Category: Older kids

Posted on

Doctor Who Graphic Novels volume 15: Nemesis of the Daleks


By Richard Starkings, John Tomlinson, John Freeman, Paul Cornell, Dan Abnett, Steve Moore, Lee Sullivan, John Ridgway, Steve Dillon, David Lloyd & many and various (Panini Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-531-4

The British love comic strips and they love celebrity and they love “Odd Characters.”

The history of our graphic narrative has a peculiarly disproportionate amount of radio comedians, stars of theatre, film and TV such as Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Askey, Winifred Atwell, Max Bygraves, Charlie Drake and their ilk, as well as actual shows and properties such as Whacko!, ITMA, Our Gang, (there was a British version of the Hal Roach film sensation by Dudley Watkins in Dandy as well as the American comicbook series by Walt Kelly), Old Mother Riley, Supercar, Pinky & Perky and literally hundreds more.

Anthology comics such as Radio Fun, Film Fun, TV Fun, Look-In, TV Tornado, TV Comic and Countdown amongst others translated our viewing and listening favourites into pictorial escapism every week, and it was a pretty poor lead or show which couldn’t parley the day job into a licensed comic property.

Television’s Doctor Who premiered with part one of ‘An Unearthly Child’ on November 23rd 1963, and the following year his (their?) decades-long association with TV Comic began in issue #674 and the first instalment of ‘The Klepton Parasites’ – so this year marks the 50th or Golden Anniversary of the evergreen show and the 49th (Apoplexium, I believe) of the strip iteration.

On 11th October 1979 (although, adhering to the US off-sale cover-dating system, it says 17th) Marvel’s UK subsidiary launched Doctor Who Weekly, which became a monthly magazine in September 1980 (#44) and has been with us through various title-changes ever since. All of which only goes to prove that the Time Lord is a comic hero with an impressive pedigree and big shoes to fill.

Marvel/Panini is in the ongoing process of collecting every strip from the prodigious annals and archives in a uniform series of over-sized graphic albums, each concentrating on a particular incarnation of the deathless wanderer. This particular one gathers stories from a range of sources (specifically Doctor Who Magazine #152-156, 159-162, The Incredible Hulk Presents #1-12, Doctor Who Weekly #17-20, #27-30 and Doctor Who Monthly #44-46; spanning 1980-1990) and nominally stars the Seventh Doctor -Sylvester McCoy.

Also on show are some awesome ancillary stars from the monolithic Time Lord Universe (Whoniverse?) including the eponymous trundling terrors of the title, legendary cosmic crusaders the Star Tigers and the long-revered tragic, demented antihero Abslom Daak, Dalek-Killer.

Delivered beauty-contest style in reverse order, the magnificent magic opens with the cataclysmic ‘Nemesis of the Daleks’ (from DWM #152-155) as Richard and Steve Alan – AKA Richard Starkings & John Tomlinson – deliver a definitive and classic clash between the nomadic Time Lord and the ultimate foes of life wherein the deadly Daleks enslave a primitive civilisation and drive the pitiful native Helkans to the brink of extinction by forcing them to construct a Dalek Death Wheel armed with the universe’s most potent and toxic Weapon of Mass Destruction.

Grittily illustrated by Lee Sullivan, the blockbuster saga opens with the valiant last stand of incongruous chmpions the Star Tigers before the peripatetic Doctor accidentally arrives in the right place at the wrong time – no surprise there then – and joins death-obsessed Abslom Daak in a hopeless attempt to stop the Emperor of the Daleks from achieving supreme power…

Filled with evocative do-or-die heroics this is a battle only one being can survive…

As a complete change-of-pace, ‘Stairway to Heaven’ (#156 from January 1990 and by John Freeman, Paul Cornell & Gerry Dolan) offers a wry and merrily murderous poke at modern art and the slavish gullibility of its patrons that still holds true today – and probably always will…

The Incredible Hulk Presents was a short-lived reprint weekly from Marvel UK which launched on September 30th 1989, targeting younger readers and featuring four media-fed features.

As well as the Big Green TV sensation it also reprinted American-produced stories of Indiana Jones and GI Joe/Action Force, but the mix was augmented by all-new adventures of the Gallant Gallifreyan by a rapidly rotating roster of British creators.

The plan was to eventually reprint the Who stories in DWM – thus maximising the costly outlay of new material at a time in British comics publishing where every penny counted. It didn’t quite go to plan and the comic folded after 12 issues, with only a couple of the far simpler – though no less enjoyable offerings – ever making it into the more mature magazine publication.

It all began with ‘Once in a Lifetime’ by Freeman & Geoff Senior wherein an obnoxious alien reporter learned to his dismay that some stories are too big even for the gutter press, after which issues #2-3 featured creators Dan Abnett & John Ridgway whose ‘Hunger From the Ends of Time!’ saw the Doctor and Foreign Hazard Duty – the future iteration of UNIT – save the Universal Library from creatures who literally consumed knowledge.

‘War World!’ by Freeman, Art Wetherell & Dave Harwood found the irascible time-traveller uncharacteristically fooled by an (un)common foot soldier, whilst in ‘Technical Hitch’ by Abnett & Wetherell, the Doctor saved a lonely spacer from unhappy dreams of paradise…

Freeman & Senior concocted a riotous, monster-mash for ‘A Switch in Time!’ whilst ‘The Sentinel!’ by Tomlinson & Andy Wildman found the Time Lord helpless before a being beyond the limits of temporal physics who claimed to have created all life in the universe but still needed a little something from Gallifrey to finish his latest project…

Another 2-parter in #8-9 declared ‘Who’s That Girl!’ as the Doctor’s latest regeneration apparently resulted in a female form just as the Time Lord was required to  stop an inter-dimensional war between malicious macho martial empires. Of course there was more than met the eye going in this silly but engaging thriller by Simon Furman, John Marshall & Stephen Baskerville.

Simon Jowett & Wildman produced a light-hearted salutary fable as ‘The Enlightenment of Ly-Chee the Wise’ proved that some travellers are too much for even the most mellow of meditators to handle, after which Mike Collins, Tim Robins & Senior proved just how dangerous fat-farms could be in ‘Slimmer!’ before The Incredible Hulk Presents ended its foray into time-warping with the portentous ‘Nineveh!’ by Tomlinson & Cam Smith, wherein the Tardis was ensnared in the deadly clutches of the Watcher at the End of Time – an impossible mythical being who harvested Time Lords after their final regeneration…

For most of its run and in all its guises the Doctor Who title suffered from criminally low budgets and restricted access to concepts, images and character-likenesses from the show (many actors, quite rightfully owning their faces, wanted to be paid if they appeared in print…) but diligent work by successive editors gradually bore fruit and every so often fans got a real treat…

‘Train-Flight’ by Andrew Donkin, Graham S. Brand & John Ridgway ran in DWM #159-161 from April to June 1990 and benefited from some slick editorial wheeler-dealing and the generosity of actress Elizabeth Sladen (who allowed her Sarah Jane Smith character to be used for a pittance) in a chilling tale of alien abductions.

A long overdue reunion between the Time Lord and his old Companion was swiftly derailed when their commuter train was hijacked by marauding carnivorous insects…

‘Doctor Conkerer!’ (#162 by Ian Rimmer & Mike Collins) then terminates the Time Lord’s travails in this tome with a humorous tale describing the unsuspected origins of that noble game played with horse chestnuts beloved by British schoolboys, assorted aliens and, of course, Vikings of every stripe…

There’s still plenty of high quality action and adventure to enjoy here, however, as the complete saga of ‘Abslom Daak, Dalek-Killer’ by Steve Moore and artists Steve Dillon& David Lloyd (from Doctor Who Weekly #17-20, February-March 1980, Doctor Who Weekly #27-30, April 1980 and Doctor Who Monthly #44-46, December 1980-February 1981) fills in the blanks on the doomed defenders of organic life everywhere…

In the 26th century the Earth Empire is in a death struggle with voracious Dalek forces yet still riven with home-grown threats.

One such is inveterate, antisocial killer Abslom Daak, who, on sentencing for his many crimes, chooses “Exile D-K” – being beamed into enemy territory to die as a “Dalek Killer”. His life expectancy as such is less than three hours… and that suits him just fine.

Materialising on an alien world the madman eagerly expects to die but finds an unexpected reason to live until she too is taken from him, leaving only an unquenchable thirst for Dalek destruction…

The initial ferociously action-packed back-up series led to a sequel and ‘Star Tigers’ found the manic marauder winning such improbable allies as a rebel Draconian Prince, a devilish Ice Warrior and the smartest sociopath in Human space, all willing to trade their pointless lives to kill Daleks…

As always the book is supplemented with lots of text features, and truly avid fans can also enjoy a treasure-trove of background information in the 17-page text Commentary section at the back, comprising story-by-story background, history and insights from the authors and illustrators, supplemented by scads of sketches, script pages, roughs, designs, production art covers and photos.

This includes full background from former DWM editor/scripter John Freeman on the stories, plus background on the guest stars in ‘Tales from the Daak Side’ by John Tomlinson.

More details and creator-biographies accompany the commentaries on The Incredible Hulk Presents tales and there’s a feature on ‘Hulk meets Who’ explaining that odd publishing alliance, as well as reminisces from editor Andy Seddon and even more info on the legendary Dalek killer and his Star Tiger allies to pore and exult over.

None of which is relevant if all you want is a darn good read. However all the creators involved have managed the ultimate task of any artisan – to produce engaging, thrilling, fun work which can be equally enjoyed by the merest beginner and the most slavishly dedicated and opinionated fans imaginable.

This is another marvellous book for casual readers, a fine shelf-addition for dedicated fans of the show and a perfect opportunity to cross-promote our particular art-form to anyone minded to give comics one more go…

All Doctor Who material © BBCtv. Doctor Who, the Tardis and all logos are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence. Licenced by BBC Worldwide. Tardis image © BBC 1963. Daleks © Terry Nation. All commentaries © 2013 their respective authors. Published 2013 by Panini Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Wolverine Origins: Romulus


By Daniel Way, Scot Eaton & Andrew Hennessy (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3539-5

Ever since his glory days in the All–New, All Different X-Men, the mutant berserker known variously as Wolverine, Logan, Patch and latterly James Howlett has been a fan-favourite who appealed to the suppressed, put-upon, catharsis-craving comic fan by perpetually promising to cut loose and give bad guys the kind of final punishment we all know they truly deserve.

Always skirting the line between and blurring the definitions of indomitable hero and maniac murderer, Wolverine soldiered on, a tragic, brutal, misunderstood hero cloaked in mysteries and contradictions until society changed and, as with ethically-challenged colleague the Punisher, final sanction and quick dispatch became acceptable and even preferred options for costumed crusaders.

Debuting as a foe for the Incredible Hulk in a tantalising teaser-glimpse at the end of issue #180 (October 1974) before indulging in a full-on scrap with the Green Goliath in the next issue, the semi-feral Canadian mutant with fearsome claws and killer attitude rode – and maybe even caused – the meteoric rise of the reconstructed and rebooted X-Men before gaining his own series, super-star status and silver screen immortality.

He hasn’t looked back since, although over the years many untold tales of the aged agent (since the original miniseries Origins revealed the hero had been born at the end of the 19th century) have explored his missing exploits in ever-increasing intensity and torturous detail.

Thus Wolverine’s secret origin(s) and increasingly revelatory disclosures regarding in his extended, conveniently much-brainwashed life have gradually seeped out. Cursed with recurring and periodic bouts of amnesia and mind-wiped ad nauseum by sinister or even well-meaning friends and foes, the Chaotic Canucklehead has packed a lot of adventurous living into his centuries of existence – but doesn’t remember most of it.

This permanently unploughed field has conveniently resulted in a crop of dramatically mysterious, undisclosed back-histories, so from June 2006 to July 2010 supplementary series Wolverine Origins, for a 50-issue run, began revealing certain discrete pockets of that rich but occluded seam of comicbook gold.

Short and feisty, Logan has always threatened and promised an explosion of visceral, vicarious ultra-violence and grim, gritty justice at every moment and in this slim, savage collection (gathering issues #37-40 of Wolverine Origins from), the panting comicbook public once again gets what it’s never stopped clamouring for…

Wolverine is the ultimate tracker and for months has been hunting for his own past. His search has revealed one inescapable, horrific fact: for most of his life the mutant has been repeatedly manipulated and tortured by a madman. Over decades a mysterious mastermind has been invisibly moving in and out of his life: even exerting complete mental dominance over the wandering warrior.

Only recently has Logan realised this and by setting all his prodigious instincts and tracking skills to the task, is at last closing in on the sadistic phantom he only knows as Romulus…

The infinitely patient phantom is the force behind numerous programs such as Weapon X (which first agonisingly bonded miracle metal Adamantium to Wolverine’s skeleton) and is dedicated to manufacturing and augmenting appalling human killing machines.

Of late Logan has been confronted by many of Romulus’ greatest successes, overcoming walking tragedies and monstrous atrocities such as tortured US super-soldier Nuke, old associates Wildchild and Sabretooth, foes Cyber and Omega Red and even his own, now-adult, psychotic son Daken.

Crisscrossing the globe, the implacable stalker has gradually come closer to finding his ancient tormentor, discovering ever-more chilling details about his shadowy opponent. Now he is ready for a final showdown…

The eponymous 4-part ‘Romulus’ opens with Wolverine in Russia following the mastermind’s trusted factotum Victor Hudson to the brutal Vutluga Prison, where a modern pestilence is plaguing hope-starved, desperate inmates and warders alike. As the infuriated mutant moves in for the long-deferred confrontation he’s been hungering for he realises he’s been set up in another stupid test… just as the life-leeching Omega Red ambushes him…

The staggeringly brutal battle goes to Wolverine – but only just – and as the exhausted victor staggers outside he falls prey to fellow feral mutant Wildchild.

Dragging the battered hero to a steel mill and a doom even Wolverine’s legendary healing factor can’t overcome, the boastful brat reveals a shocking truth.

Inhuman Romulus is apparently thousands of years old and considers himself the planet’s absolute apex predator. Logan’s quarry has spent centuries creating, shaping and honing his own successor. To this extent he has bred, if not actually farmed, Wolverine’s bloodline – among others – for generations: constantly improving human killers through technology and the crucibles of torment and combat, even killing Logan’s first wife Itsu and stealing the son the X-Man never knew existed…

Moreover, although Logan was the preferred option to succeed him, Romulus has always had other prospects in play and is content to stand well back and let the very best killer win…

Wildchild’s plan comes undone when the seemingly unstoppable Omega Red intervenes, resulting in one more cutthroat clash as another of Romulus’ frontrunners falls. Soon after, with the aid of Russian super-spy The Black Widow, Wolverine’s last rival falls and the master manipulator finally reveals himself for the climactic last battle…

It doesn’t end in the way you’d expect…

With covers by Doug Braithwaite & Art Lyon, variants from Mike Mayhew, Herb Trimpe and Simone Bianchi, fact-files on Omega Red and Logan and a comprehensive bibliography in ‘Wolverine: the Reading Chronology’, this plot-light, carnage-driven collection of gory delights is a vicarious thrill for the devoted but might well be hard to follow for new or returning readers.
© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

New Crusaders: Rise of the Heroes


By Ian Flynn, Ben Bates, Alitha Martinez & Gary Martin (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-31-0

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

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

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

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

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

By 1946 the kids had taken over, so MLJ renamed itself Archie Comics; retiring its heroic characters years before the end of the Golden Age and becoming, to all intents and purposes, a publisher of family comedies. Its success, like Superman’s, changed the content of every other publisher’s titles, and led to a multi-media industry including TV shows, movies, and a chain of restaurants. In the swinging sixties the pop hit “Sugar, Sugar” (a tune from their animated show) became a global smash: their wholesome garage band The Archies has been a fixture of the comics ever since.

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

The heroes impressively resurfaced in the 1980s under the company’s Red Circle imprint but again failed to catch the public’s attention and Archie let them lie fallow (except for occasional revivals and intermittent guest-shots in regular Archie titles) until 1991, when the company licensed its heroes to superhero specialists DC for a magically fun, all-ages iteration (and where’s that star-studded trade paperback collection, huh?!).

Impact Comics was a vibrant, engaging and fun all-ages rethink that really should have been a huge hit but was again cruelly unsuccessful…

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

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

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

The first 6 issues collected here offer grand old-fashioned Costumed Drama and modern teen-targeted Fights ‘n’ Tights action that begins with the 2-part introduction ‘From the Ashes’ by Ian Flynn, Ben Bates & Gary Martin.

Red Circle is an idyllic, storybook American town – now. That wasn’t always the case however, and as Mayor Jack Sterling hosts a party for some very old friends and their kids in ‘Reunions’, that dark past horrifically resurfaces as the festivities are cancelled due to a murderous attack by a manic super-villain.

One minute Ralph Hardy, John Dickering and wife Thelma, John and Rose Raymond, Ted Tyler and Kim Brand are watching their respective teenagers mooching about and not getting along and the next they’re all dead at the hands of alien overlord the Brain Emperor…

Only late arriving Joe Higgins is left to shepherd the kids from the burning Mayoral mansion, operating under a long-practised escape plan devised by the heroic Mighty Crusaders…

Debuting way back when in Pep Comics #1, January 1940, Higgins was an FBI scientist who devised a suit which gave him enhanced strength, speed and durability, battling the USA’s enemies as The Shield in the days before America entered WW II. He also devised a serum which enhanced those powers, smashing spies, saboteurs, subversives and every threat to Democracy and well-being. A minor sensation, he is credited as comics’ first Patriotic Hero, predating Captain America and Quality’s Uncle Sam in “wearing the Flag”.

In the sixties he and many of his lost cohorts returned to battle crime and craziness once more…

After accomplishing the impossible and wiping out super-crime he, Steel Sterling, Jaguar, Comet, The Web, Pow-Girl, Fireball and Fly Girl happily retired from action. Unable to settle or relax, Higgins became a virtual recluse and, as Evil Never Dies, laid contingency plans with his old comrades.

Now with all his nightmares come true, he sequesters the traumatised kids in his high-tech bunker and relates the truth about the seemingly dull-and-boring dearly departed in ‘Birthrights’.

The Red Circle tragedy is covered up by Federal spooks from the Military Logistics & Jurisdiction Bureau and dubbed a freak storm on the Impact City news, but orphans Johnny Sterling, Alex Tyler, Greg Dickering, Kelly Brand, Wyatt Raymond and Hardy’s young apprentice Ivette Velez know the truth. They just can’t come to grips with it.

Once Old Man Higgins had saved them from the monster-maniac, he locked them up in his subterranean wonderland – with the full approval of the MLJ – and started talking nonsense.

He claimed their folks were the world’s greatest superheroes and expects them to take up their identities and mission. It’s crazy and totally impossible to believe, but he has all kinds of evidence and gadgets in his bunker. There’s even a mutant talking monkey named Dusty, and somehow he makes more sense than his snarky, impatient boss…

It’s too much and the kids rebel, so Higgins lets them go. All they have to do is get out of the bunker alive…

The terrifying gauntlet proves to the shell-shocked teens that they are far from average and they elect to stay. ‘Legacies part 1: Growing Pains’ then describes the mandatory training process wherein the neophytes, through determination, pre-prepared inheritances, sheer dumb luck and rash stupidity become a second generation of heroes, privy to all the secrets and responsibilities of a world hidden from most of humanity.

Kelly is dispatched by Dusty (or Dr. Uruk Ak’ahk to give him his proper title) to a trans-dimensional space station operated by veteran Crusader Bob Phantom to pick up the alien gimmicks which will make her the new Fly Girl, whilst timid low-esteem-plagued Ivette is given the magical Jaguar Helmet of Ai Apaec, discovered by her boss Ralph Hardy and intended for her alone. However no-one realised it would put her into deadly contact with and at the mercy of a terrifying, possessive, savage lost god…

Puny Wyatt is as smart as his parents The Web and Pow-Girl ever were but has none of their physical gifts. A high-tech combat suit handles the muscle, speed and agility deficit, and the psionic power he’s hidden since infancy more than makes up for his lack of combat experience.

The real problems come with the three alpha-males. Impetuous and rebellious, Alex and Greg hastily misuse the serums intended to duplicate the pyrokinetic and lethal light-wielding power of Fireball and the Comet – nearly dying in the process – whilst Johnny just can’t bring himself to submit his perfect Jock’s body to the nasty nano-surgical procedure that will make him a second Steel  Sterling…

As ‘Legacies part 2: Inheritance’ (illustrated by new regular penciller Alitha Martinez) opens only Fly Girl is willing – or indeed able – to embrace her destiny, but fate takes charge as the implacable Brain Emperor strikes again, just as a poignant message from his departed dad inspires Johnny Sterling to take up the metallic mantle of a champion.

The Brain Emperor strikes in ‘Trial by Fire part 1’ raiding the penitentiary holding the original Crusaders’ greatest foes and causing a deadly ‘Jailbreak’ forcing the junior heroes and their aged tutor into action far too soon. Nevertheless, the kids do alright and the Cerebral Conqueror has made a crucial error: the prison held not only an army of vicious super-freaks but also three rogue heroes in special isolation.

The Black Hood, Hangman and Deadly Force are a remorseless Riot Squad just itching to get their merciless hands on more criminal scum ‘Caught in the Flames’…

As the alien Emperor gathers selected villains for his next enterprise, the New Crusaders’ blistering trial by fire proves to be an education for all, but not every hero survives…

To Be Continued…

Full of vim and vigour, this no-nonsense superhero saga is a slick and smart return to tried-and-true comicbook bombast and action which manages to feel brand-new whilst somehow still remaining faithful to all of the many iterations and re-imaginings of the assorted superheroes – even the two produced in conjunction with DC Comics.

This delightful exercise in recapturing the straightforward excitement of a genre also includes such special features as a variant cover gallery by Bates, Mike Norton, Ryan Jampole & Matt Helms, ChrisCross & Thomas Mason, Sanford Greene, Rich Buckler, Francesco Francavilla and Fiona Staples plus bonus featurette ‘Dusty’s Files’ on ‘The Pitch’, ‘The Cast’, ‘The Braintrust’ (creators Ian Flynn & Ben Bates), ‘The Legacy’, ‘The Villains’ and ‘The Future’.

Fast, fulfilling and fun, New Crusaders might just be Archie’s long-awaited superhero “one that didn’t get away”…
© 2013 Archie Comics Publications. All rights reserved. NEW CRUSADERS and RED CIRCLE COMICS ® ACP, Inc.

Posted on

Age of Reptiles Omnibus volume 1


By Ricardo Delgado (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-683-1

There’s an irresistible, nigh-visceral appeal to dinosaurs. Most of us variously and haphazardly evolved hairless apes seem to be mesmerically drawn to all forms of education and entertainment featuring the monster lizards of our primordial past.

Designed as a purely visual experience, this hypnotically beguiling series of sequences from Ricardo Delgado offers one of the most honestly awesome brushes with prehistory ever imagined. Age of Reptiles opens a window onto distant eons of saurian dominance and, completely devoid of sound or text, provides a profound, pantomimic silent movie that focuses on a number of everyday experiences which simply have to be exactly how it was, way back then…

Crafted by one of the most respected concept and storyboard men in Hollywood, these dino-dramas offer – even in comicbooks – a unique reading experience that must be seen to be believed, which is why I’m forgoing my usual laborious forensic descriptive blather in favour of a more general appreciation…

The tales originally appeared as a sequence of miniseries between 1993 and 2010 before being subsequently collected as individual compilations. In 2011 this titanic tome, part of Dark Horse’s excellent and economical Omnibus line, gathered the material into one handy Brachiosaur-sized book to treasure forever. In this way older material stays in print as classy, full-colour digests (slightly smaller in proportion than regulation US comic-books but larger and far thicker than standard manga “tankobon” volumes, running about 400 pages per book).

Following the expansive praise of Animator, Director and Producer Genndy Tartarkovsky in his Foreword the original introductions to initial outing ‘Tribal Warfare’ (from Ray Harryhausen, Burne Hogarth and John Landis) precede a fantastic extended clash between a pack – or perhaps more properly clan – of Deinonychus and a particularly irate opportunistic and undeterrable Tyrannosaur.

The savage struggle, literally red in tooth and claw, takes both sides to the very edge of extinction…

As in all these tales, the astoundingly rendered and realised scenery and environment are as much leading characters in the drama as any meat and muscle protagonists and all the other opportunistic scavengers and hangers-on that prowl the peripheries of the war, ever eager to take momentary advantage of what seems more a mutual quest for vengeance than a simple battle for survival…

That theme is further explored in ‘The Hunt’ (with Disney chief Thomas Schumacher offering his observations in the introduction) wherein the eat-or-be-eaten travails of a mother Allosaurus end only after she dies defending her baby. The culprits are a determined and scarily organised pack of Ceratosaurs who then expend a lot of energy trying to consume the carnosaur’s kid amidst scenes of staggering geographical beauty and terrifying magnificence.

Their failure leads to the beast’s eventual return and a bloody evening of the score. Think of it as Bambi with really big teeth and no hankies required…

The theme of unrelenting and ruthless species rivalry and competition is downplayed or at least diverted for the final episode.

‘The Journey’, with introduction and appreciation by educator and illustrator Ann Field) concentrates on an epic migration across the barren surface of the world as millions of assorted saurians undertake a prodigious trek to more welcoming feeding and spawning grounds, dogged every step of the way by flying, swimming and remorselessly running creatures ever-eager for their next tasty meal…

Supplementing the feral beauty of these astonishing adventures is a full Cover Gallery from the assorted original miniseries and book compilations, Delgado’s fulsome and effulgent Essays on his influences (‘Ray Harryhausen and the Seventh Voyage to the Drive-In’, ‘Desi Arnaz and the Eighth Wonder of the World’, ‘Real Dinosaurs: the Art of Charles R. Knight’ and ‘Zen and ZdenÄ›k Burian’) and a fabulous, copious and envy-invoking Sketchbook section with everything from quick motion studies to full colour preliminary pieces for the final artwork..

Although occasionally resorting to a judicious amount of creative anachronism and historical overlap, Delgado has an unquestioned love for his subject, sublime feel for spectacle and an unmatchable gift for pace and narrative progression which, coupled to a deft hand that imbues the vast range and cast of big lizards with instantly recognisable individual looks and characters, always means that the reader knows exactly who is doing what. There’s even room for some unexpectedly but most welcome rough-love humour in these brilliantly simple forthright, primal dramas…
© 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2009, 2010, 2011 Ricardo Delgado. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Clubbing


By Andi Watson & Josh Howard (Minx/Titan Books edition)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-580-4

In 2007 DC comics had a worthy go at building new markets by creating the Minx imprint: dedicated to producing comics material for the teen/young adult audience – especially the ever-elusive girl readership – that had embraced translated manga material, momentous global comics successes such as Maus and Persepolis and those abundant and prolific fantasy serials which produced such pop phenomena as Roswell High, Twilight and even Harry Potter.

Sadly after only a dozen immensely impressive and decidedly different graphic novels Minx shut up shop in October 2008, markedly NOT citing publishing partner Random House’s failure to get the books onto the appropriate shelves of major bookstore chains as the reason.

Nevertheless the books which were published are still out there and most of them are well worth tracking down – either in the US originals or the British editions published by Titan Books.

One of the most engaging was Clubbing, from Andi Watson & Josh Howard, which stylishly and wittily blended teen rebellion and shopping-culture insouciance with murder-mystery and supernatural horror in an audacious and winning black and white, cross-cultural romantic romp in Wordsworth Country…

Charlotte Brook has been a bad girl. London’s most self-absorbed fashionista, social butterfly and shopping diva, “Lottie” got caught using a homemade fake I.D. to get into an out-of-bounds West End nightclub and ended up coming home in a police car…

Her outraged but rather disinterested parents simply bundled her off for the summer to the wilds of the Lake District where her dull grandfather and good old Grandma Aggie are going to put her to work in their new Golf resort.

Faced with the dire prospect of months of rain, no Wi-Fi coverage, Golf, Women’s Institute do’s, old people, hicks and yokels, golf and mud and golf, Lottie is far from happy, but as always Aggie’s ubiquitous cakes and cuppas go some small way towards assuaging the agony.

Granddad Archie Fitz-Talbot‘s time is constantly taken up with the on-going and behind schedule conversion of his posh old country club into a major modern sport and leisure venue and, after only one wind-blown, rain-sodden tour in the most fabulous outfit from her stylishly inappropriate wardrobe, Lottie realises that she’s actually in hell.

Her poor beloved shoes are all doomed too…

The local teens are a dire lot, rough, rude and pretentious; more interested in gore, blood and faux Satanism rather than music and fashion – like any self-respecting Goth should be – and as for the nice young man Aggie is trying to set her up with, Lottie wouldn’t be seen dead with a guy who loves fishing and golf no matter how good looking he is…

Howard is the least of her problems. In their affable, comfortable way, Archie and Aggie are determined to torture her to death: they feed her wholesome stodgy food, drag her all over the place on walks and trips through the beautiful countryside, take her to W.I. galas and, horror of horrors, ask her to work in the gift-shop with ghastly golf pro Tom Hutchinson – at least until she accidentally burns it down…

Things get decidedly strange after Lottie clashes with officious wizened-ancient employee Mrs. Geraldine Gibbons over towels in the gym, and again at a W.I. cake-baking contest. The old biddy has a real bee in her bonnet and babbles on about secrets and hidden truths and is clearly bingo-wing bonkers…

Lottie begins to suspect otherwise when she and the slowly growing in coolness Howard find the old bat’s strangely mutilated body in a water-hazard on the Links…

Some of those sinister secrets start to emerge when the shaken teen then discovers old Archie is a bit of a player – Urgh! wrinklies indulging in illicit lurrve – and might need to get rid of the occasional octogenarian bit of rough, but something just doesn’t add up and before long Lottie and Howard are grudgingly, disbelievingly swept into a bizarre and baffling mystery with demonic cults, a horrific monster menace from beyond Reality and staggering personal implications for Lottie and her entire family…

Clubbing is a sharp, witty, subtly funny and intriguing coming of age horror-thriller-comedy which follows all the rules of the teen romance genre yet manages to inject a huge helping of novelty and individual character into the mix: a perfect vehicle for attracting to our medium new and youthful readers with no abiding interest in outlandish power-fantasies or vicarious vengeance-gratification – and yes, that does mean girls…

This snazzy so-British reading rave also includes ‘Lottie’s Lexicon’: a cool guide to speaking young Londoner, full creator biographies and three tantalising preview segments from other tempting MINX titles.

Track them all down and enjoy a genuinely different kind of comic book…
© 2007 Andi Watson and DC Comics. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Batman: Knight and Squire

Batman - Knight and Squire
By Paul Cornell & Jimmy Broxton with Staz Johnson (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3071-5

British Dynamic Duo Knight and Squire first appeared in the cheerfully anodyne, all-ages 1950s – specifically in a throwaway story from Batman #62 (December 1950/January 1951) – as ‘The Batman of England!’

Earl Percy Sheldrake and his son Cyril returned a few years later as part of seminal assemblage ‘The Batmen of All Nations!’ (Detective Comics #215 January 1955) – a tale retrieved from the ranks of funnybook limbo in recent times and included in Batman: Black Casebook – with sequel ‘The Club of Heroes’ appearing in World’s Finest Comics #89, July-August 1957. That one’s reprinted in Showcase Presents World’s Finest volume 1.

The characters had languished in virtual obscurity for decades before fully entering modern continuity as part of Grant Morrison’s build-up to the Death of Batman and Batman Incorporated retro-fittings of the ever-ongoing legend of the Dark Knight dynasty…

They floated around the brave New World for awhile with guest shots in places like Morrison’s JLA reboot and Battle For the Cowl before finally getting their own 6-issue miniseries (December 2010 – May 2011), courtesy of scripter Paul Cornell and artist Jimmy Broxton (with some layout assistance from Staz Johnson), who rather bit the hand that fed them by producing a far from serious, but captivating quirky and quintessentially English frolicsome fantasy masterpiece.

It all begins, as most things boldly British do, down the pub. However The Time in a Bottle is no ordinary boozer but in fact the favourite hostelry for the United Kingdom’s entire superhuman community: the worthy and the wicked…

Hero and villain alike can kick back here, taking a load off and enjoying a mellow moment’s peace thanks to a pre-agreed truce on utterly neutral ground, all mystically enforced by magics and wards dating back to the time of Merlin…

As the half-dozen chapters of ‘For Six’ open it’s the regular first Thursday of the month – and that’s an in-joke for Britain’s comics creator community – with the inn abuzz with costumed crusaders and crazies, all determined to have a good time.

Cyril Sheldrake, current Earl of Wordenshire and second hero to wear the helm and mantle of The Knight, sends his trusty sidekick Beryl Hutchinson – AKA The Squire – to head off a potential problem as established exotics Salt of the Earth, The Milkman, Coalface, The Professional Scotsman and the Black and White Minstrels all tease nervous newcomer The Shrike.

He’d do it himself but he’s chatting with Jarvis Poker, the British Joker…

The place is packed tonight in honour of visiting yank celebrity Wildcat, and a host of strange, outrageous and even deadly patrons all bustle about as Beryl chats to the formerly cocky kid who’s also getting a bit of grief because he hasn’t quite decided if he’s a hero or villain yet…

She’s giving him a potted history of the place when the customary bar fight breaks out but things take an unconventionally dark turn and an actual attempted murder occurs. It would appear that two of these new gritty modern heroes have conspired to circumvent Merlin’s pacifying protections…

Each original issue was supplemented with a hilarious text page which here act as chapter breaks, so after ‘What You Missed If You’re A Non-Brit’ (a glossary of national terms, traits, terminology and concepts adorned with delightful faux small ads), the tale continues as Beryl and Cyril spend a little down-time in rural Wordenshire where the local civilians tackle the insidious threat of The Organ Grinder and his Monkey so as not to bother the off-duty Defenders.

However the pair do rouse themselves to scotch the far more sinister schemes of inter-dimensional invader Major Morris and the deadly Morris Men…

That’s supplemented by the far-from-serious text feature ‘What Morris Men are Like’…

The saga then kicks into high gear with the third instalment as Britain’s Council for Organised Research announces its latest breakthrough.

C.O.R.’s obsessively romantic Yorkist Professor Merryweather had no idea that her DNA reclamation project would lead to a constitutional crisis after she reconstituted Richard III, but it seems history and Shakespeare hadn’t slandered the Plantagenet at all. The wicked monarch was soon fomenting rebellion, using his benefactor’s technology to resurrect equally troublesome tyrants Edward I, Charles I, William II and the ever-appalling King John and even giving them very modern superpowers…

Of course Knight, Squire and her now besotted not-boyfriend Shrike were at the vanguard of the British (heroic) Legion mustered to fight for Queen and Country and repel the concerted criminal uprising…

Following a history lesson on ‘Cabbages and Kings’, Beryl invited the Shrike back to the Castle for tea, teasing and some secret origins, but things went typically wrong when Cyril’s high tech armour rebelled, going rogue and attacking them all.

The text piece deals with ‘Butlers and Batmen’ before it all goes very dark when lovable celebrity rogue Jarvis Poker gets some very bad news from his doctor and a terrifying follow-up visit from the real Joker.

The CampCriminal was desperately concerned about his national legacy but GothamCity’s Harlequin of Hate is just keen on increasing his ghastly and frankly already astronomical body-count. First on the list is that annoying Shrike kid, but the American psycho-killer has big, bold, bizarre plans to make the UK a completely good guy-free zone…

Broken up with a two-part ‘The Knight and Squire Character List’, it all culminates and climaxes with a spectacular and breathtaking showdown after the malevolent Mountebank of Mirth goes on a horrendously imaginative hero-killing spree that decimates the Costumed Champions of Albion: a campaign so shocking that even Britain’s bad-guys end up helping to catch the crazed culprit…

Rewarding us all for putting up with decades of “Gor, blimey guv’nor” nonsense in American comics whilst simultaneously paying the Yanks back for all those badly researched foggy, cobbled-rooftops-of-London five minutes from Stonehenge stories which littered every aspect of our image in the USA, this witty, self-deprecating, action-packed and deucedly dashing outing perfectly encapsulates all the truly daft things we noble Scions of Empire Commonwealth love and cherish about ourselves.

Stuffed with surreal, outrageous humour, double entendres, quirky characters, catchphrases and the comedy accents beloved by us Brits – Oh, I say, Innit Blud? – and rife with astonishingly cheeky pokes at our frankly indefensible cultural quirks and foibles, this is the perfect book for anyone who loves grand adventure in the inimitable manner of Benny Hill, Monty Python and the Beano.

Also included are covers and variants from Yanick Paquette & Michel Lacombe and Billy Tucci & HiFi, plus a wealth of working art, character designs and sketches by Jimmy Broxton and an unpublished spoof cover in tribute to the immortal Jarvis Poker…

Buy this book. It’s really rather good. Oh, go on, do: you know you want to…
© 2011, DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Supernatural: Origins


By Peter Johnson, Geoff Johns, Matthew Don Smith & various (WildStorm)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-754-7

Comicbooks have always enjoyed a long, successful affiliation and nigh-symbiotic relationship with television, but in these days when even the ubiquitous goggle-box business is paralysed and endangered by on-demand streaming, too many channels and far too much choice, the numbers and types of program that migrate to funnybooks is increasingly limited.

Excluding kids’ animation shows, cult fantasy adventure series now predominate in this dwindling arena and one of the best to make that transition to the printed page was the epic monster-fighting saga of two brothers literally on the road to Hell as they tracked down unnatural horrors, mystical malignancies and all the unexplainable things that treat humanity as fair game and delicious delicacies…

Over eight seasons since 2006, the TV series Supernatural has followed Sam and Dean Winchester whose lives were forever changed when a yellow-eyed demon killed their mother.  The horrific event drove their distraught father into a life of eternal wandering: stalking and killing the impossible beasts and horrors he now knew lurked in every shadow.

Years after growing up from a baby on the road to hell, Sam got out of the life and tried to live a normal existence but was eventually dragged back when disaffected, alienated brother Dean called to say that their father had gone missing. It happened right about the time Sam’s girlfriend was killed by a fiery demon…

This impressive official prequel to the TV show follows the dysfunctional Winchester family in the days, months and years after the boys’ mother floated up into the air and spontaneously combusted, leaving father John with unanswerable questions, a hunger for vengeance and two unnatural kids to raise…

After Mary’s death, John packs little Dean and baby Sam into his car and goes into a spin of booze and bar-fights, until he meets palm-reader Missouri Mosley. The prognosticator offers veiled answers and a glimpse into a world of mumbo-jumbo which is proven to be impossibly real when an unseen monster kills Mary’s best friend Julie, who had been babysitting the traumatised boys. Lodged in her ghastly remains was a huge rune-carved fang from no creature ever born on Earth…

Armed with only hints into the true nature of the world, the former marine begins a quest for the tooth’s owner and in Tempe, Arizona meets prickly, reclusive outré scholar Fletcher Gable who identifies it as belonging to a Black Shuck… a Hellhound.

Sending Winchester on to a reported sighting of such in California, the savant offers a further gift: a blank journal in which to record all the notes, photos, clippings, drawings, thoughts and experiences that will inevitably occur now that father and sons are irrevocably set on their particular road to Perdition…

The wise man and his latest student are both painfully unaware that Winchester is himself being hunted…

When Mary’s formidable brother Jacob comes looking for the boys and fearing the worst (although he has no idea of what the can worst actually be), he too becomes embroiled in the quest – to his eternal regret – and only the arrival of the mysterious shadower saves John from becoming the latest casualty of the hellhound…

“Hunter” – more a job description than his name – helps Winchester clear up the mess and cover up the evidence before introducing the now-doubly bereaved and shell-shocked single parent to the full horror of the hidden world of the Supernatural. It’s 1983 and all Hell’s breaking loose…

Soon Winchester is part of an amorphous hidden association of loners known as Hunters: mortals who’ve lost loved ones, seen the truth and had the guts to look for payback…

Partnered with his brusque and enigmatic mentor, John Winchester is still looking for a golden eyed demon and a hellhound with a missing fang as he tackles his first monster – a leaping carnivore known as a “Heeler” with Hunter and another clean-up man named Ichi.

However by the time the trio return to the grimly unique bar known as Harvelle’s Roadhouse where Sam and Dean have been waiting under the lethally efficient care of waitress Ellen, John is a full-blooded monster killer. Good thing too, as Ichi isn’t friendly or human anymore…

Thus begins the perilous pattern: John and Hunter dumping the kids on someone blithely oblivious or horribly in on the secret for a few days whilst they take care of business and that journal filling up with accounts of incredible horror.

Winchester is a fast learner and, after meeting a resurrected priest who gives him a few precious tainted moments with Mary’s spirit, he and his extremely hands-on senior partner revisit Fletcher Gable with some useful intel on the rune-carved fang. Before long they’re heading to one of the spookiest locations in American geography for an appalling gauntlet of terrors, a confrontation with the hellhound, its master, inevitable betrayal and an explanation for all that the bereaved father and his sons have endured…

Dotted with moving, telling “flashbacks” such as the moment in 1991 when even tough, independent and lethally dangerous Dean had enough and tried to run away, abandoning his dad and little brother to an interminable legion of monsters, this initial chronicle also includes a short tale of the boys by Geoff Johns, Phil Hester & colourist JD Mettler.

‘Speak No Evil’ harks back to a day in 1989 when the taciturn Sam asked his big brother just how their mother died. He might even have received an answer if a demon hadn’t smashed through the motel window just then, locked in a death grip with their father…

This rip-snorting, tense and moody thriller lives up to the demands of the dedicated TV following and still fulfils all that’s demanded of a horror comic for readers who haven’t followed the torturous trail of the Winchesters, and this chilling compendium even offers in-process views of covers by Tim Sale and pin-ups, working drawings and sketches by series illustrator Matthew Dow Smith.

Punchy, powerful and spookily addictive…
Compilation and sketchbook © 2008 Warner Bros Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. Supernatural and all characters, distinctive likenesses and related elements are ™ Warner Bros Entertainment, Inc.

Posted on

The Guild


By Felicia Day, Jim Rugg & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-549-0

The Guild is a US comedy show which first appeared on the web in 2007, brainchild of actress and author Felicia Day. The quirkily smart, geeky-outsider fantasy revolves around Cyd Sherman, a musician who is more than usually prone to problems in the real world and escapes the dreary horror of it all by joining like misfits in a cyber-spacey online gang (or “Guild”) in a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (or MMORPG) called unsurprisingly “The Game”.

The live action episodes revolve around the interactions of Cyd and her associate ‘Knights of Good’ – all of whom find themselves more at home in an artificial universe of magic, myth, monsters and really mean people rather than mundane reality – although of course there are plenty of impossible tasks, unpalatable hardships and actual mean people here too.

You can check out the show – six seasons thus far – on Day’s dedicated YouTube channel Geek and Sundry…

We don’t do shows here, but since the material clearly overlaps with that old fashioned fantastic universe of comics, Dark Horse Comics approached Day in 2009 in search of a canny cross-fertilisation. The result was a 3-issue miniseries and a short story which appeared on the publisher’s own digital dimension in MySpace Dark Horse Presents #27. That pithy 2-page debut/introduction (illustrated by Jim Rugg and painted and coloured by Juan Ferreya & Dan Jackson) is included here at the conclusion of the main storyline.

On screen the seductive soap opera story is ongoing and began with the characters already in place and interacting, but The Guild comicbook gave Day the chance to work with an unlimited visual budget (that’s the advantage of comics: a monologue in a bedroom costs as much and as little to draw as all the hordes of hell unleashed and riding winged monkeys up the Champs–Elysées) and thus inspired her to reveal the secret origins of her outré comrades in a winning, hilarious and deftly moving prequel tale.

Cyd plays far less than second fiddle at the back of a sub-par orchestra and is very fed up with her crappy life. She knows that she’s a failure at everything and a disappointment to everybody.

Although she has a boyfriend and fools herself that it’s love, deep down she knows that Trevor is a manipulative, exploitative, controlling jerk only using her as roadie, housekeeper, bedwarmer, manager, press-officer, writer and arranger of the music he claims as his as he tries hopelessly to break into the rock biz.

She even goes all over town pinning up the flyers she designed for his third-rate band’s gigs…

Cyd first learned about the manic world of consensual alternate realities when she was pinning up a poster in a comicbook and gaming store and, on the insistence of the therapist her dad is paying for, one day tried to break out of her dis-comfort zone by making new friends – if only by becoming a completely different person in a role-playing alternate universe…

After yet another ungrateful disappointment from Trevor the Rock God, she sat at her keyboard and became Codex, a mystic healer in the captivating fairyland of The Game…

Soon she was exulting in graphic slaughter, thievery and high adventure, meeting loads of wild people all revelling in being someone or something other than they were…

And as she learns and evolves in fantasyland, Cyd makes true friends and proper foes, forming her own guild of like-minded questors. They’re all real even if they aren’t actually there, and their effect on Cyd even leads to a satisfactory showdown with the increasingly unbearable Trevor…

Sharp, clever, moving and painfully funny, this an engaging introduction to the milieu and characters of the show and if I’ve skimped on detail you’ll thank me when you marvel at the captivating interactions of the beguiling cast of adorable misfits and wonder at the astonishing facility of illustrator Rugg as he makes both grim reality and miraculous meta-world come to life – each in its own unforgettable manner…

With covers and supplemental artwork by Georges, Jeanty, Dexter Vines & Tariq Hassan, Matthew Stawicki, Kristian Donaldson, Cary Nord & Dave Stewart, Rugg & Dan Jackson, Juan Ferreyra, Paul Lee, Jason Gonzalez and Jon Adams, working designs and a sketchbook collection from illustrator Rugg, complete with commentary by editor Scott Allie, plus a Bonus Section of tryout pages by a crazed band of artists including Zack Finfrock, Indigo Kelleigh, Kevin McGovern and Ron Chan, this slim, fanciful and thoughtfully funny fantasy offers a wry counterpoint to both gaming bombast and comicbook blood and thunder whilst defending your right to another life, liberty of imagination and the pursuit of fairy gold…

If you need the odd, gentle laugh in your hectic, horrible life The Guild might be just the tonic…
The Guild © 2010 The Guild. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Knights of Sidonia volume 1


By Tsutomo Nihei translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-935654-80-3

As I’ve often said, these days nobody does hard comics science fiction like the Japanese – although admittedly our own 2000AD and Warren Ellis’ SF are keeping the flag flying ahead of much of even manga’s greatest masters in their own mostly unacknowledged way…

In the tech-obsessed East, the tough, no-nonsense, nuts-and-bolts mystery and refined imagination of star flight have long been blended with more fanciful and romantic futuristic themes to captivate at least four generations since Osamu Tezuka first started the ball rolling in the 1950s, making space commonplace and conceptually comfortable for the Japanese.

We in Western world have been simultaneously enraptured and frantically trying to catch up, ever since some – too few, alas – of these manga tales first began to be translated into English at the end of the 1980s.

One of the most talented and respected proponents of the genre is Tsutomu Nihei whose triumphs have ranged from wholly self-created graphic epics such the stunning cyberpunk thriller Blame!, its prequel NOiSE, and Biomega to impressive stints on major commercial properties such as comics iterations of the video game Halo and the miniseries Wolverine: Snikt! for Marvel.

Born in 1971, the author prefers to let his works speak for him. His latest series Shidonia no Kishi began in 2009, debuting in Kodansha’s Seinen title Bessatsu Shonen Magazine and running to nine volumes so far.

The premise is familiar but evergreen. A thousand years from now Earth is gone. Our solar system was destroyed by unstoppable alien monsters and the survivors of humanity have scattered to the stars in vast self-contained generational vessels as much rock as rocketship. Over a millennium these colonies have hurtled ever outward seeking escape and survival, whilst within them humans have slowly become something different…

The eponymous Knights of Sidonia are the young pilots gifted enough to pilot the colossal humanoid fighter vessels that defend and scavenge interstellar resources for the ever-moving colony our story concerns…

The story begins with ‘Nagate Tanikaze’s Choice’ as an unexpected event occurs. Unknown to all the inhabitants of the hive-like colony ship years ago, an old man took his infant grandson deep into the bowels of the vessel and vanished. Raised in utter isolation with only tapes, a flight simulator/VR trainer and stolen food, the boy grew into a tough, hardy and independent survivor.

When, after three years, Nagate Tanikaze finally accepted that the corpse in the chair was no longer his “gramps”, he regretfully headed up in search of food and was soon caught by the incredulous authorities. He is starving and impossibly weak, but adamantly refuses to undergo the commonplace genetic procedure that will enable him to photosynthesise starlight. He might well be the only traditionally human being on Sidonia…

His captors-turned-benefactors accept his idiosyncrasies and welcome him into their austere, oddly passionless society, but some people seem to seethe with hostility at Tanikaze’s presence.

He is assigned quarters at a dorm and is welcomed by Ms. Hiyama, a motherly amalgam of human, bear and cyborg. He spends his time acclimatising by aimlessly wandering the vast labyrinthine cocoon which has patterned itself on an idealised 20th century Japan, but trouble still finds him when he wanders into a female photosynthesis chamber and is beaten up by the outraged girls “feeding” inside…

In the higher echelons of the ship, passive panic is gripping the ship’s leaders. Long range sensors have spotted a Gauna – one of the Brobdingnagian bio-horrors that invaded and destroyed Earth ten centuries past – and with grim fatality the Garde pilots are mobilised.

Tanikaze has been tested and found to be a superb pilot prospect. As the ship goes on alert his actual training begins, converting his years on the simulator into hands-on experience…

‘Nagate Tanikaze’s Maiden Battle’ finds the trainee mecha-rider still experiencing some prejudice but making his first friend in pretty Izana Shinatose, a fellow Garde pilot who adopts the outsider, acting as his guide and social mentor. Izana is warm and welcoming and it’s not too long before Nagate accepts “her” (to him) odd situation as a third-gendered, asexual parthenogenetic hermaphrodite. “She” also seems to be mildly telepathic…

Testing on the latest simulator, the outcast astounds all his classmates by scoring far above the machine’s assessment parameters but the purely physical – and appallingly uncomfortable and embarrassing – aspects of wearing a working spacesuit and dealing with the psychological pressures of working in the limitless void still challenges Tanikaze’s resolve and mental resources.

And even training is deadly work. As two squads of Mecha extract ice from a passing asteroid the simple drill turns into a disaster when a Gauna ambushes the novices…

‘Eiko Yamano’s Starry Heavens’ recalls that cadet’s spurning of the students’ superstitious pre-flight ritual before returning to her present as the star-beast consumes her and adds her DNA to its metamorphic mass, simultaneously gravely damaging Tanikaze’s vessel. The telemetry from his ship indicates he’s near death…

Aboard Sidonia, their superiors can only write off the kids and begin readying their only effective weapon – a Heavy Mass Cannon that should push the nigh-unkillable free-floating carnivore far out of range…

The Sidonians are astonished when Nagate apparently regains consciousness and valiantly confronts the gigantic horror slowly assuming Yamano’s form. Incomprehensibly driving it back, he is dragged away by his comrades just as the huge projectile from the mass cannon devastatingly hits home…

‘Norio Kunato’s Fury’ finds the recovering Nagate plagued by ghastly dreams of Eiko’s death – and particularly her imagined transubstantiation into a Gauna. He should be dead but refuses even to give in to the pace of his own healing and soon drags himself on crutches back to lectures. When Izana sees him leaning on willowy Kunato in moments of dizziness, the outraged asexual storms off in a huff…

The baffled Tanikaze only gets the chance to make amends at the Gravity Festival – an annual function that allows the barbarian boy opportunity to eat as much actual food as he can hold – but is distracted by the attentions of fellow pilot Hoshijiro Shizuka who had brought his wounded Mecha and battered body back to Sidonia after the Gauna ambush. However when haughty Norio Kunato insults and assaults Izana, Nagate goes crazy and jumps the elitist bigot. Their battle wrecks the fair, and the outcast learns that many of his fellow pilot candidates feel he is unworthy to ride the giant guardian mecha…

This first monochrome volume concludes with ‘Mochikuni Akai’s Glory’ as the trainees continue their steep and brutal learning curve. The repelled Gauna is gradually, inexorably approaching Sidonia again. Moreover it’s clear that not all the populace despise the new kid. As the first person to fight – let alone survive – a Gauna attack Tanikaze is apparently held in high regard by the older Guardians.

When hot-shot pilot Akai invites Nagate and Izana to a private paradise of artificial seas and beaches, it is to reveal that he and his fellow officers have been tasked with deflecting the beast’s next attack. Although the party is enjoyable and the surroundings stunning, the cadets can’t help but feel they’re intruders at a Last Supper…

To Be Continued…

Like Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven and other masters of the art form, Tsutomu Nihei frequently works in a notional shared continuity (for instance the monstrous Gauna first appeared in his earlier series Abara), but there’s no sense of having missed anything in this premier instalment of a wonderfully engrossing, gloriously engaging epic of Horatian heroism and Mankind’s Last Stand.

Compelling, subtle, spectacular and even funny, this is a yarn no adventure aficionados or sci-fi fanatics should miss.

This book is printed in the traditional Japanese right to left, back to front format.

© 2013 Tsutomu Nihei. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Twin Spica volume 3


By Kou Yaginuma (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-934287-90-3

The hungry fascination, hopeful imagination and fevered anticipation of space travel which was an integral component of post-World War II society is the driving narrative engine for this inspiring manga epic from Kou Yaginuma, who began capturing questing imaginations with his poignant short story ‘2015 Nen no Uchiage Hanabi’ (‘2015: Fireworks’), published in Gekkan Comics Flapper magazine in June 2000.

The author subsequently expanded and enhanced the subject, themes and characters into an all-consuming narrative epic combining hard science and humanist fiction with lyrical mysticism and traditional tales of school-days and growing up.

Diminutive teenager Asumi Kamogawa has always dreamed of going into space. From her earliest moments the lonely child had gazed with intense longing up at the stars, her only companion and confidante her imaginary friend Mr. Lion.

When Asumi was a year old, the first Japanese space-launch ended in utter catastrophe when rocket-ship Shishigō (“The Lion”), exploded: crashing back to earth on the city ofYuigahama where the Kamogawas lived. Hundreds were killed and so many more injured, including Asumi’s mother.

Maimed and comatose, the matron took years to die and the long-drawn-out tragedy utterly traumatised the tiny uncomprehending daughter. The shock also crushed her grieving husband who had worked as a designer on the rockets for Japan’s Space Program.

In the wake of the disaster, Tomoro Kamogawa was assigned by the corporation who built the ship to head the reparations committee. Guilt-wracked and personally bereaved, the devastated technologist had to visit and formally apologise to each and every survivor or victim’s grieving family. The experience completely destroyed the man.

He was certainly no fan of the space program, having lost his wife, his beloved engineering career, and his pride to the race for the stars. He has raised his daughter alone by working two and often three menial jobs at a time for over a decade and cannot countenance losing the very last of his loved ones to the cold black heavens…

In response to the disaster,Japanset up an Astronautics and Space Sciences Academy. After years of passionate struggle and in defiance of her father’s wishes, in 2024 Asumi – an isolated, solitary, serious but determinedly star-bound teenager – was accepted to theTokyoNationalSpaceSchool. She reluctantly left Yuigahama and joined the new class.

Amongst the year’s fresh intake were surly, abrasive Shinnosuke Fuchuya (an elementary school classmate who used to bully her as a child back in Yuigahama), jolly Kei Oumi, chilly Marika Ukita and spooky, ultra-cool style-icon and fashion victim Shu Suzuki who became the shy introvert’s closest acquaintances.

Every day Asumi nudged inexorably towards her goal: the stars. Ever since the crashing rocket had shattered her family, she had drawn comfort from the firmament, with Mr. Lion staring up at the heavens at her wide – especially drawn to the twinkling glow of Virgo and the alluring binary star Spica. And now she was so tantalisingly close…

Small, poor, physically weak but resolutely capable, Asumi endures and triumphs over every obstacle… and she still talks with Mr. Lion – who might just be the ghost of one of the astronauts who died on the Shishigō…

All the students can think of is going to space, but they are constantly reminded of the fact that most of them won’t even finish their schooling…

Asumi – barely four feet, eight inches tall – is constantly struggling to meet the arduous physical requirements dictated by the Academy but has more immediate problems. She is only slowly adjusting to life in Tokyo, sleeps in tawdry communal women’s dorm “The Seagull”, struggles with many of her classes and subsists on meagre funds, supplemented by part-time jobs.

Moreover she has inexplicably incurred the obsessive hostility of astrophysics lecturer Professor Sano. Unbeknownst to Asumi, Sano has a long-hidden grievance with her father and has thus determined to kick her out of the school at all costs…

He has already tried to have her removed because her small size dictates that she needs a customised pressure suit – offering Sano an opportunity to force her out by citing budget restrictions…

The individual stories are broken up into “Missions” and this particularly moving and moody third volume covers numbers 9-13, plus a revealing sidebar tale and another autobiographical vignette about the author’s own school days.

‘Mission: 09’ begins with Asumi returning to her father’s home, pondering if she should ask Mr. Lion if the disgraced engineer was actually responsible for the rocketship crash all those years ago. Meanwhile inTokyo her classmates are trying to intervene in Sano’s obvious vendetta against their friend…

Mr. Lion is there too, but has been drawn to the wedding of Asumi’s old teacher Miss Yuko Suzinari. Although she still desperately misses her fiancé, who piloted The Lion and died in the tragic explosion five years previously, she is getting married today… a fact Asumi discovers from an invitation left in an unopened pile of mail she finds in her father’s empty house…

Having missed another day of school, Asumi again incurs Sano’s wrath as ‘Mission: 10’ begins, but the astrophysicist and his mysterious superior are in for a rude awakening. Meanwhile the determinedly upbeat Miss Kamogawa is having an oddly unifying effect on her fiercely independent classmates, turning rivals into comrades. All, that is, except the chilly, acerbic, mysteriously aloof Marika Ukita…

Undeterred, Asumi probes deeper, and with her phantom mentor’s spiritual advice finally finds a way to crack the ice-queen’s brittle exterior. Valiant, protective Kei Oumi meanwhile openly challenges Sano over his unfair treatment and is soundly reminded by the teacher that the course is a process of elimination. Would she surrender her own chances of success to ensure Asumi remained…?

‘Mission: 11’ continues the deliberation of the completion for final places, but Mr. Lion again offers sage and calming words as, in the upper echelons, Sano’s words and actions have drawn unfavourable criticism, leading to some further surprising revelations about Asumi’s dad, hints of a concealed scandal regarding the construction of the doomed Shishigō and the disappearance of the conniving astrophysicist from the faculty…

With Sano abruptly replaced by the far more amenable and encouraging Mr. Shiomi, Asumi and the gang decide to take a short camping vacation to the Cosmic Communications Center atChiba, but not before Asumi has one last moving confrontation with her former nemesis…

‘Mission: 12’ finds them readying for the trip – all but the stand-offish Ukita who flatly refuses to join them – when an incident in the Multi-Axis Trainer (that’s the cool-looking. spinning ball thingy astronauts sit in) results in the ice-queen collapsing. When she gets out of the infirmary Asumi and Kei follow Ukita home and discover she lives in a palatial mansion…

When they see her being brutalised and abused by a shouting man – presumably her father – Asumi sees red and attacks. Suzuki and Fuchuya are astounded when without any explanation Ukita gets on the bus to Chiba with them and the smiling girls…

At their destination the cash-strapped kids walk until Marika again collapses.

Belligerent Fuchuya picks up the moody girl with the badly bleeding feet and carries her to their destination as ‘Mission: 13’, through dreamy flashbacks and a near-fatal hiking incident, discloses some of the incredible, uncomfortable secrets of Marika Ukita and how her own abiding love affair with the cosmos began…

To Be Continued…

Although the ongoing saga pauses here, there’s even more affecting revelations to come in the complete tale ‘Asumi’s Cherry Blossom’ which harks back to her school days in Yuigahama. A weird, distracted child, she is bullied by many classmates and even a few teachers, but is championed by a boy who seems very interested in her. Takashi Shimazu is a talented artist who won’t let Asumi see what he’s constantly drawing, and he’s absent from school quite a lot, but they strike up a friendship anyway. Asumi really likes the boy, but wishes he wouldn’t joke about being able to see Mr. Lion…

This bittersweet tragedy is followed by a beguiling and introspective ‘Another Spica’ episode in which Yaginuma details his shiftless, ambition-free teens and shared moment of clarity with a girl in his classroom…

These powerfully unforgettable tales originally appeared in 2001-2002 as Futatsu no Supika and in the Seinen manga magazine Gekkan Comics Flapper, targeted at male readers aged 18-30, but this ongoing, unfolding beguiling saga is perfect for any older kid with stars in their eyes…

Twin Spica filled sixteen collected volumes from September 2001 to August 2009, tracing the trajectories of Asumi and friends from callow students to competent astronauts and the series has spawned both anime and live action TV series.

This delightful serial has everything: plenty of hard science to back up the informed extrapolation, an engaging cast, mystery and frustrated passion, alienation, angst and true friendships; all welded seamlessly into a joyous coming-of-age drama with supernatural overtones and masses of sheer sentiment.

Rekindling the magical spark of the Wild Black Yonder for a new generation, this is a treat no imagineer with head firmly in the clouds can afford to miss…

This book is printed in the Japanese right to left, back to front format.
© 2010 by Kou Yaginuma. Translation © 2010 Vertical, Inc. All Rights Reserved.