Category: Science Fiction

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DC Finest Blue Beetle – Blue Beetle Challenges The Red Knight


By Joe Gill, Roy Thomas, Gary Friedrich, Benjamin Smith, Bill Fraccio, Tony Tallarico, Dick Giordano, Steve Ditko, Dan Reed & Bob McLeod, Albert Val, Bill Black & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79950-248-7 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

This absorbing yet inarguably eccentric DC Finest compilation offers some of the rarest material ever aquired by the company and probably owes its existence solely to the screen success of the ever-changing titular star. I honestly never expected to see such seminal material in a modern collection and I hope the dated nature of the material finds an appreciative audience and rewards DC for their boldness… 

Sadly as ever, it’s not yet available digitally, but we live in hope…

The Blue Beetle premiered in Mystery Men Comics #1, released by Fox Comics and cover-dated August 1939. The pulp-inspired star was created by Charles Nicholas and possibly initially scripted by Will Eisner. “Charles Nicholas” was a shared pseudonym used by Chuck Cuidera (Blackhawk), Jack Kirby (everything) and Charles Wojtkowski (Blonde Phantom, Young Allies, Nyoka, Iron Corporal) with the last one generally attributed with actually inventing our remarkably resilient Azure Adventurer.

A mystery man in every sense of the term, the Cobalt Crimecrusher was inexplicably popular from the start: translating his comics venues into merchandise, a radio show and even a newspaper comic strip. Constantly acquired and traded by numerous publishers, BB survived the extinction of most of them: blithely undergoing many revisions to his origins and powers. By the mid-1950s he had ended up at Charlton Comics, appearing sporadically in a few long-inventoried tales before seemingly fading away. However, that was only until the early 1960s superhero resurgence when Joe Gill, Bill Fraccio, Tony Tallarico and, latterly, neophyte scripter/devoted Golden Age acolyte Roy Thomas revised and revived the character. It led to a unique 10-issue run spanning June 1964 to March 1966 (technically, two separate 5-issue runs), but you’ll see that it wasn’t quite that simple…

Pulling together many disparate strands from previous incarnations, former cop and valiant troubleshooter Dan Garrett was reshaped into an archaeologist gifted with a mysterious, magical ancient Egyptian scarab. This trinket would transform him into a lightning-throwing, super-sensed flying superman whenever he touched the scarab and uttered trigger phrase “Khaji Dha!”

After another brief sojourn in comic book limbo, Garrett resurfaced when Steve Ditko took on the concept, tweaking it to construct a fresh retooled hero for the gadget-conscious, superhero-savvy society perfect to continually confront a crimeridden culture.

Ditko accepted and acknowledged but sagely set aside all that prior history to utterly recreate a hero he could understand. Ted Kord is an earnest and proudly decent young scientist with a secret tragedy in his past, which Ditko and scripter Gary Friedrich sagely forbore revealing in deference to intrigue and action. The result was a taut, captivating noir thriller that opened the neopgyte’s azure casebook – which we’ll get to in the fullness of time…

Here, though, we open with the venerable veteran bursting back onto newstands courtesy of Gill, Fraccio, & Tallarico.

Cover-dated June 1964 the revival began in Blue Beetle (vol. 1, #1) with the disinterrment of ‘The Giant Mummy Who Was Not Dead’ as prominent visitor Dr. Dan Garrett and comely local egyptologist Professor Luri Hoshid fall foul of a rapidly changing political crisis whilst excavating an ancient site. The tomb of Kha-Ef-Re holds untold discoveries but resident strongman-with-despotic-aspirations – and a private nuclear arsenal – General Amenhotep may well end their dig out of sheer spite. Threatened but perservering, the duo unearth vile Kha-Ef-Re’s remains and a fantastic blue scarab that seemingly acts as a means of imprisoning his mummy.

On touching the gem, Garrett experiences an astounding vision as another ancient Egyptian – “The Great Pharoah” – reveals the scarab is a portal to fantastic power to be used in the service of good…

Transformed, Garrett immediately gets a chance to test it as a nuclear strike by Amenhotep’s forces awakens the mummy which grows to fantastic size and rampages across the nation. Thankfully the powers and abilities of The Blue Beetle are sufficient to defeat and re-entomb the monster and deal with the military maniac who thought to exploit him…

Relentlessly formulaic but somehow ly kitsch and bizarrely appealing, the stage was set for a succession of the same as BB #2’s ‘Hot War in the Arctic’ finds Garrett and sexy accomplice du jour Captain Elaine Norr (USAF) investigating peril in the far north. Here they clash with Red Chinese forces building secret airbases as well as cavemen, lost Goths, extinct big beasts and even dinosaurs from the sanctuary of a lost land… until more hastily applied atomics trigger a disaster…

Alien invasion was the theme of the third adventure as supersonic transport and possibly even the space program were threatened by a man who talked to lightning. ‘Mr. Thunderbolt and the Superstar’ led to a sustained war of nerves and powers narrowly won for humanity before a traditional supervillain arrived in the bright green form of ‘The Praying Mantis-Man’. Aided by Mexican entymologist firecracker Juanita Rivera, Garrett and his alter ego barely survive the efforts of self-mutating chlorophyl addict Hunter Mann to replace humanity with giant bugs. The macabre yarn is supplemented by a pinup of the Cobalt Crusader by Pat Masulli, before #5 finds Gill, Fracchio & Tallarico disclosing how and why ‘Blue Beetle Challenges the Red Knight’

This eerie yarn sees Garrett come to the aid of his friend Lewis Coll after the astrophysicist returns from a space mission strangely altered. Now obsessive and cruel, Coll shuns his fiancee Regina White and transforms himself into a invulnerable crimson armoured tyrant seeking to destroy all aircraft. So tough is his opposition that Blue Beetle must seek aid from the The Great Pharoah himself to end the threat…

The series went on a brief hiatus and returned with a new numbering system as, cover-dated July 1965, Blue Beetle #50 pitted the hero against ‘The Scorpion’ as villainous Mister Crabb sought to control the oil industry with thugs and giant robots, whilst in # 51 deranged incel Dr. Jeremiah Clugg sought to offset his self-perceived physical flaws and failings with women by placing his personality and mentality inside a super-srobot dubbed ‘Mentor the Magnificent’. Unable to reason, the Beetle had to quell his increasing instability with force…

Gill & Tallarico handled #52 as ‘Magno, the Man Who Shakes the World’ finds disgraced anthropologist Louis Forte targeting Garrett for revenge that escalates into shattering the entire planet as tectonic terrorist Magno-Man, after which Praying Mantis-Man returns to bedevil humanity in ‘The People Theives’, with the mantid maniac snatching humans as lab fodder until the Azure Avenger steps in and stomps him…

The last hurrah of the old guard saw aspiring junior Roy Thomas script for Fracchio & Tallarico a deft return to Egypt in final foray (Blue Beetle #54 February/March 1966) as Garrett and Luri Hoshid reunite after her latest find is co-opted by a rival who knows its true power. Sadly even Professor Philipps is unaware of the full force and malign sentience of ‘The Eye of Horus’ Soon the ancient device is enslaving and transforming humans in its quest for dominance, but the Great Pharoah has a plan to aid his new agent defeat it. All the hero has to do is visit the gods in the Land of the Dead and return with a certain weapon…

Despite it being the height of superhero madness in popular culture, Blue Beetle folded then and was left fallow until the end of the year. As stated above, he returned much changed in the back of Captain Atom (#83 November 1966) with Charlton Comics’ biggest gun in the process of his own refit and renewal again courtesy of Ditko.

The remodelling of the Atomic Ace left room for expansion and experimentation so Ditko plunged right in, introducing an acrobatic, technologically armed swashbuckler taking care of business without any extraneous exposition or explanation… and using one of the oldest names in the business.

Here ‘The New Blue Beetle’ displays his modus operandi by stopping a vicious crime-spree by the Killer Koke Gang. The untitled yarn has all classic elements of a Ditko masterpiece: outlandish, intense fight scenes, compact, claustrophobic yet dynamic layouts, innovative gimmickry and a clear-cut battle between Right and Wrong. It’s one of the very best introductory stories of a new hero anywhere in comics – and it’s only 7 pages long…

With a definite feeling of no safety or status quo, next instalment ‘Wanted for Murder’ – scripted by Mike Friedrich with full art from Ditko – pits the new kid against a mysterious Masked Marauder who has invaded ghis own home. However, the real kicker is a bombshell revelation that Homicide Detective Fisher, investigating the disappearance of Garrett, suspects a possible connection to Kord…

Next in the imaginatively entitled ‘Blue Beetle Fights a Submarine’ the vigour and vitality of the hero is again undeniable as a mid-air hijack is foiled before a spy sub and giant killer octopus are given short shrift by the indomitable rookie crusader. Then CA #86 sees the return of ‘The Masked Marauder’ as the cobalt crimebuster confronts a ruthless scientist/industrial spy he’s convinced he has battled before…

This is all preamble to the main event as – cover-dated June 1967 – Blue Beetle (volume 2) #1 launched.with lead tale ‘Blue Beetle Bugs the Squids’; an all-Ditko masterpiece (even scripting it as “D.C. Glanzman”) with the hero in astounding action against a deadly gang of bandits. ‘Blue Beetle… Bugs the Squids’ is crammed with the eccentric vitality that made Amazing Spider-Man such a monster hit, with justice-dispensing joie de vivre balanced by the moody, claustrophobic introduction of Ditko’s most challenging mainstream superhero creation. Sadly, you’ll need a different book to meet this version of The Question…

Another all-Ditko affair, Blue Beetle #2 shows the master at his peak. ‘The End is a Beginning!’ at last reveals the origin of the hero as well as the fate of Dan Garrett, and even advances Kord’s relationship with his long-suffering ever-pining assistant Tracey. #3 is another superbly satisfying read, as the troubled warrior routs malevolent, picturesque thugs ‘The Madmen’ in a sharp parable about paranoia and misperception.

Blue Beetle #4 is visually the best of the bunch as Kord follows a somehow-returned Garrett to an Asian backwater in pursuit of lost treasure and a death cult. ‘The Men of the Mask’ is pure strip poetry and bombastic action, cunningly counterbalanced by final outing ‘Blue Beetle Faces the Destroyer of Heroes’ (Blue Beetle #5). It remains a decidedly quirky tale featuring a notional team-up of the azure avenger and The Question wherein a frustrated artist defaces heroic and uplifting paintings and statues. Ditko’s committed if reactionary views of youth culture, which so worried Stan Lee, are fully on view in this charged, absorbing tale…

The Ditko Beetle was sublime but short-lived: an early casualty when the Sixties Superhero boom reversed and horror again ruled the newsstands, Charlton’s “Action Hero” experiment was gone by the close of 1968, preceding a long line of costumed champions into limbo and clearing the decks for a horror renaissance.

Time passed and reading tastes changed again. After the cosmos-consuming Crisis on Infinite Earths re-sculpted DC’s universes in 1986, a host of stars and even second stringers got floor-up rebuilds to fit them for a tougher, uncompromising, straight-shooting, no-nonsense New American readership of the Reagan era. In the intervening years, DC had pursued an old policy: gobbling up the characters and properties of defunct publishers. A handful of Charlton buy-outs had already appeared in Crisis, and now Captain Atom, The Question and two separate Blue Beetles seamlessly slotted into the new DCU, ahead of the rest of the lost contingent…

Before that moment though, there was a final flurry of the old guard.

This collection ends with the rare one-off Charlton Bullseye #1 (June 1981), released as Charlton was finally winding down its business. Written by Bejamin Smith and illustrated by Dan Reed, Albert Val & Bill Black ‘The Enigma’ sees Blue Beetle and The Question officially meet for the first time as someone they just don’t know targets them both for vengeance and assassination. He doesn’t succeed this time but does get away and threaten to return…

With covers by Fraccio, Frank McLaughlin, Vince Colletta, Masulli, Dick Giordano, Tallarico, Ditko, Rocke Mastroserio, Reed & Bob McLeod this a book that is both sublime and ridiculous, but one any lover of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction just must have.
© 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1981, 2025 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1913 utterly unique UK cartoonist and raconteur Bill Tidy was born. We last bowed before T’ Mastuh with our coverage of The Fosdyke Saga volume 1. In 1949 Jim Starlin entered this world, and you can check out the bajillions he’s created since by using our search box. Ditto for Matt Wagner, who is so much more than just Grendel, Mage, Batman and Sandman Mystery Theatre. He joined us right about…. NOW! back in 1961.

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Fantastic Four Marvel Masterworks volume


By Doug Moench & Bill Sienkiewicz, John Byrne, Roger Stern, Joe Sinnott, Al Milgrom, George Pérez, Tom Sutton, Jerome Moore, Chic Stone, Jon D’Agostino, Mike Esposito, Pablo Marcos, Frank Giacoia, George Roussos, Jim Novak, Irving Watanabe & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1027-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For Marvel everything started with The Fantastic Four.

Monolithic modern Marvel truly began with eccentric monster ‘n’ alien filled adventures of a compact superteam as much squabbling family as coolly capable costumed champions. All that Modern Marvel is, company and brand, stems from that quirky quartet and the inspired, inspirational, groundbreaking efforts of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby…

Cautiously bi-monthly and cover-dated November 1961, Fantastic Four #1 – by Stan, Jack, George Klein and/or Christopher Rule – was raw and crude even by the ailing publisher’s standards; but it seethed with rough, passionate, uncontrolled excitement. Thrill-hungry kids pounced on its dynamic storytelling and caught a wave of change beginning to build in America. It and every succeeding issue changed comics a little bit more… and forever. As revealed in that premier issue, maverick scientist Reed Richards, fiancée Sue Storm, close friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s bratty teen brother survived an ill-starred private spaceshot after cosmic rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

All were permanently mutated: Richards’ body became elastic, diffident Sue became (even more) invisible, Johnny Storm burst into living flame and tragic Ben shockingly devolved into a shambling, rocky freak. After the initial revulsion and trauma passed, they solemnly agreed to use their abilities to benefit mankind. Throughout the 1960s The Fantastic Four was indisputably the key title and most consistently groundbreaking series of Marvel’s ever-unfolding web of cosmic creation: a forge for new concepts and characters.

Kirby was approaching his creative peak: unleashing his vast imagination on plot after spectacular plot, and intense, incredible new characters whilst Lee scripted some of the most passionate superhero sagas ever seen. Both were on an unstoppable roll, at the height of their powers and full of the confidence only success brings, with The King particularly eager to see how far the genre and the medium could be pushed… which is rather ironic since it was the company’s reticence to give the artist more creative freedom that led to Kirby’s moving to National/DC in the 1970s.

Without Kirby’s soaring imagination the rollercoaster of mindbending High Concepts lost out to traditional tales of characters in conflict, with soap opera leanings and supervillain-heavy Fights ‘n’ Tights forays abounding. With Lee & Kirby long gone but their mark very much still stamped onto every page of the still-prestigious title, this full-colour luxury compendium collects Fantastic Four #219-231 and Annual #15, spanning June 1980-June 1981, wherein editor Jim Salicrup sanctioned a bold new look and direction for the Hallowed team. The call for and upshot of all that is discussed by incoming writer Doug Moench who recalls fan-fright paralysis and jumping in full throttle in his Introduction ‘The Big-Kid Stuff Cold Turkey Fail’ prior to a distinctly spookily toned and frequently supernaturally themed change of pace commencing.

What You Should Know: After being rejuvenated and repowered in an extended space-spanning saga, the Family FF are getting used to being back on earth even with supervillains all over the place. Now Read On…

Penciller John Byrne, having served out his first term of duty on the series he was to soon make his alone was officially and ostensibly only temporarily replaced for FF #219. Ably augmented by Joe Sinnott, stalwart “Guest-Team” Doug Moench & Bill Sienkiewicz were parachuted in for monster mash-up ‘Leviathans’, on the back of huge success and acclaim for their vigilante thriller Moon Knight, bringing with them a whole new look and sensibility, as well as far faster pace to the stories.

Here, modern day pirate Cap’n Barracuda steal the fabled Horn of Proteus from Atlantis and unleashes a wave of giant monsters on New York City. Thankfully, this is a subject the mighty Sub-Mariner and Mr. Fantastic can agree on and their combined forces are soon stomping beasties and taking names (like Giganto!) to restore order and stop a piratical plunder ploy without peer…

Byrne was back writing & pencilling in #220 as ‘…And the Lights Went Out All Over the World!’ sees the Avengers call in Reed and his team when all of Earth suffers a catastrophic power-outage. Science! soon sends the explorers to the arctic where they encounter an astounding and unbelievable obelisk being constructed by beings of utterly alien appearance…

The story includes an updated origin for the quartet and guest shot for Canada’s finest (that’s Vindicator of Alpha Flight in case you were wondering) and the issue halts with a pinup/possible rejected cover by inker Sinnott (the Torch battling a flaming Skrull) before #221’s concluding chapter ‘Tower of Glass… Dreams of Glass!’ – after the usual misconceptions and rash clashes reveal three aliens shipwrecked for half a million years who just need their myriad mobile mechanisms to reverse the planet’s magnetic poles so that they can return home at last. Thankfully, Reed has a less end of human civilisation-y solution that leaves everyone involved happy and safe…

Now officially the latest regular creative team, Moench & Sienkiewicz return to prep for Halloween in FF #222’s ‘The Possession of Franklin Richards!’ as the kid is targeted from beyond the unknown by the exiled soul of Nicholas Scratch, son of Agatha Harkness and the kind of warlock who gives witchcraft a bad name. Having made the boy his conduit back to reality, Scratch terrorises and tortures his hated enemies, who with Doctor Strange unavailable, must call on the dubious gifts of self-doubting failed horror hero Gabriel the Devil Hunter and his sexy morally ambiguous familiar Desadia (as mostly seen in the Marvel monochrome magazine line such as Haunt of Horror and Monsters Unleashed).

Apparently acquiescing, the team agree to liberate the dead diabolist’s minions of magical cult Salem’s Seven in ‘That a Child May Live…’ but their instant assaults on humanity are an acceptable risk and consequence in a long plan that sets the worlds to rights for all but the defeated devil…

Fantastic Four Annual #15 swiftly follows, wherein Moench & George Pérez, abetted by Chic Stone, Jon D’Agostino & Mike Esposito, renew hostilities between the FF and the Skrull empire when the shapeshifters target Reed’s latest energy-casting breakthrough in ‘Time for the Prime Ten!’ Infiltrating the Baxter Building, negating his teammates and almost banishing Mr. Fantastic to the tender mercies of Annihilus in the Negative Zone, the sneaky killers are actually seeking to end their millennial war against stellar rivals The Kree, but have underestimated Reed’s brilliance, his team’s tenacity and the sheer power and cosmic awareness of Earth-loving Kree Exile Captain Mar-Vell…

A back-up tale by Moench & Tom Sutton takes us to recently liberated Latveria for the opening of proposed series ‘The Return of Doctor Doom!’ with only episode ‘The Power of the People!’ showing how restored monarch King Zorba failing to live up to his democratic promise and discovering how excessive taxation really upsets subjects, at around the same moment crazed and catatonic Victor von Doom goes missing from the most secure dungeon in Doomstadt…

Sadly, the impending crisis never materialised and was only addressed by John Byrne in Fantastic Four #247…

Over in FF #224 & 225, fresh calamity unfolds in Moench, Sienkiewicz & Pablo Marcos’ ‘The Darkfield Illumination’ as an eerie radioactive red mist blankets Manhattan and plays hob with the team’s powers. Tracing the cloud’s origin point to an icy dome in the Arctic, the FF discover a lost colony of technologically advanced Vikings utterly dependent upon a mutated immortal giant. ‘The Blind God’s Tears’ supply heat, light, food materials from the outside world and immortality, but now Korgon is dying and demands the explorers save him and the people who worship him…

Always eager to help, the team strive hard and succeed in saving the God, only to see him betrayed by his most trusted ally. As Korgon rages madly in response, the situation escalates as Thor arrives to investigate Viking worshippers who have abandoned their true god for a false one…

Bruce Patterson joins Marcos inking Sienkiewicz as Moench takes the opportunity to bring closure to fans of his old Shogun Warriors series next. In their own title the former pilots of monster-fighting mega-mecha Dangard Ace, Raydeen and Combatra had been recruited by an ancient order to defend humanity, but had ultimately retired when their machines were destroyed. That epic sacrifice had come when evil enemy Maur-Kon had targeted the Fantastic Four and attempted to kill Reed.

Now a new giant mecha rampages and robs and the teams reunite with Ilongo Savage, Richard Carson and Genji Odashu aiding the battle against ‘The Samurai Destroyer’ and the unworthy soul exploiting its power for profit….

Movie-toned terror in the heartland follows as a meteor crashes in rural Pennsylvania resort Lost Lake just as the FF head out to the Boonies for a break. Their encounter with ‘The Brain Parasites’ infesting hosts and reverting them to earlier evolutionary forms is by-the-books horror fun from Moench, Sienkiewicz & Patterson, and readily fixed by little Franklin’s unreliable mental powers. This sets the scene for the next issue where further tests by professional head shrinkers and brain benders only unleash uncontrollable chaos, possessing bystanders and an adult super-powered version of the lad. Thankfully loving parents and uncles allow Franklin to exorcise his deadly ‘Ego-Spawn’ (Sinnott inks)…

The experiment in alternative tale-telling ends on a 3-part saga that opens with #229’s ‘The Thing From the Black Hole’. After it homes in on Reed’s latest invention, Earth soon totters on the edge of destruction as a living, sentient singularity made of antimatter disrupts physical laws. Desperate Richards makes contact with its cosmic equivalent and uncovers a tale of love lost in service to scientific exploration. The mobile extinction event was once a sentient being whose love for a fellow astronaut turned them both into creatures of uncanny forces. Thankfully ‘Firefrost and the Ebon Seeker’ reach an understanding that saves the world, but as a consequence a section of Manhattan – including the Baxter Building – is marooned inside the Negative Zone.

With panic amongst the hordes of abducted New Yorkers barely suppressed, the FF search for a solution ‘In All the Gathered Gloom!’ (by Moench & Roger Stern with art from Sienkienwisz, Jerome Moore, Sinnott, & Frank Giacoia) even as new antimatter menace Stygorr zeroes in on the intruding enclave. The last thing the FF need is bullying big business plutocrat Lew Shiner telling everyone his money puts him in charge. After his posturing triggers a riot, tragedy is guaranteed, and the heroes barely beat the alien invader in time to return everyone surviving back home…

With covers by Sienkienwicz, Byrne Sinnott & Bob McLeod, the extras here include a Sinnott Thing pinup from FF #219, Sienkievich’s rejected cover-turned-pinup as printed in #224 original art pages/covers inked by Marcos, Bruce Patterson, Sinnott, and original colour-guides painted by George Roussos.

Although never quite returning to the stratospheric heights of the Kirby era, this truly different collection represents a closing of the First Act for the “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine”, and palate cleansing preparation for the second groundbreaking run by an inspired John Byrne. These extremely capable efforts are probably most welcome to dedicated superhero fans and continuity freaks like me, but will still thrill and delight casual browsers looking for an undemanding slice of graphic narrative excitement – especially if this time the movie continues to deliver on its promise…
© 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

To Be Continued…

Today in 1918 artist John Forte was born. He’s most fondly remembered for costumed charm, as best seen in Legion of Super-Heroes: The Silver Age volume 1 . We don’t have nearly enough collected material for UK visionary comics stalwart Ron Embleton who was born today in 1930. If you think you’re old enough, you could look at Oh, Wicked Wanda!.

Indomitable weekly anthology Valiant began its stellar 712 issue run today in 1962. Inside was the magnificent Steel Claw whom we comprehensively covered in The Steel Claw: Invisible Man. Yes. Well done, the modern invisible man could be seen from the start…

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Adam Eterno book 2: Grunn the Grim


By E. George Cowan, Chris Lowder, Tom Tully, Francisco Solano López, John Catchpole, Eric Bradbury, with Jack Le Grand, Geoff Kemp, Tom Kerr & various (Rebellion)
ISBN: 978-1-83786-470-6 (TPB/Digital edition) 978-1-83786-480-5 (Exclusive edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: History in the Unmaking… 9/10

British comics had a strange and extended love affair with what can only be described as “unconventional” (for which feel free to substitute “creepy”) heroes. So many of the stars and potential role models of our serials and strips were just plain “off”: self-righteous, moody voyeurs-turned vigilantes like Jason Hyde, sinister masterminds like The Dwarf, deranged geniuses like Eric Dolmann, so many reformed criminals like The Spider or just outright racist supermen like Captain Hurricane…

… And don’t get me started on our legion of lethally anarchic comedy icons or that our most successful symbol of justice is the Eagle-bedecked jack-booted poster boy for a fascist state. Perhaps that explains why these days we can’t even imagine or envision what a proper leader looks like and keep on electing clowns, crooks and oblivious privileged simpletons…

All joking aside, British comics are unlike any other kind and simply have to be seen to be believed and enjoyed. One of the most revered stars of the medium has finally begun to be collected in archival editions, and perfectly encapsulates our odd relationship with heroism, villainy and particularly the murky grey area bridging them…

Until the 1980s, comics in the UK were based on an anthological model, offering variety of genre, theme and character on a weekly – or sometimes fortnightly – basis. Humorous periodicals like The Beano were leavened by thrillers like Billy the Cat or General Jumbo and adventure papers like Lion or Valiant always included gag strips such as The Nutts, Grimly Feendish, Mowser and a wealth of similar quick laugh treats. Thunder and Jet were amongst the last of this fading model. Fleetway particularly was shifting to themed anthologies like Shoot, Action and Battle, whilst venerable veterans like Lion, Valiant and Buster hung on and stayed fresh by absorbing failing titles.

Thunder ran for 22 weeks before being absorbed by a stronger title to become Lion & Thunder. The merger/acquisition brought Black Max, The Steel Commando, The Spooks of Saint Luke’s and Adam Eterno to the new combined roster. With Steel Commando, time travelling tramp Adam would survive and thrive, as the periodical later merged into Valiant & Lion (June 1974) until the ultimate end in 1976. He also appeared in numerous Annuals and Specials thereafter.

Eterno was initially devised by Thunder assistant editor Chris Lowder – AKA “Jack Adrian” – and editor Jack Le Grand, with top flight artist Tom Kerr (Monty Carstairs, Rip Kerrigan, Kelly’s Eye, Charlie Peace, Captain Hurricane, Steel Claw, Kraken, Mary-Jo, Tara King/The Avengers, Billy’s Boots) initially designing and visualising the frankly spooky antihero. He also drew the scene-setting first episode. The feature was scripted by equally adept and astoundingly prolific old hand Tom Tully (Roy of the Rovers, Heros the Spartan, Janus Stark, The Wild Wonders, Dan Dare, Johnny Red, The Leopard from Lime Street), who only finally left it in 1976. Kerr, Donne Avenell, Scott Goddall &Ted Cowan would also write subsequent adventures. In fact, Tully might have scripted some of the material in this collection including the first instalment here: a handy recap/catchup limned by Francisco Solano López (and his family studio) that swiftly shifts to a gripping tale of “Conquistadore” atrocity…

Thanks to spotty record keeping, like so much in life and comics, it’s all a big mystery…

Gathering episodes from weekly Lion & Thunder spanning March 20th through August 28th 1971, plus pertinent material from Lion & Thunder Holiday Special 1971 & 1972, the chronal calamities and dark doings resume following Chris Lowder’s informative flashback essay ‘A Writer’s Trip Through Time’.

What you need to know: Delivered in stark, moody monochrome, the saga tales of tragic immortal chronal castaway Adam Eterno began life in the 16th century. He was an ambitious apprentice and less than sterling moral character, indentured to alchemist Erasmus Hemlock. When Adam’s master perfected an immortality serum, the headstrong, impatient acolyte sampled the potion against the sage’s express command. This precipitated the ancient’s death and a fiery conflagration that gutted the house. Hemlock’s last act was to curse his faithless student to live forever and “wander the world through the labyrinths of time”. Surcease would come from a mortal blow struck by a weapon of gold…

The curse was truly effective and as centuries passed, Adam became a recluse: his never-changing appearance driving him away from superstitious mortals and perpetually denying him simple contact with humanity. He fought in all of Britain’s wars, but hard-earned combat comradeships always ended whenever a seemingly fatal blow or wound left him unharmed…

Everything changed and the second part of the alchemist’s curse came true in 1970 when the traumatised, barely sane 421-year-old tramp staggered into a bullion robbery. He was shot by the thieves who rapidly realised that their victim was invulnerable, and attempted to use him in a raid on the Bank of England. When that went sideways too, Adam was struck by a fully-gold-plated limousine of a speeding millionaire…

The impact would be fatal for any other being, but for Adam Eterno it was the beginning of redemption as the shock hurled him into the timestream to land over and again in different eras…

The drama continues in that opening recap as Adam drops out of the timestream and is immediately cut down and hurled into quicksand by rapacious Spaniard Don Morto and his pitiless mercenarios, seeking the Incas fabled City of Gold. Dragging himself out of the mire, soon Adam is sought out by an Inca shaman and undergoes outrageous trials (many involving bonds and weapons of gold!) to become their champion in defeating the merciless invaders and liberating hostage king Tazuma Capa…

The resistance is long and bloody but ultimately triumphal after Eterno introduces and mass-produces a weapon from the future that turns the tables on the armour, powder and shot of the invaders…

The bittersweet victory – after all, the traveller already knows more invaders will follow and ultimately succeed – sees Adam returned to chronal limbo only to rematerialise for the first time in the far future: a totalitarian dictatorship policed by brutes and thugs in armour of gold led by a monstrous tyrant: Grunn the Grim. The extended war to liberate tomorrow ends successfully but with the wanderer again returned to falling through eras, with the first hints that the penitent troubleshooter is not randomly drawn to rising manifestations of evil and crossroad moments of menace…

The latest stopover is Dark Ages Eastern Europe where a struggle for the throne sees an evil yet trusted relative seeking to usurp Duke Ctharmis of Carathia, after abducting the prince and true heir. Now as a local wild-child terrorises the populace, and packs of (were?)wolves congregate everywhere, a tatty stranger arrives and starts making trouble. Nobody knows Adam has been recruited by local wizard Mageis to set destiny aright and end the schemes of wicked Baron Draxa, before being deposited in far more familiar territory: England during the Civil War…

Obsessive anti-royalist Captain Raker ravages the locality searching for Lord Benham and the funds he holds in the King’s name. His brutal acts draw the immortal man into the pointless conflict, despite persistent, prophetic visions of doom hampering the antihero… until a final face-to-face duel ends matters and catapults Adam into the New World and a new kind of wickedness. In 1920s New York City, money not power motivates mobster Rikki Delgano, but his tactics are just as cruel and just as ineffectual against an enemy who will not die…

The crook’s hash soon settled, Eterno next appears in the skies over London amidst a storm of ack-ack fire and Luftwaffe planes. Furious and fighting mad, the traveller captures a Nazi bomber and follows the raiders back to their base, delivering a deadly dose of “how do you like it?” before ghosting on to land in the wild west and exonerate unjustly accused drifter the Durango Kid when both are charged with stagecoach robbery. Dodging gunplay and lynchings, Apache tortures and worse, Adam deftly exposes the real bandit before moving on to save all of humanity…

Lost in the early years of the stone age over 35,000 years before his own birth, Eterno roams amidst mammoths, neanderthals and dawn men, but must battle beast men armed with ray guns to foil a plan by alien colonisers. They seek to eradicate emerging humankind and take the world for their own, but Adam is greatly aided by prescient sage Kathon-the-Wise, who seems to see all his past and future secrets… and bears a remarkable resemblance to so many other wizards and mages the nomad of the ages has met…

After a cataclysmic pitched battle, humanity is saved and the spacers defeated, but there’s no rest for the (gradually redeeming) wicked and Eterno lands in shark-filled waters just in time to become the latest target of pirate lord Blackbeard. On foiling that felon, the winds of time waft him to a Viking raid in Anglo-Saxon England where pitiless reiver Geflin One-Eye seems set on taking the kingdom, unless some brave soul can retrieve the fabled Gold Sword of Wulfric from the abbey where it lies and lead the counterattack. Obviously, Adam is not keen on getting that close to his metal nemesis but if the situation demands it…

Bombastic, blood-soaked, inspirational and creepier than you’d imagine possible or permissible in a kids’ comic. the exploits of Adam Eterno are dark delights impossible to put down, so it’s fortunate that there are two more longer complete yarns still to come here.

Taken from Lion & Thunder Holiday Special 1971, the first sadly uncredited yarn (as regards the writer at least) was illuminated by veteran comics illustrator John Catchpole. He was the first to draw Kelly’s Eye – in 1962 for Knock-Out – and limned The Shadow of the Snake & sequel serial Master of Menace between 1972-1974 in Lion where he was part of a rotating team crafting Adam Eterno. As well as Annuals material like Black Bedlam (1975) he inked Jack (Charlie Peace) Pamby on The Potters from Poole Street in Valiant (1976) and was also a book illustrator.

Here all that skill and aplomb is used to detail a moody Victorian mystery as the immortal nomad helps the last of the Calcott line locate a lost family fortune and avoid murder by a monster…

Wrapping up proceedings on a true high (and also lacking a writer credit) the 1972 Adam Eterno special tale was illustrated by the magnificent and prolific Eric Bradbury (1921-2001) began in 1949 in Knockout.

Frequently working with studio mate Mike Western, Bradbury drew strips like Our Ernie, Blossom, Lucky Logan, Buffalo Bill, No Hiding Place, The Black Crow and Biggles. He was an “in-demand” illustrator well into the 1990s, on landmark strips such as The Avenger, Cursitor Doom, Phantom Force 5, Maxwell Hawke, Joe Two Beans, Mytek the Mighty, Death Squad, Doomlord, Darkie’s Mob, Crazy Keller, Hook Jaw, The Sarge, Invasion 1984, Invasion (the unrelated 2000 AD strip), Mean Arena, The Fists of Jimmy Chang, The Dracula Files, Rogue Trooper, Future Shocks, Tharg the Mighty and much more…

All that imagination and experience are seen here, when Adam appears in ancient Atlantis: a dinosaur-infested paragon of human ingenuity and political depravity where a tyrannical queen and audacious space shot lead to the destruction of Earth’s first human civilisation…

Closing with biographies on the creators featured herein and ads for other British lost wonders Adam Eterno – Grunn the Grim is enthralling astonishment awaiting your gaze: a riotously rewarding rollercoaster ride to delight readers who like their protagonists dark and conflicted and their history in bite-sized bursts.
© 1971, 1972, & 2025 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1952 the last weekly instalment of Will Eisner’s Spirit Comics Section was published, whilst in 1974 the final Shiver and Shake entertained diehard UK readers.

In 1994, comics and animation giant Doug Wildey went to the final roundup. Remembered for Tarzan, The Saint newspaper strip and Jonny Quest, he’d prefer you read his elegiac westerns like Doug Wildey’s Rio: The Complete Saga.

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Predator vs Black Panther


By Benjamin Percy, Chris Allen, Sean Damien Hill, Lee Ferguson, Craig Yeung, Jonas Trindade, Erick Arciniega, VC’s Travis Lanham & various (20th Century Studios/ MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-6034-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Purely Perfect Irresistible Primal Pandering… 8/10

Although I’ve striven long and hard(ish) to validate and popularise comics as a true art form here and elsewhere, it’s quite hard to escape one’s roots, and every so often the urge to revel in well-made, all-out mindless violence and crass commercialism confidently assuming it is what the reader wants just takes me over. If there’s a similar little kid inside you, this unchallenging, no-brainer team-up property might just clear the palate for the next worthy treat I’ll be boosting…

Predator was first seen in the eponymous 1987 movie and started appearing in comic book extensions and continuations published by Dark Horse with the 4-issue miniseries Predator: Concrete Jungle spanning June 1989 to March 1990. It was followed by 39 further self-contained outings and (by my count thus far) 14 crossover clashes ranging from Batman and Superman to Judge Dredd, Archie Andrews and Tarzan, keeping the film franchise alive and kicking whilst actual movie iterations waxed and waned. We’ll no doubt be adjusting those figures soon enough, but two of the most recent involve stalwart comic stars with their own movie machismo: Wolverine and Black Panther…

The core premise started simply enough. For countless millennia a race of beings that prize hunting, trophy-taking and bragging rights/“honour” over all else have been using Earth – and by extension other worlds and civilisations – as private sports preserves. These “Yautja” – who prefer to stalk hotter climes – come to our world expressly to test themselves and to thrill to the heady rush of killing animals…

The Black Panther rules over a fantastic African paradise which isolated itself from the rest of the world millennia ago. Blessed with unimaginable resources – both natural and not so much – the nation of Wakanda developed unhindered by European imperialism into the most technologically advanced human nation on Earth. It has never been conquered, with the main reason being an unbroken line of divinely-sponsored warrior kings who safeguard the nation. The other is a certain miraculous super-mineral found nowhere else on Earth…

In contemporary times that chieftain is (usually) T’Challa: an unbeatable, physically perfect feline-empowered strategic genius dividing his time between ruling at home and serving abroad in superhero teams such as The Avengers and The Ultimates beside costumed champions like Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Thor, Captain Marvel and Captain America. However, in this version he’s a proud and defiant isolationist…

Acclaimed as the first black superhero in American 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 the summer of 1966. As originally created by Jack Kirby & Stan Lee T’Challa, son of T’Chaka was an African monarch whose secretive kingdom is the only source of vibration-absorbing wonder mineral Vibranium. The miraculous alien metal – derived from a fallen meteor which struck the continent in lost antiquity – is the basis of Wakanda’s immense power and prosperity, allowing the isolationist nation to become one of the wealthiest and most secretive on Earth. When T’Chaka was assassinated by white invader Ulysses Klaw, these riches enabled the young king to radically remake his country, even more so after leaving Africa to fight as an Avenger.

For much of its history Wakanda was a phantom, utopian wonderland with tribal resources and people safeguarded and led since time immemorial by a 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 Royal Family. The obsessively secured “Vibranium mound” guaranteed the nation’s status as a clandestine superpower for centuries, but recent times increasingly saw Wakanda a target of incursion, subversion and invasion as the world grew ever smaller. Here however, in a tale notionally removed from mainstream continuity T’Challa and his sister Princess Shuri discover the nation’s borders are not, nor ever have been totally secure…

Scripted by Bejamin Percy, this trans-galactic saga of families at war sees sibling rivalry lead to civil conflict in one of the dominant clans of the Yautja. One prince, physically far weaker than his brother and even missing a limb, survives only because his superior brother heaps further shame upon him, constantly proving to their sire how unworthy the weakling truly is.

A life of woe and degradation seems likely to end in inconceivable agony and shame, but the pariah pursues an ancient prize trophy: a sample of a wonder element dubbed “godmetal” that has utterly reshaped his prospects. The treasured token of a long-ago hunt, it comes from favoured preserve Earth where some of the indigenous prey have fabulously prospered and gained advantage from it. There, they call it Vibranium and he will have it…

Although they’re indisputably barbaric and revel in getting their clawed hands dirty, Yautja are an ancient galaxy-spanning species and the outcast instantly finds new ways to use the miracle metal. Escaping to Earth with his surviving faithful retainers he goes about securing the only known source of his salvation…

On Earth, Black Panther T’Challa bickers with smugly-superior Shuri during a live fire training exercise pitting his bodyguard Dora Milaje against male warrior elite the Hatut Zeraze and everybody against the King. Although good natured, the competition is fierce but everything changes when the renegade arrives and infiltrates. Deftly penetrating the country’s electronic and advanced energy defence shields screening Wakanda from the rest of humanity, the Yautja takes command of human mechanical systems and begins collecting trophies: not just skulls and spines of the greatest warriors in the region, but most crucially all the Vibranium and ordnance the prey have developed from it…

With Wakanda locked down and T’Challa hard-pressed just to survive. it’s a good thing Shuri never lost trust in the ancient mystical ways (or contact with extremely gifted spirit medium Maji Kina), and is, moreover, open to a surprise offer of assistance from visiting American superhero Sam Wilson, the high-flying high-tech Falcon…

As the alien renegade musters its newfound resources and Wakandans bloodily strive on, stubborn T’Challa consults his dead ancestors to learn how his grandfather Azzuri the Wise dealt with the last visitation before all the scattered human resistors convene to end the threat… if only for now…

Savage and bloody but with room for character moments and even gallows humour, the tale is visually detailed by Chris Allen, Sean Damien Hill, Lee Ferguson, Craig Yeung, Jonas Trindade and coloured by Erick Arciniega with letters by VC’s Travis Lanham. Ultimately, plot-wise there’s not much to this – and a good thing too as it would get in the way of the action…

Like the films, what’s on offer is a thinly disguised excuse for mindless, cathartic violence and rollercoaster thrills and chills, and it’s all accomplished with compelling style and dedication. Wild, grim, edgy and utterly entertaining, the original  4-part miniseries came with a variety of cover choices and capping the furious fun is an extended gallery with gory stories enshrined in single visual vistas of line, colour, paint & pixels, courtesy of Ken Lashley & Juan Fernandez – AKA Ledkilla, Edwin Galmon & Federico Blee, Chris Allen, Leinil Francis Yu & Romulo Fajardo Jr., Pete Woods, Philip Tan, Mark Morales & Frank Martin, Skottie Young, Doaly, Rahzzah, Rose Besch, Andrei Bressan & Ceci De La Cruz, Junggeun Yoon and Mateus Manhanini.

Hunt this down for simple fun and pure escapist shocks and shudders.
© 2025 20th Century Studios. Marvel, its characters and its logos are ™ Marvel Characters, Inc.

On this day in 1987 master raconteur screenwriter and occasional comics author Alfred Bester died. His visual feasts included lots of DC comics stars such as the first Green Lantern, and newspaper strips The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician. You should consider yourself an incomplete human if you haven’t read The Demolished Man, The Stars My Destination (aka Tiger, Tiger) and Who He?

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The Shadow 1941: Hitler’s Astrologer


By Dennis O’Neil, Michael William Kaluta & Russ Heath with Mike Kelleher, Mark Chiarello, Nick Jainschigg, John Wellington, Phil Felix & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-429-9 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Russ Heath would have been 99 years old today: a master comics craftsman so few have ever heard of. I don’t think there’s even a definitive collection or a signature title to his name. He did his job masterfully and always moved on, and remains almost practically unknown. The pages of Sgt Rock original art I own are among my most treasured possessions, and every baby boomer who read US comics knew his work because of this and others like it.

Russell Heath Jr. was born in New York City on September 29th 1926 and raised in New Jersey. Influenced by cowboy artist Will James and others, Heath was self-taught and fiercely diligent, demanding authenticity of himself in all his work. This helped him break into comic books while still at High School (episodes of naval strip Hammerhead Hawley for Captain Aero Comics beginning with vol. 2, #2 in September 1942).

Eager to serve his country, Heath left Montclair High School early in 1945 for the Air Force. Whilst in the military he contributed cartoons to the Camp newspaper before shipping out. When peace broke out, he worked briefly as an ad agency gofer until in 1947 he landed a regular job with Timely Comics. Now married, Heath started working from home, drawing Kid Colt and Two Gun Kid, offerings for the dwindling superhero market and sundry horror stories and covers. He hit an early peak in the 1950s, with a wealth of western and horror features as well as co-creating Marvel Boy, limning Venus and The Human Torch during the abortive attempt to revive superheroes in 1953, whilst mostly crafting crime and romance tales,

He branched out: trying his hand on EC’s Mad and Frontline Combat, 3D comics for St. John’s and earned a reputation for gritty veracity in war and straight adventure stories (such as Robin Hood and Golden Gladiator for DC’s The Brave and the Bold). Heath started contributing to DC’s war line in early 1954, with strips in Our Army at War #23 and Star Spangled War Stories #22. It was good fit and he spent the next 15 years working with writer/editor Robert Kanigher, with whom he co-created The Haunted Tank, Losers and Sea Devils. All along he remained a stalwart of anthological compact combat yarns, but increasingly guested on and eventually took over full time illustrating prestigious Sgt. Rock.

Infamously and unjustly, many of his panels were co-opted by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein as the basis of his paintings (specifically Whaam!, Blam, Okay Hot-Shot, Okay!, and Brattata). Heath’s other contributions to American pop culture include those iconic ads for toy soldiers and a stint on Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder’s ubiquitous Playboy satire strip Little Annie Fanny. Later landmarks include launching a new Lone Ranger newspaper strip with Cary Bates in 1981, and illustrating Michael Fleisher’s infamous Death of Jonah Hex story. Eventually he moved into animation and out to the west coast, but remained in contact with his comics roots, providing occasional returns on titles such as Planet of the Vampires, Mister Miracle, Ka-Zar, The Punisher, Shadowmasters, G.I. Joe and Immortal Iron Fist among others. Having been awarded almost every award going, Heath was in semi-retirement when he died on the 23rd August 2018.

Despite adoring all that apparently unhip war and western stuff, we’re being contrary as ever and highlighting something a little different, but as it’s a special occasion you might want to also track down Hearts and Minds: A Vietnam War Story please link to 29th August 2018. Not our review, the actual book. It’s a Lost Treasure…

Here and now though let’s pop back to the early 1930s, when The Shadow gave thrill-starved Americans their measured doses of extraordinary excitement via cheaply produced pulp periodical novels and over the mood-drenched airwaves via his own radio show. Like comics once upon a time, “Pulps” were published in every style and genre in their hundreds every month, ranging from the truly excellent to the pitifully dire, but for exotic or esoteric adventure-lovers there were two stars who outshone all others. The Superman of his day was Doc Savage, whilst the premier dark, relentless creature of the night dispensing terrifying grim justice was the putative hero featured here…

Radio series Detective Story Hour (based on stand-alone yarns from Street & Smith publication Detective Story Magazine) used a spooky-toned narrator (variously Orson Welles, James LaCurto or Frank Readick Jr.) to introduce each tale. He was dubbed “the Shadow” and from the very start on July 31st 1930 was more popular than the stories he related. The Shadow rapidly evolved into a hands-on hero, solving instead of sharing mysteries and, on April 1st 1931, started starring in his own printed adventures. These were written by astonishingly prolific Walter Gibson under house pseudonym Maxwell Grant. On September 26th 1937 the radio show officially became The Shadow with the eerie mantra “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of Men? The Shadow knows!” unforgettably ringing out over the airwaves.

Over the next 18 years 325 novels were published, usually at two a month. The creepy crusader spawned comic books, movies, a newspaper strip and all the merchandising paraphernalia you’d expect of a smash-hit superstar brand. The pulp series officially ended in 1949, although Gibson and others added to the canon during the 1960s when a pulp/fantasy revival gripped the world, generating reprinted classic yarns and a run of new stories as paperback novels. There are also new yarns turning up to this day…

In graphic terms The Shadow was a major player. His national newspaper strip by Vernon Greene launched on June 17th 1940, and when comic books really took off, the Man of Mystery had a four-colour title; running March 1940 to September 1949. Thanks to Robert Bernstein, Jerry Siegel, John Rosenberger & Paul Reinman, Archie Comics published a controversial contemporary reworking in 1964-1965 for their Radio/Mighty Comics imprint.

In 1973 DC acquired rights to produce a captivating, brief but definitive series of classic comics unlike any other superhero title then on the stands. DC periodically revived the venerable vigilante and after the runaway success of Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchman, Howard Chaykin was allowed to utterly overhaul the vintage feature for an audience finally recognised as grown-up enough to handle more sophisticated fare. This led to further, adult-oriented iterations and one cracking outing from Marvel before Dark Horse assumed the license of the quintessential grim avenger for the latter half of the 1990s and beyond.

Dynamite Entertainment secured that option in 2011 and, whilst reissuing much of those earlier efforts, began a series of new monthly Shadow comics. A year after Chaykin and DC catapulted The Shadow into the grim ‘n’ grungy contemporary consumer arena, the dream-team that had first returned him to comics prominence reunited for a larger-than-life grand romp, ably abetted by the inking skills of master artist Russ Heath.

In the early 1970s Denny O’Neil & Michael Kaluta had produced a superb series of adventures (collected as The Private Files of the Shadow plee link to January 19th 2009), set in the mad scientist/spy/gangster-ridden ‘thirties. When they reunited to produce a Marvel Graphic novel, expectations were high, and in many ways that complex, devious yarn was the final chapter of that astounding graphic procession. Dynamite’s 2013 re-release of Hitler’s Astrologer saw the entire affair re-mastered by Mike Kelleher, finally doing justice to the colouring of Mark Chiarello, Nick Jainschigg and John Wellington – as well as letterer Phil Felix – which had not fared well under Marvel’s production processes of that earlier time.

On Easter Sunday 1941 a beautiful woman is pursued through the teeming crowds of Times Square theatre-goers by sinister thugs until rescued in the nick of time by agents of The Shadow. She is Gretchen Baur, personally despatched to America by Josef Goebbels to gather astrological data for the Reich’s Ministry of Propaganda. However, now the confused fräulein cannot understand why agents of her own government have tried to abduct her… until The Shadow reveals that she is an unwitting pawn in a deadly battle for supremacy within the Nazi Party. It all revolves around her father, Der Führer’s personal astrologer…

And thus begins a tense, intricate conspiracy thriller ranging from the bloody streets of New York through the shell-pocked skies of Europe to the very steps of Hitler’s palace in Berlin, as a desperate plan to subvert the course of the war comes up hard against a twisted, thwarted love and a decades-long hunt for vengeance…

Deliciously deranged and suitably Wagnerian in style, this action-packed mystery drama exudes period charm. Nobody has ever realised The Shadow and his cohorts as well as Kaluta, whilst Russ Heath’s sleek mastery adds weight and volume to the cataclysmic proceedings.

This sinister saga of the man in the black slouch hat with the girasol ring is another superb addition to the annals of the original Dark Knight, and one no one addicted to action and mystery should miss.

The Shadow ® & © 2013 Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. ® ™ & © Conde Nast. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1916 was born Britain’s master of mordant wit Carl Giles. Last time we shared a laugh with him was Giles: the Collection 2014, whilst in 1947 underground legend Greg Irons first checked in. Our proudest moment is reviewing his outrageous The Wyf of Bath (The Wife of Bath) please link to March 9th 2018. Good luck finding that, but his other stuff is darn good too!

In 1988 utterly urbane arcane cartoonist Charles Addams went to his – or at least somebody’s – grave. You can check him out just by scrolling back to yesterday…

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Yoko Tsuno volume 20: The Gate of Souls


By Roger Leloup, coloured by Studio Leonardo & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-160-6 (Album PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

On September 24th 1970, “electronics engineer” Yoko Tsuno first began her troubleshooting career as an indomitable intellectual adventurer. Bon anniversaire, ma brave cherie!

Her debut in Le Journal de Spirou was realised in “Marcinelle style” cartoonish 8 page short ‘Hold-up en hi-fi’ and although she is still delighting readers and making new fans to this day, for a while it looked as if she wasn’t going anywhere soon. Thankfully, her astonishing, astoundingly accessible exploits were revised and she quickly evolved into a paragon of peril: helming a highpoint of pseudo-realistic fantasies numbering amongst the most intoxicating, absorbing and broad-ranging comics thrillers ever created. Her globe-girdling mystery cases and space-&-time-spanning epics are the brainchild of Belgian maestro Roger Leloup who launched his own solo career in 1953 whilst working as studio assistant/technical artist on Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin.

Compellingly told, sublimely imaginative and – no matter how implausible the premise of an individual yarn – always firmly grounded in hyper-authentic settings underpinned by solidly-constructed, unshakably believable technology and unswerving scientific principles, Leloup’s illustrated escapades were at the vanguard of a wave of strips revolutionising European comics. Early in the journey, he switched from loose illustration to a mesmerising, nigh-photo realistic style that is a series signature. The long-overdue sea-change in gender roles and stereotyping he led heralded a torrent of clever, competent, brave and formidable women protagonists taking their rightful places as heroic ideals and not romantic lures. That consequently elevated Continental comics in the process. Such endeavours are as engaging and empowering now as they ever were, none more so than the travails of masterful Miss Tsuno.

Her first outings (oft-aforementioned, STILL unavailable Hold-up en hi-fi, and co-sequels La belle et la bête and Cap 351) were introductory vignettes prior to epic authenticity taking a firm grip in 1971 when the unflappable problem solver met valiant but lesser (male) pals Pol Paris and Vic Van Steen. Instantly hitting her stride in premier full-length saga Le trio de l’étrange (in LJdS’s May 13th edition), from then on, Yoko’s efforts encompassed explosive exploits in exotic corners of our world, spy and crime capers, time-travelling jaunts and sinister deep-space sagas such as this one. There are 31 European bande dessinée albums to date, with 21 translated into English thus far, albeit – and ironically – none of them available in digital formats…

Initially serialised in LJdS #3033 to 3044, spanning May 29th to 14th August 1996, La Porte des âmes became Europe’s 21st collected Yoko Tsuno album at year’s end. Following chronologically from The Astrologer of Bruges, it returns our terrestrial troubleshooters to their friends in the sky with another momentous visit with the prodigiously reconstructing Vineans.

In a disturbingly philosophical, metaphysically-tinged caper the Earthlings – including Yoko’s adopted daughter Morning Dew and Mieke (Pol’s fiancée from the 16th century) – all toil in deep space beside the disaster-prone lethally pragmatic alien colonists with their most trusted ally when another echo from the distant past changes lives and destines once again.

Their constant guide and companion is Khany: the competent, commanding single mother who combines parenting her toddler Poky and the humans with saving worlds, leading her people, averting continual cosmic catastrophe and – with Yoko – recovering lost knowledge. Frequently that stems from attempts to restore a moral compass to those ancient survivors ruthlessly rebuilding their fallen civilisation and permanently undermining and gaslighting the upstarts who slept out the apocalypse on another planet. Progress is slow and regularly results in uncovered, long forgotten threats that might end the racial resurrection in flaming instants…

In their initial adventure together, Yoko, Vic and Pol had discovered an enclave of dormant aliens hibernating for eons in Earth’s depths. After saving the sleepers from robotic/AI subjugation, the humans occasionally helped the refugees (who had fled their planet two million years previously) to rebuild their lost sciences. Ultimately, the humans accompanied the Vineans on their return to their natal star system and (wrongly presumed) long-dead homeworld. In the years Vineans slept, primary civilisation collapsed, and the world they strive to reclaim is much changed, with isolated pockets of inhabitants evolved beyond recognition. As the re-migrants gradually restore a decadent, much-debased civilisation and culture, the human trio become regular guests and helpers against sabotage, political intrigue and simple skulduggery…

And as seen here, it’s not just people they must beware of…

On a previous visit Yoko had established a unique psychic link with ancient mech-intellect Queen Hegora: one granting her certain technophilic abilities. A later excursion saw her bonded with an equally antediluvian child-rearing toy robot. “Myna” and her kind were constant sentient companions to young children – until parents abruptly deemed them all too smart and dangerous, before subsequently banishing them to distant asteroid. Now that last relic is hastily consulted as another time-lost probe soars back into Vinean territory from out of history and the (currently) unknown…

A constant cause of contemporary strife is piecemeal rediscovery of ancient beings who have endured due to the Vinean practise of digitally encoding living persons into automatons. Now a space salvage effort is interrupted by a probe from the deep past, and the excited explorers confront the possibility of being able to finally penetrate the fabled mysteries of occluded and forbidden lost colony Ultima. Their actions precipitate shocking and tragic discoveries which expose the downside of immortality.

Deadly strife begins as the discoverers plunge down to the revealed world and find another survivor outpost divided into factions indulging in an unending war of technologies and philosophies. An imminent crash and collision makes allies of advance scout Yoko and a bold indigenous pilot named Litsy, and soon the human learns that here vassals are forced to carry the personalities of other deceased servants. Servitude is eternal with useful, knowledgeable “souls” digitally impressed upon successive bodies. All the lower orders can anticipate is forced reincarnation and losing themselves bit by bit to someone else’s soul’s past history…

In a society where biology and mechanisms are less valuable than knowledge and experience, the newcomers are soon caught up in a devilish scheme challenging and undermining the very nature and fine print definition of life on Ultima, as they expose a long unfolding plot by rebel Isora who currently inhabits a menial flying droid. She illicitly made copies of her soul before committing suicide and now she ruthlessly seeks to recover and reunite her fractured personalities in a fresh – and stolen – body. This is over and despite violent objections of its original occupier Ethera, and once morally-outraged Yoko fully grasps the complexities of the situation she is prepared to do whatever is necessary to end this ghastly refinement of intellectual slavery…

Ultimately, overwhelming institutionalised digital malevolence proves inadequate in the face of Yoko Tsuno’s passionate humanity, bold imagination and quick thinking, but her success comes at great cost and cannot truly be called a triumph. Moreover, as the weary explorers return to established Vinean borders, Isora delivers a chilling message revealing nothing is settled yet…

Blending rocket-paced action with shattering suspense and byzantine twists, this deviously twisted, terrifying plausible battle with bigotry is superbly mesmerising, proving once more how smarts and combat savvy are pointless without compassion. As always, the most potent asset of this edgy outer space dramas is its astonishingly authentic setting, as ever benefitting from Leloup’s diligent research and meticulous attention to detail.

The Gate of Souls is a magnificently tense all-action psycho- thriller, taut and compelling, and surely appealing as much to fans of blockbuster space opera as ordinary general purpose comic addicts.

Original edition © Dupuis, 1996 by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation © 2025 Cinebook Ltd.

Today in 1972, talented wee nipper Jock was born. You can remind yourself how good an artist he is by looking at Green Arrow Year One – The Deluxe Edition.

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Marvel Two-In-One Masterworks volume 8


By Tom DeFalco, David Anthony Kraft, Jan Strnad, John Byrne, Doug Moench, Ron Wilson, Alan Kupperberg, Chic Stone, Jim Mooney, Jon D’Agostino, “A. Sorted” & various (MARVEL)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Above all else, Marvel has always been about team-ups. The concept of an established star pairing, or battling (often both) with less well-selling company characters was not new when Marvel awarded their most popular hero the same deal DC had with Batman in The Brave and the Bold since the early 1960s. Although confident in their new title, they wisely left options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead in The Human Torch. In those distant days, editors were acutely conscious of potential over-exposure – and as superheroes were actually in a sales decline, they might well have been right.

Nevertheless, after the runaway success of Spider-Man’s guest vehicle Marvel Team-Up, the House of Ideas ran with the trend with a series starring bashful, blue-eyed Ben Grimm – the Fantastic Four’s most popular character. They began with a brace of test runs in Marvel Feature #11-12 before awarding him his own team-up title, with this 8th rousing & rowdy round-up gathering the contents of Marvel Two-In-One #83-93 covering January 1980 through November 1982.

Preceded by another comprehensive, informative contextual reverie via editor Jim Salicrup’s Introduction ‘It’s Introducin’ Time or Two Marvel Introductions in One!’, a late-running annual event anachronistically opens the fun. Although released in summer 1980, steadfast stalwarts Tom DeFalco, Ron Wilson & Chic Stone counter the perennial problem of team-up tales – a lack of continuity (something Marvel always prided itself upon) – by returning to an extended subplot.

Previously Bill (Giant-Man) Foster had entered the final stages of his lingering death from radiation exposure, before a combination of heroes and villains had found a potential solution. Their success leads here to supergenius Reed Richards taking over Foster’s treatment, resulting in the Thing heading north in #83 to ‘Where Stalks the Sasquatch!’

The most monstrous member of Alpha Flight is actually radiation researcher Dr. Walter Langkowski, but his impromptu medical consultation obliquely leads to the release of malign Native American spirit Ranark the Ravager and a Battle Royale which quickly escalates to include the entire team in ‘Cry for Beloved Canada!’

‘The Final Fate of Giant-Man!’ came in Marvel Two-In-One #85 wherein Spider-Woman joined the Thing to tackle Foster’s arch-nemesis Atom-Smasher, after which ‘Time Runs Like Sand!’ offered an astoundingly low key landmark as Ben and the sinister Sandman had a few bevvies in a bar and turned the felon’s life around. Also included was a short, sharp comedy vignette wherein Ben and godson Franklin Richards deal with a bored Impossible Man and his equally obnoxious kids in ‘Farewell, My Lummox!’…

When Ben is kidnapped in #87, the FF call in Ant-Man Scott Lang who helps our rocky rogue defeat a duplicitous queen in the ‘Menace of the Microworld!’ after which David Anthony Kraft & Alan Kupperberg join inker Chic Stone in detailing a ‘Disaster at Diablo Reactor!’, with Ben and the Savage She-Hulk countering the nefarious Negator’s plans to turn Los Angeles into a cloud of radioactive vapour…

They then pit Ben and gadfly buddy the Human Torch against deranged demagogues seeking to stamp out extremes of beauty, ugliness, weakness and strength in ‘The Last Word!’ before Jan Strnad, Kupperberg & Jim Mooney pit Spider-Man and big Ben against time-bending chaos in ‘Eyes of the Sorcerer’. A new extended epic opened as DeFalco, Wilson & Jon D’Agostino reveal what lurks in ‘In the Shadow of the Sphinx!’ When mystic master Doctor Strange asks the thing to investigate a vision of Egypt, the bold battler falls into the clutches of immortal wizard The Sphinx who obsessively seeks to recover his power-providing Ka-stone. On the voyage back home after beating the bad guy, Ben encounters robotic Avenger Jocasta, but not in time to stop her helplessly reviving Ultron who has foresightedly pre-programmed the benighted mechanoid in DeFalco, Wilson & “A. Sorted” inkers’ ‘This Evil Returning…!’

When handmade hero Machine Man and his human assistants insert themselves into the crisis, they unexpectedly score a narrow win, but not before ‘And One Shall Die…!’

Closing with an original art gallery featuring pages and covers by Wilson, Stone, Al Milgrom, Kupperberg, Mooney, & “A. Sorted”, this penultimate character cohort compendium is packed with simple, straightforward Fights ‘n’ Tights meet, greet & defeat episodes: entertaining and exciting with no hint of pretension and no need to swot up on superfluous backstory.

Even if artistically the work varies from only adequate to truly top-notch, most fans of Costumed Dramas will find little to complain about and there’s plenty of fun to be found for young and old readers. So why not lower your critical guard and have an honest blast of pure warts-and-all comics craziness? You’ll almost certainly grow to like it…
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1938 Jean-Claude Mézières was born. Have you seen his Valerian: The Complete Collection volume 1?

In 1956, the much-missed Peter David arrived. If you check out Star Trek Classics volume 5: Who Killed Captain Kirk? you’ll see that he left us far too soon.

Today in 1967 IPC (International Publishing Company) launched upscale UK girls comic Princess Tina.

Crucially, today is my 30-somethingth wedding anniversary. Hah! Can’t call me forgetful anymore! Rather surprised “Hi!” to anybody at the ceremony who is still alive after the last 36 years!

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The Legend of Lord Snooty and His Pals – 60 Years of Classic Cartoon Art


By Dudley D. Watkins, with Albert Holroyd, Roy Nixon, Ken Harrison & various (DC Thomson & Co)
ISBN: 978-0-85116-691-9 (tabloid HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

To commemorate Dudley D. Watkins death on August 20th 1969, I ordered some physical books rather than the digital editions I favour. In an ironic tribute to the great man and Grand British comedic traditions, said items failed to arrive on time for the scheduled tribute on that anniversary. So, here’s one of them that finally turned up and can now consequently be shared with you all. That’s egalitarianism, that is…

As an odd adjunct of being a nation perpetually embroiled in class struggle, Britain has found countless ways to apologize and humanise its blue-blooded oppressors. Here’s one of the most successful: a masterpiece of charming fraternity that undermines any anti-privilege message even as it delights and subverts. But which side is our star on, and does it even matter in the end?

Designed and mostly written by Watkins (1907-1969), and debuting in the very first issue of The Beano on 30th July 1938, the only decent posh boy this country ever produced is Marmaduke, Earl of Bunkerton: a bred-in-the-bone blue-blooded subversive and instinctive rebel anarchist… who could never decide which side of the class war and divide he and his ever-evolving pals were actually on.

Clad in Eton school uniform complete with top hat and umbrella, the little lord loathed the pointless tedium of his grand estate and constant pressure of his impending position and status. Thus, at every opportunity he bunked off, dodging pitiless and so-proper Aunt Matilda (who gradually mellowed into genteelly eccentric “Aunt Mat”) and the haughty, stiff-necked and smugly snobbish Bunkerton Castle staff to cavort and revel with the poor waifs from Ash Can Council School – thus dubbed “The Ash Can Alley kids”. Marmaduke even disguised himself as one of them to indulge in his wayward capers, and fully embraced and leaned into their barbed nickname for him – “Lord Snooty”.

Oh, what Larks!! It was like an Edwardian novel of swopped lives or The Prince and the Pauper played for laughs, with this lovable, amiable toff strongly on the side of the savvy proletariat. However, although he just wanted to have fun, there were always dangerous and unwelcome poor kids to fight in the insalubrious form of the bullies of the Gasworks Gang…

The early days saw the kids mostly dodging onerous duties, tutorial tribulations and posh expectations – although everybody from every societal stratum seemed to have problems with the police force, which was depicted as officious, interfering, venal and spiteful – and usually cast as true villains…

‘The Legend of Lord Snooty and His Pals…’ opens our itinerary introducing the players and offering early exploits.

In those heady days before September 1939 (plentifully sampled here, albeit in lightly edited visual terms to cater for modern sensibilities) beginning with the very first episode, Snooty’s chums consisted of Rosie, Skinny Lizzie, Hairpin Huggins, Happy Hutton, Scrapper Smith, and Gertie the Goat, latterly joined by eternal devil-toddlers in romper suits Snitch & Snatch who arrived in Beano #18. Their amalgamated exploits included: dodging school; pinching grub; taunting the police; rushing about in goat-karts (not a misspelling!); playing cricket and football; circuses & wild animals; foiling burglars & bandits; huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’; ruining banquets and wearing the wrong clothes and enjoying/surviving the inventions of castle inventor Professor Screwtop (introduced in Beano #40, April 29th 1939). However, just as everywhere else, once World War II began, Snooty & Co were drafted…

Followed by selection of strips crafted prior to the declaration of hostilities, ‘The War Years’ delivers a potent and wildly weird sampling of how kids adapted to the crisis – albeit filtered through their adult creators’ sensibilities. After war broke out, the call for morale boosting triggered a wave of delirious and passionate fantasy yarns. As well as cops & robbers, featuring an ever-more officious police force, the anarchistic kids had countless pompous asses and ninnies of the officer classes plus Home Guards & Air Raid Wardens trying to push them around. These were almost more trouble than the nigh-infinite cadre of spies and saboteurs and the entire Nazi Wehrmacht who episodically get what they deserved in an escalating war of nerves and nonsense with the kids. As the conflict proceeded, Snooty and his pint-sized allies even made it to Hitler & Goering’s personal hit list: frequently embarrassing when not actually slapping around the Nasty Nazi nincompoops with no appreciable repercussions. This was wish-fulfilment kid power at its most delightful…

A big bunch of these strips make up a majority of this book and show Watkins at his most imaginative. A tireless and prolific illustrator equally adept at comedy, adventure, educational and drama storytelling, his style more than any other’s shaped the postwar look and form of Scottish publishing giant DC Thompson’s comics output.

He started life in Manchester and Nottingham as an artistic prodigy prior to entering Glasgow College of Art in 1924. Before long he was advised to get a job at expanding, Dundee-based DCT, where his 6-month trial illustrating prose boys’ paper stories led to comic strip specials and some original cartoon creations. Percy Vere and His Trying Tricks and Wandering Willie, The Wily Explorer made him the only contender for both lead strips in a bold new project conceived by Robert Duncan Low (1895-1980). Managing Editor of Children’s Publication and between 1921 and 1933, Low launched the company’s “Big Five” story papers for boys: Adventure, The Rover, The Wizard, The Skipper and The Hotspur. In 1936, he created the “Fun Section”: a landmark 8-page comic strip supplement for national newspaper The Sunday Post. This illustrated accessory – prototype and blueprint for every comic the company subsequently released – was launched on 8th March. From the outset The Broons and Oor Wullie were the uncontested headliners… and were both illustrated by Watkins. The other features included Chic Gordon’s Auchentogle, Allan Morley’s Nero and Zero, Nosey Parker and others. These pioneering comics laid the groundwork for the company’s next great leap. In December, 1937 Low launched DC Thomson’s first weekly all-picture strip comic, The Dandy; with The Beano Comic arriving in 1938…

Low’s irresistible secret weapon in all of these ventures was Watkins. The indefatigable cartoon stalwart drew the Fun Section signature strips The Broons and Oor Wullie from the outset and, without missing a beat, added Desperate Dan in The Dandy to his weekly workload. Seven months later, placidly outrageous social satire Lord Snooty became a big draw for freshly launched companion paper The Beano.

These war stories are interspersed with selections of colour “pic & text” stories taken from postwar annuals (‘1960s Beano Book Picture Book strip’ and ‘Beano Book 1956 Picture Book strip modified version’) somewhat chronologically undercutting the impact of Snooty’s next big adjustment. After the war, the feature was paused and retooled. Lord Snooty was dropped with #367 (30th October, 1948) and only returned in December 1950. However, #440 introduced a new supporting cast, partially comprised of past Beano stars in need of a fresh gig. This crowd included hulking Joe (initially star of Big Fat Joe who was cancelled in #35), Liz (ex-Swanky, Lanky Liz who ran from #336-368), Thomas (Doubting Thomas #90-174), Polly and her dog (originally Polly Wolly Doodle and Her Great Big Poodle, in #286-306) and Mary (Contrary Mary who graced Beano #1-97, and even had a side gig as Neddy the Cuddy in The People’s Journal), who all joined Marmaduke and inexplicably popular gremlins Snitch & Snatch. The scattering of strips from 1946 to the pause & revamp garnish informative feature ‘Out With the Old…’ which reviews strips of absorbed and failed solo stars Big Fat Joe, Doubting Thomas and Swanky Lanky Liz in their primes, and celebrates the debuts of later Snooty fill-in and replacement artists Albert Holroyd, Roy Nixon and Ken Harrison on the aristocratic anarchist trail. Then a section of ‘Fifties strips’ observe modernity and loss of empire in smart, witty strips about Christmas, prefab houses, public transport, April Fool’s stunts, homelessness, penury and death duties, rationing, recycling and animals, lots & lots of animals. Finally, ‘Sixties strips’ sees Watkins and his aides investigate increased prosperity, theft, fraud & mis-selling, shopping, the weather, Screwtop’s inventions, entertainment, proper food, etiquette and social mobility and the proper use of cannon fire…

This titanic tome terminates in a wash of colour as Watkins highlights the twins in a strip from an unspecified annual before modern juvenile paragon of protest and advocate of anarchy Dennis the Menace gets in on the act, with strip ‘Me Too, Lord Dennis’ as the ferocious little lout tries out the old ermines and privileged attitude…

This stunning and luxurious hardback commemorative celebration is exuberantly joyous in tracing one of comics most bizarre and seditious stars and is a strong – almost overwhelming – argument for a bigger and more comprehensive curated collection. Conversely it’s also a huge cartoon chronicle stuffed with strips that will make you collapse in mirth. Probably both. At least you don’t have to pick a side but just buy a book…
© D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd 1998.

On this day in 1960, Daredevil: Born Again illustrator David Mazzucchelli was born.

15 years after that Blankets author Craig Thompson also entered the world.

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Superman: Phantom Zone


By Steve Gerber, Gene Colan, Rick Veitch, Tony DeZuñiga & Bob Smith (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4051-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Today would have been Steve Gerber’s 78th birthday. For no appreciable reason, he would have found that to be quite funny. You should go read more comics by him. Here’s some many people don’t immediately think of when listing his so-many sublime star turns…

Once upon a time for fans and comics creators alike continuity could be a harsh mistress. When maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for made-up worlds we inhabited was paramount, the greatest casualty of semi-regular reboots and sweeping changes, often meant some terrific tales suddenly never happened. Everything goes now of course, thanks to parallel world-ery, but way back whenever, it was a most painful time for me…

Many examples of this wholesale binning of entire charm-drenched mythologies happened but the convergent growth of graphic novels fortunately provided a sanctuary of sorts, such as this paean of pictorial praise for the mythology had evolved around Superman in the wonder years between 1948 and 1986.

Thankfully DC has always understood that a good story is worth cherishing. This slim, trim spectral selection gathers superb 4-issue miniseries The Phantom Zone (originally appearing from January to April 1982) and includes the very last pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Zone yarn as first seen in DC Comics Presents #97 (September 1986). It also simultaneously celebrates the stylish and enthralling scripting of unique comics voice Steve Gerber and his most ardent collaborator Gene (Howard the Duck, Stewart the Rat) Colan.

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

This riotous recapitulation of all that lost Man of Tomorrow ficto-history begins in ‘The Haunting of Charlie Kweskill!’ as the eponymous Daily Planet paste-up artist collapses at work. The solitary little dweeb has been sleeping badly, plagued by nightmares of a life on long-gone planet Krypton. His dreams detail how brilliant scientist Jor-El devised a non-lethal way to deal with Krypton’s most incorrigible criminals: human monsters such as Jax-Ur, Professor Va-Kox, Dr. Xadu, sadistic psycho-killer Faora Hu-Ul, potential dictator General Dru-Zod, and even Jor’s own bad & crazy cousin Kru-El…

Many lesser menaces like psionic aberrants Az-Rel and Nadira were also banished to the misty twilit realm, as well as stranger outcasts like callous biological experimenter Nam-Ek, but the one who most catches Charlie’s attention is fraudster Quex-Ul; a Kryptonian who appears to be Charlie’s doppelganger…

Of course, the dreams are all true: telepathic broadcasts beamed at Charlie by Zone inmates from within the plane of timeless intangibility. Quex-Ul had been one of them, surviving long after Krypton died, but was innocent of his crimes. He had been framed and mind-controlled by a mastermind who had deservedly perished when the Red Sun world detonated. Once Superman corrected the injustice and released the poor dupe, Qwex-Ul had saved the Man of Steel from a Gold Kryptonite trap, thereby losing his inherent Kryptonian abilities and memory in the process. The grateful, heartsick Action Ace had found the amnesiac a job at the Planet and almost forgot his alien origins in the years since. Charlie’s former fellow inmates had not…

Their telepathic onslaught turns Kweskill into a somnambulistic slave, unknowingly spending his nights breaking into labs and stealing high-tech components. Superman, slowly putting the puzzle pieces together, is just too late to thwart the stealthy scheme, and as he bursts into Charlie’s apartment a hastily cobbled together Phantom Zone projector hurls him and the hapless mind-slave into the ghostly region, whilst simultaneously freeing a legion of the cruellest and most bored criminals in existence…

The saga expands with ‘Earth Under Siege!’ as Superman and Charlie helplessly watch Zod, Jax-Ur, Va-Kox, Faora and Kru-El immediately undertake the next stage of their plan, leaving passively nihilistic Az-Rel and Nadira to negligently torture monstrous Nam-Ek with their psychic talents when not mocking the ranting liturgies of religious zealot Jer-Em, whose manic bigotry and fundamentalist isolationism caused the death of every person in Argo City…

Superman’s cousin Kara Zor-El had been born on the city-sized fragment of Krypton, hurled intact into space when the doomed world detonated. Eventually, Argo turned to Green Kryptonite like most of Krypton’s detonated debris, and her dying parents, observing Earth through their scopes, sent their daughter to safety as they perished. On Earth, the teenager met the Man of Steel who created for her the identities of Linda Lee and Supergirl, concealing her from the wider world whilst she learned all about her new home… and how to use her astounding new abilities in secrecy and safety.

As the emotionally disconnected, disaffected and doubly alienated youths laconically saunter through Metropolis; casually slaughtering cops and citizens, Zod’s more motivated cronies have reached Superman’s Fortress of Solitude and destroyed the only means of returning them to their extra-dimensional dungeon.

The next move is attacking the Justice League satellite, hurling it and occupants Flash, Red Tornado, Zatanna, Black Canary, Elongated Man, Firestorm & Aquaman on a non-stop trajectory out of the Solar System. Rampant Kryptonians destroy Earth’s communications satellites and trigger a mass launch of nuclear missiles, leaving Wonder Woman and Supergirl to narrowly avert atomic Armageddon whilst the frantic Man of Tomorrow can only watch in horror…

Not every Zone inhabitant is a criminal. For instance, Daxamite Mon-El was exposed to common lead in ‘Superboy’s Big Brother’ (by Robert Bernstein & Papp in June 1961’s Superboy #89) when his lingering, inexorable death was only forestalled by depositing the dying alien in the Zone until a cure could be found. Now, as Green Lantern faces the Zod Squad on Earth only to be soundly beaten and have his Power Battery stolen, Mon-El informs Charlie and Superman of a possible back way out of the realm of hellish nullity…

On Earth, as Wonder Woman subdues Nam-Ek, Supergirl checks in with Batman, desperately trying to ascertain where Superman has gone. As the Dark Knight heads to Metropolis to investigate, Kara returns to the Fortress and is ambushed by Kryptonian escapees and beaten near to death…

With no other choice, Charlie and Superman reluctantly pass through a dimensional portal even the obsessed villains were too scared to risk, encountering surreal madness in ‘The Terror Beyond Twilight!’…

Back in the physical world of touch and time, Supergirl saves herself from ghastly atomic disintegration as Charlie and Superman pass through stormy turbulence and a tedious waiting-room-realm before arriving on a peculiar plane where they are confronted by luscious sirens with impossible riddles and exploding heads. Their narrow escape from the Priestesses of the Crimson Sun only leads to Kryptonian wizard Thul-Kar who magicked himself into the Zone in ages past and now slavishly serves an erratic, malevolent sentient universe named Aethyr. It wants to consume Charlie and Superman but only by passing through it can they reach the physical world again…

On Earth, chaos reigns. Batman is utterly unable to pacify extremist Jer-Em, who deems the planet impure, unclean and unholy. He would rather die than soil his Kryptonian purity here.

… And high above the world, other freed villains have their own plan to fix the situation: a gigantic Phantom Zone Cannon to inexorably and eternally banish Earth into the twilight dimension in the course of one full rotation…

The drama comes to a tragic conclusion in ‘The Phantom Planet!’ as Az-Rel and Nadira, having found kindred spirits amongst Metropolis’ disenfranchised Punk Rock counterculture – before killing them – encounter Jer-Em in martyr mode. The now-suicidal cleric is quite keen on taking the rest of the apostate Kryptonians with him…

As the world turns into intangibility, in France, Faora has briefly resumed her passion for murdering males (before they’re all gone) whilst in Aethyr’s universe an appalling sacrifice enables Superman to return to physicality just in time to lead a last desperate charge, saving the day and putting the villains back where they belong… those still alive, that is…

The remainder of this fantastic collection recounts the tying up of all those intriguing concepts and loose ends in a spectacular sidebar to the end of DC’s original universe.

In 1986 the company celebrated its 50th year with groundbreaking Crisis on Infinite Earths: radically overhauling a convoluted multiversal continuity and starting afresh. All Superman titles were cancelled or suspended pending a back-to-basics reboot courtesy of John Byrne, allowing for a number of very special farewells to the old mythology. One of the most intriguing and challenging came in the last issue of DC Comics Presents (#97) wherein ‘Phantom Zone: the Final Chapter’ by Gerber, Rick Veitch & Bob Smith offered a creepy adieu to a number of Superman’s greatest foes.

Tracing Jor-El’s discovery of the Phantom Zone through to imminent multiversal annihilation, this dark yarn built on Gerber’s landmark miniseries and revealed that the dread region of nothingness was in fact a sentient echo of a dead universe which had always regarded the creatures deposited within it as irritants and agonising intruders.

Now as cosmic carnage reigns Aethyr, still served by Kryptonian mage Thul-Kar, causes the destruction of the Bizarro World “Htrae” and the deification/corruption of Fifth Dimensional pest Mr. Mxyzptlk, as well as the subsequent crashing of Argo City on Metropolis. As a result Zod and fellow immaterial inmates are freed to wreak havoc upon Earth – but only until the now-crystalline pocket dimension merges with and absorbs the felons, before implausibly abandoning Superman to face his uncertain future as the very Last Son of Krypton…

Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence and Gerber’s takes on these timeless tales of charm, joy and wholesome wit are unique and more necessary than ever: not just as a reminder of great tales of the past but as an all-ages primer of wonders still to come…
© 1982, 1986, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Sea Devils volume 1


By Robert Kanigher, Bob Haney, France E. Herron, Hank P. Chapman, Russ Heath, Irv Novick, Joe Kubert, Gene Colan, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Jack Abel, Bruno Premiani, Sheldon Moldoff, Howard Purcel & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3522-2

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Robert Kanigher (18th June 1915 – 7th May 2002) was one of the most distinctive authorial voices in US comics, blending rugged realism with fantastic fantasy and outrageous imagination in his signature war comics, as well as for the wealth of horror stories, romance yarns, “straight” adventure, westerns and superhero titles such as Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, Hawkman, Metal Men, Flash, Batman (plus other characters and genres far too numerous to cover here) at which he also excelled.

He sold his first stories and poetry in 1932, wrote for theatre, film and radio, and joined Fox Features’ “shop” at the beginning of the comic book phenomenon where he created The Bouncer, Steel Sterling and The Web, whilst providing scripts for established features like Blue Beetle and Captain Marvel (who we all call “Shazam!” these days). In 1945 he settled at All-American Comics as both writer & editor, staying put when the company amalgamated with National Comics to become the forerunner of today’s DC.

Bob wrote the Golden Age Flash and Hawkman, created Black Canary and many more sexily memorable villainesses such as Harlequin and (Rose and) the Thorn. This last temptress he redesigned in the early 1970s relevancy period: originating a schizophrenic crimebusting superheroine to haunt the back of Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane – which he also scripted at the time.

When mystery-men faded at the end of the 1940s, Kanigher moved easily into other genres like spy thrillers, westerns and war stories. In 1952 he became chief writer/editor of the company’s combat line: All-American War Stories, Star Spangled War Stories and Our Army at War. He launched Our Fighting Forces in 1954 and added G.I. Combat to his packed portfolio when Quality Comics sold their dwindling line of titles to National/DC in 1956. A year earlier, Kanigher had devised historical adventure anthology The Brave and the Bold and its stalwart stars Silent Knight, Golden Gladiator and Viking Prince whilst still scripting Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, Rex the Wonder Dog and a host of others.

In 1956, for Julius Schwartz he scripted ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’: the first story of the Silver Age, introducing new Flash Barry Allen to hero-hungry kids of the world.

Kanigher was restlessly creative, frequently using his uncanny if formulaic action arenas as a testing ground for future series concepts. Among the many epochal war features he created were Sgt. Rock, Enemy Ace, The War that Time Forgot, The Haunted Tank and The Losers. However, he always kept an eye on contemporary trends too. When supernatural comics took over the industry as the 1960s closed, he was a mainstay at House of Mystery, House of Secrets and Phantom Stranger. In 1975 he created gritty human interest crime feature Lady Cop. Fifteen years earlier he had caught a similar wave (Oh, ha ha, hee hee…) by cashing in on the popularity of TV show Sea Hunt. His entry into a sudden subgenre deluge of scuba-diver comics featured the traditional contemporary adventure formula of a heroic quartet (Smart Guy, Tough Guy, Young Guy and A Girl) to indulge in all manner of (undersea) escapades from logical to implausible, topical to fantastical. He dubbed his team The Sea Devils…

These classy yarns still haven’t made it into modern full-colour editions but they are magnificent examples of comics storytelling, and if you have to read these lost treasures in mere monochrome, at least that’s better than nothing…

Re-presenting the turbulent, terrific try-out stories from Showcase #27-29 (July/August to November/December 1960) and Sea Devils #1-16 – spanning cover-dates September/October 1961 – March/April 1964 – this mammoth black-&-white paperback blends bizarre fantasy, sinister spy stories, shocking science fiction and two-fisted aquatic action with larger-than-life yet strictly human heroes who carved their own unique niche in comics history…

In almost every conceivable way, “try-out title” Showcase created the Silver Age of US comic books and is responsible for the multi-million-dollar industry and art form we all enjoy today. The comic book was a printed periodical Petri dish designed to launch new series and concepts with minimal commitment of publishing resources. If a new character sold well initially a regular series would follow. The process had been proved with Frogmen, Lois Lane, Challengers of the Unknown, The Flash, Green Lantern and many, many more. The principle was a sound one which paid huge dividends. Editors at National were apparently bombarded with readers’ suggestions for new titles and concepts and the only possible way to feasibly prove which would be popular was to offer test runs and assess fan – and most crucially sales – reactions.

Showcase #27 followed a particularly fruitful run of successful non-superhero debuts including Space Ranger, Adam Strange and Rip Hunter…Time Master. At a time when costumed characters seemed unstoppably ascendant, memories of genre implosions remained fresh, but it seemed the premiering publication could do no wrong. Moreover, it wasn’t Kanigher and illustrator Russ Heath’s first dip in this particular pool. Showcase #3 had launched war feature The Frogmen in an extended single tale following candidates for a WWII US Underwater Demolitions Team as they perilously graduated from students to fully-fledged underwater warriors. The feature, if not the actual characters, became a semi-regular strip in All-American Men of War #44 (April #1957) and other Kanigher-edited war comics: making Frogmen the first success of the try-out system. Now, with tales of underwater action appearing in comics, books, film and TV, the time was right for a civilian iteration to make some waves…

The drama here begins in Kanigher & Heath’s ‘The Golden Monster’ as lonely skin-diver Dane Dorrance reminisces about his WWII frogman father and that senior’s trusty buddies before being saved from a sneaky shark by a mysterious golden-haired scuba-girl. Judy Walton is an aspiring actress who, seeking to raise her Hollywood profile, has entered the same underwater treasure hunt Dane is engaged in, but as they join forces, they have no idea of the dangers awaiting them…

Locating the sunken galleon they’ve been hunting, both are trapped when seismic shifts and a gigantic octopus bury them inside the derelict. Happily, hulking third contestant Biff Bailey is on hand and his tremendous strength tips the scales and allows the trio to escape. Now things take a typical Kanigher twist as the action switches from tense realistic drama to riotous fantasy, with the explosive awakening of a colossal reptilian sea-monster who chases the divers until Judy’s little brother Nicky races in to distract the beast…

Temporarily safe, the relative strangers unite to destroy the thing – with the help of a handy floating mine left over from the war – before deciding to form a professional freelance diving team. They take their name from the proposed movie Judy wanted to audition for, becoming forever “The Sea Devils”. In Showcase #28 Dane’s dad again offers his boy ‘The Prize Flippers’ papa won for war exploits, but Dane feels his entire team should be allowed to compete for them. Of course, each diver successively outdoes the rest, but in the end a spectacular stunt with a rampaging whale leaves the trophy in the hands of a most unlikely competitor…

A second story sees the new team set up shop as “underwater trouble-shooters” and stumbling into a mystery as pretty Mona Moray begs them to find her missing dad. Professor Moray was lost when his rocket crashed into the ocean, but as our scuba stalwarts diligently search the crash site, they are ambushed by underwater aborigines and join the scientist in an uncanny ‘Undersea Prison’. Only when their captors reveal themselves as invading aliens do the team finally pull together, escape the trap and bring the house down on the insidious aquatic horrors.

Showcase #29 also offered a brace of briny tales, casting off with ‘The Last Dive of the Sea Devils’, wherein a recently-imprisoned dictator from Venus escapes to Earth and battles the astounded team to a standstill from his giant war-seahorse. The blockbusting bust-up costs them their beloved vessel The Sea Witch, before the crew make use of a handy leftover torpedo to end the interplanetary tyrant. Sea-born giants also abound in ‘Undersea Scavenger Hunt’ wherein the cash-strapped troubleshooters compete in a contest to win a new boat. Incredible creatures and fantastic treasure traps are no real problem, but the actions of rival divers The Black Mantas almost cost our heroes their lives…

Everything works out though, and nine months later Sea Devils #1 hit the stands with Kanigher & Heath leading the way. In ‘The Sea Devils vs. the Octopus Man’ our watery quartet are now stars of a monster movie, but when the lead beastie comes to lethal life and attacks them, all thoughts of fame and wealth sink without trace. The second tale was scripted by superbly inventive Bob Haney who riffed on Moby Dick’s plot in a tale of how Vikings hunted a mythical orca with a magic harpoon, before latter-day fanatical whaler Captain Shark mercilessly seeks out the ‘Secret of the Emerald Whale’ with our desperate Devils dragged along for the ride…

Haney wrote both yarns in the next issue, beginning with ‘A Bottleful of Sea Devils’ as mad scientist Mr. Neptune employs a shrinking device to steal a US Navy weapon prototype. With the aquatic investigators hard on his flippered heels, the felon is soon caught, after which ‘Star of the Sea’ introduces implausibly brilliant performing seal Pappy who repeatedly saves the sea squad before finding freedom and true love in the wild waters of the Atlantic. Kanigher returned for #3’s ‘Underwater Crime Wave’ as the Devils clashed with a modern Roman Emperor who derives incredible wealth from smuggling and traps the team in his undersea arena. Judy then finds herself the only one immune to the allure of ‘The Ghost of the Deep’ as subsea siren Circe makes the boys her latest playthings with her mortal rival compelled to pull out all the stops to save her friends…

Sea Devils #4 led with ‘The Sea of Sorcery’ as the team investigate – but fail to debunk – incredible myths of a supposedly haunted region of ocean, after which Haney details how the squad travel into the heart of South America to liberate a tribe of lost, pre-Columbian Condor Indians from a tyrannical witch doctor to solve ‘The Secret of Volcano Lake!’ Then ‘The Creature Who Stole the 7 Seas’ (Kanigher) opens SD #5 as a particularly dry period for the troubleshooters ends with a crashing UFO disgorging a sea giant intent on transferring Earth’s oceans to his own arid world. Oddly for the times, here mutual cooperation and a smart counter-plan save the day for two panicked planets.

Veteran writer Hank P. Chapman joined an ever-expanding team with a smart yarn of submerged Mayan treasure and deadly traps imperilling the team whilst solving the ‘Secret of the Plumed Serpent’, before Kanigher comes back with a book-length thriller for #6 and the Devils seemingly ensorcelled by ancient parchments which depict them battling incredible menaces in centuries past. Biff battles undersea knights for Queen Cleopatra, Judy saves Ulysses from Sirens, Nicky rescues a teenage mermaid from a monstrous fishman and Dane clashes with ‘The Flame-Headed Watchman!’, but is wise enough to realise the true threat comes from the mysterious stranger who has brought them such dire documents…

The switch to longer epics was wise and productive, followed up in #7 with ‘The Human Tidal Wave!’ as the heroes spectacularly battle an alien made of roaring water to stop a proposed invasion, whilst SD #8 sees them strive to help a fish transformed into a grieving merman by the ‘Curse of Neptune’s Giant!’ The malignant horror’s mutative touch briefly makes monsters of the heroes too, but ultimately Sea Devil daring trumps eldritch cruelty…

More monster madness followed in #9’s ‘The Secret of the Coral Creature!’ as the team become paragliding US Naval medics to rescue an astronaut. That’s mere prelude to the oceanic atomic bomb test which blasts them to a sea beneath the sea that imprisons an ancient alien for eons of crushing solitude, and who had no intention of ever letting the newly-arrived air-breathers go…

A concatenation of crazy circumstances creates the manic madness of #10’s ‘4 Mysteries of the Sea!’ as godly King Neptune decrees that on this day every wild story of the sea will come true, just as the Sea Devils are competing in a “Deep Six Tall Tales” contest. Soon the incredulous squad are battling pirates in an underwater ghost town, rescued from captivity by a giant octopus thanks to a friendly seal (Good old Pappy!), facing off against aliens of the Martian Canals Liars Club and saving Neptune himself from a depth-charge attack…

The hugely underrated Irv Novick took over as primary illustrator with #11, as the Devils agree to test human underwater endurance limits in an ocean-floor habitat. Soon, however, Dane is near breaking point, seeing a succession of monsters from the ‘Sea of Nightmares!’

Kanigher then relinquished writing to fellow golden age alumnus France E. Herron, who kicked off in rip-roaring form with a classy sci fi romp. Here Nicky’s growing feelings of inadequacy are quashed after he saves his comrades – and the world – from the ‘Threat of the Magnetic Menace!’

Always experimental and rightfully disrespectful of the fourth wall, editors Kanigher and George Kashdan turned issue #13 over to the fans for ‘The Secrets of 3 Sunken Ships’, as successive chapters of Herron’s script were illustrated by Joe Kubert (whose 99th birthday would be today if he was still with us), Gene Colan and Ross Andru & Mike Esposito for the audience to judge who was the best. The artists all appear in-world, conducting interviews and researching our heroes as they tackle a reincarnated sea captain, travel to an ancient sea battle between Greece and Persia and meet the alien who kidnapped the crew of the Marie Celeste! The gag continued in Sea Devils #14 as illustrator Novick comes along for the ride when the amazing aquanauts try to end the catastrophic ‘War of the Underwater Giants’ This finds aging deities Neptune and Hercules clashing for supremacy in Earth’s oceans.

Jack Abel was artistic substitute in supplementary yarn ‘Challenge of the Fish Champions!’, as our heroes enter a cash prize competition to buy scuba equipment for a junior diving club. Unfortunately, crazy devious scientist Karpas also wants the loot and so fields a team of his own technologically augmented minions. Before long, the human skindivers are facing off against a sea lion, a manta ray, a squid and a merman. Nobody specified contestants had to be human…

Novick got back into the act illustrating #15 as author Herron revealed Judy & Nicky’s relationship to the ‘Secret of the Sunken Sub!’ When inventor Professor Walton vanishes whilst testing his latest submersible, it’s only a matter of time before his children drag the rest of the Sea Devils to the bottom of every ocean to find him and his lost crew. The uncanny trail takes them through shoals of monsters, astounding flora and into the lair of an incredible sea spider before the mission is successfully accomplished…

Events regained a semblance of narrative normality with the final issue in this compilation with Chapman contributing two high adventure yarns beginning with ‘The Strange Reign of Queen Judy and King Biff’, superbly rendered by the wonderful Bruno Premiani & Sheldon Moldoff. When a massive wave capsizes the Sea Witch, only Dane & Nicky seemingly survive, but the determined explorers persevere, eventually finding their friends as bewitched captives on the island of an immortal wizard. All they have to do is kidnap their ferociously resisting comrades, escape an army of angry guards and penetrate the island’s mystic defences a second time to restore everything to normal. No problem…

This eccentric and exciting voyage of discovery concludes with ‘Sentinel of the Golden Head’ – illustrated by always impressive Howard Purcell & Moldoff – as the restored aquatic quartet stumble onto the lost island of Blisspotamia in time to witness a beautiful maiden trying to sacrifice herself to the sea gods. By interfering, they incur the wrath of a legion of mythological horrors and have no choice but to defy the gods to free the terrified islanders from ignorance and tyranny…

These capacious monochrome compendia were superb value and provided a vital service by bringing older, less flashy (but still astonishingly expensive in their original issues) tales to a readership which might otherwise be denied them. However, this is probably the only series which I can honestly say suffers in the slightest from the lack of colour. Whilst the line-art story illustrations are actually improved by the loss of hue, the original covers – by Heath & Novick as supervised and inked by production ace Jack Adler – used all the clever technical print effects and smart ingenuity of the period to add a superb extra layer of depth to the underwater scenes which tragically cannot be appreciated in simple line & tone reproduction. Just go to any online cover browser site and you’ll see what I mean…

Nevertheless, the amazing art and astounding stories are as good as they ever were and Showcase Presents Sea Devils is stuffed with incredible ideas, strange situations and non-stop action. These underwater wonders are a superb slice of the engaging fantasy thrillers which were once the backbone of US comic books. Perhaps a little whacky in places, they are remarkably similar to many tongue-in-cheek, anarchic Saturday morning kids’ animation shows and will certainly provide jaded fiction fans with hours of unmatchable entertainment. Let’s hope the editors of the DC Finest line are casting about for some rarer salvage to preserve…
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