Nostalgia – Page 63 – Now Read This!

July 4, 2016

Creepy Presents Steve Ditko

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

June 28, 2016June 27, 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

June 25, 2016June 25, 2016

The Shadow volume 1: The Fire of Creation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Only he, Margo and the insufferable Cranston surviveâ€¦

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

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

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

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

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

June 18, 2016

Batman in the Forties

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

June 9, 2016June 8, 2016

The Shadow: Blood and Judgement

By Howard Chaykin with Ken Bruzenak & Alex Wald (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-327-8

I’ve been a fan of The Shadow ever since I picked up a couple of paperbacks as a kid in my local Woolworth’s in the 1960s. Over many decades I’ve followed the various comic and movie interpretations with mixed feelings and general acceptance. However, when Howard Chaykin had a crack at the venerable crime-crusher at the height of the turbulent game-changing 1980’s, I nearly blew a gasket. I was appalled.

And that was the point.

Chaykin has for his entire career lovingly cultivated a reputation as an iconoclast and bombast over many years and the four issue miniseries collected here certainly ruffled a few feathers â€“ those of severe traditionalist me included.

As originally disseminated in the days before comic-books, The Shadow gave thrill-hungry readers their measured doses of extraordinary excitement via cheaply produced periodical novels dubbed â€œpulpsâ€ (because of the low-grade paper they were printed on) and over the mood-drenched airwaves through his own radio show.

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

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

The Shadow evolved into a proactive hero solving mysteries and, on April 1st 1931, debuted in his own pulp series written by the incredibly prolific Walter Gibson under the house pseudonym Maxwell Grant. On September 26^th 1937 the radio show officially became The Shadow with the eerie tag-line â€œWho knows what evil lurks in the hearts of Men? The Shadow knows!â€

From June 17^th 1940 he starred in a newspaper strip by Vernon Greene and when comic books took off he had his own four-colour title which ran for 101 issues (March 1940 – September 1949). Years later Archie Comics published a controversial contemporary version in 1964-5 under their Radio/Mighty Comics imprint, written by Robert Bernstein and Jerry Siegel, illustrated by John Rosenberger and latterly Paul Reinman.

In 1973 DC acquired the comic rights and produced a captivating if brief series of classic tales unlike any other superhero title then on the stands.

Grant wrote 282 of 325 novels over the next two decades, which were published twice a month. The series spawned comic books, seven movies, a newspaper strip and all the merchandising paraphernalia you’d expect of a superstar brand. The pulp series also ended in 1949, although many novels have been written (both by Gibson and others) since 1963 when a pulp and fantasy revival gripped America generating reprinted classic stories and a run of new adventures as paperback novels.

Then he was gone again but the mesmerising master of menace always seemed to be lurking in the backgroundâ€¦

DC periodically revived their comicbook iterations of the venerable vigilante and in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchman tasked one of the comics industry’s most controversial creators with reviving the pre-eminent mystery men of all timeâ€¦

Fresh from an awe-inspiring, inspirational and transformative run on his creation American Flagg, Howard Chaykin returned to DC to shake up everything with an interpretation which offended fans, purists (still including me) and franchise-owners Conde Nast but which ultimately proved to be just the medicine the property needed to become relevant again.

That crucial year 1949 is the embarkation point for this flashy, savage, witty and completely captivating updating. This is not a reboot. Chaykin was extremely careful to accept and utilise the decades of established canon; deftly accommodating old material whilst infilling information gaps by scrutinising world history and tacitly accepting that a do-gooder who exploited and expended his own agents whilst kidnapping, brainwashing and slaughtering the bad guys wasn’t what most people would consider a heroâ€¦

Devised and delivered as a glittering, frenetic avalanche of graphic and text material – spectacularly made comprehensible by the calligraphic skill of lettering wizard Ken Bruzenak and the understated colour-palette of Alex Wald – the story opens with a series of increasingly brutal murders. It doesn’t take long to connect the victims: old people from all walks of life rumoured to have worked with an old urban legend known as The Shadowâ€¦

That mystery manhunter vanished in 1949, abandoning his grim crusade to destroy criminals and now (for which read 1986) some hidden mastermind is eliminating every surviving member of his organization. Before long a figure comes out of the closeted east: easily slipping past China’s Bamboo Curtain and returning to blighted, benighted Americaâ€¦

Suddenly amidst a broiling sea of perversion, sex and violent death, The Shadow is back and dealing bloody justice to petty thugs. In a desperate race against time, the impossibly young and still vital Lamont Cranston reunites with his elderly surviving agents to track down his oldest enemy and thwart a deadly plan to bring about nuclear annihilation.

However, as arrogant and officious as ever, the master manipulator is probably in more danger from the colleagues he abandoned than the gun-toting punks and maniacs dogging his smartly-shod heelsâ€¦

Chaykin even had the chutzpah to provide the eternal Man of Mystery with a Real Origin, something he never really had beforeâ€¦

Bonus features include a cover gallery, Marc Guggenheim’s Foreword ‘Looking Back on the Shadow’ plus ‘The Light Behind The Shadow’: an interview with Chaykin and Joe Orlando which first appeared in the 1987 trade paperback collection.

I don’t know why I used to dislike this book so much: Although I still feel the proper milieu for the character is the iconic era of mobsters, militarists and madmen (by which I mean the 1930s and 1940s) I can see what Chaykin’s getting at. Those threats and motivations were common enough in the Eighties and even more so nowadays.

Perhaps the author’s trademark trick of confronting misogyny, racism and suppressed sexuality by seemingly advocating them just wore a bit thin when applied to such a treasured old friend. There’s certainly a disquieting amount of adult themes, kinky sex and graphic violence on offerâ€¦

With sufficient distance however I now find this tale a terrific thrill-ride; stylish and compelling – if a little â€œin your faceâ€ and â€œon the noseâ€. Somebody must have liked it back then: Blood and Judgment spawned a fascinating follow-up series (by Andy Helfer, Bill Sienkiewicz, Kyle Baker and others) before DC reverted to The Shadow Strikes: a series safely restored to its natural pre-war time period.

Out of print since 1991 until Dynamite picked up the option in 2011, this is a vital and vigorous read which inspired some of today’s very best creators, and acts as a perfect introduction to the character. You could even complement the experience by tracking down DC’s first experiment with the character – partially collected as The Private Files of the Shadow – and Dynamite’s new edition of The Shadow: Hitler’s Astrologer, before moving on to the new tales currently being published.

After all, a crime fighter this durable has to have something to himâ€¦
The Shadow Â® & Â© 2012 Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. d/b/a Conde Nast. All Rights Reserved.

May 21, 2016May 20, 2016

Kings Watch

By Jeff Parker, Mark Laming & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-486-2

Like so many other old fogies and devoted fanboys, I was convinced that I was going to hate this latest reconstruction of three of the oldest characters in comics. The newspaper strip triumvirate of Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician and particularly The Phantom were in many ways the blueprint for all comicbook superheroes who followed them, and as major properties had been re-imagined many times over the years, with varying degrees of reverence and successâ€¦

By most lights Flash Gordon is the most influential comic strip in the world. He debuted on Sunday January 7^th 1934 (with the superb Jungle Jim running as a supplementary â€œtopperâ€ strip) as an answer to the revolutionary, inspirational, but rather clunky Buck Rogers strip by Philip Nolan & Dick Calkins (which also began on January 7^th, five years earlier). Raymond, however, added two welcome new elements to the wonderment; Classical Lyricism and astonishingly seductive visuals.

Where Buck mixed traditional adventure and high science concepts, Flash Gordon reinterpreted Fairy Tales, Heroic Epics and Mythology, spectacularly draping them in the trappings of the contemporary future, with varying ‘Rays’, ‘Engines’ and ‘Motors’ substituting for spells, swords and steeds – although there were also plenty of those – and exotic craft and contraptions standing in for Galleons, Chariots and Magic Carpets.

Most important of all, the sheer artistic acuity of Raymond – his compositional skills, fine line-work, eye for sumptuous detail and just plain gift for drawing beautiful people and things – swiftly made this the strip that all young artists swiped from.

When original-material comicbooks began a few years later, dozens of talented kids weaned on the strip’s clean-lined, athletic Romanticism entered the field and their interpretations of Raymond’s mastery became a ticket to future success in the field of adventure strips. To be fair almost as many mimicked Milton Caniff’s expressionistic masterpiece Terry and the Pirates (and to see one of his better disciples check out Beyond Mars, illustrated by the wonderful Lee Elias) and they didn’t fare too badly eitherâ€¦

For over a decade sheer escapist magic in a Ruritanian Neverland, blending Camelot, Oz and every fabled paradise that promised paradise yet concealed hidden vipers, ogres and demons, enthralled the entire world, all cloaked in a glimmering sheen of sleek art deco futurism. Worthy adversaries such as utterly evil, animally magnetic Ming, emperor of a fantastic wandering planet; myriad exotic races and fabulous conflicts offered a fantastic alternative to the drab and dangerous real world and made their own mark on the landscape of popular cultureâ€¦

Regarded by many as the original American superhero, Mandrake the Magician debuted on 11^th June 1934 (although creator Lee Falk had originally tried to sell the strip a decade previously), illustrated with effective understatement by the superb Phil Davis.

Educated at the fabled College of Magic in the Himalayas, the suave sorcerer roamed the world with his faithful African friend Lothar and his beautiful companion (and finally, in 1997, bride) Princess Narda of Cockaigne; solving crimes and fighting evil. Star of stage, screen (large and small), radio and a thousand forms of merchandising, Mandrake has always been one of the top guns of strip comics powerhouse King Features Syndicate.

In the 17^th century a British sailor survived an attack by pirates and, washing ashore in Africa, swore on the skull of his murdered father to dedicate his life and that of all his descendents to destroying pirates and criminals. The Phantom fought crime and injustice from a base deep in the Jungles of Bengali, and throughout Africa was known as the â€œGhost Who Walksâ€; considered an immortal avenger by the credulous and the wicked. Down the decades one hero after another has fought and died in an unbroken dynastic line, in a never-ending battleâ€¦

Lee Falk created globe-trotting Jungle Avenger at the request of his publishers, who were already making history and public headway with his first strip sensation Mandrake. Although technically not the first ever costumed hero in comics, The Phantom was the prototype paladin to wear a skin-tight body-stocking, and the first to have a mask with opaque eye-slits.

He debuted on February 17^th 1936 in an extended sequence pitting him against a global confederation of pirates called the Singh Brotherhood. Falk wrote and drew the daily strip for the first two weeks before artist Ray Moore took over the illustration side. The Sundays feature began in May 1939.

Fan favourites for generations, the trio periodically made the sideways move into comicbooks, but never really teamed up until 1986 when TV cartoon series Defenders of the Earth updated and united all three and their support teams into a league resolved to save the world from alien invasion in the distant future of 2015 AD. This iteration had its own short-lived Marvel/Star Comics funny book series.

In 2013, the stars realigned again and Licensed-Properties specialist Dynamite Entertainment produced a remarkably engaging retro-futurist thriller which managed to pay due homage to the past iterations whilst opening the characters up for the latest generation of frantic fans. In the 5-issue miniseries Kings Watch scripter Jeff Parker and illustrator Marc Laming (with the invaluable assistance of colourists Jordan Boyd and letterers Simon Bowland) crafted a fast-paced, suspenseful and, most importantly, fun-filled yarn telling a big, bold, bombastic blockbuster story which also set up the three leads for new follow-up seriesâ€¦

Jeff Parker has worked in all aspects of the industry but is probably best-known for his wide variety of comics scripts, including Aquaman, Bucko, Batman ’66, Agents of Atlas, Spider-Man: 1602, X-Men: First Class, many of Paradox Press’ Big Book ofâ€¦ and moreâ€¦

British collaborator Marc Laming is an unashamed tea-drinker who has flitted hither and yon throughout the business since 1990, alighting occasionally and only to superbly render such varied projects as bits of Revolver, American Century, The Dreaming, Grindhouse, Planet Hulk, Fantastic Four, Uncanny Avengers and many others.

The story here begins with the world beguiled by lights in the sky and wracked by communal nightmares of invading monster armies. As the ancient and vile Cobra cult searches ruthlessly and relentlessly for a supernal crystal that could spell doom for Earth, in East African Bangalla, in a grandiose hermitage in California and on a palatial estate in Connecticut, three amazing individuals ready themselves to fight the battle of their livesâ€¦

Rather than have me ruin the fun for you, just thrill in anticipation to the knowledge that a thrill-addicted playboy, a broken sorcerer and sham hero crushed by the weight of years of service will somehow become the planet’s saviours after intergalactic warlord Ming the Merciless acquires the enigmatic Kings Watch artefact and unleashes the hordes of the empire of Mongo upon an unsuspecting helpless humanityâ€¦

The ever-popular Bonus Features include a full Parker script, attendant script-to-completed art production pages and a gallery of covers and variants by Laming, Adam Street and RamÃ³n K. PÃ©rez but the real prize is the superbly fast-paced action-romp which easily mixes monsters, aliens, rocket-ships, mad doctors, feisty capable women, wicked villains, exotic locales and epic battles into a ripping yarn every fan of fantasy adventure will be unable to resist.
Flash Gordon Â© 2014 King Features Syndicate, Inc. â„¢ Hearst Holdings, Inc. Mandrake the Magician and The Phantom Â© 2014 King Features Syndicate, Inc. â„¢ Hearst Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

May 18, 2016May 17, 2016

The Newsboy Legion volume 1

By Joe Simon & Jack Kirby with Arturo Cazeneuve, Gil Kane & others (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2593-3

Just as the Golden Age of comics was beginning, two young men with big dreams met up and began a decades-long association that was always intensely creative, immensely productive and spectacularly in tune with popular tastes. As kids they had both sold newspapers on street-corners to help their families survive the Great Depression â€¦

Joe Simon was a sharp-minded, talented young man with five years experience in â€œrealâ€ publishing; working from the bottom up to become art director on a succession of small paper such as the Rochester Journal American, Syracuse Herald and Syracuse Journal American.

He then moved to New York City and a life of freelancing as an art/photo retoucher and illustrator. Recommended by his boss, Simon joined Lloyd Jacquet’s pioneering Funnies Inc.; a production â€œshopâ€ generating strips and characters for a number of publishing houses all eager to cash in on the success of Action Comics and its stellar attraction Superman.

Within days Simon created The Fiery Mask for Martin Goodman of Timely Comics (now Marvel) and became acquainted with young Jacob Kurtzberg, a cartoonist and animator just hitting his stride with the Blue Beetle for the Fox Feature Syndicate.

Together Simon and Kurtzberg (who went through a legion of pen-names before settling on Jack Kirby) enjoyed a stunning creative empathy and synergy which galvanized an already electric neo-industry with a vast catalogue of features and even sub-genres.

They produced the influential monthly Blue Bolt, rushed out Captain Marvel Adventures (#1) for Fawcett and, after Martin Goodman appointed Simon editor at Timely, created a host of iconic characters such as Red Raven, the first Marvel Boy, Hurricane, The Vision, The Young Allies and of course the million-selling mega-hit Captain America.

Famed for his larger than life characters and colossal cosmic imaginings, â€œKingâ€ Kirby was an astute, spiritual hard-working family man who lived though poverty, gangsterism and the Depression. He loved his work, hated chicanery of every sort and saw a big future for the comics industryâ€¦

When Goodman failed to make good on his financial obligations, Simon & Kirby jumped ship to National/DC, who welcomed them with open arms and a fat chequebook. Bursting with ideas the staid company were not comfortable with, the pair were initially an uneasy fit, and were given two strips that were in the doldrums until they found their creative feet: Sandman and Manhunter.

They turned both around veritably overnight before, once established and left to their own devices, creating the â€œKid Gangâ€ genre (technically â€œrecreatingâ€ as the idea was one of the duo’s last innovations for Timely in 1941’s Young Allies) with a unique juvenile Foreign Legion dubbed The Boy Commandos.

The little warriors began by sharing the spotlight with Batman in flagship publication Detective Comics, but before long they had won their own solo title which promptly became one of the company’s top three sellers.

Boy Commandos was such a success – frequently cited as the biggest-selling US comicbook in the world at that time – that the editors, knowing the Draft was lurking, green-lighted the completion of a wealth of extra material to lay away for when their star creators were called up.

S&K assembled a creative team which generated so much material in a phenomenally short time that Publisher Jack Liebowitz suggested they retool some of it into adventures of a second kid gang and thus was born The Newsboy Legion (and their super-heroic mentor The Guardian)â€¦

Pitched halfway between a surly bunch of comedy grotesques and charming naive ragamuffins as seen in the Our Gang/Little Rascals film shorts (1922-1944), the Newsboy Legion comprised four ferociously independent orphans living together on the streets, peddling papers to survive. There was earnest, good-looking Tommy Tompkins, garrulous genius Big Words, diminutive, hyper-active chatterbox Gabby and feisty, pugnacious Scrapper, whose Brooklyn-based patois and gutsy belligerence usually stole the show. They were headed for a bad end until somebody extraordinary entered their livesâ€¦

Their exploits generally offered a bombastic blend of crime thriller and comedy caper, leavened with dynamic superhero action and usually seen from a kid’s point of view. The series debuted in Star-Spangled Comics #7, forcing the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy off the covers. The youngsters remained lead feature until the end of 1946, when without fanfare or warning issue #65 found them gone: ousted and replaced by Robin, the Boy Wonder.

His own youth-oriented solo series subsequently ran all the way to SSC #130 in 1952, by which time superhero romps had largely been supplanted throughout the industry by general genre tales.

This first superb hardback collection reprints the first 26 episodes, spanning Star-Spangled Comics #7-32 (April 1942-May 1944), includes all the stunning covers by Kirby, inker Arturo Cazeneuve, Fred Ray and teenager Gil Kane) and opens with a lyrical and revelatory reminiscence from Joe Simon himself. His invaluable Introduction ‘Birth of the Legion’ leads straight into a potent tale of skulduggery pitted against idealism to create optimism in the darkest of urban outposts as ‘The Story of the Newsboy Legion’ introduces rookie cop Jim Harper walking a beat in the inner city hellscape dubbed Suicide Slum.

When he is jumped by a gang of thugs and severely beaten, Harper takes an unlikely step: raiding a costume store and putting together an outfit to obscure his identity (complete with mask, shield and crash-helmet) before hunting down his attackers and giving them the thrashing they so richly deserveâ€¦

Happily, his illegal actions accidentally result in the capture of an infamous kidnap ring, and the mysterious figure is dubbed the Guardian of Society by the newspapers selling like hotcakes on street corners. Harper has no intention of repeating his foray into vigilantism but when he catches Tommy, Big Words, Gabby and Scrapper shoplifting, his life changes forever.

The tough little monkeys are headed for reform school until the cop makes an earnest plea for clemency on their behalf and the judge appoints him their guardian. They are far from grateful and send him packing but when their next get-rich-scheme gets them involved with armed bandits the kids realise the mettle of the man they’re saddled withâ€¦

Now hopelessly implicated in the crimes of murderous mobster Frankie the Fence – and witnesses to his crimes – the boys are about to die when a human thunderbolt in a mask and helmet comes to their rescue.

In actual fact it’s unclear who saves whom, but the in the end the Newsboy Legion are finally set on a righteous path, but with their suspicions are aroused. Frustratingly, no matter how hard they try, the boys can’t prove that their two Guardians are the same guyâ€¦

And so the scene was set: the kids constantly looking for broadly legal ways to make a living whilst Harper hovered over them as a guide and his alter ego worked tirelessly behind the scene to keep them alive and extricate from the trouble that always found them on the streets and alleys of the most-crime-infested slum in Americaâ€¦

The very next month Tommy stumbled onto the hideout of fugitive killer Black Leo Lucas and his abduction to ‘Last Mile Alley’ led the fighting mad Guardian to a confrontation with the latest Big Boss who thought he was untouchable, after which ‘The Rookie Takes the Rap’ saw Harper framed by devious gambler Sure Thing Kelly and only cleared by the actions of his now-devoted foster-kidsâ€¦

To be frank, the relationship between Jim and the boys was never properly defined. Although he was responsible for keeping them out of trouble, they never lived with him and generally provided for themselves whilst – presumably – still sleeping on the streetsâ€¦

Having now made a few headlines of their own, the boys were offered the chance to be ‘Kings for a Day’ in Star-Spangled Comics #10: running various municipal departments in a grand civic publicity stunt. Sadly, the event was hijacked by mobster The Mark, whose plans to plunder the entire city would have succeeded had he not underestimated those pesky kids temporarily in charge of the emergency servicesâ€¦

Many stories worked powerfully against a pervasive backdrop of crushing poverty and social injustice. Issue #11 saw the boys arrested by a heartbroken Jim for burglary and sent to the State Reformatory. What he didn’t know was that the boys had learned of corruption at the ‘Paradise Prison’ and were determined to expose unctuous, sanctimonious Warden Goodley for the sadistic grafter he truly wasâ€¦

With little kids starving in their hovels and resorting to petty theft, the boys next decided to make a documentary with borrowed film equipment. Naturally their hunt for perfect locations dropped them right in the laps of a gang of bank bandits resulting in a ‘Prevue of Peril’ requiring another last-minute save by the blockbusting blue-&-gold mystery man with the pot on his headâ€¦

With the clue in their name, the Newsboy Legion still made the majority of their living vending newspapers. Whenever the tabloids weren’t selling, things got tough and in SSC #13 falling sales spurred the lads to create their own local periodical. With Harper’s assistance the premier issue of the Slum Sentinel proved a huge success but ‘The Scoop of Suicide Slums!’ made the area too hot for the crooks in their warrens. However, in trying to crush the little newsmakers, the city’s biggest racketeer only exposed himself to the Legion’s scrutiny and their Guardian’s furious fistsâ€¦

Philanthropist Wilbur Whilling was a man with a plan. Using the Legion as his unwitting shills, he convinced the slum dwellers to donate everything they had to build a new modern apartment project to house them all. ‘The Meanest Man on Earth!’ never expected the kids to uncover his fraudulent alliance with the lawyers and planners to repossess the spiffy new complex, and certainly wasn’t ready for the personal retribution doled out by Scrapper and the man in the mask.

Arturo Cazeneuve came aboard as prime inker with ‘Playmates of Peril!’ in #15 as Patrolman Harper’s frequent absences led to his being partnered with an ever-present supervising sergeant. That didn’t stop his trouble-magnet wards wandering into another criminal caper and being taken hostage, necessitating a storm of frantic improvisation to save the kids, his job and his secret identityâ€¦

After Tommy saved a little boy from being run over he was eagerly adopted by rich banker Willis Thornton. He didn’t want to go but his pals forced him to take his shot at escaping the ghetto. All too soon ‘The Playboy of Suicide Slum!’ was framed for a robbery at the Thornton mansion and needed his true brothers to clear his name, after which ‘The Newsboy Legion versus the Rafferty Mob’ found the boys in a turf-war with a rival gang of street toughs led by the toughest girl they have ever encountered. Hostilities ceased as soon as a gang of gunsels started using the distraction as a way of trapping the Guardianâ€¦

‘The Education of Iron-Fist Gookin’ saw the slum’s most brutal thug taking elocution lessons from Big Words, and picking up a few morals – plus a pardon and new start – along the way, after which ‘The Fuehrer of Suicide Slum’ focused on Scrapper and took the odd narrative liberty to depict the boys battling Nazis after a sneak attack and invasion of New York Cityâ€¦

Steve Brodie inked the return to comicbook reality in Star-Spangled Comics #20 ‘The Newsboys and the Champ!’ with the kids helping hillbilly boxer Zeke Potts negotiate the lethally crooked fight biz in the big city before ‘The House Where Time Stood Still’ (Cazeneuve inks) found the kids â€“ selling war bonds – invading a derelict house and discovering a pair of be-whiskered hermits who had shunned the world for decades.

The belligerent old Presby brothers soon changed their isolationist attitudes after Nazi spies moved into their home so it’s a good thing the Legion didn’t take that first â€œnoâ€ for an answerâ€¦

Gabby wrecks an automobile and incurs a dubious but huge debt in ‘Brains for Sale!’ (Cazeneuve), and his proposed payment solution only leads the entire team into deadly danger from an underworld surgeon after which ‘Art for Scrapper’s Sake’ (inked by John Daly) sees the bellicose boy discover his extremely profitable creative side. Typically, he’s far from happy to find that he’s just the patsy for a high-end art fraudâ€¦

Cazeneuve returns as regular inker with ‘Death Strikes a Bargain’ in SSC #24, as a crackdown on crime in Suicide Slum leads to the kids being parachuted into a luxurious new life in a bold social experiment. Sadly, however, the reformer in charge has a murderous ulterior motive for his seeming benevolenceâ€¦

A vacation growing vegetables on a farm in ‘Victuals for Victory’ only lands the kids in more trouble as their nearest neighbours turn out to be bucolic bandits hiding out after a big city crime spree whilst ‘Louie the Lug Goes Literary’ sees the masked Guardian bust a major felon and inadvertently spark a massive hunt for the racketeer’s favourite tome and the incredible secrets it holds

Star-Spangled Comics #27 finds the lads volunteering as fire-fighters just in time to encounter an arsonist-insurance inspector eager to ‘Turn on the Heat’ whilst #28’s ‘Poor Man’s Rich Man’ sees kindly night watchman Pop O’Leary inheriting a fortune. Immediately lavishing largesse on all the others unfortunates in Suicide Slum, Pop only starts to worry as his unpaid bills mount and the lines of credit dry up, and the Newsboys discover the generous geezer is the victim of a cruel plot by saboteurs. They furiously take appropriate action, with the two-fisted Guardian coming along for the rideâ€¦

Always looking for a sold investment, the kids then hop on the publishing bandwagon in ‘Cabbages and Comics’; hoping to make a million peddling their own strip magazine. Their big mistake is incorporating local hoodlums’ likenesses and overheard snippets of gossip in the final mix, but naturally their masked protector is on hand to prevent them perishing from the rightful indignation – and guns – of the plunderers they inadvertently exposed and plagiarizedâ€¦

In SSC #30 a reformed crook is framed and ‘The Lady of Linden Lane’ suddenly abandons her miserly ways and starts acting very strangely, leading the lads to uncover a devilish fraud after which neophyte Gil Kane illustrates ‘Questions, Please?’ with brilliant Big Words and even his less cerebral comrades becoming radio quiz sensations on the very night the dread Purple Mask gang raid the studio.

This stunning assemblage of astounding articles then concludes with Star-Spangled Comics #32 as the boys act as ‘The Good Samaritans!’ (Kane & Harry Tschida), unknowingly sheltering a gang of impoverished and starving thieves who have millions in hot cash they can’t spendâ€¦ yetâ€¦

After years of neglect the glorious wealth of Jack Kirby material available these days is a true testament to his influence and legacy, and this magnificent and compelling collection of his collaborations with fellow pioneer Joe Simon is another gigantic box of delights that perfectly illustrates the depth, scope and sheer thundering joy of the early days of comics.
Â© 1942, 1943, 1944, 2010 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

May 1, 2016April 30, 2016

The Broons: Facsimile Edition of the First Ever Broons Annual

By R.D. Low & Dudley D. Watkins (D.C. Thomson/Aurum)
ISBN: 978-0-85116-

The Broons is one of the longest running newspaper strips in British history, having appeared well-nigh continuously in Scottish periodical The Sunday Post since the March 8^th edition of 1936. That same issue launched equally timeless cartoon stable-mate and icon of Hibernian tradition Oor Wullie: a mischievous wee laddie who epitomises carefree youthful excess.

Both the boisterous boy and the gregariously engaging working class family were co-created by journalist, writer and Editor Robert Duncan Low in conjunction with DC Thomson’s most celebrated cartoonist Dudley D. Watkins. Both were overnight hits and instantly unmissable so within a few short years the weekly episode strips began to be collected in reprint editions as Seasonal Annuals. Those books alternated stars and years right up to the present day.

The book under discussion here comes from 2006: a magnificent recreation of that first Broons Annual compendium as launched in 1939. It’s a sturdy hardback with monochrome interiors, crammed full of gags and wholesome family fun delivered with gleeful exuberance by masters of the comedy comics form, lavishly presented in its own card slipcase.

Low (1895-1980) began at the Scottish publishing monolith as a journalist and quickly rose to the post of Managing Editor of Children’s Publication. Between 1921 and 1933 he created the company’s â€œBig Fiveâ€ story-papers for boys: Adventure, The Rover, The Wizard, The Skipper and The Hotspur. These were text-base adventure weeklies liberally illustrated and in 1936 his next brilliant idea was the Fun Section: an 8-page pull-out comic strip supplement for Scottish national newspaper The Sunday Post.

As cited above this landmark illustrated accessory began on 8^th March and from the very outset The Broons and Oor Wullie were its undisputed top drawsâ€¦

Low’s shrewdest notion was to devise both strips as comedies played out in the charismatic Scottish idiom and broad unforgettable vernacular where – supported by features such as Auchentogle by Chic Gordon, Allan Morley’s Nero and Zero, Nosey Parker and other strips – they laid the groundwork for the company’s next great leap.

After some devious devising in December 1937 Low premiered the first DC Thomson weekly comic. The Dandy was followed by The Beano in 1938 and early-reading title The Magic Comic in 1939.

War-time paper shortages and rationing sadly curtailed the strip periodical revolution, and it was 1953 before the next wave of cartoon caper picture paper releases. The Topper started the ball rolling again (with Wullie in the logo and masthead but not included in the magazine’s regular roster) in the same year that Low & the great Ken Reid created Roger the Dodger for Beanoâ€¦

Low’s greatest advantage was his prolific illustrator Dudley Dexter Watkins, whose style, more than any other, shaped the look of DC Thompson’s comics output until the bombastic advent of Leo Baxendale shook things up in the mid-1950s.

Watkins (1907-1969) had started life in Manchester and Nottingham as a genuine artistic prodigy before entering Glasgow College of Art in 1924. It wasn’t long before he was advised to get a job at burgeoning, Dundee-based DCT, where a 6-month trial illustrating boys’ adventure stories led to comic strip specials and some original cartoon creations.

Percy Vere and His Trying Tricks and Wandering Willie, The Wily Explorer made him a dead cert for both lead strips in the Sunday Post‘s proposed Fun Section and, without missing a beat, Watkins later added The Dandy‘s Desperate Dan to his weekly workload in 1937, eventually including The Beano‘s placidly and seditiously outrageous Lord Snooty seven months after.

Watkins soldiered on in unassailable triumph for decades, drawing some of the most lavishly lifelike and winningly hilarious strips in illustration history. He died at his drawing board on August 20^th 1969.

For all those astonishingly productive years he had unflaggingly drawn a full captivating page each of Oor Wullie and The Broons every week, and his loss was a colossal blow to the company.

DC Thomson’s chiefs preferred to reprint old Watkins episodes of both strips in the newspaper and the Annuals for seven years before a replacement was agreed upon, whilst The Dandy reran Watkins’ Desperate Dan stories for twice that length of time.

An undeniable, rock-solid facet of Scots popular culture from the very start, The Broons reflected changing times and ordinary life for generations of readers; sharing trials and triumphs and celebrating each changing year with unflagging wit, warmth and inspired, self-deprecating buffoonery. For fans outside Scotland – like me – they always conjure feeling of holidays and special moments, so on this wet Bank Holiday (it’s always raining somewhere on a public vacation day) I’m reliving a halcyon timeâ€¦

So What’s the Set Up?: the multigenerational Brown family inhabit a tenement flat at 10 Glebe Street, in the timelessly metafictional Scottish industrial everytown of Auchentogle (or sometimes Auchenshoogle), based in large part on the working class Glasgow district of Auchenshuggle. As such it’s an ideal setting in which to tell gags, relate events and fossilise the deepest and most reassuring cultural archetypes for sentimental Scots wherever in the world they might actually be residing. And yes, a huge part of the laugh track comes from the gloriously rich accent humour deriving from the Scots idiom and cultural consciousness.

If it’s good enough for Sir Harry Lauder, Andy Stewart, Stanley Baxter, Bill Forsyth, Chic Murray, Billy Connolly, Craig Ferguson, Frankie Boyle, Susan Calmanâ€¦

As is always the case, the adamant, unswerving cornerstone of any family feature is long-suffering, understanding Maw, who puts up with cantankerous, cheap know-it-all Paw, and a battalion of stay-at-home kids comprising hunky Joe, freakishly tall Hen (Henry), sturdy Daphne, gorgeous Maggie, brainy Horace, mischievous twins Eck and the unnamed â€œither aneâ€ plus a wee toddling lassie referred to only as â€œThe Bairnâ€.

Not officially in residence but always hanging around is gruffly patriarchal clod Granpaw – a comedic gadfly who spends more time at Glebe Street than his own cottage and constantly tries to impart his decades of hard-earned but painfully outdated experience to the kidsâ€¦ but do they listen?

In later years they family would grow a bit better off, taking regular breaks from the inner city turmoil whilst simultaneously sentimentalising, spoofing and memorialising more traditional times at their But ‘n’ Ben (a dilapidated rustic cottage in the Highlands) but in these initial pre-war tales the range of any excursion is simply the inner city and wherever a day-trip by charabanc or steam train can take the bustling, boisterous clanâ€¦

The endless escapades of these formative strips comprise timeless subject-matter such as oldster’s teasing young ‘uns about their beaus, males thinking they know best whether its cleaning fire-grates, mopping floors or organising parties, or females jockeying for social status. You can learn the real cost of a â€œbargainâ€, the wisdom of holding your tongue and the value of one night of actual peace and quietâ€¦

All the kids live in a comfortably secure world of playing, pranking and stopping out late, whilst neighbours are equal parts pains-in-the-necks and salts-of-the-earth. But as well as slapstick shenanigans – ranging from plumbing pitfalls, decorating disasters, fireplace fiascos, food foolishness, dating dilemmas, appliance atrocities, fashion freak-outs, party panics, bothered Bobbies, excessive exercising, chore-dodging, galling goofs, family frolics and sly jests – there’s a sense of unified purpose and progress made, with the Broons part of a proper working community.

The overall impression is that, unlike today when the phrase is no more than cynically exploitative lip-service from a crass, glib plutocracy intent on disempowering everyone poorer than themselves, folks back then were genuinely â€œall in it togetherâ€ just to get by.

And Low and Watkins made it funny and rewardingâ€¦

Packed with all-ages fun, rambunctious hilarity and deliriously domestic warmth, this exemplary example of happy domesticity convivially celebrates a mythic lost life and time and is a sure cure for post-modern glumsâ€¦
The Broons â„¢ and Â© D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd. 2006.

April 21, 2016

Silent Invasion volume 2: Red Shadows

By Michael Cherkas & Larry Hancock (NBM)
ISBN: 978-0-91834-850-0

During the vast expansion of opportunity and outpouring of innovation that graced comics during the 1980s, much of the â€œbrain-rotting trashâ€ or â€œsilly kid’s stuffâ€ stigma which had plagued the medium was finally dispelled. America started catching up to the rest of the world; acknowledging sequential narrative as an actual Art-Form, and their doors opened wide open for foreigners to make a few waves tooâ€¦

One of the most critically acclaimed and just plain fun features of the period came from semi-Canadian outfit Renegade Press which set up shop in the USA and began publishing at the very start of the black & white comics bubble in 1984. They quickly established a reputation for excellence, with a strong line of creator-based properties and some genuinely remarkable series such as Ms. Tree, Journey: the Adventures of Wolverine MacAlistaire, Normalman, Flaming Carrot and the compulsively backwards-looking Cold War/UFO/paranoia-driven The Silent Invasion.

That last was a stunningly stylish saga, bolting 1950s domestic terrors (invasion by Reds; invasion by aliens; invasion by new ideasâ€¦) onto Film Noir chic and employing 20-20 hindsight to produce a phenomenally fresh and enticing delight for the strangely similar Reagan era.

I firmly believe that in this business nothing good stays lost, but I’m fed up waiting for it to be rediscovered so I’m continuing to revisit my battered old copies of the original album compilations as no one has tried to revive it yet. At least they’re all still readily available if I successfully brainwash youâ€¦

This second superbly oversized monochrome tome – a whopping 298 x 2058 mm – gathers the lead story from issues #4-6, with co-creators Michael Cherkas & Larry Hancock piling on the paranoiac pressure in a delightful confection combining all the coolest genre elements of classic sci-fi, horror, spy, conspiracy theory, crime, romance and even comedy yarnsâ€¦

The 1950s in American were a hugely iconic and paradoxical time. Incredible scientific and cultural advancements and great wealth inexplicably arose amidst an atmosphere of immense social, racial, sexual, intellectual and political repression with an increasingly insular populace seeing avaricious plots and subversive attacks in every shadow and corner of the rest of the world.

Such a melting pot couldn’t help but be fertile soil for imaginative outsiders to craft truly incisive and evocative tales dripping with convoluted mystery and taut tension, especially when wedded to the nation’s frenzied obsessions with gangsterism, rogue science, flying saucers and espionageâ€¦

Last Time: In April 1952, famed Union City private eye Dick Mallet saw a strange light in the night sky. Next morning the cops found his empty, crashed car. A month later reporter Matt Sinkage was still getting grief from Frank Costello, his Editor on the Union City Sentinel. Matt wanted to expose â€œThe Truth behind Flying Saucersâ€ but was quickly becoming a laughing stock. He was also starting to think his foreign-sounding neighbour Ivan Kalashnikov was a Russian spyâ€¦.

Sinkage was alienating his family and worrying his fiancÃ©e Peggy Black. All he could think about was that night six months back in Albany when he saw a UFO and impetuously chased after it: a crazy night everyone but him remembersâ€¦

Getting drunk, Matt broke into Ivan’s apartment where a quick glance revealed the foreigner and others in front of a huge, weird machine. It confirmed his suspicions that they were Atomic spies!

Days later Matt collided with Mr K’s pretty friend Gloria Amber, and asked her out to lunch. Things developed when Gloria begged him to save her from what she claimed were Red operatives. They subsequently claimed to be Federal agentsâ€¦

Hiding out at his brother’s Walter‘s place, Matt was still seeing flying saucers everywhere and could not understand why everybody else thought they were just jets. Back in Union City, Frank was being pressured by FBI Agent Phil Housley: an old acquaintance who regularly forced him to suppress news itemsâ€¦

This time though, he wanted Sinkage. What no newsman knew was that Housley was also working for a shadowy agency calling itself the Council. What Housley didn’t know was that he was not their only operative in this matterâ€¦

Back in suburbia, Walter’s wife Katie – convinced Matt and his new floozy were up to no good – had contacted the FBIâ€¦

Fugitives Matt and Gloria were heading out in Walter’s car when Peggy showed up. She couldn’t understand why her man was with a flashy trollop even though Gloria had told Matt the Reds were after Kalashnikov’s memoirs and files. Although Matt knew Gloria was playing double game, he agreed to go with to a remote town where a â€œcontactâ€ could protect them bothâ€¦

Mr K meanwhile had called in his own heavies to hunt the couple. All were unaware that the FBI had visited Katie and a net was closing around Sinkage and the mystery womanâ€¦

As the Council discussed their Sinkage problem and heard Housley’s reports, they learned the reporter was involved in the â€œAlbany eventâ€ and near-panic ensued. Matt meanwhile had succumbed to suspicion. Gloria kept vanishing and refused to acknowledge it. Later, she helped Kalashnikov’s hoods Zanini and Koldst abduct her and rough up Matt. After that the FBI interviewed Walter and Katie about Matt, and let slip that they were the only Feds working the case, denying any other government officials were involvedâ€¦

Katie spilled all she knew and the agents went into overdrive, marshalling all their forces and heading for sleepy Stubbinsville. Matt meanwhile had called the only guy he still trusted. Fellow researcher Dan Maloney warned him of the confusing profusion of agents all claiming to be working for the government, before sharing the same info with Costelloâ€¦

As Housley’s team flew in, Matt decided to push on, hitchhiking to a rendezvous with destiny. En route he reunited with the oddly-compliant Gloria, and they battled on to Stubbinsville in a stolen car. With less than 100 miles to go she fell ill but made him promise to get her there at all costsâ€¦

As the assorted pursuers converged, she directed Matt to a lonely wilderness region. The net closed around them as a fantastic and terrifying light-show ignited the dark skies. By the time Housley reached them Gloria had vanished and Sinkage was slumped in a comaâ€¦

Days later, Matt was freed and all charges dropped. He was strangely content. Despite another blatant cover-up and no clue as to whom all the various parties hounding them really were, Sinkage knew what he had seen when Gloria vanished. Now he could only wait for her inevitable returnâ€¦

Preceded by Max Allan Collins’ expansive Introduction ‘Dick Tracy, Tintin and Serious Comics’, this titanic tale resumes with ‘Chapter One: A Pink Slip for a Pink’. It’s June 1952 and Matt Sinkage is tormented by nightmares of lights in the sky, Housley hunting him and Gloria beseeching him to join her kindâ€¦

His life has gone rapidly downhill. Stories of his being a â€œCommieâ€ are everywhere, the FBI shadows his every move and the oppressive tension is becoming overwhelming. When he gets a phone call from long-missing Dick Mallet, Matt arranges to meet the PI, consequently noticing sister-in-law Katie is always listening and has become very chummy with his ominously ever-present FBI surveillance detailâ€¦

First, though, Matt has to get the last of his belongings: the â€œRedâ€ smear has allowed his landlord to terminate his lease. Aided by faithful fiancÃ©e Peggy and ever-friendly custodian Mr. Schneider, Sinkage collects his things and has an uncomfortable meeting with Kalashnikov. Almost in passing Matt notices that he now has a different team of Feds dogging him.

When he finally meets Mallet, the detective shows him an incredible set of photos: interior and exteriors shots of the flying saucers taken by the aliensâ€¦

At the Sentinel, Dan Maloney has made progress investigating Kalashnikov and Gloria but wants to finish his research before sharing. Sinkage has bigger problems though, his fellow workers have sent him Coventry and the paper’s owner wants the â€œCommieâ€ fired. Costello is fighting back though. He suspects Housley is behind the smear tactics targeting Matt.

Staying with Walter and Katie isn’t helping his mental state. As visions of the Albany event haunt him, Matt’s life takes another plunge as he finds Mallet murdered. Housley is there but frankly admits he knows Sinkage is innocent and (probably) the patsy of a cunning contrived frame-up. That doesn’t stop him trying to pump Matt for further information – just as his Council bosses ordered him toâ€¦

When Matt is finally fired and Maloney is killed in a freak accident he knows is murder-by-aliens, Sinkage feels the walls closing in and makes a run for itâ€¦

‘Chapter Two: Identity Crisis’ opens one night in July 1952 with Matt holed up in Maloney’s old hunting shack. He’s been utterly alone for weeks but is still seeing flying saucers in the night skies. He’s also reliving past events, helplessly mixing memories of Gloria with other moments. He’s so confused that when Peggy suddenly turns up he mistakes her for his missing blonde mystery-womanâ€¦

Peggy visits him every night, offering food and company. She seems so different, warm and vivacious, but is always gone when he blearily wakes up in the morning.

Back in Union City, Housley and his secretary Meredith Monroe are going over the facts and reach a disturbing conclusion. Somebody on Phil’s team has their own agenda. He fears it’s his own boss – and Council stooge – Buzz Brennan but can’t find reasons to ignore their orders. Both his official employers and the secret ones want Sinkage found at all costsâ€¦

In the wilderness Matt is starting to crack. Anonymously buying a gun from a local store he travels back to the city for Dan’s funeral and sees Housley and Brennan clash with Costello. He then sneaks back to his old building and breaks into Kalashnikov’s apartment. He finds a cache of files and as he reads them experiences a horrifying flashback: he’s strapped into some sort of brainwashing machine in a spaceshipâ€¦

Matt is roused from the memories by Ivan’s return and bolts, leaving the scattered files behind. He then visits Peggy’s house where her mother’s hostile reception confirms a suspicion that has been growing in his mindâ€¦

His intended is waiting in the truck he borrowed, and as they furtively drive out to the country Matt drops his bombshell. He believes he’s an alien consciousness improperly overlaid on a human mind and he knows Peggy is too: the same one he used to know as Gloria Amberâ€¦

‘Chapter Three: What We Really Know about Flying Saucers’ pushes the drama into overdrive as Peggy frantically tries to dissuade Matt. He is adamant and, as Peggy storms off, Matt goes to Costello. They compare notes, unaware that the Council is mobilising all its covert assets in Housley’s FBI team to get Sinkage at all costsâ€¦

It might have worked had not Matt surprised everybody by turning himself in and sharing what he saw in Kalashnikov’s files with Housley and Meredith. Sadly, as he’s being taken to a safe-house Zanini and Koldst kidnap Sinkage and drag him back to Ivanâ€¦ and Peggy!

By the time Housley realises what’s occurred and rushed to the apartment, it’s too late. The files are gone, but no one can determine whether they were cleared out by the foreigners or simply lost in the fire set by the Council’s inside manâ€¦

Matt has a different story. He survived the conflagration by rushing to the roof where he saw a saucer pick up one of his abductors, coldly leaving the rest to perish. It was a story he stuck to, even after he was committedâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Potently evocative, impeccably tailored and fabulously cool, The Silent Invasion remains a unique, boldly imagined and cunningly crafted adventure. Rendered in a style then considered revolutionary and even today still spectacularly expressionistic, this is a classic epic long-overdue for a modern revival: an unforgettable gateway to an eerily familiar yet comfortably exotic era of innocent joy and a million â€œtop secretsâ€ which no fan of fantastic thriller fiction should ignore.
Â© 1988 Michael Cherkas & Larry Hancock. Introduction Â© 1988 Max Allan Collins. All rights reserved.

April 14, 2016April 13, 2016

New Crusaders Legacy

By Rich Buckler, Ian Flynn, Robert Kanigher, Stan Timmons, Alex Toth, Carmine Infantino, Steve Ditko, Dick Ayers, Gray Morrow, Alec NiÃ±o, Tony DeZuÃ±iga, Jerry Gaylord, Ben Bates, Alitha Martinez & many more (Red Circle/Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-22-8

In the dawning days of the comic book business, just after Superman and Batman began creating a new genre of storytelling, many publishers jumped onto the bandwagon and made their own bids for cash and glory. Many thrived and many more didn’t; now relished only as trivia by sad old blokes like me. Some few made it to an amorphous middle-ground: not forgotten, but certainly not household names eitherâ€¦

MLJ were one of the quickest publishers to jump on the Mystery-Man bandwagon, following the spectacular successes of the Man of Tomorrow with their own small yet inspirational pantheon of gaudily clad costumed crusaders, beginning in November 1939 with Blue Ribbon Comics. Soon followed by Top-Notch and Pep Comics, their content was the standard blend of two-fisted adventure strips, prose pieces and gag panels and, from #2 on, superheroesâ€¦

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

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

The feature was an instant hit and by the winter of 1942 had won its own title. Archie Comics #1 was the company’s first solo-starring magazine and with it began the gradual transformation of the entire company. With the introduction of wealthy, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the comicbook industry’s second Genuine Phenomenon (Superman being the first)â€¦

By 1946 the kids had taken over, so MLJ renamed itself Archie Comics; retiring its heroic characters years before the end of the Golden Age and becoming, to all intents and purposes, a publisher of family comedies. Its success, like Superman’s, changed the content of every other publisher’s titles, and led to a multi-media industry including TV shows, movies, a chain of restaurants and even a global pop hit â€œSugar, Sugarâ€ (a tune from their animated show).

Nonetheless, the company had by this stage blazed through a rather impressive pantheon of mystery-men who would form the backbone of numerous future superhero revivals, most notably in the High-Camp/Marvel Explosion/Batman TV show-frenzied mid-60’s eraâ€¦

The heroes impressively resurfaced under the company’s Red Circle imprint during the early days of the Direct Sales revolution of the 1980s, but after a strong initial showing, again failed to sustain the public’s attention. Archie let them lie fallow (except for occasional revivals and intermittent guest-shots in Archie titles) until 1991, when the company licensed its heroes to superhero specialists DC for a magically fun, all-ages iteration (and where’s that star-studded trade paperback collection, huh?!). Impact Comics was a vibrant, engaging and fun all-ages rethink that really should have been a huge hit but was again cruelly unsuccessfulâ€¦

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

Recently the wanderers returned home to Archie for a superbly simplistic and winningly straightforward revival aimed squarely at old nostalgics and young kids reared on highly charged action/adventure cartoon shows: brimming with all the exuberant verve and wide-eyed honest ingenuity you’d expect from an outfit which has been pleasing kids for nearly seventy years.

Released initially online in May 2012 – followed by a traditional monthly print version that September – the first story-arc made it to full legitimacy with a thrill-packed trade paperback collection, equally welcoming to inveterate fanboys and eager newcomers alike.

The series introduced a new generation of legacy heroes rising from the ashes of their parents’ and guardians’ murders to become a team of teenaged gladiators carrying on the fight as the New Crusaders.

This collection supplements and follows on from that magical makeover: having new team mentor The Shield train the potential-filled juniors through the records of their predecessors. The stories included here come from those aforementioned 1980s Red Circle episodes; culled from the pages of Mighty Crusaders #1, 8, 9, The Fly #2, 4, 6, Blue Ribbon #3, 8, 14, The Comet #1 and Black Hood #2, spanning 1983-1985â€¦

Following an engaging reintroduction and recap, current creative team Ian Flynn, Jerry Gaylord, Ben Bates & Alitha Martinez reveal how the grizzled, flag-draped veteran has trouble reaching his teenaged students until he begins treating them as individuals, and sharing past Crusaders’ cases.

Starting with personal recollections of his own early days as America’s first Patriotic superhero in ‘The Shield’ (from Mighty Crusaders #8, Marty Greim, Dick Ayers & Rich Buckler), Joe Higgins explains his active presence in the 21^st century, leading into a recapitulation of the first Red Circle yarn.

‘Atlantis Rising’ comes from Mighty Crusaders #1, by Buckler & Frank Giacoia, which found psionic plunderer Brain Emperor and immortal antediluvian Eterno the Conqueror launching a multi-pronged attack on the world. They were countered by an army of costumed champions including the Golden Age Shield, Lancelot Strong the (other) Shield (for a while there were three different ones active at once), Fly and Fly-Girl, Jaguar, The Web, Black Hood and The Comet, who communally countered a global crime-wave and clobbered the villains’ giant killer robotsâ€¦

This is followed by a modern interlude plus pin-up and data pages on Ralph Hardy AKA ‘The Jaguar’ before a potent vignette by Chas Ward & Carlos Vicatan from The Fly #4 reviews the animal-master’s Aztec origins and rebirth in ‘Renewal’â€¦

‘The Web’ offers the same data-page update for masked detective and criminologist John Raymond before ‘The Killing Hour’ (Blue Ribbon #14, by Stan Timmons, Lou Manna, Rex Lindsey & Chic Stone) sees the merely mortal manhunter join his brother-in-law the Jaguar in foiling a nuclear terrorism plotâ€¦

More modern pin-ups and data-pages reintroduce ‘The Comet’ before Bill DuBay, Jr., Carmine Infantino & Alec NiÃ±o reworked the original 1940’s origin tale by Jack Cole from Pep Comics #1 in 1940.

Reproduced from 1984’s The Comet #1, this chilling yarn detailed how an idealistic scientist became the most bloodthirsty hero of the Golden Age, with a body-count which made the Punisher look like a pantywaistâ€¦

The infomercial for ‘Steel Sterling’ precedes a wild and whimsical origin-retelling of the star-struck, super-strong â€œMan of Steelâ€ by his 1940s scripter Robert Kanigher, illustrated with superb style by Louis Barreto & Tony DeZuÃ±iga from Blue Ribbon #3, after which ‘Fly Girl’ gets star treatment in a brace of tales, augmented as always by the ubiquitous fact-folio.

‘A Woman’s Place’ by Buckler, Timmons, Adrian Gonzales & Ricardo Villagran (from The Fly #2) clears up an exceedingly sexist old-school extortion ring whilst ‘Faithfully Yours’ (Fly #6) saw her movie-star alter ego Kim Brand subjected to a chilling campaign of terror from a fan. Timmons, Buckler, Steve Ditko & Alan Kupperberg took just the right tone in what might be the first incidence of stalking in US comicsâ€¦

‘Black Hood’ has no modern iteration in the New Crusaders. Still active in contemporary times, he did encounter the kids during their debut exploit and is phenomenally cool, so he gets a place here. Following the customary introductory lesson he appears in a gritty, Dirty Harry themed adventure (from Blue Ribbon #8 by Gray Morrow) as undercover cop – and latest convert – Kip Burland who sidesteps Due Process to save a kidnapped girl and ensure the conviction of crooks hiding behind the law. The gripping yarn also discloses the centuries-long justice-seeking tradition of â€œThe Man of Mysteryâ€ â€¦

That’s followed by a snippet from Rich Margopoulos, Kupperberg & Giacoia entitled ‘A Hero’s Rage’ wherein Kip discovers his uncle Matt (the Golden Age Black Hood) has been murdered and ditches his leather jacket and ski-mask in favour of the traditional costume before joining the Mighty Crusadersâ€¦

Without doubt the most engaging reprint in this collection and by itself well worth the price of admission is ‘The Fox’ from Black Hood #2. Written and drawn by the inimitable Alex Toth, this scintillating light-hearted period comedy-drama finds the devilish do-gooder in Morocco in 1948, embroiled with wealthy expatriate ex-boxer Cosmo Gilly who has no idea he’s become the target for assassinationâ€¦

The recondite recollections surge to a climax with ‘Old Legends Never Die’ (Mighty Crusaders #9, by David M. Singer, Buckler & Ayers) as the first Shield is accused of excessive force and manslaughter when his 1940’s crime-fighting style seemingly results in the death of a thief he most forcefully apprehended. With Joe Higgins’ costumed friends in support but out of their depth in a courtroom, the convoluted history of the three heroes bearing his codename are unpicked during ‘The Trial of the Shield’ before the uncannily sinister truth is finally exposedâ€¦

Supplemented by a plentiful cover gallery and packed with the kind of ephemera that sends old Fights ‘n’ Tights fans into paroxysms of delight, I fear this is probably a book only the wide-eyed young and dedicated aged nostalgists could handle, but it is such a perfect artefact of the superhero genre I strongly urge anyone with a hankering for masked adventure and craving Costumed Dramas to give it a long look.
NEW CRUSADERS and RED CIRCLE COMICS Â® ACP, Inc. Â© 2013 Archie Comics Publications. All rights reserved.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: