Category: Graphic Novels

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The Spectre volume 1: Crimes and Judgements


By John Ostrander & Tom Mandrake with DIGITAL CHAMELEON, Carla Feeny, Todd Klein & various(DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4718-8 (TPB) 978-1-4012-5253-3 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The Spectre is one of the oldest characters in DC’s vast stable, created by Jerry Siegel & Bernard Baily in 1940 for More Fun Comics #52 & 53. However, just like Siegel’s other iconic co-creation, the Ghostly Guardian soon began to suffer from a basic design flaw: he was just too darn powerful. In fact, unlike Superman, he’s already dead, so he can’t really be dramatically imperilled by anything.

Starting out as a virtually omnipotent phantasm and singleminded fighter of evil, the Sinister Spirit ultimately resolved over various returns and refits spanning more than 66 years into a succession of tormented souls bound to the merciless personification of the biblical Wrath of God. That last revelation came about thanks to a piece of inspired rethinking in a revival from the early 1990s. The character had already been rebooted and resurrected many times, but none better than that superbly incisive iteration, wherein scripter John Ostrander shifted the narrative spotlight onto the relative Tabula Rasa that was Jim Corrigan. He was the tough-guy, depression era cop whose brutal murder unleashed The Spectre into the burgeoning world of costumed heroes…

His story was a genuinely gruesome one: on the eve of his wedding police detective Corrigan was captured by the Gat Benson mob, shoved in a barrel of cement and pitched off a pier. Called back to the land of the living, he was commanded by a glowing light and disembodied voice to “confront Evil”…

Over the following decade of his subsequent dark crusade, fighting crime and crushing demonic monsters, the Avenging Astral Angel was indisputably the most formidable hero of the Golden Age. For most of the Spectre’s time on Earth, Corrigan had been its human face: a way for readers to glimpse the softer side of a relentless punisher of misdeeds. Ostrander’s take on the character delved deeper. For nearly five years he and artistic collaborator Tom Mandrake lent a tragic, barbaric humanity to a champion who was simply too big and too strong for periodical comics. With DC currently returning to the back catalogue of the Grim Ghost, let’s revisit that stellar run. Initial offering Crime and Judgements gathers issues #1-12 of The Spectre (volume 3, spanning cover-dates December 1992 to November 1993) in a deliriously dark collation of macabre mood and shocking suspense wherein Corrigan and The Spectre finally learned the truth about their relationship.

It begins as Corrigan visits the bedside of dying thug Louis Snipe in ‘Crimes of Violence’. Fifty years previously this gunsel was one of the gang who murdered Corrigan, but before their potentially final exchange can progress they are interrupted by social worker Amy Beitermann, who gets a strange vibe off the ex-policeman…

Moments later she inadvertently witnesses his uncanny secret in action as The Spectre emerges to deliver gory justice to gangbangers perpetrating a drive-by shooting on the steps of the hospital. She keeps the unbelievable details of the resultant bloodbath from Police Inspector Nate Kane. She knows the older man has a crush on her, and isn’t above using his doting interest to ply him with questions about former cop-turned-Private Investigator named Corrigan…

Later, as the Spectre concludes his business with Snipe, somewhere in the city, a blood-spilling serial killer takes his latest victim and Corrigan once more questions the point of his existence. Half a century of punishing the guilty and nothing has changed…

‘Crimes of Passion’ opens with the Ghostly Guardian drawn to a house where a repeating phantom constantly relives her own murder. When she refuses to disclose any details of the crime or perpetrator Spectre reacts with typical furious overkill. Elsewhere, Amy enters the storefront of fortune teller Madame Xanadu. Beitermann’s enquiries have traced Corrigan to an office in that building, but her abrupt meeting with the sultry seer proves more than she can handle, especially after the sorceress summarily demands she find Corrigan for her.

The driven spirit they’re pursuing has been just as inquisitive. Unfortunately his questioning of the unquiet ghost’s husband, lover and sister leads to nothing but death and damnation for all the wrong people…

…And at the docks Nate Kane inspects the site of the latest atrocity attributed to the Reaver but finds himself unexpectedly encumbered with two bodies: one of them encased in cement and in a 50-year-old barrel…

‘Crimes and Punishments’ finds Amy visiting Kane at the Precinct house. Poking around, she is aghast to find a concrete corpse and beyond words when she sees it has Corrigan’s agonised face. Across town, commercial artist Danny Geller is thinking about passion and the kind of woman he likes, but the Spectre is busy, or at least Corrigan is. Having caused the suicide of an innocent, the human half of the Astral Amalgamation is in need of confession and seeks out Amy. He can’t understand why, but Jim is inexplicably drawn to her…

It’s exactly the wrong moment for a street gang to jump them and The Spectre’s revolting response-in-kind utterly disgusts the stunned social worker. When she questions why such violence is necessary, Spectre mystically shows her Corrigan’s savage childhood with an abusive, travelling-preacher father and later how the cop he became met his eventual end.

Although that panorama is too awful to bear, Amy takes some solace in seeing how happy Jim once was with his fiancée Clarice Winston…

The revelatory visions conclude with ‘Crime and Judgment’ as Corrigan re-experiences his meeting with God’s Will in Limbo. Amy intangibly observes his mission laid out again and realises the newly-dead man missed something the first time: the Voice actually saying “Confront Evil. Confront and Comprehend…”

Flashing back in time to the moment The Spectre began, Amy watches as Clarice is killed and how Corrigan dragged her back from Heaven. His beloved lived again… but she shouldn’t have…

Challenging The Spectre only causes him to turn his excoriating gaze upon Amy. He probes and exposes her greatest guilt. Once she was married to an unfaithful man. When she caught her spouse in his lustful betrayals she spitefully reacted just like him and unknowingly passed on the killer contagion he had afflicted her with and consequently to many of her own retaliatory one-night partners. In her own eyes Amy is every inch a killer too…

However, when the aroused, irate Spectre attempts to administer judgement, Corrigan rises to resist his other half and, after a tremendous struggle, a deal is struck…

A new story arc begins with a road accident that leaves a kidnapper dead before the missing child can be found. With no hope remaining, Amy asks Jim for specialised help and the detective follows the abductor’s soul to its reward in The Pit. Ignoring his own justly-suffering father, Corrigan probes deeper into the Abode of the Damned and meets again Shathan the Eternal. Their epic battle triggers ‘A Rage in Hell’ before the Ghostly Guardian gets what he needs and the child is saved…

All the same, The Devil landed a last telling blow, citing the legend of how a demonic Prince of the Damned escaped Hell. This Spirit of Wrath volubly and piously repented and was bound to a human. Together they roam Earth, doing Heaven’s work. Somehow, this story deeply unsettles The Spectre….

With uncomfortable suspicions of infernal taint destabilising his usually implacable composure, the Grim Ghost seeks out Amy. Although her ailment and condition has forced her to avoid intimacy with guys like poor Nate, she feels comfortable in the arms of a dead man, and takes the opportunity to talk Jim into trying to ameliorate his alter ego’s excesses. The inconclusive initial results are seen as Spectre goes on a rampage against a succession of callous casual murderers and greedy gangbangers in ‘The Bleeding Gun’. Greater forces are in play, though. Xanadu, urgently seeking her phantom lodger, unleashes magic forces against uncooperative Amy even as Danny Geller makes another killing. Every day he’s getting closer to the one woman he really wants…

With Jim and Amy trapped in a fantastic realm, ‘Vision and Power’ reveals that when Xanadu was sheltering Corrigan after his latest resurrection, she began tapping tiny slivers of its mystic energies and has become addicted. Taunting her victims by claiming this magic could even cure Amy – something The Spectre would never allow – the seer then steals all that arcane might, but is overwhelmed by the force of the mission underpinning the power…

With Xanadu on a brutally bloody rampage of distorted judgment and punishment, Corrigan (free and free-thinking for the first time in decades) has no choice but to convince her to surrender the infinite force before picking up his burden once again…

The second act of Shathan’s vengeance begins when his diabolical lieutenant Azmodus – carried back to Earth in the wrathful Spectre’s wake – starts possessing mortals and sowing destruction. Nate, meanwhile, discovers all the Reaver’s victims were HIV-positive like Amy, and gets a nasty inkling of what’s really going on when he finally realises the ex-cop she was asking about and the concrete corpse both have the same face as the creepy new guy she’s been seeing.

When he confronts them his ‘Righteous Anger’ leads to a shattering series of further revelations. Kane learns ‘No Good Deed Goes Unpunished’ as news of the HIV angle goes public and he’s made the police’s scapegoat for their failure to catch the Reaver. As the Spectre is dragged from Amy’s side after body-hopping Azmodus begins a campaign of spectacular slaughter, the Astral Avenger is trapped by his own zealousness within the demon whilst it continues its appalling kill-spree. Geller too has been busy, and although his body-count is far less impressive it has a single purpose. All this time he’s been hunting the harlot who infected him with a vile death-sentence. Now he’s found her. The ‘Unforgivable Acts’ by all the players then continue with restored Xanadu pondering Amy’s destiny, well aware that not even The Spectre is mighty enough to foil Fate.

The Supernal Spirit has other ideas, however, following the killer’s latest victim to the Gates of Heaven, resolved to glean the Reaver’s identity. Unfortunately, Archangel Michael won’t permit that and The Spectre finally faces a foe he cannot defeat…

‘The Deepest Cut’ begins the end as cashiered Kane – who pluckily stationed himself outside Amy’s home – also falls to the Reaver, but the inevitable attack is abruptly delayed once Azmodus arrives. The devil has been gathering power with each possession and subsequent bloodbath, and now he has found the ideal host in Danny Geller. Drawing The Spectre into the Greater Realms for a catastrophic final confrontation, Azmodus leaves Danny enough autonomy to fulfil his dark dream and deal Amy her ‘Final Fate’…

However, both physical and ethereal demons have made the same mistake, underestimating the victim’s will to live, Madame Xanadu’s need to atone and Nate’s dying wish to save the woman he loves…

…As always The Spectre will be there at the end to scourge the truly guilty…

With a stunning cover gallery by Mandrake, Glen Fabry, Sandy Plunkett, Charles Vess, Garry Leach, Dan Brereton, Matt Wagner, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Greg Hildebrandt & Bryn Barnard, this turbulent tome offers powerful and deviously convoluted tales that go beyond the genre’s usual cause-&-effect, calamity-&-rescue rigmarole to examine the nature of Love and Hate and Good and Evil.

Powerful, scary, sensitive, and often shocking, the intricate developing relationships and interactions also compel The Spectre’s mortal aspect to confront traumas of suppressed childhood as he relives his own death and the ghastly repercussions of his return. With intense, brooding art from Mandrake, this incarnation of the character was by far the most accessible and successful and, if it had launched a year or so later, might well have been a star of the budding Vertigo imprint. Nevertheless, even as a spooky outlier of the mainstream DC Universe it still stands unparalleled in its maturity and complexity.

This is a book no lover of grown-up super-sagas can afford to miss.
© 1992, 1993, 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Spirou and Fantasio volume 23: The Moray’s Lair (A Spirou and Fantasio Adventure)


By André Franquin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-194-1 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also contains Discriminatory Content included for comedic effect.

André Franquin was born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924 and died on January 5th 1997. In between there were good times and bad, which he handled by creating the most incredible characters and stories, and by making people laugh and think… but mostly laugh. This is one of the very best you can find translated into English.

Adventure-seeking brave lad Spirou headlined the magazine he was named for from the first issue (dated April 21st 1938). He was devised and realised by French cartoonist Françoise Robert Velter (“Rob-Vel”) for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis in direct response to the success of Hergé’s Tintin over at rival outfit Casterman. Originally a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel (a sly reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique), his improbable exploits with pet squirrel Spip gradually but steadily evolved into highflying, far reaching, surreal comedy dramas. That evolution was mainly thanks to Velter’s wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939 and Belgian artist/assistant Luc Lafnet – at least until 1943 when Dupuis purchased all rights to the property, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took over.

When Jijé handed his own trainee/assistant total responsibility for the flagship feature part-way through serial Spirou et la maison préfabriqué (Le Journal de Spirou #427, June 20th 1946), André Franquin ran with it for the next 20 years. He enlarged the scope and expanding horizons until the feature was purely his own. Almost every week fans would meet startling new characters such as comrade/rival Fantasio or crackpot inventor and Merlin of mushroom mechanics The Count of Champignac. Spirou and Fantasio became globetrotting journalists, travelling to exotic places, uncovering crimes, exploring the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of exotic arch-enemies such as Zorglub and Fantasio’s unsavoury cousin Zantafio.

Gradually sidelining short, done-in-one gag vignettes in favour of longer epic adventure serials, Franquin’s growing cast of engaging regulars soon included one of the first strong female characters in European comics (rival journalist Seccotine AKA Cellophine in the current English translation) and ultimately led to the debut of a scene-stealing, phenomenally popular apparently-magic animal. Marsupilami arrived during 1952’s serial Spirou et les héritiers and never really left…

Franquin, plagued in later life by bouts of depression, died in 1997 but his legacy remains and still grows; a vast body of work which reshaped the landscape of European comics, and inspiring many others to carry on in his name and manner.

As Le Repaire de la murène this eccentric epic was Franquin’s ninth solo affair, originally serialised in LJdS #871-904 from December 23rd 1954 to August 11th 1955. It was eventually collected as an album in 1957. Here, as The Moray’s Lair it directly follows The Wrong Head, scoping out a soupçon of nautical naughtiness as the freshly minted investigative reporting team tackle scientific quandary and marine mystery all whilst simply trying to earn extra cash by attempting a scientific challenge.

Vacationing with mycoprotein mate Pacôme Hégésippe Adélard Ladislas de Champignac at his ramshackle rural estate in Champignac-in-the-Sticks, the idling lads spot a magazine ad offering a startlingly specific engineering exploit with a hefty cash reward for its completion. “Fabulously rich ship owner” Xenophon Hamadryas seeks someone who can invent a means of descending 650 feet underwater and carry out unspecified tasks at that depth in complete safety, and they are up for it.

Perhaps distracted by the absurd and distressing antics of Spip, local postman Mr. Zenobius and the Marsupilami, our heroes’ usual caution is overwhelmed by greed and they soon convince The Count to use mushroom science to (temporarily) boost his own formidable brainpower. The result is detailed plans for scuba diving gear, unique new breathing gases, underwater communications systems and even personal minisubs to reach the required depths whilst allowing freedom of movement under the greatest most unfathomable pressures ever recorded.

At least it momentarily stops Pacôme from doing whatever it was he had started to “improve” the estate’s chickens…

The brainstorming meets with initial success, but once the team submit their plans and commission construction of the kit, a wave of suspicious accidents and plain sabotage at the factories building Champignac’s innovations put Spirou & Fantasio on high alert, but not as much as when their incredible elastic-tailed anthropoid pal discovers – and brutally chastises – someone closely observing their every move…

Grudgingly accepting that an over-competitive rival inventor must be behind the campaign, the team continue with enhanced security, which only leads to intimidation, explosions and the destruction of their declared competitors’ efforts. Increasingly wary, Spirou identifies his own stalker after the poor villain is savagely attacked by Marsupilami and convinces the comrades to relocate and continue working in hiding. The plan is actually a trap for watching villains and leads to an epic victory using the Count’s other bizarre science weapons on the spies…

Regarding themselves safe at last, Spirou, Fantasio, the Count and the critters relocate to the shores of the Mediterranean to test their completed prototypes in peace. Barring some minor teething troubles, results are ideal and lead to another amazing discovery in the miraculous Marsu’s biological armoury! Soon they meet competition sponsor Mr. Hamadryas: a most untrustworthy, obnoxious individual who clearly has a secret agenda, plenty of personal goons and lots of unspoken pressures of his own to deal with. Unaware that Spirou has already encountered a mystery sub at the specified subsea location, the shipping magnate claims all other teams have dropped out due to the sabotage campaign, before explaining what he needs… but not really why…

Spouting a ludicrous tale of his best ship (The Discreet) and best friend (Captain John Helena) both being lost in those cold dark depths, the money Midas wants our adventurers to locate the wreck in Helena’s honour and memory, but although they accept the task, the lads are on the lookout for sinister surprises…

What follows is epic spectacle as the marine mission trawls up even more deadly traps, a hidden underwater base, lost treasures, what Hamadryas truly needs and the reason why plundering pirate “The Moray” has been plaguing and confounding the entire endeavour all along. That leads to discovering who he actually works for, and what Marsupilami’s newly revealed power means to the bad guys threatening his human friends…

Soaked in sublime slapstick schtick with gallons of gags throughout, this explosively exuberant exploration is packed with cunning crooks coming a-cropper, animal animosity expressed, angst-free action, thrills & spills. It also offers another early ecological message and an always-timely moral regarding the humane treatment of animals. There’s even a fascinating technical overview of nautical facts at time of printing in back-up text feature ‘A Conference by Mr de Champignac’ answering the most telling questions thrown up the mushroom scientist’s apparent flouting of physical law and engineering expertise…

The Moray’s Lair is the kind of lightly-barbed, comedy romp to delight readers fed up and saturated by adults-only carnage, testosterone-fuelled breast-beating, teen-romance monsters or sickly-sweet fantasy. Easily accessible to readers of all ages, drawn with all the beguiling style and seductive yet wholesome verve and panache which make Asterix, Lucky Luke, and Yakari so compelling, these are enduring landmark tales from a long line of superb exploits, deserving to be a household name as much as those series… and even that other kid with the white dog.
Original edition © Dupuis, 1957 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation 2026 © Cinebook Ltd.

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I… Vampire!


By J.M. DeMatteis, Bruce Jones, Dan Mishkin, Gary Cohn, Mike W. Barr, Tom Sutton, Ernie Colon, Adrian Gonzales, Paris Cullins, Dan Day, Jim Aparo, Joe Kubert, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Tatjana Wood, Adrienne Roy & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3371-6 (TPB), 978-1-4012-5507-7 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Scary times ahead so let’s ease in to the season of mists mellow fruitfulness and spine sucking terror! with a guaranteed classic grimoire of reasonably family oriented ghoulish gore and wonder…

When superheroes entered their second decline at the end of the 1960s, four of the six surviving newsstand comic book companies (Archie, Charlton, DC, Gold Key, Harvey & Marvel) increasingly turned to horror and suspense anthologies to bolster their flagging sales. Even wholesome Archie briefly produced Red Circle Sorcery/Chillers comics, diverting a portion of their teen-comedy core gently into superb tales of witchcraft, mystery and imagination.

DC’s first generation of mystery titles blossomed at the end of the Golden Heroic Age when most comic book publishers of the era started switching to Crime, Romance, Western, Sci Fi and Horror genre anthologies to recapture an aging readership which was drifting away to other mass-market entertainments like TV and movies. Intriguingly, 1950’s TV also adopted en masse the anthological mystery tale model as seen in a wealth of repertory company anthology shows like The Veil, One Step Beyond, Tales of Tomorrow, and later, better remembered classics like The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone.

After a few tenuous attempts with supernatural-themed heroic leads in established titles (Johnny Peril in Comic Cavalcade, All-Star Comics and Sensation Comics; Dr. Terry Thirteen, The Ghostbreaker in Star-Spangled Comics) by 1951 National Comics had bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology sans recurring lead stars… which nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles. It all began on October 3rd with the launch of The House of Mystery (cautiously cover-dated December 1951/January 1952).

When a hysterical censorship muck rake led to witch-hunting hearings attacking comic books and newspaper strips (just type Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, April-June 1954 into your search engine at any time), the industry panicked and hurriedly adopted a castrating straitjacket of stringent self-regulatory rules and admonitions. Despite mystery/suspense titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority being sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of Shock & Gore, the readership’s appetite for mystery and suspense stayed high, and in 1956 National introduced sister titles Tales of the Unexpected & House of Secrets.

Supernatural thrills and spooky monsters were dialled back into marvellously illustrated, genteel, rationalistic fantasy-adventure vehicles which nonetheless dominated the market until the end of the 1950s when the super-hero returned in force – having begun a renaissance in 1956 after Julius Schwartz reintroduced The Flash in Showcase #4. Revivals of Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom and new costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked myrmidons which even forced these dedicated anthology suspense titles to transform into super-character split-books with J’onn J’onzz, Manhunter from Mars and Dial H for Hero in House of Mystery and paranormal investigator Mark Merlin (latterly Prince Ra-Man) sharing space with anti-hero Eclipso in HoS. When caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, Secrets was one of the first casualties, folding with the September/October 1966 issue. House of Mystery carried on with its eccentric costumed cohort until #173, and Tales of the Unexpected endured until #104.

However, nothing combats censorship better than plunging profits, and as the Sixties ended the superhero boom busted again. With once-popular titles promptly perishing and many of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain, this real-world Crisis led to surviving publishers agreeing to loosen their self-imposed restraints against horror (and crime) comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles at the time, but as this liberalisation coincided with another bump in global public interest in all aspects of the Great Unknown, the resurrection of spooky story comics was a foregone conclusion and obvious no-brainer…

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all, House of Mystery and Unexpected switched back to tales of magic, mystery and imagination whilst already cancelled House of Secrets rose again with #81, (cover-dated August/September 1969), retooled to feed a seemingly insatiable appetite for terror and suspense…

Before long, an expansive battalion of supernatural thriller titles dominated DC’s – and competitors’ – publishing schedules again. This time, however, although the initial impetus died out by 1978, horror comics had secured a dedicated audience, soldiering on despite declines in sales into the turbulent 1980s. During that period, the venerable periodical experimented with varying formats and became a springboard for many creative careers, but never returned to established, recurring characters until the reign of publishing whiz kid Karen Berger who officially assumed control with HoM #292. Some issues earlier, a new longform miniseries (we used to call them “serials”) had debuted, detailing the exploits of a reluctant monster seeking to atone for past sins…

The full groundbreaking, tragic, idiosyncratic saga was gathered into a chilling chronicle recounting the afterlives of the bloodsucker and his human allies and re-presents here pertinent material from House of Mystery #290-291, 293, 295, 297, 299, 302, 304-319, plus a guest-shot in The Brave and the Bold #195, cumulatively spanning cover-dates March 1980 to August 1983. It opens without fanfare or preamble in ‘I… Vampire’ by co-creators J.M. DeMatteis & Tom Sutton.

In 10 tightly-packed yet smoothly inviting pages we meet English noble Sir Andrew Bennett, who died at the hands of a nosferatu during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Beloved by his fiancée Mary Seward, Bennett succumbed to her desperate pleas to be similarly infected, so that their love might last forever. Only afterwards did he realise that the transformation generally creates soulless monsters, even though, somehow, he has retained his conscience and personality…

Over four centuries, “Bloody Mary” becomes a prestigious leader of massed vampires in an insidious, influential covert global cult dubbed the Blood Red Moon. They sow chaos and destruction whilst working towards the ultimate goal of vampires ruling a world of human cattle. Heartbroken and guilt ridden, Bennett has opposed her schemes for all that time, aided by human allies such as his most recent “daywalkers”: aged Russian warrior Dimitri Mishkin and go-getting “Eighties Woman” Deborah Dancer…

Blessed with all the traditional gifts of the undead (shapeshifting, supernatural vigour, hypnosis, etc) and similarly afflicted by their weaknesses (sunlight, crucifixes, Holy Water, stakes, et al) Bennett staves off his insatiable hunger for blood by sheer willpower and the determination that he will not die until he has ended Mary’s depredations…

The introductory episode covers all that even as Mary’s minions lose another running battle with Bennett’s team but escape to instigate their latest plan…

The adventure concludes in ‘Night of the Living Undead’ as team Bennett expose and end a proposed alliance between the cult and New York’s biggest drug dealer, after which ‘The Burning’ sees the hunters scotch a scheme to infiltrate the White House once Mary affiliates with a race-hate spouting demagogue whose influential links include the KKK and US President. The closure of that case tears open old wounds, as Mishkin subsequently clashes with one of Mary’s lieutenants, only to discover a dreaded family connection in ‘Mother Love/Mother Hate’, leading to a look into how Bennett recruited him as a boy just as the 19th century became the 20th…

DeMatteis moved on after the dark heroes foil Mary’s attempt to destroy an ashram and its spiritual guru in ‘Zen Flesh! Zen Bones!’ after which Bruce Jones moves in, offering a more fanciful approach in ‘The Sun Also Burns’. Here Bennett and his human friends are ambushed and left to die in a mine. As time passes, the valiant vampire – deprived of bottled blood – must battle his irresistible thirst before abandoning them. Resolved never to endanger them again, he sets out on a solo quest for vengeance…

In HoM #302 ‘Blood Ties’ sees that lonely walkabout take him to Eudora, Kansas where odd events culminate in Bennett accidentally causing the deaths of an entire family of innocents before stumbling across a predatory circus abducting innocents for profit, and sponsored by Mary. His war against the ‘Carnival of Souls’ lasts until #304 where – with Ernie Colon substituting for Sutton – Bennett learns ‘The Night Has Eyes’ and proves that he has no pity for child stealers…

Jones then offers a lengthy saga in ‘Blood and Sand’ as the still-solo Bennett tracks Mary’s agents to Egypt in the wake of a global anti-cancer vaccine rollout that has the unexpected side-effect of making human blood toxic to the undead. Meanwhile, and for all this time, Mishkin & Dancer have been hunting for their leader, and are finally closing in…

Made unwilling allies by fate, Andrew and Mary invade a lost tomb, where the cult queen steals the time-travelling Rings of Anubis from a mystic mummy before setting off into the past to undo the creation of the vaccine. In hot pursuit, thanks to a second ring, Bennett arrives in Whitechapel, London at the height of history’s most infamous serial killer spree.

Crafted by Jones and the returned Sutton, ‘A Rip in Time’ sees all Mary’s efforts thwarted, and the ancestor of mysterious vaccine creator Dr. Barr escape unharmed, even as the vampires are hurled back into the time stream. Bennett washes ashore in Maine in November 1964, just in time to save a little girl from drowning. ‘Lovers Living, Lovers Dead’ reveals that in the present Deborah Dancer has developed a psychic link and can “see” vampires’ past actions as they happen. She is suitably horrified to observe Mary attack the child and aghast to realise that the child is herself…

After heroic intervention from Bennett saves the child, the time chase pauses as the undead knight battles a crew of revenant Nazi submariners in ‘Mirrors That Look Back’ before his pursuit resumes, depositing him and his quarry in Elizabethan England mere days before their first deaths. A bewildering succession of time-tossed doubles and mistaken identity switches culminates in a deadly ‘Witch Hunt’ with religiously enflamed peasants running riot before the chronal paradoxes dump them both back in the 20th century where new writers Dan Mishkin (no relation) & Gary Cohn concoct a ‘Manhattan Interlude’ (#310, November 1982) foe penciller Adrian Gonzales and ever-faithful Tom Sutton to render. Here Bennett encounters another vampire who has retained both soul and innocence and regretfully helps her meet her final end on her own terms…

Paris Cullins joins Mishkin & Cohn, Gonzales & Sutton for a dark peek at Deborah Dancer’s teen years in ‘By the Time We Got to Woodstock…’, revealing how she “first” stumbled into the Blood Red Moon’s schemes of conquest after losing all her friends to hippy bloodsuckers at the legendary festival, only surviving thanks to an old Russian and an eerie, red-eyed Englishman…

HoM #312 reunites the trio in time to tackle ‘The Thing in the Tunnel’ (Mishkin, Cohn, Gonzales & Sutton), a predatory beast escaped from the familiar-sounding Barr Research Laboratories and leading to a deadly clash with an enigmatic, extraordinarily long-lived (hint, hint) biologist in ‘Side Effects’, before ‘I.. Edward Trane, I… Vampire’ in #314 (illustrated solely by Sutton) sees a tragic reunion for Bennett with one of his own Victorian acolytes who fell in battle, but never fully died…

Mishkin, Cohn, Cullins & Sutton then detail an untitled exploit wherein the vampire hunters are targeted by sanctimonious religious zealots hunting the unholy. Sadly, their leader’s top aide is not only undead herself, but also Dimitri’s mother, and the Presidency is once more the glittering prize being sought…

Although the plot is foiled, the cost is high, compelling Bennett to turn eastwards, and ‘Back in the U.S.S.R.’ he uncovers a KGB program to weaponize vampirism and extend the joys of eternity to the aging Politburo. The result is open warfare between Mary’s cult and a Soviet secret army, ultimately proving in ‘Blood is Thicker…’ that not all military spending is pointless, and not every hero gets to ride off into the sunset…

Despite a long run, changing times and tastes were indicating that the title and, indeed, entire genre were not a viable contemporary comics option. With the series building to climax, #318 offered another untitled yarn (with Dan Day pencilling) wherein a freshly bereaved Andrew Bennett employs stolen Soviet technology to force a final confrontation with Mary and the Blood Red Moon, resulting in his final demise and birth of a new kind of hero in climactic last episode ‘Dreams of Death’ by Mishkin, Cohn & Sutton in House of Mystery #319 (August 1983).

Aggravatingly, that big finish isn’t the end here, as there follows a solid but painfully out-of-continuity tale taken from The Brave and the Bold #195 (February 1983). For ‘Night of Blood’ (Mike W. Barr & Jim Aparo) Bennett’s perpetual hunt for Mary brings him to Gotham City after a gangster’s daughter becomes the latest victim of a vampire. Batman is firmly convinced the attacks are fake – and he’s right – until an actual magic-accursed blood drinker shows up. At least this time the standard misunderstanding doesn’t result in pointless battle before reason prevails and the mismatched heroes unite to catch the real culprits…

Graced with staggeringly compelling covers by Joe Kubert, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Aparo, Tatjana Wood & Adrienne Roy, this is a genuine slice of engaging, unorthodox and vastly entertaining horror action that predates – and probably influenced – later hits like Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel. A hugely enjoyable edgy romp, well-scripted, imaginative and gorgeously illustrated I… Vampire is a timeless tome for all lovers of dark delight and one no arcane aficionada can afford to be without.
© 1981, 1982, 1983, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Black Panther: Panther’s Quest


By Don McGregor, Gene Colan & Tom Palmer, with Glynis Oliver, Mike Rockwitz, Gregory Wright, Joe Rosen, Jade Moede & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0803-4 (TPB), 978-1-3025-0149-5 (Digital edition)

Lauded as the first black superhero in American comics and one of the first to carry his own series, The Black Panther‘s popularity and fortunes have waxed and waned since the 1960s when he first attacked the Fantastic Four (in #52; cover-dated July 1966) as part of an elaborate plan to gain vengeance on the murderer of his father.

There, T’Challa, son of T’Chaka was revealed as an African monarch whose hidden kingdom was the only source of an incredible vibration-absorbing alien metal upon which that country’s immense wealth was founded. Those mineral riches – derived from a fallen meteor which had struck the continent in primeval antiquity – had powered his country’s rapid transformation into a technological wonderland. Moreover, that tribal wealth had long been guarded by a hereditary feline-garbed champion deriving physical advantages from secret ceremonies and a mysterious “heart-shaped herb” that ensured the generational dominance of the nation’s warrior Panther Cult.

Lyrical intellectual Don McGregor had already immortalised T’Challa in a stunning 1970s periodical run which produced the revered Panther’s Rage saga and controversial follow-up Panther vs the Klan storyline. Then, after years away from the mainstream, and crafting groundbreaking original graphic novels (OGNs) like Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species and Detectives Inc., as well as series including Ragamuffins & Nathaniel Dusk, McGregor was lured back to his roots to spin a shocking saga of contemporary intolerance and the end-days of South African Apartheid. He was joined by a semi-regular collaborator whose credentials in crafting human-scaled tales of adventure, horror and empathetic emotional drama were second to none. He was also one of the industry’s earliest exponents of strong black characters…

Eugene Jules “Gene” Colan (September 1st 1926 – June 23rd 2011) was one of comics’ greatest talents: a quietly professional artist who valued accuracy and authenticity in his work, whether it was science fiction, horror, war, satirical humour or the vast number of superheroes he brought to life. A devotee of classic adventure strips in the newspapers, Colan studied at the Art Students League of New York, before beginning his own narrative illustration career in 1944 (on Wings Comics) before military service in the Philippines. The war had just ended and Colan had leisure time to draw for local paper The Manilla Times. By 1946 he was a civilian again, and working for Stan Lee’s Atlas on crime and supernatural stories. He illustrated the last Golden Age sighting of Captain America (Captain America’s Weird Tales #75; February 1950), an all-horror issue with no superhero material at all. It was like a sign…

As the industry radically transformed, Colan began freelancing at DC/National Comics whilst remaining a mainstay of Atlas. His assignments increasingly focused on new genres of War Stories and Romance. When Superhero stories returned, he moved exclusively to Marvel (barring some monochrome horror stories done for Archie Goodwin at Warren Magazines), where his dynamic realism offered a powerful alternative to the graphic styles of Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita & Don Heck. Colan became renowned for his long stint on Daredevil (where he created blind black detective Willie Lincoln); Captain America; Doctor Strange; Iron Man; The Avengers; Sub-Mariner & Howard the Duck. During this period he co-created the Guardians of the Galaxy, two Captain Marvels (Mar-Vell and Carol Danvers), drew all of Tomb of Dracula (thereby introducing Blade the Vampire Slayer to the world) and was responsible for another black comic book icon and the nation’s first African American costumed hero, The Falcon.

In the 1980s he moved to DC, working on Batman; Superman; Wonder Woman and The Spectre; co-creating Night Force, Silverblade, Jemm, Son of Saturn and period private eye Nathanial Dusk, before expanding into independent comics at the forefront of innovation marking the rise of the Direct Sales Market. His later career was blighted by health issues, but he continued drawing whenever he could, for various companies. On one of his periodic returns to Marvel he reunited with McGregor for this astounding tale, originally serialised over 25 chapters in fortnightly anthology Marvel Comics Presents (# 13-37, February-December 1989). In this collected tome the entire affair is preceded by ‘To Follow the track of The Great Cat with renewed wonder on his Panther’s Quest (From “Panther’s Rage” to “Panther’s Prey”)’ a typically effulgent yet informative Introduction by author McGregor…

One of the most thought-provoking mainstreaming comics tales ever released, Panther’s Quest added pressure to an ever-expanding Anti-Apartheid movement in comics and western media, by examining not only the condition of racial inequality but also turning a damning eye on sexual oppression and domestic abuse. Whether in his numerous solo series or as part of superteams including The Avengers, Fantastic Four or Ultimates, the Black Panther has always been one of Marvel’s most politically strident and socially-crusading characters. This is a book I’m certain Chadwick Boseman would have admired and supported…

Inked in its entirety by perfect work partner Tom Palmer, coloured by Glynis Oliver, Mike Rockwitz & Gregory Wright with lettering by Joe Rosen & Jade Moede, it begins on a dark night as the Panther infiltrates neighbouring totalitarian nation South Africa. Here a white minority oppresses the millions of blacks living there. T’Challa has heard ‘A Rumour of Life’ and come seeking his stepmother Ramonda. His father’s second spouse had raised the bereaved boy when T’Challa’s birth mother died, but one day when he was only three, she vanished and no one would speak of her. Now, he’s invaded the most dangerous land on Earth – for his kind – in search of answers from unscrupulous information peddler Patrick Slade…

‘Forgotten Corpses’ sees that clandestine meeting abruptly and brutally interrupted by white paramilitaries who seek to kill them – but without alerting the ever-vigilant police or security services…

McGregor has always a fascination with the real effects and consequences of violence, and this tale contains some pretty shocking moments that might make many readers wince. Suffice it to say, I’m staying vague throughout this review, but will confirm that vicious brute Elmer Gore graphically tortures the Panther with barbed wire in ‘Lost Blood in Copper Dust’, leading to our maimed hero staggering into the arms of ‘The Man Who Loved Sunrise’. Oppressed miner and narrative point-man Zanti Chikane is a miner/second class citizen crushed by his intolerable life, but he still overcomes his understandable caution to offer assistance to torn, bleeding T’Challa. That leads to Zanti’s own brush with death as white killers employ what they consider ‘Reasonable Force’ against the suspects, before being trounced by the still fighting cat-man…

The scene changes for ‘Naked Exposures’ as government Magistrate of Communications Anton Pretorius orders his battered, shamed and furious private security minions to capture an invading masked terrorist dubbed Black Panther. Apparently, this invader is a threat to national security but the mercenaries need no other reasons to kill the treacherous “kaffir”. Just to be sure though, Pretorius also uses his position to send out a nationwide TV alert…

‘Battered Artifacts’ sees T’Challa tracking Slade to an impoverished township, unaware that he’s under surveillance and about to step into the other side of deadly politics that wracked South Africa at this time. ‘Hatred under Tears’ sees the Magistrate’s mercenaries attack, uncaring of small children they are endangering. As “the Great Cat” stops to aid a tear-gassed toddler, ‘Justifiable Action’ sees him shot for his efforts and arrested in ‘Personal Risk’ prior to breaking free and escaping…

‘The Official Version’ gives T’Challa a stiff lesson in realpolitik from Slade’s wife even as the State intensifies its hunt for him, with Security Minister Doeke Riebeek officially branding the entire emergency a communist plot…

In the township, ‘Voices Heard, Voices Ignored’ has Zanti pondering the terrifying dangers to his family before returning to aid the Panther, whilst ‘A Right to Kill’ reveals Riebeek beginning to suspect Magistrate Pretorius might have ulterior motives for his actions. Elsewhere, enraged township men are moving against a suspected traitor, determined that ‘Somebody’s Going to Pay’. They’re carrying petrol and tyres needed for the appalling punishment they call “necklacing”. Do not google it or buy this book if you have a weak stomach…

When the Panther acts to save a life, he is horribly burned, even as events escalate to total tragedy when ‘Last Night I Wept for Freedom’ shows how the boy he helped returns the favour and pays the ultimate price, despite his own superhuman efforts and an initially-reluctant intervention by a white doctor in ‘Lost Promises’…

Traumatised and repentant, T’Challa returns to Slade whose ‘Dark Maneuvers’ lead them into a trap laid by Pretorius’ mercenaries in ‘So Many Nameless Enemies’. The battle is brief but results in a crucial clue in the true quest, as the trader reveals how, years ago, he learned of a black woman held in glittering bondage for decades at the home of a high-ranking government official…

‘Chances’ see Riebeek and his forces close in as T’Challa follows his clue to Johannesburg to confront one of the mercs in ‘The Great Cat in the City of Gold’. Now ferociously focused on finding Pretorius, the Panther & Zanti attempt to save his precious Wakandan stealth-ship from being captured by Riebeek in ‘Losing Control’… but at a terrible cost.

After ‘Saying Goodbye’, the Panther’s quest moves into its endgame as T’Challa invades Pretorius’ luxurious citadel, circumventing deadly ‘Barriers’ and crushing human and canine ‘Opponents’ (still more grimly authentic action in need of a strong stomach advisory), to ultimately rescue Ramonda from the luxurious cell she has inhabited ever since Pretorius abducted her decades ago.

The tyrannical hypocrite’s obsessive, abusive passion for her was also his downfall: a secret vice capable of destroying him in a nation and government that decreed interracial mixing immoral and illegal. Ultimately, it’s Ramonda who decrees his fate whilst enjoying a ‘Dawn Reunion’ with her long-lost child…

Available in trade paperback and digital editions and augmented by a full cover gallery and pinups from Marvel Fanfare #47 (by Bill Reinhold & Linda Lessman) and #45 (Steve Rude & Steve Oliff) this is the most important Black Panther tale you’ll ever read. So do.
© 2018 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

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DC Finest: Justice League of America – Crisis on Earth X


By Len Wein, Cary Bates, Elliot S! Maggin, Denny O’Neil, Gerry Conway, Martin Pasko, Bob Rozakis, Mark Hanerfeld, Dick Dillin, Dick Giordano, Frank McLaughlin, Nick Cardy, Mike Grell, Ernie Chan, José Luis García-López, Tatjana Wood, Glynis Oliver, Neal Adams, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79950-883-0 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Keystone of the contemporary DC Universe, the Justice League of America is the reason we still have a comics industry today. The day the first JLA story was published marks the moment when superheroes truly made comic books their own particular preserve. Even though the popularity of masked champions has waxed and waned repeatedly since 1960, and other genres have re-won their places on published pages, in the minds of America and the world, Comics Means Superheroes and the League signalled that men – and even a few women and less definable options – in capes and masks were back for good…

When editorial legend Julius Schwartz began reviving and revitalising the nigh-defunct superhero genre in 1956, his Rubicon move came a few years later with the uniting of his reconfigured mystery men into a team. Cover-dated March 1960, the JLA debuted in The Brave and the Bold #28, cementing the growth and validity of the revived subgenre, and consequently triggering an explosion of new characters at every company publishing funnybooks before spreading to the rest of the world as the decade progressed.

Spanning cover-dates December 1972 to July 1976, this classic-crammed, full-colour paperback compendium re-presents issues #103-132 of the epochal first series, as a new wave of scripters provided steadfast illustrator Dick Dillin with increasingly challenging concepts he had no trouble bringing to vivid vibrant life. While we’re showing our gratitude, lets also salute stalwart letterer Ben Oda (and occasionally Milt Snappin) for herculean but unsung efforts to make the uncanny and obscure clear to us all, colourists Glynis Oliver, Tatjana Wood and anonymous colleagues as well as cover specialists Nick Cardy, Dick Giordano, Mike Grell, Ernie Chan, José Luis García-López and the others…

Richard Allen “Dick” Dillin (17th December 1928 – 1st March 1980) started in the 1940s at Quality Comics, limning Blackhawk, Plastic Man and their war anthologies. Utterly reliable and prodigiously prolific, the draughtsman moved to DC when the company bought out Quality. He spent over a decade drawing their Blackhawk and when Mike Sekowsky left, he would draw every JLA issue for the next twelve years, as well as countless outings of DC’s top characters and even a wealth of horror stories when DC started scaring kids for money again…

These yarns begin after a major JLA/JSA team up returned the Golden Age Seven Soldiers of Victory to the expanding continuity. Appetites unsatisfied, the revival and expansion continued by adding more as yet unaffiliated mystery men to the team. Returned to their own planet the Justice League teamed up with and then inducted one of the few heroes who hadn’t accompanied them to Earth-2 in ‘A Stranger Walks Among Us!’ (#103 by Len Wein, Dillin & Giordano) as cross-genre horror hero The Phantom Stranger foils a plot to slaughter six Leaguers during the annual Halloween carnival in Rutland, Vermont, after which Green Lantern’s arch-enemy Hector Hammond orchestrates an attack on his oldest foe by setting an unstoppable monster loose on the team in ‘The Shaggy Man Will Get You if You Don’t Watch Out!’ The “More-the-Merrier” recruitment drive continued in #105 as Elongated Man signs up to save the day against marauding, malignant putty-men in ‘Specter in the Shadows!’, albeit anonymously aided by a miraculously resurrected robotic Red Tornado who joins the party in #106, unaware that he has been reprogrammed into becoming a ‘Wolf in the Fold! Justice League of America #107’s ‘Crisis on Earth-X’ ( Wein, Dillin & Giordano) was the first chapter of another landmark crossover with their Earth-2 counterparts and antecedents in the JSA.

Following the revival of a forgotten superteam during their previous get-together, this time the annual get-together reintroduced another band of Golden Age warriors (from corporate acquisition Quality Comics) newly redesignated The Freedom Fighters. It began when a recreational trip across the dimensional divide is accidentally sabotaged by android stowaway Red Tornado, depositing Batman, Green Arrow & Elongated Man from Earth-1 and Superman, Sandman & Doctor Fate of Earth-2 into another alternate universe – one where the Nazis had won World War II. Trapped and outnumbered, the seven displaced heroes were rescued by the last liberty-loving champions of a world dominated by fascist super-science and a secret dictator. Joining forces with embattled champions Uncle Sam, The Ray, Doll Man, Phantom Lady, Black Condor & The Human Bomb, the newcomers ended the Nazi threat forever in sinister sequel ‘Thirteen Against the Earth!’…

With everybody returned to their home planes #109 brought back a cultish guest star as ‘The Doom of the Divided Man!’ revived the dormant career of 1960’s hero/villain Eclipso, who attempted another cunning plan to conquer Earth. However, the real focus of this tale was the unexpected resignation of Hawkman following his recall to home planet Thanagar. Wein, Dillin & Giordano then got to deliver a delightful but potent seasonal present in #110 as Superman, Batman, Green Arrow, Black Canary & Red Tornado had to adapt to abrasive substitute Green Lantern John Stewart. A controversial “angry black man” conceived at a time when non-Caucasian heroes could be counted on the fingers of one hand he turned up mid-mission, just as the League gathered to hunt down ‘The Man Who Murdered Santa Claus!’

Murderous psychopath The Key had set up the heroes for ambush and destruction, with the callous assassination of an actor hired to cheer orphaned kids, but his horrific deeper scheme was only foiled thanks to the supernatural intervention of another almost forgotten League member…

For that issue, Bob Rozakis designed a ‘JLA Puzzle’ which follows accompanied by the answer page before JLA #111 introduced a seminal villain who became, decades later, a pivotal player in The Final Crisis. Here however, enigmatic Libra merely uses his incredible abilities to revive the dormant Injustice Gang of the World. Although his stated goal is to imbue Chronos, Mirror Master, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Shadow Thief & Tattooed Man with energies stolen from Aquaman, Superman, Batman, Flash, Elongated Man and fully recovered GL Hal Jordan, the ‘Balance of Power!’ he truly seeks actually entails keeping all the purloined might for his own incomprehensible use…

Those stolen super-powers feature in #112’s follow-up ‘War with the One-Man Justice League!’ as the entire team gather to help restore their diminished comrades. The high risk solution is to resurrect power-stealing android Amazo to collect the stolen energies and abilities… but nobody considers what the mechanoid might do after it absorbs Batman’s vast intellect and suspicious mind…

Justice League of America #113 (September/October 1974) proved how desperate were the times for the spandex set as the epic annual collaboration with the JSA was restricted to a single issue. Nevertheless, ‘The Creature in the Velvet Cage!’ proved to be one of the very best team-up tales ever, as a JLA visiting party to Earth-2 (Batman, Superman, GL Jordan & Elongated Man) share the shame and horror of The Sandman when his greatest, most shameful secret was catastrophically revealed.

Years ago the Master of Dreams had accidentally transformed sidekick Sandy, the Golden Boy into a ravening silicoid monster and been compelled to sedate and imprison his best friend. Now after three decades the beast is awake and free, seemingly intent on destroying the world. At least that’s what Hourman and the Golden Age Flash & Wonder Woman believe when they join their old comrade on his tragic manhunt…

Wein, with the plotting assistance of Mark Hanerfeld, ended his run as scripter with a smart and decidedly effective little thriller in #114:‘The Return of Anakronus!’ During a League-sponsored telethon, an enigmatic time-bending villain takes disgraced JLA team mascot Snapper Carr and his family hostage. Although definitely dangerous, the crazed felon’s ranting doesn’t make much sense: after all, why would a man who claims to have repeatedly defeated the JLA stoop to demanding a mere cash ransom?

The tone turned cosmic in #115 as Denny O’Neil provided a fill-in yarn bringing back retired hero J’onn J’onzz, Manhunter from Mars who implores his former allies to save the dying remnants of his people from ‘The Last Angry God!’ who has imprisoned them on a far-distant world. Cary Bates then contributed ‘The Kid Who Won Hawkman’s Wings!’ in #116, as sightings of Hawkman in Midway City lead Elongated Man, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Flash & Batman into a deadly duel against Matter Master. Closer inspection reveals the Pinioned Paladin to be a baffled kid Charley Parker, who has no idea why he suddenly changed into a Golden Eagle, whilst the actual mastermind behind the plot is a shock to all concerned. The tale is followed by another Rozakis ‘JLA Puzzle’ and a picture posing ‘JLA Super-Villain Quiz’…

After just over a year’s absence the true Winged Wonder returned in #117. ‘I Have No Wings and I Must Fly!’ was scripted by Elliot S! Maggin, with Giordano’s protégé Frank McLaughlin assuming regular inking chores over Dillin’s sleek and effective pencils. It saw alien cop Katar Hol resurface to warn Earth of a deadly extraterrestrial menace dubbed The Equalizer. This ineffable terror was driven to achieve pure balance in the universe, and to achieve this he somehow homogenised entire civilisations, making life forms exactly identical to each other. His Equalizer plague weapon was overwhelmingly contagious and – after reducing the population of Thanagar to imbecilic, four-foot tall clones of each other, (including Hol’s beloved wife Shayera) – the unfathomable voyager turned his single eye upon Earth…

With his homeworld quarantined and after defeating the appalling threat as part of the JLA, Hawkman had no other refuge than our planet and promptly joined Aquaman, Black Canary, Flash, Red Tornado & Superman in resisting the ‘Takeover of the Earth-Masters!’ (#118 by Maggin, Dillin & McLaughlin). This revealed a misguided attempt by trans-dimensional beings who sought to save our world from super beings by despatching eerie hyper-evolving Adaptoid organisms. With even the Man of Steel unable to face the ghastly invaders, Hawkman devises a risky strategy involving his Equalization-infected wife, which happily turns out in Humanity’s favour in #119’s concluding clash ‘Winner Takes the Earth!’

Another old friend reappeared in #120 as ‘The Parallel Perils of Adam Strange!’ (written by Bates) sees the Earth-born champion of Planet Rann forced to re-fight his greatest battles after despotic Kanjar Ro murders his beloved Alanna.

Even though Ro has cruelly stacked the deck, Strange and his newly arrived Earth allies triumph before pulling a rabbit out of the hat to restore the Rannian heroine in time for her own magical wedding in blistering conclusion ‘The Hero Who Jinxed the Justice League!’

In #122 Marty Pasko delved into the team’s private lives and revealed why the JLA shared their civilian secrets with each other in ‘The Great Identity Crisis!’ when old foe Dr. Light used photonic super-science and the too-good-to-be-true mineral Amnesium (guess what it causes?) to mess with the heroes’ minds and lure them into what should be inescapable death-traps…

Another year gone, it was time for the annual JLA/JSA yarn and Bates, Maggin, Dillin & McLaughlin stepped far off the reservation with ‘Where on Earth Am I?’ & ‘Avenging Ghosts of the Justice Society!’ from issues #123 & 124. Back in Flash #179 (‘The Flash – Fact of Fiction?, May 1968) Bates & Gardner Fox first took the multiple Earths concept to its illogical conclusion by trapping the Monarch of Motion in “our” Reality (Earth-Prime!) where the Sultan of Speed was just a comic book character. Now and here Bates and co-scripter Maggin return to the conceit as a story conference in editor Julie Schwartz’s office leads to the oafish goons playing with Flash’s hastily-constructed and long abandoned Cosmic Treadmill, before catapulting one of them between dimensions.

Transformed and empowered by the trip, Bates becomes the most dangerous villain alive, leading Earth-2 criminals The Wizard, Shade, Sportsmaster, Huntress, Icicle & The Gambler in a lethal assault on JSA heroes Robin, Hourman, Wildcat, Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder and Dr. Mid-Nite. Maggin has followed his friend but ends up on Earth-1.

Undaunted, he recruits Batman, Black Canary, Aquaman, Hawkman, Green Arrow & Flash to save three imperilled universes but it eventually requires the Divine Might of the supernal Spectre to truly set everything and everybody back to their assigned places and times…

Gerry Conway began his long association with the Justice League in #125, in a smart 2-parter concerning dumping of toxic energy from an outer dimension onto Earth. ‘The Men Who Sold Destruction!’ craftily employ schizophrenic villain Two-Face as their wily broker to expend these deadly forces, but the super-minds of Dronndar completely underestimate double-dealing Harvey Dent‘s capacity for betrayal. Almost as bad is the opportunistic action of the Weaponers of Qward, and thus the JLA are easily – but only initially – fooled by the Machiavellian multi-visaged maniac in #126’s Byzantine conclusion ‘The Evil Connection!’

JLA #127 confirmed that ‘The Command is “Chaos!”’ after The Anarchist discovers a way to tap Green Lantern’s power battery and desperate Hal Jordan begs his fellow champions to stop him recharging his ring at any cost, after which Pasko popped back to author a sharp, smart reintroduction for the Earth-1 Amazing Amazon in #128’s ‘Death-Visions of the Justice League!’

For a period “our” Wonder Woman had lost her powers and fought crime as a martial artist, but once her supernatural gifts returned she underwent a self-imposed set of trials before rejoining the team. Sadly her readmission coincided with the team disbanding following a cataclysmic, psychologically punishing assault by alien fear-eater Nekron, and even she seemed unable to galvanise the Leaguers before ‘The Earth Dies Screaming!’in #129.

The next issue explored the revelatory early days of the team’s orbiting satellite HQ as ‘Skyjack at 22,300 Miles!’ (scripted by Pasko) disclosed how an intergalactic interloper attempted to turn the space base into a spawning ground, putting the nonplussed heroes through a gamut of ghastly trials before order and equilibrium were unconventionally restored.

This mammoth tome ends with a clever mystery double-bill from Conway, Dillin & McLaughlin. In #131’s ‘The Beasts Who Thought Like Men!’ a new credit card currency for America somehow enhances the minds of animals and insects, simultaneously decreasing human brainpower to such a low point that bugs can enslave deadly villains like Sonar & Queen Bee. The tale takes a stranger turn in #132 as Superman vanishes and Supergirl steps in to help against animals organised enough to conquer the country. Even then there was still one more tangled twist in the tale of ‘The Beasts Who Fought Like Men!…’

To Be Continued…

The Justice League of America was always the keystone of US comics and these tales are still among the most thought-provoking, controversial and purely entertaining episodes in their six and half decade history. These classical compendia are a dedicated fan’s delight: an absolute gift for modern readers who desperately need to catch up without going bankrupt. They are also perfect to give to youngsters as an introduction into a fabulous world of adventure and magic.

Come see for yourself…

© 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 2026 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1946 cartoonist/scripter/letterer Rick Parker (Beavis and Butt-Head, Deadboy, Tales from the Crypt) was born, with mangaka Yumiko Ōshima (Gū-gū datte Neko de aru, Wata no Kuni Hoshi) arriving one year later and Brazilian Underground Commix exponent Arnaldo Angeli Filho AKA “Angeli” coming on scene in1956 and writer G. Willow Wilson (Air, Invisible Kingdom, Ms. Marvel, Poison Ivy) born in 1982.

Swedish cartoonist turned diplomat Jan Romare (Pyton) died today in 2017, and the day also marks Scott McCloud’s first 24-hour comic in 1990 and DC’s controversial relaunch The New 52 in 2011.

 

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DC Finest: Fourth World – When the Old Gods Die


By Jack Kirby, with Vince Colletta, Curt Swan, Werner Roth, Murphy Anderson, Neal Adams, Frank Giacoia, Dick Giordano Heck, Dennis O’Neil, Bob Kanigher, John Costanza, Ben Oda, Mark Evanier, Steve Sherman, Marv Wolfman & various (DC Comics)

ISBN: ?978-1-79950-831-1 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Jack Kirby was born today in 1917. This is part one of his absolute greatest work and I’ll happily fight you if you disagree…

When Jack Kirby returned to the home of Superman in 1970, he brought with him one of the most powerful concepts in comic book history. The epic grandeur of his Fourth World saga grafted a whole new mythology over the existing DC universe and blew the developing minds of a generation of readers.

It began in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen where he revived his Golden Age kid-team The Newsboy Legion, introducing large-scale cloning in the form of The Project and hinting that the city’s gangsters had extraterrestrial connections, Kirby moved on to new titles The Forever People, New Gods & Mister Miracle; an interlinked triptych of projected finite length titles that together would form a mosaic of staggering potency and grandeur. The groundbreaking titles introduced rival races of gods, dark and light, risen from the ashes of a previous Armageddon to battle forever… and then their eternal conflict spread to Earth…

Kirby’s concepts, as always, fired and inspired his contemporaries and successors. The gods of Apokolips and New Genesis became a crucial keystone of unfolding DC continuity and integral foundation of that entire fictional universe thereafter, surviving numerous revisions and retcons which periodically bedevil long-lived comics fans. Many major talents dabbled with the concept over the years and a host of titles have come and gone starring Kirby’s creations.

This trade paperback collection reshapes the chronology slightly, rejecting strict release date order for a more syncretic narrative, but does include sidebar material never included in previous collected editions. Here you will see the pertinent contents of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133-139 & #141-143; The Forever People #1-4; Mister Miracle #1-4; The New Gods #1-3, plus relevant (but non-Kirby) material from Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #111, 114 & 115 and Superman #233, all collectively spanning cover-dates January – November 1971.

After his previous acrimonious departure from National/DC, Kirby had found fresh fields and an equally hungry new partner in Stan Lee at the remnants of ailing Atlas Comics (AKA once-mighty Timely Comics). There he launched and spearheaded a revolution in comics storytelling, but after just over a decade of a continual innovation and wonderment, Jack felt increasingly stifled. His efforts had transformed the dying outfit into industry-leader Marvel, but success had left him trapped in a profitable rut. Thus, he moved back to DC to generate another tidal wave of sheer imagination and pure invention. The result was experimental adult magazines Spirit World & In the Days of the Mob followed by a stunning reworking of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. By the time he had finished, all DC continuity was changed. The latter was a prelude to his landmark Fourth World saga comprising interlinked contemporaneous titles: the very definition of something game-changing and far too far ahead of its time…

Incidentally, on many levels Jimmy Olsen was an ideal match for the King and not an incongruous display of breast-beating or do-or-die audition. Olsen was an idealistic, heroic young man in the thick of the incredible at all times, and Kirby had a long history with such boy heroes. He and Joe Simon had invented the comic book “kid gang” subgenre and for the next two years Kirby revived it with his new take on The Newsboy Legion, albeit interlaced with a future-embracing backstory and aspirational wonder, rather than the poverty, privation and ongoing war of survival embodied by the Forties iteration.

As previously stated, in this tome we don’t start in Metropolis’ Suicide Slum, but long away and far ago as the scene is set by a history lesson from the distant past…

Cover-dated February/March 1971, New Gods #1 opened with an ‘Epilogue’ and closed on a ‘Prologue’ as Kirby & contractually assigned inker Vince Colletta declared ‘Orion Fights for Earth!’ Despite a promise of complete autonomy, the King had surrendered much to get his dream rolling. Crushing deadlines and ridiculous expected monthly page counts were one thing, but his choice of inkers was vetoed, and he had to compromise and accept insulting art edits drawn by regular Superman artists perennially pasted onto Superman’s trademarked face to present something DC demanded. Nevertheless, the work was everything and he persevered…

Here we learned that (relatively) soon after creation began, gods were born, lived and died – primarily by warring with each other. When the Old Gods perished in a cosmos-shaking conflagration their perfect primal world was sundered. When the chaos cooled, fragments had congealed into two new but lesser planets: the dark vicious globe of Apokolips and gleaming pristine orb New Genesis. Over millennia, a fresh generation of superior beings of might and majesty populated the spinning spheres, but sadly, a tragic trait New Gods shared with their progenitors was a capacity for destruction and taste for conflict. Denizens of both worlds always and inevitably found new ways to end each other’s immortal lives.

The tale proper begins on joyous, spiritual New Genesis years after the latest all-out war with Apokolips ceased. Mighty Orion arrives in paradisical Supertown where divine patriarch Highfather communes with cosmic mystery The Source. The ineffable metaphysical conduit despatches the turbulent, ever-anxious wolf in their fold to the antithetical diabolical hell-world, only to find despot Darkseid gone and – against all treaties – captive humans from Earth being “examined” for signs of the tyrant’s dream. For both races the basic tool is Mother Box: sentient circuitry connected to The Source and lifelong cyber-symbiotic companion, able to communicate, advise and manipulate the physical world.

The lord of Apokolips wants to do away with all that and personally control everything. Furthermore he’s decided this means possessing an irresistible, intangible ultimate weapon. The Anti-Life Equation is a cheat code for totalitarianism: the instant negation of choice and free will, and anyone using it would command all that lives. Darkseid’s obsessive search for it had led him to Earth and now he had kidnapped a cross-section of humans to test his extraction methodology. That he is gone and his realm is governed by Mass Control Units means the Evil One has found his key to success…

After batting his way onto the dire world against Parademons, Darkseid’s Dog Cavalry and assorted terror weapons, Orion frees the mortals as New Genesis God of Knowledge Metron delivers advice and a message. Thus, after outwitting and outfighting vile brute Kalibak the Cruel, the peaceful God of War uses a matter-transmitting Boom Tube to return them all to Earth. Darkseid and his elite warrior caste are waiting for him. They have already infiltrated Earth through its criminal class and begun testing humanity in search of the unique mind holding the Equation. Apparently, a sufficient amount of instilled terror should shake it loose…

The Forever People #1’s ‘In Search of a Dream!’ sees Kirby wonders unfold following a spectacular and contemporarily astute UFO sighting wherein friends of Jimmy Olsen witnessed the arrival of a quartet of weird wild kids on the strangest bike on – or off – Earth. Because they took pictures, Clark Kent’s life changed forever….

He had just completed a bruising interview that made him question his role and purpose on Earth when Jimmy’s snapshots of those weird kids offer Superman a glimpse of a place where he can be one guy among equals. Curiosity and a painful need to find the newcomers drive the Man of Steel to find them, and brings him into first known contact with the absolute embodiment of intellectual and philosophical totalitarianism. Darkseid had been infiltrating our world, quietly seeking a unique mind concealing a metaphysical ultimate weapon. The Anti-Life Equation was instant, irresistible negation of free will and with it the right despot would command all that lives. Darkseid’s obsessive search had led him to Earth and now he had kidnapped a psychic youngster from a world called New Genesis. Her name was Beautiful Dreamer…

All this Superman learned later, after being ambushed by alien-armed racketeers Intergang and saved by her friends Big Bear, Vykin the Black, Serifan & Mark Moonrider. They were all from that promised land Superman had glimpsed and had abandoned Eden to “get involved”, helping their friend and Earth. They called themselves Forever People…

Apparently benevolent, curious kids open to new experiences and welcoming the myriad choices the future holds, they were also trained to handle trouble. When Darkseid’s forces counterattacked and took out Superman they revealed one final trick, combining into an unbeatable enigmatic gestalt being called Infinity Man…

When Darkseid ceded the day, he left a booby trap only Superman could tackle and in return the kids let him travel to Supertown on their fabled paradise planet New Genesis. However, they stressed that any decent, right-thinking person’s place was here, fighting evil by facing Darkseid. For the briefest moment, need overwhelmed duty before, inevitably, the Man of Tomorrow turned back and took up the new never-ending battle…

After Forever People #1, crossovers with DC mainstays were largely sidelined in favour of a tense and relatively isolated new normal. Those kids were Kirby’s way of depicting how conflict affected peripheral players and dragged them in and down, whilst the most important component was seeing seasoned soldiers do their work. New Gods would focus on the war itself. With that all going on, next came something utterly unexpected: a non-hero reflecting a changing world, and seeking to ride the turbulent era’s zeitgeist by looking out for himself and breaking loose of expectations and societal shackles…

Cover-dated February/March 1971, the premiere issue of Mister Miracle – Super Escape Artist sprang the last piece of the puzzle on readers, opening with a sedate set of mysteries counterpointed by emotional tension and explosive action. The star – based on Jack & Roz Kirby’s friend (comics genius, magician/escapologist) Jim Steranko – was a fugitive runaway avoiding (perhaps dodging?) his responsibilities and searching for deeper truths. No matter how wild things got, that set-up was pure reportage…

Inked by Colletta ‘Murder Missile Trap!’ introduces aging entertainer Thaddeus Brown, an old war horse trying to get back in the saddle, practicing his old escapology act to win an unwise wager with Metropolis’ Intergang boss Steel Hand. A terrifying test run is interrupted by a young stranger who observes with shock Brown’s apparent suicide and the panic of equally aged assistant Oberon even as he rushes in to help them. That act of getting involved leads to orphan Scott Free inheriting the identity and stage persona of Mister Miracle after Steel Hand cheats and has Thaddeus shot and killed. Angry, intrigued and ready to settle down at last (or for a while at least), the wanderer (who has an astounding carpet bag of high-tech tricks) wins justice for his predecessor by beating a spectacular rocket trap before opting to try something strange but substantial for a change. However, the coils of his past are already preparing to ensnare him…

That premiere issue (and this collection) also offered a text feature by Marvin Wolfman wherein readers could enjoy ‘A Visit With Jack Kirby’ before New Gods #2 confirms that there are no civilians in war in ‘O’ Deadly Darkseid!’ After fighting off a savage ambush on arrival and confronting Darkseid himself, Orion drafts the shaken, rescued human hostages as his point men and intel unit. Private eye Dave Lincoln, secretary Claudia Shane, student Harvey Lockman and aging insurance salesman Victor Lanza are scared but resolved to help their world however possible, even as the dread tyrant reviews his forces scattered all over Earth applying a range of schemes to make humanity scream and shatter and give up that equation.

As New Genesis’ comrades volunteer for the fight on this isolated island Earth, the call to arms comes in Lincoln’s backyard as God of Depravity DeSaad triggers his gigantic Fear Machine to feed off the paralysing horror it generates. However, thanks to sentient miracle computer Mother Box, his innate personal power and the star-shattering Astro-Force he commands, Orion easily wins the initial skirmish…

This scene & agenda setting saga is complemented with Mark Evanier & Steve Sherman’s prose filler ‘To and From The Source’ prior to FP #2 finding our young explorers exuberantly enjoying their dalliance with a primitive culture. The reunited quintet joyously interact with toiling humanity, and find shelter in a mostly deserted slum with disabled kid Donnie and his aging Uncle Willie. The visiting star kids’ hunger to learn is sadly curtailed when Darkseid steps up his hunt for the equation. The monster’s reasoning says abject terror could shake loose the formula from whoever is afflicted with it, and to that end he orders bug-behemoth Mantis to declare shattering ‘Super War!’ on humanity.

Arguably marginally less powerful than the Master of Apokolips, Mantis can only be countered by Infinity Man, and the Forever People happily ask living computer Mother Box to perform the ritual that will call him and subtract them from existence, sparking a cataclysmic clash. The drama is again augmented by an Evanier & Sherman essay, specifically ‘Buzzing in the Boom Tube’ as is Mister Miracle #2 with ‘Miracle Talk’.

The comics magic preceding it considers the prosaic life of a showman, as amidst a beguiling setting Scott & Oberon plan a theatrical comeback, Sadly, the old stagehand/retainer learns just how different the new kid really is and his suspicions of a wider, wilder side are confirmed as the orphanage Scott fled comes looking for him. Vicious Apokolyptian virago Granny Goodness unleashes the techno-terrors of matter-warping monster Overlord, trapping the targets in the insidious, infernal ‘X-Pit!’ and provoking a battle for their lives and sanity…

Kirby’s arrival coincided with a major overhaul of DC’s biggest gun, and is represented here by the last three pages of Superman #233. The Mn of Tomorrow had been a mega-media star since his launch, with internationally syndicated comics, books, newspaper strips, movie and animated serials plus hugely successful radio and TV shows (live action and animated) making the franchise globally recognizable. Whenever that happens, inevitably overkill and overexposure inescapably set in and the core property needs to be carefully overhauled or vanish forever. Incoming editor Julie Schwartz knew his market and was open to new ideas, and his creative changes were just appearing as 1970 ended. The new direction was also vanguard and trigger for a wealth of controversial, socially-challenging “realistic” story content unseen since the feature’s earliest days: a wave of tales ultimately described as “Relevant”…

As the sixties closed Superman was in dire need of editorial revision. That officially began with Superman #233 in a groundbreaking serial by scripter Dennis J. “Denny” O’Neil, and illustrators Curt Swan & Murphy Anderson: a deliberate very public abandonment of tired old supervillains, fanciful Kryptonian scenarios and otherworldly paraphernalia instantly poked the readership and revitalised the Man of Tomorrow, attracting new readers and began a period of engagingly human-scaled stories making Superman a “must-buy” character all over again.

Although only the portentous ending is included here, the innovations began with ‘Superman Breaks Loose’ as a government experiment to harness Kryptonite as an energy source goes explosively wrong. Closely monitoring, the Metropolis Marvel is blasted across the desert surrounding the isolated lab, but somehow survives a supposedly fatal radiation-bath. Then, reports begin filtering in from all over Earth: every piece of the deadly mineral has been transformed to harmless, common iron! As he goes about his protective, preventative patrols, the liberated hero experiences an emotional high at the prospect of all the good he can now accomplish. He isn’t even phased when the Daily Planet’s new owner Morgan Edge (a key character created by Kirby and Darkseid’s top secret agent) shakes up Clark Kent’s cosy civilian life: summarily ejecting him from the print game to remake him as a roving TV journalist. (for more see DC Finest: Superman – Kryptonite Nevermore)…

As much humour feature as adventure series, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen was a long-running but increasingly lacklustre spin-off feature spawned by the TV show that had very much reached its end. Latterly, Leo Dorfman had begun the process of ending the cascade of comedic transformations and body-shaming events, remaking Jimmy into a competent, confident action hero and serious investigative journalist. This was in tune with a rebellious new era but stalled when the worlds of DC forever altered on the pages of what was then considered one of their least appreciated and poorest-selling titles. According to fan myth & legend, none of it apparently mattered when Kirby took over. By all popular accounts, he had asked for DC’s worst performing title to prove what he could do, and used that gesture to spearhead a wave of changes whilst adapting grand schemes his old employers at Marvel were too timid to countenance on their pages…

Jack’s first in-universe foray was Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #133, cover-dated October and on sale from August 25, 1970. Suddenly readers were thrown into a bravely strange new world where, out of nowhere, extremely shady incoming Daily Planet owner Morgan Edge gifts Jimmy with a fantastic supercar – the “Whiz Wagon” – demanding that he and his previously unseen pals ‘The Newsboy Legion!’ (technically the “New Newsboy Legion” comprising the sons of Tommy, Big-Words, Gabby & Scrapper, with the addition of African-American, scuba diving addict Flipper Dipper) deliver an exclusive scoop on a bizarre counterculture movement in the wilds outside Metropolis. The mysterious subjects are all weird hippie-types and don’t trust anyone over age 25, so Edge needs to send youth combined with experience, However, the one who can’t be trusted is Edge himself. He has undisclosed connections to crime combine Intergang and a chilling stone-faced alien dubbed Darkseid…

After very publicly surviving an assassination attempt, Clark Kent goes into hiding, allowing Superman to take off after Jimmy and the boys as they probe fantastic unsuspected region dubbed the Wild Area. Here Olsen survives trial by combat to become leader of futuristic biker gang The Outsiders, before being sucked into their quest for meaning by hunting a moving mountain inhabited by techno-pacifists “The Hairies”…

Linking up with the Man of Steel as tremors rock the organically grown refuge city of Habitat, Jimmy and the Newsboys chase the ultimate test of existence alongside other motor nomads, unaware that pal Superman already knows the secret they’re seeking. What Jimmy isn’t aware of is that Edge has boobytrapped the Whiz Wagon to satisfy his vile master’s desire to destroy what might be the next step in human evolution and a threat to his own schemes…

The total reboot closed with the King introducing himself to a prospective new audience text titbit ‘Jack Kirby – CONTINED’ but although Kirby & Colletta put their hearts and souls into the job, and despite Publisher Carmine Infantino’s promise of strict non-intervention, meddling with the concept began early, as regular Superman art staff redrew Superman and Jimmy’s faces. We’ll never know what they tried to do to the overall story arc…

Without pause for breath, exposition or recap SPJO #134 saw Jimmy and his petrol-head wild bunch catch up to monstrous mechanised white whale ‘The Mountain of Judgement!’ after astoundingly taking out Superman with weapons casually discarded by inveterate tinkerers the Hairies. Thankfully, Edge’s bomb is easily defused by the techno-hippies who all share an incredible secret; one the Action Ace is fully aware of. In short order, Jim and the lads are briefed on “The Project”: the US government’s cracking of the human genome and extensive duplication/experimentation on life forms. This had already resulted in cloning the dead, mass-producing soldiers & staff to order and even modifying or reconfiguring chromosomal structures to create “D.N.A.liens”. These included the genetically pacifist techno-wizard Hairies. Moreover, the whole Project is run for the government by none other than slum-kids made good the original Newsboy Legion!

Although commonplace now, the notion of cloning was practically unknown in 1970 and Kirby took the idea and ran with it: blending eternal questions about Life itself with Spy Fi tropes, gangsterism and Bond movie settings, all packed with freaks and monsters and underpinned by a constant threat posed by a mysterious mastermind and his own experimental devils. The inspired auteur was also pulling out all the stops visually and his experimental concepts were backed up by equally innovative art and photo collages. The issue ends with Kirby’s rumination on technology in ‘The Whiz Wagons are Coming!’

Followed by similar thoughts in ‘THE HAIRIES – Super-Race or Man’s Second Chance’, SPJO #135 introduces Simyan & Mokkari, whose raid on the Project’s genetic storehouse provides raw material to constantly reproduce wilder and wilder versions of our heroes in their own hidden ‘Evil Factory!’ Being utterly without restraint or ethical scruple, their goal of destroying the Project for Darkseid is well-advanced, and – as previously stated – Jimmy’s genes are a particularly promising medium for random transformations…

Their control of what they make is less impressive though, and a superstrong, giant Jimmy infused with artificial Kryptonite is teleported without plan into the Project simply to save Simyan & Mokkari from dying at the oversized hands of their own experiment. Although it almost kills Superman and his juvenile pals, the day is saved by the Senior Newsboys’ passion project – a new regrown and modified iteration of their murdered WWII superhero patron Jim Harper – The (Golden) Guardian – in concluding, action-packed background-filling expository chapter ‘The Saga of the D.N.A.liens!’ (cover-dated March 1971). Chronologically this led into the launch of Kirby’s official Fourth World titles Forever People, New Gods and Mister Miracle #1.

Scene set, Jimmy’s further exploits were generally Fourth World adjacent: a forge and funnel for concepts linking Superman to the ongoing narrative of Gods and Armageddons whilst exploring Mankind’s dangerous tendencies and corruptible natures. In Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #137, the Newsboys and Jimmy learn more about their own (utterly non-consensual) contributions to the Project. Without their knowledge Scrapper has been mass-produced as foot-soldiers and guards in different sizes – from six feet to six inches – and innumerable Gabbys man switchboards and communications consoles! As they reel in shock, the Evil Factory strike again. As Jimmy meets The Project’s emergent telepath and resident D.N.A.lien Dubbilex, elsewhere Darkseid demands results forcing Simyan & Mokkari to rashly unleash another Olsen variant on the hidden science citadel. Gifted with astounding strength and uncanny energy powers ‘The Four-Armed Terror!’ has been bred to feed on nuclear radiation and just one of them carves a wave of destruction that extends into the Wild Area on its path to the Project’s atomic power plant. Superman and the boys are easily disposed of and discarded, with the crisis escalating even further after the Apokolyptian biologists lose control of the other quadra-killers and beam the entire rampaging herd into the subterranean Project’s tunnels, forcing Superman to pull out all the stops to get free and save everything in cataclysmic closing chapter ‘The Big Boom!’

Cover-dated June/July 1971, New Gods #3 explored metaphysics and the unknowable. Dwelling in spaces far beyond the rational and mundane, New Gods are subject to forces beyond mortal understanding. One of them is the embodiment of cessation who personally calls for each of them as they perish. ‘Death is the Black Racer!’ opens with glorious, jovial innocent God of Illumination Lightray barely escaping his moment with the great shadow – thanks to coldly methodical Metron, but the close escape finds the cosmic force diverted and deposited on Earth. Throughout the overlapping clashes and conflicts there is undeniable indications that even gods are being moved and shaped by greater forces that have larger plans in motion. Thus the macabre soul collector inexplicably nests within the immobile form of paralysed Vietnam veteran Willie Walker, and – apparently inadvertently – derails a plot by Apokolips-backed mob Intergang to destroy all communications in Metropolis to create chaos and panic…

Elsewhere, having explored isolation versus community, introduced outside negation of free will and the concept of terror as addictive sustenance (Darkseid’s vile deputy DeSaad feasts on fear, pain and torture), Forever People #3 tackles head-on the saga’s core concepts. ‘Life vs. Anti-Life!’ probes conformity, personal freedoms, informed choices, organised bigotry and the tyranny of psychological and physical fascism as the wonder kids are tracked down by Justifiers: human zealots who willingly surrendered individual autonomy to what appears to be a televangelist telling them what they want to hear. Defeat doubt by surrendering to Anti-Life. It is Good to kill those who are better or weaker than you. I’m sure we’ve all dabbled with those notions…

Equipped with terrifying Apokolips weapons, Justifiers burn libraries, attack minorities and even drive the kids out of their tatty slum home and onto the attack, infiltrating Apokolyptian infiltrator/demagogue Glorious Godfrey’s appalling recruitment rally. Shockingly, when Infinity Man faces Darkseid, the devil defeats our mysterious angel and the traumatised kids are captured…

Still seeking his separate way Mister Miracle #3 opens a bravura double-issue imbroglio as Scott Free agrees to an honourable duel with dishonourable disembodied robot-wearing intelligence Doctor Bedlam. Darkseid’s war code is strict and binding and finds the escape artist challenged to make his way out of a packed 50-storey skyscraper. The problems comes because the edifice is sealed tight and every person inside it is a raving homicidal maniac thanks to mental murderer Bedlam’s administering of ‘The Paranoid Pill!’…

As stated before, Kirby’s Fourth World impacted other titles, particularly the Fourth Estate of Superman’s supporting cast. Here, crafted by Bob Kanigher, Werner Roth & Colletta, ‘The Dark Side of the Justice League!’ from Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #111 (July 1971) sees the feisty newsmaker targeted by a miniature, corrupted JLA grown by the Evil Factory. Turned into a unsuspecting bio-weapon to kill The Man of Steel, the plot fails as The Project had anticipated such a problem and provided Lane with what every girl needs: her own cloned well-armed protection force…

Forever People #4 then horrifically subverts the American Dream as theme park Happyland is revealed as ‘The Kingdom of the Damned’: a sprawling factory built to mass-produce terror by exploiting whimsy and fantasy. Here DeSaad torments countless human victims while others innocently see nothing but toys and robots dancing and playing for their pleasure. To this set-up the captive waifs of New Genesis are added as DeSaad feeds, but they have all underestimated the power of Mother Box who seeks aid and finds it in the form of zen wrestler ‘Sonny Sumo’…

At this juncture DC comic books expanded to 52 pages and as well as reprints, Kirby’s Korner ran short background vignettes. The lost history of the previous war of pantheons was filled in as here when ‘The Young Gods of Supertown Introducing Lonar’ finds a wandering historian picking through cosmic rubble on New Genesis and uncovering a living, breathing remnant of that cataclysmic conflict

This cliffhanger moment is somewhat offset by a trio of Forever People pinups: ‘The Super-Kids of the Century!’, ‘Beautiful Dreamer vs Darkseid!’ and ‘The Infinity Man…

Despite those promises of non-interference, DC editors and promotional staff perpetually sought to “goose up” Kirby’s flagship title. Always a team player, the King acquiesced to a guest-appearance by currently-hot comedian Don Rickles and oddly (in the manner of Marmite) it either worked uproariously or appalled readers. I thought it was a genuinely hilarious hoot. Further undercutting the narrative, the saga was bifurcated by a reprint 80-Page Giant of pre-Kirby Olsen escapades in SPJO #140 (not included here).

Nevertheless #139 & 141 (July’s ‘The Guardian Fights Again!!!’ and September’s ‘Will the Real Don Rickles Panic?’) comprise a compelling tale of Edge’s unfolding evil, Intergang’s growing influence and the creeping menace of Darkseid, as the tyrant allows his tech to be used to send Clark Kent into hyperspace destined for Apokolips whilst Jimmy and the Golden Guardian are poisoned by slow-acting incendiary Pyro-Granulate: a slow death that will turn them into human torches unless they find an antidote.

Slowing them down is equally doomed Galaxy Broadcasting staffer Goody Rickles whom Edge wants gone because he looks like the star Edge wants to sign up – and is really, really annoying…

The conclusion is compounded by text feature ‘The Newsboy Legion Returns’ by Evanier & Sherman and a Kirby self-portrait… before the last Mister Miracle inclusion (#4). As Oberon frets back at the Brown mansion, he is visited by another old friend of Scott’s. However, master warrior Big Barda is not out to assassinate the runaway. She seems more interested in his wellbeing and fate and teleports to the trap site in time to watch Mister Miracle deftly avoid ‘The Closing Jaws of Death!’ and humiliate another Apokolips monster. Barda is another abstention from the Apokolips method and a rowdy runaway like no other who will change Scott Free’s life forever in the next volume…

Extracted from Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #114, two brief pages by Kanigher, Roth & Colletta’s ‘The Foe of 100 Faces’ act as a set-up to ‘My Death… by Lois Lane!’ (SGFLL #115) wherein Morgan Edge attempts to kill his nosy top reporter as she closes in on his darkest secret and takes Superman with her. His biggest mistake, however, is attempting to suborn supernal force The Black Racer to do his dirty work…

With Kent, Lane and Superman reasonably safe, Kirby next addressed the rise in horror and supernatural tales via a 2-parter (reeler?) beginning in #142 with ‘The Man from Transilvane!’ Here, seemingly mystic vampire Count Dragorin and his wolfman assistant Lupek target and “turn” Edge’s PA Laura Conway in their desperate hunt for long-missing mad scientist Dabney Donovan. He was a planetologist who apparently built worlds in his secret laboratory and shaped entire civilisations by screening movies across their skies. Like all sensible scientists, Donovan planned to end his research project on a certain day and set up programmed measures involving his ‘Genocide Spray!’ (SPLO #143 ) with no consideration of the beings he had made and discarded… but Jimmy and Superman certainly did…

Elsewhere, the Newsboy Legion had their own case, one that again led to Intergang but also the thug who murdered the original Jim Harper/Guardian…

From SPJO #142, Kirby added short background-enhancing vignettes and here 2-pager ‘Strange Stories of the D.N.A. Project!! “Hairie” Secrets Revealed!!!’ offered a glimpse of the techno-hippies and their Mountain of Judgment, whilst the next issue added drama to fact-finding with ‘Strange Stories of the D.N.A. Project!! The Alien Thing!!!’ detailing the terrifying results of creating the first non-human clone…

To Be Continued…

DC Finest: Fourth World – When the Old Gods Die collects foundational chapters of Kirby’s legendary saga; a bold new cosmic playground for so many to forever build upon. Almost overnight and in one broad flourish, Kirby had created one of the most powerful concepts in comic book history. The Fourth World inserted a whole new mythology into the existing DC Universe and blew the developing minds of a generation of readers and especially those who would become the next generation of creators. Who knows what could have happened if the publishers had had a little more courage, patience and vision?
© 1970, 1971, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1917 Jack Kirby was born. Also on that date in 1917 pioneering Italian artist Aurelio Galleppini (Tex Willer, Occhio Cupo) arrived, sharing birthdays with Dell Barras (Savage Sword of Conan, Dark Angel, Deaths Head II, Web of Spider-Man) in 1957; colourist Pamela Rambo in 1968 and French ace Joann Sfar (Dungeon, The Rabbi’s Cat, Klezmer, Little Vampire) in 1971.

The great Frederick Burr (Happy Hooligan, And Her Name Was Maud, Alphonse and Gaston) died today in 1937, as did Belgian superstar Willy Vandersteen (Spike and Suzy, Bessy, De Rode Ridder) in 1990 and Dutch Master Bert Bus (Olaf Noord, Theban, de eerste wereldreiziger, Cliff Rendall, Stef Ardoba, Malorix, Russ Bender, Archie the Robot) in 2017.

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Green Lantern Sector 2814 volume 1


By Len Wein, Dave Gibbons, with Dick Giordano, Mike DeCarlo, Mark Farmer, Ben Oda, John Costanza & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3689-2 (TPB), 978-1-4012-4166-7 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Since the dawn of US comics’ Silver Age – where and when The Flash kick-started it all to become the fast-beating heart of the revived genre of superheroes – his fellow jet-age re-tread Green Lantern has always provided a conceptual framework for the comprehensive, pervasive magic of the DC Universe’s monolithic shared continuity.

Hal Jordan was a brash young test pilot in Coast City, California when an alien cop crashed on Earth. Mortally wounded, Abin Sur commanded his power ring (a device that materialised thoughts) to seek out a replacement officer, honest and without fear. Scanning the planet, it selected Jordan and brought him to the crash site. Before dying the alien bequeathed his ring, lantern-shaped Battery of Power and professional vocation to the astonished Earthman. Jordan grew to be one of the greatest members of a serried band of law-enforcers. The Green Lantern Corps has protected the cosmos from evil and disaster for billions of years, policing countless sentient beings under the severe but benevolent auspices of immortal superbeings who consider themselves the Guardians of the Universe.

These undying patrons of Order were one of the first races to evolve and now dwell in sublime, emotionless security and tranquillity on the world of Oa at the very centre of creation. Their Green Lanterns are chosen for the capacity to overcome fear and are equipped with a ring to shape solid constructs from emerald light. The miracle weapon is fuelled by the strength of the user’s willpower, making it, in the right hands/appendages, one of the mightiest tools in the universe.

For eons, a single individual from each of the 3600 sectors of known space was selected to patrol his, her or its own beat.

As the series progressed, The Guardians’ motives and ineffability increasingly came into question by many amongst their once-devoted operatives and peacekeepers. Increasingly frequently they saw the formerly infallible little blue gods exposed as venal, doctrinaire, ruthless and even capricious. As his fame and repute grew, headstrong Hal had endured an extremely tempestuous relationship with his bosses which eventually resulted in them accusing him of neglecting his space sector – 2814 – to concentrate on Earth’s problems and criminals. This led to the Oans banishing Jordan, compelling him to scrupulously patrol his appointed interstellar beat and never again set foot on Earth…

This fabulous cosmic Fights ‘n’ Tights compilation gathers Green Lantern #172-176 and 178-181. It spans January to October 1984 and celebrates the end of that exile as new writer/editor Len Wein united with illustrator/letterer Dave Gibbons (vanguard of the  “British Invasion” of talent that reshaped the comic book industry) to bring the wanderer home…

After a year away performing heroic service across the starways, Jordan stridently petitioned his master on Oa where a phalanx of his comrades supported his request to be allowed back to his birthworld. His ‘Judgment Day!’ gave him everything he wanted. Sadly, when Jordan returned to Coast City he soon discovered that the world had moved on without him…

Reunited with lover Carol Ferris, Hal tries to readjust in ‘Old Friends, New Foes…!’ but an unsuspected rival at work is as nothing compared to covert machinations of an unsuspected observer and power-broker known as The Monitor (yes! That guy! Check out Crisis on Infinite Earths for more details) who supplies the mystery villain with a selection of super-powered mercenaries…

The first of these is a German maniac with a penchant for high-tech tricked-out spears who attempts to kill the Emerald Crusader and vaporise ‘ Aircraft in #174’s ‘I Shot a Javelin into the Air…!’

GL #175 offers a fraught reunion with old pal Barry Allen – AKA The Flash – before a predatory mutant archenemy resurfaces to turn Hal’s city and friends into ‘Shark Bait!’ The psionic assault of The Shark consumes Hal’s mind, leaving the defeated Emerald Gladiator brainwiped, comatose and dying, but in #176 (inked by Dick Giordano & lettered by Ben Oda) the indomitable personality of Hal Jordan battles his way out of the paranormal predator’s cerebral gullet and back into action through a series of ‘Mind Games!’

That enigmatic enemy in the background still wants GL gone and Ferris obliterated, and subsequently commissions more high-tech hirelings in #178: specifically, a squad of construction-worker-themed wreckers dubbed the Demolition Team. Throughout the period of these tales, ferocious deadlines plagued the ocean-separated creative team, with Gibbons’ preference to draw, ink and letter the stories perpetually confounded by the fact that he was generally receiving scripts 3 pages at a time. In an era before the internet when fax machines were the acme of technological communication, something had to give, and after a fill-in issue (#177 and not included here) failed to solve the problems, two last all-Gibbons issues were followed by a separation of roles…

Before that, though, just as Ferris is battered and shattered by ‘A Bad Case of the D.T.s!’, Green Lantern is called away from Earth by the implacable Guardians to save an exploding planet. Heartbroken and terrified, Carol sees her company practically destroyed until a new, brutally vicious protagonist steps in to stop the Demolition Team in #179’s ‘Let Us Prey!’ (both by Wein & Gibbons).

By the time Jordan returns to view the ‘Aftermath!’ (GL #180 with Mike DeCarlo inking and Ben Oda on letters) the damage has been done both to the factory and Hal’s now-crippled friend Clay Kendell. Appalled at his own dereliction of duty and personal failures, Jordan consults with a number of Justice League colleagues before heading to Oa in #181 (Mark Farmer inks & John Costanza letters) and telling the Guardians to ‘Take This Job… And Shove It!’

They accept, precipitating one of the biggest events in DC history, just as back on Earth and back at Ferris, Carol seeks to rebuild and hires an architect named John Stewart…

To Be Continued…
© 1984 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 2000, we lost the astounding iconic Carl Barks.

In 1912 strip cartoonist/screenwriter Theodore Keyser AKA Ted Key (The Biggest Dog in the World, The Cat from Outer Space, Hazel, Peabody’s Improbable History) arrived, followed a year later by Pogo’s pappa Walt Kelly. In comic books, Fred Schwab (Tenderfoot Joe, Lady Luck) came along in 1917; prolific Marvel colourist Don Warfield in 1944 and Michael Wm. Kaluta (The Shadow, Carson of Venus, Spawn of Frankenstein, Starstruck) in 1947, with Archie all-star Dan Parent and cartoonist Bob Fingerman (Minimum Wage, Beg the Question) both born in 1964.

On this date in 1973, British licensed anthology vehicle TV Action folded after 74 weeks, whilst in 2014 Kosuke Fujishima’s epic manga comedy Oh My Goddess ended in Monthly Afternoon. The accumulated fun filled 48 volumes.

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The Sandman by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby


By Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, with Mike Royer & others (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2299-4 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In the early days of US comic books the fledgling industry was awash with chancers, double-dealers, slick operators and outright crooks. Many creative types fell foul of this publishing free-for-all but a rare few took to the cut and thrust and managed not only to survive but to prosper.

Just as the Golden Age of comics was beginning, two young men with big hopes met up and began a decades-long association that was always intensely creative, immensely productive and spectacularly in tune with popular tastes. They were Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, and gathered here are the joyous exploits of one of their greatest early comics collaborations…

Publisher Martin Goodman made Simon the editor of Timely comics S&K, created a host of iconic characters including Red Raven, Marvel Boy, The Vision, kid gang Young Allies and million-selling mega-hit Captain America. When Goodman failed to make good on his financial obligations, Simon & Kirby jumped ship to industry leader National/DC, who welcomed them with open arms and a big chequebook.

Initially an uncomfortable fit and bursting with ideas the cautious company were not comfortable with, they were handed two strips languishing in the doldrums to tide them over until they found their creative feet. Left to their own devices, they consolidated their Kid Gang genre innovation with The Newsboy Legion and their super-heroic mentor The Guardian, and a unique international army – The Boy Commandos – who shared a spotlight with Batman and Robin in Detective Comics (and whose own solo title became frequently the company’s third best seller during the war years).

Those moribund strips they were first unleashed upon featured big game hunter called Paul Kirk, Manhunter, who they overnight retooled as a darkly manic, vengeful superhero. The other was one of comic books’ first masked mystery-men: The Sandman.

This superb collection reprints all the S&K tales, including covers for issues they didn’t craft; lost art pages, original art reproductions as well as informative text articles from Kirby historian John Morrow and writer Mark Evanier. It even includes Simon & Kirby’s 1974 reunion reinvention of Sandman which in turn spawned one of Kirby’s last series for DC.

Created by Gardner Fox and first illustrated by Bert Christman, The Sandman premiered in either Adventure Comics #40 July 1939 (two months after Batman debuted in Detective Comics #27) or two weeks earlier in New York World’s Fair Comics 1939 – depending on whether some rather spotty distribution records can be believed.

Face utterly obscured by a gasmask, caped and business-suited millionaire adventurer Wesley Dodds wielded a sleeping-gas gun to battle a string of crooks and spies, accompanied by his paramour Dian Belmont, before gradually losing the readers’ interest and slipping from cover-spot to last feature in Adventure Comics, just as the cloaked pulp-hero avengers he emulated slipped from popularity in favour of more flamboyant fictional fare. Possessing a certain indefinable style, eerie charm but definitely no pizzazz, the feature was on the verge of being dropped when he abruptly switched to a skintight yellow and purple costume, complete with billowing cape. He also gained a teenaged sidekick in Sandy the Golden Boy (AC #69, December 1941, by Mort Weisinger & Paul Norris), presumably to move closer to the overwhelmingly successful Batman model.

It didn’t help much.

So, when Simon & Kirby came aboard with #72, the little banner above the logo on the Jack Burnley Starman cover gave no hint of the pulse-pounding change that had occurred. ‘Riddle of the Slave Market’ saw a sleek, dynamic pair of gleaming golden lions explode across 11 pages of graphic fury as the Sandman – sans daft cape – crushed a white collar criminal with a nasty line in illicit indentured servitude. Moreover, the hero had overnight acquired a unique gimmick: Sandman’s crusades against crime were presaged by the targeted perpetrator suffering nightmares of imminent retribution…

The semi-supernatural element and fascination with the world of dreams (revisited by S&K a decade later in their experimental suspense series The Strange World of Your Dreams) added conceptual punch to equal the kinetic fury of their art, and #73 (with S&K’s Manhunter now hogging the cover) Sandman strip ‘Bells of Madness!’ ramped up tension in another spectacular action epic wherein the Dream Warriors expose a cunning murder plot.

With AC #74 Sandman & Sandy took back the cover spot (only their third since #51), holding it until the feature ended. Only once did Sandman not appear on the cover – #99: another S&K Manhunter classic. From #103, the magazine underwent a complete overhaul with new feature Superboy headlining and with established regulars Green Arrow, Aquaman, Shining Knight and Johnny Quick parachuted in from other magazines.

The story for #74 was an eerie instant classic: ‘The Man Who Knew All the Answers’ was a smalltown professor who artificially increased his intellect – but not his ethics. When his perfectly planned crimes bring him into conflict with the heroes, it proves that his brain enhancer did nothing for common sense either. Then ‘The Villain From Valhalla!’ (AC #75 June 1942) pits the galvanic champions against a hammer-wielding Norse god and climaxing in a cataclysmic Battle Royale, followed by an equally astounding clash with sinister floral foe Nightshade. ‘The Adventure of the Magic Forest’ stemmed from World’s Finest Comics #6 (Summer 1942), one of two S&K exploits in that legendary anthology.

Sandman was a founding member of the Justice Society of America, appearing in many issues of All-Star Comics. A number of pertinent chapters therein were also generated by Joe & Jack, but are sadly not included in this otherwise comprehensive compendium: completists will need to track down the superb All-Star Archives volumes 4 & 5 or some of the new DC Finest Justice Society compilations for those dynamic classics.

Adventure #76 again heavily emphasised foreboding oneiric elements in ‘Mr. Noah Raids the Town!’ as a soothsaying mastermind unleashes preposterously intelligent animals to steal and kill, before #77’s ‘Dreams of Doom!’ finds an innocent man plagued by nightmares and compelled to solicit the aid of the Master of Dreams… and only just in time!

A sinister Swami is exposed in ‘The Miracle Maker!’ before their final World’s Finest guest-gig (#7, Fall 1942) dips heavily into exotic fantasy for ‘A Modern Arabian Nightmare!’ Adventure #79 then bangs the patriotic drum in eerie temporal-trap mystery ‘Footprints in the Sands of Time!’ It’s back to thrill-a-minute manic crime mayhem for #80’s ‘The Man Who Couldn’t Sleep!’ before ‘A Drama in Dreams’ presents a baffling conundrum for Sandy to solve alone, after which the creators indulge in some seasonal shocks in madcap Yule yarn ‘Santa Fronts for the Mob.’

AC #83 brought blockbusting boxing romance as the heroes aid ‘The Lady and the Champ!’ while including a gloriously over-the-top Boy Commandos ad featuring Hitler, Mussolini & Tojo as only Jack & Joe could defame them. Next comes gloriously Grand Guignol saga ‘Crime Carnival’ and delightfully wry romp ‘The Unholy Dreams of Gentleman Jack’, before S&K return to the favoured theme of childhood poverty in ‘The Boy Who Was Too Big for his Breeches.’

The war was progressing and soon both Joe & Jack would be full-time servicemen, so perhaps the increasingly humanistic tales of their latter run were only to be expected. The shift in emphasis certainly didn’t affect the quality of such gems as ‘I Hated the Sandman!’ in #87 wherein narcoleptic Silas Pettigrew learns a salutary lesson, or heartwarming, exuberant childhood fantasy ‘The Cruise of the Crescent’, whereas #89’s kidnap drama ‘Prisoner of his Dreams’ and the boisterous ‘Sleepy Time Crimes!’ proved that whatever else happened, action and excitement would always remain series watchwords.

In the months prior to their induction, Simon & Kirby went into overdrive, building a vast reserve of inventory stories for their strip commitments, but even so relentless publishing deadlines soon ate them up. Adventure Comics #91 featured the last S&K yarn for a year and a half, long after Kirby had shipped out to fight in Europe and Simon had begun his tour of duty with the US Coast Guard. ‘Courage a La Carte’ has precious little – if indeed any -Kirby art in it, but is nonetheless a sterling saga of malice unmasked and justice triumphant, after which only the covers of Adventure #92-97 kept the artist’s light burning in the heart of fans.

The star creators returned for issue #100 (October/November 1945) with tempestuous crime caper ‘Sweets for Swag!’, the cover of #101 and again inside #102 with swansong drama ‘The Dream of Peter Green!’, with Sandman & Sandy exposing shoddy dealings in the city contracting department before ensuring ghetto kids had decent playgrounds to grow fit and healthy in.

National Comics was no longer a welcoming place for the reunited duo. By 1947 S&K had formed their own studio, beginning a long, productive relationship with Harvey Comics (Stuntman, Boy’s Ranch, Captain 3-D, Lancelot Strong: The Shield, The Fly, The Three Rocketeers and others) whilst creating a stunning variety of genre features for Crestwood/ Pines (all supplied by their Essankay/Mainline studio shop). These included Justice Traps the Guilty, Black Magic, Fighting American, Bullseye, Foxhole and landmark innovation Young Romance amongst many more (see the superb Best of Simon and Kirby for a salient selection of these classic creations).

As comics went through bad times the pair eventually went their separate ways, but were reunited for one last hurrah in 1974 whilst both working once more for DC. The result was a re-imagined Sandman: this time a fully fantastic scientific master of the metaphysical, policing the nightmares of humanity from a citadel deep in “The Dream-Stream”.

‘The Sandman’ (scripted by Joe, drawn/edited by Jack & inked by Mike Royer) is pure escapist delight, describing how young Jed Paulsen taps into the oneiric horrors of villainous cybrid General Electric as he attempts to conquer “the World of Our Dreams”. When all hope is exhausted, Jed is rescued and befriended by the omniscient Lord of Sleep and his ghastly assistants Brute & Glob…

This rambunctious romp is a great place to end our volume but since six further adventures of this Weaver of Dreams were completed (albeit with no Simon and varying degrees of Kirby) perhaps one day they too will make the jump to graphic novel immortality…

After decades of neglect the glorious wealth of Kirby material available these days is a true testament to his influence and legacy, so this magnificent collection of his collaborations with fellow pioneer Joe Simon is a gigantic box of delights perfectly illustrating the depth, scope and sheer thundering joy of the early days of comics: something no amount of corporate shoddy behaviour can ever diminish. Maybe it’s time to systematically rerelease it and all the rest of these dream ticket items?
© 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1974, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1905 Nancy cartoonist Ernie Bushmiller was born, sharing natal honours with Alfredo Alcala (Voltar, Kong the Untamed, The Rampaging Hulk, Savage Sword of Conan, Swamp Thing) in 1925; Malaysian cartoonist Rejabhad (Periwira Mat Gila) in 1939; inker Terry Austin, (Detective Comics, X-Men, Superman Adventures, Popeye) in 1952 and Canadian illustrator Chris Bachalo (Uncanny X-Men, Generation X, Death, Shade the Changing Man, Doctor Strange) in 1965.

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Marvel Team-Up Marvel Masterworks volume 8


By Chris Claremont, Steven Grant, Bill Mantlo, Mark Gruenwald, Bill Kunkel, Allyn Brodsky, Sal Buscema, Mike Vosburg, Herb Trimpe, Don Perlin, Bob McLeod, Gene Colan, Michael Netzer, Rich Buckler, Alan Kupperberg, Frank Giacoia, Gene Day, Steve Leialoha, Frank Springer, Eduardo Barreto, Josef Rubinstein, Jack Abel, Bruce Patterson, Bill Sienkiewicz & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1302955571 (HB), 978-1-3025-2987-1 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

The concept of team-ups – an established star pairing or battling (usually both) with new or less well-selling company characters – has been with us since the earliest days of comics, but making those brief encounters/temporary alliances a key selling point really took hold with DC’s The Brave and the Bold in the 1960s before being taken up and industrialisedby their biggest competitor.

Marvel Team-Up was the second regular Spider-Man title, launched as 1971 ended. A big hit, it confirmed that the time had finally come for Arachnid expansion, offering a venue for uncomplicated action romps to supplement the character’s – and company’s – complex subplot fare in regular books. However, even in an infinite Marvel Multiverse, certain stars shone more brightly than others and some turned up in team-ups more often than others…

This compelling compilation gathers the contents of Marvel Team-Up #78, 80-90, MTU Annual #2 and material from Marvel Treasury Edition #25, collectively covering February 1979 through February 1980. It opens with an overview Introduction from editorial ace Ralph Macchio before plunging into a peerless parade of peril action/adventure…

In Marvel Team-Up #78, courtesy of Bill Kunkel, Don Perlin & Frank Giacoia, ‘Claws!’ sees the webslinger and Wonder Man unite to fight hyper-evolving, yet increasingly bestial man-made monster The Griffin, a done-in-one palate-cleansing fight fest, after which an embarrassment of chronological proportions occurs…

When the series was originally published, MTU #79 featured a rather tasty pairing of the Amazing Arachnid with barbarian hot property Red Sonja in a brutal, time-bending battle with long-dead Hyborian sorcerer Kulan Gath. Unfortunately, the key word here is “property” and as Marvel did not at this publishing moment have rights to the “She-Devil with a Sword” that epic encounter has been embargoed for this book. Thus we rejoin the fun with #80 in itself a continuation of an earlier tag-team-up (seen in the last volume). Then & there Dr. Strange, Clea, Ms. Marvel/Carol Danvers & Spidey fully believed they had foiled a mage-murdering plot by Christian extremist Silver Dagger and Marie Laveau, Witch Queen of New Orleans.

Here & now in MTU #80, however, Chris Claremont, Mike Vosburg & Gene Day depict ‘A Sorcerer Possessed!’ as Strange finally succumbs to Laveau’s subtle, long-festering enchantment and turns into a werewolf in advance of the entire dimension falling prey to her demonic masters. With the wallcrawler, Clea and Wong unable to counter the encroaching cataclysm, salvation comes from a most unlikely source as Satana, Daughter of the Devil invites herself to the party for ‘Last Rites’ (inked by Steve Leialoha), spearheading a counterattack she does not expect or intend to survive…

Back in Marvel Team-Up #57 Claremont & Sal Buscema laid groundwork for a re-definition of superspy The Black Widow. It was the opening shot of an extended thriller embroiling Spider-Man in a devious and deadly espionage plot and resulted in the wallcrawler being saved from a lethal ambush by Natasha Romanoff. In the aftermath, he took reluctant possession of a strange statuette for her. In #82 (cover-dated June 1979) the scheme comes to fruition as Claremont, Sal B & Leialoha craft a 4-part, multi-operative conclusion that begins with Spidey saving Natasha from mere street thugs, but all is not as it seems…

‘No Way to Treat a Lady’ reveals that the lethal superspy has escaped capture and torture by retreating into a timid, ineffectual cover personality, so the hero must keep “schoolteacher Nancy Rushman” alive until he learns how and why. That task gets even harder after S.H.E.I.L.D.’s Strike Force – led by hot-headed wildcard La Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine – come mercilessly gunning for her…

The original (old/white) Nick Fury joins the fray in ‘Slaughter on 10th Avenue!’, “shooting” Spider-Man and capturing Nancy before discovering – after the webspinner steals her back – that his entire peacekeeping espionage organisation has been taken over by hidden death-dealing anarchist mastermind Viper. Now her deadly hench-thugs Silver Samurai and Boomerang are loose and seeking to “clean house”…

In #84 ‘Catch a Falling Hero’ reveals the purpose of that long-forgotten statuette, as Viper consequently targets Washington DC and President Jimmy Carter. Meanwhile Spider-Man and slowly recovering Nancy infiltrate the fatally-compromised flying fortress Helicarrier even as Fury calls in a clean pair of hands – belonging to occasional British asset Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu – for a deliberately distracting frontal assault that culminates in all-out war above the Capitol and the closest of close shave conclusions for all concerned in concluding chapter ‘The Woman Who Never Was!’

At this juncture the 31st century Guardians of the Galaxy were guests of The Avengers and resident in (or rather far above New York). However, before the time-lost titans finally departed for their own era again they injudiciously interacted with a few 20th century stars. MTU #86 (October 1979) reveals how undercover Guardians Starhawk, Nikki & Martinex stumbled over Spider-Man whilst attempting to eradicate history-threatening evidence of their existence. The main threat as delineated by Claremont & Bob McLeod comes from nefarious armaments company Deterrence Research Corporation who want to steal their colossal space station/timeship Drydock. The toughest  part of the mission is saving ambitious reporter “Rap Reynolds” from DRC’s super-flunkies Hammer and Anvil whilst preventing him from exposing the mission of the future heroes and publishing the ‘Story of the Year!’

Steven Grant, Gene Colan & Frank Springer then expose the webspinner and Black Panther to shady business practice in conglomerate Roxxon Oil’s latest scheme to acquire Wakanda’s vibranium. It begins by framing T’Challa for illegally renditioning a shady businessman on US soil and then sending in superpowered mercenary Hellrazor to save the poor entrepreneur and American prestige. Since Spider-Man has been an outraged observer from the start, his immediate intervention blunts ‘The Razor’s Edge!’ but greed never rests and more plans are afoot for another day…

Invisible “Girl” Susan Richards appears next, as MTU #88 – by Claremont, Sal Buscema & Eduardo Barreto – depicts a fighting mad mother on a rampage in ‘A Child is Waiting’. When toddler Franklin Richards is kidnapped, parvenue plunderers “the Hole in the Wall gang” think they can get rich by safely having superheroes steal from established rivals like Boss Morgan of Harlem and The Maggia. Sadly, with Spider-Man and NYPD detective Jean DeWolff secretly aiding Sue, they haven’t got a chance in hell…

Mutant madness erupts in Marvel Team-Up #89 as Claremont, Michael Nasser/Netzer, Rich Buckler & Josef Rubinstein choreograph action extravaganza ‘Shoot-Out over Center Ring!’ as the webspinner and former circus acrobat Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler reunite and combine against anarchic showman-hitman Arcade and obsessed assassin Cutthroat in a vengeance-fuelled Big Top thriller before #90 unites brainy acrobatic heroes Spider-Man and The Beast in frantic battle against merciless mercenary Killer Shrike and disembodied maniac Modular Man. When their raid of a science fair and purloining of a device that might eradicate the entire city with microwaves triggers countdown thriller  ‘Death on the Air’ (Grant, Vosburg & McLeod) our embattled champions are barely able to prevent catastrophe… and only at tragic cost…

The regular monthly pairings pause here but a brace of extra-sized bouts remain to enjoy, beginning with Marvel Team-Up Annual #2, wherein Claremont, Sal Buscema, Alan Kupperburg & Jack Abel pair Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk against Soviet super-agents Crimson Dynamo, Darkstar & Vanguard in Cold Wat chiller ‘Murder in Cathedral Canyon!’ The Russians want US scientist Daniel Ironwood to build an antimatter bomb and think kidnapping his daughter Cissy is the best way to achieve their aims, Sadly, she’s Peter Parker’s current girlfriend…

Elsewhere, fugitive Bruce Banner is seized/recruited by KGB Colonel Vahzin. He needs an exotic ordnance expert to stop rogue element Nikolai Kutzov and his super-powered dupes blowing up the world, and it’s extremely fortuitous that his ally can become the strongest being on Earth. All the elements are in play at a distant beauty spot when the wallcrawler meets the Jade Juggernaut, but although they do a save the world, the cost is far too high…

Less dramatic but just as bombastic, the fun concludes with Marvel Treasury Edition #25 (1980) and opportunistic tie-in ‘Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk at the 1980 Winter Olympics’: an utterly bonkers banding together of Marvel’s then top TV sensations to stop subterranean tyrants The Mole Man and Kala, Queen of the Netherworld, hosts of moloids, a band of fiery Lava Men and mutant troublemakers ‘The Outcasts’ sabotaging the games by kidnapping athletes…

The entire package comes courtesy of scripters Bill Mantlo, Steven Grant & Mark Gruenwald with Herb Trimpe & Bruce Patterson scoring big on interior art and Al Milgrom, Jack Abel, Bill Sienkiewicz & Patterson handling the covers.

The Bonus material this time includes the gallery of covers by Milgrom, Buckler, Leialoha, McLeod, Sienkiewicz, Abel & Patterson, as well plentiful original art pages by Vosburg, Leialoha,, Buscema, Milgrom; the covers for Marvel Treasury Edition # 22 (1979, by Bob Budiansky & Je Sinnott); the covers from Marvel Tales #242 & 244 by Marshall Rogers August and October 1990.

These tales are generally superb examples of Marvel’s Second Wave; Bronze Age yarns fans will find little to complain about. Although not perhaps a book for casual or more maturely-oriented readers there’s lots of fun on hand and young readers – or Marvel Cinema-goers – will have a blast, so why not consider this tome for your “Must-Have” library?
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1880, komics genius and Krazy Kat Kreator George Herriman was born, followed by comics pioneer and packager Jerry Iger in 1903; African-American political cartoonist Chester Commodore in 1914; comic book star artist Bob Brown (Tomahawk, Batman, Space Ranger, Daredevil, Superboy, Avengers, Challengers of the Unknown) in 1915 and Silver/Bronze Age letterer Shelly Leferman in 1922. Post-war comics creators born today include Britain’s unique Kevin O’Neill (Ro-Busters, ABC Warriors, Captain Klep, Nemesis the Warlock, Metalzoic, Marshal Law, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) in 1953; writer Daniel G. Chichester (Daredevil, Batman, Dr. Zero, Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, Terror Inc.) in 1964; artist animator Duncan Rouleau (Venom, X-Factor, Metal Men, Ben 10, The Nightmarist) in 1965 and Spanish illustrator Alberto Jimenez Albuquerque (Les Fugitifs de l’Ombre, Inca, Skull Kickers, Letter 44, Mystery Girl, Generation X) in 1982.

This day in 2011 German cartoonist Bernhard-Viktor Christoph-Carl von Bülow (Wum, Odipussi, Pappa Ante Portas) died.

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Master of Kung Fu Epic Collection volume 2: Fight Without Pity


By Doug Moench, Paul Gulacy, Sal Buscema, Keith Pollard, Jim Craig, Dan Adkins, Jack Abel, Pablo Marcos, Mike Esposito, Sal Trapani, John Tartaglione, Duffy Vohland, Tom Sutton & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0135-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times Comic books have always operated within outworld popular trends and fashions – just look at what got published whenever westerns or science fiction dominated on TV – so when the ancient philosophy and discipline of Kung Fu made its mark on western entertainment, it wasn’t long before all those kicks and punches found their way onto four-colour pages of America’s periodicals. Early starter Charlton Comics added Yang and House of Yang to their pioneering Judo Joe title and Frank McLaughlin’s Judomaster; DC debuted Richard Dragon and rebooted Karate Kid; Atlas/Seaboard opened (and as quickly closed again) The Hands of the Dragon and Marvel converted an already in-development proposed literary adaptation into an ongoing saga about a villain’s son…

A month after it launched, a second orient-inspired hero debuted with Iron Fist: combining combat philosophy, high fantasy and magical forces with a proper superhero mask and costume…

Although largely retrofitted for modern times, inspirational Master of Kung Fu star Shang-Chi originated with lots of tricky baggage. He kicked off in the autumn of 1973, cashing in on the contemporary West’s craze for Eastern philosophy and martial arts action that had already generated an avalanche of “Chop Sockey” movies and a controversial TV sensation entitled Kung Fu. You may recall that the lead in that cowboy-set saga was a half-Chinese Shaolin monk, played – after much publicised legal and industry agitation – by a white actor…

At Marvel, no one at that time particularly griped about the fact that Shang-Chi was designed by editor Roy Thomas and artisans Steve Englehart, Jim Starlin & Al Milgrom as a naive innocent (also half Chinese, with an American mother) thrown into tumultuous modern society as a rebellious yet involved counterpoint to his father: an insidious scheming fiend intent on global domination. Back then, securing rights to a major literary property and wrapping new comics in it was an established practise. It had worked spectacularly with Conan the Barbarian and horror stars Dracula and The Monster of Frankenstein. The same process also brilliantly informed seminal science fiction icon Killraven in War of the Worlds and plenty more…

These days we comics apologists keep saying “it was a different era”, but I genuinely don’t think anyone in the editorial office paused for a moment of second thoughts when their new Kung Fu book secured the use of one of literature’s greatest villains as a major player. Special Marvel Edition #15 (cover-dated December 1973) launched to great success, with Fu Manchu an overarching villain already a global personification of infamy.

Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward AKA Sax Rohmer’s ultimate embodiment of patronising mistrust and racist suspicion had been hugely popular since 1913’s The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu. The prime archetype for mad scientists and remorseless “Yellow Peril” threatening civilization, the character spread to stage, screen, airwaves and comics (even appropriating the cover of Detective Comics #1, heralding an interior series that ran until #28), but most importantly, became the visual affirmation and conceptual basis for countless evil “Asiatics”, “Orientals” and “Celestials” dominating popular fiction ever since. In recent years we’ve all (well, mostly all) acknowledged past iniquities and Shang-Chi has been fully reimagined, with that paternal link downplayed and ultimately abandoned – as much for licensing laws as social justice. And cultural respect, naturally…

Like most comics companies, Marvel employed plenty of “Yellow Peril” knock-offs and personifications – including Wong Chu; Plan Tzu (AKA the Yellow and latterly Golden, Claw); Huang Zhu; Silver Samurai; Doctor Sun, ad infinitum: all birds of another colour that are still nastily pejorative shades of saffron. Perhaps this is just my white guilt and fanboy shame talking. These stories, crafted by Marvel’s employees were – and remain – some of the best action comics you’ll ever encounter, but never forget what they’re actually about -distrust of the “other”. Without making excuses, I should also state that despite the casual racism suggested by legions of outrageously exotic, inscrutable lemon-hued bad guys haunting this series at every level, Master of Kung Fu did sensitively address issues of race and honestly attempt to share non-Christian philosophies and thought whilst – most importantly – offering potently powerful role models to kids of Asian origins. So at least there’s that…

Packed with stunning exotic adventure and compellingly convincing drama, this collection gathers Master of Kung Fu #29-53 and Master of Kung Fu Annual #1 (spanning June 1975 to August 1977). Written entirely by Doug Moench and primarily showcasing the developing graphic realism of Paul Gulacy, surrendering to his love of spy fiction it opens without a preamble in the middle of a mighty struggle…

Previously: the series inauspiciously launched in bimonthly reprint title Special Marvel Edition as The Hands of Shang Chi: Master of Kung Fu, but by the third issue (April 1974) became exclusively his. The origin episode introduced a vibrant, brilliant young man raised in utter isolation in the style and manner of imperial China. Reared by monks and savants, the boy was the result of a match between a physically perfect American woman and “misunderstood patriot” Fu Manchu. The boy was raised to accept that his sire was a noble hero unfairly hunted and slandered by corrupt western governments and the communist usurpers now blasphemously controlling the world’s greatest empire.

Fu’s son was schooled to respect and obey his father, trained to perfection in martial arts and designed as the ultimate warrior servant: the doctor’s devoted personal weapon against lifelong enemies Sir Dennis Nayland Smith and Doctor Petrie.

On reaching maturity, Shang – whose name means “the rising and advancing of a spirit” – was despatched to execute Petrie. However, after the obedient weapon completed his mission, he subsequently questions his entire life and the worldly benefit of killing an elderly, frail, already dying man. An emotional confrontation with Nayland Smith (who endured daily agonies from being maimed at the Devil Doctor’s command) further rattled the boy’s resolve and eventually Shang’s sublime education demanded he reassess everything his father had taught him…

After invading the villain’s New York citadel and crushing an army of freaks and monsters, Shang Chi faced his father and rejected all he stood for. The battle lines of an epic family struggle had been drawn. Banished from his cloistered childhood home and environs, the philosophically minded innocent adapted rapidly to the constant violence of the modern world. eventually accepting shelter with Nayland Smith in return for (espionage) services rendered…

Now, a turning point in his rising and advancement comes in MOKF #29 as Shang finds reason to abandon his pacifistic aspirations and get involved in western affairs after seeing firsthand the harm drugs cause, joining Nayland Smith’s team to cripple the drug trade. The unwelcome allies include veteran heavy Blackjack Tarr, and Petrie – not dead at Shang’s hand after all and subsequently rescued from his father’s clutches – working with British agent Clive Reston. He is, by his own account, a descendent of a famed “Consulting Detective” and a Double-0 operative “on Her Majesty’s Secret Service”)

The entire series was slowly morphing into a James Bond pastiche and with this mission to end effetely urbane drug dealer turned nuclear terrorist Carlton Velcro, illustrator Gulacy began a ballistic visual progression that would make him one of most watched and admired artists of the era as he referenced movie star and set pieces throughout the saga.

‘The Crystal Connection’ begins with Reston undercover at Velcro’s French coast fortress, playing heroin buyer Mr Blue until Shang & Tarr can infiltrate and secure the dope stocks. No one expected such massive defences; an army of killers led by deadly assassin Razor-Fist and a nuclear arsenal hidden below ‘A Gulf of Lions’ (#30, inked by Dan Adkins), with the pitched battle ranging far and wide as Razor Fist’s defeat leads to Shang clashing with whip-wielding panther woman Pavane before a truly explosive conclusion in ‘Snowbuster’…

‘Assault on an Angry Sea!’ was a hasty fill-in illustrated by Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito as Shang returns to London by ship and is drawn into the hunt for an undercover courier who is unaware that counteragents intend to intercept and end them. In this traditional mystery yarn, Chi finds too many suspects and can’t tell friend from foe from target, but triumphs nonetheless, before MOKF #33 resumes the Moench/Gulacy filmic fun-fest with ‘Wicked Messenger of Madness!’ This introduces seductive, conflicted agent Leiko Wu as both romantic interest and wedge between Shang Chi and his colleagues, and sees a robotic mannequin fail to assassinate Nayland Smith thanks to martial arts mastery but opens the door to a complex web of lies, double-dealing, insane artificial intelligences and a doomsday weapon.

The robot was a literal tool of missing agent Simon Bretnor, revealed far too late as narcissistic hired killer and would-be world conqueror Mordillo, who wants a space weapon using the ozone layer and sunlight to ravage sites on Earth. The plans for it are encoded in Wu’s brain, but by the time she realises her current boyfriend Bretnor is the bad guy, Leiko’s his prisoner on a manically murderous version of Fantasy Island…

As Shang & Reston race to the madly modified atoll-turned-playground-of-peril, Wu attempts to reason with the crazed Mordillo, but gets more sense from his Pinocchio-like AI robot sidekick Brynocki, who is trying to mediate a ‘Cyclone at the Center of a Madman’s Crown!’ She does, however, learn that her captor had a connection to Pavane and Velcro and now holds Chi responsible for a huge loss of face and fortune. Another spectacular conclusion comes when maniac and martial artist clash in the skies above the island as the villain briefly unleashes his stolen Solar Chute to rain destruction down on the island in ‘Death-Hand and the Sun of Mordillo’…

What feels like a reformatted leftover from the Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu era follows in #36 & 37 (January & February 1976, by Moench, Keith Pollard & Sal Trapani) with Shang entering a magical maze of mystery. He seeks to defend from ninjas and their leader Darkstrider a carnival of hapless freaks voluntarily living in ‘Cages of Myth, Menagerie of Mirrors!’ but is initially hard-pressed saving anyone from the villain who subtly weaves a ‘Web of Dark Death!’ Moench, Pollard, John Tartaglione & Duffy Vohland continue fantasy themes in Master of Kung Fu Annual #1 during a team-up with fellow transplanted warrior Iron Fist. Here Danny Rand and Shang are tricked into entering another dimension to invade ‘The Fortress of S’ahra Sharn!’ The culprit is trickster wizard Quan-St’ar, whose true goal is the destruction of immortal city K’un-Lun, but he makes one huge mistake…

At their creative peak Moench & Gulacy started an epic, ambitious, truly sophisticated and industry-changing run in MOKF #38 (March 1976). Here Shang Chi reluctantly accepts a rescue mission to extract an agent from Hong Kong, meeting lies, passion, disinformation and deadly love in ‘Cat’. Nayland Smith has again orchestrated events to satisfy his own agenda and saving Julia leads Chi into a ‘Fight Without Pity’ against an opponent who might well be his superior in combat ability… and also holds the moral high ground.

The landmark clash is simply prologue to an extended, character driven serial that opens at ‘The Murder Agency’ (#40 with Gulacy inking himself) as on-fire creators pioneer storytelling techniques later seen in Christopher Nolan’s Memento. A traitor in British Intelligence is murdering agents and the information Nayland Smith wanted from Julia should have given them vital advantage. However, as Shang again quits all “games of death and deceit” he, Tarr & Leiko Wu are attacked by (apparent) Chinese agents masquerading as “Oriental Expediters”.

After helping to defeat the attackers, Wu leaves on a similar extraction mission and suggests that the embattled operatives re-enlist disgraced former agent/current drunken sot James Larner. When they try, he’s got a new pal also boozing himself to death: lovelorn abandoned Clive Reston. That’s when another heavily-armed gang burst in guns blazing, laying down their lives simply to bait a trap the agents can’t afford to avoid…

With the spy saga solidly underway, everything suddenly screeched to a halt as a deadline crunch necessitated another fill-in moment, with Moench, Sal B & Esposito revealing a childhood moment in ‘Slain in Secrecy, and by Illusion!’ Here Shang recalls reluctant clashes with childhood companion M’nai – AKA Si Fan super-assassin Midnight – to prove Fu Manchu’s hallowed home harboured a thief and traitor…

Inked by Tom Sutton, the main event resumes in #42 in a welter of flashbacks, crosscuts and flash forwards as ‘The Clock of Shattered Time’ introduces a mechanically augmented, electrically-enhanced martial arts assassin who almost kills Chi. Shock-Wave has a strong but top-secret connection to Nayland Smith and nearly succeeds in blowing up the spy chief too…

As the MI5 mole and Shock-Wave set more bombs, MOKF #43 sees a changed and vengeful Shang win a rematch with the amplified assassin in ‘A Flash of Purple Sparks’. As Wu escorted her own living package across Europe with the Oriental Expediters chasing them all the way to an MI5 safehouse in Switzerland, Shang was waiting, but his triumph was short-lived as Leiko’s charge revealed who was behind all the deaths – and the Oriental Expediter organisation – and that, in London. another of his allies had fallen…

The drama kicked into overdrive with a long-anticipated event. Cover-dated September 1976, #44 heralded ‘The Return of Fu Manchu, Prelude: “Golden Daggers (A Death Run)”’ with the scattered British agents heading for home under a hail of gunfire and assorted ambushes. Crucially revealed now is how the Devil Doctor’s recalcitrant first-born Fah Lo Suee is at war with their father for control of his empire…

She originally debuted in third novel The Si-Fan Mysteries /The Hand of Fu-Manchu in 1917 (or fourth outing The Daughter of Fu-Manchu in 1931, depending on who you ask) and became a minor character here in Master of Kung Fu #26, but now steps into the full spotlight after Nayland Smith is finally downed… by his most trusted ally! On the back foot and losing, Fah Lo Suee seeks alliances and her brother’s aid in ‘Part One (Shang Chi): “The Death Seed!”’ while Fu Manchu is occupied with resurrecting his founding ancestor to be his new – loyal – son/enforcer.

In London, Larner saves Nayland Smith even as Reston, Shang & Wu reunite and rebuff the “daughter of the Devil”… and that’s when Clive makes a big mistake and is taken by Fah Lo Suee. Inked by Pablo Marcos, ‘Part Two (Clive Reston): “The Spider Spell!”’ splits attention between the British agent’s trial and eventual triumph and Fu resurrecting legendary warlord Shaka Kharn, before ‘Part Three (Leiko Wu): “Phantom Sand”’ details how she & Shang infiltrate a fantastic city at the north pole in advance of what’s left of the team joining them to destroy the citadel. Before that, though, the final clash between father and daughter again confirms the total mastery of the malevolent mandarin…

The true appalling scope of the Devil Doctor’s ambitions are exposed in ‘Part Four (Black Jack Tarr): “City in the Top of the World”’ as the schemer prepares to leave Earth and cull its population by 90%! Meanwhile Shang duels revived revenant Shaka Kharn, and battles his way aboard his sire’s space shuttle even as his companions destroy the base at the cost of another valiant soul in ‘Part Five (Sir Dennis Nayland Smith): “The Affair of the Agent Who Died!”’ The astounding saga – and Gulacy’s interior involvement – ends with #50 as the villain speaks for himself with his plans and perhaps his over-extended life ended for real in ‘Part Six (Fu Manchu): “The Dreamslayer!”’

Master of Kung Fu #51 saw Jim Craig join Moench & Marcos, taking over pencil duties for ‘Epilogue: “Brass and Blackness!” (A Death Move!!)’ infilling details of interments and getting back to Earth where our unhappy reluctant warrior again quits the spy world. The final tale here (#52, May 1977) is one more fill-in as Moench & Pollard reintroduce Groucho Marx knock-off Rufus T. Hackstabber who invites our baffled battler to ‘A Night at the 1001 Nights!’ in search of family (such as reprobate/WC Fields analogue Quigley J. Warmflash); riches and safety from mercenaries led by Si-Fan general Tiger-Claw.

Ernie Chan’s cover to MOKF #53 (which reprinted #20) leads into an bonus section including Gil Kane & Adkins’ covers to Savage Fists of Kung Fu tabloid collector’s edition; house ads: 10 pages of original art plus unused and modified covers. The published ones throughout were crafted by Kane, Adkins, Sal Buscema, Rich Buckler, Dave Cockrum, Marie Severin, Chan, Gulacy, John Romita Jr., Ron Wilson & Jack Abel, Al Milgrom, Esposito, Joe Sinnott, Frank Giacoia and Klaus Janson.

In recent years, Shang Chi’s backstory has been adapted and altered. His dad was understandably reinvented as Zheng Zu, Mr. Han, Chang Hu, Wang Yu-Seng and The Devil Doctor, so, depending on your attitude, you have the ultimate choice and sanction of not buying or reading this material. If you do – with eyes wide open and fully acknowledging that the past is another place that we can and should now consign to history – your comics appreciation faculties will see some amazing stories incredibly well illustrated: ranking amongst the most exciting, visually beguiling and enjoyable in Marvel’s canon.
© 2018 MARVEL.

Today in 1987 the final issue of British toddlers weekly Playhour was published, ending a 1700+ run that had commenced on 16th October 1954, whilst on this day back in 1982 cartoonist and master of minimalism Ernie Bushmiller (Mac the Manager, Fritzi Ritz, Nancy) died.

The day saw the birth of Golden Age Superman artist Ed Dobrotka in 1917; Indian cartoonist Pran Kumar Sharma (Billoo, Chacha Chaudhary) in 1938; realist action artist Paul Gulacy (Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species, Master of Kung Fu, Batman: Prey, Black Widow, Slash Maraud, Six From Sirius, Sci-Spy, James Bond 007) in 1953; writer/Conspiracy historian Lamar Waldron (Lightrunner, M.I.C.R.A.: Mind Controlled Remote Automaton) in 1954; artist Terry Shoemaker (X-Men, Spellbound, Legion of Super-Heroes) in 1960 and “Bad Grrrl” artist Jim Balent (Catwoman, Purgatori, Vampirella, Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose) in 1963. Also blowing out candles today are Iron Man, XO Manowar, Elektra & Wolverine artist Sean Chen and quite rude Norwegian cartoonist Frode Øverli (Pondus, Riskhospitalet, Rutetid, Deep Shit Junkies) – both in 1968, and artists David Nakayama (City of Heroes, Big Hero Six, Proximity) in 1978 and Clay Mann (Magneto: Not a Hero, X-Men: Legacy, XO Manowar, Gambit, Heroes in Crisis) in 1990.