Category: Nostalgia

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Seven Soldiers of Victory Archives volume 1


By Mort Weisinger, Bill Finger, Jerry Siegel, Mort Meskin, George Papp, Jack Lehti, Hal Sherman, Creig Flessel, Ed Dobrotka & various (DC Comics)
ISBN 978-04012 1-84576-236-3

After the actual invention of the comicbook superhero – for which read the Action Comics debut of Superman in 1938 – the most significant event in the industry’s history was the combination of individual sales-points into a group. Thus what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven: a multitude of popular characters could multiply readership simply by appearing together.

Plus, of course, a mob of superheroes is just so much cooler than one (or one-and-a-half if there are sidekicks involved) …

You can’t say it too often: the creation of the Justice Society of America in 1941 utterly changed the shape of the budding industry. Soon after the team launched, even National/DC – All American Comics’ publishing partner in the landmark venture – wanted to get in on the act and created their own proprietary squad of solo stars, populated with a number of their characters who hadn’t made it onto the roster of that super-successful cooperative coalition of AA and DC stars.

Oddly they never settled on a name and the team of non-super powered mystery men who debuted in Leading Comics #1 in 1941 were retroactively and alternatively dubbed The Law’s Legionnaires or The Seven Soldiers of Victory.

They never even had their own title-logo but only appeared as solo stars grouped together on the 14 spectacular covers – the first four of which, by Mort Meskin and Fred Ray, preface each collaborative epic in this spectacular deluxe hardback.

The full contents of this bombastic barrage of comicbook bravado were originally presented in the quarterly Leading #1-4, spanning Winter 1941/1942 to Fall 1942 and, following a fascinating history lesson and potted biography of the component crusaders in cartoonist, biographer and historian R.C. Harvey’s Foreword, the Golden Age glamour and glory begins with the heroes’ first adventure.

The sagas all followed a basic but extremely effective formula, established by scripter Mort Weisinger in the first adventure when dying criminal genius The Hand drew up a ‘Blueprint for Crime’ (illustrated by George Papp) to leave a lasting legacy of villainy.

Unable to carry out his perfidious plans in person, he subcontracted a fistful of macabre felons but insisted they warn their particular heroic arch-enemies as part of the triumphal deal…

Following a trail of breadcrumbs, Green Arrow and Speedy, the Shining Knight, Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, Crimson Avenger and the Vigilante stumbled upon each other, shared their knowledge of the grand scheme and soon separated again to tackle their own particular antagonists…

Papp continued as illustrator whilst the Emerald Archers headed to ‘Death Valley’ to stop the ingenious Professor Merlin using a freeze machine to extort the location of a fabulous gold mine out of a sun-loving old prospector, before heading back to track down the Hand…

Regular creative team Jerry Siegel & Hal Sherman then took the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy south of the border in ‘Peril in Panama’, where ectomorphic assassin the Needle tried to steal a seismic ray gun and shatter the Canal Zone and American trade, whilst Jack Lehti revealed how Crimson Avenger (and oriental sidekick Wing) bagged blue-collar mobster Big Caesar when the thug created a ‘Blackout over Broadway’ to plunder in relative safety…

Arthurian paladin the Shining Knight slept in ice until defrosted in 1941, where his magic sword, armour and winged horse made Sir Justin a formidable foe of injustice. Here he battled ‘The Red Dragon’ (illustrated by Creig Flessel) to free a lost tribe of Indian braves from the sinister slaver whilst undisputed artistic star of the show Mort Meskin revealed in stunning style how Hollywood’s glitterati were saved from being transformed into ‘The Stone People’ by the diabolical Dummy…

With each subordinate subdued, the heroes simultaneously closed on The Hand to end the dying dastard’s depredations in Weisinger & Papp’s explosive finale ‘Blueprint for Crime’…

The valiant crusaders came together again in Leading Comics #2 as ‘The Black Star Shines’ (Weisinger & Flessel) found juvenile genius Sylvester Pemberton and his chauffer Pat Dugan witnesses to a simple bank heist perpetrated by five of the nation’s most infamous criminals and realising that Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy might need a little assistance…

The Pentagram of Perfidy were actually operating under explicit instructions to steal millions for themselves from a cautious and secretive hidden Machiavelli who only required five unobtrusive and mundane objects for himself, but the Law’s Legionnaires had no inkling of such when they split up to track the fiends down…

The cross-country campaign began with Sir Justin who hit New Orleans during Mardi Gras to confront the ‘Mystery of the Clowning Criminals’ (Weisinger & Flessel). The Shining Knight clashed with gang-leader Falseface and his battalion of buffoons, but although victorious was unable to prevent the sneaky Black Star from stealing an old rag doll…

Hal Sherman joined Weisinger to solve the ‘Mystery of the Santa Claus Pirate’ wherein the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy tackled a seaborne scoundrel Captain Bigg in Florida: a jolly jokester who gave away rather than stole loot. Of course the bandit had a bigger game plan in motion which the patriotic pair soon scuttled, but once again the surreptitious Black Star got away with the true prize – an old corncob pipe…

‘Mystery of the One-Man Museum’ (Weisinger & Papp) found Green Arrow and Speedy in glamorous Pleasure City hunting The Hopper, a mobster trying to appropriate valuable objets d’art from an eccentric millionaire. Once the human kangaroo was captured, however, his silent partner delightedly sloped off with a broken pocket watch…

The Crimson Avenger and Wing headed for the Great Lakes to duel with The Brain in ‘The Case of the Twisted Twins’ (Weisinger & Lehti), wherein the criminal genius assaulted attendees at an identical siblings convention whilst Black Star used the subsequent commotion to purloin an old silver dollar.

Bill Finger & Meskin handled the last two chapters and revealed the incredible truth as Vigilante battled venomous villain The Rattler at rich retired folk’s resort ‘The Sixty Kiddie Club’, but couldn’t stop the real menace grabbing an old key. Thus when ‘The Black Star Shines’ – using the gathered bric-a-brac to become an incredible super-menace – it needed the full might of the assembled Seven Soldiers to thwart the menace and end his astounding threat forever.

The scripter of ‘The Tyrants of Time’ in Leading #3 is sadly unknown but the first chapter (with art credited to Meskin) discloses how sinister scientist Dr. Doome built a time machine and recruited five historical tyrants to loot 1942, gathering funds and resources to build an even better device.

Their entire campaign was overheard by Speedy and the temporal thugs were then targeted by the Law’s Legionnaires, beginning with Stripesy and the Star-Spangled Kid who gave Napoleon a taste of ‘Defeat Before Waterloo’ (Sherman art), whilst the Amazing Archers prevented Alexander the Great from turning ‘The Radium Robots’ (Papp) into his most unbeatable army…

Flessel illustrated ‘The Man Who Told a Fish Story’ with the Shining Knight and an inveterate angler scuppering the naval ambitions of time-transplanted Genghis Khan, even as Vigilante teamed with a western legend to smash the schemes of Attila the Hun in ‘The Spirit of Wild Bill Dickson’ (by Meskin as “Mort Morton & Cliff”).

Lehti then delineated the bombastic battle between the Crimson Avenger and piratical Emperor Nero in ‘Fiddler’s Farewell’ before the Septet of Sentinels convened to follow Dr. Doome into the past and end the menace of ‘The Tyrants of Time’ in a stunning conclusion by Meskin, set at the fall of fabled Troy…

‘The Sense Master’ in Leading #4 was completely created by Bill Finger & Ed Dobrotka: a clever compendium of mystery and melodrama which commenced after paralysed mastermind The Sixth Sense used a robot to surgically augment the abilities of a band of brigands, as part of a plan to obtain five unique jewels for his undisclosed but nefarious purposes.

Interrupted by Sir Justin, the hyped-up hoods overcame the crusader before scattering, leaving the Shining Knight no recourse but to call in his crime-busting colleagues…

The Crimson Avenger then intercepted sound sensitive Mickey Gordon as ‘The Crime Concerto’ that the ex-musician conducted deprived a young girl of her precious diamond, but also started an irrevocable process of redemption in the penitent criminal…

In ‘Don Quixote Rides Again’ the Knight followed “Fingers” to the home of a dotty scholar who loved a certain book, but although he saved Don Coty‘s life, the paladin was unable to stop the theft of his golden Topaz, after which the Star-Spangled Kid (and Stripesy) failed to stop the Human Bloodhound from stealing Mrs. Pemberton‘s fabulous emerald in ‘The Man Who Followed His Nose’.

Vigilante and his geriatric sidekick Billy Gunn met a former movie idol who was ‘The Man who was Afraid to Eat’… It was all a cunning campaign by taste-sensitive poisoner “Palate” to purloin the faded star’s gem and, following his success, Green Arrow and Speedy were unable to prevent ‘The Man with the Miracle Eyes’ making off with a circus barker’s garnet.

However “Eagle Eye” didn’t escape, and once the heroes joined forces – assisted by Mickey Gordon – to track down ‘The Sense Master’ behind the whole incredible charade, they saw him briefly obtain ultimate power only to lose everything once the indomitable crusaders waded in…

These raw, wild and excessively engaging capers are actually some of the best but most neglected thrillers of the halcyon Golden Age. Still modern tastes too have moved on and these yarns are probably far more in tune with contemporary mores, making this a truly guilty pleasure for all fans of mystery, mayhem and stylish superteam tussles…
© 1941, 1942, 1949, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Adventures of Blake and Mortimer: The Secret of the Swordfish Part 1 – Ruthless Pursuit


By Edgar P. Jacobs, coloured by Philippe Biermé & Luce Daniels translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-148-8

Belgian Edgard Félix Pierre Jacobs (1904-1987) is rightly considered one of the founding fathers of the Continental comics industry. Although his output is relatively meagre when compared to some of his contemporaries, the iconic series he worked on formed the basis and backbone of the art-form in Europe, and his splendidly adroit, roguish and impeccably British adventurers Blake and Mortimer, created for the first issue of Le Journal de Tintin in 1946, swiftly became a staple of post-war European kids’ life the way Dan Dare would in Britain in the 1950s.

Edgar P. Jacobs was born in Brussels, a precocious child who began feverishly drawing from an early age but was even more obsessed with music and the performing arts – especially opera. He attended a commercial school but, determined never to work in an office, pursued art and drama following graduation in 1919.

A succession of odd jobs at opera-houses – scene-painting, set decoration, working as an acting and singing extra – supplanted his private performance studies, and in 1929 Jacobs won an award from the Government for classical singing. His proposed career as an opera singer was thwarted by the Great Depression, however, as the arts took a nosedive following the global stock market crash.

Picking up whatever stage work was going, including singing and performing, Jacobs switched to commercial illustration in 1940. Regular employment came from the magazine Bravo; as well as illustrating short stories and novels, he famously took over the syndicated Flash Gordon strip, after the occupying German authorities banned Alex Raymond’s quintessentially All-American Hero and left the publishers desperately seeking someone to satisfactorily complete the saga.

Jacob’s ‘Stormer Gordon’ lasted less than a month before being similarly sanctioned by the Nazis, after which Jacobs created his own epic science-fantasy feature in the legendary Le Rayon U, a milestone in both Belgian comics and science fiction adventure.

The U Ray was a huge hit in 1943 and scored big all over again a generation later when Jacobs reformatted the original “text-block and picture” material to incorporate speech balloons and re-ran the series in Tintin with subsequent releases as a trio of graphic albums in 1974.

I’ve read differing accounts of how Jacobs and Tintin creator Hergé got together – and why they parted ways professionally, if not socially – but as to the whys and wherefores of the split I frankly don’t care. What is known is this: whilst creating the weekly U Ray, one of Jacob’s other jobs was scene-painting, and during the staging of a theatrical version of Tintin and the Cigars of the Pharaoh Hergé and Jacobs met and became friends. If the comics maestro was unaware of Jacob’s comics output before then he was certainly made aware of it soon after.

Jacobs began working on Tintin, colouring the original black and white strips of The Shooting Star from newspaper Le Soir for a forthcoming album collection. By 1944 he was performing a similar role on Tintin in the Congo, Tintin in America, King Ottokar’s Sceptre and The Blue Lotus. By now he was also contributing to the illustration as well, on the extended epic The Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners of the Sun.

Jacob’s love of opera made it into the feature as Hergé (who loathed the stuff) teasingly created the bombastic Bianca Castafiore as a comedy foil and based a number of bit players (such as Jacobini in The Calculus Affair) on his long-suffering assistant.

After the war and liberation, publisher Raymond Leblanc convinced Hergé, Jacobs and a number of other creatives to work for his new venture. Launching publishing house Le Lombard, he also started Le Journal de Tintin, an anthology comic with editions in Belgium, France and Holland edited by Hergé, starring the intrepid boy reporter and a host of newer heroes.

Beside Hergé, Jacobs and writer Jacques van Melkebeke, the comic featured Paul Cuvelier’s ‘Corentin’ and Jacques Laudy’s ‘The Legend of the Four Aymon Brothers’. Laudy had been a friend of Jacobs’ since they worked together on Bravo, and the first instalment of the epic thriller serial ‘Le secret de l’Espadon’ starred a bluff, gruff British scientist and an English Military Intelligence officer (closely modelled on Laudy): Professor Philip Mortimer and Captain Francis Blake…

The initial storyline ran from issue #1 (26th September 1946 to 8th September 1949) and cemented Jacobs’ status as a star in his own right. In 1950, with the first 18 pages slightly redrawn, Le secret de l’espladon V1 (The Secret of the Swordfish) became Le Lombard’s first album release; with the concluding part published three years later. These volumes were reprinted nine more times between 1955 and 1982, with an additional single complete deluxe edition released in 1964.

In 1984 the story was reformatted and repackaged in English translation as three volumes with additional material (mostly covers from the weekly Tintin added to the story as splash pages) as part of a European push to win some of the lucrative Tintin and Asterix market here, but failed to find an audience and ended after seven volumes. Now happily Cinebook has released the tale – albeit after publishing the later adventures first…

Hergé and Jacobs purportedly suffered a split in 1947 when the former refused to grant the latter a by-line on new Tintin material, but since the two remained friends for life and Jacob’s continued to produce Blake and Mortimer for the Belgian weekly, I think it’s fair to say that if such was the case it was a pretty minor spat.

I rather suspect that The Secret of the Swordfish was simply taking up more and more of the brilliant, diligent artist’s time and attention…

The U Ray also provided early visual inspiration for Blake, Mortimer and implacable nemesis Colonel Olrik, who bear a more than passing resemblance to the heroic Lord Calder, Norlandian boffin Marduk and viperous villain Dagon from that still lauded masterwork – one also well overdue for translation…

One minor word of warning: by having the overarching enemies of mankind be a secret Asiatic “Yellow Peril” empire of evil, there’s some potential for offence – unless one actually reads the text and finds that the assumed racism is countered throughout by an equal amount of “good” ethnic people and “evil” white folk…

The incredible journey begins with ‘The Incredible Chase’ as a secret army in the Himalayas prepares to launch a global Blitzkrieg on a world only slowly recovering from its second planetary war. The wicked Basam Damdu, Emperor of Tibet, has assembled an arsenal of technological super-weapons and the world’s worst rogues such as the insidious Colonel Olrik in a bid to seize control of the entire Earth.

However a bold British-Asian spy has infiltrated the hidden fortress and surrenders his life to get off a warning message…

In England, physicist and engineer Philip Mortimer and MI5 Captain Francis Blake discuss the worsening situation at an industrial installation where the boffin’s radical new aircraft engine is being constructed. When the warning comes that the war begins that night, the old friends swing into immediate action…

As the super-bombers rain destruction down on all the world’s cities, Mortimer’s dedicated team prepares his own prototype, the Golden Rocket, for immediate launch, taking off just as Olrik’s bombers appear over the desolate complex. Despite heavy fire, the Rocket easily outdistances the rapacious Imperial forces, leaving ruined homes in its wake as the fleeing Britons fly into a hostile world now brutally controlled by Basam Damdu…

Whilst seeking to join British Middle East resistance forces who have another prototype super-plane, teething troubles and combat damage create tense moments in the fugitives’ flight. When the Rocket is attacked by a flight of jets the test ship’s superior firepower enables it to fight free but only at the cost of more structural deterioration. Failing now, the Rocket goes down in the rocky wilds between Iran and Afghanistan. Parachuting free of the doomed Rocket, Blake, Mortimer and the crew are machine-gunned by pursuing Empire jets and only three men make it to the ground safely…

After days of struggle Blake, Mortimer and the indomitable Jim are cornered by Iranian troops who have joined Olrik’s forces. Sensing disaster, the Britons hide the plans to Mortimer’s super plane but one of the Iranians sees the furtive act. When no one is looking – even his superiors – Lieutenant Ismail hurriedly scoops up the documents but misses one…

Under lock and key and awaiting Olrik’s arrival, the prisoners are accosted by Ismail, who sees an opportunity for personal advancement which the Englishmen turn to their own advantage. Denouncing him to his superiors, Blake instigates a savage fight between Ismail and his Captain. During the brief struggle Jim sacrifices himself, allowing Blake and Mortimer to escape with the recovered plans. Stealing a lorry, the desperate duo drive out into the dark desert night…

Followed by tanks into the mountain passes, the ingenious pair trap their pursuers in a ravine just as hill partisans attack. The Imperial collaborators are wiped out and, after exchanging information with the freedom fighters, the Englishmen take one of the captured vehicles and head to a distant rendezvous with the second Rocket, but lack of fuel forces them to stop at a supply dump where they are quickly discovered.

By setting the dump ablaze the heroes escape again, but in the desert Olrik has arrived and found the sheet of notes left behind by Ismail. The cunning villain is instantly aware of what it means…

Fighting off aerial assaults from Empire jets and streaking for the mountains, Blake and Mortimer abandon their tank and are forced to travel on foot until they reach the meeting point where a British-trained native Sergeant Ahmed Nasir is waiting for them. The loyal Indian served with Blake during the last war and is delighted to see him again, but as the trio make their way to the target site they become aware that Olrik has already found it and captured their last hope…

Only temporarily disheartened, the trio use commando tactics to infiltrate Olrik’s camp, stealing not the heavily guarded prototype but the villainous Colonel’s own Red-Wing super-jet. Back on course to the British resistance forces, the seemingly-cursed trio are promptly shot down by friendly fire: rebels perceiving the stolen plane as just another enemy target…

Surviving this crash too, the trio are ferried in relative safety by the apologetic tribesmen to the enemy-occupied town of Turbat, but whilst there a spy of the Empire-appointed Wazir recognises Blake and Mortimer. When Nasir realises they are in trouble he dashes to the rescue but is too late to prevent Mortimer from being drugged.

Sending the loyal Sergeant on ahead Blake tries frantically to revive his comrade, even as Imperial troopers rapidly mount the stairs to their exposed upper room…

To Be Continued…

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

This Cinebook edition also includes a tantalising preview of the next volume as well as stand alone adventure The Yellow “M”, plus a biography feature which offers a chronological publication chart and publishing order of the Cinebook release dates.

Original editions © Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud – Lombard S.A.) 1984 by E.P. Jacobs. All rights reserved. English translation © 2012 Cinebook Ltd.

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Golden Age Green Lantern Archives volume 2


By Bill Finger, Martin Nodell & Irwin Hasen (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-794-8

Following the invention of the superhero genre and the early innovations in Superman and Batman at DC/National Comics, an avalanche of costumed crusaders erupted onto the nation’s newsstands. At the head of that gaudy tidal wave, thanks to innovative publisher Max Gaines and his comics mastermind Editor Sheldon Mayer, All American Comics (who co-published in association with and were eventually absorbed by DC) produced many of the new industry’s greatest and most memorable characters.

Most prominent was the first comicbook super-speedster who took off in Flash Comics (which also featured Hawkman and Johnny Thunder), followed a few months later by evergreen, immortal Green Lantern, the world’s original superhero coalition in the Justice Society of America, capped by the creation of the greatest female hero of all time – Wonder Woman.

Superman started the ball rolling and was the undisputed star of the medium, but the editors at All American truly understood it and the wide-eyed readership…

The Emerald Avenger debuted in the sixteenth issue of the company’s flagship title All-American Comics, just as superheroes started to dominate, supplanting newspaper strip reprints and stock genre characters in the still primarily-anthologised comicbooks.

For the duration of the war and a few years beyond it, GL and his mystery man amigos Red Tornado, The Atom, Sargon the Sorcerer and Doctor Mid-Nite stole the show with only celebrated gag-strip Mutt and Jeff or exceptional military strips Hop Harrigan and Red, White and Blue remaining to represent merely mortal stars.

All too soon, however, they would vanish as tastes changed and costumed champions were superseded by cowboys, cops and private detectives…

Devised by up-and-coming cartoonist Martin Nodell (and fleshed out by the incredible Bill Finger in the same way he had contributed to the success of Batman), Green Lantern became AA’s second smash sensation six months after The Flash and preceding by a year and a half the unprecedented success of the Amazing Amazon.

He won his own solo-starring title less than a year after his premiere and feature-starred in many anthologies such as Comics Cavalcade and All Star Comics for just over a decade, before he too faded away in the early1950s, having first suffered the humiliating fate of being edged out of his own comicbook by his pet, Streak the Wonder Dog…

This second engagingly impressive hardcover Archive edition – collecting the Viridian Vigilante’s appearances from Green Lantern Quarterly #2-3 (Winter and Spring 1942) and All-American Comics #31-38, from October 1941 to May 1942 – opens with rousing reminiscences, intriguing comparisons and tantalising trivia titbits, courtesy of the Foreword by godfather of American fandom Dr. Jerry Bails, before the procession of pictorial peril begins…

Ambitious young engineer Alan Scott survived the sabotage and destruction of a passenger-packed train due only to the intervention of a battered old railway lantern. Bathed in its eerie verdant glow, 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.

After bringing doom to the mystic who reshaped it into a lamp and, centuries later, sanity to a madman, it now promised incredible might to bestow justice to the innocent. Instructing the engineer 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 embraced…

The ring made him immune to all minerals and metals, and enabled him to fly and pass through solid matter amongst many other miracles, but was powerless against certain organic materials such as wood or rubber which could penetrate his jade defences and cause him mortal harm…

After wandering the country for months, Scott eventually settled in Capitol City and took a job as first engineer and eventually radio announcer at the APEX Broadcasting System whilst he fruitlessly pursued feisty reporter Irene Miller. Before long he even had a trusted sidekick in the flabby form of Doiby Dickles, a rotund, middle-aged Brooklyn-born cab driver originally intended as a light foil for the grim, poker-faced Emerald Avenger.

Soon, however, the bumbling buddy grew to be one of the most popular and beloved comedy stooges of the era; sharing covers and even by-lines with the star who, thanks to scripter Finger (who wrote all the stories in this volume), was a grim, brooding and spookily mysterious figure of vengeance weeding out criminals and gangsters. Moreover, just as with the early Batman sagas, there was always a strong undercurrent of social realism, ballsy sentimentality and human drama.

The action starts with All-American Comics #31’s ‘The Adventure of the Underfed Orphans!’ illustrated by Martin Nodell, wherein Alan and Irene investigate food poisoning at a municipal children’s home, and uncover a shocking web of abuse and graft leading to the upper echelons of City Hall and the grimiest gutters of the underworld…

Most of the All-American GL tales were untitled such as #32, drawn by Irwin Hasen, which revealed how a veteran beat cop’s son fell in with the wrong crowd. Framed by his boss and arrested by his own dad, vengeful Danny was only stopped from ruining his life forever by the Emerald Avenger and Doiby who helped him get the goods on Gardenia and reconcile with his grateful dad.

The next issue (by Nodell) struck close to home as gangster Pug Deagan tried to take over the Taxicab Drivers’ union and Doiby called on his Grim Green friend to clean up the racket and expose the real brain behind the operation, whilst in All-American #34, the Dynamic Trio of Alan, Irene and Mr. Dickles investigated a collapsing building and were drawn into a colossal construction scandal involving the Mayor, culminating in the horrific failure of Capitol City’s biggest and busiest bridge.

Always one of the most powerful characters in comics, this tale especially demonstrated the sheer scope of Green Lantern’s might…

All-American Comics #35 found Doiby wracked by toothache and haplessly stumbling into a grisly murder at the dentist’s office. Once again racketeers were trying to take over a union and only GL and Dickles could stop them. That tale concluded with the cabbie having that tooth punched out and learning the secret of Alan Scott – an even bigger shock!

A huge hit from the start, the Emerald Crusader was fast-tracked into his own solo title, where the creators were encouraged to experiment with format. Green Lantern Quarterly #2 was cover-dated Winter 1942 and offered ‘The Tycoon’s Legacy’ by Finger & Nodell: a 4-chapter “novel-length story” which saw radio engineer Scott promoted to roving man-with-a-microphone, promptly rushing to the assistance of a poor but honest lawyer and a porter swindled out of a five million dollar bequest. Both cases deliciously intertwined like a movie melodrama, and also saw a framed man freed from the asylum to challenge the swindling estate executors who had trapped him there.

Events took a murderous turn just as Alan’s emerald alter ego got involved, and before long Green Lantern was cracking heads and taking names in the hunt for the mastermind behind it all – a man known only as ‘Baldy’…

Bill Finger was a master of this type of socially redeeming mystery thriller, and the unrepentant fan in me can’t help but wonder what he could have accomplished with such a prodigious page count on his other “Dark Avenger” assignment Batman and Robin…

Hasen illustrated the remaining All-American yarns in this collection, beginning with #36 (March 1942) which took GL and Doiby to the motor racing circuit to foil the machinations of mobsters murdering drivers of a new type of car. With no clue as to how the killings were accomplished, Doiby volunteered to drive the ill-fated Benson Comet himself, trusting in his pal “Da Lantrin” to save the day as usual…

Issue #37 found the heroes helping a disgraced pilot whose crashed plane cost America its greatest scientific minds. A closer investigation revealed not only Fog Blake‘s innocence but that the Brain Trust had been cunningly abducted by Nazi agents… but not for long, after which issue #38 pitted the Emerald Guardian against a diminutive criminal strategist who organised America’s gangs like ‘Another Napoleon’ before facing his own Waterloo in a blaze of green light…

With America freshly put on an all-encompassing war-footing, superheroes at last tackled the world’s latest monsters full-on, and with great verve and enthusiasm this blistering compilation concludes in another novel-length epic from the third Green Lantern Quarterly deliciously crafted by Finger & Nodell.

It begins with ‘The Living Graveyard of the Sea’ as Alan and Irene (and stowaway Doiby) take ship for Australia only to be torpedoed by a gigantic German super U-Boat. Although Green Lantern fights off the air and sea assault the liner is lost. The survivors take to life boats and the one with Doiby, Irene and Alan is drawn into a vast impenetrable fog-bank…

The clouds conceal an ancient wonder: a Sargasso Sea enclave of mariners from many eras who have, over the centuries, evolved into a truly egalitarian, pacifist society. However the lifeboat contains a cross-section of modern America, all horribly infected with greed, pride, arrogance and prejudice and, although welcomed, the newcomers soon disrupt the idyllic microcosm.

Things take an even worse turn when another U-Boat surfaces within the sea city and fanatical Kapitan Schmidt attempts to annexe the realm and convert the ancients to ‘The Nazi Dream’. The stakes are raised even further when he finally gets a message through to Berlin and Hitler himself demands that the strategically crucial secret island be taken at all costs…

The fantastic finale comes as Irene and Doiby redeem their selfish fellow Americans and rouse the calmly neutral Sargasso citizens to fight for freedom and liberty in ‘Utopia vs. Totalitarianism’ whilst all Green Lantern has to do is sink the entire Nazi naval and aerial armada tasked with taking the hidden sea world…

I sometimes think – like many others I know – that superhero comics were never more apt or effective than when they were whole-heartedly combating fascism with explosive, improbable excitement and mysterious masked marvel men.

The most satisfyingly evocative and visceral moments of the genre all seem to come when gaudy gladiators soundly thrashed – and please forgive the contemporary offensive colloquialism – “Nips and Nazis”, and the staggering denouement depicted here is one of the most expansive and breathtaking ever seen…

Complete with the stellar covers by Nodell & Hasen, this riotous vintage assembly of classic Fights ‘n’ Tights fare is enthralling, engrossing and overwhelmingly addictive – even if not to every modern fan’s taste – and no lover of Costumed Dramas can afford to miss out on the fun …
© 1941, 1942, 2002 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman Spectacular No. 2


By Cary Bates, Alex Saviuk & Vince Colletta (DC/London Editions)
ISBN: 0-86173-042-9

The Superman album clearly made some impact in Britain (or at least the editors thought it would) and a second volume – also sporting a lushly airbrushed Alan Craddock cover – was produced. Also celebrating the sharp, plot-driven costumed dramas which predominated in the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC universe, this cosmic mystery revenge saga ideally shows how old stories could and should be reinvigorated rather than overwritten…

‘Superman Meets the Zod Squad’ was created by cobbling together Action Comics #548-549 (October and November 1983) into one improbable saga of cosmic vengeance as a race of primordial reivers discovered the remains of Argo City and realised that there was at least one Kryptonian left in the cosmos…

Superman’s cousin Kara Zor-El had been born on a city-sized fragment of Krypton, hurled intact into space when the planet exploded. Eventually Argo City turned to Kryptonite like the rest of the detonated world’s debris, and her dying parents, observing Earth through their scopes, sent their daughter to safety as they perished. Landing on Earth, she met the Man of Steel who created for her the identities of Linda Lee and Supergirl, hiding her from the world whilst she learned about her new home and to use astounding abilities in secrecy and safety.

The aliens were Vrangs – savage slavers who had conquered Krypton in ages past: brutally using the primitive populace to mine minerals too toxic for the aliens to handle. The planet’s greatest hero was Val-Lor who died instigating the rebellion which drove the Vrang from Krypton and prompted the birth and rise of the super-scientific civilisation.

All Kryptonians developed an inbred hatred of the Vrang, and when Phantom Zone prisoners Jax-Ur, Professor Va-Kox, Faora Hu-Ul and General Dru-Zod observed their ancestral oppressors from the stark and silent realm of nullity that had been their drearily, unchanging, timeless jail since before Krypton perished, they swore to destroy them.

If their ‘Escape from the Phantom Zone!’ also allowed the Kryptonian outcasts to kill the hated son of the discoverer of the eerie dimension of stultifying intangibility so much the better…

Using the psycho-active properties of Jewel Kryptonite – a post-cataclysm isotope of the very element so poisonous to Vrangs – a quartet of Zoners perpetrate a mass break-out and head to Earth for vengeance… but who is their primary target?

Not long after, Clark Kent, still blithely unaware of his peril, is investigating a new citizens’ defence group that has sprung up in Metropolis in response to a city-wide rash of petty crimes. Even as Zod, Faora, Tyb-Ol and Murkk infiltrate human society and bide their time, the Man of Steel and Lois are most concerned with how the grassroots White Wildcats can afford to police their neighbourhoods with jet-packs and martial arts skills unknown on Earth…

Uncovering militarist order-freak Zod behind the scheme, Superman is astounded when the Kryptonian criminals surrender, offering a truce until their ancient common foes are defeated.

…And that’s when the Vrang teleport the Man of Steel into their ship, exultant that they now possess the mightiest slave in existence. Moreover, there are four more potentially priceless victims hurtling up to attack them, utterly unaware in their blind rage and hatred that the Vrangs have weapon even Kryptonians cannot survive…

This clever, compulsive thriller of cross, double and even triple-cross is a fabulously intoxicating, tension-drenched treat from scripter Cary Bates and illustrated by Alex Saviuk & Colletta that still blends human foible with notions of honour, and shows that even the most reprehensible villains understand the value of sacrifice and the principle of something worth dying for…

Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence, and with the character again undergoing another radical overhaul, these timeless tales of charm and joy and wholesome wit are more necessary than ever: not just as a reminder of great tales of the past but as an all-ages primer of the wonders still to come…
© 1982 DC Comics Inc. This edition © 1982 London Editions Magazines (formerly Egmont Publishing). All Rights Reserved.

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DC Superheroes Presents Superman Spectacular No. 1


By Bob Rozakis, Paul Kupperberg, Adrian Gonzales & Vince Colletta (DC/London Editions)
ISBN: 0-86173-041-0

These days, when maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for the made-up worlds comicbooks inhabit is paramount, the saddest casualty of those periodic sweeping changes, upgrades, rationalisations and reboots is the great stories that suddenly “never happened”.

The most painful example of this – for me at least – was the wholesale loss of the entire bizarre and charm-drenched mythology that had evolved around Superman’s birthworld in the wonder years between 1948 and 1985.

Here then, in response to the new Superman film is something not every Kryptonian Kompletist may be treasuring in his vault: a canonical pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Man of Steel yarn which didn’t appear in the regular runs of Superman or Action Comics, packed with all the gloriously convoluted lore, wry wit and all-ages thrills which for decades made the Man of Tomorrow indisputably the most recognisable comics character on Earth.

This extra-sized tale was actually devised by American creators for the European market as Superman Album series #1 (cover-dated Januar 1982 und pronounzed mit ein deutsche achzent, iff you pliss), printed in what was then West Germany by Ehapa Verlag.

It subsequently appeared in the USA as an English-language edition in a large (212 x 397mm) one-off paperback album in American convenience chains like 7-11 later that year. In Britain, where London Editions then held a DC reprint license, producing a wonderfully eclectic black-&-white anthology The Superheroes Monthly (with painted covers by the likes of Alan Craddock, David Jackson, Bryan Talbot and Brian Bolland), the tale was released as a similarly sized, full-colour edition to rack beside such beloved European imports as Asterix and Tintin.

In case you’re wondering: it was printed in Germany, presumably by simply replacing the black plate of the four-colour print process with one that had the lettering in English.

The ‘Startling Saga of Superman-Red & Superman-Blue!’ was scripted by Paul Kupperberg from a Bob Rozakis plot and illustrated by Adrian Gonzales & Vince Colletta, with the legendary Julius Schwartz in editorial command as always.

The bombastic battle royale was based on a much-beloved imaginary story by Leo Dorfman, Curt Swan & George Klein from Superman #162, July 1963, adroitly co-opted into the mainstream continuity to beef up the ominous if ill-starred alliance of arch nemesis Lex Luthor with space owlhoot Terra-Man.

(This last was conceived during the period when costumed heroes were in decline during the early 1970s. The Deep Space Desperado resembled a space-age Clint Eastwood in Spaghetti Western mode. He was a Wild West bandit’s son shanghaied into space. After eventually killing his kidnapper, the young man returned to Earth only to discover a century had passed. The furious outcast of infinity had already adapted his purloined extraterrestrial technology to accommodate his childhood antecedents and decided to drive aliens such as Superman off “his” planet forever…)

This intergalactic grudge match opens as Luthor invades a Daily Planet story conference to challenge Superman to another fight. The resulting clash goes badly for the criminal genius, however, even though he has devised an entirely new form of energy weapon to destroy his alien antithesis…

Meanwhile in space, solitary star rider Terra-Man has finally found a chunk of Kryptonite. He had long heard stories that the rare radioactive remnant was fatal to Superman, and now believes the end of his vendetta against the extraterrestrial squatter on his home range is near.

He should have listened more closely to the stories, though, as the shard he holds is red, not green…

Wary of being beaten again, Terra-Man contacts Luthor and proposes a combined attack, but doesn’t trust his new partner enough to hand over the radioactive space rock…

On Earth Superman is renewing his oft-postponed romance with Lois Lane when Terra-Man attacks, and after deflecting the initial assault is lured into orbit where the menacing mineral is secreted.

From his hiding place Luthor can only watch in horror as the Red K (which produced not radiation poisoning and death but temporary mutagenic effects on Kryptonians) divided the Man of Steel into twins in primarily blue or red uniforms…

It wasn’t a complete disaster, however, as each of the pair seemed to be missing some of Superman’s vast array of powers…

Frantically regrouping, Luthor and Terra-Man deduced what had happened, and as Clark Kent endured confusion at work with a brace of himself tripping over each other, the vile villains plotted to use their conventional resources and Lex’s new discovery to destroy their foe(s).

With double the super manpower, “Red” and “Blue” begin cleaning all the trouble spots on Earth and discover a new crisis: an inter-dimensional rift threatening to consume the world. The mystery of Luthor’s new energy source is revealed – the madman has tapped magical forces from another plane of existence and weaponised it to kill his arch foe, regardless of the potential for universal cataclysm…

As Supermans Red and Blue move to quell the threat, they find one more quandary confronting them: each is only half as powerful as the whole hero. When the divided defenders split up to battle Terra-Man and Luthor, this tragic deficiency causes the Crimson Crusader’s “death” with the collateral catastrophe of Lois felled by Luthor’s lethal magic weapon…

And at that very moment the Red K effect faded and the one true Man of Tomorrow was reborn…

Once upon a time smart, affecting absorbing drama and wild-eyed adventure such as this was the bread-and-butter of comics. For decades, new exploits and dangers were created – sometime three of four times a month – with characters operating seamlessly in a shared milieu that wasn’t obsessed with incessantly mining and refining the hero’s origin or shockingly revealing lost or evil relatives like some spandex-bedecked cheap soap opera. And they frequently began and ended in one issue…

This tale is a delicious example from the dying days of that era and perfectly shows us what we’re missing today…
© 1982 DC Comics Inc. This edition © 1982 London Editions Magazines (formerly Egmont Publishing). All Rights Reserved.

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Superman


By Otto Binder, Jerry Coleman, Bill Finger, Edmond Hamilton, Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye (Four Square/New English Library)
ISBN: 1757

I’ve often bored anyone who would listen about the mini-publishing revolution during the “Camp” superhero-crazed 1960s, which first saw previously denigrated four-colour comic stories migrate from cheap, flimsy pamphlet to the stiffened covers and relative respectability of paperback bookshelves.

I can’t express the sheer nostalgic elation these mostly forgotten fancies still afford (to me at least) so, just because I want to, here’s one that probably qualifies as one of my absolute top three, just in time to cash in on the new Superman film.

Silver Age readers – we just thought of ourselves as “kids” – buying Superman, Action Comics, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, World’s Finest Comics and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (not forgetting Superboy, Adventure Comics and Justice League of America) would delight every time some fascinating snippet of information leaked out. We spent our days filling in the impossible blanks about incredible alien worlds (America as much as Krypton) through the enthralling, thrilling yarns in those halcyon treasures. But somehow when the tales appeared in proper books it made the dream realms a little more substantial; and perhaps even real…

The Man of Steel has proven to be all things to all fans over his 75-year existence and, with the character currently undergoing yet another radical overhaul, these fabulous gems of charm and joy and wholesome wit are more welcome than ever: not just as a reminder of grand times past but also as an all-ages primer for wonders still to come…

At the time this British edition of the New American Library edition was published, the Action Ace was enjoying a youthful swell of revived interest. Thanks to the TV Batman-led boom in superheroes generally and a highly efficient global licensing push, Superman was starring in a new television cartoon show, enjoying a rampant merchandising wave and had even secured his own Broadway musical: all working to keep the Last Son of Krypton a vibrant icon of modern, Space-Age America.

Although we might think of Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s iconic invention as the epitome of comicbook chic, the plain truth is that within months of his landmark 1938 launch in Action Comics #1, Superman had already grown into a multimedia star. Far more people have enjoyed the Man of Steel than have ever read his illustrated exploits and yes, that does include the globally syndicated newspaper strips which have existed since 1939.

By the time his 25th anniversary rolled around he had been a regular on radio, appeared in an eponymous novel by George Lowther and stunned audiences in a series of astounding animated cartoons.

In 1948 and 1950 he starred in a brace of live-action movie serials (Superman and Atom Man vs. Superman) before graduating to a full-length feature in 1951’s Superman and the Mole Men which led in turn to a groundbreaking and long-running television series.

He was a perennial success for toy and puzzle manufacturers and, after six seasons of The Adventures of Superman, an almost seamless succession of TV cartoons began with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966.

In his future were more TV shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville), a franchise of stellar movies and, once they’d been invented, computer and video game incarnations. Even super-dog Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

This terrific little black and white paperback pocket book – part of National Periodical Publications’ on-going efforts to reach wider reading audiences – surfaced in 1967 during the “Camp” superhero craze, re-presenting five reformatted Superman stories culled from the archives illustrated by signature illustrator Wayne Boring and all inked by regular collaborator Stan Kaye.

At this time many American comics publishers used the “Batman Bounce” to get out of their ghetto and onto “proper” bookshelves, however understandably DC concentrated most of their efforts on comics compilations and prose novels starring the Dynamic Duo…

The wholesome intrigue and breathtaking fantasy commence here with ‘The Invulnerable Enemy’ written by Otto Binder, and originally seen in Action Comics #226 (March 1957) wherein archaeologists uncovered the statue of a giant gladiator. Further excavation revealed the colossus to be a petrified alien crashed to Earth in ages past. When the Man of Steel brought the unmoving artefact to Metropolis an incredible accident caused by Lex Luthor brought the giant back to life.

The revived relic went on a rampage of destruction with powers even Superman could not cope with until, forced to use wits instead of muscles, the harried hero solved his dilemma and returned the marooned monolith to his proper place…

During the 1950s, even as his comicbook back-story was expanded and elaborated, the Metropolis Marvel had settled into a remarkably ordered existence. Nothing could really hurt him, nothing ever changed, and sheer excitement seemed in short supply. With the TV show concentrating on action, DC’s Comics Code-hamstrung scripters increasingly concentrated on supplying wonder, intrigue, imagination, a few laughs and, whenever possible, drama and pathos…

‘Superman’s 3 Mistakes!’ (by Edmond Hamilton from Superman #105, May 1956) provided both personal revelation and tense suspense when ClarkKent received an anonymous letter which declared that the writer knew his secret. Forced to review his past for cases which might expose evidence of his alter ego, Kent carefully excised all errors but could not learn the identity of his potential blackmailer until a second post-dated letter surfaced…

Superman #127 (February 1959) saw the debut of a hugely popular returning menace in ‘Titano the Super-Ape!’ The chimpanzee had mutated into a gigantic ape with Kryptonite vision after being shot into space, and upon his return caused massive destruction with only Lois Lane able to sooth savage ravages.

Again the Man of Might had to resort to brains not brawn to solve the crisis in a true classic of the period, courtesy of Binder, Boring & Kaye’s sublime treatment which combined action and sentiment to superb effect in a memorable homage to King Kong.

‘The Menace of Cosmic Man’ was a sharp mystery with political overtones written by Bill Finger (Action Comics #258, November 1959) wherein an impoverished European dictatorship improbably announced it had its own all-powerful costumed champion; drawing Lois and Clark into a potentially deadly covert investigation, after which this riot of reformatted revels concludes with ‘The Menace of Red-Green Kryptonite!’ (Jerry Coleman, Action #275, April 1961).

Guest-starring Supergirl, this uncanny conundrum featured a bizarre battle between Superman and alien marauder Brainiac, whose latest weapon combined two isotopes of the deadly radioactive remnants of Krypton to produce a truly weird transformation and inexplicable behavioural changes in the embattled Man of Tomorrow…

Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence and, with the character currently undergoing another overhaul, these peerless parables of power and glory are more welcome than ever: not just as memorial to what has been but also as a benchmark for future tales to aspire to…

This book is probably impossible to find today – even though entirely worth the effort – but whatever format or collection you happen upon, such forgotten stories of the immortal Superman are part of our cultural comics heritage and should never be lost.

You owe it to yourself to know them…
© 1956, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1966 National Periodical Publications. All rights reserved.

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Golden Age Starman Archives volume 1


By Jack Burnley, Gardner Fox, Alfred Bester, Ray Burnley & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-622-4

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

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

Publishing partner but separate editorial entity All American Comics had since generated many barnstorming successes like The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman and Hop Harrigan and would soon actually produce the only rival to Superman and Batman status when Wonder Woman debuted late in the year. Of course AA clearly filtered all ideas through the brilliantly “in-tune” creative and editorial prodigy Sheldon Mayer…

Thus when Starman launched in the April 1941 issue of Adventure Comics (relegating Sandman to a back-up role in the already venerable heroic anthology), National/DC trusted in craft and quality rather than some indefinable “pizzazz” and the editors were especially convinced that the forcefully realistic, conventionally dramatic illustration of Hardin “Jack” Burnley would propel their newest concept to the same giddy heights of popularity as the Action Ace and Gotham Guardian.

And indeed the strip, always magnificently drawn and indisputably one of the most beautiful of the period, was further blessed with mature and compelling scripts by Gardner Fox and Alfred Bester. Compulsive and brilliant: by today’s standards these are some one of the very best comics that era ever produced.

However – according to the artist in his Foreword to this first stunning deluxe hardback collection – that was possibly the problem. The subtle, moody, slower-paced stories just didn’t have the sheer exuberance and kinetic energy of the most popular series, which happily eschewed craft and discipline for spectacle and all-out action.

Happily these days, with an appreciably older and more discerning audience, Starman‘s less-than-stellar career in his own time can be fully seen for the superb example of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction it truly is…

This epic collection reprints the earliest astounding exploits of the Astral Avenger from Adventure Comics #61-76 (spanning April 1941 to July 1942) and includes some of the most iconic covers of the Golden Age: by Burnley and, latterly, wonder-kids Joe Simon & Jack Kirby.

Burnley came up with the Starman concept but, as was often the case, a professional writer was assigned to flesh out and co-create the stories. In this case said scribe was the multi-talented Gardner Fox who wrote most of them, whilst the illustrator also liberally called on the talents of his brother Dupree “Ray” Burnley as art assistant and sister Betty as letterer to finish the episodes in sublimely cinematic style.

In those simpler times origins were far less important than today, and the moonlit magic begins with ‘The Amazing Starman’ from #61 wherein America suddenly suffered a wave of deadly electrical events and FBI chief Woodley Allen summoned his latest volunteer operative. Bored socialite Ted Knight promptly abandoned his scathing date Doris Lee and assumed his mystery man persona, flying off to stop the deranged scientist behind all the death and destruction.

Almost as an aside we learned that secret genius Knight had previously discovered a way to collect and redirect the energy of Starlight through an awesome tool he called his “gravity rod” and resolved to do good with his discoveries…

Soon the intrepid adventurer had tracked the diabolical Dr. Doog to his mountain fortress and spectacularly decimated the subversive Secret Brotherhood of the Electron…

In #62 the Sidereal Sentinel met another deadly deranged genius who had devised a shrinking ray. It even briefly diminished Starman before the sky warrior extinguished ‘The Menace of the Lethal Light’, whilst ‘The Adventure of the Earthquake Terror’ in #63 revealed how the nation was attacked by foreign agent Captain Vurm who enslaved a lost South American tribe to administer his grotesque ground-shock engines. He too fell before the unstoppable cosmic power of harnessed starlight.

America was still neutral at this time, but the writing was on the wall and increasingly villains had monocles and German accents…

Adventure Comics #64 pitted the Astral Avenger against a sinister mesmerist who could turn men into robot slaves in ‘The Mystery of the Men with Staring Eyes’, after which – behind a stunning proto-patriotic cover – Starman solved ‘The Mystery of the Undersea Terror’ wherein the ship-sinking League of the Octopus proved to be another deadly outlet for the greedy genius of The Light…

In #66 ‘The Case of the Camera Curse’ layered a dose of supernatural horror into the high-tech mix when Starman tackled a crazed photographer who used a voodoo lens to enslave and destroy his subjects, whilst in #67 ‘The Menace of the Invisible Raiders’ introduced the Astral Avenger’s greatest foe.

The Mist had devised a way to make men and machines imperceptible and would have conquered America with his unseen air force had not the Starry Knight stopped him… Alfred Bester provided a searing patriotic script for #68 as ‘The Blaze of Doom’ found Starman quenching a forest fire and uncovering a lumberjack gang intent on holding America’s Defence effort to ransom, after which Fox returned for ‘The Adventure of the Singapore Stranglers’ in #69 which pitted heavenly hero against sinister cult. In actuality the killers were sadistic saboteurs of a certain aggressive Asiatic Empire. American involvement in WWII was mere months away.

The martial tone continued in ‘The Adventure of the Ring of Hijackers’ as Starman battled Baron X whose deadly minions were wrecking American trains shipping supplies and munitions to embattled Great Britain’s convoy vessels, but there was a welcome change of pace in #71 when ‘The Invaders from the Future’ struck. These brigands from Tomorrow were bad enough, but when Starman discovered which of his old enemies had recruited them, all bets were off…

In #72 an Arabian curse seemed the reason returned explorers kept dying of fright, but the ‘Case of the Magic Bloodstone’ proved to have a far more prosaic but no less sinister cause…

With Adventure Comics #73 Starman lost his regular cover-spot as dynamic duo Simon & Kirby took over ailing strips Paul Kirk, Manhunter and Sandman. However ‘The Case of the Murders in Outer Space’ proved the series was not lacking in imagination or dynamic quality, as the Astral Avenger matched wits with a brilliant mastermind murdering heirs to a Californian fortune by an unfathomable method and disposing of the bodies in an utterly unique manner…

Sinister science again reigned in #74 as ‘The Case of the Monstrous Animal-Men’ found the Starlight Centurion battling ghastly tragic pawns of a maniac who turned men into beasts, whilst in #75 ‘The Case of the Luckless Liars’ revealed how Ted Knight’s initiation into a millionaires’ fibbing society led to Starman becoming a hypnotised terror tool of deadly killer The Veil…

This initial foray into darkness ends with a rollicking action riot in ‘The Case of the Sinister Sun’ wherein cheap thugs the Moroni Gang upgraded their act with deadly gadgets and patterned themselves after the solar system in a blazing crime blitz – until Starman eclipsed them all…

Enthralling, engaging and fantastically inviting, these Golden Age adventures are a true high-point of the era – even if readers of the time didn’t realise it – and offer astonishing thrills and chills for today’s sophisticated readership. Starman’s exploits are some of the best but most neglected thrillers of those halcyon days, but modern tastes will find these yarns are far more in tune with contemporary mores, making this book a truly terrific treat for fans of mad science, mystery, murder and stylish intrigue…
© 1941, 1942, 2000 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman Chronicles volumes 1 and 2

New revised reviews

By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0764-9 & 978-1-4012-1215-5

It’s incontrovertible: the American comicbook industry – if it existed at all – would have been an utterly unrecognisable thing without Superman. His unprecedented invention and adoption by a desperate and joy-starved generation gave birth to an entire genre if not an actual art form.

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

Now with moviegoers again anticipating a new cinematic interpretation of the ultimate immigrant tale here’s my chance to once more highlight perhaps the most authentic of the many delightful versions of his oft-reprinted early tales.

Re-presenting the epochal run of raw, unpolished but viscerally vibrant stories by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster which set the funnybook world on fire, here – in as near-as-dammit the texture, smell and colour of the original newsprint – are the crude, rough, uncontrollable wish-fulfilling, cathartically exuberant exploits of a righteous and superior man dealing out summary justice equally to social malcontents, exploitative capitalists, thugs and ne’er-do-wells that initially captured the imagination of a generation.

The first of these oft-covered recollections of the primal Man of Steel – printed in chronological order – features the groundbreaking yarns from Action Comics #1 through #13 (June 1938 – June 1939) and his pivotal appearance from New York’s World Fair No. 1 (also June 1939) before comicbook history is made with the landmark first issue of his own solo title.

Most of the early tales were untitled, but for everyone’s convenience have been given descriptive appellations by the editors. Thus after describing the foundling’s escape from exploding Planet Krypton and explaining his astonishing powers in nine panels, with absolutely no preamble the wonderment begins with ‘Superman: Champion of the Oppressed!’ as the costumed crusader -masquerading by day as reporter Clark Kent – began averting numerous tragedies.

As well as saving an innocent woman from the Electric Chair and roughing up a wife beater, the tireless crusader worked over racketeer Butch Matson – consequently saving feisty colleague Lois Lane from abduction and worse – and outed a lobbyist for the armaments industry who was bribing Senators on behalf of greedy munitions interests fomenting war in Europe…

The next breathtaking instalment in Action #2 (July 1938) saw the mercurial mystery-man travelling to the war-zone to spectacularly dampen down the hostilities already in progress in ‘Revolution in San Monte Pt 2’ before ‘The Blakely Mine Disaster’ found the Man of Steel responding to a coal-mine cave-in to expose corrupt corporate practises before cleaning up gamblers who ruthless fixed games and players in #4’s ‘Superman Plays Football’.

The Action Ace’s untapped physical potential was highlighted in the next issue as ‘Superman and the Dam’ pitted the human dynamo against the power of a devastating natural disaster, after which in #6 canny chiseller Nick Williams attempted to monetise the hero – without asking first. ‘Superman’s Phony Manager’ even attempted to replace the real thing with a cheap knock-off but quickly learned a very painful lesson in ethics…

Although Superman featured on the first cover the staid and cautious editors were initially dubious about the alien strongman’s popular appeal and preferred more traditional genre scenes for the following issues (all by Leo E. O’Mealia and all included here).

Superman’s (and Joe Shuster’s) second cover appeared on Action Comics #7 (December 1938) and prompted a big jump in sales as a riotous romp inside revealed why ‘Superman Joins the Circus’ as the caped crusader crushed racketeers taking over the Big Top. Fred Guardineer then produced general genre covers for #8 and 9 whilst the interiors saw ‘Superman in the Slums’ working to save young delinquents from a future life of crime and depravity and latterly featured the city cops’ disastrous decision to stop the costumed vigilante’s unsanctioned interference in ‘Wanted: Superman’.

That manhunt ended in an uncomfortable stalemate…

Action #7 had been one of the highest-selling issues ever, so #10 again sported a stunning Shuster shot whilst Siegel’s smart story of ‘Superman Goes to Prison’ struck another telling blow against institutionalised injustice with the Man of Tomorrow infiltrating and exposing the brutal horrors of the State Chain Gangs.

Action Comics #11 featured a maritime cover by Guardineer as inside heartless conmen were driving investors to penury and suicide before the caped crimebuster interceded in ‘Superman and the “Black Gold” Swindle’.

Guardineer’s cover of magician hero Zatara on Action #12 incorporated another landmark as the Man of Steel was given a cameo badge declaring he was inside each and every issue, even as inside ‘Superman Declares War on Reckless Drivers’ provided a hard-hitting tale of casual joy-riders, cost-cutting automobile manufacturers, corrupt lawmakers and dodgy car salesmen who all felt the wrath of the hero after a friend of Clark Kent was killed in a hit-&-run incident.

By now the editors had realised that the debut of Superman had propelled National Comics to the forefront of the fledgling industry, and in 1939 the company was licensed to produce a commemorative comicbook celebrating the opening of the New York World’s Fair, with the Man of Tomorrow topping the bill on the appropriately titled New York World’s Fair Comics among such early DC four-colour stars as Zatara, Butch the Pup, Gingersnap and The Sandman.

Following an inspirational cover by Sheldon Mayer, ‘Superman at the World’s Fair’, by Siegel & Shuster, described how Clark and Lois were dispatched to cover the gala event giving the mystery man an opportunity to contribute his own exhibit and bag a bunch of brutal bandits to boot…

Back in Action Comics #13 (June 1939 and another Shuster cover) the road-rage theme of the previous issue continued as ‘Superman vs. the Cab Protective League’ pitted the tireless foe of felons against a murderous gang trying to take over the city’s taxi companies. The tale also introduced – in almost invisibly low key – The Man of Steel’s first great nemesis – The Ultra-Humanite…

This initial compilation concludes with a truncated version of Superman #1. This was because the first solo-starring comicbook in history actually reprinted the earliest tales from Action, supplemented with new and recovered material – and that alone is featured here.

Behind the iconic Shuster cover the first episode was at last printed in full, describing the alien foundling’s escape from exploding Planet Krypton, his childhood with unnamed Earthling foster parents and journey to the big city. Also included in those six pages (cut from Action Comics #1 and restored for Superman #1) was the Man of Steel’s routing of a lynch mob and capture of the real killer which preceded his spectacular saving of the accused murderess that started the legend…

Rounding off the unseen treasures is the solo page ‘Scientific Explanation of Superman’s Amazing Strength!’, a 2-page prose adventure of the Caped Crime-crusher, a biographical feature on Siegel & Shuster and a glorious Shuster pin-up from Superman #1’s back cover.

 

Superman Chronicles volume Two resumes the power-packed procession featuring the high- (leaping-but-not-yet) flying hero in tales from Action Comics #14-20 (July 1939-January 1940) and issues #2-3 of his 64 page solo spectaculars; cover-dated Fall and Winter 1939 respectively.

Sporting a Guardineer Zatara cover, Action #14 saw the return of the premier money-mad scientist in ‘Superman Meets the Ultra-Humanite’ wherein the mercenary malcontent switch from incessant graft, corruption and murder to an obsessive campaign to destroy the Man of Tomorrow.

Whilst Shuster concentrated on the interior epic ‘Superman on the High Seas’ – wherein the heroic hurricane tackled sub-sea pirates and dry land gangsters – Guardineer illustrated an aquatic Superman cover for #15, as well as the Foreign Legion cover on Action #16 wherein ‘Superman and the Numbers Racket’ saw the hero save an embezzler from suicide and disrupt another wicked gambling cabal.

By #16 sales figures confirmed that whenever the big guy appeared up-front issues sold out and, inevitably, Superman assumed that pole position for decades to come from #19 onwards.

Superman’s rise was meteoric and inexorable. He was the indisputable star of Action, plus his own dedicated title; a daily newspaper strip had begun on 16th January 1939, with a separate Sunday strip following from November 5th of that year, which was garnering millions of new fans. A thrice-weekly radio serial was in the offing and would launch on February 12th 1940. With games, toys, a newspaper strip and a growing international media presence, Superman was swiftly becoming everybody’s hero…

The second issue of the Man of Tomorrow’s own title opened with ‘The Comeback of Larry Trent’ – a stirring human drama wherein the Action Ace cleared the name of the broken heavyweight boxer, coincidentally cleaning the scum out of the fight game, and followed by ‘Superman Champions Universal Peace!’ wherein the hero crushed a gang who had stolen the world’s deadliest poison gas weapon, once more going up against unscrupulous munitions manufacturers.

‘Superman and the Skyscrapers’ found Kent investigating suspicious deaths in the construction industry, leading his alter ego into confrontation with mindless thugs and their fat-cat corporate boss, after which a Superman text tale ended the issue.

Action Comics #17 featured ‘The Return of the Ultra-Humanite’ in a viciously homicidal caper involving extortion and the wanton sinking of US ships and featured a classic Shuster Super-cover as the Man of Steel was awarded all the odd-numbered issues for his attention-grabbing playground.

That didn’t last long: after Guardineer’s last adventure cover – an aerial dog fight – on #18 and which masked into ‘Superman’s Super-Campaign’ as both Kent and Superman determined to crush a merciless blackmailer, Superman just appeared on the front every month from #19, which found the city temporarily in the grip of a deadly epidemic created by the Ultra-Humanite in ‘Superman and the Purple Plague’.

Only the first and last strips from Superman #3 are in this volume, as the other two were reprints of Action #5 and 6.

‘Superman and the Runaway’ however offered a gripping, shockingly uncompromising expose of corrupt orphanages, after which Lois went out on a date with hapless Clark simply because she needed to get closer to a gang of murderous smugglers. Happily his hidden alter ego was on hand to rescue her in the bombastic gang-busting ‘Superman and the Jewel Smugglers’…

This incredible panorama of torrid tales ends with ‘Superman and the Screen Siren’ from Action #20 (January 1940) as beautiful actress Delores Winters was revealed not as another sinister super-scientific megalomaniac but the latest tragic victim and organic hideaway of the Ultra-Humanite who had perfected his greatest horror… brain transplant surgery!

Although the gaudy burlesque of monsters and super-villains still lay years ahead of our hero, these primitive captivating tales of corruption, disaster and social injustice are just as engrossing and speak powerfully of the tenor of the times. The perilous parade of rip-roaring action, hoods, masterminds, plagues, disasters, lost kids and distressed damsels are all dealt with in a direct and captivating manner by our relentlessly entertaining champion in summarily swift and decisive fashion.

No continued stories here!

As fresh and thrilling now as they ever were, these endlessly re-readable epics are perfectly housed in these glorious paperback collections where the savage intensity and sly wit still shine through in Siegel’s stories – which literally defined what being a Super Hero means – whilst Shuster created the basic iconography for all others to follow.

Such Golden Age tales are priceless enjoyment at an absurdly affordable price and in a durable, comfortingly approachable format. What dedicated comics fan could possibly resist them?

As well as cheap price and no-nonsense design and presentation, and notwithstanding the historical significance of the material presented within, the most important bonus for any one who hasn’t read some or all of these tales before is that they are all astonishingly well-told and engrossing mini-epics that cannot fail to grip the reader.

In a world where Angels With Dirty Faces, Bringing Up Baby and The Front Page are as familiar to our shared cultural consciousness as the latest episode of Dr Who or Downton Abbey, the dress, manner and idiom in these near-seventy-five-year-old stories can’t jar or confuse. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.

Once read you’ll understand why today’s creators keep returning to this material every time they need to revamp the big guy. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.

© 1938, 1939, 1940, 2006, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Golden Age Flash Archives Volume II


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

The innovative array of companies that became DC published a number of iconic “Firsts” in the early years of the industry. Associated outfit All-American Publications (who were bought out and acquired by National in 1946) were responsible for the first comicbook super-speedster as well as the iconic Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and many others who became mainstays of DC’s pantheon of stars.

Devised, created and written by Gardner Fox and first drawn by Harry Lampert, Jay Garrick debuted as the very first Monarch of Motion in Flash Comics #1 and quickly – how else? – became a veritable sensation.

“The Fastest Man Alive” wowed readers in anthologies Flash Comics, Comics Cavalcade, All Star Comics and others – as well as his own solo vehicle All-Flash Quarterly – for just over a decade before changing tastes benched him and most other Mystery Man 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.

After over half a decade of mostly interchangeable cops, cowboys and cosmic invaders, the concept of human rockets and superheroes 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. It’s been non-stop ever since …

This charmingly seductive deluxe Archive edition collects the Fastest Yarns Alive from Flash Comics #18-24, covering June-December 1941, as well as the first two issues of the irrepressible Garrick’s whimsically eccentric full-length exploits from All-Flash Quarterly (Summer and Fall of that same fateful year), all written by the apparently inexhaustible Gardner Fox.

After another informative Introduction from comicbook everyman Jim Amash, the rollercoaster of fun and thrills gathers steam with ‘The Restaurant Protective Association’ (illustrated by Hal Sharp), with Jay and girlfriend/confidante Joan Williams stumbling upon a pack of extortionists and exposing a treacherous viper preying on Joan’s best gal-pal, after which ‘The Fall Guy’ in #19 revealed how a gang of agile fraudsters were faking motor accidents to fleece insurance companies.

Both cases gave Garrick ample opportunity to display the hilarious and humiliating bag of super-speed tricks and punishing pranks which astounded playful kids of the day and still delight decades later.

Flash Comics #20 led with ‘The Adventure of the Auctioned Utility Company’ wherein Joan accidentally bought a regional power outfit and Jay used all his energies to reconcile a feuding family whilst teaching a miserly embezzler an unforgettable lesson…

Sharp had been doing such splendid artistic service on the monthly tales because regular illustrator E. E. Hibbard had presumably been devoting all his creative energies to the contents of the forthcoming 64-page All-Flash Quarterly #1.

The epic premiere issue opened with a tantalising frontispiece ‘The JSA Bid Farewell to the Flash’, celebrating the fact that The Fastest Man Alive was the third character to win his own solo comic – after Superman and Batman – and would therefore be “too busy for Justice Society get-togethers”…

‘The Origin of the Flash’ was then retold by Fox & Hibbard revealing again how some years previously college student Garrick had passed out in the lab at Midwestern University, only to awaken hyper-charged and the fastest creature on Earth thanks to the “hard water fumes” 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 player. Eventually the kids graduated and Garrick moved to New York where, appalled by rampant criminality, he decided to use his gifts to fight it.

The Flash operated mostly in secret, as much hindered as helped by wilful, headstrong Joan who began her own lifetime obsession of pesky do-gooding here…

‘The Men Who Turned to Stone’ plunged us back to the present as one of Garrick’s colleagues at Chemical Research Incorporated discovered an instant petrification process and was abducted by criminals who saw a chance to make lots of illegal money…

Hibbard also illustrated the uncredited fun-fact featurette ‘The Flash Presents his Hall of Speed Records’ before ‘Meet the Author and Artist of the Flash’ offered an intimate introduction to the creative team, after which ‘The Adventure of the Monocle and his Garden of Gems’ saw the debut of a rare returning villain with an unwise addiction to other people’s jewels, but enough brains to counter The Flash’s speed – if not Jay’s courage and ingenuity.

When Flash prevented the murder of a cowboy performer in New York ‘The Rodeo Mystery’ soon took Jay and Joan to Oklahoma and a crooked ploy to steal a newly discovered oil well before the issue closed with Flash smashing a gambler trying to take over the sport of Ice Hockey in ‘Menace of the Racket King’.

In Flash Comics #21 gambling was still a problem as ‘The Lottery’ (illustrated by Sharp) saw the Speedster expose a cunning criminal scheme to bilk theatre patrons and carnival-goers whilst in #22 ‘The Hatchet Cult’ took an uncustomarily dark walk on the wild side as the Flash became involved in a Chinatown Tong war and exposed the incredible secret of modern Mongol mastermind Mighty Kong…

Hibbard & Sharp collaborated on issue #23’s ‘A Millionaire’s Revenge’ wherein wealthy plutocrat Leffingwell Funk decided to avenge an imagined slight by a poor but happy man. His method was unique: it began with engineering unsuspecting shoe store owner Jim Sewell‘s inheritance of half a million dollars and would have ended with leg-breaking thugs, disgrace and prison had not Jim counted Jay Garrick amongst his circle of friends…

The Fall 1941 All-Flash Quarterly (#2 and again an all Fox/Hibbard production) kicked off with a spectacular all-action ‘Title Page’ and informative recap in ‘A Short History of the Flash’ before the creators ambitiously undertook a massive four-chapter saga of vengeance and justice.

In an era where story was paramount this oddly time-skewed tale might jar slightly with modern continuity-freaks, spanning as it does nearly a lifetime in the telling, but trust me just go with it…

‘The Threat: Part One – The Adventure of Roy Revenge!’ opens as brilliant young criminal Joe Connor is sentenced to ten years in jail and swears vengeance on DA Jim Kelley. The convict means it too, spending every waking moment inside improving himself educationally, becoming a trustee to foster the illusion of rehabilitation.

On his release Connor befriends Kelley, who is pursuing a political career, and orchestrates the abduction of the lawyer’s newborn son…

Years later a bold young thug dubbed Roy Revenge begins a campaign of terror against Mayor Jim Kelley which even the Flash is hard-pressed to stop. When the bandit is at last apprehended Kelley pushes hard to have the boy jailed, unaware of his biological connection to the savage youth.

In the intervening years Connor had truly reformed – until his angelic wife died leaving him to care for their little girl Ann and “adopted” son Roy. Without his wife’s influence Connor again turned to crime and raised the stolen boy to hate his real father…

‘The Flash Presents his Hall of Speed Records’ and ‘How to Develop Your Speed by the Flash’ break up the melodrama before the saga continues in ‘The Threat: Part Two – Adventure of the Blood-Red Ray’ as Connor rises in the Underworld and plans to take over the country. Ann has grown up a decent and upstanding – if oblivious – citizen whose only weakness is her constant concealment of her brother Roy, who has been hiding from the law for years…

Even when the elder master criminal’s plan to destroy the Kelleys with a heat-ray is scotched by the Flash the canny crook convinces the Speedster that he is merely a henchman and escapes the full force of justice…

‘The Threat: Part Three – The Wrecker Racket’ sees a new gang plaguing the city, led by a monstrous disfigured albino. Nobody realises this is Connor who escaped custody by a method which physically ruined his body and only increased his hatred of Kelley.

Locating Roy, who has since found peace in rural isolation, the malign menace again draws the young man into his maniacal schemes. When the boy nearly kills his “sister” Ann in pursuance of Connor’s ambitions only the Flash can save the day, leading to a swathe of revelation and a shocking conclusion in ‘The Threat: Part Four – The End of the Threat’…

After that monumental generational saga this splendid selection closes with a full-on alien extravaganza from Flash Comics #24 as Garrick investigates a series of abductions and foils a madman’s plot to forcibly colonise the Red Planet. Unfortunately when inventor Jennings and his gangster backer reached their destination with Jay a helpless prisoner, nobody expected the arid world to be already occupied by belligerent insectoids. ‘The Flash and the Spider-Man of Mars’ by Hibbard & Sharp ends the book on a gloriously madcap, spectacular fantasy high note…

Amazing, exciting and quirkily captivating – even if not to every modern fan’s taste – the sheer exuberance, light-hearted tone and constant narrative invention in the tales of a brilliant nerd who became a social crusader and justice-dispensing human meteor are addictively appealing, and with covers by Sharp, Sheldon Moldoff & Hibbard, this book is another utter delight for lovers of early Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy.

Of course, with such straightforward thrills on show any reader with an open mind could find his opinion changed in a flash.
© 1941, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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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 eyes…

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 Dog…

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 Life…

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 innocent…

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 harm…

The saboteurs punished, Scott determined to carry on the fight and devised a “bizarre costume” to disguise his identity and strike fear and awe into wrongdoers…

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 captive…

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 “accidents” 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 victorious…

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 coup…

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 killed…

This time, to save Miss Miller, Doiby disguised himself as “de Lantrin” and confronted the killers alone before the real deal turned up to end things. As a reward the Brooklyn bravo was offered an unofficial partnership…

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 medicine…

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 “Dellon”.

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 hierarchy…

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 citizens…

Doiby was absent from that high octane thriller but did guest-star with the Emerald Ace in the prose tale ‘Hop Harrigan in “Trailers of Treachery”’ – 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 continent…

With the threat of involvement in the “European War” 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 nation…

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…
© 1940, 1941, 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.