Category: Horror Stories

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Doc Savage® Archives volume One: The Curtis Magazine Era


By Doug Moench, John Warner, John Whitmore, illustrated by John Buscema, Tony DeZuñiga, John Romita, Rico Rival, Marie Severin, Neal Adams, Marshall Rogers, Val Mayerik, Rich Buckler, Klaus Janson, Ed Davis, Tom Sutton, Ernie Chan, Bob Layton, Dick Giordano & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-514-2 (HB/Digital edition)

Before comic books, thrill-starved readers endured the travails of the Great Depression by regular doses of extraordinary excitement derived from cheaply produced periodical novels dubbed – due to the low-grade paper they were printed on – “pulps”. There were hundreds published every month, ranging from the truly excellent to the pitifully dire: seemingly catering to every conceivable style, taste and genre.

The process spawned a new type of star and kind of story: damaged modern knights who were mysterious, implacable and extraordinary to the point of superhumanity, confronting uncanny overwhelming evil. In this fresh adventure medium, two-star characters outshone all others. The first was The Shadow – a true trendsetter who pioneered and beta-tested most of the methodology and mystique later mastered by Batman and most superheroes. Soon after him came the Superman of his day: Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze…

In the early 1930s, The Shadow was a dark, relentless, unstoppable and much-imitated creature of the night preying on the wicked and dispensing his own terrifying justice (and for more about him check out the Dark Avenger review). A true game changer tailor-made by a committee of wise heads and a superb scripter, Street & Smith Publications’ The Shadow set the world on fire, and those savvy savants sensibly sought to repeat the miracle. The result was a modern Hercules, Plato, Hippocrates, King Arthur, Sherlock Holmes and Einstein rolled into one gleaming, oversized paragon of physical perfection.

The big man and his team of globe-trotting war-buddy science specialists had been cobbled together by publisher Henry W. Ralston, editor John L. Naonvic and writer Lester Dent, using the same gameplan that had materialised The Shadow. Editorial notions and sale points of the bosses were fleshed out, filled in and made to work by Dent, who – under house pen-name Kenneth Robeson – wrote 159 of the 181 original novels released between March 1933 (Happy Birthday Doc!) and Fall 1949. The other exploits were handled in whole or in part by ghost writers and assistants Harold A. Davis, Ryerson Johnson, Laurence Donavan, Martin E. Baker, William G. Bogart and Alan Hathway.

The core premise is delicious and instantly engaging. Clark Savage Jr. had been trained from infancy in all arts and sciences, even as he underwent a carefully-devised program and regimen of physical training and sensory stimulation to make him impossibly fast, strong, hardy, acute, astute and – to be honest – pretty smug.

The perfect “Competent Man” was forever solving manic mysteries and protecting the helpless – when not quietly puttering away improving the lot of humanity with his inventions and pioneering medical procedures. However, this self-appointed hero and champion was what we’d probably now call an overachieving abuse survivor. For example, his unique viewpoint deemed it sound and reasonable to cure “evil tendencies” with brain surgery…

Despite such caveats (different times, right?) “Doc” Savage and his militarily-distinguished apex troubleshooters, Renny, Johnny, Long Tom, Ham and Monk were hugely popular in prose, print, radio and comics: a fascinating prototype example of a superhero team.

They regularly aided the oppressed and exploited: battling mad geniuses, would-be world conquerors, scary monsters, weird forces, dictators and uncommon criminals, before fading from view as the 1940s closed. They stormed back into popular culture during the 1960s, revived as part of global fantasy boom which also resurrected The Shadow, Conan, the C’thulu mythos and so many other pulp stars and craftsmen. Doc was particularly memorable thanks to such magazine exploits being reprinted in iconic Bantam Books paperbacks sporting stunning covers by James Bama…

Savage and his “fabulous five” had been funnybook stars since 1940: firstly in Street & Smith’s own The Shadow #1-3, and then in their own Doc Savage Comics (1940-1943). He thereafter appeared intermittently in The Shadow and Supersnipe Comics until 1948.

In November 1966, an abortive movie of The Thousand-Headed Man came to nothing, but did result in a one-shot tie-in from Gold Key Comics by Leo Dorfman & Jack Sparling. It also sported a lovely cover by Bama…

During an era of nostalgia, Marvel secured rights to publish Doc Savage comics: adapting the novels Man of Bronze, Brand of the Werewolf, Death in Silver and The Monsters over 8 regular issues between October 1972 and January 1974. There was also a giant-sized special and Doc entered Marvel continuity by teaming with Spider-Man and The Thing.

George Pal’s movie Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze was released in June 1975. Heavily hyped but an eventual flop, it nevertheless prompted Marvel to revive their license: creating a monochrome magazine version combining interviews and articles with darker, more mature comics adventures. The movie was fun but misunderstood and underappreciated, but it allowed true fans to see how their hero should always have been handled…

This hefty compilation re-presents all the material originally included in Doc Savage Magazine #1-8, spanning cover-dates August 1975 to Spring 1977. It is called the “Curtis Magazine Era” because that’s the name of the affiliated distribution company Marvel were part of at the time, and indicated a separate imprint producing comics outside the remit of the restrictive Comics Code Authority rules.

Thus, following Roger Kastel’s stunning full-colour painted cover (based on a movie poster) and a publicity photo frontispiece of actor Ron Ely beside an iconic Bama cover painting, Doc Savage #1 opens with Marv Wolfman’s ‘An Editorial in Bronze’ and John Romita (Sr.) & Tony DeZuñiga’s potent ‘Pin-up art’. This is mere prelude to an extra-long, peril-packed period drama by writer Doug Moench and illustrators John Buscema, Romita & DeZuñiga whose cunning comics chills commence with ‘The Doom on Thunder Isle!’.

When a Manhattan skyscraper is razed to rubble by lightning, Doc and his team are drawn into a missing persons case involving socialite Angelica Tremaine, her architect brother Winston and fiancé Thomas J. Bolt…

A complex plot rapidly unfolds, involving her, them and a suicidally fanatical kidnap gang seemingly based in the clouds, before Doc deduces the actual tropical island location of the foe. Deploying his many signature war-machines and leading his team in a brief but brutal clash against mutant beasts, super-science weapons and ancient madness, Doc learns even he cannot foil or fix all the cruel experiments of the insane Silver Ziggurat…

Following a contemporary body building ad (!), Jim Harmon & Chris Claremont interview director/producer ‘George Pal… The Man Who Made Doc Savage’ to end the first foray…

Scots artist Ken Barr painted the other covers, the first of which precedes Marv Wolfman’s editorial in #2 asking ‘Why Couldn’t Ron Ely Be Short and Ugly?’ (augmented by Marie Severin cartoons) before dark doom and destruction arrives in another extravagant mystery in Moench & DeZuñiga’s ‘Hell-Reapers at the Heart of Paradise’…

Here a property tycoon’s abduction by an apparently crazed and definitely radioactive Viking pitches Savage and Co. into a lethal and terrifying treasure hunt for a galleon lost since 1504. The search expands to include a flotilla of missing ships vanished over centuries in the Arctic, and concludes spectacularly with civil war in a lost paradise packed with monsters…

More hilariously outdated macho ads bracket a ‘Ron Ely: the Man of Bronze!’ interview conducted by John Warner with photos by Michelle Wolfman…

Doc Savage Magazine #3 sees another Barr cover, frontispiece ‘Pin-up art’ by Rich Buckler & Klaus Janson and letters page ‘Mail of Bronze’ preface Moench, Buscema & DeZuñiga’s  titanic 45-page tale ‘The Inferno Scheme!’ When robot beasts plunder gems all across New York City, enigmatic, enticing Contessa De Chabrol points the finger at her brother, hoping Savage and his “brothers in arms” can keep the police out of the affair and save her deranged sibling from himself. With utterly smitten engineer Renny suitably distracted, they head upstate to Chabrol’s fortress to find the villain has mastered the science of lasers as well as robotics…

Well, almost. He still needs Renny to fine-tune his death ray cannon, but even as the captive’s comrades render a rescue mission, one last tragic betrayal awaits them…

Ape-shaped chemist/comedic relief Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair then stars in a solo tale when Monk! experiences ‘A Most Singular Writ of Habeas Corpus’ by Moench & Rico Rival. When his eternal rivalry with lawyer Ham (Brigadier General Theodore Marly Brooks) leads to the legal fashion plate losing his latest suit to the Monk’s pet pig, it results in everyone being abducted by a ruthless racketeer seeking to ace out the competition through clever chemistry…

More classic ads neatly segue into a stripped-down DSM #4 wherein Moench, Marie Severin & DeZuñiga detail how ‘Ghost-Pirates from the Beyond!’ imperil the world. It begins in February 1936 as assassins kill high-ranking police officers in Casablanca before targeting Clark Savage Jr.’s friend Charles Villiers in the Big Apple. Seemingly murdered by a ghostly sheik, the criminologist’s demise is forensically deconstructed by Doc, who brings his team to Morocco and scotches a scheme to garner millions in lost treasure and foment rebellion in the fractious French Protectorate…

Another ‘Mail of Bronze’ section and more ads (where did I put those X-ray Spex?) takes us #5 where ‘The Doc Savage Oath’ is illustrated by Neal Adams and more ‘Mail of Bronze’ sets up a colossal comics clash with ‘The Earth Wreckers!’. Here Moench & DeZuñiga see our planet in peril in summer 1933, as Doc Savage traverses the globe, raiding lairs on six continents to ruthlessly secure the components for a device intended to end humanity. This tale introduces Doc’s formidable cousin Pat Savage who is dragged into the impending calamity by shy, retiring whistle-blower Hiram Meeker. As usual, there’s more going on than first appears and the climactic battle against maniac super-extortionist Iron Mask beneath Loch Ness affords many shocks before order is finally restored…

Pin-up art’ of Doc and the gang by Marshall Rodgers bisects Bob Sampson’s comprehensive feature on ‘The Pulp Doc Savage!’ and David Anthony Kraft’s photo-feature ‘An Interview with: Mrs. Lester Dent’ before more daft ads herald Doc Savage Magazine #6.

Another Barr classic cover, supported by anonymous ‘Pin-up art’ (that looks like early Mike Zeck to me) and editorial ‘Onward, the Man of Bronze’ written by John Warner & limned by Keith Pollard springs directly into wild action into Moench & DeZuñiga’s main feature ‘The Sky-Stealers!’ as supposed Egyptian gods employ astounding super science to wipe out the mining town of Plainville, Utah. When Doc investigates, he leans that not only was the bank looted, but all the freshly-procured uranium is also gone…

As neighbouring town Union is also eradicated, lawyer Ham and archaeologist Johnny strike gold: uncovering maverick savant Professor Johnathan Wilde whose theories on “pyramid power” led to his ostracization and eventual disappearance. The hunt inexorably leads the squad to the New York Museum of Natural History, the pyramid of Cheops in Giza and repeated clashes with beast-headed supermen before deranged mastermind Horus and his armies finally fall to Doc’s strategies and sheer determination to punish the unjust…

Bob Sampson’s prose biography of ‘Renny’ is supported by illustrations from art prodigies Frank Cirocco & Brent Anderson, ‘Mail of Bronze’ and ‘Pin-up art’ by Ron Wilson (?).

Penultimate issue DSM #7 offers ‘Pin-up art’ by Ed Davis, before storming straight into a monster-mash masterpiece with Moench, Val Mayerik & DeZuñiga detailing how ‘The Mayan Mutations!’ unleash giant terrors in Peru. It’s June 1941 and America is still officially neutral whilst most of the world is at war, but when missionary Vesper Hope seeks the team’s aid on behalf of her native companion Myrrana, the quest takes them back to south America’s rain forests where white men have enslaved the indigenous people and created devils to destroy everything.

The champions don’t even leave New York before the terrors target them, too…

Ultimately, our heroes clean up the green hell and uncover the shocking truth of the monsters, but this time not all the damage can be fixed…

More ‘Pin-up art’ by Ed Davis leads to Sampson’s article on ‘Johnny’ before the historical heroic hijinks halt with issue #8. Tom Sutton’s ‘Pin-up art’ frontispiece precedes Warner’s farewell in ‘Editorializing on the Bronze Side in Two Parts’ before he, John Whitmore, Moench & Ernie Chan unleash ‘The Crimson Plague’.

When Doc leads the team to Acapulco in search of an old medical colleague, they uncover an uncanny monster leaving brain-addled victims and corpses. The octopoid horror follows them back north and haunts Brooklyn before Savage uncovers human agency behind the scarlet death “disappearing” scientists and threatening the world’s greatest cities. The imminent crisis demands the Fabulous Five split up, but when that ploy fails it falls to Doc to save the day and destroy the ghastly culprit behind the plot…

Wrapping up the issues – and this epic collection – is one last ‘Mail of Bronze’ feature, and more ‘Pin-up art’: Long Tom and friends’ courtesy of Davis and Savage by Bob Layton & Dick Giordano, all tantalising bolstered by a tantalising promo for a new collected serial (stay tuned for that later in this Savage anniversary year!)…

Bold, bombastic and truly beloved, these yarns have been published by Marvel, DC and Dynamite: truly timeless tales of the perfect and prototypical man of wonders. These are stories no action-loving, monster-hunting, crime-busting armchair hero can be without.

So, is that you?
® and © 2014 Conde Nast. Used under license.

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The Complete Love Hurts – Horrifying Tales of Romance


By Kim W. Andersson with Sara B. Elfgren & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-859-8 (TPB) eISBN: 978-1-63008-152-2

Internationally acclaimed and award-winning, Kim W. Andersson began his comics career in fanzines, and after studying at the Serieskolan School of Art in Malmö began his professional life with contributions to Sweden’s broad and varied comics industry. His first hit series was Love Hurts which began in 2009.

Wry, creepy, mordant and ironically funny, the series appeared in numerous venues before serialisation in anthology series Dark Horse Presents, for us English speakers. In 2015 Dark Horse Books re-presented the entire shebang in one titanic, trenchant tome…

Collecting Love Hurts #1-22, Love Hurts: Anastasia from Nemi, and #23-32 as seen in Utopi Magasin, also included here is one-shot Love Hurts: Dead End courtesy of Johnossi Comics – which you would already know if you read more stuff published in Scandinavia…

Since then, Andersson has returned to school thematically in chiller Alena (made into a movie) and Astrid: Cult of the Volcanic Moon. When not lecturing, creating gallery shows or making comics, the auteur works as an illustrator of book, magazines and for TV.

Following Peter Snejbjerg’s barbed Introduction ‘It was a Dark and Stormy Night’, what follows is a rapid-fire, smartly sarcastic and cunningly pilfered and plundered tribute to all aspects of mass entertainment and popular fiction from EC Comics to slasher movies, manipulating relationships as a trigger for jabs, pokes and broadsides at how and why people (and related beings) want, need and use other people…

The result is a nonstop procession of gags and incidents starring serial killers, domestic abusers, needy girlfriends, procurers, and wayward teens all encountering endings they might not deserve but certainly should have been expecting…

Sexy, gory yet remarkably not salacious, pastiches of screen shockers are supplemented by surreal and metaphysical moments, historical fantasies, ghostly encounters or sci fi and monster moments: all leavened by a darkly childish sense of the absurd and all illustrated with fetching style…

From spoofs starring 50-foot girlfriends to perplexing prom night pranks; from western showdowns and manga cautionary tales to lovingly irreverent myths mauled and manipulated, the marriage of amour and peril is dissected, with demons, devils, doctors, dweebs and dolly-birds re-examined via a puckish contemporary lens. There’s even a murky nod to superheroes and – just when you’re off guard – genuine tragedy amidst the crimson-spattered comedy…

Here love comes in all sizes, shapes and kinds with nothing barred or forbidden but with precious little in the way of happy endings…

The short punchy vignettes are bolstered by two longer tales: frenzied fairy tale Love Hurts: Anastasia darkly riffs on the tale of Bluebeard and 1001 Arabian Nights by way of Puss in Boots and Night of the Living Dead whilst Love Hurts: Dead End depicts a deadly pan-dimensional trip to the bad places and a celebrity La-la-land after one poor guy “wins” ‘The Lottery’…

Scary, hilarious, mordant, and in wickedly Bad Taste, these tales for culturally savvy appetites are augmented by a bonus section of Sketches and Extras offering ‘Happy Valentine’s Day!’ cards; working sketches of the models used to create the strips; cover designs; previous collection covers; layouts; original pages in various stages of completion, tattoo art and a biography.

Dark, doom-swept, daft, deranged and delightful, this may be the most appropriate appreciation of the annual emotional event yet conceived…
Love Hurts™ © 2015 Kim W. Andersson. All rights reserved.

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The Adventures of Gideon Gunn – The Pagan Priest #1: Strange Alchemy


By Daniel Whiston & Andrew Richmond (Richmond Press)

Like so many others, I started out in the publishing biz making minicomics, collaborating on fanzines and concocting stripzines with fellow starry-eyed weirdoes, outcasts and addicts. Seeing the raw stuff of creativity in hand-crafted paper pamphlets – or better yet in professionally printed packages which put the dreamers’ money where their mouths are – still gets me going in ways which endanger my tired old heart.

Ah, the lost joys of copydex, spray mount and cowgum…

These days, in terms of quality and at first glance, there’s very little to distinguish between self-published material and major events from big brands – except maybe movie contracts and a subtle whiff of sheer fun-filled exuberance you just can’t find once telling stories becomes your day job…

With that in mind, here’s a delightful treat sent to me last year and which only just arrived. Still, better late than never, and I’m certain comics this good will always find an appreciative audience… and maybe a movie contract…

As I’ve frequently demonstrated, British comics have always enjoyed odd and/or deeply flawed heroes. To be fair, that quirky affinity doesn’t just apply to paper wonders such as Cursitor Doom, Adam Eterno, Flame o’ the Forest and The Spellbinder – or even Warrior’s Father Shandor – but also to many stars of books, radio, television and films…

There’s a definite nod to that last one in the three tales gathered here: detailing in short sharp vignettes the sacred cause of a conflicted but supremely pragmatic warrior against evil – Holy Heathen Gideon Gunn – the Pagan Priest. A working priest in 18th century Somerset, Gunn takes the eternal war against sin to uncanny extremes…

Reverend Gunn is also a true believer in pagan gods and combines the devotional power of two vastly opposing faiths with the latest in science and weapons technology to hold back the forces of darkness assaulting his flock. This mostly manifests as the rising of primordial goddess Sulis and attendant and subsequent depredations of vampires, warlocks, zombies, mechanical myrmidons, homunculi, the mad natural philosopher whose discoveries inspired Victor Frankenstein, and even the corrupt and debased aristocracy smugly ruling the United Kingdom at this time…

It transpires that all manner of wicked things are seeking to control the unleashed forces of the “Deep Dark Waters”…

Action-packed, tongue-in-cheek and blending faux found documentation with superb art pastiching the feel of its filmic antecedents, these adventures revel in the sheer joy of a tirelessly dedicated hero, devotional vigilante and Man of Gods fighting the Good Fight with every weapon he can lay his hands on…

This first issue also includes an annotated map of ‘Wyrd Bath’ for the clarification and edification of readers…

Cunningly channelling the tone of cult and classic British historical horror tales (like Witchfinder General and The Blood on Satan’s Claw or Hammer Films’ Dracula and Frankenstein franchises), Gideon Gunn delivers fearsome fun in self-contained monochrome episodes reminiscent of early 2000 AD or Scream.

Scripter Daniel Whiston (Neroy Sphinx, Judge Dredd Megazine, FutureQuake) and illustrator Andrew Richmond (Aces Weekly, The77, Octobriana, Blazer!) are having a great deal of fun – and so will you…

™ & © 2022 Daniel Whiston and Andrew Richmond. All rights reserved.

Available from Gideon Gunn – Andrew Richmond (andrewrichmondart.com)

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Worry Doll


By Matt Coyle (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80616-7 (PB/Digital edition)

In the comics biz it’s far too infrequent that something truly different, graphically outstanding and able to subvert or redirect the medium’s established forms comes along. Sadly, when it does we usually ignore it whilst whining that there’s nothing fresh or new in view. That’s certainly the case with this sublime chiller first released internationally in 2016 and still not globally infamous…

Actually, Matt Coyle’s astounding Worry Doll was initially unleashed – after six years of work on the dark epic – by Mam Tor in 2007 to sink from the collective audience’s sight after causing but the barest of ripples.

To be fair, British-born, Australia-based Coyle (see also, if you can, his mordant, socio-political satire Registry of Death) did win the 2007 Rue Morgue Award for Best Comic Book Artist for his incredible photo-realistic line-art on Worry Doll, but the innovative delivery of one of the creepiest tales in comics history never garnered the acclaim it deserved in our superhero/sci-fi saturated toy, TV and film license-loaded entertainment arena.

Then, thanks to Dover Books’ Comics & Graphic Novels division, another lost classic of the art form won a second chance to shine…

A soft-cover monochrome landscape affair; enigmatic observations and conversations are delivered in the oldest format of pictorial narrative, with blocks of text on one page balanced by an illustrated panel or sequence of images on the facing folio. Via this venerable mechanism, a most distressing story unfolds…

A happy home becomes a charnel scene of slaughter and in the aftermath, amidst the bloody remains of a recently-despatched family, a trio of beloved mannequins intended to assuage anxiety take on ghastly animation and leave in search of answers – or perhaps just different questions?

Furtively making their way across familiarly picturesque and simultaneously terrifying country, the dolls increasingly depend on the kindness of strangers, until their nightmare road-trip is eventually subsumed in someone else’s story. As our perspective shifts, we get clues that other hands are working these puppets and the story is not as it seems nor quite done yet…

Spooky and subversive, blending classic noir mood and tone with storybook quests and psychologically daunting introspection, Worry Doll operates on multiple layers of revelation, both in the staggeringly detailed illustration and the prose accompaniment; constantly offering hints and forebodings, if not answers…

With a Foreword from comics author and filmmaker Shaun Tan (The Lost Thing, The Red Tree, The Arrival, Cicada) who sagely deconstructs the journey and Coyle’s virtuosity with line and form, this is a complex, engaging and ominously beautiful masterwork no true lover of comics or addict of sinister suspense can afford to miss.
© 2007 by Matthew Coyle. Foreword © 2016 by Shaun Tan. All rights reserved.

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House of Mystery: Room & Boredom


By Matthew Sturges, Bill Willingham, Luca Rossi & various (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-401220792 (TPB)

I suspect we’re on the cusp of another periodic global wave of interest in supernatural suspense fiction. Even if we’re not, there’s a lot of superb comics of that genre that should be reviewed and revisited. Here’s one that hasn’t been seen for a dozen years; long overdue for a digital edition…

Re-imagined under the impressive Vertigo umbrella, one of DC’s most venerable titles returned after years in limbo as a tribute to Something Old cunningly disguised as Something New. Apart from a brief period in the Bat-crazed super-heroic mid-1960s when the Martian Manhunter and the ineffably quirky Dial H for Hero seized control, House of Mystery was an anthology title telling tales of mystery and imagination in the tasteful, sedate manner of its parent company.

The series launched with a December 1951/January 1952 cover-date and ran for 321 issues, before finally folding in October 1983. When superheroes fell out of favour at the end of the 1960s, a little deft retooling made it one of DC’s top selling titles.

Here, however, at a place where realities meet – or at least overlap – a ramshackle house of indeterminate size, shape and age sometimes stands. In its own capacious grounds the unique structure offers a welcome to the star-crossed and time-lost souls of infinity. The lower floor has been converted into a welcoming hostelry.

Like the bar in Cheers, creatures from literally anywhere (many looking like characters out of the previous comic book incarnation) drop in for a brew and a chinwag, often paying their way with a novel yarn. For a select few – such as the Bartender, the Poet, the Pirate and the Drama Queen – the House is more like the Hotel California – in that they can check out any time they like, but they can never leave…

Fig Keele is an architecture student with a problem and a history. Her home fell apart and two spectral, floating horrors started chasing her. Fleeing in panic, she fortuitously found an entrance to the House, and now it won’t let her go. Surprisingly, she adapts pretty quickly to the inhabitants, but what really freaks her out is that the House speaks to her…

Writer Matthew Sturges, with sometime collaborator Bill Willingham, managed the nigh-impossible task of combining the best elements of the old within this compellingly fresh horror yarn, and even concocted a cocktail of actual mysteries to keep the pot boiling away. Strikingly illustrated by Luca Rossi, who incorporated a stylistic ghost of Bernie Wrightson into the artwork, the story of Fig and her fellow residents is punctuated by a series of very classy “pub-stories”, illustrated by some of the industry’s best and brightest talents.

The vignettes include two by Willingham; ‘The Hollows’ – a disturbing love-story by Ross Campbell – and the delightfully far-fetched ‘In Too Deep’ (from Jill Thompson), whilst Sturges scripted the remaining three ‘Spats and the Neck’ (with Zachary Baldus), ‘Familiar’ by Steve Rolston and ‘Jordan’s Tale’ by Sean Murphy.

Collecting issue #1-5 of the much-missed Vertigo comic book series, this is an enchanting blend of ancient & modern, horror & comedy and mystery & adventure, delivering a colossal portion of fearful fun for anyone old enough to handle a little sex and a smidgen of salty language: all whilst unravelling the intricacies of a great big, all-absorbing puzzle.

Just remember once you’re in, you might never want to come out…
© 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Airboy Archives volume 1


By Chuck Dixon, Tim Truman, Stan Woch, Benn Dunn, Bill Jaaska, Tom Lyle, Larry Elmore, & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-900-2 (TPB) 978-1-62302-641-7 (IDW Digital edition)

Airboy was one of the very best adventure strips of the Golden Age: one with a terrific pedigree and a profound legacy. Created for Hillman Periodicals by the brilliant Charles Biro (Steel Sterling, Crimebuster, the original Daredevil, The Little Wiseguys and landmark genre prototype Crime Does Not Pay number among his many triumphs), it featured a plucky teen and his fabulous super-airplane, affectionately dubbed “Birdie”.

Airboy and Birdie both debuted in the second issue of Air Fighters Comics, cover-dated November 1942 (so Slightly Belated Happy Birthday guys!). The title was packed out with similarly-themed and oddly off-kilter aviator heroes such as Skywolf, The Iron Ace, The Black Angel, The Bald Eagle, The Flying Dutchman, The Flying Fool and a landmark horror proto archetype dubbed The Heap – forerunner of all comic muck monsters…

In December 1945, and after 23 issues, the title was redesignated Airboy Comics and soldiered on until 1953, when Hillman with great foresight got out of the funnybook biz just as hostile clouds of censorship were gathering. In over a dozen years of publication, the boy-warrior had tackled the Axis powers, crooks, aliens, monsters, demons and every possible permutation of sinister threat and horror-tinged terror – even subversive giant rats and conqueror ants!

The gripping scripts – initially the work of Biro and Dick Wood before the latter assumed complete control – took the avenging aviator/soldier-of-fortune all over the world to confront some of the most striking adversaries in comics and often some of the sexiest. The most notable of these was undoubtedly the conflicted Nazi Air Ace known as Valkyrie, who flew the killer skies with a squadron of lethal lovelies codenamed The Airmaidens.

However, as the world and tastes changed, Airboy vanished with many other gaudy comic book champions whose time had run out. Clearly, memories remained fresh for many, no doubt rekindled by a superb popular history series in the early 1970s. The Steranko History of Comics and its effusive chapter on the lethal lad led to a speculative venture reprinting two issues of the early run.

Airboy was also the inspiration for Jetboy – originating lynchpin of the Wild Cards franchise by Howard Waldrop, George R.R. Martin, Melinda M. Snodgrass and their many friends. That began in January 1987 and is still going strong with 30 books as of 2022…

In 1982 comics devotee and champion archivist Ken Pierce had collected early Airboy exploits featuring the voluptuous, absurdly pneumatic Nazi-turned-freedom-fighter Valkyrie, and this apparently inspired budding independent comics company Eclipse to reboot and revive the character …and many of his Hillman comrades.

Always innovative, Eclipse were experimenting at that time with fortnightly (that’s twice a month, non-Brits) comics with half the page count of industry standard books, but at a markedly reduced price. To be honest, at 16 pages of story per issue, it wasn’t that different from the 17-18 pages Marvel and DC had been reduced to working with during the late 1970s…

Airboy premiered at 50¢ a copy in July 1986 and quickly found a vocal, dedicated following. Rereading – in either trade paperback or digital editions – this first archival compilation, it’s easy to see why…

Collecting Airboy #1-16 spanning July 15th 1986 February 27th 1987, this superb, so very Eighties all-action romp opens with a revelatory Introduction by instigator and near-exclusive scripter of the entire resurrected franchise Chuck Dixon who asks and answers ‘Why Airboy?’: detailing the events that led to all-star packager/indie maverick Tim Truman getting involved with one of the biggest and most influential series of that era. With Dixon scripting, Truman co-plotting, editing and pencilling, Tom Yeates inking, Tim Harkins lettering and Ron Courtney applying a then-radical colour palette, the initial 5-issue story arc (collected in 1989 as graphic novel Airboy: The Return of Valkyrie) explodes into action…

Issue #1 begins ‘On the Wings of Death’ as, in California’s Napa Valley, a broken man rails against an unjust fate. David Nelson II is bitter and angry. Not even his teenaged son can bring joy to his life. The boy barely knows and certainly has no warm memories of his dad: an aviation magnate who switched from building civilian planes to forging deadly high-tech weapons for any dictator to buy…

Trained since birth by former Japanese WWII fighter ace and deadly martial artist Saburo Hirota, young Davy has become a brave, confident fighter who cannot imagine why his life has been one of constant combat training.

Suddenly, a horde of assassins attacks the compound and the senior Nelson dies in a hail of bullets. Only then does Davy discover the truth about his father. Once upon a time, the aloof martinet was war veteran and roving hero Airboy: battling against and alongside valiant comrades and piloting a truly unique super-aircraft. Second feature ‘Phoenix’ sees the aging samurai tell of the lost hero and – armed with the truth – Davy Nelson III swears to avenge his father and atone for his own inactions and neglect…

Two weeks later, ‘The Wolf and the Phoenix’ reintroduces WWII legend Skywolf who tangentially enters the saga whilst clearing out South American drug traffickers who have been using his isolated Florida Keys island/US military dump for decommissioned ordnance as a staging post for their enterprise. When Hirota and the kid turn up, it’s not just to share the news of a fallen comrade, but also to reclaim and rebuild the shell that used to be Birdie…

As they reassemble and modify the super plane, stories are told and Davy discovers another shocking truth. His mother was not his father’s true love. Once he loved a beautiful German woman-warrior named Valkyrie. However, for the last thirty years she has been trapped in suspended animation by Misery, a phantasmal being who feeds on evil and steals the souls of lost fliers…

Forced to do the monster’s bidding for three decades – such as providing weapons for South American despots to slaughter and enslave innocents – the old hero had gradually died inside. Now his son is ready to avenge him and free the beautiful sleeper. Soon Skywolf’s drug-dealer problem are connected to the death of the original Airboy, leading them all to tropical Bogantilla and despotic General Orista – one of Nelson Aviation’s biggest customers and a staunch anti-Communist whose regime is proudly supported by the Reagan Administration…

With #3’s ‘Misery Loves Company’, Willie Blyberg began inking Woch as – after a tragic and costly misunderstanding – the reunited Air Fighters ally with rebels resisting Orista’s depredations. It’s been a hard struggle as the dictator army is fully supplied with Nelson’s armaments, backed up by black magic. Ghastly Misery has been extorting the ordnance from his arch foe by threating to kill the comatose Valkyrie: a process that had slowly poisoned the heart and crushed the soul of Davy’s dad. Now, however, the tide is turning…

Months previously, from deep in the Florida Everglades the monstrous bog-creature known as The Heap stirred after decades of inactivity. Something momentous was beginning to unfold and – vaguely remembering a previous life, brave heroes and a diabolical evil – it began shambling southwards…

Now the rebels and yanqui heroes raid the General’s citadel in Gamada Cruz, assisted by the Heap and a local shaman, triumphantly completing their ‘Assault on Villa Miserio’ by rescuing the dormant sleeping beauty, weaking bloody vengeance on Orista and driving off the immortal emotion vampire behind all the death and destruction in concluding chapter ‘Misery Takes A Holiday’ (illustrated by Woch, Blyberg & Emil Novak). Not all the good guys make it back, and most uncomfortably of all the revived captive is unaware that the hero she tries so passionately and amorously to reward is not “her Davy”…

Fast-paced, beautifully illustrated and written with all the gung-ho bravado of a Rambo movie, this tale of liberation and revolution rattles along, a stirring blend of action and supernatural horror that sweeps readers along with it, setting the scene for a tense confrontation in #6 as ‘Back in the USA’ covers the aftermath wherein the time-displaced “aviatrix” seeks to adjust to a strange and frustrating new world and form some kind of relationship with the son of her lost lover…

Hirota leaves them to it: he’s more concerned with another long-term rehabilitation project: helping an old ally from WWII with very different yet eerily similar problems. Davy is trying to cleanse his corporation of the last taint of scandal and corruption only to discover that – thanks to CEO Emil Kronenberg – it has been happily supplying appalling weapons and support to almost every gang, terror group and corrupt regime on the planet. He has no idea that other eyes are upon the aging European: hungry, implacable, vengeful ones…

In #7, Valkyrie accepts a vast wad of cash and heads to New York City to lose herself in hedonism. Inked by Jeff Butler, ‘Partytime’ then sees Davy ambushed by his entire complicit Board and abducted by Kronenberg who resumes the indoctrination experiments he devised back in the camps in Germany. Unluckily for him, whilst losing herself, Valkyrie has impossibly found an old friend from the War who also has not aged a day…

Fellow former Luftwaffe pilot Baron Victor Heller has his own magical secrets to keep but makes a useful ally once Davy’s disappearance galvanises Hirota to enlist Val’s assistance in finding the boy…

Davy’s in big trouble in #8 (illustrated by Woch & Blyberg with colours from “Air Rescue”), trapped ‘Down in the Darkness’ and tortured. The extreme hostile takeover move proves initially unsuccessful and as the next issue hikes the price up to $1.25 and extends the page count, ‘Body Count!’ sees his friends move in for a savage showdown.

Inked by Mark Nelson & coloured by Moondoggies, it was offset by a new back-up series exploring the post war career of Skywolf and other Golden Age Air Fighters characters. Concluding in the next issue, ‘China Hands’ by Dixon, Larry Elmore, Harkins & Steve Oliff/Olyoptics, is set in 1948 as China falls to communist control. Here Link Thorne – AKA The Flying Fool – ferries food and medical supplies to the simple peasants caught up in the political carnage, only to be framed by US spook Jensen of what will become the CIA and imprisoned by Chang Kai Shek’s Nationalist army.

Desperate to help, American freight company owner Riot O’Hara reaches out to aimless drifters Skywolf to spring Thorne. Their rescue attempt is sabotaged by agents of the American government and officially they all die in the attempt… Officially…

With John Nyberg inks, #10 concludes Davy’s rescue and sees Kronenberg at last get what’s coming to him in ‘Tooth and Claw’, even as ‘China Hands part 2’ reveals how Skywolf became the man of mystery we all know and love…

Airboy #11 was written by Truman, with art from Ben Dunn & Hilary Barta. ‘…I Am Birdie’ peers into the past and retells the origin of David Nelson II and his sentient wonder craft whilst Dixon & Bill Jaaska combine for another historical 2-parter starring Skywolf. Set in 1949, ‘I Don’t Need My Grave!’ (with the concluding chapter inked by Jeff Darrow) sees the masked wanderer in Tokyo, resolved to stop criminal upstart Billy Yee, strongarming Riot O’Hara.

Yee wants her to export his drugs to America, but as “sangokujin” (displaced Korean or Chinese foreigners) must work outside Japan’s established criminal hierarchy. That’s proved when Skywolf’s attack is interrupted by members of the Yamataki syndicate and before long Yakuza and Yankee outlaw are united in the same goal. All they have to do is deal with the US soldiers Jensen has set on their tails and it’s clear sailing from then on…

The Airboy story in #10 had ended with a portentous teaser as an aerial assault force devastated Skywolf’s Florida island retreat in 1985. Leading the raid was a bloodthirsty loon dubbed Manic. The saga properly kicks off in #12’s ‘Gone to Texas’ (by Dixon, Woch, Kim DeMulder), as – whilst Hirota counsels former ally The Iron Ace (angrily trapped inside the world’s most advanced full body prosthesis) – Davy and Valkyrie tentatively explore their new normal. Both are understandably disturbed by the thought of renewing her relationship by proxy, switching her avid affection from father to son, but thankfully Skywolf distracts them with his latest problem…

Amidst the rubble of his home is a message from his unseen enemies: the burned body of a cop from the banana republic of the Grand Coronicos Islands…

A hastily arranged meeting brings Davy and Hirota to Galveston, Texas and a frankly hilarious encounter with Skywolf’s older, smarter, tougher, wheelchair-bound mother. She thinks her boy’s an idiot and refuses to call him anything but “Lawrence”, but her advice is welcome and leads to Nelson Aviation fronting Skywolf a new top-of-the-line helicopter gunship for their upcoming visit to the Grand Coronicos…

In #13 Dixon, Woch, Nelson & Steve Haynie craft a chilling ‘Tag-Team’ as Manic and his psycho partner Cowgirl apprise their boss of the situation. The nation is supposedly ruled by avid anti-Communist El Presidente Generalissimo Valasquez, but it’s his wife who has really pulled the strings for much of the last 50 years. The methodical scheme to corner America’s entire drug trade is hers, but that starts unravelling as soon as Davy and Birdie start shooting down drug-filled cargo planes…

The response is swift and savage and teams are despatched by Manic to kill everyone close to Nelson and Skywolf. Of course no drug cabal assassin is a match for Hirota, Valkyrie or Lawrence’s mom…

The drama intensifies in ‘A Barrel Full of Sharks’ (Woch & Nelson) as the intended victims all converge on the Islands for a little payback…

Airboy #13 & 14 also offer a fantastic history mystery by Dixon, Tom Lyle & Romeo Tanghal, as ‘Queen of Yeti Valley’ reveals how Skywolf and the Bald Eagle unite to exfiltrate the British Ambassador’s daughter in the Himalayas and end up saving a lost race from human monsters…

In 15 & 16 the posterior back-ups see supposedly deceased Skywolf sneak back into Texas in 1950 for ‘White Lightning’ (Dixon, Woch & Vern Henkel). Happily anonymous, the outlaw says hi to his ma and puts paid to a preacher opening up a Ku Klux Klan franchise to deal with all them uppity, invasive Mexicans in a deeply satisfying and cathartic dose of bigot-trashing catharsis…

At the fronts and in the Eighties, Airboy and his crew go undercover to infiltrate Puerto Oloroso, poverty stricken capital of the Grand Coronicos Island Chain, inevitably unleashing a ‘Caribbean Rampage’ over the final two episodes in this spectacular opening compilation. By scuttling the scheme to flood America with cut-price coke, Airboy, Hirota, Valkyrie and Skywolf (and his mom) achieve a brief moment of pure Eighties synergy: marrying style, outrageous fashion, ostentation, Contras, drugs, the CIA and always over-the-top action with a spurious motive, and wicked humour in a high octane romp translating the fighting stars of WWII to the era of Airwolf, Nightrider and Miami Vice.

Including stunning covers by Truman, Woch, Dave Stevens, Tex Blaisdell, Paul Gulacy, Flint Henry, Howard Bender, Yeates, John Totleben. Davis Dorman and Ron Randall, this is a true lost delight of sheer escapism well worth tracking down, with the promise of more and even better still to come.
Airboy Archives volume 1. Airboy © 2014 Chuck Dixon. © 2014 Idea and Design Work’s LLC. All rights reserved.

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Black Max: Volume 2


By Frank S. Pepper, Alfonso Font & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-862-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Astounding Air Ace Action… 9/10

It’s time for another sortie down memory lane for us oldsters and hopefully a fresh, untrodden path for fans of the fantastic seeking a typically quirky British comics experience.

This stunning sequel selection delivers one more stunning nostalgia-punch from Rebellion’s superb and ever-expanding Treasury of British Comics, collecting more episodes of seminal war/horror shocker Black Max.

The strip debuted in Thunder #1 and ran the distance: surviving cancelation and merger and continuing into Lion and Thunder until that magazine finally gave up the ghost mid-decade.

This second volume carries the next wave of those stories, covering May 15th to December 25th 1971, with the periodical perils rounded out by longer yarn taken from Thunder Annual 1973.

The series is typical of the manner in which weekly periodicals functioned back then: devised by screenwriter, veteran Editor and prolific scripter Ken Mennell (Cursitor Doom, Steel Claw, The Spider and many more) with the first episode limned by the company’s star turn for mood and mystery Eric Bradbury (Invasion, The Black Crow, Cursitor Doom, House of Dolman, Hookjaw and dozens more). The whole kit and kaboodle was then handed off to another team to sink or swim with, which they did until 1974: a pretty respectable run for a British comic…

In many ways, the attrition rate of British comic strips bore remarkable similarities to casualty figures in war, but this serial was well-starred. The assigned writer was Frank S. Pepper. who began his legendary comics career in 1926. By 1970 he had clocked up many major successes like Dan Dare, Rockfist Rogan, Captain Condor, Jet-Ace Logan and Roy of the Rovers to name but a very, very few.

Series illustrator Alfonso Font was a ten-year veteran – mostly for overseas publications. Based in Spain, he had worked not just for Odhams/Fleetway but on strips for US outfits Warren and Skywald and continental classics such as Historias Negras (Dark Stories), Jon Rohner, Carmen Bond, Bri D’Alban, Tex Willer, Dylan Dog and more…

Episodic by nature and generally delivered in sharp, spartan 3-page bursts, by the time of these trench warfare and skyborne tales the premise and key characters were firmly established and Pepper & Font were growing bolder and more experimental…

In 1917, the Great War was slowly being lost by Germany and her allies. In the Bavarian schloss of Baron Maximilien von Klorr, the grotesque but brilliant scientist and fighter ace had devised a horrific way to tip the scales back in favour of his homeland. His extremely ancient family had for millennia enjoyed an affinity with bats and the current scion had bred giant predatory versions he controlled by various means – including telepathy – that flew beside him to terrify and slaughter the hated English. Initially, they had been a secret weapon used sparingly but by this juncture soldiers and aviators knew well this other form of death from the skies…

His schemes were imperilled and countered on a weekly basis by young British pilot Tim Wilson of Twelve Squadron. Originally a performer in a peacetime flying circus, the doughty lad was possibly the best acrobatic aviator on the Western Front and his constant encounters with von Klorr and the colossal chiropteran constantly frustrated the manic monster master…

Now, Wilson’s superiors are aware of the fearsome bio-weapons, and thanks to his constant interference, the Baron devotes an astonishing amount of time and effort to killing the English fighter ace …when not butchering Allied fliers and ground troops in vast numbers.

The odds seemed to shift once von Klorr began mass-producing his monsters, but Wilson eventually gained the upper hand: driving “Black Max” out of his castle HQ and into a hidden facility where the villain retrenched and made bigger, better terrors…

The private duel resumes here as extended, multi-part serials became standard. The first finds veteran English Ace Colonel “Hero” Hall quitting his desk job to take personal command of Twelve Squadron, after his younger brother is reported missing after meeting Max’s bats.

The vendetta makes life particularly hard for Tim Wilson and leads to Hall’s gross dereliction of duty in the field, but does send the German into retreat and cost him almost all of his monstrous animal allies…

On the back foot and frantically rebuilding, von Klorr is forced to improvise. Capturing and brainwashing ambitious new British recruit Johnny Crane the evil genius embeds him as a secret weapon against Wilson. After miraculously and obliviously escaping many traps, Tim is eventually captured by his nemesis and subjected to the same torture process, before turning the tables on Black Max and apparently killing the bat man in a spectacular escape…

Of course it’s not true and the Baron resurfaces in London weeks later. Wilson is there too, on sick leave, but as Zeppelins bomb the capital, he stumbles into a plot to kidnap British animal scientist Professor Dutton. Von Klorr needs the boffin to improve the strength of his killer beasts, but cannot resist going after Wilson too: a mistake that scuttles his grand scheme and costs him dearly…

Down but never out, the Baron returns to his regular tactics and familiar killing fields, but suffers another reversal when Wilson discovers his current laboratory base. With only one giant bat and his resources exhausted, Von Klorr relocates to a deserted aerodrome to consider his options and is shocked to receive a message from his grandfather. The terrifying patriarch of the bat clan has arcane knowledge spanning millennia and reveals he has unearthed an ancient potion to recreate the “great King-bat”!

Recovering the actual formula is far from easy as it rests beneath Allied lines, but after herculean efforts Black Max secures it and doses his final pet. Thanks to more timely interference from Tim, the killer beast imbibes far too large a dose and mutates into an immense, unstoppable horror that attacks both German and British lines, necessitating an unprecedented alliance of the sworn enemies. Wilson is completely ready for von Klorr to betray him, but is still taken unawares when the moment comes – just as they finally kill the rampaging terror…

To Be Continued…

As previously stated, this initial collection also includes a complete adventure from Thunder Annual 1973: an extended saga rendered by Font but sadly uncredited as regards a writer. It’s 1917, and Black Max is distracted from his obsession when glory-hungry Prussian Ace Major Heinrich Stynkel uses his influence to ground the bats and their master so that he can have first pick of the English fliers. The new psychopath’s plot almost ends the reign of terror until cruel fate and Wilson play their part in a macabre comedy of errors…

These strip shockers are amongst the most memorable and enjoyable exploits in British comics: smart, scary and beautifully rendered. This a superb example of war horror that deserves to be revived and revered.
© 1971, 1973 & 2021 Rebellion Publishing Ltd. Black Max and all related characters, their distinctive likenesses and related elements are ™ Rebellion Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Jughead: The Hunger volume One


By Frank Tieri, Michael Walsh, Pat & Tim Kennedy & various (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-68255-901-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

For over 80 years Archie Andrews has epitomised good, safe, wholesome fun, but the staid and stable company shepherding his adventures has always harboured an ingeniously hidden and deviously subversive element of mischief. Family-friendly superheroes, spooky chills, sci-fi thrills and genre yarns have been as much a part of the publisher’s varied portfolio as those romantic comedy capers of America’s cleanest-cut teens since the company Golden Age debut as MLJ publications.

As you surely know by now, Archie has been around since 1941, spending most of the intervening decades chasing both tantalisingly attainable (yeah, right!) Betty Cooper and wildly out-of-his-league debutante Veronica Lodge. The game was played with best friend Jughead Jones alternately mocking and abetting his romantic endeavours whilst rival Reggie Mantle sought to scuttle every move…

As crafted by a legion of writers and artists who logged innumerable stories of teen antics in and around idyllic, utopian small-town Riverdale, these timeless tales of decent, fun-loving kids captivated successive generations of readers and entertained millions worldwide.

To keep all that accumulated attention riveted, the company has always looked to modern trends with which to expand upon their archetypal brief. In times past they strengthened and cross-fertilised their stable of stars through a variety of team-ups such as Archie Meets the Punisher, Archie Meets Glee, Archie Meets Vampirella and Archie Meets Kiss, whilst every type of fashion-fad and youth-culture sensation have invariably been shoehorned in and explored on the pages of the regular titles.

The company has long exploited a close affinity with horror stories and – combined with the boost of racy new TV franchise Riverdale specifically aimed at “young adults” – launched a range of alternate scary, gory spins-off including Vampironica, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and the tasty treat on view here…

The premise is deliciously sharp and appetising: ever since his 1941 debut, Forsythe Pendleton “Jughead” Jones has been a witty, sarcastic outsider: a little bit weird, very intelligent, immune to teenage love, faithful and loyal to Archie but – above all else – preternaturally hungry and apparently insatiable.

Reimagining this evergreen comedy prop, Frank Tieri injected some harsh (meta) reality in One-Shot’ – illustrated by Michael Walsh, coloured by Dee Cunniffe and lettered by Jack Morelli – by heading deep into Teen Wolf territory…

In this Riverdale, the traditional setup maintains until the night when beloved teacher Miss Grundy is eviscerated and beheaded by “the Riverdale Ripper”. The old gang are the last to hear the awful news about their favourite educator because they’re all watching Jughead put another All-you-can-eat diner out of business…

However, all notions of innocent fun forever vanish as a season of mayhem continues. Pop Tate, Big Ethel and Jug’s cousin Bingo Wilkins are also victims of a savage serial killer, and the Jones kid is feeling utterly unlike himself as he shambles home at nightfall. Everything seems sharper, clearer, and more intense.

The answer to Jug’s inner turmoil becomes clear when he meets Dilton Doily and the safe old life ends forever. As a wave of sensation overwhelms him, Jug he feels a change coming… and wakes up in his own bedroom, covered in blood and bits of Dilton…

Panicked and desperate, “Juggie” rushes to his best friend, only to learn Archie was a traumatised witness to the entire revolting encounter and saw him transform into a ravening beast… as well as what followed…

Before the best buds can even begin to process what’s happened, sweet dependable Betty arrives. The dilemma of whether to share the secret with her is solved when she explodes into martial arts mayhem, ruthlessly beating Jug before trying to shoot him…

Barely able to restrain her, Archie hears an incredible story: how the Jones clan have been lycanthropes for centuries, with her family – the Coopers – hereditary werewolf hunters for just as long. They are raised from birth to end their depredations when they turn feral…

She’s been watching and waiting for most of the gang’s lives and now it’s time to abandon friendship and do her duty…

Incredibly, Archies entreaties convince her to try an old unproven method, seeking to cure instead of kill. Days pass and all seems well until Jughead (and his beloved pet Hotdog) vanish from Riverdale. In their absence, the mangled body of Reggie Mantle is discovered…

All that occurred in a stand-alone debut released in March 2017, but the story picked up in October with a continuing series, joining other books in a separate Archie Horror imprint. Tieri remained as scripter, with Pat & Tim Kennedy, Bob Smith, Jim Amash, Matt Herms & Morelli completing the creative cast. The first three issues complete this terror tome, with the tale expanding as emergency doctors manage to resuscitate Reggie. They don’t live long enough to regret it…

Meanwhile, young wanderer “Smith” and his dog have joined a circus. Friendly but tight-lipped, they fit right in, and nobody asks why the kid “borrows” the escape artist’s gear every night…

Archie and Betty are relentlessly searching the region, but she is becoming increasingly unstable and violent. All Archie’s attempts to placate her are wasted, especially after she links up with her kin in the Cooper Underground: all eagerly looking for a fresh werewolf to kill. Andrews is now painfully aware that the entire world is crazy and he was utterly unaware of how it really works…

The same can be said for Jughead, who wakes up beside the bloody remnants of a circus girl. However, once he calms down enough to doublecheck, he realises he didn’t escape his bonds but was released by persons unknown…

Back in Riverdale, Ronnie Lodge is baffled and shaken by events and only achieves understanding in the brief moments before the true architect of all Jughead’s woes adds her to the body count…

With additional art contributions from Joe Eisma, the second chapter sees even more beloved characters fall to the mystery murderer. Not far away, Archie gets a crash course in monster-fighting and comes to the appalling conclusion that the only way to be true to his friend is to end him…

With Juggie’s face all over TV, a manhunt closes in on the “teen serial killer”, but when cops close in, Jones finds he has an unsuspected ally, someone he’d believed long dead…

Issue #3 finds that comrade sharing some useful werewolf tricks and tips; disclosing how he’d been using Jug to protect his own secret life. Their falling out mirrors the moment Betty takes Archie to meet her Auntie Elena who runs a global cabal dedicated to killing weird beasts, and the Andrews boy makes his own momentous decision. Inevitably all factions converge just as Jughead is battling for his life and trying to decide who’s side he’s on.

Silver bullets fly and the decision is taken out of his gore-streaked hands…

To Be Continued…

Fast-paced, pleasingly irreverent, blood-soaked and bombastic, the wild ride also offers a Special Features section comprising an Introduction by screenwriter Matthew Rosenberg discussing “Americana”, and a closing gallery of covers & variants by Franco Francavilla, Adam Goreham, Robert Hack, Walsh, and T-Rex, plus Character Sketches and Sample Pages by the Kennedys and pages tracing the process from pencils to finished art.

This terror-packed tome closes with a bonus story: the initial outing of Vampironica by Greg & Meg Smallwood, detailing how the darling debutante became a decidedly unconventional bloodsucker. Stay braced for a full review of her own in the weeks to come…

Brilliantly reimagining cosy comforting friends into compelling new roles, this is a spooky feast for fans and newcomers alike.
™ & © 2018 Archie Comic Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Creature Commandos


By J.M. DeMatteis, Robert Kanigher, Mike W. Barr, Fred Carrillo, Pat Broderick, John Celardo, Bob Hall, Jerry Ordway, Dan Spiegle, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4382-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

American comic books just idled along rather meekly until the 1938 invention of Superman provided a flamboyant new genre for heroes: subsequently and bombastically unleashing a torrent of creative imitation for a suddenly thriving and voracious new entertainment model that would enthral future generations.

Implacably vested in World War II, gaudily-garbed mystery men swept all before them until the troops came home, but as the decade closed traditional themes and heroes resurfaced to gradually supplant the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

Even as a new crop of kids began buying and collecting, many of the first fans who had retained a four-colour habit sought more mature themes in their pictorial reading matter. Recent conflict and post-war paranoia irrevocably altered the psychological landscape of the readership as a more world-weary, cynical public slowly realised that all the fighting and dying hadn’t changed anything. The period’s established forms of entertainment – film, radio, theatre and prose, as well as comics – increasingly reflected this.

To balance the return of Western, War, Crime and imminent Atomic Armageddon-fuelled Science Fiction, comics created fresh fields. Celebrity tie-ins, escapist teen-oriented comedy and anthropomorphic animal features thrived, and gradually another of the cyclical revivals of spiritualism and increased public fascination with the arcane led to a wave of impressive, evocative and shockingly addictive horror comics.

DC Comics bowed to the inevitable by launching a comparatively straight-laced anthology which nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with December 1951/January 1952 cover-dated The House of Mystery.

After the hysterical censorship debate which led to witch-hunting Senate hearings in the early 1950s was curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulation, titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, but the audience’s appetite for suspense was still high and in 1956 National introduced sister titles Tales of the Unexpected and House of Secrets.

Stories were dialled back from uncanny yarns to (always) marvellously rendered, rationalistic fantasy-adventures and, ultimately, straight monster-busting Sci Fi tales which dominated the market into the 1960s. That’s when superheroes – enjoying their own visionary revival after Julius Schwartz reintroduced The Flash in Showcase #4 – finally overtook them.

Such was never the case with war comics. Tales of ordinary guys in combat began with the industry itself and although mostly sidelined during the capes-&-cowls war years, quickly began to assert themselves again once the actual fighting stopped.

National/DC were one of the last to get in on the combat trend: converting superhero/fantasy adventure anthology Star Spangled Comics into Star Spangled War Stories the same month Our Army at War launched (both cover-dated August 1952). Also repurposed, All-American Comics became All-American Men of War a month later as the “police action” in Korea escalated.

National grew the division slowly but steadily, adding Our Fighting Forces #1 (November 1954) – just as EC’s groundbreaking combat comics were vanishing – and in 1957 added GI Combat to their portfolio when Quality Comics got out of the funnybook business.

As the decade closed, the anthologies all began incorporating recurring characters to the mix. Gunner and Sarge – and latterly Pooch – launched in Our Fighting Forces #45 (May 1959). They were followed a month later by Sgt Rock in Our Army at War #83 and – addressing mystery as well as mayhem – The War that Time Forgot debuted in Star Spangled War Stories #99 (May 1960) and The Haunted Tank took off in G.I. Combat #87 (April/May 1961). Soon every DC war book had a lead star or feature to hold the fickle readers’ attention.

The drive to produce superior material never wavered, however, hugely aided by the diligent and meticulous ministrations of writer/editor Robert Kanigher. As the Vietnam War escalated, 1960s America increasingly endured a Home Front death-struggle pitting deeply-ingrained Establishment attitudes against a young generation with a radical new social sensibility. In response, military-themed comic books from National Periodical Publishing became even more boldly innovative…

However, another sudden superheroes dieback led to serious rethinking and although war titles maintained and even increased sales, the editors beefed up both supernatural and anthological elements. Thus in 1971 (cover-dated October), a title merging horror scenarios with battle yarns seemed a forgone conclusion: a sure thing for both publishers and readers alike. The notion proved correct and Weird War Tales ran for 124 issues: a DC mainstay for 12 years and experimental forge for many young creators to learn the craft and business.

Eventually, history again repeated itself and character vehicles began to replace stand-alone stories: primarily revivals of earlier features such as The War That Time Forgot and G.I. Robot, but also the uncanny undercover unit that is the star of this turbulent tome.

Compiling stories and even some comedy sidebars first seen in Weird War Tales #93, 97, 100, 102, 105, 108-112, 114-119, 121 and 124 (spanning cover-dates November 1980 to June 1983), this vintage tome offers a broad blend of genre mash-ups for armchair combat fans with a taste for the dark and uncanny to relish.

It begins without flourish in WWT #93 as J.M. DeMatteis, Pat Broderick & John Celardo introduce ‘The Creature Commandos!’ Spring 1942 and America’s Project M (for Monster) and US Army Intelligence officer Matthew Shrieve want to create a specialist team for rapid strike missions using mankind’s primordial terrors as a psychological weapon.

Their prime candidates are three originally ordinary soldiers altered by science into analogues of Hollywood horrors. After stepping on a landmine and surviving experimental surgery Marine private Elliot “Lucky” Taylor is now a mute Frankensteinian colossus, whilst cashiered sergeant Vincent Velcro chose a course of bat blood serum treatments over 30 years in the brig: and is now a shapeshifting bloodsucking vampire. Unable to enlist because he suffered from “blood disorder” lycanthropy, Warren Griffiths was “treated” until he became an impermanently manifested werewolf. The proposed team would be completed by Shrieve himself: a human problem solver (for which read “callous psychopath”) in command of a relentless ruthless squad designed to strike fear into the hearts of the foe…

Allied Command are disgusted and never want to see the squad again, but as it’s wartime, that translates as dumping them in occupied France with orders to do as much damage as possible…

The first mission drops them on Castle Conquest, where Nazi robotic experiments prove no match for their savagery, but success is somewhat spoiled after Shrieve is shown to consider them utterly expendable freaks…

Fred Carrillo limns DeMatteis’ sequel in #97 (March 1981) as ‘The Creature Commandos vs. the Faceless Enemy!’  sees the monster squad enduring bitter winter weather and Nazi attacks whilst rescuing sexy scientist Dr. Frederique who turns out to be not what she seems, after which anniversary issue #100 (June 1981) highlights Mike W. Barr, Bob Hall & Jerry Ordway’s mighty team-up ‘Dinosaur Convoy!’

Here the eerie expendables are in the South Pacific to verify repeated reports of dinosaurs, only to clash with a Japanese task force on a similar mission. As Shrieve grows evermore bestial and brutal, his subordinates increasingly embrace their lost humanity even while slaughtering the foe and in the end “convince” their commander to keep the saurian secret and out of the war effort…

By now the terror team was assured of continued service and returned in #102 (August) as DeMatteis & Carrillo detailed ‘The Children’s Crusade!’ Here Adolf Hitler personally indoctrinates little German orphans to form a cadre of perfect, chemically-enhanced killers. To stop them, who better than Liberty’s own monsters, but in the end can even these dread agents do their duty?

A mirth break comes in a single-page gag by Dave Manak (WWT #104), as the squad star in patriotic movie ‘The Monster Marines’ before DeMatteis & Carrillo use #105 (November) to explore ‘The War at Home!’ Ordered back to upstate New York, the unit invades and eradicates the town of Freedom: routing out a nest of Nazi sympathisers where once again Shrieve proves just how much he belongs on a team of monsters…

Manak cartoonishly strikes again in #107 with an encore performance of ‘The Monster Marines’, after which DeMatteis, Hall & Celardo dump the squad ‘In the Kingdom of the Damned’ (#108 February 1982). It begins with Lucky attempting to end his abominable existence and triggers a flashback to the Creature Commandos’ last mission. Whilst destroying a Nazi death camp the team were captured and tortured, but the true horror for the patchwork man was making – and losing – a friend who truly understood him…

Weird war maestro Robert Kanigher signed up as writer with #109 and – with brilliant but underappreciated artist Dan Spiegle – contrived a continued tale that concluded in the next issue.

Velcro had been increasingly plagued by his uncontrollable blood thirst for months and ‘Roses are Red – But Blood is Redder, part 1: The Beast Within Us!’ saw him reject the bottled sustenance for fresher sources. Stopped by the recovered Lucky, the vampire swore off French maids (for now) even as the squad deployed to a fogged-in tank battlefield to halt a German counterattack by blowing up a dam.

The job was disaster-prone but still successful. ‘Roses are Red – But Blood is Redder, part 2: A Mirror for Monsters!’ found the almost drowned quartet stranded. Shrieve – whose bullying of “his freaks” had become incessant and obsessive was seriously injured and the monsters had to decide whether it was worth saving him. Valorous as ever, they carried him across enemy lines and a mountain of enemy bodies to a medical base where army plastic surgeon Myrna Rhodes saved the sadistic psycho. Tragically, their emotional overreaction cause a chemical accident bathing Rhodes in unknown chemicals and mutating her into a doppelganger of the mythical Medusa – albeit without the petrifying gaze…

With no other place to go, the medic becomes the latest addition to the Creature Commandos…

Cover-dated May, WWT #111 crossed over with comic book stablemate G.I. Robot as J.A.K.E. (Jungle Automatic Killer Experimental) #1 loses his human handler Sgt. Coker and goes AW/OL just as Shrieve’s team are returned to the Pacific Theatre to solve a mystery.

Allied shipping is being sunk and cannot relieve marines stranded on Tattu Island so the exotic expendables are dropped in by parachute only to encounter more dinosaurs.

Happily J.A.K.E. is on hand to save them from big hungry lizards, ancient “Atlantides” and ‘The Doomsday Robots!’…

Spiegle’s singular run ends with #112 as the unit is seconded to North Africa and Dr. Rhodes discovers an ancient analogue of her condition in an unearthed pyramid. With her comrades shockingly transformed by ‘The Medusa Sting!’, she is forced to carry them over the burning desert sands and foil Rommel’s advance until the spell wears off.

Carrillo joined Kanigher in #114 (August), remaining for the rest of the run. His first job was illustrating the monster squad’s infiltration of Berlin as a ‘Circus of Madness’ and raid on a concentration camp to rescue a nuclear scientist, before meeting J.A.K.E. II as he recuperates from injuries (damage?). As the mechanoid discovers love with blind blonde British princess Dana (just don’t, okay! It’s comics!) the weird heroes learn that ‘You Can’t Pin a Medal on a Robot’…

By this stage the writing was on the wall for genre comics, and internal logic and consistency was under mounting pressure. Weird War Tales #116 opened a ‘Doorway to Hell’ as ancient and heartless volcano goddess Inferna awakes just in time to interfere in the Commandos’ invasion of Sicily and abduct Shrieve to be her toyboy. Despite themselves, the terrors rescue their tormentor and head to Paris for R&R. After suitably upsetting the locals the horrors are recalled for another mission, but with Shrieve declared unfit for duty cannot find a commander to lead them. Bored, desperate and ever more unpopular, the team even take a pilgrimage to Holy Shrine of Lourdes before making ‘A Miracle for Monsters!’ to get back into the war.

Cover-dated December 1982, another team-up with the G.I. Robot in #118 proves ‘Heroes Come in Small Sizes’ as escaping German POWs take French children hostage to facilitate their escape but underestimate the ingenuity and determination of the beast warriors, before the scene shifts to London in #119 where unthinking prejudice drives the horror heroes back to the Front. Entering Italy, they battle Nazi execution squads covering atrocities and shut down rocket factories, but always meet rejection from those they aid…

When a sympathetic scientist offers to send them to a kinder future era, the monsters jump at the chance, but soon find that tomorrow’s ‘World Under Glass’ is even worse…

Returning to the devils they know, the squad resurfaces in #121 (March 1983) where ‘Death Smiles Thrice!’ and Hitler’s top brass unleash a psychological onslaught to destroy them. Of course, the unit have faced robot doubles before and know exactly how to respond.

The era of unbridled imagination unceremoniously ended with a single page sign-off in Weird War Tales #124 (June 1983) as Shrieve commits the Creature Commandos to one final mission… ‘Destination Unknown!’

With covers by Joe Kubert, Ross Andru, Romeo Tanghal, Rich Buckler, Dick Giordano, Frank Giacoia, Jim Aparo, Mike DeCarlo, Joe Staton & Bruce Patterson, Gil Kane & Trevor von Eeden, this manic menagerie of military monster madness celebrates a long-gone and much missed time of variety where “what if” was king and logic played second fiddle to moments of wide-eyed wonder.

By turns chilling, thrilling, daft, emotionally intense, and utterly outrageous – but always superbly illustrated, insanely addictive and Just Plain Fun – this is a deliciously guilty pleasure to astound and delight any lover of fantasy fiction and comics that work on plot invention rather than character compulsion. The Creature Commandos is a tome for all lovers of dark delight and one no arcane aficionada can afford to be without.
© 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Ghost Tree


By Bobby Curnow & Simon Gane; coloured by Ian Herring & Becka Kinzie and lettered by Chris Mowry (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1684055999 (TPB) eISBN: 978-68406-810-4

The innate sadness and intense incompleteness of the spiritual world is something we tend to sideline in modern fiction, but once upon a time the melancholia of both the quick and the dead was far more important than scaring the pants off a thrill-seeking audience.

That old world approach is wonderfully revived in Ghost Tree, where author Bobby Curnow (Night of 1000 Wolves; My Little Pony; Battle Beasts; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), illustrator Simon Gane (They’re Not Like Us; Godzilla; Northlanders; Unfollow; Paris) and primary colour artist Ian Herring (Minor Threats; Ms Marvel; Nova: Resurrection; Junior Citizens) examine loss, legacy and duty. It’s all deftly done through a slowly unfolding search for self in its protagonist, and meaning or closure in the myriad spirits he is unwillingly connected to…

Despite growing up in the USA, Brandt was always close to his Japanese grandfather. However, the gentle old man also had other concerns and seemed to split his time. One day when the boy was visiting the old country, his beloved Ojii-chan wandered deep into the forests around the old ancestral home.

Curiously following, the boy stopped at a strangely twisted willow tree where the old man asked him to make a promise. A dutiful, diligent, loving – but uncomprehending – grandson, Brandt swore to return to this spot ten years after Ojii-chan died…

Decades later, the man Brandt is heading back to Japan. Grown up and married, he’d all but forgotten that day. Now with his world disintegrating and Alice leaving, he’s flying to the ancestral homestead where his widowed grandmother still lives. Cousin Mariko and her new baby meet him at the airport. She’s worried stubborn, headstrong Obaa-chan is not doing well…

Grandmother is as blunt and feisty as ever, hectoring the new generation on how they should live. It’s a little too much and Brandt has to step outside. Reminiscing about those carefree childhood days, he thinks he sees something at the edge of the woods…

Restless and jetlagged, his sleep is also disrupted as he thinks of what might have been if he had stayed here with Arami rather than living in America…

Unaware that he’s under keen scrutiny, Brandt tries to make peace with grandma, and learns that the happy family was anything but. Shocked by revelations of his forebears’ lives lived at odds, he wanders off into the woods. He might have forgotten that Ojii-chan has now been dead for a decade, but everything comes flooding back when he finds the old man waiting for him by that certain willow…

As they chat under the ghost tree, the dead man explains that for generations some family members have been able to see kami and talk to spirits. Moreover, certain places are attractors, and lost souls are drawn to them. They are usually, angry, confused and despairing, haunted by things left unsaid or not done…

Whilst they sit, dozens of dead people and stranger things draw closer. Grandfather explains they expect Brandt to intercede for them and help deal with their unfinished business…

The old man wants him to avoid the family’s burden and nor repeat his own mistakes: to live a life among the living. His advice is wasted and worthless as Brandt has seen his first love Arami is one of the clamorous phantoms…

Soon the mortal is counselling revenants and carrying out minor missions on their behalf, but the renewed activity around the tree has drawn some of the worst horrors of Japanese mythology, and Brandt learns that the Zero – a traditional guardian defender – is slowly fading.

With Grandfather urging him to forsake the dead and spend time with his family, and Arami looking for reasons to stay or pass on, the conflicted man of two worlds is clearly avoiding making decisions, when the choice is taken from him.

With the safety of the living also threatened by encroaching demons, Brandt must confront uncomfortable home truths before devising a solution to satisfy all parties and safeguard both worlds. Then it’s time to tackle the hard job: fixing his marital situation and getting on with life…

Powerful, sensitive, heartwarming and uncompromising, this very human drama offers echoes of classic movie fantasies such as A Matter of Life and Death (1948) and The Ghost and Mrs Muir (1947), suggesting that the dead are always with us and that – unlike families – it’s nothing to be scared of…
Ghost Tree. November 2019. © 2019 Curnow. Gane. Herring. © 2019 Idea and Design Works, LLC.