Category: Science Fiction

Posted on

The Detection Club parts 1 & 2


By Jean Harambat, coloured by Jean-Jacques Rouger translated by Allison M. Charette (Europe Comics)
eISBN: 979-1-032809-95-2 (part 1), 979-1-032809-96-9 (part 2)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic and literary effect.

Apparently, everybody loves mystery to chew on. With that in mind, here’s a brace of superb cartoon conundrums from the continent, based on an unlikely but actual historical convocation.

As seen on Wikipedia, – The Detection Club was a literary society of British crime writers, founded in 1930, with the likes of G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie as early Presidents. In 1936, American émigré John Dickson Carr became the first non-Brit elected to the august body; and probably pretty snarky elitist gathering.

They did stuff, wrote stories, held events and upheld (Ronald) Knox’s Commandments which detailed the proper rules of mystery writing. The group is the basis of later media McGuffin’s such as Batman’s Mystery Analysts of Gotham City and every bunch of screen authors matched against evil geniuses everywhere…

I’m pretty sure the story here collected in two volumes by award-winning cartoonist, screenwriter, graphic novelist, historian, philosopher and journalist Jean Harambat (Les Invisibles, Ulysses, the Songs of Return, Operation Copperhead) is apocryphal, but you never know…

Originally released in 2019, our case du jour opens in a prologue, with the reciting of those Knox commandments and the confirmation of Mr. Dixon Carr at a slap-up feed at London hostelry Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese – a pub that doesn’t seem to mind the odd celebratory gunshot…

Present are President Chesterton, Dixon Carr, Christie, Sayers, Baroness Emma Orczy, Major A.E.W. Mason and Monsignor Ronald Knox himself, and – as the posh repast winds down – proceedings are somewhat disturbed by the arrival of a flying, talking robotic bird bearing a strange invitation…

Eccentric man of means Mr. Roderick Ghyll wishes the company of the sagacious society at his extraordinary domicile on April 1st. Briarcliff House is situated on a private island where Ghyll wishes to celebrate the future through his latest contrivance, therefore promising “challenges”, “enchantments” and “the renaissance of crime fiction”…

Chapter I opens with the scribes and scribblers approaching ‘An Island in Cornwall’ and still heatedly debating the motives of the mystery man. Ghyll greets them effusively before zooming off in a bizarre electric unicycle leaving them to make their way to his palatial manse: a gleaming tribute to sleek, tripped down modernism – if not actual futurism…

Apart from the domestic staff chef Alphonse, maid Madeline, implacable (not to say positively “inscrutable”) Asian manservant Fu, and stepdaughter Millicent, the only other human present is technical assistant Dr. Zumtod and Ghyll’s haughty beautiful wife Honoria. A future generation would call her a “trophy”…

The old plutocrat is a deeply unpleasant and smugly overbearing host who boasts of one more personage that the sharp-minded, brain-testing authors must meet. With smugness and great ceremony he introduces Eric: a mechanical man with more than human insight who can outwit any mortal and easily determine the culprit in any tale they might concoct…

Although challenged with the details of a string of classic novels – which Eric easily and correctly concludes with the name of the perpetrators – the writers remain insulted and unconvinced. Dixon Carr even oversteps the bounds of polite decency by probing the automaton in search of a pre-prepped dwarf or amputee and the display is halted for dinner where Ghyll continues to advocate a world filled with his “metal friends”…

The evening wears on with the usual social distractions balanced by heated argument on many topics sparked by Eric’s existence and the magnate’s pronunciations that art and literature must make way for a machine-run world. At last, the affair breaks up with the guests retiring to their assigned rooms in a state of high dudgeon…

That all ends in esteemed literary tradition, with screams and the writers breaking into Ghyll’s savagely disarrayed bedroom to discover electronic Eric inert in a chair and clear evidence of ‘The Billionaire Out the Window’. Far below, a dressing gown sinks beneath choppy waves and subsequent frantic searches result in no sign of their host…

Well-versed if not actually experienced in investigation, the writers set about interviewing the staff and then the residents. Zumtod then suggests the painfully obvious: turning Eric loose on the problem. The response is as rapid as the answer is shocking…

While waiting for the outer world to re-establish contact with the isolated isle, “Queen of Crime” Christie bonds with the presumed widow and probes the step-daughter, whilst Chesterton continues to scour the entire vicinity. He’s suspicious of everything – including whether there has been any crime at all – and rapidly unearths many unsuspected secrets even as each writer cleaves to their particular speciality, makes their own assessment and forms a personal hypothesis.

…And then a body washes ashore…

The Detection Club’s second volume begins with third chapter ‘Seven Amateur Detectives’ and an armada of late-arriving constabulary. Led by Inspector Widgeon they proceed to interview the drawing room sleuths. Mounting tensions, contrary theories and wounded pride quickly drive all concerned into fractious conflict, even as potential heir Millicent’s banished and outcast twin Watkyn re-emerges. Has he only returned because of his despised step-father’s demise or was he actually back just before it happened?

Events seemingly come to a head when Christie expounds her latest theory and provokes a minor hostage crisis until the villain is apprehended through unlikely team work. As the constabulary step in with the handcuffs however, new evidence emerges that sets the cogitators back on the murder-trail… until straightforward ratiocination leads one author to the only possible solution…

Wry, witty, and decidedly well-plotted, with smart characterisations and devastatingly sharp, catty dialogue (kudos to translator Allison M. Charette), this lively, lovely lark is also charmingly limned: a grand and glorious tribute to days gone by and superb stylists who tested our wits and expanded our entertainment horizons. This is a tale no whimsy-inclined crime fan can afford to miss.
© 2020 – DARGUAD – HARAMBAT. All rights reserved.

Today in 1911, Canuck-by-migration Ed Furness (Freelance, Commander Steel, “Canadian Whites publications” era) was born, followed by Dick Tracy collaborator Mike Curtis in 1953; Matt Feazell (Amazing Cynicalman) in 1955 and original Men in Black artist Sandy Carruthers arrived in 1962.

On this date we lost Chester Gould (Dick Tracy) in 1985 and Italian megastar artist Ferdinando Tacconi (Journey into Space and Jeff Hawke in Junior Express, Sciuscià, Susanna, Gli Aristocratici, Uomini senza gloria, L’uomo di Rangoon, Nick Raider, Dylan Dog) in 2006. Pioneering Filipino artist Tony DeZuñiga (Black Orchid, Outlaw, Jonah Hex, practically every character at DC & Marvel) died in 2012.

After 1269 weekly issues UK girls comic Mandy folded today in 1991. It had debuted on 21st January 1967.

Posted on

Marvel Two-In-One Epic Collection volume 3 (1977-1979): Remembrance of Things Past


By Marv Wolfman, Jim Starlin, Roger Slifer, Tom DeFalco, David Anthony Kraft, Ralph Macchio, Peter B. Gillis, Alan Kupperberg, Bill Mantlo, Jo Duffy, John Byrne, Steven Grant, Allyn Brodsky, David Michelinie, Ron Wilson, Sal Buscema, Bob Hall, Chic Stone, Frank Miller, Jim Craig, Pablo Marcos, Josef Rubinstein, Jim Mooney, Alfredo Alcala, Sam Granger, Frank Giacoia, Dave Hunt, Tex Blaisdell, Gene Day, Joe Sinnott, Bob McLeod, Bruce Patterson, Mike Esposito & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5564-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

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

Nevertheless, after the runaway success of Spider-Man’s guest vehicle Marvel Team-Up, the House of Ideas carried on the trend with a series starring bashful, blue-eyed Ben Grimm – the Fantastic Four’s most iconic and popular member. They began with a test run in Marvel Feature #11-12, before awarding him his own team-up title, with this third power-packed compendium gathering in the contents of Marvel Two-in-One #37-52; MTIO Annuals #2-4 and Avengers Annual #7, covering November 1977 to June 1979.

The action begins with ‘The Final Threat’ (by Jim Starlin & Joe Rubinstein) from Avengers Annual #7, wherein Kree warrior Captain Marvel and Titanian mind-goddess Moondragon return to Earth with vague anticipations of impending cosmic catastrophe. Their premonitions are confirmed when galactic wanderer Adam Warlock arrives with news that death-obsessed Thanos has amassed an alien armada and built a Soul-gem powered weapon to snuff out the stars like candles. Broaching interstellar space to stop the scheme, the united heroes forestall interstellar incursion and prevent the Mad Titan destroying the Sun, but only at the cost of Warlock’s life…

Then Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2 undertakes a ‘Death Watch!’ (Starlin & Rubinstein): finding Peter Parker plagued by prophetic nightmares disclosing how Thanos had snatched victory from defeat and now holds the Avengers captive whilst again preparing to extinguish Sol. With nowhere else to turn, anguished, disbelieving Spider-Man heads for the Baxter Building to borrow a spacecraft, unaware The Thing also has history with the terrifying Titan. Although utterly outpowered, the mismatched champions of Life subsequently upset Thanos’ plans, allowing the Avengers and the Universe’s true agent of retribution to end the Titan’s threat forever… or at least until next time…

Marvel Two-In-One’s apparent function as a clearing-house for old, unresolved series and plot-lines was then briefly put on hold as issue #37 teamed Ben with Matt Murdock (not alter ego Daredevil) for Marv Wolfman, Ron Wilson & Pablo Marcos’ legal drama ‘Game Point!’

Ben had been framed for monstrous acts of wanton destruction, and when the case went badly, he faced decades in jail. However, the Man Without Fear and eccentric street punk Eugene the Kid determined the Mad Thinker was behind the plot to place the ‘Thing Behind Prison Bars’ (Roger Slifer, Wilson & Jim Mooney): tackling the maniac whose ultimate game plan is to corner the future, mass-producing his own squadron of the synthezoid Avenger in #39’s conclusion ‘The Vision Gambit’ (inked by Marcos).

Slifer, Tom DeFalco, Wilson & Marcos then detail a spooky international yarn as the Black Panther is involved in a monstrous reign of terror with a zombie-vampire stalking the streets and abducting prominent African Americans. Concluding chapter ‘Voodoo and Valor!’ – by David Anthony Kraft, Wilson & Marcos – sees Jericho Drumm/Brother Voodoo volunteer his extremely specialised services to Ben and T’Challa in hopes of ending the crisis. The trail takes our heroes to Uganda for a confrontation with Doctor Spectrum and the far more dangerous real-world crazed killer Idi Amin…

Crafted by Ralph Macchio, Sal Buscema, Alfredo Alcala & Sam Grainger, Marvel Two-In-One #42 then debuts a future mainstay of Marvel Universe continuity as Project Pegasus premiers in ‘Entropy, Entropy…’

The Federal research facility designated Potential Energy Group/Alternate Sources/United States is dedicated to investigating new and exotic power sources and naturally became the most sensible place to dump energy-wielding super-baddies once they were subdued. Ben finds and begins trashing the place whilst tracking down his educationally – and emotionally -challenged ward Wundarr after the kid was renditioned by the Government. The furious Thing is soon confronted and contained by Captain America in his role as security advisor and together they stumble over a sabotage scheme by martial maniac Victorius who unleashes a deadly new threat in the ghostly form of Jude, the Entropic Man. This phantasmic force easily trounces Cap and Ben but finds the macabre Man-Thing far harder to handle in concluding chapter ‘The Day the World Winds Down’ from Macchio, John Byrne & Friends & Bruce Patterson)…

The third Marvel Two-In-One Annual then hosts a great big, old-fashioned world-busting blockbuster wherein Nova the Human Rocket battles beside Ben to free captive alien princesses and save Earth from colossal cosmos-marauding space invaders: a simple yet entertaining tussle entitled ‘When Strike the Monitors!’ all crafted by Wolfman, Sal Buscema, Frank Giacoia & Dave Hunt… after which, back in the monthly comic book, issue #44 strays away from standard fare with ‘The Wonderful World of Brother Benjamin J. Grimm’ (Wolfman, Bob Hall & Frank Giacoia) with the Thing telling rowdy kids a fanciful bedtime story concerning his recent partnership with Hercules to free Olympus from evil giants…

Marvel Two-In-One #45’s sees Kree Captain Marvel warned by his Cosmic Awareness that the Thing had been targeted by vengeful Skrulls in ‘The Andromeda Rub-Out!’ (Peter Gillis, Alan Kupperberg & Mike Esposito), after which the Incredible Hulk’s new TV show compels an outraged Ben to head for Hollywood, only to become accidentally embroiled in a ‘Battle in Burbank!’ (Kupperberg & Chic Stone)…

The Thing’s self-appointed gadflies The Yancy Street Gang headlined in MT-I-O #47 as ‘Happy Deathday, Mister Grimm!’ (Bill Mantlo & Stone) sees a cybernetic tyrant long believed dead take over Ben’s old neighbourhood… until the hero pays a visit. The invasion exposed, it is quickly concluded once awesome alien energy powerhouse Jack of Hearts joins the fight against ‘My Master, Machinesmith!’ (in #48 by Mantlo, Stone & Tex Blaisdel).

Mary Jo Duffy, Alan Kupperberg & Gene Day piled on spooky laughs in #49 as the ‘Curse of Crawl-Inswood’ highlights how Doctor Strange manipulates Ben into helping crush a paranormal incursion in a quaint and quiet seaside resort…

Anniversary issue #50 was everything a special issue should be. ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ by Byrne & Joe Sinnott takes a powerful and poignant look at the Thing’s history as a monster outcast and posits a few what-might-have-beens…

Following another failure by Reed Richards to cure Ben’s rocky state, The Thing steals the chemical and travels into his own past, determined to use the remedy on his younger, less mutated self. However, his bitter, brooding, brittle earlier incarnation is hardly prepared to listen to another monster and, inevitably, catastrophic combat ensues…

Issue #51 was even better. ‘Full House… Dragons High!’ by Peter Gillis, up-&-coming artist Frank Miller & Bob McLeod, details how a weekly poker session at Avengers Mansion is interrupted by rogue US General Pollock, who again tries to conquer America with stolen technology. Happily, Ben and Nick Fury find Ms. Marvel (not today’s teenager Kamala Khan but current Captain Marvel Carol Danvers), Wonder Man and The Beast better combat comrades than poker opponents…

A note of sinister paranoia creeps in with Marvel Two-In-One #52’s ‘A Little Knight Music!’ (Steven Grant, Jim Craig & Marcos), as the mysterious Moon Knight joins Ben in stopping CIA Psy-Ops master Crossfire brainwashing the city’s superheroes into killing each other, prior to MTIO Annual #4 providing an old-fashioned, world-busting fantasy finale – for now – as ‘A Mission of Gravity!’(plotted by Allyn Brodsky, scripted by David Michelinie, limned by Craig, Bob Budiansky & Patterson) unites Ben and Inhuman monarch Black Bolt (and Good Boi Lockjaw!) to stop unstable maniac Graviton turning into a black hole and taking the world with him…

Backed up by the covers of Starlin, Rubinstein, Wilson, Sinnott, Marcos, Terry Austin, George Pérez, Walt Simonson, Sal Buscema, Hall, Giacoia, Keith Pollard, Layton, Stone, Budiansky, and Al Milgrom, there is also a big bold bonus section including contemporary house ads, covers from reprint title The Adventures of the Thing (by Sam Keith, Mike Mignola & Joe Quesada) and original art pages by Starlin, Rubinstein, Perez & Sinnott.

This tome of tales from Marvel’s Middle Period are admittedly of variable quality. They are, however, offset by truly timeless classics, still as captivating today as they ever were. Most fans of Costumed Dramas will have little to complain about and there’s lots of fun to be found for young and old readers. So why not lower your critical guard and have an honest blast of pure warts ‘n’ all comics craziness? You’ll almost certainly grow to like it…
© 2025 MARVEL.

This date in 1754 – and attributed to Benjamin Franklin – the first American newspaper cartoon “Join, or Die” was published in The Pennsylvania Gazette.

Somewhat less momentously – perhaps – today in 1893 Wonder Woman co-creator William Moulton Marton was born as was Short Ribs cartoonist Frank O’Neal in 1921; Half Hitch and Henry illustrator Dick Hodgins, Jr. in1931 and multi-directional art scribe Barbara Slate (Yuppies From Hell, Angel Love, Sweet XVI, Ms. Liz) in 1947. They were joined in 1953 by writer Pat McGreal (Chiaroscuro; The Private Lives of Leonardo DaVinci, Veils, I, Paparazzi and more Disney comics than seems humanly possible); in 1955 by American Splendor illustrator Brian Bram; inveterate comics publisher David Campiti in 1958, and the astoundingly funny Ty Templeton (Stig’s Inferno, Batman Adventures, The Simpsons) in 1962.

Today in 1991 The Simpsons episode “Three Men and a Comic Book” aired, giving Comic Book Guy to the world…

Posted on

Doctor Doom Epic Collection volume 1 (962-1969): Enter Doctor Doom


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Larry Lieber, Roy Thomas, Don Heck, Gene Colan, Frank Giacoia, Joe Sinnott, Dick Ayers, George Roussos, Chic Stone, Vince Colletta, John Tartaglione & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-6612-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As the world’s greatest supervillain (Sorry, Donny Littlehands!) prepares for his next big screen debut, expect to see a bunch of books featuring the dark side of the eternal war between Good and Evil. And if that isn’t the perfect metaphor for the Master of Latveria I don’t know what is…

Doctor Doom is one of the most monumental villains in comics: definitely Top 3 and to many the absolute number 1 nemesis. Once upon a time, you hadn’t really made it as a Marvel superhero (or villain) until you’d clashed with him. Victor Von Doom is a troubled genius who escaped the oppression heaped on his Romani people in a backwards looking Balkan autocracy via an ultimately catastrophic scholarship to America. Whilst there proud, arrogant Victor succumbed to an intense rivalry with young Reed Richards, even then perhaps the most brilliant man alive.

The smug, openly hostile student performed unsanctioned experiments which went wrong and marred his formerly-perfect features, leading him down a path mastering and merging super-science and sinister sorcery, and fuelled his overwhelming hunger for ultimate power and total control. From the ashes of his failure, Von Doom rebuilt his life, returned to seize control of his homeland and become a danger to the world and the multiverse.

This carefully curated compendium traces his public progress and greatest battles via landmark moments of triumph and tragedy, collecting wholly or in part material from Fantastic Four (1961) 5-6, 10, 16-17, 23, 39-40, 57-60, 73; Fantastic Four Annual (1963) 2-3; Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #5; Avengers (1963) #25; Daredevil (1964) #36-38 and Marvel Super-Heroes (1967) #20 and opens without preamble as it must, with that debut in Fantastic Four #5 cover-dated July 1962 and on sale from April 10th.

At that time, aliens and especially monsters played a major part in young Marvel’s output. However, after a tentative start, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s recreation of superheroes embraced the unique basics of the idiom, and took a full bite out of the Fights ‘n’ Tights apple by introducing the first full-blown, unrepentant supervillain to their budding Marvel Universe. Mole Man debuted in FF #1, but that tragic little gargoyle, for all his world-dominating schemes, wouldn’t truly acquire the persona of a costumed foe until his more refined second appearance in FF #22.

Inked by the sublimely slick and perfectly polished Joe Sinnott, ‘Prisoners of Doctor Doom!’ had it all. A brazen attack by a mysterious enemy from Reed ‘Mr. Fantastic’ Richards’ past; bizarre fringe-science, magic, lost treasure, time-travel, and even pirates. Ha-Haar, me ‘earties!

The tale is sheer comics magic and the creators knew they were on to a winner as the deadly Doctor returned in the very next issue, teaming with the recently revived and recalcitrantly reluctant Sub-Mariner to attack our heroes as ‘The Deadly Duo!’ in the first Super-Villain Team-Up of the Marvel Age…

Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner was the second superstar of the Timely Age of Comics – but only because he followed cover-featured Human Torch in the running order of Marvel Mystery Comics #1 in 1939. He has had, however, the most impressive longevity of the company’s original “Big Three” – Torch, Subby & Captain America. The Marine Marvel was revived in Fantastic Four #4; once again a conflicted but noble villain, and remains prominent in the company’s pantheon to this day.

Inked by Dick Ayers, FF #6 reintroduced the concept of antiheroes as Namor was promptly betrayed by Doom, and ended up saving the quirky quartet from death in space. This created a truly complex dynamic with his fellow rogue monarch and the FF. The Devil Doctor’s inevitable betrayal has coloured the relationship of both sinister sovereigns ever since.

1963 was a pivotal year in the development of Marvel. Lee & Kirby had proved their new high concept – human heroes with flaws and tempers – had a willing audience. Now they would extend that concept to a new pantheon of heroes and even the bad guys. Here is where that second innovation came to the fore. Previously, superheroes were sufficient unto themselves and shared adventures were rare. Now, however there was a shared universe where characters often tripped over each other, sometimes fighting each other’s enemies! The creators themselves might turn even up in a Marvel Comic!

Cover-date January 1963, Fantastic Four #10 was released in October of 1962 and saw ‘The Return of Doctor Doom!’ Here, the archvillain used Stan & Jack themselves to lure Richards into a trap where his mind is switched with the bad Doctor’s. Unfortunately the scheme does not survive his own impatience as alien body-swap techniques come undone because Doom cannot keep up the sham long enough to spring his shrinking-ray ambush on the rest of the team…

Thematic follow-up Fantastic Four #16 explores ‘The Micro-World of Doctor Doom!’ in a spectacular romp guest-starring emergent superhero Ant-Man. Despite his resounding rout, the steel-shod villain promptly returned to the larger universe with more infallible, deadly traps a month later in ‘Defeated by Doctor Doom!’ (#17, August 1963, and on sale from May 9th). Of course, they actually weren’t and soon sent the sinister tyrant packing in what seemed a fall to his death…

Doom was the most frequent threat to the FF, and the first foe to break another unspoken rule by going after other heroes in the cohesive shared universe Lee & Kirby were building. Cover-dated October 1963 and with Ditko on pencils & inks, Amazing Spider-Man #5 saw the webspinner ‘Marked for Destruction by Dr. Doom!’ and not so much winning as surviving his unwanted duel against the deadliest man on Earth. In a titanic comedy of errors Doom seeks another super-powered pawn in his war on humanity, but utterly underestimates his obviously juvenile opponent. Moreover, in this tale, Peter Parker’s nemesis, jock bully Flash Thompson, first displayed depths beyond the usual in contemporary comic books, beginning one of the best love/hate buddy relationships in popular literature…

Fantastic Four #23 (February 1964) heralded ‘The Master Plan of Doctor Doom!’, and introduced his frankly mediocre minions the Terrible Trio – Bull Brogin, Handsome Harry and Yogi Dakor. Even after they were augmented by Doom’s science these goons were sub-par opponents for the FF, but the Iron Dictator’s uncannily menacing “Solar Wave” was enough to raise the hackles on my 5-year-old neck… and still does! (Do I need to qualify that with: all of me was five but only my precious neck had developed hackles worth boasting of back then?)

The one-dimensional evil genius was recast as a tragic figure forever shackled by his flaws thanks to the primary contents of Fantastic Four Annual #2 (September 1964) wherein Chic Stone inked ‘The Fantastic Origin of Doctor Doom!’ A short (12 page) scene-setter, this momentously detailed how a brilliant “gypsy” youth remade himself into the most dangerous man in creation, ruthlessly overcoming obstacles such as ethnic oppression, crushing poverty and the shocking stigma of being the son of a sorceress. That past informed the present as the ultimate villain again attacked old college classmate Reed Richards and is left falsely believing he has achieved ‘The Final Victory of Dr. Doom!’ However, he has actually suffered his most ignominious defeat after Richards turned the despot’s guile, subterfuge and mind-control tools against him. This clash also introduced a long-running and bewildering plot thread connecting the Monstrous Monarch to time-travelling tyrant Rama Tut/Kang the Conqueror…

Jumping forward to the summer of 1965, FF #39 (cover-dated June, and on sale from March 11th, with Frank Giacoia AKA “Frank Ray” inking) saw the team deprived of their powers. Having remembered he had not beaten his enemies at last, an enraged Doom targets the helpless heroes in ‘A Blind Man Shall Lead Them!’ with sightless swashbuckling vigilante Daredevil stepping up to provide their only hope of staying alive. The tale concluded in #40’s ‘The Battle of the Baxter Building’ with Vince Colletta inking a bombastic battle revealing the undeniable power, overwhelming pathos and indomitable heroism of the brutish Thing as – deprived of his greatest wish and cruelly restored to his monstrous mutated form – Ben Grimm hands Doom the most humiliating defeat of his life…

After a brief but significant tenure, Colletta signed off by inking one of the most crowded Marvel stories ever. Fantastic Four Annual #3 famously featured every hero, most of the villains and lots of ancillary characters in the company pantheon… such as teen-romance stars Patsy Walker & Hedy Wolf and even Stan and Jack themselves. ‘Bedlam at the Baxter Building!’ spectacularly celebrates the Richards-Storm nuptials, despite a massed attack by an army of baddies mesmerised by the diabolical Doctor into crashing the wedding party. In its classical simplicity it signalled the end of one era and the start of another…

With inker Ayers backing up Lee & Don Heck, Avengers #25 (cover-dated February 1966 but released before Christmas 1965. The still-learning but ever-improving new squad of Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch face their greatest test yet after being lured to Latveria and captured by the deadliest man alive in ‘Enter… Dr. Doom!’ With the entire nation imprisoned under an energy the trainees are forced to fight their way out of the tyrant’s utterly cowed, hyper-militarised kingdom…

Quiet for almost a year, the Iron Dictator exploded back into the forefront of comics with an absolute epic spanning Fantastic Four #57-60 released in the last four months of 1966. After a sequence of yarns introducing The Inhumans, Black Panther, Silver Surfer and Galactus, Lee & Kirby were at their sublime best and concocted what for many was the ultimate Doom saga.

Packed with unbearable tension, breathtaking drama and shattering action on all fronts it sees the most dangerous man on Earth steal and empower himself with the Silver Surfer’s cosmic forces, even as in a parallel story arc, those long-imprisoned Inhumans at last win their freedom even as we learn the tragic secret of mute Black Bolt in all his awesome fury. It begins with a jailbreak by Sandman in #57’s ‘Enter… Dr. Doom!’, escalates in ‘The Dismal Dregs of Defeat!’ as Doom tests his limitless stolen power and crushes all earthly resistance; builds to a crescendo in ‘Doomsday’ with the FF’s total defeat and humiliation before culminating in brains and valour saving the day – and all humanity – in truly magnificent manner in ‘The Peril and the Power!’

Read it, not about it!

Daredevil 37-38 (February & March 1968 and available December 12th 1967 and January 9th 1968 respectively) saw an early crossover event. In the interests of completeness they are preceded by the cliffhanging final page from DD #36 (Lee Gene Colan & Giacoia) wherein the injured Man Without Fear is captured by Doom.

With John Tartaglione on brushes, DD is penned in the Latverian Embassy and the full story unfolds in #37. ‘Don’t Look Now, But It’s… Doctor Doom!’ reveals how the Iron Tyrant uses his old body swap gimmick to trade meatsuits with Matt Murdock, while sharing the secret of how he escaped the judgement of Galactus after depowering the Silver Surfer.

Initially helpless before the Iron Dictator, DD is trapped in ‘The Living Prison!’ (Giacoia inks) as Doom anticipates a perfect sneak attack on his despised foes. However, after warning the FF, DD outwits Doom anyway… but forgets to notify them. Thus Doom’s devilish ploy culminates in a stupendous Lee, Kirby & Sinnott crafted clash in Fantastic Four #73. Outmatched and unable to convince the Human Torch, Thing and Mr. Fantastic any other way, DD enlists currently de-powered Thor and the ever-eager Spider-Man to solve the problem Marvel style – with a spectacular, pointless and utterly riveting punch-up: ‘The Flames of Battle…’

Closing this first annal of atrocity, is a yarn from experimental try-out title Marvel Super-Heroes #20 (May 1969) which awarded the villain his first full-length solo shot. Written by Larry Lieber & Roy Thomas, and illustrated by Lieber, Giacoia & Colletta, ‘This Man… This Demon!’ restated Doom’s origins and revealed a youthful dalliance with an innocent Romani maid named Valeria. In the now, that failed relationship is exploited by demon alchemist Diablo who claims to need an ally and partner but truly seeks a mighty slave. Doom deals with the charlatan in typically effective style…

This villain vehicle led to the Master of Menace winning his own solo series in Astonishing Tales #1-8, but that’s a topic for another time…

With covers by Kirby, Sinnott, Ayers, Stone, Ditko, Colan, Wood, Giacoia, Lieber, Colletta, Gil Kane, John Romita Sr., Sal Buscema, John Buscema, John Verpoorten and more, the bonus treat selection begins with landmark house ads for Doom’s earliest appearances by Kirby, Bob Powell and Marie Severin; a selection of Doom pinups from Fantastic Four Annual #1 (1963, by Kirby) and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1(1964, by Ditko) and Kirby original art pages.

These are backed up by a series of reprint and premium covers from Marvel Triple Action; Marvel Treasury Edition #11 (1976); Spider-Man Classics #6 (Ron Frenz & Terry Austin, September 1993); Spider-Man Collectible Series #11 (Frenz & Milgrom, October 2006); Essential Fantastic Four vol. 2 (1999 by Alan Davis & Marie Javins): Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four vol. 3 (2023 by Leonardo Romero): Doctor Doom: The Book of Doom Omnibus (2023 by Greg Land & Frank D’Armata) and Fantastic Four Facsimile Editions #5, 6 & 10 (all 2025 by Ryan Brown, Ema Lupacchino, Rachelle Rosenberg, Mark Buckingham & Alex Sinclair).

This graphic grimoire contains sheer comic enchantment, and is a book no lover of fantastic fiction and appreciator of arcane evil can afford to ignore – just as long as they remember which side they’re on…
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1909, Golden Age All Star Everett E. Hibbard (Flash, Justice Society of America) was born, as was erotic comics artist Tom of Finland/AKA Touko Valio Laaksonen in 1920 and master mangaka Kazuo Koike (Lone Wolf and Cub, Lady Snowblood, Crying Freeman) in 1936.

Today in 1938 Filipino artist Adrian Gonzales (All-Star Squadron, Arak, Son of Thunder, Super Powers) and French master Jean Giraud/Moebius (Blueberry, Arzach, The Incal) showed up for the first time, like Full Metal Alchemist creator Hiromu Arakawa in 1973, Planetes mangaka Makoto Yukimura in 1976 and Jamie McKelvie (The Wicked + the Profane, Phonogram, Young Avengers) in 1980.

In 1961, Nicholas P. Dallis & Alex Kotzky’s strip Apartment 3-G began on this date but we lost UK humour stalwart Thomas Watson Williams (Creature Teacher, Peter Pest, Stevie Star for Shiver and Shake, Whizzer and Chips, Monster Fun and Cor!!) in 2002, and the irreplaceable Maurice Sendak in 2012.

Posted on

Suicide Squad: The Silver Age


By Robert Kanigher, Howard Liss, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Gene Colan, Joe Kubert & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-6343-0 (HB/Digital edition) 978-1-4012-7516-7 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The War that Time Forgot was a strange series which saw paratroopers and tanks of the “Question Mark Patrol” dropped on Mystery Island from whence no American soldiers ever returned. Assorted crack GIs discovered why when the operation was suddenly overrun by pterosaurs, tyrannosaurs and worse. However, the combat-&-carnosaur creation was actually a spin-off of an earlier concept which hadn’t quite caught on with the comics-buying public. That wasn’t a problem for writer/editor Robert Kanigher: a man well-versed in judicious recycling and reinvention…

Back in 1955 he had devised and written anthology adventure comic The Brave and the Bold, which featured short complete tales starring a variety of period heroes in a format mirroring the era’s filmic fascination with historical dramas. Issue #1 led with Roman swords-&-sandals epic Golden Gladiator, medieval mystery-man The Silent Knight and Joe Kubert’ Viking Prince. Soon, the Gladiator was sidelined by the company’s iteration of Robin Hood, but the high adventure theme carried the title until the end of the decade when a burgeoning superhero revival saw B&B transform into a try-out vehicle in the manner of the astounding successful Showcase. Used to launch enterprising concepts and characters like Cave Carson, Strange Sports Stories, Hawkman and the epochal Justice League of America, the title began these test runs with #25 (August/September 1959) with the fate-tempting Suicide Squad – codenamed Task Force X by the US government to investigate uncanny mysteries and tackle unnatural threats.

The light-scary tales were all illustrated by Kanigher’s go-to team for fantastic fantasy (Ross Andru & Mike Esposito) who clearly revelled at the chance to cut loose and show what they could do outside the staid whimsy of Wonder Woman or gritty realism of the war titles they usually handled…

Following the February 1957 launch of Jack Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown, landmark premiere The Brave and the Bold #25 was cover-dated September 1959 and on sale from 28th August 1959 (nearly two years before Fantastic Four #1 went on sale). The “novel-length” yarn introduced a quartet of highly trained but merely human specialists – air ace war hero Colonel Rick Flag, combat medic Karin Grace and big-brained boffins Hugh Evans and Jess Price – all officially convened as a unit whose purpose was to tackle threats beyond conventional comprehension, such as the interstellar phenomenon dubbed ‘The Three Waves of Doom!’ The quartet were built on a very shaky premise. All three men loved Karin. She only loved Rick (and who wouldn’t?), but agreed to conceal her inclinations and sublimate her passions so Hugh and Jess would stay on the team of scientific death-cheaters…

In their first published exploit, a cloud from outer space impacts Earth, creating a super-heated tsunami which threatens to broil America. With dashing derring-do, the patriotic troubleshooters quench the ambulatory heat wave only to have it spawn a colossal alien dragon emanating super-cold rays that could trigger a new ice age. The only solution is to banish the beast back into space on a handy rocket headed for the sun, but tragically, the ship has to be piloted…

Having heroically and categorically ended the invader, the team redeployed two months later as B&B #26 opened with immediate continuation ‘The Sun Curse’ seeing our stranded astronauts struggle – in scenes eerily prescient and reminiscent of the Apollo 13 crisis a decade later – to return the ship to Earth. Uncannily, the trip bathes them in radiation that causes them to shrink to insect size. Back on terra firma, but now imperilled by everything around them, the team nonetheless manage to scuttle a proposed attack by a hostile totalitarian nation before regaining their regular stature. A second, shorter follow-up tale finds the foursome enjoying downtime in Paris before the Metro is wrecked by an awakened dinosaur. Of course, our tough tourists are ready and able to stop the ‘Serpent in the Subway!’

In an entertainment era dominated by monsters and aliens, with superheroes only tentatively resurfacing, Task Force X were at the forefront of bombastic beastie-battles. Their third and final try-out issue found them facing evolutionary nightmare as a scientist vanishes and the region around his lab is suddenly besieged by gigantic insects and a colossal reptilian humanoid the team dubbed ‘The Creature of Ghost Lake!’ (December 1959/January 1960). They readily destroy the monster but never find the professor…

A rare misfire for those excitingly experimental days, the Suicide Squad vanished after the triple try-out, only to resurface months later for a second bite of the cherry. I’m sure it’s just coincidence, but Fantastic Four #1 went on sale on August 8th 1961, pipped again as The Brave and the Bold #37 (August/September 1961 and on sale from June 22nd) saw DC’s decidedly different quirky quartet resume operations with Karin displaying heretofore unsuspected psychic gifts and predicting an alien ‘Raid of the Dinosaurs!’

This pitted Task Force X against hyper-intelligent saurians whilst ‘Threat of the Giant Eye!’ focussed on the retrieval of a downed military plane and lost super-weapon. The mission brought the Squad to an island of mythological mien where a living monocular monolith hunted people…

For #38 (October/November 1961) the team tackled the ‘Master of the Dinosaurs’ – an alien using Pteranodons to hunt as Earthlings employed falcons – after which the fabulous four fell afoul of extradimensional would-be conquerors, yet still had enough presence of mind and determination to defeat the ‘Menace of the Mirage People!’

B&B #39 (December 1961/January 1962) called “time!” on Task Force X after ‘Prisoners of the Dinosaur Zoo!’ saw the team uncover an ancient extraterrestrial ark caching antediluvian flora and fauna, after which a ‘Rain of Fire!’ found them crushing a macabre criminal who had entombed many other crime-busters in liquid metal.

That was it for the Squad until 1986 when a new iteration of the concept was launched in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Or was it? Superhero fans are notoriously clannish and insular so they might not have noticed how one creative powerhouse refused to take “no thanks” for an answer…

Robert Kanigher (1915-2002) was one of the most distinctive authorial voices in American comics, blending rugged realism with fantastic fantasy in signature war comics, westerns, horror stories, romance and superhero titles including Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, Metal Men, Batman and other genres too numerous to cite here. He scripted ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’, the very first story of the Silver Age, introducing Barry Allen AKA the second Flash to hero-hungry kids in 1956.

Kanigher sold his first stories and poetry in 1932 and wrote for the theatre, film and radio before joining the Fox Features shop where he created The Bouncer, Steel Sterling and The Web whilst also providing scripts for Blue Beetle and the original Captain Marvel. In 1945, he settled at All-American Comics as both writer and editor, staying on when the company amalgamated with National Comics to become the forerunner of today’s DC. He wrote the original Flash and Hawkman, created Black Canary and Dr. Pat, plus many memorable villainous femme fatales like Harlequin and Rose and Thorn. This last he reconstructed during the relevancy era of the early 1970s into a schizophrenic crimebusting female superhero.

Mystery-men faded away as the 1940s closed, and Kanigher easily switched to espionage, adventure, westerns and war stories, becoming in 1952 writer/editor of the company’s combat titles: All-American War Stories, Star Spangled War Stories and Our Army at War.

He created Our Fighting Forces in 1954 and added G.I. Combat to his burgeoning portfolio when Quality Comics sold their line of titles to DC in 1956, all the while helming/writing Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, Rex the Wonder Dog, Silent Knight, Sea Devils, Viking Prince and a host of others. Among his numerous game-changing war series were Sgt. Rock, Enemy Ace, Haunted Tank and The Losers as well as the visually addictive, irresistibly astonishing “Dogfaces & Dinosaurs” dramas sampled and filling out the back of this stunning collection. Kanigher was a restlessly creative writer and even used the uncanny but formulaic adventure arena of The War that Time Forgot as a personal proving ground for potential series concepts. The Flying Boots, G.I. Robot and many more teams and characters first appeared in the manic Pacific hellhole with wall-to-wall danger. Indisputably, the big beasts were the stars, but occasionally (extra)ordinary G.I .Joes made enough of an impression to secure return engagements, too.

The War that Time Forgot debuted in Star Spangled War Stories #90 (April-May 1960), running until #137 (May 1968). It skipped only three issues: #91, 93 & #126 (the last of which starred United States Marine Corps simian Sergeant Gorilla… go on. Look it up. I’m neither kidding nor being metaphorical…

Simply too good a concept to ignore, this seamless, shameless blend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost World and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Caprona stories (known alternatively as the Caspak Trilogy or The Land That Time Forgot) provided everything baby-boomer boys could dream of: giant lizards, humongous insects, fantastic adventures and two-fisted heroes with lots of guns. The only thing mostly missing was cave-girls in fur bikinis…

In the summer of 1963, a fresh Suicide Squad debuted in Star Spangled War Stories #110 to investigate a ‘Tunnel of Terror’ into the lost land of giant monsters. This time though, a giant albino gorilla decided that us mammals should stick together…

The huge hairy beast was also the star of ‘Return of the Dinosaur Killer!’ in #111, as the unnamed Squad leader and a wily boffin (visually based on Kanigher’s office associate Julie Schwartz) struggled to survive on a reptile-ridden atoll. SSWS #116 (August/September 1964) depicted a duo of dedicated soldiers facing ice-bound beasts in ‘The Suicide Squad!’ – the big difference being that Morgan and Mace were more determined to kill each other than accomplish their mission…

‘Medal for a Dinosaur!’ (#117) bowed to the inevitable: introducing a (relatively) friendly and extremely cute baby pterodactyl to balance out Mace & Morgan’s barely suppressed animosity, after which ‘The Plane-Eater!’ in #118 saw the army odd couple adrift in the Pacific and in deep danger until the leather-winged little guy turned up once more…

The Suicide Squad were getting equal billing by the time of #119’s ‘Gun Duel on Dinosaur Hill!’ (February/March 1965), as yet another band of men-without-hope battled leathery horrors – and each other – to the death, before apparently unkillable Morgan & Mace returned with Dino, the flying ptero-tot, who found a new companion in handy hominid Caveboy before the entire unlikely ensemble struggled to survive against increasingly outlandish creatures in ‘The Tank Eater!’…

SSWS #121 presented a diving drama when a UDT (Underwater Demolitions Team) frogman won his Suicide Squad rep as a formidable fighter and ‘The Killer of Dinosaur Alley!’ Increasingly now, G.I. hardware and ordnance trumped bulk, fang and claw and undisputed master of gritty fantasy art Joe Kubert added his pencil-&-brush magic to a tense, manic thriller featuring a returning G.I. Robot for battle bonanza ‘Titbit for a Tyrannosaurus!’ (#125, February/March 1965), after which Andru & Esposito covered another Suicide Squad sea-saga in #127’s ‘The Monster Who Sank a Navy!’ This eclectic collection tumultuously terminates in scripter Howard Liss and visual veteran Gene Colan’s masterfully crafted, moving human drama from #128, which was astoundingly improved by the inclusion of ravening reptiles in ‘The Million Dollar Medal!’

Throughout this calamitous compilation of dark dilemmas, light-hearted romps and battle blockbusters, the emphasis is always on foibles and fallibility, with human heroes unable to put aside grudges, swallow pride or forgive trespasses even amidst the strangest and most terrifying moments of their lives. This edgy humanity informs and elevates even the daftest of these wonderfully imaginative adventure yarns.

Classy, intense, insanely addictive and Just Plain Fun, the original Suicide Squad offers a kind of easy, no-commitment entertainment seldom seen these days and is a deliciously guilty pleasure for one and all. Surely, this is a movie we would all watch…
© 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 2016 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

This date in 1942 political cartoonist/children’s book illustrator Tony Auth was born, with Underground Commix creator Joel Beck (Lenny of Laredo) arriving one year later, and Michael T. Gilbert (Doc Stearn – Mr. Monster, Elric) joining the party in 1951. That same year, multitalented Rick Veitch (Swamp Thing, Army@Love, Can’t Get No, Bratpack, Abraxas and the Earthman, Miracleman) with Belgian craftsman Philippe Geluck (Le Chat) popping by in 1954; writer/editor Joey Cavalieri (Wonder Woman, Huntress, Bugs Bunny) in 1957 and artist Jon Bogdanove (Power Pack, Superman, Steel) born in 1958.

Colourist Paul Mounts was born in 1964; Spanish artist Angel (Star Wars, Titans, Flash) Unzueta in 1969 and colourist Beth Sotelo in 1974.

Robert Kaniger (Sgt Rock, Metal Men, Black Canary, G.I. Robot, The Private Diary of Mary Robin R.N., Sea Devils, Haunted Tank, The Losers, Lady Cop, Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, Batman, Atom & Hawkman, Iron Man and all the rest) was so great he is also listed as having died today in 2002 as well as yesterday!

Posted on

(Walt Disney’s) Mickey Mouse: The Greatest Adventures


By Floyd Gottfredson, with Walt Disney, Bill Walsh, Merrill de Maris, Bill Wright, Win Smith, Jack King, Roy Nelson, Hardie Gramatky, Ted Thwaites, Daan Jippes, David Gerstein & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68396-122-2 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68396-225-0

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, Mickey Mouse was first seen – if not heard – in the silent cartoon Plane Crazy. The animated short fared poorly in a May 1928 test screening and was promptly shelved. That’s why most people who care cite Steamboat Willie – the fourth completed Mickey feature – as the debut of the mascot mouse and his co-star and paramour Minnie Mouse as it was the first to be nationally distributed, as well as the first animated feature with synchronised sound.

The film’s astounding success led to the subsequent rapid release of its fully completed predecessors Plane Crazy, The Gallopin’ Gaucho and The Barn Dance, once they too had been given new-fangled soundtracks. From those timid beginnings grew an immense fantasy empire, but film was not the only way Disney conquered hearts and minds. With Mickey a certified solid gold sensation, the mighty mouse was considered a hot property and soon invaded America’s most powerful and pervasive entertainment medium: comic strips…

Floyd Gottfredson was a cartooning pathfinder who started out as just another warm body in the Disney Studio animation factory who slipped sideways into graphic narrative and evolved into a pictorial narrative ground-breaker as influential as George Herriman, Winsor McCay or Elzie Segar. Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse entertained millions of eagerly enthralled readers across the entire planet and shaped the very way comics worked. He took a wildly anarchic animated rodent from slapstick beginnings, via some of the earliest adventure continuities in comics history, and transforming a feisty everyman underdog – yes, okay, mouse – into a crimebuster, detective, explorer, lover/romantic lead, aviator or cowboy, and the quintessential two-fisted hero whenever necessity demanded.

In later years, as tastes and syndicate policy shifted, Gottfredson steered that self-same wandering warrior into a more sedate, gently suburbanised lifestyle via crafty sitcom gags suited to a newly middle-class America: a fifty-year career generating some of the most engrossing continuities the comics industry has ever enjoyed.

Arthur Floyd Gottfredson was born today in 1905 in Kaysville, Utah; one of eight siblings in a Mormon family of Danish extraction. Injured in a youthful hunting accident, Floyd whiled away a long recuperation drawing and studying cartoon correspondence courses. By the 1920s he had turned professional, selling cartoons and commercial art to local trade magazines and Big City newspaper the Salt Lake City Telegram. In 1928 he and his (apparently nameless) wife moved to California where, after a shaky start, he found work in April 1929: an in-betweener at the burgeoning Walt Disney Studios. Just as the Great Depression hit, Floyd was personally asked by Disney to take over the newborn yet ailing Mickey Mouse newspaper strip. Gottfredson would plot, draw and frequently script the strip for the next five decades: an incredible accomplishment by of one of comics’ most gifted exponents.

Veteran animator Ub Iwerks had initiated the print feature with Disney himself contributing, before artist Win Smith was brought in. The nascent strip was plagued with problems and young Gottfredson was only supposed to pitch in until a regular creator could be found.

Floyd’s first effort saw print on May 5th 1930 (his 25th birthday) and he just kept going in an uninterrupted run over the next half century. On January 17th 1932, Gottfredson created the first colour Sunday page, which he also handled until his retirement.

In the beginning he did everything, but in 1934 Gottfredson relinquished scripting, preferring plotting and illustrating adventures to playing about with dialogue. His eventual collaborating wordsmiths included Ted Osborne, Merrill De Maris, Dick Shaw, Bill Walsh, Roy Williams and Del Connell. At the start and in the manner of a filmic studio system, Floyd briefly used inkers such as Ted Thwaites, Earl Duvall and Al Taliaferro, but by 1943 had taken on full art chores.

This tremendous archival hardback compendium (185 x 282 mm and also available digitally) gathers and remasters in full colour a sublime selection of those daily delights, stuffed with thrills, spills and chills, whacky races, bizarre situations, fantastic fights and a glorious superabundance of rapid fire sight-gags peppered with verbal by-play: an unmissable journey of fabulous cartoon fun.

And I don’t need to remind you that this stuff can be deemed “dated or discriminatory content” created in times when casual violence, smoking, drinking and ethnic stereotyping were everyday occurrences, so please read this with that in mind or not at all…

The manner in which Mickey became a syndicated star is covered by editor/savant, devoted fan David Gerstein in bookend articles at front and back of this timely tome, namely Floyd Gottfredson: Walt Disney’s Mouse Man and Mickey Mouse: The Hero. In between the comic capers commence with legendary yarn ‘Mickey Mouse in Death Valley’ which ran from April 1st – September 22nd 1930. Initially the strip was treated like an animated feature, with diverse hands working under a “director”. Each day was viewed as a full gag with set-up, delivery and a punchline, usually all in service to an umbrella story or theme. Such was the format Gottfredson inherited from Walt Disney for his first full yarn.

‘The saga was further complicated by an urgent “request” from controlling syndicate King Features that the strip be immediately made more adventure-oriented to compete with the latest trend in comics – action-packed continuities…

Also roped in to provide additional art and inking to the raucous, rambunctious rambling saga were Win Smith, Jack King, Roy Nelson & Hardie Gramatky. The resulting saga – coloured here by Scott Rockwell & Susan Daigle-Leach – involved a picaresque and frequently deadly journey way out west to save Minnie’s inheritance (a lost mine) from conniving lawyer Sylvester Shyster and his vile and violent crony Pegleg Pete, whom Mickey and his aggrieved companion chased across America by every conveyance imaginable. In this pursuit they were aided by masked mystery man The Fox, while facing every possible peril as immortalised by silent movie westerns, melodramas and comedies…

With cameos throughout from Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow, goat-horned Mr. Butt and a prototype Goofy who used to answer – if he felt like it – to Dippy Dog, we pause to share specially commissioned Illustrations by Gottfredson (a promotional pic and photos of tough guy pal Butch) before moving on to ‘The Picnic’ (crafted by Gottfredson, Earl Duvall & Travis Seitler (coloured by Rick Keane). It originally ran from January 5th to 10th 1931): a hopefully bucolic moment plagued by natural catastrophe, after which bold deeds are a requisite for exploring the ‘Island in the Sky’ (November 30th 1936 – April 3rd 1937, by Gottfredson, Ted Thwaites, Michel Nadorp, Erik Rosengarten, & Disney Italia).

Having secured a cash reward for capturing a band of smugglers, Mickey& Goofy buy an airplane and become working aviators: a plot device affording plenty of daily gags before one flight brings them into aerial contact with the flying automobile of a mystery scientist. After much detecting and pursuit, they find the floating fortress of reclusive super-genius Doctor Einmug, learning that he’s also being approached – if not outright menaced – by vile Pegleg Pete. The dyed-in-the-wool thug is acting as agent of a foreign power, seeking the astonishing secret and unlimited power of “aligned atoms” fuelling Einmug’s aerial miracles: trying everything from bribery to coercion to feigned reformation. When those fail, good old reliable theft and violence follow, but naturally, none of that means anything to the indomitable Mouse…

Appended by Gottfredson’s painting Mickey Mouse on Sky Island and a mini-feature on personalised birthday and anniversary commissions, the cloud-busting crime-caper is followed by a baffling mystery as ‘The Gleam’ (January 19th – May 2nd 1942, by Gottfredson, Merrill de Maris, Bill Wright, Daan Jippes, Seitler, Gerstein & Daigle-Leach) sees Mickey, Minnie & Goofy plagued by a diabolical hypnotist who plunders Mouseton’s High Society elite at will. The bandit even embroils Minnie’s unwelcome visiting parents in his crimes before our heroes finally bring him to justice. It’s followed by the cover of 1949’s Big Little Book #1464: a modified version of this tale behind a cover by an artist unknown.

Gottfredson, Bill Walsh, Wright, Gerstein & Disney Italia then detail a string of interlinked gags comprising a burst of DIY invention resulting in ‘Mickey Mouse and Goofy’s Rocket’ (September 9th – 21st 1946), before Gottfredson, Walsh, Pierre Nicolas, Gerstein & Digikore Studios resort to full on sci fi as The Atombrella and the Rhyming Man’ (April 30th – October 9th 1948) finds Eega Beeva (an occasional visitor from 2447 AD) popping back for fun and a spot of inventing. Most of his whacky gadgets are generally harmless, but when he tinkers up a handheld defence against physical attack which repels everything from pie to nuclear weapons, word gets around fast and some very shifty characters invite themselves in. When juvenile genius Dr. Koppenhooper, an unlovely femme fatale and a poetic superspy get involved, things go from bad to calamitous…

The friendly future-man appeared in many commercial commissions. After a brace of monochrome samples reprinted here courtesy of Gottfredson, the manic menu of Mouse Masterpieces concludes with ‘Mickey’s Dangerous Double’ (March 2nd – June 20th 1953 by Gottfredson, Walsh, Jippes, Paul Baresh, Gerstein & Disney Italia) as a devious “evil twin” trashes our hero’s reputation and destroys all his friendships before scapegoating him for a string of crimes in a gleeful but paranoia-inducing tale.

Of course, in the end the ingenuity of the original and genuine article wins through but only after a truly spectacular battle…

Gottfredson’s influence on not just the Disney canon but sequential graphic narrative itself is inestimable: he was among the first to produce long continuities and straight adventures; he pioneered team-ups and invented some of the first super-villains in the business.

Disney killed their continuities in 1955, dictating that henceforth strips would only contain one-off gags. Gottfredson adapted seamlessly, working on until retirement in 1975. His last daily appeared on November 15th and the final Sunday on September 19th 1976.

Like all Disney creators Gottfredson worked in utter anonymity, but in the 1960s his identity was revealed and the voluble appreciation of his previously unsuspected horde of devotees led to interviews, overviews and public appearances, with effect that subsequent reprinting in books, comics and albums carried a credit for the quiet, reserved master. Floyd Gottfredson died in July 1986. Thankfully we have this wealth of his works to enjoy and inspire us and hopefully a whole new generation of inveterate tale-tellers…
Mickey Mouse: The Greatest Adventures © 2018 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All contents © 2018 Disney Enterprises, Inc. unless otherwise noted. “Floyd Gottfredson: Walt Disney’s Mouse Man” and “Mickey Mouse: The Hero” texts © 2018 David Gerstein. All rights reserved.

Oh what a date this is!

In 1905 Floyd Gottfredson was born and 25 years later his first Mickey Mouse daily appeared on his birthday.

In 1913 animator/ author Frank Tashlin (Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies) was born, with Golden Age workhorse Dan Zolnerowich (Dollman, Blackhawk, Super American, Suicide Smith, Kaanga, Kayo Kirby, The Hawk, Captain Terry Thunder, Captain Wings) arriving in 1915; Belgian superstar Michel Régnier AKA Greg (Luc Orient, Bruno Brazil, Bernard Prince, Zig et Puce, Achille Talon) in 1931 and Cartoonist Supreme Stan Goldberg in 1932.

The wonderful compelling David Lloyd (V for Vendetta, Night Raven, Wasteland, Aces Weekly, Kickback) joined us in 1950 – as did Juan Ortiz – with true Brits Peter Hogan (Robo-Hunter, Resident Alien) in 1954 and Mike Collins (Doctor Who, Judge Dredd, X-Men, Superman) in 1961, whilst cover star Adam Hughes (Maze Agency, Ghost, Legion of Super-Heroes) only arrived in 1967, the same year and date that Robert Crumb’s Mr. Natural debuted…

In 1975 Sad Sack creator George Baker died.

Posted on

DC Finest: The Joker – The Last Ha-Ha


By Dennis O’Neil, Elliot S! Maggin, Bob Haney, Martin Pasko, David V. Reed, Steve Englehart, Len Wein, Paul Levitz, Dick Dillin, Neal Adams, Irv Novick, Jim Aparo, Ernie Chan, José Luis García-López, John Calnan, Marshall Rogers, Walter Simonson, Don Newton, Joe Staton, Joe Giella, Dick Giordano, Vince Colletta, Tex Blaisdell, Frank McLaughlin, Bob Wiacek, Terry Austin, Steve Mitchell & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79951-025-3 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

HEY! WHO LET THAT CLOWN IN? IS THERE A PARTY SOMEWHERE?

An old adage says that you can judge someone by the calibre of their enemies, and that’s never been more ably demonstrated than with Batman. For most of his near century of existence, but most especially ever since the 1970s, the position of paramount antagonist has been indisputably filled by Clown Prince of Crime The Joker! He first hit newsstands in Batman #1 (cover-dated Spring and officially on sale from April 25th 1940). That’s 86 exploding candles and poisoned cakes and he’s still totally, lethally crazy after all these years…

Spanning cover-dates December 1969 to September 1981, this compilation collects stories from Justice League of America #77; Batman # 251, 260, 286, 291-294 & 321; Detective Comics #475-476 & 504; eccentric team-ups from The Brave and the Bold #111, 118, 129-130 & 141: The Joker volume 1 #1-10 and Earth-Two appearances from Wonder Woman volume 1 #280-283, a comprehensive but by no means complete carry on of one of the most conflicted and confusing characters in comics.

In the late 1960s superheroes experienced a rapid decline in popularity – presumably reaction to global media’s crass and crushing overexposure. When that bubble burst, Batman’s comic franchise sought to escape the zany, “camp” image by methodically re-branding the hero and returning to the original 1930s concept of a grim, driven Dark Avenger. Although hugely popular, TV’s sappy buffoon/thieving villain version of The Joker was almost fatal to the character on the printed page. However, a deftly calculated return to his Golden Age, eerie cheery killer persona began almost immediately. Thus this collection which kicks off with the Mountebank of Mirth manically upping his game and expanding his pool of enemies…

In Justice League of America #77 (cover-dated December 1969), the smugly complacent confidence and cheery worldview of the World’s Greatest Superheroes is shattered after enigmatic political populist Joe Dough suborns and compromises their beloved teen mascot in ‘Snapper Carr… Super-Traitor!’ This revelatory rite of passage comes from Denny O’Neil, Dick Dillin & Joe Giella: a coming-of-age yarn that saw the team lose public support and even their secret HQ, as the comfy, cosy superhero game changes forever… and no guesses for who Joe Dough really is!

The dark transformation of the Crime Clown was fully accomplished in Batman #251 (September 1973 by O’Neil & Neal Adams). ‘The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge!’ reinstated the psychotic, diabolically unpredictable Killer Clown who scared the short pants off readers of the 1940s. A true milestone utterly redefining the hero’s nemesis for the modern age, the frantic moody yarn sees the Mirthful Maniac stalking his old gang, seeking to eradicate them all, with a hard-pressed Gotham Guardian desperately playing catch-up. As crooks die in all manner of byzantine and bizarre ways, Batman realises his archfoe has gone irrevocably off the deep end. Terrifying and beautiful, for many fans this is the definitive Batman/Joker story.

Cover-dated February/March 1974, The Brave and the Bold #111 boasted “the strangest team-up in history” as writer Bob Haney & artist on fire Jim Aparo had the Gotham Guardian join forces with the Harlequin of Hate for a brilliantly twisty tale of cross-&-double-cross in ‘Death has the Last Laugh!’ Complex and compelling, this murder-spree yarn possibly led to the Crime Clown’s own short-run series a year later.

Meanwhile, from Batman #260 (January/February 1975 by O’Neil, Irv Novick & Dick Giordano), ‘This One’ll Kill You Batman!’ finds the grim, po-faced Darknight Detective racing to save his own life after being poisoned by Joker Toxin that acts like irresistibly lethal laughing gas, after which B&B #118 (April) sees Wildcat and Batman forced to brutally battle each other in ‘May the Best Man Die!’ after being sucked into Joker’s scheme to poison boxers (and anyone else in range) with a deadly, blood-borne virus…

Within 18 months of the breakthrough revision in Batman #251, The Joker won his own series. Titles starring villains were exceedingly rare back then and provided quite a few problems for writers and editors still labouring under the edicts of the Comics Code Authority. The outré experiment ended after 9 issues – spanning May 1975 to October 1976, (plus one formerly unpublished digital issue in 2019) – and had utilised some of the most talented creators in DC’s employ. It remained a peculiar historical oddity for decades. Now, in these less doctrinaire times those strange tales of the Smirking Slaughterman have an appreciative audience…

The murderous merriment commences with ‘The Joker’s Double Jeopardy!’ Here fellow Arkham Asylum inmate Two-Face arrogantly escapes, pinking the Felonious Funnyman’s pride and compelling the giggling ghoul to similarly break out to prove he’s the greater criminal maniac. Their extended duel of wits and body-counts only lands them both back inside. That “revolving door” security at Arkham eventually leads to the firing of much-harassed guards Marvin Fargo & Benny Khiss in #2’s ‘The Sad Saga of Willie the Weeper!’ However, as the again-at-liberty Lethal Loon attempts to boost the confidence of a lachrymose minor-league larcenist for his own purposes, those defrocked jailers determine to restore their honour and fortunes and astoundingly, they succeed.

Written by O’Neil with art by Ernie Chan (nee Chua) & José Luis García-López, ‘The Last Ha Ha’ in #3 details a burglary and kidnapping of superstar cartoonist Sandy Saturn by a green-haired, cackling crazy. Witness accounts lead the cops to the ludicrous conclusion that The Creeper is the culprit. Cue lots and lots of eerie chortling, mistaken identity shenanigans and murderously manic explosive action…

The ethical dilemma of a star who’s arguably the world’s worst villain is further explored in ‘A Gold Star for the Joker!’ (Elliot S! Maggin, García-López & Vince Colletta) wherein our Perfidious Pagliacci inexplicably develops a crush on Black Canary’s alter-ego Dinah Lance and resolves to possess her or kill her. Typically, even though she’s perfectly capable of saving herself, Dinah’s beau Green Arrow (see what I did there?) is also the possessive aggressive kind of consort…

‘The Joker Goes Wilde!’ (Martin Pasko, Irv Novick & Tex Blaisdell) finds the Clown Prince in bombastic competition with similarly playing-card themed super-bandits The Royal Flush Gang. Everyone wants to secure a lost masterpiece, but even as he’s winning that weird war, the Mountebank of Menace is already after a hidden prize.

More force of nature than mortal miscreant, the Pallid Punchinello meets his match after assaulting actor Clive Sigerson in #6. Famed for stage portrayals of a certain literary detective, Sigerson sustains a nasty blow to the bonce which befuddles his wits and soon ‘Sherlock Stalks the Joker!’ (O’Neil, Novick & Blaisdell), foiling a flood of crazy schemes and apprehending the maniac before his concussion is cured…

We learn surprising facts about the Clown Prince of Carnage when he steals the calm, logical intellect of Earth’s most brilliant evil scientist. Naturally, psychic transference in ‘Luthor… You’re Driving Me Sane!’ (Maggin, Novick & Frank McLaughlin) is two-way and, whilst the newly cognizant Clown becomes ineffably intelligent, Lex Luthor is reduced to a risk-taking maniac unphased by potential consequences and determined to have fun no matter who dies. The Joker’s eighth outing covered a clash with Gotham’s self-acclaimed Master of Terror as ‘The Scarecrow’s Fearsome Face-Off!’ (Maggin, Novick & Blaisdell) saw the top contenders for scariest guy in town (not counting Batman!) steal each other’s thunder whilst vying for that macabre top spot, before the villainous vignettes conclude with a claws-out clash as ‘The Cat and the Clown!’ (Maggin, Novick & Blaisdell) sees an aged comedian and his million-dollar kitty targeted by rival rogues Catwoman and Joker. Unhappily for the crooks they had both underestimated the grizzled guile of their octogenarian victim…

In Fall of 2019 the unpublished tenth issue was released digitally and appeared in monolithic, print-only, rather inaccessibly expensive The Joker: The Bronze Age Omnibus (Collected). There – and here – Pasko & Novick’s tale ‘99 and 99/100% Dead!’ involves a deal with the Devil (AKA “Lou Cipher”) and scheme to murder Earth’s greatest heroes – The JLA – that doesn’t quite come about and ends on a cliffhanger…

Here, however, we resume with a rare two-parter from The Brave and the Bold #129 & 130: a jam-packed action-romp with ‘Claws of the Emperor Eagle’ pitting Batman, Green Arrow and The Atom against Joker, Two-Face and hordes of bandits in a manic race to possess a statue that had doomed every great conqueror in history. The epic, globe-trotting saga concluded with an ironic bang in ‘Death at Rainbow’s End’…

In Batman #286,‘The Joker’s Playground of Peril!’ (April 1977 by O’Neil, Novick & Bob Wiacek) sees The Clown escape Arkham Asylum prompting panic in the lawyer who failed get him off and the fence who cheated the loon when selling his ill-gotten gains. The fugitives make it easy for the manic by hiding in the same Amusement park but the Dynamoc Duo are clued in and waiting…

Next is an extended saga from Batman #291-294 (cover dates September through December 1977) written by author David V. Reed and illustrated by John Calnan & Tex Blaisdell. Over four deviously clever issues ‘Where Were You the Night Batman Was Killed?’ sees hordes of costumed foes the Caped Crimebuster has crushed assemble to verify the stories of various felons claiming to have done the deed. This thematic partial inspiration for Neil Gaiman’s “Last Batman Story” kicks off with ‘The Testimony of the Catwoman’ followed by ‘The testimony of…’ The Riddler, Lex Luthor and The Joker before satisfactorily concluding with a twist in a spectacular grand manner.

The only real contenders for the plaudits of being the best Joker yarn ever follows: a two-part saga from Detective Comics #475-476 (February & April 1978) concluding a breathtaking, signature run of retro tales by Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers & Terry Austin. The absolute zenith in a short but stellar sequence resurrecting old foes naturally peaked with the Dark Knight’s nemesis at his most chaotic, and began with ‘The Laughing Fish!’ and culminating in ‘The Sign of the Joker!’, comprising one of the most reprinted Bat-tales ever concocted. It was even adapted as an episode of the award-winning Batman: The Animated Adventures TV show in the 1990s. In fact, you’ve probably already read it. But if you haven’t… what a treat awaits you!

As seafood sporting the Joker’s horrific smile began turning up in sea-catches all over the Eastern Seaboard, the Clown Prince attempts to trademark them. When patent officials foolishly tell him it can’t be done, they start dying – publicly, impossibly and incredibly painfully…

The story concluded in a spectacular apocalyptic clash which shaped, informed and redefined the Batman mythos for decades to come…

The best was saved for last, with continuity altering sub-plots concerning Bruce Wayne’s current inamorata Silver St. Cloud, crooked politico “Boss” Rupert Thorne and the Gotham City Council who had outlawed the hero, and even the recurring ghost of Hugo Strange culminating in THE classic confrontation with The Joker.

B&B #141 (May/June 1978) offers another Batman team-up with Black Canary as ‘Pay – or Die!’ (by Haney & Aparo) finds Dinah Lance looking at a modelling career but pausing to help Batman and Alfred quash the Joker’s bizarrely byzantine extortion/loan sharking/crooked mortician scheme in ‘Pay – Or Die!’

The gleeful terror continues with ‘Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker…!’ by Len Wein, Walt Simonson & Giordano (from Batman #321 March 1980), wherein the Malevolent Mummer planned to celebrate his anniversary in grand style: kidnapping a bunch of old chums like Robin, Jim Gordon, Alfred Pennyworth, Catwoman and others to be the exploding candles on his giant birthday cake…

The Joker has the rare distinction of being perhaps the most iconic villain in comics and can claim that title in whatever era you choose to concentrate on; Noir-ish Golden Age, sanitised Silver Age or malignant modern and Post-Modern milieus. This book captures just a fraction of all those superb stories and with the benefit of another two and a half decades of material since the release of this compendium, just think of what a couple of equally well-considered sequels might offer…

Cover-dated July 1981, Detective #504 – by Gerry Conway, Don Newton & Dan Adkins – details ‘The Joker’s Rumpus Room Revenge!’ Closing the Batman related portion of the book, here the Murderous Mummer again slips out of Arkham and murders an old puppet-maker to lure the Dark Knight into a killzone packed with killer toys and robots…

During the late Seventies and early Eighties Helena Wayne was the daughter of the deceased Earth-2 Batman and Catwoman Selina Kyle. As The Huntress, the immensely popular character sprang from a then-current Justice Society of America series in All Star Comics into her own relatively long-running back-up feature initially in Batman family and then in Wonder Woman (#271 September 1980 through #321, November 1984). She died in but notionally survived the Crisis on Infinite Earths by being retooled as mob-orphan Helena Bertinelli to become a post-Crisis Dark Knight adjunct.

From Wonder Woman #280 – 283 (vol. 1, June to September 1981) and crafted by Paul Levitz, Joe Staton & Steve Michell ‘Lion at Bay’ sees Huntress crush her mother’s old nemesis Lionmane, but not before his mass jailbreak allows a declining but still demented and deadly Harlequin of Hate to escape Gull’s island prison. Refusing to believe Batman is dead, elderly Joker proceeds to poison old foes like Commissioner O’Hara to draw out his enemy. Stalked by Huntress in ‘Always Leave ‘em Laughing’ before recruiting another old Crazy Clown combatant to help trick and trap the madman, the end comes in ‘First Laugh…’ and final encore ‘…Last Laugh!’

With covers by Murphy Anderson, Adams, Tatjana Wood, Nick Cardy, Aparo, Giordano, Ross Andru, Chan, García-López, Drew Moore, Rogers & Austin, Simonson, Jim Starlin, Rich Buckler, and George Pérez, this quirky oddment offers slick plotting and startling visuals as madcap misdemeanours are soundly upstaged and shoved aside by lunatic larks, malign malice and a more mounting degree of murderous mayhem than most classical fans might be comfortable with, but always sustained and supported by strong storytelling and stunning art to delight fans of traditional Fights ‘n’ Tights sagas.
© 1969, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981, 2026 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1913 author and groundbreaking comics scripter John Broome (aka John Osgood & Edgar Ray Meritt) was born, followed in 1928 by Filipino art maestro Nestor Rendondo (Darna, Rima the Jungle Girl, The Bible, Swamp Thing); Belgian cartoonist Joseph Loeckx/“Jo-El Azara” (Taka Takata, Clifton) in1937, and our own astounding John Ridgway (Commando Picture Library, Famous Five, Young Marvelman, Judge Dredd, Bozz Chronicles, Hellblazer) in 1940.

This date in 1953 welcomed US cartoonist/book illustrator Doug Cushman (Aunt Eater, Holiday Mice!); Canadian Underground artist Patrick Henley AKA Henriette Valium in 1959; Mad magazine illustrator Tom Richmond in 1966; Scott Kolins in 1968 and Ale Garza in 1977.

We lost today editor Lou Stathis in 1997, and Henry Sunday page artist Don Trachte in 2005 but the day did give us Richard F. Outcaul’s Buster Brown which launched in 1902, Ivy the Terrible’s debut in The Beano, courtesy of Roy Nixon in 1985 and the very first Free Comic Book Day today in 2002.

Posted on

Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom Archives volume 1


By Paul S. Newman, Matt Murphy, Bob Fujitani, Frank Bolle & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-285-8 (HB) 978-1-59582-586-5 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The comics colossus identified by fans as Dell/Gold Key/Whitman had one of the most complicated publishing set-ups in history, but that didn’t matter one iota to the kids of all ages who consumed their vastly varied product. Based in Racine, Wisconsin, Whitman had been a crucial part of the monolithic Western Publishing and Lithography Company since 1915 and could draw on the commercial resources and industry connections that came with editorial offices on both coasts (and even a subsidiary printing plant in Poughkeepsie, New York).

Another connection was with fellow Western subsidiary K.K. Publications (named for licensing legend Kay Kamen who facilitated extremely lucrative “license to print money” merchandising deals for Walt Disney Studios between 1933 and 1949).

From 1938, Western’s comic book output was released under a partnership deal with a “pulp” periodical publisher under umbrella imprint Dell Comics – and again those creative staff and commercial contacts fed into the line-up of the Big Little, Little Golden and Golden Press books for children. The partnership ended in 1962 and Western had to swiftly reinvent its comics division as Gold Key.

As previously cited, Western Publishing had been a major player since comics’ earliest days, blending a huge tranche of licensed titles comprising newspaper strips, TV and Disney titles, – such as Nancy and Sluggo, Tarzan, or The Lone Ranger – with home-grown hits like Turok, Son of Stone and Space Family Robinson. In the 1960s, during the camp/superhero boom these original adventure titles expanded to include Brain Boy, M.A.R.S. Patrol, Total War (created by Wally Wood), Magnus, Robot Fighter (by the incredible Russ Manning) and – in deference to the atomic age of heroes – Nukla, another brilliantly coolly understated nuclear white knight. Despite supremely high quality and passionate fan-bases, they never really captured the media spotlight like DC and Marvel’s costumed cut-ups. Western eventually (in 1984) shut their comics division, having lost or ceded their licenses to DC Marvel and Charlton.

All this and much more can be found far more clearly explained by the wonderful Mark Evanier in this hardback or trade paperback collection’s Foreword – ‘The Golden Years’ – as well as a fond critical appraisal of the superb comics yarn-spinning that follows…

As a publisher, Gold Key never really “got” the melodramatic, breast-beating, often mock-heroic Sturm und Drang of the 1960s superhero boom – although for many of us, the understated functionality of Silver Age classics like Magnus, Robot Fighter or remarkably radical concepts of atomic crusader Nukla and crime-fighting iterations of classic movie monsters Dracula, Frankenstein and Werewolf were utterly irresistible. The sheer off-the-wall lunacy of features like Neutro or Dr. Spektor I will save for a future occasion…

The company’s most recognisable stab at a pure superhero was an rather sedate and reticent nuclear era star with the unwieldy codename Dr. Solar, Man of the Atom. He debuted in an eponymous title cover-dated October 1962, sporting a captivating painted cover by Richard M. Powers which made the whole deal feel like a grown up book rather than a mere comic.

Solar was devised by prolific writer Paul S. Newman and in-house editor Matt Murphy, and initially illustrated by Bob Fujitani (Flash Gordon, Rip Kirby, Prince Valiant).

Tirelessly creative and seen in many titles across numerous companies, Native New Yorker Newman was crowned “King of Comics”, with the Guiness Book of Records confirming at least 4,100 separate scripts published and 36,000 pages filled. He was Dell/Gold Key’s movie adaptation warhorse, worked on such licensed attractions as Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, Lone Ranger, 77 Sunset Strip, The Beatles – Yellow Submarine, Buck Rogers and dozens more. He crafted countless short tales of anthology genre fare and stars such as Turok, Son of Stone.

Here he, Murphy, and Fujitani deliver terse 2-part origin ‘Solar’s Secret’ and ‘An Atomic Inferno’ detailing how a campaign of sabotage at research base Atom Valley culminates in the death of top boffin Dr. Bentley and accidental transmutation of his lab partner Doctor Solar into a (no longer) human atomic pile, with incredible, impossible and apparently unlimited powers and abilities. Of course, his very presence is lethal to all around him…

The espionage and murder are at the instigation mysterious Bad Actor Nuro, who seeks a total monopoly on atomic science, so when his agent targets Solar’s girlfriend Gail Sanders, our reluctant hero – still learning his potential and limitations – is forced to act fast…

Powers painted a second rousing cover (before handing the job over to Gold Key mainstay George Wilson for the rest of this collection’s inclusions) and #2 (December) opens with Nuro’s latest plot: using radio implants to turn Gail into ‘The Remote-Control Traitor’, before ill-considered, precipitate atomic testing triggers tectonic terror for the entire region on ‘The Night of the Volcano’…

By the time of Dr. Solar, Man of the Atom #3 (March 1963), a solid pattern was in place. Solar continued his researches, aided by his two confidantes, Gail and project leader Dr. Clarkson, consequently facing a wide variety of nefarious challenges and unnatural disasters, generally at a rate of two stories per issue. In ‘The Hidden Hands’ the science hero becomes a clandestine globetrotter to foil a plundering terrorist with the power of invisibility, after which Atom Valley’s own prototype weather satellite triggers atmospheric conditions which split the hero into polar opposites in ‘Solar’s Deadly Double’.

June 1963 brought #4, featuring early eco-concerns as atomic contamination to the Atlantic sees Solar scupper a certain mystery mastermind’s gold extraction engine in ‘The Deadly Sea’ prior to ‘The Treacherous Trap’ finding the Atomic Man – who must regularly absorb lethal amounts of radiation to live – accidentally endangered by fellow scientist Thor Neilsen, whose radical rad poisoning cure presents unanticipated peril. The good-looking swine has also turned poor Gail’s head with silly romantic notions…

A big change came with #5 (September) as the until-now top-secret activities of Solar are first exposed to a ruthless thief trying to steal the Atomic Ace’s latest elemental discovery in ‘The Crystallized Killers’. This, and his advancing mutation, leads to ‘The New Man of the Atom’ wherein Solar adopts a public masked persona and finally dons a costume: all whilst stopping an incipient atom war…

With #6 (November 1963) illustrator Frank Bolle joins Newman & Murphy to detail Solar’s stories, beginning with ‘The Impostor’ as Nuro despatches a face-shifting automaton to infiltrate Atom Valley and discover the masked hero’s true identity: a saga which concludes in spectacular nuclear combat in ‘Android Against the Atom’…

This volume’s action concludes with #7 (March 1964), opening with a drastic drop in sea levels. Upon investigation, Solar discovers malevolent extraterrestrials are behind the ‘Vanishing Oceans’ but no sooner does he deal with them than ‘The Guided Comet’ covertly controlled by Nuro simultaneously threatens human existence and acts as a near-foolproof deathtrap for the Man of the Atom. Almost…

Augmented by fulsome Biographies of the creative personnel, this charismatic collection offers potently underplayed and scientifically astute (as far as facts of the day were generally known) adventures blending the best of contemporary movie tropes with the still fresh but burgeoning mythology of the Silver Age super hero boom. Enticingly restrained, these Atom Age action comics offered a compelling counterpoint to the eccentric hyperbole of DC and Marvel and remain some of the most readable thrillers of the era.

These are lost gems from a time when fun was paramount and entertainment a mandatory requirement. This is comics the way they were and really should be again…
DOCTOR SOLAR®, MAN OF THE ATOM ARCHIVES Volume 1 ™ & © 2010 Random House, Inc. Under license to Classic Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

Today in 1877 pioneering US cartoonist Tad Dorgan (Indoor Sports, Judge Rummy) was born, followed in 1885 by future groundbreaking publisher Wilford Fawcett (Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, Mechanix Illustrated, Captain Marvel et al). Author Jack Willamson (Beyond Mars) arrived in 1908; Paul S. Newman in 1924; Michael Davis of Milestone Media in 1958 and cartoonist Roman Dirge (Lenore, the Cute Little Dead Girl) in 1972.

We lost Golden Age Great Paul Gustavson (Human Bomb, The Angel, The Arrow, Fantom of the Fair, Magno the Magnetic Man, Blackhawk, Uncle Sam and more) in 1977 and ultra-versatile Croatian cartoonist/comics artist Žarko Beker (Koraljka, Neven, Bobo, Špiljko, Magirus) in 2012.

Today in 1906 Lyonel Feininger’s landmark strip The Kin-der-Kids premiered in the Chicago Sunday Tribune.

Posted on

Spirou and Fantasio volume 7: The Rhinoceros’ Horn


By André Franquin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-224-9 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also contains Discriminatory Content included for comedic effect.

André Franquin was born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924 and died on January 5th 1997. In between there were good times and bad, which he offset by creating the most incredible characters and stories, and by making people laugh and think – but mostly laugh. This is one of the very best you can find translated into English.

Adventure-seeking brave lad Spirou headlined the magazine he was named for from the first issue (dated April 21st 1938). He was created by French cartoonist Françoise Robert Velter using his pen-name Rob-Vel for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis in direct response to the success of Hergé’s Tintin for rival outfit Casterman. Originally a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel (a puckish reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique), his improbable exploits with pet squirrel Spip gradually but steadily grew into high-flying, far-reaching, surreal comedy dramas. That evolution was mainly thanks to Velter’s wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939 and Belgian artist/assistant Luc Lafnet… at least until 1943 when Dupuis purchased all rights to the property, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm.

When Jijé handed his own trainee/assistant total responsibility for the flagship feature part-way through serial Spirou et la maison préfabriqué (Le Journal de Spirou #427, June 20th 1946), André Franquin ran with it for the next 20 years, enlarging the scope and horizons until it was purely his own. Almost every week fans would meet startling new characters such as comrade/rival Fantasio or crackpot inventor and Merlin of mushroom mechanics the Count of Champignac. Spirou and Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, travelling to exotic places, uncovering crimes, exploring the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of exotic arch-enemies such as Zorglub and Fantasio’s unsavoury cousin Zantafio.

Franquin, plagued in later life by bouts of depression, passed away in 1997 but his legacy remains; a vast body of work which reshaped the landscape of European comics.

With that brave experiment clearly having paid dividends over decades it’s perhaps timely to remind readers that times and taste having changed radically since then, and as such current UK publisher Cinebook felt the need to issue a heartfelt warning and carefully considered apologia regarding some content of The Rhinoceros’ Horn…

I’ll précis it here: it was seventy years ago and our attitudes to hunting, other ethnicities and especially the modern obscenity of killing for ivory and horn have thankfully changed. Please read this book with that in mind. The publishers, of course, phrased it much better…

The Rhinoceros’ Horn was originally serialised in two sequences in Le Journal de Spirou: #764-787 (Spirou et la Turbotraction) and #788-797(La corne de rhinocéros), and spanned 1952 and early 1953 before being united in 1955 hardback album La corne de rhinocéros. The story begins with Spirou exulting over the success of Fantasio’s latest enterprise – personal helicopters worn as backpacks – but discovers his pal is rather down in the dumps. The ingenious journo’s just been dressed down by his editor on The Mosquito and warned that the paper has hired a new reporter: a real go-getting hotshot. Dejected and desperate, Fantasio resolves to revive his flagging career by staging a publicity stunt: robbing the Good Bazaar Department Store…

As the rattled reporter draws up his plans and sends a warning to the store of his intentions, a colossal explosion shakes the town. Persons unknown have blown up the nearby Turbot car plant. With even more to prove now, Fantasio proceeds…

Dragged along for the ride and to photograph the stunt, Spirou and snarky squirrel Spip reluctantly join their pal in the harebrained venture. Alighting on the roof of the emporium courtesy of those petrol-powered “Fantacopters”, they deftly break in through the fire-door, Spirou recording everything with his gigantic flash camera. Of course, our lead-footed burglars make an appalling clatter and tremendous mess, but no night-watchmen confront them. They’ve all been incapacitated and tied up by real robbers…

Hearing villains approaching, the lads take refuge in a wardrobe in the bedrooms department and discover an old acquaintance already there. Behring works for Turbot and was wounded in the explosion earlier. Moreover, he’s carrying the company’s blueprints for their latest advancement. The burglars in the darkened store are actually trying to finish him off to get them. Handing the boys an envelope and begging them to get it to his employer Mr. Martin, the troubleshooter loses consciousness just as the involuntary heroes are challenged by a shadowy figure demanding the precious prize. It’s not the bad guys, however, but Fantasio’s journalistic nemesis…

Cellophine is already streets ahead of them: she knows of the plot to steal Turbot’s revolutionary supercar. All she needs is the address Behring muttered to secure an interview with the in-hiding Martin and her next terrific scoop.

…And that’s when the gun-toting goons make their move, demanding blueprints and the rendezvous address. Thankfully, Spirou is still holding the camera and super-bright flashgun…

Calamitously – and hilariously – fleeing for their lives through the darkened store, the guys eventually escape via fantacopters from the top storey, allowing Cellophine to lock the bandits up on the roof before dragging Behring to safety. Next morning the boys are in Whistleton but Martin has already fled. His note reveals nothing, but later a sinister stranger in a café advises them to surrender the blueprints and warns them not to join Mr. Martin at Bab-el-bled in North Africa.

Ignoring him and returning home, they encounter distressingly persistent Cellophine and Spirou clues her in. Sadly, the thugs have also tracked them down and overhear the plans, so when the boys catch a jet liner to Africa, heavily disguised heavies are in the seats behind them…

These villains are on the lads’ tails all though the avenues and alleyways of Bab-el-bled, before a wig malfunction in the Souk warns Spirou that they’re being shadowed and another hectic chase ensues. Thinking they’ve at last shaken their pursuers our heroes go to Martin’s house only to learn he was ambushed by the bandits…

Happily the troubled Turbot exec had escaped and fled further into North Africa. He’s apparently rushing off to the M’saragba Animal Reservation but as the boys try to follow Cellophine appears and pips them to the last spot on the plane – stowed away in the baggage hold.

Forced to follow by train, it is eight days later when Fantasio & Spirou finally reach the Reserve and yet again – as infinitely aggravating Cellophine explains – they’ve just missed Martin. He was chased into the bush by the implacable bandits…

Going after him they find him just after the thugs do. Having shot Martin, the villains are smugly gloating when the sinister stranger from Whistleton café appears. He’s a cop and finally has enough evidence to arrest them for blowing up the factory, but they are all too late. The harassed entrepreneur has already got rid of his portion of the plans, giving them to a local friend to hide.

As Martin is carried to hospital, Spirou & Fantasio volunteer to retrieve those accursed documents but have not reckoned on the quirky ingenuity of the chief of the Wakukus, the vastness of the reserve and the sheer bloody-mindedness of local flora and fauna. After days of unpleasant and painful adventures, they finally locate the safeguarding tribe and, following even more nerve-wracking moments convince the chief that they too are friends of Martin. That’s when the king delivers his bombshell…

Tasked with keeping safe the plans – now contained on a spool of microfilm – the wily Wakuku had his subjects capture a rhino before drilling a hole in its horn and sealing the container within. They then released it back into the wild. He has no idea where it is now or even which of the 200 in the park it might be…

Determined to complete their mission, the lads spend months tracking and capturing assorted beasts. The task becomes only slightly easier after they find a dipsomaniac white trader who sells them hunting gear and latterly, yellow paint so that they can tell the rhinos they’ve already checked from the ones so cunningly evading them…

It’s a backbreaking, heartbreaking and increasingly pointless task but only when their resolve crumbles and they brokenly give up and head for home do they find the prize in the very last place they looked…

Even the trip back is a tribulation, and eventually they collapse only to awake in a nice clean hospital with Martin and Cellophine offering to fill in the blanks on this baffling case. Six weeks later the lads are recuperating at home when Behring shows up. He’s got a little reward for them from the grateful Turbot Company but, as usual, Cellophine is on hand to spoil it for Fantasio…

Stuffed with superb slapstick situations, riotous Keystone Cops chases and gallons of gags, this exuberant, high-spirited yarn is a true celebration of angst-free action, thrills and spills. accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with all the beguiling style and seductively wholesome élan which makes Asterix, and Lucky Luke so compelling, this is an enduring comics treat from a long line of superb exploits, certain to be as much a household name as those series – and even that other kid with the white dog…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1955 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation 2014 © Cinebook Ltd.

Today in 1942 Underground Commix pioneer Dan O’Neill (Air Pirates Funnies, Odd Bodkins) was born, preceding both Teris Sue Wood (Wandering Star) in1965 and super-glamour artist Michael Turner (Witchblade, Fathom, Superman/Batman) in 1971.

Deaths on this date include British satirist & caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson in 1827. In 1962 Golden Age cartoonist/animator Robert Winsor McCay (Nemo in Adventureland, Impie, Bulletman, Ajax the Sun Man, Blackstone the Magician) and animator turned cartoonist Bob Wickersham (Spencer Spook, Funny Films, Ha Ha Comics, The Kilroys, The Kellys, Flippity and Flop, Colonel Punchy Penguin) both passed on as did veteran comics book illustrator Art Saaf (Sheena, Jumbo Comics, Princess Pantha, Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery, Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, The Twilight Zone, Supergirl) in 2007.

In 1938 on this date, Tif et Tondu and Spirou premiered in the debut issue of Le Journal de Spirou.

Posted on

The Steel Claw: Invisible Man


By Ken Bulmer & Jesús Blasco & various (Rebellion)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-906-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

One of the most fondly-remembered British strips of all time is the startlingly beautiful Steel Claw. From 1962 to 1973 the stunningly gifted Jesús Blasco and his small studio of family members thrilled the nation’s children, illustrating the angst-filled adventures of scientist, adventurer, secret agent and even – occasionally – costumed superhero Louis Crandell.

The majority of the character’s career was scripted by comic veteran Tom Tully, but initially follows the premise of HG Wells’ original unseen adversary with prolific science fiction novelist Ken Bulmer devising a modern spin and contemporary twist on The Invisible Man.

Another superb salvo of baby boomer nostalgia from Rebellion’s Treasury of British Comics strand, initial collection The Steel Claw: Invisible Man gathers material from beloved and enduring weekly anthology Valiant, spanning 6th October 1962 to 21st September 1963 and also includes stories from the Valiant Annuals for 1965 and 1966.

Following an Introduction from Paul Grist, the tense drama begins with our (eventual) hero debuting as a rather surly assistant to the venerable Professor Barringer, working to create a germ-destroying ray. Crandell is an embittered man, possibly due to having lost his right hand in a lab accident. After its replacement with a steel prosthetic and his notional recovery, he is back at work when the prof’s new device explodes. Crandell receives a monumental electric shock and is bathed in radiation from the ray-device which, rather than killing him, renders him totally transparent. Although he doesn’t stay unseen forever, this bodily mutation is permanent. Electric shocks cause all but his metal hand to disappear.

Kids of all ages, do not try this at home!

Whether venal at heart or temporarily deranged, Crandell goes on a rampage of terror against society and destruction of property culminating in an attempt to blow up New York City before finally coming to his senses. Throughout Crandell’s outrages, Barringer is in guilt-fuelled pursuit, determined to save or stop his former friend…

The second adventure channels another classic (The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde), intriguingly pitting the Claw against his therapist, who – in an attempt to treat him – is also traumatically and life-changingly exposed to Barringer’s ray. Instead of permanent invisibility, Dr. Deutz develops the ability to transform himself into a bestial ape-man who malevolently turns to crime and frames Crandell for a series of spectacular robberies and outrages.

On the run and innocent for once, Crandell is saved by the intervention of Barringer’s niece Terry Gray. After weeks of beast-triggered catastrophe and panic in the streets, the Steel Claw is vindicated and proved a hero …of sorts…

Bulmer’s next tale changes location to the Bahamas as our star shifts from outlaw to hero. While recuperating on an inventor-friend’s yacht, Crandell is accidentally embroiled in a modern-day pirate’s attempt to hijack an undersea super-weapon system. After would-be bullion bandit Sharkey and his nefarious gang steal the device and use it to capture a submarine, their convoluted scheme to rob an ocean liner finally falters when a steel-fisted ghost starts picking them off one by one…

More than any other comics character, the Steel Claw was a barometer for reading fashions. Starting out as a Quatermass-style cautionary sci fi tale, the strip mimicked fresh trends of the greater world, becoming a James Bond-style superspy strip with Crandall eventually tricked out with outrageous gadgets, and latterly, a masked-&-costumed super-doer when TV-show-sparked “Batmania” gripped the nation and the world.

When that bubble burst, he resorted to becoming a freelance adventurer, combating eerie menaces and vicious criminals. However, before we head too far down that path, his potent contributions to Valiant Annuals 1965 and 1966 – respectively released in Autumn 1964 and 1965 – afford rather more constrained thrills and chills as Crandell defeats a gang using an electricity-supressing gadget to rob a blacked-out London and (one year later) assists the Metropolitan Police force in corralling a bunch of apparently invisible bandits dubbed the Phantom Raiders…

The thrills of the writing are engrossing enough, but the real star of this feature is the artwork. Blasco’s captivating classicist drawing, his moody staging and the sheer beauty of his subjects make this an absolute pleasure to look at. Buy it for the kids and read it too; this is a glorious book, and brace yourself for even better yet to come…
© 1962, 1963, 1965, 1966 & 2021 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1949 actor turned comics writer John Ostrander (Oracle, The Spectre, Grimjack, Firestorm, Suicide Squad, Star Wars, Magnus Robot Fighter) was born, as was Norwegian creator Christopher Nielson (To Trøtte Typer) in 1963 and funny, funny guy Evan Dorkin (Milk and Cheese, Welcome to Eltingville, Dork, Beasts of Burden) in 1965.

In 1968 comedy master and Katzenjammer Kids creator Rudolph Dirks died. And while we remember laughing, let’s celebrate that Crockett Johnson’s astounding 10-year wonder Barnaby debuted on this date in 1942.

Posted on

The Phantom – The Complete Series: The Charlton Years Volume Two


By Pat Boyette, Joe Gill, D. J. Arn
eson & various (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-1-61345-032-1 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In the 17th century a British sailor survived an attack by pirates, and, washing ashore on the African coast, swore on the skull of his murdered father to dedicate his life and that of all his descendants to destroying all pirates and criminals. The Phantom fights crime and injustice from a base deep in the jungles of Bengali, and throughout Africa is known as the “Ghost Who Walks”…

His unchanging appearance and unswerving war against injustice have led to him being considered an immortal avenger by the credulous and the wicked. Down the decades one hero after another has fought and died in an unbroken family line, and the latest wearer of the mask, indistinguishable from the first, continues the never-ending battle.

Lee Falk created the Jungle Justice dealer at the request of his syndicate employers who were already making history, public headway and loads of money with his first strip sensation Mandrake the Magician, and although technically not the first ever costumed hero in comics, The Phantom’s astounding popularity made him the prototype paladin: wearing the later demi-compulsory skintight bodystocking and mask with opaque eye-slits.

He debuted on February 17th 1936 (Yep! Ninety nonstop years!!) in an extended sequence pitting him against a global confederation of pirates called the Singh Brotherhood. Falk wrote and drew the daily strip for the first two weeks before handing over the illustration side to artist Ray Moore. A hugely successful Sunday feature began in May 1939. However, for such a long-lived and influential series, in terms of compendia or graphic collections, The Phantom has been very poorly served by the English language market – except in Australia where he has always been accorded the status of a pop culture god.

Numerous companies had begun releasing books of the strips – one of the longest continually running adventure serials in publishing history – but in no systematic or chronological order and never with any sustained success, but, even if only of historical value (or just printed for Australians), surely the mysterious Mr. Kit Walker was worthy of a definitive chronological compendium series?

Happily, and perhaps because of the tights and mask, his comic book adventures have fared slightly better – especially in recent times. From November 1962 through July 1966, all new adventures were published by West Coast giant Gold Key Comics after which King Features Syndicate dabbled with a comic book line of their biggest stars – including Popeye, Blondie, Flash Gordon, Mandrake and The Phantom – between 1966 and 1967. When they gave up the ghost (see what I did there?), plucky dependable, cheap Charlton Comics were there to pick up the slack…

The Phantom was no stranger to funnybooks, having appeared since the Golden Age in titles like Feature Book and Harvey Hits, albeit only as reformatted newspaper strip reprints. Gold Key’s efforts were tailored to a big page and a young readership, a model King Features maintained for their own run, but which was carefully tweaked when Charlton acquired the license. This splendid full-colour tome gathers the contents of The Phantom #39-47 (originally released between August 1970 and December 1971) and opens with an erudite Introduction and appreciation from Don Mangus who reveals everything of the history and involvement of a much-sidelined star in ‘Sworn to the Oath of the Skull – Pat Boyette’.

San Antonio born on 27th July 1923, Aaron P. Boyette was pure mythical Texan: self-taught in everything that mattered and unstoppably confident. A true and tireless entrepreneur, he was a key component of the development of commercial radio in Texas: a journalist who researched, wrote, broadcast, managed, and presented shows. If you’ve read Golden Age Green Lantern, everyman hero Alan Scott – who did all the jobs – could have been patterned on Pat…

Boyette forsook burgeoning stardom to become a cryptographer during WWII. Coming out, he performed the same do-it-all trick with early television and later moved into making movies. After anchoring TV news, he abruptly moved sideways again, and took to comics: writing, editing, lettering, painting and illustrating as Pat Boyette, Sam Swell, Alexander Barnes & Bruce Lovelace.

Working for Charlton, DC, Warren, Archie, Acclaim; a host of eighties indie outfits and as a self-publisher, he produced newspaper strip Captain Flame; drew prestigious DC title Blackhawk; and found a lasting home at Charlton Comics. Here Boyette co-created The Peacemaker and assumed creative duties on Pete (“PAM”) Morisi’s Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt. As the superhero boom faded he increasingly output on their anthological lines, crafting hundreds of genre short stories for romance, war, western horror, science fiction, fantasy and other titles. Boyette also handled Charlton’s biggest and most high-profile licensed features including The Six Million Dollar Man; Space: 1999; Korg: 70,000 B.C; Flash Gordon; Jungle Jim and the company’s runaway top seller: The Phantom. Boyette’s work was continually published at Charlton until at least 1986 when the outfit was being wrapped up. He readily adapted to the growing indie market, with his last work appearing in DC/Paradox Press’s The Big Book of the Weird Wild West in 1998.

Pat Boyette died of oesophageal cancer on January 14th, 2000 in Fort Worth, Texas.

The majority of the bi-monthly yarns here are scripted by Boyette, backed up by Joe Gill in #40, 41 & 45 (and also perhaps occasionally by predecessor scripter D.J. Arneson?): utterly workmanlike and hitting all the expected bases, with each issue offering a pictorial Contents Page teaser and terse, spartan, stripped-back action; mystery yarns with themes and plots that readers of newspapers and dyed-in-the-wool superhero fans could appreciate equally. There are plenty of mad scientists, aliens, monsters, war criminals, brutal beasts, sadistic potentates, thieves & pirates and many admiring women, but no costumed villains…

We open with The Phantom #39 as ‘A Small War!’ sees a ruthless filmmaker provoke conflict between old tribal friends until the Ghost-Who-Walks steps in, after which the hero foils thinly-disguised Nazis seeking to recover lost gold from the ‘Canyon of Death!’, and scuppers ‘The Silent Thieves!’ using their U-Boat to raid a river-adjacent diamond mine…

Boyette and his associates often sagely left their time period vague and unconfirmed, allowing creative anachronism to play out in tales that could often be starring earlier Phantoms of the undying dynasty. In #40, following a sample of original art pages, a wryly fond homage to earlier legends sees the masked marvel battle once again a giant warrior with quarterstaffs over a river crossing in ‘The Ritual’, before a vengeful criminal frames the Phantom for multiple murders with a diabolical device leaving his death’s head signature – ‘The False Mark’ – on native victims. The issue closes with a distraught heiress seeking her long-missing father and momentarily gulled by ‘The Second Phantom’ until the true titan turns up…

Scripted by Joe Gill, #41’s opener ‘Slave of Beauty’ sees our hero captured by an immortal queen resurrecting her fallen desert empire through slavery. However, Hegara is not all she seems and the Jungle Juggernaut readily crushes her dream before chasing a stolen Bandar treasure across the world. Savagely seized by murderous white hunter Waldo Brunn, ‘The Idol’ is only ultimately recovered after a bizarre alliance, and is followed by a devious clash with a ‘Deadly Foe’ developing viruses in the wilderness who proves to be anything but…

The Phantom #42 opens with a cruel high-tech attack on elephants perpetrated by plutocratic monster Rama Jahn and requiring all the ingenuity of the Ghost-Who-Walks to save the ‘Keeper of the Herd!’, before a simple good deed generates chaos in ‘Who Needs Enemies?’ Seeking to repay his debt, multi-millionaire E.R. Randall bombards the Bengali villagers with gifts and money that disrupt their lives. Moreover, he’s extremely unhappy when they begin to reject his unwanted largesse…

‘Prey of the Hunter’ then reveals what must be done when hunter Hugo Lusk becomes addicted to killing and the Judge of the Jungle must stop the slaughter, Sadly, that involves first becoming Lusk’s latest trophy…

Up front in #43 ‘Test of an Idol!’, finds fabulously attractive, utterly spoiled screen star Iris Benton attempting – and initially succeeding – in beguiling the hero and making The Phantom her latest conquest. Thus he permits a movie of his exploits and even participates but is tragically unprepared when her allure crosses the species barrier and leads to her abduction by apes!

A clever use of the hero’s historical longevity drives ‘Paid in Full’ when the descendent of a long-dead British victim of jungle larceny (saved by a Ghost who Walked in 1653) demands reparations – and compound interest – on a sum of money that went missing at the time. Happily Edward Cowper-Smythe is reasonable man…

The issue closed with a clash against most modern witchdoctor Medugli, who refused to follow the Phantom’s Peace and returned to torment the Bandari with a technological terror-weapon provided by colonising secret allies. Happily, ‘The Rain Stopper!’ was no mystery to the hero and ecological catastrophe was averted in the nick of time

In #44, ‘To Right a Wrong!’ sees marauding Achmid Raj successfully plunder the fabled Skull Cave only to be hunted down by the Ghost Who Walks, after which ‘Danger in Bengali’ reintroduces the contemporary hero’s true love Diana Palmer who regrettably arrives at the Cave just as a diabolical, piratical impostor is plundering it. Taken hostage she soon learns that her man – and his wolf Devil – are not dead, but in hot pursuit and really, really angry…

When replacement Bandari witch-man Zulanga proves just as nefarious as his predecessor, The Phantom again exiles him, and almost pays a fatal price as the wily rogue covertly returns with serpents and poisons to inflict ‘Death from Far Away!’ Almost…

A rare Phantom failure is rectified after 105 years in #45’s opening saga ‘Return of the Ruby!’ as the descendent of the hero who lost an unparalleled gem to bandits locates the precious prize. Now he must solve the moral dilemma of depriving its current – honest and innocent – owner to restore it to the family of the original ones…

In 1777, as tyrannical Captain Mustaphi ravaged the seas around Tripoli, an alliance to scuttle the slavers’ schemes paired an earlier Ghost Guardian with a Revolutionary War icon in ‘Phantom and John Paul Jones’ before a return to the present sees the death of the Bandar monarch and a vigil in the ‘Cave of Kings’. Happily The Phantom is paying his respects when hostile blood-enemies the Yumyu attempt to slaughter the grieving subjects and steal the incomparable grave goods…

The Phantom and Diana face devilish duplicates and legendary cult terrors the Leopardmen in #46’s lead yarn ‘Last of the Cat’, only to learn that vengeful old enemy Felix Cattmann is out of jail and behind all the Leopard-y jeopardy (sorry not sorry!) after which fantasy blends with larceny as Piranha Men raid the Skull Cave from the lakes and rivers beneath it. Of course, ‘The Vanishing Thieves!’ grievously underestimated the hero’s lung capacity and resolve, and their defeat lonely led to the Ghost Who Walks daring a deadly mountain peak to rescue abducted princess Inja from slave-raider Kruug and the eagles defending the ‘Nest of the Man-Eaters’…

Last issue in this tome of thrills and terrors, The Phantom #47 offered another trio of wild adventures beginning with entry into ‘The False Skull Cave’ constructed after avaricious Busas used government spy-plane systems to map vast “undiscovered” Bengali and ferret out the location of the world’s greatest treasure store. Of course, finding either cave or escaping alive were entirely different matters…

In ‘Soundless Voices!’ another cunning attempt to replace the Ghost with a diabolical doppelganger is foiled by the hero’s ferocious will to live and the long-range communications net of whale song, before the episodes pause after exposure to ‘The Vapors of Vulcan’. When Morpheus Negri, the mostly-dormant volcano in a remote corner of Bengali erupts again, the incredible immortals who live within it again plunder and ravage the land, seeking slave-prospects from the fittest of surface dwellers Who could they possibly pick this millennium?

Undying ruler Brilla has faced a Phantom long before and this one also rejects her offer of eternal “companionship” and escapes her alternate tactic of being consumed to sustain her energies for another century…

Packed and peppered throughout with pages of Boyette original art, this is another riveting, nostalgia-drenched triumph: straightforward, stripped down, nonstop rollicking action-adventure that has always been the staple of comics fiction and the Ghost Who Walks. If that sounds like a good time to you, this is a traditional action-fest you must not miss…
The Phantom® © 1970-1971 and 2013 King Features Syndicate, Inc. ® Hearst Holdings, Inc. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

Today in 1946 horror story mangaka Hideshi Hino (Hell Baby, Hino Horrors, Panorama of Hell) was born, whilst strip debuts include Russell Myers’ Broom Hilda in 1970 and Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks in 2006. We lost crucial Disney animator Milt Kahl in 1987, DC cartoonist Henry Boltinoff in 2001 and Mexican creator/founder of their Academy of Arts Alberto Beltrán a year later.