khufu and Chay-Ara, murdered by the evil priest Hath-Set thousands of years ago. The heroes are bound by a reincarnation spell to ever reunite, fight injustice and be murdered again by the mad cleric. All three souls are prisoners of the deathbed curse.

Due to numerous cosmic crises (for which read company reboots and relaunches) rather than be reborn the last time she died Chay-Ara’s soul possessed the fully grown body of Kendra Saunders when the troubled young woman committed suicide. Consequently the new Hawkgirl has problems sorting out memories and is unsure of who she actually is.

This collection, reprinting Hawkgirl #50-56, finds her back in St Roch. Louisiana, doing the job Carter Hall (the vanished Hawkman) should have been doing at the Stonechat Museum. He’s been missing for a year – although in the fictionalized analogue of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, that’s no rare thing – and she’s just beginning to adjust to a life without him.

Suddenly Kendra’s plagued by unsettling nightmares and spooky happenings in the museum’s basement. Furthermore the city’s gripped by an escalating crime-wave. In the background the latest incarnation of Hath-Set is maneuvering for his latest attack, whilst zombies, ghoulies, thugs and beasties roam the streets. Is Hawkgirl going mad or has the mysterious Khimaera targeted her for destruction?

Old Turks (relatively speaking) Simonson and Chaykin add a sexy gloss to this tale of intrigue and vengeance with just a splash of Lovecraftian horror to flavour the mix, in a slight but highly engaging romp for the solo Avian Avenger. Although no classic, there’s a slick charm to this that will please more than just the already-confirmed fan-base.

© 2006, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.