Category: Mature Reading

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Masked volume 1: Anomalies


By Serge Lehman, Stéphane Créty, Julien Hugonnard-Bert & Gaétan Georges translated by Edward Gauvin (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-108-2

It’s a great time for comics science fiction, and here’s one of the best examples of the bande dessinée take on tomorrow’s worlds, courtesy of Titan Comics’ ever-expanding line of stellar European translations.

Serge Lehman is the main nom de plume of prolific and multi award-winning author Pascal Fr̩jean (F.A.U.S.T., Thomas Lestrange, Metropolis, The Chimera Brigade) whilst mercurial illustrator St̩phane Cr̩ty came relatively late to comics Рvia stints as archaeologist, warehouseman and storyboard artist Рbut has been making up for it ever since.

With Sylvain & Sandrine Cordurié he created – between 2003 and 2004 – Salem le Noire and followed up with Acriborea. He has since lent his considerable skills to graphic serials Les Fleaux d’Enharma, Hannibal Meriadec et les larmes d’Odin amongst others, replaced Guy Michel on Le Sang du Dragon and produced stellar work on assorted Star Wars titles for Dark Horse in America.

In 2011 he united with Lehman to craft a cunning and captivating chronicle set just a bit ahead of Now: a world getting progressively stranger day by day…

It all begins with a patrol of peacekeepers in the Caucasus, policing a flash-war between Russia and Georgia. When they come across a devastating robotic combat drone only Sergeant Frank Braffort and Gunner Melissa Taleb survive the staggering assault of the kill-machine. They have no idea how: twin beams of red light simply blazed down out of an empty sky to destroy it…

The event was recorded as “incident 41” and filed away in army reports to be forgotten. It wasn’t…

Now, years after being hung out to dry by his superior officers for the inexplicable debacle, Braffort is back in Greater Paris. It’s December 23rd in District One of the XIII Arrondissment and strange mechanical trinkets keep turning up on the streets to grow and die like metal flowers or plastic mayflies. The blasé natives have grown used to them and dismiss the little widgets as mere “anomalies”…

Young science student Raphaelle Braffort is mildly intrigued by the phenomenon but is more concerned by her recently returned brother’s inability to accept the changes that have occurred during his six-year absence.

Back in town for twenty-four hours and all he can focus on is anomalies, the pirate media broadcasts of the enigmatic Lightning Network and the colossal ghostly hologram of legendary masked serial killer Fantoma manifesting all over the city. What Frank should be worried about are real issues like the growing political unrest, riots, repression and the swiftly boiling-over vendetta between District One Mayor Michelle Caprice and domineering, overreaching Joel Beauregard, Special Prefect of Greater Paris…

A quiet night in is interrupted when old army buddy Victor “Rocket” Duroc pays a call and drags Frank to a job interview that will be to his advantage…

As they cruise across town in Rocket’s municipally-owned flying Renault, the former sergeant cannot believe how much has changed: street riots, anomalies, a flying skateboarder, robot giants in the Seine…

The meeting is with Beauregard himself, who has an awful lot of ex-military in his entourage for someone whose official job is modernising the city and turning it into a global capital. However, before they can get started, a terrifying new type of Anomaly savagely attacks the Special Prefect before suddenly and inexplicably turning “her” sights on Braffort…

Most disturbing of all, the assault and its brutal conclusion are broadcast live by the Lightning Network. When the dust and cogs settle Frank finally meets the big man and is offered a job on the already formidable security team, but Beauregard is holding something back and asks Braffort to meet him at a secret location later.

The ex-sergeant has no idea how closely he’s being monitored, nor the unique role he’s being groomed for, and spends the day visiting Melissa Taleb. She’s in jail for “visiting” their old commanding officer and rather physically explaining why he shouldn’t have blamed his tactical screw-up on the men who died because of it…

Later that evening Braffort arrives at a deserted building in Montmartre and is ushered into an incredible basement complex which was once the lair of super-criminal Fantoma. There Beauregard and his scientific advisor Cleo Villanova – an expert on the clearly evolving and escalating Anomalies – reveal how research into the mechanoid plague uncovered this fortress, the history of a previously unknown superhero active from 1925-1940 and an even more incredible secret: one that has been kept by every government since De Gaulle liberated the city in World War II…

The Anomalies stem from an incredibly old technological temple hidden beneath Paris, and the mysterious motivating force reacts whenever Braffort is near. It wants something from him and the ruthless politicos are going to find out what by feeding him to it…

Braffort’s transformation is sudden, explosive and astonishing, but as the reaction sets the sky afire and alerts other clandestine elements in an ancient struggle Beauregard cannot help but gloat…

To Be Continued…

Fast-paced, suspenseful, imaginative and utterly compelling, this stunning opening salvo is supplemented by faux news article ‘Metrology: All Things in (im)Moderation by Zoe Kader’ offering a potted history and technical overview of the Anomaly phenomenon complete with illustrations of the rapid evolution of the intruding artefacts.

Complex, challenging and supremely enticing, Masked promises to be an outstanding addition to the annals of unmissable French science fiction classics.
Masked and all contents © Guy Delcourt Productions 2012. Masqué volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, Lehman-Créty © Editions Delcourt -2012-2013.

Masked: Anomalies will be released on March 30th 2015 and is available for pre-order now.

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Elric volume 1: Elric of Melnibon̩ РThe Michael Moorcock Library


By Roy Thomas, Michael T. Gilbert, P. Craig Russell & Tom Orzechowski (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978 -1-78276-288-1

Here’s a bit of a dilemma. Later this week I’m going to review the second volume in Titan’s Comics’ new translated Euro-masterpiece Elric from Blondel, Cano, Telo, Recht & Poli. That ongoing drama adapts the very same short story Elric of Melniboné which was the basis of the lost comicbook classic on view today.

However as The Tempest and Forbidden Planet or Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story prove, style, interpretation and creator input are everything and both takes are equally unmissable…

As the first volume in a proposed Michael Moorcock Library of comics adaptations, this is, according to internal narrative chronology, the first tale of the doomed king, despite being one of the last adventures penned by Moorcock in the initial cycle of stories (he returned to the character years later).

As a sequential narrative the soaring saga was originally released in 1983-1984 from Pacific Comics (and later collected into a graphic novel by First Comics) and is now re-presented here in a superb hardcover tome complete with Introduction from Mr. Moorcock, plus a full cover gallery and additional art.

Adaptors Roy Thomas & P. Craig Russell had previously worked on other tales of the last Emperor of Melniboné: specifically debut tale The Dreaming City (first published in 1961) as a Marvel Graphic Novel in 1982 and 1984’s ‘While the Gods Laugh’ which featured in Marvel’s fantasy anthology magazine Epic Illustrated #14. Here they were joined by fellow enthusiast and brilliant arch-stylist Michael T. Gilbert to complete a masterpiece of decadently baroque, sinisterly effete storytelling based in large part on the dark visions of Aubrey Beardsley and Arthur Rackham.

Elric is an absolute classic of the Sword and Sorcery genre: Ruler of the pre-human civilisation of the Melnibonéans, a race of cruel, arrogant and congenitally sadistic sorcerers; dissolute creatures in a slow, decadent decline after millennia of dominance over the Earth.

Born an albino, he is physically weak and of a brooding, philosophical temperament, caring for nothing save his beautiful cousin Cymoril, even though her brother Prince Yyrkoon openly lusts for his throne. As seen in opening chapter ‘Out of the Dreaming City’ he doesn’t even really want to rule, but it is his duty, and he is the only one of his race to see the newly evolved race of Man as a threat to the Empire.

When intruders from Young Kingdoms are captured within the island’s maze defences they are interrogated in ‘Welcome to the Domain of Dr. Jest’ and reveal an imminent attack on the Dreaming City of Imrryr, capital of Empire for ten thousand years.

Provoked by Yyrkoon, physically frail Elric personally leads the response and the Fleet, bolstered by dragons and magic, easily dispatches the upstart humans, but the wily pretender seizes his chance and throws the enfeebled Emperor overboard to drown at the moment of victory.

The deeply conflicted hero believes himself happy to die but some part of his mind calls to the sea-elementals and their mighty king Straasha – bound allies and ancient friends of the Empire – to save him. When he returns to confront the usurper, Yrrkoon unleashes a demonic doomsday weapon and flees with Cymoril as his hostage.

Hidden at the ends of the Earth using the demonic ‘Mirror of Memory’ to conceal himself from all searches the usurper plans a counterattack and all Elric’s magic cannot find him. In obsessive desperation the pale Emperor swallows his pride and suspicion, pledging allegiance to Arioch, a Lord of Chaos in opposition to the Lords of Order.

The eternal see-saw war of these supernal forces is the fundamental principle of the universe or “Multiverse”. For providing the etiolated Elric with the means to find and defeat his cousin, Arioch will demand his devil’s due, but the Albino does not care…

Other allies such as Straasha are more forthcoming and less duplicitous: providing Elric with ‘The Ship Which Sails over Land and Sea’ enabling the frantic pursuer to travel to a ferocious and doom-drenched confrontation with his conniving cousin.

The voyage is fast but perilous but the final clash is delayed as Elric finds Cymoril ensorcelled to eternal sleep and Yyrkoon gone to another realm in quest of ultimate power…

Once again calling upon Arioch’s mercurial favours, Elric follows ‘Through the Shade Gate’ to dreary, dying otherwhere and meets affable exile Rackhir the Red Archer who joins him in the final stages of his pursuit, resulting in a terrifying duel with Yyrkoon holding the mighty Mournblade whilst Elric is compelled to accept his dark and foredoomed future by taking up the black blade he was born to carry in ‘At Last… Stormbringer‘.

Everything undergone, every trial undertaken and torment endured, has been orchestrated to get Elric to bring the Rune-sword, the malevolent Stealer of Souls, back to Earth and so very soon, he does… but not in the manner double-dealing Arioch intended…

The novel is an iconic and groundbreaking landmark of fantasy fiction and a must-read-item for any fan. This spectacular, resplendently flamboyant adaptation is a deliciously elegant, savagely beautiful masterpiece of the genre effortlessly blending blistering action and gleaming adventure with the deep, darkly melancholic tone of the cynical, nihilistic, Cold-War mentality and era that spawned the original stories.

You must read the book and you should own this graphic novel …and all the successive tomes to come…

Adapted from the works of Michael Moorcock related to the character of Elric of Melniboné © 2014, Michael & Linda Moorcock. All characters, the distinctive likenesses thereof, and all related indicia are ™ & © Michael Moorcock and Multiverse Inc.
The Michael Moorcock Library volume 1: Elric of Melniboné will be released on March 31st 2015 and is available for pre-order now.

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Oink: Heaven’s Butcher


By John Mueller (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-590-0

From 1995 to 2000 budding artistic talent John Mueller produced a couple of miniseries for Kitchen Sink Press which became lost classics. Two decades later and now a far more seasoned creator, Mueller has returned to his first work, tinkering, tweaking and visually remastering it into an eye-popping painted saga of depravity, oppression, rebellion and survival for a new generation of fans.

The tale is brutally simple and begins in ‘Awakenings’ as a seasoned and unrepentant killer on Death Row unburdens himself to a concerned and devout cleric…

Once upon a time in a devastated, dystopian world, a slave in Public Slaughterhouse 628 began to think and to question. He wondered especially why the hogs he carved up for his and his masters’ nourishment looked so much like him and his fellow workers.

The crushing religious dogma and vicious punishments meted out by the Warden Superior and his cruelly bullying Angels offered no answers. Neither masters nor slaves had ever heard words like “gene-splicing” or “DNA”, which had worked arcane magic creating a separate species halfway between pigs and humans…

One day however, weary old worker Spigot screamed the questions Oink had painfully learned not to… and paid a terrible price…

In his dreams Oink had a vision of a god far different from the one he had been programmed to believe in. Realising he had been made as a cog in a horrible machine he took up his slaughter axe and decided to change his world one human at a time.

Of course he soon found ways to speed up the process – such as burning down the monstrous meat factory he was reared in…

‘Lies’ found him as the only subject of conversation in the houses of the unholy where the Warden ushers Judas and his savage posse the Angels of Mercy into the sanctum of the puissant Cardinal Bacaar. That formidable ecclesiastic is in every respect the creator and guiding light of this brutal existence…

As the rebel pig-man explores the world beyond the slaughterhouse he is soon cornered by the sadistic hunters, but the Angels have never faced a fugitive like Oink before and he quickly defeats and escapes them.

His flight takes him deep into the industrialised wasteland beyond church confines where he is taken in by an old woman named Mary and her hulking maimed and mute grandson Herbert.

She had been brutally blinded by the new regime but all their tactics haven’t robbed her of the memories of how the world used to be. She begins teaching Oink of the scientific travesties Cardinal Bacaar created, but neither the vengeful rebel nor Herbert are there when Judas and the Angels burst in and end her…

Pushed beyond all reason and tantalised by truths just out of reach, Oink – with the heartbroken Herbert at his side – determines to take the battle to the technological devil priest and liberate his own people from further horror in ‘Pigs’.

The suicide raid on the Cardinal’s Birthing Factory is ruthless and appallingly effective but it is only the penultimate step. There is still Bacaar to deal with and that can only end one way…

Harsh, barbarous, oppressive and Orwellian (as much Animal Farm as 1984), the slight narrative and familiar premise here is successfully bolstered by stunning artwork from Mueller, and this anniversary edition also includes his phenomenal ‘Oink Sketchbook’ featuring dozens of images over twelve pages of pencil drawings, painted roughs, panel details and more, plus ten further pig picture portraits in the ‘Oink Pin-up Gallery’ by Mueller, Tomoslav Torjanac, Justin “Coro” Kaufman, Mica Hendricks, Jason Minauro, Brett Parson and Nate Van Dyke.
© 1995, 2015 John Mueller. All rights reserved.

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The Chronicles of Legion volume 2: The Spawn of Dracula


By Fabien Nury, Mario Alberti, Zhang Xiaoyu & Tirso translated by Virgine Selavy (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-094-8

The epic war between immortal blood-drenched brothers continues in the second translated volume of Fabien (Once Upon a Time in France, I Am Legion) Nury’s inspired reinvigoration of the Dracula legend, with illustrators Mario Alberti, Zhang Xiaoyu and Tirso Cons each allocated a separate epoch of the centuries-spanning and intertwined vendetta.

The dread duel began in 2011 as Les Chroniques de Legion: a generational saga which put a new spin on the monster-myth, and The Spawn of Dracula further unravels a triptych of mysteries…

What You Need to Know: Vlad Tepes Dracula and his brother Radu possess the power to extend their lives beyond apparent death. Their consciousnesses are carried in their blood and by transferring the potent ichor to other living beings they can possess and dominate any number of victims infinitely.

Both have lived for centuries and for all that time they have hated each other…

Here the story expands in three theatres of war with their unceasing attempts to destroy each other centred in three separate eras, but rather than disparate clashes over time and space these duels are all part of an extended and never-ending campaign of terror with mere mortals their callously disposable tools, weapons and cannon fodder…

The opening act occurs in 1885 as gambling addict and thorough swine Victor Douglas Thorpe enters the palatial home of reclusive immensely wealthy aristocratic Lord Byron Cavendish. Should the upcoming interview go well the impoverished cad will soon be heir to the largest fortune in the Empire…

The conference goes exactly as the unseen benefactor intends. When the successful applicant returns to London, he bears a strange red mark and is no longer Victor Douglas Thorpe…

Centuries earlier in 1521, Gabriella, Doña Del La Fuente bore the same scarlet sigil as she was escorted through the green hell of the New World to a meeting with powerfully placed future husband Hernan Torres.

Guided by the conquistador’s enticingly masculine mulatto bastard Martin, the Doña’s party – rough soldier, cloying Spanish priests, avaricious self-important dignitaries and her loyal bodyguard Carlos – slowly make their way through the jungles until an uncanny sense warns of danger ahead.

Seconds later they are attacked by a horde of natives who seem immune to pain and mortal harm, fighting on even after holed by musket fire or even beheaded.

Moments before her body’s imminent demise Gabriella recognises her brother’s bloodmark on an attacker’s neck and, even as faithful, steadfast Carlos comes to her rescue, Vlad realises Radu has beaten her to this new continent and made himself at home.

Miles away, seeing through the dying eyes of his puppets, the other undying scion of Transylvania screams in fear and fury…

With daylight the much-diminished party struggles on towards Torres’ citadel and half-constructed cathedral with the bride-to-be increasingly succumbing to lust as she cares for her wounded and septic future son-in-law.

Once inside the Mission she is forced back into the role of diffident contract-bride, but Hernan Torres is no easy man to love. His thoughts are solely of preserving a legacy and creating a legitimate dynasty, and her bringing more grasping priests and fanatical Inquisitors to plague him has not endeared her to the Great Man.

Reduced to the status of closeted brood-mare, Gabriella has Carlos capture a huge eagle and, by allowing it to bite her, gains a mighty avian frame from which to view the world and survey her own inexorable rise to power…

As he slowly recovers Martin too falls under her spell, but this bewitching has nothing to do with her blood…

In late 19th century England an aristocrat’s estate burns in a vast and deliberate conflagration but the new Lord has no regrets and looks only forward, never back.

In 1812 a band of deserters from Napoleon’s army have reached Targovishte. Armand Malachie has led his faithful subordinates Kholya, Stern, Hartmann and Feraud to the Wallachian Mountains in search of the Lost Treasure of Vlad Dracula Tepes but the long-suffering peasants there quickly recognise who the dashing French Hussar is carrying inside him…

When an innkeeper passes on a message from Radu, arrogant Vlad disregards it but later engages in a pointless clash with a band of Cossacks which leads to the death of his mortal host…

As his men abandon his corpse to the snows, the embarrassed immortal summons his fading strength to reanimate the cadaver and follow in search of a new meat-home…

And in 1887 Victor Douglas Thorpe attends the funeral of his so-suddenly and suspiciously deceased benefactor and is accosted by the woman who carries his unborn child. Her entreaties go unacknowledged and, as he is driven away in his livered carriage, she bitterly damns him…

To Be Continued…

Unfolding in a luxurious oversized (211 x 282mm) full-colour hardback, superbly illustrated and beguiling told, this intoxicatingly absorbing jigsaw of terror and tragedy is a stunning and ambitious treat for all fans of fang and fear…
The Chronicles of Legion and all contents © Éditions Glénat 2011. Translated edition © Titan Comics, 2015

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Spider-Man Noir book 2: Eyes Without a Face


By David Hine & Carmine Di Giandomenico, with June Chung (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4450-2

When fictional heroes and villains become really popular – to the point where fans celebrate their births and deaths and dress up like them at the slightest opportunity or provocation – eventually a tendency develops to explore other potential character facets that the regular, cash-cow continuity might normally prohibit.

DC invented a whole company sub-strand of “Imaginary Stories” and Marvel asked “What If…?”, sharing glimpses of alternate realities. Even television series got into the act with shows like Star Trek, Roswell and Stargate SG-1 offering coolly jarring, different takes on their established stars and scenarios.

The nasty little gem of alternate continuity on view today stems from Marvel’s intriguing experiment of 2009 wherein many of their biggest stars were reconfigured and set back in time: populating a universe drenched in the tone, lore and ephemera of pulp fiction and Film Noir. This iconic 1930s milieu was a grim and grimy land where shiny gleaming super-powered heroes were replaced by stark, paranoid, deeply flawed and self-serving individuals just trying to get by as best they could…

Spider-Man Noir: Eyes Without a Face is a sequel to an initial “origin” yarn and benefits from not having to explain or differentiate the so-similar seeming stars from the bastions of the regular continuity.

It ran as a 4-issue miniseries from February to May 2010, offering a glimpse into a moody world with no heroes, only varying shades of villainy. Nevertheless it still provides a satisfying slice of suspenseful entertainment for Fights ‘n’ Tights fans in search of something genuinely edgier than their regular fare. After all, the big draw for the jaded is that these folks might actually die and stay that way…

What You Need to Know: living in Depression-era New York City, the nephew of liberal activists Ben and May Parker was bitten by a strange tropical spider, developing rather strange attributes. The hot-headed radical used those newfound abilities and the files of reporter/extortionist Ben Urich to bring down the corrupt Mayor and his audacious criminal partner Norman Osborn AKA The Goblin.

Sadly the clearing-out of the town’s most powerful individuals only allowed a whole new echelon of murderous scum to come to the fore.

Now a junior photojournalist for the crusading Daily Bugle, Peter Parker moonlights as the trench-coated, wall crawling mystery man dubbed the Spider-Man, striving to keep the streets clean and give the little guys a break in an uncaring world of callous giants…

It all begins ‘Around Midnight’ in September 1933. The Spider-Man has prowled the dark streets for eight months but despite his best efforts crime is still rampant. Local Bureau of Investigation Chief Agent Jean De Wolfe is running out of informants as new underworld supremo Crime Master exerts growing control over the mobs, aided by his taciturn enforcer “The Sandman”.

When the Arachnid Avenger discovers a theatre full of slaughtered crooks he heads straight for his paramour and occasional ally Felicia Hardy, hopeful that she’s overheard something at her Black Cat Nightclub – a speakeasy regarded as neutral territory by crooks and cops alike.

She is less than forthcoming… at least with information…

Heading home to the Bowery Welfare Center in the grey morning light, Peter meets old friend and fellow agitator Robbie Robertson. The hothead is sounding off about new President Franklin Roosevelt and questioning how his proposed New Deal reforms will affect the situation of black people in America…

The brilliant and passionate young man works for the city’s segregated newspaper The Negro World and knows how things really work. Furthermore, Robbie shares with his old marching comrade suspicions that the government have something covert going on with prominent biologist Dr. Otto Octavius on Ellis Island. Being “a coloured”, Robbie has been refused an interview. Perhaps Peter could use his Bugle credentials to facilitate the matter?

Three days later the journalists are being greeted – albeit with exceeding different degrees of warmth – by the researcher’s assistant Curtis Connors before being ushered into a lab where wheelchair-bound and severely handicapped Octavius is finishing up appallingly sadistic experiments on a number of primates…

As they return to Manhattan, Robertson declares that something even worse is going on and resolves to go back for a look without the scientist’s Aryan-seeming minders tagging along. He doesn’t share his suspicions that the doctor’s passion for mind-control surgeries might be connected to a rash of disappearances of black citizens from Harlem…

‘Night Music’ follows escalating gang conflict as Crime Master tightens his stranglehold on the mobs and the Spider-Man spectacularly raids Harlem nightspot Seventh Heaven to discover what manager Fat Larry claims is just a faked-up dungeon room for clients with “exotic tastes”. It smells like the real thing to Peter…

Later, as Parker gloats over his first scoop for the Bugle, Robbie’s dad comes knocking. His proud, brilliant, too-inquisitive boy has gone missing…

Introducing his prospective daughter-in-law Gloria, the elder Robertson explains Robbie had been looking into reports of missing blacks and a possible white supremacy movement in New York. He was especially concerned about inroads into the government and possible links to Nazi Germany…

Having been roundly abused by the police when they tried to report him missing, the desperate family have come to Peter hoping he might have an idea.

He has only one and immediately rushes out to a nightclub in Harlem.

Elsewhere in town Octavius’ supplier of raw material and suitable test subjects is being carpeted by his clandestine backer Josef Ansell. Crime Master has no interest in the theories of the American Nazi party but revels in the power of his new position. He is not happy to hear his boss screaming over his performance and failure to deal with the Spider-Man.

Later, in the devil’s doctor’s fortress of obscene science, Octavius and Josef debate theories of racial purity and controlling the sub-human races through the creepily dispassionate butcher’s radical new surgical discovery. Today we call it lobotomising…

Berlin favours simply eradicating the lower orders but Octavius is convinced his scheme is better. Surely it’s more economically sensible to simply remove the capacity for rebellion and employ the sub-humans as tractable, ever-obedient slaves?

Considering the argument won he turns his attention back to Robbie, trussed up but awake on an operating table…

The Spider-Man, meanwhile, has reached Seventh Heaven to check out that dungeon again only to walk into a trap. Leading the overconfident army of thugs are Crime Master and his hulking Sandman, a brute seemingly oblivious to pain or injury…

Acting on a tip, De Wolfe and his team break in just in time to save the ambushed arachnoid from being beaten to death. As ‘Blues in the Night’ further unfolds, the battered vigilante shares his knowledge of the Negro disappearances and profound belief that Otto Octavius is behind them.

Still reeling, Peter then goes to Felicia for comfort and medical assistance but she can’t minister to him for long. She has a very important client coming who doesn’t like to share. However when she inadvertently questions her mystery high-roller about the Harlem abductions she tips her hand and the Crime Master sadistically makes her regret nosing into his business…

With his shielding veils of respectability and political secrecy tearing all around him, Josef frantically prepares to up stakes and relocate to somewhere more isolated and less troublesome like Tuskegee, Alabama, but the vengeful Arachnid is already deep within the Ellis Island facility and has seen what’s been done to Robbie…

The horrific pot of bubbling hatreds boil over in ‘Endless Night’ as obsessed Octavius rails against his backers whilst Crime Master and his goons ignore his protestations and get rid of the “livestock” and evidence of the doctor’s “scientific breakthroughs”.

By the time the Spider-Man joins the fight the supremacist thug and theoretician have almost killed each other but that doesn’t prevent the outraged avenger exacting his own measure of vengeance…

If he had known what Crime Master had left of Felicia, The Spider-Man might not have gone so easy on the monsters…

Bleak, gutsy, galvanising and trenchantly effective, this excellent period thriller by scripter David Hine & illustrator Carmine Di Giandomenico offers a stunningly suspenseful serving of dark drama and gripping action which would work equally well even if you had never heard of Marvel’s wondrous wallcrawler.

This pocketbook sized collection also includes a covers gallery by Di Giandomenico with variants by Dennis Calero as well as original art pages of variant options, inked art shot prior to the digital colouring stage and an extended script excerpt by Hine & Fabrice Sapolsky from issue #1, illustrated with character design sketches by Di Giandomenico.
© 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Ofelia – A Love and Rockets Book


By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-806-9

Please pay attention: this book contains stories and images of an extremely adult nature, specifically designed for consumption by mature readers as well as the kind of coarse and vulgar language that most kids are fluent in by the age of ten.

If reading about such things will offend you, please stop now and go away. Tomorrow I’ll do something with violence and explosions, so come back then.

In addition to being part of the graphic literary revolution that is Love and Rockets (where his astonishingly compulsive tales of Palomar gained vast critical acclaim), Gilbert Hernandez has produced stand-alone tales such as Sloth, Grip and Girl Crazy, all marked by his bold, instinctive, simplified line artwork and a mature, sensitive use of the literary techniques of Magical Realist writers Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez: techniques which he has added to and made his own.

Love and Rockets – by Gilbert and his brothers Jaime and Mario – was/is an anthology comics publication featuring slick, intriguing, sci-fi-ish larks, heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasies, manic monster stories and bold experimental comic narratives that pretty much defy classification. To this day the synthesistic Hernandez boys continue to captivate with incredible stories that sample a thousand influences conceptual and actual – everything from Archie Comics and alternative music to German Expressionism and masked wrestlers.

Created for extended serial Heartbreak Soup, Palomar was a conceptual playground and cultural toybox; an impoverished Latin-American village with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast. Everything from life, death, adultery, alien infiltration, magic making, hauntings, serial-killing and especially gossip happened in its meta-fictional environs as Gilbert plundered his own post-punk influences – comics, music, drugs, comics, strong women, gangs, sex, family and comics – in a style informed by everything from Tarzan strips to Saturday morning cartoons and The Lucy Show.

Beto, as he signs himself, returns to Palomar constantly, usually with tales involving the formidable matriarch Luba, who ran the village’s bath house and cinema, acted as Mayor and sometimes law enforcer – as well as adding regularly and copiously to the general population. Her children, brought up with no acknowledged fathers in sight, are Maricela, Guadalupe, Doralis, Casimira, Socorro, Joselito and Conchita.

Luba is a character who defies easy description and I don’t actually want to: As one of the most complex women in literature, let alone comics, she’s somebody you want to experience, not learn of second-hand. You will certainly notice that she has absolutely enormous breasts. Deal with it. These stories are casually, graphically, sexually explicit, and appalling violence is also never far from the players lives.

Luba’s story is about Life, and sex and death happen, constantly and often, usually to and with the wrong people at the wrong time. If harsh language and cartoon nudity (male and female) are an insurmountable problem for you, don’t read these tales; but it is genuinely your loss.

Throughout all those eventful years, normally always in the background and frequently sidelined, was Luba’s cousin Ofelia; babysitter, surrogate mum, confidante, family conscience and keen – if not so detached – observer…

After a run of spectacular stories (all of which have been collected in a variety of formats and editions which I really must get around to reviewing), the first incarnation of Love and Rockets ended. Luba and her extended family graduated to a succession of mini-series which concentrated on her moving to the USA and reuniting with her half-sisters Rosalba (“Fritz”) and Petra Martinez. The tone and content ranged from surreal to sad to funny to thrilling. The entire world can be found in these pages.

Although in an ideal world you would read that aforementioned older material first, there’s absolutely no need to. Reminiscence and memory are as much a part of this potent passion-play as family feeling, music, infidelity, survival, punk rock philosophy, and laughter – lots and lots of laughter.

Brilliantly illustrated, these are human tales as coarse and earthy any as any of Chaucer’s Pilgrims could tell, as varied and appetising as any of Boccaccio’s Decameron and as universally human as the best of that bloke Shakespeare.

This latest monochrome family album sees sidebar “sister” Ofelia notionally promoted to headliner, compiled from assorted material first seen in Luba #3-9, Luba’s Comics and Stories #2-5 and Measles #3 and, following a crucial pictorial reintroduction to ‘Luba’s Family’, the ever-unfolding saga resumes with ‘Remember Me’ as the youngest kids swap tales about the fathers they have never known.

After ‘Luba and the Little Ones’ finds the ferocious matron calming down her very excitable progeny, ‘Socorro…’ details that girl’s educational problems. Apparently she is too smart and the teachers want her transferred to a special school…

‘The Book of Ofelia Part One’ sees Luba and her mute, maimed and possibly ex-gangster husband Khamo reeling from the news that their faithful major domo is considering writing a book based on her cousin’s drama-drenched life. With friction mounting, the frustrated author and perennial babysitter casts her mind back to Palomar where she sacrificed her relationship with lover Rico (“call me Ooli”) to raise a wild toddler called Luba.

Back in the now, wise-beyond-her-years Casimira knows her quiet guardian is in contact with an old flame on the internet…

‘The Book of Ofelia Part Two’ expands on the theme as the prospective writer recalls the years of fighting with her wilful almost elemental charge whilst pondering a too-long deferred decision…

‘Spot Marks the Ex’ then exposes more family scandals as entrepreneur Pipo tries to get rid of her former husband Gato and deal with the ongoing problems caused by Luba’s daughter Doralis.

The teen-star of Pipo’s popular Spanish-language kid’s show plans to come out as a lesbian, much to the sponsors’ horror; someone at the studio is giving the newspapers salacious scandals for their holier-than-thou gossip pages and her beloved son Sergio Jimenez (a soccer superstar and celebrity bad boy) is having an affair with Fritz Martinez – the very woman Pipo cannot get out of her own oversexed mind…

Fritz is a terrifyingly complex creature, a psychiatrist, therapist, B-Movie actress, belly dancer, amorous drunk, gun-fetishist, sexually aggressive and a manipulative serial spouse. Beautiful, enticingly emotionally damaged, her “high soft lisp” more likely an affectation than genuine speech impediment, she sashays from crisis to triumph and back again, and almost everybody who wants hers can apparently have her – except increasingly impatient Pipo…

Moreover, as strident accountant Boots signs on to save Pipo’s company, the stressed and busy businesswoman begins to suspect Sergio and his stepfather Gato have some strange connection and are up to no good…

‘El Show Super Duper Sensacional Fantastico de Doralis’ reveals the controversial gay star’s story of the irresistibly beguiling merfolk who live in secret amongst us, after which ‘Snail Trail’ introduces a well-meaning young man named Hector who rescues Socorro and Joselito after they steal and crash a car.

He sees and is instantly enchanted by their Tia (that’s Aunt in Spanish, hombre) Fritz in ‘Bromear’ and in ‘Meeting Cute, Fucking Cuter’ falls hopelessly for the sexual predator: so much so, in fact, that he agrees to her request to date her quirky, buff, bodybuilding older sister Petra, thus leaving Fritz free for a sordid secret affair with toyboy acquaintance Sergio…

Sadly, whipped Hector finds he has more in common with Petra’s little daughter Venus. They both love the same comicbooks, movies and music and she doesn’t make him do things he’d rather not…

A garden party bids ‘Buen Viaje, Socorro’ and sees the smart girl’s last family fun before heading off to smart kid boarding school, after which ‘Luba One’ finds the downhearted mum dragged to fetish party by Fritz and Pipo where she finds blonde sex god Fortunato: a man no woman can resist and a perfect lover who derives no joy from his amatory conquests…

Boots, mindful of the merman legend, speculates on his origins in ‘The Fortunato Files’ after which ‘The Goddess and the Goof’ finds Hector finally capitulating to pressure and taking gloriously gorgeous, Amazonian Petra out only to discover she is every inch as bewitching and satisfying as her sister. Conflicted by a surfeit of physical riches he ponders a big decision…

After a little dance madness in ‘El Biale’, Venus and Doralis share a moment with one of the fallen star’s fans in ‘The Glamorous Life’ whilst ‘Boots Takes the Case’ has the tenacious little accountant assume a larger role. With Gato exposed as the source of the leaks and sorrowfully reaping his reward in ‘And So…’, Boots then proceeds to worm out more secrets in ‘Kisses for Pipo’; appraising key moments since the entrepreneur entered America as a teen, disclosing her past interactions with Sergio, Gato (and his current wife Guadalupe), Fortunato and Pipo’s latest fling Igor…

‘In Bed With Pipo’ targets her bizarrely twisted relationship with gun-obsessed Fritz, the men they occasionally share and a terrifying past experience when both were stranded in a country in the midst of an anti-Christian genocide…

Revelations include the horrific tale of how High-School junior Rosalba fell into an abusive relationship with a middle-aged cop, offering telling insights for her modern personas…

‘Luba Two’ delves deep into Khamo’s off-kilter arrangements with both cops and drug dealers whilst – after surreal sight-gag ‘Uno Dos Tres’ – ‘The New Adventures of Venus’ proves that the latest generation can be just as determined and violently forceful. When the little comics lover discovers her best friend is a potential romantic rival, Venus takes excessive punitive action on the soccer field…

With the entire world on tenterhooks as a colossal meteor heads towards Earth, Fritz’s exploitative ex-husband Scott gets up to his old tricks in ‘The Beloved and the Damned’. He couldn’t have expected the savage beating a mysterious stranger delivers after ripping off kickboxing Petra’s baby sister though.

Unfortunately the Avenger in question gets a taste for vigilantism and begins looking for other jerks in need of straightening out…

Khamo’s underworld connections then lead to a disquieting abduction and ‘Luba’s Science Lesson’ before ever-more conflicted Hector returns, still unable to choose between Petra and Fritz but currently distracted by his ex-girlfriend taking him to court as part of a whacko ploy to get him back in ‘And Justice for Some’.

That plan goes badly wrong when a stranger beats her to a pulp in the parking lot of the strip club she works at…

Boot’s ongoing investigations resurface as she explains ‘The Tao of Doralis’ before a very stoned ‘Hector‘ rescues non-English-speaking Luba from a bar, leading into flashbacks of ‘Khamo’ and her early days. That long, weird walk home also delivers more revelations about the enigmatic Fortunato before Luba and her taciturn husband at last reconcile in ‘Lovers and Hector’…

Events then take a dark turn in ‘Sergio Rocks’ as the wild child is targeted by gangster gamblers even as belly-dancing novice ‘Guadalupe’ strives to escape the overwhelming influence of her charismatic Tia Fritz…

Receding Ofelia resurfaces in ‘Luba Again’ as the cousins bitterly and violently argue over the proposed warts-and-all book and, after visual aside ‘Click!’, the determined author visits Socorro in ‘La Luba’ whilst long ostracised Maricela has a rather one-sided chat with step-dad Khamo in ‘Burning for You’…

‘Pipo’s Burden’ revisits her still-growing obsession with Fritz whilst ‘Of Two Minds’ highlights Hector’s suspicions when he attends one of Petra’s boxing bouts and Fortunato works his magic on schoolteacher Guadalupe and Ofelia in ‘But the Little Girls Understand’ after which ‘Luba Three’ ushers in the beginning of the end of this family’s affairs…

‘Fritz and Pipo, Sittin’ in a Tree’ finds Sergio growing aggressively intolerant of his mother’s dilemma whilst still making casual use of Fritz himself. Soon the still-active vigilante has hospitalised the entrepreneur, and more tragedy strikes when Ofelia has a heart attack in ‘God Willing’…

Once the violence begins it seems impossible to stop and in ‘Luba Four’ the so-dysfunctional family splinters even further when an abduction and punishment beating goes too far…

I’m certainly more obtuse – just plain dense or blinkered – than most, but for years I thought this stuff was all about the force of Family Ties, but it’s not: at least not fundamentally. Palomar is about love. Not the sappy one-sided happy-ever-after stuff in chick-flicks, but LOVE, that mighty, hungry beast that makes you instinctively protect the child that betrays you, that has you look for a better partner whilst you’re in the arms of your one true love, and hate the place you wanted to live in all your life. The love of cars and hair-cuts and biscuits and paper-cuts and stray cats that bite you: selfish, self-sacrificing, dutiful, urgent, patient, uncomprehending, a feeling beyond words. A Love that can hurt and even kill…

A bit like the love of a great comic…

Funny, deeply moving, compelling and deftly capable of delivering shock after breathtaking shock, Ofelia is remarkable and unmissable: no true fan of the medium can afford to forego this treat.
All contents © 2015 Gilbert Hernandez. This edition © 2015 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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The Chronicles of Legion volume 1: Rise of the Vampires


By Fabien Nury, Mathieu Lauffray, Mario Alberti, Zhang Xiaoyu & Tirso , translated by Virgine Selavy (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-093-1

We’ve all been in love with vampires since the golden age of Victorian Gothic and it’s taken the undead in some extremely odd directions (I personally draw the line at sparkly, immortal kissy-face boy-toys, but to each his own)…

Thankfully our European cousins have a more sanguine view of such matters and innate respect for tradition even when they reinterpret the old classics. Prolific writer Fabien Nury (Stalin’s Death: A Real Soviet History, Once Upon a Time in France, The Master of Benson Gate, Necromancy as well as the epic Je Suis Légion with John Cassaday) began in 2011 a generational saga which put a new spin on the legend whilst keeping a steady eye on the tone of what has gone before…

Les Chroniques de Legion was illustrated by round-robin art-team Mathieu (Star Wars, Long John Silver) Lauffray, Mario (Nathan Never, Morgana, assorted DC covers) Alberti, the enigmatic Zhang Xiaoyu & Tirso Cons (Eye of the Devil, Le Manoir murmurs) and opens here (in good old English) in 1476 as barbaric warlord Vlad Tepes finally falls before the overwhelming armies of the invading Moslem horde.

His stubborn Transylvania a crushed and broken province, the infamous leader had been dragged from the arms of his favourite concubine and beheaded by exultant general Selim Bey. Working for the invaders, Vlad’s despised and treacherous brother Radu knew that the story was not over yet…

As the victorious Turk ravished his despised enemy’s beloved, Dracula’s implacable sibling rival was too late to stop his brother’s malign blood invading the Moslem’s body and eating his devout mind. In an instant Selim Bey’s was gone, overwritten by the undying Impaler…

Nor could Radu not stop the horror escaping and after “Selim” murdered the Sultan and vanished, the Transylvanian turncoat endured all the anger and hatred of the Ottomans. Of course since his blood was just as accursed as Vlad’s, Radu’s story didn’t end with his body’s death either…

In 1521 Vlad was on the move once more, inhabiting the body of Gabriella Del La Fuente. This recent orphan was travelling to the New World, contracted to marry the audacious conquistador Hernan Torres. A flower of the aristocracy, her perfect beauty was only marred by the strange red mark on the back of her neck – a blemish shared with her recently-departed father Victor and a long-dead Turk named Selim Bey…

She had no idea Radu had reached the Americas first and transformed them to a hell of his own devising. The other brother had sustained his own arcane life by equally esoteric means, only in his case the intellect was scattered and diminished by the swarm of rats who consumed him for the longest time…

In Russia in 1812, an undying warrior sprit was wearing French Hussar Armand Malachie. As Napoleon’s broken armies fled before the vengeful Cossacks, he convinced his faithful subordinates Kholya, Stern, Hartmann and Feraud to desert with him. Detouring to the Wallachian Mountains they hunted for valuable loot Armand had heard about: the Lost Treasure of Vlad Dracula Tepes…

It was all a lie. The true reason for the diversion was that Dracula sensed far-distant Radu had allowed an unprecedented atrocity to be created and the time had come to end their infinitely extended vendetta forever…

London, 1887: elderly lawyer Morris Webster contacts friendless, antisocial clerk and gambling addict Victor Douglas Thorpe with an offer that will forever liberate the morose wastrel and ne’er-do-well from the drudgery of his impoverished Whitechapel life.

For reasons inexplicable, Thorpe has been selected by immensely rich aristocratic recluse Lord Byron Cavendish to inherit all his lands and properties… upon successful conclusion of a personal interview, of course…

To Be Continued…

Lavishly presented in an oversized (211 x 282mm) full-colour hardback, evocatively illustrated and told through contiguous strands in many concurrent times, this epic, intoxicatingly absorbing horror mosaic depicts a constant battle between two remorseless foes inextricably linked by blood to grip and delight lovers of all things dark and demonic…
The Chronicles of Legion and all contents © Éditions Glénat 2011. Translated edition © Titan Comics, 2014.

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King Conan volume 4: The Conqueror


By Timothy Truman, Tomás Giorello, José Villarrubia & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-514-6

During the 1970’s the American comic book industry opened up after more than fifteen years of cautious and calcified publishing practises that had come about as a reaction to the censorious oversight of the self-inflicted Comics Code Authority. This body was created to keep the publisher’s product wholesome after the industry suffered their very own McCarthy-style Witch-hunt during the 1950s.

One of the first genres revisited was Horror/Mystery comics and from that came the pulp icon Conan the Cimmerian, via a little tale called ‘The Sword and the Sorcerers’ in anthology Chamber of Darkness #4 (April 1970), whose hero Starr the Slayer bore no little thematic resemblance to the Barbarian. It was written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Barry Smith, a recent Marvel find, and one who was just breaking out of the company’s still-prevalent Kirby house-style.

Pulp-style Sword & Sorcery stories had been enjoying a prose revival in the paperback marketplace since the release of soft-cover editions of Lord of the Rings (first published in 1954) and by the 1960s a popular revival of the two-fisted fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline, Fritz Lieber and others were being supplemented by modern writers such as Michael Moorcock and Lin Carter who kick-started their careers with contemporary versions of man against mage. However, the undisputed grand master of the genre was Robert E. Howard.

Despite some early teething problems, including being cancelled and reinstated in the same month, the comicbook adventures of REH were as big a success as the prose yarns that led the global boom in fantasy and, latterly, the supernatural.

Conan became a huge hit; a monumental brand which saw new prose tales, movies, a TV series and cartoon show, a newspaper strip, games, toys and all the other paraphernalia of success… and it all stemmed from the vast range of quality comics initiated by Thomas and Smith.

In Conan’s all-conquering wake Marvel developed comicbook interpretations of other Howard creations such as Bran Mak Morn, Solomon Kane and others. Undoubtedly the Silver and Bronze medals went to the fairly straight adaptation of King Kull of Atlantis and a rather more broadly reinterpreted Red Sonya of Rogatine.

Roy Thomas was a huge fan of the prose source material and took great pains to adapt the novels and short stories into the graphic canon, but he was also one of the top writers in his field and much of the franchise’s success devolves from his visceral grasp of the characters, which makes this particular graphic novel of particular interest.

Eventually, however, fashions changed and Marvel – having tried increasingly deviant and unsuccessful reboots of the sword-slinger – surrendered or lost the rights to the barbarian blockbuster.

The franchise was picked up by “Intellectual Properties” specialists Dark Horse who eagerly took up the Howard mantle, reinvigorating the hero and his satellites with fresh adaptations of the source material crafted by a host of talented creators who could cut loose, utterly unhampered by the censorship of the Comics Code Authority which had afflicted the Marvel incarnation…

This fourth Dark Horse volume collects issues #1-6 of King Conan The Conqueror (originally published as a comicbook miniseries from February to July 2014), expanding and reinterpreting Howard’s epic Conan novel The Hour of the Dragon and opening with the warrior-emperor in his dotage relating to dutiful scribe and historian Pramis the events of the greatest crisis of his troubled reign…

What Had Gone Before: After decades of adventure-filled wandering, the Cimmerian’s travels eventually led him to the throne of the vast and prosperous kingdom of Aquilonia, but the outsider’s dream of founding a dynasty had soon stumbled as an alliance of disgruntled hereditary nobles and satellite kings plotted his downfall. To secure their ends the plotters resurrected an ancient wizard from demon-haunted Acheron through the arcane agency of a mystic gem known as The Heart of Ahriman.

With the sorcerous interventions of eldritch revenant Xaltotun, Conan was toppled and given over to his treacherous enemies. He subsequently escaped thanks to the actions of harem slave Zenobia and, on the advice of enigmatic witch Zelata that only the Heart can defeat Xaltotun, the fugitive pursued its current owner across the seas to the port of Messantia.

The saga resumes as Conan relentlessly tracks Beloso – who thinks himself the greatest thief in the world. The deposed king is constantly distracted by thoughts of Zenobia whom he had to abandon, and tragically unaware that a band of Khitan warrior-priests (like super-ninjas) hired by Aquilonian puppet-ruler Valerius are tracking him in turn…

Amongst his many careers prior to kingship, Conan had once led the most savage pirates of the age as the merciless Amra and now he inflicts himself upon former fence-turned-upstanding merchant Publio to help him find Beloso and the Heart.

Far from willing but with too much to lose, the businessman reluctantly assists his “guest” but the effort is too little too late. By the time Conan finds his prey the thief is dead at the hands of Stygian priests (another faction with a long grudge against the barbarian) and the gem gone.

Whilst still reeling in shock and disappointment Publio’s thugs jump the Cimmerian and leave him for dead, but the betrayer fares no better after the Khitans show up looking for Conan…

The King was always exceedingly hard to kill and has merely escaped out to sea only to be captured by trading ship Venturer: a vessel which can always find room for one more galley-slave. It’s the last mistake the captain ever makes, however, as the barbarian goes berserk, sowing slaughter all about him and freeing the captives at the oars, many of whom recognise the white maniac as their former pirate lord Amra…

Before long Venturer has new masters and the liberated Black Corsairs have ferried Amra to the Stygian capital Khemi. Refusing further aid Conan infiltrates the temple city of vile snake worshippers in search of the Heart, making his way with a minimum of mayhem and penetrating the inner sanctum of arch-priest Thutothmes.

Unfortunately his furtive progress attracts the attention of seductive vampire princess Akivasha who hasn’t had a real man – in any sense – for centuries…

Conan’s narrow escape from her clutches precipitates him into a clash with Thutothmes – who has by now secured the Heart of Ahriman – but everything is suddenly thrown into chaos when the infallible Khitans burst into the tombs determined to claim the deposed king no matter who stands in their way…

After watching the mystic factions eviscerate each other Conan ends the last priest standing and, thanks to the efforts of a most tractable zombie who leads him out of the labyrinthine temple, makes off with the Heart. Before long the Corsairs have brought him back to his stolen kingdom and the exile is recruiting an army from his oppressed Aquilonian subjects, who have been chafing under the brutal depredations of Valerius…

Soon the entire nation is ablaze and the plotters are sore-pressed in their own unquiet kingdoms too. Desperate, they plan to betray and sacrifice their mystic secret weapon Xaltotun, only to realise far too late that the servant has been their master for some time…

The crisis comes to a head when the mage attempts to destroy Conan’s liberating army during a pivotal clash of implacable foes. Seeking to fuel his magics with Zenobia’s blood, Xaltotun is totally unprepared for the determination of enraged and enslaved mortals acting in concert, the eldritch opposition of the Heart and the carefully calculated vengeance of the wily Cimmerian…

Apocalyptic, bombastic and cataclysmically compelling, this is a splendid retelling of a pulp fantasy classic augmented by an insightful Afterword by adaptor Timothy Truman and a Bonus Gallery of pencil art by illustrator Tomás Giorello

This collection is a superb slice of savage escapism that any red-blooded, action-starved armchair adventurer would kill for, a superb way to enjoy some of American popular fiction’ most influential – and enjoyable – moments. They certainly deserve a prized place on your bookshelf.
©2014, 2015 Conan Properties International, LLC. All rights reserved.

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The Tower Chronicles: DreadStalker


By Matt Wagner & Simon Bisley (Legendary Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-93727-836-6

In The Tower Chronicles: Geisthawk, FBI agent Alicia Hardwicke first encountered a strangely compelling masked bounty hunter named John Tower who filled a rather select niche in the broad spectrum of law-enforcement and peacekeeping services. This odd enigma helped people with highly specialised problems: things cops and feds and government refused to even acknowledge the existence of…

After having her eyes opened and seeing what Tower – “the Geisthawk” – did with vampires and ghosts and even stranger supernal threats, Alicia started skipping work and letting her day job slide to join him on his bizarre cases, but she could never crack his carefully guarded façade of secrets nor ascertain the reason for his relentless, thankless and generally unrewarding crusade.

The concept was created by Thomas Tull (whose Legendary Pictures is responsible for the latest Batman/Dark Knight movies as well as The Hangover, Man of Steel and 300) and comics veteran Matt Wagner – presumably as a prime concept for the new hero’s own monster-bashing film franchise…

This slim and sinister spooky sequel volume collects The Tower Chronicles: DreadStalker #1-6 (spanning August 2014 to January 2015) wherein Wagner, illustrator Simon Bisley and colourist Ryan Brown ramp up the tension whilst revealing a few of the horror-hunter’s darkest secrets.

The saga begins in the frozen wilds of Northern Ontario where a couple of thrill-seeking teenagers stumble upon a very hungry Wendigo. Their immediate gory consumption is narrowly averted by Tower and Hardwicke but, after the rescue and inevitable bloody battle, the FBI agent realises her sullen partner seems more interested in ransacking the beast’s lair that attending to a shellshocked survivor…

Elsewhere creepy cultists “The Brotherhood of the Rose” know far more about Tower than he would like, and confer on how to deal with the DreadStalker and give the first hints to his true motivations. Apparently magic calls to magic and supernatural terrors tend to confiscate eldritch artefacts. Somewhere there are objects Tower wants and his constant despatching of dire hidden horrors gives him unmatched opportunities to search for such spoils…

The Brotherhood also covet such articles and, now that Tower has allied himself with Hardwicke, they believe they have the potential to exert a little leverage…

In the Washington DC office Alicia is using the Bureau’s vast resources to look into Tower’s past but her investigations are beginning to return impossible results. She is also starting to draw attention from her superiors, and terms like “negligence”, “obsession” and “reassigned” are being used by her furious boss…

In his lonely citadel Tower broods. He is actually centuries old and has carried a grievous wound of the heart for that entire time. All his searching and ransacking of monsters’ dens is for one sublime purpose but his quest seems as far from success now as it always has. …And on the other side of a looking glass, a beautiful, mournful woman waits for him… Determined to get some concrete answers, Hardwicke confronts Tower’s elderly lawyer Romulus Barnes and wrangles an incredible story from the attorney of how the taciturn troubleshooter saved a young law student’s son from demonic doom in return for a lifetime of legal servitude…

A most insidious villain, Martin Castle spearheads a cabal of entrepreneurs dubbed “The Château Group” and, when not selling genetically augmented heirs to shady sheiks, he and they harbour patient dreams of acquiring the world. However, Castle’s machinations mask a vile and increasingly debilitating secret…

Some answers – for the reader at least – are forthcoming as Tower resurfaces in New Mexico, hunting an avian monstrosity. Scaling the high cliffs to its nest, Jean Latour‘s mind cannot help but wing back to the First Crusade when as one of nine Christian warriors dedicated to liberating the Holy Land he co-founded The Knights Templar in 1119 Anno Domini.

He recalls how the crusaders’ initial vows of piety, poverty, chastity and charity gradually eroded as their ranks grew and their coffers swelled, and how his life changed forever when he rescued the heathen maiden Nadira from Christian soldiers determined to stop her from praying at the mosque they had converted to a barracks…

In New Mexico Tower’s reveries are curtailed when the appalling Thunderbird attacks, only to fall after an horrific battle to the DreadStalker’s accumulated centuries of martial prowess. The net result is only more disappointment as the slaughtered beast’s nest reveals many artefacts but nothing of any use to the immortal warrior.

When Tower drags his battered, pain-wracked body back to his car, Alicia is waiting…

Still refusing to share, he drives off and Hardwicke reluctantly goes to plan B, applying the federal screws to another member of Tower’s support network. Raf is the genius who builds the uniquely devastating ordnance employed by the Geisthawk to expunge assorted creatures of the night but his tale of how the un-aging man exorcised his unquiet mother only adds to Alicia’s growing sense of unease…

As Mr. Castle undergoes radical surgery in Austria to alleviate an unpleasant arcane infirmity, further gathered strands at last force Agent Hardwicke to accept the impossible: her silent partner is possibly hundreds of years old and has been holding back a horde of horrors for all that time…

The man himself is in Colorado, dealing with a werewolf incursion in a brutally efficient manner before heading on to Ireland. En route he calls Alicia who probably scuppers her own career to join him, blithely unaware that the Brotherhood and Castle are both using her to track Tower. Neither organisation really wants the monster hunter, but they really need the prizes he’s likely to find…

After a cataclysmic battle with a ghastly Gaestlych, Tower finally relents and shares his story with Alicia, but the revelations give her no joy or satisfaction…

To Be Continued…

Fast-paced and astoundingly action-packed, this slight but satisfying romp is tailor-made for transferral to large or small screen as companion or rival to Constantine, True Blood and Supernatural, but The Tower Chronicles primarily offers comics fans a spectacular rollercoaster of straightforward beastie-bashing in the grand traditional manner beloved of Fights ‘n’ Tights enthusiast everywhere.
© 2015 Legendary Comics LLC and Matt Wagner. All Rights Reserved.

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Kick-Ass 3 – trade paperback edition


By Mark Millar, John Romita Jr., Tom Palmer & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78329-087-1

Once upon a time, perennial High School no-hoper Dave Lizewski – a pitifully ordinary and unhappy teenager who loved comicbooks – realised that he had no chance of being part of the school “in-crowd”. He just hung out with the other geeks, nerds and social lepers; talking TV, movies, funnybooks and wishing he could have a perfect life and trophy girlfriend.

Then one day he had his big inspiration – he was going to be a masked superhero. All he needed was a costume and a gimmick. Oh, and a codename too…

Clad in a wetsuit bought online and filled with hope, Dave started patrolling the streets and promptly got beaten into a coma by three kids tagging a wall…

After months in hospital and with three metal plates in his skull, Dave eventually returned to school, but the compulsion had only grown stronger. Soon he was prowling the city again. This time a chance encounter was recorded on witnesses’ camera-phones and uploaded to YouTube…

An overnight internet sensation and supremely now overconfident, Dave – or Kick-Ass – inspired a wave of copycats, attracted the extremely unwanted attention of Organised Crime and met the closest thing to real superheroes the world had ever seen…

Dave’s life went into deadly overdrive when he met diminutive Mindy McCready – AKA Hit-Girl – and her burly, brutish, utterly insane senior partner Big Daddy: cool, efficient ninjas of justice and everything he’d aspired to be but could never approach in a million years…

These armoured, gun-toting urban vigilantes were utter ciphers, stalking and destroying the operations of brutal Mafia boss Johnny Genovese with remorseless efficiency and in complete attention-shunning anonymity. Before long Dave was drawn into their war and met fellow adventurer Red Mist, who turned out to be Genovese’s abused, psychotic son Chris: a bastard maniac in his own right.

Things got really out of hand and lots of people died. Mostly scumbags, but some good people and a few innocent civilians too…

The mesmerising saga comes to a cataclysmic climax close as Kick-Ass 3 collects the final 8-part miniseries (originally published through Marvel’s Icon imprint) from Mark Millar, John Romita Jr, Tom Palmer and Dean White in a beguiling full-colour mass market paperback.

As seen previously, Red Mist had evolved into a truly psychotic and blood-drenched super-villain to counter the fannish tidal wave of costumed champions. In the aftermath of a bloody slaughter, superheroes were outlawed in New York, Dave and faithful masked pals Todd and Marty went undercover and the totally OTT Hit-Girl was arrested and sent to prison…

The saga resumes now with the lads reviewing a letter from the deadly tyke and planning to bust her out with the aid of a few costumed associates. However, life is not as clear cut as comicbooks and the scheme ignominiously fails.

Life goes on and the boys graduate High School, seeping into dead-end jobs whilst spending nights patrolling and training for their next attempt. Soon, though, tensions begin to rise as skeevy newcomer hero The Juicer takes over their once-communal lair – formerly Mindy’s old tricked-out HQ. The gloating sod even moves in his girlfriend…

Disgusted, undeterred and resolved not to spoil things, Dave gets back to the streets. When a posse of gangbangers attempt to mug Kick-Ass the battle goes badly wrong before he is rescued by witness – and nurse – Valerie.

Elsewhere, greater events are afoot. Brutally maimed Chris Genovese is stuck in prison hospital awaiting trial when his uncle Rocco pays a visit. With the established hierarchy of organised crime decimated by Hit-Girl, the aged Don has returned from exile in Sicily. He had been shipped off years ago when his deviant tastes and merciless depredations proved to be too much even for the Mafia.

Now he’s back and making a move to unite all the criminals in America under his rule – and he plans to make Chris his heir…

Self-proclaimed super-villain Chris is a changed boy and wants no part of it, but Rocco has the police force on his payroll. Nobody ever says no to the Don…

The boy’s mother has had enough too, but when she sneaks into his room determined to execute her crazy child she catches someone else with the same idea…

Dave meanwhile has organised another attempt to spring Hit-Girl but even as he preps his motley crew, the lass in question is facing down her latest psychiatrist.

The malevolent tyke has spent the intervening months terrorising and pacifying the entire prison around her, whilst psychologically breaking a long string of mental health professionals assigned to her, but Dr. Alex White is made of sterner stuff. The ruthless, remorseless headshrinker is determined to crush not cure the waif-like homicidal maniac, whatever it takes…

Dave is a man distracted. Although he has planned a raid on the mob as they fête the recently released Chris, his attention is mostly on Valerie. Thus the consequent attack is a disaster and the badly-scared mystery men barely get away with their lives…

In the cold light of day the heroes have a bitter falling-out at Justice Forever HQ and Dave adds The Juicer to his growing list of arch enemies. It’s hard to care, though, as he and Val are dating now and he’s having sex regularly…

The only thing he hasn’t given up on is Hit-Girl. He will get her out, somehow, someday…

He doesn’t know it, but Dave is on a clock. Rocco is firmly in the driving seat now and obsessed with the tiny titan too. He wants her out of jail so that he can smash his treasured golden ice-pick right into her brain…

As Dr. White plays the latest card in his duplicitous bag of brain-bending tricks, at Vic Gigante‘s place the bent cop – and Rocco’s most influential agent on the NYPD – has an interesting idea. With three trusted pals he’s devised a way to make even more dirty money in a foolproof manner.

Soon a quartet of “Robin Hood” masked heroes are brutally raiding all of Rocco’s places of business; killing mooks and confiscating cash. The Skull & Bones boys claim it’s all being passed on to the poor and naturally everybody believes them…

Lost in a lustful daze, not even a timely intervention by Todd can shake Dave up enough to get back in costume and on track, but the increasingly bold raids of the Skull & Bones gang is driving Rocco crazy. Only when the deviant Don declares war on every masked hero in the city and despatches hit squads to gun them down wherever they are does Dave finally rouse himself from a besotted haze and get back on the streets…

The psychological campaign against Hit-Girl is also beginning to work. The formerly indomitable Mindy is retreating into memories of training with her dad and sharing those episodes with the exultant White.

Unfortunately the cocky doctor overplays his hand and seems to lose everything, but before he can reassess the situation Rocco Genovese has his family’s nemesis abducted from the penitentiary so that he can slaughter her in style.

Ferrying her to a big party at his estate, the Don thinks he’s won but is utterly unprepared for betrayal from within, the incomprehensible inability of Kick-Ass to give up and the sheer determination and total, sociopathic verve which inspires Hit-Girl in her holy mission to eradicate criminal scum…

Building to a cataclysmic, graphically hyper-violent, ferociously cathartic conclusion, the saga of simple soul Dave and the atrociously foul-mouthed Hit-Girl wraps up in unforgettable manner with plenty of shocking twists and surprises in a blockbusting clash which answers all the questions in a fashion fitting, furious and final…

The blackly comedic and ultra-violent comedy quartet of tales which comprise the Kick-Ass saga are the ultimate extension of the modern trend for “realistic” superhero stories whilst simultaneously forming a brilliantly engaging and cynically hilarious examination of boyhood dreams and power fantasies, delivered with dazzling aplomb, studied self-deprecation and spellbinding style.

Here Millar’s mesmeric script skilfully dances on the very edge of possibility and credibility, whilst the stunning art collaboration of John Romita Jr., Tom Palmer and colourist Dean White afford a vision of New York life that ranges from Paradise to Hell on Earth.

Bracketed by a pithy Introduction from screen writer Geoff Wadlow and Afterword Acknowledgements from writer and artist, this majestically wide-screen extravaganza is a sharp, superb and stunning tale not just for comics fans but a genuine treasure for all followers of frantic fun and fantasy in any medium.

© 2013 and 2014 Millarworld Limited and John S. Romita. All rights reserved.

Kick-Ass 3 is scheduled for publication on February 27th