Science Fiction – Page 58

June 30, 2020June 29, 2020

Liebestrasse

By Greg Lockard, Tim Fish, HÃ©ctor Barros, Lucas Gattoni (Greg Lockard/ComiXology Originals)
No ISBN: digital only.

I’m ending our salute to Gay Pride and LGBTQ publishing with a little something that encapsulates the core concept of the entire issue: the right to love and be loved by whoever you choose. In our history, that’s been a long hard battle and one not won yet, but if you never start anything, you’ll never finish and I firmly believe bigotry is ultimately self-defeating. I just wish it was a faster process and that our opposition was more reasonable and less fanaticalâ€¦

Set firmly in the footsteps of Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, this tale of regret and thwarted love comes from writer Greg Lockard and artist Tim Fish, aided and abetted by HÃ©ctor Barros on colours with Lucas Gattoni providing letters and calligraphy.

The story opens covertly in the Land of the Free in 1952 as an aging, wealthy man seeks solace and the company of â€œhis own kindâ€ in a very special barâ€¦

The next day, Sam Wells visits a modern art exhibition where a brief encounter with a young man of similar tastes triggers a flashback to an old friend. Soon after, Wells is flying to Berlin to establish new business contacts and, hopefully, relive the better moments of his past.

As he moves about the divided city, Wells’ mind flits back to 1932 when, as a young Mover & Shaker, he was posted to Germany to set up an overseas office for his company. For a young man of wealth and his particular tastes, the Weimar Republic offered many opportunities, temptations and, crucially, freedom from dangerous oversight. However, there was also a sense of oppressive menace, especially after meeting audacious, outspoken Philip Adlerâ€¦ and falling madly, passionately, head over heels in love.

Philip’s sister Hilde was already in the sights of the rising National Socialists for creating un-Aryan art, but his constant challenging of the party in words, and especially with his â€œdegenerateâ€ lifestyle, soon painted a target on all their backs, as well as on the numerous doomed and dancing-on-the-volcano’s-edge liberals Sam met at parties in in the music clubsâ€¦

As the months passed, the affair intensified – as did the danger – and inevitably, the hammer fell. For Sam that meant a beating and deportation, but for Philip there was no such callous leniency. Now decades later, Wells is back and has to face Hilde againâ€¦

Forceful, frantic, passionate and deeply moving, Liebestrasse is a powerful testament to the abiding power and wonder of passion and a sobering reminder of how far we’ve come: an irrefutable argument for live and let loveâ€¦
LIEBESTRASSE Â© 2019 Greg Expectations, LLC & Timothy Poisson. All rights reserved.

June 19, 2020June 18, 2020

Y the Last Man Book Three

By Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Goran SudÅ¾uka & various (DC/Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2578-0 (HB) 978-1-4012-5880-1 (TPB)

Back in 2002, an old, venerable and cherished science fiction concept got a smart and satirical updating in Vertigo comic book series Y: The Last Man. These days it’s more relevant than ever as the premise explores the aftermath and consequences of a virulent global plague.

When a mystery contagion killed every male on Earth, only amateur stage magician, escapologist and all-round slacker goof-ball Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand survived in a world suddenly and utterly all girl.

Since his politician mother is high in America’s new government, Yorick is a highly prized and top-secret commodity. After a number of potential catastrophic incidents, he is condemned to covertly travel with conflicted secret agent 355 and maverick geneticist Dr. Allison Mann across the devastated American continent to her state-of-the-art laboratory. Mann believes she somehow caused the patriarchal apocalypse by self-inseminating and giving birth to the world’s first parthenogenetic human clone, but all young Yorick can think of is re-uniting with his girlfriend/fiancÃ©e Beth, cut off and trapped in Australia ever since the world was abruptly unmanned. As far as Brown is concerned, the geneticist’s Californian retreat is about halfway to his most cherished goalâ€¦

The trek is slow, arduous and fraught with peril and revelation: one none of the voyagers initially realise is dogged with stealthy intrigue and hostile surveillance from the start. Hard on their heels is a cult of crazed women determined to erase every vestige of male influence and achievement: modern â€œDaughters of the Amazonâ€ determined to eradicate the accursed Y chromosome entirely from planet Earth. They are racing against a team of Israeli commandos whose commander is determined that the Promised Land will have sons again, no matter what the cost. Tragically, they are not the only or worst of the special interests hunting Yorickâ€¦

This third compilation – available in hardcover, trade paperback and eBook formats – collects issues #24-36, spanning September 2004-October 2005 and opens with a 2-parter by originators and co-creators Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra. In case you were wondering, the entire book is inked by JosÃ© MarzÃ¡n Jr, coloured by Zylonol and lettered by Clem Robbins.

In ‘Tongues of Flame’ events move into higher gear as Dr. Mann and the formerly-fanatical secret agent who has been thanklessly bodyguarding Yorick both reach turning points in their own particular journeys. Suddenly on his own, Yorick finds reaffirmation in a climactic and far from spiritual meeting with faux nun Beth, who is solitarily expiating her own sins in a commandeered catholic church. Sadly, their moment in paradise is ruined by marauding Amazons. The reputed last man alive then uses all his conjuring tricks to return the disfavourâ€¦

Meanwhile in the Australian Outback, a couple of lost Americans make an unpleasant discovery and run into a spot of botherâ€¦

‘Hero’s Journey’ switches focus to Yorick’s previously deranged sister. Hero Brown has been stalking the expedition across the ravaged and now generally dis-United States, plagued by memories of her own childhood and difficult adolescence. The reverie also encompasses the night all the men died and how the traumatised paramedic swiftly fell under the sway of psychotic chief Amazon Victoria.

Hero’s long walk takes her to the plains of Kansas and a secret government facility, where twin American biologists and former Russian agent Natalya Zamyatin are guarding the planet’s greatest secret and penultimate hope for humanityâ€¦

For the entire saga thus far, Yorick has been carrying a wedding band for his Beth. ‘Ring of Truth’ finally reveals the history of the piece and the strange provenance it carries in a flashback to a chance encounter in a magic shop.

In the present, the trekkers have reunited in San Francisco. After Agent 355 has a lethal confrontation with her ex-comrades (and rival covert organisation the Setauket Ring), Dr. Mann actually discovers the secret of the last man’s immunity to the disease that killed all those guys. Sadly, it coincides with Yorick being overcome with a mystery ailment that seems to present like the haemorrhagic bug which wiped out all the other menâ€¦

Remember the monkey? As all the crises converge, and Hero appears to save the day, Ampersand is stolen by one of the aforementioned sinister forces following them and expeditiously shipped abroad. Once Yorick recovers, it becomes absolutely imperative that the team rescue him from captivity. That means a frantic trip to Japan but all Yorick can think of is how he’s getting ever closer to Beth in Australiaâ€¦

Goran SudÅ¾uka steps in for issues #32-35 as ‘Girl on Girl’ finds the wanderers in warm pursuit on repurposed cruise liner/cargo boat The Whale. When every male creature on Earth expired, Yorick’s true love was on an anthropology field trip in the Australian Outback, and all his previous adventures have been geared to eventually reuniting with her, despite the collapse of civilisation, and the mass extinction event that is gradually eliminating all higher life on Earth.

Sailing, for the Port of Yokogata – a destination that has particular significance for Dr. Mann – Yorick and his retinue are now painfully aware that Ampersand has been ape-napped by a mysterious ninja because he apparently holds the secret to the mystery of the plague which removed all us mouth-breathing, unsanitary louts.

Whilst aboard ship, Yorick’s drag disguise yet again fails and his concomitant and somewhat unwilling liaison with the lusty ship’s Captain is only thwarted by a torpedo fired by the Australian Navy. It seems that the commander has a few secrets of her own – and a highly illegal sidelineâ€¦

After a brutal battle and more pointless bloodshed it seems the lad is fated to go to Oz after all, despite the depredations of pirates, drug runners, ninja-assassins and the imminent return of old foe General Alter Tse’elon and her renegade cadre of Israeli commandosâ€¦

Yorick isn’t absolutely sure Beth Deville is actually still alive, but we are, after the last chapter tells her life story and hints that when her man comes for her, she might not actually be there anymoreâ€¦

Guerra returns for ‘Boy Loses Girl’ #36 (the entire script for which bolsters the back of this already-bountiful feast of adult fun and frolic) detailing how a typical student love story becomes a life-altering hallucinogenic spiritual walkabout for Beth and how her decision inadvertently derails every plan the Last Man ever laidâ€¦

By honing to the spirit of this admittedly overused premise but by carefully building strong, credible characters and situations, Vaughan & Guerra have crafted an intellectually seductive fantasy soap-opera of remarkable power: one every mature comics fan should enjoy.
Â© 2004, 2005, 2015 Brian K. Vaughan & Pia Guerra. All Rights Reserved.

June 14, 2020June 12, 2020

Chimpanzee Complex volumes 1 (Paradox); 2 (The Sons of Ares) & 3 (Civilisation)

By Richard Marazano & Jean-Michel Ponzio, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-002-3 (Album PB Paradox), 978-1-84918-015-3 (Album PB The Sons of Ares), 978-1-84918-043-6 (Album PB Civilisation)

One thing French comics creators excel at is challenging, mind-blowing, astoundingly entertaining science fiction. Whether the boisterous, mind-boggling space opera of Valerian and Laureline, the surreal spiritual exploration of Moebius’ Airtight Garage or the tense, tech-heavy brooding of Orbital, our Gallic cousins always got it: the genre is not about hardware or monsters; it’s about people encountering new and uncanny ideasâ€¦

Prolific, multi award-winning Richard Marazano was born in Fontenay-aux-Roses in 1971. He initially pursued a career in science before switching to Fine Arts courses in AngoulÃªme. He debuted in bande dessinÃ©e in the mid 1990s. Although an extremely impressive artist and colourist when illustrating his own stories (Le Bataillon des LÃ¢ches, Le Syndrome d’Abel), he is best known for his collaborations with other artists such as Michel Durand (Cuervos), Marcelo Frusin (L’ExpÃ©dition) and Xavier Delaporte (Chaabi) to name just a few.

His partnerships with artist Jean-Michel Ponzio are especially fruitful and rewarding. As well as Le Complexe du ChimpanzÃ© – the trilogy under discussion here available singly in trade paper and digitally, but not yet in one epic edition – the daring duo produced the taut, intricate social futurism of Genetiksâ„¢ and high-flying paranoiac cautionary tale Le Protocole PÃ©lican.

Jean-Michel Ponzio was born in Marignane and, after a period of scholastic pick-&-mix during the 1980s, began working as a filmmaker and animator for the advertising industry. He moved into movies, designing backgrounds and settings; listing Fight Club and Batman and Robin among his many subtle successes.

In 2000, he started moonlighting as an illustrator of book covers and edged into comics four years later, creating the art for Laurent Genfort’s T’ien Keou, before writing and illustrating Kybrilon for publisher Soliel in 2005. This led to a tidal wave of bande dessinÃ©e assignments before he began his association with Marazano in 2007. He’s still very, very busy and his stunning combination of photorealist painting, 3D design and rotoscoping techniques grace and enhance a multitude of comics from authors as varied as Richard Malka to Janhel.

Cinebook began publishing The Chimpanzee Complex in 2009 with the beguiling and enigmatic Paradox, which introduces the world to a bizarre and baffling cosmic conundrumâ€¦

February 2035: experienced but frustrated astronaut Helen Freeman is still reeling from the latest round of cutbacks which have once again mothballed NASA’s plans to send an expedition to Mars. The young mother is resigned to living an Earthbound life in Florida with the daughter she has neglected for so long, but just as she tentatively begins to repair her relationship with young, headstrong Sofia, her world is again turned upside down when a call comes from her ex-bosses.

Bowing to the inevitable despite Sophia’s strident objections, she and old boss Robert Conway are whisked away under the tightest of security conditions to a US aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean under the draconian control of Top Brass Spook Konrad Stealberg.

Here they learn that, days previously, an unidentified object splashed down from space and was recovered by divers.

The artefact was the Command Module of Apollo 11 and it carried the still-living Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin: legendary heroes forever mythologised as the first men to walk on the moon. Baffled and bewildered, the recovered astronauts have steadfastly refused to speak to anybody except NASA representativesâ€¦

Helen is the first to get any information from them, and whilst Stealberg’s technicians check every bolt, wire and component of the capsule, she and Robert carefully quiz their greatest idols. When the lost astronauts learn they have been in space for 66 years they are horrified. When they realise that history records they returned safely and died unremarkably years later, they go ballistic: exhibiting what Freeman describes as the traumatic shock response peculiar to space voyagers categorised by NASA as â€œthe Chimpanzee Complexâ€â€¦

Impatient martinet Stealberg has harder questions: if – as every test they can think of indicates these men are the real thing, who or what landed on Earth all those decades ago?

And most importantly, when they were feted by the world in 1969, was third astronaut Michael Collins – who never walked on Luna – one of us or one of â€œthemâ€?

Exerting military privilege, he peremptorily kicks Conway out whilst pressganging Helen onto his staff, and transfers the mystery-nauts and their capsule to his ultra-secure Red Hills Creek Base in Coloradoâ€¦

Helpless but conflicted, Freeman plays along, enjoining Robby to explain and take care of Sofia. If she had been angry before, the daughter’s reaction to this further enforced absence from a mother she feels doesn’t want her will be terrible indeedâ€¦

Events move very fast at the paranoid levels of the Military-Industrial complex, and as Helen continues her interviews with the biologically-perfect astronauts, she begins to discover inconsistencies and memory-lapses in their stories.

That’s enough for Stealberg to initiate other, harsher procedures, but before they can be implemented Helen is awoken from fantastically real dreams of exploring Mars to a new crisis: Armstrong and Aldrin are dead. From the state of their corpses they have been for decadesâ€¦

In Florida Robby is still trying to assuage Sofia’s feelings, telling her Mum will be home soon. There’s no chance of that, though, as Stealberg has moved on with his plans and arranged a private meeting with the President.

The result is the re-commissioning of the completed – but mothballed – Mars exploration shuttle, with the intention of revisiting the site of the Apollo moon landings. As NASA’s top flier and an expert on the Mars vehicle, Helen is going tooâ€¦ whether she wants to or not.

Twelve days later, amidst massive public uproar and speculation at the ludicrous cover story for the sudden moon-shot, Helen and her crew meet the rest of the exploration team and she realises with horror that her professional career is based on a lie.

NASA has never had an American monopoly on spaceflight: the military had been running a clandestine, parallel black-book program since the very start, funded by siphoning the Agency’s operating budget and personally instigated by ex-Nazi rocket pioneer Werner von Braunâ€¦

The launch is televised around the world, trumpeted as a final shakedown flight before closing the costly space program forever. Aboard the blazing javelin, Helen and close companion Aleksa ponder the coincidence of heading for the moon in the week they were originally scheduled to take off for Mars, but are more concerned that mission leader Stealberg has filled the shuttle with mysterious, classified containersâ€¦

All too soon, the vehicle establishes lunar orbit and a Lander touches down on the most hallowed site in the history of technology. It’s a huge shock: the paraphernalia left by the missions doesn’t match the records and there is a strange trail of footprints. Following them, the terrified explorers discover the mummified, space-suited, long-dead bodies of Armstrong and Aldrin, even as, high above them pilot Kurt matches velocities with a piece of space junk and discovers the Apollo 11 Command Moduleâ€¦with Collins’ corpse in itâ€¦

Moreover, there’s a recorded distress message in the primitive computers: a 66-year old Russian cry for aid originating from Marsâ€¦

And that’s when Stealberg reveals his biggest secret, summoning booster rockets and a second-stage shuttle from deep orbit whilst breaking out the cryogenic coffins that will keep the crew alive as they travel on to Mars and an appointment with the truth, whatever it might beâ€¦

Second volume The Sons of Ares opens in October 2035, focussing on Freeman’s best friend. NASA bureaucrat Robert Conway has struggled to look after the increasingly wayward Sofia. Increasingly off-the-rails, she argues and acts out, whilst in interplanetary space the fourth month of the journey finds American astronauts Paul Dupree and Mark Lawrence taking their boring turn awake for monitor duty, whilst their comrades endure resource-saving but life-shortening hibernation. The monotony is suddenly broken by a freak radiation storm. Only one of the terrified explorers makes it to the ship’s shielded area in timeâ€¦

In Florida, Robert is acutely conscious of his failings as a surrogate parent, just as Helen is blissfully unaware of the personal crisis when her slumbering crew rouse from cold sleep to find Paul insane and Mark missingâ€¦

In reporting the situation to Earth, Helen again misses – or perhaps avoids – a chance to speak to Sofia – who is gradually coming to terms with the possibility that she might never see her mother againâ€¦

As the shuttle at last establishes Mars orbit, Paul is locked up for his own safety and the suspicious voyagers’ peace of mind. Konrad then shares intel gathered by his agents on Earth whilst they slept. The Soviet clandestine Cosmonaut project began in 1963, headed by space pioneer Yuri Gagarin – whose death had been faked to facilitate his smooth transition to commander of their Mars shot.

Expecting a monumental propaganda coup, the Kremlin simply said nothing when contact was lost with Gagarin’s mission, preferring stolid rhetoric to incontrovertible proof of failure. Now, with so many inexplicable events inevitably leading to the Red Planet, Stealberg expects Helen and her team to find all the answers with the Russians’ bodies on the dust surface. He couldn’t be more wrongâ€¦

Locating a base at the polar cap, Konrad dispatches his heavily armed crew to the site even as on Earth, Sofia runs away from home. However even whilst experiencing her greatest desire – walking on another world – Helen can’t help but worry about Paul, doped up and locked into the isolation chamber of the otherwise empty Shuttleâ€¦

Whilst Robert frantically searches for Sofia on Earth, the astronauts are astounded to discover the primitive landing site and corpses they expected are, in actuality, a thriving, efficient facility, stuffed with botanical wonders and manned by the very strong and vital cosmonauts who had landed there in the1960s.

After an initial exchange of hostilities – and gunfire – friendly contact is established and another incomprehensible tale unfolds. Russians Vladimir and Borislav have lost all sense of time in the â€œtwelve yearsâ€ since they landed and Commander Gargarin – having discovered a strange tunnel in a Martian glacier – has been absent for most of that period. They only know he’s still alive because food keeps vanishingâ€¦

Stealberg, seeing uncomfortable similarities in the agelessness of the cosmonauts and the duplicate Armstrong and Aldrin on Earth, sedates the Russians, who constantly ramble about the nature of reality, but Helen’s interest is piqued and, with Kurt’s assistance, she sneaks off into the glacier tunnel to find Gagarinâ€¦

When she succeeds, it only leads to more baffling questions. The First Man in Space perpetually stares into the unyielding ice-wall, seemingly unsurprised by Helen’s reports on the Apollo returnees, the impossible time-differentials and the fall of the Soviet Union.

He merely ruminates on Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, and whether such a subatomic phenomenon could apply to larger constructs – such as human beings – in a constant and simultaneous state of being and non-being: a â€œprobability of presenceâ€â€¦

They also converse about children they will probably never see againâ€¦

As Helen returns to the greenhouse module, the Russians are planning more armed resistance, but Stealberg has an even more pressing problem. Much to Helen’s astonished disbelief, he’s found Gagarin’s 60-years-dead corpseâ€¦

As Vladimir and Borislav attack, setting fire to the modules, the Americans fall back to their vehicle, dragging the now hysterical Helen, who has promised her very much alive Yuri Gagarin a ride homeâ€¦

The tension increases when they re-enter the orbiting Shuttle: Paul has vanished and no trace can be found of him. Thoroughly rattled, Konrad orders an immediate return to Earth, with increased watches for every day of the trip.

May 2036: on Earth Robert has tracked down Sofia and they both eagerly await Helen’s return at Cape Canaveral. However, as the Shuttle nears Earth it suddenly vanishes from all tracking systems. Aboard the vessel, Helen and Kurt experience the horror of seeing their home planet vanish. Unable to brake the shuttle, and with no world in view, they rejoin the others in cold sleep, not knowing when they will next awaken or even if they will still be in their solar system when they do.

Helen’s last conscious thoughts are of the daughter she may never see againâ€¦

Concluding volume Civilisation completes the trilogy by picking up in the Great Unknown as hibernation ends after 70 years. Only Helen and Aleksa remain alive, all the other cryo-capsules having failed at some indeterminate time.

With only finite resources and dwindling power, Helen consoles herself by catching up on messages beamed in hope and anticipation by Robbie Cooper, but is roused from her fatalistic depression by Aleksa who has made a shocking discoveryâ€¦

Seeing one of the EVA suits missing, he at first believed their comrade Alex had committed suicide by walking out of the airlock. Then he saw the impossibly huge unidentified space ship and called Helenâ€¦

Suiting up and arming themselves, they cross to the vessel, Helen further encumbered by a laptop with all the messages – read and unread – from Cooper stored on it. They have no idea when Alex left, or if she even tried to reach the UFO. However, as it’s their only hope of survival, they make a leap into the void and, after great struggle, find themselves in a vast and terrifying mechanical chamber of disturbing proportions.

Alex’s abandoned gear is on the floor. She had clearly camped there for some time before vanishing into the dark, dusty cavernous interiorâ€¦

Whilst they rest and consider their next move, Helen watches the last message Robbie sent from Earth. It is sixty-seven years oldâ€¦

Later, Helen freaks out when they find Alex’s empty suit, until Aleksa does the unthinkable and opens his own EVA garb. The enigma ship has warmth and a breathable atmosphereâ€¦

And then something pushes part of the vessel over on themâ€¦

Narrowly escaping harm, they cautiously explore the vessel, but after splitting up Aleksa is attacked again. When terrified Helen finds him, he is hugging the crazed, decrepit, wizened but still alive Alex. Mute but still vital, she leads them through vaulting passageways to what they can only assume is a skeleton. A really, really big one. Outside a viewing portal, Mars spins by above them. It’s as if they’ve come homeâ€¦

However fast or far or forward humanity travels, their fears and foibles go with them and before long distrust and dread spark a final confrontation in the uncanny construct. Thus, only one person makes an implausible, inexplicable escape back to Earthâ€¦

It’s 2097 and as a long-missing craft splashes down in the ocean to begin the circle anew, it becomes clear that some mysteries, like some philosophies and some family bonds, remain ineffably beyond the sphere of rational thinkingâ€¦

Bold, challenging and enticingly human, this astonishing science mystery dances and darts adroitly between beguiling metaphysics and hard-wired mortal passions, easily encompassing our species’ inbuilt inescapable isolation, wide-eyed wonderment, hunger to know everything and terror of finding out. Marazano’s pared-to-the-bone script is brought to hyper-life with stunning clarity by Ponzio to produce a timeless fusion of passion, paranoia and familial fulfilment. A deft blend of intrigue, hope, paranoia and abiding curiosity, The Chimpanzee Complex is a tale no lover of fantasy and suspense should ignore.

Do you read me? Do read The Chimpanzee Complex.
Â© Dargaud, Paris, 2007, 2008 by Marazano& Ponzio. All rights reserved. English translation Â© 2009, 2010 Cinebook Ltd.

June 13, 2020June 11, 2020

Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter

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

Stress-alleviating Fun is in pretty short supply everywhere these days, but if you’re a comics fan susceptible to charming nostalgia, this item – readily available in paperback, but tragically still not compiled in any digital format yet – might just appeal to the starry-eyed wanderer in youâ€¦

As the 1950’s opened, comic book superheroes were in inescapably steep decline, giving way to a steady stream of genre-locked he-men and â€œOrdinary Joesâ€ caught in extraordinary circumstances. By the time the â€œRed-baitingâ€, witch-hunting Senate hearings and media investigations into causes of juvenile delinquency had finished mid-decade, the industry was further depleted by the excision of any sort of mature content or themes.

The self-imposed Comics Code Authority took all the hard edges out of the industry, banning horror and crime comics whilst leaving their ghostly, sanitised anodyne shades to inhabit the remaining adventure, western, war and fantasy titles that remained. American comics – for which read a misperceived readership comprising only children – could have bowdlerised concepts of evil and felonious conduct, but not the simplest kind of repercussion: a world where mad scientists plotted to conquer humanity without killing anybody and cowboys shot guns out of opponents’ hands or severed gun-belts with a well-aimed bullet without ever drawing bloodâ€¦

Moreover, no civil or government official or public servant could be depicted as anything other than a saintâ€¦

With corruption, venality and menace removed from the equation, comics were forced to supply punch and tension to their works via mystery and imagination – but only as long as it all had a rational, non-supernatural explanationâ€¦

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

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

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

Certa also drew the newspaper strip Straight Arrow and ghosted long-lived boxing strip Joe Palooka. In the 1970s he moved to Gold Key, working on TV adaptations, mystery tales and all-ages horror stories.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Detective #249’s ‘Target for a Day’ the Martian disguises himself as the State Governor marked for death by a brutal gang whilst as ‘The Stymied Sleuth!’ in #250 he is forced to stay in hospital to protect his alien identity as radium thieves run amok in town, after which he seemingly becomes a brilliant crook himselfâ€¦ ‘Alias Mr. Zero’.

Issue #252 saw Jones confront a scientific super-criminal in ‘The Menace of the Super-Weapons’ before infiltrating a highly suspicious newspaper as ‘The Super Reporter!’ and invisibly battle rogue soldiers as ‘The One-Man Army’ in #254.

The Hidden Hero attempts to foil an audacious murder-plot encompassing the four corners of Earth in the ‘World-Wide Manhunt!’, after which #256’s ‘The Carnival of Doom’ pits him against canny crooks whilst babysitting a VIP kid before #257 sees the Starborn Sleuth perpetrating spectacular crimes to trap the ‘King of the Underworld!’

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

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

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

A menacing fallen meteor results in ‘The Mixed-Up Martian Powers’ and a blackmailing reporter almost becomes ‘The Man who Exposed John Jones’, after which a trip escorting an extradited felon from Africa results in J’onzz becoming ‘The Hunted Martian’.

The Manhunter’s origin was revisited in #271 when Erdel’s robot-brain accidentally froze the alien’s powers in ‘The Lost Identity’ before death threats compel Jones’ boss to appoint a well-meaning hindrance in the form of ‘The Super-Sleuth’s Bodyguard’â€¦

By the time Detective Comics #273 was released (November 1959) the Silver Age superhero revival was in full swing and, with a plethora of new costumed characters catching the public imagination, old survivors and hardy perennials like Green Arrow, Aquaman and others were given a thorough makeover. Perhaps the boldest was the new direction taken by the Manhunter from Mars as his undercover existence on Earth was revealed to all mankind as he very publicly battles and defeats a criminal from his home world in ‘The Unmasking of J’onn J’onzz’.

As part of the revamp, J’onzz lost the ability to use his powers whilst invisible and became a very high-profile superhero. At least his vulnerability to common flame was still a closely guarded secretâ€¦

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

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

Advance word of an underworld plot makes the Manhunter ‘Bodyguard to a Bandit’ to keep a crook out of prison, whilst #281’s ‘The Menace of Marsville’ inadvertently grants criminals powers to equal his before another fallen meteorite temporarily turns Diane into ‘The Girl with the Martian Powers’ – or does itâ€¦?

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

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

‘The Case of the Honest Swindler’ in #288 features a well-meaning man accidentally endangering the populace with magical artefacts after which a quick trip to Asia pits the Martian against a cunning jungle conman in ‘J’onn J’onzz – Witch Doctor’.

When a movie is repeatedly sabotaged Diane assumes the job of lead stunt-girl with some assistance from the Manhunter in ‘Lights, Camera – and Doom!’ after which a lovesick suitor masquerades as ‘The Second Martian Manhunter’ to win his bride in #291 before ‘The Ex-Convicts Club’ almost founders before it begins when someone impersonates the reformed criminals to pulling new jobs. Luckily J’onzz is more trusting than mostâ€¦

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

In #297’s ‘J’onn J’onzz vs. the Vigilantes’, the Green Guardian exposes the secret agenda of a committee of wealthy â€œconcerned citizensâ€ before going to the aid of a stage performer who is ‘The Man Who Impersonated J’onn J’onzz!’ He then almost fails as a ‘Bodyguard for a Spy’ because Diane is jealous of the beautiful Princess in his chargeâ€¦

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

‘The Crime King of Mount Olympus’ matches the Manhunter against a pantheon of Hellenic super-criminals to save Diane’s life after which more plebeian thugs attempt to expose his secret identity in ‘The Great J’onn J’onzz Hunt’â€¦

This first beguiling compendium then concludes with #304’s stirring tale of an academy of scientific lawbreaking when John Jones infiltrates ‘The Crime College’â€¦

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

June 12, 2020June 11, 2020

My Favorite Martian â€“ The Complete Series Volume One

By Paul S. Newman, Bob Ogle, Russ Manning, Dan Spiegle, Sparky Moore, Mike Arens & various (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-1-932563-79-5(HB) eISBN 978-1-932563-79-2

My Favorite Martian debuted in America in September 29^th 1963, the forerunner of a miniature golden age of fantasy-themed sitcoms that included Living Doll, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Ghost and Mrs Muir, Nanny and the Professor and many more: all operating on the premise of a science fictional or magical character acting as disruptive outsider and playing hob with â€œnormalâ€ American domestic life.

Coming in at the height of the Space Race, My Favorite Martian ran for three seasons and 107 episodes – the last of which premiered in May 1966 – and particularly shone because of the laidback style, intriguing music, strong scripts and the unparalleled gifts of lead actor Ray Walston and his â€œstraight manâ€ young Bill Bixby. Many episodes haven’t dated at all – at least in term of gags, if not cultural attitudes, something which sadly, cannot be said of Disney’s 1999 movie rebootâ€¦

Like most successful television properties, the series spawned a ton of nifty merchandise, including a comic book (nine issues running between January 1964 and October 1966) from licensing specialists Gold Key. Here, the first five are curated in an imposing hardcover (or eBook) collection from comics-resurrection and nostalgia specialists Hermes Press. It’s especially welcome as it unearths incidences of masterful lost work from some of our industry’s biggest namesâ€¦

Preceded by stunning H. Greer game box art, Kate Walston’s Foreword ‘My Dad and My Favorite Martian’ reminisces over her dad’s career, friendship with co-star Bixby and the show before a photo from the pilot episode (the volume is liberally and peppered throughout with photos) precedes Daniel Herman’s Introduction discussing the careers of ‘The Artists of My Favorite Martian’.

The writers were â€œKing of Comicsâ€ Paul S. Newman – whose astoundingly prolific career encompassed scripts for almost every publisher in the US on titles such as The Lone Ranger, Tom Corbett – Space Cadet, Turok, Son of Stone, Dr. Solar, Patsy Walker, G.I. Combat, House of Mystery ad infinitum – and Bob Ogle, an animator and voice actor who also wrote for Gold Key’s vast stable of ties-in and TV shows such as Shirt Tales, Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, The Kwicky Koala Show and Yogi’s Gang.

The premise of My Favorite Martian was supremely evergreen, yet smartly contemporary. The pilot episode revealed how 450-year old Martian anthropologist Exigius 12Â½ is marooned on Earth after his ship almost collides with experimental American rocket-plane X-15, fired from Edwards Air Force Base. The crash is observed by passing journalist Tim O’Hara who takes the alien under his wing – and into his lodgings as his Uncle Martin – until the voyager can repair his wrecked vessel.

Sadly, Tim has a nosy landlady in busybody Mrs Brown and Martin has strong opinions, incredible scientific gifts, a whole raft of uncanny powers and no luck at allâ€¦

The comic launched in January 1964 and, behind a photo-cover, was graced with artwork from one of the industry’s greatest exponents. Russ Manning (Magnus, Robot Fighter, Tarzan, Star Wars) was one of comics’ greatest stylists and perfectly caught the tone of the show in Newman’s ‘My Favorite Martian’, which adapted and reprised the origin before revealing how Tim’s scoop on the X-15 – and suppression of his meeting with Martin – lead to his being arrested by the authorities for espionageâ€¦

No sooner has the Martian finagled Tim out of a cell and cleared his name than he’s risking his new friend’s life by having them infiltrate a top-secret project in search of a fuel source necessary to power the hidden Martian ship he’s gradually rebuildingâ€¦

The romp ends with a monochrome single page gag highlighting Martin’s ability to talk to animals, probably drawn by Mike Arens.

Issue #2 carries a July 1964 cover-date and is the only one to employ an illustrated rather than photographic cover. It and the interiors that follow are by the criminally unsung Dan Spiegle, whose career was two-pronged and incredibly long. Born in 1920, Spiegle wanted to be a traditional illustrator but instead fell – after military service in the Navy – into comics at the end of the 1940s. He was equally adept at dramatic and cartoon narrative art and his portfolio includes impeccable work on Hopalong Cassidy, Rawhide, Sea Hunt, Space Family Robinson, Blackhawk, Crossfire, Nemesis, Scooby Doo, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Indiana Jones, the Hanna-Barbera stable and so much more.

He opens here with ‘Destination Mars’ as a well-meaning intervention by the landlady’s daughter ruins Martin’s latest fuel formulation and he is driven by frustration and loneliness to try stowing away on a robotic Mars probe built by the backward earthmenâ€¦

This is counterbalanced by a romantic flight of whimsy in ‘Priscilla Loves Melvin’ as Martin intervenes – with catastrophic effect – to reunite a lovesick zoo gorilla with her missing spouseâ€¦

Another monochrome gage strip detailing the danger of Mrs Brown’s pies segues into #3 (February 1965) with Sparky Moore (Rin Tin Tin, The Three Stooges) assuming visual control for ‘It’s a Small World’, with Martin and Tim off to Africa in search of an ancient Martian crash-site and discovering an astonishing connection to the Martian’s past! ‘Sighted! Green Monster’ reveals a startling side effect of Martian food on human physiology when Tim and Martin have a picnic in Florida and set off a E.T. panicâ€¦

Ogle took over scripting and Mike Arens (Dale Evans, Chuckwagon Charley, Roy Rogers) became regular artist with MFM #4 (May 1965), nicely balancing the drama and fantasy elements for ‘Once Upon a Ding-Ding’, wherein a trip to the Zoo and an incautious nap manifests a beloved beast of Mars from Martin’s ferociously potent, semi-autonomous subconscious with the now-traditional calamitous results, after which the visitor’s attempts to diminish his own awesome powers inadvertently revert Tim to toddler size and threaten to rejuvenate him out of existence in ‘Kid Stuff’â€¦

This initial outing concludes with August 1965’s fifth issue, opening with ‘The Creep of Araby’, as Martin’s latest invention – a molecular duplicator – complicates and endangers Tim’s life just as he’s about to interview a desert sultan. Later, when the Martian’s escaped and now-physically realised subconscious starts recklessly granting wishes in ‘Martin’s Other Self’, Tim has to take extraordinary action to circumvent the chaos that followsâ€¦

Wrapping up the vintage wonderment, ‘Memorabilia, Photos and Publicity’ offers a collection of merchandise, art – such as colouring book covers, game and model kit boxes – and publicity stills (including show costume designs) to delight fans old and freshly-minted.

TV-themed compendia of screen-to-page magic were an intrinsic part of growing up in Britain for generations and still occur every year with only the stars/celebrity/shows changing, not the package. The show itself has joined the vast hinterland of fantasy fan-favourites immortalised in DVD and streamed all over the world, but if you want to see more, this rewarding tome is a treat you won’t want to overlook.
My Favorite MartianÂ® Â© 1966-1965 and 2011 The Contingent Trust of the Jack and Florence Chertok Trust dated October 22, 1990/ Jack Chertok Television, Inc; Peter Greenwood Licensing Manager Worldwide. Reprinted with Permission. All Rights Reserved.

June 11, 2020June 10, 2020

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume II

By Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill & various (Americas Best Comics/WildStorm/DC)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0118-0 (TPB)

The Victorian era saw the birth of both popular and populist publishing, particularly the genres of fantasy and adventure fiction. Writers of varying skill but possessing unbounded imaginations expounded personal concepts of honour and heroism, wedded unflinchingly to the innate belief in English Superiority. In all worlds and even beyond them the British gentleman took on all comers for Right and Decency, viewing danger as a game and showing â€œJohnny Foreignerâ€ just how that game should be played.

For all the problems this raises with our modern sensibilities, many of the stories remain uncontested classics of literature and form the roadmap for all modern fictional heroes. Open as they are to charges of Racism, Sexism (even misogyny), Class Bias and Cultural Imperialism the best of them remain the greatest of all yarns.

An august selection of just such heroic prototypes were seconded – and slyly re-examined under modern scrutiny – by Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill for a miniseries in 1999 that managed to say as much about our world as that long gone one, and incidentally tell a captivating tale as compelling as any of its antecedents.

In short succession there was an inevitable sequel, once more pressing into service vampire-tainted Wilhelmina Murray, aged Great White Hunter Allan Quatermain, Invisible Man Hawley Griffin, the charismatic genius Captain Nemo and both cultured Dr. Henry Jekyll and his bombastic alter-ego Mister Hyde. The tale also added cameos from the almost English Edwin Lester Arnolds’ Gullivar Jones, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars and even many creatures from C.S. Lewis’ allegorical sequence Out of the Silent Planet.

The idea of combining shared cultural brands is evergreen: Philip Jose Farmer in particular spun many a yarn teaming such worthies as Sherlock Holmes, Doc Savage, Tarzan and their like; Warren Ellis succumbed to similar temptation in Planetary and Jasper Fforde worked literary miracles with the device in his Thursday Next novels, but the sheer impetus of Moore & O’Neill’s para-steampunk revisionism, rush of ideas (and the stunning, startling visuals that carry them) make this book (and all the previous ones) form an irresistible experience and absolute necessity for every fiction fan, let alone comic collectorâ€¦

In ‘Phases of Deimos’, as London rebuilds after the cataclysmic denouement of the previous volume, a savage planetary conflict on the fourth planet ends with the firing of gigantic projectiles at our fragile, unsuspecting world â€¦

The barrage hits home in ‘People of Other Lands’ and the cohort of reluctant agents is on hand when hideous otherworldly invaders begin incinerating the best that Britain can offer. One of the operatives considers treachery as more cylinders arrive in ‘And Dawn Comes Up Like Thunder’ and acts upon the temptation as the incursion renders Earth’s most advanced defenders helplessâ€¦

With the Empire being dismantled by Tripods and other supra-scientific engines of destruction, ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ finds half of the chastened and dispirited agents seeking other allies and ideas, even as ‘Red in Tooth and Claw’ sees the traitor exposed and dealt with despite the inexorable advance of the Martian horde before the tide unexpectedly and shockingly turns in ‘You Should See Me Dance the Polkaâ€¦’

This startlingly impressive and beguilingly effective interleaving of HG Wells’ landmark fantasy classic with the skewed but so-very plausible conceit that all the great adventurers of literature hung out together captures perfectly the feeling of a world and era ending. As one would expect, internal conflicts pull apart the champions – at no time do they ever even slightly resemble a team – and Moore’s irrepressible imagination and vast cultural reservoir dredges up a further elite selection of literary touchstones to enhance the proceedings.

Dark and genuinely terrifying, the tale unfolds largely unchanged from the original War of the Worlds plot, but a string of parallel side-stories are utterly gripping and unpredictable, whilst the inclusion of such famed and/or lost characters as Bill Samson, Doctor Moreau, Tiger Tim and even Rupert Bear (among others) sweetens the pot for those in the know.

Those who aren’t you can always consult A Blazing World: the official companion to the dramaâ€¦

This book is an incredible work of scholarship and artistry recast into a fabulous pastiche of an entire literary movement. It’s also a stunning piece of comics wizardry of a sort no other art form can touch, and as with the other Moore & O’Neill collaborations there are wry visual supplements (including, activity pages, puzzles and mazes, faux ads and a board game) plus a substantial text feature – The New Traveller’s Almanac – at the back, in-filling the alternative literary history of the League.

It is quite wordy, but Read It Anyway: it’s there for a reason and is more than worth the effort as it outlines the antecedents of the assorted champions in a fabulously stylish and absorbing manner. It might also induce you to read a few other very interesting and rewarding booksâ€¦
Â© 1999, 2000 Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill. All Rights Reserved.

June 10, 2020June 9, 2020

John Carter – The End

By Brian Wood, Alex Cox, Hayden Sherman, Chris O’Halloran & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-52410-438-2 (TPB)

Edgar Rice Burroughs is arguably the most influential fantasy author of the 20^th century: a creator not just of dozens of vivid and thrilling characters and concepts but also generator of at least two distinct heroic archetypes – Tarzan and John Carter of Mars. You should read the books. Despite the inherent sexism and now-deeply uncomfortable overtones of imperialist white exceptionalism (which, to be frank, still underpin the vast majority of global heroic literature and cinema) they are rip-roaring reads packed with invention and potent power.

John Carter was the star of ERB’s first novel. Written in 1911, whilst Burroughs was almost impoverished and selling pencil sharpeners wholesale, Under the Moons of Mars appeared as a serial in adventure pulp The All-Story between February and July 1912. It was promptly ignored and forgotten. In that year’s October issue however, Tarzan of the Apes began serialisation. His meteoric success prompted the revival of Carter.

In 1917, Moons of Mars was released as a complete novel, retitled A Princess of Mars. There would be ten more books, intermittently released between 1918 and 1964 when John Carter of Mars was posthumously published.

In the first book Carter is established as a former Confederate Officer and aristocratic Gentleman of Virginia who, by arcane and inexplicable means, is astrally projected to Mars. On Barsoom, as it is called by its many indigenous races, his fighting spirit and earth-gravity conditioned body allow him to rise to the forefront of its mightiest and most noble humanoid race.

He finds eternal immortal love with incomparable warrior princess Dejah Thoris, founds a dynasty and generally crushes evil and iniquity whilst extending the dying world’s dwindling lifespanâ€¦

Although undoubtedly inspired by Edwin Lester Arnold’s 1905 novel Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, it was Carter and his bombastic exploits which became the template for a breed of itinerant warrior wandering fantastic kingdoms with sword and/or gun in hand, battling debased science or sinister sorcery both in literature and comics.

Brawny barbarians and sleek duellists from Jirel of Joiry to Kothar, Thongor to Fafhrd & Gray Mouser to Conan, dozens of Michael Moorcock’s heroes such as Elric and Dorian Hawkmoon – not to mention ERB’s own numerous variations on the theme such as Carson Napier of Venus, David Innes of Pellucidar and so many others – all follow the same pattern: one that humanises the original mythic feats of Gilgamesh, Hercules and Beowulfâ€¦

The Warlord of Mars has become a touchstone, resource and meme-well for science fiction writers from Frank Herbert to Robert Heinlein to Moorcock. You can probably blame Burroughs and Carter for the whole Dungeons and Dragons, fantasy role playing phenomenon, tooâ€¦

Comics books and strips borrowed shamelessly from John Carter. As well as appearing under his own brand, aspects of the Virginian’s look and milieu inspired and influenced Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Superman, Adam Strange, Warp!, Richard Corben’s Den and countless others.

When Carter and Co made the jump to comics in his own name (in 1953 and 1964 from Dell/Gold Key as well as later iterations from DC, Marvel, Dark Horse and Dynamite), the result was – and continues – to be some of the most potent and memorable action adventures ever seen. And that’s not simply because his female co-stars are usually depicted all but naked – and yes, I know that’s what the novels describe. I say it’s not practical to wave sharp swords about whilst clad in nipple clips and hankies, and simply suggest that the stories don’t need to assume adolescent boys of all ages are the exclusive target demographicâ€¦

Proof of that comes in this superb addition to the modern world’s â€œlast adventure ofâ€¦â€ sub-genre. Written by Brian Wood (DMZ, Northlanders, Star Wars) and Alex Cox (Adventure Time) and illustrated by Hayden Sherman (The Few, Kingpin, Civil War II) and colourist Chris O’Halloran, John Carter – The End takes us far into the future when even the once-reckoned immortal Barsoomians are aged and weary.

Carter and Dejah Thoris have removed themselves from Mars and are passing their advanced years rather acrimoniously on Titan, when a ship calls them home. ‘Twilight of the Red Queen’ brings word to them that the planet is dyingâ€¦ and it is all Carter’s faultâ€¦

The messengers are Tharks – the four-armed Green Men of Mars – and they have come to warn of genocidal conflict on the Red Planet, sparked and fanned to full fury by the Royal Couple’s grandson. The shock is more than Dejah can bear. The cause of the ill-feeling between her and her husband is that long ago the Warlord had to put down their twisted, descendent Den Thorkar like a murderous mad dog that he was. Now the Princess of Mars realises her man didn’t have the guts to do his duty then, and leaves him to finish the job herselfâ€¦

Carter follows her in ‘Apocalypse Barsoom’ and finds his beloved adopted world drenched in blood and consumed in conflict. Although both estranged lovers individually hunt the architect of Barsoom’s woes, their paths are radically different. Dejah heads straight to the capital citadel New Helium to confront the deranged ruler face to face, whilst Carter joins the Tharks’ resistance movement The Swords of Old Barsoom and meets again old ally Tars Tarkas. The noble old warrior is undergoing an incredible metamorphosisâ€¦

Planet-shaking secrets begin to unravel in third chapter ‘I’m of Your Blood, Yours and the Warlord’sâ€¦’ Dejah uncovers a web of corruption at the heart of government and the horrific truth of her pitiless great, great grandson. The chaos, carnage and catastrophe escalate in ‘The Old Man on the Ocean Floor’ as Carter learns of an ancient plot conceived by one of his vilest enemies and gains the most unexpected of allies in his proposed revolutionâ€¦

The climax comes in spectacular fashion as ‘Onward to New Helium’ sets the scene for slaughter, retribution and even a measure of reconciliationâ€¦

An epic action-packed romp, John Carter – The End is far closer to the spirit of the ERB novels than almost anything I’ve seen in the last twenty years and should delight old time fans, most modern sci fi aficionados and all seekers of blockbuster dramas.

This paperback/digital collection of the 2017 miniseries also offers bonus material including design artwork and character sketches and composites by Hayden Sherman plus a covers and variants gallery by Garry Brown, Gabriel Hardman, Juan Doe, Philip Tan, Mel Rubi and Roberto Castro.
Barsoomâ„¢, John Carterâ„¢ and Edgar Rice BurroughsÂ® owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc and used by Permission. All rights reserved.

June 9, 2020June 8, 2020

Archie Comics Presentsâ€¦ The Complete Cosmo, the Merry Martian

By Sy Reit, Bob White & Terry Szenics, with Tom DeFalco, Dan Parent, Fernando Ruiz, Ian Flynn, Jeff Schultz, Tracy Yardley & various (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-68255-895-9(TPB)

MLJ were a publisher who promptly jumped on the â€œmystery-manâ€ bandwagon following the debut of Superman. They began their own small but inspirational pantheon of gaudily clad crusaders in November 1939, starting with Blue Ribbon Comics, and followed up by Top-Notch and Pep Comics. The content was the standard blend of costumed heroes, two-fisted adventure strips, prose pieces and gag panels.

After a few years, Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (hence MLJ) spotted a gap in their blossoming market. From December 1941 the masked champions and rugged he-men were gradually but insistently nudged aside by a far less imposing paragon: an â€œaverage teenâ€ enjoying ordinary adventures like the readers, but with the laughs, good times, romance and slapstick emphasised.

Pep Comics #22 introduced a gap-toothed, freckle-faced red-headed goof showing off to the pretty blonde next door. Taking his lead from the popular Andy Hardy matinee movies starring Mickey Rooney, Goldwater developed the concept of a young everyman protagonist, tasking writer Vic Bloom & artist Bob Montana with the job of making it work.

The feature was an instant hit and by the winter of 1942 had won its own title. Archie Comics #1 was the company’s first non-anthology magazine and with it began the gradual transformation of the entire company. The slapstick teen travails of Archie Andrews, girl-next-door Betty Cooper, Archie’s unconventional best friend/confidante Jughead Jones and filthy rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge in scenic small-town utopia Riverdale were the components of the comic book industry’s second Genuine Phenomenon (Superman and superheroes being the first).

By 1946, the kids had taken over, so the company renamed itself Archie Comics, retiring its costumed characters years before the end of the Golden Age and becoming, to all intents and purposes, a publisher of family comedies.

Its success, like the Man of Steel’s, changed the content of every other publisher’s titles, and led to a multi-media industry including TV, movies and a chain of restaurants. In the swinging sixties pop hit Sugar, Sugar (a tune from their first animated television show) became a global smash. Wholesome garage band â€œThe Archiesâ€ has been a fixture of the comics ever since. Adapting seamlessly to every trend and fad of youth culture since before there even was such a thing, the host of writers and artists who’ve crafted the stories over the decades have made the â€œeveryteenâ€ characters of utopian Riverdale a benchmark for childhood development and a visual barometer of growing up.

Throughout that meteoric rise, however, the company never left all its eggs in one basket. Its superhero line periodically resurfaces and reboots and their forays into all-ages supernatural thrillers and straightforward adult-themed horror comics are always worth reading. Archie Comics also periodically sought to repeat the success of its original humour breakthrough with titles such as Katy Keene, Wilbur, Super Duck, Pat the Brat, That Wilkin Boy and many others. Each attempt took inspiration from the tone of the timesâ€¦

In 1958, the world was abuzz with science, science fiction and the accelerating space race, and the time seemed right for an amusing series about a bold but affable explorer from the Red Planet. The result was Cosmo the Merry Martian by Sy Reit, Bob White & Terry Szenics.

Seymour Victory Reit (1918-2001) was an accomplished humourist, children’s author, historian, cartoonist and animator. His many clients and employers included Mad Magazine and his greatest claim to fame now is co-creating – with Joe Oriolo – Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Comics veteran Robert â€œBobâ€ White (1928-2005) was an Archie mainstay until the mid-1960s when he was apparently summarily fired for daring to moonlight (on Tower Comics’ Tippy Teen). He had a keen eye for sight gags, a deft line in monster-design and a slick accessible style as seen in this years-ahead-of-its-time gently satirical comedy sci fi series… Often, that term is mere hyperbole, but it’s true here, as Cosmo the Merry Martian was revived in 2014, and has been with us ever sinceâ€¦

Running between September 1958 and October 1959, the series began with ‘Destination Earth!’ as all Mars watches spacer Cosmo and his extremely reluctant co-pilot Orbi blast off on the first flight to another planet. Ship designer Professor Thimk is anxious, and Cosmo’s girlfriend Astra is still trying to finagle her way onto the ship with the astronautsâ€¦

Eventually however the ship blasts off, exploiting the close proximity of the worlds to cut travel time. They are only 2000 miles from their destination when a meteor punctures the fuel tanks and forces them to crash land on Lunaâ€¦

‘Moon Merriment’ then manifests as the explorers are rescued by bizarre, fractious, pun-obsessed but scientifically advanced moon people called Oogs. After much fuss and kerfuffle they ferry Cosmo and Orbi to their intended destination just in time to take in and disastrously disrupt a baseball game. As confusion reigns, the ‘Planet Playmates!’ hastily return to Lunaâ€¦

When the Martians decide to explore the Dark Side of the Moon in #2 (November 1958), they are drawn into ‘The Great Gillywump Hunt!’: encountering a dread beast with an undeserved reputation and very bad cold. Seeking to placate centuries of misunderstanding in ‘Sneezy Does It!’ our heroes again cadge a lift ‘Down to Earth!’ to secure a cure for that pestilential cold, but the attempt again triggers chaos on the third rock from the Sunâ€¦

Meanwhile on Mars, Thimk and Astra board a spare rocket to save Cosmo and Orbiâ€¦

The issue then finds time and space for a brace of quick complete tales: one featuring egghead alien jimmy jupiter and his hand-made robot girlfriend whilst the second sees cuboid ET Squarehead pick up a rather unique method of travelâ€¦

Cosmo the Merry Martian #3 didn’t launch until April 1959 and found the moon-marooned astronauts ‘Venus Bound!’ after Thimk’s rescue rocket arrives on Luna and delivers orders to explore the second planet. Setting out, the ship carries the quartet of Red Planeteers, a contingent of Oogs, Orbi’s dog Jojo and a subtle stowawayâ€¦ the bellicose Gillywumpâ€¦

Arrival on the mysterious misty planet denotes ‘Trouble for Orbi!’ in the form of a sleeping giant, until his comrades rush ‘To the Rescue!’ Eventually, cooperation and communication with the residents offset a ‘A Slap-Happy Ending!’ and the adventure ends with the voyagers rushing to meet the bossâ€¦

The interplanetary antics then conclude with mathlete jimmy jupiter finding the upside of a hit-&-run in ‘Lovely Day!’â€¦

June 1959 saw the release of issue #4 and an audience with ‘The Queen of Venus’. The gorgeous monarch sets Astra’s hackles rising and causes ‘Trouble for Cosmo!’ by declaring her intention to marry himâ€¦

His fellow explorers soon devise a way to ‘Rescue in Peace!’ culminating in another example of ‘A Slap-Happy Ending!’, but the frantic flight from Venus damages their ship and the appalled escapees find themselves shooting straight for deep space with no way to turn, stop or even decelerateâ€¦

The tense cliffhanger is slightly offset by another jimmy jupiter/Squarehead double bill featuring calculus chuckles and cubic cartoon whimsyâ€¦

‘Stand by for Saturn!’ opens #5 (August 1959), with the out-of-control Mars ship hurtling towards the planet’s rings. Happily, the collision is not fatal and the voyagers make relatively harmless planetfall before meeting the friendly vegetable inhabitants. All too soon though, the explorers fall foul of ‘The Magic Gumdrops!’ Cosmo’s reluctant co-pilot undergoes shocking transformations in ‘Pardon My Size!’, culminating in ‘A Ride for Orbi!’ to those rings and then astoundingly ‘On to Mars!’, leaving his companions to hitch a lift home with the Saturnians, whilst Squarehead closes the issue with ‘The Mirror the Merrier!’â€¦

The series was abruptly curtailed with the October 1959 release, as ‘Make Mine Mars!’ saw the Red Planet hosting a convocation of visitors from Luna and Saturn only to be imperilled by a potential world-conquering villain as ‘Meet Dr. Beatnik!’ introduces a Martian mad scientist intent on conquering Earth.

His horrified compatriots are determined to thwart his plans, resulting in ‘The Great Space Chase!’ and an outer space confrontation in ‘Fire Away!’ before a multi-world coalition finally accomplishes ‘The End of Dr. Beatnik!’ and opts to land on Earth for a friendly visitâ€¦

Fun and thrilling, packed with easily-relatable facts and astronomical data, the saga was a splendid example of family-friendly entertainment, but had failed to find sufficient readership over a year of continuous frolicsome adventure. Although it ended there, the series was fondly remembered and was revived in the space-friendly 21^st century.

In Archie #655 (June 2014) Tom DeFalco, Fernando Ruiz & Rich Koslowski reintroduced a more take-charge iteration of the jolly voyager in short story ‘The Good Guys of the Galaxy!’ Here, Archie and Jughead teamed up with past characters such as Captain Sprocket, Cat-Girl, Captain Pumpernik and Super Duck in a multiversal action romp to save creation from the reality-warping threat of the Miracle Mittenâ€¦

The Martian then popped up in ‘From Mars with Love’ (Jughead & Archie Double Digest #15, October 2015, by Ruiz & Bob Smith) with a disastrous gift suggestion for Veronica’s birthday and again as a computer game in ‘Cosmo Go!’ (Archie Comics Double Digest #275 February 2017, by Dan Parent & Jim Amash).

The game version reappeared in ‘Ready, Set, Go!’ (Archie Comics Double Digest #285 February 2018 by Parent, Jeff Schultz & Amash), before the Martian finally reclaimed his own comic book series in January 2018. Cosmo #1 was crafted by Sonic the Hedgehog team Ian Flynn, Tracy Yardley & Matt Helms who reinvented the Red Rover as a space cop and leader of a team of cosmic heroes in ‘Space Aces!’

If you’re only interested in the vintage tales, you might want to pick up the cheaper Pep Digital #42 which gathers the Reit & White ’50’s series and also includes a snippet from 2011’s Archie & Friends: Night at the Comic Shop by Alfonso Ruiz, Bill Galvan & Amash.

In the chapter ‘Comic Cosmosis’ the original Cosmo, Orbi and Jojo explosively arrive in Riverdale’s PEP Comics store at the vanguard of a wave of comics characters from alternate realms – and MLJ/Archie’s back catalogue. It’s a great teaser for the introduction of Archie’s own multiverseâ€¦

Packed with charm, elucidation and restrained action, the exploits of Cosmo offer a happy view of the Martian way that will delight fun-lovers and wonder-addicts everywhere.
Â© 1958-2018 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

June 8, 2020June 7, 2020

Killraven Marvel Masterworks volume 1

By Don McGregor & P. Craig Russell, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, Bill Mantlo, Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin, Herb Trimpe, Rich Buckler, Gene Colan, Keith Giffen & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1135-5 (HB)

When the first flush of the 1960s superhero revival began to fade at the end of the decade, Marvel – who had built their own resurgent renaissance on the phenomenon – began desperately casting around for new concepts to sustain their hard-won impetus. The task was especially difficult as the co-architect of their success (and the greatest and most experienced ideas-man in comics) had jumped ship to arch-rival National/DC, where Jack’s Kirby’s battalion of Fourth World series, The Demon, Kamandi, Last Boy on Earth, OMAC and other innovations were opening up new worlds of adventure to the ever-changing readership.

Although a global fascination with the supernatural had gripped the public – resulting in a huge outpouring of mystery and horror comics – other tried-&-true genre favourites were also revived and rebooted for modern sensibilities: westerns, war, humour, romance, sword & sorcery and science fictionâ€¦

At this time Stan Lee’s key assistant and star writer was (former-English teacher and lover of literature) Roy Thomas. As he gained editorial power Thomas increasingly dictated the direction of Marvel: creating new concepts and securing properties that could be given the â€œMarvel Treatmentâ€. In a decade absolutely packed with innovative trial-&-error concepts, the policy had already paid huge dividends with the creation of Tomb of Dracula, Monster of Frankenstein and Werewolf by Night, whilst the brilliantly compelling Conan the Barbarian had quickly resulted in a whole new comicbook genusâ€¦

This hardback/digital compilation collects the bold and mercurial science-fiction thriller from Amazing Adventures #18-39, as well as the saga’s notional conclusion in Marvel Graphic Novel #7: an eclectic and admittedly inconsistent hero-history that has at times been Marvel’s absolute best and strong contender for worst character, in a sporadic career spanning May 1973 to 1983.

The feature struggled for a long time to carve out a solid identity for itself, but finally found a brilliantly effective and fantastically poetic voice when scripter Don McGregor arrived – and stayed – slowly recreating the potential epic into a perfectly crafted examination of contemporary American society in crisis; proving the old adage that all science fiction is about the Present and not the Futureâ€¦.

He was ideally complimented in his task by fellow artisan P. Craig Russell whose beautifully raw yet idealised art matured page by page over the long, hard months he illustrated the author’s increasingly powerful and evocative scripts.

The tone of those times is scrupulously recalled in McGregor’s Introduction before Marvels most successful Future Past opensâ€¦

The dystopian tomorrow first dawned in Amazing Adventures #18, conceived by Thomas & Neal Adams – before being ultimately scripted by Gerry Conway – wherein a ‘Prologue: 2018 A.D.’ introduces a New York City devastated by invasion and overrun by mutants, monsters and cyborgs all scavenging for survival.

The creative process was a very troubled one. Adams left the project in the middle of illustrating the debut episode, leaving Howard Chaykin & Frank Chiaramonte to flesh out the tale of how, at the turn of the 20^th century, a refugee mother sacrifices her life defending her two young sons from terrifying alien Tripods and the vile human turncoats who had early switched allegiance to their revolting, human-eating new mastersâ€¦

Nearly two decades later, escaped gladiator Killraven overcomes all odds to kill a monstrous genetic manipulator dubbed the Keeper and save his brother Joshua, only to discover his sibling long gone and his despised tormentor grateful for death.

The elderly scientist had been compelled to perform countless mutagenic experiments for his alien masters but had secretly enacted a Machiavellian double-cross, creating hidden powers in Jonathan Raven which might eventually overthrow the conquerors. All the boy had to do was survive their horrific arena games until he was old enough to rebel against the Martians who have occupied Earth since 2001â€¦

With his dying breath, Keeper provides his uneducated murderer with the history of ‘The War of the Worlds!’: of Free Mankind’s furious futile, atomic last stand and how the alien conquerors had possessed the shattered remnants of Earthâ€¦

Keeper reveals how gladiatorial training and scientific abuses shaped Killraven into the perfect tool of liberation and retribution, even to the warrior’s recent escape and first attempts at raising a resistance movement. However, just as the story ends, the designated-liberator realises he has tarried too long and mutant monsters close inâ€¦

The adventure resumed in #19 as Killraven narrowly escapes the psionic snares of ‘The Sirens of 7^thÂ Avenue’ (by Conway, Chaykin & Frank McLaughlin) and the other myriad terrors of the devastated metropolis to link up with second-in-command M’Shulla and strike a heavy blow against the alien butchers by destroying two hulking mechanical Tripods.

Newly elevated by the conquerors to the status of genuine threat, the rebel and his followers plan a raid on a New Jersey base but are instead captured by the mesmerising Skarlet, Queen of the Sirens, who hands them over to the Martian governing the cityâ€¦

Forced to fight a mutated monstrosity in the alien’s private arena, Killraven unexpectedly turns the tables and drives off the gelatinous horror before boldly declaring he is the guardian of Mankind’s heritage and will make Earth free againâ€¦

Amazing Adventures #20 was written by Marv Wolfman, with Herb Trimpe & Frank Giacoia illustrating ‘The Warlord Strikes!’, wherein the Freemen raid a museum and acquire weapons and armaments, and create a brand-new look for Killravenâ€¦

Easily defeating the traitorous lackeys of the Martian Masters, the rebels are blithely unaware that the carnivorous extraterrestrial devils have deployed their latest tool: a cruelly augmented old enemy who hunts them down and easily overcomes their primitive guns, swords and crossbows with his own onboard cyborg arsenalâ€¦

The ambitious new series was already floundering and dearly needed a firm direction and steady creative hands, so it’s lucky that the concluding chapter in #21 (November 1973) saw the debut of Don F. McGregor: a young ambitious and lyrically experimental writer who slowly brought depth of character and plot cohesiveness to a strip which had reached uncanny levels of clichÃ© in only three issues.

With Trimpe & â€œYolande Pijckeâ€ illustrating, ‘The Mutant Slayers!’ began the necessary task of re-establishing the oppressive, hopeless, all-pervasive horror and loss of Well’s original novel. Determined to translate the concept into modern terms for the new generation of intellectual, comics-reading social insurgent, McGregor also took the opportunity to introduce the first of a string of complex, controversial – and above all, powerful – female characters into the mixâ€¦

Carmilla Frost is a feisty, sharp-tongued geneticist and molecular biologist ostensibly faithful to her Martian masters, but she takes the earliest opportunity to betray their local human lieutenant to help Killraven and the Freemen escape the Warlord’s brutal clutches. For her own closely-guarded reasons, she and her bizarrely devoted monster anthropoid Grok the Clonal Man join the roving revolutionaries in their quest across the shattered continentâ€¦

In issue #22 (art by Trimpe & Chiaramonte), the motley crew arrive in America’s former capital and encounter a ‘Washington Nightmare!’ After defeating a band of slavers led by charismatic bravo Sabre, Killraven forms an uneasy alliance with local rebel leader Mint Julep and her exclusively female band of freedom-fighters.

The green-skinned warrior woman has also battled Sabre and cautiously welcomes Killraven’s offer of assistance in rescuing her captured comrades from the literal meat-market of the Lincoln Memorial, where flesh-peddling mutant horror Abraxas auctions tasty human morsels to extraterrestrial patrons.

The raid goes badly and Killraven ends up on the conquerors’ menu in ‘The Legend Assassins!’, before the liberated resistance fighters unite in a last-ditch attempt to save their tempestuous leader from The High Overlord. The captured leader, meanwhile, finds himself main course in a public propaganda-feeding/execution, about to be devoured by a debased vermin-controlling freak named Rattackâ€¦

The hero’s faithful followers – including gentle, simple-minded strongman Old Skull and embittered Native American Hawk – arrive just in time to join the furious fray in #24’s spectacular ‘For He’s a Jolly Dead Rebel’ (inked by Jack Abel) but their escape is only temporary before they are quickly recaptured. Their valiant example impresses more than one disaffected collaborator, however. When former foes led by Sabre unite in battle against the Martian Overlord, the result is a shattering defeat for the once-unbeatable oppressorsâ€¦

A returning nemesis for the charismatic rebel and his freedom fighters debuted in Amazing Adventures #25. ‘The Devil’s Marauder’ (art by Rich Buckler & Klaus Janson), sees Killraven inconclusively clash with cyclopian Martian flunky Skar. During the battle, the hard-pressed human is unexpectedly gripped by a manifestation of hidden psychic power – granting him visions he cannot comprehendâ€¦

Travelling across country, the rebels stumble onto another forgotten glory of Mankind’s past in the state once called Indiana. The race circuit of the Indianapolis 500 is now a testing-ground for new terror-tripods and thus a perfect target for sabotage. However, when the fury-filled Killraven tackles human-collaborators and Skar resurfaces, the incensed insurgent steps too far over ‘The Vengeance Threshold!’â€¦

Gene Colan & Dan Adkins illustrated #26’s ‘Something Worth Dying For!’ as the Freemen reach Battle Creek, Michigan and the Rebel Rouser encounters a feral snake/horse hybrid he simply must possess. Soon after the band is ambushed by human outlaws guarding a fabulous ancient treasure at the behest of petty tyrant Pstun-Rage the Vigilantâ€¦

Since the place was once the site of America’s breakfast cereal empire and this wry yarn is filled with oblique in-jokes – many of the villains’ names are anagrams of Kellogg’s cereals – you can imagine the irony-drenched secret of the hoard the defenders give their lives to protect and pragmatic Killraven’s reaction to it allâ€¦

The drama kicks into spectacular high gear with AA #27 and the arrival of P. Craig Russell (inked by Jack Abel) for the start of a dark epic entitled ‘The Death Breeders’.

Whilst crossing frozen Lake Michigan in March 2019, the band is attacked by monstrous lampreys and Grok suffers a wound which will eventually prove fatalâ€¦

McGregor loathed the notion of simplistic, problem-solving, consequence-free violence which most entertainment media slavishly thrived on. He frequently tried to focus on some of the real-world repercussions such acts should and would result inâ€¦

The heroes headed to what was once Chicago; now a vast industrialised breeding-pen to farm human babies for Martian consumption. En route, they met pyrokinetic mutant Volcana Ash, who has her own tragic reason for scouting the ghastly palaces of Death-Birthâ€¦

While the new allies undertake an explosively expensive sortie against the Death Breeders, in the far-distant halls of the Martian Kings of Earth the Warlord is tasking the repaired Skar with a new mission: hunt down Killraven and destroy not only the man, but most importantly the legend of hope and liberation that has grown around himâ€¦

In #28 (pencilled, inked and even coloured by Russell in the original) Ash reveals her horrific origins and the purpose of her quest as the Freemen battle monsters thriving in the chemically compromised lake. Elsewhere, chief butcher The Sacrificer watches his depraved boss Atalon live up to his decadent reputation as ‘The Death Merchant!’: emotionally tenderising the frantic â€œAdams and Evesâ€ whose imminent newborns will be the main course for visiting Martian dignitariesâ€¦

Everything changes during Killraven’s fateful raid to liberate the human cattle. When the disgusted hero skewers one of the extraterrestrial horrors, he experiences severe psychic feedback and realises at last his debilitating, disorienting visions are an unsuspected ability to tap into Martian mindsâ€¦

And in the wastelands, Skar murderously retraces the Freemen’s route, getting closer and closer to a final showdownâ€¦

With Amazing Adventures #29 the series was rebranded Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds and ‘The Hell Destroyers’ reveals the rebel leader’s greatest victory, inspiring thousands of freshly-liberated earthlings by utterly destroying the temple of atrocity before gloriously escaping into the wilderness and a newborn mythologyâ€¦

The pace of even a bi-monthly series was crippling to perfectionist Russell, and ‘The Rebels of January and Beyond!’ in #30 was a frantic 6-page melange from him, Adkins, Trimpe, Chiaramonte & Abel, all graphically treading water as The Warlord â€œreviewedâ€ (admittedly beautiful) fact-file pages on Killraven, M’Shulla and Mint Julep.

The saga continued in #31 on ‘The Day the Monuments Shattered’ wherein McGregor & Russell close the Death Breeders storyline in stunning style. Pursued by Atalon and The Sacrificer into the icy wilds from Gary, Indiana to St. Louis where broken Earth outcasts hide as the Twilight People, the fugitives take refuge in a cavern. This is to allow an accompanying Eve to give birth in safety, but only leads to an attack by a monolithic mutant monster just as their pursuers find them. The battle changes the landscape and ends three ghastly travesties foreverâ€¦

In #32, ‘Only the Computer Shows Me Any Respect!’ (art by Russell & Dan Green) sees the reduced team in devastated Nashville, where Killraven, M’Shulla, Carmilla, Old Skull and Hawk wander into leftover holographic fantasy programs conjuring both joy and regret, even as Skar’s tripod brings him ever-closer to a longed-for rematch.

Things turn nasty when Hawk’s painful memories of his father’s addictions to fantasy detective Hodiah Twist then manifest as cruelly realised threats and the malfunctioning program materialises a brutally solid savage dragonâ€¦

Issue #33 was another deadline-busting fill-in. Written by Bill Mantlo and illustrated by Trimpe & D. Bruce Berry, ‘Sing Out Loudlyâ€¦ Death!’ finds the Freemen sheltering from the elements in a vast cave and discovering a hostile tribe of refugee African Americans who had returned to tribal roots in the aftermath of invasion. The hidden wild men observed only one rule – kill all honkies – but that changed once Killraven saved them from a marauding giant octo-beastieâ€¦

The long-delayed clash with Skar at last occurred in #34 as the cyborg ambushes the wanderers when they reach Chattanooga, Tennessee resulting in ‘A Death in the Family’ (McGregor & Russell) – two deaths, actually – before the heartbroken, enraged Warrior of the Worlds literally tears his gloating nemesis to piecesâ€¦

Amazing Adventures #35 followed the epic tragedy as the last battered survivors stumble into Atlanta, Georgia and meet ‘The 24-Hour Man’ (McGregor & Russell, with finishes by Keith Giffin & Abel), encountering an addled new mother and instant widow, even as Carmilla is abducted by a bizarre mutant with an irresistible and inescapably urgent biological imperativeâ€¦

‘Red Dust Legacy’ (illustrated by Russell & Sonny Trinidad) focuses on Killraven’s ever-developing psychic powers with the charismatic champion gaining unwelcome insights into the Martian psyche, even as The Warlord travels to Yellowstone and taunts the rebel leader with news that his long-lost brother Joshua still lives. The hero has no idea it is as an indoctrinated pawn codenamed Death Ravenâ€¦

The self-appointed defender of humanity then invades a replica Martian environment in Georgia, shockingly destroying the Martians’ entire next generation by contaminating their incubatorsâ€¦

Inked by Abel, #37 reveals the origins of affable Old Skull in ‘Arena Kill!’ when the wanderers discover a clandestine enclave of humans in the Okefenokee Wildlife Preserve before one final fill-in – by Mantlo, Giffin & Al Milgrom – appeared in #38. ‘Death’s Dark Dreamer!’ sees Killraven separated and stumbling into a wrecked but still functional dream-dome to battle the materialised fantasies of its ancient occupant. His pre-invasion, memories-fuelled attacks reconstitute strangely familiar defenders patterned after Iron Man, Man-Thing, Dr. Strange and almost every other hero you could think ofâ€¦

The beautiful, troubled and doomed saga stopped – but did not end – with Amazing Adventures #39 (November 1976) as McGregor & Russell introduced the decimated Band of Brothers to an incredible new life-form in ‘Mourning Prey’. This beguiling meeting of vastly different beings pauses the voyages on a satisfyingly upbeat note, with understanding and forgiveness wining out over suspicion and ingrained violence for onceâ€¦

And that’s where the gloriously unique, elegiac, Art Nouveau fantasy vanished with no comfortable resolution until 1983 when Marvel Graphic Novel #7 featured an all-new collaboration by McGregor and Russell starring Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds.

That painted full-colour extravaganza is reproduced here and commences after a catch-up Prologue and six pages of character profiles to bring readers old and new up to speedâ€¦

‘Last Dreams Broken’ opens in February 2020 at Cape Canaveral where Killraven connects again to a distant consciousness and sets off for Yellowstone in search of answers to inexpressible questionsâ€¦

Along the way the rebels meet 59-year old Jenette Miller – probably the last surviving astronaut on Earth – as ‘Cocoa Beach Blues’ finds her teaching the warrior wanderers some history and human perspective in between the constant daily battles, whilst in ‘Blood and Passion’ The Warlord prepares his deadliest trap for his despised antagonist as Killraven is finally reunited with Joshua. The drama runs its inevitable course in ‘Let it Die Like Fourth of July’ as all the hero’s hopes and fears are cataclysmically realisedâ€¦

McGregor’s long-anticipated conclusion did not disappoint and even set up a new beginningâ€¦

Also included here is the text introduction page from Amazing Adventures #18 for a fascinating insight into Roy Thomas’ expectations of what became a landmark of visual narrative poetry that was far beyond its time and mass audience’s taste. These are augmented by working materials – notes, photos, plots and more – from McGregor’s copious files, plus house ads. Also on view are a Russell pin-up from Marvel Fanfare #45, and the Killraven-starring wraparound cover to The Official Marvel Index to Marvel Team-Up #3 by Sandy Plunkett & Russell and an expansive Biographies section on the many creators who contributed to this unique seriesâ€¦

Confused, convoluted, challenging, controversial (this series contained the first ever non-comedic interracial kiss in American comics – in 1975 if you can believe it!), evocative, inspirational and always entertaining, this is graphic narrative no serious fan or fantasy addict should miss. Do it now: the future is not your friend and Mars needs readersâ€¦
Â© 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1983, 2001, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

June 2, 2020June 1, 2020

Y: The Last Man Book Two

By Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra & JosÃ© MarzÃ¡n with Goran Parlov, Paul Chadwick & various (DC/Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5439-1 (TPB)

Back in 2002, an old, venerable and cherished science fiction concept got a new and pithy updating in the Vertigo comic book Y: The Last Man. These days it’s more relevant than ever as the premise explores the aftermath and consequences of a virulent global plague.

When it killed every male on Earth, only amateur stage magician, escapologist and all-round slacker goof-ball Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand survived in a world suddenly and utterly all girl.

Since his politician mother is high in America’s new government, Yorick is condemned to travel with conflicted government secret agent 355 and maverick geneticist Dr. Allison Mann across the devastated American continent to a Californian bio-lab. Mann secretly believes she caused the patriarchal apocalypse by giving birth to the world’s first parthenogenetic human clone, but all the young man can think of is re-uniting with his girlfriend/fiancÃ©e Beth, trapped in Australia since the disaster hit.

The trek is slow, fraught with peril and revelation and one none of the voyagers realise has been dogged with covert intrigue from the start. Hard on their heels is a cult of crazed modern â€œDaughters of the Amazonâ€ determined to eradicate the Y chromosome entirely from planet Earth as well as a team of Israeli commandos whose commander is determined that the Promised Land will have sons again, no matter what the cost. Tragically, they are not the only special interests hunting Yorickâ€¦

This second aggregated volume, collecting issues #11-23 from of the monthly comic book and spanning July 2003-August 2004, begins a progression of shorter tales with ‘One Small Step’ illustrated by co-creator Pia Guerra and colourist Pamela Rambo. As the wanderers gradually make their way across a devastated America to the Left Coast the tale picks up from the previous volume with the eagerly-anticipated arrival of three astronauts who have (probably) avoided plague contamination by the simple expedient of being in space when it struck. Moreover, two of them are hulking great healthy menâ€¦

With its re-entry capsule diverted to the plains of Kansas and a handily hidden secret government bio-containment facility, the trekkers ally with Russian agent Natalya Zamyatin who has been ordered to retrieve her nation’s last cosmonaut, but duplicity in the White House sets the Israelis on their trail and more bloodshed results in a pyrrhic victory at bestâ€¦

Following is a 2-part story illustrated by Concrete creator Paul Chadwick with Rambo. ‘Comedy & Tragedy’ examines the roles of Art and Mass Entertainment on a media-deprived populace in the post-plague world. The drama unfolds as a band of strolling players arrive in prim and proper Northlake, Nebraska and upset the applecart with their radical drama about the last man on Earth. The playwright’s inspiration came after her troupe found an impossibly live male monkey lost in the wilds. In the chaos of first night, when three masked strangers burst in a to reclaim the primate, nobody noticed that a ninja was tracking the newcomersâ€¦

Having reached Colorado, the travellers pause in their everyday adventures so the increasingly gung-ho Yorick can get medical care for Ampersand. By his very existence, Yorick is a valuable commodity, so must spend most of his time in some form of drag. Rather than risk his discovery needlessly, 355 leaves him with a conveniently adjacent fellow undercover agent (their particular organisation/sect is called The Culper Ring) whilst she and Dr. Mann scavenge for antibiotics in ‘Safeword’ (with art by Guerra & Zylonol)â€¦

It’s no surprise agent 711 has her own agenda. Yorick wakes up naked, tied to a ceiling and subject to a spooky Dominatrix’s specialist attentions. All is not as it seems, though, and an extended – and adults only! – â€œinterviewâ€ provides some valuable, if obscure, glimpses of Yorick’s life before the plague.

By the time it’s all over we’ve been given crucial insight into what keeps Yorick going and been introduced to another enigmatic factor in this saga – the deadly agents of rival agency the Setauket Ringâ€¦

America is devastated by the plague, but recovery is slower than might be expected. One reason for this is revealed in ‘Widow’s Pass’ (illustrated by Goran Parlov & Zylonol) as the pilgrims reach Queensbrook, Arizona. Following in the bootsteps of their paranoid, survivalist-militia menfolk, a band of traumatised women have blockaded Interstate 40 – the only motorway traversing the broken, isolated halves of the USA – and are starving the country. Believing the Federal Government created the Plague, the â€œDaughters of Arizonaâ€ are retaliating in the only way they know, and as usual Yorick and his companions are soon in the middle of all the troubleâ€¦

Ultimately, it’s only brutal, life and character-changing violence that solves the crisis. And once again, the true victims are the innocent bystanders who can’t help but try to help Yorick…

With a stunning cover gallery from J.G. Jones, Aron Wiesenfeld & Massimo Carnevale plus Vaughn’s full script for Y: The Last Man #18, the saga reaches far beyond its clichÃ©d Sci Fi premise in this volume, becoming a smart, ironic and powerful tale to be read on its own terms.

Despite the horrific – and distressingly contemporary – narrative backdrop, Brian K. Vaughn’s tale unfolds at a relatively leisurely pace with plenty of black humour, socio-political commentary and proper lip service paid to the type of society the world would be if abruptly deprived of the majority of its pilots, entrepreneurs, mechanics, labourers, abusers and violent felons, but the action quotient is steadily ramping up. When you ultimately reach top gear, the wait will be worth itâ€¦
Â© 2003, 2004, 2015 Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra. All Rights Reserved.

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