Airboy Archives volume 1


By Chuck Dixon, Tim Truman, Stan Woch, Benn Dunn, Bill Jaaska, Tom Lyle, Larry Elmore, & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-900-2 (TPB) 978-1-62302-641-7 (IDW Digital edition)

Airboy was one of the very best adventure strips of the Golden Age: one with a terrific pedigree and a profound legacy. Created for Hillman Periodicals by the brilliant Charles Biro (Steel Sterling, Crimebuster, the original Daredevil, The Little Wiseguys and landmark genre prototype Crime Does Not Pay number among his many triumphs), it featured a plucky teen and his fabulous super-airplane, affectionately dubbed “Birdie”.

Airboy and Birdie both debuted in the second issue of Air Fighters Comics, cover-dated November 1942 (so Slightly Belated Happy Birthday guys!). The title was packed out with similarly-themed and oddly off-kilter aviator heroes such as Skywolf, The Iron Ace, The Black Angel, The Bald Eagle, The Flying Dutchman, The Flying Fool and a landmark horror proto archetype dubbed The Heap – forerunner of all comic muck monsters…

In December 1945, and after 23 issues, the title was redesignated Airboy Comics and soldiered on until 1953, when Hillman with great foresight got out of the funnybook biz just as hostile clouds of censorship were gathering. In over a dozen years of publication, the boy-warrior had tackled the Axis powers, crooks, aliens, monsters, demons and every possible permutation of sinister threat and horror-tinged terror – even subversive giant rats and conqueror ants!

The gripping scripts – initially the work of Biro and Dick Wood before the latter assumed complete control – took the avenging aviator/soldier-of-fortune all over the world to confront some of the most striking adversaries in comics and often some of the sexiest. The most notable of these was undoubtedly the conflicted Nazi Air Ace known as Valkyrie, who flew the killer skies with a squadron of lethal lovelies codenamed The Airmaidens.

However, as the world and tastes changed, Airboy vanished with many other gaudy comic book champions whose time had run out. Clearly, memories remained fresh for many, no doubt rekindled by a superb popular history series in the early 1970s. The Steranko History of Comics and its effusive chapter on the lethal lad led to a speculative venture reprinting two issues of the early run.

Airboy was also the inspiration for Jetboy – originating lynchpin of the Wild Cards franchise by Howard Waldrop, George R.R. Martin, Melinda M. Snodgrass and their many friends. That began in January 1987 and is still going strong with 30 books as of 2022…

In 1982 comics devotee and champion archivist Ken Pierce had collected early Airboy exploits featuring the voluptuous, absurdly pneumatic Nazi-turned-freedom-fighter Valkyrie, and this apparently inspired budding independent comics company Eclipse to reboot and revive the character …and many of his Hillman comrades.

Always innovative, Eclipse were experimenting at that time with fortnightly (that’s twice a month, non-Brits) comics with half the page count of industry standard books, but at a markedly reduced price. To be honest, at 16 pages of story per issue, it wasn’t that different from the 17-18 pages Marvel and DC had been reduced to working with during the late 1970s…

Airboy premiered at 50¢ a copy in July 1986 and quickly found a vocal, dedicated following. Rereading – in either trade paperback or digital editions – this first archival compilation, it’s easy to see why…

Collecting Airboy #1-16 spanning July 15th 1986 February 27th 1987, this superb, so very Eighties all-action romp opens with a revelatory Introduction by instigator and near-exclusive scripter of the entire resurrected franchise Chuck Dixon who asks and answers ‘Why Airboy?’: detailing the events that led to all-star packager/indie maverick Tim Truman getting involved with one of the biggest and most influential series of that era. With Dixon scripting, Truman co-plotting, editing and pencilling, Tom Yeates inking, Tim Harkins lettering and Ron Courtney applying a then-radical colour palette, the initial 5-issue story arc (collected in 1989 as graphic novel Airboy: The Return of Valkyrie) explodes into action…

Issue #1 begins ‘On the Wings of Death’ as, in California’s Napa Valley, a broken man rails against an unjust fate. David Nelson II is bitter and angry. Not even his teenaged son can bring joy to his life. The boy barely knows and certainly has no warm memories of his dad: an aviation magnate who switched from building civilian planes to forging deadly high-tech weapons for any dictator to buy…

Trained since birth by former Japanese WWII fighter ace and deadly martial artist Saburo Hirota, young Davy has become a brave, confident fighter who cannot imagine why his life has been one of constant combat training.

Suddenly, a horde of assassins attacks the compound and the senior Nelson dies in a hail of bullets. Only then does Davy discover the truth about his father. Once upon a time, the aloof martinet was war veteran and roving hero Airboy: battling against and alongside valiant comrades and piloting a truly unique super-aircraft. Second feature ‘Phoenix’ sees the aging samurai tell of the lost hero and – armed with the truth – Davy Nelson III swears to avenge his father and atone for his own inactions and neglect…

Two weeks later, ‘The Wolf and the Phoenix’ reintroduces WWII legend Skywolf who tangentially enters the saga whilst clearing out South American drug traffickers who have been using his isolated Florida Keys island/US military dump for decommissioned ordnance as a staging post for their enterprise. When Hirota and the kid turn up, it’s not just to share the news of a fallen comrade, but also to reclaim and rebuild the shell that used to be Birdie…

As they reassemble and modify the super plane, stories are told and Davy discovers another shocking truth. His mother was not his father’s true love. Once he loved a beautiful German woman-warrior named Valkyrie. However, for the last thirty years she has been trapped in suspended animation by Misery, a phantasmal being who feeds on evil and steals the souls of lost fliers…

Forced to do the monster’s bidding for three decades – such as providing weapons for South American despots to slaughter and enslave innocents – the old hero had gradually died inside. Now his son is ready to avenge him and free the beautiful sleeper. Soon Skywolf’s drug-dealer problem are connected to the death of the original Airboy, leading them all to tropical Bogantilla and despotic General Orista – one of Nelson Aviation’s biggest customers and a staunch anti-Communist whose regime is proudly supported by the Reagan Administration…

With #3’s ‘Misery Loves Company’, Willie Blyberg began inking Woch as – after a tragic and costly misunderstanding – the reunited Air Fighters ally with rebels resisting Orista’s depredations. It’s been a hard struggle as the dictator army is fully supplied with Nelson’s armaments, backed up by black magic. Ghastly Misery has been extorting the ordnance from his arch foe by threating to kill the comatose Valkyrie: a process that had slowly poisoned the heart and crushed the soul of Davy’s dad. Now, however, the tide is turning…

Months previously, from deep in the Florida Everglades the monstrous bog-creature known as The Heap stirred after decades of inactivity. Something momentous was beginning to unfold and – vaguely remembering a previous life, brave heroes and a diabolical evil – it began shambling southwards…

Now the rebels and yanqui heroes raid the General’s citadel in Gamada Cruz, assisted by the Heap and a local shaman, triumphantly completing their ‘Assault on Villa Miserio’ by rescuing the dormant sleeping beauty, weaking bloody vengeance on Orista and driving off the immortal emotion vampire behind all the death and destruction in concluding chapter ‘Misery Takes A Holiday’ (illustrated by Woch, Blyberg & Emil Novak). Not all the good guys make it back, and most uncomfortably of all the revived captive is unaware that the hero she tries so passionately and amorously to reward is not “her Davy”…

Fast-paced, beautifully illustrated and written with all the gung-ho bravado of a Rambo movie, this tale of liberation and revolution rattles along, a stirring blend of action and supernatural horror that sweeps readers along with it, setting the scene for a tense confrontation in #6 as ‘Back in the USA’ covers the aftermath wherein the time-displaced “aviatrix” seeks to adjust to a strange and frustrating new world and form some kind of relationship with the son of her lost lover…

Hirota leaves them to it: he’s more concerned with another long-term rehabilitation project: helping an old ally from WWII with very different yet eerily similar problems. Davy is trying to cleanse his corporation of the last taint of scandal and corruption only to discover that – thanks to CEO Emil Kronenberg – it has been happily supplying appalling weapons and support to almost every gang, terror group and corrupt regime on the planet. He has no idea that other eyes are upon the aging European: hungry, implacable, vengeful ones…

In #7, Valkyrie accepts a vast wad of cash and heads to New York City to lose herself in hedonism. Inked by Jeff Butler, ‘Partytime’ then sees Davy ambushed by his entire complicit Board and abducted by Kronenberg who resumes the indoctrination experiments he devised back in the camps in Germany. Unluckily for him, whilst losing herself, Valkyrie has impossibly found an old friend from the War who also has not aged a day…

Fellow former Luftwaffe pilot Baron Victor Heller has his own magical secrets to keep but makes a useful ally once Davy’s disappearance galvanises Hirota to enlist Val’s assistance in finding the boy…

Davy’s in big trouble in #8 (illustrated by Woch & Blyberg with colours from “Air Rescue”), trapped ‘Down in the Darkness’ and tortured. The extreme hostile takeover move proves initially unsuccessful and as the next issue hikes the price up to $1.25 and extends the page count, ‘Body Count!’ sees his friends move in for a savage showdown.

Inked by Mark Nelson & coloured by Moondoggies, it was offset by a new back-up series exploring the post war career of Skywolf and other Golden Age Air Fighters characters. Concluding in the next issue, ‘China Hands’ by Dixon, Larry Elmore, Harkins & Steve Oliff/Olyoptics, is set in 1948 as China falls to communist control. Here Link Thorne – AKA The Flying Fool – ferries food and medical supplies to the simple peasants caught up in the political carnage, only to be framed by US spook Jensen of what will become the CIA and imprisoned by Chang Kai Shek’s Nationalist army.

Desperate to help, American freight company owner Riot O’Hara reaches out to aimless drifters Skywolf to spring Thorne. Their rescue attempt is sabotaged by agents of the American government and officially they all die in the attempt… Officially…

With John Nyberg inks, #10 concludes Davy’s rescue and sees Kronenberg at last get what’s coming to him in ‘Tooth and Claw’, even as ‘China Hands part 2’ reveals how Skywolf became the man of mystery we all know and love…

Airboy #11 was written by Truman, with art from Ben Dunn & Hilary Barta. ‘…I Am Birdie’ peers into the past and retells the origin of David Nelson II and his sentient wonder craft whilst Dixon & Bill Jaaska combine for another historical 2-parter starring Skywolf. Set in 1949, ‘I Don’t Need My Grave!’ (with the concluding chapter inked by Jeff Darrow) sees the masked wanderer in Tokyo, resolved to stop criminal upstart Billy Yee, strongarming Riot O’Hara.

Yee wants her to export his drugs to America, but as “sangokujin” (displaced Korean or Chinese foreigners) must work outside Japan’s established criminal hierarchy. That’s proved when Skywolf’s attack is interrupted by members of the Yamataki syndicate and before long Yakuza and Yankee outlaw are united in the same goal. All they have to do is deal with the US soldiers Jensen has set on their tails and it’s clear sailing from then on…

The Airboy story in #10 had ended with a portentous teaser as an aerial assault force devastated Skywolf’s Florida island retreat in 1985. Leading the raid was a bloodthirsty loon dubbed Manic. The saga properly kicks off in #12’s ‘Gone to Texas’ (by Dixon, Woch, Kim DeMulder), as – whilst Hirota counsels former ally The Iron Ace (angrily trapped inside the world’s most advanced full body prosthesis) – Davy and Valkyrie tentatively explore their new normal. Both are understandably disturbed by the thought of renewing her relationship by proxy, switching her avid affection from father to son, but thankfully Skywolf distracts them with his latest problem…

Amidst the rubble of his home is a message from his unseen enemies: the burned body of a cop from the banana republic of the Grand Coronicos Islands…

A hastily arranged meeting brings Davy and Hirota to Galveston, Texas and a frankly hilarious encounter with Skywolf’s older, smarter, tougher, wheelchair-bound mother. She thinks her boy’s an idiot and refuses to call him anything but “Lawrence”, but her advice is welcome and leads to Nelson Aviation fronting Skywolf a new top-of-the-line helicopter gunship for their upcoming visit to the Grand Coronicos…

In #13 Dixon, Woch, Nelson & Steve Haynie craft a chilling ‘Tag-Team’ as Manic and his psycho partner Cowgirl apprise their boss of the situation. The nation is supposedly ruled by avid anti-Communist El Presidente Generalissimo Valasquez, but it’s his wife who has really pulled the strings for much of the last 50 years. The methodical scheme to corner America’s entire drug trade is hers, but that starts unravelling as soon as Davy and Birdie start shooting down drug-filled cargo planes…

The response is swift and savage and teams are despatched by Manic to kill everyone close to Nelson and Skywolf. Of course no drug cabal assassin is a match for Hirota, Valkyrie or Lawrence’s mom…

The drama intensifies in ‘A Barrel Full of Sharks’ (Woch & Nelson) as the intended victims all converge on the Islands for a little payback…

Airboy #13 & 14 also offer a fantastic history mystery by Dixon, Tom Lyle & Romeo Tanghal, as ‘Queen of Yeti Valley’ reveals how Skywolf and the Bald Eagle unite to exfiltrate the British Ambassador’s daughter in the Himalayas and end up saving a lost race from human monsters…

In 15 & 16 the posterior back-ups see supposedly deceased Skywolf sneak back into Texas in 1950 for ‘White Lightning’ (Dixon, Woch & Vern Henkel). Happily anonymous, the outlaw says hi to his ma and puts paid to a preacher opening up a Ku Klux Klan franchise to deal with all them uppity, invasive Mexicans in a deeply satisfying and cathartic dose of bigot-trashing catharsis…

At the fronts and in the Eighties, Airboy and his crew go undercover to infiltrate Puerto Oloroso, poverty stricken capital of the Grand Coronicos Island Chain, inevitably unleashing a ‘Caribbean Rampage’ over the final two episodes in this spectacular opening compilation. By scuttling the scheme to flood America with cut-price coke, Airboy, Hirota, Valkyrie and Skywolf (and his mom) achieve a brief moment of pure Eighties synergy: marrying style, outrageous fashion, ostentation, Contras, drugs, the CIA and always over-the-top action with a spurious motive, and wicked humour in a high octane romp translating the fighting stars of WWII to the era of Airwolf, Nightrider and Miami Vice.

Including stunning covers by Truman, Woch, Dave Stevens, Tex Blaisdell, Paul Gulacy, Flint Henry, Howard Bender, Yeates, John Totleben. Davis Dorman and Ron Randall, this is a true lost delight of sheer escapism well worth tracking down, with the promise of more and even better still to come.
Airboy Archives volume 1. Airboy © 2014 Chuck Dixon. © 2014 Idea and Design Work’s LLC. All rights reserved.

Marshal Law the Deluxe Edition


By Pat Mills & Kev O’Neill, with Mark A. Nelson & Mark Chiarello, lettered by Phil Felix, Steve Potter & Phil Oakley (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3855-1 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ultimate Antihero Excess… 10/10

Hard to believe, I know, but not everybody likes superheroes.. Some folks actively loathe them. And then there’s Pat Mills & Kev O’Neill…

One of the greatest creative forces in British comics, Pat Mills began his career at DC Thomson. He wrote girls comics and humour strips; moved south to IPC and killed posh-comics-for-middle-class-kids stone-dead by creating Battle Picture Weekly (1975 with John Wagner & Gerry Finley-Day), as well as Action (1976), 2000AD (1977) and Starlord (1978). Along the way, he also figured large in the junior horror comic Chiller

As a writer he’s responsible for Ro-Busters, ABC Warriors, Nemesis the Warlock, Slaine, Button Man, Metalzoic, and Requiem Vampire Knight among many, many others. That also includes Battle’s extraordinary Charley’s War (with the brilliant Joe Colquhoun): the best war strip of all time and one of the top five explorations of the First World War in any artistic medium.

Unable to hide the passions that drive him, his most controversial work is probably Third World War which he created for the bravely experimental comics magazine Crisis. This fiercely socially conscious strip blended his trademark bleak, black humour, violence and anti-authoritarianism with a furious assault on Capitalism, Imperialism and Globalisation. It even contained elements of myth, mysticism, religion and neo-paganism – also key elements in his mature work.

Some of his most fruitful collaborations happened when teamed with the utterly unique and much-missed Kevin O’Neill. In 1988 O’Neill won the singular accolade of having his entire style of drawing – not a panel, not a story, but every single mark he left on paper – banned by the USA’s dried-up-but-not-quite-dead Comics Code Authority!

Not that it stopped the rise of his remarkable and truly unique talent in later triumphs such as Serial Killer, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and of course, Marshal Law

“Kev” was born in 1953 and, aged 16, began work as an office boy/art corrector for British weekly Buster. He worked in every aspect of the compartmentalised industry: lettering, art paste-up, logo design, colouring and more…

As the kids’ stuff began to pale, life changed in 1977, when author/editor Mills transferred him to a forthcoming, iconoclastic new science fiction comic. O’Neill became a mainstay of 2000 AD: producing covers, pinups and Future Shock short stories, whilst contributing to serials like Ro-Busters, satirical super parody Captain Klep, ABC Warriors and his personal breakthrough character Nemesis the Warlock.

From there on, America came calling in the form of DC Comics, but his efforts on edgier science fiction titles like Green Lantern and Omega Men, graphic novel Metalzoic (and Bat-Mite!) only reinforced how different he was. Happily just as his “style of drawing” was banned by the American Comics Code Authority the marketplace changed completely…

In 1987 Marvel’s creator-owned imprint Epic Comics published a 6-issue miniseries starring a hero superficially very much in the vein of Judge Dredd, but one who took the hallowed American creation of the superhero genre and gave it a thorough duffing-up, Brit-boy style. It was the wholly traditional tale of a (costumed) cop who did the Right Thing and did it His Way…

San Futuro is a vast metropolitan urban dystopia built on the Post-Big Quake remnants of San Francisco. America is recovering from another stupid, exploitative war in somebody else’s country, and – as usual – demobbed, discharged, discarded, damaged, brain-fried grunts and veterans are clogging the streets and menacing decent society. The problem is that this war was fought with artificially manufactured superheroes, who eventually came home to become a very dangerous embarrassment. Marshal Law was one of them, but now he’s a cop; angry and disillusioned but dedicated. His job is to put away bad guys, but it’s hard to tell them apart from the “good” ones. This establishing series was collected as Marshal Law: Fear and Loathing.

This hefty compilation gathers the ever-peregrinating strip as it appeared under many publishers’ banners. It gathers Marshal Law #1-6, Marshal Law: Crime and Punishment, Marshal Law Takes Manhattan, Marshal Law: Kingdom of the Blind, Marshal Law: The Hateful Dead, Marshal Law: Super-Babylon & Marshal Law: Secret Tribunal 1-2. It opens with an Introduction from comics megafan/TV personality Jonathan Ross and stunning and informative ‘Map of San Futuro’ offering a ‘Welcome to San Futuro – Home of Law and Disorder’ before Fear and Loathing: A Prologue’ introduces the world’s greatest hero. Colonel Buck Kaine AKA The Public Spirit has returned from a divine, ordained mission to the stars and his example inspired a certain young man to enlist in the SHOCC (Super Hero Operational Command & Control) program that created all the now-unwanted superbeings infesting Sat Futuro and the world…

Fear and Loathing begins with ‘Stars and Strippers’ as a rapist serial killer terrorises the city, distracting weary Marshal Law from his preferred targets: degenerates, thugs and thieves like Gangreen

Marshal Law was once a forgotten supersoldier like them, but now he’s a cop: burned-out, angry and extremely disillusioned. His job is to put away rogue masks and capes, but as bad as they are, the people he works for are worse. Some heroes like The Public Spirit have the official backing of the government and can do no wrong – which is a huge problem as the solitary Marshal is convinced that he’s also the deadly rapist/serial killer called the Sleepman

The case powerfully and tragically unfolds with bleak black humour, grim excess and raging righteous fury in ‘Evilution’, ‘Super Hero Messiah’, ‘Conduct Unbecoming’, ‘Mark of Caine’ and ‘Nemesis’: a savage parody of beloved genre stars and motifs, and uncompromising commentary and satirical attack on privilege, prestige, US policies and attitudes, in comics and the real world. However, Fear and Loathing is also a cracking good yarn for thinking adults with mature dispositions, open minds, and who love seeing injustice punished.

In the 1989 Epic Comics one shot ‘Marshal Law Takes Manhattan’, Mills & O’Neill – with additional inks by Mark A. Nelson and colours from Mark Chiarello – went after the entire (thinly disguised) Marvel Comics pantheon, with old zipper-face dispatched to New York to extradite a war criminal – and Law’s old army trainer – The Persecutor. Unfortunately (for them), the mass killer has hidden himself amongst the inmates of “The Institute”: a colossal Manhattan skyscraper housing all the Big Apple’s native superheroes. Each and every is one a brilliant, barmy, bile-filled parody of Marvel’s Mightiest …and they don’t stand a chance against disgust and righteous indignation…

Mills & O’Neill brought their new toy to British independent outfit Apocalypse, publishers of Toxic, a short-lived (March to October 1991) but talent-heavy rival to 2000 AD. Naturally, carnage and mayhem were the result, but not before author Mills slips a few well-aimed pops at US covert practices and policies in South America under the door.

That troubled, influential periodical was originally preceded by Marshal Law Special ‘Kingdom of the Blind’ at the end of 1990, which has been slotted in here…

Although played for more overt laughs than previous tales, the vented spleen and venom displayed in this captivating yarn is simply breathtaking, with the creators putting the boot into the most popular hero of the time. The Private Eye had trained himself to fight criminals ever since his parents were murdered in front of him. For decades he made the night his own, to universal acclaim: even Marshal Law thought he was the exception that proved the rule…

When circumstances force the Marshal to question his beliefs, he uncovers a snake-pit of horror and corruption that shakes even his weary, embittered sensibilities, and makes him wonder why nobody ever questioned how one hero could get through so many sidekicks…

Second Special ‘The Hateful Dead’ – lettered by Steve Potter – began a 2-part odyssey wherein the toughest cop in San Futuro faced an undead plague after a Toxic accident (tee-hee; d’you see what they did there?) resurrects a graveyard full of dead supermen – many of them put there by Marshall Law -as well as ordinary ex-citizens to bedevil the conflicted hero-hunter. The story ended on an incredible cliffhanger… and Apocalypse went bust.

After two years Law jumped back across the pond to Dark Horse Comics, concluding the yarn in ‘Super Babylon’ wherein the resurgent Bad Cop quelled the return of the living dead and – just by way of collateral damage – devastated assorted superhero pantheons by ending thinly disguised versions of the Justice Society and League as well as WWII super-patriots like the Invaders and Captain America. All this happened a decade before Marvel Zombies stirred in their graves or The Walking Dead pulled on their brain-stained boots…

In addition, the creators couldn’t resist one more mighty pop at American Cold-War Imperialism that’s both utterly over-the-top and hilarious – unless you’re a Republican, I suppose…

Additionally, there’s a wicked spoof as ‘Naked Heroes by Veegee’ shares the candid snaps of a super-celeb paparazzo and the art for Marshal Law’s feature in Hero Illustrated (May 1994)…

Less contentious – unless you’re a devoted fan of the Alien movies/comics or The Legion of Super Heroes – is Secret Tribunal. Lettered by Bill Oakley, it begins with Cape Fear’ as the Marshal is deployed to an orbiting Space Station where the government grows its manufactured superbeings, just as a nasty incursion of fast-breeding carnivorous space-beasts starts ripping the immature adolescent and primarily teenaged supermen and wonder women to gory gobbets…

Even though the hero hunter is ordered to bring with him a super-team (riffing off certain Marvel mutants…), in the end the only solution is a ruthless and highly personal ‘Court Marshal’

Supplemented by an ‘Afterword by Pat Mills’ that shares his reasons for “hating heroes” and a stunning ‘Shooting Gallery’ of covers, designs, foreign edition art, previous collection covers, retail posters, and more to augment the experience of Futuro shock, this is classically inappropriate mayhem: just who could resist it?

Mills’ incisive observation, sharp dialogue, brilliant scenarios, great characters, stunningly memorable one-liners and hilariously compelling stories full of twists and surprises are magnificently brought to life by the cruelly lush art and colours of O’Neill: an artist so crazed with the joys of creation that every panel overflows with so many visual and typographical ad-libs that you could read this book one hundred times and still find new treats to make you laugh and wince. So I’m thinking that perhaps you really should…
© 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 2013 Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill. All Rights Reserved.

The Steel Claw: Reign of the Brain!


By Tom Tully, Jesús Blasco & various (Rebellion)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-681-2 (TPB/Digital Edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Vivid Visions of Wonderful Weirdness… 9/10

One of the most fondly-remembered British strips of all time is the startlingly beautiful Steel Claw. From 1962 to 1973, the stunningly gifted Jesús Blasco and his small studio of family members thrilled the nation’s children, illustrating the angst-filled adventures of scientist, adventurer, secret agent and even costumed superhero Louis Crandell.

The majority of the character’s career was scripted by prolific and versatile comics veteran Tom Tully (Roy of the Rovers, Heros the Spartan, Dan Dare, House of Dolmann, Master of the Marsh, Janus Stark, Mytek the Mighty, The Wild Wonders, Nipper, Adam Eterno, The Mind of Wolfie Smith, Johnny Red, Harlem Heroes, Mean Arena, Inferno, The Robo Machines, Football Family Robinson, Buster’s Ghost and many more).

He followed the precepts of H.G. Wells’ original unseen adversary which had been laid out by science fiction novelist Ken Bulmer who had devised the strip, presenting some modern spin on Victorian classic The Invisible Man.

In the 1960s, however, our protagonist acted with evil intent as soon as he fell out of sight of his fellow humans, not through innate poor character but because of wild technology accidentally unleashed …

Another stunning salvo of graphic wonderment from Rebellion’s Treasury of British Comics strand, this second collection is available in paperback and digital editions. The Steel Claw: The Reign of the Brain gathers material from timeless weekly anthology Valiant, spanning 28th September 1963 to 19th September 1964 and is accompanied by an Introduction from writer and editor John Freeman (treat yourself to his downthetubes.net site for all your nostalgia and comics needs!)

What has gone before: Louis Crandell was an embittered man, probably due to having lost his right hand in a lab accident. After his recovery and its replacement with a steel prosthetic, he returned to work as (a rather surly) assistant to venerable boffin Professor Barringer, who was attempting to create a germ-destroying ray.

When that device exploded, Crandell received a monumental electric shock and was bathed in radiation from the ray-device. Rather than killing him, the incident rendered him totally transparent and changed his body chemistry. Although he couldn’t stay unseen forever, the bodily mutation permanently affected him, and subsequent electric shocks caused all but his metal hand to disappear.

These were simpler times and there was far less SCIENCE around so please – Kids Of All Ages – do not try this at home!

Whether venal at heart or temporarily deranged, Crandell went on a rampage of terror, even attempting to blow up New York City before finally coming to his senses. Throughout Crandell’s outrages, guilt-fuelled Barringer was in pursuit, resolved to save or stop his former friend…

After his cure, the invisible man was so globally notorious and well known that he was framed by his own therapist. Whilst treating Crandell Dr. Deutz was also traumatically exposed to Barringer’s ray but instead of invisibility, he gained the power to transform into a bestial ape-man and turned to crime for fun. He malevolently placed the blame for his own spectacular robberies and assaults on his infamous patient…

On the run but innocent this time, Crandell was saved by the intervention of Barringer’s niece Terry Gray. After weeks of beast-triggered catastrophe and panic in the streets, the Steel Claw was vindicated and proved himself a hero. Despite that, a quiet life was clearly beyond the unseen celebrity, and while seeking anonymity in the Bahamas, he was embroiled in a modern-day pirate’s attempt to hijack an undersea super-weapon and plunder cruise ships…

With this volume, Crandell continues his gradually shift from victim to reluctant hero: accepting his powers and an elite if danger-ridden role at the fringe of society. During the first saga reprinted here, he made a decision that would affect the rest of his life.

Taking stock at a time when super-spies and science fiction were globally ascendent, Tully began with Crandell still courting obscurity. Building a life in San Lemo, capital of South American republic Curacos, Crandell is again recognised and chased by sensation-hungry mobs. The frantic pursuit drives him to a power station where someone takes a shot at him, and he is given a message by a dying man. The victim warns of the end of the world and gives Crandell a phone number, but the real convincer that it’s all deadly serious is the assassin with an electric raygun who starts shooting at him…

Caught up in a sea of lethal intrigue, the Steel Claw falls into an ongoing operation by British Intelligence group “Shadow Squad” and becomes point man in their investigation of a deranged super-genius dubbed ‘The Brain’ (running from 28th September 1963 – 4th April 11th 1964).

Amidst an increasing tide of man-made disasters and thanks to his uncanny gifts, angry determination and sheer dumb luck, Crandell infiltrates the Brain’s cult, invading his booby-trapped tropical island and exposing a scheme to destroy all life on Earth.

Anticipating our modern era’s huge surplus of spoiled, homely, insecure, self-confessed billionaire man-children petulantly making trouble, this duel of wills leads to global unrest and devastation, culminating in a spectacular war of Inventions against Invisibility & Ingenuity. In the end the Claw ultimately emerges – far from unscathed but at least alive – ready for more adventure…

The mission had already paid off big for Crandell: the first thing Shadow Squad did was to fake his death and proclaim that the Steel Claw was gone forever…

As ever, the series is made unmissable by the astounding art of Blasco – although the master is supplanted for a few episodes in the first story by fill-in artists who might or might not be Eric Bradbury & Mike Western…

The Claw’s clash of powers against the Brain is protracted, suspenseful, action-packed and in the end a close-run thing, but inevitably results in victory for the reluctant good guy who becomes a very special agent of the Shadow Squad and an operative of British Intelligence. Those connections next lead him into a secret war on home soil, as he faces the uncanny, barely-perceived threat of ‘The Lactians’ (11th April – 19th September 1964)…

The tense drama opens with our eventual hero back in London. Britain is reeling under twin crises: a plague of fireballs in the night sky over Cornwall and a rising toll of missing persons, and as Crandell rendezvous with his handler, they are ambushed by what appear to be ordinary citizens with bizarre intentions…

When “Shadow Five” dies, Crandell’s frantic fightback exposes the attackers as not of this world: sparking a one-man war against an alien race able to possess bodies and attempting to infiltrate and subjugate mankind via its isolated rural communities – a classic theme of cold war science fiction of the era.

Even with other artists again stepping in to counter the problems of weekly deadlines and international postal deliveries in a pre-digital age, the tenson and terror never relent as the Invisible Man slowly works his way through an all-but indetectable army of enemies to the thing at the top: risking everything on one final desperate counterstrike…

This potent thriller tome also comes with a teaser excerpt from the forthcoming Steel Claw Super Picture Library collection, again highlighting the work of Tully & Blasco…

More than any other comics character, the Steel Claw was a barometer for reading fashions. Starting out as a Quatermass-style science fiction cautionary tale, the strip mimicked the trends of the greater world, evolving into a James Bond-style super-spy strip – with Crandell eventually tricked out with outrageous gadgets – and latterly, even a masked and costumed super-doer after TV-triggered “Batmania” gripped the nation and the world.

When that bubble burst, he resorted to becoming a freelance adventurer, combating eerie menaces and vicious criminals.

The thrills of the writing are engrossing enough, but the real star of this feature is the artwork: captivating classicist drawing, moody staging and the sheer pristine beauty of all participants making this an absolute pleasure to look at.

Jesús Monterde Blasco was born in Barcelona in 1919 and began his phenomenal career in 1935, drawing for Mickey magazine. Barely known now in the English-speaking world, his vastly varied output included Cuto, Anita Diminuta, Los Tres Inseperables, Los Guerilleros, Paul Foran, Tom Berry, Tex Willer, Tallafero, Capitán Trueno and Une Bible en Bande Dessinée for continental and South American audiences. His many UK strips include the lush and lavish Buffalo Bill, sci-fi chiller The Indestructible Man, Billy the Kid and the first Invasion! serial (2000 AD from #1, 1977). He died in October 1995.

This is sheer addictive nostalgia for my generation, but the stories also hold up against anything made for today’s marketplace. Buy it for the kids and read it too; this is a glorious book, and steel yourself for even better yet to come…
© 1963, 1964 & 2022 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

The Spider: Crime Unlimited


By Jerry Siegel, Donne Avenell, Aldo Marculeta, Giorgio Trevisan & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78618-465-8 (HB/Digital)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Bizarrely Bombastic Action Adventure… 8/10

Part of Rebellion’s Treasury of British Comics strand, The Spider: Crime Unlimited is a sublimely cool hardback collection celebrating an all-but forgotten sub-strand of the 1960s comics experience.

Until the 1980s, comics in the UK were based on an anthological model, offering variety of genre, theme and character on a weekly – or sometimes fortnightly – basis. Humorous periodicals like DC Thomson’s The Beano were leavened by thrillers like Billy the Cat or General Jumbo and adventure papers like Amalgamated Press/Fleetway’s Lion or Valiant always included gag strips such as The Nutts, Grimly Feendish, Mowser and a wealth of similar quick laugh treats. And yes, both rival companies had equivalents in those categories too…

They also produced Seasonal specials, hardcover Annuals and digest-sized anthology publications. DCT still publishes Commando Picture Library and used to have romance and science fiction titles such as Starblazer, matched by their London competitors with titles like Super Picture Library, War Picture Library, Air Ace Picture Library and Action Picture Library. These were half-sized, 64 page monochrome booklets with glossy soft-paper covers, but between 1967 and 1968 – at the height of the sixties Spy and Superhero booms – were supplemented by a deluxe, card-cover, 132 page version – The Fleetway Super Library.

As well as the always-popular war option of “Front Line” (starring by turn Maddock’s Marauders or Top-Sergeant Ironside), this line offered a “Secret Agent Series” – alternating cool spy operatives Johnny Nero and Barracuda – and the “Stupendous” (formerly and briefly “Fantastic”) series: delivering lengthy complete sagas starring either The Steel Claw or The Spider. These extra adventures came twice a month and ran 13 tales for each, and this spiffy hardback tome (245x177mm) re-presents the second and fourth releases, both starring the eerie webspinning master of crime…

British comics had a strange and extended love affair with what can only be described as “unconventional” (for which feel free to substitute “creepy”) heroes. So many of the stars and potential role models of our serials and strips were just plain “off”: self-righteous, moody voyeurs-turned vigilantes like Jason Hyde, sinister masterminds like The Dwarf, deranged geniuses like Eric Dolmann, jingoistic, racist supermen like Captain Hurricane and more often than not reformed criminals or menaces like Charlie Peace, The Steel Claw or The Spider

…And don’t get me started on our legion of lethally anarchic comedy icons or that our most successful symbol of justice is an Eagle-bedecked, anonymously-helmeted, jack-booted poster boy for a fascist state. Perhaps that explains why these days we can’t even imagine or envision what a proper leader looks like and keep on electing clowns, crooks and obliviously blinkered over-privileged simpletons…

All joking aside, British comics are unlike any other kind and simply have to be seen to be believed and enjoyed. One of the most revered stars of the medium has finally begun to be collected in various archival editions, and perfectly encapsulates our odd relationship with heroism, villainy and particularly the murky grey area bridging them…

Mystery criminal genius and eventual superhero The Spider launched in peerless weekly anthology Lion with the June 26th 1965 issue. He would reign supreme until April 26th 1969, and periodically return in reprint form (in Vulcan) and occasionally new stories ever since.

As first introduced by Ted Cowan (Ginger Nutt, Paddy Payne, Adam Eterno, Robot Archie) & Reg Bunn (Robin Hood, Buck Jones, Captain Kid, Clip McCord), the moody malcontent is an enigmatic super-scientist whose goal is to be acclaimed the greatest criminal of all time. The flamboyantly wicked narcissist began his public career by recruiting crime specialists: safecracker Roy Ordini and genteelly evil inventor Professor Pelham before attempting a massive gem-theft from America’s greatest city. He was foiled by cruel luck and resolute cops Gilmore and Trask: crack detectives cursed with the task of capturing the arachnid arch-villain.

Cowan scripted the first two serialised sagas before handing over to comics royalty: Jerry Siegel (Superman, Superboy, The Spectre, Doctor Occult, Slam Bradley, Funnyman, The Mighty Crusaders, Starling), who was forced to look elsewhere for work after an infamous dispute with DC Comics over the rights to the Man of Steel.

Here his unique approach and astounding imagination results in a truly bizarre outing for Aldo Marculeta – who draws like Massimo Bellardinelli – to illustrate in 2 panels per page as Super Picture Library #2 heralds the menace of ‘The Professor of Power’

It begins as The Spider crashes a fancy party to mock retiring Police Chief Brady whilst abusively reminding his minions who is boss, but has unexpected repercussions as outraged scientist Aldo Cummings creates a process to counteract the evil of such villainy by removing wickedness from living beings. Sadly, his ray machine malfunctions and utterly alters his own personality whilst also bestowing other arcane gifts…

Although completely evil now, the shapeshifter is still obsessed with The Spider and sets out to humiliate and destroy him through a campaign of terror that sees his opponent beaten and jailed whilst the Professor disrupts global peace and even sacrifices humanity to alien body snatchers from an extradimensional realm. With human beings inhabited by the evil entitoids, the maniac deems his duels with the webspinner over, but he has underestimated the cunning and resolve of his foe, who finds himself in the strange position of being Earth’s saviour…

Following is ‘Crime Unlimited’ from SPL #4, illustrated by Italian multinational star turn Giorgio Trevisan (Cherry Brandy, War Picture Library, Battler Britton, HMS Outcast, Trelawney of the Guards, The Flying Fortress, Bob Pepper, Silver Arrow, Ken Parker, Sherlock Holmes and so much more) with a terse, gritty script from British legend Donne Avenell.

Staring his career before WWII, Avenell cut his teeth on many British comics icons like Radio Fun, War Picture Library, The Phantom Viking, Adam Eterno and Dr. Mesmer’s Revenge, major international features line Nigeria’s Powerman, Buffalo Bill, The Phantom and assorted Disney strips. He was equally at home with newspaper strips such as Tiffany Jones, Axa and Eartha novels and TV screenwriting on shows like The Saint). Here he pits the swaggering arrogant super-criminal against a brilliant and ruthless inventor who applies Henry Ford’s business practices to organised crime: using vast engineering talents and mass-production techniques with the view to getting rich by stealing The Spider’s title as Emperor of Crime…

Mr. Mass begins with a wealth magnet to snatch the proceeds of a Florida heist right out of the Spider’s bony fingers, builds an unstoppable mole machine and ultimately unleashes an army of plundering doppelganger thanks to his Mass-Replicator, with neither Pelham & Ordini nor Trask & Gilmore able to slow the warring masterminds down.

Implacable foes conducting industrial warfare, the duelling geniuses hurtle towards a spectacular final accounting after Mass reduces an entire city to mental infancy, but fails to stop his webspinning nemesis tracking him down to a catastrophic clash in an automated factory…

These retro/camp masterpiece of arcane dialogue, insane devices and rollercoaster antics are augmented by Extras including original covers, biographies of the writers and ads for even more uncanny UK comics collections, both available and forthcoming…

This titanic tome reaffirms that the Emperor is back at last and should find a home in every kid’s heart and mind, no matter how young they might be, or threaten to remain. Batty, baroque and often simply bonkers, The Spider proves that although crime does not pay, it always provides a huge amount of white-knuckle fun…
© 1967 & 2022 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Mandrake the Magician®: The Complete King Years volume 1


By Lee Falk & Phil Davis, Fred Fredericks, Don Heck, Andre LeBlanc & various (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-1-61345-098-7 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Vintage Magical Mystery Masterpiece… 9/10

Regarded by many as comics’ first superhero, Mandrake the Magician debuted as a daily newspaper strip on 11th June 1934 – although creator Lee Falk had first tried to sell the strip a decade previously. Initially drawing the strip too, Falk soon replaced himself, allowing the early wonderment to materialise through the effective understatement of sublime draughtsman Phil Davis. An instant hit, it was soon supplemented by a full-colour Sunday companion page which launched on February 3rd 1935.

Falk sold Mandrake to King Features Syndicate years earlier as a 19-year old college student, but asked the monolithic company to let him finish his studies before dedicating himself to the strip full time. Schooling done, the 23-year-old master raconteur settled in to begin his life’s work: entertaining millions with his astounding tales.

Falk – who also created the first costumed superhero in moodily magnificent manhunter The Phantom – spawned an entire comicbook subgenre with his first creation. Most Golden Age publishers boasted at least one (and usually many) nattily attired wizards in their gaudily-garbed pantheons: all roaming the world making miracles and crushing injustice with varying degrees of stage legerdemain or actual sorcery.

Characters such Mr. Mystic, Ibis the Invincible, Sargon the Sorcerer, and an assortment of … the Magician such as Zanzibar, Zatara, Kardak ad infinitum all borrowed heavily and shamelessly from the uncanny exploits of the elegant, enigmatic man of mystery who graced the pages of the world’s newspapers and magazines.

In the Antipodes, Mandrake was a suave stalwart regular of Australian Women’s Weekly and also became a cherished icon of adventure in the UK, Italy and Scandinavia. As seen and described in Eileen Sabrina Herman’s ‘Introduction: The Magic behind Mandrake’ the Magician was a major star of page & screen, pervading every aspect of global consciousness. This erudite appreciation also includes tantalising merchandise and memorabilia and movie posters plus original art by not just by Falk, Davis, Ray Baily, Don Heck, and Fredericks but also a stunning Phantom team-up pic from Don Newton.

Over decades he’s been a star of radio, movies, chapter-serials, a theatrical play, television animation (as part of the cartoon series Defenders of the Earth). With that came the usual merchandising bonanza of games, toys (including magic trick kits), books, comics and more…

Falk worked on Mandrake and “The Ghost who Walks” until his death in 1999 (on his deathbed he was laying out one last story), but also found a few quiet moments to become a renowned playwright, theatre producer and impresario, as well as an inveterate world-traveller. However, even he couldn’t keep up with the demand, which is where this collection comes in…

Between 1966 and 1967, King Features Syndicate dabbled with a comic book line of their biggest stars – Popeye, Flash Gordon, The Phantom and Mandrake – developed after the characters had enjoyed newsstand stardom under the broad and effective aegis of veteran licensed properties publisher Gold Key Comics.

Mandrake was no stranger to funnybooks, having featured in the David McKay Company’s 1939 Magic Comics (1939-1949 and Dell’s Four Color #752, as reformatted strip reprints and in new material. He was also a major player for child-friendly Big Little Books.

This initial archival full-colour volume gathers the pertinent contents of Mandrake the Magician #1-5, spanning September 1966 to May 1967, plus back-up material from Flash Gordon #1-3, and also includes a wealth of unseen art and candid photos.

As part of a cross-selling policy at that period, King Comics revived the ancient practise of adding short story vignettes of other stars to their publications. The Magician regularly added mystery and imagination to the line-up of Earth’s greatest interstellar explorer…

Those in the know are well aware that Mandrake was educated at the fabled College of Magic in Tibet, thereafter becoming a famous, suave globe-trotting troubleshooter: always accompanied by faithful African partner Lothar and beautiful companion (eventually, in 1997, bride) Princess Narda of Cockaigne. Together forever, they faced the uncanny, solved crimes and fought evil.

With covers by Don Heck & Mike Peppe, André LeBlanc and Fred Fredericks, all these stories are scripted by Dick Wood before Gary Poole takes over with the second story in #4. The show begins with a monochrome inside front cover feature from then-current strip artist Fred Fredericks who shared secrets of Mandrake’s mountaintop home in ‘Danger Drive to Xanadu’. Harold “Fred” Fredericks had taken over art production when Davis died in 1965, and assumed full creative duties when Falk himself passed on in 1999.

Here, however, Wood, Don Heck & André LeBlanc open festivities by detailing ‘Menace of the City Jungle!’, wherein Mandrake and Lothar volunteer to clean up a crime-infested park and its extended locality by playing hapless bait for an army of bandits and muggers. The combination of illusion, hypnotism and brute force is so successful, the duo then have to devise a scheme to stop the cops feeling slighted and inadequate!

Werner Roth & LeBlanc then expose ‘The Flying Phantom!’, as the city is plagued by an uncanny plunderer employing magic carpets and winged horses until Mandrake steps in to foil the thief and spoil the trick…

Fredericks then concludes his monochrome travelogue of ‘The House of Wonders’ for the inside back cover, after which the November cover-dated, all Wood & LeBlanc second issue opens with a truly tense sci fi drama. All Earth can hear the increasingly panicked pleas and threats of an alien space craft hurtling to its doom, but no tool of mankind seems able to see or save ‘The Spectre from Space’. Thankfully, Mandrake is around and able to apply his wisdom to the crisis…

A far more plebian police problem is solved when gangster Lucky Larry Yates opens his law-defying gamblers palace, and Mandrake is called in to exorcise ‘The Phantom Casino’

Mandrake the Magician #3 (January 1967) addressed global politics after despondent British nuclear scientist Dr. Andrew Crane decides to save the world from itself by allowing enemy agents to use his ultimate weapon in a deterrence demonstration. Of course, foreign spies can’t be trusted and the free world needs Mandrake’s talents to save ‘The Doomsday Man’ from himself and everybody else from utter annihilation…

A sudden change of pace brings the magician and Lothar way out west to expose a rowdy ghost terrorising a frontier town. However, when brazen “bandito” Pancho Valdez proves immune to Mandrake’s gifts, the cunning conjuror simple switches to brain power to stop ‘The Terror of the Haunted Desert’

Crime was the spur for Wood’s last outing as a magician’s convention is threatened by ‘The Black Wizard!’ who mimics the signature tricks of many magnificent showmen – until Mandrake and Lothar expose the mastermind behind the crimewave – after which Gary Poole joins LeBlanc to detail an insidious impersonator targeting High Society. This malign malcontent even puts Mandrake in jail before the magician can foil ‘The Frame-Up’… or does he?

Ray Bailey illustrated #5 (May 1967) beginning with a nautical campaign as Mandrake and Lothar spectacularly dismantle a ultra-modern pirate band in ‘Cape Cod Caper’, after which ‘The Fear Mongers’ sees warring kingdoms pacified and their (intimately related) rulers reconciled after a bizarre faux alien invasion…

Those aforementioned backup stories begin with Wood, Heck & LeBlanc’s ‘Midnight with Mandrake’ from Flash Gordon #1 (September 1966) as a gang of thieves unleashes sleeping gas on a city crowd, only to have Mandrake change it from soporific to an hallucinogen…

‘The Laughing Clown Caper’ then pits the wanderers against a malevolent mountebank seeking to wreck a rival’s career, whilst ‘The Little Giant’ sees the worldly wizard give an undersized fight promoter a psychological boost to deter local bullies and fight-fixing thugs. As an added bonus, the original art for this entire uncredited story (maybe Wood and Frank Springer?) is also included here, preceding a lavish and fascinating look at the strip and comic book career of an artistic legend as Spike Barkin conducts a copiously illustrated and informative ‘Focus: Interview with Fred Fredericks’.

This thrilling tome offers exotic locales, thrilling action, spooky chills and sheer elegance in equal measure. These stories have lost none of their impact and only need you reading them. Sprinkled liberally with original art pages, this a delicious, nostalgia-drenched triumph is perfect for the Halloween season: straightforward, captivating eerie action-adventure that has always been the staple of comics fiction. If that sounds like a good time to you, that’s Magic!
Mandrake the Magician® © 1966-1967 and 2015 King Features Syndicate, Inc.; Hearst Holdings, Inc. Reprinted with Permission. All rights reserved.

Shadowman – by Garth Ennis & Ashley Wood


By Garth Ennis, Paul Jenkins & Ashley Wood (Acclaim Comics/Valiant)
ISBN: 978-1-68406-912-5 (TPB) eISBN: 978-1-68215-135-8

In the mid-1990s, comics publishing was risky business. In those fickle, febrile times, hits came hard and fast and from utterly unexpected directions, but yesterday’s mega-triumph so often became tomorrow’s unwanted, unsellable surplus in a matter of moments.

During that market-led, gimmick-crazed frenzy, amongst the interminable spin-offs, fads and shiny multiple-cover events a new comics company revived some old characters, invented a few more to supplement their new universe 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.

Under various guises and imprints, Western Publishing had been a major player since the industry’s earliest days: blending TV, Movie, animated cartoon and Disney properties with homegrown hits like Turok, Son of Stone and Space Family Robinson. In the 1960s, the superhero boom brought forth Brain Boy, M.A.R.S. Patrol Total War, Magnus, Robot Fighter, Nukla, Dr. Solar, Man of the Atom and others. Despite their titles’ quality and a passionate fan-base, they never captured the media spotlight of DC or Marvel’s costumed cut-ups. Western closed 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 made those earlier adventures part-and-parcel of their refit: acutely aware older fans don’t like having their childhood favourites bastardized. To compelling reinterpretations of Magnus, Turok and Solar, Man of the Atom they added latter day hits like Archer & Armstrong, Eternal Warrior, XO-Manowar, Ninjak, Bloodshot, and their own quirky supernatural avenger, who debuted in May 1992…

Hit after hit followed and the pantheon of heroes expanded until troubled market conditions and corporate chicanery ended the company’s stellar expansion. It was taken over and, soon after, disappeared…

Under new ownership (games company Acclaim Entertainment) many characters – radically revised – reappeared in a bold relaunch: just as enjoyable and innovative but still hostages to fortune and turbulent times and tastes. Part of that renaissance was a bleak and extremely adult new iteration of the aforementioned magical warrior: a bold new take resulting from an industry-wide resurgence in terror tales triggered by DC’s Vertigo imprint with its adult-rated material…

In the first instance, struggling session saxophonist Jack Boniface was seduced by a woman he’d picked up in a New Orleans club. Her actions left him unconscious, amnesiac and forever altered by a bite to his neck. She was a Spider Alien: agent 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 fell he was compelled to roam the Voodoo-haunted streets of the Big Easy as an impulsive daredevil dubbed Shadowman: a violent maniac, hungry for conflict whenever the sun went down. Over years – and 43 issues and specials – the mystical nature and historical role of a succession of Shadowmen was explored and an uncanny, arcane universe was constructed before entering oblivion…

Cover-dated March 1997, a revived, revised version debuted, courtesy of seasoned scripter Garth Ennis and experimental illustrator Ashley Wood. Proudly Irish, Ennis had won a well-deserved reputation for shocking, moving, irreverent and wickedly funny storytelling, and was accomplished in blending genres for maximum effect, as his successes with Preacher, Hellblazer, The Demon, True Faith and dozens of other tales could attest.

Wood is Australian, and combines mixed media painting with digital and multimedia techniques to create unforgettable images on Judge Dredd, Spawn, Zombies vs. Robots, Sam and Twitch, Grendel, Star Wars Tales, Automatic Kafka and for games like Metal Gear Solid.

Here his surreal, moodily amorphous rendering adorns a violent, mordantly wry script as passionate movie buff Ennis strips out all but the barest of plot bones to expose a spartan quest for haunted vengeance, truth and understanding worthy of Sam Peckinpah. Boniface works with voodoo witch Nettie to keep the living world free of undead predators…

Sadly, Nettie’s Shadowman is killed by Tommy-Lee Bones and three other merciless fugitives from the torment that awaits all beings once they die. Their plan seems vague and pointless, but it cannot fail as they’ve already removed their main opposition before tending to the Shadowman…

The “Deadside” they’ve escaped from is an infinite region of pure misery: a purgatorial holding cell containing all who have ever lived, and an obscenely cruel penitentiary the Shadowmen were designed to hold forever shut tight.

Now that they’re out again, Tommy and the lads have no intention of ever going back, but are fine with feeding it every living sod they can get their bloodstained hands on…

With the monsters on a macabre murder spree, things look bleak, but the voodoo queen has been doing this for a long time and has stacked the odds with little thought for who gets hurt. Boniface may be on a slab, but Zero – New Orleans’ most enigmatic, infallible, amnesiac and brain damaged hitman – is already primed to take his place…

Assigning Irish spirit and “walker-between-the-worlds” Jaunty as her prospect’s guide and liaison, Nettie is fine with Zero learning on the job, but has not anticipated how the task might affect Zero’s lost memories. It’s a mistake she’s going to regret…

One area that hasn’t been compromised is his gift for combat risk assessment. As Tommy’s Boys ravage the populace, Jaunty gives Zero a briefing on the real afterlife, but the shadow warrior has no real inkling until Tommy kills him too. Now the Shadowman gets a real tour of Deadside, where – happily, for Zero – death doesn’t take…

When he unexpected returns to the world, Zero discovers his new boss has not been honest with him…

Now, with Bones increasingly in charge and out of control, Zero learns to use his abilities in a way Boniface never could and – reeling with newfound independence – starts doing the job his way: extracting the whole sordid truth of his life and death before dealing with Tommy and his pals…

As well as gathering the 4-issue arc ‘Deadside’ from Shadowman volume 2 #1-4 – which was coloured by Atomic Paintbrush and lettered by Dave Lanphear – this compendium also re-presents another notionally 4-issue treat. Miniseries Deadside was written by Paul Jenkins (Hellblazer, Spectacular Spider-Man, The Inhumans, Sentry) with Wood, Dennis Calero & letterer Chris Eliopoulos handling the bits you saw. In actuality, it should read #1-3, as the series was cancelled before the final issue, but this book at last shows what we all missed…

Here, grisly guide Jaunty tips us off to the horrifically miserable afterlife, in salutary snatches detailing the actions of a mad doctor’s awful science experiment, a dead mother searching in vain for Heaven or Hell, and a sinner who thought he’d deservedly located the latter…

Thanks to the publishing crisis beleaguering the industry back then ‘The Fearsome Finale’ was never completed, but what remains – script pages, finished art and working roughs and sketches – affords the only closure we’re likely to see at this juncture. This book also offers a Gallery of art, character design sketches and variant covers by Charlie Adlard, Vince Evans and Woods.

Although a fresh creative team would cover the further adventures of Shadowman Zero, this eclectic, eccentric episode offers a rowdy, raucous and deliriously demented thrill-ride no fright fan should miss.
© 1997, 1999, 2016 Valiant Entertainment LLC. All rights reserved.

House of Dolmann


By Tom Tully & Eric Bradbury, with Carlos Cruz & various (Rebellion)
ISBN: 978-1-78618-491-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Weird, Wonderful, So Why Not?… 9/10

Wrapping up a week of Unamerican Superheroes is a classic British confection which might well be the closest we ever got to a Silver Age super-team – even if the members are technically all the same bloke…

Valiant debuted as a “Boys’ Paper” in 1962, as our indigenous periodicals industry struggled to cope with spiralling costs and a sudden mass importation of brash, flashy, full-colour comics from America. A weekly anthology dedicated to adventure features and providing a constantly-changing arena of action, the comic became the company’s most successful title for over a decade: absorbing many less successful titles whilst preserving their top features between its launch on October 6th and eventual amalgamation into new-styled, immensely popular Battle Picture Weekly in 1976. It also generated dozens of extra-sized Summer Specials and 21 Annuals between 1964 and 1985: combining original strips with prose stories; sports, science and general interest features, short humour strips and – increasingly from the 1970s onwards – reformatted reprints from IPC/Fleetway’s copious back catalogue.

In February of 1963 it merged with the company’s previous star vehicle Knockout and, mere months later, became the brand title for a series of fortnightly – later monthly – digest-sized comics volumes. The Valiant Picture Library offered longer stories at the cost of 1 shilling. It ran to 144 issues ending in 1969…

In May 1965, the weekly Valiant increased its price from sixpence to 7d (that was in old money, of course) but also increased the page count from 28 to 40 action and fun-packed pages, and ramped up the innovative anthological entertainment…

British weekly comics in the 1960s and early 1970s were a phantasmagorical playground of bizarre wonders. Truly recognisable heroes appeared in war, western and its gradually declining straight crime serials, whilst the most memorable momentum devolved to a hybrid, bastardized mixture of fantasy, horror and science fiction themes to spawn an evil-crushing pantheon unlike any other…

The Spider, Steel Claw, Thunderbolt, Phantom Viking, Captain Hurricane, Robot Archie, Kelly’s Eye, Cursitor Doom and others utterly tainted the gleaming pristine gene pool of noble superheroism with its bleak and often manic sensibilities. You can thank this stuff for the 1980s “British Invasion” of American comic books and the dystopian weltschmerz that dominated the industry for a decade thereafter, peppering the genre with our sort of misfit, maverick and malcontent misanthrope…

Even early on when we briefly adopted full-blown US style superheroes like Marvelman, Captain Universe, Danger Man and Thunderbolt Jaxon, or late entries Tri-Man, The Leopard from Lime Street, Gadget Man & Gimmick Kid and the wondrous Johnny Future at the height of “Batmania”, Brits could never really take it straight. There was always something daft, anarchic, quirky or just scarily warped in the final result…

Here’s a sublimely perfect example of all that: a seedy solitary inventor with a hidden past who spends his days playing with puppets: an obsessive who can’t help literally putting words into their mouths…

Another stunning salvo of baby boomer nostalgia courtesy of Rebellion’s Treasury of British Comics strand, this first collection of The House of Dolmann gathers the early material from Valiant, spanning October 8th 1966 (issue #208) to May 6th 1967, plus a late entry from Valiant Super Special 1980. The strip itself ran until May 1970, and has resurfaced a few times since then, both in reprint form and new tales…

It also offers an incisive Introduction from modern day comics scribe Simon Furman and begins with a handy character guide in ‘Meet Dolmann’s Dolls (part 1)’ providing a pictorial and text run-down of Astro, Elasto, Giggler, Micro, Mole, Raider and Togo: purpose-built robots designed with amazing specialised abilities. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that this was the mid-Sixties, so racial depictions like the half-sized sumo wrestler-bot last cited were perpetrated “in fun”, and not fairness or good taste…

House of Dolmann was a curious, inexplicably compelling blend of super-spy and crime-buster strip scripted by the magnificently prolific Glasgow-born Tom Tully. His astoundingly broad output included classic delights like Roy of the Rovers, Heros the Spartan, Dan Dare, Master of the Marsh, Janus Stark, Mytek the Mighty, The Wild Wonders, Nipper, Adam Eterno, The Mind of Wolfie Smith, Johnny Red, Harlem Heroes, Mean Arena, Inferno, The Robo Machines, Football Family Robinson, Buster’s Ghost as well as many of the strips cited above.

His collaborative co-creator here also worked on many of those sagas. The incredibly gripping moody comic art of Eric Bradbury had begun gracing newsagents shelves in 1949 in Knockout. Frequently working with studio mate Mike Western, Bradbury drew strips like Our Ernie, Blossom, Lucky Logan, Buffalo Bill, No Hiding Place, The Black Crow and Biggles. He was an “in-demand” illustrator who worked into the 1990s on landmark strips like The Avenger, Phantom Force 5, Maxwell Hawke, Death Squad, Doomlord, Darkie’s Mob, Hook Jaw, The Sarge, Invasion, Invasion 1984, Rogue Trooper, Future Shocks, Tharg the Mighty and so much more…

From the start, Tully & Bradbury delivered intense, claustrophobic tension-drenched, action-packed episodic adventures, opening with a spectacular kidnapping at the London Opera House.

When Professor Hanson – head of Britain’s atomic missile program – is abducted by jetpack-wearing masked thugs, the police and security services are stumped and the authorities have no recourse but to call in independent contractors International Security. Enigmatic chief Mr. Marshal and his top aide promptly pop over to the East End and The House of Dolmann: a pokey shop owned by a grimy, creepy puppet seller who apparently makes ends meet as a mannequin repairman who also dabbles in second-hand dolls, puppets, animatronics and shop or museum dummies.

However, in the grotty emporium – looking like a blend of junk shop and the parlour set of Steptoe & Son – a brilliant inventor has been clandestinely building an army of automated assistants – if not actual friends – to do his bidding. The IS operatives are greeted by a 3-foot tall articulated sumo automaton who invites them inside. They are as yet unaware that the voice – and appallingly racist accent – in fact belongs to proprietor Eric Dolmann who uncontrollably puts words in the mouths of all his creations… and perhaps divides a series of multiple personalities amongst them all at the same time. Shabby Dolmann’s life is pure subterfuge. (I digress here, but an awful lot of “our” heroes were tattily unkempt: we had “Grunge” down pat decades before the Americans made a profit out of it!)

The bizarre figure is in fact a troubled engineering genius who designs and constructs an army of specialised robots disguised as puppets to act as his shock-troops in his a dark and crazy war against the forces of evil. They are all directly radio-controlled by the inventor, but seem to act with increasing autonomy as the months go by …

Top of his hit list is subversive organisation D.A.R.T. – the Department for Arson, Revolution and Terror – and he eagerly accepts the job of foiling their plans by single-handedly raiding their London secret HQ with small army of super-bots…

The assault is a complete success but in the resultant rout and rescue, D.A.R.T. boss Rafe Garrott gets away from Dolman and his “children”…

Pattern set, what follows is a potent and spectacular parade of peril-packed romps: complete 4-page thrillers alternating with extended sagas wherein the troubled and frankly disturbing puppeteer and an ever-expanding team tackle high-tech kidnappers, rascally protection racketeers, road haulage hijackers, weapons dealers, bullion bandits, museum marauders, blackmailers and a silver-obsessed madman…

In his unceasing war on wickedness, the daring Dolls hunt and confront modern-day river pirates, escaped killer convicts, train robbers and mail van raiders, fur-thieves, mad scientists Dr. Magno and Doctor Volt, a costumed cat-burglar, super-sophisticated safecrackers, deranged arsonist Firebug, cunning counterfeiters in their tricked-out funfair of doom, a brutal biker gang and – repeatedly – the massed minions of arch super-criminal ‘The Hawk’. The half-pint heroes even infiltrate a prison in search of justice…

As the series progressed, additions were made to the synthetic squad – like tactical calculator Egghead – and supplemental gadgets such as a flying Dolmobile and all-terrain Dol-Bike (with sidecar for the fractious, ever-squabbling toy boys), tacitly acknowledging the tropes and trends gripping the world beyond the comic.

A slow backstory develops, hinting at the inventor’s murky past. Eventually his real name – Jonas Luthor – is revealed after his obscuring clown mask falls off in a tussle with a career criminal. The accident belatedly leads to his squalid shop being threatened by a police raid as diabolical plunderer The Gold Miser drives London into a glistering plutocratic panic and it takes all Dolmann’s ingenuity and dexterity to deflect, divert, disinform and save the day…

Ultimately, wild sci fi spy paraphernalia like levitation ray thieves and the tank-driving Commando Raiders inform and dominate the stories, with D.A.R.T.’s resurrection adding layers of fearsome fantasy frenzy. Crucially, the always-unsettling sight of dolls perpetually arguing amongst themselves grows more frenetic, generating moments of apparently genuine animosity within the automatic adventurers …

The weekly stories were always a mix of action, surreal humour and topical bombast, which close here with a rowdy, rousing romp involving saving the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels from fake guards tunnelling under the walls…

One final treat opens the ‘Extras’ section, with the 1980 Valiant Summer Special providing an extended maritime exploit from Tully and Spanish artist Carlos Cruz (AKA Carlos Cruz González, who limned many UK yarns including Sergeant Kirk, The Shrinker’s Revenge, Mighty McGinty, Sergeant Rock – Paratrooper, Dr. Mesmer’s Revenge, Bloodfang, Union Jack Jackson, M.A.S.K., Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future, The Phantom and so forth) detailing how a jaunt to Cornwall leads to the plastic pack scuppering a gang of transatlantic pirates raiding shipping in a submarine…

That’s supplemented by prose thriller ‘Slaves of the Spider’: a tantalising promo and extract by Barrington J. Bayley & Bradbury taken from the forthcoming Mind of Jason Hyde collection and a batch of Creator Biographies

Brilliantly bizarre, creepily compelling and stuffed to overflowing with zany thrills and chills, The House of Dolmann is inconceivably engrossing and incontrovertibly British to the core: fast-paced, freakily funny and once seen, never forgotten. Buy it for the kids and read it too; this is a glorious book, and you should brace yourself for better yet to come…
© 1966, 1967 & 2022 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Benny Breakiron volume 4: Uncle Placid


By Peyo & Gos with backgrounds by François Walthéry: translated by Joe Johnson (Papercutz/NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-59707-717-0 (HB Album/Digital edition)

Let’s just clear up something here. Although they are both magnificent producers of comics past and present – and either singly or in collaboration – Belgium and France are not “the same”. Shared cultural mores and language, interlinked history and adjacent geographies have may have generated superficial similarities but the inventors of international icons Tintin and Asterix have always been as much defined by their unique views as mutual visions. All of which is my blathering brain-fodder to introduce a Belgian “superhero” today and a very different French one tomorrow…

In 1928, Pierre Culliford was born in Belgium to a family of British origin dwelling in the Schaerbeek district of Brussels. An admirer of the works of Hergé and the American comics licensed to Le Journal de Mickey, Robinson and Hurrah!, the lad honed his own artistic skills but the war and family bereavement forced him to forgo further education and get a job…

After working as a cinema projectionist, in 1945 Culliford joined C.B.A. animation studios, where he met future comics megastars André Franquin, Maurice De Bevere – who would become Morris – and Eddy Paape. When the studio closed, Pierre briefly studied at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts before moving full-time into graphic advertising. In his spare time, he began submitting strips to the burgeoning post-war comics publishers.

His first sale was in April 1946. Pied-Tendre was a tale of American Indians that landed in Riquet, the comics supplement to the daily L’Occident newspaper. Further sales to other venues followed and in 1952 his knight Johan found a permanent spot in Le Journal de Spirou. Retitled Johan et Pirlout, the strip prospered and in 1958 introduced a strange bunch of blue woodland gnomes into the ongoing tale. They were called Les Schtroumpfs.

Culliford – by now using the nom de plume Peyo – would gradually turn those adorable little mites (known to most of the world as The Smurfs) into an all-encompassing global empire, but before being sucked onto that relentless treadmill, he found time to create a few other noteworthy strips such as the titanic tyke on view here today.

In December 1960, Benoît Brisefer – AKA Benedict Ironbreaker and/or (in Dutch) Steven Sterk – debuted in Le Journal de Spirou #1183. With some sly tips of the hat to Siegel & Shuster’s Superman – and Superboy – these wryly bucolic adventures celebrated a small boy with superhuman strength, speed, durability and vitality living in a generally quiet and unassuming little Belgian town.

Quiet, well-mannered, gentle and a bit lonely, Benny just happens to be the mightiest boy on Earth: able to crush steel or stone in his tiny hands, leap huge distances and run faster than a racing car. He is also generally immune to all physical harm, but his fatal and peculiarly ubiquitous weakness is that his astounding strength deserts him whenever he catches the slightest hint of a cold…

Most kids avoid him. It’s hard to make friends or play games when the merest kick pops a football like a balloon or a shrug can topple trees…

Benny seldom seeks to conceal his abilities – in fact he informs anyone who will listen – but other than startled crooks and bad guys, somehow no adults ever believe or catch on. They usually think he’s telling fibs or boasting and whenever he attempts to prove his claims, the unlucky lad gets another dose of galloping sniffles…

Well-past-it Brits of my vintage might remember him from weekly comics in the 1960’s. As Tammy Tuff – The Strongest Boy on Earth – and latterly as Benny Breakiron or Steven Strong, our beret-wearing champion appeared in Giggle and other periodicals from 1967 onwards.

With Peyo’s little blue cash-cows taking up ever larger amounts of his concentration and time, other members of his studio assumed greater responsibilities for Benoît/Benny. Years passed and Will (Willy Maltaite), Gos (Roland Goossens), Yvan Delporte, François Walthéry and Albert Blesteau all pitched in, with Jean Roba crafting many eye-catching Spirou covers, but by 1978 the demands of the Smurfs were all-consuming and all the studio’s other strips were retired.

You can’t keep a good super-junior down, though, and after Peyo’s death in 1992, his son Thierry Culliford and cartoonist Pascal Garray revived the strip, adding six more volumes to the eight generated by Peyo and his team between 1960 and 1978.

Thanks to the efforts of US publisher Papercutz, the first four (promised fifth release Bodoni Circus still languishes in limbo, but we can always hope…) gloriously genteel, outrageously engaging power fantasies are available to English-language readers. This yarn was originally collected in 1968 as 4th album Tonton Placide, with Peyo, co-writer Walthéry & co-artist Gos tapping into the global spy trend with marvellous aplomb.

It begins in sedate Vivejoie-la-Grande, where the sweet kid goes about his well-meaning, somewhat solitary life: doing good deeds in secret (like quietly popping a piano up to the fifth floor of an apartment block whilst weary delivery men are having a refreshing bevvy in a bar), respecting his elders and being as good a boy as he can…

At school, Prize Day closes and we learn that Benny’s true weakness is maths, although he did win a Good Conduct award and came top in Gym. The happily liberated kids trade tales of the holidays ahead of them and the titanic tyke reveals he’s spending his vacation with his uncle who works for P.O.O.T. Benny explains that his temporary guardian is a civil servant at the Department of “Protection Of Officials Travelling”… an actual armed bodyguard…

Disembarking later at a rural train station, the boy is greeted a by boisterous hulking blonde Adonis and quickly settles into a perfect country idyl, but the rest is ruined the next morning – initially by Uncle Placid’s workout and machine gun practise – but soon after by an urgent visit from the operative’s boss. The colonel needs a capable escort for the Finance Minister of the Principality of Fürengrootsbadenschtein when he collects his nation’s currency printing plates.

It’s such a simple, risk-free job that the Colonel even suggests the bodyguard could bring his current “babysitting assignment” along for the ride. Nobody has any inkling that a ruthless gang know of the potentially lucrative transfer and has begun a complex operation to secure the means of printing their own money…

Dutiful Placid reluctantly agrees, bringing the eager lad along to his Central Bank rendezvous with prickly, obnoxious Minister Mr. Chnik and straight into a complex ambush! With the adults all gassed by a disguised cleaning lady, Benny is completely unobserved when he foils the robbery by plucking her and an observation helicopter out of the sky and wrecking her sportscar-driving backup team.

Listening in from his secret lair, the sinister mastermind behind the plot cannot understand what he’s hearing…

By the time Benny brings the plates back to the bank, everybody is blearily regaining consciousness. As usual, nobody believes his story – or his polite claims that he’s really strong for his size – but the job is reassessed as highly risky. A police convoy is despatched, but the immediacy of the crisis means the little boy has to stay with Placid – which is fine with Benny…

As the plates, Mr. Chnik, Placid and Benny set out on a fraught drive to the Principality, they are dogged by cautious observers: career criminals who are having their own problems acclimatising to modern innovations like guns and shoes that double as radio communicators and tracking devices. Their reticence and ineptitude does nothing for the Boss’ manners or patience…

The covert reconnaissance leads to a massive, spectacular multi-vehicle highway ambush, and Placid cannot understand how they all survive the barrage of bullets and car crash. He does not believe it was Benny’s incredible intervention or that the kid subsequently clobbered a small army of thugs and armoured ATVs…

Now on high alert, Placid opts for subterfuge, taking his charges undercover and getting ever closer to Fürengrootsbadenschtein by commercial plane, trains and automobiles. At every stage, progress is stymied by the Boss and his ubiquitous operatives, with the villains winnowed down by the incredible – unseen – actions of the weird kid in the black beret…

Ultimately, however, the mastermind succeeds in capturing his targets, only to meet his match at his moment of triumph when Benny at last loses his temper…

A masterpiece of timing and breakneck pace, and deliciously informed by the 1960s pop culture espionage fad, Uncle Placid delivers daft delights via bombastic bouts of uproarious slapstick comedy action. A superbly stirring spoof with echoes of classic comedies such as Carry on Spying, The Intelligence Men or The Spy with a Cold Nose, it displays the wonder boy’s resolute dynamism, helpful nature and need to be a good citizen: blending deft wit with hilarious stunts. Here is another fabulously winning fantasy of childhood agency and validation, offering a distinctly Old-World spin to the notion of superheroes by providing adventure and chortles for all.
© Peyo™ 2014 – licensed through Lafig Belgium. English translation © 2014 by Papercutz All rights reserved.

The Leopard from Lime St. Book Two: the Beast of Selbridge Returns!


By Tom Tully, Mike Western, Eric Bradbury & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 9-781-78108-678-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

Other than lawyers, most people claim imitation as the sincerest form of flattery. You can make your own mind up on that score when seeking out these quirky and remarkable vintage treats offering a wonderfully downbeat, quintessentially British spin on a very familiar story…

British comics have always enjoyed a strange, extended love affair with what can only be described as “unconventional” (for which feel free to substitute “weird” or “creepy”) heroes. So many stars and putative role models of our serials and strips have been outrageous or just plain “off”: self-righteous voyeurs-vigilantes like Jason Hyde, sinister masterminds in the manner of The Dwarf, self-absorbed outsiders like Robot Archie, arrogant former criminals like The Spider or outright racist supermen such as Captain Hurricane

Joking aside, British comics were unlike any other kind: having to be seen to be believed and enjoyed – especially if “homaging” such uniquely American fare as costumed crimefighters…

Until the 1980s, UK periodicals employed an anthological model, offering variety of genre, theme and character on a weekly – sometimes fortnightly – basis. Humorous comics like The Beano were leavened by action-heroes like The Q-Bikes or General Jumbo whilst adventure papers like Smash, Lion or Valiant always carried palate-cleansing gagsters like The Cloak, Grimly Feendish, Mowser and other laugh treats.

Buster offered the best of all worlds. Running 1902 issues from May 28th 1960 to 4th January 2000, it delicately balanced drama, mystery, action and comedy, with its earliest days – thanks to absorbing Radio Fun and Film Fun – heavily dosed with celebrity-licensed material starring media mavens like Charlie Drake, Bruce Forsyth and Benny Hill backing up the eponymous cover star billed as “the son of (newspaper strip star) Andy Capp”. The comic became the final resting place of many, many companion papers in its lifetime, including The Big One, Giggle, Jet, Cor!, Monster Fun, Jackpot, School Fun, Nipper, Oink! and Whizzer & Chips, so its cumulative strip content is wide, wild and usually pretty wacky…

At first glance, British comics prior to the advent of 2000ADand Happy 45th Anniversary to you all, Mighty Tharg! – seem to fall into fairly ironclad categories. Back then, you had genial and/or fantastic preschool fantasy; a large selection of licensed entertainment properties; action; adventure; war; school dramas, sports and straight comedy strands. Closer looks would confirm that there was always a subversive merging, mixing undertone, especially in such antihero series as Dennis the Menace or our rather strained interpretation of superheroes. Just check out The Phantom Viking, Kelly’s Eye or early Steel Claw

We had dabbled with the classic form in the early Marvel and Batman-influenced 1960s (and slightly before and beyond), but Tri-Man, The Black Sapper, Gadgetman & Gimmick Kid, Johnny Future, Red Star Robinson and Thunderbolt Jaxon remained off-kilter oddities. In the March 27th 1976 edition of Buster everything changed…

Now part of Rebellion Publishing’s line of British Comics Classics, The Leopard from Lime Street originally ran 470 episodes (comprising 50 adventures until May 18th 1985 – and even later as colorized reprints and a wealth of foreign-language and overseas editions). For most of that time it was a barely-legal knock-off of Marvel’s Spider-Man – with hints of DC Thomson’s Billy the Cat – as viewed through a superbly time-stamped English lens of life in a Northern Town. It was also, however, utterly unmissable reading…

This second collected volume – available as an oversized (213 x 276 mm) paperback and digital edition – was released in 2019, gathering Buster and Buster & Monster Fun strips spanning 18th June 1977 to 15th July1978.

What you need to know: in the middle (or maybe north-ish) of England lies Selbridge, where scrawny 13-year-old Billy Farmer was constantly bullied, by kids at school and especially his Uncle Charlie. Billy’s abiding interests were journalism and photography. He started a school newspaper (Farmer’s World) all by himself, probably to compensate for his home life. He lived with loving but frail Aunt Joan and her vicious, indolent, physically abusive partner Charlie Farmer who avoided honest work like the plague but was always ready to deliver a memorable life-lesson with fist, boot or belt…

Billy’s life forever changed when he visited the Jarman Zoological Institute and was accidentally scratched by Sheba, an escaped leopard being treated for an unspecified disease with radioactive chemicals.

In the days before Health and Safety regulations or a culture of litigation, Billy was given a rapid once-over by the boffins in charge and declared fine before being sent home. When Uncle Charlie tried to hit him. the brute was casually chucked into the dustbins and the lad realised he had developed  the strength, speed, stamina and agility of a jungle cat as well as enhanced senses, empathic feelings, a paralysing roar and a predator’s “danger-sense”…

Soon, clad in a modified pantomime costume, Billy prowled Selbridge’s dark streets and low rooftops, incurring the curiosity and animosity of Thaddeus Clegg: editor of local paper The Selbridge Sun whilst ever-more confidant Billy sold exclusive news photos of burglars, crooks and kidnappers the vigilante “leopard man” preyed upon at night. Somehow, the raw kid could also get candid shots of many secluded celebrities no adult journo could get near…

Moreover, the boy’s earnings – grudgingly paid by Clegg – started making life easier for Aunt Joan, whilst the Beast’s constant proximity to Lime Street ensured Charlie kept his outbursts verbal and his drunken fists unclenched…

School remained a nightmare of bullies and almost-exposure of Billy’s secret, but home life improved further once the police identified Billy as an official confidante of the vigilante. They even noted how Charlie was regularly brutalised by the feral fury in defence of his “friend”…

Over months the leopard man caught many criminals, was implicated – and cleared – of arson and theft, was abducted by a crooked circus owner, caught  child abductors, battled a fame-obsessed masked wrestler and thwarted a circus acrobat mimicking the cat’s abilities to frame the Leopard for crimes.

On a school trip to a Safari Park, Billy was reunited with his accidental creator Sheba and his powers seemed to exponentially increase beyond his ability to control them…

The costumed melodramas resume now as hero-struck kids start imitating “Leopardman”, and the Selbridge Sun puts a cash bounty on his head, precipitating a string of minor annoyances. The real crisis comes when Farmer gets home and learns Aunty Joan is seriously ill and needs cash urgently to help pay for an operation. The only solution is for Billy to surrender his alter ego to Clegg…

Uncle Charlie also wants the cash and starts tracking the sneaky kid, hoping Billy will lead him to the cat beast. As the town erupts with opportunistic hopefuls and the cops close in, Billy prepares to end his double life, before Charlie’s interference provides a last-minute chance of escape and a solution to Joan’s dilemma…

The debacle makes an accidental and unwilling media star of Charlie, but Billy finds a way to safely sabotage the abuser’s 15 minutes of fame, leading to being singled out by more shady fairground showmen who initially seek to co-opt the boy. When rebuffed, they attempt to foist an imitation catman on the gullible public…

After the charlatans schedule a battle between leopard man and actual leopards, Billy is forced to intervene, finding himself in action against a huge, deranged, fame-hungry maniac with steel claws. Suffering a rare defeat, he awakes a captive of vile showman Flanagan who now has the scary beast he’s always hungered to exploit in his underground cages…

A glimpse for freedom comes after the fairground staff move their prize, displaying him at the distant Alf Campbell’s Circus. A moment’s distraction leads to Billy’s escape, liberating all the other big cats and briefly turning the tables on the human beasts before leaving them in the hands of a baffled constabulary and turning tail back to Selbridge…

In school, scrawny Billy is still the butt of bigger kids “jokes”, but finds a new if unwelcome ally in classmate Debra Stevens who secretly looks out for him and discovers that he’s not at all who he pretends to be…

When the cat crusader foils a wages van raid, she confronts the masked mystery, prompting a sustained and spectacular campaign of disinformation as Billy seeks to change her mind and stifle her suspicions. The task is made more difficult when reclusive millionaire (remember them?) Henry Hammond also targets the boy. His motives are far less benevolent but after cornering his prey (and Debra) everything spirals out of control when a criminal gang tries to abduct everybody…

As Christmas rolls around and Joan’s operation fund grows, Selbridge is blanketed in snow (remember that?). As Billy romps alone in the winter wonderland he is joined by Sheba who has once again escaped from Windburn Safari Park, but his joy is tempered with terror as he meets her far less friendly fellow fugitive… angry, unreasonable male leopard Raja

Barely escaping, the boy hero is appalled to find that in intervening hours hordes of gun-toting hunters have converged on the town, eager for a spot of hometown big game fun. Suiting up, Billy is desperate to stop them – especially gun-nut Buck Redford – killing either Raja or beloved pal Sheba…

Their battle of wits and skills takes hunters, hunted and human cat all over the rugged icy landscape with numerous tragic close calls. The increasingly incensed gunman slowly loses all sense and starts menacing people as well as apex predators until a frenzied assault on Windburn finally sees Billy end the bonkers bwana’s campaign of terror…

Despite being shot, Billy’s greatest casualty is his repurposed costume and the New Year sees him searching out a replacement – or at least spare parts for a patch job. Opportunity knocks in the form of a genuine leopard skin in a junk shop, but even after arduous toil to earn the revolting antique remnant his troubles magnify not diminish when Charlie tries to steal the hard-won prize.

Things get completely out of hand and young Farmer physically rebuffs his guardian before secretly donning the modified suit. Suddenly, somehow, his human personality is utterly overwhelmed by savage, primal killer-cat instincts…

On the prowl and seeking brutal release, Billy comes to his senses just as Charlie is mugged. The town is currently swamped with ruthless violent street thieves and the leopard man instantly, instinctively intervenes: almost losing all semblance of humanity before ultimately regaining control and suppressing his newly awakened wild side after giving the muggers – and Charlie – the fright of their lives…

Ever ready to exploit a situation for profit, the vindictive uncle calls the police, blaming the cat vigilante for the rash of thefts. His lies spark a popular explosion of fear as embattled residents of Selbridge organise a protest which quickly degenerates into a riot and rabid mob on a leopard hunt…

Chased across rooftops, masked Billy tracks down the real muggers and falls into a trap laid by criminal mastermind Nipper Nemo. The elderly bandit is not as smart as he thinks, though, and before long the boy has made him and mugger army his latest chew toys…

Trouble of a different nature materialises at school when well-intentioned teacher Mr. Gleeson encourages the budding journalist and makes Farmer the preferred target of psychotic bully Barry Towler. Fighting back, Billy momentarily loses control before calming down, but the real damage is to his printing gear. With his pride and joy seemingly finished, the desperate boy approaches his employer Clegg, who cruelly offers to print the magazine for him if Billy can get a photo of the legendary ghost haunting the derelict Regal Cinema.

The editor thinks it a tremendous joke, but he’s underestimated the mettle of his victim…

Diligently researching, Billy learns the spook is reputedly old projectionist Lurcher Creel, who perished on the night before the fleapit closed for good. Strange visions have been seen ever since, but oddly, new owner Mr. Miller is violently opposed to letting the kid take a peek inside, for reasons which become blindingly obvious and increasingly deadly when the enigmatic leopard man starts sniffing round…

Enthrallingly scripted by British comics superstar Tom Tully (Roy of the Rovers; Heros the Spartan; Janus Stark; Mytek the Mighty; Adam Eterno; Johnny Red; Harlem Heroes and many of the strips cited above) these tales are magnificently illustrated.

Working collaboratively British comics royalty Mike Western (Lucky Logan; No Hiding Place; The Avenger; Biggles; The Wild Wonders; Darkie’s Mob; The Sarge; HMS Nightshade; Jack O’Justice; Billy’s Boots; Roy of the Rovers) shared pencilling and inking with mood master Eric Bradbury (Mytek the Mighty; Maxwell Hawke; Cursitor Doom; Von Hoffman’s Invasion; House of Dolmann; Death Squad; Hook Jaw; Doomlord; Rogue Trooper; Invasion; Mean Arena; Tharg the Mighty and more) to craft a pre-modern masterwork affording a fascinating insight into the slant a different culture can bring to as genre.

The concept of a “real-life” superhero has never been more clearly and cleverly explored than in these low-key tales of the cat kid who survives not supervillains but a hard-knock life…
The Leopard from Lime Street ™ & © 1977, 1978, 2019, Rebellion Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Walt Disney’s Donald Duck Volume 2: The Diabolical Duck Avenger


By Elisa Penna & Guido Martina, Don Christensen, Daan Jippes, Dick Moores, Rodolfo Cimino, Giovan Battista Carpi, Mau Heymans & Kirsten de Graaff, Romano Scarpa, Sandro Del Conte, Paul Murray, Harry Gladstone, Wilfred Haughton & various: translated by Gary Leach, Byron Erickson, Thad Komorowski, & Joe Torcivia (Disney Comics/IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-480-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

The animated wonders of the Walt Disney studios quickly travelled around the world, but much of their popularity and longevity was due to syndicated newspaper strips and comic book stories that expanded and enhanced character and adventure between cinematic releases. These ancillary exploits were particularly loved and venerated in Europe where Italy, Germany, France, The Low Countries (that’s the Benelux region of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands), Britain and especially the Scandinavian countries all made them their own, with supplemental new adventures and frolics that often surpassed the efforts of all but Carl Barks and Floyd Gottfredson themselves.

During the latter part of the 20th century Disney US downsized their own comics output, and Barks and latter-day American giants like Don Rosa graduated to producing new material for the monumental continental Disney Comics publishing machines such as the Gutenberghus Group and Disney Italia.

Eventually, someone in charge in the US saw sense; okaying a revival of Disney’s English-language comics and enabling years of that Continental canon to be seen stateside in comic books and collected albums such as this one celebrating the peculiar peregrinations of the Angriest Duck in the World…

Bold, brash, lightning-paced, visually spectacular and hilariously funny, this compilation re-presents IDW’s Donald Duck #4-6 (which equates in the original number sequence to issues #371-373) released in 2014.

Unless you count their 1950s live action Zorro TV show and it’s superb comic book spin-off, Disney had embraced supervillains like the Phantom Blot long before it started dabbling with such unbelievable characters as costumed heroes (such as The Incredibles or those Avengers types). When they did dabble, it did all started in a circuitous manner with the 1965 debut of Super Goof (of whom, more another time) and a bizarre publishing blip starting in and founded on European tradition…

It’s on review today primarily because it fits our strange brief of the week “Un-American Superheroes”: featuring the premiere and origin of a costumed vigilante who took Italy by storm on his first appearance in June 1969: Paperinik Aka PK – the Duck Avenger. He was a surprise hit and returned many times across the continent, alternatively known as Superduck (UK), Phantomias (Germany), Phantom Duck (Greece), Stålanden (Denmark), Stål-Kalle (Sweden), Taikaviitta (Finland) and Fantonald (Norway)…

Crafted by editor Elisa Penna and scripter Guido Martina with art from Giovan Battista Carpi, the saga appeared as two extended chapters in Topolino #706 -707 (June 8th & 15th 1969) entitled ‘Paperinik il diabolico vendicatore’ (“Paperinik the diabolical avenger”). It opens this collection as ‘The Diabolical Duck Avenger’, detailing how Donald’s daily woes and misfortunes finally get the better of him, just as his luck turns.

Through highly suspicious means and after gulling arch rival Gladstone Gander, Donald takes possession of dilapidated mansion Villa Rose, and soon discovers it was the hideout of legendary turn-of-the century gentleman thief, super criminal and social justice warrior Fantomallard (based on French literary character Fantômas created by Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre in 1911).

Beguiled by the master bandit’s diary and left over gadgets, and provoked beyond endurance by Gladstone, whining nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie and especially constantly grasping Uncle Scrooge, Donald snaps. Supplementing his ancient arsenal with gadgets innocently built by inventor Gyro Gearloose, the deranged duck prowls the night clad as the vintage villain, inflicting well-deserved punishment on all those who have wronged him in the chilling guise of the Duck Avenger…

The saga pauses here for a comedic change of pace palette-cleanser as Don Christensen & Paul Murray detail a case for Ludwig Von Drake: hired by Grandma Duck to cure practically somnolent and sleepy Gus Goose in ‘Chore Chump’. Tragically, the doctor’s sound psychological theory is utterly wasted on the dozy oaf and more drastic methods have to be employed…

‘The Diabolical Duck Avenger Part Two’ explores and explodes the vigilante’s reign of terror, as Donald in Disguise swipes Scrooge’s money-stuffed mattress, perplexes the police and frames Gladstone before smugly retiring to anonymity. However, the Avenger would return over and again, always slightly askew of general Disney Comics continuity, and ultimately begin his own sidebar career as a Duck Knight of Justice in a dark Disney world via the stand-alone title PK – Paperinik New Adventures which launched in 1996…

We might be a bit baffled, but Italian readers would have instantly grasped that “Paperinik” was a devilish spoof of vastly popular cultural antihero Diabolik as created in 1962 by Angela & Luciana Giussani. The ruthless super-thief is one of the most successful characters in Italian comics with over 800 volumes to his canon…

Here and now, though, Daan Jippes delivers a ‘Banquet Behind Bars’ as Donald and the Nephews dine out on the cash culled from a lost wallet and too late discover who the original owner is, after which Dick Moores describes a golf gulf on ‘Donald’s Off Day’ prior to Harry Gladstone revealing the Nephews’ ‘Birthday Bugaboo’ as they try to hint just how much they want a puppy. The result – as always – is spectacularly unlucky for their grouchy guardian…

‘What’s Opera, Duck?’ by Mau Heymans & Kirsten de Graaff explores the unwise idea of wearing a hat wired for sound and the big sporting fixture whilst attending the Met with Daisy Duck, and leads into another extended saga with Donald again in the role of uncanny-powered iconoclast in ‘The Perfect Calm! or Are We There, Yeti?’ by Rodolfo Cimino, Romano Scarpa & Sandro Del Conte.

It reveals how the ever-enraged Donald meets a swami who teaches him the calming power of transcendental thought and sets him off in search of further ultimate enlightenment. Transformed, the formerly irascible reprobate becomes a globe-trotting nomad whose travels take him to Tibet and an unlikely alliance with not-so-abominable snow persons and ski-horned goats.

Typically, when he returns home Donald is suckered into becoming a cash cow for Scrooge who devises a means to monetise peace and contentment for maximum returns, only to trigger global economic chaos and a heap of bad karma…

The cartoon capers conclude with a delicious treat from 1937 courtesy of the British franchise wherein Wilfred Haughton perfectly preserves the cosy chaos of screen stars Donald, Goofy, Mickey and his nephews in a picnic packed with problems entitled ‘Hampered!’

Graced with a superb art-gallery of covers & variants by Dave Alvarez, Ronda Pattison, Amy Mebberson, & Derek Charm, this is an exciting, exotic and eye-popping riot of raucous romps blending wit, madcap invention, plucky bravado and sheer wide-eyed wonder into a rollicking rollercoaster ride for readers of every age and vintage.
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