Category: Science Fiction

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Commies From Mars the Red Planet: the Collected Works


By Tim Boxell, Hunt Emerson, Peter Kuper & various (Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-343-5

When political debate in America was less strident and a little more reasoned (let’s call it 1972) a bunch of filthy anarchist pinko hippy satirists recruited by the traitorously seditionist Tim Boxell began contributing raw, rude and utterly hilarious skits, sketches and spoofs on the social and cultural scene to a sporadically published underground comics anthology called Commies From Mars.

Taking their lead from the turbulent but well-informed political climate and deeply influenced by both EC horror and science fiction publications of the 1950s and the classic 1962 Wally Wood Mars Attacks trading cards, contributing artists took cartoon pot-shots at God, Mother and Country in brilliant pastiches ranging from graphic ultra-violence and outrageous interplanetary, inter-species sex-shockers to surreal adventure and outright polemical diatribes. The overriding premise if you’re still not following me was: Communism is Evil; Martians want to conquer us and steal our women. Ergo Martians must be Commies…

Or maybe the cartoonists were just being “clever”…

Six issues were published between 1972 and 1987 and at the end of 1986 Last Gasp publisher Ron Turner released a black and white compilation of (most of) the first four to commemorate the imminent release of #5. That supremely subversive tome is still available if you look hard and surely the time is long overdue for an updated, revised and complete edition…

Following a Foreword from Jerry (Grateful Dead) Garcia, ‘A Warning From the Editor’, ‘Excerpts From the Journal of Billy “Rage” Riley’ and the cover to issue #1, the graphic assault begins with ‘In our midst… Commies From Mars!’ which sets the scene and the scenario with a gritty story of rural resistance from Boxell, after which John Pound’s cover for #2 and more ‘Excerpts From the Journal of Billy “Rage” Riley’ precede a stunning Boxell fantasy-fest ‘Snak?’, a wry and grimly grotesque conversation with Martian Comrade Colonel Bemovitch in ‘The Treaty!’ courtesy of (Comrade) Rich Larson, and Hunt Emerson relates the astounding extra-terrestrial ‘Adventures of Alan Rabbit’.

Greg Irons revealed ‘Gregor’s 115th Wet Dream’ and Capitalism, Interplanetary Communism and nasty fast food collided at Boxell’s ‘Commies From Mars Café’ before #2 closed with the charmingly dark ‘Man on the Moon’ by Shawn Kerri.

Pound’s arresting cover for #3 and another “Rage” Riley page are followed by an untitled Checkered Demon/Commies From Mars team-up by S. Clay Wilson and a superb Kerri anthropomorphic exploit ‘Life on the New Martian Earth’, before Boxell waxes cataclysmically philosophical in ‘Washed Up’.

Ripp (Larry Rippee) plugged ‘Tourism on the Red Planet’ and a young Peter Kuper revealed a recurring nightmare in ‘Shiver and Twitch’ whilst Irons contributed a socially inclusive argument for welcoming the invaders in an impressive double-page spread. Boxell’s ‘Stoned Wolf’ went on a ‘Crash Diet’ after which Ian (Jim Schumeister) James & Jon Rich got shockingly dramatic with ‘Prayers from a Closet’ and Revilo drew up a fabulous integration questionnaire in ‘A Comic’.

Following the usual cover and “Rage” piece for #4 Shawn Kerri explains ‘The Communist Way’, Tom Cheney describes ‘Life on the Planet Floyd’ and Larson explicitly defines ‘Making Loveski’.

Chad Draper outlines ‘Mixed Marriage’ and Revilo expands the romantic theme in harrowing detail with another ‘A Comic’, after which Kuper also gets in on the unnatural act with ‘True Martian Romance’. Larson & Boxell contribute a brace of ‘False Views’ after which ‘Bye Bye Baby’ explains a few new facts of life.

Melinda Gebbie & Adam Cornford promote the social graces in ‘Hall Monitors from Mars’ and Kenneth Huey explores the political effects of the military industrial complex in ‘Dictation: Tales from the Apocalypse’, after which Mr. Rippee returns with ‘A Marriage Made in Heaven’ and Boxell punches the action button in the X-rated ‘Under His Hat?’

Hunt Emerson details romance in a Martian Socialist State with ‘The Date’ and Spain Rodrigues provides a graphic tribute to Godfather of the series Wally Wood, after which Boxell & Grisly went all-out weird and nasty with ‘The Swap’ to close the story portion of this outrageous entertainment.

Absolutely packed with pin-ups, supplementary art and prose pages, a selection of astoundingly intriguing house ads and with an extensive biographies dossier on the Underground greats and cartooning luminaries who contributed to this Big Red Scare, this delicious tome is still a marvellous example of un-Realpolitik as only cartoonists could conceive it.

Next time you feel the need to stretch your boundaries in a mature manner, why not try this never-more-contemporary tome. Just think “Fundie” or “Repug” and you’ll see what I mean…
©1985 Tim Boxell and contributing artists. All rights reserved.

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Green Lantern/Green Arrow volume 1


By Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams, Frank Giacoia, Dick Giordano, Dan Adkins & Berni Wrightson (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0224-8

After nearly a decade of earthly crime-busting, interstellar intrigue and spectacular science fiction shenanigans the Silver Age Green Lantern was swiftly becoming one of the earliest big-name casualties of the downturn in superhero sales in 1969 and Editor Julie Schwartz knew something extraordinary was needed to save the series.

The result was a bold experiment that created a fad for socially relevant, ecologically aware, more mature stories which spread throughout DC costumed hero comics that totally revolutionised the industry and nigh-radicalised the readers.

Tapping superstars-in-waiting Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams to produce the revolutionary fare, Schwartz watched in fascinated disbelief as the resultant thirteen groundbreaking, landmark tales – the first seven of which are reprinted in this superb colour collection – captured the tone of the times, garnered critical praise and awards within the industry and desperately valuable publicity from the real world outside, whilst simultaneously registering such poor sales that the series was finally cancelled anyway, with the heroes unceremoniously packed off to the back of marginally less endangered comicbook The Flash.

Once safely established and doubling up the die-hard fan-base, the stories resumed their traditional themes – crime, adventure and space opera – and Green Lantern gradually grew popular enough for his own solo title once more….

By the end of the 1960s America was a bubbling cauldron of social turmoil and experimentation. Everything was challenged on principle and with issue #76 of Green Lantern (April 1970 and the first issue of the new decade) O’Neil and comics iconoclast Neal Adams utterly redefined superheroism with their “Issues”-driven stories; transforming complacent establishment masked boy-scouts into uncertain, questioning champions and strident explorers of the enigma of America.

When these stories first appeared DC was a company in transition – just like America itself – with new ideas (which, in comic-book terms meant “young writers”) being given much leeway: a veritable wave of fresh, raw talent akin to the very start of the industry, when excitable young creators ran wild with imagination. Their cause wasn’t hurt by the industry’s swingeing commercial decline: costs were up and the kids just weren’t buying funnybooks in the quantities they used to…

O’ Neil, in tight collaboration with hyper-realistic artist Adams, assaulted all the traditional monoliths of contemporary costumed dramas with tightly targeted, protest- driven stories. The comicbook had been re-designated Green Lantern/Green Arrow with Emerald Archer Oliver Queen constantly mouthing off as a hot-headed, liberal sounding-board and platform for a generation-in-crisis whilst staid, quasi-reactionary GL Hal Jordan played the part of the oblivious but well-meaning old guard. At least the Ring-Slinger was able to perceive his faults and more or less willing to listen to new ideas…

‘No Evil Shall Escape My Sight!’ (inked by Frank Giacoia) is a true landmark of the medium, utterly reinventing the concept of the costumed crusader as newly-minted, freshly bankrupted millionaire Oliver (Green Arrow) Queen challenged his Justice League comrade’s cosy worldview when the lofty space-cop painfully discovered real villains wore business suits, had expense accounts, hurt people just because of skin colour and would happily poison their own nests for short-term gain…

The specific villain du jour was a wealthy landlord whose treatment of his poverty-stricken tenants wasn’t necessarily illegal but certainly was wickedly immoral… Of course, the fact that this yarn is also a brilliantly devious crime-thriller with science-fiction overtones doesn’t exactly hurt either…

‘Journey to Desolation’ in #77 was every bit as groundbreaking.

At the conclusion of the #76 an immortal Guardian of the Universe – known as “the Old Timer” was assigned to accompany the Emerald Duo on a voyage to “discover America”: a soul-searching social exploration into the dichotomies which divided the nation – and a tremendously popular pastime for the nation’s disaffected citizens back then.

The first stop brought the trio to a poverty-stricken mining town run as a private kingdom by a ruthless entrepreneur happy to use agent-provocateurs and Nazi war criminals to keep his wage slaves in line. When a young protest singer looked likely to become the next Bob Dylan and draw unwelcome publicity, he had to be eliminated – as did the three strangers who drove into town at just the wrong moment…

Although the heroes provided temporary solutions and put away viciously human criminals, these tales were always carefully heavy-handed in exposing bigger ills and issues which couldn’t be fixed with a wave of a Green Ring; invoking an aura of helplessness that was metaphorically emphasised during this story when Hal was summarily stripped of much of his power for no longer being the willing, unquestioning stooge of his officious, high-and-mighty alien masters…

The confused and merely-mortal Green Lantern discovered another unpalatable aspect of human nature in ‘A Kind of Loving, a Way of Death!’ when Black Canary joined the peripatetic cast. Seeking to renew her stalled relationship with Green Arrow, she was waylaid by bikers, grievously injured and taken in by a charismatic hippy guru. Sadly Joshua was more Manson than Messiah and his brand of Peace and Love only extended to white people: everybody else was simply target practise…

The continuing plight of Native Americans was stunningly highlighted in ‘Ulysses Star is Still Alive!’ as corporate logging interests attempted to deprive a mountain tribe of their very last scraps of heritage, once more causing the Green Knights to take extraordinarily differing courses of action to help, whilst #80 added a science fiction gloss to a tale of judicial malfeasance in ‘Even an Immortal Can Die!’ (inked by Dick Giordano).

When the Old Timer used his powers to save Green Lantern rather than prevent a pollution catastrophe in the Pacific Northwest, he was chastised by his fellow Guardians and dispatched to the planet Gallo for judgement by the supreme arbiters of Law in the universe. His earthly friends accompanied him and found a disturbing new administration with a decidedly off-kilter view of justice…

Adams’ staggering facility for capturing likenesses added extra-piquancy to this yarn that we’re just not equipped to grasp four decades later, with the usurping, overbearing villain derived from the Judge of the infamous trial of anti-war protesters “The Chicago Eight”.

Insight into the Guardians’ history underpinned ‘Death Be My Destiny!’ when Lantern, Arrow and Canary travelled with the now-sentenced Old Timer to the ancient world of Maltus and found a world literally choking on its own out-of-control population. The uncanny cause cast unlovely light on the perceived role and worth of women in modern society…

Ending this first of a two-set volume on a more traditional note, Green Lantern/Green Arrow #82 enquired ‘How do you Fight a Nightmare?’ (with additional inks from Berni Wrightson) as Green Lantern’s greatest foe unleashed Harpies, Amazons and all manner of female furies on the hapless hero before Black Canary and Green Arrow could turn the tide, whilst asking a few more pertinent questions about women’s rights…

As well as these magnificent still-challenging epics superbly re-coloured by Cory Adams and Jack Adler this chronicle also reprints O’Neil’s effusive introduction from the hardbound. slip-cased turn-of-this-century ‘Hard-Travelling Heroes‘ edition, creator biographies and a illustrated feature ‘Legacy in Print’ which pictorially examines the multifarious collected formats in which these timeless tales have been collected.

© 1970, 1971, 1992, 1977, 2000, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Xenozoic


By Mark Shultz (Flesk)
ISBN: 978-1-933865-31-7

Some things just are cool.

Perfect unto themselves and intrinsically, inexplicably, indefinably just right in any milieu and venue. Thus in 1986 when Mark Shultz wrote and drew the EC comics inspired pastiche/homage ‘Xenozoic!’ for Kitchen Sink’s fantasy anthology Death Rattle, his solid blend of pulp fiction, fifties automobile chic and honking great saurians hit an instantly addictive chord with the comics buying public.

Xenozoic Tales the series debuted early in 1987 and ran until 1989: 14 sporadic, magical issues which spawned an animated television series, assorted arcade, video and role-playing games, trading cards, action figures, candy bars and a succession of reprints (comics and graphic novel collections) from Kitchen Sink, Marvel and Dark Horse – although mostly under its alternative title Cadillacs and Dinosaurs.

Flesk Publications specialises in art books and the lavish tomes they produce are dedicated to the greats of our industry, with volumes on sequential narrative and fantasy illustration starring Steve Rude, Al Williamson, James Bama, Gary Gianni, Franklin Booth, William Stout and Joseph Clement Coll.

This oversized (279 x 216mm) 352-page softcover monochrome collection re-presents all the stories (excluding a few side-bar stories by sometimes inker and collaborator Steve Stiles) in one luxuriously exuberant and staggeringly compelling compilation and even finds a little room for some extra sketches and unused drawings.

A thousand years from now Earth is slowly recovering from a shattering disaster which devastated the planet and sent mankind scuttling into deep subterranean shelters for centuries. Now humans are reduced to isolated pockets of tribal civilisation eking out a precarious existence in enclaves cobbled together from equal parts recovered remnant technology, renewable natural resources and sheer ingenuity.

In the thousand years since the fall, beasts from many disparate eras – from dragonflies to dinosaurs, trilobites to sabretooth tigers – have all re-established themselves in the tenuous yet expansive ecology. Historian/engineer/shamans called the Old Blood have, for centuries, advocated a doctrine of natural balance; helping mankind progress and thrive in harmony with the environment, but now the species’ old habits of greed, waste and ruthless exploitation are becoming dominant again in too many ambitious tribal leaders…

Following a foreword from creator Mark Schultz and an effusive introduction from animator Craig Elliot there’s a lovely descriptive character epigram of ‘Jack and Hannah’ to contemplate, after which the much-recycled but always excellent adventures commence with ‘An Archipelago of Stone’ as, in sparkling tribute to the work of Wally Wood, Joe Orlando and Jack Davis, the once magnificent pre-Cataclysm metropolis now known as the City in the Sea gets word of an ambassador from the far off tribe of Wassoon.

The formidable Hannah Dundee has sailed north to cement friendly relations with the Sea City dwellers, exchange knowledge and ask the governors to rein in Jack “Cadillac” Tenrec: Old Blood nature shaman, brilliant engineer, miraculous mechanic, ancient auto aficionado and the tribe’s top hunter. The problem is that Tenrec hunts poachers and he’s so good at it that the criminals are steadily drifting into Wassoon territory to escape his lethal attentions…

In this packed 12-page tale all this information is cleverly imparted as some of those poachers try to murder the Ambassador before she can even present her credentials, but the formidable Cadillac Jack is, as usual one step ahead of everybody…

‘The Opportunists’ gives Hannah a chance to display her own capabilities as she promptly solves a long-standing problem of her host’s fishing fleet with the help of keen observation, a weedy scholar named Remfro and a brace of scavenging Zekes (pteranodons), after which ‘Law of the Land’ returns focus to Tenrec as the wrench-jockey and big-game hunter leads a relief column to an outlying mine project and discovers an incorrigible poacher in his team.

Slaughtering dinos for spurious yet valuable medical “cures” is phenomenally profitable, so Jack’s lethal treatments are always carried out with a long-term view of deterring other greedy potential criminals too…

On reaching the mine, ‘Rogue’ (inked by Steve Stiles) concentrates on a crazed man-eating Shivat, which Jack and the ever-present, too-inquisitive Ambassador are forced to put down. Of course there’s a reason why the T-Rex is bothering with human prey, and once more Tenrec gets to teach a poacher a salutary final lesson. Next that debut tale from Death Rattle is marginally remodelled and neatly slotted in as ‘Xenozoic!’ follows Tenrec’s troop into a deep swamp in search of a missing scientific expedition. The hideous fate of Dr. Fessenden and his team gives the first clue to the impossible ecology of the post-Cataclysm world…

Initially unwelcome Hannah Dundee was growing on Jack, which explains why – against his better judgement – the hunter complies with her insane attempt to domesticate a mastodon in ‘Mammoth Pitfall!’ – a task made even harder by a poacher seeking to murder them and steal his “overlander” (a rebuilt, customised, guano-powered Cadillac).

‘The Rules of the Game’ (Stiles inks) finds Jack and Hannah still waiting for the mammoth to get bored (like elephants, they’re easily riled and never forget), affording us a glimpse as the engineer’s adored horde of retrieved, restored automobiles, but when he shows off his driving skills they are caught in a flash-flood and treated to another example of the mysterious forces which bind the new world together…

Shultz’s art had been constantly evolving and by the time of ‘Benefactor’ – the first full-length adventure – the more subtle, humanistic influences of Al Williamson, Angelo Torres and Frank Frazetta were informing every page. This was particularly effective in this tale of political intrigue wherein the increasingly trusted Hannah is introduced to the clandestine ancient race that has helped Old Blood shamans steer humanity away from their self-destructive course, but regrettably those urges aren’t extinguished yet and one of the City Governors follows, intent on assassinating the man who is increasing stalling human “Progress”…

The true reason for Dundee’s mission is disclosed in ‘History Lesson’ when Jack takes her to The Library; a vast, partially flooded subterranean vault filled not only with lost books but also pre-Cataclysm technology. However, trouble is brewing and Scharnhorst, leader of the “moles” who excavate and guard the finds, has discovered a deadly ancient weapon and is planning to make a play for supreme power…

Thinking the crisis over Jack and Hannah go on a fishing ‘Excursion’ but after learning the history of the Wassoon tribe Jack stumbles into a far deadlier catch than he anticipated. In ‘Foundling’ Hannah solves the mystery of a baby missing for a decade and discovers more about the mysterious Grith who secretly shepherd the planet whilst ‘Green Air’ sees aviation addict Remfro attempt the first manned flight in a millennium after which ‘The Growing Pool’ gives more clues to the nature of the Xenozoic Age when an ancient, artificial gene soup is discovered, only to escape into a lake and trigger a fantastic explosion of raw evolutionary insanity…

As guardian of the eco-system Jack had tried to destroy the burgeoning life-lab but was betrayed and knocked out by those closest to him. ‘In the Dreamtime…’ finds him recovering from his wounds, when city Governor Dahlgren turns up with a warning and a mission. Heading out to a road-building project that’s gone quiet Tenrec and Hannah stumble into a macabre and deadly extinction event which almost ends their lives too, before ‘Last Link In the Chain’ sees Scharnhorst make her grab for power; attempting to assassinate Jack whilst taking control of the City Governors.

Tenrec’s precious balance of nature is keeping man down and she intends to restore humanity’s rightful place as ‘Lords of the Earth’. Wounded, discredited and on the run Jack leaves the City in the Sea as civil war is about to erupt and is forced to journey with Hannah to Wassoon, where he will swiftly discover that her people might be even worse.

Is it simply impossible for humanity to live in harmony with everything else on the planet…?

As they flee south Jack and Hannah wash up on a deadly island paradise where bugs and seagoing invertebrates have evolved to fill every ecological niche – including top-predator – in ‘Primeval’. On reaching Wassoon ‘Two Cities’ introduces Tenrec to truly Byzantine and Machiavellian politicking as various factions seek to exploit his knowledge and worth, just as Scharnhorst’s Sea Wolves arrive, demanding his arrest and return. They leave with a corpse, but it isn’t Jack’s…

He isn’t without friends however. Hannah’s old Nanny is high in the Old Blood hierarchy and in direct contact with the Grith, enabling Jack to turn the tables and make a few new allies in ‘Dangerous Grounds’ before this unfinished symphony of pulp wonderment concludes (hopefully temporarily) in ‘Another Swarm’ as an unlikely alliance is formed when the Grith reveal the true powers who run the Earth and dinosaur shaman Jack Tenrec prepared to return to the city that disavowed him…

Blockbusting in scope, magnificently fanciful and beautifully rendered, Xenozoic is the ideal everyman graphic novel: a perfect example of exciting, engaging classical comics storytelling that should be on everyone’s “must read” list.

© 2011 Mark Schultz. All Rights Reserved.

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Twin Spica volume 7


By Kou Yaginuma, translated by Maya Rosewood (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-935654-12-4

The yearning, imagination and anticipation of space travel, such a critical component of post-World War II society, is paramount to this inspiring manga series from Kou Yaginuma, who first captured the hearts and minds of the public with his poignant short story ‘2015 Nen no Uchiage Hanabi’ (‘2015: Fireworks’, published in Gekkan Comics Flapper magazine, June 2000).

Since then he has expanded and enhanced the subject, themes and characters into a major epic combining hard science and humanist fiction with lyrical mysticism and traditional tales of school-days and growing up.

2024AD: teenaged Asumi Kamogawa has always dreamed of going into space. From her earliest moments the lonely child gazed up at the stars with her imaginary friend Mr. Lion, especially at the twinkling glow of Virgo and the alluring binary star Spica. An isolated, serious child, she lived with her father, a common labourer who once worked for the consortium which built the rockets for Japan’s Space Program.

In 2010, when Asumi was a year old, the first Japanese launch ended in utter catastrophe when rocket-ship Shishigō (“The Lion”), exploded: crashing to earth in the city of Yuigahama. Hundreds were killed and many more injured, including Asumi’s mother. Maimed and comatose, the matron took years to die. The shock crushed her grieving husband and utterly traumatised infant Asumi.

In response to the disaster Japan set up an astronautics and space sciences training facilty and after years of struggle Asumi was accepted by the Tokyo National Space School. Slowly making friends like Shinnosuke Fuchuya (who used to bully her as child), jolly Kei Oumi, chilly Marika Ukita and spooky, ultra-cool style-icon and fashion victim Shu Suzuki, she daily moved closer to her unshakable dream of going to the stars.

Against all odds – she is small, physically weak and very poor – Asumi endures. She still talks with Mr. Lion, who might be the ghost of an astronaut who died on the Shishigō…

I blinked and somehow missed a couple of volumes of this supremely moving saga, so by way of experiment I’m reviewing this seventh book without knowing all that’s recently occurred, and I’m delighted to announce that there’s been progress but not enough to confuse new or lax readers…

The story begins as the still quite formal classmates join Asumi on a vacation to her childhood home in Yuigahama and uncover a mystery about standoffish Marika, who has discovered an unsuspected connection to the rebuilt city. She is doubly plagued by an illness she hides from her comrades and teachers as well as phantom memories which increasingly draw her to a secluded shrine dedicated to the disaster.

When Marika succumbs to her inner torment and wanders away to find the isolated commemoration she becomes dangerously lost and Asumi, pushed by her own ghosts, tracks her down just in time…

As they wait together to be found, deeper bonds are forged, some secrets are revealed and we are afforded a glimpse into the events prior to and just following the crash of the Shishigō. It becomes clear that both girls are afflicted with the same unquenchable need to escape the Earth…

Asumi’s father Tomoro Kamogawa is a no fan of the space program, having lost his wife, his engineering job and his pride to the race for space. In the wake of the catastrophe he was assigned by his bosses at the corporation who built the ship to lead the reparations committee.

Guilt-wracked and himself bereaved, the devastated widower had to visit and apologize to each and every survivor and victim’s grieving family. He raised his daughter alone, working two and often three menial jobs at a time for over a decade.

Now, his old engineering colleague Takahito Sano is one of Asumi’s Professors at the Space School and the men’s previous history and relationship is revealed. A possible cause of the crash is mooted as the five astronaut trainees bond in an atmosphere of unravelling secrets and too many persistent ghosts and memories…

The second half of the book concentrates on the students’ return to school and their next semester of training. Asumi has struck up a more than casual relationship with a boy in a park. He volunteers at a hospice and is trying to learn the harmonica so that he can play to an old woman with dementia. He reminds Asumi of a sickly High-school friend named Shimazu…

Diffidently bonding, the boy tells her of a Sunday concert he’s playing at a week hence and she promises to be there…

Meanwhile at school the latest test of strength, ingenuity and fortitude finds the class divided into teams and transported to a decommissioned prison. Their task: to break free within seven days. Asumi convinces the teachers to drive them back to the city early if they all finish the task before Sunday…

However, even with things working her way there’s a hitch and only terse, unpredictable Fuchuya can help the girl he spends so much time studiously annoying and ignoring – if he can be bothered…

This volume also contains two more bittersweet autobiographical ‘Another Spica’ vignettes from author Yaginuma’s days as a part-time server on a soft-drink stand in a theme park; both delightfully painful accounts of amorous timidity, deep yearning, over-thinking and unrequited young love

All these gloriously heady confections initially appeared in 2004-2005as Futatsu no Supika 7 and 8 in the Seinen manga publication Gekkan Comics Flapper, targeted at male readers aged 18-30, but this ongoing, unfolding beguiling saga is perfect for any older kid with stars in their eyes…

Twin Spica ran for eight enchanting years (September 2001-August 2009): sixteen volumes tracing the orbits of Asumi and her friends from callow students to competent astronauts and the series has spawned both anime and live action TV series.

This delightful serial has everything: plenty of hard science to back up the savvy extrapolation, an ever-more engaging cast, enduring mystery, tender moments, isolation and teen angst and true friendships; all wrapped up in a joyous coming-of-age drama with supernatural overtones and masses of sheer sentiment.

Utterly defining the siren call of the Starry Reaches for a new generation (and the older ones too) Twin Spica is quite simply too good  to miss…

These books are printed in the Japanese right to left, back to front format.

© 2011 by Kou Yaginuma/Media Factory. Translation © 2011 Vertical, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Alien Legion: Tenants of Hell


By Chuck Dixon, Larry Stroman, Dan Panosian, Mike McMahon & Carl Potts (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-0-84023-811-2

During the 1980s the American comics scene experienced a magical proliferation of new titles and companies following the creation of the Direct Sales Market. With publishers now able to firm-sale straight to retail outlets rather than overprint and accept returned copies from non-specialised shops, the industry was able to support less generic titles and creators were able to experiment without losing their shirts.

In response Marvel developed its own line of creator-owned properties during the height of the explosion, launching a number of idiosyncratic, impressive series in a variety of formats under the watchful, canny eye of Editor Archie Goodwin. The delightfully disparate line was called Epic Comics and the results reshaped the industry.

One of the earliest hits was a darkly compelling science fiction serial with a beautifully simple core concept: the Foreign Legion of Space (and no, it isn’t at all similar to Jack Williamson’s epochal 1934 creation the Legion of Space). Created by Carl Potts, Alan Zelenetz and Frank Cirocco Alien Legion debuted in its own on-going series in April 1984, running for 20 issues and an oversized Marvel Graphic Novel (see Alien Legion: A Grey Day to Die), before re-booting into a second, 18 issue volume. After that the tales were told in occasionally released miniseries and one-shots such as the ones that comprise this volume.

Alien Legion has come and gone ever since, jumping from Checker Books to Titan and Dark Horse Comics – who have been compiling the series into collected omnibuses – and there is, of course, a movie in the pipeline…

The Legion keeps the peace of the pan-galactic Galarchy on a million worlds spread over three galaxies: a broad brotherhood of outcast militant sentients united by a need to belong and a desire to escape their pasts. For such beings honour and tradition are the only things holding them together.

After years of holding back the forces of chaos and anarchy Nomad Squadron were dispatched to “pacify” the Quaalians; a warlike and unpredictable culture perpetually causing trouble from their strategically critical star-system midway between the Galarchy and its ideological opposite the Harkilon Empire. The mission went tragically wrong and the squadron were trapped in a time dilation field on a planet of raving maniacs dubbed “Hellscape” and written off by the Legion.

Lost for years the last few survivors were eventually rescued by their erstwhile commander Sarigar, who had left the service but never abandoned his men. In the intervening years the Galarchy had become a far nastier, more callous place and the rescue was hushed up. With nowhere else to go Torrie Montroc, Jugger Grimrod, Zeerod and Tamara stayed in the Legion and Sarigar re-enlisted. Whilst exploiting his skills, the corrupt and dissolute Brass punished him for his temerity by converting the last of Nomad into a penal battalion: dirty job cannon-fodder little better than slaves.

(Don’t panic newcomers – this edition also includes text features and comprehensive background on the ‘Hellscape’ mission that catapulted the sorry survivors into the Tense Future of this volume, ‘Our Friends Above: a Galarchy Primer’ on the history and running of the Galarchy, an introduction from author Chuck Dixon and a handy ‘Glossary of Terms’ as well as a cover gallery and biographies of both story characters and creators…)

In ‘Tenants of Hell’ (originally released in 1991 as a two-part Prestige Format miniseries by Chuck Dixon, Larry Stroman & Dan Panosian), the embittered fragments of Nomad are chafing under the brutal new Legion regime whilst “peacekeeping” on the manufacturing planet of Combine IV; becoming increasingly aware that their role is to terrify the populace into submitting to their corporate overlords – the same faceless plutocrats that bankroll the Legion and expect prompt service for their largesse.

Meanwhile Sarigar has enlisted clandestine allies to discover who sanctioned the throwing away of his unit, whilst Torrie Montroc’s mega-rich and almost dead father finally learns through the efforts of industrial super-spy Nahkira that his only heir is still alive…

Fighting a rebellion they actually sympathise with, the Nomads are further tested when they discover that the Hallidor Corporation has decided to cut its losses and liquidate the planet. The board decides to atomise the planet and collect on the insurance. Of course the bottom line dictates that only key management personnel need to be evacuated…

In the final moments of Combine IV, loyalties to their oaths, their honour and the helpless citizens left to die push the valiant heroes out of time to the edge of mutiny…

Terse, tense and compellingly action-packed, this imaginative romp is splendidly readable and perfectly accessible to those unfamiliar with the series.

Also included here is the 1991 Alien Legion: Grimrod one-shot by Dixon and Mike McMahon: a magically cynical and acerbic parable about never volunteering, which finds the double-dealing, greedy sociopath falling for the oldest scam in military history and tricking himself into the worst assignment in the Galarchy.

Thinking he’s to be a cushy military attaché to the king of a paradise planet of balmy skies with women of easy virtue, Jugger is instead trapped on a dank, muddy hellhole just before the annual uprising of the barbarian horde sweeps down for fresh slaves, ripe plunder and all the excessive bloodletting they can handle.

Without a means of escape and no Galarchy back-up or ordnance, Grimrod is forced to turn a nation of wimps and pansies into all-conquering warriors before he loses his own life and only chance of revenge on the conman who switched postings with him…

Sardonic and powerfully funny in the classic 2000AD manner, this delightfully engaging yarn caps the stunning, spectacular, cynical space opera with a bracing jolt of cartoon schadenfreude which renders this chronicle “unmissable” in my book.
© 1991, 2004 Carl Potts. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents The War that Time Forgot


By Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru, Mike Esposito & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1253-7

The War that Time Forgot debuted in Star Spangled War Stories #90 (April-May 1960) and ran until #137 (May 1968) skipping only three issues: #91, 93 and #126 (the last of which starred the United States Marine Corps simian Sergeant Gorilla – look it up: I’m neither kidding nor being metaphorical…) and this stunningly bizarre black and white compendium contains the monstrously madcap material from #90, 92, 94-125 and 127-128.

Simply too good a concept to leave alone, this seamless, shameless blend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost World and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Caprona stories (known alternatively as the Caspak Trilogy or “the Land That Time Forgot”) provided everything baby-boomer boys could dream of: giant lizards, humongous insects, fantastic adventures and two-fisted heroes with lots of guns…

Robert Kanigher (1915-2002) was one of the most distinctive authorial voices in American comics, blending rugged realism with fantastic fantasy in his signature war comics, horror stories, superhero titles such as Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, Teen Titans, Hawkman, Metal Men, Batman and others genres too numerous to cover here. He scripted ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ – the first story of the Silver Age which introduced Barry Allen AKA the Flash to the hero-hungry kids of the World in 1956.

Kanigher sold his first stories and poetry in 1932, wrote for the theatre, film and radio, and joined the Fox Features shop where he created The Bouncer, Steel Sterling and The Web, whilst providing scripts for 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 Flash and Hawkman, created Black Canary and Lady Cop, plus memorable villainesses Harlequin and Rose and Thorn. This last he reconstructed, during the relevancy era of the early 1970s, into a schizophrenic crime-busting super-heroine.

When mystery-men faded out at the end of the 1940s, Kanigher moved into westerns and war stories, becoming in 1952 writer/editor of the company’s combat titles: All-American War Stories, Star Spangled War Stories and Our Amy at War. He created Our Fighting Forces in 1954 and added G.I. Combat to his burgeoning portfolio when Quality Comics sold their line of titles to DC in 1956, all the while working on Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, Rex the Wonder Dog, Silent Knight, Sea Devils, Viking Prince and a host of others.

Among his many epochal war series were Sgt. Rock, Enemy Ace, the Haunted Tank and The Losers as well as the visually addictive, irresistibly astonishing “Dogfaces and Dinosaurs” dramas depicted here. Kanigher was a restlessly creative writer and I suspect that he used this uncanny but formulaic adventure arena as a personal tryout venue for his many series concepts. The Flying Boots, G.I. Robot, Suicide Squad and many other teams and characters first appeared in this lush Pacific hellhole with wall-to-wall danger. Indisputably the big beasts were the stars but occasionally ordinary G.I .Joes made enough of an impression to secure return engagements, too…

The wonderment commenced in Star Spangled War Stories #90 as paratroops and tanks of “Question Mark Patrol” were dropped on Mystery Island from whence no American soldiers have ever returned. The crack warriors discovered why when the operation was plagued by Pterosaurs, Tyrannosaurs and worse on the ‘Island of Armoured Giants!’, all superbly rendered by veteran art team Ross Andru & Mike Esposito. Larry and Charlie, the sole survivors of that first foray, returned to the lost world in #92’s ‘Last Battle of the Dinosaur Age!’ when aquatic beasts attacked their rescue submarine forcing them back to the lethal landmass…

‘The Frogman and the Dinosaur!’ took up most of SSWS #94 as a squad of second-rate Underwater Demolitions Team divers were trapped on the island encountering the usual bevy of blockbuster brutes and a colossal crab as well. What started out as Paratroopers versus Pterodactyls in #95 turned into a deadly turf-war in ‘Guinea Pig Patrol!’ whilst ‘Mission X!’ introduced the Task Force X/Suicide Squad in a terse infiltration story as the increasing eager US military strove to set up a base on the strategically crucial monster island.

The Navy took the lead in #97’s ‘The Sub-Crusher!’ with equally dire results when a giant gorilla joined the regular cast of horrors, whilst a frustrated palaeontologist was blown off course and into his wildest nightmare in ‘The Island of Thunder’. The rest of his airborne platoon weren’t nearly as happy at the discovery…

The Flying Franks were a trapeze family before the war, but as “The Flying Boots” Henny, Tommy and Steve won fame as paratroopers. In #99’s ‘The Circus of Monsters!’ they faced the greatest challenge of their lives when they washed up on Mystery Island, narrowly escaping death by dinosaur, so they weren’t too happy on being sent back next issue to track down a Japanese secret weapon in ‘The Volcano of Monsters!’

‘The Robot and the Dinosaur!’ in #101 ramped up the fantasy quotient as reluctant Ranger Mac was dispatched to the monstrous preserve to field-test the Army’s latest weapon – a fully automatic, artificial G.I. Joe, who promptly saved the day and returned to fight a ‘Punchboard War!’ in the next issue; tackling immense killer fish, assorted saurians and a giant Japanese war-robot that even dwarfed the dinosaurs, which carried over and concluded in #103’s ‘Doom at Dinosaur Island!’, after which the Flying Boots returned in Star Spangled #104’s ‘The Tree of Terror!’ as a wandering pterodactyl dragged the brothers back to the isle of no return for another explosive engagement.

‘The War on Dinosaur Island!’ found the circus boys leading a small-scale invasion, but even tanks and the latest ordnance proved little use against the pernicious and eternally hungry reptiles, after which ‘The Nightmare War!’ found a dino-phobic museum janitor trapped in his worst nightmare. At least he had his best buddies and a goodly supply of bullets and bombs with him…

The action shifted to the oceans around the island for the sub-sea shocker ‘Battle of the Dinosaur Aquarium!’ with plesiosaurs, titanic turtles, colossal crabs and crocodilians on the menu, and hit the beaches in #108 for ‘Dinosaur D-Day!’ as the monsters took up residence in the Navy’s landing craft. ‘The Last Soldiers’ pitted determined tank-men against a string of scaly perils on land, sea and air, after which a new Suicide Squad debuted in #110 to investigate a ‘Tunnel of Terror’ into the lost land of giant monsters: this time though the giant gorilla was on their side…

The huge hairy beast was the star of ‘Return of the Dinosaur Killer!’ as the Squad leader and a wily boffin (visually based on Kanigher’s office associate Julie Schwartz) struggled to survive on the tropically reptilian atoll, whilst ‘Dinosaur Sub-Catcher!’ shifted the locale to freezing ice-floes as a pack of far-roving sea dinosaurs attacked a polar submarine and a US weather station.

Star Spangled War Stories #113 returned to the blue Pacific for ‘Dinosaur Bait!’ where a pilot was tasked with hunting down the cause for so many lost subs but ‘Doom Came at Noon!’ once more returned to snowy climes as dinosaurs inexplicably rampaged through alpine territory making temporary allies out of old enemies dispatched to destroy hidden Nazi submarine pens.

Issue #115’s ‘Battle Dinner for Dinosaurs!’ found a helicopter pilot marooned on Mystery Island and drawn into a spectacular aerial dogfight, after which a duo of dedicated soldiers faced ice-bound beasts in ‘The Suicide Squad!’ – the big difference being that Morgan and Mace were more determined to kill each other than accomplish their mission…

‘Medal for a Dinosaur!’ bowed to the inevitable and introduced a (relatively) friendly baby pterodactyl to balance out Mace and Morgan’s barely suppressed animosity, whilst ‘The Plane-Eater!’ found the army odd couple adrift in the Pacific and in deep danger until the little leather-winged guy turns up once more…

The Suicide Squad were getting equal billing by the time of #119’s ‘Gun Duel on Dinosaur Hill!’ as yet another group of men-without-hope battled reptilian horrors and each other to the death, after which the un-killable Morgan and Mace returned and Dino, the flying baby dinosaur, found a new companion in handy hominid Caveboy before the whole unlikely ensemble struggled to survive against increasingly outlandish creatures in ‘The Tank Eater!’

Issue #121 presented another diving drama when a UDT frogman gained his Suicide Squad rep as a formidable fighter and ‘The Killer of Dinosaur Alley!’ Increasingly now, G.I. hardware and ordnance began to gain the upper hand over bulk, fang and claw…

Representational maestro Russ Heath added an edge of hyper-realism to ‘The Divers of Death’ in Star Spangled War Stories #122 wherein two Frogman brothers battled incredible underwater insect monsters but were still unable to gain the respect of their land-lubber older siblings, whilst Gene Colan illustrated the aquatic adventure of ‘The Dinosaur who Ate Torpedoes!’ and Andru & Esposito returned to depict ‘Terror in a Bottle!’, the second short saurian saga to grace issue #123 and another outing for that giant ape who loved to pummel pterosaurs and larrup lizards.

Undisputed master of gritty fantasy art Joe Kubert added his pencil-and-brush magic to a tense and manic thriller ‘My Buddy the Dinosaur!’ in #124 and stuck around to illumine the return of the G.I. Robot in the stunning battle bonanza ‘Titbit For a Tyrannosaurus!’ in #125, after which Andru & Esposito covered another Suicide Squad sea saga ‘The Monster Who Sank a Navy!’ from #127 and Colan returned to draw a masterfully moving human drama which was actually improved by the inclusion of ravening reptiles in ‘The Million Dollar Medal!’ (#128 and the last tale in this volume).

Throughout this eclectic collection of dark dilemmas, light-hearted romps and spectacular battle blockbusters the emphasis is always on human fallibility; with soldiers unable to put aside long-held grudges, swallow pride or forgive trespasses even amidst the strangest and most terrifying moments of their lives, and this edgy humanity informs and elevates even the daftest of these wonderfully imaginative adventure yarns.

Classy, intense, insanely addictive and Just Plain Fun, The War that Time Forgot is a deliciously guilty pleasure and I for one hope the remaining stories from Star Spangled War Stories, Weird War Tales,  G. I. Combat and especially the magnificent Tim Truman Guns of the Dragon miniseries all end up in sequel compilation sometime soon.

Now Read This book and you will too…
© 1960-1966, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Metal Men volume 1


By Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru, Mike Esposito & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1559-0

In contrast to his gritty war and adventure scripts Robert Kanigher usually kept his fantasy and superhero comicbook tales light, visually intriguing and often extremely outlandish… and that’s certainly the case with these eccentric artificial heroes who briefly caught the early 1960’s zeitgeist for bizarre and outrageous light-hearted adventure.

The Metal Men first appeared in four consecutive issues of National/DC’s try-out title Showcase: legendarily created over a weekend by Kanigher after an intended feature blew its press deadline and rapidly rendered by the art-team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. This last-minute filler attracted a large readership’s eager attention and within months of their fourth and final adventure the gleaming gladiatorial gadgets were stars of their own title.

This first cheap and cheerful monochrome compendium collects the electrifying contents of Showcase #37-40, Metal Men #1-15 and the first of their nine team-up appearances in Brave and the Bold; specifically #55.

The alchemical excitement began in Showcase #37 (March-April 1962) with ‘The Flaming Doom!’ as an horrific radioactive antediluvian beast flew out of a melting polar glacier and began devastating humanity’s great cities. Helpless to stop the creature the American military desperately approached brilliant young technologist Dr. Will Magnus for a solution. He rapidly constructed a doomsday squad of self-regulating, highly intelligent automatons, patterned after Tina, a prototype sexy robot constructed from platinum and malleable memory ceramic, governed by a micro-supercomputer dubbed a “Responsometer”.

This miracle of micro-engineering not only simulates – or perhaps creates – thought processes and emotional character for the robots but constantly reprograms the base form – allowing the mechanoids to change and alter their shapes.

Magnus patterned his handmade heroes on pure metals, with Gold as leader of a tight knit team consisting of Iron, Lead, Mercury and Tin warriors. Thanks to their responsometers, each robot specialised in physical changes based on its elemental properties but due to some quirk of programming the robots also developed personality traits mimicking the metaphorical attributes of their base metal.

Tina is especially intransigent, believing herself passionately in love with her dashing creator…

As soon as they’ve introduced themselves, the shining squad sets off to confront the deadly monster in their flying rocket-saucer and after a terrible battle, succeed at the cost of their own brief lives…

In Showcase #38 a very public campaign to reconstruct the Metal Men resulted in Magnus building them anew. However their unique characters were gone and they promptly failed in battle against a Soviet backed Nazi scientist’s robotic marauder until the desperate Yankee inventor managed to recover their original responsometers in ‘The Nightmare Menace!’

‘The Deathless Doom!’ pitted the malleable machines against an animated glassine tank used to store toxic residues from failed experiments by genius chemist Professor Norton. The intermingled waste products combined to create a deadly new life form named Chemo who (which?) would become one of the greatest menaces of the DC universe…

The Showcase run concluded with ‘The Day the Metal Men Melted!’ (September-October 1962) when Chemo returned just as Magnus’ previous exposure to the Toxic Terror coincidentally transformed the inventor into a radioactive metallic giant. Acutely aware of his dangerous condition Magnus exiled himself to deep space and managed to take Chemo with him, where, luckily, the outer limits provided the valiant scientist with an unexpected cure…

Whereas the first three tales were relatively straight dramas, with this yarn rational physics began giving way to fantastic fringe science and the comedic elements began to proliferate. By increasingly capitalising on the Metal’s Men quirky characters, successive stories became as much fantasy as drama.

Metal Men #1 launched with an April-May 1963 cover-date and detailed the astonishing ‘Rain of the Missile Men’ in which alien robot Z-1 fell in love with Tina from astronomically afar and built innumerable hordes of duplicates of himself to taker for his prize. When his automaton army invaded Earth only Tina survived to the end of the issue…

At this Magnus was becoming increasingly schizophrenic about the desperately lovesick and fiercely jealous Tina, alternately berating her impossible emotions then moping and missing her after he’d donated the troublesome toy to a museum… Huh! Robot Women: can’t live with them, can’t…

Kanigher’s greatest ability was his knack for dreaming up outlandish visual situations and bizarre emotive twists. ‘Robots of Terror’ described how the frustrated Tina built her own mechanical Doc Magnus which turned evil and developed an equally iniquitous team of elemental warriors – Barium, Aluminium, Calcium, Zirconium, Sodium and Plutonium – to battle the recently reconstructed Metal Men, whilst #3’s ‘The Moon’s Mechanical Army!’ saw the team undertake a lunar search for the Platinum Bombshell after she sacrificed herself to save them all. In the process they inadvertently brought an uncontrollable amoebic monster back to Earth…

Tin was the meekest Metal and most lacking in confidence, but in ‘The Bracelet of Doomed Heroes!’ an Giant-Alien-Robot-Amazon-Queen took a shine to the timid tyke and abducted him to her distant world. When his alchemical comrades came to the rescue they were trapped and enslaved until Tin turned the tide in the concluding ‘Menace of the Mammoth Robots!’

Back on Earth the Metal Men battled a Gas Gang (Oxygen, Helium, Chloroform Carbon Monoxide and Carbon Dioxide) of evil mechanical marauders after cosmic rays made Magnus evil and electronic on ‘The Day Doc Turned Robot!’ after which ‘The Living Gun!’ found a fully restored team facing a colossal monster formed from a runaway solar prominence.

Metal Men #8 had the team take a little blind boy on a jaunt to another world only to become trapped by extraterrestrial robots in ‘The Playground of Terror!’ before young Billy saved the day in the concluding battle with ‘The Robot Juggernaut!’

‘Revolt of the Gas Gang!’ found Doc forced to revive the vaporous mechanical villains when the Metal Men were accidentally merged into a monolithic menace, after which the tightly continuous sagas briefly halt here to include a team-up tale from Brave and the Bold #55 (August September 1965) in which writer Bob Haney and illustrators Ramona Fradon & Charles Paris detail the ‘Revenge of the Robot Reject’.

When a series of suspicious lab accidents destroyed the Heavy Metal Heroes, distraught Doc Magnus was menaced by rogue robot Uranium and its silver metal lover Agantha until size-changing champion Professor Ray Palmer intervened as the all-conquering Atom, after which the scrap-heap scrappers were once more resurrected to end the evil automaton’s nuclear threat forever.

Meanwhile, back in Metal Men #11, by the usual suspects of Kanigher, Andru & Esposito, ‘The Floating Furies!’ found the resourceful robots both upon and beneath the briny seas battling intelligent mines, giant crustaceans and even King Neptune, before Z-1’s inexhaustible horde of Missile Men returned to ‘Shake the Stars!’ after which the ‘Raid of the Skyscraper Robot’ introduced a new Metal Man… of sorts. When lonely Tin built himself a girlfriend from a toy kit, neither was able to withstand the mockery of fellow metal Mercury. The automatic lovers fled Earth only to encounter a devastated mobile planet of monolithic mechanical monsters which followed them back here – only to face final defeat at the gleaming hands of the reunited team.

Chemo returned to disable but never defeat the Metal Men in #14’s ‘The Headless Robots!’ and this initial instalment of elemental epics concludes with ‘The Revenge of the Rebel Robots!’ in which the fad for acronymic spy stories pitched the Sterling Squad into combat with a giant spy machine from the subversive secret society B.O.L.T.S.! (…and no, I don’t know what it stands for…)

Wildly imaginative, weirdly enthralling and brilliantly daft, these full-on, frantic fantasies are a superb slice of the nostalgic good old days, when every day lasted a week and the world was stuffed to bursting with dinosaurs, robots and monsters. Sometimes, if you buy the right book, you can still get all those thrills at once…
© 1962-1965, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Odd Comic World of Richard Corben


By Richard Corben & various (Warren Adult Fantasy)
ISBN: 84-85138-21-X

Richard Corben flowered in the independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a globally revered, multi-award winning creator. He is most renowned for his mastery of the airbrush and his delight in sardonic, darkly comedic horror, fantasy and science fiction tales.

Although never a regular contributor to the comicbook mainstream, the animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist is one of America’s greatest proponents of sequential narrative: an astoundingly accomplished artist with an unmistakable style and vision.

Violent, cathartically graphic and often blackly hilarious, his infamous signature-stylisation always includes oodles of nudity, ultra-extreme explicit violence and impossibly proportioned male and female physiques – and nobody should be disappointed as there’s plenty of all that in here.

From a time when graphic novels and book-bound comics collections were almost unheard of, this quirky, racy collection opens after an effusive introduction by Will Eisner with ‘The Dweller in the Dark’ (co-written with Herb Arnold) – an early exploration of the artist’s fascination with and facility for depicting lost civilisations. Rain-forest dwellers Bo Glan and Nipta break tribal taboo to explore a dead city, and learn pain and sorrow when they fall foul of rapacious, invading white men and ancient things far worse…

‘Razar the Unhero’ (written in 1970 by Arnold as “Starr Armitage”) is a dark and sexily violent spoof with a deprecating edge, deliciously lampooning the Sword and Sorcery epics dominating paperback bookshelves of the day whilst the silly, saucy ‘Mangle, Robot Mangler’ does the same to classic comicbook hero Magnus with a sexy, seditious rabbit-punch parody.

‘How Howie Made it in the Real World’ jumps wholeheartedly into adult science fiction territory with a sinister gore-fest for unwary space-tourists whilst ‘For the Love of a Daemon’ – opening the full-colour section of this volume and showing the first hints of the artist’s later airbrush expertise – returns to traditional fantasy themes for a boisterous black comedy of Barbarians and mega-hot naked babes in distress.

The1973 collaboration with Doug Moench ‘Damsel in Dragon Dress’ is a gleeful witches’ brew of fantasy, fairytale foible and a curious cautionary tale about the unexpected dangers of drug abuse, whilst worlds-within-worlds alien romance ‘Cidopey’ conceals a tragic twist as well as the artist’s softer and more contemplative side.

The final tales in this collection are both from 1972. ‘Space Jacked’ blends Corben’s mordant sense of humour with a darkly cynical streak in the twisty-turny tale of an outer space Bonnie and Clyde who think they might be Adam and Eve, and ‘Going Home’ closes the show in a contemplative, poignant manner as the last man of Earth bequeaths the universe far better caretakers…

Mad, moody and magnificent, these early exotic episodes are too-long overdue for a proper re-evaluation but until some publisher finally wises up, at least there’s a still a goodly number of older editions just waiting to be found and treasured…
© 1971-1977 Richard Corben/Warren Publishing Co. All Rights Reserved.

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World of Krypton


By Paul Kupperberg, Howard Chaykin, Murphy Anderson & Frank Chiaramonte (DC/Tor Books)
ISBN: 0-523-49017-8

For fans and comics creators alike continuity can be a harsh mistress. These days, when maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for the made-up worlds we inhabit is paramount, the worst casualty of the semi-regular sweeping changes, rationalisations and reboots is great stories that suddenly “never happened”. The most painful example of this – for me at least – was the wholesale loss of the entire charm-drenched mythology that had evolved around Superman’s birthworld in the wonder years between 1948 and 1985.

Silver Age readers buying Superman, Action Comics, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, World’s Finest Comics and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (not forgetting Superboy and Adventure Comics) would delight every time some fascinating snippet of information leaked out. We spent our rainy days filling in the incredible blanks about the lost world through the delightful and thrilling tales from those halcyon publications.

Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s Superman – and an issue of Superman Family – carried a back-up series entitled ‘The Fabulous World of Krypton’ relating “Untold Tales of Superman’s Native Planet” (so long overdue for a complete trade paperback collection) by a host of the industry’s greatest talents which further explored that defunct wonderland.

Many of those twenty-seven vignettes were referenced alongside the key Krypton-starring issues of the Superman franchise in 1979 when scripter Paul Kupperberg and artists Howard Chaykin, Murphy Anderson & Frank Chiaramonte synthesised the scattered back-story details into DC’s first miniseries World of Krypton.

Although never collected into a graphic novel, this glorious indulgence was resized into a nifty black and white paperback book in 1982, supervised by and with an introduction from the much-missed, multi-talented official DC memory E. Nelson Bridwell (who was always the go-to guy for any detail of fact or trivia concerning the company’s vast comics output). This magical celebration of life on the best of all fictional worlds is a grand old slice of comics fun and nostalgia long overdue for a critical reappraisal and a wider audience.

The story opens with Superman reviewing a tape-diary found on the moon: a document from his deceased father Jor-El which details the scientist’s life, career and struggle with the nay-saying political authorities whose inaction doomed the Kryptonian race to near extinction.

As the Man of Steel listens on, he hears how Jor-El wooed and won his mother Lara Lor-Van despite all the sinister efforts of the planetary marriage computer to frustrate them, how he discovered anti-gravity and invented the Phantom Zone ray, uncovered the lost technology of a dead race which provided the clues to Kal-El’s escape rocket, and learns his father’s take on Superman’s many time-twisting trips to Krypton…

He feels his father’s pain when Brainiac stole the city of Kandor, when rogue scientist Jax-Ur blew up the inhabited moon of Wegthor, when civil war almost wracked the planet thanks to the deranged militarist General Zod and when his own cousin Kru forever disgraced the noble House of El…

Heavily referencing immortal classics such as ‘Superman’s Return to Krypton’ (Superman volume 1 #141, November 1960), Fabulous World of Krypton mini-epics ‘Jor-El’s Golden Folly’, ‘Moon-Crossed Love’, ‘Marriage, Kryptonian Style’ and a host of others, this epochal saga from simpler and more wondrous times is a sheer delight for any fan tired of unremitting angst and non-stop crises…

Moreover the sensitive and meticulous reformatting of the original miniseries by editor Bridwell and designers Bob Rozakis, Shelley Eiber & Alex Saviuk makes this book one of the most smoothly readable of all paperback comic collections.

Although not that easy to find, World of Krypton is still worth tracking down and until DC get around to gathering the Krypton chronicles into the kind of compendium they deserve this is still your best shot at seeing the evolution of a world we all wanted to live on back in the heady days of yore…
© 1982 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Green Lantern volume 5


By Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Mike Grell & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-224-6

Returning to the usual phonebook-sized black and white tome, this fifth collection starring the Emerald Gladiator of Earth-1 (re-presenting the contents of Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76-89 – barring the all-reprint #88 – and the emerald back-up strips from Flash #217-221, 223-224, 226-228, 230-231, 237-238, 240-243, 245-246) generated groundbreaking, landmark tales from Denny O’Neil & Neal Adams that totally revolutionised the industry, whilst registering such poor sales that the series was cancelled and the heroes unceremoniously shipped into the back of another comicbook. Gradually the emphasis shifted back to crime, adventure and space opera and Green Lantern grew popular enough for his own solo title once more….

By the end of the 1960s America was a bubbling cauldron of social turmoil and experimentation. Everything was challenged and with issue #76 (April 1970 and the first issue of the new decade) Denny O’Neil and comics iconoclast Neal Adams utterly redefined superhero strips with their relevancy-driven stories; transforming complacent establishment masked boy-scouts into uncertain, questioning champions and strident explorers of the revolution.

‘No Evil Shall Escape My Sight!’ (inked by Frank Giacoia) is a landmark in the medium, utterly re-positioning the very concept of the costumed crusader as newly-minted ardent liberal Green Arrow challenged GL’s cosy worldview when the lofty space-cop painfully discovered real villains wore business suits, had expense accounts, hurt people just because of skin colour and would happily poison their own nests for short-term gain…

Of course, the fact that the story is a brilliant crime-thriller with science-fiction overtones magnificently illustrated doesn’t hurt either…

O’ Neil became sole scripter with this story and, in tight collaboration with ultra-realistic art-genius Adams, instantly overturned contemporary costumed dramas with their societally-targeted relevancy-driven protest-stories. The book became Green Lantern/Green Arrow with Emerald Archer Oliver Queen constantly mouthing off as a radical, liberal sounding-board and platform for a generation-in-crisis whilst staid, quasi-reactionary GL Hal Jordan played the part of the oblivious but well-meaning old guard.

At least the Ring-Slinger was aware of his faults and more or less willing to listen to new ideas…

At the time this compendium of stories first appeared DC was a company in transition – as indeed was America itself – with new ideas (which, in comic-book terms meant “young writers”) being given much leeway: a veritable wave of fresh, raw talent akin to the very start of the industry, when excitable young creators ran wild with imagination… Their cause wasn’t hurt by an industry in rapid commercial decline: costs were up and the kids just weren’t buying funnybooks in the volumes they used to…

‘Journey to Desolation’ in #77 was every bit as groundbreaking.

At the conclusion of the last issue an immortal Guardian of the Universe – hereafter known as “the Old Timer” was assigned to accompany the Emerald Duo on a voyage to “discover America”: a soul-searching social exploration into the dichotomies which divided the nation. First stop brought the trio to a poverty-stricken mining town run as a private kingdom by a ruthless entrepreneur happy to use agent-provocateurs and Nazi war criminals to keep his wage slaves in line.

When a young protest singer looked likely to become the next Bob Dylan and draw unwelcome publicity, he had to be eliminated – as did the three strangers who drove into town at just the wrong moment…

Although the heroes provided temporary solutions and put away viciously human criminals, these tales were remarkably blunt in exposing bigger ills and issues that couldn’t be fixed with a wave of a Green Ring; invoking an aura of helplessness that was metaphorically emphasised during this story when Hal was summarily stripped of much of his power for no longer being the willing, unquestioning stooge of his officious, high-and-mighty alien masters…

The confused and far-more-mortal Green Lantern discovered another unpalatable aspect of human nature in ‘A Kind of Loving, a Way of Death!’ when Black Canary joined the peripatetic cast. Seeking to renew her relationship with Green Arrow, she was waylaid by bikers, grievously injured and taken in by a charismatic hippy guru. Unfortunately Joshua was more Manson than Messiah and his brand of Peace and Love only extended to white people: everybody else was simply target practise…

The plight of Native Americans was stunningly high-lighted in ‘Ulysses Star is Still Alive!’ as corporate logging interests attempted to deprive a mountain tribe of their very last scraps of heritage, once more causing the Green Knights to take extraordinarily differing courses of action to help, whilst #80 added a science fiction gloss to a tale of judicial malfeasance in ‘Even an Immortal Can Die!’ (inked by Dick Giordano).

When the Old Timer used his powers to save Green Lantern rather than prevent a pollution catastrophe in the Pacific Northwest, he was chastised by his fellow Guardians and dispatched to the planet Gallo for judgement by the supreme arbiters of Law in the universe.

His earthly friends accompanied him and found a disturbing new administration with a decidedly off-kilter view of justice…

Adams’ staggering facility for capturing likenesses added extra-piquancy to this yarn that we’re just not equipped to grasp four decades later, with the usurping, overbearing villain derived from the Judge of the infamous trial of anti-war protesters “The Chicago Eight”.

Insight into the Guardians’ history underpinned ‘Death Be My Destiny!’ when Lantern, Arrow and Canary travelled with the now-sentenced Old Timer to the ancient world of Maltus (that’s a pun, son: just type Thomas Robert Malthus into your search engine of choice or even look in a book) and found a world literally choking on its own out-of-control population. The uncanny cause cast unlovely light on the perceived role and worth of women in modern society…

Green Lantern/Green Arrow #82 returned briefly to traditional yarn-spinning in ‘How do you Fight a Nightmare?’ (with additional inks from Berni Wrightson) as Green Lantern’s greatest foe unleashed Harpies, Amazons and all manner of female furies on the hapless hero before Black Canary and Green Arrow could turn the tide, whilst ‘…And a Child Shall Destroy Them!’ crept into Hitchcock country to reintroduce Hal Jordan’s old flame Carol Ferris and take a pop at education and discipline in the chilling tale of a supernal mutant in thrall to a doctrinaire little martinet.

Wrightson also inked #84’s staggering attack on out-of-control consumerism, shoddy cost-cutting and the seduction of bread and circuses in ‘Peril in Plastic’ before the comics world changed forever in the two-part saga ‘Snowbirds Don’t Fly’ and ‘They Say It’ll Kill Me…But They Won’t Say When!’

Depiction of drug abuse had been strictly proscribed in comicbooks since the advent of the Comics Code Authority, but by 1971 the elephant in the room was too big to ignore and both Marvel and DC addressed the issue in startlingly powerful tales that opened Pandora’s dirty box forever. When the Green Gladiators were drawn into conflict with a vicious heroin-smuggling gang Oliver Queen was horrified to discover his own sidekick had become an addict…

This sordid, nasty tale did more than merely preach or condemn, but actively sought to explain why young people turned to drugs, just what the consequences could be and even hinted at solutions older people and parents might not want to consider. Forty years on it might all seem a little naïve, but the earnest drive to do something and the sheer dark power of the story still delivers a stunning punch.

For all the critical acclaim and astonishingly innovative work done, sales of Green Lantern/Green Arrow were in a critical nosedive and nothing seemed able to stop the rot. Issue #87 featured two solo tales, the first of which ‘Beware My Power!’ introduced a bold new character to the DCU. John Stewart was a radical activist: an angry black man always spoiling for a fight and prepared to take guff from no-one. Hal Jordan was convinced the Guardians had erred when they appointed Stewart as Green Lantern’s official stand-in, but when a bigoted US presidential candidate tried to foment a race war the Emerald Gladiator was forced to change his tune.

Meanwhile bankrupted millionaire Oliver Queen was faced with a difficult decision when the retiring Mayor of Star City invited him to run for his office. ‘What Can One Man Do?’ written by Elliot Maggin, posed fascinating questions for the proud rebel by inviting him to join “the establishment” he despised, and do some lasting good. The decision was muddied by well-meaning advice from his fellow superheroes and the tragic consequences of a senseless street riot…

Issue #88 was a collection of reprints (not included here) and the series went out on an evocative, allegorical high note in #89 as ‘…And Through Him Save a World…’ (inked by Adams) pitted jobs and self-interest at Carol Ferris’ aviation company against clean air and pure streams in an naturalistic fable wherein an ecological Christ-figure made the ultimate sacrifice to save our planet and where all the Green Heroes’ power could not affect the outcome…

Although the groundbreaking series folded there, the heroics resumed a few months later in the back of The Flash #217 (August-September 1972). ‘The Killing of an Archer!’ began a run of short episodes which eventually led to Green Lantern regaining his own solo series. The O’Neil, Adams & Giordano thriller related how Green Arrow made a fatal mistake and accidentally ended the life of a criminal he was battling. Devastated, the broken swashbuckler abandoned his life and headed for the wilderness to atone or die…

The next episode ramped up the tension as a plot against the Archer was uncovered by Green Lantern and Black Canary in ‘Green Arrow is Dead!’ whilst ‘The Fate of an Archer’ saw Canary critically injured and GL track down Oliver Queen just in time to save her life…

Dick Giordano assumed full illustration duties with ‘Duel for a Death List!’ and the concluding ‘Death-Threat on Titan!’ (Flash #220-221) as the feature returned to its science fiction roots to concentrate solely on Green Lantern once more. In this pacy yarn aliens with an ancient link to the GL Corps began eliminating ring-wielders in preparation for a fantastic strike against the Guardians of the Universe.

Issue #223 continued the interstellar intrigue as an alien interloper attacked in ‘Doomsday… Minus Ten Minutes!’ whilst the next issue presented a clever, thoroughly grounded crime-caper ‘Yellow is a Dirty Little Color!’

In #226-Neal Adams drew his last GL tale ‘The Powerless Power Ring!’ before Dick Dillin, Giordano & Giacoia completed the trilogy in #227-228 with ‘My Ring… My Enemy!’ and ‘My Enemy… Myself!’ wherein atmospheric phenomena, bad mushrooms and invading aliens all combined to make the will-powered weapon a lethal liability.

Flash #230-231 featured ‘The Man From Yesterday!’ and ‘The Man of Destiny!’ (Dillin & Tex Blaisdell) as GL saved one of America’s Revolutionary heroes from aliens who had shanghaied him centuries previously, whilst #233-234 ‘World That Bet on War!’ & ‘And the Winner is Death!’ (Dillin, Terry Austin & Giordano) pitted the Emerald Avenger against gambling-crazed extraterrestrials who used soldiers from Earth history as their games-pieces…

With Flash #237-238 and 240-243 new art sensation Mike Grell came aboard for a six part saga that precipitated Green Lantern back into his own title. Beginning with ‘Let There Be Darkness!’ (inked by Bill Draut) the watchword was “cosmic” as the extra-galactic Ravagers of Olys undertook six destructive, unholy tasks in Green Lantern’s space sector. After thwarting their scheme to occlude the sun over planet Zerbon, destroying the photosynthetic inhabitants, the hero picked up a semi-sentient starfish sidekick in ‘The Day of the Falling Sky!’(Blaisdell inks) whilst preventing the artificial world of Vivarium from collapsing in upon itself.

‘The Floods Will Come!’ brought the Olys to planets Archos, where they attempted to submerge all the landmasses and drown the stone-age dwellers thriving there and Jotham, where the Ravagers almost extinguished the sun in ‘To Kill a Star!’

Earth was the target in ‘All Creatures Great and Small!’ as the Olys used their incredible technology to shrink all mammals but no sooner had Green Lantern negated that threat than the invaders’ de-evolutionary weapons were activated in ‘Dust of the Earth!’ (Austin inks).

Luckily a hominid GL was even more formidable than his Homo Sapiens self…

The buzz of the O’Neil/Grell epic assured Green Lantern of his own series once more, but before the re-launch Flash #345-346 presented one last two-part, back-up bonanza as Dillin & Austin illustrated the eerie mutation of vegetable-themed villain Jason Woodrue who transformed himself into a horrendous monster in ‘Perilous Plan of the Plant Master!’ before subjecting GL to ‘The Fury of the Floronic Man!‘

From challenging tales of social injustice back to plot-driven sagas of wit and courage, packed with a shining, optimistic sense of wonder and bristling with high-octane action, these evergreen adventures signalled the end of the Silver Age of Comics. Illustrated by some of the most revered names in the business, the exploits in this volume closed one chapter in the life of Green Lantern and opened the doors to today’s sleek and stellar sentinel of the stars.

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