Category: Science Fiction

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Showcase Presents Batman volume 6


By Dennis O’Neil, Frank Robbins, Robert Kanigher, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Neal Adams, Irv Novick, Bob Brown, Dick Giordano & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5153-6 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

After three seasons the overwhelmingly successful Batman TV show ended in March, 1968. It had clocked up 120 episodes plus a theatrical-release movie since its premiere on January 12, 1966; triggering a global furore of “Batmania” and causing hysteria for all things costumed, zany and mystery-mannish.

Once the series foundered and crashed, humanity’s fascination with “camp” superheroes burst as quickly as it had boomed, and the Caped Crusader was left to a hard core of dedicated fans and followers who hoped they might now have Their hero back.

For comic book editor Julius Schwartz – who had tried to keep the most ludicrous excesses of the show out whilst still cashing in on his global popularity – the solution was simple: ditch the tired shtick, gimmicks and gaudy paraphernalia and get Batman back to basics; solving baffling mysteries and facing life-threatening perils.

That also meant phasing out the boy sidekick…

Although the college freshman Teen Wonder would still pop back for the occasional guest-shot yarn, this 6th astoundingly economical monochrome monument to comics ingenuity and narrative brilliance features him only sporadically. Robin had finally spread his wings and flown the nest: for a solo back-up slot in Detective Comics, alternating with Batgirl.

Chronologically collecting Batman’s cases from cover-dates February 1971 to September 1972, in issues #229-244 of his own title and the front halves of Detective Comics #408-426, the 33 tales gathered here (some Batman issues were giant reprint editions, so only their covers are reproduced within these pages) were written and illustrated by forward-thinking creators determined make the hero relevant and interesting on his own terms once more.

One huge factor aiding the transition was the fact that the publishers now finally acknowledged that a large proportion of their faithful readership were discerning teens or even adults, not just kids looking for a quick, cheap, disposable entertainment fix. Working through other contemporary tropes – most notably a renewed global fascination in all things supernatural and gothic – the creative staff reshaped Batman into a champion capable of working within the new “big things” in comics: realism, organised crime, social issues, suspense and even supernatural horror…

During this period the long road to our modern obsessive, scarily dark Knight gradually produced a harder-edged, grimly serious caped crimebuster whilst carefully expanding the milieu and scope of Batman’s universe. That especially meant re-assessing his fearsome foes, who ceased to be harmless buffoons and inexorably metamorphosed back into the macabre Grand Guignol murder-fiends which typified the villains of the early 1940s.

This mini-renaissance also resulted in a groundbreaking experiment now lauded as one of the first great extended Batman epics…

The moody mayhem begins with ‘Asylum of the Futurians’ (Batman #229, by Robert Kanigher, Irv Novick & Frank Giacoia) pitting the astounded hero against a sect of self-proclaimed mutants who might simply have been the craziest, most self-deluding killers he had ever faced. Almost simultaneously, Detective Comics #408 offered a short sharp shocker by neophyte scripters Len Wein & Marv Wolfman. Limned by Neal Adams & Dick Giordano ‘The House That Haunted Batman’ showcased spectral apparitions, the apparent death of Robin and a devilish mystery callously perpetrated by one of the Gotham Guardian’s most sinister enemies. Frank Robbins, Novick & Giordano then addressed the ongoing social revolution as our hero stopped a juvenile delinquent gang-war. When the now united kids occupied a palatial new building the ‘Take-Over of Paradise’ (Batman #230) provoked a vicious murder. Luckily the Caped Crimebuster was on hand to solve the case before a renewed bloodbath began…

Detective #409 saw Batman face a disfigured lunatic slashing portraits and killing their subjects in ‘Man in the Eternal Mask’ (Robbins, Bob Brown & Giacoia) whilst next issue proved to be another chillingly memorable murder-mystery from the most celebrated creative team of the decade. ‘A Vow from the Grave!’ by Denny O’Neil, Adams & Giordano at their spectacular best featured an exhausted Batman hunting one ruthless killer and inadvertently stumbling into another murder amidst an enclave of retired circus freaks…

Multi-talented Dick Giordano was inker of choice for the Darknight Detective at this time: his slick, lush line and brushwork lending a veneer of continuity to every penciller. Unless I say otherwise, please assume it’s him on every cited story from now on…

The Dark Knight was lured to Vietnam to save an airliner full of hostages in Batman #231 (Robbins with Novick pencils), barely surviving a vicious vengeance scheme triggered by the ‘Blind Rage of the Ten-Eyed Man’. Then the first subtle plot-strands of a breathtakingly ambitious saga unlike anything seen in comics before were woven in Detective Comics #411. Still in the East, undercover and hunting Dr. Darrk (leader of lethally clandestine League of Assassins introduced in #405), Batman’s pursuit led ‘Into the Den of the Death-Dealers’ (O’Neil & Brown) where a climactic struggle resulted in the death monger’s demise and freedom for an exotic hostage he was holding. Her name was Talia…

We learned more of her in Batman #232 where O’Neil & Adams introduced her father – immortal eco-terrorist Ra’s Al Ghul – in a whirlwind adventure which became a signature high-point of the entire Batman canon. ‘Daughter of the Demon’ is a timeless globe-girdling pulp mystery yarn drawing the increasingly dark detective from Gotham’s concrete canyons to the Himalayas in search of Robin and Talia: hostages purportedly captured by forces inimical to both Batman and the mysterious figure who claims to working in secret to save the world…

Ra’s was a contemporary, hopefully more acceptable embodiment of the classic inscrutable ultimate foreign devil (typified in a less forgiving age as the “Yellow Peril” or Dr. Fu Manchu). This kind of alien archetype permeates popular fiction and is still an astonishingly powerful villain-symbol, although the character’s Arabic origins – neutral at that time – seem to uncomfortably embody a different kind of ethnic bogeyman in today’s world.

The concept of a villain who has the best interests of the planet at heart is also not new, but Ra’s Al Ghul – whose avowed intent is to reduce teeming humanity to viable levels and save the world from our poison – hit a chord in the 1970s, a period where ecological issues first came to the attention of the young. It was a rare kid who didn’t find a note of sense in what “the Demon’s Head” planned.

The spectacular tale ended with a shocking pronouncement of what Ra’s intended for Batman…

A return to relative normality came in ‘Legacy of Hate!’ (Detective Comics #412 by Robbins, Brown) as Bruce Wayne heads to Northern England for a convocation of kin gathered to settle the ownership and disposition of ancient Waynemoor Castle. Sadly, even Batman couldn’t separate the spate of attempted murders which followed into purely human perpetrators and the fault of the manor’s vengeful ghost knight…

DC #413 blended the spooky tone of the times with a healthy dose of social inclusion as ‘Freak-Out at Phantom Hollow!’ (Robbins & Brown) sees Batman saving two abused hippie kids being picked on by folk in a rural hamlet, only to become embroiled in a witch’s curse and mad bomber’s plot. Batman #233 was an all-reprint edition, after which #234 featured the stellar return of one of the hero’s most tragic foes. As comics became increasingly more anodyne in the 1950s, psychologically warped actualised schizophrenic Two-Face slipped from Batman’s roster of rogues, but with ‘Half an Evil’ (O’Neil, Adams & Giordano) he resurfaced at the forefront of grimmer, grittier stories. When a string of bizarre and brutal robberies afflicts Gotham, the baffled Batman must use all his ingenuity to discern the reasoning and discover the identity of a ruthless hidden mastermind in time to thwart a diabolical scheme…

An aura of Film Noir redemption colours O’Neil & Novick’s ‘Legend of the Key Hook Lighthouse!’ (Detective #414), as Batman tracks gunrunners to a haunted coastal bastion in Florida. However, only supernatural intervention enables him to save bystanders who, whilst not exactly innocent, certainly don’t deserve the fate psychotic banana republic despot General Ruizo planned for them…

In Batman #235’s ‘Swamp Sinister!’ (O’Neil & Novick) early insights into the true character of Talia and her ruthless sire manifest when the Dark Knight races to recover a stolen bio-weapon, whilst in Detective #415 Robbins & Brown’s ‘Challenge of the Consumer Crusader’ sees the Gotham Gangbuster uncover an extortion ring inside the nation’s most respected product-testing organisation.

Detective Comics #400 had introduced a dark twisted doppelganger to Gotham’s Guardian when driven scientist Kirk Langstrom created a serum to make him superior to Batman… and paid a heavy price. Over two further tales Langstrom and his fiancée Francine endured his monstrous transformations until Batman found a cure. Now that trilogy expanded in DC #416 as Robbins illustrated his own script in ‘Man-Bat Madness!’ Here Kirk seemingly slips back into his mutative madness. Luckily, Batman has the faith to look beyond appearances and discerns a hidden factor in the scientist’s inexplicable recidivism…

In Batman #236, Robbins & Novick blend mysticism with a solid murder-plot, cover-up and blistering action in ‘Wail of the Ghost-Bride!’ after which a journalist tries to become ‘Batman for a Night’ (Detective #417, Robbins, Brown & Giordano) but only succeeds after experiencing a similar crime-created loss…

‘Night of the Reaper!’ – by O’Neil, Adams & Giordano from Batman #237 – is another of the era’s most revered tales: a harrowing Halloween epic finding Robin working with his former mentor to solve a string of barbarous killings, only to uncover a pitifully deranged perpetrator as much sinned-against as sinner…

Following the cover of reprint giant Batman #238, Detective Comics #418 delivers a (temporary) finish to the short-lived career of The Creeper as ‘…And Be a Villain!’ (O’Neil & Novick) pits the Gotham Guardian against a former hero being simultaneously killed and driven crazy by his own powers. At the heart of the problem is a criminal scientist forcing The Creeper to steal in return for a promised cure, but that’s no help as Batman battles a foe faster, stronger, more agile and far scarier than he…

A corpse weighed down with Batman figurines leads our hero into an underworld imbroglio packed with shameful family freaks, a ruthless master smuggler and the pitiful ‘Secret of the Slaying Statues!’ (Detective #419 by O’Neil & Novick) before Christmas classic ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night!’ (O’Neil & Novick in Batman #239) sees the masked manhunter striving to save a desperate, poverty-struck single parent from making the worst decision of his life – with a little seasonal help from a Jolly higher power…

Robbins again solos for Detective Comics #420’s ‘Forecast for Tonight… Murder!’ as a radioactive dead man stalks one of Gotham’s greatest philanthropists, easily outwitting Batman’s every preventative measure. It only gets tougher when the hero discovers he might be safeguarding the wrong injured party…

The long-brewing war between Batman and Ra’s Al Ghul goes to Def Con 3 in Batman #240 when O’Neil, Novick & Giordano set the scene for a groundbreaking “series-within-a-series” soon to follow. After Batman uncovers one of his opponent’s less worthy and far more grisly projects, he is forced to compromise his principles and deliver ‘Vengeance for a Dead Man!’ The end result will be open war between Batman and the Demon’s Head…

Batman has to break a blackmailer who knows all Gotham’s dirty secrets out of prison during a full-scale riot in ‘Blind Justice… Blind Fear!’ (another all-Robbins affair from DC #421) whilst in the following issue O’Neil, Brown & Giordano have the Dark Knight expose a cunning hijacking ring using radical methodology for corporate reasons in ‘Highway to Nowhere!’ Another sociopathic killer then debuts in Batman #241 as the hero hunts freelance spy Colonel Sulphur, whose extortion scheme revolves around his threat to kill a Pentagon officer’s wife.

‘At Dawn Dies Mary McGuffin!’ by O’Neil & Novick sees Batman scouring Gotham in a tense race against the clock in direct counterpoint to Detective #423’s ‘The Most Dangerous Twenty Miles in Gotham City’ (Robbins, Brown) wherein the masked manhunter’s cognitive skills are tested trying to slip a Russian agent past a gang of ultra-patriots. The killers don’t care that he’s being exchanged for a captive American, they just want to kill a commie and send a message…

Batman #242-244 (and an epilogue from #245 not included in this volume) formed a single extended saga taken out of normal DC continuity. It promised the final confrontation between two opposing ideals. O’Neil, Novick & Giordano opened the campaign in Batman #242 with ‘Bruce Wayne – Rest in Peace!’ as – his civilian identity taken off the board – Batman gathers a small team of specialist allies. These comprise criminal alternate-identity Matches Malone, scientific advisor Dr. Harris Blaine and Ra’s’ top assassin Ling all coerced and sworn to destroy the Demon forever.

Meanwhile it was business as usual in Detective #424 where ‘Double-Cross-Fire!’ by Robbins & Brown played out an astoundingly cunning murder plot with Batman challenging Commissioner Gordon (and us readers) to spot a telltale clue giving the game away. O’Neil & Novick then get all Shakespearean in #425 where ‘The Stage is Set… for Murder!’ and Batman carefully seeks to glean which thespian is plotting a big, bloody finish before the curtain comes down forever…

O’Neil, Adams & Giordano returned with the second chapter of their landmark epic in Batman #243 as the team – plus latecomer Molly Post – bombastically invade Ra’s’ Swiss citadel moments after their intended target passes away. Nobody suspects the ageless villain’s resources include ‘The Lazarus Pit’ which can revive the dead…

In Detective #426, a spate of inexplicable suicides amongst the wealthy leads Batman to suave gambler Conway Treach: a man who just can’t lose. Soon, however, the huckster learns his grim opponent has his own system for winning ‘Killer’s Roulette!’ in another suspenseful all-Robbins gem leading chronologically and conclusively to Batman #244 and the fateful finale wherein ‘The Demon Lives Again!’ Sadly, despite all his supernal gifts and forces, Ra’s cannot escape the climactic vengeance of his implacable foe in dream-team O’Neil, Adams & Giordano’s compulsive climax.

With the game-changing classics in this volume, Batman finally and fully returned to the commercial and critical top flight he had enjoyed in the 1940s, reviving and expanding upon his original conception as a remorseless, relentless avenger of injustice. The next few years would see the hero rise to unparalleled heights of quality so stay tuned: the very best is just around the corner …that dark, dark corner…
© 1971, 1972, 2015 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Ant-Man/Giant-Man Epic Collection volume 2: Ant-Man No More (1964-1979)


By Stan Lee, Leon Lazarus, Al Hartley, Roy Thomas, Mike Friedrich, Chris Claremont, Bill Mantlo, Tony Isabella, David Micheline, Dick Ayers, Joe Orlando, Steve Ditko, Carl Burgos, Bob Powell, Ross Andru, Herb Trimpe, P. Craig Russell, Jim Starlin, Jimmy Janes, George Tuska, Ron Wilson, John Byrne, Rich Buckler, Keith Pollard & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4965-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Marvel Comics built its fervent fan base through strong and contemporarily relevant stories and striking art, but most importantly by creating a shared continuity that closely followed the characters through not just their own titles but also through many guest appearances in other comics. Such an interweaving meant that even today completists and fans seek out extraneous stories to get a fuller picture of their favourite’s adventures.

In such an environment, archival series like this one are a priceless resource approaching the status of a public service for collectors, especially when you can now purchase and peruse them electronically from the comfort of your own couch, or the lesser luxury of your parents’ basement, garage or attic…

If you’re of a particularly picky nature – and what comic book superhero fan isn’t? – you may consider the Astonishing Ant-Man to be the second star of the Marvel Age of Comics. The unlikeliest of titans first appeared in Tales to Astonish #27 (cover-dated January 1962, on sale in the last months of 1961) in one of the splendidly addictive men-vs-monsters anthology titles that dominated in the heady days of Science Fiction Double-Feature B-Movies.

It was intended as nothing more than another here-today, gone-tomorrow filler in one of the company’s madly engaging pre-superhero “monster-mags”. However, the character struck a chord with someone, and as the DC Comics-inspired superhero boom blossomed, and Lee sprung The Hulk, Thor and Spider-Man on the unsuspecting kids of America, Henry Pym was economically retooled as a fully-fledged costumed do-gooder for TtA #35 (September 1962). You can read about his extremely eccentric career elsewhere, but suffice it to say Pym was never settled in his persona: changing name and modus operandi many times before junking his Ant-Man/Giant-Man identities for the reasonably more stable and more imposing role of Yellowjacket…

This episodic, eclectic and entomologically edifying compendium gathers the last initial outings of the original Ant-Man, plus the legacy of science adventurer Dr. Hank Pym as his size-shifting discoveries were employed by other champions. Contained herein are pertinent portions of Tales to Astonish #60-69, Marvel Feature #4-10; Invincible Iron Man #44; Power Man #24-25; Black Goliath #1-5, The Champions #11-13 and Marvel Premiere #47-48, convolutedly spanning cover-dates October 1964 to June 1979.

The first tale in this collection follows the beginning of the end after The Incredible Hulk became Giant-Man’s co-dependent in #59. With the next issue, the jade juggernaut began his second solo series and even featured on the covers whilst Giant-Man’s adventures shrank back to a dozen or so pages. Ten issues later Hank and partner Janet (The Wasp) Van Dyne retired, making way for amphibian antihero Namor, the Sub-Mariner. (Gi-)Ant-Man & the Wasp did not die, but instead joined the vast cast of characters which Marvel kept in relatively constant play through team books, via guest shots and in occasional re-launches and mini-series… just like the Hulk had.

Here, however, Tales to Astonish #60 delivers the first half-sized yarn. Stan Lee, Dick Ayers & Paul Reinman’s ‘The Beasts of Berlin!’ is a throwback to the daft old days, as the diminutive duo smuggle themselves over the infamous (then brand-new) Wall and into the Russian Sector to battle Commie primates (no, really!) behind the Iron Curtain.

The writing was on the wall by issue #61. With The Hulk already the most prominent on covers, hastily-executed stories and a rapid rotation of artists, it was obvious the appeal of the Masters of Many Sizes was waning. ‘Now Walks the Android’ was a fill-in rather rapidly illustrated by Steve Ditko & George (“Bell”) Roussos, featuring archnemesis Egghead and his latest technological terror-weapon, after which ‘Versus the Wonderful Wasp’ (by Golden Age icon Carl Burgos & Ayers) recycled an ancient plot wherein a thief steals Giant-Man’s costume and equipment, leaving the “mere girl” to save the day…

‘The Gangsters and the Giant’ by Lee, Burgos & Chic Stone in TtA #63 channelled the plot of #37 with the gem-stealing Protector here re-imagined as The Wrecker, but at least it came with a Marvel Masterwork pin-up of the Diminutive Duo by Chic Stone, after which ‘When Attuma Strikes’ – by Leon Lazarus, Burgos & Reinman – conjured up a happy crumb of imagination and wit as Hank & Jan split up! The heartbroken lass was then abducted with a plane full of air passengers by the undersea tyrant and was reunited with her man when he came to the rescue. This uncharacteristically mature-for-its-time romp was scripted by incredibly under-appreciated and nigh-anonymous comics veteran Leon Lazarus whose Pre-Marvel Age credits included genre stars like Black Rider, Arizona Kid and Kid Colt, Outlaw…

One last sustained attempt to resuscitate the series came with the addition of more Golden-Age greats beginning with Bob Powell (Cave Girl, Blackhawk, Jet Powers) who signed on as artist for issue #65’s ‘Presenting the New Giant-Man’ (scripted by Lee, inked by Don Heck) wherein the frustrated, uncomfortable hero built a better costume and greater powers, but almost died at in attacks by a spider and his own cat, accidentally enlarged in the testing process.

With a fresh new look, the last five tales were actually some of the best tales in the run, but it was too late. Frankie (Giacoia) Ray inked Powell on ‘The Menace of Madam Macabre’ with a murderous “oriental” seductress attempting to steal Pym’s secrets, with Chic Stone applying the brushes for ‘The Mystery of the Hidden Man and his Rays of Doom!’ – wherein a power-stealing alien removes Pym’s ability to shrink – before the series concluded with a powerfully impressive 2-parter in Tales to Astonish #68 and 69. ‘Peril from the Long-Dead Past!’ and ‘Oh, Wasp, Where is Thy Sting?’ were inked by Vince Colletta and John Giunta respectively. So far along was the decline that Al Hartley had to finish what Stan started: concisely concluding a tense, thrilling tale of the Wasp’s abduction by the Human Top and abrupt retirement of the weary, shell-shocked heroes at saga’s end.

Despite variable quality and treatment, the eclectic, eccentric and always fun exploits of Marvel’s premier “odd couple” these tales remain an intriguing, engaging reminder that the House of Ideas didn’t always get it right, but generally gave their all to entertaining the fans.

By turns superb, stupid, exciting and appalling this tome and these tales epitomise the best and worst of Early Marvel (with the delightful far outweighing the duff) and certainly won’t appeal to everybody, but if you’re a Fights ‘n’ Tights fan with a forgiving nature the good stuff here will charm, amaze and enthral you whilst the rest could just be considered as a garish garnish to provide added flavour…

In-world, those aforementioned guest shots from Limbo led to a lengthy stint as Avengers and a convoluted transformation from Giant-Man to Goliath to Yellowjacket, before retiring again. However, after a key role in the legendary Kree-Skrull war (yet not reprinted here!) he returned to his roots and got a second start…

The ball starts re-rolling here with a brief back-up vignette from Invincible Iron Man #44 with Roy Thomas, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito light-heartedly depicting ‘Armageddon on Avenue ‘A”, as Ant-Man Pym clashes again with the sinister creepy crawly the Scarlet Beetle. The evil arthropod stills seeks to eradicate humanity, but is kept too busy battling Pym to notice his secret citadel catching alight as part of a seedy insurance scam. Bah! Biped scum!

Marvel Feature #4 then opens a new series with ‘The Incredible Shrinking Doom!’ (by Mike Friedrich & Herb Trimpe) as a hero history recap segues into ‘The Beginning’ with Peter Parker interviewing Dr Pym before they team up to rescue a kidnapped boy. The son of Curt Conners (The Lizard) has been snatched to force the surrender of a valuable formula. However, whilst cleaning up M’Sieu Téte’s vicious underlings, Pym is injected with a bacterial enzyme that traps him at the size of an insect… and not even Spider-Man can help him…

Tension builds in #5’s ‘Fear’s the Way He Dies!’ as Egghead returns even as Ant-Man loses all that precious technology bolstering his powers. Deprived of his insect-controlling helmet, Pym is helpless until the maniac’s niece Trixie Starr makes him new duds and gear. It’s not quite enough to defeat the villain, but at least the shattering explosion of his mobile HQ seems to drive the killer away…

Janet Pym (née Van Dyne) resurfaces in Marvel Feature #6’s ‘Hellstorm!’ (inked by Mike Trimpe) as the beleaguered hero – thanks to trusty pet hound Orkie the dog – finally reaches his own home, only to be attacked by another old foe: Whirlwind. As a result the house is totally destroyed and Mr & Mrs Pym are officially declared dead. P. Craig Russell, Dan Adkins & Mark Kersey illustrate ‘Paranoia is the Para-Man!’ in MF #7 as a new android enemy captures Hank and Jan. Escape and the mechanoid’s inevitable defeat mutates the Wasp into a true insectoid predator for #8’s deadline-wracked ‘Prelude to Disaster!’

Russell, Jim Starlin & Jimmy Janes’ framing sequence here originally supported a Lee, Kirby & Don Heck origin flashback but you can just consult the first volume in this series if you’re feeling a little completist…

Here and now, however, Marvel Feature #9 revealed ‘…The Killer is My Wife!’ – limned by Russell & Frank Bolle, finally finding Hank battling his mutated. mindless spouse as Pym’s lab partner Bill Foster and Iron Man investigate their “deaths”. Tragically, not so far from them, the tiny terror is overwhelmed and temporarily cured by her husband just in time for both to fall victim to new nutcase Doctor Nemesis, before the saga and the series hastily wrapped up in Friedrich, Russell & Frank Chiaramonte’s concluding chapter ‘Ant-Man No More!’. With that Ant-Man faded from view, eventually replaced by Yellowjacket again, and one among many in The Avengers. Years passed and a new writer decided it was time to try size-shifting sagas again. It began as so often, with a try-out in an already established title…

While hiding in plain sight as a Hero for Hire in Times Square, escaped convict Luke Cage fell in love with doctor Claire Temple. When she abruptly vanished, Cage and buddy D.W. Griffiths scoured America looking for her. The trek fed directly into a 2-part premier for another African American superhero as the trail led to the Ringmaster’s Circus of Crime in Power Man #24 (January 1975, by Tony Isabella, George Tuska & Dave Hunt) for ‘Among Us Walks… a Black Goliath!’.

One of the earliest returning black characters in Marvel’s comics, the above-mentioned Bill Foster was a highly educated biochemist working for Tony Stark and with Henry Pym. Foster first appeared in The Avengers #32 (September 1966), working to find a cure when – as Goliath – Pym was trapped at a 10-foot height. Foster faded from view when Hank regained size-changing abilities. Having continued his own experiments in size-shifting, Foster was trapped as a freakish colossus, unable to shrink back to human proportions. Cage painfully learned he was also Claire’s former husband and when he too became trapped as a giant, she had rushed back to Foster’s substantial side to help find a cure.

When Luke shows up, passions are stoked, causing another classic heroes-clash moment until the mesmeric Ringmaster hypnotises all combatants, intent on using their strength to feather his own 3-ring nest. ‘Crime and Circuses’ (Isabella, Bill Mantlo, Ron Wilson & Fred Kida) sees the heroes helpless until Claire comes to the rescue, before making her choice and returning to New York with Luke. Foster gravitated to his own short-run series, becoming Marvel’s fourth African American costumed hero under a heavy-handed and rather uninspired sobriquet…

Cover-dated February 1976 and courtesy of Isabella, Tuska & Colletta, Black Goliath #1 reintroduced a far better hero. Foster was now in complete control of his powers and leading an exotic, eccentric Stark International Think Tank in Los Angeles. Sadly, his arrival coincides with high tech burglaries proving how out-of-depth ‘Black Goliath!’ was when the gang’s leader was exposed as living nuclear nightmare Atom-Smasher! He doled out ‘White Fire, Atomic Death!’ in #2 as scripter Chris Claremont joined Tuska & Colletta.

Barely surviving the first meeting, Foster brought in his team of maverick geniuses for the decisive second round, blissfully unaware the thermonuclear thug was working for a hidden mastermind. ‘Dance to the Murder!’ offers partial explanations as mystery man Vulcan leads multiple attacks on the Think Tank in his effort to secure an enigmatic alien artefact. The result is chaos and catastrophe, exacerbated in BG #4 when ‘Enter Stilt-Man… Exit Black Goliath!’ – with art from Rich Buckler & Heck – depicts the hero distracted by a supervillain hungry to upgrade his powers and status, whilst the mystery box is swiped from the rubble by a common looter…

The series came to an abrupt halt with #5 (November 1976), with Keith Pollard illustrating a tale of ‘Survival!’ as Foster and two bystanders are transported to a deadly alien world. Meanwhile on Earth, the Box begins to awaken…

The storyline was completed in LA-based team title The Champions (#11, February 1977 by Bill Mantlo, John Byrne & Bob Layton) as ‘The Shadow from the Stars’ saw Foster returned without explanation and building tech for the team (consisting then of Black Widow, Angel, Iceman, Hercules, Ghost Rider and soviet superhero Dark Star) as a side bar to the main event wherein Hawkeye and Two Gun Kid call for help in repelling an alien incursion by vintage villain/sentient shadow Warlord Kaa…

Back at the plot in #12, ‘Did Someone say… the Stranger?’ sees Black Goliath ambushed by Stilt-Man as that long-contested Box begins to activate. When universal Elder The Stranger comes to reclaim his planet-destroying Null-Life Bomb, he deems it too late once the device warps reality and dumps The Champions in the realm of former Thor foe Kamo Tharnn, leaving Foster on Earth to prevent ‘The Doom That Went on Forever!’

Arter the fireworks ended, the Big Guy again faded from sight until revived for 1980s classic the Project Pegasus Saga, where he reclaimed the name Giant-Man, but this collection concludes with arguably the most successful size-shifting centurion: solo superhero, security consultant single dad, Avenger, entrepreneur, comedy turn and screen superstar Scott Lang: a true legacy hero made good.

Comics creators are six parts meddler and five parts chronic nostalgia buff so eventually somebody convinced somebody else that the concept and properties of Ant-Man could be viable again, and thus we end here with the introduction of reformed thief Lang from his debut in Marvel Premiere #47 & 48 (cover-dated April & June 1979).

Those first somebodies were David Michelinie, John Byrne & Bob Layton who produced ‘To Steal an Ant-Man!’: disclosing how a former electronics engineer had turned to crime – more out of boredom than necessity – and, after being caught and serving his time, joined Stark International as a resolutely reformed character. Tragically, when his little daughter Cassie developed a heart condition that wiped out his savings, Scott reverted to his old methods to save her…

Desperate to find the wherewithal to hire experimental surgeon Dr. Erica Sondheim, he cases likely prospects, but is crushed when Sondheim is abducted by psychotic industrialist Darren Cross. The magnate is already using all the resources – legal and otherwise – of his mega-corporation Cross Technological Enterprises to keep himself alive. Needing cash just to broach the CTE complex, Lang goes back to Plan A, burgling the lab of retired superhero Henry Pym. The intruder discovers mothballed Ant-Man gear and size-changing gases and in a moment of madness, decides not to sell the stolen tech as planned but instead use it to break into Cross’ citadel and rescue Sondheim…

That plan doesn’t go so great either, as Lang discovers the dying billionaire – in his attempts to stay alive – has been harvesting the hearts of homeless people to power an experimental device which has subsequently mutated him into a monstrous brute. After learning with horror ‘The Price of a Heart!’ Lang eventually triumphs, unaware until the very last that Pym had allowed him to take the suit and was backstopping him every inch of the way. With Cassie saved, Yellowjacket then invites Lang to continue as the new Ant-Man. And so it begins. Again.

With rousing covers throughout by Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Giacoia, Joe Sinnott, Trimpe, Starlin, John Romita & Sal Buscema, Russell & Adkins, Wilson, Rich Buckler, Lieber, Al Milgrom, Layton, Dave Cockrum and Bob McLeod, this triptych treat includes extras such as original art pages by Powell & Giacoia, Larry Lieber and Trimpe; lost art samples by mainstream illustrator Dick Rockwell; the unused ending to Marvel Feature #10 by Russell (compared in situ with what actually got published) and a brace of unused Layton covers to Marvel Premiere #48.

Seen here are three of the earliest heroes from a size shifting dynasty every true ant-ficionado (yes. I said that, and I’m not sorry!) will be delighted to see. These itty-bitty sagas range from lost oddities to true classics to dazzle Marvel Movie buffs as well as the redoubtable ranks of dedicated comic book readers all cheerfully celebrating this truly Astonishing phenomenon.
© 2023 MARVEL.

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Star Hawks volume 1


By Ron Goulart & Gil Kane, & various (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-163140-397-2 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

During the later 20th century, comic book publishers worked long and hard to import their colourful wares to the more popular and commercially viable shelves of bookshops, until eventual acceptance came via the hybrid form we know now as graphic novels. Newspaper strips (and periodical humour/satire magazines like Mad) had, of course, been regular fare for these sales points since the 1950s.

By dint of more accessible themes and subjects, simpler page layouts and just plain bigger core readerships, comedy and action newspaper serials easily translated to digest-sized book formats and sold by the bucketload to a broad base of consumers. Because of this, the likes of Peanuts, B.C., Broom Hilda, Flash Gordon, Mandrake and so many others were an entertainment staple for cartoon-loving, joy-deficient kids and adults from the 1960s to the 1990s. In the final accounting comedies and gag books far outweighed dramas. By the TV-saturated 1970s the grand era of newspaper adventure strips was all but over, although some few dynamic holdouts persevered. There were even some new gems still to come.

One such was this astonishingly addictive space opera/police procedural which debuted on October 3rd 1977. The strip was created by novelist, comics scripter and strip historian Ron Goulart slightly in advance of science fiction’s revival and resurgence which culminated in the release of Star Wars (and later continued by the legendary Archie Goodwin who all-but-sewed up the sci-fi strip genre at that time by also simultaneously authoring the Star Wars newspaper serial which premiered in 1979)…

Star Hawks was graced by the dazzlingly dynamic art of Gil Kane and blessed with an innovative format for such fare: a daily double-tier layout allowing far bigger, bolder graphics and panel compositions than a traditional single bank of three or four frames.

The core premise was also magically simple: in our future, humanity has spread throughout the galaxy and inhabits many worlds, moons and satellites… and wherever man goes there’s crime and a desperate need for policemen and peacekeepers…

As revealed in his picture- & photo-packed Introduction ‘In at the Creation’, Goulart began with working title “Space Cops”, which was eventually editorially overruled and superseded with the more dashingly euphonious and commercially vibrant Star Hawks. He goes on to describe resistance the strip suffered from its own syndicate, delays that meant it only launched after Star Wars set the world on fire and how he was ultimately edged out of the creative process altogether…

A brace of mass-market digest paperbacks were released whilst the strip was still running, and at the end of the 1980s, 4 comic book-sized album collections came from Blackthorne Publishing, but these are all now out-of-print and hard to acquire, so let’s be thankful for this first sturdy hardback archival edition…

Printed in landscape format with each instalment fitting neatly onto a page (and almost original publication size), this stirring tome of clean, crisp monochrome art is tight and taut: steaming straight in with the premiere episode. Here we meet villainous Raker and his sultry, sinister boss: child-of-privilege Ilka. They are scouring the slums and ruins of alien world Esmeralda for a desperate girl plagued by dark, dangerous visions…

Enter Rex Jaxan and burly Latino lothario Chavez: two-fisted law-enforcing police officers on the lookout for trouble, and who promptly save the lost lass from slavers only to become embroiled in a dastardly plot to overthrow the local Emperor by scurrilous arms merchants. Also debuting in that initial tale is the officers’ boss Alice K. Benyon – far more than just a sexy romantic foil for He-Hunk Jaxan, and an early example of a competent woman actually In Charge (even if she does it in slinky form-hugging outfits)…

The debuting standbys also include awesome space station “Hoosegow” and Sniffer, the snarkiest, sulkiest, snappiest robo-dog in the galaxy. This mechanical mutt gets all the best lines…

Barely pausing for breath, the star-born Starsky and Hutch (that’s Goulart’s take on them, not mine) are in pursuit of an appalling new weapons system developed to topple the military dictatorship of Empire 13: the “Dustman” process (beginning on November 15th 1977). Before long, searches for the illegal and appalling WMD develop into a full-on involvement in what should have stayed a local matter; and inevitably civil war…

The next sequence (March 17th to June 19th 1978) opens with the jubilant boys investigating stupendous resort satellite Hotel Maximus, with Alice K. along to bolster their undercover image. On Maximus, every floor holds a different daring delight, from dancing to dinosaur wrangling to Alpine adventure – but the return of malevolent Raker heralds a whole new kind of chaos as he is revealed as an agent of pan-galactic criminal cartel The Brotherhood.

Moreover, the Maximus is the site of their greatest coup – a plot to mass mind-control the universe’s richest and most powerful citizens. So pernicious are these villains that the Brotherhood can even infiltrate and assault Hoosegow itself…

Foiling the raiders, Jaxan & Chavez quickly go on the offensive, hunting the organisation as a new epic begins on June 20th (which frustratingly leaves this initial collection paused on a tense cliffhanger). The investigation takes them to pesthole planet Selva: a degraded world of warring tribes and monstrous mutations, where ambitiously dogged new recruit Kass seeks to distinguish himself, even as on Hoosegow the Brotherhood is deadly and persistent with new leader Master Jigsaw executing his plan to destroy the Star Hawks from within…

Wrapping up the starry-eyed wonderment is the first part of Daniel Herman’s biographical assessment ‘Gil Kane: Bringing a Comic Book Sensibility to Comic Strips’…

The Star Hawks strip ran until 1981, garnering a huge and devoted audience, critical acclaim and a National Cartoonists Society Award for Kane (1977 Story Comic Strip Award). It is quite simply one of the most visually exciting, rip-roaring and all-out fabulous sci-fi sagas in comics history and should be part of every action fan’s permanent collection. These tales are a “must-have” item for every thrill-seeking child of the stars and fan of the classic space age…
© 1977, 1978, 2017 United Features Syndicate, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Invincible Iron Man Marvel Masterworks volume 12


By Bill Mantlo, Gerry Conway, George Tuska, Keith Pollard, Carmine Infantino, Don Perlin, Jack Abel, Mike Esposito, Fred Kida, Pablo Marcos, Bob Wiacek, Alfredo Alcala & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1716-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Arch-technocrat and supreme survivor Tony Stark has changed profile many times since his debut in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963) when, whilst a VIP visitor in Vietnam observing the efficacy of the munitions he had designed, the inventor was critically wounded and captured by sinister, savage Communists.

Put to work building weapons with the dubious promise of medical assistance on completion, Stark instead created the first of many technologically augmented suits to keep himself alive and deliver him from his oppressors. From there it was a simple – transistor-powered – jump to full time superheroics as a modern Knight in Shining Armour…

Conceived in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis at a time when Western economies were booming and “Commie-bashing” was an American obsession, the emergence of a new young Thomas Edison, employing Yankee ingenuity, wealth and invention to safeguard the Land of the Free and better the World, seemed an obvious development. Combining then-sacrosanct faith that technology and business in unison could solve any problem, with the universal imagery of noble knights battling evil, Stark – the Invincible Iron Man – seemed an infallibly successful proposition.

Of course, whilst he was the acceptable face of 1960s Capitalism – a glamorous millionaire industrialist/scientist and a benevolent all-conquering hero when clad in the super-scientific armour of his alter-ego – the turbulent tone of the 1970s soon relegated his suave, “can-do” image to the dustbin of history. With ecological disaster and social catastrophe from the myriad abuses of big business the new zeitgeists of the young, the Golden Avenger and Stark International were soon confronting some tricky questions from an increasingly politically savvy readership.

With glamour, money and fancy gadgetry not quite so cool anymore the questing voices of a new generation of writers began posing uncomfortable questions in the pages of a series that was once the bastion of militarised America. This twelfth chronological compendium completes that transitional period, reprinting Iron Man #95 – 112 (February 1977 to July 1978) as Bill Mantlo’s passionate writing triggers a minor renaissance in the Steel Sentinel’s chrome-plated chronicles that will result in some of the best stories of the Eighties era and return Iron Ma to the top-rank of Marvel stars. If you’re a fan thanks to the movie interpretation, that iteration starts right here, right now…

Aided and abetted by Kurt Busiek’s informative, insightful Introduction offering historical overview and behind-the-scenes revelations, the climb to reclaimed pole position resumes with veteran Iron Man artist George Tuska joining plotter Gerry Conway, scripter Mantlo and inker Don Perlin in unleashing giant android ‘Ultimo!’ (IM #95, cover-dated February 1977) against Washington DC.

Clad in newly-updated armour and in the Capitol to answer congressional questions about his company, Stark is targeted by a vengeful hidden nemesis who activates the mountainous monster for a classic B-Movie sci fi rampage in the streets, with the Golden Avenger supplementing hard pressed Army and National Guard units… before falling in ignominious defeat due to sabotage…

Mantlo, Tuska & Jack Abel prove you can’t keep a good Iron Man down as the embattled hero rallies and retaliates in ‘Only a Friend Can Save Him’ when former close ally and dutiful S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jasper Sitwell joins the counterattack. Meanwhile a long-simmering plotline advanced as NYPD detective Michael O’Brien – who holds Stark responsible and accountable for the death of his brother Kevin (see Iron Man Masterworks volume 11) – finally allows his obsession with a cover-up to pull him across the legal line and into collusion with shady PI Harry Key, whose latest client also has nasty plans for the playboy inventor…

Thanks to ingenuity and sheer guts, Stillwell and Iron Man seemingly destroy Ultimo deep below DC, but their triumph is short lived as a return to Stark’s Long Island factory provokes a ‘Showdown with the Guardsman!’ (Conway, Mantlo, Tuska & Perlin). When Mike takes PA Krissy Longfellow hostage, steals the armour suit that drove his brother insane and ambushes the Golden Avenger wearing it, the clash is swift and brutal, but thankfully this time, blockbusting battle ends before another good man dies…

Whilst subsequently treating O’Brian, another distraction comes when an old frenemy attacks the facility and American interventionist economic practises. ‘Sunfire Strikes Again!’ sees the Japanese ultra-nationalist mutant warrior again seek to derail progress, unaware that he is a pawn of the lurking presence gunning for Stark, but the harried hero’s problems start with the fact his greatest weapon is offline and he’s fighting in borrowed Guardsman armour. When the conflict frees imprisoned Michael O’Brian, the cop seeks to make amends by joining the battle in an obsolete Iron Man outfit, but – even with Mike Esposito inking – the new allies rapidly find themselves ‘At the Mercy of the Mandarin!’

During the melee, Key tries his luck in the Stark vaults once too often and encounters an unexpected problem thanks to another insidious infiltrator planted by a different plotting mastermind. However, having freed himself, Tony is too now busy rushing to a far-distant, potentially world-ending final battle in anniversary issue #100. Invading China, Iron Man faces horrors, homunculi Death Squads, nuclear armageddon and his most obsessive enemy whose ‘Ten Rings to Rule the World!’ ultimately prove insufficient to the task…

With the tyrant’s countless plots to discredit Stark all exposed, our hero starts a long journey home even as in Long Island, Harry Key, Jasper Sitwell and one of the traitors in Stark’s midst begin a cautious espionage dance…

Iron Man’s trip stalls when he is shot down over Yugoslavia (just google it) and wakens in a creepy old castle filled with freaks and outcasts safeguarded by a familiar – to dedicated Marvelites at least – huge and daunting figure. Recovering in ‘Then Came the Monster!’ our weary voyager views Castle Frankenstein and panics: clashing with the gentle “Modern Prometheus” before the real menace emerges. Inked by Esposito & Pablo Marcos, ‘Dreadknight and the Daughter of Creation!’ channels old Marvel horror tales as a brutal and brutalised escaped experiment of Doctor Doom’s laboratories seeks to compel the great granddaughter of Victor Frankenstein to share with him the secrets of creating life…

This ruthless high-tech paladin’s sadistic efforts are eventually thwarted by Iron Man and the original good Monster, after which the Steel Shod Sentinel at last arrives home in #103’s ‘Run for the Money!’ by Mantlo, Tuska & Esposito. Sadly, it’s just in time for the next domestic crisis as Sitwell exposes the traitor only to be captured by revolting corporate villain Midas, who – patience exhausted – launches a hostile takeover using tanks, mercenaries, lawyers and the Stock Market…

He is temporarily checked by itinerant junior hero/innocent bystander Jack of Hearts who – as per standard Marvel protocol – is attacked by the weary, late arriving Iron Man who has misconstrued events and attacked the well-meaning stranger. Shock follows shock as Midas’ legal chicanery forces Iron Man’s surrender, ceding control of Stark International to his enemy, even as the villain’s agent Madame Masque quits to ally herself with the defeated hero and his ousted, outmanoeuvred alter ego Tony Stark. In the aftermath, repercussions of the takeover ripple outwards. With Stark no longer paying her bill, deeply disturbed super-telepath (and former Stark inamorata) Marianne Rodgers is kicked out of the sanatorium that has been keeping her psionic deadly tendencies in check…

The fightback begins in ‘Triad!’ (Mantlo, Tuska & Esposito) after Stark initially refuses the help of Masque. Thus she instead allies with former lover/patsy Sitwell whilst elsewhere, interested parties Michael O’Brian and Jack of Hearts also seek to stop Midas converting Stark’s purloined resources into a world-conquering armed force. Also heading slowly towards a showdown, Marianne graduates towards Long Island, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake…

With ‘Every Hand Against Him!’ and despite the stakes being so high, Tony has quit forever, preferring to hide in his father’s old house with Madame Masque. Less sanguine over the crisis and threat to National Security, many of Iron Man’s allies join a volunteer force recruited by psychic superhero The Wraith and eventually consisting of Police Captain Jean de Wolf, former Iron Man Eddie March, The Guardsman and Jack of Hearts, covertly backed up by Sitwell and (the first) Nick Fury…

Still short of power, they co-opt through blackmail, Masque’s lethal skills and Tony’s last remaining armour suit to take down Midas. ‘Then There Came a War!’ (#106) sees the desperate squad invade SI and face a legion of automated Iron Men. At the height of battle Marianne Rodgers – in a fugue state – finally reaches her destination. As Keith Pollard & Fred Kida step in to illustrate the catastrophic conclusion, ‘And, in the End…’ sees her power tip the scales, uncovering even more treachery in Tony’s inner circle and inspiring the despondent hero to take back his heritage, his company and his honour…

With most of his allies apparently dead, Iron Man calls in Avenging ally Yellowjacket (AKA original Ant-Man Henry Pym) to help whip up a miracle cure in #108 (Mantlo, Carmine Infantino & Bob Wiacek). This incurs some ‘Growing Pains!’ and a palate-cleansing action-filled monster-bash as the clear-up somehow reactivates Kang the Conqueror’s devastating Growing Man android to add to the wreckage and rubble…

Once the fighting is finished, the rebuilding of Stark International begins, with Mantlo, Infantino & Kida dictating the pace prior to another crisis after Jack of Hearts traces the Growing Man’s programming orders as emanating from Luna. Thus Iron Man and his superhero apprentice board a Quinjet and experiences a very painful ‘Moonrise!’ when their mission intersects a secret sortie by Soviet Super-soldiers Darkstar, Vanguard and Crimson Dynamo. The Communist cosmonauts are only investigating a bizarre alien artefact, but entrenched political and personal animosities spark a savage fight. Both sides are preoccupied when the silver egg activates, transporting those closest to it – the Americans – to somewhere far, far away…

Mantlo, Pollard & Kida stretch their fantasy muscles for an astral epic as the heroes materialise aboard a vast ship bearing Colonizers of Rigel to their next conquest. Sadly, these ‘Sojourners Through Space!’ have targeted Wundagore II – used by animal-enhancing manmade deity the High Evolutionary to store former experiments – and are soon caught up in a battle against formidable space Knights of Wundagore and two devastating late-arriving, quickly escaping human captives within their colossal Commandship…

When an alliance of humans and hyper-evolved Earth beasts proves too costly, the Rigellian venture is called off in ‘The Man, the Metal, and the Mayhem!’ but in turn leads to renegade Colonizer subcommander Arcturus spitefully targeting Earth with a robot stolen from Galactus (the original Punisher from Fantastic Four #48-50). Upon its despatch, closing inclusion ‘Moon Wars!’ (Iron Man #112,  July 1978 by Mantlo, Pollard & Alfredo Alcala) sees a swift, unauthorised Colonizer strike lead to a desperate dash back to Luna and shattering descent to Detroit, Earth, for Iron Man, resulting in blistering battle with the cosmic weapon of chastisement and a whole new definition of the word “invincible” for the triumphant Golden Avenger…

To Be Continued…

With covers throughout by Jack Kirby, Al Milgrom, Abel, Ron Wilson, Dan Adkins, Gil Kane, Dave Cockrum, Sal Buscema, Jim Starlin, Val Mayerik, George Pérez, Terry Austin, Frank Giacoia, Joe Sinnott, Joe Rubinstein, John Byrne, Wiacek & Pollard, the extras include cartoon fan letter ‘Printed Circuits’ (by Fred Hembeck from #112) and original art consisting of covers, plus splash and story pages by Milgrom, Abel, Starlin, Mayerik, Cockrum, Tuska & Esposito.

These epic yarns are the bread & butter of superhero comic storytelling, combining action, spectacle, intrigue, drama and even soap opera elements to keep readers coming back issue after issue. These as much as every cosmic landmark and style breakthrough are what keep comics companies alive and deserve your full attention. Suit up and read on…
© 2019 MARVEL.

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Robot Archie and the Time Machine


By E. George Cowan, Ted Kearon, Mike Western & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-83786-169-9 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

British comics have always enjoyed an extended love affair with what can only be described as “unconventional” (for which feel free to substitute “weird” or “creepy”) heroes. So many stars and notional role models of our serials and strips have been outrageous or just plain “off”: self-righteous voyeur/vigilantes like Jason Hyde, sinister masterminds in the manner of The Dwarf or Black Max, arrogant former criminals like The Spider or outright racist overmen such as fearsome white ideologue Captain Hurricane…

Joking aside, British comics are unlike any other kind: having to be seen to be believed and always enjoying – especially when “homaging” such uniquely American fare as costumed crimefighters – a touch of insouciant rebelliousness…

Until the 1980s, UK periodicals employed an anthological model, offering variety of genre, theme and character on a weekly – sometimes fortnightly – basis. Humour comics like The Beano were leavened by action-heroes like The Q-Bikes or General Jumbo whilst adventure papers like Smash, The Eagle, Hotspur or Valiant always offered palate-cleansing gagsters like The Cloak, Grimly Feendish, Mowser and sundry other titter-treats.

At first glance, prior to the advent of game changers Action and 2000AD, British comics seemingly fell into fairly ironclad categories. Back then, you had genial and/or fantastic preschool fantasy; a large selection of licensed entertainment properties; action; adventure; war; school dramas, sports and straight comedy strands. Closer examination would confirm there was always a subversive merging, mixing undertone, especially in such antihero series as Dennis the Menace or our rather strained interpretation of superheroes. Just check out The Phantom Viking, Kelly’s Eye or early Steel Claw stories…

After post-war austerity, the 1950s ushered in a revolution for British comics. With printing and paper restrictions gone, a steady stream of titles emerged from companies new and old, aimed at the many different levels of childish attainment from pre-school to young adult. When Hulton Press launched The Eagle in April 1950, the very concept of what weeklies could be changed forever. That oversized prestige package with photogravure colour was exorbitantly expensive, however, and when venerable London-based publishing powerhouse Amalgamated Press retaliated, it was a far more economical affair.

I’m assuming AP only waited so long before the first issue of Lion launched (cover-dated February 23rd 1952) to see if their flashy rival periodical was going to last. Lion – just like The Eagle – was a mix of prose stories, features and comic strips and even offered its own cover-featured space-farer in Captain Condor – Space Ship Pilot. Initially edited by Reg Eves, the title ran 1156 weekly issues until 18th May 1974 when it merged with sister-title Valiant. Along the way – in the tradition of British publishing which subsumed weaker-selling titles to keep popular strips going – Lion absorbed Sun (1959) and Champion (1966) before going on to swallow The Eagle in April 1969: soon after merging with Thunder (1971). In its capacity as one of the country’s most popular and enduring adventure comics, the last vestiges of Lion only vanished in 1976 during Valiant’s amalgamation with Battle Picture Weekly.

Despite that demise, there were 30 Lion Annuals between 1953 and 1982, all benefitting from the UK’s lucrative Christmas market, combining a variety of original strips with topical and historical prose adventures; sports, science/general interest features; short humour strips and – increasingly from the 1970s – reformatted reprints from IPC/Fleetway’s back catalogue.

The Jungle Robot debuted in Lion’s first issue, created by incredible prolific E. George Cowan (Ginger Nutt, The Spider, Saber, King of the Jungle, Smokeman/UFO Agent, Nick Jolly the Flying Highwayman, Paddy Payne, Girls’ Crystal Libraries) and drawn by Alan Philpott (The Deathless Men/V for Vengeance, A Classic in Pictures, Rebels of Ancient Rome, War/Super Detective/Cowboy Comics & Picture Libraries, Look-In, Klanky). It enthralled readers for a couple of months before abruptly vanishing with the August 9th issue.

Other than an appearance in the 1955 Lion Annual that was it until January 19th 1957 when the mechanical marvel was revived and revised by Cowan & A. Forbes before veteran artist Ernest “Ted” Kearon (Spot the Clue with Zip Nolan, The Day the World Drowned, Steel Commando and DC Thomson’s Morgyn the Mighty) signed on in 1958 and soldiered on for most of the next 17-ish years. On his return the mighty mouthed mechanoid became one of the most popular and well-remembered heroes of the British scene and was successfully syndicated all across Europe and around the world. Hopefully this compilation of later material will be soon supplemented by earlier annals in the fullness of time…

Reprinting stories from Lion between 20th April 1968 to 11th January 1969 plus yarns from Lion & Valiant Special 1969 and Lion Summer Special 1970 the saga returns and -following a fulsome reminiscence and Introduction by John Reppion – the latterday ongoing adventures of explorers and troubleshooters Ted Ritchie, Ken Dale and arrogant, smug, self-absorbed yet innately paternally benevolent super-robot Robot Archie resume and take an outrageous turn…

The former Jungle Robot was once the greatest achievement of Ted’s inventor uncle Professor C. R. Ritchie: battling monsters & aliens, foiling crooks and battling disasters, but in ‘Robot Archie’s Time Machine’ – by Cowan & Kearon and running from 20th April to 29th June 1968 – the boastful ‘bot discovers the wonders and perils of spacetime after the boys inherit The Castle, a colossal inhabitable two-storey faux chess piece which can take them anywhere in history and even into the future…

The first tempestuous test drive dumps them in the 14th century and into a minor peasants’ revolt as cruel, ambitious tyrant Hugo the Black Wolf terrorises his bit of Britain, and sees the armoured interloper and his pitiful retinue as a mighty rival knight and squires. Soon the visitors are battling injustice and beloved of the peasantry, but also risking accusations of sorcery with Archie’s many electromechanical add-ons (magnets, extendible claws, jet pack etc.) and incredible strength and durability adding to his lustrous legend… as a warlock!

Hugo despatched, the voyagers seek their own time and home but a technical hitch sees them overshoot by nearly a 100 years in second saga ‘Robot Archie and the Superons’ (6th July to 2nd November 1968). Obviously influenced by TV series/movie adaptation Doctor Who: Dalek Invasion Earth 2150 AD, the extended epic finds the trio in a London resembling a rain forest and overrun with wild animals, where the surviving dregs of humanity are hunted by invading aliens inside an infinite army of mechas ranging from tiny to gigantic …until Archie and Co organise a resistance and repel the rapacious robotic rogues…

Final weekly serial ‘Robot Archie – Time Traveller’ sees the garrulous gadget admitting he cannot control The Castle as another attempt to return to 1968 deposits them all in 18th century England where the big guy is mistaken for a heroic and popular highwayman battling corrupt and unjust magistrate Sir Jeremiah Creefe, who uses The Law and the King’s Soldiery to scourge London Town and line his own coffers in the days before Christmas. But not for long; once Archie sets his mechanical mind to it…

A section of ‘Extras’ kicks off with a brace of short complete tales from the Lion & Valiant Special 1969 and Lion Summer Special 1970 respectively. The first sees the time-tossed trio fetch up on a desert island just as bunch of pirates is bury their ill-gotten gains. Sadly, Blackbeard’s pistol balls briefly blow one of Archie’s fuses and only sheer luck and attacking Spaniards save the heroes from the plank…

This romp is illustrated by magnificent Mike Western who also closes this book with a half-dozen full-colour covers, but before that one last jaunt takes the team all the way back to who knows when and a lost isle of dinosaurs, cavemen and exploding volcanoes: a breathless rollercoaster ride by an artist unknown to me…

Now part of Rebellion Publishing’s line of British Comics Classics, Robot Archie is an icon of UK fantasy long overdue for revival. I hope not much time passes before we see all the old stories back again…
© 1968, 1969 & 2024 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: The Black Casebook


By Bill Finger, France Herron, Edmond Hamilton, Dave Wood, Lew Sayre Schwartz, Sheldon Moldoff, Dick Sprang, Charles Paris, Stan Kaye & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2264-2 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Despite having his name writ large on the cover the only thing Grant Morrison produced for this weird and wonderful compilation is the introduction, so if he’s the reason you buy Batman you’re in for a little disappointment. However if you feel like seeing the incredible stories that inspired him, then you’re in for a bizarre and baroque treat as this collection features a coterie of tales considered far too outlandish and fanciful to be canonical for the last few decades but now reintroduced to the mythology of the Dark Knight as a casebook of the “strangest cases ever told!”…

Tales from the overwhelmingly anodyne 1950s (and just a little overlap in the 1960s) always favoured plot over drama – indeed, a strong argument could be made that all DC’s post-war costumed crusaders actually shared the same character (and yes, I’m including Wonder Woman) – so narrative impetus focuses on comfortably familiar situations, outlandish themes and weird paraphernalia. As a kid they simply blew me away. They still do.

Starting things off is a ‘A Partner for Batman’ (Batman #65 June/July 1951) by Bill Finger, Lew Sayre Schwartz & Charles Paris, wherein the masked mentor’s training of a foreign hero is misconstrued as a way of retiring the current Boy Wonder, whereas a trip way out west introduces the Dynamic Duo to their Native American analogues in ‘Batman… Indian Chief!’ (#86 September 1954, by Ed “France” Herron, Sheldon Moldoff & Stan Kaye), before ‘The Batmen of All Nations!’ (Detective Comics #215, January 1955 by Edmond Hamilton, Moldoff & Paris) took the sincere flattery a step further by introducing nationally-themed imitations from Italy, France, England, South America and Australia: all attending a convention that’s doomed to disaster.

A key story of this period introduced a strong psychological component to Batman’s origins in ‘The First Batman’ (Detective Comics #235, September 1955) by Finger, Moldoff & Kaye, after which the international knock-offs reconvened to meet Superman and shocking new mystery-hero in ‘The Club of Heroes’ (World’s Finest Comics #89, July/August 1957 -Hamilton and magnificent Dick Sprang & Kaye).

Detective #247 (September 1957, by Finger, Moldoff & Paris) introduced malevolent Professor Milo who used psychological warfare and scientific mind-control to attack our heroes in ‘The Man who Ended Batman’s Career’ with the same creative team bringing him back for an encore in Batman #112’s ‘Am I Really Batman?’

Herron scripted one of Sprang & Paris’ most memorable art collaborations in incredible spectacular ‘Batman – Superman of Planet X!’ (Batman #113, February 1958) before Finger, Moldoff & Paris unleashed the Gotham Guardian’s most controversial “partner” in manic mirthquake ‘Batman Meets Bat-Mite’ (Detective Comics #267, May 1959). In comparison, ‘The Rainbow Creature’ (Batman #134, September 1960) is a rather tame monster-mash from Finger & Moldoff which only serves to make the next tale more impressive.

‘Robin Dies at Dawn’ by Finger, Moldoff & Paris is an eerie epic first seen in Batman #156, June 1963 (supplemented by, but not dependent upon, a Robin solo adventure sadly omitted from this collection). Here Batman experiences truly hideous travails on an alien world culminating in the death of his young partner. I’m stopping there as it’s a great story and plays a crucial part in latter day sagas Batman: R.I.P., The Black Glove and others. Buy this book and read it yourself…

But wait: There’s more! From the very end times of vintage-style tales comes inexplicably daft but brilliant ‘The Batman Creature!’ (Batman #162, March 1964) by an unknown writer (latterly identified as Dave Wood), Moldoff & Paris, wherein Robin and Batwoman must cope with a Caped Crusader horrifically transformed into a rampaging giant monster. Shades of King Kong, Bat-fans!

Even though clearly collected to cash in on the success of modern Morrison vehicles, these stories have intrinsic worth and power of their own, and such angst-free exploits from a bygone age still have the magic to captivate and enthral. Do not dismiss them and don’t miss out!
© 1951, 1954-1960, 1963, 1964, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter volume 1


By Jack Miller, Joe Samachson, Dave Wood, Edmund Hamilton, Bob Kane, Joe Certa, Lew Sayre Schwartz & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1368-8 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Stress-alleviating Fun is in pretty short supply everywhere these days, but if you’re a comics fan susceptible to charming nostalgia, this item – readily available in paperback, but tragically still not formally full-colour archived or even compiled in any digital format yet – might just appeal to the starry-eyed wonderer in you.

As the 1950’s opened, comic book superheroes were in inescapable decline, giving way to a steady stream of genre-locked he-men and “Ordinary Joes” dramatically caught up in weird or extraordinary circumstances. By the time the “Red-baiting”, witch-hunting Senate hearings and media investigations into causes of juvenile delinquency fizzled out mid-decade, the industry was further depleted by the excision of any sort of mature content or themes.

The self-imposed Comics Code Authority took all the hard edges out of the industry, banning horror and crime comics whilst leaving ghostly, sanitised anodyne shades to inhabit the remaining adventure, western, war, humour and fantasy titles that remained. American comics – for which read a misperceived readership comprising only children and cretins – could have bowdlerised concepts of evil and felonious conduct, but not the simplest note of repercussion: a world where mad scientists plotted to conquer humanity without killing anybody and cowboys severed gun-belts or shot guns out of opponents’ hands with a well-aimed bullet without ever drawing blood. Moreover, no civil or government official or public servant could be depicted as anything other than a saint…

With corruption, venality and menace excised from the equation, comics were forced to supply punch and tension to proceedings via mystery and imagination – but only as long as it all had a rational, non-supernatural explanation…

Beating by a year the new Flash (who launched in Showcase #4 cover-dated October 1956) and now officially the first superhero of the Silver Age, the series depicting the clandestine cases of stranded alien scientist J’onn J’onzz was initially entitled John Jones, Manhunter from Mars: an honourable, decent being unwillingly trapped on Earth who chose to confront injustice and fight crime secretly using incredible powers, knowledge and advanced technical abilities with no human even aware of his existence.

In truth, even before that low-key debut, Batman #78 trialled the concept in ‘The Manhunter From Mars!’ (August/September 1953) wherein Edmund Hamilton, Bob Kane, Lew Sayre Schwartz & Charlie Paris told the tale of Roh Kar: lawman of the Fourth Planet who assisted the Dynamic Duo in capturing a Martian bandit plundering Gotham City. That stirring titbit opens this first magnificent monochrome compendium before doling out a main course of the eccentric, frequently formulaic but never disappointing back-up series from Detective Comics #225 to 304, cumulatively spanning November 1955 to June 1962.

In one of the longest creative tenures in DC comics’ history, all the art for the series was by veteran illustrator Joe Certa (1919-1986), who had previously worked for the Funnies Incorporated comics “Shop”. His credits included work on Captain Marvel Junior and assorted genre titles for Magazine Enterprises (Dan’l Boone, Durango Kid), Lev Gleason’s crime comics and Harvey romance titles. For DC he drew nautical sleuth Captain Compass and many tales for such anthological titles as Gang Busters and House of Mystery.

Certa also drew the newspaper strips Straight Arrow and Tarzan, and ghosted long-lived boxing strip Joe Palooka. In the 1970s he moved to Gold Key, working on TV adaptations, mystery tales and all-ages horror stories, before ending his career at DC on Challengers of the Unknown and Legion of Super-Heroes…

At the height of global Flying Saucer fever John Jones, Manhunter from Mars debuted in Detective Comics #225 (cover-dated November 1955). Written by Joe Samachson, ‘The Strange Experiment of Dr. Erdel’ describes how a reclusive genius builds a robot-brain able to access Time, Space and the Fourth Dimension, and accidentally plucks an alien scientist from his home on Mars. After a brief conversation with his unfortunate guest, Erdel succumbs to a heart attack whilst attempting to return the incredible J’onn J’onzz to his point of origin.

Marooned on Earth, the Martian realises his new home is riddled with the primitive cancer of Crime and resolves to use his natural abilities (which include telepathy, mind-over-matter psychokinesis, shape-shifting, invisibility, intangibility, super strength and speed, flight, assorted super vision powers, invulnerability and many more) to eradicate the blight; working clandestinely disguised as a human policeman. His only concern is the commonplace chemical reaction of fire which saps all Martians of their mighty powers…

With his name Americanised to John Jones he enlists as a Police Detective and with #226’s ‘The Case of the Magic Baseball’ began a long, peril-fraught career tackling a variety of Earthly thugs, mobsters and monsters, starting with the sordid case of Big Bob Michaels – a reformed ex-con and baseball player blackmailed into throwing games by a gang of crooked gamblers. He continues in ‘The Man with 20 Lives’ as the mind-reading cop impersonates a ghost to force a confession from a hard-bitten killer.

The tantalising prospect of a return to Mars confronts Jones in the Dave Wood scripted ‘Escape to the Stars’ (Detective #228) wherein criminal scientist Alex Dunster cracks the secret of Erdel’s Robot Brain. However, duty overrules selfish desire and the mastermind destroys his stolen super-machine when Jones arrests him…

With #229 Jack Miller took over scripting, leading off with ‘The Phantom Bodyguard’ as the Hidden Hero signs on to protect a businessman from his murderous partner, only to discover a far more complex plot unfolding, before #230’s ‘The Sleuth Without a Clue’ sees the covert cop battling a deadline to get the goods on a vicious gang, just as a wandering comet causes his powers to malfunction…

Detective Comics #231 heralds a shift towards sci fi roots in ‘The Thief Who Had Super Powers!’, as an impossible bandit proves to be simply another refugee from the Red Planet, after which ‘The Dog with a Martian Master’ is revealed to be just another delightful if fanciful animal champion. Jones returns to straight crimebusting and clandestine cops-&-robbers capers by becoming ‘The Ghost from Outer Space’ in #233 before going undercover in a prison to thwart a smart operator in #234’s ‘The Martian Convict’.

Jones infiltrates a circus as ‘The World’s Greatest Magician’ to catch a Phantom Thief and finally re-establishes contact with his extraterrestrial family to solve ‘The Great Earth-Mars Mystery’ in #236, all before seeing out 1956 as ‘The Sleuth Who went to Jail’ (this time one operated by crooks) and loses his powers to work as an ‘Earth Detective for a Day’ in #238.

For Detective #239 (January 1957) ‘Ordeal By Fire!’ finds the Anonymous Avenger transferred to the Fire Department to track down an arson ring, whilst in ‘The Hero Maker’ Jones surreptitiously uses his gifts to help a retiring cop go out on a high, prior to yet another firebug targeting historical treasures sparking ‘The Impossible Manhunt!’ in #241.

Jones thought he’d be safe as a underwater officer in ‘The Thirty Fathom Sleuth’ but even there flames find a way to threaten him, after which he battles legendary Martian robot Tor in #243’s ‘The Criminal from Outer Space’, latterly doubling for an endangered actor in ‘The Four Stunts of Doom!’ and busting up a clever racket utilising ‘The Phantom Fire Alarms!’ in #245.

As a back-up feature, expectations were never particularly high but occasionally all those formula elements gelled to produce exemplary adventure tales such as #246’s ‘John Jones’ Female Nemesis’, introducing pert, perky and pestiferous trainee policewoman Diane Meade. Being a 1950’s woman, naturally she had romance most in mind, but was absent for the next equally engaging thriller wherein our indomitable alien cop puzzled over ‘The Impossible Messages’ of scurrilous smugglers and #248’s marvellous tale of ‘The Martian Without a Memory’. Struck by lightning, Jones must utilise earthly deductive skills to discern his lost identity, and almost exposes his own extraterrestrial secret in the process…

In Detective #249’s ‘Target for a Day’ the Martian disguises himself as the State Governor marked for death by a brutal gang whilst as ‘The Stymied Sleuth!’ he is forced to stay in hospital to protect his alien identity as radium thieves run amok in town, after which he seemingly becomes a brilliant crook himself… ‘Alias Mr. Zero’.

For #252 Jones confronts a scientific super-criminal in ‘The Menace of the Super-Weapons’ before infiltrating a highly suspicious newspaper as ‘The Super Reporter!’ and invisibly battle rogue soldiers as ‘The One-Man Army’ in #254. The Hidden Hero attempts to foil an audacious murder-plot encompassing the four corners of Earth in a ‘World-Wide Manhunt!’, after which #256’s ‘The Carnival of Doom’ pits him against crafty crooks whilst babysitting a VIP kid whilst #257 sees the Starborn Sleuth perpetrating spectacular crimes to trap the ‘King of the Underworld!’

In Detective #258 Jones takes an unexpectedly dangerous vacation cruise on ‘The Jinxed Ship’ and return to tackle another criminal genius in ‘The Getaway King!’ before helping a failing fellow cop in the heartwarming tale of ‘John Jones’ Super-Secret’, after which ab-normality resumes in #261 as a shrink ray reduces him to ‘The Midget Manhunter!’.

It was an era of ubiquitous evil masterminds and another one used beasts for banditry in ‘The Animal Crime Kingdom’, whilst a sinister stage magician tested Manhunter’s mettle and wits in #263’s ‘The Crime Conjurer!’ before the hero’s hidden powers are almost exposed after cheap hoods find a crashed capsule and unleash ‘The Menace of the Martian Weapons!’

Masked and costumed villains were still a rarity when J’onzz tackled ‘The Fantastic Human Falcon’ in #265 whilst ‘The Challenge of the Masked Avenger!’ was the only case for a new – and inept – wannabe hero, after which the Martian’s sense of duty and justice force him to forego a chance to return home in #267’s ‘John Jones’ Farewell to Earth!’

A menacing fallen meteor results in ‘The Mixed-Up Martian Powers’ and a blackmailing reporter almost becoming ‘The Man who Exposed John Jones’, before a trip escorting an extradited felon from Africa results in J’onzz becoming ‘The Hunted Martian’. The Manhunter’s origin was revisited in #271 when Erdel’s robot-brain accidentally froze the Martian’s powers in ‘The Lost Identity’ whilst death threats compelled Jones’ boss to appoint a well-meaning hindrance in the form of ‘The Super-Sleuth’s Bodyguard’…

By the time Detective Comics #273 was released (autumn 1959 and cover-dated November) the Silver Age superhero revival was in full swing and, with a plethora of new costumed characters catching the public imagination, old survivors and hardy perennials like Green Arrow, Aquaman and others were given a thorough makeover. Perhaps the boldest was the new direction taken by the Manhunter from Mars as his undercover existence on Earth was revealed to all mankind when he very publicly battled and defeated a criminal from his home world in ‘The Unmasking of J’onn J’onzz’. As part of the revamp, J’onzz lost the ability to use his powers whilst invisible and became a very high-profile superhero. At least that vulnerability to common flame was still a closely guarded secret…

Nonetheless, this tale was followed by the debut of incendiary villain ‘The Human Flame’ in #274 and the introduction of a secret-identity-hunting romantic interest as policewoman Diane Meade returned in #275 recast as ‘John Jones’ Pesky Partner’…

‘The Crimes of John Jones’ finds the new superhero an amnesiac pawn of bank robbers before another fantastic foe premiered in #277 with ‘The Menace of Mr. Moth’. Invading Venusians almost cause ‘The Defeat of J’onn J’onzz’ next, and a hapless millionaire inventor nearly wrecks the city by accident with ‘The Impossible Inventions’…

Advance word of an underworld plot compels the Manhunter to be ‘Bodyguard to a Bandit’ and keep a crook out of jail, whilst #281’s ‘The Menace of Marsville’ inadvertently grants criminals powers to equal his after which another fallen meteorite temporarily makes Diane ‘The Girl with the Martian Powers’ – or does it?

To help out an imperilled ship captain, J’onzz becomes ‘The Amazing One-Man Crew’ whilst in #284 Diane – unaware of his extraterrestrial origins – seeks to seduce her partner in ‘The Courtship of J’onn J’onzz!’ after which monster apes tear up the city in ‘The Menace of the Martian Mandrills!’

Detective #286 found ‘His Majesty, John Jones’ standing in for an endangered Prince in a take on The Prisoner of Zenda before ‘J’onn J’onzz’s Kid Brother!’ T’omm is briefly stranded on Earth. Only one of the siblings could return…

‘The Case of the Honest Swindler’ in #288 sees a well-meaning man accidentally endanger the populace with magical artefacts after which a quick trip to Asia pits the Martian against a cunning jungle conman in ‘J’onn J’onzz – Witch Doctor’. Then when a movie is repeatedly sabotaged, Diane assumes the job of lead stunt-girl with some assistance from the Manhunter in ‘Lights, Camera – and Doom!’ and a lovesick suitor masquerades as ‘The Second Martian Manhunter’ to win his bride in #291. ‘The Ex-Convicts Club’ almost founders before it begins after someone impersonates reformed criminals to pull new jobs. Luckily J’onzz is more trusting than most…

Diane finds herself with a rival in policewoman Sally Winters and their enmity can apparently only be resolved with ‘The Girl-Hero Contest!’, after which the Manhunter pursues crooks into another dimension and becomes ‘The Martian Weakling’ (DC #294), and thereafter ‘The Martian Show-Off!’ to inexplicably deprive a fellow cop of his 1000th arrest! When that mystery is solved, he acts as ‘The Alien Bodyguard’ for Diane who is blithely unaware she has been marked for death…

Detective #297’s ‘J’onn J’onzz vs. the Vigilantes’ has the Green Guardian expose the secret agenda of a committee of wealthy “concerned citizens” before going to the aid of a stage performer who is ‘The Man Who Impersonated J’onn J’onzz!’ He then almost fails as a ‘Bodyguard for a Spy’ because Diane is jealous of the beautiful Princess in his charge…

Detective Comics #300 unveiled ‘The J’onn J’onzz Museum’ – a canny ploy by a master criminal who believes he has uncovered the Martian’s secret weakness, whilst ‘The Mystery of the Martian Marauders!’ has our hero battling impossible odds when an army of his fellows invaded Earth…

‘The Crime King of Mount Olympus’ matches the Manhunter against a pantheon of Hellenic super-criminals to save Diane’s life after which more plebeian thugs attempt to expose his secret identity in ‘The Great J’onn J’onzz Hunt!’ This first beguiling compendium then concludes with #304’s rousing tale of an academy of scientific lawbreakers as John Jones infiltrates ‘The Crime College!’…

Although certainly dated, these complex yet uncomplicated adventures are drenched in charm and still sparkle with innocent wit and wonder. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste nowadays, such vintage exploits of the Manhunter from Mars are still an all-ages buffet of fun, thrills and action no fan should miss.
© 1953, 1955-1962, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Marsupilami volume 9: The Butterfly and the Treetop Squid


By Batem & Yann, coloured by Cerise: created by Franquin and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1 80044-126-2 (Album PB/Digital edition)

One of Europe’s most popular and evergreen comic stars is an eccentrically unpredictable, irascible, loyal, superstrong, rubber-limbed yellow-&-black ball of explosive energy with a seemingly infinite elastic tail. The mighty Marsupilami is a wonder of nature and icon of entertainment invention originally spun-off from another immortal comedy adventure strip…

In 1946 Joseph “Jije” Gillain was crafting the eponymous keystone strip of Le Journal de Spirou when he abruptly handed off the entire kit & caboodle to assistant André Franquin. The apprentice gradually shifted format from short complete gags to extended adventure serials and adding a wide and engaging cast of new characters. For 1952’s Spirou et les heritiers (January 31st issue), he devised a beguiling boisterous South American critter and tossed him like an elastic-arsed grenade into the mix. Thereafter – until his resignation from the feature – Franquin frequently folded his bombastic beast into Spirou’s exotic escapades…

The Marsupilami returned over and over again: a phenomenally popular magical animal who inevitably grew into a solo star of screen, toy store, console games and albums all his own.

In 1955 a contractual spat with Dupuis resulted in Franquin signing up with publishing rivals Casterman on Le Journal de Tintin to work with René Goscinny and Peyo whilst concocting raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon. However, Franquin quickly patched things up with Dupuis and was restored to Le Journal de Spirou. In 1957, he unleashed Gaston Lagaffe (Gomer Goof) whilst still legally obliged to carry on Tintin work too. In 1959 writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem began assisting, but after 10 more years Franquin had reached his Spirou limit. He quit for good in 1969, and took his golden monkey with him…

Plagued by bouts of depression, Franquin died on January 5th 1997, but his legacy remains: a vast body of work that reshaped the landscape of European comics. Moreover, having learned his lesson about publishers, Franquin retained all rights to Marsupilami and in the late 1980s had begun publishing his own adventures of the rambunctious miracle-worker…

Tapping old comrade Greg (Michel Régnier, writer and/or artist of Luc Orient, Bernard Prince, Bruno Brazil, Rock Derby, Zig et Puce, Achille Talon and Le Journal de Tintin editor from 1966-1974) as scripter and inviting commercial artist/illustrator Luc Collin (pen-name Batem), Franquin launched his new comedy feature through Marsu Productions. The first tome was La Queue du Marsupilami (1987) – translated as The Marsupilami’s Tale.

Ultimately, his collaborators monopolised art duties, and with 4th volume The Pollen of Mount Urticando Greg was replaced by artist-turned-scripter Yannick Le Pennetier – AKA “Yann” (Les Innomables, Bob Marone, Lolo et Sucette, Chaminou, Kid Lucky). In 2016, the long-sundered universes of Marsupilami and Spirou reconnected, allowing the old gang to participate in shared exploits of a unique world created and populated by Franquin.

Graced with a talent for mischief, the Marsupilami is a fiercely protective, deviously ingenious anthropoid inhabiting the rainforests of Palombia. One of the rarest animals on Earth, it speaks a language uniquely its own and has a reputation for making trouble and sparking chaos. The species is fanatically dedicated to its young, occasionally extending that filial aegis to other species – even sometimes to the ever-encroaching humans who constantly poke around looking for Marsupilami and other, even rarer creatures…

The Butterfly and the Treetop Squid was released in Europe in October 1994 as Les papillon des cimes: 9th of 33 solo albums thus far (not including all-Franquin short-story collection/volume #0 Capturez un Marsupilami). It delivers another riotous comedy action romp, introducing more weird interlopers to the growing cast…

We open deep in the wild woods of Palombia’s rainforests where our hirsute hero cavorts in the bosom of nature and revels in the innocent joys of family. That feeling evaporates when he discovers traps, lures and cast off rubbish left by human scientists…

Two of these unsavoury intruders (lepidopterist Professor Lida Dorvasal and his greedy guide Bring) are Palombians in pursuit of the world’s rarest butterfly – the female Narcissus Bucephalus – but the true threat to peace and tranquillity is a clandestine international expedition funded by “Big Sausage” interests currently secreted above the treetops in a vehicle like none ever built before…

These generally well-meaning but obsessively goal-oriented, self-serving and glory-seeking boffins comprise Professors Henry Verse-Geere, Apollo Nabokov, Lolita Rantula, Zephyr Morehouse-Fly and Akira “Batman” Mitsuhirato, latterly supplemented by “grunge-punk” Brad Wurst, ostensibly an artist/cameraman but also an unwanted legacy of the Neslog Kramart Quality Sausage empire foisted upon them against their express wishes.

The science squad are also seeking rare bugs and butterflies, and even after their advanced tech and kit is wrecked, have a hard time believing the Marsupilami exists… but that’s only the case until he starts wreaking more havoc by invading their canopy-crawling mobile octopoid fortress: an event coinciding with further breakdowns and crises that can only have been perpetrated by a human traitor on the team…

As breakdowns intensify and disappearances mount, the mission is further diverted and derailed after the Thinktank go crazy for Narcissus Bucephalus caterpillars (discovered to only propagate in occupied Marsupilami bowers). However, the pestiferous primates are proved mostly innocent of being wreckers when indigenous and invasive boffins unite to catch butterflies and inadvertently unmask a potential killer with criminal tendencies and a nasty job to do…

These eccentric exploits of the garrulous golden monkey are moody, macabre and madcap, furiously funny and pithily pertinent, offering engagingly rowdy romps and devastating debacles for wide-eyed kids of every age all over the world. If you care to revisit your wild ways it all starts with a Hoobee, Hoobah Hoobah…
Original edition © Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 1994 by Batem & Yann, Franquin. All rights reserved. English translations © 2023 Cinebook Ltd.

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Marvel Masterworks Golden Age Sub-Mariner volume 2


By Bill Everett, Allen Simon, Carl Pfeufer, Mickey Spillane, Art Gates, Gustav “Gus” Schrotter, Justin Dewey Triem, Ray Houlihan, Kermit Jaediker & others (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2247-0 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. Lots of it, generated at moments of fervent if not rabid anti-German and anti-Japanese patriotic fervour. Everybody on all sides was doing the same at the time but that’s no excuse, and if you can’t tolerate overtly racist depictions despite their historical context and social grounding, this might be a Marvel masterwork to stay well away from.

Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner was the second super-star of the Timely Age of Comics – but only because he followed cover-featured Human Torch in the running order of October 1939’s Marvel Comics #1. He has however enjoyed the most impressive longevity of the company’s “Big Three”: which also includes the Torch and Captain America…

After a brief re-emergence in the mid-1950’s, the Marine Marvel was only successfully revived in 1962 as an unbeatable force and foe in Fantastic Four #4. Once again he appeared as an antihero/noble villain, and has been prominent in the company’s pantheon ever since. In-world, the hybrid offspring of a water-breathing Atlantean princess and American polar explorer is a being of immense strength and intelligence, highly resistant to physical harm, able to fly and thrive above and below the waves.

Created by young Bill Everett, Namor technically predates Marvel/Atlas/Timely Comics entirely, but first captured public attention as one half of the “Fire vs Water” headliners in anthological Marvel Comics after it became Marvel Mystery Comics with the second issue. His elementally apposite co-star was The Human Torch, but Namor had originally been seen – albeit in a truncated version – in monochrome freebie Motion Picture Funnies: a promotional giveaway handed out to moviegoers earlier that year. Swiftly becoming one of Timely’s biggest draws, Namor won his own title at the end of 1940 (cover-dated Spring 1941) and was one of the last super-characters to go at the end of the first heroic age.

In 1954, Atlas (as the company was then known) revived the Big Three and Everett returned for an extended run of superb horror and Red-baiting fantasy tales, but the time or approach wasn’t right for superheroes and the title sank again. As before, Subby was the last character to be cancelled, as rumours of a possible TV series kept his title afloat…

When Stan Lee & Jack Kirby used Fantastic Four to reinvent superheroes in 1961 they cannily revived the angry amphibian as a troubled, amnesiac, decidedly more regal and grandiose antagonist: one understandably embittered at the loss of his subsea realm (seemingly destroyed by American atomic testing). He also became the dangerous bad-boy romantic interest: besotted with golden-haired Sue Storm. She couldn’t make up her mind about him for decades…

Nomad Namor knocked around the budding Marvel universe for years, squabbling with assorted heroes like The Avengers, X-Men and Daredevil before reuniting his scattered people and securing his own series as part of “split-book” Tales to Astonish beside fellow antisocial antihero The Incredible Hulk. From there both went on to become cornerstones of the modern Marvel Universe.

Way back then though, after his illustrious debut in Marvel Comics #1, a Sub-Mariner solo vehicle launched in Spring 1941. The first 4 issues are gathered in Marvel Masterworks Golden Age Sub-Mariner volume 1: available in print and digital formats. This second compilation reprints Sub-Mariner Comics #5-8 (cover-dated Spring Winter 1942) and sees excitement build but quality inevitably drop as key creators were called up to serve in various branches of America’s war machine. The shock-stuffed vintage wonderment is preceded by a fact-filled Introduction from frequent Subby scribe and comics historian Roy Thomas, sharing context, backstory and tales of the replacement bullpen all finny fun-fans will appreciate. This titanic tome also incorporates most of the rousing in-situ ads and editorial pages seen in the original releases…

Following that critical appraisal and further details on possible unattributed contributors, a cover by Al Gabriele & George Klein ushers us into Sub-Mariner Comics #5, which opens on a monochrome frontispiece house ad for early Marvel Mystery Comics heroes…

Then different times slap readers in the face like a wet kipper as ‘Sub-Mariner Raps the Japs in the Pacific’: a simple saga of punitive carnage by Everett, Allen Simon and assorted unknown assistants, wherein the sea sentinel designs a new kind of attack submersible and unleashes it on the dastardly foe. When the foe sinks it, Namor unleashes hands-on vengeance…

Previously – in Sub-Mariner Comics #1 – Namor had declared war on the perfidious Nazis after a fleet of U-Boats depth-charged his underwater Antarctic home city. The Avenging Prince immediately retaliated in a bombastic show of super-power. Here in the weeks after Pearl Harbor and with anti-Japanese sentiment on high, the antihero switched attention to the Pacific Theatre of War. For most of these stories as Everett’s contributions diminished, he and other lead artists used a string of assistants culled from the comic book “Shop” outfits. Sadly, with no accurate records, best guesses for uncredited past contributors include Charles Nicholas (nee Wojtkoski), Witmer Williams, Ben Thompson, Sam Gilman, George Mandel, Mike Roy, Al Fagaly & Jimmy Thompson and more. I’ve added a few guesses of my own but we may never know who and where…

The publishers having omitted a Remember Pearl Harbor! Public Service Announcement, we pick up with a second 20-page Subby saga (attributed to Allen Simon but possibly drawn by Syd Shores with Simon inking) which seizes on headlines to depict how ‘Sub-Mariner Smashes an Uprising in Manila!’: savagely smashing the invaders whilst rescuing a female US spy from the conquered islands and featuring a cameo by General Douglas MacArthur…

These deluxe editions include those mandatory text features comics were compelled to run to maintain their postal status (an arcane system allowing publishers to procure large postal discounts as “second class mail”) so next comes prose fable ‘Tight Spot’ by Mickey Spillane. The author was an actual fighter pilot and flight instructor lending authenticity to the tale of a trainee pilot forced to make an emergency landing only minutes into his first lesson…

Following ‘Don’t Delay Another Second!’ (an ad for Captain America’s Sentinels of Liberty club), Gustav “Gus” Schrotter – or possibly Kermit Jaediker & Al Gabriele – delivers another 20-page gothic chiller starring The Angel.

Although dressed like a superhero, this dashing do-gooder was a blend (knock-off would be more accurate but unkind) of Leslie Charteris’ The Saint, Richard Creasey’s The Toff and The Lone Wolf (Louis Vance’s urbane two-fisted hero who was the subject of 8 books and 24 B-movies between 1917 and 1949).

One marked difference was the quality of the Angel’s enemies: his foes tended towards the arcane, the ghoulish, the ugly and just plain demented…

The globe-trotting paladin also seemed able to cast a giant shadow in the shape of an angel -. not the greatest aid to cleaning up the scum of the Earth, but he seemed to manage…

In ‘The House of Evil Dreams’ the dapper dilettante saves US agent Dorothy Ray from oriental mesmerist Hutsu, who employs a murderous cult of Morpheus-worshipping sleepwalkers to destroy America’s defenders…

Cartoonist Art Gates closes the issue’s comics content with another ‘Pop’s Whoppers’ – a jolly comedy feature starring an inveterate windbag beat-cop – who here foils escaped convicts despite himself…

Cover-dated Summer 1942 Sub-Mariner Comics #6 sported an Alex Schomburg cover and offered a monochrome frontispiece house ad for its heroes prior to Carl Pfeufer (with Everett) sidelining the “Jap-rapping” to confront other purveyors of skulduggery. ‘The Missing Finger Mystery’ finds him undercover at a Canadian lumber camp after discovering a body inside a tree and resolving to track down the killers and their victim, before – following Marvel Mystery Comics ad ‘Not a Weak Link Among ‘Em!’ – Namor returns to the war in ‘Sub-Mariner Fights the Periscope Peril!’ Here Pfeufer limns a savage clash as the finny fury discovers the Japanese are using randomly-scattered fake pericopes to distract convoy protection ships and takes immediate and excessively violent action to scuttle the scheme, after which Spillane resorts to fantasy as sailor assesses his narrow escape from ‘The Sea Serpent’…

‘At it Again!’ proclaims another clash between Sub-Mariner and The Human Torch, prior to Schrotter – or maybe Jaediker & Gabriele – taking on The Angel in ‘Death Sees a Doctor!’ The macabre and forewarned assassination of a dentist sets the costumed investigator on the trail of deadly medical extortionists using modified body parts as murder weapons…

Gates’ ‘Pop’s Whoppers’ sees the braggart pay for bigging up his achievements at “The African Olympics”, before another Sentinels of Liberty ad, and back cover promo of Timely’s Next Big Thing – Terry Toons comics – ends the affair.

Three months later Sub-Mariner Comics #7 (Fall 1942 with the cover by Allen Simon & Frank Giacoia) opens with an ad for Young Allies and All Winners Comics in advance of Pfeufer & Simon delineating ‘Piracy on the Ocean’s Bottom!’ Here Sub-Mariner battles mad scientist The Doctor who has found a way to revive the dead and is sinking and plundering US vessels with giant squid, robots and his enslaved horde of zombie buccaneers…

A Human Torch ad leads into a bloody clash (body counts in Timely tales were frequently in three figures!) as The Angel faced ‘The Firing Squad!’ Attributed to Schrotter, the grim crime caper saw disgraced soldier/recently released convict Danny Poll recruit a cadre of gangsters and drill them into being his personal robbery, murder & revenge squad. Police were helpless against their ruthless tactics and even the cherubic champion could not save everyone who fell under their sights…

Justin Dewey “J.D.” Triem delivered prose murder mystery ‘Mercy Flight’ as ingenuity and a model plane saved two men from cruel death, after which Sub-Mariner discovers ‘Death ‘Round the Bend!’ (Pfeufer & A Simon) when hunting lost treasure and a ghostly Mississippi river boat and encountering generations of criminal masterminds…

‘Pop’s Whoppers’ by Gates sees the smug flatfoot and his newest partner embroiled in a practical joke war with the local street urchins, before this session ends with a Terry Toons #2 ad and more plugs for Captain America and his Sentinels…

Schomburg’s cover for Sub-Mariner Comics #8 (Winter 1942) is followed by an official Treasury Department ad for war bonds, prior to Pfeufer’s opening but untitled ‘Sub-Mariner’ saga, as the marine marvel witnesses the murder of a lighthouse keeper/American agent by traitor The Knife. Determined to avenge the crime, Namor secretly enlists in the US Marines, following clues from boot camp on Parris Island to an occupied Pacific atoll, until he nails the killer and incidentally sinks an entire Japanese fleet of warships…

Ad ‘They’re At it Again’ plugs the next fire vs water clash of heroes before Sub-Mariner initiates ‘The Setting of the Rising Sun’ (Pfeufer) by protecting and eventually rescuing the crew and gear of a shot-down US blimp. Along the way Namor faces brainwashing boffin Dr. Suki and battles his legion of P.O.W. zombies before ending the vile threat…

Anonymous Prose thriller ‘Tommy’s Taken for a Ride’ reveals how a raw recruit on leave is robbed and finds new friends and romance in recovering his cash, after which cartoon great Ray Houlihan starts his kids feature ‘Tubby and Tack’ with a brace of tales seeing the playful lads enjoying a Saturday and then buying war bonds in advance of The Angel battling a true madman with a ‘Genius for Murder!’ Scripted by Kermit Jaediker with Schrotter art, the saga sees frustrated, failing author Caleb Crane reinvent himself as master criminal The White Carnation in an attempt to add veracity to his manuscripts. His gift for crime and pitiless arrogance turns the city on its head and almost defeats the mighty Angel.

One last Houlihan ‘Tubby and Tack’ tale sees the kids waste a perfect day trying to find friends to enjoy it with, to close this sargasso of lost sagas. Don’t fret though, there’s plenty more where these came from…

As a special bonus, this collection also shares candid photos of the creators from a 1969 reunion, even more house ads in various stages of completion, pencil roughs for those ads and 12 pencil pages of story layouts.

Many early Marvel Comics are more exuberant than qualitative, but this compendium, even if largely devoid of premier league talent, is a happy exception. Offering high-octane – albeit uncomfortably jingoistic and culturally enmired in its time – action and adventure, this is a vibrant vigorous, historically unvarnished read as well as a forgotten treasure Fights ‘n’ Tights fans will find irresistible.
© 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Michael Moorcock Library – Elric volume 3: The Dreaming City


By Roy Thomas & P Craig Russell with Tom Orzechowski (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78585-334-0 (HB/Digital edition)

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

Some stories just never grow stale or feel out-of-step. Here is a particular favourite both in prose and comics form that you can find and adore.

The third volume in a proposed complete Michael Moorcock Library of comics adaptations (and prose novels), this is – chronologically at least – the first tale of the doomed king, despite being one of the last adventures penned by Moorcock in the initial prose cycle of stories (he returned to the character years later, as all great authors do to all great characters).

It’s been given an archival polish and pictorial upgrade and is re-presented here in a superb hardcover tome complete from ‘Introduction: Conan, Elric, and Me’ from original adapter Roy Thomas, sharing his history with and undying love of the dark prince…

Elric is an icon and milestone of the Sword & Sorcery genre and one of the first and best of the “last rulers of a pre-human civilization” trope. The austere distant Melnibonéans he rules and leads to destruction are an ancient race of cruel, arrogant sorcerers: dissolute creatures in a slow, decadent decline after millennia of dominance over Earth.

An albino, Emperor Elric VIII, was the 428th of his line: physically weak and of a brooding, philosophical temperament, caring for nothing save his beautiful cousin Cymoril, even though her brother Prince Yrrkoon openly lusted for both his throne and intended bride.

Elric never wanted to rule, it was merely his duty. Crucially, he was the only one of his race to see the newly-evolving race of Man as a threat to the Empire. Thanks to earlier/later canonical tales told (for which see Michael Moorcock Library – Elric volume 1) he owns – or is possessed by – a huge black sword dubbed Stormbringer: a magical blade that steals the souls of all who fall to it and feeds their life and vitality to the albino.

The Dreaming City was the first Elric story Moorcock released, published in pulp periodical Science Fantasy #47 (June 1961). A sensational 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. Its transition to comics began as an adaptation by Roy Thomas & P. Craig Russell: released as a the second Marvel Graphic Novel in 1982.

In this beautifully realised (fully visually remastered for this edition), Elric has been recently usurped and ousted by Yrrkoon. The vile rival also cast Cymoril into an enchanted sleep and holds her hostage. Faustian-like, the albino has entered into a devil’s bargain with assorted human rulers and reivers and now promises to guide an armada of ships in an all-out attack on the deviously fortified island citadel of Immyr, determined to raze the city and eradicate his entire race if that what’s necessary to rescue his beloved…

The pact sees the doomed monarch burn many bridges with old friends, primordial mystic allies of his lost throne and especially his new human allies such as Count Smiorgan, Yaris, King Naclon and Fadan of Lormyr, but Elric is content to destroy the entire world to free his beloved and punish his nemesis…

Thanks to Elric the shaky alliance succeeds in spectacular manner, but Yrrkoon (carrying Stormbringer’s sister sword Mournblade) is easily his master in treachery and deceit, and the rescue mission goes horribly wrong, leaving the Last True Emperor despondent, broken and alone in world he no longer fits, and despised by the surviving humans he abandoned to the vengeful dragon-riding Melnibonéans…

Much like the original prose tale this adaptation has become a milestone of the comics genre: a resplendently flamboyant, deliciously elegant, savagely beautiful masterpiece blending blistering action and glittering adventure with deep, darkly melancholic tone of the cynical, nihilistic, Cold-War mentality and era which spawned the original stories.

Here is an iconic and groundbreaking landmark of fantasy fiction and a must-read-item for any fan…
© 2016 Michael & Linda Moorcock. All characters, the distinctive likenesses thereof, and all related indicia are ™ & © Michael Moorcock and Elric Inc. Elric: The Dreaming City is © 1981, 1982 Roy Thomas and P Craig Russell.