Category: Romance

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Jinx volume 1


By J. Torres, Rick Burchett & Terry Austin (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-93697-500-6 (HC/Digital edition) 978-1-87979-491-7 (PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Despite tremendous advances in the last couple of decades, for most people, when we say comic books, thoughts STILL either turn to outrageously buff men and women in garish tights or leather hitting each other and lobbing cars about, or stark, nihilistic crime, horror or science fiction sagas aimed at an extremely mature and sophisticated readership of already-confirmed fans. For mainstream American comics that remains the norm. Over the years though (and throughout the rest of the world long ago), other forms and genres continue to wax and wane.

One US company steadfastly that held its ground against the tide for decades – supported by a thriving spin-off TV and movie franchise – was a teen-comedy powerhouse which created a genre through the exploits of carrot-topped Archie Andrews and the two girls he could never choose between – Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge. For so many years, other companies largely ignored the fact that girls read comics too and, in their slavish pursuit of the spandex dollar, lost half their potential audience. Girls simply found other ways to amuse themselves until, in the 1990s, the rise of manga painfully proved to comics publishers what Archie Comics had always known.

Ever since that pivotal moment Editors have attempted to recapture that vast missing market: creating many worthy titles and even entire imprints dedicated to material for teen/young adult audiences (since not all boys thrive on a steady diet of cosmic punch-ups and vengeful vigilantes) which had embraced European classics like Tintin and Asterix, manga material, momentous comics epics like Maus and Persepolis or abundant and prolific prose serials which produced a never-ending wave of passionate fans for everything from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian to Twilight to The Hunger Games.

Archie thrived by never abandoning its female readership and by constant reinvention of its core characters, seamlessly adapting to the changing world outside its bright, flimsy (or digitally unbreakable) pages: shamelessly co-opting pop music, youth culture and fashion trends into its infallible mix of slapstick and romance. Each and every social revolution has been painlessly assimilated into the mix (the company has managed to confront a number of major issues affecting the young in a manner both even-handed and tasteful over the years), and the constant addition of timely characters such as African-American Chuck and his girlfriend Nancy, fashion-diva Ginger, Hispanic couple Frankie & Maria and a host of others – like over-privileged home-wrecker-in-waiting Cheryl Blossom – all contributed to a broad and refreshingly broad-minded scenario. They also lead in non-sensationalised interracial romances, and in 2010 Archie jumped the final hurdle for a family-entertainment medium with the rapturously well-received introduction of Kevin Keller; an openly gay and proud young man who was a clear-headed advocate capably tackling and dismantling the last major taboo in mainstream kids’ comics.

Where once cheap, prolific and ubiquitous, comics magazines in the 21st century are extremely cost-intensive and manufactured for a highly specific – but dwindling – niche market. Moreover the improbably beguiling and bombastic genres that originally fed and nurtured comic books were increasingly being supplanted by TV, movies and assorted interactive games media.

Happily, old-school prose publishers and the graphic novel industry have different business models and more sustainable long-term goals, so the magazine makers’ surrender has been turned into a burgeoning victory, as solid and reassuringly sturdy Comics-as-Books still buck the slowly perishing pamphlet/papers trend. Publishers like Archie…

Back then Jinx was another barely-noticed landmark which saw one of the company’s venerable and long-lived child-stars given a stunning makeover and refit courtesy of a multi award-winning creative team. Writer J. Torres (Teen Titans Go!, Alison Dare, Degrassi: the Next Generation, Days Like This, Lola – a Ghost Story and others) in conjunction with celebrated artists Rick Burchett (Batman Adventures, American Flagg!, Blackhawk, Black Hood) & Terry Austin (X-Men, Superman, Batman, Cloak and Dagger) are responsible for turning adorable but venerable 1950’s 6-year old tomboy Li’l Jinx into a genuine icon of, if not role-model for, modern teenaged girls in a style and manner at once astonishingly accessible and classically captivating.

If you qualify as an Ancient One like me, you might be familiar with precocious, feisty Li’l Jinx who debuted in Pep Comics #62 (cover-dated July 1947). Created by Joe Edwards, she debuted as the publisher began dropping superheroes such as The Shield and Black Hood to specialise in kid-friendly humour features. Over the coming decades she appeared in her own title, as well as Li’l Jinx Giant Laugh-Out and assorted anthologies including Pep and Archie Giant Series Magazine. Like auteur Edwards’ own son, her birthday was on Halloween and the writer/artist put much of himself into the strip. A boisterous, basically decent, sports-loving, mischievous tyke (in the manner of our Minnie the Minx), when not romping, cavorting and tussling with other kid pals Gigi, Greg, Charley Hawse, Russ, Roz and Mort the Worry Wart, Jinx almost exclusively interacted with her long-suffering dad Hap Holliday.

Mother was seldom seen. The kid’s Christian name is lost to history: apparently so screamingly embarrassing in-world that to utter it was to invite battered ear drums and mangled limbs…

Li’l Jinx faded away gradually during the 1980s as fashionista-teenagers and Mutant Turtles supplanted pesky kid characters in Archie’s increasingly “young adult” oriented stable. However, Jinx Holliday was revived and given a thorough 21st century upgrade for a new serial in Life With Archie (#7-11, March-June 2011): a growing girl just starting big school. The former tomboy hadn’t lost all her rough edges though…

This initial volume collects the serialised story of her beginning the inescapable if deplorable process of becoming responsible – with all the scary changes that entails. After a handy ‘Cast of Jinx’ page, the dramatic comedy opens with 4-part tale ‘Little Jinx Grows up’ – as serialised in anthology title Life With Archie, with the nervous 14-year old Californian kid starting over at Rose Valley High School where she immediately falls foul of draconian martinet Principal Mr. Vernon. At least many of her oldest friends are starting too, but they all seem so changed and grown up since summer vacation…

As all attendees settle in, Jinx is oblivious to the fact that more than one of the boys she used to wrestle and play football with now considers – and treats – her very differently. She’s just starting to hate the place and its stupid rules when Greg points out the final straw: Freshman Baseball – in fact all her favourite sports – are for boys only. Former child model Gigi is typically smug about it, hinting again that it’s time Jinx began acting like a girl, but that only provokes the incensed and outraged tomboy to break another rule…

Everybody is talking about Jinx after she most publicly signs up for Football Tryouts, and neither a barracking from Mr. Vernon or some heavy-handed bullying of Greg by the senior Football squad can change her mind.

The Principal thinks he has the final word after making Jinx take a permission slip home to her dad, but after Hap Holliday absolutely refuses to let his little girl get crippled by teenaged Neanderthals, Jinx simple forges his signature…

Tryouts are a disaster, but at least Greg is honestly trying to help her. Surly Charley, however, delivers a tackle that results in her being stretchered off, and when dad is called to school all hell breaks loose. While she’s grounded and recovering, BFF Roz starts dropping hints about Greg and romance, promptly going into snoopy overdrive when a mystery caller leaves a large bouquet of flowers…

For the first time Jinx realises High School is just one big stew of frustrated hormones which only add to her worries. So preoccupied is she that, when Greg timidly asks her to a dance, she doesn’t realise what he’s saying and shoots him down without even noticing. The mystery flower-sender – covertly watching – does, however, and seethes…

Flustered, confused and determined to end the turmoil in her head, Jinx ambushes and pre-emptively kisses Greg, but the result is something neither of them nor their secret stalker expected…

The grand gesture completely destabilises Jinx who goes into a spiral of angry depression and tetchy acting-up. Baffled Hap is hopeless to cope, and – with Halloween approaching – throws himself into organising her birthday costume party: a tradition they’ve enjoyed since she was a toddler. He has no idea how much his little girl has changed and that the prospect of a party sounds like torture to her. And thus the scene is set for a showdown nobody will ever forget…

All dramatic foreboding aside, this clever, warm tale ends well and promises much more for the future. Smart, witty and intoxicatingly engaging, Jinx is a superb example of what can be accomplished in comics if you’re prepared to portray modern kids on their terms and address their issues and concerns.

Without ever resorting to overblown soap melodrama or angst-ridden teen clichés, Torres delivers a believable cast of young friends who aren’t stupid or selfish, but simply seeking to find their own tentative ways to maturity. The art by Burchett & Austin is semi-realistic and astoundingly effective.

This terrific turbulent tome includes bonus features such as a ‘Football Pinup’, J. Torres’ thoughts and commentary on the story as described in ‘The Voice of Jinx’ plus a fascinating, picture-packed peek behind the scenes in ‘The Concept Art of Jinx’. More production secrets are revealed by Editor Suzannah Rowntree, describing the project’s conception and creation in ‘The Story of Teen Jinx’, and there’s even a smart selection of one-page Short Comics treats to wrap up the fun.

‘Fitting In’, ‘It’s Complicated’, ‘Frenemy of the State’, ‘The Dating Game’ and ‘Chat Fight’ combine to prove that although they might be growing up, the cast are still kids at heart…

Compellingly funny, gently heart-warming and totally absorbingly, this book will resonate with kids and parents, offering genuine human interactions rather than repetitively manufactured atom-powered fistfights to hold your attention. It especially gives women a solid reason to give comics another try.

Sheer exuberant fun; perfectly crafted and still utterly irresistible nearly a generation later…
© 2012 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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High Soft Lisp


By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-318-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Please pay attention: this book contains stories and images of an adult nature, specifically designed for adult consumption, employing the kind of coarse, vulgar language most kids are fluent in by the age of ten. If reading about such things is likely to offend you, please stop now and go away. Tomorrow I’ll write about something with violence and explosions, so come back then.

In addition to being part of the graphic and literary revolution that is Love and Rockets (where his astonishingly compulsive tales of Palomar and the later stories of those characters collected as Luba gained such critical acclaim), Gilbert Hernandez has produced compelling stand-alone tales such as Sloth, Grip and Girl Crazy. They are all marked by his bold, simplified line artwork and a mature, sensitive use of the literary techniques of Magical Realist writers Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez: techniques which he has added to and made his own.

Love and Rockets is an anthology comics publication featuring slick, intriguing, sci fi-ish larks, heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasy and bold experimental comic narratives that pretty much defy classification. The astounding Hernandez Bros still captivate with incredible stories that sample a thousand influences conceptual and actual – everything from Archie Comics and alternative music to German Expressionism and luchadores.

Palomar was the conceptual and cultural playground “Beto” devised for extended serial Heartbreak Soup: a dirt-poor Latin-American village with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast. Everything from life death, adultery, magic, serial killing and especially gossip could happen in Palomar’s meta-fictional environs – and did – as the artist explored his own post-punk influences: comics, music, drugs, comics, strong women, gangs, sex, family and comics, and all in a style somehow informed by everything from Tarzan comics to Saturday morning cartoons and The Lucy Show.

Happily, Beto often returns to Palomar, frequently for new tales involving the formidable matriarch Luba, who ran the village’s bath house, acted as Mayor (and sometimes police chief) as well as adding regularly to the general population. Her children, brought up with no acknowledged fathers in sight or ever looked for, are Maricela, Guadalupe, Doralis, Casimira, Socorro, Joselito and Concepcion.

Luba eventually migrated to the USA and reunited with her half-sisters Petra and – the star of this volume – Rosalba “Fritz” Martinez. This collection was compiled from assorted material that first appeared in Love and Rockets volume II and Luba’s Comics and Stories, with new pages and many others redrawn and rewritten.

Fritz is a terrifyingly complex creature. She is a psychiatrist and therapist, former B-Movie actress, occasional belly dancer, persistent drunk and ardent gun-fetishist, as well as a sexually aggressive and manipulative serial spouse. Beautiful, enticingly damaged, with a possibly-intentional and affected speech impediment, she sashays from crisis to triumph and back again.

This moving, shocking, funny chronicle uses the rambling recollections of one of her past husbands – sleazy motivational speaker Mark Herrera – to review her life from High School punkette outsider through her various career and family ups and downs…

Under the umbrella title of ‘Dumb Solitaire’, what purports to be the memoir of Senor Herrera reveals in scathing depth the troubled life of a woman he just cannot stay away from in an uncompromising and sexually explicit “documentary” which pulls no punches, makes no judgements and yet still manages to come off as a feel-good tale.

High Soft Lisp is the most intriguing depiction of feminine power and behaviour since Flaubert’s Madame Bovary – and probably just as troubling and controversial – with the added advantage of intoxicating drawing adding shades of meaning mere text cannot impart.

Extremely funny and powerfully moving, remarkable and unmissable: no fan of the medium, student of humanity or lover of life in the raw should deprive themselves of this treat.
© 2010 Gilbert Hernandez. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents The Elongated Man


By John Broome, Gardner Fox, John Broome, Carmine Infantino, Murphy Anderson, Irv Novick, Gil Kane, Neal Adams, Mike Sekowsky, Sid Greene & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1042-2 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are a bunch of comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant will be rightly celebrated, but a few are going to be unjustly ignored. As a feverish fanboy wedged firmly in the past, I’m again abusing my privileges here to carp about another brilliant vintage book, criminally out of print and not slated for revival either physically or in digital formats…

Once upon a time, American comics editors believed readers would become jaded if any characters were over-used or over-exposed. To combat that potential danger – and for sundry other commercial and economic reasons – they developed back-up features in most of their titles. By the mid-1960s the policy was largely abandoned as resurgent superheroes sprang up everywhere and readers just couldn’t get enough – but there were still one or two memorable holdouts.

In late 1963 Julius Schwartz took editorial control of Batman and Detective Comics and finally found a place for a character who had been lying mostly fallow ever since his debut as a very long-legged walk-on in the April/May 1960 Flash. The Elongated Man was Ralph Dibny: a circus-performer who discovered an additive in popular soft drink Gingold which seemed to give certain people increased muscular flexibility. Intrigued, Dibny isolated and refined the chemical additive until he had developed a serum which granting him the ability to stretch, bend and compress his body to an incredible degree. Then Ralph had to decide how to use his new powers…

A quirky chap with his own small but passionate band of devotees, in recent years the perennial B-lister became a fixture of the latest Flash TV series, but his many exploits are still largely uncollected in any format. The only archival asset is this charming, witty and very pretty compilation gathering his debut and guest appearances from Flash issues #112, 115, 119, 124, 130, 134, and 138 (spanning cover-dates April/May 1960 to August 1963) plus the Stretchable Sleuth’s entire scintillating run from Detective Comics #327-371 (comprising May 1964 to January 1968).

Designed as a modern take on Jack Cole’s immensely popular Golden Age champion Plastic Man, Dibny debuted in a cunningly crafted crime caper by John Broome, Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella. Flash #112 went on sale February 25th 1960, cover featuring ‘The Mystery of the Elongated Man!’ He was presented as a mysterious, masked yet attention-seeking elastic do-gooder, of whom the Scarlet Speedster was nonetheless highly suspicious…

Proving himself virtuous, Dibny returned in #115 (September 1960, inked by Murphy Anderson) when aliens attempt to conquer the Earth and the Vizier of Velocity needs ‘The Elongated Man’s Secret Weapon!’ as well as the guest-star himself to save the day. In Flash #119 (March 1961), Flash rescues the vanished hero from ‘The Elongated Man’s Undersea Trap!’, thereby introducing vivacious and deadly smart Sue Dibny as a newlywed “Mrs Elongated Man”) in a stirring saga of subsea alien slavers by regular creative team Broome, Infantino & Giella. The threat was again extraterrestrial with #124’s alien invasion thriller ‘Space-Boomerang Trap!’ (November 1961), featuring an uneasy alliance between the Scarlet Speedster, Elastic Investigator and sinister rogue Captain Boomerang, who naturally couldn’t be trusted as far as you could throw him. Ralph collaborated with Flash’s junior partner in #130 (August 1962) only just defeating the wily Weather Wizard when ‘Kid Flash Meets the Elongated Man!’ before bounding back into action with – and against – the senior speedster in Flash #134 (February 1963). Seemingly allied with Captain Cold in ‘The Man Who Mastered Absolute Zero!’, Dibny excelled in an epic thriller that almost ended his heroic career…

Gardner Fox scripted ‘The Pied Piper’s Double Doom!’ in Flash #138 (August 1963), a mesmerising team-up seeing both Elongated Man and the Monarch of Motion enslaved by the sinister Sultan of Sound, before ingenuity and justice ultimately prevailed. Soon after, when a back-up spot opened in Detective Comics (previously held by Martian Manhunter since 1955 and only vacated because J’onn J’onzz was promoted to lead feature in House of Mystery), Schwartz had Ralph slightly reconfigured becoming a flamboyant, fame-hungry, brilliantly canny globe-trotting private eye solving mysteries for the sheer fun of it.

Aided by his equally smart, thoroughly grounded wife, the short tales were patterned on classic Thin Man filmic escapades of Nick and Norah Charles, blending clever, impossible crimes with slick sleuthing, all garnished with the outré heroic permutations and frantic physical antics first perfected in Plastic Man. These complex yet uncomplicated sorties, drenched in fanciful charm and sly dry wit, began in Detective #327 (May 1964) with ‘Ten Miles to Nowhere!’ (by Fox & Infantino, who inked himself for all early episodes). Here Ralph, who had publicly unmasked to become a (regrettably minor) celebrity, discovered someone had been stealing his car every night and bringing it back as if nothing had happened. Of course, it had to be a clever criminal plot of some sort…

A month later he solved the ‘Curious Case of the Barn-door Bandit!’, debuting his direly distressing signature trademark of manically twitching his expanded nose whenever he detects “the scent of mystery in the air”. Then he heads for cowboy country to unravel the ‘Puzzle of the Purple Pony!’ and play cupid for a young couple hunting a gold mine in #329.

Ralph & Sue were on an extended honeymoon tour, making him the only costumed hero without a city to protect. On reaching California, Ralph is embroiled in a ‘Desert Double-Cross!’ when hostage-taking thieves raid the home of a wealthy recluse, after which Detective #331 offered a rare full-length story in ‘Museum of Mixed-Up Men!’ (Fox, Infantino & Joe Giella) as Batman, Robin and Ralph unite against a super-scientific felon able to steal memories and reshape victims’ faces. Returned to his solo support role in #332, the Ductile Detective then discovers Sue has been replaced by an alien in ‘The Elongated Man’s Other-World Wife!’ (with Sid Greene joining as new permanent inker). Of course, nothing is as it seems…

‘The Robbery That Never Happened!’ occurred when a jewellery store customer suspiciously claims he had been given too much change, before ‘Battle of the Elongated Weapons!’ (#334) concentrates on a crook who adapts Ralph’s Gingold serum to affect objects, after which bombastic battle it’s back to mystery-solving as EM is invited by Fairview City to round up a brazen bunch of uncatchable bandits in ‘Break Up of the Bottleneck Gang!’ While visiting Central City again, Ralph is lured to the Mirror Master’s old lair and only barely survives ‘The House of “Flashy” Traps!’ before risking certain death in the ‘Case of the 20 Grand Pay-off!’ after replacing Sue with a look-alike – for the best possible reasons – but without her knowledge or permission…

Narrowly surviving his wife’s wrath by turning the American tour into a World cruise, Ralph tackles the ‘Case of the Curious Compass!’ in Amsterdam, by foiling a gang of diamond smugglers before returning to the US to ferret out funny-money pushers in ‘The Counterfeit Crime-Buster!’ Similarly globe-trotting creator John Broome returned to script ‘Mystery of the Millionaire Cowboy!’ in Detective #340 (June 1965) with Ralph and Sue stumbling onto a seemingly haunted theatre and finding crooks at the heart of the matter, and ‘The Elongated Man’s Change-of-Face!’ (Fox, Infantino & Greene) finds a desperate newsman publishing fake exploits to draw the fame-fuelled hero into investigating a town under siege, before ‘The Bandits and the Baroness!’ (by Broome) has our perpetually vacationing couple check in at a resort where every other guest is a Ralph Dibny, in a classy insurance scam yarn heavy with intrigue and tension.

A second full-length team-up with Batman filled Detective Comics #343 (September 1965, by Broome, Infantino & Joe Giella). ‘The Secret War of the Phantom General!’ is a tense action-thriller pitting the hard-pressed heroes against a hidden army of gangsters and Nazi war criminals determined to take over Gotham City. Having broken Ralph’s biggest case, the happy couple head for the Continent and encounter ‘Peril in Paris!’ (Broome, Infantino & Greene) after Sue goes shopping as an ignorant monolingual American and returns a few hours later a fluent French-speaker…

Fox’s ‘Robberies in Reverse!’ boasts a baffling situation wherein shopkeepers start paying customers, leading Ralph to a severely skewed scientist’s accidental discovery, whilst #346’s ‘Peephole to the Future!’ (Broome) sees Elongated Man inexplicably develop the power of clairvoyance. It sadly clears up long before he can use it to tackle ‘The Man Who Hated Money!’ (Fox) starring a bandit who destroys every penny he steals.

‘My Wife, the Witch!’ was Greene’s last inking contribution for a nearly a year: a Fox thriller wherein Sue apparently gains magical powers whilst ‘The 13 O’Clock Robbery!’ – with Infantino again inking himself – sees Ralph walk into a bizarre mystery and deadly booby-trapped mansion, before Hal Jordan’s best friend seeks out the Stretchable Sleuth to solve the riddle of ‘Green Lantern’s Blackout!’ – an entrancing, action-packed team-up with a future Justice League colleague. ‘The Case of the Costume-made Crook!’ then finds Ralph ambushed by a felon using his old uniform as an implausible burglary tool.

Broome conceived ‘The Counter of Monte Carlo!’ as the peripatetic Dibnys fall into a colossal espionage conspiracy at the casino and afterward become pawns of a fortune teller in ‘The Puzzling Prophecies of the Tea Leaves!’ (Fox), before Broome dazzles and delights one more time with ‘The Double-Dealing Jewel Thieves!’ with a museum owner finding his imitation jewel exhibit is indeed filled with fakes…

As Fox assumed full scripting duties, mystic nomad Zatanna guest-stars in DC #355’s ‘The Tantalising Troubles of the Tripod Thieves!’ as stolen magical artefacts lead Ralph into conflict with a band of violent thugs, before ‘Truth Behind the False Faces!’ sees Infantino bow out on a high note as Elongated Man helps a beat cop to his first big bust and solves the conundrum of a criminal wax museum. Detective #357 (November 1966) featured ‘Tragedy of the Too-Lucky Thief!’ (by Fox, Murphy Anderson & Greene) as the Dibnys meet a gambler who hates to win but cannot lose, whilst Greene handled all the art on ‘The Faker-Takers of the Baker’s Dozen!’ after Sue’s latest art project leads to the theft of an ancient masterpiece.

Anderson soloed with Fox’s ‘Riddle of the Sleepytime Taxi!’, a compellingly glamorous tale of theft and espionage, before Ralph & Sue visit Swinging England (Detective #360 February 1967, by Fox & Anderson) for ‘London Caper of the Rockers and Mods!’ Meeting the reigning monarch and preventing warring kid-gangs from desecrating our most famous tourist traps, they head home to ‘The Curious Clue of the Circus Crook!’ (Greene). Here Ralph visits his old Big-Top boss and stops a rash of robberies following the show around the country. Infantino found time in his increasingly busy schedule for a few more episodes, (both inked by Greene) beginning with ‘The Horse that Hunted Hoods’: a police steed with uncanny crime solving abilities, and continuing in a ‘Way-out Day in Wishbone City!’ wherein normally solid citizens – even Sue – go temporarily insane and riot, after which unsung master Irv Novick steps in to delineate the mystery of ‘The Ship That Sank Twice!’

‘The Crooks who Captured Themselves!’ (#365, by Greene) recounts Ralph losing control of his powers before Broome & Infantino reunite one last time for ‘Robber Round-up in Kiddy City!’ as, for a change, Sue sniffs out a theme-park mystery for Ralph to solve. Infantino finally bowed out with the superb ‘Enigma of the Elongated Evildoer!’ (written by Fox and inked by Greene) as the Debonair Detectives thwart a thief in a ski lodge who seems to possess all Ralph’s elastic abilities. The Atom guest-starred in #368, helping battle clock-criminal Chronos in ‘The Treacherous Time-Trap!’ by Fox, Gil Kane & Greene, before iconoclastic newcomer Neal Adams illustrates poignant puzzler ‘Legend of the Lover’s Lantern!’ and Kane & Greene return for intriguing all-action ‘Case of the Colorless Cash!’. The close of the year signalled the end of an era as Fox, Mike Sekowsky & Greene concluded Elongated Man’s expansive solo stretch with delightfully dizzy lost-loot yarn ‘The Bellringer and the Baffling Bongs’ (#371, January 1968).

With the next issue Detective Comics became an all Bat-family affair. Ralph & Sue Dibny temporarily faded from view until revived as bit players in Flash and were finally recruited into the Justice League of America as semi-regulars. Their charismatic relationship and unique, genteel style have, sadly, not survived: casualties of changing comics tastes and the replacement of sophistication with angsty shouting and testosterone-fuelled sturm und drang.

Witty, bright, clever and genuinely enthralling, these smart stories from a lost age are all beautiful to look at and a joy to read for any sharp kid and all joy-starved adults. This adorable collection is a shining tribute to the very best of DC’s Silver Age and a volume no fan of fun and adventure of any age should be without. It should not, however, be the only place you can stretch out and enjoy such classic fare.
© 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks presents Mighty Thor volume 4: When Meet the Immortals


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, with Vince Colletta, Art Simek, Sam Rosen & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5426-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

These stories are timeless and have been gathered many times before, but today I’m once again focussing on format. The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line launched with economy in mind: classic tales of Marvel’s key creators and characters re-presented in chronological publishing order. It’s been a staple since the 1990s, but always in lavish, hardback collectors editions. These editions are cheaper, on lower quality paper and – crucially – smaller, about the dimensions of a paperback book. Your eyesight might be failing and your hands too big and shaky, but at 152 x 227mm, they’re perfect for kids. If you opt for digital editions, that’s no issue at all…

Even more than The Fantastic Four, Sci Fi fantasy title The Mighty Thor was the arena in which Jack Kirby’s boundless fascination with all things Cosmic was honed and refined through his increasingly groundbreaking graphics and captivating concepts. The King’s plethora of power-packed signature pantheons began in a modest little monster mag called Journey into Mystery where – in the summer of 1962 – a tried-&-true comic book concept (feeble mortal transformed into god-like hero) was revived by the rapidly resurgent company who were not yet Marvel Comics: adding a Superman analogue to their growing roster of costumed adventurers.

This cheap & cheerful epochal pocket tome re-presents more pioneering Asgardian exploits from Journey into Mystery Annual #1, JiM #120-125, and The Mighty Thor #126-127: altogether spanning cover-dates September 1965 to April 1966 as the venerable anthology title changed name to further magnify its magnificent wide-screen feature hero, in a blazing blur of innovation and seat-of-the-pants myth-revising and universe-building. It is lettered throughout by unsung superstars Art Simek & Sam Rosen, and an unjustly anonymous band of colourists.

As you already know: Once upon a time, lonely, lamed American doctor Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway and encountered the vanguard of an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, Blake found a gnarled old walking stick, which when struck against the ground, turned him into the Norse God of Thunder! Within moments he was defending the weak and smiting the wicked. As months swiftly passed, rapacious extraterrestrials, Commie tyrants, costumed crazies and cheap thugs gradually gave way to a vast panoply of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces. Moreover, from JiM #110, the wild warrior’s Realm of Asgard was a regular feature and mesmerising milieu for our hero’s earlier exploits, heralding an era of cosmic fantasy to run beside young Marvel’s signature superhero sagas.

Every issue carried spectacular back-up sagas Tales of Asgard – Home of the Mighty Norse Gods gifting Kirby space to indulge his fascination with legends. They also allowed both complete vignettes and longer epics – in every sense of the word. Initially adapted myths, these yarns evolved into serial sagas unique to the Marvel universe where Kirby constructed his own cosmos and mythology, underpinning the company’s entire continuity.

Here – with everything attributed to Lee, Kirby & Vince Colletta and after Thor has defeated his malign step-brother Loki and The Destroyer in Vietnam – the Thunder God returns to America, leaving room for a special event and flashback tale too big for the regular periodical.

The blockbusting lead story from Journey into Mystery Annual #1 reveals how in undisclosed ages past the God of Thunder fell across dimensions into the realm of the Greek Gods for a landmark heroic hullabaloo ‘When Titans Clash! Thor vs. Hercules!’ The spectacular clash of theologies was an incredible all-action episode, and is augmented by a stunning double-page pin-up of downtown Asgard – a true example of Kirby magic…

Back in the now, Thor stops at Pittsburgh’s steel mills to repair Mjolnir – cut into pieces by the Destroyer – and ‘With My Hammer in Hand..!’ prepares to denounce Loki’s villainy to Odin. In the process he mislays one of his brother’s magical Norn Stones: a mishap that will cost him dearly later. Meanwhile, beloved Jane Foster has been abducted by a hidden miscreant with mischief in mind but before the Thunderer can act on that he is ambushed by Loki’s contingency plan as the awesome Absorbing Man returns…

In the back, the Tales of Asgard serial ‘The Quest’ further unfolded as hand-picked warriors on Thor’s flying longship endure further hardship in their bold bid to forestall Ragnarok. This month’s Asgardian edda sees their bold but misguided attempt finally start, as they ‘Set Sail!’ against their legendary prophesied foes…

JiM #121 opens mid-melee as the Thunderer’s attack against colossal Crusher Creel intensifies in ‘The Power! The Passion! The Pride!’ before the god’s compassion for human spectators sparks his downfall and defeat. Seemingly doomed Thor’s cliffhanger fate is paused as B-feature ‘Maelstrom!’ sees Asgardian Argonauts epically encounter an uncanny living storm…

In #122’s ‘Where Mortals Fear to Tread!’ triumphant Crusher Creel is prevented from finishing Thor when he is abducted by Loki to attack Asgard and Odin himself: an astounding clash capped by cataclysmic conclusion ‘While a Universe Trembles!’ Meanwhile at the rear, ‘The Grim Specter of Mutiny!’ invoked by seditious young Loki is quashed in time for valiant Balder to save the Argonauts from ‘The Jaws of the Dragon!’ in the ever-escalating Ragnarok Quest.

In modern times, with the latest threat to Asgard ended and Creel and Loki banished, Thor returns to Earth to defeat The Demon: a “witchdoctor” empowered by the magical Norn Stone left behind after the Thunder God’s Vietnamese venture. However, whilst the Storm Lord is away, Hercules is dispatched to Earth on a reconnaissance mission for Zeus. ‘The Grandeur and the Glory!’ opens another extended story-arc/action extravaganza, bouncing the Thunderer from bruising battle to brutal defeat to ascendant triumph…

As seen in Journey into Mystery Annual #1, long ago the God of Thunder inadvertently invaded the realm of the Greek Gods. Now with the Greek godling clearly popular with readers, Hercules properly enters the growing Mavel Universe. After the impending imbroglio with Thor, the Prince of Power would battle the Hulk and eventually join the Avengers but right now he’s still just another enemy for the Thunderer to face…

Issue #125 –‘When Meet the Immortals!’ – was the last Journey into Mystery for decades. With next month’s ‘Whom the Gods Would Destroy!’, the comic became The Mighty Thor and the drama amped up, culminating with ‘The Hammer and the Holocaust!’ In short order Thor crushes the Norn-fuelled Demon, tells Jane his secret identity and is deprived of his powers by Odin. He is then brutally beaten by Hercules, and subsequently seemingly loses Jane to the Prince of Power, yet still manages to save Asgard from unscrupulous traitor Seidring the Merciless who had usurped Odin’s mystic might while the All-Father was distracted with family matters. And in the wings another epic encounter opened as a certain satanic terror set his infernal sights on an unwitting godly prince…

To Be Continued…

The accompanying Tales of Asgard instalments see the Questers home in on the cause of all their woes. ‘Closer Comes the Swarm’ pits them against the Flying Trolls of Thryheim, before ‘The Queen Commands’ sees Loki captured until Thor answers ‘The Summons!’, promptly returning all Argonauts to Asgard to be shown ‘The Meaning of Ragnarok!’

In truth, these mini-eddas were, although still magnificent in visual excitement, becoming rather rambling in plot, so the narrative reset was neither unexpected nor unwelcome…

The episodic exploits then close with the original pencil art to the cover of JiM #123.

These Thor tales show the development not only of one of Marvel’s fundamental continuity concepts but more importantly the creative evolution of the greatest imagination in comics. Set your common sense on pause and simply wallow in the glorious imagery and power of these classic adventures for the true secret of what makes graphic narrative a unique experience.
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Golden Age Flash Archives volume I


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are many comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant will be rightly celebrated, but a few are going to be unjustly ignored. As a feverish fanboy wedged firmly in the past, I’m still abusing my privileges here by carping about another brilliant vintage book, criminally out of print and not slated for revival either physically or in digital formats…

The innovative fledgling company that became DC published the first ever comic book super-speedster and over the intervening decades has constantly added more to its pantheon of stars. Devised, created and written by Gardner Fox and initially visually realised by Harry Lampert, Jay Garrick debuted as the very first Monarch of Motion in Flash Comics #1. He quickly – how else? – became a veritable sensation. “The Fastest Man Alive” wowed readers of anthologies like Flash Comics, All Star Comics, Comics Cavalcade and other titles – as well as solo vehicle All-Flash Quarterly – for just over a decade before changing tastes benched him and most other first-generation costumed crimebusters in the early1950s.

His invention as a strictly single-power superhero created a new trend in the burgeoning action-adventure Funnybook marketplace, and his particular riff was specifically replicated many times at various companies where myriad Fast Furies sprang up including Johnny Quick, Hurricane/Mercury, Silver Streak, The Whizzer, Quicksilver and Snurtle McTurtle – the Terrific Whatzit amongst so many others…

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

This initial charmingly beguiling deluxe Archive (sadly not available in not-quite-faster-than-light digital) edition collects the first year and a half of publication, spanning January 1940 to May 1941 of the irrepressible Garrick’s whimsically eccentric exploits in 17 (regrettably untitled) adventures from anthology Flash Comics. These tales demonstrate an appealing rawness, light-hearted whimsy and scads of narrative experimentation starring a brilliant nerd and (ostensibly) physical sad-sack who became a social reformer and justice-dispensing human meteor.

Following a fulsome Foreword from sometime Flash scribe Mark Waid, the fast fictions commence with the debut of ‘The Fastest Man Alive’, speedily delivering in 15 pages an origin and returning cast, whilst staging a classic confrontation with a sinister cabal of gangsters. It all started years previously when student Garrick collapsed in a Midwestern University lab, only to awaken hyper-charged and the fastest creature on Earth thanks to “hard water fumes” he had inhaled whilst unconscious. After weeks recovering in hospital, the formerly-frail chemist realised the exposure had bestowed super-speed and endurance. He promptly sought to impress his sort-of girlfriend Joan Williams by becoming an unstoppable football player…

Time passed, the kids graduated and Garrick moved to New York where, appalled by rampant crime, he decided to do something about it. The Flash operates mostly in secret until one day, whilst idly playing tennis with himself, Jay meets Joan again, just as mobsters try to kill her in a drive-by shooting. Catching a storm of bullets, Jay gets reacquainted with his former paramour and discovers she is being targeted by criminal combine the Faultless Four: master criminals set on obtaining her father’s invention the Atomic Bombarder. In the blink of an eye Flash smashes the gang’s sinister schemes and defeats diabolical leader Sieur Satan, saving Joan’s life whilst revelling in the sheer liberating fun and freedom of being gloriously unstoppable…

In his sequel appearance Flash stumbles upon a showgirl’s murder and discovers that Yankee mobster Boss Goll and British aristocrat Lord Donelin plan to take over America’s entire entertainment industry with ruthless strong-arm tactics. The speedster is as much hindered as helped by “wilful, headstrong” (that’s old world coding for forceful, competent and independently-minded) Joan who begins her own lifetime obsession of pesky do-gooding right there, right then…

Everett E. Hibbard began a decade-long association with Flash in #3, when Major Williams’ Atomic Bombarder is coveted by foreign spies. The elderly boffin being framed for treason prompts Garrick to come to his future father-in-law’s aid, after which Jay & Joan smash an off-shore gambling ring graduating to kidnapping and blackmail in #4. During these early escapades, Flash seldom donned his red, blue and yellow outfit: usually operating invisibly or undercover to play super-speed pranks with merciless, puckish glee. That started changing in #5, when the speedster saves an elderly artist from hit-men to frustrate mad collector Vandal who uses murder to increase the market value of his purchases.

Flash Comics #6 saw Jay & Joan at old Alma Mater Midwestern, foiling a scheme to dope athletes seeking to qualify for the Olympics, before #7 saw a stopover in Duluth lead to the downfall of gambler Black Mike – industriously fixing motorcar races with a metal melting ray. For #8, the Vizier of Velocity tracks down seemingly corrupt contractors building shoddy, dangerous buildings only to find graft and skulduggery go much further up the financial and civic food chain, whilst in FC #9, gangsters “acquire” a scientist’s invention and the Flash finds himself battling a brigade of giant Gila Monsters. Flash #10 depicts the downfall of a political cabal in the pocket of gangster Killer Kelly and stealing from the schools they administered, before in #11, Garrick meets his first serious opponent in kidnap racketeer The Chief, whose sinister brilliance enables him to devise stroboscopic glasses to track and target the usually invisibly fast crime-crusher…

With the threat of involvement in the “European War” a constant subject of US headlines, Flash Comics #12 (December 1940) had the heroic human hurricane intervene to save tiny Ruritanian nation Kurtavia from ruthless invasion. His spectacular lightning war sees Garrick sinking submarines, repelling land armies and crushing airborne blitzkriegs for a fairy tale happy ending here, but within a year the process would become patriotic morale boosting repeated ad infinitum in every US comic book as the real world brutally intruded on the industry and nation.

Back in the USA for #13, Garrick assists old pal Jim Carter in cowboy country where the young inheritor of a silver mine is gunned down by murdering owlhoots. Jay then heads back east to crush a criminal combine sabotaging city subway construction in #14, before saving a circus from robbery, sabotage and poor attendances in #15. Throughout all these yarns Jay paid scant attention to preserving any kind of secret identity – a detail that would soon change – but as Hal Sharp took over illustrating with #16 (Hibbard presumably devoting his energies to the contents of forthcoming 64-page solo-starring All-Flash Quarterly #1: another landmark for the hero) Joan is kidnapped by Mexican mobsters aware of her connection to The Flash. Rushing to her rescue, Garrick battles a small army, not only saving his girlfriend but even reforming bandit chief José Salvez. This high-energy compilation closes with another light-hearted sporting escapade as the speedster intervenes in a gambling plot, saving a moribund baseball team from sabotage even as Jay Garrick – officially “almost as fast as the Flash” – becomes the Redskins’ (a nickname now thankfully consigned to history’s massive dustbin of insensitivity) star player to save them from lousy performances…

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

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Golden Age Flash Archives volume II


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The ever-expanding array of companies that became DC published many iconic “Firsts” in the early years of the industry. Associated outfit All-American Publications (co-publishers until bought out by National/DC in 1946) were responsible for the first comic book super-speedster as well as the iconic Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Atom, Hawkman, Johnny Thunder and so many others who became mainstays of DC’s pantheon of stars.

Devised, created and written by Gardner Fox and originally limned by Harry Lampert, Flash Comics #1 saw Jay Garrick debut as the very first Vizier of Velocity and quickly become a veritable sensation. “The Fastest Man Alive” wowed readers for just over a decade before changing tastes ended the first costumed hero as the 1950s opened.

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

After another informative Introduction from comic book all-star Jim Amash, the rollercoaster of fun and thrills gathers steam with ‘The Restaurant Protective Association’ (illustrated by Hal Sharp), with Jay and girlfriend/confidante Joan Williams stumbling upon a pack of extortionists and exposing a treacherous viper preying on Joan’s best gal-pal, after which ‘The Fall Guy’ in #19 reveals how a gang of agile fraudsters are faking motor accidents to fleece insurance companies. Both cases gave Garrick ample opportunity to display his hilarious and humiliating bag of super-speed tricks and punishing pranks to astound playful kids of the day and which still delight decades later.

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

Sharp had been doing such splendid artistic service on the monthly tales because regular illustrator E. E. Hibbard had been devoting all his creative energies to the contents of a forthcoming solo title: 64-page All-Flash Quarterly #1. The epic premiere issue opened with tantalising frontispiece ‘The JSA Bid Farewell to the Flash’, celebrating the fact that the Fastest Man Alive was the third character to win his own solo comic – after Superman and Batman – and would therefore be “too busy for Justice Society get-togethers”…

Fox & Hibbard then retold ‘The Origin of the Flash’, revealing again how some years previously college student Garrick had passed out in a lab at Midwestern University, only to awaken hyper-charged and the fastest creature on Earth thanks to “hard water fumes” he inhaled whilst unconscious. After weeks in hospital, the formerly-frail apprentice chemist deduced he had developed super-speed and endurance, and promptly sought to impress his apparently unattainable sort-of girlfriend Joan Williams by becoming an unbeatable football star. Upon graduation Garrick moved to New York where, appalled by its rampant criminality, he employed his gift to fight it…

‘The Men Who Turned to Stone’ plunged readers back to the present as one of Garrick’s colleagues at Chemical Research Incorporated discovers an instant petrification process and is abducted by criminals hoping to make lots of illegal money with it. Hibbard also illustrated uncredited fun-fact featurette ‘The Flash Presents his Hall of Speed Records’ before ‘Meet the Author and Artist of the Flash’ offers an intimate introduction to the creative team, before ‘The Adventure of the Monocle and his Garden of Gems’ sees the debut of a rare returning villain with an unwise addiction to other people’s jewels, but enough brains to counter Flash’s speed, if not Jay’s courage and ingenuity.

When Flash prevents the murder of a cowboy performer in New York, ‘The Rodeo Mystery’ soon takes Jay & Joan to Oklahoma and a crooked ploy to steal a newly discovered oil well, after which the issue closes with Flash smashing a gambler trying to take over the sport of Ice Hockey in ‘Menace of the Racket King’.

Gambling was also a problem in monthly Flash Comics #21 as ‘The Lottery’ (illustrated by Sharp) sees the Speedster expose a cunning criminal scheme to bilk theatre patrons and carnival-goers. Issue #22’s ‘The Hatchet Cult’ offers a rare exceedingly dark walk on the wild side as the speedster gets involved in a Chinatown Tong war and exposes the incredible secret of modern Mongol mastermind Mighty Kong…

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

Cover-dated Fall 1941, All-Flash Quarterly #2 (another all Fox/Hibbard co-production) kicks off with a spectacular all-action ‘Title Page’ and informative recap in ‘A Short History of the Flash’ before the creators ambitiously undertake a massive 4-chapter saga of vengeance and justice. In an era where story was paramount, this oddly time-skewed tale might jar slightly with modern continuity-freaks, spanning as it does nearly a lifetime in the telling, but trust me, just go with it…

‘The Threat: Part One – The Adventure of Roy Revenge!’ opens as brilliant young criminal Joe Connor is sentenced to ten years in jail and swears vengeance on DA Jim Kelley. The convict means it too, spending every waking moment inside improving himself educationally, becoming a trustee to foster the illusion of rehabilitation. On his release Connor befriends Kelley – who is currently pursuing a political career – and orchestrates the abduction of the lawyer’s newborn son. Years later a bold young thug dubbed Roy Revenge begins a campaign of terror against Mayor Jim Kelley which even Flash is hard-pressed to stop. When the bandit is at last apprehended, Kelley pushes hard to have the boy jailed, unaware of his biological connection to the savage youth. In the intervening years Connor had truly reformed – until his angelic wife died, leaving him to care for their little girl Ann and “adopted” son Roy. Without his wife’s influence, Connor again turns to crime and raises the stolen boy to hate his biological father…

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

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

‘The Threat: Part Three – The Wrecker Racket’ sees a new gang plaguing the city, led by a monstrous disfigured albino. No one realises this is Connor – who escaped custody by a method which physically ruined his body and only increased his hatred of Kelley. Locating Roy – who has since found peace in rural isolation – the malign menace again draws the young man into his maniacal schemes. When the boy nearly kills his “sister” Ann in pursuance of Connor’s ambitions, only the Flash can save the day, leading to a swathe of revelation and a shocking conclusion in ‘The Threat: Part Four – The End of the Threat’…

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

Amazing, exciting and quirkily captivating – even if not to many modern fans’ taste, the sheer exuberance, whimsical tone and constant narrative invention in these tales of a nerd who became a social crusader and justice-dispensing human meteor are addictively appealing, and with covers by Sharp, Sheldon Moldoff & Hibbard, this book is another utter delight for lovers of early Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy. Of course, with such straightforward thrills on show any reader with an open mind could find his opinion changed in a flash.
© 1941, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks presents Spider-Man volume 5: To Become an Avenger


By Stan Lee & John Romita, with Don Heck, Mike Esposito, Art Simek, Sam Rosen & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5434-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

These stories are timeless and have been gathered many times before but here we’re enjoying another example of The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line: designed with economy in mind and newcomers as target audience. These books are far cheaper, on lower quality paper and smaller – like a paperback novel. Your eyesight might be failing and your hands too big and shaky, but at 152 x 227mm, they’re perfect for kids. If you opt for digital editions, that’s no issue at all.

As well as finally introducing the romantic option who would drive much of hero’s later life, this compelling compilation categorically confirms the superstar status of the wallcrawler. Originally seen in The Amazing Spider-Man #39-46 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3, spanning cover-dates August 1966 to December 1968, these stories herald the start of a brand new era for the Astonishing Arachnid, with Peter and an ever-expanding cast of cohorts well on their way to being household names… as well as the darlings of college campuses and the media intelligentsia.

Outcast, geeky high school kid Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, after attempting to cash in on the astonishing abilities he’d developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy. Due to the teenager’s arrogant neglect, his beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered and the traumatised boy determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in dire need. For years the brilliant young hero suffered privation and travail in his domestic situation, whilst his heroic alter ego endured public condemnation and mistrust as he valiantly battled all manner of threat and foe…

Although co-authors of the wonderment, by 1966 Stan Lee & Steve Ditko could no longer work together on their greatest creation. After increasingly fraught months the artist simply resigned, leaving Spider-Man without an illustrator. In the coincidental meantime John Romita had been lured away from DC’s romance line and given odd assignments before assuming the artistic reins of Daredevil, the Man Without Fear. Before long, Romita was co-piloting the company’s biggest property and expected to run with it.

After a period where traditional – albeit fantasy-tinged – crime and gangsterism predominated, science fiction themes and costumed crazies increasingly began to predominate. As the world went gaga for superheroes, the creators experimented with longer storylines and protracted subplots. When Ditko abruptly left, the company feared a drastic loss in quality – and sales – but it didn’t happen. For the first time since the Marvel miracle began, Lee was largely left to his own narrative devices on a major feature, without the experimental visual inspiration or plotting acumen of twin comics geniuses Kirby and Ditko. What occurred heralded a new kind of superhero storytelling…

John Romita (senior) considered himself a mere “safe pair of hands” keeping the momentum going until a better artist could be found, but instead blossomed into a major talent in his own right as the wallcrawler continued his unstoppable rise at an accelerated pace. With the scene set the new era dawns when Amazing Spider-Man #39 appeared, first of a 2-part adventure declaiming the ultimate victory of the hero’s greatest foe.

Ditko was gone and no reader knew what had happened – and no one told them. ‘How Green Was My Goblin!’ and concluding episode ‘Spidey Saves the Day! Featuring: the End of the Green Goblin!’ calamitously changed everything: describing how the archfoes learn each other’s true identities before the Goblin “perishes” in a climactic flame-fuelled showdown. It would have been memorable even if the saga didn’t feature the debut of a new artist and a whole new manner of storytelling. These issues were a turning point in many ways, and – inked by old DC colleague Mike Esposito (under the pseudonym Mickey DeMeo) – they still stand as one of the greatest Spider-Man yarns of all time.

They were also precursors to a run of classic tales from the Lee/Romita team that saw sales rise and rise. In ASM #41 and on ‘The Horns of the Rhino!’, Romita began inking his pencils. The debuting super-strong criminal spy proved a mere diversion, but his intended target J. Jonah Jameson’s astronaut son was a far harder proposition in the next issue. Amazing Spider-Man #42 heralded ‘The Birth of a Super-Hero!’, with John Jameson mutated by space-spores and going on a Manhattan rampage: a solid, entertaining yarn that is only really remembered for the last panel of the final page.

Mary Jane Watson had been a running gag in the series for years: a prospective blind-date arranged by Aunt May whom Peter had avoided – and Ditko teasingly not depicted – for the duration of time our hero had been romantically involved with Betty Brant, Liz Allen, and latterly, Gwen Stacy. Now, in that last frame the gobsmacked young man finally realises that for two years he’s been ducking the hottest date in New York!

Enthralling encore ‘Rhino on the Rampage!’ gave the leathery villain one more crack at Jameson and Spidey, but the emphasis was solidly on foreshadowing future foes and building Pete and MJ’s relationship, as seen in Amazing Spider-Man Annual # 3 and ‘…To Become an Avenger!’ Here the World’s Mightiest Heroes offer the webspinner membership… but only if he can capture The Hulk. As usual, all is not as it seems, but the action-drenched epic, courtesy of Lee, Romita (layouts), pencilled by Don Heck and inked by Esposito is the kind of guest-heavy, power-punching package that made the summer specials a child’s delight.

The monthly Marvel merriment marched on with the return of a tragedy-drenched former foe when Lee & Romita reintroduced biologist Curt Conners in ASM #44’s ‘Where Crawls the Lizard!’ The deadly B-movie inspired reptilian marauder again threatens Humanity itself and requires all of the wallcrawler’s resourcefulness and resolve to stop the savage saurian in all-action conclusion ‘Spidey Smashes Out!’

Closing this outing, ASM #46 introduced an all-new, second tier menace in the blue collar form of ambitious, seismic super-thief ‘The Sinister Shocker!’ who just wants to rob some banks and crack a few safes, but comes closer than many macabre masterminds in ending the antics of the wary webspinner. Moreover, as sinister stalker Patch (no relation to the later Wolverine alter ego) trails Peter Parker in the opening moves of a major subplot beginning to unfold, the baffled college boy can only watch in bewilderment as his attention is pulled between classmate Gwen Watson and bizarrely attentive and attention-drawing Mary Jane.

It’s only the start of years of complex romantic interactions To Be Continued in succeeding collections…

Augmented by a brief gallery of Romita original art pages – including unused ones – this transitional tome is the just the beginning of an era when Spider-Man became a permanent and unmissable part of countless teenagers’ lives: doing so by living a life as close to theirs as social mores and the Comics Code would allow. Blending cultural authenticity with glorious narrative art, and making a dramatic virtue of awkwardness, confusion and a sense of powerlessness most of the readership experienced daily resulted in an irresistibly intoxicating read, delivered in addictive soap-opera slices, but none of that would be relevant if the stories weren’t so compellingly entertaining.

This book is Marvel and Spider-Man at their peak. Come and see why.
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Golden Age Hawkman Archives volume 1


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are many comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant will be rightly celebrated, but a few are going to be unjustly ignored. As a feverish fanboy wedged firmly in the past, I’m again abusing my privileges here to carp about another brilliant vintage book, criminally out of print and not slated for revival either physically or in digital formats…

Although one of DC’s most long-lived and certainly their most visually iconic character, the various iterations of Hawkman have always struggled to find enough of an audience to sustain a solo title. From his beginnings as one of the assorted second features in new anthology Flash Comics (the others being Cliff Cornwall, The King, The Whip, spoof hero Johnny Thunder and Ed Wheelan’s “Picture Novels/Minute Movies”), adding lustre to the soaraway success of the eponymous speedster helming the title, Winged Wonder Carter Hall has struggled through assorted engaging, exciting but always short-lived reconfigurations.

Over decades from ancient hero to re-imagined alien space-cop and post-Crisis on Infinite Earths freedom fighter, or the seemingly desperate but highly readable bundling together of all previous iterations into the reincarnating immortal berserker-warrior of today, the Pinioned Paladin has performed exemplary service without ever really making it to the big time. Hopefully that’s all changed now, thanks to modern movie trends…

Created by Gardner Fox & Dennis Neville, Hawkman first took to the skies in Flash Comics #1 (cover-dated January 1940, but actually on sale from November 20th 1939). He stayed there, growing in quality and prestige until the title died at the end of the Golden Age, with the most celebrated artists to have drawn the Feathered Fury being Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Kubert, whilst a young Robert Kanigher was justly proud of his later run as writer.

Together with his partner Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman, for over a decade the gladiatorial mystery-man countered fantastic arcane threats and battled modern crime and tyranny with weapons of the past before vanishing with the bulk of costumed heroes as the 1950s dawned. His last contemporary appearance was in All Star Comics #57 (1951) as official leader of the Justice Society of America, after which the husband-and-wife hellions were revived and re-imagined nine years later as Katar Hol and Shayera Thal of planet Thanagar. That was thanks to Julie Schwartz’s crack creative couple Gardner Fox & Joe Kubert – a space-age reinterpretation which even survived 1985’s winnowing Crisis on Infinite Earths. Their long career, regular revamps and perpetual retcons stalled during 1994’s Zero Hour crisis, but they’ve reincarnated and returned many times since. However, despite being amongst DC’s most celebrated and visually vibrant strips over the years, Hawkman & Hawkwoman always struggled to retain sufficient audience share to sustain their numerous solo endeavours.

This spectacular deluxe hardcover re-presentation of their formative years (collecting appearances from Flash Comics #1-22, spanning cover dates January 1940 to October 1941) opens with a fond reminiscence by artist Moldoff (Batman, Black Pirate, Sea Devils, Gang Busters, Mr. District Attorney, Moon Girl) in his Foreword before the magic begins as it should with Fox & Neville’s ‘The Origin of Hawkman’. In an first epochal episode, dashing Carter Hall is a playboy scientific tinkerer and part-time archaeologist with a penchant for collecting old, rare weapons, whose dormant memory is abruptly unlocked by an ancient crystal dagger newly purchased for his collection. Through dreams, the dilettante realises that once he had been Prince Khufu of ancient Egypt, murdered with his lover Shiera by Anubis’ High Priest Hath-Set. Moreover, with his newly returned memories, Hall realises the eternal struggle is primed to play out once more…

As if pre-destined, he bumps into equally reincarnated and recently-remembering Shiera Sanders just as a terrifying electrical menace turns New York City’s subway system into a lightning-fuelled killing field. The new couple soon deduce the deadly genius Doctor Hastor is their reborn ancient nemesis Hastor and, after fashioning an outlandish uniform and anti-gravity harness from mystic Egyptian “Ninth Metal”, Hall hunts the deranged electrical scientist to his lair. He’s just in time to save mesmerised Shiera from a second death-by-sacrifice: mercilessly ending the cycle – at least for now…

Flash #2’s ‘The Globe Conquerors’ concentrated on fantastic science as Hall & Saunders tackle a modern Alexander the Great who builds a gravity-altering engine in a ruthless quest to conquer the world, whilst ‘The Secret of Dick Blendon’ in #3 sees “The Hawk-Man” expose a wicked scheme by insidious slavers turning brilliant men into zombies for profit, to gather riches and to ferret out the secret of eternal life.

Sheldon Moldoff debuted as artist in Flash Comics #4, illustrating a splendidly barbarous thriller wherein the Winged Warrior clashes with ‘The Thought Terror’: a sinister mesmerist enslaving the city’s wealthy citizens, prior to ‘The Kidnapping of Ione Craig’ in #5 pitting the crimefighting phenomenon against “Asiatic” cultists led by legendary assassin Hassan Ibn Saddah. These killers are determined to stop a pretty missionary and secret agent from investigating distant “Araby”. Moldoff has received overly unfair criticism over the years for his frequent, copious but stylishly artistic swipes from newspaper strips – usually those of  master craftsmen Alex Raymond and Hal Foster – in his work of this period, but one look at the stunning results here as the feature took a quantum leap in visual quality should silence those quibblers for good.

Maintaining the use of exotic locales, the story extended in #6 as Hall and Ione struggle to cross burning Saharan sands to the African coast before defeating Arab slavers and their deadly ruler ‘Sheba, Queen of the Desert’ before in #7 further exploring the mystical and supernatural underpinnings of the strip. These readily lent themselves to spooky tales of quasi-horror and barbaric intensity. Generally, “The Eerie Unknown” and deluded dabblers in darkness were oft-used elements in Hawkman tales, as seen in ‘Czar, the Unkillable Man’, wherein the Avian Avenger, back in the USA and reunited with Shiera, contests a merciless golem animated by a crazed sculptor aiming to get rich at any cost. Issue #8 offered another deranged technologist as Professor Kitzoff – ‘The Sunspot Wizard’ – alters the pattern and frequency of solar blemishes to foment riot, madness and chaos on Earth… until the Winged Wonder intervenes, after which in ‘The Creatures from the Canyon’ Hawkman repels aquatic invaders living in the depths 5,000 feet below Manhattan Island after they decide to expand their ancient empire upwards…

Bidding for an old firearm at an auction in #10, Hall is inexorably drawn into a maddening murder-mystery and hunt for a lost Colorado goldmine in ‘Adventures of the Spanish Blunderers’, before ‘Trouble in Suburbia’ manifests after a hit-&-run accident draws plucky Shiera into a corrupt and convoluted property-scam. Boyfriend Carter is quite prepared to stand back and let her deal with the villains – even if Hawkman must exert some surreptitious muscle to close the case. Another murderous scam then involves an old High Society chum as ‘The Heart Patient’ reveals how a devious gold digger and a rogue doctor serially poison healthy young men to fleece them into paying for a cure, whilst in #13, ‘Satana, the Tiger Girl’ preys on admirers for far more sinister reasons: pitting Hawkman and Shiera against scientifically hybridised killer-cats…

‘The Awesome Alligator’ sees an elder god return to Earth, inspiring and equipping a lethal lunatic in a plot to conquer America with ancient secrets and futuristic super-weapons. None of those incredible threats could withstand cold fury and a well-wielded mace, however…

At this time the Pinioned Paladin usually dispatched foes of humanity with icy aplomb and single-minded ruthlessness, and such supernatural thrillers as #15’s ‘The Hand’ gave Fox & Moldoff ample scope to display the reincarnated warrior’s savage efficiency, as when he tracks down a sentient severed fist stealing and slaughtering at its inventive master’s command. In #16,‘The Graydon Expedition’ reinforces the hero’s crusading credentials after ferociously independent Shiera Saunders goes missing in Mongolia, and the Winged Wonder undertakes a one-man invasion of a fabulous lost kingdom to save her. Flash Comics #17 offered ‘Murder at the Opera’, putting the bold birdman on the trail of an arcane Golden Mummy Sect with a perilously prosaic origin and agenda, whilst #18 has him investigating skulduggery in the Yukon after the philanthropic Miss Saunders rushes north to offer aid to starving miners during ‘The Gold Rush of ’41’.

Evidently capable of triumphing in any environment or milieu, Hawkman next derailed deranged physicist Pratt Palmer in #19, when that arrogant savant attempts to become the overlord of crime using his deadly ‘Cold Light’ discoveries. One month later, ‘The Mad Bomber’ sees the Avian Ace ally with a racketeer to stop mad scientist Sathan destroying their city with remote-controlled aerial torpedoes, after which Hawkman must end the tragically terrible accidental rampage of an extraterrestrial foundling raised by a callous rival for Shiera’s affections in ‘Menace from Space’…

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

Already in All Star Comics #5 (July 1941) she had first worn wings and a costume of her own, and in Flash Comics #24 (December 1941) she would at last become an equal partner in peril and fully-fledged hero: Hawkgirl. Sadly that’s a tale for another volume…

Exotic, engaging and fantastically inviting, these Golden Age adventures are a true high-point of the era and still offer astonishing thrills and chills. When all’s said and done it’s all about the heady rush of raw adventure, but there’s also a fabulous frisson of nostalgia here to wallow in: recapturing that magical full-sensorium burst of smell and feel and imagination-overload that finds kids at a perfect moment and provokes something visual and conceptual that almost literally blows the mind.

We re-read stories hoping to rekindle that instantly addictive buzz and constantly seek out new comics desperately hoping to recapture that pure, halcyon burst, and these lost mini-epics are phenomenally imbued with everything fans need to make that breathtaking moment happen. Hopefully DC will realise that one day soon and revive these compelling compulsive collections: either in solid form or at least as digital editions…
© 1940, 1941, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Phantom: The Complete Sunday Archive volume Four 1950-1953


By Lee Falk, Ray Moore & Wilson McCoy, with Dick Wood, Pat Fortunato, Bill Lignante, José Delbo, Sal Trapani & various (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-1-61345-137-3 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

In this month of romantic anticipation and disillusionment, it’s worth remarking that every iconic hero of strips and comics has a dutiful, stalwart inamorata waiting ever so patently in the wings for a moment to spoon and swoon. Here’s another date with one of the earliest and most resolute…

Born Leon Harrison Gross, “Lee Falk” created the Ghost Who Walks at the request of his King Features Syndicate employers who were already making history, public headway and loads of money with his first strip sensation Mandrake the Magician. Although technically not the first ever costumed champion in comics, The Phantom became the prototype paladin to wear a skin-tight body-stocking and the first to have a mask with opaque eye-slits…

The generational champion debuted on February 17th 1936, in an extended sequence pitting him against an ancient global confederation of pirates. Falk wrote and drew the daily strip for the first two weeks before handing over illustration to artist Ray Moore. The spectacular and hugely influential Sunday feature began in May 1939.

For such a long-lived, influential series, in terms of compendia or graphic collections, The Phantom has been quite poorly served in the English language market (except for the Antipodes, where he has always been accorded the status of a pop culture god). Many companies have sought to collect strips from one of the longest continually running adventure serials in publishing history, but in no systematic or chronological order and never with any sustained success. That began to be rectified when archival specialists Hermes Press launched their curated collections…

This fourth fabulous curated conclave of rain forest romances and jungle action is a lovely landscape hardback (or digital) tome, displaying alternately complete full colour Sunday episodes or crisp monochrome instalments shot from press proofs and digitally remastered. Released in March 2016, its 208 pages are stuffed with sumptuous visual goodies like panel and logo close-ups, comics covers and original art, opening with publisher Daniel Herman’s Introduction ‘The Phantom Sundays March On’. This recaps all you need to know about the ongoing feature and discloses how the advent of a woman superhero might have changed the strip’s dynamic forever…

For those who came in late: 400 years ago, a British mariner survived an attack by pirates, and – after washing ashore on the African coast – swore on the skull of his father’s murderer to dedicate his life and that of his descendants to destroying all pirates and criminals. The Phantom fights evil and injustice from his fabulous lair deep in the jungles of Bengali. Throughout Africa and Asia he is known as the “Ghost Who Walks”…

His unchanging appearance and unswerving war against injustice led to his being considered an immortal avenger by the uneducated, credulous and wicked. Down the decades, one heroic son after another has inherited the task, fought and died in an unbroken family line, with the latest wearer of the mask indistinguishable from the first and proudly continuing the never-ending battle.

In his first published exploit, the Phantom met and fell for wealthy American sophisticate Diane Palmer. His passion for her was soon reciprocated and returned and she became a continuing presence in both iterations of the series as ally, partner, sounding board, a means of reader identification and naturally a plot pawn and perennial hostage to fortune. She was also a handy conduit as the hero occasionally shared four centuries of Phantom history, hearing tales of ancestral Ghosts Who Walked in earlier eras. As was the fashion of the feature almost every saga included powerful, capable and remarkably attractive women as both heroes and villains.

However as the new ultra conservative Fifties decade progressed, that femme fatale policy was gradually but increasingly downplayed. In Falk & Wilson McCoy’s opening tale ‘The Mysterious Passenger’ (running from May 14th 1950 to July 16th 1950), Diana is wholly absent as the mysterious “Mr. Walker” and his faithful wolf companion Devil board ship for Bengali, only to be quickly framed for a huge jewel theft…

Marooned in the vast trackless ocean after jumping ship, the pair are soon hot on the trail of the plunderers and soon bring them to justice.

Evil never sleeps, however, and in the Phantom’s absence horse thieves visited his “native” stable boy Toma and stole the hero’s fabulous steed Hero. ‘The Jungle King’ (July 23rd – October 22nd 1950) proves a far harder proposition to keep than to take, though, and when Mr Walker returns and sets out to recover the wonder horse, the trail leads all over the world and ultimately to an emotional showdown with the world’s richest sportsman and racehorse owner…

A key component of the Phantom’s appeal is the weight of history built into the premise, and that’s perfectly exploited in ‘The Phantom’s Ring’ (October 29th 1950 to June 10th 1951), as the signet that has adorned the fingers of every masked champion since the first one goes missing. Recognised by educated and illiterate alike across Africa and the east, the “Death’s head” has been used to mark felons and acted as a symbol of the ghost’s power for centuries. Now a succession of ne’er-do-wells briefly possess and exploit the soft power of the trinket, but the seasoned detective and his “dog” are rapidly gaining on them and dispensing plenty of jungle justice even without the skull printing adornment. Pursuit of the ring even ends a modern pirate brotherhood – much like the one the first Phantom fought – and acts as cupid bringing a prince and a pauper together forever…

Order restored, a tale very much of its time follows as The Phantom must rescue scientist Dr Archer and his pretty daughter June from cannibal terrors ‘The Rope People’ (June 17th to November 4th 1951), by repeating the herculean tasks he (in actuality his grandfather) had performed generations ago, after which ‘Tale of Devil’ (November 11th 1951 to March 23rd 1952) finds the mighty lupine relentlessly stalked by sadistic visiting royalty with vacant spots on his palace wall and a fondness for bear baiting and other acts of organised animal cruelty.

However, Devil is beloved by Prince Hirk’s son and wife, and even before the Phantom can save his faithful hound – and after the potentate refuses to change his ways – the royal family find a way to stop him for good…

An actual feel-good tale of redemption and repentance, the saga is followed by a return to all-out action as ‘The ‘Copter Pirates’ (March 30th to July 13th 1952) finally reintroduces potential Ghost-Who-Walks-wife Diana Palmer, as she sets out to rejoin her masked man in darkest Bengali, only to be kidnapped. An unwilling spoil of war taken by thieves plundering passenger planes with helicopters, she soon overwhelms unstable lothario Drake and is able to keep him at bay until the Phantom organises an army (navy?) of local tribal fisherfolk to search hundreds of islands and spectacularly lower the boom on the aerial upstarts…

A sublime lost opportunity comes next as ‘The Female Phantom’ (July 20th – October 12th 1952) introduces one of the only woman Crimebusters in US comics of this era. Reunited with “Kit Walker”, Diana has him delve into the meticulous family chronicles to reveal how, a few generations previously, the feisty twin sister of a former Ghost Who Walked took her brother’s place to police the jungles of Bengali after he was shot battling river pirates. Girl Phantom Julie briefly substituted for Kip, saving a hostage missionary that she later married, and kept the Phantom’s Peace until the natural order was restored.

The concept obviously intrigued Falk who carried it on in sequel saga ‘Diana and the Bank Robbers’ (October 19th 1952 to February 1st 1953) wherein Diana “borrowed” Julie’s well-preserved fitted costume for a prank and was captured and entombed by ruthless bullion thieves. Discovered and rescued by super-steed Hero, Diana then let the true, many masked manhunter settle their hash and resumed her rightful place as asker of leading questions…

Closing this section of this compilation, she enquires about ‘The Chain’ (February 8th – May 24th 1953) welded to the Phantom’s throne in the Skull Cave, just in time to reinvigorate the exhausted hero whose constant attempts to forestall an impending tribal war have led him to the brink of resignation and retirement…

As the couple listen to elder Woru, they learn how a similar situation plagued the fearsome forest peacekeeper’s own father and how, after solving his crisis of confidence, escaping slavery, saving his own intended (Kit Walker’s mother-to-be) from abduction and destroying a human monster through sheer persistence, the weary victor attached the links in hopes that they would serve as a reminder for all who followed in his footsteps…

And they do…

Closing this tome ‘Focus: The Female Phantom in the Comics’ discusses the female Phantom (who never appeared again in the 1950s) and provides two tales from her resurrection in the 1960s – albeit not in family oriented strips but in those rowdily anarchic comic books.

Between 1966 and 1967 King Features Syndicate dabbled with a comic book line of their biggest stars Flash Gordon, Popeye, Mandrake and The Phantom: developed after the Ghost Who Walks had enjoyed a solo-starring vehicle under the broad and effective aegis of veteran licensed properties publisher Gold Key Comics. The Phantom was no stranger to funnybooks, having been featured since the Golden Age in titles such as Feature Book and Harvey Hits, but only as straight reformatted strip reprints. The Gold Key exploits were tailored to a big page and a young readership, a model King maintained for their own run.

Here, from the era of superhero saturation and The Phantom #20 (cover dated January 1967, scripted by Dick Wood and illustrated by Bill Lignante) ‘The Adventures of the Girl Phantom’ expands upon the strip sequence above as Julia again dons the purple leotard, mask and gun belt to counter a crime wave following Kit’s incapacitation due to fever. Although more than a match for normal bandits, poachers and evil Europeans, she almost succumbs to the sinister plots of gang boss Lamont until her ferocious jungle cat Fury comes to her aid…

Closing the extra treats is vignette ‘The Secret of the Golden Ransom’ from Charlton’s The Phantom #30 ( February 1969, by Pat Fortunato, José Delbo & Sal Trapani) as Julie and faithful (human) friend Maru face a flamboyant pirate who demands a unique payment for returning her captive brother, the “real Phantom”…

If the kind of fare you’d encounter in a 1940s Tarzan movie or noir thriller might offend, you should consider carefully before starting this book, but if you’re open to oldies with historical cultural challenges there’s a lot to be said for these straightforward and pioneering thrillers. Finally rediscovered, these lost treasures are especially rewarding as the material is still fresh, entertaining and addictively compelling. However, even if it were only of historical value (or just printed for Australians – manic devotees of the implacable champion from the get-go) surely the Ghost Who Walks and fiancée/wife-who-waits is worthy of a little of your time?
The Phantom® © 1950-1953 and 2018 King Features Syndicate, Inc. ® Hearst Holdings, Inc. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents Secrets of Sinister House


By Mary Skrenes, Len Wein, Jack Oleck, Frank Robbins, Michael Fleischer, Mary DeZuñiga, Lynn Marron, Sheldon Mayer, Joe Orlando, John Albano, Robert Kanigher, Maxene Fabe, E. Nelson Bridwell, Steve Skeates, John Jacobson, Fred Wolfe, George Kashdan, Leo Dorfman, Dave Wood, Don Heck, Tony DeZuñiga, Alex Toth, Mike Sekowsky, Jack Sparling, John Calnan, Vince Colletta, Frank Giacoia, Doug Wildey, Dick Giordano, Michael William Kaluta, Bill Draut, Nestor Redondo, Alfredo Alcala, Alex Niño, Sergio Aragonés, June Lofamia, Sam Glanzman, Lore Shoberg, Ruben Yandoc, Abe Ocampo, Rico Rival, Gerry Taloac, Larry Hama, Neal Adams, Rich Buckler, Jess Jodloman, Wayne Howard, Romy Gamboa, Don Perlin, Ed Ramos, Mar Amongo, Vicente Alcázar, Ernie Chan, Murphy Anderson, Gil Kane, Sy Barry, Jerry Grandenetti, Ramona Fradon, Howard Chaykin, Win Mortimer, Angel B. Luna, Bernard Sachs & various (DC Comics)

ISBN: 978-1-4012-2626-8 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

US comic books just idled along rather slowly until the invention of Superman provided a flamboyant and dynamic new genre, subsequently unleashing a torrent of creative imitation and imaginative generation for a suddenly thriving and voracious new entertainment model. Implacably vested in World War II, these Overmen swept all before them until the troops came home. As the decade closed, however, traditional literary themes and conventional heroes resurfaced and eventually supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

Whilst a new generation of kids began buying and collecting, many of the first fans also retained their four-colour habit but increasingly sought more mature themes in their reading matter. The war years had irrevocably altered the psychological landscape of the readership and as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything, their chosen forms of entertainment (film, theatre and prose as well as comics) increasingly reflected this. As well as western, war and crime comics, celebrity tie-ins, madcap/escapist comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent, before another cyclical revival of spiritualism and a public fascination with the arcane led to a wave of impressive, evocative, shockingly addictive horror comics.

There had been grisly, gory supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, wizards and monsters draped in mystery man trappings (The Spectre, Mr. Justice, Dr. Fate, Sgt. Spook, Frankenstein, The Heap, Sargon the Sorcerer, Zatara, Zambini the Miracle Man, Kardak the Mystic and dozens more), but these had been victims of circumstance: “the Unknown” as a power source for superheroics. Now focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering, the reader. Almost every publisher jumped on the increasingly popular bandwagon, with B & I (which became the magical one-man-band Richard E. Hughes’ American Comics Group) launching the first regularly published horror comic in the Autumn of 1948. Technically their Adventures Into the Unknown was pipped by Avon. The book and comics publisher had released an impressive one-shot entitled Eerie in January 1947 but didn’t follow-up with a regular series until 1951, whilst Classics Illustrated had already exhausted the literary end of the medium with child-friendly comics adaptations of The Headless Horseman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both 1943), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1944) and Frankenstein (1945) among others.

If we’re keeping score this was also the period in which Joe Simon & Jack Kirby identified another “mature market” gap and invented the genre of romance comics with Young Romance #1 (September 1947). They too realised the sales potential of spooky material, resulting in their seminal Black Magic title – launched in 1950 – and boldly obscure psychological drama anthology Strange World of Your Dreams (1952). The company that became DC Comics bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology that nevertheless became one of their longest-running, most influential titles with the launch of The House of Mystery (cover dated December 1951/January 1952).

After the hysterical censorship debate which led to witch-hunting Senate hearings in the early 1950s was curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulation, titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised and anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, but the audience’s appetite for suspense was still high and in 1956 National introduced sister titles Tales of the Unexpected and House of Secrets. Stories were dialled back from uncanny spooky phenomena yarns to always marvellously illustrated, rationalistic fantasy adventure vehicles and – eventually – straight monster-busting Sci Fi tales that dominated the market until the 1960s. That’s when superheroes (who had begun to revive after Julius Schwartz began the Silver Age of comics by reintroducing The Flash in Showcase #4) finally overtook them.

Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom and a growing coterie of costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked mavens which forced even dedicated anthology suspense titles to transform into super-character books. Even ACG slipped tights and masks onto its spooky stars. When the caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, superheroes began dropping like Kryptonite-gassed flies. However nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and, at the end of the 1960s with the cape-and-cowl boom over and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain, the surviving publishers of the field agreed on revising the Comics Code, loosening their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics.

Nobody much cared about gangster titles but, as the liberalisation coincided with yet another bump in popularity for supernatural entertainments, the resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion. Even ultra-wholesome Archie Comics re-entered the field with their rather tasty line of Red Circle Chillers…

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all spooky comics came back to quickly dominate the American funnybook market for more than half a decade. DC led the pack, converting The House of Mystery and Tales of the Unexpected into mystery-suspense anthologies in 1968 before resurrecting House of Secrets a year earlier. However horror wasn’t the only classic genre experiencing renewed interest. Westerns, war, adventure and love story comics also reappeared and – probably influenced by the overwhelming success of the supernatural TV soap Dark Shadows – the industry mixed classic idioms to invent gothic horror romances. The fad generated Haunted Love from Charlton, Atlas/Seaboard’s Gothic Romances from whilst undisputed industry leader National/DC opened Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love and Sinister House of Secret Love.

Cover-dated October/November 1971, 52-page Sinister House of Secret Love #1 offered book-length graphic epics in the manner of gothic romances like Jane Eyre before reforming into a more traditional anthology package Secrets of Sinister House with #5 (June/July 1972) and reducing to the traditional 36-page package with the next issue. That format remained until cancellation with #18 (June/July 1974). In keeping with the novel enterprise, the dark, doomed love stories were extra-long affairs such as the 25-page Victorian period chiller ‘The Curse of the MacIntyres’ (by Mary Skrenes & Don Heck) headlining issue #1, recounting how recently-bereaved Rachel lost her scientist father and fell under the guardianship of her cousin Blair. Moving to his remote Scottish castle she readily befriended Blair’s son Jamie but could not warm to the little person (they say “dwarf”) cousin Alfie.

As weeks passed however she becomes increasingly disturbed by the odd household and the family’s obsessive interest in “mutations”…

There was room for a short back-up and the Jane Eyre pastiche is nicely balanced by a contemporary yarn of hippies in love. Undying passion and ghostly reincarnation in ‘A Night to Remember – A Day to Forget!’ by an unknown author, effectively illustrated by John Calnan & Vince Colletta.

Editor Joe Orlando and scripter Len Wein closely collaborated on the Tony DeZuñiga limned ‘To Wed the Devil’ in #2, wherein beautiful, innocent Sarah returns to her father’s estate to discover the place a hotbed of Satanism where all the old servants indulge in black magic rituals. Moreover her father is forcing her to abandon true love Justin and wed the appalling and terrifying Baron Luther Dumont of Bohemia to settle an outstanding debt. This grim bodice-ripper tale saw the return of Victorian devil-busting duo Father John Christian & Rabbi Samuel Shulman who appeared far too infrequently in succeeding years (see also Showcase Presents the House of Secrets vol. 1 and Showcase Presents the Phantom Stranger vol. 2) whose last-minute ministrations saved the day, quelled an unchecked evil and of course provided the obligatory Happy Ever After…

SHoSL #3 was the most impressive of these early issues and ‘Bride of the Falcon’ was a visual feast from Alex Toth, Frank Giacoia & Doug Wildey, with author Frank Robbins detailing a thoroughly modern mystery. American proofreader Kathy Harwood answers a Lonely Hearts ad in her own magazine and soon finds herself in Venice, Italy, engaged and trapped on the isolated Isola Tranquillo with tragic, scarred, lovelorn and heartsick Count Lorenzo Di Falco – and his paralysed mother. Something isn’t right, though, and as her wedding day approaches, a series of inexplicable deaths occurs. Soon, the romance-obsessed dreamer realises she is in deadly danger. Luckily, poor but handsome gondolier Roberto has constantly refused her demands that he stop bothering her. The gripping psychological thriller is supplemented by Michael Fleischer’s prose ghostly romance ‘Will I Ever See You Again’ as illustrated by Jack Sparling…

In #4, ‘Kiss of the Serpent’ (Mary DeZuñiga, Michael Fleisher & Tony DeZuñiga) takes us to Bombay (you can call it Mumbai if you’re feeling modern and PC) where freshly orphaned teacher Michelle Harlinson has taken a job arranged by her uncle Paul. Dazed by loss and the sheer exoticism of India, she is drawn into a terrible vendetta between her gorgeous wealthy employer Rabin Singh and his jealous brother Jawah. But as the foolish American finds herself falling under the seductive sway of Rabin, she uncovers a history of murder and macabre snake-worship that can only end in more death and heartbreak…

With the next extra-sized issue (cover-dated June/July 1972) the title became Secrets of Sinister House wherein Lynn Marron, Fleisher, Mike Sekowsky & Dick Giordano produced the eerie ‘Death at Castle Dunbar’ with modern American Miss Mike Hollis invited to the desolate Scottish manse to complete a history of Clan Dunbar. However, most of the family and staff are inexplicably hostile, despite being unaware of the writer’s true agenda…

Mike’s sister Valerie had married the Laird Sir Alec before apparently drowning in an accident. Hollis is even more convinced when, whilst snooping in the darkened midnight halls, she meet’s Val’s ghost. Certain of murder, Mike probes deeper, uncovering a deeply-concealed scandal and mystery, becoming a target herself. However, when there are so many suspects and no one to trust, how long can it be before she joins her sibling in the spirit world?

SoSH #6 sees transition to a standard horror-anthology completed by the addition of a schlocky comedic host/raconteur along the lines of Cain, Abel and the Mad Mod Witch. Charity offers her laconic first ‘Welcome to Sinister House’ (presumably scripted by editor Joe Orlando and illustrated by the astonishingly gifted Michael Wm. Kaluta), before pioneering industry legend Sheldon Mayer – who would briefly act as lead writer for the title – begins replacing romance with mordant terror and gallows humour by asking ‘When is Tomorrow Yesterday?‘ (limned by Alfredo Alcala) for a genre-warping tale of time-travelling magic and medicine. ‘Brief Reunion!’ by John Albano, Ed Ramos & Mar Amongo has a hitman feel the inescapable consequences of his life, before veterans Robert Kanigher & Bill Draut show a murdering wife that Karma is a vengeful bitch in ‘The Man Hater’.

Issue #7 opens in ‘Panic!’ by Mayer and the sublimely talented Nestor Redondo, who together teach a mobster’s chiselling bookkeeper a salient lesson about messing with girls who know magic; Sergio Aragonés opens occasional gag feature ‘Witch’s Tails’ and Mayer & June Lofamia futilely warn a student taking ship for America ‘As Long as you Live… Stay Away from Water!’ Sam Glanzman  illustrates Mayer’s twice-told tale of ghostly millennial vengeance in ‘The Hag’s Curse and the Hamptons’ Revenge!’ before cartoonist Lore Shoberg draws some ‘Witch’s Tails’ to end the issue.

‘The Young Man Who Cried Werewolf Once Too Often’ illustrated by Draut in #8 finds a most modern manner of dealing with lycanthropes, after which Maxene Fabe & Ruben Yandoc’s ‘Playing with Fire’ sees a bullied boy find a saurian pal to fix all his problems and E. Nelson Bridwell & Alex Niño again feature a wolf-man – but one who mistakenly believed lunar travel could solve his dilemma during a ‘Moonlight Bay’…

Secrets of Sinister House #9 shows what could happen if impatient obnoxious neighbours are crazy enough to ‘Rub a Witch the Wrong Way!’ (Mayer & Abe Ocampo), and Kanigher & Rico Rival revealed ‘The Dance of the Damned’. Here, an ambitious ballerina learns to regret stealing the shoes and glory of her dead idol, before Jack Oleck & Rival depict obsessive crypto-zoologists learning a hard lesson and little else whilst hunting ‘The Abominable Snowman’…

In #10 Steve Skeates & Alcala’s ‘Castle Curse’ finds a family torn apart by vulpine heredity, whilst Gerry Taloac’s ‘The Cards Never Lie!’ tells how a gang turf war ends badly because nobody will listen to a fortune teller, before a greedy hunchback goes too far and learns too much in his drive to surpass his magician master in ‘Losing his Head!’ by Larry Hama, Neal Adams & Rich Buckler.

Following another Kaluta ‘Welcome to Sinister House’, Fabe & Yandoc craft a period tale of greedy adventure and just deserts in ‘The Monster of Death Island’, after which all modern man’s resources are unable to halt the shocking rampage of ‘The Enemy’ (by persons unknown). More Aragonés ‘Witch’s Tails’ precede an horrific history lesson of 18th century asylum ‘Bedlam’ (John Jacobson, Kanigher & Niño) and generations of benighted, deluded exploited souls within, prior to SoSH #12 leading with Sekowsky & Wayne Howard’s salutary tale of a greedy, ruthless furrier who became ‘A Very Cold Guy’. Oleck & Niño explore ‘The Ultimate Horror’ of a hopeless paranoid whilst – following more Aragonés ‘Witch’s Tails’ – Bridwell & Alcala adapt W. F. Harvey’s classic chiller of ravening insanity ‘August Heat’.

Shock and awe is the order of the day in #13, as giant animals attack a horrified family in Albano & Alcala’s decidedly deceptive ‘Deadly Muffins’, and Oleck & Niño wryly mix nuclear Armageddon and vampires in ‘The Taste of Blood’, before Albano & Jess Jodloman wrap up with ‘The Greed Inside’: a nasty parable about wealth and prognostication. ‘The Man and the Snake’ is another Bridwell & Alcala adaptation depicting Ambrose Bierce’s mesmerising tale of mystery and imagination, but the original thrillers in #14 are just as good. ‘The Roommate’ by Fred Wolfe, Sekowsky & Draut sees a college romance destroyed by a girl with an incredible secret whilst ‘The Glass Nightmare’ (Fleisher & Alcala) teaches an opportunistic thief and killer why you shouldn’t take what isn’t yours. #15 begins with ‘The Claws of the Harpy’ (Fleisher & Sparling) and a very human murdering monster reaping a whirlwind of retribution, following up with Oleck & Romy Gamboa’s proof that there are more cunning hunters than vampires in ‘Hunger’ and culminating in a surprisingly heartwarming and sentimental fable in Albano & Jodloman’s ‘Mr. Reilly the Derelict!’

Despite the tone of the times, Secrets of Sinister House was not thriving. The odd mix of quirky tales and artistic experimentation couldn’t secure a regular audience, and a sporadic release schedule exacerbated the problems. Sadly, the last few issues, despite holding some of the best original material and fabulous reprints, were seen by hardly any readers. The series vanished with #18. Still, they’re here in all their wonderful monochrome glory and well worth the price of admission on their own.

An uncredited page of supernatural facts opens #16, after which George Kashdan & Don Perlin proffer a tale of feckless human intolerance and animal fidelity in ‘Hound You to Your Grave’, whilst the superb Vicente Alcázar traces the career of infamous 18th century sorcerer the Count of St. Germain who proudly boasted ‘No Coffin Can Hold Me’ (scripted by Leo Dorfman?) before Kashdan returns with newcomer Ernie Chan to recount the sinister saga of the world’s most inhospitable caravan in ‘The Haunted House-Mobile’.

Perhaps ironic in choice as lead #17’s ‘Death’s Last Rattle’ (Kashdan & uniquely marvellous Ramona Fradon) combines terror with sardonic laughs as a corpse goes on trial for his afterlife, even as an innocent living man was facing a jury for the dead man’s murder, whilst ‘Strange Neighbor’ by Howard Chaykin and ‘Corpse Comes on Time’ from Win Mortimer tell classic quickie terror tales in a single page each. To close the issue, the editor raided the vaults for one of the company’s oldest scary sagas.

‘Johnny Peril: Death Has Five Guesses’ by Kanigher, Giacoia & Sy Barry was first seen in Sensation Mystery #112 (November/December 1952) pitting the perennial two-fisted troubleshooter against a mystery maniac in a chamber of horrors. But was Karl Kandor just a deranged actor or something else entirely?

The curtain fell with #18, combining Kashdan & Calnan’s all-new ‘The Strange Shop on Demon Street’ – featuring a puppet-maker, marauding thugs and arcane cosmic justice – with a selection of reprints. From 1969, Murphy Anderson’s ‘Mad to Order’ by was another one-page punch-liner and Dave Wood – as D.W. Holtz – & Angel B. Luna offered New Year’s Eve enchantment in ‘The Baby Who Had But One Year to Die’, and ‘The House that Death Built’ (Dorfman & Jerry Grandenetti) sees plundering wreckers reap watery doom for their perfidy.

Once again the best was left till last as ‘The Half-Lucky Charm!’ by an unknown writer and artists Gil Kane & Bernard Sachs (Sensation Mystery #115, May 1953) follows a poor schmuck who could only afford to buy 50% of Cagliostro’s good luck talisman and finds his fortune and life being reshaped accordingly…

With superbly experimental and evocative covers by painters Victor Kalin, Jerome Podwil, George Ziel, and comics regulars DeZuñiga, Nick Cardy, Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson, Sparling, and Luis Dominguez, this long-overlooked and charmingly eclectic title is well overdue for a critical reappraisal, and fans of brilliant comics art and wry, laconic, cleverly humour-laced mild horror masterpieces should seek out this monochrome monolith of mirth and mystery.

Trust me: you’ll love it…
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