Older kids – Page 49 – Now Read This!

March 3, 2011March 5, 2011

Hammer of the Gods: Mortal Enemy

By Michael Avon Oeming & Frank Cho, (Image/IDW)
Image ISBN: 978-1-58240-271-0, IDW ISBN: 978-1-60010631-6

Mythology has always inspired our fantasies and is never far from our popular culture: just take a look at TV shows like Hercules: the Legendary Journeys and Supernatural or books and films such Clash of the Titans and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief which again reinvented and expanded the ancient tales for a new generation.

At the turn of this century all-rounder Michael Avon Oeming re-imagined the Norse tales which had already been so thoroughly exploited by Marvel (and even tangentially by DC in the splendid Arak, Son of Thunder series) to produce an outrageously addictive post-modern take in the five issue miniseries Hammer of the Gods. He was thoroughly aided and abetted by co-plotter, inker, letterer and colourist Mark Wheatley – a veteran comics maker who has been criminally undervalued for decades (see for example the staggeringly impressive Breathtaker to glean what I mean).

The lands of the far North are hard and cold and unforgiving, just like the gods that rule over them. In ‘Hammer of the Gods’ a peasant couple stand the deathwatch for their newborn son who will not survive the night, when a stranger comes seeking shelter from the icy storms. She is welcomed even though old Tyr and Gerda have nothingâ€¦

Delighted to finally find mortals who keep the old ways of hearth and hospitality the fierce warrior woman rewards them by blessing their child. He will live, growing strong and wise. Moreover he will possess the strength of the gods so long as he never wields a weapon. Knowing he will thrive the couple finally name their boy: â€œModiâ€ which means both Courage and son of Thorrâ€¦

The boy grows strong enough to topple trees with a blow and carve wood without a blade and becomes devout in the worship of the Thunder God he is named for. Because he will not fight the other village children constantly pick on him, but Modi is patient as well as strongâ€¦

When mature he becomes a globe-girdling explorer. After years he returns to his birthplace only to find the village destroyed by giants and monsters that have escaped from bleak Jotunheim to plague the Earth. Realising his beloved deities have done nothing to save his family or people, Modi swears a mighty oath and denounces the gods forever. Easily slaying the Frost Giant which destroyed his village, Modi pledges to walk the world until he has made the negligent gods pay for abandoning the devoted charges in their careâ€¦

Modi’s epic voyages begin in ‘Entrance to Valhalla’, as he roams the cold world destroying beasts and devils, recruiting like-minded men to his crusade. Soon he leads an army of hardened warriors embittered and disillusioned by the disdain and delinquency of their gods.

United together they eradicate the magical horror that plagues mankind, but it is never enough: what Modi wants is a confrontation with the gods themselvesâ€¦

In ‘Falling For Gods!’ he first battles and then allies himself with SkÃ¶gul, a fallen Valkyrie who shares his opinions, but when the trickster god Loki also tries to join them she preaches caution. Why would any overlord of Asgard offer them a free pass to Valhalla and their longed-for meeting with the absentee immortals? They refuse the overture and wander the world together, growing ever closer as they seek another way to storm the stronghold of the godsâ€¦

Eventually they find a way and enter Asgard for ‘The Final Battle’ only to receive a terrible shock: the magic hammer of Thorr has lost its power and the gods are old and broken men, helpless before the constant onslaught of the giants and demons of Ragnarok.

Much as he despises gods Modi hates giants more and soon he is whittling the frozen horde down to size, but even his might is not inexhaustible. Only a miracle can save him and all the lands of humanityâ€¦

This is a rousing rollercoaster ride of sheer adventure beautifully illustrated and magically compelling, with just the right touch of worldly cynicism and passionate mystery to fire up any reader who thinks they’ve seen all that can be done with these hoary old themes.

The book (which was re-issued by IDW in 2009) also includes text pieces from Peter David, WWE star Raven, Oeming and Wheatley, plus development sketches, front and back cover designs, pencil drafts, privately commissioned artworks and cover images and illustration art by Adam Hughes, Frank Cho and Dave Johnson.

March 2, 2011March 1, 2011

Deathstroke the Terminator: Full Cycle

By Marv Wolfman, Steve Erwin, Willie Blyberg & others (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-93028-982-9

Deathstroke the Terminator is a flamboyant cover identity for mercenary/assassin Slade Wilson who underwent an experimental procedure whilst an American Special Forces soldier. He was invalided out but later developed fantastic physical abilities that augmented his military capabilities.

He debuted in New Teen Titans #2 (1980), assuming a contract that had been forfeited when neophyte costumed assassin The Ravager died trying to destroy the kid heroes. The deceased would-be killer was actually Grant Wilson, a troubled young man trying to impress his dad. Slade Wilson’s other children would also be the cause of much heartache and bloodshed over the yearsâ€¦

Deathstroke was an implacable Titans foe for years, instigating many complex schemes to destroy the team before a weary dÃ©tente was achieved, all of which led to the graphic novel under review here. In recent years Deathstroke has returned to the path of pure – if complex – villainy.

This rather hard to find volume comes from that grim-and-gritty era when ruthless vigilantes and killers-with-a-code-of-honour were market leaders, so a villain-turned (anti)hero in the vein of Marvel’s Punisher was sound business sense. When the Terminator got his own title (with covers by the Punisher’s Mike Zeck, all included here at no extra cost to you) it instantly became a smash-hit: issue #1 even had a second printing – an extremely rare event back in the early 1990s.

Full Cycle opens with a detailed prose account of the events which led to the release of Deathstroke from Editor Jonathan Peterson before beginning the non-stop action with the contents of The New Titans #70 (October 1990) a fill-in issue by Marv Wolfman, Steve Erwin & Willie Blyberg, that abandoned the titular teens for an entire adventure of their greatest enemy as he undertook a highly suspicious contract in a war-torn South American nation.

‘Clay Pigeons’ found Wilson and his faithful aide-de-camp Wintergreen hired to keep a charismatic peace-making rebel leader alive whilst the republic of San Miguel negotiated a longed for lasting solution to decades of apartheid and revolution. But if every clique and faction needed Jorge Zaxtro alive who could be behind all the brutal attempts on his life?

That tale preceded ‘Titans Hunt’ an extended epic which heavily involved Deathstroke wherein the tragic mercenary was forced to kill his other son Joe – the hero code-named Jericho – but you’ll need to look elsewhere for that epic. Full Cycle commences in the aftermath of that tragedy as a deeply shaken Slade Wilson retreats to his home in Africa to lick his psychic wounds.

‘Assault!’ opens the campaign with a devastating mercenary attack on a train transporting nuclear material through Germany. At the same time a helicopter raid almost kills Wilson and Wintergreen. Later, we gain insight into Deathstroke’s past when the mercenary visits the bedside of a survivor of the railway raid – his estranged wife Adeline.

She was his army trainer, schooling him in exotic battle techniques before the secret experiment augmented his combat abilities. They found love and married but when Slade’s arrogance and neglect resulted in their son Joey being maimed by a terrorist dubbed The Jackal Addie shot her husband in the face and divorced him.

As she slowly recovers in a German hospital she has no idea that Slade has just killed her beloved boyâ€¦

Slade has never stopped loving Addie and begins hunting her attackers; reviewing his own past too since whoever attacked her is also targeting his few remaining loved ones. Even so, there must also be some other motive in playâ€¦

‘Kidnapped!’ builds on the frantic action and piles the bodies high as Slade closes in on the brutal and all-pervasive enemy, only briefly detouring to rescue a young boy abducted to force his mother to reveal her husband’s munitions secrets. Meanwhile somebody claiming to be the long-dead Ravager is slaughtering both Wilson and Adeline’s people, with a trail leading to the rogue middle-Eastern state of Qurac.

And then the CIA get involvedâ€¦

‘War!’ sees Deathstroke go bloodily berserk in the strife-torn desert kingdom as its new ruler General Kaddam seeks to consolidate his power whilst demonstrating to the West that Qurac is still the World’s principal exporter of Terror. As his alliance with the Ravager looks set to shake the entire globe, a clandestine group hidden within the CIA makes their own move and their target too, is Slade Wilsonâ€¦

After a near fatal clash with Kaddam and Ravager, Terminator is captured. Bombastically breaking out he drags the gravely wounded Wintergreen out of the Middle East as the scene shifts to Washington DC where the stolen Plutonium is being readied for use. ‘â€¦Bombs Bursting in Air!’ sees the terrorists turn on each other before Wilson becomes an unlikely and utterly secret saviour of the free world after a savage final clash with the new Ravagerâ€¦

Meanwhile, the recuperating Adeline has learned of her son’s death â€¦but not yet who killed himâ€¦

The first Deathstroke epic ends rather inconclusively in ‘Revelations and Revolutions’ as writer Wolfman and artists Erwin and Blyberg laid plot threads for succeeding story-arcs. Slade is visiting Adeline in the aftermath of atomic plot when the covert agents within the CIA stage an all-out armed assault on the hospital where both she and the faithful Wintergreen are recovering. Never a dull momentâ€¦

Complex, violently gratuitous and frenetic, the tale is sometimes too complicated for its own good, but nevertheless the pace, varied exotic locations and all-out, human-scale action (like a James Bond film where everyone wears masks and tights) result in a frenzied rollercoaster of gory fun for any fan of blockbuster adventure. Deathstroke the Terminator is a perfectly-produced slice of lost DC history that still holds up and could easily find new devotees if given the chanceâ€¦
Â© 1990, 1991, 1992 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

February 17, 2011February 15, 2011

Mermaid Forest

By Rumiko Takahashi, translated by Matt Thorn (Viz)
ISBN: 978-1-56931-047-5

Rumiko Takahashi is one of the most successful comics creators of all time and indisputably the best selling woman in the field (170 million volumes – and rising – of her assorted inventions sold to date) with many awards to her name.

Born in 1957, she enrolled in a manga school whilst at university and began producing DÅjinshi (self-published stories) in 1975, under the tutelage of Manga genius Kazuo Koike. Three years later she sold her first professional story; the award-winning science fiction comedy Urusei Yatsura (34 volumes). Her next big series was rom-com Maison Ikkoku (15 volumes) and she continued both series simultaneously until 1987, whilst also producing a vast array of extremely popular short stories and mini-series.

In 1984 she tried something new: an occasional sequence of interlinked gothic-love horror short-stories that would become known as the Mermaid Saga which appeared at uneven intervals over the next decade.

In 1994 Viz Communications began collecting and translating the nine graphic novelettes for the English speaking world, and this first volume presents the first three in a stunning display of visual virtuosity and macabre menace.

‘A Mermaid Never Smiles’ begins in a remote rural village in modern Japan as beautiful maiden Mana calls out petulantly to her servants. Meanwhile miles away a derelict young man wanders aimlessly, searching for something. His name is Yuta and there’s something rather odd about himâ€¦

Mana’s attendants are all women and they are waiting for something. When one performs a unique sacrifice the assembled harridans decree that Mana is ready at last for her great purposeâ€¦

When Yuta stumbles into the village he is swiftly killed by the old ladies but doesn’t stay dead for long. Escaping from his grave Yuta confronts the women and rescues the far from grateful Mana, who has no idea that she has been farmed like a veal calf by her sevants, with but one purposeâ€¦

On the run Yuta explains the legend of Mermaids: eating their flesh can, if one is fortunate, impart immortality and invulnerability. More common is the slow transformation into ghastly monsters, called â€œLost Soulsâ€. Most likely though, is a swift and very painful death from the malignant meatâ€¦

Years ago Yuta unwittingly consumed mermaid flesh and has spent half a lonely millennium seeking a cure to his lonely un-aging existence. An old wise-woman told him the only solution was to find a live mermaid and ask her for a method to end his interminable life.

However he has cause to regret his wish when he discovers that all the old women are aged mermaids and Mana has been bred for years as a means by which they can regain the lost youth. Horrified and reluctantly heroic Yuta knows he must foil the plan at all costs – but it won’t be easy or prettyâ€¦

‘The Village of the Fighting Fish’ takes us back centuries to Feudal Japan and two island communities at war. Eking out their harsh existence with occasional piracy, the fisher-folk of Toba are being slowly squeezed by their ruthless rivals on Sakagami Island. Moreover, the Tobans leader is dying and his valiant daughter O-Rin is having trouble filling his sandalsâ€¦

She thinks nothing of it when a dead body washes up; that’s just a sign of the times, but when the corpse comes back to life the sinister, manipulative wife of the Sakagami chieftain seeks him out. It appears she too is hunting for a mermaid, just like the un-killable stranger Yutaâ€¦

With a ruthless agenda of her own Isago stirs the bubbling pot of tension until war is inevitable, just as the restless wander Yuta dares to dream that he might risk loving again, but once more the terrible lure of mermaid flesh and supernatural longevity prove to be more curse than blessing and horrifying bloodshed is the inevitable resultâ€¦

We return to contemporary Japan for the concluding tale as Mana and Yuta find an isolated village near deep woods and stop their wandering for the night. However the naive girl is utterly unaware of the modern world and walks into a near fatal accident.

Taken to the local cottage hospital the severely injured girl mysteriously goes missing, and when Yuta discovers the woodland called the ‘Mermaid Forest’ he fears the worst. His investigations uncover yet another tragic family destroyed by the mermaid curse that has tainted so many livesâ€¦

Kindly old Dr. Shiina has kept a dark secret for decades and now, with the girl Mana, he hopes to correct an ancient wrong, but no-one who has tasted mermaid flesh has ever ended happily and as Yuta hopelessly battles yet more Lost Soul horrors, the undying hero knows that this time will be no differentâ€¦

This bleak supernatural tale of jealousy, twisted love and dark devotion is a spectacular and oppressive epic of understated horror, beautifully realised and movingly effective. One of the best mature manga tales ever produced, it can – and should – be read by older kids too, but please be aware that Japanese social conventions regarding casual nudity are not the same as ours and if you don’t want to see naked bodies you should read something else.
Â© 1994 Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan, Inc. All rights reserved.

February 5, 2011February 3, 2011

No Need For Tenchi! volume 1

By Hitoshi Okuda, translated by Fred Burke (Viz Graphic Novel)
ISBN: 978-1-56931-180-6

This bright and breezy adventure comedy is a rare reversal of the usual state of affairs in that the TV anime came first and the manga serial was a spin-off.

Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki debuted in 1992-1993 as a six-part TV cartoon series (termed an OVA or Original Video Animation in Japan) that proved so blisteringly popular that even before the original season concluded further specials and episodes were rushed into production. Over the next decade or so two more seasons appeared as well as spin-off shows and features (for a total of 98 episodes all told), plus games, toys, light novels and, of course, a comic book series. The translation most commonly accepted for the pun-soaked title is No Need For Tenchi but equally valid interpretations include Useless Tenchi, No Heaven and Earth and This Way Up.

The assorted hi-jinks of the TV show resulted in three overlapping but non-related continuities, with the Hitoshi Okuda manga serials stemming directly from the first season. Okuda eventually produced two comics sagas in this format: Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-oh-ki which began in 1994 and features in this volume under review and the follow-up Shin Tenchi Muyo! which I’ll get to one fine dayâ€¦

The strip debuted in the December 16^th 1994 ShÅnen anthology (comics pitched at 10-18 year old males) Comic Dragon Jr. It ran until Jun 9^th 2000, generating 12 collected volumes of classic laughs and thrills. The stories are generally regarded as non-canonical by fans of the various TV versions but of course we don’t care about that since the printed black and white tales are so much fun and so well illustratedâ€¦

This first volume collects the first seven issues of the pioneering Viz comicbook Tales of Tenchi, which did so much to popularise Manga in the English-speaking world, and opens with a thorough and fascinating recap of that first TV season – from which all the succeeding manic mirth and mayhem proceeds – before cracking on to bolder and better bewilderments starring the entire copious cast on all new adventures and exploitsâ€¦

Tenchi Masaki is an ordinary boy living peacefully in the countryside with his father Nobuyuki and grandfather Katsuhito, until one day he breaks opens an ancient shrine and lets a demon out. The hell-fiend Ryoko tries to kill him but a magic â€œLightning Eagle Swordâ€ helps him escape. The demon follows him though, demanding the sword and things get really crazy when a spaceship arrives revealing Ryoko is in fact a disgraced alien pirate from the star-spanning Jurai Empire.

Starship Ryo-oh-ki is full of attractive, shameless, immensely powerful warrior-women including Princesses Ayeka, her little sister Sasami and supreme scientist Washu. This gaggle of violently disruptive visitors moves in with Tenchi and family, causing nothing but trouble and embarrassment, and soon the boy and his sword are being dragged all over the cosmos in the sentient Ryo-oh-ki (who, when not on duty, prefers the form of a cute rabbit/cat hybrid critter).

Ayeka and Sasami both harbour feelings for the hapless Tenchi but things get really complicated when grandfather Katsuhito is revealed to be Yosho, a noble Prince of the Jurai. It appears Tenchi and those darned space girls are all relatedâ€¦

Tales of Tenchi opened with ‘The Genius’ as the lad, currently studying Jurai warrior training under his grandfather’s diligent tutelage, falls foul of the alien princesses’ growing boredom, until Ryoko attacks again, precipitating a devastating battle that threatens to burn the entire landscape to ashes. But is the aggressor really the demon pirate?

In ‘Double Trouble’ the other Ryoko tries to take Tenchi’s sword – in actuality a puissant techno-artefact known as the Master Key – before being defeated by the original, but at the cost of shock-induced amnesia. ‘Under Observation’ depicts some outrageous and inadvisable potential cures for the distressed Ryoko as the refugees all decompress, but when the defeated doppelganger’s master Yakage arrives the entire extended family are threatened. The terrifying star-warrior challenges Tenchi to a duelâ€¦

Part 4 ‘Plunder’ is one colossal hi-energy clash as the boy valiantly demonstrates all he has learned to drive off the intruder, but only after the villain takes Ayeka hostage, demanding a rematch in 10 days timeâ€¦

Intensifying his training in ‘Practice Makes Perfect’ Tenchi prepares for the upcoming battle whilst Ryoko pursues Yakage into space, unaware that super-scientist Washu has hidden herself aboard the pursing shipâ€¦

‘A Good Scolding’ reveals some intriguing history regarding the assorted super-girls whilst Tenchi trains for the final confrontation and the concluding chapter ‘Relationships’ brings the initial volume to a spectacular climax whilst still leaving a cliffhanger to pull you back in for the next addictive instalmentâ€¦

Blending elements of Star Wars: A New Hope with classic Japanese genre favourites (fantasy, action, fighting, embarrassment, loss of conformity and hot chicks inexplicably drawn to nerdy boys), this sensational romp also includes a couple of comedy vignettes starring ‘The Cast of No Need For Tenchi’ in fourth-wall busting asides, to suitably top off a delightfully undemanding fun-fest which will satisfy not just manga maniacs but also any lover of fanciful frivolity and sci fi shenanigans.
Â© 1994 by Hitoshi Okuda/Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co Ltd., Tokyo. NO NEED FOR TENCHI! is a trademark of Viz Communications Inc.

January 26, 2011

Agent 13: Acolytes of Death â€“ A TSR Graphic Novel

By Flint Dille, Buzz Dixon & Dan Spiegle (TSR)
ISBN: 0-88038-800-5

Tactical Studies Rules was a backroom venture started in 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye which they grew into the monolithic role-playing and recreational fantasy empire TSR, Inc. revolutionising home entertainment in the days before cheap home computers and on-line video games.

Beginning with formally published scenarios and rules for Dungeons and Dragons, Cavaliers and Roundheads and others including gaming versions of Marvel Comics characters, Movies, TV shows and cartoon classics like Rocky and Bullwinkle, they swiftly branched out into figures and miniatures, magazines, models, table-top war games, fantasy fiction, collector card-sets and inevitably comics – firstly licensing their properties to companies like DC (Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and many more before inevitably creating their own line of comicbook and graphic novel â€œModulesâ€ in the 1990s, based on their own game product, licensed properties such as Indiana Jones, Buck Rogers and even their critically acclaimed fantasy novels.

One of my very favourites is an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink period pulp action romp based on their kids novel series Agent 13: the Midnight Avenger (by Flint Dille and David Marconi) which shamelessly blended elements of the Shadow, Indiana Jones and Mandrake the Magician with classic horror and conspiracy thrillers to produce frantic fast-paced adventures of international intrigue and supernatural suspense set in the days before World War II.

Acolytes of Death is actually the second graphic novel volume (its predecessor Agent 13: the Midnight Avenger adapted to comics form the two novels The Invisible Empire and The Serpentine Assassin) but works as stand-alone saga which finds the indomitable super-spy, trained in the mysteries of ancient Lemuria, engaging his world-wide band of undercover operatives in a deadly quest.

It’s 1939 and at stake is humanity itself as immortal villain and would-be global dictator Itsu nears the end of his undying life. Preparing to enact an arcane ritual to renew his sinister eldritch energies, he convenes all the forces of darkness subject to his will: secret societies, witches, zombies and the world’s first vampire, to seek out the ideal venue for his unholy rebirthâ€¦

He has to be stopped: after all, just one of his wicked schemes is manipulating the nations of the Earth into another World War. He has other plans he hasn’t even started yetâ€¦

Agent 13’s uncanny powers are a result of his having been trained by the Brotherhood; Itsu’s cult of wizards and ninja-like Jinda Warriors, but the heroic tough guy rebelled and has been destroying these instigators of terror and chaos ever sinceâ€¦

Now in a rollercoaster race from Soviet Russia to Spain to New Orleans, 13, his dedicated associates and the sultry, morally ambivalent mercenary China White struggle to prevent the Dark Savant’s ultimate triumph, but can 13 trust his allies and the omens when so much is at stakeâ€¦?

Fast-paced, far-fetched, joyous and frenetic, this is pure non-stop, action-packed nonsense of the sort beloved by fans of summer blockbuster movies, stirring and silly but utterly engrossing. The script rattles along and the incredible art by unsung genius Dan Spiegle (ably augmented by letterer Carrie Spiegle and colourist Les Dorscheid) is mesmerising in its expansive majesty.

Published in the extravagant, sleekly luxurious over-sized 285mm x 220mm European album format, this tantalising tome, as a graphic â€œmoduleâ€ also contains a fold-out map, counters, gaming data and background as well as a rule-set, just in case you and some judiciously selected friends feel like having a go at changing the spectacular endingâ€¦
Â© 1990 TSR, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Agent 13 is a trademark owned by Flint Dille and David Marconi.

December 29, 2010December 29, 2010

Young Gods & Friends

By Barry Windsor Smith (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-491-8

In keeping with the dolorous nature of this time of year I’m concentrating on a few missed opportunities in this period between the dubious joys of Christmas and the nervous anticipation of the New Year so here’s a graphic novel that in some way didn’t live up to all it could have been not because of the material itself but because of the kind of world we live inâ€¦

Barry Windsor Smith is a consummate creator whose work has moved millions and a principled artist who has always been poorly served by the mainstream publishing houses. Whether with his co-creation of Sword-and Sorcery comics via Conan the Barbarian or his later work-for-hire material for The Thing (Marvel Fanfare #15 – utterly hilarious), Machine Man, Iron Man, X-Men, Weapon X or the tremendously fun Archer & Armstrong/Valiant Comics work with Jim Shooter, his stunning visuals always entranced but never led to anything long-lived or substantial. And always the problem seemed to be a clash of business ethics versus creative freedomâ€¦

In 1995 Dark Horse, an outfit specialising in licensed and creator-owned properties, offered him the carte-blanche chance to do it his way in his own tabloid-sized anthology Barry Windsor-Smith: Storyteller. The magazine carried three features all written and drawn by the artist; The Paradoxman, The Freebooters and Young Gods. Although the work was simply stunning it appeared independent publishers were cut from the same cloth as the mainstreamâ€¦

It’s not my business to comment on that: I’ve been both freelancer and publisher so I know there are at least two sides to everything (and you can hear Mr. Windsor Smith’s in this superb collection from Fantagraphics) but the series ended acrimoniously in 1997 after nine issues and the stories remained unfinished. This tome, the first of three, collected all the published material of each strip-strand and also includes the chapters still in progress at the time of the split, some new and reformatted material and other extras that fans and lovers of whimsical fiction would be crazy to miss.

But it is still incomplete and that’s a true shameâ€¦

Created as a light-hearted and wittily arch tribute to Jack Kirby’s majestic pantheon of cosmic comic deities Young Gods and Friends nominally stars foul-mouthed earthbound goddess Adastra, getting by as a pizza-delivery chick in New York City, but slowly builds and spreads into a mythico-graphic Waiting for Godot as we trace her past, discover warring pantheons that decided arranged weddings were better than Ragnaroks and meet the bold and heroic nuptualists who would do anything to avoid the arrangement: thus becoming delightfully diverted down a dozen different paths as a picture/story oh-so-slowly builds.

As I’ve mentioned the series came to an abrupt halt with the ninth episode, but there was a tenth ready and that is here, as well as material and fragments that would have been finished out the first dozen instalments as well as deleted scenes, fragments, outtakes and reworked snippets.

On a purely artistic level this collection and extrapolation is a sheer delight; with superb art, splendid writing and all sorts of added extras, but the story-consumer in me can’t help but yearn for what might have been and how much has been lost.

Beautiful wry, witty and completely enchanting – and tragically disappointing because of that

December 19, 2010December 18, 2010

Beyond Mars volumes 1 & 2

By Jack Williamson & Lee Elias (Blackthorne)
ISBNs: 0-932629-82-2 and 0-932629-84-9

The 1950s was the last great flourish of the American newspaper strip. Always intended as a way of boosting circulation and encouraging consumer loyalty, the inexorable rise of television and spiraling costs of publishing gradually ate away at all but the most popular cartoon features as the decade ended, but the earlier years saw a final, valiant, huge burst of creativity and variety as syndicates looked for ways to recapture popular attention whilst editors increasingly sought ways to maximise every fraction of an inch for paying ads, not expensive cost-centers.

No matter how well produced, imaginative or entertaining, if strips couldn’t increase sales, they weren’t welcomeâ€¦

The decade also saw a fantastic social change as a commercial boom and technological progress created a new type of visionary consumer – one fired up by the realization that America was Top Dog in the world. The optimistic escapism offered by the stars above led to a reawakening in the moribund science fiction genre, with a basic introduction for the hoi-polloi offered by the burgeoning television industry through such pioneering if clunky programmes as Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and movies from visionaries like Robert Wise (Day the Earth Stood Still) and George Pal (Destination Moon, When Worlds Collide, War of the Worlds and others).

For kids of all ages conceptual fancies were being tickled by a host of fantastic comicbooks ranging from the blackly satirical Weird Science Fantasy to the welcoming and openly enthusiastic Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space. In the digest magazines master imagineers such as Heinlein, Bradbury, Asimov, Clarke, Sturgeon, Dick, Bester and Farmer were transforming the genre from youthful melodrama into a highly philosophical art formâ€¦

With Flying Saucers in the skies, Reds under the Beds and adventure in mind, the Worlds of Tomorrow were common currency and newspaper strips wanted more. Established features such as Buck Rogers, Brick Bradford and Flash Gordon were no longer enough and editors wanted new fresh visions to draw in a wider public, not just the steady fans who already bought papers for their favourite futurian.

John Stewart â€œJackâ€ Williamson was one of the first superstars of American science fiction, a rurally raised, self-taught author with more than 50 books, 18 short story collections and even volumes of criticism and non-fiction to his much lauded name. Born in Arizona in 1908, he was raised in Texas and sold his first story in 1928 to Amazing Stories.

Williamson created a number of legendary serials such as the Legion of Space, The Humanoids and the Legion of Time and is credited by the OED with inventing â€œterraformingâ€ and â€œgenetic engineering.â€ He was one of the first literary investigators of anti-matter with his Seetee novels.

â€œSee Teeâ€ or â€œContra Terrene Matterâ€ is at the heart of the strip under discussion here, collected in two oversized black and white paperback volumes by Blackthorne in 1987 as part of their Comic Strips Preserves project.

A damning newspaper review of Seetee Ship, Williamson’s second novel in that sequence, claimed the book was only marginally better than a comic strip, prompting the editor of a rival paper to engage Williamson and artist Lee Elias to produce a Sunday page based in the same universe as the books. With Dick Tracy maestro Chester Gould as adviser for the early days, the strip ran exclusively in the New York Daily News from 17^th February 1952 to May 13^th 1955, a glorious high-tech, high-adventure romp based around Brooklyn Rock in 2191AD, a commercial space station bored into one of the rocky chunks drifting in the asteroid belt ‘Beyond Mars’ -the ideal rough-and-tumble story venue on the ultimate frontier of human experience.

The nominal star is Spatial Engineer Mike Flint, an independent charter-pilot based on the rock (although as the series progressed a progression of sexy women and inspired extraterrestrial sidekicks increasingly stole the show) and the first tale begins with Flint selling his services to pluck Becky Starke who has come to the edge of humanity in search of her missing father, although she cloaks that in the quest for a city-sized solid diamond asteroid floating in the deadly â€œMeteor Driftâ€…

Soon Mike and his lisping ophidian Venusian partner Tham Thmith are contending with Brooklyn Rock’s crime boss Frosty Karth, a fantastic raider dubbed the Black Martian, a super-criminal named Cobra and even more unearthly menaces in a stirring tale of interplanetary drug dealers, lost cities, dead civilisations and a fantastic mutation – a semi-feral terran boy who can breathe vacuum and rides deep space on a meteor!

With that tale barely concluded the crew, including the rambunctious space boy Jimikin, fell deep into another mystery – Brooklyn Rock was missing!

However Flint had no time to grieve for the family and friends left behind as he intercepted an inbound star-liner and discovered an old flame and a smooth thug bound for the now-missing space station – moreover, one of them knew where it wentâ€¦

Unknown to even this mastermind, the Rock, stolen by pirates, was out of control and drifting to ultimate destruction in a debris field, but no sooner wais that crisis averted than the heroes became entangled in a â€œFirst Contactâ€ situation with an ancient alien from beyond Known Space – or at least with the devilish devices he/she/it left runningâ€¦

With Book 1 ending on that dramatic cliffhanger, the concluding chronicle opens with Mike, Tham, Jimikin and curvaceous Xeno-archeologist Victoria Snow narrowly escaping alien vivisection from the robotic relics before the tragic, inevitable conclusion.

Snow’s brother Blackie was a fast-talking ne’er-do-well and when he showed up old enemy Karth took the opportunity to try and settle some old scores, leading Flint into a deadly trap on Ceres and a slick saga of genetic manipulation, eugenic supermen and bonanza wealthâ€¦

Meanwhile on an interplanetary liner, a new cast member â€œresurfacedâ€ in the shape of crusty old coot and Mercurian ore prospector Fireproof Jones, just in time to help Flint and Sam mine their newfound riches. As ever Karth was looking to make trouble for the heroes but he invited some for himself when his young daughter suddenly turned up on the Rock accompanied by the gold-digging Pamela Prim. And suddenly the murderous raider Black Martian returned to plague the honest pioneers of the Brooklyn frontierâ€¦

Glamour model Trish O’Keefe caused a completely different kind of trouble when she arrived looking for her fiancÃ©, but Tack McTeak wasn’t the humble space-doctor he claimed to be but a cerebrally augmented criminal mastermind, and his plans to snatch the biggest prize in space led to a sequence of stunning thrills and astonishing action.

The scene switched to Earth as the cast visited â€œcivilisationâ€ and found it far from hospitable, so the chance to battle manufactured monsters and the mysterious Dr. Moray on his private tropical island was something of a welcome, if mixed, blessing.

By this time the writing must have been on the wall, as the strip had been reduced to a half page per week, but the creators had clearly decided to go out in style. The sheer bravura spectacle was magnificently ramped up and all the tools of the science fiction trade were utilized to ensure the strip went out with a bang. Moray’s plans were catastrophically realised when the villain used an anti-gravity bomb to steal Manhattan, turning it into a deadly Sword of Damocles in the skyâ€¦

The series ended when the paper changed its editorial policy and dropped all comics from its pages. The decision was clearly a quick one as the saga finished satisfactorily but quite abruptly on Sunday 13^th March 1955.

Beyond Mars is a breathtaking lost gem from two master craftsmen that successfully blended the wonders of science and the rollicking thrills of Westerns with broad, light-hearted humour to produce a mind-boggling, eye-popping, exuberantly wholesome family space-opera the likes of which wouldn’t be seen again until Star Wars put the fun back into futuristic fiction. This is a saga crying out for a definitive collectors edition.
Â© 1987 Lee Elias Jack & Williamson. Lee Elias. All rights reserved.

December 13, 2010December 18, 2010

Prince Valiant volume 2: 1939-1940

By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-348-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Perfect for everybody who ever dreamed or wonderedâ€¦ Â 9/10

Rightly reckoned one of the greatest comic strips of all time, this saga of a king-in-exile who became one of the greatest warriors in an age of unparalleled heroes is at once fantastically realistic and beautifully, perfectly abstracted – a meta-fictional paradigm of adventure where anything is possible and justice will always prevail. It is the epic we all aspire to dwell withinâ€¦

Of one thing let us be perfectly clear: Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant is not historical. It is far better than that.

Possibly the most successful and evergreen fantasy creation ever conceived, Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur launched on Sunday 13th February 1937, a glorious weekly full-colour window not onto the past but rather onto a world that should have been. It followed the life and adventures of a refugee boy driven by invaders from his ancestral homeland in of faraway Thule who rose to become one of the mightiest heroes of the age of Camelot.

Crafted by the incredibly gifted Harold â€œHalâ€ Foster, this noble scion would over the years grow to manhood in a heady sea of wonderment, roaming the globe and siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes whilst captivating and influencing generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts. There have been films, cartoon series and all manner of toys, games and collections based the strip – one of the few to have lasted from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (over 3750 episodes and counting) and even in these declining days of the newspaper strip as a viable medium it still claims over 300 American papers as its home.

Foster produced the strip, one spectacular page a week until 1971, when, after auditioning such notables as Wally Wood and Gray Morrow, Big Ben Bolt artist John Cullen Murphy was selected to draw the feature. Foster carried on as writer and designer until 1980, after which he fully retired and Murphy’s son assumed the scripter’s role.

In 2004 Cullen Murphy also retired (he died a month later on July 2nd) and the strip has soldiered on under the extremely talented auspices of artist Gary Gianni and writer Mark Schultz – who wrote the fascinating forward ‘Yes, He Was a Cartoonist’ which opens this second stupendous chronological collection.

This exquisite hardback volume, reprints in glorious colour – spectacularly restored from Foster’s original Printer’s Proofs – the perfectly restored Sunday pages from January 1^st 1939 to 29^th December 1940, following the extremely capable squire of Sir Gawain as he rushes to warn Camelot of an impending invasion by rapacious Saxons via the vast Anglian Fens where the Royal Family of Thule have hidden since being ousted from their Nordic Island Kingdom by the villainous usurper Sligon.

After a breathtaking battle which sees the Saxons repulsed and the battle-loving boy-warrior knighted upon the field of victory, Valiant begins a period of globe-trotting through the fabled lands of Europe just as the last remnants of the Roman Empire is dying in deceit and intrigue.

Firstly Val journeys to Thule and returns his father to the throne, narrowly escaping the alluring wiles of a conniving beauty with an eye to marrying the Heir Apparent, then bored with peace and plenty the roving royal wildcat encounters a time-twisting pair of mystical perils who show him the eventual fate of all mortals. Sobered but not daunted he then makes his way towards Rome, where he will become unwittingly embroiled in the manic machinations of the Last Emperor, Valentinian.

Before that however he is distracted by an epic adventure that would have struck stunning resonances for the readership at the time. With episode #118 (14^th May 1939) Val joined the doomed knights of mountain fortress Andelkrag, who alone and unaided held back the assembled might of the terrifying hordes of Attila the Hun which had decimated the civilisations of Europe and now gathered to wipe out its last vestige.

With Hitler and Mussolini hogging the headlines and Modern European war seemingly inevitable Val joined the Battle of Decency and Right against untrammelled Barbarism. His epic struggle and sole survival comprise one of the greatest episodes of glorious, doom-fated chivalry in literatureâ€¦

After the fall of the towers of Andelkrag, Valiant made his way onward to the diminshed Rome, picking up a wily sidekick in the form of cutpurse vagabond Slith. Once more he was distracted however, as the Huns delayed. The indomitable lad resolved to pay them back in kind, and gathered dispossessed victims of Hunnish depredations, forging them into a resistance army of guerrilla-fighters – the Hun-Huntersâ€¦

Thereafter he liberated the vassal city of Pandaris, driving back the invaders and their collaborator allies in one spectacular coup after another.

Valiant reunited with equally action-starved Round Table companions Sir Tristram and Sir Gawain to make fools of the Hun, who had lost heart after the death of their charismatic leader Attila (nothing to do with Val, just a historical fact). When Slith fell for a beauteous warrior princess, the English Knights left him to a life of joyous domesticity and moved ever on.

An unexpected encounter with a giant and his unconventional army of freaks led to the heroes inadvertently helping a band of marshland refugees from Hunnish atrocity found the nation-state of Venice before at long last after a after a side-trip to the fabulous city of Ravenna the trio crossed the fabled Rubicon and plunged into a hotbed of political tumult.

Unjustly implicated in a web of murder and double-dealing, the knights barely escaped with their lives and split up to avoid pursuit. Tristan returned to England and a star-crossed rendezvous with the comely Isolde, Gawain took ship for fun in Massilia and Valiant, after an excursion to the rim of fiery Vesuvius, boarded a pirate scow for Sicily and further adventure.

To Be Continuedâ€¦

This series is a non-stop rollercoaster of action and romance, blending realistic fantasy with sardonic wit and broad humour with unbelievably stirring violence, all rendered in an incomprehensibly lovely panorama of glowing art. Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring Prince Valiant is a World Classic of storytelling, and this magnificent deluxe is something no fan can afford to be without.

If you have never experienced the majesty and grandeur of the strip this astounding and enchanting premium collection is the best way possible to start and will be your gateway to a life-changing world of wonder and imaginationâ€¦

November 22, 2010November 21, 2010

Networked: Carabella on the Run

By Gerard Jones & Mark Badger (Privacy Activism/NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-586-3

Comics are an immensely effective teaching tool and not just for youngsters, either. The organisation Privacy Activism is a non-profit organisation which seeks to educate and inform the public about online safety, democratic principles in a global commercial environment and personal information protection through a variety of methods and after a couple of video game projects has worked here with comicbook creators Gerard Jones and Mark Badger and publisher NBM to produce a graphic novel starring their proprietary character Carabella; a blue-skinned teenaged girl from someplace stranger and nastier than hereâ€¦

In Networked: Carabella on the Run the defensive, secretive lass is starting college and horrified at how easily her anonymity can be destroyed by even well-meaning friends through online social networking and messaging. Even her picture is soon being beamed all over the planet – all without her permission or knowledge.

Still, it’s not as if she has anything to hide, is it?

She soon strikes up a tentative relationship with Nick, an engineering student who has invented shoes which can film and monitor the wearer’s movement’s, record and broadcast physical responses and generally turn each owner into a walking market research report. Of course that wasn’t his intention – he just though it would be cool for friends to share their lives with othersâ€¦

Unfortunately where Carabella comes from such information has long been used to oversee, segregate, program and control the population, so when hunters seeking her return align themselves with aggressive venture capitalists and sections of the Government she realises that the privacy, liberty and choices available to her and her friends might become just as obsolete as on her own worldâ€¦

Combining a sensible, well-reasoned argument for common sense and practical personal protection with solid adventure-thriller plotting and the requisite amount of romance, action and fun, this is a great read with an important message that doesn’t overload the necessity to keep things interesting and enjoyable.

Most of Networked is available online in a slightly altered form if you want a peek, and the printed form is a perfect and potentially reassuring gift for parents to buy their kids alongside the mobile-phones and think-pods they’ll be clamouring for this year.

November 9, 2010November 7, 2010

The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones Omnibus volume 1

By various (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-808-9

Dark Horse Comics have held the comics producing section of the Indiana Jones franchise since 1993, generating thousands of pages of material, much of it excellent and some not quite. But, and it might be construed as heretical to say it, dedicated fans aren’t all that quality conscious when it comes to their particular fascination, whether it’s games about finding Atlantis or the latest watered-down kids interpretation or whatever.

So the company’s Omnibus line is a wonderfully economical way to keep the older material in print for such fans by bundling old publications into classy, full-colour digests (they’re slightly smaller than US comic-books but larger than the standard manga volume, running about 400 pages per book). This initial volume (of three) chronologically re-presents the first dozen Marvel interpretations which followed the film Raiders of the Lost Ark as well as including the three-issue miniseries adaptation that preceded the landmark film. I’m being this specific because the comic version was also released as a single glossy, enhanced-colour magazine in their Marvel Super Special series (#18: Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark if you’re curious).

And just in case you haven’t seen the film: set in the days before World War II, Hitler’s paranormal investigation division was gathering occult artifacts from around the planet and soon crossed swords with a rough and ready archaeology professor from a New York university, when the unconventional Doctor Indiana Jones was maneuvered by the American government into tracking down his old tutor who might have a knowledge of the biblical Ark of the Covenant.

Although Abner Ravenwood had since died his daughter Marion possessed the clues the rough and ready Jones needed – unfortunately she’s also an old flame Indy had abandoned and would rather burn in hell than help himâ€¦

However when the Nazis turn up and try to torch her in the Nepalese bar she was dumped in, Marion joins Jones in a breakneck chase across the globe from Cairo to the lost city of Tanis to a secret Nazi submarine base on a tropical island, fighting natives and Nazis every step of the way until the ancient artifact separates the just from the wicked in a spectacular and terrifying display of Old Testament style Wrathâ€¦

The movie’s format – baffling search for a legendary object, utterly irredeemable antagonists, exotic locales, non-stop chase action, outrageous fights and just a hint of eldritch overtones – became the staple for the comic book series that followed, opening in impressive manner with ‘The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones’ a two-part yarn from Jack-of-all-genres John Byrne, assisted by Terry Austin and with veteran scripter Denny O’Neil pitching in for the concluding ’22-Karat Doom!’

When an old student is murdered before his eyes Indy swears to complete the lad’s research, subsequently trekking through Africa in search of a tribe who could turn men to gold, never more than one step ahead of a maniac millionaire with no love of mysteries or antiquities but a possessed of a deep and abiding love of profitâ€¦

That adventure ended with our hero plunging out of a doomed plane and into issue #3’s American set adventure ‘The Devil’s Cradle’ (O’Neil, Gene Day, Richard Howell, Mel Candido & Danny Bulanadi) wherein he fell into a hillbilly wilderness where a rogue US Army Colonel and a band of witch-burning yokels are separately hunting a 400 year-old alchemist with all the secrets of the ages at his fingertipsâ€¦

‘Gateway to Infinity!’ by David Michelinie, Ron Frenz & Bulanadi saw the archeological adventurer en route to Stonehenge, courtesy of the US government, when a ring of Nazi spies once again failed to kill him. Hitler’s spies and parapsychologists were still hunting preternatural artifacts and the crystal cylinder uncovered at the ancient monument definitely qualified. English professor Karen Mays dated it to the Triassic period, millions of years before Man evolved and the murderous Aryans would stop at nothing to make it theirsâ€¦

Luckily for Jones and Mays – but not the Third Reich – the spies were eventually successful. However to their eternal regret their vile machinations unleashed ‘The Harbingers’ and only Indy’s swift reactions prevented a horror beyond time from escaping into our world.

Jazz Age mastermind Howard Chaykin joined Austin to illustrate the wonderfully classy ‘Club Nightmare’ (plotted by Archie Goodwin and scripted by Michelinie) as Marion opened a swanky Manhattan night-spot only to run afoul of mobsters and worse even before it opened. With Indy on hand to save the day the situation swiftly went from calamitous to disastrousâ€¦

Michelinie, Gammill & Sam de La Rosa soon had the hero globe-trotting again in ‘Africa Screams’ as a tussle in Tuscany with tomb-robber Ian McIver led to a solid clue to an even deeper mystery. Following an old map Indy and Marion are soon on their way to the Dark Continent in search of the legendary Shintay – a tribe of pale giants outcast from and last survivors of fabled Atlantisâ€¦

Unfortunately McIver and those ever-eager Nazi hunters were also on the trail and in ‘Crystal Death’ the vast power of the Shintay nearly wiped out half of Africaâ€¦

Issues #9 and 10 found the artifact hunter the target of a sinister plot by German spies and Aztec wannabees in ‘The Gold Goddess: Xomec’s Raiders’ (Goodwin, Michelinie, Dan Reed & Bulanadi), leading to a series of death-defying battles in the lofty heights of the Big Apple and the depths of the Brazilian jungle

This first volume concludes in fine style with a breathtaking global duel and a brand new villain as Indy is seduced by nefarious antiquities collector Ben Ali Ayoob into hunting down a persistent Biblical myth: ‘The Fourth Nail’. In ‘Blood and Sand’ Dr. Jones travels from the Australian Outback to Barcelona trying to find the unused final spike that should have ended Christ’s suffering on the Cross, but his quest is dogged by bad luck, Arabic ninjas, guardian gypsies, immense insane bandits and irascible bulls looking for a handy matador to mangleâ€¦ The perilous pilgrimage reaches an inevitable conclusion in ‘Swords and Spikes’ (with additional art from Luke McDonnell and Mel Candido), a cavalcade of carnage, helter-skelter action and supernatural retribution.

With a covers gallery from such able and diverse hands as James T. Sherman, Walt Simonson, Terry Austin, John Byrne, Rich Howell & Armando Gil, Ron Frenz, Mike Gustovich, Howard Chaykin, Kerry Gammill, Bob Wiacek and Bob McLeod this is a splendid chunk of simple escapist fun: the type of buried treasure any fan of any age would be delighted to unearth.

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