Nostalgia – Page 72 – Now Read This!

May 20, 2013May 19, 2013

Golden Age Green Lantern Archives Volume I

By Bill Finger, Martin Nodell, E.E. Hibbard, Irwin Hasen & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-507-4

Thanks to comics genius and editorial wunderkind Sheldon Mayer, the innovative fledgling company All-American Comics (who co-published in association with and would eventually be absorbed by DC) published the first comicbook super-speedster in Flash Comics and followed up a few months later with another evergreen and immortal all-star.

The Green Lantern debuted in issue #16 of the company’s flagship title just as superheroes began to dominate the market, supplanting newspaper strip reprints and stock genre characters in the still primarily-anthologised comicbooks. He would be swiftly joined in All-American Comics by The Atom, Red Tornado, Sargon the Sorcerer and Doctor Mid-Nite until eventually only gag strips such Mutt and Jeff and exceptional tough-guy military strips Hop Harrigan and Red, White and Blue remained to represent mere mortal heroes.

At least until tastes changed again after the war and costumed crusaders faded away, to be replaced by cowboys, cops and private eyesâ€¦

Devised by up-and-coming cartoonist Martin Nodell (and fleshed out by Bill Finger in the same generally unsung way he had contributed to the success of Batman), Green Lantern soon became AA’s second smash sensation.

The arcane avenger gained his own solo-starring title little more than a year after his premiere and appeared in other anthologies such as Comics Cavalcade, All Star Comics and others for just over a decade before, like most first-generation superheroes, he faded away in the early1950s, having first suffered the humiliating fate of being edged out of his own strip and comicbook by his pet Streak the Wonder Dogâ€¦

However that’s the stuff of future reviews. This spectacular quirkily beguiling deluxe Archive edition opens with a rousing reminiscence from Nodell in a Foreword which discusses the origins of the character before the parade of raw, graphic enchantment (collecting the Sentinel of Justice’s appearances from All-American Comics #16-30 – covering July 1940 to September 1941 and Green Lantern #1 from Fall 1941) starts with the incredible history of The Green Flame of Lifeâ€¦

Ambitious young engineer Alan Scott only survived the sabotage and destruction of a passenger-packed train due to the intervention of a battered old railway lantern. Bathed in its eerie emerald light he was regaled by a mysterious green voice with the legend of how a meteor fell in ancient China and spoke to the people: predicting Death, Life and Power.

The star-stone’s viridian glow brought doom to the savant who reshaped it into a lamp, sanity to a madman centuries later and now promised incredible might to bring justice to the innocentâ€¦

Instructing Scott to fashion a ring from its metal and draw a charge of power from the lantern every 24 hours, the ancient artefact urged the engineer to use his formidable willpower to end all evil: a mission Scott eagerly took up by promptly crushing the corrupt industrialist Dekker who had callously caused wholesale death just to secure a lucrative rail contract.

The ring made Scott immune to all minerals and metals, enabled him to fly and pass through walls but as he battled Dekker’s thugs the grim avenger painfully discovered that living – perhaps organic – materials such as wood or rubber could penetrate his jade defences and cause him mortal harmâ€¦

The saboteurs punished, Scott determined to carry on the fight and devised a â€œbizarre costumeâ€ to disguise his identity and strike fear and awe into wrongdoersâ€¦

Most of the stories at this time were untitled, and All-American Comics #17 (August 1940) found Scott in Metropolis (long before it became the fictional home of Superman) where his new employer was squeezed out of a building contract by a crooked City Commissioner in bed with racketeers. With lives at risk from shoddy construction the Green Lantern moved to stop the gangsters but nearly lost his life to overconfidence before finally triumphing, after which #18 found Scott visiting the 1940 New York World’s Fair.

This yarn (which I suspect was devised for DC’s legendary comicbook premium 1940 New York World’s Fair Comics, but shelved at the last moment) introduced feisty romantic interest Irene Miller as she attempted to shoot a gangster who had framed her brother. Naturally gallant he-man Scott had to get involved, promptly discovering untouchable gang-boss Murdock even owned his own Judge, by the simple expedient of holding the magistrate’s daughter captiveâ€¦

However once Alan applied his keen wits and ruthless mystic might to the problem Murdock’s power – and life – were soon forfeit, after which in All-American Comics #19 Scott saved a man from an attempted hit-and-run and found himself ferreting out a deadly ring of insurance scammers collecting big payouts by inflicting â€œaccidentsâ€ upon unsuspecting citizens.

Issue #20 began with a quick recap of Green Lantern’s origin before instituting a major change in the young engineer’s life. Following the gunning down of a roving radio announcer and assassination of the reporter’s wife, the hero investigated APEX Broadcasting System in Capitol City and again met Irene Miller.

She worked at the company and with her help Alan uncovered a scheme whereby broadcasts were used to transmit coded instructions to merciless smugglers. Once GL mopped up the cunning gang and their inside man, engineer Alan Scott took a job at the company and began a hapless romantic pursuit of the capable, valiant Irene.

Thanks to scripter Finger, Green Lantern was initially a grim vengeful and spookily mysterious figure of vengeance weeding out criminals and gangsters but, just as with early Batman sagas, there was always a strong undercurrent of social issues, ballsy sentimentality and human drama.

All-American #21 found the hero exposing a cruel con wherein a crooked lawyer pressed young criminal Cub Brenner into posing as the long-lost son of a wealthy couple to steal their fortune. Of course, the kid had a change of heart and everything ended happily, but not before stupendous skulduggery and atrocious violence ensued.

In #22 when prize-fighter Kid McKay refused to throw a bout, mobsters kidnapped his wife and even temporarily overcame the fighting-mad Emerald Guardian. However, when one of the brutal thugs put on the magic ring he swiftly suffered a ghastly doom which allowed GL to emerge victoriousâ€¦

Slick veteran Everett E. Hibbard provided the art for #23, and his famed light touch framed GL’s development into a less fearsome and more public hero. As Irene continued to rebuff Alan’s advances – in vain hopes of landing his magnificent mystery man alter ego – the engineer accompanied her to interview movie star Delia Day and stumbled into a cruel blackmail racket.

Despite their best efforts the net result was heartbreak, tragedy and many deaths. Issue #24 then saw the Man of Light go undercover to expose philanthropist tycoon R.J. Karns, who maintained his vast fortune by selling unemployed Americans into slavery on a tropical Devil’s Island, whilst #25 found Irene uncovering sabotage at a steel mill. With the unsuspected help of GL she then exposed purported enemy mastermind The Leader as no more than an unscrupulous American insider trader trying to force the price down for a simple Capitalist coupâ€¦

Celebrated strip cartoonist Irwin Hasen began his long association with Green Lantern in #26 when the hero came to the rescue of swindled citizens whose lending agreements with a loan shark were being imperceptibly altered by a forger to keep them paying in perpetuity, after which the artist illustrated the debut appearance of overnight sensation Doiby Dickles in All-American #27 (June 1941).

The rotund, middle-aged Brooklyn-born cab driver was simply intended as light foil and occasional sidekick for the grim, poker-faced Emerald Avenger but grew to be one of the most popular and beloved comedy stooges of the era; soon sharing covers and even by-lines with the star.

In this initial dramatic outing he bravely defended fare Irene (sorry: irresistible – bad, but irresistible) from assailants as she carried plans for a new radio receiver device. For his noble efforts Doiby was sought out and thanked by Green Lantern and, after the verdant crusader investigated, he discovered enemy agents at the root of the problem. When Irene was again targeted the Emerald Avenger was seemingly killedâ€¦

This time, to save Miss Miller, Doiby disguised himself as â€œde Lantrinâ€ and confronted the killers alone before the real deal turned up to end things. As a reward the Brooklyn bravo was offered an unofficial partnershipâ€¦

In #28 the convenient death of millionaire Cyrus Brand and a suspicious bequest to a wastrel nephew led Irene, Doiby and Alan to a sinister gangster dubbed The Spider who manufactured deaths by natural causes, after which #29 found GL and the corpulent cabbie hunting mobster Mitch Hogan, who forced pharmacies to buy his counterfeit drugs and products; utilising strong-arm tactics to ensure even the courts carried out his wishes – at least until the Lantern and his wrench-wielding buddy gave him a dose of his own medicineâ€¦

The last All-American yarn here is from issue #30 (cover-dated September 1941) and again featured Irene sticking her nose into other peoples’ business. This time she exposed a brace of crooked bail bondsmen exploiting former criminals trying to go straight, and was again kidnapped.

This raw and vital high-energy compilation ends with the stirring contents of Green Lantern #1 from Fall 1941, scripted by Finger and exclusively illustrated by Nodell, who had by this time dropped his potentially face-saving pseudonym Mart â€œDellonâ€.

The magic began with a 2-page origin recap in ‘Green Lantern – His Personal History’ after which ‘The Masquerading Mare!’ saw GL and Doiby smash the schemes of racketeer Scar Jorgis who went to quite extraordinary lengths to obtain a racehorse inherited by Irene, after which an article by Dr. William Moulton Marston (an eminent psychologist familiar to us today as the creator of Wonder Woman) discussed the topic of ‘Will Power’.

The comic thrills resumed when a city official was accused of mishandling funds allocated to buy pneumonia serum in ‘Disease!!’ Although Green Lantern and Doiby spearheaded a campaign to raise more money to prevent an epidemic, events took a dark turn when the untouchable, unimpeachable Boss Filch experienced personal tragedy and exposed his grafting silent partners high in the city’s governing hierarchyâ€¦

Blistering spectacle was the result of ‘Arson in the Slums’, when Alan and Irene became entangled in a crusading publisher’s strident campaign to renovate a ghetto. Of course, the philanthropic Barton and his real estate pal Murker had only altruistic reasons for their drive to re-house the city’s poorest citizensâ€¦

Doiby was absent from that high octane thriller but did guest-star with the Emerald Ace in the prose tale ‘Hop Harrigan in â€œTrailers of Treacheryâ€’ – by an unknown scripter and probably illustrated by Sheldon Mayer – a ripping yarn starring AA’s aviation hero (and star of his own radio show) after which ‘Green Lantern’ and Doiby travelled South of the Border to scenic Landavo to investigate tampering with APEX’s short-wave station and end up in a civil war.

They soon discovered that the entire affair had been fomented by foreign agents intent on destroying democracy on the continentâ€¦

With the threat of involvement in the â€œEuropean Warâ€ a constant subject of American headlines, this sort of spy story was gradually superseding general gangster yarns, and as Green Lantern displayed his full bombastic might against tanks, fighter planes and invading armies,nobody realised that within mere months America and the entire comicbook industry were to metamorphose beyond all recognition.

Soon mystery men would become patriotic morale boosters parading and sermonising ad infinitum in every corner of the industry’s output as the real world brutally intruded on the hearts and minds of the nationâ€¦

Including a breathtaking selection of stunning and powerfully evocative covers by Sheldon Moldoff, Hasen and Howard Purcell, this magnificent book is a sheer delight for lovers of the early Fights ‘n’ Tights genre: gripping, imaginative and exuberantly exciting – even if certainly not to every modern fan’s taste.

Of course, with such straightforward thrills on show any reader with an open mind might quickly see the light…
Â© 1940, 1941, 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

May 1, 2013April 30, 2013

Wonder Woman Archives volume 5

WW arc 5 bk
By Charles Moulton (William Moulton Marston & Harry G. Peter) with Joye Murchison (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1270-4

The Princess of Paradise Island debuted as a special feature in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941), conceived by polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston and illustrated by Harry G. Peter, in a calculated attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model and, on Editor M.C. Gaines’ part, sell funnybooks.

She then catapulted into her own series, and held the cover-spot of new anthology title Sensation Comics a month later. An instant hit, the Amazing Amazon won her own eponymous supplemental title a few months later, cover-dated Summer 1942.

Once upon a time on a hidden island of immortal super-women, American aviator Steve Trevor of US Army Intelligence crashed to Earth. Near death, he was nursed back to health by young, impressionable Princess Diana.

Fearful of her besotted child’s growing obsession with the creature from a long-forgotten and madly violent world, Diana’s mother Queen Hippolyte revealed the hidden history of the Amazons: how they were seduced and betrayed by men but rescued by the goddess Aphrodite on condition that they forever isolated themselves from the mortal world and devoted their eternal lives to becoming ideal, perfect creatures.

However with the planet in crisis, goddesses Athena and Aphrodite now instructed Hippolyte to send an Amazon back with the American to fight for global freedom and liberty, and Diana clandestinely overcame all other candidates to become their emissary Wonder Woman.

On arriving in America she bought the identity and credentials of lovelorn Army nurse Diana Prince, elegantly allowing the Amazon to be close to Steve whilst enabling the heartsick medic to join her own fiancÃ© in South America. Diana gained a position with Army Intelligence as secretary to General Darnell, ensuring she would always be able to watch over her beloved. She little suspected that, although the painfully shallow Steve only had eyes for the dazzling Amazon superwoman, the General had fallen for the mousy but supremely competent Lieutenant Princeâ€¦

Using the nom de plume Charles Moulton, Marston (with some help in later years from assistant Joye Murchison) scripted the Amazing Amazon’s fabulous adventures until his death in 1947, whereupon Robert Kanigher took over the writer’s role. Venerable veteran illustrator and co-creator H.G. Peter performed the same feat, limning practically every titanic tale until his own death in 1958.

This fifth lavishly deluxe full-colour hardback edition collects the increasingly fanciful and intoxicating adventures from Wonder Woman #10-12 and Sensation Comics #33-40, spanning cover-dates September 1944-April 1945 and following the unique champion of freedom from her primarily war-footing to the scary days of a world notionally at peaceâ€¦

After an appreciative Foreword from industry insider, historian and comics all-star Jim Amash detailing the cultural contribution of the creators and their billion-dollar baby, the action opens with ‘The Disappearance of Tama’ from Sensation Comics #33, wherein the Amazon’s college friend Etta Candy overhears a plot to kidnap and murder a movie starlet and embroils herself and Diana in a delightfully bewildering farrago of deadly doubles and impish impostors, after which Wonder Woman #10 (Fall 1944) offered a novel-length epic of alien invasion.

In ‘Spies From Saturn’, a rare vacation with Etta and her sorority sister Holliday Girls leads to trouble with outrageous neighbour Mephisto Saturno who turns out to be the leader of a spy ring from the Ringed Planet. However even after imprisoning his extraterrestrial espionage squad the danger is not ended, as the aliens insidious â€œlassitude gasâ€ turns America into a helpless sleeping nation and forces the Amazon to take ‘The Sky Road’ to the invaders’ home world to find a cure and rescue her beloved Steveâ€¦

The cataclysmic clash concludes in ‘Wonder Woman’s Boots’ as the victorious Earthlings return home, unaware that Mephisto is still free and has a plan to avenge his defeatâ€¦

Social injustice informed ‘Edgar’s New World’ in Sensation Comics #34, when the Amazing Amazon tackled the case of a â€œproblem childâ€ near-blind and living in squalor whilst his mother languished in jail. Soon however the big-hearted heroine uncovered political chicanery and grotesque graft behind the murder charge sending innocent Esta Poore to the death chamberâ€¦

In Sensation #35 ‘Girls Under the Sea’ found Wonder Woman again battling to save lost Atlantis from tyranny and misrule after beneficent ruler Octavia was ousted by a committee of seditious anarchists, whilst #36 pitted the Power Princess against deranged actor Bedwin Footh, a jealous loon who envied the Amazon’s headline grabbing, and organised her old foes Blakfu the Mole Man, Duke of Deception, Queen Clea, Dr. Psycho, The Cheetah and Giganta into an army against her. However all was not as it seemed in the ‘Battle Against Revenge’â€¦

Wonder Woman #11 (Winter 1944) offered big thrills and rare (for the times) plot continuity as ‘The Slaves of the Evil Eye’ saw Steve and Diana battling an uncanny mesmerist intent on stealing America’s defence plans against Saturn.

The spy trail led to bizarre performer Hypnota the Great and his decidedly off-kilter assistant Serva, but there were layers of deceit behind ‘The Unseen Menace’, and a hidden mastermind intent on re-igniting the recently-ended war with Saturn in the climactic final chapter ‘The Slave Smugglers’.

This spectacular psycho-drama of multiple personalities and gender disassociation was another masterpiece directly informed by Marston’s psychiatric background and provided another weirdly eccentric tale unique to the genreâ€¦

With the war in Europe all but over, comicbook content was changing and constantly experimenting. Sensation Comics #37 (January 1945) depicted ‘The Invasion of Paradise Island’ wherein troubled orphans Kitty and Terry stow away aboard Wonder Woman’s invisible plane even as Diana and Steve were busting the orphanage’s crooked, grafting owner. When the kids were discovered back on Paradise Island they found themselves at the tender mercies of a horde of rambunctious Amazon toddlers (don’t ask â€“ it’s comics, ok?) just as a U-Boat of escaping Nazis arrived looking for a safe harbour and refuge to conquerâ€¦

For years Wonder Woman had been celebrating Christmas with exceptional Seasonal offerings and #38 was no exception. ‘Racketeers Kidnap Miss Santa Claus’ revealed how young sceptic Pete Allen sought the Amazon’s help to save his mother from an abusive relationship and learned the true spirit of giving after the Amazon stopped a brutal bullion grabâ€¦

Etta and the Holliday Girls then resurfaced in #39 as an expedition to find a lost Roman colony left them ‘In the Clutches of Nero’ and urgently requiring the assistance of their Amazon associate to quash the ambitions of the latest madman to bear the name, whilst Sensation Comics #40 introduced urbane, untrustworthy freelance spy Countess Draska Nishki, eager to earn cold hard cash spying for General Darnell. Sadly her loyalties couldn’t stay bought and Steve and Diana had good reason to call her ‘Draska the Deadly’â€¦

This glorious tome of treasures concludes with Wonder Woman #12 and another epic fantasy.

When alien Queen Desira declared WWII over, she also brought warning that warmongers were already preparing for the next conflict. In ‘The Winged Maidens of Venus’ this news inadvertently led to Diana Prince’s capture by spy Nerva and her bosses – a cabal of Capitalists who always profited from destruction – until Steve and Etta came to her rescueâ€¦

When the profiteers were transported to Venus for reconditioning, they escaped and fomented chaos and rebellion in ‘The Ordeal of Fire’ almost resulting in ‘The Conquest of Venus’ and carnage on Earth until Wonder Woman and Steve stepped in to save the dayâ€¦

This last tale is credited to Marston’s assistant Joye Murchison who shared the author’s workload as first polio and then lung cancer increasingly hampered him until his death in 1947.

Seen through modern eyes, there’s a lot that might be disturbing in these old comics classics, such as plentiful examples of apparent bondage, or racial stereotypes from bull-headed Germans to caricatured African-Americans, but there’s also a vast amount of truly groundbreaking comics innovation too. The skilfully concocted dramas and incredibly imaginative story-elements are drawn from hugely disparate and often wondrously sophisticated sources, but the creators never forgot that they were in the business of entertaining as well as edifying the young.

Always stuffed with huge amounts of action, suspense, contemporary reflection and loads of laughs, as well as the scandalous message that girls are as good as boys and can even be better if they want, Wonder Woman influenced the entire nascent superhero genre as much as Superman or Batman and we’re all the richer for it.

This exemplary book of delights is a triumph of exotic, baroque, beguiling and uniquely exciting adventure: Golden Age exploits of the World’s Most Marvellous Warrior Maiden which are timeless, pivotal classics in the development of our medium and still offer astounding amounts of fun and thrills for anyone interested in a grand old time.
Â© 1944, 1945, 2007 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

April 24, 2013April 23, 2013

Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter volume 2

By Jack Miller & Joe Certa & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1368-8

As the 1950’s opened, comicbook superheroes were in a steep decline, giving way to a steady stream of genre-based he-men and â€œOrdinary Joesâ€ in extraordinary circumstances.

By the time the â€œRed-baitingâ€, witch-hunting Senate hearings and media investigations into causes of juvenile delinquency had finished, the industry was further depleted by the excision of any kind of reference to mature themes or content. The self-imposed Comics Code Authority took all the hard edges out of the industry, banning horror and crime comics whilst leaving their ghostly, sanitised anodyne shades to inhabit the remaining adventure, western, war and fantasy titles that remained.

American comics could have the bowdlerised concept of evil and felonious conduct but not the simplest kind of repercussion: a world where mad scientists plotted to conquer humanity without killing anybody, and cowboys shot guns out of opponents’ hands and severed gun-belts with a well-aimed bullet, without ever drawing bloodâ€¦

Moreover no civil or government official or public servant could be depicted as anything other than a saintâ€¦

With corruption, venality and menace removed from the equation, comics were forced to supply suspense and tension to their works via mystery and imagination â€“ but only as long as it all had a rational, non-supernatural explanationâ€¦

Arguably the first superhero of the Silver Age, beating by a year the new Flash (who launched in Showcase #4 cover-dated October 1956), the series depicting the clandestine adventures of stranded alien J’onn J’onzz was initially entitled John Jones, Manhunter from Mars; an eccentric, often formulaic but never disappointing B-feature strip which debuted at the height of American Flying Saucer fever in Detective Comics #225.

Hardly evolving at all – except for finally going public as a superhero in Detective Comics #273 (November 1959) – the police-based strip ran there until #326, (1955 to 1964) before shifting over to The House of Mystery and a whole new modus vivendi, beginning with #143 where he continued until #173, finally fading away during the Great Superhero Cull of 1968-70.

In volume 1 ‘The Strange Experiment of Dr. Erdel’ described how a reclusive genius built a robot-brain which could access Time, Space and the Fourth Dimension, accidentally plucking an alien scientist from his home on Mars. After a brief conversation with his unfortunate guest, Erdel succumbed to a heart attack whilst attempting to return the incredible J’onn J’onzz to his point of origin.

Marooned on Earth the Martian discovered that his new home was riddled with the ancient and primitive cancer of Crime and, being decent and right-thinking, determined to use his natural abilities (which included telepathy, psychokinesis, shape-shifting, invisibility, intangibility, super-strength, speed, flight, vision, super-breath, invulnerability and many others) to eradicate the evil, working clandestinely disguised as a human policeman. His only concern was the commonplace chemical reaction of fire which sapped Martians of all their mighty powersâ€¦

With his name Americanised to John Jones he enlisted as a Police Detective in Middletown and worked tirelessly to improve his new home; fighting evil secretly using his inherent powers and advanced knowledge with no human even aware of his existence.

This second and final Silver Age selection reprints in moody monochrome Detective Comics #305-226 (July 1962-April 1964) and the Manhunter’s entire House of Mystery career (#143-173, from July 1964-March-April 1968), almost all of which were written by Jack Miller and illustrated by the indefatigable Joe Certa.

One of the longest tenures and partnerships in DC comics’ history (although creator records are sadly incomplete), Miller and perhaps Bob Haney produced a wealth of scripts for veteran illustrator Certa, who had previously worked for the Funnies Incorporated comics â€œShopâ€ and all over the industry.

His other credits included work on Captain Marvel Junior and assorted genre titles for Magazine Enterprises (Dan’l Boone, Durango Kid), Lev Gleason’s crime comics, Harvey romance titles and others, whilst at DC he drew nautical sleuth Captain Compass and many anthology tales for such titles as Gang Busters and House of Mystery. Certa also drew the newspaper strip Straight Arrow and ghosted the long-lived boxing legend Joe Palooka. In the 1970s he moved to Gold Key, working on TV adaptations, mystery tales and all-ages horror stories.

This traditional all-ages delight opens with ‘J’onn J’onzz vs. Futureman’ from Detective Comics #305 wherein a cop from the 30^th century followed a Martian lawbreaker back to 1962 and mistook J’onzz for his fugitive quarry. When malign B’enn B’urnzz then aligned himself with ruthless earth criminals, the stage was set for a spectacular super-power showdownâ€¦

In #306 criminals using fantastic robot animals were given an unexpected boost when a blazing meteor sapped the Manhunter’s life force and almost spelled ‘The Last Days of J’onn J’onzz’, whilst a bewildering display of disguises and quick-changes was necessary to save John Jones’ police partner Diane Meade when the detective – ‘Alias Scarface Scanlon’– went undercover to expose a criminal safe-house in #307.

Detective Comics #308 revealed how a visit to a feudal European county found the Alien Adventurer embroiled in a coup and battling ancient magic on ‘The Day John Jones Vanished!‘ after which he foiled an alien invasion whilst wearing the form of a reclusive human as ‘The Man Who Saved Earth’ in #309 and overcame a cunning crook with a shrinking ray in #310’s ‘The Miniature Manhunter’

Vacationing Diane was on JadeIsland when it became the beachhead for ‘The Invaders from the Space Warp’ in #311, but to defeat the uncanny extra-dimensional thieves, J’onzz also needed the aid of friendly alien R’ell and his uncanny talking pet. When the war was over, however, the bizarre Zook was trapped on our world foreverâ€¦

A new era began in #312 as the cute E.T. became ‘J’onn J’onzz’ Pesky Partner’. Zook could change shape, generate extremes of heat and cold and had the mind of a five-year old, but posed a frequent threat to the hero’s secret identity by slavishly trailing him as he hunted crooksâ€¦

The kid learned quickly though and by #313, wherein ‘The Wizard who Conquered J’onn J’onzz’ almost killed the Martian with a stolen magic wand, Zook had adapted to a life of seclusion on Earth as the hero’s secret weapon. He proved his worth in #314 when a shape-shifting Saturnian stole the detective’s identity in ‘J’onn J’onzz vs. John Jones’ and the extra-dimensional ET helped defeat a villain as powerful as Manhunter himself, and again in #315 when his uncanny senses penetrated the various identities of a crooked stage performer who was also ‘The Man of 1000 Disguises’â€¦

Another bizarre meteor transferred all the hero’s abilities to ‘The Bandits with Super-Powers’ in Detective #316, but Zook and an equally Martian-powered Diane proved up to the task of thwarting them, after which J’onzz, Diane and Zook had their hands full dealing with ‘The Challenge of the Alien Robots’ found by ambitious, greedy humanÂ bandit Jasper Dowd in #317

When the terrific tyke took a blow to the head he briefly became ‘J’onn J’onzz’ Enemy – Zook’ but was restored by another bash on the bonce, after which the vacationing police detective strolled through a time warp and into a war of succession in mediaeval Auvergne, restoring rightful ruler Prince Charles to his stolen throne as ‘J’onn J’onzz â€“ Wizard of 1463’.

Back in the 20^th century, #320 saw the detective Jones and Zook solve ‘The Case of the Golden Eagle’ and restore a lost treasure to France, whilst #321 found the Martian and his pal battling the fantastic shape-shifting threat of ‘The Cosmic Creature’, after which an old Batman villain moved from Gotham to Middletown intent on becoming ‘The Man who Destroyed J’onn J’onzz’ in #322.

Professor Arnold Hugo had enlarged his intellect – and cranium â€“ to become a cerebral super-villain whose devices enabled him to steal the hero’s powers. However the wily mastermind had not realised that the ludicrous-seeming pet Zook was privy to his fallen friend’s weaknesses tooâ€¦

In Detective #323 the Manhunter flew solo on ‘The Hobby Missions’ wherein a charity auction for his services was suborned by a vicious criminal seeking lost artefacts which bestowed awesome power, whilst in #324 the hero tackled a bizarre rampaging monster and was trapped in a hideous bestial form, becoming ‘The Beast who was J’onn J’onzz’ until Zook intervened, after which a crook’s time-ray banished the hero to Ancient Greece where he helped ‘The Hero of 500 B.C.’ battle incredible beasts until Zook could rescue himâ€¦

Big changes were in the air at DC and by the end of 1963 Julius Schwartz, who had revived much of DC’s line – and the entire industry – with his modernization of the superhero, was then asked to work his magic with the creatively stalled and nigh-moribund Caped Crusader.

Bringing his usual team of top-notch creators with him, Schwartz stripped down the core-concept, downplaying all the aliens, outlandish villains and daft transformation tales, bringing a cool modern take to the capture of criminals and even overseeing a streamlining rationalisation of the art style itself. The most apparent change to us kids was a yellow circle around the Bat-symbol but, far more importantly, the stories also changed. A subtle aura of genuine menace had re-entered the comfortable and absurdly abstract world of GothamCity.

The â€œNew Lookâ€ Batman debuted in Detective Comics #327 and changed the shape of the industry but as part of the makeover the increasingly fantastic Martian Manhunter was no longer welcome.

In a rare move for the genre at the time, departing Bat-Editor Jack Schiff, who was taking J’onzz with him to his new post, decided to shake up everything and end the era in style so Detective Comics #326 (April 1964) marked ‘The Death of John Jones, Detective’ as the veteran cop was dispatched to investigate the theft of The Idol-Head of Diabolu and discovered that the outrÃ© relic was in fact a terrifying portal to uncountable extra-dimensional horrors.

When it transformed the thief who took it into a deadly menace, it also unleashed a dreadful beast which apparently killed the valiant cop before Manhunter ended the twin threats. However the unleashed Idol-Head was lost and promised to unleash a new menace at every first full moon, so the Manhunter gave up his human identity forever, leaving Middletown and swearing to track down the mystic menace whatever the costâ€¦

Thus the oldest Silver Age superhero moved over to House of Mystery (from #143, June 1964, and finally getting his to feature on covers) where, in keeping with the title and context of his new home, he became a wandering monster-hunter.

But don’t panic, chums, Zook came with himâ€¦

J’onnz’ adventures began as the Idol disgorged ‘The Giant-Maker’, a beast which transformed men – and poor Zook – into rampaging colossi and freed the wicked wizard Malador from millennia of bondage until the Manhunter stopped the dual dangers, whilst one full moon later in HoM #144 the peripatetic head opened a voracious space warp which sucked people into ‘The Weird World of Gilgana’ until J’onnz plunged in to seal the breach.

Issue #145 revealed the ‘Secret of the Purple People’ when the Idol allowed the metamorphic Venomee to ravage Egypt until Zook and the Martian stopped them, whilst #146 saw the wanderers find and lose the Diabolu head to fantastic cat-beast Aroo but still save Earth from the life-sucking, monstrous Chulko in ‘The Doom Shadow’â€¦

In #147 the Idol vomited forth living, malevolent musical instruments who mesmerised humans as ‘The Orchestra of Doom!’, whilst #148 unleashed ‘The Beings in the Color Rings’ which warped physical reality in ghastly ways.

An unwary beachcomber became ‘The Man-Thing that Unearthed Secrets’ in #149, changing into a succession of incredible creatures and compulsively retrieving lost mystic artefacts, whilst in #150 an artist’s brushes were ensorcelled and permitted the creation of ‘The Supernatural Masterpieces!’ with calamitous resultsâ€¦

‘The Doom from Two Worlds’ split J’onzz and Zook as the Manhunter battled horrors in a trans-dimensional nightmare world whilst his pal was left to defend Earth from a rapacious fire-demon, following which HoM #152 ‘Iwangis â€“ Creature King’ saw a bestial stone giant lead an army of monsters against humanityâ€¦

There was a brief busman’s holiday in #153 when Professor Hugo again reared his outlandish, oversized head to awaken and enslave ‘The Giants Who Slept 1,000,000 Years’ for an orgy of destruction and profit, whilst in #154 convict Orry Kane used a stolen magic looking-glass to create ‘The Mirror Martian Manhunter’ – a distorted, devilish doppelganger which needed the Manhunter to exercise his wits as well as his powers to exorciseâ€¦

The Idol-Head of Diabolu returned in #155 unleashing ‘The Giant Genie of Gensu’ to grant the wishes of evil men, but comicbook fashions were changing again and the Manhunter was about to be relegated to a B-Feature once moreâ€¦

The entire world was going crazy for costumed crusaders in the mid-Sixties, and every comicbook publisher was keenly seeking new ways to repackage an extremely exciting yet intrinsically limited concept. Perhaps its ultimate expression came with the creation of teen-aged everyman Robby Reed who battled crime and disaster in his little town with the aid of a fantastic wonder-tool in Dial H for Heroâ€¦

Taking the lead from House of Mystery #156 (January 1966), the birth of this new and outlandish hero pushed J’onzz into the back-up spot for ‘Look What Happened to J’onn J’onzz!’, a position he maintained until #173 (March-April 1968) when the comicbook disappeared for a few months to re-emerge as DC’s first – of many – modern anthological supernatural mystery titles.

In that truncated tale a sinister snake-beast almost absorbed and consumed the valiant Martian (irony, or what?), whilst in #157 Professor Hugo returned to mesmerise and humiliate his alien nemesis in ‘Manhunter, World’s Greatest Clown!’

House of Mystery #158 ended the long-running and now tired saga by revealing ‘The Origin of the Diabolu Idol-Head’ by plunging Manhunter back in time to Ancient Babylonia where the Martian finally learned how to destroy it, after which J’onzz marked the occasion by returning to his roots and foiling an invasion by ‘The Devil Men of Pluto’ in #159.

Apparently a helpless victim of trends, ‘Manhunter’s New Secret Identity’ debuted in HoM #160 (July 1966) as the hero tapped into the global super-spy fad by taking over the identity of an international playboy and suspected criminal to penetrate the inner echelons of sinister secret society Vulture. Soon he was popping up all over Europe, hot on the trail of mysterious leader Faceless, AKA â€œMr. Vâ€, forced to undertake increasingly suspect tasks and missions which threatened to compromise his ethics and integrity if not end his lifeâ€¦

He was almost immediately rumbled in #161 when ‘The Unmasking of Marco Xavier!’ found him battling Vulture’s top operative Abba Sulkar and only a tragic accident saved his stolen face.

A devious courier mission for Xavier in #162 allowed Manhunter to raid ‘The Lair of Mr. V!’ but Faceless proved to be a truly capable foe who easily eluded him, whilst in #163 an alliance between Vulture and a fugitive Mercurian resulted in the Martian becoming ‘The Doomed Captive!’ until the hero’s brains triumphed over the bad guys’ brawn and scienceâ€¦

In #164 the undercover agent was placed in an impossible position when Faceless ordered a hit on J’onn J’onzz and expected his playboy pal to carry it out. ‘Marco vs. Manhunter!’ offered a bewildering display of the hero’s disguise dexterity, whilst the next devilish ploy of Professor Hugo provided an unwelcome break as the rogue genius used nuclear blackmail and atomic science to transform the hero into ‘The Deadly Martian’â€¦

When the infiltration campaign had begun Zook had been abandoned in America, but he popped up again in #166 after Marco Xavier was dispatched to the States to secure the secret of turning men into monsters in ‘Vulture’s Crime Goliaths!’

On arrival back in Europe, Faceless tasked his playboy pawn with ingratiating himself with the enemy. ‘Marco Xavier, Manhunter’s Ally!’ proved to be a complex and ultimately unrewarding mission after which Zook called J’onzz back to the USA to tackle the alien predations of ‘Thantos – the 3-in-1 Man!’ in #168, before ‘The Manhunter Monster!’ saw the hero infiltrate Mr. V’s secret lab and become stuck in the shape of the gang’s latest horrific bio-weaponâ€¦

Events in the real world were starting to affect comicbooks, and after #170’s ‘The Martian Double-Cross!’ saw â€œXavierâ€ wrongly deduce the Manhunter’s weakness and only narrowly survive his failure, House of Mystery underwent a radical remodelling to display a slightly darker tone. The writing was clearly on the wall for exuberant, angst-free adventurersâ€¦

With #171 Zook was back for good and in ‘The Martian Marauders’ the odd couple battled an expeditionary force of invaders from the Manhunter’s home-world, whilst #172 found the hero mind-swapped and prisoner in the body of a Vulture assassin as the killer wore his alien frame in ‘Manhunter’s Stolen Identity!’

In those distant days series ended abruptly, without fanfare and often in the middle of something – and such was the fate of Robby Reed – but for J’onn J’onzz at least HoM#173 (March/April 1968) managed â€“ admittedly in an abbreviated manner – to wrap up the undercover agent’s mission in the climactic and explosive ‘So You’re Faceless!’

And that was that. The series was gone, the market was again abandoning Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction, and on the horizon a host of war, western, barbarian and horror comics were beginning to emergeâ€¦

Exciting, fun, engaging and silly in equal amounts (heck, even I couldn’t resist a jibe or too and I genuinely revere these daft, nostalgia-soaked gems) J’onzz has been subsequently re-imagined a number of time since these innocent odysseys first ran, but never with the clear-cut, unsophisticated, welcoming charm displayed here.

Although certainly dated and definitely formulaic, these complex yet uncomplicated adventures are drenched in charm and still sparkle with innocent wit and wonder. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste nowadays, these exploits of the Manhunter from Mars are nevertheless an all-ages buffet of fun, thrills and action no fan should miss.
Â© 1962-1968, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

April 20, 2013April 18, 2013

Golden Age Flash Archives Volume I

By Gardner F. Fox, Harry Lampert, E.E. Hibbard, Hal Sharp & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0784-7

The innovative fledgling company that became DC published the first comicbook super-speedster and over the decades has constantly added more to its pantheon of stars. Devised, created and written by Gardner Fox and first realised by Harry Lampert, Jay Garrick debuted as the very first Monarch of Motion in Flash Comics #1 and quickly – of course – became a veritable sensation.

â€œThe Fastest Man Aliveâ€ wowed readers of anthologies like Flash Comics, Comics Cavalcade, All Star Comics and other titles – as well as solo vehicle All-Flash Quarterly – for just over a decade before changing tastes benched him and most other first-generation costumed heroes in the early1950s.

His invention as a strictly single-power superhero created a new trend in the burgeoning action-adventure funnybook marketplace, and his particular riff was specifically replicated many times at various companies where myriad Fast Furies sprang up such as Johnny Quick , Hurricane, Silver Streak, the Whizzer, Quicksilver and Snurtle McTurtle, the Terrific Whatzit amongst so many othersâ€¦

After half a decade of mostly interchangeable cops, cowboys and cosmic invaders, the concept of human speedsters and the superhero genre in general was spectacularly revived in 1956 by Julie Schwartz in Showcase #4 when police scientist Barry Allen became the second hero to run with the concept. We’ve not looked back since – and if we did it would all be a great big blurâ€¦

This oddly beguiling deluxe Archive edition collects the first year and a half – January 1940 to May 1941 – of the irrepressible Garrick’s whimsically eccentric exploits in seventeen (regrettably untitled) adventures from the anthology Flash Comics, revealing

an appealing rawness, light-hearted whimsy and scads of narrative experimentation in the tales of brilliant nerd but physical sad-sack who became a social crusader and justice-dispensing human meteor.

Following a fulsome Foreword from contemporary Flash scribe Mark Waid, the fast fictions begin with his very first appearance as ‘The Fastest Man Alive’ which speedily delivered in a mere 15 pages an origin, introduced a returning cast and a carried out a classic confrontation with a sinister gang of gangsters.

It all started some years previously when college student Garrick passed out in the lab at MidwesternUniversity, only to awaken hyper-charged and the fastest creature on Earth thanks to the â€œhard water fumesâ€ he had inhaled whilst unconscious.

After weeks recovering in hospital, the formerly-frail apprentice chemist realised the exposure had given him super-speed and endurance, so he promptly sought to impress his sort-of girlfriend Joan Williams by becoming an unstoppable football playerâ€¦

Time passed, the kids graduated and Garrick moved to New York where, appalled by the rampant crime, he decided to do something about it. The Flash operated mostly in secret until one day, whilst idly playing tennis with himself, Jay met Joan again, just as mobsters tried to kill her in a drive-by shooting.

Catching the bullets, Jay gets reacquainted with his former paramour and discovers that she is a target of criminal combine the Faultless Four, master criminals set on obtaining her father’s invention the Atomic Bombarder. In the blink of an eye Flash has crushed the sinister schemes of the gang and their diabolical leader Sieur Satan, saving Joan’s life whilst revelling in the sheer liberating fun and freedom of being gloriously unstoppableâ€¦

In his second appearance The Flash stumbled upon a showgirl’s murder and discovered that yankee mobster Boss Goll and British aristocrat Lord Donelin planned to take over the entire entertainment industry with their ruthless strong-arm tactics. The speedster was as much hindered as helped by wilful, headstrong Joan who began her own lifetime-obsession of pesky do-gooding hereâ€¦

Everett E. Hibbard began his decade long association with the Flash in issue #3 when, in a rare display of continuity, Major Williams’ Atomic Bombarder became the target of foreign spies and the elderly boffin was framed for treason, once more prompting Garrick to come to his future father-in-law’s aid, after which Jay and Joan combined to smash an off-shore gambling ring which had graduated to kidnapping and blackmail in #4.

During these early adventures, the Flash seldom donned his red, blue and yellow outfit, usually operating invisibly or undercover and playing super-speed pranks with merciless, puckish glee, but that began to change in #5, when the speedster saved an elderly artist from hit-men to foil mad collector Vandal who used murder to increase the market value of his purchases.

Flash Comics #6 found Jay and Joan foiling a scheme to dope athletes trying to qualify for the Olympics at old Alma Mater Midwestern, before #7 revealed how a stopover in Duluth led to the foiling of gambler Black Mike who was fixing motorcar races with a metal melting ray. For #8, the Vizier of Velocity tracked down seemingly corrupt contractors building shoddy, dangerous buildings only to find the graft and skulduggery went much further up the financial food chainâ€¦

In issue #9, gangsters got hold of a scientist’s invention and the Flash found himself battling a brigade of giant Gila Monsters, after which #10 depicted the speedy downfall of a cabal of politicians in the pocket of gangster Killer Kelly and stealing from the schools they administered, whilst in #11, Garrick met his first serious opponent in kidnap racketeer The Chief, whose brilliance enabled him to devise stroboscopic glasses which could track and target the invisibly fast crime-crusherâ€¦

With the threat of involvement in the â€œEuropean Warâ€ a constant subject of American headlines, Flash Comics #12 (December 1940) had the heroic human hurricane intervene to save tiny Ruritanian nation Kurtavia from ruthless invasion. His spectacular lightning war saw Garrick sinking submarines, repelling land armies and crushing airborne blitzkriegs for a fairytale happy ending here, but within a year the process would become a patriotic morale booster repeated ad infinitum in every American comicbook as the real world brutally intruded on the industry and nationâ€¦

Back in the USA for #13, Garrick went to aid old friend Jim Carter in cowboy country where the young inheritor of a silver mine was gunned down by murdering owlhoots, before Jay heading back east to crush a criminal combine sabotaging city subway construction in #14 and saving a circus from robbery, sabotage and poor attendances in #15.

Throughout all these yarns Jay had paid scant attention to preserving any kind of secret identity – a fact that would soon change – but as Hal Sharp took over the illustration with #16 (Hibbard presumably devoting his energies to the contents of the forthcoming 64-page All-Flash Quarterly #1 – to be seen in the succeeding Archive collection), Joan was kidnapped by Mexican mobsters aware of her connection to The Flash.

Rushing to her rescue Garrick was forced to battle a small army, but not only saved his girlfriend but even managed to reform bandit chief JosÃ© Salvez.

This first high-energy compilation ends with another light-hearted sporting escapade as the speedster intervenes in a gambling plot, saving a moribund baseball team from sabotage even as Jay Garrick – officially â€œalmost as fast as the Flashâ€ – becomes the Redskins’ star player to save them from lousy performancesâ€¦

With covers by Sheldon Moldoff, Dennis Neville, George Storm, Jon L. Blummer, Hibbard and Sharp, this book is a sheer delight for lovers of the early Fights ‘n’ Tights genre: amazing, exciting and funny, although certainly not to every modern fan’s taste. Of course, with such straightforward thrills on show any reader with an open mind could find his opinion changed in a flash.
Â© 1940, 1941, 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

April 14, 2013April 13, 2013

Batman Chronicles volumes 1 & 2

New, Revised Review

By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Gardner Fox, Sheldon Moldoff, Jerry Robinson, George Roussos & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0445-7 & 978-1-4012-0790-8

For anyone who’s read more than a few of these posts, my tastes should be fairly apparent, but in case you’re in any doubt, here’s a flat-out confession: I’m that shabby, crazy old geezer muttering at the bus stop about how things were better before, and all new things are crap and not the same andâ€¦

You get the picture. Now, ignore all that. It’s true but not relevant.

Batman Chronicles is one of many formats re-presenting the earliest Batman stories. The series does so in original, chronological order, foregoing glossy and expensive high-definition paper and reproduction techniques in favour of newsprint-like paper, and the same flat, bright-yet-muted colour palette which graced the originals.

There’s no fuss, fiddle or Foreword, and the book steams straight into the meat of the matter with Volume 1 re-presenting the stunning covers and all Dark Knight material from Detective Comics #27 through #38, (which introduced Robin, The Boy Wonder), and then the landmark Batman #1 covering May 1939-April 1940.

Detective Comics #27 introduced â€œThe Bat-Manâ€ and playboy/dilettante criminologist in ‘The Case of the Chemical Syndicate’ by Bob Kane & collaborator Bill Finger, wherein a cabal of sinister industrialists were successively murdered until an eerie human bat intruded on Police Commissioner Gordon‘s stalled investigation and ruthlessly dealt with the hidden killer.

Issue #28 saw the fugitive vigilante return to crush ‘Frenchy Blake’s Jewel Gang’ before encountering his very first psychopathic killer. ‘The Batman Meets Doctor Death’ was a deadly duel of wits with deranged, greedy General Practitioner Karl Hellfern and his assorted instruments of murderâ€¦

Confident of their new character’s potential, Kane & Finger revived the mad medic for the very next instalment and ‘The Return of Doctor Death’, before Gardner Fox scripted a 2-part shocker which introduced the first bat-plane, Bruce’s girlfriend Julie Madison and undead horror The Monk for an expansive spooky saga ‘Batman Versus The Vampire‘. The gripping yarn then concluded in an epic chase across Eastern Europe and a spectacular climax in a monster-filled castle in issue #32.

Detective Comics #33 featured ‘The Batman Wars Against the Dirigible of Doom’: a blockbusting disaster thriller which just casually slipped in the secret origin of the Gotham Guardian, as prelude to the air-pirate action, after which Euro-trash dastard Duc D’Orterre found his uncanny science and unsavoury appetites no match for the mighty Batman in ‘Peril in Paris’.

Scripter Bill Finger returned in issue #35, pitting the Cowled Crusader against crazed cultists murdering everyone who had seen their sacred jewel in ‘The Case of the Ruby Idol’, although the many deaths were caused by a far more prosaic villainy, after which grotesque criminal genius ‘Professor Hugo Strange’ (inked by new kid Jerry Robinson) debuted with his murderous man-made fog and lightning machine in #36, and all-pervasive ‘The Spies’ ultimately proved no match for the vengeful masked Manhunter in #37.

Detective Comics #38 (April 1940) changed the landscape of comicbooks forever with the introduction of ‘Robin, The Boy Wonder’: child trapeze artist Dick Grayson whose parents were murdered before his eyes and who joined Batman in a lifelong quest for justice, by bringing to justice mobster Boss Zuccoâ€¦

After the Flying Grayson‘s killers were captured, Batman #1 (Spring 1940) opened proceedings with a recycled origin culled from portions of Detective Comics #33 and 34. ‘The Legend of the Batman – Who He Is and How He Came to Be!’ by Fox, Kane & Moldoff offered in two perfect pages what is still the best ever origin of the character, after which ‘The Joker’ (Finger, Kane & Robinson – who produced all the remaining tales in this astonishing premiere issue) introduced the greatest villain in DC’s entire rogues’ gallery via a stunning tale of extortion and wilful wanton murder.

‘Professor Hugo Strange and the Monsters’ followed as the old adversary returned with laboratory-grown hyperthyroid horrors to rampage through the terrified city, and ‘The Cat’ – who later added the suffix ‘Woman’ to her name to avoid any possible doubt or confusion – plied her felonious trade of jewel theft aboard the wrong cruise-liner and fell foul for the first time of the dashing Dynamic Duo.

The initial issue and the first Chronicles edition ended with the ‘The Joker Returns’ as the sinister clown broke jail and resumed his terrifying campaign of murder for fun and profit before â€œdyingâ€ in mortal combat with the Gotham Guardian.

Volume 2 featured more masterpieces from the dawn of comic-book time, re-presenting Detective Comics #39 through to #45, a story from New York World’s Fair Comics 1940, and Batman #2-3, covering May to November 1940 in original publishing order. Following a superb pin-up of the Dynamic Duo by Kane, the tense suspense and all-out action opens with The Horde of the Green Dragonâ€ – oriental Tong killers in Chinatown – from Detective #39 by Finger, Kane & Robinson, before ‘Beware of Clayface!’ found the Dynamic Duo solving a string of murders on a film set which almost saw Julie Madison become the latest victim of a monstrous movie maniacâ€¦

Batman and Robin solved the baffling mystery of a kidnapped boy in Detective #41’s ‘A Master Murderer’ before enjoying their second solo outing in four comics classics from Batman #2 (Summer 1940).

It all began with ‘Joker Meets Cat-Woman‘ (by Finger, Kane, Robinson & extremely impressive new find George Roussos) wherein svelte thief, homicidal jester and a crime syndicate all tussled for the same treasure with the Caped Crusaders caught in the middle.

‘Wolf, the Crime Master’ was a fascinating take on the classic Jekyll and Hyde tragedy after which an insidiousÂ and ingenious murder-mystery ensued in ‘The Case of the Clubfoot Murderers’ before Batman and Robin faced uncanny savages and ruthless showbiz promoters in a poignant monster story ‘The Case of the Missing Link’.

‘Batman and Robin Visit the New York World’s Fair’ from New York World’s Fair Comics which vintage wonderment – by Finger, Kane & Roussos – then followed the vacationing Dynamic Duo as they tracked down a maniac mastermind with a metal-dissolving ray, after which Detective Comics #42 again found the heroes ending another murder maniac’s rampage in ‘The Case of the Prophetic Pictures!’ before clashing with a corrupt mayor in #43’s ‘The Case of the City of Terror!’

An unparallelled hit, the stories perforce expanded their parameters in #44 with the dreamy fantasy of giants and goblins ‘The Land Behind the Light!’, after which Batman #3 (Fall 1940) saw Finger, Kane, Robinson & Roussos rise to even greater heights, beginning with ‘The Strange Case of the Diabolical Puppet Master’: an eerie episode of uncanny mesmerism and infamous espionageâ€¦

Next up was a grisly scheme wherein innocent citizens were mysteriously transformed into specimens of horror and artworks destroyed by the spiteful commands of ‘The Ugliest Man in the World’ before ‘The Crime School For Boys!!’ saw Robin infiltrate a gang who had a cruel and cunning recruitment plan for dead-end kidsâ€¦

‘The Batman vs. The Cat-Woman’ found the larcenous burglar in well over her head when she stole for – and from – the wrong people, and the issue also included a magical Special Feature as ‘The Batman Says’ presented an illustrated prose Law & Order pep-talk crafted by Whitney Ellsworth and Robinson.

This second terrific tome then concludes with a magnificent and horrific Joker jape from Detective Comics #45 with ‘The Case of the Laughing Death’ wherein the Harlequin of Hate devised a campaign of macabre murder against everyone who had defied or offended himâ€¦

Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson and their compatriots created an iconography which carried the Batman feature well beyond its allotted life-span until later creators could re-invigorate it. They added a new dimension to children’s readingâ€¦ and their work is still captivatingly accessible.

Moreover, these early stories set the standard for comic superheroes. Whatever you like now, you owe it to these stories. Superman gave us the idea, but writers like Finger and Fox refined and defined the meta-structure of the costumed crime-fighter. Where the Man of Steel was as much Social Force and wish fulfilment as hero, Batman and Robin did what we ordinary mortals wanted to do. They taught bad people the lesson they deserved.

These are tales of elemental power and joyful exuberance, brimming with deep mood and addictive action. Comic book heroics simply don’t come any better.

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 chronological order in a variety of formats from relatively economical newsprint paperbacks to stunning, deluxe hardcover commemorative Archive editions.

One final thing: I’m still that guy in paragraph one, right? I’ve read these stories many, many times, in every format imaginable, and I’d like to thank whoever decided that they should also be available in as close a facsimile to the originals as we can get these days.

More than anything else, this serves to perfectly recapture the mood and impact of that revolutionary masked avenger and, of course, delights my heavily concealed inner child no end.
Â© 1939, 1940, 2005 DC Comics and Â© 1940, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

April 7, 2013April 5, 2013

Golden Age Hawkman Archives volume I

By Gardner F. Fox, Dennis Neville, Sheldon Moldoff & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0418-1

Although perhaps one of DC’s most long-lived and certainly their most visually iconic character, the various iterations of Hawkman have always struggled to find enough of an audience to sustain a solo title. From his beginnings as one of the assorted B-features in Flash Comics (the others being Cliff Cornwall, The King, The Whip and Johnny Thunder, all adding lustre to the soaraway success of the eponymous speedster at the helm of the comicbook), Winged Wonder Carter Hall has struggled through assorted engaging, exciting but always short-lived reconfigurations.

Over decades from ancient hero to re-imagined alien space-cop and post-Crisis on Infinite Earths freedom fighter (both named Katar Hol – see Showcase presents Hawkman volumes 1-2 and Hawkworld respectively) or the seemingly desperate but highly readable bundling together of all previous iterations into the reincarnating immortal berserker-warrior of today, the Pinioned Paladin has performed exemplary service without ever really making it to the big time.

Where’s a big-time movie producer/fan when you need one?

Created by Gardner Fox and Dennis Neville, Hawkman premiered in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940) and stayed there, growing in quality and prestige until the title died, with the most celebrated artists to have drawn the Winged Wonder being Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Kubert, whilst a young Robert Kanigher was justly proud of his later run as writer.

Together with his partner Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman, the gladiatorial mystery-man countered fantastic arcane threats and battled modern crime and tyranny with weapons of the past for over a decade before vanishing with the bulk of costumed heroes as the 1950s began.

His last appearance was in All Star Comics #57 (1951) as leader of the Justice Society of America, but the husband-and-wife hellions were revived and re-imagined nine years later as Katar Hol and Shayera Thal of planet Thanagar by Julie Schwartz’s crack creative team Gardner Fox and Joe Kubert – a space-age interpretation which even survived 1985’s winnowing Crisis on Infinite Earths. Their long career, numerous revamps and perpetual retcons ended during the 1994 Zero Hour crisis, but they’ve reincarnated and returned a couple of times since then tooâ€¦

However, despite being amongst DC’s most popular and picturesque strips over the years, Hawkman (and Hawkwoman) always struggled to find sufficient audience to sustain their numerous solo titles.

This spectacular deluxe hardcover re-presentation of the formative years (collecting appearances from Flash Comics #1-22, January 1940 – October 1941) begins with a fond reminiscence by artist Moldoff in the ‘Foreword’ before the magic begins as it should with ‘The Origin of Hawkman’ by Fox & Neville.

In his first epochal episode Carter Hall is a playboy scientific tinkerer and part-time archaeologist with a penchant for collecting old, rare weapons, whose dormant memory is unlocked by an ancient crystal dagger purchased for his collection. Through dreams the dilettante realises that once he had been Prince Khufu of ancient Egypt, murdered with his lover Shiera by Anubis’ High Priest Hath-Set.

Moreover, with his newly returned memories Hall knows that the eternal struggle is primed to play out once moreâ€¦

As if pre-destined, he bumps into the equally reincarnated and remembering Shiera Sanders just a terrifying electrical menace turns New York’s Subway into a killing field and they realised the deadly Doctor Hastor is their ancient nemesis reborn. Fashioning an outlandish uniform and anti-gravity harness of mystic Egyptian â€œNinth Metalâ€, Hall hunts the deranged electrical scientist to his lair in time to save the mesmerised Shiera from a second death by sacrifice and mercilessly ends the cycle â€“ at least for nowâ€¦

In Flash #2, ‘The Globe Conquerors’ concentrated on fantastic science as Hall and Shiera tackled a modern Alexander the Great who built a gravity-altering machine in his ruthless quest to conquer the world, whilst ‘The Secret of Dick Blendon’ in #3 saw â€œThe Hawk-Manâ€ expose a wicked scheme by insidious slavers turning brilliant men into zombies for profit to gather riches and find the secret of eternal life.

Sheldon Moldoff debuted as artist in Flash Comics #4 (April 1940), illustrating a splendidly barbarous thriller wherein the Winged Warrior clashed with ‘The Thought Terror’, a sinister mesmerist enslaving the city’s wealthy citizens, whilst ‘The Kidnapping of Ione Craig’ in #5 pitted the crime-fighting phenomenon against Asiatic cultists led by legendary assassin Hassan Ibn Saddah, determined to stop a pretty missionary and secret agent from investigating distant Araby.

Moldoff has received overly unfair criticism over the years for his frequent, copious but stylishly artistic swipes from newspaper strips by master craftsmen Alex Raymond and Hal Foster in his work of this period, but one look at the stunning results here as the feature took a quantum leap in visual quality should silence those quibblers for goodâ€¦

Maintaining the use of exotic locales, the story extended in issue #6 as Hall and Ione struggled to cross burning Saharan sands to the African coast before defeating Arab slavers and their deadly ‘Sheba, Queen of the Desert’â€¦

Issue #7 further explored the mystical and supernatural underpinnings of the strip which easily lent themselves to spooky tales of quasi-horror and barbaric intensity. â€œThe Eerie Unknownâ€ and deluded dabblers in darkness were much-used elements in Hawkman sagas, as seen in ‘Czar, the Unkillable Man’ wherein the Avian Avenger, back in America and reunited with Shiera, clashed with a merciless golem animated by a crazed sculptor determined to get rich at any cost.

Flash Comics #8 featured another deranged technologist as ‘The Sunspot Wizard’ Professor Kitzoff altered the pattern and frequency of the solar blemishes and created riot, madness and chaos on Earth until the Winged Wonder intervened, whilst in ‘The Creatures from the Canyon’ Hawkman foiled aquatic invaders living in the deeps 5,000 feet below Manhattan Island who decided to expand their ancient empire upwardsâ€¦

Bidding for an old firearm at an auction in #10, Hall was inexorably drawn into a murder-mystery and the hunt for a lost Colorado goldmine in ‘Adventures of the Spanish Blunderers’, before ‘Trouble in Suburbia’ manifested after a hit-and-run accident drew plucky Shiera into a corrupt and convoluted property-scam. Boyfriend Carter Hall was quite prepared to stand back and let her deal with the villains – even if Hawkman did exert a little surreptitious brawn to close the caseâ€¦

Another murderous scam involved an old society chum as ‘The Heart Patient’ revealed how a pretty gold-digger and rogue doctor serially poisoned healthy young men and fleeced them for a cure, whilst in #13 ‘Satana, the Tiger Girl’ preyed on admirers for far more sinister reasons, pitting Hawkman and Shiera against scientifically hybridised killer-cats, after which ‘The Awesome Alligator’ saw an elder god return to Earth to inspire and equip a madman in a plot to conquer America with ancient secrets and futuristic super-weapons. None of those incredible threats could withstand cold fury and a well-wielded mace, howeverâ€¦

At this time the Pinioned Paladin usually dispatched foes of humanity with icy aplomb and single-minded ruthlessness, and such supernatural thrillers as #15’s ‘The Hand’ gave Fox & Moldoff ample scope to display the reincarnated warrior’s savage efficiency when he tracked down a sentient severed fist which stole and slaughtered at its inventive master’s command, whilst ‘The Graydon Expedition’ in #16 reinforced the hero’s crusading credentials when Shiera went missing in Mongolia, and the Winged Wonder undertook a one-man invasion of a fabulous lost kingdom to save her.

In Flash Comics #17, ‘Murder at the Opera’ put the bold birdman on the trail of an arcane Golden Mummy Sect with a perilously prosaic origin and agenda, whilst #18 found him investigating skulduggery in the Yukon when Shiera rushed north to offer aid to starving miners during ‘The Gold Rush of ’41’.

Evidently capable of triumphing in any environment or milieu, Hawkman next thwarted deranged physicist Pratt Palmer in #19, when that arrogant savant attempted to become the overlord of crime using his deadly ‘Cold Light’. ‘The Mad Bomber’ in #20 then found the Avian Ace allied with a racketeer to stop mad scientist Sathan destroying their city with remote-controlled aerial torpedoes, after which Hawkman was forced to end the tragically lethal rampage of an alien foundling raised by a callous rival for Shiera’s affections in ‘Menace from Space’â€¦

This first high-flying archive compilation concludes with October 1941’s Flash Comics #22 and ‘The Adventure of the Killer Gang’ as headstrong Shiera witnesses a bloody hijacking and determines to make the bandits pay. Although she again helped Hawkman deal with the murderous vermin as a civilian here, big changes were in store for the feisty, capable heroine.

Already in All Star Comics #5 (July 1941) she had first worn wings and a costume of her own, and in Flash Comics #24 (December 1941) she would at last become an equal partner in peril and fully-fledged heroine: Hawkgirlâ€¦ but sadly that’s a tale for another volumeâ€¦

Exotic, engaging and fantastically inviting, these Golden Age adventures are a true high-point of the era and still offer astonishing thrills and chills. When all’s said and done it’s all about the heady rush of nostalgia: trying to recapture that magical full-sensorium burst of smell and feel and imagination-overload that finds kids at a perfect moment and provokes something visual and conceptual that almost literally blows the mindâ€¦

We re-read stories hoping to rekindle that instantly addictive buzz and constantly seek out new comics desperately hoping to recapture that pure, halcyon burst, and these lost mini-epics are phenomenally imbued with everything fans need to make that breathtaking moment happenâ€¦
Â© 1940, 1941, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

March 24, 2013March 23, 2013

Golden Age Sandman Archives volume 1

Sandman Arc front
By Bert Christman, Gardner F. Fox, Creig Flessel, Chad Grothkopf, Ogden Whitney & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0155-5

Probably created by and originally illustrated and scripted by multi-talented all-rounder Bert Christman (with the assistance of young scripting star Gardner Fox), The Sandman premiered in either Adventure Comics #40 July 1939 (two months after Batman debuted in Detective Comics #27) or two weeks earlier in New York World’s Fair Comics 1939, depending on which distribution records you choose to believe.

Intriguingly, the Dark Knight didn’t make the cut for the legendary commemorative comicbook and only appeared in New York World’s Fair Comics #2 in Summer 1940â€¦

Head utterly obscured by a gas-mask and slouch hat; caped, business-suited millionaire adventurer Wesley Dodds was cut from the radio drama and pulp fiction mystery-man mould that had made The Shadow, Green Hornet, The Lone Ranger, Phantom Detective, Black Bat, Spider, Avenger and so many more household names big hits of early mass-entertainment and periodical publication.

Wielding a sleeping-gas gun and haunting the night to hunt a host of killers, crooks and spies, he was eventually joined and accompanied by plucky paramour Dian Belmont, before gradually losing the readers’ interest and slipping from cover-spot to last feature in Adventure Comics, just as the shadowy, morally ambiguous avengers he emulated slipped from popularity in favour of more flamboyant and true-blue fictional fare.

This splendidly sturdy, moodily atmospheric Archive edition re-presents the landmark early appearances from both New York World’s Fair Comics, (1939 and 1940) and the rip-roaring exploits from Adventure Comics #40-59 – July 1939-February 1941 – a period when Detective Comics Incorporated frantically sought to follow up Superman and Batman with the Next Big Thing in Comicbooksâ€¦

Following an erudite appreciation from historian and comics all-star Jim Amash, the adventure begins here with the fast-paced thriller from the groundbreaking, pioneering comics premium New York World’s Fair Comics #1 as Christman & Fox introduced ‘Sandman at the World’s Fair’â€¦

In those long-lost days, origins and back story were not nearly as important as action and spectacle so we’re quickly plunged into a fast-paced yarn as wealthy, rugged playboy scientist Dodds visits the global festival with the plans for a new ray-gun and encounters spies and a traitor within his own company. Already active as The Sandman -and sought by the cops for it – the vigilante quickly and beguilingly tracked down and dealt with the pre-war enemies of Americaâ€¦

Over in Adventure Comics #40, at about the same time, the cover-featured crusader was on hand to save kidnapped actress Vivian Dale when ‘The Tarantula Strikes’ (Christman & Fox) in a rousing romp reminiscent of the High Society hi-jinks of movie marvels the Saint, Falcon or Lone Wolf; prowling allies and rooftops, breaking into criminals’ lairs, rifling safes and dealing as much death as dream gas. He also had a unique calling card: sprinkled sand to proclaim and terrify wherever he had silently been and goneâ€¦

Christman wrote and drew many of the early thrillers such as #41’s ‘On the Waterfront’ wherein plucky reporter Janice Blue inadvertently stumbled into a dockside narcotics ring just as murderous seadog Captain Wing made a fateful takeover bid. Luckily for her the stealthy Sandman was already on the caseâ€¦

Adventure #42 highlighted Christman’s love of aviation in ‘The Three Sandmen’ as Wes Dodds met up with a couple of his old Navy Flying Corps buddies to solve a string of murders. Somebody was rubbing out all the members of the old squadronâ€¦

Allen Bert Christman first came to public attention by following the near-mythic Noel Sickles on seminal newspaper strip Scorchy Smith. A dedicated patriot and flyer, Christman entered the Naval Air School in 1940 and joined Claire Lee Chennault’s 1st American Volunteer Group, known as the legendary fighter squadron the Flying Tigers.

These volunteers began fighting the Japanese in China long before America officially entered WWII on December 8^th 1941, and Christman – officially designated a Colonel in the Chinese Air Force – used his artistic talents to personalise and decorate many of theÂ planes in his Flight.Â He was shot down and died in horrific circumstances on January 23^rd 1942.

Issue #43 featured his last official story as Dodds went on a South Seas flying vacation and became embroiled in an ‘Island Uprising’, spectacularly saving embattled white pearl hunters from natives enraged to fury by latter-day pirate Red Hatchâ€¦

In Adventure #44 (November 1939), Fox & Creig Flessel stepped into the breach left by Christman as ‘The Sandman Meets the Face’ found the playboy back in civilisation and aiding a down-and-out old friend against a mercurial disguise artist and mob boss terrorising the city. This splendid blood-&-thunder caper also saw the feature’s page count rise from six to ten as the Sandman finally found his lurking, moody metierâ€¦

‘The Golden Gusher’ (#45 by Fox & Flessel) was nightclub singer Gloria Gordon, threatened with kidnap or worse until the Master of Sleep intervened, whilst #46 ‘The Sandman Meets with Murder’ saw rising talent Ogden Whitney step into the artistic hot seat when the slaying of an old Dodds pal led into a deliciously convoluted murder-mystery involving beautiful twins, counterfeiting and a macabre cross-dressing killerâ€¦

A huge step in continuity occurred in #47 as District Attorney Belmont agreed to an unofficial truce with the Sandman following the assassination of a prominent banker. Simultaneously, Wesley Dodds caught a wily thief trying to crack his safe and became unwilling partner to the ‘Lady in Evening Clothes’ (Fox & Whitney) after she discovered his secret identity.

A celebrated cat-burglar, the sophisticated she-devil was plagued by not knowing who her parents were but happily went straight(ish) in return for Dodd’s pledge to help herâ€¦

Revealed as long-lost Dian Belmont she became a regular cast addition in #48 as ‘Death to the D.A.’ found her newly-restored father under threat from gangsters and far less obvious killers on a palatial island retreat after which ‘Common Cold – Uncommon Crime’ (#49 by Fox, Flessel & perhaps Chad Grothkopf on inks) found the mystery-man tracking killers who were eradicating the scientists who refused to hand over their cure for one of our most unforgiving ailments.

With a year gone by and global war looming, the â€œWorld of Tomorrowâ€ exhibition was slowly closing but there was still time for New York World’s Fair Comics #2, where this time ‘Sandman Goes to the World’s Fair’ (by Fox & Grothkopf on pencils and inks) delivered a blistering crime caper wherein Wesley and Dian got stuck babysitting her maiden Aunt Agatha around the fair and were targeted by ambitious but exceedingly unwise kidnapper Slugger Sladeâ€¦

In Adventure Comics #50 ‘Tuffy and Limpy’s Revenge Plot’, by Fox & Flessel, covered similar ground as a murderous campaign of apparently unrelated deaths eventually pointed to another scheme to get rid of the dauntless DA and led Sandman and Dian into a blockbusting battle against ruthless rogues, whilst in #51 (June 1940, by Fox & Flessel and previously reprinted elsewhere as ‘The Pawn Broker’) ‘The Van Leew Emeralds’ provided a fascinating detective mystery romp for the romantically inclined crimebusters to solve in fine style and double-quick timeâ€¦

A burglary at the Belmont residence only netted a pair of gloves in #52’s ‘Wanted! Dead or Alive’ but inexorably led to a perplexing scavenger hunt with sinister overtones and a deadly pay-off when scandalous Claudia Norgan tried to frame her best gal-pal Dian for the Amber Apple Gang‘s crimes, after which in #53 ‘The Loan Sharks’ unwisely aroused the ire of the dynamic dream-maker when they graduated from simple leg-breaking to murder to enforce their demands. They almost ended the Sandman too before he finally got the better of themâ€¦

In issue #54 ‘The Case of the Kidnapped Heiress’ found Wes and Dian witnesses to a bold snatch-and-grab but their frenzied pursuit only resulted in both the DA’s daughter and millionairess Nana Martin being abducted together. Fury-filled and frantic, the Sandman tracked down the ransoming rogues only to find himself in the unexpected role of Cupid.

When the legendary jewel ‘The Star of Singapore’ was stolen in #55, the trail led to a ever increasing spiral of death and destruction until the Man of Dreams finally recovered it, whilst in the next issue ‘The Crook Who Knew the Sandman’s Identity’ (Fox, Flessel & Grothkopf) learned to his eternal regret that it just wasn’t so, thanks to some delightfully imaginative improvisation from Dianâ€¦

The mystery and general skulduggery gave way to world-threatening science fiction in #57 when the Sandman battled a mad scientist who had devised a deadly atom-smasher for blackmail and ‘To Hammer the Earth’, after which some macabre murders pointed the dream-team towards spies and killers profiting from ‘Orchids of Doom’, before this stylish selection of outrÃ© crime-thrillers concludes with Adventure #59’s ‘The Story of the Flaming Ruby’ as a cursed gem enabled a hypnotic horror to turn honest men into thieves and Dian into a mindless assassinâ€¦

Possessing a certain indefinable style and charm but definitely dwindling pizzazz, the feature was on the verge of being dropped when The Sandman abruptly switched to a skin-tight yellow-and-purple costume – complete with billowing cape for two issues – and gained a boy-sidekick, Sandy the Golden Boy (in Adventure Comics #69, December 1941, courtesy of Mort Weisinger & Paul Norris), presumably to emulate the overwhelmingly successful Batman and Captain America models currently reaping such big dividends. It didn’t help much at first but when Joe Simon & Jack Kirby came aboard with #72 that all spectacularly changed.

A semi-supernatural element and fascination with the world of dreams (revisited by S&K a decade later in their short-lived experimental suspense series The Strange World of Your Dreams) added a moody conceptual punch to equal the kinetic fury of their art, as Sandman and Sandy became literally the stuff of nightmares to the bizarre bandits and murderous mugs they stalked. Those spectacular but decidedly different adventures can be found in The Sandman by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby if you dareâ€¦

With covers by Sheldon Mayer, Jack Burnley and Flessel, these raw, wild and excessively engaging comics capers are actually some of the best but most neglected thrillers of the halcyon Golden Age. Modern tastes too have moved on and these yarns are probably far more in tune with contemporary mores, making this a truly unmissable treat for fans of mystery, murder and stylish intrigueâ€¦
Â© 1939, 1940, 1941, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

March 12, 2013March 11, 2013

Batman Archives volume 7

Bat Arc 7 bk
By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Lew Sayre Schwartz, Win Mortimer, Jim Mooney, Charles Paris & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1493-7

Debuting a year after Superman, â€œThe Bat-Manâ€ (joined eventually by Robin, the Boy Wonder) cemented DC/National Comics as the market and conceptual leader of the burgeoning comicbook industry. Having established the parameters of the metahuman in their Man of Tomorrow, the physical mortal perfection and dashing derring-do of the strictly human-scaled adventures starring the Dynamic Duo rapidly became the swashbuckling benchmark by which all other four-colour crimebusters were judged.

By the time of the tales in this sublime seventh deluxe hardback compilation (collecting Batman’s cases from Detective Comics #136-154, cover-dates June 1948 – December 1949) the Gotham Gangbusters were one of the few superhero features to buck the declining trend that was slowly sounding the death knell for flamboyant costumed crusaders.

Just as â€œreal lifeâ€ headline-grabbers were overtaking sheer escapist fantasy, named creator Bob Kane was cutting back. Most of the work here is the fruit of unsung and uncredited super-stars Bill Finger and Dick Sprang – usually inked by the superb Charles Paris – and this period of more realist wonders saw the creation of one last great themed villain and the beginning of real life celebrity guest-stars as the re-emergence and dominance of tough, clever mobsters became the order of the day.

During these years the comics landscape would radically alter with masks and capes drowning under a tidal wave of business suits, Stetsons, space-ships, fighter-jets and tanks as genre tales of gangsters, cowboys, spacemen, ghosts and soldiers supplanted most mystery-men for nearly a decade – an entire comics-buying generation.

Some of these stories’ authors are still unknown to us, although most are correctly attributed to the transcendent Finger. My own humble guesses would be either Edmond Hamilton or Don Cameron – although Alvin Schwartz, David Vern Reed, Ed â€œFranceâ€ Herron and Jack Schiff are also potential contributors at this time – but sadly, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever really know.

Following an effulgent and educational Foreword from industry insider and historian Jim Amash, the drama commences in ‘The Dead Man’s Chest!’ (from Detective #136, with Sprang inking his own pencils) as Gotham Museum trustee Bruce Wayne examined a 17^th century pirate map and recognised his own handwriting disclosing the route to Henry Morgan‘s buried treasure! Soon the millionaire and his ward Dick Grayson were consulting time travel pioneer Professor Carter Nichols and whirling back to the age of buccaneers to solve an incredible mystery in stunning styleâ€¦

The most popular villain of this period was still the Joker and in #137 the Harlequin of Hate again attempted to dumbfound the Dynamic Duo: this time with the perpetration of ‘The Rebus Crimes!’, and Charles Paris inking the scintillating Sprang on a tour de force of comics crime-busting.

The Mountebank of Mirth was back in the very next issue forcing scientist Walter Timmins to commit ‘The Invisible Crimes!’ and running Joker wild until Batman finally crushed his scheme, after which #139’s ‘The Crimes of Jade!’ found the Gotham Guardians infiltrating the city’s exotic Chinatown district in search of bandit/smugglers and an apparently oriental mastermind.

Detective Comics #140 introduced ‘The Riddler!’ (Finger, Sprang & Paris) as cheating carnival con-man Edward Nigma took his obsession with puzzles to a perilous extreme by becoming a costumed criminal and matching wits with the brilliant Batman in a contest that threatened to set the entire city ablaze.

It was back to basics in #141 as ‘Gallery of Public Heroes!’ (illustrated by Bob Kane’s protÃ©gÃ© and ghost Lew Sayre Schwartz & the ever-appealing Paris) revealed how Public Enemy Blackie Nason tried to expose and eliminate all undercover cops through his gang of insidious investigators. His biggest target and eventual downfall was that undisputed master of disguise Batmanâ€¦

Riddler returned in #142, fomenting chaos with ‘Crime’s Puzzle Contest!’ (Sprang & Paris) until the Team Supreme scuppered his hidden scheme to plunder a treasure of the ages, whilst in #143 the crazed crime spree of a tobacconist utterly obsessed with smoking paraphernalia and all forms of pipes blew up in the face of ‘The Pied Piper of Peril!’ (art by Jim Mooney & Paris).

The late 1940’s saw the first slow rise of media-fuelled celebrity culture and fast fading fads and #144 featured a popular bandleader and radio/movie star in ‘Kay Kyser’s Mystery Broadcast!’ by Sprang &Paris. The popular entertainer (just Google Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge to learn more) was touring in Gotham when a ruthless killer forcibly insinuated himself into his band – forcing the musical sharpie to seek help from Batman and Robin by the most convoluted means imaginableâ€¦

‘Robin, the Boy Failure!’ in #145 saw the torrid teen suffer a work-related injury and temporary amnesia, and even after recovery the kid had no memory of his alter ego. Confidence shattered, his mentor took extraordinary steps to effect a full recovery to fighting fettle for the lad, just in time to find that ‘Three’s a Crime’ (another all-Sprang extravaganza) when small-time hood and inveterate gambler Carl C. Cave graduated to big-time crime after seemingly discovering his own unbeatable lucky numberâ€¦

Undersea adventure and a close brush with death was the result of the Dynamic Duo intruding in the domain of costumed pirate ‘Tiger Shark!’ (Sprang & Paris) in #147, but the fishy felon’s alter ego held a shocking secret for socialite Bruce Wayne, after which bold science fiction thrills resulted from #148’s ‘The Experiment of Professor Zero’ (Finger, Sprang & Paris) as a peek into Batman’s crime casebook and trophy room revealed how a mad scientist almost reduced the Gotham Guardians to fatal insignificance with a shrinking gimmickâ€¦

The Joker crashed back into action in #149 undertaking another potty plot to plunder the city with ‘The Sound-Effect Crimes!’ (Finger & Sprang), whilst in #150 ‘The Ghost of Gotham City!’ (Paris inks) seemed to see judge and jury hunted by the spirit of a wrongly convicted man they had sent to the electric chair. The phantom’s short reign of terror only ended after the Dark Knight unravelled an incredible truthâ€¦

With eye-catching, flamboyant villains in decline, creators were compelled to concoct clever stories such as #151’s (all Sprang) delight wherein a string of close calls and rescues of businessmen revealed a character saving lives and collecting promises of future reciprocation in ‘I.O.U. My Life!’ The reasons behind Ben Kole‘s peculiar predilection were both chilling and spellbindingly complexâ€¦

An even more devious Detective tale featured in #152 as ‘The Goblin of Gotham City!’ (with art from Sayre Schwartz & Paris) temporarily halted his campaign of crime after photographer Vicki Vale took a photo which threatened to expose his secret. Unfortunately nobody, including Batman, knew exactly what they had, even after the villain began ruthlessly rubbing out anyone who had seen the snapâ€¦

Fantastic fantasy informed #153 as an incredible invention enabled the Caped Crusader to become ‘The Flying Batman!’ (Sprang & Paris), but the phenomenal exploits of the new Dark Knight had a pitifully prosaic explanation, after which this superb seventh deluxe hardback compilation concludes with the ‘The Underground Railroad of Crime!’ (#154 and drawn by Sayre Schwartz & Paris) wherein an impossible series of escapes from State Prison led an undercover Batman to an ingenious and perfidious program of extortion and plunder as well as the welcome redemption of a hopeless career criminalâ€¦

With glorious covers by Sprang, Bob Kane, Win Mortimer, Jim Mooney and Charles Paris, this is another superb package of timeless masterpieces from a crucial yet long-neglected period which saw a careful repositioning and reformatting of the heroes, as publishers cautiously toned down all things bombastic, macabre and outlandish in favour of a wide variety of mundane mobsters and petty criminals, clever mysteries and personally challenging situations – although there was always some room for the most irrepressibly popular favourites such as Penguin and The Joker.

Thrilling, dazzling and spectacularly swashbuckling, this action-packed compendium provides another perfect snapshot of the Batman’s amazing range from moody avenger to suave swashbuckler to sophisticated Devil-May-Care Detective, in tales which have never lost their edge or their power to enthral and enrapture. Moreover, these sublimely sturdy Archive Editions are without doubt the most luxuriously satisfying way to enjoy them over and over again.
Â© 1948, 1949, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

February 26, 2013February 25, 2013

Wonder Woman Archives volume 4

WW arc 4 front
By Charles Moulton (William Moulton Marston & Harry G. Peter) (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-4012-0145-8

Wonder Woman was conceived by polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston and illustrated by Harry G. Peter in a calculated attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model and, on Editor M.C. Gaines’ part, sell funnybooks.

The Princess of Paradise debuted as a special feature in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941), before springing into her own series and the cover-spot of new anthology title Sensation Comics a month later. An astonishing instant hit, the Amazing Amazon quickly won her own eponymous supplemental title in late Spring of that year (cover-dated Summer 1942).

Fearing her growing obsession with the creature from a long-forgotten and madly violent world, her mother Queen Hippolyte revealed the hidden history of the Amazons: how they were seduced and betrayed by men but rescued by the goddess Aphrodite on condition that they isolated themselves from the rest of the world and devoted their eternal lives to becoming ideal, perfect creatures.

However when goddesses Athena and Aphrodite subsequently instructed Hippolyte to send an Amazon back with the American to fight for global freedom and liberty, Diana overcame all other candidates and became their emissary – Wonder Woman.

On arriving in America she bought the identity and credentials of lovelorn Army nurse Diana Prince, elegantly allowing the Amazon to be close to Steve whilst enabling the heartsick medic to join her own fiancÃ© in South America. Soon Diana also gained a position with Army Intelligence as secretary to General Darnell, ensuring she would always be able to watch over her beloved. She little suspected that, although the painfully shallow Steve only had eyes for the dazzling Amazon superwoman, the General had fallen for the mousy but superbly competent Lieutenant Princeâ€¦

Using the nom de plume Charles Moulton, Marston (with some help in later years from assistant Joye Murchison) scripted almost all of the Amazing Amazon’s many and fabulous adventures until his death in 1947, whereupon Robert Kanigher took over the writer’s role. Venerable veteran illustrator and co-creator H.G. Peter performed the same feat, limning practically every titanic tale until his own death in 1958.

This fourth lavishly deluxe full-colour hardback edition collects the increasingly fanciful and intoxicating adventures from Wonder Woman #8-9 and Sensation Comics #25-32 spanning cover-dates January to August 1944. After an appreciative Foreword from comics journalist and historian Maggie Thompson who outlines the landmarks and catalogues the achievements of the Amazing Amazon, the war-woven epics and imaginatively inspirational dramas begin with Sensation #25 and the ‘Adventure of the Kidnapers of Astral Spirits’ as Diana Prince witnesses a murder. However the killer was asleep at home in bed at the time and soon more impossible killings occur, drawing Wonder Woman into an incredible adventure beyond the Walls of Sleep into uncanny realms where even her gifts are useless and only determination and rational deduction can save the dayâ€¦

Far less outrÃ© but no less deadly was the menace of ‘The Masquerader’ who replaced the Amazing Amazon in #26, following an unshakeable prophecy which saw the champion of Love and Freedom murdered by merciless racketeer Duke Dalgan. It took the covert intervention of Aphrodite and a Girl’s Best Friend to thwart that dire fate, but Diana never knew just who took her placeâ€¦

When the Amazon, Etta Candy, her sorority Holliday Girls and former convict Gay Frollik resolved to raise a billion dollars for ‘The Fun Foundation’, they never expected their most trusted advisor to turn against them, but his greed led to his downfall and the clearing of a framed woman’s name in Sensation #27, after which Wonder Woman #8 offered another novel-length triumph of groundbreaking adventure.

The drama opened with ‘Queen Clea’s Tournament of Death’ as Steve, on an undercover mission, was snatched by a giant barbarian woman. Hot on his trail, Diana discovered her beau a captive of undersea Amazons from lost Atlantis, living in colossal caverns below the oceans.

Diana soon found herself embroiled in a brutal civil war battling the forces of usurping conqueror Clea of belligerent state Venturia and trying to restore the rightful ruler Eeras to peaceful, beleaguered Aurania. Should she fail, Clea intended to invade the upper world, looking for husky men like Steve to replace the depleted, worn-out puny males of her own realmâ€¦

After restoring order in Atlantis, the Amazon returned to her military job and civilian identity until a little girl begged for aid in finding her missing father. Closer investigation revealed that Clea’s forces had been capturing sailors and airmen but with the rebel queen imprisoned as ‘The Girl with the Iron Mask’, who could the leader of the raids possibly be?

After another fearsome subterranean clash the status quo was re-established, but when Diana later met a huge a powerful student at Holliday College she realised that the adventure was still not over as ‘The Captive Queen’ infiltrates Paradise Island and captures both Wonder Woman and Eeras’ wayward daughter Octavia.

Even after defeating her ponderous perpetual foe the action doesn’t end for the Princess of Power as her return to the land beneath the sea is interrupted by another revolution.

This time the ineffectual Atlantean men had used the constant distractions and American modern weapons to enslave the women, making the sub-sea empire a brutal, domineering patriarchyâ€¦

But not for long, as Diana and Steve led a brilliant counter-offensiveâ€¦

In Sensation Comics #28 ‘The Malice of the Green Imps’ offered a welcome dose of metaphysical suspense as jealous thought and impulses were made manifest and drove gangsters and even good folks to attack the recently opened Fun Foundation Clinics sponsored by Diana and Gay Frollik, after which #29 saw another Amazon in Man’s World in the ‘Adventure of the Escaped Prisoner’. After imprisoning gambling racketeer and blackmailer Mimi on the Amazon’s prison island, Wonder Woman was unaware that the harridan’s subsequent escape also brought confused and naively curious fellow warrior Mala to New York where she quickly fell in with the wrong crowdâ€¦

Marston’s psychiatric background provided yet another weirdly eccentric psychic scenario in #30’s ‘The Blue Spirit Mystery’ as Steve, Etta Candy and Diana investigated Anton Unreal, a mystic and mentalist who offered to send his client to the heavenly Fourth Dimension – for a large fee, of courseâ€¦

Unfortunately – although a crook – Unreal was no charlatan and the â€œascended onesâ€ certainly found themselves in a realm utterly unearthly, but definitely no paradise until Steve and Diana followed and took matters into their own immaterial handsâ€¦

Wonder Woman #9 saw the origins of one of the Amazon’s most radical foes and bizarre adventures. ‘Evolution Goes Haywire’ began with zoo gorilla Giganta stealing Steve’s little niece before the Amazon effected a rescue, after which crazy scientist Professor Zool used his experimental Hyper-Atomic Evolutionizer to transform the hirsute simian into an gorgeous 8-foot tall Junoesque human beauty. Sadly the artificial Amazon retained her bestial instincts and, battling Wonder Woman, managed to damage Zool’s machine, resulting in the entire region being devolved back to the days of cavemen and dinosaursâ€¦

With even Diana converted to barbarism it was an uphill struggle to rerun the rise to culture and civilisation sufficiently to achieve a primitive Golden Age in ‘The Freed Captive’, but eventually the twisted time-travel tale took them back to where they had started, even if only after ‘Wonder Woman vs. Achilles’ – a deranged diversion to save her own mother and people from male oppression by the legendary warrior kingâ€¦

Sensation Comics #31, by contrast, offered delicious whimsy and biting social commentary when the Princess of Power visited ‘Grown-Down Land’. When a wealthy socialite mother neglected her children the tykes ran away and almost died. Rescued by Wonder Woman, they told her of a dream world far better and happier than reality and next morning, when the kids can’t be awoken from a deep sleep, Diana realises they have chosen to stay in their topsy-turvy imaginary country. However when she enters their dream she finds genuine peril of a most unexpected kindâ€¦

This glorious tome of treasures then concludes with #32’s ‘The Crime Combine’ as Wonder Woman finds herself at the top of the American underworld’s hit-list. To scotch the scheme Diana asks fully reformed ex-Nazi and trainee Amazon Baroness Paula von Gunther to leave ParadiseIsland and infiltrate the hierarchy of hate, but it quickly seems that the temptations of Man’s World and allure of evil have seduced the villainess back to her wicked waysâ€¦

Seen through modern eyes there’s a lot that might be disturbing in theses old comics classics, such as the plentiful examples of apparent bondage, or racial stereotypes from bull-headed Germans to caricatured African Americans, but there’s also a vast amount of truly groundbreaking comics innovation.

The skilfully concocted dramas and incredibly imaginative story-elements are drawn from hugely disparate and often gratifyingly sophisticated sources, but the creators never forget they’re in the business of entertaining as well as edifying the young. There’s huge amounts of action, suspense, contemporary reflection and loads of laughs to be found here, and always the message is: girls are as good as boys and can even be better if they want toâ€¦

Wonder Woman influenced the entire nascent superhero genre as much as Superman or Batman and we’re all the richer for it. Even better, this exemplary book of past delights is a triumph of exotic, baroque, beguiling and uniquely exciting adventure, and these Golden Age exploits of the World’s Most Marvellous Warrior Maiden are timeless, pivotal classics in the development of the medium and still offer astounding amounts of fun and thrills for anyone interested in a grand nostalgic read.
Â© 1944, 2003 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

February 5, 2013February 4, 2013

Plastic Man Archives volume 3

By Jack Cole (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-847-0

As recounted by Playboy‘s Cartoon Editor Michelle Urry in her Foreword to this third beguiling Deluxe Archive collection, Jack Cole was one of the most uniquely gifted talents of America’s Golden Age of Comics.

Before moving into the magazine and gag markets he originated landmark tales in horror, true crime, war, adventure and especially superhero comicbooks, and his incredible humour-hero Plastic Man remains an unsurpassed benchmark of screwball costumed hi-jinks: frequently copied but never equalled.

In 1954 Cole quit comics for mature cartooning, becoming a household name when his brilliant watercolour gags and stunningly saucy pictures began running in Playboy from the fifth edition. Cole eventually moved into the lofty realms of newspaper strips and, in May 1958, achieved his life-long ambition by launching a syndicated newspaper strip, the domestic comedy Betsy and Me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This lavish, full-colour hardback barely contains the exuberant exploits of the premier polymorph from Police Comics #31-39 and Plastic Man #2 stretching from June 1944 to February 1945, and opens with an outrageous examination of current affairs as the chameleonic cop investigated ‘The Mangler’s Slaughter Clinic’ wherein fit and healthy draft-dodgers could go to get brutalised, broken and guaranteed unfit for active duty. The biggest mistake these canny crooks made was kidnapping Woozy and trying their limb-busting procedures on a man(ish) protected by the forces of nature â€¦

Police Comics #32 then detailed ‘The La Cucaracha Caper’ wherein ultra-efficient Plas was forcibly sent on vacation to give the cops and FBI a break and some time to process all the crooks the Ductile Detective had corralled. What no-one expected was that the last gangsters left un-nabbed would also head south of the border to escape their nemesis and Plas and Woozy found far more than Sun, Senoritas and Bullfights in the sleepy Mexican resortâ€¦

In #33’s ‘Deathtrap for Plastic Man’ a crazed saboteur stretched our hero’s resources and reason in his mad mission destroy a vital prototype plane for the most implausible of reasons before Plastic Man #2 (August 1944) offered a quartet of brilliant yarns, beginning with ‘The Gay Nineties Nightmare’, wherein Plas and Woozy trailed the worst rats in the underworld to a hidden corner of America where they couldn’t be touched.

No Place, USA, due to clerical errors, had been left off all official maps and withdrawn from the Union in a huff in the 1890s. The FBI couldn’t enforce justice there but maybe two good men – or one and Woozy – couldâ€¦

Satire was replaced by outrageous slapstick as mild-mannered Elmer Body became ‘The Man Who Could Switch Bodies’, using his newfound gift to experience all the joys and thrills his dull life had denied him. When Plas realised he couldn’t catch or hold the identity thief, all he could do was offer better candidates for possessionâ€¦

In hot pursuit of Fargo Freddie the stretchable sleuth accidentally chased the killer into a Mexican volcano. Thinking the case closed the hero headed home but was unaware that a miraculous circumstance had transformed his target into The Lava Man’, whose resultant revenge rampage set the nation ablaze until Plas resorted to brains and not bouncy brawn. The issue closed with tale of urban horror as Plas and Woozy were dispatched to a quiet little town where everybody had been driven crazy – even the medics and FBI agents sent in to investigate ‘Coroner’s Corners’â€¦

Police Comics #34 introduce a well-meaning if screwball campaigner determined to end Plas’ maltreatment of malefactors by organising ‘Serena Sloop’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Criminals’, although the old biddy’s philanthropy took a big hit after she actually met some of the crooks she championed, whilst ‘The Confession of Froggy Fink’ in #35 threatened to tear the entire underworld apart, if Plas got hold of it before the many concerned members of the mastermind’s gang did. Cue frantic chases, and lots of double-dealing back-stabbing violenceâ€¦

In #36 a gang of brutal thieves hid out in the isolated, idyllic paradise of ‘Dr. Brann’s Health Clinic’ turning the unprofitable resort into a citadel of crime until Plas and Woozy decided to take a rest cure themselves, after which ‘Love Comes to Woozy’ offered the unlikely sight of a sultry seductive siren falling for the wildly unappealing Mr. Winks just as the corpulent crime-crusher and his boss were closing in on a gang stealing widows’ and veterans’ welfare chequesâ€¦

The big bosses of criminality had finally had enough by #38, offering ‘One Million Dollars for Plastic Man’s Death’. They also included top criminologist Professor Zwerling on their shopping list but even he was too much for the horde of would-be assassins and even diminutive murder mastermind Rocky Goober soon found his reach far exceeded his graspâ€¦

This classic collection then concludes with a riotous rollercoaster romp as ‘His Lordship Woozy Winks’ is improbably tapped as the lost heir to a fancy British estate. Of course Bladau Castle boasts a murderous ghost and rather more prosaic elements determined to ensure the owlish oaf doesn’t inheritâ€¦

Always exciting, breathtakingly original, thrilling, funny, scary and still visually intoxicating over seventy years later, Jack Cole’s Plastic Man is a truly unique creation that has only grown in stature and appeal. This is a magical comics experience fans would be crazy to deny themselves.
Â© 1944, 1945, 2001 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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