Category: Science Fiction

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Gil Kane’s UNDERSEA Agent


By Gil Kane, Steve Skeates, Gardner Fox & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-444-3

The 1960s was the era when all the assorted facets of “cool-for-kids” finally started to coalesce into a comprehensive assault on our minds and our parents’ pockets. TV, movies, comics, bubble-gum cards and toys all began concertedly feeding off each other, building a unified and combined fantasy-land no kid could resist.

The history of Wally Wood’s legendary comics Camelot is convoluted, and once the mayfly-like lifetime of the Tower Comics line folded, not especially pretty: wrapped up in legal wrangling and lots of petty back-biting. None of that, however, diminishes the fact that the far-too brief run of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was a benchmark of quality and sheer bravura fun for fans of both the still-reawakening superhero genre and the popular media’s spy-chic obsession.

In the early 1960s James Bond movie mania was going from strength to strength, with action and glamour utterly transforming the formerly understated espionage vehicle. The buzz was infectious: soon A Man like Flint and Matt Helm were carving out their own piece of the action, even as television shanghaied the entire trope with the irresistible Man from U.N.C.L.E. (which premiered in September 1964), bringing the genre into living rooms across the world.

Before long, wildly creative cartooning maverick Wood was approached by veteran MLJ/Archie Comics editor Harry Shorten to create a line of characters for a new distribution-chain funded publishing outfit – Tower Comics.

Woody called on some of the biggest names in the industry to produce material in the broad range of genres requested (as well as T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, its spin-offs Dynamo and NoMan and associate title U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent, there was the magnificent war-comic Fight the Enemy and youth-oriented comedy Tippy Teen).

Samm Schwartz and Dan DeCarlo handled the comedy book – which outlasted all the others – whilst Wood, Larry Ivie, Len Brown and more crafted landmark and benchmark tales for the industry’s top talents to illustrate in truly innovative style. It didn’t hurt that all Tower titles were in the beloved-but-rarely-seen 80 Page Giant format: there was a huge amount to read in every issue!

Tapping into the Swinging Sixties’ twin entertainment zeitgeists – sub-sea adventure and spy sagas – Tower supplemented their highly popular acronymic star-turn, The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves (T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents) with a United Nations Department of Experiment and Research Systems Established at Atlantis: an aquatic vehicle employing U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent against crooks, aliens, monsters, enemy agents and the inimical forces of the environment they operated in.

Unlike the dry-land series, however, U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent began with their strong, solid stories (by D. J. Arneson, Steve Skeates and Don Segall) being illustrated in a traditional manner by industry veteran Ray Bailey – plus occasional stints from Mike Sekowsky, Joe Giella, Frank Giacoia, John Giunta, Frank Bolle, Manny Stallman and Sheldon Mayer.

According to this collection’s appreciative Foreword by Greg Goldstein and reiterated in Michael Uslan’s fact-filled Introduction, that old school stuff didn’t sit well with the kids and in issue #3 Gil Kane moved over from T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents  and came aboard to inject his unique, hyper-energetic human dynamism to the watered-down project.

Just a personal aside here: Although I bow to no one in my admiration for Kane and applaud this superb hardback compilation of his U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent contributions, I also adore the other stuff – especially Bailey’s workmanlike, Caniff-inspired renditions – and eagerly anticipate the day someone finally gathers the entirety of the six-issue run in one commemorative tome…

This superb book however – compiled to celebrate the astounding transformation in Kane’s own artistic endeavours which sprang from his brief time at Tower – reprints the breakthrough material which led to his sudden maturation into a world-class Auteur.

Kane was then a top-rated illustrator but would soon become one of the pivotal players in the development of the American comics industry, and indeed the art form itself. Working as an artist and, after this, an increasingly more effective and influential one, he has drawn for many companies since the 1940s, on superheroes, action, war, mystery, romance, movie adaptations and most importantly perhaps, Westerns and Science-Fiction tales.

In the late 1950s he was one of editor Julius Schwartz’s key artists in regenerating the superhero. Yet by the mid 1960s, at the top of his profession, this relentlessly revolutionary and creative man felt so confined by the juvenile strictures of the industry that he dreamed of bold new ventures which would jettison the editorial and format bondage of comicbooks for new visions and media.

In U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent #3-6 (spanning June 1966 to March 1967) he was allowed to ink his own pencils for the first time in decades and encouraged to experiment with form, composition and layout – and write too – and Kane discovered a graphic freedom which opened up the way he told stories and led directly to his independent masterpieces His Name is Savage and Blackmark…

(His Name Is Savage was an adult-oriented black-&-white magazine about a cold and ruthless super-spy in the Bond/Helm/Flint mould; a precursor in tone, treatment and subject matter of many of today’s adventure titles. Blackmark not only ushered in the comic book age of Sword and Sorcery, but also became one of the first Graphic Novels. Technically, as the series was commissioned by fantasy publisher Ballantine as eight volumes, it was also envisioned as America’s first comics Limited Series.)

So what have we here? Lieutenant Davy Jones is the U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent, a skilled diver who, whilst working at the international science lab Atlantis, had an accident which gave him magnetic powers that had to be controlled and contained by a hi-tech belt. His boss was affably brilliant boffin Professor Weston and Jones had a young, impetuous apprentice seaman as sidekick.

Skooby Doolittle joined him in tackling monsters, amok experiments and a remarkable number of crooks, mad masterminds and spies who thought pickings were easier under the sea…

Kane’s contributions commence with ‘The Will Warp’ – from UA #3 and written by Skeates – wherein our dashing heroes have to contend with the diabolical Dr. Malevolent who has perfected a ray that controls minds. Soon the vile villain has taken over Atlantis but has not reckoned on the speed of reaction and sheer determination of Jones and Doolittle…

Skeates also scripted Kane’s tale in #4 wherein Skooby has an unfortunate lab accident and is transformed into a colossal ravening reptilian. Amidst a storm of destruction and with his best friend now an actual danger to shipping, Davy is forced to extreme measures ‘To Save a Monster’…

‘Born is a Warrior’ (#5 and written by Kane’s long-time collaborator Gardner Fox) sees hero and partner go above and beyond in their efforts to overthrow an undersea invasion by aliens, before the astounding adventures conclude with a potent, extra-length tale of triumph and tragedy.

‘Doomsday in the Depths’ (#6, by Fox) finds Jones lost at sea and swept into a utopia beneath the sea floor. Trapped forever in the paradise of Antor, he finds solace in his one true love: the sumptuous scientist Elysse. Sadly, Davy is forced to abandon the miracle city and girl of his dreams to save them all from a horrific monster. Although ultimately victorious, he cannot find his way back…

A glorious cascade of scintillating fantasy action; these yarns – accompanied by a cover gallery by Kane – hark back to a perfect time of primal and winningly uncomplicated action adventure. This is a book to astound and delight comics fans of any stripe or vintage.
Gil Kane’s UNDERSEA Agent © 2015: UNDERSEA Agent © 2015 Radiant Assets LLC. All rights reserved.

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Skydoll: Decade


By Barbara Canepa & Alessandro Barbucci (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-736-7

Astoundingly barbed political and anti-consumerist satirical allegory Skydoll has been appearing sporadically since 2000. It’s the other work of frequent collaborators Alessandro Barbucci and Barbara Canepa (whose usual offerings include more family-oriented fare such as W.I.T.C.H. and Monster Allergy) and – although rendered in the subtly seductive anthropomorphic style developed and signifying decades of wholesome Disney cartooning – is a superbly strident attack on corporate consumerism, the media’s mesmerism of the masses, political expediency, religion and the power of the Catholic church, all wrapped up in the raunchy, beguiling trappings of super-sexy science fiction shenanigans…

Now most of the components thus far generated have been beautifully bound up in a gloriously oversized (284 x 212mm) full-colour hardback edition.

The subversive odyssey begins with the prose ‘Preface: ten years of Skydoll’: a bold declaration of intent by The Authors before we speed straight into the fantastic fantasy with ‘Volume 1: The Yellow City’ which introduces fetching, wind-up automaton Noa, asking God for a little fair treatment whilst working at the insalubrious Heaven Spaceshipwash. She’s not like the other beautiful dolls working there. Although she still needs to be wound-up every 33 hours by her owner, this alluring automaton seems to have a memory that doesn’t erase itself after a couple of days. This means she keeps thinking of difficult fresh questions to ask…

Furiously shoved back to work, Noa ignores the fabulously bland and vapid blatherings of TV talk show monolith Frida Decibel blasting out from every home and public broadcast screen, telling the populace of Papathea how good everything is now that they only have one Popessa in the buxom form of the divine Ludovica.

Once upon a time there were two True Vicars of God: Agape who embodied spiritual love and Ludovica who personified its physical expression. When Agape mysteriously vanished her corporeal partner became sole arbiter of the galactic empire the church controls, commencing a campaign of craftily concocted public miracles to pacify the increasingly irate and disillusioned populace.

It’s not really working though, and a rising tide of rebellion and resentment is just beginning to pop…

Our story really begins when two of Ludovica’s “Diplomatic Agents” stop at Heaven to get their starcraft properly shined before heading out on their top-secret mission. Old Jahu is especially keen on the diversion: everybody knows lusting after or even indulging in pleasure with a Doll doesn’t count as sin. The Popessa said so…

However, whilst lathering up the ship of some fervent fundamentalists at the head of the queue, Noa accidentally kicks off a small riot, even as across the city Ludovica’s latest manufactured miracle kicks into high-gear with mesmerising effect…

By the time the barrage of supernal glitz and gaudy glitter subsides, Jahu and young idealistic Roy are well on their way. They have no idea there’s a dazed and surprised stowaway aboard, with her crucial, life-sustaining key still negligently left in her back…

And on the rapidly dwindling planet behind them, Ludovica fumes. Despite getting rid of her rival, the sole Popessa’s grasp of power is still uncertain. The people still hunger for vanished Agape and there are rumours of rebellion. The anxious, power-mad pontiff has no idea how close to home the sedition reaches…

Aboard ship Roy has made a startling discovery. Unable to help himself, he turns the key in the inert innocent’s back and restores temporary autonomy to a vivacious creature he can’t help but like…

Doctrinaire Jahu is less sanguine but the mission is too important to delay. They can always dump the doll on the way home…

Noa is eternally curious, asking questions about everything. She is inexplicably especially moved by an illicit image of Agape the voyagers encounter in a space restaurant. It somehow triggers strange and terrifying visions and Roy has to physically restrain Noa. What happens next is regarded by the astounded onlookers as a miracle…

The story resumes with ‘Volume 2: Aqua’ as hints begin about Noa’s destiny and the unseen sponsors who seem to be guiding her destiny. The Popessa’s missionary ambassadors meanwhile land on the world without males: one successfully propounding a third spiritual way…

Governed by planetary Guru Gaia, the women of Aqua are steadily gaining support across the universe, supported and funded by their range of wellness centres and luxury goods which everyone wants to try. Roy is there to build diplomatic bridges between the Popessa and the completely antithetical Aquans in the cause of peace. He has no idea that Jahu’s orders are a little different. He always knew the only way to deal with heretics…

Noa inveigles her way into the official conference: she’s hopeful these strange women will have some insight into her own rapidly-expanding consciousness. She is stunned by what they do know and their connection to missing Agape.

And as Jahu goes about his bloody work, back on Papathea, bloody revolution breaks out…

The intrigue expands in ‘Volume 3: The White City’ when Roy, Jahu and the constantly-growing Noa return as triumphant heroes. When officially interviewed by the ubiquitous Frida Decibel the web of intrigue and damnation expands to encompass some very unexpected personalities, even as the empire stands poised on the edge of Armageddon and real miracles start happening in the most unlikely places…

A broad, vast, clever and frustrating unfinished epic, Skydoll is still unfolding at its own tantalising pace. There has however been plenty of sidebar and ancillary material released such as ‘Volume 0: Doll’s Factory’ which offers a sequence of prequel events to flesh out the main characters in another stunningly captivating art package.

Here a strange woman visits a factory and places something miraculous inside a doll in its final stages of manufacture, whilst ‘Heaven’s Dolls’ rewards the reader with information on the world and empire of the Popessa, affording insights into other Dolls such as Lovely Lou, Juicy Lee, Sandy Blue and God himself – proving just why he needed killing…

There’s also a hilarious Sky Doll ‘Psycho-grapho Test’ to further reveal how life and society really work…

This immaculate confection culminates in a huge collection of ‘Homages’: a breathtaking gallery of tribute images of Sky Doll and her chums by a staggeringly talented cast of fellow artists comprising Claire Wendling, Karla Diaz, Benjamin, Marguerite Sauvage, Mijin Shatje, Cyrille Bertin, Tony Infante, Bengal, Claudio Acciari, Tony Sandoval, Amélie Fléchais, Giovanni Rigano, Sefora Pons, Gradimir Smudja, Aurore, Augustin Rolland, Nenent, Guezav, Pierre-Mony Chan, Lucy Mazel, Véronique Meignaud, Matteo De Longis, Xavier Collette, Anne Cresci, Lilidoll, Jérémie Almanza, Lostfish and more.

Completing and concluding religious experience is a comprehensive feature ‘About the Authors’ and a page packed with ‘Acknowledgements & Credits’.

A phenomenal work-in-progress, Sky Doll is a superbly engaging exploration of erotica, iconology and idolatry: one no fun-loving, deep-thinking lover of comic iconoclasm should miss.
Sky Doll and all contents are © Editions Soleil/Barbucci/Canepa. This translated edition © 2016 Titan Comics.

Sky Doll: Decade will be in UK store from March 15th 2016.

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Kimmie66


By Aaron Alexovitch (Minx Books)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0373-3

In 2007 DC Comics had an honest go at building new markets by creating the Minx imprint. Dedicated to producing comics material for a teen/young adult readership and especially the ever-elusive girl audience, the intent was to tailor material for those who had previously embraced foreign material such as manga and momentous global comics successes like Maus and Persepolis or the abundant market for prose serials/pop phenomena like Roswell High, Twilight and even Harry Potter.

Sadly after only a dozen immensely impressive and decidedly different black-&-white graphic novels, Minx shut up shop in October 2008, magnanimously NOT citing publishing partner Random House’s failure to get the books onto the appropriate shelves of major bookstore chains as the reason for the cessation.

Nevertheless, most of the tomes published are still out there and most of them are well worth tracking down – either in the US originals or the British editions published by Titan Books.

One of the most intriguing was Kimmie66, written by author, artist and designer Aaron Alexovich (Serenity Rose, Eldritch, TV’s Invader Zim & Avatar: The Last Airbender).

It’s a splendid blend of teen awakening tale, smart treatise on the nature of reality and sharp celebration of power of friendship in the age of virtual living and isolation.

In the 23rd century, thanks to the programming breakthroughs of Dr. Mary Tenn and her Tennsys software, almost everybody lives their lives in shared “Lairs”: tailored, fully interactive VR worlds where like-minded souls can become comrades, enemies and/or best buds, all without ever having to leave their own physical dwellings.

Parents can still never see their kids even while working from home and never know where the children are even when they’re all in the same room…

The Lairs can be anything from carnage-strewn battlescapes where teenage boys inarticulately express themselves through hitting to rural idylls inhabited by garrulous furry creatures to nerdy types boldly traversing the void in space-ships to…

Telly is fourteen and conceptually hangs out with the gloomily sardonic and gorily elegant Goths in Elysium. She really only has two friends but naturally has no idea what their actual bodies or faces look like. Nekokat is a bit of simpleton and her avatar is a noxious little kid. Telly’s absolute best friend, however, is Kimmie66…

She’s incredibly smart and really very wild. Kimmie66 has acted up lots and frequently made ripples throughout all the Lairs, but when Telly gets a suicide note from her in Elysium, she can’t shake the feeling that it’s for real.

Real real.

Meat-body dead real…

She needs to do something about it, but when you don’t know your best friend’s name, what they look like or where they are options are limited…

Hopelessly lost Telly tries to carry on, but soon she – and eventually others – are being visited by ghostly apparitions of dying Kimmie – even on public VR forums or when plugged into the communal school Lair. If Kimmie is alive why isn’t she in touch? If she’s dead why is she increasing all over the network?…

And so begins a transformative quest as Telly sheds her old life and starts breaking customs, rules and even laws as she seeks to find out who her truest friend is and whether she’s dead, alive or perhaps something even stranger and infinitely worse…

A truly evocative, effective and affecting coming-of-age tale, the revelations of Kimmie66 are also astoundingly clever and warmly amusing; managing the even harder trick of also being truly excellent science fiction for young adults…

This gloriously sublimely understated marriage of smart narrative and compelling cartooning is a perfect vehicle for attracting new and youthful readers with no abiding interest in outlandish power-fantasies or vicarious vengeance-gratification (yes, that does mean girls) to our medium, and whilst Minx may be gone, the stories the company released changed comics for good and for ever.

Why not track them all down and enjoy a genuinely different kind of graphic reading experience?
© 2007 Aaron Alexovich. All rights reserved.

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Yoko Tsuno volume 4: Daughter of the Wind


By Roger Leloup translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-94-6

Yoko Tsuno began first began gracing the pages of Spirou in September 1970 and is still going strong. As detailed by Roger Leloup, the astounding, all-action, uncannily edgy, excessively accessible exploits of the slim, slight Japanese scientific-adventurer are amongst the most intoxicating, absorbing and broad-ranging comics thrillers ever created.

Leloup’s brainchild is an expansively globe-girdling, space-&-time spanning series devised by the monumentally talented Belgian maestro after leaving his job as a studio assistant on Herge’s The Adventures of Tintin to strike out on his own.

Compellingly told, superbly imaginative but always solidly grounded in hyper-realistic settings which boast utterly authentic and unshakably believable technology and scientific principles, these illustrated epics were at the vanguard of a wave of strips featuring competent, clever and brave female protagonists which revolutionised Continental comics from the 1970s onwards.

Happily they are as timelessly engaging and potently empowering now as they ever were.

The very first stories ‘Hold-up en hi-fi’, ‘La belle et la bête’ and ‘Cap 351’ were brief introductory – and possibly beta-testing – vignettes before the superbly capable Miss Tsuno and her always awestruck and overwhelmed male comrades Pol Paris and Vic Van Steen properly hit their stride with premier extended saga Le trio de l’étrange which began in 1971 with the May 13th edition of Spirou…

In the original European serialisations, Yoko’s adventures alternated between explosive escapades in exotic corners of the world and sinister deep-space sagas with the secretive and disaster-plagued alien colonists from Vinea, but for these current English translations, the extraterrestrial endeavours have been more often than not sidelined in favour of realistically intriguing Earthly exploits.

There have been 27 European albums to date and this one was first serialised in Spirou #2081-2100 (2nd March to July 13th 1978) before emerging the following year as exotically enthralling album La Fille du vent. A sublimely understated espionage epic with solid hard-science sci fi overtones, it was chronologically the ninth album, yet due the quirks of publishing reached us Brits as Cinebook’s fourth translated tome, offering readers a long-awaited glimpse into the history of the ultra-efficient oriental enigma…

The stupendous saga opens with Yoko calming Vic and Pol as their passenger flight makes its daunting landing at Hong Kong’s Kai-Tak Airport. They have taken a rushed flight because Yoko has received a worrying communiqué about her father, sent by the eminent Chen Wu Cheng…

On arrival they are picked-up by a joint team of Chinese and Japanese intelligence operatives sharing a unique problem. Seiki Tsuno is a brilliant scientist; a geophysicist who has been working for decades to find a way to counter the horrific typhoons which regularly devastate coastal regions across the Pacific. He recently succeeded, but only after first discovering exactly how to create the catastrophic whirlwinds…

Now Yoko’s hosts inform her that her father’s financial backer Ito Kazuki has conspired with elements of the Japanese government and greedy business interests to steal the research with the intention of using the typhoon-making process as a weapon to restore Japan to its days of military glory and pre-eminence.

The elder Tsuno and Kazuki are now at war and the storms they make are wrecking the climate of the entire region. In their desperation these national agencies want Yoko to talk to her father and make him stop before it’s too late. Moreover, with all Kazuki’s resources in play, they need her to approach her dad secretly so as not to alert the enemy millionaire to the mission…

Thus this long, circuitous trip from the coast of China to Yoko’s family home, which eventually concludes with her being parachuted in from a high-altitude seaplane at night. Over strident objections from Vic and Pol, the “Daughter of the Wind” has accepted the mission, but it’s not until she’s actually plunging towards the giant statue of the Buddha and temple above her family home that Yoko act on the suspicions she’s been harbouring.

Disabling her electronic tracker, Yoko shifts orientation and lands far from her specified target site. Almost immediately her caution pays dividends as she spots armed masked men waiting around the area where she was supposed to land. Doffing her gear she quietly heads for the temple where a monk helps her avoid the faux ninjas and reach her father’s house.

There she is joyously reunited with aged Aoki: a former Imperial pilot who joined the household as a gardener and practically raised Yoko whilst her parents conducted their own, more important, adult affairs…

He reveals the truth: there is war between Kazuki and her father, but the millionaire plans to trap and use her as a bargaining chip over Seiki and ultimately achieve total control of Japan…

As Yoko radios Pol and Vic the ninjas strike and only familiarity with her father’s inventions allow her and Aoki to escape, aided by the sudden explosive appearance of her European friends. A hectic and explosive seaborne chase ensues but after Kazuki throws one of his typhoons at them Yoko and her friends are caught and taken by submarine to the mad millionaire’s near-sacrilegious undersea base whilst old Aoki is left clinging to a buoy…

Kazuki seems like a reasonable man and offers Yoko a position with his organisation – which she naturally declines – but does concede to run his TV and telecommunications equipment as he moves to his momentous endgame…

Whilst Yoko tells her incarcerated pals of her lonely neglected childhood and the tragic story of failed Kamikaze Aoki and how he came to live with her grandfather, Seiki Tsuno – who has picked up the aging gardener from the buoy – moves towards his final showdown with Kazuki: a very public duel between the madman’s typhoon-maker and his own whirlwind eradication process.

The researcher is confident of his invention’s efficacy but never expected Kazuki to cheat…

Yoko isn’t surprised at her captor’s double-dealing and when the would-be warlord is distracted by his recently created waterspout growing completely beyond his control, leads Pol and Vic in a daring escape back to her dad who has only one appalling solution to the rapidly-expanding super-storm…

Sadly it involves two pilots simultaneously flying into the typhoon with a massive explosive device and has only a remote chance of working…

Building to a thundering climax and truly tragic conclusion, this potent large-scale human drama showed both a softer side and more mature aspect of our star, confirming she was a truly multi-faceted adventurer, at home in all manner of scenarios and easily able to hold her own against the likes of James Bond, Modesty Blaise, Tintin or other genre-busting super-stars: as triumphantly capable facing spies and madmen as alien invaders, weird science or unchecked forces of nature…

As always the most effective asset in these breathtaking tales is the astonishingly authentic and staggeringly detailed draughtsmanship and storytelling, which superbly benefits from Leloup’s diligent research and meticulous attention to detail, honed through years of working on Tintin.

This is a magnificently wide-screen thriller, tense, complex and evocative, which will appeal to any fan of blockbuster action fantasy or devious derring-do.
Original edition © Dupuis, 1979 by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation 2009 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Silent Invasion Book One: Secret Affairs


By Michael Cherkas & Larry Hancock (NBM)
ISBN: 978-0-91834-850-0

The 1980s were an immensely fertile time for English-language comics-creators. In America a fresh wave of creativity had started with the birth of dedicated comics shops and, as innovation-geared specialist retailers sprung up all over the country, operated by fans for fans, new publishers began to experiment with format and content, whilst eager readers celebrated the happy coincidence that everybody seemed to have a bit of extra cash to play with.

Consequently those new publishers were soon aggressively competing for the attention and cash of punters who had grown resigned to getting their on-going picture stories from DC, Marvel, Archie and/or Harvey Comics. European and Japanese material began creeping in and by 1983 a host of young companies such as WaRP Graphics, Pacific, Eclipse, Capital, Now, Comico, Dark Horse, First and many others had established themselves and were making impressive inroads.

New talent, established stars and fresh ideas all found a thriving forum to try something a little different both in terms of content and format. Even shoestring companies and foreign outfits had a fair shot at the big time and a much great material came – and, almost universally, just as quickly went – without getting the attention or success they warranted.

By avoiding the traditional family sales points such as newsstands, more mature material could be produced: not just increasingly violent and with nudity but also far more political and intellectually challenging too.

Moreover, much of the “brain-rotting trash” or “silly kid’s stuff” stigma had finally dissipated and America was catching up to the rest of the world in acknowledging sequential narrative as a for-real, actual Art-Form, so the door was wide open for gosh-darned foreigners to make a few waves too…

One of the most critically acclaimed and just plain fun features came from semi-Canadian outfit Renegade Press which, spun out by a torturous and litigious process from Dave Sim’s Canadian Aardvark-Vanaheim enterprise, set up shop in the USA and began publishing at the very start of the black and white comics bubble in 1984. Renegade quickly established a reputation for excellence, picking up a surprisingly strong line of creator-based properties and some genuinely remarkable and impressive series such as Ms. Tree, Journey: The Adventures of Wolverine MacAlistaire, Normalman, Flaming Carrot, the first iteration of Al Davison’s stunning Spiral Cage and compulsive, stylish Cold War, flying-saucer paranoia-driven series The Silent Invasion amongst others.

That last was a stunningly stylish saga, bolting 1950s homeland terrors (invasion by Reds; invasion by aliens; invasion by new ideas…) onto Film Noir chic and employing 20-20 hindsight to produce a truly fresh and enticing concept in the Reagan-era Eighties. I firmly believe that in this business nothing good stays lost, but now I’m fed up waiting for it to be rediscovered so I’m going to review my battered old copies as no one has tried to revive it yet. At least they’re still available…

This first superbly oversized monochrome tome – a whopping 298 x 2058 mm – gathers the lead story from the first three issues of The Silent Invasion with co-creators Michael Cherkas & Larry Hancock concocting a delightful confection combining all the coolest genre elements of classic sci-fi, horror, spy, conspiracy theory, crime, romance and even comedy yarns…

The 1950s in American were a hugely iconic and paradoxical time. Incredible scientific and cultural advancements and great wealth inexplicably arose amidst an atmosphere of immense social, cultural, racial, sexual and political repression with an increasingly paranoid populace seeing conspiracy and subversive attacks in every shadow and corner of the rest of the world.

Such an insular melting pot couldn’t help but be fertile soil for imaginative outsiders to craft truly incisive and evocative tales dripping with convoluted mystery and taut tension, especially when wedded to the nation’s fantastic – and then-ongoing – obsessions with rogue science, flying saucers, gangsterism and espionage…

They were also obsessed with hot babes and bust sizes, but more of that elsewhere…

Preceded by a terse and still topical Introduction from Frank Miller, this towering collection from 1988 kicks off with ‘Chapter One: Atomic Spies’ in a dark desert landscape 22 miles outside Union City in April 1952.

Private eye Dick Mallet sees a strange light in the skies and in the morning the cops find his crashed car. There’s no sign of the infamous and distinguished Dick…

A month later reporter Matt Sinkage is still unhappy with his piece on “The Truth Behind Flying Saucers” but his muttering and musing is interrupted by a hot blonde banging on the door of his foreign-sounding neighbour Ivan Kalashnikov.

Arriving at his desk on the Sentinel, Sinkage can’t believe the audacity of the Air Force’s official line about “marsh gas” and starts screaming at his Editor Frank Costello who just bawls him out – again – and sends him off to cover real news…

Instead Sinkage heads out to the site of the latest sighting and starts interviewing local yokels. That night fiancée Peggy cooks him a meal but his mind is elsewhere, on that night six months back in Albany when he saw a UFO and impetuously chased after it: a night everyone but him remembers…

Later, in a bar, Matt continues badgering Frank until the booze gets to him. Eventually Sinkage slinks back to his apartment. Ivan’s door is open and a quick glance reveals the foreigner and others in front of a huge, weird machine and Matt realises they must be Reds! Atomic spies!

Before the reporter can react, Kalashnikov pulls a really strange gun and shoots. Next morning Sinkage awakes with another sore head and fuzzy memory…

Days later Matt again collides with Mr K’s pretty friend Gloria Amber, but fails to get another look at his neighbour’s place. Undeterred, he resorts to asking her out to lunch and somehow provokes the old guy into taking a sudden trip out of town. Things get even stranger when Gloria comes running to him, being chased by what she claims are Red agents…

Spiriting her away, Matt doesn’t hear the pursuers accosting his landlord, claming to be Federal Men…

‘Chapter Two: Secrets and Insidious Machinations’ finds the fugitives deep in the suburbs with Matt’s sedate brother Walter. The reporter is still seeing flying saucers and can’t understand why everybody else thinks they’re just jets, whilst back in Union City Frank is getting a grilling from FBI Agent Housley.

They’re old acquaintances: the G Man regularly pops by to suppress one news item or another…

This time though they want the vanished Sinkage and are not happy that Costello has no idea of the gadfly’s current location. Back in suburbia, things are none too comfortable either. Stuck-up sister-in-law Katie is convinced Matt and his new floozy are up to no good and wants them out. At least she doesn’t know the FBI are scouring the city for them. Enigmatic Gloria, however, is more concerned that Sinkage is sleepwalking and having strange nightmares… just like Kalashnikov feared he might…

Matt and Gloria are just heading out in Walter’s borrowed car when Peggy pops by. She can’t understand why her man is with a flashy trollop and pointedly won’t talk to her. Gloria has told Matt the real Reds are after Kalashnikov’s memoirs and convinced him to drive her to a quiet town in the desert where a “contact” will protect them both. Mr K meanwhile has called in his own heavies to chase the couple, unaware that the FBI have visited Walter and Katie. A net is closing around Sinkage and the mystery woman he implicitly trusts… but really shouldn’t.…

The tension mounts in this volume’s concluding ‘Chapter Three: The Stubbinsville Connection’ as a mysterious Council of shadowy men gather to discuss the Sinkage problem. As Housley’s report continues, it become clear the reporter was also involved in the Albany event and near-panic ensues…

In a cheap motel Matt’s suspicions are back. Gloria vanished from their room for a while during the night and hasn’t mentioned it…

They’re confirmed a little later when she helps Kalashnikov’s hoods Zanini and Koldst abduct her and rough him up. Bach at Walter’s house the FBI turn up to interview them about Matt. They claim they’re the only Feds working on the case and no other government officials have been there before them…

Katie has had enough and spills all she knows. The agents instantly go into overdrive and organise all their forces to head for sleepy, remote Stubbinsville. Matt meanwhile has recovered and called the only guy he still trusts, his researcher Dan Maloney. That worthy warns him of the confusing profusion of agents all claiming to be working for the government, before sharing the same info with Frank Costello…

As Housley’s team fly in, Matt has decided to go on, hitchhiking to the rendezvous with a quirkily affable farmer who happily joins him in “pranking” the cops who have just arrested Zanini, Koldst and Gloria…

Reunited with his oddly-compliant mystery amour, Matt hurtles on to Stubbinsville in a stolen car but with less than 100 miles to go Gloria falls ill. She makes him promise to get her there at all costs…

As the assorted pursuers converge, she directs Matt to a lonely wilderness area, but the forces of law and order have spotted them and follow. As the net closes a fantastic and terrifying light show ignites the dark skies. By the time Housley reaches the specified target area, all he finds is a comatose Sinkage.

As days pass, Matt finds himself free with all charges dropped, but he’s oddly content. Despite another blatant cover-up and no clue as to who all the various parties hounding him actually were, he knows what he knows and wonders when Gloria will be back…

To Be Continued…

Potently evocative, impeccably unique and fabulously cool, The Silent Invasion is a boldly imagined and cunningly crafted adventure long-overdue for a modern revival: an unforgettable gateway to an eerily familiar yet comfortably exotic era of innocent joy and a million “top secrets” which no fan of fantastic thriller fiction should ignore.
© 1988 Michael Cherkas & Larry Hancock. Introduction © 1988 Frank Miller. All rights reserved.

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Serenity: Better Days


By Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad & various (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-162-1

Just like the TV show and movie, comics about the crew of the Firefly Class 03-K64 trading ship Serenity are remarkably good and pretty addictive. This slim tome collects second 3-issue miniseries Serenity: Better Days, continuing in rip-roaring style the unlikely exploits of a nomadic semi-piratical bunch of lovable yet lethal scofflaws in a world not unlike our own…

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 and reconstruction period of a vicious internecine conflict known – by the victors – as the Unification War.

This still-fresh, tender and, for far too many, unfinished system-wide conflagration saw the Outer Colonies crushed after attempting to secede from the authoritarian Alliance of first-settled Inner Planets. Captain Malcolm Reynolds fought valiantly and passionately for the Rebel/losing side and now spends his days eking out a living on the fringes of an increasingly repressive and dangerous universe: a fiercely free agent skippering a small cargo vessel filled with surprisingly capable misfits and odd sorts.

Hopefully work means just shipping cargo and people from world to world whilst trying to avoid the ever-expanding Alliance’s oppressive representatives and security forces, but occasionally survival means bending the law a mite….

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

Life changed forever after Serenity gave passage to fugitive Alliance doctor Simon Tam: on the run after stealing/rescuing his apparently psychic sister River from a top secret research project.

The Government spared no effort or expense to get her back, hounding the fugitives from pillar to post until one day Mal and his crew finally pushed back. After too many close shaves and at the cost of too many friends, Reynolds and Co at last uncovered the horrific secret the Alliance were so desperate to keep hidden in River’s head and broadcast it to the entire ‘Verse…

Before that moment, however, and for this saga, the restless voyagers are back at the daily grind of making money without getting killed. Without preamble scripters Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews, illustrator Will Conrad, colourist Michelle Madsen and letterer Michael Heisler launch right in, revealing how a simple heist goes explosively wrong and the merry mob are once more running for their lives with a dangerous chunk of ambulatory weapons tech.

Life being what is they get away with the loot but still get stiffed…

Their long-term paying passenger Inara the Companion is busy with a client whilst all that shooting is going on, learning from former militia man Ephraim of the rebel terrorists known as “Dust Devils” who retaliated against the Alliance long after the War ended. He has been tasked with routing out and eradicating their last remnants but for the moment has more pleasant actions in mind…

Stuck with a weapon they don’t want, the Firefly crew grudgingly accept a tip from the client who fooled them once already. He tells of a vast amount of money just waiting to be picked up by the right team. All they have to do is get the forgotten fortune out of the fully occupied temple where it was stashed by the thieves who first acquired it…

Incomprehensibly, the raid goes off without a hitch or even any weapon being fired by or at them. Before long the astounded spacers are sharing increasingly bizarre daydreams of what they’re going to do with their share of more money than they ever dreamed existed…

As they all kick back, Inara questions Mal about Dust Devils and gets the uncomfortable impression that he has first hand knowledge of their activities, but doesn’t push the matter as the ship is about to land on Pelorum, resort world of the mega-rich.

As the windfall-drunk crew start splurging, however, elsewhere a certain arms dealer has at last located down the bandits who swiped his favourite death-machine and Ephraim prepares his hand-picked taskforce for the moment they bag themselves a vile terrorist Dust Devil…

The Serenity crew’s strangest caper continues as they become acclaimed and feted heroes to the filthy rich after stopping a planet-wide heist, but the unlikely afterglow of the approbation only puts Malcolm off-guard long enough for Ephraim to spring his trap…

With his prize brutally in tow, the hunter prepares to escape but there’s a slight snag. There is indeed a dreaded former Dust Devil aboard Serenity, but it isn’t Malcolm Reynolds…

Moreover before Ephraim can get his head around that faux pas a very ticked off death-merchant and his private army turn up, looking for revenge but happy to just kill everybody and let God or Accounting sort it out…

Proving the hard – but extremely entertaining – way that money doesn’t buy happiness or even an ounce of security, this power-packed digest-sized rollercoaster romp is supplemented with stunning cover/chapter breaks of the crew from Adam Hughes and a crisply hilarious Introduction from Adam (don’t call him Jayne) Baldwin.

Crackling with fun and attitude, blackly sardonic and riotously daft between bouts of breathtaking action and delivering a thrilling, scary and supremely satisfying resolution, this is space opera of the very best kind.

Flash forward, go above and beyond and get lost in Space with this magical taste of things to come…
Serenity: Better Days © 2008 Universal Studios Licensing. The movie “Serenity” is ™ and © Universal Studios. All rights reserved.

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Serenity – Firefly Class 03-K64 volume 1: Those Left Behind


By Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad & various (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-449-4

For those far-too-few folks 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.

That crushed yet select fanbase were eventually reassured and delighted by the superb Serenity – one of the best science fiction movies ever released.

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

You don’t really need to, but it will be fun and afterwards you’ll be even more properly primed to enjoy this delightful digest-sized full-colour paperback continuation which bridges the period between the show’s end and the film, offering further details and moments in the eventful lives of reluctant freedom fighter Malcolm Reynolds and his oddball crew of reprobates aboard an independent trader starship of the Firefly class.

Collecting the 3-issue miniseries, Serenity: Those Left Behind, this is the first volume of comic adventures starring the nomadic, semi-piratical outlaws, and if you aren’t au fait yet – did I mention the live action iterations are readily available and extremely entertaining? – here’s a little help.

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 and reconstruction period of a punishing internecine conflict known – by the victors – as the Unification War.

This still-fresh, tender and, for far too many, unconcluded clash saw the Outer Colonies crushed after attempting to secede from the authoritarian Alliance of first-settled inner planets. Reynolds fought valiantly on the Rebel/losing side and now spends his days eking out a living on the fringes of an increasingly repressive and dangerous universe: a fiercely free agent skippering a small cargo vessel.

Hopefully that’s just shipping cargo and people from world to world and trying to avoid the ever-expanding Alliance’s representatives and security forces, but occasionally survival means bending the law a mite….

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 fugitive Alliance doctor Simon Tam: on the run after stealing his apparently psychic sister River from a top secret research project.

The Government spared no effort or expense to get her back, hounding the fugitives from pillar to post until Mal and his crew finally resolved to push back. After too many close shaves and at the cost of too many friends, Reynolds and Co finally uncovered the horrific secret the Alliance were so desperate to keep hidden and broadcast it to the entire ‘Verse…

Before that moment, however, for this yarn the unhappy wanderers are back at the daily grind of getting paid and not getting caught, as scripters Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews, illustrator Will Conrad, colourist Laura Martin and letterer Michael Heisler, open this stellar rollercoaster ride with the rovers indulging in a spot of bank robbery on a frontier world, only to stumble upon a much nastier gang of desperadoes with the same idea…

All too soon Malcolm’s party have surrendered the loot to their far-more-bloodthirsty rivals and are fleeing for their lives from the irate homesteaders to make another astounding hairsbreadth escape, but as the captain apologizes once again to long-term passenger Inara the Companion for the slow, agonizingly torturous and oft-diverted passage to her intended destination, they have no conception that more Alliance manhunters have just latched onto their trail…

The stalkers have devious plans which involve recruiting another deadly maniac Reynolds has made a lasting impression upon, but by then the oblivious crew of Serenity are already embroiled in another bad idea. Vile criminal fixer Badger has convinced them to go after millions in lost cash, left to rot amongst the uncounted dead and wrecked, vacuum-blasted ships lost in the cataclysmic and legendary Battle of Sturges…

And in a hidden bunker, the hunters of River Tam inspect the ship that maimed, mad Agent Dobson plans to use in killing Reynolds and Serenity and feel extremely confident that their prize will soon be back in their hands…

Voyage time aboard the Firefly passes as it usually does, with crew and passengers sniping, sparring or just plain fighting, but all too soon the ship eases into the horrific debris field and the amiable bandits-turned-grave-robbers are cautiously searching for the loot. At that moment Dobson launches his blistering attack and the Alliance hunters make their own move, surreptitiously boarding Serenity to capture River.

They know all about her incredibly lethal capabilities and think they’re ready for anything, but have severely underestimated the power of a brother’s love or engineer Kaylee’s devious ingenuity…

As that particular Alliance plan goes to crap, back amongst the dead men, Dobson and his cohorts are so obsessed over settling accounts with Reynolds they completely forget how dangerous his shambolic, cantankerous crew can be…

This power-packed good thing in a small package is supplemented with stunning cover-art portraits of the crew from John Cassaday, Joe Quesada, Tim Bradstreet, Brian Hitch, JG Jones, Jo Chen, Leinil Yu, Josh Middleton and Sean Phillips plus a wistful, funny Introduction from Nathan (the man Reynolds himself) Fillion and comes sporting a tone and sensibility that is pure Jonah Hex (back when the bounty-hunting gunfighter was as blackly funny, sardonic and socially critical as he was thrilling, scary and action-packed), delivering astoundingly terse dialogue and winning characterisation plus all the intoxicating bonhomie and sense of wonder any starstuck reader could want.

This is a book no lover of space opera shoot ’em ups can afford to miss.
Serenity © 2005, 2006 Universal Studios. Firefly™ and Serenity: Firefly Class 03-K64™ Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Blackhawk Album #1


By Dick Dillin, Chuck Cuidera, Jack Kirby, Sheldon Moldoff, George Roussos, Mort Meskin, Nick Cardy, Frank Frazetta, Bill Ely, Bob Brown & various (Strato Publications)
No ISBN:

Here’s another long-lost oddity of the eccentric and exotic British comics market that might be of passing interest to curio collectors and unrepentant comics nerds like me.

The early days of the American comicbook industry were awash with both opportunity and talent and those factors happily coincided with a vast population hungry for cheap entertainment.

The new medium of comicbooks had no acknowledged fans or collectors; only a large, transient market open to all varied aspects of yarn-spinning and tale-telling – a situation which publishers believed maintained right up to the middle of the 1960s. Thus, in 1940 even though America was loudly, proudly isolationist and more than a year away from any active inclusion in World War II, creators like Will Eisner and publishers like Everett M. (“Busy”) Arnold felt Americans were ready for a themed anthology title Military Comics.

Nobody was ready for Blackhawk.

Military #1 launched at the end of May 1941 (with an August cover-date) and included in its gritty, two-fisted line-up Death Patrol by Jack Cole, Miss America, Fred Guardineer’s Blue Tracer, X of the Underground, The Yankee Eagle, Q-Boat, Shot and Shell, Archie Atkins and Loops and Banks by “Bud Ernest” (actually aviation-nut and unsung comics genius Bob Powell), but none of these strips, not even Cole’s surreal and suicidal team of hell-bent fliers, had the instant cachet and sheer glamour appeal of Eisner and Powell’s “Foreign Legion of the Air” led by the charismatic Dark Knight of the airways known only as Blackhawk.

Chuck Cuidera, already famed for creating the original Blue Beetle for Fox, drew ‘the Origin of Blackhawk’ for the first issue, wherein a lone pilot fighting the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 was shot down by Nazi Ace Von Tepp; only to rise bloody and unbowed from his plane’s wreckage to form the World’s greatest team of airborne fighting men…

This mysterious paramilitary squadron of unbeatable fliers, dedicated to crushing injustice and smashing the Axis war-machine, battled on all fronts during the war and – once the embattled nations had notionally laid down their arms – stayed together to crush international crime, Communism and every threat to democracy from alien invaders to supernatural monsters, consequently becoming one of the true milestones of the US industry.

Eisner wrote the first four Blackhawk episodes before moving on and Cuidera stayed until issue #11 – although he triumphantly returned in later years. There were many melodramatic touches that made the Blackhawks so memorable in the eyes of a wide-eyed populace of thrill-hungry kids. There was the cool, black leather uniforms and peaked caps. The unique, outrageous – but authentic – Grumman F5F-1 Skyrocket planes they flew from their secret island base and of course their eerie battle-cry “Hawkaaaaa!”

But perhaps the oddest idiosyncrasy to modern readers was that they had their own song (would you be more comfortable if we started calling it an international anthem?) which Blackhawk, André, Stanislaus, Olaf, Chuck, Hendrickson and Chop-Chop would sing as they plummeted into battle. (To see the music and lyrics check out the Blackhawk Archives edition but just remember this catchy number was written for seven really tough leather-clad guys to sing while dodging bullets…

Quality adapted well to peacetime demands: superheroes Plastic Man and Doll Man lasted far longer than most of their Golden Age mystery man compatriots and rivals, whilst the rest of the company line turned to tough-guy crime, war, western, horror and racy comedy titles.

The Blackhawks soared to even greater heights, starring in their own movie serial in 1952. However the hostility of the marketplace to mature-targeted titles after the adoption of the self-censorious Comics Code was a clear sign of the times and as 1956 ended Arnold sold most of his comics properties to National Publishing Periodicals (now DC) and turned his attentions to becoming a general magazine publisher.

Most of the purchases were a huge boost to National’s portfolio, with titles such as GI Combat, Heart Throbs and Blackhawk lasting uninterrupted well into the 1970s (GI Combat survived until in 1987), whilst the unceasing draw and potential of characters such as Uncle Sam, the assorted Freedom Fighters costumed pantheon, Kid Eternity and Plastic Man have paid dividends ever since.

The “Black Knights” had also been a fixture of the British comics reprint industry since the early 1950s, with distributor-turned publisher Thorpe & Porter releasing 37 huge (68-page, whilst the US originals only boasted 36 pages) monochrome anthologies to entrance thrill-starved audiences under their Strato imprint.

This commodious British collection combines a flurry of tales featuring the Air Aces, balanced out by an assortment of mystery and science fiction tales from DC’s wide selection of weird adventure anthologies (primarily culled in this instance from September and October 1957) and kicks off with the contents of (US) Blackhawk #117 and ‘The Fantastic Mr. Freeze’ wherein the paramilitary aviators battle a chilling criminal maniac with a penchant for cold crimes before tackling smugglers masquerading as Vikings in ‘The Menace of the Dragon Boat’.

‘How Not to Enjoy a Vacation’ was seen in many places; a Public Service feature probably written by Jack Schiff and definitely illustrated by Rueben Moreira, followed by prose poser ‘I Was a Human Missile’, relating a technician’s account of when he was trapped during the test firing of a missile – and how he escaped – after which ‘The Seven Little Blackhawks’ become the targets of a ruthless mastermind exploiting their fame and reputations to plug his new movie…

Regrettably most records are lost so scripter-credits are not available (likely candidates include Ed “France” Herron, Arnold Drake, George Kashdan, Jack Miller, Bill Woolfolk, Jack Schiff and/or Dave Wood) but the art remained in the capable hands of veteran illustrators Dick Dillin & Chuck Cuidera: a team who meshed so seamlessly that they often traded roles with few any the wiser…

Moreover although broadly formulaic, the gritty cachet, exotic crime locales, Sci Fi underpinnings and international jurisdiction of the team always allowed great internal variety within the tales…

Here however the uniformed escapades pause as House of Mystery #67 (October 1957) offers the sorry saga of ‘The Wizard of Water’ – a scurvy conman who accidentally gets hold of King Neptune’s trident as drawn by Bill Ely – and, after an always-engaging ‘Science Says You’re Wrong’ page and text terror tale ‘The Mummy’s Revenge’, counts down ‘Five Days to Doom’ (illustrated by Sheldon Moldoff from House of Mystery #66, September 1957) wherein a printer discovers a seemingly-prophetic calendar and uses it to track down aliens planning to destroy Earth.

‘The Legend of the Golden Lion’ (HoM #67 again and illustrated by George Roussos) then described a Big Game Hunter’s confrontation with a leonine legend of biblical pedigree whilst from the same issue the ever-excellent Bob Brown depicted a weird science-tinged crime caper about ‘The Man Who Made Giants’ before the Blackhawks soared back into action battling ‘The Bandit with a Thousand Nets’ – yet another audacious costumed thief with a novel gimmick (from Blackhawk #118, October 1957).

That issue also provided ‘The Blackhawk Robinson Crusoes’ wherein the Pacific Ocean proved to be the real enemy when an accident marooned the Aviators as they hunted the nefarious pirate Sting Ray, followed by much-reprinted western classic ‘The Town Jesse James Couldn’t Rob’ limned by Frank Frazetta and itself a reprint from Jimmy Wakely #4.

Text feature ‘From Caveman to Classroom’ charted the history of map-making after which Blackhawk #118 continues to completion as ‘The Human Clay Pigeons’ found the entire squadron helpless targets of international assassin/spymaster the Sniper, leaving the rest of this collection to astound and amuse with more genre-specific tales such as the Roussos illustrated psychological crime thriller ‘Sinister Shadow’ from House of Mystery #66 Sept 1957.

Also in that issue is Jack Kirby’s eerie mystery of best friends turned rivals ‘The Thief of Thoughts’, Moldoff’s jungle trek chiller ‘The Bell that Tolled Danger’ and Mort Meskin & Roussos’ tragic supernatural romance ‘The Girl in the Iron Mask’.

Rounding out the collection are selections from House of Mystery #64 (July 1957) beginning with Nick Cardy’s irony-drenched riff on the curse of Midas wherein a criminal subjects himself to ‘The Golden Doom’ – pausing briefly for Jack Miller’s prose expose of mind-readers ‘A Clever Code’ (from HoM #66) and another Public Service ad with teen star Binky explaining ‘How to Make New Friends’ (Schiff & Bob Oksner) – before Bill Ely delivers a murderous revelation regarding ‘The Artist Who Painted Dreams’.

A brace of Henry Boltinoff gag pages starring ‘Professor Eureka’ and ‘Moolah the Mystic’ then segues into Bernard Baily’s macabre depiction of criminal obsession in ‘My Terrible Twin’ (HoM #64) to bring the fun to a close on a spooky high note.

These stories were produced – and reprinted here – at a pivotal moment in comics history: the last showing of broadly human-scaled action-heroes and two-fisted mystery-solvers in a marketplace increasingly filling up with gaudily clad wondermen and superwomen. The iconic blend of weary sophistication and glorious, juvenile bravado where a few good men with wits, firearms and an occasional trusty animal companion could overcome all odds was fading in the light of spectacular scenarios and ubiquitous alien encounters.

These are splendidly engaging tales that could beguile and amaze a whole new audience if only publishers would give them a chance. But whilst they won’t your best bet is to seek out books like this in specialist comic shops or online.

Go on; let your fingers do the hard work…

Despite there being no copyrights included in this tome, I think it’s safe to assume:
All material © 1957, 1958, 2015 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Twin Spica volume 11


By Kou Yaginuma (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-935654-33-9

Kou Yaginuma first captured the hearts and minds of star-struck generation with poignant short story 2015 Nen no Uchiage Hanabi (2015: Fireworks, published in Gekkan Comics Flapper, June 2000), before expanding the subject and themes into a major manga epic combining hard science and humanist fiction with lyrical mysticism and traditional tales of school-days and growing up.

Diminutive teenager Asumi Kamogawa always dreamed of going into space. From her earliest moments the solitary child gazed up at the heavens with imaginary friend Mr. Lion, especially gripped by the twinkling glow of Virgo and alluring binary star Spica.

An isolated, serious girl, she lived with her father, a common labourer who had once worked for the consortium which built the rockets for Japan’s Space Program.

When Asumi was one year old (just a few years from right now) the first Japanese manned launch ended in catastrophe after rocket-ship Shishigō (“The Lion”) exploded during its maiden flight: crashing to earth on the coastal city of Yuigahama. Hundreds were killed and many more injured, including Asumi’s mother.

Maimed and comatose, the matron took years to die. The shock crushed her grieving husband and utterly traumatised their infant daughter.

In response to the disaster, Japan set up an astronautics and space-sciences training facility where, after years of determined struggle, Asumi was accepted by the Tokyo National Space School. Slowly making friends like Shinnosuke Fuchuya (a classmate who had picked on her since their pre-school days back in Yuigahama), boisterous Kei Oumi, chilly, distant Marika Ukita and ultra-cool Shu Suzuki, Asumi inexorably moved closer to her unshakable dream of going to the stars.

Against all odds – she is small, shy, retiring, seems weak and is very poor – Asumi endures and always succeeds. She still talks with Mr. Lion, who is probably the ghost of an astronaut from the Shishigō…

Individual instalments in these compelling monochrome volumes are presented as “Missions”; methodically combining into an overarching mosaic detailing the subtle interconnectedness of generations of characters, all linked by the call of distant stars.

Volume 11 includes Missions 65-75, plus a brace of enchanting autobiographical vignettes from the author’s own stargazing teenage years in his Another Spica occasional series, and the story resumes with the hopeful, ebullient dynamic shattered forever…

The gang had always bickered and competed – as friends do – but when Shu was selected to go to America to train for an actual space-shot everybody was delighted for him. Now they must come to terms with the news that he is dead…

Mission: 65 details Shu’s too-brief time at the Space Development Consortium Space Center where intense training triggers a long-incubating hidden disease into a debilitating flare-up. When the doctors contact his estranged father – a political heavyweight in the Japanese government – a flashback reveals a link to another member of the ardent group of astronaut students…

When his little sister Sakura visits Suzuki in hospital, his final inspirational words are of the friends he made by following his own dreams…

Possibly the most moving section of the entire extended epic, Mission: 66 focuses on Shu’s memorial service and how his passing affects the rest of the gang of individualistic oddballs before things lurch back to the quest for space in Mission: 67.

Hurled again into the exhausting drudgery of classes and physical training, the kids bury themselves in effort as they process the fact that the best of them is gone, barely reacting to the news of Suzuki’s replacement on the proposed American space-shot. They are also unaware that Asauri News journalist Ichimura is getting closer to corroborating his suspicions: Marika is not a normal human and her “father” – publicity-shy life-sciences mogul Senri Ukita – has accomplished something at once astonishing and ethically shady following the death of his first daughter years ago…

Mission: 67 finds the driven reporter meeting with even-more obsessed freelancer Yamaji who claims to have proof that Marika is a clone, an unethical secret copy of Senri’s dead daughter…

At that very moment the subjects of their furtive enquiries are also meeting. Like Shu, Marika has fallen out with her controlling father, but he has requested a meeting to discuss the strange fact that her friend died of the same genetic malady which afflicts her and killed her… predecessor…

His arguments to dissuade her from her dream of the stars only make Marika more determined to succeed…

Mission: 69 finds the kids gamely pushing in as their third year of study, acutely aware that only a few will be allowed to start the fourth, whilst in the background Ichimura and Yamaji squabble. They may both want the truth, but it’s increasingly clear that it’s for vastly different reasons…

And in one quiet moment, the grieving gang gather and Marika shares all she knows about her own condition and how it corresponds to what killed Shu…

That night on a rooftop, sad, confused Asumi discusses the events with Mr. Lion as she prepares for the term’s last push. Her entire future depends on the efforts of the next few weeks…

In Mission: 70 Ichimura heads for Yuigahama to visit the family shrine of the Ukitas and, while pondering the ethics of his big story, dreams of the days when he and the other kids talked of going into space. He almost misses Senri’s annual visit to his daughter’s grave but his perseverance is rewarded by an off-the-cuff interview where he challenges the wealthy man’s arrogance in playing with nature and asks the crucial questions “why and for what purpose?”

With answers of a sort, Ichimura then meets Yamaji and makes a deal…

Mission: 71 finds Asumi, Kei, Marika and Fuchuya with the rest of the class heading out to a remote island for another terrifying burst of survival training, but when they arrive the assembled students learn this test is a comprehensive recapitulation of everything they covered in the last three years: a sudden death, make-or-break evaluation, not of knowledge, aptitude or endurance, but spirit…

The arduous ordeal and deep soul-searching continues in Mission: 72 with the latest wrinkle being the cutting of sleep rations to 2 hours per night and news that already some of the class have failed and gone home. Asumi is stoic as ever, fiery Kei uses her anger to push on and Marika is her implacable, impassive self, but in their moments of sleep-time the girls find comfort and solidarity sharing their dreams and aspirations again and realise with relief that they are true friends at last…

After one last punishing push the survivors are congratulated and get on a bus for home, but the tests are not over yet…

Mission: 73 finds Asumi abandoned in the wilderness with a nothing but an envelope of instructions and a punishing time limit to reach her destination. The packet says stop for nothing, not even other students in distress, and the route is punctuated with alarm buttons for quitters to signal for help and admit failure…

As Asumi doggedly storms on she is unaware that nearly-beaten Fuchuya is behind her, drawing strength from her example, but when the diminutive dreamer sees Kei passed out she doesn’t hesitate for a second. Even Fucchy’s screaming that she’ll be disqualified can’t stop her helping a friend…

Mission: 74 continues the impossible race with Asumi running on her own until she encounters the equally distraught Marika. Convinced they have both failed, they proceed on together…

The epic adventure pauses with Mission: 75 as the despondent class gather back at the Academy and Fuchuya – upset that his newly-discovered colour blindness will wash him out of the program if nothing else does – remembers his youth at the fireworks factory in Yuigahama.

When the official announcement comes that the island tests were deliberately impossible to pass and nobody should consider themselves out of the running until announcements come in January, the astounded kids separate for the holidays. However as they head home exhausted, cruel fate again intervenes as the train carrying one of our stars is buried in a landslip…

To Be Continued…

Rounding off this volume are two more wistfully autobiographical ‘Another Spica’ episodes, culled from author Yaginuma’s lovelorn youth. The first finds him recalling and graphically eulogizing a teacher who died too young but changed his life-path, whilst the second shares the unsuspected stresses of living and working in isolation and how inspiration to carry on can come from absolutely anywhere…

These magically moving marvels originally appeared in 2007-2008 as Futatsu no Supika 13 and 14 in the Seinen manga magazine Gekkan Comics Flapper, targeting male readers aged 18-30, but this ongoing, unfolding beguiling saga is perfect for any older kid with stars in their eyes…

Twin Spica ran from September 2001-August 2009: sixteen volumes tracing the trajectories of Asumi and friends from callow students to trained astronauts, and the series has spawned both anime and live action TV series.

This delightful saga has everything: plenty of hard science to back up the informed extrapolation, an engaging cast, mystery and frustrated passion, alienation, angst and true friendships; all welded seamlessly into a joyous coming-of-age drama with supernatural overtones, raucous humour and masses of sheer sentiment.

These books are printed in the Japanese right to left, back to front format.
© 2012 by Kou Yaginuma. Translation © 2012 Vertical, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Yoko Tsuno volume 1: On the Edge of Life


By Roger Leloup (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-32-8

Yoko Tsuno began first began gracing the pages of Spirou in September 1970 and is still going strong. As detailed by Roger Leloup, the astounding, all-action, uncannily edgy, excessively accessible exploits of the slim, slight Japanese scientific-adventurer are amongst the most intoxicating and absorbing comics thrillers ever created.

Leloup’s brainchild is an expansively globe-girdling, space and time spanning multi-award winning series devised by the monumentally talented Belgian maestro after leaving his job as a studio assistant on Herge’s The Adventures of Tintin and striking out on his own.

Compellingly told, superbly imaginative but always solidly grounded in hyper-realistic settings boasting utterly authentic and unshakably believable technology and scientific principles, the illustrated epics were at the vanguard of a wave of strips featuring competent, clever and brave female protagonists which revolutionised Continental comics from the 1970s onwards and they are as timelessly engaging and potently empowering now as they ever were.

The very first stories ‘Hold-up en hi-fi’, ‘La belle et la bête’ and ‘Cap 351’ were brief introductory vignettes before the superbly capable Miss Tsuno and her always awestruck and overwhelmed male comrades Pol Paris and Vic Van Steen truly hit their stride with premier extended saga Le trio de l’étrange which began in the May 13th 1971 Spirou…

In the original European serialisations, adventures alternated between explosive escapades in exotic corners of the world and sinister deep space sagas with the secretive and disaster-plagued alien colonists from Vinea, but for these current English translations, the extraterrestrial endeavours have been more often than not sidelined in favour of realistically intriguing Earthly epics such as this one which began serialised life in 1976 as La frontière de la vie (Spirou #1979-1999) before becoming the seventh collected album a year later.

There have been 27 European albums to date, and Cinebook opted to open their string of English translations with this one; a skilfully suspenseful spooky mystery which opens in the fabulously restored mediaeval German city of Rothenburg.

Yoko is sightseeing as she walks to a meeting with new friend Ingrid Hallberg: one of Germany’s most promising young classical organists and a woman the troubleshooting trio saved from murder in the case of The Devil’s Organ.

The trip takes a dark turn when Yoko learns Ingrid is ill. The musician is suffering from a strange, inexplicable form of anaemia and her cousin Rudy believes the malady is not of natural origin. In fact, despite his qualifications as a biologist, the frantic young man claims Ingrid is the victim of a vampire…

He has constantly examined her since the illness began and discovered a bizarre wound and that a large percentage of Ingrid’s blood has been replaced with a synthetic substitute. The distraught, diligent researcher has also plotted the timing of the attacks and the next one is due that very night…

Plans laid, valiant Yoko patiently waits by the victim’s bedside, but is overcome by an unexplained lethargy and, but for a fluke chance, would have slept through the sight of a caped and gas-masked woman siphoning off Ingrid’s precious fluids and drip-feeding something else into her…

However, a concerned pet upsets the intruder’s invasion and a drowsy but roused Yoko gives frantic chase through the unlit streets of the ancient town. Not at her best, she soon fades and is distracted by peculiar historian and archivist Ernst Schiffers who shows her a strange sight: some hooligans have built a makeshift scientific laboratory in the crypts beneath the city…

But that is not the worst of it: when the town was meticulously rebuilt after the bombing raids of the last war something went wrong. As an astoundingly accurate scale model he constructed now proves, the restored Rothenburg has one house too many…

Before he can say more, however, a car pulls up and a gang of masked men try to grab Yoko…

Soon she is the quarry, doubling back over the torturous route she followed in pursuit of the vampire and is astonished to fund the gas-masked woman waiting. With urgent desperation the enigma begs Yoko to finish the transfusion into Ingrid or the “victim” will die…

Later Rudy confirms the solution is a breakthrough plasma substitute, perfectly attuned to Ingrid’s incredibly rare blood-group. As they cautiously administer it, Vic and Pol drive up in the dawn light. Together the adventurers retrace Yoko’s eventful night and track Schiffers to his house. Although the historian is gone – probably taken by the masked gang – his home conceals a massive model of the town and eagle-eyed Yoko spots a discrepancy which can only be a clue…

Most suspicious of all is the fact that the Hallberg family physician Doctor Schulz is the missing man’s neighbour and his dwelling is ground zero for the “extra” house…

Rudy cannot believe any wrongdoing of the doctor and shares the story of how the tragic GP lost his little girl Magda in one of the last air raids of the war. On being pushed however, Rudy admits that there was some oddity or mystery connected to the event. A little digging and the investigators uncover a strange fact: little Magda had the same rare blood type as Ingrid…

Assumptions formed and conclusions reached, the gang head straight to a local cemetery to check out a certain coffin even as back in town an impossible apparition appears to Rudy’s mother…

Soon the vampire has no choice but to reveal herself and an incredible tale unfolds. A family pact has kept two generations of Schulz’s working at the forefront of biological advancement. Magda has been kept in tenuous suspended animation between life and death since 1945 as her father and extended family sought a cure, but now with the project almost completed, they have been forced to share their secrets and discoveries with other scientists and either haste or greed has left the 30 year old infant in mortal peril…

Based in a lab under the city, they have resorted to stealing Ingrid’s healthy blood to sustain Magda as they carefully remove her from decades of life support but the project is inexplicably failing at the final stage. When the vampire convinces her colleagues to let Rudy and Yoko add their skills to the team-effort, the observant engineer instantly spots that the problem is sabotage from within the select group…

When the indomitable Yoko acts with her usual philanthropic recklessness, she too has a terrifying near-death experience before the generational tragedy reaches a happy conclusion…

As always the most potent asset of these breathtaking dramas is the astonishingly authentic, staggeringly detailed draughtsmanship and the terse, supremely understated storytelling, which superbly benefits from Leloup’s scrupulous research and meticulous attention to detail, honed through years of working on Tintin.

Every bit the fictive equal of James Bond, Modesty Blaise, Tintin or any other genre-busting super-star, Yoko Tsuno is a truly multi-faceted adventurer, equally at home in all manner of dramatic milieus and able to hold her own against all threats and menace on Earth or beyond …

This is another miraculously-paced, meticulously planned, tensely suspenseful escapade to appeal to any fan of blockbuster action fantasy or devilish sinister thriller.
Original edition © Dupuis, 1978, by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation 2007 © Cinebook Ltd.