Category: Science Fiction

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Dreadstar – The Beginning

By Jim Starlin (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-119-9

The creative renaissance in comics during the 1980s resulted in some utterly wonderful strip sagas which shone briefly and brightly within what was still a largely niche industry before passing from view as the business and art form battled spiralling costs, declining readerships and the perverse and pervasive attitude in the wider world that comicbooks were the natural province of mutants, morons and farm animals (I’m paraphrasing).

Unlike today, way back then most grown-ups considered superheroes as adolescent power fantasies or idle wish-fulfilment for the uneducated or disenfranchised, so an entertainment industry which was perceived as largely made up of men in tights hitting each other got very little approval – or even notice – in the wider world of popular fiction.

All that changed with the advent of the comic book Direct Sales Market. With its more targeted approach to selling, specialist vendors in dedicated emporia had leeway to allow frustrated creators to cut loose and experiment with other genres – and even formats.

All the innovation back then led inescapably to today’s high-end, thoroughly respectable graphic novel market which, with suitable and fitting circularity, is now gathering and re-circulating many of the breakthrough tales from those times; not as poorly distributed serials and sequences, but in satisfyingly complete stand-alone books.

Marvel was the unassailable front-runner in purveying pamphlet fiction back then, outselling all its rivals and monopolising the lucrative licensed properties market (like Star Wars and Indiana Jones) which once been the preserve of the Whitman/Dell/Gold Key colossus. This added to a zeitgeist which proved that for open-minded readers, superheroes were not the only fruit…

As independently published titles hit an early peak, Marvel instigated its own creator-owned, rights-friendly fantasy periodical in response to the overwhelming success amongst older readers of Heavy Metal magazine. Lush, slick and lavish, HM had even brought a fresh, music-&-literature based audience to graphic narratives…

That response was Epic Illustrated: an anthological magazine offering stunning art and an anything-goes attitude – unhindered by the censorious Comics Code Authority – which saw everything from adaptations of Moorcock’s Elric and Harlan Ellison novellas to ‘The Last Galactus Story’, plus numerous stories which would become compelling forerunners of today’s graphic novel industry.

The first issue also discretely started a very gradual introduction to one of the era’s biggest Indie sensations: Vanth Dreadstar…

This collection gathers a number of stories originally culled from an assortment of different places. The saga started in Epic Illustrated (#1-9, 12 and 15, spanning Spring 1980 to December 1982), whilst tangentially diverting in 1981 to Eclipse Graphic Album Series #5 (The Price) and then 1982’s Marvel Graphic Novel #3: Dreadstar: all laying the groundwork for one of the most successful independently-owned comic book characters of the era, and one of the most long-lived…

This stellar hardback re-presents those tales in the original monochrome or painted full-colour, with writer/artist Starlin aided and abetted by letterer by Tom Orzechowski. For this edition the art has been remastered by Jerron Quality Color, Mike Kelleher and Digikiore Studios.

Already a big gun thanks to his run on Captain Marvel, the engendering of mad Titan Thanos and the reinvention of Adam Warlock, Starlin cemented his cosmic creator credentials and seeming preoccupation with death and nihilism through the grandiose saga Metamorphosis Odyssey.

Delivered in painted grey-tones, the serialised tale began with the introduction of mighty alien wizard ‘Aknaton’: savant of ancient and benevolent race the Osirosians. These masters of the cosmos were perturbed by the advent of rapacious barbarian species the Zygoteans who were slowly and inexorably conquering planets and eradicating all life in the Milky Way galaxy.

Aknaton’s people fought back on behalf of all creation, but knew that their resistance was numbered in mere millennia before the predators would win.

Unsettled by the prognostication, Aknaton set out on a desperate tour of the galaxy, planting life seeds weaving a web of possibility and even depositing an incredible sword of power in a last-ditch plan which would take a million years to complete…

The first seed flowered in the form of spiritually advanced intellectual monster ‘Za!’, whilst another blossomed into 15-year old ‘Juliet’, taken by Aknaton from Earth in 1980 just as the Zygoteans arrived to eradicate the rest of her species.

The mage’s last living puzzle component was butterfly winged psychic ‘Whis’par’ whose gifts and sensitivities easily divined the dark underpinnings of Aknaton’s ambitions…

During this chapter the artwork transitioned into full-painted colour, and by the time the wizard reached war-torn ice-world Byfrexia to recruit ‘Vanth’ the cosmic conflict was in full phantasmagorical flow. This emotionless resistance leader battling the Zygoteans was a man with incredible physical powers, bequeathed by a magic sword he had found: the very weapon Aknaton has planted eons previously…

‘The Meeting’ between Vanth and his notional maker was interrupted by Zygotean killers, affording the wizard opportunity to assess his handiwork in action. He quickly realised the hero was far more powerful than he had intended….

Nevertheless the quest moved on to a recently-razed paradise, but ‘Delloran Revisited’ was merely a step tin a search for an ultimate weapon so long lost, so well hidden that Aknaton had no clue to its current location…

Appraising his unique team of one final push, Aknaton enjoyed ‘Sunrise on Lartorez’ before absenting himself to meet God and discuss ‘Absolution’, after which a ‘Requiem’ sounded for life as the Zygoteans found them and lit the skies with ‘Nightfire’.

Forced into precipitate action, ‘Dreamsend’ turned into ‘Doomsday!’ as Aknaton’s plan finally came into play… with cataclysmic effect…

A million years later, an energy bubble bursts in another galaxy and sole survivors Aknaton and Vanth find themselves on a rural world not much different from any other. They still have business to settle and only one will walk away from the ‘Aftermath’ of what they’ve done…

With the illustration reverting to painted monochrome, The Price is set in that new Empirical Galaxy: one riven by an unending war between intergalactic robber barons the Monarchy and omnipresent mystico-political religious order the Instrumentality. Over 200 years these instinctive enemies have taken half a galaxy each and now battle to maintain a permanent stalemate. The economies of both factions depend on constant slaughter but no outright victory…

At the heart of that strained environment, rising Instrumentality bishop Syzygy Darklock is drawn by arcane forces and the diabolical plotting of terrorist mage Taurus Killgaren onto a path of inescapable doom and destruction.

It begins with the demonic assassination of Darklock’s brother; leading the outraged cleric on a path of damnation and revelation, gaining immense mystic power and wisdom but only at the cost of sacrificing everything he ever loved.

He also is forced to share Killgaren’s infallible vision of the fearful future and the role a man named Dreadstar will play in the fate of the universe…

After the huge success of ‘The Death of Captain Marvel’ (Marvel Graphic Novel #1), Starlin was eagerly welcomed back for the third release. Here he finally launched Dreadstar as a creator-owned property that would kickstart the Epic Comics line into life.

The full-colour painted story focused on Vanth the man, as the immortal Cold Warrior abandoned his sword and warlike ways, settling down to decades of farming on isolated agri-world Caldor with retired Instrumentality researcher Delilah.

Toiling beside the gentle gengineered cat-people operating the farm planet, Vanth found a kind of contentment, which was only slightly spoiled when a bizarre creature named Syzygy Darklock set up his tent in the mountain wilderness and began tempting the old soldier with tales of the outer world and veiled promises of great knowledge and understanding .

Vanth was with the savant when Monarchy ships found Delilah and the cat-people. In the wake of their casual atrocities he renounced his vow of peace and resolved to end the stupid, commercially expedient war his way…

The drama concludes with ‘Epilogue’: one last black-&-white tale first seen in Epic Illustrated #15, and designed as bridging introduction to the hero’s comic book debut. Vanth and his cat-man ally Oedi are trying to quietly get off Instrumentality mining colony the Rock, but Dreadstar is nigh-fatally distracted by a worker who is the very image of his dearly departed Delilah.

Before he can do anything really stupid however the mine roof caves in and threatens all his ambitious plans to bring peace and stability to the Empirical Galaxy…

Bold, bombastic and potently cathartic, this is no-nonsense space opera with the just the right amount of deep thought, comforting cynicism and welcoming pop philosophy added to flavour the action and spice up the celestial grandeur. Above all this is smart, trenchant, uncomplicated fun for grown-up space freaks and well worth a few moments of your time…
© 2010 James Starlin. All rights reserved. Dreadstar is a registered trademark of James Starlin, and the Dreadstar logo and all characters and content herein and the likenesses thereof are also trademarks of James Starlin unless otherwise expressly noted.

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Attu: The Collected Volumes


By Sam Glanzman (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80158-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Epic Blockbuster Entertainment to digest that Dinner by… 8/10

After far too many years as an industry secret, in recent years Sam Glanzman has finally been awarded his proper station as one of American comics’ greatest and most remarkable creators – thanks in no small part to the diligent efforts of publishing house Dover, which has resurrected his groundbreaking graphic novel sequence A Sailor’s Story and overseen the collection of his astonishing semi-autobiographical series USS Stevens.

However, Glanzman has been drawing and writing comics since the 1940s, most commonly in the classic genres – war, mystery, adventure and fantasy – where his raw, powerful and subtly engaging style and wry wit made his work irresistibly compelling to generations of readers

On titles such as Kona, Monarch of Monster Island (and where’s the definitive omnibus collection of those wild yarns?), Voyage to the Deep, Combat, Jungle Tales of Tarzan, Hercules, the Haunted Tank, The Green Berets and cult classic The Private War of Willie Schultz, Glanzman always produced magnificently rousing yarns which fired the imagination and stirred the blood. That unceasing output always sold well and won him a legion of fans amongst fellow artists at least, if not from the insular and over-vocal fan-press.

In the 1990s Glanzman worked with Tim Truman’s 4Winds company on high-profile projects like The Lone Ranger and Jonah Hex whilst concocting a fantastic multi-genre mash-up named Attu. The first two volumes in a proposed series of original graphic novels, they were released at a time when the US marketplace was experiencing a glut of product and a storm of speculator interest. Those of us in the know patiently awaited more sci-fi barbarian wonderment, but it never materialised.

Now the wait is over: the first two books have been gathered into one superbly substantial oversized (278 x 208 mm) monochrome tome, graced and augmented at last by Glanzman’s unpublished third chapter.

Following Jeff Lemire’s fervent Foreword ‘What the Heck is Attu?’ and a fascinating Introduction and behind-the-scenes reminiscence from Tim Truman in ‘Four Winds and Forbidden Caves’, the uncanny blend of action and mystery begins…

On the primal super-continent of Gondwana in 137 million B.C., oddly clean-cut caveman Attu is making himself unpopular to the rest of the Kassar Tribe. Known as the Truth Seeker, the pest constantly vexes and troubles his hirsute, mountain-dwelling fellows and subsequently remands himself and forward-looking boy companion Oom to the lowlands: a place of giants, terrible beasts and uncanny creatures we would know as dinosaurs.

He also finds a lethally booby-trapped cave full of incomprehensible things where a beautiful woman sleeps in a tube of clear, warm ice…

Determined to liberate and possess her, Attu goes an on impromptu walkabout, encountering a multitude of strange monsters and weird men; learning new things and expanding his mind at every opportunity. When he appropriates a peculiar device under most unlikely circumstances, he instinctively knows it belongs with the pillar of

warm ice and the treasure inside…

Book Two: Durenella continues the wild rush of ideas as Attu – no longer a primitive by any means – unlocks the hibernation chamber of an alien princess and is cautiously introduced to and indoctrinated in the star-spanning culture of the Empire of Drago. Hearing – and eventually comprehending – the tragedy of Durenella as her Seeker Ship crashed to the primitive Earth and the crew all died, the caveman realises he now has no place on his own world anymore.

There’s also no place for him on fiercely embargoed and stratified Drago – even after a rescue ship arrives – unless he, the princess and the Emperor himself collude in a shameful and dangerous subterfuge which could topple a dynasty if exposed…

The series stalled for years as the nineties comicbook market turmoil essentially shut down 4Winds, but here the saga continues with the eagerly anticipated third chapter Jan-Uk.

The action-packed, blood-drenched extravaganza surprisingly goes back, not forward, to detail the brutal origins of Attu. As a young warrior barely past his manhood rites, Jan-Uk’s life changes forever after his father is betrayed and murdered and the boy seeks vengeance. His sire was both chief and seer, and before his demise foresaw his son living with strangers who rode strange birds from the stars but all that seems impossible to explain as the young warriors sets out after brutal rival Laanta and his cronies.

When the crime was perpetrated, Jan-Uk stalked the killers across the terrifying wilderness and tracked them up a mountain where even more primitive, half-ape creatures named Kassars lived. And then there was a blinding flash of light…

To Be Continued? (By Gosh I hope so…)

Following the astounding action extravaganza, Stephen R. Bissette offers a vast and comprehensive Caveman Comics Afterword on ‘Deconstructing Attu (Or: How a science Fiction Adventure Graphic Novel Can Indeed Be a Personal Work of Art from One of the Unsung Masters of Silver Age Adventure Comics’ and the book concludes with a bunch of stunning visual Extras including roughs, unused art (and hints of what’s next for Attu) plus charming pinups from Glanzman and celebrity guest contributors such as Michael T. Gilbert and Phil Hester.

An unrepentant fabulist adventure combining pre-history, monsters, murder mystery, political intrigue, super-science and even time-travel, this is a purely delightful slice of old-fashioned comics fun, rendered in stark, savage black and white; a brilliant paean to a bygone style and age. Moreover, it’s still not too late to urge this wonderful graphic master to sort out the next volume…
© 2016 Sam Glanzman. Foreword © 2016 Jeff Lemire. Introduction © 2016 Timothy Truman. Afterword © 2016 Stephen R. Bissette. All rights reserved.

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Star Trek Gold Key Archives volume 3


By Len Wein, Arnold Drake, Alfredo Giolitti, Giovanni Ticci & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-231-9

Star Trek debuted on American televisions on September 8th 1966, running until June 3rd 1969: three seasons comprising 79 episodes. A moderate success, the series only really became super-popular after going into syndication; running constantly in American local TV regions throughout the 1970s. It was also sold all over the world, popping up seemingly everywhere and developing a fanatically devoted fanbase.

There was some merchandising, and an inevitable comicbook – from Gold Key – which ran for almost a decade beyond the show’s cancellation. However, at the start neither authenticity nor immediacy were paramount. Only six issues were released during the show’s entire 3-season original run. Published between July 1967 and December 1968, those quirkily enticing yarns were all gathered in the first Star Trek: Gold Key archive collection.

The reason for the inaccuracies between screen and page was simple and a clear indication of the attitude both studio and publisher held about science fiction material. Initial scripter Dick Wood had seen no episodes when commissioned to write the comic, and with Italian artists Nevio Zaccara and Alberto Giolitti, received only the briefest of outlines and scant reference materials from the show’s producers. The comics craftsmen were working almost utterly in a vacuum…

Nevertheless, by the time of these interstellar exploits – reprinting Star Trek #13-18 from February 1972 to May 1973 – most of the well-intentioned contradictions of established Trek lore were long gone, thanks to better reference materials and familiarity with the actual show. These printed Enterprise incidents and missions are far closer to canonical parity with the TV phenomenon.

Following entertaining Introduction ‘Let’s See what She’s Got’ from educator and Trek scholar Joseph F. Berenato, the extra-solar explorations resume with ‘Dark Traveller’ (by Len Wein & Giolitti) which sees the Enterprise taken over by a shadowy being of incredible power who boosts its capabilities to send the crew hurtling across the universe.

Nomad shares his story of a world that grew too perfect and fell into cultural stagnation, and how he abandoned it for more primitive, questing races, before concluding that now his energies are fading his time to return home has come…

However, when he and his unwilling travelling companions reach Utopia, they find no paradise but a ruined world wracked by bloodshed, with mechanical killers everywhere, intent on eradicating the organic population.

Stranded far from home, the Federation crew have no choice but to join Nomad’s brutal war against an old friend driven to madness and mass-murder if they are to have any chance of seeing familiar stars again…

Star Trek #14 from May 1972 reveals how a diplomatic mission goes lethally awry after James Kirk is injured during a landing party excursion. Subsequently tasked with feting an unaligned dignitary whose civilisation and political allegiance is also being courted by Klingon emissaries, the Captain seemingly goes crazy and provokes ‘The Enterprise Mutiny’.

However, canny Mr. Spock deduces there is another explanation for his comrade’s sadistic and erratic behaviour…

August found Enterprise propelled beyond reality by a cosmic maelstrom and latterly becalmed in a region where physical laws don’t work properly. Invited to visit the ‘Museum at the End of Time’ by its uncanny Curator, Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy meet explorers from many worlds and eras who have long ago lapsed into immortal indolence. Typically the newcomers cannot reconcile themselves to the fact that there is no escape from the timeless limbo that holds them…

The situation escalates into bloody warfare when Klingons from a battle-cruiser also caught in the cosmic storm invade the museum. As chaos erupts, the time-lost denizens of limbo finally regain their old verve and fight back, just as Spock discovers the timeless realm is dying. The imminent end, however, does present one perilously slim chance of returning to their original plane of existence…

In November an Enterprise shuttlecraft suffered a catastrophic accident and crashed on a primitive, feudal world where the Federation crew had to hide their alien natures from a superstitious, theocratic cult tyrannising the primitive populace. To stand any chance of rescue Kirk, Spock, McCoy and their subordinates had to ally themselves with a resistance movement to escape torture and death on the ‘Day of the Inquisitors’…

With #17 (February 1973), Arnold Drake replaced Wein as scripter and Giolitti split his illustrative duties with studio-mate Giovanni Ticci to solve the riddle of ‘The Cosmic Cavemen’.

On a distant world shared by dinosaurs and stone-age humans, Kirk, McCoy and Chief Engineer Scott are captured and paraded before telepathic priestess Lok. Their shock and disbelief go off the scale when they are taken to an idol which is the spitting image of Spock…

The immediate crisis seems over after the Vulcan beams in to rescue his crewmates, but wily Lok has a plan to place her tribe beyond the reach of all rivals and subtly steals the death dealing weapons of the starmen to further her aims…

The cosmic comic cavalcade then concludes with an interstellar crime caper from Drake, Giolitti & Ticci as planet Styra – threatened with imminent destruction – digitises and records its entire population on bio-magnetic tape, entrusting the Enterprise to transport and restore them to life on a new world.

Sadly, comely castaway Allura has already inserted herself aboard ship and begins vamping Spock whilst her partner – deranged showman and magician Anzar – purloins the tape and holds ‘The Hijacked Planet’ hostage.

The crazed genius believes he has every avenue covered but has never faced anyone as clever as the Vulcan or as foolhardy as James Kirk…

Rounding out this compelling collection is a gallery of painted covers by elusive but brilliant George Wilson and an in-depth, fact-packed biography and assessment of the phenomenal strip illustrator in ‘Alberto Giolitti: About the Artist’.

Fun, thrilling and astoundingly compelling, these are comics classics not just for devoted TV fans but a prime example of graphic storytelling at its most engaging.
® and © 2015 CBS Studios, Inc. Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Serenity: Firefly Class 03-K64 volume 3 – The Shepherd’s Tale


By Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Chris Samnee & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-561-2

For those far too few people who actually saw it, Firefly remains one of the best science fiction TV shows ever created.

It was cancelled after one season. Buy the box set or seek it out from an on-demand/streaming media outlet as soon as you possibly can.

The select dejected fanbase were eventually delighted by the superb Serenity – one of the best science fiction movies ever released.

Rent it, buy it, watch it however you can.

Once you’ve done those things you’ll be properly primed to enjoy this superb and lavish full-colour hardback which offers long-awaited details into the troubled life of enigmatic preacher Book who joined reluctant freedom fighter Malcolm Reynolds and his oddball crew of reprobates aboard an independent trader starship of the Firefly class, under the most peculiar of circumstances…

If you aren’t au fait with “the ‘Verse” yet – and did I mention the live action iterations are readily available and extremely entertaining? – here’s a little background.

After they used up Earth, humanity migrated to the stars and settled another star-system packed with hundreds of more or less hospitable planets and satellites. Now it’s the 26th century and mankind is living through the aftermath of a recent punishing internecine conflict known – by the victors – as the Unification War.

This still-sore and rankling clash saw the outer Colonies crushed after attempting to secede from the authoritarian Alliance of first-settled inner planets. Reynolds fought valiantly on the losing side and now spends his days eking out a living on the fringes of an increasingly repressive and dangerous universe: taking cargo and people from world to world – and hopefully avoiding the ever-expanding Alliance representatives – as a free agent skippering a small Firefly class cargo transport called Serenity.

It’s hard, risky work: often illegal and frequently dangerous – especially as the outer regions are where the insane cannibal berserker savages dubbed Reavers restlessly prowl.

Life changed forever after Serenity gave passage to Alliance doctor Simon Tam who was on the run after stealing his seemingly-psychic sister River from a top secret research project.

The Government spared no effort or expense to get her back and hounded the fugitives from pillar to post until Reynolds and his crew finally decided to push back.

At the cost of too many friends, the reluctant rebels uncovered the horrific secrets the Alliance were so desperate to keep hidden and broadcast them to the entire ‘Verse …

During their TV voyages the Firefly crew was supplemented by a wise and gentle cleric of the Shepherd religion on a pilgrimage to who knew where. He offered moral guidance (mostly ignored), philosophical debate and emotional support as required, but every so often something Derrial Book said or did gave hints of lethal capabilities and a dangerous past the holy man always deftly avoided discussing…

Written by (series creator) Joss Whedon and Zack Whedon, illustrated by super-star in the making Chris Samnee (Daredevil, Thor: The Mighty Avenger, The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom) and sporting colours from Dave Stewart and letters by Steve Morris, this compelling book of revelations finally exposes the secrets and tells the life story of the show’s most intriguing character…

The episodic saga is told in flashes and snippets from end to beginning; starting with his eventual glorious passing and working backwards in dramatic instalments to the way and why it all began…

Along the road we see his turbulent time aboard Serenity, before moving into unexplored territory at placid Southdown Abbey where after much soul-searching he elected to rejoin the dangerous, tempting outer world…

From then it’s a jump back a full decade to when a drunken derelict near death received one more well-deserved beating and awoke to a moment of holy clarity in a bowl of soup…

From then a time-cut slashes back to the moment when Alliance high-flyer Officer Book personally oversaw the military’s greatest defeat and was cashiered out of the service with extreme prejudice…

Years prior to that another scene shows how far ambitious cadet Derrial would go to further his career before a further flashback reveals that the man we’ve been reading about was never Derrial Book at all, but instead a murderous sleeper agent planted within the Alliance.

And even further back we travel, learning what makes a boy into the kind of man who would endure mutilation and worse; contemplate constantly betraying everything he cares for in a dark yet redemptive tale exploring the most basic and abiding aspects of human nature…

With narrative tones reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s Memento, this powerful testament to the force of personality, the bondage of upbringing and man’s infinite capacity for change is accompanied by an incisive and heartfelt Afterword – ‘The Journey is the Worthier Part…’ from scripter Zack Whedon, detailing the inspirations which fuelled many of the story’s most memorable scenes.

Poignant, compelling and explosively engaging, this is a tale no devotee should miss and a comic experience well able to stand apart from its live action roots.
Serenity © 2010 Universal Studios. Firefly™ and Serenity: Firefly Class 03-K64™ and © 2014 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Edgar Allan Poe’s Spirits of the Dead


Adapted by Richard Corben, with Beth Corben Reed & Nate Piekos (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-356-2

Richard Corben is one of America’s greatest proponents of graphic narrative: an animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist, catapulting from the tumultuous wave of independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a major force in comic storytelling with his own unmistakable style and vision.

He is equally renowned for his mastery of airbrush, captivatingly excessive anatomical stylisation and delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror, fantasy and science fiction tales. In later years he has become an elder statesman of horror and fantasy comics lending his gifts and cachet to such icons as John Constantine, Hulk, Hellboy, Punisher and Ghost Rider as well as new adaptations and renditions of literary classics by the likes of William Hope Hodgson, Lovecraft and the master of gothic terror Edgar Allan Poe.

Corben didn’t sell out; American publishing simply caught up, finally growing mature enough to accommodate him, due in no small part to his own broad and pervasive influence…

Born in Anderson, Missouri in 1940, he graduated with a Fine Arts degree in 1965 and found work as an animator. At that time, the neutered comicbooks of the Comics-Code Authority era were just starting to lose disaffected, malcontent older fans to the hippy-trippy, freewheeling, anything-goes publications of independent-minded creators across the continent who were increasingly making the kind of material Preachers and Mummy and her Lawyers wouldn’t approve of…

Creativity honed by the resplendent and explicitly mature 1950s EC Comics, Carl Barks’ perfectly crafted Duck tales and other classy early strips, a plethora of young artists like Corben responded with a variety of small-press publications – including Grim Wit, Slow Death, Skull, Fever Dreams and his own Fantagor – which featured shocking, rebellious, sexed-up, raw, brutal, psychedelically-inspired cartoons and strips blending the new wave of artists’ unconventional lifestyles with their earliest childhood influences… honestly crafting the kind of stories they would like to read.

Corben inevitably graduated to more professional – and paying – venues. As his style and skills developed he worked for Warren Publishing in Eerie, Creepy, Vampirella, Comix International and outrageous adult science fiction anthology 1984/1994. He famously coloured some strips for the revival of Will Eisner’s The Spirit.

Soon after he was producing stunning graphic escapades for a number of companies, making animated movies, painting film posters and producing record covers such as the multi-million-selling Meatloaf album Bat Out of Hell. He has never stopped creating comics but prefers personal independent projects or working with in-tune collaborators such as Bruce Jones, Jan Strnad and Harlan Ellison.

In 1975 Corben approached French fantasy phenomenon M̩tal Hurlant and quickly became a fixture of its American iteration Heavy Metal, cementing his international reputation in the process. Garnering huge support and acclaim in Europe, he has been regularly collected in luxurious albums even as he seemingly fell out of favour Рand print Рin his own country. Through it all he has never strayed far from his moss-covered roots.

This particular tome gathers a recent return to adaptations of the classic Poe canon; all-new, 21st century, often rather radical reinterpretations of the troubled author’s greatest works, as published in The Fall of the House of Usher #1-2, one-shots The Conqueror Worm, The Raven and the Red Death, The Premature Burial and Morella and the Murders in the Rue Morgue plus some short tales originally published in Dark Horse Presents #9, #16-18 and #28-29; collectively spanning the period November 2012-April 2014.

The horrific hagiography – each tale attributed with its year of publication and adapted with the colouring assistance of Beth Corben Reed and lettering expertise of Nate Piekos of Blambot® – opens following an erudite, informative and compelling Introduction ‘Masters of the Macabre: Edgar Allan Poe and Richard Corben’ by university professor, author, Poe expert and comics scholar Thomas M. Inge and the mood-setting poem ‘Spirits of the Dead (1827)’ before the artistic extravaganza unfolds with aged, one-eyed crone Maggy as host and guide to the selection which follows.

In ‘Alone (1828)’ morbid, death-haunted Solomon discusses his distressing dreams with the intoxicating but strangely unmoved Liea whilst ‘The City in the Sea (1831)’ sees a shipwrecked sea captain forced to explain his recent dramatic actions to a dank and unforgiving tribunal who have markedly different views to him on what constitutes duty, business sense, cargo and humanity…

Many of these interpretations employ embedded lines of Poe’s verse, such as ‘The Sleeper (1831)’ which sees a well-deserved fate meted out to a rich philanderer who had his wife and her murderer killed to further his own carnal desires whilst ‘The Assignation (1834)’ examines a toxic relationship where husband and wife cannot live together… or apart…

‘Berenice (1835)’ is one of Poe’s most stomach-churning, nerve-jangling yarns and Corben does it full justice as bereaved Egaeus watches over the corpse of his recently-deceased betrothed. However, even in death he cannot turn his mind away from an overwhelming fascination with her perfect teeth…

The deeply unsettling story of ‘Morella (1835)’ reveals how a vain witch orchestrates her own death and resurrection as her own daughter to keep her husband properly seduced and in line, before focus shifts to ancient Greece and the inevitable approach of death amongst the warriors at a funeral: a wake tainted by the unquiet dead and an oppressive ‘Shadow (1835)’…

In the luxuriously expansive ‘The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)’ artist and traveller Allan is broaches a befuddling, bilious and deadly swamp to reach the ancestral seat of the ancient Usher clan and visit an old school chum.

Like the family, the vast manse is slowly dissolving into the mire that surrounds and supports it. The decadent, failing blood of melancholic master and obsessive portraitist Roderick Usher masks many bizarre behaviours, but not even that can excuse his vile attitude to his seemingly subjugated, clandestinely closeted, sumptuously seductive deranged sister Madeline whose essence he is determined to capture on canvas at any cost…

As he stares at the too-intimate pencil studies, Allan too is drawn to the girl: a feeling only intensified once they actually meet…

By secret means she makes the visitor aware of a unique plight and urges him to assist her escape but Roderick will go to any lengths to keep his sister with him and would rather extinguish the family line rather than lose her.

That is unless the repelled, rebellious Earth doesn’t reclaim the crumbling house and the decadent Ushers first…

Infamous for his dark, doom-laden horror stories, Poe was also a pioneer of crime fiction and next up is a grimly effective and trenchantly black-humoured adaptation of the debut tale starring French gentleman detective Le Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin and his partner in peril Beluc.

Here the dandified dynamic duo put their heads together to solve an impossible locked room mystery which resulted in the brutal dismemberment of two women in ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)’: a crime with a callous perpetrator but no culpable killer…

‘The Masque of the Red Death (1842)’ then returns to classical themes and supernal horror as plague grips the lands of regal Prospero. Faced with difficult choices, the lord opts to bring his richest cronies within his opulent castle to safely disport themselves in debauched revelry whilst the contagion burns itself out on the peasantry. Sadly, the foolish sybarite has made one grave and arrogant error which will cost him everything…

Under Corben’s imaginative purview, grim gloomy ode ‘The Conqueror Worm (1843)’ is transformed into a salutary saga of inescapable vengeance as proud Colonel Mann kills his errant wife and her lover but is tainted with a maggot that burrows into his body and soul.

Feigning innocence and ignorance, Mann salves his “tragic loss” by employing an itinerant puppet show for a family party but the mummers expose that most proper paragon’s sins before utterly consuming him, whilst in ‘The Premature Burial (1844)’ a close shave with attempted murder and molestation of the dead turns Lucian into a man obsessed with being buried alive and Arnold‘s inability to forget his dead Lenore leads to an unforgettable encounter with ‘The Raven (1845)’ in a visual tour de force every inch as potent as Poe’s poem.

Wrapping up the journey into mysteries is a deft retelling of ‘The Cask of Amontillado, (1846)’ wherein aging Montressor at last shares a long-held secret with the wife of his old friend Fortunato, now missing for many a year.

As he guides her through his deep vaults, filled with the remains of his ancestors and his precious wine collection, gloating Montressor tells the increasing nervous widow of her husband’s ghastly fate and why and how the poor, bibulous buffoon vanished so completely that long-ago night…

Accompanied by a stunning Cover Gallery, this compelling collection of classic chillers is a modern masterpiece of arcane abomination and human horror no shock addict of mystery lover will want to miss.
Spirits of the Dead™ © 2012, 2013, 2014 Richard Corben. All rights reserved.

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Mighty Samson Archives: volume 1


By Otto Binder & Frank Thorne & various (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-579-7

These days all the attention in comics circles goes to the big-hitters and headline-grabbing groundbreakers, but once upon a time, when funnybooks were cheap as well as plentiful, a kid (whatever his or her age) could afford to follow the pack and still find time and room to enjoy quirky outliers: B through Z listers, oddly off-kilter concepts and champions far falling outside the accepted parameters of standard super-types…

A classic example of that freedom of expression was the relatively angst-free dystopian future of Mighty Samson, who had a sporadic yet extended comics career of 32 issues spanning 1964 to 1982.

Although set in the aftermath of an atomic Armageddon, the story of the survivors was a blend of updated myth, pioneer adventure and superhero shtick, liberally leavened with the kind of incredible creatures and sci fi monsters the industry thrived on back then.

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

This superb first full-colour hardback compilation – printed on a reassuringly sturdy and comforting grainy old-school pulp stock rather than glossy paper – gathers the first half dozen issues of Mighty Samson, as anonymously created by industry giants Otto Binder & Frank Thorne. It even includes some monochrome single-page fact-features and the mesmerising painted covers by unsung master illustrators Morris Gollub and George Wilson.

These covers were reproduced text-free on the back of each issue and probably graced many a kid’s bedroom wall way back when. You get those too, but I’d suggest scanners rather than scissors this time around…

Otto Binder was a quintessential jobbing writer. He and his brother Earl were early fans of science fiction and made their first professional sale to Amazing Stories in 1930. As “Eando Binder” their pulp-fiction and novels output ran well into the 1970s, with Otto rightly famed for his creation of robotic hero Adam Link.

From 1939 onwards, Otto was also a prolific comicbook scripter, most beloved for the invention and perfection of a humorous blend of spectacular action, self-deprecating humour and gentle whimsy which characterised the Fawcett Captain Marvel line of characters (and later DC’s Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen). He was also constantly employed by many other publishers and amongst his most memorable inventions and innovations are Timely’s Young Allies, Mr. Mind, Brainiac, Krypto the Super Dog and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

In his later life he moved into editing, producing factual science books and writing for NASA.

Frank Thorne is one of the most individualistic talents in American comics. Born in 1930, he began his comics career drawing romances for Standard Comics beside the legendary Alex Toth before graduating to better paid newspaper strips: illustrating Perry Mason for King Features Syndicate. For Dell/Gold Key he drew Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim and The Green Hornet, as well as the first few years of this seminal sci-fi classic.

At DC he did compelling work on Tomahawk and Son of Tomahawk before being hired by Roy Thomas at Marvel to illustrate his belated breakthrough strip Red Sonja. Forever-after connected with feisty, earthy, highly sexualised women, in 1978 Thorne created the outrageously bawdy (some say vulgar) swordswoman Ghita of Alizarr for Warren’s adult science fantasy anthology 1984/1994 as well as such adult satirical strips as Moonshine McJugs for Playboy and Danger Rangerette for National Lampoon. He has won the National Cartoonists Award for comic books, an Inkpot Award and a Playboy Editorial Award.

Thorne was still a fairly by-the-book illustrator at the time of this collection’s content and it was on Mighty Samson that he opened up, finding his own unique artistic vision which would carry him to the forefront of stylists with the satirical and erotic works of his later years.

That’s meat for other reviews, but here the creators combined to craft a beguiling other-world of action, adventure and drama suitable for most kids of all ages and which would be perfectly at home today on any Saturday Morning Kids channel.

The strip, its merits and the incredible careers of its originators are fully and lovingly discussed by Dylan Williams in his Foreword ‘The Mighty Samson Comics of Frank Thorne and Otto Binder’, and there are full ‘Creator Biographies’ at the end of the book, but what really matters is the sublime stories reprinted here: no-nonsense high-fantasy yarns at once self-contained, episodic, exciting, enticing and deceptively witty.

After that first magnetic painted cover from Gollub, the eponymous ‘Mighty Samson’ (#1, July 1964) introduces the bombed out former metropolis of N’Yark; a place where human primitives cling to the ruins, striving daily against mutated plants and monsters and less easily identified blends somewhere in between….

A strange event occurs one day when a toddler is grabbed by a predatory plant. The tot simply tears the terror apart with his podgy little hands. As years pass and the child grows tall and clean-limbed, it becomes clear that he too is a mutant: immensely strong, fast and durable…

Impassioned by his mother’s dying words – “protect the weak from the powerful, the good from the evil” – Samson becomes the champion of his people, battling the beasts and monsters of the city. Sadly the struggles are not without cost, such as when he kills the immense Liobear, but loses his right eye…

The clash proves a turning point in his life as his wounds are dressed by a stranger named Sharmaine. She and her father Mindor are voluntary outcasts in the city: shunning contact with superstitious tribes to gather lost secrets of science and work to bring humanity out of its second stone age…

Fired with inspiration, Samson agrees to join in their self-appointed mission and defend them from all threats as they carry out their work.

There were generally two full adventures per issue, and the quest continues in ‘Ancient Weapon’ as the trio’s constant scavenging leads them through a gauntlet of horrendous mutant monsters to an ancient armoury where sagacious Mindor deciphers the secrets of sticks which kill from a distance. Sadly, the discovery is observed by brutal warlord Kull the Killer who takes Sharmaine hostage to seize control of the death-technology. Thankfully the tyrant and his warriors never suspect Samson is as clever as he is strong…

It was nearly a year until a second issue was released (#2, June 1965), but when it finally arrived it was at full throttle. ‘The Riddle of the Raids’ saw the wandering science nomads buzzed by a flying saucer which proves to be the vehicle of choice of a new arch foe. Terra is an exotic mystery woman possessing many lost technological secrets who has emerged after years underground in a bunker from the old world. Her store of atomic batteries finally exhausted, she begins raiding across the toxic, monster-infested Huzon River from the wastelands of Jerz, and soon recruits Kull to her cause. Even working in unison however they are no match for Mighty Samson and once he drives them off, aged Mindor is able to add greatly to mankind’s store of recovered knowledge…

Intent on uncovering the truth about ‘The Maid of Mystery’, Samson makes the perilous excursion across the devastated George Washington Bridge to invade Terra’s subterranean fortress in Jerz. Although faced with Kull’s monstrous minions and captured, the one-eyed hero soon escapes, but not before making a lasting impression on the evil empress of forgotten lore…

More secrets of lost civilisation emerged in #3 (September 1965) after the atomic archaeologists unearth a ‘Peril from the Past’. Dr. John Pitt was working in an atomic bunker when the world ended, and after somehow falling into suspended animation is revived by the jubilant Mindor.

Determined to glean everything possible from the shaken survivor, hopes are continually dashed as a geological accident in an old chemical factory threatens to wipe out N’Yark with toxic clouds of radioactive poison. However, as the reawakened chemist works with his rescuers to end the threat, Sharmaine suspects the old-worlder is hiding something…

The tragic truth about Pitt comes out as he and Samson begin ‘The Desperate Mission’ to snuff out the source of the death cloud, but only as a prelude to a greater, final loss…

With Mighty Samson #4 (December 1965), the turbulent world of tomorrow expanded exponentially as N’Yark suffers raids by post-apocalyptic Vikings from pastoral paradise Greelynd. Barbaric despot Thorr leads ‘The Metal Stealers’ in stripping the ruined city of all its scrap alloys; sailing them to his distant Nordic castle where he has rediscovered the processes of smelting and forging.

Samson doggedly tracks him across unknown oceans, not just because he has stolen the city’s heritage and vital resources but also because the reaver kidnapped Sharmaine and seemingly turned Mindor’s head with promises of technological resources and total freedom to experiment…

Of course, all is not as it seems and when Samson invades Thorr’s ‘Sinister Stronghold’, to battle the tyrant’s legion of monsters, idealistic Mindor’s seeming compliance is revealed as a clever plan to defeat the resource raider…

Returned to their shattered home, Samson and his allies are helpless against the mounting radioactive peril of ‘The Death Geysers’ (#5, March 1966) erupting from beneath the city. With portions of N’Yark now no-go areas, hope seems to materialise in the form of Vaxar, a stranger versed in science, whom Samson rescues from a voracious Gulping Blob.

Vaxar eagerly joins their efforts to neutralise the geyser menace, but the researcher’s every invention is countered by a monstrous and bestial mutant named Oggar who is every inch Samson’s physical equal…

Once again, clear-headed Sharmaine is the one who deduces the truth about ‘The Double Enemy’ in their midst and, as Vaxar’s terrible secret is exposed, awesome natural forces are combined with a most terrifying artefact of recovered weaponry to end the threat of both Oggar and the geysers…

These utterly accessible, exultant and exuberant romps conclude in this volume with a sop to the then-escalating “space race” between Russia and the USA. Issue #6 (June 1966) opens with N’Yark bombarded by ‘The Sinister Satellites’ of a forgotten era, haphazardly crashing to earth around the city.

Consulting his preciously-hoarded records, Mindor ascertains they are lost technology he simply must possess, but finds that he is in deadly contention with Terra of Jerz for the fallen stars.

None too soon, suspicious Samson and Sharmaine discover the evil queen of science is actually pulling the satellites to earth with a magnetic cannon, but as they move to stop her, an unintended consequence of her meddling unleashes ‘The Monster from Space’ which grows exponentially and looks set to devour the entire continent should Mighty Samson not find some way to kill it…

This excellent tome has one last treat in store, as a brace of monochrome pictorial fact features – also illustrated by Thorne – reveal a few salient facts about the iconic Empire State Building in ‘The Mighty Tower’ and ‘The World’s Tallest’, originally produced as frontispieces for the advert-free original comicbooks.

Bizarre, action-packed and fabulously bombastic, Binder’s modern myth of a rationalist Hercules battling atom-spawned Titans and devils is a stunning spectacle of thrill-a-minute wonderment from start to finish, with artist Thorne visibly shaking off his artistic chains with every succeeding page. These tales are lost gems from an era when fun was paramount and entertainment a mandatory requirement. This is comics they way they were and really should be again…
Mighty Samson® Volume One ™ and © 2010 Random House, Inc. Under license to Classic Media LCC. All rights reserved. All other material, unless otherwise specified, © 2010 Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Star Trek Archives volume 5: Best of Captain Kirk


By Peter David, James Fry, Gordon Purcell, Arne Starr & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-60010-571-5

The stellar Star Trek brand is one of probably the biggest franchise engines on Earth, permeating every merchandisable sector imaginable. You can find daily live-action and animated screen appearances constantly screening somewhere on the planet, toys, games, conventions, merchandise, various comics iterations generated in a host of nations and languages and a reboot of the movie division proceeding apace even as I type this. There’s even a new rebooted TV series beginning in 2017…

Many companies have published comicbook adventures based on the exploits of Gene Roddenberry’s immortal brainchild. Currently IDW have the treasured funnybook license and are combining great new tales with a choice selection of older examples from other publishers.

A particularly fine extended exploit can be found in this epic sequence taken from a splendid run produced under the DC badge during the 1980s and early 1990s. Never flashy or sensational, those tales assiduously and scrupulously referenced the TV and movie canon whilst embracing the same storytelling values and concentrating on stories simultaneously character-led and plot-driven.

Here Federation history blends seamlessly with suspenseful drama and spectacular action, subtle character interplay, boisterous humour and good old fashioned thrills as scripter Peter David and his artistic allies concoct a tense, politically-tinged saga first seen in issues #7-12 of DC’s monthly Star Trek comicbook (spanning April to September 1990).

Previously: a number of hostile alien races – the Klingons – just prior to their grand rapprochement with the Federation – and a now-uncomfortably un-PC fundamentalist species called Nasguls (based on then-contemporary bugbear Iran under the Ayatollahs) have recently fallen foul of James T. Kirk’s unconventional problem-solving methods.

Having had enough of the human’s impious interference, the holy Salla of the Nasguls placed a planet-sized bounty on the Enterprise’s Captain.

Kirk doesn’t care: he has bigger problems. Finally fed up with his interstellar shenanigans, Starfleet has appointed civilian protocol officer R. J. Blaise to the Enterprise to make sure Kirk behaves properly, but somehow this beautiful woman is completely immune to our hero’s amatory charms…

The astral action opens on Earth where Starfleet Vice-Admiral Tomlinson and the Federation President are enduring a fractious and tiresome meeting with the Klingon ambassador and the august Salla himself.

The tyrannical aliens have temporarily suspended their disdain for each other and are now (relatively) united in pursuing quasi-legal avenues; seeking to have Kirk cashiered from the service, tried in a Federation court and then – naturally – executed…

Events take a most unwelcome turn in ‘Not… Sweeney!’ (by David, James W. Fry & Arne Starr) as news comes that the most dreaded bounty hunter in the universe has decided to collect the price on Kirk’s head.

Caring little for the death-sentence dogging him, the starship captain is utterly incensed when it adversely affects his job. Despatched to Tau Gamma II to rescue a human colony before the geologically unstable planet shakes itself to bits, Kirk is flabbergasted to find the survivors demanding another ship or to be left to the world’s erratic mercies, rather than endure certain doom when Sweeney comes for the Enterprise’s captain…

Their anxiety proves well-founded when hours later the infallible stalker arrives with a fleet of ships and attacks…

After a tremendous struggle in ‘Going, Going…’, Kirk – with Spock and Blaise as collateral captives – is confined aboard the disturbingly effete bounty hunter’s flagship and made the star of an impromptu auction.

Kirk has made many enemies in his career and a ferocious bidding war begins, but Sweeney’s attentions are soon diverted by Spock. The scrupulously polite and terrifyingly brilliant manhunter has never met a captive like the Vulcan, and his distracting new fascination eventually leads to Sweeney’s first defeat as Kirk and Blaise break out of the Brig just as competing Klingon and Nasgul forces warp in to claim the prize lot in Sweeney’s auction…

Things come to a head when the situation deteriorates into a petulant shooting war in ‘…Gone!’, leaving Kirk to pull off yet another hairsbreadth escape and even save the colonists on Tau Gamma II…

However, no longer willing to tolerate the political machinations, he then forces the issue to a head by surrendering himself to Federation authorities on Earth and demanding his day in court to clear his name once and for all…

Given the chance for a show trial, the Salla and his Klingons antagonists revel in the chance to destroy the greatest hindrance to their plans as ‘The Trial of James T. Kirk’ opens with ‘The First Thing We Do…’

This story-within-a-story is stuffed with hilarious cameos and vignettes from many old TV episodes (but in an easily accessible manner for newcomers unfamiliar with lore) and sees Kirk’s attorneys Samuel T. Cogsley and Areel Shaw (look them up if you need to) deftly manoeuvre to remove most of the charges whilst rolling out many fan-favourites from old episodes to act as “character witnesses”…

Despite making some telling points, an Enterprise crewman turning to the Dark Side and the frank sworn testimony of R. J. Blaise, the is case is clearly going against the Klingons and Nasgul. Thus they individually and clandestinely resort to their respective “Plan Bs” in ‘…Lets Kill All the Lawyers!’

The bellicose warrior race fly in their Emperor to give personal testimony and demand Kirk’s destruction whilst the fundamentalist tyrant of the Nasgul opts for a far more hands-on and devastatingly final solution…

Pencilled by Gordon Purcell, the saga explosively concludes in ‘Trial and Error!’ as deft work by Spock and the Bridge Crew uncover a plot to eradicate the courtroom and everyone in it, leading to a cessation of hostilities between the Federation and the Klingons and Kirk’s full exoneration.

Sadly, those efforts completely failed to expose the treacherous mole high in Star Fleet Command who was crucial to instigating the entire affair…

This tale is pure classic Trek. The fans loved it then and you will now. It’s also a very good example of how to do a licensed property in comic form, and readers and wannabe creators should buy and take note. Balancing the action and drama are captivating moments of interpersonal byplay filling out the roles of beloved characters such as Uhura and Sulu and – as you’d expect from Peter David – the story is packed with outrageously hilarious quotable moments…

These yarns are magical romps of fun and thrills that fully embrace and enhance the canonical Star Trek for the dedicated fan, provide memorable comicbook adventure for followers of our art-form and, most importantly, provide an important bridge between the insular world of fans and the wider mainstream. Stories like these about such famous characters can only bring more people into comics and isn’t that what we all want?
Star Trek ® and © 2009 CBS Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc.

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The Shadow volume 2: Revolution


By Victor Gischler, Jack Herbert, Aaron Campbell, Giovanni Timpano & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-361-2

In the early 1930s, The Shadow gave thrill-starved readers their measured doses of extraordinary excitement via cheaply produced pulp periodical novels, and over the mood-drenched airwaves, through his own radio show.

“Pulps” were published in every style and genre in their hundreds every month, ranging from the truly excellent to the pitifully dire, but for exotic or esoteric adventure-lovers there were two star who outshone all others. The Superman of his day was Doc Savage, whilst the premier dark, relentless creature of the night dispensing terrifying grim justice was the putative hero under discussion here.

Radio series Detective Story Hour – based on stand-alone yarns from the Street & Smith publication Detective Story Magazine – used a spooky voiced narrator (variously Orson Welles, James LaCurto or Frank Readick Jr.) to introduce each tale. He was dubbed “the Shadow” and from the very start on July 31st 1930, he was more popular than the stories he highlighted.

The Shadow evolved into a proactive hero solving instead of narrating mysteries and, on April 1st 1931, began starring in his own printed pulp series, written by the incredibly prolific Walter Gibson under the house pseudonym Maxwell Grant. On September 26th 1937 the radio show officially became The Shadow with the eerie motto “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of Men? The Shadow knows!” ringing out unforgettably over the nation’s airwaves.

Over the next eighteen years 325 novels were published, usually at the rate of two a month. The uncanny crusader spawned comicbooks, seven movies, a newspaper strip and all the merchandising paraphernalia you’d expect of a superstar brand.

The pulp series officially ended in 1949 although Gibson and others added to the canon during the 1960s when a pulp/fantasy revival gripped America, generating reprinted classic stories and a run of new adventures as paperback novels.

In graphic terms The Shadow was a major player. His national newspaper strip – by Vernon Greene – launched on June 17th 1940 and when comicbooks really took off the Man of Mystery had his own four-colour title; running from March 1940 to September 1949.

Archie Comics published a controversial contemporary comicbook in 1964-1965 under their Radio/Mighty Comics imprint, by Robert Bernstein, Jerry Siegel, John Rosenberger and latterly Paul Reinman; and in 1973 DC acquired the rights to produce a captivating, brief and definitive series of classic comic adventures unlike any other superhero title then on the stands.

DC periodically revived the venerable vigilante. After the runaway success of Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchman, Howard Chaykin was allowed to utterly overhaul the vintage feature. This led to further, adult-oriented iterations (and even one cracking outing from Marvel) before Dark Horse assumed the license of the quintessential grim avenger for the latter half of the 1990s and beyond.

Dynamite Entertainment picked up the option in 2011 and, whilst republishing many of those other publisher’s earlier efforts, began a series of new monthly Shadow comics.

Set in the turbulent 1930s and war years that followed, these were crafted by some of the top writers in the industry, each taking their shot at the immortal legend, and all winningly depicted by a succession of extremely gifted illustrators.

This second volume – collecting #7-12 of the monthly comicbook from 2013 – comes courtesy of Victor Gischler (Gun Monkeys, Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth, Kiss Me Satan), again throwing a spotlight on the increasing deadly geopolitics of a civilisation sliding inexorably into another World War….

His scripts were variously realised by Jack Herbert, Aaron Campbell, Giovanni Timpano, Ivan Nunes & Carlos Lopez, and the action opens with a self-contained prelude that begins with the Master of the Macabre suffering from uncharacteristic bad dreams…

Very few people know that the black-cloaked fist of final retribution known as The Shadow masquerades by day as abrasive, indolent playboy Lamont Cranston. Most are agents in his employ and they are all aware of his semi-mystical abilities to detect thoughts and cloud the minds of men, but not that in the past few days those abilities have seemingly waned and led to the death of an innocent…

Engaging veteran Great War pilot Miles Crofton, Cranston embarks on a journey to the Himalayan region where he long ago studied under august adepts of the arcane. However, his voyage is interrupted in Nepal when he encounters a brutal bandit leader dubbed Red Raja. This thuggish crimelord seems to have powers and abilities similar and equal to his own…

Eschewing immediate confrontation, Cranston delves deep into the past and eventually learns the Raja also studied with the esoteric “Masters”. Tragically, when his innate evil nature forced them to expel him, the student returned with men and guns; wiping out the entire enclave of puissant accumulated knowledge…

Armed with information and fuelled by righteous fury, The Shadow then assaults Red Raja’s fortress, single-handedly eradicating his army of rogues before enacting final judgement…

Weeks later, vacationing in Paris whilst Miles has their plane repaired, the restless Shadow passes his time hunting down human predators and becomes emotionally embroiled in a missing persons case.

The trail leads to a grand soiree at the Spanish Embassy where Cranston makes a particular splash with the assorted dignitaries and persons of wealth and high station, particularly after loudly declaring that he is an arms dealer with product to sell.

It is 1937 and the civil war in Spain has all but stalled, with both sides afflicted by attrition and exhaustion…

Horrified Ambassador Ramirez is only too happy to fob off the tiresome Cranston on his military attaché. As soon as he sees the devastating Major Esmeralda Aguilar, the Shadow knows she is no ordinary woman…

The swaggering millionaire is only too eager to ditch the stuffy party with the exotic spy, but their intimate drive through the City of Lights is almost ended by a machine gun attack. Then Cranston discovers just how dangerous his companion truly is…

The next day Miles resurfaces with news on a freighter full of munitions headed for Spain and the final clue to the disappearances the Shadow has been investigating. Even with mental faculties and powers diminished and compromised, the Dark Avenger is clear on where his next destination lies…

Intercepting the gunrunners as they seek to offload their illicit cargo at a Spanish port, the Shadow dispenses his brand of justice before vanishing, and twelve hours later Lamont Cranston arrives in Barcelona, unsure of what trick of fate or his own subconscious has brought him there.

His mystically-attuned senses go into overdrive once he meets an inoffensive British volunteer in the Socialist Brigade calling himself “George Orwell”…

After befriending the oddly magnetic militiaman, Cranston excuses himself and resumes his trail of guns whilst Orwell returns to his unit in Aragon. Diligent hunting takes the Shadow to a warehouse where a gang led by a masked woman named Black Sparrow are attempting to sell the munitions to representatives of the underworld.

When the crooks try a double-cross they are savagely wiped out by the Sparrow as her men stand idly by, and from his hidden vantage point the Shadow realises just how extraordinary Major Aguilar truly is…

Soon the Avenger is risking spectacular airborne death; chasing her back to an ancient castle in the Aragon Region where he uncovers a bold scheme by an international cabal to place a third ruler on the throne of Spain. Of course, when he blazes in to end the conspiracy, Cranston finds more than he bargained for.

“El Rey” is far from the dominating despot he appears, and the true mastermind behind the plot is far more of a match for the Shadow than the grim guardian could possibly have anticipated.

And that’s when fate reveals the potential value of a certain nondescript British soldier of ideology and fortune…

This historically-flavoured jaunt then concludes with one last hurrah as Miles and Cranston belatedly return to New York just in time for the Shadow to fixate on a gang of ruthless bank robbers terrorising the city with their bold and lethal raids.

Broaching his contacts on the police force and rampaging through the ranks of the underworld, the Shadow turns the city upside down until at last a grudging tip takes him to a certain Chinatown whorehouse where a most exotic creature provides all the details he need to exact his vengeance on the guilty.

Now all that remains is to trigger the bloody end…

Dynamite publish periodicals with a vast array of cover variants and here a vast gallery features dozens of iconic alternate visions from Alex Ross, John Cassaday, Darwyn Cooke, Francesco Francavilla, Tim Bradstreet, Mike Mayhew, Michael Golden, Jack Herbert and Sean Chen to delight any art lover’s eyes and heart.

Sardonic, uncompromising and packed with subtle nuance, Revolution is a superb addition to the annals of the quintessential Dark Knight, and one no one addicted to action and mystery should be without.
The Shadow ® & © 2013 Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. d/b/a Conde Nast. All Rights Reserved.

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Black River


By Josh Simmons (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-833-5

After far too long way, cartoonist Josh Simmons (House, Jessica Farm, The Furry Trap) returns with another masterfully monochrome comics epic: a poetically potent, visually enthralling, ferociously challenging tale some might reasonably call a horror story.

However, despite its post-apocalyptic setting and milieu and constantly rising death-toll, Black River has more in common with the arduous privations and torturous trials of endurance and personal choice typical of a Jack London adventure novel than a slasher flick, serial killer slaughter or even last ditch stand against the zombie horde du jour.

Sacrificing plot to concentrate on character and experience, the story details how a band of people roam the wastes of Earth after the world ends.

Incessantly moving forward, the motley mixed-up band of strangers hunt for scarce supplies in wrecked cities and outpost; staying one step ahead of whatever destroyed civilisation. Of course, even as they wearily trudge the length of the continent, scavenging for necessities – and even occasional, instantly abused luxuries like booze and drugs – they cannot stop madness finding them or death from picking them off one by one.

Their years-long nomadic perambulation takes an even darker turn after they are all captured by a marauding band led by a charismatic sociopath called Benji. These brutes have reverted to little more than true beasts, but solitary, traumatised Shauna endures the worst atrocities they can commit before lethally turning the tables on them and leading the now solely female group back out into the wilds again.

Years pass, battles are fought and the group thins as life winnows them down to nothing…

Simmons doesn’t offer answers or explanations: this epic trek of unrelieved toil and raw survivalism is truly all about the journey and what happens next as the ever-shifting cast of desperately determined humans take life one day at a time, one step after another until the inescapable end comes…

Black River is bleak, unrelenting and morbid, but Simmons is a fantastically perceptive creator and realises that even in such an existence, there must be moments of rude hilarity or short-lived contentment and even unexpected joy to balance the constant fight for one more day…

A saga of grim attrition in a world without hope, Black River perfectly displays the best and worst of human nature and is a tale which, once read, will never be forgotten…
© 2015 Josh Simmons. This edition © 2015 Fantagraphics Books, Inc.

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Dream Gang


By Brendan McCarthy & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-50670-000-7

London-born Brendan McCarthy came to funnybook prominence in 2000AD before finding international comics stardom whilst pursuing a parallel career in film, television, music videos and design.

Forward-looking, iconoclastic yet simultaneously deeply reverential of comics’ great innovators, his most notable graphic works include Strange Days and Paradax, Judge Dredd, Zenith, Sooner or Later, Skin, Rogan Gosh, Spider-Man: Fever and innumerable stunning covers. His moving-media credits are equally singular and impressive, having produced scripts and/or design work for The Storyteller, Highlander, Lost in Space, pioneering CGI animation series Reboot, Mad Max 4: Fury Road and so much more.

Originally seen as scintillating segments of a occluded whole in Dark Horse Presents volume 3 #1-4, #7-10 and #14-17 in 2014-2015, McCarthy’s latest magnum opus has been completely remastered here: a digitally-psychedelic, intoxicatingly intriguing yarn (with lettering from Nate Piekos of Blambot® and additional colouring from Len O’Grady) which begins with a tedious worn-down wage slave enduring his greyly monochrome mind-numbing existence.

Everything changes – but not necessarily for the better – when his head hits the pillow and he is transported to an incredible, overwhelming wonderworld where dreams are made manifest and the id and subconscious roam free and wild…

However the dreamscape is in the midst of a terrifying civil war with a marauding entity dubbed Zeirio ripping apart the fantastical strata and recondite regions of the Dreamscape in his lust to acquire a hidden ultimate weapon and break out into the real world.

Instantly attacked by a passing Hate-Wraith, our reluctant wanderer is only saved by the swift intervention of quirkily charismatic Sheriff Chumhartley who then presses him into service by activating his Dream Avatar…

Now submerged within the masked super-heroic frame of the Dream Voyager, the baffled, bemused and partially amnesiac real-worlder is subjected to a parade of mind-blasting sights as he reluctantly joins the imaginary brotherhood of the Dream Gang in a last-ditch pursuit of Zeirio.

However, with his new allies losing ground – and, too often, their lives – the imported champion is further baulked and distracted by the appearance of a beloved and long-lost friend from his past, who distracts his dream-fuelled attention and might well be their adversary’s greatest and cruellest counter-weapon…

An astounding visual voyage of discovery to a region of tantalisingly phantasmagorical, thought-bending phenomena to endure Horatian struggles against insurmountable odds, this is a moody, moving and creepily compelling psychological escapade to delight all lovers of the life fantastic.

Devotees of McCarthy’s unique artistic visions will be further rewarded by a copious bonus section which includes an informative Afterword and a large gallery of art pieces: sketches, production notes, concept development and character designs from the decades in which this story moved from enchanting idea to finished ethereal epic.
Dream Gang™ © 2014, 2015, 2016 Brendan McCarthy. All rights reserved.