Category: Miscellaneous Superhero

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Black Light: The World of L.B. Cole


By Leonard Brandt Cole with an introduction by Bill Schelly (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-762-8

The early days of the American comicbook industry were a whirlwind of spectacular exuberance and the front covers of the gaudy pamphlets that endlessly proliferated were all crafted to scream “Buy Me! Buy Me!” from within a sea of similar sights.

As such, that first visual contact was crucial to success and one of the greatest artists ever to mesmerise kids out of their hard-earned dimes was Leonard Brandt Cole (28th August 1918 – December 5th 1995) who had a master designer’s knack for combining captivating ideas and imagery with eye-popping style and technique.

Although he also illustrated quite a few interior strips (for Holyoke, Ajax, Farrel and Gilberton), Cole’s true gift and passion was devising attention-grabbing cover images rendered in what he called “poster colors”.

Whether on Horror, Superhero, Science Fiction, Sports, Humour, Crime, War, Western, Rugged Adventure, Jungle, Romance or Funny Animal titles, his stellar, absorbing art was instantly recognisable and in great part is what defines the Golden Age of Comics for us today…

His influence doesn’t end there, however. A shrewd businessman and editor, Cole started his own studio-shop to manufacture stories for assorted companies and parlayed it into publishing company (initially by buying existing properties from client Novelty Press in 1949) and then diversifying through his Star Comics line into genre novels, prose-pulps, puzzle-books and general magazine periodicals.

Frequently he would combine his electric primary colours over a black background adding instant extra punch to his renditions of masked champions, soaring spaceships, macabre monsters and a legion of damsels in love or distress…

Before joining the nascent comics industry in the early 1940s, Cole’s background was in science and printing. He studied veterinary science (he held a doctorate in Anatomy and Physiology from the University of Berlin) but was working as a lithographic Art Director when he made the seemingly sideways transition into illustration and comics.

Incredibly this colossal (272 pages, at 337x235mm), durably Flexibound compendium is his first major retrospective, bringing together a multitude of his most impressive works in one immense, colourful and informative volume

The astounding career of a comicbook Renaissance man is covered in fascinating detail in ‘Comics by Design – the Weird Worlds of L.B. Cole’ by pre-eminent historian of the medium Bill Schelly, whose appreciation ‘Fever Dreams in Four-Color Form’ is followed by his erudite biography and timeline of the artist, divided into four discrete periods.

Each section is augmented by photos, covers, original artwork and even comics extracts – ranging from panels and splash pages to complete stories (such as Paul Revere Jr.) – covered in lavish detail in ‘Into Comics’ and ‘Cole as Publisher’ whilst ‘Out of Comics’ focuses on his later move into commercial art, education and illustration.

In the 1980s Cole was “rediscovered” by comics fandom and achieved minor celebrity status through appearances at conventions. ‘Art Among the Junk’ covers this period up until his death when he began recreating his iconic covers as privately commissioned paintings for modern collectors.

The true wonder of this glorious phantasmagorical collection follows in ‘The Comics Covers of L.B. Cole’ which showcases long runs of the artist’s stunning covers – nearly 350 eye-popping poster images – from such evocative titles as 4Most, All-Famous Police Cases, Blue Bolt, Captain Aero, Cat-Man Comics, Classics Illustrated, Contact Comics, Confessions of Love, Criminals on the Run, Dick Tracy, Flight Comics, Frisky Animals, Ghostly Weird Stories, Killers, Jeep Comics, Mask, Popular Teen-Agers, Power Comics, Ship Ahoy, Shocking Mystery Cases, Spook, Sport Thrills, Startling Terror Tales, Suspense Comics, Target Comics, Terrors of the Jungle, Top Love, Toy Town, Western Crime Cases, White Rider and Super Horse and many more…

The pictorial feast doesn’t end there though as ‘Further Works’ gathers a host of his non-comics covers including books such as The Greatest Prison Breaks of All Time, Murders I’ve Seen, Raging Passions and Love Hungry, as well as magazine covers for joke periodicals like Wit and Wisdom, Sporting Dogs and World Rod and Gun. Gentleman’s publications and “sweat mags” such as Man’s True Action, Man’s Daring Adventures and Epic (Stories of True Action) also feature: all augmented with articles, working sketches and original drawings and paintings. There’s even a selection of his superb animal studies and anatomical and medical textbook illustrations, plus private commissions, recreations and unpublished or unfinished works…

Black Light is a vast and stunning treasury of fantastic imagery from a bygone age by a master of visual communication that no fan of popular art could fail to appreciate, but for comics lovers it’s something else too: a seductive gateway to astounding worlds of imagination and breathless nostalgia impossible to resist.
Black Light: The World of L.B. Cole © 2015 Fantagraphics Books. All comics, artwork, photos, illustrations and intellectual properties © 2015 the respective copyright holder. All rights reserved.

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Blackout volume 1: Into the Dark


By Frank J. Barbiere, Colin Lorimer, Micah Kaneshiro & various (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-555-9

During the speculation-fuelled 1990s even the normally restrained and aesthetically broad ranging Dark Horse Comics was seduced into creating its own proprietary shared-universe of superhero characters.

Some like Ghost and X were very good and others – such as Barb Wire – even made the then incredibly difficult jump from print to silver screen.

Ever since the company has only cautiously dabbled with the genre; generally preferring to put their unique gloss and on previously well-established (Doc Savage, Captain Midnight, The Shadow), creator-owned (Hellboy, B.P.R.D.) or cachet-laden stars from outside the company (Buffy, The Umbrella Factory).

Now they’re rethinking the policy and creating a new pantheon of home-grown mystery men to join venerable heroic ancients for the ongoing “Project Black Sky” and, with the introduction of Blackout, seem to have found their first sleeper hit…

Written and lettered by Frank J. Barbiere, Into the Dark collects a trio of short introductory tales from the anthological Dark Horse Presents volume 2 #24-26 (May to July 2013) and the first four issues of Blackout from March to July 2014, dropping us into the middle of an ongoing and rapidly escalating crisis for a most unlikely hero…

Illustrated by Micah Kaneshiro and comprising a Chapter 0, the three opening yarns find dull lab assistant and extreme sports devotee Scott Travers in well over his head as he invades extremely hinky corporate science facility Mechatonics in search of his best friend and mentor “Uncle” Bob…

Robert Marshal was the top genius at Avenir Microanalytics, the ideas factory where Travers wastes his days as an underachieving, low-level techie, but the old guy simply vanished one day after a confrontation with some suits from Mechatronics.

Soon after, Scott received a package containing a bizarre science fiction bodysuit and a note which simply said “find me”…

Donning the all-enclosing apparel Scott discovered it could somehow shift him into a kind of parallel dimension: a ‘Strange Terrain’ from which he see and bypass the real world. It even allowed him pass through solid objects here in living world…

Suspecting foul play and with no preparation at all, Scott infiltrates the Mechatronics citadel, easily evading the rent-a-cops by zipping in and out of the chilling silent otherworld. It all goes pretty great until he encounters a beautiful woman with a gun who recognises the clothes, if not the man…

She clearly knows something about Bob and calls the bizarre bodysuit “Blackout”…

Although she gets the drop on him, a quickly opened dark portal plunges them both into the shadow world which Scott only then discovers is deathly cold, pitch black and practically a vacuum for anyone not garbed in a strange spacesuit like him…

Swiftly popping them both back to Earth before she expires, Scott begins to question her about Bob but is interrupted by another newcomer… a giant killer robot…

The ray-gun toting automaton almost destroys him until he manages to chop it in half with a portal, only to discover the thing was actually manned and he might now be a murderer…

As more security moves in, the slowly recovering woman shakes him out of his shocked stupor and urges him to get out…

Illustrated by Colin Lorimer, ‘Into the Dark’ opens with Scott plagued by nightmares that girlfriend Ash can’t console him out of. Stumped for answers – or even clues – Scott decides to show up for work (for a change) and see what a civilian approach can glean.

As police swarm all over, Mechatronics’ big boss Mr. Cassius is quietly interviewing the still shaken Dr. Alexis Luca. She is nowhere near recovered from her brief sojourn in another dimension but Cassius loses all interest when he gets a distressing call from his ominous backers. He anxiously steels himself for more trouble…

Later, when Scott again dons the suit for more covert reconnaissance, he interrupts a band of armed invaders not at all surprised or daunted by his abilities and busy stripping the lab of its databases. Soon he’s in the fight of his life, but once more panic, quick thinking and the suit’s dimension-rending capabilities allow him to prevail.

Elsewhere Cassius’ terrifying Ãœbermensch masters are making demands, insisting he hand over the robotic super-suits they commissioned and paid for…

Having claimed the stolen databases, Scott gets Ash to break into them and what he sees makes him keen to get back to Mechatronics.

This time, however, he’s going in fully prepared so takes time out to test the Blackout’s capabilities…

And that’s when the thing runs out of juice, leaving him stuck in the dark dimension…

Tightly plotted, sharply scripted and superbly illustrated, the first outing for this reluctant shadow warrior is a superb blend of corporate chicanery, sinister secret societies, moody menace, weird science and frantic action that will delight fans of fast-paced conspiracy thrillers and looks set to become a fast favourite of Fight ‘n’ Tights fans who love a smooth veneer of plausibility over the fantasy fiction.

This slim scintillating chronicle also includes a covers and pin-up gallery by Raymond Swanland, Kanashiro and Paulo Rivera.
© 2013, 2014 Dark Horse Inc. All rights reserved. Blackout is ™ Dark Horse Inc.

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Miracleman Book One: A Dream of Flying


By the Original Writer, Mick Anglo, Garry Leach, Alan Davis, Don Lawrence, Steve Dillon & Paul Neary (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-621-2

I got my start in comics as the most junior of juniors on Warrior and it was an incredible learning experience. However, producing arguably Britain’s most influential comic magazine was a tense, fraught, high energy, cauldron-like existence and some of those comrades in arms barely talk to each these days.

That’s part of the story behind the fact that the incredible author of most of the stories in this premier compilation doesn’t want his name anywhere near it.

As that’s the case I’m happy to respect his wishes. It is a shame, though, as this is a work which changed the shape and nature of superhero comics forever, even if during the latter days of it in Warrior we all thought the bloody thing was cursed…

If you’re interested in rumour, speculation and/or ancient history, there are plenty of places online to visit for other information, but today let’s just discuss one of the very best superhero stories ever crafted…

This British premier hardback from Marvel/Panini UK is a lavish, remastered re-presentation of the original A Dream of Flying trade paperback, stuffed with extra story content and page after page of lush behind the scenes material, production art and more.

Just in case you weren’t aware: the hero of this tome was originally created by jobbing artist and comics packager Mick Anglo for publisher L. Miller and Son in 1954 to replace a line of extremely popular British weekly reprints starring the Marvel Family as originally generated by US outfit Fawcett.

When a decade-long court case between them and National/DC over copyright infringement ended at the same time the superhero trend nosedived in America, Fawcett simply closed down most of its comics line, overnight depriving the British firm of one of its most popular reprint strands.

In a feat of slippery brilliance, Anglo rapidly retooled defunct Yank heroes Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Junior and Mary Marvel into Marvelman, Young Marvelman and Kid Marvelman; detailing their simplistic , charming adventures until 1963, when falling sales and changing tastes finally caught up with them all and they vanished into comicbook limbo.

In 1982 the characters and concepts were picked up by Dez Skinn for his proposed new independent and proudly British venture and eventually magic was created…

The second end began when a certain US comics publisher started suing Warrior for using the word “Marvel” even though when Marvelman was created they were still calling themselves “Atlas”.

A truism of modern life is that money trumps fact every time…

This volume opens with ‘Prologue 1956: The Invaders from the Future’ (originally created by Anglo and the great Don Lawrence but subtly tweaked by our unnamed “original writer”) as a scene-setting foretaste of what might have been before the deconstructionist main event opens.

In that idealised past epoch, invulnerable time-travellers from 1981 are beaten back by the intrepid trio of superheroes before the real story begins in the drab, humdrum and utterly ordinary world of Thatcherite Britain, circa 1982…

Over-the-hill freelance journalist Mike Moran is plagued by ‘A Dream of Flying’ (illustrated by Garry Leach) as a godlike gleaming superman before being blown up by atom bombs…

This morning, however, he can’t let it stop him getting to the opening of the new atomic power station at Larksmere, even if his concentration is ruined by another of his crippling headaches and the agonising, frustration of a word he’s forgotten lurking just beyond the tip of his tongue…

The press launch is an unmitigated disaster. When a band of terrorists attack the site Mike collapses and while he’s being dragged off something happens. That word comes back to him and, in a catastrophic salvo of heat and light and noise he transforms into the creature of his dreams before comprehensively dealing with the gunmen and flying off into space…

In ‘Legends’ the glittering paragon returns to Mike’s wife and attempts to explain the impossible events and his restored memories of being a superhero in Fifties Britain. Liz Moran cannot help but laugh at the canon of ridiculous absurdities this incredible creature spouts even if to all intents and purposes he is her husband. After all, if his restored memories are correct, why has nobody ever heard of him?

The insane situation is exacerbated next morning ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’. Technological guru and self-made billionaire John Bates calls and Mike remembers the amiable little lad with superpowers who was caught in the same atomic blast which eradicated his own memories.

After he and Liz visit the mogul, Mike realises with horror that his fawning kid partner never changed back but has been slowly using his gifts to dominate the world for the last eighteen years…

Rumbled, Bates ferociously attacks in ‘Dragons’, using abilities which have grown and evolved in two decades of constant if covert use to beat the recently returned Miracleman near to death. The appalling supra-normal duel devastates much of London, only ending in ‘Fallen Angels, Forgotten Thunder’ when the smugly overconfident former Kid Miracleman accidentally defeats himself…

The first inklings of the truth begin to emerge in ‘Secret Identity’ (pencilled by Alan Davis with Leach inking) as Sir Dennis Archer of mothballed, clandestine organisation “The Spookshow” despatches his top assassin to find and sanction a threat he’s thought eradicated in a flash of atomic fire decades past.

Mike and Liz meanwhile head for Dartmoor to test Miracleman’s abilities in private.

Their marriage has suffered since the initial transformation, especially as Mike insists he and his alter-ego are two different people and Miracleman has got Liz pregnant…

Davis took over all the art chores with ‘Blue Murder’ as highly capable hitman Evelyn Cream tracks down and brilliantly takes out Mike. By the advent of ‘Out of the Dark’ the enigmatic killer has inexplicably switched sides, aiding Miracleman as he seeks out the truth of his origins in a top secret military bunker which contains deadly defences, another, lesser superhuman and more.

‘Inside Story’ reveals recovered and reversed engineered alien DNA technologies, cruel and callous genetic experimentation and a deranged, debauched scientist who grew supermen and programmed them to compliance using comicbook fantasies in ‘Zarathustra’…

To Be Continued…

The remainder of this stunning collection is rounded out with intriguing snippets and sidebars from Warrior‘s then-gestating shared universe beginning with ‘Saturday Morning Pictures’ – illustrated by Davis as a framing device from the Marvelman Special – which originally featured a number of classic, remastered Anglo-era adventures (sadly not included here) and a fascinating peek into what might have been in A Glimpse into the Future…

Warrior #4 was sold as a summer special in August 1982 and led with a bold fill-in set three years in the then-future. The long-term plan had been to create a “Justice League” of Warrior characters and ‘The Yesterday Gambit’ – with art by Davis, Steve Dillon and Paul Neary – starred two of them in an interlude from their final battle with an ultimate nemesis.

The plot involved trans-dimensional teleporting alien samurai Aza Chorn ferrying Miracleman through time to battle himself at different stages of his career and harvesting the expended energies of the combats to use against their unstoppable future foe…

Following that tantalising and portentous introduction The Warpsmiths eventually received their own 2-part tale, reproduced here in captivating full colour and introducing the bizarre and exotic realms the militaristic peacekeepers are sworn to defend.

Tragically the unending, extended conflict with their cosmic antithesis The Qys results in constant, deadly politicking and here innocent kids and two members of their own Warpsmith cadre are sacrificed to expediency in as ‘Cold War, Cold Warrior’ (gloriously rendered and hued by Leach).

The nomadic multiplanar policemen returned in ‘Ghostdance’ (originally published in A1 #1, October 1989) in a direct continuation of that story as the surviving dutiful sentinels grieve and move on in their own uniquely inexplicable manner…

With the story portion concluded, this bonanza chronicle devotes the remaining 59 pages to ‘Miracleman Behind the Scenes’, offering an wealth of pre-production work: sketches, design roughs, pencilled panels and complete original art, colour-indications, pertinent ads, pin-ups and covers by Leach and Mick Austin.

Finishing off the show is spectacular covers and variants gallery of the 26 new images by Joe Quesada, Danny Miki, Richard Isanove, John Cassady, Paul Mounts, Leinil Yu, Gerry Alanguilan, Laura Martin, Skottie Young, Mark Buckingham, D’Israeli, Jerome Opena, Dean Dean White, Leach, Steve Oliff, Neal Adams, Frank Martin, Davis, Mark Farmer, Arthur Adams, Peter Steigerwald, Mike Perkins, Andy Troy, Mike McKone, Paulo Rivera, Mike Deodato, Rain Beredo, J.G Jones, Javier Rodriguez, John Tyler Christopher, Gerald Parel and Bryan Hitch for Marvel’s 2013 relaunch.

One of the greatest superhero comics sagas ever. There’s nothing else to say…
© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Kick-Ass 3


By Mark Millar, John Romita Jr., Tom Palmer & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78329-072-7

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

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

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

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

An overnight internet sensation and supremely overconfident, Dave – or Kick-Ass – inspired a wave of copycats, got the most unwanted attention of organised crime and met the closest thing to real superheroes the world had ever seen…

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

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

Before long Dave was drawn into their war and met fellow adventurer Red Mist, who turned out to be Genovese’s abused, geeky, psychotic son Chris: a bastard maniac in his own right.

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

Now the saga comes to an explosive close as Kick-Ass 3 collects the final 8-part miniseries (originally published through Marvel’s Icon imprint) from Mark Millar, John Romita Jr, Tom Palmer and Dean White in one shattering deluxe hardback edition.

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

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

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

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

Greater events are afoot. Brutally maimed Chris Genovese is stuck in prison hospital awaiting trial when his uncle Rocco pays a visit. With the established hierarchy of organised crime decimated by Hit-Girl, the aged Don has returned from exile in Sicily.

He had been shipped off years ago when his deviant tastes and merciless depredations proved to be too much even for the Mafia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bracketed by a pithy Introduction from screen writer Geoff Wadlow and Afterword Acknowledgements from writer and artist, this majestically wide-screen extravaganza is a sharp, superb and stunning tale not just for comics fans but a genuine treasure for all followers of frantic fun and fantasy in any medium.
© 2013 and 2014 Millarworld Limited and John S. Romita. All rights reserved.

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The Fox: Freak Magnet


By Dean Haspiel, Mark Waid, JM DeMatteis, Mike Cavallaro, Terry Austin & various (Red Circle Comics/Archie)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-93-8

In the early days of the US comicbook biz, just after Superman and Batman had ushered in a new genre of storytelling, a rash of publishers jumped onto the bandwagon and made their own bids for cash and glory.

Many thrived and many more didn’t, relished only as trivia by sad old blokes like me. Some few made it to an amorphous middle-ground: not forgotten, but certainly not household names either…

MLJ were one of the quickest outfits to pump out a mystery-man pantheon, following the spectacular successes of the Man of Tomorrow and Darknight Detective with their own small but inspirational pantheon of gaudily clad crusaders.

Beginning in November 1939 (one month after a little game-changer entitled Marvel Comics #1) with Blue Ribbon Comics #1: content comprising the standard blend of two-fisted adventure strips, prose pieces and gag panels and, from #2 on, costumed heroes. They rapidly followed up with Top-Notch and Pep Comics. …

However, after only a few years Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (hence MLJ) spotted a gap in the blossoming market and in December 1941 nudged aside their masked heroes and action strips to make room for a far less imposing hero; an “average teen” who would have ordinary adventures like the readers, but with triumphs, romance and slapstick emphasised.

Pep #22 (December 1941) featured a gap-toothed, freckle-faced, red-headed goof who took his lead from the popular Andy Hardy movies starring Mickey Rooney. Goldwater developed the concept of a youthful everyman protagonist, tasking writer Vic Bloom and artist Bob Montana with the job of making it work. The 6-page tale introduced Archie Andrews and pretty girl-next-door Betty Cooper and his unconventional best friend and confidante Jughead Jones in a small-town utopia called Riverdale.

The feature was an instant hit and by the winter of 1942 had won its own title. Archie Comics #1 was the company’s first solo-star magazine and with it began the gradual transformation of the entire company. With the introduction of rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the comicbook industry’s second Genuine Phenomenon (as influential, if not so all-pervasive, as Superman)…

By 1946 the kids had taken over, and MLJ renamed itself Archie Comics; retiring its heroic characters years before the end of the Golden Age and becoming, to all intents and purposes, a publisher of family comedies. Its success, like Superman’s, changed the content of every other publisher’s titles, and led to a multi-media industry including TV shows, movies, and a chain of restaurants. In the swinging sixties the pop hit “Sugar, Sugar” (a tune from their animated show) became a global smash: their wholesome garage band The Archies has been a fixture of the comics ever since.

Nonetheless the company had by this stage blazed through a rather impressive legion of costumed champions (such as The Shield – America’s first patriotic superhero – predating Captain America by 13 months) who would form the backbone of numerous future superhero revivals, most notably during the High-Camp/Marvel Explosion/Batman TV show-frenzied mid-60’s…

The heroes impressively resurfaced in the 1980s under the company’s Red Circle imprint but again failed to catch enough public’s attention. Archie let them lie fallow – except for occasional revivals and intermittent guest-shots in regular Archie titles – until 1991, when the company licensed its heroes to superhero specialists DC for a magically fun, all-ages iteration (and where’s that star-studded trade paperback collection, huh?!).

Impact Comics was a vibrant, engaging and fun all-ages rethink that really should have been a huge hit but was again incomprehensibly unsuccessful…

When the line folded in 1993 the characters returned to limbo until the company had one more crack at them in 2008, briefly incorporating the Mighty Crusaders & Co into DC’s own maturely angst-ridden and stridently dark continuity – with the usual overwhelming lack of success.

In 2012 the company began reinventing their superhero credentials with a series of online adventures under the aegis of a revived Red Circle subdivision, beginning with The Mighty Crusaders (reinforced by traditional monthly print versions six months later): new costumed capers emphasising fun and action which were equally welcoming to inveterate fanboys and eager newcomers alike…

One of the company’s most tantalising and oddly appealing Golden Age second stringers was a notional Batman knockoff dubbed The Fox. Debuting in Blue Ribbon #4 (June 1940), ambitious, go-getting young photojournalist Paul Patton initially dressed up as a costumed crusader to get exclusive scoops before properly catching the hero-bug.

The strip was scripted by Joe Blair and drawn by Irwin Hasen (who apparently later recycled the timelessly elegant costume design for DC/All American’s Wildcat in January 1942’s Sensation Comics #1), running until #22 – March 1943 – after which the dark detective vanished until revived as a walk-on in Mighty Crusaders #4 (April 1966).

He was particularly well-served during a subsequent 1980s revival when visual narrative genius Alex Toth illustrated many of his new adventures and now the character – or rather his son – has been singled out for solo stardom in the most recent electronic Red Circle incarnation.

This superbly riotous collection collects the first story-arc and a few cool on-line extras which were published in 2013 as the sublimely witty and engaging action-romp The Fox: Freak Magnet #1-5.

As seen in the recent New Crusaders: Rise of the Heroes, this Earth’s masked heroes were generally enjoying a well-deserved retirement in the idyllic little city of Red Circle, until they were tracked down and murdered by old foe The Brain Emperor.

Only elderly Joe Higgins was left to save their kids and heirs: shepherding them through a long-practised escape plan devised by the heroic Mighty Crusaders to safety and the eventual attainment of their true potentials as heroes in their own right…

Higgins was a lucky choice: the world’s first masked superman and a trusty Shield against all evil and injustice…

At first, all that has very little to do with Paul Patton Jr., who has voluntarily followed in his own father’s footsteps both as a photojournalist and masked mystery man for the same venal reasons only to discover that both jobs come at an inescapable price…

In his case trouble and insanity always finds him, so he might as well be dressed and ready for the occasions…

Following a Foreword by Mike Allred, the further adventures of The Fox – as imagined by plotter/artist Dean Haspiel and scripter Mark Waid – begin with ‘Freak Magnet part 1: Public Face’ as the reluctant the hero accidentally exposes the shady secret of the world’s most beautiful social media tycoon whilst on a cushy photo assignment.

The magnificent Lucy Fur seems to have everything going for her, but the Fox’s infallible gift for stumbling into unfortunate situations soon “outs” the beautiful siren as manic monster Madame Satan…

No sooner has the Roguish Reynard despatched her than he is accosted by an extradimensional princess in distress and desperately requiring a few good men in ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’…

The frantic Queen of Diamonds has already shanghaied a number of Earth’s greatest champions, sending them to save her beloved husband from the wicked Druid who has transformed him into a ravening monster. Now, however, short of power – and viable options – she has finally arrived at the merely human but extraordinarily lucky Patton…

Given no chance to refuse, the fed-up Fox is soon questing through a bizarre world, enduring horrific hallucinations (including his not-so-understanding wife Mae who infrequently suits-up as the sultry She-Fox) and a succession of marauding man-things. After he defeats a particularly big beast it reverts to the battered form of missing pulp hero Bob Phantom…

That issue also began a back up serial by JM DeMatteis, Mike Cavallaro & Terry Austin.

‘Shield: The Face of Hate part 1 – A Very Cold War’ finds aged but still vital Joe Higgins in a bar recounting one of his WWII exploits…

Debuting way back when in Pep Comics #1, Higgins was an FBI scientist who devised a suit which gave him enhanced strength, speed and durability, battling the USA’s enemies as The Shield in the days before America entered WWII. He also devised a serum which enhanced those powers, smashing spies, saboteurs, subversives and every threat to Democracy and decency.

This particular old soldier’s yarn concerns a 1944 mission in Antarctica to crush an Axis super-weapon but which found him facing not just a legion of monsters but also his Nazi and Japanese counterparts Master Race and Hachiman…

Chapter three of Freak Magnet resumed with Haspiel & Waid’s lucky lad wandering through ‘Hell’s Half Acre’ like a lycra-draped Indiana Jones in Dante’s Inferno; en route defeating and curing mutated monster Inferno, the Flame Breather before rescuing gun-toting vigilante The Marvel from a macabre torture chamber.

Unfortunately, once released, the Scourge of Gangland was a little traumatised and could no longer tell friend from foe…

Meanwhile back in World War II, ‘The Face of Hate part 2 – The Enemy of My Enemy’ (DeMatteis, Cavallaro & Austin) saw the sworn enemies’ three-way battle spiral into berserker rage until a grotesque horror jumped all three of them…

In the Diamond Dimension, whilst Inferno tackled a maddened Marvel, The Fox had to face the Queen’s ensorcelled husband in ‘The Voodoo You Do’ (Haspiel & Waid) until the nigh-omnipotent Druid took a personal hand. Happily at that moment the more-or-less dutiful wives appeared, the power of love and engagement rings having allowed the Queen and Mae to cross the dimensional divide and tip the scales.

With the Druid blasted to chunks Patton thought the madness had subsided for awhile… until the Diamond Ruler blasted the Earthlings home and he arrived alone in the Antarctic, dumped into another insanely dangerous situation…

‘Shield: The Face of Hate part 3 – A Mind of Shattered Glass’ (DeMatteis, Cavallaro & Austin) saw the hate-filled human foes swallow their feelings to unite in combat against an incredible predatory horror which had grown from a fragment of a far greater being destroyed in antiquity and scattered throughout the universe.

This entity fed on hate and planned to transform Earth into a world of monsters, but just as it completed its evolution into a new, much more malign and menacing Druid, a black clad, long-eared and annoyingly familiar figure materialised…

The time-tossed twin sagas combine for the epic conclusion ‘Freak Magnet: Future’s End’ (by DeMatteis & Haspiel) as Fox, Shield, Hachiman and Master Race strive together to save humanity and find themselves forever changed by the cosmic experience…

A fulsome ‘Afterword by Dean Haspiel’ is followed by one more comics treat as the effulgent everyman crafts a delicious and hilariously thrilling short yarn starring Paul Patten Jr. and explains his choice of cameras in ‘Epilogue: A Picture Lasts Forever’…

This delightful exercise in reviving the fun-filled excitement of comics that don’t think they’re Shakespeare or Orwell also includes such extra inducements as a vast (23!) covers-&-variants gallery by Haspiel, Darwyn Cooke, Fiona Staples, Mike Norton, Allen Passalaqua, Paul Pope, Mike & Laura Allred, David Mack, Howard Chaykin, Jesus Aburto, Mike Cavallaro & Alex Toth as well as a fact-packed ‘Special Feature’ section revealing some of The Fox Files’.

Beginning with the lowdown on the cagy crusaders in ‘Origin of the Freak Magnet’ and ‘She-Fox: The Vivacious Vixen’ there is even room for bonus featurette ‘Red Circle Heroes: Extra Pulp’, offering character insights and publication histories on ‘Bob Phantom’, ‘Inferno’ and ‘The Marvel’.

And best yet, there’s a great big tantalising “To Be Continued…” page…

Full of vim and vigour, this phenomenal Will Eisner-inspired romp provides no-nonsense, outrageously emphatic superhero hijinks drenched in slick, smart, tried-&-true comicbook bombast and action which manages to feel brand-new whilst simultaneously remaining faithful to all the past iterations and re-imaginings of the assorted superheroes.

Fast, fulfilling and immediately addictive, The Fox might just be Archie’s long-awaited superhero superstar…

If you yearn for the uncomplicated fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights furore of your youth – whenever that was – this is a book you must not miss.
THE FOX ™ and RED CIRCLE COMICS ® ACP, Inc. The individual characters; names and likenesses are the exclusive trademarks of Archie Comics Publications, Inc. © 2014 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Battling Boy: The Rise of Aurora West (Uncorrected Proof Copy)


By Paul Pope, J.T. Petty & David Rubin (First Second)
ISBN: 978-1-62672-009-1

Don’t you just love comics convention season? Here’s a splendid sneak peak at an upcoming instant classic from a modern master of comics courtesy, I’m assuming, of the publishers promotional outreach budget….

Paul Pope is undoubtedly one of the most creative and visually engaging creators working in comics these days. Since his debut in 1993 he has stunningly combined elements of European and Japanese styles with classical American fictive themes to produce uniquely tweaked tales of science fiction, fantasy, crime, comedy, romance, adventure and even superheroics.

If you’re not a fan yet, check out Sin Titulo, Batman: Year 100, Heavy Liquid, 100%, One Trick Ripoff and other mature reader titles and most especially the previous volume in his occasional series Battling Boy and its delightful supplement The Death of Haggard West…

His latest venture is aimed a general readership – Hey, Kids, This Means You! – and features a world so very similar to our own but with one big, dangerous difference…

Arcopolis City would be the perfect place to bring up kids but for one thing. Ghastly devils roam at night, causing chaos in their unrelenting quest to steal all the children.

Even the daylight hours are becoming increasingly fraught as a seemingly endless succession of horrendous behemoths and leviathans incessantly carve a swathe of mindless destruction through the bright, breezy thoroughfares…

They aren’t the worst however. The true threat is the hidden gangs of extremely smart monsters led by the likes of the sinister Sadisto who acts as a vile capo of a hellish alien underworld…

The situation only began to turn around after bemused junior deity Battling Boy was unceremoniously dumped in the harassed metropolis by his tough-love war-god dad, but this electrifying yarn is a prequel to that particular saga.

The Rise of Aurora West is set in the months before the evocative advent of the juvenile saviour, when all that stood between the howling night-haunters and their preferred prey was an aging “Science Hero” and his highly-trained but understandably cautious, rather pessimistic, teenaged daughter…

Haggard West has battled the terrors ever since they first appeared; initially beside his wife and – now that she’s old enough – his daughter Aurora.

The girl’s life is a whirl of energetic physical practice, martial arts training, detective tuition and (to maintain a safe cover) school at the prestigious St. Ignomious Prep, but she can’t help but dwell on the facts that the never-ending crusade has already deprived her of a mother and is killing her dad in slow, painful increments…

This particular evening father and sidekick are stalking a pack of hooded horrors intent on securing some strange device for disreputable squid-witch Medula. Unfortunately, after a blistering battle, the majority of the monsters make their escape with the enigmatic doodad, leaving the senior Science Hero to painfully question an unlucky captive…

It knows nothing valuable but before expiring it scrawls a strange symbol in the dirt – one which has a shocking effect on Aurora…

Back home, as formidable housekeeper, medic and trainer Mrs. Grately ministers to the battered senior West, Aurora cannot get the symbol out of her mind. Driven by instinct and distant memory she heads for the library and finds an old long-forgotten scrawl she scratched on a wall when she was only three years old. It is the same sign…

Grately fills in the details. It was a time when the monsters were only just beginning to appear and the defacing took place due to the suggestion of the toddler’s imaginary friend Mr. Wurple.

With breathtaking clarity Aurora recalls everything: the conversations with the silly phantom and how he vanished a year later… on the night the monsters killed her mother…

Agitated and obsessed, the teenager goes into a frenzy of research, tracing the symbol to an archaeological trip her family took to see the Sphinx when she was barely walking and talking. With growing horror she recalls how she stumbled upon a secret entrance into the edifice and how her parents discovered the strange mummy of an ancient hero who had died fighting monsters thousands of years ago…

She also remembers with shock how she was approached by a bizarre energy creature who begged her not to tell her folks he was there and realises that Mr. Wurple was real. Moreover ever since he “left”, Arcopolis has been a city under siege…

And thus begins the coming-of-age epic as the unsure girl becomes a resolute and dedicated hero determined to solve the disturbing enigma of her insidious imaginary companion whilst attempting to make amends for all the horrors and tragedies she might very well have unleashed on her home town, friends and family…

Scripted by Pope and J.T. Petty (Bloody Chester) with stunning art by Spanish cartoonist and illustrator David Rubin, this is a superb and moving sidebar yarn, packed with clever intoxicating mystery, astounding action, tense suspense and beguiling characters that will delight older kids, and reads even better if you’re their adult keeper or guardian.

© 2014 by Paul Pope. All rights reserved.

Battling Boy: The Rise of Aurora West will be published on September 30th 2014.

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Starling


By Sage Stossel (Penguin/InkLit)
ISBN: 978-0-42526-631-1

Once upon a time only little boys (of any age from 3 to 90) liked superheroes.

That’s all different now.

Just like always, girls eventually steal boy’s stuff and break it or point out how stupid it is and ruin it or decorate and fancy it up so that it makes proper sense and is generally better, but it was still ours first though…

Let’s start again.

Sage Stossel is a children’s book author (On the Loose in Boston, On the Loose in Washington DC, We’re Off to Harvard Square), editorial cartoonist (Sage, Ink.) and Editor at The Atlantic, whose smart, wry, ostensibly innocuous efforts have also appeared in The Boston Globe, CNN Headline News, New York Times Week in Review and scads of other extremely prominent and worthily impressive places.

A native Bostonian, she majored in English and American Literature and Languages at Harvard where she permanently succumbed to the cartooning bug, producing student-life strip Jody for The Harvard Crimson. She was instrumental in creating The Atlantic‘s online iteration.

Starling is her first graphic novel and superbly takes a knowing sideswipe at the world’s newest fiction archetype, cleverly delving deep into the psyche of the kind of person who might actually fight crime if they had superpowers and how such a “career” might actually impact upon a sensible person.

Stossel also manages to tell a winning story about overcoming adversity, finding oneself and even having a shot at achieving true love, all lovingly ladled out in a savvy, self-deprecating, droll, artfully humorous manner…

Amy Sturgess has a secret. Up until now she’s only shared it all with her therapist, but balancing her job in the back-stabbing world of Marketing with the constant demands of the Vigilante Justice Association (who perpetually text her about occurring crimes she’s expected to foil immediately, no matter what she’s doing) is taking its toll.

At the Agency, a conniving male co-worker is actively stealing her work and sabotaging her career. Her cat-hoarder mom lives in a world of her own. Her brother Noah is a druggie lowlife – but at least he’s trying to get his life together, whilst her own (especially as regards dating) is a stalled and floundering disaster…

No wonder she relies so heavily on prescription meds and is plagued by bouts of crippling procrastination…

Things take a tortured upturn when her college sweetheart resurfaces. Russell is married to a wonderful woman (who actually becomes one of Amy’s best friends) but is clearly trying to rekindle those heady student passions with Amy and the situation soon begins to affect both sides of Amy’s work.

B-list costumed crusader Starling even begins to let certain offenders go: robbers stealing from banks who repossessed their homes, a homeless man trying to free his dog from the Animal Control impound…

A crisis point is reached when rival gangs begin a turf war and a modern Artwork is stolen. It doesn’t take much investigation to link Noah to both crimes, but when he disappears and Starling frantically hunts for him, she is incessantly stymied and interrupted by the hunky rogue and illicit gambling organiser Matt McRae.

The enigmatic hustler seems to have connected Amy to Starling and says he only wants to help, but he’s a crook.

A really, really good-looking, apparently unattached crook…

Amy isn’t Wonder Woman or Ms. Marvel. She’s just a well-intentioned young woman who found she was different and got pushed into a second (full time, secret and unpaid) career when she couldn’t even decide on how to make her first one work.

Now she has a really serious crime to solve, a brother to save, a romantic triangle to square and an unsuitable suitor to sort out…

Moe RomCom than Summer Blockbuster, Starling is a slow-paced, lovingly crafted, laconic, ironic and purely humorous tonic for lovers of the medium reared on adolescent wish-fulfilling, juvenile male power-fantasies who now yearn for something a little different, and even deliciously points out all the reasons why superheroes are dumb before wittily showing how that’s not necessarily bad and showing one way of making them better…
© 2013 Sage Stossel.

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Heroic Tales: The Bill Everett Archives volume 2


By Bill Everett and others, edited and complied by Blake Bell (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-600-3

Thanks to modern technology there is a superabundance of collections featuring the works of too-long ignored founding fathers and lost masters of American comic books. A magnificent case in point is this second superb chronicle revisiting the incredible gifts of one of the greatest draughtsmen and yarn-spinners the industry has ever seen.

You could save some time and trouble by simply buying the book now rather than waste your valuable off-hours reading my blather, but since I’m keen to carp on anyway feel free to accompany me as I delineate just why this tome needs to join the books on your “favourites” shelf.

He was a direct descendent and namesake of iconoclastic poet and artist William Blake. His tragic life and awe-inspiring body of work – Bill was possibly the most technically accomplished artist in US comicbook industry – reveals how a man of privilege and astonishing pedigree was wracked by illness, an addictive personality (especially alcoholism) and sheer bad luck, nevertheless shaped an art-form and left twin legacies: an incredible body of superlative stories and art, and, more importantly, saved many broken lives saved by becoming a dedicated mentor for Alcoholics Anonymous in his later years.

William Blake Everett was born in 1917 into a wealthy and prestigious New England family. Bright and precocious, he contracted Tuberculosis when he was twelve and was dispatched to arid Arizona to recuperate.

Thus began a life-long affair with the cowboy lifestyle: a hard-drinking, smoking, tall-tale telling breed locked in a war against self-destruction, described in the fact-filled, picture-packed Introduction by Blake Bell which covers ‘The Early Years of Comics: 1938-1942’, ‘The Birth of Marvel Comics’ and ‘The Comic Book Production System’, before ‘The Heroes’ precedes a full-colour selection of incredible prototypical adventure champions with a brief essay on the set-up of Centaur Comics, Novelty Press, Eastern Color Printing, Hillman and Lev Gleason Publications…

Accompanied by the covers for Amazing Mystery Funnies volume 2 #3, 5 and 6 (March, May & June 1939, Centaur) are three outer space exploits of futuristic trouble shooter Skyrocket Steele, whilst Tibetan-trained superhero Amazing-Man offers a transformative triptych of titanic tales spanning war-torn Europe, augmented by the covers to Amazing-Man Comics #9-11 February-April 1940.

Everett’s deeply held western dreams are covered next with a brace of rootin’ tootin’ yarns starring Bull’s-Eye Bill from Novelty Press’ Target Comics #3-4 (April & May 1940) whilst from #7-9 (August-October 1940), the author smoothly switched to sophisticated suspense with master of disguise The Chameleon crushing contemporary criminals in scintillating escapades from Target Comics’ answer to The Saint, the Falcon and the Lone Wolf.

Thanks to his breakthrough Sub-Mariner sagas Everett was inextricably linked to water-based action, and Eastern Comics hired him to create human waterspout Bob Blake, Hydroman for the bimonthly Reg’lar Fellers Heroic Comics. Here, spanning issues # 6-9 (May-November 1941, with the covers for #6 and 7), are four spectacular, eerie, offbeat exploits, covering an extended battle against foreign spies and American Fifth Columnists, after which Red Reed in the Americas! (created by Bob Davis & Fitz) offers the first two chapters in a political thriller wherein a college student and his pals head South of the Border to fight Nazi-backed sedition and tyranny in a stunning tour de force first seen in Lev Gleason’s Silver Streak Comics #20 & 21 (April & May 1942).

A section of Miscellaneous and text illustrations follows, blending Western spot drawings with the eye-catching covers from Amazing Mystery Funnies volume 2 #18, Target Comics #5 and 6, Blue Bolt (vol. 1 #11, vol. 2 #1, 2 and 3) and Famous Funnies #85.

The Humorous and More describes Everett’s forays into other markets: niche sectors such as licensed comics, comedy and romance, and even returns to pulp and magazine illustration as he strove to stay one step ahead of a constantly shifting market and his own growing reputation for binges and unreliability.

‘What’s With the Crosbys?’ is a superbly rendered gossip strip from Famous Stars #2 (1950, Ziff-Davis) whilst a stunning monochrome girly-pin-up of ‘Snafu’s Lovely Ladies’ (from Snafu #3 Marvel, March 1956), and the cover of Adventures of the Big Boy #1 (also Marvel, from the same month) lead into the Back Cover of Cracked #6 (December 1958, Major Magazines) and other visual features from the Mad imitator as well as the colour cover to less successful rip-off Zany (#3, from March 1959).

Everett’s staggering ability to draw beautiful women plays well in the complete romance strip ‘Love Knows No Rules’ (Personal Love #24, November 1953 Eastern Color), and this section concludes with a gritty black and white title page piece from combat pulp War Stories #1, courtesy of Marvel’s parent company Magazine Management, September 1952.

The Horror concentrates on the post-superhero passion for scary stories: an arena where Bill Everett absolutely shone like a diamond. For over a decade he brought a sheen of irresistible quality to the generally second-rate chillers Timely/Atlas/Marvel generated in competition with genre front-runners EC Comics. It’s easy to see how they could compete and even outlive their gritty, gore-soaked competitor, with such lush and lurid examples of covers and chillingly beautiful interior pages…

Following a third informative background essay detailing his life until its cruelly early end in 1973, a choice selection of his least known and celebrated efforts opens with tale of terror ‘Hangman’s House’ (Suspense #5, November, 1950): a grim confrontation with Satanic evil, followed by futuristic Cold War shocker ‘I Deal With Murder!’ and a visit to a dark carnival of purely human wickedness in ‘Felix the Great’ (both culled from Suspense #6, January 1951).

Adventures into Weird Worlds #4 (Spring 1952) offered a laconic, sardonic glimpse into ‘The Face of Death’, whilst from the next issue (April 1952) ‘Don’t Bury Me Deep’ tapped untold depths of tension in a moodily mordant exploration of fear and premature burial. Hard on the heels of the cover to Journey Into Unknown Worlds #14 (December 1952) comes one of its interior shockers as ‘The Scarecrow’ helped an aged couple solve their mortgage problems in a most unusual manner.

The Marvel madness then concludes with a cautionary tale of ‘That Crazy Car’ from Journey into Mystery #20, December 1954, concluding a far too brief sojourn amidst arguably Everest’s most accomplished works and most professionally adept period.

This magnificent collection ends with a gallery of pages and one complete tale from the end of his career; selected from an even more uninhibited publisher attempting to cash in on the adult horror market opened by Warren Publishing with Eerie, Creepy and Vampirella.

Skywald was formed by industry veteran Israel Waldman and Everett’s old friend Sol Brodsky, tapping into the burgeoning black and white market with mature-reader and supernatural magazines Hell-Rider, Crime Machine, Nightmare, Psycho and Scream. Offered an “in” Everett produced incredible pin-ups (included here are three from Nightmare (#1, 2 & 4, December 1970-June 1971), ‘A Psycho Scene’ (Psycho #5, November, 1971) a stunning werewolf pin-up from Psycho #6 and one of revived Golden Age monstrosity ‘The Heap’ from Psycho #4.

Most welcome, however, is a magnificent 10-page monochrome masterpiece of gothic mystery ‘The Man Who Stole Eternity’ from Psycho #3, May, 1971.

Although telling, even revelatory and concluding in a happy ending of sorts, what this book really celebrates is not the life but the astounding versatility of Bill Everett. A gifted, driven man, he was a born storyteller with the unparalleled ability to make all his imaginary worlds hyper-real; and for nearly five decades his incredible art and wondrous stories enthralled and enchanted everybody lucky enough to read them.

© 2013 Fantagraphics Books. Text © 2013 Blake Bell. All art © its respective owners and holders. All rights reserved.
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Perfect for art lovers, Marvel Zombies and addicts of pure comics magic… 9/10

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All-New X-Men volume 3: Out of Their Depth


By Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen, David Lafuente & Wade Von Grawbadger (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-561-1

Following the poor choices and horrendous paths taken by assorted mutant heroes over the last few years, and following the events of Avengers versus X-Men, MarvelNOW! reshaped the continuity, taking various factors of X-iterations in truly bizarre directions.

At the dawn of the Marvel Age, some very special kids were chosen by wheelchair-bound telepath Charles Xavier. Gloomy Scott Summers, ebullient Bobby Drake, trust fund brat Warren Worthington III, insular Jean Grey and simian genius Henry McCoy were gathered up by the enigmatic Professor X – a man dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between massed humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants, no matter what the cost.

To achieve his dream he educated and trained the five youngsters – codenamed Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and The Beast – for unique roles as heroes, ambassadors and symbols in an effort to counter the growing tide of human prejudice and fear.

Over years the struggle to integrate mutants into society resulted in constant conflict, compromise and tragedy, including Jean’s death, Warren’s mutilation, Hank’s further mutation and eventually Cyclops’ radicalisation.

The formerly idealistic, steadfast and trustworthy team-leader Cyclops was even killed Xavier before eventually joining with old comrade Magik and former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, if necessary, of human ones.

Abandoning Scott, his surviving team-mates and newer X-Men Wolverine, Storm and Kitty Pryde stayed true to Xavier’s dream, opting to protect and train the next mutant generation at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning…

When The Beast realised he was dying, he became obsessed with the notion that the still starry-eyed First Class of X-Men could bring Scott back from his doctrinaire madness and ideological race war obsession. To that end McCoy used time-travel tech in a last-ditch attempt to fix everything: risking the entire space/time continuum by bringing those valiant, callow youngsters back to the future to reason with debased, possibly deranged Cyclops.

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways. Rather than restoring Scott to reason, the confrontation simply hardened the renegade’s heart and strengthened his resolve.

Moreover, even though McCoy’s younger self cured his older iteration, young Hank and the rest of the X-Kids refused to go home until “bad” Cyclops was stopped…

The modern world changes extremely rapidly. New mutants are now appearing in increasing numbers, all with more impressive talents than ever before. Worse still, through careful orchestration and by avoiding visibly unprovoked acts of violence, Cyclops’ Extinction Squad are winning the trust and respect of many oppressed sectors of humanity: the poor, the disenfranchised and rebellious, the young…

Following a very public humiliation of the Government-sponsored Uncanny Avengers, the internecine mutant conflict heats up when Cyclops and his allies visit the Jean Grey School with a chilling proposition. Convinced of inevitable extinction at human hands, Scott proffers a place to any student wishing to join his own academy: one dedicated to training mutants to fight and survive rather than wait for mankind to turn on them…

The psychically conjoined, socially-challenged and ruthless Stepford Sisters (Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe) readily accept but nobody is more shocked than the elder Cyclops when teenaged Angel also agrees to ditch his former classmates and switch sides…

Scripted by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Stuart Immonen with Wade Von Grawbadger, Out of Their Depth – re-presenting All-New X-Men #11-15 from May to August 2013 – picks up mere moments later as Warren’s incredible decision provokes a massive row amongst adults and students alike.

Her newly-awakened psionic abilities in overdrive and unable to filter out the thoughts and emotions boiling round her, Jean lashes out, taking control of Angel’s mind. Her arbitrary actions are countered by the Cuckoo triplets and a bloody battle looks certain to erupt between the factions until teen Scott dramatically brings them all to their senses.

With nothing resolved, the Extinction team simply teleport out with their new recruits as, a continent away, a third faction makes its move…

Shapeshifter Mystique had already attempted to seduce the naïve 16-year old Scott, but when that failed she simply moved ahead with her own scheme. Now she, feral berserker Sabretooth and illusion-projector Lady Mastermind embark on spectacular robberies, amassing a literal mountain of cash, whilst leaving “proof” that Wolverine and the time-lost X-Kids are responsible…

Back at School Jean has an educational heart-to-heart with Professor Kitty about controlling her new abilities and the ethics of using them before Wolverine leads them all after Mystique.

They don’t get far before being intercepted in ‘All-New X-Men VS Uncanny Avengers’…

The combined human/mutant team is lead by Scott’s younger brother Alex – now more than a decade older than his sibling. The search for answers and explanations is difficult: none of Cyclops’ classmates even knew he had a brother at this stage of their lives and the confrontation between the adults is fraught with tension.

Suddenly Jean’s telepathy scans the Scarlet Witch‘s thoughts and the mind-reader goes ballistic.

Wanda‘s greatest shame is the period of madness when she murdered many of her Avenger allies and used her probability magic to eradicate millions of mutants with a wish. The inadvertent revelations burn into Jean’s brain and she responds with a storm of unleashed psionic fury…

As the situation escalates, in London The Bank of England is pillaged by “The X-Men” and Captain America grudgingly allows sometime-Avenger Wolverine a chance to handle matters himself…

The torturous trail leads to a warehouse where Madame Hydra, Silver Samurai and a small army of Hydra stormtroopers are engaged in cautious, dangerous negotiations with Mystique.

The mutant’s incredibly audacious plan – and the need for untold billions in cash – is revealed, only to have the dickering disrupted by Kitty and Wolverine ambitiously ambushing everybody.

They had previously ordered the kids to stay back and keep safe but the quartet are just teenagers and thus biologically unable to follow adult instructions…

The frantic melee seesaws on a knife edge until in the midst of the chaos Jean seemingly transforms into the dreaded Dark Phoenix, and by the time the Avengers arrive the battle is over and the kids triumphant.

This is an action-packed collection of clashes and capers but is also wonderfully heavy on the light-hearted humour and hi-jinks which so distinguished the original mid-1960s run: filled with smart, plausible characterisation, delicious extrapolation plus hilarious one-liners and childish stunts…

The final tale herein, illustrated by David Lafuente, opens a whole new world of possibilities when Jean’s still-erratic telepathy leads her to discover that one of her dutiful classmates has loved her from afar for decades…

Since she arrived all she has dwelt upon is her star-crossed lovers’ destiny with Scott Summers – and how she will die.

Is it any wonder then that she takes the lead with her silently suffering young admirer? Scott too is rebelling against his future… only his response is to play hooky with the other junior X-Man and head for New York City to meet girls and have the kind of fun he never believed his powers would permit…

To Be Continued…

Out of Their Depth also includes a beautiful cover-and-variants gallery by Immonen, Leinil Francis Yu & Nick Bradshaw and the now standard 21st century add-on of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
™ & © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Video Classics volume 1: The Adventures of Mighty Mouse / Video Classics volume 1: More Adventures of Mighty Mouse

By various (Malibu Graphics)
ISBNs: 0-944735-22-3 & 0-944735-06-1

The animated cartoon legend who became Mighty Mouse started out as a Superman parody from the Paul Terry animation studio (known as Terrytoons) in 1942. “The Mouse of Tomorrow”, launched his crusade against cat-on-mouse crime after fleeing from marauding moggies and taking refuge in a Supermarket. Whilst there, exposure to Super Soap and consumption of Super Soup, Super Celery and Super Cheese transformed him into a peewee powerhouse clad in a dangerously litigation-attracting blue-&-red, caped outfit.

Super Mouse was a huge hit for Terrytoons and spawned a welter of cartoon shorts. However after the seventh in 1943 the name changed to Mighty Mouse (with the earlier animations re-dubbed by 1944 to eradicate any trace of the original. The studio produced more than ninety features between 1942 and 1961…

The Rodent Avenger also survived a closet-full of costume changes before settling on the vibrant red and yellow outfit of his television years and (in anticipation of today’s constant revamping of heroic motives) almost as many origins, but the one that eventually stuck in the comicbooks was that he was a mysterious foundling baby in a basket and raised by an elderly couple in the deep, dark woods…

Such a screen smash naturally spawned a successful comicbook career. His first outing came in Timely’s (Marvel Comics as was) Terrytoons #38, November 1945, with creative contributions from Stan Lee, Jim Mooney, Mike Sekowsky and Al Jaffee. The Magnificent Mus Musculus then sprang into his own solo title for four issues until Timely lost the lucrative license to St. John/Pines Publications in 1947.

Generating a host of issues, giants and specials (including one of the industry’s earliest 3D comics) throughout the 1950s, eventually Western Publishing’s Gold Key imprint secured the rights at the end of the decade, carrying on the cute crusade until 1968.

The reason for the comic’s longevity – other than the fact that it offered simple, fun and thrilling action for younger readers – was simple.

In 1955 the fledgling CBS television network bought out Paul Terry, transferring his entire pantheon to the flickering silver screens of a nation about to go home entertainment crazy. Mighty Mouse and the animator’s other movie theatre stars (especially anarchic smart-mouthed double-act Heckle and Jeckle, the Talking Magpies) were soon early TV sensations, with kids subsequently pushing their comicbooks sales through the roof…

As you are probably aware, Mighty Mouse has come and gone from our TV screens a multitude of times since then…

This brace of cheap-&-cheerful monochrome samplers from 1989 gathers the tantalising contents of a few of those mid-1950s yarns, regrettably with nothing definite in the way of creative credits, but fascinating to cartoon as well as comics aficionados, because of the intriguing fact that many of Terry’s key animation studio artists moonlighted on illustrating the strips.

Thus with art (possibly) by Connie Rasinski, Art Bartsch, Carlo Vinci and the legendary Jim Tyler plus scripts (potentially) by Tom Morrison – storyman at Terrytoons and the on-screen speaking voice of Mighty Mouse – these slim tomes offer a stunning example of just how kids comics aren’t done anymore… but should be.

What you need to know: the extremely sensible and hardworking mice live harmoniously in prosperous Mousetown (or sometimes Terrytown), their happy lives only occasionally blighted by attacks from mean and nasty cats…

Video Classics Volume One opens with a handy, informative historical introduction feature ‘The World’s Mightiest Mouse’ by Jim Korkis, before the wondrous whimsy commences with ‘Tunnels of Terror’ (from Mighty Mouse Comics #36, December 1952) wherein worst of all feline felons The Claw has had his inventive associate Professor Ohm construct a deadly burrowing device dubbed the Land Submarine to raid the overly complacent rodent population.

Claw isn’t worried about Mighty Mouse either, as he’s laid a trap for the Mouse of Tomorrow, using the beautiful Mitzi Mouse as bait…

Unfortunately for the conniving cats, even undermining a mountain and dropping it on the big-eared champion isn’t enough to ensure victory…

From Mighty Mouse Comics #73, May 1957, ‘False Alarm’ reveals how a rare day off is spoiled when meowing miscreants broadcast fake distress calls to distract the fast-flying hero whilst they steal everything in Mousetown, after which The Claw returns in ‘Mail Robbery’ (Mighty Mouse Comics #31, March 1952), stealing the post, a host of jewels and poor old Mitzi – until you know who blazes in to Save the Day…

Of course not all cats are evil. When a wicked witch kidnaps a black kitten to use in her magic spells the Meteoric Muridae is more than willing to risk the sinister perils of ‘Goblin Grove’ (Mighty Mouse Comics #73, again) to rescue little Junior…

This initial vintage collection concludes in spectacular fashion with a tale from The Adventures of Mighty Mouse #13 (July 1957) as the Claw uses a shrinking ray to diminish our hero to bug size. Of course even as a ‘Pint-Sized Protector’ the Mouse of Tomorrow is utterly unbeatable…

Volume Two also opens with a cracking Korkis introduction as ‘What a Mouse!’ reveals more lost pop culture lore before an epic 5-chapter saga sees a hundred foot tall cat menace the mice in ‘A Visitor from Outer Space’ (Mighty Mouse Comics #36, December 1952). When the Rocketing Rodent intervenes he ends up marooned on the creature’s home planet Pluto but still manages to overcome impossible odds and return in time to Save the Day…

No, I’m not being redundant here: in the cartoons the characters always broke into song and Mighty Mouse always warbled his personal signature tune “Here I Come to Save the Day” whilst pummelling perfidious poltroons and menacing monsters…

‘Fake Cake’, also from Adventures of Mighty Mouse Comics #13 offers a one page example of why chaotic crows Heckle and Jeckle were so well regarded, after which ‘A Visit from Aunt Prudy’ (MMC #73, again) exposed feline felon Ripper‘s most cunning con, when Mighty Mouse’s long-lost and very prim relative turned up and enjoined him to remember that nice mice never indulged in fisticuffs…

Adventures of Mighty Mouse Comics #13 then proves the merit of those magpies of mayhem with a vacuum cleaner caper dubbed ‘In the Bag’ before a kitty coterie of kidnappers operate a foolproof ploy to capture innocent mice in ‘Magnet Dragnet’ from the same issue. Foolproof yes – but not Mighty Mouse proof…

The all-ages action then ends with the Mouse of Tomorrow lending the Elves of Terrytown a helping paw before being ‘Caught in a Web’ (Mighty Mouse Comics #31, March 1952) by the merciless misanthrope Sam Spider. Never fret though: nothing is mightier than furry justice…

Once upon a time, comics for young kids were a huge and important component of the publishing business. Even if that isn’t the case anymore, surely there are enough old gits like me – and parents prepared to offer their offspring something a little bit different from the brain-blitzing modern fare of computers and TV cartoons – to warrant a revival and new comprehensive compilation of such wonderful, charm-filled nostalgic delights?

Any takers?
© 1989 Malibu Graphics, Inc.