Category: Graphic Novels

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Showcase Presents Legion of Super-Heroes volume 4


By James Shooter, E. Nelson Bridwell, Cary Bates, Curt Swan, George Papp, J. Winslow Mortimer, George Tuska, Dave Cockrum, Murphy Anderson, Mike Esposito, Vince Colletta & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2185-0 (TPB)

Once upon a time, a thousand years from now, a band of super-powered kids from a multitude of worlds took inspiration from the greatest legend of all time and formed a club of heroes. One day those Children of Tomorrow came back in time and invited their inspiration to join them…

Thus began the vast and epic saga of the Legion of Super-Heroes, as initially envisioned by writer Otto Binder & artist Al Plastino when the many-handed mob of juvenile universe-savers debuted in Adventure Comics #247 (April 1958) just as the revived superhero genre was gathering an inexorable head of steam in America. Since that time the fortunes and popularity of the Legion have perpetually waxed and waned, with their future history tweaked and rebooted, retconned and overwritten over and over again to comply with editorial diktat and popular fashion.

This drama-drenched fourth monochrome compendium gathers a chronological parade of futuristic delights from June 1968 to September 1970, originally seen in Adventure Comics #369-380 and the reprint issue #403, plus back-up tales from Action Comics #378-392 – a time when the superhero genre again dipped in popularity. Also included in this enchanting tome are the tentative first forays of the team’s slow revival as an alternating back-up feature in Superboy, via game-changing exploits from #172-173, 176, 183-184, 188 190 and 191, collectively covering March 1971 to October 1972.

During this period the youthful, generally fun-loving and carefree Club of Champions peaked; having only just evolved into a dedicated and driven dramatic action series starring a grittily realistic combat force in constant, galaxy-threatening peril. Although now an overwhelming force of valiant warriors ready and willing to pay the ultimate price for their courage and dedication, science itself, science fiction and costumed crusaders all increasingly struggled against a global resurgence in spiritual questioning and supernatural fiction…

The main architect of the transformation was teenaged sensation Jim Shooter, whose scripts and layouts (generally finished and pencilled by the astoundingly talented and understated Curt Swan) made the series accessible to a generation of fans growing up with their heads in the Future but as the fashions shifted, the series was unceremoniously ousted from its ancestral home and full-length adventures to become a truncated back-up feature in Action Comics. Typically, that shift occurred just as the stories were getting really, really good and truly mature…

Crafted by Shooter, Swan & Jack Abel, tense suspense blooms with ‘Mordru the Merciless!’ (Adventure Comics #369) when the Legion is attacked by their most powerful enemy: a nigh-omnipotent sorcerer the entire assemblage had only narrowly defeated once before.

A sneak attack shatters the whole team and only four escape, using a time-bubble to flee to the remote, archaic era where Superboy lived. With him come Mon-El, Shadow Lass and Duo Damsel, last remnants of a once-unbeatable force.

Mordru’s magic is stronger though and even the time-barrier cannot daunt him. Disguised as mere mortals, the fugitive Legionnaires’ courage shines through in exile as petty gangsters take over Smallville. The teens quashed the parochial plunderers and then opt to return to the 30th century and confront Mordru, only to discover he’s found them first…

The saga concluded in #370’s ‘The Devil’s Jury!’ wherein the band again break free to hide in plain sight by temporarily wiping their own memories to thwart the Dark Lord’s probes. Against appalling odds and with only Clark Kent’s best friend Pete Ross and Insect Queen Lana Lang to aid them, the heroes’ doomed last stand implausibly succeeds when Mordru’s overbearing arrogance causes his own downfall.

Then when the exhausted fugitives get back to the future they joyously discover that Dream Girl and benign sorceress White Witch had undone the deluded Dark Lord’s worst…

Extortion and espionage were the order of the day in #371’s ‘The Colossal Failure!’ as a Legionnaire’s parents are abducted and the hero is forced to botch missions. Ordered to retrain at the high security Legion Academy, Colossal Boy is subsequently caught selling the team’s training secrets and cashiered from the organisation…

This issue also offered the George Papp illustrated ‘When Superboy Walked Out on the Legion!’, wherein hyper-advanced super snobbish aliens threaten Smallville unless Superboy leaves Earth to join their band of press-ganged heroes. It requires ingenuity, a faux civil war and massive destruction to finally convince the alien autocrats to let the assembled champions return to their own home-worlds…

Colossal Boy’s tale of woe concluded in Adventure #372 when his concerned former comrades uncover the cause of the expelled giant’s dilemma, tracking him to a ‘School for Super-Villains!’ (Shooter, Swan & Abel), where the fallen hero is compelled to teach meta-powered man rogues all the LSH’s secrets.

Luckily – and thanks to the expedited induction of apprentice and ergo unknown heroes Timber Wolf and Chemical King – the good guys infiltrate and shut down this first incarnation of the Legion of Super-Villains.

From #373 onwards Golden Age veteran J. Winslow Mortimer replaced Swan as penciller and ‘The Tornado Twins!’ Don and Dawn Allen run rings around and generally humiliate the assembled heroes… but all for a very good cause, before ‘Mission: Diabolical!’ in #374 focusses on the future equivalent of organised crime after most Legionnaires are ambushed and held hostage by the insidious Scorpius gang.

Hard-pressed by rival outfit Taurus, the mobsters decided to “recruit” a team of heroes to equal their enemies’ squad of hyper-powered goons; Rogarth, Mystelor, Shagrek, Quanto and Black Mace. Of course, after infiltrating and defeating their foes, the compromised kids – Supergirl, Element Lad, Dream Girl, Ultra Boy and Matter-Eater Lad – are double-crossed by Scorpius and might have died if not for fortuitous intervention by the Legion of Substitute Heroes…

Next (#375-376) comes a powerful and devious 2-part thriller introducing galaxy-roving heroes The Wanderers, with that temporarily-insane-and-evil group battling the United Planets’ champions. They are far more concerned with determining who will be crowned ‘The King of the Legion!’ …

The matter is only relevant because a trans-dimensional challenger has demanded a duel with the “mightiest Legionnaire”, but when the dust settles the only hero left standing is chubby comic relief Bouncing Boy. When the triumphant winner is spirited away to another cosmos he lands in a feudal wonderland – complete with beautiful princess – menaced by a terrifying invader.

Sadly the hero is soon exposed as shape-shifting Durlan Legionnaire Reep Daggle and not the at-least-human Chuck Taine, but manfully overcomes his abductors’ initial prejudice and defeats usurper threat Kodar. He wins the heart and hand of Princess Elwinda, but is tragically rescued and whisked back across a permanently sealed dimensional barrier by his legion buddies who mistake a Royal Wedding for ‘The Execution of Chameleon Boy!’

A welcome edge of dark and bitter cynicism was creeping into Shooter’s stories, and ‘Heroes for Hire!’ (pencilled by Mortimer & inked by Jack Abel) sees the team charging for their unique services, but it’s only a brilliant ploy to derail the criminal career of Modulus: avatar of sentient living planet Modo who has turned his world into an unassailable haven for the worst villains of the galaxy…

Adventure #378 opens another tense and moving 2-parter as Superboy, Duo Damsel, Karate Kid, Princess Projectra and Brainiac 5 are poisoned and face only ‘Twelve Hours to Live!’

With no cure possible, the quintet separate to spend their last day in the most personally satisfying ways they can – from sharing precious moments with soon-to-be bereaved family to K-Kid’s one-man assault on the Fatal Five – only to reunite for their final moments and die together…

The incredible conclusion sees hyper-advanced being Seeron freeze time and offer to cure the practically dead victims if late arrivals Ultra Boy, Phantom Girl, Chameleon Boy, Timber Wolf, Star Boy, Lightning Lad and Chemical King return to his universe and defeat an invasion by brutes invulnerable to the mighty mental powers of the intellectual overlords…

However, even as the abducted Legionnaires triumph and return, their comrades – having been had been found again – are afforded the honour of ‘Burial in Space!’ …

Happily, a brilliant last-minute solution enables the dead to rise just in time to lose their long-held position in Adventure Comics as changing tastes and shrinking sales prompted an abrupt change of venue.

‘The Legion’s Space Odyssey!’ (# 380 cover-dated May 1969, by Shooter, Mortimer & Abel) sees a select band of Legionnaires teleported to the barren ends of the universe and forced to laboriously battle their way home against impossible odds. This argosy includes the “death” of Superboy and persistent sabotage by the Legion of Super-Pets. There’s a perfectly rational and reasonable excuse for the devious scheme of course, with the tale best remembered by fans as the mission on which Duo Damsel and Bouncing Boy first got together…

From #381 onwards Adventure Comics was filled with the 20th century exploits of Supergirl and the LSH took over her back-up spot in Action Comics, beginning with a reprint in #377 which is not included here.

Original, shorter Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes began in #378 (July 1969) with ‘The Forbidden Fruit!’ by Shooter, Mortimer & Mike Esposito with Timber Wolf deliberately addicted by criminals to a hyper-narcotic lotus in a bold scheme to turn the entire team into pliable junkies. Fortunately, the hero’s love for Light Lass allows him to overcome his awful burden, before #379’s ‘One of us is an Impostor’ (E. Nelson Bridwell, Mortimer & Murphy Anderson) offers a clever mystery to baffle Mon-El, Dream Girl, Element Lad, Shadow Lass and Lightning Lad as thermal thug Sunburst and a clever infiltrator threaten to tear the team apart from within.

Duo Damsel declares war on herself in #380 when one body falls under the sway of an alien Superboy. As half of her turns to crime, only Bouncing Boy can clean up the psychological mess of ‘Half a Legionnaire?’ (Shooter, Mortimer & Abel), after which Matter-Eater Lad reveals lowly origins and a dysfunctional family to lonely Shrinking Violet in #381: ending up ‘The Hapless Hero!’ battling her absurdly jealous absentee boyfriend Duplicate Boy -mightiest hero in the universe…

In #382 a covert team comprising Ultra Boy, Karate Kid, Light Lass, Violet and Timber Wolf attempt to end a potential super-robot arms-race and find that to succeed they have to ‘Kill a Friend to Save a World!’, before still-heartbroken Durlan Reep discovers an Earthly double of lost love Elwinda. However, on morphing into her ideal man he quickly sees the folly of ‘Chameleon Boy’s Secret Identity!’ – a tear-jerker with a hint of happy ending from Bridwell, Mortimer & Abel.

Shooter left his perfect job with #384, but signed off in style with his landmark ‘Lament for a Legionnaire!’ With art misattributed to Mortimer but in fact a welcome fill-in by Curt Swan & Abel, it tells how Dream Girl’s infallible prophecy of Mon-El’s demise comes true whilst his shocking resurrection introduces a whole new thrilling strand to the Lore of the Legion.

Bridwell, Mortimer & Abel show how a vengeance-crazed killer’s quest for retribution fails in ‘The Fallen Starboy!’ before crafting ‘Zap Goes the Legion!’ (Action #386) wherein female foe Uli Algor believes she has outthought and outfought the juvenile agents of justice. She forgot one crucial detail, however…

Then in #387 the creators delightfully added a touch of wry social commentary when the organisation had to downsize and lay off a Legionnaire for tax purposes after the government declares the team has ‘One Hero Too Many!’

Action #388 was an all-reprint Supergirl giant, but the now revenue-compliant Club of Heroes returned in #389 with ‘The Mystery Legionnaire!’ (by Cary Bates, Mortimer & Abel), explaining how robot dictator Klim is defeated by a hero who doesn’t exist, and Bridwell’s ‘The Tyrant and the Traitor’ (#390) reflects political turmoil of the 1970’s in a tale of guerrilla atrocity, destabilising civil war and covert regime change. The Legion Espionage Squad is tasked with doing dirty work, but even Chameleon Boy, Timber Wolf, Karate Kid, Brainiac 5 and Saturn Girl are out of their depth and only ‘The Ordeal of Element Lad!’ in the next issue saves the undercover unit from ignominious failure and certain death.

Action #392 (September 1970) temporarily ended the feature’s unbroken run with a low-key but gripping yarn from Bates, Mortimer & Abel including alternate dimensions and preposterous testing of ‘The Legionnaires that Never Were!’…

The Frantic Futurists weren’t gone too long. In 1971 a concerted push to revive them began with March-dated Superboy # 172 and ‘Brotherly Hate!’ by Bridwell & George Tuska. The sharp, smart yarn details the convoluted origins of twins Garth and Ayla Ranzz AKA Lightning Lad & Light Lass and their troubled relationship with older brother Mekt – the deadly outlaw Lightning Lord.

At the same time Adventure Comics #403 (April 1971) was released: an all-Legion reprint special which included new ‘Fashions from Fans’ by Bridwell, Ross Andru & Esposito as well as a comprehensive ‘Diagram of Legion Headquarters Complex’, included here for your delight and delectation…

Some of those fan-costumes – generally the skimpier ones designed by boys for the girl heroes – were adopted for ongoing backups appearing in Superboy. They continued the comeback with ‘Trust Me or Kill Me!’ (#173 by Bates & Tuska). Here, Superboy must devise a way to determine which Cosmic Boy is his true friend and which a magical duplicate made by malefic Mordru.

The origin of Invisible Kid and secrets of his powers are examined in #176 when a crook duplicates the boy genius’ fadeaway gifts in ‘Invisible Invader!’, whilst Bates, Tuska & Vince Colletta report on the ‘War of the Wraith-Mates!’ (#183) with energy entities renewing an eons-old war of the sexes after possessing Mon-El, Shadow Lass, Karate Kid and Princess Projectra.

In a tale by Bates. Superboy #184 hinted at days of greatness to come with ‘One Legionnaire Must Go!’ Here Matter-Eater Lad is framed and replaced by his own little brother, but the big advance was the inking of LSH fanatic Dave Cockrum over Murphy Anderson’s pencils. The neophyte artist would gradually transform the look, feel and fortunes of the Legion before moving to Marvel and doing exactly the same with an almost forgotten series entitled X-Men…

With Superboy #188’s Bates-scripted ‘Curse of the Blood-Crystals!’ (July 1972), Anderson began inking Cockrum, in the sixth stunning back-up tale of a now unstoppable Legion revival that would eventually lead to them taking over the entire comic book. This clever yarn of cross-&-double-cross finds a Legionnaire possessed by a magical booby-trap and forced to murder Superboy… but which of the two dozen heroes is actually the prospective killer?

Superboy #190 featured ‘Murder the Leader!’ as the Fatal Five attack during the election of a new Legion Commander. Rival candidates Saturn Girl and Mon-El must work together if either is to take the top job, after which this volume concludes with stunning thriller ‘Attack of the Sun-Scavenger!’ (Bates & Cockrum from #191). In a staggering burst of comics brilliance, manic solar scoundrel Dr. Regulus again attacks Sun Boy and his Legion comrades, using his own apparent death as key to ultimate victory…

The Legion of Super-Heroes is unquestionably one of the most beloved and bewildering creations in funnybook history and largely responsible for the growth of groundswell movements that became American Comics Fandom. Moreover, these scintillating and seductively addictive stories – as much as Julie Schwartz’s Justice League or Marvel’s Fantastic Four – fired the interest and imaginations of generations of and underpinned the industry we all know today.

If you love comics and haven’t read this stuff, you are the poorer for it and need to enrich your future days as soon as possible.
© 1968-1972, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Adventures Avengers: Thor and Captain America


By Paul Tobin, Scott Gray, Todd DeZago, Ronan Cliquet, Ron Lim, Lou Kang & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5584-3 (Digest PB)

In 2003 the House of Ideas instituted a Marvel Age line: an imprint updating classic original tales and characters for a newer, younger readership. The enterprise was modified in 2005, with core titles reduced to Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. The tone was very much that of the company’s burgeoning TV cartoon franchises, in delivery if not name.

Supplemental series including Super Heroes, The Avengers, Hulk and Iron Man chuntered along merrily until 2010 when they were cancelled. In their place came new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man.

Most of the re-imagined tales were collected in gleefully inviting digest-sized compilations and digitised; this – except for a electric version – was the case with this engaging ensemble featuring fabulous  forays starring the God of Thunder or Sentinel of Liberty and their Avenging allies: a quartet of all-ages tales from the second volume of Marvel Adventures Super Heroes (#13-16, spanning June-September 2011).

The action opens with a mythological masterpiece by Paul Tobin, Ronan Cliquet & Amilton Santos wherein plucky novice hero Nova is invited by Avenging comrades Thor and Valkyrie to accompany them on an annual errand for All-Father Odin.

In the distant past when Asgardians warred with Trolls, godling messenger Glane failed in his mission and was banished to the ghastly Fields of the Fallen to pay penance by continually battling the Golden Realm’s vilest enemies. Periodically, Thor has been sent to add new tasks to the sinning failure’s heavy burden, and this year – as the Thunderer and Valkyrie ready themselves for the trip – they invite starstruck neophyte Nova along.

However, as the trio war their way through horrific monsters and overwhelming odds, Nova finds himself increasingly uncomfortable with the sentence meted out to Glane. He even begins doubting the motives of his immortal mentors. All that changes once he meets and battles beside the convicted penitent…

Originating in MASH #14, ‘Out of Time!’ is by Todd DeZago, Ron Lim & Scott Koblish (inspired by Gerry Conway & Ross Andru’s tale from the original Marvel Team-Up #7). Here, the Lord of Storm intercepts Spider-Man after the wallcrawler is blasted high into the sky whilst battling raving maniac the Looter.

That happy coincidence occurs just a bizarre force freezes time around them. When the heroes discover that only they have escaped a devastating weapon deployed by Trollish tyrant Kryllk the Conqueror to paralyze and overwhelm both Asgard and the mortal plane, they must divide their strength to simultaneously smash the conqueror in Manhattan and Asgard if they are to set time running free again…

Captain America takes the spotlight in #15 as ‘Back in Time’ (Tobin, Cliquet & Santos) finds him battling Neanderthals with ray-guns in a National Forest after tracking down rogue geneticists who have stolen a huge amount of plutonium.

A mere mile away, Peter Parker’s girlfriend Sophia Sanduval is getting back to nature and chilling with her furry, scaly and feathered friends. As Chat, the mutant teen’s power to communicate with animals makes her a crucial component of the mystery-solving Blonde Phantom Detective Agency, but even she has never seen anything like the wave of extinct creatures which appear after Cap begins battling the tooled-up cavemen.

Soon Chat has been briefed on the deadly experiments of rogue technologist Jerrick Brogg. The villain’s ambition is to build an army out of revived extinct creatures, but she and helps The Star-Spangled Avenger frustrate those save all the beasts he has re-created from short painful lives of terror and brutal exploitation, before putting the maniac away for good.

Wrapping up the action comes ‘Stars, Stripes and Spiders!’ by DeZago, Lou Kang & Pat Davidson (based on Len Wein & Gil Kane’s tale from Marvel Team-Up #13). When a certain wallcrawling high-school student/occasional masked hero stumbles into Captain America tackling an AIM cadre stealing super-soldier serum, the nervous lad learns a few things about the hero game from the legendary guy who wrote the book. Sadly, not making that lesson any easier is petrifying supervillain Grey Gargoyle, whose deadly touch almost ends Spidey’s homework worries – and continued existence – forever…

Fast, furious, funny and enthralling, these riotous mini-epics are extremely enjoyable yarns, although parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the level of violence might not be what everybody considers “All-Ages Super Hero Action”…
© 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Superman: Infinite City


By Mike Kennedy & Carlos Meglia (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1401200664 (DC US TPB) 978-1845760731 (Titan Books UK HB)

This original graphic novel is a lightweight but lovely piece of fluff that sees investigative reporters Mr and Mrs Kent-Lane tracking down the source of a devastating super-gun, only to be sucked into a strange time-warped dimension. There they are embroiled in a civil war between greedy, slimy, power hungry industrialist Jesden Tyme and the robotic Mayor, who turns out to be a download of the consciousness of Superman’s long dead biological father Jor-El…

Lavishly illustrated in the manner of an animated feature film, the European-flavoured stylizations of Argentinean Carlos Meglia (December 11 1957-August 15 2008: Irish Coffee, Bet Your Life, Star Wars) may not be to everyone’s taste but maybe you should just persist and be open to the new…

The plot from Mike Kennedy (Lone Wolf 2100, Star Wars: Underworld and the deeply under-appreciated Ghost/Batgirl, among others) lacks any real punch or originality of its own, relying on clichéd and oft-rehashed tropes, but there’s still bunches of wit and wonder to find over this particular rainbow. Moreover, the dialogue is sharp and effective, and some of the interplay between Lois and Clark is simply delightful. If you want a “done-in-one” delight starring comic books’ oldest power couple, this could be what you’re looking for.

There’s also a hardback British edition available should you want your reading unbending as well as pretty…
© 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Daredevil Epic Collection volume 6: Watch Out For Bullseye (1974-1976)


By Steve Gerber, Tony Isabella, Marv Wolfman, Chris Claremont, Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Bob Brown, Gene Colan, Don Heck, Sal Buscema & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4867-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer whose remaining senses hyper-compensate, enabling him to accomplish astonishing acrobatic feats, and making him a formidable fighter and a living lie-detector. Very much a second-string hero in his formative years, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due in large part to the roster of brilliant artists who had illustrated the strip. He only really came into his own, however, after artist Gene Colan signed up for the long haul…

DD battled thugs, gangsters, an eclectic mix of established and new super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion. He quipped and wise-cracked his way through life and life-threatening combat, utterly unlike the grim, moody quasi-religious metaphor he became under modern authorial regimes.

In these tales from an era when relevancy, social awareness and political polarisation was shifting gradually back to science fiction and fantasy, the Man Without Fear was also growing: becoming in many ways the judicial conscience of a generation turning its back on old values…

Covering March 1974 – April 1976 this compilation chronologically curates Daredevil #108-132, plus a crossover into Marvel Two-in-One #3 wherein twin storylines converged and concluded. This tome sees cultural gadfly Steve Gerber taking the odd couple into strange territory before later scribes reset things on a more traditional Marvel trajectory…

After spending years in a disastrous on-again, off-again relationship with his secretary Karen Page, Murdock took up with former client/exotic émigré and notorious celebrity dubbed The Black Widow. Natasha Romanoff/Natalia Romanova is a Soviet-era Russian spy who came in from the cold and stuck around to become one of Marvel’s earliest and most successful female stars.

She started life as a svelte, sultry honey-trap during Marvel’s early “Commie-busting” days, targeting Iron Man in her debut exploit (Tales of Suspense #52, April 1964) before subsequently being redesigned as a torrid tights-&-tech supervillain. Eventually, she defected to the USA, falling for an assortment of Yankee superheroes before enlisting as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., freelance do-gooder and occasional Avenger.

Throughout her career she has always been considered ultra-efficient, coldly competent, deadly dangerous and yet somehow cursed to bring doom and disaster to her paramours. As her backstory evolved, it was revealed that Natasha had undergone experimental processes which enhanced her physical capabilities and lengthened her lifespan, as well as assorted psychological procedures which had messed up her mind and memories…

Following a period of cosmic intensity which saw them battling aliens and monsters in San Francisco as part of the first war against Thanos, a new direction began in #108 after DD rebukes the Widow for using increasingly excessive force on the thugs they stalked. In ‘Cry… Beetle’ (by Gerber, Bob Brown & Paul Gulacy) their heated arguments are forcibly curtailed when Matt’s oldest friend – and current New York DA Franklin “Foggy” Nelson – is shot and she refuses to rush back to the East Coast beside Murdock. If she had, the Widow might have helped against the mechanised marauder and mystery troops from a new terrorist organisation…

In #109, Matt meets Foggy’s radical student sister Candace and learns of a plot by the mysterious criminal gang Black Spectre seek to steal government printing plates but – rapidly en route to stop the raid – the Scarlet Swashbuckler is intercepted by a larcenous third party whose brutal interference allows the sinister plotters to abscond with the money-making plates. Even the cops can’t slow the bludgeoning rematch against the Beetle in ‘Dying for Dollar$!’ (Brown & Heck), but as the exo-skeletoned thugs break away in Manhattan, in San Francisco Natasha is attacked by vicious albino mutant Nekra, Priestess of Darkness, who tries to forcibly recruit her into Black Spectre.

After tracking down and defeating the Beetle, DD meets Africa-based hero Shanna the She-Devil, unaware the fiery American ex-pat is seeking bloody vengeance against the same enemies who have attacked Foggy, Natasha and the US economy…

The next chapter came in Marvel Two-in-One #3 (May 1974, by Gerber, Sal Buscema & Joe Sinnott), providing a peek ‘Inside Black Spectre!’ as destabilising attacks on prosperity and culture foment riot in the streets of the beleaguered nation. Following separate clue trails, The Thing joins the Man without Fear to invade the cabal’s aerial HQ, but are improbably overcome soon after discovering the Black Widow has defected to the rebels…

Daredevil #110 sees the return of Gene Colan – inked by Frank Chiaramonte – as the perfidious plot develops in ‘Birthright!’, revealing Black Spectre to be an exclusively female-staffed organisation, led by pheromone-emitting male mutant Mandrill. One of the first “Children of the Atom”, the ape-like creature had suffered appalling abuse and rejection until finding equally ostracised Nekra. Once they met and realised their combined power, they swore to make America pay…

Brown & Jim Mooney render ‘Sword of the Samurai!’ in #111, with DD and Shanna attacked by a formidable Japanese warrior, even as the She-Devil discloses her tragic reasons for hunting Nekra and Mandrill. When she too is taken by Black Spectre – who want to dissect her to discover how she can resist Mandrill’s influence – DD is attacked again by the outrageously powerful sword-wielding Silver Samurai…

Triumphing over impossible odds, DD infiltrates the cabal’s flying fortress in #112 to spectacularly conclude the insurrection in ‘Death of a Nation?’ (Colan & Frank Giacoia), which finds the mutant duo seemingly achieving their ultimate goal by desecrating the White House and temporarily taking (symbolic) control of America.

… But only until Shanna, freshly-liberated Natasha and the fighting mad Man Without Fear marshal their utmost resources…

Even with his epic over, Gerber kept popping away at contemporary socio-political issues, as with #113’s ‘When Strikes the Gladiator!’ (Brown & Vince Colletta), opening with the Widow calling it a day, continues with Candace arrested for treason, teases with her then being kidnapped by one of DD’s most bloodthirsty foes and climaxes with the creation of a major new villain and an attack by one of Marvel’s most controversial monster heroes…

Ted Sallis was a government scientist hired to recreate the Super-Soldier serum that created Captain America. Due to corporate interference and what we today call “mission creep”, the project metamorphosed into a fall-back plan to turn humans into beings able to thrive in the most polluted, toxic environment…

When Sallis was subsequently captured by spies and consumed his serum to stop them from stealing it, he was transformed into a horrific mindless Man-Thing and vanished into the swamps of Florida…

Idealistic journalism student Candace had uncovered illicit links between Big Business, her own university and the Military’s misuse of public funds in regard to the Sallis Project, but when she attempted to blow the whistle, the government decided to shut her up. More worryingly, sinister scientific mastermind Death-Stalker imagined far more profitable uses for a solution that made unkillable monsters…

Trailing Candy’s abductors to Citrusville, Florida, Daredevil is ambushed by Gladiator and his macabre employer, but saved after a furious fracas by the mysterious muck-monster in #114’s ironically entitled ‘A Quiet Night in the Swamp!’ (Brown & Colletta). Death-Stalker unfortunately escapes to New York, trying to kill Foggy and restart the clandestine Sallis Project. Though DD foils the maniac in #115’s ‘Death Stalks the City!’, the staggering duel ends inconclusively and the potential mass-murderer’s body cannot be found…

Colan & Colletta reunited for ‘Two Flew Over the Owl’s Nest!’ as Daredevil jets back to San Francisco to reconcile with Natasha, only to blunder into the latest criminal enterprise of one of his oldest enemies. This time however, The Owl isn’t waiting to be found, launching an all-out attack on the unsuspecting and barely reconciled heroic couple.

Chris Claremont scripted the conclusion over Gerber’s plot, with Brown & Colletta back on the art as Natasha and Shanna desperately hunt for the missing Man without Fear, before the avian arch-criminal can add him to a pile of purloined personalities trapped in his diabolical computerised ‘Mind Tap!’…

With Gerber moving on to other projects, a little messy creative shuffling results in #118’s ‘Circus Spelled Sideways is Death!’ (Gerry Conway, Don Heck & Colletta). Here Daredevil leaves Natasha, resettles in New York and promptly battles the infamous but always-inept Circus of Crime and their latest star turn – bat-controlling masked nut Blackwing, after which Tony Isabella takes the authorial reins with a clever piece of sentimental back-writing. Rendered by Brown & Heck, ‘They’re Tearing Down Fogwell’s Gym!’ sees Murdock negotiating a plea deal for Candace, whilst the man who trained his boxer father Battling Jack Murdock comes by with a little problem. It seems a crazy crooked doctor is offering impossible muscle and density boosting treatments that turns bantamweight pugilists into unstoppable rock-hard heavyweight brutes…

Crafted by Isabella, Brown & Colletta, Daredevil #120 began an extended saga focussing on the re-emergence of the world’s most powerful secret society. ‘… And a Hydra New Year!’ sees Black Widow hit New York for one last attempt to make the rocky relationship work, only to find herself – with Matt and Foggy – knee-deep in Hydra troops at a Christmas party.

The resurgent terrorist tribe has learned America’s greatest security agency needs to recruit a legal expert as one of their Board of Directors and – determined to prevent the accession of ‘Foggy Nelson, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D’ at all costs – have dispatched the formidable wild man El Jaguar and an army of masked thugs to stop him before he can start. Thankfully, Nick Fury and his crack commandos arrive in time to drive off the attackers but the rumour is true and Foggy is now a marked man…

The revived organisation has scoured the ranks of the criminal classes (and Marvel’s back catalogue) for its return and B-Listers like Dreadnought, Commander Kraken, Man-Killer, Mentallo, The Fixer, Blackwing and many other not-so golden oldies who happily toil for the enigmatic new Supreme Hydra as he strives to take out increasingly harried Foggy. Eventually, they succeed in capturing the portly District Attorney and the Widow goes off the deep end in #122’s ‘Hydra-and-Seek’, turning New York into a war-zone as she hunts for clues, culminating in a brutal showdown and ‘Holocaust in the Halls of Hydra!’

The times, mood and scripter were changing however, and the next two issues turn to darker, more gothic dramas, beginning with #124 and the advent of a vigilante killer patterned on an old pulp fiction hero.

Written by Len Wein & Marv Wolfman and illustrated by Colan (with Klaus Janson inking) ‘In the Coils of the Copperhead!’ courts controversial gritty realism then remaking Batman over at DC Comics as the Widow finally really and truly walks, leaving the frustrated hero to bury himself in the mystery of a murdering madman savagely overreacting to petty crime and leaving a trail of bodies behind him…

Foggy meanwhile is up for re-election and losing on all counts to too-good-to-be true Blake Tower. Sadly, Matt can’t offer any help or support as he seeks the secret of the vigilante. The resultant clash doesn’t go the Scarlet Swashbuckler’s way either, and he starts #125 with the terrifying realisation that ‘Vengeance is the Copperhead!’ (by Wolfman, Brown & Janson) before achieving a last-minute, skin-of-the-teeth hollow victory…

As writer and editor, Wolfman began a long-term revision as ‘Flight of the Torpedo’ (Brown & Janson) introduces insurance agent/gone-to-seed football hero Brock Jones who – in classic Hitchcockian manner – stumbles into a plot to control the world and inherits a rocket-powered super-suit coveted by enemy agents. Unfortunately, DD has just been almost killed by the rocket suit’s previous owner and, blithely unaware, seeks to renew the brutal grudge fight…

The battle escalates in #127 as ‘You Killed That Man Torpedo… and Now You’re Going to Pay!’ sees inevitable misunderstanding escalate with both weary warriors losing all perspective. Only when they almost kill a family of innocent bystanders are they shamed into a ceasefire…

Guilt-ridden and remorseful, Murdock swears off swashbuckling in #128, until uncanny events dictate and demand the return of the Man Without Fear. ‘Death Stalks the Stairway to the Stars!’ introduces a mysterious figure literally walking into intergalactic space and features the return of teleporting psychopath Death-Stalker in pursuit of ancient objects of power. However, the real inducements to intrigue are Matt’s pushy, flighty girlfriend Heather Glenn and the increasing efficacy of attack ads targeting Foggy. Not only do they slanderously belittle the incumbent DA, but – 40 years before our own problems with “Fake News” – increasingly challenge consensus reality with absurd and scurrilous statements about all authority figures…

The media maelstrom intensifies even as Murdock scours the city for his latest client in ‘Man-Bull in a China Town!’ with “leaked” films “proving” both John F. and Robert Kennedy are still alive. Rampaging monster Man-Bull escapes court during his lawyer’s summing up and stalks the city, aided and abetted by one of DD’s oldest enemies, but ultimately cannot escape a dreadful fate…

Urban voodoo and a slickly murderous conman infest #130 as ‘Look Out, DD… Here Comes the Death-Man!’ finds the prestigious blind lawyer opening a storefront legal services operation for the disadvantaged, even as the misinformation campaign peaks. Meanwhile, brutal Brother Zed demands a human sacrifice and a terrified mother finds her only hope is a human devil in red…

Closing this spectacular compilation is the 2-part debut of a villain who would become one of the most popular psycho-killers in the business. ‘Watch Out for Bullseye… He Never Misses!’ sees wealthy men very publicly targeted for extortion by a mystery murderer who can turn any object – from paper plane to garbage can – into a deadly weapon. Hunted by the Man Without Fear, the lethal loon turns the table on DD in ‘Bullseye Rules Supreme!’, until a final fateful battle settles the case and begins a lifelong obsession for both men…

Supplementing the furious fun are contemporaneous features from Marvel’s F.O.O.M. magazine #13 (March 1976) spotlighting the Scarlet Swashbuckler. Following a stunning cover by Colan, numerous articles explore the character – such as ‘(but first a word from our sponsors’, ‘Through the eyes of a Beholder’ (by Naomi Basner & Chris Claremont, featuring Colan pencil art and gorgeous model sheets crafted by Wally Wood when he took over the strip) and Basner’s ‘The Women in Daredevil’s Life’.

‘Buscema’s Bullpen’ offers art from the illustrator’s then students – and yes, some of them went on to far greater things! – after which Claremont interviews Stan Lee & Wolfman in ‘A Talk with the Men Behind the Man Without Fear’. A Daredevil Checklist segues into Gil Kane’s cover sketch for Giant-Size Daredevil #1; a repro of the published image and images from the 1975 Mighty Marvel Calendar.

Both issues #120 and 121 were supplemented by text pages outlining the convoluted history of Hydra and they’re reprinted here too to keep us all in the arcane espionage loop, before a selection of original art pages by Brown and Janson and house ads remind just how good this hero can look…

As the social upheaval of the 1970s receded, these fabulous fantasy tales strongly indicated the true potential of Daredevil was in reach. Their narrative energy and exuberant excitement are dashing delights no action fan will care to miss. These beautifully illustrated yarns may still occasionally jar with their earnest stridency and dated attitudes, but the narrative energy and sheer exuberance of such classic adventures are graphic joys no action fan will care to miss. And the next volume heads even further into uncharted territory…
© 2023 MARVEL.

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Marvel Platinum: The Definitive Iron Man Reloaded


By Stan Lee, Archie Goodwin, Mike Friedrich, Tony Isabella, Len Kaminski, Matt Fraction, Don Heck, George Tuska, Greg LaRocque, Kev Hopgood, Salvador Larroca, Carmine di Giandomenico, Nathan Fox, Haim Kano & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-529-1 (TPB)

It’s hard to encapsulate six decades of excellence but as the Golden Avenger celebrates his anniversary, here’s a rare old gem from ten years gone, still readily available, that has a pretty good go at just that…

Produced under the always intriguing Marvel Platinum/Definitive Editions umbrella, this treasury of tales gathers a some of the more impressive but happily less obvious landmarks from the Steel Sentinel’s extensive canon; this time cannily focusing on sinister mastermind, ultimate arch-enemy The Mandarin.

Contained herein are high-tech hi-jinks from Tales of Suspense #50, Iron Man volume 1, #21-22, 68-71, 291 & 500, Marvel Team-Up #146 and Iron Man volume 5 #19, (listed on Marvel’s Database as Invincible Iron Man volume 1 #19), cumulatively spanning 1964 to 2011, and offering a fair representation of what is quite frankly an over-abundance of riches to pick from…

Arch-technocrat and supreme survivor Tony Stark has changed his profile many times since debuting in Tales of Suspense #39 (cover-dated March 1963) when, as a VIP visitor in Vietnam observing the efficacy of the munitions he had designed, he was critically wounded and captured by sinister, cruel Communists.

Put to work building weapons with the dubious promise of medical assistance on completion, Stark instead created the first Iron Man suit to keep himself alive and deliver him from his oppressors. From there it was a simple jump to full time superheroics as a modern Knight in Shining Armour…

Since then the inventor/armaments manufacturer has been a liberal capitalist, eco-warrior, space pioneer, Federal politician, affirmed Futurist, Statesman and even Director of the world’s most scientifically advanced spy agency, the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate, and, of course, one of Earth’s most prominent superheroes with The Mighty Avengers…

For a popular character/concept lumbered with a decades-long pedigree, radical reboots were and are a painful but vital periodic necessity. To keep contemporary, Stark’s origin and Iron Man’s continuity have been drastically revised every so often with the crucible trigger event perpetually leapfrogging to America’s most recent conflicts. As always, change is everything but, remember, these aren’t just alterations, these are upgrades…

After a mandatory introduction from co-originator Stan Lee, the star-studded action begins with ‘The Hands of the Mandarin!’ from Tales of Suspense #50 wherein the wonderful Don Heck returned as regular penciller and occasional inker after a brief absence, and Lee introduced The Golden Avenger’s first major menace. This was a contemporary Fu Manchu who terrified the Red Chinese so much they manoeuvred him into attacking America in the hope that one threat would destroy the other. Please, if you can, remember that these were simpler, less evolved and far more casually racist times than today…

In response, the Golden Avenger invades the mastermind’s Chinese citadel where, after a ferocious but futilely inconclusive fight, he simply goes back home to the Land of the Free. The furious Mandarin holds a grudge, however, and would make himself arguably Iron Man’s greatest foe.

Of course, whilst Stark was the acceptable face of 1960s Capitalism – a glamorous millionaire industrialist, scientist and a benevolent all-conquering hero when clad in the super-scientific armour of his alter-ego – the turbulent tone of the 1970s soon relegated his suave, “can-do” image to the dustbin of history. With ecological disaster and social catastrophe from the myriad abuses of big business manifestly the new zeitgeists of the young (and how right they were!), the Metal Marvel and Stark International were soon confronting tricky questions from their increasingly politically savvy readership. With glamour, money and fancy gadgetry not quite so cool anymore, the questing voices of a new generation of writers began posing uncomfortable questions in the pages of a series that was once the bastion of militarised America…

Iron Man #21-22 (January & February 1970, by Archie Goodwin, George Tuska & Mike Esposito-as-Joe Gaudioso) found the multi-zillionaire trying to get out of the arms business and – following a heart transplant – looking to retire from the superhero biz. African-American boxer Eddie March became ‘The Replacement!’ as Stark, free from the heart-stimulating chest-plate which had preserved him for years, was briefly tempted by a life without strife. Unknown to all, Eddie had a major health problem of his own…

As Stark pursued a romantic future with business rival Janice Cord, her chief researcher and would-be lover Alex Niven was revealed as a Russian fugitive using her resources to rebuild the deadly armour of the Crimson Dynamo. Niven easily overcame the ailing substitute Avenger and, when Soviet heavy metal super-enforcer Titanium Man resurfaced with orders to arrest the defector, a 3-way clash ensued. Stark was forced to take up his metal burden again – but not before Eddie was grievously injured and Janice killed in #22’s classic tragedy ‘From this Conflict… Death!’

Stark’s romantic liaisons always ended badly. Four years later he was ardently pursuing Roxie Gilbert, a radical pacifist and sister of his old enemy Firebrand. She, of course, had no time for a man with so much blood on his hands…

Iron Man #68-71 (June to November 1974) was the opening sortie in a multi-part epic which saw mystic menace The Black Lama foment a war amongst the World’s greatest villains with ultimate power and inner peace as the promised prize. Crafted by Mike Friedrich, Tuska & Esposito, it began in Vietnam on the ‘Night of the Rising Sun!’ as the Mandarin struggled to free his mind (at that time trapped in the dying body of Russian villain the Unicorn).

Roxie had dragged Stark to the recently “liberated” People’s Republic in search of Eddie March’s lost brother: a POW missing since the last days of the war. The Americans were soon separated when Japanese ultra-nationalist, ambulatory atomic inferno and sometime X-Man Sunfire was tricked into attacking the Yankee Imperialists. The attack abruptly ended when Mandarin shanghaied the Solar Samurai and used his mutant energies to power a mind-transfer back into his own body.

Reborn in his original form, the deranged dictator began his campaign in earnest, eager to regain his castle from rival “oriental overlord” Yellow Claw. First, though, he had to crush Iron Man who – in ‘Confrontation!’ – had tracked him down and freed Sunfire A bombastic battle ended when the Golden Avenger was rendered unconscious and thrown into space…

‘Who Shall Stop… Ultimo?’ found the reactivated giant robot-monster attacking Mandarin’s castle even as the tyrant duelled the Claw to the death, with Iron Man and Sunfire arriving too late and left to mop up the contest’s survivor in ‘Battle: Tooth and Yellow Claw!’…

‘Hometown Boy’ (September 1984, by Tony Isabella, Greg LaRocque & Esposito) comes from the period when Stark again succumbed to alcoholism and lost everything, whilst friend and bodyguard Jim Rhodes took over the role of Golden Avenger. As Stark tried to make good with a new start-up company, this engaging yarn from Marvel Team-Up #146 sees the substitute hero still finding his ferrous feet whilst battling oft-failed assassin Blacklash at a trade fair in Cleveland, as much hindered as helped by visiting hero Spider-Man…

Despite successfully rebuilding his company, Stark’s woes actually increased. Iron Man #291 (April 1993) found the turbulent technocrat trapped in total body paralysis: using a neural interface to pilot the armour like a telemetric telepresence drone. He had also utterly alienated Rhodes who had been acting as his proxy in a tailored battle suit dubbed War Machine…

Concluding an extended epic saga, ‘Judgment Day’ by Len Kaminski & Kev Hopgood explosively revealed how the feuding friends achieved a tentative rapprochement whilst battling a legion of killer robots and death dealing devices programmed to hunt down Rhodes at all costs…

From December 2009 comes Invincible Iron Man #19, courtesy of Matt Fraction & Salvador Larroca. At this time, Federal initiative the Superhuman Registration Act led to Civil War between costumed heroes and Stark was appointed the American government’s Security Czar: “top cop” in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom. As Director of high-tech enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D., he was also the last word in all matters involving metahumans and the USA’s vast costumed community…

However, his heavy-handed mismanagement of various crises led to the arrest and the assassination of Captain America and an unimaginable escalation of global tension and destruction, culminating in an almost-successful Secret Invasion by shape-shifting alien Skrulls.

Discredited and ostracised, Stark was replaced by rehabilitated villain and recovering split-personality Norman Osborn (the original Green Goblin), who assumed full control of the USA’s covert agencies and military resources. He disbanded S.H.I.E.L.D. and placed the nation under the aegis of his new umbrella organisation H.A.M.M.E.R.

Osborn was still a monster at heart, however, and wanted total power. Intending to appropriate all Stark’s technological assets, the “reformed” villain began hunting the fugitive former Avenger. Terrified that not only his weaponry but also the secret identities of most of Earth’s heroes would fall into a ruthless maniac’s hands, Stark began to systematically erase all his memories, effectively lobotomising himself to save everything…

‘Into the White (Einstein on the Beach)’ delivers the conclusion of that quest as Stark, little more than an animated vegetable wearing his very first suit of armour, faced his merciless adversary in pointless futile battle, whilst in America faithful aide Pepper Potts, The Black Widow and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s last deputy director Maria Hill raided Osborn’s base to retrieve a disc with Tony’s last hope on it and simultaneously engineer the maniac’s ultimate defeat…

The comics portion of this winning compilation concludes with the lead tale from Iron Man #500 (March 2011) wherein a mostly recovered Stark is plagued by gaps in his mostly restored memory.

‘The New Iron Age’ by Matt Fraction, Carmine di Giandomenico, Nathan Fox, Haim Kano & Salvador Larroca, is a clever, twice-told tale beginning when Stark approaches sometime ally and employee Peter Parker in an effort to regain more of his lost past. Stark is plagued by dreams of a super-weapon he may or may not have designed, and together they track down the stolen plans for the ultimate Stark-tech atrocity which has fallen into the hands of murderous anti-progress fanatics resulting in a spectacular showdown of men versus machines…

Contiguously and interlaced throughout the tale are dark scenes of the near future where the Mandarin has conquered the world, enslaved Tony Stark and his son Howard and, with the ruthless deployment of Iron Man troopers and that long-ago-designed super weapon, all but eradicated humanity.

With Earth dying, rebel leader Ginny Stark leads the suicidal Black Widows armed with primitive weapons in one last charge against the dictator, aided by two traitors within the Mandarin’s household and guided by a message and mantra from the far forgotten past…

The book concludes with covers from Jack Kirby, Tuska, Esposito, Jim Starlin, Dave Cockrum, Ron Wilson, John Romita Sr., LaRoque, Bob Layton, Hopgood & Larroca, plus a dense and hefty 21 pages of text features, including ‘The Origin of the Mandarin’ by Mike Conroy and history, background and technical secrets of Crimson Dynamo, Justin Hammer, Happy Hogan, Mandarin, Pepper Potts, Stark Industries, Titanium Man and War Machine.

A thoroughly entertaining accompaniment tailored to the cinematic Marvel Fan, this is also a splendid device to make curious movie-goers converts to the comic incarnation: another solid sampling to entice the newcomers and charm the veteran Ferro-phile.
© 2013 Marvel. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Superman: The Third Kryptonian


By Kurt Busiek, Dwayne McDuffie, Fabian Nicieza, Rick Leonardi, Renato Guedes, José Wilson Magalhaés, Dan Green & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1987-1 (TPB)

After interminable page counts and the preponderant never-ending angst of hyper-mega-ultra-braided multi-part cross-overs, it’s quite nice to pick up an – admittedly slim – endeavour of more modest means and intent: to wit, a book with a couple of stories that actually begin, occur and end.

Collecting Action Comics #847, Superman #668-670 and Superman Annual #13, this tome actually has three yarns to delight, beginning with Kurt Busiek, Rick Leonardi and Dan Green’s mini-epic wherein every survivor of lost Krypton on Earth, including Power Girl, Clark and Lois’ adopted son Chris (don’t fret, it’s all explained in the story) and even Krypto are targeted for destruction by brutal space pirate Amalak, hungry to take vengeance for the misdeeds of the long dead “Kryptonian Empire”.

Imagine how the irate rogue reacts upon discovering that – unbeknownst to all – an actual survivor of that long-dead galactic aggressor-state has been living secretly on Earth for years…

Good old-fashioned romp though it is, the real meat of this tale was an adjustment and rewriting of Kryptonian history for the post-Smallville/Superman Returns generation. As the disparate continuities of TV, Cinema and comic books were massaged closer to overarching homogeneity, the best of the old was retrofitted to the new. This is an uncomplicated adventure thriller with nostalgic overtones that has a lot to recommend it.

‘The Best Day’ (Busiek, Fabian Nicieza, Guedes & José Wilson Magalhaés) offers sheer delight, and beautiful execution. In a quiet moment, Superman and Supergirl take the Kent clan on a picnic to the stars where we get a chance to see beloved characters interact in joy and relaxation, as the skies of a million universes aren’t collapsing around their invulnerable ears. It’s a brave, rewarding return to old ways and I still want to see more of it.

So go no further than ‘Intermezzo’ (McDuffie and Guedes), another introspective segment sliced from a longer epic, short on punching but big on emotional wallop as Jonathan and Martha Kent share secrets and reveal close-held fears as their adopted son struggles off-camera with another “Never-Ending Battle.”

It’s such gentle moments and the emotional beats that give the best adventure fiction its edge, and this book has them in delightful quantities. This is the stuff that made Superman a legend, and in this anniversary year this collection is an ideal argument for stuff like this to stage a comeback.
© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Doctor Who volume 11: Cold Day in Hell


By Simon Furman, Mike Collins, Grant Morrison, John Freeman, Dan Abnett, Richard Alan & John Carnell, Alan Grant, John Ridgway, Kev Hopgood, Tim Perkins, Geoff Senior, David Hine, Bryan Hitch, John Higgins, Lee Sullivan, Dougie Braithewaite & Dave Elliott, Andy Lanning, Martin Griffiths & Cam Smith & various (Panini Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-410-2 (TPB)

Despite the volatile vagaries of quantumly entanglementation, if you generally experience reality in a sequential manner, this year remains the 60th Anniversary of Doctor Who. Thus there is/has been/will be a bunch of Timey-Wimey stuff on-going as we periodically celebrate a unique TV and comics institution…

The British love comic strips, adore “characters” and are addicted to celebrity. The history of our homegrown graphic narratives includes an astounding number of comedians, Variety stars and television actors: such disparate legends as Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Askey, Charlie Drake and so many more I’ve long forgotten and you’ve likely never heard of.

As much adored and adapted were actual shows and properties like Whacko!, Supercar, Thunderbirds, Pinky and Perky, The Clangers and literally hundreds of others. If folk watched or listened, an enterprising publisher made printed spectacles of them. Hugely popular anthology comics including Radio Fun, Film Fun, TV Fun, Look-In, TV Comic, TV Tornado, and Countdown readily and regularly translated our light entertainment favourites into pictorial joy every week, and it was a pretty poor star or show that couldn’t parley the day job into a licensed strip property…

Doctor Who premiered on black-&-white televisions across Britain on November 23rd 1963 with the premiere episode of ‘An Unearthly Child’. In 1964, a decades-long association with TV Comic began: issue #674 heralding the initial instalment of ‘The Klepton Parasites’.

On 11th October 1979 (although adhering to the US off-sale cover-dating system so it says 17th), Marvel’s UK subsidiary launched Doctor Who Weekly. Turning monthly magazine in September 1980 (#44) it’s been with us – in various names and iterations – ever since. All of which proves the Time Lord is a comic star of impressive pedigree and not to be trifled with.

Panini’s UK division ensured the immortality of the comics feature by collecting all strips of every Time Lord Regeneration in a uniform series of over-sized graphic albums.

Each concentrates on a particular incarnation of the deathless wanderer and this one gathers stories originally published in the early 1990s (from Doctor Who Monthly #130-150): a time when regular illustrator John Ridgway gave way to a succession of rotating creators as part of the company’s urgent drive to cut costs – although there’s no appreciable drop in quality that I can see.

These yarns feature the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy): an all monochrome compendium that kicks off with the eponymous ‘Cold Day in Hell!’ by writer Simon Furman, Ridgway and inker Tim Perkins: a 4-part thriller featuring an attack by Martian Ice Warriors on a tropical resort planet, which leads directly into the moody, single story ‘Redemption!’ care of Furman, Kev Hopgood and Perkins.

At that time and in this book Marvel sanctioned some controversial crossovers with other Marvel UK characters. The first of these is Death’s Head: a robot bounty hunter from the Transformers comic guest-starring in Furman & Geoff Senior’s ‘The Crossroads of Time’ (DWM #135), before it’s back to sounder stuff with freak-filled 3-part Victorian Great Exhibition epic ‘Claws of the Klath!’ (Mike Collins, Hopgood & David Hine).

Fresh-faced scribe Grant Morrison wrote of charmingly different ‘Culture Shock!’ for equally neophytic ascending star Bryan Hitch to draw, before John Higgins limned Furman’s ‘Keepsake’: a classy space opera about an indigent salvage man. John Freeman & Lee Sullivan started a long association with the magazine in 2-parter ‘Planet of the Dead’ (DWM #141-142), featuring an ambitious, spooky team-up of all seven Time Lord regenerations, on a world filled with Companions who had died in their service…

Dan Abnett & Ridgway delivered ‘Echoes of the Mogor!’ (DWM #143-144) – an eerie chiller set on a mining planet where Earth workers are mysteriously dying, whilst ‘Time and Tide’ by Richard Alan & John Carnell, illustrated by Dougie Braithewaite & Dave Elliott (DWM #143-144), maroons the Doctor on a drowning world amongst aliens who don’t seem to care if they live or die…

Carnell wrote the other crossover previously mentioned, a far less well-regarded romp with imbecilic detectives The Sleeze Brothers. ‘Follow that Tardis!‘ was illustrated by Andy Lanning, Higgins, Braithwaite & Elliot, before the strip content concludes with Alan Grant’s 3-part ‘Invaders from Gantac!’, wherein a colony of alien torturers invade 1992 London by mistake in a tale as much comedy as thriller, drawn by Martin Griffiths & Cam Smith.

Supplemented with tons of text features, pin-ups, creator-biographies and commentaries, this is a grand book for casual readers, a fine shelf addition for fans of the show and a perfect opportunity to cross-promote our particular art-form to anyone minded to give comics one more go…
All Doctor Who material © BBCtv. Doctor Who, the Tardis and all logos are trademarks of the British broadcasting corporation and are used under licence. Death’s Head and The Sleeze Brothers © Marvel. Published 2009. All rights reserved.

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Marvel Adventures Avengers volume 9: The Times They Are A‘Changin’


By Paul Tobin, Matteo Lolli, Ig Guara, Casey Jones, Christian Vecchia & Sandro Ribeiro (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3832-7 (PB/Digital edition)

Time for another anniversary shout-out, so let’s celebrate the fact that The Avengers #1 (cover-dated September 1963 but on sale from July 2nd) was sold out on newsstands all over America by today’s date…

In 2003, the House of Ideas created a Marvel Age line updating classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko before merging it with remnants of its failed manga-based Tsunami imprint, which was also intended for a junior demographic.

The experiment was tweaked in 2005, becoming Marvel Adventures with core titles Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man carrying all-original yarns. Additional titles included Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes, Power Pack, Hulk and The Avengers, which ran until 2010 when they were cancelled and replaced by new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man.

This particularly light-hearted digest-sized collection re-presents issues #32-35 of Marvel Adventures Avengers (from 2009), offering stand-alone yarns to delight fans with a sense of humour and iota of wit…

What You Need To Know: this incarnation of the World’s Mightiest Superheroes operates an “open-door” policy where almost every metahuman marvel might turn up for duty. However – presumably because of their TV cartoon popularity – the Wondrous Wallcrawler and Jade Juggernaut are on scene in almost every episode…

Written throughout by Paul Tobin (No Romance in Hell, Plants vs Zombies), an avalanche of fast-paced fun begins with ‘The Big Payoff’ illustrated by Matteo Lolli & Christian Vecchia, wherein the team gets a most unpleasant visit from Special Agent Clark Harvey of the Internal Revenue Service.

This weaselling civil servant is ostensibly there to collect individual Avengers’ taxes, but it’s all a ploy to blackmail the team into forcing a bunch of defaulting villains into paying up…

Smart and deviously hilarious, the clashes between Giant-Girl, Spider-Man and Luke Cage against Whirlwind, the web-spinner and erudite philosophical monster/political activist Oog or Man-Bull versus Iron Man are entertainment enough, but Iron Man and Giant-Girl overmatched against the Absorbing Man and the childlike Hulk convincing assassin Bullseye to do his patriotic duty are utterly priceless…

When jungle king Ka-Zar visits from the Antarctic lost world, all he can think about is learning how to use a car. Sadly Wolverine, Storm, Giant-Girl, Hulk and Spidey all feel safer battling an invasion of super-saurians unleashed by Stegron the Dinosaur Man than sitting in the same vehicle as the Lord of the Savage Land in ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’, with art by Ig Guara & Sandro Ribeiro…

When ancient Egyptian magicians turn time into an out-of-control merry-go-round, ‘Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos!’ (Lolli & Vecchia) are caught up in the assorted eras of chaos, with Ant-Man, Giant-Girl, Tigra, Storm, the wallcrawler and Hulk frantically fighting just to keep up…

Rendered by Casey Jones, this titanic tiny tome concludes on a romantic note in ‘Lovers Leaper’ when all the female Avengers head off for a vacation break. They foolishly thought Captain America, Cage, Spider-Man, Hawkeye and Wolverine could handle things for a while, but boys will be slobs and soon the HQ is a ghastly mess of “man-cave” madness…

Moreover, since Hawkeye now needs a date for the Annual Archer Awards, he tries an on-line dating service, and uploads not just his but all his buddies’ information onto the site…

With seemingly every eligible lady – super-powered and not – in New York City subscribing to the Lovers Leap site, our unsuspecting heroes are soon being bombarded by an army of annoyed women who think they’ve been stood up by the utterly oblivious Avengers.

… And when they try to get the owner to remove their details, the heroes discover French former bad-guy Batroc the Leaper is in charge and unwilling to do them any favours…

Smart and fun on many levels, bright, breezy and bursting with light-hearted action and loads of solid laughs, this book offers a fabulous alternative to regular Marvel Universe angst and agony. Even with the violence toned down and “cartooned-up” these stories are superbly thrilling and beautifully depicted: a perfect introduction for kids and adults alike to the vast realm of adventure we all love…

These collected stories present an intriguing and perhaps more culturally accessible means of introducing character and concepts to kids born generations away from those far-distant 1960s originating events.
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents Legion of Super-Heroes volume 3


By Jim Shooter, E. Nelson Bridwell, Otto Binder, Curt Swan, George Klein, Pete Costanza, Jim Mooney & George Papp (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2185-0 (TPB)

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

And thus began the vast and epic saga of the Legion of Super-Heroes, as first envisioned by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino in early 1958, just as the revived comicbook genre of superheroes was gathering an inexorable head of steam. Since that time the fortunes and popularity of the Legion have perpetually waxed and waned, with their future history tweaked and rebooted, retconned and overwritten over and over again to comply with editorial diktat and popular whim.

This third sturdy, action-packed monochrome compendium gathers a chronological parade of futuristic delights from October 1966 to May 1968, as originally seen in Adventure Comics #349-368, and includes a Legion story from Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #106 (October 1967).

During this period the Club of Champions finally shed the last vestiges of wholesome, imaginative, humorous and generally safe science fiction strips to become a full-on dramatic action feature starring a grittily realistic combat force in constant, galaxy-threatening peril: a compelling force of valiant warriors ready and willing to pay the ultimate price for their courage and dedication…

The main architect of the transformation was teenaged sensation Jim Shooter, whose scripts and layouts (usually finished and inked by veterans Curt Swan & George Klein) made the series accessible to a generation of fans growing up in the Future…

The tense suspense begins with Adventure #349’s ‘The Rogue Legionnaire!’ (Shooter, Swan & Klein) wherein Saturn Girl, Colossal Boy, Shrinking Violet, Chameleon Boy and Brainiac 5 hunt hypnotic villain Universo through five periods of Earth’s history, aided by boy-genius Rond Vidar, a brilliant scientist with a tragic secret…

This is followed by a stellar 2-parter from #350-351 scripted by E. Nelson Bridwell which restores a number of invalided or expelled members to the team. In ‘The Outcast Super-Heroes’, a cloud of Green Kryptonite particles envelope Earth and force Superboy and Supergirl to retire from the Legion just as demonic alien Evillo unleashes his squad of deadly metahuman minions on the universe.

The Kryptonian Cousins are mind-wiped and replaced by armoured and masked paladins Sir Prize and Miss Terious in ‘The Forgotten Legion!’ but quickly return when a solution to the K Cloud is found. With Evillo’s eventual defeat, the team discover the wicked overlord has healed one-armed Lightning Lad and restored Bouncing Boy’s power for his own nefarious purposes, and together with the reformed White Witch and rehabilitated Star Boy and Dream Girl, the Legion’s ranks grow and might swell to bursting point.

That’s a very good thing as in the next issue Shooter, Swan & Klein produce one of their most stunning epics. When a colossal cosmic entity known as the Sun Eater menaces the United Planets, the Legion are hopelessly outmatched and forced to recruit the galaxy’s most dangerous criminals to help them save civilisation.

However, The Persuader, Emerald Empress, Mano, Tharok and Validus are untrustworthy allies at best and form an alliance as ‘The Fatal Five!’, intending to save the galaxy only so that they can rule it…

Adventure #353 reveals how the Five seemingly seal their own fate through arrogance and treachery with the true cost of heroism paid when ‘The Doomed Legionnaire!’ sacrifices his life to destroy the solar parasite…

Issue #354 introduced ‘The Adult Legion!’ when Superman travelled into the future to visit his grown-up comrades – discovering tantalising hints of events that would torment and beguile LSH fans for decades to come – before the yarn concluded with #355’s ‘The War of the Legions!’ as Brainiac 5, Cosmic Man, Element Man, Polar Man, Saturn Woman and Timber Wolf, accompanied by the most unexpected allies of all, battled the Legion of Super-Villains.

The issue also included an extra tale in ‘The Six-Legged Legionnaire!’ (by Otto Binder, Swan & Klein) wherein Superboy brings his High School sweetie Lana Lang to the 30th century, where she joins in a mission against a science-tyrant as bug-based shape-shifting Insect Queen. Disaster soon strikes though when the alien ring which facilitates her changes is lost, trapping her in a hideous insectoid incarnation.

Issue #356 sees Dream Girl, Mon-El, Element Lad, Brainiac 5 and Superboy transformed into babies to become ‘The Five Legion Orphans!’: a cheeky, cunning Bridwell-scripted mystery leading into darker matters as repercussions and guilt of the Sun-Eater episode are explored and survivors of that mission are apparently haunted by ‘The Ghost of Ferro Lad!’ (#357, by Shooter, Swan & Klein), after which ‘The Hunter!’ (Shooter & George Papp) sees the LSH stalked by a murderously insane sportsman with a unique honour code.

Adventure #359 depicts the once-beloved champions disbanded and on the run as ‘The Outlawed Legionnaires!’ (Shooter, Swan & Klein) thanks to manipulations of a devious old foe, only to rousingly regroup, counter-attack and triumph in #360’s ‘The Legion Chain Gang!’.

Illustrated by Jim Mooney, and with the superhero squad once more a key component of United Planets Security, the Legion are assigned as secret service to protect alien ambassadors The Dominators from political agitators, assassins and a hidden traitor in tense thriller ‘The Unkillables!’, before ‘The Lone Wolf Legion Reporter!’ (from Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #106, October 1967, by Shooter & Pete Costanza) finds the young newsman seconded to the 30th century to help with the club newspaper. Sadly, he’s far better at making news than publishing it…

The team is scattered across three worlds in Adventure Comics #362 as mad scientist Mantis Morlo refuses to let environmental safety interfere with his experiments in ‘The Chemoids are Coming!’, culminating in a lethally ‘Black Day for the Legion!’…

Shooter & Costanza then top that gripping 2-parter by uncovering ‘The Revolt of the Super-Pets!’ in #364, when the crafty rulers of planet Thanl seek to seduce the animal adventurers from their rightful – subordinate – positions with sweet words and palatial new homes.

When the isolated world of Talok 8 goes dark and becomes a militaristic threat to the UP, their planetary champion Shadow Lass leads Superboy, Brainiac 5, Cosmic Boy and Karate Kid on a reconnaissance mission which results in the cataclysmic ‘Escape of the Fatal Five!’ (illustrated by Swan & Klein). The vicious quintet then nearly conquer the UP itself: only frustrated by the defiant, last-ditch efforts of the battered heroes in blistering conclusion ‘The Fight for the Championship of the Universe!’

In grateful thanks, the Legion are gifted a vast new HQ but before the paint is even dry, a vast paramilitary force attempts to invade, slowly reconstructing planet Earth in #367’s ‘No Escape from the Circle of Death!’ (Shooter, Swan, Klein & Sheldon Moldoff), before this volume ends on a note of political and social tension as a glamorous alien envoy attempts to suborn the diminished and downtrodden female Legionnaires in #368’s ‘The Mutiny of the Super-Heroines!’

The Legion of Super-Heroes is unquestionably one of the most beloved and bewildering creations in comic book history and largely responsible for the growth of the groundswell movement that became American Comics Fandom. These scintillating, seductively addictive stories, as much as Julie Schwartz’s Justice League, fired up the interest and imaginations of a generation of readers to underpin the industry we all know today.

If you love comics and haven’t read this stuff, you are the poorer for it and need to enrich your future life as soon as possible.
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman – The Atomic Age Sundays volume 1: 1945-1953


By Alvin Schwartz, Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye (IDW/DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-262-3 (HB)

It’s indisputable that the American comic book industry – if it existed at all – would be an utterly unrecognisable thing without Superman. Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s bold and unprecedented invention was fervidly adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation and quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form. He was also shamelessly copied and adapted by many inspired writers and artists for numerous publishers, spawning an incomprehensible army of imitators and variations within three years of his summer 1938 debut.

The intoxicating blend of breakneck, breathtaking action and triumphal wish-fulfilment which epitomised the early Man of Steel soon grew to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East also engulfed America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and vigorous dashing derring-do.

In comic book terms Superman was master of the world. Moreover, whilst transforming and dictating the shape of the fledgling funnybook industry, the Man of Tomorrow relentlessly expanded into all areas of the entertainment media. Although we all think of the Cleveland boys’ iconic invention as the epitome and acme of comics creation, the truth is that very soon after his debut in Action Comics #1 the Man of Steel became a fictional multimedia monolith in the same league as Popeye, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes and Mickey Mouse.

Diehard comics fans regard our purest and most powerful icons in primarily graphic narrative terms, but the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, Black Panther, The Avengers and all their hyperkinetic kind long ago outgrew four-colour origins and are now also fully mythologized modern mass media creatures, instantly familiar across all platforms and age ranges…

Far more people have viewed or heard the Man of Steel than have ever read his comic books. His globally syndicated newspaper strips alone reached untold millions, and by the time his 20th anniversary rolled around at the very start of what we know as the Silver Age of Comics, he had been a thrice-weekly radio serial regular and starred in a series of astounding animated cartoons, as well as two films and a novel by George Lowther.

Superman was a perennial sure-fire success for toy, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers and had just ended his first smash live-action television serial. In his future were three more shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville), a stage musical, a franchise of blockbuster movies and an almost seamless succession of games, bubblegum cards and TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since. Even superdog Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

However, during his formative years the small screen was simply an expensive novelty so the Action Ace achieved true mass market fame through a different medium: one not that far removed from his print origins.

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for most of the last century the newspaper comic strip was the Holy Grail all American cartoonists and graphic narrative storytellers aimed for. Syndicated across country – and frequently the planet – they were seen by millions of readers and generally accepted as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic-books. Strips also paid far better and rightly so: some of the most enduring and entertaining characters and concepts of all time were made to lure readers from one particular paper to another and many of them consequently grew to be part of global culture. Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Charlie Brown and so many more evolved beyond humble, tawdry newsprint to become meta-real: existing in the minds of earthlings from Albuquerque to Zanzibar.

Some still do…

Even so, it was always something of a risky double-edged sword when comic book characters become so popular that they swim against the tide (after all weren’t the funny-books invented just to reprint strips in cheap accessible form?) to became actual mass-entertainment – and often global – syndicated serial strips.

Superman was the first comic book character to make that leap – about six months after he exploded out of Action Comics – but only a few have ever successfully followed. Wonder Woman, Batman (eventually) and groundbreaking teen icon Archie Andrews made the jump in the 1940s with only a handful such as Spider-Man, Howard the Duck and Conan the Barbarian having done so since.

The daily Superman newspaper comic strip launched on 16th January 1939, augmented by a full-colour Sunday page from November 5th of that year. Originally crafted by Siegel & Shuster and their studio (Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring), the mammoth task soon required the additional artistic gifts of Jack Burnley and ancillary writers Whitney Ellsworth, Jack Schiff & Alvin Schwartz. The McClure Syndicate feature ran from 1939 until May 1966 and at its peak appeared in over 300 daily and 90 Sunday newspapers: a combined readership surpassing 20 million.

For most of the post-war years, Boring & Stan Kaye illustrated the spectacular Sundays (latterly supplemented by Win Mortimer and Curt Swan). The majority of strips – from 1944 to 1958 – were written by still largely unsung scribe Alvin Schwartz. Born in 1916, Schwartz was an early maestro of comic books, writing Batman, Superman, Captain Marvel and for many other titles and companies. Whilst handling the Superman strip he also freelanced on Wonder Woman and other superheroes as well as DC genre titles such as Tomahawk, Buzzy, A Date with Judy and House of Mystery.

After numerous clashes with new superman Editor Mort Weisinger, Schwartz quit comics for commercial writing: selling novels, essays, documentaries and docudramas for the National Film Board of Canada. He worked miracles in advertising and market research, developing selling techniques like psychographics and typological identification. A member of the advisory committee to the American Association of Advertising Agencies, he died in 2011.

After too many years wallowing in obscurity most of Superman’s newspaper strip exploits are at last available to aficionados and the curious newcomer in tomes such as this compiled under the auspices of the Library of American Comics.

Showcasing Schwartz & artist Wayne Boring in their purest prime, these Sundays (numbered as pages #521 to #698 collectively spanning October 23rd 1949 to March 15th 1953) star a nigh-omnipotent Man of Steel in domestically-framed tales of emotional dilemma and pedestrian criminality rather than a parade of muscle-flexing bombast. Here humour, wit and satire comfortably replace angst and bludgeoning action.

Following an affable appreciation of the creators and the times in Mark Waid’s ‘An Introduction’, ‘A Wayne Boring Gallery’ offers a tantalising selection of contemporaneous Superman and Action Comics covers before weekly wonderment commences in all its vibrant glory. Sadly, the serials are untitled, so you’ll just have to manage with my meagre synopses of individual yarns…

Kicking off is a charming fantasy as the Metropolis Marvel is temporarily stranded in Arthurian Britain after a US government time travel experiment goes awry. Whilst living in the past he befriends and assists court magician Merlin: an old duffer whose conjuring tricks aren’t fooling anyone anymore…

The first new tale of 1950 begins on February 12th, detailing how swindler Joseph Porter cons the Man of Steel into taking his place and clearing up his problems with cops and numerous gulled victims. This includes a hilarious spoofing sequence as the hero plays un-matchmaker to a scandalously-affianced hillbilly ingenue that will delight fans of Li’l Abner…

The extended saga opening on May 28th offers another human-interest drama given a super-powered spin: two aging robber barons recalling their regulation-free heydays before embarking on a ruthless wager to see who will get “anything they wish for” first. The only limitations imposed are their imaginations and financial resources. Before long Superman is hard-pressed to keep collateral casualties to a minimum…

One of the few antagonists to transfer from funnybooks to the Funny pages was fifth dimensional prankster Mr. Mxyztplk who popped back to our third dimension and took instant umbrage to an arrogant Earth educator. Dr. Flipendale had the temerity to declare the imp a mass delusion and refused to believe or even acknowledge the escalating chaos his stark pronouncements triggered…

Strip #573 (October 22nd) offers a different take on the classic secret identity crisis as Clark is exposed as an invulnerable man to all of Metropolis. Although gangsters are convinced, Lois Lane is not, claiming the underworld is perpetrating a frame-up…

That yarn takes us to years’ end and 1951 opens on January 7th with a tale of suspicion and injustice as Clark heads back to childhood hometown Smallville to celebrate Superboy Week and encounters a young man nursing an ancient grudge. When the poison pen/rumour campaign looks set to spoil festivities, the hero’s investigations uncover a betrayed child, a framed, murdered father and nefarious clandestine misdeeds carried out by corporate rogues in the Boy of Steel’s name…

Another identity crisis bedevils Clark beginning on April 1st. A killer’s case of mistaken identity seemingly exposes the reporter as super-strong and bulletproof. Surely, he must be the indomitable Man of Steel in disguise? Not according to Professor Pinberry who believes our hapless scribe has been accidentally exposed to his new superpower ray machine, Clark is happy to grasp at the fortuitous alibi but trouble mounts after the public demands to see the machine in action again and the city’s biggest mobster goes after the gadget to make himself Superman’s equal.

Strip #609 commenced on July 1st as aged duffer Salem Cooley comes to Metropolis and enjoys the most miraculous winning streak in history. Even Superman’s astounding powers can’t keep up with the string of happy circumstances, fortuitously profitable accidents and close shaves. Everybody wants to be the old coot’s pal, so who then is behind the constant assassination attempts on superstitious Salem… and what reward could possibly tempt anyone to challenge the luckiest man alive?

September 9th saw Superman agree to write Daily Planet articles about some of his previous exploits to benefit crime prevention charities. However, when capers he cites are restaged by mysterious malefactors, the city soon turns against the Man of Tomorrow and it takes all his super-wits to uncover the mastermind behind it all and quash one of the boldest crimes in the city’s history…

To lure a crime boss out, the Action Ace agrees to be absent Metropolis for a few weeks in the next adventure (running November 18th 1951 – January 13th 1952). However, when a poverty-struck boy succumbs to disease and depression, the Man of Might opts to return undercover, inspiring the kid’s recovery by granting wishes made on a “magic wand”. The task becomes increasingly difficult after crooks get hold of the stick and the invisible hero has to play along to sustain little Teddy’s recuperation…

From January 20th, Superman plays guardian angel to former wastrel and drunken playboy Reggie de Peyster who swears he’s a reformed character. Nobody but Superman realises the trust fund brat is sincere and all the appalling, shameful scandals he’s currently implicated in are being manufactured to cut him out of a vast inheritance…

Lois Lane takes centre stage from April 6th as, after months of being sidelined, the daring reporter quits her job to find a career offering some real excitement. She’s soon assistant to private detective Mike Crain: catching crooks and bodyguarding glamourous stars, but the work seems dull and pedestrian. Of course, Lois is utterly oblivious to the fact Superman is secretly intervening: patriarchal efforts to get her back where she belongs. Ah, different times, eh?

When maverick Hollywood producer/director Hans Bower arrives in Metropolis, (from June 29th he promptly declares Clark to be his latest mega-sensational super-star. A force of nature unable to take no for an answer, Hans soon has the bewildered reporter helming his next box office blockbuster. As shooting progresses, however, Superman uncovers a covert agenda and shocking secret behind the mogul’s extraordinary actions.

Uncanny crime is the order of the day from September 21st when bizarre illusions plague Metropolis and scientist Dr. Wagonrod accuses Superman of perpetrating hoaxes and staging crises due to an undiagnosed split personality. The truth is far more devious than that…

Concluding this first Atomic Age collection, November 30th 1952 to March 15th 1953 found readers avidly watching the skies when an alien capsule fell to Earth and disgorged a succession of alien bio-weapons to test humanity. Superman was hard-pressed to defeat the army of bizarre beasts but did have one immeasurable advantage: the sage advice and input of life-long science fiction fan Sedgwick Ripple…

The Atomic Age Superman: – Sunday Pages 1949-1953! was the first of three huge (312 x 245 mm), lavish, high-end hardback collections starring the Man of Steel and a welcome addition to the superb commemorative series of Library of American Comics which has preserved and re-presented in luxurious splendour such landmark strips as Lil Abner, Tarzan, Rip Kirby, Polly and her Pals and many of the abovementioned cartoon icons.

It’s an unimaginable joy to see these neglected Superman stories again, offering a far more measured, domesticated and comforting side of one of America’s most unique contributions to world culture. It’s also a pure delight to see some of the most engaging yesterdays of the Man of Tomorrow. Join me and see for yourself and agitate for the entire library to find time to release digital editions…
© 2015 DC Comics. All rights reserved. SUPERMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of DC Comics.