Category: Graphic Novels

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Superman: The Man of Steel volume 1


By John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, Jerry Ordway, Dick Giordano, Terry Austin, Mike Machlan, Karl Kesel & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-0491-3 (HB/Digital edition)

In 1985 when DC Comics decided to rationalise, reconstruct and reinvigorate their continuity with Crisis on Infinite Earths they used the event to simultaneously regenerate their key properties at the same time. The biggest gun they had was Superman and it’s hard to argue that the change was not before time.

The big guy was in a bit of a slump, but he’d weathered those before. So how could a root and branch retooling be anything but a pathetic marketing ploy that would alienate the real fans for a few fly-by-night Johnny-come-latelies who would jump ship as soon as the next fad surfaced? This new Superman was going to suck…

They couldn’t have been more wrong.

The public furore began with all DC’s Superman titles being “cancelled” (actually suspended) for three months, and yes, that did make the real-world media sit-up and take notice of the character everybody thought they knew for the first time in decades. However, there was method in this seeming corporate madness.

The missing mainstays were replaced by a 6-part miniseries running from October to December 1986. Entitled Man of Steel, it was written and drawn by Marvel’s mainstream superstar John Byrne and inked by venerated veteran Dick Giordano.

The bold manoeuvre was a huge and instant success. So much so that when it was first collected as a stand-alone compilation album in 1991, it became one of comics’ premiere “break-out” hits in a new format that would eventually become the industry standard for reaching mass readerships. Nowadays few people buy the periodical pamphlets but almost everybody has read a graphic novel…

From that overwhelming start the Action Ace seamlessly returned to his suspended comic book homes, enjoying the addition of a third monthly title which premiered that same month.

Superman, Adventures of Superman, and Action Comics (which acted as a fan-pleasing team-up book guest-starring other favourites of the DC Universe, in the manner of the cancelled DC Comics Presents) were instant best-sellers.

So successful was the relaunch that by the early 1990’s Superman would be carrying four monthly titles as well as Specials, Annuals, guest shots and regular appearances in titles such as Justice League.

Quite a turnaround from the earlier heydays of the Man of Steel when editors were frantic about never overexposing their meal-ticket.

In Superman’s 85th year of more-or-less consecutive and continuous publication, this collection begins with the six self-contained stories from key points in Superman’s career, newly readjusted for contemporary consumption in the wake of that aforementioned worlds-shattering Crisis.

Spanning to cover-dates October 1986 to June 1987 and re-presenting The Man of Steel #1-6, Superman #1-4, Action #584-587 and Adventures of Superman #424-428 plus relevant pages from Who’s Who: Update ‘87 #1, 3, 4 this initial herculean compilation opens with the a reprinting of Byrne’s introduction from the 1991 collection ‘Superman: A Personal View’ before the revelations unfold…

Newsstands and comic stores on July 10th 1986 welcomed a startlingly new and bleakly dystopian Krypton in #1 as ‘Prologue: From Out of the Green Dawn…’ followed the child’s voyage in a self-propelled birthing matrix to a primitive world.

Discovered by childless couple Jonathan and Martha Kent, the alien foundling spends his years growing secretly in Smallville, indistinguishable from other earthlings until strange abilities begin to gradually manifest and hint at ‘The Secret’…

Eighteen years after his arrival, the boy learns of his extraterrestrial origins and leaves home to wander the world. Clark Kent eventually settles in Metropolis and we get a rapid re-education of what is and isn’t canonical as he performs his first public super-exploit, meets with Lois Lane, joins the Daily Planet and gets an identity-obscuring costume in ‘The Exposure’ and ‘Epilogue: The Super-Hero’…

Lois takes centre-stage for the second issue, scheming and manipulating to secure the first in-depth interview with the new hero before losing out to neophyte colleague Kent whose first big scoop becomes ‘The Story of the Century!’

The third chapter recounts the Metropolis Marvel’s first meeting with Batman as ‘One Night in Gotham City…’ reveals a fractious and reluctant team-up to capture murdering thief Magpie. The unsatisfactory encounter sees the heroes part warily, not knowing if they will become friends or foes…

‘Enemy Mine…’ in MoS #4 expands and redefines the new Lex Luthor: a genius, multi-billionaire industrialist who was the most powerful man in Metropolis until the Caped Crime-buster appeared. When the tycoon overreaches himself in trying to suborn the hero with cash, he is publicly humiliated and swears vengeance and eternal enmity…

By the time of ‘The Mirror, Crack’d…’ in #5, Luthor is Superman’s greatest foe – albeit one who scrupulously maintains a veneer of respectability and plausible deniability. Here, Luthor’s clandestine attempt to clone his own Man of Tomorrow results in a monstrous flawed duplicate dubbed Bizarro and introduces Lois’ sister Lucy to play hapless victim in a moving tale of triumph and tragedy.

The reimagination concludes with ‘The Haunting’ as a troubled Clark/Superman returns to Smallville. Reuniting with childhood sweetheart Lana Lang – who shares his secrets and knows as much as he of his alien origins – the strange visitor finally learns of his Kryptonian origins and heritage when the long-hidden birthing matrix projects a recorded message from his long-dead parents and details their hopes and plans for him…

The shock and reaction of his foster family only affirms his dedication and connection to humanity…

John Byrne was a controversial choice at the time, but he magnificently recaptured the exuberant excitement and visually compelling, socially aware innovation which informed and galvanised Jerry Seigel & Joe Shuster’s inspired creation. Man of Steel granted a new generation the same kind of intoxicating four-colour fantasy that was the original Superman, and made it possible to be a fan again, no matter your age or prejudice. Superman had always been great, but Byrne had once again made him thrilling. Rivetingly so.

The never-ending battle recommenced on a monthly schedule with Superman volume 2 #1, where Byrne & Terry Austin reveal a ‘Heart of Stone’: presenting a new Metallo as thug John Corben is remade as a Terminator-style cyborg with a human brain and a Kryptonite heart by a deranged xenophobic scientist. The transition culminates in a deadly battle and baffling mystery portending big troubles to come. The focus then shifts to Action #584 and ‘Squatter!’ (by Byrne & Giordano) as a body-snatching mental force suborns the Metropolis Marvel and necessitates a team-up with the Teen Titans. The accent is predominantly on breakneck pace and all-out costumed conflict here…

Superman #2 (by Byrne & Austin) then describes ‘The Secret Revealed!’ as modern-day robber baron Luthor makes the biggest mistake of his life after kidnapping and torturing Kent’s first girlfriend Lana Lang…

This is followed by Marv Wolfman & Jerry Ordway’s ‘Man O’War!’ and ‘Going the Gauntlet’ (Adventures of Superman #424 & 425, and inked by Mike Machlan). The drama introduces tragic Dr. Emil Hamilton and rival reporter Cat Grant to the mythology as the Action Ace battles high-tech terrorists sponsored by rogue state Qurac and proves to be no respecter of international boundaries like his pre-Crisis counterpart…

These politically and socially aware dramas would become a truer and more lasting template for the modern Man of Tomorrow after Byrne’s eventual retirement from the character…

The Phantom Stranger guests in a battle against a deadly manifestation of unquiet spirits in ‘And the Graves Give Up Their Dead…’ (Byrne & Giordano, Action #585) before the next three chapters address the Superman segment of multi-part crossover event Legends.

Byrne & Austin’s Superman #3 began with ‘Legends of the Darkside!’, as Clark Kent is abducted to Apokolips by its evil master. He escapes to become a rebel leader of the lowly “Hunger Dogs” in Adventures… #426, wherein Wolfman, Ordway & Machlan give us an amnesiac Superman on Apokolips rising ‘From the Dregs’ before the rousing yarn concludes with ‘The Champion!’ as Action Comics #586 (Byrne & Giordano) reintroduces Jack Kirby’s New Gods post-Crisis icons Orion and Lightray, just in time for a blistering battle royale beyond the stars between the Man of Steel and deadly Darkseid…

Once the cosmic dust settled, it was back to the regular Never-Ending Battle, with Superman #4 introducing deranged lone gunman ‘Bloodsport!’ courtesy of Byrne & inker Karl Kesel. The merciless shooter is more than just crazy, however: some hidden genius has given him the ability to manifest wonder weapons from thin air and he never runs out of ammo…

Wolfman & Ordway generally concentrated on longer, more suspensefully dramatic character-based tales. Adventures of Superman #427-428 (cover-dated April & May 1987) took the Man of Tomorrow on a punishing visit to rogue state Qurac and an encounter with hidden alien telepaths The Circle: a visceral and beautiful tale of un-realpolitik. ‘Mind Games’ and ‘Personal Best’ combine a much more relevant, realistic slant with lots of character sub-plots featuring assorted staff and family of the Daily Planet.

The story portion of this first volume concludes with Byrne & Giordano back in Action (#587), crafting spectacle, thrills and instant gratification with ‘Cityscape!’ by teaming Superman with Jack Kirby’s Etrigan the Demon. The magic happens when sorceress Morgaine Le Fay seeks to become immortal by warping time itself…

Augmenting the Costumed Dramas are more recovered text commentaries and appreciations from earlier collections: specifically Ray Bradbury’s ‘Why Superman? Why Today?’ (1991), Wolfman’s ‘Reinventing the Wheel’ (2003) and Ordway’s ‘The Adventures of Superman’ from 2004. These are followed by the covers of earlier Superman: The Man of Steel compendia – all by Ordway – and pages taken from supplemental comics reading tool Who’s Who: Update ‘87.

Plucked from issues #1, 3, 4 are Byrne’s Amazing Grace, Bizarro, Bloodsport, Host, Lex Luthor, Krypton and Kryptonite, Lois Lane, Magpie and Metallo before a big bold pin-up of the Man of Steel ends the fun for now.

The back-to-basics approach successfully lured many readers to – and back to – the Superman franchise, but the sheer quality of the stories and art are what convinced them to stay. Such cracking, clear-cut superhero exploits are a high point in the Action Ace’s decades-long career, and these collections are the best way to enjoy one of the most impressive reinventions of the ultimate comic-book icon.
© 1986, 1987, 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Fann Club: Batman Squad – the Justiest Justice of All


By Jim Benton (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-0889-8 (PB/Digital edition)

In recent years DC has opened up its vast and comprehensive shared superhero universe: generating Original Graphic Novels featuring its many stars in stand-alone adventures specifically tailored for kids and also that tricky demographic so sadly misnamed Young Adult. To date, results have been rather hit or miss, but when they’re good, they are very good indeed…

Another sublime example of the process at its best is this cheery elegy to the joys of crimefighting as channelled through the pristine but so-blinkered purview and perceptions of a youngster who believes in the process with all he’s got…

Ernest Fann is a little kid with a big imagination and a colossal passion. This drive has made him an absolute expert on Superheroes, Vengeance, Justice and The Batman, and that status comes with a necessary burden.

There is anxiety, impatience and even a motivating tragic loss – when something chewed his precious collectors’ item socks. His life is troubled by flashbacks and his sleep by the oddest dreams. It’s a mystery even his dog Westy can’t explain, whilst the neighbours’ kid and babysitter Harriet are completely oblivious to his inner life and secret…

Aware at he is probably the World’s Second Greatest Detective, he swears to share his gifts and the way of the Batman by founding… a fan club.

When willing recruits drawn by his cunning outreach arrive, he clothes them in the costumes he made and code names the (completely anonymous) strangers Night Terrier, Nightstand and Eyeshadow. He, of course, is the mighty Gerbilwing and Evil has never been more scared…

With his Batman Squad equipped it’s ‘Time to Begin: Fanning the Flames’ as their training montage shares secrets – like learning how to scowl and stand mysteriously – before going ‘On Patrol’ to note all the wickedness and mystery besetting the neighbourhood. All those little clues add up to trouble and before long Gerbilwing & Co. are unleashed when they intercept a bank robbery and uncover the true source of all the strange events…

Jim Benton began his illustration work making up crazy characters in a T-Shirt shop and designing greetings cards. Born in 1960, he’d grown up in Birmingham, Michigan before studying Fine Arts at Western Michigan University.

Tirelessly earning a living exercising his creativity, he started self-promoting those weird funny things he’d dreamed up and soon was raking in the dosh from properties such as Dear Dumb Diary, Dog of Glee, Franny K. Stein, Just Jimmy, Just Plain Mean, Sweetypuss, The Misters, Meany Doodles, Vampy Doodles, Kissy Doodles, jOkObo and It’s Happy Bunny via a variety of magazines and other venue…

His gags, jests and japes are delivered in a huge variety of styles and manners: each perfectly in accord with whatever sick, sweet, clever, sentimental, whimsical or just plain strange content each idea demanded, and his SpyDogs effortlessly made the jump to kids’ animated TV success.

He seamlessly segued into best-selling cartoon books (those are the best kind) such as Man, I Hate Cursive, Clyde, Catwad, Jop and Blip Wanna Know, Dog Butts and Love. And Stuff Like That. (And Cats) and Attack of the Stuff. It’ been 10 minutes since I started typing this, so there might be a few more published since then…

Perfectly capturing the wonder of childhood and sheer force of a kid’s unbridled imagination, Fann Club: Batman Squad is hilarious with a huge amount of heart and empathy and literally cloaked in the moody charisma of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight. The combination is utterly irresistible.

Also include is a teaser preview of ‘Young Alfred: Pain in the Butler’, but that’s not the point and can wait for its own review. Here you just need to swear your oath, kit up in your own justice gear and join The Bat Squad ASAP.

Tell them Gerbilwing said it was okay and Eyeshadow would be there to keep things safe…
© 20223 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Fann Club: Batman Squad will be published on June 6th 2023 and is available for pre-order now.

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Action Heroes Archive volume 1: Captain Atom & volume 2: Captain Atom, Blue Beetle & The Question


By Steve Ditko, Joe Gill, Gary Friedrich, Dave Kaler, Steve Skeates, Rocke Mastroserio, Frank McLaughlin, Al Milgrom, Roger Stern, John Byrne, Michael Uslan, Alex Toth, and various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0302-3 (HB vol. 1) 978-1-4012-1346-6 (HB vol. 2)

Clearly I’m cashing in on the pre-release hype around a new DC Cinema blockbuster here, but I take honest refuge and some comfort in the fact that these books and the stories they contain are actually germane as well as being some of the best Silver Age comics ever crafted… 

Despite being dead – and so very much missed – Steve Ditko remains comics’ most unique stylist. Love him or hate him, you can’t mistake his work for anyone else’s. His career began in the early 1950s and, depending on whether you’re a superhero fan or prefer deeper, more challenging experimental work, peaked in either the mid-1960s or 1970s.

Leaving the Avenging World, Mr. A and his other philosophically-derived creations for another time, the superhero crowd should heartily celebrate and clamour for new editions of these deluxe collections of the first costumed do-gooder that Ditko worked on. Although I’m a huge fan of his linework – which is always best served by monochrome printing – the crisp, sharp colour of these Archive editions is still much better than the appalling reproduction on bog-paper that first displayed Charlton Comics’ Atomic Ace and latterly the Bug Bombshell to the kids of Commie-obsessed America.

As discussed in the Foreword by historian and Ditko-expert Blake Bell, Action Heroes Archive volume 1: Captain Atom reveals – in all the full-on, simplistic furore of a 1950s B-Movie – how a Cold War-obsessed America copes with a modern-day miracle just as the concept of costumed superheroes was being reimagined…

With covers by Ditko and/or Mastroserio, this tome amasses pertinent tales from Space Adventures #33-40 & 42 (spanning cover-dates March 1960 to October 1961), augmented by the contents of the revived, solo-starring Captain Atom #78-82, as published for December 1965 through September 1966.

In those simpler times the short, terse adventures of Captain Atom seemed somehow more telling than the innovative yet rather anodyne DC fare, whilst Marvel was still pushing romances, westerns and monsters in underpants, explorers in pith helmets and citizen scientists with labs in their garden sheds. Their particular heroic revolution was still months away even though Steve Ditko was producing top-flight work for both companies.

Nevertheless, Ditko’s hero was different and we few who read him all knew it….

As scripted by Jo Gill and predating Fantastic Four #1 by more than 18 months, Space Adventures #33 even cover-featured the new sensation-in-waiting as ‘Introducing Captain Atom’ in a brief but vivid vignette, giving us a true American hero and man of his time before instantly killing him.

Captain Adam was an astronaut accidentally but literally atomised in a rocketry accident. Eerily – and the way it’s drawn spooked the short pants off me when I first read it all those years ago – he gradually reassembles himself on the launch pad…

Now blessed with astounding powers, he reports to the President (Eisenhower) and is swiftly kitted up in a protective outfit, allowing contact with normal, non-irradiated humans and reassigned as a masked superhero who will be the USA’s secret weapon…

Mostly written by or co-written with Joe Gill, the first wonderful, addictive run of 18 stories from Space Adventures #33-42 (and three of those were in fact drawn by uninspired, out-of-his-comfort zone Rocke Mastroserio) are a magnificent example of Ditko’s emerging mastery of mood, pacing, atmosphere and human dynamics.

In 1961, with Ditko increasingly doing more work for blossoming – and better paying – Marvel, Charlton killed the Captain Atom feature. However, when Dick Giordano jumped on the superhero bandwagon and created a costumed character line for Charlton in late 1965, the Captain was revived. Space Adventures was retitled, with Atom’s first full length issue numbered #78.

Since he was still drawing Amazing Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, Ditko could only manage pencils, so Mastroserio was recruited to ink the series, resulting in an oddly jarring finish. With #79, Ditko became lead writer too, and the stories took on an eccentric, compelling edge and tone, lifting them above much of the competition’s fare. Eventually the inker adapted to Ditko’s style and much of the ungainliness disappeared from the figurework, although so had the fine detail that had elevated the early art. This volume ends with issue #82, leaving six more published issues and a complete unpublished seventh for another time…

However, those early, Cold War-fired tales are a truly unique blend of action, tension and sheer whimsy which continued in Space Adventures #34 as ‘The 2nd Man in Space’ cheekily sees the magnanimous hero covertly undercut another Soviet space triumph by saving the USSR’s first cosmonaut from his defective capsule, whilst #35#s ‘The Little Wanderer’ finds him traversing the stars to rescue the spirit of an little boy inadvertently abducted by a well-meaning cosmic traveller…

A thermonuclear double bill graced #36, beginning with ‘The Wreck of X-44’, with a new craft detonating in space and leading Captain Atom to a deadly saboteur, after which ‘Captain Atom on Planet X’ finds him defending a US satellite from all-out attack by the dastardly ruthless Russians…

Geopolitics gives way to fantasy as #37 (December 1960) initially details a fusion-foiled invasion by ‘The Space Prowlers’ before a US probe to the second planet is scuttled by svelte space sirens who score ‘A Victory for Venus’ over the stounded atomic Earthman…

Two months later and the count climbed to three stories, beginning with ‘One Second of War’, wherein the Captain wrecks the doomsday missile attack of Dr. Claudius Jaynes, a suicidal maniac with his own atomic arsenal, before repeating the feat in ‘Backfire’ when a tin-pot dictator seeks to nuke the USA. The issue ends with ‘The Force Beyond’ as an alien entity tries to destroy the world with meteors before encountering our nuclear nemesis…

Space Adventures #39 begins with a ‘Test-Pilot’s Nightmare’ as arrogance threatens the life of a helpless jet jockey and Atom invisibly comes to the rescue after which Mastroserio limns ‘Peace Envoy’ with the energetic enigma turning back another alien invasion. Ditko is back for the final fling as Captain Adam goes undercover in Berlin (just before The Wall went up) to crush an espionage plot in ‘An Ageless Weapon’…

The atomic experiment was coming to a close. After #40’s ‘The Crisis’ – wherein the hero helps a diplomat call a tyrant’s bluff and ‘The Boy and the Stars’ features another Earth tot transported into the wondrous cosmos – the costumed heroics were absent the next issue.

Just as the FF was about to go big, Space Adventures #42 (October 1961) arrived and depleted all the inventory tales at once beginning with a brace of Mastroserio drawn yarns and one last tantalising Ditko masterpiece. ‘The Saucer Scare’ is yet another mediocre space war clash whilst ‘The Man in Saturn’s Moon’ sees the atomic ace hunting a Soviet dissent squirreled away by wicked commies. Those lesser efforts are utterly eclipsed by ‘The Silver Lady from Venus’ as another sexy extraterrestrial beguiles the humans of Earth before making a fool of the fiery champion…

And that was that the end until of 1965 when a global resurgence of costumed capers led to a new line at Charlton. Leading that charge came Captain Atom #78 (cover-dated December) when Gill & Ditko – with Mastroserio inking – revived the Atomic Adventurer in ‘The Gremlins from Planet Blue’. The genre had moved on in four years and the stripped-back, pared-down B-Movie feel of those early tales had evolved into a more uniquely fulsome and flamboyant affair for this particular extraterrestrial infiltration. Here were subplots and supporting cast to spare, as the hero foiled alien sabotage and mind control at Cape Kennedy, romancing Leah Jupe whilst her scientist father fell under the control of insidious infiltrators. There was even a new gadfly for Captain Adam in the grumpy form of martinet military man General Brill before ultimately saving Earth again…

In the next issue (February/March 1966), a true but tragic supervillain arrives in the series as ‘Captain Atom Faces Doctor Spectro, Master of Moods’ when a spy hunt brings the hero into the orbit of an embittered recluse seeking to master light and colour to revolutionise medicine. Sadly, sudden success tips him over the edge and his newfound abilities drive him even more crazy…

Apparently destroyed, the miscreant is soon forgotten when a wandering planetoid nears Earth and sounds the ‘Death Knell of the World’ (#80, Ditko, Gill & Mastroserio). Happily, the High Energy Hero is up to foiling a cosmic tyrant and liberating his captive satellite people before confronting ‘The Five Faces of Doctor Spectro’ as the misunderstood miscreant reappears in five prismatic pieces with a plethora of different plans but one overriding goal: pulling himself together and finally splitting this atom…

The hero hosts a quick fact feature drawn by Frank McLaughlin in ‘Captain Atom’s Secret’ before this initial outing ends with a magnificent step up in tension and quality. Issue #82 – cover-dated September 1966 and by Ditko with Dave Kaler & Mastroserio – debuts not just the series’ ultimate archfoe and a major story arc but also the company’s first female superhero.

With an enigmatic teleporting thief casually robbing the nation and the military of its wealth and top secrets, Captain Adam is sent undercover with mystery operative Nightshade in ‘Captain Atom vs. The Ghost’…

Their mission introduces sleek scoundrel Alec Rois, channels the spy craze of the era and hints at a vast conspiracy underpinning a threat to Earth and even finds time to see the heroes battle an army of thugs and save Fort Knox from bold bullion banditry…

Over half a decade pioneers Steve Ditko and Captain Atom and paved the way and lit a path to a revolution in comics storytelling and these early exploits were only the start…

 

Action Heroes volume 2: Captain Atom, Blue Beetle & The Question

A second – far longer – volume completes Ditko’s controversial Charlton Comics costumed hero contributions with the remainder of Captain Atom’s exploits, the introduction of a new Blue Beetle and debut of his uniquely iconic vigilante The Question.

Following an effusive and extremely informative Introduction by original Action Line inventor and editor Dick Giordano, Captain Atom #83 (November 1966) starts the ball rolling again with a huge blast of reconstructive character surgery.

Although ‘Finally Falls the Mighty!’ was inked by Mastroserio and scripted by relative newcomer Kaler, thematically it’s pure Ditko. Plotted and drawn by him, it sees an ungrateful public swiftly turn on the Atomic Ace, due to the manipulations of a former colleague turned cunning criminal.

Intended to tone down the character’s sheer omnipotence, the added approachable empathy-inducing humanity of malfunctioning powers made his struggles against treacherous Professor Koste all the more poignant.

Moreover, the sheer visual spectacle of his battle against a runaway reactor is some of Ditko’s most imaginative design and layout work. The tale ends on a cliffhanger – a real big deal when the comic came out every two months – and with the last 7 pages dedicated to debuting a new superhero with one of the oldest names in the business.

The Blue Beetle first appeared in Mystery Men Comics #1, released by Fox Comics and cover-dated August 1939. Created by Charles Nicholas (nee Wojtkowski) the character was inexplicably popular: surviving the collapse of numerous publishers before ending up as an acquired Charlton property in the mid-1950s. After releasing a few issues sporadically, Charlton shelved him until the superhero revival of the 1960s when Gill and latterly young Roy Thomas revised and revived the character for a combined 10-issue run (June 1964 – February 1966).

Here however, Ditko accepts but sets aside all that history to utterly recreate him. Ted Kord is an earnest young scientist with a secret tragedy in his past, which Ditko and scripter Gary Friedrich sagely forbear revealing in deference to intrigue and action, in a taut, captivating crime-thriller where the new hero displays his modus operandi by stopping a vicious crime-spree by the Killer Koke Gang.

This untitled short has all the classic elements of a Ditko masterpiece: outlandish intense, fight scenes, compact, claustrophobic yet dynamic layouts, innovative gimmickry and a clear-cut battle between Right and Wrong. It’s one of the very best introductory stories of a new hero anywhere in comics – and it’s 7 pages long…

The remodelling of the Atomic Ace concludes in the next issue with ‘After the Fall a New Beginning’. Once again Ditko rattled his authorial sabre about the fickleness of the public as the villainous Koste exposes the hero’s face on live TV. Escaping, Atom gets a new costume to match his curtailed powers …and consequently, a lot more drama drapes the series.

Now there is a definite feeling of no safety or status quo. The untitled Blue Beetle back-up (scripted by Friedrich with full art from Ditko) pits the new kid against a Masked Marauder, but the real kicker is the bombshell revelation that Homicide detective Fisher – investigating the disappearance of Dan Garrett – suspects a possible connection to Kord…

Whilst extending a running plot-line about the mysterious Ghost and his connection to a lost civilization of warrior women, ‘Strings of Punch and Jewelee’ introduces a couple of shady carnival hucksters who find a chest of esoteric alien weapons and use them for robbery. Although Cap and partner Nightshade are somewhat outclassed here, the vigour and vitality of the Blue Beetle is again undeniable as a mid-air hijack is foiled and a spy sub and giant killer octopus are given short shrift by the indomitable rookie crusader.

Captain Atom #86 finally brings the long-simmering plot-thread of tech thief The Ghost to a boil as the malevolent science-wizard goes on a rampage, totally trouncing Nightshade and our hero before being kidnapped by the aforementioned mystery maidens. ‘The Fury of the Faceless Foe! is by Ditko, Kaler & Mastroserio whilst in the (still) untitled Blue Beetle strip by Friedrich & Ditko, the cobalt crusader confronts a ruthless scientist/industrial spy he’s convinced he battled before…

This leads directly into the first issue of his own comic book. Blue Beetle #1 (cover-dated June 1967) is an all-Ditko masterpiece (even scripting it as “D.C. Glanzman”) with the hero in all-out action against a deadly gang of bandits. ‘Blue Beetle… Bugs the Squids’ is crammed with the eccentric vitality that made Amazing Spider-Man such a monster hit, with justice-dispensing joie de vivre balanced by the moody, claustrophobic introduction of Ditko’s most challenging mainstream superhero creation.

‘The Question’ is Vic Sage, a TV journalist with an uncompromising attitude to crime and corruption, employing an alter-ego of faceless, relentless retribution. In his premiere outing he exposes the link between his own employers’ self-righteous sponsors and gambling racketeer Lou Dicer. This theme of unflinching virtue in the teeth of both violent crime and pernicious peer and public pressure marked Ditko’s departure from straight entertainment towards philosophical – some would say polemical – examination of greater societal issues and the true nature of both Good and Evil that would culminate in his controversial Mr. A, Avenging World and other independent ventures.

In Captain Atom #87 (August 1967), ‘The Menace of the Fiery-Icer’ presaged the beginning of the end for the Atomic Ace as Kaler, Ditko & Mastroserio dialled back on plot threads to deliver a visually excellent but run-of-the-mill yarn about a spy ring with a hot line in cold-blooded leaders.

Blue Beetle #2 however – another all-Ditko affair from the same month – showed the master at his peak. Lead story ‘The End is a Beginning!’ at last reveals the origin of the character as well as the fate of Dan Garrett, and even advances Kord’s relationship with his assistant Tracey. The enigmatic Question, meanwhile, tackles flying burglar The Banshee in a vertiginous, moody thriller reminiscent of early Doctor Strange strips.

Frank McLaughlin joins as inker for a satisfying no-nonsense escapist romp ‘Ravage of Ronthor’ (Captain Atom #88, October 1967), as the hero answers a distress call from space to preserve a paradise planet from marauding giant bugs. Blue Beetle #3 was another superbly satisfying read, as the eponymous hero routes malevolent, picturesque thugs ‘The Madmen’ in a sharp parable about paranoia and misperception. Equally captivating is the intense and bizarre Question vignette wherein a murderous ghostly deep-sea diver stalks some shady captains of industry…

Cover-dated December 1967, issue #89 was the last Captain Atom published by Charlton: an early casualty of the burn-out afflicting the superhero genre and leading to a resurrected horror and mystery craze. This resurrected genre would form a new backbone for the company’s 1970’s output; one where Ditko would shine again in his role as master of short story horror.

Scripter Kaler satisfactorily ties up most of the hanging plot threads with the warrior women of Sunuria in sci-fi-meets-witchcraft thriller ‘Thirteen’, although the Ditko/McLaughlin art team was nowhere near top form.

The next episode promised a final ‘Showdown in Sunuria’, but never materialized…

Blue Beetle #4 (released the same month) is visually the best of the bunch as Kord follows a somehow-returned Dan Garrett to an Asian backwater in pursuit of lost treasure and a death cult. ‘The Men of the Mask’ is pure strip poetry and bombastic action, cunningly counterbalanced by a seedy underworld thriller as the Question seeks to discover who gave the order to ‘Kill Vic Sage!’ Scripted by Steve Skeates (as Warren Savin) it was the last action any Charlton hero saw for the better part of a year…

Then, cover-dated October 1968, The Question returned as the star of Mysterious Suspense #1, with Ditko producing a captivating cover and three-chapter thriller (with Mastroserio providing a rather jarring full-page frontispiece). ‘What Makes a Hero?’ (probably rescued from partially completed inventory material) sees crusading Vic Sage pilloried by the public, abandoned by friends and abandoned by his employers yet resolutely sticking to his higher principles in pursuit of hypocritical villains masquerading as pillars of the community. Ditko’s interest in Ayn Rand’s philosophical Objectivism had become increasingly important to him and this story is arguably the dividing line between his “old” and “new” work. It’s also the most powerful and compelling piece in this entire book.

A month later one final issue of Blue Beetle (#5) was published. ‘The Destroyer of Heroes’ is a decidedly quirky tale featuring a nominal team-up of the azure avenger and the Question as a frustrated artist defaces heroic and uplifting paintings and statues. Ditko’s committed if reactionary views of youth culture, which so worried Stan Lee, are fully on view in this charged, absorbing tale.

Other material had been created and languished incomplete in editorial limbo. In the early 1970s a burgeoning and committed fan-base created fanzine Charlton Portfolio. With the willing assistance of the company, a host of kids who would soon become household names in their own right found a way to bring the lost work to the public gaze. Their efforts are also included here, in monochrome as they originally appeared.

For Charlton Portfolio #9 and 10 (1974), the unreleased Blue Beetle #6 was serialized. ‘A Specter is Haunting Hub City!’ is another all-Ditko extravaganza, pitting the hero against an (almost) invisible thief. Follow-up magazine Charlton Bullseye (1975) finally published ‘Showdown in Sunuria’ in its first two issues.

Behind an Al Milgrom Captain Atom cover, Kaler’s plot was scripted by Roger Stern (working as Jon G. Michels) and Ditko’s pencils were inked by rising star John Byrne – a cataclysmic climax almost worth the 8-year wait. But even there, the magic doesn’t end in this magnificent Archive volume.

Charlton Bullseye #5 (1975) offers one last pre-DC tale of The Question: 8 gripping, intense and beautiful pages plotted by Stern, scripted by Michael Uslan and illustrated by the legendary Alex Toth. This alone is worth the price of admission.

These weighty snapshots from another era are packed with classic material by brilliant craftsmen. They are books no Ditko addict, serious fan of the genre or lover of graphic adventure can afford to be without. It’s impossible to describe the grace, finesse, and unique eclectic shape of Steve Ditko’s art. It must be experienced, and this is as good a place to start as any. It’s just a shame DC have let these tales languish so long, but hopefully the power of Hollywood will induce a revival…
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1974, 1975, 1976, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Ultimate Collection


By Joe Casey, Scott Kolins, Will Rosado, Tom Palmer & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5937-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

Time for another 60th Anniversary shout out…

One of the most momentous events in Marvel Comics history occurred in 1963 when a disparate array of individual heroes banded together to stop apparently marauding monster The Incredible Hulk.

The Avengers combined most of the company’s fledgling superhero line in one bright, shiny and highly commercial package. Over decades the roster has continually changed until now almost every character in their universe has at some time numbered amongst the team’s colourful ranks…

For Marvel’s transformational rebirth in the early 1960’s, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby took their lead from a small but growing band of costumed characters debuting or reimagined and revived at the Distinguished Competition. Julie Schwartz’ retooling of DC’s Golden Age stars had paid big dividends for the industry leader, and as the decade turned Managing Editor Lee’s boss (uncle/publisher Martin Goodman) insisted his company should go where the money was.

Although National/DC achieved incredible success with revised and updated versions of the company’s old stable, the natural gambit of trying the same revivification process on characters who had dominated Timely/Atlas in those halcyon days didn’t go quite so well.

The Justice League of America-inspired Fantastic Four indeed featured a new Human Torch, but his subsequent solo series began to founder almost as soon as Kirby stopped drawing it. Sub-Mariner was soon returned too, but as a deadly vengeful villain, as yet incapable of carrying his own title…

So a procession of new costumed heroes was created, with Lee, Kirby and Steve Ditko focussing on all-original inventive and inspired “super-characters”…

Not all caught on: The Hulk folded after six issues and even Spider-Man would have failed if writer/editor Lee hadn’t really, really pushed Uncle Martin…

After nearly 18 months, during which the fledgling House of Ideas churned out a small stable of leading men (but only two sidekick women), Lee & Kirby finally had enough players to stock an all-star ensemble – the precise format which had made the JLA a commercial winner – and thus swiftly assembled a handful of them into a force for justice and higher sales…

Cover-dated September 1963, The Avengers #1 launched as part of an expansion package which also included Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and The X-Men, and, despite a few rocky patches, the series grew into one of the company’s perennial best sellers.

The early Avengers yarns became a cornerstone of the company’s crucially interlinked continuity. As decades passed they were frequently revisited and re-examined, and in 2005 Joe Casey and artist Scott Kolins (with colourists Morry Hollowell & Will Quintana) took the occasional exercises in creativity a little further: offering an 8-issue modernising miniseries adding devious – some would say cynically calculating – back-writing to the original stories. The epic was packed with post-modern in-filling for a more mature readership, exposing secrets and revealing how the team actually came to hold its prominent and predominant position in the Marvel Universe…

Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes #1-8 ran fortnightly from January to April 2005 and was successful enough to warrant a second season. Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes II #1-8 repeated the gambit from January to May 2007, and with both epics gathered in this splendid, no-nonsense compilation.

Chronologically set between Avengers #1 and 2, the drama begins as industrialist Tony Stark reviews media coverage of the coalition of mystery men currently residing in his family’s townhouse. He ponders how best to keep such diverse and headstrong personalities as Ant Man, The Wasp, Thor and the Hulk together. Across town in a seedy bar, young troublemaker and pool-hustler Clint Barton can’t understand why folks are so nervous about the “masked freaks”…

Two weeks later, the team has fallen apart and the Avengers are actually hunting their gamma-fuelled former colleague. In the course of calamitous events they unexpectedly recover a legendary form from a coffin of ice floating in sea…

The gradually assimilation of partially amnesiac WWII legend Captain America into a terrifying and seemingly mad new era is not without problems, and the iconic, grimly experienced warrior is soon keenly aware of seething tensions besetting the team he has joined.

Iron Man still fervently pursues an exalted Federal status for the Avengers, but the Army are baulking: clearly set on putting the wilfully independent powerhouses under military jurisdiction. After a ferocious clash with Lava Men from Earth’s deep interior, word finally comes. The powers that be have created an all-encompassing “Avengers Priority Security Status” – but only for as long as the fickle public’s new darling and National Treasure Captain America stays with them…

Self-made scientific genius Hank Pym created the roles of Ant Man and the Wasp (AKA debutante girlfriend Janet Van Dyne) but his inherent and growing mental instability has caused him to push further and harder ever since he joined the ranks of a group that includes a patriotic living legend, an infallible metal juggernaut and an apparent god.

Now operating as Giant Man he is letting feelings of inadequacy drive a wedge between him and his lover, even as the Army ups the pressure to take over the team. Meanwhile, modern-day Rip Van Winkle Steve Rogers increasingly sinks into survivor’s guilt over the comrades he failed to save in the war. That internalised torment kicks into overdrive when Nazi war criminal and archfoe Baron Zemo comes out of hiding to attack the Avenger through his Masters of Evil…

When an invader out of time strikes, the Avengers finally and very publicly prove their worth to the nation and its government, and with Kang the Conqueror sent packing, the team at last secures favoured-but-fully-independent security clearance.

…And in the streets, a wanted vigilante dubbed Hawkeye saves Avengers butler Edwin Jarvis from muggers and they strike up a most irregular friendship…

Missions come thick and fast but the internal tensions never seem to dissipate. In far distant Balkan Transia fugitive mutants Wanda and Pietro desperately search for a place where they can feel safe, whilst in America Cap is increasingly fixated on tracking down Zemo.

After a battle with crime syndicate leader Count Nefaria leaves the Wasp near death, Giant Man also edges closer to a complete breakdown. With a surgeon battling to save her, Pym swears he’s going to quit and take her away from all the madness. Before that can happen, Zemo returns, abducting the Sentinel of Liberty’s teenaged friend Rick Jones…

In response, the team acrimoniously divides, with Cap trailing the monomaniac to Bolivia whilst the majority of Avengers remain for a final battle against the Masters of Evil. Meanwhile below stairs, Jarvis and Clint are concocting a sneaky scheme of their own…

As the death-duel in Bolivia concludes, in Germany two restless young mutants orchestrate their return to America and – with some collusion from Jarvis – Hawkeye “auditions” for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes…

As Cap and Rick wearily and so slowly make their way back to civilisation, Iron Man deals with Government fallout after learning that their Red, White and Blue poster boy is missing. Soon news leaks out that the rest of the team are quitting and that Stark has lined up a wanted vigilante and two outlaw mutants to replace them…

The initial secret history lesson concludes with astounded Captain America’s re-emergence and reluctant accession to leadership: riding herd on a team of obnoxious, arrogant young felons he is expected to mould into true champions…

The rest is history…

The second bite of the cherry (by Casey, Will Rosado, Tom Palmer & Quintana) focuses on a later time when the Avengers are in resurgent form. The Founders have all returned at a time when Pym (now calling himself Goliath), The Wasp and Hawkeye are joined by enigmatic African monarch The Black Panther. The action commences immediately following the expanded team’s being attacked by an android called The Vision – whom they promptly signed up (in Avengers #58, if you’re keeping count). Apparently the density-shifting “synthezoid” was created by robotic nemesis Ultron – a murderous AI created by Pym whilst suffering one of his frequent psychotic breaks – before switching allegiances…

We open as the highly-suspect new Avenger is impounded by S.H.I.E.L.D. for investigation and clearance. Their ostensible reason is that another autonomous murder mechanism – Super-Adaptoid – has escaped from custody and humanity can’t be too careful…

In the Philippines, the real cause of all the anti-technology tension and overweening suspicion are busy. Science terrorists Advanced Idea Mechanics have secretly stolen the Adaptoid and are seeing how they can improve an already ultimate killing machine…

At a clandestine S.H.I.E.L.D. base, interrogator Jasper Sitwell has met his match in The Vision, but perseveres in trying to dig out dirt on the android and its “master” Ultron. The Panther meanwhile has foregone his status as a VIP dignitary to teach at an inner city school under the alias Luke Charles. What he finds there is a true education…

Hawkeye too is under pressure as his lover The Black Widow reveals she’s going back into the spy-game. With Pym close to apoplexy at the government’s quasi-legal rendition of the Vision, nobody is in a particularly good mood when S.H.I.E.L.D.  supremo Nick Fury (the white one who fought in WWII) demands the team head to the Philippines to investigate A.I.M.’s latest enterprise.

With Fury’s carrot-&-stick pep talk ringing in their ears the heroes – rejoined by the just released Vision – jet away, unaware that in Manhattan an assassination plot against King T’Challa/Mr. Charles has brought one of Panther’s greatest enemies to America…

The heroes are challenged over the Pacific skies by a mass-produced army of Super-Adaptoids and are soon engaged in the fight of their lives…

Overwhelmed, they are in danger of being swamped before Goliath valiantly turns himself into as colossal human rampart to stem the tide and save the endangered island population whilst his comrades rush to destroy A.I.M.’s superbase…

Left all alone, Pym fights in maddened frenzy and becomes increasingly obsessed with how human the things he is incessantly slaughtering seem to be. By the time the triumphant team get Goliath home, he is a deeply traumatised shell of a man…

Luke Charles returns to school in time to be deeply embroiled in a bullying case that will inevitably end in gunplay and tragedy. And then the apparently recuperating Hank Pym goes missing…

Soon after, a new, excessively brutal hero named Yellowjacket is making news even as Agent Sitwell again targets the Vision for further debriefing: specifically, Pym’s “massacre” of mechanical lifeforms on A.I.M. Island. This time he’s brought in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top psychologist Agent Carver to try and get under the subject’s artificial skin…

The spies are in heated argument with Hawkeye when Yellowjacket breaks in, claiming to have murdered the Man of Many Sizes and demanding to take Goliath’s place on the team…

Nobody is fooled. Everyone recognises the abrasive stranger as Pym gone far off the deep end, but Carver prevents them from saying anything. She advises that he is clearly inches from being utterly incurable and devises a treatment to cure him which basically comprises “play along and don’t do anything to upset the crazy man”…

That even includes allowing Yellowjacket to kidnap the Wasp and agreeing to let him marry his hostage…

The wedding is held at Avengers Mansion and includes a Who’s Who of heroes along for the ride (The Fantastic Four, X-Men, Spider-Man, The Black Knight and Doctor Strange) but the scheme spirals out of control when The Circus of Crime – not privy to the details of the service – use the gathering as an opportunity to kill all America’s costumed champions in one go…

With Hawkeye and the blushing bride hostages and the first to be despatched, the deadly dilemma shocks Pym back to his rightest senses, but in the aftermath many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are butchered as Wakandan assassin Death Tiger gets ever closer to fulfilling his own mission of murder…

To cap off all the chaos, the still-at-large Super-Adaptoid also attacks, determined to expunge “race-traitor” The Vision who has perpetrated the ultimate betrayal by siding with inferior humanity and denying the innate superiority and inevitable ascension of mechanical and artificial lifeforms…

Politically savvy, wryly trenchant and compellingly action-packed, this extremely impressive Fights ‘n’ Tights chronicle is a superb addition/codicil to the annals of The Avengers and would serve as perfect comics vehicle for movie fans in search of a print-fix for their costumed crusader cravings…
© 2021 MARVEL.

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Shazam! The Golden Age of the World’s Mightiest Mortal


By Bill Parker & C.C. Beck, Roscoe Fawcett, Marcus Swayze, Pete Costanza, Otto Binder, Jack Binder, Mac Raboy, Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, Chad Grothkopf, Kurt Schaffenberger, and many & various: compiled & written by Chip Kidd and photographed by Geoff Spear (Abrams ComicArts/Harry N. Abrams, Inc.)
ISBN: 978-0-8109-9596-3 (2010 HB) 978-1-4197-3747-3 (2019 PB)

One of the most venerated and beloved characters in American comics was devised by Bill Parker & Charles Clarence Beck as part of a wave of opportunistic creativity following Superman’s debut in 1938. Although there were many similarities in the early years, the Fawcett Comics character moved swiftly and solidly into the realm of light entertainment -and even broad comedy – whilst, as the 1940s progressed the Man of Steel increasingly put whimsy aside in favour of action and drama.

Homeless orphan and thoroughly good kid Billy Batson was selected by an ancient wizard to battle injustice: granted the powers of six gods and mythical heroes. By speaking aloud the mage’s name – an acronym for the patrons Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury – Billy transformed from scrawny boy to brawny adult Captain Marvel.

At the height of his popularity, “the Big Red Cheese” significantly outsold The Man of Steel – published twice monthly and topping 14 million copies per month. Before eventually evolving his own affable personality the full-grown hero was a serious, bluff and rather characterless powerhouse, whilst alter ego Billy was the true star: a Horatio Alger archetype of impoverished, resourceful, boldly self-reliant youth overcoming impossible odds through gumption, grit and sheer determination…

However, as the decade moved on, tastes changed and sales slowed. A court case begun in 1941 by National Comics contesting copyright infringement was settled. Like many other superheroes, Cap disappeared, reduced to a fond memory for older fans. A big syndication success, he was missed all over the world…

In Britain, a reprint line had run for many years, so creator/publisher Mick Anglo had an avid audience and no product. His solution was to reimagine the franchise with atomic age hero Marvelman and Co. continuing to thrill readers well into the 1960s.

As America experienced another superhero boom-&-bust, the 1970s dawned with a shrinking industry and wide variety of comics genres servicing a base increasingly dependent on collectors and fans rather than casual or impulse buyers. DC needed sales and were prepared to look for them in unlikely places. Following a 1953 court settlement with Fawcett, DC ultimately secured the rights to Captain Marvel, his spun-off extended Family and attendant strips and characters.

Despite the actual name having been taken by Marvel Comics (via a circuitous route and quirky robotic hero published by Carl Burgos and M.F. Publications in 1967), the home of Superman opted for tapping into that discriminating, if aging, fanbase. In 1971, they licensed the dormant rights to the character stable (only fully buying them out in 1991) and two years later, riding a wave of national nostalgia on TV and in movies, DC resurrected and relaunched the entire beloved cast in their own kinder, weirder, completely segregated and separate universe.

To circumvent intellectual property clashes, they named the new/old title Shazam! (‘With One Magic Word…’): the unforgettable trigger phrase used by the majority of Marvels to transform to and from mortal form and a word that had entered the American language thanks to the success of the franchise (especially an excellent movie serial) the first time around.

Issue #1 carried a February 1973 cover-date and generated mixed reviews and unconvincing sales, but was pushed hard by DC. It even briefly scored the big prize in the publisher’s eyes. Adapted as live action Saturday morning TV series Shazam!, it ran three season (28 episodes) from 7th September 1974 to October 1976…

The comics are universally welcoming and wonderful and you should read them all, but we’re looking at a different aspect of the phenomenon here. Like any multi-media property, the Marvel Family franchise spawned tons of merchandise and this compendium sublimely showcases those tantalising collectables and examples of ephemera from the first 14 years – 1940-1953.

Most gems reproduced here come from the truly enviable personal collection of Harry Matesky as photographed by Geoff Spear (Batman Collected, The Peanuts Poster Collection, Mythology: The DC Art of Alex Ross). The multi-media melange is compiled, arranged and curated by frequent collaborator and acme and everyman of design fascinations and armchair indolences Chip Kidd (Cheese Monkeys, Batman: Death by Design, Only What’s Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts, Go: A Kidd’s Guide to Graphic Design, Batmanga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan, Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits).

This celebration of comics’ true magic was first released in 2010 as an epic oversized (235 x 310mm) hardback jam-packed with 3D cutaways, gatefolds and other print technology “bells & whistles”, and re-released in paperback (260 x 190mm) to tie-in with the first modern Shazam movie in 2019.

It’s a virtual wonderland for anyone who’s still a kid inside (AKA all men), overflowing with letters from the Captain Marvel Club, dynamic blow-ups of key characters such as Dr Thaddeus Bodog Sivana, classic covers, early toys, models, games, action figures and even candid shots of happy kids in their Captain and Mary Marvel costumes.

In its heyday, the Captain Marvel Club boasted a membership topping 400,000, serviced by a steady stream of priceless – and exclusive – tat to acquire: buttons, watches, key chains, paper rockets, tin toys, figurines, clothing, patches, transfers and more. Its inclusive and commercially canny model was repeated by later stars like Mary Marvel and others.

These feature amidst a wealth of mouth-watering displays of old comics, covers, original art, movie posters, apparel, toys, games and far rarer items – like Fawcett’s outreach material for potential manufacturers and merchandising partners and in-house writing guidelines.

Publishing house Fawcett first gained prominence through an immensely well-received light entertainment magazine for WWI veterans. From Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang they branched out into books and general interest magazines. Most successful publication – at least until Batson hit his stride – was ubiquitous boy’s building/activity bible Mechanix Illustrated. As the 1940s unfolded, scientific and engineering discipline and can-do demeanour underpinning MI suffused and informed both art and plots of Marvel Family titles.

On show here are long-lost treats like the Captain Marvel Magic Whistle (complete with packaging), secret codes and decoders, the Captain Marvel Magic Membership Card, gewgaws and gimcracks, house ads, prize competitions and editorials, interspersed with a terse but informative history of the company, the creators, characters and entire beguiling phenomenon,

The star and his spin-offs sparked a huge campaign of coordinated ancillary merchandising, especially once the Big Red Cheese made a spectacular leap to the silver screen in 12-part chapter play The Adventures of Captain Marvel. That luminous landmark provides some rousing stills featuring star Tom Tyler as the Good Captain…

As detailed in ‘Hey Kids! See Capt. Marvel in the Movies’, in 1940 Republic Pictures reached out to Detective Comics Incorporated with the notion of turning Superman into a movie serial. No deal was struck and a year later Republic catapulted Fawcett’s big gun onto screens and into history. This essay is augmented by biographies, lobby cards, posters from many countries, contemporary ads and write-ups from magazines and comics of the period.

The only complete comics yarn included here is a corker. In the formative years as the feature rocketed to the first rank of superhero superstars, there was a scramble to fill pages. Following his Whiz Comics residency and epic one-shot Special Edition Comics, the indomitable innocent was promoted to his own solo title, but with Beck and his studio overstretched, Captain Marvel Adventures #1 (cover-dated March 1941, and on sale from January 17th) was farmed out to up-and-coming whiz-kids Joe Simon & Jack Kirby. With inker Dick Briefer they produced the entire issue in a hurry from Beck and Parker’s guides. Apparently they did it in two weeks whilst finalising the launch of Captain America…

‘Captain Marvel versus Z’ remains a visually impressive action-drama with the irrepressible Sivana creating a hulking android brute designed to be the Captain’s equal. Despite numerous clashes and subsequent upgrades, after one last brutal knock-down, drag-out, Kirby-co-ordinated dust-up, it is apparent that Z isn’t…

The hero soon spawned sidekicks and assistants aplenty. The two most successful were Captain Marvel Junior and Mary Marvel who each have their own sections, replete with merch and memorabilia – both American made and from syndicating publishers who reprinted them around the world. There are also short sections devoted to other Fawcett stars Spy Smasher (who also had a Republic movie serial and club – the “Victory Battalion”) and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny.

Toys, stationary, puzzles and games include Captain Marvel Lightning Racing Cars (glorious tin toys!), Captain and Mary Marvel Wristwatches (plus ads and packaging), keychains, a Captain Marvel Fun Kit, Helicopter and Power Siren (“world’s mightiest whistle!”). There are images of Captain Marvel’s Radar Racer, Rocket Raider and Magic Eyes (all with some assembly required); a compass-ring, Shazam board game, 3-D Magic Picture, a jigsaw, paper “punch-out book, and ceramic figurines ready to illuminate in the Captain Marvel Adventures in Paint set.

Throwable toy Hoppy the FLYING Marvel Bunny also needs assembling before launch, as does his Musical Evening Miracle Toy of Today, and there are examples of ultra-rare velveteen stuffed dolls of both the rabbit and his human inspiration…

As well as painting and colouring books, pencils, plastic statuettes, buzz bomb paper planes and Christmas tree decorations, are projects and covers from all across the globe, like lead figures and assorted Pre-Mick Anglo comics from Britain, plus a (gloriously painted) trading card set from Spain. There’s even a bootleg trading card album set from Havana, Cuba, based on the 1941 Republic serial.

Ready to wear items include novelty shirts, braces, neckties and a cape; bean bags, tie-clips, beanie-hats, vinyl saddlebag, bike/wall pennants, “overseas style” hats and caps, skin tattoo and iron-on tee-shirt transfers, illustrated soap (!?), numerous Premium postcards, patches and badges with even Billy and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny proudly included amongst the regular costumed heroes…

Leasing his fame, the Captain appears in strip ads for Coola Cola and other salient sales points (illustrated by Costanza) and proudly confirms his patriotic zeal via many inspirational war-time covers and with the Comics Canteen! packs (comics distributed gratis by Fawcett to US servicemen in 1942).

The titanic tome terminates with an examination of the end as ‘Twilight of the Golden Age’ reveals details of the court settlement, and reviews extracts from trial transcripts.

All items cited here are merely the tip of an iceberg of fabulous stuff no fan could resist, and an evocation to the simple pleasure of youth, making this book an unparalleled package of pure weaponised nostalgia impossible to resist. So don’t…
© 2010, 2019 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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The Phantom: The Complete Sundays Archive Volume Three 1945-1949


By Lee Falk, Ray Moore & Wilson McCoy: introduction by Daniel Herman (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-1-61345-100-7 (HB/Digital edition)

Born Leon Harrison Gross, Lee Falk created the Ghost Who Walks at the request of his King Features Syndicate employers who were already making history, public headway and loads of money with his first strip sensation Mandrake the Magician. Although technically not the first ever costumed champion in comics, The Phantom became the prototype paladin to wear a skin-tight body-stocking and the first to have a mask with opaque eye-slits…

The generational champion debuted on February 17th 1936, in an extended sequence pitting him against an ancient global confederation of pirates. Falk wrote and drew the daily strip for the first two weeks before handing over illustration to artist Ray Moore. The spectacular and hugely influential Sunday feature began in May 1939.

For such a long-lived, influential series, in terms of compendia or graphic collections, The Phantom has been quite poorly served in the English language market (except for the Antipodes, where he has always been accorded the status of a pop culture god). Many companies have sought to collect strips from one of the longest continually running adventure serials in publishing history, but in no systematic or chronological order and never with any sustained success. That began to be rectified when archival specialists Hermes Press launched their curated collections…

This third edition is a lovely and large (229 x 330 mm) landscape hardback/digital tome, displaying a complete full colour Sunday per page. Released in March 2016, its 208 pages are stuffed with sumptuous visual goodies like panel and logo close-ups, comics covers and lots of original art and opens with publisher Daniel Herman’s ‘Introduction: The Sunday’s Continue…’ recapping all you need to know about the feature and disclosing how Wilson McCoy assumed the illustrator’s role from Ray Moore – and why nobody knows exactly when he did…

For those who came in late: 400 years previously, a British mariner survived an attack by pirates, and – after washing ashore on the African coast – swore on the skull of his father’s murderer to dedicate his life and that of his descendants to destroying all pirates and criminals. The Phantom fights evil and injustice from his fabulous lair deep in the jungles of Bengali. Throughout Africa and Asia he is known as the “Ghost Who Walks”…

His unchanging appearance and unswerving war against injustice led to his being considered an immortal avenger by the uneducated, credulous and wicked. Down the decades, one heroic son after another has inherited the task, fought and died in an unbroken family line, with the latest wearer of the mask indistinguishable from the first and proudly continuing the never-ending battle.

In his first published exploit the Phantom met and fell for wealthy American adventurer Diane Palmer and his passion for her was soon reciprocated and returned and she became a continuing presence in both iterations of the series as ally, partner, sounding board, a means of reader identification and naturally a plot pawn and perennial hostage to fortune.

Almost every saga featured powerful, capable and remarkably attractive women as both heroes and villains, and in opening tale ‘Queen Pera the Perfect’ (running from December 9th 1945 to March 17th 1946), Diana saw the tables turned…

The aforementioned ruler of remote but rich Karola was constrained to find a husband, and so sent her fanatical minions into the world to find a man worthy of her. They returned with a musical genius, celebrated fighter pilot, champion pugilist and cinema’s greatest lover, but wherever they went they heard legends of an incredible superman…

After The Phantom repeatedly refuses her men’s offer, and gives her stern lesson in manners, she responds by having him imprisoned in her dungeons until he sees sense, and this time it’s his true love who has to save the day…

Spanning March 24th to August 4th 1946, ‘King of Beasts’ sees the liberated champion retuned to Bengali in time for Diana to be unjustly imprisoned. A priceless pearl necklace has been stolen from a maharajah and nobody believes the story of who actually took it: not the police and certainly not American mobster Poison Ivy and his boys…

When The Phantom tries to engineer a jailbreak, he’s caught too and charged with being an accomplice, only for the true thief to free him and Diana by sending a pickpocketing monkey to unlock their cell. In the ensuing flight, Diana is snatched by the mobsters, who don’t believe a word about a hidden mastermind using trained beasts to burgle. That all changes when a trained troop of elephants bust into the bank and porcupines empty a packed casino for their masked master…

With chaos unleashed, The Phantom retrenches and calls in his own equine ally and canine corps. Mighty steed Hero and lupine assistant Devil soon track down the King of Beasts who is far from what anyone expected. However even after he’s handled, there’s still increasingly murderous Poison Ivy to deal with…

Another female fury debuts in ‘The Scarlet Sorceress’ (August 11th – December 22nd) as a royal visit to the Deep Woods of the Bandar People introduces little Princess Valerie and her grandfather the Rajah of Volara. The child will soon become a pawn in a wicked plot…

When the princess of neighbouring kingdom Wogu falls ill, a devious manipulator “prophesies ” that only golden-haired Valerie’s blood can save the ailing waif, prompting a kidnapping and a frantically fast response from the Ghost Who Walks. Not all the monstrous forces set against him can slow the Phantom, but after exposing the witch as a charlatan, the hero discovers that he’s fighting not a villain but another victim. Soon, however, his efforts save all involved and pacify two kingdoms…

December 29th 1946 to June 29th 1947 finds The Phantom once more battling to save Diana after the filthy rich and spoiled Potentate of Ptjar Prince Pepe abducts her to be his very best bride. Law and reason mean nothing to the repulsive despot and by the time the hero reaches the distant kingdom, she is beyond even the Ghost’s reach. His only recourse is to play Pepe’s game and in a dozen days complete ‘The 12 Tasks’ conceived to frustrate and humiliate the hero. However, wit and ingenuity married to his mighty physicality make short work of the impossible – such as capturing an invulnerable giant bandit, emptying a river of carnivorous fish, banishing every shark in the bay or stopping all crime for 24 hours – and despite Pepe’s cheating equivocations the final task changes the nation forever and for the better…

A return to jungle warfare and tribal feuding underpins ‘The Dragon God’ (July 26th to November 16th) as Diana’s interest in an ancient Wambesi idol presages the fire-breathing saurian coming to life and demanding its worshippers kill and plunder their neighbours the Ulangi. With “The Phantom’s Peace” broken, the Ghost Walks amongst them to re-establish order and quickly discovers white instigators and recovered wartime weaponry behind the uprising, but once begun war has its own momentum and tribal grudges run deep and burn forever…

With bloodshed ended, a change of pace and tone heralds the return of an appalling duo who had previously made life miserable for The Phantom. Spanning November 23rd 1947 to May16th 1948, ‘The Marshall Sisters’ sees over-privileged brats Lana and Greta return to Africa in a ruthless no-holds barred competition to seduce and wed the mighty jungle avenger. This is after their last attempt to land the ultimate trophy husband was foiled by Diana Palmer…

When allure, deception and blackmail all fail, the hellions even try shanghaiing and blunt force trauma to achieve their aims, but lose all control when the various thugs they hire hijack the caper…

A relatively short story running from May 23rd through September 5th follows, revealing how a long-running annual sporting contest devised by the original ancestral Phantom has served to ameliorate tribal tensions for four centuries. Although its dollar value is meaningless to the competitors who strive for pride and bragging rights alone, the gem-stuffed urn that acts as ‘The Phantom Trophy’ is an irresistible prize for cop-killing fugitives Spike and Grunt.

When they rope in more scallywags to swipe the prize from the previous holders/custodians, before it can be handed over to the new champions tribal war erupts. Although The Phantom hunts the thieves he might be too late as naked greed turns the rogues against each other…

The final sequence in this volume visits ‘The Haunted Castle’ (September 12th 1948 – February 13th 1949) as Diana goes exploring alone and is propelled into wild unexplored country. As The Phantom and Devil search for her, she wanders a lost valley whose people are enslaved by sinister wizard Great Moogoo who shrinks anyone who opposes him to the size of a plaster gnome and adds them to his terrifying garden…

As the lascivious sorcerer captures her, Diana’s man has tracked her to the stone citadel and begun a one-man siege that exposes his nefarious trickery and wrecks his powerbase…

Taken from America’s immediate post-war period, these brief encounters are bold, brash, uncomplicated fare, full of despicable rogues, lost kingdoms, savage tribes, dangerous but still redeemable dames and very bad guys, but thrillingly reassuring entertainment for all that. Just remember, different times have different values. If the kind of fare you’d encounter in a 1940s Tarzan movie or cop thriller might offend, you should consider carefully before starting this…

Finally rediscovered, these lost treasures are especially rewarding as the material is still fresh, entertaining and addictively compelling. However, even if it were only of historical value (or just printed for Australians – manic devotees of the implacable champion from the get-go) surely the Ghost Who Walks is worthy of a little of your time?
The Phantom® © 1945-1949 and 2016 King Features Syndicate, Inc. ® Hearst Holdings, Inc. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

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Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis volume 1


By Brian Michael Bendis, John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson, Tom Palmer& various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4500-4 (HB/Digital Edition) 978-0-7851-4501-1 (TPB/ Digital Edition)

Probably Marvel’s biggest global franchising success, The Avengers celebrate their 60th anniversary in September 2023, so let’s again acknowledge and anticipate that landmark event with another glorious past triumph…

Once upon a time Norman Osborn was America’s Security Czar: an untouchable “top-cop” in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to the USA’s costumed and metahuman community.

When the former-but-still-deranged Green Goblin at last but inevitably overplayed his hand, a coalition of outlawed champions united to defeat him, and his fall from grace was staggering and total.

The chaos and carnage led to a new Age of Heroes, and as part of that resurgence, original Captain America Steve Rogers was appointed Supreme Commander of US metahuman resources. He promptly set about redefining the what, who and how of the World’s Mightiest Heroes which launched a flotilla of new teams and titles, with Avengers volume 4 being the official spine of the comic book franchise.

Available in a number of formats, this initial collection gathers issues #1-6 as written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by John Romita Jr. with inkers Klaus Janson & Tom Palmer colourist Dean White and letterer (VC’s) Cory Petit adding to the spectacle and wonderment. The book spans cover-dates July to December 2010) and opens with a peek at a terrifying future before skipping back to Now where a triumphant, reunited army of heroes is trying to democratically decide just who goes where and does what…

Those deliberations are rudely interrupted in ‘Next Avengers Part One’ when time-tyrant Kang the Conqueror beams in with a frantic warning. He barely opens his mouth before he’s blasted across the city by the wary, twice-shy heroes, but as they converge to press their attack the Conqueror stops all hostilities by brandishing an ultimate weapon.

Iron Man Tony Stark prevents his comrades from finishing off Kang as he recognises the Dark Matter Accelerator. It’s something he thought up and swore never to build. The only way the future Fuhrer can have it is if Stark made it and gave it to him…

In the cautious ceasefire that follows, Kang explains he’s come to beg the aid of the Avengers. In his current future he is one of a team that includes the children of the Avengers, united to stop life-loathing Artificial Intelligence Ultron from exterminating humanity.

They have at last succeeded in destroying the mechanoid marauder but the children are now an even greater menace. Moreover, Kang’s attempts to stop them have resulted in time itself shredding… and all of reality is now collapsing…

The arrogant time-terrorist expects the Avengers to stop their errant offspring, but as Rogers heads off all debate to arbitrarily assemble teams, back in the future Kang and his hidden allies make preparations to carry out their true scheme…

Not every past Avenger is keen to answer the call to reassemble. Simon Williams has come to believe the team has done more harm than good and threatens to stop them if they start up again. ‘Wonder Man Attacks?!!’ sees him make good on his warning whilst a small squad locate Kree outcast Noh-Varr The Protector to request his expertise in time travel.

As the alien and Stark’s efforts finally bear fruit, Wonder Man brutally engages the entire team. In the resultant blockbusting battle, something goes terribly wrong, and an alternate Apocalypse and his horrendous Horsemen materialise, intent on ending mankind.

As the embattled titans swiftly mobilise to tackle the next crisis, a ‘Menace from Beyond Time’ manifests as various time-streams and realities begin to coalesce and overlap in New York City. With All of Everything endangered, a unit of heroes heads into the unhappy future leaving their harried comrades to hold back a tidal wave of time-tossed menaces – and the occasional misplaced hero such as Killraven and Devil Dinosaur…

Far away from now, Iron Man, Wolverine, replacement Captain America James “Bucky” Barnes and Noh-Varr witness first-hand the cataclysmic war against Ultron before being ambushed by the next generation in ‘Only the Good Die Young’.

Back in their home era, a multitude of past menaces – from cavemen to cowboys to cosmic devourer Galactus – are keeping the majority of Avengers busy, whilst in the foredoomed tomorrow the questing quartet are painfully discovering they’ve been played by Kang yet again…

Full explanations are promised by an incredibly aged Tony Stark and the architect of the chronal rescue plan: Bruce Banner in his gamma-charged arch-villain persona of ‘The Maestro’…

With two Starks, an incredibly sagacious and experienced Banner and new element Noh-Varr all intent on fixing the problem, the sorry story soon comes out. All of creation’s future is stuck in a temporal loop: a cosmic “Groundhog Day” with Kang interminably trapped battling Ultron. Now, with the odds altered by the historical Avengers, there’s a real chance to make things right in one final ‘Battle for the Future’…

Tragically, as Thor’s clash with Galactus escalates and the assembled Avengers resolutely resist Apocalypse and his minions in the now, there may not be a past to return to…

Layers of murderous duplicity are peeled back in ‘Next Avengers Part 6: Conclusion’ as a cunning solution to the Ultron-Kang impasse is conceived. However, even as reality reasserts itself and four weary heroes return home, old man Stark takes the risky chance of giving his younger self a deadly device and a portentous warning from the future…

Epic in scale, vast in scope and overflowing with action, this a magnificently rendered tale that might bewilder new readers looking for a post-movie fix, but will delight dyed-in-the-wool Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatics. It comes with a gallery of covers-&-variants by Romita Jr., Janson & Dean White, John Romita Sr., Greg Land & Morry Hollowell, Jim Cheung & Justin Ponsor, Alan Aldridge, Phil Jimenez & D’Armata, plus a massive combined variant cover by Marko Djurdjevic.
© 2018 MARVEL.

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Warlock Marvel Masterworks volume 2



By Jim Starlin, with Bill Mantlo, John Byrne, Steve Leialoha, Josef Rubinstein, Al Milgrom, Alan Weiss, Dave Hunt & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3511-1 (HB/Digital edition)

During the early 1970s the first inklings of wider public respect for the medium of graphic narratives began to blossom in English-speaking lands. This followed avid response to pioneering stories such as Denny O’Neil & Neal Adams’ “relevancy” Green Lantern run, Stan Lee & John Buscema’s biblically allegorical Silver Surfer or Roy Thomas’ ecologically strident antihero Sub-Mariner. These all led a procession of thoughtfully-delivered attacks on drugs in many titles, and a long running undeclared campaign to support positive racial role models and include characters of colour everywhere on four-colour pages.

Part of a movement and situation mirrored in Europe and Japan, our comics were inexorably developing into a vibrant platform of diversity and forum for debate, engaging youngsters in real world issues germane and relevant to them.

In 1972, Thomas had taken the next logical step: transubstantiating an old Lee & Kirby Fantastic Four throwaway foe into a potent political and religious metaphor for the Questioning Generation…

Debuting in FF #66 (September 1967) mystery menace Him was re-imagined by Thomas & Gil Kane as a modern interpretation of the Christ myth: stationed on an alternate Earth far more like our own than that of Marvel’s fantastic universe.

Re-presenting Strange Tales #178-181, Warlock #9-15, Marvel Team-Up #55, Avengers Annual #7 and Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2 – collectively spanning cover-dates February 1975 to the end of 1977, this epic astral adventure also offers a context-soaked Introduction from comics historian/documentarian Jon B. Cook.

For latecomers and those informed only by movies…

It all began with The Power of… Warlock as the artificial man’s origin story – a lab experiment concocted by rogue geneticists – was goosed up after meeting man-made and self-created god The High Evolutionary. He was wrapped up in a bold new experiment to replicate planet Earth on the opposite side of the sun. He replayed – on fast-forward – the development of life, intent on creating humanity without the taint of cruelty and greed and deprived of the lust to kill…

It might well have worked, but when the Evolutionary wearied, his greatest mistake cruelly intervened. Man-Beast was a hyper-evolved wolf with mighty powers, ferocious savagery and ruthless wickedness. He despoiled humanity’s rise, and ensuring the Counter-Earth’s development exactly mirrored its template – with the critical exception of the superheroic ideal. This beleaguered world suffered all mankind’s woes but had no extraordinary beings to save or inspire them.

A helpless witness to desecration, Him crashed free of his life-supporting cocoon to save the Evolutionary and rout Man-Beast and his bestial cronies -a legion of similarly evolved rogue animal-humanoids dubbed “New-Men”). When the despondent, furious science god recovered, he wanted to erase his failed experiment but was stopped by his rescuer.

As a powerless observer, Him had seen the potential and value of embattled humanity. For all their flaws, he believed he could save them from the many imminent dooms caused by their own unthinking actions – pollution, over-population, wars and intolerance. His pleas convinced the Evolutionary to give this mankind one last chance…

The wanderer was hurled down to Counter-Earth, equipped with a strange gem to focus his powers, a mission to find the best in the fallen and a name of his own – Adam Warlock…

He battled long and hard and even gathered a band of faithful followers, but was constantly defeated and frustrated by human intransigence and Man-Beast’s forces, who had infiltrated and corrupted all aspects of society – especially America’s political hierarchy and the Military/Industrial complex.

After 8 issues of his struggle and a couple of interventions by Earth’s Incredible Hulk, the saga apparently ended when messianic Adam Warlock died and was reborn, thwarting Satan-analogue Man-Beast with the aid of the Jade Juggernaut: delivering a karmic coup de grace before ascending from Counter-Earth to the beckoning stars…

When the feature returned at the end of 1974 the tone, just like the times, had hugely changed. In the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, hopeful positivity and comfortable naivety had turned to world-weary cynicism and the character was draped in precepts of inescapable doom in the manner of doomed warrior Elric. It was a harbinger of things to come…

The story continues in Strange Tales #178 as ultra-imaginative morbid maverick Jim Starlin (Captain Marvel, Master of Kung Fu, Infinity Gauntlet, Dreadstar, Batman, Kid Kosmos) turns the astral wanderer into a Michael Moorcock-inspired death-obsessed, constantly outraged but exceedingly reluctant and cynical cosmic champion.

The slow spiral to oblivion begins in February cover-dated Strange Tales #178, where Starlin introduces alien Greek Chorus Sphinxor of Pegasus to recap the past by asking and answering ‘Who is Adam Warlock?’

Handling everything but lettering – that’s left to Annette Kawecki – Starlin has solitary wanderer Warlock brooding on a desolate asteroid in the Hercules star cluster just as a trio of brutes attack a frightened girl. Despite his best efforts they execute her, proud of their status as Grand Inquisitors of the Universal Church of Truth and ecstatic to remove one more heathen unbeliever…

Appalled to have failed another innocent, Warlock employs the Soul Gem at his brow to briefly resurrect her and learns of an all-conquering ruthless militant religion intent on converting or eradicating all life. His search triggers a chilling confrontation as ‘Enter The Magus!’ sees the living god of the UCT attack him and crushingly reveal an awful truth: the being who has subjugated countless worlds, exterminated trillions and fostered every dark desire of sentient beings is his own future self.

Adam Warlock than swears that he will battle this impossible situation and do whatever is necessary to prevent himself becoming his worst nightmare…

With Tom Orzechowski on words and Glynis Oliver-Wein doing colours, Starlin’s pilgrimage continues as Warlock attacks an UCT war vessel transporting rebels, “degenerates” and “unproductives” from many converted worlds. The church only deems basic humanoids as sacred and saveable, with most other shapes useful only as fodder or fuel. They make an exception for the universally deplored, vulgar and proudly reprobate race called “Trolls”. In the dungeon-brig of the ship Great Divide, Adam finds his gloomy mood irresistibly lifted by disgusting lout Pip: a troll revelling in his “independent manner and cavalier ways” and not frightened by the imminent death awaiting them all.

Meanwhile, mighty, enhanced true believer Captain Autolycus has received a message from the Temporal Leader of the Faithful. The Matriarch has decided to ignore The Magus’ instruction to capture Warlock and keep him unharmed.

As Adam instructs his fellow prisoners in the nature of rule, Autolycus acts on her command, losing his entire crew and perishing when Warlock breaks loose. After escaping the ‘Death Ship!’, Adam realises Pip has stowed away, keen to share a new adventure, but lets it go. He has a bigger problem: in the climactic final battle, the Soul Gem refused his commands, acting on its own to consume Autolycus’ memories and persona, locking them inside the twisted champion’s head…

In ST #180’s ‘Judgment!’ (with additional inking by Alan Weiss), Pip and Warlock have submerged themselves in the heaving masses of Homeworld whilst hunting the living god they oppose. Terrified of the uncontrollable spiritual vampire on his brow, Adam tries to remove it and discovers it has already stolen him: without it he will perish in seconds…

Pushed into precipitate action and living on borrowed time, Warlock invades the Sacred Palace and is offered a curious deal by the Matriarch and is captured when he refuses. Subjected to ‘The Trial of Adam Warlock’, the appalled adventurer endures a twisted view of the universe courtesy of Grand Inquisitor Kray-Tor, even as in the city, Pip thinks he scored with a hot chick. In truth, he’s been targeted by public enemy number one. Gamora is called “the deadliest woman in the whole galaxy” and has plans for Adam, which include him being alive and free…

Back in court, the golden man has rejected Kray-Tor’s verdict and, disgusted and revolted by the proceedings, foolishly lets his Soul Gem feed. The carnage he triggers and subsequent guilt leaves him catatonic and in the hands of the Matriarch’s cerebral reprogrammers…

Starlin was always an outspoken and driven creator with opinions he struggled to suppress. His problems with Marvel’s working practises underpin ST #181’s ‘1000 Clowns!’ as old pal Al Milgrom inks a fantastic recap and psychological road trip inside the hero’s mind. None of the subtext is germane if you’re just looking for a great story however, and – in-world – Warlock’s resistance to mind-control is mirrored by Pip and Gamora’s advance through the UCT citadel to his side.

Embattled by the psychic propaganda assaulting him, Warlock retreats into the safety of madness, and learns to his horror that this has been what The Magus wanted all along. Now the dark messiah’s victory and genesis are assured…

The triumph was celebrated by the resurrection of the hero’s own title and – cover-dated October 1975 – Warlock #9 revealed the master plan of Adam’s future self. Inked by Steve Leialoha ‘The Infinity Effect!’ saw the mirror images in stark confrontation with evil ascendent, unaware that Gamora was an agent of a hidden third party and that all the chaos and calamity was part of a war of cosmically conceptual forces.

The saga heads into the Endgame as the Magus explains in cruel detail how he came to power and that Adam’s coming days are merely his past, before summoning abstract terror The In-Betweener to usher in their inevitable transformation. There is one problem however: the first time around Adam/Magus was never attacked and almost thwarted by an invisible green warrior woman.

Crushed by the realisation that he will become a mass-murdering spiritual vampire, Warlock reels as the hidden third element arrives to save everything…

‘How Strange My Destiny!’ (#10, inked by Leialoha) finds Pip, Gamora, Adam and mad Titan Thanos battling 25,000 cyborg Black Knights of the Church rapturously paying ‘The Price!’ of devotion in a stalling tactic until the In-Betweener arrives…

Kree Captain Mar-Vell narrates a handy catch-up chapter detailing ‘Who is Thanos?’ as the beleaguered champions escape, before ‘Enter the Redemption Principle!’ explores some of the Titan’s scheme and why he opposes the Magus and his Church, even as the victorious dark deity realises that Thanos’ time probe is the only thing that can upset his existence…

How Strange My Destiny – with finished art by Leialoha from Starlin’s layouts – continues and concludes in #11 as ‘Escape into the Inner Prison!’ sees the Magus and his Black Knight death squads brutally board Thanos’ space ark. A combination of raw power and the Soul Gem buy enough time for Warlock and the troll to use the time probe, which dumps them in the future, just as In-Betweener arrives to convert the hero and supervise ‘The Strange Death of Adam Warlock!’, resulting in a reshuffling of chronal reality and Thanos’ triumph…

After months of encroaching and overlapping Armageddons, Warlock #12 diverts and digresses in ‘A Trollish Tale!’ as Pip’s addiction to hedonism and debauchery entraps him in professional harlot Heater Delight’s plan to escape a life on (non)human sexual trafficking in a star-roaming pleasure cruiser. He’s happy with the promised reward for his efforts, but hadn’t considered that her pimp might object to losing his meal ticket…

Drama returns with a bang in #13 as ‘…Here Dwells the Star Thief!’ introduces a threat to the entire universe stemming from a hospital bed on Earth. New England’s Wildwood Hospital houses Barry Bauman, whose life is blighted by a total lack of connection between his brain and nerve functions. Isolated and turned inward for his entire life, Barry has discovered astounding psychic abilities, the first of which was to possess his nurse and navigate an unsuspected outer world. His intellect also roams the endless universe and brooding, doomed Warlock is there when Barry consumes an entire star just for fun…

Outraged at the wilful destruction, Warlock uses his own powers to trace the psionic force and resolves to follow it back to the planet of his original conception and construction even as ‘The Bizarre Brain of Barry Bauman’ explores the Star Thief’s origins and motivations before formally challenging Adam to a game of “stop me if you can”…

Spitefully erasing stars and terrorising the Earth as Warlock traverses galaxies at top speed, Bauman knows a secret about his foe that makes his victory assured, but still lays traps in his interstellar path. The ‘Homecoming!’ is accelerated by a shortcut through a black hole but when Adam arrives at the Sol system, he receives a staggering shock: his journeys and simple physics have wrought physical changes making it impossible to ever go home again…

Sadly for Barry, his gleeful frustration of his foe distracts him just when he should be paying close attention to his physical body…

As the series abruptly ended again (November 1976), Starlin returned to full art & story chores in #15’s ‘Just a Series of Events!’ Exiled from Earth, Adam rants as elsewhere, Thanos moves on his long-term plans. Without the threat of The Magus, his desire for total stellar genocide can proceed, but he worries that his adopted daughter Gamora might be a problem. He should be more concerned about his own nemesis-by-design Drax the Destroyer…

The saga then pauses with Adam, confronting a host of plebian injustices and seemingly gaining dominance over his Soul Gem…

Vanished again, Adam Warlock only languished in limbo for a few months. In mid-December 1976, Marvel Team-Up #55 (cover-dated March 1977) addressed his altered state as Bill Mantlo, John Byrne & Dave Hunt crafted ‘Spider, Spider on the Moon!’

For reason too complicated to explain here, Spider-Man had been trapped in a rocket and blasted into space and was happily intercepted and left in the oxygenated-and heated Blue Area. Warlock then assisted the Arachnid and mysterious alien The Gardener against overbearing ephemera collector The Stranger. He sought possession of the Golden Gladiator’s life-sustaining Soul Gem, but soon discovered an equally fascinating alternate choice…

Despite his sporadic and frankly messy publishing career, Warlock has been at the heart of many of Marvel’s most epochal and well-regarded cosmic comic classics, and ending this compendium is probably the very best: an extended epic spanning two summer annuals and seemingly signalling the end on an era…

‘The Final Threat’ (by Starlin & Joe Rubinstein) comes from Avengers Annual #7, which sees Protector of the Universe Mar-Vell AKA Captain Marvel and Titanian ultra-mentat Moondragon return to Earth with vague anticipations of impending catastrophe. Their premonitions are confirmed when galactic wanderer Adam Warlock arrives with news that death-obsessed Thanos has amassed an alien armada and built a soul gem-fuelled weapon to snuff out stars like candles…

Spanning interstellar space to stop the scheme, the united heroes forestall alien invasion and prevent the Dark Titan from destroying the Sun, but only at the cost of Warlock’s life…

Then ‘Death Watch!’ (Starlin & Rubinstein, Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2) finds Peter Parker plagued by prophetic nightmares. These disclose how Thanos had snatched victory from defeat and now holds the Avengers captive whilst again preparing to extinguish Sol.

With nowhere else to turn, the anguished, disbelieving webspinner heads for the Baxter Building, hoping to borrow a spacecraft, and unaware that The Thing also has a history with the terrifying Titan.

Although utterly overmatched, the mismatched Champions of Life subsequently upset Thanos’ plans for long enough to free the Avengers before the Universe’s true agent of retribution ends the Titan’s threat forever… at least until next time…

The sidereal saga seemingly done, this collection also offers bonus treats in the form of 16 pages of unused pencils by Alan Weiss. The photostats come from an issue lost in transit, and are supplemented by before-&-after panels judged unsuitable by the Comics Code Authority, the various production stages of Starlin & Weiss’ cover art for Warlock #9, with sketches, designs, frontispieces and full pages of original art.

Also on view are Starlin’s wraparound covers from 1983 reprint series Warlock Special Edition #1-6 and 1992-1993’s Warlock reruns (#1-6) in support of the Infinity Gauntlet, plus pertinent house ads and full biographies.

Ambitious, unconventional and beautiful to behold, Warlock’s adventures are very much a product of their tempestuous, socially divisive times. For many, they proved how mature comics might become, but for others they were simply pretty pictures and epic fights with little lasting relevance. What they unquestionably remain is a series of crucial stepping stones to greater epics: unmissable appetisers to Marvel Magic at its finest.
© 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes


By Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, Jon Sibal & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1819-5 (HC/Digital edition) 978-1-4012-1904-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

Superman started the whole modern era of fantasy heroes: outlandish, flamboyant, indomitable, infallible, unconquerable.

He also saved a foundering industry and invented an entirely new genre of storytelling – Super heroes. Since May 1938 he has unstoppably evolved into a mighty presence in all aspects of art, culture and commerce, even as his natal comicbook universe has organically and exponentially expanded.

Long ago and far away a scientifically advanced civilisation perished, but not before its greatest genius sent his baby son to safety in a star-spanning ship. It landed in simple, rural Kansas where the interplanetary orphan was reared by decent folk as one of us…

Once upon a time, in the far future, a band of super-powered kids from dozens of alien civilisations took inspiration from the greatest legend of all time and formed a club of heroes. One day these Children of Tomorrow came back in time and invited that legend to join them…

And thus began the vast and epic saga of Superman and – tangentially – the Legion of Super-Heroes as envisioned by writer Otto Binder & artist Al Plastino in Adventure Comics #247 (cover-dated April 1958 and approximately 20 years after Kal-El’s debut).

Since that time, the fortunes and popularity of the Legion have perpetually waxed and waned, with their future history tweaked and rebooted, retconned and unwritten over and again to comply with editorial diktat and popular trends.

One always popular publishing stratagem is to re-embrace those innocent, silly, joyous, stirring and utterly compelling pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths tales, but shading them with contemporary sensibilities. With this in mind Geoff Johns gradually reinstituted the Lore of the Legion in a number of his assignments during the early part of this century.

Beginning most notably with Justice League of America: The Lightning Saga and culminating in the epic New Krypton and War against Brainiac sagas, the Legion were restored: once again carving out a splendid and unique niche in the DC Universe.

Along the way came this superb, nostalgia-laced cracker which re-established direct contact between the futuristic paladins and the current Man of Tomorrow…

Compiling Action Comics #858-863 (December 2007 through May 2008), this collected chronicle – sporting an Introduction from veteran LSH creator Keith Giffen – finds the Legion back in the 21st century, seeking Superman to save Tomorrow’s World once more.

Long ago the Legion had regularly visited: spiriting the young Kryptonian to a place and time where he didn’t have to hide his true nature. However, once he began his official and adult public career, the visits ceased and his memories were suppressed to safeguard the integrity of history and the inviolability of the timeline.

Now a desperate squad of Legionnaires must reawaken those memories since the Man of Steel is the last hope for a world on the edge of destruction. In the millennium since his debut, the myth of Superman has become a beacon of justice and tolerance throughout the Utopian Universe, but recently a radical, xenophobic anti-alien movement has swept Earth, marginalising, interning and even executing all non-Terrans.

Moreover, a super-powered team of Legion rejects has formed a Justice League of Earth to spearhead a crusade against all extraterrestrial immigrants, and outrageously claim Superman was actually a true-born Earthling. They have even declared him the figurehead and spiritual leader of their pogrom…

Of course, Kal-El of Krypton must travel to the future and not only save the day but scour the racist stain from his name: a task made infinitely harder because Earth-Man, psychotic supremacist leader of the Earth-First faction, has turned yellow sun Sol a power-sapping red…

Bold, thrilling and utterly enthralling, the last-ditch struggle of a few brave aliens against a racist, fascistic and unrepentantly ruthless totalitarian tomorrow is the stuff of pure comic-book dreams. Superman strives to unravel a poisonous future where all his hopes and aspirations have been twisted and soiled, with only his truest childhood friends to aid him. It’s all made chillingly authentic thanks to the incredibly intense and hyper-realistic art of Gary Frank & Jon Sibal, making it all seem not only plausible and inevitable, but also inescapably horrible…

Sweetening the deal is a stunning covers and variants gallery by Frank, Adam Kubert, Steve Lightle, Mike Grell & Al Milgrom, plus pages of notes, roughs and designs from Frank’s preparatory work before embarking on the epic adventure.

Unforgettable, total Fights ‘n’ Tights future shock in the best way possible, and a major high point for fans of all ages…
© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Team-Ups of the Brave and the Bold


By J. Michael Straczynski, Jesus Saiz, Chad Hardin, Justiniano, Cliff Chiang & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2793-7 (HB) 978-1-4012-2809-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

The Brave and the Bold premiered in 1955; an anthology adventure comic featuring short complete tales starring a variety of period heroes and a format mirroring and cashing in on that era’s filmic fascination with historical dramas.

Devised and written by Robert Kanigher, issue #1 led with Roman epic Golden Gladiator, medieval mystery-man The Silent Knight and Joe Kubert’s now legendary Viking Prince. The Gladiator was soon replaced by National Periodicals/DC Comics’ iteration of Robin Hood, and the high adventure theme carried the title until the end of the decade when a burgeoning superhero revival saw B&B remodelled as a try-out vehicle like the astounding successful Showcase.

Deployed to launch enterprising concepts and characters such as Task Force X: The Suicide Squad, Cave Carson, Strange Sports Stories, Hawkman and the epochal Justice League of America, the title then evolved to create a whole sub-genre – although barely anybody noticed at the time…

That innovation was Superhero Team-Ups.

For almost a decade DC had enjoyed great success pairing Superman with Batman and Robin in World’s Finest Comics, and in 1963 sought to create another top-selling combo from their growing pantheon of masked mystery men. It didn’t hurt that the timing also allowed extra exposure for characters imminently graduating to their own starring vehicles after years as back-up features…

This was during a period when almost no costumed heroes acknowledged the jurisdiction or (usually) existence of other costumed champions. When B&B offered this succession of power pairings, they were unknowingly laying foundations for DC’s future close-knit comics continuity. Nowadays, there’s something wrong with any superstar who doesn’t regularly join every other cape or mask on-planet every five minutes or so…

The short-lived experiment eventually calcified as “Batman and…” but, for a while, readers were treated to some truly inspired pairings such as Flash and the Doom Patrol, Metal Men and Metamorpho, Flash and The Spectre or Supergirl and Wonder Woman.

The editors even achieved their aim after Robin, Kid Flash and Aqualad remained together after their initial foray and expanded into the ever-popular Teen Titans…

That theme of heroes united together for a specific time and purpose was revived in 2007 for the third volume of The Brave and the Bold, resulting in many exceedingly fine modern Fights ‘n’ Tights classics, and this compilation collects issues #27-33 (November 2009 – June 2010): the first seven issues scripted by TV/comics star scribe J. Michael Straczynski.

The run of easily accessible, stand-alone tales delved into some of the strangest nooks and crannies of the DCU and opens here with ‘Death of a Hero’, illustrated by Jesús Saíz, wherein teenager Robby Reed visits Gotham City and decides to help out a Batman sorely pressed by the machinations of The Joker…

The child prodigy had his own series in the 1960s as a kid who found a strange rotary device dotted with alien hieroglyphics that could temporarily transform him into a veritable army of super-beings when he dialled the English equivalents of H, E, R and O…

Here, however, after the lad dials up futuristic clairvoyant Mental Man, the visions he experiences force him to quit immediately and take to his bed…

He even forgets the Dial when he leaves, and it is soon picked up by down-&-out Travers Milton who also falls under its influence and is soon saving lives and battling beside the Dark Knight as The Star. What follows is a meteoric and tragic tale of a rise and fall…

Again limned by Saíz, B&B #28 takes us a wild trip to the ‘Firing Line’ as the Flash (Barry Allen) falls foul of a scientific experiment and winds up stranded in the middle of World War II. Injured and unable to properly use his powers, the diminished speedster is taken under the wing of legendary paramilitary aviator squadron The Blackhawks, but finds himself torn when his scruples against taking life crash into the hellish cauldron of the Battle of Bastogne and his manly, martial love of his new brothers in arms…

Brother Power, The Geek was a short-lived experimental title developed by legendary figure Joe Simon at the height of the hippy-dippy 1960s (or just last week if you’re a baby booming duffer like me).

He/it was a tailor’s mannequin mysteriously brought to life through extraordinary circumstances, just seeking his place in the world: a bizarre commentator and ultimate outsider philosophising on a world he could not understand.

That cerebral angst is tapped in ‘Lost Stories of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow’ when the elemental outcast crawls out of wreckage in Gotham City and clashes with Batman as they both strive to save homeless people from authoritarian brutality and greedy arsonists.

Like the times it references, this story is one you have to experience rather than read about…

Straczynski & Saíz play fast and loose with time travel in ‘The Green and the Gold’ as mystic Lord of Order Doctor Fate is helped through an emotional rough patch by Green Lantern Hal Jordan. As a result of that unnecessary kindness, the mage gets to return the favour long after his own demise at the moment the Emerald Warrior most needs a helping hand…

Illustrated by Chad Hardin & Walden Wong and Justiniano, The Brave and the Bold #31 describes ‘Small Problems’ encountered by The Atom after Ray Palmer is asked to shrink into the synapse-disrupted brain of The Joker to perform life-saving surgery. Despite his better judgement, the physicist eventually agrees but nobody could have predicted that he would be assimilated into the maniac’s memories and forcibly relive the Killer Clown’s life…

Straczynski & Saíz reunite as sea king Aquaman and hellish warrior Etrigan the Demon combine forces in a long-standing pact to thwart a revolting Cthonic invasion of ‘Night Gods’ from a hole in the bottom of the ocean before this mesmerising tome concludes with a bittersweet ‘Ladies Night’ from times recently passed, illustrated by Cliff Chiang.

When sorceress Zatanna experiences a shocking dream, she contacts Wonder Woman and Batgirl Barbara Gordon, insisting that they should join her on an evening of hedonistic excess and sisterly sharing. Only Babs is left out of one moment of revelation: what Zatanna foresaw would inescapably occur to her the next day at the hands of the Joker…

Smart, moving and potently engaging, these heroic alliances are a true treat for fans of more sophisticated costumed capers, and skilfully prepared in such a way that no great knowledge of backstory is required. Team-ups are all about finding new readers and this terrific tome is a splendid example of the trick done right…
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