Category: Mystery

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The Marquis of Anaon volume 3: The Providence


By Vehlmann & Bonhomme, coloured by Delf: translated by Mark Bence (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-277-5 (PB Album/Digital edition)

These books include Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

In 1972 Fabien Vehlmann entered the world in Mont-de-Marsan. He was raised in Savoie, growing up to study business management before taking a job with a theatre group. His prodigious canon of pro comics work began in 1998 and soon earned him the soubriquet of “Goscinny of the 21st Century”.

In 1996, after entering a writing contest in Le Journal de Spirou, he caught the comics bug and two years later – with illustrative collaborator Denis Bodart – produced mordantly quirky, sophisticated portmanteau period crime comedy Green Manor. From there his triumphs grew to include – amongst many others – Célestin Speculoos for Circus, Nicotine Goudron for L’Écho des Savanes and a stint on major property Spirou and Fantasio…

Scion of an artistic family, Matthieu Bonhomme received his degree in Applied Arts in 1992, before learning the comics trade working in the atelier of western & historical strip specialist Christian Rossi. Running from 2002-2008, Le Marquis d’Anaon was Bonhomme’s first regular series, after which he began writing as well as illustrating a variety of tales, from L’Age de Raison, Le Voyage d’Esteban, The Man Who Shot Lucky Luke and so much more.

Now, where were we? Imagine The X-Files set in Age of Enlightenment France (circa 1720), played as a solo piece by a young hero reluctantly growing into and accepting the role of crusading troubleshooter. With potent overtones of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Fall of the House of Usher and similar gothic romances, it all began in 2001’s L’Isle de Brac: first of 5 albums (all available in English-language paperback and digital formats) tracing the development of a true champion against darkness and human venality.

Under-employed middle class scholar/pragmatic philosopher Jean-Baptiste Poulain is a merchant’s son, ardent disciple of Cartesian logic and former medical student. Well educated but impoverished, he accepted a post to tutor the son of the mysterious Baron of Brac. It was a career decision that shaped the rest of his life…

On the windswept, storm-battered and extremely isolated island off the Brittany Coast, Poulain experienced fear and outrage, superstition and suspicion before ultimately exposing the appalling secret the island overlord his serfs called “the Ogre”, bringing justice and finality to all concerned. In the aftermath, Poulain left but could never outrun the obnoxious title the islanders bestowed upon him in their Bretagne argot: Le Marquis d’Anaon – “the Marquis of Lost Souls”…

Two years later Poulain caught a supposedly demonic but actually faith-based serial killer (The Black Virgin) and in this third exploit tackles a new kind of horror that we have all become increasingly aware of…

It begins in Paris, where not so polite society bores a now notorious sage whilst making him a target of bumptious educated fools. At a soiree where Poulain more than holds his own against aristocratic snobs, he is approached by visiting celebrity the Countess of Almedía, who has a unique problem she needs to consult a truly learned man about…

Wishing to establish a salon of her own in Andalusia, the Contessa invites Poulain to relocate to Spain for a few months, sweetening the offer with extraordinarily generous remuneration. Despite speaking no Spanish, he is soon a passenger aboard ship, acquainting himself with fellow recruit and poet of renown Françoise de la Sange. Their safe passage is abruptly interrupted by a monstrous storm which “the Marquis” cannot help but revel in. As a consequence, he is the first to spot a derelict galleon tossed in the tumult…

When calm waters return, battered hulk La Providence lies before them and he eagerly joins a wary but greedy boarding party. The ship is a floating horror, filled with skeletons and scenes of carnage but according to the recovered Captain’s log, there are far fewer bodies than there should be for a vessel that left the Congo stuffed with ivory and exotic timber and commanded by an extremely entrepreneurial slaver.

Moreover, a lifeboat is also missing…

The Contessa’s dutiful captain decides he must tow the wreck to the nearest port – Bordeaux – but the unanticipated four day diversion quickly sours after a string of mysterious events disrupt shipboard routine and panic the crew. Poulain mentally retraces his steps and realises that what he saw aboard the Providence – already impossible for a rational man to accept – might not be the worst of the perils about to visit himself and his companions…

As men start disappearing, chaos mounts when the captain dies and is replaced by steadfast pragmatic Chief Erwan. Sinking the towed hulk does not end the deaths and by the time Poulain divines the true answer the ship has been diverted again for the nearest dry land… a proposition the Marqis of Lost Souls cannot allow to happen at any cost….

Accompanied by cleverly contrived faux broadsheet character precis ‘Gazette Of the year 1731 – CONCERNING SEVERAL illustrated& authentic tales of the MARQUIS OF ANAON’

This seagoing terror tale offers another tight, taut authentic compellingly script from Vehlmann, depicted via Bonhomme’s densely informative but never obtrusive illustrated realism delivering a moody, ingenious, utterly enthralling tale of modern horror, imbedded in an(other) era of superstition, class separation, burgeoning natural wonder, reason ascendant and crumbling belief. This is spooky enigma enhancing and testing a troubled, self-doubting quester who barely holds at bay the crippling notion that all his knowledge might be trumped one night by a non-rational ever lurking unknown…

The exploits of The Marquis of Anaon area minor mystery milestone well-deserving of a greater audience and one no thinking fear fan should miss.
Original edition © Dargaud Paris 2004 by Vehlmann & Bonhomme. All rights reserved. English translations © 2015 by Cinebook Ltd.

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DC Finest: The Flash – The Human Thunderbolt


By Robert Kanigher, Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, John Broome, Gardner F. Fox, Frank Giacoia, Joe Giella, Murphy Anderson & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77952-836-0 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

This is another of the first tranche of long-awaited DC Finest editions: colour continuations of their chronologically curated monochrome Showcase Presents line, delivering “affordably priced, large-size (comic book dimensions and generally around 600 pages) paperback collections” highlighting past glories. Whilst primarily concentrating on the superhero pantheon, there will also be genre selections including horror and war books, and themed compendia such as the much anticpiated gathering of early ape stories (brace yourself for DC Finest: The Gorilla World in July!).

Sadly, they’re not yet available digitally, as were the last decade’s Bronze, Silver and Golden Age collections, but we live in hope…

The Silver Age of US comics is formally and forever tied to Showcase #4 and the rebirth of The Flash. The epochal issue was released in the late summer of 1956 and from it stems all today’s print, animation, games, collector cards, cosplay and TV/movie wonderment. No matter which way you look at it, the renaisance began with The Flash, but it’s an unjust yet true fact that being first is not enough: it also helps to be best and people have to notice. MLJ’s The Shield beat Captain America to the news-stands by over a year yet the former is all but forgotten today.

The US industry had never really stopped trying to revive superheroes when Showcase #4 was released. Readers had already been blessed – but were left generally unruffled by – such tentative precursors as The Avenger (February-September 1955); Captain Flash (November 1954-July 1955) and a full revival of Timely/Marvel’s 1940s “Big Three” – Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and aforementioned Captain America (from December 1953 to October 1955). Both DC’s own Captain Comet (December 1953-October 1955) and Manhunter from Mars (November 1955 until May 1969, and almost the end of superheroes again!) had come and been barely noticed. What made the new Fastest Man Alive stand out and stick was… well, everything!

Once DC’s powers-that-be decided to seriously try superheroes once more, they moved pretty fast themselves. Editor Julie Schwartz asked office partner, fellow editor and Golden-Age Flash scripter Robert Kanigher to recreate a speedster for the Space Age: aided and abetted by Carmine Infantino & Joe Kubert, who had also worked on the prior incarnation. The new Flash was Barry Allen, a forensic scientist simultaneously struck by lightning and bathed in exploding chemicals from his lab. Supercharged by the accident, Barry (a lifelong fan of comic books) took his superhero identity from his favourite childhood reading – and now his notional predecessor. Once upon a time there was a fictional scientist named Jay Garrick who was exposed to the mutagenic fumes of Hard Water and became the “fastest man alive”…

Wearing a sleek, streamlined bodysuit (courtesy of Infantino – a major talent approaching his artistic and creative peak), Barry became point man for the spectacular revival of a genre and an entire industry. This splendidly tempting full colour paperback sublimely displays Infantino’s talents and the tone of those halcyon times. These tales have been gathered many times but still offer punch, clarity and the ineffably comforting yet thrilling timbre of those now-distant times. Conversely, you might be as old as me and it was only the day before yesterday. This is what a big book of comics ought to feel like in your eager hands…

Collecting all four try-out issues (Showcase #4, 8, 13 & 14) – and the bombastic, trendsetting continuance into his own title (The Flash volume 1, #105-123) the contents span cover dates October 1956 to September 1961 with the high-speed thrills beginning in Showcase #4’s ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt!’ Scripted by Kanigher, it sees Barry endure electrical metamorphosis and promptly go on to subdue bizarre criminal mastermind and “Slowest Man Alive” Turtle Man, after which ‘The Man Who Broke the Time Barrier!’ – scripted by the brilliant John Broome – finds the newly-minted Scarlet Speedster batting a criminal from the future. A furious fight and battle of wills sees Allen accomplish the impossible by returning penal exile Mazdan to his own century, proving the new Flash was a protagonist of keen insight and sharp wits as well as overwhelming power.

These are all slickly polished, coolly sophisticated short stories, introducing a comfortingly ordinary, suburbanite superhero and firmly establishing the broad parameters of his universe. Showcase #8 (June 1957) opens with another Kanigher tale. ‘The Secret of the Empty Box’ is a perplexing if pedestrian mystery, with veteran Frank Giacoia returning as inker. However, the real landmark is Broome’s thriller ‘The Coldest Man on Earth’. With this yarn he confirmed and consolidated the new costumed character reality by introducing the first of a Rogues Gallery of memorably outlandish but stylish supervillains. Unlike the Golden Age, modern superheroes would face predominantly costumed foes rather than thugs and spies. Bad guys would henceforth be as memorable as the champions of justice. Captain Cold would return time and again even as Broome went on to create every single member of Flash’s pantheon of classic super-foes….

Joe Giella inked both tales in Showcase #13 (April 1958). Kanigher’s ‘Around the World in 80 Minutes!’ demonstrates Flash’s versatility as he tackles atomic terrorists, battles Arabian bandits, counters an avalanche on Mount Everest and scuttles submarine pirates in the specified time slot. Broome’s ‘Master of the Elements!’ then premiers bizarre bandit Mr. Element, utilising the periodic table as his formidable, innovative arsenal…

Showcase #14 (June 1958) opens with Kanigher’s eerie ‘Giants of the Time-World!’: a masterful fantasy thriller and a worthy effort to bow out on as Barry and journalist girlfriend Iris West encounter extra-dimensional invaders with the strangest life-cycle imaginable. The issue closed with a return engagement for Mr. Element, sporting a new M.O. and identity: Doctor Alchemy. ‘The Man Who Changed the Earth!’ is a classic crime-caper with serious psychological underpinnings as Flash struggles to overcome the villain’s latest weapon, mystic transmutational talisman the Philosopher’s Stone. When the Scarlet Speedster graduated to his own title, Broome became lead writer, supplemented by Gardner Fox. Kanigher would return briefly in the mid-1960s and later write many tales during DC’s ‘Relevancy’ period…

Taking its own sweet time, The Flash #105 launched with a February/March 1959 cover-date – so it was out for Christmas 1958 – and opened with Broome, Infantino & Giella’s sci-fi chiller ‘Conqueror From 8 Million B.C.!’ before introducing yet another money-mad super-villain in ‘The Master of Mirrors!’

The next issue premiered one of the most charismatic and memorable baddies in comics history. Gorilla Grodd and his hidden race of telepathic super-simians instantly captured fan attention in ‘Menace of the Super-Gorilla!’ Even after Flash soundly thrashed the hairy hooligan, Grodd promptly returned in the next two issues. Presumably this early confidence was fuelled by DC’s inexplicable but commercially sound pro-Gorilla editorial stance. In those far-ago days for some reason any comic with a substantial simian in it spectacularly outsold those that didn’t; here the tales are also packed with tension, action and challenging fantasy concepts.

By way of encore there is also ‘The Pied Piper of Peril!’: a mesmerising musical criminal mastermind, stealing for fun and attention rather than profit…

The Flash #107 led with the ‘Return of the Super-Gorilla!’ by Broome, Infantino & Giella: a multi-layered fantasy taking our hero from the (invisible) African city of the Super-Gorillas to the subterranean citadel of antediluvian Ornitho-Men, before closing with ‘The Amazing Race Against Time’, featuring an amnesiac who could outrun the Fastest Man Alive in a desperate collaborative dash to save all of creation from obliteration. With every issue the stakes got higher whilst the dramatic quality and narrative ingenuity got better!

Frank Giacoia inked #108’s high-tech death-trap thriller ‘The Speed of Doom!’ with trans-dimensional raiders stealing fulgurites (look it up, if you want) before Giella returned for ‘The Super-Gorilla’s Secret Identity!’, wherein Grodd devises a scheme to outwit evolution itself by turning himself into a human…

The next issue saw ‘The Return of the Mirror-Master!’ with the first in a series of bizarre physical transformations that increasingly became a signature device in Flash stories, whilst the contemporary Space Race provided an evocative maguffin for a fantastic undersea adventure in the ‘Secret of the Sunken Satellite’. Here Flash befriends an unsuspected subsea race on the edge of extinction whilst enquiring after the impossible survival of an astronaut trapped at the bottom of the sea for days after splashdown. The Flash #110 was a major landmark, not so much for the debut of another worthy addition to the burgeoning Rogues Gallery in ‘The Challenge of the Weather Wizard’ (inked by Schwartz’s incredibly versatile artistic top-gun Murphy Anderson) but for the introduction of Wally West, who in a bizarre and suspicious replay of the lightning strike that created the Vizier of Velocity became a junior version of the Fastest Man Alive. Inked by Giella, ‘Meet Kid Flash!’ debuted the first teenage sidekick of the Silver Age (cover dated December 1959-January 1960 and just pipping Aqualad who premiered in Adventure Comics #269’s February off-sale date).

Not only would Kid Flash begin his own series of back-up tales in the very next issue (a sure sign of the confidence the creators had in him) but he would eventually inherit the mantle of the Flash himself – one of the few times in comics where such torch-passing actually stuck.

Anderson inked #111’s ‘The Invasion of the Cloud Creatures!’, which successfully overcomes its frankly daft premise to deliver a taut, tense sci-fi thriller nicely counterpointing the first solo outing for Kid Flash in ‘The Challenge of the Crimson Crows!’ This folksy parable has small-town kid Wally use his new powers to rescue a gang of kids on the slippery slope to juvenile delinquency. Perhaps a tad paternalistic and heavy-handed by today’s standards, in the opening months of 1960 this was a strip about a boy heroically dealing with a kid’s real dilemmas. The occasional series would concentrate on such human-scaled problems, leaving super-menaces and world-saving for team-ups with his mentor…

Flash #112 – ‘The Mystery of the Elongated Man!’ – introduced an intriguing super-stretchable newcomer to the DC universe, who might have been hero or villain in a beguiling tantaliser, after which Wally tackled juvenile Go-Karters and corrupt school contractors in the surprisingly gripping ‘Danger on Wheels!’

Mercurial maniac The Trickster premiered in #113’s lead tale ‘Danger in the Air!’ whilst the second-generation speedster took a break so his senior partner could defeat ‘The Man Who Claimed the Earth!’: a full-on cosmic epic wherein ancient alien Po-Siden seeks to bring the lost colony of Earth back into the galaxy-spanning Empire of Zus. Next, Captain Cold and Murphy Anderson returned for ‘The Big Freeze!’, as the smitten villain turns Central City into a glacier just to impress Iris West. Meanwhile, her nephew Wally saves a lad unjustly accused of cheating from a life of crime when the despondent student falls under the influence of the ‘King of the Beatniks!’

Flash #115 offered another bizarre transformation, courtesy of Gorilla Grodd in ‘The Day Flash Weighed 1000 Pounds!’, and when aliens attempt to conquer Earth, the slimmed-down champion needs ‘The Elongated Man’s Secret Weapon!’ as well as the guest-star himself to save the day. Once again Anderson’s inking gave over-taxed Joe Giella a breather whilst taking art-lovers’ breath away in this beautiful, fast-paced thriller. The big science concepts kept coming and #116 introduced‘The Man Who Stole Central City!’ with a seemingly fool-proof way to kill the valiant hero, requiring both time-tinkering and serious outwitting to thwart, before Kid Flash returns in ‘The Race to Thunder Hill!’: a father-son tale of rally driving, but with car-stealing bandits and a young love interest for Wally to complicate the proceedings.

‘Here Comes Captain Boomerang’ (inked by Anderson), introduces a mercenary Australian marauder who turns a legitimate job opportunity into a criminal career in what is still one of the most original origin tales ever concocted to lead off #117 before ‘The Madcap Inventors of Central City’ sees Gardner Fox (creator of the Golden Age Flash) join the creative bullpen with a perhaps ill-considered attempt to reintroduce 1940s comedy sidekicks Winky, Blinky and Noddy to the modern fans. The fact that you’ve never heard of them should indicate how well that went although the yarn, illustrated by Infantino & Giella, is a fast, witty, enjoyably silly change of pace.

The Flash #118 highlighted the period’s (and DC’s) obsession with Hollywood in ‘The Doomed Scarecrow!’ (Anderson inks); a sharp, smart thriller featuring a minor villain with a unique reason to get rid of our hero, after which Wally West and a friend must spend the night in a haunted house for Kid Flash chiller ‘The Midnight Peril!’ In #119, Broome, Infantino & Anderson relate the adventure of‘The Mirror-Master’s Magic Bullet!’, which our hero narrowly evades, before ‘The Elongated Man’s Undersea Trap!’ introduces the stretchable sleuth’s new spouse Sue Dibny (née Dearbon) and sinister alien subsea slavers in a mysterious and stirring tale.

These earliest stories were historically vital to the development of our industry but, quite frankly, so what? The first exploits of The Flash should be judged solely on their merit, and on those terms, they are punchy, awe-inspiring, beautifully illustrated and captivating thrillers that amuse, amaze and enthral both new readers and old devotees. The title had gelled into a comfortable pattern of two tales per issue alternating with semi-regular booklength thrillers such as the glorious example in Flash #120 (May 1961). ‘Land of Golden Giants!’ is a minor masterpiece: a fanciful science fiction drama wherein a small private expedition of explorers – including Iris, Barry and protégé Wally – are catapulted back millennia to the very moment when the primal supercontinent (or at least the parts that would become Africa and South America) begin splitting apart.

Flash stories always found a way to make cutting-edge science integral and interesting. Regular filler-features were numerous speed-themed informational pages which became a component of the stories themselves via quirky little footnotes. This collection includes them all. Peppered throughout the dramas are numerous examples of ‘Flash Facts!’, ‘Science Says You’re Wrong if You Believe…!’, ‘Amazing Speeds!’, ‘The Speed of Sound!’, ‘Fastest Creatures on Earth!’, ‘Wonders of Speed!’, ‘Comparitive Speed Records!’, ‘Jet Speedboat Ace! (Donald Campbell)’, ‘Solar System Speeds!’, ‘Our Remarkable Bodies!’ and even a few assorted ads of the era. How many fans turned a C to a B by dint of recreational reading? I know I certainly impressed the heck out of a few nuns at the convent school I attended! (let’s not visualise; simply move on)…

The Flash #121 saw the return of a novel old foe on another robbery rampage when ‘The Trickster Strikes Back!’, after which costumed criminality is counterbalanced by Cold War skulduggery in gripping, Anderson inked thriller ‘Secret of the Stolen Blueprint!’ Another contemporary zeitgeist undoubtedly led to ‘Beware the Atomic Grenade!’, a witty yarn premiering a new member of Flash’s burgeoning Rogues Gallery after career criminal Roscoe Dillon graduates from second-rate thief to global extortionist The Top by means of a rather baroque thermonuclear device…

In counterpoint, Kid Flash deals with smaller scale catastrophe in ‘The Face Behind the Mask!’ A pop star with a secret identity (based on a young David Soul who began his career as folk singer “the Covered Man” because he performed wearing a mask) is blackmailed by a villainous gang of old school friends until whizz kid Wally steps in…

Fox didn’t write many Flash scripts at this time, but those few he did were all dynamite. None more so than the full-length epic closing this tome: a tale that literally changed the scope of American comics forever. ‘Flash of Two Worlds!’ introduced the theory of alternate Earths to the continuity and, by extension, resulted in the pivotal multiversal structure of the DCU, Crisis on Infinite Earths and all succeeding cosmos-shaking crossover sagas that grew from it. And, of course, where DC led, others followed…

During a charity benefit gig Flash accidentally slips into another dimension to find that the comic book hero he’s based his own superhero identity upon actually exists. Every adventure Barry absorbed as an eager child was grim reality to Jay Garrick and his mystery-men chums on (the controversially designated) Earth-2. Locating his idol, Barry convinces the elder to come out of retirement just as three Golden Age villains – The Shade, Thinker and Fiddler – make their own wicked comeback. And above all else, Flash #123 is a great read that still stands up today.

These tales were crucial to the development of our art-form, but, more importantly they are brilliant, awe-inspiring, beautifully realised thrillers to amuse, amaze and enthral both new readers and old lags. This splendid selection is another must-read item for anybody in love with the world of words-in-pictures.
© 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Eagle Classics: Riders of the Range


By Charles Chilton, Jack Daniel, Frank Humphris & various (Hawk Books)
ISBN: 978-0948248276 (Tabloid TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

Launching on April 14th 1950 and running until April 26th 1969, Eagle was the most influential comic of post-war Britain, and possibly ever. It was the brainchild of a Southport vicar, the Reverend Marcus Morris, who was increasingly concerned about the detrimental effects of American comic-books on British children and wanted a good, solid, middle-class Christian antidote. Seeking out like-minded creators, Morris peddled a dummy edition around British publishers for over a year with little success until he found an unlikely home at Hulton Press: a company specialising in general interest magazines like Lilliput and Picture Post.

The result was a massive hit which rapidly spawned age and gender-specific clones Swift, Robin and Girl: targeting other key demographic sectors of the highly lucrative and scrupulously demarcated children’s market. Thanks to printing wizardry, all of these weeklies combined sections of spectacular and lush full-colour pages with cheaper monochrome inserts offering line, wash and tone offerings.

A huge number of soon-to-be prominent creative figures worked on the key weekly, and although Dan Dare is deservedly revered as the star, the other strips (and features!) were almost as popular at the time. Many rivalled the lead in quality and entertainment value according to broader tastes of that hope-filled, luxury-rationed, fresh-faced generation. Eagle’s mighty pantheon roped in established radio and film attractions like P.C. 49, soon-to-be TV sensation Captain Pugwash, and more, all already or swiftly becoming stars of other media and guaranteed their own share of promotional tie-ins like books, puzzles, toys, games, apparel and comestibles as well as and all other sorts of ancillary merchandising. And because everyone else did, they also had a cowboy. Deriving as many stars from the air waves as it could get hold of, The Eagle became a pictorialized home for radio cowboy Jeff Arnold/Riders of the Range…

In the 1950s “Cowboys & Indians” ruled the hearts and minds of the public. Westerns were the most popular subject of books, films and comics. The new medium of television screened recycled cowboy B-movies and eventually serials, and soon thereafter series especially created for the stay-at-home aficionado. Some were pretty good and became acknowledged as art – as is always the way with popular culture – whilst most others faded from memory, cherished only by the hopelessly nostalgic and the driven.

One medium we all underestimate today was radio, an entertainment medium ideal for creating spectacular scenarios and dreamscapes on a low budget. Even the staid BBC (the only legal British radio broadcaster) managed a halfway decent western/music show. Written by producer/director Charles Chilton, Riders of the Range ran from 1949 until 1953, six series in total. At the height of its popularity the serial show was adapted as a comic strip in Eagle. The debutant title already heavily featured the strip exploits of the immensely successful radio star P.C. 49. The hugely successful periodical had already tried one cowboy strip – Seth and Shorty – before promptly dropping it.

Riders of the Range began as a full colour page in the first Christmas edition (December 22nd 1950, volume 1, No. 37) and ran until 1962, outlasting its own radio show and becoming the longest running western strip in British comics history. In all that time, it only ever had three artists. The first was Jack Daniel, an almost abstract stylist in his designs who worked in bold, almost primitive lines, but whose colour palette was years ahead of his time. Crude and scratchy-seeming, his western scenarios were subversive and subliminal in impact. He had previously worked on the newspaper strip Kit Conquest and made spectacular use of Hulton’s now-legendary photo-gravure print process – which modern repro techniques and digital systems STILL can’t come even close to recapturing…

The feature spawned a host of solo books and annuals too…

Author Chilton had a deep and abiding fascination with the West and often wrote adventures interwoven with actual historical events, such as ‘The Cochise Affair’ reprinted here. This was the second adventure and had heroic Jeff Arnold and sidekick Luke branding cattle for their “6T6” ranch near the Arizona border when they stumble across a raided homestead. Here a distraught, wounded mother begs for help and reveals that Indians have stolen her little boy…

Taking her to Fort Buchanan, Arnold becomes embroiled in a bitter battle of wills between Chief Cochise and Acting Cavalry Commander Lieutenant George N. Bascom. The lean sparse scripts are subtly engaging and Daniel’s unique design and colour sense – although perhaps at odds with the more naturalistic realism of the rest of Eagle’s drama strips – make this a hugely enjoyable lost gem – and one remarkably short on the kind of stuff that makes much western material of this era so unpalatable to modern readers.

Angus Scott took over from Daniel with ‘Border Bandits’ (September 7th 1951), but was not a popular or comfortable fit. He departed after less than a year. With only a single page of his art included here, it’s perhaps fairest to move on to the artist most closely associated with the feature.

Frank Humphris was a godsend. His artwork was lush, vibrant and full-bodied. He was also as fascinated with the West as Chilton himself, bringing every inch of that passion to the tales. From July 1952 and for the next decade, Chilton & Humphris crafted a thrilling and even educational sagebrush saga that is fondly remembered to this day even if only by those of us somehow still breathing! His tenure is represented here by ‘The War with the Sioux’…

In 1875, gold was discovered in the Black Hills of Dakota and a resultant rush of prospectors resulted in the US Cavalry being dispatched to protect them from the incensed Indians again pushed out of their homelands. Jeff and Luke are hired as intermediaries and scouts, but are helpless as the situation worsens, and weekly-delivered events and incidents inevitably lead to the massacre at the Little Big Horn. There have many tales woven into this epochal historical tragedy, but the patriotically-neutral, dispassionate creativity of two Brits united here to craft one of the most beautiful and memorable…

At its peak, the original Eagle sold close to a million copies a week, but inevitably, changing tastes and a game of “musical owners” killed the title. In 1960, Hulton sold out to Odhams, who became Longacre Press. A year later they were bought by The Daily Mirror Group who evolved into IPC. In cost cutting exercises many later issues carried cheap(er) Marvel Comics reprints rather than British-originated material. It took time, but those manifestly-destined Yankee cultural colonisers won out in the end. In 1969, with the April 26th issue, Eagle was subsumed into cheap ‘n’ cheerful ironclad anthology Lion, before eventually disappearing altogether. Successive generations revived the title, but never the success. A revived second iteration ran from 27th March 1982 to January 1994 (having switched from weekly to monthly release in May 1991). They same is true regarding the overwhelming dominance of western heroes. I’m sure you already know what happened there…

The day of the cowboys’ dominance has faded now but the power of great stories well told has not. This is a series and a book worthy of a more extensive revival – and fortunately still readily available in collector retail emporia in the real world and digital places. Let’s hope one day someone with the power to do something about it agrees with me. We’d all be winners then…
Riders of the Range © 1990 Fleetway Publications. Compilation © 1990 Hawk Books.

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Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future – The Venus Campaign (Complete Collection volume 1)


By Frank Hampton, George Beardmore, Eric Eden, Don Harley, Harold Johns, Greta Tomlinson, & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78586-292-2 (Album HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are quite a few comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant will be rightly celebrated, but a few are going to be unjustly ignored. As a feverish fanboy wedged firmly in the past, I’m again abusing my privileges here to carp about another brilliant vintage book, criminally out of print and not slated for revival either physically or in digital formats…

Launching on April 14th 1950 and running until April 26th 1969, Eagle was the most influential comic of post-war Britain, and possibly in our nation’s history. It was the brainchild of a Southport vicar, the Reverend Marcus Morris, who was increasingly concerned about the detrimental effects of American comic-books on British children and wanted a good, solid, middle-class Christian antidote.

Seeking out like-minded creators he peddled a dummy edition around British publishers for over a year with little success until he found an unlikely home at Hulton Press, a company that produced general interest magazines such as Lilliput and Picture Post. The result was a huge hit which soon spawned age and gender-specific clones Swift, Robin and Girl which targeted the other key demographic sectors of the children’s market.

A huge number of soon-to-be prominent creative figures worked on the weekly, and although Dan Dare is deservedly revered as the star, many strips were almost as popular at the time, with many rivalling the lead in quality and entertainment value according to the mores and developing tastes of that hope-filled, luxury-rationed, fresh-faced generation. Eagle’s mighty recurring pantheon included radio and film star attraction PC 49, soon-to-be TV sensation Captain Pugwash, radio cowboy Jeff Arnold/Riders of the Range and the inimitable Harris Tweed – who swiftly became stars other media and promotional tie-in like books, puzzles, toys, games, apparel and comestibles as well as and all other sorts of ancillary merchandising.

At its peak, the original Eagle sold close to a million copies a week, but inevitably, changing tastes and a game of “musical owners” killed the title. In 1960, Hulton sold out to Odhams, who became Longacre Press. A year later they were bought by The Daily Mirror Group who evolved into IPC. In cost cutting exercises many later issues carried cheap(er) Marvel Comics reprints rather than British-originated material. It took time, but those Yankee Cultural Incursionists won out in the end. In 1969, with the April 26th issue Eagle was subsumed into cheap ‘n’ cheerful iron clad anthology Lion, eventually disappearing altogether. Successive generations have revived the title, but not the success. Never as popular, a revived second iteration ran from 27th March 1982 to January 1994 (having switched from weekly to monthly release in May 1991).

However as we celebrate 75 years of post-empire wonderment, let’s just be clear on one thing. It’s Dan & Digby we all recall most fondly…

There is precious little that I can say about Dan Dare that hasn’t been said before and better. What I will say is that everything you’ve heard is true. Vintage strips by Frank Hampson and his team of dedicated artists are a high point in world, let alone British comics, ranking beside Tintin, Asterix, Tetsuwan Atomu, Lone Wolf & Cub and the best of Kirby, Adams, Toth, Noel Sickles, Milt Caniff, Roy Crane, Carl Barks and Elzie Segar. If you don’t like this stuff, there’s probably nothing any of us can do to change your mind, and all we can do is hope you never breed…

Breakneck pace, truly astonishing high concepts underpinned by hard science balanced with nonstop action leavened with wholesome music hall larks and some of the most beautiful and powerful art ever to grace a comic page makes the introductory exploit of Hampson’s Dan Dare as much a magical experience now as it was in 1950. Many companies have kept the legend alive in curated collections over the decades, and this 2018 Titan edition combines material from three of their 2004-2009 hardback collections.

Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future – The Venus Campaign merges and re-presents – on paper and digitally – the first two adventures of the strip that headlined groundbreaking, legendary Eagle. Spanning 14th April 1950 to September 28th 1951 for riotous rocket romp Voyage to Venus and followed by sequel saga The Red Moon Mystery as it appeared between October 5th 1951 and June 20th 1952, this tome introduces Colonel Daniel MacGregor Dare of the Interplanet Space Fleet and his batman Albert Fitzwilliam Digby – the truest of Brits who ever spacewalked – and an ever-expanding captivating cast to a eagerly anticipating nation.

The comics glories are preceded by an exuberant reminiscent Introduction by the artist’s son Peter Hampson, picture-packed background essay ‘The Genesis of Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future’ by Nick Jones, and bullet point biography of the series’ “Special Science Consultant” Arthur C. Clarke, all accompanied by a visual aid revealing ‘Who’s Who in Dan Dare’.

… And then it’s blast off as we learn in vibrant, vividly colourful 2-page chapters that Earth is slowly starving and must find new resources to feed its hungry billions. Space Fleet, despite three tragic losses, readies another exploratory mission to mystery planet Venus, where it is believed such agrarian resources may lie hidden beneath all-enveloping cloud cover. Earth’s last hope might be a strong-jawed, taciturn pilot and his podgy Lancastrian manservant…

Thus begins a fantastic, frenetic rollercoaster of action and wonderment, replete with all the elements of classic adventure: determined heroes, outlandish but deadly villains, fantastic locales and a liberal dose of tongue-in-cheek fun. Weeks pass and perils pop up and are dealt with in turn – everything from malfunctions, monsters, deadly new environments and hostile foes – but the clock is still counting down…

After a year of constant revelation, exploration and confrontation, Earth is still starving! Dan Dare and his team have not been heard from in weeks but humanity’s only hope is that the expeditionary force lost on Venus finds food and some way home!

The Colonel has his own problems. Surviving a deadly radiation barrier, ship explosion and crash, hostile terrain, drowning, enemy action and total separation from the rest of his team, he has learned that Venus is inhabited by two advanced races locked in a Cold War lasting for millennia. The situation is further complicated by the fact that one super-scientific side keeps slaves: partially and divergently evolved humans abducted from Atlantis on Earth millennia previously!

The ancient impasse on Venus ended the moment modern Earthmen penetrated the radiation screen bottling up the mysterious planet and got involved. Aiding apparently benevolent Therons against the ruthless reptilian Treens – malevolent emotionless myrmidons led by a genetically-created super brain dubbed the Mekon – leads to the vile mastermind advancing his long nurtured plans and launching an invasion of Earth!

Thankfully Dan and his crew are on hand, reunited and ready to stop him…

The victory segues straight into The Red Moon Mystery as Dan and his team – having broached the mysteries of Venus – move on to greater deeds. Attempting to top all that for sheer spectacle the creative cohort of Hampson and his associates (co-scripter George Beardmore and fellow artists Eric Eden, Don Harley, Harold Johns, Greta Tomlinson and others) delivered a splendid blend of suspense, tension and action as – thanks to an archaeological dig on Mars led by Dan’s uncle Ivor Dare – humanity is forewarned (barely) of impending supernal doom….

The ancient Martians were seemingly destroyed 200,000 years ago by an astral event involving a “red moon”, and as Dan & Digby ponder the fanciful story, their chief Sir Hubert Guest urgently despatches them into the deeper space to investigate a wandering object threatening to shatter the Earth colony on modern Mars. They press are calling the hurtling projectile the red moon…

Soon, all of Space Fleet is mustered to evacuate Mars but face an escalating crisis as the super-magnetic anomaly changes course and imperils the entire solar system before locking trajectories with Earth. When Dan leads a mission to survey the mystery asteroid prior to blowing it up, he uncovers a shocking secret beneath its surface, one that derails Space Fleet’s plan to save the world and humanity…

Gripping, trenchantly exploring humankind under pressure of global annihilation, beautifully illustrated and progressing at a breathless pace, this is a superb piece of End of the World drama, easily matching the best of post-war doom-smiths like John Wyndham or J. G. Ballard. It’s also got a happy, if portentous, ending…

Dan Dare, his faithful crew and the Eagle were a key part of British life from the outset and the secret is the sheer quality of the artwork and accessibility of the stories. Hampson & Co brought joy and glamour into the lives of a weary nation and this tome compellingly recaptures it all. The volume concludes with more picture-draped documentary material beginning with ‘An Interview with Frank Hampson’ as conducted by Alan Vince, biography ‘Tomorrow Man – Frank Hampson 1918-1985’ and the ‘Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future Checklist’…

Solid, cleanly wholesome entertainment, timeless and produced to the highest standards, this is a glorious tribute to unforgettable heroes of a forgotten future, deserving of and demanding your attention. If you’re into comics, you should own this volume. If you love a good read, you should seek out this book and its sequels. Simply put, if you’re just Decent and British, Dammit, you should love these stories! It almost makes one proud to be an Earthling…
Dan Dare and all related characters and elements depicted herein are © 2018 Dan Dare Corporation Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room


By Paul Auster, adapted and illustrated by Paul Karasik, Lorenzo Mattotti & David Mazzucchelli (Faber & Faber)
ISBN: 978-0-571-38928-5 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced for dramatic effect.

We reviewers frequently use the phrase “better read that critiqued” for difficult books, because although it’s a lazy cop-out it’s also immensely useful and mostly true. It’s generally a cue that what we’re recommending is exceptionally special and that you’d be an idiot not to take the hint and dive into the item under the lens…

The three prose novels comprising The New York Trilogy are far better read than critiqued by me (or anyone else) and you should get to them ASAP. Written by Paul Auster (Moon Palace, The Book of Illusions, Winter Journal, 4 3 2 1) and originally published as 1985’s City of Glass, with both Ghosts and The Locked Room released a year later, they are lauded as postmodern masterpieces. The stories use the trappings and tone of detective and mystery fiction – especially the haunting modes of Film Noir – to explore literary and philosophical themes and do it in a totally absorbing and compulsive manner, equal parts gripping, mystifying and oddly charming.

The prose trilogy has been adapted to many other forms, including an audiobook version, and opening piece City of Glass has been two separate plays; one in the US and the other here in Britain. Art Spiegelman illustrated a prose rerelease in 2006, and there was a gallery show at the 2009 Dedica Literary Festival in Pordenone, Italy, but to my admittedly prejudiced mind, nothing has bettered the graphic novel adapted by Paul Karasik (How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels, You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!) and David Mazzucchelli (Asterios Polyp, Batman: Year One, Daredevil: Born Again, Rubber Blanket, Big Man).

It was first published by Avon Books in 1994 as Neon Lit: Paul Auster’s City of Glass (a Graphic Mystery), but despite being named one of “The Top 100 English-Language Comics of the Century”, vanished without trace until rereleased in 2004 as City of Glass: The Graphic Novel and finally finding fame on the international scene; if not the English-speaking world. Now it forms the spine of a fabulous complete compilation of Auster’s triptych as Karasik – who has worked with Auster for decades (until his death April 2024) on adapting Ghosts and The Locked Room – completes a task decades in the making.

In the shadows of Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, Philip K. Dick, and John Barth, and enlisting the fundamental themes and tools of postmodernism – metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality – these graphic interpretations also act in conjunction with Auster’s own personal beliefs about human nature, communication and language, concerns about isolation, identity, coincidence, chance and the inescapable lure of obsession.

Layered with meaning and conceptual red herrings, City of Glass “stars” a crime fiction writer inexorably drawn into a real-life investigation following a bizarre and disturbing wrong number on the telephone. The case comes with real dangers, chilling consequences and alarming revelations, but just like poor demented Don Quixote, the paid fantasist cannot let go and will not reclaim his good sense, and thereby pays the full price…

It’s followed by two premiers as both illustrated adaptations Ghosts and The Locked Room are published for the first time in this volume. Illustrated by master draughtsman Lorenzo Mattotti (Fires, Stigmata, Labyrinths, Murmur, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, Guirlanda) from Kurasik’s script, Ghosts is a far more formally orchestrated crime caper and mystery play. Set firmly in the celluloid wonderland of post-WWII America, with characters assuming colour-based pseudonyms Mr. Brown, Mr. Gray, Mr. Green, Mr. White, Mr. Black and more, all the layers of players are circling youthful but driven surveillance specialist Mr. Blue who gradually grows too close to his subject and suddenly finds he’s in far too deep…

Concluding the project, Kurasic writes and draws the tale of The Locked Room. Here a failing and uninspired editorial writer rediscovers his own spark of creative greatness after the wife of an almost forgotten childhood pal asks him to assess and curate the literary life’s work of an unsuspected genius wordsmith. Sadly, as the works of Fanshawe permeate the failure’s life, the missing man’s wife dominates his emotional world, and our unhappy, unremarkable and unreliable narrator begins to realise he is being buried alive whilst Fanshawe is neither missing nor dead but rather close by with an alarming personal agenda in play…

This evocative tribute to the subgenre of locked room mysteries and power of lost loves concludes a powerful and beguiling walk in the shadows that will stay with the reader forever, and which makes this very visual New York threesome a book that must be seen and savoured.
Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room © William Golding 1954. Adaptations and illustrations © Aimée de Jongh 2024. All rights reserved.
Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room will be published on April 10th 2025 and is available for pre-order now.

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Showcase Presents Eclipso


By Bob Haney, Lee Elias, Alex Toth, Jack Sparling, Bernard Baily & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2315-1 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Now that DC have finally launched their line of archival collections celebrating many years, styles and vogues of publication, I expect to be far less proselytising about books like this one not being in print. However, you can never really satisfy an Old Moaner, so until the wide and wonderful new assortment of DC Finest collections are also available digitally, I’ll still have something to whine about. Meanwhile, here’s a reminder about a book I suspect will be a while making the jump to a fresh full-colour edition…

Although it’s generally accepted that everybody loves a good villain, until rather recently they bad guys were  seldom permitted the opportunity of starring in their own series – except in British comics, where for decades the most bizarre and outrageous rogues such as Charlie Peace, Spring-Heeled Jack, Dick Turpin, Von Hoffman, The Dwarf and so many macabre others were seen as far more interesting (or possibly a threat to our jolly old class-strictured status quo) than mere lawmen.

However, when America went superhero crazy in the 1960s (even before the Batman TV show sent the whole world into a wild and garish “High Camp” frenzy), DC converted all its anthology titles into character-driven vehicles. Long-running paranormal investigator Mark Merlin suddenly found himself sharing the cover spot with a costumed but very different kind of co-star.

Breathing new life into the hallowed Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde concept, Bob Haney & Lee Elias debuted ‘Eclipso, The Genius Who Fought Himself’ in House of Secrets #61, cover-dated July-August 1963 and on sale from May 16th. Here began the torturous saga of solar scientist Bruce Gordon who was cursed to become host to a timeless Evil…

Whilst observing a solar eclipse on tropical Diablo Island, Gordon is attacked and wounded by Mophir, a crazed witchdoctor wielding a black diamond. As a result, whenever Gordon is in the locality of an eclipse – natural or artificial – his body is possessed by a demonic, destructive alter ego with incredible powers and malign hyper-intellect. The remainder of the first instalment depicted how the intangible interloper destroyed Gordon’s greatest achievement: a futuristic solar-powered city.

Format and formula established, Gordon, his fiancée Mona Bennett and her father, who was also Gordon’s mentor, pursued and battled the incredible Eclipso and his increasingly astounding schemes all across the world. At least the Demon of Darkness had a handy weakness: sudden exposure to bright lights would propel him back to his cage within Bruce Gordon…

‘Duel of the Divided Man’ saw the helpless scientist attempting to thwart the uncontrollable transformations by submerging to the bottom of the Ocean and exiling himself to space, to no effect, whilst in ‘Eclipso’s Amazing Ally!’ – illustrated by the justifiably-legendary Alex Toth – the malignant presence manifests when an artificial eclipse and lab accident frees him entirely from Gordon’s body. Against the backdrop of a South American war, Gordon and Professor Bennett struggle to contain the liberated horror but all is not as it seems…

HoS #64’s ‘Hideout on Fear Island’ finds Gordon, Mona & Bennett hijacked to a Caribbean nation inundated by giant plants for an incredible clash with giant robots and Nazi scientists. Naturally, when Eclipso breaks out things go from bad to worse. ‘The Man Who Destroyed Eclipso’ has the Photonic Fiend kidnap Mona before a deranged physicist actually separates Eclipso and Gordon as part of his wild scheme to steal a nuclear missile, after which the threat of a terrifying alien omnivore forces heroes and villain to temporarily join forces in ‘The Two Faces of Doom!’

‘Challenge of the Split-Man!’ sees Gordon and Eclipso again at odds as the desperate scientist returns to Mophir’s lair in search of a cure, before inexplicably following the liberated villain to a robot factory in Scotland. Veteran cartoonist Jack Sparling took over the artist’s role with #68, wherein ‘Eclipso’s Deadly Doubles!’ expose Gordon’s latest attempt to effect a cure but which only multiplies his problems, after which ‘Wanted: Eclipso Dead or Alive!’ relates how the beleaguered boffin is hired by Scotland Yard to capture himself – or at least his wicked and still-secret other self – before ‘Bruce Gordon, Eclipso’s Ally!’ returns the long-suffering trio to Latin America where an accident robs Gordon of his memory – but not his curse – leading to the most ironic alliance in comics…

‘The Trial of Eclipso’ has the astronomically-aligned felon finally captured by police and threatening to expose Gordon’s dark secret, after which ‘The Moonstone People’ strand the Bennetts, Gordon and Eclipso on a lost island populated by scientists – or is that “natural philosophers”? – who haven’t aged since their own arrival in 1612…

Even such a talented writer as Bob Haney occasionally strained at the effort of writing a fresh story for a villainous protagonist under Comics Code restrictions, and later tales became increasingly more outlandish. In ‘Eclipso Battles the Sea Titan’, a subsea monster threatens not just the surface world but also Eclipso’s ultimate refuge – Bruce Gordon’s fragile body – after which another attempt to expel or eradicate the horror inside accidentally actualises a far more dangerous enemy in ‘The Negative Eclipso’, whilst a criminal syndicate, fed up with the Photonic Fury’s disruption of their operations, decrees ‘Eclipso Must Die!’ in HoS #75.

It had to happen – so it did – when Mark Merlin (in his new and unwieldy superhero persona of Prince Ra-Man) clashed with his House of Secrets stable-mate in book-length thriller ‘Helio, the Sun Demon!’ (#76), with concluding chapter limned by the inimitable Bernard Baily. Here Eclipso creates a fearsome, fiery solar slave and the Bennetts team with the enigmatic super-sorcerer to free Bruce and save the world from flaming destruction.

All-out fantasy subsumed suspense in the strip’s dying days with aliens and weird creatures abounding, such as ‘The Moon Creatures’ which Eclipso grew from lunar dust to do his wicked bidding, or the hidden treasure of Stonehenge that transformed him into a ‘Monster Eclipso’. Issue #79 saw a return match for Prince Ra-Man in ‘The Master of Yesterday and Tomorrow!’, with Baily again pitching in for an extended epic as Eclipso gets his scurrilous hands on a selection of time-bending trinkets, before #80 (October 1966) ended the series with no fanfare, no warning and no ultimate resolution as ‘The Giant Eclipso!’ pitted the fade-away fiend against mutants, cops and his own colossal doppelganger.

Not everything old is gold and this quirky, exceedingly eccentric collection of comics thrillers certainly won’t appeal to everyone. However, there is a gloriously outré charm and helter-skelter, fanciful delight in these silly but absorbing sagas. If you’re of an open-minded mien and the art of Elias, Toth, Sparling and Baily appeals – as it should to all right-thinking fans – then this old-world casket of bizarre wonders will certainly appeal. In fact the drawing never looked more vibrant or effective than in this crisp and splendid monochrome collection.

Not for him or her or them then, but perhaps this book is for you?
© 1963-1966, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks presents Daredevil volume 3: Unmasked


By Stan Lee & Gene Colan with Frank Giacoia, Dick Ayers, John Tartaglione & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5428-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer whose remaining senses hyper-compensate, making him an astonishing acrobat, formidable fighter and living lie-detector. Very much a second-string hero for most of his early years, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due in large part to the roster of brilliant artists who had illustrated the strip. He battled thugs, gangsters, a plethora of super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion, quipping his way through life and life-threatening combat. His civilian life consisted of assorted legal conundra and manfully standing back and suppressing his own feelings as his portly best friend and law partner Franklin “Foggy” Nelson vainly romanced their secretary Karen Page.

DD only really came into his own once illustrator Gene Colan signed up for the long haul, which properly begins with the tales in this collection: part of a series of Mighty Marvel Masterworks available as kid-friendly digest paperbacks and eBooks. Gathering Daredevil #22-32 (November 1966 to September 1967) it traces a move from morose masked avenger to wisecracking Scarlet Swashbuckler, offering a marked improvement in overall quality as scripter Lee utilises extended soap operatic plot-threads to string together Colan’s unique fight scenes as he shook off the remnants of predecessor John Romita’s art style.

In a very short time Romita had made the Sightless Swashbuckler his own before graduating to Spider-Man, so when Colan took over on DD, he initially kept the clipped, solid, nigh-chunky lines for rendering the Man Without Fear, but increasingly drew everything else in his loose, fluid, tonal manner. With these tales, his warring styles coalesced and the result was literally poetry in non-stop motion…

Without preamble the action opens with ‘The Tri-Man Lives’ (inked by Frank Giacoia & Dick Ayers), containing Gangland themes and malignant machinations whilst sharing focus with super-menaces The Gladiator and Masked Marauder, whose eponymous killer android proves less of a threat than expected. The villains had sought control of international organised crime syndicate The Maggia but their master plan to prove their worthiness by murdering the Man Without Fear goes badly awry after the kidnapped hero refuses to simply lie down and die…

Concluding in #23 with ‘DD Goes Wild!’, the ending sees our hero trapped in Europe, but soon making his way to England and a violent reunion with Tarzan analogue Ka-Zar who has become prime suspect in #24’s chilling puzzle ‘The Mystery of the Midnight Stalker!’

This tale contains my vote for the Most Obnoxious Misrepresentation of Britain in Comic Books Award as a policeman – sorry, “bobby” – warns, “STAY BACK, PLEASE! THE MILITIA WILL BE ARRIVING IN JIG TIME!”…

After clearing the jungle hero’s name, Matt Murdock heads back to America in time to enjoy the less-than-stellar debut of a certified second-rate super-villain as ‘Enter: The Leap-Frog!’ introduces a thief dressed like Kermit on steroids with springs on his flippered feet. Yes, really…

However, the big event of the issue is meeting Matt’s hip and groovy twin brother Mike…

By the time ‘Stilt-Man Strikes Again’ (DD #26, March 1967) Colan is totally in command of his vision and a leaner, moodier hero is emerging. The major push of the next few issues was to turn the hopeless romantic triangle of Matt, Foggy and Karen Page into a whacky quadrangle by dint of fictitious twin Mike, who Matt would be “expose” as Daredevil to divert suspicion from the blind attorney who actually battled all those weird villains…

Confused, much?

Still skulking in the background, arch-villain Masked Marauder slowly closes in on DD’s alter ego. He gets a lot closer in ‘Mike Murdock Must Die!’ (Giacoia inks) after Stilt-Man teams with the Marauder and the ever-fractious Spider-Man once again clashes with old frenemy Daredevil before the villains meet their apparent ends.

The Sightless Swashbuckler has his first encounter with extraterrestrials in #28’s moody one-trick-pony ‘Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Planet!’ – an Ayers-inked thriller wherein invading aliens’ blindness-inducing rays prove inexplicably ineffective against the Crimson Crime-crusher. John Tartaglione inked the next tale, a solid, action-packed gangster-thriller entitled ‘Unmasked!’ whilst issue #30 opened a protracted and impressive clash with former Thor foes the Cobra and Mister Hyde. The bombastic first bout comes complete with an Asgardian cameo in ‘…If There Should Be a Thunder God!’

Attempting to catch the rampant super-criminals, DD masquerades as the Asgardian Avenger only to encounter the real McCoy. Sadly, the villains ambush the mortal hero once the Thunderer departs and, as a result of the resultant battle, DD loses his compensating hyper-senses. Thus, he must perpetrate a ‘Blind Man’s Bluff!’… which almost fools Cobra & Hyde…

Naturally, it all goes wrong before it all comes right and against all odds Murdock regains his abilities just in time ‘…To Fight the Impossible Fight!’…

Supplemented by a Colan cover gallery and original art pages, this tome reveals how The Man Without Fear blossomed into a truly magnificent example of Marvel’s compelling formula for success: smart stories, human characters and magnificent illustration. This is pure Fights ‘n’ Tights magic no fan of stunning super-heroics can afford to ignore.
© 2024 MARVEL.

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The Joker: A Celebration of 75 Years


By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson, Don Cameron, Jack Burnley, Dick Sprang, Lew Sayre Schwartz, Win Mortimer, David V. Reed, Sheldon Moldoff, Charles Paris, Dennis O’Neil & Neal Adams, Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers & Terry Austin, John Byrne & Karl Kesel, Jim Starlin, Jim Aparo, Mike DeCarlo, J.M. DeMatteis, Joe Staton, Steve Mitchell, Chuck Dixon, Brian Stelfreeze, Greg Rucka, Devin Grayson, Damian Scott, Dale Eaglesham, Sean Parsons, Sal Buscema & Rob Hunter, Paul Dini, Don Kramer & Wayne Faucher, Tony Daniel & Ryan Winn, Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4759-1 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are quite a few comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant will be rightly celebrated, but a few will be unjustly ignored. This guy ain’t in the latter category.

When the very concept of high-priced graphic novels was just being shelf tested in in the 1980s, DC Comics produced a line of glorious full-colour hardback compilations spotlighting star characters and celebrating standout stories decade by decade from the company’s illustrious and varied history. They then branched out into themed collections which shaped the output of the modern industry; such as this fabulous and far from dated congregation of yarns offering equal billing and star status to one of the most enduring archfoes in fiction: The Maestro of Malignant Mirth dubbed The Joker.

So much a mirror of and paralleling the evolution of Batman, the exploits of the Joker are preceded here by a brief critical analysis of significant stages in the vile vaudevillian’s development, beginning with the years 1940-1942 and Part I: The Grim Jester.

There will be more on him and his co-anniversarians Robin and Catwoman throughout the year, but today it’s the turn of the opening act of the landmark issue to take his bow in the spotlight…

After erudite deconstruction comes sinister action as debut appearance ‘Batman Vs. The Joker’ – by Bill Finger & Bob Kane from Batman #1, cover-dated Spring 1940 and on sale on April 25th – provides suspenseful entertainment whilst introducing the most diabolical member of the Dark Knight’s rogues’ gallery. A chilling moody tale of brazen extortion and wilful wanton murder begins when an eerie character publicly announces that he will kill certain business and civic figures at specific times…

An instant hit with readers and creators, the malignantly mirthful murderer kept coming back and appeared in almost every issue. In Batman #5 (March 1941, by Finger, Kane & Jerry Robinson) ‘The Riddle of the Missing Card’ once again saw the Crime Clown pursue loot and slaughter, but this time with a gang of card-themed crooks at his side. It did not end well for the whimsical butcher of buffoonery…

Fame secured, the Devil’s Jester quickly became an over-exposed victim of his own nefarious success. In story terms that meant seeking to reform and start over with a clean slate. Turning himself in, the maniac grasses on many criminal confederates but ‘The Joker Walks the Last Mile’ (Finger, Kane & Robinson, Detective Comics #64, June 1942) shows that tousled viridian head twisting inexorably back towards murderous larceny…

As years passed and tastes changed, the Cackling Killer mellowed into a bizarrely baroque bandit. Part II: The Clown Prince assesses that evolution, before providing fascinating examples beginning with ‘Knights of Knavery’ from Batman #25 (October/November 1944 by Don Cameron, Jack Burnley & Robinson). Here he and arch-rival The Penguin fractiously join forces to steal the world’s biggest emerald and outwit all opposition, before falling foul of their own mistrust and arrogance once the Caped Crusaders put their own thinking caps on.

‘Rackety-Rax Racket’ Batman #32 (December 1945, Cameron & Dick Sprang) is another malevolently marvellous exploit which sees an ideas-starved Prankster of Peril finding felonious inspiration in college-student hazing and initiation stunts, after which ‘The Man Behind the Red Hood’ (Detective Comics #168, February 1951) reveals a partial origin as part of a brilliantly engrossing mystery by Finger, Lew Sayre Schwartz & Win Mortimer. It all began when the Caped Crusader regales eager young criminology students with the story of “the one who got away”- just before the fiend suddenly came back…

In ‘The Joker’s Millions (Detective #180, February1952) pulp sci fi writer David Vern Reed, Sprang & Charles Paris provide a gloriously engaging saga disclosing how the villain’s greatest crime rival took revenge from the grave by leaving the Harlequin of Hate too rich to commit capers. It was all a vindictive double-barrelled scheme though, making the Joker a patsy and twice a fool, as the Caped Crusaders eventually found… to their great amusement.

From World’s Finest Comics #61 (November 1952) Reed, Kane, Schwartz & Paris co-perpetrate ‘The Crimes of Batman’ as Robin is taken hostage and the Gotham Gangbuster must commit a string of felonies to preserve the lad’s life. Or so the Joker vainly hopes…

‘Batman – Clown of Crime’ (Batman #85, August 1954, Reed, Sheldon Moldoff & Paris) captures the dichotomy of reason versus chaos as the eternal arch enemies’ minds are swapped in a scientific accident. Soon a law-abiding Joker and baffled Robin are hunting down a madcap loon with the ultimate weapon at his disposal, the secret of the Gotham Guardian’s true identity

The Silver Age of US comic books utterly revolutionised a flagging medium, bringing a modicum of sophistication to the returning sub-genre of masked mystery men. However, for quite some time, changes instigated by Julius Schwartz in Showcase #4 – which rippled out to affect all National/DC Comics’ superhero characters – generally passed Batman and Robin by. Fans buying Batman, Detective Comics, World’s Finest Comics and even Justice League of America would read adventures that in look and tone were largely unchanged from the safely anodyne fantasies that had turned the grim Dark Knight into a mystery-solving, alien-fighting costumed Boy Scout as the 1940s turned into the1950s.

By the end of 1963, Schwartz, having either personally or by example revived and revitalised much of DC’s line and by extension the entire industry with his modernizations, was asked to work his magic with creatively stalled and nigh-moribund Caped Crusaders just as they were being readied for mainstream global stardom. ‘The Joker’s Jury’ (Batman #163 May 1963 by Finger, Moldoff & Paris) was the last sight of the Cosey Clown before his numerous appearances on the blockbuster Batman TV show warped the villain and left him unusable for years…

Here, however, Robin and his senior partner are trapped in the criminal enclave of Jokerville, where every citizen is a fugitive bad-guy dressed up as the Clown Prince, and where all lawmen are outlaws.

The story of the how the Joker was redeemed as a metaphor for terror and evil is covered in Part III: The Harlequin of Hate and thereafter confirmed by the single story which undid all that typecasting damage. ‘The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge’ (Batman #251, September 1973 by Dennis O’Neil & Neal Adams) reversed the zany, “camp” image by re-branding the characters and returning to the original 1930s concept of a grim and driven Dark Avenger chasing an insane avatar of pure chaos. Such a hero needed far deadlier villains and, by reinstating the psychotic, diabolically unpredictable Killer Clown who scared the short pants off readers of the Golden Age, set the bar high. A true milestone utterly redefining the Joker for the modern age, the frantic moody yarn sees the Mirthful Maniac stalking his old gang, determined to eradicate them all, with the hard-pressed Gotham Guardian desperately playing catch-up. As crooks die in all manner of Byzantine and bizarre ways, Batman realises his archfoe has gone irrevocably off the deep end.

Terrifying and beautiful, for many fans this is the definitive Batman/Joker story.

The main contender for that prize follows: a two-part saga from Detective Comics #475-476 (February & April 1978) that concluded a breathtaking, signature run of retro tales by Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers & Terry Austin. The absolute zenith in a short but stellar sequence resurrecting old foes naturally starred the Dark Knight’s nemesis at his most chaotic, beginning with ‘The Laughing Fish’ and culminating in ‘The Sign of the Joker!’: comprising one of the most reprinted Bat-tales ever concocted and even adapted as an episode of the award-winning Batman: The Animated Adventures TV show in the 1990s.

In fact, you’ve probably already read it. But if you haven’t… what a treat awaits you!

As fish with the Joker’s horrific smile began turning up in sea-catches all over the Eastern Seaboard, the Clown Prince attempts to trademark them. When patent officials foolishly tell him it can’t be done, they start dying – publicly, impossibly and incredibly painfully…

The story concluded in a spectacular apocalyptic clash which shaped, informed and redefined the Batman mythos for decades to come…

Although Crisis on Infinite Earths transformed the entire DC Universe, it left the Joker largely unchanged, but did narratively set the clock back far enough to present fresher versions of most characters. ‘To Laugh and Die in Metropolis’ comes from Superman volume 2 #9 (September 1987) wherein John Byrne & Karl Kesel reveal how the Malicious Mountebank challenges the Man of Steel for the first time. The result is a captivating but bloody battle of wits, with the hero’s friends and acquaintances all in the killer clown’s crosshairs…

The next (frustratingly incomplete) snippet comes from one of the most effective publicity stunts in DC’s history. Despite decades of wanting to be “taken seriously” by the wider world, every so often a comic book event gets away from editors and publishers and takes on a life of its own. This usually does not end well for our beloved art form, as the way the greater world views the comics microcosm is seldom how we insiders and cognoscenti see it.

One of the most controversial sagas of the last century saw an intriguing marketing stunt go spectacularly off the rails – for all the wrong reasons – and become instantly notorious whilst sadly masking the real merits of the piece it was supposed to plug.

‘A Death in the Family’ Chapter Four originated in Batman #427 (December 1988), courtesy of Jim Starlin, Jim Aparo & Mike DeCarlo. It needs a bit more background than usual, though. Robin, the Boy Wonder debuted in Detective Comics #38 (April 1940) created by Kane, Finger & Robinson. The kid was a juvenile circus acrobat whose parents were murdered by a mob boss. The story of how Batman took orphaned Dick Grayson under his scalloped wing and trained him to fight crime has been told, retold and revised many times over the decades and still undergoes the odd tweaking to this day. The child Grayson fought beside Batman until 1970 when, as a sign of those turbulent times, he flew the nest, becoming a Teen Wonder and college student. His invention as a junior hero for younger readers to identify with had inspired an incomprehensible number of costumed sidekicks and kid crusaders, and Grayson continued in similar vein for the older, more worldly-wise readership of America’s increasingly rebellious youth culture. During the 1980s he led the New Teen Titans, re-established a turbulent working relationship with Batman and reinvented himself as Nightwing. This of course left the post of Robin open…

After Grayson’s departure, Batman worked alone until he caught a streetwise urchin trying to steal the Batmobile’s tires. Debuting in Batman #357 (March 1983) this lost boy was Jason Todd, and eventually the little thug became the second Robin (#368, February 1984), with a short but stellar career, marred by his impetuosity and tragic links to one of the Caped Crusader’s most unpredictable enemies…

Todd had serious emotional problems which became increasingly apparent in issues leading up to story arc ‘A Death in the Family’. As the kid became more callous and brutal in response to daily horrors he was exposed to, Jason deliberately caused the death of a vicious drug-dealer with diplomatic immunity. It triggered a guilty spiral culminating in the story-arc which comprised Batman #426-429. Ever more violent and seemingly incapable of rudimentary caution, Jason is suspended by Batman. Meanwhile the Joker returns, but rather than his usual killing frenzy, the Clown Prince is after mere cash, because the financial disaster of Reaganomics has depleted his coffers… meaning he can’t afford his outrageous murder gimmicks…

Without purpose, Jason has been wandering the streets where he grew up. Encountering a friend of his dead mother, he learns a shocking secret. The woman who raised him was not his birthmother, and there exists a box of personal papers naming three different women who might be his true mother. Lost and emotionally volatile, Jason sets out to track them down…

After monumental efforts, he locates Dr. Sheila Haywood working as a famine relief worker in Ethiopia. As Jason heads for the Middle East and a confrontation with destiny, he is unaware Batman is also in that troubled region, hot on the Joker’s trail as the Maniac of Mirth attempts to sell stolen nuclear weapons to any terrorist who can pay…

When Jason finds his mom, he has no idea that she has been blackmailed by the Clown Prince of Crime into a deadly scam involving stolen relief supplies.

I’m not going to bother with the details of the voting fiasco that plagues all references to this tale as it’s all copiously detailed elsewhere, but suffice to say that to test then-new marketing tools a 1-900 number was established and, thanks to an advanced press campaign, readers were offered the chance to vote on whether Robin would live or die in the story. Against all and every editorial expectation vox populi voted thumbs down and Jason died in a most savage and uncompromising manner. Shades of the modern experience of Boaty McBoatface! The public cannot be trusted to take any plebiscite seriously…

Jason had increasingly become a poor fit in the series and this storyline galvanised a new direction with a darker, more driven Batman, beginning almost immediately as the Joker, after killing Jason in a chilling and unforgettably violent manner, became UN ambassador for Iran (later revised as the fully fictional Qurac – just in case!) and, at the request of the Ayatollah himself, attempted to kill the entire UN General Assembly at his inaugural speech.

And here is the true injustice surrounding this tale: the death of Robin (who didn’t even stay dead) and the media uproar over the voting debacle took away from the real importance of this story – and perhaps deflected some real scrutiny and controversy. Starlin had crafted a clever, bold tale of real world politics and genuine issues – and most readers didn’t even notice.

Terrorism Training Camps, Rogue States, African famines, black marketeering, Relief fraud, Economic, Race and Class warfare, Diplomatic skullduggery and nuclear smuggling all featured heavily, as did such notable hot-button topics as Ayatollah Khomeini, Reagan’s Cruise Missile program, the Iran-Contra and Arms for Hostages scandals and the horrors of Ethiopian refugee camps. Most importantly, it signalled a new, fearfully casual approach to violence and death in comics.

The story selected to represent the lad here is a poor choice, however. This is not to say that ‘A Death in the Family’ is a lesser effort: far from it, and Starlin, Aparo & DeCarlo’s landmark, controversial story of the murder of brash, bright Jason Todd by the Joker shook the industry and still stands the test of time. However, all that’s included here is the final chapter, and even I, having read it many times, was bewildered as to what was going on.

If you want to see the entire saga – and trust me, you do – seek out a copy of the complete A Death in the Family .

In 1989 Batman broke box office records in the first of a series of big budget action movies. The Joker was villain du jour and stole the show. That increased public awareness again influenced comics and is covered in Part IV: Archnemesis before ‘Going Sane’ Part Two ‘Swimming Lessons’ offers a fresh look at motivations behind his madness. The story comes from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #66 (December 1994). LoDK began in the frenzied atmosphere following the movie. With planet Earth completely Bat-crazy for the second time in 25 years, DC wisely supplemented the Gotham Guardian’s regular stable of titles with a new one specifically designed to focus on and redefine his early days and cases through succession of retuned, retold classic stories.

Three years earlier the publisher had boldly begun retconning the entire ponderous continuity via landmark maxi-series Crisis on Infinite Earths; rejecting the concept of a vast multiverse and re-knitting time so that there had only ever been one Earth. For new readers, this solitary DC world provided a perfect place to jump on at a notional starting point: a planet literally festooned with iconic heroes and villains draped in a clear and cogent backstory that was now fresh and newly unfolding. Many of their greatest properties got a reboot, all enjoying the tacit conceit that the characters had been around for years and the readership were simply tuning in on just another working day.

With Batman’s popularity at an intoxicating peak and, as DC was still in the throes of re-jigging narrative continuity, his latest title presented multipart epics reconfiguring established villains and classic stories: infilling the new history of the re-imagined, post-Crisis hero and his entourage.

An old adage says that you can judge a person by the calibre of their enemies, and that’s never been more ably demonstrated than in the case of Batman and The Joker. The epic battles between these so similar yet utterly antithetical icons have filled many pages and always will…

With that in mind, J.M. DeMatteis, Joe Staton & Steve Mitchell’s 4-part psychological study ‘Going Sane’ takes us back to a time when Batman was still learning his job and had only crossed swords with the Clown Prince of Crime twice before. After a murderously macabre circus-themed killing-spree in the idyllic neighbourhood of Park Ridge and abduction of crusading Gotham Councilwoman Elizabeth Kenner, a far-too-emotionally invested Batman furiously plays catch-up. This leads to a disastrous, one-sided battle in front of GCPD’s Bat signal and a frantic pursuit into the dark woods beyond the city.

Driven to a pinnacle of outrage, the neophyte manhunter falls into the Joker’s devilishly prepared trap and is caught in an horrific explosion. His shattered body is then dumped by an incredulous, unbelieving killer clown reeling in shock at his utterly unexpected ultimate triumph. Stand-alone extract ‘Swimming Lessons’ opens here with Batman missing and Police Captain James Gordon taking flak from all sides for not finding the Predatory Punchinello or the savage mystery assailant who recently murdered an infamous underworld plastic surgeon…

Under Wayne Manor, faithful manservant Alfred fears the very worst, whilst in a cheap part of town thoroughly decent nonentity Joseph Kerr suffers terrifying nightmares of murder and madness. His solitary days end when he bumps into mousy spinster Rebecca Brown. Days pass and two lonely outcasts find love in their mutual isolation and shared affection for classic slapstick comedy. The only shadows blighting this unlikely romance are poor Joe’s continual nightmares and occasional outbursts of barely suppressed rage…

As days turn to weeks and months, Alfred sorrowfully accepts the situation and prepares to close the Batcave forever. As he descends, however, he is astounded to see the Dark Knight has returned…

The story of Joe Kerr – fictive product of a deranged mind which simply couldn’t face life without Batman – is another yarn readers will want to experience in full, but that too will only happen in a different collection.

The World’s Greatest Detective continues to relentlessly battle the Clown Prince in ‘Fool’s Errand’ (Detective Comics #726, October 1998) as Chuck Dixon & Brian Stelfreeze depict a vicious mind-game conducted by the Hateful Harlequin from his cell, using a little girl as bait and an army of criminals as his weapon against the Dark Knight, after which ‘Endgame’ Part Three ‘…Sleep in Heavenly Peace’ (by Greg Rucka, Devin Grayson, Damian Scott, Dale Eaglesham, Sean Parsons, Sal Buscema & Rob Hunter in Detective #741, February 2000) sees the Joker plaguing a Gotham struggling to recover from a cataclysmic earthquake.

It’s Christmas, but the stubborn survivors are so stretched striving to stop Joker’s plan to butcher all the babies left in town, that they are unable to notice this real scheme which will gouge a far more personal wound in their hearts…

‘Slayride’ by Paul Dini, Don Kramer & Wayne Faucher (Detective Comics #826, February 2007 and another Seasonal special) is one of the best Joker – and definitely the best Robin – stories in decades. This Christmas chiller sees our Crazed Clown trap third Boy Wonder Tim Drake in a stolen car, making him an unwilling participant in a spree of vehicular homicides amongst last-minute shoppers. If there is ever a Greatest Batman Christmas Stories Ever Told collection (and if there’s anybody out there with the power to make it so, get weaving please!), this just has to be the closing chapter…

Brining us up nearly to date, Part V: Rebirth focuses on 2011’s New 52 continuity-wide reboot and the even grimmer, Darker Knight who debuted in Detective Comics volume 2 #1 with what might then have been assumed to be the last Joker story. Crafted by Tony Daniel & Ryan Winn, ‘Faces of Death’ follows the mass-murdering malcontent on another pointless murder spree ending with his apparent death, leaving behind only his freshly skinned-off face nailed bloodily to an asylum wall…

One year later the Joker explosively returned, targeting Batman’s allies in company-wide crossover event dubbed Death of the Family. The crippling mind games and brutal assaults culminated in ‘But Here’s the Kicker’ (Batman #15, February 2013 by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo & Jonathan Glapion) and purportedly the final battle between Bat and Clown: but we’ve all heard that before, haven’t we?

The Joker has the rare distinction of being arguably the most iconic villain in comics and can claim that title in whatever era you focus on; Noir-esque Golden Age, sanitised Silver Age or malignant modern and Post-Modern milieux. This book captures just a fraction of all those superb stories and we’re long overdue an update or second showing…

Including pertinent covers by Sayre Swartz & Roussos, Mortimer, Moldoff, Adams, Rogers & Austin, Byrne, Mike Mignola, Staton & Mitchell, Stelfreeze, Alex Maleev & Bill Sienkiewicz, Simone Bianchi, Daniel & Winn and Capullo, this monolithic testament to the inestimable value of a good bad-guy is a true delight for fans of all ages and vintage.
© 1940, 1941, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1964, 1973, 1978, 1987, 1988, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2007, 2011, 2012, 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Bob Powell’s Complete Cave Girl


By Gardner Fox & Bob Powell, with James Vance, John Wooley, Mark Schultz & various (Kitchen Sink/Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-700-3 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

Like every art form, comics can be readily divided into masterpieces and populist pap, but that damning assessment necessarily comes with a bunch of exclusions and codicils. Periodical publications, like pop songs, movies and the entirety of television’s output (barring schools programming), are designed to sell to masses of consumers. As such the product must reflect the target and society at a specific moment in time and perforce quickly adapt and change with every variation in taste or fashion.

The situation is most especially true of comics – especially those created before they had won any kind of credibility: primarily deemed by their creators and publishers as a means of parting youngsters from disposable cash. The fact that so many have been found to possess redeeming literary and artistic merit or social worth is post hoc rationalisation. Those creators striving for better, doing the very best they could because of their inner artistic drives, were being rewarded with just as meagre a financial reward as the shmoes just phoning it in for the paycheck. That sad state of affairs in periodical publication wasn’t helped by the fact that most editors thought they knew what the readership wanted – safe, prurient gratification – and mostly they were right.

Even so, from such swamps gems occasionally emerged…

The entire genre of “Jungle Girls” is one fraught with perils for modern readers. Barely clad, unattainable, (generally) white paragons of feminine pulchritude lording it over superstitious primitives is one that is now pretty hard to digest for most of us hairless apes, but frankly so are most of the attitudes of our grandfathers’ time.

However, ways can be found to accommodate such crystallised or outdated attitudes, especially when reading from a suitably detached historical perspective and even more so when the art is crafted by a master storyteller like Bob Powell. After all, it’s not that big a jump from fictionalised 1950s forests to today’s filmic metropolises where leather armoured (generally white) Adonises with godlike power paternalistically watch over us, telling us lumpy, dumpy, ethnically mixed losers how to live and be happy…

Sorry, I love all comics in all genres from all eras, but sometimes the Guilty Pleasure meter on my conscience just redlines and I can’t stop it. Just remember, it’s not real…

As businessmen or employees of such, editors and publishers always knew what hormonal kids wanted to see and they gave it to them. It’s no different today. Just take a look at any comic shop shelf or cover listings site and see how many fully-clad, small-breasted females you can spot. And how many equivalent male inamoratii there aren’t..

Cave Girl was one of the last entries of the surprisingly long-lived Jungle Queen genre and consequently looks relatively mild in comparison to other titles as regards suggestive or prurient titillation. Here the action-adventure side of the equation was always most heavily stressed and readers of the time could see far more salacious material at every movie house if they needed to. And the pages were so damn well drawn…

End of self-gratifying apologies. Let’s talk about Bob.

Stanley Robert Pawlowski was born in 1916 in Buffalo, New York, and studied at the Pratt Institute in Manhattan before joining one of the earliest comics-packaging outfits: the Eisner-Iger Shop. He was a solid and dependable staple of American comic books’ Golden Age, illustrating a variety of key features. He drew original Jungle Queen Sheena in Jumbo Comics plus other JG featurettes and Spirit of ’76 for Harvey’s Pocket Comics. He handled assorted material for Timely titles such as Captain America in All-Winners Comics, Tough Kid Comics plus such genre material as Gale Allen and the Women’s Space Battalion for anthologies like Planet Comics, Mystery Men Comics and Wonder Comics.

Bob was recently revealed to have co-scripted/created Blackhawk as well as drawing Loops and Banks in Military Comics, as well as so many more now near-forgotten strips: all under a variety of English-sounding pseudonyms, since the tone of the times was rather unforgiving for creative people of minority origins. Eventually the artist settled on S. Bob Powell and had his name legally changed…

Probably his most well-remembered and highly regarded tour of duty was on Mr. Mystic in Will Eisner’s Spirit Section newspaper insert. After serving in WWII, Bob came home and quit to set up his own studio. Eisner never forgave him. Powell – with his assistants Howard Nostrand, Martin Epp & George Siefringer – swiftly established a solid reputation for quality, versatility and reliability: working for Fawcett (Vic Torry & His Flying Saucer, Hot Rod Comics, Lash Larue), Harvey Comics (Man in Black, Adventures in 3-D and True 3-D) and on Street and Smith’s Shadow Comics.

He was particularly prolific in many titles for Magazine Enterprises (ME), including early TV tie-in Bobby Benson’s B-Bar-B Riders, Red Hawk in Straight Arrow, Jet Powers and the short but bombastic run of quasi-superhero Strong Man. Bob easily turned his hand to a vast range of War, Western, Science Fiction, Crime, Comedy and Horror material: consequently generating as by-product some of the best and most glamorous “Good Girl art” of the era (remember, this is pre pornhub and MTV), both in comics and in premiums strip packages for business. In the 1960s he pencilled the infamous Mars Attacks cards, illustrated Bessie Little’s Teena-a-Go-Go and the Bat Masterson newspaper strip, before ending his days drawing Daredevil, Human Torch and Giant-Man for Marvel.

This captivating compilation gathers all the Cave Girl appearances – written by equally gifted and ubiquitous jobbing scripter Gardner F. Fox – from numerous ME publications.

The company employed a truly Byzantine method of numbering their comic books so I’ll cite Thun’da #2-6 (1953), Cave Girl #4 (1953-1954) and Africa, Thrilling Land of Mystery #1 (1955) simply for the sake of brevity and completeness, knowing that it makes no real difference to your enjoyment of what’s to come.

This splendid tome includes a Biography of Bob, an incisive Introduction from Mark (Xenozoic, Superman: Man of Steel, Prince Valiant) Schultz, and an erudite essay – ‘King of the Jungle Queens’– by James Vance & John Wooley, diligently examining the origins of the subgenre (courtesy of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, William Henry Hudson’s novel Green Mansions and a slew of B-movies); its development in publishing; the effect of the phenomenon and Powell’s overall contributions to comics in a far more even-handed and informed way than I can manage…

That done, it’s time to head to an Africa that never existed for action and adventure beyond compare. Cave Girl started as a back-up feature in Thun’da #2: a primeval barbarian saga set in an antediluvian region of the Dark Continent where dinosaurs still lived. In ‘The Ape God of Kor’ the mighty primitive encounters a blonde stranger who can speak to birds and beasts, and helps her escape the unwanted attentions of a bestial tyrant. When that’s not enough to deter the monstrous suitor, Thun’da and Cave Girl have no choice but to topple his empire…

In #3, the wild woman met ‘The Man Who Served Death!’ – a criminal from the outer world whose hunger for gold and savage brutality necessitates his urgent removal from the land of the living. Cave Girl’s beloved animal allies are being wantonly slaughtered to appease ‘The Shadow God of Korchak!’ next, forcing the gorgeous guardian of the green to topple the lost kingdom’s debauched queen, after which the tireless champion tackles a trio of sadistic killers from the civilised world in ‘Death Comes Three Ways!’

A rather demeaning comedy sidekick debuted in ‘The Little Man Who Was All There!’ (Thun’da #6) as pompous “pigmy” (sorry, so sorry!!) bumbler Bobo attaches himself to Cave Girl as her protector. From there the forest monarch sprang into her own title, beginning with Cave Girl #11. ‘The Pool of Life!’ delved back in time to when a scientific expedition was wiped out, leaving little blonde toddler Carol Mantomer to fend for herself. Happily, the child was adopted by Kattu the wolf and grew tall and strong and mighty…

The obligatory origin dispensed with, the story proceeds to reveal how two white explorers broach the lost valley and reap their deserved fate after finding a little lake with mystic properties. Time honoured tables are turned when explorer Luke Hardin deduces Cave Girl’s true identity and convinces the wild child to come with him to Nairobi and claim her inheritance. Already appalled by the gadgets and morass of humanity in ‘The City of Terror!’, Carol’s decision to leave is cemented by her only living relative’s attempts to murder her for said inheritance…

En route home, her wild beauty arouses the desires of millionaire hunter Alan Brandon, but his forceful pursuit and attempted abduction soon teaches him he has a ‘Tiger by the Tail!’ before, her trek done, Cave Girl traverses high mountains and finds Alan and Luke have been captured by beast-like primitives and faces the ‘Spears of the Snowmen’ to save them both.

Even the usually astoundingly high-quality scripting of veteran Gardner Fox couldn’t do much with the formulaic strictures of this subgenre, but he always tried his best, as in Cave Girl #12 which opened with ‘The Devil Boat!’ – a submarine disgorging devious crooks in death-masks intent on plundering archaeological treasures found by Luke. Then when an explorer steals a sacred cache of rubies he learns that even Cave Girl can’t prevent his becoming ‘Prey of the Headhunters!’

Fantastic fantasy replaces crass commercial concerns as ‘The Amazon Assassins’ seeking to expand their empire ravage villages under Cave Girl’s protection. The Women Warriors have no conception of the hornet’s nest they are stirring up…

Cave Girl #13 took its lead tale from newspaper headlines as the jungle defender clashed with ‘The Mau Mau Killers!’ butchering innocents and destabilising the region, after which ‘Altar of the Axe’ features the return of those formerly all-conquering Amazons. They believe they can counter their arch-enemy’s prowess with a battalion of war elephants. Their grievous error then seamlessly segues into a battle with escaped convict Buck Maldin as ‘The Jungle Badman’ who is beaten by Cave Girl but allows greedy buffoon Bobo to claim the reward – and quickly regrets it…

Powell reached a creative zenith illustrating for Cave Girl #14 (1954), his solid linework and enticing composition augmented by a burst of purely decorative design which made ‘The Man Who Conquered Death’ a dramatic tour de force. When a series of murders and resurrections lead Cave Girl to a mad scientist who has found a time machine, she is transformed into an aged crone, but still possesses the force of will to beat the deranged meddler…

A tad more prosaic, ‘The Shining Gods’ sees a rejuvenated Cave Girl (and Luke) stalking thieves swiping tribal relics, only to uncover a Soviet plot to secure Africa’s radium, after which the queen of the jungle is “saved” by well-intentioned rich woman Leona Carter and brought back to civilisation. Happily, after poor Carol endures a catalogue of modern mishaps which equate to ‘Terror in the Town’, Cave Girl is allowed to return to her true home…

Officially the series ended there, but ME had one last issue ready to print and deftly shifted emphasis by re-badging the package as Africa, Thrilling Land of Mystery #1. It appeared in 1955, sporting a Comics Code Authority symbol. Inside, however, was still formulaic but beautifully limned Cave Girl exposing a conniving witch doctor using ‘The Volcano Fury’ to fleece natives, restoring ‘The Lost Juju’ of the devout Wamboolis before foiling a murderous explorer stealing a million dollar gem, and crushing a potential uprising by taking a fateful ride on ‘The Doom Boat’…

And then she was gone.

Like the society it protected from subversion and corruption, the Comics Code Authority frowned on females disporting themselves freely or appearing able to cope without a man, and the next half-decade was one where women were either submissive, domesticated, silly objects of amusement, ornamental prizes or just plain marital manhunters. It would be the 1970s before strong, independent female characters reappeared in comic books…

Whatever your political leanings or social condition, Cave Girl – taken strictly on her own merits – is one of the mostly beautifully rendered characters in pictorial fiction, and a terrific tribute to the talents of Powell and his team. If you love perfect comics storytelling, of its time, but transcending fashion or trendiness, this is a treasure just waiting to be rediscovered.
Bob Powell’s Complete Cave Girl compilation © 2014 Kitchen, Lind and Associates LLC. Cave Girl is a trademark of AC Comics, successors in interest to Magazine Enterprises and is used here with permission of AC Comics. Introduction © 2014 Mark Schultz. “King of the Jungle Queens” essay © 2014 James Vance and John Wooley. All rights reserved.

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Vampirella Archives volume One


By Forrest J. Ackerman, Don Glut, Nicola Cuti, Bill Parente, R. Michael Rosen, Al Hewetson, Terri Abrahms, Nick Beal, Bill Warren, Richard Carnell, Jack Erman, T. Casey Brennan, Gardner F. Fox, Vern Burnett, Larry Herndon, Buddy Saunders, Doug Moench, Tom Sutton, Billy Graham, Reed Crandall, Neal Adams, Ernie Colon, Billy Graham, Mike Royer, Tony Tallarico, Jerry Grandenetti, Bill Fraccio, Dick Piscopo, William Barry, Jack Sparling, Ed Robbins, David St. Clair, Jeff Jones, Dan Adkins, Frank Bolle, Frank Frazetta, Vaughn Bodé, Ken Kelly Bill Hughes, Larry Todd & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-175-5 (HB/Digital edition) 978-1524126506 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

After years of stifling restriction, the American comic book industry finally started to break out of a self-imposed straitjacket in the mid-1960s. Kids of the Counterculture had begun creating and disseminating material relevant to their lives in self-produced “Underground Commix” whilst other publishers sought other ways around the draconian Comics Code applied to comic books.

The most elegant solution was the one chosen by Jim Warren, who had originally established himself with black & white B-Movie fan periodical Famous Monsters of Filmland and satire magazine Help! In 1965 he took his deep admiration of the legendary 1950s EC Comics to its logical conclusion: reviving the concept of anthology horror short stories and pitching them at older fans of the new generation. Of course that actually meant all us kids under 10…

Creepy was stuffed with clever, sardonic, tongue-in-cheek strip chillers illustrated by the top artists in the field (many of them ex-EC stars). Warren circumvented the US’s all-powerful Comics Code Authority – which had ended EC’s glory days and eventually their entire comics line – by publishing his new venture as a newsstand magazine. It was a truly no-lose proposition. Older readers didn’t care to be associated with “kid’s stuff” comic books whilst magazines had tempting cachet (i.e. mild nudity and a little more explicit violence) for readers of a transitional age; moreover the standard monochrome format was a quarter of the costs of colour periodicals.

Creepy was a huge and influential hit, especially among the increasingly rebellious, Rock ‘n’ Roll-crazed teen market, frequently cited as a source of inspiration for the nascent commix underground and furiously feeding on growing renewed public interest in the supernatural. In true Darwinian “Grow or Die” mode, Warren looked around for new projects, following up with companion shocker Eerie and the controversial war title Blazing Combat.

As the decade closed he launched a third horror anthology, but Vampirella was a little bit different. Although it featured the now traditional “host” to introduce and comment on the stories, this narrator was a sexy starlet who occasionally participated in stories. Before too long she actually became the hero and crowd-pulling star of her own regular feature, but that’s material for a later volume…

The other big change was that here female characters played a far more active role. They were still ornamental, prizes, victims and targets but increasingly, whether name stars or bit players, they were as likely to be the big menace or save the day. Whatever their role, though, they were still pretty much naked throughout. Some traditions must be protected at all costs.

Another beguiling Warren staple was the eye-catching painted cover fronting every issue. Here, as crafted by Frank Frazetta, Bill Hughes, Larry Todd & Vaughn Bodé, Jeff Jones & Bodé and Ken Kelly, they are the only full colour pages in an otherwise magnificently monochrome/duo-toned tome. However to be fair I must say that the reproduction on some black-&-white pages leaves much to be desired…

This massive magazine-size (216 x 32 x 279 mm if you opt for physical editions) collection gathers in their entirety the contents of the first seven issues (spanning September 1969 to September 1970). This was a crucial transitional period which saw superheroes dying out at every publishing company; replaced by a genre revival and spearheaded by a tidal wave of horror titles after the Comics Code was frantically rewritten to combat plunging sales.

This volume begins with Vampirella #1, that aforementioned painted cover and a black-&-red Frazetta frontispiece – probably scripted by Editor Bill Parente – setting the blackly humorous tone for a fearsome fangtastic fun fest. The original contents page follows – as do they all in their appropriate place. The compendium also includes every letters page and fan feature – and even nostalgia-triggering ads of the era. If you’re a modern monster fan or kit collector you’ll probably simultaneously weep and drool at the sight of these lost treasures.

The strip sensationalism begins with ‘Vampirella of Drakulon’ by Forrest J. Ackerman & Tom Sutton; introducing a planet where the rivers ran with blood and life evolved to drink it.

However, following a withering drought, Drakulon is dying. Happily for the sultry starving vampire, a ship from Earth arrives, full of people with food in their veins and a ship that can take her to where there’s plenty more.

Vampi’s role from the outset was to be another story host and for the rest of this collection that’s what she mostly is. Her role as an active adventurer didn’t properly begin for quite a while. So, here the chills continue with ‘Death Boat!’ by Don Glut & Billy Graham with the survivors of a shipwreck being picked off one by one by a bloodsucker in their midst. They perish one per night but when the mortals number just two both are still wrong about who the killer is…

Glut & master draughtsman Reed Crandall conspired on ‘Two Silver Bullets!’ as a trapper fights to save his daughter from a werewolf after which ‘Goddess from the Sea’ by Glut and Neal Adams offers a splendid treat for art-lovers: the story of a man seduced by a sea-siren was shot directly from the illustrator’s incredible pencil art. Glut & Mike Royer offer a timely Halloween warning in ‘Last Act: October!’ whilst ‘Spaced-Out Girls!’ (Glut & Tony Tallarico) sees a saucer full of saucy extraterrestrial honeys come shopping for husbands before the premier package closes with Nicola Cuti & Ernie Colon’s mindbending magical murder mystery ‘A Room Full of Changes’.

The spooky story-bonanza resumes in issue #2, opening with coming attraction featurette ‘Vampi’s Feary Tales…’ – courtesy of Sutton – after which Vampi’s putative cousin ‘Evily’ is introduced by Bill Parente & veteran horror-meister Jerry Grandenetti. Here Drakulonian émigré and Earthly sorceress climactically clash over star-billing and bragging rights…

‘Montezuma’s Monster’ is scripted by R. Michael Rosen (incorrectly credited to Glut) and illustrated by Bill Fraccio & Tallarico in their composite identity of Tony Williamsune, detailing the fate of a treasure-hungry explorer who doesn’t believe in feathered serpents whilst ‘Down to Earth!’ by Ackerman & Royer leaves the hosting to Vampirella’s blonde counterpart Draculine as our star auditions for a film role…

That theme continues in ‘Queen of Horror!’ (Glut & Dick Piscopo) wherein a B-Movie starlet uses unique and uncanny advantages to get everything she deserves whilst Cuti & William Barry reveal the tragedy of two brothers who discover a new predatory species of inland cephalopod in ‘The Octopus’. Cuti & Colon’s ‘One, Two, Three’ then explores the power of love in a world of robots and Glut & Graham render a ‘Rhapsody in Red!’ with weary travellers fetching up at a lonely house to deliver a big surprise to the resident vampire…

The third issue augmented ‘Vampi’s Feary Tales…’ with correspondence section ‘Vampi’s Scarlet Letters’ before ‘Wicked is Who Wicked Does’ features the return of Evily in a short shocking battle against ogres by Parente & Sutton. Al Hewetson & Jack Sparling count ‘4- 3- 2- 1- Blast Off! To a Nightmare!’ in the tale of a spaceship full of 24-hour party people who end up as hors d’oeuvres for something very nasty even as ‘Eleven Steps to Lucy Fuhr’ (by Terri Abrahms [story]; Nick Beal [adaptation] and art by Ed Robbins) sees many men drawn to a bizarre bordello and a sinister fate… until the unlikeliest of saviours takes a hand.

‘I Wake Up… Screaming!’ is an all Billy Graham affair as a frightened girl is made aware of her true nature in a sci fi chiller whilst Cuti & Piscopo mine mythology to deliver a salutary tale of fairy tale oppression and bloody liberation in ‘The Calegia!’ A cunning vampire meets his lethal match in Graham’s ‘Didn’t I See You on Television?’ after which Rosen & Sparling close the issue detailing the downfall of a vicious spoiled brat caught in ‘A Slimy Situation!’

Vampirella #4 opens on Sutton revealing past episodes of witch killing in ‘Vampi’s Feary Tales: Burned at the Stake!’ prior to Parente & David St. Clair reaching psychedelic heights in a tale of alien amazons and their deadly ‘Forgotten Kingdom’ whilst Cuti & Royer combine murder and time travel in ‘Closer than Sisters’. A city-slicker falls for a hillbilly hottie and gets sucked into a transformative shocker after trying ‘Moonshine!’ (Glut & Barry), Bill Warren & Sparling reveal the fate of a beautiful and obsessive scientist who bends the laws of God and Man ‘For the Love of Frankenstein’ and a most modern black widow asks a controlling stalker to ‘Come Into My Parlor!’ in a wry yarn by Rosen & Piscopo. Richard Carnell (story); Jack Erman (adaptation) & Sparling then close the show with a weird and nasty tale of a nobleman auditioning women for marriage in ‘Run for Your Wife!’

The fifth issue begins with the usual ‘Vampi’s Feary Tales…’ as Sutton exposes ‘The Satanic Sisterhood of Stonehenge!’ before Glut, Fraccio & Tallarico see a greedily impatient heir speed his benefactress to her ultimate end, unheeding of her beloved pets and ‘The Craft of a Cat’s Eye’. Cavemen battle dinosaurs in an arena of ‘Scaly Death’ – a visceral treat from Glut & Graham – whilst the astounding Jeff Jones lends fine art sensibilities to the murderous saga of a girl, a guy and ‘An Axe to Grind’, after which Parente & Sutton detail the crimes of a sadistic Duke whose fate is sealed by an aggrieved astrologer and astrally ‘Avenged by Aurora’…

Glut, Fraccio & Tallarico see graves robbed and corpses consumed in neat bait-&-switch thriller ‘Ghoul Girl’ whilst T. Casey Brennan & Royer reveal the solution of a bereaved husband who finds an ‘Escape Route!’ back to his dead beloved, before Glut & Sparling end it all again via an implausible invasion from the moon in ‘Luna’.

In Vampirella #6, Vampi’s Feary Tales…’ features Dan Adkins’ graphic chat on centaurs as prelude to romantic tragedy the ‘Curse of Circe!’ as Gardner Fox & Grandenetti combine to relate how a strange sea creature offers the witch’s latest conquest his only certain method of escape. Cuti & Sparling then share a story of civil war in the land of ghosts and how love toppled ‘The Brothers of Death’ whilst ‘Darkworth!’ by Cuti & Royer shows how a stripper graduates to murdered assistant of a stage magician and pulls off her own amazing trick in the name of vengeance, after which Fox & Adkins explore the lives of the recently dead with ‘New Girl in Town!’ and Vern Burnett & Frank Bolle return to gothic roots to depict embattled humans outwitting nocturnal predators by volunteering a ‘Victim of the Vampyre!’

Larry Herndon, Fraccio & Tallarico (as Tony Williamsune) get creepily contemporary as a doctor tries to fix an overdosed patient and sends him way, way out on a ‘One Way Trip!’ before Buddy Saunders & Bolle combine adultery and attempted murder in ‘The Wolf-Man’: a wickedly scientific shocker about a very different kind of feral killer…

Vampirella #7 saw Archie Goodwin join as Associate Editor and perhaps his influence can be seen as the issue experiments with a connected theme and extended tale scripted by Nicola Cuti. Graham & Frazetta start the ball rolling by explaining ‘Why a Witch Trilogy’ and Vampirella introduces ‘Prologue: The Three Witches’ before Sutton to segues into the sad story of ‘The White Witch’ who could never feel the sunlight. Ernie Colon picks up the experimental progression as ‘The Mind Witch’ trades magic for science to expose the fate of a psychic predator, after which Graham closes the deal with ‘The Black Witch’ who thought she could conquer love but failed to realise its appalling power…

After Cuti & Sutton’s palate-cleansing ‘Epilogue: The Three Witches’, Doug Moench graduates from letter writer in #3 to scripter as ‘Plague of the Wolf’ – illustrated by Bolle – tracks a bloody serial killer’s progress under the full moon and ‘Terror Test’ offers shocking psychological thrills by Rosen & “Williamsune” with more than one sting in the tail.

In ‘The Survivor’, Saunders & Colon unite to explore a post-apocalyptic world where dedicated archaeologists still struggle to escape their bestial natures and this mammoth first compilation concludes with Rosen & Grandenetti viewing ‘The Collection Creation’ with an artist who finds the wrong kind of immortality…

Stark, surprisingly shocking and packed with clever ideas beautifully rendered, this epic tome (narrowly) escapes and transcends its admittedly exploitative roots to deliver loads of laughs and lots of shocks: a tried and true terror treat for fans of spooky doings and guiltily glamorous games.
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