Category: Older kids

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Bad Girls


By Steve Vance, Jennifer Graves, Christine Norrie, J. Bone & Daniel Krall (DC comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2359-5

Ever since English-language comics “grew up” and proclaimed they weren’t “just for kids anymore” the industry and art form has struggled to produce material that would appeal to young consumers and a general teen readership.

And Girls. We’ve never been able to keep enough girls reading comics – or even talking to us, if I’m brutally honest…

Haunted by a terrifying suspicion that the core buyers were a specific hooked generation who aged with the passing years and would die out without renewing or replenishing the buying base, mainstream companies have, since the 1990’s, frantically sought ways to make the medium as attractive to new and youthful buyers and potential fans.

Fighting a losing battle on format – it’s always going to be sequential pictures, whether on a screen or in some kind of book or pamphlet, requiring a basic ability to read – and never able to combat the vibrant, bells-and-whistles immediacy of TV, DVDs, streamed video or games consoles, comic producers, apparently distrusting the basic innate strengths of our medium, could only repeatedly attempt to appeal to young consumers’ other sensibilities and interests.

Leaving aside the obvious – and ancient – failed tactic of making comicbook iterations out of their perceived rival entertainments, the only other way to entice newbies into our playground has been to widen the genre divides and offer fresh or imported ideas, stories and art styles that (like manga) might appeal to people who don’t normally think of comics as entertainment.

Sadly most of those – good, bad or indifferent – went unread anyway, because they were only advertised in comics and retailed through dedicated in comicbook stores – infamous as impenetrable girl-free zones…

One such delightful lost experiment was released by DC as a 5-part miniseries in 2003. Author Steve Vance’s best comics work is child-accessible, with long and intensely enjoyable runs on the animation-inspired Adventures in the DC Universe and Simpsons Comics (among others) and in this witty blend of high school comedy and science fiction conspiracy movie, he and artist co-creator Jennifer Graves had a huge amount of sly fun producing what could still be a perfect Teen Movie in the manner of Heathers, Bring It On, Mean Girls, John Tucker Must Die or even Teen Wolf.

As a comicbook, however, it just never found the wide audience it deserved, so kudos to DC for reviving it as a graphic collection in 2009. After all, it’s never too late …

Almost every American kid endures the savage crucible of organised education, and the youthful attendees of San Narciso High are a pretty typical bunch. Even in a brand new institution opening for its very first day, there are the faceless majority and nerds and jocks and the popular ones: all part of the mythically perennial melting pot.

… And then there’s Lauren Case, a forthright, sensible young lady who has changed schools many, many times.

In ‘Girl Power’ she starts off well-enough, safely lost in the crowd, but before the first morning is over, an acrobatic and painful encounter with science geek Ronald Bogley leads to a face off with the community’s ultra-spoiled princesses Tiffany, Brittany, Destinee and Ashley.

Ms Case suffers the hallowed punishment of a crushing snub from the haughty Mean Girls whilst the Jock Squad – ever eager to impress the de facto rulers of the roost – treat poor Ronald to the traditional watery going-over in the restrooms. However a dunking in the oddly purple toilet water results, for just a split second, in the nerd gaining the strength to smash walls in his bare hands. Alert to all sorts of possibilities, Ronald fills a drinking bottle with the lavender lavatory liquid for testing in his lab…

Later in science class Lauren is partnered with Ronald and inadvertently blows up the lab, but at least she makes friend out of quick-thinking Simone who puts out the resultant conflagration.

At the end of a very trying first day Lauren offers a hand of peace and guiltily patronising friendship to the bespectacled geek – who is utterly smitten with her – when the Princess Pack turns up, intrigued that the new girl’s propensity for mischief and mayhem might make her eligible for their condescending attention. She might even, with a lot of hard work, become one of them…

Knowing anything they want is theirs by divine right, the girls drink the strange purple juice Ronald left and invite Lauren to join them at a club that night…

With their departure Ronald comes out of hiding and shows her his science project; lab mice Snowie and Doodles who are demonstrating increased vitality after drinking the purple potion he “discovered”…

Hating herself, Lauren joins the Popular People at Club Trystero and strikes up a conversation with Simone, but quickly drops her when the anointed ones show up. Soon she is lost in the swirl of drink, music and attentive, fawning, testosterone-fuelled boys but gets a severe unreality check when the spoiled ones abruptly begin demonstrating super-powers (Brittany – shape-shifting, Destinee – invisibility, Tiffany – flight and Ashley – super-strength), trashing the place with sublime indifference and their usual casual disregard to consequences.

Knowing that the insanely entitled girls will be more vile and malicious than ever, she tells Ronald, who reveals that after closely observing his beloved mice, he’s discovered that the liquid only imparts permanent abilities to females.

He then suggests that Lauren become a superhero to battle Tiffany and her terrible tarts, but naturally she hotly rejects his insane suggestion. Realising only he can now stop the bad girls, Ronald rushes to the toilets for more of the purple water only to find a repair crew fixing the damage he caused and the water there is fresh, clear and very, very, normal…

In ‘Party Girls’ (illustrated by Christine Norrie & J. Bone) the Petty, Pretty Things are going firmly off the rails, with stealing test answers and framing others for indiscretions – just because they can – quickly graduating to raiding ATMs, purloining booze and shop-lifting.

Meanwhile Ronald accidentally stumbles upon the true source of the purple power juice and begins more testing, unaware that a Federal investigation team is covertly examining the damaged washroom and other odd occurrences in San Narciso…

At an unsanctioned party the girls go wild, at last realising that their incredible abilities can make them… celebrities!

In her egomaniacal smugness Tiffany causes one boy severe injury but when the police arriveBrittanyturns into a cop and “escorts” her sinister sisters out of custody…

Narrowly escaping arrest herself, Lauren awakes the next morning feeling awful and gradually realises that she can read minds…

With her new cacophonous and distracting ability it doesn’t take long to discover that Ronald has dosed her with the mystery fluid, but ‘Mindfield’ offers temptation beyond endurance, as her power – once she gets the hang of it – makes Lauren’s life so much easier. Still a probationary member of Tiffany’s clique, she also becomes privy to the terrified intimate thoughts of Destinee, Ashley and Brittany, and what they really feel about themselves and their self-obsessed leader. Aware of how close to the dark side she has drifted, Lauren confides everything to Simone. Meanwhile Agents Osgood and Buckner are keenly watching the Bad Girls’ every move and when Destinee is caught shoplifting again a frantic chase results in the invisible girl’s death…

‘Girl, Intercepted’ (art by Norrie & Daniel Krall) opens at the funeral with Destinee, Ashley and Tiffany far more concerned about how they’re dressed than the fate of their departed… associate… uncaring of the rumours now circulating. Lauren decides to use her power to surreptitiously help her school mates and teachers – although for some reason she cannot read science teacher Mr. Heisenberg’s mind – but Ronald has his own problems: Snowie and Doodles have broken free of their cage and escaped…

At least that’s what Heisenberg wants the geeky kid to believe…

Events come to an unbelievable head after the girls finally discover Lauren’s sneaky secret power and throw her out of a skyscraper, before going on one final petulant rampage. In a torrent of frantic revelation the agents’ true aims are exposed, the origin of the power-potion disclosed, Heisenberg’s schemes are uncovered and a few more astounding surprises unleashed in ‘All Bad Things Must Come to an End’: a thrilling and cynically satisfying conclusion that will delight fun-loving readers and viewers alike.

This fabulous engaging tome also includes the gallery of spiffy covers by Darwyn Cooke and a Sketches section of Jennifer Graves’ production designs.

By the Way: DC are currently offering a swathe of games-based adaptations specifically aimed at their more mature consumers whilst simultaneously winding down the Cartoon Network comics division which has always produced superb introductory strip material for those pre-school and very young readers who must surely be the industry’s best hope for a new generation of potential life-long fans.

I’m Just Saying…
© 2003 Steve Vance and Jennifer Graves. All Rights Reserved. Cover, text and compilation © 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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


By Edgar P. Jacobs translated by Clarence E. Holland (Blake and Mortimer Editions)
ISBN: 978-9-06737-002-8

Belgian Edgard Félix Pierre Jacobs (March 30th 1904 – February 20th 1987) is considered one of the founding fathers of the Continental comics industry. Although his output is relatively meagre compared to some of his contemporaries, the iconic series he worked on practically formed the backbone of the art-form in Europe, and his splendidly adroit yet roguish and thoroughly British adventurers Blake and Mortimer, created for the very first issue of Le Journal de Tintin in 1946, swiftly became an unmissable 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 dramatic work was going, including singing and performing, Jacobs switched to commercial illustration in 1940. Regular work 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 the publishers desperately sought someone to satisfactorily complete the saga.

Jacob’s ‘Stormer Gordon’ lasted less than a month before being similarly embargoed by the Nazis, after which the man of many talents 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 ran the series again in the periodical Tintin with subsequent release 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 I 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 comic work before then he was certainly made aware of it soon after.

Thereafter, Jacobs began working on Tintin, colouring the original black and white strips of The Shooting Star from the newspaper Le Soir for an upcoming album collection. By 1944 he was performing a similar role for Tintin in the Congo, Tintin in America, King Ottokar’s Sceptre and The Blue Lotus. By now he was also contributing to the drawing too, working 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 comics creatives to work for his new venture. Launching publishing house Le Lombard, he also commissioned Le Journal de Tintin, an anthology comic with editions in Belgium, France and Holland edited by Herge, 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 (who was closely modelled on Laudy): Professor Philip Mortimer and Captain Francis Blake…

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

In 1984 the story was reformatted and repackaged as three volumes with additional material – mostly covers from the weekly Tintin – added to the story as splash pages, and the first of these forms the basis for the English language book under discussion today.

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 weekly comic, I think it’s fair to say that if such was the case it was a pretty minor spat. I rather suspect that The Secret of the Swordfish was simply taking up more and more of the 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…

Although all the subsequent sagas have been wonderfully retranslated and published by CineBook in recent years, this initial epic introductory adventure and its concluding two volumes remain frustratingly in the back-issue twilight zone, probably due to its embracing of the prevailing prejudices of the time.

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, so with no other version available I’m happily using the huge (312 x 232mm) 1986 iteration for this review.

All the subsequent tales by Jacobs and his successors have been successfully released by Cinebook and, although I’ll be reviewing them in due course, don’t wait for me but go out and get them all now!

Here and now, however, the incredible journey begins with ‘Ruthless Pursuit’ 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 Empire forces, leaving ruined homes behind them as they 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 of Afghanistan. Parachuting free of the doomed Rocket, Blake, Mortimer and the crew are machined 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 document 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 Empire 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 as a platoon of Empire soldiers 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 an alternative earth history if you want) will experience the adventure of their lives… and so will their children.
© 1986 Editions Blake & Mortimer. All rights reserved.

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Let’s Be Perverts Book 1-4



By Youjung Lee (NetComics)
ISBNs: 978-1-60009-124-7, 978-1-60009-125-4, 978-1-60009-126-1,978-1-60009-127-8

If you look closely there are definite tonal and thematic differences in South Korean and Japanese comics (known as manhwa and manga respectively) – at least in the relatively few series that get translated into English.

Take for instance this bizarrely intriguing twisted love story from Youjung Lee: one aimed at a slightly older and more questioning and discerning audience.

What kind of parents name their son “Perverto”?

Although we never really learn the answer to that question, this peculiarly coy sex-comedy does introduce a very naïve, horny and troubled lad saddled with that disastrous moniker and a huge dose of adolescent misfortune as well…

Inescapably dubbed “pervert” by his classmates, the poor 17-year old virgin is forced to transfer to a new school after his catastrophically public first romance ended in utter, shameful disaster.

Unfortunately on his very first day another transfer student – a pretty, strong and fiercely independent tomboy named Hongdan – is groped on the subway and poor Perverto is framed for the assault, even though what he actually did was try to stop the real culprit.

Unknown to Hongdan the assailant was the new maths teacher Mr. Pi – and the obsessed and cunning deviant is planning on continuing his creepy campaign against the girl at every opportunity…

Perverto knows the truth, but can prove nothing to the girl. Moreover he begins to develop a major crush on her but cannot act upon his feelings.

Despite their poor start, Perverto and Hongdan grow close. In fact the dopey, bewildered sap is completely smitten with her until she makes an unexpected effort to intensify their friendly relationship, and the confused boy, mindful of his last painful and humiliating experience with a girl, violently rebuffs her. He still loves her though…

Hongdan has her own secrets too. Her glorious young body is frequently marred by unexplained bruises and, most shockingly, she has an possessive ex-girlfriend, Gaheul, who just won’t accept that her inamorata has moved on and certainly won’t let a boy named Pervert have her…

Strangest of all, although Mr. Pi is lurking in the background, still targeting her for clandestine attacks in public places, she doesn’t seem that bothered by the constant assaults…

Perverto and Hongdan are not the only frustrated time-bombs at the school – which like all places where adolescents congregate, is a seething hotbed of boiling hormones. One sadistic teacher is far too keen on beating students, a host of girls seem to be coming to school with no pants on and a classmate of Perverto’s is planning on raping a girl who rejected him…

Perhaps the dejected lad is fooling himself and he really is a pervert after all…?

Things are coming to a head (don’t: it’s beneath you and me) and the devious Mr. Pi is beginning to crack under the pressure of his increasingly insistent compulsion to assault Hongdan and Perverto’s knowledge of his shamefully irresistible affliction…

Driven to distraction the corrupted educator confronts Hongdan and finds her strangely complacent – even actively willing. Getting into his car she hears Pi’s disturbing history and considers his startling offer…

Meanwhile, since he might as well be a sleaze-hound, Perverto joins two equally frustrated classmates in a binge of illicit pornography and, after desperately egging each other on, the sex-starved virgins proposition girls in an online chat-room, offering money for sex.

To their horror one of them, “tomboy”, accepts and sets up an assignation…

Embarrassed and terrified, the trio keep the appointment but, when his friends bottle out and lock themselves in the bathroom at the last moment, the apoplectic Perverto is left alone and shaking to open the door to a girl from his own school class…

As the story concludes with a whimper and not a bang, the lives of Perverto and Hongdan have changed forever, but in ways neither of them ever expected or wanted…

Targeting sophisticated older kids, this tale is beautifully illustrated but might contain a little too much soft-focus, genteel nudity for some readers, even though its extremely moral theme is an examination of temptation and perception.

Clever, thought-proving, complicated, always surprising and just a little bit scary, this is a compelling fantasy of love, desire and obsession, viewed through the lens of a truly different culture and social code; both extremely engaging and terrifically appealing. Even if you aren’t a fan of manga or the far edgier Korean manhwa equivalent, this enticing adult romance series might just open your jaded old eyes…
© 1996, 1997 Youjung Lee. All Rights Reserved. English text © 2006, 2007 NetComics.

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Outsiders/Checkmate: Checkout

New expanded Review

By Greg Rucka, Judd Winick, Joe Bennett, Matthew Clark, Eddy Barrows, Ron Randall, Jack Jadson & Art Thibert (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-737-2

Finally exposed to a world which had believed them all dead and now also blamed for setting off a nuclear explosion which had devastated a large part of Russia, the underground metahuman coalition known as The Outsiders – “rogue” superheroes who proactively sought out threats and ignored political boundaries or repercussions – found themselves on the edge of oblivion as their series hurtled towards a blistering climax and a major reboot.

Set after and resulting from the earth-shaking events of 52, this slick, fast-paced thriller co-written by Greg Rucka & Judd Winick combined the daily devious duplicity of Checkmate (a covert UN agency tasked with overseeing superhuman activity) with the take-no prisoners-and-make-no-excuses crusade of the Outsiders for an epic of unrealpolitik and edgy, cynically grim-and-gritty nastiness…

Collecting a six-part crossover (Checkmate #13-15 and Outsiders #47-49, June-September 2007) it all began in ‘Checkout part 1′ illustrated by Joe Bennett & Jack Jadson, with off-the-grid fugitives Captain Boomerang, Katana, Metamorpho, Thunder and Grace attacked and subdued by Checkmate operatives. It didn’t go strictly to plan however and Nightwing soon turned the tables by invading the agency’s HQ and capturing Black Queen Sasha Bordeaux…

Part two, with art by Matthew Clark & Art Thibert, saw him liberate his comrades and set about trashing the place until the Queen convinced the Outsiders to work with them on a mission far too dirty for their own rule-bound agents; namely invading Oolong Island, a rogue state peopled by criminal absconders and the mad scientists of many nations.

Checkmate wanted the deranged tinkerers stopped, but the new nation had hidden international allies and its proximity to China and North Korea made the situation a political powder-keg…

The Outsiders accepted the offer, but knew they were being played…

Illustrated by Bennett, Eddy Barrows & Jadson, the third chapter opens when a combined force which included Bordeaux, Count Vertigo, Fire, Thomas Jagger, Josephine “Mlle. Marie” Tautin and disembodied electronic intellect The Thinker infiltrated the fortress of evil, and Boomerang let slip that he’d worked with some of the agents before – on illegal, unsanctioned missions – compelling White Queen Amanda Waller to sabotage the mission and save herself from the censure of the Checkmate Royal Council…

Trapped on Oolong the squad desperately fought free of a bucket load of technological terrors and retreated, but Boomerang, Nightwing and Bordeaux were left behind after the Black Queen ordered her operatives to escape with crucial data and evidence that Waller was a traitor, in a blistering all-action chapter from artists Clark, Ron Randall & Art Thibert.

However, apparent proof of Chinese involvement in the malignant Rogue State appeared when symbionic super-fighter Immortal Man in Darkness intercepted the fleeing Outsiders jet, whilst far behind them monstrous scientific sadist Chang Tzu AKA Egg Fu prepared to vivisect and examine his prisoners under the supervision of the People’s Hero August General in Iron…

‘Checkout Part 5’ (Bennett & Jadson) saw terse diplomatic double-dealing almost disclose China’s role before that nation cut loose all its embarrassing ties. As a rescue mission began, Chang’s appalling investigations brought Boomerang and Bordeaux to the edge of a merciful death before Nightwing finally broke free…

‘Checkout: Conclusion’ (by Clark, Randall & Thibert) saw the united forces of Checkmate and the Outsiders roar to the rescue only to find they’d be played for fools. Happily White King Mr. Terrific and Batman had a better grip on matters and tracked Chang to his true sponsors in North Korea…

With the battered team survivors rather than victors, the Dark Knight then decided to take charge of the Outsiders and run things his way again…

If you love outrageous action, sexy heroes and truly vile bad-guys (many of them working for “our side”), this dark, utterly Gung-Ho blockbuster has great pace, superb dialogue, loads of gratuitous violence and beautifully cool art.

Brutal, uncompromising and savagely action-packed, the dark saga the Outsiders inevitably led to a big finish long ago, yet these painfully plausible superhero sagas are still gripping, shocking and extremely readable: compelling tales which will enthral older fans of the genre.
© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Outsiders: Pay As You Go


By Judd Winick, Carlo Barberi, Ron Randall, Scott McDaniel, Freddie Williams III & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1366-4

Finally exposed to a world which  believed them dead and now also blamed for setting off a nuclear explosion which destroyed a large part of Russia and poisoned the atmosphere for miles around, the underground metahuman coalition known as The Outsiders found themselves on a path to oblivion as their series peaked even whilst winding down for a major reboot.

This sixth compelling compendium (collecting #42-46 and Annual #1of Judd Winick’s grim and witty Outsiders comicbook) saw Nightwing, Grace, Thunder, Metamorpho, Katana and Owen Reece (speedster son and heir of the recently – and temporarily – deceased Captain Boomerang) – up to their muscular armpits in trouble as the story-arc ‘Mad Scientists’ continued with ‘The Weaving Factories’ (illustrated by Ron Randall, Pop Mhan, Art Thibert & Steve Bird) as exposed mastermind Dr. Sivana attacked Sydney, Australia with a weapon that neutralised technology and turned people into infinitely suggestible idiots (no, even worse than usual…).

First to respond was Nightwing’s team who flew straight to the smug mad scientist’s new lair and straight into a trap. Rather than kill them all, however, the demented doctor made them a staggering offer in ‘The Man Behind the Curtain’ before Katana spectacularly turned the tables on the maverick savant.

Even while being driven off Sivana gloated that an irresistible seed had been planted in the rogue heroes’ minds…

The eponymous ‘Pay as You Go’ storyline then begins with ‘The Skeleton Crew’ (art by Carlo Barberi & Thibert): an untold tale from the year that was skipped in the ‘One Year Later’ event and the exploit which led the world to believe the entire team was dead…

At that time the Outsiders were struggling to cope after the Infinite Crisis, particularly Anissa Pierce AKA Thunder, who was grieving for her father Black Lightning.

Elder hero Jefferson Pierce, believing himself guilty of murder, had surrendered to the authorities and chosen to serve time under an alias in the metahuman prison known as Iron Heights, but when Batman-trained vigilante and part-time villain Red Hood reached out to Nightwing with evidence that Lightning had been deceived and was completely innocent of the crime which had crushed his spirit, heart and soul, the conflicted Dick Grayson had no choice but to inform the team he had just quit…

The drama further unfolded in ‘Sins of the Father’ (Freddie Williams III, Barberi & Thibert) as the details behind the guilt-driven Lightning’s self-incarceration were revealed and Red Hood named the who, how, and why of the real killer before ‘Friends, Lovers and Other Strangers’ (additional inks by Bird) saw the team initially refuse to bust him out because of the political ramifications before changing their minds and sending the new Captain Boomerang in to infiltrate and pave the way…

Unfortunately Jefferson refused to go, but when Boomerang realised Black Lightning’s cover had been broken and an entire prison of super-criminals was hungry to kill him the Outsiders had no choice but to go in hard and heavy…

It all went bad in ‘The Wrong to do the Right’ (illustrated by Scott McDaniel & Andy Owens) as the hasty plan quickly misfired, resulting in the entire prisoner population breaking free and hard-line warden Gregory Wolfe maniacally over-reacting. In the resulting catastrophe 43 inmates and guards perished and the Outsiders, although believed dead too, were blamed.

Nightwing and Arsenal, who had been noticeably elsewhere at the time, were perceived as not involved, but they knew the truth and shared the blame: the plan had been theirs and in the undertaking of it they had destroyed the team’s standing and reputation forever. Moreover, in the aftermath, one of the Outsider’s, unable to bear the guilt of his actions, ended his life…

Brutal, uncompromising and savagely action-packed, the dark secret of the Outsiders had been revealed just in time for a big finish, but these cynically plausible superhero sagas are still gripping, shocking and extremely readable: compelling tales which will enthral older fans of the genre.

To Be Concluded…
© 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents House of Secrets volume 2


By many and various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-472-5

With superheroes on the decline again in the early 1970s, four of the six surviving newsstand comicbook companies (Archie, Charlton, DC, Gold Key, Harvey and Marvel) relied increasingly on horror and suspense anthologies to bolster their flagging sales. Even wholesome Archie briefly produced Red Circle Sorcery/Chillers comics and their teen-comedy core moved gently into tales of witchcraft, mystery and imagination.

DC’s first generation of mystery titles had followed the end of the first Heroic Age when most of the publishers of the era began releasing crime, romance and horror genre anthologies to recapture the older readership which was drifting away to other mass-market entertainments like television and the movies.

As National Comics in 1951, the company bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology – which nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles – with the December 1951/January 1952 launch of The House of Mystery.

When a hysterical censorship scandal led to witch-hunting hearings attacking comicbooks and newspaper strips (feel free to type Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, April-June 1954 into your search engine at any time) the industry panicked, adopting a castrating straitjacket of stringent self-regulatory rules and admonitions.

Even though mystery titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised and anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, the appetite for suspense was still high, and in 1956 National introduced the sister title House of Secrets which debuted with a November-December cover-date.

Supernatural thrillers and monster stories were dialled back into marvellously illustrated genteel, rationalistic, fantasy-adventure vehicles which nonetheless dominated the market until the 1960s when the super-hero (which had begun a renaissance after Julius Schwartz reintroduced the Flash in Showcase #4, 1956) finally overtook them. Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Atom and a host of other costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked myrmidons which even forced the dedicated anthology suspense titles to transform into super-character split-books with Martian Manhunter and Dial H for Hero in House of Mystery and Mark Merlin – later Prince Ra-Man – sharing space with anti-hero Eclipso in House of Secrets.

When the caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, Secrets was one of the first casualties and the title folded with the September-October 1966 issue.

However nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and at the end of the 1960s the Silver Age superhero boom busted again, with many titles gone and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain too…

This real-world Crisis led to the surviving publishers of the field agreeing to loosen their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles at the time but as the liberalisation coincided with another bump in public interest in all aspects of the Great Unknown, the resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious “no-brainer.”

Thus with absolutely no fanfare at all House of Secrets rose again with issue #81, (cover-dated August-September 1969) just as big sister House of Mystery had done a year earlier.

Under a spooky bold banner declaiming “There’s No Escape From… The House of Secrets”, creators veteran and neophyte churned out a massive deluge of spooky, creepy, wryly tongue-in-cheek and scary tales, all introduced by the innocuous and timid Abel; caretaker of a  ramshackle, sentient old pile temporarily located somewhere in the Dark Heart of the USA…

This second enthralling and economical monochrome Showcase compendium collects the chilling contents of issues #99-119, spanning August 1972 – September 1973, and also features a stellar selection of covers from artists Michael Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson, Nick Cardy, Jack Sparling and Luis Dominguez.

‘Welcome to the House of Secrets’ by E. Nelson Bridwell & Wrightson began another pensive package of terrors after which ‘Beyond His Imagination’ by Bill Meredith & Nestor Redondo saw a comicbook artist travel to the other side of death in search of inspiration, after which ‘Beat the Devil’ (Jack Oleck, Jack Katz & Tony DeZuniga) dealt with a religious thief who repented too late before ‘Goodbye, Nancy’ by John Albano, Vic Catan, Frank Redondo & Abe Ocampo saw a lonely child go to lethal lengths in her attempts to find a playmate…

A huge boost to the battered American industry at his time was the mass hiring of a flight of top Filipino artists whose stylish realism, experience in many genres and incredible work ethic made them an invaluable and highly influential factor of the horror boom. This collection especially is positively brimming with their superb illustrative excellence.

First in issue #100 however is ‘Round-Trip Ticket’ by Lore Shoberg & Tom Palmer, wherein a hippy truth-seeker learns a little more about alternate lifestyles than he bargained for. These comics chillers were frequently leavened by the mordant and wordless cartoon gags of the legendary Sergio Aragonés, who here contributes a trio of gems starring ‘Cain & Abel’ before Oleck, Mike Sekowsky & Dezuniga reveal the fate of an escaped convict who briefly became ‘The Man Who Stopped Time!’ After a page of ‘Abel’s Fables’ cartoons by Shoberg, Oleck & Alfredo Alcala brought the issue to a close with the dark period Voodoo yarn ‘Rest in Peace’…

Clever science fiction courtesy of Sheldon Mayer & Alex Niño opened #101 as ‘Small Invasion’ told a tale of love, double-cross and vengeance when an alien infiltrator discovers true romance whilst preparing to destroy humanity, after which ‘The Sacrifice’ (Oleck & June Lofamia) pitted Witch against Warlock in a game as old as time… Aragonés’ ‘Cain & Abel’ page then precedes ‘Hiding Place’ by Raymond Marais & Ruben Yandoc, with a murderous gangster picking the wrong home to invade after which an ‘Abel’s Fables’ page by Shoberg brings the issue to a close.

‘Make a Wish’ by Oleck & E.R. Cruz, led in #102 as a troubled boy periodically escapes the real world – until well-meaning adults take him in hand, whilst ‘The Loser’ (Oleck, Quico Redondo & Ocampo) details a hen-pecked husband who can’t even get his revenge right, and bracketed between a brace of Aragonés’ ‘Abel’s Fables’ Albano & Nestor Redondo shone with the salutary romantic chiller starring ‘A Lonely Monstrosity’…

House of Secrets #103 began with a tale on con men and time travel in ‘Waiting… Waiting… Waiting’ by Mayer & Rico Rival, whilst ‘No Bed of Roses’ (Albano & Sparling) told a unique tale of reincarnation and revenge, before a post-apocalyptic revelation proved that man could never change in ‘The Village on the Edge of Forever’ by Steve Skeates & Niño, before Aragonés wrapped another issue with one of his ‘Cain & Abel’ pages.

In #104 ‘Ghosts Don’t Bother Me… But…’ by Mayer & Nestor & Virgilio Redondo told the sorry story of a hitman who found that his victims didn’t always rest in peace, whilst ‘The Dead Man’s Doll’, by Bill Riley & Alcala and book-ended by two ‘Abel’s Fables’ by Aragonés and Albano, saw a beloved puppet take vengeance for his owner when the frail fellow was murdered by his uncaring carers, whilst ‘Lend Me an Ear!’ by Oleck & George Tuska, saw merciless college pranksters hoisted on their own petard after playing in a morgue…

Issue #105 featured ‘Vampire’ an effective game of Ten Little Indians played out in an old Nevada mine by Maxene Fabe & Gerry Taloac, the gloriously dry ‘Coming Together!’ (Skeates & Jim Aparo) which showed that courage wasn’t everything when demons invaded a small town, and a great old-fashioned murdered man’s revenge yarn in ‘An Axe to Grind’ by Skeates & Alcala, whilst #106, after a magical ‘Welcome to the House of Secrets’ by E. Nelson Bridwell & Wrightson, opened with ‘The Curse of Harappa’ (Fabe & Yandoc) as a man dedicated to wiping out superstition found it wasn’t all nonsense, after which ‘The Island of No Return’ by Albano & Niño displayed the epitome of monstrous abiding terror, and Oleck and Alcala closed the show with a turn-of-the-century joker getting his just desserts in ‘This Will Kill You’.

In #107 Alcala illustrated Oleck’s ‘Skin Deep’ a dark tale of magic masks and ugly people in New Orleans and, after an Aragonés ‘Cain & Abel’, Arnold Drake’s hilarious hen-pecked howler ‘The Night of the Nebish!’ before ‘Winner Take All’ by Skeates & Bernard Baily restores some lethal gravitas to the proceedings when a greedy tramp learns too late the life-lesson of when to let go…

In #108 ‘Act III Eternity’ by George Kashdan & Jess Jodloman describes how a washed up thespian unsuspectingly took method acting to unfortunate extremes whilst ‘A New Kid on the Block’ (Fabe & Rival) found a new wrinkle in the hoary legend of revivified mummies and ‘The Ghost-Writer’ by Riley & Taloac saw a dissolute author finally pay for taking undeserved credit during his successful career. This issue also featured two more bleak and black ‘Abel’s Fables’ by Aragonés,

HoS #109 held two longer tales; ‘Museum of Nightmares’ by Michael Pellowsky, Fabe & Alcala, in which animated waxworks haunted the last case of a great detective whilst in ‘…And in Death there is No Escape!’, (Albano & Niño) a callous bluebeard and actor of towering ego at last regretted the many sins that had led him to physical immortality and infamous renown. Issue #110 opened with an entertaining vampire tale in ‘Domain of the Dead’ by Oleck & Fred Carrillo, continued with supernatural murder-mystery ‘Safes Have Secrets Too’ by Pellowsky, Fabe & Flor Dery and finished on a beguiling high note with Oleck & Taloac’s ‘Possessed’ as a simple farmer searched in all the wrong places for a deadly witch…

Gerard Conway & Dezuniga provided a haunting tale of lonely lighthouses and other worlds in #111’s ‘A Watchtower in the Dark’, after which ‘Hair-I-Kari’ by Fabe & Romy Gamboa told a sordid tale of a magic baldness cure and Michael Fleisher & Taloac recounted a bold adventurer’s quest to defeat death in ‘The Land Beyond the Styx!’

In #112 ‘The Witch Doctor’s Magic Cloak’ by Fleisher & Rudy Nebres explored the grotesque consequences of alternative medicine and limb regeneration, after which Conway & Luis Dominguez pastiched Sherlock Holmes to great effect in ‘The Case of the Demon Spawn!’ whilst #113 opened with an all-out monster mash in the delightfully dark ‘Not So Loud – I’m Blind!’ by Doug Moench, Nick Cardy & Mike Sekowsky and after another Aragonés ‘Abel’s Fables’ Oleck & Nestor Redondo unleashed a truly nasty tale of child vampires in ‘Spawns of Satan’ …

HoS# 114 led with Fleisher & Frank Bolle’s ‘Night Game’ – a chilling sports-story of corruption in hockey and murder on ice – and close with the same writer’s ‘The Demon and the Rock Star!’, concerning one Hell of a comeback tour and illustrated by Talaoc, whilst #115 featured ‘Nobody Hurts my Brother!’ by Drake & Alcala: a tale of once-conjoined twins who shared each others hurts but not morals, after which ‘Remembered Dead’ (Kashdan & Niño) dealt with a wax museum guard’s unhealthy attachment to one of the exhibits, and ‘Every Man my Killer!’ by Kashdan and Nardo & E.R. Cruz, followed a tormented soul the entire world wanted dead…

‘Like Father, Like Son’ by Oleck & Nestor Redondo in #116 followed the rise and fall of a 18th century peasant who sold more than his soul for wealth, love and power, and ‘Puglyon’s Crypt’ by David Michelinie & Ramona Fradon explored with delicious vivacity the obsession of a man determined never to suffer premature burial…

House of Secrets #117 opened with a tale of medieval feuds and bloody vendettas that inevitably led to ‘An Eye for an Eye’ (Oleck & Ernie Chan), whilst ‘Don’t Cry for Uncle Malcolm’ Gerry Boudreau & Niño provided a phantasmagorical glimpse at the power of modern Voodoo, after which another couple of Aragonés ‘Abel’s Fables’ bracket a wickedly ironic vignette entitled ‘Revenge For the Deadly Dummy!’ by Skeates Alcala.

The sinister magic of Hollywood informs the chilling delayed vengeance saga ‘The Very Last Picture Show’ by Fleisher & George Evans which opens #118, after which a ghostly  ‘Turnabout’ (Skeates & Quico Redondo) proves too much for a cunning murderess, and Oleck & Fradon display a different look at leprechauns in ‘Nasty Little Man’…

This compendium concludes with issue #119 and ‘A Carnival of Dwarfs’ by Fleisher & Arthur Suydam, wherein an unscrupulous showbiz impresario comes between a gentle old man and his diminutive friends, and wedged between two last ‘Cain & Abel’ pages by Aragonés, Pellowsky, Kashdan & Alcala proved that primitive people are anything but when a callous anthropologist provided an ‘Imitation Monster!’ for an isolated tribe and lived to regret his foolishness…

If you crave witty, beautifully realised, tastefully splatter-free sagas of tension and imagination, not to mention a huge supply of bad-taste, kid-friendly cartoon chills, book your return to the House of Secrets as soon as you possibly can…
© 1972, 1973, 1974, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Valerian and Laureline book 3: the Land Without Stars


By Méziéres & Christin, with colours by E. Tranlé and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-087-0   (Dargaud edition) 2-205-06573-4

Val̩rian is the most influential science fiction comics series ever drawn Рand yes, that includes even Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Dan Dare and Judge Dredd.

Although to a large extent those venerable strips defined and later re-defined the medium itself, anybody who has seen a Star Wars movie has been exposed to doses of Jean-Claude Méziéres & Pierre Christin’s brilliant imaginings which the filmic phenomenon has shamelessly plundered for decades: everything from the character and look of alien races and cultures to the design of the Millennium Falcon and even Leia‘s Slave Girl outfit …

Simply put, more carbon-based lifeforms have experienced and marvelled at the uniquely innovative, grungy, lived-in tech realism and light-hearted swashbuckling rollercoaster romps of Méziéres & Christin than any other cartoon spacer.

The groundbreaking series followed a Franco-Belgian mini-boom in fantasy fiction triggered by Jean-Claude Forest’s 1962 creation Barbarella. Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent launched in the November 9th, 1967 edition of Pilote (#420) and was an instant hit. In combination with Greg & Eddy Paape’s Luc Orient and Philippe Druillet’s Lone Sloane, Valérian‘s hot public reception led to the creation of dedicated adult graphic sci-fi magazine Métal Hurlant in 1977.

Val̩rian and Laureline (as the series eventually became) is a light-hearted, wildly imaginative time-travelling, space-warping fantasy teeming with wry, satirical, humanist action and political commentary, starring Рin the early days at least Рan affable, capable, unimaginative and by-the-book cop tasked with protecting the official universal chronology by counteracting paradoxes caused by casual time-travellers.

When Valérian travelled to 11th century France in the initial tale ‘Les Mauvais Rêves (‘Bad Dreams’ and still not translated to English yet) he was rescued from doom by a fiery, capable young woman named Laureline whom he brought back to the 28th century super-citadel and administrative capital of the Terran Empire, Galaxity. The indomitable lass subsequently trained as a Spatio-Temporal operative and began accompanying him on his missions.

Every subsequent Valérian adventure until the 13th was initially serialised weekly in Pilote until the conclusion of ‘The Rage of Hypsis’ after which the mind-boggling yarns were only published as all-new complete graphic novels, until the whole spectacular saga resolved and ended in 2010.

The Land Without Stars originally ran in Pilote #570-592 (October 8th 1970 to March 11th 1971) and followed the Spatio-Temporal agents as they went about a tedious pro forma inspection of a cluster of new Terran colonies in the Ukbar star-sytem at the very edge of inter-galactic space…

However the mission soon goes awry when a wandering world is detected on a collision course with the system and Valerian, still suffering the effects of too much local alcoholic “diplomatic protocol” decides that they should investigate at close quarters…

Despite being pickled, the lead agent lands with his long-suffering assistant on the runaway planet and discovers that the celestial maverick is hollow. Moreover, a thriving ancient culture or three dwell there, utterly unaware that they are not the only beings in all of creation…

Typically however of sentient beings everywhere, two of the civilisations are locked in a millennia old war, armed and supplied by the third…

After an accident wrecks their exploratory scout ship Valerian and Laureline deduce that the constant warfare originally caused the hollow world to tumble unchecked through space and will eventually cause its complete destruction, so in short order the professional meddlers split up to infiltrate the warring nations of Malka and Valsennar.

However they are in for a surprise since both city-states are divided on gender grounds, with Malka home to prodigious warrior women who subjugate their effete and feeble males whilst the aristocratically foppish but deadly dandies of Valsennar delight in beautiful, proficient and lethally lovely ladies – but only as compliant servants…

The highly trained Galaxity operatives quickly rise in the ranks of each court – from slaves and toys to perfectly placed, trusted servants – and soon have ample opportunity to change the nature of the doomed civilisations within the collision-course world, after which the heroes even concoct a canny and cunning method of spectacularly ceasing the planet’s random perambulations; giving it a stable orbit and new lease on life…

All in a days work, naturally, although it did take a few months to sort out: still what’s time to a couple of brilliant Spatio-Temporal agents?

Happily, this mind-boggling forty-year old social and sexual satire is packed with astounding action, imaginative imagery and fantastic creatures to provide zest to a plot that has since become rather overused – sure proof of the quality of this delightful, so-often imitated original yarn – but as always the space-opera is fun-filled, witty, visually breathtaking and stunningly ingenious.  Drenched in wickedly wide-eyed wonderment, science fiction sagas have never been better than this.

Between 1981-1985 Dargaud-Canada and Dargaud-USA published a quartet of these albums in English (with a limited British imprint from Hodder-Dargaud in the UK) under the umbrella title Valerian: Spatiotemporal Agent and this tale, then called World Without Stars, was the second release, translated then by L. Mitchell.

Although this modern Cinebook release boasts improved print and colour values and a far better and more fluid translation, interested completists might also want to track down the 20th century releases for the added text features ‘Valerian: Graphic Renaissance’ by acclaimed SF author William Rotsler, the appreciation ‘In Science Fiction’s Net’ by French genre writer/illustrator Jean-Pierre Andrevon and the extensive biographies and work check-lists of creators Pierre Christin & Claude Méziéres…

© Dargaud Paris, 1972 Christin, Méziéres & Tran-Lệ. All rights reserved. English translation © 2012 Cinebook Ltd.

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Outsiders: The Good Fight


By Judd Winick, Matthew Clark, Pop Mhan, Ron Randall, Tom Grindberg, Art Thibert & Steve Bird (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1195-X

After the never-ending calamity of the DC Infinite Crisis event, the company re-set the time line of all their publications to begin one year later.  This enabled them to refit their characters as they saw fit, provide a jumping on point for new converts and also give themselves some narrative wiggle-room…

This fifth compelling compendium gathers issues #34-41 of Judd Winick’s grim and witty Outsiders comicbook, resuming the odyssey twelve months after the universe was reshaped by the Infinite Crisis with the team – Nightwing, Grace, Thunder, Metamorpho, Katana and Owen Reece (the super-fast son and heir of the recently perished Captain Boomerang) – all believed long dead but actually working deep, deep, deep undercover…

The eponymous and decidedly dark epic ‘The Good Fight’ (illustrated by Matthew Clark & Art Thibert) begins with ‘Cain and Abel’ as in the war-torn African nation of Mali dictator Ratu Bennin hoards Weapons of Mass destruction and makes plans to destroy the unchecked legions of out-of-control boy soldiers who fuelled his bloody rise to power.

The tyrant is particularly impressed with ambitious lieutenant Adanna Abioye, unaware that she is in fact American infiltrator Anissa Pierce: the Outsider known as Thunder…

Nighwing is the only member of the team still publicly active; running his team as covert operators eliminating truly evil men rather than wasting time fighting costumed lunatics. The Outsiders have spent months penetrating Bennin’s gore-soaked regime, but when the army plans a massacre, Thunder breaks cover to save lives and endangers not only the mission but also the squad’s hard-earned and precious anonymity…

Forced to improvise in ‘Meet the New Boss’ the team tortures one of Bennin’s most trusted aides for information before raiding the dictator’s citadel and discovering not only conventional chemical WMDs but also a super-speed sentinel who almost destroys them all in seconds…

Concluding with ‘Gone in a Flash’ the team’s triumph exposes a new kind of arms-dealer selling cloned super-humans as terror-weapons to the world’s worst countries and companies. Inexorably drawn into jurisdictional conflict with UN metahuman oversight agency Checkmate, they follow the trail of ‘Silver and Grey’, encountering ‘Familiar Faces’ (art by Tom Grindberg, Clark & Thibert) on a trail which leads to disembodied Brotherhood of Evil supremo The Brain and his devoted disciple Mallah – a gorilla genius with a penchant for genetic tampering and ballistic slaughter…

With the world’s bright and shiny legitimate superheroes increasingly anxious, Nightwing stubbornly continues with his unsanctioned, illegal enquiries in ‘Looking For a Fight’(Pop Mhan, Thibert & Steve Bird), but when his team invades the Brotherhood’s lair, unaware that the clone-dealers have a deadly silent partner, they are quickly overcome and seem destined to become the latest batch of raw materials…

The story-arc culminates in ‘Since You’re Here, Why don’t you Stay Awhile?’ (Clark, Ron Randall & Thibert) as the Outsiders break free to face bastardised versions of the World’s Greatest Heroes in a blockbusting showdown which leads seamlessly into the first chapter of ‘Mad Scientists’ as the trail to the Brotherhood’s partner leads to even greater struggles in ‘…You Make Lemonade’ before the hidden mastermind is revealed in ‘Raising the Dead’ only to turn the tables on the hidden heroes with a very public nuclear detonation which exposes the clandestine crusaders to the harsh light of global scrutiny…

To Be Continued…

Hard-hitting, breathtakingly barbed and astoundingly action-packed, the latter run of Outsiders was one of the most intriguing and cynically plausible superhero sagas of the last decade. Still gripping, evocative and extremely readable, these bleakly powerful stories will delight older fans of the genre and, as this volume has the added advantage of being designed as a “jump on” point for new readers, there’s nothing stopping the intrigued becoming the latest converts…
© 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Outsiders: Crisis Intervention


By Judd Winick, Jen Van Meter, Matthew Clark, Dietrich Smith, Art Thibert & Steve Bird (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0973-5

Once upon a time superheroes, like firemen, sat around their assorted lairs or went about their civilian pursuits until the call of duty summoned them to deal with a breaking emergency. In the increasingly sober and serious world after Crisis on Infinite Earths, that precept was challenged with a number of costumed adventurers evolving into pre-emptive strikers…

Arsenal and Nightwing always intended to run their new team as a covert and pre-emptive pack of self-professed “hunters”: seeking out and taking down metahuman threats and extraordinary criminals before they could do harm, but they were continually thwarted as events always seemed to find them off-guard and unready…

Now, following the deaths of more beloved comrades (see Teen Titans/Outsiders: the Insiders), Arsenal decides to finally live up to the brief by going after the villainous scum with all guns blazing and the gloves off…

This fourth edgy compendium eschews individual issue titles but for your convenience and mine I’ve again supplied them from the original issues (#29-33 plus relevant portions of Firestorm #19, covering December 2005 to March 2006) of Judd Winick’s grim and witty Outsiders comicbook, with the barely-functioning team – Arsenal, Starfire, Grace, Thunder, Shift, Jade and Captain Marvel Jr. – facing their lowest moments in the aftermath of their betrayal by Indigo…

‘Unoriginal Sins, Part 1: All Together Now’ by Winick, Matthew Clark & Art Thibert begins with the out-of-control divine force The Spectre declaring war on magic-users and destroying mystical fortress The Rock of Eternity, thereby unleashing the Seven Deadly Sins.

These personified spiritual anathemas find a new home inside Outsiders antagonist Ishmael Gregor who had previously transformed himself into the benighted and demonic Sabbac in his unquenchable thirst for power (see Outsiders: Sum of All Evil)…

When Deathstroke the Terminator offers the painfully ambitious Gregor a position in Lex Luthor‘s criminal elite The Society the stage is set for an epic confrontation, but before the devil can mobilise, Dr. Sivana and the survivors of the Fearsome Five attack Alcatraz and provoke an immediate response from the mad-as-hell Outsiders…

When Sabbac at last arrives, in the concluding episode ‘All Hell Breaks Loose’ using the powers of the Sins to derange friend and foe alike through waves of Lust, Rage, Envy and more, founding Outsider Katana is inexorably drawn to the conflict by her ensorcelled sword and saves the day, just before demi-goddess and old friend Donna Troy shows up, hoping to recruit the more cosmic team-members for a mission in deep space…

‘Out of Town Work’ (illustrated by Dietrich Smith, Thibert & Steve Bird) directly ties in to the company crossover Infinite Crisis with Troy seconding Jade, Shift, Starfire and the young Marvel as part of a task force to save the universe.

Significant portions of Firestorm #19’s ‘The Forests of the Night’ by Stuart Moore, Jamal Igle & Rob Stull are also included as the voyagers head for the heart of Creation to battle the unknown enemy but become sidetracked and embroiled in lethal sibling rivalry as Starfire’s sister Blackfire ambushes the squad in ‘Detour’…

Meanwhile on Earth, Katana sticks around when Arsenal decides to attack Deathstroke and the Society, culminating in a devastating ‘Deep Impact’ wherein the Outsiders finally deliver a crushing and costly defeat on the super-criminal army just as all reality goes insane thanks to the aforementioned Infinite Crisis hitting the Cosmic Reset Button.

The next volume will begin with the first One Year Later story-arc…

Wickedly barbed, action-packed and often distressingly hard-hitting, Outsiders was one of the very best series pursuing that “hunting heroes” concept, resulting in some of the most exciting superhero sagas of the last decade. Still gripping, evocative and extremely readable, these bleakly powerful stories will astound and amaze older fans of the genre, but this volume at least is best seen in conjunction with too many other books to truly stand on its own merits.

The action is intense, and the dialogue wonderful, but the story won’t appeal or even be understandable to casual readers whilst the effect of the notional cliffhanger ending is rather negated by the deliberately ambiguous closing scene. Page by page and scene by scene this is great stuff, but the imposed conclusion renders all that sterling work irrelevant. This is another one for completists only, I’m afraid.
© 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Doctor Who Graphic Novels volume 13: The Crimson Hand


By Dan McDaid, Martin Geraghty, Mike Collins & various (Panini Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-451-5

Doctor Who launched on television in the first episode of ‘An Unearthly Child’ on November 23rd 1963. Less than a year later his decades-long run in TV Comic began with issue #674 and the premier instalment of ‘The Klepton Parasites’. On 11th October 1979 (although adhering to the US off-sale cover-dating system so 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 under various names ever since.

All of which only goes to prove that the Time Lord is a comic hero with an impressive pedigree…

Marvel/Panini is in the ongoing process of collecting every strip from its archive 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 issues Doctor Who Magazine or DWM #394, The Doctor Who Storybook 2010 and DWM #400-420, (originally published between 2008 and 2010): all featuring the escapades of the David Tennant incarnation of the far-flung Time Lord.

This is actually the third – and final – collection of strips featuring the Tenth Doctor and whether that statement made any sense to you largely depends on whether you are an old fan, a new convert or even a complete beginner.

None of which is relevant if all you want is a darn good read. All the creators involved have managed the ultimate ‘Ask’ of any strip creator – to produce engaging, thrilling, fun strips that can be equally enjoyed by the merest beginner and the most slavishly dedicated fan.

After an effusive introduction from series re-creator Russell T. Davies, the full-colour graphic grandeur begins with a one-off romp from 2008 entitled ‘Hotel Historia’ by writer/artist Dan McDaid, wherein the Good Doctor fetches up in a spectacular resort for time-travellers and first encounters the pushy and obnoxious corporate raider Majenta Pryce and uses her shoddy and slipshod time-technology to counter a threat from the chronal brigands known as the Graxnix.

This is riotously followed by a delightful clash with ‘Space Vikings’ (by Jonathan Morris, Rob Davis & Ian Culbard, from the 2010 Christmas Doctor Who Storybook) wherein the slave-taking star-rovers prove to be far less than they at first appear…

The main body of stories here formed something of an experiment as DWM #400-420 were designed as an extended story-arc leading up to the big change on television where Matt Smith would replace Tennant as “the Eleventh Doctor”.

Therefore McDaid was tasked with scripting the entire 21 issue run and began by reintroducing scurrilous money-mad chancer Majenta Pryce in ‘Thinktwice’ (#400-402, illustrated by Martin Geraghty & David A. Roach); an intergalactic penal institution with some decidedly off-kilter ideas on reforming prisoners.

Pryce is a prisoner but has amnesia. So does her cellmate Zed and in fact, most of the convicts aboard. The supposedly cushy debtor’s prison is in fact a horror-house of psychological abuse where suicide is endemic, maintained by the creepy Warden Gripton who is messing with the inmates’ memories to satisfy the hungers of something he calls “memeovax”…

Luckily the new prison doctor “John Smith” is a dab hand with the Sonic screwdriver…

With her memory far from restored the wickedly entrepreneurial Majenta becomes the unlikeliest of Companions as she demands that the “legally liable” Doctor makes restitution for all the trouble he’s caused by ferrying her to the planet Panacea where she can be properly cured. As we all know however, the Tardis goes where She wants and at Her own pace…

‘The Stockbridge Child’ (#403-405 with art from Mike Collins & Roach) deposits the unhappy partners to that peaceful English village where three different incarnations of the Time Lord have encountered incredible alien incursions. When the Doctor is reunited with outcast skywatcher Maxwell Edison they uncover at last the ancient horror beneath the hamlet which as made the place such a magnet for madness and monsters before finally despatching the brooding anti-dimensional threat of the Lokhus…

Meanwhile Majenta’s big secret hasn’t forgotten her and is rapidly closing in…

DWM #406-407 featured ‘Mortal Beloved’, illustrated by Sean Longcroft, wherein the Doctor and “Madge” arrive at a decrepit asteroid mansion on the edge of the biggest storm in creation. Amidst the flotsam and jetsam lurk poignant clues to Pryce’s past as tantalisingly revealed by the robots and holograms left to run the place after a far younger Majenta jilted brilliant playboy industrialist Wesley Sparks. Of course, after such an immense length of time even the most devoted of loves and programs could falter, doubt and even hate…

‘The Age of Ice’ (#408-411, by McDaid, Geraghty & Roach) brought the Last Time Lord and Lost Executive to Sydney Harbour and a fond reunion with Earth Defence Force UNIT, just as time-distortions began dumping dinosaurs in the sunny streets and crystalline knowledge stealers The Skith once more attempted to assimilate all the Doctor’s vast experience. Majenta too found an old friend in the shape of her long-lost junior associate Fanson who admitted he had wiped her memory. When he became part of the huge body-count before revealing why, Madge thought she would lose what was left of her mind…

‘The Deep Hereafter’ (#412, by Rob Davis with above-and-beyond calligraphy from faithful letterer Roger Langridge) is a scintillating space detective story, pastiching the classic Will Eisner Spirit Sunday sections, but still succeeds in advancing the overarching plot as Madge and the Doctor complete the last case of piscine P.I. Johnny Seaview and chase down the threat of the reality warping World Bomb whilst ‘Onomatopoeia’ in #413 (Collins & Roach) pits the reluctant pair against space-rats and out-of-control pest prevention systems in a clever and heart-warming fable told almost exclusively without dialogue.

The superb ‘Ghosts of the Northern Line’ (#414-415) follows with guest-artist Paul Grist working his compositional magic in a chilling yarn of murderous phantoms slaughtering tube passengers in present day London. Obviously they can’t be spirits so what is the true cause of the apparitions? This yarns leads directly into the big payoff as they assemble forces of galactic Law and Order suddenly show up to arrest Majenta, plunging the voyagers into a spectacular epic as the stroppy impresario at last regains her memory and acquires the power to reshape all of reality as part of the cosmic consortium known and feared as ‘The Crimson Hand’ (DWM #416-420, by McDaid, Geraghty & Roach.

This blockbuster rollercoaster epic perfectly ends the saga of Majenta Pryce and signs off the Tenth Doctor in suitable style, but dedicated fans still have a plethora of added value bonuses in the wonderful text section at the back, which includes a commentary from editor Tom Spilsbury, the origins of the saga from McDaid, Doctor Who Story Notes, the Majenta Pryce “Pitch” and an annotated story background, section: all copiously illustrated with behind-the-scenes photos, sketches and production art.

We’ve all got our little joys and hidden passions. Sometimes they overlap and magic is made. This is a superb set of comic strips, starring an undeniable bulwark of British Fantasy. If you’re a fan of only one, this book might make you an addict to both. The Crimson Hand is a fabulous book for casual readers, a fine shelf addition for devotees of the show and a perfect opportunity to cross-promote our particular art-form to anyone minded to give comics another go…

All Doctor Who material © BBCtv.  Doctor Who logo © BBC 2009. Tardis image © BBC 1963. Doctor Who, the Tardis and all logos are trade marks of the British broadcasting corporation and are used under licence. © Marvel. Published 2012 by Panini Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved.