Category: Satire/Politics

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The Count Binface Comic Book


By Nick Abadzis, Krent Able, Steven Appleby, Andrew Attwell, Rachael Ball, Becky Barnicoat, Henny Beaumont, Hannah Berry, Abbigayle Bircham & Bobby Joseph, Paul Ashley Brown, Grazia Caleo & Louis Netter, Darryl Cunningham & Jonathan Edwards, Dix, Kate Evans, Babak Ganjei, Fraser Geesin, ILYA, JAKe Detonator, Rich Johnston, Rebecca K. Jones, Jonesy, Dave McKean, Peter Morey, Rob Murray, Woodrow Phoenix, Anna Readman, Scarlett & Sophie Rickard, Martin Rowson, Mark Stafford, Bryan Talbot, Edward Taylor, Myfanwy Tristram & various (SelfMadeHero)

ISBN: 978-1-914224-58-4 (TPB)

Hey ordinary upstanding voters! Oi, honourable members and professional politicians! Cartoonists are laughing at you, How do you like it?

With entire galaxies to dominate, unruly constellations to effectively administer and all that accumulated rubbish to face, it seems gracious in the extreme for an extraterrestrial overlord to consider the welfare of backward minor satrapies like Clack-Ton and the heilarious (MJ – not a typo) maze-running of human political relations. A benevolent “Greater Galactic” no less puissant than Tharg the Mighty, Count Binface is Britain’s most beloved Recyclon, a staunch defender of common sense and tireless champion of the Lovejoy box set (an entertainment item not an unspecified, unelected elite group).

He is always ready to play a straight game and reap the non-existent rewards of bossing earthlings about and will attempt to cater to their inexpressible usually contradictory whims. Thus, unafraid of hard questions and daft policies and utterly unaware of what five million quid even looks like, he competes in every UK by-election. However, none could stop a bunch of scribblers who think they’re so-ooo funny from compiling this no-holds-barred cartoon expose/briefing dossier, which digs behind the bin – as much as possible – and shows us what there is to know of the only ma humanoid prepared to tell it like it should be.

For expediency’s sake our irrepressible leader in waiting who – as mild-mannered comedian Jon Harvey – was rocketed to Earth from Sigma IX to show us a better way to live – pledges to keep it simple with manifesto promises including “a 99 pence cap on all 99 Flake ice creams (just common sense); to abolish auto-renew on Subscriptions (pure evil and a tax on forgetfulness!) and to build at least one affordable home (just to prove we can!).” If the impact studies are favourable, he would also “nationalise the singer Adele”…

Because pictures am clear & simple to understand, The Count Binface Comic Book is already seditiously at large in some comic shops, even though not officially published until Polling Day/August 13th 2026 (and how come no big shot foreign director has used that title for a summer blockbuster of negligible sense and questionable messaging?). Also, 10% of every sale is donated to British housing charity Shelter via Work for Good. Moreover, each copy reaching human hands will burn like fire as it explodes the pomposity and miscreancy of those weaselly incumbents who think humans will believe any old-beer/milk shake-sodden tosh, just as long as it makes strangers and foreigners look like monsters, flouts maritime law and ignores basic arithmetic…

A cross between good-natured political statement and another display of the British inability to take important stuff seriously, this hot-off-the-presses strip collection rides a local (one bit of one count in one country on one planet!) zeitgeist with a wealth of our best and brightest cartoonists and satirists deconstructing the myth whilst providing The Sun and Daily Telegraph with potential scoops and banner headlines for months to come as it shares (possibly inaccurate) accounts of what else Count Binface does when no one is looking…

Encompassing everything from fashion to prognostication, prophecy and revelation to cosmic combat and the fate of universes – and even a history of activism and election “joke candidates” – this timely tome is a thematic sequel to SelfMadeHero’s 2017 grand political experiment The Corbyn Comic Book and was rush-released out: compacting into 72 pages a barking mad bombardment of cogent crazy cartoon commentary by and from some of Earth’s most exciting comics creators.

These include Nick Abadzis, Krent Able, Steven Appleby, Andrew Attwell, Rachael Ball, Becky Barnicoat, Henny Beaumont, Hannah Berry, Abbigayle Bircham & Bobby Joseph, Paul Ashley Brown, Grazia Caleo & Louis Netter, Darryl Cunningham & Jonathan Edwards, JAKe Detonator, Dix, Kate Evans, Babak Ganjei, Fraser Geesin, ILYA, Rich Johnston, Rebecca K. Jones, Jonesy, Dave McKean, Peter Morey, Rob Murray, Woodrow Phoenix, Anna Readman, Scarlett & Sophie Rickard, Martin Rowson, Mark Stafford, Bryan Talbot, Edward Taylor, Myfanwy Tristram and others.

You can stand up and be counted just by sitting down and scoping out the wonders contained herein, and every sale will remind those who matter that it’s not aliens we worry about, but homegrown spivs, exploitative rabblerousers, greedy rich bastards and unthinking bigots…

WARNING! UNOFFICIAL, UNAUTHORIZED SATIRICAL ANTHOLOGY

This publication has not been prepared, approved, authorized, or licensed by Count Binface or any related entity. The Count Binface Comic Book is available at GOSH (London) from 6th August & on sale at other good bookshops and online in the week leading up to the August 13th by-election.

Today in 1902 saw the arrival of illustrator, cartoonist and comic book pioneer Jack Binder (Daredevil, If…?, The Destroyer, Bulletman, Mary Marvel, Fighting Yank, Ibis the Invincible, Mister Scarlet and Pinky, Captain Battle, Black Owl, Doc Savage, The Shadow), joined by It Never Fails and Mickey Finn artist Morris Weiss in 1915; cartoonist Dik Browne (The Tracy Twins, Hi and Lois, Hägar the Horrible) in 1917 and Swedish creator Rune Andréasson (Bamse, Teddy, Habibu, Brum, Pellefant) in1925. In 1948 horrorist T. Casey Brennan (Eerie, Creepy, Vampirella) was born, sharing the day with Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets, Batman, Loveless, Hellblazer) in 1962; Jim Lee (X-Men, WildC.A.T.s. DC New 52) and letterer Pat Brosseau in in 1964; artist/ghost inker Ryan Winn (Hiding in Time) in 1976 and illustrator Joseph A. Quiñones Jr. (Firefly, Wonder Woman, Teen Titans Go!, Superman/Batman, Thunderbolts) in 1982.

This day in 1959 saw the passing of breakthrough African American artist Matt Baker (Phantom Lady, It Rhymes with Lust, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, Canteen Kate, Sky Girl, Charlton and Atlas mystery/horror, westerns and romance anthologies).

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Namor, the Sub-Mariner Epic Collection volume 5: The Invasion of New York 1972-1974


By Bill Everett, Steve Gerber, Mike Friedrich, Marv Wolfman, Howard Chaykin, Steve Skeates, Bill Mantlo, Dan Adkins, Alan Weiss, Sam Kweskin, Don Heck, George Tuska, Win Mortimer, John Tartaglione, Jim Mooney, Frank Giacoia, John Sinnott, Syd Shores, Don Perlin, Frank Chiaramonte, Frank Bolle, Vince Colletta, John Romita Sr., Gil Kane, Marie Severin, Franc Reyes & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In his most primal incarnation (other origins are available but may differ due to timeslips, circumstance and screen dimensions) Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner is the proud, noble and usually upset offspring of the union of a water-breathing Atlantean princess and an American polar explorer. That doomed romance resulted in a hybrid being of immense strength and extreme resistance to physical harm, able to fly and thrive above and below the waves. Over decades, a wealth of creators added to the fishy tale and today’s Namor is hailed as Marvel’s First Mutant as well as the original “bad boy Good Guy”. He was created by young, talented Bill Everett, for non-starter cinema premium Motion Picture Weekly Funnies: #1 (October 1939) so – technically – Namor predates Marvel, Atlas and Timely Comics.

The Marine Miracleman first caught the public’s avid attention as part of an elementally appealing fire vs. water headlining team-up in the October 1939 Marvel Comics #1 (which renamed itself Marvel Mystery Comics from #2 onwards). The amphibian antihero shared honours and top billing with The Human Torch, having debuted (albeit in a truncated, monochrome version) in the aforementioned promotional booklet designed to be handed out to moviegoers earlier in the year. Our late-starter antihero rapidly emerged as one of the industry’s biggest draws, winning his own title at the end of 1940 (cover-dated Spring 1941).

His appeal was baffling but solid and he was one of the last super-characters to vanish at the end of the first heroic age.

In 1954, when Atlas (as the company then was) briefly revived its “Big Three” line-up – the Torch and Captain America being the other two – Everett returned for an extended run of sublimely dark, mordantly moody, creepily contemporary fantasy fables. Even so, his input wasn’t sufficient to keep the title afloat and eventually Sub-Mariner sank again. In 1961, as Stan Lee & Jack Kirby were reinventing superheroes with their Fantastic Four, they revived and reimagined the awesome, all-but-forgotten aquanaut as a troubled, angry semi-amnesiac. Decidedly more bombastic, regal and grandiose, this returnee despised humanity: embittered and broken by the loss of his subsea kingdom, which had been (seemingly) destroyed by American atomic testing. His urge for rightful revenge was infinitely complicated after he became utterly besotted with the FF’s Susan Storm…

Namor knocked around the budding Marvel universe for years, squabbling with star turns such as The Hulk, Avengers, X-Men and Daredevil before securing his own series as one half of Tales to Astonish. From there he graduated in 1968 to his own solo title again.

Cumulatively spanning cover-dates June 1972 to September 1974, this subsea selection trawls Sub-Mariner #50-72, signalling the end of another era and rising dominance of genre fare in the superhero-saturated market of that period. Also dredged up and tipped in is a tentative attempt to revive his solo star status as seen in Marvel Spotlight #27 (April 1976) just as horror-heroes began to wither away in the light of shiny space operas and resurgent superheroes as we all unwittingly bided our time until the advent of Star Wars unleashed a wave of Science Fiction sagas. Here, however, we see the triumphant glorious last hurrahs of originator Everett in salty sagas and dry land dramas…

Previously, Namor had endured months of escalating horror as old enemies including Prince Byrrah, Warlord Krang, Attuma, Dr. Dorcas and sinister shapeshifter Llyra perpetually assaulted his sunken kingdom. They were soundly defeated, but these constant clashes led to the murder of Namor’s bride-to-be Lady Dorma. He had been betrayed by his most trusted ally and, heartsick, angry and despondent, abdicated the throne, choosing to pursue the human half of his hybrid heritage as a surface dweller. The decision was fraught with more potential grief, leading to battles with surface world authorities; deranged psionic hermit Stephan Tuval and mind-tyrant Turalla; monster-maker Aunt Serr, M.O.D.O.K. and AIM. Namor seldom fought alone and initial clashes with old friends like Diane Arliss and Walt Newell (part-time undersea Avenger Stingray), Spider-Man, Daredevil and Human Torch Johnny Storm ultimately resulted in refreshed alliances, culminating in a poignant but brief reunion with his long-lost father Leonard McKenzie, a man Namor had for his entire life believed killed by Atlanteans in 1920.

When that tragic hostage to fortune was murdered by post-human horror Tiger Shark & Llyra, twice-orphaned, traumatised Namor lost his memory again, and was exploited as cannon fodder by Doctor Doom before eventually breaking free to retrench in bitter confusion and ponder his future…

Thus , a fresh start begins in #50 as Everett resurfaces to ask ‘Who Am I?’, with the bewildered amphibian reeling in confusion at the beach until his heroic instincts kick in and he saves a drowning teenager from seaweed and pollution. His actions are completely misunderstood and she savagely attacks him, before swimming off right out to sea…

Lesson learned, Namor concentrates on his own woes and sets off for Antarctica, eventually fetching up in the Ross Sea to explore the crumbling remains of the original Atlantis. His reveries are shattered when he is attacked by mutant crab creatures guarding the tomb of his beloved long-lost cousin and WWII partner in crimefighting Namora…

Confronting sinister leader Salamar the Sustainer, Namor discover a bizarre scheme to exploit the vast oil reserves under the ocean floor, and learns old foes are shaping events: treacherous cousin Byrrah and seemingly unkillable Llyra. He also meets again that abrasive teenager and discovers she is Namora’s wayward daughter…

As all hell breaks loose, former prince and newfound cousin Namorita make a break for it in a hail of blaster fire as ‘Armageddon… at Fifty Fathoms Full!’ (scripted by Mike Friedrich) exposes a scaly hidden hand behind the carnage. Byrrah is allied with the alien Brotherhood of Baddoon, who want the (radioactive!) oil reserves, albeit not for the reasons they share with the usurper. Ultimately, the aliens, Byrrah, and Salamar’s savage crab people can’t agree and the seagoing cousins are participants in a shattering showdown that results in environmental catastrophe…

Seeking to confirm Namorita’s account of how Namora died whilst dumping her with his old girlfriend Betty Dean Prentiss, Sub-Mariner cruises into a clash with ultra-nationalist Japanese mutant and future X-Man Sunfire as ‘The Atomic Samurai!’ – ever receptive to deranged patriotic ranting – falls under the sway of war criminal demagogue Dragon-Lord, last of the samurai. He plans to unleash his new Nipponese army and deadly defoliants upon America, a tactic that might destroy the oceans…

After a spectacular new incidence of the classic Golden Age “Fire vs Water” duel, Everett took full creative control for follow-up ‘…And the Rising Sun Shall Fall!’ wherein Sunfire sees sense and switches sides to save the seas, leading to all-out war in concluding half-chapter ‘Now Comes… the Decision!’,: a brief battle that leaves room in #54 for a “Mighty Marvel Mini Classic!” with Friedrich & Alan Weiss detailing how ‘Namor the First, Prince of Atlantis battles The Mer-Mutants’: a light but lovely puff piece involving a mermaid acting as a subsea honey trap for her hungry kin…

NtSM #55 sees Namor at last wave goodbye to “Nita” & Betty before revisiting Antarctica and enduring an unexpected and brutal encounter with scavenging wrecker ‘The Abominable Snow-King!’ The literally monstrous Torg’s ambition is to pit enslaved sea life against humanity but sinks once the Sub-Mariner gets involved, after which Friedrich & veteran illustrator Dan Adkins steer the abdicated Prince back to his forsaken kingdom in ‘Atlantis, Mon Amour!’ Sadly, he’s too late to stop his former subjects making a tragic fear-fuelled mistake that results in atrocity and genocide after aquatic alien refugee beg for aid…

When Everett returned he opened the doors to Marvel’s Atlas era-past with a tempestuous yarn that would eventually affect the entire continuity. ‘…In the Lap of the Gods’ reintroduced 1950s sensation Venus, whose impact would ripple out across the MU and ultimately reveal her hidden history as part of the Agents of Atlas sub-franchise.

It begins in a shattering storm as Namor rescues a lovely mystery woman stranded on a rock and stumbles into a long-running grudge match between the Hellenic gods of Love and War. A contemporary tale of dissent and unrest, the story reunites him with Namorita, who, in his absence, has become a college student and activist. Moreover, her favourite lecturer – Humanities Professor Victoria N. Starr – also has a concealed alter ego and lethal stalker: malign divinity and former pantheon mate Ares…

Having held at bay one angry god, Namor returns to Atlantis, resolved to restore the undersea nation to forefront of civilisation but his program of changes is stalled when ‘Hands Across the Waters, Hands Across the Skies…’ (Everett supervising, steering and inking dialoguer Steve Gerber & layout artist Sam Kweskin) uncovers a survivor and witness to the recent massacre of alien ambassadors by Atlanteans. Tamara of the Sisterhood claims to offer forgiveness and seek understanding, but many of the perpetrators would rather there were no testimony or recriminations to deal with. Most tellingly, the superstrong survivor and her pet monster have their own plans and soon the prince is sucked into more pointless battle…

With John Tartaglione inking Everett’s plot, Gerber & Kweskin forecast ‘Thunder Over the Seas!’, a tale of tragic miscomprehension as Namor again clashes with the surface world. As the Sub-Mariner’s new advisor, Tamara is targeted by Atlantean scout Lorvex – who is driven wild by her exotic beauty and rarity. Obsessively stalking and assaulting her, Lorvex drives her into Russian trawler nets where the rubicund refugee becomes a prized possession after the vessel and its contents are impounded by the US Coast Guard. Now Tamara is a cause célèbre and topic of heated debate at the United Nations…

Having dealt with Lorvex, Namor seeks out his new friend, and crashes into chaos as the war of words over the alien mermaid triggers the usual bellicose response amongst humans. By the time surface-dwelling Namorita summons her cousin to rescue Tamara, founding Avenger Thor has stepped in to keep the peace. Sadly it’s too late to stop ‘The Invasion of New York!’ (Everett, Gerber, Kweskin & Jim Mooney), with Lorvex exploiting the campaign to regain position and secretly abduct Tamara from UN custody. Enraged and resigned, Sub-Mariner acts decisively and violently to end the crisis, and accepts at last the fate he has been really fighting, finally accepting once more the throne and responsibilities of ruling Atlantis.

It was an open secret that Everett was dying at this time, but his Marvel friends and employers allowed him to work on until he couldn’t. Thus Sub-Mariner #61’s The Prince and the Pirate!’ – credited to Gerber, Everett, Win Mortimer & Mooney – opens with the old master pictorially revealing revelry in the subsea kingdom as Namor’s coronation ends before a new storyline starts on page 4 as Namorita and human guardian Betty Prentiss are abducted along with an entire passenger plane. The voyagers are victims of deranged geneticist Dr. Hydro who mutates them all (bar already amphibian Nita) into human-merman hybrids to populate his army of environmental conquest. When Namor tracks the ongoing abductions and invades mobile island Hydrobase to save his cousin, he is soundly defeated by the maniac’s super science. Moreover, the failed assault inspires Hydro to invade Atlantis and make it his new stronghold from which to convert the rest of humanity…

The drama plays out in #62 as Gerber, Sam Kweskin & Frank Giacoia explore ‘A Realm Besieged!’ before Tamara in Atlantis and Nita on Hydrobase thwart Hydro’s schemes; leaving the Sub-Mariner to ponder what to do with the hundreds of innocent, unwilling scaly amphibian freaks that neither Atlanteans or surface-dwellers want anything to do with…

Steve Gerber was a uniquely gifted writer who combined a deep love of Marvel’s continuity minutiae with dark irrepressible wit, incisive introspection, barbed socio-cultural criticism, a barely reined-in imagination and boundless bizarrely wilful surrealism. His stories were always at the extreme edge of the company’s intellectual canon and never failed to deliver surprise and satisfaction, especially when he couched his sardonic sorties in thinly veiled attacks on burgeoning cultural homogenisation and commercial barbarity.

With critical success Man-Thing he was holding up a mirror to many cordoned-off and taboo subjects and weaving history from scattered snippets of Marvel’s continuity. With his final stint on Sub-Mariner, Gerber expanded that universe exponentially, building by exploring pre-cataclysm history, aided by Howard Chaykin in back-up series ‘Tales of Atlantis!’ Here the first chapter – inked by Joe Sinnott – sees antediluvian, human-built Atlantis losing its war with rival superpower Lemuria and Emperor Kamuu and his bride Zartra prepare for the bloody end…

Over Everett’s posthumous plot, Gerber, Kweskin & Syd Shores produce #63 as ‘…And the Seas Shall Explode!’ sees seemingly dead Dr Hydro return to destroy the Atlanteans by triggering a volcano under their city and compelling Namor to take no chances and offer no mercy to save his subjects once and for all, Tales of Atlantis resumes as Gerber, Chaykin & Sinnott reveal how the fate of the first Atlantis is sealed by ‘Cataclysm!’ As hand-to-hand combat peaks, the city sinks beneath the seas, but its heritage is saved, carried away by missionary sorceress Zered-Na and her devout disciples; for which you need to scope out Gerber’s other contemporaneous assignments: Son of Satan in Marvel Spotlight and Man-Thing in Adventures into Fear. We’ve covered them elsewhere so feel free to scroll away in the search engines…

Here, though, and wading off at a weird tangent, Gerber, Don Heck & Don Perlin play with satire and pop culture in #64’s ‘Voyage into Chaos!’ When intolerant Atlanteans intern the aimless, despondent amphibian victims of Dr. Hydro, furious, ashamed Namor responds with a fit of fury, just as cool heads are needed to assess another astounding incursion. Soon, a quartet of strange visitors from magical dimension Zephyrland – Ariel the Musician, Ibbar the Scolar, Kabal the Wizard & Zargus the Warrior – are petitioning the Sub-Mariner to hop in their Golden Submarine and help them liberate their enslaved homeland from bestial, tone-deaf horror Virago the She-Beast. Willing and even eager to go for many reasons Namor joins them but is ambushed and defeated as soon as arrives in the land of golden meanies…

Third Tales of Atlantis episode ‘In the Wake of the Warriors!’ reveals how, five millennia later, nomadic clans of water-breathing Homo Mermanus settle in the ruins of the sunken city-continent and clash constantly, thanks to the enmity of sworn enemies Widow-Queen Elanna and King Stegor. They cannot see waves of destiny pushing their battle-hardened children towards an incredible coalition. Successive instalments ‘The Lurker in the Ruins!’ (Gerber, Mooney & Frank Chiaramonte in #65 and concluding chapter ‘The Sword in the Throne!’ inked by Sinnott in #66) ended the series abruptly as those children – destiny- touched Kamuu and Elanna’s daughter Zartra – after meeting ghosts and battling demons, unite the tribes to create the dynasty of sunken Atlantis that will lead millennia later to the coming later of Namor…

Back in the now, the series was struggling, sparking a rapid radical rebrand as Prince Namor, the Savage Sub-Mariner and #65 offering ‘The Cry of the She-Beast!’ as Gerber, Heck & Perlin detail how Virago crushes resistance at home, physically humiliates Namor and launches an attack across dimensions upon Atlantis. Her departure sparks a successful but so-costly revolution in Zephyrland and (with valiant Namor clinging to her hurtling Golden Submarine) provokes a shocking resurrection after splashing down on Earth in #66. ‘Rise, Thou Killer Whale’ (Gerber, Heck & Perlin) sees Virago driven away from Atlantis at great cost, only to stumble upon the tomb of defeated – but apparently only dormant – Orka the (humanoid) Killer Whale – who unites with a clearly kindred spirit to devastate the sunken city with an armada of crazed cetaceans…

The catastrophic clash leads to the Sub-Mariner again falling, but this time amidst toxic nerve gas dumped by surface dwellers. The chemical poisons alter his body chemistry, making it impossible to breathe air or maintain body moisture. Moreover, as the cloud of death expands currents wash it over Atlantis, plunging all within the perimeter – Virago and Orka included – into comas in landmark tale ‘Seawinds of Change!’ (Gerber, Heck & Frank Bolle).

Thankfully, whilst dying Namor heads for the surface to be found by old ally Triton of The Inhumans, who brings Namor to former foes the Fantastic Four. Smartest Man Alive Reed Richards swiftly diagnoses and rapidly constructs a bodysuit to provide constant artificial respiration – over Namor’s churlish and violent protests – and he heads home to finish his fight. Sadly, what he finds in #68 (January 1974, Mooney inks) leaves him ‘On the Brink of Madness!’ Only Tamara, Nita and Hydro’s amphibians escaped the nerve agent’s effects and now must calm down the bereft monarch. To stabilise the crisis, they relocate to vacant Hydrobase and direct Namor to a human scientist whose forcefield researches might provide a means to protect dormant Atlanteans from predators and further harm.

After seeking spiritual guidance from patron god Father Neptune, Namor sets off, but when the king without a kingdom seeks out Dr Damon Walthers, he discovers the genius’ works stolen by his assistant. Shot from the sky by neophyte supervillain Force, their initial clash is inconclusive but does draw the attention of passing student Peter Parker…

Meanwhile in Zephyrland, the war goes badly and the survivors consider calling in Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange…

George Tuska & Vince Colletta illustrate Prince Namor, the Savage Sub-Mariner #69 as Gerber rapidly wraps up his hanging plot threads in anticipation of a sudden cancellation. ‘Two Worlds …and Dark Destiny!’ sees Dr Strange offer aid, a pointless battle between spider hero and fishman and a final encounter with Force that leaves Namor victorious, in control of Walthers’ forcefield tech and Atlantis safely stored “under glass” until a cure can be found – an inauspicious but satisfactory stopping point. Confoundingly the series still had three issues to run with Marv Wolfman, Tuska & Colletta depicting ‘Namor Unchained!’ in #70 whilst adding further safeguards to sleeping Atlantis, until targeted by now-independent mutated fishmen grown by Dr. Dorcas under the guidance of an ambitious aquatic atrocity. The brutal duel delivers more deaths and butchery as #71 clamours ‘Comes the Pirahna!’ and the series finally sank with #72 (dated September 1974 and on sale from 18th June) as Steve Skeates, Dan Adkins & Colletta catered an alien encounter as Namor faced obnoxious humans and a lost interstellar shapeshifter in ‘From the Void It Came…’

The antihero resurfaced in Giant-Sized Super-Villain Team-Up #1 (cover-dated March 1975), revived as one half of a tag-team with fellow misunderstood autocrat Doctor Doom whilst seeking a cure for his people and his own condition. That sustained momentum led to the last tale here, a solo exploit taken from Marvel Spotlight #27 (April 1976) as Bill Mantlo & Mooney revealed ‘Death is the Symbionic Man!’ Incorporating Prime Earth’s military industrial villain Captain Simon Stryker (of alternate Earth epic Deathlok the Demolisher) the pacy yarn saw Sub-Mariner hunted for potential spare parts and powers by the messianic maniac and battling Stryker’s most deadly killer-cyborg yet…

Bonus material includes covers by Everett, John Romita, Rich Buckler, Sal Buscema, Al Weiss, Jim Starlin, Larry Lieber, Joe Sinnott, Gil Kane, Frank Giacoia, Mike Esposito, Vince Colletta, & Al Milgrom, supplemented with original art pages and personal commissions by “Wild Bill”. Also on view are House ads; the editorial page from #67 wherein Gerber explained the costume change plus Romita’s original designs for the new outfit. Special treats comprise Everett’s unused cover watercolour rough for Marvel Comics (1939) #2; the Everett cover and Franc Reyes frontispiece of Marvel Index #7b (1978); a stellar Venus pinup from Marvel Spotlight #2 (1972) and – following the announcement of Everett’s death – a visual memorial from editor and friend Thomas, limned by Marie Severin & Giacoia as it appeared in Sub-Mariner #65 (September 1973).

In comics, the best thing about “the Mighty falling” is that so often another time throws up fresh ideas and creators who will regenerate faded concepts. It a cycle as timeless and relentlessly repeating as the tides. The venerable Sub-Mariner always comes back stronger and more appetising, and you owe it to yourself to be ready for the next wave by getting to know these classics. Many early Marvel Comics are more exuberant than qualitative, but this volume, especially from an story-lover’s point of view, is a wonderful exception: historical treasures with narrative bite and indescribable style and panache that fans will delight in forever.
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1923 French creator Jean Graton (Michel Vaillant) was born, sharing natal celebrations with comics genius Eddie Campbell (Alec, Bacchus, From Hell) in 1955 and colourist Christie Scheele in 1957.

Losses include cartoonist Virgil Partch in 1984; Belgian writer Henri Gillain (Il y a un sorcier à Champignac, Le Trésor d’Alaric, Nègre Blanc) in 1999; Mad mainstay Jerry DeFucchio in 2001 and Filipino artist Mar Amongo (DC anthologies, Noli Me Tangere, The Tiger’s Fang, Talons of Time) in 2005.

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Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip volume 2


By Tove Jansson with Lars Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-897299-19-7 (Album HB) 978-1-770465-49-7 (Digital edition)

Tove Marika Jansson was born into an artistic, intellectual and practically Bohemian Swedish family in Helsinki, Finland on August 9th 1914, making today her 112th anniversary, so hyvää vuosipäivää to her and all you fans…

Her father Viktor was a sculptor, whilst mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson enjoyed a successful career as illustrator, graphic designer and commercial artist. Tove’s brothers Lars and Per Olov became a cartoonist/writer and photographer respectively. The family and its close intellectual, eccentric circle of friends seem to have been cast rather than born, with a witty play or challenging sitcom as the piece they were all destined to act in.

After a period of intensive study from 1930-1938 (University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm, the Graphic School of The Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, then L’Ecole d’Adrien Holy and L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris), Tove became a successful exhibiting artist through the troubled period of the war. Intensely creative in many fields, she published the first fantastic Moomins adventure in 1945: Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (The Little Trolls and the Great Flood or more euphoniously The Moomins and the Great Flood): a whimsical epic of gentle, inclusive, accepting, understanding, bohemian, misfit trolls and their strange friends. Always an over-achiever, from 1930 to 1953 she worked as an artist and cartoonist for Swedish satirical magazine Garm, achieving a measure of notoriety with an infamous political sketch of Hitler in nappies (a political method of self-expression currently back in vogue with many modern im-Potentates), lampooning the Appeasement policies of Chamberlain and other European leaders in the build-up to World War II. Tove was also a much-in-demand illustrator for many magazines and children’s books. She had been selling her own comic strips as early as 1929…

Moomintroll was literally her signature character. The lumpy, big-eyed goof began life as a spindly sigil beside her signature in political works. She called him “Snork” and claimed she had designed him in a fit of pique as a child – the ugliest thing a precocious little girl could imagine – as a response to losing an argument about Immanuel Kant with her brother.

The term “Moomin” came from maternal uncle Einar Hammarsten who attempted to stop Tove pilfering food when she visited by warning her that a Moomintroll guarded the kitchen, creeping up on trespassers and breathing cold air down their necks. Over childhood years and far beyond, Snork/Moomin filled out, became timidly nicer (if a little clingy and insecure), a placid therapy-tool to counteract the grimness of the post-war world.

The Moomins and the Great Flood was relatively unsuccessful but she persisted, as much for her own therapeutic benefit as any other reason, so in 1946 the sequel Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published. Many commentators believe this terrifying tale a skilful, compelling allegory of Nuclear destruction, with both it and 1948’s third illustrated saga Trollkarlens hatt (Finn Family Moomintroll – occasionally The Happy Moomins) translated into English in 1952. The success prompted British media giant Associated Press to commission a newspaper strip about her seductively sweet, sensibly surreal surrogate family.

Jansson had no prejudices regarding strip cartoons. Her earlier works included Lunkentus (Prickinas och Fabians äventyr, 1929); Vårbrodd (Fotbollen som Flög till Himlen, 1930) and Allas Krönika (Palle och Göran gå till sjöss, in1933). She had already successfully adapted Comet in Moominland for Swedish/Finnish paper Ny Tid. Thus, Mumintrollet och jordens undergång (Moomintrolls and the End of the World) was proven a popular feature and Jansson readily accepted a chance to extend her message across the world.

In 1953, The London Evening News launched the first of 21 Moomin serial sagas which captivated readers of all ages. Tove’s involvement ended in 1959, a casualty of her own success and a punishing publication schedule. So great was the pressure that she had early on recruited brother Lars to help. He proudly and most effectively continued the feature until its end in 1975. Free of the strip, she returned to painting, writing and her other creative pursuits: generating book illustrations, plays, murals, public art, stage designs, costumes for dramas and ballets, a Moomin opera, 9 more Moomin-related picture-books & novels, as well as 13 books and short-story collections more obviously intended for grown-ups.

Her awards are too numerous to mention (literally dozens of international art and literary plaudits), but consider this: how many modern artists – let alone comics creators – get their faces on the national currency or have commemorative coins struck bearing their image?

Tove Jansson died on June 27th 2001 but her timorous critters and their better, nicer world has proliferated beyond belief.

Tove could deploy slim economical line and pattern to create sublime worlds of fascination, and her dexterity made simple forms into incredibly expressive and potent symbols. In this second oversized (312 x 222mm) monochrome hardback (or electrical options are available for the screen of your preference!) compilation commences with ‘Moomin’s Winter Follies’, wherein the rotund, gracious and deeply considerate young troll has an accident on ice that prompts the family to begin their annual preparations for the winter’s hibernation.

However, after all these efforts lead to nothing but petty disaster, boldly unconventional Moomin Pappa decides that tradition isn’t everything and decrees that they shall all stay awake for the icy months ahead…

The family and their many friends are soon bedevilled by the obnoxiously enthusiastic Mr. Brisk who cajoles the easygoing Moomins to indulge in his abiding passion for winter sports. Results are painful and far from impressive, but ruggedly athletic Brisk does turn the head of overly romantic and lonely Mymble. As usual, the object of her affections is blithely oblivious, with eyes only for the upcoming Winter Games, but when beauteous Snorkmaiden also starts succumbing to Brisk’s physical charms, Moomin is forced to take up ski-jumping just to win back her attention.

When that goes poorly, he is tempted into contemplating murder until cooler heads, his own gentle nature and the onset of spring produces a milder and more suitable solution…

Moomins are placid free spirits, bohemians untroubled by hidebound domestic mores and societal pressures. Moomin Mamma is warm and capable but overly concerned with propriety and appearances, whilst Pappa spends most of his time trying to rekindle his adventurous youth or dreaming of fantastic journeys. However, when prideful snobbish Mrs. Fillyjonk moves in next door, her snooty attitudes unfavourably affect the entire family, resulting in the hiring of ‘Moomin Mamma’s Maid’.

The search for a suitable servant results in disruption and discontent before dour, distressed and doom-obsessed Misabel – along with her direly depressed dog Pimple – further blight the formerly happy household. Misabel suffers from secrets and persecution complexes, and when Fillyjonk goes missing, a detective starts hanging around, adding to the general aura of anxiety until Moomin Mamma shakes herself out of her status-induced funk and starts a campaign to cheer up and change the latest additions to her wildly imaginative, but oddly welcoming, home…

‘Moomin Builds a House’ sees Mymble’s eccentrically forgetful yet fruitful mother come to visit, inflicting her latest batch of wild & wilful youngsters (17, or thereabouts!) on the normally compassionate and understanding trolls. The children are, to put it mildly, little monsters: destructive, practical joking, firestarter hellions who would put the Belles of St. Trinian’s to shame and to rout…

Soon, impressionable Moomin is driven out of his home and, egged on by the worst of the brood Little My, attempts to build his own house in the woods. With none of Moomin Pappa’s craft skills, the lad’s efforts are far from satisfactory but nonetheless his flighty paramour Snorkmaiden soon joins him, intent on making the shaky edifice their romantic hideaway. Sadly, with Little My still around, their best laid plans quickly come unstuck…

This utterly incomparable and heartwarming box of graphic delights concludes with a brilliantly satirical salutary romp as ‘Moomin Begins a New Life’, wherein an itinerant thinker enters the valley, sharing his secret recipe for “How to be Happy”. Although self-proclaimed, The Prophet is remarkably convincing and, seeing how his pronouncements and suggestions have changed the lives of all their friends and neighbours, the graciously impressionable Moomins attempt to adjust their behaviour to maximise their joy, unaware that they are already as happy and content as anyone can be…

With the entire locality blissed out, the well-intentioned Prophet then convinces the constable to release all the folk in jail, allowing mischievous trickster and devoted scofflaw Stinky to resume his prankish shenanigans. After convincing Pappa to set up an illicit still producing hard liquor – which incites Snorkmaiden to run off with another young man – Stinky subsequently convinces desolate, deserted Moomin to turn to the dark side, becoming a glamorous highwayman and jewel thief to win her back…

Having spread malice and disorder, Stinky’s next stunt is badly misjudged. He invites a puritan, fire-&-brimstone rival philosopher dubbed the Black Prophet to come and save all the sinners. Thankfully, as the rival Prophets’ war of words escalates, Moomin Mamma at last reaches the end of her patience and intervenes…

Following the Wild Things wonderment is short essay ‘Tove Jansson: To Live in Peace, Plant Potatoes, and Dream’: a comprehensive biography and commentary by Alisia Grace Chase, PhD celebrating the astound achievements of this genteel giant of literature and the arts.

These are truly magical tales for the young laced with the devastating observation and razor-sharp mature wit which enhances and elevates only the greatest kid’s stories into classics of literature. These volumes are an international treasure and no fan of the medium – or biped with even a hint of heart and soul – can afford to be without them.
© 2007 Solo/Bulls. All other material © its creators. All rights reserved.

Today in 1907 nonstop cartoonist Mel Graff (Adventures of Patsy, Secret Agent X-9, Captain Easy) was born, sharing the day with utterly unique Tove Jansson who joined the party in 1914 as did eventual pulp scribe turned Atlas Comics & EC genre anthology author Daniel Keyes (Flowers for Algernon) in 1927.

Mandrake the Magician artisan Fred Fredericks came along in 1929; Belgian creator William Vance (XIII, Marshall Blueberry, Bob Morane, Bruno Brazil) in 1935; British cartoonist Posy Simmons (Bear, Mrs Weber’s Diary, Gemma Bovary, Tamara Drewe) in 1955 and comic book craftsman Bob McLeod (New Mutants, Conan, Wonder Woman, Superman) in1951. Ultra stylist Rick Leonardi (Spider-Man 2099, Uncanny X-Men, Cloak and Dagger, Batman Beyond) arrived in 1957, sharing cake & candles with Fish Police creator Steve Moncuse, and Gene Luen Yang (Chinese Born American, Superman Smashes the Klan, Monkey Prince) popped by in 1971.

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Superman The Golden Age Sundays volume 2 1946-1949


By Alvin Schwartz, Wayne Boring & various (IDW/Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-109-1 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times..

After years wallowing in obscurity most of Superman’s newspaper strip exploits were at last made available to aficionados and the curious newcomer in tomes such as this one, compiled under the auspices of the Library of American Comics. Sadly, that bounty has dried up and the books are becoming as rare as the original strips. Hopefully the whole canon will one day make it into digital editions. Until then though, we fortunate ones can share what we have, like this epic transitional selection seeing the close of a Golden era in advance of a fresh, bold, daringly Atomic Age…

The comic book industry would be utterly unrecognisable without Superman. Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s bold and unprecedented invention was fervidly adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation and quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form. The Man of Tomorrow was shamelessly copied, adapted by countless inspired writers and artists for numerous publishers, spawning an incomprehensible army of imitators and variations within three years of his summer 1938 debut.

Yes, 88 YEARS… and still counting!

The intoxicating blend of breakneck, breathtaking action and visceral wish-fulfilment expressed by the newborn Action Ace swiftly expanded to encompass cops-&-robbers crimebusting, socially reformist dramas, science fiction and fantasy, romance and comedy; and – once war in Europe and the East engulfed America – absorbed and reinforced patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and dashing derring-do. Superman was master of the world and whilst transforming and dictating the shape of the fledgling funnybook industry, relentlessly expanded into all areas of entertainment media.

We might think of the Cleveland boys’ iconic invention as the epitome and acme of comic strip creation, but the truth is that very soon after his debut in Action Comics #1 the Man of Steel was a fictional multimedia monolith in the same league as Sherlock Holmes, Popeye and Tarzan. Diehard comics fans regard our purest, most enduring icons in primarily graphic narrative terms, but the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, The Hulk and their hyperkinetic ilk long ago outgrew four-colour origins to become fully mythologized modern media creatures, instantly recognised in mass markets across all platforms and age ranges. Far more people have viewed or heard the Man of Steel than have ever read his comics.

His globally syndicated newspaper strips reached untold millions, and by the time of his 20th anniversary – at the very start of what we know as the Silver Age of Comics – he had been a thrice-weekly radio serial regular and starred in a series of astounding animated cartoons, as well as two films and a novel by George Lowther. Superman was a perennial wellspring for toys, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers and had just ended his first smash live-action television serial. In his future were many more shows, a stage musical, a ton of blockbuster movies and near-seamless succession of games, bubblegum cards and TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since. Even superdog Krypto has got in on the all screens act. However, in his formative years the moving picture option was simply an expensive novelty for most. The Action Ace achieved true mass market fame through a different medium: one not that far removed from his print origins.

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for most of the last century newspaper strips were the Holy Grail American cartoonists/graphic narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country – and frequently the world – they might be seen by millions if not billions of readers and were generally accepted as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic books. At that time it also paid far better, and rightly so. Some of the most enduring and entertaining characters and concepts of all time were created to lure readers from one particular paper to another and many of them grew to be part of a global culture. Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Blondie, Charlie Brown and so many more escaped humble, even tawdry newsprint origins to become meta-real: existing in the minds of earthlings from Albuquerque to Zanzibar. Some still do…

Superman was the first comic book character to make that leap; about six months after exploding out of Action Comics. The daily Superman strip launched on 16th January 1939, augmented from November 5th of that year by a full-colour Sunday page. Originally crafted by Siegel & Shuster and their studio (Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring), the mammoth task soon required the additional artistic gifts of Jack Burnley and ancillary writers Whitney Ellsworth, Jack Schiff & Alvin Schwartz. The McClure Syndicate feature ran uninterrupted until May 1966, and at its peak appeared in over 300 daily and 90 Sunday newspapers with a combined readership surpassing 20 million. For most of the post-war years, Boring & Stan Kaye limned the spectacular Sundays (latterly supplemented by Win Mortimer & Curt Swan). The majority of strips from 1944 to 1958 were written by largely unsung, nigh-forgotten scribe Alvin Schwartz.

Born in 1916, Schwartz was an early maestro of comic books, writing Batman, Superman, Captain Marvel, and for many other titles and companies. Whilst handling the Superman strip he freelanced on Wonder Woman and other superheroes as well as DC’s genre titles such as Tomahawk, Buzzy, A Date with Judy and House of Mystery. After numerous and ever-escalating clashes with new Superman Editor Mort Weisinger, Schwartz quit comics for commercial writing: selling novels, essays, documentaries and docudramas for the National Film Board of Canada. He worked miracles in advertising and market research, developing selling techniques like psychographics and typological identification. A member of the advisory committee to the American Association of Advertising Agencies, he died in 2011.

After too many years wallowing in obscurity most of Superman’s newspaper strip exploits are finally available to aficionados and the curious newcomer in tomes such as this one compiled under the aegis of the Library of American Comics.

Showcasing Schwartz & Boring in their purest prime, these Sundays (numbered as Pages #354 to #520, collectively spanning August 11th 1946 to October 16th 1949) depict an almost omnipotent Man of Steel in domestically-framed tales of emotional dilemma, pedestrian criminality and surreal situations rather than muscle-flexing bombast, faux angst and bludgeoning action. Here humour, wit, mystery, fashion, satire and wonder reign supreme.

Following affable appreciation of the creators and the times in Mark Waid’s ‘An Introduction’ and a selection of contemporaneous Superman comic book covers in ‘A Wayne Boring Gallery’ the weekly wonderment recommences in all its vibrant glory. Sadly, the serials are untitled, so you’ll just have to manage with my meagre synopses of individual yarns…

Kicking off is a beguiling domestic dilemma as Lois Lane is overwhelmed looking after a neighbour’s boy whilst preparing to collect her sternly formidable, imminently visiting Aunt Matilda. Snowed under mounting physical and mental loads, she ropes in Superman to backstop her, only to discover there are many tasks – like baking a cake whilst watching a boisterous brat – that even the miraculous Man of Steel cannot manage…

Next up and beginning with Page 358 (September 8th 1946) the Action Ace faces criminal mastermind Tom Catt who plunders Metropolis in “Curiosity Crimes” dependent on the victims’ own innate nosiness. After a cascade of cat & mouse clashes the cunning crook ultimately falls because he didn’t follow his own advice about obtrusive inquiry and foolhardy felines…

More distracting nonsense results after social thinktank The Skeptics prove by rational debate that Superman doesn’t exist and seek to legally end the fraud being perpetrated upon the world. It takes a number of impossible tasks diligently performed by our hero before the cranky coots are convinced to change their minds, after which Page 371 (December 8th 1946) briefly returns the Man of Tomorrow to his war years and wish-fulfilling Superman’s Service for Servicemen scheme as he helps demobbed G.I. Steve Kennedy adapt to peacetime, work woes and officious in-laws making life intolerable…

Keeping our frame of reference domestic, a new year and fresh sequence (Page 375, January 5th 1947) saw the invulnerable hero hounded by an indefatigable go-getting salesman from Dynamic Insurance. Elmer Doolittle’s career – and future wedded bliss – depend on selling Superman a policy. Luckily, the goal never actually specified what kind of policy…

March 9th (Page 384) signalled a return to fantastic fantasy as an invisible beast causes havoc in the heartlands and farmers call for help to bring the “Nosuch Animal” to brook. Sadly, when Superman intervenes the unseen terror loses its camouflage gift and is exposed as a living example of a dinosaur… a Paleomatzoball. Moreover, this rampaging colossus loves rough handling and develops a disastrous romantic attachment to the Man of Steel before our embarrassed involuntary swain devises a timely solution to their mutual problem…

The “peace dividend” delivered by the end of the war is scrutinised next as Clark visits Boom Town and sees how a former manufacturing mecca was infiltrated and overrun by mobsters, gamblers and racketeers once the military – and their trustworthy, well-trained police – were transferred elsewhere. When the entrenched thugs begin attacking the municipality’s new law enforcement recruits, the Man of Steel steps up to school the neophytes and ensure crime never pays there again…

Circuses were a big draw and popular pastime of the postwar years and from Page 400 (June 29th) Superman & Lois were lured into that limelight when swindlers targeted Cap’n Tobey’s Mammoth Carnival. When the doddering owner is gulled into promising the world that the Metropolis Marvel is his new top attraction, Superman naturally helps out by showing up, but his good deed only allows a cartel of gangsters to use his scheduled performances as opportunities to try new ways to assassinate the Action Ace… with no appreciable result…

Next (from 28th August) two more former G.I.’s enlist the Man of Steel in a business venture, hoping his promotion of their new hot dog line (“Teenie Weinies”) will ensure success, Sadly, the enthusiastically spectacular super sales campaign only lands our hero with a lawsuit for restraint of trade when established fast food rivals cry unfair competition against their own brand of “Yankie Frankies”! Ordered to cease and desist, our hero still manages one stellar and out of this world act of promotion before capitulating…

One of the earliest examples of a recurring Silver Age Superman trope comes next as Page 414 (October 5th 1947) sees exotic nuclear radiation (another increasing popular maguffin of the forthcoming Atomic Age) accidentally reduce the mighty Man of Tomorrow to the size and relative age – but thankfully not intellect or emotional development – of an infant. Unable to appear as Clark, “Superbabe” recruits vagabond Edward Benton who resembles his adult self to impersonate Kent until a remedy is found, only to see the double fall for Lois and attempt to steal his civilian life and wed her under false pretences. Unable to operate as hero or tolerate the loss of Lois, the Caped Kryptonian risks a deadly potential cure, sabotages Lois’ wedding day and risks exposing his greatest secret to stop the mad escapade…

After that soap opera scandal carries us over the Holiday season, accidental time travel – beginning with February 22nd 1948’s Page 434 – sees Superman stranded in the past and ensnared by the irresistible wiles of seductive, lethally ambitious Egyptian Queen Cleopatra. Thankfully, former beau Mark Antony is able to break her spell before the Man of Tomorrow returns to today, just in time to foil an impending Martian invasion (May 2nd – July 18th over Pages 444-455) by impersonating an “ordinary human” abducted to their testing labs…

He even acts as a matchmaker for their lonely leader before returning to Earth and his strangest encounter yet after he’s “adopted” by talking dog Angus who needs a safe, secure home for his homeless human orphan kid pal Nicky Nichols. Of course, once he’s over the shock and disbelief, Superman is delighted to provide them and even reunite Nicky with his missing-but-not-dead mother… once he’s stopped every grifting chancer’s exploitative schemes to make money out of the mouthy mutt…

Another extraordinary tyke turns up on Page 467 (October 10th) as radical theorists of The Educational Improvements Association attempt to hothouse a 3-year old prodigy with plenty of weird notions of her own. “Smartypants” is granted absolute freedom to do whatever she wants, with the Man of Steel sworn to make every wish come true. The result is utter anarchy (with unleashed dinosaurs!) and total chaos until the harassed, embattled boffins convene for a swift rethink before resorting to tried-&-trusted rearing methods…

November 28th (Page 474) saw Superman in whimsical mood as he puckishly teaches a rug salesman a lesson by making his smarmy, smug sales patter about magic carpets come true for downtrodden shopper Geoge Paley. Sadly, the prank goes exponentially awry as an ever-escalating war for possession of George’s flying rug breaks out, resulting in violence, loss of livelihood and litigation. Once he’s done settling all the crises he’s sparked, the Action Ace resolves to quit playing practical jokes…

Far-flung fantasy follows from Pages 484 to 493 (February 6th – April 10th 1949) as Superman gathers Amazon jungle flora for the Metropolis Botanical Society and stumbles upon a fabulous golden sword, a potent legend and a long-hidden civilisation in the Lost Valley of Ru. Holding the antique blade, the Man of Steel inadvertently fulfils an ancient prophecy and must marry the socially reforming Queen. That’s not what tyrannical nobles led by Baron Akhar want, and his machinations to thwart the prophecy and marry her himself – as well as the monarch’s embarrassing infatuation with the mighty caped stranger – lead to confusion, crisis and civil war before our hero can fix everything and flee back to the outer world’s relative calm…

The next serialised saga (Pages 494-505, April 17th to July 3rd) offers another human-interest drama given a super-powered spin as, having learned nothing, Superman hires a double to stand in for him at all onerous public functions he’s too polite to refuse. Sadly, affable, honest mimic Mike is soon innocently complicating the Action Ace’s double lives to the point of imminent calamity and when the hapless doppelganger is kidnapped, panic ensues following wildfire rumours of the hero losing his powers. Realising the jig is up, Superman takes drastic action…

Concluding this final Golden Age collection, Pages 506-520 (July 10th – October 16th 1949) detail a bizarre fantasy wherein Superman emulates the travels of Lemuel Gulliver in a story within a story. To cheer up a love-crushed youngster, the Metropolis Marvel recounts his travails on a distant heavy-gravity world where his powers fluctuated and he faced miniscule warriors and lumbering giants, overthrew a tyrant before brokering peace and even arranging a love match between representatives of each side!

The Golden Age Superman: – Sunday Pages 1946-1949 – was the last of two huge (312 x 245 mm), lavish, high-end twinned hardbacks re-presenting the Man of Steel’s exploits during WWII and the immediate aftermath. They were a welcome addition to the superb commemorative series of Library of American Comics which preserved in luxurious splendour such landmark strips as Lil Abner, Tarzan, Rip Kirby, Polly and her Pals and many of the abovementioned cartoon icons. It’s an unimaginable joy to see these neglected Superman stories again, offering a far more measured, domesticated and comforting side of one of America’s most unique contributions to world culture. It’s also a pure delight to see some of the most engaging yesterdays of the Man of Tomorrow. Join me, see for yourself and agitate for the entire library to be released in digital editions…
© 2014 DC Comics. All rights reserved. SUPERMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of DC Comics.

Today in 1883, Edwin Balmer – journalist/fantasist/author/co-creator of the Speed Spaulding sci fi strip – was born. The day also saw the deaths of groundbreaking cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay (Little Nemo in Slumberland, Gertie the Dinosaur, Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend) in 1934 and Reg’lar Fellers, It’s A Great Life If You Don’t Weaken, Wide Awake Willie creator Gene Byrnes in 1974.

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Spacehawk


By Basil Wolverton with commentary by Monte Wolverton (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-550-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Basil Wolverton was one of a kind: an artist, humourist and wordsmith of unique skill and imagination and one whose controversial works inspired and delighted many whilst utterly revolting others. Born in Central Point, Oregon on July 9th 1909, Wolverton worked as a Vaudeville performer, reporter, illustrator and cartoonist. However, unlike most artistic tyros of his time, he preferred to stay far away from the big city. For most of his life, he mailed in his artistic offerings from the rural wilderness of Vancouver, Washington State.

He made his first national cartoon sale at age 16 and began pitching newspaper strips in the late 1920s. A great fan of fantastic tales and the swiftly-developing science fiction genre, Wolverton sold Marco of Mars to the Independent Syndicate of New York in 1929, but the company ultimately declined to publish it, citing its similarity to the popular Buck Rogers feature they sought to compete with!

Equally at home with comedy, horror and adventure/fantasy material, the young creative dynamo adapted easily to the notion of superheroes, and began working extensively in the new medium of comic books, generating such gems as Spacehawks and Disk-Eyes the Detective for Circus Comics, plus a brace of minor hits and unabashed classics. These included Rockman – Underground Secret Agent for Timely/Marvel’s USA Comics and today’s star: the grimly imaginative (but unrelated) cosmic avenger Spacehawk for Target Comics. Apparently tireless and blessed with unlimited imagination, Wolverton also produced a seemingly endless supply of comedic features, ranging from extended series (like Superman/sports parody Powerhouse Pepper) to double-, single- and half-page gag fillers such as Bedtime Bunk, Culture Quickie and Bedtime Banter.

In 1946, he notoriously won a national competition held by Al Capp – of Li’l Abner fame – to visualise Lena the Hyena, that strip’s “ugliest woman in the world”, and, during the space and horror boom the 1950s, crafted some of the most imaginative short stories comics have ever seen. He also worked for Mad Magazine with staggering effect…

Wolverton became a member of the Radio Church of God in 1941. The organisation was devised by Herbert W. Armstrong: a prototype televangelist of a then-burgeoning Christian fundamentalist movement. In 1956, Wolverton illustrated the founder’s pamphlet 1975 in Prophecy and two years later produced a stunning illustrative interpretation of The Book of Revelation Unveiled at Last. Soon after, he began writing and drawing an illustrated 6-volume adaptation of the Old Testament. Entitled The Bible Story: The Story of Man, it was serialised in the sect’s journal The Plain Truth. His association with the Radio Church of God endured for the rest of his life. In 1973 the artist returned to comic books, illustrating more of his memorably comedic grotesques for DC’s Plop!, before suffering a stroke the next year. Basil Wolverton died on December 31st 1978.

His greatest triumph is undoubtedly the WWII-adjacent adventures of a mysterious, solitary steely-jawed he-man known only as Spacehawk. The strip debuted in the June 1940 issue of Target Comics (volume 1, #5) and ran for 30 issues until Wolverton left the company. With his origins only hinted at, Spacehawk initially prowled the star-lanes and outer reaches: a grim, relentless avenger of the persecuted innocent,. The stark, boldly exaggerated but meticulous art served only to highlight the singular appearance of the alien monstrosities and landscapes envisaged by Wolverton and defeated by “the Superhuman Enemy of Crime”. Some kids had nightmares after reading Spacehawk, and many parents wrote complaining letters because of it…

This epic assemblage gathers all those stunning stories in one breathtaking curated outburst, and begins by sharing pertinent background and context regarding the artist and his works in Monte (his son and also a cartoonist) Wolverton’s Introduction “The Lone Wolf of Void”. The heir also provided – from his father’s notes – individual episode names for those yarns that were originally untitled. Thereafter, the entire Spacehawk oeuvre unfolds in blistering force and all its delightfully overwhelming mechanistic totality.

Wolverton senior was clearly an avid follower of the nascent new genre of “scienti-fiction” in the grand Hugo Gernsback manner and his vivid, vibrant pages were bursting with highbrow concepts and images built from Functional Utilitarianism, with every panel crumbling under the weight of assorted tubes or tentacles, rockets, rays and bolts (both kinds) in service to the tale of a solitary, implacable dispenser of pitiless cosmic justice and retribution…

Just remember, this is not “retro”. This is what the term retro is referring to…

In the first episode (from Target Comics volume 1 #5 and cover-dated June 1940) the living enigma prowls the life-packed solar system in an era of constant interplanetary travel and commerce, albeit one plagued by petty regional tyrants and interworld piracy. With nothing but veiled hints of his coming from another system – if not galaxy – Spacehawk was simply a superior being resolved to do good and punish evil: a physical and mental marvel, brilliant beyond measure, and armed with psionic powers and an arsenal of astounding devices he set about righting wrongs wherever he found them. Yes: Doc Savage in space…

Delivered in an eye-popping and baroque style of fantastic imagination, introductory exploit ‘Spacehawk and the Creeping Death from Neptune’ sees the pitiless, mysteriously masked nemesis of evil drawn to the eighth planet to rescue kidnapped humans used as test subjects for sadistic Martian pirate Gorvak who is employing protoplasmic horrors to kill his victims.

With those monsters safely despatched, the still-faceless hero returned in vol. 1 #6 for ‘Spacehawk and the Lost Tribe of Mercury’ to save – through forced evolution – peaceful sea-dwellers on Venus as predatory Mercurians Rogg & Grebo ravage the water-world as they seek to locate, rob and kill refugees from their own fiery world, before #7 details how a beautiful Earth woman unmasks him. Whilst battling bizarre bandits Jark & Zork in ‘Spacehawk and the Perilous Planetoid Trap’ he strives to crush ruthless pirates using ballistic asteroids and gravity waves to plunder stellar shipping, but almost abandons his mission thanks to the charms of a newly-liberated slave girl…

Back to his stolid dedicated self, the Lone Wolf then battles cunning scavengers from his past and another star-system in ‘Spacehawk and the Vulture Men from the Void’ and displays his undercover credentials when he is dragged into the cesspit morass of politics in #9’s ‘Spacehawk and Mayhem at the Martian Election’. In Target Comics #10 ‘Spacehawk and the Pirate City on Venus’ – wherein the vigilante saves interplanetary police from a cosmic corsair citadel by extraordinary trans-species brain surgery – is supplemented by prose vignette ‘The Scratches of Doom – A Spacehawk Adventure’ as the astral avenger uses ancient detective methods to ferret out a cunning but short-sighted murderer. TC #11 finds him back in all his visual magnificence for ‘Spacehawk and the Pirates of Saturn’ as his relentless pursuit of evil briefly reunites him with Galar: another of his own race of supermen but one who has drifted from the path of virtue and valour…

Target #12 (January 1941) ended the first volume by introducing some recurring friends and foes as ‘Spacehawk and the Treachery of Smebar’ sees the hero save Neptune’s Noomite Queen Haba from her lustful, ambitious and usurping chief minister – who sees himself as a potential global overlord – whilst volume 2 #1 sees the Lone Wolf still in the vicinity and the focus of ‘Droon’s Plot Against Spacehawk’. However, the promise of Haba’s vile science advisor to make the enigmatic hero more tractable and amenable to her amorous overtures is foiled in vol. 2 #2’s ‘Spacehawk and the Master Plan of Droon’… just in time for a radical course correction…

Redefined by the designation Defender of America, the remaining Spacehawk tales are all Earth-based, with his mighty mentality and staggering superscience aimed at a contemporary, immediate and local threat. When the US entered the war on December 8th 1941, Wolverton’s editors compelled him to shift his story perspectives. Thus the space ranger took up a close orbit and faced Axis powers Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan (but not Italy) who gave the stellar Sentinel far more trouble than all the devils in the rest of the solar system, thereby further diluting the eerie power of the series but never the astounding illustration. By the end of 1942 (Target Comics volume 3, #10) Wolverton and his interplanetary masterpiece were gone, and headed for less hostile climes and more appreciative bosses.

In the first Terran trial he rapidly ends a Japanese scheme to bomb American cities from an artificial asteroid before vol. 2 #3’s ‘Spacehawk and the Undersea Tank’ sees Democracy’s newest champion spectacularly scuttling a city-sized subsea moving fortress constructed to sink US shipping and destroy the Panama Canal…

Wolverton’s wicked gift for caricature increasingly came into play from now on, and in Spacehawk and the Submarine Attack’ the alien Übermensch abducts grotesque and clownish German dictator “Moosler” and gives him a terrifying taste of battlefield conditions before deploying his mentally-controlled robotmen to wreck another marine masterplan in vol 2. #5’s ‘Spacehawk and the German Submarine Carrier’, after which ‘Spacehawk and the German Snow Airbase’ details how a hidden arctic airfield is destroyed and all its bombers shot down by the Stratospheric Sentinel…

An earthly archenemy manifests next as a sinister mercenary scientist steals many of the Lone Wolf’s secrets (including the ubiquitous and awesome antigravity principles) after our hero is ambushed and tortured in ‘Dr. Gore’s Hidden Lab’. Although his escape is prompt and vengeance terrible, the miscreant is as hard to kill as a cockroach and promptly retaliates in sequel saga ‘Dr. Gore’s Ant-Gravity Villainy’. Thankfully, the hero has enlisted a willing extraterrestrial sidekick in mighty minion Dork, a gleeful but so-homely comedic collaborator set on smashing bad guys and a being happy to maroon Gore on barren Mars once Spacehawk has done with him…

Target Comics vol, 2 #9 introduces another manic and hilariously libellous faux Fuhrer as ‘Nitwitler’s Secret Stratosphere Ships’ finds Spacehawk saving Canada from high-altitude bombardment before ‘Spacehawk and the Disks of Death’ sees him perform similar service, saving San Franciso from propaganda inundation and deadly skyscraper-scything missiles…

A change of pace in v2 #11 has the hero and Dork heading out west to stop subversive Bund leader Herman Vogel building a Fifth Column army in ‘Spacehawk and the Bullet Ship …That Brought Vengeance from the Void’ before the final issue of volume 2 (cover-dated February 1942) explores ‘Spacehawk and the Return of Dr. Gore’. Now, having escaped Mars, the tyrannical technologist wreaks vengeance on American infrastructure using stolen antigravity tricks… until Spacehawk intervenes…

Volume 3 #1 (March 1942) ramps up the patriotic fervour as ‘Spacehawk and the Battling Bullet Ships’ details the Deep Space Duo’s demolition of enemy planes bombing Iceland, before again going undercover to ferret out saboteurs wrecking dam construction in ‘Spacehawk and the Case of the Black Avenger’. Then, madder than ever, Dr. Gore resurfaces in ‘Spacehawk and the Blazing Death’ using an artificial storm cloud to blast US ships after which a turning point is reached…

Vowing to use his science directly for the war effort, the alien ace joins government think tanks in ‘Spacehawk and his Super Divebomber’ (Target vol. 3 #4) building revolutionary aircraft and crushing the wave of saboteurs resolved to destroy them. However, he is soon called away to wipe out a fiendish Japanese super-sub squadron in 5 ‘Spacehawk and the Devil Divers of the Deep’ before going on to Alaska in vol.3 #6 and destroying an invasion force in ‘Spacehawk and the Secret Japanese Base’…

‘Spacehawk and the Mystery of the Green Faces’ finds him recalled to Washington DC to cure a diabolical bio-weapon that turns sufferers into emerald-hued raving fascists. After defeating the archenemy behind the threat he then delves into creating his own weapon of mass destruction in ‘Spacehawk and the Supersonic Siren’…

The foe of fascism was happy to employ their own methodology against them with both bio-weapons and ultimate destruction devices leaping off his drawing board and into action, but he also fought an occasional small battle. In TC v3 #9, Spacehawk and the Case of The Missing Tires’ delivers a wry, light-hearted romp as the Lone Wolf grudgingly helps a feisty motorist made victim of tyre thieves (a grievous and growing felony in those times of war-effort rationing) and finds himself in over his head as left-leaning actress Diana Drean refuses to be patronised, assisted, sidelined or assassinated by the tyre-stealing gangsters…

Sadly that delightful switch in tone was never built upon as vol 3 #10 (December 1942) presented one final exploit in ‘Spacehawk and the Secret Submarine Fuel Depot’ with the space ace uncovering an enemy U-Boat installation in neutral Mexico and taking appropriate definitive action….

And that was that.

Changing times and tastes meant that Wolverton never returned to dramatic serial storytelling but instead went on to master anthological short graphic fiction – especially in the booming post-war fields of horror and science fiction (so stay tuned for those in days to come). This titanic tome also abruptly ends, delivering one last treat in a sublimely pencilled ‘Spacehawk cover sketch’ plus his only front of house appearance in the ‘Spacehawk cover’ on Traget Comic vol. 1 7…

Finally achieving the measure of popular recognition he always deserved, Basil Wolverton was a truly unique visionary and graphic pathfinder who inspired hundreds and entertained millions. This compendium from 2012 gathers all those so-Retro sidereal sagas and is an unmissable example of a creator given latitude and permission to be himself. If you love outré wonder and breathless, breakneck joy in motion, this is a treat you must not miss…
© 2012 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All contents © 2012 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. unless otherwise noted. “The Lone Wolf of the Void” © 2012 Monte Wolverton. All rights reserved.

Today in 1897 pioneering and groundbreaking Russo-Serbian cartoonist Ivan Sensin was born, with Barney Google creator Fred Lasswell arriving in 1916; Archie Comics head honcho Richard Goldwater, coming along in 1936 and Underground legend S. Clay Wilson (Zap Comix, The Checkered Demon) in1941. Italian comics creator Anna Brandoli (Cuba 42, La Strega) was born in 1945 and French artist/raconteur Thierry “Ted” Benoit (Bingo Bongo et son Combo Congolais, Ray Banana, Blake and Mortimer) followed in 1947: as did cartoonist Ray Billingsley (Lookin’ Fine, Curtis) in 1957 and artist/letterer Galen Showman in 1972.

Today in 1887 journalist, playwright, social reformer and Punch co-founder Henry Mayhew died. In 1982 Canadian adventure strip god Hal Foster (Tarzan, Prince Valiant) died too.

Today in 2007 The United States Postal Service introduced Marvel superhero postage stamps.

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Drought Chic – a Dry Analysis of the Water Shortage


By Shary Flenniken (Shary Flenniken)
No ISBN: (Digest PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

People – mostly climate-denying morons and stupid orange presidents – keep going on about the heatwave of 1976 like it was a biblical event. It WAS NOT as bad what we are enduring right now. Take it from someone who was there – and this time I don’t just mean me…

As I’m feeling nostalgic, thirsty, overheated and deeply in need of a well-limned laugh all at once, here’s an intriguing and enchanting self-published gem from 1977 whose theme and subject matter seems to be coming back into vogue as the days seep by…

Do you remember that sweet pretty girl you admired and daydreamed about from afar? All glowing soft focus summer afternoons and sherbet refreshers, scents of new-mown hay, tinkly bells and soaring strings? And after a lifetime you found the courage to talk to her and she swore like a trooper, cackled like a loon, pulled your hair, mocked your clothes and was all loud and boisterous and not at all serious and girly and your heart broke just a little?

Shary Flenniken’s sense of humour is like that. With her affable, underplayed, deceptively simple line drawing style (so devastating effective in the glorious Girl and her Talking Dog strip Trots and Bonnie) everything looks clean and sugary and chocolate-coated, but then you realise there’s a devastatingly sharp mind and a tungsten-tipped razor-edged scalpel sense of humour at play as you’re hit with a really spiky and heavy giant pink boxing glove…

Flenniken is a scripter/artist/editor/illustrator/screenwriter of enormous talent who contributed to and edited the funniest years of National Lampoon, has published her own books – such as the slim gem under review today – and illustrated some of the funniest books even written by other people, with titles like When a Man Loves a Walnut, Blood-Lust Chickens & Renegade Sheep and Nice Guys Sleep Alone.

She started out as an underground cartoonist in 1971 with the fabulously notorious Air Pirates Collective (the other bold cartoonists taking on Disney whilst preserving the classic heritage of past cartoon masters waving the flag for free speech and the Right to Parody and Satirise at Will being Bobby London, Dan O’Neill, Gary Hallgren and Ted Richards).

Her own drawing style is often likened to pioneering strip artists Clare Briggs (When a Feller Needs a Friend!!, Danny Dreamer, The Days of Real Sport, Mr. and Mrs, Real Folks at Home, Someone’s Always Taking the Joy Out of Life) and laconically mordant Harold Tucker Webster (Our Boyhood Ambitions, How to Torture Your Wife, Life’s Darkest Moment, How to Torture Your Husband and the legendary Caspar Milquetoast/The Timid Soul). That was all best viewed in the long-running (1971-1990) and aforementioned sardonic comedy masterpiece Trots and Bonnie which I simply must get around to one day…

In recent years Flenniken has edited Seattle Laughs: Comic Stories about Seattle, worked for DC’s Paradox Press and Mad, freelanced in Premiere, Details and The American Lawyer, all whilst winning critical acclaim for her adaptations of the works of Mark Twain, O. Henry and others.

She self-published Drought Chic in 1977, and this tiny tidal wave of crafty cartoons and satisfyingly salty asides resulted from close observation and experience of the global heat-wave (are you able to remember that Long Hot Summer of Punk in the UK?) and perennial water paucity of America’s West Coast. Here she wryly – I so want to say “dryly” – extrapolated on the stupidly standard sage advice dashed out by those in power as the USA all-too briefly saw the (fashionably faddy) sense of dabbling with water discipline… or indeed restraint of any kind.

Suggestions to the trendsetters of society riffed-on here include “share baths and showers”, “don’t flush toilets”, “import icebergs”, “replant your lawn with cactus” and “drink something else”: directives I’m fairly sure we’ll all be considering again in the days and years ahead.

Of course here in Britain we have already taken the most effective step to conserve water consumption by selling off the utility, privatising a natural resource and watching it being run down whilst being priced out of the reach of ordinary folk – and look how well that all worked out…

Still, if you’re saving a little time and money as a new member of the Great Unwashed at least you can spend your grubby free hours seeking out this wry, dry and slyly sophisticated soupcon of delightful disinformation. It also available online for free if you can still work a dry dusty keyboard and the lack of liquids hasn’t brought down all the servers. Who knew H2O was so crucial to so many types of farming?
© 1977 Shary Flenniken. All rights reserved.

Today in 1934 Polish comics legend Janusz Christa (Kajtek i Koko, Kajko i Kokosz) was born, as was writer/publisher Richard Pini (Elfquest, WaRP Graphics) in 1950 and the indescribable Bob Burder (Flaming Carrot Comics, Gumby’s Summer Fun Special, Mystery Men) in 1952, a birthday shared with comic creator Ron Fontes (Atalanta, The Legendary Underdogs, Captured by Pirates). In 1959 this date illustrator Luke McDonnell (Justice League of America, Iron Man, Suicide Squad, Dreadstar, The Phantom) arrived with cartoonist Terry LaBan (Unsupervised Existence, Cud, Edge City) coming along in 1961; writer Devin Grayson (Black Widow, Batman, The Titans, User) in 1970 and artist Jamal Igle (Supergirl, Firestorm, The Wrong Earth) in 1972.

In 2005 comics giant Jim Aparo (The Phantom, Nightshade, Phantom Stranger, The Spectre, Aquaman, Batman, The Outsiders) died, followed two years later by Argentinean comics creator Roberto “El Negro Fontanarrosa” Fontanarrosa (Inodoro Pereyra, Boogie – el aceitoso, Los Clásicos según Fontanarrosa).

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Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant volume 14: 1963-1964


By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-970-7 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur premiered on Sunday February 13th 1937: a fabulous rainbow coloured weekly peek into a world where history met myth to produce something greater than both. Pioneering creator Hal Foster developed the feature after a groundbreaking and astoundingly popular run on the Tarzan of the Apes comic strip.

Prince Valiant offered action, adventure, exoticism, romance and a surprisingly high quota of laughs in its engrossing depiction of noble knights and wicked barbarians played out against a glamorised, dramatized, mythologised Dark Ages backdrop. The never-ending story follows a refugee lad of royal blood, driven from ancestral Scandinavian homeland Thule, who grows up to roam the world, attaining a paramount position amongst the fabled heroes of Camelot.

Foster wove his complex epic romance over decades, tracing the progress of a feral wild boy who became a paragon of chivalric virtue: knight, warrior, saviour, avenger and ultimately family patriarch through a constant storm of wild, robust and joyously witty wonderment. The restless champion visited many far-flung lands, siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes, enchanting generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts.

The glorious epic spawned films, an animated series and all manner of toys, games, books and collections. Prince Valiant was – and remains – one of the few adventure strips to have run continuously from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (well north of 4000 episodes and still going strong) – and, even here at the end-times of newspaper strips as an art form, it continues in hundreds of US and international papers and globally through the internet.

Foster soloed on the feature until 1971 when John Cullen Murphy (Big Ben Bolt) succeeded him as illustrator whilst the originator remained as writer and designer. That ended in 1980, when he finally retired and Cullen Murphy’s daughter Mairead took over colouring and lettering whilst her brother John assumed the writer’s role. In 2004 the senior Cullen Murphy also retired, since when the strip has soldiered on under the auspices of other extremely talented artists such as Gary Gianni, Scott Roberts and latterly Thomas Yeates & Mark Schultz.

This luxuriously oversized (362 x 264 mm) full-colour hardback (tragically, the series is still unavailable digitally) re-presents pages spanning January 6th 1963 to December 27th 1964, (individual Strips #1352 to 1455) and comes with all the regular bonus trimmings. Comics book A-Lister Roger Stern (Superman; Avengers; Spider-Man; Doctor Strange; Incredible Hulk; Captain America) discusses and critically appraises the influential force of the newspaper strip on comic books in picture packed Foreword ‘Swiping Mr. Foster: A Legacy in Four Colors’, offering many potent comparisons and shameless swipes, after which Brian M. Kane expands the argument about Valiant’s lasting influence in ‘Might for Right: A Code of Honor for Sentinels of Liberty’.

The erudite scholar returns at this tome’s close: spotlighting the glorious range of the master storyteller in closing article ‘Land and Sea: Hal Foster’s Fine Art Paintings’ via a gallery of land-&-seascapes, nature studies and illustrative tableaux. Captivating as they are, though, the real wonderment is, as ever, the unfolding epic preceding them…

What Has Gone Before: following a failed and ruinous quest for the Holy Grail by the Round Table Knights, Valiant has compelled their return to Camelot and courtly duties. In the months following he visited the Great Tor at Glastonbury, met St Patrick and assisted a Papal mission from Rome assigned to erect a cathedral there. Wars erupted and plots were foiled, and an extended familial rift with long-suffering wife Aleta healed. A visit to Valiant’s Thule homeland brought more battle and death… and personal injury. With firstborn son Arn in tow, recuperation was concluded during a visit of the entire clan to Aleta’s ancestral kingdom in the Misty Isles, as Viking reiver Boltar escorted them to counter (other) Mediterranean pirates and brigands…

At their destination, the family defeated a colonising invasion by rival ruler Thrasos during which the queen delivered twin daughters, to make Valiant a proud father of four. His peace was shattered when fleeing prisoners of war abducted Arn and his commoner pals Paul & Diane, forcing Valiant and Viking shipwright Gundar Harl into frantic pursuit to prevent their being sold as slaves. However, by the time they caught up, cunning, capable Arn had already dealt with the problem. Even with the crisis averted peace was impossible to find. When pilgrims bound for the Holy Land were shipwrecked on the Misty Isles, Val was duty-bound to offer aid, and used his presence as escort to found a trade mission promoting the produce and wares of his island home. He also brought Arn, whose days of childhood indolence gave way to learning his proper place in the world…

Many rousing exploits marked their trail from Jaffa to the Dead Sea, and Damascus to Baghdad, before the pilgrimage ends in Aleppo where Boltar waits to ferry father and son back to a recovered and much wealthier Aleta. However, a brief period of glorious relaxation ends as King Arthur summons them to save Gaul from invading Goth hordes. With safe passage across Europe ended, England’s ruler also needed his greatest hero to carry a message to the Pope. As Aleta’s forces secured a sea route to Albion, Valiant & Arn’s perilous mission drew much action but ultimately no satisfaction from the embattled Pontiff. Undaunted, Valiant devised an alternative trade route between the Holy Father and increasingly imperilled Christian Britain: visiting what would become Spain and France, encountering a lost land where monks were guarded by monsters, dodging Goths and ousting a usurper all whilst reinstating the true ruler…

By the time the scattered family were reunited in England, the country endured a new kind of assault, as a charismatic priest was manipulated by his scurrilous scholar attendants/business managers to foment a religious revolution. After cleverly ending that near-insurrection, Val rejoined his family at the site of a church under construction near the fens where he grew up. The lure of his sire’s past beguiles Arn, who explored the boggy waterways and was soon hopelessly lost. Over tense weeks, he experienced the same privations his father had, before being rescued. Carrying huge wealth destined for Arthur’s coffers, the family thankfully took ship for Camelot, unaware that greedy, ambitious eyes were watching…

The illuminating wonders here resume with those eyes fatally blinking. Opportunistic fellow voyager Ethwald abducts Arn by guile, holding him to ransom for treasure Valiant safeguards for the king. Ethwald fears the knight’s prowess but is certain a father will do nothing to endanger his heir. He grievously underestimates the deadly wiles of outraged mother Aleta…

The majority of this two-year tome deals with the anticipation and results of a mass invasion by Angles and Saxons, but the slowly-building saga is built of many shorter episodes – adventures both tragic and even broadly comedic – in its ever-expanding tapestry. After returning to Camelot, the family are feted until Valiant is again called to defend the realm. Arn meanwhile, steadily advances from Page to Novice and begins official combat training. Soon he is made Batchelor-at-Arms and, when the vassal king of Wales dies, is drawn into war. The former Prince Cidwic hungers for fame, glory and riches, and – deploying his fierce Welshmen and a mercenary Pictish & Caledonian warband – besieges Carlisle in an attempt to annexe Scottish territories. The city is defended by a small contingent of cavalry and engineers led by Sir Kay, but as Arthur readies a rescue fleet to aid them, Valiant forms and leads a unit of swift-riding messengers from the Novices & Batchelors to keep lines of communication open. His youngest recruit is Arn…

When Cidwic regroups and fortifies his position, the boy plays a crucial role in supporting Kay’s forces and in the would-be conqueror’s eventual downfall. As diplomacy and reconciliation take over, Arthur rewards the boy with more responsibility: befriending new King Cuddock, Cidwic’s 12-year old son. As they bond and duty grows into true friendship, the king’s uncle Ruddah seeks to frame Arn for murdering the boy king, and learns to his eternal regret that youth does not equate to stupidity…

Plot foiled, Valiant & Arn make their slow way back to Court, partaking of many local jousts and tourneys that filled the autumn season and served to keep fighting men in peak form. As they compete, they encounter two impoverished, less than noble knights whose response to defeat leaves much to be desired and exposes the sordid underbelly of professional jousting. On reaching Camelot, a joyous family reunion almost ends in shame and bloodshed when cunning schemer Modred attempts to traduce Aleta’s honour and reputation by trapping her and Launcelot in a compromising situation. His vile scheme exposed, the villain flees and encounters a Saxon war party infiltrating the region around the Vale of the White Horse. The long dreaded war with the invaders is starting…

War-wise Arthur deems them to be scouting the land and sends his best men to observe them, with Arn and other knights-in-training as messengers. Sadly, Owen is still starry-eyed and vainglorious, and his inexperience leads to Arn’s capture. Thankfully, the prisoner is sharp-witted and well-disguised: convincing the Saxons he is a son of infamous pirate Boltar, while turning his situation to Britain’s advantage by memorising the plans of the vast invasion force marshalling overseas. Of course, his actions suggest to the keenly watching rescue party that the son of Valiant has turned traitor… before the boy orchestrates his escape and reports back to Arthur…

Although moving to a war footing, life at Court continues largely as before and prompts a personal crisis when a grand tournament intended to hone the fighting spirit of the nation’s champions sparks intrigue, and murder.. Visiting his kinsman Launcelot, Count Brecey of Brittany finds Aleta most pleasing and determines to make her his. That she is a queen with four children he can profitably marry off when he marries her is a huge additional benefit. Accustomed to taking whatever he wants, the overprivileged coward operates through his personal assassin Hugo, but that deadly wight proves no match for Valiant and his mighty warhorse Arvak, and as a web of sinister schemes unravels, Brecey abducts Aleta and runs for the coast. Thanks to the efforts of his victim and her hotly-pursuing spouse and first son, the Count doesn’t get far and – when caught – compounds his villainy with the worst kind of cowardice…

As summer approaches, Arthur’s preparations intensify, and the entire Court awaits news of a vast fleet of Angles, Jutes, Danes and Saxons. Tensions mount as word comes of established colonies, previously defeated by and sworn to Arthur, recant their oaths of allegiance and pick up the swords they had abandoned for peace and acceptance. The lure of imminent plunder is everywhere and the King is forced to remind is noble subjects of their promises to supply fighting men when the nation needs them. Valiant & Gawain are despatched to Cornwall where three local kings are at war with each other and “unable” to honour their word, whilst Arn travels to North Wales where his friend Cuddock is genuinely embattled, plagued by raids of marauding Scotti. As he will soon discover, the raiders are sponsored by the Saxon overlord as a distracting diversion…

Although one Cornish ruler is steadfast and readily provides promised forces for the army, weak, ambitious, greedy Kings Grundemede and Alrick-the-Fat need a sharp lesson in realpolitik and practical conjuring (learned long ago when young Valiant was attached to the wizard Merlin) before they grudgingly comply. Their missions successful, both the Cornish and Welsh embassages return with their new reinforcements to Camelot to make final preparations for the encroaching Saxon invasion. Thanks to Arn’s prior intelligence, the warlord’s colonising raiders head for Badon Hill, the ideal site for Arthur’s stout defence…

This astounding clash takes seven weeks to tell, but at the end England is barred to them for generations and the victorious armies return to their own lands. Switching from epic action to wry romantic comedy, Foster then plays with his stars as Aleta and the visiting queen of Alrick-the-Fat indulge in combat matchmaking; each seeking to wed heroic Sir Charles of Cornwall to their respective noblewoman protégés. However, their escalating wiles and schemes make a catastrophic impression on Aleta’s twins Karen & Valeta, who apply what they’ve seen to their own relentless pursuit of boy-king Cuddock, recuperating from nobly-earned wounds and far too naive to endure being the subject of the girls’ first crush…

Employing the clever conceit of lost historical scrolls, the narrative jumps forward some months before resuming with Valiant’s entire family en route to ancestral homeland Thule with bombastic brigand Boltar. That voyage is interrupted by news of marauders assembled by Skogul Oderson, who has united numerous warring tribes into a formidable force to ravage Thule. As the year ends, the far northern chieftain is spectacularly beaten, never counting on Valiant and wilderness scout Garm organising scattered self-serving homesteaders into a lethally effective guerrilla force to slowly whittle away the raider’s numerical advantage through guile, lethally inventive use of terrain and psychological warfare. The final instalment here presages even greater adventure as Boltar’s son and Arn discuss a return to the lost continent they had visited: a land latterly dubbed “the New World.”

To Be Continued…

A mind-blowing panorama of passion and visual precision, Prince Valiant is a potent procession of boisterous action, exotic adventure and grand romance; blending tremendous epic fantasy with dry wit and broad humour, soap opera melodrama with dark violence. Lush, lavish and captivating lovely, it is an true landmark of comics fiction which no fan can miss.
All comics © 2015 King Features Syndicate. All other content and properties © 2016 their respective creators or holders. This edition © 2016 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

Today in 1921 cartoonist and King Features editor Bill Yates (Professor Phumble) was born, followed in 1933 by uber enthusiast Shel Dorf (who founded the San Diego Comics Convention) and in 1945 French creator François Bourgeon (Les passagers du vent, Cyann Saga, Les Compagnons du crépuscule). In 1945; cartoonist supreme Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) in 1958; British writer Ian Edgington (Scarlet Traces, X-Men, Predator, The Red Seas, Aliens) in 1963 and mangaka Ken Akamatsu (Love Hina) in 1968.

In 2004 this date, Tim Rickard’s comic strip Brewster Rockit: Space Guy! first launched, but we lost astounding master Frank Bellamy (Fraser of Africa, Dan Dare, Thunderbirds, Garth) in 1976, Belgian Paul Cuvelier (Corentin, Line, Epoxy) in 1978 and manga artist Shinji Wada (Waga Tomo Frankenstein, Sukeban Deka, Ninja Hish?) in 2011.

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Justice Society of America: The Demise of Justice


By Len Strazewski, John Broome, Paul Levitz, Rick Burchett, Grant Miehm, Mike Parobeck, Tom Artis, Frank McLaughlin, Frank Giacoia, Arthur Peddy, Bernard Sachs, Joe Staton & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-0744-0 (HB) 978-1-77951-209-3 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

After the actual invention of comic book superheroes with the Action Comics debut of Superman in 1938, the most significant event in the industry’s history was the combination of individual sales-points into a group. Thus what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven: consumers couldn’t get enough of garishly-hued mystery men, and combining many characters inevitably increased readership. Plus, of course, a mob of superheroes is just so much cooler than one – or one-and-a-half if there’s a sidekick involved…

The creation of the Justice Society of America utterly changed the shape of the budding business and – technically – All Star Comics #3 (cover-dated Winter 1940-1941, and on sale from November 22nd 1940) was the kick-off. However, in that landmark issue, the assembled heroes merely had dinner whilst recounting recent cases and didn’t actually go on a mission together until #4 (cover-dated April 1941). With the simple notion that mighty mystery men hung out together, history was made and it wasn’t long before they started working together…

When WWII ended, superheroes gradually declined, and most companies had shelved them by 1950. That plummet in popularity led to rekindled interest in traditional genre-themed titles and characters, and it was a stripped-down team (Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom, Black Canary, Dr. Mid-Nite &Wonder Woman) who battled on in trendily tailored crime or sci fi sagas before the title abruptly changed to All Star Western with #58.

It would take a second age of superheroes to revive them, this time as the champions of a parallel universe dubbed Earth Two…

Gathered here is a near-forgotten limited series focussed on the latter days of the team’s Golden Age which originally ran in Justice Society of America #1-8 (April – November 1991), augmented by the last case of the original era from All-Star Comics#57, (February/March 1951), plus a turning point tale from Adventures Comics #466 (December 1979). They are preceded a sparkling, informative and appreciative Foreword by Golden Age aficionado and super scripter Mark Waid.

The miniseries – subtitled Vengeance from the Stars! – comprising the majority of this tome was scripted by journalist/educator/author Len Strazewski (February 16th 1955 – April 27th 2026) whose comics included Speed Racer, The Flash, Phantom Lady, Starman, The Fly, The Web, Prime, Prototype, Elven and more. It was illustrated by a rotating tag team of artists, opening as Rick Burchett draws ‘Beware the Savage Skies’. Here recently-retired mystery man Ted Knight – AKA the original Starman – is attacked in his private New Mexico observatory by incredible astral energy beings. Broken and dispirited, he is then enslaved by an old enemy who purloins his wondrous Gravity Rod before luring Jay (Flash) Garrick into a deathtrap that results in power outages across America…

The plot thickens with ‘The Sack of Gotham’ (art by Grant Miehm) as radio/television executive Alan Scott seeks to keep the lights on in his city whilst Black Canary prowls the darkened streets deterring looters and career criminals. Distracted by a museum break-in, she finds herself punching way, way up as undead monster/functional moron Solomon Grundy and a gang of very determined bandits help themselves to ancient Egyptian artefacts at the behest of a hidden client.

By the time Scott arrives as Green Lantern, the Canary has been thrashed and captured, leaving him to battle an animated star constellation dubbed Sagittarius…

Burchett inks the astoundingly talented Mike Parobeck in #3’s ‘Dead Air’, as the star thing blacks out Gotham and Scott struggles to stop it. Complications occur when Grundy – afflicted with an obsessive hatred of Green Lantern – forgets the orders from the mystery Machiavelli to attack his emerald enemy. Far away, Ted Knight learns his gleeful foe intends to conquer Earth by eradicating modern technologies and attitudes and replace them with primordial magic and tyranny…

Tom Artis & Frank McLaughlin limn #4 as ‘Evil of the Ancients’ sees reincarnating Egyptian warrior Hawkman uncovering star-themed neolithic treasures in his day job as archaeologist Carter Hall. These findings expose the history and provenance of the constellation creatures, but also trigger the arrival of another. Despite aerial valour and the US Army’s best efforts, deadly colossus Andromeda storms off with a clutch of atom bombs and only the sudden arrival of Flash prevents utter disaster. The clash resumes in ‘Double Star Rising!’ by Parobeck & Burchett, as arcane knowledge and modern engineering savvy combine to trace the stellar plunderer and incredible pyramid of power it is constructing. When the heroes try to destroy it, they are confronted with a second energy horror but find a way to defeat both at once, compelling the man behind the plot to finally take a personal hand in the fight…

Far across the country the Lantern and the Canary escape captivity in ‘Danger Flies the Skies’ (Artis & McLaughlin), thanks to some timely aid from valiant sidekick Doiby Dickles, and track west after the museum artefacts in time to reinforce Flash and Hawkman in ‘The Return of the Justice Society’ (art by Miehm & Burchett). Redeemed and reinspired, Knight once more takes up his costumed identity to end the villain’s plot in ‘Battle of the Stars!’

In the heady aftermath, the JSA ponder what the next decade will bring, unaware that political conspiracies, public paranoia and a wave of intolerance masquerading as social conformity was waiting to change the world in ways no one could anticipate…

In continuity terms, this was technically the antepenultimate adventure of the JSA, with the rousing romp slyly heralding mood swings in the heartland of Democracy. It is thus smartly supplemented by the team’s final Golden Age appearance (All-Star Comics #57) and a chilling, thematically-aligned codicil from Adventures Comics #466.

Written by John Broome and illustrated by Frank Giacoia, Arthur Peddy & Bernard Sachs, it was the JSA’s last hurrah as ‘The Mystery of the Vanishing Detectives!’ pitted them against criminal mastermind The Key. When he abducted Earth’s greatest criminologists in advance of a spectacular robbery spree, the superheroes were called in to solve the case and prevent an impending catastrophe. It took a lot of time and effort, but the JSA never fail…

The fallow period and return of the JSA was a major success of fan power in the 1960s, but that decade too ended with superheroes in decline. During the torrid, turbulent 1970s, many of the industry’s oldest publishing ideas were finally laid to rest. The belief that characters could be “over-exposed” was one of the most pernicious and long-lasting (although it never hurt Superman, Batman or the original Captain Marvel), garnered from years of experience in an industry which lived or died on that fractional portion of pennies derived each month from the pocket-money and allowances of children which wasn’t spent on candy, toys or movies.

By the end of the 1960s, comic book costs and retail prices were inexorably rising and a proportion of titles – especially newly revived horror stories – were consciously being produced for older readerships. Nearly a decade of organised fan publications and letter writing crusades had finally convinced publishing bean-counters what editors already knew: grown-ups avidly read comics too. Moreover, they happily spent more than kids and craved more, more, more of what they loved.

Explicitly: If one appearance per month was popular, extras, specials and second series would be more so. By the time Marvel Comics Wunderkind Gerry Conway left The House of Ideas, DC was willing and ready to expand its variegated line-up with some oft-requested fan-favourite characters. Paramount among these was the JSA, the first super-team and a perennial gem whose annual guest-appearances in Justice League of America and other superhero titles had become a beloved tradition and treat.

Thus in 1976 writer/editor Conway marked his second DC tenure (he had first broken into the game writing horror shorts for Joe Orlando) by reviving All Star Comics with #58. In 1951, the original title transformed overnight into All Star Western with the numbering running for a further decade for the home of cowboy crusaders like Strong Bow, The Trigger Twins, a different Johnny Thunder and Super-Chief. Now, set on Earth-Two, and in keeping with the editorial sense of ensuring a series be relevant to young readers too, Conway reintroduced the veteran team, leavened with a smattering of teen heroes forming a contentious, generation gap-fuelled “Super Squad”…

Augmented by Robin (a JSA-er since the mid-1960s and Justice League of America #55), Sylvester Pemberton/Star-Spangled Kid and a busty young thing who rapidly became the feisty favourite of a generation of growing boys: Kara Zor-L: Power Girl. Closing this collection is a short piece as she and fellow newcomer Huntress discuss how the Golden Age died. Taken from 68-page anthology title Adventure Comics 466 where Paul Levitz & Joe Staton delivered a pithy history lesson exposing the reason why the team vanished at the beginning of the 1950s, ‘The Defeat of the Justice Society!’ shows how the US Government cravenly betrayed their greatest champions. Set during early days of the McCarthy era anti-communist witch-hunts, a sham trial provoked the mystery men into voluntarily withdrawing from public, heroic life. There they stayed until the costumed stalwarts of Earth-One started the whole Fights ‘n’ Tights scene all over again…

These exuberant, rapid-paced and imaginative yarns perfectly blend the naive charm of Golden Age derring-do with cynically hopeful modern sensibilities. Here you will be reassured that no matter what, in the end our heroes will always find a way to save the day. These are classic tales from simpler times and a glorious example of traditional superhero storytelling at its finest: fun, furious and ferociously engaging, excitingly written and beguilingly illustrated. No Fights ‘n’ Tights fan should miss these marvellous sagas.
© 1951, 1979,1991, 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1907, Dutch Indo painter and cartoonist Joseph Ferdinand Doeve was born, with Us comics writer Jerry Coleman (Superman, Batman) arriving in 1913; Dutch comics author Wim Booster in 1918.

This date saw the passing of artists Mike Parobeck (Batman Adventures, El Diablo, Elongated Man, Justice Society of America, The Fly) in 1996 and John Cullen Murphy (Prince Valiant) in 2004.

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The Black Panther Epic Collection volume 1 (1966-1976): Panther’s Rage


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Don McGregor, Rich Buckler, Gil Kane, Billy Graham, Keith Pollard, Klaus Janson, Joe Sinnott, Klaus Janson, P. Craig Russell, Pablo Marcos, Dan Green, Bob McLeod,  Jim Mooney & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0190-5 (TPB) 978-1-3024-9321-9 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also includes Discriminatory Content utilised for dramatic effect.

With democracy under fire and American Civil Rights enduring active and constant attack in the Land of the Free, let’s look back on more progressive times and comics as we all stagger towards the 250th Fourth of July, shall we?

Acclaimed as the first black superhero in US comics and one of the first to carry his own series, the Black Panther’s popularity and fortunes have waxed and waned since he first appeared in Fantastic Four. In fact, the cat king actually attacked Marvel’s First Family as part of an extended plan to gain vengeance on the murderer of his father.

T’Challa was also the first black superhero in US comics, debuting in summer 1966. As created by Jack Kirby & Stan Lee, T’Challa, son of T’Chaka, is an African monarch whose deliberately hidden kingdom is the only known source of vibration-absorbing wonder mineral Vibranium. The miraculous alien ore – supposedly derived from a fallen meteor which struck the continent in lost antiquity – is the basis of the country’s immense wealth, enabling it to become one of the wealthiest and most secretive nations on Earth. These riches also allow the young king to radically remake his country, creating a high tech paradise even after he left Africa to fight as one of America’s Avengers.

Since time immemorial Wakanda has been an isolated, utopian wonderland with tribal resources and people safeguarded and led by a human warrior-king deriving cat-like physical advantages from secret ceremonies and a mysterious heart-shaped herb. This has ensured the generational dominance of the nation’s Panther Cult and sacrosanct hereditary Royal Family…

The “Vibranium mound” had guaranteed the nation’s status as a clandestine superpower for centuries, but in modern times increasingly made Wakanda a target for subversion, incursion and even invasion as the world grew ever smaller. This colossal compendium gathers the dynamic debut from Fantastic Four #52-53 (cover-dated July and August 1966) in advance of groundbreaking solo stories from Jungle Action (vol. 2) #6-24, collectively covering September 1973 through November 1976.

Before all that though, the innovative and unforgettable character debuted in ‘The Black Panther!’: an enigmatic African monarch whose secretive kingdom was the only source of a vibration-absorbing alien metal. These mineral riches had enabled him to turn his country into a technological marvel before he lured the FF into his savage super-scientific kingdom as part of an extended plan to gain vengeance on the murderer of his father. After battling the team to a standstill, King T’Challa revealed his tragic origin in ‘The Way it Began..!’, detailing how his father was murdered by marauding sonic science researcher Ulysses Klaw. As the monarch details how he took vengeance and liberated his people, word comes of incredible solidified-sound monsters attacking the region. Klaw has returned at last…

The cataclysmic clash that follows set the scene for the Warrior-Chieftain to guest star with numerous Marvel superstars before breaking out into the wider world, but it would years before he finally won his own solo series…

After roaming around the Marvel Universe, enjoying team-ups and saving Earth on a semi-regular basis as one “Earth’s Mightiest Superheroes”, the summer of 1973 saw the Black Panther finally become a solo star in his own series. Scripter Don McGregor opted to return the King to his people for an ambitious epic of love, death, vengeance and civil war: inventing from whole cloth and Kirby’s throwaway notion of a futuristic jungle the most unique African nation ever seen in comics or anywhere else…

Jungle Action had launched with an October 1972 cover-date: a cheap reprint vehicle for old Atlas-era Tarzan and Sheena knock-offs like Tharn, Jann and Lorna (all equally “…of the Jungle”). The fifth issue (not included here) abruptly changed tack, reprinting a Black Panther-starring saga from Avengers #62 as prelude to the start of T’Challa’s own all new adventures. These open here with # 6 and the eponymous ‘Panther’s Rage’, illustrated by Rich Buckler & Klaus Janson. The story opens with the Panther back in his contradictory homeland, stumbling upon the torture of an elderly farmer. Despite T’Challa’s best efforts, the victim dies in his arms, swearing he never lost faith in king or country…

Learning the attack is the work of brutal rebel leader Erik Killmonger, T’Challa sets all the resources of his inner court circle to finding the monster. With reports of further atrocities mounting, he all but abandons his American lover Monica Lynne to hunt the perpetrators and soon confronts his potential usurper at the potently symbolic Warrior Falls roaring above the life-sustaining River of Grace and Wisdom. The barbarous-seeming giant is not cowed by the Panther’s power or prowess and easily wins the no-holds barred battle that follows…

The initial episode is supplemented by detailed maps of Wakanda (the first fans had ever seen) before JA #7 mobilises ‘Death Regiments Beneath Wakanda’. Barely surviving his clash with Killmonger, T’Challa is nursed back to health by Monica at the Palace, even as hideously disfigured American Horatio displays his skill with snakes and poisons to his friend N’Jadaka. Known to their recruits as Venomm and Erik Killmonger, these rebel leaders plot their next attack resulting in the reptilian insurgent ambushing T’Challa when the king investigates an unsanctioned, illegal mine. This shocking atrocity is being used to siphon off raw Vibranium to pay for Killmonger’s increasingly violent and widespread attacks on the outlying population centres…

Although triumphant this time, T’Challa realises this is a many-layered war: one he might not win…

Whilst the Panther renews his powers through ancient ritual, Jungle Action #8 introduces another super-powered rebel with ‘Malice by Crimson Moonlight’ revealing a spear-wielding wonder woman invading the Royal Palace. Advisor Taku is interrogating Venomm (and gradually making inroads into turning the bitter outcast) when she attacks. Only the power of the Panther saves the servitor and prevents the brutal jailbreak from succeeding…

After maps of the hidden country and detailed plans of ‘Central Wakanda’s Palace Royale’ the saga resumes in #9 with ‘But Now the Spears Are Broken’ (spectacularly illustrated by Gil Kane & Janson) as T’Challa goes in-country to learn the effects of the power struggle on ordinary Wakandans. After saving little boy Kantu from a rhino, the king is made painfully aware that the common people view his foreign woman Monica with as much suspicion as the constantly-raiding insurgents. That feeling even penetrates to the heart of the palace. When advisor Zatama is murdered, Monica is arrested for the crime…

T’Challa is not there to protest or defend her. He has returned to Kantu’s village to investigate strange disappearances, discovering a seeming mass-rising of zombies led by skeletal maniac Baron Macabre. Once more the Great Cat is forced to ignominiously retreat…

Supreme stylist Billy Graham takes over pencilling with #10 as the Black Panther returns to the zombie nest, exposing a cunning charade beneath the deserted village as well as a super-scientific base run by a malignant, mind-warping mutant in ‘King Cadaver is Dead and Living in Wakanda!’

Accompanying the dark drama here are examples of ‘Black Panther Artistry’ – specifically, Kirby’s first designs for the hero back when he was going by provisional title ‘The Coal Tiger’ and Buckler & Janson’s initial depiction of ‘Erik Killmonger’. Due to an extremely unfavourable publishing schedule, Panther’s Rage unfolded with agonising slowness, but the lengthy wait between episodes allowed McGregor the latitude to pick and choose key events, with readers accepting that some stuff was actually occurring between issues.

By JA #11 (September 1974), the civil war had proceeded unchecked and ‘Once You Slay the Dragon!’ sees the Panther and his forces launching the long-awaited counterattack on Killmonger’s base in N’Jadaka Village. The battle is vicious and brief, introducing yet another powered lieutenant in the shape of pitiless high-tech armourer Lord Karnaj. And on the home front, T’Challa finally clears Monica and captures actual Zatama’s killer…

With Killmonger temporarily in retreat, the Panther goes on the offensive, using the rebel’s most inconsequential converts – Tayete and Kazibe – as reluctant guides to follow his ultimate nemesis to his most secret strongholds. Heading into the mountains and fabled Land of Chilling Mists, the Panther discovers a mutagenic temple… the Resurrection Altar. Employed by Killmonger to create his grotesque super-warriors, it is presided over by scientifically-spawned vampire Sombre. When T’Challa confronts them both, he is again overpowered by Erik and left for wolves to devour in ‘Blood Stains on Virgin Snow!’

  1. Craig Russell inked the next chapter as, enduring incomprehensible hardships in sub-arctic conditions, T’Challa perseveres and survives to follow Killmonger into the temperate swamps of Serpent Valley in #13. However, this is only after facing a pack of Wakanda’s white apes. To survive, the Panther must blasphemously ignore the sacred (to many of his subjects) religious aspect of the mighty carnivores and become ‘The God Killer’…

Following a Venomm pin-up, #14 then reveals ‘There Are Serpents Lurking in Paradise’ (inked by Pablo Marcos) as T’Challa clashes once more with Sombre before encountering an affable forest sprite guarding Serpent Valley. Pixie-like Mokadi asks difficult moral questions as T’Challa rushes towards his next battle with Killmonger, making him too late to stop the rebel capturing a legion of the valley’s awesome dinosaurs. The usurper even has time to leave one behind as a lethal parting gift for the embattled, exhausted Wakandan chieftain…

The endgame rapidly approaches in #15 as ‘Thorns in the Flesh, Thorns in the Mind’ (Dan Green inks) finds T’Challa still tracking his foe only to be overcome by Killmonger’s archer assassin Salamander K’Ruel. Beaten and left to be dismembered by a ravenous Pterosaur, T’Challa incredibly overcomes every challenge before – against all odds – staggering back to Monica for another bout of recuperation…

Graham inked his own pencils for the beginning of the end in #16 as T’Challa & Monica’s time of idyllic passion culminates in catastrophe when ‘And All Our Past Decades Have Seen Revolutions!’ reveals Killmonger’s origins as the vast cast converges for one final battle. That comes in #17 as an army of war-trained dinosaurs invades Central Wakanda only to be finally crushed by the Panther’s forces and Wakandan technology. The affair concludes as it began at Warrior Falls, but ‘Of Shadows and Rages’ also holds a shocking twist as the great game of kings is ultimately decided by a player no one considered of any relevance…

With its nuanced emotional interplay, extended scope and fiercely independent supporting cast, Panther’s Rage was a milestone in dramatic comics storytelling but it harboured one last punch in a gripping ‘Epilogue!’(Jungle Action#18, November 1975). Bob McLeod inked McGregor & Graham’s forceful look at the repercussions of conflict, which finds T’Challa and maimed security chief Wakabi targeted by feral woman Madame Slay: Killmonger’s ardent and unsuspected lover who believes her loss can only be assuaged by having her pack of loyal leopards eviscerate the victorious Wakandans…

Cover-dated January 1976, Jungle Action #19 premiered McGregor’s most audacious and ultimately frustrating project, with T’Challa accompanying Monica back to America. The Panther versus the Klan shifted focus from war stories to crime fiction, substituting exotic Africa for America’s poverty-wracked, troubled, still segregated-in-all-but-name Deep South for a head-on collision with centuries of entrenched and endemic racism. Illustrated by Graham & McLeod, ‘Blood and Sacrifices!’ sees Monica back with her family after her sister is murdered. All too soon T’Challa is ferociously battling a gang of purple-hooded killers who appear to have set up in opposition to the ancient but apparently not supremacist enough white-hooded Ku Klux Klan.

Moreover, both sects are determined to conceal the truth of Angela Lynne’s death, but a break comes when bumbling, well-meaning reporter Kevin Trublood stumbles into an attack on the newcomers by the strangely multi-racial Klan sect calling itself The Dragon Circle…

With neither townsfolk nor lawmen offering any welcome, T’Challa faces unbridled hostility and suspicion at every turn. He is even attacked by cops and a mob of citizens when he thwarts a knife attack on Monica. Although Sheriff Roderick Tate makes all the right noises and seems helpful, in ‘They Told Me a Myth I Wanted to Believe’, the Panther opts to pursue his own investigation before being overwhelmed by an army of white-robed Klansmen who tie him to a burning cross and leave him to die…

As Monica and Kevin puzzle out the convoluted web of mysteries, the Panther exerts all his uncanny gifts to escape becoming ‘A Cross Burning Darkly Blackening the Night!’ Later, as he recovers in hospital, Monica’s family, Kevin and Tate review the few verifiable facts of Angela’s demise before patriarch Lloyd Lynne urges T’Challa to stop looking. He only has one daughter left after all…

Nevertheless, when the Panther and Trublood invade and disrupt a Klan rally, Lloyd is right there with them…

With Buckler joining Graham on pencils and Jim Mooney alternating with McCleod on inks, Jungle Action #22 takes a bizarre turn as ‘Death Riders on the Horizon’ explores a Lynne family legend dating back to the formative days of the Klan in 1867 when old Caleb was targeted by the vile “southern knights” and their seemingly supernatural sponsor the Soul Strangler. As Monica listens to the ghastly, appallingly unjust tale, her mind fills in how T’Challa would have acted in such a hopeless situation…

JA #23 (September 1976) was a deadline missed and rapidly-sourced reprint from Daredevil #69 – represented here only by its cover and a Buckler pin-up – before this tantalising tale is unhappily cut short in final published instalment ‘Wind Eagle in Flight’ (McGregor, Buckler & Keith Pollard).The multi-layered, many-stranded plot suddenly expands as the Panther is almost killed by a mysterious new player who flies into the ever more bewildering clash between cops, Klan, Dragon Circle and Lynne family but, before the mystery could move any further, Jungle Action was cancelled…

A wholly different kind of Black Panther and utterly unrelated adventures would reappear two months later, under the auspices of returning creative colossus Jack Kirby and it would be years before the enigma of Angela’s death and the hero’s war against the Klan was resolved…

Bonus extras here include Kirby & Sinnott’s unused original art cover for FF #52, John Romita’s cover for Jungle Action #5; McGregor’s correspondence with then-fan Ralph Macchio and the author’s original working notes, plot synopses and candid contemporary photos of the close-knit creative team. Also on show: original cover art, pages and sketches by Buckler & Janson & Kane; pencils & layouts by Graham & Buckler, plus Steve Gerber’s ‘Jungle Re-Actions’ editorial feature from Jungle Action #7. Capping off the freebie joys are un-inked Buckler story pages that would have been #25…

A truly groundbreaking classic of comics narrative, Don McGregor’s Black Panther is stark, vibrant proof that the superhero genre works best when ambitious and passionate creators are given their head and let loose to get on with it.
© 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 2016 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

Today in 1917 US artist/production wizard Jack Adler was born, followed in 1935 by pioneering African American artist Billy Graham (Luke Cage, Black Panther, Sabre) and writer Mike Baron (Nexus, Badger, Flash, The Punisher) in 1949.

In 1952 today, Australia’s beloved Ginger Meggs strip creator Jimmy Bancks died, and the date also saw the debut of Judd Winick’s Frumpy the Clown strip in 1996 and launch of manga collective CLAMP’s Angelic Layer series in 1999.

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The Sub-Mariner Marvel Masterworks volume 8


By Steve Gerber, Bill Everett, Howard Chaykin, Marv Wolfman, Steve Skeates, Bill Mantlo, Don Heck, George Tuska, Win Mortimer, Sam Kweskin, Jim Mooney, Dan Adkins, Frank Giacoia, John Sinnott, Syd Shores, Don Perlin, Frank Chiaramonte, Frank Bolle, Vince Colletta, John Romita Sr., Gil Kane & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0962-8 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In his most primal incarnation (other origins are available but may differ due to timeslips, circumstance and screen dimensions) Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner is the proud, noble and generally upset offspring of the union of a water-breathing Atlantean princess and an American polar explorer. That doomed romance resulted in a hybrid being of immense strength and extreme resistance to physical harm, able to fly and thrive above and below the waves. Over decades, a wealth of creators have added to the fishy tale and today’s Namor is hailed as Marvel’s First Mutant as well as the original “bad boy Good Guy”.

He was created by young, talented Bill Everett, for non-starter cinema premium Motion Picture Weekly Funnies: #1 (October 1939) so – technically – Namor predates Marvel, Atlas and Timely Comics. The Marine Miracleman first caught the public’s avid attention as part of an elementally appealing fire vs. water headlining team-up in the October 1939 Marvel Comics #1 (which renamed itself Marvel Mystery Comics from #2 onwards). The amphibian antihero shared honours and top billing with The Human Torch, having debuted (albeit in a truncated, monochrome version) in the aforementioned promotional booklet designed to be handed out to moviegoers earlier in the year.

Our late-starter antihero rapidly emerged as one of the industry’s biggest draws, winning his own title at the end of 1940 (cover-dated Spring 1941). His appeal was baffling but solid and he was one of the last super-characters to vanish at the end of the first heroic age. In 1954, when Atlas (as the company then was) briefly revived its “Big Three” line-up – the Torch and Captain America being the other two – Everett returned for an extended run of superbly dark, mordantly moody, creepily contemporary fantasy fables. Even so, his input wasn’t sufficient to keep the title afloat and eventually Sub-Mariner sank again.

In 1961, as Stan Lee & Jack Kirby were reinventing superheroes with their Fantastic Four, they revived and reimagined the awesome, all-but-forgotten aquanaut as a troubled, angry semi-amnesiac. Decidedly more bombastic, regal and grandiose, this returnee despised humanity: embittered and broken by the loss of his subsea kingdom… which had been (seemingly) destroyed by American atomic testing. His urge for rightful revenge was infinitely complicated after he became utterly besotted with the FF’s Susan Storm…

Namor knocked around the budding Marvel universe for years, squabbling with star turns such as The Hulk, Avengers, X-Men and Daredevil before securing his own series as one half of Tales to Astonish. From there he graduated in 1968 to his own solo title again.

Cumulatively spanning cover-dates June 1972 – April 1973, this eighth and final deluxe subsea compilation of the Swinging Sixties Subby trawls Sub-Mariner #61-72, signalling the end of another era and rising dominance of genre fare in the superhero-saturated market of that period. Also trawled up and tipped in is a tentative attempt to revive his solo star status as seen in Marvel Spotlight #27 (April 1976) just as horror-hero dominance was giving way to superhero resurgences and all of us were unwittingly biding their time for the advent of Star Wars and a wave of Science Fiction space opera titles.

It opens with one last revelatory reminiscence from Roy Thomas’ in his Introduction before

the dry land dramas and thrill soaked yarns recommence…

Previously: Namor had endured escalating horror as old enemies like Prince Byrrah, Warlord Krang, Attuma, Dr. Dorcas and others attacked. They were soundly defeated, but constant battles cost Namor his lifelong companion in bride-to-be Lady Dorma as well as his long-absent human father Leonard McKenzie, murdered by Tiger Shark and sinister shapeshifter Llyra as they constantly assaulted his sunken kingdom. The prince had been betrayed by his most trusted ally and, heartsick, angry and despondent, had abdicated the throne, choosing to pursue the human half of his hybrid heritage as a surface dweller. These wanderings were also wracked with conflict, as, amnesiac again, he faced The Human Torch, A.I.M,. M.OD.O.K., Doctor Doom, Japanese war criminals and more, prior to meeting and adopting his unsuspected cousin Namorita (daughter of WWII ally Namora). Namor battled the Badoon, and reluctantly inevitably returned to Atlantis. Back, but not officially in charge, he became increasingly burdened again. He befriended Hellenic goddess Venus and fought war god Ares; took responsibility for an Atlantean massacre of alien ambassadors; granted asylum to alien survivor Tamara of the Sisterhood; narrowly avoided a global conflagration with the UN and clashed with Thor before at last taking up the mantle of ruler again…

It was an open secret that Bill Everett was dying at this time but his Marvel friends and employers allowed him to work on until he couldn’t. Thus Sub-Mariner #61’s ‘The Prince and the Pirate!’ – credited to Steve Gerber, Everett, Win Mortimer & Jim Mooney – opens with the old master pictorially revealing revelry in the subsea kingdom as Namor’s coronation ends before a new storyline starts with page 4 as Namorita and her human guardian Betty Prentiss are abducted along with an entire passenger plane. The voyagers are victims of deranged geneticist Dr. Hydro who mutates them all – bar already amphibian Nita – into human/merman hybrids to populate his armies of environmental conquest. All too soon Namor tracks the ongoing abductions and invades mobile island Hydrobase to save his cousin, but is soundly defeated by the maniac’s super science. Moreover, the attack inspires Hydro to invade Atlantis and make it his stronghold from which to convert the rest of humanity…

The drama plays out in #62 as Gerber, Sam Kweskin & Frank Giacoia explore ‘A Realm Besieged!’ before Tamara in Atlantis and Nita on Hydrobase thwarts Hydro’s schemes leaving the Sub-Mariner to ponder what to do with the hundreds of innocent, unwilling scaly amphibian freaks that neither Atlanteans or surface-dwellers want anything to do with…

Steve Gerber was a uniquely gifted writer who combined a deep love of Marvel’s continuity minutiae with dark irrepressible wit, incisive introspection, barbed socio-cultural criticism, a barely reigned-in imagination and boundless bizarrely wilful surrealism. His stories were always at the extreme edge of the company’s intellectual canon and never failed to deliver surprise and satisfaction, especially when he couched his sardonic sorties in thinly veiled attacks on burgeoning cultural homogenisation and commercial barbarity.

With critical success Man-Thing he was holding up a mirror to many cordoned-off and taboo subjects and weaving history from scattered snippets of Marvel’s continuity. With his final stint on Sub-Mariner, Gerber expanded that universe exponentially, building by exploring the pre-cataclysm days of Atlantis, aided by Howard Chaykin in anew back-up series dubbed ‘Tales of Atlantis!’ here the first chapter – inked by Joe Sinnott – sees antediluvian, human-built Atlantis losing its war with rival superpower Lemuria and Emperor Kamuu and his bride Zartra prepare for the bloody end…

Over Everett’s posthumous plot, Gerber, Kweskin & Syd Shores produce #63 as ‘…And the Seas Shall Explode!’ sees seemingly dead Dr Hydro return to destroy the Atlanteans by triggering a volcano under their city and compelling Namor to take no chances and offer no mercy to save his subjects once and for all…

Tales of Atlantis resumes as Gerber, Chaykin & Sinnott reveal how the fate of the first Atlantis is sealed by ‘Cataclysm!’ As hand-to-hand combat peaks, the city sinks beneath the seas, but its heritage is saved, carried away by missionary sorceress Zered-Na and her devout disciples (for which you need to scope out Gerber’s other contemporaneous assignments: Son of Satan in Marvel Spotlight and the aforementioned Man-Thing in Adventures into Fear. we’ve covered them I previous post so feel free to scroll away in the search engines…

Here, however, and taking off on a strange tangent Gerber, Don Heck & Don Perlin play with satire and pop culture during #64’s ‘Voyage into Chaos!’ When intolerant Atlanteans intern the aimless, despondent amphibian victims of Dr. Hydro, furious, ashamed Namor responds with a fit of fury, just as cool heads are needed to assess another astounding incursion.

Soon, a quartet of strange visitors from magical dimension Zephyrland – Ariel the Musician, Ibbar the Scolar, Kabal the Wizard & Zargus the Warrior – are petitioning the Sub-Mariner to hop in their Golden Submarine and help them liberate their enslaved homeland from bestial, tone-deaf horror Virago the She-Beast. Willing and even eager to go for many reasons Namor joins them but is ambushed and defeated as soon as arrives in the land of golden meanies…

Third instalment of Tales of Atlantis ‘In the Wake of the Warriors!’ reveals how, five millennia later, nomadic clans of water-breathing Homo Mermanus settle in the ruins of the sunken city-continent and clash constantly, thanks to the enmity of sworn enemies Widow-Queen Elanna and King Stegor. They cannot see waves of destiny pushing their battle-hardened children towards an incredible coalition. Successive chapters ‘The Lurker in the Ruins!’ (Gerber, Mooney & Frank Chiaramonte in #65 and concluding episode ‘The Sword in the Throne!’ inked by Sinnott in #66) ended the series abruptly as those children – destiny- touched Kamuu and Elanna’s daughter Zartra – after meeting ghosts and battling demons, unite the tribes to create the dynasty of sunken Atlantis that will lead to the coming millennia later of Namor…

Back in the now however, the series was struggling and a rapid radical rebrand as Prince Namor, the Savage Sub-Mariner with #65 leads with ‘The Cry of the She-Beast!’ as Gerber, Heck & Perlin detail how Virago crushes resistance at home, physically humiliates Namor and launches an attack across dimensions upon Atlantis. Her departure sparks a successful but so-costly revolution in Zephyrland and (with valiant Namor clinging to her Golden Submarine) provokes a shocking resurrection after splashing down on Earth in #66. ‘Rise, Thou Killer Whale’ by Gerber, Heck & Perlin sees Virago driven away from Atlantis at great cost, only to stumble upon the tomb of defeated – but apparently only dormant – Orka the (humanoid) Killer Whale – who unites with a clearly kindred spirit to devastate the sunken city with an armada of crazed cetaceans…

The catastrophic clash leads to the Sub-Mariner again falling, but this time it is amidst toxic nerve gas dumped by surface dwellers. The chemical poisons fatally alter his body chemistry, making it impossible to breathe air or maintain body moisture. Moreover, as the cloud of death expands currents wash it overs Atlantis, plunging all within the perimeter – Virago and Orka included – into a stasis-like coma in landmark tale ‘Seawinds of Change!’ by Gerber, Heck & Frank Bolle.

Thankfully, although dying Namor heads for the surface where he is found by old ally Triton of The Inhumans, who in turns brings Namor to old enemies the FF. Smartest Man Alive Reed Richards swiftly diagnoses and rapidly constructs a bodysuit to provide constant artificial respiration – over Namor’s churlish and violent protests – and he heads home to finish his fight. Sadly, what he finds in #68 (January 1974, Mooney inks), leaves him ‘On the Brink of Madness!’

Only Tamara, Nita and Hydro’s amphibians have escaped the nerve agent’s effects and now must calm down the bereft and crushed monarch. Convinced to stabilise the crisis, they relocate to the vacant Hydrobase and direct Namor to a human scientist whose research into forcefields might provide a means to protect the dormant Atlanteans from predators and further harm. After seeking spiritual guidance from patron god Father Neptune, Namor sets off, but when the king without a kingdom seeks out Dr Damon Walthers, he discovers the genius’ works stolen by his assistant. Shot from the sky by a neophyte supervillain calling himself Force, their initial clash is inconclusive but does draw the attention of passing student Peter Parker…

Meanwhile in Zephyrland, the war goes badly and the survivors consider calling in Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange…

George Tuska & Vince Colletta illustrate Prince Namor, the Savage Sub-Mariner #69 as Gerber rapidly wraps up his hanging plot threads in anticipation of a sudden cancellation. ‘Two Worlds …and Dark Destiny!’ sees Dr Strange offer aid, a pointless battle between spider hero and fishman and a second and final encounter with Force that leaves Namor victorious, in control of Walthers forcefield tech and Atlantis safely stored “under glass” until a cure can be found… an inauspicious but satisfactory stopping point. Confoundingly the series still had three issues to run with Marv Wolfman, Tuska & Colletta using #70 to depict ‘Namor Unchained!’ whilst adding further safeguards to sleeping Atlantis, until targeted by the now-independent mutated fishmen of Dr. Dorcas under the guidance of an ambitious aquatic atrocity…

The brutal duel culminated in more deaths and butchery as #71 clamours ‘Comes the Pirahna!’ and the series finally sank with #72 (dated September 1974 and on sale from 18th June) as Steve Skeates, Dan Adkins & Colletta catered an alien encounter as Namor faced obnoxious humans and a lost interstellar shapeshifter in ‘From the Void It Came…’

The antihero resurfaced in Giant-Sized Super-Villain Team-Up #1 (cover-dated March 1975), revived as one half of a tag-team with fellow misunderstood autocrat Doctor Doom whilst seeking a cure for his people and his own condition. That sustained momentum led to the last tale here, a solo exploit taken from Marvel Spotlight #27 (April 1976) as Bill Mantlo & Mooney revealed ‘Death is the Symbionic Man!’ Incorporating Prime Earth’s military industrial villain Captain Simon Stryker (of alternate Earth series Deathlok the Demolisher) the pacy yarn saw Sub-Mariner hunted for possible spare parts and powers by the maniac and battling his most deadly killer-cyborg to date…

The bonus section in this final collection includes the covers by Everett, John Romita, Rich Buckler, Larry Lieber, Sinnott, Gil Kane, Giacoia, Mike Esposito & Al Milgrom; House ads; the editorial page from #67 wherein Gerber explained the costume change; Romita’s original designs for the new outfit and a selection of original art by Heck, Perlin & Mooney.

In comics, the best thing about “the Mighty falling” is that so often another time throws up fresh ideas and creators who will regenerate faded concepts. It a cycle as timeless and relentless as the tides. The venerable Sub-Mariner always comes back stronger and more appetising, and you owe it to yourself to be ready for the next wave by getting to know these classics. Many early Marvel Comics are more exuberant than qualitative, but this volume, especially from an story-lover’s point of view, is a wonderful exception: historical treasures with narrative bite and indescribable style and panache that fans will delight in forever.
© 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved. (or possibly © 2026 MARVEL.)

Today in 1924 cartoonist Frank Bolle (The Heart of Juliet Jones, Winnie Winkle, Black Phantom, Tim Holt, Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom) was born, sharing the date with writer Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Buffy, Fray) in 1964; artist ChrisCross AKA Christopher Williams (Xero, Blood Syndicate, Justice League) in 1968, and author Becky Cloonan (Demo, American Virgin, Gotham Academy, Conan) in 1980.

Today in 2005, artist Sam Kweskin (Atlas anthologies such as Battlefront & Journey Into Mystery; Kid Colt, Outlaw, Sub-Mariner) died.