Category: Science Fiction

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Jack Kirby’s OMAC: One Man Army Corps


By Jack Kirby with D. Bruce Berry & Mike Royer (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-922-2

There’s a magnificent abundance of Jack Kirby collections around these days (‘though still not all of it, so I’m not completely happy yet) and this slim hardback compendium re-presents possibly his boldest and most heartfelt creation after the comics landmark that was his Fourth World Cycle.

Famed for his larger than life characters and gigantic, cosmic imaginings, “King” Kirby was an astute, spiritual man who had lived though poverty, gangsterism, the Depression and World War II. He had seen Post-War optimism, Cold War paranoia, political cynicism and the birth and death of peace-seeking counter-cultures. He always looked to the future and he knew human nature intimately. In OMAC: One Man Army Corps, he let his darkest assumptions and prognostications have free rein, and his “World That’s Coming” was far too close to the World we’re now in…

In 1974, with his newest creations inexplicably tanking at DC, Kirby tentatively considered a return to Marvel, but ever the consummate professional he scrupulously carried out every detail of his draconian DC contract. When The Demon was cancelled he needed to find another title to maintain his Herculean (Jack was legally expected to deliver 15 completed pages of art and story per week) commitments and returned to an idea he had shelved in 1968.

That was to re-interpret Captain America into a distant future where all Kirby’s direst prognostications and fears could be made manifest. In 1974 he returned to those re-imaginings and produced a nightmare scenario that demanded not a hero but a warrior.

Dubbing his Day-After-Tomorrow dystopia “The World That’s Coming”, Kirby let his mind run free – and scared – to produce a frighteningly close appreciation of our now, where science and wealth have outstripped compassion and reason, and humanity teeters on the brink of self-inflicted global destruction.

OMAC #1 launched in September-October 1974 and introduced the Global Peace Agency, a world-wide Doomwatch police force who created a super-soldier to crisis-manage the constant threats to a species with hair-trigger fingers on nuclear stockpiles, chemical weapons of mass destruction and made-to-measure biological horrors.

Base human nature was the true threat behind this series, and that was first demonstrated by the decent young man Buddy Blank, who whilst working at Pseudo-People Inc., discovers that the euphemistically entitled Build-A-Friend division hides a far darker secret than merely pliant girls that come in kit-form.

Luckily Buddy had been singled out by the GPA and genius Professor Myron Forest for eternal linkage to the sentient satellite Brother Eye, his atoms reconstructed until he became a living God of War, and the new-born human weapon easily destroys his ruthless employers before their murderous plans can be fully realised. ‘Buddy Blank and Brother Eye’ was followed by a truly prophetic tale, wherein impossibly wealthy criminal Mister Big purchased an entire city simply to assassinate Professor Forest in ‘The Era of the Super-Rich!’

Kirby’s tried and trusted approach was always to pepper high concepts throughout blazing action, and #3 was the most spectacular yet. OMAC fought ‘One Hundred Thousand Foes!’ to get to the murderous Marshal Kafka; terrorist leader of a Rogue-State with a private army, WMDs and a solid belief that the United Nations couldn’t touch him. Sound familiar…?

That incredible clash concluded in #4’s ‘Busting of a Conqueror!’ and by #5 Kirby had moved on to other new crimes for a new world. The definition of a criminal tends to blur when you can buy anything – even justice – but rich old people cherry-picking young men and women for brain-implantation is (hopefully) always going to be a no-no. Still, you can sell or plunder some organs even now…

Busting the ‘New Bodies for Old!!’ racket took two issues, and after the One Man Army Corps smashed ‘The Body Bank!’ he embarked on his final adventure. Water shortage was the theme of the last tale, but as our hero trudged across a dry and desolate lake bottom amidst the dead and dying marine life he was horrified to discover the disaster was the work of one man. ‘The Ocean Stealers!’ (issue #7) introduced Doctor Skuba, a scientific madman who had mastered the very atomic manipulation techniques that had turned feeble Buddy Blank into an unstoppable war machine.

Joe Kubert drew the cover to OMAC #8 ‘Human Genius Vs Thinking Machine’; an epic episode that saw Brother Eye apparently destroyed as Skuba and Buddy Blank died in an incredible explosion.

But that final panel is a hasty, last-minute addition by unknown editorial hands, for the saga was never actually finished. Kirby, his contract completed, had promptly returned to Marvel and new challenges such as Black Panther, Captain America, 2001, Devil Dinosaur, Machine Man and especially The Eternals.

Hormone treatments, Virtual Reality, medical computers, satellite surveillance, genetic tampering and all the other hard-science predictions in OMAC pale into insignificance against Kirby’s terrifyingly accurate social observations in this bombastic and tragically incomplete masterpiece. OMAC is Jack Kirby’s Edwin Drood, an unfinished symphony of such power and prophecy that it informs not just the entire modern DC universe and inspires ever more incisive and intriguing tales from the King’s artistic inheritors but still presages more truly scary developments in our own mundane and inescapable reality…

As always in these wondrously economical collections it should be noted that the book is also stuffed with un-inked Kirby pencilled pages and roughs, and Mark Evanier’s fascinating, informative introduction is a fact-fan’s delight. And as ever, Jack Kirby’s words and pictures are an unparalleled, hearts-and-minds grabbing delight no comics lover could resist.

Jack Kirby is unique and uncompromising. If you’re not a fan or simply not prepared to see for yourself what all the fuss has been about then no words of mine will change your mind. That doesn’t alter the fact that Kirby’s work from 1937 to his death in 1994 shaped the entire American comics scene, affected the lives of billions of readers and thousands of creators in all areas of artistic endeavour around the world for generations and still wins new fans and apostles every day, from the young and naive to the most cerebral of intellectuals. His work is instantly accessible, irresistibly visceral, deceptively deep whilst being simultaneously mythic and human: and just plain Great.

© 1974, 1975, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Orbital volume 1: Scars & volume 2: Ruptures


By Serge Pellé & Sylvain Runberg, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-905460-61-8 & ISBN: 978-905460-61-8

The truest thing that can be said about French science fiction is that it always delivers amazing style and panache even when the plots may be less than original. In Serge Pellé and Sylvain Runberg’s beautiful Orbital series a seemingly mismatched pair of Peacekeeper agents are dispatched to quell an incipient brushfire war – just like marshals in a western – but the tale is delivered with such skill and artistry that it’s as fresh as the first time I encountered the notion.

After years of galactic exclusion Earth in the 23rd century has finally been allowed to join a vast confederation of interstellar civilisations despite grave concerns about humanity’s aggressive nature and xenophobic tendencies. A militant isolationist faction on Earth had moved from politics to horrific terrorism in the immediate run-up to joining, committing atrocities both on Earth and distant worlds where they had developed colonies and mining bases, but ultimately they failed to prevent humanity’s inclusion in the pan-galactic union.

One particular Confederation worry was the way humans had treated aliens like the Sandjarrs, whose world was invaded in Earth’s all-consuming drive for territory and exploitable resources. The subsequent atrocities almost exterminated the stoic, pacifistic desert creatures…

Interworld Diplomatic Office agents are assigned in pairs to troubleshoot throughout the galaxy, defusing crises before they can become flashpoints. Now Caleb, IDO’s first human operative, is teamed with Mezoke, a Sandjarr, a situation clearly designed as a high-profile political stunt, as is their initial mission: convincing an Earth mining colony to surrender their profitable operation back to the aliens who actually own the moon it’s situated on…

Moreover, even though Earth is a now a member of the Confederation, with humans well placed in all branches of interstellar service, the Isolationist cause is still deeply cherished by many, needing only the slightest spark to ignite…

In Scars Caleb and Mezoke, still learning to cope with each other, are too-quickly dispatched to the ghastly mud-ball moon Senestam to convince belligerent human colonists to pack up and leave quietly. The naked hostility they meet is transformed to sheer terror when the situation escalates and monstrous beasts begin attacking. An armada of rapacious creatures capable of boring through rock and steel are likely to eat every sentient in town before the IDO agents can broker any kind of deal…

The crisis takes a decidedly tricky turn in the concluding album Ruptures when the marauding beasts are discovered to have been lured into attacking the colonists. The crisis has been manufactured as part of a greater scheme: but who really profits from this developing tragedy?

Sabotage and murder are swiftly added to the miners’ woes, and whilst Caleb and Mezoke desperately seek a solution satisfactory to all sides, an anti-human faction of the Confederation makes its first move to oust Earth from the interstellar alliance. Perhaps they’re not misguided though, since an Isolationist coup is also kicking off in the torrential skies above Senestam…

Fast-paced, action-packed, gritty space-opera with delightfully complex sub-plots fuelled by political intrigue and infighting elevates this tale for older readers to lofty heights, and although Caleb and Mezoke come off a little less than fully rounded characters in this initial tale, Orbital looks like a being a series to watch closely.

© 1968 Dargaud Editeur Paris by Goscinny & Tabary. All Rights Reserved.

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Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné: The Weird of the White Wolf


Adapted by Roy Thomas, Michael T. Gilbert, P. Craig Russell, George Freeman & various (First Publishing)
ISBN: 0-915419-87-4

Elric is a landmark of the Sword and Sorcery genre: the ruler of the pre-human civilisation of the Melnibonéans, a race of cruel, arrogant Sorcerers: Dissolute creatures in a slow, decadent decline after millennia of dominance over the Earth. An albino, he is physically weak and of a brooding philosophical temperament, caring for nothing save his beautiful cousin Cymoril, whom he killed whilst battling her loathsome usurping brother Prince Yrrkoon.

After Elric destroyed his own love and race he wandered the world a broken dissolute wreck. In a series of short prose stories, a number of which (The Dreaming City, While the Gods Laugh and The Singing Citadel) were included with a framing tale The Dream of Earl Aubec into the novel Elric: Weird of the White Wolf, the albino forged his tragic legend across the young planet.

This stellar graphic adaptation adapts not only the novel but also gatherers many of the disparate previous adaptations (partially or in full) in a logical chronological sequence, which originally saw the light of day as a five issue miniseries from the much missed innovators First Comics.

The Dream of Earl Aubec by Thomas, Gilbert and Freeman (with spectacular support from letterer Ken Bruzenak) sees the greatest champion of his world fight his way to the very edge of reality searching for glory and approval from his queen Eloarde of Klant. Where solid ground meets raw unformed chaos-stuff he finds a castle and is seduced by the incredible creature Myshella, the Dark Lady, who shows him visions of the future in the raw Chaos and particularly the travails of a tragic Emperor, Elric.

The first vision is an abridged version of Thomas and Russell’s ‘The Dreaming City’ taken from 1982 Marvel Graphic Novel which is followed by the pair’s superb adaptation of ‘While the Gods Laugh’ which first appeared in the fantasy anthology magazine Epic Illustrated (#14, 1984) wherein the doomed hero searches for the Dead God’s Book, a magical grimoire that promises to answer any wish or desire, picking up the first of many disposable paramours in Shaarilla of the Dancing Mist, as well as his truest friend and aide, Moonglum.

Interspersed with the continuing drama of Aubec and Myshella the collection then moves into an all-new interpretation of ‘The Singing Citadel’ with Thomas and Gilbert co- adapting the saga for the hugely underrated George Freeman to illustrate and colour. Elric and Moonglum take ship and are attacked by the pirates of Pan Tang, before being drawn into the scheme of Queen Yishana who needs a better magician than her own lover Theleb K’aarna to investigate an incursion of melodic chaos into her kingdom.

The invader turns out to be the malevolent Jester of the Lords of Chaos, intent on establishing his own domain without the interference of his superiors…

This is a phenomenal tale of heroism and insanity and the art and colour here fully capture the drama and madness of the original. Gilbert and Freeman are every bit the imaginative, illustrative equals of the magnificent Russell and this book is one of the most impressive graphic fantasies ever produced, and desperately in need of re-release.

Michael Moorcock’s irresistible blend of brooding Faustian tragedy and all-out action is never better displayed than in his stories of Elric, and Roy Thomas’ adaptations were a high watermark in the annals of illustrated fantasy. Every home and castle should have one…

© 1990 First Comics, Inc. and Star*Reach Productions. Adapted from the original stories by Michael Moorcock, © 1967, 1970, 1977. All Rights Reserved.

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The Magic Goes Away – DC Science Fiction Graphic Novel #6


By Larry Niven, adapted by Paul Kupperberg & Jan Duursema (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-19-6

During the 1980s DC, on a creative roll like many publishers large and small, attempted to free comics narrative from its previous constraints of size and format as well as content. To this end, legendary editor Julie Schwartz called upon contacts from his early days as a Literary Agent to convince major names from the fantasy literature world to allow their early classics to be adapted into a line of Science Fiction Graphic Novels.

The groundbreaking short-story by Larry Niven was released in 1976 during the first energy/oil crisis and was met with almost universal acclaim. Quickly expanded into a novella it is a powerful allegory of conservation and sensible management of resources. The settings and universe were subsequently used for other stories including The Burning City and The Burning Tower (co-written with Jerry Pournelle) and others.

This adaptation is probably the most comfortingly traditional of these experimental comic strip interpretations and comes courtesy of the inexplicably underrated Paul Kupperberg and Jan Duursema, with delightful lettering and calligraphic effects from Todd Klein.

Long ago when the world literally ran on magic, a long-lived warlock noticed that every so often his powers would diminish until he relocated to another part of the world. Warlock built a simple device and used it to prove that Mana, the spark of magic, was a finite thing and could be used up…

A warrior washed up in a sea-side village and it was clear he had survived some appalling catastrophe. When he was recovered he left in search of a magician – any magician. At this time Warlock and Clubfoot, once among the mightiest magicians on Earth, were wandering, assessing the state of a world rapidly running out of wonders, and increasingly aware that humanity was adapting to a life without them.

They carried their paraphernalia, including the skull of the necromancer Wavyhill, with them as they searched for a location with enough Mana to power the spells which were all but useless everywhere now.  Warlock had a big idea.  Earth’s Mana might be exhausted but the moon’s must be untouched.  All they needed was enough power to get to it…

Then the warrior introduced himself and told his tale.  His nation had tried for uncounted years to conquer magical Atlantis.  When they did, killing all the priests, the island sank. Guilt-crazed Orolandes the Greek determined to make amends and sought wizards to show him how.

With the world more mundane every moment these stalwarts joined other magicians – untrustworthy souls all – in a last ditch attempt to bring back their dying lifestyle. Finding the location of the last god in existence the conclave planned to steal his Mana, and use it to bring the untapped moon down to Earth…

The tale is a delightfully logical and rational exploration and celebration of fantasy that acknowledges all the rich wealth of the genre whilst applying some hard-edged rules to it.  Kupperberg and Duursema walk a dangerous tightrope but joyously capture the marvels of the milieu, whilst depicting the raw tension, and cynicism of a world on the edge of the ultimate systems-crash.

Beautiful and terrifying this is an adaptation and allegory that every consumer (of fantasy or indeed anything) should read…
© 1978 Larry Niven. Text & illustrations © 1986 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Demon With a Glass Hand – A DC Science Fiction Graphic Novel


By Harlan Ellison, adapted by Marshall Rogers (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-09-9

Long before comics got into the highly addictive habit of blending and braiding parallel stories and sharing universes science fiction authors such as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven and Harlan Ellison were blazing the trail. Ellison crafted an extended series of short stories and novellas into the gripping and influential War against the Kyben, even going so far as to break out of print media and into television; consequently garnering even greater fame and glory as well as the 1965 Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Script for a Television Anthology and the Georges Melies Fantasy Film Award (1972) for Outstanding Cinematic Achievement in Science Fiction Television.

Demon with a Glass Hand was written as a teleplay – the author’s second – for influential TV show The Outer Limits, premiering on 17th October 1964, and only later being adapted into a prose adventure. In 1986 the startlingly talented and much missed Marshall Rogers used the original, unedited first draft of the TV script to create a fantastically effective comics adaptation for the experimental DC Science Fiction Graphic Novel series.

Humanity’s battle against the Kyben lasted ten generations and involved all manner of technologies including time travel. Trent is a man with a mission and huge holes in his memory. Somewhere in his occluded mind is a vast secret: the location of the entire human race, hidden to prevent the invading Kyben from finding and destroying them. Instead of a right hand he has a crystal prosthetic that talks to him, but the glass computer cannot restore his memories until three of its missing fingers are recovered.

Dispatched to the dubious safety of the 20th century Trent has been followed by a horde of aliens determined to secure that fateful secret and they have taken over the skyscraper where those missing digits are secured…

Aided only by the apparently indigenous human Consuelo, Trent’s paranoiac battle is as much with himself as his foes. As he gradually ascends the doom-laden building to find answers he may not want, he finds fighting creatures painfully human and just as reluctant as he to be there almost more than he can bear but at least his mission will soon end…

Or will it? Demon with a Glass Hand is a masterpiece of tension-drenched drama, liberally spiced with explosive action, and the mythic denouement – in any medium of creative expression – has lost none of its impact over the years.

Classy and compelling this is a perfect companion to Ellison’s other Kyben War comic adaptations, collected as Night and the Enemy, and it must be every fan’s dream to hope that somewhere there’s a publisher prepared to gather all these gems into one definitive edition…
© 1986 The Kilimanjaro Corporation.  Illustrations © 1986 DC Comics Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

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The Medusa Chain


By Ernie Colon (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-00-5

Born in Puerto Rico in 1931 Ernie Colón is a tremendously undervalued and unsung maestro of the American comics industry whose work has been seen by generations of readers. Whether as artist, writer, colourist or editor his contributions have affected the youngest of comics consumers (Monster in My Pocket, Richie Rich and Casper the Friendly Ghost for Harvey Comics and his similar work on Marvel’s Star Comics imprint) to the most sophisticated connoisseur with strips such as his startling indie thriller Manimal.

His catalogue of “straight” comic-book work includes Battlestar Galactica, Damage Control and Doom 2099 for Marvel, Grim Ghost for Atlas/Seaboard, the fabulous  Arak, Son of Thunder, Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld, the Airboy revival for Eclipse, Magnus: Robot Fighter for Valiant and so very many others.

In 2006 with long-time Harvey Comics/Star collaborator Sid Jacobson he created a graphic novel of the 9/11 Commission Report entitled The 9/11 Report: a Graphic Adaptation. In August 2008, they released a 160-page follow-up: After 9/11: America’s War on Terror. Even now he’s still hard at work on the strip SpyCat which has appeared in Weekly World News since 2005.

During the first wave of experimental creativity that gripped the 1980s comics business he released this self-generated (even lettering and colouring it himself) science fiction thriller through DC’s ambitious, oversized Graphic Novels line. Intriguing, complex and multi-layered, it is the gritty tale of Chon Adams, a star-ship officer convicted of a dreadful crime, sentenced to a lifetime of penal servitude on a deep-space space cargo ship, and how he finds a kind of fulfilment in a situation most would describe as a living hell.

Flavoured by Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination (commonly known now as Tiger! Tiger!) by way of noir prison/chain-gang movies like George W. Hill’s The Big House this is a fascinating tale-within-a-tale as Chon’s “crime” is gradually revealed whilst he endures and survives against unbelievable odds in the depths of infinity gaining unlikely allies and a grain of self-respect…

Graphic, uncompromising and thoroughly compelling this classy tale careens from cynical depths of human depravity to heights of glorious high fantasy with ease: a true lost gem of that boldly exploratory 1980s comics boom, and a cracking read for any older SF fan.

And the one good thing – for you – about Colon’s relative obscurity is that copies of this gem – and his later Marvel graphic novel Ax – are still readily available through internet retailers at ridiculously low prices. Definitely one you really, really want…
© 1984 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Me & Joe Priest


By Greg Potter & Ron Randall (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-04-8

In the 1980s graphic novels were still an unproven quantity in America and Big Guns DC and Marvel adopted a kind of scattershot, “suck it and see” attitude to content although all parties were seemingly decided on the now extinct (more’s the pity) 8½ by 11 inch page format.

Whereas the House of Ideas had a solid publishing plan that didn’t stray far from their usual periodical product DC looked to expand or overlap markets by creating niched imprints such as the Science Fiction Graphic Novel line (adapting classic short stories and novellas into highly experimental graphic narratives) and the plain old catch-all – if unimaginative – DC Graphic Novel Series. Often there’s not much discernible difference between the two.

In the near future the human race is stricken with mass sterility and descends into slow anarchy as Man prepares to die with as little dignity and grace as possible. America quickly devolves into semi-feudal chaos with small self-sustaining enclaves – think spaghetti Western meets Mad Max. In the desolate landscape of Arizona an itinerant priest wanders about ministering to the spiritual needs of the shell-shocked populace.

But Father Joseph St. Simone is on a rather unique “Mission from God”. As well as salving souls Joe is also creating hope. As the only fertile man in the world, he’s repopulating the planet one household at a time. If only all the husbands he’s cuckolded saw it that way…

Certainly the frankly demented cult of ex-clergy called the Order of Darkness doesn’t: they have liturgical ninjas roaming the landscape with orders to shoot him on sight. Lucky then that Joe has teamed up with the violently capable army deserter known as Lummox…

Fast paced, action-packed, laconic and breezily devil-may-care in execution (you’ll either love or loathe the literal Deus ex Machina ending) this strange blend of buddy-movie, comedy thriller and road-trip adventure was a genuine attempt to offer comic-book audiences something a little different from their usual fare. Moreover considering the plot maguffin and subject matter, it’s a lot less prurient and exploitative than you’d expect. Perhaps that’s why it failed to attract a following; inadequate nudity and not enough naughty bits…

Me and Joe Priest is a strange creature. More racy Western than high-tech extravaganza, this highly readable piece of eye-candy, clearly patterned on the European bande Dessinée model, sacrifices a lot of logic in favour of set-piece theatrics – but nevertheless pulls it all off with great aplomb. In all honesty, I can’t see why I like this book… but I do.

Why don’t you see if it calls to you?
© 1985 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume II


By Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill (Americas Best Comics)
ISBN: 1-4012-0117-2

The Victorian era saw the birth of both popular and populist publishing, particularly the genres of fantasy and adventure fiction. Writers of varying skill but with unbounded imaginations expounded personal concepts of honour and heroism, wedded unflinchingly to the innate belief in English Superiority. In all worlds and even beyond them the British gentleman took on all comers for Right and Decency, viewing danger as a game and showing “Johnny Foreigner” just how that game should be played.

For all the problems this raises with our modern sensibilities many of the stories remain uncontested classics of literature and form the roadmap for all modern fictional heroes. Open as they are to charges of Racism, Sexism (even misogyny), Class Bias and Cultural Imperialism the best of them remain the greatest of all yarns.

An august selection of just such heroic prototypes were seconded by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill for a miniseries in 1999 that managed to say as much about our world as that long gone one, and incidentally tell a captivating tale as compelling as any of its antecedents.

In short succession there was an inevitable sequel, once more pressing into service vampire-tainted Wilhelmina Murray, aged Great White Hunter Allan Quatermain, Invisible Man Hawley Griffin, the charismatic genius Captain Nemo and both cultured Dr. Henry Jekyll and his bombastic alter-ego Mister Hyde, and including cameos from the almost English Edwin Lester Arnolds’ Gullivar Jones and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars and even creatures from C.S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet.

As London rebuilds after the cataclysmic denouement of the first volume a savage planetary conflict on the fourth planet ends with the firing of gigantic projectiles at our fragile, unsuspecting world…

This startlingly impressive and effective interleaving of HG Wells’ landmark fantasy classic with the skewed but so-very plausible conceit that all the great adventurers of literature hung out together captures perfectly the feeling of a world and era ending, as internal conflicts pull apart the champions – at no time do they ever even slightly resemble a team – and Moore’s irrepressible imagination and vast cultural reservoir dredges up a further elite selection of literary touchstones to enhance the proceedings.

Dark and genuinely terrifying the tale unfolds largely unchanged from the original War of the Worlds plot, but the parallel side-stories are utterly gripping and unpredictable, whilst the inclusion of such famed and/or lost characters as Bill Samson, Doctor Moreau, Tiger Tim and even Rupert Bear among others sweetens the pot for those in the know (and for those who aren’t you could always consult the official companion A Blazing World.

The idea of combining shared cultural brands is not new: Philip Jose Farmer in particular has spun many a yarn teaming such icons as Sherlock Holmes, Doc Savage, Tarzan and such like, Warren Ellis has succumbed to similar temptation in Planetary and Jasper Fforde has worked wonders with the device in his Thursday Next novels, but the sheer impetus of Moore and O’Neill’s steampunk revisionism and the rush of ideas and startling visuals that carry them make this book an irresistible experience and an absolute necessity for any fiction fan let alone comic collector.

This book is an incredible work of scholarship and artistry recast into a fabulous pastiche of an entire literary movement. It’s also a brilliant piece of comics wizardry of a sort no other art form can touch, but as with many Moore craftings there is a substantial text feature at the back, and it is quite wordy.

Read it anyway: it’s there for a reason and is more than worth the effort as it outlines the antecedents of the League in a fabulously stylish and absorbing manner. It might also induce you to read a few other very interesting and rewarding books…

© 1999, 2000 Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill. All Rights Reserved.

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Michael Moorcock’s Elric: The Dreaming City – Marvel Graphic Novel #2


By Roy Thomas & P Craig Russell (Marvel Comics)
ISBN: 0-939766-12-4

Elric is an absolute icon of the Sword and Sorcery genre: the last ruler of a pre-human civilization. The Melnibonéans are a race of cruel, arrogant sorcerers: dissolute creatures in a slow, decadent decline after millennia of dominance over the Earth. An albino, Elric VIII, 428th Emperor of his line, is physically weak and of a brooding, philosophical temperament, caring for nothing save his beautiful cousin Cymoril, even though her brother Prince Yrrkoon openly lusts for his throne.

Elric doesn’t even really want to rule, but it is his duty, and he is the only one of his race to see the newly evolved race of Man as a threat to the Empire. He owns or is possessed by a black sword called Stormbringer: a magical blade that steals the souls of its victims and feeds their life and vitality to the albino.

In this beautifully realized adaptation Elric has been ousted by Yrrkoon, who has cast Cymoril into an enchanted sleep and holds her hostage. The Faustian albino has entered into a devil’s bargain with assorted human rulers and now guides an armada of ships in an all-out attack on the island citadel of Immyr, determined to raze the city and eradicate his entire race if that what’s necessary to rescue his beloved…

The Dreaming City was the first Elric story Michael Moorcock wrote, appearing in the pulp magazine Science Fantasy #47 in June 1961. An instant hit, the last Emperor became the vanguard of a modern revival of the weird fantasy form and an inadvertent foundation stone for the new-born role-playing game market.

This is a stirring, spectacular, entrancing tale of startling power, as are all the Elric adaptations Russell was involved with (see also the eponymous Elric of Melniboné ISBN: 0-936211-01-6 and Sailor on the Seas of Fate ISBN: 0-915419-24-6) and it’s high time somebody collected them and the Epic Illustrated vignette ‘While the Gods Laugh’ into some kind of definitive edition…
© 1981, 1982 Roy Thomas and P Craig Russell. A Star*Reach Production. Adapted from the original story by and © Michael Moorcock 1961.  All Rights Reserved.

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Time Beavers – First Comics Graphic Novel #2


By Timothy Truman, with Acres, Snyder, Bruzenak & Lessmann (First Comics)
ISBN: 0-915419-01-7

Sometimes there’s a feeling in the air that leads to similar concepts “spontaneously” occurring in different places – Swamp Thing and Man-Thing always spring to mind – and sometimes it’s just a bunch of in-tune creators jumping rapidly onto a bandwagon. That’s probably the only bad thing I can even imply about this superb lost gem of a book from the ever-excellent Tim Truman, aided by co-creator, Mark Acres, co-designer John K Snyder, letterer Ken Bruzenak and colourist Linda Lessmann.

That the 1984 debut of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in some part inspired this superb fantasy I have no doubt, but since it was months ahead of the deluge of cheap knock-offs that followed I suspect that creative appreciation rather than greedy speculation fuelled the tale. Moreover, as the tone and content more closely resembles the Bill Mantlo, Keith Giffen and Sal Buscema character Rocket Racoon (who debuted in the Incredible Hulk #271, May 1982 before Mike Mignola made him a seminal star in a quirky four-issue miniseries), any charge of “cashing in” becomes largely irrelevant.

In a dark place beyond the universe the Great Dam of Time regulates the time streams of each and every dimension, maintained and defended by high-tech Beavers against sinister extra-cosmic Rats called the Radere who utilise vile magic and embrace Chaos. Eternally at war since time began, the Rats have suddenly gained a deadly advantage over the Timeguard by removing three objects of power from the Dam itself, and fled to three separate eras on the key world known as Earth.

Now as the Rat forces mass to finally destroy the critically weakened dam, only the grizzled Captain Slapper, old Doc, faithful Mac and raw recruit Shiner can be spared to follow the Radere to those locations and retrieve the objects before it’s too late.

Even though there are laughs aplenty this deliciously dark fantasy far exceeds its broadly comedic roots, as the hairy heroes save young D’Artagnan and the Queen of France in 17th Century Paris, save Abraham Lincoln from assassins at Gettysburg in 1863 and retrieve the Nagasaki Atom Bomb from Hitler’s bunker in the hours before his suicide in 1945. Despite cosmic catastrophe, sneaky plot-twists and insidious treachery, the Beavers naturally save the day (and years and centuries), but not without suffering tragedy and heartbreak…

Time Beavers is a grand old romp, with strong characterisation and sharp dialogue that elevate this gritty fantasy far beyond its “funny-animal” antecedents, almost into the realm of “Straight” science fiction, captivatingly illustrated with Truman’s trademark graphic intensity. Still readily available, it’s a book that all fans of the medium should get to know.
© 1985 First Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.