Nostalgia – Page 63 – Now Read This!

April 21, 2014April 21, 2014

Blake and Mortimer volume 17: The Secret of the Swordfish Part 3 – SX1 Strikes Back!

By Edgar P. Jacobs, coloured by Philippe BiermÃ© & Luce Daniels translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-174-7

After three years of stunning intrigue mystery and action, E.P. Jacobs’ groundbreaking saga of a battle for world peace and universal liberty concluded in a spectacular duel below the Earth and in the skies of the embattled world.

The saga concludes in SX1 Strikes Back!: a tension-drenched race against time as

Blake, Mortimer and the shattered dregs of Great Britain’s military forces prepare for a last ditch strike using the Professor’s greatest inventions to win freedom for the oppressed peoples of the worldâ€¦

Brussels-born Edgar P. Jacobs was a prodigy who drew from an early age and was besotted by music and the performing arts – especially opera. After graduating commercial school in 1919, he rejected safe office work and instead avidly pursued his passions drama on his graduation.

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

His dream of operatic glory was crushed by the Great Depression, and when arts funding dried up following the global stock market crash he was forced to pick up whatever dramatic work was going, although this did include more singing and performing. He moved into illustration in 1940, with regular work for Bravo magazine and some jobs for short stories and novels, and when the occupying Nazi authorities in Belgium banned Alex Raymond’s quintessentially All-American Hero Flash Gordon Jacobs famously took over the syndicated strip to complete the saga.

His ‘Stormer Gordon’ lasted less than a month before being similarly embargoed by the Occupation dictators, 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.

Following the Liberation, publisher Raymond Leblanc convinced HergÃ©, Jacobs and a few other comicstrip masters to work for a new venture. Founding publishing house Le Lombard, Leblanc also commissioned Le Journal de Tintin, an anthology comic with editions in Belgium, France and Holland, edited by Herge and starring the intrepid boy reporter plus 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’.

Laudy had been a friend of Jacobs’ since their time together on Bravo, and the epic thriller serial ‘Le secret de l’Espadon’ starred an English Military Intelligence officer closely modelled on Laudy, who worked with bluff, gruff British Boffin: Captain Francis Blake and Professor Philip Mortimerâ€¦

The premiere serial 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 very first album release with the concluding part published three years later. The volumes were reprinted nine more times between 1955 and 1982, supplemented in 1964 by a single omnibus edition.

HergÃ© and Jacobs purportedly suffered a split in 1947 when the former refused to grant the latter a by-line on new Tintin material, 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 say that if such was the case it was a pretty minor spat. I rather suspect that The Secret of the Swordfish was simply taking up more and more of the diligent artist’s time and attentionâ€¦

In 1984 the story was repackaged for English translation as three volumes as part of a push to win some of the lucrative Tintin and Asterix market, but failed to find an audience. The venture ended after seven magnificent if under-appreciated volumes.

Cinebook has been publishing the later Blake and Mortimer tales since 2007 and recently completed a triptych of the very first adventureâ€¦

In The Incredible Chase and Mortimer’s Escape a hidden cabal in the Himalayas launched a global Blitzkrieg at the command of Basam-Damdu, malign Emperor of Tibet. The warlord’s arsenal of technological super-weapons were wielded by an army of the world’s wickedest rogues – such as diabolical Colonel Olrik – and their lightning sneak almost accomplished all his ambitions in one fell swoop.

Happily, English physicist Philip Mortimer and MI5 Captain Francis Blake were aware of the threat and when the attack came they narrowly escaped destruction in a devastating bomber raidâ€¦

Mortimer’s breakthrough Golden Rocket launched just as Olrik’s bombers attacked and easily outdistanced the rapacious Empire forces, leaving ruined homes behind them as they flew into a hostile world now brutally controlled by Basam-Damduâ€¦

Seeking out British Middle East resistance forces, the fugitives’ flight ended prematurely when the Rocket crashed in the rocky wilds between Iran and Afghanistan. Parachuting to safety, Blake and Mortimer survived a host of perils and escaped capture more than once as they slowly, inexorably made their way to the distant rendezvous, before meeting British-trained native Sergeant Ahmed Nasir.

The loyal Indian had served with Blake during the last war and was delighted to see him again, but as the trio laboriously made their way to the target site, Olrik had already found it and seized their last hopeâ€¦

Using commando tactics the heroes escaped in the Colonel’s own Red-Wing super-jet, but were again shot down – this time by friendly fire as anti-Lhasa rebels saw the stolen plane as an enemy targetâ€¦

Surviving this crash too, the trio were ferried by the apologetic tribesmen to the enemy-occupied town of Turbat and sheltered by a friendly Khan administrator. However a faithless servant recognised the Englishmen and the Britons were ambushedâ€¦

Sending Nasir away, Blake tried valiantly frantically to save Mortimer whilst a platoon of Empire soldiers rapidly mounted the stairs to their exposed roomâ€¦

Mortimer’s Escape saw the heroes initially avoid capture and flee Turbat, which was torn apart by a furious spontaneous rebellion but, unknown to the fugitives, the spy Bezendjas was hard on their heels. Moreover with the city in flames and fighting in every street the callous Colonel Olrik abandoned his own troops to pursue Nasir, Blake and Mortimer into the wastes beyond the wallsâ€¦

After days of relentless pursuit they reached the rocky coastline where Blake realised that he had lost precious plans and documents he have been carrying since they fled Englandâ€¦

Knowing that somebody must reach the British resistance at their hidden Eastern base, the comrades split up, with Blake and Nasir going onwards whilst Mortimer returned for the plans. Finding them was sheer good fortune, but being found by Olrik’s troops was not. Despite a Horatian last stand the scientist was taken prisonerâ€¦ but only after first successfully hiding the priceless documentsâ€¦

Months later Olrik was called to account by Basam-Damdu’s ruling council, increasingly incensed with the Colonel’s lack of progress in breaking the captive scientist and even more infuriated by a tidal-wave of sabotage and armed rebellion throughout their freshly-conquered territories.

Olrik’s realised that his days as an agent of the Yellow Empire might be numberedâ€¦

Given days to make Mortimer talk, the Colonel returned to his base just as another rebel raid allowed Nasir to infiltrate the HQ. Blake was also abroad, having joined British resistance forces in the area.

A British submarine was roving the area, launched from a vast atomic-powered secret installation under the Straits of Hormuz, where the Royal Navy were preparing for a massive counter-attack. With daring raids freeing interned soldiers all the time, the ranks of scientists, technicians and soldiers were swelling dailyâ€¦

Meanwhile, Nasir was working to free Mortimer, who was still adamantly refusing to talk of the mysterious â€œSwordfishâ€ Olrik’s agents continually heard rumours ofâ€¦

When devious Doctor Sun Fo arrived to interrogate him, the Professor explosively escaped into the fortress grounds during an earth-shattering storm. Trapped in a tower with only a handgun, he was determined to sell his life dearly, but was rescued by Blake and Nasir in a Navy Helicopter.

Using the storm for cover the heroes evaded jet pursuit and a naval sweep to link up with the British sub and escape into the nightâ€¦

The final chapter opens with a stunning reprise of past events – cunningly compiled from a succession of six full page illustrations and presumably original covers from the weekly Le Journal de Tintin – after which a daring commando raid liberates a trainload of British prisoners.

Brought to a fabulous subterranean secret base, the assorted scientists and engineers discover an underground railway, factory, armaments facilities and even an atomic pile, all furiously toiling to complete the mysterious super-weapon dubbed â€œSwordfishâ€.

The former prisoners all readily join the volunteers, blithely unaware that supremely capable scoundrel Olrik is amongst them in a cunning disguise.

Days pass and as preparations for the Big Push produce satisfactory results, a series of disastrous accidents soon leads to one inescapable conclusion: there is a saboteur in the citadelâ€¦

Eventually Olrik becomes overconfident and Mortimer exposes the infiltrator in a crafty trap, but after a fraught confrontation the Colonel escapes after almost causing a nuclear catastrophe. Fleeing across the seabed, the harried spy narrowly avoids capture by diver teams and even a hungry giant octopusâ€¦

The flight takes its toll upon Olrik and he barely reaches land alive. Luckily for him Bezendjas had been checking out that region of coastline and finds the exhausted villain trapped in his stolen deep-sea diver suit. After a lengthy period the dazed desperado recovers and delivers his hard-won information. Soon Imperial forces are converging on the British bastionâ€¦

As air and sea forces bombard the rocky island and sea-floor citadel, Olrik dispatches crack troops to break in via a concealed land entrance, resulting in a staggering battle in the depths of the Earth.

They were almost in timeâ€¦

After months of desperate struggle, Mortimer and his liberated scientists have rushed to complete the incredible Swordfish: a hypersonic attack jet with uncanny manoeuvrability and appallingly destructive armament.

Astoundingly launched from beneath the sea, the sleekly sinister plane single-handedly shoots the Empire jets out of the skies before sinking dozens of the attacking naval vessels. Ruthlessly piloting SX1 is Francis Blake; and even as he wreaks havoc upon the invading force he is joined by SX2 – a second equally unstoppable super-jetâ€¦

Soon the Yellow Empire is in full retreat and a squadron of Swordfish is completed. With the once-occupied planet in full revolt, it’s not long before Lhasa gets a taste of the flaming death it callously inflicted upon a peaceful, unsuspecting and now most vengeful worldâ€¦

They were only just in time: the insane and malignant Emperor was mere moments away from launching a doomsday flight of atomic missiles to every corner of the planet he so briefly ownedâ€¦

Gripping and fantastic in the truest tradition of pulp sci-fi and Boy’s Own Adventures, Blake and Mortimer are the very epitome of dogged heroic determination; always delivering grand, old-fashioned Blood-&-Thunder thrills and spills in timeless fashion and with astonishing visual punch. Despite the epic body count and dated milieu, any kid able to suspend modern mores and cultural disbelief (call it alternate earth history or bakelite-punk if you want) will experience the adventure of their livesâ€¦ and so will their children.

This Cinebook edition also includes a fascinating illustrated essay ‘Jacobs: 1946, The Swordfish, starting point of a masterful work’ first seen in The World of Edgar P. Jacobs, a tantalising preview of new adventure The Oath of the Five Lords (by Yves Sente & AndrÃ© Juillard) plus a biographical feature and chronological publication chart of Jacobs’ and his successors’ efforts.

April 16, 2014April 21, 2014

Blake and Mortimer volume 16: The Secret of the Swordfish Part 2 – Mortimer’s Escape

By Edgar P. Jacobs, coloured by Philippe BiermÃ© & Luce Daniels translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-161-7

Belgian Edgard FÃ©lix Pierre Jacobs (March 30th 1904-February 20th 1987) is rightly considered to be one of the founding fathers of the Continental comics industry. Although his output is relatively modest compared to most of his iconic contemporaries, the landmark serialised epic he created practically formed the backbone of the straight action-adventure comic in Europe, and his splendidly adroit yet roguish and thoroughly British adventurers Blake and Mortimer, conceived and realised for the very first issue of Le Journal de Tintin in 1946, swiftly became an crucial staple of post-war European kids’ life, in exactly the same way that Dan Dare was in 1950s Britain.

Edgar P. Jacobs was born in Brussels, a precocious child who was always drawing but was even more obsessed with music and the performing arts – especially opera. He attended a commercial school but loathed the idea of office work and instead avidly pursued the 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 when the occupying German authorities banned Alex Raymond’s quintessentially All-American Hero and the publishers desperately needed someone to satisfactorily complete the saga.

Jacobs’ ‘Stormer Gordon’ lasted less than a month before being similarly embargoed by the Occupation dictators, 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.

After the war and liberation, publisher Raymond Leblanc convinced HergÃ©, Jacobs and a few other comicstrip aristocracy 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, edited by HergÃ© and starring the intrepid boy reporter plus 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’.

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 (who was closely modelled on Laudy): Professor Philip Mortimer and Captain Francis Blakeâ€¦

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. These volumes were reprinted nine more times between 1955 and 1982 in addition to a single omnibus edition released in 1964.

In 1984 the story 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) as part of a push to win some of the lucrative Tintin and Asterix market here, but failed to find an audience and ended after seven magnificent if under-appreciated volumes.

Now happily Cinebook has finally released the tale – albeit after publishing many later adventures first – and this second instalment carries the tale of the struggle against world domination to next epic levelâ€¦

Although all the subsequent Blake and Mortimer sagas have been wonderfully retranslated and published by Cinebook in recent years, this initial epic introductory adventure and its concluding two volumes remained frustratingly in the back-issue twilight zone, possibly due to their superficial embracing of the prevailing prejudices of the time.

By having the overarching enemies of mankind be a secret Asiatic â€œYellow Perilâ€ empire of evil, there is some potential for offence – unless one actually reads the books to find that any presumed racism is countered throughout by an equal amount of â€œgoodâ€ ethnic people and â€œevilâ€ white folk, so please if you have any doubts please quell them and get these booksâ€¦.

Here and now, however, let’s recap The Incredible Chase, wherein a clandestine clique in the Himalayas launched a global Blitzkrieg at the command of Basam-Damdu, malign Emperor of Tibet. The warlord ruled a secret cabal of belligerent conquerors, whose arsenal of technological super-weapons were wielded by an army of the world’s wickedest rogues such as the diabolical Colonel Olrik who dreamed of ruling the entire Earth, and his sneak attack almost accomplished all his schemes in one fell swoop.

Happily however, English physicist Philip Mortimer and MI5 Captain Francis Blake were aware of the threat and were already racing to finish the boffin’s radical new aircraft at a hidden British industrial complex.

When the attack came the old friends swung into immediate action and narrowly escaped destruction in a devastating bomber raidâ€¦

The Golden Rocket launched just as Olrik’s bombers attacked and easily outdistanced the rapacious Empire forces, leaving ruined homes behind them as they flew into a hostile world now brutally controlled by Basam-Damduâ€¦

Seeking to join British Middle East resistance forces, the fugitives’ flight ended prematurely when the Rocket crashed in the rocky wilds between Iran and Afghanistan. Parachuting to safety, Blake and Mortimer survived a host of perils and escaped capture more than once as they slowly, inexorably made their way to the distant rendezvous, before meeting a British-trained native Sergeant Ahmed Nasir.

Using commando tactics to infiltrate the enemy camp and stealing the villainous Colonel’s own Red-Wing super-jet, the heroes made their way towards a fall-back point but were again shot down – this time by friendly fire as anti-Lhasa rebels saw the stolen plane as an enemy targetâ€¦

Surviving this crash too, the trio were ferried in relative safety by the apologetic tribesmen to the enemy-occupied town of Turbat and sheltered by a friendly Khan administrator. However the man’s servant, a spy of the Empire-appointed Wazir, recognised the Englishmen and Nasir realised far too late the danger they all facedâ€¦

Sending his loyal Sergeant away, Blake tried valiantly frantically to save Mortimer whilst a platoon of Empire soldiers rapidly mounted the stairs to their exposed roomâ€¦

The frantic action resumes here in Mortimer’s Escape with soldiers bursting into an empty chamber before being themselves attacked by the Khan. After a bloody firefight the Englishmen emerge from their cunning hiding place and flee Turbat, which has been seized by a furious spur-of-the-moment rebellion.

Unknown to the fugitives, the devious spy Bezendjas is hard on their heels and soon finds an opportunity to inform Olrik. With the city in flames and fighting in every street the callous colonel abandons his own troops to pursue Nasir, Blake and Mortimer into the wastes beyond the wallsâ€¦

On stolen horses the heroes endure all the ferocious hardships of the desert but cannot outdistance Olrik’s staff-car. After days of relentless pursuit they reach the rocky coastline and almost stumble into another Empire patrol, and whilst ducking them Blake almost falls to his doom. Narrowly escaping death, the trio continue to climb steep escarpments and it is dusk before the Intelligence Officer realises that he has lost the precious plans and documents they have been carrying since they fled Englandâ€¦

Realising that somebody must reach the British resistance at their hidden Eastern base, the valiant comrades split up. Blake and Nasir continue onwards whilst Mortimer returns to the accident site. Finding the plans is a stroke of sheer good fortune, immediately countered by an ambush from Olrik’s troops.

Despite a Herculean last stand the scientist is at last taken prisoner but only after successfully hiding the lost plansâ€¦

Three months later Olrik is called to account in the exotic city-fortress of Lhasa. Basam-Damdu’s ruling council are unhappy with the Colonel’s lack of progress in breaking the captive scientist, and even more infuriated by a tidal-wave of sabotage and armed rebellion throughout their newly-conquered territories. Even Olrik’s own spies are warning him that his days as an agent of the Yellow Empire might be numberedâ€¦

Given two days to make Mortimer talk, the Colonel returns to his base in Karachi just as another rebel raid allows Nasir to infiltrate the Empire’s HQ. Blake is also abroad in the city, having joined British forces in the area.

With less than a day to act, the MI5 officer rendezvous with a British submarine and travels to a vast atomic-powered secret installation under the Straits of Hormuz, where the Royal Navy are stoically preparing for a massive counter-attack on the Empire. With raids liberating interned soldiers all the time, the ranks of scientists, technicians and soldiers are swelling dailyâ€¦

Meanwhile, Nasir has begun a desperate plan to free Mortimer, who is still adamantly refusing to talk of the mysterious â€œSwordfishâ€ Olrik’s agents continually hear rumours ofâ€¦

Aware of his danger and the Sergeant’s efforts, Mortimer instead cunningly informs Nasir of the lost plans’ location, even as the impatient Emperor’s personal torturer arrives from Lhasaâ€¦

Always concerned with the greater good, Blake and a commando team secure the concealed plans and are met by Nasir who has been forced from Karachi after realising the spy Bezendjas has recognised him. It appears that time has run out for their scholarly comradeâ€¦

Mortimer, however, has taken fate into his own hands. When the devious Doctor Sun Fo begins his interrogation, the Professor breaks free and escapes into the fortress grounds during an earth-shattering storm. Trapped in a tower with only a handgun, he is determined to sell his life dearly, but is rescued by Blake and Nasir in a Navy Helicopter.

Using the storm for cover the heroes evade jet pursuit and an enemy naval sweep to link up with a British sub and escape into the nightâ€¦

To Be Concludedâ€¦

Gripping and fantastic in the best tradition of pulp sci-fi and Boy’s Own Adventures, Blake and Mortimer are the very epitome of True Brit grit and determination; always delivering grand, old-fashioned Blood-&-Thunder thrills and spills in tried and true timeless fashion and with staggering visual verve and dash. Despite the high body count and dated milieu, any kid able to suspend modern mores and cultural disbelief (call it alternate earth history or bakelite-punk if you want) will experience the adventure of their livesâ€¦ and so will their children.

This Cinebook edition also includes a tantalising preview of the next volume as well as excerpts from stand-alone adventure S.O.S. Meteors, plus a biography feature which offers a chronological publication chart of Jacobs’ and his successors’ efforts and a handy comparison and chronological publishing order of the Cinebook releases.

April 15, 2014

JSA All Star Archives volume 1

By John Wentworth, Ken Fitch, Bill O’Connor, Sheldon Mayer, Charles Reizenstein, Bill Finger, Stan Aschmeier, Bernard Baily, Ben Flinton & Leonard Sansone, Howard Purcell, Hal Sharp and Irwin Hasen (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1472-2

After the actual invention of the comicbook superhero – indisputably the Action Comics debut of Superman in June 1938 – the most significant event in the industry’s history was the combination of individual sales-points into a group.

Thus what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven: consumers couldn’t get enough of garishly-hued mystery men and combining a multitude of characters inevitably increases readership. Plus, of course, a mob of superheroes is just so much cooler than oneâ€¦or one-and-a-half if there’s a sidekick involvedâ€¦

It cannot be understated: the creation of the Justice Society of America in 1941 utterly changed the shape of the budding industry. However before that team of all-stars could unite they had to become popular enough to qualify and this superb hardcover sampler gathers the debut adventures of a septet of beloved champions who never quite made it into the first rank but nonetheless scored enough to join the big team and maintain their own solo spots for much of the Golden Age of American Comics.

Whilst the most favoured of the 1940s stalwarts have all won their own DC Archive collections in the past, this particular tome bundles a bunch of lesser lights – or at least those who never found as much favour with modern fans and revivalists – and features the first five appearances of seven of the JSA‘s secondary mystery men: all solid supporting acts in their own anthology homes who were potentially so much moreâ€¦

Gathered here are short, sharp and stirring tales from Flash Comics #1-5, Adventure Comics #48-52, All-American Comics #19-29 and Sensation Comics #1-5 collectively spanning January 1940 to May 1942 and all preceded by Golden Age aficionado and advocate Roy Thomas’ sparkling, informative and appreciative Foreword.

The vintage vim and vigour begins with a character equally adored and reviled in modern times. Johnny Thunderbolt as he was originally dubbed was an honest, well-meaning, courageous soul who was also a grade â€œAâ€ idiot. However, what he lacked in smarts he made up for with sheer luck, unfailing pluck and the unconscious (at least at first) control of an irresistible magic force.

The series was played for action-packed laughs but there was no getting away from it: Johnny was quite frankly, a simpleton in control of an ultimate weapon – an electric genieâ€¦

John Wentworth & Stan Aschmeier introduced the happy sap in ‘The Kidnapping of Johnny Thunder’ from the first monthly Flash Comics (#1, January 1940) in a fantastic origin which detailed how decades before, the infant seventh son of a seventh son was abducted by priests from the mystic island of Badhnisia to be raised as the long-foretold controller of a fantastic magical weapon, all by voicing the eldritch command â€œCei-Uâ€ – which sounds to western ears awfully like â€œsay, youâ€â€¦

Ancient enemies on the neighbouring isle of Agolea started a war before the ceremonies and indoctrination could be completed however and at age seven the lad, through that incomprehensible luck, was returned to his parents to be raised in the relative normality of the Bronx.

Everything was fine until Johnny’s 17^th birthday when the ancient rite finally came to fruition and amid bizarre weather conditions the Badhnisians intensified their search for their living weaponâ€¦

By the time they tracked him down he was working in a department store and had recently picked up the habit of expleting the phrase â€œsay youâ€ which generally resulted in something very strange happening. One example being a bunch of strange Asiatics attacking him and being blown away by a mysterious pink tornadoâ€¦

The pattern was set. Each month Johnny would look for gainful employment, stumble into a crime or crisis and his voluble temperament would result in an inexplicable unnatural phenomenon that would solve the problem but leave him no better off. It was a winning theme that lasted until 1947 – by which time the Force had resolved into a wisecracking thunderbolt-shaped genie – and Johnny was slowly ousted from his own strip by sexy new crimebuster Black Canaryâ€¦

Flash Comics #2 featured ‘Johnny Becomes a Boxer’. After stepping in to save a girl from bullies, Daisy Darling became his girlfriend and he became the Heavyweight Champion, leading to his implausibly winning the fixed contest ‘Johnny versus Gunpowder Glantz’ in #3. Only now Daisy refused to marry a brute who lived by hitting othersâ€¦

The solution came in ‘Johnny Law’ when kidnappers tried to abduct Daisy’s dad. Following his sound thrashing of the thugs Johnny then joined the FBI at his babe’s urgingâ€¦

This tantalising taste of times past concludes with ‘G-Man Johnny’ (#5 May 1940) as the kid’s first case involves him in a bank raid which resulted in his own father being taken hostageâ€¦

Although he eventually joined the JSA, and despite the affable, good-hearted bumbling which carried him through the war, the peace-time changing fashions found no room for a hapless hero anymore and when he encountered a sultry masked female Robin Hood who stole from crooks, the writing was on the wall. Nevertheless the fortuitously imbecilic Johnny Thunder is fondly regarded by many modern fans and still has lots to say and a decidedly different way of saying itâ€¦

Hourman by Ken Fitch & Bernard Baily was a far more serious proposition and actually had his shot at stardom, beginning by supplanting The Sandman as cover feature on Adventure Comics #48 (March 1940). Here his exploits run through issue #52 (July) establishing the unique and gripping methodology which made him such a favourite of later, more sophisticated fansâ€¦

In an era where origins were never as important as action, mood and spectacle, ‘Presenting Tick-Tock Tyler, the Hour-Man’ begins with a strange classified ad offering aid and assistance to any person in need. Chemist Rex Tyler had invented â€œMiracloâ€ a drug which super-energised him for 60 minutes at a time and his first case saw him help a wife whose man was being dragged back into criminal endeavours by poverty and bad friendsâ€¦

‘The Disappearance of Dr. Drew’ found him locating a missing scientist kidnapped by thugs whilst ‘The Dark Horse’ saw the Man of the Hour crush a crooked and murderous bookie who had swiped both horse and owner before a key race.

Mad science and a crazy doctor employing ‘The Wax-Double Killers’ then added a spooky component of scary thrills and super-villain cachet for the timely hero to handle, whilst ‘The Counterfeit Hour-Man’ – which concludes the offerings here – saw our hero again battling Dr. Snegg in a scurrilous scheme to frame the hooded hero.

Hourman always looked great and his adventures developed into a tight and compulsive feature, but he never really caught on and faded out at the beginning of 1943 (#83). Perhaps all the current the buzz over the forthcoming TV series can revive his fortunes and finally make him a star in his own rightâ€¦

Our next second string star is Calvin College student Al Pratt, a diminutive but determined lad who got fed up with being bullied by jocks and became a pint-sized, two-fisted mystery man ready for anything.

The Mighty Atom was created by writer Bill O’Connor and rendered by Ben Flinton & Leonard Sansone, beginning in All-American Comics #19. He was one of the longest lasting of the Golden Age greats, transferring from All-American to Flash Comics in February 1947 and sporadically appearing until the last issue (Flash #104, February 1949). He was last seen in the final JSA tale in All Star Comics#57 in 1951.

The tales here span #19-23 (October 1940-February 1941) and begin by ‘Introducing the Mighty Atom’ as the bullied scholar hooks up with down-and-out trainer Joe Morgan whose radical methods soon have the kid in the very peak of physical condition and well able to take care of himself.

However, when Al’s intended girlfriend Mary is kidnapped the lad eschews fame and potential sporting fortune to bust her loose and decides on a new extra-curricular activityâ€¦

He fashioned a costume for his second exploit, going into ‘Action at the College Ball’ to foil a hold-up and then tackled ‘The Monsters from the Mine’ who were enslaved by a scientific mania intent on conquest. The college environment offered many plot opportunities and in ‘Truckers War’ the Atom crushed a gang of hijackers who had bankrupted a fellow student and football star’s father. This snippet of atomic episodes concludes here with ‘Joe’s Appointment’ as the trainer was framed for spying by enemy agents and need a little atomic aidâ€¦

Although we think of the Golden Age as a superhero wonderland, the true watchword was variety and flagship anthology All-American Comics offered everything from slapstick comedy to aviation adventure on its four-colour pages.

One of the very best humour strips featured the semi-autobiographical exploits of Scribbly Jibbet, a boy who wanted to draw. Created by genuine comics wonder boy Sheldon Mayer, Scribbly: Midget Cartoonist debuted in the first issue (April 1939) and soon built a sterling rep for himself beside star reprint features like Mutt and Jeff and all-new adventure serial Hop Harrigan, Ace of the Airways.

However the fashions of the time soon demanded a humorous look at mystery men and in #20 (November 1940) Mayer’s long-term comedy feature evolved into a delicious spoof of the trend as Scribbly’s formidable landlady Ma Hunkel decided to do something about crime in her neighbourhood by dressing up as a husky male hero.

‘The Coming of the Red Tornado’ saw her don cape, woollen long-johns and a saucepan for a mask/helmet to crush gangster/kidnapper Tubb Torponi. The mobster had made the mistake of snatching her terrible nipper Sisty and Scribbly’s little brother Dinky (they would later become her masked sidekicks) and Ma was determined to see justice doneâ€¦

An ongoing serial rather than specific episodes, the dramedy concluded in ‘The Red Tornado to the Rescue’ with the irate, inept cops then deciding to pursue the mysterious new vigilante but the ‘Search for the Red Tornado’ only made them look more stupid.

With the scene set for outrageous parody ‘The Red Tornado Goes Ape’ pitted the parochial masked manhunter against a zoo full of critters before this superb selection ends with ‘Neither Man nor Mouse’ (All-American Comics #24) as the hero apparently retires and crime returnsâ€¦ until Dinky and Sisty become the Cyclone Kidsâ€¦

A far more serious and sustainable contender debuted in the next issue, joining a growing host of grim masked avengers.

‘Dr. Mid-Nite: How He Began’ by Charles Reizenstein & Aschmeier (All-American Comics #25, April 1941) revealed how surgeon Charles McNider was blinded by criminals but subsequently discovered he could see perfectly in the dark. The maimed physician became an outspoken criminologist but also devised blackout bombs and other night paraphernalia to wage secret war on gangsters from the darkness, aided only by his new pet owl Hootyâ€¦

After catching his own assailant he then smashed river pirates protected by corrupt politicians in ‘The Waterfront Mystery’ and then rescued innocent men blackmailed into serving criminals’ sentences in jail in ‘Prisoners by Choice’ (#27 and guest illustrated by Howard Purcell).

With Aschmeier’s return Mid-Nite crushed aerial wreckers using ‘The Mysterious Beacon’ to down bullion planes and then smashed ‘The Menace of King Cobra’, a secret society leader lording it over copper mine workersâ€¦

The Master of Darkness also lasted until the end of the era and appeared in that last JSA story and, since his Sixties return has been one of the most resilient characters in DC’s pantheon of Golden Age revivals, but the next nearly-star was an almost forgotten man for decadesâ€¦

When Sensation Comics launched in January 1942 all eyes were rightly glued to the uniquely eye-catching Wonder Woman who hogged all the covers and unleashed a wealth of unconventional adventures every month. However like all anthologies of the time her exploits were carefully balanced by a selection of other features.

Sensation #1-5 (January to May 1942) also featured a pugnacious fighter who was the quintessence of manly prowess and a quiet, sedate fellow problem solver who was literally a master of all trades.

Crafted by Charles Reizenstein & Hal Sharp ‘Who is Mr. Terrific?’ introduced Terry Sloane, a physical and mental prodigy who so excelled at everything he touched that by the time of the opening tale he was so bored that he was planning his own suicide.

Happily, on the bridge he found Wanda Wilson, a girl with the same idea and by saving her found a purpose: crushing the kinds of criminals who had driven her to such despairâ€¦

Actively seeking out villainy of every sort he performed ‘The One-Man Benefit Show’ after thugs sabotaged all the performers, travelled to the republic of Santa Flora to expose ‘The Phony Presidente’ and helped a rookie cop pinch an â€œuntouchableâ€ gang boss in ‘Dapper Joe’s Comeuppance’.

His final appearance here finds him at his very best carefully rooting out political corruption and exposing ‘The Two Faces of Caspar Crunch’â€¦

Closing out this stunning hardback extravaganza is another quintet from Sensation Comics #1-5, this time by Bill Finger & Irwin Hasen: already established stars for their work on Batman and Green Lantern.

‘This is the Story of Wildcat’ is the debut appearance of one the era’s most impressive â€œlost treasuresâ€ and a genuine comicbook classic: a classy tale of boxer Ted Grant who was framed for the murder of his best friend the Champ and, inspired by a kid’s worship for Green Lantern, clears his name by donning a feline mask and costume and ferociously stalking the real killers.

Finger & Hasen captured everything which made for perfect rollercoaster adventure in their explosive sports-informed yarns. The mystery and drama continued unabated in the sequel ‘Who is Wildcat?’ as Ted retired his masked identity to contest for the vacant boxing title, but could not let innocents suffer as crime and corruption increased in the cityâ€¦

In ‘The Case of the Phantom Killers’ Wildcat tracks down mobsters seemingly striking from beyond the grave, and his adventures altered forever with the introduction of hard-hitting hillbilly hayseed ‘Stretch Skinner, Dee-teca-tif!’ who came to the big city to be a private eye and instead became Ted Grant’s foil, manager and crime-busting partnerâ€¦

The comic craziness concludes here with a rousing case of mistaken identity and old-fashioned framing as Wildcat has to save his tall new pal from a killer gambler in ‘Chips Carder’s Big Fix’â€¦

These eccentric early adventures might not be to every modern fan’s taste but they certainly stand as an impressive and joyous introduction to the fantastic worlds and exploits of the World’s (not so) Greatest Superheroes. If you have an interest in the way things were and a hankering for simpler times marked by less complicated or angsty adventure this may well be a book you’ll cherish foreverâ€¦
Â© 1940, 1941, 1942, 2007 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

March 22, 2014March 20, 2014

Superman: – The Silver Age Dailies 1959-1961

By Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan, Wayne Boring &Stan Kaye with Otto Binder, Robert Bernstein & Jerry Coleman (IDW Publishing Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-6137-7666-7

It’s indisputable that the American comicbook industry – if it existed at all – would have been an utterly unrecognisable thing without Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s Superman. Their unprecedented invention was fervidly adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation and quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form.

Spawning an impossible army of imitators and variations within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and wish-fulfilment which epitomised the early Man of Steel grew to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East sucked in America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and vigorous dashing derring-do.

In comicbook terms Superman was master of the world. Moreover, whilst transforming the shape of the fledgling funnybook industry, the Man of tomorrow relentlessly expanded into all areas of the entertainment media.

Although we all think of Cleveland boys’ iconic creation as the epitome and acme of comicbook creation, the truth is that very soon after his debut in Action Comics #1 Superman became a fictional multimedia monolith in the same league as Popeye, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes and Mickey Mouse.

We parochial and possessive comics fans too often regard our purest and most powerful icons in purely graphic narrative terms, but the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, X-Men, Avengers and Superman long ago outgrew their four-colour origins and are now fully mythologized modern media creatures instantly familiar in mass markets, platforms and age rangesâ€¦

Far more people have seen or heard the Man of Steel than have ever read his comicbooks. The globally syndicated newspaper strips alone reached untold millions. By the time his 20th anniversary rolled around at the very start of what we know as the Silver Age of Comics, he had been a thrice-weekly radio serial regular, starred in a series of astounding animated cartoons, two films and a novel by George Lowther.

He was a perennial success for toy, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers and had just ended his first smash live-action television serial. In his future were three more shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville), a stage musical, a franchise of blockbuster movies and an almost seamless succession of games, bubblegum cards and TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since.

Even superdog Krypto got in on the small-screen actâ€¦

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for the majority of the last century the newspaper comic strip was the Holy Grail that all American cartoonists and graphic narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country – and perhaps the planet – with millions, if not billions, of readers and generally accepted as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic-books, it also paid better.

And rightly so: some of the most enduring and entertaining characters and concepts of all time were created to lure readers from one particular paper to another and many of them grew to be part of a global culture.

Mutt and Jeff, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Charlie Brown and so many more escaped their humble tawdry newsprint origins to become meta-real: existing in the minds of earthlings from Albuquerque to Zanzibar.

Most still doâ€¦

So it was always something of a risky double-edged sword when a comic-book character became so popular that it swam against the tide (after all weren’t the funny-books invented just to reprint the strips in cheap accessible form?) to became a genuinely mass-entertainment syndicated serial strip.

Superman was the first original comicbook character to make that leap – almost as soon as he was created – but only a few have ever successfully followed. Wonder Woman, Batman (eventually) and groundbreaking teen icon Archie made the jump in the 1940s and only a handful like Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian have done so since.

The daily Superman newspaper comic strip launched on 16^th January 1939 and was supplemented by a full-colour Sunday page from November 5^th of that year. Originally crafted by such luminaries as Siegel & Shuster and their studio (Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring) the mammoth task soon reqired the additional talents of Jack Burnley and writers like Whitney Ellsworth, Jack Schiff & Alvin Schwartz.

The McClure Syndicate feature ran continuously until May 1966, appearing at its peak in more than 300 daily and 90 Sunday newspapers, boasting a combined readership of more than 20 million. Eventually artists Win Mortimer and Curt Swan joined the unfailing Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye whilst Bill Finger and Seigel provided the stories, telling serial tales largely separate and divorced from comicbook continuity throughout years when superheroes were scarcely seen.

In 1956 Julie Schwartz opened the Silver Age with a new Flash in Showcase #4. Soon cosumed crusaders began returning en masse to thrill a new generation. As the trend grew, many companies began to experiment with the mystery man tradition and the Superman newspaper strip began to slowly adapt: drawing closer to the revolution on the comicbook pages.

As the Jet age gave way to the Space-Age, the Last Son of Krypton was a vibrant yet comfortably familiar icon of domestic modern America: particularly in the constantly evolving, ever-more dramatic and imaginative comicbook stories which had received such a terrific creative boost as super heroes gradually began to proliferate once more. Since 1954 the franchise had been cautiously expanding and in 1959 the Caped Kryptonian could be seen not only in Golden Age survivors Action Comics, Superman, Adventure Comics, World’s Finest Comics and Superboy but now also in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane and soon Justice League of America.

Such increased attention naturally filtered through to the far more widely seen newspaper strip and resulted in a rather strange and commercially sound evolutionâ€¦

After author and educator Tom De Haven’s impassioned Foreword, Sidney Friedfertig’s Introduction explains how and why Jerry Siegel was tasked with turning recently published comicbook tales into daily 3-and-4 panel continuities for the apparently more sophisticated and discerning newspaper audiences. This meant major rewrites, frequently plot and tone changes and, in some cases, merging two stories into one.

If you’re a fan, don’t be fooled: these stories are not mere rehashes, but variations on an idea for an audience perceived as completely separate from kids’ funnybooks.

Even if you are familiar with the comicbook source material, the adventures gathered here will read as brand new, especially as they are gloriously illustrated by Curt Swan and latterly Wayne Boring at the very peak of their artistic powers.

As an added bonus the covers of the issues those adapted stories came from have been added as a full nostalgia-inducing colour galleryâ€¦

The astounding everyday entertainment commences with Episode #107 from April 6^th to July 11^th 1959.

‘Earth’s Super-Idiot!’ by Siegel, Swan & Stan Kaye is a mostly original story which borrows heavily from the author’s own ‘The Trio of Steel’ (Superman #135, February 1960, where it was drawn by Al Plastino) detailing the tricks of an unscrupulous super-scientific telepathic alien producer of â€œRealiesâ€ who blackmailed Superman into making a fool and villain of himself for extraterrestrial viewers.

If the hero didn’t comply – acting the goat, performing spectacular stunts and torturing his friends – Earth would suffer the consequencesâ€¦.

After eventually getting the better of the UFO sleaze-bag, our hero returned to Earth with a bump and encountered ‘The Ugly Superman’ (July 13^th–September 5^th, first seen in Lois Lane #8 April 1959, written by Robert Bernstein and illustrated by Kurt Schaffenberger).

Here, the eternally on-the-shelf Lois agreed to marry a brutish wrestler, and the Man of Tomorrow, for the most spurious of reasons, acted to foil her plansâ€¦

Episode #109 ran from September 7^th to October 28^th 1959 and saw Superman reluctantly agree to try and make a dying billionaire laugh in return for the miserable misanthrope signing over his entire fortune to charity.

Some of the apparently odd timing discrepancies in publication dates can be explained by the fact that submitted comicbook stories often appeared months after they were completed, so the comicbook version of Siegel’s ‘The Super-Clown of Metropolis’ didn’t get published until Superman #136 (April 1960) where Al Plastino took the art in completely different directionsâ€¦

‘Captive of the Amazons’ – October 29^th 1959 to February 6^th 1960 – combined two funnybook adventures both originally limned by Boring & Kaye. The eponymous equivalent from Action #266 (Jul 1960) was augmented by Bernstein’s tale ‘When Superman Lost His Powers’ (Action Comics #262) detailing how super-powered alien queen Jena came to Earth intent on making Superman her husband. When he refused she removed his Kryptonian abilities, subsequently trapping now merely mortal Clark with other Daily Planet staff in a lost valley of monsters where Lois’ suspicions were again arousedâ€¦

Episode #111 ran from 8^th February – 6^th April. ‘The Superman of the Future’ originated in Action #256 (September 1959, by Otto Binder, Swan & Kaye) and both versions seemingly saw Superman swap places with a hyper-evolved descendent intent on preventing four catastrophic historical disasters, but the incredible events were actually part of a devious hoaxâ€¦

Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #10 (July 1959 by Siegel & Schaffenberger) offered up a comedy interlude as ‘The Cry-Baby of Metropolis’ (April 7^th to May 28^th) found Lois – terrified of losing her looks – exposing herself to a youth ray and rapidly regenerating into an infant, much to the amusement of arch-rival Lana Lang and Supermanâ€¦

Episode #113 May 30^th – July 2^nd featured ‘The Super-Servant of Crime’ (by Bernstein, from Superman #130, July 1959) which saw the hero outsmarting a petty crook who had bamboozled the Action Ace into granting him five wishes, after which ‘The Super-Sword’ (4^th July to August 13^th and originally by Jerry Coleman & Plastino for Superman #124, September 1958) pitted the Kryptonian Crimebuster against a ancient knight with a magic blade which could penetrate his invulnerable skin. Once more, however, all was not as it seemedâ€¦

Siegel, Boring & Kaye’s epic ‘Superman’s Return to Krypton’ from Superman #141, November 1960) was first seen in daily instalments from August 15^th to November 12^th 1960, telling a subtly different tale of epic love lost as an accident marooned the adoptive Earth hero in the past on his doomed home-world. Reconciled to dying there with his people, Kal-El befriended his own parents and found love with his ideal soul-mate Lyla Lerrol, only to be torn from her side and returned to Earth against his will in a cruel twist of fate.

The strip version here is one of Swan’s most beautiful art jobs ever and, although the bold comicbook saga was a fan favourite for decades thereafter, the restoration of this more mature interpretation might have some rethinking their decisionâ€¦

Wayne Boring once more became the premiere Superman strip illustrator with Episode #116 (November 14th – December 31st), reprising his and Siegel’s work on ‘The Lady and the Lion’ from Action #243 August 1958, wherein the Man of Steel was transformed into an inhumanÂ beast by a Kryptonian Ã©migrÃ© the ancients knew as Circeâ€¦

Siegel then adapted Bernstein’s ‘The Great Superman Hoax’ and Boring & Kaye redrew their artwork for the Episode (January 2^nd – February 4^th 1961) which appeared in Superman #143, February 1961, and saw a cunning criminal try to convince Lois and Clark that he was actually the Man of Might, blissfully unaware of who he was failing to fool.

Then February 6^th to March 4^th had Superman using brains as well as brawn to thwart an alien invasion in ‘The Duel for Earth’ which originally appeared as a Superboy story in Adventure Comics #277 (October 1960) by Siegel & George Papp.

Superman #114 (July 1957) and scripter Otto Binder provided Siegel with the raw material for a deliciously wry and topical tax-time tale ‘Superman’s Billion-Dollar Debt’ – March 6^th to April 8^th – wherein an ambitious IRS agent presented the Man of Steel with an bill for unpaid back-taxes, whilst Episode #120 (April 10^th – May 13^th) introduced ‘The Great Mento’ (from Bernstein & Plastino’s yarn in Superman #147, August 1961): a tawdry showbiz masked mind-reader who blackmailed the hero by threatening to expose his precious secret identityâ€¦ Â

The final two stories in this premiere collection both come from Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane – issues #24, April and #26, July respectively – and both were originally crafted by Bernstein & Schaffenberger.

In ‘The Perfect Husband’ (15^th May to July 1^st), begun and ended by Boring but with Swan pinch-hitting for 2 weeks in the middle, Lois’ sister Lucy tricks the journalist into going on a TV dating show where she meets her ideal man, a millionaire sportsman and war hero who looks just like Clark Kent.

Then ‘The Mad Woman of Metropolis’ finds Lois driven to the edge of sanity by a vengeance-hungry killer, a rare chance to see the girl-reporter and shameless butt of so many male gags show her true mettle by solving the case without the Man of Tomorrow’s avuncular, often patronising assistanceâ€¦

Superman: – The Silver Age Dailies 1959-1961 is the first in a series of huge (305 x 236mm), lavish, high-end hardback collections starring the Man of Steel and a welcome addition to the superb commemorative series of Library of American Comics which has preserved and re-presented in luxurious splendour such landmark strips as Li’l Abner, Tarzan, Little Orphan Annie, Terry and the Pirates, Bringing Up Father, Rip Kirby, Polly and her Pals and many of the abovementioned cartoon icons.

If you love the era, these stories are great comics reading, and this is a book you simply must have.
Superman â„¢ and Â© 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

February 18, 2014February 17, 2014

Sucker Bait and Other Stories

By illustrated by Graham Ingels, written by Al Feldstein with Ray Bradbury & Bill Gaines (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-689-8

For most people who have heard of them, EC Comics mean one thing only: shocking, appalling, stomach-turning horror. Moreover, the artist they’re probably picturing – even if they can’t name him – is Graham Ingels, who wryly sighed his work â€œGhastlyâ€â€¦

The company began in 1944 when comicbook pioneer Max Gaines – presumably seeing the writing on the wall – sold the superhero properties of his All-American Comics company to half-sister National/DC, retaining only Picture Stories from the Bible. His plan was to produce a line of Educational Comics with schools and church groups as the major target market.

He augmented his flagship title with Picture Stories from American History, Picture Stories from Science and Picture Stories from World History but the worthy projects were all struggling when he died in a boating accident in 1947.

As detailed in the comprehensive closing essay of this superb graphic compilation (‘Crime, Horror, Terror, Gore, Depravity, Disrespect for Established Authority – and Science Fiction Too: the Ups and Downs of EC Comics’ by author, editor, critic and comics fan Ted White) his son William was dragged into the company by unsung hero and Business Manager Sol Cohen who held the company together until the initially unwilling Bill Gaines abandoned his dreams of being a chemistry teacher and transformed the ailing Educational enterprise into Entertaining Comicsâ€¦

After a few tentative false starts and abortive experiments copying industry fashions, Gaines took advantage of his multi-talented associate Al Feldstein, who promptly graduated from creating teen comedies and westerns into becoming Gaines’ editorial supervisor and co-conspirator.

As they began co-plotting the bulk of EC’s stories together, they changed tack, moving in a boldly impressive new direction. Their publishing strategy, utilising the most gifted illustrators in the field, was to tell a â€œNew Trendâ€ of stories aimed at older and more discerning readers, not the mythical semi-literate 8-year-old all comicbooks ostensibly targeted.

From 1950 to 1954 EC was the most innovative and influential publisher in America, dominating the genres of crime, horror, war and science fiction and originating an entirely new beast: the satirical comicbookâ€¦

Feldstein had started life as a comedy cartoonist and, after creator/editor Harvey Kurtzman departed in 1956, Al became Mad‘s Editor for the next three decadesâ€¦

This seventh volume of the Fantagraphics EC Library gathers a mind-boggling selection of Feldstein’s most baroque and grotesquely hilarious horror stories – mostly co-plotted by companion-in-crime Gaines – and all illuminated by the company’s enigmatic yet unsurpassed master of macabre mood, in a lavish monochrome hardcover edition packed with supplementary interviews, features and dissertations.

It begins with historian and lecturer Bill Mason’s touching and revelatory commentary ‘Mr. Horror Builds his Scream House’ before dipping into the diary of disgust and dread with ‘Hook, Line, and Stinker!’ (Vault of Horror #26, August/September 1952): the tale of a spinster’s vengeance after she finds the man she’s been engaged to for fifteen years spends his weekends in the arms of a young floozy rather than on his precious – and fictitious – fishing tripsâ€¦

The most memorable assets of EC’s horror titles were the uniquely memorable hosts whose execrable wisecracks bracketed each fantastic yarn. The Vault-Keeper, Crypt-Keeper and Old Witch were the only returning characters in the company during the New Trend era, becoming beloved favourites of the â€œFan Addictâ€ readership. Haunt of Fear #14 (July/August 1952) revealed the shocking and hilarious origins of the scurvy sorceress herself in a sublime pastiche of the Christian Nativity dubbed ‘A Little Stranger!’ â€¦

A murderous circus elephant trainer’s infidelities came back to haunt him in ‘Squashâ€¦ Anyone?’ (Tales From the Crypt #32, October/November 1952), whilst in that same month, in Vault of Horror #27, a rat-infested kingdom where starving peasants were tormented by their over-stuffed queen provided grisly meat for ‘A Grim Fairy Tale!’

‘Chatter-Boxed!’ (Haunt of Fear #15, September/October 1952) is a superb blend of maguffins as a man terrified of premature burial takes special steps to insure he’s never buried alive, but even after factoring in that his wife is always gabbing on the phone, there’s one element he could never have foreseenâ€¦

Next follows a wealth of material published in titles cover-dated December 1952/January 1953, beginning with ‘Private Performance’ from Crime SuspenStories #14, wherein a burglar witnesses a murder in an old Vaudevillian’s home before hiding in exactly the wrong place, whilst ‘None but the Lonely Heart!’ (Tales From the Crypt #33) reveals the ultimate downfall of a serial bigamist and black widower.

‘We Ain’t Got No Body’ (Vault of Horror #28), ghoulishly revels in the vengeance of a man murdered by his fellow train commuters before ‘Sugar ‘n Spice ‘nâ€¦’ (Shock SuspenStories #6) toys wickedly with the fable of Hansel and Gretel, proving that some kids get what they deserveâ€¦

A pioneering surgeon is blackmailed for decades by his greatest triumph in ‘Nobody There!’ (Haunt of Fear #16, November/December 1952), whilst in ‘Hail and Heart-y!’ (Crime SuspenStories #15 February/March 1953) a lazy husband drives his enduring wife to exhaustion and over the edge by feigning disability, before Ingels superbly captures the macabre eccentricity of Ray Bradbury’s story of a crusty dowager too mean to stay decently dead in ‘There Was an Old Woman!’ from Tales From the Crypt #34 (February/March).

That same month Vault of Horror #29 featured ‘Pickled Pints!’, as unscrupulous rogues buying cut-rate blood from winos push their plastered pumps a little too far, after which Haunt of Fear #17 (January/February) produced the acme of sinister swamp scare stories in ‘Horror We? How’s Bayou?’ a tale of rural madness and supernatural revenge long acclaimed as the greatest EC horror story ever crafted.

An irritated and merciless mummy stalks an Egyptian dig in ‘This Wraps it Up!’ (Tales From the Crypt #35, April/May 1953; the same month Vault of Horror #30 told a far more chilling tale of human retribution when the good citizens of a small town finally find the writer of cruel poison-pen letters in ‘Notes to You!’, whilst ‘Pipe Down!’ (Haunt of Fear #18, March/April) goes completely round the bend to describe how a young wife and handsome plumber got rid of her rich old manâ€¦ and what the victim did about itâ€¦

Bradbury’s disturbing yarn ‘The Handler’ was adroitly adapted in Tales From the Crypt #36 (June/July) depicting how an undertaker’s secret liberties – inflicted upon the cadavers in his care – came back to haunt him, whilst over in Vault of Horror #31 that month ‘One Good Turnâ€¦’ revealed one little old lady’s gruesome interpretation of the old adage, and Haunt of Fear #19 (May/June 1953) disclosed the incredible lengths some men will go to in order to kill vampires in ‘Sucker Bait!’

From August/September ‘The Rover Boys’ in Tales From the Crypt #37 is a purely bonkers tale of brain transplantation gone wild, whilst Vault of Horror #32 offered up more traditional fare in ‘Funereal Disease!’ which described how a murdered miser got back what he loved most, and ‘Thump Fun!’ (Haunt of Fear #20, July/August) knowingly revisited Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart whilst adding a little twistâ€¦

‘Mournin’ Mess’ (Tales From the Crypt #38, October/November) is a stylish and clever mystery about rich men funding a paupers graveyard – and why – whilst over in Vault of Horror (#32) ‘Strung Along’ depicted the revenge marionettes inflicted on the greedy woman who murdered their elderly puppeteer before the artistic arcana all ends with ‘An Off-Color Heir’ (Haunt of Fear #21, September/October 1953) and the salutary tale of an artist’s wife who discovered just too late her man’s habits and horrific heritage â€¦

Adding final weight to the proceedings is S.C. Ringgenberg’s biography of the tragic genius ‘Graham Ingels’, the aforementioned history of EC and a comprehensively illuminating ‘Behind the Panels: Creator Biographies’ feature by Mason, Spurgeon and Janice Lee.

The short, sweet but severely limited output of EC has been reprinted ad infinitum in the decades since the company died. These astounding stories and art not only changed comics but also infected the larger world through film and television and via the millions of dedicated devotees still addicted to New Trend tales.

However, the most influential stories are somehow the ones least known these days. Although Ingels turned his back on his comics career, ashamed of the furore and frenzy generated by closed-minded bigots in the 1950s, his incredible artistic talent and narrative legacy are finally gaining him the celebrity he should have had in life.

Sucker Bait is a scarily lovely tribute to the sheer ability of an unsung master of comics art and offers a fabulously engaging introduction for every lucky fear fan encountering the material for the very first time.

Whether you are an aging fear aficionado or callow contemporary convert, this is a book you must not missâ€¦
Sucker Bait and Other Stories Â© 2014 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All comics stories Â© 2014 William M. Gaines Agent, Inc., reprinted with permission. All other material Â© 2014 the respective creators and owners.

February 16, 2014

Zero Hour and Other Stories

Illustrated by Jack Kamen, written by Al Feldstein, Bill Gaines, Ray Bradbury & Jack Oleck (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-704-8

From 1950-1954 EC was the most innovative and influential comicbook publisher in America, dominating the genres of crime, horror, adventure, war and science fiction. They even originated an entirely new beast – the satirical comicbook – with Mad.

After a shaky start and following the death of his father (who actually created comicbooks in 1933), new Editor/publisher William Gaines and his trusty master-of-all-comics trades Al Feldstein turned a slavishly derivative minor venture into a pioneering, groundbreaking enterprise which completely altered the perception of the industry and art form.

They began co-plotting the bulk of EC’s output together, intent on creating a â€œNew Trendâ€ of stories aimed at older, more discerning readers (rather than the mythical 8-year-olds comics ostensibly targeted) and shifted the emphasis of the ailing company towards dark, funny, socially aware broadly adult fare.

Their publishing strategy also included hiring some the most gifted writers and artists in the field. One of the earliest and certainly most undervalued at the time was Jack Kamenâ€¦

This lavish monochrome hardcover volume, another instant classic in Fantagraphics’ EC Library, gathers a scintillating selection of Kamen’s quirkily low-key science fiction tales which always favoured character over spectacle or gimmicks and human frailty and foibles: the kind of offbeat yarns which predominated in such cleverly thought out TV shows as Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, which followed in EC’s wakeâ€¦

This almanac of The Unknown is, as always, stuffed with supplementary features beginning with ‘Graceful, Glamorous, and Easy on the Eye’: an informative, picture-packed history and critical appreciation by lecturer Bill Mason, after which the succession of scary, funny Tomorrow Stories opens with ‘Only Human!’

Kamen actually began working for EC before their New Trend days, brought in by old friend Al Feldstein (who scripted most of the stories here after barnstorming plot-sessions with affirmed SF fan and closet scientist Gaines) and this yarn from Weird Science #11, January/February 1952, perfectly shows the artist’s facility for capturing feminine allure (which served him well in his earlier romance comics days).

The tale is smart too as a group of readers is hired to educate the first ever electronic brain, but are unable to keep their feelings from contaminating the projectâ€¦

‘Shrinking from Abuse!’ (Weird Fantasy #11, also January/February 1952) is more recognisably EC â€œjust dessertsâ€ fare, as an abusive chemist’s size-changing solution leads to his beleaguered wife getting the final word in, whilst ‘The Last Man!’ from W S #12 (March/April 1952) plays morality games after a male survivor of atomic Armageddon finally locates a new Eve and finds she is the only woman he can’t possibly repopulate the world withâ€¦

Weird Fantasy #12, (March/April 1) revealed ‘A Lesson in Anatomy’ as a little lad’s ghoulish curiosity inadvertently ended an alien infiltration attempt, after which ‘Saving for the Future’ (Weird Science #13, May/June) offered a stunning lesson in Compound Interest when a poor couple opened a bank account and went into induced hibernation for 500 years, whilst ‘The Trip!’ (W F#13, May/June) looked at a different aspect of the topic as a philandering scientist attempted to use quick freeze tech to run off with his pretty assistant, but forgot something really importantâ€¦

‘Close Call!’ (W F #14, July/August) took a rather cruel look at a female scientist who wished that her male colleagues would stop hitting on her and wasn’t too happy at the hand fate then dealt her, before Weird Science #15 (September/October 1952) took a knowing glimpse at everyman’s dream when a nerd accidentally acquired the time-lost means to make perfect, willing women – and still got everything wrong due to ‘Miscalculation!’â€¦

Feldstein worked on every genre in EC’s stable, but the short, ironic, iconic science thrillers he produced during that paranoid period of Commies and H-Bombs, Flying Saucer Scares and Red Menaces, irrevocably transformed the genre from cowboys in tinfoil suits and Ray-gun adventure into a medium where shock and doom lurked everywhere.

His cynically trenchant outlook and darkly comedic satirical stories made the cosmos a truly dangerous, unforgiving place and kept it such – until the Comics Code Authority and television pacified and diminished the Wild Black Yonder for all future generations. He did however maintain a strong working relationship with Space-babes and ethereally beautiful E.T.s – and nobody drew them better than Kamenâ€¦

Â ‘He Who Waits!’(Weird Fantasy #15, September/October 1952) revealed one of their best collaborations as an old botanist discovered a luscious, seductive maiden only eight inches tall, living in one of his plants. The bittersweet tale showed that love could overcome any obstacleâ€¦

Greed is another unfailing plot driver in EC stories and in ‘Given the Heir!’ (W S #16, November/December) a poor new husband recruits his own descendent in a crazy plan to change the past and inherit millions. Unfortunately he didn’t pay as much attention to family history as he should haveâ€¦

‘What He Saw!’ in W F #16, (November/December) is an unrelenting tale of induced madness inflicted upon a lost space explorer whilst 1953 began in fine style with another science lesson as ‘Off Day!’ (Weird Science #17, January/February) outrageously depicted the potential results of the law of averages taking a day off before ‘The Parallel!’ (W S #18, March/April 1953) explored the concept of alternate earths as a smart but poor genius attempted to improve his life by murdering his other selvesâ€¦

Weird Fantasy #18 (March/April) featured the eponymous ‘Zero Hour’ – adapted from a Ray Bradbury short story â€“ and dealt with the subtlest of Martian invasions as imaginary friends used human children to pave their way, after which the Gaines/Feldstein brain trust described the grim fate of a chancer who used intercepted future gadgetry to turn his automobile into a getaway vehicle nobody could catchâ€¦ or findâ€¦ in ‘Hot-Rod!’ (Weird Fantasy #19, May/June 1953).

Cold, emotionless invaders infiltrated human society only to be doomed by seductive feelings in ‘â€¦Conquers All!’ (W F #20, July/August) after which the Bradbury prose piece â€œChangelingâ€ became ‘Surprise Package’ in Weird Science #20 (also July/August 1953) detailing the complex web of savage emotions engendered when Love Mannequins become commonplaceâ€¦

Bradbury’s sequel ‘Punishment Without Crime’ (W S #21, September/October) took the theme further by considering if killing such automata might be murder, before ‘Planely Possible’ (W F #21, September/October) returns to the concept of parallel Earths for a car crash survivor who would do anything to be reunited with his dead wife – or nearest approximation – after which cruel and unscrupulous carnival owners learn what its like to be ‘The Freaks’ (Weird Fantasy #22, November/December 1953)â€¦

Cold war paranoia and repression inform the 1984-like world of ‘4^th Degree’ (Weird Science-Fantasy #27, January/February 1955) as a closet rebel attempts to unmake his totalitarian world through time travel, and this glossy, dark trip through vintage tomorrows ends with ‘Round Trip’ from Weird Science-Fantasy #27 (March/April 1955) with a touching and contemplative reverie of a life lived long if not wellâ€¦

Regarded as one of the company’s fastest artists (only the phenomenal Jack Davis turned in his pages at a greater rate) Kamen always produced illustrative narrative which jangled nerves and twanged heartstrings: his lush forms and lavish inks instantly engaging and always concealing brilliant touches of sly, knowing humour. He was often overshadowed by EC’s other stalwarts but he was every bit their equal.

The timeless comics tales are followed by more background revelations in S.C. Ringgenberg’s ‘Jack Kamen’ and a special essay on the artist’s later life in ‘From Science Fiction to Science Fortune’ drawing intriguing parallels between his EC cartoons and the design assistance he later contributed to his inventor son Dean’s landmark creations – the portable Drug Infusion pump, portable Kidney Dialysis machine and Segway PT (yeah, that Dean Kamen) – before ending on another comprehensively illuminating ‘Behind the Panels: Creator Biographies’ from Tom Spurgeon, Janice Lee and Arthur Lortie.

The short, sweet but severely limited output of EC has been reprinted ad infinitum in the decades since the company died. These astounding, ahead-of-their-time-comics tales did not just revolutionise our industry but also impacted the whole world through film and television and via the millions of dedicated devotees still addicted to New Trend tales.

Zero Hour is the 8^th Fantagraphics compendium highlighting the contributions of individual creators, adding a new dimension to aficionados’ enjoyment whilst providing a sound introduction for those lucky souls encountering the material for the very first time.

Whether an aged EC Fan-Addict or the merest neophyte convert, this is a book no comics lover or crime-caper victim should missâ€¦
Zero Hour and Other Stories Â© 2014 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All comics stories Â© 2014 William M. Gaines Agent, Inc., reprinted with permission. All other material Â© 2014 the respective creators and owners.

January 31, 2014January 30, 2014

Golden Age Doctor Fate Archives volume 1

By Gardner F. Fox, Hal Sherman, Stan Aschmeier & Jon Chester Kozlak (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1308-0

One of the most interesting aspects of DC’s golden Age superhero pantheon is just how much more they gripped the attention of writers and readers from succeeding generations, even if they didn’t set the world alight during their original â€œGlory Daysâ€.

Many relatively short-lived or genuinely second-string characters with a remarkably short shelf life through the formative years of the industry have, since the Silver Age which began in 1956, seldom been far from our attention and been constantly revived, rebooted and resurrected.

After The (Jay Garrick) Flash and The Spectre, probably the most revered, revisited and frequently revived is Doctor Fate, who first appeared in 1940, courtesy of writer Gardner F. Fox and the uniquely stylistic Howard Sherman.

Although starting strong, he was another incredibly powerful man of mystery who failed to capture the imaginations of enough readers to build on the chimeric tone of the times: undergoing a radical revision midway through his initial run and losing his strip even before WWII ended.

Since his Silver Age revival however Fate has become a popular cornerstone of more than one DC Universeâ€¦

Following the historically informative and laudatory Foreword by big-time devotee fan and Golden Age Keeper of the Flame Roy Thomas, this monumental 400 page full-colour deluxe hardback (representing the entirety of Doctor Fate‘s run from More Fun Comics #55-98 (May 1940-July/August 1944) introduces the potentate of peril in a 6-page parable wherein he combats ‘The Menace of Wotan’.

During those simpler times origins and motivations were far less important than plot and action, so this eerie yarn focuses on a blue-skinned Mephistopheles’ scheme to assassinate comely lady of leisure Inza and how her enigmatic, golden-helmed protector thwarted the plot. The hero dealt harshly with the nefarious azure mage, barely mentioning in passing that Fate possessed all the lost knowledge and lore of ancient civilisations.

That’s probably the biggest difference between the original and today’s Fate: back then he was no sorcerer but an adept of forgotten science (a distinction cribbed from many Lovecraftian horror tales of the previous two decades of pulp fiction): a hair-splitting difference all but lost on the readers.

In #56 – which sported the first of eleven cover spots for the Wielder of Old Wisdoms –‘The Search for Wotan’ saw Fate carry Inza up the Stairs of Judgement to Heaven where they learned their foe was not dead and was preparing to blow up the entire Earth.

Foiling the plan but unable to permanently despatch the big blue meanie, Fate was forced to bury his enemy alive at the centre of the worldâ€¦

In ‘The Fire Murders’ in #57, certified doom-magnet Inza was targeted by mystic arsonist Mango the Mighty before her guardian Fate quickly ended the campaign of terror, whilst in the next issue a modern mage recovered ‘The Book of Thoth’ from its watery tomb and unleashed a wave of appalling, uncanny phenomenaâ€¦ until the Blue-and-Gold Gladiator stepped in.

The self-appointed bulwark against wicked mysticism flew out of his comfort zone in More Fun #59 to repel an invasion by ‘The People from Outer Space’ but was firmly back in occult territory for #60 when he destroyed ‘The Little Men’ employed by a legendary triumvirate of colossal Norns to crush humanity.

Behind #61’s striking Sherman cover, ‘Attack of the Nebula’ pitted the Puissant Paladin against a cosmic cloud and wandering planetoid summoned by an Earthly madman to devastate the world, then saw him crush a deranged technologist’s robotic coup in #62’s ‘Menace of the Metal Men’ and save Inza from petrification by ‘The Sorcerer’ in More Fun #63.

Like many of Fox’s very best heroic series, Doctor Fate was actually a romantic partnership, with Inza (after a number of surnames she eventually settled on Cramer) acting as assistant, foil and so very often the target of many macabre menaces. In #64 she and Fate – who still had no civilian identity – shared a pleasure cruise to the Caribbean where a slumbering Mayan God of Evil wanted to utilise her unique psychic talents in ‘The Mystery of Mayoor’.

She got a brief rest in #65 as Fate soloed in a bombastic battle to repel an invasion of America by ‘The Fish-Men of Nyarl-Amen’ but played a starring role in the next episode when Fate exposed a sadistic crook trying to drive his wealthy cousin to suicide by convincing her that she was ‘The Leopard Girl’â€¦

A year after his debut, More Fun Comics #67 (May 1941) at last revealed ‘The Origin of Doctor Fate’ telling how the boy Kent Nelson had accompanied his father Sven on an archaeological dig to Ur in 1920.

Broaching a pre-Chaldean pyramid, the lad awakened a dormant half-million year old alien from the planet Cilia, accidentally triggered security systems which killed his own father. Out of gratitude and remorse the being known as Nabu the Wise trained Kent to harness the hidden forces of the universe – levitation, telekinesis and the secrets of the atom – and after two decades sent him out into the world to battle those who used magic and science with evil intent.

That epic sequence only took up three pages, however, and the remainder of the instalment found time and space for Fate and Inza to turn back a ghostly incursion and convince Lord of the Dead Black Negal to stay away from the lands of the livingâ€¦

Fate then graduated to 10-page tales and held the covers of More Fun #68-76, beginning a classic run of spectacular thrillers by firstly crushing a scientific slaughterer who had built an invisible killing field in ‘Murder in Baranga Marsh’, before gaining a deadly arch-enemy in #69 when deranged physicist Ian Karkull used a ray to turn his gang into ‘The Shadow Killers’â€¦

In #70 the shadow master united with Fate’s first foe as ‘Wotan and Karkull’ built an arsenal of doomsday weapons in the arctic, but were still too weak to beat the Master of Cosmic Forces, whereas rogue solar scientist Igorovich would have successfully blackmailed the entire planet with ‘The Great Drought’ had Inza not intervenedâ€¦

With involvement in WWII now clearly inevitable, the covers had increasingly become more martial and patriotic in nature, and with More Fun Comics #72 (October 1941) Fate underwent an unexpected and radical change in nature.

The full face helmet was replaced with a gleaming metallic half hood and his powers diminished. Moreover the hero was no longer a cold, emotionless force of nature, but a passionate, lusty, two-fisted swashbuckler throwing punches rather than pulses of eerie energy. His previous physical invulnerability was countered by revealing that his lungs were merely human and he could be drowned, poisoned or asphyxiatedâ€¦

The quality and character of his opposition changed too. ‘The Forger’ pitted him against a gang of con-men targeting Inza’s family and other farmers; altering intercepted bank documents to pull off a cruel swindle, whilst a far more rational and reasonable nemesis debuted in #73 as criminal mastermind ‘Mr. Who’ used his body-morphing, forced- evolution Solution Z to perpetrate a series of sensational robberies.

Despite a rather brutal trouncing – and apparent death – the brute returned in #74 as ‘Mr. Who Lives Again’ saw the sinister scientist use his abilities to replace the City Mayor, whilst in #75 ‘The Battle Against Time’ found Fate racing to find a killer who had framed Inza’s best friend for murderâ€¦

Underworld chess master Michael Krugor manipulated people like pawns but ‘The King of Crime’ found himself overmatched when he tried to use Inza against Fate, after which #77 saw a welcome – if brief – return to the good old days as ‘Art for Crime’s Sake’ found the Man of Mystery braving a magic world of monsters within an ancient Chinese painting to rescue young lovers eldritchly exiled by a greedy art dealer

Issue #78 featured clever bandits who disguised themselves as statues of ‘The Wax Museum Killers’ whilst #79’s ‘The Deadly Designs of Mr. Who’ revealed how the metamorphic maniac attempted to impersonate and replace one of the richest men on Earth, and in #80 innovative felon ‘The Octopus’ turned a circus into his playground for High Society plunder.

In More Fun #81 cunning crook The Clock used radio show ‘Hall of Lost Heirs’ to trawl for potential victims and easy pickings whilst in the next issue Fate exposed the schemes of stage magician/conman The Red Sage who was offering Luck For Sale!’ after which ‘The Two Fates!’ – fortune tellers who used extortion and murder to bolster their prognostications – were stopped by the real dealâ€¦

In #84 the energetic crimebuster braved ‘Crime’s Hobby House!’ to stop thieving special effects wizard Mordaunt Grimm using rich men’s own pastimes to rob them, before big changes for Kent Nelson occurred in #85.

Here the society idler quickly qualified as a surgeon and medical doctor, embarking on a new career of service to humanity. Additionally, his alter ego ditched the golden cape, becoming a more acrobatic and human – if still bulletproof – crimebuster, exposing a greedy plastic surgeon helping crooks escape justice as ‘The Man Who Changed Faces!’

The medical theme predominated in these later tales. ‘The Man Who Wanted No Medals’ was a brilliant surgeon who feared a crushing youthful indiscretion would be exposed after which #87’s ‘The Mystery of Room 406’ dealt with a hospital cubicle where even the healthiest patients always died whilst in ‘The Victim of Doctor Fate!’, Nelson suffered crippling self-doubt when he failed to save a patient.

Those only faded after the surgeon’s diligent enquiries revealed the murderous hands of Mad Dog McBain behind the untimely demiseâ€¦

Charlatan soothsaying scoundrel Krishna Das was exposed by Fate and Inza in #89’s ‘The Case of the Crystal Crimes’ after which ‘The Case of the Healthy Patient!’ pitted them against a fraudulent doctor and incurable hypochondriac before Mr. Who used his chemical conjurations to shrink our hero to doll size in #91’s ‘The Man Who Belittled Fate!’

The Thief of Time struck again – whilst still in jail – in More Fun #92 as ‘Fate Turns Back The Clock!’ and Hal Sherman ended his long association with the strip in ‘The Legend of Lucky Lane’ wherein an impossibly fortunate felon finally played the odds once too oftenâ€¦

As the page-count dropped back to six pages Stan Aschmeier illustrated the next two adventures, beginning with 94’s ‘The Destiny of Mr. Coffin!’ with Fate coming to the aid of a fatalistic old soul framed for being a fence whilst ‘Flame in the Night!’ saw a matchbox collector targeted by killers who thought he knew too muchâ€¦

With the end clearly in sight Jon Chester Kozlak took over the art beginning with More Fun Comics #96 and ‘Forgotten Magic!’ as Fate’s Chaldean sponsor was forced to remove the hero’s remaining superhuman abilities for a day – leaving Fate to save trapped miners and foil their swindling boss with nothing but wits and courage.

Then the restored champion exposed the spurious bad luck reputed to plague ‘Pharaoh’s Lamp!’ and ended/suspended his crime-crushing career with #98 by sorting out a case of mistaken identity when a young boy was confused with diminutive Stumpy Small AKA ‘The Bashful King of Crime!’â€¦

With the first age of superheroes coming to a close new tastes were developing in the readership. Fate’s costumed co-stars Green Arrow, Aquaman and Johnny Quick – along with debuting concept Superboy – moved over to Adventure Comics leaving More Fun as an anthology of cartoon comedy features.

Initially dark, broodingly exotic and often genuinely spooky, Doctor Fate smoothly switched to the bombastic, boisterous, flamboyant and vividly exuberant post war Fights ‘n’ Tights style but couldn’t escape the changing times. Now however, both halves of his early career can be seen as a lost treasure trove of tense suspense, eerie enigmas, spectacular action and fabulous fun: one no lover of Costumed Dramas or sheer comics wonderment can afford to miss.
Â© 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

January 26, 2014January 25, 2014

Seven Soldiers of Victory Archives volume 2

By Joe Samachson, Ed Dobrotka, Pierce Rice, Jon Small, Maurice Del Bourgo & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1308-4

After the actual invention of the comicbook superhero – for which read the Action Comics debut of Superman in 1938 – the most significant event in the industry’s history was the combination of individual sales-points into a group. Thus what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven: consumers couldn’t get enough of garishly-hued mystery men and a multitude of popular characters would inevitably increase readership.

Plus, of course, a mob of superheroes is just so much cooler than one (â€¦or one-and-a-half if there’s a sidekick involvedâ€¦).

It cannot be understated: the creation of the Justice Society of America in 1941 utterly changed the shape of the budding industry. Soon after the team debuted, even All American Comics’ publishing partner National wanted to get in on the act and created their own squad of solo stars, populated with a number of their proprietary characters who hadn’t made it onto the roster of the cooperative coalition of AA and DC stars.Â Â Â Oddly they never settled on a name and the team of non-powered mystery men who debuted in Leading Comics #1 in 1941 were retroactively and alternatively dubbed The Law’s Legionnaires and The Seven Soldiers of Victory.

They never even had their own title-logo but only appeared as solo stars grouped together on the 14 spectacular covers, the second quartet of which (by Mort Meskin, Jon Small, Maurice Del Bourgo and a sadly unidentified artist) preface each collaborative epic in this spectacular sequel of Golden Age delights.

The full contents of this bombastic deluxe hardback barrage of comicbook bravado were originally presented in the quarterly Leading Comics #5-8, spanning Winter 1942/1943 to Fall 1943 and, following an incisive discourse and background history lesson from comics historian Bill Schelly in his Foreword, that war-time wonderment resumes with the heroes’ fifth adventure.

The sagas all followed a basic but extremely effective formula (established by Mort Weisinger in their first case), and here the warped mastermind challenging the Legionnaires was The Skull, who devised ‘The Miracles That Money Couldn’t Buy!’ (illustrated over all seven chapters by Ed Dobrotka but again the work of a writer time has forgotten and sketchy records have not yet revealed – but most probably the amazing Joe Samachsonâ€¦).

The drama began when publisher Lee Travis tips off his pal Oliver Queen to an imminent prison break in his bailiwick.

Green Arrow and Speedy are too late to stop vicious Bill â€œPorkyâ€ Johnson‘s escape via skull-painted mystery-plane and that soon-to-be-executed convict’s feat is repeated four more times across the country, leaving a handful of Death Row inmates beholden to a strange old man dubbed who has found that, for all his wealth, there are still things money cannot buy.

However, for an unscrupulous businessman unwilling to get his own emaciated hands dirty but with the right criminal specialists, they can be stolenâ€¦

The Seven Soldiers meanwhile have briefly convened and now stand ready to face their specified nemeses as soon as they rear their scurrilous headsâ€¦

In ‘The Case of the Criminal Vigilante’ rustler and horse thief Bronco Slade steals Spinaway – the fastest racehorse on Earth – by impersonating the Vigilante, with the true Sagebrush Centurion helpless to stop him, and indeed even taken prisoner beside his hapless, interfering biggest-fan Mr. Meekâ€¦

‘The Diamond of Doom!’ finds jewel thief the Sparkler targeting the fabulous, reputedly cursed Koram Diamond. Even though Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy are unable to bring the bandit to justice, a spookily fatal fate befalls him.

A similar outcome ends hijacker Bull Corbin after he outfoxes the Crimson Avenger and Wing whilst purloining a prototype spaceship. However rather than a clean getaway all that awaits the thief is a grim and final ‘Destiny among the Stars!’

‘A Knight without Armor’ reveals how the Shining Knight‘s magic mail-coat is too tough a target for shifty Matt Grieder, but the thug’s subsequent attempt to pass off fake metal-wear ends in near-death for Sir Justin and execution for the villain, after which the Emerald Archers finish their hunt for Porky Johnson when the fugitive’s successful attempt to obtain a rejuvenation ray for the Skull prematurely rings down the curtain for The Murderer Who Couldn’t be Hanged!’

The untitled ‘Conclusion’ then shows how getting everything you want might not make you happy – or keep you breathing – as the Vigilante busts free just as his Legionnaire allies storm the triumphant Skull’s fortressâ€¦

Leading Comics #6 was also probably scripted by Samachson, but this time the penciller is unrecorded. At least we know he or she was inked by Maurice Del Bourgoâ€¦

‘The Treasure That Time Forgot!’ is a grand hunt for the hidden gold of the Incas. Archaeologist Mr. Milton publicly calls upon the Seven Soldiers to follow his old map and find Pizarro‘s lost treasure hoard the plan is to bolster America’s war-chest by a billion dollarsâ€¦

Said map, sketched by an explorer named Burton, comes with cryptic verses and false trails, so the archaeologist’s assistant Scrivener suggests the heroes split up to save time. They could even make a competition of itâ€¦

‘Crimes by Proxy!’ finds Green Arrow and Speedy clashing with Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy deep in the Andes as a hidden hand attempts to murder both teams using the weaponry of the other; a tactic repeated when Shining Knight and Vigilante discover a lost city and are tricked into conducting ‘A Duel to the Death!’

Their cataclysmic clash ends as an enigmatic and heavily disguised manipulator surfaces, confident the heroes have cleared all obstacles and booby-traps, only to fall foul of avian horrors in ‘Winged Masters of the Mountains!’

‘The Gold that Failed to Glitter!’ finds the man-&-boy teams still mistakenly battling each other until the late-arriving knight and cowboy forcibly restrain them. Soon after, aged Mr. Milton mysteriously turns up to help, but only succeeds in spreading further suspicion when the combined party discovers the legendary treasure vaultâ€¦ emptied!

Meanwhile the Crimson Avenger and Wing have followed ‘The Third Treasure Trail!’ and met the last of the Incas – as well as their real enemy – and everybody collides in the explosive conclusion which solves all the mysteries at ‘Trail’s End!’

Issue #7 – pencilled by Pierce Rice – takes the heroes on a similar fund-raising quest as War Bond Drive performers, but the tour is a scam by a strange individual who is an emissary of ‘The Wizard of Wisstark!’

He implores the Legionnaires to travel to his fantastic kingdom and liberate the Antarctic hidden city from the threat of invasionâ€¦

The Wizard is actually an elderly American stage conjuror who fell into the position of chief but now his peaceful, super-scientific subjects are being threatened by real magicians from the rival polar city of Stanoviaâ€¦

The fight back begins when Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy travel to ‘The Land of Giants!’ hoping to enlist the colossi in the struggle. Sadly the brutal hulks are already engaged in a struggle with a tribe of equally savage dwarves, but the boy genius has an idea and takes a few movie pictures before leavingâ€¦

‘The Wizard Archers and the Wizards!’ sees Green Arrow and Speedy strike to the heart of the matter and boldly invade Stanovia, where they discover a few intriguing secrets about the triumvirate of â€œmagesâ€ who rule the cityâ€¦

Wing and the Crimson Avenger stayed with the Wizard in Wisstark, in case of fifth column attacks. They are unfortunately captured by ‘The Invisible Men!’ who have been despatched to sow disorder and terror. Whilst being taken to Stanovia, however, the mystery men discover a shocking secret about their foesâ€¦

Whilst that was happening the Vigilante made his own contribution to the cold war-effort, catching a Wizard doppelganger attempting to infiltrate the palace in ‘Double Trouble!’, before Shining Knight, patrolling the skies on his winged steed Victory, recruits timber-clad warriors to counterattack Stanovia in ‘The March of the Wooden-Armored Soldiers’â€¦

With their pre-battle preparations completed, the Seven Soldiers reunite for the final ‘Battle of the Wizards!’, much-heartened by the conclusion each has individually reached regarding the truth about the Stanovian sorcerersâ€¦

This second classic collection concludes with a stirring time-travel, super-villain mash-up as Leading #8 sees the heroes ambushed and reduced to ‘Exiles in Time!’ (illustrated by Jon Small & Del Bourgo) by old enemy The Dummy.

The diminutive demon of destruction subtly lures his foes into a cunning ambush which catapults the crusaders down the corridors of history, before turning his attention to plunder and mayhem, not realising that heroism is found in every era, such as 17^th century France where the Three Musketeers ally with Green Arrow and Speedy to solve the theft of ‘The Queen’s Necklace!’â€¦

Crimson Avenger and Wing re-materialised in China but were utterly unable to determine when. Deductive investigation finally paid off as Japanese invaders trying to stop the completion of the Great Wall pointed to 225BC, when and where the time-travellers were happy to train the peasantry in how to fight them by displaying ‘Courage in Canton!’â€¦

‘Voyage of the Vikings’ found Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy deposited on a lost and ice-gripped dragon-boat, struggling for survival with their newfound comrades as they desperately sought solid ground. How astonished they all were when bold Leif Ericsson dubbed his discovery Vineland and he patriotic mystery men realised they had been part of the first discovery of Americaâ€¦

‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen’ saw Vigilante land in Rome and recognise a brace of 20^th century mugs. Trailing the hoods to the house of super-rich Crassus, the Western Wildcat realised the criminals were using the Dummy’s device to plunder historical treasures but even after foiling their plans, he was still stuck in the pastâ€¦

‘The Legend of Leonardo’ revealed how the Shining Knight came to the aid of the legendary Da Vinci and was rewarded with a quick trip on the master’s own recently completed time machine. Back when he started from, the Arthurian paladin then began toppling some temporal dominoes in the ‘Conclusion’, allowing his time-tossed companions to return and deal with the diabolical doll-man in the appropriate manner…

These raw, wild and excessively engaging costumed romps are amongst some of the best but most neglected thrillers of the halcyon Golden Age. Happily, modern tastes too have moved on and these yarns are probably far more in tune with contemporary mores, making this a truly guilty pleasure for all fans of mystery, mayhem and stylish superteam tusslesâ€¦
Â© 1942, 1943, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

January 9, 2014January 8, 2014

Golden Age Starman Archives volume 2

By Gardner Fox, Alfred Bester, Joe Samachson, Jack & Ray Burnley, Mort Meskin, George Roussos, Emil Gershwin & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2283-3

After the staggering success of Superman and Batman, National Comics/DC rapidly launched many other mystery-men in their efforts to capitalise on the phenomenon of superheroes, and from our decades-distant perspective it’s only fair to say that by 1941 the editors had only the vaguest inkling of what they were doing.

Since newest creations Sandman, The Spectre and Hourman were each imbued with equal investments of innovation, creativity and exposure, the editorial powers-that-be were rather disappointed that their later additions never took off to the same explosive degree.

Publishing partner but separate editorial entity All American Comics had by then created many barnstorming successes such as The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman and Hop Harrigan and would soon actually produce the only true rival to Superman and Batman’s star status when Wonder Woman debuted late in the year.

Of course AA clearly filtered all ideas through the brilliantly â€œin-tuneâ€ creative and editorial prodigy Sheldon Mayerâ€¦

Thus when Starman launched in the April 1941 Adventure Comics (relegating former Sandman to a back-up role in the already venerable heroic anthology), National/DC trusted in craft and quality rather than some indefinable â€œpizzazzâ€.

Before too long, though, the editors were forced to concede that even the forcefully realistic, conventionally dramatic illustration of Hardin â€œJackâ€ Burnley would not propel their newest concept to the same giddy heights of popularity as the Action Ace or Gotham Guardian.

The strip, always magnificently drawn and indisputably one of the most beautifully realised of the period, was further blessed with mature and compelling scripts by Gardner Fox, Alfred Bester, Don Cameron and latterly Joe Samachson but just never really caught on.

However, by today’s standards these compelling, compulsive fun-filled and just plain brilliant tales are some one of the very best comics that era ever produced.

Happily these days, with an appreciably older and more discerning audience, Starman’s less-than-stellar War years career might be more fully appreciated for the superb example of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction it truly was. This particular volume sees the subtle, moody, slower-paced intellectually edgy stories supplanted by shorter yarns brimming with sheer exuberance and kinetic energy as, with the Nazi menace beaten, home grown criminals began to congregate on comics pagesâ€¦

Golden Age guru Roy Thomas offers his own absorbing critical overview in the Foreword to this second stunning deluxe hardback collection – completing the Sidereal Sentinel’s tenure in Adventure Comics (issues #77-102, spanning August 1942 to February 1946). The volume even includes some of the most iconic covers of the Golden Age by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby – even though most of them only feature Starman in a little insert in one corner!

As was often the case, although Burnley came up with the concept and look for the Astral Avenger, a professional writer was assigned to flesh out and co-create the stories. At first multi-talented Gardner Fox handled the job, but eventually Alfred Bester began supplying scripts, whilst the illustrator also liberally called on the talents of his brother Dupree â€œRayâ€ Burnley as art assistant and inker with their sister Betty as letterer to finish the episodes in sublimely cinematic style.

In those simpler times origins were far less important than today, and the moonlit magic just happened: playboy astronomer and secret genius Ted Knight simply invented a â€œGravity Rodâ€ which stored and redirected the incredible power of the stars, and like any decent right-thinking individual created a â€œmystery manâ€ persona.

Offering Starman’ services to FBI chief Woodley Allen, the Man of Night started his crusade against evil and injusticeâ€¦

The period peril begins here with ‘Finders Keepers!’ by Fox & Burnley, wherein arch-nemesis The Mist combined his usual invisibility gimmicks with a subtle psychological scheme. When members of the public found valuable â€œlost propertyâ€ they had no idea each item carried a post-hypnotic command to surrender their own valuables to the criminal mastermindâ€¦

Bester then scripted a thriller dealing with another kind of invisibility for the next issue as Starman and street urchin Mike Muggins ended the impossible robbery-spree of ‘The Little Man Who Wasn’t There!’, whilst in #79 ‘The Tune of Terrific Toby’ (Bester & Burnley again) offered a lighter tone for the tale of a meek office worker who faked a bold rescue to enhance his status only to become embroiled in a concatenation of increasingly dangerous stunts. Happily Starman was able to turn the repentant fool into a real heroâ€¦

Burnley bowed out in style in Adventure #80 (November 1942) in Bester’s ‘The Time-Machine Crime!’ wherein thugs used said purloined device to kidnap William Shakespeare, in hopes his canny mind could plan the perfect crimeâ€¦

Gardner Fox returned for another stint in #81 as the explosively kinetic Mort Meskin & George Roussos briefly took on the art. In ‘Starman’s Lucky Star!’ a poor blind boy who wanted to be an astronomer was mistakenly kidnapped instead of his wealthy playmate. Thankfully the Star Sentinel was available to put everything right, after which ‘Hitch a Wagon to the Stars’ (#82, Fox, Meskin & Roussos) spotlighted a brilliant young inventor whose obsession with astrology blighted his life, and nearly made him a patsy for Nazi spiesâ€¦ at least until Ted Knight and his alter ego intervened.

With Adventure Comics #83 Emil Gershwin became main illustrator for the series – a solid, polished artist much influenced by Mac Raboy – and ‘Wish Upon a Star!’ gave him the opportunity to shine in the moving, socially-charged tale of three prep school boys whose unselfish wishes came true thanks to Starmanâ€¦

At this time the Astral Avenger’s page counts began to decline as his popularity dwindled – from an average of 11 to 7 or 8 – and ‘The Doom From the Skies’ reflected a growing trend towards fast-paced action as a burglar stole the Gravity Rod, leaving our hero an amnesiac and his weapon a deadly death ray, whilst ‘The Constellations of Crime!’ in #85 introduced Astra the Astrologist who used predictions as the basis of extravagantly deadly crimesâ€¦

In the next issue a disgraced sportsman pretended to undertake a lunar trip whilst equipping his gang with clever gimmicks to rob and restore his fortune as ‘The Moonman’s Muggs!

An element of detection fiction was added in Adventure #87 when Starman exposed a gang selling the inexplicably popular paintings of the worst artist in America as ‘Crime Paints a Picture!’ before rejoining the war-effort in #88 as the Stellar Centurion solved ‘The Enigma of the Vanishing House!’ and smashed a Nazi spy-ring.

In #89 old enemies the Moroni Gang broke out of jail and restarted their criminal careers as Sun, Moon and Saturn. Regrettably ‘The Plundering Planets!’ quickly fell foul of Starman and a couple of really annoying prankster kidsâ€¦

Meskin & Roussos popped back in #90 to vividly envision the anonymous thriller ‘Land Beneath the Fog!’ wherein Starman saved a lady scientist accused of witchcraft in a lost medieval kingdom, whilst in the next issue Don Cameron, Meskin & Sam Citron jointly detailed ‘The Rising Star of Johnny Teach!’ as another young man emotionally crippled by a nonsensical faith in astrology found the courage to turn his life aroundâ€¦ after a little prompting from Starman.

With Adventure #92 Joe Samachson took over the scripting and Gershwin returned to illuminate the series until its premature conclusion.

The run began with ‘The Three Comets!’ – circus acrobats Starman was convinced doubled as flamboyant thieves. All he had to do was find out where they stashed the lootâ€¦

In #93’s ‘Gifts from the Stars!’ the hero almost died after getting in between a squabbling scientist and his financial backer whose protracted arguments allowed robbers to blindside them both, #94’s ‘Stars Fall on Allie Bammer!’ had gangster Blackie Kohl use a meteor shower to gain entrance to an impregnable estate, and ‘The Professor Plays Safe!’ in #95 found a muddle headed astronomer at the wrong conference only to end up locked in a safe – until Starman stepped inâ€¦

‘Prediction for Plunder!’ saw Ted Knight and a gang of superstitious crooks both ticked off at the unscrupulous editor of the Weekly Horoscope. The Socialite wanted no more scary predictions worrying his nervous friends, but the thugs were actually using those specious prognostications to plan their jobsâ€¦

Adventure #97 saw impoverished stargazer Jimmy Wells agree to let wealthy Wesley Vanderloot take all the credit for his discoveries in return for direly needed cash, but his ‘Stolen Glory!’ almost cost the scientist and Starman their lives when the millionaire faced humiliating exposure, after which #98 revealed a stellar conundrum which gave the hero belated insight into a bizarre crime-wave where one gang was framing another for their jewel heists in ‘Twin Stars of Crime!’

Fame was again the spur in ‘My Fortune for a Star!’ when a destitute astronomer discovered a new star and offered to sell the naming rights to the highest bidder. Naturally whenever cash is being thrown around thieves are never far awayâ€¦

By Adventure Comics #100 Starman had dropped to the back of the book and even the plots were beginning to feel a little formulaic. In ‘Life and Death of a Star!’ a friend of Ted’s thought he’d discovered a new star, but upon investigation Starman found the strange light was merely a clever signal to convicts planning a jailbreak, whilst in #101 ‘The Sun-Spot Scoundrel!’ featured a savant who posited that the mysterious solar blemishes caused increased criminal activity even as they neutralised the mighty Gravity Rodâ€¦

It was all over in #102, although the last tale was far from a damp squib. The Meteor Mob’ found savvy mobster Shiver using a cannon to create his own shooting stars – only these ones only ever fell on banks and jewellery storesâ€¦

Despite that unwarranted fizzling out, the Golden Age Starman is a strip that truly shines today. Enthralling, engaging and fantastically inviting, these simple straightforward adventures should be considered a high-point of the era – even if readers of the time didn’t realise it – and the stories still offer astonishing thrills, spills and chills for today’s sophisticated readership.

Starman’s exploits are some of the most neglected thrillers of those halcyon days, but modern tastes will find them far more in tune with contemporary mores, making this book an unmissable delight for fans of mad science, mystery, murder and crazy crime capersâ€¦
Â© 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

January 3, 2014January 2, 2014

Garth Ennis Presents Battle Classics

By John Wagner, Alan Hebden, David Hunt, Mike Western, John Cooper, Cam Kennedy & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-741-0

In case you don’t know: apart from his other scripting wonders, Garth Ennis is the best writer of war comics in America today. In fact, if you disregard the marvellous Commando Picture Library series published by DC Thomson (which you shouldn’t – but no one admits to reading them in my circle), he may well be the only full-time comics professional regularly working in the genre in the entire English Language.

His credentials are well established now and, despite his self-deprecating tone in his Foreword, Ennis’s affinity for and love of combat tales makes him the go-to guy if you’re planning to re-publish classic war stories and even more so if they all come from his favourite boyhood readâ€¦

For most of the industry’s history, British comics have been renowned for the ability to tell a big story in satisfying little instalments and this, coupled with superior creators and the anthology nature of our publications, has ensured that hundreds of memorable characters and series have seared themselves into the little boy’s psyche inside most British adult males.

One of the last great weekly anthology comics was Battle, a strictly combat-themed anthology which began as Battle Picture Weekly (launched 8^th March 1975) which, through absorption, merger and re-branding (as Battle Picture Weekly & Valiant, Battle Action, Battle, Battle Action Force and Battle Storm Force) reigned supreme in Blighty before itself being combined with Eagle on January 23^rd 1988. Through 673 blood-soaked, testosterone-drenched issues, it fought its way into the bloodthirsty hearts of a generation, consequently producing some of the best and most influential war stories ever.

Happily some of the very best – notably Charley’s War, Darkie’s Mob and Johnny Red – have recently been preserved and revisited in sturdily resilient reprint collections, ably supplemented by a taster tome entitled The Best of Battle, but there’s still loads of superb stuff to be found â€¦

This particular compendium gathers in two of the very best in their entirety and provides a triple dose of short, sharp shockers illustrated by doyen of war artists Cam Kennedy.

In his introductory essay ‘And you expected to die hard: HMS Nightshade‘, Ennis fills in the background on the strip which disproved the publishing maxim that kids didn’t want to read â€œship storiesâ€: detailing how and when the feature began (like Charley’s War in Battle #200, dated January 6^th 1979 for 48 instalments) and just why it was so special…

The simple answer is sheer talent: scripter John Wagner (Bella at the Bar, One-Eyed Jack, Joe Two Beans, Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Fight for the Falklands, Button-Man, Batman, A History of Violence etc.) and illustrator Mike Western (The Leopard of Lime Street, Jack o’ Justice, The Wild Wonders, The Sarge and so many more) had worked together on other strips such as Partridge’s Patch and the aforementioned Darkie’s Mob, but here especially their talents synchronised and merged to form a minor classic of grit, determination and courage under fire and despite stupidity and cupidity.

Set in an almost forgotten maritime arena, HMS Nightshade shares the stories of Seaman George Dunn as told to his grandson: grim and glorious events of the Second World War as seen from the rolling decks of a British Flower-Class Corvette.

Escorting the merchant ships and tanker convoys that kept Britain on her feet during the Battle of the Atlantic or constantly re-supplying war materiel to Russia on the Murmansk Run proved to be days of back-breaking toil and unending tedium punctuated by moments of insane amusement or terror-filled tension and sudden death, but the old salt slowly and engagingly reveals how bonds forged between shipmates and the vessel which protected them remain strong – even though old George is the last survivor of those perilous daysâ€¦

With occasional art assistance from Ron Tiner, the saga begins with young George and his new shipmates Big Stan, Smiffy and Jock McCall joining the relatively tiny vessel in May 1940.

Forced to adapt quickly to life aboard ship, the quartet are just in time to become part of the vast flotilla rescuing British soldiers from Dunkirk, experiencing first-hand and up close all the horrors of war and shocks of personal loss.

Learning to despise the ever-present, merciless U-Boats and perpetual airborne attacks from Stukas and other predatory planes, the Nightshade’s crew soon become adept at spotting and shooting back, but escort duty still consists mostly of barely suppressed panic and the appalling anger and pain as one more tanker or cargo ship under their protection explodes and sinksâ€¦

Wagner’s stunning ability to delineate character through intense action and staccato humour carried the series from the North Atlantic, through an astounding sequence in Russia, to Africa: blending sea battles with evocative human adventures – such as an imbecilic merchant sea captain, Smiffy’s tragic marriage and brush with Black Marketeers or George’s vendetta with psychotic bullying shipmate Parsons. That villain’s ultimate fate was one of the most unforgettable scenes in British comics historyâ€¦

The saga abounds with sharply defined and uniquely memorable supporting stars such as Handsome John, tragic Dennis Flowers and despondent â€œNever-gonna-make-itâ€ Brown – who was so obsessed with his impending demise that every man aboard carried one of his goodbye letters to his mum. Even Dogfish: a half-drowned mongrel saved from drowning whose canine senses proved invaluable in early warning of German air raids became a beloved canine star – which meant nothing to a writer like Wagner who knows how to use sentiment to his advantageâ€¦

Constant attacks led to a high turnover and later replacements included Whitey Bascombe who barely survived an immersion in Arctic waters and never felt warm ever again, affable coward and inevitable absconder Tubby Grover and simpleminded body builder â€œMusclesâ€ Thomson – who took his repugnant role of â€œShip’s Crusherâ€ to his heartâ€¦

Packed with intense combat action, bleak introspection, oppressive tension and stunning moments of gallows hilarity, the life and inescapable death of HMS Nightshade is a masterpiece of maritime fiction and war comics, and alone would be worth the price of admission here.

Even so, there are a few more dark delights to tickle the military palate, and the next inclusion offers a view of the conflict through an enemy’s eyesâ€¦

As explained by Ennis in ‘Rest Easy, Herr Margen: The General Dies at Dawn‘ is a short yet provocative serial dealing with the concept of â€œthe Good Germanâ€, cleverly delivered here as a deathbed confession by a disgraced Wehrmacht officer awaiting execution at Nuremberg.

Scripted by Alan Hebden (Rat Pack, Fighting Mann, M.A.C.H. 1, Meltdown Man, Major Eazy etc) with art by John Cooper (Thunderbirds, Judge Dredd, Dredger, Armitage, One-Eyed Jack, Johnny Red, Dr. Who and so much more) this brief – 11 episodes from October 4^th to December 28^th 1978 – thriller traces the meteoric career of professional soldier Otto Von Margen.

Found guilty of Cowardice, Disobedience, High Treason and Defeatism by his fellow generals, he sits in a cell at Stadiheim Military Prison near Nuremburg, on the 20^th of April 1945, counting down the 11 hours to his execution by telling his side of the story to his jailer.

Beyond the walls, the surging US army is drawing ever closerâ€¦

From early triumphs in Poland to the invasion of Norway, from Dunkirk to Yugoslavia, the Siege of Stalingrad and eventually Normandy – where his constant opposition to the monstrous acts of his own side finally became unpardonable – Von Margen and his devoted comrade Feldwebel Korder proved themselves brilliant, valiant and honourable soldiers.

However their incessant interference in Gestapo affairs and SS battlefield atrocities made them marked men, and finally the General went too farâ€¦

The tale of a patriotic soldier who served his country ruthlessly and proudly as a tank commander, whilst conducting a private war against barbaric Nazi sadists of the Gestapo and SS, is both gripping and genuinely moving, and the glittering, dwindling hope of the Americans arriving before his execution keeps the suspense at an intoxicating levelâ€¦

This epic oversized monochrome collection (256 pages and 312mm x 226mm) then concludes with three complete short stories all illustrated by the magnificent Cam Kennedy (Commando, Fighting Mann, Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Batman, Star Wars, The Light and Darkness War, The Punisher, Zancudo).

Sadly, as explained by Ennis in his prelude ‘Get out, Leave me alone! This is my grave!: Private Loser and other stories’, only the last – and by far best – has a writer credit.

‘Clash by Night!’ is a classic â€œironyâ€ tale as a group of US Marines on Iwo Jima fall foul of the Japanese trick of imitating wounded American soldiers, whilst the equally anonymous ‘Hot Wheels’ wryly describes the do-or-die antics of flamboyant supply truckers Yancy and Mule as they break all the rules to get a shipment of food and ammo to hard-pressed American troops closing in on Berlin in 1945â€¦

There’s a subtle knack and true art to crafting perfect short stories, and Battle‘s veteran editor Dave Hunt shows how it should be done in the impressively gripping ‘Private Loser’ wherein a meek, hopeless failure left to die during a British retreat from Burma in 1942 finally finds a horrific, gore-soaked, existentialist moment where he mattersâ€¦

Ennis’ Afterword then wraps everything up with appropriate Thank-Yous and some very handy information on where to find even more masterful martial comics madness to enthral and delight anyone whose appetite for torment, tragedy, blood and wonder hasn’t been fully slaked yetâ€¦

These spectacular tales of action, tension and drama, with heaping helpings of sardonic grim wit from both sides of World War II and beyond, has only improved in the years since Battle folded, and these black and white gems are as affecting and engrossing now as they’ve ever been.

Garth Ennis Presents Battle Classics is scheduled for release January 9^th 2014.

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