Marvel Superheroes – Page 79

February 4, 2013February 3, 2013

Spider-Man: With Great Powerâ€¦

By David Lapham & Tony Harris, with Jim Clark, Stefano Gaudiano and Matt Milla (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1968-5

One of the most astounding comicbook stories ever began with the sublime origin tale of ‘Spider-Man!’ by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko in the last issue ofÂ Amazing Fantasy #15 (cover-dated September 1962); describing in 11 captivating pages the parable of Peter Parker, a smart but alienated kid bitten by a radioactive spider on a High School science trip.

Discovering he had developed arachnid abilities – which he augmented with his own natural genius in the fields of chemistry, physics and engineering – the boy did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do when given such a giftâ€¦Â he tried to milk for all it was worth in the hormone-fuelled determination to get girls, prestige, fame, money and girls.

Making a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor celebrity – and a criminally self-important one.

To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him one night after a TV interview, the self-aggrandized Peter didn’t lift a finger to stop the felon, only to find when he returned home that his guardian and uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.

Crazy with a need for vengeance, Peter hunted the assailant who had made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known, and tragically realised that it was the crook he couldn’t be bothered to stop.

His social irresponsibility had led to the death of the man who raised him and the boy swore to always use his powers to help othersâ€¦

It wasn’t a new story, but the setting was one familiar to every kid reading it and the artwork was downright spooky. This wasn’t the gleaming high-tech world of moon-rockets, giant monsters and flying cars – this stuff could happen to anybodyâ€¦

From that tortuous beginning Spider-Man swiftly evolved into one of the world’s most popular heroic characters with generations of writers returning to, mining and refining that simple tale for every possible nuance.

In 2008 star creators David Lapham and Tony Harris (with inkers Jim Clark and Stefano Gaudiano and colourist Matt Milla) took a hard look at the origin and came up with an impressive fresh avenue previously unexplored: what exactly happened during Parker’s brief fling with showbiz celebrity?

The result was a 5-issue miniseries under the elite Marvel Knights imprint that impressively added an even greater edge of tragedy and recrimination to the lad’s subsequent campaign and injusticeâ€¦

Opening with the key page from the Lee/Ditko classic, most of this turbulent tale is set pretty much between those two panels and finds â€œthe Spider-Manâ€ signed up with a cheesy wrestling federation. The masked and obsessively secretive kid is obnoxiously revelling in his newfound power amongst these shady adult characters yet still being bullied in his â€œnormalâ€ life at High School: continually harassed by jock Flash Thompson whilst fruitlessly lusting after queen of the popular kids Liz Allenâ€¦

Uncle Ben and Aunt May are increasingly concerned by their sweet, clever boy. He’s become secretive, argumentative and unnaturally rebellious. Although they’ve been expecting it for years, the â€œTroubled Teenâ€ phase is still a bit of shock and the solicitously understanding seniors combat it by giving the boy a clunky old car to show they accept his growing independenceâ€¦

With the kid being taught all the tricks of show-fighting by the welcoming but jaded older wrestlers in the fight-stable, promoter Monty Caabash sees his compulsively anonymous new find as his ticket to the big time – and so do his gangster backers. With a lucrative West Coast TV sport show in the offing, they just can’t afford to lose their mysterious cash-cow, but the adulation and ready money is turning Peter’s head.

He dumps Uncle Ben’s gift in favour of a sports car only to wreck in a crazy drag race with Flash: an incident which puts him in an E.R., although his worried guardians have no idea since the unruly kid is frequently staying out all night these daysâ€¦

As Monty invests more time and money in his prize fighter, the boy becomes a New York sensation and the promoter’s worldly-wise associate Tiffany LeBeck sees a way to use her own mature charms to win a piece of the millions Spider-Man could generate.

Before long the sex-starved kid is beguiled and besotted by the older woman’s charms and she becomes his manager; promising an inevitably clash with Monty’s ruthless backers.

At school Parker’s increased confidence has enabled him to make real headway with Liz too. With everything going right the ebullient boy spends some time back in his lab inventing a way to increase his cachet by inventing webbing and web-shooters: tricks that will make him even more spectacular in the ring and on the screenâ€¦

New York loves the mysterious celebrity and goes into media frenzy mode – all except the contrary publisher of the Daily Bugle. Inexplicably incensed, J. Jonah Jameson wants to know the truth about this Amazing Spider-Man and begins a highly provocative campaign against the wrestler and his managementâ€¦

There are bigger stories. The first team of superheroes since WWII has emerged, battling monsters and villains with shining valour and full public disclosure. Spider-Man even watched the Fantastic Four in action once, battling the horrific spawn of the Miracle Man.

The kid was sitting in a safe skyscraper perch with one of his groupies nestled safely in his armsâ€¦

Peter doesn’t care about bad publicity and unfair comparisons: he’s a celebrity sportsman, not a crime-busting crusader. Even when a thief runs right past him after a TV interview, he does nothing. That’s the police’s jobâ€¦

Ditching school, chasing girls, falling further under Tiffany’s slowly seductive influence, Peter gets a huge reality check when, during a confrontation with Uncle Ben outside a nightclub where he’s spent all night dancing with Liz, a colossal monster attacks the city, raining death and destruction upon hundreds of helpless citizens. Despite himself the boy explodes into action, saving Ben and his traumatised date, but horrifically failing to rescue a trapped stranger, even after the impressive man-monster dubbed The Thing comes to his assistanceâ€¦

Shocked, confused and deeply upset in the aftermath, Parker gets blind drunk and returns to Tiffany’s boudoir, only to pass out too soonâ€¦ Waking up face to face with Monty’s extremely unsavoury bosses he discovers the kind of people’s he’s involved with as chief hood Mr. Angel explains the facts of life.

Hollywood means big, legitimate money and Jameson’s smear campaign is making the TV execs nervous. So if everybody wants heroes like the FF, Spider-Man is going to be one – even if the mob has to set up kittens to rescue and slobs to saveâ€¦

Peter complies but his heart isn’t in it: it’s only by sheer luck that he doesn’t cause the deaths of dozens of people and when that doesn’t placate Angel the racketeer opts to end his problems by shutting up Jameson for goodâ€¦

Even Tiffany can’t handle that however and when she drunkenly reveals the scheme to her besotted boy Peter, he puts his mask back on and heads out to change his destiny foreverâ€¦

With Jameson saved and his life back on track, Peter heads home to reconcile with Aunt May and Uncle Ben, only to find he house surrounded by police carsâ€¦

Dark, gritty, subtly sophisticated and rationally reasonable, this clever exploration of the in-between moments adds those layers of meaning to the tragic tale that modern, mature readers seem to dote on and, child of the simplistic Sixties though I am, even I found this extension of the classic story to be both beguiling and exceptionally entertaining.

This might not appeal to all readers but fans of the movie franchise will definitely find this a book worth pursuing.
Â© 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

February 3, 2013February 2, 2013

Essential Daredevil volume 5

By Steve Gerber, Tony Isabella, Bob Brown, Don Heck, Gene Colan & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2762-3

Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer whose remaining senses hyper-compensate, making him an astonishing acrobat, formidable fighter and living lie-detector. Very much a second-string hero for much of his early years, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due in large part to the captivatingly humanistic art of Gene Colan. He fought gangsters, a variety of super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion, quipping and wisecracking his way through life and life-threatening combat, utterly unlike the grim, moody, quasi-religious metaphor he’s been seen as in latter years.

After spending years in a disastrous on-again, off-again relationship with his secretary Karen Page Murdock took up with former client and Russian Ã©migrÃ© Natasha Romanoff, the infamous and notorious spy dubbed The Black Widow.

She was railroaded and framed for murder and prosecuted by Matt’s best friend and law partner Foggy Nelson before the blind legal eagle cleared her. Subsequently leaving New York with her for the wild wacky and West Coast, Matt joined the prestigious San Francisco law firm of Broderick & Sloan but adventure, disaster and intrigue seemed capable of finding the Sightless Swashbuckler anywhereâ€¦

This fifth Essential collection re-presents Daredevil #102-125, covering August 1973 to September 1975, and also includes Marvel Two-in-One #3 wherein twin storylines converged, and the action opens with DD searching for recently escaped psychedelic assassin Angar the Screamer.

However Hornhead’s diligent quest instead brought him into conflict with a merciless and similarly displaced old foe when ‘Stilt-Man Stalks the City’ (by Chris Claremont, Syd Shores & Frank Giacoia). The skyscraping scoundrel had first kidnapped the daughter of an inventor in order to extort enhanced weaponry out of the traumatised tinkerer but wasn’t expecting interference from his oldest adversary or his new utterly ruthless paramourâ€¦.

No sooner had DD and the Widow ended the miscreant’s rampage than #103 saw a team-up with Spider-Man as a merciless cyborg attacked the odd couple whilst they posed for roving photojournalist Peter Parker in ‘â€¦Then Came Ramrod!’ by Steve Gerber, Don Heck & Sal Trapani.

The barely-human brute was after files in Murdock’s safe and hinted of a hidden master, but ultimately his blockbusting strength was of little real use against the far faster veteran heroesâ€¦

Even whilst the distracted Murdock was realising that his own boss was sabotaging the attorney’s cases, the mystery manipulator was hiring warped mercenary Sergei Kravinoff to make Daredevil ‘Prey of the Hunter!’ Matt’s priorities changed when Kraven abducted Natasha, and even after the hero had rescued her, explosively returned to defeat them both, throwing the hero to his death over a cliffâ€¦

Daredevil #105 saw Natasha brutally avenge her man’s murder, but Murdock was far from dead, having being teleported from the jaws of doom by a ‘Menace from the Moons of Saturn!’ (inked by Don Perlin). In a short sequence pencilled by Jim Starlin, the earthborn Priestess of Titan Moondragon was introduced, and revealed how she had been dispatched to Earth to counter the schemes of death-worshipping proto-god Thanos. She also inadvertently disclosed how she had allied with a respected man of power and authority, providing him with a variety of augmented agents such as Dark Messiah, Ramrod and Angarâ€¦

Gerber, Heck & Trapani then brought the expansive extended epic closer to culmination as the manipulator was unmasked in ‘Life Be Not Proud!’ but not before the wily plotter had redeployed all his past minions,Â shot his misguided ally Moondragon, usurped a Titanian ultimate weapon and unleashed a life-leeching horror dubbed Terrex upon the world.

With all Earth endangered, DD, the Widow and guest-star Captain Marvel were forced to pull out all the stops to defeat the threat, and only then after a last-minute defection by the worst of their enemies and a desperate ‘Blind Man’s Life!’ courtesy of Gerber, Bob Brown & Sal Buscema.

A new direction began in #108 when DD noticed Natasha using increasingly excessive force on the thugs they stalked. Their heated arguments were forcibly curtailed when Matt’s oldest friend – and current New York DA Foggy Nelson – was shot and she refused to rush to his side with Murdockâ€¦

Back in the Big Apple, Matt meets Foggy’s radical student sister Candace and learns of a plot by a mysterious organisation called Black Spectre to steal government printing plates. En route to stop the raid the Scarlet Swashbuckler is intercepted by a larcenous third party whose brutal interference allows the sinister plotters to abscond with the money making plates in ‘Cryâ€¦ Beetle!’ illustrated by Brown & Paul Gulacy.

Even the arrival of the cops can’t slow the bludgeoning battle against the Beetle in ‘Dying for Dollar$!’ (Brown & Heck), but even as the exo-skeletoned skell breaks away in NYC, in San Francisco Natasha is attacked by a terrifying albino mutant called Nekra Priestess of Darkness, who wants to recruit her into Black Spectre.

After tracking down and defeating the Beetle, Daredevil meets Africa-based adventuress Shanna the She-Devil, unaware that the fiery American ex-pat is back seeking bloody vengeance against the same enemies who have attacked Foggy, Natasha and the entire US economyâ€¦

The next chapter appeared in Marvel Two-in-One #3 (May 1974, by Gerber, Sal Buscema & Joe Sinnott) and offered a peek ‘Inside Black Spectre!’ as destabilising attacks on US prosperity and culture fomented riot in the streets of the beleaguered nation.

Following separate clue trails the Thing linked up with the Man Without Fear to invade the cabal’s flying HQ but they were impossibly overcome soon after discovering that the Black Widow had defected to the rebelsâ€¦

Issue #110 saw the return of Gene Colan – inked by Frank Chiaramonte – as the plot further developed in ‘Birthright!’ revealing that Black Spectre was an exclusively female and minorities staffed organisation, led by a pheromone-fuelled male mutant called Mandrill.

One of the first â€œChildren of the Atomâ€, the ape-like creature had suffered appalling abuse and rejection until he found the equally ostracised Nekra, but once they met and realised their combined power, they swore to make America payâ€¦

‘Sword of the Samurai!’ (Brown & Jim Mooney) in Daredevil #111 opened with DD and Shanna attacked by a monstrous Japanese warrior even as the She-Devil at last disclosed her own tragic reasons for hunting Nekra and Mandrill. When she too is taken by Black Spectre – who want to dissect her to discover how she can resist Mandrill’s influence – DD is again attacked by the outrageously powerful Silver Samuraiâ€¦

Triumphing over impossible odds DD then infiltrates the flying fortress in #112 before the spectacular conclusion ‘Death of a Nation?’ (with art by Colan & Giacoia) finds the mutant duo seemingly achieving their ultimate goal by desecrating the White House and temporarily taking symbolic control of America.

â€¦But only until Shanna, the freshly-liberated Natasha and the fighting mad Man without Fear marshal their utmost resourcesâ€¦

Even with the epic over Gerber still kept popping away at contemporary issues as with #113 ‘When Strikes the Gladiator!’ – illustrated by Brown & Vince Colletta – which began with the Black Widow calling it a day, continued with Candace Nelson being arrested by for treason, teased with the girl being kidnapped by one of DD’s most bloodthirsty foes and culminated with the creation of a new major villain and an attack by Marvel’s most controversial monster heroesâ€¦

Ted Sallis was a government scientist hired to recreate the Super-Soldier serum that turned a puny volunteer into Captain America. Due to corporate interference and what we today call â€œmission creepâ€, the project metamorphosed into a fall-back plan to turn humans into monstrous beings that could thrive in the most polluted of toxic environments.

When Sallis was subsequently captured by spies and consumed his serum to stop them from stealing it, he was transformed into a horrific mindless Man-Thing and lost in the swamps of Floridaâ€¦

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

Trailing Candy’s abductors to Citrusville, Florida, Daredevil was ambushed by Gladiator and his macabre senior partner, but saved after a furious fracas by the mysterious Man-Thing in #114’s ironically entitled ‘A Quiet Night in the Swamp!’ (Brown & Colletta). The mastermind managed to escape however and returned to New York where he tried to kill Foggy and track down the clandestine, still operating continuation of the Sallis Project. Even though DD arrived in time to foil the maniac in #115’s ‘Death Stalks the City!’ the staggering duel ended inconclusively and the potential mass-murderer’s body could not be found.

Colan & Colletta reunited for ‘Two Flew Over the Owl’s Nest!’ as Daredevil returned to San Francisco in search of reconciliation with Natasha only to blunder into the latest criminal enterprise of one of his oldest enemies.

This time however The Owl isn’t waiting to be found and launches an all-out attack on the unsuspecting DD and the Widow.

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

With Gerber moving on, a little messy creative shuffling resulted in ‘Circus Spelled Sideways is Death!’ (#118 by Gerry Conway, Heck & Colletta) as Daredevil left Natasha, resettled in New York and promptly battled the infamous Circus of Crime and their latest star turn – a bat-controlling masked nut called Blackwing – after which Tony Isabella took the authorial reins with a clever piece of sentimental back-writing in ‘They’re Tearing Down Fogwell’s Gym!’ rendered by Brown & Heck.

As Murdock negotiates a plea deal for Candace, the man who trained his boxer father comes by with a little problem. It seems a crazy crooked doctor is offering an impossible muscle and density boosting treatment that can turn ordinary pugilists into unstoppable monstersâ€¦

Daredevil #120 then began an extended story-arc which focussed on the re-emergence of the world’s most powerful secret society.

‘â€¦And a Hydra New Year!’ (Isabella, Brown & Colletta) saw the Black Widow hit New York for one last attempt to make the relationship work only to find herself – with Matt and Foggy – knee-deep in Hydra soldiers at a Christmas party.

The resurgent terrorist tribe has learned that America’s greatest security agency needs to recruit a legal expert as one of their Board of Directors and, determined to prevent the accession of ‘Foggy Nelson, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D’ at all costs, have dispatched the formidable El Jaguar and an army of thugs to stop him before he can start.

Thankfully Nick Fury and his crack commandos arrive in time to drive off the attackers but the rumour is true and Foggy is now a marked manâ€¦

Both issues #120 and 121 were supplemented by text pages outlining the convoluted history of Hydra and they’re reprinted here too to keep us all in the arcane espionage loopâ€¦

The new organisation has scoured the ranks of the criminal classes – and Marvel’s back catalogue – for its return and the likes of Dreadnought, Commander Kraken, Man-Killer, Mentallo, The Fixer, Blackwing and many other golden oldies happily toil for the enigmatic new Supreme Hydra as he continually strives to take out the increasingly harried Foggy. Eventually they succeed in capturing the portly DA and Natasha goes off the deep end in #122’s ‘Hydra-and-Seek’, turning New York into an active war-zone as she hunts for clues, culminating in a brutal showdown and ‘Holocaust in the Halls of Hydra!’

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

‘In the Coils of the Copperhead!’ by Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Colan & Klaus Janson courted the controversial gritty realism then remaking Batman over at DC Comics as the Widow finally really and truly walked out on DD, leaving the frustrated hero to bury himself in the mystery of a murdering madman overreacting to petty crime and leaving a trail of bodies behind himâ€¦

Foggy meanwhile was up for re-election and losing on all counts to the too-good-to-be true Blake Tower but Matt couldn’t offer any help as he had tracked down the secret of the vigilante. The resultant clash didn’t go the Scarlet Swashbuckler’s way, however, and he started issue #125 with the terrifying realisation that ‘Vengeance is the Copperhead!’ (Wolfman, Brown & Janson) before achieving a last-minute skin-of-the-teeth hollow victoryâ€¦

The marvellous monochrome tome also includes unseen preliminary covers to issues #104, 107 & 115 by Gil Kane and Jim Starlin plus Marvel Universe Handbook pages giving the low-down on the Man without Fear, technical specs on his handy Billy-Club and the convoluted official intelligence on the Black Widow.

As the social upheaval of the 1960sand early 1970s receded, the impressively earnest material was gradually being replaced by fabulous fantasy tales which strongly suggested the true potential of Daredevil was in reach. These beautifully illustrated yarns may still occasionally jar with their heartfelt stridency, naivety and often-outdated attitudes but the narrative energy and sheer exuberant excitement of these classic adventures are delights no action fan will care to miss.

â€¦And the next volume heads even further into dark shadows and the grimmest of territoryâ€¦
Â© 1973, 1974, 1974, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

January 31, 2013January 30, 2013

Secret Warriors volume 1: Nick Fury, Agent of Nothing

By Brian Michael Bendis, Jonathan Hickman, Stefano Caselli (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851- 3864-8

Just as the 1960s espionage fad was taking off, inspired by the James Bond films and TV shows like Danger Man, Nick Fury the spy debuted in Fantastic Four #21 (December 1963 – between #4 and 5 of his own blistering battle mag), a grizzled and cunning CIA Colonel lurking at the periphery of big adventures, craftily manipulating the First Family of Marvel superheroes.

He was already the star of the little company’s only war comic: Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, an improbable and decidedly over-the-top, raucous and wild WWII series similar in tone to later movies such as The Magnificent Seven, Wild Bunch or The Dirty Dozen.

When spy stories went global in the wake of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. the elder iteration was given a second series (in Strange Tales #135, August 1965) set in the then-present. Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. combined Cold War tension and sinister schemes of World Conquest by hidden, subversive all-encompassing enemy organisation Hydra – all gift-wrapped with captivating Kirby-designed super-science gadgets and explosive high energy.

Once iconic imagineer Jim Steranko took charge, layering in a sleek, ultra-sophisticated edge of trend-setting drama, the series became one of the best and most visually innovative strips in America – if not the world.

When the writer/artist left and the spy-fad faded, the whole concept simply withdrew into the background architecture of the Marvel Universe, occasionally resurfacing in new series but increasingly uncomfortable to read as the role of spooks â€œon our sideâ€ became ever more debased in a world where covert agencies were continually exposed as manipulative, out-of-control tools of subversion and oppression.

In 1989 a six issue prestige format miniseries reinvigorated the concept. As a company targeting the youth-oriented markets, Marvel had experienced problems with their in-house clandestine organisation. In most of their other titles, US agents and â€œthe Fedsâ€ were now usually the bad guys and author Bob Harras used this theme as well as the oddly quirky self-referential fact that nobody aged in comic continuity to play games with the readers.

Fury had discovered that everybody in his organisation had been â€œturnedâ€ and was now an actual threat to freedom and democracy. His core beliefs and principles about leading â€œthe Good Guysâ€ betrayed and destroyed, he went on the run, hunted by the world’s most powerful covert agency with all the resources he’d devised and utilised now turned against him.

After that story was resolved S.H.I.E.L.D. was reinvented for the 1990s: a new leaner organisation, nominally acting under UN mandate, soon pervaded the Marvel Universe. The taste of betrayal and those seeds of doubt and mistrust never went away thoughâ€¦

Following a number of global crises – including a superhero Civil War – Fury was replaced as S.H.I.E.L.D. director. His successor Tony Stark proved to be a huge mistake and after an alien invasion by Skrulls, the organisation was mothballed: replaced by the manically dynamic Norman Osborn and his cultishly loyal H.A.M.M.E.R. outfit.

Osborn’s ascent was an even bigger error. As America’s Director of National Security the former Green Goblin and recovering psychopath instituted a draconian â€œDark Reignâ€ of oppressive, aggressive policies which turned the nation into a paranoid tinderbox. AsAmerica’s top Fed he was specifically tasked with curbing the unchecked power and threat of the burgeoning metahuman community.

This spectacularly poor choice was, however, also directing a cabal of the world’s greatest criminals and conquerors intent on divvying up the planet between them. The repercussions of Osborn’s rise and fall were felt throughout and featured in many series and collections throughout the entire fictive universe. His brief rule also drastically shook up the entrenched secret powers of the planet and his ultimate defeat destabilised many previously unassailable empiresâ€¦

Fury, a man driven by duty, fuelled by suspicion and powered by a serum which kept him vital far beyond his years, didn’t go away. He just went deep undercover and continued doing what he’d always done – saving the world, one battle at a time. Even after Osborn was gone, Fury stayed buried, preferring to fight battles his way and with assets and resources he’d personally acquired and builtâ€¦

This beguiling and complex superspy thriller collects material from Dark Reign, New Nation and Secret Warriors #1-6 from 2008, beginning with a short recap of the current global crises, a gathering of heroic strangers and a reaffirmation of Captain America’s maxim that a few good men can change the world in ‘I Will Be the One Man’â€¦

Fury had long known that to do the job properly he needed his own resources and no political constraints. Thus he had clandestinely built up his own formidable and unimpeachable resources. Decades in charge at S.H.I.E.L.D. provided him with mountains of data on metahumans from which he compiled â€œCaterpillar Filesâ€ on a host of unknown, unexploited, untainted potential operatives who might metamorphose into powerful assetsâ€¦

With the nations and covert organisations in disarray he moved to fix the mess with a squad of dedicated super-human operatives. But it was a truly dangerous game, as evidenced by the fact that one of Fury’s most valued but volatile assets is the 12-year old son of Grecian war-god Ares. Phobos is destined to become the new god of Fear…

Yo Yo Rodriguez AKA Slingshot, Sebastian Druid, Jerry â€œStonewallâ€ Sledge, J.T. â€œHellfireâ€ James and Daisy Johnson, codenamed Quake, were his first picks, dubbed Team White and activated whilst Osborn was still in power.

Simultaneously battling both Hydra and H.A.M.M.E.R. forces whilst rendering a defunct S.H.I.E.L.D. facility useless to both agencies, the squad picked up valuable intelligence in ‘Come with Me and Save the World’, prompting Fury to break into the White House and apprise the new President of his intentions and the current status quo.

At no stage did he ask for permission or approvalâ€¦

He kept the worst of the intel to himself. For most of his career S.H.I.E.L.D. had been no more than a deeply submerged asset of Hydra and all his victories nothing more acceptable losses for a secret society reaching back to ancientEgyptand which had been secretly steering the world for millennia.

Now Osborn and the Skrull invasion had shaken things up so much, Fury had an honest chance to truly wipe out the perfidious organisation foreverâ€¦

‘Autofac’ then provides all the maps, data files and diagrams any conspiracy nut could ever need to untangle the web of assorted secret agencies, before ‘My Desire is Eternal’ shifts focus to the recent past when current Hydra supremo Baron Wolfgang von Strucker battled Skrull infiltrators.

In the months that followed, Hydra too was attacked, seemingly destroyed, but now Strucker sought to capitalise on the chaos and regenerate the cult in his own image, necessitating seizing all fallow assets, technology and even experienced operatives abandoned by friends and enemies alikeâ€¦

As Team White slowly grew closer Strucker was recruiting breakaway factions of Hydra, unhappily marrying super-science and generational cabals with ancient magic. This rabid rapid expansion did however give Fury an opportunity to place one of his own deep within the organisationâ€¦

Now as Strucker creates a new hierarchy of deadly lieutenants – Viper, Madame Hydra, Kraken, Silver Samurai, The Hive and resurrected mutant ninja the Gorgon – Fury cautiously expands his own organisation, reaching out to old S.H.I.E.L.D. comrades he feels worthy of trust. It’s too little and too late. In ‘After a While You Simply Are What You Are’ finds Team White taking their first casualty and experiencing their biggest defeat when Daisy leads the squad against Gorgon as his forces attempt to kidnap an entire division of forcibly â€œretiredâ€ S.H.I.E.L.D. telepaths from the defunct and discredited Esper Agent section.

With the situation escalating, Druid and field-leader Daisy are sent to the Australian Outback to recruit a replacement for Team White from Fury’s Caterpillar Files. Meanwhile the old man himself goes to his oldest surviving friends for help and Phobos and J.T. rashly snoop in the secretive leader’s office and find something quite incredible in ‘It’s the World That’s Changed: I Haven’t Not One Bit’.

When S.H.I.E.L.D. was shut down, second-in-command Dum-Dum Dugan gathered up his most trusted fellow agents and veterans and went private, founding the Howling Commandos Private Military Company. Warriors to the last, they’ve been looking for one last good war and a proper way to die.

As they are reacquainting themselves with their old boss, in Australia Daisy and Druid find unexpected success with the extraordinarily powerful but oddly naÃ¯ve mystical teleporter and reality shaper Eden Fesi but realise that’s only because his mentor Gateway wouldn’t let him go with the guys from Hydraâ€¦

As Strucker’s cabal laid their plans and continued to accrue men and materiel, Fury and the Howling Commandos moved to secure some heavy armaments of their own, sneak attacking The Dock – a H.A.M.M.E.R. base where the mothballed fleet of colossal flying fortresses known as Heli-Carriers were stored.

Sadly Hydra knew they were coming and took the opportunity to lay an ambush of their own. With Fury swiftly losing beloved comrades and the three-way battle going against his veteran forces, things looked bad until Team White chose to disobey orders and teleported in for a blockbusting rescue mission in ‘Summon the Horde Wake the Beast’â€¦

As the surviving Commandos escaped with three Heli-Carriers, the Secret Warrior put Daisy through a terse debrief, and she ferociously defended herself, claiming Team White only broke protocol and disobeyed orders because Fury pressed his Panic Buttonâ€¦ Something he claims didn’t happenâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

This excellent exercise in tense suspense and Machiavellian manipulation also includes a stunning ‘Cover gallery’ by Jim Cheung to supplement the wry, engagingly cynical, blackly comical and gloriously excessive cloak-and-dagger conflicts: employing enough intrigue to bamboozle even the most ardent espionage aficionado, although I fear that a thorough grounding in Marvel continuity might be necessary to fully appreciate this intense and engaging effort to the full.
Â© 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

January 29, 2013January 28, 2013

Marvel Masterworks volume 36: Golden Age Marvel Comics 1-4

By Carl Burgos, Bill Everett, Paul Gustavson, Ben Thompson & others (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-7851-1624-9

Whereas a vast percentage of DC’s Golden Age archive is still readily readable today, a great deal ofÂ Marvel Comics’ Timely and Atlas output is, for most modern tastes, dated and quite often painfully strident – maybe even offensive to 21^st century eyes and sensibilities.

Nevertheless, I’d rather have the raw historical form rather than any bowdlerised or censored reworking and even in their most jingoistic and populist excesses there are usually individual nuggets of gold amidst the shocking or – horror of horrors – badly crafted yarns from the House of Ideas’ antediluvian antecedents.

Moreover, there’s quite a lot to be said for putting the material in lavish and expensive hardbound volumes for those early comic adventures and I must admit that when they were good the individual efforts were very good indeed.

Marvel took quite some time before producing expensive deluxe volumes featuring their earliest comic adventures and this collection of the first four issues of the anthology title which started it all for Timely/Marvel/Red Circle/Atlas (before eventually settling on Marvel Comics), despite re-presenting some of the most revered adventures of the Golden Age, clearly shows why.

Perhaps I’m being overly harsh and hyper-critical: I have to admit that there’s a lot of material here that I spent much of my early life lusting after. I am however a complete comics nut with broad tastes and flexible standards. There are shameful horrors and truly pitiful examples of the medium lurking in my dusty comics boxes. I am not a new, casual or particularly discriminating punter.

Hi â€“ I’m Win and I actually adore old comicsâ€¦

After a rather shaky start in 1936, the invention of Superman paved the way for explosive expansion and saved the fledgling comicbook industry. By 1939 the new kids on the block were in a frantic flurry of creative frenzy and every publisher was trying to make and own the Next Big Thing. The Goodman pulp fiction outfit leapt into the new marketplace and scored big with their initial offering Marvel Comics: released late in the year before inexplicably switching to the marginally less euphonious Marvel Mystery Comics with the second issue.

During the early days ofAmerica’s Golden Age, novel ideas, raw ambition and sheer exuberance could take you far and, as most alternative means of entertainment escapism for kids were severely limited, it just wasn’t that hard to make a go of it as a comicbook publisher. Combine that with a creative work-force which kept being drafted, and it’s clear to see why low and declining standards of story and art didn’t greatly affect month-to-month sales during the years of World War II.

However once hostilities ceased a cascade-decline in super-hero strips began almost as soon as GI boots hit US soil again. Those innocent kids had seen a lot and wanted something more than brashness, naivety and breakneck pace from their funnybooks nowâ€¦

Both The Human Torch and Sub-Mariner quickly won immediate favour with the burgeoning, fickle readership but the rest of the stories were soon acknowledged to be pure filler material and thus subject to immediate replacement. Still, two out of seven was pretty good: Action and Detective Comics only had the one super-star apieceâ€¦

Another holdover from the pre-comics phase of the company was a predilection to treat the instalments as serial chapters; always promising more and better if you’d just come back next monthâ€¦

Before the years was out the â€œBig Twoâ€ would clash; frequently and repeatedly battling like elemental gods in the skies above the cityâ€¦

Goodman seemed to favour and push Ka-Zar and The Angel: characters that devolved from his own stable of pulp genre stars. Sadly neither the generic jungle adventures of the company’s premiere Tarzan knockoff or the thud-and-blunder â€œCrime-busting Rogueâ€ potboilers – which owed so much to Charteris’ iconic Saint – just didn’t appeal to kids as much as the graphic histrionics of the anarchic Fire and Water anti-heroes when transformed into comic stripsâ€¦

An editorial policy of rapid expansion was quickly adopted: release a new book filled with whatever the art and script monkeys of the comics â€œshopâ€ (freelance creative types who packaged material on spec for publishing houses: Martin Goodman bought all his product from Lloyd Jacquet’s Funnies Inc.) dreamed up, keep the popular hits and disregard everything else.

Timely Comics – or Red Circle- as the company occasionally called itself, had a huge turnover of characters who only made one or two appearances before vanishing, never to be seen again until variously modern revivals or recreations produced new improved versions of characters such as Angel, Ka-Zar or Electro.

After a knowledgeable and informative – although perhaps tad apologist – introduction by Golden Age Guru Roy Thomas, the hot-dogging begins with the landmark Marvel Comics #1 which sported a cover by pulp illustrator Frank R. Paul introducing to the gasping populace Carl Burgos’ landmark conception of ‘The Human Torch’ â€¦

The Fiery Fury led off the parade of wonderment, bursting into life as a malfunctioning humanoid devised by Professor Phineas Horton. Igniting into an uncontrollable blazing fireball whenever exposed to air, the artificial innocent was consigned to entombment in concrete but escaped to accidentally imperil the metropolis until it/he fell into the hands of a gangster named Sardo.

When the crook’s attempts to use the android as a terror weapon dramatically backfired the hapless newborn was left a misunderstood fugitive – like a modern day Frankenstein’s monster. Even his creator only saw the creation as a means of making filthy moneyâ€¦

The opening episode of ‘The Angel’, by Paul Gustavson, owed a criminally large debt to the 1938 Louis Hayward film The Saint in New York. Although dressed like a superhero, the do-gooder was a blend of Charteris’s iconic well-intentioned scoundrel and The Lone Wolf (Louis Vance’s urbane two-fisted hero who was the subject of 8 books and 24 b-movies between 1917 and 1949), but the four-colour paladin’s foes soon tended towards only the spooky, the ghoulish and the just plain demented.

He also seemed able to cast a giant shadows in the shape of an angel. Not the greatest aid to cleaning up the scum of the Earth but he seemed to manage in this initial enterprise where he is asked to clean up New York: then suffering from the deadly depredations of a crime syndicate dubbed ‘the Six Big Men’â€¦

Appalling reproduced in this volume, ‘The Sub-Mariner’ by Bill Everett, was actually an expanded reprint of a beautiful black and white strip from Motion Picture Funnies.Â Prince Namor was the scion of an aquatic race that lived under the South Pole. These advanced folk had been decimated by American mineral exploration a generation previously, and the Sub-Mariner’s mother Fen had been dispatched to spy upon the invaders. She had gotten too close, falling pregnant by one of the interlopers, and twenty years later her son was an amphibious mutant superman determined to exact revenge on the air-breathers – which he promptly began by attacking New York Cityâ€¦

Cowboy Jim Gardley was framed by ruthless cattle-baron Cal Brunder and found the only way to secure a measure of justice was to become ‘The Masked Raider’, dispensing six-gun law. Al Anders’ Lone Ranger riff was competent but uninspired, lasting until the twelfth issue of Marvel Mystery.

Offering a complete thrill, ‘Jungle Terror’, by Tohm Dixon, followed gentlemen explorers Ken Masters and Tim Roberts (visually based on Caniff’s Pat Ryan and Terry Lee) battling savages in the Amazon to find cursed diamonds before a brief prose vignette – a staple of early comics – recounted a racing car drama of ‘Burning Rubber’ by Ray Gill, before the aforementioned ‘Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great’ saw Ben Thompson adroitly adapt Bob Byrd’s pulp novel King of Fang and Claw to strip form. In the first part South African diamond miner John Rand and his wife crashed their plane into the Belgian Congo where their son David grew up amidst jungle splendour and became brother to the King of Lions Zar. An idyllic life was only marred years later when murderous explorer Paul De Kraft killed old John, leaving young David to seek vengeance as the mighty brother of lionsâ€¦

Behind a Claire Moe Angel cover, the abruptly re-titled Marvel Mystery Comics #2 (December 1939) again offered ‘The Human Torch’ by Burgos, wherein the fiery fugitive had attained a degree of sophistication and control before stumbling onto a murderous racing car racket where gangster Blackie Ross ensured his drivers always won by strafing other contestants from an airplane, until the big-hearted, outraged Torch stepped inâ€¦

Gustavson then despatched ‘The Angel’ to Hong Kong to save museum researcher Jane Framan from falling victim to a curse.

This time the dangers of the Lost Temple of Alano proved to be caused by greedy men not magical spirits, whilst ‘The Sub-Mariner’ himself was the threat in Everett’s second chapter as the Marine Marvel went berserk in a city powerhouse before showing his true colours by chivalrously saving a pretty girl caught in a conflagration.

‘The Masked Raider’ by Anders broke up an entire lost town of outlaws, after which the debuting ‘American Ace’ by Paul Lauretta (clearly patterned on Roy Crane’s soldier of fortune Wash Tubbs) found Yankee aviator Perry Wade flying straight into danger when the woman who caused the Great War returned to start WWII by attacking innocent European nations with her hidden armiesâ€¦

‘The Angel’ then starred in an implausible, jingoistic prose yarn by David C. Cooke illustrated by Moe, single-handedly downing a strafing ‘Death-Bird Squadron’ before Thompson introduced fresh perils – including a marauding malicious ape named Chaka to plague young David in more ‘Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great’.

Marvel Mystery Comics #3 (January 1940 and sporting an Angel cover by Alex Schomburg) saw ‘The Human Torch’ slowly evolving into a recognisable superhero series as he battled a ruthless entrepreneur trying to secure the formula for a super-explosive so that he could sell it to Martians, whilst ‘The Angel’ battled a bloodthirsty death-cult sacrificing young women, before ‘The Sub-Mariner’ took a huge leap in quality after policewoman Betty Dean entrapped and then successfully reasoned with the intractably belligerent sub-sea invader.

With global war looming ever closer, opinions and themes were constantly shifting andEverettreacted brilliantly by turning Namor into a protector of all civilians at sea: spectacularly preying on any war-like nation sinking innocent shipping. Naturally, even before America officially joined the fray, that meant mostly Nazis got their subs and destroyers demolished at the antihero’s sinewy handsâ€¦

When gold and oil where discovered under ranch land, ‘The Masked Raider’ stepped in to stop greedy killers from driving off the settlers in a timeless tale of western justice, but current events overtook the ‘American Ace’, who faded out after this tale of Blitzkrieg bombings, in a picturesque Ruritanian nation. Even Cooke & Everett’s text thriller ‘Siegfried Suicide’ was naming and shaming the Axis directly now in a yarn where a lone yank saved a bunch of French soldiers from German atrocity, but under African skies the ‘Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great’ saw the boy hero rescue his animal friends from a well-meaning zoo hunter in a yarn which revealed hints of a Jungle Book style congress of animalsâ€¦

The final inclusion in this volume – Marvel Mystery Comics #4, February 1940 – has a Schomburg cover depicting Sub-Mariner smashing a Nazi U-Boat leading into another Burgos epic for ‘The Human Torch’ wherein the android gains a secret identity as Jim Hammond and returns to New York to battle a criminal genius terrorising the city with warriors cloaked in deadly, sub-zero ‘Green Flame’.

‘The Angel’ too was in the Big Apple, grappling with a small-time hood who had manipulated a monstrous hyper-thyroid case named ‘Butch the Giant’ – impervious to pain and able to punch through brick walls – into being his slavish meal ticket, whilst ‘The Sub-Mariner Goes to War’ saw the passionate Prince return to his Polar people and rally them and their advanced technology into a taskforce to enforce his Pax Namor upon the surface world’s assorted war mongersâ€¦

Even by its own low standards, ‘The Masked Raider’ tale of claim-jumping was far from exemplary, but prose crime puzzler ‘Warning Enough’ (by Cooke & H. Ramsey) was a rather enthralling change of pace tale.

‘Electro, the Marvel of the Age’ by Steve Dahlman, introduced the brilliant Professor Philo Zog who constructed a wonder robot and then formed a secret society of undercover operatives who sought out uncanny crimes and great injustices for the automaton to fix. The first case involved retrieving a kidnapped child actressâ€¦

Another debut was ‘Ferret, Mystery Detective’ by Stockbridge Winslow & Irwin Hasen, which saw the eponymous crime writer and his faithful assistants solve the case of a corpse dropped on the authors doorstep, before the increasingly impressive ‘Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great’ saw the return of the despised De Kraft and the beginning (but not the end: that’s frustratingly left to the next issue and volume) of the jungle lord’s just vengeanceâ€¦

Despite all the problems I’ve whinged about, I’m constantly delighted with this substantial chronicle, warts and all, but I can fully understand why anyone other than a life-long comics or Marvel fan would baulk at the steep price-tag in these days of grim austerity, with a wealth of better quality and more highly regarded comics collections available. Nevertheless, value is one thing and worth another and the sheer vibrant, ingenious rollercoaster rush and vitality of the material, even more than its historical merit, is just so overwhelming that if you like this sort of thing you’ll love this sort of thing. Although the stories might be of variable quality and probably not to the tastes of modern fans, for devotees of super-heroes, aficionados of historical works and true Marvel Zombies there’s still lots to offer here.

As always, in the end, it’s up to youâ€¦
Â© 1939, 1940, 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

January 28, 2013January 27, 2013

Gorilla-Man

By Jeff Parker, Jason Aaron, Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Giancarlo Caracuzzo, Jack Kirby, Bob Powell, Bob Q. Sale & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4911-8

Apes have long fascinated comics audiences, and although Marvel never reached the giddy heights of DC’s slavish and ubiquitous exploitation of the Anthropoid X-factor, the House of Ideas also dabbled in monkey madness over its long years of existence.

This slim mixed-bag of a tome gathers newer adventures of happily hirsute hero Ken Hale – gregarious Gorilla-Man of resurrected 1950s super-group pioneers Agents of Atlas – culled from the eponymous 2010 three-issue miniseries and supplemented with pertinent material from Avengers vs. Atlas #4, X-Men First Class #8, plus assorted earlier interpretations of Ape Avengers culled from the company’s back catalogue of anthology horror and mystery titles: specifically Men’s Adventures #26, Tales to Astonish #28 and 30 and Weird Wonder Tales #7.

What you need to know: the Agents of Atlas comprise rejuvenated 1950s super-spy Jimmy Woo and similarly vintaged superhuman crusaders Namora (Sub-Mariner’s cousin), spurious love-goddess Venus, a deeply disturbing unhuman Marvel Boy from Uranus, primitive wonder-robot M11 and the aforementioned anthropoid avenger. As the Atlas Foundation, these veterans surreptitiously fight for justice and a free world as the nominal leaders of a clandestine crime-cult which still thinks it’s being patiently guided towards the overthrow of all governments. The real power behind the organisation however is a terrible mystical dragon named Laoâ€¦

The modern mainstream saga concentrates on ‘Ken Hale, the Gorilla-Man: The Serpent and the Hawk’ – from Jeff Parker & Giancarlo Caracuzzo – by exploring the anthropoid adventurer’s origins following a particularly bizarre battle against spidery cyborg Borgia Omega.

In search of another action-packed mission, Hale spots a familiar face on an Atlas â€œwanted posterâ€ and heads for Africa, flashbacking his past for us along the way.

Missouri, 1930 and a visiting big-shot spots something in a poor orphan kid holding his own against seven bigger boys who picked the wrong dirt-grubber to bullyâ€¦

J. Avery Wolward was a millionaire man-of-intrigue with interests all over the globe and for the next decade little Kenny became his companion and partner in a series of non-stop escapades that would make Indiana Jones green with envy. Ken learned a lot about life and loyalty, eventually discovering that Wolward owed much of his success to a mystical snake walking stick.

Now that cane is in the hands of an African crime-lord calling himself Mustafa Kazun who is well on the way to stealing an entire country and building an empire of bloodâ€¦

Each issue of the miniseries was augmented by comedic faux email conversations between Hale and his social networking fans, which delightfully act here to buffer the transitions between modern menace and reprinted monkey mystery tales.

The first of these is ‘It Walks Erect!’ taken from 1974’s Weird Wonder Tales #7 (which itself rescued the yarn from pre-Comics Code Mystery Tales #21(September 1954).

The story (by an unknown author and illustrated by the brilliant Bob Powell) concerns compulsive rogue surgeon Arthur Nagan whose obsession with brain transplants took a decidedly outrÃ© turn when his gorilla test-subjects rebelled and wreaked a darkly ironic revenge upon himâ€¦

Slavish fanboys like me might remember Nagan as the eventual leader of arcane villain alliance The Headmenâ€¦ but probably notâ€¦

Hale’s origin resumes as he and local agent Ji Banda are attacked by Kazun’s enslaved army, but that doesn’t stop the simian superman describing how a clash with Wolward’s arch-rival Bastoc to recover an ancient bird talisman in Polynesia led the then-full-grown soldier-of-fortune to split with his mentor and enlist in the US military just before Pearl Harborâ€¦

By the time the war ended Wolward was gone and the magnate’s daughter Lily had inherited both the family business and the walking stickâ€¦

After another message-board break, the classic ‘I Am the Gorilla Man’ (from Tales to Astonish #28 February 1962, by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) revealed how criminal genius Franz Radzik developed a mind-swapping process so that he could use a mighty ape’s body to commit robberies.

Sadly the big brain forgot that, with its personality in a human body, the anthropoid might have its own agenda and plenty of opportunityâ€¦

The conclusion of ‘The Serpent and the Hawk’ then sees Hale link up with a tribe of gorillas to overturn Kazun’s schemes and unlock the secret of the stick, even as his mind is firmly replaying his bad marriage to Lily, subsequent decline into drunken dissolution, recruitment by the arcane Mr. Lao, and eventual confrontation with the previous Immortal Gorilla-Manâ€¦

The role is an inherited one and a curse. To kill the undying Gorilla is to become him, and the previous victim had by this time had enough. Even after Hale refused to end the creature’s torment, it relentlessly followed him until it could trick the drunken mercenary into taking on the curseâ€¦

However, after linking up with 1950s heroes like Jimmy Woo and Venus, Hale found it truly liberating grew to accept his new statusâ€¦

Thus when Kazun’s true identity is revealed and the weary adventurer offered a permanent if Faustian cure, Gorilla-Man makes the only choice a true champion canâ€¦

A final text presentation precedes Lee, Lieber, Kirby & Ayers’ ‘The Return of the Gorilla Man’ (from Tales to Astonish #30, April 1962) wherein Radzik, still locked in a gorilla’s body, escapes captivity and frantically attempts to prove to scientists how smart he is.

Big mistakeâ€¦

Further insight into Hale is provided by ‘My Dinner with Gorilla-Man’ by Jason Aaron & Caracuzzo from Avengers vs. Atlas #4, as a desperate man with nothing to lose hunts down the ageless anthropoid, intent on fulfilling the ageless equation: â€œKill the Gorilla and live foreverâ€â€¦

This is followed by a glorious romp from X-Men: First Class #8. ‘Treasure Hunters’ by Jeff Parker & Roger Cruz finds the debut generation of Xavier’s mutants – Cyclops, Angel, Beast, Iceman and Marvel Girl – hunting for their missing teacher in the Congo. Along the way they encounter a talking gorilla who becomes their guide, inadvertently pulling reclusive hermit Hale out of a decades-long funkâ€¦

This collection concludes with the seminal supernatural suspense thriller which first introduced ‘Gorilla Man’ to the world. Again by an anonymous writer (possibly Hank Chapman) and illustrated by the wonderful Robert (â€œBob Qâ€) Sale, this evocative chiller from Men’s Adventures #26 (March 1954) offers a far grittier take on the origin as a man terrified of dying and plagued by nightmares of fighting apes hears a crazy legend and heads for Kenya and an inescapable, horrific destinyâ€¦

Also included is a selection of 21^st century covers by Dave Johnson, Leonard Kirk, Dave McCaig, Gabrielle Dell’Otto, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado & Marko Djurdjevic, with the vintage frontages represented by Jack Kirby, Larry Lieber and Dick Ayers.

Outrageous, over the top and never taking itself seriously, this is a riot of hairy scary fun-filled frolics and a perfect antidote to po-faced Costumed Dramas.
Â© 1954, 2007, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

January 27, 2013January 25, 2013

The Incredible Hercules: the New Prince of Power

By Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente, Ariel Olivetti, Paul Tobin, Reilly Brown, Jason Paz, Terry Pallot, Zach Howard, Adam Archer & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4370-3

Comicbook Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas are serious business – but they don’t have to be.

There are too few light-hearted adventure comics around for my liking. Have readers become so sullen, depressed and angst-ridden that it takes nothing but oceans of blood and devastating cosmic trauma to rouse them?

Let’s hope not since we all adore a modicum of mirth with our mayhem, and let’s be honest, there are lashings of sheer comedic potential to play with when men-in-tights Â – or in the Lion of Olympus’ case, a very short skirt and leather bondage-leggings – start hitting each other with clubs and cars and buildings.

The contemporary Marvel iteration of Hercules first appeared in 1965’s Journey into Mystery Annual #1, wherein Thor, God of Thunder fell into the realm of the Greek Gods and ended up swapping bombastic blows with the happy-go-lucky but easily-riled Hellenic Prince of Power in the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby landmark ‘When Titans Clash! Thor Vs. Hercules!’

Since then the bombastic immortal warrior has bounced around the Marvel Universe seeking out other heroes and heated fisticuffs as an Avenger, Defender, Champion, Renegade, Hero for Hire and any other super-squad prepared to take the big lug and his constant, perpetual boozing, wenching, bragging and blathering about the â€œGood Old Daysâ€â€¦

In recent years Herc got a good deal more serious, becoming a far more conventionally po-faced world-saver and even found himself a protÃ©gÃ© – don’t call him â€œsidekickâ€ – in keen teen Amadeus Cho, notionally the Seventh Smartest Person on Earth.

This deliciously wicked and engaging collection, gathering often inappropriate and simultaneously stirring and uproarious contents of Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #1-2 and the follow-up 4-issue miniseries Heroic Age: Prince of Power from 2010, is actually the prequel to a larger epic event but self-contained enough and so entertaining that readers won’t mind or feel short-changed.

The drama unfolds in the aftermath of the mighty man-god’s apparent death with the aforementioned ‘Hercules: Fall of an Avenger’, by writers Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente with art by Ariel Olivetti, as many of the Gods and mortals touched by the life of the departed legend gather at the Parthenon for a wondrous wake to memorialise his passing.

Athena now rules the gods ofOlympus and turns up stylishly late as the gathering share personal tales of the departed legend.

Whilst the he-man heroes such as Thor, Bruce Banner, Skaar, Son of Hulk, the Warriors Three, Wolverine, Angel, and Sub-Mariner dwell on their comrade’s fighting spirit, the women such as Namora, Black Widow, Inuit goddess Snowbird and Alflyse, Queen of the Dark Elves prefer to share fond reminiscences of his other prowess – despite the blushes of the congregation.

However just as Cho prepares to speak his own thoughts, Athena and the remaining Hellenic Pantheon materialise and announce the boy is to be the new commander of the globe-spanning corporation known as the Olympus Group, becoming the next Prince of Power to act as the god’s representative on Earthâ€¦

Before Amadeus can react, Athena’s decree leads to a minor rebellion in her own ranks as Apollo challenges her and the assemblage degenerates into another epic brawl. Cho doesn’t care and uses the distraction to act on a suspicion that Hercules is not actually dead. His search of Hades, however, proves fruitlessâ€¦

One of the smartest humans alive, Amadeus acquiesces and takes control of the Olympus Group to further his own agenda, but makes no secret of his dislike and mistrust of Athenaâ€¦

Further repercussions of Hercules’ demise are seen when Namora and fellow Agent of Atlas Venus (a seductive Greek Siren, only recently promoted to actual love goddess) are dispatched by Athena to set the Man-God’s earthly affairs in order. Over the millennia the big-hearted, happy warrior accrued vast wealth and used it to set up businesses, trusts, foundations and charities, but now the Queen of Olympus wants to absorb the profitable ones and shut down the lame ducks.

As they track down his holdings and inform administrators of the situation, the grieving wonder women uncover an unsuspected ‘Greek Tragedy’ (by Paul Tobin, Reilly Brown & Jason Paz) on a lost Greek island – a cash-sucking black hole of an orphanage caring for children who just happen to be the innocent spawn of the many monsters Hercules slew in his voyages.

How then can Namora and Venus obey the dictates of the hard-hearted Athena and still honour the spirit of their soft-hearted former loverâ€¦?

‘Heroic Age: Prince of Power’ (Pak, Van Lente, Brown, Zach Howard, Adam Archer & Pallot) then occupies the major portion of this chronicle following the progress of Cho as he settles into the uncomfortable role of divine Prince of Power and mortal Chairman of the Board. His first order of business is to divert vast funds into searching the multiverse for Herculesâ€¦

Athena’s driving motivation for recruiting Amadeus is that an Age has passed on Earth: where once brute strength was the defining characteristic of the era, the Modern Age is subject to the force of intellect. The new Prince of Power must reflect the reliance on Reason and Intelligence, especially since a long-prophesied â€œGreat Chaosâ€ is comingâ€¦

A cosmic congress of pantheons convenes to select a mortal to lead the fight against the on-coming threat and, after much debate, Athena gets her way: clever kid Amadeus Cho is expected to save the entirety of creationâ€¦

On Earth the unsuspecting and intolerably obnoxious seventeen-year-old is dealing with lesser problems whilst working towards his own ultimate goal – rescuing Hercules from wherever he’s goneâ€¦

The most pressing of these daily duties is defeating mutated maniac the Griffin and saving an amusement park from becoming lunch, just the latest in a procession of monsters acting as vanguards for the approaching Chaos Kingâ€¦

Another problem is that he’s had to lock up his girlfriend Delphyne – Queen of the Gorgons – for trying to assassinate Athena, so when Vali Halfling (son of Asgardian god of Evil Loki) comes calling offering the secret of ultimate divine power, the distracted Cho is understandably intrigued, although not enough to fall for the trickster’s devious schemeâ€¦

The vile demigod wants to gather mystical elements from assorted pantheons (Greek, Norse, Egyptian and Hindu) to create a potion that will deliver ultimate divine power and enable the upstart kids to eliminate all other deities, but Cho isn’t fooled and rather than fall for a dishonest alliance he sets out to beat Vali to the ingredients – Hellenic Ambrosia, the Apples of Idunn, the Book of Thoth and Moon-cup of Dhanvantari. The race commences in ‘Blasphemy Can be Fun’ and, after pausing for ‘The Origin of Hercules’ by Van Lente, Ryan Stegman, Michael Babinski, continues with Cho’s one-man invasion of Asgard in ‘Valhalla Blues’.

The neophyte Prince of Power has no idea that he’s been played, and whilst clashing with former idol Thor for the Apples his rival already possesses, Halfling and his super-powered human Pantheon invades and seizes control of the Olympus Group headquarters to grab the Nectar of the Godsâ€¦

After a spectacularly pointless battle Thor and Cho unite to stop Vali, heading to the EgyptianLandof the Dead to grab the Book. Again they are too late and their outrageous clash with cat-goddess Sekhmet in ‘Our Lady of Slaughter’ only allows Halfling to come closer to his ultimate goal.

With the old gods on the back foot and Athena close to death, the fate of Cho’s people falls to the furious and lethally ticked off Delphyneâ€¦

It all comes to a shattering close in ‘Omnipotence for Dummies’ as Cho ultimately and brilliantly outwits everybody, wins ultimate power, retrieves Hercules from his uncanny fate and promptly surrenders all his divine might to the returned Man-god. He has to: the Chaos King has arrived to annihilate All Of Reality and the situation demands a real heroâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With covers and variants by Olivetti, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado, Khoi Pham, Carlo Pagulayan, Paz, Peter Steigerwald, Salva Espin & Beth Sotelo plus pages of character designs by Brown, this bombastic, action-packed thriller also offers scenes of genuine tear-jerking poignancy and hilarious moments of mirth (the tale is especially stuffed with saucy moments of the sort that make grandmothers smirk knowingly, and teenaged boys go as red as Captain America’s boots). An absolute joy for older fans, this epic is also a great example of self-contained Marvel Magic, funny, outrageous, charming and full of good-natured punch-ups.

This is a rare but welcome instance of the company using the continuity without unnecessarily exposing newcomers to the excess baggage which may deter some casual readers from approaching long-running comics material, and if you’re looking for something fresh but traditional, you couldn’t do better than this superb slice of modern mythology.
Â© 2010 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

January 25, 2013January 24, 2013

Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign

By Jeff Parker, Carlo Pagulayan, Gabriel Hardman, Benton Jew, Leonard Kirk, Clayton Henry & various (Marvel)

ISBN: 978-0-7851-4126-6

After the unprecedented explosion of mystery men characters during American comics’ Golden Age, the end of the 1940s saw a gradual decimation of colourful costumed marvels and the rise of genre heroes in adventure, war, western, crime, science fiction and horror titles. Fighting a rising tide, Timely Comics struggled on with the mask-and-cape crowd for quite a while; even creating new characters such as Namora (Sub-Mariner’s sexy, super-powered cousin), immortal love-goddess Venus and juvenile outer space crusader Marvel Boy, but nothing really caught the public’s attention.

In the mid-1950s the company, now known as â€œAtlasâ€, tried to revive their ‘Big Three’ – and super-heroes in general – on the back of a proposed Sub-Mariner television series, hoping to cash in on the success of the monumentally successful Adventures of Superman TV show.

This led to some impressively entertaining tales, but no appreciable results as the Atlantean anti-hero, the Human Torch and Captain America briefly returnedâ€¦ and just as rapidly disappeared again when theHollywood deal fell through.

When this last gasp of super-heroic shenanigans failed, the publisher once again concentrated on humour, romance and more-or-less straight adventure anthologies with the accent strongly on weird monsters, invading aliens and robotic rogues. They never stopped exploring that fantasy hero niche however, and hooded, cloaked cowboys like Apache Kid, Black Rider or Outlaw Kid and mysterious masked warriors such as the Black Knight occasionally popped up to keep the flame alive. In 1957 the little company came closest to a full revival of flamboyantly garbed wonders by creating a full-on super-villain for genre G-Men to battle.

The best of the industry’s many knock-offs of Sax Rohmer’s legendary archetype of evil Fu Manchu, The Yellow Claw menaced Freedom and Democracy in the days of Commie technological supremacy and imminent invasion by Sputniks. He was regularly thwarted by the bold endeavours of Chinese American FBI agent Jimmy Woo but he too peaked and faded too soonâ€¦

Once DC’s Showcase unleashed the Flash and the Silver Age kicked off, the 1960s saw a resurgence in costumed characters and Marvel reinvented itself and finally brought back its Golden Trio in one form or anotherâ€¦

Then in June 1978 with a concrete character continuity fully established, avowed Fifties-ophile and Marvel Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas retroactively introduced a team of heroes culled from those misfiring experiments in the alternate realities book What If?

Volume 1, #9 asked ‘What If The Avengers Had Fought Evil During the 1950s?’ (by Don Glut, Paul Kupperberg & Bill Black), and although non-canonical then, the concept slowly filtered into fans’ group consciousness and over the decades a team that never existed were gradually assimilated into mainstream Marvel Historyâ€¦

Now official canon, it was revealed that Woo and a scratch team of contemporary super-characters briefly and clandestinely clashed with the Claw and other unearthly menaces in 1958 before being shut down by the US government. Their heroics unsung and unremarked, the team broke up and was forgottenâ€¦

Retooled and updated for the more cynical modern audience the Agents of Atlas formally debuted in 2006 when Jimmy Woo, now an aging agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., began investigating the mysterious Atlas Foundation and found it was a front for his greatest and most unforgiving enemy. Through circumstances best left to another review, Jimmy was severely injured, but eventually revived and rejuvenated to the prime of life by his old comrades Namora, Venus, vintage wonder-robot M11, immortal anthropoid avenger Gorilla-Man and the deeply disturbing Marvel Boy from Uranus whose incredible science restored Jimmy to full vitality.

Together they defeated the Claw’s ultimate plans before assuming control of his organisation, planning to subvert the evil empire from the top down and use its awesome reputation to dismantle from within other covert threats to world peace and security â€¦

Before they could begin, however, they had to clean up the myriad messes and malevolences perpetrated by the Atlas Foundation and all without letting the public – and the burgeoning superhero community – that there had been any change in the criminal corporation’s goals or methodsâ€¦

This surreptitious sea-change had begun just as the Skrulls’ Secret Invasion culminated in a world-wide crisis, the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the rise to power of Norman Osborn who, as America’s new Chief of Homeland Security, instituted a Dark Reign of draconian oppression using co-opted super-villains and a new personally controlled paramilitary force dubbed H.A.M.M.E.R.â€¦

During his Dark Reign, the former Green Goblin and recovering madman – through means fair and foul – officially worked to curb the unchecked power and threat of meta-humanity, all whilst secretly operating a cabal of major super-villains and dictators intent on divvying up the planet between them. The repercussions of Osborn’s rise and fall were felt throughout and featured in many series and collections covering the entire fictive universe.

Scripted throughout by Jeff Parker this canny collection gathers Agents of Atlas #1-5, a previously electronic adventure of Wolverine: Agent of Atlas from Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited and material from Dark Reign: New Nation, Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust?, and Giant-Size Marvel Adventures Avengers #1; tales spanning 2007 to 2008.

It begins with ‘The Heist’ illustrated by Carlo Pagulayan, Jason Paz & Jana Schirmer from Dark Reign: New Nation wherein the newly appointed Emperor Woo has his team raid Fort Knox to â€œreclaimâ€ billions in bullion with the simple intention of getting the attention of and proving their criminal credentials to Security Czar Osborn.

No one but Woo knew the former Goblin had planned to appropriate the gold himself to buy an illicit weapons system for his private useâ€¦

The full story commences in ‘First Contact’ as the Atlas agents step up the high profile pressure by stealing confiscated weapons from the ATF and forcing Osborn to deal with them personally – and by deal Woo means â€œcollaborateâ€â€¦

Even as the Security Supremo enters into an underworld alliance with Atlas, he’s looking to betray them, but Woo’s team are distracted by the politics of the evil empire they’ve secretly subverted when their long-term plans are threatened by the forced installation of a deputy leader who is still honestly dedicated to world domination.

The true power behind the globe-girdling organisation is an immortal, immensely powerful dragon named Lao, and so, with no other option, Woo’s crew cautiously welcome the Mandarin’s son Temugin to their inner circle, knowing that should he learn of their true goals the entire Atlas Empire will turn on them in a heartbeatâ€¦

Even whilst providing information and materiel to Osborn’s people the veteran heroes are uncovering more secrets about Atlas; such as how the organisation’s unique method of teleportation transport harks back to one of their most perplexing unsolved cases from 1958 in ‘The Sale/Dragon’s Corridor’ (with additional art by Gabriel Hardman, Elizabeth Dismang & Clayton Henry)â€¦

‘Interlude at Sea’ further unravels the ancient avengers’ occluded history as Osborn at last bites and agrees to fill all his armament requirements through the Atlas Foundation’s weapon makers. However as the mutually suspicious partners meet in a ship offshore, the meeting is crashed by a certain Star Spangled Sentinel of Liberty, who has his own memories of working with Gorilla-Man during WWII and ‘Inside America’â€¦

Woo’s subtle scheme to defang Osborn culminates in luring the Avengers (Captain America, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Ronin, Ms. Marvel and Spider-Man) into attacking Atlas’ weapons ship, capturing all the ordnance intended for the duplicitous top cop and hopefully exposing Osborn to public scrutiny whilst bolstering Woo’s own reputation as a major crime-lord. It worked too, but almost went completely awry when M-11, reacting to some long buried program, went berserk and inexplicably attacked the mutant Avengerâ€¦

The answer to the mystery came with the flashback feature ‘Wolverine: Agent of Atlas’ illustrated by Benton Jew & Dismang, which saw FBI operative Woo infiltrate Cuba in 1958 accompanied by the robot and Gorilla-Man only to encounter an alien invasion by parasitic mind-bending bugs. In stopping the infestation they were helped and hindered in equal measure by an implausible Canadian secret agent named Loganâ€¦

Next up here ‘The Resistance’ by Leonard Kirk, Karl Kesel & Michelle Madsen from Invasion: Who Do You Trust? revealed the key role played by the modern-day Agents of Atlas in repelling and overcoming the insidious occupation of the scurrilous shape-shifters who almost conquered our worldâ€¦

Inter-dimensional realm-hopping and terrifying time-warping were the order of the day in the team-up tale from Giant-Size Marvel Adventures Avengers #1 (Leonard Kirk & Val Staples) wherein 40^th century despot Kang attempted to destroy his greatest foes by altering history and having Woo, Venus, Marvel Boy, M-11, Namora and Gorilla-Man dig Captain America out of the ice in 1958, years before the Avengers were destined to rescue him.

In a desperate race against time itself Cap, Storm, Iron Man, Giant-Girl, Wolverine & Spider-Man had to work fast with the Atlas Agents’ contemporary selves before reality caught up with and overwrote them all in a rousing, light-hearted romp that ends this clever and enjoyable Fights ‘n’ Tights thriller on a delirious high note.

Augmenting the cunning Costumed Dramas area wealth of covers and variants by Kirk, Terry Pallot, Chris Sotomayor, Art Adams & Guru eFX, Greg Land & Justin Ponsor, Adi Granov, Stuart Immonen & John Rauch, Billy Tan & Frank D’Armata, Daniel AcuÃ±a, Phil Jimenez, Andy Lanning & Christina Strain as well as a host of pencil sketches and roughs by Ed McGuiness, giving art lovers a delicious bonus every bit as absorbing as the splendid comics story magic that preceded them.

January 24, 2013January 23, 2013

Essential Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos

By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, George Roussos, Frank Giacoia, Steve Ditko & Chic Stone (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6395-4

Grizzled super-spy Nick Fury debuted in Fantastic Four #21 (December 1963): a grizzled and cunning CIA Colonel at the periphery of big adventures, craftily manipulating the First Family of Marvel superheroes just as the 1960s espionage vogue was taking off, inspired by the James Bond films and TV shows like Danger Man.

What was odd about that? Well, the gruffly capable everyman was already the star of the little company’s only war comic, set twenty years earlier in (depending on whether you were American or Europeanâ€¦) the middle or beginning of World War II.

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, an improbable, decidedly over-the-top and raucous combat comics series, similar in tone to later movies such as The Magnificent Seven, Wild Bunch or The Dirty Dozen, had launched in May of that year and although Fury’s later self became a big-name star when espionage stories went global in the wake of TV shows like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the elder iteration was given a second series beginning in Strange Tales #135 (August 1965).

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. combined Cold War tensions with sinister schemes of World Conquest by subversive all-encompassing hidden, enemy-organisation Hydra: all with captivating Kirby-designed super-science gadgetry and, later, iconic imagineering from Jim Steranko whose visually groundbreaking graphic narratives took the art form to a whole new level.

For all that time, however, the wartime version soldiered on (sorry: puns are my weapon of choice) combining a uniquely flamboyant house-bravado style and often ludicrous, implausible, historically inaccurate, all-action bombast with moments of genuine heartbreak, unbridled passion and seething emotion.

Sgt. Fury seems to be a pure Jack Kirby creation. As with all his various combat comics, The King made everything look harsh and real and appalling: the people and places all grimy, tired, battered but indomitable.

The artist had served in some of the worst battles of the war and never forgot the horrific and heroic things he saw – and more graphically expressed in his efforts during the 1950s genre boom at a number of different companies – but even at kid-friendly, Comics Code-sanitised Marvel, those experiences perpetually leaked through onto his powerfully gripping pages.

This first massive monochrome compendium features the contents of Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1-23 (from May 1963 to 1965) plus the new material from the largely reprint Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos King Size Annual #1 from 1965, opening as you’d expect with the blistering premier issue introducing ‘Sgt. Fury, and his Howling Commandoes’ (that’s how they speled it in the stoary-title – but knot ennyware else) by Lee, Kirby & inker Dick Ayers. Bursting with full page panels the tale was interrupted by ‘Meet the Howling Commandos’ – a double-page starring the seven members of First Attack Squad; Able Company, namely Fury himself, former circus strongman/Corporal â€œDum-Dumâ€ Dugan and Privates Robert â€œRebelâ€ Ralston (a jockey), young student Jonathan â€œJuniorâ€ Juniper, jazz trumpeter Gabriel Jones, mechanic Izzy Cohen and glamorous movie star Dino Manelli.

Controversially – even in the 1960s – this combat Rat Pack was an integrated unit with Jewish and Negro members as well as Catholics, Southern Baptists andNew Yorkwhite guys all merrily serving together. The Howling Commandos pushed envelopes and busted taboos from the very startâ€¦

The first mission was a non-stop action romp putting the squad through their various paces as the ragged band of indomitable warriors put paid to hordes of square-necked Nazis as they saved D-Day by rescuing a French resistance fighter carrying vital plans of the invasion, and they even brought back a high-ranking â€œkrautâ€ prisoner. The epic issue even included a Kirby fact-page comparing six different side-arms of the period in ‘Weapons of War’â€¦

Issue #2 found the‘7 Doomed Men!’ up to their torn shirts in Germans as they firstÂ infiltrated a French coastal town to blow up a U-Boat base and got back to England just in time to be sent on a suicide mission. This time it was to destroy a secret facility at Heinemund in the heart of the Fatherland where Nazi scientists were doing something nefarious with â€œhard waterâ€â€¦

These overblown fustian thrillers always played fast and loose with history and logic, so if you crave veracity above all I’d steer clear, but if you can swallow a heaping helping of creative anachronism there’s always great fun to be had here – especially since nobody drew atomic explosions like The Kingâ€¦

The drama was then topped off with more fact pages as ‘The Enemy That Was!’ explored the capabilities of German Infantryman whilst ‘Weapons of War: â€œChatter Gunsâ€ of World War II’ tells everything you need to know about submachine gunsâ€¦

Rough and ready gallows humour and broad comedy became increasingly important to the series from #3 onwards with home base rivalries and wry comradely sparring leavening the outrageous non-stop action of the missions. ‘Midnight on Massacre Mountain!’ found the squad explosively invading Italy to rescue a US army division caught in a Nazi trap. Along the way they met a brilliant OSS officer training partisan troops, and Fury thought that young Reed Richards would go farâ€¦

This issue was supplemented by a fascinating feature revealing what ordnance and hardware cost in ‘America’s World War II Shopping List!’

‘Lord Ha-Ha’s Last Laugh!’ in #4 began a long stint of embellishment by George Bell (AKA old Kirby studio-mate George â€œInkyâ€ Roussos) and introduced a love interest for the Sarge when he met Red Cross volunteer Lady Pamela Hawley during an air raid in London. How strange and tragic was fate then, that the Howlers’ very next mission took them toBerlin to kidnap a young British nobleman with the same name, acting as a crucial propaganda mouthpiece for the Wehrmacht…

The mission was a double disaster. Not only did Pamela’s ignoble brother perish but the debacle also cost the life of the youngest Howlerâ€¦

‘Weapons of War: Combat Rifles of World War II’ then ended this shocking, surprisingly grim and low-key melodramaâ€¦

Fury’s appearance in FF#21 – not included here – was released between that issue and #5, but no mention was made of it when the dark and cunning yarn introduced one of Marvel’s greatest villains. ‘At the Mercy of Baron Strucker’ saw Fury humiliated and defeated in personal combat against an Aryan nobleman and filmed footage used as a propaganda tool of the Nazis, until Dino pointed out how the nonplussed noncom had fallen for the oldest trick in Hollywood’s playbookâ€¦

The riotous rematch went rather better after which ‘Weapons of War: Light Machine Guns of World War II’ ended things in a graphically educational manner, whilst ‘The Fangs of the Desert Fox!’ in #6 dumped the Squad in the desert to tackle the hordes of General Rommel in a mission foredoomed to failâ€¦

‘The Court-Martial of Sergeant Fury’ provided a glimpse at the hard-bitten hero’s past and offered insights into his tempestuous relationship with his immediate superior Captain Samuel â€œHappy Samâ€ Sawyer. Of course to get that information we had to watch Fury endure a dramatic trial after seemingly sabotaging a mission and striking a commanding officerâ€¦

Although he continued to draw the magnificent eye-catching covers, Kirby left the title with this issue. His astounding abilities were more profitably employed in the superhero titles, even as Lee began consolidating the ever expanding Marvel Universe by utilising more WWII iterations of contemporary characters.

‘The Death Ray of Baron Zemo!’ in #8 pitted the Howlers against a Captain America villain recently debuted in The Avengers as Ayers & Roussos ably depicted the team’s attempts to capture the Nazi scientist and a weapon that could shape the outcome of the entire war. The tale also introduced Junior Juniper’s replacement: a rather fruity caricature of a Brit named Percival Pinkerton, who sported horn-rimmed specs, pencil moustache, Fuschia beret and impossibly utilitarian umbrellaâ€¦

In #9 the impossible ‘Mission: Capture Adolf Hitler!’ went awry when the Howlers’ invasion of Berlin again brought Fury face-to-face with Wolfgang von Strucker; leading to temporary capture and an astounding escape whilst ‘On to Okinawa!’ in #10 saw them achieve greater success when despatched to the Pacific to rescue a captured US colonel from the Japanese.

This tale also saw the debut of a bearded bombastic submarine commander who would become a series regular before eventually winning his own series (Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders) in 1967.

The pace had certainly slowed and melodrama and subplots increased by #11 and ‘The Crackdown of Capt. Flint!’ saw Happy Sam briefly replaced by a spit-and-polish officer who soon learned the limitations of his ways, whilst in #12 a raid on a V1 factory prompted Dino to join the Nazis ‘When a Howler Turns Traitor!’ It was just a trick though, but nobody told the American commander who stuck the star in front of a firing squadâ€¦

This issue also included a Marvel Masterwork Pin-up of Fury by Ayers.

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #13 is arguably the best issue of the entire 167 issue run and the title says why. ‘Fighting Side-by-Side withâ€¦ Captain America and Bucky!’ reunited Lee, Kirby & Ayers in a blistering battle yarn as the Howlers crossed paths with the masked Sentinels of Liberty after both teams stumble across a top secret Nazi operation to build an invasion tunnel under the channel to England. To resort to the terms of the times: â€œWah-Hoo!â€â€¦

Ayers & Bell were back in artistic control in #14 as harassed Adolf Hitler ordered the creation of a Nazi answer to Fury’s elite attack force. All ‘The Blitzkrieg Squad of Baron Strucker!’ had to do was lure the Howlers to a V2 rocket base and spring their trapâ€¦ Yeah, that was allâ€¦

Weapons of War: also returned here with all the gen on the ‘B-26 Martin Marauder’ whilst in #15 Steve Ditko stepped in to ink Ayers in ‘Too Small to Fight, Too Young to Die’ wherein a mission in Holland to destroy the dykes and flood the occupation forces went drastically wrong. The Howlers â€œfledâ€ back to Britain with nothing but a broken-hearted boy named Hans Rooten – who had no idea that his quisling father was in fact the Allies’ top spy in the regionâ€¦

The boy became the men’s mascot but couldn’t come with them when they flew to Africain #16 to eradicate yet more Nazi super-weapons in ‘A Fortress in the Desert Stands!’ (illustrated by Ayers & Frank Giacoia using the pseudonym Frankie Ray), after which it was only a short camel-ride south until they encountered natives and Nazis engaged in a battle of Hearts and Minds ‘While the Jungle Sleeps!’ (by Ayers & Colletta).

All this time the chalk-and-cheese relationship between Nick and Pam Hawley had been developing to the point where he was ready to propose. That all ended in #18 when, whilst the unit was busy sinking a German battleship in a Norwegian port, she was ‘Killed in Action!’ (Ayers & Chic Stone).

Crushed and crazy, Fury went AWOL in the next issue, ruthlessly hunting down the leader of the bomber flight which had targeted the hospital she worked in before extracting ‘An Eye for an Eye!’ in a satisfyingly shocking story sensitively rendered by Ayers & Giacoia.

A far grimmer Fury was still in the mood for cathartic carnage in #20, so when ‘The Blitz Squad Strikes!’ found the German Kommandos invading a Scottish castle filled with imprisoned Nazi airmen, he and Howlers were happy to lead the mission to retake it.

In the next issue a long running rivalry with First Attack Squad; Baker Company again resulted in fisticuffs before being interrupted by another rescue mission ‘To Free a Hostage!’ (inked by Golden Age legend Carl Hubbell, as was the next issue).

However, even after scientist and daughter were reunited, the beef with B Company didn’t diminish and when both units were dispatched to sabotage the oil refinery at Ploesti the defending forces captured everybody. When the gloating Nazis tried to get Fury and his opposite number to kill each they quickly learned ‘Don’t Turn Your Back on Bull McGiveney!’ and even Strucker’s Blitz Squad couldn’t stem the devastating destruction that followedâ€¦

The final WWII exploit herein is the Giacoia-inked saga of ‘The Man Who Failed!’ as a trip to Burma to rescue nuns and orphans resulted in the shameful revelation of True Brit Percy Pinkerton’s past, also offering a close insight into why our upper lips are so stiffâ€¦

This combat compendium concludes with the 15 page lead story from Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos King Size Annual #1 (1965) as the Howlers were called up and mustered to the 38^th Parallel to defend democracy from Communist aggression. This particular escapade found them rescuing Colonel Sam Sawyer and resulted in Fury winning a ‘Commission in Korea!’ and at last becoming a Lieutenant in a stirring story by Lee, Ayers & Giacoia before pictorial features ‘A Re-introduction to the Howlers’, ‘A Birds Eye View of HQ, Able Company – Fury’s Base in Britain’, ‘Combat Arm and Hand Signals’ and a 2-page ad feature for the hero’s super-spy iteration as ‘Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ wraps everything up in Marvel’s military fashion.

Whereas close rival DC increasingly abandoned the Death or Glory bombast at this time in favour of humanistic, almost anti-war explorations of war and soldiering, Marvel’s take always favoured action-entertainment and fantasy over soul-searching for ultimate truths. On that level at least, these early epics are stunningly effective and galvanically powerful exhibitions of the genre. Just don’t use them for history homework.
Â© 1963, 1964, 1965, 2011 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

January 20, 2013January 20, 2013

Fantastic Four by Waid & Wieringo Ultimate Collection Book 3

By Mark Waid & Mike Wieringo, with Howard Porter, Norm Rapmund, Karl Kesel & Paul Smith (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5657-4

The Fantastic Four is widely regarded as the most pivotal series in modern comics history, introducing both a new style of storytelling and a strikingly fresh manner of engaging readers’ imaginations and attention. The heroes are felt by fans to be more family than team and, although the roster has temporarily changed many times over the years, the line-up always inevitably returns to the original core group of maverick genius Reed Richards, wife Sue, trusty friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s younger brother Johnny; all survivors of a privately-funded space-shot which went horribly wrong when Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

After crashing back to Earth, the quartet found they had all been hideously mutated into outlandish freaks. Richards’ body became astoundingly elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible and project force-fields, Johnny could turn into living flame, and poor, tormented Ben was transformed into a horrifying brute who, unlike his comrades, could not reassume a semblance of normality on command.

This particular compilation gathers issues #503-513, highlighting more of the spectacular run by writer Mark Waid and much-missed illustrator Mike Wieringo, gloriously celebrating their â€œback-to-basicsâ€ approach which utterly rejuvenated the venerable property, beginning in 2003.

Waid’s greatest gift is his ability to embed hilarious moments of comedy into tales of shattering terror and poignant drama, but that’s sensibly suppressed here for the story-arc ‘Authoritative Action’ (illustrated by guest artists Howard Porter & Norm Rapmund) which sees the team return to Latveria following their spectacular defeat of Dr. Doom (for which see Fantastic Four by Waid & Wieringo Ultimate Collection book 2).

Arguably the most dangerous man alive, their arch foe was also supreme ruler of the tiny Balkan nation, his deadly inventions and ruthless reputation holding his subjects in an all-enveloping security cocoon whilst simultaneously keeping at bay every country surrounding the Ruritanian holdover.

Now, with the Iron Dictator gone,Hungaryis only the first of a dozen states seeking to forcibly annexe the territory and seize Doom’s lethal arsenal of technological terrorsâ€¦

Maimed and potentially crazy following that fateful final clash, Reed has brought the FF back to the kingdom to keep the far-from-grateful citizens safe until the Latverians themselves can decide their future. Unfortunately the responsibility-wracked Reed Richards has neglected to inform the United Nations and his own government of this arbitrary action. In the eyes of the world it looks like the heroes have simply staged a coupâ€¦

Most Latverians are equally suspicious. To them their aloof, autocratic, media-controlling former ruler was a paternalistic despot who provided a paradise free from hunger, crime and strife with all the benefits of full employment and cradle-to-grave healthcareâ€¦

As the team break into Doom’s castle they find his robots removing their master’s creations and Reed orders his increasingly uneasy comrades to stop them, destroy the trash and store any devices that might be useful. They are even more disturbed when their leader hangs their logo from a flagpole and tells them that the team is staying to run the countryâ€¦

The deed precipitates an international crisis and the UN calls in super-spy Nick Fury (leader of the organisation’s peacekeeping force S.H.I.E.L.D.) to take charge asHungary,Serbia and Symkaria all mobilise their armies to take back â€œtheirâ€ territory.America too is incensed, fearing the FF’s actions will be construed as Yankee imperialism.

In the beleaguered principality Reed is clearly losing it. All his efforts to show the people what a monster Doom was go awry and he is slowly uniting the culture-shocked citizens against him. Even his devoted friends and family have their doubts – at least until Richards uncovers Doom’s hidden nuclear arsenal and underground intercontinental missile baseâ€¦

Resorting to a media blitz, Reed opens Doom’s Fortress to the Latverians but only succeeds in provoking a suicide attack by ultra-nationalists, even as the UN issues an ultimatum: unless the FF vacate the country within 48 hours a â€œCoalition of the Willing’ comprising 39 nations including Russia and China, will declare war on them and America, liberating Latveria – and Doom’s arsenalâ€¦

In the postage-stamp kingdom, Ben and Johnny, frightened that Reed’s recent traumas have tipped him over the edge, try to negotiate with the Latverian resistance before the situation worsens, but are caught in a police sweep of deadly Doombots controlled by the now clearly insane Mr. Fantasticâ€¦

With Fury compelled to lead the coalition to proveAmerica’s innocence, Reed finally drives away his family just as the massed armies utterly surrounding the kingdom attack. But of course he has always had a plan. It involved plucking Doom from the torments of Hell and exacting a truly horrific and proper punishment upon the dictator and himself, but it’s all ruined when Sue, Ben and Johnny return to save him, allowing the dictator’s soul to escape and possess the Fantastic Four…

Even after that debacle is successfully concluded, Doom dispatched back to Hell and Latveria finally free to chart her own course, the FF are international pariahs awaiting trial for treasonâ€¦

The battle also cost Ben’s life.

The team return to America in ‘Hereafter’ (illustrated by the returning Wieringo & Karl Kesel) which saw the ultimate inventor push his intellect to the limits of imagination and create a device to take Richards – and his unbelieving wife and brother-in-law – to Heaven and bring Ben backâ€¦

Spectacular and truly cosmic in scope, this bold tribute to the unlimited imagination of Jack Kirby acts as an inspirational re-set button for the series and this volume ends with a bunch of far lighter tales celebrating the team’s past and highlighting that comedy touch Waid, Wieringo & Kesel were famed for.

Fantastic Four #512 and 513 led with a 2-part action romp ‘Spider Sense’ as in the wake of the Latveria incident, self-promoting â€œplayaâ€ Johnny Storm went wild after his old frenemy Spider-Man surrendered (after five straight years) the title of â€œNew York’s Least Eligible Batchelorâ€ to the Human Torchâ€¦

Unable to handle the prospect of being unpopular Johnny became even more unconsciously obnoxious, demanded satisfaction of the arachnid avenger and got into a battle at a water park that deprived him of his confidence, his dignity and his pants – and that was before the hilariously Z-list villain Hydro-Man attackedâ€¦

This outrageous exploration of super-heroic Bromanticism was supplemented by a brace of superb and gently affectionate short stories rendered by the masterful Paul Smith. ‘Gone Fishin” peeked into the restored relationship of Reed and Sue as both dwelt upon old potential paramours, whilst the last teamed the Invisible Woman and her husband’s college girlfriend Alyssa Moy in a telling time-travel yarn which disturbingly hinted thatÂ some things were ‘Best Left Forgotten’â€¦

With a full cover gallery by Tony Harris & Tom Feister, Wieringo & Karl Kesel

and Paul Mounts, this power-packed primer also includes

Superbly entertaining, immensely exciting and genuinely challenging, this run of tales was a sublime renaissance for the â€œWorld’s Greatest Comics Magazineâ€ and this collection also includes bonus material comprising deleted scenes, the ‘E-mail Exchange’ resulting from the proposal to go political and also add God to the list of luminaries who have guest-starred in the series, notes of the art tribute to Kirby in #511 and unused pencil art and promotional designs.

Utterly absorbing, top quality Fights ‘n’ Tights mastery from some of the greatest creators in modern comics, this is another book no aficionado should ignore â€¦

January 16, 2013January 20, 2013

Amazing Spider-Man: Grim Hunt

By Joe Kelly, Fred Van Lente, Zeb Wells, J.M. Dematteis, Phil Jimenez, Michael Lark, Marco Checchetto, Phillippe Briones, Max Fiumara & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4618-6

Outcast, geeky school kid Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, after seeking to cash-in on the astonishing abilities he’d developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy. His beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered and the traumatised boy determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in dire need. For years the brilliant young hero suffered privation and travail in his domestic situation, whilst his heroic alter ego endured public condemnation and mistrust as he valiantly battled all manner of threat and foeâ€¦

During this continuous war for the ordinary underdog, Parker has loved and lost many more close friends and familyâ€¦

Following a particularly hellish period when a multitude of disasters seemed to ride hard on his heels and a veritable army of old enemies simultaneously resurfaced to attack him (an overlapping series of stories comprising and defined as â€œThe Gauntletâ€), Parker’s tidal wave of woes was revealed to be the culmination of a sinister, slow-building scheme by the surviving family of one of his most implacable foes – and one who had long been despatched to his final reward.

Of course in comics death is far from The Endâ€¦

Collecting material in whole or in part from Amazing Spider-Man Extra! #3, Web of Spider-Man #7, Amazing Spider-Man #634-637 and the Grim Hunt Digital Prologue (cherry-picked from 2009-2011) this powerful and portentous tome opens with ‘Gauntlet Origins: Kraven – Bride of the Hunter’, written by Fred Van Lente and illustrated by Phillippe Briones, and reveals how decades ago, Russian Ã©migrÃ© Sergei KravinoffÂ – AKA Kraven the Hunter – met fellow refugee expatriate Aleksandra â€œSashaâ€ Nikolaevna and began a tempestuous relationship which took them together to the wildest corners of the earth. So drawn to each other were the bloodthirsty pair that not even inherited madness, paternal bonds and the laws of god or man could keep them apartâ€¦

‘Loose Ends’ (from Amazing Spider-Man Extra! #3 and by Phil Jimenez) is preceded by a text catch-up page revealing how years after the Russian’s’ death (See Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt), two successors and a third pretender to the name emerged. This latest was a psychotic 12-year old girl claiming to be the Hunter’s daughter and arguably the most dangerous creature the Wall-crawler had ever faced.

In a classic case of mistaken identity, Ana Kravinoff carefully trailed the Arachnid Avenger to his home but subsequently captured and tortured Parker’s roommate Vin Gonzales before escaping. Now, as Spider-Man finally finds her, the explosive, inconclusive confrontation results in more questions, extensive property damage but no real resolutionâ€¦

‘Grim Hunt Prologue’ (Joe Kelly, Michael Lark & Stefano Gaudiano) commences the main event as Ana and Sasha are revealed to behind the prolonged Gauntlet of foes Spider-Man had recently faced. Moreover the driven Kravinoffs have also been targeting other Arachnoid champions, kidnapping clairvoyant Madame Web and latest Spider-Woman Mattie Franklin. As the weakened, near-exhausted Parker enjoys a rare moment of relaxation in the park, he is assaulted and tormented by an impossible psychic vision of death and worse awaiting him and all he lovesâ€¦

The full drama unfolds next (from Amazing Spider-Man #634-637, crafted by Kelly, Zeb Wells, Michael Lark, Marco Checchetto & Stefano Gaudiano) – as secondÂ son Alyosha Kravinoff gloats over the grave of his dead brother Vladimir. There he is found and recruited by Sasha and Ana. They are planning something impossibly crazy in honour of the departed clan headâ€¦

Across town Peter is woken from a troubled sleep by the warped outlaw Kaine – a last surviving Spider-Man clone created by crazed geneticist Miles Warren from Parker’s stolen cells. The formidably terrifying former thug has been brutally beaten and warns Parker that something is hunting all the earthly avatars of the primal totemic Spider-force which actually gave the hero his powersâ€¦

Following explosions across town Spider-Man finds Julia Carpenter – the former Avenger dubbed Arachne – fighting for her life against Kravens Ana and Alyosha. Even acting in concert the web-slingers barely escape with their lives, since Parker is increasingly handicapped by psychic traumas and the incessant pounding of jungle drums only he can hearâ€¦

Whilst catching their collective breaths the heroes are approached by presumed-deceased Spider-Shaman Ezekiel Sims (see Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home) who reveals the true nature of the peril they face. At the same time the debased Kravens mercilessly sacrifice one of their Spider captives to resurrect the dead brother Vladimir. However, although risen from the grave, he is no longer even remotely humanâ€¦

A dark interlude than takes us back for an untold story of Kraven as ‘Hunting the Hunter: Adrift’ (J.M. DeMatteis & Max Fiumara) found the world-weary stalker forced to work for a cheapChicago gangster until his honour could stand it no longer. When he quit in his own spectacular manner, the infuriated mobster hired a mercenary named Kaine to teach the Hunter a lessonâ€¦

The Grim Hunt continues as Ezekiel informs Spider-Man and Arachne that the Kravens are exterminating all avatars of The Spider and that teenager AÃ±ya Corazon – a neophyte crimebuster calling herself AraÃ±a – is next. Rushing toCentral Park, the delirious, exhausted Spider-Man and his allies find her and Kaine battling Ana and the bestial Vladimir. Diving in, the battered hero is ambushed by Alyoshaâ€¦

As Parker succumbs to some hidden hoodoo deployed by the hunters, the fiendish family flee with their new prizes AraÃ±a and Arachne whilst the wounded Kaine is barely able to contain the increasingly out-of-control and out-on-his-feet original Spider-Man.

When Ezekiel suggests recruiting the monstrous arachnoid avatars Venom and Anti-Venom, Kaine refuses to go along, leaving Parker to walk into a trap organised by Kravinoff allies Mysterio and the Chameleon. The subsequent hunt and calamitous conflict results in Spider-Man’s death and his life energies are used to achieve Sasha’s ultimate goal – the mystic resurrection of her husbandâ€¦

The next flashback ‘Hunting the Hunter’ interlude is ‘A Prophecy’ (from DeMatteis & Fiumara) as Kraven and Kaine’s first clash goes badly for the debased Spider-clone before the overarching epic resumes with the revived Kraven clearly unhappy at being brought back and extremely disappointed with his far-from beloved family. As unnatural tension grips the entire city and the curs of clan Kravinoff come to blows, Kraven turns to his latest bloody trophy and reveals that the body concealed under the uniform is not Spider-Manâ€¦

When Parker revives from a drugged sleep and finds the clone’s body it is mockingly draped in the old white-on-black Spider costume, and pinned to the chest is a taunting note â€œhunt me!â€â€¦

Before the fateful, game-changing conclusion, a third ‘Hunting the Hunter’ chapter by DeMatteis, Emma Rois & Fiumara describes the savage ‘War’ between Kraven and Kaine, after which part four of the Grim Hunt follows the revenge-obsessed black clad web-spinner as he finally, terrifyingly ends the threat of the Kravinoffs and rescues the captive Spider avatarsâ€¦ or at least the last two the crazed Sasha has left aliveâ€¦

As a new normal settles on the Spider survivors this tome uses the last ‘Hunting the Hunter’ chapter by DeMatteis & Fiumara to conclude the battle between Kaine and Kraven and offers a tantalising terrifying taste of the mystic power of the Spider force in the blistering ‘Burning Bright’â€¦

Nihilistic, dark and bloody, this tale is a far cry from the Wall-crawler’s usual fare – which is not a bad thing – but suffers here from a surfeit of unaddressed backstoryâ€¦ which actually is. Nonetheless, the tale is frequently compelling and beautifully illustrated throughout so art lovers and established fans have plenty to enjoy. Moreover, the bleak and occasionally confusing Fights ‘n’ Tights thriller is graced with an abundance of art extras, covers and variants by Jelena Kevic Djurdjevic, Tom Coker, Michael Lark & Jodi Wynn, Mike Fyles, Joe Quinones, Leinil Francis Yu, Gabriele Dell’ Otto, Esad Ribic, Olivier Coipel, Mark Morales, Justin Ponsor, Michael Lark & Jodi Wynn and Marco Checchetto that will delight the eyes if not soothe those tired brain cells.

All in all, this is that oddest and most disappointing of ducks; a great story but an unsatisfactory bookâ€¦

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