Category: Graphic Novels

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Upside Dawn


By Jason (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68396-652-4 (HB/digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic, comedic and ironic effect.

Born in 1965 in Molde, Norway, John Arne Sæterøy is known by enigmatic, utilitarian nom de plume Jason. The shy & retiring auteur first took the path to cartoon superstardom in 1995, once debut graphic novel Lomma full ay regn (Pocket Full of Rain) won Norway’s biggest comics prize: the Sproing Award. From 1987 he had contributed to alternate/indie magazine KonK while studying graphic design and illustration at Oslo’s Art Academy.

From there he took on Norway’s National School of Arts and, on graduating in 1994, founded his own comic book Mjau Mjau. Constantly refining his style into a potent form of meaning-mined anthropomorphic minimalism, Jason has cited Lewis Trondheim, Jim Woodring & Tex Avery as primary influences. He moved to Copenhagen, working at Studio Gimle alongside Ole Comoll Christensen (Excreta, Mar Mysteriet Surn/Mayday Mysteries, Den Anden Praesident, Det Tredje Ojet) and Peter Snejbjerg (Den skjulte protocol/The Hidden Protocol, World War X, Tarzan, Batman: Detective 27).

Jason’s efforts were internationally noticed, making waves in France, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Germany and other Scandinavian countries as well as the Americas and he won another Sproing in 2001 – for self-published series Mjau Mjau – before in 2002 turning nigh-exclusively to producing graphic novels. He won even more major awards.

Jason’s breadth of interest is wide & deep: comics, movies, animated cartoons, music, literature, art, history and pulp fiction all feature equally with no sense of rank or hierarchy. Jason’s puckish, egalitarian mixing & matching of inspirational sources always and inevitably produces picture-treatises well worth a reader’s time. Over a succession of tales he has built and re-employed a repertory company of stock characters to explore deceptively simplistic milieux based on classic archetypes distilled from movies, childhood yarns, historical and literary favourites. These all role-play in deliciously absurd and surreal sagas centred on his preferred themes of relationships and loneliness. Latterly, Jason returned to such “found” players as he built his own highly esoteric universe, and even has a whole bizarre bunch of them “team-up” or clash…

As always, visual/verbal bon mots unfold in beguiling, sparse-dialogued, or even as here silently pantomimic progressions, with compellingly formal page layouts rendered in a pared back stripped-down interpretation of Hergé’s Claire Ligne style: solid blacks, thick outlines dominating settings of seductive monochrome simplicity augmented by a beguiling palette of stark pastels and muted primary colours.

A master of short-form illustrated tales, many Jason yarns have been released as snappy little albums before later inclusion in longer anthology collections. The majority of tales brim with bleak isolation, swamped by a signature surreality even in the most comedic of moments. They are largely populated with cinematically-inspired, darkly comic, charmingly macabre animal people ruminating on inescapable concerns whilst re-enacting bizarrely cast, bestial movie tributes. That’s a style that has never been more apropos than right here, as the more modern Art Forms bow before the onslaught and tirade of organised anti-art philosophers, socially intellectual terrorists, wandering pop stars and a lost Vulcan…

Here the auteur returns to short individual pieces – or are they? – and fondly dabbles with words, terms and aural meanings whilst opening with an understandable failure to communicate over a meal in ‘Woman, Man, Bird’ before noted cerebral French auteur/filmmaker and playfully adrift word-&-meaning warper Georges Perec is repositioned as a hardboiled gumshoe searching for a missing woman in a yarn laced with omissions, mis-hearings and misapprehensions. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a truth – any truth – ‘Perec PI’ is on the case…

A rapid pictorial transit to a peregrination through a typical life is recalled at full pelt in ‘I Remember’ after which ‘Vampyros Dyslexicoa’ dips deep into literary hinterlands in a pastiche/homage to Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 Gothic novella Carmilla. However the sordid obsessions of sapphic vampire Mircalla are only the entrée to wilder scriptorial regions and a nasty case of creative anachronism as ‘Seal VII’ takes us deep into modern “Scandi” folklore when a certain Knight and Death meet up for a game in Sweden in 1357 and don’t really cotton to the notion of chess for souls…

The scenes shifts to Prague in 1919 where a certain agent of the crown abruptly quits his job and is renditioned to a strange, picturesque high-tech surveillance Village where he has to wear a blazer as ‘The Prisoner in the Castle’ prior to popping back to St Peterburg in 1865 to gorily relive the trials and tribulations of Great Russian Literature at first hand via some eccentric ‘Crime and Punishment’…

As much as Jason has played with visual meaning and manipulated derived imagery-context in his past forays, the later relater is here gripped by the confusing potentials of words and verbal meanings. Such facile surface fascinations are apparent during Leopold Bloom’s rather violent visit with the absolute master of “what did that mean” Dublin in June offers a walk with James Joyce, a leprechaun, Stephen Dedalus and Molly as we ponder stuff and not-nonsense in ‘Ulysses’. Then ‘Ionesco’ introduces random judgement to the final days of avant-garde playwright Eugène Ionesco, as a parade of bizarre celebrities and notables eulogise or defame him before he goes…

Slipping into a partial colour palette (yellow, if you care), ‘What Rhymes with Giallo?’ uses rhyming couplets to detail a sordid stabbing spree before resuming monochromatic mode as the tense future proves too much for one scientific stoic. Stress compels Mr Spock to desert the Enterprise and migrate to Montparnasse, Paris in ‘The City of Light, Forever’. It’s 1925 and he finds contentment as a minor Japanese painter (of cats) until Captain Kirk comes looking for him. If you follow Jason, this is where you start to realise that a lot of his work overlaps and intercepts itself in the strangest places…

Adding red and blue to black & white, ‘Who Will Kill the Spider?’ is a classic child’s nightmare of terror and confusion as Dad uses escalating tools and allies to deal with a bug in the bedroom who just won’t quit, after which words literally fail us in ‘One Million and One Years B.C.’: a silent science spoof of dinosaurs, cave-folk, time-travelling soldiers and stupid assumptions which leads into tribute diptych ‘EC Come…’ (a bloody tale of domestic ghouls and zombies) and ‘…EC Go’ (pointed satire of the comic company’s sublime Ray Bradbury adaptations of interplanetary First Contacts).

Then inevitably it devolves into a spoofing shot at the Sci Fi Fifties care of Curt Siodmak via Ed Wood in alien invasion ‘From Outer Space’ before ‘Etc.’ stages a celebrity-stacked movement-moment that begins in London circa 1972 as immortal musketeer Athos meets David Bowie meets a mummy meets Elvis meets Moses meets Sinatra meets Van Gogh meets Frank Zappa meets Death ad infinitum for a miasmic, abstractly construed big finish…

Visually mesmerising, this cunningly concocted Dadaist picture salad conceals underlying connections you really have to stay untuned for, referring relentlessly to modern icons and ancient shibboleths in equal measure, and perpetually sampling the feeling and furniture of war films, scary stories, true romances gone bad, Monty Python, Star Trek, a million movies, books, tunes and comics and even his own burgeoning “Jason-verse”. Upside Dawn absolutely should not be your first dip into his works, but don’t let that stop you from getting them all and getting all caught up…
All characters, stories, artwork and translation © 2022 Jason.
This edition of Upside Dawn © 2022 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All rights reserved.

Today in 1892 Scots artist and future Charlie Chaplin comics illustrator Wally Roberson was born, followed in 1912 by John Liney (who limned the Henry strip), and in 1917, Hal Seeger who wrote & drew Betty Boop and later Leave it to Binky. In 1925 eventual East German cartoonist Hannes Hegen (Mosaik) arrived, with US letterer-to be Stan Starkman (Batman, Doom Patrol, Metamorpho) coming along in 1927. 3D comics guy Ray Zone was born in 1947, the same day and year that we lost the astounding Reg Perrott, artist on Roly and Poly the Two Bear Cubs, Land of the Lost People, Whirling Around the World, Wheels of Fortune, Red Ryder, The Young Explorers, The Golden Arrow, Golden Eagle, Sons of the Sword and more, as well as becoming producer/studio manager of UK mainstay Mickey Mouse Weekly.

In 1952 Hägar the Horrible artist Chris Browne was born, as was Chester Brown (Yummy Fur, Louis Riel) in 1960 and John Arne Sæterøy/Jason in 1965.

This date in 1964 Malcom Judge’s Billy Whizz first hurtled into the hearts of Beano readers, and in 2012 marked the passing of comic book workhorse Ernie Chan (Conan, Batman, Dracula Kull, The Hulk).

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Walt Disney’s Donald Duck by Carl Barks: volume 6 – The Old Castle’s Secret


By Carl Barks & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-653-9 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Donald Duck ranks among a small number of fictional characters who have transcended the bounds of reality to become – like Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Popeye and James Bond -meta-real. As such, his origins are complex and convoluted. His official birthday is June 9th 1934: a dancing, nautically-themed bit-player in the Silly Symphony cartoon short The Wise Little Hen. However, that date is based on the feature’s release, as announced by distributors United Artists and latterly acknowledged by the Walt Disney Company. Recent research reveals the piece was initially screened at Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles on May 3rd, part of a Benefit show. The Wise Little Hen officially premiered on June 7th at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City, before a general release date was settled.

The animated feature was adapted by Ted Osborne & Al Taliaferro for the Silly Symphonies Sunday comic strip and thus classified by historians as Donald’s official debut in Disney comics. Controversially, though, he was also deemed to have originated in The Adventures of Mickey Mouse strip which had begun 1931. Thus the Duck has more “birthdays” than the Queens and Kings of England (plus the generally dis-United Kingdom and gradually diminishing Commonwealth) which probably explains why he’s such a bad-tempered old cuss. Today is not so much a birthday as graduation party…

Visually, Donald Fauntleroy Duck was largely the result of animator Dick Lundy’s efforts, and, with partner-in-fun Mickey Mouse, is one of TV Guide’s 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time. The Duck has his own star on the Hollywood walk of fame and has appeared in more films than any other Disney player. During the 1930s his screen career grew from background/supporting roles to a team act with Mickey and Goofy, to a series of solo cartoons that began with 1937’s Don Donald, which also introduced love interest Daisy Duck and nephews Huey, Louie and Dewey.

By 1938 Donald was officially more popular than signature company icon Mickey, especially after the brash bird’s service as a propaganda warrior in a series of animated morale boosters and information features during WWII. The merely magnificent Der Fuehrer’s Face took the 1942 Academy Award (that’s an Oscar to you and me) for Animated Short Film…

Crucially for our purposes, Donald is also planet Earth’s most-published non-superhero comics character, and has been blessed with some of the greatest writers and illustrators ever to punch a keyboard or pick up a pen or brush. A publishing phenomenon and mega star across Europe – particularly Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland – Donald & Co have spawned countless original stories and characters. Sales are stratospheric there and in the more than 45 other countries they export to. Japanese manga publishers have their own carefully-tailored iterations too…

The aforementioned Silly Symphonies adaptation and Mickey Mouse newspaper strip guest shots were trumped in 1937 when Italian publisher Mondadori launched an 18-page story by Federico Pedrocchi in comic book format. It was quickly followed by a regular serial in Britain’s Mickey Mouse Weekly. The comic was produced under license by Willbank Publications/Odhams Press and ran from 8th February 1936 to 28th December 1957.

In #67 (May 15th 1937) it launched Donald and Donna (a prototype Daisy Duck girlfriend), drawn by William A. Ward. Running for 15 weeks it was followed by Donald and Mac before ultimately settling on Donald Duck, and became a solid fixture until the magazine folded. That comic inspired similar Disney-themed publication across Europe, with Donald regularly appearing beside company mascot Mickey.

In the USA, a daily Donald Duck newspaper strip launched on February 2nd 1938, with a colour Sunday strip added in 1939. Writer Ted Karp joined Taliaferro in expanding the duck cast, adding a signature automobile, dog Bolivar, cousin Gus Goose, grandmother Elvira Coot and even expanded the roles of both distaff ducks Donna and Daisy…

In 1942, Donald’s licensed comic books canon began with October cover-dated Dell Four Color Comics, Series II #9. As Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold it was conceived by Homer Brightman & Harry Reeves, scripted by Karp and illustrated by Disney Studios employees Carl Barks & Jack Hannah. That was the moment everything changed…

Carl Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon in 1901, and raised in rural areas of the West during some of the leanest times in American history. He tried his hand at many jobs before settling into the profession that chose him. His early life is well-documented elsewhere if you need detail, but briefly, Barks was an animator before quitting in 1942 to work in the new-fangled field of comic books. With studio partner Jack Hannah (another future strip illustrator) Barks adapted Karp’s rejected script for an animated cartoon short into Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold, and although not his first published comics work, it was the story that shaped the rest of Carl’s career.

From then until his official retirement in the mid-1960s, Barks operated in self-imposed seclusion: writing, drawing and devising a vast array of adventure comedies, gags, yarns and covers that gelled into a coherent Duck Universe of memorable – and highly bankable – characters. These included Gladstone Gander (1948), Gyro Gearloose (1952), Magica De Spell (1961) and the nefarious Beagle Boys (1951) to supplement Disney’s stable of cartoon actors. The greatest creation was undoubtedly the crusty, energetic, paternalistic, money-mad giga-gazillionaire Scrooge McDuck: the World’s wealthiest winged nonagenarian.

Whilst producing all that landmark material Barks was also just a working guy, generating cover art, illustrating other people’s scripts when asked, and contributing stories to a burgeoning canon of Duck Lore. After Gladstone Publishing began re-packaging Barks material amongst other Disney strips in the 1980s, he discovered the well-earned appreciation he never imagined existed. So potent were his creations that they inevitably fed back into Disney’s animation output, even though his brilliant comic work was done for Dell/Gold Key and not directly for the studio. The greatest tribute was undoubtedly animated TV series Duck Tales: heavily based on his classic Uncle Scrooge tales.

Barks was a fan of wholesome action, unsolved mysteries and epics of exploration, and this led to him perfecting the art and technique of the blockbuster tale: blending wit, history, plucky bravado and sheer wide-eyed wonder into rollicking rollercoaster romps that utterly captivated readers of every age and vintage. Without the Barks expeditions there would never have been an Indiana Jones…

During his working life Barks was blissfully unaware that his efforts (uncredited by official policy, as was all Disney’s comics output) had been recognised by a rabid and discerning public as “the Good Duck Artist”. When some of his most dedicated fans finally tracked him down, a belated celebrity began.

In 2013, Fantagraphics Books began chronologically collecting Barks’ Duck stuff in wonderful, carefully curated archival volumes, tracing his output year-by-year in hardback tomes and digital editions that finally do justice to the self-closeted creator. These will comprise the Complete Carl Barks Disney Library. The physical copies are sturdy and luxurious albums – 193 x 261mm – that would grace any bookshelf, with volume 6 re-presenting works from 1948 – albeit not in strict release order. I should also note that all Four Color issues come from Series II of that mighty anthological vehicle and all covers are by Barks.

It begins eponymously with ‘The Old Castle’s Secret’ (FC #189, June 1948) as a financial crisis in McDuck’s empire triggers a mission for Donald and the nephews: accompanying Scrooge to the ancestral pile in Scotland to search for millions in hidden treasure. Apparently the craggy citadel is haunted, but what they actually encounter is both more rationalistically dangerous and fantastically unbelievable…

Two single-page gags from the same issue follow, with ‘Bird Watching’ exposing the hidden perils of the hobby before superstition is painfully debunked in ‘Horseshoe Luck’ after which ‘Wintertime Wager’ (Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #88, January) introduces annoying cousin Gladstone Gander. Amidst chilling winter snows, the miraculously lucky, smugly irksome oik invites himself over for Christmas and soon he and Donald are involved in an escalating set of ordeals that might cost the Duck his house. Thankfully, Daisy and the boys are there to solve the problem…

Gainful employment was a regular dilemma for Donald, so February’s ‘Watching the Watchman’ (WDC&S #89) finds him taking a midnight-to-daybreak job at the docks, despite being pitifully unable to alter his sleep patterns. Once again, Huey, Louie & Dewey offer outrageous assistance but this time it’s the Duck’s failure to stay awake that foils a million dollar heist. The kids are actually Donald’s rivals in ‘Wired’ (WDC&S #90, March) when all seek big bucks as telegram messengers. Sadly, millionaires are not generally friendly, welcoming or prone to giving giant gratuities…

A dedicated social climber, Donald plans a garden party in WDC&S #91 (April), but his notion of fancy dress and family solidarity utterly enrage the boys, who retaliate with manic mesmerism in ‘Going Ape’, after which March of Comics #20 finds butterfly-hunter Donald at war with avaricious lepidopterist Professor Argus McFiendy across two continents. Donald’s sharp and ruthless tactics inspire onlooker Sir Gnatbugg-Mothley to fund a safari to ‘Darkest Africa’ in search of the rarest butterfly on Earth. The daunting quest for Almostus Extinctus is frenetically fraught, astoundingly action-packed and fabulously fun-filled but please be aware that despite Barks’ careful research and diligent, sensitive storytelling some modern folk could be upset by his depictions of indigenous peoples in terms of the accepted style of those decades-distant times…

Nevertheless, the bombastic war ends with a delicious sting in the tail.

In case you were wondering: March of Comics releases were prestigious promotional giveaways tied to retail products and commercial clients like Sears, combining licensed characters from across Whitman/KK/Dell’s joint catalogue. The often enjoyed print runs topping 5 million copies per issue. Being a headliner for them was a low key editorial acknowledgement of a creator’s capabilities and a franchise’s pulling power…

In the regular comics world, Donald’s eternal war of nerves with the kids boiled over in FC #189 (June) as ‘Bean Taken’ saw his obsessive side dominant in a guessing game, a single-pager preceding another exploring the downside of sandlot baseball in ‘Sorry to Be Safe’ (FC #199, October) and standard 10-page romp ‘Spoil the Rod’ (WDC&S #92, May). Here passing do-gooder Professor Pulpheart Clabberhead seeks to stop Donald’s apparent abuse of Huey, Louie and Dewey – but only until he gets to know them…

Although the science fiction boom and flying saucer mania was barely beginning in 1948, Barks was an early advocate and ‘Rocket Race to the Moon’ (WDC&S #93, June) sees newspaper-seller Donald suckered into piloting an experimental lunar exploration ship. Sadly, Professors Cosmic and Gamma seem more concerned with a large cash-prize contest than advancing knowledge, and rival rocketman Baron De Sleezy is a ruthless schemer, but no one – not even the stowaway nephews – was prepared for what lived on the moon…

Patriotism inspires our bellicose birdbrain to enlist as ‘Donald of the Coast Patrol’ (WDC&S #94, July) but it’s his gullibility and bad temper that helps him bag a bunch of spies before true wickedness rears its downy head as ‘Gladstone Returns’ (WDC&S #95, August). The ghastly Gander was designed as a foil for Donald, intended to be even more obnoxious than the irascible, excitable film fowl and this originally untitled tale reintroduces him as a big super-lucky noxious noise every inch as blustery a blowhard as Donald. Here, both furiously boast and feud, trying to one-up each other in a series of scams that does neither any good – especially once the nephews and Daisy join the battle…

Arguably Barks’ first masterpiece, ‘Sheriff of Bullet Valley’ was the lead tale from Dell Four Color Comics #199, drawing much of its unflagging energy and trenchant whimsy from Barks’ own love of cowboy fiction, albeit seductively tempered with his self-deprecatory sense of absurdist humour. For example, a wanted poster on the jailhouse wall portrays the artist himself, offering the princely sum of $1000 and 50¢ for his inevitable capture.

Donald is, of course, a self-declared expert on the Wild West (he’s seen all the movies) so when he and the boys drive through scenic Bullet Valley, a wanted poster catches his eye and his imagination. Soon he’s signed up and sworn in as a doughty deputy, determined to catch rustlers plaguing the locals. Unfortunately for him, the good old days never really existed and today’s bandits use radios, trucks, tommy guns and ray machines to achieve their nefarious ends. Can Donald’s impetuous boldness and the nephews’ collective brains and ingenuity defeat the ruthless high-tech raiders? Of course they can…

That same issue provided a brace of short gags, beginning with ‘Best Laid Plans’ as Donald’s feigned illness earns him extra hard labour rather than a malingering day in bed, and closing with ‘The Genuine Article’, wherein suspicions of an antique’s provenance leads to disaster…

The lads’ plans to go fishing are scuppered – but not for too long – when Donald demands their caddying services in ‘Links Hijinks’ (WDC&S #96, September), but it all really goes south once Gladstone horns in and Donald’s competitive spirit overwhelms everybody…

That tendency to overreact informs ‘Pearls of Wisdom’ (WDC&S #97, October) when the nephews find a small pearl in a locally-sourced oyster and big-dreaming Donald goes overboard in exploiting the “hidden millions” presumably peppering the ocean floor, before we close with another mission for Uncle Scrooge.

To close a deal with British toff Lord Tweeksdale, McDuck must prove his family pedigree by excelling in the most “asinine, stupid, crazy, useless sport in the world”: fox hunting. Designating Donald his champion, the Downy Dodecadillionaire of Duckburg is thankfully unaware Huey, Louie & Dewey also consider themselves ‘Foxy Relations’ (WDC&S #98, November), injecting themselves covertly into proceedings with catastrophic repercussions…

The visual verve over, we move on to validation as ‘Story Notes’ offers commentary for each Duck tale and Donald Ault relates ‘Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks’, before ‘Biographies’ explain why he and commentators Alberto Beccatini, R, Fiore, Craig Fischer, Jared Gardner, Leonardo Gori, Rich Kreiner, Ken Parille, Stefano Priarone, Francesco (“Frank”) Stajano and Mattias Wivel are saying all those nice and informative things. We close with examination of provenance as ‘Where Did These Duck Stories First Appear?’ explains the somewhat byzantine publishing schedules of Dell Comics.

Carl Barks was one of the greatest exponents of comic art the world has ever seen, and almost all his work featured Disney’s Duck characters: reaching and affecting untold millions of readers across the world and he all too belatedly won far-reaching recognition. You might be late to the party but it’s never too soon to climb aboard the Barks Express.

Walt Disney’s Donald Duck “The Old Castle’s Secret” © 2013 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All contents © 2013 Disney Enterprises, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
Today in 1937 Donald Duck began his solo comics career.

In 1897 journalist turned strip writer Glenn Chaffin (Tailspin Tommy) was born, as was legendary fan artist John G. Fantucchio (Rocket’s Blast Comicollector (RBCC), The Collector, The Buyer’s Guide for Comic’s Fandom, Fantastic Fanzine, Comic Crusader) in 1938, and inker, illustrator and production god John Verpoorten in 1940. A year later along came Underground Commix and Graphic Novel pioneer Jaxon AKA Jack Jackson (God Nose, Comanche Moon, The Secret of San Saba)…

The date saw the deaths of both Golden Age star/political cartoonist Gill Fox (Torchy, Plastic Man, The Spirit daily) and Disney animator and story-maker Jack Bradbury in 2004, and legendary humour artist Will Elder (Mad, Little Annie Fanny) in 2008.

In 2006, Mark Tatulli’s silent strip Li? launched today.

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Marvel Visionaries: Gil Kane


By Gil Kane, with Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, Jim Shooter, Tony Isabella, Dan Slott, Mike Esposito, Joe Sinnott, Dan Adkins, Frank Giacoia, Dick Giordano, Klaus Janson, Jim Mooney & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-0888-7 (TPB), 978-1-3029-3737-9 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

This year marks the centenary of Eli Katz, who, as Gil Kane, worked from the Golden Age until his death (on January 31st 2000) to make comics the art form it is today. Diligent, resolute and always challenging himself, Kane was a trendsetting pioneer in style, in form and in comics philosophy. He was also a visual architect of the superhero revival in the Silver Age and a key component in the evolution of the Graphic Novel.

Kane started young and toiled as an artist all his life. An ever-more effective and influential one, he drew and wrote for many companies since his debut (thus far verified as inking Carl Hubbell on The Scarlet Avenger in Zip Comics #14 and cover-dated May 1941): illustrating superheroes, action/adventure, war, mystery, romance, horror, movie adaptations and, perhaps most importantly, Westerns and Science Fiction tales. In the 1950s he was one of DC editor Julius Schwartz’s go-to artists for regenerating the superhero. Yet by 1968, at the top of his (admittedly much denigrated) profession, this relentlessly revolutionary and creative man felt so confined by juvenile strictures of the industry that he struck out on new ventures, jettisoning job security, and the editorial format bounds of comic books for new visions and media. However, the time was not right and after brief forays at other companies (like Dell and Tower) and attempting to create graphic narratives outside the comic book industry – such as His Name Is Savage and Blackmark – Kane began selling his services to Marvel Comics…

Kane’s earliest comic book output included Boy Commandos, Young Allies & Newsboy Legion, Doll Man, Zip Comics, Airboy Comics and many more, but by the Fifties he was settled at National/DC and working on Johnny Thunder, Jimmy Wakely, Matt Savage, Hopalong Cassidy, Rex the Wonder Dog and hundreds of genre yarns – romance, war, sci fi, western and horror. When Superheroes returned, he co-created Green Lantern and The Atom, and generated countless pages and captivating covers for Plastic Man, Batman, Superman, Flash, Teen Titans, Robin, Batgirl, Hawk and Dove, Captain Action and everything in between. Then, in 1966, with ever-increasing bureaucracy and panic over a new upstart rival gripping DC, Kane tentatively – and initially using the pseudonym Scott Edwards – began looking at other publishers, leading to breakthrough art for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent, Dell Four Color, The Lost World, Brain Boy, The Frogmen, dozens of TV westerns and other licensed properties, and began his long association with modern Marvel Comics.

Initially a poor fit (he was asked to draw The Hulk over Jack Kirby’s layouts!), Kane persisted, going on to spectacularly redefine if not pictorially reinvent Amazing Spider-Man, Conan, Captain America and Captain Marvel; co-create Adam Warlock, Morbius, and Iron Fist and put his indelible stamp on Thor, Hulk, Ka-Zar, Daredevil, Marvel Team-Up and all the rest. Kane adapted John Carter, Warlord of Mars and other literary adventure-fantasy properties and reinvigorated dozens of horror-hero and superhero stalwarts, all while filling in on seemingly every character and cover going. Restless and craving what the medium could still achieve, he worked on newspaper strips too. Even before co-creating Star Hawks in 1977 with Ron Goulart, he had limned the daily Flash Gordon for King Features in the 1960s, and Tarzan Sunday pages.

Kane’s latter career included animation/design, and choice comics book outings as well as numerous special projects like Jason Drum for Le Journal de Tintin and The Ring of the Nibelung.

Although Marvel Visionaries: Gil Kane was originally released in 2002, it’s still readily available as it was digitally rereleased in 2021, so if you can read this you can find that…

Offering a brief selection of the many tales crafted by Kane, this tome re-presents gems first seen in Tales to Astonish #76; Tales of Suspense #88-#91; Captain Marvel #17; Amazing Spider-Man #99; Marvel Premiere #1 & 15 and Daredevil #146 plus material from What If #3 & #24 and Marvel Comics Presents #116, as well as offering a host of appealing production and art extras at the far end.

The trek through Marvel History begins with a fulsome appraisal of the artist’s career and achievements from frequent collaborator Roy Thomas in his foreword ‘The Mark of Kane’ after which it’s “on with the motley” and that first foray from Tales to Astonish #76. Cover-dated February 1966, this was on sale from November 4th 1965 and saw Kane draw – over Kirby layouts and under Mike Esposito finishes – an episode of a time-bending sequence with the Green Goliath helplessly trapped in a compounded by a doom-drenched duel with time-lost Asgardian immortal The Executioner…

Assume and accept that you will need to find other collections to experience the full force of these extracted snippets and then move on to those portions of Tales of Suspense #88-#91 (cover-dates April -July 1967) that featured Captain America. Here Lee scripts all four chapters of a classic clash as Kane takes his first run on the character. The extended saga comprises ‘If Bucky Lives…!’ and ‘Back from the Dead!’, as inked by Kane before Joe Sinnott joins as embellisher for ‘…And Men Shall Call Him Traitor!’ and ‘The Last Defeat!’ for a superb thriller of blackmail and betrayal starring the Red Skull. The fascist felon had baited a trap with a robotic facsimile of Cap’s dead partner, triggered it with malign super-hirelings Power Man and The Swordsman whilst blackmailing the Star-Spangled Sentinel into betraying his country and stealing a new atomic submarine. It all turned out okay in the end though…

Next up is Captain Marvel #17 (cover-date October 1969), sole example from a stunning and influential run on the Kree Captain Mar-Vell. Captain Marvel as we know him really begins with this reinvention wherein Thomas, Kane & Dan Adkins totally retooled and upgraded the character.

‘And a Child Shall Lead You!’ sees the imperilled star warrior inextricably bonded to voice-of-a-generation/professional sidekick Rick Jones who – just like Billy Batson (the boy who turned into the original Fawcett hero by shouting “Shazam!”) – switched places with a mighty adult hero when danger loomed by striking together a pair of ancient, wrist-worn “Nega-bands”. This allowed them to temporarily trade atoms: one active in our universe whilst the other floated, a ghostly untouchable, ineffectual voyeur to events glimpsed from the ghastly Negative Zone. As thrilling and as revolutionary as the idea of a comic written from the viewpoint of a teenager was, the real magic comes from Kane’s experimental page layouts and phenomenally kinetic artwork, and whose mesmeric staging of proportionally warped yet somehow still perfect human-form-in-motion rewrote the playbook on superhero illustration with this series.

Kane’s ascendancy was confirmed as he became the regular illustrator on Marvel’s greatest hit. A monumental first run on the wallcrawler is marked here by Amazing Spider-Man #99 (August 1971) portraying ‘A Day in the Life of…’: an all-action, social drama-tinged palate-cleanser with Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy finally getting their love-life back on track, only marginally diverted by a prison breakout easily quelled by the Arachnid Avenger, whilst highlighting the growing scandal of prison conditions…

Jump forward to tumultuous turbulent November 1971 where the April cover-dated Marvel Premiere #1 boldly proclaimed on its cover The Power of… Warlock. Inside, the stunning fable by Thomas, Kane & Adkins declared ‘And Men Shall Call Him… Warlock’ neatly recapitulated artificial man Him’s origins as a lab experiment concocted by rogue geneticists eager to create a superman they could control for conquest. Also on view is the manufactured man’s face off with the Fantastic Four, and clash with Thor over the rights to a mate before returning to an all-encompassing cosmic cocoon to evolve a little more.

Now that shell is plucked from the void thanks to the moon-sized ship of self-created god The High Evolutionary. Having artificially ascended to godhood, he is wrapped up in a bold new experiment…

Establishing contact with Him as he basks in his cocoon, the Evolutionary explains that he is constructing from space rubble a duplicate planet Earth on the opposite side of the sun. Here he will replay the development of life, intending that humanity on Counter-Earth will evolve without the taint of cruelty and greed and deprived of the lust to kill. It’s a magnificent scheme that might well have worked, but as the Evolutionary wearies, his greatest mistake intervenes…

Man-Beast was over-evolved from a wolf and gained mighty powers, but also ferocious savagery and ruthless wickedness. Now he invades the satellite, despoiling humanity’s rise and ensuring the new world’s development exactly mirrors True-Earth’s. The only exception is the meticulous exclusion of enhanced individuals. The beleaguered orb has all Earth’s woes but no superheroes to save or inspire its people. A helpless witness to the desecration, the golden being furiously crashes free of his cocoon to save the High Evolutionary and rout Man-Beast and his bestial cronies (all similarly evolved animal-humanoids called “New-Men”). When the despondent, enraged science god recovers, he decides to erase his failed experiment but is stopped by his rescuer. As a helpless observer, Him saw the potential and value of embattled humanity. Despite all their flaws, he believes he can save them from imminent doom caused by their own unthinking actions, wars and intolerance. When his pleas convince the Evolutionary to give this mankind one last chance, the wanderer is hurled down to Counter-Earth, gifted and graced with a strange “Soul Gem” to focus his powers, on a divine mission to find the best in the fallen and a name of his own…

Enjoying and thriving in an era and atmosphere of experimentation, Kane returned to Marvel Premiere with #15 (May 1974) for the debut of masked martial artist Iron Fist. His saga began on a spectacular high with Thomas, Kane & Dick Giordano’s ‘The Fury of Iron Fist!’, as a teenaged masked warrior defeats the cream of a legendary combat elite in a fabled other-dimensional city before returning to Earth.

Ten years previously little Daniel Rand had watched his father and mother die at the hands of Harold Meachum whilst the party of millionaire adventurers risked Himalayan snows to find the legendary city of K’un Lun. Little Danny had travelled with his parents and business partner Meachum in search of the fabled city – which only appeared on Earth for one day every decade. Wendell Rand had some unsuspected connection to the fabled Shangri La but was killed before they found it, whilst Danny’s mother sacrificed herself to save the child from wolves and her murderous pursuer.

As he wandered alone in the wilderness, the city found Danny. The boy spent ten years training: mastering all forms of martial arts in a militaristic, oriental, feudal paradise while enduring countless arcane ordeals, living only for the day he would return to Earth and avenge his parents. After conquering all comers and rejecting immortality, the Iron Fist returned to Earth, a Living Weapon able to channel his force of will into a devastating super-punch…

Alternate worlds vehicle What If? #3 (June 1977) provided one of the most memorable stories of the era and one of Kane’s greatest triumphs. Scripted by Jim Shooter and inked by Klaus Janson ‘What If the Avengers Had Never Been?’ diverted from established Marvel Continuity at the end of Avengers #2 when Hulk quit the still-forming team. In this instance, the act sunders the entire squad who go their own ways with shocking, spectacular and ultimately tragic consequences. If you buy this book for only one tale it will be this one…

That same month in Daredevil #146 the artist again demonstrated his brilliance in staging dramatic fight scenes. Scripted by Shooter and inked by Jim Mooney, ‘Duel!’ saw the sightless swashbuckler searching Manhattan for maniac marksman Bullseye even as his quarry was setting up a lethal showdown. The brutally bruising climax came when the crazed killer took an entire TV studio hostage but ended with his being soundly defeated yet again…

With Tony Isabella writing and Frank Giacoia inking, Kane revisited one of his greatest comics triumphs in What If? #24 (December 1980), as ‘What If Gwen Stacy had Lived?’ explored an Alternity where Spider-Man saved his fiancée from Green Goblin Norman Osborn and went on to marry her before losing everything he loved to the obsessive hatred of J. Jonah Jameson…

This compelling compilation notionally concludes with a late treat from Marvel Comics Presents #116 (cover-dated November 1992) with future superstar scripter Dan Slott taking Kane back to his cowboy roots for a short rip-roaring romp featuring the Two-Gun Kid. Here the occasional Avenger and prototype Marvel Mystery-man hero serves up ‘Just Deserts’ to vicious scheming owlhoots John Baker and the Unlucky Thirteen Gang before marching the sole survivor back across the searing Devil’s Cauldron back to Tombstone city jail…

Providing pertinent covers by Kane, this tome offers additional pictorial treats including Kane’s favourite cover (Mighty Marvel Western #44) plus a gallery of others such as Western Gunfighters #31, Kid Colt, Outlaw #161, Sub-Mariner #44 & Captain Marvel #23), the extras also deliver a vast selection of page layouts, design roughs, fully-pencilled pages and covers as well as inked and completed pages of marvels.

Also working as Gil Stack, Scott Edward, Stack Til, Stacktil, Pen Star and Phil Martell, Gil Kane became a foundation stone of comics and remains a vivid, vital inspiration to future generations of creators and readers. With all that in mind why not have a far too brief look at some of the man’s early Marvel superhero triumphs and gently remind the Powers-that-Be that this is only the tip of a graphic iceberg that includes plenty of room for barbarian, sci fi and horror collection one day…
© 2021 MARVEL.

Born today in 1924, cartoonist Brad Anderson (Marmaduke), Belgian illustrator Willy Lambillotte AKA Lambil (Sandy, The Bluecoats, Pauvre Lampil) in 1936 and cartoonist/illustrator Norm Fueti (Retail, Gil, The King of Kazoo) in 1970.

Today we lost someone you’ve probably never heard of: letterer, designer and production artist/manager Gerda Gattel (October 28th 1908 – May 14th 1993). She was filling the ballons and fixing pages for Timely-Atlas from 1947 to the company’s implosion and then moved across town to National DC where she did the same thing from 1958 to her retirement as Production Coordinator in 1973.

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Superman: The Man of Steel volume 3


By John Byrne, Jerry Ordway, Ron Frenz, Dan Jurgens, Jim Starlin, Arthur Adams, , Curt Swan, Karl Kesel, John Beatty, Brett Breeding, Dick Giordano, Steve Montano, Roy Richardson, Leonard Starr, Keith Williams & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-0966-6 (HB), 978-1-7795-1378-6 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In 1985 when DC Comics rationalised, reconstructed and reinvigorated their continuity with Crisis on Infinite Earths they used the event to simultaneously regenerate key properties. The biggest gun they had was Superman and it’s hard to argue that 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 & branch retooling be anything but a pathetic marketing ploy that would alienate “real” fans for a few fly-by-night Johnny-come-latelies who would jump ship as soon as the next fad surfaced? The new Superman was going to suck…

They couldn’t have been more wrong.

It began with all Superman titles being “cancelled” (actually suspended) for three months, and yes, for the first time in decades, that did make real-world media sit-up and take notice of the character everybody thought they knew. 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; fresh off a spectacular, groundbreaking run on Fantastic Four and inked by venerated veteran Dick Giordano. The bold manoeuvre was a huge and instant success. So much so that when first collected-as-a-stand-alone compilation album in 1991, it became one of comics’ premiere “break-out” hits in the 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 relaunch the Action Ace seamlessly returned to his suspended comic book homes, enjoying the addition of a third monthly title that premiered that same month. Superman, Adventures of Superman, and Action Comics (which became a fan-pleasing team-up title guest-starring other favourites of the DC Universe, in the manner of the cancelled DC Comics Presents) were instant best-sellers. The back-to-basics approach lured many readers to – and, crucially back to – the Superman franchise, and the sheer quality of the stories and art convinced them to stay. Such cracking, clear-cut superhero exploits are a high point in the Man of Tomorrow’s near- nine decade career, and these collections are certainly the easiest way to enjoy one of the most impressive reinventions of a comic book icon.

So successful was the new look that by the early 1990’s Superman was carrying four monthly titles as well as numerous Specials, Annuals, guest shots and regular appearances in titles like 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, a new sequence of collections brought Byrne & Co.’s tales to a new generation of fans, and at long last we’re getting around to plugging the third one…

This monumental compilation traces the Never-Ending Battle in unfolding, overlapping story order, not chronological release dates, spanning cover-dates October 1987 to May 1988, re-presenting Superman #12-15; Action #594-597; Adventures of Superman #436-438 and each title’s first Annual. Also included are crossover issue Booster Gold #23 and one-shot Superman: The Earth Stealers with relevant informative bio-pages from Who’s Who Update ‘87 #5 and Who’s Who Update ‘88 #2. Covers throughout are by Arthur Adams, Giordano, Ron Frenz, Brett Breeding, Dan Jurgens, Jim Starlin, Byrne and Jerry Ordway.

The magic kicks off with ‘Skeeter’, originally published in Action Comics Annual #1. A vampire shocker written by Byrne and illustrated by Art Adams & Dick Giordano, it plays out in the swamplands of Fayerville, South Carolina, with guest star Batman hunting a deceptively deadly bloodsucker before being forced to call in the biggest Big Gun he knows.

The brutal ending serves to underscore the big differences between the Post-Crisis Dark Knight and Man of Steel…

Next is a poignant updating of a Silver Age classic. ‘Tears for Titano’ (Byrne, Frenz & Breeding) first saw print in Superman Annual #1 cover-dated August 1987 and puts a modern spin on the sorry saga of a giant ape that menaced Metropolis. It all starts when Lois Lane objects to the treatment of a lab chimp by her old nemesis Dr. Thomas Moyers. The heartless, ambitious energy research scientist’s callous disregard for procedure, or even simple humanity, results in the anthropoid mutating into a colossal out-of-control rampaging menace only Superman can stop… even if he doesn’t want to…

The Adventures of Superman Annual #1 spawned ‘The Union’ by Jim Starlin, Jurgens & Steve Montano, wherein Superman is asked by President Ronald Reagan and über-Fed Sarge Steel to ferret out what happened to the people formerly living in the instant ghost-town of Trudeau, South Dakota. This edgy, chilling by-the-numbers sci-fi shocker showed audiences that the new Man of Steel wasn’t the guaranteed winner he used to be, and set the scene for a momentous future confrontation with the monstrous alien life-consumer Hfuhruhurr the Word-bringer., as well as showing the limits of a pledge to never take life…

In the monthly periodicals ‘All that Glisters’ (Byrne & Keith Williams) comes from November 1987’s Action Comics #594: a big battle team-up with fugitive from the future Booster Gold sneakily and accidentally orchestrated by Lex Luthor employing his robot duplicates. The acrimonious clash carried over and concluded in Booster Gold #23, with ‘Blind Obsession’ (art/story by Jurgens, inked by Roy Richardson) seeing the bad guy billionaire (is there any other kind?) thwarted and frustrated again…

Next up is the magical retelling of another classic Wayne Boring Superman tale. ‘Lost Love’ (Superman #12, by Byrne & Karl Kesel) recounts the tragic tale of college boy Clark Kent’s brief affair with mysterious Lori Lemaris, a unique girl he twice loved and lost. Then, Action Comics #595 brings us back to the present with a bump in the night. Courtesy of Byrne & Williams ‘The Ghost of Superman’ introduces eerie, life-stealing Silver Banshee in a mystery team-up with a sneaky superstar who saves Metropolis from terror and dread and whose Big Identity Reveal I’m not going to spoil for you…

Next come the Kryptonian corners of DC’s third inter-company mega-crossover event. After Crisis on Infinite Earths and Legends there was Millennium, which saw writer Steve Englehart expand on an iconic tale from his Justice League of America run (#140-141) as well as his tenure on the Green Lantern Corps title. But first, a little background…

Billions of years ago robotic peacekeepers known as Manhunters rebelled against their creators. The Guardians of the Universe were immortal and desired a rational, orderly, emotionless cosmos – a view not shared by their own women. The Zamarons abandoned the Guardians on planet Oa at the inception of their grand scheme but, after billions of years, the two factions had reconciled and left our Reality together. Now they had returned with a plan to midwife a new race of immortals on Earth, but the Manhunters – who had since infiltrated all aspects of every society throughout the universe – were determined to thwart the plan, whether by seduction, connivance or just plain brute force. Earth’s heroes were summoned by the reunited immortals and subsequently gathered to see the project to completion but were continually confronted by Manhunters in their own private lives… and their own comics.

DC Comics third braided mega-series was a bold effort intended to touch all corners of their universe, introduce new characters, tie-in titles and do so on a weekly, not monthly, schedule. In addition to the 8 weekly issues of the miniseries itself, Millennium spread across 21 titles for two months – another 37 issues – for a grand total of 44 comic books, with the Superman-related crossover craziness opening here with ‘Toys in the Attic!’ (Superman #13, by Byrne & Kesel) .

In Metropolis, elderly British craftsman Winslow Percival Schott opens a campaign of murder and wanton destruction targeting Lex Luthor, the ruddy Yank who ruined his little company and forced him to become the murderous Toyman. No sooner has the Man of Tomorrow intervened in that fracas than he’s drawn back to sleepy hometown Smallville in ‘Junk’ (Adventures of Superman #436, script by Byrne, art by Ordway & John Beatty) to discover trusted confidant Lana Lang has for years been an agent of the Manhunters.

In truth the insidious mechanoids have been watching the Last Son of Krypton since before that world died, but had botched capturing the space infant when he first arrived on Earth. As a back-up plan, Manhunters replaced local medical practitioner Doc Whitney and he subsequently turned every child born since into a mind-controlled sleeper agent. With Clark a key factor in the Millennium, Whitney rallies his forces to capture Superman, but utterly underestimates the power and resourcefulness of the Man of Steel. Although victorious, Superman’s triumph is tainted by tragedy. In defeat, all Whitney’s unwitting agents – two generations of Smallville’s young folk – keel over dead…

Then, in Action Comics #596, ‘Hell is Where the Heart Is…’ (Byrne & Williams) as Ghostly Guardian The Spectre is drawn to the catastrophe and facilitates Superman’s odyssey to the Spiritual Realms to rescue all the recently and unjustly departed deceased…

Byrne & Kesel’s Superman #14 offered a bombastic team-up with Green Lantern Hal Jordan wherein Emerald Gladiator and Action Ace chase colossal super-Manhunter Highmaster through uncanny dimensions as that mechanical maniac seeks to attack the sequestered, enervated Guardians and Zamarons in ‘Last Stand!’, after which events take a far more moody turn in Adventures of Superman #437. A twinned tale by Byrne, Ordway & Beatty, ‘Point of View’ simultaneously reveals how Luthor attempts to seduce one of the Millennium candidates to his evil side even as Lois Lane helplessly watches the brutally crippling struggle of merely mortal vigilante Jose “Gangbuster” Delgado against Lex’s hyper-augmented cyborg warrior Combattor…

The repercussions of that clash are examined in ‘Visitor’ (Action Comics #597) wherein Byrne, Leonard Starr & Williams impishly referenced Silver Age catfights between Lois Lane and Lana Lang, whilst the story itself establishes the false premise that Superman was raised as Clark’s adopted brother to throw off Lois’ growing suspicions…

With the Millennium complete, Superman #15 returned to regular wonderment as Superman is asked to find Metropolis Police Captain Maggie Sawyer’s missing daughter Jamie, just as the city is hit with a rash of flying bandit children. ‘Wings’ (Byrne & Kesel) debuts repulsive monster Skyhook: a horrific bat-winged Fagin who beguiles and mutates runaways whilst concealing even greater ghastly secrets…

The Fights ‘n’ Tights fun intensifies with Adventures of Superman #438 (March 1988, by Byrne, Ordway & Beatty) and another modern-day re-imagination of a past icon. ‘…The Amazing Brainiac’ sees a trip to the circus disastrously coincide with drunken mentalist Milton Fine developing uncanny psionic abilities and going wild. Despite his mental assaults being particularly effective against the Man of Steel, Superman eventually overcomes the furiously frantic performer, but is the defeated man simply deranged by his own latent abilities, or are his ravings of being possessed by an alien named Vril Dox of Colu somehow impossibly true?

This collection concludes with one-shot “Prestige Format” special Superman: The Earth Stealers by writer Byrne, inker Ordway and colourist Bill Wray who augment a post-Crisis return to the Action Ace for lifelong Super-Artist Curt Swan. Here the whole world is confiscated by a plundering alien seeking to sell it for scrap and resources, but the fiend and his brutal gladiator/legbreaker Gunge have not reckoned on this latest easy score being home to the last of the fabled and feared Kryptonians…

The bonus bit at the back consists of a ‘Cover gallery’ of previous MoS collections by Ordway, Byrne & Kesel, with excerpts from Who’s Who Update ‘87 #-5 and Who’s Who Update ‘88 #2, featuring illustrated fact-snacks concerning Booster Gold ( by Jurgens & Mike DeCarlo); Titano (Frenz & Byrne); Lori Lemaris (Byrne); Silver Banshee (Mike Mignola & P. Craig Russell) before a big bold pin-up of the Man of Steel finalises the fun for now.

Against all contemporary expectation the refitted Man of Tomorrow was a huge critical and commercial success. As one of the penitent curmudgeons who was proved wrong at the time, I can earnestly urge you not to make the same mistake. These are magically gripping and memorable comic gems to be enjoyed over and over again. So the sooner you get these books the sooner you can start the thrill ride reinvention of the ultimate comic book icon.
© 1987, 1988, 1989, 2021 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1844 Spanish painter/illustrator/cartoonist Josep Lluis Pellicer was born, followed by Disney comics maestro Tony Strobl in 1915, and comics editor, publisher and historian catherine “Cat” yronwoode in 1947. The post-war Fifties greeted cartoonist Tom Armstrong (Marvin) in 1950; artist/publisher Neil D. Vokes (Robotech, Fright Night, Eagle) in 1954 and Elizabeth Smith (Action Comics, Lex Luthor) in 1958.

Deaths this date include legendary British licensed properties artist British artist/illustrator George William Wakefield (Laurel & Hardy, Ben Turpin, Jackie Coogan, George Formby, The Funniosities of Fatty Arbuckle, The Screen Screams of Ford Sterling, Jolly Rover, Freddie Flip and Uncle Bunkle, Abbott & Costello) in 1942; US cartoonist/writer Dick Calkins (Uncle Bob’s Story Book, Buck Rogers, Skyroads) in 1962; children’s book illustrator/cartoonist Syd Hoff (Danny the Dinosaur, I Can Read…, Tuffy, Laugh It Off) in 2004 and legendary Belgian all star Eddy Paape (Valhardi, Buck Danny, Mark Dacier, Luc Orient, Surcouf, Johnny Congo) in 2012.

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Marvel Two-In-One Epic Collection volume 3 (1977-1979): Remembrance of Things Past


By Marv Wolfman, Jim Starlin, Roger Slifer, Tom DeFalco, David Anthony Kraft, Ralph Macchio, Peter B. Gillis, Alan Kupperberg, Bill Mantlo, Jo Duffy, John Byrne, Steven Grant, Allyn Brodsky, David Michelinie, Ron Wilson, Sal Buscema, Bob Hall, Chic Stone, Frank Miller, Jim Craig, Pablo Marcos, Josef Rubinstein, Jim Mooney, Alfredo Alcala, Sam Granger, Frank Giacoia, Dave Hunt, Tex Blaisdell, Gene Day, Joe Sinnott, Bob McLeod, Bruce Patterson, Mike Esposito & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5564-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Above all else, Marvel has always been about team-ups. The concept of team-up books – an established star pairing, or battling (often both) with less well-selling company characters – was not new when Marvel awarded their most popular hero the same deal DC had with Batman in The Brave and the Bold. Although confident in their new title, they wisely left options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead: the Human Torch. In those long-ago days, editors were acutely conscious of potential over-exposure – and since super-heroes were actually in a decline they may well have been right.

Nevertheless, after the runaway success of Spider-Man’s guest vehicle Marvel Team-Up, the House of Ideas carried on the trend with a series starring bashful, blue-eyed Ben Grimm – the Fantastic Four’s most iconic and popular member. They began with a test run in Marvel Feature #11-12, before awarding him his own team-up title, with this third power-packed compendium gathering in the contents of Marvel Two-in-One #37-52; MTIO Annuals #2-4 and Avengers Annual #7, covering November 1977 to June 1979.

The action begins with ‘The Final Threat’ (by Jim Starlin & Joe Rubinstein) from Avengers Annual #7, wherein Kree warrior Captain Marvel and Titanian mind-goddess Moondragon return to Earth with vague anticipations of impending cosmic 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 powered weapon to snuff out the stars like candles. Broaching interstellar space to stop the scheme, the united heroes forestall interstellar incursion and prevent the Mad Titan destroying the Sun, but only at the cost of Warlock’s life…

Then Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2 undertakes a ‘Death Watch!’ (Starlin & Rubinstein): finding Peter Parker plagued by prophetic nightmares disclosing how Thanos had snatched victory from defeat and now holds the Avengers captive whilst again preparing to extinguish Sol. With nowhere else to turn, anguished, disbelieving Spider-Man heads for the Baxter Building to borrow a spacecraft, unaware The Thing also has history with the terrifying Titan. Although utterly outpowered, the mismatched champions of Life subsequently upset Thanos’ plans, allowing the Avengers and the Universe’s true agent of retribution to end the Titan’s threat forever… or at least until next time…

Marvel Two-In-One’s apparent function as a clearing-house for old, unresolved series and plot-lines was then briefly put on hold as issue #37 teamed Ben with Matt Murdock (not alter ego Daredevil) for Marv Wolfman, Ron Wilson & Pablo Marcos’ legal drama ‘Game Point!’

Ben had been framed for monstrous acts of wanton destruction, and when the case went badly, he faced decades in jail. However, the Man Without Fear and eccentric street punk Eugene the Kid determined the Mad Thinker was behind the plot to place the ‘Thing Behind Prison Bars’ (Roger Slifer, Wilson & Jim Mooney): tackling the maniac whose ultimate game plan is to corner the future, mass-producing his own squadron of the synthezoid Avenger in #39’s conclusion ‘The Vision Gambit’ (inked by Marcos).

Slifer, Tom DeFalco, Wilson & Marcos then detail a spooky international yarn as the Black Panther is involved in a monstrous reign of terror with a zombie-vampire stalking the streets and abducting prominent African Americans. Concluding chapter ‘Voodoo and Valor!’ – by David Anthony Kraft, Wilson & Marcos – sees Jericho Drumm/Brother Voodoo volunteer his extremely specialised services to Ben and T’Challa in hopes of ending the crisis. The trail takes our heroes to Uganda for a confrontation with Doctor Spectrum and the far more dangerous real-world crazed killer Idi Amin…

Crafted by Ralph Macchio, Sal Buscema, Alfredo Alcala & Sam Grainger, Marvel Two-In-One #42 then debuts a future mainstay of Marvel Universe continuity as Project Pegasus premiers in ‘Entropy, Entropy…’

The Federal research facility designated Potential Energy Group/Alternate Sources/United States is dedicated to investigating new and exotic power sources and naturally became the most sensible place to dump energy-wielding super-baddies once they were subdued. Ben finds and begins trashing the place whilst tracking down his educationally – and emotionally -challenged ward Wundarr after the kid was renditioned by the Government. The furious Thing is soon confronted and contained by Captain America in his role as security advisor and together they stumble over a sabotage scheme by martial maniac Victorius who unleashes a deadly new threat in the ghostly form of Jude, the Entropic Man. This phantasmic force easily trounces Cap and Ben but finds the macabre Man-Thing far harder to handle in concluding chapter ‘The Day the World Winds Down’ from Macchio, John Byrne & Friends & Bruce Patterson)…

The third Marvel Two-In-One Annual then hosts a great big, old-fashioned world-busting blockbuster wherein Nova the Human Rocket battles beside Ben to free captive alien princesses and save Earth from colossal cosmos-marauding space invaders: a simple yet entertaining tussle entitled ‘When Strike the Monitors!’ all crafted by Wolfman, Sal Buscema, Frank Giacoia & Dave Hunt… after which, back in the monthly comic book, issue #44 strays away from standard fare with ‘The Wonderful World of Brother Benjamin J. Grimm’ (Wolfman, Bob Hall & Frank Giacoia) with the Thing telling rowdy kids a fanciful bedtime story concerning his recent partnership with Hercules to free Olympus from evil giants…

Marvel Two-In-One #45’s sees Kree Captain Marvel warned by his Cosmic Awareness that the Thing had been targeted by vengeful Skrulls in ‘The Andromeda Rub-Out!’ (Peter Gillis, Alan Kupperberg & Mike Esposito), after which the Incredible Hulk’s new TV show compels an outraged Ben to head for Hollywood, only to become accidentally embroiled in a ‘Battle in Burbank!’ (Kupperberg & Chic Stone)…

The Thing’s self-appointed gadflies The Yancy Street Gang headlined in MT-I-O #47 as ‘Happy Deathday, Mister Grimm!’ (Bill Mantlo & Stone) sees a cybernetic tyrant long believed dead take over Ben’s old neighbourhood… until the hero pays a visit. The invasion exposed, it is quickly concluded once awesome alien energy powerhouse Jack of Hearts joins the fight against ‘My Master, Machinesmith!’ (in #48 by Mantlo, Stone & Tex Blaisdel).

Mary Jo Duffy, Alan Kupperberg & Gene Day piled on spooky laughs in #49 as the ‘Curse of Crawl-Inswood’ highlights how Doctor Strange manipulates Ben into helping crush a paranormal incursion in a quaint and quiet seaside resort…

Anniversary issue #50 was everything a special issue should be. ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ by Byrne & Joe Sinnott takes a powerful and poignant look at the Thing’s history as a monster outcast and posits a few what-might-have-beens…

Following another failure by Reed Richards to cure Ben’s rocky state, The Thing steals the chemical and travels into his own past, determined to use the remedy on his younger, less mutated self. However, his bitter, brooding, brittle earlier incarnation is hardly prepared to listen to another monster and, inevitably, catastrophic combat ensues…

Issue #51 was even better. ‘Full House… Dragons High!’ by Peter Gillis, up-&-coming artist Frank Miller & Bob McLeod, details how a weekly poker session at Avengers Mansion is interrupted by rogue US General Pollock, who again tries to conquer America with stolen technology. Happily, Ben and Nick Fury find Ms. Marvel (not today’s teenager Kamala Khan but current Captain Marvel Carol Danvers), Wonder Man and The Beast better combat comrades than poker opponents…

A note of sinister paranoia creeps in with Marvel Two-In-One #52’s ‘A Little Knight Music!’ (Steven Grant, Jim Craig & Marcos), as the mysterious Moon Knight joins Ben in stopping CIA Psy-Ops master Crossfire brainwashing the city’s superheroes into killing each other, prior to MTIO Annual #4 providing an old-fashioned, world-busting fantasy finale – for now – as ‘A Mission of Gravity!’(plotted by Allyn Brodsky, scripted by David Michelinie, limned by Craig, Bob Budiansky & Patterson) unites Ben and Inhuman monarch Black Bolt (and Good Boi Lockjaw!) to stop unstable maniac Graviton turning into a black hole and taking the world with him…

Backed up by the covers of Starlin, Rubinstein, Wilson, Sinnott, Marcos, Terry Austin, George Pérez, Walt Simonson, Sal Buscema, Hall, Giacoia, Keith Pollard, Layton, Stone, Budiansky, and Al Milgrom, there is also a big bold bonus section including contemporary house ads, covers from reprint title The Adventures of the Thing (by Sam Keith, Mike Mignola & Joe Quesada) and original art pages by Starlin, Rubinstein, Perez & Sinnott.

This tome of tales from Marvel’s Middle Period are admittedly of variable quality. They are, however, offset by truly timeless classics, still as captivating today as they ever were. Most fans of Costumed Dramas will have little to complain about and there’s lots of fun to be found for young and old readers. So why not lower your critical guard and have an honest blast of pure warts ‘n’ all comics craziness? You’ll almost certainly grow to like it…
© 2025 MARVEL.

This date in 1754 – and attributed to Benjamin Franklin – the first American newspaper cartoon “Join, or Die” was published in The Pennsylvania Gazette.

Somewhat less momentously – perhaps – today in 1893 Wonder Woman co-creator William Moulton Marton was born as was Short Ribs cartoonist Frank O’Neal in 1921; Half Hitch and Henry illustrator Dick Hodgins, Jr. in1931 and multi-directional art scribe Barbara Slate (Yuppies From Hell, Angel Love, Sweet XVI, Ms. Liz) in 1947. They were joined in 1953 by writer Pat McGreal (Chiaroscuro; The Private Lives of Leonardo DaVinci, Veils, I, Paparazzi and more Disney comics than seems humanly possible); in 1955 by American Splendor illustrator Brian Bram; inveterate comics publisher David Campiti in 1958, and the astoundingly funny Ty Templeton (Stig’s Inferno, Batman Adventures, The Simpsons) in 1962.

Today in 1991 The Simpsons episode “Three Men and a Comic Book” aired, giving Comic Book Guy to the world…

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Doctor Doom Epic Collection volume 1 (962-1969): Enter Doctor Doom


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Larry Lieber, Roy Thomas, Don Heck, Gene Colan, Frank Giacoia, Joe Sinnott, Dick Ayers, George Roussos, Chic Stone, Vince Colletta, John Tartaglione & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-6612-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As the world’s greatest supervillain (Sorry, Donny Littlehands!) prepares for his next big screen debut, expect to see a bunch of books featuring the dark side of the eternal war between Good and Evil. And if that isn’t the perfect metaphor for the Master of Latveria I don’t know what is…

Doctor Doom is one of the most monumental villains in comics: definitely Top 3 and to many the absolute number 1 nemesis. Once upon a time, you hadn’t really made it as a Marvel superhero (or villain) until you’d clashed with him. Victor Von Doom is a troubled genius who escaped the oppression heaped on his Romani people in a backwards looking Balkan autocracy via an ultimately catastrophic scholarship to America. Whilst there proud, arrogant Victor succumbed to an intense rivalry with young Reed Richards, even then perhaps the most brilliant man alive.

The smug, openly hostile student performed unsanctioned experiments which went wrong and marred his formerly-perfect features, leading him down a path mastering and merging super-science and sinister sorcery, and fuelled his overwhelming hunger for ultimate power and total control. From the ashes of his failure, Von Doom rebuilt his life, returned to seize control of his homeland and become a danger to the world and the multiverse.

This carefully curated compendium traces his public progress and greatest battles via landmark moments of triumph and tragedy, collecting wholly or in part material from Fantastic Four (1961) 5-6, 10, 16-17, 23, 39-40, 57-60, 73; Fantastic Four Annual (1963) 2-3; Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #5; Avengers (1963) #25; Daredevil (1964) #36-38 and Marvel Super-Heroes (1967) #20 and opens without preamble as it must, with that debut in Fantastic Four #5 cover-dated July 1962 and on sale from April 10th.

At that time, aliens and especially monsters played a major part in young Marvel’s output. However, after a tentative start, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s recreation of superheroes embraced the unique basics of the idiom, and took a full bite out of the Fights ‘n’ Tights apple by introducing the first full-blown, unrepentant supervillain to their budding Marvel Universe. Mole Man debuted in FF #1, but that tragic little gargoyle, for all his world-dominating schemes, wouldn’t truly acquire the persona of a costumed foe until his more refined second appearance in FF #22.

Inked by the sublimely slick and perfectly polished Joe Sinnott, ‘Prisoners of Doctor Doom!’ had it all. A brazen attack by a mysterious enemy from Reed ‘Mr. Fantastic’ Richards’ past; bizarre fringe-science, magic, lost treasure, time-travel, and even pirates. Ha-Haar, me ‘earties!

The tale is sheer comics magic and the creators knew they were on to a winner as the deadly Doctor returned in the very next issue, teaming with the recently revived and recalcitrantly reluctant Sub-Mariner to attack our heroes as ‘The Deadly Duo!’ in the first Super-Villain Team-Up of the Marvel Age…

Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner was the second superstar of the Timely Age of Comics – but only because he followed cover-featured Human Torch in the running order of Marvel Mystery Comics #1 in 1939. He has had, however, the most impressive longevity of the company’s original “Big Three” – Torch, Subby & Captain America. The Marine Marvel was revived in Fantastic Four #4; once again a conflicted but noble villain, and remains prominent in the company’s pantheon to this day.

Inked by Dick Ayers, FF #6 reintroduced the concept of antiheroes as Namor was promptly betrayed by Doom, and ended up saving the quirky quartet from death in space. This created a truly complex dynamic with his fellow rogue monarch and the FF. The Devil Doctor’s inevitable betrayal has coloured the relationship of both sinister sovereigns ever since.

1963 was a pivotal year in the development of Marvel. Lee & Kirby had proved their new high concept – human heroes with flaws and tempers – had a willing audience. Now they would extend that concept to a new pantheon of heroes and even the bad guys. Here is where that second innovation came to the fore. Previously, superheroes were sufficient unto themselves and shared adventures were rare. Now, however there was a shared universe where characters often tripped over each other, sometimes fighting each other’s enemies! The creators themselves might turn even up in a Marvel Comic!

Cover-date January 1963, Fantastic Four #10 was released in October of 1962 and saw ‘The Return of Doctor Doom!’ Here, the archvillain used Stan & Jack themselves to lure Richards into a trap where his mind is switched with the bad Doctor’s. Unfortunately the scheme does not survive his own impatience as alien body-swap techniques come undone because Doom cannot keep up the sham long enough to spring his shrinking-ray ambush on the rest of the team…

Thematic follow-up Fantastic Four #16 explores ‘The Micro-World of Doctor Doom!’ in a spectacular romp guest-starring emergent superhero Ant-Man. Despite his resounding rout, the steel-shod villain promptly returned to the larger universe with more infallible, deadly traps a month later in ‘Defeated by Doctor Doom!’ (#17, August 1963, and on sale from May 9th). Of course, they actually weren’t and soon sent the sinister tyrant packing in what seemed a fall to his death…

Doom was the most frequent threat to the FF, and the first foe to break another unspoken rule by going after other heroes in the cohesive shared universe Lee & Kirby were building. Cover-dated October 1963 and with Ditko on pencils & inks, Amazing Spider-Man #5 saw the webspinner ‘Marked for Destruction by Dr. Doom!’ and not so much winning as surviving his unwanted duel against the deadliest man on Earth. In a titanic comedy of errors Doom seeks another super-powered pawn in his war on humanity, but utterly underestimates his obviously juvenile opponent. Moreover, in this tale, Peter Parker’s nemesis, jock bully Flash Thompson, first displayed depths beyond the usual in contemporary comic books, beginning one of the best love/hate buddy relationships in popular literature…

Fantastic Four #23 (February 1964) heralded ‘The Master Plan of Doctor Doom!’, and introduced his frankly mediocre minions the Terrible Trio – Bull Brogin, Handsome Harry and Yogi Dakor. Even after they were augmented by Doom’s science these goons were sub-par opponents for the FF, but the Iron Dictator’s uncannily menacing “Solar Wave” was enough to raise the hackles on my 5-year-old neck… and still does! (Do I need to qualify that with: all of me was five but only my precious neck had developed hackles worth boasting of back then?)

The one-dimensional evil genius was recast as a tragic figure forever shackled by his flaws thanks to the primary contents of Fantastic Four Annual #2 (September 1964) wherein Chic Stone inked ‘The Fantastic Origin of Doctor Doom!’ A short (12 page) scene-setter, this momentously detailed how a brilliant “gypsy” youth remade himself into the most dangerous man in creation, ruthlessly overcoming obstacles such as ethnic oppression, crushing poverty and the shocking stigma of being the son of a sorceress. That past informed the present as the ultimate villain again attacked old college classmate Reed Richards and is left falsely believing he has achieved ‘The Final Victory of Dr. Doom!’ However, he has actually suffered his most ignominious defeat after Richards turned the despot’s guile, subterfuge and mind-control tools against him. This clash also introduced a long-running and bewildering plot thread connecting the Monstrous Monarch to time-travelling tyrant Rama Tut/Kang the Conqueror…

Jumping forward to the summer of 1965, FF #39 (cover-dated June, and on sale from March 11th, with Frank Giacoia AKA “Frank Ray” inking) saw the team deprived of their powers. Having remembered he had not beaten his enemies at last, an enraged Doom targets the helpless heroes in ‘A Blind Man Shall Lead Them!’ with sightless swashbuckling vigilante Daredevil stepping up to provide their only hope of staying alive. The tale concluded in #40’s ‘The Battle of the Baxter Building’ with Vince Colletta inking a bombastic battle revealing the undeniable power, overwhelming pathos and indomitable heroism of the brutish Thing as – deprived of his greatest wish and cruelly restored to his monstrous mutated form – Ben Grimm hands Doom the most humiliating defeat of his life…

After a brief but significant tenure, Colletta signed off by inking one of the most crowded Marvel stories ever. Fantastic Four Annual #3 famously featured every hero, most of the villains and lots of ancillary characters in the company pantheon… such as teen-romance stars Patsy Walker & Hedy Wolf and even Stan and Jack themselves. ‘Bedlam at the Baxter Building!’ spectacularly celebrates the Richards-Storm nuptials, despite a massed attack by an army of baddies mesmerised by the diabolical Doctor into crashing the wedding party. In its classical simplicity it signalled the end of one era and the start of another…

With inker Ayers backing up Lee & Don Heck, Avengers #25 (cover-dated February 1966 but released before Christmas 1965. The still-learning but ever-improving new squad of Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch face their greatest test yet after being lured to Latveria and captured by the deadliest man alive in ‘Enter… Dr. Doom!’ With the entire nation imprisoned under an energy the trainees are forced to fight their way out of the tyrant’s utterly cowed, hyper-militarised kingdom…

Quiet for almost a year, the Iron Dictator exploded back into the forefront of comics with an absolute epic spanning Fantastic Four #57-60 released in the last four months of 1966. After a sequence of yarns introducing The Inhumans, Black Panther, Silver Surfer and Galactus, Lee & Kirby were at their sublime best and concocted what for many was the ultimate Doom saga.

Packed with unbearable tension, breathtaking drama and shattering action on all fronts it sees the most dangerous man on Earth steal and empower himself with the Silver Surfer’s cosmic forces, even as in a parallel story arc, those long-imprisoned Inhumans at last win their freedom even as we learn the tragic secret of mute Black Bolt in all his awesome fury. It begins with a jailbreak by Sandman in #57’s ‘Enter… Dr. Doom!’, escalates in ‘The Dismal Dregs of Defeat!’ as Doom tests his limitless stolen power and crushes all earthly resistance; builds to a crescendo in ‘Doomsday’ with the FF’s total defeat and humiliation before culminating in brains and valour saving the day – and all humanity – in truly magnificent manner in ‘The Peril and the Power!’

Read it, not about it!

Daredevil 37-38 (February & March 1968 and available December 12th 1967 and January 9th 1968 respectively) saw an early crossover event. In the interests of completeness they are preceded by the cliffhanging final page from DD #36 (Lee Gene Colan & Giacoia) wherein the injured Man Without Fear is captured by Doom.

With John Tartaglione on brushes, DD is penned in the Latverian Embassy and the full story unfolds in #37. ‘Don’t Look Now, But It’s… Doctor Doom!’ reveals how the Iron Tyrant uses his old body swap gimmick to trade meatsuits with Matt Murdock, while sharing the secret of how he escaped the judgement of Galactus after depowering the Silver Surfer.

Initially helpless before the Iron Dictator, DD is trapped in ‘The Living Prison!’ (Giacoia inks) as Doom anticipates a perfect sneak attack on his despised foes. However, after warning the FF, DD outwits Doom anyway… but forgets to notify them. Thus Doom’s devilish ploy culminates in a stupendous Lee, Kirby & Sinnott crafted clash in Fantastic Four #73. Outmatched and unable to convince the Human Torch, Thing and Mr. Fantastic any other way, DD enlists currently de-powered Thor and the ever-eager Spider-Man to solve the problem Marvel style – with a spectacular, pointless and utterly riveting punch-up: ‘The Flames of Battle…’

Closing this first annal of atrocity, is a yarn from experimental try-out title Marvel Super-Heroes #20 (May 1969) which awarded the villain his first full-length solo shot. Written by Larry Lieber & Roy Thomas, and illustrated by Lieber, Giacoia & Colletta, ‘This Man… This Demon!’ restated Doom’s origins and revealed a youthful dalliance with an innocent Romani maid named Valeria. In the now, that failed relationship is exploited by demon alchemist Diablo who claims to need an ally and partner but truly seeks a mighty slave. Doom deals with the charlatan in typically effective style…

This villain vehicle led to the Master of Menace winning his own solo series in Astonishing Tales #1-8, but that’s a topic for another time…

With covers by Kirby, Sinnott, Ayers, Stone, Ditko, Colan, Wood, Giacoia, Lieber, Colletta, Gil Kane, John Romita Sr., Sal Buscema, John Buscema, John Verpoorten and more, the bonus treat selection begins with landmark house ads for Doom’s earliest appearances by Kirby, Bob Powell and Marie Severin; a selection of Doom pinups from Fantastic Four Annual #1 (1963, by Kirby) and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1(1964, by Ditko) and Kirby original art pages.

These are backed up by a series of reprint and premium covers from Marvel Triple Action; Marvel Treasury Edition #11 (1976); Spider-Man Classics #6 (Ron Frenz & Terry Austin, September 1993); Spider-Man Collectible Series #11 (Frenz & Milgrom, October 2006); Essential Fantastic Four vol. 2 (1999 by Alan Davis & Marie Javins): Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four vol. 3 (2023 by Leonardo Romero): Doctor Doom: The Book of Doom Omnibus (2023 by Greg Land & Frank D’Armata) and Fantastic Four Facsimile Editions #5, 6 & 10 (all 2025 by Ryan Brown, Ema Lupacchino, Rachelle Rosenberg, Mark Buckingham & Alex Sinclair).

This graphic grimoire contains sheer comic enchantment, and is a book no lover of fantastic fiction and appreciator of arcane evil can afford to ignore – just as long as they remember which side they’re on…
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1909, Golden Age All Star Everett E. Hibbard (Flash, Justice Society of America) was born, as was erotic comics artist Tom of Finland/AKA Touko Valio Laaksonen in 1920 and master mangaka Kazuo Koike (Lone Wolf and Cub, Lady Snowblood, Crying Freeman) in 1936.

Today in 1938 Filipino artist Adrian Gonzales (All-Star Squadron, Arak, Son of Thunder, Super Powers) and French master Jean Giraud/Moebius (Blueberry, Arzach, The Incal) showed up for the first time, like Full Metal Alchemist creator Hiromu Arakawa in 1973, Planetes mangaka Makoto Yukimura in 1976 and Jamie McKelvie (The Wicked + the Profane, Phonogram, Young Avengers) in 1980.

In 1961, Nicholas P. Dallis & Alex Kotzky’s strip Apartment 3-G began on this date but we lost UK humour stalwart Thomas Watson Williams (Creature Teacher, Peter Pest, Stevie Star for Shiver and Shake, Whizzer and Chips, Monster Fun and Cor!!) in 2002, and the irreplaceable Maurice Sendak in 2012.

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Suicide Squad: The Silver Age


By Robert Kanigher, Howard Liss, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Gene Colan, Joe Kubert & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-6343-0 (HB/Digital edition) 978-1-4012-7516-7 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The War that Time Forgot was a strange series which saw paratroopers and tanks of the “Question Mark Patrol” dropped on Mystery Island from whence no American soldiers ever returned. Assorted crack GIs discovered why when the operation was suddenly overrun by pterosaurs, tyrannosaurs and worse. However, the combat-&-carnosaur creation was actually a spin-off of an earlier concept which hadn’t quite caught on with the comics-buying public. That wasn’t a problem for writer/editor Robert Kanigher: a man well-versed in judicious recycling and reinvention…

Back in 1955 he had devised and written anthology adventure comic The Brave and the Bold, which featured short complete tales starring a variety of period heroes in a format mirroring the era’s filmic fascination with historical dramas. Issue #1 led with Roman swords-&-sandals epic Golden Gladiator, medieval mystery-man The Silent Knight and Joe Kubert’ Viking Prince. Soon, the Gladiator was sidelined by the company’s iteration of Robin Hood, but the high adventure theme carried the title until the end of the decade when a burgeoning superhero revival saw B&B transform into a try-out vehicle in the manner of the astounding successful Showcase. Used to launch enterprising concepts and characters like Cave Carson, Strange Sports Stories, Hawkman and the epochal Justice League of America, the title began these test runs with #25 (August/September 1959) with the fate-tempting Suicide Squad – codenamed Task Force X by the US government to investigate uncanny mysteries and tackle unnatural threats.

The light-scary tales were all illustrated by Kanigher’s go-to team for fantastic fantasy (Ross Andru & Mike Esposito) who clearly revelled at the chance to cut loose and show what they could do outside the staid whimsy of Wonder Woman or gritty realism of the war titles they usually handled…

Following the February 1957 launch of Jack Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown, landmark premiere The Brave and the Bold #25 was cover-dated September 1959 and on sale from 28th August 1959 (nearly two years before Fantastic Four #1 went on sale). The “novel-length” yarn introduced a quartet of highly trained but merely human specialists – air ace war hero Colonel Rick Flag, combat medic Karin Grace and big-brained boffins Hugh Evans and Jess Price – all officially convened as a unit whose purpose was to tackle threats beyond conventional comprehension, such as the interstellar phenomenon dubbed ‘The Three Waves of Doom!’ The quartet were built on a very shaky premise. All three men loved Karin. She only loved Rick (and who wouldn’t?), but agreed to conceal her inclinations and sublimate her passions so Hugh and Jess would stay on the team of scientific death-cheaters…

In their first published exploit, a cloud from outer space impacts Earth, creating a super-heated tsunami which threatens to broil America. With dashing derring-do, the patriotic troubleshooters quench the ambulatory heat wave only to have it spawn a colossal alien dragon emanating super-cold rays that could trigger a new ice age. The only solution is to banish the beast back into space on a handy rocket headed for the sun, but tragically, the ship has to be piloted…

Having heroically and categorically ended the invader, the team redeployed two months later as B&B #26 opened with immediate continuation ‘The Sun Curse’ seeing our stranded astronauts struggle – in scenes eerily prescient and reminiscent of the Apollo 13 crisis a decade later – to return the ship to Earth. Uncannily, the trip bathes them in radiation that causes them to shrink to insect size. Back on terra firma, but now imperilled by everything around them, the team nonetheless manage to scuttle a proposed attack by a hostile totalitarian nation before regaining their regular stature. A second, shorter follow-up tale finds the foursome enjoying downtime in Paris before the Metro is wrecked by an awakened dinosaur. Of course, our tough tourists are ready and able to stop the ‘Serpent in the Subway!’

In an entertainment era dominated by monsters and aliens, with superheroes only tentatively resurfacing, Task Force X were at the forefront of bombastic beastie-battles. Their third and final try-out issue found them facing evolutionary nightmare as a scientist vanishes and the region around his lab is suddenly besieged by gigantic insects and a colossal reptilian humanoid the team dubbed ‘The Creature of Ghost Lake!’ (December 1959/January 1960). They readily destroy the monster but never find the professor…

A rare misfire for those excitingly experimental days, the Suicide Squad vanished after the triple try-out, only to resurface months later for a second bite of the cherry. I’m sure it’s just coincidence, but Fantastic Four #1 went on sale on August 8th 1961, pipped again as The Brave and the Bold #37 (August/September 1961 and on sale from June 22nd) saw DC’s decidedly different quirky quartet resume operations with Karin displaying heretofore unsuspected psychic gifts and predicting an alien ‘Raid of the Dinosaurs!’

This pitted Task Force X against hyper-intelligent saurians whilst ‘Threat of the Giant Eye!’ focussed on the retrieval of a downed military plane and lost super-weapon. The mission brought the Squad to an island of mythological mien where a living monocular monolith hunted people…

For #38 (October/November 1961) the team tackled the ‘Master of the Dinosaurs’ – an alien using Pteranodons to hunt as Earthlings employed falcons – after which the fabulous four fell afoul of extradimensional would-be conquerors, yet still had enough presence of mind and determination to defeat the ‘Menace of the Mirage People!’

B&B #39 (December 1961/January 1962) called “time!” on Task Force X after ‘Prisoners of the Dinosaur Zoo!’ saw the team uncover an ancient extraterrestrial ark caching antediluvian flora and fauna, after which a ‘Rain of Fire!’ found them crushing a macabre criminal who had entombed many other crime-busters in liquid metal.

That was it for the Squad until 1986 when a new iteration of the concept was launched in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Or was it? Superhero fans are notoriously clannish and insular so they might not have noticed how one creative powerhouse refused to take “no thanks” for an answer…

Robert Kanigher (1915-2002) was one of the most distinctive authorial voices in American comics, blending rugged realism with fantastic fantasy in signature war comics, westerns, horror stories, romance and superhero titles including Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, Metal Men, Batman and other genres too numerous to cite here. He scripted ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’, the very first story of the Silver Age, introducing Barry Allen AKA the second Flash to hero-hungry kids in 1956.

Kanigher sold his first stories and poetry in 1932 and wrote for the theatre, film and radio before joining the Fox Features shop where he created The Bouncer, Steel Sterling and The Web whilst also providing scripts for Blue Beetle and the original Captain Marvel. In 1945, he settled at All-American Comics as both writer and editor, staying on when the company amalgamated with National Comics to become the forerunner of today’s DC. He wrote the original Flash and Hawkman, created Black Canary and Dr. Pat, plus many memorable villainous femme fatales like Harlequin and Rose and Thorn. This last he reconstructed during the relevancy era of the early 1970s into a schizophrenic crimebusting female superhero.

Mystery-men faded away as the 1940s closed, and Kanigher easily switched to espionage, adventure, westerns and war stories, becoming in 1952 writer/editor of the company’s combat titles: All-American War Stories, Star Spangled War Stories and Our Army at War.

He created Our Fighting Forces in 1954 and added G.I. Combat to his burgeoning portfolio when Quality Comics sold their line of titles to DC in 1956, all the while helming/writing Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, Rex the Wonder Dog, Silent Knight, Sea Devils, Viking Prince and a host of others. Among his numerous game-changing war series were Sgt. Rock, Enemy Ace, Haunted Tank and The Losers as well as the visually addictive, irresistibly astonishing “Dogfaces & Dinosaurs” dramas sampled and filling out the back of this stunning collection. Kanigher was a restlessly creative writer and even used the uncanny but formulaic adventure arena of The War that Time Forgot as a personal proving ground for potential series concepts. The Flying Boots, G.I. Robot and many more teams and characters first appeared in the manic Pacific hellhole with wall-to-wall danger. Indisputably, the big beasts were the stars, but occasionally (extra)ordinary G.I .Joes made enough of an impression to secure return engagements, too.

The War that Time Forgot debuted in Star Spangled War Stories #90 (April-May 1960), running until #137 (May 1968). It skipped only three issues: #91, 93 & #126 (the last of which starred United States Marine Corps simian Sergeant Gorilla… go on. Look it up. I’m neither kidding nor being metaphorical…

Simply too good a concept to ignore, this seamless, shameless blend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost World and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Caprona stories (known alternatively as the Caspak Trilogy or The Land That Time Forgot) provided everything baby-boomer boys could dream of: giant lizards, humongous insects, fantastic adventures and two-fisted heroes with lots of guns. The only thing mostly missing was cave-girls in fur bikinis…

In the summer of 1963, a fresh Suicide Squad debuted in Star Spangled War Stories #110 to investigate a ‘Tunnel of Terror’ into the lost land of giant monsters. This time though, a giant albino gorilla decided that us mammals should stick together…

The huge hairy beast was also the star of ‘Return of the Dinosaur Killer!’ in #111, as the unnamed Squad leader and a wily boffin (visually based on Kanigher’s office associate Julie Schwartz) struggled to survive on a reptile-ridden atoll. SSWS #116 (August/September 1964) depicted a duo of dedicated soldiers facing ice-bound beasts in ‘The Suicide Squad!’ – the big difference being that Morgan and Mace were more determined to kill each other than accomplish their mission…

‘Medal for a Dinosaur!’ (#117) bowed to the inevitable: introducing a (relatively) friendly and extremely cute baby pterodactyl to balance out Mace & Morgan’s barely suppressed animosity, after which ‘The Plane-Eater!’ in #118 saw the army odd couple adrift in the Pacific and in deep danger until the leather-winged little guy turned up once more…

The Suicide Squad were getting equal billing by the time of #119’s ‘Gun Duel on Dinosaur Hill!’ (February/March 1965), as yet another band of men-without-hope battled leathery horrors – and each other – to the death, before apparently unkillable Morgan & Mace returned with Dino, the flying ptero-tot, who found a new companion in handy hominid Caveboy before the entire unlikely ensemble struggled to survive against increasingly outlandish creatures in ‘The Tank Eater!’…

SSWS #121 presented a diving drama when a UDT (Underwater Demolitions Team) frogman won his Suicide Squad rep as a formidable fighter and ‘The Killer of Dinosaur Alley!’ Increasingly now, G.I. hardware and ordnance trumped bulk, fang and claw and undisputed master of gritty fantasy art Joe Kubert added his pencil-&-brush magic to a tense, manic thriller featuring a returning G.I. Robot for battle bonanza ‘Titbit for a Tyrannosaurus!’ (#125, February/March 1965), after which Andru & Esposito covered another Suicide Squad sea-saga in #127’s ‘The Monster Who Sank a Navy!’ This eclectic collection tumultuously terminates in scripter Howard Liss and visual veteran Gene Colan’s masterfully crafted, moving human drama from #128, which was astoundingly improved by the inclusion of ravening reptiles in ‘The Million Dollar Medal!’

Throughout this calamitous compilation of dark dilemmas, light-hearted romps and battle blockbusters, the emphasis is always on foibles and fallibility, with human heroes unable to put aside grudges, swallow pride or forgive trespasses even amidst the strangest and most terrifying moments of their lives. This edgy humanity informs and elevates even the daftest of these wonderfully imaginative adventure yarns.

Classy, intense, insanely addictive and Just Plain Fun, the original Suicide Squad offers a kind of easy, no-commitment entertainment seldom seen these days and is a deliciously guilty pleasure for one and all. Surely, this is a movie we would all watch…
© 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 2016 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

This date in 1942 political cartoonist/children’s book illustrator Tony Auth was born, with Underground Commix creator Joel Beck (Lenny of Laredo) arriving one year later, and Michael T. Gilbert (Doc Stearn – Mr. Monster, Elric) joining the party in 1951. That same year, multitalented Rick Veitch (Swamp Thing, Army@Love, Can’t Get No, Bratpack, Abraxas and the Earthman, Miracleman) with Belgian craftsman Philippe Geluck (Le Chat) popping by in 1954; writer/editor Joey Cavalieri (Wonder Woman, Huntress, Bugs Bunny) in 1957 and artist Jon Bogdanove (Power Pack, Superman, Steel) born in 1958.

Colourist Paul Mounts was born in 1964; Spanish artist Angel (Star Wars, Titans, Flash) Unzueta in 1969 and colourist Beth Sotelo in 1974.

Robert Kaniger (Sgt Rock, Metal Men, Black Canary, G.I. Robot, The Private Diary of Mary Robin R.N., Sea Devils, Haunted Tank, The Losers, Lady Cop, Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, Batman, Atom & Hawkman, Iron Man and all the rest) was so great he is also listed as having died today in 2002 as well as yesterday!

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DC Finest: The Joker – The Last Ha-Ha


By Dennis O’Neil, Elliot S! Maggin, Bob Haney, Martin Pasko, David V. Reed, Steve Englehart, Len Wein, Paul Levitz, Dick Dillin, Neal Adams, Irv Novick, Jim Aparo, Ernie Chan, José Luis García-López, John Calnan, Marshall Rogers, Walter Simonson, Don Newton, Joe Staton, Joe Giella, Dick Giordano, Vince Colletta, Tex Blaisdell, Frank McLaughlin, Bob Wiacek, Terry Austin, Steve Mitchell & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79951-025-3 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

HEY! WHO LET THAT CLOWN IN? IS THERE A PARTY SOMEWHERE?

An old adage says that you can judge someone by the calibre of their enemies, and that’s never been more ably demonstrated than with Batman. For most of his near century of existence, but most especially ever since the 1970s, the position of paramount antagonist has been indisputably filled by Clown Prince of Crime The Joker! He first hit newsstands in Batman #1 (cover-dated Spring and officially on sale from April 25th 1940). That’s 86 exploding candles and poisoned cakes and he’s still totally, lethally crazy after all these years…

Spanning cover-dates December 1969 to September 1981, this compilation collects stories from Justice League of America #77; Batman # 251, 260, 286, 291-294 & 321; Detective Comics #475-476 & 504; eccentric team-ups from The Brave and the Bold #111, 118, 129-130 & 141: The Joker volume 1 #1-10 and Earth-Two appearances from Wonder Woman volume 1 #280-283, a comprehensive but by no means complete carry on of one of the most conflicted and confusing characters in comics.

In the late 1960s superheroes experienced a rapid decline in popularity – presumably reaction to global media’s crass and crushing overexposure. When that bubble burst, Batman’s comic franchise sought to escape the zany, “camp” image by methodically re-branding the hero and returning to the original 1930s concept of a grim, driven Dark Avenger. Although hugely popular, TV’s sappy buffoon/thieving villain version of The Joker was almost fatal to the character on the printed page. However, a deftly calculated return to his Golden Age, eerie cheery killer persona began almost immediately. Thus this collection which kicks off with the Mountebank of Mirth manically upping his game and expanding his pool of enemies…

In Justice League of America #77 (cover-dated December 1969), the smugly complacent confidence and cheery worldview of the World’s Greatest Superheroes is shattered after enigmatic political populist Joe Dough suborns and compromises their beloved teen mascot in ‘Snapper Carr… Super-Traitor!’ This revelatory rite of passage comes from Denny O’Neil, Dick Dillin & Joe Giella: a coming-of-age yarn that saw the team lose public support and even their secret HQ, as the comfy, cosy superhero game changes forever… and no guesses for who Joe Dough really is!

The dark transformation of the Crime Clown was fully accomplished in Batman #251 (September 1973 by O’Neil & Neal Adams). ‘The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge!’ reinstated the psychotic, diabolically unpredictable Killer Clown who scared the short pants off readers of the 1940s. A true milestone utterly redefining the hero’s nemesis for the modern age, the frantic moody yarn sees the Mirthful Maniac stalking his old gang, seeking to eradicate them all, with a hard-pressed Gotham Guardian desperately playing catch-up. As crooks die in all manner of byzantine and bizarre ways, Batman realises his archfoe has gone irrevocably off the deep end. Terrifying and beautiful, for many fans this is the definitive Batman/Joker story.

Cover-dated February/March 1974, The Brave and the Bold #111 boasted “the strangest team-up in history” as writer Bob Haney & artist on fire Jim Aparo had the Gotham Guardian join forces with the Harlequin of Hate for a brilliantly twisty tale of cross-&-double-cross in ‘Death has the Last Laugh!’ Complex and compelling, this murder-spree yarn possibly led to the Crime Clown’s own short-run series a year later.

Meanwhile, from Batman #260 (January/February 1975 by O’Neil, Irv Novick & Dick Giordano), ‘This One’ll Kill You Batman!’ finds the grim, po-faced Darknight Detective racing to save his own life after being poisoned by Joker Toxin that acts like irresistibly lethal laughing gas, after which B&B #118 (April) sees Wildcat and Batman forced to brutally battle each other in ‘May the Best Man Die!’ after being sucked into Joker’s scheme to poison boxers (and anyone else in range) with a deadly, blood-borne virus…

Within 18 months of the breakthrough revision in Batman #251, The Joker won his own series. Titles starring villains were exceedingly rare back then and provided quite a few problems for writers and editors still labouring under the edicts of the Comics Code Authority. The outré experiment ended after 9 issues – spanning May 1975 to October 1976, (plus one formerly unpublished digital issue in 2019) – and had utilised some of the most talented creators in DC’s employ. It remained a peculiar historical oddity for decades. Now, in these less doctrinaire times those strange tales of the Smirking Slaughterman have an appreciative audience…

The murderous merriment commences with ‘The Joker’s Double Jeopardy!’ Here fellow Arkham Asylum inmate Two-Face arrogantly escapes, pinking the Felonious Funnyman’s pride and compelling the giggling ghoul to similarly break out to prove he’s the greater criminal maniac. Their extended duel of wits and body-counts only lands them both back inside. That “revolving door” security at Arkham eventually leads to the firing of much-harassed guards Marvin Fargo & Benny Khiss in #2’s ‘The Sad Saga of Willie the Weeper!’ However, as the again-at-liberty Lethal Loon attempts to boost the confidence of a lachrymose minor-league larcenist for his own purposes, those defrocked jailers determine to restore their honour and fortunes and astoundingly, they succeed.

Written by O’Neil with art by Ernie Chan (nee Chua) & José Luis García-López, ‘The Last Ha Ha’ in #3 details a burglary and kidnapping of superstar cartoonist Sandy Saturn by a green-haired, cackling crazy. Witness accounts lead the cops to the ludicrous conclusion that The Creeper is the culprit. Cue lots and lots of eerie chortling, mistaken identity shenanigans and murderously manic explosive action…

The ethical dilemma of a star who’s arguably the world’s worst villain is further explored in ‘A Gold Star for the Joker!’ (Elliot S! Maggin, García-López & Vince Colletta) wherein our Perfidious Pagliacci inexplicably develops a crush on Black Canary’s alter-ego Dinah Lance and resolves to possess her or kill her. Typically, even though she’s perfectly capable of saving herself, Dinah’s beau Green Arrow (see what I did there?) is also the possessive aggressive kind of consort…

‘The Joker Goes Wilde!’ (Martin Pasko, Irv Novick & Tex Blaisdell) finds the Clown Prince in bombastic competition with similarly playing-card themed super-bandits The Royal Flush Gang. Everyone wants to secure a lost masterpiece, but even as he’s winning that weird war, the Mountebank of Menace is already after a hidden prize.

More force of nature than mortal miscreant, the Pallid Punchinello meets his match after assaulting actor Clive Sigerson in #6. Famed for stage portrayals of a certain literary detective, Sigerson sustains a nasty blow to the bonce which befuddles his wits and soon ‘Sherlock Stalks the Joker!’ (O’Neil, Novick & Blaisdell), foiling a flood of crazy schemes and apprehending the maniac before his concussion is cured…

We learn surprising facts about the Clown Prince of Carnage when he steals the calm, logical intellect of Earth’s most brilliant evil scientist. Naturally, psychic transference in ‘Luthor… You’re Driving Me Sane!’ (Maggin, Novick & Frank McLaughlin) is two-way and, whilst the newly cognizant Clown becomes ineffably intelligent, Lex Luthor is reduced to a risk-taking maniac unphased by potential consequences and determined to have fun no matter who dies. The Joker’s eighth outing covered a clash with Gotham’s self-acclaimed Master of Terror as ‘The Scarecrow’s Fearsome Face-Off!’ (Maggin, Novick & Blaisdell) saw the top contenders for scariest guy in town (not counting Batman!) steal each other’s thunder whilst vying for that macabre top spot, before the villainous vignettes conclude with a claws-out clash as ‘The Cat and the Clown!’ (Maggin, Novick & Blaisdell) sees an aged comedian and his million-dollar kitty targeted by rival rogues Catwoman and Joker. Unhappily for the crooks they had both underestimated the grizzled guile of their octogenarian victim…

In Fall of 2019 the unpublished tenth issue was released digitally and appeared in monolithic, print-only, rather inaccessibly expensive The Joker: The Bronze Age Omnibus (Collected). There – and here – Pasko & Novick’s tale ‘99 and 99/100% Dead!’ involves a deal with the Devil (AKA “Lou Cipher”) and scheme to murder Earth’s greatest heroes – The JLA – that doesn’t quite come about and ends on a cliffhanger…

Here, however, we resume with a rare two-parter from The Brave and the Bold #129 & 130: a jam-packed action-romp with ‘Claws of the Emperor Eagle’ pitting Batman, Green Arrow and The Atom against Joker, Two-Face and hordes of bandits in a manic race to possess a statue that had doomed every great conqueror in history. The epic, globe-trotting saga concluded with an ironic bang in ‘Death at Rainbow’s End’…

In Batman #286,‘The Joker’s Playground of Peril!’ (April 1977 by O’Neil, Novick & Bob Wiacek) sees The Clown escape Arkham Asylum prompting panic in the lawyer who failed get him off and the fence who cheated the loon when selling his ill-gotten gains. The fugitives make it easy for the manic by hiding in the same Amusement park but the Dynamoc Duo are clued in and waiting…

Next is an extended saga from Batman #291-294 (cover dates September through December 1977) written by author David V. Reed and illustrated by John Calnan & Tex Blaisdell. Over four deviously clever issues ‘Where Were You the Night Batman Was Killed?’ sees hordes of costumed foes the Caped Crimebuster has crushed assemble to verify the stories of various felons claiming to have done the deed. This thematic partial inspiration for Neil Gaiman’s “Last Batman Story” kicks off with ‘The Testimony of the Catwoman’ followed by ‘The testimony of…’ The Riddler, Lex Luthor and The Joker before satisfactorily concluding with a twist in a spectacular grand manner.

The only real contenders for the plaudits of being the best Joker yarn ever follows: a two-part saga from Detective Comics #475-476 (February & April 1978) concluding a breathtaking, signature run of retro tales by Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers & Terry Austin. The absolute zenith in a short but stellar sequence resurrecting old foes naturally peaked with the Dark Knight’s nemesis at his most chaotic, and began with ‘The Laughing Fish!’ and culminating in ‘The Sign of the Joker!’, comprising one of the most reprinted Bat-tales ever concocted. It was even adapted as an episode of the award-winning Batman: The Animated Adventures TV show in the 1990s. In fact, you’ve probably already read it. But if you haven’t… what a treat awaits you!

As seafood sporting the Joker’s horrific smile began turning up in sea-catches all over the Eastern Seaboard, the Clown Prince attempts to trademark them. When patent officials foolishly tell him it can’t be done, they start dying – publicly, impossibly and incredibly painfully…

The story concluded in a spectacular apocalyptic clash which shaped, informed and redefined the Batman mythos for decades to come…

The best was saved for last, with continuity altering sub-plots concerning Bruce Wayne’s current inamorata Silver St. Cloud, crooked politico “Boss” Rupert Thorne and the Gotham City Council who had outlawed the hero, and even the recurring ghost of Hugo Strange culminating in THE classic confrontation with The Joker.

B&B #141 (May/June 1978) offers another Batman team-up with Black Canary as ‘Pay – or Die!’ (by Haney & Aparo) finds Dinah Lance looking at a modelling career but pausing to help Batman and Alfred quash the Joker’s bizarrely byzantine extortion/loan sharking/crooked mortician scheme in ‘Pay – Or Die!’

The gleeful terror continues with ‘Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker…!’ by Len Wein, Walt Simonson & Giordano (from Batman #321 March 1980), wherein the Malevolent Mummer planned to celebrate his anniversary in grand style: kidnapping a bunch of old chums like Robin, Jim Gordon, Alfred Pennyworth, Catwoman and others to be the exploding candles on his giant birthday cake…

The Joker has the rare distinction of being perhaps the most iconic villain in comics and can claim that title in whatever era you choose to concentrate on; Noir-ish Golden Age, sanitised Silver Age or malignant modern and Post-Modern milieus. This book captures just a fraction of all those superb stories and with the benefit of another two and a half decades of material since the release of this compendium, just think of what a couple of equally well-considered sequels might offer…

Cover-dated July 1981, Detective #504 – by Gerry Conway, Don Newton & Dan Adkins – details ‘The Joker’s Rumpus Room Revenge!’ Closing the Batman related portion of the book, here the Murderous Mummer again slips out of Arkham and murders an old puppet-maker to lure the Dark Knight into a killzone packed with killer toys and robots…

During the late Seventies and early Eighties Helena Wayne was the daughter of the deceased Earth-2 Batman and Catwoman Selina Kyle. As The Huntress, the immensely popular character sprang from a then-current Justice Society of America series in All Star Comics into her own relatively long-running back-up feature initially in Batman family and then in Wonder Woman (#271 September 1980 through #321, November 1984). She died in but notionally survived the Crisis on Infinite Earths by being retooled as mob-orphan Helena Bertinelli to become a post-Crisis Dark Knight adjunct.

From Wonder Woman #280 – 283 (vol. 1, June to September 1981) and crafted by Paul Levitz, Joe Staton & Steve Michell ‘Lion at Bay’ sees Huntress crush her mother’s old nemesis Lionmane, but not before his mass jailbreak allows a declining but still demented and deadly Harlequin of Hate to escape Gull’s island prison. Refusing to believe Batman is dead, elderly Joker proceeds to poison old foes like Commissioner O’Hara to draw out his enemy. Stalked by Huntress in ‘Always Leave ‘em Laughing’ before recruiting another old Crazy Clown combatant to help trick and trap the madman, the end comes in ‘First Laugh…’ and final encore ‘…Last Laugh!’

With covers by Murphy Anderson, Adams, Tatjana Wood, Nick Cardy, Aparo, Giordano, Ross Andru, Chan, García-López, Drew Moore, Rogers & Austin, Simonson, Jim Starlin, Rich Buckler, and George Pérez, this quirky oddment offers slick plotting and startling visuals as madcap misdemeanours are soundly upstaged and shoved aside by lunatic larks, malign malice and a more mounting degree of murderous mayhem than most classical fans might be comfortable with, but always sustained and supported by strong storytelling and stunning art to delight fans of traditional Fights ‘n’ Tights sagas.
© 1969, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981, 2026 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1913 author and groundbreaking comics scripter John Broome (aka John Osgood & Edgar Ray Meritt) was born, followed in 1928 by Filipino art maestro Nestor Rendondo (Darna, Rima the Jungle Girl, The Bible, Swamp Thing); Belgian cartoonist Joseph Loeckx/“Jo-El Azara” (Taka Takata, Clifton) in1937, and our own astounding John Ridgway (Commando Picture Library, Famous Five, Young Marvelman, Judge Dredd, Bozz Chronicles, Hellblazer) in 1940.

This date in 1953 welcomed US cartoonist/book illustrator Doug Cushman (Aunt Eater, Holiday Mice!); Canadian Underground artist Patrick Henley AKA Henriette Valium in 1959; Mad magazine illustrator Tom Richmond in 1966; Scott Kolins in 1968 and Ale Garza in 1977.

We lost today editor Lou Stathis in 1997, and Henry Sunday page artist Don Trachte in 2005 but the day did give us Richard F. Outcaul’s Buster Brown which launched in 1902, Ivy the Terrible’s debut in The Beano, courtesy of Roy Nixon in 1985 and the very first Free Comic Book Day today in 2002.

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The James Bond Omnibus volume 001


By Ian Fleming; adapted by Anthony Hern, Peter O’Donnell, Henry Gammidge & John McLusky (Titan Books)
ISBN: 987-1-84856-364-3 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s sad to admit but there are very few British newspaper strips to challenge the influence and impact of classic daily and Sunday “funnies” from America, especially in the febrile but slowly expiring the field of adventure picture-fiction.

The 1930’s and 1940’s were rich in popular, not to say iconic, creations. You would be hard-pressed to come up with homegrown household names to rival Popeye, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon, let alone Terry and the Pirates, Steve Canyon, or the likes of Little Lulu, Blondie, Li’l Abner, Little Orphan Annie or Popeye and yes, I know I said him twice, but Elzie Segars’s Thimble Theatre was funny as well as thrilling, constantly innovative, and really, really good.

What strips can you recall to equal simple popularity let alone longevity or quality in Britain? Rupert Bear? Absolutely. Giles? Technically, yes. Nipper? Jane? The Perishers? Garth? Judge Dredd? Scorer?

I’d like to hope so, but I doubt it. The Empire didn’t quite get it until it wasn’t an empire any more. There were certainly very many wonderful strips being produced: well-written and beautifully drawn, but that stubborn British reserve plus a completely different editorial view of the marketplace (which just didn’t consider strips infallible, readership-attracting magnets, as American did) never seemed to be in the business of creating household names – until the 1950’s. Something happened in ‘50s Britain, but I’m not going to waste any space here discussing it. It just did.

In a new egalitarian spirit that seemingly craved excitement and accepted previously disregarded, comics (as well as all tawdry “entertainment” media from radio serials to paperback novels) got carried along on the wave. Just like television, periodicals such as Eagle, the regenerated Dandy and Beano and girls’ comics in general all shifted into creative high gear… and so at last did newspapers.

And that means that I can properly extol the virtues of a graphic collection with proven crossover appeal for once. Debut 007 novel Casino Royale was published in 1953 and was subsequently serialised – after much dithering and nervousness on behalf of author Fleming – as a strip in The Daily Express from 1958. It was the start of a beguiling run of novel and short story adaptations scripted by Anthony Hern, Henry Gammidge, Peter O’Donnell and Kingsley Amis, before Jim Lawrence, a jobbing writer of US features (and who’d previously scripted the aforementioned Buck Rogers) came aboard for The Man With the Golden Gun, completing the transfer of the Fleming canon to strip format. Thereafter Lawrence was invited to create new adventures, which he did until the strip’s demise in 1983.

The art on the feature was always of the highest standard. Initially John McLusky handled the illustration until 1966’s conclusion of You Only Live Twice and, although perhaps lacking in flash or verve, the workmanlike clarity of his drawing easily coped with a daunting array of locales, technical set-ups and sheer immensity of cast members, whilst satisfying the then-novel directive of advancing a plot daily whilst ending each episode on a cliff-hanging hook every time.

McLusky was succeeded by Yaroslav Horak, who debuted on Man with the Golden Gun, offering a looser, edgier style, at once more cinematic and with a closer attention to camera angle and frenzied action that seemed to typify the high-octane 1960’s. Horak limned 26 complete adventures until 1977 when The Daily Express axed the Bond feature with a still-running adventure suddenly switching to The Sunday Express from January 30th until conclusion on May 22nd. Later adventures had no UK presence at all, and only appeared in syndication in European papers. This state of affairs continued until 1981 when British paper The Daily Star restored the feature to Britons with ‘Doomcrack’.

Titan Books re-assembled those scarce-seen tales – a heady brew of adventure, sex, intrigue and death – into addictively accessible monochrome Omnibus Editions, (sadly not available digitally at present) with a dedicated band of creators on top form proving how the world’s greatest agent never rests in his mission to keep us all free, safe, shaken (if not stirred) and thoroughly entertained…

This premier no-nonsense paperback gem adapting 11 of Fleming’s best, frantic derring-do and dark, deadly diplomacy commences with ‘Casino Royale’ as British operative Bond is ordered to gamble with and bankrupt Le Chiffre: a communist agent who has insanely embezzled away his Soviet masters’ operating capital.

The moodily compelling tale of tension that results depicts torture and violent death as well as oppressively suspenseful scenes of graphic gambling, heady stuff for newspaper readers of 1958, when it first ran.

Without pausing for breath or a fresh martini, the Bond briefing segues straight into ‘Live and Let Die’ which sees 007 and US agent Felix Leiter tackle Mr. Big, another scurrilous commie agent/devious genius who rules the Harlem underworld through superstition, voodoo and brutal force. Then, ‘Moonraker’ details the attempt by ex-Nazi officer Hugo Drax to drop a guided missile on London, a task made far simpler since the maniac has infiltrated the British aristocracy…

These newspaper strips come from a period when dependable John McLusky was developing a less formal approach, before going on to produce some of his best work. ‘Casino Royale’ was the opening strip in a near 25-year run, and the somewhat muted artwork shows an artist still not completely comfortable with his task. It was adapted and scripted by Anthony Hern, who had won the author’s approval after writing condensed prose versions of the novels for the Daily Express. Live and Let Die and Moonraker were both adapted by Henry Gammidge.

As McLusky settled in for the long haul, he warmed to the potentialities of the job with cracking tales of Cold-War intrigue and fast, dangerous living set in a multitude of exotic locales, and provides here a welcome return to public gaze of some of the most influential – and exciting – comic strips in British history.

The adaptation of ‘Diamonds are Forever’ pits Bond against an insidious diamond smuggling criminals, in an explosive if uncomplicated all-action romp before shifting into terse, low-key thriller ‘From Russia With Love’ (both courtesy of Gammidge & McLusky). The artist hit a creative peak with ‘Dr No’ – perhaps because of the sparkling script from Peter O’Donnell before he sloped off to create the amazing Modesty Blaise. As Bond returns to Jamaica and investigates the disappearance of two operatives he stumbles upon a plot to sabotage the US rocketry program. These stories come from an age at once less jaded but more worldly; a place and time where readers lived daily with the very real threat of instant annihilation. As such, the easy approachability of the material is a credit to the creators.

‘Goldfinger’ faithfully adapts Fleming’s novel of the world’s most ambitious bullion robbery, so if you’re only familiar with the film version there will be some things you’ve not seen before. The action fairly rockets along and tense suspense is maintained throughout this signature tale. Following that is ‘Risico’ as 007 is tasked with stopping heroin smugglers whose motive is not profit but social destabilisation. Next is ‘From a View to a Kill’: a traditional, low-key Cold War thriller with Bond trailing gangsters stealing state secrets by ambushing military dispatch riders…

In the Roger Moore film incarnation Risico was folded into ‘For Your Eyes Only’ but here you get the real deal with a faithful adaptation of Fleming’s short story, wherein Bond is given a mission of revenge and assassination. Set in Jamaica with Nazi war-criminal Von Hammerstein as culprit and target for the man licenced to kill, it’s a solid piece of dramatic fiction that again bears little similarity to the celluloid adventure.

The volume concludes with the then-controversial ‘Thunderball’ adaptation. That particular tale was savagely censored and curtailed at the behest of Daily Express owner Lord Beaverbrook. Five days of continuity were excised but what remains is still pretty engrossing comic fare and at least some effort was made to wrap up the storyline before the strip ended. In case you don’t recall: When Bond is sent on enforced medical leave, he stumbles into a deadly plot to steal nuclear weapons by a subversive organisation calling itself Spectre…

These grand stories are a must for not only aficionados of Bond but for all thriller fans, as an example of truly gripping adventure uncluttered by superficial razzamatazz. Get back to basics, and remember that classic style is never out of fashion.
All strips are © Ian Fleming Publications Ltd/Express Newspapers Ltd 1987. James Bond and 007 are ™ & © Danjaq LLC used under license from Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. All rights reserved.

In 1915 prolific scripter Hank Chapman was born, with artistic maestro John Cullen Murphy (Prince Valiant) coming along four years later. Miss Pearl and Momma creator Mel Lazarus popped up in 1927, and Belgian Sammy draughtsman Berck (Arthur Berckmans) in 1928. Comic book legend Denny O’Neil was born in 1939 and Bill Sienkiewicz in 1958. German cartoonist Jan-Michael Richter – of Jamiri fame – came along in 1966 as did Nina Paley in 1968, and Mexican Gerardo Sandoval (Tomb Raider, Venom), and the date saw the first appearance of Zig et Puce (by Alain Saint-Ogan) in 1925; the premiere of Donald Duck (a bit player in Silly Symphony: The Wise Little Hen) in 1934; the launch of Dutch silent comic Fred’nand in 1937and the debut of Tiger by Bud Blake in 1965.

Milton Caniff died today in 1988.

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Daredevil Marvel Masterworks volume 17


By Frank Miller, Roger McKenzie, Klaus Janson, Terry Austin & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4925-9 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Matt Murdock is a lawyer obsessed with saving the innocent. Thanks to a childhood nuclear accident in his Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood, he lost his sight but discovered his remaining senses were hyper-stimulated to a miraculous degree. This allowed him to become an astonishing acrobat, formidable fighter and living lie-detector. He also developed a kind of biological radar giving him complete awareness of his local environment.

Very much a second-string hero for most of his early years, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due in large part to the captivatingly humanistic art of Gene Colan. DD fought gangsters, super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion (specifically the sight-stealing Queega). He quipped and wise-cracked his way through life and life-threatening combat, but under the auspices of Jim Shooter, Roger McKenzie and finally Frank Miller, the breezy hero morphed into a dark, moody avenger and grim, quasi-religious metaphor of justice and retribution…

This compilation – representing Daredevil #182-191 and spanning May 1982 to February 1983) – sees the Sightless Swashbuckler on top of the comics world as Miller & Klaus Janson continued to reinvent him through increasingly dark, bleakly nihilistic, Noir-stained thrillers, set in an increasingly mythological corner of Manhattan where the streets and towers became part of the tightly woven cast.

Following an Introduction from Ralph Macchio (with a matching one by Janson at the back, taken from 2001’s Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller vol. 3) the action opens with ‘She’s Alive’ as bereft, grieving Murdock seeks to prove his delirious belief that first love Elektra Natchios – recently murdered by Bullseye – is not in her grave. As the Devil rampages through Manhattan, at Ryker’s Island penitentiary, new inmate The Punisher is reducing prison overcrowding his way, until a spook with no official connection to law-enforcement offers a deal: liberty in exchange for certain services…

Frank Castle saw his family gunned down in Central Park after witnessing a mob hit. Dedicating his life to eradicating criminals everywhere, his methods are violent and permanent. It’s intriguing to note that unlike most heroes who debuted as villains (Wolverine, Hawkeye or Black Widow, for example), The Punisher actually became more immoral, anti-social and murderous, not less. It was the buying public that shifted a communal perspective; Castle never toned down or cleaned up his act, nor did his moral compass ever deviate…

Comics gossip goes that Marvel were reluctant to give Punisher a starring vehicle in their standard colour comic-book line, feeling the character’s very nature made him a bad guy and not a good one. Debuting as a deluded villain in Amazing Spider-Man #129 (February 1974), he was created by Gerry Conway, John Romita Sr. & Ross Andru, in response to popular prose anti-heroes such as Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan: the Executioner and other returning Viet Nam vets who all turned their training and talents to take on organised crime.

Maybe that genre’s due for a revival as sandy GI boots hit US soil in the months to come?

The crazed crime-crusher had previously starred in Marvel Preview #2 (1975) and Marvel Super Action #1 (1976) but these were both monochrome magazines aimed at a far more mature audience. However, in the early 1980s, high profile guest shots in Captain America #241, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15 and the extended epic here convinced the Powers-That-Be to finally risk a miniseries on the maniac vigilante…

As Murdock finally accepts Elektra is gone, ‘Child’s Play’ (#183) sees Castle clandestinely removed from prison to stop a shipment of drugs the authorities can’t touch. Of course, once he’s killed the Kingpin’s mobsters, Castle refuses to go back to jail. This story, concerning school students using drugs, was started by Roger McKenzie & Miller but shelved for a year due to heavy protests by the Comics Code Authority, before being reworked into a stunningly powerful and unsettling tale once Miller & Janson assumed the full creative chores on the title.

It begins as Murdock visits a High School and is a helpless witness to a little girl going berserk, attacking staff and pupils prior to throwing herself out of a third floor window. She was high on Angel Dust and after the appalled hero vows to track down the dealers he encounters her distraught younger brother Billy, determined to exact his own vengeance. The boy then encounters coldly calculating Castle who has the same idea, far more experience and no shred of mercy. The hunt leads Billy, Punisher – and late-coming DD – to a certain street pusher; and they all find their target at the same moment. After a spectacular clash thoroughly beaten Daredevil is left with only a bullet-ridden corpse with Billy holding a smoking gun…

The kid is innocent – and so, this time at least, is Castle – and after Murdock proves it in court, the investigation resumes and focuses on the dead pusher’s boss Hogman. When DD’s super-hearing confirms the scumbag’s claims of innocence, alter ego Murdock successfully defends the vile dealer, only to have the exonerated slimeball gloatingly admit to committing the murder after all. Horrified, shocked, betrayed and determined to have justice, Daredevil eventually finds a connection to a highly-placed member of the school faculty deeply involved with Hogman…

Concluding chapter ‘Good Guys Wear Red’ sees that information come far too late. Castle and Billy have both decided to end the matter Hogman’s way…

Tough, disturbing, beautiful and chillingly plausible, this epic encounter redefined both sides of the heroic coin for decades to come and remains one of the most impressive stories in both character’s canons. It also sparked a wave of reprint mania as the burgeoning comic store explosion supported a wave of expensive archive-trawling reprint collections that publishers were delighted to release for collectors to eagerly scoop up.

Meanwhile back in bread-&-butter periodical publishing, Daredevil #185 hones in on Murdock’s wealthy fiancée Heather Glenn as she battles her own crooked – and potentially murderous – board of directors beside Matt’s best friend Foggy Nelson. When those struggles bring them into contention with the Kingpin, the old reliable DD is on hand to secretly save Heather and ‘Guts’ Nelson – although it does lead to the hero being again exposed to radioactive materials…

An archaic archenemy sort-of steps up in #186 as Stilt-Man is hired to remove Heather. Sadly, what the plotters get is second-rate substitution as ‘Stilts’ sees another sidebar cast member in over his head and utterly unable to deliver, especially after an oddly-off-kilter Man Without Fear joins the party…

DD #187’s ‘Overkill’ reveals how that second radiation bath has amped the Devil’s senses to an uncontrollable, intolerable degree, prompting a desperate hunt for old mentor Stick, just as old flame Natasha Romanoff is facing ninjas who evaporate when defeated. The hunt expands into magical oriental fantasy in #188 wherein ‘Widow’s Bite’ exposes her to mind-altering contamination just as Stick begins the slow laborious process that will rebalance Murdock. The old man is thus exposed as part of ancient warrior sect The Chaste, sworn to contest evil Ninja cult The Hand – sneaky invasive infiltrators with a nasty knack of resurrecting the dead, such as their lethal champion Kirigi – and who are planning something similar with dear departed Elektra…

Thankfully in ‘Siege’, Murdock’s expedited cure allows him to join Stick (and Chaste allies Claw, Stone and Shaft) in a costly fightback to save the Black Widow before all the complex double-dealing is brought to light and (mostly) thwarted in #190’s epic climax. This exposes the missing years of Elektra, who – having impatiently abandoned study with The Chaste – joined The Hand in search of vengeance for her assassinated father. However, her death and ‘Resurrection’ costs all concerned far more than they can afford to lose (such as a unwise , far-reaching alliance with Kingpin) but leaves the reborn warrior woman ready for a fresh start…

We close for now with the Terry Austin inked Daredevil #191, as a recent case involving innocent kids with crooked parents prompts the unpicking of painful childhood memories for Matt Murdock. These he assuages by visiting the bedside of paraplegic paralysed archfoe Bullseye for some therapeutic psychological torture and a little game of Russian ‘Roulette’ …

A truly monumental bonus section kicks off with Mark Gruenwald-produced pages from The Official Handbook of The Marvel Universe (1983), and info-briefings of Daredevil; his Apartment and Billy Club; Angar the Screamer; The Ani-Men; Black Widow and her Sting/Line; Bullseye; Death-Stalker; Elektra; Kingpin, Frog-Man; Jester; Man-Bull, Mauler; Mister Fear, The Owl; Paladin; The Plunderer; Punisher; Purple Man; Queega; Silver Samurai; Stilt-Man (with schematics of his Battle-Suit) and Torpedo, backed up by dozens of unused/Comics Code rejected pages by Miller, Janson & Austin and published original art, followed by the layouts, breakdowns and colour guides for DD #190.

Also included are covers and editorial page of reprint Spider-Man and Daredevil Special Edition #1 (March 1984) and pertinent Elektra Saga material from Marvel Age #10 which precedes all of the modified, reformatted and new art from partial reprint series The Elektra Saga #1-4 (1984), as well as its wraparound covers, pinups, frontispieces, biographies and introductions by Mike W. Barr, Jo Duffy & Dennis O’Neil.

The covers of Elektra Magazine #1 & 2 from November & December 1996 by Claudio Castellini are followed by ‘Marvel Press Poster #14’ by Miller & Janson and ‘Daredevil and the Punisher: Child’s Play (1988)’ cover by Geof Darrow and the book provides editorial pages including Forewords by Macchio & Mike Baron; illustrated biographies of Miller & Janson plus Anne Nocenti’s ‘Afterword’ .The bounty concludes with the covers of ‘The Punisher vs. Daredevil #1’ (June 2000) and ‘Marvel Age #127’ (August 1993) by Miller & George Roussos – which became ‘Marvel Press Poster #152’ when painted over by Paul Mounts. Also seen are Miller & Steve Buccellato’s cover to ‘Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller vol. 3’ and its ‘Elektra frontispiece by Miller’…

This is pure compulsive comics magic that you must see – before… or even after… you die!
© 2023 MARVEL.

Today in 1926 we all greeted future writer/cartoonist William Overgard (Steve Roper and Mike Nomad, Rudy), jobbing artist/sought after inker Sal Trapani (Nukla, Airboy Comics, Metamorpho) in 1927; Dutch comics artist Martin Lodewijk (Agent 327, Minimum Bug) in 1939 and cartoonist Bill Plympton (Plympton) in 1946.

In 1958 Blondie artist Denis Lebrun came along as did Nat Gertler in 1965. However we lost irreplaceable, nigh-metafictional Belgian star Jean De Mesmaeker – AKA Jidéhem (Sophie, Starter, Ginger, Uhu-man, Spirou et Fantasio, Gaston Lagaffe) in 2017.