Science Fiction – Page 93

July 4, 2013July 3, 2013

Sleaze Castle – the Directors Cut Part #0

By Dave McKinnon & Terry Wiley with various (Markosia)
ISBN: 978-1-905692-93-4

I’m old, me. I’ve been around for a bit and met a few folks. So, as occurs when I’m reviewing something by people I’ve gone drinking with, I feel compelled to admit to potential conflicts of interest such as here.

The Society of Strip Illustrators/Comics Creators Guild used to meet on the last Thursday of every month in London. There old lags and aspiring talents rubbed scruffy, grimy, dandruffed – occasionally scrofulous – shoulders, talking comics old and new whilst showing off what we were up to.

Always a fun, laid-back evening, those times when the laconic Terry Wiley would turn up from points North with copies of the latest self-published issue of Tales From Sleaze Castle were especially un-memorable – a combination of subsidised booze and the fact that most folks immediately buried their heads in the mesmerising, fundamentally British, trans-dimensional, time-busting kitchen sink comedy/drama/nostalgic fantasy buddy-movie of a comic and lost all power of speech until they’d finished.

It’s just that good â€“ probably the very best home-grown comic saga you’ve never read â€“ and it also holds strong claim to probably the very best and most appalling literary puns in all sequential narrative.

Scripted by the equally demi-mythical Dave McKinnon, the epic adventure is pretty straightforward but also nearly indescribable. The story unfolds in a progression of mini-chapters and vignettes which act as diary and six-month countdown to an inescapable, predestined eventâ€¦

After a rather bemused Foreword from author McKinnon, this latest edition of the monochrome masterpiece of wacky understatement starts with ‘Another Earth, Another Dimension, Another Reason to Go Shopping’ and a brace of ‘Prologues’ in which we meet incomprehensibly ancient Pandadomino Quartile, puissant albino Empress of another Realm of Reality and undisputed dominant resident of the incredible, infinite domicile dubbed Sleaze Castle.

Also brought to our attention are the thoroughly grounded though no less implausible Dribble family of Earth; mother Poppy, younger daughter Petra and her older sister Jocasta, befuddled student and co-star of our showâ€¦

As post-grad Jo returns to college in the Northern wilds of England and her ongoing M.A. in Televisual Studies, in London the Queen (not ours, the other, alien one) goes shopping. It is ‘Sep. ’86: Castaway’ and there’s about to be a small hitchâ€¦

The time/space door malfunctions and Pandadomino is stranded here. Establishing shaky communications with home she is assured that things will be fixed but it will take six months to retrieve her. Moreover the portal will appear in another locationâ€¦

An incoming call then gives further details and instructions.

It’s from herself who has literally just returned to SleazeCastle and she has some advice for her younger, stranded self. It’s quite bizarre, paradoxical and tediously specific instructions on what to do for the next 178 days so she’d better get a pencilâ€¦

Jocasta Dribble is on ‘AutopilotÂ Â 11:23’ as she makes her way from the railway station to her room in the Ethel Merman Hall of Residence at the University of Novocastria.

As usual the trip is fraught with woolgathering and petty weirdnesses but eventually she slumps onto her term-time bed and makes the acquaintance of her new neighbour.

The oddly naive girl with the shock of black hair, exotic face and too much eye makeup is from Thailand.

Sandra â€œcall me Pandaâ€ Castle has absolutely no idea about living in England so Jo takes her under her maternal wing, blithely oblivious that her new friend is an extraterrestrial immigrant, used to commanding vast armies and geniuses of various species, cunningly disguised with dyes and contact lenses. Moreover the strange stranger has used all her wiles to cheat her way into the room next door which will, some months’ distant, very briefly become an inter-dimensional gateway before snapping shut foreverâ€¦

And thus begins the gentle and seductively enchanting story of the relationship between two of the most well-realised women in comics. As geeky outsider Jo at last blossoms into a proper grown-up – she even finds a boyfriend, more than a decade after her precocious schoolgirl sister Petra – her instruction of the oddly sophisticated â€œThaiâ€ into British civilisation and college life is simultaneously heart-warming, painful, hilarious, poignant and irresistibly addictive to watch.

It’s also deliciously inclusive and expansive: packed with what 21^st century consumers now call â€œEaster Eggsâ€. These hidden nuggets of in-jokes, wry observations and oblique cultural and comics references are witty and funny enough in their own right, but if you were in any way part of the comics scene in the late 1980s they are also an instant key into golden times past, packed with outrageous guest-appearances by many of the upcoming stars and characters of the British cartooning and small press movement.

(Whilst the absolutely riveting scenes of Jo and Panda trying out both Novocastria’s Women Cartoonist Society and all-male Komik Klub are timeless slices of shtick to you lot, they were a solid reminder of times past and people I still owe a Christmas cardâ€¦)

Panda spends her first Christmas ever with the Dribbles and their ferociously Italian extended family but, as the days are counting down, the displaced millennia-old queen is beginning to wonder what will happen once she leavesâ€¦

Astoundingly there are people and places and things and people and one person in particularly who is apparently unique and irreplaceable even in the unending pan-cosmic Reality she owns. There’s this friend she’s really can’t bear to loseâ€¦

Beautifully scripted, alluringly paced and exquisitely rendered, this book would be paralysingly evocative for any Brit who went to college between 1975 and 1990, but what makes it all so astonishingly good is the fact that this delightful melange of all the things that contributed to our unique culture are effortlessly squooshed together as mere background in an captivating tale of two outsiders finding friendship through adversity and by perpetually lying to each otherâ€¦

There have been comparisons to Los Bros Hernandez’ Love and Rockets but they’re superficial and unfair to both. I will say though that both are uniquely the product of their own time and regional geographyâ€¦

This collection also includes a cover gallery and pin-ups as well as the additional plus of ‘And Finallyâ€¦ Three Lost Tales’ which features an aspect of the business I really miss.

A few of the self-publishing community cameoed in the Women Cartoonist Society and elsewhere – in a spirit of communal tit-for-tat – collaborated on side-bar stories featuring Panda, Jo and the rest during the comic’s initial run and with commentary from McKinnon are re-presented here, so even after the cliffhanger story-pause you can still have a laugh with ‘The Rules of the Game part I’ by Lee Kennedy, ‘The Rules of the Game part II’ by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood and what I’ll call ‘An Idea in a Book is Worth Two in the Head’ by Jeremy Dennis. You’ll need to buy this book to realise whyâ€¦

This a book by lovers of comics for lovers of comics and now that I’ve read this brand-new edition with its remastered pages and fresh snippets of originalÂ material I’m going to re-read the next three volumes in the Gratuitous Bunny Editions I bought years ago. Unless you have your own temporal retrieval system you’ll just have to wait for the next volumeâ€¦
SleazeCastle is â„¢ & Â© 1992, 2012 Dave McKinnon & Terry Wiley. This edition â„¢ & Â© Dave McKinnon, Terry Wiley and Markosia Enterprises, Ltd. All rights reserved. Three Lost Tales Â© 1996, 2012 Lee Brimmicombe-Wood, Lee Kennedy and Jeremy Day
This book is available for download on iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with iBooks and on your computer with iTunes. Books must be read on an iOS device.

May 31, 2013May 31, 2013

Battling Boy

(Uncorrected Proof Copy)

By Paul Pope (First Second)
ISBN: 978-1-59643-145-4

Paul Pope is undoubtedly one of the most creative and visually engaging creators working in comics these days. Since his debut in 1993 he has stunningly combined elements of European and Japanese styles with classical American themes to produce tales of science fiction, fantasy, crime, comedy, romance, adventure and even superheroics, generally for mature audiences.

If you’re not a fan yet, check out Sin Titulo, Batman: Year 100, Heavy Liquid, 100%, One Trick Ripoff and moreâ€¦

This latest venture, however, is aimed a general readership â€“ Hey, Kids, This Means You! – and introduces a world very similar to our own but with one big, big differenceâ€¦

Arcopolis City would be the perfect place to bring up kids but for one thing. Ghastly devils roam at night, stealing children. Even the days are increasingly fraught as a seemingly endless procession of monstrous beasts incessantly carves a swathe of mindless destruction through the bright, breezy thoroughfaresâ€¦

Of course the valiant sentinels of the Fighting 145^th do their very best to contain the daily onslaughts, but it is to jet-packed, ray-gun-wielding science hero Haggard West that the harried citizens look to end the crisis. Those heartfelt hopes are cruelly dashed, however, when hooded horror Sadisto lays a crafty trap and blasts the magnificent rocket-man out of the skyâ€¦

His daughter and apprentice Aurora is shattered as she watches her dad vanish in a blast of blazing plasmaâ€¦

Entire universes away, a shining citadel of warrior deities celebrates a very special event as the greatest pantheon of dutiful cosmic champions in the universe revels in the brief return of their mightiest hero. The stormy saviour of many worlds is back to see his son, who has reached a very special ageâ€¦

The Boy is not ready for his Turning Day. Even if every child born here is invariably sent into the cosmos on their 13^th birthday to save some lesser race from imminent peril on the venerable quest known as â€œa Rambleâ€, he knows he isn’t strong enough yet. After all, many of his childhood comrades have never returnedâ€¦

As usual, though, his puissant father knows best and the anxious lad (armed with a very special cloak, battle grieves, the Encyclopedia Monstrosity, keys to an apartment, a map, a magic credit card and a dozen totem tee-shirts) is booted out of the veritable Valhalla of the Starry Lofts and dumped on a mountaintop overlooking a seemingly continent-sized city â€¦just as a homogonous Humbaba rampages through Arcopolis eating cars and crushing tanksâ€¦

Before hurtling off to another appointment with destiny, the lad’s proud father casually reminds his spooked scion that if his â€œBattling Boyâ€ cannot end the plague of monsters on this world, humanity is finished hereâ€¦

Even as Aurora West begins to unlock the secrets of her father’s legacy and keenly embrace her own dreamed of destiny, the reluctant young demi-god makes his way to the epicentre of chaos and engages the ferocious furious Humbaba.

Things do not go according to planâ€¦

Wry, spectacular and astonishingly engaging, this is a supremely entertaining, beautifully rendered yarn with plenty of fast-paced action, judicious suspense, likable heroes and a gloriously arch villain in the Machiavellian Sadisto, whose subtle scams and unlikely alliances stretch far beyond this blockbusting premiere epic.

This is an ideal comic book for older kids, and reads even better if you’re their adult keeper or guardian. Don’t miss out on the start of something very special…
Â© 2013 by Paul Pope. All rights reserved.

Battling Boy will be published on October 8^th 2013.

May 30, 2013May 29, 2013

Essential Killraven

By Don McGregor & P. Craig Russell, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Bill Mantlo, Neal Adams, Herb Trimpe, Gene Colan & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1777-3

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 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-and-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, star writer, ex-English teacher and lover of literature Roy Thomas was increasingly dictating the direction of Marvel: creating new concepts and securing properties that could given the â€œMarvel Treatmentâ€.

The policy had paid huge dividends with the creation of new titles 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 compilation collects the bold and mercurial science-fiction thriller from Amazing Adventures #18-39, the saga’s nominal conclusion in Marvel Graphic Novel #7, a rare crossover appearance from Marvel Team-Up #45 and the 2001 Marvel Knights one-shot Killraven #1: 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 that spanned May 1973 to 1983 with occasional revivals and near-conclusions ever since.

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 dystopian tomorrow first dawned in Amazing Adventures #18, conceived by Thomas & Neal Adams, but scripted by Gerry Conway, wherein a ‘Prologue: 2018 A.D.’ introduced 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 finish the tale of how a refugee mother lost her life defending her two boys from terrifying alien Tripods and vile human turncoats who had early switched allegiance to their revolting, human-eating new mastersâ€¦

Young warrior and escaped gladiator Killraven then overcame 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 many 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 had occupied Earth since 2001â€¦

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

He reveals how his 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 movementâ€¦

However just as the story ends the liberator realises he has tarried too long as mutant monsters close inâ€¦

The adventure resumed in #19 as the rebel narrowly escaped the psionic snares of ‘The Sirens of 7^th Avenue’ (Conway, Chaykin & Frank McLaughlin) and the 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 to the status of genuine threat to the conquerors, the rebels planned a raid on a New Jersey base but were instead captured by the mesmerising Skarlet, Queen of the Sirens, who handed them over to the Martian in charge of the cityâ€¦

Forced to fight a mutated monstrosity in the alien’s private arena, Killraven unexpectedly turned the tables and drove off the gelatinous horror before boldly declaring that he was the guardian of Mankind’s heritage and would make Earth free againâ€¦

Amazing Adventures #20 was written by Marv Wolfman, with Herb Trimpe & Frank Giacoia illustrating ‘The Warlord Strikes!’, wherein the Freemen raided a museum and acquired weapons and armaments even as Killraven got himself a new look.

Easily defeating the traitorous lackeys of the Martian Masters the rebels were blithely unaware that the carnivorous extraterrestrial devils were deploying their latest tool: a cruelly augmented old enemy who hunted them down and easily overcame their primitive guns, swords and cross bows with his own onboard cyborg arsenalâ€¦

The ambitious 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 was a feisty, sharp-tongued geneticist and molecular biologist ostensibly faithful to her Martian masters, but she took the earliest opportunity to betray their local human lieutenant and help Killraven and the Freemen escape the brutal clutches of the Warlord.

For her own closely-guarded reasons, she and her bizarrely devoted monster anthropoid Grok the Clonal Man then joined the roving revolutionaries in their quest across the shattered continentâ€¦

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

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

The raid went badly however, and it was Killraven himself who ended up on the conquerors’ menu in ‘The Legend Assassins!’ wherein the newly liberated resistance fighters united in a last-ditch attempt to save their tempestuous leader from the High Overlord.

Killraven, meanwhile, found 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 strongman Old Skull and embittered Native American Hawk – arrived 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 was only temporary and they were quickly recaptured.

However their example impressed more than one disaffected collaborator. When former foes led by Sabre united in battle against the Martian Overlord, the result was a shattering defeat for the once-unbeatable oppressorsâ€¦

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

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

In issue #26 Gene Colan & Dan Adkins illustrated ‘Something Worth Dying For!’ as the Freemen reached Battle Creek, Michigan where the Rebel Rouser encountered a feral snake/horse hybrid that he simply had to possess before the band was ambushed by human outlaws guarding a fabulous ancient treasure at the behest of petty tyrant Pstun-Rage the Vigilantâ€¦

As the place had once been 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 gave their lives to protect and the pragmatic Killraven’s reaction to itâ€¦

The drama kicked into spectacular high gear in Amazing Adventures #27 with the arrival of Craig Russell (inked by Jack Abel) and the start of a dark epic entitled ‘The Death Breeders’.

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

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

The heroes were 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 had her own tragic reason for scouting the ghastly palaces of Death-birthâ€¦

Whilst the new allies undertook an explosively expensive sortie against the Death Breeders, at the same time in the far-distant halls of the Martian Kings of Earth, the Warlord was tasking the recovered, 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 had grown up around himâ€¦

In #28 (pencilled, inked and even coloured by Russell in the original) Ash revealed her horrific origins and the purpose of her quest as the Freemen battled monsters which abounded in the chemically compromised lake.

Elsewhere, chief butcher The Sacrificer watched 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 would be the main course for visiting Martian dignitariesâ€¦

Everything changed during Killraven’s fateful raid to liberate the human cattle, however. When the disgusted hero skewered one of the extraterrestrial horrors, he experienced severe psychic feedback and realised at last that his debilitating, disorienting visions had been an unsuspected ability to tap into Martian mindsâ€¦

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

With Amazing Adventures #29 the series title was changed to Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds as ‘The Hell Destroyers’ saw the rebel leader score his greatest victory, inspiring thousands of freshly-liberated earthlings by utterly destroying the temple of atrocity before gloriously escaping into the wilderness and modern 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 six-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 ended 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 hid as the Twilight People, the fugitives took refuge in a cavern. This was to allow an accompanying Eve to give birth in safety, but only led to an attack by a monolithic mutant monster just as their pursuers found them.

The battle changed the landscape and ended three ghastly travesties foreverâ€¦

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

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

Issue #33 was another deadline-busting fill-in. ‘Sing Out Loudlyâ€¦ Death!’ was written by Bill Mantlo and illustrated by Trimpe & D. Bruce Berry, wherein the Freemen took refuge from the elements in a vast cave and encountered a hostile tribe of refugee African Americans who had gone native and returned to their roots.

The hidden wild men had 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 Cyclops ambushed the wanderers when they reached Chattanooga, Tennessee and caused ‘A Death in the Family’ (McGregor & Russell) – two deaths, actually – before the heartbroken, enraged Warrior of the Worlds literally tore his gloating nemesis to piecesâ€¦

Killraven fully entered Marvel Universe continuity – albeit on a branch line – with a crossover appearance by Spider-Man: courtesy of a time-and-space spanning multi-parter in Marvel Team-Up which saw the Amazing Arachnid lost and visiting the past and a number of alternate tomorrows.

From issue #45 ‘Future: Shock!’ by Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito saw the weary Wallcrawler wash up in this particular furious future just as Killraven was cornered by killer tripods, and offer arachnid assistance as the liberators stumbled into an hallucinogenic nightmare. Immediate problem solved, the chronologically adrift Arachnid continued his time-tossed travelsâ€¦

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

‘Red Dust Legacy’ (illustrated by Russell & Sonny Trinidad in #36) focused on Killraven’s developing psychic powers as the charismatic champion gained unwelcome insights into the Martian psyche, even as The Warlord travelled to Yellowstone and taunted the rebel leader with news that his long-lost brother Joshua lived. The hero had no idea it was as an indoctrinated pawn code-named Death Raven.

The self-appointed defender of humanity then invaded a replica Martian environment in Georgia and destroyed the Martians’ next generation by contaminating their incubatorsâ€¦

Inked by Abel, #37 revealed the origins of affable Old Skull in ‘Arena Kill!’ when the wanderers discovered a clandestine enclave of humans in the Okefenokee Wildlife Preserve.

One final fill-in by Mantlo, Giffin & Al Milgrom appeared in #38. ‘Death’s Dark Dreamer!’ saw Killraven separated and stumble into a wrecked but still functional dream-dome to battle the materialised fantasies of its ancient occupant, whose pre-invasion memories fuelled attacks by 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’â€¦

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 beginning, but in this monochrome edition Russell’s stunning colour artwork suffers egregiously from being reduced to greyscale tones, and if you get the chance to see the original Graphic Novel version, grab it and runâ€¦

Those same artistic mixed results plague the last tale in this tome too.

In 2001 the Marvel Knights imprint offered another revival as Killraven #1, written and painted by Joseph Michael Linsner with Eva Hopkins, saw the Warrior of the Worlds back in New York as ‘Killraven: 2020’, fleeing tripods and stumbling into an untouched alcove where a flower-child from 1976 lay preserved in a hibernation-chamber.

Alice and two dozen happy young liberals thought to sleep their way out of the pollution, violence and corruption of those unhappy times, but as the only survivor she found the future far from what she had expected.

The unhappy Hippy did have some life-changing advice and insights for the crazy war-monger who rescued her, thoughâ€¦

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.

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 that no serious fan or fantasy addict should miss. Do it now: the future is not your friendâ€¦
Â© 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1983, 2001, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

May 22, 2013May 21, 2013

Ratspike

By John Blanche & Ian Miller (Games Workshop)
ISBN: 978-1-87237-200-6

I haven’t covered an actual art book in an age, so let’s look at a little known gem sorely in need of a new edition featuring the grotesquely beautiful art of painter and illustrator Ian Miller (The City, The Luck in the Head, Green Dog Trumpet) and designer, model-maker and illustrator John Blanche.

Both eclectic individualists found a spiritual home and an outlet for their fantastic fantasy imaginings at role-playing, book and comics publisher Games Workshop/Black Library, and their painterly endeavours happily led to the stunning celebration of the macabre and mind-bending melange of modern myth realisation under review today.

The legendary entertainment firm began by importing American product at the beginning of the Dungeons and Dragons craze in the 1980s before quickly moving on to creating their own material. Soon they were expanding into prose and pictorial fiction too, supported by some frankly astounding illustration material on their game packaging, periodical publications (White Dwarf, Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, Warhammer 40,000, Inferno and others) as well as sequences of original material novels in the fantasy, horror and science fiction genres.

This stunning oversized (29 x 21.8 x 1.5cm) hardback coffee-table tome was released in 1989 and offers a mesmerising selection of paintings and drawing from two uniquely inspired creators, beginning, after a Foreword by fantasy illustration giant Patrick Woodroffe, with John Blanche.

Eventually becoming Games Workshop’s Art Director, Blanche got his first big break after meeting Roger Dean, subsequently going on to develop a dark, punk-inspired painstakingly classical illustration style, usually working smaller than published size and having his work â€œblown upâ€, not reduced, for printing.

This compulsive chronicle combines, intersperses and interweaves the art with creator commentary, personal memories, insights and creative secrets as well as evocative literary quotes and snatches of poetry to enhance the images and, after Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, plunges into a welter of nearly 80 paintings and drawings over 62 pages, crammed with amazons, warriors, aliens, barbarians, fairy princes, eldritch post-apocalyptic demons and all the attendant genre icons beloved by generations of imaginers.

The affable maven of menace macabre discusses his unforgettable work such as ‘Ice Unicorn’, ‘War Boss’, ‘Good King Otto’, ‘Amazonia Gothique’ and ‘McDeath’ plusÂ devoting much time to the infinitesimal discipline of building and painting miniatures – many of which have their own scarily impressive, ironically, mordantly funny section here.

The second half of the book is devoted to Ian Miller’s bleakly complex, convoluted classicist DÃ¼rer, Bosch and Druillet inspired futurisms which, before his association with Games Workshop, were best seen illustrating Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft and Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast stories as well as in films such as Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards and Coolworld.

His concluding half of the graphic gallery – 68 pages in all – combines quotes from Treasure Island, children’s nonsense rhymes, an intimate biography and disquieting slogans and snatches of prose with sketches, drawings, pen-and-ink studies and more than 100 paintings and less conventional images, displaying the artist’s signature brain-blasting architecture, eye-shredding monsters, blasted trees, isolated warriors and chaos knights.

Also on show are notional comic-strip sequences and works with such evocative if non-defining titles as ‘Death in the Rocking Horse Factory’, ‘Udder Woman, Killer of Cows’, ‘Angel Butcher’, ‘Hollywood Gothic’ and ‘Those Sent to that Dark Place’, all guaranteed to subtly engender unease and worseâ€¦

With the fantasy genre in full revival mode thanks to the likes of movies like The Hobbit and TV shows like Game of Thrones and Da Vinci’s Demons, there’s never been a better time to revisit this book or even further explore the lost marvels of a superb cadre of forgotten artists. So if you need to escape this ghastly world of humdrum terrors for a brief moment – and don’t we all? – seek out this Bestiary of the Bizarre and let yourself goâ€¦
Â© 1989 GW Books. Â© John Blanche & Ian Miller. All rights reserved.

May 3, 2013May 2, 2013

Jeremy Brood part 1: Relativity & Fantagor Presents Brood

By Richard Corben & Jan Strnad with additional designs by Stan Dresser (Fantagor Press/Longhorn Book Distribution)
ASIN: B0006F7UMUÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â ISBN: 978-0-96238-410-3

Richard Corben is one of America’s greatest proponents and pioneers of graphic narrative: a legendary animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist who surfed the tumultuous wave of independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a major force in pictorial storytelling with his own unmistakable style and vision. Renowned for his mastery of airbrush and anatomical stylisation – producing works of captivatingly excessive overwhelming eroticism – and infamous for delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror, fantasy and science fiction tales, Corben’s epic storytelling, violent, cathartically graphic and often blackly hilarious triumphs through the 1970s and 1980s were instrumental in making comics a mainstream medium and art form for mature readers.

Always garnering huge support and acclaim in Europe, he was regularly collected in luxurious albums even as he fell out of favour – and print – in his own country. Although most acclaimed for interpretations of classic horror literature, he is equally adept at capturing the alarming nuances of technological terror and cynical political intrigue in shocking science fiction tales such as the truncated epic spotlighted here.

In 1982 he began, with long-time collaborator Jan Strnad, a proposed series of European style square-bound albums starring a troubled star traveller, but it sadly fell victim to an economic downturn before it could find its feet. This taste of a tantalisingly uncompleted greater epic began in Jeremy Brood: Relativity and was brought to an abrupt finish in the magazine Fantagor Presents Brood (Fantagor #5, 1983). The tale has since been collected in a book in 1989 and subsequently re-released in 1998.

The original chronicle begins with a fascinating glimpse at the artist’s working process in his picture-packed ‘Illustrators Notes’ before the full Technicolor experience opens with spare-faring civil servant Brood and his horny but frustrated co-pilot Charlene receiving a sub-space transmission from Earth.

An agent on the planet Eden has sent a distress call and they are to divert there at top speed. Their civilisation is at a cultural crossroads and needs nudging in the right direction – or so planetary sociologist Bernard Finchley claims.

However due to the relativistic nature of near-light speeds, the message is three years old by the time it reaches them and their short trip to Eden will take two centuries in local timeâ€¦

When they at last arrive, the promised paradise world is a hot, dry desert but, following protocol and armed with the latest tapes of the language, Brood dons a disguise and makes his way to the nearest city, leaving Char and the ship as back-up in case of trouble.

It finds him anyway and the Earthman is attacked by barbaric grotesques and has to get physical with the brutesâ€¦

In the intervening years Eden has fallen into religious fanaticism, and as Brood enters the devastated city he is found by an aged cleric who draws him towards a vast gathering. The worshippers are about to sacrifice another nubile virgin maid to Holobar – an increasingly rare occurrence as most girls wisely â€œdisqualifyâ€ themselves at their very first opportunity – in the hope that the prophesied saviour will appear to deliver them from their oppressive all-conquering deity. As Jeremy watches in secure anonymous horror, his ancient guide Narrl hurls him into the middle of the ceremony and urges him to deflower the alien maiden or be torn apart by the mobâ€¦

Repressed WASP Brood used to have trouble getting sufficiently amorous even with his black girlfriend in the privacy of their spaceship – and she was actually the same species – so this horrific situation almost ends in disaster until the old wise man smashes the stone mask on a huge idol above the altar. Underneath, the monolith has Brood’s faceâ€¦

Shocked, panicked and realising he’s been set up by a man dead for centuries, Brood at last accomplishes what he was dispatched for, encouraged in equal measure by the willing female under him and the screaming fanatics surrounding him.

Meanwhile miles distant, desert brigands mount a lethal assault on the grounded starshipâ€¦

Safe for the present, Brood and his new bride Brynne are filled in by the devious alien Priest – who is also Narrl’s brother. The old connivers are the great grandsons of Finchley and a native girl, and their family has been working to build a counter-religion and messiah-cult based on Brood’s eventual arrival in the expectation that his Earth technology will allow them to overthrow the oppressive, draconian fundamentalist followers of Holobar â€¦

Jeremy can’t think about his proposed role as rabble-rousing rebel: he’s lost radio contact with Char, and is forced to trek back to the ship. En route, however, Narrl tries to kill Brood, revealing himself to be a traitor seeking to destroy the saviour and crush the people’s hope of redemption forever. Eradiating his betrayer Brood pushes on, only to discover he is now the only Earthling on Edenâ€¦

Fantagor Presents Brood came out a year later: a special edition of Corben’s own occasional and self-published art magazine which ran a conclusion of sorts in full colour, supplemented by a black and white reprint and a new unconnected monochrome fantasy tale.

(In case you’re wondering the reprint was Razar the Unhero’ written in 1970 by Herb Arnold as â€œStarr Armitageâ€: a dark and sexily violent spoof with a deprecating edge, deliciously lampooning the Sword and Sorcery epics dominating paperback bookshelves of the day. The new tale was ‘Ogre II’, a tragic comic monster love story sequel to a yarn that ran in Warren Publishing’s 1984 #4.)

Jeremy Brood however starred in the rocket-paced all-action shocker ‘The Big Shriek!’ which picked up moments after Relativity endedâ€¦

As Jeremy buries what remains of Charlene, hordes of airborne dragon-riding Holobar zealots pass over his head heading towards the city and the (presumably) impregnated Edenite Madonna, determined to end the heretical resistance foreverâ€¦

Soon the city is under shattering bombardment and all looks black until the infuriated Brood storms in, crashing his barely airworthy ship into the central square and briefly driving back in the attackers.

Retreating to the temple, Brood and Brynne prepare for their inevitable end, but the cunning far-seeing and ruthless Bernard Finchley and his devoted disciple Priest had arranged a last-ditch contingency plan, with no thought at the horrific cost their centuries-separated dupe Jeremy would be forced to payâ€¦

Moody and trenchant, laced with sparkling irreverence and cynicism, this parable could and should have found time to fully flower but the times and trends were against it. However Corben and Strnad’s sublime acumen in depicting humanity’s primal drives and inescapable failings has never been better exemplified, and at least the 80 or so pages that were complete are still available in one single edition should you care to check out yet one more book no comics or fantasy fan should be without.
Â© 1982, 1983, 1989 Richard Corben and Jan Strnad. All rights reserved.

April 16, 2013April 19, 2013

Essential Thor volume 5

By Gerry Conway, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Don Perlin, Vince Colletta, Jim Mooney & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5093-0

Whilst the ever-expanding Marvel Universe had grown ever-more interconnected as it matured, with characters literally tripping over each other in New York City, the Asgardian heritage of Thor and the soaring imagination of Jack Kirby had most often drawn the Thunder God away from mortal realms into stunning, unique landscapes and scenarios.

By the time of this fifth Essential monochrome compendium, an unthinkable Changing of the Guard had seen the King of Comics jump ship from the House of (His) Ideas to arch-rival DC where he crafted the unfinished Magnum Opus of the Fourth World series as well as a number of other game-changing concepts.

The Thunder God suffered a sharp, sudden loss of imaginative impetus, however, which left the series floundering, despite the best efforts of (arguably) the company’s greatest remaining illustrators, Neal Adams and John Buscema. More than any other Marvel feature, The Mighty Thor was the strip where Kirby’s creative brilliance had always found its greatest release in cosmic wandering and questing exploration of an infinite and dangerous universe.

His dreaming, extrapolating and honing of a dazzling new kind of storytelling and graphic symbology, wedded to soul-searching, mind-boggling concepts of Man’s place in the universe – and all within the limited confines of a 20-page action adventure – was an impossible act to follow.

Although his successors mimicked the trappings of that incredible conceptual juggling act, the heart, soul and soaring, unfettered wonder just were not there any longer – nor would they be until 1983 when Walt Simonson assumed creative control with #337 (see Mighty Thor: the Ballad of Beta Ray Bill).

By the time these monthly episodes (from issues #196-220, February 1972 to February 1974) saw print, the Thunder God and his Asgardian companions were slowly devolving into a muddled, self-doubting band of fantasy spacemen roving the outer limits of the Marvel Universe under the earnest but uninspired governance of young science fiction novelist Gerry Conway and a dedicated, talented but still somehow inappropriate string of artists.

The previous volume had seen Asgard again imperilled by mystic monstrosity Mangog with Thor and friends dispatched on another extended odyssey to the ends of the Universe in search of succour and water from The Twilight Well. In his righteous rage Odin had previously banished God of Evil Loki to a fantastic world, momentarily forgetting that once there the Prince of Evil could awaken the most vicious, unbeatable monster in the universeâ€¦

Now the Thunderer, with Warriors Three Fandral the Dashing, Voluminous Volstagg and Hogun the Grim, found himself lost ‘Within the Realm of Kartag!’ (illustrated by John Buscema & Vince Colletta): facing slug-men and bewitching temptress Satrina even as the All-Father and the hosts of the Shining City struggled to hold Mangog at bay. Meanwhile on the planet Blackworld Lady Sif and her muscular shield-maiden Hildegarde were undertaking another Odinian quest and found themselves caught up in a time-bending nightmareâ€¦

Thor #197 saw the heroes overcome all odds to find ‘The Well at the Edge of the World!’ meeting the conniving, all-powerful Norns and recruiting the colossal Kartag for their desperate return to shattered Asgard.

On Blackworld Sif and Hildegarde encountered monsters and men making uncontrollable evolutionary leaps towards an unguessable future, but found an unlikely ally and guide in aged sailor Silas Grant.

The male heroes returned to find Asgard in flaming ruins and the cataclysmic confrontation with the Mangog nearing an apocalyptic end, whilst on Blackworld Sif, Hildegarde and Silas met alien Rigellian Colonizer Tana Nile and the horrendous creature behind the evolutionary jumps. Simultaneously the battle in Asgard reached a horrific climax when Mangog was at last defeated ‘â€¦And Odin Dies!’

Issue #199 saw the ravaged home of the gods adrift in a dimensional void, allowing Thor – clutching to a desperate last hope – to cocoon his deceased father in a timeless forcefield, preventing Dark Goddess Hela from claiming his soul. However she wasn’t the only deity hungry for the All Father’s spirit and ‘If This Be Death…!’ revealed Grecian netherlord Pluto invading the broken realm to take Odin into his own dire domain.

â€¦And, on Blackworld, Tana Nile hinted at the origin of the monstrous Ego-Prime and how it can force such terrifying uncontrollable time-warpsâ€¦

Back in free-floating Asgard, things went from bad to worse as brave Balder‘s beloved Karnilla deserted him just as invincible Pluto defeated Hela and aimed a killing blow at Thorâ€¦

The denouement was aggravatingly delayed as anniversary issue #200 hit the pause button to flashback to an earlier age. ‘Beware! If This Beâ€¦ Ragnarok!’ was crafted by Stan Lee, John Buscema & John Verpoorten and spectacularly depicted the fall of the gods through the mystic visions of Volla the Prophetess, with only a bridging Prologue and Epilogue by Conway & Buscema revealing the Norns saving Thor’s life just in time for the concluding battle against Pluto in #201 (with Jim Mooney providing lush finished art over Buscema’s layouts).

When Hela relinquished her claim to the father of the gods and Odin enjoyed a miraculous ‘Resurrection!’, on Earth absentee Asgardians Heimdall and Kamorr began seeking out mortals for a another Odinian master-plan even before the battle with Pluto was fully concluded. As they scoured Midgard, on Blackworld Ego-Prime advanced the civilisation into atomic Armageddon and Sif barely transported her companions to Earth in time to escape the thermonuclear conflagration.

Luckily Thor, Balder, and the Warriors Three were in New York City to meet the refugees, since the deadly, now self-evolving, Ego-Prime had followed themâ€¦

Thor #202 boasted ‘â€¦And None Dare Stand ‘Gainst Ego-Prime!’ (Buscema & Colletta) although Silas, Tana Nile and the assembled Asgardians tried their best as the now-sentient shard of Ego, the Living Planet rampaged across the city making monsters and shattering entire streets, whilst Odin calmly observed the carnage and destruction and Heimdall and Kamorr gathered their human targets for the concluding ‘They Walk Like Gods!’, wherein all Odin’s machinations were finally revealed as Ego-Prime inadvertently created a new race of 20^th century deities. Sadly the All-Father’s long and single-minded scheme appalled his son and weary, war-torn subjects, whose understandable rebukes led to them all being ‘Exiled on Earth!’ in #204 (Buscema & Mooney) and soon targeted by terrifying satanic tempter Mephistoâ€¦

Soon only the Thunderer was left to oppose the devil invading his private hell and liberating hundreds of demon-possessed humans from ‘A World Gone Mad!’ (Colletta inks), after which the Earth-bound godling clashed brutally but inconclusively with the uncharacteristically amok Crusher Creel, the Absorbing Man just as Thor’s greatest enemy resurfaced in #206’s ‘Rebirth!’

Tracking the escaped Creel to Rutland, Vermont during their annual Halloween festival, Thor, Sif and Hildegarde clashed with the malevolent Loki and his all-powerful ‘Firesword!’ in an action-heavy duel elevated by a plethora of comic creator cameos with the divine Marie Severin adding her caricaturing brilliance to Buscema & Colletta’s workmanlike illustration. Another extended sub-ploy opened here as Sif vanished, spirited away by the love-lorn Karnilla to the ends of the universeâ€¦

Sci fi themes took the lead again in Thor #208 as ‘The Fourth-Dimensional Man!’ manifested, stealing the Thunderer’s ambient Asgardian energies to save his own world from disaster. Sadly they were insufficient and the malevolent Mercurio needed to tap his source directly resulting in battle without mercy as Thor’s noble spirit gradually gave way to the despair of exile and constant lossâ€¦

Incessantly searching for Sif, Thor stopped in London (not one any Briton would ever recognise though) in #209 long enough to accidentally awaken a sleeping alien dormant since the building of Stonehenge. The resultant clash between Thunder God and â€œDemon Druidâ€ devastated much of England in ‘Warriors in the Night!’ before being ambushed in Red China by Mao’s soldiers in #210 ‘The Hammer and the Hellfire!‘ (Buscema, Don Perlin & Colletta). They were merely the action appetiser, however, since ultimate Troll Ulik had decided to conquer both his own people and Earth and moved pre-emptively to remove his greatest foe from the equationâ€¦

With New York invaded by Troll warriors, #211 revealed ‘The End of the Battle!’ (Buscema, Perlin & Colletta) as the fighting mad Asgardians routed the underworld insurgents just as an insane Balder returned to warn that Asgard had been conquered. With the Realm Eternal emptied of gods and occupied by sleazy lizard-men, Thor and his companions were soon hot on the trail of their missing race. Guided by saurian rogue Sssthgar and his serpentine horde, they undertook a ‘Journey to the Golden Star!’ in #212 and discovered their liege and kin meek chattels on a slaver’s auction blockâ€¦

Scripted by Len Wein over Conway’s plot, ‘The Demon Brigade!’ saw Thor betrayed by the Lizard Lord and embroiled in a war between slaver races before discovering Sssthgar’s secret and freeing his father. He also obtained a lead to the whereabouts of Sif and Karnilla, consequently plunging his small dedicated party of heroes recklessly ‘Into the Dark Nebula!’ (by Conway, Sal Buscema & Mooney) to rescue the missing maidens from the asteroid miners who had purchased them.

They found their quarry besieged by the 4D Man and his army, who were intent on acquiring a malign, sentient source of infinite power, but events took an uncanny turn when ‘The God in the Jewel’ (John Buscema & Mooney) absorbed the women into its crystalline mass and took off, intent on dominating all life in the universeâ€¦

Forced to become allies of convenience, the Asgardians and Mercurio strove together ‘Where Chaos Rules!’ to free the women and stop the rapacious gem-god, but even after eventual victory found them tenuous comrades, Thor’s trials were not done.

Returning in triumph to a mysteriously rebuilt Asgard in #217, the wanderers found ‘All Swords Against Them!’ (Sal Buscema inking brother John), as impossible doppelgangers of Odin, Thor and the rest greeted them with murderous hostility. Whilst the Thunder God furiously battled to unravel this latest mystery, in another sector of the universe the all-conquering Colonizers of Rigel were put to flight and abandoned their worlds to an all-consuming force of sheer destructionâ€¦

Thor #218 proved there was no rest for the weary as the victorious Asgardians again took ship for deep space to prevent the Rigellians’ doom from reaching Earth. ‘Where Pass the Black Stars There Also Passesâ€¦ Death!’ (J. Buscema & Mooney) found the hard-travelling heroes discovering a nomadic race of colossal, decadent star-farers who fuelled their unending flight by recycling thriving civilisations into food and power.

In distant Asgard, Hildegarde’s young sister Krista was slowly falling under the sway of sinister seductive evil even as her hereditary protectors were a cosmos away, infiltrating one of the Black Stars’ cosmic scoops and encountering a race of mechanical slaves in

#219’s ‘A Galaxy Consumed!’ (inked by Mike Esposito) before this volume’s story-portion ends with #220, wherein the slaves and their charismatic messiah Avalon are at last freed and untold galaxies subsequently saved from callous consumption in ‘Behold! The Land of Doom!’

This collection also includes fact-filled Marvel Universe Handbook pages on Pluto, Tana Nile, and Mercurio, the 4-D Man.

The Kirby Thor will always be a high-point in graphic fantasy, all the more impressive for the sheer imagination and timeless readability of the tales. With his departure the series foundered for the longest time before finding a new identity, but his successors did their honest best to follow in his Brobdingnagian footsteps.

The tales gathered here may lack the sheer punch and verve of The King but fans of cosmic Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy will find this tome still stuffed with intrigue and action, magnificently rendered by artists who, whilst not possessing Kirby’s vaulting visionary passion, were every inch his equal in craft and dedication, making this a definite mustÂ for all fans of the character and the genre.

April 12, 2013April 11, 2013

The Umbrella Academy volume 2: Dallas

By Gerard Way & Gabriel BÃ¡ (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-345-8

Superheroes have been around long enough now that they’ve been able to evolve into different sub-sets: straight Save-the-World continuity types as championed by DC and Marvel, obsessively â€œrealâ€ or realist iterations such as Marvelman, Crossfire or Kick-Ass, comedic spins like Justice League International or She-Hulk and some rare ducks that straddle a few barstools in between.

Addressing the same Edgy, Catastrophic Absurdism as Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol, the archly anti-didactic antics of The Umbrella Academy offered readers a subtly subversive take on the idiom which impressed the heck out of everybody and lured many disillusioned fans back to the pitifully tired and over-used genre when first releasedâ€¦

This second collected volume gathers the frenzied fantastical follow-up 6-issue miniseries as well as an offering a chance to see the 8-page online yarn from MySpace Dark Horse Presents #12.

Once upon a time a strange event occurred. All across Earth, 43 babies were unexpectedly born as the result of apparent immaculate conceptions â€“ or perhaps some kind of inexplicable parthenogenesis.

The births even surprised the mothers, most of whom discarded, abandoned, sold or had adopted their unexpected, terrifying newborns.

Notorious scientist entrepreneur and closet extraterrestrial Sir Reginald Hargreeves, inventor of the Levitator, mobile umbrella communicator, Clever Crisp cereal, Televator and a process which enabled chimps to speak had a secret plan, and he knew the kids would all be special. He thus acquired seven of these miracle babies for an undisclosed purpose, subsequently rearing and training the children to become his private superhero team to enact it.

He was in no way a â€œgoodâ€ parentâ€¦

The callously experimental family, after a spectacular early career eventually proved to be unmanageable and the Umbrella Academy – created and trained â€œto save the Worldâ€ â€“ sundered in grief and acrimony, but not before poor Ben, Number 6 AKA â€œThe Horrorâ€, pointlessly lost his brave young life and Number 5 â€œThe Boyâ€ took a short trip into the future and never came backâ€¦

The surviving members of the utterly dysfunctional superhero team parted but were reunited twenty years later when the news broke that Hargreeves – whose nom de guerre was The Monocle – had diedâ€¦

In the interim, Number 1 son Luther became an off-earth defender and pioneer, so hideously damaged by a doomed journey to Mars that to save him, Hargeeves had grafted The Spaceboy‘s head onto the body of a colossal Martian Gorilla.

Poor, neglected Vanya, whose musical gifts Hargreeves deemed utterly useless, became a drop-out and wrote a scandalous tell-all book before becoming a voluntary exile amidst Earth’s lowest dregs. When Number 7 returned she was again rejected by her â€œfamilyâ€ and summarily seduced by a manic musician who unleashed her true potential and almost destroyed the world with her untapped powerâ€¦

The Boy returned after sixty years of ranging through the time-stream and materialised in the body of the ten-year old he had been, However, his physical form was frozen and he stopped aging at that momentâ€¦

Favourite friend, technologist, housekeeper, actual lifelong care-giver and talking chimp Dr. Pogo had died in Vanya’s – or rather The White Violin‘s – apocalyptic attack which had left Allison (Number 3, The Rumor) with her throat severed, apparently forever deprived of her talent for warping reality with a wordâ€¦

Diego (Number 2, The Kraken) remained the obsessive scary vigilante psychopath he’d always been but Klaus (Number 4, The SÃ©ance) was even weirder than before: a floating, shoeless space-case who talked to the dead and pulled the wings off the laws of physicsâ€¦

Once upon a time, long ago and whilst still children, the UmbrellaAcademy saved WashingtonDC from an animated and extremely angry Lincoln Memorial. They’ve had an odd relationship with American Presidents ever sinceâ€¦

Now having saved the entire world from prophesied destruction, the dysfunctional quintet are at a loss and killing time in the rubble of their old home: Luther zones out watching TV, Klaus pampers himself, Diego keeps busy assaulting various underworld ne’er-do-wells, and maimed Allison offers rather radical treatment to amnesiac Vanya.

Only The Boy is really busy as he deals mercilessly with yet another attempt by chronal cops of the Temps Aeternalis to make him fulfil the mission they recruited and rebuilt him for.

In ‘The Jungle’ of the modern world nobody is a more apex predator than the time-locked tyke, but his former masters are adamant he should fulfil his purpose and send in their most dreaded expediters Hazel and Cha-Chaâ€¦

‘Boy Scouts’ sees The Kraken and Police Inspector Lupo closing in on the mystery assailant leaving dismembered bodies all over the city – and slowly becoming aware how little they really know about the fortuitously returned Number 5 – whilst billionaire John Perseus arrives back in town with a most mysterious crate which definitely bodes badly for all humanityâ€¦.

It’s The Rumour who actually tracks down The Boy and gets to the truth even as the unstoppable Hazel and Cha-Cha make their first gory moveâ€¦

‘Television or Are You There, God? It’s Me, Klaus’ sees The SÃ©ance desperately seeking assistance before succumbing to the time-tossed, sugar-crazed killer couple as the horrific story of The Boy comes out.

Temps Aeternalis spent a lot of time and effort upgrading the kid into the perfect assassin for difficult, history-altering missions and even after a relative eternity of brutal successes they still need him for the Big One.

Dallas 1963â€¦

Klaus, meanwhile, has moved on and is chatting with the Big Guy in Heaven when Luther becomes Hazel and Cha-Cha’s next target in the campaign to get the rebellious Number 5 to do what he was re-made for. If the world is to survive Kennedy must die â€“ but Number 5 just won’t play ball and reality is beginning to sufferâ€¦

A countdown to nuclear Armageddon starts ticking as ‘A Perfect Life’ finds the separated Hargreeves clan all zeroing in on yet another end of the world and taking extraordinary steps to stop it.

Rumour and the Boy for example, ally themselves with the Temps Aeternalis and agree to personally stop The Boy (the other one but it’s really him too, see) whereas Luther, Diego and the freshly resurrected Klaus opt for a straight time-jaunt to the kill-zone to lay in ambush.

Sadly they miss by years and have to wait a bit for their plan to come to fruition in ‘All the Animals in the Zoo’ before all the alternate Earth craziness is superbly made sensible and satisfactorily wrapped up in the deviously bravura climax of ‘The World is Big Enough Without You’â€¦

Also included are an Introduction from Neil Gaiman, a brace of Afterwords by Way and BÃ¡ (‘Texas is the Reason’ and ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’ respectively) and a short revelatory glimpse at the rebellious teen years of Vanya and Diego and their punk band The Prime 8s in the deeply moving ‘Anywhere but Here’ from MySpace Dark Horse Presents #12 (July 2007).

This volume concludes with more fascinating behind-the-scenes secrets of ‘Designing the Umbrella Academy’.

Whilst happily swiping, homaging, sampling and remixing the coolest elements from many and varied comics sources, The Umbrella Academy created a unique synthesis and achieved its own distinctive originality within the tired confines of the superhero genre. It’s a reading experience no jaded comics fan should miss.
Text and illustrations of the Umbrella Academy â„¢ Â© 2008, 2009 Gerard Way. All rights reserved.

April 9, 2013April 19, 2013

Doctor Who Graphic Novels volume 15: Nemesis of the Daleks

By Richard Starkings, John Tomlinson, John Freeman, Paul Cornell, Dan Abnett, Steve Moore, Lee Sullivan, John Ridgway, Steve Dillon, David Lloyd & many and various (Panini Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-531-4

The British love comic strips and they love celebrity and they love â€œOdd Characters.â€

The history of our graphic narrative has a peculiarly disproportionate amount of radio comedians, stars of theatre, film and TV such as Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Askey, Winifred Atwell, Max Bygraves, Charlie Drake and their ilk, as well as actual shows and properties such as Whacko!, ITMA, Our Gang, (there was a British version of the Hal Roach film sensation by Dudley Watkins in Dandy as well as the American comicbook series by Walt Kelly), Old Mother Riley, Supercar, Pinky & Perky and literally hundreds more.

Anthology comics such as Radio Fun, Film Fun, TV Fun, Look-In, TV Tornado, TV Comic and Countdown amongst others translated our viewing and listening favourites into pictorial escapism every week, and it was a pretty poor lead or show which couldn’t parley the day job into a licensed comic property.

Television’s Doctor Who premiered with part one of ‘An Unearthly Child’ on November 23^rd 1963, and the following year his (their?) decades-long association with TV Comic began in issue #674 and the first instalment of ‘The Klepton Parasites’ – so this year marks the 50^th or Golden Anniversary of the evergreen show and the 49^th (Apoplexium, I believe) of the strip iteration.

On 11^th October 1979 (although, adhering to the US off-sale cover-dating system, it says 17^th) Marvel’s UK subsidiary launched Doctor Who Weekly, which became a monthly magazine in September 1980 (#44) and has been with us through various title-changes ever since. All of which only goes to prove that the Time Lord is a comic hero with an impressive pedigree and big shoes to fill.

Marvel/Panini is in the ongoing process of collecting every strip from the prodigious annals and archives in a uniform series of over-sized graphic albums, each concentrating on a particular incarnation of the deathless wanderer. This particular one gathers stories from a range of sources (specifically Doctor Who Magazine #152-156, 159-162, The Incredible Hulk Presents #1-12, Doctor Who Weekly #17-20, #27-30 and Doctor Who Monthly #44-46; spanning 1980-1990) and nominally stars the Seventh Doctor -Sylvester McCoy.

Also on show are some awesome ancillary stars from the monolithic Time Lord Universe (Whoniverse?) including the eponymous trundling terrors of the title, legendary cosmic crusaders the Star Tigers and the long-revered tragic, demented antihero Abslom Daak, Dalek-Killer.

Delivered beauty-contest style in reverse order, the magnificent magic opens with the cataclysmic ‘Nemesis of the Daleks’ (from DWM #152-155) as Richard and Steve Alan – AKA Richard Starkings & John Tomlinson – deliver a definitive and classic clash between the nomadic Time Lord and the ultimate foes of life wherein the deadly Daleks enslave a primitive civilisation and drive the pitiful native Helkans to the brink of extinction by forcing them to construct a Dalek Death Wheel armed with the universe’s most potent and toxic Weapon of Mass Destruction.

Grittily illustrated by Lee Sullivan, the blockbuster saga opens with the valiant last stand of incongruous chmpions the Star Tigers before the peripatetic Doctor accidentally arrives in the right place at the wrong time – no surprise there then – and joins death-obsessed Abslom Daak in a hopeless attempt to stop the Emperor of the Daleks from achieving supreme powerâ€¦

Filled with evocative do-or-die heroics this is a battle only one being can surviveâ€¦

As a complete change-of-pace, ‘Stairway to Heaven’ (#156 from January 1990 and by John Freeman, Paul Cornell & Gerry Dolan) offers a wry and merrily murderous poke at modern art and the slavish gullibility of its patrons that still holds true today – and probably always willâ€¦

The Incredible Hulk Presents was a short-lived reprint weekly from Marvel UK which launched on September 30^th 1989, targeting younger readers and featuring four media-fed features.

As well as the Big Green TV sensation it also reprinted American-produced stories of Indiana Jones and GI Joe/Action Force, but the mix was augmented by all-new adventures of the Gallant Gallifreyan by a rapidly rotating roster of British creators.

The plan was to eventually reprint the Who stories in DWM â€“ thus maximising the costly outlay of new material at a time in British comics publishing where every penny counted. It didn’t quite go to plan and the comic folded after 12 issues, with only a couple of the far simpler – though no less enjoyable offerings – ever making it into the more mature magazine publication.

It all began with ‘Once in a Lifetime’ by Freeman & Geoff Senior wherein an obnoxious alien reporter learned to his dismay that some stories are too big even for the gutter press, after which issues #2-3 featured creators Dan Abnett & John Ridgway whose ‘Hunger From the Ends of Time!’ saw the Doctor and Foreign Hazard Duty – the future iteration of UNIT – save the Universal Library from creatures who literally consumed knowledge.

‘War World!’ by Freeman, Art Wetherell & Dave Harwood found the irascible time-traveller uncharacteristically fooled by an (un)common foot soldier, whilst in ‘Technical Hitch’ by Abnett & Wetherell, the Doctor saved a lonely spacer from unhappy dreams of paradiseâ€¦

Freeman & Senior concocted a riotous, monster-mash for ‘A Switch in Time!’ whilst ‘The Sentinel!’ by Tomlinson & Andy Wildman found the Time Lord helpless before a being beyond the limits of temporal physics who claimed to have created all life in the universe but still needed a little something from Gallifrey to finish his latest projectâ€¦

Another 2-parter in #8-9 declared ‘Who’s That Girl!’ as the Doctor’s latest regeneration apparently resulted in a female form just as the Time Lord was required toÂ stop an inter-dimensional war between malicious macho martial empires. Of course there was more than met the eye going in this silly but engaging thriller by Simon Furman, John Marshall & Stephen Baskerville.

Simon Jowett & Wildman produced a light-hearted salutary fable as ‘The Enlightenment of Ly-Chee the Wise’ proved that some travellers are too much for even the most mellow of meditators to handle, after which Mike Collins, Tim Robins & Senior proved just how dangerous fat-farms could be in ‘Slimmer!’ before The Incredible Hulk Presents ended its foray into time-warping with the portentous ‘Nineveh!’ by Tomlinson & Cam Smith, wherein the Tardis was ensnared in the deadly clutches of the Watcher at the End of Time – an impossible mythical being who harvested Time Lords after their final regenerationâ€¦

For most of its run and in all its guises the Doctor Who title suffered from criminally low budgets and restricted access to concepts, images and character-likenesses from the show (many actors, quite rightfully owning their faces, wanted to be paid if they appeared in printâ€¦) but diligent work by successive editors gradually bore fruit and every so often fans got a real treatâ€¦

‘Train-Flight’ by Andrew Donkin, Graham S. Brand & John Ridgway ran in DWM #159-161 from April to June 1990 and benefited from some slick editorial wheeler-dealing and the generosity of actress Elizabeth Sladen (who allowed her Sarah Jane Smith character to be used for a pittance) in a chilling tale of alien abductions.

A long overdue reunion between the Time Lord and his old Companion was swiftly derailed when their commuter train was hijacked by marauding carnivorous insectsâ€¦

‘Doctor Conkerer!’ (#162 by Ian Rimmer & Mike Collins) then terminates the Time Lord’s travails in this tome with a humorous tale describing the unsuspected origins of that noble game played with horse chestnuts beloved by British schoolboys, assorted aliens and, of course, Vikings of every stripeâ€¦

There’s still plenty of high quality action and adventure to enjoy here, however, as the complete saga of ‘Abslom Daak, Dalek-Killer’ by Steve Moore and artists Steve Dillon& David Lloyd (from Doctor Who Weekly #17-20, February-March 1980, Doctor Who Weekly #27-30, April 1980 and Doctor Who Monthly #44-46, December 1980-February 1981) fills in the blanks on the doomed defenders of organic life everywhereâ€¦

In the 26^th century the Earth Empire is in a death struggle with voracious Dalek forces yet still riven with home-grown threats.

One such is inveterate, antisocial killer Abslom Daak, who, on sentencing for his many crimes, chooses â€œExile D-Kâ€ – being beamed into enemy territory to die as a â€œDalek Killerâ€. His life expectancy as such is less than three hoursâ€¦ and that suits him just fine.

Materialising on an alien world the madman eagerly expects to die but finds an unexpected reason to live until she too is taken from him, leaving only an unquenchable thirst for Dalek destructionâ€¦

The initial ferociously action-packed back-up series led to a sequel and ‘Star Tigers’ found the manic marauder winning such improbable allies as a rebel Draconian Prince, a devilish Ice Warrior and the smartest sociopath in Human space, all willing to trade their pointless lives to kill Daleksâ€¦

As always the book is supplemented with lots of text features, and truly avid fans can also enjoy a treasure-trove of background information in the 17-page text Commentary section at the back, comprising story-by-story background, history and insights from the authors and illustrators, supplemented by scads of sketches, script pages, roughs, designs, production art covers and photos.

This includes full background from former DWM editor/scripter John Freeman on the stories, plus background on the guest stars in ‘Tales from the Daak Side’ by John Tomlinson.

More details and creator-biographies accompany the commentaries on The Incredible Hulk Presents tales and there’s a feature on ‘Hulk meets Who’ explaining that odd publishing alliance, as well as reminisces from editor Andy Seddon and even more info on the legendary Dalek killer and his Star Tiger allies to pore and exult over.

None of which is relevant if all you want is a darn good read. However all the creators involved have managed the ultimate task of any artisan – to produce engaging, thrilling, fun work which can be equally enjoyed by the merest beginner and the most slavishly dedicated and opinionated fans imaginable.

This is another marvellous book for casual readers, a fine shelf-addition for dedicated fans of the show and a perfect opportunity to cross-promote our particular art-form to anyone minded to give comics one more goâ€¦

All Doctor Who material Â© BBCtv. Doctor Who, the Tardis and all logos are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence. Licenced by BBC Worldwide. Tardis image Â© BBC 1963. Daleks Â© Terry Nation. All commentaries Â© 2013 their respective authors. Published 2013 by Panini Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved.

April 1, 2013March 28, 2013

Star Trek: the Further Adventures of the Starship Enterprise – Marvel Illustrated Books

By Alan Brennert, Martin Pasko, Tom DeFalco, Luke McDonnell, Joe Brozowski, Mike Nasser, Tom Palmer & Klaus Janson (Marvel/)
ISBN: 0-939766-00-0

The stellar Star Trek brand and franchise might not have actually reached any new worlds, yet it certainly has permeated every civilisation here on Earth, with daily live-action and animated screen appearances appearing somewhere on the planet and comics iterations generated in a host of countries long lying fallow and unseen.

If only somebody could sort out the legal and logistical hassles so we could see again those stunning UK strips which appeared in Joe 90, TV21, TV Comic and Valiant from such fabulous creators as Angus Allan, Harry Lindfield, Mike Noble, Alan Willow, Ron Turner, Jim Baikie, Harold Johns, Carlos Pino, Vicente AlcÃ¡zar, John Stokes and others, I might die a happy, nostalgia-drowned boyâ€¦

In the meantime however, here’s a little-seen lost artefact and another early glimpse at how our industry gradually became mainstream literature or â€œgraphic novelsâ€: a pulse-pounding paperback package for action fans, fantasy freaks and movie-lovers alike.

After a few abortive attempts in the 1960s to storm the shelves of bookstores and libraries, Marvel made a concerted and comprehensive effort to get their wares into more socially acceptable formats and, as the 1970s closed, purpose-built paperback collections and a string of new prose tales tailored to feed into their burgeoning brand began to emerge as the company continued its crusade to break into regular, real-world bookshops.

The company’s careful reformatting of their own classic comics adventures were generally excellent; a superb series of primers and a perfect new venue to introduce fresh readers to their unique worlds. In addition, by judicious partnerships with major film and TV properties, they expanded the market share for their little books in real shops and stores.

In this particular case the fact that the mighty Star Trek franchise’s comicbook requirements were being serviced by a stridently ascendant Marvel (after years with the commercial diffident Western/Gold Key Comics) made for an ideal repackaging opportunityâ€¦

The Further Adventures were all set in the days after Star Trek: the Motion Picture (which rebooted the long-dormant phenomenon and allowed Marvel to produce a vastly underrated 18-issue series) and recounted new exploits of the starship Enterprise and older, wiser, re-united Federation voyagers James T. Kirk, Spock, Dr. Leonard McCoy, Hikaru Sulu, Montgomery Scott, Nyota Uhura and Pavel Chekov.

This full-colour delight reformatted three of very best comicbook episodes and begins with ‘Eclipse of Reason’ by Alan Brennert, Martin Pasko, Luke McDonnell & Tom Palmer (originally seen in issue #12, March 1981) wherein the comrades are reunited with former Yeoman Janice Rand.

She has since married Kadan of Phaeton, an alien being composed of pure thought and volunteered for a one-way trip with him and an equally disembodied crew beyond the energy barrier that seals off our galaxy from the rest of the universe. However as in the TV episode â€œWhere No Man has Gone Beforeâ€, collision with the barrier produces terrifying psionic anomalies and the exploratory starship U.S.S. Icarus turns back, its conceptual crew driven mad and determined to return home at all costs.

With the anti-matter powered ship on a collision course with the densely populated planet, Kirk, Spock and Rand must overcome extraordinary perils to save an entire world and a unique, extraordinary loveâ€¦

Pasko, Joe Brozowski & Palmer collaborated on ‘Like a Woman Scorned’ (from previous issue #11, February 1981) wherein the Enterprise was despatched to evacuate a cult leader from a radiation-drenched colony world and Scotty was unhappily reunited with bitter old flame Andrea Manning – and her charismatic guru Carl Wentworth.

Even as the reluctant evacuee began exerting an uncanny persuasion and fomenting actual rebellion aboard ship, the downhearted engineer and his beloved ship began to suffer impossible attacks from creatures out of dark fairytales, leaving Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy to divine the incredible secret to the inimical invasionâ€¦

Last included is the marvellously twisted ‘Tomorrow or Yesterday’ (Tom DeFalco, Mike Nasser & Klaus Janson from #7 October 1980) wherein a landing crew beams down to doomed world Andrea IV to rescue the indigenous primitives from a devastating radiation cloud only to find the natives welcoming, aware of the danger but strangely unworried.

To make matters worse the encroaching Rad-storm has made return to the enterprise all but impossible.

In the great square the mystery deepens as destruction looms, when Kirk, Spock and McCoy observe the natives praying to statues of the Saviours destined to save them all: perfect likeness of the Federation Officers sculpted 24,000 years previouslyâ€¦

With time running out, the desperate heroes find themselves trapped amongst blithely unworried masses, all patiently waiting for the prophesied messiahs to save them – just as they have already doneâ€¦

Smart, effective and lovingly executed, these classic yarns are long overdue for a compilation re-release (as far as I’m aware the stories from this comics series were only ever available in this paperback and as part of a CD-Rom package), and Trekkies, Trekkers and comics aficionados alike should rowdily unite to agitate until some publisher gets the messageâ€¦
Â© 1980, 1981 Paramount Picture Corporation. All rights reserved. At that time Star Trek was â„¢ Paramount Picture Corporation.

March 30, 2013March 28, 2013

The UmbrellaAcademy volume 1: Apocalypse Suite

By Gerard Way & Gabriel BÃ¡ (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-978-9

Superheroes have been around long enough now that they’ve been able to evolve into different sub-sets: straight Save-the-World continuity types as championed by DC and Marvel, obsessively â€œrealâ€ or realist iterations such as Marvelman, Masked Man, Crossfire or Kick-Ass, comedy versions like Justice League International, Ambush Bug, Deadpool or She-Hulk and some rare ducks that straddle a few barstools in between.

Cut from the same cloth of Edgy, Catastrophic Absurdism as Scott McCloud’s Zot!, Brendan McCarthy’s Paradax or Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol and Flex Mentallo, the archly anti-didactic antics of The Umbrella Academy offered readers a subtly subversive take on the idiom which impressed the heck out of everybody and lured many disillusioned fans back to the pitifully tired and over-used genre when first releasedâ€¦

This debut collected volume gathers the initial 6-issue miniseries as well as a 2-page online tease from MySpace Dark Horse Presents and an introductory short story from the company’s Free Comic Book Day issue in 2007.

Once upon a time a strange event occurred. All across Earth 43 babies were unexpectedly born as the result of apparent immaculate conceptions – or perhaps some kind of inexplicable parthenogenesis. The births even surprised the mothers, most of whom abandoned or put up for immediate adoption their terrifying newborns.

Seven of these miracle babies were acquired by esteemed inventor and entrepreneur Sir Reginald Hargreeves. The inventor of the Levitator, mobile umbrella communicator, Clever Crisp cereal, Televator and a process which enabled chimps to speak was in actuality an over-achieving alien with a secret plan, and he raised the children to become superheroes to enact it.

He was not a good or caring parentâ€¦

The callously experimental family, after a number of early spectacular successes such as ‘The Day the Eiffel Tower Went Berserk’, soon proved to be unmanageable and the Umbrella Academy – created and trained â€œto save the Worldâ€ – sundered in grief and acrimony, but not before poor Ben, Number 6 or â€œThe Horrorâ€, pointlessly lost his brave young life and Number 5 â€œThe Boyâ€ took a short trip into the future and never came back…

An utterly dysfunctional superhero team, the children parted, but now, twenty years later, the surviving members of the squad gather again at the news that Hargreeves – whose nom de crime was The Monocle – has diedâ€¦

In the interim, Number 1 son Luther became an off-earth defender and pioneer, but was hideously damaged on a doomed journey to Mars. To save him, The Monocle grafted his head onto the body of a colossal Martian Gorilla but the â€œSpaceboyâ€ found it far easier to live alone on the Moon than stay with his saviour.

Poor, neglected Vanya however, whose musical gifts Hargreeves deemed utterly useless, became a drop-out and wrote a scandalous tell-all book before becoming a voluntary exile amidst Earth’s lowest dregsâ€¦

In ‘We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals’ the disparate clan gathers and Luther discovers The Boy has returned, looking not a day different. He isn’t â€“ but his mind is sixty years old and has experienced horrors beyond all imaginingâ€¦

Made welcome by technologist, housekeeper and talking chimp Dr. Pogo, Luther is startled by the return of Allison (Number 3, The Rumor). She’s changed a lot since her marriage – although she’s now single again – but Diego (Number 2, The Kraken) and Klaus (Number 4, The SÃ©ance) are just the same: physically mature but still completely, scarily dementedâ€¦

The interment ceremony is a complete fiasco and descends into a brawl, but the savage bitterness the family exhibits towards each other is as nothing compared to the carnage caused by the arrival of merciless robotic Terminauts tasked with stopping the Umbrella Academy reforming at any costâ€¦

Across town, poor forgotten Vanya has an audition with some very special musicians. The Orchestra Verdammten need only the best if their unconventional maestro, The Conductor is to perfectly premiere his latest opus – The Apocalypse Suiteâ€¦

As the reluctantly reunited Academy fall into old habits and dash off to save innocents from slaughter, The Boy drops his last bombshell: in the future he’s returned from, Earth was destroyed three days after the Monocle diedâ€¦

Built by a long-vanquished foe, the killer mechanoids are ‘Dr. Terminal’s Answer’ to the pesky kids who ruined his plans, although they don’t fare well against Spaceboy, Rumor SÃ©ance and The Kraken.

Dr. Pogo has stayed to examine The Boy and finds him exceedingly strange: a 60-year old mind wearing a 10-year old body that hasn’t aged a single second since it reappeared. There’s even stranger stuff going on which the monkey medic can’t detect, thoughâ€¦

Diego never stopped fighting monsters and has become a darkly driven vigilante, who even now has ignored the flamboyant threat of the robots to save imperilled kids. However when Vanya – fresh from fleeing the deranged Conductor – stumbles into the conflagration he disparages her; calling her useless, just like Hargreeves used to.

As her strange siblings wrap things up and return to the puzzle of exactly how the Earth will end in a matter of days, the dejected, rejected Number 7 returns to The Orchestra Verdammtenâ€¦

Subjected to outrageous experiments in ‘Baby, I’ll be Your Frankenstein’, Vanya is quickly transformed into a finely-tuned instrument to shatter reality, even as Pogo and The Boy stop for coffee and meet time-travelling trouble.

â€¦And at the Icarus Theatre, the once disregarded and discarded White Violin makes her deadly, devastating debutâ€¦

At a certain Diner, distressed waitress Agnes tells Police Inspector Lupo how a veritable army of futuristic thugs were reduced in seconds to scarlet shreds and tatters by a little boy who politely said ‘Thank You for the Coffee’ before leaving with his chimpanzee friend. Lupo has endured a long and difficult unofficial association with ruthless avenger Kraken which has kept the city’s worst criminals from running riot, but when the old cop casually remarks that a lot of violinists have suddenly vanished even he is quite unprepared for the vigilante’s reactionâ€¦

The family gathers at the Academy: Luther and The Rumor slowly rekindling a long suppressed relationship even as The Boy makes the huge mistake of looking through Hargreeves’ trademark Monocle just as prodigal sister Vanya knocks on the door â€“ with shattering, killing forceâ€¦

The shocked stunned survivors quickly marshal their forces for ‘Finale or, Brothers and Sisters, I Am an Atomic Bomb’, but even though they achieve some sort of victory and save reality, it’s at a terrible, World-shattering costâ€¦

Following Editor Scott Allie’s Afterword on the trials, tribulations and triumph of working with a big-name rock-star (yes, that Gerard Way: the multi-talented musician/writer/artist/designer who fronts the band My Chemical Romanceâ€¦) whilst trying to maintain a comicbook schedule, illustrator Gabriel BÃ¡ and the author then reveal a host of production secrets in ‘Designing the Umbrella Academy’.

But that’s not all: the introductory ‘Short Stories’ – with notes and commentary from BÃ¡ – follow, revealing a lighter side to the team in ‘â€œMon Dieu!â€’ and a surprisingly deft surreal murder mystery in‘â€¦But the Past Ain’t Through with You’ (first seen in MySpace Dark Horse Presents and Dark Horse Free Comic Book Day 2007 respectively).

Whilst happily swiping, homaging, sampling and remixing the coolest elements from many and varied comics sources, The Umbrella Academy created a unique synthesis and achieved its own distinctive originality within the tired confines of the superhero genre. Maybe because it stylishly combines the tragic baroque tone of a La Belle Ã‰poque scenario with an ironic dystopian fin de siÃ¨cle sensibility and re-presents it all as a witty post-modern heroic fable, or perhaps more likely simply because it’s all just really damned good, darkly sardonic fun, conceived with love and enthusiasm and crafted with supreme skill and bravura by extremely talented people who love what they doâ€¦?

Read The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite if you’re smart, read it if you’re bored, read it because I said so, but if you too love the medium and the genre, read it, read it, read it.
â„¢ Â© 2008 Gerard Way. All rights reserved.

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