Category: Science Fiction

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Batman: The Black Casebook


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter volume 1


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Marsupilami volume 9: The Butterfly and the Treetop Squid


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Marvel Masterworks Golden Age Sub-Mariner volume 2


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Dreaming City was the first Elric story Moorcock released, published in pulp periodical Science Fantasy #47 (June 1961). A sensational instant hit, the Last Emperor became the vanguard of a modern revival of the weird fantasy form and an inadvertent foundation stone for the new-born role-playing game market. Its transition to comics began as an adaptation by Roy Thomas & P. Craig Russell: released as a the second Marvel Graphic Novel in 1982.

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

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

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

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

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

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Showcase Presents Hawkman volume 2


By Gardner F. Fox & Murphy Anderson, Bob Haney, Dick Dillon, Arnold Drake, Raymond Marais, Robert Kanigher, Denny O’Neill, Johnny Craig, Chuck Cuidera, Gil Kane, Sid Greene, Joe Giella, Joe Kubert & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1817-1 (TPB)

After fighting long and hard to win his own title it was such a pity that time and fashion seemed to conspire against the Winged Wonder…

Katar Hol and his wife Shayera Thal were police officers on their own highly advanced planet of Thanagar. They originally travelled to Earth from the star system Polaris in pursuit of a shape-changing spree-thief named Byth but stayed to study Earth police methods in the cultural metropolis of Midway City. This all occurred in the wonderful ‘Creature of a Thousand Shapes’ in The Brave and the Bold #34 (cover-dated February/March 1961), but the public was initially resistant and it was three years and many further issues, guest-shots and even a back-up feature in Mystery in Space before the Winged Warriors finally won their own title.

Cover-dated April/May 1964, Hawkman #1 signalled the beginning of a superb run of witty, thrilling, imaginative and hugely entertaining science fiction, crime-mystery and superhero adventures that captivated the devoted but still painfully small audience. All those wonderful stories can be found in Showcase Presents Hawkman volume 1, and hopefully one day in proper full-colour archival editions both paper and pixel forms.

Until then there’s this second, concluding Showcase volume, reprinting in crisp efficient monochrome Hawkman (volume 1) #12-27, Brave and the Bold (volume 1) #70, The Atom (volume 1) #31 and avian portions of last-ditch combination-comic The Atom and Hawkman #39-45, spanning cover-dates February/March 1966 to November 1969.

All-out action and sci fi thrills and spills recommence with a large-scale cosmic epic that originally debuted in Hawkman #12. ‘The Million-Year-Long War!’ is pure Gardner Fox bravura storytelling, recounting how a Thanagarian exploration team awakens two aliens determined to kill each other even after eons of suspended animation. That reawakened enmity drove them both to possess all Thanagar, turning Hawkman’s homeworld into one huge weapon. As usual Fox’s imaginings are gloriously illustrated by Murphy Anderson (Superman, Atomic Knights, The Spectre, Captain Comet, Adam Strange, Korak, Son of Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, Buck Rogers) – as they would be until Julie Schwartz surrendered editorial control with issue #22.

Hawkman #13 offered startling time-bending saga ‘Quest of the Immortal Queen!’ wherein a Valkyrie from Earth’s far future opted to add the Winged Wonder to her seraglio of lusty warriors plucked from history. Happily, wife Shayera strenuously objects and is both smart and tough enough to sort things out. Fox’s treatment of female characters was highly unique for those pre-feminist times: all his heroines – a large number of them wives, not wishy-washy “girlfriends” – were capable, intelligent and most importantly, wholly independent and autonomous individuals.

Hawkgirl was written as every bit her husband’s equal. The Hawks had one of the most subtle and sophisticated relationships in the business. Like Sue and Ralph Dibney (Elongated Man & wife) Katar and Shayera were full partners (both couples clearly influenced by Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man movies) and the interplay between them was always rich in humour and warmth.

As a sign of the times, super-secret criminal conspirators C.A.W. (Criminal Alliance of the World) returned to seize control of the ‘Treasure of the Talking Head!’ This ancient computer was built before the birth of Christ and held all the world’s knowledge, and was a hard-won prize prior to the Pinioned Paladins facing a fantastic monster in ‘Scourge of the Human Race!’: an encounter revealing the true history of humanity when the last surviving specimen of Homo Sapiens’ earliest rival for mastery of the planet attempts to reverse evolution…

Hawkman #16’s ‘Lord of the Flying Gorillas!’ was a dimension-hopping sequel to issue #6 (‘World Where Evolution Ran Wild’): an incredible Lost Worlds romp combining secret history, fantastic fantasy and DC’s fabled fascination with apes and simians of every sort, whilst #17’s ‘Ruse of the Robbing Raven’ changed pace with a clever costumed crook caper. The issue also contained the first short back-up tale in over a year – another science-based whodunnit entitled ‘Enigma of the Escape-Happy Jewel Thieves!’

Hawkman then guest-starred – and clashed – with Batman in The Brave and the Bold #70 (February/March 1967). ‘Cancelled: 2 Super-Heroes’ was by Bob Haney, EC legend Johnny Craig & Charles “Chuck” Cuidera depicting the usually comradely crimebusters at each other’s throats due to the machinations of a manic millionaire who collected secret identities. Later that month in his own title the Winged Wonder teamed with Adam Strange against malevolent Manhawks to locate the ‘World That Vanished!’ The planet in question was Thanagar and when it went, it took beloved Shayera with it…

This colossal tale concluded in the next issue with the action-packed ‘Parasite Planet Peril!’ after which the Avian Ace joined his old ally in The Atom #31 for ‘Good Man, Bad Man, Turnabout Thief!’ (Fox, Gil Kane & Sid Greene) to battle a phantom super-criminal hidden within the brain of an innocent man. Katar Hol returned to home ground for Hawkman #20’s ‘Death of the Living Flame’: a classy anthropological tomb-raiding yarn and the introduction of a new and persistent foe in ‘Lion-Mane… the Tabu Menace!’

The alien-infected leonine marauder was back in the very next issue but ‘Attack of the Jungle Juggernaut!’– a typically classy thriller for Fox &Anderson – was their swan song. Admin trading saw them bowing out as Julius Schwartz moved to more important titles and – with #22 – George Kashdan took over Hawkman’s editorial reins. He tapped his go-to guys Haney, Dick Dillin & Cuidera to continue the adventures of the Winged Wonders in a market increasingly indifferent to costumed characters.

‘Quoth the Falcon… Hawkman Die!…’ certainly hit the ground running in a tale of extraterrestrial-induced paranoia and civil unrest, resulting in Hawkman revealing his secret identity and alien heritage to an increasingly hostile and intolerant Earth…

In #23 ‘The Hawkman from 1,000,000 B.C.!’ delivered another dark, moody tale wherein a mad scientist’s time-plundering ray inflicts dinosaurs, ancient warriors and an amnesiac Hawkman on the shell-shocked citizens of Midway City. Arnold Drake scripted alien invasion epic ‘The Robot-Raiders from Planet Midnight!’ and Haney resurfaced for ‘Return of the Death Goddess!’ offering Shayera Thal’s brief but ghastly possession by the ghost of the mythical Medusa…

The writing was on the wall by June-July 1968 and the prophetically entitled ‘Last Stand on Thanagar!’(#26  scripted by Raymond Marais), was a rushed inconsequential affair preceding final tale ‘…When the Snow-Fiend Strikes!’ which ended Hawkman’s solo career with a muddled tale of Communist agents and Yetis in the Himalayas.

The close of the 1960s were bad times for superheroes. Buying tastes had changed and a drop in comic sales and attendant rise of interest in supernatural themes prompted publishers to drop or amend much of the anti-horror provisions of the Comics Code Authority. Tales of mystery and imagination were returning after nearly a decade-and-a-half, but sales figures notwithstanding, Julie Schwartz had worked too hard to just let Hawkman die. Just as Marvel were converting their double-feature “split books” into solo titles, the Avian Ace was crammed into the equally-struggling Atom comic title for one last year of trying. Beginning with #39 (October/November 1968 and carrying on the numbering of the Tiny Titan’s title) The Atom and Hawkman featured some of Schwartz’s biggest creative guns, alternating short solo stories with shared adventures. The first of these was ‘Vengeance of the Silver Vulture!’: an epic clash against resurgent Mayan death-cultists written by Bob Kanigher, illustrated by Anderson & Joe Giella with cover art by Joe Kubert – who would also contribute interior art to the feature he struggled so long and hard to create.

Written by Fox, pencilled by Kubert and inked by Anderson, the Hawkman portion of #40 – ‘Man with the Inbuilt Panic Button!’ and its sequel ‘Yo-Yo Hangup in the Sky!’ from #41 – are one last splendid slice of the “Good Old Days”: an intriguing mystery about an ordinary man who suddenly develops the power of teleportation – but only from one life-threatening crisis to a greater one…

Denny O’Neil joined Dick Dillin & Sid Greene for ‘When the Gods Make Madness!’, a full-length team-up pitting heroes against Hindu gods, before Kanigher revived the Golden Age Hawkman’s greatest foe The Gentleman Ghost in 2-part saga ‘Come to my Hanging!’ and concluding clash ‘The Ghost Laughs Last’, both limned by Anderson.

The Atom and Hawkman #45 was the FINAL final issue: a revelatory psycho-drama by O’Neil, Dillin & Greene starring both heroes. It wrapped up their comic tenure and set them up with a prolonged series of further adventures to be seen in Justice League of America (a veritable lifeboat for cancelled costumed crime-fighters at that time) and later 1970s’ series like Secret Society of Super-Villains and Super Team Family.

‘Queen Jean, Why Must We Die?’ revealed the Atom’s fiancée Jean Loring was descended from aliens who had crashed on Earth in the Stone Age. Returned from sub-molecular exile, the modern-day survivors of the accident drove her insane because their hereditary rulers must be free of all care. The heroes rescue but not cure her, and this tale would provide the basis for Loring’s actions in later sagas Identity Crisis and Countdown to Final Crisis. Apart from the JLA, occasional guest-spots and back-up features in Action and Detective Comics that was it for the Winged Wonders until changing tastes and times gave them another, indeed many other, shots at the stars.

Hawkman briefly grew into one of the most iconic characters of the second superhero boom, not just for the superb art but also because of brilliant, subtle writing and incomparable imagination. These tales are comfortably familiar but grippingly timeless. Yet comics are a funny business; circumstances, tastes and fashions often mean that wonderful works are missed and unappreciated.

Don’t make the same mistake readers did in the 1960s. Together with its first volume this book captures and perfectly preserves the very essence of the Silver Age of Superheroes. Whatever your own vintage, read these astounding adventures and become a fan. It’s never too late.
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Mac Raboy’s Flash Gordon volume 3


By Mac Raboy & Don Moore (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1569719787 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

By almost every metric, Flash Gordon is the most influential comic strip in the world. When the hero debuted on Sunday January 7th 1934 (with equally superb Jungle Jim running as a supplementary “topper” strip), it was a slick, sophisticated answer to Philip Nolan & Dick Calkins’ revolutionary, ideas-packed, inspirational, but quirkily clunky Buck Rogers (which had also launched on January 7th – albeit in 1929), with two fresh elements added to the wonderment: Classical Lyricism and Poetic Dynamism. The newcomer became a weekly invitation to stunningly exotic glamour and astonishing beauty.

Where Buck merged traditional adventure with groundbreaking science concepts, Flash reinterpreted fairy tales, hero epics and mythology, draping them in the spectacular trappings of contemporary futurism, with the varying “rays”, “engines” and “motors” of modern pulp sci fi substituting for trusty swords and lances. There were also plenty of those too – and exotic craft and contraptions stood in for galleons, chariots and magic carpets. Look closely, though, and you’ll see cowboys, gangsters and of course, flying saucer fetishes adding contemporary flourish to the fanciful fables. The narrative trick made the far-fetched satisfactorily familiar – and was continued with contemporary trends and innovations by Austin Briggs and Don Moore before Mac Raboy, (with Moore and Robert Rogers) took over the Sunday strips in a tenure lasting from 1948 to 1967.

The sheer artistic talent of Raymond, his compositional skills, fine linework, eye for clean, concise detail and just plain genius for drawing beautiful people and things, swiftly made this the strip that all young artists swiped from literally all over the world. When original material comic books began a few years later, many talented kids used Gordon as their model and ticket to future success in the field of adventure strips. Almost all the others went with Raymond’s stylistic polar opposite: emulating Milton Caniff’s expressionist masterwork Terry and the Pirates (and to see one of his better disciples check out Beyond Mars, limned by wonderful Lee Elias).

Flash Gordon began on present-day Earth (which was 1934, remember?) with a wandering world about to smash into our planet. As global panic ensued, polo player Flash and fellow passenger Dale Arden narrowly escaped disaster when a meteor fragment downed their airliner. They landed on the estate of tormented genius Dr. Zarkov, who imprisoned them in the rocket-ship he had built. His plan? To fly the ship directly at the astral invader and deflect it from Earth by crashing into it!

Thus began a decade of sheer escapist magic in a Ruritanian Neverland: a blend of Camelot, Oz and a hundred other fantasy realms promising paradise yet concealing vipers, ogres and demons, all cloaked in a glimmering sheen of sleek scientific speculation. Worthy adversaries such as utterly evil yet magnetic Ming, emperor of the fantastic wandering planet; myriad exotic races and shattering conflicts offered a fantastic alternative to drab and dangerous reality for millions of avid readers around the world.

With Moore handling the majority of the scripting, Alex Raymond’s ‘On the Planet Mongo’ ran every Sunday until 1944, when the artist joined the Marines. On his return, he forsook wild imaginings for sober reality: creating gentleman-detective Rip Kirby. The public’s unmissable weekly appointment with wonderment perforce continued under the artistic auspices of Austin Briggs – who had drawn the monochrome daily instalments since 1940.

In 1948, eight years after beginning his career drawing for the Harry A. Chesler production “shop”, comic book artist Emmanuel “Mac” Raboy took over illustrating the Sunday page. Moore remained as scripter and began co-writing with the new artist.

Raboy’s sleek, fine-line brush style – heavily influenced by his idol Raymond – had made his work on Captain Marvel Jr., Kid Eternity and especially Green Lama a pinnacle of artistic quality in the early days of the proliferating superhero genre. His seemingly inevitable assumption of Flash Gordon’s extraordinary exploits led to a renaissance of the strip and in a rapidly evolving post-war world, it became once more a benchmark of timeless, hyper-realistic quality escapism which only Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant could match. This third 260-page paperback volume – produced in landscape format, printed in stark monochrome and still criminally out-of-print and long overdue for a fresh edition – opens after a gripping and informative appraisal of Raboy in Bruce (Incredible Hulk, Arena, Silverheels, Ka-Zar the Savage) Jones’ Introduction ‘The Body Aerodynamic’. Then it’s blast-off time. again…

Sequence 68 ‘Missiles from Neptune’ began on January 19th 1958 and closed the previous cliffhanging volume barely weeks in. It resumes here with the episode for February 30th and carries on until March 9th, revealing how the oppressive Tyrant of Neptune seeks to impress and cow into submission his already-captive populace by testing deadly new Weapons of Interplanetary Destruction against hapless planet Earth.

The callous campaign prompts Flash to go and discourage him, but after superbly succeeding the conquering hero is lost in the interplanetary void and forced to build a survival nest inside an asteroid. His ingenuity as a ‘Robinson Crusoe in Space’ (16th March – 27th April) once more demonstrates the compelling power of straight, hard science storytelling (especially at a time when America was locked in a space race of its own), but it’s back to fantastic empires and extragalactic terror for his next exploit as Earth is menaced by ‘The Z Bomb Cloud’ (4th May – 15th June).

Long after a far-distant civilisation destroys itself, the deadly fallout of its doomsday weapon drifts into Earth orbit, threatening all terrestrial life. When Zarkov’s desperate plan to intercept the cloud goes wrong, someone must sacrifice themself to save us all…

Obviously, just this once it isn’t Flash, but the potent drama peaks with appropriate tragedy and sentiment anyway, before sequence S071 taps into the sheer burgeoning wonderment of the era as Flash and Dale help big game hunter Brian Farr prove the existence of uncanny unseen cryptids he calls ‘Stratosphere Beasts’ (22nd June – 17th August). These invisible beasts apparently dwell far above Earth’s highest mountain tops, so the endeavour takes the humans to the top of Everest where the unknown isn’t the only trial they face…

From 24th August to October 12th S072 told how the ace space pilot was embroiled in a commercial show-race to the outer planets. However, the ‘Rocket Derby’ is apparently less about proving whose ship is best and more about rich, spoiled obsessive competitors Morgan Bates and Babara “Bobcat” Kathryns realising how close hate is to love…

Along the way, Dale is dragged into the competition after hearing macho males telling Bobcat that space is no place for women, even as hired gun Flash suffers numerous sabotage attempts. It’s almost like there’s an unknown fifth element acting on their own agenda…

It’s back to dramatic basics for ‘Moon Wreck’ (S073, running from 19th October to December 14th) wherein Gordon attempts to rescue an arrogant playboy and his latest dalliance from a self-inflicted crash and subsequent marooning on Luna. The pilot’s every valiant effort is hampered by the autocrat’s privilege, greed, stupidity and cowardice, vain starlet’s Elyse Elan’s venality, and the deadly environment they both refuse to take seriously…

Gordon’s piloting skills land him in more trouble in ‘The Ship of Gold’ (S074: December 21st 1958 to January 2nd 1959) when he captains a transport of mining machinery and tons of cash to Mars, only to have the ship stolen out from under him with Dale trapped aboard. The evil mastermind is old college colleague Nicky Hamilton, but when the boastful villain abandons current girlfriend Jet in a ruthless attempt to loose Flash in the airless wastes of Titan, he seals his own fate and accidentally exposes a major threat to Earth in succeeding saga ‘The Skorpi’ (February 8th – April 5th)…

Left for dead, Flash and Dale fall through Titan’s surface to discover an insectoid alien invasion force. Skorpi can become copies of humans and are well advanced in a plot to infiltrate Earth, but aren’t quick enough to outwit Flash, especially once he befriends captive telepathic ET Brunn. His gigantic kind are Gorgins and with their allies The Dhreen have been battling Skorpi for 30,000 years. Together, the new pals whip up a plan to defeats this particular incursion…

Brunn then adapts a ship to Faster-Than-Light drive and accompanies Flash on a ‘Flight for Help’ (S076: April 12th – June 7th), beseeching Dhreen’s Council of Elders for military aid. Instead, the embassage is covertly targeted by their other client vassals – like Brunn’s own Gorgin race – who fear their share of aid will be diminished if the benign overlords help yet another endangered species…

Plots become assassination attempts, but only accidentally expose Skorpi infiltration, leading Brunn and Gordon to further corruption, exile and ultimately capture by a hidden race who dwell unsuspected in a ‘City of Glass’ (S077: June 14th to August 23rd). Condemned to death for breaking the metropolis’ sacrosanct isolation, the wanderers are only saved by lovely, sympathetic Flara, who aids the human’s escape back to the Solar system but keeps adorable Brunn by her side…

The Earthman only makes it as far as the second rock from the Sun and S078 (August 30th – November 1st) radically changes pace for a ‘Venus Mystery’ wherein human colonists face disaster as their Bajo crop is targeted by “swamp devils”. In an early lesson in green land management, crash-landed Flash aids ecologist Dirk Van Meer in proving to the furious farmers how badly wrong they have got things, what is actually to blame for all the chaos and carnage and how to fix it…

Immediate emergency over, Flash finally reaches Earth to find Zarkov impatiently waiting. Before he can catch his breath the steadfast starman is dragooned into a dangerous new experiment with cyberneticist Dr. Else Neilson having him ride along as a fallback option as she “road-tests” her ‘Robot Spaceship’ (S079: November 8th 1959 to 17th 1960). Fully automated – and what we’d call AI – the ship has human safety as its core drive, but of course, human and mechanical opinions on what exactly that means differ extensively…

Thanks in large part to Flash Gordon, spaceship technology has rapidly advanced and he is selected to pilot the first human-built FTL drive ship. The Columbus will ferry ‘The Star Miners’ (S080: January 24th – March 27th) to another star system, reap mineral wealth and set up a colony. However, the directives of chief advisor Dr. Zarkov are constantly challenged and ultimately overruled by gang-boss Mr. Birk, who can only think of glory and a big fat bonus promised for prompt completion and delivery…

Arriving on unexplored planet Karst, Zarkov again urges patience and caution, but is first sidelined and then arrested once Flash undertakes his secondary mission of exploration. By the time the hero returns the entire expedition is close to extinction and only drastic measures can save them all…

On returning to Earth, welcome shore-leave ends in catastrophe when Flash is shanghaied by “entrepreneurs” Roni and Captain Graz: kidnapped into space and ordered to pilot their ship or die. They need someone able to deliver potentially ‘Deadly Cargo’ (S081: April 3rd to June 12th) and navigate through the asteroid belt to mineral-rich big rock Juno, where a huge diamond strike has created urgent demand for explosives. It’s also a race setting competitive old rivals at each other’s throats and costs plenty of nefarious lives before Gordon gets ramshackle freighter Pollux down (relatively) safely…

Subsequent attempts to get off Juno turn wild and dangerous in ‘The Soil Divers’ (S082: June 19th – August 28th) when Flash is suckered into an ongoing resource war on the mining asteroid. Scientist Ben Corelli has devised a means of passing through solid matter, but fallen under the spell of avaricious faithless Roni and her new heavy Snapper Kaye, sparking violent conflict amongst those desperate diggers stuck using old methods of extracting mineral wealth. Soon, the attempts to seize Corelli’s breakthrough tech leads to murder and worse…

A self-aggrandising, fame-hungry documentary filmmaker obsessed with his legacy makes trouble for Dale – and therefore Flash – next. Charles Q. Charlston brings ‘Dead Worlds’ (S083: September 4th to November 20th) and lost civilisations to the masses, but has no qualms or scruples about breaking all the rules of space conduct: cheating, lying, stealing and even killing to ensure his own glory… until Gordon steps up. He and Dale are then called to the ringed planet and a reunion and to assist Brian Farr, now ‘Game Warden on Saturn’ (S084: November 27th 1960 to February 19th 1961)…

His job is currently complicated by the system’s most successful poacher – cunning sadist Von Brandt – who seeks the joy of hunting and intends making millions selling the skins of a rare indigenous lifeform. He’s also happy to excise interfering busybodies for free…

A maritime tang and epic approach flavours ‘The Trail of Orpheus’ (S085: February 26th – May 28th) when Flash joins oceanologists Henry and Veronica Weeks on a submarine to map the unique and spectacular “Devils Spring” environmental phenomenon making the watery world so hazardous to rocket ships. Their undersea voyage reveals fantastic truths about the past rulers of the planet and changes the solar system forever…

It’s a welcome return to space opera and pulp overtones as S086 sees an orbital agriculture satellite accidentally invaded by space gremlins and transformed into a ‘Death Farm in Space’ (June 4th to September 3rd) until Zarkov and Flash investigate and act, all followed by comedic whimsy as a band of backward-looking human bandits revolt against ecological progress in ‘Desert Prince’ (S087: September 10th to December 10th)…

When Earth loses the final dusty miles of once-barren Sahara to water reclamation projects, reactionary tribal chieftain Al Maarri refuses to take up farming and instead leads his raiders on a wave of sorties. The campaign of resistance culminates in his stealing a rocket ship to carry his entire bandit horde and their families to Mars where civilisation is scarce, law is poorly enforced and beautiful sandy wastes are abundant. Soon, armed with modern weapons, he’s making life difficult for genuine colonists, forcing under-resourced Flash to solve the problem creatively. That means infiltrating the tribe with the assistance of the long-suffering wives, children and oldsters the rowdy raiders forcibly dragged along with them…

Law & order was the theme of the next tale as readers gained insights into future traffic management solutions in the crowded orbital paths above Earth. The revelations came thanks to Flash visiting old pal “Ape” Rice, an officer of the ‘Spaceways Patrol’ (S088: December 17th 1961 to April 1st 1962).

Sadly, it’s not a friendly visit: Gordon works for the World Space Patrol and is on an official inspection of the Police satellite. Silly cultural satire – observing how dumb the private citizens “driving” in space are – quickly gives way to taut drama when recently-ousted national despot Generalissimo Sanre and his entourage seize the station through subterfuge, planning to blackmail the world with its arsenal of atomic weapons…

With only Flash and Ape free to act, tragedy inevitably follows the deadly fight that ensues before the planet is free from the threat of global tyranny…

The same blend of expansive wonder and human frailty permeates the saga of a blonde, blue-eyed hero found in a block of arctic ice – a tale told in full in S089, spanning April 8th through July 15th 1962. Incidentally, The Avengers #4 was released on January 3rd 1964, reintroducing Captain America to the world. I’m just saying…

Here, the ‘Living Fossil’ is found by researchers testing magnetic fields in Greenland and only involves Flash when defrosted berserker Ragnor goes on a rampage that brings him to the airfield Gordon is trying to land on. A renewed assault traps the Viking aboard (with Flash and a crew that includes handy Scandinavian scholar Eva) on a flight to Venus: a world far more in keeping with the barbarian’s culture of warriors, trolls, goblins, dwarves… and dragons…

This third astounding visit to a historical future closes with another technological nightmare and disaster-movie precursor spanning July 22nd to October 14th 1962. ‘Falling Moon’ (S090) reveals how massive artificial satellite Deepspace-One – jumping-off point for all outgoing Earth space travel – is struck by a meteor. Deflected and doomed, it slowly falls, leaving Flash only five hours to evacuate its resort contingent and find a way to save Earth from impact and atomic fallout…

As the adventures never ended, we close the collection with the opening of another exploit and pause on a moment of cliffhanging suspense. ‘Sons of Saturn’ (S091: in its original entirety running from October 21st 1962 to January 20th 1963) stops here with the December 9th episode. Prior to that point, a hitherto unsuspected super-civilisation thriving in the clouds of the Sixth Planet is revealed when an Earth probe provokes the current dictator to determine human nature and resource by sending super-criminal outcast Baldr to plague, punish and test them. That results in the indestructible giant breaking into Flash’s ship and going on a rampage…

To Be Continued…

Each week as he toiled on the strip, Raboy produced ever-more expansive artwork filled with distressed damsels, deadly monsters, incredible civilisations, increasingly authentic space hardware and locales, and all sorts of outrageous adventure that continued until the illustrator’s untimely death in 1967. Perhaps it was a kindness. He was the last great Golden Age romanticist illustrator and his lushly lavish, freely-flowing adoration of perfected human form was beginning to stale in popular taste. The Daily feature had already switched to the solid, chunky, He-Manly burly realism of Dan Barry and Frank Frazetta, but here at least the last outpost of ethereally beautiful heroism and pretty perils still prevailed: a dream realm you can visit as easily and often as Flash, Dale & Zarkov popped between planets, just by tracking down this book and the one which follows…
© 2003 King Features Syndicate Inc. ™ & © Hearst Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Spirou & Fantasio volume 21: The Prisoner of the Buddha


By André Franquin, Jidéhem & Greg, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-135-4 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Spirou (whose name translates as “squirrel”, “mischievous” and “lively kid” in the language of Walloons) was created by French cartoonist François Robert Velter – AKA Rob-Vel – for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis. The evergreen youngster in red was a response to the success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman. In the beginning, the character Spirou was a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel (an in-joke reference to Dupuis’ premier periodical Le Moustique) whose improbable adventures with pet squirrel Spip evolved into astounding and often surreal comedy dramas.

The other red-headed boy adventurer debuted on April 21st 1938 in an 8-page tabloid magazine that bears his name to this day. Fronting a roster of new and licensed foreign strips – Fernand Dineur’s Les Aventures de Tif (latterly Tif et Tondu) and US newspaper imports Red Ryder, Brick Bradford and Superman – the now-legendary anthology Le Journal de Spirou expanded exponentially: adding Flemish-language edition Robbedoes on October 27th 1938, boosting page counts and adding action, fantasy and comedy features until it was an unassailable, unmissable necessity for continental kids.

Spirou and chums helmed the magazine for most of its life, with many notable creators building on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin. She took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939, aided by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased all rights to the feature. Thereafter comic strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (“Jijé”) took over, until 1946 when his assistant André Franquin inherited the entire affair. Gradually, the new auteur retired traditional short gag vignettes in favour of longer adventure serials, introducing a wide returning cast. Ultimately, Franquin created his own milestone character. Phenomenally popular animal Marsupilami debuted in 1952’s Spirou et les héritiers and became a scene-stealing regular and eventually one of the most significant stars of European comics.

Jean-Claude Fournier succeeded Franquin: overhauling the feature over nine stirring serial adventures between 1969-1979 by tapping into a rebellious, relevant zeitgeist in tales of drug cartels, environmental concerns, nuclear energy and repressive regimes. By the 1980s, the series seemed stalled: three different creative teams alternated on the serial: Yves Chaland, Raoul Cauvin & Nic Broca and significantly Philippe Vandevelde writing as “Tome” & artist Jean-Richard Geurts – AKA Janry.

These last reverently referenced the revered and beloved Franquin era: reviving the feature’s fortunes over 14 wonderful albums between 1984-1998. On their departure the strip diversified into parallel strands: Spirou’s Childhood/Little Spirou and guest-creator specials A Spirou Story By…

Later teams and guests to tackle the wonder boys include Lewis Trondheim, Jean-Davide Morvan & Jose-Luis Munuera, Fabien Vehlmann & Yoann, Benoît Feroumont, Emile Bravo, Jul & Libon, Makyo, Toldac & Tehem, Guerrive, Abitan & Schwartz, Frank le Gall, Flix and so many more. By my count that brings the album count to approximately 92 if you include specials, spin-offs series and one-shots, official and otherwise. Happily, in recent years, even some of the older vintages have been reprinted in French, but there are still dozens that have not made it into English yet. Quelle sodding horreur!

Cinebook have been publishing Spirou & Fantasio’s exploits since October 2009, initially concentrating on bringing Tome & Janry’s superb pastiche/homages of Franquin before dipping into the original Franquin oeuvre and adding later tales by some of the bunch listed above, but for their 21st manic marvel they reached back all the way to 1959 for a purely Franquin-formulated furore. Originally serialised in LJdS #1048-1082 prior to its release as album Le prisonnier du Bouddha in March 1961, this slick tale of Cold War tensions, silly sci fi and outrageous satire sees the master in collaborative mode with Jidéhem (Jean De Mesmaeker) and Greg (Michel Regnier)…

On January 3rd 1924, Belgian comics superstar André Franquin was born in Etterbeek. Drawing from an early age, he began formal art training at École Saint-Luc in 1943. When the war forced the school’s closure a year later, Franquin found work at Brussels’ Compagnie Belge d’Animation as an animator. There he met future bande dessinée superstars Maurice de Bevere (Lucky Luke-creator “Morris”), Pierre Culliford/Peyo (creator of The Smurfs) and Eddy Paape (Valhardi, Luc Orient).

In 1945 everyone but Culliford signed on with Dupuis, and Franquin began his career as a jobbing cartoonist/illustrator. He produced covers for Le Moustique and scouting magazine Plein Jeu and, throughout those early days, was with Morris trained by Jijé. At that time main illustrator at Le Journal de Spirou, Jijé turned the youngsters and fellow neophyte Willy Maltaite – AKA Will (Tif et Tondu, Isabelle, Le jardin des désirs) – into a creative bullpen known as the La bande des quatre. This “Gang of Four” promptly revolutionised Belgian comics with their engaging “Marcinelle school” style of graphic storytelling.

Jijé handed Franquin all responsibilities for the flagship strip part-way through Spirou et la maison préfabriquée, (LJdS #427, June 20th 1946) and the eager beaver ran with it for two decades, enlarging the scope and horizons until it became purely his own. Almost every episode, fans would meet startling new characters like comrade/rival Fantasio or crackpot inventor The Count of Champignac.

Spirou & Fantasio became globe-trotting troubleshooting journalists, endlessly expanding their exploits in unbroken four-colour glory. They travelled to exotic places, uncovering crimes, capturing the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of extraordinary arch-enemies such as Zorglub and Zantafio. Along the way Franquin premiered one of the first strong female characters in European comics – competitor journalist Seccotine who is renamed Cellophine in current English translations.

In a splendid example of good practise, Franquin mentored his own apprentice cartoonists during the 1950s. These included Jean Roba (La Ribambelle, Boule et Bill), Jidéhem (Sophie, Starter, Gaston Lagaffe) and Greg (Bruno Brazil, Bernard Prince, Zig et Puce, Achille Talon), who all worked with him on Spirou et Fantasio. In 1955, a contractual spat with Dupuis led to Franquin signing up with rivals Casterman on Le Journal de Tintin, where he collaborated with René Goscinny and old pal Peyo whilst also creating raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon. Franquin quickly patched things up with Dupuis and returned to LJdS, subsequently co-creating Gaston Lagaffe (AKA Gomer Goof) in 1957, but was still obliged to carry on those Casterman commitments too…

From 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem began regularly assisting Franquin, but by 1969 the master storyteller had reached his Spirou limit. He quit, taking his mystic yellow monkey with him…

His later creations include fantasy series Isabelle, illustration sequence Monsters and bleak adult conceptual series Idées Noires, but his greatest creation – and one he retained all rights to on his departure – was Marsupilami, which – in addition to comics – has become a megastar of screen, plush toy store, console and albums.

Plagued in later life by bouts of depression and cardiac problems, Franquin passed away on January 5th 1997, but his legacy remains: a vast body of work that reshaped the landscape of European comics.

Let’s review happier if undoubtedly scarier days here in a Cold War classic where Spirou and Fantasio revisit rural melting pot Champignac-in-the-Sticks after strangely losing touch with crackpot inventor and Merlin of mushroom mechanics Pacôme Hégésippe Adélard Ladislas de Champignac – the aforementioned Count of Champignac.

The idyllic hamlet is in turmoil with the incipient opening of this year’s Cattle Festival ramping up regular bucolic angst. Its picturesque streets are filled with self-determined cows and short-tempered farmers, meaning the two investigators really have to watch their steps…

Finding the ramshackle chateau turned into a super-secure fortress, the lads and Spip – in truth impatient, impolite Marsupilami – break into the once-familiar estate and discover it has become a wild kingdom of gigantic plants. Eventually rescued by their odd old friend from encroaching green hells, the boys are unaware the Count is concealing another guest – until

after many odd incidents they meet timid nuclear physicist, potential Soviet defector and fellow scientist of conscience Professor Nikolai Nikolayevitch Inovskiev. The hulking gentle giant has invented something that will change the world and doesn’t want its incredible power abused…

He calls his little box of tricks a Gamma Atomic Generator (GAG for short) and it can promote rapid and monstrous plant growth, create severe but localised weather effects and cancel gravity – and it fits into a jacket pocket…

As the boys endure an accidental indoor blizzard, two enemy agents observe from outside before being accidentally but painfully caught in the GAG’s destructive effects. Terrified of the device being misused by the capitalist West, they make plans to steal it back during the cattle show, but Spirou and Fantasio foil the scheme – but only after the GAG makes the farm fest a chaotic, never to be forgotten Fortean event for the entire village…

Thinking job done and world saved, our heroes are horrified to learn from the shellshocked spies that the GAG is not unique. In communist China, Inovskiev’s covert collaborator – American Harold W. Hailmary – is a prisoner of the People’s Republic and surely cannot hold out much longer in delivering them the magic box and all its secrets…

Coincidentally, at that moment in British-controlled Hong Kong, a smuggled message reaches the Chief of Police: an American is imprisoned somewhere in the heart of the Valley of the Seven Buddhas…

When dapper British agents Douglas and Harvey attempt to interview Champignac and the boys, they discover the missing Russian and implore them all to act in a manner Her Majesty’s Government would unofficially look kindly upon even as it turned a blind eye…

Soon, equipped with the GAG, Spirou, Fantasio, Spip and the Marsupilami are sneaking across the Chinese border and heading into one of the most eccentric and spectacular missions of their lives… one replete with deadly peril, fantastic feats, spectacular chases, tank battles and hairsbreadth escapes, all leavened with outrageous surreal slapstick and deviously trenchant satire…

This edgily exuberant yarn is packed with action, thrills and spills and also offers a remarkably even-handed appraisal of Cold War politics messaging and always-timely moral.

Readily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with all the beguiling style and seductive wholesome élan which makes Asterix, Lucky Luke and Yakari so compelling, this is a truly outstanding – and funny! – tale from a long line of superb exploits, proving our heroes deserve to be English language household names as much as those series – and even that other kid with the white dog…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1960 by Franquin, Jidéhem & Greg. All rights reserved. English translation 2024 © Cinebook Ltd.

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The Fiery Arrow (Before Blake and Mortimer volume 2)


By Jean Van Hamme, Christian Cailleaux & Etienne Shréder after Edgar P. Jacobs: coloured by Bruno Tatti, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBNs: 978-1-80044-095-1 (album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect. If any use of such, slurs, epithets, terms or treatments offend you, you really should not be reading this book – or maybe you need it more than most.

Belgian Edgard Félix Pierre Jacobs (1904-1987) is rightly considered one of the founding fathers of the European comics industry. Although his output is relatively meagre when compared to some of his contemporaries, his iconic works formed the basis and backbone of the art form across post-war Europe and far beyond. As a world rebuilt, his splendidly adroit, roguish and impeccably British adventurers Blake and Mortimer – created for the first issue of Le Journal de Tintin in 1946 – became a staple of Continental kids’ life just as Dan Dare did in Britain starting four years later.

Jacobs was born in Brussels, a precocious child who began feverishly drawing from an early age but was even more obsessed with music and the performing arts – especially opera. He attended a commercial school but – having resolved never to work in an office – pursued art and drama following graduation in 1919. A succession of odd jobs at opera-houses (scene-painting, set decoration, acting, singing as an Extra) supplemented his private performance studies. In 1929, Jacobs won a Government award for classical singing, but his dream career as an opera singer was thwarted by the Great Depression, as the arts funding and performances nosedived following the stock market crash.

Picking up whatever stage work was to be had – including singing and performing – Jacobs finally switched streams to commercial illustration in 1940 and found regular employment at magazine Bravo. While illustrating short stories and novels, he famously took over the Flash Gordon syndicated strip after the German occupation authorities banned Alex Raymond’s All-American Hero, leaving the publishers desperately seeking someone to satisfactorily complete the saga.

Jacob’s Stormer Gordon lasted less than a month before being similarly sanctioned by the Nazis, after which Jacobs created his own epic science-fantasy feature – Le Rayon U: a weekly comics milestone in both Belgian comics and the greater annals of science fiction adventure. The Nazis may have banned the strikingly Aryan Flash Gordon but there was no denying public appetite for his kind of action, so Jacobs dipped deep from that established well of romanticism and fantasy as well as borrowing heavily from US movie serial chapterplays.

The U Ray was a huge hit in 1943 and scored big all over again a generation later when Jacobs reformatted the original and traditional “text-block & picture” material to incorporate speech balloons prior to re-running the entire adventure in Le Journal de Tintin in 1973. It was subsequently released as graphic albums beginning in 1974.

Whilst creating U Ray, one of Jacob’s many other jobs was scene-painting, and during the staging of a theatrical version of Tintin and the Cigars of the Pharaoh Hergé and Jacobs met and became friends. If the comics maestro was unaware of Jacob’s comics output before then, he was certainly made aware of it after.

Jacobs started working on Tintin, colouring originally monochrome strips of The Shooting Star from newspaper Le Soir for a forthcoming album collection. By 1944, he was performing similar service for Tintin in the Congo, Tintin in America, King Ottokar’s Sceptre and The Blue Lotus. He also contributed to the illustration of extended epic The Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners of the Sun. His love of opera made it into the feature as Hergé (who loathed it), teasingly created bombastic Bianca Castafiore as a comedy foil and basing bit players like Jacobini in The Calculus Affair on his long-suffering assistant.

After war and liberation, publisher Raymond Leblanc convinced Hergé, Jacobs and other creatives to work for his new venture. Launching publishing house Le Lombard, Leblanc also started Le Journal de Tintin: an anthology comic edited by Hergé with editions in Belgium, France and Holland starring the intrepid boy reporter plus a host of newer heroes.

Beside Hergé, Jacobs and writer Jacques van Melkebeke, the weekly featured Paul Cuvelier’s Corentin and Jacques Laudy’s The Legend of the Four Aymon Brothers. Laudy had been friends of Jacobs’ since working together on Bravo and was model for some of his characters.

Le secret de l’Espadon (which eventually ran from LJdT #1, 26th September 1946 to 8th September 1949) cemented Jacobs’ status as a star in his own right: offering peril, action and suspense in stunning thrillers blending science fiction, detective mysteries and supernatural mysteries in the universally engaging Ligne Claire style which had done so much to make intrepid boy reporter Tintin a global sensation.

In 1950, with the first 18 pages slightly redrawn, Le secret de l’espladon V1 (The Secret of the Swordfish) became Le Lombard’s first album release, with a concluding volume published three years later. These were reprinted nine more times between 1955 and 1982, with an additional single complete deluxe edition released in 1964. The epic romp featured a distinguished duo of Scientific Adventurers: a bluff, gruff Scots/British scientist and English Military Intelligence officer (closely modelled on his comics colleague Laudy): Professor Philip Mortimer and Captain Francis Blake. They and archfoe Olrik (based on Jacobs himself) were a thematic evolution of characters created for The U Ray…

After decades of old farts like me whining, the lost gem was finally released in English translation in 2023 and followed up at years end by sequel La Flèche Ardente. This latter came courtesy of Jean Van Hamme (Thorgal, XIII, Largo Winch, Blake & Mortimer) & Christian Cailleaux (Tchaï Masala, Gramercy Park, Le troisième thé, Blake & Mortimer), bolstered by colourist Étienne Shréder – and it was worth all that waiting…

Previously in another place and time, the nations of Norlandia and Austradia were at war. The former’s chief scientist Professor Marduk had devised an ultimate weapon capable of ending the conflict but lacked a fuel source to power his “U ray”. He believed mystery element “Uradium” could be found on an unexplored lost continent and headed an expedition to locate and secure samples of the miracle ore.

His prototypical party included assistant Sylvia Hollis, heroic Major Walton and Lord John Calder, Captain Dagon, Sergeant MacDuff and “Asiatic” manservant Adji, spearheading a sturdy crew of true-blue stalwarts. However, their desperate mission to the Black Isles Archipelago was doomed from the start thanks to a spy planted in their ranks…

After many fraught moments and sabotage attempts, the expedition broached the forbidding jungles of a lost world teeming with uncanny primal beasts and savage humanoids, but misfortune, deadly natural hazards and an Austradian assault force reaped a heavy harvest of tragedy as the explorers trekked inland to where Marduk’s researches indicated uradium would be found. Thankfully, Walton was a steadfast counter to danger of every description…

After heartbreaking effort the survivors found a lost civilisation, befriending Prince Nazca and Princess Ica of The Underground City. These highly evolved beneficiaries allowed them samples of magic mineral but then refused to let their “guests” leave… until Walton, the lost world’s overwhelming threats, dire circumstance and the hidden traitor jointly triggered a spectacular reversal of fortune, a lucky escape and ultimate triumph for Norlandia…

Eight decades later the saga resumes with the triumphant survivors and refugee Princess Ica recuperating in their embattled but still free homeland. As Calder romances Sylvia, and learns how her geologist father Kellart Hollis was lost discovering uradium, her boss Marduk finally unlocks its secrets.

In the enemy camp, vile tyrant Emperor Babylos moves to end the current impasse by conquering the lost continent. He is resolved to prevent Norlandia exploiting uradium, even if he has no idea what the element actually does. Despicable Captain Dagon renews his own efforts to destroy the enemies of Austradia after being rescued from a nightmare of primaeval peril by brutal General Robioff when Austradian forces occupy the Black Isles.

Their ultra-modern military ruthlessly ravages the primordial preserve, with monster-animals, beast-men and primitive humans alike falling to lethal ordnance indiscriminately applied. The callous blitzkrieg even precipitates the fall of the hidden city and merciless torture of Prince Nazca for information on the U-force…

The devout ruler and his people worship supreme deity Puncha Taloc and regard “The Stone of Life and Death” as his sacred gift, and Nazca valiantly resists every cruel effort to extract information. All around him his people and world are dying and his strength cannot long resist more torture…

In Norlandia, Adji also warns against exploiting uradium, crying sacrilege and worse, blithely unaware of the terrible fate of the Black Isles. When Marduk reveals a weapon to harness the incredible energies of uradium, the devastating energy of his “ultraphonic” ray rifle horrifies and outrages all who see it demonstrated. Tragically, the secret of his “Fiery Arrow” is already compromised as another traitor seeks to pass it on to Dagon…

Thankfully, Walton and MacDuff are on hand to foil the handover if not capture their slippery foe, and soon after Princess Ica begins playing a role in the heroes’ counterattack…

In the subjugated Underground City, Nazca is saved by a cloaked figure from the past, just as the Black Isles explode in a furious detonation even the civilised, rationalist citizens of Norlandia wonder might be the outraged retribution of Puncha Taloc…

In the aftermath, Austradian dreams are shattered. The story of an earlier mighty race and culture emerges, and the miraculous survival of friends thought lost forever sweetens the victory of the heroes and fall of Emperor Babylos: especially for Sylvia and the man she has secretly loved but never thought she could ever have…

Replete with Old World fun and thrills that cannot be denied or ignored, this album also offers tantalising teasers for the original auteur’s brand and classics: specifically The Time Trap, Professor Sato’s Three Formulae and S.O.S. Meteors plus a bibliography & publishing timeline,  should further inducements be needed to catch your eye.

Deceptively simplistic, effortlessly engaging and cunningly customised to merge retro futurist tastes with modern sensibilities, The Fiery Arrow is pure escapist joy to behold, and a book no serious fantasy nostalgic can afford to miss.
Original edition © Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud-Lombard S.A.) 2023. All rights reserved. English translation © 2023 Cinebook Ltd.

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Deadpool Corps volumes 1 & 2: Pool-Pocalypse Now and You Say You Want a Revolution


By Victor Gischler, Rob Liefeld, Marat Mychaels, Adelso Corona, Jaime Mendoza, Cory Hamscher, Matt Yackey & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4825-8 (v1 TPB/Digital edition): 978-0-7851-4827-2 (v2 TPB/Digital edition)

These books include Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Stylish killers and mercenaries craving more than money have long been popular fictional protagonists, and light-hearted, exuberant bloodbath comics always find an appreciative audience so in anticipation of a certain movie mash up let’s look again at what those tendencies can lead to…

Deadpool is Wade Wilson : an inveterate, unrepentant hired killer who survived cancer and rogue experiments that left him a grotesque bundle of scabs, scars and physical abnormalities as well as practically immortal, invulnerable and capable of regenerating from any wound.

He is also a certifiable loon…

The wisecracking high-tech “Merc with a Mouth” was created by Rob Liefeld & Fabian Nicieza, for New Mutants #97: another product of the Weapon X project which created Wolverine, Garrison Kane and many more mutant/cyborg super-doers. Wade got his first shot at solo stardom with a brace of miniseries in 1993 (Deadpool: the Circle Chase & Sins of the Past) but it wasn’t until 1997 that he finally won his own title, which increasingly blended fourth-wall-busting absurdist humour (a la Ambush Bug and Warner Brothers cartoons) into the mix and secured his place in Marvel’s top rank.

Since then he has become one of Marvel’s iconic, nigh-inescapable characters, perennially undergoing radical rethinks, identity changes, reboots and more before always – inevitably – reverting and resetting to irascible, irreverent, intoxicating type in the end…

Here, following events too ludicrous to mention, Wilson has linked up with a quartet of alternate Deadpools from very different alternate Earths and formed the strangest team in Marvel’s history (and yes, that includes The Pet Avengers).

Collecting Deadpool Corps #1-6 (June-November 2010) manic mayhem begins in 6-part saga Pool-Pocalyse as ‘Disrespect Your Elders’ by Victor Gischler, penciller Liefeld and inker Adelso Corona sees new comrades Wilson, strikingly buxom Lady Deadpool, errant pre-teen killer bad boy Kidpool, floating masked cranium from Marvel’s Zombiverse Headpool and a costumed mutt answering to Dogpool (or sometimes “Cujo”) hired by an Elder of the Universe. Disturbingly, The Contemplator needs them to expunge a horrific threat to creation…

From a universe preceding our Big Bang one, an unstoppable force that absorbs intelligence has manifested. Thousands if not millions of planets have succumbed to the power of The Awareness, all their sentience and independence subsumed into a slavish nullity. Protected as they are by innate, intrinsic imbecility, Contemplator tells these Deadpools to go kill it…

In a bit of a dudgeon over their selection is another Elder. The Champion is the mightiest physical specimen in existence and feels the honour of saving universal intellect should be his, but although he’s no big brain either, he just isn’t in the Wilson squad’s league…

Whizzing across the cosmos in the super ship Bea Arthur with plenty of pit-stops in the skeeviest bars, cantinas and dives for information and violent recreation, the team soon confront and readily outwit their brawny rival…

Forced to take a different tack, Champion teams up with fellow Elder The Gardener to remove his insufferable rivals, but is utterly astounded by their response. Somehow elected their leader, “Championpool” readies himself for glorious combat before again finding himself humiliatingly outsmarted by the Terran morons and stranded on a dead-end world whilst they fly off to reap all the glory…

Tracking the threat involves going undercover, drinking, beating up lots of aliens, shopping and even colluding and cohabiting with legendary star smuggler The Broken Blade, but eventually they near the end of their quest…

More a superb succession of sharp gags than a plot, the adventure follows the Crazy Corps as they bumble and smart-mouth their way across the universe until finally confronting The Awareness and despite – or rather because of – their uniquely skewed mentalities, triumph in the strangest way possible…

Rewarded with wishing rings by the exultant Contemplator, the Silly Squad stay in space where this initial compilation concludes with the bombastic ballad of ‘The Blue Buccaneer’ (illustrated by Marat Mychaels & Jaime Mendoza).

Trading on their intergalactic reputation as badasses-for-hire, the Deadpool Corps accept a commission to wipe out a pirate band wrecking interstellar commerce, necessitating Lady Deadpool going undercover in the most shocking – to her at least – of disguises, uncovering the most unexpected of old acquaintances leading the perilous privateers…

Surreal, wickedly irreverent and excessively violent in the grand Bugs Bunny/Road Runner tradition, Deadpool Corps is frat boy foolish and frequently laugh-out-loud spit-take funny: a wonderfully antidote to cosmic angst and emotional Sturm und Drang of most contemporary Fights ‘n’ Tights comics.

The saga continues in sequel volume You Say You Want a Revolution with Wade still working in unison with four Deadpools from very different parallel Earths. The bizarre concatenation of circumstances resulting in Deadpool & Co saving creation from the sentience-sucking Awareness led to them scoring a starship and set of one-use only wishing rings. Now they’re having so much fun and don’t want to go home, but as card-carrying mercenaries these unlikely champions realise you can never have enough spending money either…

Collecting Deadpool Corps #7-12 (December 2010-May 2011 by Gischler, pencillers Liefeld & Mychaels with inkers Adelso Corona & Cory Hamscher) the mayhem continues with a wickedly cruel and potently justified spoof of blockbuster movie Avatar. Framed through insanely clever fiddling with the narrative technique of flashbacks, the story sees the carnival of killer fools accepting a huge commission from the vast and unscrupulous Omega Confederation.

Paradise planet Kagan 7 is a beautiful wonderland of flora and fauna inhabited – or possibly safeguarded – by deeply spiritual, jungle-dwelling, blue-skinned warrior-race the Krook. Sadly, to cost-effectively access the planet’s mineral wealth, the Confederation had to enslave the Krook and make them miners. Now the ungrateful sods are rebelling and demanding their planet back so the Omega Board would like somebody to go and quietly remove all the ringleaders so the peons can get back to digging up all that lovely platinum…

Taking out an alien legion of mercs hired by the rebels is no problem, but the natives themselves – especially the extremely hot daughter of their bombastic king – proves too much for the Crazy Corps. Soon they are desperately bargaining for their own lives…

Said deal boils down to the Deadpools switching sides and running the revolution against the Confederation. The murderers from a multiplicity of Earths have no qualms about turning turncoat: the problems only occur after Wade starts boinking mercilessly manipulative Princess Teela, who also convinces her highly sceptical dad that to survive as an independent free world, their unspoiled Arcadian Eden needs to modernise and commercialise…

Wade’s thinking something reserved and classy, properly in tune with the environment: Hospitals, swish eateries, a complex of skyscraper hotels, spa resorts and golf courses: y’know, kind of like Las Vegas in space…

As Deadpool commences a crass telethon campaign to raise galactic awareness of the Krooks’ plight, from across the universe a tsunami of tree-huggers converge on the endangered paradise to support the latest cause celébre. Elsewhere, the Omega Confederation board decide something nasty needs to be done to the contractors who took their cash and failed to deliver. On Kagan 7, so many donations come in that the Imperial Senate recognises the new world: inducting it into the Galactic Economic Community. The first part of that procedure is to set up a Central Bank of Krook and advance several thousand tons of gold so the latest member of the club can suitably set up a proper trading profile…

Wade is so stunned with loot-shock he doesn’t even notice when Omega death-squads start shooting. Luckily, old girlfriend/legendary arms-smuggler The Broken Blade arrives to save they day whilst stocking the newborn world’s defences with her latest super-ordinance.

She’s a little less than ecstatic when she learns Wade’s been making time with a plush and primitive princess…

The social evolution of the Krook isn’t going smoothly either. Whilst Teela ruthlessly embraces everything flashy, sparkly, new and civilised, dear old dad just wants his world back the way it was before all the outworlders came. Soon father and daughter are spearheading two separate armies in a savage civil war – beamed live into quintillions of homes all over known space – and the Deadpool Corps have picked opposing sides to help keep the slaughter quotient high.

All poor Wade can think about, however, is several thousand tons of gold just waiting to be salvaged and taken back to Earth… And in the background the Omega Confederation are still looking at ways to take back their mining operation and kill everybody who defied them…

Displaying with extreme clarity how the cure can be worse than the disease, the last hurrah of the Deadpool Corps blends a minimum of plot with an overabundance of edgy gags, snappy one-liners, shtick, shlock and slapstick as the trans-dimensional terrorisers bumble, fumble stumble and smart-mouth their way across the galaxy and over a mountain of oddly-shaped corpses until finally they at last go their separate ways…

Surreal, wickedly irreverent and excessively is perfect counterattack to po-faced heroic tales and holds the secret of keeping you amused until the next movie milestone comes on line.
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