Category: Science Fiction

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Osama Tezuka’s Astro Boy volume 10


By Osamu Tezuka, translated by Frederik L. Schodt (Dark Horse Manga)
ISBN: 978-1-56971-793-1 (tank?bon PB/Digital edition)

This book contains Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

From beginning his professional career in the late 1940s until his death in 1989, Osamu Tezuka generated an incomprehensible volume of quality work which transformed the world of manga and how it was perceived in his own country and, ultimately, across the globe. Devoted to Walt Disney’s creations, he also performed similar sterling service with Japan’s fledgling animation industry. Look what that led to…

The earliest stories were intended for children but right from the start Tezuka’s expansive fairy tale stylisations harboured more mature themes, holding hidden pleasures for older readers and the legion of fans growing up with the Mankaga’s manga masterworks…

The “God of Comics” was born in Osaka Prefecture on November 3rd 1928, and as a child suffered from severe illness. The doctor who cured him inspired the lad to study medicine, and although Osamu began drawing professionally whilst at university in 1946, he persevered with college and qualified as a medical practitioner too. Then, as he faced a career crossroads, his mother advised him to do the thing which made him happiest.

He never practiced as a healer but the world was gifted such masterpieces as Kimba the White Lion, Buddha, Black Jack and so many other graphic narratives. Working ceaselessly over decades, Tezuka and his creations inevitably matured, but he was always able to speak to the hearts and minds of young and old equally. His creations ranged from the childishly charming to the distinctly disturbing such as The Book of Human Insects or Tomorrow the Birds.

Tezuka died on February 9th 1989, having produced more than 150,000 pages of timeless comics; reinvented the Japanese anime industry and popularised a uniquely Japanese graphic narrative style which has become a fixture of global culture.

These monochrome digest volumes (173 x 113 mm in the physical world and any size you like if you read them digitally) present – in non-linear order – early exploits of his signature character, with the emphasis firmly on fantastic fun and family entertainment…

Tetsuwan Atomu (literally “Mighty Atom” but known universally as Astro Boy due to its dissemination around the world as an animated TV cartoon and one of post-war Japan’s better exports) is a spectacular, riotous, rollicking sci fi action-adventure starring a young boy who also happens to be one of the mightiest robots on Earth.

The series began in 1952 in Sh?nen Kobunsha and ran until March 12th 1968 – although Tezuka often added to the canon in later years, both in comics but in also in other media such as newspaper strips and in magazines. Throughout that period, the plucky robot lad spawned the aforementioned global TV cartoon boom, starred in comic book specials and featured in games, toys, collectibles, movies and the undying devotion of generations of ardent fans.

Tezuka frequently drew himself into his tales as a commentator, and in his later revisions and introductions often mentioned how he found the restrictions of Sh?nen comics stifling; specifically, having to periodically pause a plot to placate the demands of his audience by providing a blockbusting fight every episode. That’s his prerogative: most of us avid aficionados have no complaints and one upheld in abundance in the early tales included here…

Tezuka and his production team were never as wedded to close continuity as fans are. They constantly revised stories and artwork for later collections, so if you’re a purist you are just plain out of luck. Such tweaking and modifying is the reason these editions seemingly skip up and down publishing chronology. The intent is to entertain at all times so stories aren’t treated as gospel and order is not immutable or inviolate. It’s just comics, guys, and in case you came in late, here’s a little background to set you up.

In a forthcoming world where robots are ubiquitous and have won (limited) human rights, brilliant Dr. Tenma lost his son Tobio in a traffic accident. Grief-stricken, the tormented genius used his position as head of Japan’s Ministry of Science to have his team build a replacement. The android created was one of the most groundbreaking constructs in history, and for a while Tenma was content. However, as his mind re-stabilised, Tenma realised this unchanging humanoid was not Tobio and, with cruel clarity, no longer accepted a substitute. Ultimately, the savant removed the insult to his real boy by selling the robot to a shady dealer…

One day, independent researcher Professor Ochanomizu was in the audience at a robot circus and realised diminutive performer Astro was unlike the other acts – or indeed, any artificial being he’d ever encountered. Convincing the circus owners to part with the little robot, the boffin closely studied the unique creation and realised just what a miracle had come into his hands…

Part of Ochanomizu’s socialization process for Astro included placing him in a family environment and having him attend school just like a real boy. As well as providing friends and admirers the familiar environment turned up other foils and occasional assistants such as the bellicose Elementary School teacher Higeoyaji (AKA Mr. Mustachio) and a robot little sister dubbed Uran…

The wiry, widgety wonder’s astonishing exploits resume here after the now traditional ‘A Note to Readers’ – explaining why one thing that hasn’t been altered is the depictions of various racial types in the stories. Since the author was keen to combine all aspects of his creation into one overarching continuity, this volume (at last) incorporates classic 1950s material as well as the masterful Sixties sagas and following an intimate chat with the cartoonist opens with masterful monster mash -up ‘Astro vs Garon’ which was originally serialised in Sh?nen Magazine from October 1962 to February 1963. Here a sequence of wild weather events precedes the arrival of a bizarre object from space. As scientists gather, prod and poke about, they determine the package is some sort of cosmic flat-pack parcel. Sadly, once they put all the pieces together, what they have is a planet-restructuring autonomous entity…

Thanks to Ochanomizu and his little robot companion, a packing note is translated, revealing the power and purpose of the construct, and – crucially – that it has arrived on the WRONG PLANET!

Sent to the Superintendent of Megalopa by the King of Planet Yura, the package has been despatched to “kill Plasta” and “modify” planets, so the sagacious observers are perfectly happy to leave it alone from now on if they can’t find a way to destroy it. Sadly, they aren’t quick enough and lightning awakens “the Garon”, which goes on a catastrophic rampage that all Earth’s military might and valiant Astro Boy can barely handle.

Thinking the crisis over, the handmade hero is called back into action when inert Garon is stolen by sleazy Professor Amagawa and a conglomerate of greedy capitalists and gangsters, Transported to the South Pacific the monster is then deliberately unleashed and all hell inevitably breaks loose. Able to convert the atmosphere and alter gravity, Garon goes wild and the astonishingly outpowered robot kid seems unable to pull off a second miracle.

Thankful for an old fable he once heard, Astro Boy devises a way to outsmart and banish the beast he cannot kill…

Japanese kids were editorially and parentally sheltered in different ways to us in the West, and second saga ‘Yellow Horse’ (Sh?nen, October 1955 – February 1956) might be a little shocking to some. It deals with diabolical drug dealers and sees Astro seconded by Police Inspector Nakamura to crack a ruthless smuggling gang with a hideout that is literally out of this world. To defeat them, the boy ‘bot goes undercover posing as a young user and eventually junkie/recruit, having to allow his hero Mr. Mustachio to be attacked and nearly killed and Professor Ochanomizu to be tortured and turned into an addict…

Eventually however, the plan gels and a calamitous battle reveals another shocking secret before the case can be closed…

Next, from Sh?nen magazine March to April 1967, ‘The 100 Million Year Old Crime’ sees a gang of French mutant juvenile delinquents run amok, endangering all of society with their unchecked mental powers. Called in to help, Professor O and Astro are crushed and defeated by the teens after they steal unstoppable robot superweapon Karabusu…

As the professor is cruelly enslaved by the mutant kids, the wrecked scraps of Astro are found by ancient aliens. These “water ghosts” have been on/in Earth for 100,000,000 years and the father one is mired in guilt for committing an utterly unpardonable act. His daughter Parma is, however, enchanted by the robot remains and rebuilds him, triggering a cycle of redemption. Repaired and curious, Astro learns that heinous antediluvian crime was meddling with earth creatures’ genetic and creating humanity. All their historical atrocities and planetary harms are the alien’s fault and now he will wipe out his mistake. Desperate, Astro debates with the despondent progenitor and a deadly deal is struck, one involving reforming those mutant kids who seem to be the very worst the species can offer…

Sadly, the morbid maker has no intention of honouring it and Astro has to resort to the kind of tactics he despises for the good of all…

This outing to the orient of cartoon yore ends with a cunning crime caper and contemporary spoof saga as ‘Astro’s Been Stolen!’ (June to September in Tetsuwan Atom Kurabu AKA Mighty Atom Club) sees the mecha mite and his loving (equally mechanical) family distraught following a message from Professor O. This explains that the boy, his sister and they all need to grow for their mental health. That means transferring their processors and personalities into new, appropriately aged bodies every ten years…

Tragically, Ochanomizu has been targeted by diabolical twinned Doctors Rukarike. He’s actually a singular supervillain called Gettrich who cons the well-meaning savant into switching Astro Boy’s electro-brain into an adult replacement frame just so he can steal the junior version and place a hench-minion’s mind in it. The purpose is to gain admittance to the top-secret base containing super artefact the Neo-pyramid, but the fiend has not reckoned with Astro’s resilience and determination, nor the timely interference of British agent James Itch Dnob…

Breathtaking pace, outrageous invention, slapstick comedy, heart-wrenching sentiment and frenetic action are hallmarks of these captivating comics constructions: all ideal examples of Tezuka’s uncanny storytelling gifts. These still deliver a potent punch and instil wide-eyed wonder on a variety of intellectual levels and our melange of mecha-marvels is further enhanced an older, more sophisticated tone via the material’s constant revision, confirming Astro Boy as a genuine delight for all ages.
Tetsuwan Atom by Osama Tezuka © 2002 by Tezuka Productions. All rights reserved. Astro Boy is a registered trademark of Tezuka Productions Co., Ltd., Tokyo Japan. Unedited translation © 2002 Frederik L. Schodt.

Today in 1998 Batman co-creator Bob Kane died. Coincidentally, way back in 1927 letterer Milt Snappin was born on this same date. Milt put the words in Batman & Robin’s bubbles – as well as Superman, Superboy and other DC World’s Finest stars throughout the post Golden and Silver Age period.

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The Creeper by Steve Ditko


By Ditko, Don Segall, Denny O’Neil, Michael Fleisher, Mike Peppe, Jack Sparling & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2592-6 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s Steve Ditko’s 99th birthday today and I’m not letting the fact that he’s no longer with us stop us enjoying his wonders and celebrating his unique storytelling mastery…

Steve Ditko was one of our industry’s greatest and most influential talents and, during his lifetime, amongst America’s least lauded. Always reclusive and reticent by inclination, his fervent desire was always just to get on with his job, tell stories the best way he can and let his work speak for him.

Whilst the noblest of aspirations, that attitude was usually a minor consideration – and even an actual stumbling block – for the commercial interests which for so long controlled all comics production and still exert an overwhelming influence upon the mainstream bulk of the comic industry’s output. After Ditko’s legendary disagreements with Stan Lee led to his quitting Marvel – where his groundbreaking efforts made the reclusive genius (at least in comicbook terms) a household name – he found work at Warren Comics and resumed his long association with Charlton Comics.

That company’s laissez faire editorial attitudes had always offered him the most creative freedom, if not greatest financial reward, but in 1968 their wünderkind editor Dick Giordano was poached by the rapidly-slipping industry leader and he took some of his bullpen of key creators with him to DC Comics. Whilst Jim Aparo, Steve Skeates, Frank McLaughlin and Denny O’Neil found a new and regular home, Ditko began only a sporadic – if phenomenally productive – association with DC.

It was during this heady if unsettled period that the first strips derived from Ditko’s interpretation of the Objectivist philosophy of novelist Ayn Rand began appearing in fanzines and independent press publications like Witzend and The Collector, whilst for the “over-ground” publishing colossus he devised a brace of cult classics with The Hawk and the Dove and the superbly captivating concept re-presented here: Beware The Creeper. Later efforts would include Shade, the Changing Man, Stalker and The Odd Man, plus truly unique interpretations of Man-Bat, the Legion of Super-Heroes and many more… including a wealth of horror, mystery and sci fi shorts reminiscent of his Charlton glory days.

The auteur’s comings and goings also allowed him to revisit past triumphs and none more so than with The Creeper – who kept periodically popping up like a mad, bad penny. This superb hardcover compilation – still tragically and inexplicably languishing with other classics DC hasn’t got around to making available in digital formats – gathers every Ditko-drafted/delineated Creeper classic from a delirious decade for your delight, and the spooky superhero spectacle kicks off with an effusive Introduction from appreciative fan Steve (30 Days of Night) Niles.

This collation curates tales from Showcase #73; Beware the Creeper #1-6; 1st Issue Special #7; World’s Finest Comics #249-255 and Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #2/Showcase #106 (collectively spanning March/April 1968 to February/March 1979), so settle in for a long ride…

Like so many brilliant ideas before it, Ditko’s bizarre DC visions first exploded off the newsstands in try-out title Showcase. Issue #73 heralded ‘The Coming of the Creeper!!’ with veteran comics & TV scripter Don Segall putting the words to Ditko’s plot and illustrations. The moodily macabre tale introduces suicidally-outspoken TV host Jack Ryder, whose attitude to his show’s sponsors and cronies loses him his cushy job. His brazen attitude does, however, impress network security chief Bill Brane and the gruff oldster offers him a job as an investigator and occasional bodyguard.

Jack’s first case involves tracking down recent Soviet defector Professor Yatz who has gone missing. The CIA suspect has been abducted by gangster Angel Devilin and sold to Red agent Major Smej. Displaying a natural affinity for detective work, Ryder tracks a lead to Devilin’s grand house and interrupts a costume party designed as a cover to make the trade. Promptly kicked out by thugs, Ryder heads for a costume shop but can only find a box of garish odds and ends… and lots of makeup.

Kitted out in a strange melange of psychedelic attire and accoutrements, he breaks back in but is caught and stabbed before being thrown into a cell with the missing Yatz. The scientist – also grievously wounded – is determined to keep his inventions out of the hands of evil men. These creations comprise an instant-healing serum and a Molecular Transmuter, able to shunt whatever a person is wearing or carrying into and out of our universe. A fully equipped army could enter a country as harmless tourists and materialise a complete armoury before launching sneak attacks…

To preserve them, Yatz lodges the Transmuter inside Ryder’s knife wound before injecting him with the untested serum. The effect is instantaneous and doesn’t even leave a scar. The investigator is also suddenly faster, stronger and more agile…

When Jack presses a handheld activator, he is instantly naked, and experimentation shows that he can make his motley costume appear and disappear just by touching a button. Of course, now, whenever it is activated, neither makeup nor wig, bodystocking, boots or gloves will come off. It’s like the crazy outfit has become his second skin…

When the gangsters come for their captives, Yatz is burning his notes. In the fracas that follows he catches a fatal bullet and, furious, guilt-ridden and strangely euphoric, Ryder goes after the thugs and spies. By the time the cops arrive he finds himself (or at least his canary yellow alter ego) blamed by Devilin for the chaos and even a burglary. The mobster has even given him a name – The Creeper…

As soon as the furore dies down vengeful Ryder returns to exact justice for the professor and discovers his uncanny physical prowess and macabre, incessant unnerving laughter give him an unbeatable edge whilst winning him a supernatural reputation…

After that single yarn the haunting hero hurtled straight into his own bimonthly series. Beware the Creeper #1 debuted with a May/June cover-date. Behind one of the most evocative covers of the decade – or indeed, ever – ‘Where Lurks the Menace?’ (scripted by Denny O’Neil under his occasional pen-name Sergius O’Shaughnessy) finds Ryder and the Creeper hunting an acrobatic killer beating to death numerous shady types in a savage effort to take over the city’s gangs. Sadly, Jack’s relentless pursuit of “the Terror” and careful piecing together of many disparate clues to his identity is hindered by the introduction of publicity-hungry, obnoxious glamour-puss ‘Vera Sweet’. The TV weathergirl thinks she has the right to monopolise Ryder’s time and attention, even when he’s ducking fists and bullets…

The remainder of the far-too-brief run featured a classic duel of opposites as a chameleonic criminal mastermind insinuated himself into the lives of Jack and the Brane bunch. It all began with ‘The Many Faces of Proteus!’ in BtC #2 (by Ditko & O’Shaughnessy) wherein a pompous do-gooder’s TV campaign against The Creeper is abruptly curtailed after the Golden Grotesque shows up at the studio and throws bombs.

Caught in the blast is baffled and battered Jack Ryder, and he’s even more bewildered when Brane informs him that a tip has come in confirming the Creeper is working for gambler gangboss Legs Larsen…

Dodging Vera, whose latest scheme involves a fake engagement, the real Creeper reaches Larsen’s gaming house in time to see a faceless man put a bullet into the prime suspect. In the ensuing panic the Laughing Terror transforms back into Ryder and strolls out with Larsen’s files, unaware that the faceless man is watching him leave and putting a few clues together himself…

The documents reveal a lone player slowly consolidating a grip on the city’s underworld but discloses no concrete information, so the Creeper goes on a very public rampage against all criminals in hopes of drawing Proteus out. The gambit works perfectly as a number of close friends try to kill Ryder, but only after frantically fending off flamethrower-wielding Vera in his own apartment does the Creeper realise that Proteus is far more than a madman with a makeup kit. A spectacular rooftop duel ends in a collapsed building and apparent end of the protean plunderer… but there’s no body to be found in the rubble…

Beware the Creeper #3 has our outré hero tearing the city’s thugs apart looking for Proteus, but his one-man spook-show is curtailed when Brane sends Ryder to find Vera. Little Miss Wonderful is determined to be the first to interview an island society cut off from the world for over a century, but all contact has been lost since she arrived. Tracking her to ‘The Isle of Fear’ Jack finds her in the hands of a death cult. More important to Ryder, however, is the fact that the Supreme One leading the maniacs is actually a top criminal offering sanctuary to Proteus flunkies he’s been scouring the city for…

Back in civilisation again, ‘Which Face Hides My Enemy?’ sees Ryder expose High Society guru and criminal mesmerist Yogi Birzerk’s unsuspected connection to Proteus. The cops drive The Creeper away before he can get anything from the charlatan, and when he dejectedly returns home Jack walks into an explosive booby trap in his new apartment. The “warning” from Proteus heralds the arrival of Asian troubleshooters Bulldog Bird and Sumo who claim to be also pursuing the faceless villain. They reveal he was a high-ranking member of the government of Offalia who stole a chemical which alters the molecular composition of flesh, before suggesting they all team up. Heading back to Bizerk’s place, it soon becomes clear that they are actually working for Proteus and that the faceless fiend knows Ryder’s other identity…

With #5, inker Mike Peppe joined Ditko & O’Neil as the epic swung into high gear with ‘The Color of Rain is Death!’ Proteus makes his closing moves, attacking Jack’s associates and framing him again whilst preparing for a criminal masterstroke which will win him much of the city’s wealth. Luring the Creeper into the sewers as a major storm threatens to deluge the city, the face-shifter reveals a scheme to blow up the drainage system and cause catastrophic flooding. After a brutal battle, he also leaves The Creeper tied to a grating to drown…

The stunning saga closed with final issue Beware the Creeper #6 (March/April 1969), by which time Ditko had all but abandoned his creation. ‘A Time to Die’ saw tireless, reliable everyman artist Jack Sparling pencil most of the story as the Howling Hero escapes his death-trap, deciphers the wily villain’s true gameplan and delivers a crushing final defeat. It was fun and thrilling and – unlike many series which folded at that troubled time – even provided an actual conclusion, but it somehow it wasn’t satisfactory and it wasn’t what we wanted.

This was a time when superheroes went into another steep decline with supernatural and genre material rapidly gaining prominence throughout the industry. With Fights ‘n’ Tights comics folding all over, Ditko concentrated again on Charlton’s mystery line, an occasional horror piece for Warren and his own projects…

In the years his own title was dormant, the Creeper enjoyed many guest shots in other comics and it was established that the city he prowled was in fact Gotham. When Ditko returned to DC in the mid-1970s, try-out series 1st Issue Special was alternating new concepts with revivals of old characters. Issue #7 (October 1975) gave the quirky crusader another shot at stardom in ‘Menace of the Human Firefly’ – written by Michael Fleisher & inked by Mike Royer. Here restored TV journalist Jack Ryder is inspecting the fantastic felons in Gotham Penitentiary just as manic lifer Garfield Lynns breaks jail to resume his interrupted costumed career as the master of lighting effects. By the time the rogue’s brief but brilliant rampage is over, the Creeper has discovered something extremely disturbing about his own ever-evolving abilities…

The story wasn’t enough to restart the rollercoaster, but some years later DC instituted a policy of giant-sized anthologies, and the extra page counts allowed a number of lesser lights to secure back-up slots and shine again. For World’s Finest Comics #249-255 (cover-dated February/March 1978 to February/March 1979) Ditko was invited to produce a series of 8-page vignettes starring his most iconic DC creation. This time he wrote as well as illustrated and the results are pure eccentric excellence. The sequence begins with ‘Moon Lady and the Monster’ as Ryder – once again a security operative for Cosmic Broadcasting Network – must ferret out a grotesque brute stalking a late-night horror-movie hostess, after which #250’s ‘Return of the Past’ reprises the origin as Angel Devilin gets out of jail and goes looking for revenge…

In WFC #251, ‘The Disruptor’ proves to be a blackmailer attempting to extort CBN by sabotaging programmes whilst ‘The Keeper of Secrets is Death!’ in #252 follows the tragic murder of Dr. Joanne Russell who was accused on a sensationalistic TV show of knowing the Creeper’s secret identity. Next issue ‘The Wrecker’ offers an actual grudge-bearing mad scientist who has built a most unconventional robot, whilst ‘Beware Mr. Wrinkles!’ in #254 debuts a villain with the power to age his victims. Neither, however, are a match for the tireless, spring-heeled Technicolor Tornado, whose too-short return culminates in a lethal duel with a knife-throwing jewel thief in #255’s ‘Furious Fran and the Dagger Lady’…

Until this volume, that was it for Ditko devotees and Creeper collectors, but as the final delight in this splendid compendium reveals, there was more. An ill-considered expansion was followed by 1978’s infamous “DC Implosion”, when a number of titles were shut down or cancelled before release. One of those was Showcase #106 which would have featured a new all-Ditko Creeper tale.

It was collected – with sundry other lost treasures – in a copyright-securing, monochrome, minimum print-run internal publication entitled Cancelled Comics Cavalcade. Here, from CCC #2 (1978) and presented in stark black & white, fans can see the Garish Gallant’s last Ditko-devised hurrah as ‘Enter Dr. Storme’ pits the Creeper (and cameo crimebuster The Odd Man) against a deranged weatherman turned climatic conqueror able to manipulate the elements.

Fast, fight-filled, furiously fun and devastatingly dynamic, Beware the Creeper was a high-point in skewed superhero sagas and this is a compendium no lovers of the genre can do without.
© 1968, 1969, 1975, 1978, 1979, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1926 Harvey Comics star and Anthro originator Howie Post was born, followed a year later by the mighty Steve Ditko. Just scroll back up or look anywhere on this blog, dude!

Sadly, it’s also the anniversary of Wally Wood’s death in 1981. We last looked closely at Ditko’s frequent collaborator in Cannon.

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DC Finest Horror – The Devil’s Doorway


By Alex Toth, Gil Kane, Mike Friedrich, Gerry Conway, Sergio Aragonés, Dave Wood, Joe Orlando, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Steve Skeates, John Costanza, Otto Binder, D.J. Arneson, John Albano, Julius Schwartz, E. Nelson Bridwell, Joe Gill, Robert Kanigher, Jack Oleck, Cliff Rhodes, Bob Haney, George Kashdan, Jack Miller, Carl Wessler, Dennis O’Neil, Alan Riefe, Dave Kaler, Jack Phillips, Murray Boltinoff, Curt Swan, Jerry Grandenetti, Bill Draut, Werner Roth, Jack Sparling, Morris Waldinger, Tom Nicolosi, Bernard Baily, Jack Abel, George Roussos, Eddie Robbins, Wayne Howard, Stanley Pitt, Bruno Premiani, Dick Giordano, Dick Dillin, Murphy Anderson, Pat Boyette, Neal Adams, Nick Cardy, Mike Sekowsky, Sid Greene, Mike Roy, Mike Peppe, Don Heck, Wally Wood, Ralph Reese, George Tuska, Gray Morrow, John Celardo, Art Saaf, José Delbo, Vince Colletta, Frank Giacoia, Al Williamson & many & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79950-280-7 (TPB)

Sadly this masterful mystery megamix is not yet available digitally, but we live in hope…

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Splendid Slice of Spectral Shock & Awe… 9/10

It’s the time for sweet indulgence, shocking over-eating and spooky stories, so let’s pay a visit to a much-neglected old favourite in a fresh new costume…

US comic books started slowly until the coming of superheroes unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and sparked a new genre. Implacably vested in World War II, the Overman swept all before him (and very occasionally her or it) until the troops came home and the more traditional genres resurfaced and eventually supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd. Although new kids kept on buying, much of the previous generation of consumers also retained their four-colour habit but increasingly sought older themes in the reading matter. The war years altered global psychological landscapes and as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything, their chosen forms of entertainment (film and prose as well as comics) reflected this.

As well as Westerns, War and Crime comics, celebrity tie-ins, madcap escapist comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent, but gradually another of the cyclical revivals of spiritualism and public fascination with all things occult, eldritch and arcane led to them being outshone and outsold by a wave of increasingly impressive, evocative and shocking horror comics.

There had been grisly, gory and supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, monsters and wizards draped in mystery-man garb and trappings (The Spectre, Mr. Justice, Sgt. Spook, Frankenstein, The Heap, Sargon the Sorcerer, Zatara, Monako, Zambini the Miracle Man, Kardak the Mystic, Dr. Fate and dozens more), but these had been victims of circumstance: The Unknown as a “narrativium” power source for super-heroics.

Now the focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering, the reader. Almost every publisher jumped on the increasingly popular bandwagon, with B & I (which became magical one-man-band Richard E. Hughes’ American Comics Group) launching the first regularly published horror comic in the Autumn of 1948. Technically, though, Adventures Into the Unknown was actually pipped by Avon who had released an impressive single issue entitled Eerie in January 1947 before finally committing to a regular series in 1951. By this time, and following the filmic horror heyday of Universal Pictures’ fright films franchises, worthy comic book monolith Classics Illustrated had already long milked the literary end of the medium with adaptations of The Headless Horseman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both 1943), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1944) and Frankenstein (1945) among others.

If we’re keeping score, this was also the period in which Joe Simon & Jack Kirby identified another “mature market” gap by inventing the Romance comic (Young Romance #1, cover-dated September 1947) but they too saw sales potential in macabre mood material, resulting in seminal anthologies Black Magic (launched in 1950) and boldly obscure psychological drama vehicle Strange World of Your Dreams (1952). Around that time the staid cautious company that would become DC Comics bowed to the commercial inevitable and launched a comparatively straightlaced anthology that became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with the December 1951/January 1952 opening of The House of Mystery.

When the hysterical censorship scandal which led to witch-hunting hearings was at its height, the mobs with pitchforks furore was adroitly curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulatory rules. Horror titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of Shock ‘n’ Gore.

However, since appetite for suspenseful short stories remained high, in 1956 National DC introduced sister title House of Secrets (a November/December cover-date). Plots were dialled back into superbly illustrated, rationalistic, fantasy-adventure vehicles which would dominate the market until the 1960s when superheroes (which began sneaking back in 1956 after Julius Schwartz reintroduced The Flash in Showcase #4), finally overtook them.

Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom and a slew of other costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked mavens which even forced the dedicated anthology suspense titles to transform into super-character split-books, with Martian Manhunter and Dial H for Hero monopolising House of Mystery whilst Mark Merlin – later Prince Ra-Man – sharing space with Eclipso in House of Secrets. When caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, HoS was one of the first casualties, folding with #80, the September/October 1966 issue.

However, nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and by the end of the 1960s the Silver Age superhero boom was over, with many titles gone and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain. This real-world Crisis prompted surviving publishers to loosen self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles at that juncture, but liberalisation coincided with another bump in public interest for all things Worlds Beyond-ey, so resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious no-brainer…

Even ultra-wholesome Archie Comics re-entered the field with a rather tasty line of Red Circle Chillers: a minor substrate they regularly return to with style and potency to this day.

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all House of Mystery #174 (cover dated May/June 1968), confirmed the downturn in superhero stories eveywhere as it hit newstands everywhere presenting a bold banner asking Do You Dare Enter The House of Mystery? Inside it reprinted admittedly excellent short fantastic thrillers originally seen in House of Secrets from those heady days when it was okay to scare kids…

It was a slow but unstoppable hit which just kept spreading…

This DC Finest collection gathers a year’s worth of scary stuff snapshotted from House of Secrets #81-85; House of Mystery #180-185; The Witching Hour #3-7; The Unexpected #113-117 and includes a short back-up yarn from Phantom Stranger volume 2 #5, which cumulatively filled dank evenings from May 1969-April 1970. It all starts – with absolutely no fanfare at all – in HoM #180…

Going from strength to strength, the fear flagship was increasingly drawing on DC’s major artistic resources. Astounding opener ‘Comes a Warrior’ is a chilling faux Sword & Sorcery classic written and drawn by da Vinci of Dynamism Gil Kane, and inked by incomparable Wally Wood, before they illustrate Mike Friedrich’s fourth-wall-demolishing ‘His Name is Cain Kane!’

A Sergio Aragonés gag page in the long-running ‘Cain’s Game Room’ roaming sequence then cleanses palates for Cliff Rhodes & Joe Orlando’s text-terror ‘Oscar Horns In!’ before Marv Wolfman & Bernie Wrightson proffer prophetic vignette ‘Scared to Life’. A double-page ‘Cain’s Game Room’ precedes an uncredited forensic history lesson drawn by Morris Waldinger and recycled as‘Cain’s True Case Files’ to close proceedings for that title. Meanwhile over in long-running, recently remodelled fantasy anthology The Unexpected, the former sci fi vehicle was retooling as a gritty, weird thriller venue with George Kashdan, Jack Sparling & Vince Colletta detailing ‘The Shriek of Vengeance’. Here, Golden Age troubleshooter Johnny Peril is accused of heinous crimes and then abducted by maniac justice dispenser The Executioner. His gladiatorial tests are no problem for an ordinary guy who’d been facing the incomprehensible unknown since Comics Cavalcade #19 (February 1947) and soon the true motive is exposed and the scheme crushed…

Dave Wood & recent Charlton Comics émigré Pat Boyette then glare into ‘The Eyes of Death’, revealing the fate of an actual criminal who gains the power to see iminent fatalities before Wood, Curt Swan & Mike Esposito ride ‘The Tunnel of Love Fear!’ to introduce potential host narrator Judge Gallows, discussing one of his stranger cases…

With Tales of the Unexpected #105 and House of Mystery #174, National/DC had gambled heavily that anthology horror material was back and wouldn’t call the wrath of the gods – and parents – down upon them. Now that they had a boutique mystery stable, they put lots of thought and effort into creating an all-new title to further exploit our morbid fascination with all thingies fearsome and spooky. They would also resurrect House of Secrets (cancelled in late 1969. Apparently in those heady days it was okay – and profitable – to scare the heck out of little kids if you also made them laugh.

Edited until #14 by Dick Giordano, The Witching Hour first struck with a February/March 1969 cover-date (actually on-sale from December 19th 1968). From the outset it was an extremely experimental and intriguing beast. Here however we begin with #3 (cover-dated July 1969). In this graphic grimoire, cool & creepy horror-hosts traditionally introducing the entertainments are replaced by three witches. Based as much on a common American misapprehension of Macbeth as the ancient concept of Maiden, Mother & Crone, this torrid trio constantly strove to outdo (and outgross) each other in telling of terror tales.

Crucially, Cynthia, Mildred & Mordred – as well as shy monster man-servant minion Egor – were designed by and initially delineated by master illustrator Alex Toth, making framing sequences between yarns as good as and frequently more enthralling than the stories they brazenly bracketed. Following intro ‘You Be Our Judge’ from Toth & Giordano, the graphic genius & Colletta illustrate Don Arneson’s medieval mood masterpiece ‘The Turn of the Wheel!’ before Alan Riefe & Sparling tell a decidedly different ghost-story in ‘The Death Watch’. Steve Skeates & Bernie Wrightson then debut a decidedly alterative fantasy hero in ‘…And in a Far-Off Land!’, followed by the first in a series of short prose vignettes: anonymous fright-comedy ‘Potion of Love’ and Mike Sekowsky & Giordano deliver the sisters’ farewell epilogue…

Back at House of Mystery #181, scripted by Otto Binder and drawn by quirkily capable Sparling, ‘Sir Greeley’s Revenge!’ offers a heart-warmingly genteel spook story, albeit jump-cut interrupted by new comedy featire Page 13 (from Aragonés) after which Wrightson’s first long tale is fantastical reincarnation saga ‘The Siren of Satan’ (scripted by Bob Kanigher) before we get to the next big thing – and an actual resurrection…

House of Secrets returned with #81 (August/September 1969) just as big sister HoM had done a year previously. Under a bold banner declaiming “There’s No Escape From… The House of Secrets”, Mike Friedrich, Jerry Grandenetti & George Roussos introduced a ramshackle, sentient old pile in ‘Don’t Move It!’, after which Bill Draut limned the introduction of bumbling caretaker Abel (with a guest-shot by his murderous older brother Cain) in eponymous intro set-up fable ‘House of Secrets’. A prose yarn by Gerry Conway ‘Burn this House!’ gave the portly porter a pause before he kicked off his storytelling career with Conway & Sparling’s‘Aaron Philip’s Photo Finish!’ before the inaugural issue is put to bed with a Draut limned ‘Epilogue’…

The Unexpected #114 led with Kashdan, Ed Robbins & Colletta’s ‘Johnny Peril – My Self… My Enemy!’ as a modern day alchemist unleashes a lifeforce-stealing golem on the doughty P.I., after Dave Wood & Art Saaf premier a new host regaling readers with ‘Tales of the Mad, Mod Witch’ and opening with a warning about magic fountains and poorly aimed coins in ‘The Well of Second Chances’. Thematically on safe ground, we switch to Witching Hour #4 as Toth renders a ‘Witching Hour Welcome Wagon’ after which Conway scripts spectral saga ‘A Matter of Conscience’ for Sparling & George Roussos. Anonymous prose piece ‘If You Have Ghosts?’ then segues into smashing yarn ‘Disaster in a Jar’ (Riefe & Boyette) before Conway turns in period witchfinder thriller ‘A Fistful of Fire’ for José Delbo – a vastly underrated artist who was on the best form of his career at this time.

Toth’s Weird Sisters close out that issue as we move on to HoM #182 which opens with one of the most impressive tales of the entire decade. Jack Oleck’s take on the old cursed mirror plot is elevated to high art with his script for ‘The Devil’s Doorway’ illustrated by incredible Alex Toth. Marv Wolfman & Wayne Howard follow with ‘Cain’s True Case Files: Grave Results!’, and an expose of the Barbadian sugar trade, after which an Aragonés Game Room break leads to nightmarish Gothic revenge tale ‘The Hound of Night!’ from Kanigher & Grandenetti. HoS #82 was a largely Conway scripted affair with Draut drawing both ‘Welcome to the House of Secrets’ and ‘Epilogue’, whilst cinema shocker ‘Realer Than Real’ was illustrated by Werner Roth & Vince Colletta. Prose poser ‘His Last Resting Place!’ leads to Wolfman & Giordano’s short sci fi saga ‘Sudden Madness’ prior to Conway & Sparling regaling us with salutary tale of murder and revenge ‘The Little Old Winemaker’. Finally, as realised by Dick Dillin & Neal Adams ‘The One and Only, Fully-Guaranteed, Super-Permanent, 100%’ presents a darkly comedic eerily unsettling tale of domestic bliss and how to get it…

Carl Wessler & Ed Robbins open Unexpected #115 with Blitz- survivor Maude Waltham unwisely accessing the ‘Diary of a Madman’ and being drawn into a world she could not comprehend or cope with, after which Dave Wood, Swan & Jack Abel reveal how an opportunistic showman appropriates an old abndined house and discovers ‘Abrakadabra – You’re Dead!’ A classic plot gets a sixties makeover as ‘The Day Nobody Died!’ (by Wood as D.W. Holz, Werner Roth & Frank Giacoia) details the repercussions of a wise man unwisely caging the angel of death…

In Witching Hour #5 the sisters are at their most outrageously, eerily hilarious introducing an anonymous yarn lavishly embellished by Wrightson – a nifty nautical nightmare of loneliness and ‘The Sole Survivor!’, before text-teaser ‘The Non-Believer! and Boyette’s stunning, clownish creep-feature ‘A Guy Can Die Laughing!’ set the scene for Steve Skeates, Stanley Pitt & Giordano’s dating dilemma ‘The Computer Game’ I think this was one of the first to explore that now-hoary plot, and it neatly anticipates Toth’s sign off for the witches and added single-page black-comedy bonus ‘My! How You’ve Grown!’ from Sid Greene…

For #183, Joe Orlando offers Cain introductory chuckle ‘Welcome to the House of Mystery’ before, in collaboration with Oleck, Grandenetti reveals the misery of ‘The Haunting!’ Following more mirth in Cain’s Game Room (by John Albano) and vintage Bernard Baily ‘Odds and Ends from Cain’s Cellar’, ‘Curse of the Blankenship’s’ and ‘Superstitions About Spiders’, Wolfman & Wrightson contribute ‘Cain’s True Case Files: The Dead Can Kill!’ A bonanza of Aragonés comprising a comedic horroscope on Page 13 and two pages of Cain’s Game Room precedes a canny teaming of Kanigher with Grandenetti & Wally Wood that results in the truly bizarre ‘Secret of the Whale’s Vengeance’…

After Draut & Giordano’s ‘Welcome to the House of Secrets’ piece, superstar Toth made his modern HoS debut with Wolfman-written fantasy ‘The Stuff That Dreams are Made Of’, before Mikes Royer & Peppe visualise sinister love-story ‘Bigger Than a Breadbox’, bookended by anonymous text teaser ‘Once Upon a Time in Mystery Book…’ Wrapping up, Conway & Draut revive gothic menace for chilling fable ‘The House of Endless Years’.

Modernity is briefly embraced in Unexpected #116 as thanks to Dave Wood & Art Saaf, The Mad Mod Witch escorts a group of strangers on an ‘Express Train to Nowhere!’ after which author unknown & Boyette describe a doomed Dutch peddlar’s brush with legend and ‘Steps to Disaster’, before Murphy Anderson picks out apparel ‘Mad to Order’ as Wrightson details the problems wrapped up in a ‘Ball of String!’ ‘Ashes to Ashes, Dustin to Dust?’ then closes the issue with a spectral tale of love & death from Murray “Al Case” Boltinoff & Sid Greene…

Sekowsky & Giordano limn Dave Kaler’s take on the sinister sisters’ intro for Witching Hour #6, after which far darker horror debuts as ‘A Face in the Crowd!’ (Conway, Mike Roy & Mike Peppe), wherein a Nazi war-criminal and concentration camp survivor meet in an American street. Wolfman & Delbo depict a tale of neighbourly intolerance in ‘The Doll Man!’ and ‘Treasure Hunt’ (Skeates, John Celardo & Giordano) shows why greed isn’t always good. Also included were Conway’s prose tale ‘Train to Doom’, ‘Mad Menace’ – a ½-page gag strip by John Costanza – and ‘Distortion!’: another Greene-limned one-pager.

HoM #184 features the triumphant return of Oleck & Toth for captivating Egyptian tomb raider epic ‘Turner’s Treasure’ before cartoon pauses for Page 13 (a diploma fron Aragonés & Orlando) and Orlando gag ‘The Fly’ deftly segues into epic barbarian blockbuster ‘The Eyes of the Basilisk!’ by Bridwell, Gil Kane & Wally Wood…

Closing with more Albano Cain’s Game Room giggles, next comes info short ‘The Devil’s Footprints!’ by Kanigher, Swan & Nick Cardy from The Phantom Stranger #5 (cover-dated January/February 1970) before in House of Secrets #84, Conway & Draut maintain the light-hearted bracketing of stories prior to properly beginning with ‘If I Had but World Enough and Time’ (Wein, Dillin & Peppe): a cautionary tale about too much TV. Tensions grow with Wolfman & Greene’s warning against wagering in ‘Double or Nothing!’ and Skeates, Sparling & Abel’s utterly manic parable of greed ‘The Unbelievable! The Unexplained!’, before Wein & Sparling mess with our dreams in ‘If I Should Die before I Wake…’

Johnny Peril leads in Unexpected #117, as Kashdan & Greene reveal how he becomes the patsy for a clan seeking to avoid a hereditary curse in ‘Midnight Summons the Executioner!’, after which Case, Grandenetti & Draut see a woman trick fate by accepting ‘Hands of Death’ whilst Wessler & Tuska detail the downfall of a money-mad beast in ‘The House that Hate Built!’ Wessler & Bruno Premiani then detail the uncanny ‘Death of the Man Who Never Lived!’ in a spy yarn unlike any other…

In Witching Hour #7, Toth & Mike Friedrich show spectacular form for the intro and bridging sequences, whilst Draut is compulsively effective in prison manhunt saga ‘The Big Break!’, with scripter Skeates also writing modern-art murder-mystery ‘The Captive!’ for Roussos. Friedrich & Abel advise a most individual baby to ‘Look Homeward, Angelo!’, whilst text piece ‘Who Believes Ouija?’ and Jack Miller & Michael Wm. Kaluta’s Gothically delicious ‘Trick or Treat’ round out the sinister sights in this issue. Then, House of Mystery #185 sees Cain take a more active role in all-Grandenetti yarn ‘Boom!’, with Albano, Aragones & Orlando Page13 and Cain’s Game Room, prior to Wayne Howard illustrating the sinister ‘Voice from the Dead!’ Following more Orlando Game-iness prolific Charlton scribe Joe Gill debuts with ‘The Beautiful Beast’: a lost world romance perfectly pictured by EC alumnus Al Williamson.

This monolitic montage of macabre mirth and scary sagas ceases with House of Secrets #85. Here, Cain & Abel acrimoniously open, after which Wein & Don Heck disclose what can happen to ‘People Who Live in Glass Houses…’ whilst graphic legend Ralph Reese limns Wein’s daftly ironic ‘Reggie Rabbit, Heathcliffe Hog, Archibald Aardvark, J. Benson Baboon and Bertram the Dancing Frog’, ere John Costanza contributes comedy page ‘House of Wacks’ and Conway, Kane & Adams herald the upcoming age of slickly seductive barbarian fantasy with gloriously vivid and vital ‘Second Chance’.

With iconic covers from Neal Adams, Jack Adler, Toth, Sekowsky, Cardy and Gray Morrow this (hopefully first of many) moody mystery compilations is a perfect accompaniment to dark nights in, and one you can depend on to astound and amaze in equal amounts.
© 2025 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today – or maybe even tonight – in 1939 underground cartoonist Frank Stack was born. His blasphemous antics have made us laugh for decades. Why not check out The New Adventures of Jesus: The Second Coming.

In 2011 today UK icon Mick Anglo died. He’s all over this blog if you want to see something very special but I’d advise scoping out one of his unique Annual creations, such as Batman Story Book Annual 1967 (with Robin the Boy Wonder).

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Glacial Period


By Nicolas de Crécy, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM ComicsLit/Louvre: Musée du Louvre Éditions)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-855-0 (Album HB/Digital edition) 978-1-56163-483-5 (TPB)

I’m feeling waggishly topical today. Mayhap I might be getting better…

In 2005 one of the greatest museums in the world began an intriguing ongoing project with the upstart art form of comics; inviting some of the world’s most accomplished masters of graphic narrative to create new works in response to the centuries of acquired treasures residing within the grand repository of arts, history and culture.

The tales are produced in close collaboration with the forward-looking (if not security-conscious) authorities of the Louvre, and always push the envelope of what can be accomplished by master craftsman inspired by their creative antecedents and forebears. These are no thinly-concealed catalogues of exhibition contents gift-wrapped in cartoon terms to gull potential visitors off their couches and into a stuffy edifice of public culture, but vibrant and challenging comics events calculated to make you think again about what creativity and history mean…

The first of those stellar tomes, originally released as Période glaciaire, is a deluxe, lavish, oversized (286 x 222mm) hardback edition by NBM – well worth nicking but perhaps best purchased – granting readers that rarest of things… a second bite of the cherry.

Born in Lyon in September 1966 into a large family of artistic overachievers, Nicolas de Crécy was, in 1987, part of the first graduating class of students from de l’école de Bande dessinée des Beaux-Arts d’Angoulême.

After working for Studios Disney at Montreuil, he published first album Foligatto in 1991. Since then he has produced more than thirty albums; both one-off books such as Journal d’un fantôme, Escales, Plaisir de myope and La Nuit du grand méchant loup and series/serials such as Léon la came, Monsieur Fruit and Salvatore.

He is justly considered a wünderkind of French comics and his unique take on the role of the Louvre was – typically – boldly off-kilter, ingeniously amusing and fantastically sardonic…

Thousands of years from now Earth is a frozen dustheap. Scrabbling through its barren remains one day comes a turbulent group of scientists and archaeologists. The humans are a tendentious bunch, constantly bickering and pontificating on what the civilisation they are obsessed with understanding was actually like. Most have their own theories and perhaps only look now for finds to validate their views. Far more open and philosophical are the tubby talking dogs who act as frontrunners; their hyper-keen noses sniffing out areas where potential finds are buried. Especially sensitive – in every meaning of the term – is Hulk.

The rotund canine rogue can feel the tension in the party and when he sleeps (as often as possible) he has strange dreams and visions of beautiful old things. When he and official expedition leader Juliette are briefly separated from the group by a storm, the ensuing calm reveals an ancient structure freshly uncovered. Soon the humans are all over the “temple” and making grand plans. Nevertheless, the irascible mutt knows this find is mere dross and rubbish…

Another angry discussion results in top historian Paul being left behind to research/catalogue the temple whilst the others press on to uncover the fabled lost metropolis buried somewhere in this desolate region…

Hulk isn’t fooled. He sees that imperious alpha male Gregor has designs on Juliette and is slowly isolating her from the others. After she ignores the canny canine’s warnings, Hulk wanders off into the cold night and next morning impatient Gregor convinces the party to go on without him. Alone and no longer distracted, Hulk’s incredible faculties detect a faint scent and he begins to dig down.

Before long he has broken into a stone vault filled with fascinating artefacts and, as ever following his nose, the mighty mutt discovers a mesmerising maze of corridors, revealing incredible facts about the lost civilisation. Under the cold light skies above, Juliette & Gregor clash over who is truly in charge and poor studious Joseph intervenes, suffering for his chivalry. Further interpersonal violence is only prevented when the treacherously unstable landscape shifts and from the icy crust an ancient structure begins to inexorably rise…

Hysterically elated, Gregor drags stunned archaeologists into the fabled metropolis and all are astounded by the images and artefacts they find. Soon, they’re frantically hypothesising, guessing and just plain spit-balling as they plunge deeper and deeper into a still shaky, shifting edifice. Entranced and intoxicated by the panoply of pictures and statues, the humans’ imaginations are running amok.

And, from outside, Esteban calls out to them: he has spotted another glistening building forcing its way out of the snows…

The treasure trove seems unending: a final repository of ancient magnificence that leads them ever inward as the monumental mausoleum inexorably pushes upwards into dying sunlight.

Elsewhere, deep below them, Hulk is making his own explorations and encounters something uncanny and bizarre. Before long he’s conversing with the oldest statues and objets d’art in the vaults of history. The relics know the Louvre is in tectonic death throes and need his help to save all the wonderful “living” treasures that have waited here for patient millennia…

Sharing with him the true stories, mistakes and triumphs of the past races of man, dog and anxious, animated exhibits unite in a desperate attempt to save their quintessentially timeless splendours from final obliteration…

Accompanied by a formidable and informative List of Works which feature most prominently in this captivating yarn, Glacial Period is a bemusing, wide-eyed, light-hearted epic as well as an utterly engrossing, darkly charming graphic discussion on the nature and value of art and our eternal ever-changing relationship with it. It is also an entrancing, witty literal shaggy dog story in comics form that reads superbly even if you wouldn’t be caught dead in a museum, French or otherwise.

Why not give it a go and see if your cool attitude thaws after all?
© 2005 Futuropolis/Musée du Louvre Éditions. English Edition © 2006 NBM.

Today in 1920 Archie Comics artist Bob Montanna was born, and in 1958 Earth reeled from the first appearance of the Smurfs as walk-on in a Johan and Peewit strip by Peyo in Le Journal de Spirou. We covered all that in The Smurfs Anthology volume 1.

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Leo Baxendale’s Sweeny Toddler


By Leo Baxendale & others (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-726-8 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utterly Bonkers, Inspired Lunacy… 10/10

If you know British Comics, you know Leo Baxendale.

Long ago and still right now, Baxendale (27th October 1930 – 23rd April 2017) was the epitome of rebellious, youth-oriented artistic prodigies who, largely unsung but definitely much noticed, went about seditiously transforming British Comics: entertaining millions and inspiring uncounted numbers of those readers to become cartoonists too.

Joseph Leo Baxendale was educated at Preston Catholic College, served in the RAF and was born on 27th, October 1930, in Whittle-le-Woods, Lancashire – but not necessarily in that order. Like Spike Milligan and so many brilliant others, his response to privation, injustice, war and the post war era was being funny in an absurd way. If you’re quick, you can track down some of his stuff – of which far too little has been archivally published – and celebrate his 95th anniversary in an appropriate manner.

Baxendale’s first paid artistic efforts were drawing ads and cartoons for The Lancashire Evening Post but his life – and the entire British comics scene – changed in 1952 when he began freelancing for DC Thomson’s top weekly The Beano. He assumed creative control of moribund Lord Snooty and his Pals and originated anarchically surreal strips Little Plum, Minnie the Minx, The Three Bears and When the Bell Rings. That last strip then rapidly metamorphosed into legendary, lurgy-packed anarchic icon The Bash Street Kids, thereby altering the daily realities and lifetime sensibilities of millions of readers and generations of kids.

Baxendale also contributed heavily to the creation of comics tabloid The Beezer in 1956 but, following editorial and financial disputes with his editors, migrated in 1962 to London-based, Harmsworth-owned conglomerate Odhams/Fleetway/IPC. South of the border, his initial humorous creations included Grimly Feendish, General Nitt and his Barmy Army, Bad Penny and a horrid horde of similarly revoltingly, uncannily engaging oiks, yobs and weirdoes who cumulatively made the company’s “Power Comics” experiment such a joy to behold.

During the 1970s he devised more remarkable cartoon star turns which, whilst not perhaps as seditiously groundbreaking as Plum, Minnie, or The Bash Street Kids, nor as subversively enticing as Wham, Smash and Pow creations such as Eagle Eye, Junior Spy, The Swots and the Blots and The Tiddlers (or indeed, as garishly outlandish as George’s Germs or Sam’s Spook), remained part of the nation’s junior landscape for decades after.

The main body of his later creations appeared in mighty anthology Buster: features such as The Cave Kids, Big Chief Pow Wow, Clever Dick and Snooper. Baxendale latterly foisted Willy the Kid upon the world before creating his own publishing imprint Reaper Books.

He also sued DCT for rights to his innovative inky inventions: a 7-year struggle that was eventually settled out of court. Other notable graphic landmarks include pantomimic vision THRRP!, his biography A Very Funny Business: 40 Years of Comics and the strip I Love You, Baby Basil which ran in The Guardian during the early 1990s.

Signature stinker Sweeny Toddler debuted in Shiver and Shake in 1973, unsurprisingly surviving repeated mergers – with Whoopee! and Whizzer and Chips – before settling in at the seemingly unsinkable Buster.

This stunning hardback (and eBook) celebration – hopefully the first of many gathering the entire run and Baxendale’s IPC/Fleetway oeuvre – is another crucial addition to Rebellion’s ever-expanding Treasury of British Comics. It gathers the episodes from Shiver and Shake spanning March 10th 1973 to 5th October 1974, plus the first nappy-load from Whoopee!, from 23rd November 1974 until 7th June 1975.

The potent package is suitably accompanied by an appreciative, informative and responsible Introduction by his son Martin (who drew the Bad Boy’s adventures after Baxendale senior moved into publishing) and offers a magnificent exercise in manic misrule starring the absolute worst baby in the world… outside of a democratically elected government.

In a simple terrace house with the legend “Tremble wiv fear, Sweeny livs here” scrawled all over it, lives a spotty (occasionally be-stubbled) mono-fanged tyke who is disturbingly fast and strong with a physiognomy that can sour milk. He is precociously able to read – after a fashion – and that, coupled with a lethally low tolerance for boredom and obedience, means the nasty nipper always finds new and distressing ways to amuse himself at someone else’s expense…

With or without faithful dog and eager abettor Hairy Henry, Sweeny turns every pram ride into a pulse-pounding rollercoaster adventure for his poor benighted mum and grandad; every visit to park, shop or museum into a heart-stopping chase and every cuddlesome interlude with ill-advised adults into an exhausting episode in psychological and physical torture.

At least six strips re-presented here are not by Baxendale, but record-keeping is sadly incomplete. Chances are they’re drawn by Tom Paterson, who eventually took over the feature (or possibly Roy Nixon?) but they are all deliciously weird and wonderful: a blend of unbeatable whacky wordplay, explosive slapstick and bizarre situations, garnished by Baxendale’s unique and evocative sound effects: once read, never forgotten…

Briefly retitled Help! It’s Sweeny Toddler in experimental pages that feature second stories starring monstrous beasts living in the borders and margins of the panel dividers, later episodes never lost the eccentric impetus of the first, with the baby from hell, as ever, mugging old ladies, postmen, schoolboys and other unwary visitors; creating his own zoo, attempting to sneak into X films (maybe get granddad to explain those?) and totally tormenting anyone who treats him like a child…

As well as straight strips, this collection also offers ‘Sweeny Toddler’s Beat the Bully Guide’ and graphic game ‘Sweeny Toddler’s Fifty Frightful Faces!’, proving the vile versatility of the manky mite.

Leo Baxendale was one-of-a-kind: a hugely influential, much-imitated master of pictorial comedy and noxious gross-out escapades whose work deeply affected (some would say warped) generations of British and Commonwealth kids. We’ll not see his like again, but these astoundingly engrossing comedy classics are a perfect example of his resolutely British humorous sensibilities – absurdly anarchic, explosively whimsical, outrageously aggressive, crazily confrontational and gleefully grotesque – starring an unremittingly rebellious force of nature with no impulse control.

Sweeny Toddler says and does whatever he wants as soon as he thinks of it, albeit usually to his own detriment and great regret: a rare gift, usually only employed by madmen and foreign Presidents.

These cartoon capers are amongst the most memorable and re-readable exploits in all UK comics history: smart, eternal, existentially funny and immaculately rendered. This a treasure-trove of laughs that spans generations and must be in every family bookcase.
© 1973, 1974, 1975 & 2019 Rebellion Publishing Ltd. Sweeny Toddler is ™ & © Rebellion Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1920 artistic icon Nicholas Vicardi AKA Nick Cardy was born. We last admired his mastery in DC Finest: Aquaman – The King of Atlantis.

In 1935 today, cartoon pioneer Sidney Smith died way too soon. You would already know that if you’d listened and looked up Sidney Smith’s The Gumps like we told you to last week.

In 1993 unsung legend Gaylord Dubois died. He wrote and edited dozens of key features, supplying thousands of stories to comics legends. We are particularly partial to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus volume two.

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Misty featuring Moonchild & The Four Faces of Eve (volume 1)


By Pat Mills, Malcolm Shaw, John Armstrong, Brian Delaney, Shirley Bellwood & various (Rebellion)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-452-6 (album TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Spooky Treats for Every Stocking… 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Like most of my comics contemporaries I harbour a secret shame. Growing up, I was well aware of the weeklies produced for girls but would never admit to reading them.

My loss: I now know that they were packed with some great strips by astounding artists and writers, many of them personal favourites when they were drawing stalwart soldiers, evil aliens, marauding monsters or strange superheroes (all British superheroes were weird and off-kilter…).

I believe – in terms of quality and respect for the readership’s intelligence, experience and development – “girls’ periodicals” were far more in tune with the sensibilities of the target audience. I absolutely wish I’d paid more attention to Misty back then…

Thus, I’m overjoyed to re-recommend this superb first collection from what originating editor Pat Mills reveals in his Foreword was intended to be as iconoclastic and groundbreaking a publication as his previous creation.

You know the one: 2000 AD…

Despite never living up to his expectations – for all the traditional self-sabotaging editorial reasons that have scuppered bold visions since the days of Caxton – Misty was nothing like any other comic in the British marketplace: a Girls’ Juvenile periodical addressing modern issues through a lens of urban horror, science fictional and historical mysteries couched in terms of tense suspenseful dramas. It was also one of the best drawn comics ever seen and featured stunningly beguiling covers by unsung legend Shirley Bellwood: a veteran illustrator who ought to be a household name because we’ve all admired her work in comics and books since the 1950s even if we’ve never been privileged to see her by-line…

Unlike most weeklies, Misty was created with specific themes in mind – fantasy, horror and mystery – and over its too-short existence introduced numerous self-contained features serialised like today’s graphic novels, rather than continuing adventures of star characters.

Although adulterated from Mill’s original design, the comic launched on February 4th 1978 and ran until January 1980 whereupon it merged with the division’s lead title Tammy, thus extending its lifeline until 1984. As was often the case, the brand also continued through Annuals and Specials, running from 1979 until 1986.

The first of a series working under the umbrella of The Treasury of British Comics, this compact monochrome softcover compilation offers two complete part-work novellas from the comic’s canon of nearly 70 strip sagas, starting with the gripping history of the Moonchild.

Written by Mills and illustrated by John Armstrong (Bella in Tammy; The Secret Gymnast in Bunty; Grange Hill), the eerie adventure was based on Stephen King’s Carrie, and ran as lead feature in issues #1-13. It traced the turbulent coming-of-age of abused and confused schoolgirl Rosemary Black: born into a family afflicted with an apparent curse. All women who bore a hereditary crescent birthmark on their foreheads were eventually consumed by psychokinetic powers…

Rosemary’s mother brutally and zealously tries to suppress her daughter’s burgeoning abilities but with sociopathic mean girls Norma, Dawn & Freda making her their constant target for bullying and humiliation, the force inside Rosemary keeps expressing itself in ever more violent manner. Moreover, when school physician Doctor Armstrong realises the truth about the girl so often sent to see him, he sees nothing but an opportunity to be exploited…

When Norma’s bullies embark on their most ambitious scheme to torture Rosemary, sheer disaster is barely averted after the Moonchild’s long missing grandmother suddenly appears with a shocking secret to share…

Following a handy hints feature – how to make a Witch’s Hat – The Four Faces of Eve carries on the chilling bewilderment.

Created by Malcolm Shaw (Misty’s editor and writer of dozens of strips in Britain and Europe) & Brian Delaney (Hart to Hart; Grange Hill; The Professionals) this marvel of malign medical malpractice ran in #20-31, tracing the seemingly paranoid path of Eve Marshall, recently discharged from hospital but still suffering partial amnesia. Despite returning to her home and high-powered scientist parents, Eve remains troubled, especially by horrifically vivid dreams of other girls who died painful, violent deaths…

Inconsolable and increasingly suspicious, Eve snoops around a house she doesn’t remember and discovers mounting evidence that the Marshalls are not her real parents. When the house is later burgled, the police forensics team uncover another impossible anomaly: Eve’s fingerprints match a thief who died months ago…

Scared and haunted by traumatic dreams, Eve runs away and hides in a circus, only to be tracked down and dragged back home by her faux parents. However, pieces are inexorably falling into place and she soon must face the appalling truth she has deduced about herself and the monsters she lives with…

Also including a fulsome tribute to ‘Shirley Bellwood – An Unsung Heroine of British Comics’, creator biographies and one final activity page (‘Misty Says… Be a Devil – and Here’s How’) this supremely engaging tome is a glorious celebration of a uniquely compelling phenomenon of British comics and one that has stood the test of time. Don’t miss this second chance to get in on something truly special and splendidly entertaining
Misty © Egmont UK Limited 1978. All rights reserved.

Today in 1955 René Goscinny & André Franquin debuted humour strip Modeste et Pompom in Le Journal de Tintin – a fact and feature that has still singularly not impressed any English-language comics publishers.

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Steve Ditko Archives volume 2: Unexplored Worlds


By Steve Ditko, Joe Gill & various, edited by Blake Bell (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-289-0 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Immaculate Yarn-Spinning… 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. It also has Discriminatory Content included for comedic and satirical effect.

Once upon a time the anthological title of short stand-alone stories was the sole staple of the comicbook profession, where the plan was to deliver as much variety as possible to the reader. Sadly, that particular vehicle of expression seems all but lost to us today…

Despite his death Steve Ditko remains one of our industry’s greatest talents and one of America’s least lauded. His fervent desire to just get on with his job and to tell stories the best way he can – whilst the noblest of aspirations – had always been a minor consideration or even stumbling block for the commercial interests which for so long controlled all comics production and still exert an overwhelming influence upon the mainstream bulk of comic book output. Before his time at Marvel, young Ditko perfected his craft creating short sharp yarns for a variety of companies and it’s an undeniable joy today to be able to look at this work from such an innocent time when he was just breaking into the industry: tirelessly honing his craft with genre tales for whichever publisher would have him, utterly free from the interference of intrusive editors.

A superb full-colour series of hardback collections reprinted those early efforts (all of them here are from 1956-1957) with material produced after the draconian, self-inflicted Comics Code Authority sanitised the industry following Senate Hearings and a public witch-hunt.

Most are wonderfully baroque bizarre supernatural or science fantasy stories, but there are also examples of Westerns, Crime and Humour: cunningly presented in the order he completed and sold them rather than the more logical but far-less-revealing chronological release dates. Moreover, they’re all helpfully annotated with a purchase number to indicate approximately when they were actually drawn – even the brace of tales done for Stan Lee’s pre-Marvel Atlas company.

Sadly, there’s no indication of how many (if any) were actually written by the moody master…

This second sublime selection reprints more heaping helpings of his increasingly impressive works: most courtesy of the surprisingly liberal (at least in its trust of its employees’ creative instincts) sweat-shop publisher Charlton Comics.

And whilst we’re being technically accurate, it’s also important to reiterate that those cited publication dates have very little to do with when Ditko crafted them: as Charlton paid so little, the cheap, anthologically astute outfit had no problem in buying material it could leave on a shelf for months – occasionally years! – until the right moment arrived to print. The work is assembled and runs here in the order Ditko submitted it, rather than when it reached our grubby sweaty paws…

Following an historically informative Introduction and passionate advocacy by Blake Bell, concentrating on Ditko’s near-death experience in 1954 (when the artist contracted tuberculosis) and subsequent recovery, the evocatively eccentric excursions open with a monochrome meander into the realms of satire with the faux fable – now we’d call it a mockumentary – ‘Starlight Starbright’ as first seen in From Here to Insanity (volume 3 #1 April 1956) before “normal” service resumes with financial fable ‘They’ll Be Some Changes Made’ (scripted by Carl Wessler from Atlas’ Journey Into Mystery #33, April 1956).

Here a petty-minded pauper builds a time machine to steal the fortune his ancestors squandered, after which a crook seeking to exploit a mystic pool finds himself the victim of fate’s justice in ‘Those Who Vanish’ (Journey Into Mystery #38, September 1956) again scripted by Wessler.

Almost – if not all – the Charlton material was scripted by astoundingly prolific Joe Gill at this time, and records are spotty at best, so let’s assume his collaboration on all the material here begins with ‘The Man Who Could Never Be Killed’ (Strange Suspense Stories #31, published in February 1957). This yarn of a circus performer with an incredible ethereal secret segues into ‘Adrift in Space’ (Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #8 June 1958) as a veteran starship captain pushes his weary crew over the edge, whereas ‘The King of Planetoid X’ from the previous MoUW (February) details a crisis of conscience for a benevolent and ultimately wise potentate…

The cover of Strange Suspense Stories #31 (February 1957) leads into ‘The Gloomy One’ as a misery-loving alien intruder is destroyed by simple human joy, before the cover to Out of This World #5 (September 1957) heralds that issue’s ‘The Man Who Stepped Out of a Cloud’ and an alien whose abduction plans only seem sinister in intent. MoUW #5 (October 1957) tells the story of a young ‘Stowaway’ who finds fulfilment aboard a harshly-run space ship after which Out of This World #3’s cover (March 1957) ushers us to an apparent alien paradise for weary star-men in ‘What Happened?’

Next up is a tale from one of Charlton’s earliest star characters. The title came from a radio show that Charlton licensed the rights to, with the lead/host/narrator acting more as voyeur than active participant. The Mysterious Traveler spoke directly to camera, asking readers for opinion and judgement as he shared a selection of funny, sad, scary and miraculous human-interest yarns, all tinged with a hint of the weird or supernatural. Whenever rendered by Ditko, whose storytelling mastery, page design and full, lavish brushwork were just beginning to come into its mature full range, the contents of Tales of the Mysterious Traveler were always exotic and esoteric and utterly beguiling.

From issue #2 (February 1957), ‘What Wilbur Saw’ reveals the reward bestowed on a poverty-stricken country bumpkin who witnessed a modern-day miracle, after which Out of This World #3 covers a cautionary tale of atomic mutation in ‘The Supermen’ before the eerie cover to OoTW #4 (June 1957) signals a chilling encounter for two stranded sailors who briefly board the ‘Flying Dutchman’ whilst SSS #32’s cover (May 1957) dabbles in magic art when a collector is victimised by a thief who foolishly stumbles into ‘A World of His Own’.

From the same issue comes a salutary parable concerning a rich practical joker who goes too far before succumbing to ‘The Last Laugh’, after which ‘Mystery Planet’ (SSS #36, March 1958) offers a dash of interplanetary derring-do as valiant agent Bryan Bodine and comely associate Nedra confound intergalactic pirates piloting a planet-eating weapon against Earth!

A similarly bold defender liberates ‘The Conquered Earth’ from alien subjugation (OoTW #4, June 1957) whilst in ‘Assignment Treason’ (Outer Space #18. August 1958) the clean-cut hero goes undercover to save Earth from the predatory Master of Space as OoTW #8 (May 1958) and ‘The Secret of Capt. X’ reveals the inimical alien tyrant threatening humanity is not what he seems…

The cover to Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #3 (April 1957) makes way for three fantastic thrillers, beginning with ‘The Strange Guests of Tsaurus’ as an alien paradise proves to be anything but, then ‘A World Where I Was King’ sees a clumsy janitor catapulted into a wondrous realm to win a kingdom he doesn’t want. Diverting slightly, Fightin’ Army #20 (May 1957) provides a comedic interlude as a civil war soldier finds himself constantly indebted to ‘Gavin’s Stupid Mule’ before ‘A Forgotten World’ wraps up MoUW #3’s contributions with a scary tale of invasion from the Earth’s core. ‘The Cheapest Steak in Nome’ turns out to be defrosted from something that died millions of years ago in a light-hearted yarn from MoUW #7 (February 1958)…

The cover to MoUW #4 (July 1957) precedes more icy antediluvian preservations found in the ‘Valley in the Mist’ whilst the one for Strange Suspense Stories #33 (August 1957) leads into a bizarre corporate outreach project as the ‘Director of the Board’ attempts to go where no other exploitative capitalist has gone before. Next, it’s back to MoUW #3 for a brush with the mythological in ‘They Didn’t Believe Him’ after which ‘Forever and Ever’ (SSS #33) reveals an unforeseen downside to immortality and Out of This World #3 sees a stranger share ‘My Secret’ with ordinary folk despite – or because of – a scurrilous blackmailer…

‘A Dreamer’s World’ from Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #5 (October 1957) follows the chilling cover thereof as a test pilot hits his aerial limit and discovers a whole new existence, whilst Unusual Tales #7 (May 1957) traces the tragic path of ‘The Man Who Could See Tomorrow’ before the cover of Tales of the Mysterious Traveler #4 (August 1957) opens a mini-feast of voyeur’s voyages beginning with that issue’s ‘The Desert’: a saga of polar privation and survival.

TotMT #3 (May 1957) shows the appropriate cover and a ‘Secret Mission’ for a spy parachuted into Prague, whilst #4 offers ‘Escape’ for an unemployed pilot dragged into a gun-running scam in a south American lost world; ‘Test of a Man’ sees a cruel animal trainer receive his just deserts and ‘Operation Blacksnake’ grittily exposes American venality in the ever-expanding Arabian oil trade. Returning to Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #5, ‘The Mirage’ torments an escaped convict who thinks he’s escaped his fate, whilst Texas Rangers in Action #8 (July 1957) sees a ruthless rancher crushed by the weight of his own wicked actions as ‘The Only One’, after which stunning covers to Unusual Tales #6 and 7 (February and May 1957) lead into our final vignette – ‘The Man Who Painted on Air’: exposing and thwarting a unique talent to preserve humanity and make a few bucks on the side…

This sturdily capacious volume has episodes that terrify, amaze, amuse and enthral: utter delights of fantasy fiction with lean, plots and stripped-down dialogue that let the art set the tone, push the emotions and tell the tale, from times when a story could end sadly as well as happily and only wonderment was on the agenda, hidden or otherwise.

These stories display the sharp wit and contained comedic energy which made so many Spider-Man/J. Jonah Jameson confrontations an unforgettable treat half a decade later, and this is another cracking collection not only superb in its own right but as a telling tribute to the genius of one of the art-form’s greatest stylists. This is something every serious comics fan would happily kill or die or be lost in time for…
Unexplored Worlds: The Steve Ditko Archive Vol. 2. This edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. Introduction © 2010 Blake Bell. All rights reserved.

Today in 1914, Jerry Siegel was born. Don’t make me have to finish this heads-up…

In 1937 Huey, Dewey & Louie Duck debuted. Ditto.

In 1959 The last issue of UK icon Comet was published and a decade later across the Pond Sidney Smith’s The Gumps ended. It had begun in 1917 as you’d know if read Sidney Smith’s The Gumps.

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Bunny vs Monkey Book 11: Intergalactic Monkey Business!


By Jamie Smart, with Sammy Borras, Paul Duffield & Armin Roshdi (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-327-1 (Digest HB) 978-1-78845-387-5 (Waterstones Exclusive Team Bunny Edition) 978-1-78845-388-2 (Waterstones Exclusive Team Monkey Edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because… Just Because… 10/10

Bunny vs Monkey has been the inspirationally bonkers breakout star of The Phoenix since the first issue in 2012: recounting a madcap vendetta gripping animal archenemies set amidst an idyllic arcadia, masquerading as more-or-less mundane but critically endangered English woodlands. Concocted with gleefully gusto – but increasingly with cerebral cosmic crescendo in mind – by cartoonist/comics artist/novelist Jamie Smart (Fish Head Steve!; Looshkin; Max and Chaffy, Flember, Find Chaffy), these trendsetting, mind-bending yarns have been wisely retooled as best-selling graphic albums available in remastered, double-length digest softcover and hardback editions such as this one. All the tail-biting tension and animal argy-bargy began yonks ago after an obnoxious little beast plopped down in after a disastrous British space shot. OR DID IT?

Crashlanding in Crinkle Woods – scant miles from his launch site – lab animal Monkey believed himself the rightful owner of a strange new world, despite every effort of genteel, contemplative, reasonably sensible forest resident Bunny to dissuade him. For all his patience, propriety and good breeding, the laid-back lepine could not contain or control the incorrigible idiot ape, who to this moment remains a rude, troublemaking, chaos-creating, noise-loving lout intent on building his perfect “Monkeyopia” and/or being a robot, with or without the aid of evil supergenius Skunky or tagalong useless “henches” Metal Steve and Action Beaver…

Daily wonders and catastrophes were exacerbated by a broad band of unconventional Crinkle creatures, none more so than monochrome mad scientist Skunky, whose intellect and cavalier attitude to life presents as a propensity for building dangerous robots, bio-beasts and sundry other super-weapons. He is, at his core, a dangerously inquisitive thinker and tinkerer…

Here – with artistic fiddling about from design deputy Sammy Borras – the war of nerves and mega-ordnances resumes as if nothing cosmic or multiverse-changing had ever happened or any hint of a restart after a cosmic culmination. See, that’s what happens if you let books pile up and don’t read them immediately! Go check out Bunny vs Monkey: The Great Big Glitch! and then come back and we’ll talk some more…

Okay then, new day, new start, same old mega mecha meta nonsense as ‘Clouding Over’ sees a suspiciously low-lying cirrus formation starts dumping rain and then increasing more noisome and noxious substances on the woodsfolk in what appear to be targeted strikes. Could there possibly be some kind of intelligence behind the atmospheric attacks?

With propriety and good taste in full retreat, the sensorial assaults resume in ‘Guts n’ Butts!’ as Monkey and Skunky debate the appalling assets and proposed “improvements” to the weaponised flatulence engine dubbed Bungamungus with no consideration of those in its path prior to the simian unleashing his own worst nightmare. The giant ‘MonkeyBot 5000’ is supposed to make life hell for his fluffy white foe, but it appears Bunny can find plenty of uses for a mechanised personal organiser that can bench press trucks, topple buildings, file and colour co-ordinate…

Reality trembles all over again when Monkey’s ‘Mum and Dad’ pop by for a visit and nice bit of tea, but nature’s innocents Weenie and Pig Piggerton are too busy having adventures with ‘Frogs!’ and their mystical king to really notice, whereas ‘Lucky… The Unluckiest Red Panda in the World!!’ stumbles into unbridled chaos (as always) when Skunky & Monkey decide to go through the forgotten inventions bin…

Worried about declining productivity, the sinister science sinner uses his 3D printer to unleash a horde of ‘Fun-Size Skunkies’ who are anything but, before Bunny learns where all the wreckage, rubbish and remains go when the latest catastrophe has finished unfolding. Sadly, there are good reasons nobody wants to see ‘Binbag Sam’ carry out his nasty but necessary job…

Always seeking peace and serene contemplation, mysterious Le Fox has found a wilderness to dig in, but when Monkey comes by and discovers gold in ‘Them Thar Hills’ that’s another dead dream, and only a prelude to planet-shaking events when Skunky’s new signal array test coincides with Monkey’s latest eating challenge. ‘Message in a Butthole’ reveals how – after, inevitably – a monumental foofie erupts across the universe, the consequences will be appalling but not at all unexpected…

In a fabulous tribute to Chuck Jones cartoons ‘Monkey vs Ai’ sees the annoying ape test a bunch of inventions that should work “in theory”, before going back to stinky basics with a cheese cannon. Sadly, the anticipated Cheesepocalyse is derailed by ‘The Turning of the Pig’ as pacifistic Piggerton reaches a limit and shows the monkey miscreant just what it all feels like…

‘Buzzing Off’ finds Skunky testing ways to end the really annoying fly suit he built for his partner in chaos and then hiding along with everyone else in ‘Who’s Afraid of the Monkey’ when the simian simpleton gets really, really hungry. Eventually sated, the little sod resumes pranks and pestiferations with a giant robot in ‘Close Encounters of the Bird Kind’. Remember that olfactory beacon blasted across infinity? This is the moment something answers that unique call…

Suddenly, in ‘You Looking at Me?’ Crinkle Woods are alive with alien weirdoes, but it’s just Skunky messing about with quantum physics and nothing to do with Monkey, because he’s currently hurtling to the other side of the Universe, testing to destruction the super-high-tech toilets of the extraterrestrials who abducted him…

He can’t be blamed for the astonishing void discovered by Pig and Weenie prompting the chilling question ‘What Lies Inside… the Hole?!’ or sensible but naïve robot Metal E.V.E.’s attempts to balance out Lucky’s cosmic misfortunes in ‘What Luck Befalls’ or even Metal Steve’s crisis of confidence and inexplicable desire to ‘Destroy’ because Monkey is currently spreading his brand of chaos while ‘Hitching a Ride’ on the ship of judgemental civilisation eradicating superior being Grand Master Nexus…

Meanwhile on Earth, Skunky discovers the missing co-miscreant has left his life unfulfilled and dissatisfied and switches to a copy to serve his unsuspected emotional needs. ‘Little Monkey’ is wild, bitey, uncommunicative, un-potty-trainable and disgusting… such an improvement on the original! Enjoying his fresh start the evil inventor unleashes ‘A Clever Endeavour’ in the compulsive form of a malign puzzle box that baffles and bamboozles everyone – except the mini monkey who might just be the smartest thing in the woods now…

Pig’s penchant for peculiar pets sees the adoption of Blue-bummed Bimblebug ‘Parpy’  but the critter’s 24-hour lifespan brings near-instant woe, This leads to the advent of colossal hermit savant Capybara 5000 whose answers to all the ‘Big Questions’ are surprisingly violent. That search for truths culminates in sage advice ‘Run!’ before calm returns with Pig exploring wild water rafting and Le Fox confronting increasingly sinister Little Monkey in ‘The Happiness of the Kitsune’…

In another beleaguered solar system Monkey is slowly wearing down Nexus and his minions, before accidentally warping them all back to Earth to enjoy a spontaneous battle of ‘Rather Big Lasers’ with Skunky. When that eradicates the mastermind’s secret underground lair all Skunky can think of is ‘Revenge’. With Little Monkey in tow the genius goes ‘On the Hunt’ in a unique battleship, pursuing ‘Space Wars’ even as his hirsute former best-buddy seizes control of the Nexus craft and drives it into ‘A Hella Interstellar Yeller’…

Marooned on a muddy morass world, Monkey establishes his dream of a dictatorship. Sadly, ‘Chutneyopia’ is right next to the equally barren planet Skunky crashed on and war is declared as the newcomer demands an apology that just won’t be forthcoming…

Moreover, when Skunky took off after Monkey, most of Crinkle Wood went with him and as Bunny ruminates on ‘The Intergalactic Adventures of Weenie and Cinnamon Bun Pig!’ plans are underway to terraform the barren planetoid into ‘A New Home’ unfortunately undertaken by ‘Even More Skunkies’…

With the enemy busy converting Chutneyopia into his other, better dream of Monkeyopia, ‘A New Plan’ is needed, but the still active Grand Master finally concedes that its superior mentality and firepower are no match for the annoying Earth ape. With its minions in revolt and resolved to blow up Earth, there nothing left for Monkey to worry about ‘Apart from the Bomb’ that’s going to end his grotty mucky dream world…

What better time for a reconciliation with Skunky?

Back on Earth, other Crinkle Wood critters have briefly enjoyed their time of growth and limelight in ‘Not Bunny vs Monkey’ but the likes of Stan Stoat and Randolph Raccoon are helpless when the minions start blasting. As Monkeyopia becomes a vast spaceship, Skunky begins his ‘Race to Save the World’ with his secret weapon Little Monkey but the outcome is never certain and our heroes all decide they’re ‘Best Off Out of It’, leaving a monumental deus ex machina to sort everything out…

Wrapping up these sidereal shenanigans and cosmic bum gags are related activities offered under the aegis of the Phoenix Comics Club. Bring paper, pencils and you to a compact online course in all aspects of comic strip creation supervised by Jamie Smart & Armin Roshdi detailing ‘How to draw King Frog!’, ‘A Bungamungous!’, ‘Capybara 5000!’ and ‘An Alien!’ before closing with an extensive plug for the aforementioned Phoenix Comics Club website complete with instant access via a QR code, plus previews of other treats and wonders available in The Phoenix to wind down from all that cosmic furore…

Another book for your kids to explain to you, the zany zenith of absurdist adventure, Bunny vs Monkey is weird wit, brilliant invention, potent sentiment and superb cartooning all crammed into one eccentrically excellent package. These tails never fail to deliver jubilant joy for grown-ups of every vintage, even those who claim they only get it for their kids. Is that you?
Text and illustrations © Fumboo Ltd. 2025. All rights reserved.

Today in 1926 Joe Sinnott was born. His inking made Fantastic Four impeccable and unmissable, but if you fancy seeing his pencilling mastery you should see Mighty Thor Omnibus volume 1.

Back in 1954 UK preschool comic milestone Playhour began its 1700+ issue run.

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DC Finest Blue Beetle – Blue Beetle Challenges The Red Knight


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Fantastic Four Marvel Masterworks volume


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For Marvel everything started with The Fantastic Four.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Be Continued…

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

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