Nostalgia – Page 39 – Now Read This!

August 18, 2016August 17, 2016

The Rocketeer & The Spirit: Pulp Friction

By Mark Waid, Paul Smith, Loston Wallace, J Bone, Bob Wiacek & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-881-4

The American comics industry has generated its fair share of immortal heroes. However, whilst everyone is familiar with household names such as Flash Gordon, Superman, Dick Tracy or Popeye, there are also timeless champions who pretty much remain hallowed names known only to the in-crowd and cognoscenti: characters who have had their shot at global mega-stardom but for some reason never caught on with the masses. Characters like The Spirit and The Rocketeerâ€¦

Will Eisner was a pivotal creative force who helped shaped the entire medium of comics. From 1936 to 1938 he worked as a jobbing cartoonist in the studio-stable known as the â€œEisner-Eiger Shopâ€, creating strips for both domestic and foreign markets.

As Willis B. Rensie he created and drew the opening instalments of a huge variety of characters ranging from funny animal to historical sagas, Westerns, Detectives, aviation action thrillersâ€¦ and superheroesâ€¦ lots of superheroesâ€¦

In 1940 Everett â€œBusyâ€ Arnold, head honcho of Quality Comics, invited Eisner to take on a new challenge. The Register-Tribune newspaper syndicate wanted a 16-page weekly comicbook insert to be given away with the Sunday editions. Eisner created three strips which would initially be handled by him before two were handed off to his talented assistants.

Bob Powell inherited Mr. Mystic and distaff detective Lady Luck first fell into the capable hands of Nick Cardy (nÃ©e Nicholas Viscardi) and later the inimitable Klaus Nordling.

Eisner kept the lead strip for himself, and over the next twelve years masked detective The Spirit grew into the most impressive, innovative, imitated and talked-about strip in the business. In 1952 the venture folded and Eisner moved into commercial, instructional and educational strips, working extensively for the US military in manuals and magazines like P*S, the Preventative Maintenance Monthly, generally leaving comics books behind.

In the wake of â€œBatmaniaâ€ and the 1960s superhero craze, Harvey Comics released two giant-sized reprint editions with some new material from Eisner, which lead to a brace of underground compilations and a slow but inexorable rediscovery and revival of the Spirit’s fame and fortune via black and white newsstand reprint magazines.

Warren Publishing collected old stories, occasionally adding painted colour from such contemporary luminaries as Rich Corben, but from #17 the title reverted to Kitchen Sink, who had produced those first two underground collections.

Eisner found himself re-enamoured with graphic narrative and discerned that there now existed a willing audience eager for new works. From producing new Spirit covers for the magazine (something the original newspaper insert had never needed) he became increasingly inspired. American comics were evolving into an art-form and the restless creator finally saw a place for the kind of stories he had always wanted to tell.

He subsequently began crafting some of the most telling and impressive work the industry had ever seen: first in limited collector portfolios and eventually, in 1978, with the groundbreaking sequential narrative A Contract With God and thereby jumpstarting our modern comics phenomenon of graphic novelsâ€¦

Although his output was far smaller and life far shorter, Dave Stevens had an equally revolutionary effect on the industry: his lush and lavish illustration style influencing a generation of artists as his signature retro-futurist character The Rocketeer became the first breakout star of the Independent Comics movement which stemmed from the creation of the Comicbook Direct Sales Market.

Due to Stevens’s legendarily uncompromising artistic vision – and consequent slow page rate – very few of The Rocketeer’s period exploits appeared before the artist’s death from Hairy Cell Leukaemia in 2008. Since then, however, diverse other hands have added to the canon, as with the miniseries collected in this slim but stunning hardcover edition.

Just in case these vintage adventurers are new to you, The Spirit used to be Denny Colt: Central City’s greatest detective and criminologist. After apparently dying in battle with a vile master-villain, Colt opted to remain officially dearly departed and battle evil in a semi-official capacity as a masked enigma, aided by girlfriend Ellen Dolan and her father the crime-ridden metropolis’ Police Commissioner.

Cliff Secord is an itinerant West Coast pilot who – circa 1938 – found a fantastic jetpack outfit and ever thereafter stumbled into a succession of criminal plots and capers. With the eventual permission of the flight engine’s inventor – one of the greatest heroes of that or any other era – Cliff still finds himself regularly battling bad guys as The Rocketeer. When that’s not occupying his time, he’s busy looking for work or being given the run-around by his star-struck, fame-obsessed, trouble-magnet girl Bettyâ€¦

Team-ups are part-and-parcel of comics extravaganzas and both heroes have had their share of cataclysmic and catastrophic clashes with the valiant giants of the period and the industry.

This yarn however – collecting a 4-issue miniseries by Mark Waid which ran from July to December 2013 – concentrates as much on humour as bombastic action and begins on the East Coast in February 1941 where business executives and government meet to decide the future of the Next Big Thingâ€¦

Alderman Cunningham is stridently opposed to letting business cartels control the new medium and argues that, just like with radio, public airwaves must not be owned by any individual or corporation seeking to monopolise recently invented Televisionâ€¦

Mere hours later an early morning fashion shoot on a California beach is ruined when beautiful Betty finds the idealistic politician’s mangled corpseâ€¦

When the stiff is identified as Cunningham, Commissioner Dolan and Spirit are baffled. How could the victim have travelled more than 3000 miles in one night? Determined to investigate, they book passage on a trans-continental plane, having reluctantly crumbled before the forceful Ellen who demands to join them and see Hollywoodâ€¦

In Los Angeles, Cliff Secord is again being ignored by the traumatised Betty. He mopes dejectedly until his grizzled old mechanic Peevy points out that whoever killed the Alderman might also want to silence the girl who found the bodyâ€¦

Nearby, a very wealthy entrepreneur places a coast-to-coast call to The Spirit’s greatest enemy to discuss his incredible new invention, the pursuance of their plans and how to stop a certain masked interloper from interferingâ€¦

Said hero – still wearing his mask – is stiffly staggering off a plane at Chaplin Field with his equally exhausted cross-country companions. In a weary, unguarded moment he mentions Betty. Learning of the â€œslipâ€, an already paranoid Cliff panics and, assuming the masked killer has come for his girl, dons his rocket-man suit to attackâ€¦

After a spectacular battle, Ellen finally manages to convince the two testosterone-soaked mutton heads they are on the same side, and a tentative alliance is formedâ€¦ at least until Spirit interviews Betty and the flighty starlet finds she’s in love or thereabouts with the hunky masked copâ€¦

Illustrator Paul Smith gives way to Loston Wallace & Bob Wiacek as the second chapter opens with the fractious, clueless allies heading for the LA Morgue to examine Cunningham’s body, even as television wizard Benedict Trask and The Octopus discuss how best to get Betty out of the picture and deal with the interlopers meddling in their affairs. Their solution is unique indeed and everything would have worked out swell if not for inveterate tinkerer Peevy who has built his own prototype TV receiver and intercepted something he shouldn’t haveâ€¦

The villains respond in typical manner but their big mistake is believing the planes sent to strafe Peevy’s hangar are enough to stop Rocketeer and The Spiritâ€¦

With J Bone stepping in to limn the final two chapters the high-octane tale ramps up into top gear as Cliff travels back to Central City with Spirit and the Dolans to find Betty, expose the sinister scheme of Trask and the Octopus, uncover the crooks’ treacherous connections to a certain Fascist foreign power, prevent America’s airwaves from being subverted and even save President Roosevelt from being assassinated by television in a rocket-paced, breathtaking rollercoaster ride that delivers non-stop thrills and chillsâ€¦

Accompanied with an Introduction from Denis Kitchen, filling in all the necessary back-story on the iconic characters, and visually embellished by sketches and a large cover gallery by Darwyn Cooke, Smith, Jordie Bellaire, Bone and Chris Samnee, Pulp Friction is a no-nonsense fun-filled action frolic to delight lovers of the good old days of Thud and Blunderâ€¦
Â© 2014 The Rocketeer Trust and Will Eisner Studios, Inc. The Rocketeer is a registered trademark of, and all related characters, their distinctive likenesses and indicia are trademarks of The Rocketeer Trust. All Rights Reserved. The Spirit Â© 2014 Will Eisner Studios, Inc. The Spirit and Will Eisnerâ„¢ Will Eisner Studios, Inc. Â® in the US Patent and Trademark Office. All Rights Reserved.

August 15, 2016August 13, 2016

Tarzan Archives: The Joe Kubert Years volume 2

By Joe Kubert with Hal Foster, Frank Thorne & various (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-416-6

The early 1970s were the last real glory days of National (now DC) Comics. As they slowly lost market-share to Marvel they responded by producing controversial and landmark superhero material, but their greatest strength lay, as it always has, in the variety and quality of its genre divisions. Mystery and Supernatural thrillers, Science Fiction, Romance, War and Kids’ titles remained powerful attractions and the company’s eye for a strong licensed brand was as keen as ever.

A global multi-media phenomenon, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan had long been a comicbook mainstay of Dell/Gold Key/Whitman, and when DC acquired the title they rightly trumpeted it out, putting one of their top Artist/Editors, Joe Kubert, in charge of the immortal Ape-man’s monthly exploits.

After decades as Whitman staples, total licensing of ERB properties was transferred to DC – not just Tarzan and his extended family, but also the author’s pioneering science fantasy characters – with DC wisely continuing the original numbering.

Tarzan #207 was the first: an April 1972 cover-date, and the series stormed on until #258 in February 1977. Thereafter Marvel, Malibu, Dark Horse and Dynamite extended the Jungle Lord’s comicbook canon in sporadic sorties to recapture the sales and popularity of the 1950sâ€¦

The latter days of the Gold Key run had suffered ever since Russ Manning left the title to draw the syndicated newspaper strip, and even the likes of Doug Wildey were unable to revive the comic’s success in the face of constantly rising costs and a general downturn in sales across the market. DC’s continuation of the franchise premiered in a blaze of publicity at the height of a nostalgia boom and was generally well-received by fans.

DC pushed the title in many places and formats (such as bookstore digest collections and the gloriously oversized Tabloid Editions) and adapted other properties such as John Carter of Mars, Pellucidar and Carson of Venus in their own features and titles

This second superb hardcover archive collection (also available in digital formats) re-presents material from Tarzan #215-224 (December 1972 to October 1973) and opens with fond reminiscences and grateful thanks to fellow artist Frank Thorne in Kubert’s Introduction.

The pictorial wonderment kicks off with a classic visual treat as ‘The Mine!’ incorporates material originally seen in classic 1930s Sunday newspaper strips (by Hal Foster & George Carlin) embedded in an original tale by Kubert.

Joe’s intent was to adapt all 24 Tarzan novels – writing, illustrating and even lettering the stories, with the brilliant Tatjana Wood handling the colours – interspersing them with new and original tales. However the workload, coupled with his other editorial duties, was crippling.

As with Tarzan #211, here he was again compelled to combine original with vintage to detail how the Ape-Man is captured by slavers and pressed into toil deep in the bowels of the earth for a sadistic mine owner.

Naturally, Tarzan soon chafes at enforced servitude and quickly leads a savage workers’ revolt to overturn and end the corporate bondage…

Issue #216 took another route to beating deadlines with old pal Frank Thorne pencilling Kubert’s script for ‘The Renegades’, leaving hard-pressed Joe to ink and complete the story of a murderous raid which wipes out a Red Cross mission.

Investigating the atrocity, Tarzan discovers the â€œmaddened savagesâ€ responsible are actually white men masquerading as natives; stealing supplies for a proposed expedition to plunder a lost treasure vault. When he catches the culprits, Tarzan’s vengeance is terrible indeedâ€¦

‘The Black Queen!’ is an all-Kubert affair wherein the Jungle Lord almost saves a man from crocodiles. Acceding to the ravaged victim’s last wish, Tarzan then travels to his distant homeland and overturns the brutal regime of tyrannical Queen Kyra who rules her multicultural kingdom with whimsy, ingrained prejudice and casual crueltyâ€¦

The equally selfish choices of American millionaire tycoon Darryl T. Hanson blights his family as his search for ‘The Trophy’ decimates the fauna of Tarzan’s home and leads to a clash of wills and ideologies which can only end in tragedyâ€¦

With Tarzan #219, Kubert began an epic 5-issue adaptation of ERB’s sequel novel The Return of Tarzan. It opens in Paris as the unacknowledged son of vanished Lord Greystoke tries to adapt to his new life as a civilised man of leisure.

One night his natural gallantry draws him to the side of a woman screaming for help and he is attacked by a gang of thugs. After easily thrashing the brigands he is astounded to find her accusing him of assault and simply bounds effortlessly away from the gendarmes called to the disturbance.

This entire trap has been engineered by a new enemy; Russian spy and Ã©migrÃ© Nikolas Rokoff and his duplicitous toady Paulvitchâ€¦

The rightful heir to the Greystoke lands and titles silently stood aside and let his apparently unaware cousin William Cecil Clayton claim both them and the American Jane Porter, after Tarzan rescued her from attacking apes in the jungle. Missing her terribly, Tarzan then chose to make his own way in the human world beside new friend and French Naval Officer Paul D’Arnot.

(You could catch up by reading our review of Tarzan Archives: The Joe Kubert Years Volume One, but I’m sure you’d far rather see the book itself or even the original novelâ€¦).

In the course of his urbane progression, Tarzan had exposed the Russian cheating at cards to blackmail French diplomat Count De Coude and had earned himself a relentless, implacable foe forever. When Rokoff subsequently tried to murder Tarzan, the vile miscreant agonisingly learned how powerful his jungle-bred enemy wasâ€¦

With physical force clearly of no use, Rokoff’s latest plan is to put the Ape-Man through a ‘Trial by Treachery’; manufacturing â€œevidenceâ€ that Tarzan is having an affair with the Comte’s wife. Once more, however, the civilised monster underestimates his target’s forthright manner of dealing with problems and is savagely beaten until he admits to the plot and clears the innocent woman’s nameâ€¦

With news of Jane’s impending marriage to William Clayton, Tarzan seeks to ease his tortured mind with action and the next chapter sees him travel to Algeria where, sponsored by the grateful, ashamed Count, he begins working for the Secret Service in Sidi Bel Abbes, ferreting out a traitor in the turbulently volatile French colonyâ€¦

His hunt soon leads him to a likely traitor and brutal battle with Arab agent provocateurs, but things start to turn his way after he liberates a dancing slave who is the daughter of a local sheik.

When word of Jane comes from D’Arnot, Tarzan throws himself even more deeply into his tasks and falls into another ambush organised by Rokoff. This time his ‘Fury in the Desert’ seems insufficient to his needs until his newfound friend the Sheik rides to his rescueâ€¦

The intrigue continues to unfold in ‘Return of the Primitive’ as Tarzan finally uncovers a link between Rokoff and the espionage at Sidi Bel Abbes. Job done he is then posted to Capetown and aboard ship meets voyager Hazel Strong, a close friend of Jane’s who reveals the heiress had never forgotten her tryst with the Ape-Man.

Unable to watch Jane enter into a loveless marriage, Hazel took off on an ocean cruiseâ€¦

The story rocks Tarzan’s mind, but not so completely that he fails to notice Rokoff is also aboard and murderously dogging his footsteps. This time however the Russian is properly prepared and that night the Ape-Man vanishes from the shipâ€¦

Rokoff’s act of assassination is a purely pyrrhic victory. Soon after reaching Capetown the villain insinuated himself into the Clayton wedding party but when their yacht’s boilers explode next morning, he, Hazel, William Clayton, Jane and her father are left adrift in a lifeboatâ€¦

Tarzan meanwhile, has survived being tumbled overboard and spent days swimming hundreds of miles. He now washes up on the same beach his parents were left upon decades ago. Staggering inland, he finds himself in the cabin his father built before being stolen and adopted by Kala the She-Ape.

John Clayton is forgotten, for fate has brought Tarzan homeâ€¦

A man changed by his time amongst other men, the Jungle Lord instinctively saves a native warrior from certain death and is astonished to find himself declared chieftain of the noble Waziri tribe.

â€¦And off the coast, a lifeboat filled with dying travellers spots land and wearily sculls towards a welcoming beach in the heart of primeval forestsâ€¦

Revelling in his newfound status, popularity and freedom, Tarzan enquires about the fabulous jewelled ornaments of his new friends and learns of an incredible lost metropolis. Soon he is curiously journeying to ‘The City of Gold’ where he encounters debased, degenerate beast-men led by a gloriously beautiful Queen.

La is high priestess of forgotten Atlantean outpost Opar, but can barely control her subjects enough to allow the perfect specimen of manhood to escape to safety. Both she and Tarzan know they are destined to meet againâ€¦

Refusing to be cheated of their sacrifice, the bloodthirsty Oparian males search far into the jungle and soon encounter the Clayton yacht survivors. When the primitives attack the human strangers and carry off Jane, Rokoff shows his true colours, leaving William to die. This callous act also inadvertently clears the path for Tarzan to finally claim his inheritance and reunite with Janeâ€¦

All the Jungle Lord has to do is break back into Opar, save his one true love from ‘The Pit of Doom!’ and escape the wrath of jealous Queen Laâ€¦

That mission accomplished, he and Jane return to the beach in time to witness William’s dying confession and accept the succession to the estates and title of Lord Greystokeâ€¦

This captivating compilation concludes with an original adventure seeing Tarzan rescue a beautiful maiden from attacking apes and discovering she is a messenger from La, who is in peril of her lifeâ€¦

In Opar another insurrection by the Beast Men has left the Queen imperilled by her subjects and threatened by a gigantic mutant whom she tearfully reveals is her sibling in ‘Death is My Brother!’ With no choice Tarzan regretfully battles the dim brute and proves to the insurgents that his wrath is greater than their maliceâ€¦

Supplemented by Creator Biographies of Burroughs and Kubert, this tome is another masterpiece of comics creation and total adventure triumph which no lover of the medium or fantasy fan can afford to be without.
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan Â® The Joe Kubert Years Volume Two Â© 1972, 1973, 2006 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All rights reserved. Tarzan Â® is owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., and used by permission.

July 14, 2016July 13, 2016

Plastic Man Archives volume 5

By Jack Cole & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0154-8

Jack Cole was one of the most uniquely gifted talents of America’s Golden Age of Comics. Before moving into mature magazine and gag markets he originated landmark tales in horror, true crime, war, adventure and especially superhero comicbooks, and his incredible humour-hero Plastic Man remains an unsurpassed benchmark of screwball costumed hi-jinks: frequently copied but never equalled. It was a glittering career of distinction which Cole was clearly embarrassed by and unhappy with.

In 1954 he quit comics for the lucrative and prestigious field of magazine cartooning, swiftly becoming a household name when his brilliant watercolour gags and stunningly saucy pictures began regularly running in Playboy from the fifth issue.

Cole eventually moved into the lofty realms of newspaper strips and, in May 1958, achieved his life-long ambition by launching a syndicated newspaper strip, the domestic comedy Betsy and Me.

On August 13^th 1958, at the peak of his greatest success, he took his own life. The reasons remain unknown.

Without doubt – and despite his other triumphal comicbook innovations such as Silver Streak, Daredevil, The Claw, Death Patrol, Midnight, Quicksilver, The Barker, The Comet and a uniquely twisted and phenomenally popular take on the crime and horror genres – Cole’s greatest creation and contribution was the zany Malleable Marvel who quickly grew from a minor back-up character into one of the most memorable and popular heroes of the era. â€œPlasâ€ was the wondrously perfect fantastic embodiment of the sheer energy, verve and creativity of an era when anything went and comics-makers were prepared to try out every outlandish ideaâ€¦

Eel O’Brian was a brilliant career criminal wounded during a factory robbery, soaked by a vat of spilled acid and callously abandoned by his thieving buddies. Left for dead, he was saved by a monk who nursed him back to health and proved to the hardened thug that the world was not just filled with brutes and vicious chisellers after a fast buck.

His entire outlook altered and now blessed with incredible elasticity, Eel resolved to put his new powers to good use: cleaning up the scum he used to run with.

Creating a costumed alter ego he began a stormy association with the New York City cops before being recruited as a most special agent of the FBIâ€¦

He soon picked up the most unforgettable comedy sidekick in comics history. Woozy Winks was a dopey, indolent slob and utterly amoral pickpocket who accidentally saved a wizard’s life and was blessed in return with a gift of invulnerability: all the forces of nature would henceforth protect him from injury or death – if said forces felt like it.

After failing to halt the unlikely superman’s determined crime spree, Plas appealed to the scoundrel’s sentimentality and, once Woozy tearfully repented, was compelled to keep him around in case he strayed again. The oaf was slavishly loyal but perpetually back-sliding into pernicious old habitsâ€¦

Equal parts Artful Dodger and Mr Micawber, with the verbal skills and intellect of Lou Costello’s screen persona or the over-filled potato sack he resembled, Winks was the perfect foil for Plastic Man: a lazy, greedy, morally bankrupt reprobate with perennially sticky fingers who got all the best lines, possessed an inexplicable charm and had a habit of finding trouble. It was the ideal marriage of inconvenienceâ€¦

This fifth full-colour hardback exposes more eccentrically exaggerated exploits of the elastic eidolon from Police Comics #50-58 and Plastic Man #4 (stretching from January to September 1946), and opens here with an appreciation of Cole and his craft by Bill Schelly in the Foreword before a bizarre mystery confounds the populace as ‘Plastic Man Protects Crookdom’.

When a celebrated astrologer is murdered, his dying prediction seems to confirm that the chameleonic crimebuster is cursed to save his killers from the lawâ€¦ but they haven’t heard the victim’s entire utteranceâ€¦

Police #51 then details how twisted, frustrated love turns a gorgeous but frog-throated operatic chanteuse into a deadly, rock-fisted killer dubbed ‘The Granite Lady’. Even after her mad scientist paramour returns her to flesh-&-blood, her heart remains stony coldâ€¦

‘Crime without Criminals’ sees the city devoid of all underworld activity thanks to the efforts of Plas and Woozy. However, nature abhors a vacuum and this time it’s filled by an unlikely new crew of bandits, just in time to take the edge off our heroes’ mounting boredomâ€¦

Cole always had a grand line on mad scientists and in ‘The Evil Genius of Dr. Erudite’, came up with a classic loon like no other. This passionate maniac had so many great crime ideas he had no time to implement them. Realising the only solution was to replicate himself, he began an anarchic spree but was surprised by two unforeseen factors: Plastic Man’s determination to stop him and his own duplicate’s rebellious natureâ€¦

Cerebral conundra continued to vex our heroes in Police #54 as a moronic sneak thief became a lethal menace to America after swiping ‘The Thinking Machine’. Thankfully Plastic Man was on hand to fight and Woozy to balance the scales of natural imbecilityâ€¦

Issue #55 revealed the genesis and just deserts of ‘Sleepy Eyes’ as a cheap crook realises he has the power to plunge folk into unshakeable comasâ€¦

Cole’s constant and still-growing pressure to fill pages led to the hiring of numerous artists to draw his madcap scripts. This is clearly seen in Plastic Man #4 (Summer 1946) which opens with ‘The Purple Viking’ (illustrated by Bart Tumey), wherein a longboat full of ancient Norse reivers invades a quiet seaside hamlet, just as Plas and Woozy check in for a quiet weekend. How odd that the beach town is trashed by invaders just as a developer is checking out prospective new resort sitesâ€¦

A crooked political-boss trying to set up his own country inside America is no match for the Pliable Paladin in ‘King Lughead the First’ (art by John Spranger). Not only are all his larcenous efforts to fill the Treasury foiled, but new Prime Minister Mr. Winks is so dumb he might as well be working for the other sideâ€¦

The stooge once more becomes the star as Woozy stumbles into ‘The Lollypop Caper’ (Tumey again), chasing gem-filled candy sought by rival mobs and a rather dangerous toddlerâ€¦

Plastic Man’s uncanny deductive abilities are then propounded in prose short ‘Plas’ to Meet You’ before the capture of arch-thug ‘The Lobster’ leads to Woozy being adopted and Plas stumbling into a cunning conspiracyâ€¦

Plastic Man #56 then dabbled with childish whimsy as ‘Overworked Genie’ (art by Andre Leblanc) sees the stretchable sleuth take a day off to spend his time granting wishes to a little kid. However, crime never sleeps and all too soon greedy thugs are trying to steal Mickey’s lamp. Big mistakeâ€¦

A growing public fascination with and appetite for flying saucer stories informs ‘Mars – Keep Away’ (Spranger art) as the mysterious Mr. Misfit inserts his diminutive self into Plas and Woozy’s hunt for stolen atomic fuel and a flamboyantly crackpot rocketry loon dubbed Professor MacGhoul, after which this slice of vintage class concludes with a deadly duel against murderously marauding vegetable villain ‘The Green Terror’ (illustrated by Alex Kotsky)â€¦

Augmented by all the astoundingly ingenious covers, this is a true gem of funnybook virtuosity: still exciting, breathtakingly original, thrilling, witty, scary, visually outrageous and pictorially intoxicating more than seventy years after Jack Cole first put pen to paper.

Plastic Man is a unique creation and this is a magical experience comics fans would be nuts to miss.
Â© 1946, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

July 7, 2016July 6, 2016

Tarzan Archives: The Joe Kubert Years volume 1

By Joe Kubert with Burne Hogarth (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-404-3

Soon after first publication in 1912 Tarzan of the Apes became a multi-media sensation and global star. More novels and many movies followed; a comic strip arrived in 1929, followed by a radio show in 1932 and the Ape-Man inevitably carved out a solid slice of the comicbook market too once the industry was firmly established.

Western Publishing were a big publishing and printing outfit based on America’s West Coast, rivalling DC and Marvel at the height of their powers. They specialised in licensed properties and the jewels in their crown were all the comics starring the Walt Disney and Warner Brothers cartoon characters.

The publishers famously never capitulated to the wave of anti-comics hysteria that resulted in the crippling self-censorship of the 1950s. Dell Comics – and latter imprints Gold Key and Whitman – never displayed a Comics Code Authority symbol on their covers. They never needed toâ€¦

Dell also sought out other properties like movie or newspaper strip franchises, and would become inextricably associated with TV adaptations once the small screen monopolised modern homes.

In 1948 Dell produced the first all-new Tarzan comicbook. The newspaper strip had previously provided plenty of material for expurgated reprint editions until Dell Four Color Comic #134 (February 1947).

This milestone featured a lengthy, captivating tale of the Ape-Man scripted by Robert P Thompson – who wrote both the Tarzan radio show and aforementioned syndicated strip â€“ with art by the legendary Jesse Marsh.

Marsh & Thompson’s Tarzan returned with two further tales in Dell Four Color Comic #161, cover-dated August 1947. This was a frankly remarkable feat: Four Colour was a catch-all umbrella title that featured literally hundreds of different licensed properties – often as many as ten separate issues per month – so such a rapid return meant pretty solid sales figures.

Within six months the bimonthly Tarzan #1 was released (January/February 1948), beginning an unbroken run that only ended in 1977, albeit by a convoluted routeâ€¦

After decades as Whitman staples, licensing of Edgar Rice Burroughs properties was transferred to DC – not just Tarzan and his extended family, but also fantasy pioneers John Carter of Mars, Carson of Venus, Pellucidar and others – with the new company continuing the original numbering.

Tarzan #207 had an April 1972 cover-date and the series carried on until February 1977 and issue #258. From then on Marvel, Malibu and Dark Horse extended the jungle Lord’s comicbook canonâ€¦

The early 1970s were the last real glory days of National/DC Comics. As they slowly lost market-share to Marvel, they responded by producing controversial and landmark superhero material, but their greatest strength lay – as it always had – in the variety and quality of its genre divisions.

Mystery and Supernatural, Romance, War and Kids’ titles remained strong or even thrived and the company’s eye for a strong brand was as keen as ever.

Tarzan had been a mainstay of Dell/Gold Key, and a global multi-media phenomenon, so when DC acquired rights they justifiably trumpeted it out, putting one of their top creators in sole charge of the legendary Ape-Man’s monthly exploits, as well as generating a boutique bunch of ERB titles in a variety of formats.

The DC incarnation premiered in a blaze of publicity at the height of a nostalgia boom and was generally well received by fans. For many of us, those years provided the definitive graphic Tarzan, thanks solely to the efforts of the Editor, publisher and illustrator who shepherded the Ape-man through the transition. They were all the same guy: Joe Kubert.

Kubert was born in 1926 in rural Southeast Poland (which became Ukraine and might be Outer Russia by the time you read this). At age two his parents took him to America and he grew up in Brooklyn. According to his Introduction his earliest memory of cartooning was Hal Foster’s Tarzan Sunday stripsâ€¦

Joe’s folks encouraged him to draw from an early age and the precocious kid began a glittering career at the start of the Golden Age, before he was even a teenager. Working and learning at the Chesler comics packaging â€œShopâ€, MLJ, Holyoke and assorted other outfits, he began his close association with National/DC in 1943. A canny survivor of the Great Depression he also maintained outside contacts, dividing his time and energies between Fiction House, Avon, Harvey and All-American Comics, where he particularly distinguished himself on The Flash and Hawkman.

In the early 1950s he and old school chum Norman Maurer were the creative force behind publishers St. Johns: creating evergreen caveman Tor and launching the 3D comics craze with Three Dimension Comics.

Joe never stopped freelancing, appearing in EC’s Two-Fisted Tales, Avon’s Strange Worlds, Lev Gleason Publications & Atlas Comics until in 1955 when, with the industry imploding, he took a permanent position at DC, only slightly diluted whilst he illustrated the contentious and controversial newspaper strip Tales of the Green Berets from 1965 to 1968. From then on he split his time drawing Sgt. Rock and other features, designing covers and editing DC’s line of war comicbooks.

And then DC acquired Tarzanâ€¦

This first fabulous hardcover archive (also available in digital formats) collects the lead stories from Tarzan #207-214 (April-November 1972); a tour de force of passion transubstantiated into stunning comic art, with Kubert writing, illustrating and lettering. Moreover, the vibrant colours in this epic re-presentation is based on Tatjana Wood’s original guides, offering readers a superbly authentic and immersive experience whether you’re coming fresh to the material or joyously revisiting a beloved lost time.

The only disconcerting things about this stellar compilation are the cover reproductions, which appear in all their iconic glory but manipulated to remove DC’s trademark logos. The mightiest force in the modern jungle is still Intellectual Property lawyersâ€¦

The tense suspense begins with an adaptation of first novel Tarzan of the Apes and opens with a safari deep in the jungle. A pretty rich girl is driving her white guide and native bearers at a ferocious pace as she desperately hunts for her missing father.

When a bronzed god bursts into view battling a panther, she watches aghast as human impossibly triumphs over killer cat and then beats his chest whilst emitting an astounding scream. As the terrifying figure vanishes back into the green hell the girl’s questions are grudgingly answered by the old hunter who relates a legend he has heardâ€¦

‘Origin of Tarzan of the Apes’ depicts how, following a shipboard mutiny, John Clayton, Lord Greystoke and his wife Lady Alice are marooned on the African coast with all their possessions, including the vast library of books and Primers intended for their soon to be born babyâ€¦

Against appalling odds they persevered, with Greystoke building a fortified cabin to shelter them from marauding beasts, especially the curious and savage apes which roam the region. Despite the birth of a son, eventually the jungle won and the humans perished, but their son was saved by a grieving she-ape who adopted the baby to replace her own recently killed â€œBaluâ€â€¦

The ugly, hairless boy thrived under Kala‘s doting attentions, growing strong but increasingly aware that he was intrinsically different. He only discovered the how and why after years of diligent effort: through sheer intellectual effort and the remnants of his father’s books and papers, Tarzan learned to read and deduced that he was a M-A-Nâ€¦

The tale within a tale continues in ‘A Son’s Vengeance: Origin of the Ape-Man Book 2’ as the boy rises to prominence amongst his hirsute tribe and through imagination and invention masters all the beasts of his savage environment. Eventually a brutal, nomadic tribe of natives settle in the area and Tarzan has his first contact with creatures he correctly identifies as being M-E-N like himâ€¦

The new situation leads to the greatest tragedy of his life as a hunter of M’Bonga’s tribe kills beloved, devoted Kala and Tarzan learns the shock of loss and overpowering hunger for revengeâ€¦

Issue #209 revealed how civilisation finally caught up with Tarzan as ‘A Mate For the Ape-Man: Origin of the Ape-Man Book 3’ saw him meet and save American Jane Porter, her elderly father and his own cousin.

Just as had happened years earlier, these unlucky voyagers were marooned by mutineers. Discovering John Clayton’s cabin, the castaways find the lost peer’s diary, which is of especial interest to William Clayton, the current Lord Greystoke. As tensions rise and humans die, Tarzan takes his golden haired mate deep into the impenetrable verdureâ€¦

Both tales conclude neatly and tantalisingly in ‘Civilisation: Origin of the Ape-Man Book 4’ as innately noble Tarzan returns Jane to her fiancÃ© William Clayton in time for the westerners to be rescued by French Officer Paul D’Arnot.

When the dashing Lieutenant is captured and tortured by M’Bonga’s tribesmen, Tarzan rescues him and nurses the Frenchman back to health. In return the officer teaches him to speak the human languages that up until that moment he could only read and write inâ€¦

By then however the navy vessel and saved souls have all sailed away, each carrying their own secrets with themâ€¦

With no other options, lovelorn Tarzan agrees to accompany D’Arnot back to civilisation. The eternal comrades eventually settle in Paris with Tarzan practically indistinguishable from other menâ€¦

Even today ‘Origin of the Ape-Man’ is still the most faithful adaptation of ERB’s novel in any medium: potent and evocative, fiercely expressive, a loving and utterly visceral true translation of the landmark saga.

Kubert’s intent was to adapt all 24 Burroughs novels and intersperse them with short, complete tales, but the workload, coupled with his other editorial duties was crippling. To buy some time #211 combined old with new as ‘Land of the Giants’ partially adapted and incorporated Don Garden & Burne Hogarth’s newspaper strip tale ‘Tarzan and the Fatal Mountain’: Sunday strip pages #582-595 which had originally ran from May 3^rd to August 2^nd 1942 (you can see that saga in al its uncut glory by tracking down Tarzan versus the Barbarians (Complete Burne Hogarth Comic Strip Library volume 2).

Here a battle with crocodiles dumps Tarzan in a lost valley where giant natives are being persecuted by deformed, diminutive outworlder Martius Kalban who hungers for the secrets of their prodigious size and strength. Even after gaining his dark desire, Kalban finds himself no match for the outraged Ape-Manâ€¦

‘The Captive!’ is a latter-day exploit, beginning a run of yarns based on the short stories comprising ERB’s book Jungle Tales of Tarzan. Here the relationship between Ape-Man and the elephants is explored with each saving the other from the ever-present threat of the hunters of M’Bongaâ€¦

The Jungle Tales reworkings continue with ‘Balu of the Great Apes’ as childhood friends of Tarzan becomes incomprehensibly aggressive after the birth of their first baby and this first astounding compilation ends with ‘The Nightmare’ as starving Tarzan steals and gorges on meat and drink from the native village. The resultant food-poisoning takes him on a hallucinogenic journey he will never forget and almost costs his life when he can no longer tell phantasm from genuine threatâ€¦

Supplemented by full Creator Biographies of Burroughs and Kubert, this tome is a masterpiece of comics creation no lover of the medium or fantasy fan can afford to be without.
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan Â® The Joe Kubert Years Volume One Â© 1972, 2005 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All rights reserved. Tarzan Â® is owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., and used by permission.

July 6, 2016July 5, 2016

Blake and Mortimer: Professor SatÅ’s Three Formulae Part 2 â€“ Mortimer versus Mortimer

By Edgar P. Jacobs & Bob De Moor with colours by Paul-Serge Marssignac, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-303-1

Belgian Edgard FÃ©lix Pierre Jacobs (March 30^th 1904-February 20^th 1987) is rightly considered one of the founding fathers of the Continental comics industry. Although his output was relatively modest compared to many of his iconic contemporaries, Jacobs’ landmark serialised epic starring scientific adventurers Professor Philip Mortimer and Captain Francis Blake practically formed the backbone of the modern action-adventure comic in Europe.

His splendidly adroit, roguish yet thoroughly British adventurers were conceived and realised for the very first issue of Le Journal de Tintin in 1946, and quickly became a crucial staple of life for post-war European kids – in exactly the same way Dan Dare was for 1950s Britain.

Jacobs was born in Brussels, a precocious child perpetually drawing, but even more obsessed with music and the performing arts – especially opera. He attended a commercial school but loathed the idea of office work, so instead avidly pursued arts and drama on his graduation in 1919.

A succession of odd jobs at opera-houses (scene-painting, set decoration and even performing as both an acting and singing extra) supplemented his private performance studies, and in 1929 Jacobs won an award from the Government for classical singing.

His dreamed-of operatic career was thwarted by the Great Depression. When arts funding suffered massive cutbacks following the global stock market crash, he was compelled to pick up whatever dramatic work was going, although this did include more singing and performing.

Jacobs switched to commercial illustration in 1940, winning regular work in the magazine Bravo, as well as illustrating short stories and novels. He famously took over the syndicated Flash Gordon strip after the occupying German authorities banned Alex Raymond’s quintessentially All-American Hero and the publishers desperately sought someone to satisfactorily complete the saga.

Jacobs’ ‘Stormer Gordon’ lasted less than a month before being similarly embargoed by the Occupation fun-police, after which the man of many talents simply created his own epic science-fantasy feature in the legendary Le Rayon U: a milestone in both Belgian comics and science fiction adventure.

During this period Jacobs and Tintin creator HergÃ© got together, and whilst creating the weekly U Ray strip, the younger man began assisting on Tintin, colouring the original black and white strips of The Shooting Star (originally run in newspaper Le Soir) for an upcoming album collection.

By 1944 Jacobs was performing similar duties on Tintin in the Congo, Tintin in America, King Ottokar’s Sceptre and The Blue Lotus. He was also contributing to the drawing too, working on the extended epic The Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners of the Sun.

After the war and liberation, publisher Raymond Leblanc convinced HergÃ©, Jacobs and a few other comicstrip stars to work for his proposed new venture. Founding publishing house Le Lombard, Leblanc also commissioned Le Journal de Tintin, an anthology comic with simultaneous editions in Belgium, France and Holland to be edited by HergÃ© and starring the intrepid boy reporter supplemented by a host of newer heroes.

Beside HergÃ©, Jacobs and writer Jacques van Melkebeke, Le Journal de Tintin featured Paul Cuvelier’s ‘Corentin’ and Jacques Laudy’s ‘The Legend of the Four Aymon Brothers’.

As revealed in an enticing, photo-packed essay closing this Cinebook volume, Blake and Mortimer were a lucky compromise. Jacobs had wanted to create a period historical drama entitled Roland the Bold but changed genres due to an overabundance of such stripsâ€¦

Laudy had been a friend of Jacobs’ since their time together on Bravo, and the first instalment of the epic thriller serial ‘Le secret de l’Espadon’ starred a bluff, gruff British scientist and an English Military Intelligence officer closely modelled on Laudy himselfâ€¦

The initial storyline ran from issue #1 (26^th September 1946) to September 8^th 1949) and cemented Jacobs’ status as a star in his own right.

In 1950, with the first 18 pages slightly redrawn, The Secret of the Swordfish became Le Lombard’s first album release, with the concluding part published three years later. The volumes were reprinted nine more times between 1955 and 1982, in addition to a single omnibus edition released in 1964.

HergÃ© and Jacobs purportedly suffered a split in 1947 when the former refused to grant the latter a by-line on new Tintin material they had collaborated on, but since the two remained friends for life and Jacobs continued to produce Blake and Mortimer for the weekly comic, I think it’s fair to assume that if such was the case it was a pretty minor spat. I rather suspect that the Eccentric Englishmen were simply taking up more and more of the diligent artist’s time and attentionâ€¦

In 1984 The Secret of the Swordfish was reformatted and repackaged for English translation as three volumes with additional material (mostly covers from the weekly Tintin added to the story as splash pages): part of a push to win some of the lucrative Tintin and Asterix market here. Sadly the tall tomes failed to find an audience and ended after seven magnificent if under-appreciated volumes.

Now happily Cinebook have finally made the Gentleman Heroes a bankable proposition, releasing all 23 extant albums with the most recent – due to the quirks of publishing – being the original twelfth and the last one that Jacobs was involved with.

For further details please check out yesterday’s review, but suffice to say that the concluding instalment of Professor SatÅ’s Three Formulae was a long time coming â€¦

Les 3 formules du professeur SatÅ – Mortimer contre Mortimer was a tragically extended affair and only credited Jacobs as writer and layout artist. The eleventh album had been serialised between September 1971 and May 1972 in Tintin after which the author simply abandoned his story due to failing health and other issues.

He died on February 20^th 1987 and soon after veteran cartoonist Bob de Moor (Bart de Scheepsjongen, Monsieur Tric, Cori le Moussaillon, Balthazar, Barelli and so many others) was commissioned by his family and estate to complete his final tale from Jacob’s pencils and notes.

The concluding album was finally released in March 1990, leading to a republishing of all the earlier exploits and eventually new adventures from a variety of creative teamsâ€¦

Rather than make you wait eighteen years for the conclusion, here’s E.P Jacobs’ final foray starring the beloved tour de force scientific investigators.

As described yesterday, boisterous boffin Mortimer was in Japan when urgently contacted by robotics pioneer and cyberneticist supreme Professor Akira SatÅ. That savant had accomplished miracles in the mass-production of highly specialised mechanoids and androids, but his discoveries – parsed down into three crucial processes and deposited in three separate banks – were being targeted by a ruthless gang led by Blake and Mortimer’s greatest enemy.

The villains had infiltrated SatÅ‘s home and laboratory and tried to murder Mortimer numerous times before creating a robot duplicate of the British scientist, but had been unable to stop a summons for help going out to his Secret Service ally. Now, with Blake imminently expected, the gang had to radically move up their timetableâ€¦

Captain Blake is watched from the moment he disembarks at Haneda Airport and the hidden enemies are already in place at the hotel where he is staying. The MI5 chief has the suite next to Mortimer’s, and although his old comrade is missing, finds plenty of clues as to what has happened to him. The diligent search also uncovers the video surveillance gear infesting both rooms and sets his watchers running for the exits in panicâ€¦

A hasty pursuit only leads to his own capture but, with fortune ever favouring the brave, Blake turns the tables on his foes in a deadly clash in the hotel garages and sends them all fleeing for their lives.

By the time he has connected with Police Superintendent Hasumi and briefed Colonel Mitsu of the Japanese Public Security Intelligence Agency, the assailants have vanished, but Blake is building a picture of what is going on. To end the Englishman’s threat forever, a diabolical and desperate scheme is devised: creating a second Mortimer robot to assassinate Blakeâ€¦

Turncoat assistant Kim is nervous. Although he’s happy to use Professor SatÅ‘s incredible inventions to detain Mortimer and his former employer, the traitor is not conversant enough with the production procedures to guarantee success. Nevertheless, soon a deadly doppelganger of the British Professor is despatched to kill Blakeâ€¦

Meanwhile, the real Mortimer has not been idle. With SatÅ‘s aid he has escaped the lab prison and rushes to intercept the android assassin, but is unaware that behind him, unqualified hands have meddled with the duplication processes and a legion of horrific misfit mechanoids are tumbling off the conveyor beltsâ€¦

What follows is a succession of spectacular chases, frantic battles and a final shattering showdown between Blake, Mortimer and the man who has bedevilled their lives since the days of the Swordfish case â€“ a fitting end to the epic adventures and, thanks to the graphic efforts of De Moor, a perfect, revitalising stepping stone for other creators to renew and continue the featureâ€¦

Rocket-paced, suspenseful and cathartically action-packed, this is an enthralling changing-of-the-guard building to an explosive conclusion and satisfying final flourish, resulting in another superbly stylish blockbuster to delight every adventure addict.

As well as the aforementioned historical overview – ‘Jacobs: 1946, the Swordfish, starting point of a masterful work’ – this Cinebook edition also includes excerpts from two other Blake & Mortimer albums plus a short biographical feature and publication chart of Jacobs’ and his successors’ efforts.
Original edition Â© Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud-Lombard s. a.) 1990 by E.P. Jacobs & Bob De Moor. All rights reserved. English translation Â© 2016 Cinebook Ltd.

July 5, 2016July 4, 2016

Blake and Mortimer: Professor SatÅ’s Three Formulae Part 1 – Mortimer in Tokyo

By Edgar P. Jacobs, with colours by Paul-Serge Marssignac, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-292-8

Pre-eminent fantasy raconteur Edgar P. Jacobs devised one of the greatest heroic double acts in pulp fiction: pitting his distinguished scientific adventurers Professor Philip Mortimer and Captain Francis Blake against a broad variety of perils and menaces in a sequence of stellar action-thrillers which merged science fiction scope, detective mystery suspense and supernatural thrills. The magic was made perfect through his stunning illustrations, rendered in the timeless Ligne Claire style which had made intrepid boy-reporter Tintin a global sensation.

The Doughty Duo debuted in September 1946; gracing the pages of the very first issue of Le Journal de Tintin. This was an ambitious international anthology comic with editions in Belgium, France and Holland, edited by HergÃ©, with his eponymous, world famous star ably supplemented by a host of new heroes and features for the rapidly-changing post-war worldâ€¦

Les 3 formules du professeur SatÅ was a tragically extended affair and Jacob’s last hurrah. What became the eleventh album was serialised between September 1971 and May 1972 in Tintin, after which the author abandoned his story due to failing health and other personal issues.

Edgard FÃ©lix Pierre Jacobs died on February 20^th 1987 and soon after Bob de Moor was commissioned by his family and estate to complete his final tale from Jacob’s pencil roughs and script notes. The concluding album was finally released in March 1990. This led to a republishing of all the earlier exploits and eventually fresh adventures from a variety of creative teamsâ€¦

Here however the action opens at Haneda Airport, Tokyo where Air Traffic Controllers experience a unique problem as a UFO disrupts their carefully plotted flight courses. With disaster imminent two Starfighter jets are scrambled to pursue the meteoric anomaly and, just before they are destroyed, the pilots radio back they are being attacked by a dragonâ€¦

As the news filters around the world, renowned cyberneticist Professor Akira SatÅ argues with his assistant Dr. Kim, deeply remorseful that his latest breakthrough has been the cause of such tragedy. Kim only barely dissuades his Sensei from turning himself in to the authorities but is utterly unable to convince or prevent SatÅ from involving visiting colleague Philip Mortimer in his crisis of conscienceâ€¦

The British Professor is in Kyoto attending a succession of scientific conferences, but when an ominous outsider hears of SatÅ’s intentions through hidden surveillance methods, the reaction is both explosive and potentially murderousâ€¦

The first Mortimer knows of the problem is when a gang of gunmen attempt to kidnap him off the streets, but after fighting them off and escaping the old warrior returns to his hotel and finds a telegram waiting for himâ€¦

An urgent request to join old friend SatÅ immediately seems impossible to accomplish due to stringencies of train timetabling, but an accommodating journalist overhears and offers a speedy compromiseâ€¦

Mortimer is suspicious of the happy accidentâ€¦ but not suspicious enoughâ€¦

Surviving another assassination attempt by sheer force of will, the professor is then lost in the wilds of Japan but eventually manages to battle his way to SatÅ’s lab outside Tokyo where he witnesses a series of astonishing sights.

His host has worked miracles in the fields of robotics – including the dragon which so recently and horrifically malfunctioned – but is at a loss to explain how his incredible creations have gone wrong at such a late stage.

Worldly-wise Mortimer soon deduces the causes: espionage and sabotageâ€¦

As the British boffin sends for his old comrade-in-arms Captain Blake, SatÅ is comforted by the fact that the key formulae for producing his mechanical marvels have been divided and deposited at three different banks in Tokyo. The Sensei breathes even easier after arranging that only Mortimer can retrieve them but this only prompts their hidden enemy to accelerate his plans and reveal himself as one of Mortimer’s greatest foesâ€¦

Unable to induce or force Mortimer to retrieve the scientific goldmine, the mastermind has an android double constructed to visit the banks but the rush-job breaks down before the task is completed. Now the vile villain has only more card to play before the formidable Blake arrivesâ€¦

This Cinebook edition then concludes with excerpts from two other Blake & Mortimer albums (The Time Trap and a tantalising glimpse of Professor SatÅ’s Three Formulae Part 2) plus a short biographical feature and publication chart of Jacobs’ and his successors’ efforts to whet the appetite for further treats in storeâ€¦ Cunning and convoluted, this devilishly devious tale unfolds with potent authenticity and ever-escalating tension, building to an explosive conclusion which eventually took eighteen years to conclude. At least we don’t have to wait that near life-time for the epic denouement…
Original edition Â© Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud-Lombard S. A.) 1977 by E.P. Jacobs. All rights reserved. English translation Â© 2016 Cinebook Ltd.

July 4, 2016

Creepy Presents Steve Ditko

By Archie Goodwin, Steve Ditko, dddf & (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-216-9

Once upon a time the short complete tale was the sole staple of the comicbook profession, where the intent was to deliver as much variety and entertainment fulfilment as possible to the reader. Sadly that particular discipline is all but lost to us todayâ€¦

Steve Ditko is one of our industry’s greatest talents and one of America’s least lauded. His fervent desire to just get on with his job and to tell stories the best way he can, whilst the noblest of aspirations, has been and will always be a minor consideration or even stumbling block for the commercial interests which for so long monopolised comics production and which still exert an overwhelming influence upon the mainstream bulk of Funnybook output.

Before his time at Marvel, Ditko perfected his craft creating immaculately paced, staged and rendered short stories for a variety of companies; tirelessly honing his craft with genre tales for whichever publisher would have him, utterly free from the interference of over-intrusive editors.

Even after hitting the big time at Marvel and DC it’s a creative arena he stayed active in, and this collection gathers some of his rarest yet most accomplished examples, produced at a time when a hidebound industry was just starting to open up to new publishers and fresh themes.

After Ditko’s legendary disagreements with Stan Lee led to his quitting Marvel – where his groundbreaking work made the reclusive genius (at least in comicbook terms) a household name – he resumed his long association with Charlton Comics but also found work at Warren Publications under whiz-kid writer/Editor Archie Goodwin.

The details are fully recounted in Mark Evanier’s biographically informative Foreword, as are hints of the artist’s later spells of creative brilliance at DC Comics, the growing underground movement and nascent independent comics sceneâ€¦

The erudite and economical Mr. Evanier even finds room to describe and critique the differing art techniques Ditko experimented with during his brief tenureâ€¦

Whilst working for Warren – between 1966 and 1967 – Ditko enjoyed a great deal of editorial freedom and cooperation. He produced sixteen moody monochrome masterpieces – most written by Goodwin – and all crafted without interference from the Comics Code Authority’s draconian and nonsensical rules. They ranged from wonderfully baroque and bizarre fantasy, spooky suspense and science fiction yarns, limited only by the bounds of good tasteâ€¦ or at least as far as horror tales can beâ€¦

And whilst we’re name-checking unsung heroes, it’s only fair to reveal that all were lettered by Ben Oda or Bill Yoshida.

The uncanny yarns appeared in black-&-white magazine anthologies Creepy and Eerie, affording Ditko time and room to experiment with not only a larger page, differing styles and media, but also dabble in then-unknown comics genresâ€¦

Those lost Warren stories have been gathered into a spectacular oversized (284 x 218 mm) hardback compendium – part of a series of all-star artist compilations which also includes Rich Corben and Bernie Wrightson amongst others – and begins here with the short shockers from Creepy.

From #9 and delivered in beguiling wash-tones, ‘The Spirit of the Thing!’ starts with shadows and screams, moves on to a dying man and reveals how teacher and student battle in a mind-bending phantasmagorical other-realm for possession of the same healthy body, whilst in #10 ‘Collector’s Edition!’ returns to crisp black line art to detail an obsessive bibliophile’s hunt for a mystic tomeâ€¦ and the reason he should have left well enough aloneâ€¦

Gripping grey-tones reveal how a gullible prize-fighter is manipulated into becoming a bludgeoning ‘Beast Man!’ after which Creepy #12 saw a disturbed man turn to a psychoanalyst to cure his delusions in ‘Blood of the Werewolf!’ Of all the headshrinkers in all the worldâ€¦

Throughout his time at Marvel – and especially on Doctor Strange – Ditko had been increasingly applauded for his astounding other-dimensional scenes and depictions. In ‘Second Chance!’, that facility is especially exercised as a wise guy regrets his earlier deal with the devil before ‘Where Sorcery Lives!’ pre-empts and anticipates the 1970s Sword-&-Sorcery boom (and Ditko’s own Stalker at DC) as quintessential barbarian hero Garth battles the ghastly legions of vile necromancer Salamand the Sorcererâ€¦

Creepy #15 introduced another sword-swinging proto-Conan in ‘Thane: City of Doom!’, wherein the unwashed warrior titanically thrashes thaumic terrors but nearly succumbs to the hidden threats of a comely queenâ€¦

Goodwin did not script the last Creepy yarn for Ditko in #16. ‘The Sands that Change!’ was devised by Clark Dimond & Terry Bisson who produced the self-referential tale of a comics artist and his wife falling victim to macabre forces on a desert vacation. Although the story is pedestrian, Ditko’s choice of materials to illustrate it elevate it to one of the most memorable in his uncanny canonâ€¦

The rest of this blockbusting terror-tome re-presents Ditko & Goodwin’s Eerie efforts, starting with ‘Room With a View!’ from #3. Again rendered in claustrophobic line art, it details how a tired, obnoxious traveller insists on taking residence in a cheap suite his hotelier would do anything not to rentâ€¦

From #4 ‘Shrieking Man!’ reveals how an incurable maniac is brought back from agonising insanity by a new doctor, much to the regret of the asylum chief who caused the condition, after which ‘Black Magic’ rolls back the years to mediaeval Europe and a final battle between sorcerer and apprenticeâ€¦

An affluent but greedy jeweller learns to forever regret taking the ‘Deep Ruby!’ from a desperate hobo in Eerie #6, whilst an underworld plastic surgeon is unable to save his latest unsavoury patient from the depredations of ‘Fly!’ in issue #7.

‘Demon Sword!’ explores the darkest recesses of psychological transformation and temptation after which ‘Isle of the Beast!’ (Eerie #9) revisits the hoary Man-hunting-Men plot, but proves that you can never be too careful about who you pick as victimâ€¦

The scary sessions conclude with fantasy feast ‘Warrior of Death!’ as a barbarian warlord makes a deal with Death and learns that Higher Beings just cannot be trustedâ€¦

This voluminous volume has episodes which terrify, amaze, amuse and enthral: utter delights of fantasy fiction with lean, stripped down plots and a dark wit which lets the art set the tone, push the emotions and tell the tale, from times when a story could end sadly as well as happily and only wonderment was on the agenda, hidden or otherwise.

These stories display the sharp wit and dark comedic energy which epitomised both Goodwin and Warren, channelled through Ditko’s astounding versatility and storytelling acumen: another cracking collection of his works not only superb in its own right but also a telling affirmation of the gifts of one of the art-form’s greatest stylists.

This is a book serious comics fans would happily kill, die or be lost in a devil-dimension forâ€¦
Creepy, the Creepy logo and all contents Â© 1966, 1967, 2013 by New Comic Company. All rights reserved.

June 28, 2016June 27, 2016

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan: Burne Hogarth’s Lord of the Jungle

By Burne Hogarth with Robert M. Hodes & Skip Kholoff (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-537-5

Modern comics and graphic novels evolved from newspaper comic strips. These daily pictorial features were – until relatively recently – overwhelmingly popular with the public and highly valued by publishers who used them as a powerful tool to guarantee and increase circulation and profits. From the earliest days humour was paramount; hence our terms of usage â€œFunniesâ€ and, of course, â€œComicsâ€.

Despite the odd ancestor or precedent like Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs (comedic when it began in 1924, but gradually moving through mock-heroics to light-action to become a full-blown adventure serial with the introduction of Captain Easy in 1929), the vast bulk of strips produced were generally feel-good laughter-makers or occasional child-oriented fantasy.

The full blown dramatic adventure serial began on January 7^th 1929 with Buck Rogers and Tarzan which both debuted the same day. Both adapted pre-existing prose properties and their influence changed the shape of the medium forever. The 1930s then enjoyed an explosion of such fare, launched with astounding rapidity and success. Not just strips but actual genres were created in that decade which still impact on today’s comicbooks and, in truth, all our popular fiction forms. In fact, your comicbooks started as reprint compilations of such newspaper circulation-fodderâ€¦

In terms of sheer quality of art, the graphic narrative iteration of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels by Canadian commercial artist Harold â€œHalâ€ Foster were unsurpassed, and the strip soon became a firm favourite of the masses. Supplemented by movies, books, a radio show and ubiquitous advertising appearances, White God of the Jungle John Clayton, Lord Greystoke soon became a meta-character. Just like Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan became â€œrealâ€ to the world.

Foster initially quit the strip at the end of the 10-week adaptation of the novel Tarzan of the Apes. He was replaced by Rex Maxon, but returned (at the insistent urging of Burroughs himself) when the black-&-white daily was expanded to include a lush, full colour Sunday page featuring original adventures.

Leaving Maxon to capably handle the Monday through Saturday progression of novel adaptations, Foster produced the epic Sunday page until 1936 (233 consecutive weeks) after which he momentously moved to King Features Syndicate to create his own strip landmark and weekend masterpiece. Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur launched on February 13^th 1937 and is still with us today.

Once the four month backlog of material he had built up was gone, Foster was succeeded by a precociously brilliant 25-year old artist named Burne Hogarth (1911-1996): a young graphic visionary whose superb anatomical skill, cinematic design flair and compelling page composition revolutionised the entire field of action/adventure narrative illustration.

The galvanic modern dynamism of the idealised human figure in today’s comicbooks can be directly attributed to Hogarth’s pioneering drawing and, in later years, his dedicated efforts as an educator.

When Hogarth in turn left the strip he found his way into teaching (he co-founded – with Silas H. Rhodes – the Cartoonist and Illustrators School for returning veterans which evolved into the New York School of Visual Arts) and also authored an invaluable and inspirational series of art textbooks such as Dynamic Anatomy and Dynamic Figure Drawing which influenced generations of aspiring artists.

In the early 1970s Hogarth was lured back to the leafy domain of legendary Lord Greystoke, producing â€“ with co-writer Robert M. Hodes and lettering assistant Skip Kholoff – two magnificent volumes of graphic narrative in the dazzling style that had captivated audiences more than thirty years previously. Recently both were bundled into a magnificent hardback edition by Dark Horse (also available digitally through Kindle and ComiXology) as a magnificent tribute to Hogarth’s mastery.

Tarzan of the Apes is a strong candidate for the title of first Graphic Novel. Originally released in 1972, it stunningly adapts the first half of ERB’s groundbreaking popular classic in large bold panels, vibrantly coloured, accompanied by blocks of Burroughs’ original text. The electric visuals leap out at the reader in a riot of hue and motion as they recount the triumphant, tragic tale of the orphaned scion of British nobility raised to puissant manhood by the Great Apes of Africa.

The saga follows his life as cub of loving she-ape Kala, his rise to prominence amongst his hirsute tribe and how he masters all the beasts of his savage environment. The mighty, brilliant foundling – through intellect alone and the remnants of his father’s papers – learns to read and deduces that he is a Man, but still inflicts brutal vengeance on the human tribesmen responsible for killing beloved, devoted Kala before submerging himself in the ways of the tribe.

The adaptation ends just prior to the arrival of the white woman who will reshape Tarzan’s destiny foreverâ€¦

Four years later Hogarth returned to his subject, but instead of completing his bravura interpretation of Tarzan of the Apes he instead produced an adaptation of the short tales which formed the composite novel Jungle Tales of Tarzan.

That book was a series of episodes reminiscent of Kipling’s â€œJust Soâ€ stories, set before the first fateful meeting with Jane Porter and the Ape-Man’s introduction to civilisation. Instead it related how and when the Lord of the Jungle confronted various cognitive stages in his own intellectual and physical development.

If that sounds dry, it’s not. Burroughs was a master storyteller and his prose crackles with energy and imagination. With this book he was showing how the Ape-man’s intellectual progress was a metaphor for Man’s social, cerebral and even spiritual growth from beast to human. He also never forgot that people love action and broad belly-laughs.

Hogarth was also an acclaimed intellectual and the four tales he adapted here afforded him vast scope to explore his cherished perfect temple that was the Ideal Man. The flowing organic compositions he created for his Jungle Tales of Tarzan are strengthened by the absence of colour, allowing the classicism of his line-work to create stark divisions of form and space that contribute to the metaphysical component of his subject.

The monochrome magic begins with ‘Tarzan’s First Love’ with the adolescent finding himself increasingly drawn to fetching young She-Ape Teeka. However, no matter what he did, the young maiden just wasn’t interested in her ardent, hairless admirerâ€¦

Next to enthral is a savage tale of comradeship as the human befriends mighty elephant Tantor who proves valiant and true following ‘The Capture of Tarzan’ by the local tribesmen responsible for Kala’s death, after which ‘The God of Tarzan’ sees him overdose on his dead father’s books and suffer a brain-expanding religious experienceâ€¦

The drama ends here in a riot of phantasmagoria as young Tarzan steals spoiled, cooked meat from the native villagers and endures ‘The Nightmare’.

Don’t let my effusive verbiage deter you, folks: you don’t need a dictionary to enjoy this work; all you need are eyes to see and a heart to beat faster. This is all vital, violent motion, stretching, leaping, running, fighting, surging power and glory: guaranteed to give indolent comic lovers all the thorough cardio-vascular work-out they’ll ever need…

Edgar Rice Burroughs was a genius at engaging the public’s collective imagination, whilst Hogarth was an inspired and inspirational artisan who, as well as gradually instilling his pages with ferocious, unceasing action, layered his works with subtle symbolism. Heroes looked noble, villains suitably vile and animals powerful, beautiful and deadly. Even vegetation, rocks and clouds looked spiky, edgy and liable to attack at a moment’s noticeâ€¦

This compilation is a vivid visual masterwork: a coiled-spring tension of vigorous vitality and explosive action and dream come true for every generation of dedicated fantasists to enjoy.

Magnificent, majestic, awe-inspiring, crucial comics entertainment.
Â© 1972, 1976, 2014 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All rights reserved. Tarzan Â® is owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., and used by permission.

June 25, 2016June 25, 2016

The Shadow volume 1: The Fire of Creation

By Garth Ennis, Aaron Campbell, Carlos Lopez & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-361-2

In the early 1930s, The Shadow gave thrill-starved readers their measured doses of extraordinary excitement via cheaply produced periodical novels dubbed – because of the low-grade paper they were printed on – â€œpulpsâ€ and, over the mood-drenched airwaves, through his own radio show.

Pulp titles were published in their hundreds every month, ranging from the truly excellent to the pitifully dire, in every style and genre, but for exotic adventure lovers there were two star characters who outshone all others. The Superman of his day was Doc Savage, Man of Bronze, whilst the premier dark, relentless creature of the night dispensing terrifying grim justice was the mysterious slouch-hatted hero under discussion here.

Originally, the radio series Detective Story Hour – based on stand-alone yarns from the Street & Smith publication Detective Story Magazine – used a spooky voiced narrator (variously Orson Welles, James LaCurto and Frank Readick Jr.) to introduce each tale. He was dubbed â€œthe Shadowâ€ and from the very start on July 31^st 1930, he was more popular than the stories he introduced.

The Shadow evolved into a proactive hero solving instead of narrating mysteries and, on April 1^st 1931, starred in his own pulp series written by the incredibly prolific Walter Gibson under the house pseudonym Maxwell Grant. On September 26^th 1937 the radio show officially became The Shadow with the eerie motto â€œWho knows what evil lurks in the hearts of Men? The Shadow knows!â€ ringing out unforgettably over the nation’s airwaves.

Over the next eighteen years 325 novels were published, usually at the rate of two a month. The uncanny crusader spawned comic books, seven movies, a newspaper strip and all the merchandising paraphernalia you’d expect of a superstar brand.

The pulp series officially ended in 1949 although Gibson and others added to the canon during the 1960s when a pulp/fantasy revival gripped America, generating reprinted classic stories and a run of new adventures as paperback novels.

As hinted above, in graphic terms The Shadow was a major player. His national newspaper strip – by Vernon Greene – launched on June 17^th 1940 and when comicbooks really took off the Man of Mystery had his own four-colour title; running from March 1940 to September 1949.

Archie Comics published a controversial contemporary comicbook in 1964-1965 under their Radio/Mighty Comics imprint, by Robert Bernstein, Jerry Siegel, John Rosenberger and latterly Paul Reinman; and in 1973 DC acquired the rights to produce a captivating, brief and definitive series of classic comic adventures unlike any other superhero title then on the stands.

DC periodically revived the venerable vigilante. After the runaway success of Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchman, Chaykin was allowed to utterly overhaul the vintage feature. This led to further, adult-oriented iterations (and even one cracking outing from Marvel) before Dark Horse assumed the license of the quintessential grim avenger for the latter half of the 1990s and beyond.

Dynamite Entertainment picked up the option in 2011 and, as well as republishing many of those other publisher’s earlier versions, began a series of new monthly Shadow comics. Set in the turbulent 1930s and 1940s these yarns were designed as self-contained story arcs, crafted by some of the top writers in the industry, each taking their shot at the immortal legend, and all winningly depicted by a succession of extremely gifted illustrators. First to fire was the incomparable Garth Ennis who muted his signature black humour for this tale screaming of unrequited injusticeâ€¦

It begins with a prÃ©cis of Japan’s official invasion of China in 1937 and the appalling atrocities inflicted by their forces as they began building their â€œGreater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphereâ€, jumping a few years and to the docks of New York City, where a dark angel dispenses bloody judgement to a murderous band of crooked dockworkers.

A little later abrasive, indolent playboy Lamont Cranston joins Washington insider Mr. Landers and his gung-ho young protÃ©gÃ© Pat Finnegan at the Algonquin Hotel. They are meeting to discuss an imminent crisis amidst the worsening situation in the East, and how the massacre at the pier was connected to it. Specifically, two of the bodies dropped at the scene were high-ranking Japanese agentsâ€¦

Despite Finnegan’s outspoken distaste at involving a civilian dilettante, a tale is shared of a rare mineral that both America and Japan will do anything to obtain. Cranston agrees to lead a small party into China to secure the samples (originally dug up by prospecting American geologists before they vanished) for the Land of the Free.

Of great concern is the unspecified part played by Taro Kondo: a formidable and ruthless Major in the Japanese intelligence service that Cranston had some unsavoury dealings with during his younger, less salubrious years in the Eastâ€¦

As Cranston prepares his paramour and assistant Margo Lane for the rigours that lie ahead, she has no conception of how much true horror and mass slaughter the Shadow has foreseen for the years to comeâ€¦

Whilst Finnegan travels by spartan military plane transport, Cranston and Margo escape his juvenile jingoistic fervour by taking a Pacific Clipper. However their luxurious voyage is abruptly ended when they are attacked by Nazi agents masquerading as rich, indolent vacationers. The bloodbath that results brings down the plane and our heroes barely survive, but they have far greater things to worry aboutâ€¦

Ahead of them Kondo leads ambitious Emperor-lover and sexual deviant General Akamatsu on a tawdry trek to meet Chinese bandit Lord Wong Pang-Yan, descriptively and accurately known to all as â€œthe Buffaloâ€.

The grotesque and greedy barbarian is their only means of acquiring the mineral they crave, and Kondo is eager to placate his haughty, nauseated superior. After all, they know the Shadow is coming and have other plans in place to deal with him. To soothe the General’s nerves Kondo promises he can behead the double-dealing Buffalo; as soon as they have the enigmatic matter poetically described as the Spirit-Weapon or Fire of Creationâ€¦

Since Buffalo Wong originally offered his treasure to many nations, there are a number of expeditions converging on the region. As a Japanese fighter plane removes the Soviet military force from the game, Kondo gloats at another problem solved and returns to placating his aggravating, arrogant superior.

It’s only a minor inconvenience to him that Cranston has survived his German allies’ attack and rendezvoused with the American agent Finnegan in Shanghaiâ€¦

As the Yankees’ arrangements to use a British Navy vessel to reach Wong’s stronghold are finalised, Kondo’s assassins strike but once again are no match for the mesmerism and gunplay of the Shadow.

To make a point, the Dark Avenger not only eliminates his attackers but weeds out and ends every Japanese and German agent in the cityâ€¦

At least the delay gives Kondo’s party a good head start. As their sailing boat (an unpowered Junk) navigates the great river, the former smuggler and crimelord passes the time by sharing all he knows about the human monster Kent Allard who was his criminal rival fifteen years previously. He doesn’t know how that despicable rogue became the man now known as Cranston, but is certain he is still the most implacable and remorseless killer on Earthâ€¦

Behind them Finnegan, determined to prove his manhood and authority, pushes the British Commander and crew. Resolved to catch Kondo’s military detachment before they reach their ultimate destination, he sees first hand the atrocities the Japanese soldiers casually inflict on â€œlesserâ€ races, and in his disgust and inexperience leads the gunboat into a lethal trap.

Only he, Margo and the insufferable Cranston surviveâ€¦

Far ahead of them Kondo and Akamatsu make their final trade with Wong – miracle mineral for gold – and the inevitable double-crossing and bloodletting begins.

What none of the treacherous villains realize is that the vengeful Shadow is already amongst them, cutting down soldiers and bandits like chaff as he patiently, determinedly makes his way to the true cause of all the terrorâ€¦

At last Kondo realises he has only one card left to playâ€¦

Dynamite publish periodicals with a vast array of cover variants and here a vast collected gallery highlights dozens of iconic visions from Alex Ross, Chaykin, John Cassaday, Stephen Segovia, Ryan Sook, Sean Chen, Francesco Francavilla & Jae Lee. Adding to the Bonus Material is Ennis’s script for the first issue, and gloriously gilding the lily is a mountain of powerful pencil studies by Ross and Lee.

Sardonic, brutal and deviously convoluted, The Fire of Creation is a splendid addition to the annals of the ultimate and original Dark Knight, and one no lover of action and mystery can afford to miss.
The Shadow Â® & Â© 2012 Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. d/b/a Conde Nast. All Rights Reserved.

June 18, 2016

Batman in the Forties

By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Gardner Fox, Jack Schiff, Dick Sprang, Jerry Robinson, George Roussos, Jack Burnley, Winslow Mortimer, Charles Paris, Jim Mooney & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0206-3

Part of a series of trade paperbacks intended to define DC’s top heroes through the decades (the other being Superman, of course) these compilations always deliver a superb wallop of comicbook magic and a tantalising whiff of other, arguably better and certainly less unstable times.

Divided into discrete sections (and breaking its own rules by including some material from 1939), partitioned by spectacular cover galleries, this timeless treasure trove of cape-&-cowl action commences with an informative Introduction from comics historian Bill Schelly who adds context and commentary before the exotic nostalgia begins with a selection dedicated to ‘Cover Gallery: Milestones’, re-presenting the compelling Batman #1, Spring 1941, World’s Fair Comics #1, Spring 1941, Detective Comics #27, May 1939 and Detective Comics #38, February 1940.

Detective #27 spotlighted the Dark Knight’s debut in the ‘Case of the Chemical Syndicate!’ from by Bob Kane and his close collaborator Bill Finger.

The spartan, understated yarn introduced dilettante playboy criminologist Bruce Wayne, drawn into a straightforward crime wherein a cabal of industrialists were successively murdered. The killings stopped when an eerie figure dubbed â€œThe Bat-Manâ€ intruded on Police Commissioner Gordon‘s stalled investigation and ruthlessly dealt with the hidden killer.

‘Origin’ originated two years later (Detective Comics #33, November 1939). Here Gardner Fox, Kane & Sheldon Moldoff produced the first ever explanation of the hero’s tragic history in the first two pages of a longer tale (‘The Batman Wars Against the Dirigible of Doom’ â€“ and not included here), after which Detective #33 (April 1940) spawned ‘Robin the Boy Wonder’ by Finger, Kane & Jerry Robinson.

This story changed the landscape of comicbooks forever; introducing child trapeze artist Dick Grayson whose parents were murdered before his eyes and who consequently joined Batman in a lifelong quest for justice. They began by taking down mobster Boss Zucco, the Graysons’ murdererâ€¦

‘The People vs. Batman’ is from Batman #7, October/November 1941, by Finger, Kane & Robinson. Something of a landmark, it’s also a potent and emotional crime melodrama. When Bruce Wayne is framed for murder and jailed, Robin takes over to clear up the case, ultimately resulting in the Dynamic Duo finally becoming official operatives of the Gotham police force. They would not be vigilantes again until the grim and gritty 1980’sâ€¦

Concluding this first section is ‘The Origin of Batman’ (Batman #47 June/July 1948, by Finger, Kane & Charles Paris) which added tone and depth to the traumatic event, as the Gotham Gangbuster at last tracks down and confronts the triggerman who murdered his parentsâ€¦

‘Cover Gallery: Props’ features iconic paraphernalia as seen on Detective Comics #61 March 1942, Detective Comics #127 September 1947, Batman #48 August/September 1948, Batman #10 April/May 1942 before Batman #37 (October/November 1946) offers a magnificent clash of eternal adversaries when ‘The Joker Follows Suit!’

Fed up with failing in all his felonious forays, the Clown Prince of Crime decides that imitation is the sincerest form of theft and begins swiping the Dark Knights gimmicks, methods and gadgets; using them to profitably come to the aid of bandits in distress in a masterpiece of mirthful mayhem by an unnamed author, Robinson & George Roussos.

Most later Batman tales feature a giant coin in the Batcave and World’s Finest #30 is where that spectacular prop first appeared; spoils of a successful battle between the Caped Crusaders and Joe Coyne’s vicious bandit gang ‘The Penny Plunderers!’ (by Finger, Kane & Ray Burnley).

Crafted by Finger and Jim Mooney, the next tale comes from Batman #48 (August/September 1948) and reveals how an escaped convict finds the secret sanctum, leaving us privy to ‘The 1,000 Secrets of the Batcave’. Batman and Robin hunt out the gloating crook, expecting to be publicly exposed when they turn him in, but Fate has a cruel trick left to playâ€¦

World’s Finest Comics #3 Autumn 1941, Batman #22 April/May 1940, Detective Comics #42 August 1940, Batman #26 December 1944-December 1945 unite to form ‘Cover Gallery: The Batman Family’ and leads into key tales featuring the supporting cast such as the anonymously scripted ‘Alfred, Armchair Detective’ (Batman #31, October/November 1945).

Part of an occasional series, these were light-hearted supplemental vignettes (possibly written by Don Cameron or Joe Samachson and illustrated by Robinson. This one hilariously depicts how an idle night spent eavesdropping on crooks results in a big arrest of burglars by the dutiful butlerâ€¦

A suspenseful, shocking high comes with ‘Bruce Wayne Loses Guardianship of Dick Grayson!’ wherein a couple of fraudsters claiming to be the lad’s last remaining relatives petition to adopt him. A melodramatic triumph by Finger, Kane & Robinson, there’s still plenty of action, especially after the grifters try to sell Dick back to Bruce in a real lost gem from Batman #20 (December 1943-December 1944).

From 1947 to 1952, (issues #65-130) Robin, the Boy Wonder had his own solo series and regular cover spot in Star Spangled Comics at a time when the first superhero boom was fading, to be replaced by more traditional genres such as crime, westerns and boys’ adventure stories. The stories blended in-continuity action capers with more youth-oriented fare and adults Batman and Alfred reduced to minor roles – or entirely absent – allowing the kid crusader to display not just his physical skills but also his brains, ingenuity and guts.

SSC #70 (July 1947) introduced an arch-villain he could call his own as ‘Clocks of Doom’ saw the debut of an anonymous criminal time-&-motion expert forced into the limelight once his face was caught on film. The Clock‘s desperate attempts to sabotage the movie Robin was consulting on inevitably led to hard time in this delightful romp by Finger, Win Mortimer & Paris.

‘Cover Gallery: The Villains’ culls classics images from Detective Comics #89 July 1944, Detective Comics #73 March 1943, Detective Comics #140 October 1948 and Detective Comics #29 July 1940, before moving on to declare ‘Your Face is your Fortune’ (Batman #15, February/March 1943, by Jack Schiff, Kane, Robinson & Roussos). Here Catwoman returned, taking on a job at a swanky Beauty Parlour to gain info for her crimes and inadvertently falling for Society Bachelor Bruce Wayneâ€¦

‘The Scoop of the Century’ by Finger, Kane & Lew Sayre Schwartz, from Batman #49, October/November 1948, finds Batman battling the Mad Hatter for the first time but painfully distracted by a reporter.

Vicki Vale is convinced the Masked Manhunter is actually Bruce Wayne and, although he dissuades her here, she would spend the next fifteen years trying to prove itâ€¦

‘Clayface Walks Again’ (Detective Comics #49 March 1941, Finger, Kane Robinson & Roussos) wherein a deranged horror actor recommenced his passion for murder by trying to kill Bruce’s old girlfriend Julie Madison; literally â€œthe one who got awayâ€ during the maniac’s previous campaign of terrorâ€¦

‘The End of Two-Face’ (Detective Comics #80, October 1943 by Finger, Kane, Robinson & Roussos) saw former District Attorney-turned-maniac Harvey Kent seemingly cured of his split personality after a typically terrific tussle.

A different iteration then follows in ‘Half-Man Half Monster’ taken from the Batman Sunday newspaper strips for June 23-August 18, 1946. Here Finger, Jack Burnley & Mortimer re-imagine the turbulent tragedy as actor Harvey Apollo is disfigured on the witness stand while testifying and becomes a deranged, double-edged menace to society until the Caped Crusaders catch himâ€¦

After a copious ‘Contributors’ section detailing the lives of the men who made Batman there’s oneÂ last treat in store. ‘The True Story of Batman and Robin’ is an entertaining but highly dubious company puff-piece from Real Fact Comics #5 January 1947 by author unknown and Mortimer â€œdetailingâ€ how Bob Kane invented the strip and how it’s produced. Believe it or don’tâ€¦

The history of the American comicbook industry in almost every major aspect stems from the raw, vital and still powerfully compelling tales of twin icons published by DC/National Comics: Superman and Batman. It’s only fair and fitting that both those characters are still going strong and that their earliest adventures can be relived in a variety of formats from relatively economical newsprint paperbacks like this to stunning, deluxe hardcover commemorative Archive editions.

These are the stories that forged the character and success of Batman. The works of Bill Finger, Bob Kane and their multi-talented assistants are evergreen examples of pure and perfect superhero fiction. Put them in a thrifty, nifty package like this, include the pop art masterpieces that were the covers of those classics, and you have pretty much the perfect comic book. And you really, really should have it.
Â© 1939-1949, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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