Category: Graphic Novels

By Sharman Devono & Hiroshi Hirata (Eclipse Books)
ISBN: 0-913035-30-0

Holding a strong claim to be the first ever collaboration between an American comicbook writer and a Japanese Manga artist this slim but impressive little gem is still readily available through many online retailers.

Eclipse was one of the first publishers to get into the trans-Pacific translation business with such seminal serials as Area 88, Legend of Kamui and Mai, the Psychic Girl. Finding an audience eager for a fresh graphic experience they soon branched out into new material. This terse black and white tale combines real events from a turbulent period in Japan’s troubled history and combines them with supernatural elements for a tense, foreboding drama with the accent on human interaction rather than simple swordplay.

The Kyushu Campaign occurred during a period when Toyotomi Hideyoshi was attempting to make himself Dictator of Japan. In June 1587 he sought to consolidate his power on the island of KyÅ«shÅ« where the rebel Daimyō (Lords) of Satsuma resisted him. Into this hotbed of intrigue a Nō Actor and samurai named Okubo Nagayasu became an unstoppable secret agent for Tokugawa Ieyasu – Lord of the Five Provinces, second most powerful man in the Empire, and a wily campaigner who sought to maintain his own position through stealth, rather than by siding with either faction.

Nothing could prevent the war that occurred, especially as Jesuit missionaries were manipulating newly converted nobles for their own ends. As usual the real casualties in such affairs are the honest soldiery, but when the samurai Harada Sadayasu falls during the inevitable battle, he reluctantly returns from the dead as Shiko, a Son of Death. An unclean thing, he wants only the peace of the grave, but is ordered by his Daimyō to continue in his duty. Killing his Lord’s enemies…

The structure of this tale is a little odd and I suspect it was originally intended to be a longer work, but it’s an engrossing and exotic yarn for all that. Seminal artist Hirata is actually a gekiga exponent (which means he produces “dramatic pictures” rather than the more frivolous manga or “irresponsible pictures” – a sophism equivalent to our own western debate over “High” and “Low” art). He has had few of his works translated into English and the most well known is probably Satsuma Gishiden, a gritty historical saga in the manner of the legendary Lone Wolf and Cub. His other series include ‘Jaken Yaburetari’, ‘Tsunde ha Kazushi’, ‘Mosû Ogidachi’ and ‘Shikon’.

If you’re a fan of oriental fiction or would just like to try something a little different this is definitely a book worth hunting down

© 1987 Sharman Devono & Hiroshi Hirata. All Rights Reserved.

By Cefn Ridout & Charlie Adlard (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-7851-0156-X

Don’t be fooled by the title and brace yourself for a disappointment if you’re a huge fan of the World War II Howling Commando and irascible leader of the planet’s most advanced espionage agency. Although he gets top billing, Nick Fury is largely absent from the post-Cold War proceedings in this well-intentioned if erratic thriller that is in actuality the spiritual conclusion to the sage of the mysterious Night Raven.

As seen in Night Raven: the Collected Stories (ISBN13: 978-1-85400-557-3), Night Raven: House Of Cards (ISBN13: 978-1-85400-288-4) and as yet un-collected illustrated prose adventures from various British Marvel publications, Night Raven was a masked vigilante who fought crime in New York and Chicago in the years between World Wars I and II. In later years he became locked in a bloody, relentless vendetta with the immortal villainess Yi Yang, Queen of the Dragon Tong.

When a S.H.I.E.L.D. asset is murdered inside the US embassy in Moscow soon after the fall of the Soviet system, expatriate Russian super agent and Avenger Natasha Romanoff is dispatched to unravel the secrets the new rulers don’t want revealed.

What she discovers is the incredible fate of the fearsome urban legend now known as Black Bird as he slaughters his way through bureaucrats and Russian Mafia alike in his single-minded mission to destroy the woman who kept him from a peaceful grave.

Superbly illustrated by Charlie Adlard this is nonetheless an uncomfortable blending of genres, with a strange pace to it: almost as if there’s been some savage trimming and pruning with no thought to narrative cohesion. Pretty and adventurous, it’s probably only of real interest to real aficionados.

© 1995 Marvel Entertainment Group/Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

By Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-48576-378-7

In the build-up to the universe-altering Infinite Crisis (ISBN: 978-1-4012-0959-9), DC released a number of themed miniseries, each of which was designed to set scenes, generate storylines, and generally warm up the audience for the Big Event. Each of these miniseries ended on a whopping cliffhanger and was then swiftly rushed out as a trade paperback collection. These ice-breakers were Day of Vengeance (ISBN 1-84576-230-4) The Omac Project (ISBN 1-84576-229-0) Rann-Thanagar War (ISBN 1-84576-231-2) and Villains United (ISBN 1-84576-232-0) – and you should probably lump in the Clip-book compilation Prelude to Infinite Crisis (ISBN 1-84576-209-6) which extracted pertinent snippets from a host of DC comics and the much more readable Identity Crisis (ISBN 1-34576-126-X) for a full set. (See separate reviews via the Archive)

The problem with the first four series/collections is that even as teaser tales and set-ups they were somewhat incomplete and inconclusive, necessitating the creation of intermediate one-shot Specials to bridge the gap between the individual storylines and Infinite Crisis itself (ISBN: 978-1-4012-0959-9 or ISBN: 978-1-84576-404-3 for the trade paperback). Those bridging specials are collected in this volume.

Day of Vengeance: The Ninth Age of Magic is by Bill Willingham, Justiniano and Walden Wong and deals with a last-ditch attempt by Earth’s magical practitioners to pacify a crazed and apocalyptic Spectre, whilst Rann-Thanagar War: Hands of Fate is written by Dave Gibbons with art by Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Marc Campos, Oclair Albert and Michael Bair finds a group of superheroes discovering the real causes of the war during a brutal battle in the depths of intergalactic space.

The Omac Project: the Lazarus Protocol is by Greg Rucka and Jesus Saiz and has Checkmate and a rag-tag bunch of superheroes deal with the deadly remnants of the rogue Brother Eye satellite as it crashes to Earth, and Gail Simone, Dale Eaglesham, Art Thibert and Drew Geraci bring the six super-villains who wouldn’t join Luthor’s Bad-guy Society into final conflict with the mastermind’s forces before everybody gets reconstructed by the final act of Infinite Crisis in Villains United: A Hero Dies but One.

If I’ve seemed a little disparaging here it’s not that the material is deficient or mediocre. These are good, strong stories, well told and wonderfully illustrated, but they are floating about without context in this compendium of middle-bits from a bigger story. The ineptitude of this sort of production and packaging utterly galls me. Could it have hurt so much to wait until these tales were published before rushing out the collections laboriously detailed above?

The best place for these adventures is in those books, not here as a separate volume. A big event like Infinite Crisis generates a lot of outside interest and – hopefully – new readers. To send them scurrying all over the landscape for the complete story is bad enough, but when the collections aren’t even complete all you have is a disgruntled purchaser who won’t come back. And it’s also not fair for dedicated fans – who we all know have already bought the original comics – to have yet another expensive book to add to their monthly bill.

Let’s hope for a little more joined-up thinking for those inevitable future publishing events.

© 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0959-9

If you’re not a fan or follower of superheroes or extreme continuity comics, you might want to just skip this book: Otherwise be prepared for some fairly complex fight-in-tights interplay. Also, don’t even think about attempting this without first reading Crisis on Infinite Earths (ISBN: 978-1-5638-9750-4)!

Still with us? Okay, then…

To celebrate the anniversary of the biggest comics event of the 1980s, DC decided to revisit Crisis on Infinite Earths and boost sales and media exposure with another End-of-Everything mega-crossover. Out of this premise would come a cascade of tie-in titles, entwined storylines and a continuous high level of follow-up events, One Year Later, 52, Countdown, etcetera ad nauseum. Every character in the DCU must be permanently tanked on tranquilisers these days…

Spoiler Alert: I’m about to blow the ending of Crisis on Infinite Earths so if you still haven’t read it, do it now or deal with the consequences.

After a cataclysmic battle at the dawn of time all the remaining alternate universes were combined into one. Barring some continuity after-shocks, life itself was saved and reality was returned to its natural progress. Four remnants from worlds that had now never existed – Superman and Lois Lane from Earth 2, Alexander Luthor from Earth 3 and Superboy from Earth Prime, departed Reality itself for a nebulous, paradisiacal other place and the universe continued on.

As DC restarted its heroic history disquieting anomalies occasionally manifested, but generally everything progressed smoothly – as much as it can in superhero comics. But as the years passed the stories and events became grimmer, grittier, altogether darker and nastier. Superman was killed by Doomsday and came back (The Death and Return of Superman Omnibus ISBN: 978-1-4012-1550-7), opening the doorway of death for other returnees. The Justice League lobotomised Dr. Light (see Identity Crisis ISBN: 1-34576-126-X), Wonder Woman executed the telepathic despot Maxwell Lord (Superman: Sacrifice ISBN: 1-84576-243-6) and Batman had become a paranoid sociopath.

Heroes had become indistinguishable from villains, and in a place beyond space and time four survivors of a different kind of Reality looked on in horror and despair. Observing such events the last denizens of the multiverse realised that a dreadful mistake had been made and it was up to them to rectify it…

The seven issues of Infinite Crisis brought together all the various threads of various DCU titles as young Luthor, Superboy Prime and Mr and Mrs Superman tried in their own ways to unpick and reweave the fabric of a universe they deemed faulty. The attendant books Day of Vengeance (ISBN 1-84576-230-4) The Omac Project (ISBN 1-84576-229-0) Rann-Thanagar War (ISBN 1-84576-231-2) and Villains United (ISBN 1-84576-232-0) iterate their earliest clandestine efforts, funnelling into and culminating in this rather messy, unwieldy epic (as do storylines from a host of other individual titles) and after cataclysmic events a reality is salvaged if not actually saved.

For safety’s sake you’d best also include the Infinite Crisis Companion (ISBN: 978-1-48576-378-7) and Superman: Infinite Crisis (ISBN: 978-1-84576-342-8) on your shopping list if you’re going to attempt this ambitious but unnecessarily complex magnum opus which aims so very high and nearly achieves all it set out to.

Concocted by Geoff Johns and Phil Jimenez, assisted by George Pérez, Jerry Ordway, Ivan Reis and Andy Lanning, this is tantalisingly close to being a classic, but the muddle and bombast are only really accessible to the already conversant hardened fan whilst the new readers that came in the wake of the hype, (unlike the better structured Crisis on Infinite Earths) must have been left reeling by the overwhelming intricacy here, not to mention the frankly boggling number of characters in play without any seeming purpose or narrative contribution.

Like its predecessor this story will inform all DC adventures for years to come so it’s pretty much compulsory reading for fans, and to be fair, it is beautiful and impressive to look upon, but my major concern – as always – is getting more people reading comics and this one is just too much like hard work for the fresh and inexperienced punter.

© 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Marv Wolfman & George Pérez & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-5638-9750-4

There are a number of books I’ve held off reviewing for – I thought – obvious reasons. If a reader comfortable with the superhero genre hasn’t read certain landmarks like Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns by now then surely I’ve been largely wasting yours and my time here. Nevertheless I’m reliably informed that many readers, new and old alike, have “never got around to” some of the most significant graphic narratives ever produced so here I am metaphorically poking the negligent with a stick until they do…

In 1985 the Editorial Powers-That-Be at DC Comics were celebrating fifty years of publishing, and on a creative upswing that had been a long time coming. As part of the festivities, and in a purported attempt to simplify five decades of often conflicting stories, a decision was made to concoct a truly epic, year-long saga that would impact every single DC title and reconstruct the entire landscape and history of the DC Universe, with an appearance – however brief – by every character the company had ever published. Easy-peasy, Huh?

Additionally, this new start would end the apparent confusion of multiple Earths with similarly named and themed heroes that had been deterring (sic) new readers. The hefty result of these good intentions was a huge success, both critically and commercially, and enabled the company to reinvigorate many of their most cherished – if moribund – properties. They’ve been trying to change it back ever since.

Plotted long in advance of launch, threads and portents appeared for months in DC’s regular titles, mostly to do with a mysterious arms-and-information broker known as The Monitor. With his beautiful assistant Harbinger he had been gauging each and every being on every Earth with a view to saving all Reality. At this time that Reality consisted of uncountable variations of universes existing “side-by-side”, each with differences varying from slight to monumental. It transpires that at the very beginning of time an influence from the future caused Reality to fracture…

Now a wave of anti-matter was scything through the Cosmic All destroying these separate universes. And before each Armageddon a tormented immortal named Pariah materialised. As the book opens he arrives on an Earth, as its closest dimensional neighbours are experiencing monumental geo-physical disruptions. It’s the end of the World…

Just in case you haven’t experienced this phenomenal example of superhero spectacle by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, aided and abetted by Dick Giordano, Mike DeCarlo and Jerry Ordway, suffice to say that there is villainy behind the catastrophe and the action is tinged with tragedy – as many major heroic figures, from the grand to the nondescript die valiantly – fall in the struggle to preserve some measure of life in the doomed multiverse.

Full of plot twists and intrigue this Cosmic Spectacle set the benchmark for all future crossover publishing events, not just DC’s, and is still a qualitative high point seldom reached and never yet surpassed. As well as being a superb blockbuster in its own right and accessible to even the greenest neophyte reader, it is the foundation of all DC stories since 1985 and absolutely vital reading before attempting such modern epics as Infinite Crisis.

© 1985, 2001, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.