Category: Science Fiction

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The Agents


By Ben Dunn & Kevin Gunstone (AP Pocket Manga)
ISBN: 1-932453-64-4

After decades of homegrown comics product America finally began to grow aware of other country’s graphic treasures through of all things television, when in the late 1960s imported cartoons from Japan first began appearing as part of Saturday morning programming. With shows like Astroboy, Marine Boy, Speed Racer and others reshaping a nation’s most malleable minds, it wasn’t too long before Western anime lovers also branched out into the scrupulously stylised world of manga too…

By the 1980s translated works were increasingly dominating the US and world markets and devotees also found a burgeoning and impressive subgenre market of cross-cultural, fan-turned-pro material we now know as OEL (“Original English Language”) or Amerimanga.

Probably the most adept and successful of these new creators is Ben Dunn, who was born in Taiwan in 1964, where he was exposed early and often to the fabulous alternatives of the East, before returning to Kentucky and Texas. He founded his own publishing house Antarctic Press in 1984 during the first days of the black and white comics boom, and with both timing and raw talent on his side created a series of wonderful trans-Pacific series which combined the best of American and Japanese art style and storytelling philosophy.

Among his best known creations are Ninja High School and Warrior Nun Areala and Marvel tapped his expertise when they launched their own “Mangeverse” sub-imprint in 2000.

A man of diverse interests, Dunn also cites the fabulous Film and TV fantasy adventures of the Swinging Sixties as a major interest and influence, as can be seen in this pocket collection of a six-issue miniseries he produced with writer Kevin Gunstone for Image in 2004.

The Agents is set in an alternative future: a glorious and outrageous homage to Thunderbirds, Joe 90, Captain Scarlet, The Prisoner, Green Hornet, and such superspy stalwarts as Derek Flint, James Bond, John Steed & Emma Peel and Lady Penelope Creighton–Ward as well a dozens of lesser lights from that unforgettable age of heroes…

The action opens in ‘You Only Live Once’ as thirty years from now veteran agent Nigel Cord is called back to active service when the only super-villain to have ever outwitted him makes the world an incredible offer.

Three decades ago criminal mastermind Professor Daedalus nuked Washington DC and Moscow and took over Paraguay in the aftermath. With both global Super Powers reeling Great Britain stepped in to assume the role of World Policeman and civilisation has been in a spiral of escalating scientific terrorism ever since. Now the dying megalomaniac is offering his technological marvels in return for one last confrontation with his arch nemesis…

Meanwhile irreplaceable Boy Savant Mike 70 has gone missing and masked sidekick Haiku, without the fortifying influence of his mentor the Red Wasp is losing his edge in the unceasing battle to reclaim the streets of New York from gangsters and anarchists whilst spymaster Lady Pippa seems intent only on drinking herself to death and bedding the new recruits ‘On His Majesty’s Secret Agency’…

There are other factors in play such as the deadly C.A.B.A.L. assassin Kristal Veil and her increasingly erratic paymasters, whilst secretive crisis-management organisation the Tomahawks use advanced technology to fight disasters but do nothing to fix the political inconsistencies which cause them.

‘The Spy Who Saved Me’ finds Cord and Veil as guests of the dying Daedalus whilst the C.A.B.A.L. war among themselves and ‘Her Majesty’s Secret Agent’ reveals that the New World Order is riddled with moles and traitors…

With global Armageddon minutes away the action and intrigue accelerates to a fatal climax in ‘Thundercrack’ before ‘Our Man Cord’ finally saves the day – if not the status quo…

With all such nostalgic pastiches of bygone glories there’s an overwhelming temptation to tweak the source material for modern consumption – or perhaps just to show how clever we all are these days – but The Agents generally resists that urge, preferring to present a full-on, exuberant and magically honest appreciation of great times gone by.

Drawn in monochrome manga style but still genuinely Vista-Visioned and happily Super-Marionated, this lost delight might just be the best paean to lost days any wistful, thrill-starved baby-boomer could desire… and it’s even available as an ebook.

Story © Kevin Gunstone. Art © Ben Dunn. All rights reserved.

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Y – The Last Man: volume 9 Motherland


By Brian K Vaughan, Pia Guerra Goran Sudžuka & José Marzán Jr. (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-358-9

When an apparent plague killed every male on Earth, only student Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand survived in a world instantly utterly all-girl. Even with a government super-agent and a geneticist escorting him across the unmanned American continent to a Californian bio-lab, all the boy could think of was re-uniting with his girlfriend Beth, trapped in Australia when the disaster struck.

With his rather reluctant companions secret agent 355 and Dr. Allison Mann – who were trying to solve the mystery of his continued existence – the romantically determined oaf trekked overland from Washington DC to California, getting ever closer to his fiancée… or so he thought. Each of his minders harboured dark secrets: Dr. Mann feared she might have actually caused the plague by giving birth to the world’s first parthenogenetic human clone and the lethally competent 355 had allegiances to organisations far-more far-reaching than the American government….

Also out to stake their claim and add to the general tension were renegade Israeli General Alter Tse’Elon and post-disaster cult called “Daughters of the Amazon” who wanted to make sure that there really were no more men left to mess up the planet. Other complications included Yorick’s occasionally insane sister, Hero, stalking him across the ultra-feminised, ravaged and now utterly dis-United States and the boy’s own desirability to the numerous frustrated and desperate women he encountered en route to Oz…

After four years and some incredible adventures Yorick (a so-so scholar but a proficient amateur magician and escapologist) and crew reached Australia only to discover Beth had already taken off on her own odyssey to Paris. During the hunt Dr. Mann discovered the truth: Yorick was alive because his pet Ampersand was immune and had insulated his owner via his habit of “sharing” his waste products if Yorick didn’t duck fast enough…

As this book, reprinting issues #49-54 of the award-winning comics series, opens with the eponymous four-chapter ‘Motherland’ (illustrated by Pia Guerra & José Marzán Jr.) Yorick and his guardians are following a trail to the true architect of the plague in Hong Kong, only to be captured by the cause of all the world’s woes – a deranged biologist cursed with genius, insanity and a deadly dose of maniacal misogynistic hubris.

Just before a breathtaking denouement wherein Yorick and Allison learn the incredible reasons for the plague, and Agent 355 and turncoat Australian spy Rose clash for the final time with the ninja who has been stalking them for years, the scene switches to France where Yorick’s sister Hero has successfully escorted the baby boys born in a hidden Space Sciences lab to relative safety… although General Tse’Elon is not a pursuer easily avoided or thwarted…

Even after the plague is demystified, the villain fully come-uppanced and the world on the verge of coming back from the brink of extinction there’s still stories to be told as seen in ‘The Obituarist’ (with art from Goran Sudžuka& José Marzán Jr.) wherein the murder of Yorick’s mother by Tse’Elon takes centre-stage in a divertissement which hints that the planet is already fixing itself and this penultimate volume concludes with ‘Tragicomic’ (Sudžuka& Marzán Jr. again) as the lunatic land of Hollywood begins its own comeback: making trash movies, spawning bad comicbooks and splintering into a host of territorial gang-wars…

The end was in sight and even with the series’ overarching plot engine seemingly exhausted there was still one last string of intrigue, suspense and surprise in store from writer Brian K. Vaughn. The last of Y the Last Man will prove to be the best yet but that’s an unmissable tale for another time…

© 2006, 2007 Brian K Vaughan & Pia Guerra. All Rights Reserved.

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Heartburst – A Marvel Graphic Novel


By Rick Veitch (Marvel/King Hell Press)
ISBN: 0- 939766-82-5  King Hell edition ISBN: 978-0-98002-060-1

Once upon a time Marvel led the publishing pack in the development of high quality original graphic novels: mixing creator-owned properties, licensed assets like Conan, special in-continuity Marvel Universe tales and even new series launches in extravagant over-sized packages (a standard 285 x 220mm rather than the now customary 258 x 168mm based on the globally accepted European album format) which felt and looked instantly superior to the standard flimsy US comicbook no matter how good, bad or controversial the contents might be.

This terrifically appetising tale, developed under the company’s creator-owned Epic imprint in 1984, was one of the most experimental of those heady early days: a bold and impressive allegory of and attack on the assorted bigotries still too proudly cherished and even boasted of by so many in those distant days… in the 21st century we’re far less concerned with what you buy, pray to, look like or sleep with, aren’t we?

The drama begins with ‘Heartbeat’ as on a far-distant Earth colony circling Epsilon Bootis the theocratic authorities are in a state of constant crisis. In the centuries since humans first landed they have polarised into a closed, dogmatic and militaristic society, devoted to the worship of gods who regularly and actively communicate with them.

They have no truck with heretical Earth scientists like Miss Rimbaud whose explanation that the Holy Sponsor’s electronic teachings are merely old TV broadcasts. They don’t want to hear that those 1950s attitudes are discredited now. They absolutely won’t tolerate any hint of ending their campaign to sterilise and eradicate the native Ploo…

The indigenous natives are in dire distress: beautiful, friendly bright green beings, sexually and genetically compatible with humans and permanently emitting an aphrodisiac musk Terrans cannot resist. If the race is to be kept pure the Ploo simply cannot be allowed to survive…

Young Sunoco Firestone (most humans have good scriptural names like Pepsi, Schlitz or Bilko) is present when his uncle Inquisitor Xerox interrogates Rimbaud. Her story strikes a disturbing chord in the lad, already pushed to breaking point by recurring dreams of a magical well and a cosmic voice calling to him… When he sees a forbidden Ploo exotic dancer in a banned sector of town Sunoco is irresistibly drawn to her and the biologically inevitable happens…

Obsessed with his alien soul-mate Maia, shaken by his delirious fall into miscegenation and terrified because the Sacred Broadcasts have suddenly stopped, Sunoco snaps and abandons his life, joining Maia as a traveling entertainer, experiencing daily delight as the world rapidly goes to hell and beyond. But even though free, happy and proud; with Maia pregnant the dream voice won’t leave him alone, hinting at some incredible celestial destiny whilst the eternally vigilant gene-police are stepping up their pogroms and getting closer to the desperate fugitives…

With ‘Heartrhythm’ the forces of oppression close in and the lovers are separated as Sunoco is captured and the planet descends into outright civil war with the faithful eradicating the last Ploo and their turncoat human lovers. Broken and desperate Firestone agrees to become a spy for the human army, but when he meets the enigmatic Rimbaud he changes sides once more and finally discovers the secret of the voice and a fantastic universal power that will shape the destiny of two worlds in ‘Heartburst’…

Rick Veitch is a criminally undervalued creator, with a poet’s sensibilities and a disaffected Flower-Child’s perspectives informing a powerful social and creative consciousness and conscience. This spectacularly mind-bending romp synthesizes the total late 20th century American experience from the bland triumph of cultural imperialism to the spiritual disenfranchisement of Vietnam whilst telling an uplifting story of love and hope – a really neat trick if you can do it…

This sly, dry, funny, impressively adult and breathtakingly reflective full painted yarn proves that he can and Heartburst should be on the must read list of any serious fan…

In 2008 Veitch released a remastered, slightly smaller-dimensioned edition under his own King Hell Press imprint. Heartburst and Other Pleasures also includes three short graphic collaborations with those other outré  masters of unconventional love Alan Moore and Steve Bissette: including ‘Mirror of Love’, ‘Underpass’, ‘Try to Remember’ as well as unseen art-pages. This too is well worth  tracking down or you could simply order direct from the man himself by typing www.rickveitch.com into your favourite search-engine, remembering always to keep a credit card handy – preferably your own…
© 1984, 2008 Rick Veitch. All Rights Reserved.

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Metropolis


By Thea von Harbou, illustrated by Michael W. Kaluta (Donning/Starblaze)
ISBN: 0-89865-519-6

People who work in comics adore their earliest influences, and will spout for hours about them. Not only did they initially fire the young imagination and spark the drive to create but they always provide the creative yardstick by which a writer or artist measures their own achievements and worth. Books, comics, posters, even gum cards (which mysteriously mutated into “Trading Cards” in the 1990s) all fed the colossal hungry Art-sponge which was the developing brain of the kids who make comics.

But by the 1970s an odd phenomenon was increasingly apparent. It became clear that new talent coming into the industry was increasingly aware only of comic-books as a source of pictorial fuel. The great illustrators and storytellers who had inspired the likes of Howard Chaykin, Bernie Wrightson, Mike Kaluta, P. Craig Russell, Charles Vess, Mike Grell, and a host of other top professionals were virtually unknown to many youngsters and aspirants. I suspect the reason for this was the decline of illustrated fiction in magazines – and general magazines in general.

Photographs became a cheaper option than artwork in the late 1960s and as a broad rule populations read less and less each year from that time onwards.

In the late 1980s publisher Donning created a line of oversized deluxe editions reprinting “lost” prose classics of fantasy, illustrated by major comics talents who felt an affinity for the selected texts. Charles Vess illustrated Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, P. Craig Russell created magic for The Thief of Bagdad and Mike Grell depicted the word’s greatest archer in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire.

Arch period stylist Mike Kaluta worked on something a little more exotic; illustrating the original film scenario (a broad shooting script used by movie-makers in the days before dialogue) written by Thea von Harbou after her husband returned from a trip to America.

Herr “von Harbou” was German expressionist genius Fritz Lang, and his account of his fevered impressions, responses and reminiscences became the ultimate social futurist fiction film Metropolis – possibly the most stirring, visually rich and influential movie of the silent era – and officially the most expensive film ever made during the pre-talkies era.

If you haven’t seen the film… Do. Go now, a new re-re-restored version was released in 2010 – the most complete yet. I’ll wait…

The plot – in simple terms – concerns the battle between proletarian workers and the rich, educated elite of a colossal city where workers toil in hellish, conformist subterranean regiments to provide a paradise for the bosses and managers who live like gods in the lofty clouds above.

It would be the perfect life for Freder, son of the grand architect Joh Fredersen, except for the fact that he has become besotted with Maria, an activist girl from the depths. The boy will move Heaven and Earth to have her love him. He even abandons his luxuries to become a worker near her…

Distraught Fredersen renews his tempestuous relationship with the crazed science-wizard Rotwang, once ally and rival for the love of the seductive woman Hel.

Rotwang offers his aid but it is a double-edged sword. He kidnaps Maria and constructs an incredible robotic replacement of her, to derail her passive crusade and exact his own long-deferred revenge…

This “novelisation” – for want of a better word – is as engrossing as the film in many ways but the story is elevated by the incredible illustrations produced by Kaluta -5 full page artworks in evocative chalk-and-pastel colour, two incredible double-page spreads in black line plus 32 assorted monochrome half-frames and full pages rendered in black & white line, grey-tones, charcoal, chalk monotones and pastel tints – an absolute banquet for lovers of art deco in particular and immaculate drawing in general.

Whilst no substitute for the filmic experience, this magnificent book is a spectacular combination of art and story that is the perfect companion to that so-influential fantasy masterpiece beloved by generations of youngsters.
© 1988 by the Donning Company/publishers. Art © 1988 Michael W. Kaluta. All rights reserved.

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Axa volumes 3 and 4


By Donne Avenell & Enrique Badia Romero (Ken Pierce Books)
Vol. 3 No ISBN: 0-912277-00-9  Vol. 4 no ISBN: 0-912277-00-9

During the 1970s British newspapers radically altered much of their style and content to varying degrees in response to the seemingly inexorable move towards female social emancipation and sexual equality. Nevertheless, this somehow allowed newspaper editors to squeeze in even more undraped women, who finally escaped from the perfectly rendered comics strips and onto the regular pages, usually the third one, the centre-spreads and into the fashion features…

The only place where truly strong female role-models were taken seriously was the aforementioned cartoon sections but even there the likes of Modesty Blaise, Danielle, Scarth, Amanda and all the other capable ladies who walked all over the oppressor gender, both humorously and in straight adventure scenarios, lost clothes and shed undies repeatedly, continuously and in the manner they always had…

Nobody complained (no one important or who was ever taken seriously): it was just tradition and the idiom of the medium… and besides, artists liked to draw bare-naked ladies as much as blokes liked to see them and it was even educational for the kiddies – who could buy any newspaper in any shop without interference even if they couldn’t get into cinemas to view Flashdance, Trading Places, Octopussy or Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone without an accompanying adult…

Sales kept going up…

Take-charge chicks were almost commonplace when the Star Wars phenomenon reinvigorated public interest in science fiction and the old standby of scantily-clad, curvy amazons and post-apocalyptic wonderlands regained their sales-appeal. Thus The Sun hired Enrique Badia Romero and Donne Avenell to produce just such an attention-getter for their already well-stacked cartoon section.

Romero had begun his career in Spain in 1953, producing everything from westerns, sports, war stories and trading cards, often in conjunction with his brother Jorge Badía Romero. He even formed his own publishing house. “Enric” began working for the higher-paying UK market in the 1960s on strips such as ‘Cathy and Wendy’, ‘Isometrics’ and ‘Cassius Clay’ before successfully assuming the drawing duties on the high-profile Modesty Blaise strip in 1970 (see Modesty Blaise: The Hell Makers and Modesty Blaise: The Green Eyed Monster), only leaving when this enticing new prospect appeared.

In 1986 political and editorial intrigue saw Axa cancelled in the middle of a story and Romero returned to the bodacious Blaise until creator/writer Peter O’Donnell retired in 2001. Since then he has produced Modesty material for Scandinavia and a number of projects such as Durham Red for 2000AD.

Axa ran in The Sun Monday to Saturday from 1978 to her abrupt disappearance in 1986 and other than these slim volumes from strip historian Ken Pierce has never been graced with a definitive collection. It should be noted also that at the time of these books the strip was still being published to great acclaim.

In the first two volumes Axa, a pampered citizen of a sterile, domed community in 2080AD, rebelled against her antiseptic society’s cloying strictures and escaped to the ravaged, mutant-infested post apocalyptic wilderness to be free. Her journeys took her across the ravaged planet, discovering lost enclaves and encountering bizarre new tribes and cultures.

The third volume opens with an avid appreciation by C.C. Beck, the “Crusty Curmudgeon” most celebrated as co-creator of the Shazam!-shouting Captain Marvel before the nubile nomad resumed her explorations in ‘Axa the Brave’ with her latest companion Jason Arkady in tow. Crossing a frozen wasteland reclaimed by wolves after man’s Great Contamination excised human civilisation, the pair stagger into a lush tropical valley populated by dinosaurs and cavemen.

The historical anomalies are disturbing and dangerous enough, but when they were invited to join the new stone-agers they uncovered an even greater enigma: the cave-walls were covered in paintings of robots and weird machines… The secret of the hidden valley is yet another example of the brilliance and folly of the lost human civilisation and leads the unstoppable freedom-seeker to a swamp-city where an enclave of scientists had survived the disaster…

The hidden sages had a big plan to reshape the world and wanted Axa aboard, so they built her the perfect companion: a faithful, semi-sentient laser-wielding robot dubbed Mark 10 who instantly aroused the jealous ire of Jason. As so often the case however, Axa’s male benefactors had hidden plans for her but the scientists had built too well and the utterly devoted Mark came rattling rapidly to her rescue…

In ‘Axa the Gambler’ the winsome wanderer, with Mark and Jason faithfully following, stumbled onto a community where wagering was the basis for existence and pilgrims came from miles around to bet with the fervour of religious zealots.

In The City of Hope patrons worshipped Las Vegan relics, seeking instant gratification for their greedy, hungry prayers. Soon Jason had caught the bug and gambled away all their meager possessions including the magnificent ancient sword Axa had carried since her first escape from the Domed City.

Of course the game was fixed, but with Mark’s cybernetic intervention Axa recouped all their losses, narrowly escaping the hidden penalty that underpinned the barter-economy of the City: when you don’t have any more goods to wager with, you become the property of the house…

When Jason discovered a historic family link to big boss Mr. Nero he switched allegiance and Axa ended up fighting for her life and liberty in the gladiatorial arena beside motorcycle warrior Dirk. With freedom her greatest love, Axa inevitably engineered Nero’s bloody fall, but lost Jason to the lure of greed and an idle life of pleasure…

Axa 4 begins with an appreciation and “previously on…” by publisher Bernie McCarty before ‘Axa the Earthbound’ saw the blonde bombshell and Dirk hunting the missing mechanical Mark 10 through a haunted, monster-haunted swamp until they stumbled upon a lost oasis of beauty – a veritable paradise amidst the ruins of the world.

In a ramshackle old house lived aged Joy Eden who happily welcomed the wanderers to stay. Axa was subtly drawn to the aged free spirit’s talk of Mother Earth and pagan renewal but Dirk had his suspicions: did the old lady thrive despite the mutants and mud-monsters… or because of them?

Deeply steeped in Earth-magic and transformative mysticism, did the lonely old crone have another reason for keeping Dirk and Axa within the tumbledown walls of her “Seventh Heaven”… and just what did happen to the coldly technological but absolutely loyal Mark?

Ending as always in bitter revelation, chilling conflict and spectacular conflagration the denouements led the explorers back into the desert wastes in ‘Axa the Tempted’. Their trek brought them to the coast where mutated seaweed and giant sea-life threatened to end their trials for ever and whilst fleeing giant land-crustaceans the couple found an ancient beached ocean-liner from where inbred pirates raided other coastal settlements for slaves, provisions and “Old People” technological artifacts.

Escaping from “The Crewmen”, Axa and Dirk allied themselves with the united sea-villagers and the heroic Cap, King of the Coast, who protects the scattered communities from pirate depredations. The wily wild-girl was strangely attracted to the larger-than-life champion and his luxurious life of adventure, excitement and bold deeds, but Dirk had mysteriously vanished and something just didn’t ring true about the magnanimous warrior-king…

Once more bitter disappointment and righteous indignation awaited Axa as she once more learned that no matter where she roamed men were all the same whilst greed and depravity had not vanished with the Old Ones and their Great Contamination.

These tales are superb examples of the uniquely British newspaper strip style: lavishly drawn, subversively written, expansive in scope and utterly enchanting in their basic simplicity – with lots of flashed flesh, emphatic action and sly humour. Eminently readable and re-readable (and there’s still that dwindling promise of a major motion picture) Axa is long overdue for a definitive collection. so here’s hoping there’s a bold publisher out there looking for the next big thing…

© 1983 Express Newspapers, Ltd. First American Collectors Edition Series ™ & © 1983 Ken Pierce, Inc.

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StormWatch: Final Orbit


By Warren Ellis, Bryan Hitch & Paul Neary, Michael Ryan & Luke Rizzo and Chris Sprouse & Kevin Nowlan (WildStorm/ DC Comics/Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-381-0

One era ended and another began with the brace of tales collected in this slim tome: a rare positive example of the often vilified (by me particularly) movie property/comicbook crossover events and one which actually impinges on and affects the continuity of one if not both partners in the enterprise.

StormWatch was the UN’s Special Crisis Intervention unit; created to manage global threats and superhuman menaces with international ramifications. From their Skywatch satellite in orbit above Earth they observed, waiting for a member nation to call for help…

The multinational mini-army comprised surveillance and intelligence specialists, tech support units, historians, researchers, detention facilities, combat analysts, divisions of uniquely trained troops, a squadron of state-of-the-art out-atmosphere fighter planes and a band of dedicated superheroes for front-line situations beyond the scope of mere mortals. In the pilot’s seat was the incorruptible overseer codenamed “Weatherman”.

The title was part of the 1990s comics revolution which saw celebrated young creators abandon major “work-for-hire” publishers to set up their own companies and titles – with all the benefits and drawbacks that entailed. Like most of those glossy, formulaic, style-over-content, painfully derivative titles, it started with honest enthusiasm but soon bogged down for lack of ideas.

Warren Ellis took over the moribund morass with issue #37 (collected in assorted graphic novels and reviewed in here recently) and immediately began kicking some life into the title. Soon the series became an edgy, unmissable treatise on modern heroism and the uses and abuses of power. Making the book unquestionably his plaything Ellis slowly evolved StormWatch out of existence, to be reborn as the no-rules-unbroken landmark The Authority.

This volume collects the concluding issues of the comic’s second volume (#11-12) between which a WildC.A.T.s/Aliens one-shot neatly slotted in to change that particular fictional universe forever.

It all begins with ‘No Reason’ (illustrated by Bryan Hitch & Paul Neary and Michael Ryan & Luke Rizzo) as the assembled heroes and foot-soldiers of the UN Crisis Intervention organisation detect an odd asteroid moving towards Earth. Dispatching two shuttles to examine and divert the giant rock before it can fall into our planet’s gravity-well, the explorers soon realise it’s a vessel of unknown origins.

When contact is lost the assorted tensions rise, but the re-routing of the ominous astral intruder goes off as planned and the mysterious moonlet is soon heading into the sun. However only one ship is returning to Skywatch and they aren’t answering the radio…

WildC.A.T.s/Aliens (Ellis, Chris Sprouse & Kevin Nowlan) opens with a StormWatch life-pod crashing into Manhattan: its few battered survivors telling of an alien attack by creatures all fangs and rage and spitting acid. The creatures were unstoppable and as soon as the refugees had escaped Weatherman sealed the space-station in an unbreakable quarantine…

Rogue heroes WildC.A.T.S, fearing the aliens are their marauding Daemonite enemies, decide to break the global protocols and investigate the locked down StormWatch citadel. But the beasts they find there are like nothing they have ever experienced before…

In one of the few comics situations where Ridley Scott and James Cameron’s Aliens truly worked and fully displayed their awesome ferocity, the WildC.A.T.S only just rescue the scant survivors of StormWatch’s 500+ compliment of mortals and metahumans, before sending the irreparably contaminated space station plunging into the sun after the star-rock that brought the Aliens to our doorstep…

With the immediate threat to Earth averted, ‘No Direction Home’ wraps up the tale and the saga of StormWatch as the organisation’s Black Ops unit Jenny Sparks, Jack Hawksmoor and Swift go deep undercover to tie-up all the loose ends preparatory to re-emerging as The Authority…

Combining low key drama and oppressive tension with staggering action and adventure this chilling tale was the perfect palate-cleanser before the landmark step-change of The Authority and their in-your-face, unconventional, uncompromising solutions to traditional costumed crusader problems.

StormWatch: Final Orbit – although certainly not to everybody’s taste – perfectly closes one chapter of the post-modern superhero saga: solidly in tune with the cynical, world-weary predilections of many older fans and late-comers to the medium.

© 1998 WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics, and Dark Horse Comics. Compilation © 2001 WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics, and Dark Horse Comics All Rights Reserved.

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Y- The Last Man: volume 8 Kimono Dragons


By Brian K Vaughan, Pia Guerra Goran Sudžuka & José Marzán (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-358-9

When a plague killed every male on Earth, only Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand survived in a world made instantly utterly all-girl. With a government agent and a geneticist escorting him across the devastated American continent to a Californian bio-lab, all the young man could think of was re-uniting with his girlfriend Beth, trapped in Australia when the disaster struck.

The romantic fool trekked from Washington DC overland to California, getting ever closer to his fiancée, whom he presumed had been stranded in Oz since civilisation ended. His reluctant companions were secret agent 355 and Dr. Allison Mann, who was trying to solve the mystery of his continued existence. The latter feared she might have actually caused the plague by giving birth to the world’s first parthenogenetic human clone.

Also out to stake their claim and add to the general tension were a crack squad of Israeli commandos led by the steely-willed General Tse’Elon, plus post-disaster cult Daughters of the Amazon who wanted to make sure that there really were no more men left to mess up the planet. To further complicate matters, for much of that journey Yorick’s occasionally insane sister, Hero, was also stalking them across the ultra-feminised, ravaged and now utterly dis-United States.

After four years and some incredible adventures Yorick (a mediocre student but a rather proficient amateur magician and escapologist) and entourage made it to Australia, only to discover Beth had set off for Paris a year previously. Along the way Dr. Mann had discovered the truth: the reason Yorick was alive was that Ampersand was inexplicably immune and had the disgusting habit of “sharing” his waste products – if Yorick couldn’t duck fast enough…

As this book opens (reprinting issues #43-48 of the award-winning comics series) the lad and his extremely tolerant lasses have reached Japan, following a ninja who had stolen the crucially important monkey. ‘Kimono Dragons’ (illustrated by Pia Guerra & José Marzán Jr.) finds the wanderers in Yokogata Port, joined by Rose, the ship’s captain who befriended them. They soon split up though, when Ampersand’s tracking device starts working again: Yorick and 355 follow it to Tokyo, whilst Rose and Allison explore a different path.

Dr. Mann is a brilliant scientist, but not as smart as her parents: both radical geneticists with major personal issues. She is convinced that her mother had something to do with the plague and Ampersand’s abduction. She’s right too, but as she and Rose reach the elder Doctor’s rural laboratory they have no idea that the pesky little simian has escaped and is loose in Tokyo somewhere. They are equally unaware that the lethally ruthless ninja is searching for the lost capuchin too…

Meanwhile, the heavily disguised Yorick and 355 have reached Tokyo, a city seemingly unchanged by the disaster… but appearances can be horrifyingly deceiving…

…And in Kansas, Yorick’s sister finds a hidden enclave where she sees proof that he is no longer the last male alive (See Y The Last Man volume 3: One Small Step)…

Ampersand’s trail has led Yorick and 355 into conflict with the now all-women Yakuza. They find an ally in undercover cop You, but her plan doesn’t inspire much confidence…

…And when Allison’s mother – let’s call her Dr. Matsumori – finally appears, Rose and Allison are too slow to prevent a bloody assault. As the aging doctor works to save a life, she reveals the hidden agendas and reasons why American politicians, Israeli soldiers and greedy opportunists around the globe have been hunting Yorick and Ampersand for the last four years…

In Tokyo the raid to recover the monkey has also gone brutally awry, but the big surprise occurs in Yokogata, as Allison learns who the Ninja actually works for and who has orchestrated the whole affair… the family member who actually designed and released the plague…

As renegade Israeli General Tse’Elon invades the Kansas enclave where Hero Brown is helping to raise the last children born on Earth, ‘Tin Man’ (with art from Goran Sudžuka& José Marzán Jr.) traces the convoluted history of Dr. Allison Mann as her biologist parents broke scientific barriers, ethical codes and each other’s hearts fighting over her affections and reveals the implications of the broken family’s genetic meddling,  before this volume closes with ‘Gehenna’ (Sudžuka& Marzán Jr.), an equally illuminating examination of General Tse’Elon’s past: how she rose to power before the fall of man, and how far she’ll go to achieve her ends, ending the book on a chilling cliffhanger…

By crafting his slow-burning saga with carefully sculpted, credible characters and situations Vaughan built an intellectually seductive soap-opera fantasy of telling power. As the impressive conclusion neared, this well-paced, dryly ironic, moving and clever tale blossomed into a very special tale that should delight any fan of mature fiction. Bear down, the best is yet to come…
© 2006 Brian K Vaughan & Pia Guerra. All Rights Reserved.

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StormWatch: Change or Die


By Warren Ellis, Oscar Jimenez, Tom Raney, & various (DC/WildStorm)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-631-6

StormWatch was the UN’s Special Crisis Intervention unit; created to manage global threats and superhuman menaces with international ramifications. From their Skywatch satellite in orbit above Earth they observed, waiting for a member nation to call for help…

The multinational mini-army comprised surveillance and intelligence specialists, tech support units, historians, researchers, detention facilities, combat analysts, divisions of uniquely trained troops, a squadron of state-of-the-art out-atmosphere fighter planes and a band of dedicated superheroes for front-line situations beyond the scope of mere mortals. In the pilot’s seat was incorruptible overseer Henry Bendix – “The Weatherman”.

The title sprang from the comics revolution which saw celebrated young creators abandon major “work-for-hire” publishers to set up their own companies and titles – with all the benefits and drawbacks that entailed. As with most of those glossy, formulaic, style-over-content, almost actionably derivative titles, it started with honest enthusiasm but soon bogged down for lack of ideas.

Warren Ellis took over the moribund morass with issue #37 (see the previous collection StormWatch: Force of Nature) and immediately began beating life into the title. Soon “just another high-priced team-book” became an edgy, unmissable treatise on practical heroism and the uses and abuses of power. Making the book unquestionably his plaything Ellis slowly evolved StormWatch out of existence, to be reborn as the no-rules-unbroken landmark The Authority.

This volume collects and concludes the comicbook’s first volume with issues #48-50 and bridges the gap to the second volume’s issues #1-3 with the extremely rare – and short – StormWatch Preview edition, all scripted by Ellis as he re-redefined the masked hero for a new millennium.

The action and suspense begins with ‘Change or Die’ (with art from Tom Raney & Randy Elliott) as the StormWatch team are targeted by a ruthless band of superhumans, led by a long dormant superman who first began fighting social injustice before World War II. After years of planning these underground wonder warriors are boldly using their powers to wipe out all the inequities of the old World Order and build a better world. Of course that means doing away with armies, politicians, all governments and any superheroes who don’t agree with them…

This more than any other is the tale which introduced The Authority – in concept at least – to the comics world, as the ambitious but completely best-intentioned team (including prototype versions of both The Doctor and The Engineer) strike on many fronts, turning deserts into gardens, brutally wiping out brutal dictatorships and revealing all those dirty little secrets to the global populace…

In a bid to save “human civilisation” Weatherman authorises all of StormWatch for a kill mission… but even as Bendix’s true character and plans are revealed the poor suckers on the front line – and even their idealistic antagonists – discover amidst bloody, spectacular battle that the real enemy in the way of a global paradise is, always, human nature…

Following the apocalyptic events which wrapped up the first series ‘Terminal Zone’ (illustrated by Oscar Jimenez & Chuck Gibson) opens with new Weatherman Jackson King and the surviving team members going through their paces in a rather subversive public relations exercise before ‘Strange Weather’ (rendered by the mob-handed art-horde of Jimenez, Michael Ryan, Jason Gorder, Mark McKenna, Richard Friend, Eduardo Alpuente & Homage Studios) launches the new adventures as StormWatch metahumans raid a clandestine US facility illegally weaponising US troops and other lethal biological materials.

It appears that America is willfully breaking UN Resolutions restricting the creation of super-soldiers; but is this the work of militant terrorists and disaffected renegades or does the chain of command reach higher – perhaps to the White House itself?

The team is soon hip-deep in DNA horrors and official hypocrisy when they infiltrate a sleepy Alabama town and the Federal government declares war on StormWatch…

Dark, scary and rabidly political, the tension and intrigue are ramped up to overload, but as always the hip and cynical message is leavened with spectacular action, mind-blowing big science thrills and magically vulgar humour.

Mixing tradition with iconoclastic irreverence this volume cleared the way and set the scene for the landmark step-change of The Authority and although certainly not to everybody’s taste, these perfect post-modern superhero sagas definitely deliver a blast of refreshing cool air for the jaded, world weary older fan.
© 1997, 1998, 1999 WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Return of Mister X


By Gilberto, Mario & Jaime Hernandez, Dean Motter & others (Graphitti Designs)
ISBN: 0-936211-03-2

It’s the same old story.

Sometimes chaos and acrimony can produce something uniquely beautiful. At the height of the 1980s independent comics explosion a group of very talented individuals briefly got on long enough to produce a visual masterpiece that perfectly captured the tone of the times, before personalities, fame, money and conflicting ideas brought everything down in disaffection and anger.

In 1983 illustrator and designer Dean Motter created an iconic visual image of a trench-coated bald man in smoked glasses. That evocative beginning grew into the concept of a tormented genius, drawn back to atone for his greatest creation – an incredible retro-futuristic metropolis. It was the 1980’s: the era of style over substance and fortunes and careers had been built on so much less…

Motter took the concept to Canadian indie publisher Vortex and brought in more experienced comics artists Paul Rivoche and Klaus Schönefeld to further develop the series. After an initial appearance in the company’s anthology Vortex #2 and a stunning poster campaign by Rivoche a new comicbook debuted. Already creative differences were pulling the team apart. Some session creators were needed to finish the job…

‘The Return of Mr. X’, scripted by Gilberto and Mario Hernandez with Motter, illustrated in a slick and compelling celebration of pure, synthesised-and-street-ready nostalgia by the inimitable Jaime Hernandez (all lavishly coloured by Rivoche and Schönefeld) blended a veritable bucket-load of cool influences into a staggeringly impressive melange of German Expressionism and American Film Noir, referencing also elements of pop science fiction, gangster movies, Art Deco, Bauhaus architectural design, LA street culture and the budding lexicon of graphic imagery from a brand new phenomenon – the music video…

Although Los Bros departed after completing the first story-arc in issue #4, citing payment disputes, the series carried on until 1985 with another ten issues by Motter and artist Seth rounding out volume 1: after which a second, black and white volume by writer Jeffrey Morgan illustrated by Shane Oakley, D’Iraeli and Ken Holewczynski was released in 1989. Since then the character has appeared sporadically under diverse hands including Motter, Bill Sienkiewicz, Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean and others. Most recently Dark Horse revived Mr. X in 2008.

Once upon a time an inspired architect designed the perfect city. With a brilliant mathematician as his partner they proposed the glorious concept of Radiant City, man-made paradise and City of Tomorrow. But as the city grew the scientist killed himself and the artist went mad: pushed by the drug he had invented to stave off time-wasting sleep. Perhaps the real reason was all the betrayals by friends, associates and his lover…

His brains scrambled, Walter Eichmann abandoned his “City of Dreams” allowing others to short-cut, adulterate and bastardize his unique mind-massaging “psychetecture” into something not soothing and beneficial but subtly dangerous. In his absence the rooms and buildings became twisted. The dwellings slowly poisoned the minds and souls of the citizens who occupied them. Le Corbusier called houses “machines for living” and the demented Eichmann had allowed them to become psychological war machines…

Years later, clean, relatively sane, cadaverous and hungry for redemption the mysterious Mr. X comes back to his city, now a gaudy, forbidding, vile and corrupted metropolis. He is armed with the intimate secrets of its genesis and determined to make amends, but to repair the mind-altering topography of the dark Somnopolis he will have to face all his old friends – men and women tainted by years dwelling in his creation and even more greedy, violent and ruthless than they were…

This material has been collected numerous times, but I’m concentrating on the first time: a sleek, luxurious tome which gathered those landmark first four issues – and more specifically the glorious signed, numbered hardback edition produced by high-end specialist printer/publisher Graphitti Designs.

In addition to the wonderful classic adventure this chronicle also includes a full colour by plate-page by Jaime, signed by all concerned, a huge designs, page-roughs and sketches section dubbed the X-files (that’s a catchy title: somebody should do something with that…) plus superbly pithy, short graphic sidebar novelettes entitled Tales From Somnopolis by Gilbert and Mario.

There’s also a tipped in colour plate reproducing Motter’s very first image of Mr. X (originally the cover for Patrick Cowley’s album Megatron Man).

Sexy, scary and funny, compelling and visually astounding, this tale – and this particular edition of it – absolutely captured and epitomised an era where how you looked was as or even more important than what you did – and the very special saga subsequently influenced a generation of comics creators, movie directors and video makers.

Whichever version you read The Return of Mr. X is a saga you must not miss.
© 1986 Vortex Comics Incorporated. All Tights Reserved. This edition © 1986 Graphitti Designs.

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Y: The Last Man: vol. 7 Paper Dolls


By Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Goran Sudžuka & José Marzán Jr. (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-84576-241-4

A venerable old science fiction concept got a new, pithy and wry updating in the Vertigo series Y: The Last Man when a mystery plague destroyed every male mammal on Earth and even all the sperm and foetuses.

If it had a Y chromosome it croaked, except, somehow, for college-boy slacker and amateur escapologist Yorick Brown – and his pet monkey Ampersand. One night the guy goes to bed pining for his absent girlfriend Beth DeVille (an anthropology grad on a dig in Australia) and the next day Ampersand is the only male animal on Earth and he’s the last man alive…

Yorick’s mum, part of the new (for which read Still-Standing after a failed power-grab by the assembled widows of Republican Congressmen) Presidential Cabinet, is by default a Leader of the Free World until the New President can get to Washington to take office.

Yorick made his way to her through a devastated urban landscape (the plague hit during rush-hour on the East Coast and we all know that chicks can’t even parallel park let alone wrestle the controls from the hands of a dead bus driver, subway steersman or airline pilot…) but had to escape from her half-hearted attempt to lock him a bunker. Forthwith the lad immediately set off for the Land Down Under and his one true love.

Over the course of three years he made his peril-packed way from the East Coast overland to California, getting ever closer to his fiancée, who he assumed had been stranded in Oz since civilisation ended. Accompanying him on his trek westward was secret agent/bodyguard 355 and geneticist Dr. Allison Mann, who has been trying to solve his mysteriously continued existence and who believes she might have caused the plague by giving birth to the world’s first parthenogenetic human clone.

Also out to stake their claim and add to the general tension were a crack squad of Israeli commandos led by the steely-willed General Tse’Elon, equipped with the latest high-powered weapons and a hidden agenda, plus post-disaster cult Daughters of the Amazon who wanted to make sure that there really were no more men left to mess up the planet.

To further complicate matters, for much of that journey Yorick’s occasionally insane sister, Hero, was stalking them across the ultra-feminised, ravaged and now generally dis-United States.

When they finally arrived in San Francisco, Agent 355 and Dr. Mann actually discovered the secret of Yorick’s immunity but before they could capitalise on it Ampersand was snatched by a ninja. Apparently, all along the monkey had held the secret to the plague which killed all us mouth-breathing, unsanitary louts…

After a violently revelatory time and lots of aggravation (see Y: the Last Man: Girl on Girl) this seventh volume (collecting issues # 37-42 of the award-winning Vertigo comicbook) at last finds our hero in the place he’s been aiming for, but Australia has undergone a few changes…

The eponymous ‘Paper Dolls’ (illustrated by Pia Guerra, Goran Sudžuka & José Marzán Jr.) introduces hard-bitten reporter Paloma West, haunting the Sydney docks and trying to verify rumours that a living man has been sighted. Whilst 355 and Mann are insistent that they travel on to Japan where Ampersand has been spotted, all Yorick can think of is that after years of struggle he’s finally where he needs to be…

Technically under arrest themselves, the well-intentioned but determined ladies bow to Yorick’s whining and give him 24 hours to find his long lost Beth. It’s not much of a chance but love will find a way… Nobody however, took Paloma West seriously and that was a big mistake…

With his existence about to be made globally public Yorick learns a few tantalising secrets about the mysterious Agent 355 before they confront West. The bodyguard wants her dead but the reporter claims to know where Yorick’s beloved Beth is now…

Time up, the man and his minders have to follow Ampersand to Japan and the secret of the plague, even though Beth has left on an epic trek to Paris – the French one…

Meanwhile in Washington, Yorick’s mother and Tse’Elon have a deadly confrontation before the scene shifts to the Midwest for ‘The Hour of Our Death’ as Hero meets one of her brother’s past indiscretions and realises she’s about to become an aunt just as a band of Vatican-sent nuns arrive to grab what might be the last child ever born. Seems they’re in the market for a new Madonna and Child…

‘Buttons’ (with art from Sudžuka & Marzán Jr.) focuses on the tragic story of 355 and how she became an agent of the insidious Culper Ring all whilst the unhappy voyagers flee from savages in New Guinea and this volume concludes by shifting scenes to follow that darn monkey in ‘1,000 Typewriters’ (Sudžuka & Marzán Jr. again), finally revealing exactly how this male-extinction mess came about, just as the cast reach Japan and the dramatic last act is set to begin…

By stocking this hoary old premise with carefully crafted, credible characters and situations Vaughan built an intellectually seductive soap-opera fantasy of distinctive power with the narrative thread consistently advancing to the point that this less than avid original reader was eventually fearfully avid to see where and how it would all end.

Marvelously well-paced, dryly ironic, moving and clever Y: the Last Man makes an old idea new and compulsively relevant: This delightful pot-boiler of a tale best is consumed in large chunks, however, so be prepared to invest in the entire run of volumes. Trust me, it’s well worth it.

© 2006 Brian K Vaughan & Pia Guerra. All Rights Reserved.