Category: Miscellaneous Superhero

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Shattered: the Asian American Comics Anthology – A Secret Identities Book


By Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow, Jerry Ma & various (The New Press)
ISBN: 978-1-59558-824-1

The very best thing about old comics periodicals, and a factor sadly deficient in most graphic novels these days, is the lack of variety. Those venerable weeklies and monthlies were generally stuffed with different strips and features offering a host of entertainment options that contemporary books just can’t match.

That’s certainly not the case in this marvellous collection of new stories supervised by Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow and Jerry Ma, who first came to Funnybook fans’ attention in 2009 with the satirical shared-universe superhero book Secret Identities. That tome showcased the talents of exclusively Asian American creators in comics amalgamating the US industry’s signature genre with the social, cultural and entertainment influences of a non-WASP, non-Jewish (it’s easy to argue that the American comicbook was primarily invented by immigrants – and largely Jewish ones at that) talent pool to produce a whole new take on the sequential narrative experience.

Now this fresh collection expands on that initial offering with new adventures set in that New Universe, as well as many sidebar and only notionally linked cartoon yarns, from a host of gifted writers and artists whose origins and ethnicity stem from Asia, India and all points East.

An overarching storyline links the tales here as the Eastern archetypes which permeate Western fiction – the Brute, the Brain, the Temptress, the Alien and the Manipulator – are reclaimed and transformed into the motivating force which links the Secret Identities tale into one longer epic, with each chapter then supplemented by additional, less canonical strips.

Thus the prologue set up of ‘The Sacrifice’ written by Yang, Shen & Chow and illustrated by Ma introduces a quintet of otherworldly demons who want to break back into our helpless world. Bo-Kwun the Manipulator, Kum-Sau the Brute, Zhi-Lik the Brain, Yi-Heung the Alien and Ngau-Yun the Temptress – collectively known as Ng Duk, the Five Venoms – were long ago banished and barred by two ancient Djinn heroes. Their tenuous triumph is now sustained by a cult of ever vigilant warrior priests…

The saga further builds in ‘Burn’, by Jimmy & Jerry Ma, as a masked westerner in 19th century China brought poisonous flowers to destroy the people’s way of life, even contaminating the soul of their greatest champion The Commissioner…

The story proper begins in America during the Gold Rush with ‘The Brute – Driving Steel: the Breaking’ by Yang & Krishna M. Sadasivam, as wandering oriental outcast Ifrit and his negro partner John Henry are tricked into breaking the Mirror of Divine Immortals and release the Five Venoms…

Tangential follow-ups then offer a new perspective on an old story in ‘Master Tortoise & Master Hare’ by Howard Wong & Jamie Noguchi, Bernard Chang’s ‘Showtime’ begins a demonic basketball battle resolved on the artist’s own website, whilst ‘Solitary’ (Michael Kang, Edmund Lee & Glenn Urieta) examines the contemporary gang scene and family bonds before ‘Clean Getaway’ (Jamie Ford & A.L. Baroza) perfectly pastiches EC crime comics, complete with faux cover from Tales of the Orient #12…

‘The Temptress’ leads off the next chapter of the ongoing epic with ‘Bai, Bai, Bai Tsai’ by Yang, Martin Hsu & Sophia Lin as the creators reference manga styles to relate how second generation kid heroes Magical Girl, Super Deformed and Hell Kitty solve an ancient mystery and uncover sinister exploitation involving a cancelled cartoon show after which ‘Ching Shih, Queen of Pirates’, by Natalie Kim & Robin Ha, details the history of a 19th century demimonde who uniquely took control of her own destiny.

Another kind of seductress figures in the bittersweet romantic fable ‘The Regrets We Talk About’ by Fred Chao whilst ‘Heroes Without a Country: Tokyo Rose’ from Daniel Jae Lee & Dafu Yu provides a delightfully smart WWII superhero spy-thriller and Amy Chu, Larry Hama & Craig Yeung cleverly recall a bad time for Japanese-American Nisei in ‘The Date’…

A full-colour glossy ‘Gallery’ of concepts and characters follows featuring art and synopses for ‘Adam Warrock’ by Eugene Ahn & Ming Doyle, ‘Revolution Shuffle’ by Bao Phi & GB Tran, ‘Tempest’ from Kai Ma & Eric Kim, ‘The Walkman’ hilariously conceived by Aaron Takahashi & Mukesh Singh, ‘Angry Asian Man’ Phil Yu & Jerry Ma, the utterly enchanting ‘Mei the Alien’ by Koji Steven Sakai & Deodata Pangandoyon, ‘Camp Mech’ by Eric Nakamura & Sara Saedi, and Thenmozhi Soundararajan & Saumin Suresh Patel’s ‘The Death Stalker’…

‘The Brain’ then takes centre stage for the unfolding epic in ‘Hide and Sikh’ from Parry Shen & Jeremy Arambulo wherein the atomic children born of the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki grow into their dormant power and uncover a huge secret of metahuman genesis…

The remainder of the chapter then focuses on the dreaming world described by ‘The Power of Petunia’ (Joy Osmanski & Yasmin Liang), Paul Wei & Chi-Yun Lau’s classy future shocker ‘Drones and Droids’, a parable of High School popularity contests resulting in ‘Camden’s Revenge’ by Keiko Agena & Louie Chin and a darkly traumatic decision made in ‘Metatron’ by Stuart Ng.

Possibly my very favourite tale in this masterful monochrome compilation is Greg Pak & Takeshi Miyazawa’s ‘Los Robos, Arizona’, joyously referencing the wide-eyed wonder of manga boys and their giant alien Mecha as a young cadet is selected by fate to befriend an incredible metal visitor, whilst Ford & Baroza again charm with new nostalgia in ‘A Cut Above’ parodying EC horror with a snippet from Weird Asian Science #46…

The over-epic resumes with ‘The Alien’ in ‘Peril: Welcome to the Terror’ from Keith Chow & Jerry Castro, returning to Goldfield, Arizona in 1900 and an outrage against the Chinese immigrant workers, before jumping to today and a manhunt for a misunderstood hero steeped in the horrors of then and the technology of tomorrow…

Kripa Joshi then takes a swingeing pot-shot at a culture of callous bullying in ‘Miss Moti, Shattered’, Johann Choi reveals the darkness of ‘The Stranger’ and Traci Honda deliciously, wordlessly plays childish games with ‘Personal Monsters’.

Tanji Chopra & Alice Meichi Li take a long dark look at the sordid future of negotiable affection in ‘Weightless’, whilst Angela Veronica Wong, Reinhardt Suarez, Christine Norrie & Craig Yeung explore the endless anticipation of kid superhumans and their insatiable aspirations in ‘A Dream of Flying’, before ‘Fashion Never Dyes’ again displays Ford & Baroza’s delight with EC thrillers by providing a shocker from the tragically non-existent Uncanny Tales of the Yellow Peril #27.

‘The Manipulator’ at last steps up in ‘Hibakusha: Secrets’ by Shen & Sean Chen as a determined team of atomic heroes uncover the clandestine nature of the Arizona scandal in a spectacular action adventure, whilst the ancillary aspects include ‘Push’ (Jennifer S. Fang, Ace Continuado & Julian San Juan) which reveals what happens when Yankee superhero brawn meets studious Asian serial killer planning, whilst ‘Persons of Mass Destruction’, by Gary Jackson & Cesar P. Castillo, offers a chilling dose of metahuman realpolitik in relation to the “threat” of North Korea.

Also on view are Ren Hsieh & Bryan Lee’s alien incursion ‘The Merciful’, stunning kung fu doomsday parable ‘Qi Lai!’ by Roger Ma, Dheeraj Verma & Tak Toyoshima, the indescribably odd ‘Occupy Ethnic Foods’ courtesy of a solo flying Toyoshima, and the gloriously hip strip featuring the maternal tribulations of a rather harried ‘Shadow Hero’ by Gene Luen Yang & Sonny Liew…

Yang, Shen, Chow & Urieta then bring it all to a triumphal finale in ‘The Sealing’ as the disparate heroes unite to battle the Five Venoms and restore the Mirror of Divine Immortals through an ultimate sacrifice or two, wrapping up this stirring and staggeringly impressive anthology celebration in grand manner.

Finally the publishing project further underscores its debt of thanks to the constantly-changing nature of the American Experiment in illustrated Epilogue. ‘The Vilcek Story’ (by Jeff Yang & Wendy Xu) précis the history of the family of Czechoslovakian Jews who fled to the USA during the years of Nazi atrocity and, after building successful lives, set up a foundation which celebrates and supports the ongoing immigrant experience – and funded this collection…

Combining the best aspects of a vast panoply of storytelling traditions and artistic styles, Shattered is a bold experiment in identity and assimilation that will amaze comics fans in search of something a little different…
Compilation © 2012 Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow and Jerry Ma. Individual pieces © 2012 each author. All rights reserved.

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Northguard: Manifest Destiny


By Mark Shainblum & Gabriel Morrissette with Jacques Boivin and others (Caliber Press)
No ISBN, ASIN B00071Y8KK

The huge outpouring of fresh material which derived from the birth of American comicbooks’ Direct Sales revolution produced a plethora of innovative titles and creators – and let’s be honest – a host of appalling, derivative, knocked-off, banged-out trash too.

Happily I’m the boss of me and I choose to focus on the good and even great stuff…

The 1980s were an immensely fertile time for English-language comics-creators. In America an entire new industry had started with the birth of dedicated comics shops and, as innovation-starved specialist retail outlets sprung up all over the country, operated by fans for fans, a host of new publishers began to experiment with format, genre and content, whilst eager readers celebrated the happy coincidence that everybody seemed to have a bit of extra cash to play with.

Consequently those new publishers were soon aggressively competing for the attention and cash of punters who had grown resigned to getting their sequential art jollies from DC, Marvel, Archie and/or Harvey Comics. European and Japanese material began 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.

Most importantly, by avoiding the traditional family-focussed sales points such as newsstands, more mature material could be produced: not just increasingly violent and sexually explicit but also far more political and intellectually challenging too.

Subsequently, much of the “kid’s stuff” stigma finally dissipated andAmericabegan catching up to the rest of the world, partially acknowledging that comics might be a for-real art-form.

New talent, established stars and different takes on the old forms all found a thriving forum desperate for something a little different. Even smaller companies and foreign outfits had a fair shot at the big time and a lot of great material came – and, almost universally, as quickly went – without getting the attention or success they warranted.

One of the most critically acclaimed and enthralling features was a bleak yet fearfully authentic-seeming interpretation of real-world superheroics from Canadian independents Matrix Books who launched another superb and too-soon-lost costumed crusader on an uncaring world in 1984 with the advent of New Triumph featuring Northguard #1-5. The black and white series for mature readers was sadly lost in a growing storm of black and white self-published titles of varying quality and folded in 1985.

In 1989, Caliber Press licensed the property and launched a general readership, 3-issue miniseries Northguard: the ManDes Conclusion to wrap up the interrupted storyline, simultaneously packaging the original Matrix issues as Northguard: Manifest Destiny, one of the industry’s earliest trade paperback collections.

Written by Matrix founder Mark Shainblum and illustrated by Gabriel Morrissette the story is one that will delight dyed-in-the-wool comics fans as one of their own finally lives the dream…

The volume begins with a fascinating potted history of Canada’s comics industry and love-affair with patriotic superheroes in John Bell’s Foreword after which ‘…And Stand on Guard…’ (lettered by Ian Carr and with an early plotting and art assistance credit for Geof Isherwood) opens with a grisly assassination and a tragic air disaster, before introducing young Phillip Wise ofMontreal.

Left at home whilst his parents vacationed, the young fanboy is just settling in with a stack of comicbooks when a knock at the door leads to his abrupt abduction…

Regaining consciousness in a palatial apartment, Phillip is introduced to billionaire inventor  Ron Cape, a single-minded, altruistic industrialist who runs P.A.C.T. – Progressive Allied Canadian Technologies – a company run by benevolent capitalists with a new world vision…

Capehas his own spy team “Unit 7”, used to protect company secrets and keep his rivals honest, but in the course of their investigations the team has obtained proof that an American company is planning to overthrow the Canadian government. Their only clue to the scheme is the enigmatic code-term “ManDes”…

Used to direct action, P.A.C.T. intended to use a uniquely gifted, trained operative and their latest prototype – a miraculous energy weapon dubbed the Uniband – to covertly counter the imminent threat, but that guy was just murdered and his deputy died in an air crash. Now the device needs months of calibration to a specific set of brainwaves before it can be used…

Without a new controller the Uniband, which taps into a whole, new set of physics, is just a very expensive piece of ugly jewellery, but after hacking all the medical records in Quebec, the P.A.C.T. team luckily found a near-match for their dead agent’s thought patterns…

As the awestruck kid ponders the offer of a lifetime, in America’s Deep South a Fundamentalist Christian and racist manic named Tyler who runs Ultra, one of the world’s most powerful corporations, takes further steps to thwart Cape and his inner circle…

After a pensive night Phillip reaches a decision. He will become P.A.C.T.’s human gun, but only on his own terms. Rather than a secret agent Wise wants the technologists to turn him into a real-life superhero – complete with mask and costume…

Over a barrel and against the advice of his subordinates and directors, Capecomplies and Phillip rapidly undergoes cybernetic surgery and radical physical training to enable him to use the miraculous Uniband. No one is aware that the boy is already a target of Dugan, the assassin who killed his predecessor.

In a bloody confrontation however, the barely-competent kid turns the tables on his coldly pragmatic attacker by thinking like a comic book character and not a rational, trained professional…

Northguard, as Phillip now calls himself, even manages to very publicly save the Premier of the province on live TV and foil the ManDes scheme to instigate an Anglo-French race war inQuebec…

‘Awaken the Dreamers’ (with Bernie Mireault helping out Morrissette on the art) finds the Jewish Phillip tormented by nightmares of racial atrocity and P.A.C.T.’s core team riven by doubt and dissent at the turn events have taken. Nobody signed on to become clandestine policemen and the consequent death toll has everybody rattled…

Meanwhile in the basement of their HQ, Dugan has broken out of custody and gone on a murderous rampage through the building. This time though, he’s ready for the kid with the wonder-weapon and easily defeats him, but then makes the horrific mistake of trying to use Uniband himself…

Frustrated by his constant failures “The Reverend” prays for guidance and hears the Word of God. Ultra has two years to wipe out the blasphemy that isCanadaor the Almighty will cleanse the entire Earth…

Inked by Jacques Boivin, ‘Target Red, Target Blue: Making Hate’ finds Phillip called to P.A.C.T. to be stripped of the Uniband he failed to protect, but absconding before they can remove it. Wandering the streets of Montreal, he finds himself at a dojo and watches a stunning display of martial arts grace and power. With thoughts of learning taekwon-do he chats with the devastating Manon DesChamps and before he even knows what he’s doing the lad has transformed into Northguard before her unbelieving, admiring eyes…

Meanwhile in Boston, Massachusetts, Vietnamvet Ed Holman gets a package from P.A.C.T. that will make his new job even easier. The corporation’s latest technological marvel, acting with the metal plate in his head, now enables him to change his appearance at the press of a button. The Steel Chameleon is ready to become P.A.C.T.’s only super-agent…

As Manon attempts to teach Northguard to fight, they are attacked by a mercilessly efficient squad of operatives led by a psychotic American woman named Valerie White and only Phillip’s overwhelming firepower and Manon’s skill allow them to escape alive…

‘Target Red, Target Blue: Never Surrender’ (with additional inking from J. Harpes & friends) finds Steel Chameleon being briefed by Cape as Phillip awakens at Manon’s apartment. Almost immediately a Russian operative codenamed Redstorm warns the youngsters that Valerie has tracked them down and offers to buy the Uniband for an astronomical sum…

Whilst Holman reviews Intel and realises Valerie – a ruthless USagent known as Eagle – and Redstorm are about to renew their mutually assured and long-running dance of sex and death on Canadian soil, his phone rings. Once again Phillip has done the unexpected in a crisis and simply called for help.

But even as Steel Chameleon rushes to their location, Northguard and Manon have moved to direct action, blasting the Soviet team’s car as a distraction before fleeing on a motorcycle. With Eagle and her squad in hot pursuit the young fugitives are trapped in a shopping mall by the relentless Cold Warriors as keen to kill each other as take the Uniband…

With bullets flying and bodies dropping everywhere Holman arrives just in time to push the rival agents into a horrific miscalculation…

And at Ultra, the Reverend rages at another scheme spoiled by the infernal P.A.C.T. unbelievers and decides to declare all-out economic war onCape’s company…

This terrific tome sadly stops – but doesn’t end – on a compelling low note with ‘Games of the Heart’ as the assorted cast-members are shown in poignant and telling vignettes. Reverend Tyler lays his divinely-inspired plans and marshals his religious zealots whilst the troubleCape loses his most trusted and intimate confidante and Phillip reels with unaccustomed jealousy after meeting Manon’s boyfriend.

The determined kid still holds it together enough to undergo his first explosive full training session under the supervision of Steel Chameleon, however…

Of course nobody expected Manon to show up in a costume of her own, so how could they expect the dazzling Fleur-de-Lys to be so exceptionally efficient and effective at the whole superhero thing…
© 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1989 Mark Shainbloom and Gabriel Morrisette. Northguard, Fleur-de-Lys and all prominent characters are ™ Mark Shainbloom and Gabriel Morrisette. All rights reserved. Steel Chameleon © 1989 and ™Richard Comely/Star Rider Productions. Used under license.

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Kick-Ass

Revised, expanded edition

By Mark Millar, John Romita Jr., Tom Palmer & (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-102-7

Now that the furore has died down over the first movie and is yet to begin in regard to the sequel, I thought I’d take a look at the marvellously fun, blackly comedic and ultra-violent comedy that is Kick-Ass purely in terms of a reading experience, courtesy of the 2010 British Titan Books edition, which includes – as well as all 8 issues of the creator-owned comicbook miniseries (originally published through Marvel’s Icon imprint) – 15 pages of unseen design sketches, pages in process and assorted unseen artworks featuring the scene-stealing tyke of terror Hit-Girl…

Set in the horribly drab and disappointing real world, it all begins with the trenchant recollections of High School no-hoper Dave Lizewski, a pitifully average and unhappy teenager who loves comicbooks. With no chance of being part of the in-crowd, Dave hangs out with the other geeks, talking TV, movies, funnybooks and girls – and, of course, is besotted with ultra-queen of cool Katie Deauxma – who naturally despises him…

One day he has his big inspiration – he’s going to be a masked superhero. All he needs is a costume and a gimmick. Oh, and a codename too…

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

After months in hospital and with three metal plates in his skull, Dave eventually returns to school, but the compulsion hasn’t left him and he is soon prowling the city again. Chancing on a mugging the masked moron again piles in and – more by sheer bloody-mindedness than any particular skill or power – manages to drive off the assailants. Moreover, this time his battle was caught on witnesses’ camera-phones and uploaded to YouTube…

An overnight internet sensation and supremely overconfident, Dave, or Kick-Ass, is floating on a cloud. Even Katie seems to have finally noticed him… but only because he’s gay: a rumour that had started when he was found naked and severely battered months ago…

So desperate is Dave that he plays to the rumour and becomes the prom queen’s “gay best friend”, whilst spending solitary moment stalking the streets, alleyways and rooftops in his superhero persona. He even starts a Kick-Ass MySpace page where fans and people in trouble can contact him…

Dave’s life goes into deadly overdrive when he acts on one plea and marches into a grungy apartment determined to talk a lowlife thug out of harassing and stalking his ex-wife. Suddenly confronted with a posse of brutal criminals for whom violence is a way of life, Kick-Ass is being beaten to death when a diminutive 10-year old girl slaughters the entire gang with deadly ease and honking great samurai swords…

Dave can only watch in awe as Hit-Girl glides like a ghost over the rooftops and returns to her burly partner Big Daddy: cool, efficient ninjas of justice and everything he’s aspired to be but could never approach in a million years…

These urban vigilantes are utter ciphers, stalking and destroying the operations of brutal Mafia boss Johnny Genovese with remorseless efficiency and in complete attention-shunning anonymity.

Dave is simply not in their league and doesn’t care for their methods. After all, superheroes don’t kill… Chastened and a little scared, he grudgingly carries on his own small-scale endeavours, drawing some measure of comfort from the growing band of costumed imitators Kick-Ass has inspired and those regular intimate moments when the still blithely ingenuous Katie tells him all her secrets, dreams and desires…

Things start to look up when he meets Red Mist, a fellow adventurer and one with a flashy car and lots of expensive toys. When the pair very visibly become media darlings during a tenement fire, Kick-Ass is visited by Big Daddy and Hit-Girl, who think they’ve found the perfect back-ups to help them finally eradicate the Genovese mob…

After telling Katie the truth, Dave rendezvous with Red Mist for the big push only to find that his partner is Genovese’s geeky, psychotic son, and the whole act has been an elaborate trap to kill the far-too effective and expensively competent Big Daddy and Hit-Girl…

With both his allies apparently dead, Dave is being slowly tortured to death. Kick-Ass can only draw upon his one advantage – his sheer, stupid inability to give up – until the miraculously surviving Hit-Girl comes to rescue with her customary mercilessness…

Bloody, bruised, broken but unbowed, Kick-Ass finally sheds his last superhero scruple and tools up for a blistering bloody showdown in the mobster’s skyscraper fortress…

Appallingly, graphically hyper-violent and atrociously foul-mouthed, Kick-Ass is the ultimate extension of the trend for “realistic” superhero stories and simultaneously a brilliantly engaging and cynically hilarious examination of boyhood dreams and power fantasies, delivered with dazzling aplomb, studied self-deprecation and spellbinding style.

Mark Millar’s compelling script – unlike the movie adaptation – never steps beyond the bounds of possibility and credibility, whilst the stunning art collaboration of John Romita Jr., Tom Palmer and colourist Dean White delivers an all too familiar picture-perfect New York.

Sharp, shocking, superb and with the promise of yet more and even better to come, the graphic novel Kick-Ass is a story not just for comics fans but a genuine treasure for all followers of furious fun and fantasy in any medium.

Kick-Ass comic strip © 2010 Mark Millar and John S. Romita.

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Operative: Scorpio


By Jack Herman, Dan Tolentino & Danny Taver (Blackthorne Publishing)
ISBN: 0-932629-15-6

Sometimes I just get a devil in me…

Although I review a broad spectrum of illustrated narratives and comics related books, I generally stick to the rule of thumb that the selection has to have some intrinsic quality or merit. Occasionally however there comes an item that I just can’t rationally recommend but still just… sends me…

As the first contraction of the 1980s independent comics boom began to cut down the plethora of small publishers, Blackthorne moved from canny licensed properties such as California Raisins and Rocky and Bullwinkle, 3-D titles and classic reprints like Tarzan, Dick Tracy and Betty Boop into a line of all-new characters, which might well have hastened their demise.

They also brought out many early graphic novels and Operative: Scorpio might well rank amongst their oddest.

In blocky black and white the confused but compellingly enthusiastic caper details the story of ambitious young thug Carl Manara who takes sole proprietorship of PMD, a new super-addictive drug hitting the streets of a peculiarly Latino Los Angeles, consequently falling foul of the criminal overlord Monticello, whose cabal Blackleague runs the entire country’s illegal enterprises.

Monticello has other problems; specifically a crazy masked martial artist roaming the streets and hitting all his organisations rackets. Scorpio’s campaign is costing him money and the cops – bought or honest – can’t catch the mysterious vigilante…

‘Breaking and Entering’ introduces Police Detective Morgan Pierce, tasked with stopping Manara’s super-drug from causing a bloody turf war. He has no interest in catching Scorpio: in fact he thinks the guy’s a hoax or urban legend…

Pierce has some odd friends he seems embarrassed by: fly-by-night playboy nightclub owner Aristotle, whose clientele ranges from the social elite to the dregs of the city, and disgraced competition martial artist Jay-Daniel Cobra, who only seem to meet with him at the oddest times – whenever no body’s watching…

After some beat cops are killed and civilians come under fire Scorpio gets involved, but Manara has a secret weapon. The designer of the new drug is a highly respected college professor and the only one who knows the formula, protected by a lethal hand-to-hand fighter. When the masked man raids the chemist’s fortress home Scorpio barely survives the encounter.

With war brewing between Manara and Monticello, the upstart’s gang begins selling the new dope out of their car and soon civilians are caught in gang crossfires. The cops won’t touch the dealers – after all they are Homicide Detectives too…

And that’s when the enigmatic Scorpio decides on drastic action: all three of him…

Muddled, manic and utterly mad, this yarn is full of brutal, pell-mell action and short on characterisation but that really doesn’t matter as the drama barrels along, reaching a climax but no real conclusion.

Clearly the opening shot in a longer epic, this dark yarn, with echoes of 1970’s exploitation cinema and Grindhouse movies, was written by Jack Herman, with art by the clearly Latin American or Filipino team of Dan Tolentino & Danny Taver – possibly pseudonyms for three or four different artists in a shared studio.

Even in 1989 the book looked and felt a decade older and I have a sneaking suspicion that it might even be a Mexican digest-comics story surreptitiously picked up and translated: no proof to support the idea but it just has that unshakeable feel to it…

Inexplicably compelling and splendidly fun, this is another guilty pleasure retro-read, best absorbed whilst listening to “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys… but only at maximum volume.
© 1988 Blackthorne Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Mike Baron’s The Group LaRue: the Ultimate Gaming Adventure


By Mike Baron, David Campiti, Paul Curtis, Faye Perozich, Andy Kuhn & Chris Tsuda (Innovation)
No ISBN:

Once upon a time Dungeons & Dragons style role playing games were the most compelling and obsessive things kids could do. All over the civilised world bands of youngsters would gather in furtive secrecy to play at being wizards, thieves and heroes with dice and bits of paper. How spoiled modern children must be with their electronic paraphernalia and tolerant parents, but at least it’s not like my distant school days when we just stood in the pouring rain, rolling hoops, hitting each other in the face with 24lb leather footballs and imagined ourselves as heroes by hitting each other with sticks whilst chain-smoking, beer-swilling teachers gazed on uncaringly…

But I digress: the late 1980s were a fertile time for American comics-creators. An entire new industry had been born with the growth of the Direct Sales market and its dedicated specialist retail outlets; new companies were experimenting with format and content, and punters even had a bit of spare cash to play with.

Moreover much of the “kid’s stuff” stigma had finally abated and the country 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 cash of punters who had grown 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.

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 last to emerge as a contender was Innovation Publishing, founded by David Campiti in 1988, which added canny reprints collections like Bill Ward’s Torchy, Larry Harmon’s Bozo, the World’s Most Famous Clown and Walt Kelly’s Santa Claus Adventures and a judicious accumulation of acquired ongoing titles such as The Maze Agency and Hero Alliance to its deftly imaginative run of original titles like Scarlet Kiss, Cyberpunk, Legends of the Star Grazers, Scaramouch, Straw Men and many others.

The company’s true strength lay in a vibrant specialisation in adapted fantasy properties ranging from Lost in Space, Quantum Leap, Dark Shadows, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Beauty and the Beast and other media sensations to popular literary works such as Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality, Gene Wolf’s The Shadow of the Torturer and a welter of blood-drenched vampire epics based on the horror works of Anne Rice.

At its height Innovation ranked fourth in market share behind Marvel, DC and Dark Horse Comics but intriguingly, one of their earliest failures – a troubled series devoted to the magic of RPG – was, in retrospect, amongst the best yarns in their canon…

Devised and scripted by Nexus and Badger creator Mike Baron the short and sweet saga of the Group LaRue told the tale of five role-playing kids who suddenly realised it wasn’t just a game anymore…

This slim full-colour collection gathers the three issue tale beginning with ‘Enter: the Group LaRue!’ by Baron and illustrators Andy Kuhn & Chris Tsuda, as five Minneapolis kids sneaked into an old deserted mansion to play their weekly game only to be interrupted by a real wizard.

When he was killed by a gigantic spear his magic gem exploded and the play-actors suddenly transformed into the characters they were channelling: a psychic Precog, superheroes Spark and Lead Plate, super-genius Scrambler and a flying Werewolf.

This last was Gil La Rue – whose illusionist grandfather built the abandoned mansion years ago, before suddenly vanishing.

The boy took charge when the villains in their planned game scenario manifest and deadly giant bug-men attack the bewildered kids…

Escaping with their lives the disbelieving players regrouped outside the mansion only to discover that Gil’s house had burned down and his whole family were gone…

Staying with best friend Manny Rhodes AKA Lead Plate, Gil deduced that whatever forces they unwittingly unleashed might well be hunting them all…

And that’s when estate executor Bob Whitney arrived, offering to reveal the secrets and reasons for their uncanny transformations. Apparently the elder La Rue belonged to a cult which covertly guards humanity against supernatural invasion, but now only Gil and his friends are left to carry on the interrupted mission…

Baron was gone by the second issue ‘Thrown for a Loup!’ but scripters Campiti & Paul Curtis carried on the saga with Kuhn & Tsuda faithfully continuing the art chores as the kids reluctantly explored the subterranean netherworld beneath La Rue mansion, battling more bug-things and seeking out the evil sorcerer who controlled them, but it’s soon clear that there was far more to good old Bob than met the eye…

The yarn came to an abrupt end with ‘Bug Out!’ (written by Campiti & Faye Perozich) as the team, still trapped in some otherworldly underground dimension learned the kind of man Bob was and a few basic home-truths such as not all monsters look scary, ugly doesn’t mean evil and especially “there’s no place like home”…

Clever, funny, thrilling and gloriously cathartic in a wholesome all-ages way, this old-fashioned adventure fantasy with a thoroughly modern “happy ever after” was fabulously fun and definitely deserved a longer run and a steady creative team behind it.

Even with the action long over there’s still plenty of enjoyment for modern readers and magic loving fans to discover if they can track down this buried treasure
™ and © 1989 Michael Baron. Product package © 1989 Innovative Corp. Part #1 story © 1989 Michael Baron. Part #2-3 story © 1989 Innovative Corp. Artwork © 1989 Andy Kuhn. All rights reserved.

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The Valiant Era Collection


By Jim Shooter, Bob Hall, Don Perlin, Steve Ditko, Gonzalo Mayo, Stan Drake & various (Valiant)
No ISBN

During the market-led, gimmick-crazed frenzy of the 1990s amongst the interminable spin-offs, fads and shiny multiple-cover events a new comics company revived some old characters and proved once more that good story-telling never goes out of fashion. As Editor-in-Chief, Jim Shooter had made Marvel the most profitable and high-profile they had ever been and, after his departure, he used that writing skill and business acumen to transform some almost forgotten Silver-Age characters into contemporary gold.

Western Publishing had been a major player since comics’ earliest days, blending a wealth of licensed titles such as TV and Disney titles, Tarzan, or the Lone Ranger with homegrown hits like Turok, Son of Stone and Space Family Robinson. In the 1960s during the superhero boom these adventure titles expanded to include, Brain Boy, M.A.R.S. Patrol Total War (created by Wally Wood), Magnus, Robot Fighter (by the incredible Russ Manning) and in deference to the atomic age of heroes, Nukla and the brilliant Dr. Solar, Man of the Atom. Despite supremely high quality and passionate fan-bases, they never captured the media spotlight of DC or Marvel’s costumed cut-ups. Western shut up their comics division in 1984.

With an agreement to revive some, any or all of these four-colour veterans, Shooter and co-conspirator Bob Layton came to a bold decision and made those earlier adventures part-and-parcel of their refit: acutely aware that old fans don’t like having their childhood favourites bastardized and that revivals need all the support they can get. Thus the old days were canonical: they “happened.”

The company launched with a classy reinterpretation of science fiction icon Magnus, but the key title to the new universe they were building was the broadly super-heroic Solar, Man of the Atom which launched with an eye to all the gimmicks of the era, but also cleverly realised and realistically drawn.

Hit after hit followed and the pantheon of heroes expanded until dire market condition and corporate chicanery ended the company’s stellar expansion. Gradually it fractionated and all but disappeared…

Now with a Bloodshot movie in the offing and reports of the company’s revival here’s a glimpse at one of their too few graphic novel collections from the early days of the format.

The Valiant Era Collection, representing Magnus #12, Solar #10-11, Eternal Warrior #4-5 and Shadowman #8, was released in 1994 as an introductory sampler and canny compendium of first appearances from the company’s burgeoning continuity which gathered a disparate selection of tales which had one thing in common: the debuts of characters that had quickly become “hot”.

In the collector-led era of the early 1990s – before one zillion internet sites and social networking media – many new concepts caught the public’s attention only after publication. The seemingly-savvy snapped up multiple copies of comics they subsequently couldn’t sell and many genuinely popular innovations slipped by unnoticed until too late.

This trade paperback from a company that valued storytelling above all else addressed that thorny issue by simply bundling their own hot and hard to find hits in one book…

‘Stone and Steel’ was written by Faye Perozich and Shooter and illustrated by Gonzalo Mayo, and found Robot-Fighting superman Magnus transported to a timeless dimension where dinosaurs and cavemen existed side by side. Once there he became embroiled in a battle for survival against his old enemy Laslo Noel: a rabid anti-technologist not averse to using modern super-weapons to force his point of view.

The Lost Land had other defenders, most notably two Native American warriors named Turok and his young companion Andar. The pair had been a popular Western Publishing mainstay for over a quarter of a century (see Turok, Son of Stone) and their initial (re)appearance here led to their revival in a succession of titles which even survived the company’s demise as well as a series of major computer and video games.

That spectacular and entrancing epic is followed by a two-part Solar saga which introduced an immortal warrior prince and paved the way for the disclosure of the secret history which underpinned the entire Valiant Universe.

Solar was brilliant nuclear physicist Phil Seleski, who designed a new type of fusion reactor and was transformed into an atomic god when he sacrificed his life to prevent it destroying the world.

His energized matter, troubled soul, coldly rational demeanour and aversion to violence made him a truly unique “hero” but his discovery of hidden meta-humans and a genuine super-villain in the ambitious, mega-maniacal form of ultra psionic Toyo Harada led Solar into a constantly escalating Secret War.

Solar #10, ‘The Man who Killed the World’ by Shooter, Don Perlin, Stan Drake, John Dixon & Paul Autio, introduced a raft of new concepts and characters beginning with troubled teen Geoffry McHenry – the latest in a long line of Geomancers blessed or cursed with the power to communicate with every atom that comprises our planet. When the world screams that a sun-demon is about to consume it Geoff tracks down Seleski only to determine that Solar is not unique and the threat is still at large.

Meanwhile, however, Harada’s Harbinger Foundation has sent all its unnatural resources to destroy the Man of the Atom, supplemented by a mysterious individual named Gilad Anni-Padda, an Eternal Warrior who has been battling evil around the globe for millennia and has worked with a number of Geoff’s predecessors…

The concluding chapter ‘Justifiable Homicides’ (Shooter, Steve Ditko, Ted Halsted & Mayo) finds Geomancer, Gilad and Solar battling for their lives against an army of Harbinger super-warriors but as always with this series, the ending is not one you’ll see coming…

Gilad quickly jumped to his own series and Eternal Warrior #4-5 introduced his immortal but unnamed undying nemesis in ‘Evil Reincarnate’ (Kevin Vanhook, Yvel Guichet & Dixon) a tale of ancient China which segues neatly into a contemporary tale battling the drug-baron who is his latest reborn iteration before the nanite-enhanced techno-organic wonder warrior Bloodshot explodes onto the scene in ‘The Blood is the Life’ (by Vanhook & Dixon); a blockbusting action epic which set up the enhanced assassin’s own bullet-bestrewn series and, tangentially, the 40th century Magnus spin-off Rai…

The final debut in this volume was not for another hero but rather featured the introduction of the Valiant Universe’s most diabolical villain. Shadowman #8 held ‘Death and Resurrection’ (Bob Hall, Guichet & Dixon) and changed the rules of the game throughout the company’s growing line of books.

Jack Boniface was a struggling session saxophonist trying to strike it rich in the Big Easy when he was seduced by Lydia, a mysterious woman he picked up in a club. Her sinister, trysting assault left him unconscious, amnesiac and forever altered by a bite to his neck. Lydia was a Spider Alien: part of a race preying on humanity for uncounted centuries and responsible for creating many of the paranormal humans who secretly inhabit the world.

Her bite forever changed Jack and when darkness falls he becomes agitated, restless and extremely aggressive: forced to roam the Voodoo-haunted streets of New Orleans as the compulsive, impulsive daredevil dubbed Shadowman – a violent, driven maniac, hungry for conflict – but only when the sun goes down…

This tale examines the deadly criminal drug sub-culture of the city as a new narcotic begins to take its toll: a poison which forces its victims to careen through the streets bleeding from every orifice until they die. Witnesses call them “Blood Runners”…

As Shadowman investigates he is unaware that he is a target of the drug’s creator – an ancient sorcerer named Master Darque – and that soon the world will no longer be the rational, scientific place he believed.

Soon Jack will have terrifying proof that magic is both real and painfully close and that the Man of Shadow is not a creature of exotic physics and chemistry but something far more arcane and obscure…

Despite being a little disjointed these stories are immensely readable and it’s a tragedy that they’re not all readily available. Still there are always the back issue comics and the hope that the new revival might spawn a few trade paperback editions. Until then you can still hunt down this and the precious few other collections via your usual internet and comic retailers, and trust me, you really should…
© 1994 Voyager Communications Inc. and Western Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

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StormWatch: Final Orbit


By Warren Ellis, Bryan Hitch & Paul Neary, Michael Ryan & Luke Rizzo and Chris Sprouse & Kevin Nowlan (WildStorm/ DC Comics/Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-381-0

One era ended and another began with the brace of tales collected in this slim tome: a rare positive example of the often vilified (by me particularly) movie property/comicbook crossover events and one which actually impinges on and affects the continuity of one if not both partners in the enterprise.

StormWatch was the UN’s Special Crisis Intervention unit; created to manage global threats and superhuman menaces with international ramifications. From their Skywatch satellite in orbit above Earth they observed, waiting for a member nation to call for help…

The multinational mini-army comprised surveillance and intelligence specialists, tech support units, historians, researchers, detention facilities, combat analysts, divisions of uniquely trained troops, a squadron of state-of-the-art out-atmosphere fighter planes and a band of dedicated superheroes for front-line situations beyond the scope of mere mortals. In the pilot’s seat was the incorruptible overseer codenamed “Weatherman”.

The title was part of the 1990s comics revolution which saw celebrated young creators abandon major “work-for-hire” publishers to set up their own companies and titles – with all the benefits and drawbacks that entailed. Like most of those glossy, formulaic, style-over-content, painfully derivative titles, it started with honest enthusiasm but soon bogged down for lack of ideas.

Warren Ellis took over the moribund morass with issue #37 (collected in assorted graphic novels and reviewed in here recently) and immediately began kicking some life into the title. Soon the series became an edgy, unmissable treatise on modern heroism and the uses and abuses of power. Making the book unquestionably his plaything Ellis slowly evolved StormWatch out of existence, to be reborn as the no-rules-unbroken landmark The Authority.

This volume collects the concluding issues of the comic’s second volume (#11-12) between which a WildC.A.T.s/Aliens one-shot neatly slotted in to change that particular fictional universe forever.

It all begins with ‘No Reason’ (illustrated by Bryan Hitch & Paul Neary and Michael Ryan & Luke Rizzo) as the assembled heroes and foot-soldiers of the UN Crisis Intervention organisation detect an odd asteroid moving towards Earth. Dispatching two shuttles to examine and divert the giant rock before it can fall into our planet’s gravity-well, the explorers soon realise it’s a vessel of unknown origins.

When contact is lost the assorted tensions rise, but the re-routing of the ominous astral intruder goes off as planned and the mysterious moonlet is soon heading into the sun. However only one ship is returning to Skywatch and they aren’t answering the radio…

WildC.A.T.s/Aliens (Ellis, Chris Sprouse & Kevin Nowlan) opens with a StormWatch life-pod crashing into Manhattan: its few battered survivors telling of an alien attack by creatures all fangs and rage and spitting acid. The creatures were unstoppable and as soon as the refugees had escaped Weatherman sealed the space-station in an unbreakable quarantine…

Rogue heroes WildC.A.T.S, fearing the aliens are their marauding Daemonite enemies, decide to break the global protocols and investigate the locked down StormWatch citadel. But the beasts they find there are like nothing they have ever experienced before…

In one of the few comics situations where Ridley Scott and James Cameron’s Aliens truly worked and fully displayed their awesome ferocity, the WildC.A.T.S only just rescue the scant survivors of StormWatch’s 500+ compliment of mortals and metahumans, before sending the irreparably contaminated space station plunging into the sun after the star-rock that brought the Aliens to our doorstep…

With the immediate threat to Earth averted, ‘No Direction Home’ wraps up the tale and the saga of StormWatch as the organisation’s Black Ops unit Jenny Sparks, Jack Hawksmoor and Swift go deep undercover to tie-up all the loose ends preparatory to re-emerging as The Authority…

Combining low key drama and oppressive tension with staggering action and adventure this chilling tale was the perfect palate-cleanser before the landmark step-change of The Authority and their in-your-face, unconventional, uncompromising solutions to traditional costumed crusader problems.

StormWatch: Final Orbit – although certainly not to everybody’s taste – perfectly closes one chapter of the post-modern superhero saga: solidly in tune with the cynical, world-weary predilections of many older fans and late-comers to the medium.

© 1998 WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics, and Dark Horse Comics. Compilation © 2001 WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics, and Dark Horse Comics All Rights Reserved.

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StormWatch: Change or Die


By Warren Ellis, Oscar Jimenez, Tom Raney, & various (DC/WildStorm)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-631-6

StormWatch was the UN’s Special Crisis Intervention unit; created to manage global threats and superhuman menaces with international ramifications. From their Skywatch satellite in orbit above Earth they observed, waiting for a member nation to call for help…

The multinational mini-army comprised surveillance and intelligence specialists, tech support units, historians, researchers, detention facilities, combat analysts, divisions of uniquely trained troops, a squadron of state-of-the-art out-atmosphere fighter planes and a band of dedicated superheroes for front-line situations beyond the scope of mere mortals. In the pilot’s seat was incorruptible overseer Henry Bendix – “The Weatherman”.

The title sprang from the comics revolution which saw celebrated young creators abandon major “work-for-hire” publishers to set up their own companies and titles – with all the benefits and drawbacks that entailed. As with most of those glossy, formulaic, style-over-content, almost actionably derivative titles, it started with honest enthusiasm but soon bogged down for lack of ideas.

Warren Ellis took over the moribund morass with issue #37 (see the previous collection StormWatch: Force of Nature) and immediately began beating life into the title. Soon “just another high-priced team-book” became an edgy, unmissable treatise on practical heroism and the uses and abuses of power. Making the book unquestionably his plaything Ellis slowly evolved StormWatch out of existence, to be reborn as the no-rules-unbroken landmark The Authority.

This volume collects and concludes the comicbook’s first volume with issues #48-50 and bridges the gap to the second volume’s issues #1-3 with the extremely rare – and short – StormWatch Preview edition, all scripted by Ellis as he re-redefined the masked hero for a new millennium.

The action and suspense begins with ‘Change or Die’ (with art from Tom Raney & Randy Elliott) as the StormWatch team are targeted by a ruthless band of superhumans, led by a long dormant superman who first began fighting social injustice before World War II. After years of planning these underground wonder warriors are boldly using their powers to wipe out all the inequities of the old World Order and build a better world. Of course that means doing away with armies, politicians, all governments and any superheroes who don’t agree with them…

This more than any other is the tale which introduced The Authority – in concept at least – to the comics world, as the ambitious but completely best-intentioned team (including prototype versions of both The Doctor and The Engineer) strike on many fronts, turning deserts into gardens, brutally wiping out brutal dictatorships and revealing all those dirty little secrets to the global populace…

In a bid to save “human civilisation” Weatherman authorises all of StormWatch for a kill mission… but even as Bendix’s true character and plans are revealed the poor suckers on the front line – and even their idealistic antagonists – discover amidst bloody, spectacular battle that the real enemy in the way of a global paradise is, always, human nature…

Following the apocalyptic events which wrapped up the first series ‘Terminal Zone’ (illustrated by Oscar Jimenez & Chuck Gibson) opens with new Weatherman Jackson King and the surviving team members going through their paces in a rather subversive public relations exercise before ‘Strange Weather’ (rendered by the mob-handed art-horde of Jimenez, Michael Ryan, Jason Gorder, Mark McKenna, Richard Friend, Eduardo Alpuente & Homage Studios) launches the new adventures as StormWatch metahumans raid a clandestine US facility illegally weaponising US troops and other lethal biological materials.

It appears that America is willfully breaking UN Resolutions restricting the creation of super-soldiers; but is this the work of militant terrorists and disaffected renegades or does the chain of command reach higher – perhaps to the White House itself?

The team is soon hip-deep in DNA horrors and official hypocrisy when they infiltrate a sleepy Alabama town and the Federal government declares war on StormWatch…

Dark, scary and rabidly political, the tension and intrigue are ramped up to overload, but as always the hip and cynical message is leavened with spectacular action, mind-blowing big science thrills and magically vulgar humour.

Mixing tradition with iconoclastic irreverence this volume cleared the way and set the scene for the landmark step-change of The Authority and although certainly not to everybody’s taste, these perfect post-modern superhero sagas definitely deliver a blast of refreshing cool air for the jaded, world weary older fan.
© 1997, 1998, 1999 WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Stormwatch: Lightning Strikes


By Warren Ellis, Tom Raney, Jim Lee & various (DC/WildStorm)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-617-0

StormWatch was a paramilitary Special Crisis Intervention unit tasked with managing global threats and superhuman menaces with international ramifications; operating under the oversight of a UN committee. From their “Skywatch” satellite in geosynchronous orbit above Earth they observed, waiting until a member nation called for help…

The multinational taskforce comprised surveillance and intelligence specialists, tech support units, historians, researchers, detention facilities, combat analysts, divisions of uniquely trained troops, a squadron of state-of-the-art out-atmosphere fighter planes and a band of dedicated superheroes for front-line situations beyond the scope of mere mortals. In the pilot’s seat was incorruptible overseer Henry Bendix – “The Weatherman”.

StormWatch was born during the comics revolution which saw celebrated young creators abandon major “work-for-hire” publishers to set up their own companies and titles – with all the benefits and drawbacks that entailed. As with most of those glossy, formulaic, style-over-content, almost actionably derivative titles, it started with an honest hectic enthusiasm but soon bogged down for lack of ideas.

Warren Ellis took over the ponderous feature with issue #37 (see the previous collection StormWatch: Force of Nature) and immediately began beating life into the title. Soon “just another high-priced team-book” became an edgy, unmissable treatise on practical heroism and the uses and abuses of power. Making the book unquestionably his plaything Ellis slowly evolved StormWatch out of existence, to be reborn as the no-rules-unbroken landmark The Authority.

StormWatch: Lightning Strikes collects issues #43-47 of the comicbook, taking short, hard looks at individual cast members and also features a spectacular gallery of covers and variant-covers by Tom Raney & Randy Elliot, Mark Irwin, Gil Kane and Jim Lee.

The incisive explorations begin with ‘Jack Hawksmoor’, a human subjected to decades of surgical manipulation by aliens to become the avatar of cities. Drawn to the scene of a serial killer’s grotesque excesses Jack uncovers a festering government cover-up which reaches deep into the soul of America’s most revered idols and threatens to rip the country apart if exposed.

But the apparently untouchable murderer will never cease his slaughter-campaign unless someone stops him…

‘Jenny Sparks’ follows the cynical Englishwoman whose electrical powers were an expression of her metaphysical status as incarnate “Spirit of the Twentieth Century”: a captivating pastiche of fantasy through the last hundred years as the jaded hero recounts her life story (see also Jenny Sparks: The Secret History of the Authority) in a dazzling series of pastiches referencing Siegel & Shuster, Frank Hampson’s Dan Dare, Kirby, Crumb and the horrors of Thatcherite Britain in a gripping tale of betrayal, whilst the terse thriller ‘Battalion’ sees StormWatch’s normally non-operational, behind-the-scenes trainer fall into a supremacist terror-plot whilst on leave in Alabama and forced to call on skills and abilities he never thought he’d need again…

‘Rose Tattoo’ was a mute and mysterious sexy super psycho-killer recruited by Bendix as a walking ultimate sanction. When her super-powered team-mates go on a hilarious alcoholic bonding exercise she finally shows her true nature in a tale which foreshadows an upcoming crisis for the entire team… and planet.

Following Raney & Randy Elliot’s sterling run of the previous four tales Jim Lee & Richard Bennett illustrate the concluding ‘Assembly’ as Bendix sends his core-team into the very pits of Hell in a bombastic action-packed shocker that acts as a “jumping-on point” for new readers and a reminder of what StormWatch is and does… preparatory to Ellis kicking the props out from under the readership in the next volume…

One again skilfully mixing the traditional with the outrageous these episodes offered a fresh take on the costumed catastrophe genre that energised once-jaded readers and paved the way for the graphic phenomenon of the Authority. Darkly anarchic, funny and frightening these tales celebrate the best of what has gone before whilst kicking in the doors to a bleaker more compelling tomorrow.

© 1996, 1997, 2000 WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Stormwatch: Force of Nature


By Warren Ellis, Tom Raney& Randy Elliot (DC/WildStorm)
ISBN: 978-1-48023-611-8

StormWatch evolved out of the creative revolution which saw big name creators abandon the major “work-for-hire” publishers and set up their own companies and titles – with all the benefits and drawbacks that entailed. As with most of those glossy, formulaic, style-over-content, almost actionably derivative titles the series started with a certain verve and flair but soon bogged down for a lack of ideas and outside help was called in to save the sinking ships.

Dedicated Iconoclast Warren Ellis took over the cumbersome series with issue #37 and immediately began brutalizing the title into something not only worth reading but within an unfeasibly brief time produced a dark, edgy and genuinely thought-provoking examination of heroism, free will, the use and abuse of power and ultimate personal responsibility. Making the book uniquely his, StormWatch became unmissable reading as the series slowly evolved itself out of existence, to be reborn as the eye-popping, mind-boggling anti-hero phenomenon The Authority.

StormWatch was a vast United Nations-sponsored Special Crisis Intervention unit tasked with managing superhuman menaces with national or international ramifications and global threats, operating under the oversight of a UN committee. They were housed in “Skywatch” a futuristic space station in geosynchronous orbit above the planet and could only act upon specific request of a member nation.

The multinational taskforce comprised surveillance and intelligence specialists, technical support units, historians and researchers, detention technicians, combat analysts, divisions of uniquely trained troops, a squadron of state-of-the-art out-atmosphere fighter planes and a band of deputised superheroes for front-line situations beyond the scope of mere mortals. The whole affair was controlled by incorruptible overseer Henry Bendix – “The Weatherman”.

Referencing a host of fantasy classics ranging from T.HU.N.D.E.R. Agents and Justice League of America to Captain Scarlet and Star Trek: the Next Generation, StormWatch: Force of Nature collects issues #37-42 of the comicbook series and describes how the death of a team-member forces Bendix to re-evaluate his mission and find more effective ways to police the growing paranormal population and the national governments that seek to exterminate or exploit them…

The restructuring begins in ‘New World Order’ as, following the funeral of a fallen comrade, Bendix fires a large number of the superhuman contingent and recruits a trio of new “posthuman” heroes: electric warrior Jenny Sparks, extraterrestrially augmented detective Jack Hawksmoor and psycho-killer Rose Tattoo.

Weatherman’s own chain-of-command has altered too: his new superiors of the UN Special Security Council are all anonymous now and, with the world in constant peril, they have given Bendix carte blanche. He will succeed or fail all on his own…

The super-agents are further restructured: StormWatch Prime is the name of the regular, public-facing metahuman team, whilst Black is the code for a new covert insertion unit. StormWatch Red comprises the most powerful and deadly agents: they will handle “deterrent display and retaliation” – preventing crises by scaring the bejeezus out of potential hostiles…

Meanwhile, as all the admin gets signed off, in Germany a madman has unleashed a weaponized superhuman maniac to spreading death, destruction and disease. Whilst new Prime Unit deals with it Bendix shows the monster’s creator just how far he is prepared to go to preserve order on the planet below…

‘Reprisal’ is a murder investigation. No sooner had one of the redundant ex-StormWatch operatives arrived home than he was assassinated and Jack Hawksmoor, Irish ex-cop Hellstrike and pyrokine Fahrenheit’s subsequent investigation reveals the kill was officially instigated by a friendly government and StormWatch member-state…

Hawksmoor, Jenny Sparks and aerial avenger Swift are dispatched to an ordinary American town with a big secret in ‘Black’ as Amnesty International reports reveal that some US police forces are engaging in systematic human rights abuse. In Lincoln City they’re also building their own metahuman soldiers and testing them on ethnic minorities…

‘Mutagen’ sees the Prime team in action in Britain when terrorists release an airborne pathogen to waft its monstrous way across the Home Counties, turning humans into ghastly freaks for whom death is a quick and welcome mercy. As Skywatch’s Hammerstrike Squadron performs a sterilising bombing run over outraged Albion StormWatch Red arrives in the villains’ homeland to teach them the error of their ways…

In this continuum most superhumans are the result of exposure to a comet which narrowly missed the Earth, irradiating a significant proportion of humanity with power-potential. These “Seedlings’” abilities usually lie dormant until an event triggers them.

StormWatch believed they had a monopoly on posthumans who could trigger others in the form of special agent Christine Trelane, but when she investigates a new potential meta, she discovers proof of another ‘Activator.’

Coming closer to solving a long-running mystery regarding where the American Government is getting its new human weapons, Trelane first has to deal with the worst kind of seedling… a bad one…

This first collection of the Ellis Experiment concludes with the spectacular ‘KodÇ’.’ Japan shudders and reels under the telekinetic assault of cruelly conjoined artificial mutants bred by a backward-looking doomsday-cult messiah so the Prime team is dispatched to save lives and hunt down the instigators in a good old-fashioned, get-the-bad-guys romp which gives the team’s multi-faceted Japanese hero Fuji a chance to shine winningly…

Artfully blending the comfortably traditional with the radically daring these transitional tales offered a new view of the Fights ‘n’ Tights scene that tantalised jaded readers and led the way to the groundbreaking phenomenon of the Authority.

Tom Raney & Randy Elliott’s art is competent but mercifully underplayed – a real treat considering some of the excessive visual flourishes of the Image Era – but the real focus of attention is always the brusque “sod you” True Brit writing which trashes all the treasured ideoliths of superhero comics to such devastating effect.

This is superb action-based comics drama: cynical, darkly satirical, anarchic, alternately rip-roaringly funny and chilling in its examination of Real Politik but never forgetting that deep down we all really want to see the baddies get a good solid smack in the mouth…
© 1996, 1999 WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.