Category: Mature Reading

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Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates: The Republic is Burning


By Jonathan Hickman, Esad Ribic, Brandon Peterson & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-504-8

Marvel’s Ultimates imprint began in 2000 with a new post-modern take on major characters and concepts to bring them into line with the tastes of 21st century readers – apparently a wholly different market from those baby-boomers and their descendents content to stick with the precepts sprung from founding talents Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee… or simply those unable or unwilling to deal with the five decades (seven if you include the Golden Age Timely tales retroactively co-opted into the mix) of continuity baggage which saturated the originals.

Eventually even this darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its ancestor and in 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which excised dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals in a devastating tsunami which inundated Manhattan courtesy of mutant menace Magneto.

In the aftermath the meta-human survivors struggled to restore order to a dangerous new world…

This compilation collects Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates issue #1-6 and Ultimate Comics: Fallout #4 (published in comicbook form from October 2011 to March 2012) which comprised the core-story for the latest relaunch of the constantly-changing grim and gritty alternate universe.

Before the Deluge, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury ran an American Black Ops team of super-humans called the Avengers, but he was toppled from his position for blatant rule-bending – and being caught.

Now in the wake of the global inundation, internecine strife amongst the covert ops community and brushfire wars which have broken out all over the planet, Fury is back: once more running the entire spook show and firmly re-established in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s army of secret agents, an official superhero team for public consumption and another clandestine super-squad doing stuff the officially sanctioned Ultimates wouldn’t dream of…

It isn’t a job many would want: the world is falling apart at a phenomenal rate. Individual metahumans are classed as Weapons of Mass Destruction and personal superpowers are now the focus of a terrifying new global arms race. In Asia the new nation SEAR (South East Asian Republic) is dissolving into bloody civil war after developing a serum that will randomly spark fantastic abilities in humans dosed with it. They also stacked the deck by simultaneously releasing a global virus which has killed the genes responsible for causing natural mutation.

A new metahuman nation has grown up within the embattled country offering super-powers to anybody daring to take the Serum, as seen in sidebar series Ultimate Comics Hawkeye…

The gods of Asgard have been dragged from their heavenly halls and marooned on Earth where their wild warlike ways and fantastic powers are disrupting all of Europe. Premiere hero Spider-Man has been murdered, resurrected WWII super soldier Captain America has gone AWOL and in the wings an old friend turned foe has returned to remake the planet according to an impossible and remorseless agenda…

The constant calamity begins when enigmatic mastermind Maker and his dedicated band of volunteers entomb themselves in a high-tech dome in Northern Germany where enhanced time and ruthless scientific augmentation enables the inhabitants to hyper-evolve a thousand years in the space of a few days.

Whilst Iron Man Tony Stark is being conned by his fellow members of billionaires fraternity The Kratos Club and tricked into detonating a nuke over Montevideo in order to manipulate global stock markets, these Children of Tomorrow – now more alien ant farm than human science cult – break out as the Dome begins to expand and absorb Western Europe. The region’s superhumans, including current Captain Britain Jamie Braddock are busy losing a fight with the errant Asgardians and card-carrying Ultimate Thor when The Children attack…

As Hawkeye attempts to forestall the civil war in SEAR and Stark is dragged back from death by his bodyguard Jarvis, the Children perform the impossible feat of killing almost every god in Asgard.

Only Thor and Braddock survive but the Thunderer’s hammer and magic are gone forever…

Resorting to technology provided by Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. the Last Asgardian returns to the fray, intending to die gloriously in battle as a warrior should, but the expanding dome and ravening children are unstoppable. After an all-out final assault by S.H.I.E.L.D. and the World’s armies, humanity is utterly defeated and humiliatingly allowed to slink off to await the end…

When the Dome stops growing and stands revealed as an incredible future City the doom-hungry Thor invades it, freeing Braddock, who has been imprisoned and subjected to torturous scientific investigation. They are then captured by the Maker who reveals his impossible true identity, after which he discards the ineffectual and demoralised warriors.

Thor doesn’t care: he has just realised that he is being haunted by the ghosts of all the fallen Asgardians…

Fury is almost out of ideas. When technologist Sam Wilson AKA the Falcon finds a way to infiltrate the City he suddenly vanishes without trace, and even Captain America has refused to rejoin the Ultimates and lead mankind’s last hurrah against their implacable unshakable successors…

To Be Continued…

Hot off the presses this saga ends on a chilling cliffhanger as what might well be the Last Battle of the alternate Marvel Universe begins. However the always entertaining Jonathan Hickman, artists Esad Ribic & Brandon Peterson (as well as colourists Dean White, Jose Villsrrubia, Jim Charalampidis, John Raunch & Edgar Delgado) make this a slick and compulsive read for older Fights ‘n’ Tights fans and the impressive cover gallery by Kaare Andrews, Ribic & Chris Evans adds immeasurably to the book’s visual appeal.

Much more in tune with the visual feel and sensibilities of the assorted Movie franchises than the traditional comicbook market, the trademark post-modernity and cynical, dark action is amped to the max here; delivering the visceral shocks and staggering revelations fans of this sub-imprint seem addicted to.

Whilst perhaps not the best book for anybody thinking on jumping on to the decidedly different Ultimate World, The Republic is Burning will certainly strike a chord with older readers who love the darkest side of superheroes and readers who know the company’s films better than their publications.

A British edition licensed and published by Panini UK, Ltd. ™ & © 2012 Marvel Entertainment LLC and its subsidiaries. Licensed from Marvel Characters B.V. All Rights Reserved.

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Elementals: The Natural Order


By Bill Willingham (Comico)
ISBN: 978-0-93896-508-4

Long before he achieved universal acclaim with his sublime adult fantasy series Fables, writer/artist Bill Willingham first turned comic fans’ heads with a post-modern re-evaluation of the superhero in a series entitled Elementals which took many Fights ‘n’ Tights traditions and turned them on their heads with telling and most pervasive effect.

The team debuted as a back-up tale in the one-shot Justice Machine Annual published by Texas Comics in 1983 and was picked up a year later by new publisher Comico, one of the front-runners in an explosion of new companies which grew out of the 1980s rise of the Direct Sales market and dedicated comics retail outlets.

This enchanting and enthusiastic volume collects that initial introduction and the subsequent first five innovative issues of their own title and opens with ‘The Shape of Things to Come’ by Willingham & Bill Anderson, as master villain Lord Saker demands a situation report from his trusted aide Shapeshifter. She describes how four recently deceased individuals have all inexplicably resurrected, each with the powers and attributes of one of the ancient alchemical elements.

Police officer Jeanette Crane revived with the ability to wield flame and heat and goes by the codename Morningstar, helicopter pilot and Vietnam vet Jeff Murphy has flight, speed and wind-based powers and answers to Vortex, whilst wealthy trust-fund brat Rebecca Golden has become a web-footed green sea-sprite dubbed Fathom.

The last resurrectee is 14 year old Tommy Czuchra: a disturbingly brilliant, adult and coldly rational boy-genius who can transform at will into a colossal Monolith of soil and rock.

Each of the quartet died in accidents directly related to their new conditions as avatars of Fire, Air, Water and Earth.

Saker is apprehensive: his centuries-old mystic master-plan is nearing fruition and now these supernatural agents have inconveniently manifested. When he dispatched his personal metahuman hit-squad, the Elementals easily routed them. Only Shapeshifter survived to report the bad news…

The series proper began with ‘The Spontaneous Generation’ (Willingham & Michelle Wolff Anderson) as the unlikely and reluctant heroes consult with Rebecca’s dad – a major league New York lawyer – about their situation. In this highly realistic and rational world, superpowers have only ever been the stuff of comicbooks, but now here they are alive again with incredible abilities, having just fought human chameleons, dragons and monsters…

Moreover, they each oppressively remember the pain and horror of dying but have no idea how or why they have returned…

And that’s when FBI spook Porter Scott turns up…

Meanwhile Saker’s remaining superhuman resources (Shapeshifter, Behemoth, Ratman, Electrocutioner, Annihiliator and Chrysalis) attack; ambushing the team during a lunch in the Seattle Space Needle, oblivious to the hundreds of civilian lives endangered in the assault. Once again outmatched the bad guys retreat, taking Fathom’s dad hostage…

After a ‘Destroyers’ pin-up by Willingham and Neil Vokes the drama resumes in ‘Angel of Light’ as some time later the Federal authorities – in the forms of Major General Benjamin Franklin Richter and NSA Special Agent William Lyons – discuss the National Crisis that has developed since the Elementals surrendered themselves to save David Golden.

Simultaneously, over the villain’s hidden citadel Nacht Island, the Elementals have broken free and are again devastating Saker’s Destroyers as well as his large army of fundamentalist soldiers: all willing zealots to his arcane cause.

Although the battle goes well in ‘Birds of Prey’ (inked by Rankin) the heroes are unprepared for the wizard to draw more power from his apparently infernal patrons and blithely unaware that Vortex has been killed and partially consumed by Ratman…

Even so the Elementals are clearly winning and look likely to end the affair quickly until Saker himself intervenes…

A year passes.

In ‘The Mean Seasons’ (Willingham, Herman & Rankin with added assistance from Dave Johnson, Mike Leeke & Bill Cucinotta) the Alchemical Allies have been prisoners all that time and Saker is close to his endgame, activating his agents in the Federal Government and readying himself to unleash the horrifying Shadowspear. As the sorcerer readies himself to destroy the world Jeff has almost fully recovered and his revenant comrades are also preparing for one last sally…

Saker has discerned that the Elementals do not age and cannot be killed by any means he can devise, but has unwisely formed an intellectual relationship with Tommy: foolishly disclosing his tragic and painfully unjust biblical origins and the reason he wants to see God’s creation unmade.

The Mage’s biggest mistake was believing that the seemingly broken foursome had given up and the cataclysmic Saves-the-Day climax of ‘Riders of the Storm’ (Willingham, Herman & Rankin) is both stunningly epic and superbly chilling…

Although the characters are not themselves particularly innovative the hard-headed, cynical and ruthlessly pragmatic manner in which Willingham and later author Jack Herman used them was a landmark breakthrough. As much as Alan Moore’s take on Marvelman, the Elementals always seemed to work in the most plausible and perhaps only possible manner our world could operate if men became modern gods and monsters.

The Natural Order is one of the very best superhero yarns of the era and still holds up incredibly well: slick, savvy, distressingly mature and savagely cynical.

If you want Adult Fights ‘n’ Tights thrills hunt down this magical masterpiece and enjoy the End of the World as we know it.
© 1983, 1985, 1986, 1988 William T. Willingham. All right reserved.

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The Names of Magic


By Dylan Horrocks & Richard Case (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-888-4

Way back when Neil Gaiman was just making a name for himself at DC he was asked to consolidate and rationalise the role of magic in that expansive shared universe. Over the course of four Prestige Format editions a quartet of mystical champions (thereinafter known as “the Trenchcoat Brigade”) took a London schoolboy on a Cook’s Tour of Time, Space and Infinite Dimensions in preparation for his becoming the most powerful wizard of the 21st Century, and an overwhelming force for Light or Darkness.

Shy, bespectacled Timothy Hunter (co-created by John Bolton) was an ordinary lad unaware of his incredible potential: a natural but untutored magical prodigy (and yes, I know who he looks like but the series came out eight years before anybody had ever heard of Hogwarts, so get over it).

In an attempt to keep him righteous the self-appointed mystic guides provided him with a full tutorial in the history and state of play regarding The Unseen Art and its major practitioners and adepts. However, although the four guardians were not united in their plans and hopes for the boy, the “other side” certainly had no doubts. If Hunter could not be turned to the Dark he had to die

The Books of Magic spawned a 75 issue run of issues under the Vertigo imprint plus attendant annuals, mini-series and spin-offs as the neophyte sorcerer struggled to find his way and learn the craft, aided and/or hindered by sort-of girlfriend Molly and a hidden personal history akin to a colossal, convoluted cosmic onion skin. His enigmatic lineage and true origins remained a crushing, crippling but crucially important mystery – especially since all the mystic powers of this world and many others either wanted him dead or enslaved…

By 2001 and the advent of this excellent tome (collecting the five-part Names of Magic miniseries) Hunter is a lonely, isolated fourteen year old runaway with no past, roaming the streets of London. His loving family have been exposed as fakes and surrogates, he’s lost or been abandoned by all his human associates and the final reeling shock was finding out that his real mother was Titania, Queen of Faerie and his sire her mortal falconer and plaything Tamlin…

However when he is simultaneously attacked by a raiding party of the Theena Sidhe from the Higher Realms and a politically influential mortal magician’s cult in ‘Invocation’, Tim is rescued by a sword-wielding stranger and old mentor Dr. Occult and his life is once again collapsing around his ears…

The stranger is Ash; a Walker and one of a hidden human brotherhood who police the ancient magical places of Earth, charged with taking the unwilling boy on a pilgrimage down those venerable lost paths to save his life and find his calling.

The Rosicrucian sages of The Cold Flame of the Golden Lotus, who want to co-opt Hunter’s power or negate his threat potential, have been embedded in the fabric of British Society for centuries and soon have their media tools and pet coppers on the trail whilst the rival Faerie stalkers – supposedly under a truce to leave Tim alone – rely on their own arcane methods to relentlessly pursue the fugitives…

When man and boy rendezvous with the “Trenchcoat Brigade” in Cornwall it is decided to closet the lad at the puissant magical college known as the White School where he can be safely trained in the use of his incredible powers.

Of course, there’s a snag: to enter a student must simply utter their True Name but when Tim tries he discovers that even his own identity is a lie…

Reeling in shock at the School gate, Tim and Ash narrowly escape a police ambush in ‘Trust’ and the boy almost succumbs to a beguiling spell from Lotus master Mr. Lily before stumbling into another Faerie trap. It appears that one clan of Fair Folk has made a pact with the eternal enemy of The Unseelie Court to destroy Tim, but the fugitives turn the tables on their hunters and Tim saves one of them from death, binding her into an unbreakable debt that she must repay twice-over…

‘Secrets’ sees Tim and Ash recruit modern Pagan “Bearclaw” Clarke to their Spirit Quest. However the Cold Flame close in and a police raid disrupts the astral journey before any secrets can be uncovered. Ruthlessly shooting their way out, the trio take ‘Flight’, daringly hiding deep inside the Faerie Kingdoms.

On Earth Mr. Lily turns his attention to Tim’s lost love Molly in his attempts to trap the young mage whilst, after a climactic struggle in Elfland, the seekers are captured and dragged before High King Auberon who denies all knowledge of Tim’s troubles. The Faerie Lord swears to ferret out the renegades working with the Seelie Court, and Tim finally learns his True Name, just before Iolanthe, eager to expend her onerous debt, warns him that he’s walked into another trap…

Battling free, the fugitive four head back to Earthly Cornwall where they wait helplessly for their following foes – both Faerie and Cold Flame – to converge for a final assault. With their backs to the sea and sure death approaching on all sides Tim and crew take refuge in tourist trap Merlin’s Cave, where as the various factions slaughter each other to get to him, the boy finds a hidden door and discovers the whole and unexpurgated ‘Truth’…

Although a series with a lot of highs and lows and one which never really lived up to its promise, Books of Magic was a popular early foray into mature comic publishing for Vertigo and subsequent returns to the characters have proved quite impressive.

Here Dylan Horrocks and illustrator Richard Case – augmented by cover artist Bolton – have recapitulated and reconfigured the past whilst crafting a compelling and enjoyable fantasy yarn that reads well, looks great and stands solid enough on it own to easily serve as an introduction to the saga of Tim Hunter.
© 2001 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Desert Peach book 5: Belief Systems


By Donna Barr (Aeon)
ISBN: 1-883847-07-9

The Desert Peach is the supremely self-assured and eminently capable gay brother of the legendary German soldier hailed as “the Desert Fox” and one of the most perfectly realised characters in comics.

Set in World War II Africa and effortlessly combining hilarity, absurdity, profound sensitivity and glittering spontaneity, the stories describe the daily grind of Oberst Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel; a dutiful if unwilling cog in the German War Machine and his efforts to remain a civilised gentleman under the most adverse and unkind conditions.

However, although as formidable as his beloved elder sibling Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the gracious and genteel Peach is a man who loathes causing harm or giving offence and thus spends his dry and dusty days with the ever-so-motley crew of the 469th Halftrack, Gravedigging & Support Unit of the Afrika Korps, trying to remain stylish, elegant, civil and gracious to the men under his command and the enemy forces around him.

It’s a lot of work: the 469th houses the worst dregs of the Wehrmacht, from malingerers and malcontents to useless wounded, sharpers, screw-ups and outright maniacs.

Pfirsich unilaterally applies the same decorous courtesies to the sundry natives inhabiting the area and the rather tiresome British – not all of whom are party to a clandestine non-aggression pact Pfirsich has agreed with his opposite numbers in the amassed Allied Forces. The only people the Peach really has no time for are boors, bigots, bullies and card-carrying Blackshirts…

The romantic fool is also passionately in love with and engaged to Rosen Kavalier: handsome Aryan warrior and wildly manly Luftwaffe Ace…

Arguably the real star of these fabulous frothy epics is the Peach’s long-suffering, unkempt, crafty, ill-mannered, bilious and lazily scrofulous orderly Udo Schmidt, a man of many secrets whose one redeeming virtue is his uncompromising loyalty and devotion to the only decent man and tolerable officer in the entire German army.

This tragically rare fifth softcover collection reprints issues #13-15 and starts with an enchanting comic introduction from the captivatingly clever Roberta Gregory after which the sagacious star yields focus to the tragically bewildered Doberman in ‘Nobody’ wherein the pitifully shell-shocked Corporal finally blows himself up with his pet landmine and is evacuated home.

Dobi unexpectedly returns some time later with tales of his nightmarish detour to the hidden Jewish concentration camps where all the undesirables are being dealt with: systematically and efficiently eradicating Jews and other “sub-humans”…

Pfirsich is appalled and refuses to believe the stories: surely no sane human beings could perpetrate such atrocities? Udo however, has also heard stories of how Hitler and his hierarchy are dealing with Jews and shares them with his commander. In a rage the Peach rushes off to tell his brother, knowing the Field Marshal can do something about it.

The noble Desert Fox also explodes in fury and determines to return to Berlin to stop the program. His plan is simple – since Hitler is a good man and cannot possibly know of these atrocities, all Erwin has to do is inform Adolf and the Fuhrer will put a stop to the horrors…

Pfirsich, knowing Hitler’s hierarchy far better than that, is faced with an impossible choice: allow his brother to sign his own death warrant or withdraw the allegations and become complicit in genocide…

This bleakly chilling and tortured black comedy is followed by ‘Surprise, Surprise’ with Udo griping and trying to weasel his way out of his impending, unwanted but necessarily pragmatic wedding to Bedouin princess Falila. The swarthy little scoundrel wants sex not commitment, but as Pfirsich urges his subordinate to honour his word and live up to his responsibilities another secret slips out.

Udo Schmidt used to have another name: the only card-carry Nazi Party member in the entire 469th was born Isador Gülphstein…

“Udo” is the scion of a venerable line of soldiers who have served the Fatherland and the long-suffering son of a proud German Jewish veteran of the Great War who changed the family name so that his sons could join the army too… whether they wanted to or not.

Now, with The Peach fully aware of the fate Jews are facing, how can he risk Schmidt’s secret getting out? Moreover how can he risk antagonising the desert tribes or disappointing the clearly addled girl who wants to marry Udo? After all, fanatic camp political officer Kjars Winzig already suspects something isn’t – or rather is – Kosher about Udo…

The troubles only really begin when eavesdropping boyfriend Rosen Kavalier takes charge and offers a drastic and outrageous solution…

This darker-than-usual volume concludes with ‘The Triangle Trade’ (from a suggestion by cartoonist Steve Gallacci) as The Peach encounters by-the-book soldier Oberst Quark, herding a supply column directly towards an Allied tank unit.

Keen to avoid any bloodshed Pfirsich intercepts the column and lends the commander his spotter plane, determined to keep the Germans out of trouble whilst their war-mongering commander is safely up in the air.

Deprived of glorious battle Quark conceives a subtle vengeance and transfers the two biggest troublemakers in his command to the 469th.

Sadly the younger Rommel has never encountered the average fighting man and sorely overestimates his ability to control the greedy, vicious and cunningly duplicitous thugs Leutnants Hecht and Horowitz…

With the camp quickly dissolving into a hotbed of criminality and black marketeering harsh measures are called and this time even Rosen has met his match. Seizing the nettle Pfirsich is forced to fall back upon his own unique strengths to solve this thorny dilemma effectively and with unmistakable style…

Fabulously following the same anti-war path as Sgt. Bilko, Hogan’s Heroes, Oh, What a Lovely War! and Catch 22, as well as such tangential films as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and The Birdcage, these Desert Peach adventures are always bawdy, raucous, clever, authentically madcap and immensely engaging.

These gloriously baroque yarns were some of the very best comics of the 1990s and still pack the comedic kick of a silken howitzer or chartreuse flamethrower, liberally leavened with situational jocularity, accent humour and lots of footnoted Deutsche cuss-words for the kids to learn. Moreover, with this volume the dark bitter edges and cold iron underlying these fabulous characters and their horrific, doomed situation become ever more poignant and powerful.

The Desert Peach ran for 32 intermittent issues via a number of publishers and was subsequently collected as eight graphic novel collections (1988-2005). A prose novel, Bread and Swans, a musical and an invitational collection by other artists entitled Ersatz Peach were also created during the strip’s heyday. A larger compendium, Seven Peaches, collected issues #1-7 and Pfirsich’s further exploits continue as part of the Modern Tales webcomics collective…

Illustrated in Barr’s fluidly seductive wood-cut and loose-line style, this book is a must-have for any lover of wit, slapstick, high drama and belly-laughs and grown-up comics in general. All the collections are pretty hard to find these days but if you have a Kindle, Robot Comics have started releasing individual comicbook issues for anybody with internet access and mature tastes…
© 1991-1994 Donna Barr. Introduction © 1994 Roberta Gregory. All rights reserved. The Desert Peach is ™ Donna Barr.

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100 Bullets: Once Upon a Crime


By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-594-X

Originating as merely the best crime comic in decades, 100 Bullets grew into a terrifyingly imaginative conspiracy thriller of vast scope and intricate, intimate detail. With this eleventh volume (collecting issues #76-83 of the breathtakingly adult comic book) creators Azzarello & Risso apparently had all their ducks in position and began to earnestly reveal a few long-hidden secrets as they counted down to the inevitable big finish.

However, as always there’s far, far more going on than you might think, and there are still a few surprise twists in store…

Not long after Columbus landed in America, thirteen ancient European crime-families migrated to the New World and clandestinely carved up the continent in perpetuity between them. As the country grew cultured and a new nation was born The Trust embedded itself within every aspect.

To prevent their own greed and ambition from destroying the sweetest deal in history, the Families created an extraordinary police force to mediate and act when any Trust member or faction acted against the unity and best interests of the whole.

They were called the Minutemen and were always led by the kind of peacekeeper needed to keep them honest and actively cooperating – a man uniquely honest, dedicated, smart and remorseless.

Not too long ago though, some of The Trust’s current leaders decided they no longer needed overseers and acted with characteristic ruthlessness to remove them.

Minutemen leader Agent Graves didn’t take this lying down and has been gradually enacting a plan to rectify that casual injustice. For years he has been appearing to various betrayed and defeated people as a “Court of Last Resort” offering answers, secrets, an untraceable handgun and 100 Bullets …

Some of those tragic beneficiaries have been revealed as Minutemen with their personalities hypnotically submerged in cover identities to hide and protect them from The Trust. Reawakened by Graves as he confidently proceeds with his long range strategy no-one really knows what the end-game and ultimate goals are…

Now the situation has spun completely out of control. Trust Fix-it man Mr. Shepherd is dead, killed by his most trusted agent Dizzy Cordova and the Minutemen are as divided, confused and fractionated as their erstwhile employers.

Moreover, Dizzy might have been the gun but it was Graves who pulled the trigger…

As always, pay attention when perusing: the uncompromising co-creators have never sugar-coated their work nor spoon-fed their audience and these stories need to be carefully studied: both the hypnotically spartan story and stunningly stylish visuals…

After an introduction and appreciation from groundbreaking TV innovator Tom Fontana the complex psycho-drama resumes with ‘Punch Line’ as Mr. Branch and Wylie Times baby-sit Dizzy and errant Trust heir Benito Medici in the desert whilst new Trust warlord Lono, prison buddy Loop Hughes and Minuteman Victor Ray decompress in typically sordid and anti-social style…

Graves keeps his distance and his plans from those most loyal to him but Remi Rome and Cole Burns know something is breaking when Wylie informs Graves that he will keep Dizzy from returning to him at all costs.

Wylie’s next call is to barely under control psychotic Lono, an angry man hungry to kill Graves and get his hands on the bitch who shot his buddy Shepherd…

With all factions on a collision course, mercenary bandit Coochie and his gang pick exactly the wrong moment to try and impress Graves by “rescuing” Dizzy and when Victor apparently switches to Wylie’s team the stage is set for the brutal removal of one more major player…

‘Split Decision’ records yet another shifting of alliances as, after still more mayhem and Machiavellian machinations, Dizzy returns to Grave’s team with everybody aware that she’s only there to kill the man who messed up her life and her mind…

The book concludes with ‘Tarantula’ as, thousands of miles away, the mysterious painting “La Morte dil Cesar” – which has tantalised and tempted assorted antagonists since The Counterfifth Detective – rises to prominence again when Remi’s brother Ronnie is dispatched to Rome to obtain it for Graves.

Once there the retired mob leg-breaker is swiftly enveloped in a tangled web of sex, double-crosses, murder, sex, art-fraud, triple-crosses and sex with deadly wild card Echo Memoria, who has been playing her own game at the edges of the action since she first seduced the hapless Mr. Branch in A Foregone Tomorrow, thereby setting up a catastrophic confrontation in the days to come.

This final story-arc blends the contemporary tale of Ronnie’s Roman holiday with Graves’ intimate revelations to Dizzy of how he first recruited Shepherd to his squad and the lousy reason his own mentor, veteran Minuteman Curtis Hughes, never got to lead the peacekeeping cadre…

Laced with telling flashbacks to the days when Graves’ team still acted for The Trust and packed with the kind of gratuitous smut and atrocity that we’ve come to expect and adore, Once Upon a Crime cranks up the action and tension to an almost unbearable degree as the grand denouement looms large.

Over months and years Azzarello & Risso painstakingly planted many seeds which grew into a tangle of shoots simultaneously entwining and growing off at tangents before coming together into a perfect mosaic of magnificent power and intensity.

These are some of the very best graphic novels ever crafted and demand your utmost attention. You need them all and the very best is still to come…
© 2006, 2007 Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso & DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Freaks!


By Nik Perring, Caroline Smailes & Darren Kraske (The Friday Project/HarperCollins)
ISBN: 978-0-00-744289-8

We’ve all been in the know for years, us comics fans, but it’s only recently that the big wide world got into the whole mind-boggling realm of superpowers and scary monsters. With such self-aware and crafty shows as Misfits, Being Human, No Heroics and even US imports like as No Ordinary Family, Alphas, The Cape and numerous others, the concept of powers and abilities which take us above and beyond the norm have become as much part of common parlance as “Beam me up Scotty” and “These are not the droids you’re looking for” – and remember when grown-ups and your dad had no idea what those meant either?

Freaks! is a stunning collection of themed prose pieces ranging from compulsively brief vignettes to devastatingly effective epigrams which examine the concept of having a super-power, from the broadly literal such as ‘The Photocopier’ wherein the daughter of a lady who can duplicate herself waits impatiently for her own gift to develop, or ‘Statuesque’ wherein a passionate woman gradually petrifies herself, to far more cerebral and metaphysical forays into the weird world like the bittersweet ‘Clipped Wings’, heartrending ‘Invisible’ or piteous ‘Fifty Per Cent’…

Some are just plain creepy like ‘In her Basket’ and ‘Faulty Baby’ or gut-wrenchingly horrific as with ‘The Boner’ or ‘Damaged’…

Sometimes you can only stop and wonder if the abilities are real at all or just in your head…

Or theirs…

Blending paranormal paranoia with self-delusion and pitting incisive, instinctive intuition against genuine contemplative otherworldliness, these yarns by Carol Smailes and Nik Perring (working individually and in tandem) describe ordinary folk with uncanny gifts and extraordinary people who have mastered the mundane horrors of the world.

These 47 individual slices of kitchen sink fantasy are written with scathing wit, measured surreality, biting venom and shattering poignancy, all graced and augmented with lavish and plentiful monochrome illustrations by author/artist Darren Kraske.

If you’re looking for alien invasions or flamboyant punch-ups you’ll be left wanting, but if you fancy some exceedingly adult and mostly mature laughs and tears, a few chills and a lot of clever, thought-provoking entertainment then Freaks! is definitely the book for you.
© 2012 Caroline Smailes and Nik Perring. Illustrations © 2012 Darren Kraske. All rights reserved.

This book is part of publisher HarperCollins’ experimental Friday Project where the traditional modes of book creation are augmented by concentration on new digital technology and disciplines as well as innovative methods of acquiring, publishing, selling and promoting their product. For more details you should check out http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/about-harpercollins/Imprints/the-friday-project/Pages/The-Friday-Project.aspx
To learn more about the creators please go to http://www.carolinesmailes.co.uk/
http://nikperring.com/ and http://theargonautsalmanac.blogspot.com/
Freaks! is scheduled for release on April 12th 2012.

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Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Who is Miles Morales?


By Brian Michael Bendis & Sara Pichelli (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-503-1

When the Ultimate Comics Spider-Man died writer Brian Michael Bendis and Marvel promised that a new hero would arise from the ashes…

Marvel’s Ultimates imprint began in 2000 with a new post-modern take on major characters and concepts to bring them into line with the tastes of 21st century readers – apparently a wholly different market from those baby-boomers and their descendents content to stick with the precepts sprung from founding talents Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee… or simply those unable or unwilling to deal with the five decades (seven if you include the Golden Age Timely tales retroactively co-opted into the mix) of continuity baggage which saturated the originals.

Eventually even this darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its ancestor and in 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which excised dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals in a devastating tsunami which inundated Manhattan courtesy of mutant menace Magneto.

In the aftermath Peter Parker and his fellow meta-human survivors struggled to restore order to a dangerous new world.

Spider-Man finally gained a measure of acceptance and was hailed a hero when he valiantly and very publicly met his end during a catastrophic super-villain confrontation…

This collection (re-presenting the introductory teaser from Ultimate Comics Fallout #4 – August 2011 – and the follow-up Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Who is Miles Morales? #1-5) introduces a new and even younger Arachnid Avenger and describes how, just like his predecessor, a troubled boy learned the painful price of misusing the unique gifts fate had bestowed…

The epic opens with a skinny kid having the poor taste to parade around town in a cheap imitation costume of fallen hero Spider-Man encountering and somehow defeating vicious super-villain The Kangaroo before the revelations begin by spinning back to the recent past where manic industrialist Norman Osborn repeats the genetic experiment which first gave Peter Parker his powers (see Ultimate Spider-Man volume 1: Power and Responsibility) via artificially-mutated spider bite.

Unfortunately the deranged mastermind didn’t expect a burglar to waltz in and accidentally carry off the new test subject as part of his haul…

When grade-schooler Miles Morales got into the prestigious and life-changing Brooklyn Visions Academy Boarding School by the most callous of chances, the brilliant African American/Latino boy quickly and cynically realised that life is pretty much a crap-shoot and unfair to boot. Feeling guilty about his unjust success and sorry for the 697 other poor kids who didn’t get a chance, he snuck off to visit his uncle Aaron.

The visit had to be secret since his uncle was a “bad influence”: a career criminal dubbed The Prowler. Whilst there, a great big spider with a number on its back bit Miles and he began to feel very odd…

For a start he began to turn invisible…

Suddenly super-fast and strong, able to leap huge distances and fade from view, Miles rushed over to see his geeky pal Ganke, a brilliant nerd already attending Brooklyn Visions. Applying “scientific” testing the boy also discovers Miles can deliver shocking, destructive charges through his hands. When Miles goes home Ganke did more research and deduced a connection to the new hero Spider-Man; pushing his friend towards also becoming a costumed crusader.

However, after Miles assisted during a tenement fire, saving a mother and baby, shock set in and he decided never to use his powers again…

Time passed: Miles and Ganke had been roommates at the Academy for almost a year when news of a major metahuman clash rocked the city. The troubled Miles headed out and was a bystander at the scene of Spider-Man’s death.

Seeing a brave man perish so valiantly, Miles was once more consumed by guilt: if he had used his own powers when they first manifested he might have been able to help; to save a truly great hero…

As part of the crowd attending Parker’s memorial Miles and Ganke talked to another mourner, a girl who actually knew Parker. Gwen Stacy offered quiet insights to the grieving child which altered the course of his life forever: “with great power comes great responsibility…”

Clad in a Halloween Spidey costume borrowed from Ganke, Miles took to the night streets for the first time and stopped the Kangaroo from committing murder…

His third night out the exhilarated boy encountered the terrifying and furiously indignant Spider-Woman who thrashed and arrested him, dragging him to Government agency S.H.I.E.L.D where Hawkeye, Iron Man and master manipulator Nick Fury coldly assessed him.

However, before they could reach a decision on Miles’ fate, the murderous Electro broke free of the building’s medical custody ward and went on a rampage.

Despite defeating all the seasoned heroes the voltage villain was completely unprepared for a new Spider-Man: especially as the boy had a whole extra range of powers including camouflage capabilities and an irresistible “venom-strike” sting…

As Miles considered the full implications of his victory, Fury imparted a staggeringly simple homily: “With great power…”

Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli have crafted a stirring new chapter which is both engaging and intriguing and the volume also contains a gallery of alternate covers by Marko Djurdjevic and Pichelli.

Tense, breathtaking, action-packed, evocative and full of the light-hearted, self-aware humour which blessed the original Lee/Ditko tales, this is a controversial but worthy way to continue and advance the legend that Fights ‘n’ Tights addicts will admire and adore…
A British Edition ™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. and published by Panini UK, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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The Best of Fat Freddy’s CAT books 1 & 2


By Gilbert Shelton with Dave Sheridan, Paul Mavrides & Lieuen Adkins (Knockabout)
ISBN: 0-86166-009-9 & 0-86166-014-5   Omnibus 978-0-86166-161-9

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers shambled out of the Underground Commix counter-culture wave in 1968; initially appearing in Berkeley Print Mint’s Feds ‘n’ Heads, and in Underground newspapers before creator Gilbert Shelton and a few friends founded their own San Francisco based Rip Off Press in 1969. This effective collective continued to maximise the madness as the hilarious antics of the “Freaks” (contemporary term for lazy, dirty, drug-taking hippy folk) captured the imagination of the more open-minded portions of America and the world (not to mention their kids)…

In 1971 Rip Off published the first compilation: The Collected Adventures of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers – which has been in print all around the planet ever since – and soon assorted underground magazines and college papers were joined by the heady likes of Rip Off Comix, High Times, Playboy and numerous foreign periodicals in featuring the addictive adventures of Freewheelin’ Franklin, Phineas T. Freakears and Fat Freddy Freekowtski (with his cat): simpatico metaphorical siblings in sybaritic self-indulgence.

Fat Freddy’s Cat quickly became a star in his own right: tiny “topper” strips (separate mini adventures which accompanied the main story) in the newspapers that supplemented the Freaks’ antics became single page gags and eventually bloomed during the 1970s into full-blown extended exploits of the canny, cynical feline reprobate in his own series of digest-sized comicbooks The Adventures of Fat Freddy’s CAT…

Much of the material consisted of untitled quickies and short strips concocted by Shelton (with assistance from Dave Sheridan, Paul Mavrides and Lieuen Adkins) and eventually the little yarns were collected by UK Publisher Knockabout as a brace of oversized – 297x212mm – black and white comic albums and as mass-market b-format paperbacks in their Crack Editions imprint. In 2009 the entire canon was collected as The Fat Freddy’s CAT Omnibus.

These tales are wicked, degenerate, scatologically vulgar, sublimely smutty and brilliantly funny in any format but perhaps their raw anarchic, sly hysteria is best enjoyed in the giant tomes I’m highlighting here.

Book one opens with a dozen or so six panel strips and a single pager produced between 1971 and 1978, before the hilariously whacky epic ‘Chariot of the Globs’ (written by Adkins with art by Shelton & Sheridan) reveals how the imperturbable puss saved alien explorers from a hideous fate, followed by another fifty shorts covering every topic from mating to feeding, talking to humans and especially how cats inflict revenge…

Shelton and Sheridan then disclose the horrors of ‘Animal Camp’ wherein the irrepressible feline was dumped by Fat Freddy in a Boarding Kennel run by Nazi war criminals where pets were converted into clothing and pet food or else used in arcane genetic experiments!

Naturally the brainy beast had to lead a rebellion and break-out…

Amidst the remaining sixty-plus shorts comprising talking cockroaches, drug-fuelled excess, toilet training and drinking, fighting, mating and outsmarting humans, lurks one last lengthy treat from 1980, ‘The Sacred Sands of Pootweet… or the Mayor’s Meower’, a splendidly raucous political satire based on the tale of Dick Whittington.

When a religious hard-liner overthrows the oil-rich nation and former US satellite of Pootweet, Fat Freddy attempts to scam the Supreme Hoochy-Coochy by using the cat to clean up kingdom’s rodent problem. Only trouble is that the pious and poor Pootweet populace have no vermin problem (even after Freddy callously tries to manufacture one), only sacred, unblemished, undesecrated sands which the cat – in dire need of a potty-break – heads straight for…

The second volume is blessed with another seventy-odd scurrilous, scandalous and supremely hilarious short gags ranging from half to two pages, intoxicatingly interlaced with longer comedic classics such as the untitled tirade against modern newspaper strips which “guest-stars” such luminaries as Mary Worth, Doonesbury, Kronk, Andy Capp, Peanuts and a heavenly host of cartoon cats from Garfield to Fritz to Felix…

Also included are the devious and satirical 1973 spy-spoof ‘I Led Nine Lives!’ recounting the days when the fabulous feline worked for the FBI, ‘Fat Freddy’s CAT in the Burning of Hollywood’ from 1978 wherein the sublimely smug and sanguine survivor of a million hairy moments regales his ever-burgeoning brood of impressionable kittens with how he and his imbecilic human spectacularly flamed out in the movie biz and a truly salutary tale for all fans and readers…

Following the innocent – but so enjoyable – shredding of Fat Freddy’s comic collection and the expiration of his ninth life, ‘Paradise Revisited’ (1983 and illustrated by Paul Mavrides) finds the Marvellous Moggy in heaven again: but even though the place is packed with famous felines it’s not all catnip and celebration…

Despite the hippy-dippy antecedents and stoner presentiments, Shelton is always a consummate professional. His ideas are enchantingly fresh yet timeless, the dialogue is permanently spot-on and his pacing perfect. The stories, whether half-page quickies, short vignettes or full blown sagas, start strong and relentlessly build to spectacular – and often wildly outrageous, hallucinogenic yet story-appropriate – climaxes.

Anarchically sardonic and splendidly ludicrous, the madcap slapstick and sly satire of Gilbert Shelton is always an irresistible, riotously innocent tonic for the blues and these tales should be a compulsory experience for any fan of the comics medium.
© 1983, 1984, 2009 Gilbert Shelton. All rights reserved.

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Kramers Ergot volume 8


By various, edited by Sammy Harkham (PictureBox)
ISBN: 978-0-98458-927-2

Since the 1980s when “Underground” creators and cartoonists of adult and mature English-language comics first began to find mainstream and popular acceptance by re-branding themselves as alternative or Avant Garde, there have periodically emerged groundbreaking anthologies which served to disseminate the best of the best in challenging sequential art. Following on the groundbreaking heels of Raw and its descendants, Kramers Ergot launched as a 48-page mini-comic in 2000 and grew into a vari-format, anything goes visual and intellectual banquet before suspending publication with #7 in 2008 with a hugely proportioned (536x414mm) 96-page deluxe hardback starring sixty of the art form’s most beguiling pantheon of stars.

Now founding father Sammy Harkham returns with another stunning array of top-notch new creations and a smattering of sublime vintage material in a gloriously accessible 240-page clothbound B-format hardback that once more brandishes the sharpest of cutting edges at fans of the medium at its most uncompromising…

The magic begins with the abstract and glittering Overture by Robert Beatty, after which Washington Punk musician Ian F. Svenonius (Nation of Ulysses, Weird War and Chain and The Gang) contributes a fascination and informative essay on the shape of American arts with Notes on Camp part 2.

Alternative star and social commentator ‘Jimbo’ returns in a trek across tomorrow’s wastelands in a sharp monochrome yarn from Gary Panter after which C.F. explores isolation and human relationships in the placidly eerie ‘Warm Genetic House-Test Pattern’ whilst Kevin Huizenga redraws an old Charlton Comics fantasy tale (“The Half Men” by Bill Molno & Sal Trapani and possibly scripted by the prolific Joe Gill) in the quirkily disturbing ‘Mysteries of Unexplained Worlds’…

Leon Sadler produces the first of two contributions in the colourfully pensive ‘Friendship Comic’ whilst the muted hues and jolly style of Gabrielle Bell’s ‘Cody’ successfully belies the tale’s violent underpinnings and Frank Santoro & Dash Shaw shock and stun with their chilling ‘Childhood Predators’.

‘Ain’t it So?’ is a smart cartoon by Tim Hensley and ‘Get Your Ass to Mars’ is a set of stunning art photo pieces from Takeshi Murata, whilst ‘Mining Colony X7170’ is a typically dark and savage sci fi shocker from anti-art iconoclast Johnny Ryan before

Leon Sadler returns with the expansive and picaresque ‘Goblins Orbit the Earth (I’m Here! It’s Me!)’.

Chris Cilla takes a different look at love in ‘Secret Tourist’ and ‘Barbarian Bitch’ by Anya Davidson joyously screws with all the traditions of the hoary old genre and Ben Jones plays cunning mind-games and perpetrates dire puns in his shaggy doggish and charmingly primitivist ‘The Ultimate Character 2002’ after which Editor Sammy Harkham picks up his own pens to describe the silent horror and driving melodrama of ‘A Husband and a Wife’.

‘Epilogue’ is another visual voyage from painter Robert Beatty and this tome concludes with a long lost delight.

The last contribution is a true joy for me reprinting as it does a selection from what I believe to be one of the most delicious and clever British strips ever created. ‘Oh, Wicked Wanda (Select Excerpts)’ reprints in sublime full glossy colour Ron Embleton & Frederick Mullalley’s brilliant socio-sexual satire which ran in Penthouse magazine between 1973-1980.

Journalist, editor (of left-wing magazine Tribune), columnist, novelist and political writer Mullally was hired to script the exotic, erotic adventures of Wanda Von Kreesus, the richest woman in the world, Candyfloss, her insatiable jailbait paramour and an outrageous coterie of faithful employees including an all-girl army, a mad scientist and a brutal looking thug with the soul of a poet. To illustrate he secured the talents of oil painter and comic strip veteran Ron Embleton who had astounded comic readers with his lush and vibrant strip Wulf the Briton in Express Weekly and his illustrations in Look and Learn.

Oh, Wicked Wanda! was originally a prose serial illustrated by Bryan Forbes, beginning in 1969 before becoming, in 1973, the unbelievably lavish and torrid strip reprinted here, continuing until 1980 when it was replaced by Sweet Chastity, also painted by Embleton, and scripted by Penthouse proprietor Bob Guccione.

The bored and mischievous hellion is a sexually adventurous woman from a time when sexual politics and liberation were huge issues, and therefore prime targets for low comedy and high satire. Mullally peppered his scripts with topical references (many, sadly which would escape today’s casual reader, I’m sure) and the phenomenal Embleton would depict them with hyper-realistic accuracy. Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, Ted Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Fidel Castro, Lyndon Johnson, Spiro Agnew, Mao Tse-tung, John Wayne, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and even comic-strip greats like Pogo, Mutt and Jeff or Krazy Kat, all meandered through the glossy pages, a cross between a Greek Chorus and pictorial ad-libs.

Many celebrities were actively parodied, participants and classical and contemporary erotic allusions abounded; ranging from a little nymphette lounging about reading William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch to visual and verbal references to Shelley’s Leda and the Swan.

Here some of the earliest adventures are re-presented as Wanda destroys, debases, abducts and mounts (no, not necessarily that way) the obnoxiously rich and famous for her Museum of Misfits and Deviancy; consequently taking on the Mafia, the CIA and South American Nazi war criminal Martin Boorman. Her personal Mad Scientist Homer Sapiens also reveals his sordid connections to some of the 20th century’s nastiest personages…

Oh, Wicked Wanda! is still a funny, sexy read and inarguably one of the most beautiful British strips ever crafted. Hopefully this selection will lead to a new audience and a comprehensive reprinting …

As well as being a comics-lovers dream, Kramers Ergot is a book-lovers delight with excellent design and a reassuringly high-class print values. This package is something no lover of the medium can afford to miss.

All material © 2011 respective authors and owners. All rights reserved.

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Frank Brunner’s Seven Samuroid


By Frank Brunner (Image International)
ISBN: 0-943128-06-4

The 1980s were a fertile time for American comics-creators. It was as if a brand new industry had been born with the proliferation of the Direct Sales Market and dedicated specialist retail outlets; companies were experimenting with format and content and economically, times were good so punters even had a bit of spare cash to play with.

Moreover much of the “kid’s stuff” stigma had finally been invalidated and America was catching up to the rest of the world in acknowledging that sequential narrative might just be a for-real, actual art-form…

Consequently many young start-up companies began competing for the attention and leisure-dollars of fans grown accustomed – or resigned – to getting their on-going picture stories from DC, Marvel, Archie and/or Harvey Comics. European and Japanese material had been creeping in and by 1983 a host of young companies such as WaRP Graphics, Pacific, Eclipse, Capital, Now, Comico, Dark Horse, First and many others had established themselves and were making impressive inroads, all supplemented by the rapid rise of a healthy plethora of comics criticism, collection and informational magazines…

New talent, established stars and fresh ideas all found a thriving forum to try something a little different both in terms of content and format. Even smaller companies had a fair shot at the big time and a lot of great material came – and too often, quickly went – without getting the attention or success it warranted.

One of the most overlooked but just plain fun features came from an unlikely paring of star artist Frank Brunner and a printing company based in New Zealand, which tapped into the growing zeitgeist of Japan’s burgeoning robotic warrior knights or “mecha” and the modern pulp space opera of the first Star Wars generation…

In the future the great Galactic Union succumbed to war brought about by political ambition and economic greed. At the height of the conflict a group of wise men created a small force of super-robots hardwired with the unflinching principles of ancient Earth’s noblest warriors; dedicated to preserving all innocent life and defending the oppressed; whether organic or mechanical.

These Samuroids were then bonded with the personalities of valiant volunteers whose intellects were transcribed into the awesome automatons. However after decades of constant struggle even the unceasing efforts of the puissant mechanicals were not enough to stave off an era of darkness, decline and destruction…

Two millennia later the universe is a place of chaos and anarchy dotted with small emergent enclaves of brutal feudal “civilisation” still limited to their own isolated, hostile star-systems. On the planet Ion, freedom fighter Zeta leads a band of rebels battling the rise of a new Dark Imperium. Hunted by sky-borne troops in deadly gun-ships, she falls into a cave and discovers a ponderous solitary figure: Ultek the Samuroid.

The tragic undying warrior has stood sentinel in this dark hole since he and his fellows failed in their appointed task centuries ago, contemplating the horrors he was built to prevent and all the lives he was forced to take. However his broken soul is fired up at last when the Imperium troops savagely attack, wounding Zeta.

Roused to action, Ultek destroys the monstrous thugs and joins Zeta’s cause, determined to thwart the expansionist horrors of the voracious Imperium and its mad monarch, The Mikado…

To this end he seeks out the other surviving Samuroids, who have indeed fallen low…

After millennia their quasi-mystical power-source Reiki is all but exhausted. Another mecha Sarr donates his reserves to scientists in hope of their synthesising a substitute fuel whilst Ultek returns to the stars in search of more old comrades. He finds two aboard an ancient Galaxy-Union Star Battle Wagon, converted into a vast and corrupt travelling carnival. They are unresisting slaves of its vile master, Strom Bolla…

Sark and Gorr have bartered their honour for dwindling rations of Reiki, but Ultek finds a valuable friend in the brave but inconsequential droid Toto who describes himself as an “honorary Samuroid”. With precious time passing and desperately determined to free and rehabilitate his fallen comrades Ultek joins the Carnival as a gladiator, but before he can make his move events spiral out of control when the decrepit warship is attacked by two more Samuroids Hum-Run and Dagg…

United at last the Seven Samuroid return to Ion where the rebellion has fared badly under the Mikado’s barbarous assaults and horror, glory and restored honour await them…

That or final irrevocable death and darkness…

At first this book (published in the overlarge 285 x 220mm European Album Format) might seem a creature of unlikely marriages: adapting the classic plot and ever-so-serviceable themes and motifs of Akira Kurosawa’s Shichinin no Samurai to the heavily technocratic milieu of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica is not so big a leap, but much of this sci fi romp is exceedingly dark and decidedly mature in content and Brunner’s superbly humanistic illustration is often at odds with the grubby, grimy tone and faceless  dehumanising technology and hardware of the storyline.

Stuffed with in-jokes and dry asides, this tales also skirts rather than embraces the spiritual aspects of the original Seven Samurai but does pay lip-service to the all-embracing warrior code of Bushido as well as finding room for romance and a happy ending of sorts.

All in all this is a very queer beast indeed from a time when anything seemed possible, but in the final analysis provides a huge amount of old-fashioned thrills, chills and spills, making it well worth the time and effort of fans of movie and cartoon fantasy as well as classic comics adventure.
© 1984 Frank Brunner. All rights reserved.