Category: Science Fiction

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The Adventures of Blake and Mortimer: The Yellow “M”


By Edgar P. Jacobs, translated by Clarence E. Holland (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-21-2

Master storyteller Edgar P. Jacobs pitted his distinguished duo of Scientific Adventurers Captain Francis Blake and Professor Philip Mortimer against a wide variety of perils and menaces in stunning action thrillers which merged science fiction, detective mysteries and supernatural thrillers in the same timeless Ligne claire style which had done so much to make intrepid boy reporter Tintin a global sensation.

The strip debuted in Le Journal de Tintin #1 (26th September 1946): an anthology comic with editions in Belgium, France and Holland. The new anthology was edited by Hergé, with his eponymous star ably supplemented by a host of new heroes and features…

Le Marque Jaune was the third astounding exploit of the peerless pair, originally serialised in Le Journal de Tintin from August 6th 1953 to November 3rd 1954, before being collected as the sixth drama-drenched album in 1956.

This moody stand-alone extravaganza is the first in the modern Cinebook sequence with the True Brits for once on home soil as they struggle to solve an eerie mystery and capture an apparently superhuman criminal…

The tale begins a few days before Christmas on a night raining cats and dogs. The guards at the Tower of London are dutifully going about their appointed tasks when a sudden power cut douses all the lights.

By the time Beefeaters and Yeomen can find alternative lighting the damage is done. The Jewel Room is ransacked, the Imperial Crown missing and the wall emblazoned with a large letter M in a bold circle of yellow chalk.

The shocking travesty is but the latest in an outrageous series of incredible crimes by someone the newspapers have taken to calling The Yellow M…

Incensed by the latest outrage the Home Office assigns MI6 to the case and their top man Blake is seconded to assist Chief Inspector Glenn Kendall of Scotland Yard. So serious is the matter that Blake instantly cables his old comrade Professor Mortimer, dragging the bellicose boffin back from a well-deserved vacation in Scotland.

London is ablaze with rumour and speculation about the super-bandit. The old warhorses adjourn to the Centaur Club in Piccadilly to discuss events but as they settle in for a chinwag, Mortimer gets a fleeting impression that they are being spied upon…

Suddenly they are interrupted by four fellow members also hotly debating the case. Sir Hugh Calvin is a judge at the Central Criminal Court; Leslie Macomber edits the Daily Mail and Professor Robert Vernay is a prominent figure in the British Medical Association and they all are hotly disputing Dr Jonathan Septimus – of the Psychiatric Institute – who propounds a theory that the phantom felon is a prime example of his pet theory of “The Evil Influence of Cellular Development”…

The enlarged group continues the verbal back-and-forth into the small hours and when they finally break up Vernay follows his habit of walking home. He does not make it. The police find only his hat and a chalked letter in a circle…

The flamboyant rogue seems to be everywhere. When Blake and Mortimer interview Macomber, Calvin and the terrified Septimus next day, the invisible enigma somehow gets close enough to leave his mark on the MI6 officer’s coat, before sending a mocking cable warning the Mail’s Editor that more and worse is coming…

That night Macomber is abducted from his office in plain view of his staff and Kendall is found in a dazed state after failing to protect Judge Calvin from a mystery intruder…

Septimus concludes that he is next and convinces Blake to get him out of London. The pair board a train for Suffolk with a complement of detectives but even these precautions are not enough. The psychiatrist is impossibly plucked from the Express before it is wrecked in a horrific collision with another train.

In London, cerebral Mortimer has been researching another angle with the assistance of Daily Mail archivist Mr. Stone and has found a decades-old link between the missing men…

It all revolves around a controversial medical text entitled “The Mega Wave” and a scandalous court case, but when the Professor tries to secure a copy of the incredibly rare volume from the British Museum Library he is confounded by the Yellow M who invisibly purloins the last known copy in existence…

That evening he shares his thoughts with the returned Blake, unaware that his house has been bugged. Hours later a mysterious cloaked intruder breaks in but has a fit after passing some of Mortimer’s Egyptian souvenirs. The noise arouses the household and the masked burglar is confronted by Blake, Mortimer and burly manservant Nasir.

Incredibly the villain defeats them all with incredible strength and electrical shocks, even shrugging off bullets when they shoot him…

Exploding through a second story window the M laughs maniacally as they continue futilely firing before running off into the London night. In their shock the adventurers return to the drawing room and trip over the intruder’s listening devices…

Later the recovered Kendall visits just as a package arrives. It contains an anonymous note from someone wishing to share information and directs Blake to a late night rendezvous at Limehouse Dock. The message also contains a desperate note from the missing Septimus begging Blake to comply…

Well aware that it’s a trap and over Mortimer’s strenuous protests, Blake and Kendall lay plans to turn the meeting to their advantage. Left at home the Professor is surprised by a late visit from Stone. The remarkably efficient researcher has found a copy of The Mega Wave and rushed over to show Mortimer.

As Blake manfully braves the foggy waterfront and walks into deadly danger Mortimer is reading the tome, deducing who is behind the plot and perhaps even how the malign miracles are pulled off…

In Limehouse the empty commercial buildings become a spectacular battleground as Blake and the police confront the masked man who easily holds them all at bay with incredible feats of speed and strength, before breaking out of the supposedly impenetrable blue cordon and escaping.

In his destructive flight he tumbles into the frantic Mortimer who is dashing in to warn his old friend. Changing tack, the boffin gives chase, doggedly following the superhuman enigma through parks and sewers until he finds himself in a hidden basement laboratory being assaulted by mind-control devices devised by the sinister mastermind actually behind the entire campaign of vengeance and terror…

As the smirking villain gives an exultant speech of explanation, triumph and justification, Mortimer sees the fate of the abducted men and meets the human guinea pig who has been terrorising London at the behest of a madman. It is the very last person he ever expected to see again, but as he reels in shock Blake and Kendall are on his trail, thanks to the efforts of an avaricious cabbie with a good memory for faces…

As Christmas Day dawns Blake and Kendall lead a raid on the hidden citadel to rescue Mortimer, but the wily savant has already taken dramatic steps to secure his own release and defeat his insane, implacable opponent…

Fast-paced, action-packed, wry and magnificently eerie, this fabulously retro thriller is an intoxicating moody mystery and a sheer delight for lovers of fantastic fiction. Blake & Mortimer are the graphic personification of the Bulldog Spirit and worthy successors to the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Allan Quatermain, Professor Challenger, Richard Hannay and all the other valiant stalwarts of lost Albion…

In 1986 this story was reformatted and repackaged in a super-sized English translation, the last of six volumes with additional material (mostly covers from the weekly Tintin added to the story as splash pages) as part of a European push to win some of the lucrative Tintin and Asterix market here, but failed to find an audience. There were no more translations until January 2007 when Cinebook released this tome to far greater approval and much success…

Gripping and fantastic in the truest tradition of pulp sci-fi and Boy’s Own Adventures, Blake and Mortimer are the very epitome of dogged heroic determination; always delivering grand, old-fashioned Blood-&-Thunder thrills and spills in timeless fashion and with astonishing visual punch. Any kid able to suspend modern mores and cultural disbelief (call it alternate earth history or bakelite-punk if you want) will experience the adventure of their lives… and so will their children.

This Cinebook edition also includes a selection of colour cover sketches and roughs plus a biographical feature and chronological publication chart of Jacobs’ and his successors’ efforts.
Original editions © Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud-Lombard s.a.) 1987 by E.P. Jacobs. All rights reserved. English translation © 2007 Cinebook Ltd.

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Tales of an Imperfect Future


By Alfonso Font (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-494-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: For Starry-Eyed Cynics Everywhere… 8/10

Barcelona-born creator Alfonso Font Carrera was born on August 28th 1946. He studied Fine Arts and worked as an illustrator before slipping into comics in the 1960s with westerns tales in Hazañas del Oeste and Sioux for Ediciones Toray.

He soon graduated to horror stories and historical crime dramas about infamous criminals for the Selecciones Illustradas Agency and in 1970 began contributing material to British publisher Fleetway on strips such as Black Max in Thunder and Lion, soon thereafter graduating to America with work for mature magazine publishers Warren and Skywald.

With writer Carlos Echevarría, he created ‘Géminis’ (AKA Phil Jackson) and moved to Paris in 1975 to work for major comics magazine Pif Gadget devising ‘Sandberg, Père et Fils’ with Patrick Cothias, ‘Les Dossiers Mystère’ (written by Solet, and sharing art chores with Carlos Giménez and Adolfo Usero) and the Roger Lécureux-scripted ‘Les Robinsons de la Terre’.

From 1976-1982 he also freelanced for Scoop, Tousse Bourin and Super-As and at that time, incensed by publishers reprinting his work without permission or payment, he became active in Creators Rights issues and worked with Giménez, Victor Mora and Usero as the “Workshop Premia” seeking to create a union for comics professionals.

In the mid 1980s Font returned to Spain, contributing to new, home-grown publications like Cimoc, À Tope, and Circus whilst creating (with Mora) ‘Sylvestre’ and ‘Tequila Bang’.

For the Spanish iteration of 1984 he created signature sci fi gadabouts Clarke & Kubrick – who subsequently appeared in Cimoc and Rambla – and began a series of self-scripted, mordantly cynical and sardonic science fiction tales under the umbrella title ‘Cuentos de un futuro imperfecto’ which we know as Tales of an Imperfect Future…

Seemingly never sleeping, he went on to create parody-laced aviation hero ‘Frederico Mendelssohn Bartholdy’, ‘El Prisionero de las Estrellas’, and classical adventure serial ‘Jann Polynésia’ – which evolved into the iconic ‘John Rohner’ for Cimoc and ‘Carmen Bond’ for À Tope

In 1987 he started a fruitful association with French publications Pilote and Charlie Mensuel with his series ‘Taxi’ and, after a brace of independent albums for Planeta publishers, revived John Rohner at Norma publishers.

Always occupied he went on to create ‘Privado’ and medieval warrior ‘Bri D’Alban’ for Cimoc, whilst collaborating on cop series ‘Negras tormentas’ (‘Black Storms’) with writer Juan Antonio De Blas. He even began occasionally illustrating Italy’s venerable western superstar Tex for Bonelli. In 1996 he returned to American pages with his erotic series ‘Dra, Dare’ for Penthouse Comix.

A major force in European graphic storytelling, Font has won numerous awards including The Grand Prize at Comic Barcelona and a Haxtur Award.

His artwork is loose, fluid, intricate and utterly electrifying and now Dark Horse have translated the original European collection of Tales of an Imperfect Future into a stunning oversized (287x224mm) monochrome hardback edition that will delight fans of grittily fantastic fiction.

Any Brit who grew up reading the short complete sagas exemplified and perfected in 2000AD‘s Tharg’s Future Shocks, Pulp Sci-Fi or Tales from Beyond Science will be right at home – unless casual (human and robot) nudity is a problem…

Written and illustrated by Font throughout, the anthological nature of the tales is linked by the simple bridging device of a grotesque alien directly telling us that humanity is simultaneously a threat and embarrassment to the universe. However, rather than go to the time and expense of eliminating us, the Great Powers are offering us one last chance to change our ways and by way of inducement have provided some stories taken from our most probable futures to illustrate just why we’re so much of a problem…

The hard science hagiography commences with ‘Tanatos-1 Comes Home’ as the smug hierarchal rulers of earth gloat over the news that the AI super-weapon they created to destroy the alien fleets of Kloron has spectacularly succeeded.

As boffin Commander Grenh describes to the xenophobic top Bankers, Clerics and Military leaders how his programming compels the indestructible Tanatos-1 to unceasingly and implacably seek out all life in the universe and eradicate it, veteran General Alto Kervis asks himself why it has turned around and now nears Earth…

‘Rain’ introduces hard-working, long suffering blue-collar spacers Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke, stuck on a sodden world going slowly mad…

When the incessant deluge apparently causes a malfunction, hated computer Hal 2001 insists they go outside to fix the problem but Stanley is convinced the useless metal martinet is trying to kill its human masters…

Barbed humour gives way to barbarian fantasy in ‘Day of Glory’ as valiant John Smith battles devils and monsters to save his princess and his people. Tragically the wonder warrior is in for disappointment and shock once he impossibly defeats the sinister Overlord of Klaarn…

Cracks appear in the foundations of the Military-Industrial complex when a vile capitalist proves to the government why the war they’re fighting must never end in ‘Stocks’, whilst

‘The Hunt’ prophetically takes the Hunger Games trope and ongoing war between “One-Percenters” and the rest of us to its logical conclusion…

Originally crafted in the mid 1980s, it follows two super-rich brats as they stalk each other with lethal weapons through the dystopian wastelands inhabited by the poor. Of course, even when they’re killing each other for sport on a reality show, the oligarchs still find a way to bloodily exploit the despised discarded millions…

‘“Like a Plague”’ then offers an excoriating morality tale about our suicidal ecological irresponsibility before Stanley and Arthur return in ‘Cyberratic’.

Having finally escaped the rain-drenched hellhole and their creepily disturbing electronic taskmaster, the unlikely heroes hit the Welcome Satellite for some R&R but stumble into a major mechanical malfunction on the totally-automated resort. Luckily a small droid keeps pulling their fat out of the robotic fire, but you’d think such passionate machine-haters would stop for a moment to ask why and how their little saviour escaped the malfunction plague…

‘The Final Enemy’ offers a bleak glimpse at the thinking behind the soldiers who will fight in the final atomic Armageddon whilst black humour informs the tale of Earth explorers who land on paradise and destroy it forever with ‘The Kiss’…

Similar silliness informs the trash-inundated post-apocalyptic world of ‘The Cleaner’ when humanity’s last survivors activate a miraculous device to get rid of the cause and effects of the pollution which destroyed the world…

Although meant as a comedic interlude, the next vignette sadly comes across as dated and just a touch homophobic by today’s elevated standards, detailing the shock and peril a solitary explorer endures when he discovers his government-mandated and supplied robotic sexual companion is not a “Betty” but an over-zealous ‘Valentino’…

Far more safe and salutary territory finds ‘Earth Control at Your Service, Sir.’ addressing a version of the Cold Equations quandary as two astronauts bringing an end to global famine realise that they won’t reach Earth if both men keep breathing the rapidly diminishing oxygen supply. As they struggle to make an impossible decision they have no inkling that the authorities on a starving world have their own ideas…

‘The Siege’ bloodily traces the rampage of a merciless murderous maniac as a fractured city endures police martial law and the ceaseless hunt for society’s greatest menace and the tormented tomorrows tumble to a close with the bleak sad tale of a doomed and dying spacer’s escape into fantasy and one last passionate rendezvous with beloved ‘Green Eyes’…

Scary, satirical, suspenseful and superbly intoxicating Tales of an Imperfect Future offers a powerful panoply of graphic pleasures for every lover of comics adventure and science fiction wonders by a master of art long overdue for fame in the English-speaking world.
Tales of an Imperfect Future © 2014 SAF Comics, www.safcomics.com. All rights reserved.

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Black Light: The World of L.B. Cole


By Leonard Brandt Cole with an introduction by Bill Schelly (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-762-8

The early days of the American comicbook industry were a whirlwind of spectacular exuberance and the front covers of the gaudy pamphlets that endlessly proliferated were all crafted to scream “Buy Me! Buy Me!” from within a sea of similar sights.

As such, that first visual contact was crucial to success and one of the greatest artists ever to mesmerise kids out of their hard-earned dimes was Leonard Brandt Cole (28th August 1918 – December 5th 1995) who had a master designer’s knack for combining captivating ideas and imagery with eye-popping style and technique.

Although he also illustrated quite a few interior strips (for Holyoke, Ajax, Farrel and Gilberton), Cole’s true gift and passion was devising attention-grabbing cover images rendered in what he called “poster colors”.

Whether on Horror, Superhero, Science Fiction, Sports, Humour, Crime, War, Western, Rugged Adventure, Jungle, Romance or Funny Animal titles, his stellar, absorbing art was instantly recognisable and in great part is what defines the Golden Age of Comics for us today…

His influence doesn’t end there, however. A shrewd businessman and editor, Cole started his own studio-shop to manufacture stories for assorted companies and parlayed it into publishing company (initially by buying existing properties from client Novelty Press in 1949) and then diversifying through his Star Comics line into genre novels, prose-pulps, puzzle-books and general magazine periodicals.

Frequently he would combine his electric primary colours over a black background adding instant extra punch to his renditions of masked champions, soaring spaceships, macabre monsters and a legion of damsels in love or distress…

Before joining the nascent comics industry in the early 1940s, Cole’s background was in science and printing. He studied veterinary science (he held a doctorate in Anatomy and Physiology from the University of Berlin) but was working as a lithographic Art Director when he made the seemingly sideways transition into illustration and comics.

Incredibly this colossal (272 pages, at 337x235mm), durably Flexibound compendium is his first major retrospective, bringing together a multitude of his most impressive works in one immense, colourful and informative volume

The astounding career of a comicbook Renaissance man is covered in fascinating detail in ‘Comics by Design – the Weird Worlds of L.B. Cole’ by pre-eminent historian of the medium Bill Schelly, whose appreciation ‘Fever Dreams in Four-Color Form’ is followed by his erudite biography and timeline of the artist, divided into four discrete periods.

Each section is augmented by photos, covers, original artwork and even comics extracts – ranging from panels and splash pages to complete stories (such as Paul Revere Jr.) – covered in lavish detail in ‘Into Comics’ and ‘Cole as Publisher’ whilst ‘Out of Comics’ focuses on his later move into commercial art, education and illustration.

In the 1980s Cole was “rediscovered” by comics fandom and achieved minor celebrity status through appearances at conventions. ‘Art Among the Junk’ covers this period up until his death when he began recreating his iconic covers as privately commissioned paintings for modern collectors.

The true wonder of this glorious phantasmagorical collection follows in ‘The Comics Covers of L.B. Cole’ which showcases long runs of the artist’s stunning covers – nearly 350 eye-popping poster images – from such evocative titles as 4Most, All-Famous Police Cases, Blue Bolt, Captain Aero, Cat-Man Comics, Classics Illustrated, Contact Comics, Confessions of Love, Criminals on the Run, Dick Tracy, Flight Comics, Frisky Animals, Ghostly Weird Stories, Killers, Jeep Comics, Mask, Popular Teen-Agers, Power Comics, Ship Ahoy, Shocking Mystery Cases, Spook, Sport Thrills, Startling Terror Tales, Suspense Comics, Target Comics, Terrors of the Jungle, Top Love, Toy Town, Western Crime Cases, White Rider and Super Horse and many more…

The pictorial feast doesn’t end there though as ‘Further Works’ gathers a host of his non-comics covers including books such as The Greatest Prison Breaks of All Time, Murders I’ve Seen, Raging Passions and Love Hungry, as well as magazine covers for joke periodicals like Wit and Wisdom, Sporting Dogs and World Rod and Gun. Gentleman’s publications and “sweat mags” such as Man’s True Action, Man’s Daring Adventures and Epic (Stories of True Action) also feature: all augmented with articles, working sketches and original drawings and paintings. There’s even a selection of his superb animal studies and anatomical and medical textbook illustrations, plus private commissions, recreations and unpublished or unfinished works…

Black Light is a vast and stunning treasury of fantastic imagery from a bygone age by a master of visual communication that no fan of popular art could fail to appreciate, but for comics lovers it’s something else too: a seductive gateway to astounding worlds of imagination and breathless nostalgia impossible to resist.
Black Light: The World of L.B. Cole © 2015 Fantagraphics Books. All comics, artwork, photos, illustrations and intellectual properties © 2015 the respective copyright holder. All rights reserved.

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Twin Spica volume 5


By Kou Yaginuma (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-935654-02-5

This compellingly intimate paean to the wonder of the stars originated in a poignant short story: Kou Yaginuma’s ‘2015 Nen no Uchiage Hanabi’ (‘2015: Fireworks’), published in Gekkan Comics Flapper magazine in June 2000.

The author subsequently expanded and enhanced his subject, themes and characters into an all-consuming epic coming-of-age spellbinder which wedded hard science and humanist fiction with lyrical mysticism and traditional tales of school-days friendships the inescapable shocks of growing up.

Small, unassuming Asumi Kamogawa always dreamed of going into space. From her earliest moments the lonely child had gazed with intense longing up at the stars, her only companion and confidante an imaginary friend dubbed Mr. Lion.

When she was a year old, the first Japanese space launch ended in catastrophe after rocket-ship Shishigō (“The Lion”) exploded before crashing back to earth on the city of Yuigahama where the Kamogawas lived. Hundreds were killed and many more injured.

Perhaps the cruellest casualty was Asumi’s own mother. Maimed and comatose, the matron took years to die and the long, drawn-out tragedy deeply traumatised her tiny, uncomprehending daughter.

The trauma also crushed her grieving husband who had worked as a designer on the rockets for Japan’s fledgling Space Program.

In the wake of the disaster, Tomoro Kamogawa was assigned by the corporation who had built the ship to head the reparations committee. Guilt-wracked and personally bereaved, the devastated technologist visited and formally apologised to each and every survivor or victim’s grieving family. The experience harrowed and crushed him.

He is certainly no fan of the space program nowm having lost wife, beloved engineering career and his pride to the race for the heavens. Raising his daughter alone, he worked two – and often three – menial jobs at a time for over a decade and cannot countenance losing the very last of his loved ones to the cold black heavens…

In response to the Lion disaster, Japan set up an Astronautics and Space Sciences Academy. After years of passionate struggle and in defiance of her father’s wishes, in 2024 Asumi – an isolated, solitary, serious but determined teenager – was accepted to the Tokyo National Space School. Without her father’s blessing, she reluctantly left Yuigahama and joined the new class.

Amongst the year’s fresh intake were surly, abrasive Shinnosuke Fuchuya (an elementary school classmate who used to bully her as a child back in Yuigahama), jolly Kei Oumi, chilly Marika Ukita and spooky, ultra-cool style-icon and fashion victim Shu Suzuki who all gradually became the shy introvert’s closest acquaintances.

Every day Asumi nudged inexorably towards her goal: the stars. Ever since the crashing rocket had shattered her family, she had drawn comfort from the firmament, with Mr. Lion staring up at the heavens at her side – especially drawn to the twinkling glow of Virgo and the alluring binary star Spica.

And now she was so tantalisingly close…

Small, poor, physically weak but resolutely capable, Asumi endures and triumphs over every obstacle and she still talks with Mr. Lion – who might just be a ghost of a crewman from the Shishigō…

All any student can think of is space travel, but they are harshly and perpetually reminded that most of them won’t even finish their schooling…

At just four feet, eight inches tall Asumi is constantly struggling to meet the arduous physical requirements dictated by the Academy but has already survived far greater problems. She is still adjusting to the busy life of Tokyo, sleeps in tawdry communal women’s dorm “The Seagull”, struggles with many of her classes and subsists on meagre funds, supplemented by part-time jobs.

Individual stories are broken up into “Missions” with volume five covering numbers 19-24, as well as offering an entrancing sidebar autobiographical vignette about the author’s own teenage years.

It begins in the Seagull hostel where mysterious Ukita – who has recently rejected her rich overbearing father’s domination – now resides with Asumi. The solitary girl is subject to strange spells and is clearly suffering from some mystery malady. Only recently, spectral Mr. Lion saw Ukita dump a package of pills off a bridge…

Now he informs concerned Asumi that she has arbitrarily moved into the storeroom but before he can disclose more their mutual attention is diverted by the spectacle of a satellite soaring through the night sky.

Their s turn to romance and the ghost tells of his love – a dalliance which changed his life…

It was summer and he was in third grade when a strange new girl (who looked just like Ukita) moved to a big mansion in the hills for the vacation months…

At the academy next day Oumi is teasing Asumi about a boy. He was part of an anti-space program protest but Asumi was drawn to him and they had a “moment” after he picked up a rocket-shaped trinket she had lost. He also reminded her of a boy from her past who died of cancer during elementary school…

Although she doesn’t know Kiriu yet, the orphan is utterly infatuated with Asumi, and when the bullies at his posh school – North Star High – attempt to take the trinket, the scholarship boy suffers a harsh beating trying to protect the keepsake…

Impetuous Oumi later drags the diffident Asumi to the gates of North Star to arrange a meeting but Kiriu, still smarting from his battle, reacts boorishly and sends the infatuated girl packing. Later, poor long-suffering Fuchuya finds Asumi tearfully watching the stars from a playground…

‘Mission: 20’ begins with unsinkable, meddlesome Oumi researching the survivors of the Lion disaster, trying to get a handle on Kiriu’s overreaction. What she discovers breaks her heart…

As the second year of study begins Fuchaya tries once more to penetrate Ukita’s shield of stoic isolationism as Mr. Lion warns Asumi that he might be away for a while.

As the cadets bury themselves in hard work and study, Oumi one day sees Kiriu leaving the Sunflower Children’s Home and has a heart-to-heart with him about Asumi. The little matchmaker then arranges for her dumbfounded friend to meet the fractious lad…

He’s not there when she visits the orphanage but Asumi is swiftly swamped by Kiriu’s adoring younger “brothers and sisters”. Meanwhile, the quiet scholar is turning the city upside down trying to replace or repair the rocket token smashed by his thuggish classmates…

Asumi eventually finds him scouring parkland outside his school searching for the fragments of the broken toy. As they hunt together he lets slip that once upon a time space was his only dream too…

At her lessons soon after, a package arrives for Asumi. It is the (badly) repaired rocket keychain.

Joy is quickly replaced by sadness and fear as ‘Mission: 21’ opens with a list of students who have been axed from the program. Budget cuts and public opinion have affected the future of astronaut school and although Oumi, Fuchaya, Ukita and Suzuki have made the grade too, only fourteen cadets now comprise the entire Second Year…

Later relaxing in the public Planetarium, Asumi again meets the boisterous youngsters from the Sunflower orphanage and learns lots more about Kiriu before indulging in some shared speculation about life on other worlds. Later she meets always-tense Fuchaya who has a new bee in his bonnet. His latest growth spurt has him worried that might grow too tall to be an astronaut…

His odd behaviour seems justified when the class face their next test: being locked in tiny escape pods for hours to learn their psychological reaction to enforced extended claustrophobia…

Sadly that’s only the first part of the problem. The second half is a survival exercise. When the students finally emerge from the capsules they are all marooned in deep woods. Separated from each other and with only minimal equipment, they have to fight their way to a distant pick-up point…

The whole effort is tough and scary for meek Asumi but elsewhere in the vast forest Ukita has even bigger problems: she’s begun to cough up blood…

In yet another wooded section Mr. Lion is visiting the old summer house of his first love and recalls how he broke all the rules to befriend the lonely sick girl imprisoned there…

The make-or-break endurance test continues in ‘Mission: 22’ as Asumi starts her arduous trek back to civilisation whilst pensive Mr. Lion follows a memory trail to the rocket he built of junk when he was kid.

He had been playing there when the girl from the house first found him. She was quiet and lonely and clearly quite ill. Her name was Marika Ukita…

Decades later another girl with that name is failing fast as ‘Mission: 23’ opens. The spirit of the Lion is lost in reverie, remembering how his Ukita used to sneak away and help build his – no, their – rocket in the woods.

She was fascinated by his tales of space flight and the history of exploration. She told him about the only joyous moment in her life, when her over-protective dad took her to see a play called Beauty and the Beast…

When the big annual fireworks festival was beginning the boy made a lion-mask like the Beast’s to wear, but she never came. He had to break into the mansion to show her. She was very sick but wanted to dance with him…

And in the present, despite constantly doubting herself, Asumi struggles on and perseveres…

The intricate interlocking revelations conclude in ‘Mission: 24’ with Asumi storming towards the finish only to encounter another escape capsule, surrounded by droplets of blood. In another time, if not place, the tragedy of the past climaxes as the boy is confronted by Marika’s father who furiously beats the young intruder…

Later the horrified lad learns more of his friend’s terrible disease when her stern patriarch visits his own dad in a panic. The dying daughter had quietly rebelled when told she was being sent to a Swiss sanatorium for her health. She slipped out of the house when no-one was watching and has vanished. Of course the boy knows where she has gone and rushes off to save her…

To Be Continued…

Although the main event is temporarily suspended there is still more affecting personal revelation in store, as ‘Another Spica’ finds author Yaginuma in autobiographical mode and back in his ambition-free teens, sharing his own romantic travails with a confessor who might also be a phantom king of beasts…

These powerfully unforgettable tales originally appeared in 2003 as Futatsu no Supika and in the Seinen manga magazine Gekkan Comics Flapper, targeting male readers aged 18-30, but this ongoing, unfolding beguiling saga is perfect for any older kid with stars in their eyes…

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

Twin Spica has everything: plenty of hard tech to back up the informed extrapolation, an engaging cast, mystery, passion, alienation, angst, enduring friendships and just the right touch of spiritual engagement feeding the wild-eyed wonder; all welded seamlessly into a joyous, evocative, addictive drama.

Rekindling the magical spark of the Wild Black Yonder for a new generation, this is the sublime poetry of science and imagination cast as a treat no imagineer with head firmly in the clouds can afford to miss…

© 2010 by Kou Yaginuma. Translation © 2010 Vertical, Inc. All rights reserved.

This book is printed in the Japanese right to left, back to front format.

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Showcase Presents Sea Devils volume 1


By Robert Kanigher, Bob Haney, France E. Herron, Hank P. Chapman, Russ Heath, Irv Novick, Joe Kubert, Gene Colan, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Jack Abel, Bruno Premiani, Sheldon Moldoff & Howard Purcell (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3522-2

Robert Kanigher (1915-2002) was one of the most distinctive authorial voices in American comics, blending rugged realism with fantastic fantasy and outrageous imagination in his signature war comics, as well as for the wealth of horror stories, romance yarns, “straight” adventure, westerns and superhero titles such as Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, Hawkman, Metal Men, Batman (plus other genres far too numerous to cover here) at which he also excelled.

He sold his first stories and poetry in 1932, wrote for the theatre, film and radio, and joined the Fox Features “shop” at the beginning of the comicbook phenomenon where he created The Bouncer, Steel Sterling and The Web, whilst providing scripts for established features like Blue Beetle and the original Captain Marvel.

In 1945 he settled at All-American Comics as both writer and editor, staying on when the company amalgamated with National Comics to become the forerunner of today’s DC. He wrote the Golden Age Flash and Hawkman, created Black Canary and many sexily memorable villainesses such as Harlequin and Rose and the Thorn. This last temptress he redesigned during the relevancy era of the early 1970s into a schizophrenic crime-busting super-heroine who haunted the back of Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane – which Kanigher also scripted at the time.

When mystery-men faded at the end of the 1940s, Kanigher moved easily into other genres such as spy-thrillers, westerns and war stories. In 1952 he became chief writer and editor of the company’s small combat line: All-American War Stories, Star Spangled War Stories and Our Army at War.

He created Our Fighting Forces in 1954 and added G.I. Combat to his packed portfolio when Quality Comics sold their dwindling line of titles to National/DC in 1956.

In 1955 Kanigher devised historical adventure anthology The Brave and the Bold and its stalwart early stars Silent Knight, Golden Gladiator and Viking Prince whilst still scripting Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, Rex the Wonder Dog and a host of others.

In 1956, for Julius Schwartz he scripted ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ – the first story of the Silver Age which introduced Barry Allen as the new Flash to the hero-hungry kids of the world.

Kanigher was a restlessly creative writer and frequently used his uncanny if formulaic action arenas as a testing ground for future series concepts. Among the many epochal war features he created were Sgt. Rock, Enemy Ace, The War that Time Forgot, The Haunted Tank and The Losers, but he always kept an eye on contemporary trends too.

When supernatural comics took over the industry in the late 1960s he was a mainstay at House of Mystery, House of Secrets and Phantom Stranger and in 1975 created gritty human interest feature Lady Cop. Fifteen years earlier he had caught a similar wave (Oh Ha Ha…) by cashing in on the popularity of TV show Sea Hunt.

His entry into the sudden sub-genre deluge of scuba-diver comics featured the magic contemporary formula of a heroic foursome (Smart Guy, Tough Guy, Young Guy and A Girl) who would have all manner of (undersea) adventures from logical to implausible, topical to fantastical. He dubbed his team The Sea Devils…

Re-presenting the turbulent, terrific try-out stories from Showcase #27-29 (July/August to November/December 1960) and Sea Devils #1-16, cover-dated September/October 1961-March/April 1964, this mammoth monochrome tome blends bizarre fantasy, sinister spy stories, shocking science fiction and two-fisted aquatic action with larger-than-life yet strictly human heroes who carved their own unique niche in comics history…

In almost every conceivable way the “try-out title” Showcase created the Silver Age of American comicbooks and is responsible for the multi-million dollar industry and nascent art form we all enjoy today.

Showcase was a try-out comic: a printed periodical Petri dish designed to launch new series and concepts with minimal commitment of publishing resources. If a new character sold well initially a regular series would follow. The process had been proved with Frogmen, Lois Lane, Challengers of the Unknown, Flash and many more

The principle was a sound one which paid huge dividends. The Editors at National were apparently bombarded with readers’ suggestions for new titles and concepts and the only possible way to feasibly prove which would be popular was to offer test runs and assess fan – and most crucially sales – reactions.

Showcase #27 followed a particularly historic and fruitful run of successful debuts which included Space Ranger, Adam Strange, Rip Hunter…Time Master and Green Lantern. It seemed that the premier publication could do no wrong. Moreover, it wasn’t Kanigher and artist Russ Heath’s first dip in this particular pool.

Showcase #3 had launched The Frogmen in an extended single tale following candidates for a US Underwater Demolitions Team in WWII as they perilously graduated from students to fully-fledged underwater warriors. The feature, if not the characters, became a semi-regular strip in All-American Men of War #44 (April #1957) and other Kanigher-edited war comics: making Frogmen the first but certainly not the last graduate of the try-out system. Now the time was right for a civilian iteration to make some waves…

The drama here begins in ‘The Golden Monster’ (by Kanigher & Heath) as lonely skin-diver Dane Dorrance reminisces about his WWII frogman father – and his trusty buddies – before being saved from a sneaky shark by a mysterious golden haired scuba-girl.

Judy Walton is an aspiring actress who, seeking to raise her Hollywood profile, has entered the same underwater treasure hunt Dane is engaged in, but as they join forces they have no idea of the dangers awaiting them…

Locating the sunken galleon they’ve been hunting both are trapped when seismic shifts and a gigantic octopus bury them inside the derelict. Happily third contestant Biff Bailey is on hand and his tremendous strength tips the scales and allows the trio to escape.

Now things take a typical Kanigher twist as the action switches from tense realistic drama to riotous fantasy with the explosive awakening of a colossal reptilian sea-monster who chases the divers until Judy’s little brother Nicky races in to distract the beast…

Temporarily safe, the relative strangers unite to destroy the thing – with the help of a handy floating mine left over from the war – before deciding to form a professional freelance diving team. They take their name from the proposed movie Judy wanted to audition for and become forever “The Sea Devils”…

In Showcase #28 Dane’s dad again offers his boy ‘The Prize Flippers’ he won for his exploits in the war, but Dane feels his entire team should be allowed to compete for them. Of course each diver successively outdoes the rest but in the end a spectacular stunt with a rampaging whale leaves the trophy in the hands of a most unlikely competitor…

A second story then sees the new team set up shop as “underwater trouble-shooters” only to stumble into a mystery as pretty Mona Moray begs them to find her missing father. Professor Moray was lost when his rocket crashed into the ocean, but as the divers diligently search the crash site they are ambushed by underwater aborigines and join the scientist in an uncanny ‘Undersea Prison’…

Only when their captors reveal themselves as invading aliens do the team finally pull together, escape the trap and bring the house down on the insidious aquatic horrors…

Showcase #29 also offered two briny tales beginning with ‘The Last Dive of the Sea Devils’ wherein a recently-imprisoned dictator from Venus escapes to Earth and battles the astounded team to a standstill from his giant war-seahorse.

The blockbusting battle costs them their beloved vessel The Sea Witch but the crew make use of a handy leftover torpedo to end the interplanetary tyrant. Sea-born giants also abound in ‘Undersea Scavenger Hunt’ wherein the cash-strapped trouble-shooters compete in a flashy contest to win a new boat.

Incredible creatures and fantastic treasure traps are no real problem but the actions of rival divers The Black Mantas almost cost our heroes their lives…

Everything worked out though and nine months later Sea Devils #1 hit the stands with Kanigher & Heath leading the way. In ‘The Sea Devils vs. the Octopus Man’ our watery quartet are now the stars of a monster movie but when the lead beastie comes to lethal life and attacks them, all thoughts of fame and wealth sink without trace…

The second tale was scripted by the superbly inventive Bob Haney who riffed on Moby Dick‘s plot in the tale of how Vikings hunted a mythical orca with a magic harpoon before latter-day fanatical whaler Captain Shark mercilessly sought the ‘Secret of the Emerald Whale’ with the desperate Sea Devils dragged along for the ride…

Haney wrote both yarns in the next issue, beginning with ‘A Bottleful of Sea Devils’ as mad scientist Mr. Neptune uses a shrinking device to steal a US Navy weapon prototype. With the aquatic investigators hard on his flippered heels, the felon is soon caught whilst ‘Star of the Sea’ introduced brilliant performing seal Pappy who repeatedly saved the team before finding freedom and true love in the wilds waters of the Atlantic…

Kanigher returned for #3’s ‘Underwater Crime Wave’ as the Devils clashed with a cunning modern Roman Emperor who derives his incredible wealth from smuggling and traps the team in his undersea arena after which Judy finds herself the only one immune to the allure of ‘The Ghost of the Deep’. Subsea siren Circe was utterly intent on making the boys her latest playthings and her human rival is compelled to pull out all the stops to save her friends…

Sea Devils # 4 led with ‘The Sea of Sorcery’ as the team investigate but fail to debunk any of the incredible myths of a supposedly haunted region of ocean, after which Haney detailed how the squad travelled into the heart of South America to liberate a tribe of lost pre-Columbian Condor Indians from a tyrannical witch doctor whilst solving ‘The Secret of Volcano Lake!’

‘The Creature Who Stole the 7 Seas’ (Kanigher) opened issue #5 as a particularly dry period for the trouble-shooters ends after a crashing UFO disgorges a sea giant intent on transferring Earth’s oceans to his own arid world. Oddly for the times, here mutual cooperation and a smart counter-plan save the day for two panicked planets.

Veteran writer Hank P. Chapman joined the ever-expanding team with a smart yarn of submerged Mayan treasure and deadly traps to imperil the team as they solve the ‘Secret of the Plumed Serpent’ before Kanigher returned with a book-length thriller in #6 which found the Devils seemingly ensorcelled by ancient parchments which depicted them battling incredible menaces in centuries past.

Biff battles undersea knights for Queen Cleopatra, Judy saves Ulysses from the Sirens, Nicky rescues a teenaged mermaid from a monstrous fish-man and Dane clashes with ‘The Flame-Headed Watchman!’, but is wise enough to realise that the true threat comes from the mysterious stranger who has brought them such dire documents…

The switch to longer epics was a wise and productive move, followed up in #7 with ‘The Human Tidal Wave!’ as the heroes spectacularly battle an alien made of roaring water to stop a proposed invasion, whilst in #8 they strive to help a fish transformed into a grieving merman from the ‘Curse of Neptune’s Giant!’ The malignant horror’s mutative touch temporarily makes monsters of them all too, but in the end Sea Devil daring trumps eldritch cruelty…

More monster madness followed in #9’s‘The Secret of the Coral Creature!’ as the team became paragliding US Naval medics to rescue an astronaut. That was mere prelude to an oceanic atomic bomb test which blasted them to a sea beneath the sea which had imprisoned an ancient alien for eons of crushing solitude, and who had no intention of ever letting the air-breathers go…

A concatenation of crazy circumstances creates the madness of #10’s ‘4 Mysteries of the Sea!’ as godly King Neptune decrees that on this day every wild story of the sea will come true just as the Sea Devils are competing in a “Deep Six Tall Tales” contest.

Soon the incredulous squad are battling pirates in an underwater ghost town, rescued from captivity by a giant octopus thanks to a friendly seal (Good old Pappy!), facing off against aliens of the Martian Canals Liars Club and saving Neptune himself from a depth charge attack…

The hugely underrated Irv Novick took over as primary illustrator with #11 as the Sea Devils agreed to test human underwater endurance limits in an ocean-floor habitat. Soon however Dane was near breaking point seeing a succession of monsters from the ‘Sea of Nightmares!’

Kanigher relinquished the writing to fellow golden age alumni France E. Herron who kicked off in rip-roaring form with a classy sci fi romp wherein Nicky’s growing feelings of inadequacy are quashed after he saves his comrades – and the world – from the ‘Threat of the Magnetic Menace!’

Always experimental and rightfully disrespectful of the fourth wall, editors Kanigher and George Kashdan turned issue #13 over to the fans for ‘The Secrets of 3 Sunken Ships’ as successive chapters of Herron’s script were illustrated by Joe Kubert, Gene Colan and Ross Andru & Mike Esposito for the audience to decide who was the best.

The artists all appear in the tale conducting interviews and “researching” the Deep Sea Daredevils as they tackle a reincarnated sea captain, travel to an ancient sea battle between Greece and Persia and meet the alien who kidnapped the crew of the Marie Celeste…

The gag continued in Sea Devils #14 as illustrator Irv Novick came along for the ride when the amazing aquanauts try to end the catastrophic ‘War of the Underwater Giants’ which saw aging deities Neptune and Hercules battle for supremacy in Earth’s oceans.

Jack Abel was the artistic guest star in second story ‘Challenge of the Fish Champions!’ wherein the heroes enter a cash prize competition to buy scuba equipment for a junior diving club.

Unfortunately, crazy devious scientist Karpas also wants the loot and fields a team of his own technologically augmented minions. Before long the human skin-divers are facing off against a sea lion, a manta ray, a squid and a merman. After all, nobody said contestants had to be human…

Novick got into the act again illustrating #15 as author Herron revealed Judy and Nicky’s relationship to the ‘Secret of the Sunken Sub!’ When inventor Professor Walton vanishes whilst testing his latest submersible, it’s only a matter of time before his children drag the rest of the Sea Devils to the bottom of every ocean to find him and his lost crew.

The uncanny trail takes them through shoals of monsters, astounding flora and into the lair of an incredible sea spider before the mission is successfully accomplished…

Things regained some semblance of narrative normality with the final issue in this compilation as Hank Chapman contributed a brace of high adventure yarns beginning with ‘The Strange Reign of Queen Judy and King Biff’ superbly rendered by the wonderful Bruno Premiani & Sheldon Moldoff. When a massive wave capsizes the Sea Witch only Dane and Nicky seemingly survive, but the determined explorers persevere and eventually find their friends held as bewitched captives on the island of an immortal wizard. All they have to do is kidnap their ferociously resisting friends, escape an army of angry guards and penetrate the island’s mystic defences a second time to restore everything to normal. No problem…

This eccentric and exciting voyage of discovery concludes with ‘Sentinel of the Golden Head’ – illustrated by the always impressive Howard Purcell & Moldoff – as the restored aquatic quartet stumble onto the lost island of Blisspotamia in time to witness a beautiful maiden trying to sacrifice herself to the sea gods.

By interfering they incur the wrath of a legion of mythological horrors and have no choice but to defy the gods to free the terrified islanders from ignorance and tyranny…

These massive black-&-white compendiums are superb value and provide a vital service by bringing older, less flashy (but still astonishingly expensive in their original issues) tales to a readership which might otherwise be denied them. However this is probably the only series which I can honestly say suffers in the slightest from the lack of colour.

Whilst the line-art story illustrations are actually improved by the loss of hue, the original covers – by Heath and Irv Novick as supervised and inked by production ace Jack Adler – used all the clever technical print effects and smart ingenuity of the period to add a superb extra layer of depth to the underwater scenes which tragically cannot be appreciated in simple line and tone reproduction. Just go to any online cover browser site and you’ll see what I mean…

Nevertheless the amazing art and astounding stories are as good as they ever were and Showcase Presents Sea Devils is simply stuffed with incredible ideas, strange situations and non-stop action. These underwater wonders are a superb slice of the engaging fantasy thrillers which were once the backbone of American comicbooks. Perhaps a little whacky in places, they are remarkably similar to many tongue-in-cheek, anarchic Saturday morning kids animation shows and will certainly provide jaded fiction fans with hours of unmatchable entertainment.…
© 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Blackout volume 1: Into the Dark


By Frank J. Barbiere, Colin Lorimer, Micah Kaneshiro & various (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-555-9

During the speculation-fuelled 1990s even the normally restrained and aesthetically broad ranging Dark Horse Comics was seduced into creating its own proprietary shared-universe of superhero characters.

Some like Ghost and X were very good and others – such as Barb Wire – even made the then incredibly difficult jump from print to silver screen.

Ever since the company has only cautiously dabbled with the genre; generally preferring to put their unique gloss and on previously well-established (Doc Savage, Captain Midnight, The Shadow), creator-owned (Hellboy, B.P.R.D.) or cachet-laden stars from outside the company (Buffy, The Umbrella Factory).

Now they’re rethinking the policy and creating a new pantheon of home-grown mystery men to join venerable heroic ancients for the ongoing “Project Black Sky” and, with the introduction of Blackout, seem to have found their first sleeper hit…

Written and lettered by Frank J. Barbiere, Into the Dark collects a trio of short introductory tales from the anthological Dark Horse Presents volume 2 #24-26 (May to July 2013) and the first four issues of Blackout from March to July 2014, dropping us into the middle of an ongoing and rapidly escalating crisis for a most unlikely hero…

Illustrated by Micah Kaneshiro and comprising a Chapter 0, the three opening yarns find dull lab assistant and extreme sports devotee Scott Travers in well over his head as he invades extremely hinky corporate science facility Mechatonics in search of his best friend and mentor “Uncle” Bob…

Robert Marshal was the top genius at Avenir Microanalytics, the ideas factory where Travers wastes his days as an underachieving, low-level techie, but the old guy simply vanished one day after a confrontation with some suits from Mechatronics.

Soon after, Scott received a package containing a bizarre science fiction bodysuit and a note which simply said “find me”…

Donning the all-enclosing apparel Scott discovered it could somehow shift him into a kind of parallel dimension: a ‘Strange Terrain’ from which he see and bypass the real world. It even allowed him pass through solid objects here in living world…

Suspecting foul play and with no preparation at all, Scott infiltrates the Mechatronics citadel, easily evading the rent-a-cops by zipping in and out of the chilling silent otherworld. It all goes pretty great until he encounters a beautiful woman with a gun who recognises the clothes, if not the man…

She clearly knows something about Bob and calls the bizarre bodysuit “Blackout”…

Although she gets the drop on him, a quickly opened dark portal plunges them both into the shadow world which Scott only then discovers is deathly cold, pitch black and practically a vacuum for anyone not garbed in a strange spacesuit like him…

Swiftly popping them both back to Earth before she expires, Scott begins to question her about Bob but is interrupted by another newcomer… a giant killer robot…

The ray-gun toting automaton almost destroys him until he manages to chop it in half with a portal, only to discover the thing was actually manned and he might now be a murderer…

As more security moves in, the slowly recovering woman shakes him out of his shocked stupor and urges him to get out…

Illustrated by Colin Lorimer, ‘Into the Dark’ opens with Scott plagued by nightmares that girlfriend Ash can’t console him out of. Stumped for answers – or even clues – Scott decides to show up for work (for a change) and see what a civilian approach can glean.

As police swarm all over, Mechatronics’ big boss Mr. Cassius is quietly interviewing the still shaken Dr. Alexis Luca. She is nowhere near recovered from her brief sojourn in another dimension but Cassius loses all interest when he gets a distressing call from his ominous backers. He anxiously steels himself for more trouble…

Later, when Scott again dons the suit for more covert reconnaissance, he interrupts a band of armed invaders not at all surprised or daunted by his abilities and busy stripping the lab of its databases. Soon he’s in the fight of his life, but once more panic, quick thinking and the suit’s dimension-rending capabilities allow him to prevail.

Elsewhere Cassius’ terrifying Ãœbermensch masters are making demands, insisting he hand over the robotic super-suits they commissioned and paid for…

Having claimed the stolen databases, Scott gets Ash to break into them and what he sees makes him keen to get back to Mechatronics.

This time, however, he’s going in fully prepared so takes time out to test the Blackout’s capabilities…

And that’s when the thing runs out of juice, leaving him stuck in the dark dimension…

Tightly plotted, sharply scripted and superbly illustrated, the first outing for this reluctant shadow warrior is a superb blend of corporate chicanery, sinister secret societies, moody menace, weird science and frantic action that will delight fans of fast-paced conspiracy thrillers and looks set to become a fast favourite of Fight ‘n’ Tights fans who love a smooth veneer of plausibility over the fantasy fiction.

This slim scintillating chronicle also includes a covers and pin-up gallery by Raymond Swanland, Kanashiro and Paulo Rivera.
© 2013, 2014 Dark Horse Inc. All rights reserved. Blackout is ™ Dark Horse Inc.

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Serenity- Firefly Class 03-K64: Leaves on the Wind


By Zack Whedon, Georges Jeanty, Fábio Moon, Karl Story & various (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-489-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Furious Fun, Cosmic Class and Stellar Suprises… 9/10

For those far too few people who actually saw it, Firefly remains one of the best Science Fiction TV shows ever created. It was cancelled after one season. Buy the box set or seek it out from an on-demand, streaming media outlet as soon as you possibly can.

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

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

Once you’ve done those things you’ll be properly primed to enjoy this superb and lavish full-colour hardback compilation which further details the troubled lives of reluctant freedom fighter Malcolm Reynolds and his oddball crew of reprobates aboard an independent trader starship of the Firefly class.

Collecting the 6-issue miniseries Serenity: Leaves on the Wind and a short story from Free Comic Book Day 2012: Serenity/Stars Wars, this is actually the fourth volume starring the nomadic, semi-piratical outlaws, but since the previous three all featured material bridging the end of the show and start of the film, it’s safe to start here and catch up with the rearguard action some other time.

I certainly intend to…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now although the whole system is rumbling with renewed mutterings of rebellion the survivors of Serenity are more hunted than ever…

Written by Zack Whedon, illustrated by Georges Jeanty and Karl Story with colours from Laura Martin & Lovern Kindzierski and letters by Michael Heisler, this rousing romp opens with the Alliance in full media attack mode: spreading disinformation and counter allegations to remove the sting from the twin revelations that the government has been for years conducting experiments to create slave super soldiers (like River was supposed to be) and their previous pacification experiments in fact created the unstoppable bloody Reavers…

As their demagogues demand the Firefly “terrorists” come forward to substantiate their preposterous claims, the real backbone of the Alliance is concentrated on finding Reynolds and his shambolic friends who seem to have vanished into the void…

On a huge military space station Operative Denon and the enigmatic woman he takes orders from confer and send out their most cunning agents to scour the rat-runs of the ‘Verse whilst setting in play plans to end the popular risings called by the idiotic “New Resistance”…

In one such enclave of rebellion, a passionate girl named Bea outlines a bold plan: using the vast funds provided by the movement’s shadowy financiers she will track down the legendary Mal Reynolds and ask him to lead a unified pan-planetary revolt…

As Bea searches, in the uncharted unknowns Reynolds and his occasional lover Inara argue as usual. With money and supplies critically low, Serenity needs to take on a charter of some kind no matter what the risk.

The battered, weary survivors are also terminally bored. Simon and engineer Kaylee spend all their time having sex, enhanced, creepy River is now chief pilot and ferocious second-in-command Zoe spends her days trying to come to terms with husband Wash‘s stupid, stupid death whilst bringing their baby to term.

Things are so desperate they even miss brutish thug and professional butthole Jayne Cobb…

The situation alters drastically after Zoe gives birth. Newborn Emma is perfect in every detail but the labour has resulted in obstetrical haemorrhage for her mother. Painfully aware of the risks, Mal takes the ship in-system to the rough-and-ready medical facilities of the isolated Paquin asteroid mining station…

The aforementioned Jayne has meanwhile been plucked from his preferred occupation as an excessively violent if inept bandit; hired by the unswervingly dedicated Bea to take her to all Reynolds’ favourite hiding places. The Alliance too have turned to an old acquaintance of the much sought after captain. Bounty hunter Jubal Early has a big score to settle with his “one who got away”…

Unfortunately, even the most remote outpost is subject to government oversight and no sooner is Zoe registered for surgery than the Alliance are rapidly en route. Mal only leaves his old Unification War comrade after she begs him to keep baby Emma safe at all costs…

On the run again and frantic, the crew’s doldrums are countered by River who suggests a dangerous procedure to allow her to tap into her suppressed powers.

A genius and psychic, before Simon rescued her she was part of an Alliance project which included lethal martial arts training and brain-augmenting surgeries. The result is a strange hybrid creature with too many personalities who often scares the willies out of her shipmates, but in her head are all manner of secrets she doesn’t know she knows.

If she can recover some fact or scrap of clandestine knowledge valuable enough from inside her consciousness, they can use it to blackmail the government into freeing Zoe…

As the terrifying teen sinks into a chemically-induced coma, Bea and Jayne show up, but just as Reynolds is refusing the earnest newcomer’s offer to lead her revolution, Early – having slaughtered Bea’s entire crew – infiltrates Serenity and begins taking out the fugitives one by one…

The third chapter begins with a peek inside physically dormant River’s broken mind where she consults her other selves, before waking to discover the bounty hunter in control of the ship. Jubal however has neglected – and most crucially underestimated – the least of the crew and quickly learns to regret it…

The mind-walk has been shockingly successful and River now knows the location of other subjects like her. The chance to rescue more helpless victims from a place stuffed with invaluable stores, secrets and supplies whilst tweaking the Alliance’s nose is more than any of them can resist and soon Serenity is heading out to pick up another extremely unlikely ally…

For Zoe, however, life is not so appetising or upbeat. Barely recovered from surgery, she has been dumped on a hellish penal world where she has to literally battle every day just to stay alive. Luckily she’s always been good at fighting…

With a supposedly “turned” Alliance operative as guide, the crew lay their plans, but need Bea’s help to obtain a less recognisable ship to invade the facility in. Things seem to be going well until the New Resistance backers reveal themselves and the team stumble into a perfect trap.

It wouldn’t have been so bad but for one thing. River Tam is the most dangerous creature the heroes have ever met, but Simon got her out before her augmenting was complete. Now they’ve all burst into the one place where the horrifically finished models are ready and waiting…

With one single war-girl wiping the floor with the outgunned unwilling rebels, the gloating arrogant Alliance officers have not allowed for one small thing. Malcolm Reynolds is a wily, distrustful old soldier who has already lost one war and he didn’t come to fight without having one hell of a back-up plan…

Following a blockbuster battle, stunning reversals of fortune but an essentially Pyrrhic victory, the escaping heroes finally settle some old business before one last hurrah finds the Firefly heading to an anonymous prison planet to execute the most spectacular jailbreak ever seen…

With chapter-break headings utilising the powerful variant covers of Dan Dos Santos, Leaves on the Wind is pure explosive escapist enjoyment, but this splendid yarn will be far less effective if you haven’t seen the film it grew out of. The same simply can’t be said of the short story which closes the book on this voyage of the Firefly Serenity – after a large and enticing cover gallery by Jeanty, Story, Martin, Ian McCaig, Jenny Frison & Joe Quinones.

‘It’s Never Easy’ by Zack Whedon, Fábio Moon, Cris Peter & Heisler originated in Free Comic Book Day 2012: Serenity/Stars Wars, a supremely approachable and engaging yarn set during Zoe’s pregnancy which graphically and hilariously demonstrates how Malcolm is the kind of man who can get into trouble even whilst just standing around watching other people work…

With atone and sensibility that is pure Jonah Hex (back when the bounty hunting gunfighter was as blackly funny, sardonic and socially critical as it was thrilling, scary and action-packed), astoundingly terse and winning characterisation and all the intoxicating bonhomie and sense of wonder of Babylon 5 and the original Star Wars trilogy, this a book no lover of space opera shoot ’em ups can afford to miss.

Firefly™ and Serenity: Firefly Class 03-K64™ and © 2014 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Valerian and Laureline book 7: On the False Earths


By Méziéres & Christin, with colours by E. Tranlé and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-190-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Stellar Entertainment to last the year through… 9/10

Valérian and Laureline is the most influential science fiction comics series ever created; an innovation-packed, Big-Ideas bonanza stuffed with wry observation, knowing humour, intoxicating action and sardonic sideswipes at contemporary mores and prejudices.

As Val̩rian: Spatio-Temporal Agent the strip debuted in the weekly Pilote #420 (November 9th 1967) and was an instant hit. It rapidly evolved into its current designation as his feisty, fire-headed sidekick developed into the equal partner Рif not scene-stealing star Рof light-hearted, fantastically imaginative, visually stunning, time-travelling, space-warping fantasies which nevertheless always found room to propound a satirical, humanist ideology and let loose telling fusillades of political commentary.

At first tough, bluff Valerian was an affable, capable (if unimaginative), by-the-book space cop tasked with protecting official universal chronology (at least as per Terran Empire standards) by intercepting or counteracting paradoxes caused by incautious time-travellers.

When Valérian landed in 11th century France during debut tale ‘Les Mauvais Rêves (‘Bad Dreams’ and infuriatingly still not translated into English yet), he was rescued from doom by a capable young woman named Laureline. He brought her back to the 28th century super-citadel and administrative capital of the Terran Empire, Galaxity, where the indomitable female firebrand trained as a spatiotemporal operative and began accompanying him on all his missions.

On the False Earths originally appeared in the newly monthly Pilote (issues #M31 to M34 (30th November 1976 -1st March 1977) before being collected as seventh album Sur le terres truquées – spectacularly reinforcing the “spatiotemporal” aspect of our heroes through a beguiling cosmic conundrum…

The story starts in frantic full flow as a very familiar figure fights valiantly and dies ignominiously during a pitched battle in 19th century Colonial India. He doesn’t go easy, however, using his ray gun to disintegrate an attacking tiger before beaming back crucial data stolen from a sinister maharaja equipped with technology he simply shouldn’t have…

In deep space distraught Laureline sees her man die, but her protests are ignored by heartless, man-despising historian Jadna. The scholar cares little for the oafish warrior undertaking a top secret mission for her. After all, there’s plenty more where he came from…

That’s literally the case as, a little later, another Valerian infiltrates Victorian London Society, breaking into a swank Gentleman’s Club and crashing a meeting of the Empire’s greatest movers and shakers. Once again these potentates are communicating with a hidden high-tech master, and once again the star cop expires trying to determine the mastermind’s exact whereabouts.

He resurfaces in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1895 where enquiries arouse the wrath of the local tongs. This Valerian perishes after noting an increasing number of anachronisms – such as an Easy Rider on a chopped Harley Davidson motorbike…

From their secure vantage point on a vast satellite Jadna and Laureline see their agent expire in another artificially constructed historical microcosm. The callous historian ruminates on their mystery opponent: a being capable of reshaping matter, crafting perfect little worlds and recreating human eras with the skill of a master artist whilst remaining utterly hidden from all their probing searches. If the enigma hadn’t been detected rifling through Terran time zones – presumably for research – no one would even know of its existence…

The creator’s simulacrums are progressively advancing through brutal but significant periods of Terran history, but each visit by Valerian brings the investigation team closer to the mysterious maker’s actual location. Soon our hero is cautiously exploring a slice of Belle Époque France, but his enigmatic quarry is cognizant of the constant intrusions and has taken a few liberties with verisimilitude.

Waiting in ambush for Valerian are American gangsters with Tommyguns…

Rubbed out before he can even begin, Valerian is swiftly replaced by another short-lived duplicate whilst the original and genuine lies comatose in a clone-command tank. This last rapid substitution, however, finally allows the watching women to zero in on their target’s true location and they instantly shift their ship through the universal continua to reach the incredible being’s astounding base… and none too soon, as Jadna posits that the creature’s next construction will most likely be World War I…

She is proved painfully correct. As they ready themselves for a confrontation with the maker Laureline and the scholar realise that the astral citadel is a perfect replica of a Great War battlefield. Seizing the initiative Jadna activates and musters all the remaining clones – as well as the original McCoy – programming them to play the marauding “boche” in an apocalyptic re-enactment simply as a diversion to allow her to get to the impossibly powerful being she so admires…

Caught up in the incomprehensible slaughter and its bizarre aftermath the two spatiotemporal agents can only watch in astonishment as Jadna and the seemingly all-powerful artisan discover just how much they have in common…

Trenchant, barbed, socially aware and ethically crusading, Valerian and Laureline stories never allow message to overshadow fun and wonder and On the False Earths is one of the sharpest, most intriguing sagas Méziéres & Christin ever concocted, complete with a superb twist in the tale to delight and confound even the most experienced starfarer.

© Dargaud Paris, 1977 Christin, Méziéres & Tran-Lệ. All rights reserved. English translation © 2014 Cinebook Ltd.

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Thor: Wolves of the North


By Michael Carey, Alan Davis, Peter Milligan, Michael Perkins, Mico Suayan, Tom Grindberg & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5614-7

Created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, The Mighty Thor debuted in Journey into Mystery #83 (August 1962), heralding a procession of spectacular adventures that came to encompass everything from crushing petty crime capers to saving universes from cosmic doom.

As the decades passed he also survived numerous reboots and re-imaginings to keep the wonders of fabled Asgard appealing to an increasingly jaded readership. An already exceedingly broad range of scenarios spawned even greater visual variety after the Thunderer’s introduction to the pantheon of cinematic Marvels and his ongoing triumphs as a bona fide burgeoning movie franchise.

This slim but surprisingly gripping chronicle compiles material from Thor: Wolves of the North (February 2011), Thor: the Truth of History (December 2008) and Thor Annual volume 3, #1(November 2009), concentrating on clashes with Asgard’s worst menaces and Earth’s other gods and monsters.

‘Wolves of the North’ by Michael Carey, Michael Perkins and colourist Dan Brown takes us to embattled Viking village Redhangir, where valiant warriors are under constant assault by hellish forces. When chief Thorvald is mortally wounded by the marauding ogres’ impossibly huge king, the mortal’s last acts are to make his daughter Einar his successor and order the warriors to never surrender…

This doesn’t go down well with the community’s priesthood who believe the best way to end the conflict is to sacrifice the bellicose young woman to Death Goddess Hela…

A tense standoff between church and state is suddenly ended when Thor falls out of the sky in a blast of thunder. Severely depleted, he reveals that Asgard itself is under siege, with the Queen of the Dead sneaking the warrior-legions of her demon-king ally Skald into battle via the backdoor through Midgard. The creatures have but dallied at Redhangir for the sheer sport of bloodletting…

Moreover, although the Storm Lord has been despatched to close the invaders’ devious route, his journey has depleted him. To be effective on Earth he needs a mortal anchor. Selflessly, Einar Thorvaldsdottir offers herself, knowing full that what harms one now will injure both…

A refreshed and reinvigorated Thor starts a cataclysmic rout of the demons, but canny Hela knows all and has her mortal priests attempt to secretly sacrifice Einar, knowing her death means the Thunderer’s defeat and Asgard’s demise.

Of course the Cold Queen and her demon ally have no conception of Thor’s furious determination or a merely mortal chief’s unfailing resolve to save her people…

That grimly compelling fable leads directly into riotous, Kirby-inspired swashbuckling romp ‘The Truth of History’ by writer/penciller Alan Davis, inker Mark Farmer and colourist Rob Swager which opens rather quietly with two archaeologists debating the puzzling climate of ancient Egypt and odd, post-construction alterations to the monolithic Sphinx.

The answers to those great unknowns are then explained by plunging back nearly four thousand years to a time when Thor and a trusty band of Asgardians stopped sorceress Queen Nedra from using an unsanctioned portal to Midgard.

Although the Aesir were victorious, bumbling blowhard Volstagg subsequently fell through the activated gateway and was lost, compelling the Prince of Asgard and boon companions Fandral the Dashing and Hogun the Grim to follow…

The mystic journey lands them in Egypt where their pale skins mark them as demonic invaders whereas the immortal Northmen can only see signs of drought whilst slaves toil building pointless stone monuments and enfeebled peasants starve under the pitiless gaze of fat priests and bestial halflings.

In times long past the world’s scattered pantheons geographically divided up humanity, each abiding over and caring for their worshippers in their own way. Now, as the Asgardians see how the gods of Heliopolis minister to their adherents’ needs, they wonder at the wisdom of the pact…

Elsewhere Volstagg is having the time of his life, fed and feted by glamorous women and guzzling gallons of heady sweet wine. Eventually his questing comrades reach the city of Giza and are welcomed by priests under the stern gaze of a colossal stone griffin.

When the Asgardians throw the sumptuous feast they are offered to the starving peasants outside, they earn the enmity of arrogantly pompous pharaoh Neb-Maat and provoke a pitched battle with his unearthly retinue of beastmen.

Whilst that fight grows in intensity, far below their feet in the catacombs their soused and happy kinsman is being offered up as a sacrifice to an ancient horror, and when his screams reach Thor’s ears the Storm Lord rips the palace apart to reach him. He soon finds himself facing the awesome beast which inspired the griffin statue.

The resultant clash reshapes the fate of a nation and echoes down through history…

This stellar spectacle of blistering intoxicating old-fashioned entertainment is marvellously tinged with wry knowing humour to counterbalance the bombastic bravado and furious action and serves as a perfect palate-cleanser for the darker fare which follows: a chilling and poignant tale of modern vintage.

From Thor Annual volume 3, #1 comes ‘The Hand of Grog’ by Peter Milligan, Mico Suayan, Tom Grindberg, Stefano Gaudiano, Edgar Delgado & J. Roberts, set in the aftermath of the apocalyptic Siege of Asgard.

The story opens in Celestial Heliopolis where Egyptian Death God Seth is summoned by a prognosticator to hear some glad tidings. Despised Thor has suffered an emotional collapse after being tricked into slaying his own grandfather Bor.

The once formidable Thunderer is a broken being ready to accept his ending, but although eager to make it so, Seth is a cautious deity and instead dispatches his servant Grog the God-Slayer and a pack of bestial pawns to hunt down the ailing warrior…

On Earth Thor has vanished. The spirit-sickened hero has taken refuge inside Dr. Don Blake, a pale ghost hiding from his responsibilities. That all changes as soon as the horror squad arrives and begins attacking innocent mortals in an attempt to draw out their prey…

Despite believing himself deprived of his godly might, a stout defence of the weak and helpless resoundingly reinvigorates Thor, but once the danger has passed, he soon reverts to his despondent state…

However when Grog returns to finish off the human survivors in hospital, Blake seizes a slim chance to break his alter ego’s psychological chains. And if it doesn’t work, there won’t be anyone left alive to complain about his radical kill-or-cure remedy…

Frantic, furious and ferociously enthralling, Wolves of the North is a pure blast of mythic Fights ‘n’ Tights fun and frolics no action-loving fantasy fan could possibly resist.

© 2008, 2009, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Springheeled Jack


By David Hitchcock (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-129-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: an Xmas scary story in the Grand Tradition… 9/10

Britain can lay claim to impressive and ingenious achievements far too numerous to mention, but the ones I’m honing in on here are our prodigious appetite for inventing myths, our gift for telling scary stories and our plucky tendency to want things done right and thus often Doing-It-Yourself…

In 2005 cartoonist, antiquarian and fright fan David Hitchcock (Spirit of the Highwayman, Whitechapel Freak, Gothic) crafted an intense and beguiling small press yarn in three chapters which went on to win the Eagle Award for Favourite Black & White Comic Book.

Originally released under the Full Circle banner, Springheeled Jack was subsequently released as a collection from Black Boar Press and is now available in a luxurious oversized (295 x 222mm) definitive monochrome hardback from Titan Comics.

The astounding suspense is handily preceded by the author’s introduction, recapitulating the historical reports of the original Urban Legend from the first sightings and police reports in 1838 in ‘At the Heels of the Devil’ before the dark graphic enchantment opens in 1861 with an arcane monstrosity roaming the foul, begrimed rooftops of London to the accompaniment of excerpts from the journal of Sir Jack Rackham.

Although still not without influence, the esteemed Sole Benefactor of Bethlehem Lunatic Asylum has been a broken man since his beloved Evelina was snatched from his helpless arms one foggy night by a monstrous insectoid fiend from Hell…

The thing’s depredations still continue but the authorities scoff at the administrator’s suppositions and ignore his protestations, leading the nigh-deranged Rackham and the few allies he has made to take matters into their own hands.

Although the red-eyed thing primarily snatches women, its malevolent, toxic influence, unbeknownst to all, has seeped into the highest echelons of the empire and the monarchy itself is currently in the greatest peril imaginable…

One person Rackham believes he can count upon is Dr. Henry Jekyll, whose own incredible metamorphic discoveries also stem from encounters with the beast – or, as they speculate, perhaps some being from beyond the stars – but when the physician visits his old comrade he is appalled to se how far Sir Jack has fallen into despair and madness.

Jekyll can do nothing for his friend, however, as he has been summoned as a matter of utmost urgency to the side of the mysteriously ailing Prince Consort…

In an attempt to keep pace with the monstrous leaping travesty of nature, Rackham has constructed a bat-winged suit which allows him the glide after the beast when he eventually finds it, and now he waits for his opportunity.

In Windsor, upon examining Prince Albert, Jekyll sees something which shakes him to his soul and the doctor consequently dashes back to Rackham to join in his pursuit.

The thing has been going about its secret purposes incessantly, and its influence now even extends deep inside Rackham’s troubled Bedlam Hospital where confined savant Professor Graham claims to have discerned all there is to know about the threat…

That night Jekyll and Sir Jack rendezvous in a graveyard and lay a trap for the horror. The plan apparently works and they follow it to its lair, discovering the shattering secret of its depredations. They set to derailing its plans, but in the struggle a hero is infected and a shocking mutation begins to take hold…

The saga then kicks into ghastly high gear as a game of cat-and-mouse finds the police unjustly hunting the wrong “man”, as all over the capital nature itself rebels from the hideous and almost completed incursion…

The tension rises to fever pitch in ‘The Last Chapter’ which sees a final desperate roll of the dice and a good man is seemingly lost forever before ‘Transmogrify’ finds humanity itself on the verge of its greatest triumph or defeat…

Also included in this titanic tome is a copious 22 page ‘Sketchbook’ section which comprises roughs, layouts, previous covers, physical models and constructions, plus an exploration of Hitchcock’s unique art style which involves preliminary pencils, full inks and a final layer of moody, mediating pencil tones on top of it all to capture the grimy sooty atmosphere of Victorian London.

Stark, gripping and chillingly compelling, Springheeled Jack is a grand, old-fashioned fearsome fantasy no lover of dark tales can afford to miss.

Springheeled Jack © 2014 David Hitchcock & Black Boar Press.